Rat's Gaming Blog: Garfield

Februari 5th:

some awesome secondhand finds

PlayStation 2:
SONY PlayStation 2 Slim (300kr, slim model SCPH-90004 from 2008, came with a power cable and a very worn but still functional composite video cable)
SONY Dual Shock 2 Analog Controller (came with the PS2, it's a bit worn but still works)
SONY PlayStation 2 8MB MagicGate Memory Card (came with the PS2)
Sonic Riders (disc only, it was in the PS2 when I opened the lid, the disc is scratched pretty bad and has some trouble playing the intro video and in-game music but it works enough for gameplay, it's not an issue for me regardless though as I still have my old unharmed original copy of the game I bought when it was released in 2006)

PC:
Diablo II (BestSeller Series)
Diablo II Expansion Set Lord of Destruction (disc only, has some minor scratches on it but should work fine)
Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun Plus Firestorm Mission CD

DVD:
Gustav + Gustav 2 (Garfield (2004) + Garfield 2 A Tale of Two Kitties (2006))
Ooops! Var är arken? (Ooops! Noah Is Gone../Two by Two/All Creatures Big and Small, 2015)
Argai The Prophecy - Vol. 1 (new and sealed, 2000)

Comics:
Dennis The Menace
2x Gustaf (Garfield)
2x Tom & Jerry

Manga:
Emma

Other:
2x retro drink coasters
a jar of decorative fake diamonds
2x mixed blind bags of toys (2x2x2 Rubik's Cube (Minions), 1x2x3 Rubik's Cube (Secret Life of Pets), etc.)

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Februari 12th:

Electronics:
HDMI <-> Component converter (USB powered)

Manga:
Rebirth (volumes 1 to 11 and 16)
One Piece (volumes 19, 20 and 30)
Tsubasa (volumes 11 and 12)

Comics:
Arne Anka

Magazines:
Bratz (stickers and puzzles)

Toys:
a bunch of Bakugan with some metal cards
a pink metallic fidget spinner
colorful camo fidget spinner
a bag of old 90s constructable sci-fi toys (a robot, lots of little pilot guys, some other various pieces)

Other:
a cartoony fox girl bike chain lock

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Februari 18th:

Magazine
LEGO Batman + LEGO Batman figure (polybag)

Been playing some more of my DS games on my newly acquired 3DS, also been taking some stereoscopic "3D" photos with it, which is a neat function, too bad I don't have any 3DS games yet, there aren't really that many I want except maybe Metroid Samus Returns which isn't coming out for another two months and a select few that are a bit on the pricey side and are hard to find. I did get hold of some good ones this month though.

Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
Been playing this regularly every day for about three months now and I can say it's pretty much run it's course. It hasn't gotten any better, it remains a poorly executed unbalanced mess with some minor redeemable fun to be had when taken on it's own.

Marvel Nemesis Rise of the Imperfects (DS, playing on 3DS)

C.O.P. The Recruit (DS, playing on 3DS)
I'm stuck on a mission where I have to put out some busses on fire with a fire extinguisher, the timer is brutal and the touch screen aiming controls are not helping, great game otherwise but this mission can go fuck itself.

Star Wars Lethal Alliance (DS, playing on 3DS)
It's not as good as it is on PSP and every step of the way I take in this version reminds me of that fact.

Roswell Conspiracies Aliens, Myths & Legends (Game Boy Color, playing on Game Boy Advance)
A very dark game, not the best idea for a game made for portables without backlit screens, but the game itself is very well made, has some nice light effects and the level of detail is excellent, the entire level of technical quality overall is some of the best I've seen on Game Boy Color alongside games like Alone in the Dark The New Nightmare and the Harry Potter RPGs.
Sadly the game is very hard to play, not just because it's hard to see without good light conditions but also because it just doesn't play that well, it's got clunky controls, tough enemies and no way to recap what you're suppose to be doing, so remembering the mission briefing given to you before a missions starts is imperative. I gave my new GBA Advance X-Light a try and it made the game a lot easier to see, but the difficulty still kicked my ass regardless. Suffice to say I haven't gotten past the first mission yet.

Back Track (Game Boy Advance)
An FPS similar to Wolfenstein 3D and Zero Tolerance, it plays fast and relatively smooth but it's tough to aim, shoot and dodge as the controls have a lag in the animation of everything you do, you don't aim, move or shoot right away when you press the buttons, making it very unresponsive and much more difficult than it actually is. Your goal is to rescue abducted humans from aliens while gunning down the aliens and their machines.

MX Vs ATV Reflex (DS, playing on 3DS)
A pretty bad racing game with motocross bikes, ATVs, trophy trucks and monster trucks, it has pretty awkward basic controls and the advanced controls for tricks and such are even worse, it's not unplayable but it has enough issues that it's a lot less fun that it should be.

Garfield's Nightmare (DS, playing on 3DS)
Not bad at all actually, a simple platformer where you play as Garfield in his nightmares after having eaten too much food before naptime. It looks very nice, well styled, detailed and animated, one of the best DS games I've played so far.
UPDATE: I completed it 100% on the 9th, around 04:30 at night, took me about 5 hours.

Battle Arena Toshinden 4 (PlayStation)
It's not what I imagined, it has about as much to do with my beloved Battle Arena Toshinden 2 that any other random fighting game from any other completely irrelevant series does, it doesn't have the same characters anymore, at best there are some relatives and stuff to some characters from the older games and that's about it, it's not good enough in my opinion, I play Toshinden for Sofia first and foremost and her absence is one of the major complaints I have against this game, it also doesn't play quite the same, it doesn't look the same in the art style nor does it look as good visually in the technical department either, with simpler blob shadows and Tekken-esque arenas with little to no detail other than a ground texture and some very scarce background detail, it's just completely different in every way really, it only shares the genre of being a fighting game and that you have weapons to fight with, that's it. The fact that it's a continuation of the story when it's made so different means little to nothing for me as the feel of the story being relevant is completely gone when the characters that made the story aren't there anymore.
That being said, it's not awful or anything, it still looks okay and animates smoothly, it reminds me a lot of Tekken in how it looks overall, with blockier character models that animate rather slowly, it has some really cool and cinematic special attacks, somewhat similar to Evil Zone, and it plays just fine with the controls, the free moving ability is neat even if it's a lot more limited from normal gameplay when activated, as most other fighting games do from the late 90s and early 2000s, it's just not a game that stands out like the name suggested it would, or at least not in the way I had imagined.
So while it doesn't hold up to Battle Arena Toshinden 2 in any way it's still a good game, just not as great as it should've been given the honorable title of Toshinden and being a rather late title on the PlayStation it ultimately fails to impress.
By 1999 and 2000 there were many other fighting games around both on PlayStation and the other active systems, like the new next gen Dreamcast with games like SoulCalibur no less, that simply made this game look bad by comparison.
However, it should be mentioned that this was released as a low budget title, and re-released as such two more times after that in 2001 by two different budget brands only a day apart, so they at least acknowledged that it wouldn't cut it had they tried to sell it at full price.
There are minigames and unlockable art and stuff too, so there's at least a good amount of content.

Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
Decided to give this game a try again. I actually got first place in a stock race, but it was on easy, I still haven't been able to win on normal. I just needed a win, the stock racing mode is really hard so any win was welcome at this point.

Sega 3D Classics Collection (3DS)
A small mixed bag of old 8-bit and 16-bit generation games from Sega, faithfully re-created for 3DS.
It has some great games but also some highly questionable additions and omissions, like oddly enough it has no version of Space Harrier or OutRun, even though in Japan they got both as downloadables and could've easily added them to this collection, but it has three Fantasy Zone games, whereof two are just different version of Fantasy Zone 2 and the other is a secret you can find by clicking on an empty area of the touch screen at the Extra Games menu.
The three Fantasy Zone games included are Fantasy Zone for Master System, Fantasy Zone 2 Tears of Opa Opa for Master System and Fantasy Zone 2 W.
There are some great games on here though, like the original Mega Drive version of Sonic The Hedgehog, the arcade version of both Galaxy Force II and Thunder Blade and the original Master System game Maze Walker.
There's also the Mega Drive version of Altered Beast, the previously arcade exclusive racing game Power Drift and Puyo Puyo 2.

Here's a screenshot I took of Maze Walker/Maze Hunter 3-D for Master System using the Kega Fusion emulator.

If you cross your eyes and line the two images up as one you'll get a good idea of what the 3D depth effect in this game is like, it's really nice to see in real life on a 3DS or on an original Master System with 3D glasses.

Killzone Mercenary (PlayStation Vita)
Decided to play something else now that I'm done with Smart As. I want to play something that makes me impressed by the Vita again after so much mediocrity and this game is literally the most impressive portable game I've ever seen and I just so happen to own a copy of it to play.

Fast & Furious Showdown (3DS)
It's a pretty good port of the game, a little choppy in the framerate but still playable. It's a very unbalanced game, with some things being near impossible, taking dussins of tries before you win, while others are so easy you can't help but get them on the first try, without even trying.

Moshi Monsters Katsuma Unleashed (3DS)
A basic platformer, it offers nothing that hasn't been done better before many times by countless other games, but it's okay, the framerate is strangely not very good considering how unimpressive the game looks, it's just a very basic and barely 2,5D platformer, with 2D backgrounds and 3D models for Katsuma and the enemies, it doesn't really do anything to push the hardware so why it's not a solid 60fps I don't know, it should be when it's this visually underwhelming.
UPDATE 29th Juli
Beat the game with only a few things missing for 100% completion. It was a very short game.
UPDATE 30th Juli
Completed everything else, you get Hard Mode unlocked and you can find some hidden cheat codes if you explore a bit.

Rat's Gaming Blog

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Gaming Purchases - Februari 2019

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Gaming Purchases - Oktober 2018

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Gaming Purchases - November 2017

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Now Playing - Juli 2017