Playing some of the stuff I was playing at the end of Juni but also some of the new games I ordered.
Doom (32X)
The Ultimate Doom (the Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil version for Xbox played on Xbox 360)
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil (Xbox, played on Xbox 360)
Quake 2 (Quake 4 Bonus Disc version for Xbox 360)
Quake 3 Revolution (PlayStation 2)
Quake 4 (Xbox 360)
I wanted to give this game a chance but damn it sucks, the framerate is atrocious, some of the worst I've seen on Xbox 360, the visuals are low res and look worse in many cases than Doom 3 and Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil do on Xbox, the gameplay is constantly interrupted by stuff having to do with the "story" and other marines that are with you, it freezes every now and then forcing me to reboot and the enemies disappear after they die so fast that I barely ever get too see what it was I was even fighting because the darkness is even worse than Doom 3 was making it hard to see anything at the best of times! Sure, some of the guns have built in flashlights but they're small and ineffective so most of the game is just fumbling around in the pitch black darkness not knowing what to do because the objectives are vague as shit and you have no map and most doors are locked making it an extremely linear experience where you mostly just run around in circles until you find the one door that can be opened now, they all the same with no indication they've been unlocked or anything either so it's really just about trial and error until you come across the right way to go. Also the turret sections are plenty and they all fucking suck. I doubt I'll be able to endure through to the end of this game, it's just wearing on me so much every minute feels like an hour. If only there was more action it could've at least kept my interest up a bit but enemies are far too few and generic, at least this early in the game, to be interesting to fight. A custom soundtrack with good music is a must, the game does not provide that for you so you have to bring your own tunes, that's fine, I have plenty on my Xbox 360 harddrive, but after how Quake 2 did everything so perfect and right it's very hard to cope with all these downgrades that Quake 4 brings to the table. Quake 2 is still one of the best games ever made and I love it to bits, this sadly is one of the worst games ever made and a terrible sequel in every sense and I wish they would've just left it in development hell for a few more years until they at least had a game that worked on fundamental levels unlike the fucking failfest this sadly turned out to be.
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PS2)
Red Zone (Mega Drive)
This game is awesome, a top-down helicopter game with some on-foot missions. It's very impressive and does some really cool things to get 3D effects and such. The biggest flaw this game has remains the insane difficulty, much like Battletoads on Entertainment System it's a technical marvel and a pleasure to behold and play but you won't be able to breeze through it anytime soon. Thankfully this game, unlike Battletoads, has a password system with some nice codes for level select and stuff so it's far more lenient in that regard.
Mega Games 6 Vol. 2 (Mega Drive)
A nice collection of games containing Alien Storm, Super Thunder Blade, Super Monaco GP, Super Hang-On, Columns and World Cup Italia.
I'm mostly playing Alien Storm and Super Thunder Blade as I already have Super Monaco GP on separate cartridge and for the rest I only really like Super Hang-On and even then not that much, haven't tried World Cup Italia yet, I don't care for sports games, especially football and ice hockey they're just the worst, and I have many versions of Columns so I don't need to bother with that at all, I know exactly what it is and have played it plenty.
Alien Storm is awesome and it was worth getting this collection cartridge for that game alone, the rest are a nice and welcome bonus though.
Super Thunder Blade is a game I have other versions of as well so nothing new, I've played it plenty, but this is the first time I've played the Mega Drive original, closest I had before this was the version in Mega Drive Collection for PS2.
Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker (Mega Drive)
I don't care much for sports games in general, and pool, snooker, billiards and the like are no exceptions, but this is a 3D polygonal game on Mega Drive and it's made by the same guy who made the excellent Mercury games on PSP, Archer Maclean.
The Story of Thor (Mega Drive)
Beyond Oasis is a better name for it but the content remains the same. I recently played through this but now I have my very own copy and that's awesome! Didn't come cheap though, it remains one of the most expensive games on Mega Drive you can buy. I got it at a somewhat reasonable price compared to what I've seen on ebay and such places.
Top Gear Rally (Game Boy Advance)
Another good rally game for GBA alongside the excellent V-Rally 3. The graphics in this are similar to the original Need For Speed and 32-bit versions of Road Rash with scrolling 2D backgrounds at angles that make them appear as if they are 3D with textures, very nice looking. It plays well but the difficulty is up there, it's one of the harder rally games I've played. Between this, V-Rally 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and some other okay ones like GT Advance 2 Rally Racing it really makes me wonder why Sega Rally Championship turned out so bad, GBA can absolutely do good rally games and the older Sega Rally games were great so how they fucked up the GBA game so royally is beyond me at this point. Thankfully I don't ever have to play it again, I have several better racing and rally games for GBA to enjoy now so fuck you Sega Rally Championship on GBA, you suck and it was an absolute displeasure ever trying to play you. Hooray for good GBA rally games like Top Gear Rally!
Wing Commander Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D space action flight-sim with good visuals and all. Another good game that helps prove that the GBA had a lot more to offer than just ports of old Super Nintendo games.
MTV Sports Snowboarding (PlayStation)
One of the very select few sports games I enjoy. It holds up very well. I always felt there were two good snowboarding games of that generation, this and Coolboarders 2, and of the two this is the better one by far, Coolboarders 2 is a bit more playful fun and has a nostalgic value to me more than anything, while this is an objectively superior and much more solid game.
Fade To Black (PlayStation)
This is the sequel to the classic platformer Flashback. It's not a perfect game but it's enjoyable and interesting. I succeeds with making me want to play on to see what happens next.
Stranglehold (Xbox 360)
A great third person shooter action game I go back to every now and then for a guaranteed good time. Also a good game to relieve some aggression in. It still looks fantastic, they really did a fantastic job on the technical side, it's a visual treat that set a high standard for other games to follow, maybe a little too high as not many has lived up to the same level, it's a very impressive game and with good gameplay to back up the technical and visual quality. I recommend this to all action fans out there, especially John Woo film fans and anyone who liked his movie Hard Boiled as this game is the official sequel to that movie.
Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation)
Disc 1, at Gold Saucer, got Yuffie.
Probotector (Game Boy)
Hard but awesome classic.
Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
Always fun to play through.
Bomb Jack (Game Boy)
A fun time waster.
Impact Racing (PlayStation)
Why is there no behind the car views in my game? When I look on youtube literally every video I see has at least two behind the car views to pick from beside the default bumper cam, one video had a guy even mention that you change views with the square button, but in my game there's no mention of being able to switch views in the manual for square, it just says square is the brake, which isn't correct either as square has no effect in game and braking is done by pressing down on the steering cross!
The screenshots on the back of the packaging of my game are only taken from bumper cam and no button or combination of buttons work in game to switch views.
I'm beginning to think the PAL release skipped including the behind the car views entirely. If that's the case this game will not get much play from me as it isn't particularly enjoyable to play in that view at all, which is why every video on youtube understandable has the person playing switching to a better view!
It's still somewhat playable as it is but I HATE driving in bumper cam and this game clearly wasn't made to be played that way. I can tolerate bumper cam only in some games, but this clearly has a behind the car view in every example i can find but my own copy, so why can't I just get it to work!? Ahh! Infuriating!
It still has awesome music though.
FlatOut 2 (PlayStation 2)
It was as I expected from having played the upgraded versions Ultimate Carnage on Xbox 360 and Head On on PSP. Beautiful to look at with lots of detailed destruction but virtually impossible to win a single race in due to skilled opponent AI and a driving physics engine that doesn't like you very much.
The ragdoll-launching minigames are still what I enjoy the most; driving a rocket-powered car down a ramp only to launch the driver out the front window of the car into some absurd oversized game arena like bowling or basketball just never gets old.
Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
I couldn't test much as most stuff needs to be unlocked by playing through the championship mode, but the few races I could partake in were okay, the framerate was a bit choppy when all 16 cars were on screen at once during stock car races, but as they scattered a bit over the track after a lap or two it ran smoothly for the most part until the race was over. It reminded me of early Dreamcast games visually more so than any PS2 games from 2006.
R:Racing (PlayStation 2)
It's every bit as good as it was on Xbox last time I played it. Now I'd like to get hold of the GameCube version some day too for a complete set.
Turok Evolution (PlayStation 2)
Wow was this a mixed experience. It's kinda ugly for the most part, even for a 2002 release these are horribly dated visuals, in all honesty the older N64 Turok games look better than this.
It's pretty bland in gameplay as well, at least so far. I liked the idea of the flying sections that were a bit like Panzer Dragoon but sadly they had one hit kills whenever you touched anything, including the randomly spawning invisible walls!!
It became a test of patience as the frustration of having to reload the same sections again and again as I would just randomly die in mid air while far away from any visible objects, enemies or other dangers that could've killed me, and only sometimes I'd die in the same place, mostly it changed at random, but after countless tries and three hours later trying to get through a part of the game that otherwise would've taken less than half an hour I got past it and was back doing the normal FPS stuff again. However, later segments of the game become very long and because this game has no in-game checkpoints it's back to the beginning of the entire level every time you die, which can also happen at random for no apparent reason now just like in the flying missions which were super short and took over three hours due to this bullshit!! I'm not doing that with levels that are already long as they are without having to restart them at random intervals.
Sky Odyssey (PlayStation 2)
An adventure game in flight simulation form. It's hard and requires precise flying from the start. I've managed to get past the first level but that's it.
I love that it allows you to customize your place a bit. I'd love more options to do so but a paint job and emblem editor are nice and I appreciate it even if the emblem editor is the weakest I've ever encountered in a game and nowhere near what you can do in Rage Racer, R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 or the Armored Core series.
I'm impressed by how detailed the flying physics are, they simulate airflow in a way no other game I know does.
An interesting thing to note with this game is that while it's a very early release for the PS2 it still has a 60hz option, making this the earliest and oldest PS2 game with a 60hz option that I'm aware of.
Britney's Dance Beat (PlayStation 2)
I've always wondered what this game was like. Now I know. It's a very basic rhythm game with a Britney Spears theme. Not much more to say. I am terrible at rhythm games in general and this was one of the hardest and least forgiving ones I've ever played, which is weird as you'd think a game for Britney Spears fans would be more lenient to non-gamers, beginners and people like me with no sense of rhythm, so I couldn't get anywhere in the main Audition mode and I can safely say I'll never ever be able to unlock Britney. Yeah, the Britney pat of the game feels very tucked away as anything to do with her and fanservice of her is locked away and needs to be unlocked before you can see or use it. You'd think she and the fanservice stuff like music videos etc. would be the stuff you had unlocked by default and other characters and stuff would come later seeing as this is a product for fans of her first and a dance and rhythm game second, but it feels like the opposite is true.
Road Rage 3 (PlayStation 2)
An excellent drift racing game, easily the best in that genre that I've played. Sure, there are other racing games I love even more that has similar things in it like DT Racer, but as a game focused on this type of racing it does an excellent job at what it does and is a lot of fun to play, and successfully pulling off long consecutive drifts both up and down tight and technically challenging mountain roads feels endlessly satisfying.
It runs silky smooth and looks fairly nice too, nothing overly impressive to look at but at least it has no issues with the framerate. I just wish they could've had some proper reflections on the cars.
A fun fact to note is that this game, while originally developed and published by Atlus in Japan it was published by the infamous Phoenix Games here in Europe. As far as I know that makes for the only good game they've ever published.
The Getaway Black Monday (PlayStation 2)
Well this was a disappointment. It's uglier than the original Getaway, it has a much worse framerate, it controls worse with much worse vehicle crash physics, there's lots of glitches and I even saw hug chunks of the graphics pop in and out of existence while I was standing still so you can't blame it on loading new geometry, it was just glitchy, and some parts were just not there, you could see through the ground and nothing I did changed that, going away and coming back so the game loaded the area again changed nothing, it's just poorly made it seems.
That being said it's still an okay free roaming game with a nice big chunk of London realistically recreated in virtual form and there is still some fun to be had, the first game just did it much better is all.
Starsky & Hutch (GameCube)
A good version of the game but I prefer the GBA version a lot more. If anything this makes me appreciate the GBA version even more as it manages to do almost everything this version does but on infinitely less powerful hardware and more streamlined, this takes forever to do anything and feels drawn out and convoluted by comparison. Still, it's nice to have another GameCube game as that part of my collection is crippled by default due to GameCube not having a lot of games I want, so any game that can help fill it out a bit is most welcome.
Metro 2033 (Xbox 360)
This is literally unplayable. The forced auto walking ruins it. I've already died multiple times simply because I can't stop the character from walking over edged falling to his death and I've just started playing, it's a whole project trying to line him up to press a button because he just walks past everything! It's broken by design. I don't understand how anyone can play this. By far the worst controls in any game I've ever played spanning the last 30 years. At first I thought it may just be some really obscure glitch but i found nothing online about it and it's there with all controllers I have, no settings change this, I've tried rebooting, I've tried installing the disc, I've tried deleting all the game data and nothing i do changes it so as bad as it is I guess they wanted it that way. It's unbelievably bad yet I've read or heard nothing about this as a complaint anywhere? I don't get it. How does anyone cope with this?
He just auto walked through a wall so I skipped a whole part of the level and ended up in some completely other scene I haven't seen before. This is the glitchiest game I've played in a long time.
For "fun" (as in desperation) I went to my storage and dug out one of my old original Xbox 360 controllers, I have two and they're both broken in different ways so I got the one that at least sporadically works, and plugged it in via my old half working charge & play cable and battery pack because I thought to myself this is the only thing I haven't tried yet and it's not going to work but at least it'll be more fun trying to see how little this thing works than actually trying to play this crap with a working controller.. turns out it's the only controller I own that doesn't have the auto walking problem so I've been trying to use it to play the game for a while and I can't say I wanna change my score at all, this game even with working controls is awful with constant in-game cutscenes (if they only wanted to make a horror b-movie why did they make a game in the first place?), quick time events, glitches out the fracking wazoo (now IA characters and enemies glitch through walls as well, so it wasn't just my own character earlier who can do it, it's a feature everyone can enjoy!!), lackluster weapons, dark and unevenly detailed visuals (doom 3 on original Xbox feels like it's played out outdoors on a bright sunny day compared to this), the one thing I've liked so far was a hot prostitute looking character that walked past as I was contextually forced to sit at a table and drink alcohol while listening to some dialog I cared nothing about as she disappeared as quickly as she popped up outta nowhere. I hate how there's no good display of information, everything is hidden away so you're getting little to no tactical feedback and then there are all the little things, for example like how you can't have the pointer "compass" on screen without having everything else tucked away, you can't even run with it because the character keeps flailing his arms madly if you do so you can't look at the damn thing telling you where to go to trigger the next drawn out uninteresting in-game cutscene you're forced to sit through until the next uneventful and glitchy context sensitive event happens, or how the AI is mentally retarded and just sits in corners not doing jack shit letting you kill whole rooms of enemies on your own until you've reached the next context sensitive point where the AI finally understands that it's time to do something, like open a door because our hero is too fucking incapable of doing such demanding tasks apparently.
This game has very rapidly become a strong top contender for worst game of the previous generation + all time for me.
Metro Last Light (Xbox 360)
I couldn't take anymore of 2033 so I decided to give Last Light a go in hopes that after years making a sequel they'd at least learn to program walking or realise how awful the constant interruption of gameplay with context cutscenes were or some kind of improvements or problems fixed. But no. They did not. All the same problems are here even the auto walking makes a return making it equally as unplayable as 2033. I am gobsmacked by this developer's ineptitude.
So I've been trying to try out Last Light some more to see if a single thing has been fixed or improved over 2033 at all (spoiler: nothing has been fixed or improved, in fact some things seem even worse, more incomplete and glitchier than in the first game) I stumbled across this funny little thing.
While allowing the game to auto walk, as they both love to do against my will except with my broken controller I can't use anyway, turns out even the game itself seems to realize it's not suppose to be doing that shit as the fucking idle animations started playing while he was still walking! While walking forward he starts checking his gun and counting his bullets and stuff.
It's beyond words at this point so I'm just gonna pretend I never played either of these and never had the money I bought them with and never bought them and they don't exist at all, at least then maybe I'll be able to sleep at night after this.
I am now officially done with this shit, no more Metro for me ever.
Showing posts with label doom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doom. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2016
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Now Playing - Juni 2016
Mostly been playing the games I got recently, it feels great to finally own copies of my own for some of these games and the newcomers have been welcome additions to my library as well.
Doom (32X)
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PS2)
A newly purchased game I'm trying out. It's fairly average overall with some highlights and some low points. It's a bit glitchy and the main menu has frozen on my multiple times when in the Options menu, forcing me to reset my PS2.
The visuals are a mixed bag, it runs at 25fps (in the PAL version I have, I'm assuming the NTSC version runs at 30) and it's a bit grainy and pixelated, not a lot of antialiasing going on, if any, maybe some but I think it's just the light bloom effect making it seem like it's smoother than it really is. On the bright side it does have some very nice details on the cars and environment, with some nice dynamic shadows and light bloom effect that makes it all look at bit less flat and boring, there are real-time reflections on the cars with a fairly high framerate on them, not buttery smooth but it's a lot better than games like Forza on Xbox where the game ran 30fps but the reflections were rendered in single digits.
One thing I noticed was that there was only ever one type of car model on the track at any given time, you always race against the same type of car you're driving, this means you can't pick a better car and win and vice versa for the opponents, they all have different paint jobs though so it's not too visually repetitive.
You have a few different camera angles to pick from, three behind the car where two are far away and one so close it's impractical, a hood cam and a bumper cam, sadly no driver cam like the game claims in the manual because that part is copied directly from the PS3 and Wii versions' manuals, simple laziness from the developers not making a dedicated manual and information for the PS2 version, also, some claim that a racing wheel that supposedly should work doesn't, but I don't have one of those so it's not something I can test or verify myself.
There's damage modeling on the cars, which is nice, and while nothing fancy, just some superficial twisted metal, it's still better than the likes of Gran Turismo or Enthusia where there was no damage at all to be found.
The driving physics are fairly good, it's an arcade-sim hybrid so it's a bit exaggerated by real life standards but still maintain a lot of the real world dynamics you would expect, it does powersliding very well, so drifting is fairly easy to do, it's not too unlike DT Racer in that regard, which is great as DT Racer is my all time favorite racing game.
There are some odd parts to this game, like they have their own Achievements/Trophy system where you win cards with Ferrari cars on them by completing set "Card Challenges" in the game's many modes, like beat your own time in Time Trial, win a race first place and other such common goals, and the information about the cars on the cards, like the year it was introduced, how fast the top speed is and the brake horse power etc., act like points in this odd card game you can play that doesn't seem to do anything whether you win or lose.
There are a few different modes to play in the game, relatively basic stuff but it's at least all there, all except multiplayer that is, it's a singleplayer game only, so if you wanted to race against your friends you're all out of luck.
You unlock cars before you get to buy them, you earn credits from racing in general, even time trial gets you a few measly points. You can also customize your cars to an extent, with custom paintjobs a-la-Need for Speed Underground with paints such as metallic, pearlescent, glossy and matte. You can also add custom vinyls and stuff, nothing too advanced but it's better than nothing, no extreme custom mods like new spoilers or body kits or anything of that sort though, but you do get to customize things like ride height and other more technical stuff i have little to no interest in, just the usual basic performance tweaking.
There are more things I could talk about like how you can set the challenge mode time so you can end up having to race 45 minutes before the race can end and other odd little things like that but I haven't explored the game enough to go into more detail at the moment.
As a final word I'll say the AI is okay, they're not glued to an invisible race line like in the Gran Turismo games, so if there's contact they don't automatically get the upper hand screwing you over by default.
Mega Drive Collection (PS2)
Sonic, Sonic 2 and Shinobi III.
The Ultimate Doom (the Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil version for Xbox played on Xbox 360)
It's easily one of the most accurate console ports of the original PC version of Doom there is, maybe even more so than the newer ones and maybe even the most so period, and while I still prefer the 32X and PlayStation versions for their changes and upgrades that fit my personal taste better, it's nice to be able to enjoy the original in it's original form now and then as well.
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil (Xbox, played on Xbox 360)
I prefer Doom 3 on Xbox over the PC original and RoE is a great follow up that improves on the original in just about every technical way. I may not care as much for the story and setting in RoE as I do for Doom 3, but it's still good and I enjoy it. I've always felt RoE is underappreciated and when playing it now again after not having played it for years I can say I still feel the same way, it is underappreciated.
Quake 2 (Quake 4 Bonus Disc version for Xbox 360)
I love Quake 2, it's one of my all time favorites regardless of the version, sure the N64 version is the marginally weakest due to the choppiness and bad controls but it's still great, so even at it's worst Quake 2 holds up and is a joy to play. This version for Xbox 360 that comes on the initial release of Quake 4's Bonus Disc is a direct and virtually perfect port of the PC original. Sadly the newer re-release of Quake 4 on Xbox 360 lacked the Bonus Disc making it much harder to get hold of, I had to buy Quake 4 twice to get it myself as the first was the correct release but the disc was missing when I got it, after that I found a complete copy at GameStop that I bought immediately.
I may prefer the PlayStation port as my favorite of them all due to the upgrades and added content but I love the PC original and it's nice that there was finally a proper console port with no changes or downgrades.
Quake 3 Revolution (PlayStation 2)
Not as good as the Dreamcast port over all, sure it has twice as high framerate and the pickups are 3D models instead of 2D icons but the controls are much worse, the load times are extremely long and the visuals are much duller in color, and if I'm not mistaken some special effects are completely missing like shiny surfaces on some walls and stuff, and to be honest I prefer the 2D icons the Dreamcast version has as they were much easier to detect.
Still, as my Dreamcast remains dead the PS2 version is all I got, short of the PC original, but I don't wanna play on PC when I have a proper console version.
Quake 4 (Xbox 360)
I'm not a fan of this game and the Xbox 360 versions makes it hard to even endure with a really bad framerate to constantly remind you that there is no fun allowed.
I've tried Quake 4 once before when I bought it but I thought it pretty much sucked and because I only really bought it for the Bonus Disc containing Quake 2 I never bothered giving Quake 4 much of a chance at the time, so I figured I'd give it one now. It doesn't start good but I'll keep at it and see if it gets any better.
Doom (32X)
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PS2)
A newly purchased game I'm trying out. It's fairly average overall with some highlights and some low points. It's a bit glitchy and the main menu has frozen on my multiple times when in the Options menu, forcing me to reset my PS2.
The visuals are a mixed bag, it runs at 25fps (in the PAL version I have, I'm assuming the NTSC version runs at 30) and it's a bit grainy and pixelated, not a lot of antialiasing going on, if any, maybe some but I think it's just the light bloom effect making it seem like it's smoother than it really is. On the bright side it does have some very nice details on the cars and environment, with some nice dynamic shadows and light bloom effect that makes it all look at bit less flat and boring, there are real-time reflections on the cars with a fairly high framerate on them, not buttery smooth but it's a lot better than games like Forza on Xbox where the game ran 30fps but the reflections were rendered in single digits.
One thing I noticed was that there was only ever one type of car model on the track at any given time, you always race against the same type of car you're driving, this means you can't pick a better car and win and vice versa for the opponents, they all have different paint jobs though so it's not too visually repetitive.
You have a few different camera angles to pick from, three behind the car where two are far away and one so close it's impractical, a hood cam and a bumper cam, sadly no driver cam like the game claims in the manual because that part is copied directly from the PS3 and Wii versions' manuals, simple laziness from the developers not making a dedicated manual and information for the PS2 version, also, some claim that a racing wheel that supposedly should work doesn't, but I don't have one of those so it's not something I can test or verify myself.
There's damage modeling on the cars, which is nice, and while nothing fancy, just some superficial twisted metal, it's still better than the likes of Gran Turismo or Enthusia where there was no damage at all to be found.
The driving physics are fairly good, it's an arcade-sim hybrid so it's a bit exaggerated by real life standards but still maintain a lot of the real world dynamics you would expect, it does powersliding very well, so drifting is fairly easy to do, it's not too unlike DT Racer in that regard, which is great as DT Racer is my all time favorite racing game.
There are some odd parts to this game, like they have their own Achievements/Trophy system where you win cards with Ferrari cars on them by completing set "Card Challenges" in the game's many modes, like beat your own time in Time Trial, win a race first place and other such common goals, and the information about the cars on the cards, like the year it was introduced, how fast the top speed is and the brake horse power etc., act like points in this odd card game you can play that doesn't seem to do anything whether you win or lose.
There are a few different modes to play in the game, relatively basic stuff but it's at least all there, all except multiplayer that is, it's a singleplayer game only, so if you wanted to race against your friends you're all out of luck.
You unlock cars before you get to buy them, you earn credits from racing in general, even time trial gets you a few measly points. You can also customize your cars to an extent, with custom paintjobs a-la-Need for Speed Underground with paints such as metallic, pearlescent, glossy and matte. You can also add custom vinyls and stuff, nothing too advanced but it's better than nothing, no extreme custom mods like new spoilers or body kits or anything of that sort though, but you do get to customize things like ride height and other more technical stuff i have little to no interest in, just the usual basic performance tweaking.
There are more things I could talk about like how you can set the challenge mode time so you can end up having to race 45 minutes before the race can end and other odd little things like that but I haven't explored the game enough to go into more detail at the moment.
As a final word I'll say the AI is okay, they're not glued to an invisible race line like in the Gran Turismo games, so if there's contact they don't automatically get the upper hand screwing you over by default.
Mega Drive Collection (PS2)
Sonic, Sonic 2 and Shinobi III.
The Ultimate Doom (the Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil version for Xbox played on Xbox 360)
It's easily one of the most accurate console ports of the original PC version of Doom there is, maybe even more so than the newer ones and maybe even the most so period, and while I still prefer the 32X and PlayStation versions for their changes and upgrades that fit my personal taste better, it's nice to be able to enjoy the original in it's original form now and then as well.
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil (Xbox, played on Xbox 360)
I prefer Doom 3 on Xbox over the PC original and RoE is a great follow up that improves on the original in just about every technical way. I may not care as much for the story and setting in RoE as I do for Doom 3, but it's still good and I enjoy it. I've always felt RoE is underappreciated and when playing it now again after not having played it for years I can say I still feel the same way, it is underappreciated.
Quake 2 (Quake 4 Bonus Disc version for Xbox 360)
I love Quake 2, it's one of my all time favorites regardless of the version, sure the N64 version is the marginally weakest due to the choppiness and bad controls but it's still great, so even at it's worst Quake 2 holds up and is a joy to play. This version for Xbox 360 that comes on the initial release of Quake 4's Bonus Disc is a direct and virtually perfect port of the PC original. Sadly the newer re-release of Quake 4 on Xbox 360 lacked the Bonus Disc making it much harder to get hold of, I had to buy Quake 4 twice to get it myself as the first was the correct release but the disc was missing when I got it, after that I found a complete copy at GameStop that I bought immediately.
I may prefer the PlayStation port as my favorite of them all due to the upgrades and added content but I love the PC original and it's nice that there was finally a proper console port with no changes or downgrades.
Quake 3 Revolution (PlayStation 2)
Not as good as the Dreamcast port over all, sure it has twice as high framerate and the pickups are 3D models instead of 2D icons but the controls are much worse, the load times are extremely long and the visuals are much duller in color, and if I'm not mistaken some special effects are completely missing like shiny surfaces on some walls and stuff, and to be honest I prefer the 2D icons the Dreamcast version has as they were much easier to detect.
Still, as my Dreamcast remains dead the PS2 version is all I got, short of the PC original, but I don't wanna play on PC when I have a proper console version.
Quake 4 (Xbox 360)
I'm not a fan of this game and the Xbox 360 versions makes it hard to even endure with a really bad framerate to constantly remind you that there is no fun allowed.
I've tried Quake 4 once before when I bought it but I thought it pretty much sucked and because I only really bought it for the Bonus Disc containing Quake 2 I never bothered giving Quake 4 much of a chance at the time, so I figured I'd give it one now. It doesn't start good but I'll keep at it and see if it gets any better.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Now Playing - Maj 2016
Mostly been playing the games I got recently, it feels great to finally own copies of my own for some of these games and the newcomers have been welcome additions to my library as well.
Eternal Champions (Mega Drive)
F22 Interceptor (Mega Drive)
I'm usually not a huge fan of flight sim games but a flat-shaded polygonal 3D flight sim on the Mega Drive that plays well and is fun is easily something I can make an exception for and thoroughly enjoy.
LHX Attack Chopper (Mega Drive)
I do however love helicopter games and this alongside the more arcade oriented Steel Talons, also on the Mega Drive, is one of my oldest favorites in that genre.
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Winter Challenge (Mega Drive)
Doom (32X)
My favorite version of Doom alongside the PSX port.
Metal Head (32X)
Essentially Armored Core on 32X, naturally a given favorite.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
While not my top favorite version of Virtua Racing, that honor goes to the SVP powered Mega Drive port, it's still one of my favorite games ever on one of my favorite systems ever.
Centipede (PSX)
While not quite on par with the next gen Dreamcast port this is still a fantastic version and due to how much easier it is to play a PlayStation game than a Dreamcast game it certainly has an edge of it's own, and when played on PS2 with texture filtering turned on there's even less of a difference between the two.
Also I don't think the Dreamcast version ever got released here in Europe so the PSX version was the only one available for me anyway. Great game though, even comes with the original arcade game so it's two games in one and I love that.
Iron Soldier 3 (PSX)
Not exactly an Armored Core killer but still a great mech game nonetheless. It retains what made the Jaguar 64 and Jaguar 64 CD games so good and improves the formula even further with the help of the superior power of the PlayStation. It may lack the flat-shaded polygonal charm of the Jaguar games but it makes up for it with technically superior visuals overall.
It's a tough game though, not one you just jump straight into and have a quick brawl guns a blazin', you have to be tactical and take your time, aim carefully and think and plan things out before you make your moves, your mech is big and heavy and controls like it, in that way it's very different from mech games in general from that era as most, at least on consoles, were more fast paced and action oriented.
I'd love to get hold of a Jaguar 64 and the original Iron Soldier games some day, I've tried the first one in the past and I loved it, which is why I was extra happy to get hold of this great sequel finally.
Kirikou (PSX)
A 2001 release exclusive to Europe, based on the first movie in the Kirikou series about an African boy who is very special indeed. It's a 2.5D platformer similar to some of Disney's greatest 2.5D platformers of the time like Hercules and Tarzan or other great 2.5D PSX classics like Klonoa and Tombi/Tomba, where you take on levels with multiple paths and lots of hidden secrets and all that good stuff. It re-enacts the events from the first film as you play as Kirikou literally from birth to coming face to face with the evil sorceress Karaba, on the way you must face her evil robots (called "fetishes") and make your way through the levels collecting water (essentially this game's equivalent to coins in Mario or rings in Sonic) and learning new abilities from the wise elder such as double jumping and other common game things.
It's easily one of the best 2.5D platformers I've played and I'm glad to own it. I didn't know about the game back when it was new but a few years ago when I found the movie on DVD and thought it looked interesting I got more into it and found out there were games released, multiple games actually, and sequels to the movie as well, so while I still haven't found much I now at least have the first game on PlayStation to go with the first movie on DVD, now I just need to find the PS2 game, the Game Boy Color game and the movie sequels!
Newman Haas Racing (PSX)
A 1998 release by Psygnosis and Bizarre Creations. It saddens me that I missed out on this one back when it was new but I'm glad to have discovered it now and I'm enjoying it very much, it's one of the best F1 style racing games I've ever played.
Re-Loaded (PSX)
A classic I played on PSX and MS-DOS back in the day but sadly never had myself and it's been over 15 years since I played it last. It lived up to my nostalgic memories and I've had a blast from the past with this one, a fantastic top-down action shooter and while I don't think it's better than the original Loaded I also don't think it's worse, they're equals but for different reasons, Loaded was a simpler, more straight forwards and notably more hectic shooter and thus a slightly better two-player experience this expands the missions and gameplay and makes for a better singleplayer experience, I'd say they compliment eachother perfectly and now I need to get hold of a copy the original Loaded so I can relive those nostalgic memories as well, we'll just have to wait and see how many more years that'll take to happen..
T'ai Fu Wrath of the Tiger (PSX)
A 1999 release by Dreamworks and the spiritual predecessor of Kung Fu Panda, a 3D platformer with lots of fighting and a great game I've played through numerous times in the past.
Viewpoint (PSX)
Not much to say about this one, it's a fantastic looking version of Viewpoint, identical to the other versions in gameplay and design but with a complete overhaul of the visuals and music. There's no competition for me, this is the superior way to play this already great game.
WinX Club (PC)
The old Konami developed WinX game that was also released on PS2 that's based on season 1 of the cartoon. I like this game and after having found a no-CD crack for it that worked so I don't have to get the disc out even though the game's been installed I finally got into the game. I really hate when PC games try to limit how I use them even after I've bought them, which is why I don't do PC gaming in general and don't acknowledge digital online gaming at all, if a game has only been released on Steam or something (Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop etc.) I don't consider it to have ever been released at all.
Brahma Force (PSX)
An FPS mech sim action game with similarities to Armored Core, GunGriffon and Krazy Ivan among many more, I like it but it's not exactly killing the competition, I prefer pretty much all those other games over this, still it's pretty good and has some good stuff in it, it's not bad by any means but it does come with a lot of minor and medium sized problems. Forever and literally constant respawning of enemies are the cause to most of the issues I have.
KKND 2 Krossfire (PC)
I've only ever played this on PlayStation before so it's interesting to see how different it is, it's basically two different games in almost every way, the good thing about that is you can't directly compare the two and thus neither ends up being the "bad" one. I love when they do this rather than just make direct ports because this gives incentive to those who own and enjoy one to get the other as well. It's just as hard as I remember the PlayStation version to be, only for slightly different reasons. I haven't really played either enough to say much more at this point.
KKND Krossfire (PSX)
I remember having troubles with this game back in the day and now when I'm revisiting it and it's PC original I fully understand why as my memories of getting absolutely crushed by the enemy AI comes rushing back as a nightmare that I thought was long gone. This is a hard as fuck game regardless if it's played on PC or PSX, "easy" mode doesn't mean much in this game, the harder difficulties I can't even imagine what they're like. It's good though, not impossible, just very hard and unforgiving. You need to get good at this game to enjoy it, it asks of you to invest time to get something of equal or greater value back and honestly that's not a bad thing, some of the best games ever do this. It just would've been even better still if the game had eased you into it step by step a bit because you'll be losing big time for a while just to learn the basic controls and what any of all the stuff you can do actually does. Having some easier levels to begin with letting you get used to said basics before having the enemy rape your base's every orifice with death and defeat would've been greatly appreciated. These games really didn't need to ask that much of the player so early on, especially in a strategy game where missions can get rather lengthy. A hard platformer in comparison is usually hard but has short levels that are over in just a couple of minutes so getting back to the place you were and trying a different strategy to get better and win is less of a setback.
SEGA Arcade Gallery (Game Boy Advance)
V-Rally 3 (Game Boy Advance)
Eternal Champions (Mega Drive)
F22 Interceptor (Mega Drive)
I'm usually not a huge fan of flight sim games but a flat-shaded polygonal 3D flight sim on the Mega Drive that plays well and is fun is easily something I can make an exception for and thoroughly enjoy.
LHX Attack Chopper (Mega Drive)
I do however love helicopter games and this alongside the more arcade oriented Steel Talons, also on the Mega Drive, is one of my oldest favorites in that genre.
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Winter Challenge (Mega Drive)
Doom (32X)
My favorite version of Doom alongside the PSX port.
Metal Head (32X)
Essentially Armored Core on 32X, naturally a given favorite.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
While not my top favorite version of Virtua Racing, that honor goes to the SVP powered Mega Drive port, it's still one of my favorite games ever on one of my favorite systems ever.
Centipede (PSX)
While not quite on par with the next gen Dreamcast port this is still a fantastic version and due to how much easier it is to play a PlayStation game than a Dreamcast game it certainly has an edge of it's own, and when played on PS2 with texture filtering turned on there's even less of a difference between the two.
Also I don't think the Dreamcast version ever got released here in Europe so the PSX version was the only one available for me anyway. Great game though, even comes with the original arcade game so it's two games in one and I love that.
Iron Soldier 3 (PSX)
Not exactly an Armored Core killer but still a great mech game nonetheless. It retains what made the Jaguar 64 and Jaguar 64 CD games so good and improves the formula even further with the help of the superior power of the PlayStation. It may lack the flat-shaded polygonal charm of the Jaguar games but it makes up for it with technically superior visuals overall.
It's a tough game though, not one you just jump straight into and have a quick brawl guns a blazin', you have to be tactical and take your time, aim carefully and think and plan things out before you make your moves, your mech is big and heavy and controls like it, in that way it's very different from mech games in general from that era as most, at least on consoles, were more fast paced and action oriented.
I'd love to get hold of a Jaguar 64 and the original Iron Soldier games some day, I've tried the first one in the past and I loved it, which is why I was extra happy to get hold of this great sequel finally.
Kirikou (PSX)
A 2001 release exclusive to Europe, based on the first movie in the Kirikou series about an African boy who is very special indeed. It's a 2.5D platformer similar to some of Disney's greatest 2.5D platformers of the time like Hercules and Tarzan or other great 2.5D PSX classics like Klonoa and Tombi/Tomba, where you take on levels with multiple paths and lots of hidden secrets and all that good stuff. It re-enacts the events from the first film as you play as Kirikou literally from birth to coming face to face with the evil sorceress Karaba, on the way you must face her evil robots (called "fetishes") and make your way through the levels collecting water (essentially this game's equivalent to coins in Mario or rings in Sonic) and learning new abilities from the wise elder such as double jumping and other common game things.
It's easily one of the best 2.5D platformers I've played and I'm glad to own it. I didn't know about the game back when it was new but a few years ago when I found the movie on DVD and thought it looked interesting I got more into it and found out there were games released, multiple games actually, and sequels to the movie as well, so while I still haven't found much I now at least have the first game on PlayStation to go with the first movie on DVD, now I just need to find the PS2 game, the Game Boy Color game and the movie sequels!
Newman Haas Racing (PSX)
A 1998 release by Psygnosis and Bizarre Creations. It saddens me that I missed out on this one back when it was new but I'm glad to have discovered it now and I'm enjoying it very much, it's one of the best F1 style racing games I've ever played.
Re-Loaded (PSX)
A classic I played on PSX and MS-DOS back in the day but sadly never had myself and it's been over 15 years since I played it last. It lived up to my nostalgic memories and I've had a blast from the past with this one, a fantastic top-down action shooter and while I don't think it's better than the original Loaded I also don't think it's worse, they're equals but for different reasons, Loaded was a simpler, more straight forwards and notably more hectic shooter and thus a slightly better two-player experience this expands the missions and gameplay and makes for a better singleplayer experience, I'd say they compliment eachother perfectly and now I need to get hold of a copy the original Loaded so I can relive those nostalgic memories as well, we'll just have to wait and see how many more years that'll take to happen..
T'ai Fu Wrath of the Tiger (PSX)
A 1999 release by Dreamworks and the spiritual predecessor of Kung Fu Panda, a 3D platformer with lots of fighting and a great game I've played through numerous times in the past.
Viewpoint (PSX)
Not much to say about this one, it's a fantastic looking version of Viewpoint, identical to the other versions in gameplay and design but with a complete overhaul of the visuals and music. There's no competition for me, this is the superior way to play this already great game.
WinX Club (PC)
The old Konami developed WinX game that was also released on PS2 that's based on season 1 of the cartoon. I like this game and after having found a no-CD crack for it that worked so I don't have to get the disc out even though the game's been installed I finally got into the game. I really hate when PC games try to limit how I use them even after I've bought them, which is why I don't do PC gaming in general and don't acknowledge digital online gaming at all, if a game has only been released on Steam or something (Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop etc.) I don't consider it to have ever been released at all.
Brahma Force (PSX)
An FPS mech sim action game with similarities to Armored Core, GunGriffon and Krazy Ivan among many more, I like it but it's not exactly killing the competition, I prefer pretty much all those other games over this, still it's pretty good and has some good stuff in it, it's not bad by any means but it does come with a lot of minor and medium sized problems. Forever and literally constant respawning of enemies are the cause to most of the issues I have.
KKND 2 Krossfire (PC)
I've only ever played this on PlayStation before so it's interesting to see how different it is, it's basically two different games in almost every way, the good thing about that is you can't directly compare the two and thus neither ends up being the "bad" one. I love when they do this rather than just make direct ports because this gives incentive to those who own and enjoy one to get the other as well. It's just as hard as I remember the PlayStation version to be, only for slightly different reasons. I haven't really played either enough to say much more at this point.
KKND Krossfire (PSX)
I remember having troubles with this game back in the day and now when I'm revisiting it and it's PC original I fully understand why as my memories of getting absolutely crushed by the enemy AI comes rushing back as a nightmare that I thought was long gone. This is a hard as fuck game regardless if it's played on PC or PSX, "easy" mode doesn't mean much in this game, the harder difficulties I can't even imagine what they're like. It's good though, not impossible, just very hard and unforgiving. You need to get good at this game to enjoy it, it asks of you to invest time to get something of equal or greater value back and honestly that's not a bad thing, some of the best games ever do this. It just would've been even better still if the game had eased you into it step by step a bit because you'll be losing big time for a while just to learn the basic controls and what any of all the stuff you can do actually does. Having some easier levels to begin with letting you get used to said basics before having the enemy rape your base's every orifice with death and defeat would've been greatly appreciated. These games really didn't need to ask that much of the player so early on, especially in a strategy game where missions can get rather lengthy. A hard platformer in comparison is usually hard but has short levels that are over in just a couple of minutes so getting back to the place you were and trying a different strategy to get better and win is less of a setback.
SEGA Arcade Gallery (Game Boy Advance)
V-Rally 3 (Game Boy Advance)
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Now Playing
World of Outlaws Sprint Cars (Xbox 360)
Got it a couple days ago.
A simulation racing game where you drive around muddy Nascar-like oval tracks with small buggy cars with huge sideways spoilers on top.
It's alright, way too hard for my taste, not the kind of challenge I enjoy.
It's a bit choppy too with an unstable framerate and questionable physics, you can randomly flip and bounce around even though there was nothing visually on screen to collide with, the controls are also a bit wonky, you always have to double correct because the game does this weird extra move whenever you turn, I have not gotten used to that yet.
It was cheap so it's not that bad, I do like some of it, I hope it gets better as I get more used to it.
CastleVania Lords of Shadow 2 (Xbox 360)
Got it a couple days ago.
I've only played the demo from Xbox Live so far and it seemed pretty good.
I liked the first game quite a lot, it had problems that made me lose interest and never complete it but I still got enough fun out of it that I felt I could try this one instead as the demo suggested this is a more polished game than the first. I know from videos on youtube that you get to transform into and play as a rat later in the game, I must at least give that a try before putting this game to the side.
The demo did have some really awful parts though, I hope there aren't too many in the game overall, I'm talking about climbing and QTEs combined, very annoying, didn't even finish the demo because it annoyed me so much. I'll give it a more proper try in the actual full game though as it didn't feel worth retrying it over and over just to play through a demo when I was getting the full game soon anyway.
Damnation (Xbox 360)
Got it recently.
Really enjoying this game so far, love the intuitive way to move around. The jumping, shooting and climbing is all fun to do and the levels are huge and vertical, just as the game promised on the back of the cover calling itself a "vertical shooter". I like the steampunk western design. The vehicles are specially awesome, I absolutely love the jet engine motorcycles that can be driven so fast they cling to walls, finally a game that lets me perform the cool looking wall driving Lara did with her bike in the cutscene in the original Tomb Raider.
I like the characters and story as well, I will absolutely play through this to the end.
Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
Got it very recently.
Suprisingly awesome. I hate the Halo series, Bungie had no idea what makes a good first person shooter so I'm glad to see another developer give it a go and actually get it right. It feels like a complete overhaul but when you look at the old games and Halo 4 side by side the changes are suprisingly minor a lot of the time, depending on what you look at that is, the visuals are much improved and so are the sound effects but the gameplay is almost completely the same, except it's totally different, tweaked everywhere it needed to be, it feels more responsive, you now have basic abilities that the other games lacked, like sprinting, as standard while you also still have just about all the things you had before like additional armor abilities, vehicles and the weapon loadout, except a lot of new weapons have been introduced thanks to a whole new type of enemies with some really cool high tech stuff on offer, and the storytelling is vastly improved as well, I actually kind of cared about things this time, I mean Master Chief is still the most unoriginal Doom Marine ripoff of all time but at least in this game they gave him a personality, and his A.I. companion Cortana (the most unoriginal Sally from Aquanox ripoff of all time) was also given a personality that actually was interesting and relevant to the story. They're no Doomguy or Sally but at least I didn't hate them this time, that's a HUGE improvement over the previous games in the series.
The problems I had with this game as I played through it were the parts that were still based on the older games, like only being able to carry two weapons at a time, the vehicle controls and the story/characters/universe of the game. I would've loved this game even more had they given you the ability to carry all the weapons you find like in many better series, had better vehicle controls where you more directly control the vehicles and made it an original game with new cast of characters, set in a whole new universe with a whole different story.
In short, I liked all the additions and changes they made but had this not been a Halo game at all it would've been even better.
Duke Nukem Forever (Xbox 360 and PS3)
Got it relatively recently on PS3 but I've had it on 360 for quite a long time.
The PS3 version is the weaker version so I'm mainly playing this on 360 from now on.
I like this game, I don't really get the hate for it as it's easily the best in the series to date.
The visuals are varied from basic and somewhat dated (it's a game that's been in the works for a while so no suprise there, some things were bound to look dated) to some of the most impressive I've seen this generation.
I like the humor and have gotten many laughs out of it already, the characters and story are entertaining as well.
It controls well for the most part but the aiming can feel a bit off at times lacking the precision needed. I like the vehicle sections a lot, the vehicles so far have controlled very well.
I haven't encountered any bugs or glitches yet, at worst only some ugly dated and low quality visuals like extremely low quality dynamic shadows that update like a slideshow while the game still plays at 50/60fps (50hz on PS3 as PS3 doesn't support PAL60 on SDTVs like 360 does).
Unreal Tournament III (Xbox 360 and PS3)
Got it relatively recently.
Not as good as UT2003 and Unreal Championship 1 and 2 were but still a great game. I really miss the adrenaline abilities from the previous games, the new armor system with individual parts is not a valid replacement, not even close, and vehicles are not very good either, just like they weren't in UT2004.
Not much else to say, I usually just play short bursts of a few rounds of CTF and normal Deathmatch and that's about it. I might give the singleplayer story mode another try some day but I don't really care that much to be honest, it wasn't bad but UT isn't a series where I want to play through a story even if it's there, I just wanna play some good classic CTF and Deathmatch with awesome weapons in well designed levels.
Aliens Colonial Marines (Xbox 360)
Got it a pretty long time ago but haven't played it until now.
I was very pleasantly suprised by this game, I thought it was going to be terrible or at the very least bad but turns out it's one of the best games I've ever played.
The atmosphere is perfect, like Alien Trilogy in HD, the motion tracker makes a return and makes me panic like never before, every noise from it fills my head with thoughts of all types of aliens crawling around where I can't see them until it's too late and they've swarmed me and I have to blast my way through barely making it out alive.
I love how you get to revisit places from the classic Aliens movie and see familiar places and find stuff like the unique weapons they had in the movie and stuff like that, as a fan of the franchise and the movie things like that are very much appreciated.
Just before playing this I gave Aliens Isolation a try, also on 360, and it was absolutely fucking atrocious with beyond broken and dysfunctional A.I., glitchy visuals with tons of screen tearing, framerate drops and slowdown, clunky and unintuitive controls, overuse of QTEs, archaic gameplay design that would've felt horribly outdated in the late 80s, very boring, sterile and non interactive environments, tons of humans and evil low tech andirods, literally no isolation and the aliens were a chapter of fail all on their own with a whole new type of bad A.I., predictable scripted events, visual and technical glitches etc. etc., it was just one of the very worst games I've ever played in my life and a HUGE disappointment after having heard things like "it makes up for how bad Colonial Marines was", "the game Alien fans have been waiting for" and "one of the best horror games ever made"... BULL FUCKING SHIT. It was a travesty, at best..
Haven't even mentioned how it had a mandatory install disc of 5gigs and then a mandatory patch download that was almost a gig as well, and because it's a horror game you'll naturally want to install the game disc that takes another 5gigs to install so you don't have the 360s loud humming from spinning the disc during gameplay as the sound in horror games is important, ending with a whooping 11gig installation for a glitchy broken mess of a game!
You'd think all that install bullshit would've fixed at least something, but no, apparently it only made the game "playable" in the first place, if you can count something that broken as playable at all, fuck knows what that 1gig patch did, I can't imagine the game being even more broken than it was as the only steps left to take down the ladder is an error message and not running at all, which in hindsight would've been preferable as the game was honestly that bad.
Also it was clearly meant to only be played on a full 1080p HDTV as on an SDTV the text was so tiny it was almost completely unreadable. I've seen this in quite a few games over the last few years but Alien Isolation was by far the worst, the subtitles for the piss poor voice acting was rendered completely useless because of this.
Anyway, Colonial Marines was better in all ways and it's a really great game so far. I'll be sure to play through it to the end as this is a game I really want to play more of.
This ended up being more about the shitty Isolation game but that's how it is sometime, can't be helped.
FUEL (PS3)
Got it recently.
A huge open world racing game, like Test Drive Unlimited on steroids.
I haven't been able to play it as much as I wanted because it freezes a lot.
I want to play more but the freezing seems to be a common issue with this game according to internet forums, I've seen quite a lot of threads talking about this and it puts me off playing the game to be honest.
Burnout 3 Takedown (Xbox)
Got it recently.
I've never been a fan of the stop and go gameplay this series has but I've decided to give this game a try anyway, I've played the main mode a bit and unlocked a few new cars and stuff and so far it's not that bad, I turned off the crash cam so it only does it when I crash, that helped keep the flow of the game up a lot.
There's a lot of random luck elements to the gameplay that I don't like and feel really holds the game back, it gets really boring really fast when the challenge is super high and needs pin point exact and flawless driving to complete something when there's random traffic coming out of nowhere in less that a split tenth of a second that forces you to restart a race over and over dussins of times in a row.
It controls nicely and runs smoothly an looks great otherwise so it's a shame the bad parts hold it back as much as they do.
Easily one of the most overrated games of all time as I've encountered numerous claims of this being not only the best in the series but also the best arcade racing game on PS2 and [one of] the best arcade racing games of all time.
It's mediocre among other games of the genre and I have to say it's the worst in the series as it's the first after they rebooted it with new developers and the sequels were all better and I personally like the two original games more with the second game being my favorite in the entire series.
DOOM (32X)
Link to my failed playthrough on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmEvY0MeyjPaMKLkwByxAw1KPOsbi6edI
Pretty much my favorite version of the classic Doom. I also love the PSX version and the version on Xbox that comes as a bonus together with Doom 2 and the Master Levels for Doom 2 in Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil is also great.
I love the music in this version, the Mega Drive sound chip has a unique sound I really love and it makes the classic Doom songs justice and then some.
The sound effects are taken directly from the PC version and sound as good as ever, the 32X handles them with respect and deliver perfectly where for example the Super Nintendo version fails miserably.
It lacks a save feature so instead you have free pickings of any level in the game sans the bonus and final level directly from the main menu, making it instantly accessible at all times.
It lacks several levels from the full set the PC original has but that also makes it a lot more approachable as you can play through it much faster, that makes for example a great evening of Doom without having to go on long into the night, past morning and well into next day before reaching the end.
The enemies lack sprites for turning so they end up always facing you, this gives the feeling that they're always focused on you, I like this change a lot, also adding to the feeling of being the center of enemy attention is the lack of the A.I. script that made enemies attack eachother in many other versions, this also adds to the challenge as you have to be the one to take out the enemies, they won't do the job for you in this version.
With the 6 button controller you have some of the best controls of the time, with the map being especially functional in this version, you can also pick between the weapons in your aquired arsenal freely by holding Mode and pressing other buttons for respective weapons, pressing Mode+Start twice being the most important as it's the only way to switch back to your fists after having aquired the chainsaw.
It lacks the BFG as well but that's okay as I never used it except for the biggest bosses anyway and because they're also not in this version it's not a loss that matters very much.
It's on a cartridge so the load times are as short as on a fast PC, unlike many later versions that were on CD and thus had noticeably longer loading times.
It runs relatively smooth and is relatively high res as well, it's not as good as the PSX version but it's still a lot better than many versions of Doom including the Saturn, Super Nintendo and 3DO versions, it's even slightly better performing than the commonly praised Jaguar 64 version.
This is the version of Doom I return to the most and it's a great additional version regardless of what other versions of Doom you might already own.
It might seem as if it's a bad version seeing as it lacks so much but in my opinion the changes created a unique and in many ways better take on the Doom formula, and combine that with how well it plays and you have nothing left but a winner.
Tempo (32X)
One of my favorite platform games of all time. I love the design, the music, the levels, the controls and long list of moves you can pull off, the gameplay, the characters and enemies, the minigames, the upgrades, simply put I love just about everything about this game and I never get tired of playing it, a true classic.
Bomberman Act Zero (Xbox 360)
Got it recently.
I never liked the older Bomberman games, I hate the design and the gameplay lacked certain elements needed to be good. This game fixes everything that was wrong with only one drawback, the multiplayer. The one thing Bomberman games did right was multiplayer, I mean it's one of the oldest games I know that had support for four players.
Sadly this game is singleplayer only, at most it has an online mode but because most Bomberman fans didn't like it for reasons I will never understand the online mode is dead, so it's singleplayer only.
A shame because this is the first Bomberman game I've ever liked and I would've loved to have friends over and play this in multiplayer, just my luck the one game in the series I want to play with friends won't let me.
Regardless it's a great game and I'm having a good time with it even if I have to play it on my own.
I love the new design, it reminds me of a game I have on PC but I forget the name, and the new camera angle, life bar and powerups you pick up are all great too.
A criminally underrated and underappreciated game to say the least and a prime example of a game where haters ruined a good thing.
Got it a couple days ago.
A simulation racing game where you drive around muddy Nascar-like oval tracks with small buggy cars with huge sideways spoilers on top.
It's alright, way too hard for my taste, not the kind of challenge I enjoy.
It's a bit choppy too with an unstable framerate and questionable physics, you can randomly flip and bounce around even though there was nothing visually on screen to collide with, the controls are also a bit wonky, you always have to double correct because the game does this weird extra move whenever you turn, I have not gotten used to that yet.
It was cheap so it's not that bad, I do like some of it, I hope it gets better as I get more used to it.
CastleVania Lords of Shadow 2 (Xbox 360)
Got it a couple days ago.
I've only played the demo from Xbox Live so far and it seemed pretty good.
I liked the first game quite a lot, it had problems that made me lose interest and never complete it but I still got enough fun out of it that I felt I could try this one instead as the demo suggested this is a more polished game than the first. I know from videos on youtube that you get to transform into and play as a rat later in the game, I must at least give that a try before putting this game to the side.
The demo did have some really awful parts though, I hope there aren't too many in the game overall, I'm talking about climbing and QTEs combined, very annoying, didn't even finish the demo because it annoyed me so much. I'll give it a more proper try in the actual full game though as it didn't feel worth retrying it over and over just to play through a demo when I was getting the full game soon anyway.
Damnation (Xbox 360)
Got it recently.
Really enjoying this game so far, love the intuitive way to move around. The jumping, shooting and climbing is all fun to do and the levels are huge and vertical, just as the game promised on the back of the cover calling itself a "vertical shooter". I like the steampunk western design. The vehicles are specially awesome, I absolutely love the jet engine motorcycles that can be driven so fast they cling to walls, finally a game that lets me perform the cool looking wall driving Lara did with her bike in the cutscene in the original Tomb Raider.
I like the characters and story as well, I will absolutely play through this to the end.
Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
Got it very recently.
Suprisingly awesome. I hate the Halo series, Bungie had no idea what makes a good first person shooter so I'm glad to see another developer give it a go and actually get it right. It feels like a complete overhaul but when you look at the old games and Halo 4 side by side the changes are suprisingly minor a lot of the time, depending on what you look at that is, the visuals are much improved and so are the sound effects but the gameplay is almost completely the same, except it's totally different, tweaked everywhere it needed to be, it feels more responsive, you now have basic abilities that the other games lacked, like sprinting, as standard while you also still have just about all the things you had before like additional armor abilities, vehicles and the weapon loadout, except a lot of new weapons have been introduced thanks to a whole new type of enemies with some really cool high tech stuff on offer, and the storytelling is vastly improved as well, I actually kind of cared about things this time, I mean Master Chief is still the most unoriginal Doom Marine ripoff of all time but at least in this game they gave him a personality, and his A.I. companion Cortana (the most unoriginal Sally from Aquanox ripoff of all time) was also given a personality that actually was interesting and relevant to the story. They're no Doomguy or Sally but at least I didn't hate them this time, that's a HUGE improvement over the previous games in the series.
The problems I had with this game as I played through it were the parts that were still based on the older games, like only being able to carry two weapons at a time, the vehicle controls and the story/characters/universe of the game. I would've loved this game even more had they given you the ability to carry all the weapons you find like in many better series, had better vehicle controls where you more directly control the vehicles and made it an original game with new cast of characters, set in a whole new universe with a whole different story.
In short, I liked all the additions and changes they made but had this not been a Halo game at all it would've been even better.
Duke Nukem Forever (Xbox 360 and PS3)
Got it relatively recently on PS3 but I've had it on 360 for quite a long time.
The PS3 version is the weaker version so I'm mainly playing this on 360 from now on.
I like this game, I don't really get the hate for it as it's easily the best in the series to date.
The visuals are varied from basic and somewhat dated (it's a game that's been in the works for a while so no suprise there, some things were bound to look dated) to some of the most impressive I've seen this generation.
I like the humor and have gotten many laughs out of it already, the characters and story are entertaining as well.
It controls well for the most part but the aiming can feel a bit off at times lacking the precision needed. I like the vehicle sections a lot, the vehicles so far have controlled very well.
I haven't encountered any bugs or glitches yet, at worst only some ugly dated and low quality visuals like extremely low quality dynamic shadows that update like a slideshow while the game still plays at 50/60fps (50hz on PS3 as PS3 doesn't support PAL60 on SDTVs like 360 does).
Unreal Tournament III (Xbox 360 and PS3)
Got it relatively recently.
Not as good as UT2003 and Unreal Championship 1 and 2 were but still a great game. I really miss the adrenaline abilities from the previous games, the new armor system with individual parts is not a valid replacement, not even close, and vehicles are not very good either, just like they weren't in UT2004.
Not much else to say, I usually just play short bursts of a few rounds of CTF and normal Deathmatch and that's about it. I might give the singleplayer story mode another try some day but I don't really care that much to be honest, it wasn't bad but UT isn't a series where I want to play through a story even if it's there, I just wanna play some good classic CTF and Deathmatch with awesome weapons in well designed levels.
Aliens Colonial Marines (Xbox 360)
Got it a pretty long time ago but haven't played it until now.
I was very pleasantly suprised by this game, I thought it was going to be terrible or at the very least bad but turns out it's one of the best games I've ever played.
The atmosphere is perfect, like Alien Trilogy in HD, the motion tracker makes a return and makes me panic like never before, every noise from it fills my head with thoughts of all types of aliens crawling around where I can't see them until it's too late and they've swarmed me and I have to blast my way through barely making it out alive.
I love how you get to revisit places from the classic Aliens movie and see familiar places and find stuff like the unique weapons they had in the movie and stuff like that, as a fan of the franchise and the movie things like that are very much appreciated.
Just before playing this I gave Aliens Isolation a try, also on 360, and it was absolutely fucking atrocious with beyond broken and dysfunctional A.I., glitchy visuals with tons of screen tearing, framerate drops and slowdown, clunky and unintuitive controls, overuse of QTEs, archaic gameplay design that would've felt horribly outdated in the late 80s, very boring, sterile and non interactive environments, tons of humans and evil low tech andirods, literally no isolation and the aliens were a chapter of fail all on their own with a whole new type of bad A.I., predictable scripted events, visual and technical glitches etc. etc., it was just one of the very worst games I've ever played in my life and a HUGE disappointment after having heard things like "it makes up for how bad Colonial Marines was", "the game Alien fans have been waiting for" and "one of the best horror games ever made"... BULL FUCKING SHIT. It was a travesty, at best..
Haven't even mentioned how it had a mandatory install disc of 5gigs and then a mandatory patch download that was almost a gig as well, and because it's a horror game you'll naturally want to install the game disc that takes another 5gigs to install so you don't have the 360s loud humming from spinning the disc during gameplay as the sound in horror games is important, ending with a whooping 11gig installation for a glitchy broken mess of a game!
You'd think all that install bullshit would've fixed at least something, but no, apparently it only made the game "playable" in the first place, if you can count something that broken as playable at all, fuck knows what that 1gig patch did, I can't imagine the game being even more broken than it was as the only steps left to take down the ladder is an error message and not running at all, which in hindsight would've been preferable as the game was honestly that bad.
Also it was clearly meant to only be played on a full 1080p HDTV as on an SDTV the text was so tiny it was almost completely unreadable. I've seen this in quite a few games over the last few years but Alien Isolation was by far the worst, the subtitles for the piss poor voice acting was rendered completely useless because of this.
Anyway, Colonial Marines was better in all ways and it's a really great game so far. I'll be sure to play through it to the end as this is a game I really want to play more of.
This ended up being more about the shitty Isolation game but that's how it is sometime, can't be helped.
FUEL (PS3)
Got it recently.
A huge open world racing game, like Test Drive Unlimited on steroids.
I haven't been able to play it as much as I wanted because it freezes a lot.
I want to play more but the freezing seems to be a common issue with this game according to internet forums, I've seen quite a lot of threads talking about this and it puts me off playing the game to be honest.
Burnout 3 Takedown (Xbox)
Got it recently.
I've never been a fan of the stop and go gameplay this series has but I've decided to give this game a try anyway, I've played the main mode a bit and unlocked a few new cars and stuff and so far it's not that bad, I turned off the crash cam so it only does it when I crash, that helped keep the flow of the game up a lot.
There's a lot of random luck elements to the gameplay that I don't like and feel really holds the game back, it gets really boring really fast when the challenge is super high and needs pin point exact and flawless driving to complete something when there's random traffic coming out of nowhere in less that a split tenth of a second that forces you to restart a race over and over dussins of times in a row.
It controls nicely and runs smoothly an looks great otherwise so it's a shame the bad parts hold it back as much as they do.
Easily one of the most overrated games of all time as I've encountered numerous claims of this being not only the best in the series but also the best arcade racing game on PS2 and [one of] the best arcade racing games of all time.
It's mediocre among other games of the genre and I have to say it's the worst in the series as it's the first after they rebooted it with new developers and the sequels were all better and I personally like the two original games more with the second game being my favorite in the entire series.
DOOM (32X)
Link to my failed playthrough on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmEvY0MeyjPaMKLkwByxAw1KPOsbi6edI
Pretty much my favorite version of the classic Doom. I also love the PSX version and the version on Xbox that comes as a bonus together with Doom 2 and the Master Levels for Doom 2 in Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil is also great.
I love the music in this version, the Mega Drive sound chip has a unique sound I really love and it makes the classic Doom songs justice and then some.
The sound effects are taken directly from the PC version and sound as good as ever, the 32X handles them with respect and deliver perfectly where for example the Super Nintendo version fails miserably.
It lacks a save feature so instead you have free pickings of any level in the game sans the bonus and final level directly from the main menu, making it instantly accessible at all times.
It lacks several levels from the full set the PC original has but that also makes it a lot more approachable as you can play through it much faster, that makes for example a great evening of Doom without having to go on long into the night, past morning and well into next day before reaching the end.
The enemies lack sprites for turning so they end up always facing you, this gives the feeling that they're always focused on you, I like this change a lot, also adding to the feeling of being the center of enemy attention is the lack of the A.I. script that made enemies attack eachother in many other versions, this also adds to the challenge as you have to be the one to take out the enemies, they won't do the job for you in this version.
With the 6 button controller you have some of the best controls of the time, with the map being especially functional in this version, you can also pick between the weapons in your aquired arsenal freely by holding Mode and pressing other buttons for respective weapons, pressing Mode+Start twice being the most important as it's the only way to switch back to your fists after having aquired the chainsaw.
It lacks the BFG as well but that's okay as I never used it except for the biggest bosses anyway and because they're also not in this version it's not a loss that matters very much.
It's on a cartridge so the load times are as short as on a fast PC, unlike many later versions that were on CD and thus had noticeably longer loading times.
It runs relatively smooth and is relatively high res as well, it's not as good as the PSX version but it's still a lot better than many versions of Doom including the Saturn, Super Nintendo and 3DO versions, it's even slightly better performing than the commonly praised Jaguar 64 version.
This is the version of Doom I return to the most and it's a great additional version regardless of what other versions of Doom you might already own.
It might seem as if it's a bad version seeing as it lacks so much but in my opinion the changes created a unique and in many ways better take on the Doom formula, and combine that with how well it plays and you have nothing left but a winner.
Tempo (32X)
One of my favorite platform games of all time. I love the design, the music, the levels, the controls and long list of moves you can pull off, the gameplay, the characters and enemies, the minigames, the upgrades, simply put I love just about everything about this game and I never get tired of playing it, a true classic.
Bomberman Act Zero (Xbox 360)
Got it recently.
I never liked the older Bomberman games, I hate the design and the gameplay lacked certain elements needed to be good. This game fixes everything that was wrong with only one drawback, the multiplayer. The one thing Bomberman games did right was multiplayer, I mean it's one of the oldest games I know that had support for four players.
Sadly this game is singleplayer only, at most it has an online mode but because most Bomberman fans didn't like it for reasons I will never understand the online mode is dead, so it's singleplayer only.
A shame because this is the first Bomberman game I've ever liked and I would've loved to have friends over and play this in multiplayer, just my luck the one game in the series I want to play with friends won't let me.
Regardless it's a great game and I'm having a good time with it even if I have to play it on my own.
I love the new design, it reminds me of a game I have on PC but I forget the name, and the new camera angle, life bar and powerups you pick up are all great too.
A criminally underrated and underappreciated game to say the least and a prime example of a game where haters ruined a good thing.
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