May 4th:
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
V-Rally and Eagle One Harrier Attack are in a double pack with both games in one box.
Mega Drive:
Summer Challenge
Zero Tolerance
PlayStation:
Blast Radius (no manual)
Eagle One Harrier Attack
MTV Sports: Pure Ride
Star Trek Invasion
Street Racer
Truck Racing
V-Rally
Vagrant Story (promo disc, no manual)
PlayStation 2:
Hot Wheels World Race
Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums
Crashed
Crazy Frog Racer 2
Crazy Taxi
Motorsiege: Warriors of Primetime
Speed Kings
In the Crazy Taxi box there is a folder tucked in with the manual advertising other games from Acclaim (as they were the ones that ported Crazy Taxi to PS2), and among the games listed is Zombie Revenge for PS2 which sadly got cancelled worldwide before release. I sure would've loved a PS2 port now that I can't play it on Dreamcast anymore. I miss Zombie Revenge.
Teh update of an sadness:
The V-Rally disc is damaged on the data side of the disc and doesn't play. The other games all work fine, but damn, I really wanted to play V-Rally, I even warmed up for it by playing Sega Rally Championship on PC and Colin McRae Rally on PlayStation yesterday, getting myself into the proper mid-to-late 90s rally mood. Bummer. :c
Another update, semi-sad, semi-odd:
Seems MTV Sports Pure Ride also doesn't work.. on PS2. It works just fine on PS3 though. I've had the opposite happen many times as PS3 has really bad PSX emulation but for once it did it better than PS2 which has partial original PSX hardware in it, so how it's less compatible than a PS3 I dunno, it makes no sense.
Another update, really weird now:
V-Rally, with the literally see-through scratches on the disc, works on PS3 now... I'm literally playing V-Rally right now even though the disc is damaged beyond repair and shouldn't work at all. Am I in the Twilight Zone?
May 24th:
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
Because of how the copy of V-Rally I got earlier this month didn't work properly on my PS2, I ordered a separate copy now that I've tested out, and it works, so that's good at least.
I also ordered a separate copy of Eagle One Harrier Attack because I felt like it.
PlayStation:
Eagle One Harrier Attack
Formula One Arcade
Time Crisis Project Titan (promo disc, no manual)
V-Rally (Platinum)
V-Rally 2
WRC Arcade
PlayStation 2:
Kill.Switch (promo disc, no manual)
Showing posts with label snowboarding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snowboarding. Show all posts
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Now Playing - Maj 2017
Staring off this month with some rally games while waiting for the games I ordered near the end of April to arrive, also the daily dose of Smart As....
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
Sega Rally Championship (PC)
It has speed issues on newer PCs so thankfully I found a patch with a frame capture program that hijacks the framerate and forces it to play at the correct speed, or at least as close to it at possible, and it works great for both the original version and the Direct3D enhanced version.
It's great fun and with the Lancia Stratos car and Lake Side track unlocked there's even more content to have fun with.
Three cars and four tracks is still less than what for example Virtua Racing Deluxe on 32X has, but it's a step up from the initial two cars and three tracks you begin with.
What's important in a rally game however is how it plays, and for one of the earliest 3D rally games ever made it plays great, the handling is intuitive and responsive and powersliding around corners feels very right. It has the benefit of being an arcade rally game rather than a purebred rally sim, so the gameplay has barely aged at all and it's still a treat to play as a direct result of this.
The early pixelated 3D visuals are charming, to the point where I actually find myself playing the original version more than the Direct3D enhanced version.
Colin McRae Rally (PlayStation)
Still a great game, if a bit dated by modern standards for rally sim games. It's got a nice selection of cars and lots of tracks to drive on, it handles very well with intuitive controls and has good driving physics for the time.
It has real-time dynamic damage modeling and a nice dynamic shadow similar to the shadows in Gran Turismo 3, Concept 2002 Tokyo-Geneva and 4 on PlayStation 2, making it look very nice at times.
Summer Challenge (Mega Drive)
The summer equivalent to Winter Challenge, with the same flat-shaded 3D graphics and similar events to play.
A rather typical button mashing and timing based gameplay type of sports game. One of the few types of sports games I kind of like, as long as they're not too awful. I like both Winter and Summer Challenge, the flat-shaded 3D polygonal visuals set them apart from all the rest and tugs very hard at my heartstrings, I love it.
Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive)
A 3D first person shooter in similar vain to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom but with a more open gameplay style where you can travel back to the previous levels to pick up health or ammo if there's any left to be found. It's got some really cool effects like blood splatters on the walls and drips down if you take out an enemy close enough, very nice. It's incredibly tough though, a very hard game. You select from a team of playable characters and when one dies you pick another until there are no more left.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Truck Racing (PlayStation)
A basic little budget truck racing game from Midas, it's lacking in content with only one truck model with a few different texture swaps and is singleplayer only, but it's got some really nice visuals overall, with high detail textures and a good amount of stuff on screen with a fair bit of draw distance all running at a high framerate, it also controls very well and is very fast, it's an arcade racer more than a sim racer, that's for sure. For a low budget game of that generation I think it does a good job.
Eagle One Harrier Attack (PlayStation)
An overlooked and underrated flight sim action game similar to the Ace Combat series, especially Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere, but you have a VTOL Harrier jump jet that can hover and strafe in mid air making it way more tactical and versatile than anything you got to pilot in Ace Combat 3.
I think there are other places to fly as well but i haven't gotten far into it yet to know for sure.
Street Racer (PlayStation)
A super-multiplatform kart racer released on Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Saturn and Playstation.
It's nothing spectacular, just a solid kart racer from the mid 90s, but it's by Vivid Image, the same developer that would later make my all-time favorite kart racer S.C.A.R.S., so it's interesting to see some of their earlier attempts at the genre. I've played all the other versions except the Saturn one, which is similar to the PlayStation game but with less 3D geometry and more sprite-based stuff in the background instead, many consider the Saturn version to be the best of them all because of how much road-side stuff it has but I think the PlayStation version is good too and feels like the most next-gen version of them all, being the only one with proper 3D levels, even if they're a bit empty and barren compared to the Saturn version. Good game though and it has some cool stuff in it, even if it's a bit simplistic.
MTV Sports Pure Ride (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
Not the huge step up from the predecessor MTV Sports Snowboarding I was hoping for, but the snow texture is without a doubt the best I've seen from this generation and easily rivals and even beats most next-gen snowboard games.
It's mostly on par with the previous game in all other aspects, which is fine as that was a great game and remains my all-time favorite snowboard game, but it feels a bit too similar overall. If you have one, you don't need the other, they're both great and I'm glad to have them though.
Sadly the disc was damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, which isn't the same thing as it emulates it and lacks the enhancements a PS2 offers when playing PSX games.
V-Rally (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
This one usually gets a bad rep for having strange controls, but honestly once you configure them to have the correct amount of over- or understeer and suspension setup it becomes just as playable and enjoyable as any other racing game. The driving physics are a little unique but it only takes a moment to get used to.
It's great looking for the time it was released and looks good still, and the physics engine is actually quite impressive, making for some spectacular crashes you'd never be able to see in Sega Rally or Colin McRae Rally, that's for sure.
It has a nice selection of cars that all have a unique feel and need to be adjusted with their own setup for all the different types of tracks to perform optimally, the tracks themselves are plenty and varied and there's a split-screen 2-player mode.
It was a popular game back in the day and a classic for us who remember it, sadly it's become very underrated as time's gone by, with most modern gamers not giving it a proper chance due to how it initially plays and handles, before you tweak the car settings, judging it by a quick test run and deeming it bad because they couldn't instantly control the car like a seasoned pro thinking it's automatically set up for them in advance, the spoiled little shits, but they're the ones who miss out on a great classic at the end of the day, so the joke's on them.
Sadly this disc was also damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, just like MTV Pure Ride.
Crazy Taxi (PlayStation 2)
A flawless port of the Dreamcast version and I have no negatives to report, it's exactly how I remember it and since my Dreamcast is broken it's great to be able to play this on PS2.
Blast Radius (PlayStation)
A spaceship action sim game by the legendary Psygnosis, and it shows, sporting some of the best looking visuals on the system, as is usually the case with Psygnosis games, and it plays great with a high level of challenge, again nothing usual for their games. It's similar to most other great space games, like the Colony Wars series, Stellar Assault, G-Police, Star Trek Invasion and StarLancer.
You pick a ship, play through missions and upgrade the ship with upgrades you can buy with the credits you earn during the missions.
It looks great and runs silky smooth with really great controls making it easy to do enjoy dog fighting other spaceships in zero gravity, it's a treat to play and seems to be somewhat of a forgotten classic nowadays.
Vagrant Story (PlayStation)
A complex dungeon crawling semi-action RPG. Very unique, great looking and with good cinematography. The gameplay and battle system is a unique mix of real-time movement and RPG menus, kind of like a mix between Grandia, Granstream Saga, Koudelka and Parasite Eve, it's hard to explain without going into extreme detail, and I haven't played it enough yet to understand it all myself anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn't, but you play as one character only and you fight enemies directly around you like an action game, there are no random battle encounters and enemies can be avoided entirely. There's a risk system where the higher the risk meter goes the more dangerous the game gets, as your character gets weaker, misses attacks more often and enemies can land critical hits on you a lot easier, so there's a lot to keep in mind and balance at the same time in this game. It's definitely not a game you jump into with ease, the learning curve is aimed at the most committed harcore gamers and everyone else is just gonna have to deal with it.
Crashed! (PlayStation 2)
A rather underwhelming Destruction Derby clone, sans racing. It controls fine and looks okay, it's a bit choppy due to bad 50hz conversion, but other than that it runs smooth enough.
You start with just two cars and a handful of arenas to play in, but I guess you can unlock more if you play more, there's so little to do to begin with and that sure as fuck isn't making me wanna play more, it's boring, I wanna have fun straight out of the box with a game like this, and this one is unusually locked down for the time it was released, other games had WAY more to offer, both initially and in total from what I've been able to make out from the back of the box and the manual.
The complete lack of any type of racing makes it even worse as I love Destruction Derby style racing.
It boasts about the most realistic damage physics engine ever on the back of the box, and while I think the deformation of the cars after crashing look pretty good there were still plenty of other games at that point, 2004, that were a lot more advanced and look a lot better in those regards, so I call bullshit on that claim.
Motorsiege Warriors of Primetime (PlayStation 2)
A vehicle combat game stating a bold "best vehicle combat game on PS2 yet" on the back of the box. I was of course hesitant to trust such boastful words, even if it is a 2003 game, especially when they were coming from a so called "leading games journalist" named Andy Roberts, who I could find nothing about when I searched for his name online.
The game also doesn't have any sex appeal despite having some other types of over-the-top designed characters, they even have vampires, but no sexy babes, the only female character in the game at all is and old granny, so it relies entirely on being a good game to play, an either very confident and well backed up decision or a very foolish one.
Thankfully I can report it plays great and is a lot of fun. The claim about being the best vehicle combat game on PS2 at the time may very well be true as at the time the only competitor I can recall is Twisted Metal Black really, which sucked ass here in Europe due to extreme censorship and total butchering of the game following the 2001 September 11th World Trade Center thing with the airplanes.
Anyway, you pick from an array of hovercars to use, there are several different play styles, ranging from classics such as deathmatch to team based events, and lots of different levels to pick from, and the weapons and other other pickups are scattered all over the levels and regenerate as you play.
It runs fast and smooth and looks good with a nice amount of detail and special effects with no popup and the levels you play in are huge in size.
There needs to be quite a lot of action on screen before the framerate gets a bit choppy, but it never gets too bad even at worst.
Sadly I've discovered some issues with the game that annoy me quite a bit, mainly the fact that the AI is completely retarded, like in team play your teammates will attack you at random when no enemies are around, and in general they seem to be confused about if you're on their team or not, more often than not strafing around you without shooting as if you look at you in a "Gee, I wonder if this guy is on our side or not?" kind of way, all while the actual enemies are also there attacking both you and the teammate idiots circling around you. There have also been some errors in the scoring after a game is won/lost with points going into the multi-billion negatives, keep in mind the game scores 100 points for a kill or a goal (there is a mode called Siege, similar to deathmatch/team deathmatch but with a ball you pick up and take to a goal that moves around after each score for added points) and you don't get negative points for killing yourself. or your teammates.
Regardless of the issues I think the good stuff is good enough to make up for it.
I've actually been interested in this game for ages but I never thought it seemed interesting enough in stores and there was little to no information about it online, so I sadly never bothered to buy a copy until now, and even now it was still a gamble as I still didn't know much about it.
Now that I finally have it, I'm glad I do.
Speed Kings (PlayStation 2)
A motorcycle racing game with stunt tricks and fighting, very similar to games like Road Rash and Mashed, it's smooth and fast with some minor stutter in the framerate when things get hectic crashing into traffic and other riders and such, looks nice and plays very well, if a bit wobbly at times.
Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2)
A very nice futuristic combat racer similar to games like Extreme G, RollCage, Speed Racer and of course WipEout. Looks great, runs silky smooth, has great track design and the cars are based on some of the Hot Wheels toys at the time and I think the game ties in with an animated series but I haven't seen it so I can't verify that.
Crazy Frog Racer 2 (PlayStation 2)
Another futuristic racing game with weapon pickups, this one features the internet meme turned music video turned short-lived franchise and has a cast of characters, some new made for the games and some from the music videos, like "the annoying thing" crazy frog and the big red robot drone that chases the annoying thing.
It plays fairly well, it's fast and colorful and has a few different modes to play, along with a couple of minigames and the music videos for variation.
It's weird, the first music video is censored, the annoying thing's dick is visible in the original version but has a big blur over it now, but in the second video it's fully visible with no censorship at all, you can clearly see his dick.
I took a look online at what kind of scores this game had gotten and most gave it 2/10, I can honestly say it's far better than that, it is by no means a second worse possible type of game, I'd say it's even pretty good, especially considering what it originates from and the low expectations I had for it.
One of the other modes aside racing is a chase mode where you get chased by drones, like in the original music video, and see how far you can get, you take damage if you fall off the course or if the drones hit you with their weapons and traps.
The two minigames available is a dance game and a pinball game, th4e dancing game is very typical, just press the buttons at the right time to the rhythm of the song, I suck at it as always with rhythm games but I managed to beat the easy mode with a perfect score so I think for once a rhythm game has an easy mode that actually wasn't impossibly hard, so kudos for realizing not everyone is born with a natural sense of rhythm, I appreciate that. The pinball game is not your typical pinball though as there are no flippers, instead when the ball comes to a stop you have a few times that you can get it rolling again while an arrow rotates around it, time it right and you'll go where you want, the goal is to take out all the robot drones scattered around the pinball stage and there are walls and obstacles that slow you down as well as bumpers that make you go faster, I don't like pinball games in general but this was okay, not bad at all.
Carmen Sandiego The Secret of the Stolen Drums (PlayStation 2)
A rather mediocre action platformer where you play as Cole, a rookie ACME agent trying to hunt down and capture Carmen, turns out all the other agents have been fooled into looking for her in Siberia while Cole is right on her track on the other side of the world, and that's where the game begins, you sneak around, avoiding Carmen's robots and follow her tracks trying to catch her. I haven't gotten very far yet but the biggest problem are the controls, especially the camera, it also doesn't look very impressive, very bland and uninspired, the overall quality is similar to an old PlayStation game. The next place you visit is at least a bit better looking. This is the first Carmen Sandiego game I've ever played so I'm going into this with little to no bias about how it should be compared to the older games, just thought I'd mention that.
Star Trek Invasion (PlayStation)
A great spaceship action sim game and arguably the best Star Trek game ever made. It's like Blast Radius and the rest I mentioned earlier, only with a Star Trek license, with the voices of Picard and Worf and everything else you'd expect really. Apparently it's made by the same team that made the Colony Wars games and it uses the same game engine that Colony Wars Red Sun uses, so it's no wonder it looks and plays as great as it does.
Alone In The Dark Inferno (PlayStation 3)
Finally trying out the PS3 version of this game, it's said to be the best version because it was released later and had multiple things worked on a bit longer to make them less glitchy and stuff. I originally played through it on PS2 back in the day when it was new and more recently on Xbox 360, and while it's a flawed game for sure but it never got unplayable on either of those consoles in my opinion, so this should be good.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles In Time (Super Nintendo)
A port of the arcade game with some minor stuff added and some minor stuff removed, overall a good port.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Hyperstone Heist (Mega Drive)
Basically an alternative remixed version of Turtles In Time but with an arguably better story, faster and more responsive gameplay with better controls, with some additional exclusive content added and the time travel stuff, sprite scaling effects and mode-7 effects and levels removed.
This is my favorite version of the game as it adds stuff I like and removed stuff I didn't like as much.
Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
The original PlayStation 2 version is better than this, it has better lighting, better special effects, runs smoother and has better controls, the rest of the problems, I mean game, is still present however, with all the gameplay issues, level design issues, character design issues, enemy design issues, boss battle design issues, control issues, story issues and so on, it's all in here, made even worse by how it's a downgraded port of the PS2 game.
inFAMOUS (PlayStation 3)
It's literally a clunky Sly Cooper game with humans and ugly "realistic" visuals set in a bigger and slightly more expansive city environment, that's all that needs to be said really. The electric powers are okay but not utilized anywhere near as good as they should've been and work more like generic superpowers in general than specifically electrical powers. It's also glitchy as fuck in more ways than one. It can be fun to play but when the problems gang up on you it just sucks all the fun out of it and it becomes a frustrating experience instead.
V-Rally (PlayStation)
I ordered another copy of the regular Platinum version to play as the previous one I got didn't work properly, so it's all good now, this one works just fine and plays without issues. The reason I got the Platinum version again is because the original release of V-Rally didn't support Dual Shock and Dual Analog features and there's a new car added exclusively to the Platinum version.
V-Rally 2 (PlayStation)
It's less like the original V-Rally and more like many next gen rally games on PS2 and Xbox like the several Colin McRae Rally sequels, the WRC series and RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, but that's not a bad thing as those games are some of the best rally games out there.
WRC Arcade (PlayStation)
Similar to V-Rally 2 it has more in common with next gen rally games like the rest of the WRC series than older ones like V-Rally or Sega Rally, despite being subtitled "Arcade" it's definitely a lot closer to being a regular rally sim. It's a bit hard to control compared to the other rally games I've been playing lately, with notably less grip in the cars' handling, making it near impossible not to slide into the walls in almost every single corner.
Formula One Arcade (PlayStation)
Essentially an F1 game with pickups like a kart racer, it's a little choppy in the framerate but that's the only real complaint.
Time Crisis Project Titan (PlayStation)
I don't have a lightgun and the controls weren't that great with a normal or Dual Shock controller when I tested it so I probably won't play this game much.
Kill.Switch (PlayStation 2)
The game that spawned the subgenre of third person shooters focused on cover-based gameplay that games like Gears of War then made popular several years later. It really feels like a modern third person shooter because of this, it's hard to imagine it came out in 2003 already. Namco did a great job with the gameplay mechanics.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
Overall a very good port considering it's on such insanely weak hardware compared to the normal console version, it's in full textured 3D, it's a third person cover-based shooter and it runs well, the controls are a bit unconventional but they work well enough to get the job done.
Sega Rally Championship (Saturn)
It's actually better than the PC port in several ways, mostly minor graphical stuff but also sound effects and music.
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
Sega Rally Championship (PC)
It has speed issues on newer PCs so thankfully I found a patch with a frame capture program that hijacks the framerate and forces it to play at the correct speed, or at least as close to it at possible, and it works great for both the original version and the Direct3D enhanced version.
It's great fun and with the Lancia Stratos car and Lake Side track unlocked there's even more content to have fun with.
Three cars and four tracks is still less than what for example Virtua Racing Deluxe on 32X has, but it's a step up from the initial two cars and three tracks you begin with.
What's important in a rally game however is how it plays, and for one of the earliest 3D rally games ever made it plays great, the handling is intuitive and responsive and powersliding around corners feels very right. It has the benefit of being an arcade rally game rather than a purebred rally sim, so the gameplay has barely aged at all and it's still a treat to play as a direct result of this.
The early pixelated 3D visuals are charming, to the point where I actually find myself playing the original version more than the Direct3D enhanced version.
Colin McRae Rally (PlayStation)
Still a great game, if a bit dated by modern standards for rally sim games. It's got a nice selection of cars and lots of tracks to drive on, it handles very well with intuitive controls and has good driving physics for the time.
It has real-time dynamic damage modeling and a nice dynamic shadow similar to the shadows in Gran Turismo 3, Concept 2002 Tokyo-Geneva and 4 on PlayStation 2, making it look very nice at times.
Summer Challenge (Mega Drive)
The summer equivalent to Winter Challenge, with the same flat-shaded 3D graphics and similar events to play.
A rather typical button mashing and timing based gameplay type of sports game. One of the few types of sports games I kind of like, as long as they're not too awful. I like both Winter and Summer Challenge, the flat-shaded 3D polygonal visuals set them apart from all the rest and tugs very hard at my heartstrings, I love it.
Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive)
A 3D first person shooter in similar vain to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom but with a more open gameplay style where you can travel back to the previous levels to pick up health or ammo if there's any left to be found. It's got some really cool effects like blood splatters on the walls and drips down if you take out an enemy close enough, very nice. It's incredibly tough though, a very hard game. You select from a team of playable characters and when one dies you pick another until there are no more left.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Truck Racing (PlayStation)
A basic little budget truck racing game from Midas, it's lacking in content with only one truck model with a few different texture swaps and is singleplayer only, but it's got some really nice visuals overall, with high detail textures and a good amount of stuff on screen with a fair bit of draw distance all running at a high framerate, it also controls very well and is very fast, it's an arcade racer more than a sim racer, that's for sure. For a low budget game of that generation I think it does a good job.
Eagle One Harrier Attack (PlayStation)
An overlooked and underrated flight sim action game similar to the Ace Combat series, especially Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere, but you have a VTOL Harrier jump jet that can hover and strafe in mid air making it way more tactical and versatile than anything you got to pilot in Ace Combat 3.
I think there are other places to fly as well but i haven't gotten far into it yet to know for sure.
Street Racer (PlayStation)
A super-multiplatform kart racer released on Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Saturn and Playstation.
It's nothing spectacular, just a solid kart racer from the mid 90s, but it's by Vivid Image, the same developer that would later make my all-time favorite kart racer S.C.A.R.S., so it's interesting to see some of their earlier attempts at the genre. I've played all the other versions except the Saturn one, which is similar to the PlayStation game but with less 3D geometry and more sprite-based stuff in the background instead, many consider the Saturn version to be the best of them all because of how much road-side stuff it has but I think the PlayStation version is good too and feels like the most next-gen version of them all, being the only one with proper 3D levels, even if they're a bit empty and barren compared to the Saturn version. Good game though and it has some cool stuff in it, even if it's a bit simplistic.
MTV Sports Pure Ride (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
Not the huge step up from the predecessor MTV Sports Snowboarding I was hoping for, but the snow texture is without a doubt the best I've seen from this generation and easily rivals and even beats most next-gen snowboard games.
It's mostly on par with the previous game in all other aspects, which is fine as that was a great game and remains my all-time favorite snowboard game, but it feels a bit too similar overall. If you have one, you don't need the other, they're both great and I'm glad to have them though.
Sadly the disc was damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, which isn't the same thing as it emulates it and lacks the enhancements a PS2 offers when playing PSX games.
V-Rally (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
This one usually gets a bad rep for having strange controls, but honestly once you configure them to have the correct amount of over- or understeer and suspension setup it becomes just as playable and enjoyable as any other racing game. The driving physics are a little unique but it only takes a moment to get used to.
It's great looking for the time it was released and looks good still, and the physics engine is actually quite impressive, making for some spectacular crashes you'd never be able to see in Sega Rally or Colin McRae Rally, that's for sure.
It has a nice selection of cars that all have a unique feel and need to be adjusted with their own setup for all the different types of tracks to perform optimally, the tracks themselves are plenty and varied and there's a split-screen 2-player mode.
It was a popular game back in the day and a classic for us who remember it, sadly it's become very underrated as time's gone by, with most modern gamers not giving it a proper chance due to how it initially plays and handles, before you tweak the car settings, judging it by a quick test run and deeming it bad because they couldn't instantly control the car like a seasoned pro thinking it's automatically set up for them in advance, the spoiled little shits, but they're the ones who miss out on a great classic at the end of the day, so the joke's on them.
Sadly this disc was also damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, just like MTV Pure Ride.
Crazy Taxi (PlayStation 2)
A flawless port of the Dreamcast version and I have no negatives to report, it's exactly how I remember it and since my Dreamcast is broken it's great to be able to play this on PS2.
Blast Radius (PlayStation)
A spaceship action sim game by the legendary Psygnosis, and it shows, sporting some of the best looking visuals on the system, as is usually the case with Psygnosis games, and it plays great with a high level of challenge, again nothing usual for their games. It's similar to most other great space games, like the Colony Wars series, Stellar Assault, G-Police, Star Trek Invasion and StarLancer.
You pick a ship, play through missions and upgrade the ship with upgrades you can buy with the credits you earn during the missions.
It looks great and runs silky smooth with really great controls making it easy to do enjoy dog fighting other spaceships in zero gravity, it's a treat to play and seems to be somewhat of a forgotten classic nowadays.
Vagrant Story (PlayStation)
A complex dungeon crawling semi-action RPG. Very unique, great looking and with good cinematography. The gameplay and battle system is a unique mix of real-time movement and RPG menus, kind of like a mix between Grandia, Granstream Saga, Koudelka and Parasite Eve, it's hard to explain without going into extreme detail, and I haven't played it enough yet to understand it all myself anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn't, but you play as one character only and you fight enemies directly around you like an action game, there are no random battle encounters and enemies can be avoided entirely. There's a risk system where the higher the risk meter goes the more dangerous the game gets, as your character gets weaker, misses attacks more often and enemies can land critical hits on you a lot easier, so there's a lot to keep in mind and balance at the same time in this game. It's definitely not a game you jump into with ease, the learning curve is aimed at the most committed harcore gamers and everyone else is just gonna have to deal with it.
Crashed! (PlayStation 2)
A rather underwhelming Destruction Derby clone, sans racing. It controls fine and looks okay, it's a bit choppy due to bad 50hz conversion, but other than that it runs smooth enough.
You start with just two cars and a handful of arenas to play in, but I guess you can unlock more if you play more, there's so little to do to begin with and that sure as fuck isn't making me wanna play more, it's boring, I wanna have fun straight out of the box with a game like this, and this one is unusually locked down for the time it was released, other games had WAY more to offer, both initially and in total from what I've been able to make out from the back of the box and the manual.
The complete lack of any type of racing makes it even worse as I love Destruction Derby style racing.
It boasts about the most realistic damage physics engine ever on the back of the box, and while I think the deformation of the cars after crashing look pretty good there were still plenty of other games at that point, 2004, that were a lot more advanced and look a lot better in those regards, so I call bullshit on that claim.
Motorsiege Warriors of Primetime (PlayStation 2)
A vehicle combat game stating a bold "best vehicle combat game on PS2 yet" on the back of the box. I was of course hesitant to trust such boastful words, even if it is a 2003 game, especially when they were coming from a so called "leading games journalist" named Andy Roberts, who I could find nothing about when I searched for his name online.
The game also doesn't have any sex appeal despite having some other types of over-the-top designed characters, they even have vampires, but no sexy babes, the only female character in the game at all is and old granny, so it relies entirely on being a good game to play, an either very confident and well backed up decision or a very foolish one.
Thankfully I can report it plays great and is a lot of fun. The claim about being the best vehicle combat game on PS2 at the time may very well be true as at the time the only competitor I can recall is Twisted Metal Black really, which sucked ass here in Europe due to extreme censorship and total butchering of the game following the 2001 September 11th World Trade Center thing with the airplanes.
Anyway, you pick from an array of hovercars to use, there are several different play styles, ranging from classics such as deathmatch to team based events, and lots of different levels to pick from, and the weapons and other other pickups are scattered all over the levels and regenerate as you play.
It runs fast and smooth and looks good with a nice amount of detail and special effects with no popup and the levels you play in are huge in size.
There needs to be quite a lot of action on screen before the framerate gets a bit choppy, but it never gets too bad even at worst.
Sadly I've discovered some issues with the game that annoy me quite a bit, mainly the fact that the AI is completely retarded, like in team play your teammates will attack you at random when no enemies are around, and in general they seem to be confused about if you're on their team or not, more often than not strafing around you without shooting as if you look at you in a "Gee, I wonder if this guy is on our side or not?" kind of way, all while the actual enemies are also there attacking both you and the teammate idiots circling around you. There have also been some errors in the scoring after a game is won/lost with points going into the multi-billion negatives, keep in mind the game scores 100 points for a kill or a goal (there is a mode called Siege, similar to deathmatch/team deathmatch but with a ball you pick up and take to a goal that moves around after each score for added points) and you don't get negative points for killing yourself. or your teammates.
Regardless of the issues I think the good stuff is good enough to make up for it.
I've actually been interested in this game for ages but I never thought it seemed interesting enough in stores and there was little to no information about it online, so I sadly never bothered to buy a copy until now, and even now it was still a gamble as I still didn't know much about it.
Now that I finally have it, I'm glad I do.
Speed Kings (PlayStation 2)
A motorcycle racing game with stunt tricks and fighting, very similar to games like Road Rash and Mashed, it's smooth and fast with some minor stutter in the framerate when things get hectic crashing into traffic and other riders and such, looks nice and plays very well, if a bit wobbly at times.
Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2)
A very nice futuristic combat racer similar to games like Extreme G, RollCage, Speed Racer and of course WipEout. Looks great, runs silky smooth, has great track design and the cars are based on some of the Hot Wheels toys at the time and I think the game ties in with an animated series but I haven't seen it so I can't verify that.
Crazy Frog Racer 2 (PlayStation 2)
Another futuristic racing game with weapon pickups, this one features the internet meme turned music video turned short-lived franchise and has a cast of characters, some new made for the games and some from the music videos, like "the annoying thing" crazy frog and the big red robot drone that chases the annoying thing.
It plays fairly well, it's fast and colorful and has a few different modes to play, along with a couple of minigames and the music videos for variation.
It's weird, the first music video is censored, the annoying thing's dick is visible in the original version but has a big blur over it now, but in the second video it's fully visible with no censorship at all, you can clearly see his dick.
I took a look online at what kind of scores this game had gotten and most gave it 2/10, I can honestly say it's far better than that, it is by no means a second worse possible type of game, I'd say it's even pretty good, especially considering what it originates from and the low expectations I had for it.
One of the other modes aside racing is a chase mode where you get chased by drones, like in the original music video, and see how far you can get, you take damage if you fall off the course or if the drones hit you with their weapons and traps.
The two minigames available is a dance game and a pinball game, th4e dancing game is very typical, just press the buttons at the right time to the rhythm of the song, I suck at it as always with rhythm games but I managed to beat the easy mode with a perfect score so I think for once a rhythm game has an easy mode that actually wasn't impossibly hard, so kudos for realizing not everyone is born with a natural sense of rhythm, I appreciate that. The pinball game is not your typical pinball though as there are no flippers, instead when the ball comes to a stop you have a few times that you can get it rolling again while an arrow rotates around it, time it right and you'll go where you want, the goal is to take out all the robot drones scattered around the pinball stage and there are walls and obstacles that slow you down as well as bumpers that make you go faster, I don't like pinball games in general but this was okay, not bad at all.
Carmen Sandiego The Secret of the Stolen Drums (PlayStation 2)
A rather mediocre action platformer where you play as Cole, a rookie ACME agent trying to hunt down and capture Carmen, turns out all the other agents have been fooled into looking for her in Siberia while Cole is right on her track on the other side of the world, and that's where the game begins, you sneak around, avoiding Carmen's robots and follow her tracks trying to catch her. I haven't gotten very far yet but the biggest problem are the controls, especially the camera, it also doesn't look very impressive, very bland and uninspired, the overall quality is similar to an old PlayStation game. The next place you visit is at least a bit better looking. This is the first Carmen Sandiego game I've ever played so I'm going into this with little to no bias about how it should be compared to the older games, just thought I'd mention that.
Star Trek Invasion (PlayStation)
A great spaceship action sim game and arguably the best Star Trek game ever made. It's like Blast Radius and the rest I mentioned earlier, only with a Star Trek license, with the voices of Picard and Worf and everything else you'd expect really. Apparently it's made by the same team that made the Colony Wars games and it uses the same game engine that Colony Wars Red Sun uses, so it's no wonder it looks and plays as great as it does.
Alone In The Dark Inferno (PlayStation 3)
Finally trying out the PS3 version of this game, it's said to be the best version because it was released later and had multiple things worked on a bit longer to make them less glitchy and stuff. I originally played through it on PS2 back in the day when it was new and more recently on Xbox 360, and while it's a flawed game for sure but it never got unplayable on either of those consoles in my opinion, so this should be good.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles In Time (Super Nintendo)
A port of the arcade game with some minor stuff added and some minor stuff removed, overall a good port.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Hyperstone Heist (Mega Drive)
Basically an alternative remixed version of Turtles In Time but with an arguably better story, faster and more responsive gameplay with better controls, with some additional exclusive content added and the time travel stuff, sprite scaling effects and mode-7 effects and levels removed.
This is my favorite version of the game as it adds stuff I like and removed stuff I didn't like as much.
Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
The original PlayStation 2 version is better than this, it has better lighting, better special effects, runs smoother and has better controls, the rest of the problems, I mean game, is still present however, with all the gameplay issues, level design issues, character design issues, enemy design issues, boss battle design issues, control issues, story issues and so on, it's all in here, made even worse by how it's a downgraded port of the PS2 game.
inFAMOUS (PlayStation 3)
It's literally a clunky Sly Cooper game with humans and ugly "realistic" visuals set in a bigger and slightly more expansive city environment, that's all that needs to be said really. The electric powers are okay but not utilized anywhere near as good as they should've been and work more like generic superpowers in general than specifically electrical powers. It's also glitchy as fuck in more ways than one. It can be fun to play but when the problems gang up on you it just sucks all the fun out of it and it becomes a frustrating experience instead.
V-Rally (PlayStation)
I ordered another copy of the regular Platinum version to play as the previous one I got didn't work properly, so it's all good now, this one works just fine and plays without issues. The reason I got the Platinum version again is because the original release of V-Rally didn't support Dual Shock and Dual Analog features and there's a new car added exclusively to the Platinum version.
V-Rally 2 (PlayStation)
It's less like the original V-Rally and more like many next gen rally games on PS2 and Xbox like the several Colin McRae Rally sequels, the WRC series and RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, but that's not a bad thing as those games are some of the best rally games out there.
WRC Arcade (PlayStation)
Similar to V-Rally 2 it has more in common with next gen rally games like the rest of the WRC series than older ones like V-Rally or Sega Rally, despite being subtitled "Arcade" it's definitely a lot closer to being a regular rally sim. It's a bit hard to control compared to the other rally games I've been playing lately, with notably less grip in the cars' handling, making it near impossible not to slide into the walls in almost every single corner.
Formula One Arcade (PlayStation)
Essentially an F1 game with pickups like a kart racer, it's a little choppy in the framerate but that's the only real complaint.
Time Crisis Project Titan (PlayStation)
I don't have a lightgun and the controls weren't that great with a normal or Dual Shock controller when I tested it so I probably won't play this game much.
Kill.Switch (PlayStation 2)
The game that spawned the subgenre of third person shooters focused on cover-based gameplay that games like Gears of War then made popular several years later. It really feels like a modern third person shooter because of this, it's hard to imagine it came out in 2003 already. Namco did a great job with the gameplay mechanics.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
Overall a very good port considering it's on such insanely weak hardware compared to the normal console version, it's in full textured 3D, it's a third person cover-based shooter and it runs well, the controls are a bit unconventional but they work well enough to get the job done.
Sega Rally Championship (Saturn)
It's actually better than the PC port in several ways, mostly minor graphical stuff but also sound effects and music.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Now Playing - Januari 2017
Started off the new year with Aladdin on Master System.
Aladdin (Master System)
Longplayed it for YouTube.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREcLNavbVY
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYwVHPGSh8
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKo_Tz0RMSg
part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWWYRwkZhY
GoldenEye 007 (Wii)
Awful controls with Classic Pro Controller, unplayable with Wiimote and Nunchuk, overall generic modern FPS garbage with shitty modern Daniel Craig pretending to be James Bond.
Retro Force (PlayStation)
beat it on easy with 3126600 points, 12 januari 2017
Mercury (PlayStation Portable)
Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. (Nintendo 64)
MTV Snowboarding (PlayStation)
Fade to Black (PlayStation)
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
Syphon Filter (PlayStation)
This game holds up so good even today, I love it. Tasing enemies til they burn and die is endlessly satisfying. Great controls, great visuals, great gameplay, great characters, great voice acting, great music, just a great game.
Overboard! (PlayStation)
I'm not big on pirates in general but this game is fantastic, probably as it focuses on the vehicular combat part of pirates and plays more like a mix between GTA and Twisted Metal on water with pirate ships and cannons instead of cars with machine guns, like a top-down pirate themed Blood Wake, simply brilliant.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Imagine the Wii version with a lot more glitches but with slightly better controls and running at a higher screen resolution with a better framerate.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Virtua Racing (Mega Drive)
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Aladdin (Master System)
Longplayed it for YouTube.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREcLNavbVY
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYwVHPGSh8
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKo_Tz0RMSg
part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWWYRwkZhY
GoldenEye 007 (Wii)
Awful controls with Classic Pro Controller, unplayable with Wiimote and Nunchuk, overall generic modern FPS garbage with shitty modern Daniel Craig pretending to be James Bond.
Retro Force (PlayStation)
beat it on easy with 3126600 points, 12 januari 2017
Mercury (PlayStation Portable)
Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. (Nintendo 64)
MTV Snowboarding (PlayStation)
Fade to Black (PlayStation)
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
Syphon Filter (PlayStation)
This game holds up so good even today, I love it. Tasing enemies til they burn and die is endlessly satisfying. Great controls, great visuals, great gameplay, great characters, great voice acting, great music, just a great game.
Overboard! (PlayStation)
I'm not big on pirates in general but this game is fantastic, probably as it focuses on the vehicular combat part of pirates and plays more like a mix between GTA and Twisted Metal on water with pirate ships and cannons instead of cars with machine guns, like a top-down pirate themed Blood Wake, simply brilliant.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Imagine the Wii version with a lot more glitches but with slightly better controls and running at a higher screen resolution with a better framerate.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Virtua Racing (Mega Drive)
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Friday, July 1, 2016
Now Playing - Juli 2016
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)