Pong and Beyond

721st played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Nintendo 64
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Treasure/Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

I’m slowly making my way through series with multiple entries, aking sure that I’ve at least started them – going by the numbers, I should have started them all. There are two entries in the Sin and Punishment series on the list, a Nintendo shooter that started with this entry for the Nintendo 64.

I need to start it, so today I’ll this be playing this. Let’s see where it goes.

Our Thoughts

It feels like there are plenty of rail shooters still to go, and this is not quite the most memorable. Although we’ve played Space Harrier before, it feels like the genre works better when 3D is availalbe, giving some more depth as you travel. Here, for example, it does feel like you’re running down these roads and moving through the environment.

It also highlighted where I struggled. While other railshooters limit your movement, here you had to jump and dodge, both to avoid fire and clear obstacles. It turns it into a twin stick railshooter and my brain really got confused trying to keep track of both the direction of firing and movement.

The levels I saw had quite a bit of variation because of it, though, The environments differed more and movements wasn’t just automatically from spot to spot, they were actually part of gameplay. There was a reason you were moving and it had its own challenge.

Final Thoughts

As a rail shooter, Sin & Punishment gets a bit too chaotic and complex for me to get into. I can see how it would be a challenging game to get into and how rewarding its skill would bet, but its difficulty to me started to lose me.