#315 Pilotwings 64

Posted: 5th October 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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729th played so far

Genre: Flight Simulator
Platform: Nintendo 64
Year of Release: 1996
Developer: Nintendo EAD/Paradigm Simulation
Publisher: Nintendo

I played Pilotwings about four years ago, a SNES flight sim with some unusual craft and an interesting set of missions – a bit simple now, maybe, but impressive for the time and with a fair amount to do.

As you can see, the Nintendo 64 got a sequel, although it took fifteen years for another follow up.

Our Thoughts

It feels like this game has less options than its predecessor, despite its increase in technology. We’ve lost skydiving and replaced a light plane with a gyrocopter. In the mean time, the areas in which the missions take place has grown, feeling more suitable for the platform and giving more interesting worlds to play with.

The controls are quite tricky – made for the N64 controller, but it still doesn’t always transfer well. There’s something in the way it feels delayed that the game works against you in places. It doesn’t add that much challenge, though, just awkwardness to do things like making the turns correctly or being able to dive just right, but that’s also because the game doesn’t always need it.

The missions aren’t impossible, but finishing them in time, while landing properly, is. You need to get enough points between the missions to continue to proceed. Per level, they always take place in the same area, just for the three different modes, and they soon feel hard. You need to keep trying and improve until you manage to get there… Something that got me to the third level or so, but keeping up became a bit much after that.

Final Thoughts

While the controls let it down, Pilotwings 64 provides a decent challenge with some nice missions in a world that looks better than its predecessor. It misses a bit of that game’s simplicity, but they both hold up quite nicely.

#990 PixelJunk Shooter

Posted: 1st October 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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728th played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Q-Games/Double Eleven
Publisher: Q-Games

Q-Games’ PixelJunk series combines simpler cartoonish graphics with decently in depth gameplay, as suits a downloadable console game. We’ve played the Monsters variant before, a decent tower defense game, and this is the other game of theirs that’s on the list, obviously a shooter this time.

Our Thoughts

It’s not really a series, beyond the creator being the same and a shared name. Even the art feels flatter and simpler, although the underlying systems might be a reason for it. Although there are a bunch of enemies to kill in this shooter, the main focus is on rescuing these workers trapped in the mines.I couldn’t immediately identify the games where we did that before, but I’m sure we had.

The unique mechanics it introduces are interesting and really change the game. It introduces lava and water early on, both with their own interactions – water is safe, mostly helping by cooling you down, while lava kills you until you get certain suits, heats you and kills your rescuees – but works to get rid of ice and enemies. The liquid physics used are quite impressive and play into the puzzles throughout and it’s incredibly satisfying to get the combination right and make your way through.

It’s what turns the game into more than just a shooter, as manipulating the environment becomes as important as shooting enemies, and there are times where the latter became more of an inconvenience than something that felt necessary. It was still enough to keep you on your toes, and they’re used in the right amounts, but they’re more realistic obstacles.

Final Thoughts

As much as Pixeljunk Shooter is set to be a shooter, the highlights are the liquid physics and everything that flows from it. It’s a delight to mess around with and creates enough special situations to stay interesting.

#76 Karate Champ

Posted: 27th September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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727th played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1984
Developer: Technos Japan
Publisher: Data East

So I don’t really look forward to these early fighting games – the genre isn’t the best in general and it’s not until the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter that we see some of the kinks getting worked out.

Karate Champ, then, is the next game because it’s a game I’m not much looking forward to, but need to get done, so I might as well get it out of the way.

Our Thoughts

In Karate Champ, you don’t go out to save the girl. There’s no set of recognisable opponent. You literally play in a karate tournament, as you would expect. I don’t really know karate, so I’m guessing that’s pretty much how it works. You move by using two sticks, the input of the two combining to moves. It’s an interesting idea, but doesn’t lead anywhere. It was difficult to keep track of, and not knowing the rules (old game, nothing gets explained) it became quite difficult to deal with.

It doesn’t help that the intro for the game is fairly long – I couldn’t get into the game, or stay in it.

Final Thoughts

While Karate Champ probably works nicely if you know the sport, and it’s all about the martial arts, now it just feels a bit uninteresting and drawn out.

#621 Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War

Posted: 23rd September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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726th played so far

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Relic Entertainment
Publisher: THQ

When it comes to the universe, I’ve always been a fantasy player. There’s some interesting bits about the 40k universe, but nothing in it ever really tempted me. Sadly, until Total War: Warhammer, it hasn’t been greatly represented – even though many tried, and Shadows of the Horned Rat did work for me.

Similarly, while there were plenty of 40k games, Dawn of War is where it really took off and feels like it became massive. I still avoided it, but I’m now getting to the point where I really should give it a go and see whether it fits me.

Our Thoughts

It’s always a bit of a bad sign when one of the first levels of a game you play have you get stuck for a weird reason. In this case, it’s pathfinding: units got stuck between allies they were rescuing and couldn’t move out as they were now surrounded at all sides by those allies and had no way to get out. If the game had let me deal with individual units, it would have been fine, but since the whole squad couldn’t move in formation, it was stuck there.

Luckily, this didn’t repeat itself. Instead, I got to get into this game. Working with small squads made ordering them around more convenient. It feels like Warcraft 3, though without the strong presence of that game’s hero units. You have leaders, but they join squads and feel like they have less of an effect. As long as the pathfinding cooperates, it’s straight forward to control and grow, in a way that nicely replicates the 40k experience but makes it work better in the context of game building.

Base building is similarly simplified, with enough buildings to keep it interesting but not quite the mess you get in other RTS games. You mostly reinforce the squad so they don’t need to be near buildings and unit numbers aren’t too complex.

Resources are managed in a different way. You capture the strategic points that surround the area, which provide you with an income as you hold them as well as allowing for some defensive structures being built – mostly so nobody else takes over. It makes map control feel more real as you really have to reach and control areas and streamlines a lot of resource gathering.

Another way in which the game streamlines the experience is the way you handle reinforcements. You can always reinforce your squads where they are, meaning that during stealth and one man base less missions, you can make your way through more easily. That means that unless you’re fully wiped out, losses are a lot less crippling. It’s a nice mercy and improves the experience over what we’re used to from Red Alert.

There are only 11 story missions, all focused around the space marines, which means that my experience with the other armies was very limited. They’re decently chunky missions though, which makes up a bit for the shorter length, and they are varied enough to keep them interesting.

And it means I can see a lot of orcs flying through the air. That stays cool.

Final Thoughts

There’s probably a lot more to this game at a multiplayer level, but I had a great time playing the story missions. The structure is great and the whole experience is streamlined compared to the RTSes I’m used to, which makes it quicker to go through. It’s worth a revisit and I’m looking forward to playing the sequel.

#984 Mighty Flip Champs

Posted: 19th September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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725th played so far

Genre: Platform/Puzzle
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: WayForward Technologies
Publisher: WayForward Technologies

Happily, unlike other digital platforms, DSi games are still very accessible for all players. One of those that’s been waiting on my 3DS for years has been Mightly Flip Champs. It’s one of those games that takes basic platforming and introduces a twist – something like VVVVVV, with the twist this time that you flip to different screens instead of reversing gravity. Perfect downloadable game fodder.

Our Thoughts

The concept of the game is a good one – you flip between different screens each level, the next oen previewed on the other screen, and use the different paths on each screen to make your way to the exit. You will see where you will flip to, making it pretty easy to see what you’re doing and creating a nice set of puzzles that for the most part feel fair. It’s a neat concept and (ignoring some of the niggles below) give you enough hints on where to go to solve the puzzle while still having you plan a few steps ahead. More so on later levels, where you need to remember four layouts you switch between, challenging you to remember whether you should stay or move.

There are a few places where it doesn’t work quite as well, and it mostly happens where the puzzles are aobut reflexes rather than puzzle solving. When you flip and there’s a wall where you flip to, you die – erring, it feels, on the side of killing you. Where this gets frustrating are in the levels where you need to fall off a platform and flip mid-fall, landing on a new platform. It’s fiddly to flip at the right time, as the space is something only character high, and it feels like you die a lot. Grabbing on to fences as you fall lead to the same issue, and it feels too awkward if you’re not used to the controls. It turns a puzzle into a non-puzzle and doesn’t feel right. A similar thing happens when you get to flip between spikes, and positioning means more than is fun.

Sadly, it’s those sections I got stuck on, and it feels frustrating as I just want to move to the next idea and see what they do with the mechanics. There’s two games at play here, and they don’t mesh as well as they could.

#419 Samba de Amigo

Posted: 15th September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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724th played so far

Genre: Music
Platform: Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega

The Dreamcast era really was one for weird peripherals. We saw this with Sega Bass Fishing (although I avoided it there by playing the PC version) and a few years later with the massive setup that came with Steel Battalion. Another peripheral were maraca controllers to play Samba de Amigo with.

Luckily, this game got a Wii rerelease and so instead of tracking down weird controllers, I just get to use the Wiimote, which feels like it should be a natural fit.

Our Thoughts

Do they work? Maybe not quite, but to explain that it needs some context on how the game works.

Obviously, shaking maracas to a rhythm doesn’t make for a great game on its own, so the game has you pointing instead as well. Up left and right, left and right, or down left and right – either both maracas the same way, or both in different directions. It’s a neat idea, but has its issues in the Wii edition because the nunchuk doesn’t have great motion detection. It means you need to twist it while you point, which is easy to get wrong when you get in the game, and the game seemed to mostly leave it to higher difficulties to really double down on it to avoid those issues.

The other part of the rhytm game is less rhythm based but more fun – there are several dance moves you’ll need to perform – waving your hands in the air or to the side. While they would be fairly arbitrary distractins in other places, they fit in well here. The game creates a lot of elements that require you to stand up and dance and these exercises really double down on them.

All of this also means that there are no weird buttons or other oddities to try to remember. You can follow along with the on screen prompts and, with some practice, just have to make sure you follow the instructions. That’s not as easy as it sounds, but it feels almost the purest, a game that fits the music it’s portraying most.

The music selection helps as much, with a number of samba classics that are delightful to dance to, and some odd choices that the game makes work incredibly well – Tubthumping is probably the first weird thing I came across, and it consists mostly of dance moves, but somehow it sort of works. Not as well as the others, but it’s a good break.

Final Thoughts

While the Guitar Hero series really created the plastic instrument genre with its guitars, I could see how Samba de Amigo would have been just as engaging while transfering a lot better to the Wii as well. It’s probably the best rhythm game I’ve played so far.

#981 Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Posted: 11th September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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723rd played so far

Genre: Action/Role-Playing
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Vanillaware
Publisher: Marvellous Games/Ignition Entertainment/Rising Star Games

For some games, the title is enough to get you excited. Muramasa: The Demon Blade? Yeah, there should be something awesome in there, right? An action RPG that plays a bit like a platformer feels like it should be my thing all the way through.

Our Thoughts

Let’s start with the obvious that I tend to overlook in these reviews: This game is absolutely gorgeous. It uses stunning hand drawn background – with elements that often get repeated and recombined, but they look great – and characters that are amazingly animated. It makes reaching and visiting new areas a treat, a nice additional surprise as you travel.

The game plays on a 2D area, with some platforming elements – you do a fair amount of jumping and reach some secrets with careful platforming. It’s as similar to a beat em up, really, something like Ghosts ‘n Goblins at its most basic. It, of course, goes far beyond that, but it’s a simple basic formula.

The game of course features a bunch of exploration – the world is huge and there are a couple of different ways in which it’s restricted. Most notably, areas are locked by different coloured barriers that require specific swords to open, which then gives you both more plot options and extra items to get, as well as allowing access to a bunch of other challenges.

Swords? Yeah, despite the title implying the existence of a single blade, your progression in the game comes through gaining resources to buy more swords. This partially comes in through a new game plus system to really get everything, but at its core you can equip better swords as your stats go up, which have stronger special attacks and better stats. Other blades get giving to you, mostly those giving you access to different areas. You can equip three swords at once and switch between them, although all of them appear in a large unlock tree. It’s a nice system to build progression around, that feels natural, restricts progress properly and fits narratively. The game has some more minor related systems, but the game is really at its best when you can focus on swordplay.

Final Thoughts

Muramasa did not disappoint. Whlie the game is heavily focused on its action, there’s so much more in its progression that keeps me far more interested – your characters can grow more powerful and there’s a lot of scope for exploration – the game’s world is big and varied enough to really reward it, while its map still gives you good directions throughout. It adds to a fun game and I need to figure out how replayable it becomes to unlock everything.

#434 Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes

Posted: 7th September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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722nd played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Arcade/Dreamcast
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

I’ve had a chance to play the Marvel vs Capcom series before, although that was the third part of the series rather than the second. Tying into Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise at first, setting up its characters against Marvel superheroes, the sequels have started to involved more other Capcom characters.

The memorable part of my experiences so far is that it isn’t just one character against another. Instead, you assemble a team of three and use them all against your opponent. It’s a style that other games probably had, but this is the only one I know of that does it and feels more like the only one that uses it to this extent.

Our Thoughts

Man, if you’re going to limit your soundtrack (I can see why you would, considering cost and such), please make sure it’s not as loud and in your face at this. The soundtrack was incredibly limited, but so present that it got annoying and distracting. Maybe that shouldn’t matter, but you shouldn’t really need to mute a game to play it, especially when the sound so useful everywhere else. It’s not a major complaint, but when I am making notes and setting up things, I tend to get stuck on the results screen and it gets to you.

The game itself for the most time feels like a fighter, not one that I can really distinguish from the others – by now it’s clear this isn’t my genre and I don’t think I’m giving myself quite enough time to get used to them, the perils of this list. The fighters are pretty distinct from each other, and with each having three different movesets, you get quite a bit of variation even in there. Of course, most still need to be unlocked, which means favourites I’m looking for like Mega Man take a while before you get to them. There are a lot of things like that to unlock, but happily most modes get you there. It takes a few fights, but there are quite a few good options for them.

The big feature, though comes in from the teams. This goes beyond tag teams, where you switch between fighters, although that, of course, helps. More important, as long as you have multiple heroes left alive, you can make group attacks that are quite a bit more useful, as you’d expect. There’s the usual stuff about charging up a meter, but it does feel great when you can pull it off.

Final Thoughts

Prefixing all of this with “for a fighting game”, this game has given me quite a bit. Although the roster of character is good, if limited, I didn’t feel like it necessarily always brought that much more. I gravitated towards the Marvel side because I knew it better, and wish I could have played with some more favourites, but it was good. It’s the team battling that really made it interesting for me, setting the game apart and giving it its own direction. Still a fun thing to play.

#453 Sin and Punishment

Posted: 3rd September 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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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.

#913 The House of the Dead: Overkill

Posted: 30th August 2018 by Jeroen in Games
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720th played so far

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Headstrong Games
Publisher: Sega

I’m jumping between installments of The House of the Dead to cover different options. For this one, I obtained a copy in an office move some time ago and in my quest of getting rid of oddly shaped boxes, I figured I’d play Overkill before part two of the series or its typing variant that will wait until the end.

It’s a variation on the rails shooter that we covered recently on Dead Space Extraction and before that in Silent Scope and other arcade games we played at the same time. At home, the choice of playing is through the Wiimote or, in our situation, the PS Move controller.

Our Thoughts

As with some of the other shooters, the House of the Dead series is about killing a lot of zombies. And this game, in its first chapter, dumps you in a house overrun with them, and you make a long journey through its different rooms (which seems to connect as a real home, with a pretty deep basement and some weird lifts, but it works). It’s a pretty standard setting and follows a lot of the tropes, but it plays these in a very satisfying way. There’s a lot of shooting at the right level while offering a good number of collectibles throughout. Sadly, the boss fight in the house doesn’t live up to it, becoming repetitive and quite boring after you figure out the pattern – it’s still a slog to get to the end, and I felt that happened with all of them. Some variation or changes would have been nice.

The later levels switch up the settings quite well, with a level taking you to a strip club (although only in the extended version we played), then to a hospital, carnival and other settings that feature in horror movies. It really creates the mood of a exploitation movie and the tropes, parodies and references (whatever you want to call it) suit well to create the right atmosphere.

Final Thoughts

There’s no amazing story here. The game sets the mood of the movies it wants to emulate and the rails shooter means you can focus on what you need – shooting in the direction monsters are coming from – without worrying about finding them. Although they won’t pop up behind you gameplay wise, the control the game has of your camera means that it can still surprise you, but in a directed way. It does what it knows it wants to do and does that well.

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