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1. Flag to Flag - Dreamcast (January 12)
2. The Battle of Olympus - NES (January 18)
3. Thunder Force AC - Arcade/MAME (February 6)
4. Golden Axe - Arcade/MAME (February 14)
5. Rod-Land - Arcade/MAME (February 22)
6. Xexyz - NES (March 14)
7. Smuggler's Run: Warzones - Gamecube (March 26)
8. Rad Racer - NES (March 27)
9. Rad Racer II - NES (March 27)
10. Rise of the Triad 2013 - PC (April 23)
11. Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood - PC (June 2)
12. Call of Duty: World At War - PC (June 26)
13. Medal of Honor: Infiltrator - GBA (June 27)
14. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - Island Thunder - PC (July 14)
15. *NEW* Feel The Magic XY/XX - DS (August 9)

RUB IT!

A DS launch title as well as one many people may not be familiar with, a review called this game a cross between WarioWare and Space Channel 5. That's not too far off. You're doing 25 offbeat minigames that would have no problem being in the former series, with an art style and presentation similar to the latter. Developed by Sonic Team, this game easily showed off the capabilities of the DS early on. You'll not only be using the touch screen in inventive ways, but also the microphone to perform such tasks as getting fish out of a man's stomach, swatting insects away, building a fire, flinging human beings at trucks, guiding a unicycle along a narrow track, and so much more. It has to be played to be believed. There's also a mode where you can customize a female character that appears on certain screens alongside you, and you can unlock extra items in this mode by using Sega-published GBA cartridges (such as those in the Sonic series), providing you have an original DS or DS lite to put them in the GBA slot when you turn the game on.

Silly, charming, offbeat, and a real showcase of what the DS can do. It's a can't miss game if you're into healthy doses of Japanese wackiness.

Remember, Rub Is Love.

I think it's intended for that final part to just be a setpiece like in Super once you get the hyper beam.

BoneSnapDeez wrote:The 8-bit Konami scene is pretty fascinating. Sure we all know about their NES games, but they also had tons of stuff on the MSX and were heavy supporters of the FDS as well. Not to mention those sweet, sweet C64 ports.

DOS games, too! I'm actually fascinated by a lot of games that we think of NES games that were also on DOS. I've told the story many times about how the original TMNT game was a DOS game in my household. Imagine playing that with a shitty joystick, y'all. But I mean Konami brought stuff like Jackal, Double Dribble, Super Contra, Metal Gear, etc to DOS.

Games Beaten 2016

First 50:

Battleborn - PC
140 - PC
Last Duel - Arcade (PSP)
Alien on the Run - 3DS *new*
Undead Bowling - 3DS *new*

Total: 55

Previously: 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

I dipped my toes into the G-Style waters and it felt just fine: consider me a baptized convert, now here to help spread the gospel of this company's wacky and well-designed action games.

I won't add anything to what has been said about Alien on the Run - it is quirky in the right ways and challenging at the right moments before giving you that feeling that you are a badass for completing things with S rankings. Buy it.

Undead Bowling is fun as well, if a short one-trick pony. There are several modes that try and mix things up, and the lack of traditional bowling/scoring is surprisingly to the game's benefit. The final boss fight is worth getting to (at least in "Normal" mode), and if you enjoy campy zombie crushing, this one is for you.

dsheinem wrote:I won't add anything to what has been said about Alien on the Run - it is quirky in the right ways and challenging at the right moments before giving you that feeling that you are a badass for completing things with S rankings. Buy it.

Nice! The game's still only $2 in the eShop! Get on it, people!

Also, I am glad to read that Undead Bowling is pretty fun. It has OK reviews, but the concept sold me on it.

1/16: Diablo III (PC)
1/19: Picross E (3DS DL)
1/23: Baroque (Wii)
2/5: LocoRoco (PSP)
3/31: Picross e2 (3DS DL)
4/7: Stardew Valley (Steam)
4/8: Voices From the Sea (Steam)
4/10: X-Note (Steam)
4/11: To the Moon (Steam)
4/19: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland (PS3)
4/19: Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match (PS3)
6/19: Steins;Gate (PS3)
7/11: Yoshi’s Woolly World (Wii U)
7/13: Muramasa Rebirth (Vita)
7/13: Strider 2 (PS1 Classics)
7/16: Planetarian ~The Reverie of a Little Planet~ (Steam)
7/16: Narcissu (Steam)
7/26: Crimzon Clover: World Ignition (GOG)
7/28: LocoRoco 2 (PSP)
7/30: Criminal Girls: Invite Only (Vita)
8/1: Pokemon Art Academy (3DS)
8/5: Gal*Gun: Double Peace (PS4)
8/8: Before the Echo (Steam)
8/9: Ironclad (PC DL)
8/9: Star Fox 64 3D (3DS)

Total: 25 games

I got so little sleep last night. Forgive me if these are really short and don't make sense or something

Before the Echo
It's DDR with a twist and a story. In DDR, you have one screen with arrows that you have to hit, but this has three. Each of the screens serve different purposes, like if you hit arrows in the Defence screen then you won't take damage, the Spell screen is for casting spells (which damages the enemy you're attacking), and the Mana screen is for getting more mana to cast spells. It's really neat and I like it. The thing I don't like is that you have a chance to get items after a battle, which are used to craft items. If you want to craft the required items, you HAVE to grind in the later levels. This really sucks considering there are very few songs (many of which I'm not a fan of). Also the story starts off as something sort of interesting (guy wakes up in weird tower and must scale 7 floors to escape), but the ending really was unexpected in a really good way. It would be bad to spoil so I won't. But it's really good.

Overall game is good other than grinding the same songs over and over in the last two or three floors.

Ironclad
A SHMUP! You shoot things and they explode. It can be pretty hard at times but luckily I don't care about using only one credit. I really couldn't tell you pros or cons of this game though, since it feels very similar to all of the SHMUPs I've played (which is fewer than 10 different ones). I can say that it has branching paths, and that's really neat. Yay replayability!

Star Fox 64 3D
I'm not really a big fan of this one. It looks pretty, and it's neat that they have branching paths that aren't just "Choose A" and "Choose B" but I don't think it's my cup of tea. The characters CONSTANTLY talk. They just cannot stop blabbing about the same thing over and over. Plus your buddies do nothing but fly around and whine that they need help. And it's kind of difficult to help them when they fly behind you or somewhere stupid. Also the aiming thing is really odd since it slides down funny. I have to constantly fiddle with the aiming thing or else it goes way too high or too low on where I want to aim. Even if I'm not moving anywhere it's a pain to control.

So buddies are a pain and aiming is a pain. Not a fan. Only reason why I beat it was that it's super short.

Games Beaten in 2016 So Far - 78

January (20 Games Beaten)


February (8 Games Beaten)


March (8 Games Beaten)


April (13 Games Beaten)


May (6 Games Beaten)


June (13 Games Beaten)


July (7 Games Beaten)


August (3 Games Beaten)


79. Breach and Clear - Vita - August 10


Breach and Clear was first a Steam game, then a Vita game, and then the rarest physical Vita game in the world with - IIRC - only 1530 copies in existence (1500 for the initial sale and 30 for the bundle with Breach and Clear: Deadline that went on sale a week or two ago). But what IS it? Well, it's part turn based strategy, part 'Murica sim, and part SRPG. I'll explain what I mean by each of those.



The TBS is the most obvious part. You control each member of your four person fire team individually when you give orders for each turn (called "phases" in the game) that last for five seconds. When all of your orders are given, everyone - your four soldiers as well as however many terrorists are on the map - move at the same time. What determines the combat is what enemies your guys come into contact with (or vice versa), what direction each combatant is facing, and the level of your stats.



Speaking of stats, there are six stats in the game - Accuracy, Reaction, Health, Speed, Evasion, and a class specific stat (more about classes in a moment). The first two are the most important for offense. If you have high reaction but low accuracy, you'll shoot at everything the second it enters your field of vision, but you're not going to hit shit. Conversely, if you have really high accuracy but low reaction, you're not going to realize there's an enemy until he's practically kissing you, but you could hit a squirrel three miles away using a 17th Century musket. Obviously, a balance is best.



The first thing you do when you start is make a four man fire team. You'll first choose which spec ops force you want to use, each specializing in a certain stat - US Army Rangers (health), US Navy SEALs (reaction), US Army Special Forces (speed), Canadian Joint Task Force 2 (accuracy), British Special Air Service (evasion), German Kommando Spezialkräfte (units' special stat), and Russian Spetznaz (health and reaction).



After that, you pick from six classes for each of your four units - Fireteam Leader, Weapons Sergeant, Breacher, Direct Action, Medic, and Intelligence. My team consisted of the Weapons Sergeant -censored so as not to offend- Dickfuck (who used a blue assault rifle), Breacher Douchenozzle Gigacock (who used a green shotgun), Fireteam Leader Barack Obama (who used a gold sniper rifle), and Medic John Cena (who used a hot pink SMG).



Once you make your team, you get into the meat of the game. There are three games modes - one where you kill everybody, one where you defuse bombs in a time limit, and one where you just GTFO. Within each game mode, there are seven locations - Afghanistan, Turkey, Germany, China, Russia, Colombia, and Mexico. Within each location, you have five missions. So you've got a total of 105 missions. There are five difficulties ranging from Very Easy to Very Hard, and for each mission, you can receive between one and four starts based on how quickly you complete it and how your soldiers fared. These stars are used to unlock more missions as well as unlock weapons for purchase from the store.



Now the RPG element comes into play with the experience gained after each mission. After every mission, all of your soldiers - even if they died - are given experience, and each time you level up (up to a cap of 30), you get five skill points to place in any of the six stats. You can turn on permadeath for more experience, but I like to YOLO things way too much to bother with that mess. It's a nice way to specialize certain characters (I focused on speed for my medic, accuracy for my sniper, reaction for my shotgun breacher, etc).



All in all, it's not a bad game at all, and it's great for killing some time while you take a shit for wait in a waiting room, but from what I've read, the Steam version is MUCH better, and it's just okay. You know, maybe 6 out of 10 okay. Definitely not bad. Definitely not something you should rush to the Playstation Store to buy. DEFINITELY not something worth paying the ~$230 it's going for on eBay for the cartridge unless you just HAVE to be able to say that you have the world's rarest Vita game in your collection.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:DEFINITELY not something worth paying the ~$230 it's going for on eBay for the cartridge unless you just HAVE to be able to say that you have the world's rarest Vita game in your collection.

Yeah there's all of ONE copy on Amazon right now for $299.

I think I'll just get my fix with these:

1. The Match Of The Millennium (NGPC)
2. Pocket Tennis Color (NGPC)
3. XCOM 2 (PC)
4. Street Fighter V (PC)
5. Spelunky (PC)
6. Gone Home (PC)
7. Day Of The Tentacle Remastered (PC)
8. Heroes Of The Storm (PC)
9. The Elder Scrolls Legends (PC)
10. Land's End (GearVR)
11. Hearthstone: League Of Explorers (PC)

this is the second HS expansion I've beaten, and the first I bought with my own money. I am almost embarrassed to say I did this for one card that I wanted that I knew I could earn from this expansion. Oh well. I'm glad I did it. The single player HS stuff is fantastic. So unique and challenging and forces you to think about how you build decks. True story: I built a deck called "Stinky Mage" for one of the challenges!

@Elkin: That game looks cool. I'll check it out on Steam.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:


August:

115) Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (WII)
116) Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) (PC)
117) Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (GEN)
118) Streets of Rage (GEN)

Finished Castle of Illusion 'cause it's supposed to be a classic. It's... okay? Not anything super-special, although for a Mickey Mouse game, it's quite good. Tried a bit of the sequel, and thought it was worse. Might still finish it.

Also, I booted up Streets of Rage to listen to the Moon Beach track. And it put the bug in me to finish it. Of course, I did what I always do and blow it right at the end. So I decided to give it another whirl, starting at Round 8 because I'm not going through all that again. I finally have the stupid twin Blaze clones figured out, though, which is awesome. Mr. X is still a pain, but thems the breaks. Good, classic game that a lot of folks don't like anymore for whatever reason, but I still think it's great.