racketboy.com

1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)
2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)
3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)
4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)
5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)
6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)
7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
9. Shadowgrounds: Survivor (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
10. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (SNES)(RPG)
11. BioShock (PC)(FPS)
12. Jeopardy! Sports Edition (SNES)(Game Show Sim)
13. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (PC)(FPS)
14. Thief Gold (PC)(Stealth)
15. Call of Duty 2 (PC)(FPS)
16. Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (PC)(RPG)
17. Alone in the Dark (PC)(Survival Horror)
18. Silent Hill (PS1)(Survival Horror)
19. Sanitarium (PC)(Point-and-Click Adventure/Horror)
20. Gauntlet: Slayer Edition(PC)(Hack and Slash)
21. Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)(Fighting)
22. Ultima II (PC)(RPG)
23. System Shock (PC)(Action RPG)
24. DOOM (PC)(FPS)

I admit, I have been looking forward to this since the game was officially announced in 2008. Why? Because Doom is what got me into the FPS genre back in 1993. The first thing my family did when we got internet access was to tie up the phone line for 24 hours so we could download Doom. Mom wasn't happy about it, but once I found myself knee deep in the dead, it was over. The FPS became a lifelong calling.

It's been nearly 25 years of blood, sweat, and gore since then, and I am happy to say that the thrills I got from showing a Cacodemon what his insides look like are still there, only now it's way more mobile in ways we could only dream of back in the early days of id. Then, the Z-Axis was actually a manipulation, a design to make you think you were running up stairs or falling into pits. You didn't so much auto-aim as shoot straight and have the game register that you were shooting an enemy above you. Now we no longer have that problem, and DOOM excels at emphasizing its vertical game. You are fast, you are agile, you can double-jump, and you're going to have to, because your enemies are also surprisingly light on their feet...or they have jet packs.

That's ok though, because you have a vast array of options for which to murder them. Some of those options are old school holdouts from the good old days. Some, like the hand grenade, became popular in subsequent years of FPS design. And some are modifications of old ideas to create something new, such as the vast array of glory kills, the chainsaw and BFG as special weapons with defined tactical purpose, and the wide array of upgrades across a variety of spectrums to make sure everyone knows just how much of a mean mother you really are. You need a full reload? Chainsaw time. You need to clear a room? BFG time. You need to give yourself some kind of modification to help shape how you play the game? You got runes, suit upgrades, and weapon mods to help shape your playstyle. Really, there are quite a few ways to get through this game and make yourself into the freaking Predator. By the time I was done, I had built myself around armor usage and infinite ammo with the chaingun on turret mode. 3 mini-guns on full bore would shred whole rooms of hellspawn like paper with that build.

I really like this game. It sates a thirst for blood. It may have a silly plot(it does), and it may be an absolute freaking beast of a game for computing power(we have entered the age where the minimum suggested requirement is 8GB of RAM and the games take up over 50GB of space. Good God), but damn does it feel good to find out what color those ugly critters' internal organs are.

And that's just the base campaign. There are also hidden unlockables offering up a variety of challenges, classic maps from Doom and Doom 2 that can be found and then played through, an entire world of user-made content to explore and mess around in, and then Deathmatch. Not multiplayer, Deathmatch. I don't care if it's a game of capture the flag, Doom gave us the name. It gets to wear the crown.

Do I have any complaints? Well, the story is silly, and a couple of times you get bogged down waiting for it. Sitting in that one guy's office as he explains plot at you was...well, it was keeping me from killing time. And yes, I played with half of the minimum required RAM. Watching the frame rate fluctuate between triple and single digits was occasionally hilarious, and having been a relatively poor kid growing up, I got used to playing newer games with older hardware. My brother once beat Aliens versus Predator 2 with a single digit framerate, I can deal with a bit of chop. Enemies did get some curious revamping, so now Pinky takes much more to kill than he used to. In fact it feels like the Revenant and the Pinky got swapped in terms of power. I remember the skeleton in boxer shorts being a much harder opponent to take out, but he's pretty much Hell's shocktrooper now. Unfortunately not everyone makes a return; so long, Arch-Vile, you've been replaced with a summoner who effectively fills your slot.

But the real test for me? I have a personal belief: any FPS is only as good as its shotgun. The double-barrel here was my go-to pain-stick, and I painted Mars a lot redder with blood thanks to it. It makes shit die. God bless buckshot.

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)
119) Technobabylon (PC)

A decent enough adventure game set in a rather morally bankrupt future. Like much cyberpunk stuff, then! I really don't want to go into too much detail, because it would require a lot more discussion of a political and philosophical nature. I just know that it's a future I want no part of.

It plays like a standard LucasArts-style game, and most of the puzzles make a pretty good amount of sense. The ones that don't require you to think a bit more along the lines of that particular world, utilizing the "Trance" (virtual reality) in several instances. I suspect folks that have read Neuromancer (I haven't) would probably be more in tune with what's expected here. Which reminds me that I should probably do that someday.

Nice to see Sarge playing an adventure game.

Sarge wrote: I suspect folks that have read Neuromancer (I haven't) would probably be more in tune with what's expected here. Which reminds me that I should probably do that someday.

The last time I read through Neuromancer was about three years ago, and I was conflicted. It's a badly written book full of brilliant ideas. It starts off well enough, but once Case leaves Chiba City it all starts to fall apart (from a well written literature perspective). I think Gibson rewrote the book too many times, overly condensing his prose by cutting out too much fat (hence excising logical segues). Anyway, reading a synopsis of Neuromancer's core principles would probably be the best idea. Neuromancer is important as an academic piece, but a chore to endure. If you want to read an actually pleasurable cyberpunk book you might enjoy this:

Snow Crash is brilliant.

Yeah, as a narrative Neuromancer is really rough. But all the ideas did a shitton to shape the cyberpunk genre.

I will add that Neuromancer did at least influence Billy Idol to make some cool songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX6GMulgCIU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx2fZU5USus

I still love Neuromancer, if only because the ideas are so incredible. I actually initially read it in an academic setting, and when comparing it directly to the likes of Ecotopia, Brave New World, and Stranger in a Strange Land, I found I preferred Gibson's chaotic style. It has a weird energy to it that I enjoyed, in the way I enjoyed watching Akira dubbed and subtitled at the same time to get two different plots in a movie that only condenses half.

Games Beaten in 2016 So Far - 80

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 (5 Games Beaten)


80. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Gamecube - August 12


I had always heard great things about this game, but I never owned it myself, and I knew exactly what it was. I won an eBay auction for it for $26 not long ago (I decided to look for it since it's a pretty major cult classic GCN exclusive), so I decided that I'd give it a play immediately before it got lost in the dark recesses of my backlog (sorry, Dino Crisis 2...I'll play you eventually, I swear). I'm not sure how exactly I'd describe the game, but it's not what I was expecting (and I mean that in a good way).


I wish this were a real thing...

Most of what I had heard and seen online was comparisons to Resident Evil, so I went into the game expecting a survival horror game that would keep me constantly on edge. I definitely see why that comparison is made - it plays almost exactly like Resident Evil - but I'm not sure that's a good comparison when talking about the feel of the game. Eternal Darkness is definitely a very foreboding game, but I'm not sure "horror" fits it like it does with Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Dead Space. It's a very creepy and atmospheric game, but it's not a "scary" game. As I dug deeper, I started to see some people describe it as "Lovecraftian," and I think that's a much more apt description as it very much has the feel of a Lovecraft work. While it kept on edge less than Resident Evil, the story had me MUCH more interested, the characters were better developed (though not perfect), and I found it an overall more engrossing game than I was expecting.



I'm not going to spend too much time on the plot so as to avoid spoilers in case anyone else has joined me on the SS Late-to-the-Game on this one, but the basic plot is that you have stop an immortal zombie guy from summoning an evil god to destroy the world. The story revolves around the Tome of Eternal Darkness, and the game is largely broken into a number of chapters taking place in various locations around the world and times throughout history. Each chapter follows a different character, but it all ties back to Alex in 2000 CE Rhode Island as the main character around whom the story revolves. It's an uncommon method of storytelling in games, and one that I usually am not fond of, but it works quite well here.



If you want a horror game, this is NOT the game for you. If you want a dark game, however, then look no further than Eternal Darkness. It's got a good amount of its own lore that you learn throughout the game, and the narrative is like a book that you can't put down because you just have to know what happens next.

Now you need to do it two more times for the real ending.

Or just YouTube that sucker. I know I did... many years after I finished it.

Eternal Darkness was really fun, but you're right. It's not in the same vein as Resident Evil and its ilk. It's dark, moody, but not as predicated on jump scares so much as a general atmosphere of mucking around with stuff you probably shouldn't; basically an overbearing sense of foreboding. Another game that pulled this off very well was Alan Wake. I tend to like "horror" games of those types much more than the zombie-infested, scare-the-pants-off-of-you types.

I almost never experienced any of the sanity effects, because the way I played, I was very effectively able to manage the meter. So I missed out on some cool stuff.