Games you wouldn’t / couldn't beat 2019

[Sload Soap]

I've given up on Soviet and Nuclear Strike. They have some awesomely dopey pure 90s cut-scenes and the structure of earlier Strike games is there but the control is off, they both feel more punishing than even Desert Strike and the graphics are just messy. I don't mind me some dodgy early 3D but there is so much poly warp it's like trying to play in a washing machine. Future Cop LAPD is pretty decent even if it is more arcadey and linear.

[prfsnl_gmr]

FYI...Pac Land is available for the Wii U Virtual Console in NA. They fixed the controls for that release (or, at least, you can configure them to your liking).

[Markies]

HA! I knew I'd find it if I dug deep enough...



I gave up on NES Open Tournament Golf for the NES this Evening!

I really enjoyed golf games. I grew up playing NES Golf and Mario Golf is one of my favorite N64 games. So, when I had heard people talking about NES Open Tournament Golf, it seemed like it would be up my alley. I like that the golf game has a bit of meat on the bones. You can rank up by doing well in courses and you need to collect One Million in earnings to beat the game. Sounds fun!

When you do the first course several times and the lowest score you get is +28, then you have a problem. The presentation is pretty great and I love the little bit of Nintendo characters with Daisy being introduced and Donkey Kong as the accountant. But, I'm just really bad at it and I felt like I was getting worse.

It's a really deep golf game that I was getting lost in. Also, golf is inherent a frustrating game, so that wasn't helping at all. By the end of the last course, I realized that I wasn't having fun and that it would take me days of frustrating hours to get good at the game, I realized that it wasn't worth it. I'd rather move on.

So, I gave up on the game and will sell it back to a Retro Game Store in the next few days.

[Xeogred]

Adventures of Lolo 2 - seems awesome, though I jumped into it immediately after beating the first game. Don't do that, or you'll get burned out like I did. Difficulty picks up after the first and was pretty high. I'll check this one out again someday.

DreadOut - Indonesian Fatal Frame-esque thing... cool atmosphere but lacked polish and all that to me.

Super Cyborg - last level was so long and brutal. Didn't love it in general either, especially when I played it after the glorious Blazing Chrome.

Sonic Colors - it's alright, but I've finally accepted the fact that I never have or will ever care about modern 3D Sonic games.

Wario Land Shake it - I can't get into any of the Wario Land games. Nice artwork though.

Turok 2 - Played the HD version. Like the HD version for the first, this was cool to jump into for a few hours of nostalgia, but it doesn't hold up much for me. Namely with the level design. Everything feels like the same ~5 or so blocky rooms stitched together a dozen times over. Definitely the limitations of the consoles back then, versus 90's FPS's that still hold up very well to me.

Radiant Silvergun - After finally beating Gradius V this year and loving it, I went back and hit up Treasure's popular Radiant Silvergun. This is like the 5th time I've attempted getting into this one and I just don't think it's for me. Not a huge fan of how you immediately have access to like a dozen weapons. I prefer the traditional pace of shmups to build up to power ups and certain sections in levels to get X, etc. But this has a killer Hitoshi Sakimoto OST at least.

Haunting Ground - Really wanted to love this one, the atmosphere and polish is top notch. But the chasing gimmick got old, super fast. On top of visual screen effects which I think is a very lame way to convey "emotions" of any sort, it just makes me dizzy and annoyed.

[Segata]

Xenon Racer.

It looked like such a cool arcade racer with a 90s feel. It ran so poorly on Switch,it's since been patched to run better but it's still not very good. Top it off the handling is so poor. I tried it on PC and it looked nice there but handling still really sucked. It's really tough to not crash into walls on turns. It's just not a good game but it has a great look to it.


Contra Rogue Corps.

I was willing to forgive the ugly visuals. I knew the game looked rough but I thought it still might be a fun shooter. It reminded me of Expendable on Dreamcast. I really enjoyed that game on DC. Then I play the game and it has this terrible cooldown mechanic. It plays awful. Bad camera. Bad aiming. Then it has this layered and messy crafting system and all these stupid mechanics which make a Contra game convoluted, look as pixelated as a SEGA CD FMV game. It's not even remotely fun.

[pook99]

Here is a complete list of games I hated this year and refused to finish for one reason or another. Not all of these games are bad, some I will acknowledge are good and just not for me (prey for example), but there is a lot of 50 cent indie trash on this list as well.

1) McKids (nes)
2) Hopkipo
3) Chop is dish
4) Prey
5) Ape Escape (ps1)
6) Citadale: the ancestral strain
7. walking vegetables
Haxor
9) Guardian legend (nes)
10) Gunmetal arcadia
11) Magnetized knight
12) Soviet Souls
13) Mega Man CX (hack)
14) bloody trapland 2
15) Thunderforce 3 (genesis)
16) Bitmaster
17) Extinction
18) Way of the samurai 4
19) Hellblade: senuas sacrfice
20) Shinobi Bad Buddies
21) Wolfenstein: young blood
22) Speedbot
23) Stigmat
24) Standby
25) Caveman world: mountains of uunga boonga
26) Electronic Super Joy 2
27) Contra advance (gba)
28) Squarehead
29) Bloodstained: ritual of the night
30) final speciman