Games Beaten 2020
Re: Games Beaten 2020
...just wrapped up Mega Man 8 (via Mega Man Legacy Vol 2). I've been working my way through the series and 8 has to be one of the most difficult, especially the snow boarding sections.
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Markies
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 1410
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:29 pm
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Markies' Games Beat List Of 2020!
*Denotes Replay For Completion*
1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)
2. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
3. Contra: Hard Corps (GEN)
4. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)
5. Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (NES)
6. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (PS2)
***7. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)***
***8. Cruis'N USA (N64)***
9. Arc The Lad Collection (PS1)
10. Halo 2 (XBOX)
11. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings And The Lost Ocean (GCN)
12. DuckTales 2 (NES)
13. Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
14. Rocket Knight Adventures (GEN)
***15. Skies of Arcadia (SDC)***
16. Dragon Quest V (SNES)
17. Marvel Vs. Capcom (PS1)
***18. Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition (GEN)***
19. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (XBOX)
20. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
21. Flatout 2 (PS2)
22. Mr. Driller (SDC)
23. Blast Corps (N64)
24. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (GCN)
25. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (PS2)
26. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
27. Jet Set Radio Future (XBOX)
I beat Jet Set Radio Future on the Microsoft XBOX this afternoon.
Jet Grind Radio was one of the first games I picked up when I bought myself a DreamCast. I had always heard good things about the game and seemed like an easier way to get into the Skateboarding/Rollerblading genre of games. I did enjoy my experience with the game though there were parts where it got a bit frustrating. Once I got my XBOX, I knew that I wanted to pick up the sequel, but I could never find a stand alone copy. It came bundled Sega GT 2002 and I wanted its own copy, so I finally just decided to order it online as that would the easiest way. Wanting a little break between my RPG's, I decided to put the game in and see it how played.
Even though Future takes away much of the tension of the original, I think I enjoyed the sequel in almost every way. They took away the timer that you needed to beat in every single level from the first one and made it much more free roaming. Also, the police are huddled in one position on the map instead of constantly following you in the first game. All of this leads to a much slower experience where you can enjoy the scenery and the music. With cell shaded graphics that still look nice and a nicely varied soundtrack, there is much to enjoy regarding the visuals and sound department. The best part of the game is when you are doing exactly what the game wants you to do. When you are tagging graffiti left and right, jumping from rail to rail and going exactly where the game wants you to go, it is an incredibly satisfying experience and my favorite part of these types of games.
However, once you deviate from the path, it gets a little frustrating. The game doesn't always make clear where the best path to go, so you can get lost and the map makes it hard to find where you need to go. Also, the boss fights and enemies aren't really hard as there is health and ammo everywhere. But, it does take a while and that will begin to wear on you as well.
Overall, even though the game is much easier, I enjoyed Jet Set Radio Future and probably think its better than Jet Set Radio. The game has an unbelievable flow to it and the fleeing of zipping across the city skyline is unparalleled. It brought a smile to my face and was mostly a joy to play besides some annoyances here and there. If you are interested in the series, this is a good option to start, especially if you are intimated by other extreme sports games.
*Denotes Replay For Completion*
1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)
2. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
3. Contra: Hard Corps (GEN)
4. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)
5. Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (NES)
6. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (PS2)
***7. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)***
***8. Cruis'N USA (N64)***
9. Arc The Lad Collection (PS1)
10. Halo 2 (XBOX)
11. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings And The Lost Ocean (GCN)
12. DuckTales 2 (NES)
13. Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
14. Rocket Knight Adventures (GEN)
***15. Skies of Arcadia (SDC)***
16. Dragon Quest V (SNES)
17. Marvel Vs. Capcom (PS1)
***18. Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition (GEN)***
19. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (XBOX)
20. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
21. Flatout 2 (PS2)
22. Mr. Driller (SDC)
23. Blast Corps (N64)
24. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (GCN)
25. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (PS2)
26. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
27. Jet Set Radio Future (XBOX)
I beat Jet Set Radio Future on the Microsoft XBOX this afternoon.
Jet Grind Radio was one of the first games I picked up when I bought myself a DreamCast. I had always heard good things about the game and seemed like an easier way to get into the Skateboarding/Rollerblading genre of games. I did enjoy my experience with the game though there were parts where it got a bit frustrating. Once I got my XBOX, I knew that I wanted to pick up the sequel, but I could never find a stand alone copy. It came bundled Sega GT 2002 and I wanted its own copy, so I finally just decided to order it online as that would the easiest way. Wanting a little break between my RPG's, I decided to put the game in and see it how played.
Even though Future takes away much of the tension of the original, I think I enjoyed the sequel in almost every way. They took away the timer that you needed to beat in every single level from the first one and made it much more free roaming. Also, the police are huddled in one position on the map instead of constantly following you in the first game. All of this leads to a much slower experience where you can enjoy the scenery and the music. With cell shaded graphics that still look nice and a nicely varied soundtrack, there is much to enjoy regarding the visuals and sound department. The best part of the game is when you are doing exactly what the game wants you to do. When you are tagging graffiti left and right, jumping from rail to rail and going exactly where the game wants you to go, it is an incredibly satisfying experience and my favorite part of these types of games.
However, once you deviate from the path, it gets a little frustrating. The game doesn't always make clear where the best path to go, so you can get lost and the map makes it hard to find where you need to go. Also, the boss fights and enemies aren't really hard as there is health and ammo everywhere. But, it does take a while and that will begin to wear on you as well.
Overall, even though the game is much easier, I enjoyed Jet Set Radio Future and probably think its better than Jet Set Radio. The game has an unbelievable flow to it and the fleeing of zipping across the city skyline is unparalleled. It brought a smile to my face and was mostly a joy to play besides some annoyances here and there. If you are interested in the series, this is a good option to start, especially if you are intimated by other extreme sports games.
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PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2988
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
Back in March, a close friend of mine played through most of NeverDead on stream. He didn't have a great time, but me and his Twitch community made it into a meme that we still use all the time. This being the case, I thought it was my duty to play through the game myself someday as a rite of passage ;b. I really wanted to stream the game myself when I did it, and I finally got a capture card that could properly do that the other day, so this weekend's stream was NeverDead~. I played through half the game on stream and then the other half on my own time (streamed privately to my friends on Discord). I played the Japanese version of the game in basically one sitting over the course of 7.5 hours.
NeverDead is the story of Bryce Boltzman who, as the title describes, cannot die. He was a demon hunter 500 years ago, but the king of demons killed Bryce's sorcerer wife and made Bryce himself immortal as a punishment for daring to stand against him. Now it's modern day, and Bryce has still been hunting demons to get by. He's a jaded, womanizing, one liner-spitting jerk who works for the National Anti Demon Agency (NADA) with his partner Arcadia. Only one day, they come across a case that keeps escalating and escalating until the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and Bryce seems like he'll have a chance for revenge on the king of demons after all.
Narratively, NeverDead really isn't a game with a whole lot to say. Bryce is never anything much more than a selfish jerk, although he does do some selfless acts throughout the game. He's definitely either a character you'll hate or somewhat love because of just what an unashamed jerk he is XD. I played the game in Japanese, and the Japanese voice cast and English voice casts are about the same, all except for the demon Sangria who is 10000% better in English. He has a campy Southern drawl and he also dresses SUPER camp, and his theme is easily the best song in the game. He utterly steals every scene he's in, and he's amazing XD. NeverDead REALLY clearly wants to be Konami's Devil May Cry with Bryce as its Dante, and it just doesn't quite work ^^;. It's not awful, but it's not gonna change anyone's life. It's just another part of what makes NeverDead, as my friend puts it, "an eminently playable game."
Gameplay-wise, NeverDead is nine stages of action gameplay (with mercifully almost no platforming at all). But of course, it's all wrapped around the main gimmick of being unable to die, so you have no health bar. Instead, when you take enough damage (and this is entirely up to the game, so it can feel quite arbitrary at times), Bryce will lose that body part. If you still have your torso, you can dodge roll over your limbs to have them sucked back to you, but if you're just a head, you need to find your way back to your neck stump to get your body back (you can't just touch the body anywhere). You can also find a powerup lying around the stages or just wait long enough and the bar in the lower right will fill up, and then you can just pop a new body or regrow your missing limbs out of their stumps and you're good as new~. It's an intriguing mechanic, and being a head able to pick up (but not do anything really with) all four of your limbs and floppily roll around with them is hilarious, but I'm not sure it's ever used to all that much effect, good or bad.
Even though Bryce can't die, there is still a fail state mechanic in the game, of course. This comes in the form of the ever present, rolly-polly Grand Baby enemies that come in twos in every combat encounter and will respawn infinitely. If there's a limb you dropped, they'll suck it in like Kirby and run off with it (you can even keep firing your gun and it'll fire using the arm they've taken XD). However, if they get your head, you need to win a mini-game to not die. If you do the timing correctly, it launches you out and you're back to trying to get back to your body, but if you fail, that's it. You've gotta load a checkpoint. Winning the mini-game isn't THAT hard, but it can be finicky, and that one timing mini-game being all that separates you from continuing can be pretty annoying. I don't think the game is all that hard, and the game is pretty good about checkpoints and load times, but it's still one of the biggest irritators with the game. The Grand Babys themselves are actually pretty cool as far as enemies go, as they're actually tiny rolling bombs. If you smack them away with your sword, they'll impact and detonate on whatever they hit, with a much bigger blast if they're on fire. Granted, those blasts can also hurt you, but it's a neat way the game gives you to deal with some more annoying enemies.
As far as the combat itself goes, Bryce has both his butterfly blade sword and guns, and you can swap between them with the triangle button. He is always wielding two guns at once, and a cool thing throughout the game is that you can find hidden extra guns to allow you to dual wield some of the nicer ones instead of just using two different ones (which also works nice). You can even find upgrades to your butterfly blade. Your sword works by holding down L1 to enter an attacking stance, locking the camera in front of you/to your target, and then you slash the right stick in a direction that you want to swing the sword. It's almost like Skyward Sword's motion controls but bound to a button. That said, this directional sword swinging is never used for any real gameplay benefit. There aren't puzzles based around it, and not even really enemies who you need to all that methodically fight by tactically slashing. I would just spin the right stick when I was in sword mode and go to town on stuff, which I thought was fun enough XD.
One last purely combat-focused aspect the game was quite proud of during its development was its destructible environments. While fighting, you and your enemies can blow big chunks out of furniture, the walls, and even the floors, and if it falls on stuff it'll hurt them. It's not something the game really pushes to the point where it's a defining aspect of the gameplay, but its present enough that it was something I was always looking for when a tough enemy spawner happened to show up. It varies up the combat enough to matter, for sure, but it ain't exactly writing any new books on game design.
The game also has an XP system where you get XP for getting collectibles in stages as well as for just killing enemies, and you can use that to buy passive abilities to equip at any time via the pause menu. These can be anything from just stronger gun or sword power to something like adding a new mechanic like being able to remotely detonate thrown limbs. The thing is, I really only ever found going ham on stuff with my sword as reasonably effective in a fight. Guns COULD be okay, but you generally wanted to save your bullets (especially in your good guns) for bosses (who are by and large pretty or entirely resistant to sword swings because of how quickly they break you apart when you get close). You get plenty of XP to buy more abilities, but you can equip quite few at a time, and going into your inventory to swap them out is a pretty clunky experience. The ability system is neat and has some cool aspects to it, but overall it feels like the most half-baked of NeverDead's mechanical arsenal.
Presentation-wise, it has a very Darksiders sort of "colorful post-apocalypse" vibe going on to it. It doesn't look terrible on the PS3, but it has no shortage of screen tearing, and you can also hit some pretty decent framerate dips if there's a LOT going on, but they never affected gameplay that meaningfully for me. There aren't a ton of enemy types, but what's here is fine for the 7-8 hours you'll spend with the game. The main theme for the game was written by MegaDeath, and is kinda very funny (it feels like it'd be in a 3D Sonic game or something XD), but the game's instrumentals that play during battle are on the whole pretty good. There are a couple tracks like Sangria's that are really stand-out excellent, but for the most part it's just fun butt-rock that's a nice back drop to monster killing.
Verdict: Recommended. I'm really torn on how much to recommend this game, because for as much as I enjoyed playing it, NeverDead reviewed and sold poorly for a reason. It's not a game really "for" anyone in particular. It's a decent action game without any really compelling hooks, it's got a really forgettable multiplayer mode online (now defunct, I believe), and the story is just whatever. It's great for the used bargin bin these days, but I have a very easy time understanding while people were very underwhelmed by it back when it first came out in 2012. Given what a good time I had playing it and my friends had watching it, I'm gonna give it a recommended verdict here. While it's not gonna set anyone's world on fire, it's a pretty fun way to spend a Sunday with a game you spent five bucks on.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
Back in March, a close friend of mine played through most of NeverDead on stream. He didn't have a great time, but me and his Twitch community made it into a meme that we still use all the time. This being the case, I thought it was my duty to play through the game myself someday as a rite of passage ;b. I really wanted to stream the game myself when I did it, and I finally got a capture card that could properly do that the other day, so this weekend's stream was NeverDead~. I played through half the game on stream and then the other half on my own time (streamed privately to my friends on Discord). I played the Japanese version of the game in basically one sitting over the course of 7.5 hours.
NeverDead is the story of Bryce Boltzman who, as the title describes, cannot die. He was a demon hunter 500 years ago, but the king of demons killed Bryce's sorcerer wife and made Bryce himself immortal as a punishment for daring to stand against him. Now it's modern day, and Bryce has still been hunting demons to get by. He's a jaded, womanizing, one liner-spitting jerk who works for the National Anti Demon Agency (NADA) with his partner Arcadia. Only one day, they come across a case that keeps escalating and escalating until the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and Bryce seems like he'll have a chance for revenge on the king of demons after all.
Narratively, NeverDead really isn't a game with a whole lot to say. Bryce is never anything much more than a selfish jerk, although he does do some selfless acts throughout the game. He's definitely either a character you'll hate or somewhat love because of just what an unashamed jerk he is XD. I played the game in Japanese, and the Japanese voice cast and English voice casts are about the same, all except for the demon Sangria who is 10000% better in English. He has a campy Southern drawl and he also dresses SUPER camp, and his theme is easily the best song in the game. He utterly steals every scene he's in, and he's amazing XD. NeverDead REALLY clearly wants to be Konami's Devil May Cry with Bryce as its Dante, and it just doesn't quite work ^^;. It's not awful, but it's not gonna change anyone's life. It's just another part of what makes NeverDead, as my friend puts it, "an eminently playable game."
Gameplay-wise, NeverDead is nine stages of action gameplay (with mercifully almost no platforming at all). But of course, it's all wrapped around the main gimmick of being unable to die, so you have no health bar. Instead, when you take enough damage (and this is entirely up to the game, so it can feel quite arbitrary at times), Bryce will lose that body part. If you still have your torso, you can dodge roll over your limbs to have them sucked back to you, but if you're just a head, you need to find your way back to your neck stump to get your body back (you can't just touch the body anywhere). You can also find a powerup lying around the stages or just wait long enough and the bar in the lower right will fill up, and then you can just pop a new body or regrow your missing limbs out of their stumps and you're good as new~. It's an intriguing mechanic, and being a head able to pick up (but not do anything really with) all four of your limbs and floppily roll around with them is hilarious, but I'm not sure it's ever used to all that much effect, good or bad.
Even though Bryce can't die, there is still a fail state mechanic in the game, of course. This comes in the form of the ever present, rolly-polly Grand Baby enemies that come in twos in every combat encounter and will respawn infinitely. If there's a limb you dropped, they'll suck it in like Kirby and run off with it (you can even keep firing your gun and it'll fire using the arm they've taken XD). However, if they get your head, you need to win a mini-game to not die. If you do the timing correctly, it launches you out and you're back to trying to get back to your body, but if you fail, that's it. You've gotta load a checkpoint. Winning the mini-game isn't THAT hard, but it can be finicky, and that one timing mini-game being all that separates you from continuing can be pretty annoying. I don't think the game is all that hard, and the game is pretty good about checkpoints and load times, but it's still one of the biggest irritators with the game. The Grand Babys themselves are actually pretty cool as far as enemies go, as they're actually tiny rolling bombs. If you smack them away with your sword, they'll impact and detonate on whatever they hit, with a much bigger blast if they're on fire. Granted, those blasts can also hurt you, but it's a neat way the game gives you to deal with some more annoying enemies.
As far as the combat itself goes, Bryce has both his butterfly blade sword and guns, and you can swap between them with the triangle button. He is always wielding two guns at once, and a cool thing throughout the game is that you can find hidden extra guns to allow you to dual wield some of the nicer ones instead of just using two different ones (which also works nice). You can even find upgrades to your butterfly blade. Your sword works by holding down L1 to enter an attacking stance, locking the camera in front of you/to your target, and then you slash the right stick in a direction that you want to swing the sword. It's almost like Skyward Sword's motion controls but bound to a button. That said, this directional sword swinging is never used for any real gameplay benefit. There aren't puzzles based around it, and not even really enemies who you need to all that methodically fight by tactically slashing. I would just spin the right stick when I was in sword mode and go to town on stuff, which I thought was fun enough XD.
One last purely combat-focused aspect the game was quite proud of during its development was its destructible environments. While fighting, you and your enemies can blow big chunks out of furniture, the walls, and even the floors, and if it falls on stuff it'll hurt them. It's not something the game really pushes to the point where it's a defining aspect of the gameplay, but its present enough that it was something I was always looking for when a tough enemy spawner happened to show up. It varies up the combat enough to matter, for sure, but it ain't exactly writing any new books on game design.
The game also has an XP system where you get XP for getting collectibles in stages as well as for just killing enemies, and you can use that to buy passive abilities to equip at any time via the pause menu. These can be anything from just stronger gun or sword power to something like adding a new mechanic like being able to remotely detonate thrown limbs. The thing is, I really only ever found going ham on stuff with my sword as reasonably effective in a fight. Guns COULD be okay, but you generally wanted to save your bullets (especially in your good guns) for bosses (who are by and large pretty or entirely resistant to sword swings because of how quickly they break you apart when you get close). You get plenty of XP to buy more abilities, but you can equip quite few at a time, and going into your inventory to swap them out is a pretty clunky experience. The ability system is neat and has some cool aspects to it, but overall it feels like the most half-baked of NeverDead's mechanical arsenal.
Presentation-wise, it has a very Darksiders sort of "colorful post-apocalypse" vibe going on to it. It doesn't look terrible on the PS3, but it has no shortage of screen tearing, and you can also hit some pretty decent framerate dips if there's a LOT going on, but they never affected gameplay that meaningfully for me. There aren't a ton of enemy types, but what's here is fine for the 7-8 hours you'll spend with the game. The main theme for the game was written by MegaDeath, and is kinda very funny (it feels like it'd be in a 3D Sonic game or something XD), but the game's instrumentals that play during battle are on the whole pretty good. There are a couple tracks like Sangria's that are really stand-out excellent, but for the most part it's just fun butt-rock that's a nice back drop to monster killing.
Verdict: Recommended. I'm really torn on how much to recommend this game, because for as much as I enjoyed playing it, NeverDead reviewed and sold poorly for a reason. It's not a game really "for" anyone in particular. It's a decent action game without any really compelling hooks, it's got a really forgettable multiplayer mode online (now defunct, I believe), and the story is just whatever. It's great for the used bargin bin these days, but I have a very easy time understanding while people were very underwhelmed by it back when it first came out in 2012. Given what a good time I had playing it and my friends had watching it, I'm gonna give it a recommended verdict here. While it's not gonna set anyone's world on fire, it's a pretty fun way to spend a Sunday with a game you spent five bucks on.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
-
Markies
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 1410
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:29 pm
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Markies' Games Beat List Of 2020!
*Denotes Replay For Completion*
1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)
2. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
3. Contra: Hard Corps (GEN)
4. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)
5. Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (NES)
6. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (PS2)
***7. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)***
***8. Cruis'N USA (N64)***
9. Arc The Lad Collection (PS1)
10. Halo 2 (XBOX)
11. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings And The Lost Ocean (GCN)
12. DuckTales 2 (NES)
13. Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
14. Rocket Knight Adventures (GEN)
***15. Skies of Arcadia (SDC)***
16. Dragon Quest V (SNES)
17. Marvel Vs. Capcom (PS1)
***18. Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition (GEN)***
19. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (XBOX)
20. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
21. Flatout 2 (PS2)
22. Mr. Driller (SDC)
23. Blast Corps (N64)
24. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (GCN)
25. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (PS2)
26. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
27. Jet Set Radio Future (XBOX)
28. River City Ransom (NES)
I completed River City Ransom on the Nintendo Entertainment System this evening!
My friend bought River City Ransom many years ago and I remember playing it one evening. It's not exactly a short game and he doesn't have much patience, so we beat a few of the first bosses, ran into the wall and that was the end of it. Well, after watching some friends playing it and always being interested in it myself, I decided to pick it up at a local convention. I didn't know what to expect going into the game single player, but I was willing to try and after changing my perspective on the game, I was able to beat it pretty easily.
River City Ransom combines two of my favorite genres: RPG's and Beat 'Em Ups. You roam around town beating up your foes and collecting the money they drop. You then spend that money at local towns to boost your stats. For somebody that has played a ton of RPG's, this felt really backwards. Besides money, there was no reason to fight somebody. You don't get experience points or levels or even stat points from defeating enemies. You get that from eating food, reading magazines or listening to CD's. Once again, I ran into that difficult wall that plagued my friend and I. So, I turned it into a RPG, grinded all my stats until they were maxed and then just raced to the finish while destroying all of the bosses at the same time. It was pretty fun to do it. I like all of the items you can buy in the shops as they are all unique. Also, reading your enemies last lines as they yell "BARF!" never gets old.
However, the combat and action in the game does get a little old. You do the same thing throughout the entire game. Even the bosses aren't much different as they just have more stats than the regular enemies. But, the most annoying aspect of the game is when you get knocked down. The enemies swarm on you and can deplete your entire health bar while it takes forever for you to get back up. It happened several times and was incredibly frustrating.
Overall, I had fun with River City Ransom. The game has novel concept, even if that concept is a little thin. But, it is a nice change of pace for a Beat 'Em Up and a RPG. Also, one of the final bosses played the Double Dragon music, so that was amazing! But, if you want something a little bit more in your Beat 'Em Up and don't mind putting in the time to do some grinding, then River City Ransom might breathe some fresh air.
*Denotes Replay For Completion*
1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)
2. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
3. Contra: Hard Corps (GEN)
4. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)
5. Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (NES)
6. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (PS2)
***7. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)***
***8. Cruis'N USA (N64)***
9. Arc The Lad Collection (PS1)
10. Halo 2 (XBOX)
11. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings And The Lost Ocean (GCN)
12. DuckTales 2 (NES)
13. Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
14. Rocket Knight Adventures (GEN)
***15. Skies of Arcadia (SDC)***
16. Dragon Quest V (SNES)
17. Marvel Vs. Capcom (PS1)
***18. Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition (GEN)***
19. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (XBOX)
20. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
21. Flatout 2 (PS2)
22. Mr. Driller (SDC)
23. Blast Corps (N64)
24. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (GCN)
25. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (PS2)
26. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
27. Jet Set Radio Future (XBOX)
28. River City Ransom (NES)
I completed River City Ransom on the Nintendo Entertainment System this evening!
My friend bought River City Ransom many years ago and I remember playing it one evening. It's not exactly a short game and he doesn't have much patience, so we beat a few of the first bosses, ran into the wall and that was the end of it. Well, after watching some friends playing it and always being interested in it myself, I decided to pick it up at a local convention. I didn't know what to expect going into the game single player, but I was willing to try and after changing my perspective on the game, I was able to beat it pretty easily.
River City Ransom combines two of my favorite genres: RPG's and Beat 'Em Ups. You roam around town beating up your foes and collecting the money they drop. You then spend that money at local towns to boost your stats. For somebody that has played a ton of RPG's, this felt really backwards. Besides money, there was no reason to fight somebody. You don't get experience points or levels or even stat points from defeating enemies. You get that from eating food, reading magazines or listening to CD's. Once again, I ran into that difficult wall that plagued my friend and I. So, I turned it into a RPG, grinded all my stats until they were maxed and then just raced to the finish while destroying all of the bosses at the same time. It was pretty fun to do it. I like all of the items you can buy in the shops as they are all unique. Also, reading your enemies last lines as they yell "BARF!" never gets old.
However, the combat and action in the game does get a little old. You do the same thing throughout the entire game. Even the bosses aren't much different as they just have more stats than the regular enemies. But, the most annoying aspect of the game is when you get knocked down. The enemies swarm on you and can deplete your entire health bar while it takes forever for you to get back up. It happened several times and was incredibly frustrating.
Overall, I had fun with River City Ransom. The game has novel concept, even if that concept is a little thin. But, it is a nice change of pace for a Beat 'Em Up and a RPG. Also, one of the final bosses played the Double Dragon music, so that was amazing! But, if you want something a little bit more in your Beat 'Em Up and don't mind putting in the time to do some grinding, then River City Ransom might breathe some fresh air.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
First 50:
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
76. The Bard's Tale IV - PC
77. Outbuddies - Switch
78. Ghostrunner - PC
Ghostrunner is what you get when you add a sword to Mirror's Edge and rebalance things so combat isn't a "what to do when you fail at the parkour". It's quite fun, but it demands a level of skill and reflex that Mirror's Edge does not, so you should be comfortable with first person games before picking this one up.
The basic premise is that you are a cybog ninja called a Ghostrunner and you need to climb a giant tower/arcology where the remnants of humanity are after some giant disaster so you can take out the evil leader who wants to do bad things to the people. It's not terribly deep but it gets the job done. It's mostly to give you an excuse to run, jump, and slice your way through the levels.
As mentioned, the game starts off inspired by Mirror's Edge. Lots of wall running, mantling, riding ziplines, and using a new grapple hook to get a vertical boost. What sets this game apart is it is much more combat focused. Now, everything in the game is one hit kill, both you on enemies and enemies on you. So these sections end up becoming much more of a deadly obstacle course where you have to integrate killing enemies into your route. In terms of tools to handle them you have the ability to block a projectile with a well timed slice, a variety of powers you unlock that give you a longer range option, and the ability to slow time in midair to slowly strafe and then transition into a quick burst forward to slice them down. The enemies start off basic and slowly gain abilities over time, such as melee enemies that can jump to you or enemies with shield you need to get behind. The rooms can get hard, but there is always a path that will give you the opportunity to kill enemies in the right order to keep you from getting nailed in the back.
The game also has a handful of boss fights. The first is just a straight obstacle course while the other two test your abilities to dodge attacks until an opening is revealed. The second boss fight is bereft of checkpoints for some reason, which ends up making it the most frustrating, but still doable. And that brings me to the last thing the game does well; a massive number of checkpoints right before and right after combat sections and in the middle of boss fights that you can instantly respawn to if you die with no loading. You're going to die a lot in this game, but failure is to be embraced so you can try again next time and do better. The only time they drop the ball on this is in the second boss fight, as the length is such that at least one checkpoint in the middle would be good, though admittedly there is a complication of where to put it that the other fights don't have (though you could just as easily adjust the fight a bit to allow for it.
All in all it is a well crafted game from a small studio that delivers entirely on what it promises. If you enjoyed Mirror's Edge I can highly recommend this one.
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
76. The Bard's Tale IV - PC
77. Outbuddies - Switch
78. Ghostrunner - PC
Ghostrunner is what you get when you add a sword to Mirror's Edge and rebalance things so combat isn't a "what to do when you fail at the parkour". It's quite fun, but it demands a level of skill and reflex that Mirror's Edge does not, so you should be comfortable with first person games before picking this one up.
The basic premise is that you are a cybog ninja called a Ghostrunner and you need to climb a giant tower/arcology where the remnants of humanity are after some giant disaster so you can take out the evil leader who wants to do bad things to the people. It's not terribly deep but it gets the job done. It's mostly to give you an excuse to run, jump, and slice your way through the levels.
As mentioned, the game starts off inspired by Mirror's Edge. Lots of wall running, mantling, riding ziplines, and using a new grapple hook to get a vertical boost. What sets this game apart is it is much more combat focused. Now, everything in the game is one hit kill, both you on enemies and enemies on you. So these sections end up becoming much more of a deadly obstacle course where you have to integrate killing enemies into your route. In terms of tools to handle them you have the ability to block a projectile with a well timed slice, a variety of powers you unlock that give you a longer range option, and the ability to slow time in midair to slowly strafe and then transition into a quick burst forward to slice them down. The enemies start off basic and slowly gain abilities over time, such as melee enemies that can jump to you or enemies with shield you need to get behind. The rooms can get hard, but there is always a path that will give you the opportunity to kill enemies in the right order to keep you from getting nailed in the back.
The game also has a handful of boss fights. The first is just a straight obstacle course while the other two test your abilities to dodge attacks until an opening is revealed. The second boss fight is bereft of checkpoints for some reason, which ends up making it the most frustrating, but still doable. And that brings me to the last thing the game does well; a massive number of checkpoints right before and right after combat sections and in the middle of boss fights that you can instantly respawn to if you die with no loading. You're going to die a lot in this game, but failure is to be embraced so you can try again next time and do better. The only time they drop the ball on this is in the second boss fight, as the length is such that at least one checkpoint in the middle would be good, though admittedly there is a complication of where to put it that the other fights don't have (though you could just as easily adjust the fight a bit to allow for it.
All in all it is a well crafted game from a small studio that delivers entirely on what it promises. If you enjoyed Mirror's Edge I can highly recommend this one.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
The First 50:
51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
75. Death Rally (PC)(Racing)
76. Bastion (PC)(RPG)
77. Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)(RPG)
78. Ultimate DOOM (PC)(FPS)
79. DOOM II: Hell on Earth (PC)(FPS)
80. DOOM II: No Rest for the Living (PC)(FPS)
81. DOOM 3: The Lost Mission (PC)(FPS)
82. DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil (PC)(FPS)
Yeah, I've been going through a DOOM gauntlet lately. Following my besting of Ultimate DOOM on the Ultra-Violent difficulty, I decided it was best to follow it up with a marathon in DOOM II on the same difficulty, followed by an official expansion that only came out a decade ago. Then it was on to the two expansions for DOOM 3, as I have never played them before.
First up, DOOM II. This game took everything about the sequel and said "Let's go bigger." There are new enemies that are tougher and nastier, such as the Pain Elemental, Heavy Weapon Guy, and the dreaded Arch-vile. All three of these make for fearsome opponents who can seriously wreck your world by themselves and only get worse with the large crowds of enemies they often accompany. Thankfully, DOOM II also adds the workhorse and my favorite gun in the series, the Super Shotgun. It's a double-barrel 12 gauge that will put the fear of God into the leftover bits of whatever demon you just turned into a fine red mist for looking at you the wrong way. Seriously, this is the gun I have out for 90% of the game, and the other 10% is due to special circumstances or ammo shortages.
DOOM II also brings new levels, with an emphasis on openness for the city portions as well as requiring you get a firm grasp on monster in-fighting and picking your battles. You simply don't have enough ammo to deal with everything here, so a lot of the killing comes down to either getting the demons to do it for you or not at all. When I think of DOOM II level designs at their core, I think specifically of the level Barrels of Fun, which requires you to run for your life more often than standing and fighting. If DOOM wanted me to dish out the pain, DOOM II wants me to learn how to manipulate enemies and pick my battles. These are critical lessons that have since aided me in many FPS games.
The No Rest for the Living expansion to DOOM II has only been around for a decade and is a new campaign created to celebrate the title's release on Xbox Live Arcade. It basks in the glory of the tips and tricks which had been learned over nearly two decades of DOOM level design as well as improvements in computer power and now throws hordes of enemies. I do mean hordes, and levels are large and littered with secrets that you likely will not find on your first playthrough. Hell, over half of the first level is hidden behind secrets, but you'll want to uncover them because you soon find yourself facing off against Hell Knights with little more than a popgun. Do you know what sucks? Trying to punch a Baron of Hell to death. I know, I've done it, I turned him into paste, and now I put that shit on my toast each morning.
In the end, you end up running around a mazelike room, facing off against a Cyberdemon in a final boss level that reminds me a lot of the DOOM 64 level Cat and Mouse: tight corridors, and rockets for both you and your enemy to fire off at each other. It's a wonderful way to wrap up what proves to be a solid expansion to a classic with some enjoyable level designs.
With those out of the way, I then moved on to DOOM 3: The Lost Mission. DOOM 3 is such a departure from the rest of the series, because it leans heavier on the horror aspects and drops the open areas for tight corridors and underwhelming weaponry. There were a lot of complaints elicited by DOOM 3's design, so the expansions decided to fix some of this by adding in a shoulder-mounted flashlight and bringing back the Super Shotgun.
Once again, the Super Shotgun proves to be the best weapon in a DOOM game. It chunks trash mobs, can take down mid-tier with well-placed firepower, and can even soften up the biggest bastards around. It also packs enough oomph in its audio to actually sound impressive, unlike, well, pretty much every other gun in DOOM 3. It's not always perfect with its spread, though most of the Lost Mission enemies aren't a problem because you're taking them head on with little wiggle room.
Unfortunately, level design for Lost Mission ends up feeling repetitive; it's the same kinds of rooms over and over, so if you've seen a dimly lit hallway in DOOM 3, you've seen it in Lost Mission. However, that hallway actually helps you ensure that Super Shotgun is pointed in the right direction, to which I have no complaints.
From there, I went to DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil. While Lost Mission feels like a bit like a one-note corridor shooter there to celebrate the usefulness of high-powered buckshot, Resurrection of Evil instead tries to mix things up by adding in the Artifact, a device that feeds off human souls and gets more powerful by you killing bosses. It also has a really awesome animation where your hands whither and age when you hold it out, and it can give you powers like slow time and go berserk. Ripping and tearing with it consists of punching things and watching them dissolve in the DOOM 3 corpse burn effect, but seeing something at point blank range suddenly sear away to a skeleton and vanish in slow motion is pretty bad ass.
What's not so bad ass is that, while the levels are more varied when compared to Lost Mission, the Super Shotgun feels a bit hampered by awkward enemy hitboxes that the pellets just seem to miss. More than once I fired both barrels at point blank range only to see the improved imp type keep coming because its anatomy is narrow and angular enough to have the pellets miss. That's annoying. But the name of the game here is both the Artifact and the Grabber, an obvious Gravity Gun-knock off that apes Half-Life 2 and actually doesn't do too bad a job of it. Hell, you can take out most enemies with the Grabber simply by grabbing their projectiles or finding things like boxes to pick up and hurl at them.
Still, Resurrection of Evil provides better boss battles, differing locales, and more of the fantastic DOOM 3 lighting engine to emphasize the horrific atmosphere. All credit should go to what the game does best, which is make you cower in the near-darkness. Portals to Hell should really only be opened in well lit offices, folks.
And now I'm kind of hankering for more DOOM 3, so I might just go play that next.
51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
75. Death Rally (PC)(Racing)
76. Bastion (PC)(RPG)
77. Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)(RPG)
78. Ultimate DOOM (PC)(FPS)
79. DOOM II: Hell on Earth (PC)(FPS)
80. DOOM II: No Rest for the Living (PC)(FPS)
81. DOOM 3: The Lost Mission (PC)(FPS)
82. DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil (PC)(FPS)
Yeah, I've been going through a DOOM gauntlet lately. Following my besting of Ultimate DOOM on the Ultra-Violent difficulty, I decided it was best to follow it up with a marathon in DOOM II on the same difficulty, followed by an official expansion that only came out a decade ago. Then it was on to the two expansions for DOOM 3, as I have never played them before.
First up, DOOM II. This game took everything about the sequel and said "Let's go bigger." There are new enemies that are tougher and nastier, such as the Pain Elemental, Heavy Weapon Guy, and the dreaded Arch-vile. All three of these make for fearsome opponents who can seriously wreck your world by themselves and only get worse with the large crowds of enemies they often accompany. Thankfully, DOOM II also adds the workhorse and my favorite gun in the series, the Super Shotgun. It's a double-barrel 12 gauge that will put the fear of God into the leftover bits of whatever demon you just turned into a fine red mist for looking at you the wrong way. Seriously, this is the gun I have out for 90% of the game, and the other 10% is due to special circumstances or ammo shortages.
DOOM II also brings new levels, with an emphasis on openness for the city portions as well as requiring you get a firm grasp on monster in-fighting and picking your battles. You simply don't have enough ammo to deal with everything here, so a lot of the killing comes down to either getting the demons to do it for you or not at all. When I think of DOOM II level designs at their core, I think specifically of the level Barrels of Fun, which requires you to run for your life more often than standing and fighting. If DOOM wanted me to dish out the pain, DOOM II wants me to learn how to manipulate enemies and pick my battles. These are critical lessons that have since aided me in many FPS games.
The No Rest for the Living expansion to DOOM II has only been around for a decade and is a new campaign created to celebrate the title's release on Xbox Live Arcade. It basks in the glory of the tips and tricks which had been learned over nearly two decades of DOOM level design as well as improvements in computer power and now throws hordes of enemies. I do mean hordes, and levels are large and littered with secrets that you likely will not find on your first playthrough. Hell, over half of the first level is hidden behind secrets, but you'll want to uncover them because you soon find yourself facing off against Hell Knights with little more than a popgun. Do you know what sucks? Trying to punch a Baron of Hell to death. I know, I've done it, I turned him into paste, and now I put that shit on my toast each morning.
In the end, you end up running around a mazelike room, facing off against a Cyberdemon in a final boss level that reminds me a lot of the DOOM 64 level Cat and Mouse: tight corridors, and rockets for both you and your enemy to fire off at each other. It's a wonderful way to wrap up what proves to be a solid expansion to a classic with some enjoyable level designs.
With those out of the way, I then moved on to DOOM 3: The Lost Mission. DOOM 3 is such a departure from the rest of the series, because it leans heavier on the horror aspects and drops the open areas for tight corridors and underwhelming weaponry. There were a lot of complaints elicited by DOOM 3's design, so the expansions decided to fix some of this by adding in a shoulder-mounted flashlight and bringing back the Super Shotgun.
Once again, the Super Shotgun proves to be the best weapon in a DOOM game. It chunks trash mobs, can take down mid-tier with well-placed firepower, and can even soften up the biggest bastards around. It also packs enough oomph in its audio to actually sound impressive, unlike, well, pretty much every other gun in DOOM 3. It's not always perfect with its spread, though most of the Lost Mission enemies aren't a problem because you're taking them head on with little wiggle room.
Unfortunately, level design for Lost Mission ends up feeling repetitive; it's the same kinds of rooms over and over, so if you've seen a dimly lit hallway in DOOM 3, you've seen it in Lost Mission. However, that hallway actually helps you ensure that Super Shotgun is pointed in the right direction, to which I have no complaints.
From there, I went to DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil. While Lost Mission feels like a bit like a one-note corridor shooter there to celebrate the usefulness of high-powered buckshot, Resurrection of Evil instead tries to mix things up by adding in the Artifact, a device that feeds off human souls and gets more powerful by you killing bosses. It also has a really awesome animation where your hands whither and age when you hold it out, and it can give you powers like slow time and go berserk. Ripping and tearing with it consists of punching things and watching them dissolve in the DOOM 3 corpse burn effect, but seeing something at point blank range suddenly sear away to a skeleton and vanish in slow motion is pretty bad ass.
What's not so bad ass is that, while the levels are more varied when compared to Lost Mission, the Super Shotgun feels a bit hampered by awkward enemy hitboxes that the pellets just seem to miss. More than once I fired both barrels at point blank range only to see the improved imp type keep coming because its anatomy is narrow and angular enough to have the pellets miss. That's annoying. But the name of the game here is both the Artifact and the Grabber, an obvious Gravity Gun-knock off that apes Half-Life 2 and actually doesn't do too bad a job of it. Hell, you can take out most enemies with the Grabber simply by grabbing their projectiles or finding things like boxes to pick up and hurl at them.
Still, Resurrection of Evil provides better boss battles, differing locales, and more of the fantastic DOOM 3 lighting engine to emphasize the horrific atmosphere. All credit should go to what the game does best, which is make you cower in the near-darkness. Portals to Hell should really only be opened in well lit offices, folks.
And now I'm kind of hankering for more DOOM 3, so I might just go play that next.
-
PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2988
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
I first saw this game in Japan well over a year ago when scoping out the ones close to where I live. At first, I was utterly shocked that it even got a Japanese release, and was then lowkey dying to know if there was a Japanese dub in it. It took me another 17 or so months before I finally threw down the 300 whole yen to buy the thing (and be disappointed by its lack of a Japanese dub), but now I've played through it as well. It's not a terribly long game, and it took me around 6 hours to beat it on normal mode.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is, as the story goes, a game that was nearly finished before the 50 Cent name was slapped on it. While that may be totally unrelated to how the narrative plays out, the narrative is still as delightfully strange as it is simple. 50 Cent is doing a concert in the Middle East and after the show, when he goes to collect his 10 million bucks payment, the guy who owes it to him can't pay up because all his cash was stolen by gangsters. And not just any gangsters. SUPER bad tough gangsters. Instead, after some threatening from 50 Cent, he gives 50 Cent a priceless diamond-encrusted skull. That skull is shortly thereafter stolen by said SUPER gangs, and 50 goes on a quest to kill as many gangsters as he can to get his skull back.
While it is easy to dismiss the story as part of the never ending slew of post-Bush era modern military shooters, which it also definitely is part of, there is a certain beauty to just how 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand's story plays out. As an ego piece for 50 Cent, it is a quite genuinely fascinating look at just what an absolute bad ass he supposedly thinks of himself as despite being such an obviously terrible and amazingly petty person. There is a kind of Tommy Wiseau-esque charm to just how sincerely 50 Cent is portrayed in this, from how basically the entire soundtrack is his own music to even down to how you have a dedicated swearing button you can use to get more points when you kill an enemy. While I certainly wouldn't call the story good by any means, it is endlessly fascinating on many levels to me, and I kind of love it for that XD
The gameplay is a pretty solid co-op cover shooter, and that's really all there is to it. There's a point system, which is pretty neat for a shooter released within the last decade, and there are mid-stage mini-missions you can do within a certain amount of time for extra points, grenades, and super explodey bullets. You also get more points for quickly chaining together kills. There's money you can collect from fallen enemies and from boxes around the stages, but from the point system to the money collecting from enemies, the game really emphasizes a speedy and aggressive approach to combat, which is pretty fun~. You can use the money in stages to buy more taunts to throw with your dedicated swearing button, more animations for your QTE up-close melee kills, and of course more and bigger guns. It's not setting the world on fire, sure, but between the license and how well put together the game is generally, it's a cool way to mix up the giant bag of modern military shooters that inundate last gen's library.
The presentation is equal parts fascinating (as explained earlier) and grating. The game looks graphically alright for the time, but some of the character models look a little odd in cutscenes. The main female protagonist looks especially broken, and I'd even go as far as to say that her motion capture data was borked and they just had to go forward with what they had regardless XP. The soundtrack being basically entirely 50 Cent's music is kinda soul-draining given the game's 5+ hour runtime, as it really removes any kind of musical pacing to the action and it makes the game feel even more like "distilled video game with 50 Cent added" than it already is. I can't really comment on the quality of the hip hop, it not being a genre I have any familiar with, but I did get a huge belly laugh when I heard one of the songs rhyme "nickname" with "dick game" XD
As far as the Japanese version of the game is concerned, it's a really half-assed localization, and that also kinda adds to the charm for me. There's no dub, sure, but there ARE subtitles, and those subtitles are absolutely hilarious in just how little they capture anything unique about how 50 Cent & co talk. Sure, it's' plenty hilarious the first time you see a subtitle say "Fifty-san" or "Cent-san" (translating "Mr. Fifty" or "Mr. Cent"), but just how much of a normal irritated guy the subs make him sound is just so funny to me. I know Japanese doesn't really have swears like most languages, but just how toned down all the "motherfucker"-esque lines that 50 spits are add so much to the oddball charm of this game that I'm still sorta surprised at how well that enhances the overall experience XD
Verdict: Recommended. You can probably find this game for pretty cheap these days, and if you want a pretty solid third person shooter with a pretty damn odd theme, this is a really good fit. To yet again use a phrase I say a lot, it's not setting anyone's world on fire, but the odd theme and competent gameplay mesh together to make something quite memorable. When I mentioned I beat this game in the Slack chat, AJ mentioned that he would've never thought I'd play this game. I retort to that in that weird games are suuuuper up my alley, even for genres I don't often enjoy, and this completely fits the bill X3
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
I first saw this game in Japan well over a year ago when scoping out the ones close to where I live. At first, I was utterly shocked that it even got a Japanese release, and was then lowkey dying to know if there was a Japanese dub in it. It took me another 17 or so months before I finally threw down the 300 whole yen to buy the thing (and be disappointed by its lack of a Japanese dub), but now I've played through it as well. It's not a terribly long game, and it took me around 6 hours to beat it on normal mode.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is, as the story goes, a game that was nearly finished before the 50 Cent name was slapped on it. While that may be totally unrelated to how the narrative plays out, the narrative is still as delightfully strange as it is simple. 50 Cent is doing a concert in the Middle East and after the show, when he goes to collect his 10 million bucks payment, the guy who owes it to him can't pay up because all his cash was stolen by gangsters. And not just any gangsters. SUPER bad tough gangsters. Instead, after some threatening from 50 Cent, he gives 50 Cent a priceless diamond-encrusted skull. That skull is shortly thereafter stolen by said SUPER gangs, and 50 goes on a quest to kill as many gangsters as he can to get his skull back.
While it is easy to dismiss the story as part of the never ending slew of post-Bush era modern military shooters, which it also definitely is part of, there is a certain beauty to just how 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand's story plays out. As an ego piece for 50 Cent, it is a quite genuinely fascinating look at just what an absolute bad ass he supposedly thinks of himself as despite being such an obviously terrible and amazingly petty person. There is a kind of Tommy Wiseau-esque charm to just how sincerely 50 Cent is portrayed in this, from how basically the entire soundtrack is his own music to even down to how you have a dedicated swearing button you can use to get more points when you kill an enemy. While I certainly wouldn't call the story good by any means, it is endlessly fascinating on many levels to me, and I kind of love it for that XD
The gameplay is a pretty solid co-op cover shooter, and that's really all there is to it. There's a point system, which is pretty neat for a shooter released within the last decade, and there are mid-stage mini-missions you can do within a certain amount of time for extra points, grenades, and super explodey bullets. You also get more points for quickly chaining together kills. There's money you can collect from fallen enemies and from boxes around the stages, but from the point system to the money collecting from enemies, the game really emphasizes a speedy and aggressive approach to combat, which is pretty fun~. You can use the money in stages to buy more taunts to throw with your dedicated swearing button, more animations for your QTE up-close melee kills, and of course more and bigger guns. It's not setting the world on fire, sure, but between the license and how well put together the game is generally, it's a cool way to mix up the giant bag of modern military shooters that inundate last gen's library.
The presentation is equal parts fascinating (as explained earlier) and grating. The game looks graphically alright for the time, but some of the character models look a little odd in cutscenes. The main female protagonist looks especially broken, and I'd even go as far as to say that her motion capture data was borked and they just had to go forward with what they had regardless XP. The soundtrack being basically entirely 50 Cent's music is kinda soul-draining given the game's 5+ hour runtime, as it really removes any kind of musical pacing to the action and it makes the game feel even more like "distilled video game with 50 Cent added" than it already is. I can't really comment on the quality of the hip hop, it not being a genre I have any familiar with, but I did get a huge belly laugh when I heard one of the songs rhyme "nickname" with "dick game" XD
As far as the Japanese version of the game is concerned, it's a really half-assed localization, and that also kinda adds to the charm for me. There's no dub, sure, but there ARE subtitles, and those subtitles are absolutely hilarious in just how little they capture anything unique about how 50 Cent & co talk. Sure, it's' plenty hilarious the first time you see a subtitle say "Fifty-san" or "Cent-san" (translating "Mr. Fifty" or "Mr. Cent"), but just how much of a normal irritated guy the subs make him sound is just so funny to me. I know Japanese doesn't really have swears like most languages, but just how toned down all the "motherfucker"-esque lines that 50 spits are add so much to the oddball charm of this game that I'm still sorta surprised at how well that enhances the overall experience XD
Verdict: Recommended. You can probably find this game for pretty cheap these days, and if you want a pretty solid third person shooter with a pretty damn odd theme, this is a really good fit. To yet again use a phrase I say a lot, it's not setting anyone's world on fire, but the odd theme and competent gameplay mesh together to make something quite memorable. When I mentioned I beat this game in the Slack chat, AJ mentioned that he would've never thought I'd play this game. I retort to that in that weird games are suuuuper up my alley, even for genres I don't often enjoy, and this completely fits the bill X3
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Recently beat the Bounty of Blood DLC for Borderlands 3 on Normal, but I had Mayhem turned off and some Level 60 Mayhem 10 weapons, though I pretty much stuck with a Level 60 Mayhem 10 infinity pistol with radiation damage and it pretty much demolished enemies and bosses with help from my Zane build and his Drone and Digiclone.
-
PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2988
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
88. Gain Ground (Genesis)
This was a favorite of mine on the PS2 Genesis Collection when I was a kid, but I could never beat it. I'd even gotten good enough at it to get to the final boss without losing a single life, but I could just never beat that bugger. For this month's TR of returning to games you gave up on previously, I played this on my PS3 Genesis Collection and was finally able to put that lousy final boss in the ground (and on my first try, no less ^w^)! I already knew I could get to the end of the game with all the characters before, so that wasn't important to me (I used save states after levels to help me get to the final boss as stacked as possible X3). What I wanted to do was beat the final boss without save states, and that ended up being mission accomplished ^w^. It took me a couple hours to finish the game on my PS3.
Gain Ground takes place in the far flung future where humanity is so peaceful that the world government built a big simulation called Gain Ground to help people keep their fighting spirit. But one day, the super computer goes berserk and takes a bunch of citizens hostage, so it's up to three of humanity's bravest soldiers to go in and rescue everyone and shut down this rouge machine. I actually never really realized the game even had a story as a kid. The first time I learned about the story was when I was playing through the Gain Ground level in Project X Zone many years after the fact, and I had to look up the plot synopsis for this story bit here XD. That said, the plot isn't totally meaningless, as it leads into one of the most interesting bits of the game's design.
Gain Ground is a top-down action game with 50 screens (in a very old-school arcade style). No scrolling levels here. Just a mission you need to either get all your soldiers to the EXIT of or kill all the enemies within. The nature of it being a simulation lends to the game's fairly unconventional system of lives. You don't really have extra lives, but instead have different soldiers (20 different kinds in total, with several copies of each in the game too), and when they're dead, you can't use them anymore. Except that you can! You only start the game with 3 soldiers, but little captured soldiers appear in predesignated places in each level, and if you touch one you can drag it to the exit to have it playable in the next level. You can only drag one at a time though, so sometimes you will need to use several characters who can both get to the POW they gotta rescue AND to the exit, which can be tricky in some maps, since the level ends if you kill everything. You MUST get the POW to the exit to have them in the next stage, but that also goes for characters who "die". If a character takes a hit, they turn into a little POW token that can be rescued. Granted, if someone who is rescuing dies, the POW they were rescuing is erased and they become a POW to rescue. You don't have infinite chances, but it's very refreshingly forgiving for a game from 1990.
The characters themselves are all very different, albeit not balanced all that well. They all have a standard fire, which can shoot any direction and is often quite short range, but then everyone has their own special fire as well. Sometimes it can shoot in any direction, sometimes it gives you range across the entire screen, sometimes it can fire onto an upper level (a very very valuable skill, as many enemies hide on roofs safe from your normal bullets and most characters' special attacks), and sometimes they even take the form of a sort of shield of bullets. All the characters also have varying walk speeds and even different hands they hold their weapon in, meaning firing JUST around a corner with your default weapon may be easier with some characters than others depending on if they use their right or left hand. There's a lot of trial and error in figuring out exactly what each character can do and how good they are (but that's what save states are for XD), but it means that you need to constantly reassess how you're going to approach a stage if one of your MVPs gets taken down and has to be rescued. There are a couple characters who are like WAY better than most others (like the yellow bearded viking guy) as they have upwards-firing specials and area also very fast with good range, but well balanced or not, you'll need those soldiers if you wanna have a chance at seeing the end of the game.
The game's presentation is pretty underwhelming, as one might expect from an arcade conversion fairly early in the Genesis' life. There aren't many songs and those that are here are pretty forgettable background noise for the most part, but they aren't actively bad. The graphics are quite nice though, with the character portraits being nicely detailed, and the bullets and sprites always being very clear so there's very rarely any ambiguity for what killed you.
Verdict: Recommended. I'll admit a decent portion of it is nostalgia coupled with this being a sort of action game that fits my style very well, but this is one of my favorite Genesis games. It's not terribly long (and it's quite an expensive game if you're hunting down the physical cart), but it's really good fun. The gameplay won't be for everyone, but it's well worth a try if you have one of the many Genesis collections its found its way onto over the years.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
88. Gain Ground (Genesis)
This was a favorite of mine on the PS2 Genesis Collection when I was a kid, but I could never beat it. I'd even gotten good enough at it to get to the final boss without losing a single life, but I could just never beat that bugger. For this month's TR of returning to games you gave up on previously, I played this on my PS3 Genesis Collection and was finally able to put that lousy final boss in the ground (and on my first try, no less ^w^)! I already knew I could get to the end of the game with all the characters before, so that wasn't important to me (I used save states after levels to help me get to the final boss as stacked as possible X3). What I wanted to do was beat the final boss without save states, and that ended up being mission accomplished ^w^. It took me a couple hours to finish the game on my PS3.
Gain Ground takes place in the far flung future where humanity is so peaceful that the world government built a big simulation called Gain Ground to help people keep their fighting spirit. But one day, the super computer goes berserk and takes a bunch of citizens hostage, so it's up to three of humanity's bravest soldiers to go in and rescue everyone and shut down this rouge machine. I actually never really realized the game even had a story as a kid. The first time I learned about the story was when I was playing through the Gain Ground level in Project X Zone many years after the fact, and I had to look up the plot synopsis for this story bit here XD. That said, the plot isn't totally meaningless, as it leads into one of the most interesting bits of the game's design.
Gain Ground is a top-down action game with 50 screens (in a very old-school arcade style). No scrolling levels here. Just a mission you need to either get all your soldiers to the EXIT of or kill all the enemies within. The nature of it being a simulation lends to the game's fairly unconventional system of lives. You don't really have extra lives, but instead have different soldiers (20 different kinds in total, with several copies of each in the game too), and when they're dead, you can't use them anymore. Except that you can! You only start the game with 3 soldiers, but little captured soldiers appear in predesignated places in each level, and if you touch one you can drag it to the exit to have it playable in the next level. You can only drag one at a time though, so sometimes you will need to use several characters who can both get to the POW they gotta rescue AND to the exit, which can be tricky in some maps, since the level ends if you kill everything. You MUST get the POW to the exit to have them in the next stage, but that also goes for characters who "die". If a character takes a hit, they turn into a little POW token that can be rescued. Granted, if someone who is rescuing dies, the POW they were rescuing is erased and they become a POW to rescue. You don't have infinite chances, but it's very refreshingly forgiving for a game from 1990.
The characters themselves are all very different, albeit not balanced all that well. They all have a standard fire, which can shoot any direction and is often quite short range, but then everyone has their own special fire as well. Sometimes it can shoot in any direction, sometimes it gives you range across the entire screen, sometimes it can fire onto an upper level (a very very valuable skill, as many enemies hide on roofs safe from your normal bullets and most characters' special attacks), and sometimes they even take the form of a sort of shield of bullets. All the characters also have varying walk speeds and even different hands they hold their weapon in, meaning firing JUST around a corner with your default weapon may be easier with some characters than others depending on if they use their right or left hand. There's a lot of trial and error in figuring out exactly what each character can do and how good they are (but that's what save states are for XD), but it means that you need to constantly reassess how you're going to approach a stage if one of your MVPs gets taken down and has to be rescued. There are a couple characters who are like WAY better than most others (like the yellow bearded viking guy) as they have upwards-firing specials and area also very fast with good range, but well balanced or not, you'll need those soldiers if you wanna have a chance at seeing the end of the game.
The game's presentation is pretty underwhelming, as one might expect from an arcade conversion fairly early in the Genesis' life. There aren't many songs and those that are here are pretty forgettable background noise for the most part, but they aren't actively bad. The graphics are quite nice though, with the character portraits being nicely detailed, and the bullets and sprites always being very clear so there's very rarely any ambiguity for what killed you.
Verdict: Recommended. I'll admit a decent portion of it is nostalgia coupled with this being a sort of action game that fits my style very well, but this is one of my favorite Genesis games. It's not terribly long (and it's quite an expensive game if you're hunting down the physical cart), but it's really good fun. The gameplay won't be for everyone, but it's well worth a try if you have one of the many Genesis collections its found its way onto over the years.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
-
PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2988
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
88. Gain Ground (Genesis)
89. Bonanza Bros. (Genesis)
This, like Gain Ground, was another favorite of mine on the PS2 Genesis Collection growing up that I'd never managed to beat. I could get to the final stage just barely, but could never beat the time constraints on it. I decided to take another crack at it because of this month's TR, and in a morning I wasn't even planning on finishing the game, I managed to beat it!
. It took me around 40-50 minutes to play through the English version of the game.
Bonanza Bros. is about two brothers, one short and tall who wears red, and one short and round who wears blue, who wear sunglasses and steal objects of high value. There very well may be more story in the manual, but in the game itself that's all you really get. It's a simple (albeit clearly Blues Brothers-inspired) concept that works just great for an action game from 1990.
You go to all sorts of exotic locations stealing the required items in each stage and then getting to the exit to escape in your zeppelin. The perspective of the game is sidescolling, but also somewhat like Super Mario Kart in that the game is always in split-screen even when you aren't doing co-op play. The map for the stage that shows where the objects you're collecting are are displayed on there, which makes it distinctly harder to know where to go in some of the harder stages if you have two people as the time requirements on those stages are really strict, and BOTH players need to make it to the end to win the level. That's not an issue playing single-player though.
You can't just walk in and take the stuff though. There are tons of guards, cleaning staff, guard dogs, and bomb-throwing Bluto wannabees between you and your prize. Thankfully, you have a heckin' GUN to shoot 'em with! Unfortunately, all it does is briefly stun them, while their bullets/attacks kill you with one hit ^^;. The game takes place on two planes you can step back and forth between, and you need to step into the back drop to go around obstacles, hide behind walls, and go up staircases, and that second plane is often a more valuable way to tackle enemies than your gun could ever be. Escaping to another floor (so they'll give up the chase) or hiding until they've passed by (or turned their back so you can shoot them) is often far more efficient in taking care of enemies. However, you only have 3 minutes to complete each level, and your character walks pretty slowly (all the characters do). While you can instantly respawn (if you have lives remaining) if you're shot to death, a time up means you gotta restart the whole level. It makes for a very tense heist game with high risk/reward for if you wanna take your chances booking it past an enemy or if you wanna try and knock them out first.
The presentation is, as a friend of mine put it, "like MegaBlox said ACAB" XD. Characters look a lot like, well, MegaBlox toys, with big, round, shapes plunked together for the characters and environments all packed with bright, Genesis-y colors. It has a lot of cute little touches as well though, like if you press up against a wall to hug against it, a fly will come and rest on your sunglasses and your character will smack it X3. The music is nothing super impressive, but it sets the atmosphere well enough.
Verdict: Recommended. Like Gain Ground, this is a fairly simple and short game, but it's also very unique as far as games for the time go (I'd argue far more unique than Gain Ground in many ways). It's a gameplay loop that I adore, and it'll always be one of my favorite games on the system. The slow-ish paced heists won't be for everyone, but it's definitely worth checking out if you have one of the many compilations its on or happen to come across one of the (quite rare) physical carts~.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
79. Sonic Adventure (DC)
80. Drakengard (PS2)
81. Pole's Big Adventure (WiiWare)
82. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC)
83. Mario's Picross (GB)
84. Sonic Heroes (GC)
85. Drakengard 2 (PS2)
86. NeverDead (PS3)
87. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (PS3)
88. Gain Ground (Genesis)
89. Bonanza Bros. (Genesis)
This, like Gain Ground, was another favorite of mine on the PS2 Genesis Collection growing up that I'd never managed to beat. I could get to the final stage just barely, but could never beat the time constraints on it. I decided to take another crack at it because of this month's TR, and in a morning I wasn't even planning on finishing the game, I managed to beat it!
. It took me around 40-50 minutes to play through the English version of the game. Bonanza Bros. is about two brothers, one short and tall who wears red, and one short and round who wears blue, who wear sunglasses and steal objects of high value. There very well may be more story in the manual, but in the game itself that's all you really get. It's a simple (albeit clearly Blues Brothers-inspired) concept that works just great for an action game from 1990.
You go to all sorts of exotic locations stealing the required items in each stage and then getting to the exit to escape in your zeppelin. The perspective of the game is sidescolling, but also somewhat like Super Mario Kart in that the game is always in split-screen even when you aren't doing co-op play. The map for the stage that shows where the objects you're collecting are are displayed on there, which makes it distinctly harder to know where to go in some of the harder stages if you have two people as the time requirements on those stages are really strict, and BOTH players need to make it to the end to win the level. That's not an issue playing single-player though.
You can't just walk in and take the stuff though. There are tons of guards, cleaning staff, guard dogs, and bomb-throwing Bluto wannabees between you and your prize. Thankfully, you have a heckin' GUN to shoot 'em with! Unfortunately, all it does is briefly stun them, while their bullets/attacks kill you with one hit ^^;. The game takes place on two planes you can step back and forth between, and you need to step into the back drop to go around obstacles, hide behind walls, and go up staircases, and that second plane is often a more valuable way to tackle enemies than your gun could ever be. Escaping to another floor (so they'll give up the chase) or hiding until they've passed by (or turned their back so you can shoot them) is often far more efficient in taking care of enemies. However, you only have 3 minutes to complete each level, and your character walks pretty slowly (all the characters do). While you can instantly respawn (if you have lives remaining) if you're shot to death, a time up means you gotta restart the whole level. It makes for a very tense heist game with high risk/reward for if you wanna take your chances booking it past an enemy or if you wanna try and knock them out first.
The presentation is, as a friend of mine put it, "like MegaBlox said ACAB" XD. Characters look a lot like, well, MegaBlox toys, with big, round, shapes plunked together for the characters and environments all packed with bright, Genesis-y colors. It has a lot of cute little touches as well though, like if you press up against a wall to hug against it, a fly will come and rest on your sunglasses and your character will smack it X3. The music is nothing super impressive, but it sets the atmosphere well enough.
Verdict: Recommended. Like Gain Ground, this is a fairly simple and short game, but it's also very unique as far as games for the time go (I'd argue far more unique than Gain Ground in many ways). It's a gameplay loop that I adore, and it'll always be one of my favorite games on the system. The slow-ish paced heists won't be for everyone, but it's definitely worth checking out if you have one of the many compilations its on or happen to come across one of the (quite rare) physical carts~.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me