Games Beaten 2014

[ExedExes]

11. *NEW* Serious Sam: The First Encounter - PC (May 30)

I beat this game many years ago, but on Tourist difficulty and just going straight through without much exploration. However, this time it was beaten on Normal difficulty, and I found all 84 secrets, including the 2 secret levels. I forgot how brutal the very last stage was.

Serious Sam's a man's game alright.

No joke. Now to finally beat The Second Encounter; that one I just stopped playing about halfway through. Better weapons too!

[Sload Soap]

Sensible Soccer: European Champions(Snes)

Some more classic football action from what some consider to be the best football game of all time. I personally think that Pro Evo 5 is still the best, but Sensi is a hell of a game.

What struck me most is the blinding speed the game plays at. Everything happens at a million miles an hour and playing it on higher levels is akin to playing a twitchy arcade game like Robotron. This port has two buttons one for shoot and one for pass/tackle and that's all you need. You can use the shoot button for long passes and it really is up to the player to find their own style of play. Mine mostly involved getting it out wide to a winger before cutting in and shooting across goal. I mentioned before how older soccer games sometimes had proper ways to score, but Sensi really gives you a lot of choice with headed shots as viable as forty yard screamers.

My only real criticism would be that it can be too hectic. Since you only do slide tackles and since that button is also your pass button, it is quite possible to go to pass the ball and instead brutally tackle an opponent. That and the goalies are flaky as fuck. And this version only has European countries and club teams, but isn't licensed so no real names for anything. It's a bit of a watered down port of the Amiga classic, but I like it as I like playing with the Snes pad over a keyboard/joystick.

Sensible Soccer is still the king of 16bit soccer though and is good enough fun even if you aren't interested in the sport. It's among Mario Golf, Virtua Tennis and Tecmo Bowl as sports games that transcend their genre and are appealing to everyone.

International Superstar Soccer: Deluxe(Snes)

Whereas Sensible Soccer is, despite it's title, a furiously demented arcade version of the sport, ISS by Konami was always a bit more technical and slow placed. Also, where Sensible Soccer stuck to the trusted top-down perspective with super-deformed characters, ISS had more realistically drawn character sprites viewed from a skewed isometric camera that is closer to modern football games. ISS also has commentary instead of an in-game song. It's a pretty impressive package all round and you can see the roots here of what would become the all conquering Pro Evo series.

Unlike Sensi though, I think this game suffers from a lack of variation in goal scoring methods. Goalkeepers can be tough to impossible to beat from distance and a lot of my goals came from shots that the goalie had fumbled back into my strikers path. It's also a lot slower than a lot of soccer games and there seems to be little acknowledgement to speed stats when on the ball. And it can be punishing on higher difficulties.

It's still a fun game to play today but I wouldn't advise a casual fan seeking it out and it is bettered by its N64/PS1 progeny.

Anarchy Reigns(360)

Anarchy Reigns is kind of like a spiritual successor to Capcom's arena brawler heyday when Powerstone, Spawn: In the Demon's Hand and Heavy Metal: Geomatrix graced the arcades and the Dreamcast. It's big, dumb and messy but it's a lot of fun to play.

There has been a bit of refinement though. You have a light, heavy and throw attack and can combine these with jumps to form combos and juggles but it's not as complex or precise as something like Bayonetta. The levels are truly gigantic and certain events can change the terrain mid-battle. Like the Dreamcast era games there are weapon pick-ups laying around the map as well as shields and health. Unlike those games, there is a pretty well featured and plot heavy single player to help you get acclimated to the game.

You choose between two characters who are both on a mission to capture a deranged fugitive. Once you beat it with one person you do it from the perspective of the character you didn't choose. Each character has their own missions and bosses which keeps it fresh. This mode is maybe 8 hours long which might be slightly pushing it. Generally I think for something like this to bear repeat plays 4-6 hours is preferable, 7 at most. Anyway, it's good fun though possibly a touch easy. I got platinum medals on quite a few missions without much effort. This isn't a boast; the only requirements I could see for top marks were a fast completion time and no deaths, not competency or execution.

Online is where the meat of the game is but unfortunately I couldn't test that out as no one was on to play. I did do some fights against bots to get a taste for it though but generally found things a bit too anarchic (NPI) to be anything more than fun. With 16 players running around it's hard to open up a combo before someone else starts theirs on you. All the while there is a multitude of environmental hazards to worry about like carpet bombings, poison gas and runaway oil trucks. If you detach yourself from it and go with the flow it works better but it is jarring when the play stops to show a cut-scene of the level changing to then drop you back into the game as you were. That and some characters just seem flat out better than others (looking at you Durga). The levels are also almost too big but the bots tended to all flock to one location and flip out on each other. It's like they designed levels for an FPS and forgot the guns and it's too easy to die and then get stranded from opponents. Bit weird. There are some smaller levels though which work better.

I like this sort of game though. Spawn was one of my Dreamcast's most played discs and it's nice to know that Sega and Platinum brought this to us. If you see it cheap it's worth a look, just bear in mind the online might be a bit empty and the bots are insane.

Sonic Adventure(360)

This is my third playthrough (I think) since launch and it hit me this time how Sonic Adventure is kind of the Dreamcast's Altered Beast: mind-blowing on release but actually pretty crappy in retrospect. I still admire the vision but the whole work is flawed from the concept. Bullet points are needed!

Sonic - Sonic's levels are definitely the highlight of the game to the point you wonder why Sonic Team spent time coding anything else. The levels are fast , pretty and generally display the most invention. They are also the levels that are more in line with the Mega Drive games and thus player expectation. It's unfortunate then that they are also the levels that suffer most from the terrible camera and have the largest dissonance with the "adventure" part of the game. Going from a high speed killer whale chase to watching a bunch of piss-poor almost static cutscenes, which are then followed by a slow and confusing hunt for door keys is something that makes me question if this is the same Sonic Team that created Nights. Also features the worst end-boss in Sonic history, the Egg Viper. "Get a load of PISS", indeed.

Tails - Same as Sonic except for some reason you're now doing it competitively against a cheating opponent. You can compensate for this though by flying past anything that is actually challenging. His voice acting will make you want to lobby for the re-legalization of fox hunting.

Knuckles - Probably the section that best melds the disparate components of the game together. Knuckles' levels actually feel like 3D worlds and have the adventure theme stamped on them. They are a bit slower paced so the camera is less of a problem even though it's still shocking. There also isn't the jarring feeling when returning to the overworld and Knuckles' gliding power is cool. It's a shame then that his levels can be over in about a minute depending on emerald placement. Knuckles' story also seems like the most important one given how Chaos ends up being the true final boss and all. Feels like this maybe started off as another game entirely, to be honest. He has the best theme song however.

Amy "Rule 34" Rose- Imagine if the Nemesis from Resi 3 could be knocked on its arse with a giant inflatable hammer and you have Amy's section, a bizarre chase/puzzle platformer that is really slow and completely ancillary to the plot. Also includes a disturbing amount of pink hedgehog panty shots. Brrr.

ED 209 - A robot suffering from an existential crisis who decimates enemies by virtue of owning a gun, thus making every one of his levels and boss fights a total breeze. Has an annoying habit of entering a super slippery run mode that can only be interrupted with a jump which will often send you careening off into bottomless pits. His levels are time based meaning you can die because you've run out of things to kill. This is still a kids game, isn't it? Not bad overall but this section is probably where Shadow the Hedgehog was born.

Le Grande Chat - I don't know what possessed Yuji Naka to put a giant, retarded, fishing obsessed cat into a Sonic game but he did and now we all have to live with the consequences. Another section that can be beat in less than ten minutes and serves no purpose other than to pad things out. The fishing mechanics aren't even as advanced as those in Ocarina of Time, for fuck sake. More galling is the fact that Sega is a company that makes actual fishing games! Good ones too. And the voice work makes it so Big crosses the line from stupid into offensive.

SSJ3 Goku - Unlocked when you beat all the other sections. It's essentially a boss fight (a good one at that) but with more unnecessary cut-scenes. Yay. Features the most stereotypically Dreamcast-y song ever put on a disc as its theme.


All joking aside though, what I found most frustrating on this play through wasn't the camera or slippery controls or the lazy sound mixing. No, it was the endless barrage of poorly voiced, poorly animated cut-scenes that serve only to pad the running time out. Most levels can actually be beaten quite quickly and (Egg Viper aside) there isn't much challenge. The adventure part of the game boils down to useless key collecting and can often be too obtuse for it's own good, serving only to break up any satisfaction you might have got from the levels proper.

I think Sonic Team wanted Sonic Adventure to be like Mario 64 in scope and scale, but forgot that Mario 64 has two seconds of plot to ten hours of adventure. Most annoyingly though is that Sonic Adventure doesn't even feel like a Sonic game for most of its run time. I know things were sort of fixed for SA2 (though I think that game is where Sega properly shit the bed story wise), but it's mystifying that no-one could see that all the extra fluff was getting in the way of making a good SONIC game. I'll admit this game melted eyeballs on release but nowadays it plays like a mid-range N64 platformer that overcompensates with terrible story and a tacked on open world to make Sonic seem modern.

[dsheinem]

Games Beaten 2014
Primal Rage - 32X
Golden Axe - Genesis
To the Moon: Holiday Special - PC
Need for Speed: Rivals - PS4
Halo: Spartan Assault - Xbox One
Kolibri - 32X
Motocross Championship - 32X
Shank 2 - PS3
Colassatron: Massive World Threat - iOS
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - PS3
Snafu - Intellivision - Intellivision
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom - Wii
Street Fighter vs. Tekken - Vita
Wolf Fang - PS1/Vita
Mirror's Edge - iOS
Infamous: Festival of Blood - PS3
The Last of Us: Left Behind - PS3
Flappy Bird - iOS
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - PS4
Titanfall - Xbox One
Infamous: Second Son - PS4
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - PC
Killzone: Mercenaries - Vita
Shock Troopers - Arcade (PS2)
Borderlands - PC/PS3
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) - Vita
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale - PS3
Muramasa Rebirth - Vita
Spyro The Dragon - PS1/Vita
Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - PC
Gears of War: Judgment - 360
Raiden III - Arcade (PS2)
Strider - Arcade (PS2)
Mario Kart Wii - Wii
Mario Kart 8 - Wii U
Eye of the Beholder - - Sega CD *new*
Code of Princess - 3DS *new*

Total: 37

Games Beaten: 2013 2012 2011 2010

I wrote a bit about Eye of the Beholder in the thread devoted to that game. Suffice to say the game's reputation is well earned. Glad I finally played it.

I played Code of Princess in a few different settings today and played my way through the 30-odd levels of the campaign. It's not quite what I expected in that it's a bit more arena-based, but it still managed to scratch that Guardian Heroes itch. It's also not too tough (about 5 hours). Also, somehow this is the first 3DS game I've beaten since September 2012

[graffix_13]

1. Tearaway- PS Vita (Platinum Trophy)
2. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag- PS4 (Platinum Trophy)
3. Resogun- PS4 (Platinum Trophy)
4. Super Stardust Delta- PS Vita
5. Galaga Legions DX- PS3
6. Under Defeat HD- PS3 (Platinum Trophy)
7. Ketsui Extra- PS3
8. Tomb Raider: DE- PS4 (Platinum Trophy)
9. DoDonPachi- PS1 (Japanese PSN)
10. Strider- PS4 (Platinum Trophy)
11. Demon's Souls- PS3 (Platinum Trophy)
12. Shadow of the Colossus- PS2
13. Guacamelee!- PS Vita (Platinum Trophy)
14. God Hand- PS2
15. Outlast- PS4
16. Octodad: Dadliest Catch- PS4
17. Transistor- PS4 (Platinum Trophy)
18. Resident Evil 4- PS2

Resident Evil 4- I had attempted to play this years ago but I never got very far. I don't even think I ever passed the first part in the village. It was the control scheme that was my biggest hang up with the game. I just didn't like the fact that you couldn't run and shoot. Now, after finally playing through the game and beating it, ironically enough the control scheme ended up being one of my favorite parts about it.

It didn't take me long to realize the controls ADD to the actual gameplay. Sometimes you're put in tense situations where you just have to stand your ground and hope you can stop the enemies before they get you. Once I mastered the controls, the game was a blast. Gameplay, story, graphics on this game are all superb. I can see why it's considered a classic. It's that good. Best RE in the series, IMO.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Hotline Miami (PS3)
2. Boulder Dash XL 3D (3DS)
3. Mirror's Edge (PS3)
4. Orcs & Elves (DS)
5. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
6. Justice League Heroes: The Flash (GBA)
7. Metal Gear (MSX/PS2)
8. Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)
9. LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition (PS3)
10. Drill Dozer (GBA)
11. LittleBigPlanet 2: Special Edition (PS3)
12. South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3)
13. Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing (PS3)
14: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
15. Angry Birds: Star Wars (3DS)
16. Nervous Brickdown (DS)
17. Dragon's Lair (ARCADE/DS)
18. Flashback: The Quest for Identity (GEN)
19. Jumping Flash! 2 (PS1)
20. Might Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

The games I play for my children's entertainment...Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is incredibly easy, and while it is not the best game on the SNES, it is certainly not the worst either (even if the ending sequence is a bit uncomfortable). I recommend this game only to fans of the series (or people looking to entertain fans of the series).

.....

My vacation and work schedule have caused me to take a break from R-Type Delta, but I will get back to it soon. (I plan to push my way to the ending while my wife and children are out of town.) I also ripped several games from my PS1 collection (i.e., Medal of Honor, Nectaris: Military Madness, Oddworld: Abe's Odysee, Return Fire, Twisted Metal 2, and Vagrant Story) yesterday so that I can play them on my PSP. I will probably turn to one of those next.

[ExedExes]

20. Might Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

The games I play for my children's entertainment...Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is incredibly easy, and while it is not the best game on the SNES, it is certainly not the worst either (even if the ending sequence is a bit uncomfortable). I recommend this game only to fans of the series (or people looking to entertain fans of the series)

I liked MMPR, but believe it or not, MMPR The Movie is even better.

[Stark]

I played Code of Princess in a few different settings today

So what were the different settings you played in and how did they affect the game?

[prfsnl_gmr]

20. Might Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

The games I play for my children's entertainment...Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is incredibly easy, and while it is not the best game on the SNES, it is certainly not the worst either (even if the ending sequence is a bit uncomfortable). I recommend this game only to fans of the series (or people looking to entertain fans of the series)

I liked MMPR, but believe it or not, MMPR The Movie is even better.

I have read that elsewhere. I don't think I will try to track it down, but if I run across it, I will be certain to pick it up. The only MMPR game that eludes me, however, is MMPR: Fighting Edition, which I have read is one of the best fighting games on the SNES.

[laurenhiya21]

1/6: Dear Esther (Steam)
1/11: Hydrophobia: Prophecy (Steam)
1/14: Spirit Camera: Cursed Memoir (3DS)
1/26: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
2/1: 1,000,000 (Steam)
3/14: Thomas Was Alone (Steam)
3/15: Fairy Bloom Freesia (Steam)
3/22: Suikoden (PS1)
3/25: Wizorb (Steam)
3/28: Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (Steam)
3/29: Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
3/30: Chibi-Robo! (GC)
3/31: Luigi's Mansion (GC)
4/13: Deponia (GOG)
4/13: Shatter (Steam)
4/14: Rusty's Real Deal Baseball: Cage Match (3DS)
4/19: Super Mario Sunshine (GC)
4/23: Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia (PS2)
4/25: Freddi Fish 3: Case of the Stolen Conch Shell (PC)
4/26: Frogatto & Friends (Desura)
5/6: Persona 4 (PS2)
5/9: The Last Us (PS3)
5/24: Atelier Ayesha: Alchemist of Dusk (PS3)
5/28: Tobe's Vertical Adventure (Steam)
6/2: Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (Steam)

Tobe's Vertical Adventure - Just a simple little platformer I guess? I enjoyed it for the most part, other than it being difficult to use some items using a controller.

Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians - I wish I could say that it was a really fun game but, for me, it definitely wasn't. (not sure why I bothered beating it tbh) The art was really nice and some of the music was fine, but moving the character around was so difficult to do, which just made the game frustrating for me. (especially since it's paired with bad hit detection at times) I really liked the concept on how this world is powered by music but... ugh. Plus the ending felt hastily slapped on, which doesn't exactly help :/

[TSTR]

1. Dead Pixels (PC) - Run n' Gun
2. Magical Drop V (PC) - Puzzle
3. Reaching Out (Android) - Visual Novel
4. Nanolife (Android) - Visual Novel
5. Darius Burst (PSP) - Shmup
6. Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) - Racing
7. Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (PSP) - Fighting
8. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (Genesis) - Fighting
9. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition (PS3) - Fighting
10. Super Mario Bros. (NES) - Platformer
11. SMT: Persona 4 (PS2) - RPG
12. Final Fantasy (PSP) - RPG

Moving that over from the Summer Challenge thread. Thoughts:

Just wonderful. Right amount of challenge (although your party can get pretty OP with certain items/spells) and a solid length for an old-school JRPG like this. Encounter rate was spot-on, not too much or too little. Made me learn to love random encounters again. No grinding necessary, just level on up as you go. Beautifully redrawn sprites and backgrounds. Excellent music (Sunken Shrine ftw). Will definitely go back and replay this one with a different party for another take on it.