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1. Elite Dangerous - PC
2. Soldier of Fortune - PC
3. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Defender of the Empire - PC
4. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Enemies of the Empire - PC
5. Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power - PC
6. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - PC
7. Phoenix Point - PC
8. Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter - PC
9. Descent II - PC
10. Inbento - Switch
11. Ori and the Will of the Wisps - XB1
12. Doom Eternal - PC
13. Serious Sam 2 - PC
14. Black Mesa - PC

Black Mesa is the total conversion of the original Half-Life in the Source engine (as opposed to HL: Source, which just ports all the original assets) that has been under development for a very long time. They actually did a release a few years ago that had everything up until Xen, just as they went into Early Access, and I played through it then. But now they finally finished up Xen and have released the whole thing for real and I gave it a play through. And this is exactly what everyone was hoping it would be from the start.

Now, as I recall from my playthrough, originally they did a lot more interpretation of the maps; while the beats where the same there was a lot more changes to layouts and details. Playing through it now it seems like they did a pass and reigned some of that back in. There still are increases in overall layout detail, most notably in the opening part of the game before you get a gun, but on the whole it felt a lot more familiar. And I think they struck a good balance overall; it feels like what the game would look like if you took all the preproduction work and implemented it in a game now (or at least, at the same time as HL2 came out, since mechanically it still plays like HL2).

But the thing really worth talking about is Xen. Now, people who played through the original know Xen is where the game basically stops being amazing and falls down to competent. Well, I am happy to report that the years spent on the Xen levels was not in vain; the Xen stuff is genuinely fun. Rather than simply being a bunch of floating rocks with a lot of platforming they have now turned this section of the game into a heavy exploration and traversal section. There aren't a lot of enemies, and it's mostly about maneuvering through an alien landscape (which is much more interesting than the original's), figuring out how to remove barriers, and progress through. The Gonarch boss fight has been greatly expanded; the first and last parts as the same as before (big open area, and enclosed area), but between those two is a long section of you traversing his lair, with some chase sequences and some "look at me yell at you from behind this wall" stuff. Then Interloper plays into the story that we'll see in HL2; the Vortigaunts are unwilling slaves and if you leave them alone they leave you alone (I can't remember if that was the case in the original). There's even parts where the Controllers will mind control the Vortigaunts, and killing them returns them to normal.

And finally, there's the redone Nihilanth fight. He was a pain in the ass originally; you had to destroy some crystals on the wall, then boost up and shoot him in the open head. Meanwhile, he's teleporting you to random areas with monsters, and the teleport was a homing shot. It was utterly frustrating. Well now things are different. There's no teleports, just a ton of beam spam that is quite dodgeable (and there's a good amount of resources). You need to take down his shield, then force him to reveal his healing crystals and destroy those. At that point he goes apeshit; more damage gets him to open his head and start spinning with his head thrown back. One good shot to the brainpan and congratulations; you've won the game. This boss fight went from an example of terrible FPS boss design to great FPS boss design.

If you're a fan of Half-Life then you owe it to yourself to give Black Mesa a try. If you've never played Half-Life before then Black Mesa is a great introduction. Either way, it's a fantastic FPS.

1. Streets of Rage 2 (Sega Genesis Mini)
2. The Ninja Warriors (Super Nintendo) [3x]
3. TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (Super Nintendo)
4. Golden Axe (Sega Genesis Mini) [3x]
5. Beyond Oasis (Sega Genesis Mini)
6. Super Double Dragon (Super Nintendo)
7. Shenmue II (Sega Dreamcast)
8. Shining Force 2 (Sega Genesis)
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Super Nintendo)
10. ActRaiser (Super Nintendo)



11. OutRun (Sega Genesis)

Although I consider this to be one of my favorite games, I hadn't picked it up in a few years. I decided to do so after reading through the Together Retro thread for March, which was themed around playing arcade ports during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Also, I had just received my 8bitdo Genesis 2.4ghz controllers, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to participate in TR and test the controller on a different game.

This is a great pick up and play racing game, where you simply to have to make it to the next checkpoint within a limited amount of time. You're not up against any other opponents similar to most racing games, but you'll have to navigate through other drivers on the road. I always found the style of this game to be relaxing, and this is definitely a "comfort food" title for me. OutRun has a great soundtrack, and when you start the first stage, you have the option to choose which song you'd like to have in the background. The other choice you'll have to make throughout the game is which path you'll take at each checkpoint, as you'll have two options after each stage. I believe generally going left is deemed an easier stage and right is tougher. You'll have to travel through a total of five stages with about 60 to 80 seconds per stage, so this makes for a quick playthrough. There are a total of five different final stages, and each path has a different ending consisting of a short funny sequence.

I finished the game a few times within about an hour of play and was able to unlock one of the easter eggs, which happened to be the Sega blimp passing by in the third stage. There are three different Sega related easter eggs in the game, which can be unlocked if you complete the first two stages in under 60 seconds, and you do not bump into any other drivers on the road up to that point.

Overall, this is still a favorite of mine, and I'm glad I revisited it for March's TR. I highly recommend it, especially if you're looking to try something that's quick to pick up and play.

1. Streets of Rage 2 (Sega Genesis Mini)
2. The Ninja Warriors (Super Nintendo) [3x]
3. TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (Super Nintendo)
4. Golden Axe (Sega Genesis Mini) [3x]
5. Beyond Oasis (Sega Genesis Mini)
6. Super Double Dragon (Super Nintendo)
7. Shenmue II (Sega Dreamcast)
8. Shining Force 2 (Sega Genesis)
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Super Nintendo)
10. ActRaiser (Super Nintendo)
11. OutRun (Sega Genesis)



12. X-Men 2: Clone Wars (Sega Genesis)

I originally purchased X-Men 2 when the Sega Genesis 3 came out back in '98, along with a copy of Contra Hard Corps (the reprinted version with the cardboard box). On previous plays, I had only made it about halfway through the game, and never really sat down to seriously try to finish it. With some free time on my hands this morning, I thought to revisit this title and try to actually get through it.

This game is a bit different from the start, as when you turn on the game, the first level starts right up and you're thrown into the mix with a random character. After you complete the first stage, you see the main menu and are then able to select a character. I always thought this was an odd choice, but it definitely grabs your attention, if nothing else. X-Men 2 is better than the first game on the Genesis in both the graphics and gameplay department. You're able to use each character's mutant powers as much as you'd like and if a character dies in a level, you can still select them unlike the first game, which had perma deaths. Also, the character design is pretty spot on, as each mutant has his own strengths and weaknesses. This gives you the ability to take a different approach to each level.

The graphics are a strong point, and this might be the best looking X-Men game on console from the 16-bit generation. The sprites are a good size on screen, and the characters resemble their comic counterparts. The soundtrack is pretty good IMO. There are some songs I don't care for, but there are others that are impressive and as time went on, the soundtrack definitely grew on me. The soundtrack was composed by Kurt Harland from the 80's electronic group Information Society. Also, I really like the cover art -- the illustrator did a great job. I have the Mega Hits version, but the original printing with the holographic background looks great.

The difficulty in this game can be a turn-off, as it can be really tough. Your character is going to take a lot of damage. In some levels, projectiles will be hitting you from all over the place, including projectiles coming from off screen. I think this is a major flaw in the game, as a lot of people may lose the drive to actually finish it or replay it. The platforming is fine, as I didn't have any issues with that aspect, and the controls are responsive.

Overall, I think this is a good game, but I'd only recommend it to those that are both a fan of Marvel and 16-bit games. For anyone else that doesn't fit into these categories, I think the difficulty is too brutal for someone to put in the effort and time to try to complete the game. I'm glad that I finally finished this one, but I most likely won't be revisiting it for a while, unless a friend wants to try out the co-op.

Games Beaten in 2020 - 12
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)


February (2 Games Beaten)


March (9 Games Beaten)


12. Doom 64 - Switch - March 26



Doom 64 saw Doom make the jump from psuedo 3D to actual 3D. It still resembled Doom and Doom II, giving it a fairly rudimentary 3D look in a lot of ways, but that also served to help keep it feeling like a true Doom sequel instead of a slightly awkward departure. -cough cough- Doom 3 -cough cough- Oh, and it's an absolute damn masterpiece.



The bulk of the monsters and weapons you've come to know in Doom and Doom II make a return in Doom 64. While some look pretty much the same, like the zombiemen and the Hell Knights, some look radically different, like the Pain Elemental (screw that thing). As far as the guns go, the biggest appearance difference is with the chainsaw. The jump to the Nintendo 64 saw Doom's chainsaw gain a second blade, making it not only infinitely cooler in general but probably the most badass melee weapon in any video game ever.



The game is pretty much what you'd expect from Doom; you spend the first third or so killing demons that have invaded human installations and settlements, and then you spend the last half to two thirds of the game killing demons through Hell and reminding them why it's a bad idea to go through those portals. Overall, I'd say the rigor of the puzzles is about on par with Doom and Doom II although that does vary from level to level. Some levels are no puzzles at all, straight murder. Some levels - like the VERY aptly named damn Unholy Temple - not only balls deep the puzzle aspect but do so in the most god awful annoying way possible. Seriously, that's the single most frustrating level in the entire Doom series (excluding maybe Doom Eternal which I've still not played at the time of writing because I'm poor).



Other than the general immense satisfaction that massacring the legions of Hell gives in Doom 64, my favorite part of this game is probably the final boss. It's BALLS hard, but it's a true honest to God (no pun intended) final boss experience. Doom had the Spiderdemon, and Doom II had the awkward living wall thing with the constantly spawning hordes, but Doom 64 basically has those two in one. The first phase is an absolute gauntlet where you have to fight through three or four massive waves of almost every type of enemy in the game. If you manage to survive that, you then fight the Mother of all Demons, and she is NOT to be underestimated. She makes the Spiderdemon and Cyberdemon look like punk tutorial foes. The game does give you pretty much full health, armor, and ammo for all weapons before the battle starts, but even with that, it took me a solid five attempts to clear the boss. Few final boss experiences have left me feeling quite that satisfied.



Because it's a port of a game from three console generations back, it obviously runs smooth as butter on modern platforms, but even playing on the original Nintendo 64 is one of the most satisfying goregasm experiences that the platform has to offer. Whether you're dusting off an old N64 cartridge or using one of those newfangled downloads on a PC or modern console, Doom 64 is about as good as it gets with demon massacring. There aren't many games that leave me feelingly completely and totally satisfied, but this is one of those few.

1. Her Story (iOS)
2. Elminage Original (3DS)
3. Legend of Grimrock (iOS)
4. Silent Bomber (PS1)
5. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
6. Bust-a-Move 2 Arcade Edition (PS1)
7. Transformers Cybertron Adventures (Wii)
8. Squidlit (Switch)
9. Sydney Hunter & The Curse of the Mayan (Switch)
10. Mega Man Legends (PS1)
11. Revenge of the Bird King (Switch)

Revenge of the Bird King is the third game in the Gunworld series, and the only one available for the Nintendo Switch. (The second game in the series, Super Gunworld 2, was described by its one-man development team as the “the sequel no one wanted to the game nobody played,” but the PS4 version actually received a physical release through Limited Run games.) The game is deeply weird, and I’ll make no attempt to describe its nonsensical plot. In it, you play as a anthropomorphic bald eagle from Gunworld, the planet where guns grow on trees. (I’m not sure if the developer’s trying to make a political statement or not.) The gameplay is a bit like a cross between Mega Man and Zelda II(!), but the game has the fast, loosely-goose controls of a DOS platformer. Also, it uses almost every button on the console, with one button to jump, one to slide, one to swing your knife, one to shoot your gun, two to cycle through gun seeds, one to grab onto things, and one to plant gun trees. (Planting gun trees is the game’s most original gameplay concept. To change weapons, you have to purchase and plant a gun tree seed, which sprouts instantly. You can either harvest the gun on the tree or leave it as a turret. It’s a weird mechanic that mostly works, but makes the Mega Man-inspired boss fights way to easy.)

I bought the game for $0.01 (i.e., one Nintendo coin), and it was way, way, way better than it had any right to be at that price. The gameplay and open-world structure was consistently engaging. The platforming was challenging; the bosses were fun, and the game didn’t wear out its welcome. I think it’s still on sale; so, if you can spare a single Nintendo coin, I highly recommend picking it up.

Unholy Temple is like the Water Temple; it's not hard, but you have to actually pay attention to what the environment is telling you. And in both cases I cannot understand why people consider them to be crazy hard.

MrPopo wrote:Unholy Temple is like the Water Temple; it's not hard, but you have to actually pay attention to what the environment is telling you. And in both cases I cannot understand why people consider them to be crazy hard.

I don't consider either of them to be crazy hard so much as just crazy annoying.

Games Beaten in 2020 - 13
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)


February (2 Games Beaten)


March (10 Games Beaten)


13. Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth - Nintendo 64 - March 28



Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is one of the later entries in the Star Soldier series of shmups, and this is a series that I'm quite a fan of. The NES port of Star Soldier was one of the first games I had growing up as a kid, so the series definitely has a special place in my heart. It's unfortunate, then, that this N64 entry proved to be such a major disappointment for me.



Being developed by Hudson, you'd be forgiven for going into Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth as I did with pretty lofty expectations. I mean, Hudson is no small time developer especially back in the 90s. They alone were reason enough to own a TurboGrafx-16 with games like Ys, Star Parodier, and Lords of Thunder to name a few. It's kind of like playing Super Mario 64, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and Super Metroid before going to Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. How could such an objectively talented and accomplished studio produce such a depressingly disappointing game?



While story is rarely a big driving force in arcade shmups, even by those standards, Vanishing Earth is okay at best. Some aliens launched an overwhelming attack on the Earth, and a small group of defenders has to fight them off. That's it. That's the story. I mean, yeah, that's the basic story of like 75% of the shmups out there, and I'm probably a little overly cynical because of how meh the whole game is, but there's legit nothing that sets it apart from the crowd. The audio is similarly forgettable. The music's okay, and the robot voicing when the bosses approach is interesting, but again, this is the studio that gave us Lords of Thunder. My expectations were higher. The gameplay is slow and cumbersome. Your ship feels like it's swimming through jelly, not flying through space. Your lasers do autofire if you hold the A button, but there's a delay between when you press the button and when they start autofiring. Because of that, I seriously played through the first three of the game's seven levels smashing the A button repeatedly before I realized that I just had to hold it down for a couple seconds to get it to start shooting more than once.



Pretty much the only aspect of the game that wasn't a massive disappointment for me was the visuals. It didn't blow my mind, but it does look pretty good for the Nintendo 64. The ships are all well modeled and animated, and the enemy attacks are usually pretty clear to see with the exception of a few awkwardly animated boss attacks. Unfortunately, impressive visuals aren't enough to redeem its dime-a-dozen story, mediocre sound design, sluggish controls, and so-so presentation.



Unfortunately, almost all of Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is a massive disappointment. The game looks quite nice, but that's about as far as the compliments go. It's a shame, too, because the Star Soldier series deserved better, and Hudson was capable of so much better. Every studio has its duds, and this was one hell of a dud for Hudson. If you have a Nintendo 64 emulator on your PC or an Everdrive 64 cartridge, it might be worth checking out if you're a fan of Star Soldier like I am just to say that you experienced it, but don't get your hopes up, and definitely don't spend any money on this. It's just not worth the let down.

1. Elite Dangerous - PC
2. Soldier of Fortune - PC
3. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Defender of the Empire - PC
4. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Enemies of the Empire - PC
5. Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power - PC
6. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - PC
7. Phoenix Point - PC
8. Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter - PC
9. Descent II - PC
10. Inbento - Switch
11. Ori and the Will of the Wisps - XB1
12. Doom Eternal - PC
13. Serious Sam 2 - PC
14. Black Mesa - PC
15. Descent 3 - PC

So you might notice that the second game uses Roman numerals while the third game uses Arabic. That's only the first of many missteps that make up Descent 3. The game was created after Parallax Software split into two companies (because they found having two remote offices wasn't working well). Half formed Volition, the other half formed Outrage. Outrage was the "remote" office of Parallax, and apparently all the talent was in the "home" office, as Freespace is considered a great space game and meanwhile Descent 3 just utterly lacks every bit of magic of the first two games.

Descent 3 picks up from where Descent II's cliffhanger ending leaves off; your ship misjumps close to the Sun and you're set to be crispy. But you get rescued by an anti-PTMC group who suspect the PTMC is up to evil, instead of just normal corporate shenanigans. Since you owe them you agree to help them find evidence that points out that Dravis (the guy who hired you for the first two games) was weaponizing the virus that made the robots evil. Then you deliver that evidence to the CEO, but the CEO is bombed by Dravis and you have to go on the run. So now you engage in the other 2/3 of the game, where you try to prove your innocence and stop Dravis's plan.

The game plays basically the same as the previous two; you have a ship, with guns and missiles, most of the guns use energy, you can move in any direction. The two big changes are related to the environment design. The first is that the game supports both the cramped tunnels as well as surface areas (which require different technical optimizations, so this was a technical feat at the time). So you might be in a tunnel, then burst onto the surface to find another tunnel entrance. The surface sections are mostly filler, as the bulk of the gameplay is still in the tunnels. The second big change is that the environments are much more "grounded". That's the best term I can think of, but the goal is they try and represent real places that humans might have intentionally built, whereas the previous games were the result of robots autonomously mining, so they didn't have to make any real sense. This ends up making the level design much less inspired, and ironically makes the game harder to navigate, as you no longer have these landmark rooms that you can use to easily orient yourself. The first half of the game also has much more linear levels, though the later levels are a bit more of the expected mazelike functionality.

The game also expands the mission goals; whereas previously it was always "destroy the reactor/boss and escape", now you have to accomplish a bunch of things. Maybe it's flipping switches to open gates and collect an item, maybe it's defending a bunch of reactors. Sometimes the final objective is to escape, but many times the level ends when you do the last goal (such as turning on a vital machine). This ends up being a mixed bag; on the one hand it fits in with the actual story the game is telling, but on the other hand the simplicity of "visit all the places to get the colored keys to get to the end" hearkened back to Doom, and it is fun with good level design.

The biggest problem with the game is that everything just feels off. Your ship isn't quite as agile, your weapons aren't as powerful, your shots don't travel as fast, and enemies move a bit too fast. This is why it's a good thing the surface parts are small diversions; these are always the worst places to fight bots because they are just too evasive and your shots have such an egregious travel time. Everything just feels like someone cribbed off of Descent II without actually understanding why the game worked so well. It's like a Descent fan game, in that sense.

And then there's a bunch of specific problems in levels. There's a mechanic where certain glass windows can be broken, but only by physical weapons. Which is your vauss cannon and missiles. This is used exactly twice in game for progression, once in the first level or two and once midway through. And by the time you get to the second one you've forgotten it was even a thing. The penultimate level requires you to use the guided missiles to hit a switch you can't get to and then have to hunt down random robots through a large ship in the most mazelike level in the game (and it seems to arbitrarily pick which ones you have to kill); this last objective takes AGES. The final boss is once again bullshit, but ironically gets easier as the fight goes on. First phase he just spams a fuckton of area damage you can't avoid, second phase he does a linear laser sweep that will hit you a couple times each cycle, but doesn't do a lot of damage, and then third phase he does homing missile spam, but you can literally just get in his face and he can't hit you (so you get a free win at the end). A previous boss moves at the same speed as you and likes to melee, so he gets on your ass and you can't shake him.

There's two things I will say I enjoyed. The first was that the guide bot is quite advanced (moment to moment pathfinding issues aside), so in addition to getting you from objective to objective it can do things like take you to where you died so you can get your powerups back, put out flames on you (from fire or lava), and shoot things in a pinch. And the second is that a late game level on the moon has a section which is the opening room of the first Descent, and that made me smile.

But overall, Descent 3 is just a poor way for the series to end. It superficially is a sequel, but it loses everything that made the previous games fun and special.

MrPopo wrote:So you might notice that the second game uses Roman numerals while the third game uses Arabic. That's only the first of many missteps that make up Descent 3.

This type of thing always irritates me. Don't even get me started on "Ys Seven."