Games Beaten 2015

[Exhuminator]

That's the one I always use.)

To kill the last boss I flew straight up to its face and blasted away with my main cannon, then repeatedly used the energy eraser to destroy the acid bubbles and fighter jets it shoots out at you. The bubbles and jets often left behind item capsules with health restoratives so I would fly over and grab those as they appeared. I tried the fireball at first, but that puts you down low enough for the boss to hit you with its arms of doom, so I gave up on that. Having to redo the boss rush every time you failed at the final boss was a pain in the ass though.

[Sarge]

I completely forgot to mention that I played through Justice League: Task Force for SNES. I used Wonder Woman, and pretty much threw everything into oblivion. The AI tactics are crazy cheap in the game, so turnabout is fair play.

Folks might also recognize that this was a Blizzard game. Well, apparently co-developed with Sunsoft. Anyway, glad they got out of the fighting game business.

[Hobie-wan]

It's hard for me to find fault with this game honestly, outside occasional difficulty spikes The Guardian Legend is exceptionally well made for its era. (Honestly this is one of the most impressively programmed NES games I've ever played.)

Compile really knew their way around the NES. Zanac is a really early game and there's no slowdown despite how nutty the screen gets clogged up sometimes. Likewise on the SNES, Space Megaforce is bonkers with action sometimes, but you don't see it chugging like other smhups that get busy.

[Sarge]

I'm going to call Fester's Quest legit beaten.

I used some lunch break and made progress, and just got a chance to wrap it up. I used some turbo to save my poor thumbs early on, then blasted through the entire UFO with the normal complement of items and no turbo. The nooses did indeed help a ton.

As for the final boss, I tried to take him down without "knowledge" of the safe spot. Got down to a few blocks of health, backed off to it, and used two missiles to finish it off. Curious, of course, I went back to see a more efficient way. The safe spot is actually probably the easiest (I mean, ridiculously so), and using a flame whip + missiles up close might be the fastest, as long as you keep your health up and/or use invisibility. I guess my point is, as long as you have your optional weapons, it's just a battle of attrition.

I'd almost lean towards calling it a good game. Flawed, but good. I actually like the feel of the combat a bit more than the overhead sections of Blaster Master. Everything just feels a lot more solid. That a single hit doesn't drop your gun or whip levels is also a plus, and even a game over doesn't rob you of your power-ups, instead sending you back to the very start (doh!). Not sure if you have to rebeat the bosses again if that happens, though. Anyone else know?

EDIT: I should probably add one more thing. This is a game that is much easier if you do your grinding early. Always keep your gun and whip maxed out. If you lose a level by picking up the wrong icon, find some easy-ish enemies and get it back. A couple of bosses in particular are easiest to take out with a flame whip and invisibility potions.

[Luke]

That a single hit doesn't drop your gun or whip levels is also a plus

It doesn't?

Well slap my ass and call me Charlie. I've beaten this game every year, since the game was released and thought it had the same BM weapon design.

Jesus. To think of all the years of time I have spent shooting slime in the sewers...

S'all good. Fester's has some of the best video game music if the 8-bit era, and I'll never forget when I bought the game: A guy at EB told me "If you buy this, buy a few more controllers too. You'll be throwing them a lot".

[Sarge]

Yeah, that's how I remembered it, and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't. Instead, now you have blue and red powerup icons. Snag a blue one and the level goes up. Red, down. Makes using the whip a little dangerous, as it will snag power ups.

I was really shocked to see it retain levels upon a game over. I'd be ecstatic if Blaster Master used the power up system employed here.

EDIT: Oh, and the red powerups get ridiculously common at the higher gun levels. It's crazy. A lot of the challenge is just staying on your guard about not collecting the wrong stuff. The whip isn't so bad because it's only got four levels in the first place. The gun has eight, and I suspect the drop rate is directly based on how many levels you currently have in a weapon.

[Luke]

I was really shocked to see it retain levels upon a game over. I'd be ecstatic if Blaster Master used the power up system employed here.

Different strokes, as that sound of getting hit and seeing your gun also drop is part of the soundtrack of my life.

As far as "Grenade" to "Whip" I love how both weapons, on different games, feel like your last option. They're like the knife of actual confrontation. When the gun is out of ammo, get close, get personal.

That said, a flaming whip is a lot cooler than a knife.

[Exhuminator]

Well slap my ass and call me Charlie.

Okay but you assed for it.

[Exhuminator]

1. Devil's Attorney (Android) (lawyer strategy) (good game)
2. Resident Evil 5 (360) (survival horror cover shooter) (good game)
3. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (360) (kart racer) (good game)
4. Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) (classic JRPG) (amazing game)
5. Gears of War (360) (dudebro cover shooter) (decent game)
6. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Vita) (Tomb Raider with a penis) (decent game)
7. Orcs & Elves (DS) (Id style dungeon crawler) (good game)
8. From The Abyss (DS) (simple action-RPG) (decent game)
9. Army of Two (360) (co-op cover shooter) (decent game)
10. Psychic World (Master System) (sadistic platformer) (subpar game)
11. Endless Ocean: Blue World (Wii) (adventure/simulation) (amazing game)
12. Journey to Silius (NES) (sadistic platformer) (decent game)
13. Sword Master (NES) (hack'n'slash platformer) (subpar game)
14. Project: Snowblind (PC) (thinking man's FPS) (good game)
15. Yakyuuken Part II - Gal's Dungeon (Famicom) (stripping maze puzzle) (decent game)
16. Bishoujo Sexy Derby (Famicom) (stripping horse racing) (terrible game)
17. SiN Episodes: Emergence (PC) (amateur hour FPS) (subpar game)
18. Seirei Gari (AKA Ghost Hunter) (NES) (puzzle adventure) (subpar game)
19. The Guardian Legend (NES) (action-RPG/shmup hybrid) (amazing game)
20. Prey (PC) (FPS) (good game)

A Native American man and his friends have been abducted by human devouring aliens! Now its up to you to help him destroy the alien mothership, save his friends, and save Earth before it's too late.

Well after spending years in development hell, Prey turned out to be a pretty good game. If this was just a shooter concerned with blasting aliens, that wouldn't be the case. Luckily Prey incorporates some rather innovative (for its time) concepts. You've got blue and orange portals (predating Portal), reverse gravity effects aplenty, and even spherical levels (predating Super Mario Galaxy), and even Astral Projection aspects. You've even got spaceship flying sections as well, where you dogfight enemy drones. These elements are mixed up in some surprisingly clever puzzle designs at times.

It turns out that kind of stuff is far and away the best part of Prey though, because its actual shooting aliens bits get stale fast. The weapons available aren't all that interesting, and most of the environments are small and corridor fashioned in nature, making combat a very straight forward affair. To alleviate some potential boredom, Prey does keep a pretty keen sense of humor going. But Prey also has a dark side to it, women and children are murdered before your eyes in this game for example. Graphically Prey looks very nice even nine years later, thanks to the id Tech 4 engine and excellent art direction. There's some great licensed music in Prey as well. Hearing Judas Priest and Blue Oyster Cult in an FPS like this was not expected.

All the same you'll likely be ready for Prey to be over before it is. For every five minutes of awesome environmental puzzles, you have to mindlessly blast through thirty minutes of rote alien slaying. The story starts off kind of lame, gets a little more interesting, then ends on a cliff hanger we will likely never see rectified. Yet the amazing graphics and gravity/portal technical wizardry make Prey an FPS worth experiencing. Perhaps Prey's greatest achievement though, is making its protagonist a Native American who is not only a strong lead, but not negatively stereotyped in any way. Now there's an innovative idea for a game to be remembered for.

[Flake]

1/3: Super Mario Bros 2: Lost Levels (Luigi Run) (3DS VC/NES)
1/4: Super Mario Bros. (Wii / All-Stars)
1/15: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
1/20: Super Mario Kart 8 (WiiU)
1/28: Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
2/15: Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon (3DS)
2/15: Super Mario Land (3DS VC/GB)
2/16: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3DS VC/GB)
3/3: Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (3DS VC/GB)
3/13: Dragon Ball Xenoverse (PS4)

Hey, a non-Mario, non-Nintendo game. That's weird.

What's even more weird is that Dragon Ball Xenoverse found a way to fix the problem that the Dragon Ball video game series (and anime based games in general) have been dealing with for years now: How to have a story mode in a game based on a property where everyone is sick and tired of the story?

The game in a nutshell is that important events in the history of Dragonball Z have been horribly altered and time is falling apart. There are a lot of really neat 'what-if' vignettes that give your player created character a chance to save the day by fighting alongside the DBZ cast in order to put time back the way it should be. This concept is backed up by a pretty decent fighting engine that (while shallow) is dynamic and does a great job of letting you feel like you're a fighter in the DBZ show.

I recommend this one pretty strongly.