VideoGame_Discussion

Age of Zombies

I've had this game, from Amazon, since, like.. when was it first released? Anyway, my work laptop slows to a grind when Windows updates, so I unintentionally beat this on my phone yesterday. I know Barry Steakfries is a parody, but damn, does his character not age well. The controls, though, for using two digital analog sticks, work very, very well. Every so often it can be tough to aim precisely, but the game rarely calls for it. There's a Horde mode too, but the stages are so simple, I'm probably done with it and will uninstall it from my phone. I still have it on my tablet, and if anyone prefers physical analog sticks, it's still available on Vita!

A friend and I beat We Were Here last night on PlayStation 4. The game costs $5 on PS4 and Xbox, but is free on Steam, so check it out on your platform of choice if you like co-op puzzle games. It's a short game, maybe 2 hours long depending on how good you are at solving puzzles and how good you and your partner are at communicating, because you absolutely will not beat this without you and your friend working together. You each are seeing different things as you play through the game, basically what your friend can see is going to help you get through your side of the game because you're on totally different paths and you don't even meet up in the game until the very end. Needless to say this is a co-op only game and can't be played in single player.

They've made a whole series out of this concept, and this entry is basically considered the "pilot episode" of the whole thing. I'll see if my friend wants to check out the rest of the games because we liked what this one offered.

I just finished up Serious Sam 2 on Steam. It really didn't need to be as long as it is, because some levels just drag on. At least two or three times I thought the game was about to end but there was still another couple of hours to go.

Chorus

8/10

This was such a nifty little open world space combat game. I really shouldn’t say little though cause it felt like a game longer than I anticipated it to be. I clocked in over 20 hours and there were just a bunch of side missions I had left by the time I wrapped up the main story. It’s really a high octane action junkie space combat arcade like shooter from start to finish and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. The story is a bit convoluted though and delves deep into some kind of ancient alien like lore with enemies called the Faceless who pretty much assimilate anything they come across. You’re also dealing with resistance and defectors of the galaxy’s republic so it really does feel like Star Wars a bit. Speaking of, we really need a modern game space combat Star Wars game that is this visceral and relentless. I played the latter portion of the game to The Battle of Yavin theme from A New Hope. It was so rad. The key weapons you get to utilize too are just as cool. Your main Gatling gun is there for rapid fire punishment. Then your laser is there to disable enemy shields. And lastly your missiles provide much needed heavy damage to big hefty foes. You can also upgrade your ships hull and shields by collecting or purchasing upgrades in hangars across the various sectors of the decent sized Star map. You can also apply ship mods to achieve more armor, damage, or special ability enhancements. Your special abilities known as rites range from electrical discharges to a phaser boost which pretty much liquidates most enemies in it’s wake. Ship maneuvering is pretty slick and sleek too allowing you to warp, boost, drift and of course do a barrel roll! My only complaints were there is a data leak bug that causes the game to crash and say that the ram of the machine you’re running it on has run out of memory and you have to restart the app. The only workaround I’ve found that works if you get this constant error message which pops up sporadically the longer sessions you play, is to uninstall and reinstall the game. Other than that, I found that the scanning ability to find your next objective and even enemies on the map leaves a bit much to be desired and could use for some tweaking since it’s very hard to spot enemies and objects even after scanning them at times. But overall I really enjoyed much of my time with this one and can safely recommend it to anyone who’s been craving a good ol’ space combat game that screams Star Wars all around.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I bought this for PS5 and so far I love it. Im taking my time with it though.

The Rusty Sword: Vanguard Island on Switch.
I'll type up a short review in the review thread later tonight or tomorrow, but I'll tell ya now: don't buy this. It's only $1 but spend that on a pack of gum or something, because at least it'll last longer than this game does.

Yeah, I saw the price for that but then saw reviews saying it’s basically a demo. Took you about 20 minutes to finish, right?

Kaze and the Wild Masks - 7/10 on
Very frustrating at times but I stuck with it and got 100% in terms of meeting all of the 30+ levels generally 3 tasks, beyond simply reaching the end.
If you like 80-90's rather challenging platformers, then you might love this, I hated it at times but have pretty strong satisfaction from besting it, finally.

BloodPuppetX wrote:


Yeah, would have been closer to 15 minutes except I died on the last boss, which shouldn't have happened because the game starts you with 16 hearts, but I would have played more carefully if I knew that was the only boss in the game.

Mega man zero 4 - 6/10 via analogue pocket.

I just thought it was meh. Never played the zero series before and thought it would be similar to mega man proper. The stage bosses are cool but when I learned you don’t get to use their powers after you beat them I was kinda bummed.

The “use recipe” power up system (if you will) was kind of let down too since I never seemed to have the right parts to upgrade zero.

It looked good though and was an above average platformer I guess.

Elden Ring - 9.8/10 - Amazing game. This is the first Souls game that I have completed, level 172 at the end. This may make it into my all time top list, certainly one of the best games I've played in years.

Trek to Yomi

Beautiful looking little game. Amazing art style, great panning shots and runs pretty good. The gameplay is good but doesnt really offer enough variety to keep it interesting throughout. The story is just ok, but I think a lot was lost in translation for me. I found 2 bugs where the cutscenes wouldnt have voice acting. Probably an easy future patch fix.

Overall i think its a unique indie game that had the potential for being awesome, but there were some pretty bad design choices that take it down to average. The main one is it has overly long stages with little gameplay variety. The second one is that I missed a lot of the dialogue because it is all in japanese. Its great for immersion, sure, but I cant read subtitles while Im timing my parries fighting 5 enemies.

Anyway, I think the visuals alone make it worth playing... in short bursts. Only because its on gamepass though. Id wait for it to be $5 otherwise.

6/10

After beating We Were Here last week, my friend and I just beat the sequel We Were Here Too.
I like this series because it will really test you and your friend's ability to communicate. If you don't have a mic or a way to at least text your friend, don't waste your time playing this. There are 4 entries in this series so far (the 4th one just released a few weeks ago on PC, so still waiting for the console port) and my friend and I plan to play through them all. If you like co-op games, puzzle games, and co-op puzzle games, then this series should be on your radar too. It's co-op only, and online only, so just know that ahead of time.
Due to a couple wi-fi disconnects on my friend's part, we were unable to get the "good" ending because I think you basically have to do it in one playthrough. Even with the bad ending, I enjoyed the game. Worth the $10 for sure (or $20 for me because I bought us each a copy since I enjoyed the first game so much). Maybe one day we'll go for the good ending.

The Ascent via Game Pass

I'll admit, I'm starting to lose interest in the cyber punk aesthetic between all the games, movies and tv shows that have leaned heavily into that design the last few years. That said, 'The Ascent' leans heavily into it and it pays off.

The wolrd is brilliantly realized. In high traffic areas, there are crowds of people everywhere, and a good variety of CPU models. In the areas that are meant to be desolate and lonely, there's hardly any and a little fear always creeps in as a result. Depth is also huge for this game, where below the floors and to the horizon they always stretch as far as possible with detail and moving objects. The music does an excellent job creating a constant foreboding. This world is lived in. This extends to the player character too, with different styles from different manufacturers. Thankfully, if there's a particular piece of gear you like, you can lock that look in and change the gear at will without changing your look.

All that is great, but unfortunately, the rest falls short.

Starting with the player character: the game opens with a few text lines talking about what amounts essentially to slaves. You're one of them. You create your character, but the models, especially the faces, are not great (thankfully most of the best headgear completely covers the head). The player character never speaks, there's no dialogue to choose from and in most cutscenes the camera is right behind the shoulder so your character isn't even seen much until towards the end. Needless to say, it's hard to get attached, and for most of the game it feels that way. Hell, it took me right out at the beginning to a point where I wasn't even sure what was going on with the story. Cutscenes are well directed and the voice work can be fantastic, but this game demands that all the blurbs and data dumps are read to fully understand the story and world. And there is a lot to read. So it's possible to take it all in, but one place that wasn't expanded on is the gameplay.

Gameplay is the (almost) typical twin-stick shooter: move with the left stick, aim with the right stick and fire with the right trigger. Additional equipment can be used by pressing in the left stick (something I accidentally did a few times) and there are two augmentation abilities set to the shoulder buttons. Modules can give permanent boosts or attributes, and there's a lot of combos to mess around with. The issue is that the game doesn't really demand it. Energy weapons work better against machines, ballistic against "flesh" and...I'm not sure what digital is. Great in theory, except the enemies never really change. Gun-wielding enemies stay a little further back, and big enemies move slower, but all enemies will try to overrun you. It's like a quick-moving zombies game...without zombies. There's a cover system, and the theory is to find good cover and move between it, but the enemies moves so fast with so little care for their own safety, that cover can be pointless most of the time.

And that's where the difficulty comes from. Lots of enemies swarming at all times. This game is about crowd-control, and it never evolves into anything else, hence the game not encouraging switching strategies up. Once you find the best combo to hold off the horde, stick with it. At multiple times in the story you're forced to "protect" a spot (it's just a filling bar at the top of the screen), and the best bet for survival is to find a corner, get behind cover and have crowd-control equipment and augments. The difficulty is artificial because of this. I ended up playing on easy with 100% aim-assist because, especially in the first third of the game, I felt like I wasn't hitting anything despite my lazer site being on enemies. The weapon I used the most was the Enforcer because it had a homing beam. Eventually, when you gain a few levels, get better guns and can allocate skill points, aim accuracy can be increased permanently both for the player-character and individual weapons, but the core is definitely off. No matter what, there can be times where the game throws so many enemies at you *cough* late game*cough*, you get surrounded immediately and have no chance to survive. Just no chance. And there's an achievement for dying 100 times, so the devs knew exactly what they were doing. The other difficulties were even added after launch after people complained, because there are some ridiculous difficulty spikes, again, mainly from so many enemies swarming at once and not from legitimate challenge.

Also, a quick note, traversal over previously areas is constant throughout the game. Yes, there's a fast-travel via the metro, but the stations aren't well placed most of the time. And yes, you can pay 1000 in-game uCreds to take a taxi, but I never figured out how to do this. Deaths can also put you back further than they should from where you died, and that typically means going through the same (yet random) amount of enemies you just killed all over again for no real reason.

So I ended up torn on 'The Ascent.' I would get pulled into a part of the world and story, just to have momentum halt. The shooting can be fun with the variety of things at the player's disposal, just to feel samey and unfairly difficult because of the enemy design. I know some people that love it and played multiple times to 100% (I never bothered with the side-quests), but to me the gameplay isn't good enough and the artificial difficulty is frustrating. Another great Game Pass game for sure, but understand what you may be getting into before trying it.

Life is Strange: True Colors

I'm not going to say much about this game for the risk of ruining anything. Just know that it's pretty fantastic. Like any 'Life is Strange' game, it deals with many heavy topics, but handles them gently with grace and heart. The writing, and music, is fantastic, and so is the voice acting. I probably haven't come across a more hipster game, but it all works.

There's still some weird cuts after choosing dialogue in certain spots, and the button prompts can be too specific on where you stand. The only other issue I came upon, which from the looks of it has been a problem for some time, is that after chapter 1 the world stats post-chapter don't show. I always enjoyed seeing where my choices fell with everyone.

This game is currently on Game Pass. Play it!

Playdead’s INSIDE - 9/10

Puzzle platformer on rails. Truly an amazing game imo. From the beginning I was engrossed in the aesthetics, questioning what this game was about and why this boy was lurking about, running from dogs and otherwise being hunted by adversaries. The set pieces are thought provoking as you try to assimilate the meaning of this experience ; which I found to be the most engaging part of the game. The ending left me scratching my head in a good way. The game is not long around 4 hours and if you’ve played LIMBO it’s has a similar feel.

Bugsnax 10/10

Little Nightmares II

Tunic via Game Pass

A decent action-adventure with extremely basic combat, unbalanced enemies at times, neat world that has too much backtracking and a fictional language that makes things like knowing what an item even is extremely frustrating. Gorgeous music and piano score specifically. I didn't go for the "true" ending.

Though there have been a glut of isometric action games like this lately, and I'm getting burned out on them. Mainly because I'm getting annoyed at not being able to see everything I need to see when I want to see it.

Open season via Analogue Pocket

Came across this game while consolidating some moving boxes. Was a fun little platformer. Super short, I couldn’t have been playing this more than a couple of hours. Maybe three max.

Wario land 4 via analogue pocket

Wacky, zany platforming action. 7/10

Freedom Fighters

We have to start with the visuals, because they are just so nice on the original Xbox. The game is presented in 720p, true widescreen, and everything is incredibly sharp and clear. The voice work is also pretty good. That said, after having heard such amazing things about this game over the years, I was disappointed.

You play a plumber that gets wrapped up in fighting the Soviet invasion of America (and the in-game propaganda is way too similar to Putin's propaganda for his war in Ukraine. Maybe he played this game) after your brother was kidnapped and you save a local resistance leader. Missions are selected in a sewer bunker that gets more decorated and populated as you progress, and the game is fairly linear. Despite this, there is a fair amount of back-and-forth traversal in the missions which, when requiring to go between areas, also means a lot of load screens. Secondary objectives are available to increase your charisma which makes more slots to recruit freedom fighters. Most of the time they're pretty competent, but be prepared to revive them with the plentiful amount of med kits.

My disappointment mainly comes with the controls. Mostly it's standard third-person shooter fare, but not really. Left trigger is used to jump, moving sight aiming to clicking and holding the left thumbstick in where the sight slides across the screen with increased momentum making precise shots harder than they should be. There's a weapons wheel that can be brought up by clicking and holding the right thumbstick but then selected with the left stick. You can quick select on the wheel with the d-pad though. Controls cannot be changed either, so they're stuck this way. There's a crouch ability, and the idea is to use cover, but you can't shoot over/around cover which means you have to be exposed to shoot. There is an automatic lock-on when not zoomed in, but the enemies, even on lower difficulties, are expert marksmen; taking many pot-shots at you. There's a lot of running from cover to cover taking hits. Again, med kits are plentiful, but it's not elegant. Also, there's a weird dead spot if too close to an enemy where your character won't fire his weapon and instead melee, but he's too far from the enemy to hit them.

Maybe these issues were fixed in the recent Steam re-release, but for the original release, while it is a sight to behold on a big screen even now, the dodgy gameplay and control choices makes this game more frustrating than it should be. It's a short game, so the quibbles don't hurt as bad, and still worth a play today, but shooters did it better even before 'Freedom Fighters' let alone after.


Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

I remember being siked for this after the first 'Unreal Championship' on Xbox, which was essentially a second console version of the 'Unreal Tournament' series (I still go back and play the original on Dreamcast), but I ended up being disappointed because it was something different.

Built for Xbox and console in mind, UC2 puts a heavy emphasis on melee combat and limited-time use abilities. Gunplay is still strong, but it's more a third-third-third concentration. Because of the emphasis on melee, which automatically switches to the third-person if in first-person, gameplay in general is slower, and that's where the disappointed hits. Everything is just slower than a typical UT game. That, and to accommodate for close-quarters combat, arenas are also smaller with less combatants. The arenas look great, and there's a lot of detail in them, but that just makes them feel more claustrophobic than immersive.

The game as a whole has a cool aesthetic. It's like futuristic ancient Egyptian. There are a few single-player modes including a story mode. It follows Anubis as he reluctantly enters a tournament put on by the Liandri Corporation, who has created tech to revive dead people. Anubis goes up against his former love. It's not specified if these are the actual Egyptian gods, because series staple Malcom is one of the commentators, or if everyone is just named after the gods. For what the story mode is, which is a glorified tutorial and game-type initiation, it's obvious a lot of effort went into it. Other single-player modes include character specific tournaments and a throng of challenges, all used to unlock new mutators, new bots and characters including 'Mortal Kombat' Raiden (this was published by Midway).

Overall, UT2 is a unique game in the U/UT history, and one that is still exclusive to the original Xbox (though fully backwards compatible). For anyone interested in playing it, just be aware it's slower than any other UT entry.

I also remember being disappointed in Unreal Championship 2 back in the day.

It definitely reviewed well, but it was a different time. Sadly, with games like 'Fortnite,' I doubt we'll ever get a proper UT game again. They just had too much content for it's singular purchase price.

Guardians of the Galaxy 8/10
Really enjoyed this one. It was way better than it should have been. Take notes Avengers game. Take. Notes.

Resident Evil Revelations on
Such a good game. I used to hate the final boss, but maybe it was just because I played on the lowest difficulty so I could breeze through it, but it wasn't that bad this time, and neither were the underwater stages.

As much as I like this game, I was only beating the campaign to unlock the co-op stages to play with a friend. Unfortunately, despite it only taking around 7.5 hours to beat, I think it is very unlikely that he will actually follow through and finish the game on his side (both players are required to beat it, it can't just be whoever is hosting the lobby).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

Thank you Game Pass for satiating my need for this game until the physical release in a couple months time. Man, did the devs do a great job balancing the feel of the original arcade games yet making it feel fresh at the same time. There's not a lot of surprise here, you know exactly what you're getting, but it is pretty fantastic. On the normal difficulty, the game is quite easy, and pizzas are strategically placed for when you absolutely need one. There's a lot of moves, and control is tight. Sure, there's still some arcade pitfalls, like unannounced enemies ramming you from off-screen, but you don't take as much damage as an arcade game either. The game is beatable in one sitting, and there's only two modes, which are essentially the same mode, but these games are meant to be played multiple times and with friends. Which is good, because I found all the secrets and completed almost all the challenges in my first playthrough. A special shout-out to the soundtrack. The songs are fantastic, both the remixes and original, vocal tracks. I was going to wait until this hits retail here, but the Japanese physical release is in English, and for the same price, comes with an acrylic action scene standee of the four Turtles and the soundtrack on CD. Worth it for the CD.


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

The 'Obi-Wan' show has me in a 'Star Wars' mood, but I couldn't bring myself to buy the 'Obi-Wan' game for the original Xbox. I've played this game on Xbox 360 and PSP, but not yet on Wii. Damn, it is good. The story is simple, but engaging, and Sam Whitmer is excellent as always. Yes, about half the environments are reused and, yes, the level design is simple. And also, yes, there's basically one enemy with a light and heavy form per area with the exception of the end of the game. But you know what? It didn't matter all that much, because the game is just fun. The main reason for this is the game is expertly paced in how it rewards upgrades and new outfits. Again, yes, the game is also short, so it's not like it would get that boring that quickly anyway, but progression is still important and it's nailed here. Starkiller gradually gets strongly in accordance to the story, and you really feel like a badass tearing through enemies by swinging the Wiimote. The game is just fun, and dirt cheap. If the PSP version didn't have the extra legacy levels, this would be the best version of this game, because despite the waggle, the game plays great.


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Which makes this sequel something of a conundrum. It's well documented that LucasArts did not give enough time for this sequel to be made, and it's felt. TFUII on Wii is also made by a different developer than the first game (Krome for TFU and Red Fly for TFUII), and feels different because of it.

Many changes were made to the control of both Starkiller and the camera, and while the changes do make sense, I can't tell if they're better. Camera control was moved from the D-Pad to the Plus and Minus buttons, further down the Wiimote, so the camera is a little harder to maneuver. Most Force powers were moved to the D-Pad, and it's...ok. At times, when sliding my finger, I'd accidentally activate Force Rage instead of Force Sight or Force Dash. Speaking of Force Rage, it's exclusive to the Wii version. Fill a meter, activate it, cursor over some enemies, and Rage auto-kills them, even the mechs. It makes an easy game even easier. The biggest change is that the standard lightsaber attack was moved the either A or B depending on your choice (it swaps with "jump"). Some more special attacks are still executed by swinging the Wiimote, but this change takes the most fun aspect of the combat away and makes it more a button-masher. Using Force Grip also feels neutered in the control changes. XP gained is also low compared to the amount of skills and skill levels on offer, and as such, it's impossible to have a highly upgraded Starkiller by the end. Thus, the feeling of being a badass, or "unleashed" is quite diminished in TFUII.

As for the story, I think it's the best it could be under the reported three weeks the writer had to do it all. The Wii's version, though, does have additional story elements, for the better. There's also less crystals both for color and upgrades, and less interesting costumes. One cool thing is that some releases, including the one I have, included a mini comic from Dark Horse the acts as an interlude to a popular character that makes an appearance in this game. For the inevitable Switch port, I hope they digitize this comic and include it with the game (though I'd immensely welcome another physical version if Disney allows it!). Whenever they finally announce this for Switch, and do a dual pack (take that LRG single releases!), I'll probably get it. These games do look good on the Wii, but a cleaner version would be nice. This game is even shorter than its predecessor (took me 4.5 hours with almost everything collectible found) but it is also cheap, and I recommend it for 'Star Wars' fans.

Finally beat Elden Ring. 119 hours, Level 161. Beat all the bosses. Need to go back a finish a few minor points of interest but pretty much done until they release some DLC.

Played most of the game with the Winged Scythe & Godslayer’s Seal abusing Rotten Breath until I got the Blasphemous Blade which pretty much wrecked all bosses after Rykard.

image

Careful, thanking Game Pass for access to the game might summon Feeb to flex on you with his ability to buy video games (Furrows brow, erm, you DO know that this was developed by Tribute, right?)

I personally thanked PS store.

Very rarely do I buy a game digitally, so regardless of purchasing power, the physical release just isn't available yet. And I do know it's developed by Tribute. Am I missing something?

DCGX wrote:

Yeah, that's how I felt too! Like "What the fudge, where did that come from"

Wrecked your week.

What is going on?

@DarkFact doing his usual ship posting is what's going on

Feeb wrote:

Month

My friend and I completed Think of the Children last night. If you played and enjoyed Overcooked and Moving Out, make sure to check out this game too. Because of how short it is I would recommend waiting for a sale though, because the only replay value will come only to those who care enough to really punish yourselves enough to get the highest grade on each level.

Just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge on PC via Game Pass (as Michelangelo, if you must know). At some point I'll buy it on PS4 or Switch to play co-op with my friend (did this playthrough solo), but for now I'm satisfied with just one playthrough, so it's getting uninstalled. By default this is currently my top candidate for 2022 GotY since I haven't played much else that released this year.

This is the first game I've played on PC through Game Pass and I noticed something weird with achievement notifications sometimes taking 15-20 minutes to pop up. Yesterday for example, around 15 minutes after I had stopped playing and closed the app and was browsing GTZ I got an achievement notification. But they didn't all do that, sometimes they'd pop up right when they were supposed to. Is that normal?

That's weird. Every once in a while an achievement might take 30 seconds to a minute for me, rarely, but never that long.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I did a playthrough with three other peeps last weekend and I thought I just didn't get any achievements. Friends all said they were popping all the time. Looked later, I had credit. It's weird.

@PizzaTheHutt I agree that TMNT is good as I beat it with Don and only have the final level remaining to beat with Leo - am thinking I'll try it with most if not all characters.
But if you want a better GotY candidate, play Tunic. It's my favorite of the year, so many nice touches in that title.

I want to play Tunic at some point, but I can’t imagine anything beating Elden Ring this year for GOTY for me.

Slickriven wrote:

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

I'm sure they're in vastly different realms. Tunic reminded me a lot of the 2 Zelda games I played as a kid (first 8-bit and LttP). So it had nostalgia for me, but also it's got a lot going for it overall, but it's not technically impressive like Elden Ring, but I haven't play ER and am generally not into those Souls-like titles

That’s cool. For what it’s worth, Elden Ring is the first soulsish game I’ve ever beaten (and I even went on to platinum it and put like 150 hours into it). Before that, I played maybe a third of Dark Souls 2 before putting it aside and never really going back to it, and that was it. Even as someone who doesn’t usually play games like that Elden Ring blew me away. I even put Horizon: Forbidden West down for awhile to focus on it, and that was one of the games I was most looking forward to this year.

Slickriven wrote:

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

I saw credits and "unlocked" all the characters, so I consider this beaten. Back when it came out it was a good kart racer for the DS. That said, 'Mario Kart DS' is better when it comes to DS kart racers. Expanding to the 3DS, both 'Mario Kart 7' and 'Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed' are vastly superior. Even the iOS and Android version, if the means to play them is still available, was better based on graphics and resolution alone.

That puts this game in a pickle. It controls well, if a little dodgy, but drifting is easy. There's a good roster of characters, but only six in a race. The tracks are mostly well-designed (the Monkey Ball tracks can still fudge off. Horrible), but scaled back from the console versions, and like the console versions, the limited amount of themes pulled from the few represented franchises hurts the variety. The graphics are pleasant, but look better on the smaller DS (DS Lite for me) top screen than the 3DSXL. Most of the music does translate well to the tiny speakers, except a few tracks including the menu. Also, finishing a track in the Grand Prix DOES NOT unlock it in single race play. They still need to be "purchased."

S&SASR is also one of the few games that uses the DS Rumble Pak, and it works really well it.

So all these years later, and the game is pretty much where it was at release. It's still a good kart racer, and definitely one of the best racers on the DS (which isn't saying much). But it's more for the novelty of SEGA characters racing on the DS when there are so many other, better kart racers out there on portables.

Slickriven wrote:


I see that's on Game Pass as well. I'll give it a shot.

Slickriven wrote:

Ill have to give it a try now

Big Fables via Game Pass

I'm not going to give my full impressions, because seemingly everyone that ever plays this game absolutely adores it. I haven't had a gaming experience this frustrating in a long time. I had to force myself to finish it. And now I have a headache.

My friend and I just finished Saints Row: Gat out of Hell. When we beat a game, even if it's a really bad one, it's rare she has anything negative to say about it afterwards, but even she admitted the boss fight in this was disappointingly easy. Once you beat him you are given multiple endings to select from but neither of us wanted to replay the boss fight enough times to see them all. She said she'll look up the others on YouTube but I don't even care enough to do that.

DCGX wrote:


You would be surprised by the number of really good racing games on the DS.

pretty much anything developed by Firebrand is worth playing. Race Driver, Grid, Dirt 2, Trackmania, Hot Wheels Track Attack and more.

I've never played it but I watched a video review of Pimp My Ride for DS which the reviewer was surprised at how good it was (especially when you consider the console versions were just utter trash)


Other than Mario Kart, what other kart racers are even competent for portable, much less better?

benstylus wrote:

The ones I already mentioned...

DCGX wrote:


Other than Mario Kart and Sonic, I don't see that you mentioned any other kart racers, let alone "so many".

Not trying to be a jerk, just genuinely want to know if there are any other good ones out there. Because my experience is most kart racers outside of those two series are straight up poo.

benstylus wrote:

Yeah, that was my point. 'Diddy Kong Racing' is ok, and then there's a bunch of licensed stuff like Cartoon Network, M&Ms, MySims, Wacky Races (which hurts because the Dreamcast versions is really good, though the Wii version isn't. They're all different). I don't know if the ones based on 'Cars' are technically car racing or kart racing.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens via saved some space and played the PS4 version, still a beauty. Was a great palate cleanser for Elden Ring hours and hours and still not done. Shantae was up-risky beats and fun BUT some back tracking and a few cheap shots kept it from being the best one. I enjoyed it and look way forward to the next one. Solid 7/10!

The Final Boss is every bit Elden Ring worthy, now working on Trek to Yomi

I consider myself to have beaten Hades

I'm not going for completionist, but I think what I've done definitely qualifies for considering this game beaten.

Definite spoilers below, so please don't click on this if you don't want spoilers

Stick it to The Man on
Just finished (still watching the credits roll). I'd really like a sequel to this at some point. I know I have this on Steam too, so maybe at some point I'll replay it on there. I have a game on Switch by these same developers called Flipping Death. It uses a very similar artstyle and is also a 2D puzzle/platformer. Bought it years ago on sale and never actually played it, but maybe that'll be the next game I start.

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge - I really looked forward to this one, but honestly it was a little disappointing. It played more like a sequel to Scott Pilgrim than Turtles in Time. Combat feels mushy and unrewarding, and a lot of the boss fights are just spamming your super attack in between their invincibility periods. Hard to explain exactly what's wrong about it, but it's just not satisfying to play. (For reference my top three beat-em-ups are SNES Turtles in Time, Guardian Heroes, and King of Dragons.)

I think its pretty neat. But it is so easy (even on hard) that it can get dull quickly.

I ran through it again as April, and it was a bit better. It still feels a tad too long for a beat em up, so probably not a lot of replays left for me.

Triangle Strategy

Great game. Good story. Addictive combat. Likeable characters. A welcome return to FFT/Tactics Ogre nostalgia. Beat in just over 55 hours, with the best ending. Be careful with upgrade materials, these items are scarce due to the game pushing you to play New Game+ as there are 6 or 7 endings.

Elden Ring! Enjoyed all 200 Hours it took me! 10/10 Never played a game and beat it and not burnt out a bit. I went right into Journey 2 wanting to finish the few items/quests I missed/messed up the first time. Shouldn't take long at all, as I am skipping as much I can. This maybe my first game to Pattinum. Maybe need a 3rd play through as I am pretty sure 3 trophies are tied to endings

First thing I did was get me some Boiled Prawn in journey 2 LMAO!

I beat Disk Room recently - fun and very addicting game, certainly worth checking out if you've got GamePass.

Disneyland Adventures

Against my own advice, I ended up playing this to (near) completion. I think it was just what I needed at this time. I didn't get 100% in each land, and therefore game, but I did get all the achievements. It didn't take too long to platinum each ride. Though a few are based too much on certain things needed appearing randomly (the parade and Small World ride). Others lean too heavy into the inconsistent controls and have not getting hit by anything for a certain period (Splash Mountain). These took some replaying.

Overall, it's just so jolly. There are some noticeable bummers, like the mini-game controls, some poor game directions, the classic rides are nearly useless, lack of licenses (Indiana Jones and Star Wars, though this was first developed before Disney bought Lucasfilm) and you can't ride the Disneyland Railroad at all. But it's jolly.

Triangle Strategy - 9/10. Do you like JRPGs of old? Are you sick of modern JRPGs trying to copy Persona with the bullcrap School/Military School setting and forcing dating simulators into it? Well, Triangle Strategy has no school. No dating simulators. Characters/NPCs who are important actually perma-die. Yeah, I know. JRPGs and characters perma dying? Whatttttttt? That doesn't happen much anymore. The game is basically a political story and stuff I read online was either, people skipped over all dialogue or loved it. I happened to love it, mostly due to the fact that it feels like a style RPG, I guess. Modern JRPGs are just doing the stupid fudging School/Dating sim bullcrap and it's nauseating. There are no class systems, each character is their own specialization and you can upgrade them with resources, etc. You can level grind to a degree, there are mental mock battles you can do but if you go over a certain level, you will only get 1 EXP per action. I did the Frederica route, most seem to do the Benedict.

Here is a pic of part of the final battle of this ending:

I wouldn't call it a real spoiler, but it's tagged anyway. It's reminiscent of a certain map from Final Fantasy Tactics.

Here is the "fin" picture for the ending:

Had no issue with the final battle, I just rushed the boss and killed him.

Some battles have special victory conditions. If you die on a map, there is no Game Over. You retain EXP and start over. Very, very enjoyable game. Anyone on the fence should try the demo. It has the first 3 or so chapters, but to warn, those first 3 chapters are super dialogue/cut scene heavy but after that, it lightens up.

My only minor gripes, character/story related:

Great game!


Edit: I played on Normal and still found it challenging/hard. Died a couple of times too.

Maybe I should play it. I started it and got tired of the dialogue- never even started a battle. I could tell I wouldn’t have the patience for the story.

@Kommie That sounds awesome! Can’t wait to finally get around to playing it. Loved the demo. Played through it 3 times which is something I never do with demos. I just haven’t found the time to get around to the full game yet. It felt so much like Tactics Ogre, but it didn’t feel derivative at all.

I never played Tactics Ogre. I think I've only ever beat FFT, Mario + Rabbids, Vandal Hearts, and Triangle Strategy as far as SRPGs go. I tend to get overwhelmed with all the characters, stats, and things you can do so I drop them. Disgaea being a real bad example of "nope, this is too much".

I haven't played much of FFT, though I did beat Onimusha Tactics. It had those grid based strategy type stages similar to FFT. Decent game. I wonder if it's similar to Triangle Strategy.

I dont think Ive ever beat a strategy rpg either. Theyre usually too tough or grindy for me. I have tried quite a bit though.

I think I beat one of the Arc the Lad games but that one was rather easy to go through.

I finished the Switch port of the iOS/Android version of Dragon Quest II today. It's the next in a string of 1980s RPGs I've been visiting or revisiting this year, following Phantasy Star (Switch), Earthbound Beginnings (Switch), Dragon Quest (Switch), and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster (Steam Deck). I'm now moving on to The Bard's Tale to try to restore some east/west balance.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

I've been wanting to play this for a long, long time. Luckily it was a Games with Gold at some point, as once through is enough. It's way more narrative driven than I thought it would be; lamenting and somber, and downright sad at times. The gameplay is simple, with puzzles here and there, no real combat. I really wish Ubisoft would go back to making smaller games like this, instead of their bloated open-world titles. (That said, I might play an AC game after this). Overall, quite an experience and I highly recommend it.

Finally am level 1000 on Starcraft 2 Coop. Onto The Quarry, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 River City Saga: Three Kingdoms and Azure Striker Gunvolt 3. Going to be an expensive Nintendo month.

ued222 wrote:

Damn, which character?

DemonAlcohol wrote:
The ascension/mastery levels are shared thankfully so all of them. Still took 2000+ hours.

Assault Android Cactus

I'm still going through Games with Gold titles I picked up during all those years I never had an Xbox One. I love a good twin-stick shooter, and this is a well-received game. It's definitely a good twin-stick shooter, but one that irked me.

You play as Cactus (initially or if you only want to) who crashes onto a ship. She's an android and she meets other androids on the ship trying to escape a rogue AI. Simple, but effective. The writing is ok, as is the voice-acting. There are five zones with about five levels each including a boss. You have an initial pick of four androids with others unlocking after each zone. Each android has a different standard weapon and different special weapon. They cannot be mixed and matched. From there it is standard twin-stick fare, though there isn't much variety in the look of each level. Some have gimmicks, of which some work better than others, and the bosses can be entertaining. The campaign is over in a few hours, but it's highly, highly encouraged to replay levels for S+ ranks.

Beyond the environments lacking much personality, the couple things that irk me sit with the gameplay itself. For starters, the dodge and special weapon/weapons select are the same button. That means if you dodge, you automatically switch between weapons whether you want to or not. Depending on the android it's not a huge problem, because you'll want to use the special weapon as much as possible, but a few have very specific specials including ones that will shoot you across the screen. I do not like that this is mapped to the same button. Likewise, the window to dodge is extremely small, and you can't dodge and quickly dodge again. My second big irk is the character speed. The player characters all move at the same speed, but it feels too slow for the amount of enemies and the fact they come from all around all at once. This is compounded by the fact that one of the random power-ups is a speed boost. With this, the player character moves much closer to a speed they should always be able to move at. But my biggest irk comes from the battery system.

Think of the battery system as a timer counting down. You can get knocked out all day long (and quickly tap to come back), but once your battery meter is empty, game over. Not the largest issue on the surface, but whatever the system the game has for dropping more battery feels too random. I could be having a great run, not even taking damage, but also not getting battery drops, and fail. There's no indicator of the enemies as to which would drop a battery (like how red ships in shmups usually drop a power-up). So it can be frustrating when the area is filled with enemies and you're taking them out, but none are dropping batteries. That and single battery only refills a portion of the meter. There seems to be theories online about the drop rate, etc. but nothing is confirmed. The only certainty is a battery drops after taking out one section of a boss' life bar. But then you have to make sure you're close enough to pick it up, which might force you to stop amongst enemies lest the battery swings around your character as it tries to catch up with your movement. In the end, it feels more unfair than strategic.

Outside of the story, there's survival mode, though that hinges entirely on the battery meter and not staying alive. There's also a boss rush mode and modifiers. Credits are earned after any play to unlock said modifiers, codex entries and galleries, but they are doled out so low it becomes a grind real fast.

Overall, 'Assault Android Cactus' is a good twin-stick shooter, but nothing more in my opinion. I knocked a bunch of random achievements, but I don't see myself revisiting this shooter like so many others I usual go back to.

Gave up on Klonoa thankfully the Switch version had slowdowns else wise I would be stuck with it.
It was not as good as I remembered did like the fast forward function for cutscenes Thank you Steam refund policy. Beat Fist had a little left to play to beat it. I would not recommend it as the backtracking and combat are bare bones to me. If it wasn't for the additional weapons and grab I would have dropped it really quick. Going to play The Quarry, then River City Three Kingdoms, Azure Striker 3 and then Xenoblade 3. After that a long wait for Saints Row 2022.

Beat Fighter's History (SNES) on Switch Online. Not the worst ending, but they could've taken another page from SFII and created a back story for each character after beating it.

Tembo the Badass Elephant

Another Xbox One GwG that always looked interesting to me, yet I never got around to. Like 'Assault Android Cactus,' it's another...good game.

You control an elephant who runs and destroys, well, basically everything while trying to save people. It feels like it should play like any classic 2D Sonic game, but most like the first entry with how much stopping and starting there is. Most of the environments are industrial and that's a bummer, because the beginning of the second zone looks like the Alps (to me anyway), and the game spends barely any time in greenery. It leads to a feel of sameness.

Control in general is tight, but the base walking speed is too slow and the charge can be unwieldy. It makes sense, Tembo is an elephant after all, but can be cumbersome. There's also one of my biggest pet peeves where every action is mapped to one button and the directions are used to augment it. Many a time I wanted to charge and would ball up and bounce instead, and vice versa, or stop quickly and do nothing of the such. It can make the chase sequences frustrating, as well as some of the later platforming. Also, Tembo has a pretty big hit box, especially when it comes to bombs and explosions, where I died many times where there was clear daylight between me and what killed me.

But 'Tembo' isn't a long game. According to my save I've played less than 6 hours and basically 100% it except for the last achievement, which is to have 99 jars of peanut butter (continues), and it's nothing but a grind. Put on a good podcast or something. Overall, it's a decent afternoon. The animation and art style is really cool, so it's worth a go for platforming fans.

Forza Horizon 5 7.5/10

You can't trigger the credits that I'm aware of, but I've finished over 90% of all of the core things:
- I won all Road and Street races and only have 4-5 total races remaining in the Dirt and Cross Country flavors
- Bought all houses besides the $5mil castle
- Earned 3 stars on all Speed Cameras/Zones, Trailblazers, Danger Signs and 85% on the Drift Zones
- Earned 3 stars on all of (I think) 5 of the side stories and only have 2-3 Vocho (VW Bug) ones and 3-4 of the Drift Club remaining
- Found/smashed north of 90% of the travel/XP boards

Personally FH3 is still my favorite, but if I'm not mistaken they had a race series that started from every race marker on the map, so that got tedious as you'd end up having to do many tracks over and over since each series was 3-5 events. But I loved the music and the overall map. Also the Hot Wheels DLC was fun and so was Blizzard Mountain.

FH4 with the seasons wasn't as great. Lego DLC was good and Fortune Island was alright, and maybe my cloud save getting corrupted didn't help (though I was basically done with all areas) but, for me, 4 was simply not as good as 3.
FH5 is better than 4 in some ways and not so much in others. The dialog and 'story' focus in both the early general game and especially in the side story parts was super lame, so that for sure doesn't help it's cause, but I'm not sure the map is better than the decent one in 4. The wheelspins weren't seemingly as generous with winnings as 3/4, so 5 felt a touch more grindy at times. Music selection was the worst (in 5) of the past 3 games as very few tunes really resonated with me. I admit that I didn't realize you had to buy the $2 million house to enable the fast travel to any road feature - something I used a lot in 3 and 4 after a while. I did purchase that recently and don't think the Mexico map is bad in any way, and really it's closer to Australia from 3, so I suppose I do like it above 4's.

I will say that the massive race events were solid. I'm talking about the Colossus, Juggernaut and such, not the goofy showcase events vs. monster trucks and such. Those showcases felt less cheesy in 4.
I haven't snagged the new Hot Wheels DLC, but plan to and expect it to be as fun as 3's iteration.