retroking1981 wrote:

56. Star Wars Episode I Racer (N64) - 7hrs  

I remember wanting this on release being a Star Wars nut. I gave it a go on a demo pod in Walmart while on holiday in America and the speed melted my eyeballs.
I decided against it as it was just too fast for me, I didnt know about the whole PAL/NTSC thing at the time. Probably would have been ok with the PAL version.

57: Dirt 5 (PS5) 7/10

Had a really inconsistent time with this one.  For most of it, it was a really fun arcade rally game.  But then there are a few events that I really couldn't stand.  Those being sprint cars, racing on ice, and gymkhana.  I was dismayed when any of those events came up in arcade mode.  I found them frustrating to play and I was shit at them.  The rest of the races though were all good!  It's the kind of racing game where you're mostly doing those handbrake drifts around corners and banging into the other racers.  Tremendous fun!

Even then I found the AI to be pretty inconsistent - usually it's really easy to come first on Medium difficulty, but every once in a while an event would come up where I really struggled and I had no idea why.  Then it was back to winning easily (I'm not good at racing games for reference).

The other inconsistent thing is the graphics.  Depending on the weather and time of day it can look fantastic or Launch Game PS4 level.  Digital Foundry point out due to the game's dynamic weather this is just what happens; you can't expect it to look great all the time.  Well, to that I say, stuff dynamic weather!  Just make a track have sunshowers all the time if that's what makes it look the best!  

As an aside I am pretty sick of the current paradigm of extreme racing tacky paintjobs on cars.  It's been going on in games for like 10 years!  Everything's really garish and I'm over the look.  

Pretty fun game though!  Was a bit bloated but there's worse crimes.

34. Paradise Killer [9]
This is one of those games that I just want to talk about a lot. But I also don't because I'd want anyone who's going to play it to know as little as possible. It's the latest in what's becoming an incredibly strong genre of open-ended investigation games, after the like of Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds and Telling Lies. Yet it's also like nothing I've played before with its lurid, disorienting vibe and mix of exploration, 3D platforming, evidence collecting and suspect interrogation. At first it's just too weird to get your head around, but after a couple of hours you get how the world works and how the single island map links together. I don't want to say much more. Except every aspect of it just harmonises so perfectly together and I hope more people play it. A little confusion and slow progress in the early stages is well worth putting up with for what comes after.

acemuzzy wrote:

That sounds pretty fair from my dabbles thus far!  But I'm only half a dozen races in, and there seem to be 125 if my maths is right!

Yeah that sounds about right.  I started off trying to get the 3 gold stars on each track, but gave up on that pretty quickly!

Have you tried multiplayer?  Imagine that would be a blast but I'm not set up for it ATM

58: Murder By Numbers (Switch) 8/10

This Jon B approved, Picross/detective visual novel thingy is a real joy.  I love a bit of picross and my only trepidation going in was that the story might get in the way of the puzzles.  That was not a problem.  It's full of fun characters and really good writing.  Great humour in particular.  

You follow the story of Honor and Scout.  She's a down on her luck actress, the daughter of a hero detective.  He's a robot with a shady past.  HOW WILL THEY GET ALONG?  Really well actually.  They're both good people doing good things.  

The puzzles are mostly the usual picross thing.  I don't think you can go too wrong with them, and if you do you can check your mistakes.  They're justified within the story by them being how Scout analyses a crime scene.  I'm not sure how well that works, but that sort of thing doesn't bother me.  I just go with it.  I like the story, I like the puzzles, I'm happy.

It's minimalistically, cleanly presented with some pretty nice artwork, but no animation.  I liked it.  I wasn't so keen on the music though.  A bit too Wheel of Fortune for my liking.

Maybe a criticism could be you don't really have any bearing on how the investigation plays out.  You talk to suspects, you find and present evidence, but you don't really have to piece everything together.  Sometimes you need to pick from a choice of 3 options to progress the case, but if you get it wrong it doesn't really matter.  You jsut choose again until you get it correct. Honestly I'm fine with this though.  I'd be a shit detective in real life.  I had no idea who the culprits were as the story went on.  I felt a bit like Jesse Pinkman sometimes.



Really enjoyable stuff.  I'll be up for the hinted at sequel.

43.Spider-Man: Miles Morales - 8 Hours - 7/10 - PS5

So let’s get it out of the way, this is super overpriced DLC, it’s short, the missions are stretched out by just adding more enemies and making restarts rather vicious, kill 39 guys and die on the last? Right back the start a good 10 minutes ago. But...it’s not bad.

It can be stunning and the Ray-Tracing truly is beautiful. The sound is spot on and the soundtrack is bang on for the character. And really it is fun. Swinging around as Spidey can’t be dulled and the fighting with new extra Morales points can still be fun and look spectacular even if it’s not too technical. And the story isn’t bad and I had a tiny man cry at the end.

Overpriced DLC boxed up for Next Gen but it did do it’s bit.

The original was amazing, and to be fair this isn’t a bad game at all, just the same thing again at a very high price for what it is. Had this been filled a little better it would have been a good £25 bit of DLC, but for the price it’s nuts.

Clunky and slow menus? As in, technical problems? Or design problems? I never played the sequel for more than half an hour on emulator back in late 90s, but first SoM is one of my favouritest games and has a legendary menu system that I’m surprised many others didn’t copy. It was one of the best things about the game.

35. Twin Mirror [4]
Dontnod's latest is a bit of a mess. Originally meant to be episodic but now released as a single piece, and it feels kind of unfinished and shorter than it should have been. It just isn't really up to standard at any level - cliched setting and story, bland script, wooden character models and animation, a non-event of a murder mystery, and lots of potentially interesting themes that don't really go anywhere. The one element of note is the 'mind palace' mechanic, where the main character reconstructs scenes in his head, which looks rather nice. But that's pretty undercooked as well. Life Is Strange this ain't.

I did a full review here:
https://www.nme.com/reviews/game-reviews/twin-mirror-review-a-forgettable-murder-mystery-cliche-in-small-town-america-2833957

Haven’t played SoM in decades. Probably would feel clunky to me too if I played it now. One thing I know would hate is the slow moving charge for attacks, specially charging up to level 8.

I'm up to 3-5, going to try (and probably fail) to finish it tonight. Current score would be somewhere between an 8 and a 9, it's my favourite grid 'em up since the hugely underappreciated Mario Rabbids.

Should've listened and I've had to abort the final battle so I've lost the checkpoint. Tough. I've reset my skill points now.

Finished it. Great game, last boss took so long to wear down it took the shine off a teeny bit though. I'm sure my tactics were way off but it felt like that stage lasted longer than an average film.

*Minor last boss spoilers*

I ended up relying on empower (which I didn't have before reshuffling the abilities just for that level) and the sniper but must've missed whatever ability gives her 8 turns. I guess I could've taken out the rocket pods quicker with that. It was really tough to manage the relentless grunts and the rockets and chip away at the boss, so I dropped it down to beginner in the end, for shame. It still took ages and I still had to reload in the middle. I'd spent half the game with Gabe having an ammo limit of 2, which just wasn't going to work for this battle so he felt really weak all of a sudden (I think the legendary perk I'd been using had a +80 damage modifier).

Superb game though, so many style of play possibilities. Will play a sequel for sure.

126. Gears Tactics - Xbox One (20hrs?)

A hulking beefcake of a tactics title with an impressive level of finesse to its core.  I'm not an expert on the genre and can't often explain why I latch on to certain games and not others, but (as I'm pretty sure I always say when I finish one in here) deep-but-not-too-deep seems to be my sweet spot.  Favourites include Shining Force 2, Mario Rabbids, Skulls of the Shogun, Ghost Recon Shadow Wars and the grand daddy of them all, Fire Emblem Awakening.  X-Com 2 should be one of my dream desert island games, alongside Trials, but I bounced off it after half a dozen hours unfortunately.  The game was excellent but I've got a low threshold for glitches, performance issues and load times in a genre I absolutely have to find annoying to enjoy anyway (that '84% hit chance and you fucking missed!' feeling is essential to the appeal).  It veered into too annoying territory though, and got binned sadly, thanks to the issues nearer launch on PS4, but I've been considering the Switch version as handheld play might be the key.  Anyway, I digress, as the Ledbetter used to say in every other review.  It turns out the whole Gears thing is a perfect fit for a grid tactics game.  I just typed out a load of guff about my time with the series but deleted it as it was dull - the Tl,dr is that I used to love it but grew indifferent to its shtick ages ago.  [Cole voice] But I'm back, baby!

Compared to similar games one of the most noticeable things from the start is how solid everything is.  Not just the sausage fingered bipedal oil tankers you'll be heaving around the map, but the engine that powers the skirmishes - it's very impressive.  Load times are long on a One S, but that's a small price to pay for a) such nifty performance and b) what's basically a cross-gen game, given the timing of its console release.  In terms of tactics overwatch felt key, but enjoyably so.  Characters have differing attributes and skill trees that allow you to push certain skills that suit your play style.  It's all impressively deep yet not quite overwhelming, and there are a huge amount of valid ways to play.  I spent over 15 hours thinking scouts were the worst, but then I realised how useful they are with the correct skills (*cough* quick grenade cooldowns). Constantly opening weapon cases and assigning new mods between missions is a bit rote - again I found myself craving a Speedball 2 style 'auto-assign' option - but it's bearable.  Other missteps include a first boss difficulty spike and a final boss difficulty wall thicker than Sid Redburn's neck.  It was discussed further up the page, but damn.  For a game that encourages you to play your own way and fashion your own personal A-team of Super Army Soldiers it felt like an odd choice to deny you the option to select your party for the final stage, instead forcing you to use a crew the story locks in for you.  I felt naked without a heavy and it threw me right off.  The campaign is quite samey, despite a handful of different mission types, but that's not really a problem when going through the same motions is so moreish.  In fact, the constant loop is pretty much the appeal, but I'd expect more variety in a sequel.  

These amount to minor gripes though, it's an excellent game and easily one of Microsoft's strongest exclusives for years.  Highly recommended.  Annoyingly I'm still wondering if I would've preferred it with Jack in tow. [8]