Having never liked Street Fighter, I can't imagine this.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

No-one liked Street Fighter m8

Is that the 14th or so iteration of Street Fighter 8?

I'm a couple of hours into Carrion Moot, and I'm feeling sort of the same. Huge potential, but just not quite realised

Aside from getting lost at the end I've got no hate for it, was just a bit dull. I expected more from something that looked so interesting that was picked up by Devolver tbh.

Yep it's something like a 5 stage run without a checkpoint iirc (with two or three lives per attempt)? It's well balanced, honest, but there are some evil bits.

I picked that up for about £25 a couple of weeks ago. She tried it and it didn't immediately grab her and she didn't get on with the driving so she started moaning for Mario after a few minutes. I thought this might be a problem given that most games take a little while to get into. It does seem pretty good though. I'll try and get stuck into it at first in front of her, and then she'll hopefully start wanting to play and takeover.

16. Ghost of Tsushima [6]
It's an open world action game. It's all very polished. The views are lovely. The combat is not far off superb. Stealth is simple and unfussy and doesn't get in the way. There's plenty of nice period detail. But you've done it all before. The missions are all pretty much the same. There's a million things to collect. The characters have clear singular motivations. The world has ne depth. Its Kurosawa homage is all about surface appearance.

17. Death Stranding [8]
It's an open world action game. Sort of. I suppose you'd have to say this is peak Kojima, with all the best and worst facets of his approach to game making allowed to run loose. At its best it's a deconstruction of the building blocks of modern game design, taking apart things we take for granted and bringing them to the fore. 

Open world games are full of A to B journeys and equipment management, but often reduce these to busywork that links together battles and character development Here, they're the main focus, and they're an interesting challenge by themselves. Combat and stealth are obstacles to your goal. Exploration and item gathering are an organic part of finding your way. It can wear thin at times, when you're doing one delivery after another, but there are some fantastic journeys, and a sense of reward for simply reaching an out of the way place with a weight on your back.

And you're always connected to others. It's so natural to get sucked into the processes of building and maintaining structures to help others, as they have done for you. I've built travel aids that I've never even used myself, just because I thought the next person making that journey would have an easier time. It all slots perfectly into a plot that makes it very clear you're 'Making America Whole Again', not through violent heroism but through an uphill, step-by-step collective effort to pull together.

As for the plot and the writing that goes with it, yes, there's far too much of it. The last parts of the game especially drag on and on with new twists and revelations, all talked out in great detail. But, much of it is so stuffed with meta-narrative and references that it's enjoyable in itself. It's the polar opposite of the earnestness of The Last of Us 2 really, which I think is more interesting and more effective as game writing. It brings you in to its frame with a glance to camera one second, before putting you back in the audience as it unfolds like a play the next. It explains things with a straight face yet tells you not to take them seriously. It makes sure you remember it's just a game, while giving out lessons.

It's also just stuffed with ideas. They don't all work and you really shouldn't even think about whether they make sense, but they're always things you haven't seen before. Even when it's a drag, Death Stranding has more imagination than 10 Ghost of Tsushimas.

hylian_elf wrote:

Nice. How many hours did you roughly put into DS?

Just over 40. I didn't get too deep into the optional deliveries and structural network stuff. It would  be easy to spend many more hours on it.

36. New Ghostbusters II (NES) - 1hr

At its core this game has all the makings of being an 8-Bit classic. The gameplay consists of picking two Ghostbusters out of five (Louis is an option which is a nice touch), your main one shoots the proton pack with the A button and the secondary one follows in your footsteps and uses the trap with a push of the B button. It works well and is good fun.

It's got a couple of minor oddities such as being able to shoot and capture ghosts through walls, and Winston is green thanks to the low colours on screen of the NES. Also the secondary Ghostbusters AI can get stuck behind walls at times. It happened twice to me in my hour play through, neither resulted in death fortunatley.  

They're forgivable imo, but unfortunatley what isn't is it's far to short, easy and simple for its own good.

The game basically consists of going into an area, clearing it of ghosts, then following an arrow telling you where to go next. Now it didn't need Zelda levels of puzzles, but a few simple ones chucked in and some optional collectables etc would have helped flesh it out and keep it more interesting.

The bosses are also poor for the most part, two were ok but the final boss was terrible.

Despite all this, I really enjoyed it. The basic mechanics are fun, and it does a decent job of feeling like a Ghostbusters game instead of something more standard in Ghostbusters clothing.

I really feel with a bit more time and effort it could have been a great game, as it is it's merely good.

6/10

My list

73. The Touryst - Xbox One (6-7hrs)

Fancied this for ages, played and enjoyed the demo on Switch but £18 felt too much for something that other badgers had mostly described as wonky but good.  Enter gamepass, and I'm glad I didn't pay for it outright.  

It's almost a game of two halves.  The exploration/to-do checklist while island hopping is fun, but pretty much all of the content within the monuments is poor.  Which means it was a constant pleasure/pain experience for me.  Visually it's one of the nicest looking games I've ever played.  I guess that sounds like hyperbole but I was very taken with the oh-so-shiny shiny block look, and it's chock full of incidental flourishes that add various cherries on top.  The camera is a bit annoying, but forgivable outside of monuments if you set it to 'most of the way out' and resist the urge to fiddle with it.  There's a ton of character to the grab-bag of minigames and non-convoluted fetch quests; as mentioned the above ground segments are great, whether you're chasing high scores on nu-retro titles in the arcade or dressing for the jazz club for a spot of match-making.  It's a quality little world to kill time in.

To finish the game you'll need to collect four cores though, which are all guarded by bosses in various monuments.  They're all crap, unfortunately, sometimes alarmingly so, meaning the traditionally gamey sections let the side down considerably.  If they'd been on par with the rest of the experience this could sneak onto a discerning GotY list (but what year??), but as it stands every stretch leading to a core is a ballache.  The controls are fine for sightseeing and running errands, but if you're suddenly tasked with precision jumping the character needs to face the direction you press instantly rather than turning, the dash controls need to be tweaked, the camera needs to be less ridiculous and so on.  It's not fit for purpose with what it's asking you to do.  Granted, the "U F Off!" orb section aside there's nothing that stands out as criminal, but none of the core grab sections are enjoyable and just seem to lazily test your patience until you succeed.  There's a lot to like here and I'm glad I stuck with it, I definitely had a good time playing as Movember Wookie, but any more than a [6] would feel wrong.

Looking forward to that, still in the wish list.

74. Pool Panic - Switch (6-7hrs)

An absolute oddity. If the the label 'a hot mess' was ever perfectly applicable to a game it's right here. You play as a cue ball with legs potting grimacing pool balls within a Nicktoons stylised world. There are 100 stages to tackle which are accessed from a large hub area. Each of the stages require you to pot as many balls as you can before sinking the black and unlocking the exit. Completed stage awards act as currency to be deposited in a weird structure at the centre of the map, which gradually turns into a tower depending on how much of the game you've completed. Every single stage tasks you with something slightly or completely different to anything you've seen before. In some ways the closest comparison would be something like What the Golf?, as the whole thing is a melting pot of pool rather than golf (although there is a pool golf course on offer). The fundamental requirements are the same for each level, but it's absolutely brimming with genuinely neat ideas. At a glance it might appear crude and garish, but there's plenty of style here. It's a decent looking game, and there are numerous touches that elevate it above mid-level EShop fodder. A cheeky bastardisation of Camp Nevada for the boy scouts stage (Greensleeves and Chariots of Fire also make appearances in classic The Shinning fashion), a jousting stage, a motorbike section, trick shot hustle shacks, ski stages, bosses, secret areas, shortcuts, in-game achievements, all sorts of genre nods 'n winks, plus the non-bitesize length - it all shouts labour of love.

The problem is, the act of potting balls - the crux of the entire game - is somewhere between serviceable and terrible. You have to forgive the way it plays to have any hope of seeing the best it has to offer. I don't know how I managed it to be honest, possibly because potting pool balls reminded me of sinking golf balls, which is my ultimate pipe & slippers genre. Once I got to grips with the fact that everything was either fiddly, imprecise, wonky, shoddy, slapdash or a mixture of all that and more, it somehow managed to win me over with the aforementioned ingenuity offensive.

So basically, I can't recommend it. But I really enjoyed it. Despite the fact that the rock climbing stages are among the worst sections of any game I've ever played (I'm including things like the 16-bit Back to the Future sequels here, or getting to the bowling alley in The Flintstones on the Master System; I really mean they're disgustingly bad), I still came away satisfied that I'd spent ages getting through it. An absolute slog, but there's something here I can't put my finger on. A genuine curio and I'd probably pledge support for a Kickstarter reboot that actually played well. [6]

75. Gunman Clive 2 - Switch (1hr)

Enjoyed these on 3DS so double dipped on the double pack in a sale. Simplistic platform shooting, horizontal fire only. Both games have a striking hand sketched look that works almost as well in HD as it did on a tiny 3DS screen. Occasional into the screen sections add variety, as do vehicle stages, but it's all very lightweight. Checkpoints are rarely more than a few screens apart but you have to complete a full stage to hit one. Having played Mechstermination Force since you can tell that the devs had fun creating the multi-part final boss in this one. Nice price, nice games. [6]

Having though about it a bit more, I also have a greater appreciation of Obra Dinn. I still wasn't hugely impressed with some of the solutions, but there are some pretty interesting themes running underneath the story and your role in it, which are explored cleverly through in the way you play it. So that pushes it up a notch.

77. Xeno Crisis - Xbox One (4-5hrs)

An odd one to review because it's genuinely one of the best games on the Megadrive. There would be a fair shout for this making a top 15 fro the system I'd say. So I'll get the pretend retro MD review out the way first. If this had been released in 1994 it would've been mildly criticised for its sky high difficulty (much like Probotector or Batman & Robin it just asks a bit too much of the player), but correctly lauded as an excellent randomised arena shooter: Mean Machines Sega 94%. It's better than The Chaos Engine for my money. Moving on a few years, it's better than Loaded too.

As a modern rougelike release, things are a little different. It's wonderfully simplistic, but requires such dedication to tame it starts to get infuriating long before you get a sniff of the sweet smell of success. It's painfully difficult on the standard difficulty (Hard), and dropping things down to Easy doesn't really help that much. It's doable on the latter setting for a man of my meagre yet battle hardened skills, but I'm not sure I could get through the later stages on Hard. Top troll points for the fact that to even see the final boss you'll need to 1CC the whole thing, but that's a clear dick move imo. Add another boss, sure, but don't do us like this.

You can trade dog tags for stat boosts between stages, choosing whether to boost ammo reserves, health, shot power and so on. As the layouts are randomised you'll find yourself with varying reserves depending on the current seed, meaning you'll often have to adapt your preferences as you play. It works, but you never quite feel powerful enough for my liking.

The shooting and movement is good, with the roll move proving quite useful despite offering no invulnerability. The melee attack felt at least 50% weaker than it should. Not game breaking, as I just opted not to use it much, but a heftier/more reliable swipe of the knife would've improved things immensely, as would more regular appearances of the additional weapons. When standard assault rifle ammo depletes a crate appears, often on the other side of the room, so you'll be constantly making a beeline for that every other screen or so. This reminded me a little of the drops in Assault Android Cactus but felt a touch pointless here if I'm honest. Medipack drops also felt odd, occasionally they'd appear just as I needed them, but more often than not they were just too scarce and too random to be factored into your plans in any way.

I've played this quite a bit over the past few days and I like it a lot, but it's made me realise I underrated (the quite similar) Galaxy TV Champions a few weeks ago. In many ways that's a better shooter, certainly in the way it gradually becomes less brutal the more you play, but also in the way the weapons and perks seem to achieve synergy with the action and it can all get a bit zen. In Xeno Crisis you can easily come a cropper in subsequent screens and eat into precious continues because some enemies/patterns are just a touch too harsh, with too many projectiles and attacks to keep an eye on in terms of positioning. Level three goes on far too long and presents the first difficulty spike. The fourth boss is evil but the fifth boss barely scratched me. I'm not sure if the bosses are randomised in some way depending on seed but I doubt it - they're just not particularly well balanced. Perhaps the final boss is great, but I'll never know.

After four hours of playing properly I dropped it to easy and switched infinite continues on via a cheat code. Endless credits isn't really the way to go obviously, but three continues just doesn't feel enough to learn the game properly unless you're willing to put serious hours in. Much as I love stuff like this I don't want to play it for 20hrs, so on went the cheats. I reckon I used around nine or ten continues in total (en route to The Bad End).

There's more to say but I'm a bit drunk and I'm not sure how much I've waffled already anyway. Graphics and Sound swing in with those high percentage Mean Machines scores and Playability isn't far behind. Lastability is there too, but I'd have to give that 120%, which is too much. More whisky I think. A slight disappointment but a blast for sure. If you want a nu retro rouguelike that MERCS Smash TV you're in for a treat. [7]. Will try in co-op at some point as I think the revive move will suit it.