52 Games a Year 2021 Edition/ Game Record 2021: - The Bear and Badger

Moot_Geeza

Fair, I assumed the X,Y,Z thing would be hold/release.

121. The Last Stop - Xbox Series S (6hrs?)

I'm not proud of it but I am willing to admit it - I liked Virginia. Walking sims were fairly new to me when I played it. I liked the bold choice of having totally shtum/faceless characters, appreciated the way it played with the flow of the narrative and didn't even wince at the heavy handed Lynchian stuff. I must've missed a memo or two because it became a bit of a joke fairly quickly - on these boards at any rate. General consensus is that Virginia was not a good game by any stretch of the imagination. I'm pretty sure I gave it a [7].

The follow up effort from Variable State then. It wants to be many things, but unfortunately falls comically short in most departments. In a nutshell it attempts to be an interactive dialogue-centric kitchen sink Sci Fi drama with three separate-yet-woven narratives. Someone was probably thinking Mike Leigh directs Under Your Skin with hat tips to Shortcuts, but the finished product is more Paul Danan directs a school production of Waterloo Road after watching Vice Versa. I laughed a hell of a lot while playing this. Genuine guffaws in places (Spider might be the greatest fictional character of all time). The problem is - if it actually is a problem - I was laughing at rather than with it 90% of the time. At the way the characters run. At the way the interactivity is simultaneously redundant and woefully implemented (rotate stick to mend broken tea cup! Press B to eat cereal! Walk to the left of he screen ahaha I meant the right!). At the way every child character sounds like Morwenna Banks squirming in a big chair. At the way one of the characters is an irredeemable turbocunt. At the duet on the Joanna, jfc. The London slice-o-life shtick misses the mark by a mile again and again, and every time I sniggered I liked the game a little more.

In terms of story I had absolutely no clue where it was going, and when it arrived at its destination I was more than happy to lap up the absolute ladlefuls of WTF. I'd probably pay to watch a How Did This Get Made.

I can't recommend this game, but that's what I'm about to do anyway. Please play it. It's not fun in spite of the wonkiness; it's fun because of it. Like a videogame version of The Room, this is the sort of experience that deserves theme nights in pop-up cinemas. 'And you take the piss out of me for the stuff I watch' was my wife's sneering input after witnessing a ham-fisted scene of interactive management comeuppance. And this is coming from someone who actually watches Waterloo Road.

Alright look, it's genuinely awful in places - there's almost no good reason for it to be interactive past the (most inconsequential) dialogue choices, yet it's relentlessly interactive - but overall I had so much fun I found it impossible to dislike. [6]

Moot_Geeza

retroking1981 wrote:

Yeah but it toggles between the two, not a hold/release scheme like the other games, and even worse to change weapons you have to stop shooting. All this with two buttons on the six button configuration going unused. It just slows things down too much in a game that really requires quick actions, it's why it feels so much harder than it should. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it, but the controls feel slightly compromised compared to The Alien Wars and Shattered Soldier.

Moot_Geeza

Romhacking.net - Hacks - Contra Hard Corps: Stationary Fire+
Yeah, poor design choice. You can hack the ROM to put stationary fire on the mode button apparently, but the default decision is weird considering the game recognises the extra buttons.

123. Rush Rally Origins - Switch (3hrs)

Very good budget rally game that nails the essentials. There's not a lot of window dressing - just Time Trial, Championship and Race modes - but considering it only costs five pounds any bellyaching could be a first world problems meme. Straight from the off it's clear the handling isn't much deeper than any puddles you might splash through, which is absolutely fine by me; it's an arcade leaning time trial racer that wants you to chuck the cars through drifts on the hairpins. Create an account in-game (painless) and you can download individual leaderboard ghosts to race against too, hich ups the longevity considerably. The graphics options are also worth mentioning as it offers a huge array of options to tinker with to get the game running to your tastes. Target 30, 60fps or 'highest' while reducing tree density, upping the weather effects, dropping texture quality down to medium and so on. Plus it has separate options for handheld and docked mode, which deserves a round of applause. As far as I could tell everything ran perfectly on mid-tier settings undocked anyway.

It lacks analogue triggers, which is a shame, and the top time trial medals seem to need upgraded cars to conquer, but I would've enjoyed this at thrice the price. [8]

124. Backbone - Xbox Series S (4-5hrs)

Excellent interactive post-noir novel dripping in grimy neon rainswept pixel art goodness. It resembles a point and click adventure at a glance but it's not the kind that requires you to find scissors to remove sleeping gnome's beards - progression is mostly achieved via dialogue exchanges and clickable object elimination, you have no inventory as such. You play as Howard Lotor, a trenchcoat wearing racoon PI who gradually becomes embroiled in a deeper plot that involves a sketchy looking nightclub called The Bite. Any further information would enter spoiler territory, but it's an intricately told tale that rattles along at an agreeable pace. Games like this often nail the atmosphere but fudge the dialogue in my experience, but this scores extremely highly on both counts - I'm a skipper and a skimmer when it comes to videogame stories, but even the most basic exchanges in this felt worthwhile (it's rare to see a game that offers dialogue options that feel natural, and conversations flow nicely). There's an element of wonkiness to the way it plays on occasion, but for a game of this ilk that's not a deal breaker. Extremely impressed. [8]

Verecocha

31. Alan Wake Remaster - 10 Hours - 7/10 - Xbox Series X

I remembered this as being a standout game during the 360 gen and whilst it’s aged well, particularly the mad story, the genre really has moved forward on and towards the end I was looking forward to the finishing line.

Isn’t the most impressive remaster and doesn’t look like a lot of work has gone into it, the cutscenes in particular are very jarring and the frame rate in them is all over the place. Alan’s new face just doesn’t feel right either, not sure if that’s a memory thing or a little claymation looking. But the movement is ok, action is ok, just so much of it and so, so samey samey. Only two types of enemies and said enemies can just spawn behind you at any time which is always really irritating.

However it’s still a worthy play, think I got through it in about 10 hours and you can feel the love and work that’s gone into it, the story, presentation and extra narrative and entertainment additions in the radio and TV shows are always worth a watch.

Hopefully a sequel will get a green light and much more can be made of Mr Wake and his stories.

Moot_Geeza

Loved it at the time but it's not one I'll be revisiting. The faces never felt right in the first place iirc. Would play a sequel.

Verecocha

Think I’ll go through Quantum Break now too as it’s another quick one.

acemuzzy

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Loved it at the time but it's not one I'll be revisiting. The faces never felt right in the first place iirc. Would play a sequel.

Definitely don't play the sequel m8, it sucks

Moot_Geeza

American Nightmare? Spin-off in my book. Also one of the few games I've paid for but never played.

Unashamed fan of Quantum Break over here, loved it.

acemuzzy

I'm midway through QB at the mo. It's... ok?

Officer_V

Moot_Geeza wrote:

American Nightmare? Spin-off in my book. Also one of the few games I've paid for but never played. Unashamed fan of Quantum Break over here, loved it.

Me too, though I don't think I've played since release where I played it non-stop for days until I'd got every achievement as I couldn't stop playing. Looking forward to going back in.

acemuzzy wrote:

I'm midway through QB at the mo. It's... ok?

I imagine it won't have as much of an impact now but at the time it was great and was unbelievably stunning to look at.

Moot_Geeza

I was late to the Bone party and Quantum Break was the first wow looking AAA game I played on it. It's like a tarted up PS2 game in terms of gameplay, with bad-but-not-that-bad TV show bits between. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Eric

I really enjoyed it too, it was proper phwoar at the time and once you got your powers I thought it played out really well.

I can see how the movie sections could annoy though.

Moot_Geeza

108. Contra III - SNES (40mins)

Very good, albeit not quite the grandaddy of the genre I was expecting. It's tight and well crafted but the top down sections - although not bad in their own right - are unwelcome for a retro playthrough and without them there's only around 30 minutes of gameplay (once the patterns and layouts are learned, ofc). I was under the impression this was the Castlevania IV of Contra games, the swinging dick of the 16-bit entries, so to speak, but I think Hard Corps edges it for a few reasons, chiefly the length and multiple route options. Times moved quickly in the early 90s and this would feel like the older game in a Pepsi challenge. Cracking game with some excellent moments (the boss battle while hanging from missiles is immense) but superceded by its younger brother imo.  88%

109. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - SNES (45mins)

Hyperstone Heist is basically just a slightly shorter reworking of this. The MD version looks and sounds great but the SNES game looks and sounds better - even on an emulator it just sounds more like an arcade cabinet, with better music and more sampled speech. It's more playful than the MD game too, thanks to the knockabout time travelling stages. There's not much in it but this gets the nod as throwing footsoldiers into the camera never gets old. I still can't work out why you'd want to pick Raphael as Donatello's reach is so OP, but this is true of all Konami TMNT imo. At least Raph had the best special in the original arcade game, it's pretty weak here. All specials are kinda redundant in this as they drain too much of your own health though, so it's a moot point. Again, this is a problem in Hyperstone too. Quality game, would have played it to death back in the day. 87%

110. Tiny Toons - NES (1hr)

Excellent 8-bit platformer from 1991 that serves as a reminder of the quality to be found in the vast NES library. I knew this existed, sure, but there are so many similar titles on the platform it never registered with me as a podium contender. Outside of the two GOAT Mario games the scuffle for third place has games like Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Asterix, Duck Tales, Kid Icarus and Castle of Illusion rolling around kicking up a pile of dust, and that's without mentioning the genre outliers like Megaman, Batman, Castlevania, Shatterhand and Wonderboy in Monsterland (platformers, but platform shooters/hack 'n slash platformers). For straight ahead jumpmans this is well in the mix and has a chance of being crowned champion of the underdogs when the dust settles.

Playable, varied and a good overall length with well pitched difficulty. As straightforward 8-bit platformers go there really isn't that much to fault. Buster controls superbly and it's not half bad in the looks department - it definitely stays in its lane and avoids slowdown/flicker, which is a massive bonus imo. The main theme starts to grate a little after a while but that's a minor gripe.  92%

Moot_Geeza

111. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania - Switch (7hrs)

Competent remaster of a remaster that reaffirms everything everyone already knew - Sega has never successfully recreated the perfection of the (console update of the) original game. 300+ stages at a budget pricepoint make this a generous offering in my book, but a tier ranking for the full set of stages would be packing plenty of timber around the middle. There are some exceptionally well designed courses in this - mostly from the first SMB - some absolute stinkers and a vast number of levels that could be filed under fine. It feels so scattershot in terms of quality it's not a million miles from trawling through a random selection of user generated content from Trials Evo, Mario Maker, Little Big Planet or whatever. The good courses are their own reward, the bad courses seem to serve no purpose other than to annoy and once they're done you'll never want to see them again.

Performance is one patch away from perfection on Switch, with 60fps as a there-or-thereabouts target throughout, the only real problem being occasional judders and hitches. Control is almost right, like the world's best own brand Choco Liebniz. I'd imagine it will annoy uberfans immensely, but for Johnny Fairweathers like me it feels roughly like it should, which is good enough. As an aside, the 'but the Gamecube pad had the little grooves!' brigade can sit doon. SMB was rarely a game about locking your course in one of eight directions and it's the sort of airquotes fact that gets regurgitated over time as gamers hang their hats on it at the expense of the truth, like a videogame equivalent of people who don't like Guinness saying 'Guinness tastes miles better in Dublin!' or 'I really enjoyed Eyes Wide Shut!'. Neither the courses nor the camera angles allowed much in the way of octagonal benefits. Someone just said it once (an Edge reviewer?) and it's become a sort of urban legend perpetuated by people who probably only played the beginner stages. /End rant.

Outside of the main game there are also ten party games of varying quality. Monkey Target is back, but it's been phoned in. Which isn't a deal breaker because it's still worth a few mp sessions, but I can't believe it's not better/can believe it's not butter. Split screen only for multiple players too, SMDH. Monkey Golf is as ace as ever while it lasts, Monkey Bowling is still a blast and there's fun to be had elsewhere if you look hard enough, so the multiplayer aspect of the package is reasonably strong. There are also leaderboards, achievements, costumes, unlocks (like a jump, which I haven't tried out yet) and various other value multipliers on offer for the single player side.

Overall I really liked it, but it's not as resplendent as the original. Even the sea and skies in Monkey Target are less Segaaa. Of the 100 levels in the story mode I managed 85 'perfect clears', 7 with the near useless help feature (triangles for plotting a course, jfc, just use a ghost monkey), but must admit I marked 8 of the nastiest offerings as clear just to progress. Two of those I had no desire to tackle whatsoever and instanoped. At its best it's still one of the best games ever made, at its worst it's a mess, but if you know not to expect the perfection you may have been expecting it's well worth the asking price.  [8]

nick_md

I know that's a dig at me and fuck you, I'd like to hear your top 5 because EWS is in mine. Maybe.

Moot_Geeza

nick_md

Please let me play monkey target round your gaff.

Moot_Geeza

Needs to happen at some point, I'm fed up with Tilly outscoring me.

Top 5:

1. Citizen Kane
2. The Seventh Seal
3. Russian Ark
4. The Tree of Life
5. About the soufflé

Moot_Geeza

Spoiler:

nick_md

Tip toer

hylian_elf

Seven Samurai
The Godfather
Vertigo
Apocalypse Now
In the Mood for Love

Maybe.

nick_md

Kubrick didn't direct any of those, bloody amateurs here.

nick_md

Anyone who puts the Godfather above Goodfellas needs to give their head a wobble. Absolute lunacy.

hylian_elf

Next five, maybe:

Alien
2001: A Space Odyssey
Once Upon a Time in America
Citizen Kane
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

hylian_elf

nick_md wrote:

Anyone who puts the Godfather above Goodfellas needs to give their head a wobble. Absolute lunacy.

You have just lost any credibility you actually had.

monkey

Edit - never mind

Wariospeedwagon

41: Metroid Dread (Switch) 10/10

I've only played Super, Zero and Fusion earlier this year, I liked all of those but I reckon this is comfortably my favourite one. Maybe that's just the new game smell (and new Switch smell) but that's what I think at the moment.

Only real concern going in was the unkillable robot sections. I normally hate this shit but they didn't end up being a problem. They're contained to a handful of clearly signposted screens and you can generally zip passed them. It's not too long before you get to power up your gun and strut back in to give them a well deserved touch up. I'm not sure they make the game better though. Will be interesting to see if they drag down my opinion of the game in future plays.

Trying to think of what's wrong with the game, there's really not much. When it zooms right in for a cinematic bit, sometimes the enemies look a bit shithouse. It does generally look fantastic and the more tasteful zooming in and out to get a better look at your environment makes me glad they went 3D. Also you keep getting new abilities and I didn't use the ones nearer to the end much. In hindsight I guess you were supposed to go back and collect all the power ups. I didn't though. In fact I only got 29% items cleared lol.

Samus is fun to play as. A lot has already been made of how great the movement and controls are. This is all true though it can be a bit tricky when you need to use a bunch of abilities in quick succession. I do wonder if there was a way to streamline things a bit more (maybe dodge and slide being on separate buttons, when they could maybe just be the same thing?).

She remains a very cool character with her no bullshit body language. There's no wasted movement, no posturing except for when you save. Passively waiting out giant scary monsters while they do their Intro Roar, even on the loading screens when you're catching a lift, she's just standing there with a hand resting on her cannon, not moving unless you count breathing, waiting for shit to kick off again. It's all very badass.

Think it's good at leading you where to go without banging you over the head. I didn't need to consult a guide. It seemed like every time I guessed where it go, it was the correct guess. I needed help with the other 3 Metroids I played this year. The Metroid thread here seems to be mixed on how obtuse it can be though.

The bosses are GREAT - hard but fair, they don't take any shit and I died a few times on each. They all have tells and I don't think anyone had any made up bullshit moves. It's a pleasure to get beat up and know it was your fault from getting greedy or cracking under pressure. That said the last boss did take me AT LEAST 90 minutes to beat. The whole game only took me 8H30M!

Awesome stuff and the best Switch game in recent memory.

EDIT

Terminator 2
Commando
Predator
Ghost World
The Blues Brothers

Moot_Geeza

Three more days until Metroid, going to start it when I'm on holiday. Loving the sound of those bosses.

I haven't seen Eyes Wide Shut yet, was doing a troll :eyes:

Wariospeedwagon

Awesome! Reckon you’ll love it. Interested to read your thoughts. Up there with Hollow Knight IMO

42: DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power (Switch) 3/10

This is a licence tie in with a popular children’s program that I’ve never seen. I thought this might be a hidden gem as I don’t mind a basic beat em up. This one also has an open-ish world hub with photography challenges, light platforming bits, new outfits to buy and a bit of sim city building. The photography stuff is okay, although it mostly just boils down to finding Batman graffiti and uploading it to your social media. Platforming is pretty bad, the sim city stuff seems to make no difference to anything and you don’t get to do much, and it’s oddly stingy for a children’s game so I didn’t get to buy many clothes until later in the game (past the point i was sick of it and didn’t end up buying anything).

The fighting generally is okay. It’s 1 attack button and a dodge with some special moves. You get a bonus hard attack if you do a perfect dodge. It’s a good system but there are only about 5 enemies on rotation and the camera can’t keep up.

The show is apparently very good but the dialogue did sound a bit like 40 year old blokes trying to sound like kids. I don’t actually know many kids so maybe it’s accurate.

I do like the cartoon graphics.

Dark Soldier

Wario - YES MATE

I'd recommend doing a mop up when you can be bothered, going away fully tooled up exploring is a wonderful thing.

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