132. TOEM: A Photo Adventure - Switch (3hrs 47mins)

Wonderful mixture of other games Tilly & I have enjoyed (Alba, A Short Hike, the good bits of The Touryst, Hidden Folks), and right now I think there's a chance I'd crown it king of the lot.  

After setting off on your photo adventure you'll need to take snaps of various things on your super-zoomy vintage camera, often involving light puzzle elements, which help you gain enough stamps for the next bus ride.  Progression gating is very laid back as you can pick and choose which tasks to complete, and it's all a great mix of fun & nicely done.  We'll be mopping up most of the missed challenges soon enough, but this weekend's task was to push to the end, which was a magical pay-off.  

I've had my eye on this since the initial trailer and it doesn't disappoint.  I was hoping for similar things from Moonglow Bay, but when that arrived it felt like one of those wonky Jurassic-Park-theme-played-on-a-recorder videos the internet makes that I always lol at (and obviously can't find right now), whereas this is actually better than I'd hoped.  A big fat [9] earns it a spot on my GotY top 5.  Great stuff uncle.  

133. Skies of Fury DX - Switch (7hrs)

A very drawn out completion for me (and also a not-quite-completion) as I've been chipping away at it for over three years.  I thought I'd reviewed it where I left it a year or so back, given that the entire game is just three things repeated ad infinitum, but I can't find it.  Basically I fancied a shooty plane game last week after a) binning Project Wingman IN DISGUST and b) showing this one to a friend who just bought a Switch and wanted to know if there were any decent WWI dogfighting games on it.  This qualifies as decent, but it seems pretty desperate to shake the player off by the 100th level.  There are five chapters, each containing ten Allied stages and ten Axis stages.  The level types are 'shoot down enemy waves' (easy, fun), 'fly through hoops before the timer runs out' (easy, mostly a bit Partridge shrug) and 'Escort Mission' (impossibly difficulty by the end, absolute shite).  There's a skill tree to unlock perks and a few different planes to try out, but for everything other than the hoop course stages maximum damage seems key, which makes it even more annoying that literally none of the allied planes have a damage rating of over 5/10.  I was convinced the 42nd Allied level was rigged, given that I had to escort three planes to a goal surrounded by over 20 enemy planes, and after reloading the game there were suddenly six planes to escort, which made it just about doable.  So I guess I was right?  Anyway, I got through that mission but the 49th was similarly ridiculous, so I didn't bother.  The 50th German stage is an escort mission too.  Nope.  I suppose reloading it might rejig the parameters again but I'm done, 97/100 stages finished is close enough for me.  

The dogfighting is good but JFC it doesn't need to go on as long as it does.  It looks nice, runs well and is probably worth a punt for anyone who fancies messing about with this sort of thing, just do yourself a favour and don't play the whole game.  Like I didn't. [6]

Focus on one hobby reg, it's liberating.

I played the first stage and decided not to bother with the rest. If there's not much more to it, sounds like I made the right call.

Yeah, I felt like I got the hang of the dive-leap-glide thing and then bored of it in the space of 15 minutes.

137. Unpacking - Xbox Series S (3hrs)

Played on NFG mode for item placement, so I have no idea how fastidious it is with doing things (Delbert Grady voice) correctly.

Lovely little puzzle/narrative curiosity by the makers of the criminally overlooked Assault Android Cactus.  Full disclosure: I found unpacking things and arranging them as tedious as I would in real life, which is a shame, but the deftly told 'story' holding it all together is very gently drip fed by visual clues and snippets of text between stages.  I'm not going to attach a score to this as the gameplay loop isn't my cup of tea (I'm incredibly messy irl, which probably has something to do with it), but I'm glad I played it for the overall experience, and it's definitely the sort of thing that deserves indie darling status.



Edit: I forgot to mention that I played each stage with a (random) Spotify indie playlist for the given year, which really added to the experience, and there was a point where Courtney Barnett's Depreston kicked in that felt absolutely perfect. The stars aligned for that one.

Not an actual spoiler, just an answer to your question.

It's the only game I can think of atm where I'd linger on the loading screens before pressing a button just to hear the music. Fantastic style.

17. Kid A Mnesia Exhibition

A free download showcasing art and mixing music from Kid A and Amnesiac by Radiohead, this was an enjoyable 90 minutes on the PS5 for a Radiohead fan. Hearing looping sounds or isolated tracks from different songs was quite powerful, particularly as I had the PS5 Headphones in. I can imagine it's even better in VR, but entering the tube of light in The National Anthem room still rules on the TV.

It's occasionally cheaper in a double pack with Slain than its solo sale price, oddly (which I didn't get on with but you might like).

51: Shin Megami Tensai V (Switch) 7/10

This is my proper introduction to the SMT games.  I have had a go at at a few of the personas and their spin offs, as well as Tokyo Mirage sessions.  I didn't like this one as much as the Personas.  Those games give you a lot of plot and fun people to hang out with.  This one is quite light on story and dialogue (there does seem to be a lot going on, just not as overtly as Persona), and there's a lot more time spent on exploring.  

Unfortunately I didn't much enjoy the exploring.  SMTV has the kind of maps that look like a nice big open-ish world, but it's really just a load of intersecting corridors.  I go mad trying to get to a marker on the map and you can never just walk in that direction, you're spiralling around and climbing through dilapodated buildings.  

The art direction is very strong.  If you like looking at JRPGs you will like this.  A lot of the monsters I recognised from Persona (step right up, Giant Angry Penis in Death Chariot) as well as lots of great reinterpretations of classic gods and demons.  It's great stuff.  The poor old Switch really struggles though.  It's quite low res and frequently low frame rate.  It brought to mind a late stage PS3 game that was a bit too ambitious for the creaking hardware.  It doesn't hurt the game, really.  You don't need great reflexes or timing.

Have to admit, I didn't really care what happened at the end; I was a bit sick of it.  Pretty decent RPG but was hoping for more.  

52 Hot Wheels Unleashed (PS5) 6/10

A pretty solid powerslide/nitro boost style arcade racer.  

I had the same problem with it that I had with Ridge Racer Unbounded earlier this year - it initially looks really good, but because all the tracks are made from the same components they have a procedurally generated look to them.  It seems like there's a million tracks and you can't tell one from the other.  

It does feel pretty good, however as the game goes on more obstacles get added to the tracks (I toy spider that sprays webs at you, a lever that blocks off forks in the road, twisers etc) and each one I thought made the game slightly worse.  It wore out its welcome when the harder tracks removed barriers from the side of the road and I kept going off.  It's fine.  The Hot Wheels cars look cool (except for the shit ones with like a hamburger and chips on the roof - Christ you'd hate to get that one for christmas).  I also don't like it when you don't have the season pass for a game and it keeps reminding you that you don't have it.  Choose a car!  No, not that one, you have to buy that one with real money etc etc

53: Unpacking (PC) 6/10

I don't have anything nasty to say about this game even if I didn't really enjoy it that much (pro tip - don't try and play it in one sitting - once the novelty wears off, putting away socks in a game is about on par with doing it in real life).  It told a coherent and warm story without (many) words and it didn't feel manipulative.  It looks fantastic and I'm glad it exists.

Only time I got upset is when I couldn't figure out WTF one of the objects was supposed to be, and where it wanted me to put it.  There's a setting in the options that allows you to put items where you see fit, which I thought was a cool idea and saved me looking up a guide.  Glad to have played it.

I think that Sonic 2 gif ,Ishtar be what kicked off all the epilepsy nonsense from the 90’s?

I looked at it last night and now I’ve just come round on the hallway floor.  There’s a puddle too.

31. Vendetta (Arcade) - 30mins

Early 90s side scrolling beat em up from Konami, has their usual high presentation and polish from the time.

This game seems to garner high praise in the retro community, but tbh it wouldn't trouble my 10 top in the genre.

Has the standard grapple attacks and crowd control specials, which oddly don't deplete your own health in this, but even more surprising is the lack of a jump button. Instead punches and kicks are each assigned their own buttons.

The kick button also enables you to execute ground attacks on floored enemies, and also lets you lash out when you're prone on the floor yourself. This is a nice touch and helps it stand out from the crowd a bit.

It's a fun little playthrough and gets a bonus point for being 4-player co-op.

7/10

My list

140. Aggelos - Switch (5hrs 42mins)

It felt like it kept going for a lot longer than that, which is never a good sign.  Wonderboy clone - aiming to replicate the sequels rather than the original - that pinned the tail on 'chunky and slightly washed out 8-bit visuals' from the laminated book of retro stylings.

It doesn't do anything massively wrong but I thought the quest started to drag after the first hour.  Perhaps I wasn't in the mood as this sort of thing is kinda my bread and butter when it comes to off-piste indies, but it never felt close enough to smell the cigar.  Maybe I'm starting to suffer from 'retro-inspired' malaise, which had never really happened to me before.  

In summary, it's a minimal exploration required Metroidvania with swords, armour and potions to buy from shops (but no shields), 'dungeon' style areas with bosses and a lot of straightforward traipsing back and forth between areas.  I've never seen such an odd currency system in a game, given that enemies spit out gushing geysers of coins instead of the standard one coin or money bag Wonderboy thing.  I guess someone thought they'd turn it up to eleventy one and make all the items cost all the monies, but it's fucking weird.

Not a bad game, but long winded, fiddly, overly cruel in places and a light years behind Monster Boy in the Cursed Kingdom.  This is actually well regarded among the Wonderboy community, but it's a [5] for me Clive.

We played it again in the retro club thread a few years back, or I did anyway. Was on the retro pi you kitted out for me (before the PS Mini). The Japanese ROM was full of yikes and heavily censored for western release, quality walk/punch/jump action though.