Quite right, fixed

It definitely looks nicer at a glance but the slowdown is killing it for me.  Might be a weird emulation issue I guess?  Was crippling in places on stage 2.  

3. ElecHead - Switch (2hrs)

Outstanding puzzle platformer that feels like one of those rare genius indies where everything is perfectly formed.  Think Fez and Celeste levels of flawlessness (feel free to replace those titles with The Witness/Shovel Knight/A Monsters Expedition or whatever might fuel a disagreement or two).  It's not a long game, but it's a wonderfully assured package where the puzzles designed around the limited moveset get absolutely everything right.  It controls well, all abilities and possibilities slot into focus quickly and solutions to trickier problems - which I was ready for by the time they arrived - made me want to kick myself rather than the screen.

Describing it as a sort of (thinking outside the) BoxBoy meets VVVVV via Decap Attack just about works, so I'll go with that, and suggest that anyone interested keeps extra info down to a bare minimum.  There are some deep secrets tucked away within the short adventure - I only found 7 of 20 hidden chips - which I presume provide extra challenge and a further ending.  So at full price it's £7.99 for maybe 2-5hrs of near perfection.  Lovey stuff. [9]

130. Thunder Force IV - Mega Drive (1hr-ish)

Or Lightning Force: The Quest for Darkstar in the guise I played it.  I had some early problems with slowdown, but thankfully it's not that bad over the course of the game and seemed most prominent in that one stage (level 2).  Visually it's one of the most impressive 16-bit shmups for sure, probably coming close to Ranger X levels of MD shooter gorgeousness in places.  Parallax scrolling gone wild; some sections are stunning for the era.  The stages are also far more vertical than III, plus the relentlessly high quality soundtrack trumps its predecessor too.  There's a ton of (quality) music in there, and it changes as the stages develop rather than having one track for each level.  Impressive stuff.  It also goes a bit epic compared to III, but in doing so loses a little bit of the former's tightness imo.  The caveat being I'm judging it from a heavily save state assisted run again.  The back half just felt a little too drawn out and maybe a touch less visually appealing as cloudy lakes made way for slightly more clinical alien ship innards.  I'm not sure how much longer it is than III but there was noticeably more to it.  Too much to learn properly for my tastes for sure.

Bosses took a bit longer to take down, unless I was tackling some of them weirdly (quite possible), and although this is clearly the TF with the biggest wow factor I think I'll give it a couple of % less than III.  At the time the extra length/VFM/visual prowess might've given this the nod, but tackling them retrospectively I'd say maybe III was an even bigger achievement in 1990 than this was in '92.  Both great.  87%

 

Listening to Thunderforce 2 music as I work.

They are. No fun at all.

Those scrolls were ridiculous. I remember the rock climbing level being a pain too. Tough game

Moot_Geeza wrote:

This and the NES port of Gun.smoke are the big dogs of up the screen Commando types on 8-bit consoles imo.  

Check out Jackal on NES. A few of the SNK ones are decent too, just avoid the first Ikari Warriors.

132. Tinykin - Xbox One S (6hrs?)

Also played on a Series S where it was noticeably sharper (unless there's a huge difference between my two tellies), but we did most of it on the last gen console due to front room access.  It's still a nice looking/smooth experience.  I expect the Switch version takes a hit though.  

Despite not being over-keen on collecting stuff in games - especially 3D platformers - the whole set-up worked well for me and it was impossible to resist searching for optional pick-ups once we got going.  There are five different types of Tinykin and you'll need to find a good number of them in a level in order to pass certain roadblocks and progress the story.  If the platforming was more punishing the controls wouldn't be quite tight enough - the jump feels a bit limp (too quick on the up/down perhaps) and the 2D character on 3D backgrounds wouldn't quite nail it if more precision were required, but thankfully it's absolutely fine for the tasks at hand.  It's fun to get about thanks to the excellent soapboard and generous bubble float mechanic, and the stages are great to just mess around in.  It's a very laid back experience, where (rare) deaths will see you respawn close to where you made the mistake.  I thought the yellow tinykins were a bit of a letdown as the final tool, but any complaints are pretty minor and on the whole it's a delightful little game that has a huge amount of sheen for a low-fanfare indie title.

Not quite as good as The Splasher, which is up there with the best masocore platformers in recent years (it controls so nicely I'm tempted to replay it soon), but definitely a very good game that would've been well worth the asking price.  Two wins for the devs for sure - I reckon this is good enough for someone to bung them a bit more budget for their next effort.  I played it as a Game Pass treat, which is another win for the service.  I probably participated in less than a third of it because Tilly was an absolute pad hog for this one, but I'm still counting it as a clear. [8]

I played a demo of that a while back and was quite looking forward to it. I doubt I'll get round to it now anyway, but that does sound a little disappointing.

Verecocha wrote:

24.Days Gone - 20 Hours - 9/10 - PS5 Still amazes me that this game isn’t considered one of the absolute best of last gen. It looks absolutely stunning, surely on a par with N.D’s even though on a much bigger scale in terms of the open world game. The story is decent, though you can see the vast majority of it coming it’s still enjoyable with lots of good characters and fun twists. The gameplay is as you’d expect in an open world but the scale is good and the games version of ‘events’ fit in perfectly with the nests to clear etc. Thoroughly enjoyed this again and even more disappointed there’s no sequel coming. Great bit of gaming. 9/10

I could be mixing this up with another game, but didn't it get a ton of post release updates which massively improved on the game at launch?

31. Xeno Crisis (Switch) 2hrs

Good indie homage to Smash T.V. gets a lot right but drops the ball in a few key areas for me.

Running out of ammo in something like this just does not appeal. As a knock on effect you get a melee attack that again does nothing for me. The inclusion of grenades is good but alternate weapons are few and far between.

The level randomiser is also something I'm not a fan of in games, I know this can be seen as a positive greatly increasing replay value, but I much prefer the old perfection through repition approach.

Also the sprite size compared to the play area is a bit off in this one. Everything is a tad to big making manoeuvring trickier than it needs to be sometimes.

It's not all bad though, the upgrade system with the dog tags is well implemented and it smashes Smash T.V. out the park when it comes to bosses. They're tough but actually have patterns making it rewarding when taking them down.

Despite the negative comments this is still great fun and highly recommended imo.

8/10

My list

I played Days Gone at launch as I’m a big Sony Bend fan and had been waiting for them to put out a new game for an age. Know there’s some people that really love it, like Vere above, and I’m glad it’s found fans, but for me it was the definition of…aggressively fine.

retroking1981 wrote:

31. Xeno Crisis (Switch) -  

Good indie homage to Smash T.V. gets a lot right but drops the ball in a few key areas for me.

Running out of ammo in something like this just does not appeal. As a knock on effect you get a melee attack that again does nothing for me. The inclusion of grenades is good but alternate weapons are few and far between.

The level randomiser is also something I'm not a fan of in games, I know this can be seen as a positive greatly increasing replay value, but I much prefer the old perfection through repition approach.

Also the sprite size compared to the play area is a bit off in this one. Everything is a tad to big making manoeuvring trickier than it needs to be sometimes.

It's not all bad though, the upgrade system with the dog tags is well implemented and it smashes Smash T.V. out the park when it comes to bosses. They're tough but actually have patterns making it rewarding when taking them down.

Despite the negative comments this is still great fun and highly recommended imo.

8/10

My list

Nice. The melee didn't feel powerful enough and I thought the ammo system was a bit off but I enjoyed it on the whole. I think I went with a 7, with the possibility of a co-op 8.

Have to say, I wasn't bothered about the inflated PS5 games initially.  Thought their prices would deflate as PS games generally do, and stores would say 'lol no' and mostly sell them at PS4 prices.  I might still be 3 years away from playing Ratchet and Clank lol.

41: Splatoon 3 (Single Player) (Switch) 9/10

This was a real treat and my first proper go at a Splatoon.  I posted in the Splatoon thread but for some reason I didn't rate Splatoon as having proper single player for some reason, as they don't have Naughty Dog style adventure stories.  It's a silly way to think.  Splatoon 3's discreet, mario style levels are mostly one off variations on the theme of painting walls and swimming.  They're mostly great, and if they're not, then they don't last for long and you're off to the next challenge.  It's mostly great stuff and your character is a joy to control on a basic level.  The shooting, painting, swimming, running and jumping all feels right.  

Is there much wrong with it?  Not really.  I thought it could do with some fast travel, but then so did the developers, which is why they included it.  I just didn't realise until near the end.  It runs at 60 FPS on Switch and as such it doesn't look real impressive.  I kinda like the look of the squid kids as a rule but their slimy tentacle hair looks a bit 2007.  I don't mind them talking a made up language but when characters are telling you things, so you have to read subtitles during a gunfight, it's not ideal.  My made up whinge is that I really would like a 6 hour naughty dog style story mode.  But really, it's great.  Really looking forward to Splatoon 2 + expansion sometime soon.

42: Easy Come Easy Golf (World Tour Mode) (Switch) 6/10


Another shithouse golf game.  That's a bit harsh but I wish they just ported Vita golf to switch with 60fps 1080p and brought those online daily challenges back.   This one only runs at 30 fps which isn't ideal for 3 click golfing but it works okay.  

I played World Tour which is the main single player content for ECEG.  It's a real grind.  The gimmick is that you put together a crack team of 9 golfers, with each golfer taking 1 hole each.  Some golfers are good at controlling the ball, others can hit it hard, so you pick who you reckon will be best for each hold and away you go.  It's actually a pretty good gimmick.  What it not good is how slowly you unlock new golfers, and how shit most of them look.  You don't even start with 9 proper golfers.  Half of them are this generic 'Mini Golfer' thing, a tiny dead eyed Johnny Neutron looking motherfucker, I couldn't boot them out fast enough.  

You level up by beating par 9 courses, which earn you 'stars'.  Get enough stars and you get a boss challenge, and if you beat the boss they join your team.  It's so slow and it just gets slower  as it goes on.  Replaying the same courses time after time to get a new man for your team.  And there is no challenge.  You'd have to try to badly mishit anything, let alone lose a game.  Most of the greens are either flat or just slope in one direction.  Presumably the last courses get intricate but the first 6 or 7 are a pushover.  I'm no gaming dynamo and in 10-15 hours I never came close to losing.  

A real shame, but oh well bugger it.  Bring on this Tiger Woods x Michael Jordan thing on PS5.

I have a copy of S2 (finally, the pile of shame comes good!) and the Octo is included with the Switch online expansion thingy, so I'm happy to give it a try.  Do have to admit I was hit and miss with some of the optional weapons in S3 (the standard gun was always my favourite and a joy to use) though, so we'll see.