I love that your score range is "either [9] or [10]"

Muzzy just upset because he usually plays a maximum of 2/10 of anything he buys.

I knew that and posted anyway.

38. Hook - Arcade (45mins)

It's been decades since I saw the film, which from memory was panned by pretty much everyone other than the kids it was aimed at, who mostly seemed to love it. The were a few movie tie-ins on various consoles, so fans had plenty to play after their cinema trips. Over the years I've tried Hook platformers (SNES, MS), a point & click adventure (Amiga - still bugs me that I got completely stuck fairly early on) and now a scrolling beat 'em up that I didn't know existed until I bought a hardback guide to the genre.

It's....okay. A run move is nigh-on essential for me to fully enjoy random old school belt scrollers, and there isn't one, so it wasn't exactly an auspicious start. It didn't really get much better or worse either. A full 'meh' 2 out of 5 that doesn't feel like the devs were ever aiming for more than 3 out of 5 in the first place. Doubtlessly better with four players bangaranging through the stages, but the combat didn't hook me :eyes:

It did make me think about how good a Prince of Thieves scrolling beat 'em up could have been though. Imagine a four to six player romp with proper bosses - bearded scimitar weilding jailer, Guy of Gisborne, Celtic Chieftain, Gobby executioner, the priest (who throws bags of coins and must be shepherded towards a window for a finisher), Mortianna (who can fly/see through walls), followed by the final battle against an ironically spoon-weilding sheriff (first phase weapon ofc - he then grabs a longsword as his entire health bar recharges, and tries to stab you with a dagger just before he dies). Now picture a playable roster of the following characters: Robin (all-rounder!), Marian (nippy!), Azeem (highest jump or something!) Little John (power!), Wulf (really nippy!), Friar Tuck (moar power!), then maybe Will Scarlet (backstabber extraordinaire!) and an unlockable Big Head mode Bryan Adams. Plus assist characters for team-up specials: Duncan (fires paintballs!), Brian Blessed (shouts GOD AND KING RICHARD while bulldozing through the screen banging coconuts together!) Marian's Lady-in-waiting (spearheads a hazardous conga line!), Bull (wallops enemies from downtown with an unexpected range attack!), Much Fanny (...he's on her shoulders?) and King Richard (tells women they look radiant before unapologetically slapping them in the face while smirking!). Would pay all the monies and pledge to cover all the stretch goals.

I think it was a little less than that. Baker Street to Rickmansworth on the Metopolitan line anyway.

One decent Euromillions win and it's on.

The Connery stuff was a bit Much.

5. Arkanoid Eternal Battle (Switch) 6/10

I don't have much to say about this game.  The RRP on the physical copy is very high.  It feels like a rip off at 50% off.  The graphics look pretty cheap.  It has one of those battle royal modes in the vein of Tetris 99 and Mario35 but of course no one is playing this game so it's just you vs AI.  There's also a VS mode which I won't play.  There are 2 arcade modes, retro (which i think is just the old game but with a terrible arcade machine overlay I don't think you can turn off) and Neo, which is a new set of levels.

It is Arkanoid though, and Arkanoid is pretty good fun.  It would probably be fine at deep discount.  But right now I'm just thinking WTF I just spent 30 bucks on this??? I'm not sure what I was expecting though!  It does everything it says on the box.

39. The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy - Arcade (30mins)

Outrageously action-centric arcade game that I'd never even heard of until I found out recently that M2 wanted to port it to the Mega Drive in the early 90s, but Sega asked them to squeeze Gunstar Heroes onto the Game Gear instead. Obviously most arcade games of the era were action-centric, so if the above description sounds silly, trust me, it's not - I don't think I've ever played such a 'hold tight and strap in' 2D experience in all my years of gaming. The entire thing is basically a string of outlandish set-pieces. It's also playable in simultaneous two player mode, where you both appear to take control of Edward Randy, albeit in different coloured jumpers. Messrs Randy have to run, jump and whip their way through multiple stages of relentless trailer scenes; the game starts on the wings of a biplane, with the Eds leaping from aircraft to aircraft, but before long you'll be standing on speedboats, climbing trucks hurtling into the screen, clinging to trains that fall apart as you smash them up and scaling a flying fortress.

If you like the sound of a 2D game from 1990 that you've probably never heard of that mixes the action romp elements of Indiana Jones or Uncharted with something like Gunstar Heroes (honestly, the whole things feels like Seven Force cubed) then you should definitely treat yourself to a playthrough if you have access to MAME emulation. 5 out of 6. Hilariously OTT arcade thrills. In terms of gameplay it's functional rather than genuinely good but I almost gave it the full 6 anyway. If anyone ever regretted dropping 20p into this cabinet I'll eat my Stetson beanie.

Love this artwork:





Edit: The ROM I played started with the airplane section but it looks like most versions start with the speedboat stage.

9.Resi 2 Remake - 5 Hours - 10/10 - Xbox Series X

Another one of my favourites. Building up to Resi 4 on the 24th going through this and 3. Nothing I can’t say about this that hasn’t been said. Outstanding bit of gaming. Even enjoyed the Tyrant chases this time as they actually scared me instead of just annoyed me. Managed to get a surprise achievement too after killing off the tyrant with over 5 mins left. BONUS!

Wreckfest (Switch) 8/10

This is a shockingly good port!  Like I'm sure the current gen versions look a lot better if you compare footage side by side, but it scrubs up really well in handheld mode and manages to hold a pretty consistent 30fps (the only slowdown I found was occasionally at the start of the race when there are 16 cars on screen jostling).

Aside from being ruggedly handsome it's a really fun racing game.  I've had a soft spot for this kind of racing game since Destruction Derby took Rokeby High School by storm.  I'm not sure how well that game's aged.  A bit part of the appeal was how fresh it seemed with the smashable vehicles - you couldn't get something like that on the SNES.  But beyond the novelty of seeing cars limping around with half their bodies caved in or torn off, with debris littering the track, it's just fun to drive.  In fact Wreckfest leans into how I normally drive in racing games.  EG I'm coming into a corner where I really should slow down, but an opponent is a little in front of me, so I can just bump into them so I not only can keep going fast, I can run them off the road.  I feel a little bad about it in Forza, but that shit's encouraged here.

Many of the tracks are designed with chaos in mind so there's lots of crisscrossing and looping around so you're often in danger of getting t boned or avoiding oncoming traffic.  The narrow misses are exhilarating and it's never not funny watching your opponents run each other off the road, leaving you to Bradbury a win.  The handling is quite forgiving and even when you're car's just barely holding it together you can still get around alright, which works well for this kind of game where potential collisions can pop up at any second. 

The last set of tracks in the single player championship did get a bit tedious though - races go for longer, and getting wiped out and having to start again 15 minutes into a race is a fair bit less funny than when it happens after 3 minutes.  Over such long races you can even end up being the only competitor left, finishing the last couple of laps on your own.

Never mind though.  This is a great port of a very good game and is one of the better racing games I've played on Switch.

42. BareKnuckleZ - OPEN BOR (3hrs)

Thanks to the assortment of treasures that came pre-loaded on my Anbernic handheld, I'm now playing games that have presumably been bedroom coded by fans of franchises I like.  I knew there was a well-regarded Streets of Rage homebrew effort out there, but I don't know if this is The One (spoiler: I hope not).  It doesn't help that there are umpteen variants on both the R353M and the Super Console X3 Plus (warning: I'm going to be typing 'R353M' and 'Super Console X3 Plus' absolutely loads this year), such as Final Rage (some sort of Final Fight/SOR hybrid), Bare Knuckle X (X, not Z), Streets of Rage Zombies (yawn), Beats of Rage (a SOR rhythm action game celebrating its birthday?) and so on.  Quite a lot of work has gone into this, and for the most part the fundamental gameplay is intact - it's a decent blending of the three OG Streets of Rage games, with nicely presented locations and passable remixes of classic tunes, and it plays pretty much as you'd expect/want.  In some places it uses tweaked versions of original sprites, in others it uses ground-up homebrew efforts (like the slightly wonky looking Adam).  I assume the thought process behind this was something like 'what if the good bits from SOR3 weren't ruined by the crap bits of SOR3', as Axel & Blaze play similarly to their second sequel selves.  There's no sign of Skate/Sammy or Roo either, which is a +1 in my book.  If you love SOR, and you want more SOR, you've come to the right place on paper.

So how come you didn't like it all that much, Moot?  Because it's weird.  It gets a lot right, but the levels drag on for ages and at times so many opponents drop in at once it's impossible to control the crowd solo.  It also adopts a kitchen sink approach to enemy choices and placement, and although some of the bigger bads are drip fed as bosses initially, by stage 8 or so almost all of them could be in the mix at any given time, and it starts to feel like a slightly dodgy version of the sublime survival mode in SOR4, albeit played in seemingly neverending stages.  The music is strange too - you'll get OG tunes, remixed tunes, movie themes and clearly just 'chooons' wot the person who coded it likes.  Which is fine I guess, they put the effort in, but is Tremble For My Beloved a better fit for a) a Streets of Rage game, or b) a montage of white kids running around a mall trying on prom outfits in some sort of forgotten laughter-track American sit-com from 1992?  You be the judge (NB: not the name of the show).  Elsewhere we have Brad 'safe hands' Fiedel's theme from The Terminator playing over a stage that contains (checks notes) robots, and rather more facepalmingly, an instrumental version of YMCA on a loop for the stage that culminates in a battle with Ash (of removed from the western release of SOR3 fame).  Perhaps the dev had inclusiveness in mind, but I doubt it.      

Although I played at least a stage as each of the six characters, Axel's running non-energy drain special absolutely wrecked so I didn't see the point in messing about with anyone else for too long. Or picking up weapons, other than to break up the monotony, as they did less damage than the move I failed to stop myself from spamming.  I don't really understand the levelling system, which seemed to max out at 15 by stage two, or why all energy bars seem to have at least three layers, or why random show stopping moves seemed to pop out now and then with no rhyme or reason (remember those 'Black Belt' hacked StreetFighter2 cabs that appeared in chip shops in 1993ish where Ryu would throw multiple fireballs at once, or the arc of a dragon punch would have a horizontal dash + moar fireballs?  Adam rolls with this kind of energy here).

Anything else?  It doesn't have a lift level and there aren't enough holes for enemies to fall down within the stages.  Not enough belt scrollers allow you to inject the thrill of lobbing someone to their death, which pretty much peaked with Golden Axe or the external elevator in SOR1.  It also goes on for too long.  I've got no problem with the length of SOR4 (2.5hrs), Battletoads 2020 (4hrs), Fight 'N Rage (2.5hrs), Shredder's Revenge (3hrs), Mother Russia Bleeds (4hrs) or even Wulverblade (5hrs) - modern games can't be an hour long unless they cost like £8 really, which none of those games do at full price - but this feels needlessly stretched out, like butter spread over too much dustbin chicken, rather than 'good value', or whatever the equivalent for Open Bor gaming is (OPEN BOR, NOT OPEN BORE!!1).  There are a couple of vehicle sections to mix things up, but you can put the pad on on the floor for those if you like and the level will complete itself.

It's playable with four, and I bet that's the best way to experience it.  It plays very well in the moment, needless padding and endless enemy energy bars aside.  I doubt I'll be reaching for it in mp any time soon though, and I'm hosting a mp evening tonight (Revenge of Death Adder tops the agenda as I've heard it's legit and I've never played it).  So after all that waffle this gets a slightly harsh [6] (/10).  It's a few tweaks away from being a much better game, but it's definitely not the definitive MD styled SOR game (2>1>3>X is the current order, assuming it's the speedy Jpn version of 3, with 4 way out in front overall).  Worth a look if you just want more of what you already like; it's basically a capable tribute act that doesn't know how to curate a setlist and ends up playing everything.

I thought they handed the Nemesis stuff better than the Mr X n Resi 2 Remake in this (thought he hung around too much in that game and found him to be a nuisance.  Liked how Nemesis would pop up in 3).

Pumped for 4 Remake! 

8. Streets of Rage 4 (Switch) 10/10

The update was a great excuse to dip back in.  I honestly couldn't tell you too much about the rebalances and stuff!  But it plays just as good as I remember it.  It's hard to imagine a side scrolling beat em up topping it.  

I did arcade mode and the weekly challenge, but with Blaze this time.  It really does seem like something I'd be happy to pick up once every few months for a bash and it never getting old.  With all that said, come on, Streets of Rage 5!

44. Valiant Hearts: Coming Home - Netflix (2hrs15mins)

I played Valiant Hearts: The Great War in 2019, which I really enjoyed.  News of an imminent sequel was a nice surprise a couple of months ago, especially as it's included with a Netflix sub.  It turns out this was a weird way to christen my Razer Kishi, because although it technically permits gamepad control, it really doesn't want you to use buttons, which is incredibly annoying in places.  I had to give in and use touch controls for a few sections, mainly because the button controls are so poorly mapped.  For example you can hold a trigger button to wind up a throw, but you have to use the right thumbstick to alter the trajectory of your aim, and then the X button to lob whatever you're holding.  Which is clearly annoying if you haven't got two thumbs on your right hand.  It doesn't help that the touch screen controls are iffy too, so even if you try to embrace them your character might turn around and shape to throw something in the wrong direction for no apparent reason.  I guess this doesn't matter too much, as much like its predecessor it's hardly a high peril game, but it did get on my nerves.  I probably would've preferred it to have not recognised the joypad at all, rather than half work as a poorly programmed concession to divvy button stabbing old folks like myself.  *Shakes fist at cloud*.

This feels like DLC, rather than a sequel, and is probably best viewed as a companion piece to The Great War.  The puzzles are still barely puzzles for the most part (and still mostly revolve around simplistic combinations of pulleys, levers, wheels and fetch quests to find them), but much like the first game it's all very appealingly presented.  Plus the into the screen action scenes tied to classical music make a reappearance, and despite their gameplay simplicity remain the highlight of the experience.  Overall this is fine.  My memory might be playing tricks on me but I think the original handled the heavy themes a little more adroitly (some of the story beats are laid on a little thick here, and some of the tasks/errands are just dumb), but it's still pretty respectful on the whole.  It's an interactive conveyor belt through the fixed story really - it's very unlikely that anyone will get properly stuck at any point.  Enjoyable for the most part and doesn't outstay its welcome.  Loses a point because I was hoping the game would be based on the infamous no man's land footie match, which it absolutely isn't. [7]

47. The Punisher - Arcade (40 mins)

Competent effort that looks the business, plays well and adds occasional firearm sections.  I'm not familiar with the Punisher character, but given the evidence on display here I assume he only wastes perps with his sidearm if they draw on him first - which would explain why he only whips his piece out if enemies are packing (fnar), then pops the old boy away again to tackle unarmed foes mano a mano.  I'm pretty sure anyone who likes the genre would enjoy this one, especially the type of player who tends to gravitate toward any weaponry strewn across the floor in these things - it plays a strong bat/broom/assault rifle game.  The specials are worthwhile too, especially the grenade drop, so it avoids one of the pitfalls of the genre (where health draining specials are best avoided if you're looking to make your coins go further).  Not too long, not too annoying, deep enough to sustain interest and lovely to look at. Capcom were at the peak of their genre powers between 1993 and 1994 imo - you cant go wrong with either this, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs or Alien Vs Predator.  4 out of 6



48. Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder - Arcade (50 mins)

A big one.  This has remained arcade exclusive since launch (unless you count its inclusion on one of those tabletop arcade cabs riding the NES Mini bandwagon).  In order of release this is Golden Axe III in all but name - Sega rejigged the engine of the original GA port for a console exclusive first sequel (which arrived on the Mega Drive just after Christmas '91 in Japan), released this in arcades in 1992, then developed the (unfairly) derided GAIII as another 16-bit exclusive in 1993, presumably as porting this would've made the MD wheeze (it runs on the same board as Rad Mobile; so just as Sega were preparing to go nuclear with their arcade efforts).  This has been in coin-operated no-man's-land ever since.  It would've made a decent 32X game imo, but even if I had a gaming time machine I'd put it to better use so this opinion doesn't do anyone any good.  

None of the familiar characters return in playable form, which was disappointing at first.  Not that I would have known that the main chap wasn't Axe Battler unless I'd read it elsewhere; 'Stern' is basically a redrawn version of the original dude.
Gillius is back admittedly, or to be more specific, on someone's back - if you select the gigantic heavy hitter everyone's favourite dwarf is directing the action from its shoulders.  Which is a bit like releasing a new version of Friends with a different cast but having Aubrey Plaza give a returning Jennifer Aniston a piggyback, but once you start playing it doesn't matter much.  After felling a couple of foes it's immediately apparent that this is very much Golden Axe at heart - a marginally refined version for sure, but not one that adds a bundle of extra moves to significantly spruce up the battle core - it's closer to a reskinned GA than a 'now get a load of this' style sequel (Streets of Rage 2, for example).  Existing tactics will work for the most part, evading is as important as attacking, and magic is still a bit limp (one character does have a healing magic though, which is a first for the series I believe, and clearly handy in mp).  Skeletons still wreck you given half a chance, progress is mapped out on a literal map between stages and there are still a few holes to fall down/knock people into.  Overall I thought this was very good, but you'd have to appreciate the simplicity Golden Axe offers otherwise your mileage will vary.   

The array of arcade emulators on my Super Console X3 Plus didn't seem to like this all that much, which meant I had to put up with weird shadow effects and collectible artifact oddities (everything seemed to appear in the foreground due to a lack of shadows on collectibles).  I muddled through, but I would like to play this at its proper fighting weight at some point.  Graphics are chunky and kinda stylish (leaning on some neat sprite scaling effects in places) but not mind blowing, and unfortunately the music isn't show stopping either.  Which is something I've started to notice with most of these classic era belt scrollers - maybe the emulation settings are at fault as the music is too low in the mix, but the tunes don't seem high on the list of priorities for either Capcom or Sega really; serviceable seems to be the ballpark everyone was aiming for.  It doesn't help that the iconic fireside dwarf (elves?) thieves beatdown tune sounds like it's being played on a recorder here.

Anyway, it's not quite the amazing forgotten gem I was hoping for, but it's probably my second favourite in a solid series (I'm not counting the PS2 game because I didn't even bother playing it).  Would play again. 4 out of 6.



49. Sengoku 3 - Arcade (1hr 36mins)

Supposedly one of the greats, if you listen to the loudest typers.  It looks great, sounds good and has a quality combo system, but there are far too many regular annoyances for this to be up there for me.  Certain recurring enemy types are particularly tedious - this game's equivalent of Knife Galsia being the worst culprit as he saunters around the screen armed with a samurai sword for extra-irritating knockdown reach.  Food and projectile pick-ups seem to start disappearing as soon as you kick a bin over, so getting stuck in a cycle of hits while positioning yourself to grab a hotdog usually means it's gone by the time you're up again, which is infuriating.  There's a cool-looking sword clash that happens when you attack in the same few frames as an opponent, but it didn't seem to serve any practical use and ends up in the annoyances column too.  Off-screen enemies will batter you while resisting hits themselves, which is a genre standard, and yet it's handled better elsewhere.  One more moan: the last boss eats about £5s worth of coins because it keeps flexing a special that's either tricky to dodge, or just unfair.  I just remembered a couple more gripes, bear with me: smaller frog enemies towards the end can fuck off, and the blonde male playable character is crap.  

The combo system really does give this a massive boost though.  Without it I'd be scratching my head over the love this receives, but the flow of your attacks elevates this from mundanity to genre relevance.  I can see why it's lauded to a certain degree, although it still falls a long way short of the best in class imo - there's more to these streets than fluid combat, y'know.  Most definitely worth playing (just look at that gif, you know you want to), it's just not the worldie internet word of mouth suggested with its capslock on.  3 out of 6