Moot_Geeza wrote:

Confession: I've never seen Rambo part II (or III for that matter), but I'm interested now that I know the big boss at the end is the head of a giant mechanised rock monster hiding in the final room of a futuristic lair.

Yeah, that part of the movie is a real treat.

Good write ups, Moot.

It’s on Mega CD ‘best of’ lists, I demand you like it more than this!!1

It's better than the overrated True Lies, I'll give it that.

Well paced

10. Elden Ring (PS5) - 24 Dec (100 hrs)
Co-op playthrough with my boy. My third completion. Started in May last year and majority of play was in 2022. Picked up again recently and managed to beast through it. Beautiful game.
[10]

Similar to previous. But summon areas are a lot more abundant.

Housemarque so best. Nice work, Wario. 

And I remember you really working hard to get through Returnal - was great to see you make progress and smash it.

Even (the not so highly regarded) Matterfall is well worth playing imo. It does have an abysmal final boss though.

Minnesänger wrote:

Housemarque so best. Nice work, Wario.  And I remember you really working hard to get through Returnal - was great to see you make progress and smash it.

Cheers mate!  That thread really felt like a support group at times and I’ll think of it whenever I think of the game.  Not sure I’d have gotten there without you guys!  

Will never forget the feeling when the last boss was seconds away from being beaten, and it was clear that it was finally going down, I was that pumped up I was legit worried my heart was going to give out for a moment, never experienced anything close to that in a game before.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Even (the not so highly regarded) Matterfall is well worth playing imo. It does have an abysmal final boss though.

Nice!  I did manage to find a cheap copy on disc, but only tried the first level.  Really seemed like a game where you have to get used to the button layout, and it felt a little strange.  Will give it a proper try soon.

13. Good Job (Switch)
They did a bad job. A good concept very badly implemented. Perform routine office dogsbodying as destructively and chaotically as possible. But the devs were either lazy, slapdash or hated themselves and their customers. Bugs and environmental problems everywhere. And in most cases, they're obvious and easy to fix. They fill the levels with tiny little breakable props, the wreckage of which lies around on the floor and creates a million tiny little obstacles. It’s obvious this is a problem from just playing the game for ten minutes. You don’t even need extensive playtesting. Just play it once and see. 
Option 1: Don’t have so much of it.
Option 2: Most props should lose their collision detection once smashed. 
Option 3: Smashed scenery disappears after a while. 
Option 4: Punt out the door asap without any attempt at a fix and make players wade, knee-deep, through an ocean of broken, immovable detritus.

Spend too long on a level or break too many bits of scenery and you get a crash. The kid used to like mucking around rather than getting on with things. But you spend anything over twenty minutes on a level and you’re risking losing all your progress. Some of the more annoying and long-winded levels might go over this length naturally. So I’ve endured a few of them multiple times. 

The gameplay is really quite tedious as well. Water 250 flowers and then go over all of them again because there's one you can't see somewhere that hasn't been checked off. No visual clues as to which one it might be. 
Or clean up 100% of the goo and you're stuck on 99% and then spend 10 minutes cleaning up a mountain of boxes and rubble to see if there's any goo pixels underneath.

Once in a blue moon, it works as it should. You've got to get something somewhere and you find a satisfying and destructive way to, I dunno, blast a executive on an office chair through a window into a meeting room or something. Most of the time, you're wheeling things around and trying to avoid getting stuck on the scenery. 

With all that said, I don’t actually hate the game. I played it and didn’t hate my time with it. But it is really badly made. The kid enjoyed it which is the only reason I stuck it out beyond the first level. 
[5]

17. Civization Revolution (PS3 via Steam Deck)
For a few months back in the day, I was obsessed with this on the 360 (although the textures don’t work properly for that version when emulating, hence the platform switch). Then when I got this working on the Deck, I was obsessed again for a couple of weeks. It’s not full Civ but as long as you’re happy with some Civ Lite, it’s amazing. The one-more-go-ness is off the charts. It depends on the situation you get into but you can polish off a game in 2-3 hours. 

But it does reach a point where it’s no longer deep enough or challenging enough to be engaging. Well, to be more precise, the second difficulty from top is easily doable and the AI cheats outrageously on the top difficulty, leaving you nowhere to go.
[9]

Yep, A Good Job was shit. I had to co-op that too. The Stretchers is much better.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Yep, A Good Job was shit. I had to co-op that too. The Stretchers is much better.

Co-op play with the kid is done for a bit. Now there is only Pokemon. 'Playing together' is me doing the grinding and levelling up when she's bored of it.

I never want to play anything like that MD T2 again. I feel soiled.

32. Castlevania Legends (GB) - 2hrs 12mins 

So, this has always had a reputation as one of the worst Castlevania's, so my expectations were low going in. You take control of Sonia Belmont this time around, there are five levels with a hidden sixth, and two different endings, there are a few of things that set it apart from earlier games though.

Instead of the usual sub weapons you instead receive Soul Weapons upon beating the end level bosses. They are 'Wind' which freezes enemies just like the stop watch, 'Flame' which damages all enemies on screen, 'Magic' which makes you temporarily invincible, each of these use 5 hearts. Then there is 'Saint' which shoots out a wave of energy for 1 heart, and finally 'Ice' which restores all your health for whopping 20 hearts. As well as these you now have mechanic called 'Burning Mode', this is activated by pushing A and B together and lasts about 10 seconds until the burning gauge runs out. During this time you are invincible, move at twice the speed and inflict twice the damage. This can only be used once per level, or per life.

The game is linear for the most part, but playing as such will only get you the normal 'bad ending'. Each level does split into different paths, one leads to the boss whilst the other leads to a relic. Each level has one and you need to collect all five in order to get the second 'good ending'. There is also a hidden level midway through level five, it's a bit off the beaten path but nothing a Castlevania veteran shouldn't be able to sniff out. It's not quite Rondo of Blood but I don't think this game gets enough kudos for this, it's doing a lot more than the other two Game Boy entries.

Unfortunately where this game falls short is the level and enemy design, it's just so bland and uninteresting. There are a handful of standard enemies that you see over and over again. The bosses are ok but any challenge posed is broken by the 'Burning Mode' and 'Ice' Soul Weapon, you can just easily spam them, giving no real need to learn their patterns.
 
The plot is now non-cannon for better or worse thanks to Koji Igarashi. I like the fact the penultimate boss is Alucard, he wants to kill his Father himself, so by beating him he allows you the honour. He then returns to his coffin to sleep, presumably until awoken by Trevor Belmont in Castlevania III, that's pretty good. What isn't is finding out in the good ending that Sonia has a baby by Alucard making every Belmont a descendant of Alucard, that's a bit Eastenders esque, so maybe Igarashi was right to strike this one from the books afterall.

So, does this game deserve its reputation? Kinda, I think Castlevania (MSX), Castlevania Adventure (GB) and Haunted Castle (Arcade) are all definitely worse. For me it's probably next along with Simon's Quest, both are flawed but at least they spiced things up/aimed a bit higher. It's a bad Castlevania, but for me that doesn't equate to an all out bad game.

5/10

My list