#168 Minesweeper

Posted: 8th March 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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494th played so far

minesweeper

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 1989
Developer: Microsoft
Publisher: Microsoft

Minesweeper! Until recently a game that anyone with a Windows machine would have played, now removed with Windows 8 and Windows 10 updates.

We’ve played enough of it that it was a game we had to cover at some point and, in the run up to 500, it seems like the right time to cover it before we have to get really serious

Our Thoughts

Minesweeper is – as you probably know – a very addictive puzzle game. With its constant presence on Windows machines, it’s also a game that we used not just as a game, but that I remember my primary school using as a way of learning how to use the computer – mouse control was a new thing in the early 90s that you had to get used to.

As with most good puzzle games, Minesweeper is simple in its setup. You click a square, which opens one or more squares. The number in a square indicates how many mines surround it (a 0 or empty square immediately opens all surrounding squares) and the goal is to open all squares that aren’t a mine – finding a mine kills you.

It’s simple, something that you get in a few games but gets complex enough as the board gets larger. The one downside here is that some of the combinations come down to random luck as you can (for example) just have one of two squares containing a mine but no way of knowing which is which. Even the aesthetic is simple (at least in the first iterations) – it’s a bunch of simple images and buttons.

Final Thoughts

Simple, but effective, Minesweeper is a nice puzzler that does what it says on the tin. A perfect timewaster that must have wasted more office time than any other computer program.

#764 Colin McRae: Dirt

Posted: 4th March 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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493th played so far

Colin_McRae_Dirt_-_cover

Genre: Racing
Platform: PC/Xbox 360/Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters

I want to like racing games. They can be impossible to start or difficult to progress in, but when they allow you to drive and do it well, they can feel magnificent.

Thanks to family influence, rally driving is probably my preferred car racing – formula one and other circuit driving can be nice, but it doesn’t have the close experience of rally driving. This game promises a lot of that, making me pretty happy.

Our Thoughts

Colin McRae: Dirt is possibly the best racing experience we’ve had so far (at least on the realistic end of things). It can be tricky to get first place on a track, but you don’t need to beat everything to advance. It might change a bit on later levels, but starting with several levels open and easily unlocking more makes the game feel more accessible.

It’s needed as well, as there are a lot of different track modes, so being stuck because one doesn’t suit you would be a bad thing. I enjoyed the rally driving, for example, but I didn’t do as well at them. Others – like a one on one race where you are on two linked tracks – each on their own, switching halfway through – felt easier but is one that I probably wouldn’t have seen in other games.

What makes it work, though, are that different difficulties give different money rewards. I tended to start at normal but drop to easier when I couldn’t make it (which was usually the case) which gave enough progress while still feeling I could have gotten more out of the game if I had pushed it further. There are different cars and looks to unlock using the money, meaning that practice does pay off.

Final Thoughts

All in all, the variety of the game already sets it apart from most other racers, being a lot more fun and easier to progress. This is probably the first where I really could see myself getting back to it soon. I’m happy to have found it!

#481 Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Posted: 29th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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492nd played so far

The_Precursor_Legacy_front_cover_(EU)

Genre: Platform
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Today we get introduced to another 3D platforming hero. It feels like one more of many, with a bunch of companies trying to get their hero out there, but few really making it.ย  Still, it feels like we playing Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters quite recently.

Jak & Daxter seems to focus on a more tropical island and takes advantage of the larger environments the consoles allow compared to, say, Crash Bandicoot, which at least looks better. How the game actually works, though, we’ll see.

Our Thoughts

So what fun things do we have this time? First of all, 3D platformer open world! No loading screens or level transitions, not even a short title to tell you where you are. The areas are delineated enough that it’s clear when you enter a new area, but it’s still seamless.

The main reason for the different areas are the quests in each, which earn you power cells that are the main gating mechansim between areas. It’s very much like Super Mario 64‘s setup, but with some more flexibility in quest numbers and locations. You also need to discover some quests in different area, which allows for a bit more of a challenge.

The game implements a day night cycle, switching between the two as you play. It’s a nice idea, but in practice meant that I wanted to wait around for parts of the game as it was getting too hard to play. 3D platformers are tricky enough as it is – jumps can become difficult – and not really seeing where you’re going makes that worse.

The writing and dialogue is amusing. Not constantly funny, perhaps, but enough to raise a smile and add some personality to the game. It’s part of its appeal, the world is interesting enough to keep you going.

Final Thoughts

3D platformers as a genre have their problems, especially when it comes to controls. Jak and Dexter is decent at getting it right, even when there are places where it gets fiddly (and there’s one jump that did frustrate me there). Worth a try for sure to see this slightly different take on these tropes, in a larger and more interesting world than most of these games.

#91 Ghosts ‘n Goblins

Posted: 25th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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491st played so far

250px-GhostsnGoblins_flyer

Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1985
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Ah, Capcom platformers. Somehow, they were one of the masters in the genre, where a lengthy series like Ghosts ‘n Goblins – we’ll be playing at least two more games from the series and played Maximo: Ghosts to Glory before – feels small compared to its bigger titles, with Mega Man having made a bigger impact in my mind. There’s clearly something to it, however, as so many games in the series ended up on the list.

This is the first in the series. All I know is that I’m expecting some undead monsters next.

Our Thoughts

All in all, this is a pretty decent platformer. It has arcade difficulty, with a scarcity of checkpoints, but giving enough opportunities to learn that you get a bit further each time.

Possibly the most difficult part is the number of enemies, which at times felt overwhelming. Static enemies are easy enough to kill, but zombies spawn in front and behind you and can get difficult to keep up with. You need to keep moving, but when an enemy is in your way, that makes it difficult.

It was difficult, then – looking at videos, I thought I found the first boss impossible to defeat, but that was just a small subboss others take out in a few seconds.ย  Fairly depressing – but at least I had a chance to look at what happened further.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot going on in this game, and it’s fun too play, if not a bit difficult at the moment. I’ll be more looking forward to the sequels – and yes, hoping some of the other adaptations help a bit with, for example, some more checkpoints in the game.

#446 Resident Evil Code: Veronica

Posted: 21st February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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490th played so far

codeveronica

Genre: Survival Horror
Platform: Dreamcast/Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

So I played this and found this game incredibly difficult to handle. I tried, but even getting past the first few screens was a terrible chore. What follows is an edited and amended version of what I wrote then.

Just read the below part. Resident Evil is not a series that has impressed me so far, and hasn’t quite deserved its reputation yet. Nothing really came together so far to make for a good game – sometimes due to dated decisions, but it still doesn’t work.

Our Thoughts

Character-relative movement in a static camera environment is incredibly annoying and impossibly shitty in an action-based game. Playing this game, that statement should not be controversial any longer. We’re trained to think from the camera perspective in every game these days, and even before it was that standard (and I’d argue it was with, say, Super Mario Bros.), the current gameplay just doesn’t feel right.

I needed three or four times to get through the first ‘battle’. The second killed me outright. The ink ribbon ‘you only have limited saves’ encourages you not to save as you will need them later (especially if you’re busy) which makes death unnecessarily punishing. Encouraging rational item use is a good idea, but it has its place, and playing the game is not one of them.

I’m not going to waste more time on this sort of bad game.

Final Thoughts

Not a fun game at all and an especially bad game in an already not great series. Avoid.

#640 Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Posted: 17th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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489th played so far

Advance-Wars-Dual-Strike-DS-Cover

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo

One of the nice things of DS games is that we can put them on while watching some TV in the background, not needing full attention. It feels like a blessing here – with Japanese strategy/RPGish games, it gives you something to enjoy during interminable cut scenes.

I don’t whether that’s the case here, but it just seems like good prep for an Advance Wars game. I’ll see how it bears out.

Our Thoughts

That was pretty fun. The game is still based in its mechanics on the original, but everything felt a bit more solid. Game difficulty ramps up a bit more slowly, giving you more time to get used to the mechanics, and the general powers feel like they’re introduced at a more reasonable page. A bunch of early levels still feel like puzzles – figure out what actions to take, rather than allowing different strategies, but this changes soon after. Five levels in, I felt like I had cheated the system at least once and finished faster than needed, while another started less well but was won through a war of attrition.

Part of the fun in this is that while the mechanics can get complex, it starts simple and never really strays too far from the core gameplay, adding on in a way that keeps it manageable.

The look of the game stays pretty functional – they haven’t upgraded it that much between the games. It works for what it does, that’s for sure, and gives more of a commander’s view, so perhaps it’s fine that they kept things that way.

Final Thoughts

Advance Wars: Dual Strike felt better structured than its sequel, introducing concepts at a better speed and feeling more playable – the touch controls helping as well. While it doesn’t look like an upgrade, and still runs from similar mechanics, it’s a game I’m probably more likely to get back to in the future.

#694 DEFCON

Posted: 13th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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488th played so far

1-defcon_logo

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Introversion Software
Publisher: Introversion Software

We’ve played a few of Introversion’s games before – Darwinia was fun if a bit strange, while Uplink was an early fun discovery for us while doing the blog.

The last of the three games on the list is DEFCON, a simple, board game looking game. It’s also a game that I just about missed out on playing at work – it came up, but never happened. I’m looking forward to actually trying it.

Our Thoughts

That was scary. Not the game itself – the graphics are clinical and mostly consist of a map of the world with symbols drawn on it – but what you are doing to it. As you bomb your enemy cities (in a way to take control of the situation) you see numbers go up – showing how many people are killing, but so far removed that it really is just a number.

And that shows off the almost ideological point of the game. A timer counts down to DEFCON five, the point where all nuclear hell breaks loose, and until then you mostly set up your defenses and get your weaponry in place. It’s a slow speed, with limited espionage options, but just as much hoping you got it right. Then everything starts and before you know missiles fly everywhere, subs pop up out of nowhere and all you can do is try to do as much damage while still protecting your borders – an at times impossible task.

And then it comes down to numbers. Kill more than your opponent and you win. Simple premise, presented clinically, with wall charts or figurines moved across the board. Missiles might go a bit slow for it. And while you have plenty of directing to do, you’re spending just as much time waiting for everything to go to hell.

War is ugly.

Final Thoughts

As you can probably tell from the above, I’d struggle to call this game fun. It is, but it doesn’t feel right, because it made me feel like a monster. One I could be knowing that none of it was real, but still…

Trying to remove it from that, this is a simple, but solid strategy game that reaches its gameplay quite effectively. Great as a coffee break game.

#55 M.U.L.E.

Posted: 9th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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487th played so far

Mule_box

Genre: Strategy
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1983
Developer: Ozark Softscape
Publisher: Electronic Arts

After going on about how Exile (and other games) unnecessarily apply arcade-level coin gobbling difficulty to home games, it’s nice to shift gears to a game that won’t. While the arcade route is probably the biggest for home video games, another branch was that of university developers, who may have had to deal with time shares and machines they didn’t always have access too, but where money per play wasn’t an issue. Instead it could focus on slower games, often strategic and (early on) turnbased.

M.U.L.E. seems to come from this direction, a strategy game made for home computers, which even includes and encourages multi payer games. That should be fun for sure.

Our Thoughts

M.U.L.E. was an interesting game. I’m not sure whether I really got a handle on the mechanics – the need for the different resources never became that clear to me. Even though I started making some associations with food and beyond, it took a wiki to point out to me why certain things weren’t going well for me.

The game comes down to basic resource management. You need to mine a certain resource, but to be able to do that you need to collect food and energy to help you do so. Despite its turn based nature, you’re still time pressured to do so – earning a claim of land requires you to press your button for it first, which makes it a stand off until it gets closer to time, as long as you’re not the first there. Then, during the maintenance and updating phase, where you put different buildings on your plot and can go scavenging, you only have limited time to do your tasks (limited, I learned later, by one of the resources).

Then there’s the trading phase, where you can buy from other players or sell to them or the general bank (which has a better name, but yeah). It’s a way to get some money back, but heavily comes down to have likely others are to want to play.

It’s just deep enough to stay interesting without getting complex, which is really something to appreciate. I ended up playing against bots, which worked well enough, but I can see the discussions you can have during the game as you try to make deals and influence each other being even more interesting.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure I was playing this game in the right context, but even against bots the multiplayer aspects of this game came out quite well. It’s a nice strategy game, still close to a board game, but offering a variety and group of options that a physical game couldn’t handle as easily.

#163 Exile

Posted: 5th February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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486th played so far

Exile-superior

Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1988
Developer: Peter Irvin/Jeremy Smith
Publisher: Superior Software/Audiogenic

When I hear of a videogame called Exile, my mind goes to the massive open world RPGs from Spiderweb Software. Today, that’s not actually true – Exile refers to an old adventure-ish game that I’ve only seen a weird psychedelic screenshot of. What we need to do? I’m still not sure.

Our Thoughts

That game did have action in it, with the adventuring elements of the ‘find switch’ puzzle solving mostly. You start in your space ship, flying down to a planet to get something that you need (MacGuffin style) to repair it. Mostly easy so far – although I believe I got stuck with switches not activating in the right places – but the controls already feel awkward and bouncy.

Soon after, you encounter enemies, and that’s where my annoyance really began. While you can shoot, it’s incredibly difficult to aim, not intuitive at all (at least with the controls we had available) and so we just died, and died, and died. With that, it became difficult to advance as the enemies really can swoop in. Having gotten past the first hatch (easily half an hour in), it gets worse, and the time it takes to do each step means that we barely explored anywhere. For a game that wants you to adventure, that’s a shame, as you never really get a chance to explore or learn, you just face what seem to be brick walls. And even if you get past one the first time, there’s no guarantee you will for the next.

Final Thoughts

It feels like this game still has a bit too much of the arcade attitude, having to punish players instead of encouraging exploration. It’s there, it’s inviting, but damn, it’s just a bit too unfriendly now to put up with. It makes me want to get to some more Metroid or Uncharted though.

#213 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Posted: 1st February 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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485th played so far

The_Legend_of_Zelda_A_Link_to_the_Past_SNES_Game_Cover

Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: SNES
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Time for some more Zelda! It’s been over a hundred games (and over a year) since we played the original Legend of Zelda, at which point we were quite behind anyway.

The NES game in the series sticks in my mind partially because its graphics were reused in ancient MMO-like Graal Online, where the Classic (and just original) version used. It also stole some of the gameplay, so at least parts look familiar. When it comes to playing, however, I believe I didn’t play much more than the first dungeon – a lot of it will still be new to me.

Our Thoughts

Link to the Past feels good. Although the first game in the series set part of the tone, it feels like this really nails the spirit of exploration while providing a good story. The previous game had an overworld that linked hidden dungeons and had several hidden caves, but nothing as complex as the puzzles found here on a casual basis. And while some items needed to progress are found in dungeons, more is done by moving around the world.

It’s done with a cartoonish charm. While not pushing it as far as some later games, the game feels more colourful and varied than the earlier games, the characters feeling like they’re intenionally more cartoony and funny, with guards vaguely resembling Marvin the Martian in plate, at times seeming a bit silly in their movement. It’s not overly so, instead just having small touches that make the game look slightly more fun. Even so, the graphics don’t mean the game is simple, standard Zelda warnings and difficulties apply.

By building up abilities and equipment, the open(ish – we’re still barely in the nineties) world gains more places to explore. Secrets and such, mostly – not necessarily expanding the dungeons, but expanding the small secrets. The game is, in the strictest sense, more linear than the first game, with dungeons unlocking one at a time rather than all available together but needing that one item to advance.

Peter advanced a bit further than I was, making it to the main gameplay addition – the dark world. The difficulty goes up and, most important, it’s trippy. Very trippy. An interesting addition.

Final Thoughts

Link to the Past is a great entry in the series, it feels like it codifies and improves on the existing formula. There are some pretty big gameplay additions, but at the same time it feels familiar – just about familiar enough while feeling like a completely new game. Later games might have improved this further, but there’s something magical here.

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