#733 Pokémon Diamond and Pearl

Posted: 19th December 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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1

474th played so far

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Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: The Pokémon Company

As mentioned about a year ago, when we played Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, I have always been into Pokémon. Those games were enjoyable already, even though that set of games wasn’t my favourite.

On the other hand, well, I’ve obviously played Diamond and Pearl before, and it’s always been up there – although I’ll admit it’s been aa while since I played. It’s also because of a lot of good memories – it’s the first game I played with Peter, the first surrounding meet ups with a lot of friends and (as a gaming thing) the first I completed the Pokedex on.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, the game is still as enjoyable as I remember. Aside from some lengthy stretches of dungeons and connecting routes that seem to drag on a bit too long, the world feels interesting and varied, nice to look at and creating some interesting challenges. It feels like a lot of design has gone into it without leaving a lot of empty space.

Added to that is a more interesting cast of characters, with a fun ‘main’ rival (whose “P-O-K-accent-E-balls” quote has stuck with me ever since I first read it) and gym leaders you actually encounter out in the world. The world feels a bit more alive than most others.

Graphicaly the game looks quite good, cartoony and neatly mixing sprites with 3D models. It rarely does anything too fancy with it, but it works.

Final Thoughts

Most of the game builds on previous games, and as we predicted then, Ruby and Sapphire‘s notes still apply, just improved on. Later games look better, and HeartGold/SoulSilver still feel like the superior games in the series, but these games show just how much fun a Pokemon game can be.

#591 Katamari Damacy

Posted: 15th December 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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473rd played so far

KatamariDamacybox

Genre:  Action
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco

Katamari Damacy – time for something weird. The goal of the game is apparently to roll a ball that objects stick to, and make it as big as you can within the time limit.

It’s such a bizarre idea, I think it’s something we need to play to understand.

Our Thoughts

 Katamari Damacy is a fun game. The whole setup smacks of insanity – I’m not sure I get what the story is meant to be, it’s something about how the stars have disappearaed and that you need to rebuild them. You do that starting with a small ball, rolling it around while things stick to it. The larger your ball is, the larger the things are that can stick to it – a pencil is an obstacle early on, later you just grab it together while you’re chasing after a dog to add to your pile.

The ball handles differently based on what’s attached – the aforementioned pencil, if it’s still big enough compared to the ball, hobbles the ball and can pull it to the side. The amount of items that can go on is staggering, with an extensive physics simulation, and there is a lot of added unlocks once your ball gets big enough to clear hurdles (some of which are put in the place by the game intentionally to gate areas).

Where it all falls flat is with the controls. Rather than just using a console stick to maneuver, the game expects you to use both sticks on the controller, moving them in tandem, or not, to control it. While that may sound neat, it is actually pretty clumsy, and combined with the physics the game often feels like the challenge is handling the controls rather than growing your ball. It’s too imprecise to work with it. It’s a shame, because it really holds back an otherwise great game and concept.

Final Thoughts

A great game, very interesting concept and just whacky story, marred by the execution. It’s sad, really, as I probably would have played a lot more of the game if it wasn’t for that.

I hope the sequel will do it better, as I’m already looking forward to a better version of this!

#780 Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Posted: 11th December 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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472nd played so far

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Genre: Action/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: PSP/Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: High Impact Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Back to Ratchet & Clank! A latecomer to the 3D animal platformers, it stood out as a very good example on it, with a bigger focus on collecting things and upgrading weapons by buying them using bolts.

Size Matters is the PSP (and a year later PS2) edition of the game. Beyond that, and some not immediately major-seeming gameplay differences, it’s a new set of levels and new gameplay!

Our Thoughts

Size Matters was fun. It starts off a bit more difficult than you’d otherwise expect, with me dying early on, but that’s part of getting used to the controls as well. I played for an hour or two, until the walls became too annoying to learn, and managed to get absorbed in the mean time.

The different weapon options that are still present constantly give you something to work towards, with death allowing you to keep your accumulated bolts (the game’s currency) and so death often giving you a second chance and a shot at a bit more power as you do so.

 With the large amount of moves available, several enemies having their own little thing, it’s highly playable, even if a tad difficult at times (which is what got me in the end).

Final Thoughts

The game is a decent action platformer, with a major focus on shooting and fighting. I struggled with the difficulty curve a bit, but I’m hoping coming back to it will be great.

#717 Gunpey

Posted: 7th December 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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471st played so far

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Genre: Puzzle
Platform: PSP/DS
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Koto Laboratory/Q Entertainment/Art Co
Publisher: Bandai Namco

Gunpey is a puzzle game. It’s one described by the book as a good one, the designer later making, for example, the Lumines series. It is also one we have not played yet and, as with many puzzle games, the impression you have of a game comes from that.

The goal, it seems, is to create lines from one side of the screen to the other. We’ll see how that goes.

Our Thoughts

Gunpey is a simple game at heart, focusing on piece swapping like Dr. Mario, though filling up line by line with empty spaces. More complex lines give extra points and the game continues based on your mode, sticking to those basics.

It’s a pretty simple concept that’s pretty easy to pick up and it supports quite long play. Unfortunately, that’s also the downside here. It never got quite as engaging as the good puzzle games, with the system being a bit too simple and progress being a bit too much based on luck. It’s far too easy to be stuck with three columns filling up while the other two don’t get any relevant pieces at all.

It’s all fairly fun, but because of the dead moments the game can start to drag at times. Sure, it’s not terrible, it’s just not always sparking.

Final Thoughts

Gunpey is a decently fun game, but mostly in smaller bites. It didn’t feel like it held up for larger games, and while I didn’t put it down early, there were parts that felt unnecessarily slow, in part from the game not building to it.

#932 Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

Posted: 3rd December 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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470th played so far

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Genre: Adventure/Puzzle
Platform: DS
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Capybara Games
Publisher: Ubisoft

Despite its many games and genres – RPG and strategy most of all – the Might & Magic series is only represented by a single game on the list and an odd one at that. It’s a bit like the Mega Man series – even if the latter’s example follows the standard games more closely.

The Might & Magic series features a standard fantasy world (unlike contemporary Wizardry) with early on some interesting features – the fifth game, for example, was two games that added additional content if you loaded both, allowing play to move between the two games, some time before The Legend of Zelda did.

Our Thoughts

The game doesn’t follow that RPG pattern. Most of the main game is on a game board of sorts – linked nodes with paths between them, where you move from point to point. It nicely constricts the world, making it easier to travel through, and although it should make secrets easier to find, there are still some (in part because the interface isn’t that obvious).

All of this is mostly story and items that wrap around the battle system. It’s a puzzle of sorts – block matching like you find in Bejeweled or Zoo Keeper, where if you gather enough troops, they’ll start charging and attack your opponents. It feels far more strategic than puzzley, having to match your opponents, but the overlap is addictive

Aside from the main story, the game also features plenty of side quests – mostly in the form of bounty hunting or other versions of get to the right place – defeat an enemy, but it allows for a lot more to do (and increases the content in the game).

There’s some additional strategy linked to this, with you leveling your types of units and switching between them, where there are more unit types than you can fit in your army. There are also larger units – with a limited number per army, one of the main things you need to pay for. It’s a decent resource management puzzle that adds to the challenge, do you use the big units when you want, or do you wait?

Final Thoughts

We played this for a few hours more than we initially planned and I really had to draw myself away from it. I’m going to go back to it, as this combines the strategy, puzzle and role playing elements I enjoy in other games.

#227 The Lost Vikings

Posted: 29th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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469th played so far

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Genre: Puzzle/Platform
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1992
Developer: Silicon & Synapse
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment

Grand Theft Auto, one of the biggest series in gaming, was created by a company that previously created the charming puzzler Lemmings. Blizzard, creator of juggernauts like World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, have had a similar game from when they were known as Silicon & Synapse.

Lost Vikings is a puzzle-platformer, featuring a group of three vikings who want to get back home.

Our Thoughts

There are a couple of good twists in this game on the basic platform formula. It’s nice enough to switch between the three vikings, each of which has a different abilities, even if it feels odd not to have a jump option on most of the characters. It makes for a nice way of having to carve three distinct paths through the level. Jumping allows for a different path, the shield helps other vikings get through as well as floating down deeper paths.

The game has levels that make great use of this, mixing abilities so all dwarves are needed. At times this comes down to taking the right actions, while at others it comes down to a puzzle, sending in dwarves in the right order. The best parts are probably where the two combine – sending dwarves in in the right order while having to rely on your reflexes to get it right.

It turns frustratingly complicated early on, in part because the (sometimes lengthy) levels need to be restarted if you fail, and losing even one of the three means that you haven’t finished the level properly and will need to restart it. There were a few times where it started to feel off-putting, but it was worth getting through that in the end.

Final Thoughts

There were times where the game felt frustrating – mostly around places where the game mixed between requirements, reflex and puzzle, moving and defense against enemies. Get past that, however, and the game becomes a lot of fun to play, challenging, but with some alternative solutions and interesting challenges. Really worth a look.

#440 Paper Mario

Posted: 25th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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468th played so far

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Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Nintendo 64
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo

Here’s a bit of a landmark. Thanks to Peter’s friend Kat’s help, we played quite a few Nintendo 64 games early on. And none since then as we simply didn’t need them. That means that this is the first Nintendo 64 game we have played since game 41, some four years and 427 games ago.

It was time, then, to play another, and we’re starting with a good one. I had played some Paper Mario games before and, in general, am simply a fan of the Mario RPG series. I’ve been looking forward to this…

Our Thoughts

Paper Mario is absolutely charming, getting everything right in true Mario style. The game makes good use from its paper stylings, with Mario really behaving like he’s a 2D flat piee of paper (that still animates), giving other characters similar traits and making the world paper art, with buildings that folds open when you enter them.

The characters are as you’d expect, grounded firmly in the Mario world with many familiar faces, while slowly introducing new species as needed. Most of these either are existing Mario species or ones that return in later games, making them feel less wasted than the many elements of Super Mario RPG that never returned.

On that note, while technically this is the sequel to that game (in Japan at least), this game really stands on its own. The timed hits and defense are oen of the few things that return, with the plot being more standard “Bowser kidnaps Princess” fare, gathering stars to unlock positive powers so Bowser doesn’t have the power of all wishes.

The battle system slowly grows in complexity, with advancement giving you HP, flower points (effectively MP) or badge points. The last of those is the most interesting, as aside from giving simpler damage upgrades, it usually adjusts your attacks, giving different options, or changes your defenses. It’s an interesting system, even if the lack of simple damage upgrades keeps numbers low and makes high HP opponents unexpectedly tricky.

Final Thoughts

The game looks good (especially for its age) and has aged incredibly well. The battle system, while not my favourite for its reliance on button presses (I can’t get the jumps right) is really nice and gives you plenty of options – more than there seem to be at first.

It has been a  long time since we last had a Mario RPG to play. The wait has been worth it – and we still have four more to go. Yay!

#563 Railroad Tycoon 3

Posted: 19th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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467th played so far

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Genre: Management Simulation
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: PopTop Software
Publisher: Gathering of Developers

An early extra management sim, after Dwarf Fortress – we felt like playing another. I’m somewhat fascinated by the railways – there is something interesting about the regulated lines and systems.

Railroad Tycoon 3, then, looks like it will be a fun game. Part of the tycoon series of management simulations, here you build your own railroad company and railway lines, running services between them.

Our Thoughts

That really was a lot of fun – we’ve been playing this on and off for a week or two now, and it’s always enough to make us stay up later than planned, and it seems like only a Civilization IV retread is getting us out of it.

The concept is simple, really. Build railway lines between cities and run trains between them, as well as at intermediate good stops. Manage supply and demand. Stay profitable and prosper. The levels have different objectives – some ask you to connect two cities, others to move a certain amount of goods, and one eschews track building altogether and instead are a puzzle to make sure all goods arrive at two harbours at the right time. There are three different options to finish in as well (bronze, silver and gold), which not only increase the numbers of objectives, but add to them as well.

It’s incredibly engaging and addictive, usually with a slow start, but mesmerizing when it’s set up and your trains are running all over the place.  You soon start trying to figure out how to relieve your busiest lines and try to balance avoiding inclines with the detours you would need to take (although luckily often there are paths on the map that are better to go for).

There’s a few things I’d like to have seen simulated further – for example, there’s no option beyond double tracking, which is not enough for really busy sections, and creating an adjoining track running a very similar route is incredibly difficult – but for a lot of these limitations, that’s a good thing, adding to what makes the game interesting and challenging.

Final Thoughts

The game is quite focused on what it does, which means it does it well. It has some decent fixes compared to the earlier game (which we tried a bit to get an idea of how it changed and to find more to play…) making it a bit easier and more fun.

We’ll be playing this for a few more months to come…

#442 Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Posted: 15th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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466th played so far

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Genre: Strategy/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Planet Moon Studios
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment

A game combining strategy and shoot ’em up strategies sounds like it could be pretty fun – although it might not be high up on my list now, Magic Carpet 2 was pretty enjoyable.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto comes from the developers previously responsible for MDK, a fun FPS we’ll cover later that hopefully means good things for this game.

Our Thoughts

Quick hint to any and all game developers: If I die three times in your tutorial, and I feel it’s because of bad controls and shitty balancing, you’ve made a bad game. I don’t care how good the voice acting is or how well the world comes across, if I come to your game fresh, with okay enough gaming skills, and I can’t get through those initial levels, you have done a terrible job.

This may sound harsh to say, but the game started out that tough – not arcade tough, where that’s the challenge – but annoying tough, where you’re repeating the same actions without too mch of a reward. There’s the promise of a strategy game in there, but we never actually got to experience it because the whole sequence was just too frustrating. And this was four or five levels in, so it felt like we actually tried to do it right.

The jetpack and character abilities are pretty interesting, but at times the controls are frustrating. The story and characters are set up as quite light, while some darker things are mentioned the game hasn’t generally dug into it too much (yet).

Final Thoughts

While there might have been a good game in here, it took too long for it to appear. The difficulty feels apporpriate in older games, but not when half the core game isn’t in before you start throwing up walls that stop players. The game missed its hooks to draw you in and delaying the good stuff isn’t worth it here.

#82 Paperboy

Posted: 11th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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465th played so far

Paperboy_arcadeflyer

Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1984
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

A bit of a step down, isn’t it? After the complex and intricate Dwarf Fortress, building a mine and getting a city going, we now go slightly simpler… we’re delivering papers.

Paperboy is an older game that just seems to permeate gaming history (at least in my mind). It was familiar to me from its NES port, but was really one of those games that was ported to everything out there at the time.

Our Thoughts

There aren’t really many games about people doing their mundane jobs. Mostly, it’s management simulations – running a movie studio or growing a city. There’s plenty of games about soldiers or astronauts. Mundane jobs, however, seldomly feature, with a game like Tapper being an example.

Being a paperboy? Perhaps in a quick game jam game, but I can’t see anyone else running with it. It clearly happened 30 years ago though, and the game still plays as well.

While the basic concept – throw papers at the houses where you’re meant to deliver them – is simple, the other parts add a lot to the game. Annoying house owners without a subscription by breaking their windows is fun enough, although it can backfire if you do it to the subscribers, and having to manage the numbers of papers you have adds to the challenge, but most of the game comes down to avoidance – following the route without being run over by a car, stumbling over something or falling down. There’s loads of obstacles to make it annoying, something seeming to be placed unfairly, but there’s always a way around.

Final Thoughts

It’s not the most complicated game, but Paperboy always has so much going on while playing that that never really gets a problem. There’s a large enough variety in challenges and obstacles that the street always feels slightly different. Thoroughly enjoyable as the simple game it is.

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