#200 Super Mario World

Posted: 19th May 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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426th played so far

Super_Mario_World_Coverart

Genre: Platform
Platform: SNES
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

This game feels like one of those games everyone has heard of – as a SNES launch title, nearly everyone probably played it and has good memories of it.

The sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3 – I understand it was subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan – expands on some of that game’s concepts while showing what the SNES could do better.

Our Thoughts

I first played this game at a friend’s, possibly the first SNES game I ever played. It’s hard to remember how I felt, but the progression of enthusiasm really follows the slow ramp up as ideas get introduced. My view is and was probably influenced by the (to me) still brilliant Super Mario Bros. 3, with this game building on it and honing it to perfection. It’s more colourful, more fluid, it looks and sounds better (almost all the music, apparently, being based on one melody, modified to fit the area) and it plays as good. In part, probably, because the game plays so much like its predecessor. A lot of features were added – and we’ll get to those – but the physics, the gameplay, everything feels as tight as before, making it instantly familiar and giving some early wins.

That’s not to say the game is only accessible to those who played the previous game, but it shows how competently the game builds on its previous iterations.

Taken on its own, the game feels just as accessible. One of the best planned things in Mario games, especially its platformers, is the pace at which new elements are introduced, even with the branching map. Yoshi’s House gives you a chance to practice the basics, after which one level ‘explains’ the cape, pipes and gives some jumping experience, while the other gives full attention to the new big addition to the Mario family, Yoshi, before going on to ‘teach’  jumping levels, switch palaces, water and castles. The second world continues it, but the first is the one that really feels like it’s covering the basics.

Yoshi is probably the game’s more notable addition, even if in many levels he shines by his absence. Indoor areas generally don’t allow him in (he returns afterwards) while it seems like finding him in normal levels is prety rare too. At the same time, as he carries over between levels, having to backtrack to get him to find a secret exit is just another challenge.

While your main goal in the game is still to beat Bowser, the implied secondary goal of beating all levels is there too. The game pushes that even further, by including secret exists in a number of levels. You are told when loading the game how many you have found – the bigger challenge of this game, more difficult than just getting to the official end of the game.

The excellent level design, including the star levels and hidden worlds that are optional but require every bit of skill you have, are just one part of makes the game great. The game has great graphical design as well, with colourful designs throught out the levels, making far more use of the SNES’s capabilities and feeling crispier than the series’ NES roots.

Final Thoughts

It feels rare to find a game that works so well on its own merits and adds enough to a series to be a great game at its own right, while at the same time feeling like such a good sequel that organically adds a few things to an already great game. It seems to work on every level.

It’s debatable whether this or Super Mario Bros. 3 is the better game, but in a way it doesn’t matter – they both have their qualities and, in some way, seem so linked they rely on each other’s work too much to say.

#644 Fable

Posted: 15th May 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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2

425th played so far

Fablebox

Genre: Action/Role-Playing
Platform: PC/Xbox
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Big Blue Box/Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

How have we not covered the Fable series yet? One of Peter Molyneux big games, Peter majorly got into the second some time ago and it’s always been high on my list to play. It’s got the concepts, it’s got the promises of greatness, and even the games themselves measure up quite well, even if not as much up to promise.

Fable is an action RPG in the proper western mold – create your own character, choose your own path between good and evil and so on – with some more easily accessible parts thrown in and a dynamic world beyond what most other games offer. Time to dive in.

Our Thoughts

This is, first of all, a pretty charming game. The graphics are a bit cartoony, a lot of the dialogue doesn’t take itself entirely serious and a lot of it is for fun. There are some serious, dark parts but a lot of it is bright, coloured and at times pretty. Fights against bad guys can be presented as fun at times – some missions being as much a competition against your guild colleagues.

It’s a toy, in a way, but then again, the game is a sandbox, a toy where the story doesn’t take precedence and it’s mostly about exploring, finding goodies, reaching points and leveling far enough. Your main mission is to get more renown and get more famous, increasing the number of quests you can take on.

 The game’s battle system focuses on three different modes of attack – melee, ranged and magic – with kills and attacks made through a mode giving you more experience for that type as well (in addition to general XP that can be spent in any category). Other non-combat, or non-attack-specific abilities run off these abilities as well, encouraging to mix your attack modes.

All of this comes together into a game that’s fun to play in a way that’s not entirely easy to define. The world is inviting and gets you in further and the sheer number of options of interacting with it is amazing. In a way it feels like a more defined Elder Scrolls game.

There are a few niggles, but they’re pretty much all down to an underdeveloped interface. During a long quest, I wanted to restart a boss fight because I approached it wrong. Thinking I could just reload a save game, I was rather disappointed to be fully kicked out of the quest and expected to start over. Another time, doing certain actions that screw you (such as stealing) felt a bit too easy to inadvertently trigger, which caused another reload and redo of some areas.

Similarly, choosing a combat mode and attacking with it can feel a bit clumsy at times (at least on PC), requiring several buttons to be pressed which becomes easy to mix up, making you cast your healing spells when you mean to swing your sword. It works, sure, but it just seems a bit more polish would have been welcome in the user experience.

Final Thoughts

Was the game worth it? Yeah, it was, I was happy we got to it this quickly. There are a few niggles, but on the whole they feel as much my failing as the game’s. I believe we still have the first sequel coming up for a future write-up, which felt a bit more polished when I played it before. Something to look forward to for sure.

#318 Saturn Bomberman

Posted: 11th May 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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424th played so far

Saturn_BombermanGenre: Action
Platform: Saturn
Year of Release: 1996
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson Soft

It feels a bit weird how, prior to starting this blog, I had never really come across the Bomberman series. I’d heard of it – may even have seen a bit of it being played – but never really got any experience with it.

It was pretty fun when we first played it, though looking fairly simple and not giving too many hints about its more special mechanics… and it felt tough. Even so, I’m glad to come back to it.

Our Thoughts

Sometimes our perception of a game can be badly coloured by what is, looking at the game as a whole, is a small part of it. For Saturn Bomberman, this is the first boss fight. While going through the game, beating levels at a pleasant pace – more on that later – you hit the first boss about six levels in, and get stonewalled.

The attack patterns are unclear – seemingly random, but not balanced in a way to stay playable. Hitboxes are inconsistent and in weird places, and your one mode of attack – dropping bombs – don’t seem to hit it half of the time, while making it unclear how to hit it.

I got stuck there and after at least half an hour of play, didn’t bother continuing. It wasn’t fun and wasn’t worth it. I can’t really say more about what follows, which is a great shame.

The main puzzle levels were a lot more fun. They weren’t that difficult – challenging enough that I usually died on one of them, but not impossible, all of it coming down to stupid mistakes – and more importantly, they looked fun, with bright colours, unique designs, and small parts of them reacting to what you did in more ways than just blowing up obstacles. One level has you setting off cannons with your bombs to win extra points, which adds some nice minigames to the experience, without being mandatory and annoying. Most of all though, in all the levels planning ahead paid off – determining who to ‘release’ first, and what the fastest path to treasure is.

It’s a shame those skills don’t pay off in the boss fight(s) then, as it describes the game at its strongest, an action game that rewards planning and preparation rather than running around and reacting to everything.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed the game and was genuinely disappointed when this wall was thrown up – that’s perhaps why it comes up so much here. It felt like just the wrong thing to do and disrupts a very enjoyable flow. I’d go back if I could just get past these obstacles.

#26 Scramble

Posted: 7th May 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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423rd played so far

Scramble_arcade_flyerGenre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1981
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Leijac/Stern

One of our recurring (though now ultimately futile) discussions is whether we should have started playing these games in order. It’s too late now, but even now we could start doing it, making it easier to get through – and certainly covering some of the genres we’re regularly behind on now. If we’d done it, we’d currently be on Space Channel 5 – decent progress, but stuck in 1999 still

We tend to be able to cover them from time to time – looking at the numbers, as I’m writing this, we recently published three of them in a row. From this point on, we’ll probably also continue to put some more emphasis on it. We’ll want some fun, but the more fun big games might be delayed. Delayed gratification that suits us as well.

Our Thoughts

Scramble, then, is a horizontal scroller. Your movement is limited to roughly the leftmost quarter of the screen, your plane mostly moving up and down. While it’s partially a shooter – indeed, it has all the trappings of one – a large part of the game has you dodging attacks instead as a number of big rockets fire at you. You can shoot them, but both the patterns in which they attack and the hills in the ground they stand on make that difficult – even impossible when I was playing. Memorizing the order of attack and dodging is as much as you want to do early on, focusing on shooting only when needed or easy.

Adding to the difficulty is fuel. You have a limited amount and can only refuel by shooting fuel depots on the floor. These, however, can be difficult to hit – if they’re just behind a hill, it’s difficult to get to.

Part of the difficulty, then, comes from having to make snap decisions – do you avoid the rockets or shoot them, or is there a gap to go for a fuel depot to refuel? Is it worth the risk or do you maybe need it?

The levels evolve – different enemies with different attack patterns follow, but the same structure of shooting and avoidance continues. It turns a simple formula in a tough, enjoyable game that – as so many arcade games – invites you to keep trying until you get further.

Final Thoughts

Not at the top of the charts, it feels like Scramble adds an interesting twist to the scrolling shoot em up by focusing so much more on avoiding damage, rather than just shooting everything in sight.

#405 Silent Hill

Posted: 3rd May 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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422nd played so far

Silent_Hill_video_game_coverGenre: Survival Horror
Platform: Playstation
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

The days are getting longer again and that means that there’s enough light to play more survival horror games – something that would probably fit in the dark, but not when you’re feeling jumpy.

Silent Hill started its own series in the genre, focusing more on psychological horror than zombies and other monster jumps. That should be quite interesting and different, something to look forward to.

Our Thoughts

Good (survival) horror games focus on one thing first of all: Atmosphere. Whether you’re walking through a haunted mansion, solving puzzles, or taking care of zombies as they attack you from all sides, it’s the atmosphere that takes the game from the genre mashup it normally is (as we talked about in Alone in the Dark) and actually makes it a horror game.

Silent Hill probably makes this as clear as anything. There are some supernatural monsters and weird events around, but their presence is rarely where the real tension comes from. A radio you’re carrying warns you when they’re near, causing static on the channel, which means that the main question becomes about where they are. It gets to you, but they’re not jump scares – something the game mainly doesn’t deal in.

As much as that works, it’s not the game’s biggest attraction though. The world it builds, through some conversation and notes, but more through small touches in the world, is incredibly compelling. There are puzzle hints written in blood in places. Your map progress is blocked by canyons that have formed in the street – while of course a good way to constrict the world, it also makes you wonder just what happened in the small town.

Resources aren’t too scarce – enough that you’ll need to be careful, but your pickups are placed well enough that it feels like you can do a lot without it. The world and level design, while at times fairly linear, has been done well and is very playable.

It’s the controls that let the game down. You control your protagonist Harry Mason using tank controls – forward, back, turn left and turn right. This is trickish and sluggish enough in a lot of games, not working with third person viewpoints. Worst are the areas with a fixed camera – one that comes up often early in the game. A static camera just doesn’t work well with character-relative movement. Even when the camera is flexible, it’s slow enough (with no player control) that movement continues to feel awkward.

The issue never really goes away either, the game keeps feeling clumsy, with some required interactable objects being difficult to reach because you just can’t turn to face it easily.  Even fights get annoying because of it, with flying enemies swooping around you.

Final Thoughts

It’s a shame about the control issues, as the game’s atmosphere and general feel make for a really good world and an interesting setting. It’s just that it gets too frustrating to play for too long – or at least that’s what happened for me. I couldn’t take more. It’s an age problem, true, but I hope later games in the series fix the issue.

#737 Wii Sports

Posted: 29th April 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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1

421st played so far

Wii_Sports_EuropeGenre: Sports
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

If there is one game that defined Nintendo’s success with the Wii, it’s Wii Sports. It’s what made the console acceptable – and even a must buy – to most casual gamers, and while it drew the ire of some hardcore gamers for it, it also was the reason the Wii became such a resounding success.

Of course we both played it (less for me than Peter, but still), but for me it wasn’t a game I got into as much. It was a nice tech demo, but… well, there was just too much to play. With the blog dictating the more casual gaming time, it’s probably good I can finally get to this one.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, of course, first of all, there’s something delightful about playing well known sports, in the comfort of your own home. It’s  accessible, easy to learn and just fun to play.

It’s the Nintendo charm, really. Use of Miis in the game, with their cartoony looks and exaggerated reactions, makes the game feel more engaging than games trying to look more realistic. Even if the game were as difficult, it just doesn’t feel quite as bad, it feels more like you’re just having fun.

Coupled to that is how well the game uses the Wiimote. You’re actually swinging when playing tennis, actually swinging a bat when playing baseball. Sure, it takes shortcuts, but it feels like the player on the game almost perfectly mimics your actions. Although a lot of it are broad motions, it never stutters or reads the wrong motions. It feels really solid and real.

The games are fairly straightforward and obvious for a game like this – tennis, probably the best-known minigame, works incredibly well with the Wiimote and is one that broke out later. Baseball and golf are as intuitive, with golf showing how the game works okay with smaller moves, but not great – you need a bit more movement than is natural early on. Even bowling works quite well, although more things are set up before you actually make the motion.

Stranger is boxing. You actually have to physically do the action, which is fair enough, but it also involves ducking, dodging and deciding between punching high and low. It’s fairly complex, but still simple enough to pick up quickly. However, more telling is how exhausting it is. You’re constantly holding up the controllers and moving around. This is the case with most games as it gets more intense, but it seems far more here. It’s good fun, but partially unexpected.

The game starts off pretty simple, but the ramp-up in difficulty is clear. The game keeps track of your score over multiple games and as you do better in the game, it goes up, presumably making it a lot tougher. It ramps up in the gentle Nintendo way that doesn’t become overbearing to soon, still keeping it playable.

Final Thoughts

You can draw some similarities between this and Wii Fit, keeping you active through various minigames. But where Wii Fit‘s focus is still quite a lot on fitness, with the game aspects being second, Wii Sports keeps the fun first. It can wear you out and it requires you to get up to play, but you’re invited to have fun first of all. The inclusion of multiplayer obviously helps with that, playing against your friends making everything a lot more fun.

#785 Space Giraffe

Posted: 25th April 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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420th played so far

Space-giraffe-logoGenre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Xbox 360/PC
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Llamasoft
Publisher: Llamasoft

Today, from the list of shoot ’em ups that are less than twenty years old (it was time), we play Llamasoft’s Space Giraffe, a Tempest-like game (even if not officially a clone and not too inspired) by the creator of Tempest 2000. The book says it’s not for everyone…

Our Thoughts

That was… fairly tepid, to be honest. It’s got the Tempest inspiration, which isn’t too bad, although it’s not a game we were that much of a fan of. The game doesn’t mess too much with its initial inspiration, abandoning some of the round loops and possibly, I suppose,  adding some enemy variations – not that it always shows too much in a frantic shooter.

No, what it adds – unwisely or not – are loud, bombastic graphics that almost have to be LSD-inspired, with a bunch of meme and game references, some no longer being as valid anymore. It feels a bit over the top in how it’s trying to be modern and in with the kids.

The mechanics have seen a few more updates. You can float away from the field for a short time (depending on your performance) and get to use a bomb to take out more enemies in the field. You get graded on your performance, which seems to indicate which reference you get, but there’s nothing special about that here.

But that’s the problem with this sort of game – it just turned out to be too off-putting to look into, especially as the game itself just doesn’t appeal enough or offer enough fun gameplay to invest in.

Final Thoughts

Sure, this game has personality, and that is in a way to be commended. Unfortunately, the personality is that of the obnoxious guy at the party who’s a bit too taken with his own jokes. Perhaps it would have been better if we felt more engaged with the Tempest formula, but as it is the shoot ’em up doesn’t make things that much better.

#250 The Settlers

Posted: 21st April 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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419th played so far

Settlers_boxscan_amigaGenre: Strategy
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1993
Developer: Blue Byte Software
Publisher: Blue Byte Software

Yay, The Settlers! I spent way too much time on the second game in the series (as did several people I know) and had an absolute blast with it, the game being one of those that had some great memories associated with it. Because of this, I recently replayed it and soon got back into it, the charm still being there, as well as the difficulties keeping the logistics going that came with it.

I dabbled a bit with the first game, having owned it for some time, but never got too far in, in part because it felt a bit imprenetable (which we’ll go into in a moment). It’s the only one that ended up on the list, which is an understandable choice, although perhaps not the best in the series.

Our Thoughts

This is a tricky one to talk about, as it seems informed so much more by what I already knew. The Settlers, by default, relies on a number of visual and gameplay convention that it makes far less clear than its sequel, lacking labels for a number of options and a couple of toggles that would make them more accessible. At the same time, having played the second game, I recognise enough of the buildings and other details that I can quite easily transfer that knowledge – this building does that thing, this is where you can build that, and this is how you’d attack. Anyone playing without that would need to refer to the manual more often (which is only on disc in our version), making life more complicated.

Leaving that aside for a moment, the game itself is more interesting. A strategy game focused on economy and logistics, you’ll spend a lot of your time getting buildings in the right place and getting the shortest roads build between them. That last part is important – all goods are carried over roads, with one helper on a section of road carrying it from flag to flag. In busy parts of the maps, this means that piles of things build up on both sides as your guy can’t keep up, requiring diversionary routes to make sure goods get there.

It might be my brain, but I find this utterly fascinating. Working through the analytics, getting these big networks with people carrying around goods all the time, makes me feel like building road networks in a Civilization game. It’s utterly fascinating, especially to see how it extends to all other parts of the game. You want to build your lumber mill closer to your lumberjack, to make sure tree trunks can be turned into planks. That should be close to storage so they can be sent there, and be fed to the rest of the area for everything that they’re building, as well as to be used in a tool maker, which needs iron, produced in a smelter from ore.

It all links together into an interesting logistics system, military sitting mostly at the top (with some branches for some other utilities). Combat is simple – soldiers fighting one on one, summoned from nearby forts and guardhouses, trying to take out the enemy’s guardhouses (which defined territory ownership) – but effective enough in getting your progress sorted. Although your eventual goal is – usually – to take out the enemy far enough that you have control, it’s just not often your focus.

Final Thoughts

The Settlers is a charming strategy game, one of the few to focus this heavily on the economy and logistics without being a complete simulation. It’s a neat experience, different from most other games, that unfortunately didn’t stay around a lot in even later versions of the game (not after the second in fact). It more makes me want to go back to something like Transport Tycoon, with a similar focus on supply lines, or the organisational skills required for SimCity. In the mean time, this merges them perfectly.

#445 Metropolis Street Racer

Posted: 17th April 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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418th played so far

MetropolisStreetRacerBoxGenre: Driving
Platform: Dreamcast
Year of Release: 2000
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: SEGA

Time for another driving game. Today a racer through real life streets, as Bizarre Creations apparently based their tracks on the geopgraphy and buildings of some major secrets, of which they digitally build a small area, and adjusted it so they could create multiple tracks through them.

London should be one of the cities featured, which should be interesting for us in particular.

Our Thoughts

Right. If you’re going to create a game where content needs to be unlocked, it needs to be doable. If it uses a criteria more complex than “finish the other levels” you have to ask how reasonable your demands are. When you demand a certain amount of points, don’t make it rely on a single race. And at least have the decency to have the best result count, rather than the most recent, so you can actually encourage people to retry without worry of making it worse.

We discussed this with Gran Turismo, which had a difficult tutorial that required too much precision to pass, and got us stuck. I’m not sure whether Metropolis Street Racer was worse or better. You start properly playing the game (although there’s no mandatory tutorial anyway), but it seemed like we needed so many points to get past the first three events that we just couldn’t make it.

You don’t just gain points for making your laps on time, but also for ‘style’. Good turns and things like that. More troubling is that you also lose points for bad driving – slamming into walls, not making turns and so on. We regularly had a problem where we lost more points from that than we gained points for good driving. So yeah, we never got very far with this.

Having only seen three tracks, in two of the three available cities (San Francisco and London), it’s difficult to judge the variety of tracks and the methods used to create them. London looked pretty fair, even if the routes don’t make sense as racing tracks, but I suppose that’s the point. London especially suffers from a lot of obstacles placed in your way because of the route the game gets you to take, some of them popping up as a surprise without much warning, the game not always signposting clearly where to go during the route. Already it felt like while the design of the game allowed for a lot of track options, they weren’t set up as creatively, and the right turns that kept repeating (lots of levels being track where you turn right exactly four time) make them a bit bland. Putting in 250 tracks seemed to have been a bit much to make them distinctive and very interesting.

Final Thoughts

Metropolis Street Racer feels like it has a good game in there, as the racing is fun and mostly decent. The unlock system, relying too much on gimmicks and forcing you to rely on them too much, makes it too unfun to actually race, as the penalties for doing too badly are too great while it feels like it takes too much and too long to actually gain much benefit of it. A shame, really, reconsidering those numbers would have made this a lot more fun.

#401 Fatal Fury Mark of the Wolves

Posted: 13th April 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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0

417th played so far

1072854977-00Genre: Fighting
Platform: Neo Geo/Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK

Time for a bit more of Dreamfest 2. Another fighter, apparently one of the Dreamcast’s more notable genres – although it seems to have been a popular genre of the time as well, looking at other consoles from the era, as well as the arcade cabinets that were still plentiful at the time.

The game was also known as Garou: Mark of the Wolves on other platforms. I’m not sure where loup garous of wolves came into this, but we’ll see where it ends up.

Our Thoughts

As is obvious, we played the Dreamcast version of the game. It’s not something that’d normally be worth mentioning, as ports try to be faithful and version differences aren’t necessarily a big thing in this day and age (although it sounds like our Just Cause review suffered because of it). In this case, however, it mattered, as the Dreamcast port of this game apparently suffers from some flaky controls compared to other versions. The book itself specifically praises the Neo Geo port of the game, rather than mentioning the Dreamcast version.

One of places this matters, now, is that this game is apparently better suited to the joystick controller for the console, rather than its regular controller. It explains the comment “Odd controls?” in our game notes – the combos clearly showed it (lots of use of moving in directions), but I know Peter mentioned how the attacks were mapped different compared to what he was used to.

 Luckily, the game is actually fairly kind to you when losing. Rather than just forcing you to use a (meaningless) continue – arcade style! – it instead gives you some difficulty-reducing options, allowing you to cut your opponent’s HP or attack power or giving you some other boosts. It might not always be the best way to learn, but these options (three seem randomly chosen) mean that you can always still feel like you’re making progress, while by hiding them at first you still have to force your way past the beginning.

Another interesting addition is called ‘TOP mode’. When selecting your character,you also select a third of your health bar – high, low and in-between. When your health is in this area, you gain several boosts – stronger attacks, health regeneration and several special moves become available. First, it can be used to give you a nice boost – fighting back from the brink of death or giving yourself an early lead – but it also adds a tactical element. When will your opponent use it, when does it best work against them and what works for you?

Final Thoughts

It’s a shame the technical issues dampen our experience somewhat, but on the whole the game feels a bit shaky anyway. It has some good ideas in it (stemming from its long history of prior Fatal Fury games), but it never quite connected for us when playing, unfortunately.

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