#620 WarioWare: Twisted!

Posted: 7th November 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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283rd played so far

IMG_4253Genre: Action
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Nintendo SPD/Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo

Holding the cartridge for this game now, it’s clear why we had to import this from the US. Bigger than a normal GBA cartridge, the game has a chunky extension at one end that contains an accelerometer. It’s a feature that’s common now – I believe iPhones have one, as does the DS and its successors – but it was a novelty at the time.

It’s also what this game is about. The WarioWare series is a collection of minigames, after the first each with its own small twist on the concept. This time (obviously) it’s that accelerometer.

Our Thoughts

The thing about minigames is that there’s usually not much to say about each of them, while make broad statements stay… well… very broad.

The games are true minigames, obviously, usually taking about ten seconds each with a very simple goal. While they are at times slightly repetitive, especially considering the control method (rotate your GBA left and right), but that doesn’t matter. They’re charming and diverse in setting and so far removed from what you’d normally consider doing that every game is a surprise and every game is a fun new thing to play.

The unlocks from there are as interesting and as much a part to pull you in. They’re mostly simple toys making use of the gyroscope, but spinning a globe and moving the sky to reveal different constellations does feel fun.

The graphics are simple, on its own the parts of the game are nothing to write home about. It’s just that when you combine them in an overwhelming combination like this, it makes for a fun game taken together.

Final Thoughts

Simple, but charming, the game’s enhancements feel notable not just because of its technical accomplishments, but also its collection of different minigames and engagin side items. It’s a toybox of fun, really, but a nice one there.

I have always preferred the WarioWare series to Raving Rabbids for one main reason, innovation. This doesn’t have to rely on toilet humour and cute characters to keep you interested… plus this has the benefit that you will come back again and again to try to get better scores for each character.

#625 Clubhouse Games/42 All-Time Classics

Posted: 3rd November 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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0

282nd played so far

IMG_4208Genre: Party
Platform: DS
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Agenda
Publisher: Nintendo

Sometimes, video games go back to earlier roots – back to before we could grab our 3DS or Vita (probably 3DS, but you know… (be nice to my Vita, it’s not his fault that Sony have no idea what they’re doing)) and had to spend time using things that didn’t require electricity. A pack of cards or domino tiles, playing games alone or in a group. Local multiplayer only, of course.

Over time I’ve learned games like klaverjassen (apparently that’s a mostly Dutch game?), pesten (switch?) and blackjack. Others survived into computer days – we’ve all played a game of Solitaire that’s bundled with Windows. In my house the games of choice were rummy and pontoon… the latter of which is a variant of blackjack.

But what do you do when you don’t have a deck of cards near, but do have a couple of DSs? You get Clubhouse Games, today’s game, and play some local multiplayer. Yeah, card games on your DS. Woo.

Our Thoughts

Card game and other party game adaptations like this (it includes copies of chess and checkers) are as old as any computer game – chess must have been one of the first game adaptations programmed… well… ever. And from that, a collection like this isn’t as remarkable. I remember having a solitaire collection for DOS two decades ago, which contained about ten variants, and adaptations of plenty of other games. While Clubhouse Games contains an impressive variety, going beyond card games to plenty of other board games, there aren’t major outstanding games in there.

In that sense, that’s all the game really offers – a nice digital representation of these games, useful for long car journeys so you play them on the go without needing a lot of space. At that level, it works well – it’s got variety, it’s simple and basic (no fancy card art, just what you need to play) and it will keep you going for some time.

There are a few additional modes to keep you engaged. Missions force you to play games in a certain way, meeting goals in a game to complete them. This can be to execute a certain action a number of times (say, catch a player cheating five times) or to finish it in a limited amount of time. You can play though in order and win each to complete stamp mode and unlock further games. Or you play free play to play the games themselves. They at least add some longevity to the game

The thing this game offers, though, is multiplayer. Local or online play, one of the nice advantages seems to be getting together and playing some card games – now without worries on whether everyone is following the rules or what they were, where to find the cards or where to put them, and where did that four of hearts go? We enjoyed that between us and we’re certain to take it out again to challenge some others at some point with it. The multiplayer, to be honest, is the only thing that we would continue to play since chess against a DS is only so interesting… then again it is a great way to learn a lot of card games.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, this game stands out for the diligence in its execution. It’s not flashy, it’s not trying to do more than it says, it’s just a collection of classic games that work well in single player and even better in multiplayer. It seems worth getting out for the right occasion… it just also feels wrong. We’ll be making a similar conclusion for Picross DS… I’m guessing.

#959 Eyepet

Posted: 29th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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281st played so far

2013_05_05_16_27_14_287Genre: Simulation
Platform: Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: SCE London Studio/Playlogic Game Factory
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Virtual pet games seem to be one of those love and hate things for me. Yeah, I’ve been there for the Tamagotchi craze (via, to be fair, one of its rip-offs), but it lost my interest soon enough. My love of toy pets peaked with my Furbys (that’s plural) Co-Co and Dahlola; neither of which I have had the heart to throw away because of that 5 year old part of my brain that sees them as alive.

The increased power available to most home systems has allowed for a lot more options to play with compared to a small handheld egg, with the simulations going further back – after all, Little Computer People is effectively one, although this probably looks more of a precursor to The Sims.  More visibly there’s something like Creatures, guiding furry creatures through a big world and care for them. We’ll be looking at Nintendogs at some point too, a similar example.

Eyepet is Sony’s entry into the genre, in this case making use of the Eye camera to bring the creature into our world. A promising development – but virtual reality has often seemed a bit… well… lame. Does it work now?

Our Thoughts

We’ll go into the downsides of the game in a bit (which influenced a lot of our early gameplay) and start with how the game felt after we’d been playing for a while. And you know what? It was adorable. There’s flaws, there’s issues, but looking at the TV screen and seeing a monkey on the floor… it melts your heart.

It’s actually quite telling that despite technical issues, your pet sitting in a place that it technically can’t be at – with where your hand is petting it also requiring your pet to float a few inches in the air. Even then though, seeing your pet chase after your hand, jumping up to catch it and falling asleep as you pet it and stroke its belly, it steals your heart.

It took a while to set in though. First, we only had the game’s cover to use as the magic card – the card used to say where items are in the world and interact with parts of the game. That cover is glossy – nicely reflective and all that – making it difficult for the camera to pick it up. After a while we made a normal paper copy, which worked mostly. Still not great though, I’ll admit – the camera just doesn’t seem accurate enough to pick up on everything.

Added to that is that you need to make certain gestures to do things in the game and those gestures, too, can be a bit tricky. In particular, at one point you need to push an egg from side to side – with the game not recognizing that half the time. The control ideas are nice, but could do with some tweaking at times.

Still, once you adjust to the difficulties it becomes fun. While the initial introduction to the game are basic pet care – feed it, wash it and so on – the fun comes in later. The first minigame is bowling using your pet (it sits waiting, tongue out of its mouth, ready to roll, jumping back enthusiastically after it rolls out of the screen). And then you teach your pet to draw. He tries to imitate you (and yeah, becomes as good as drawing as you).

And he’ll live in a hole under your floor forever.

Final Thoughts

This game isn’t that complex in gameplay. It looks good – the right sort of cartoony. And it has its issues in places. But it’s a pet simulation. It’s not meant to be fully interactive. It’s meant to make you smile and to be cute. And that’s something it accomplishes – more than any other game like it that I’ve played.

Compared to Jeroen it is far easier to manipulate my emotions. The music of the first area of Kirby’s Epic Yarn is enough to make me want to cry (as is the photo album music in Pokémon Snap). Also, as I mentioned earlier, the idea of throwing away my old Furbys makes me feel incredibly sad. I also felt pangs of guilt when I was on holiday and unable to check on my original village in Animal Crossing.  As such this game appeared tailor-made to tug on my heartstrings… once we got over the initial non-responsiveness that is.

#90 Gauntlet

Posted: 25th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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280th played so far

IMG_4244Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1985
Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games

Regular readers may remember that this set of fifty games are all games I haven’t played before. And today we get a game where we are very strict about this, as I’ve played the hell out of Gauntlet II, this game’s sequel. The whole family did, on the NES version, playing for days at a time.

Gauntlet is its own dungeon crawl. Action, go around, kill things and explore. And Blue wizard shot the food!

Our Thoughts

I’ll admit it’s difficult for me to properly separate my feelings about this game from the memories. The basics are the same, but (aside from the graphics differences) the game still felt different – or maybe I’ve just changed. It is so fast! So many enemies! Or maybe this is PSP compilation versus NES?

The game is a top down dungeon crawler, with up to four players taking part taking on different typical party roles – fighter, wizard and so on. Your goal is simple – run around and find the exit on each level, all the while killing and avoiding enemies. Enemies sap your time, not life – or rather, your life is drained as you walk around the level, making it worth it to get there early.

In proper arcades, the way to really boost your life was to pay, we played it on the PSP collection that allowed us to insert a few credits every time we needed it for free. I found I needed it more than I expected, although it also seemed having more people around would have helped lots.

Most enemies come from spawn points. These spawn points keep spawning them forever. If you take a while to get to them, there can be a true mob waiting for you there. That’ll kill you sooner than you’ll expect.

The other source of life is, of course, that in the phrase that’s become immortal – in my mind at least. Food is dotted around the area, mostly in liquid form, and increases your life by a little. Unfortunately they didn’t seem very common, so it doesn’t make the game much easier.

Aside from the overwhelming amount of enemies at times, the game’s level design is fun too. They are quite large and varied and have quite a few puzzles inside them (even if not all are that difficult). They’re also quite colourful, allowing for some pretty interesting environments at the same time.

Final Thoughts

The game is clearly old-school arcade tough, eating coins and forcing you through difficult stuff. Having the infinite health PSP ‘cheat’ helps quite a bit. At that point, the game becomes fun to play, racing through to kill enemies and continue – through what I believe are at least 100 levels, which will take you quite a while to complete. Fun enough to mess around with for sure.

#525 Ratchet & Clank

Posted: 21st October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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279th played so far

IMG_4231

Genre: Action/Platform
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2002
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America

The systems of Sony seem littered with attempts at mascots. While Microsoft never set out to get one (focusing on shooters and characters like Master Chief more) and Nintendo and Sega were set with Mario and Sonic, Sony seemed to have developers trying to come in with some middle ground. Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Dexter, Sly Cooper and, today, Ratchet and Clank.

The resemblance is, at first glance, quite obvious. It makes you wonder how the guys behind Banjo-Kazooie felt when this came out. All games in the 3D platformer mold as created by both Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64, they feature distinct characters with little special personality that seem designed for spin-offs from the start. This is not to say they are bad games – we enjoyed Sly Cooper – and the developers do tend to go for their own gameplay mechanics. It’s just that none seem to have been associated with Sony as much as Mario did with Nintendo.

Our Thoughts

Now here’s an odd bit of association for you. It might be because we’ve been addicted to Lego City Undercover lately, but this game had more than a few Lego game associations for us. Why? First of all, there is the extended bolt and nut and parts collection that copies the other series’ stud collection. Second, there’s awkward platforming and camera screw.

Sure, I get it. Camera controls are difficult. The player will want to look at more different things than you can anticipate, and you may need to get the camera to a certain place. But give a bit of leeway then, and don’t rotate the camera while the player is doing their actions, screwing with movement. It’s never game-breaking, but a few of the longer sections feel awkward for this reason, especially when you’re defeating some enemies. One thing that has come to amaze me when it comes to games is how near-perfect 3D platformer controls were available in Super Mario 64 so the fact that it is still an issue to this day is… puzzling.

That part, on the other hand, is a lot more interesting. Aiming can be a tad difficult, but is often helped through various methods. More interesting though are the variety of weapons you can employ.  You soon gain hold of five different ranged weapons (some of which sort-of double as ways of moving around as well). The variety in both is actually quite wonderful and fun to mess with.

You’ll need them too. There are lots of enemies dotted around the level, some of which might be easy, but many are just tricky enough to defeat that facing them over and over again gets unhealthy. It’s, to be honest, where another annoyance comes in.

You see, yeah, the game has auto saves at a few points in its levels, that it automatically returns you to when you die. The problem is, though, that the save points are fairly infrequent and at badly placed moments. And all enemies respawn too. In fact, getting near the end of one level, I was once sent back to the very start, taking fifteen minutes to get back. Defeating enemies and solving puzzles I’d done several times before.

I can see why you’d want to not have too many save points, but good placement is as important. Before bigger fights. After you’ve covered some ground. When you get something important. Yeah, dying is meant to be a step back, especially when it happens once or twice. But when it gets too frustrating and you die twice on your way back to where you were in the first place, it’s a bit too much.

Don’t worry, most of the time it plays fine. There were just a few places where it really gets to you.

In terms of characters, I must admit that I found the titular main character, Ratchet, the less fascinating of the two. He’s just the generic, boring action hero style character who doesn’t care much to start but goes out to do the right thing.

Clank just grabs me a bit more. While he could have easily become the cute funny character – Gir from Invader Zim (MY TAQUITOS!) came to mind early on – but he’s smarter, tougher and more focused. Not sarcastic, but his drive just grabbed me. He’s a lovely, well-written character. He is also remarkably well spoken for a robot character, I was actually expecting more of a silly robot… I’m glad I was wrong.

The story beyond that is engaging enough – going a step beyond what’s necessary for a game, driving a couple of the side quests or goals. You have to save galaxies from the evil corporate empire – simple so far – but the way how to (first of all by finding another hero to do it for you) is interesting and novel. There’s some colourful characters along the way, which at least makes reaching your next step in the game a pleasant treat.

Final Thoughts

Although it’s a game with some flaws, the story and writing is charming to care quite a bit along, and the variety of weapons and options makes for some pretty decent action. The game is good fun to play, just as long as you as you are willing to put the time in to get past some initial warts.

#632 Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich

Posted: 17th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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278th played so far

photo-2

Genre: Strategy/Role-Playing
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: Digital Jesters/Electronic Arts

Time for some more insanity. Today’s installment, Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich, fits in with the recent rise of superhero movies, and plays with its stereotypes. Speechbubbles, comic book looks, hammy acting and over the top storylines, it’s all in there.

We’ve not played many superhero games yet, but then again, there aren’t many, with only City of Heroes coming to mind as a notable game we’ve played for the blog. Not to say that there aren’t other, but while in other circumstances heroes like Infamous‘ Cole would become one, they don’t contain many elements of the genre or its aesthetics.

Our Thoughts

It’s amazing how much a game’s setting can affect how it feels and plays and how we judge it at the end. In the case of Freedom Force, it’s difficult to look past the setting, so for now we won’t… yet.

The game is superheroes from beginning to end. The cutscenes have some of the comic elements. There are the cheesy intros. There are the overly elaborate background stories. There are the team ups. These people have seen plenty X-Men movies. There are even the speech bubbles when the characters speak. And the voice acting… hammiest you’ve ever heard, trust me.

And as funny as it all comes across, this is all played straight. It may come across as funny sometimes, and certainly the story elements are fun in how over the top it is, it goes for the serious storylines and serious dialogue. It’s played straight, which makes the game more engaging. You’re still going through the game to follow the storyline. Just one that, by genre, seems over the top in so many places.

 However, the story doesn’t dominate to the point that there’s no game to speak of. A lot of it is still just a tactical RPG – pausable real-time as we like to call it when we want to sound sophisticated. It plays, at its most basic, the same as something like Baldur’s Gate II, giving you a chance to give your orders but mostly having it play out in real time.

The similarities don’t go that far beyond the basic controls, though, and it’s clear the game doesn’t mean to. The missions are essentially linear – no branching plots that we could find – but are supplemented during the mission with secondary objectives to play through. The only reward for them is prestige at the end, so they’re far from mandatory – but still fun to try to complete and at times useful.

Prestige is one of the currencies you’ll be collecting. In this case, prestige is used to ‘hire’ new superheroes – or rather, to become renowned enough that they want to be part of your team. Apparently you might lose them too if you lose too much prestige, but we didn’t notice that.

The other – basic – RPG mechanic is that of leveling. All your heroes gain XP from taking part in missions (and less so when they’re not). Levelling gives you skill points you can use to gain new powers or improve them. The options are not too complicated, but complex enough to allow for some choices and allow you to aim your character somewhat. Their specialism won’t change much, but you can get some options in.

Where it shines, though, is in game. The missions aren’t very difficult, but they’re varied, going (a bit) beyond ‘kill everything’, with various obstacles in the way and things to avoid. The powers you can use shine here as well. Plenty are of the ‘hit things’ and ‘shoot things’ variety, with some form of damage being applied, but those are only part of the equation. Just as useful are the other powers you can use on your enemy. Status attacks are quite useful, compared to most game, with them usually being effective and recharge rates fast enough that you can keep using them. It’s their creativity that matters more though – you can warp enemies out of existence for a while, seduce them or push them away from you some distance.

Another area where this game sets itself apart from other games like City of Heroes is the use of background stories. This was touched on earlier but I figured it warranted more of a mention. The main backing for all concerned is that these superheroic abilities were granted by an alien Energy X which was directed towards the Earth. Some took it on to become villains and others as heroes. The sheer variety of reasons why people became certain heroes makes shows this off to be the work of a group that know their comic books. An example that comes to mind is of Eve… whose origin was not exactly known. Then there is the Green Genie; a girl who was sold into marriage and kept under house arrest by her father, she gained her powers in defense of the one person who tried to aid her escape. All of these videos are also available on YouTube.

Probably as much of a highlight, though, comes from the interaction with the environment. Mostly everything is destructible, but you won’t want to do too much of that. More fun is how you move around them. Although mostly playing as a 2D game, there are 3D elements. Some heroes can fly and others are good climbers, meaning you can make use of that to avoid enemies, reach them more easily or to explore different routes. Others, such as the Ant, dig instead, using that get past doors and other barriers.

They’re not huge changes, but taken together add up to a very playable game, with the superhero powers fuelling a lot of the slightly different battle system. You get your options – more than just ‘hit sword’, ‘shoot bow’ or similar – and the variety it allows makes the levels more fun to play.

Final Thoughts

It’s difficult to put into words what makes this game as entertaining. It’s a combination of setting, gameplay, variety and missions. It works though. It’s a lot of fun to play and enough to pull you in to keep going.

#468 Devil May Cry

Posted: 13th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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277th played so far

DMC

Genre: Action
Platform: PlayStation 2
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Sometimes the dice just roll your way. To keep variety, we occasionally pick a random game to go into our ‘next game’ pile and this time, it came up with an interesting one.

I’ve been interested in Devil May Cry for some time. Both Bayonetta and God of War II were great fun and successes for us. It seems to share its desire for stylish combats and outrageous maneuvers, action for its fun sake rather than caring too much about credibility. And despite some of the comments about the protagonist’s emoness, the total picture always seemed like it would be fun to me. Hence, I’m excited to try it.

Our Thoughts

So many things to say today, where do we start?

Let’s start with the above. The game’s combat – one of the big selling points, obviously – is mostly just right. At its best, you end up in a whirlwind of slashes, thrusts, jumps and gun fights as you weave your way through piles of enemies. One boss battle pitches you against seventeen of them, which is standard a level or two later.

The game isn’t yet as stylish as it’s descendants. The like of  Bayonetta and God of War clearly spin-off a lot of their techniques from here. While there are many moves and especially the later ones are flashy, they don’t get as cinematic just yet. Probably best are some of the boss battles, which are more interesting than fighting off a mob, although also a lot tougher. Entertaining and manic, although probably not as much fun to watch just yet.

The enemies in the game, however, are all the more interesting. The game was originally designed as a Resident Evil spin-off and this is where it shows. The forces of darkness are represented by the sort of creatures that would fit most horror environment. The first basic enemies you encounter, the mooks you see most often early on, are possessed puppets, where you even see the strings pulling them up after they fall down.

One thing that is interesting about this game being a retooled Resident Evil is the discussion of at what point did the retooling start. The survival horror parts have been stripped out, obviously, in the favour of a more hack-and-slash style game. That all makes sense to me. The setting however does speak of a different direction, no longer in a manor or through a city this feels more supernatural than chemical warfare. Resident Evil 4 does share a number of traits in this game in terms of atmosphere and style (with gameplay being entirely different). If I wasn’t such a chicken it would have been great to play these back-to-back to see how many similarities cross-over.

I’ll be honest on one thing – I did want to change the difficulty to easy mode after a while. While I didn’t do too badly, a few battles got incredibly frustrating and the boss battles in particular got irritating. The first knight battle was a final straw – you get two difficult boss fights in a row, as well as a QTE-style story event, with no chance to save in between and little chance to rest and heal if you’re not ready for it. Having used up all my lives a few times, having to reload, got annoying.

The intermediate parts are as interesting. Not as action focused as you might expect, the game plays more like an adventure in between. In the first chapters, you explore a large castle. You find the right places to go to, solve some simple puzzles – bring an item from one place to another, find the hidden door, things like that – and make your way through the area. The game is divided into chapters, with doors and sections only opening in particular chapters, as the story (as much as there is) is told.

On the whole though, these adventures elements (as annoying they can be when you’re stuck) are secondary to the brawling experience. And that’s probably good enough here.

Final Thoughts

This is both a nice brawler and a simple, nice adventure. The difficulty mainly comes from the battles, although some of the mook battles drag on.

On the whole, I’m looking forward to the sequels, where I hope it’s all enhanced a bit further, but until then, this game works well.

#244 Syndicate

Posted: 9th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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276th played so far

main_000

Genre: Strategy/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1993
Developer: Bullfrog Productions
Publisher: Electronic Arts

One of the game studios we admire and miss is Bullfrog. They’ve made some games we spent way too much time on. We’ve played Dungeon Keeper for the blog before, are looking forward to Theme Park (who needs Rollercoaster Tycoon, right? Right?) and Populous, and then there’s non-list game Theme Hospital we love (where we all learned not to lick the foil lids of our yoghurt pots).

Today we’ve got Syndicate, another twist on their business simulations. This time your business is to control the world.

Our Thoughts

The game differs a bit in complexity. The business simulation, when playing, is fairly simple. You need to gain control over different territories and expand your rule. When you get them, you gain tax income from them (but keep them happy by not over-taxing), which you use to fund your team, buying equipment and enhancements and conduct research (vaguely directed).

Although I’m sure we didn’t dive into this part of the game deep enough to fully appreciate it, it felt relatively thin. It seemed less important than the missions you execute to gain control of these areas.

Like a lot of games of this era there is a very large cyberpunk influence a la Blade Runner which you get less of in modern games. It makes a lot of the ideas in the game feel a little bit cliched despite the setting being enjoyable if a little bit bleak. I would like to think that as corporate overloads we would make things a bit better… but I somehow doubt that from the look of the office when we fail a mission. How many times does he need to throw things at the screen before he realizes it won’t smash it?

The concept is simple – you equip and modify up to four cyber commandos. They go out into a military base, village or something similar (they’re not that easy to distinguish – all are camp-like buildings in a desert, surrounded by fencing and guard posts. In there, your task is to kill or brainwash one or more people and then get out safely.

You’ll spend most time here, both because of their length and because you will have to deal with many retries. They start off tough (especially when playing without manual) and go up from there. The graphics here look as you expect – pixelly and actually quite sharp and crisp – unlike the blurrier main mission screen. One disadvantage stems from the set isometric projection – or rather, its buildings. First, enemies sometimes walk behind them, and there’s no hint on where they are, making shooting them a pixel hunt if you even realise they’re there. Second, often your target is inside a building. When you enter a building, though, the roofs remain and your character is hidden, except for a small blinking number. You need to guess where the walls are, how to get to your target and again pixel hunt to target them. It seems like a few visual hints here would have been simple, and make it a lot easier to play.

Then again, the game has its control issues anyway. The general interface is left-click to walk, right-click to shoot (or use what other item you have equipped). This is where the age of the game comes in. You see, two years from this point, two games come out that change strategy game interfaces – Command & Conquer and Warcraft II. The former, in particular, contains a simple feature that makes control a lot easier: Context-based clicks. If you click someone, they’re selected. Click the ground, walk there. Click an enemy, shoot them. Here you can’t do that, which is more difficult, though you can get used to it. More annoying is that without a right-click, your guy just doesn’t shoot. It will stand there without defending itself. That’s fine if you have only one guy with you, but you have a team of four. As you can only have one shoot, it makes it difficult to put in the strategy for a good take down.

Slightly more annoying? Your guys don’t equip their weapons by default. More than once my guys tried to punch the enemies while they’re being shot at because I didn’t notice the game had forgotten to use the gun. I’m sure they meant well, but it feels clumsy.

Even so, the game is quite good and fun to play, once you get past these hindrances. It’s difficult, which is exhausting, but when it works it’s exciting. For that reason alone I’m looking forward to the sequel Syndicate Wars, released three years later. If all goes well, it could fix some of these issues and make a truly fun game.

Final Thoughts

It is always a bit hard to go back to games like this when we are used to the more modern interfaces. The equip and inability to just send them off to kill being some bug bears. If this blog has done anything for me it is that I am now more appreciative of modern games. It’s like a lot of things that if you can see where they come from you are able to greatly appreciate the final product (not true for all games, albums and movies but it works with a lot).

#122 720°

Posted: 5th October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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275th played so far

IMG_4207Genre: Sports
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1986
Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games

Right, let’s get this straight. Yeah, the game is officially called 720°. We believe 720 or 720 Degrees are also acceptable. We’ll call it that. Laziness!

We recently got a copy of Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play, a collection of different arcade games, with many that we need to play. Joust was part of this, and 720 Degrees another. Billed in the book as the first skateboarding game, this sounds like a nice way to see what legacy Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 built on. Somehow I get the feeling it’s not much.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, I know it’s unfair to compare two games released that far apart and, possibly aside from some very basic controls, the two games aren’t very similar when playing. The main thing, though, is that the general goals stays the same – score points by doing tricks. Here’s it’s mostly just jumps and spins, no big complicated names that we don’t understand, but they lead to the same basic result.

The game’s simplicity is an advantage though. With Tony Hawk, we complained about how complicated the controls were. Here, though, the controls are simple enough that the tricks are straightforward to execute. It’s a good thing to, as you need those points. An issue with the two-button controls is that they can feel a little bit unresponsive. There are times where you will fall off of your board for making too sharp a turn (something hard to compensate for with the graphics not giving many visual clues) and the jump mechanic can vary quite widely. Being a coin-op this would have led to more quarters in the machine. For us (where we can just press restart) it did not give much reason to return to the game apart from pride and/or stubbornness).

Your mission is to reach a skate park before the time is up. To get in, you need to earn enough points using your tricks. You need to finish different skate park levels to get to the next, more difficult level, while the skate park levels also pay for further upgrades to your equipment – higher jumps and such.

The skate park levels are surprisingly varied, with four different focuses (jumps, slalom, speed and tricks), with increasingly difficult courses. They’re difficult to get good enough on, but with some practice they’re good tests of your skill.

The real difficulty comes from in between. As said, you need to get to a park in time, but also score enough points to get a ticket to unlock that park. This is easy for the first two or three, but as you advance, the balance of speed, doing tricks and getting upgrades becomes more difficult and you’ll soon run out of time. That’s where it heats up. The game talks to you, ‘Skate or Die’ and some weird ghost-cloud starts following you, killing you when you touch it. You can avoid it by getting to a park quick enough, but combining that with having to get enough points, which you won’t necessarily have after a while, makes it a scary race.

The sound bite that goes with it is a nice touch, by the way. It’s not the first digitized speed (aside from Deus Ex Machina, future game Gauntlet got there earlier), but it still surprised me to suddenly hear it. It’s a nice touch and back in the days must have scared anyone playing this for the first time.

Final Thoughts

Look, neither of us will probably become big fans of the skateboarding genre. Despite the variation it can bring a lot of it feels showboating and (unlike snowboarding) the games are more about the self mastering combos rather than competing against others. It feels remarkably isolated compared to other sports games. Maybe when we play Skate 2 we will change our minds… but for now not so much.

#34 Joust

Posted: 1st October 2013 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,
1

274th played so far

IMG_4198Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1982
Developer: Williams Electronics
Publisher: Williams Electronics

The reason this game is (apparently) included in the list? Its pure insanity. The reason is simple: You’re a knight riding a flying ostrich, defeating other knights riding on buzzards. Player 2 if, they’re playing, rides a stork. I miss the eighties.

Yes, I was five year olds when they ended. SHUT UP!

Our Thoughts

So the basics of this game are fairly simple. Run into enemies while you’re higher than they are. Height depends on how fast you tap the ‘flap’ button. On its own that’s already a pretty decent gameplay idea. It takes a bit of time to get used to the system – the first few games were just trying to see how to get the right height and avoiding the other enemies you can’t defeat.

The first wave has three enemies and is fairly easy to keep track of. The second is the ‘survival’ level and gives you bonus points if you survive without dying. The difficulty increases from there. To score big you need to collect or destroy the eggs left behind by the enemies. In earlier levels these are benign but later on these hatch into more enemies if you don’t get to them first. Add to this faster hawk-like foes and things get harder quite quickly.

It makes for a good progression – although it starts tough in the first few games, when you get some experience after that the basic jousting mechanism becomes familiar and makes it easier to jump in and get a few levels in. The twists start coming in at the third level, which become nasty enough to start providing the real challenge. For example, the third level removes the bridges covering the lava pits, meaning you can’t run around or stop flapping.

As bad as the graphics are, to a point, as indicative of the era, somehow their weirdness actually makes what’s going on clear. Sure, the prompting helps, but the ostrich looks like one, and the buzzards are that, with some human of sorts on their back. It’s possible the characters and types were picked for that, but the oddities are a fun touch and make the game that much more memorable. As much fun as the game mechanics are, the odd setting is the thing that elevates it above any other action game.

Final Thoughts

Now there is nothing wrong with a jousting game where your steed is an ostrich… apart from the laws of physics. It’s a short game and would have required a lot of quarters in order to get to grips of the whole “higher ground = death” idea (like one of Shunsui Kyōraku’s shikai powers in Bleach) but once you are there it is a nice little game. Already makes me glad we bought this arcade compilation for the PSP.

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