I didn't play DKC until 2012ish (GBA port).  Was a firm Segaboi so I tried to dismiss it as style over substance while attempting not to swoon over the screenshots in mags in the late early 90s.  Once I'd had the fanboy punted out of me by the death of the Dreamcast I snapped out of my funk and started inhaling all the stuff I'd missed.  DKC was one of my faves.  I managed to buy a dodgy battery-less GBA cart from Ebay so I've never played the sequel, but I hear that's where it's at.  Tropical Freeze is the best one I've played though, cracking game solo or co-op.

I'm putting Golf Peaks down as my second completion, cba with the bonus levels particularly as I'm about to lose my phone. A solid [6].

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I didn't play DKC until 2012ish (GBA port).  Was a firm Segaboi so I tried to dismiss it as style over substance while attempting not to swoon over the screenshots in mags in the late early 90s.  Once I'd had the fanboy punted out of me by the death of the Dreamcast I snapped out of my funk and started inhaling all the stuff I'd missed.  DKC was one of my faves.  I managed to buy a dodgy battery-less GBA cart from Ebay so I've never played the sequel, but I hear that's where it's at.  Tropical Freeze is the best one I've played though, cracking game solo or co-op. Also pretty much agree with the PS4 version of Everybody's Golf being a bit off.  I bought it at launch and really tried to get into it, probably played it for 7-8hrs too, but the front end and grindiness just put me off.  File alongside Trackmania Turbo and Trials Rising as fantastic games hamstrung by poor design choices.

Haha, we had a SNES but never picked up the Donkey Kongs, so over time I assumed they were style over substance too, and once it wasn't state of the art, why bother?  Maybe not at the absolute top level with Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Sonic 2 etc - but still a class game that's aged very well.  Very strong fundamentals.  

Nicewill try Tropical Freeze - that's one of the many Switch games where I'm waiting to pounce on a (significant) sale of a physical copy.  I'm fine with paying RRP for new releases, can't get over the mental hurdle for older games though lol.

4. Starfox (Snes)
This just about hangs together enough to be playable with occasional moments where it's fun. Retro rails shooters aren't really something I've had much luck going back to. I gave Space Harrier and After Burner a quick razz last year and ditched them pretty quickly. Firstly, you're obscuring your own view. Secondly, you've got to head into the direction of enemies to kill them. Which then ties into the first problem of not being able to properly see them right at the point when you're going for them. Starfox introduces a further problem of abysmal draw distance. You're lucky if you can shoot enemies from a distance, and a lot of the time, you can't properly see what you're going for until they're right in front of you. Or laser balls and other enemy projectiles pop up just before they hit you meaning you've got no chance of getting away. Some enemies you'll miss when you fly past, you might not see them until it's too late to kill them and they'll still shoot at you from behind, giving no chance of dodging. Some bosses let out little fighters that come and get you, but then they fly off screen and crash into you from the side. 

Despite this it's still ok. Generally those problems just create aggravation and a bit of a chipping away at your shield rather than death. And contrast this with some of the scrolling shmups from this time and you can see why this was such a revelation. There's a section in (I think) Level 1-3 where you go into a ship for the first time to blow it's core. One of it's more blatant bits of Star Wars cribbing but there's nothing else I've played from that era that gives you such a sense of, I dunno, erm, presence. Like you're actually in this place. 
I got through Levels 1 and 2 easily enough but packed it in after a couple of sections on 3 as I could tell this was heading into a draw distance clusterfuck, save state spamming hell. So I left it thinking this was ok rather than cursing the thing for it's limitations. [7]

5. Starfox 2 (Snes)
I probably wouldn't have bothered if I didn't know beforehand how short this was supposed to be. It's hard to hate this, despite it being utterly terrible. It's too ambitious and the hardware just isn't up to it but even accounting for that it's poor. I quite like the UN Squadron style map, turning it into a base defence mini game. The transforming Arwings are a better idea on paper than they are in the execution (where it becomes abysmal) but it's not a bad idea to mix it up slightly. I don't know what they've said about it being finished or their completed vision but it isn't. It's not even half-baked. Barely a quarter. The end boss is almost just a sequence rather than a fight. Anything involving the walking Arwings is so easy that it couldn't have been intended to be like that. The dogfights are so fiddly and awkward that they can't have wanted them to play out like that. The difficulty jumps up and down seemingly at random. The final level is walking and shooting and that's about it. And there's so little content here as well. 

I first heard that Nintendo canned this game as it compared poorly to the 3D capabilities of newer consoles and I thought that was a terrible reason to cancel a game. Commerce over art and all that. But yeah this is appalling and they made the right call. Considering this would probably have shared trade show floor space alongside Wipeout, they had no business trying to release this mess. The best place for this was the vaults under lock and key, their secret shame. Then bring it out decades later as a historical curiosity. It's like one of those crazy backporting projects coders do for fun. Like what if Doom was made for the original Gameboy? In that context, as a relic or a crazy experiment, it's interesting and an [8] or [9]. As an actual videogame that needs scoring it's [Yikes]. 

6. Trip World (Gameboy)
Another curio. There's not much game here to talk about with 5 very short levels completed in less than 45 minutes.  You're a morphing thing that looks like Pikachu. You can morph into a thing that flies like Kirby. Or a fish that is mostly useless. The enemies usually don't attack you unless you attack them. And you can fly over most of them anyway. There's quite a few bosses here and they're crazily uneven. There's about 4 in a row at the end game (not a boss rush though, they're all different). All bosses in the game are either piss easy or extremely difficult. With the hard ones you can jump on their head then they become piss easy again. Because at this point they don't move or attack and you can just stay there, jump down, attack, then jump back up. As maybe an easy first world in a larger game, it works. You can see the potential. But instead it ends and that's it. The music is banging. [6]

1 - Devil May Cry V - PS4 - 8/10
Honestly not sure if I Completed it at the tail end of 2019 or the Start of 2020. Either way I Completed it on Normal difficulty and have been playing off and on, on Hard.

The game is great simply for existing, I've completed every DMC game and would rank this in the top 3, but for a new comer, this Is the game I'd recommend.
Every game has problems, DMC 1-3 show their age a lot, 4 had the best combat but the game was clearly rushed and the second half of the game is the first half, but backwards.
DMC 5 weakness is it's mid-late level design and forced use of characters. You cannot select which character to play as in most levels.
I also miss the leaderboard ranking that DMC 4 had on Xbox 360.


2 - Tetris Effect - PS4 - 10/10
Not New for me, it's my GOTY 2018, however I did comeback to it and completed the full journey mode again as well as some marathon plays.

The best version of Tetris ever.

And I still haven't played it in VR.

3 - Street Fighter V Champion Edition - PS4 - 7/10
There's been lots of improvement to this game over the years, but I still have a fundamental problem with the core design.
Crusher counters in neutral, highly plus frames and no push back on block, difficulty to tech throws even when you read them, overly high stun and stun combos, too much focus on artificial comebacks, and the swingyness of the game.
Not to mention the poor online which for me, ruins the game.
With the new version of the game they have done a good job making most characters more fun to use, more moves, vskills options, I have a new main, Gill but the core problems with the game were never addressed.
I still recommend it at the current price for offline fun.



4 - Soul Calibur VI (Season 2) - PS4 - 8/10
Wonderful version of Soul Calibur, and I highly recommend anyone watch it in tournament.
Obviously like any decent human being I hate Aswel, but I can also drop a bit of scorn on Zaslemel and Grøh.
A bit too anime, just Ghost Pirates and big titted Daughters please.

Playing a lot of this with family over Christmas and new year this is probably the most accessible fighting game.

Children in particular like nothing more than designing a monster girl with an elongated apple for a cock or an tiny dwarf with an upside-down flesh coloured loveheart for an arse, and then tearing strips off each other

5 - Resident Evil 2 - PS4 - In progress

kneecap wrote:

2 - Tetris Effect - PS4 - 10/10 Not New for me, it's my GOTY 2018, however I did comeback to it and completed the full journey mode again as well as some marathon plays. The best version of Tetris ever. And I still haven't played it in VR.

I'm an unexpected fan of VR (and not a fan of Tetris, it should be said), but I didn't really get the appeal of the Tetris Effect demo with the headset on.  Perhaps I was immune to the total immersion as I'm so cack handed at falling block games, but it just sort of felt like playing Tetris strapped to your face, whereas something like Astrobot felt like a revelation.

Most versions of Tetris ate a 10. I can't imagine VR making it much better but I equally can't imagine it breaking it.

It's Tetris. Only the ones that fuck with the basic formula too much break it.

Isn't that what I just said?

I can't imagine VR making it much better but I equally can't imagine it breaking it.

retroking1981 wrote:

Isn't that what I just said? I can't imagine VR making it much better but I equally can't imagine it breaking it.

Yes, I was agreeing.  General consensus seems to be that it's magnificent in VR and my point is that when I played it my reaction was more of a 'that was fine' shrug than a double thumbs up.

I've not played it in VR, but even without the point is surely that you do focus on the blocks and the other stuff kind of feeds into your peripheral consciousness (I may have made that up) and adds these different sensations to your actions.

It's hard to describe TBH, but sort of that.

Synaesthia is the bestest!

Appreciate it’s not for everyone or some people aren’t affected by it. Like you Moot!

7. THOTH - Switch (90 mins)

Outstanding twin stick puzzle shooter.  You'll pick up the basics within a minute or so of playing, but in a nutshell: shoot enemies until their colour is suppressed and they turn black; once this happens they'll hone in on you more quickly.  Your avatar is nippier when not firing.  You can aim with the right stick or soft lock-on with the face buttons.  One hit kills, you have two lives to get through four stages but after losing your first life the walls become deadly too (cheers for that).  Every fourth stage locks as a restart point.  Each stage presents a puzzle of sorts but it rarely feels like there's necessarily an optimal way to solve it - at heart it's a twitch shooter, but it's the puzzle element elevates it to greatness.  Honestly, absolutely everything about this is nigh on perfect, it's an incredibly well designed game.  It even has a co-op mode. [9]

Deserves a trailer rather than a gif.

Oh! It’s actually called THOTH! Right.

9. Squidlit - Switch (45 mins, including starting again twice)

A Blue Swirl rec.  I...kinda enjoyed it.  But I never had a Gameboy, so the handheld monochrome display effect didn't stir my loins.  Fun fact: I had to reboot twice as I thought the screen had filled with ink (or something) and crashed.  I could move around but couldn't see what my character was doing, so I thought it had glitched.  Turns out the right analogue stick controls the contrast, for some unknown reason, and because both combinations of my JoyCons are borked and like to drift whenever they fancy it, the screen kept fading to black (or dark green).  Fun fact over!  It's a functional platformer but I doubt anyone would've been happy with the length in 1991.  You could probably get through it twice on one set of batteries.  [4].  Sorry Swirl, £1.79 seems a touch steep.  I didn't hate it and the book boss was neat, but 'tis a bit shit really. 

3. Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles (PS3) - 9hrs

No where near as good as I remember. Bosses are little more than an interactive cut scene with a 3 second window to shoot the weakspot every so often.

Annoying jerky camera that only seems to have been added to hide the poor design and make an easy game harder. Bad dialog that drags on in between shootouts while your walking at a snail's pace, usually in a boring corridor.

Also it's a bit of a buggy mess on PS3. Twice I had to restart a chapter because despite picking up the specific weapon required to kill the boss it didn't appear in my inventory.

5/10

My list