If Nuts is the squirrel walking sim thing I've nearly pulled the trigger on that half a dozen times.

I spent Sunday night to Tuesday evening alone in a caravan with a Switch and a SuperConsoleX3+, so obviously played a lot of games.  Cards on the table (because I didn't clean them up after we all played Rummy after Sunday lunch), I didn't even leave the van for about 48hrs, unless two quick joints on the front step counts.  Here's what I got up to when I wasn't eating unhealthily or napping:

170. Will You Snail? - Switch (3+hrs)

Punishing platformer with a twist - it's not just you againt the levels, you've also got a maniacal, overly chatty AI overseeing your every move and stacking the deck against you. Imagine Thomas Was Alone but instead of the softly spoken English chap from Coupling doing the v/o, it's someone shouting TROLLOLOL while essentially jackassing you with disappearing platforms/rapidly spawning traps.  It's fucking annoying on regular occasions, but can you really hold that against a game that clearly (Rick) rolls with 'be relentlessly annoying' as its raison d'etre?  The ever-present (and surprisingly non-repetive) v/o takes absolute delight in every player death, to the point where it's best to just embrace it if you're planning to enjoy the game.  It's absolutely not for everyone and it often wasn't for me. Difficulty is pitched at 'all over the place', but again, that plays into the hands of the intended vibe.  You might breeze through three screens, only for the dynamic AI to bump the difficulty up on a stage that's much more difficult than the previous few anyway, while audibly revelling in the delight.  Then it'll mercillessly mock you as you manually drop it down, before notching it up again as soon as you start to get up a head of steam, and literally laugh at you.  Remember the Dynamic Play hook for Gods on Amiga/16-bit consoles?  Imagine that + 'I know a song that'll get on your nerves'.  It's a bold flex for sure, and mostly works if you remember not to get too pissed off.  An early dialogue line set the scene for me - "hahaha, that wasn't fair was it?  It's not supposed to be fair".  If you think you can entertain this conceit I expect you'll love/hate the whole thing as much as I did.

Honestly this is hard to fault for what it is, even when you take into account its shortcomings.  It's all over the place, sure, but that's the shtick.  B- platforming wrapped up in an A+ package. I'm absolutely not going back for them, but there are a ton of secrets and hidden levels to discover too - a lot of work has gone into this one and there's plenty to pick at for those who want to unwrap all the layers of the package.  [8]



171. Mystic Riders - Arcade (30mins)

Random selection from the MAME folder of my SuperConsoleX3+.  Looked a bit like a Cotton game from the thumbnail and played OK once I started, so I finished it.  There's not a whole lot worth saying about this one tbh; MOR shmupping that's as serviceable as it is uninspired.  I'd struggle to see how anyone might consider this particularly good, but at the same time it's not a bad game, it's just a bit of a pointless mimic of superior cutesy shooters.  Nice graphics though.  [2.5 out of 6].  



172. Haiku the Robot - Switch (10hrs 3mins)

Outstanding Metroidvania that owes a huge debt to Hollow Knight.  There are some cheeky Metroid nods in here too, but this mostly takes its cues from Team Cherry's masterpiece (which is now 6 years old, and probably due a sequel). It's not as sprawling or epic as HK, nor does it take the player as long to find their feet once the adventuring begins, but it does subscribe to the no hand holding approach.  There's no glowing GO HERE marker on the map, and progression through its world is charted organically.  In theory this approach might match the way someone might describe the genre, but I've played a lot of these now and a full DIY approach to progression is still quite rare.  The Ori's, Metroid Dread, both Blasphemous games, Axiom Verge  - they all use the distant point of interest approach, i.e. there's this thing way over yonder, and you have to make your way over in that direction as a rough instruction.  If you don't go that way, you probably won't be able to get over or under a particular wall or something. Disclaimer: Hollow Knight may have actually had the glowing 'psst, over here' waypoints, but it's been years since I played it, I don't remember them, and I can't be bothered to check.  I do remember feeling hopelessly overwhelmed by a lack of direction for the first few hours though, so if it did have them they were both small and far away.  The TLDR is that Haiku doesn't have them anyway, which is a bold decision that works fantastically well thanks to deft design and exceptional layouts. There's some gentle prodding from behind the curtain ofc, but the 'off you go' style is strong and discovery is the key word for progression.  It's a Metroidvania, so of course you can't go everywhere given the whole ability gating thing, but you can explore vast chunks of the map early doors with an impressive amount of freedom, and I never felt funnelled towards a particular destination without choice.

Thankfully the game world is large rather than mahoosive (the most 90s word ever?) and never felt overbearing in any way.  Although it follows the Hollow Knight design philosophy quite closely in some ways, it's far more relaxed than its main source of inspiration - it's perhaps not a complete pushover, but thanks to the ability to heal yourself as you go and bosses that don't seem quite as intent on annihilating the player as you might expect, comparatively speaking it's a breeze.  You will batter a fair few of the guardians at the first time of asking, and if your experience aligns with mine you won't mind one bit.  

It looks great, it's full of character and charm, the audio design is top notch and it controls superbly.  The dash & swipe foundations are solid enough when proceedings kick off, but by the time you've unlocked a handful of extra abilities zooming around the screen is intuitive and fun.  There are secrets galore and I didn't even feel cheated when completing certain tasks yielded zero tangible reward because it's such a lovely game and I was happy just to see the completion percentage increase (something I don't often give two fucks about).  I even went back in for a different ending as soon as the initial finale played out - something I didn't even do with Hollow Knight.  7hrs to comple, 10hrs to wrap it all up.  All in one day!  Gotta love the caravan life.  This would have made my top 5 for 2022, and I'd probably include it in my top 5 2D Metroidvanias of all time. Quality stuff, and (like Dust: An Elysian Tale and Islets) another one of those astonishing achievements that's mostly the work of one person. [9]




173. The Adventures of Chris - Switch (3-4hrs)

I'm used to playing indies without many Metacritic reviews to go by.  This one is a rarity though, as one of the not many write-ups out there was provided by a forumite, who then recommended it to me on here.  Our Reggie review here.   The price was eventually right a few months ago, and now here I am. 

With all due respect to opinions I absolutely loathed it, to the point where it's probably in contention for my least favourite platforming experience in years.  I'm nodding hard at all the shortcomings reg highlights in his review, but shaking my head in disagreement at just about all the positives mentioned (although I'll concede that the music bops at times).  I made the mistake of checking a YouTube 'full game' video before going in, which suggested the game was only 90minutes long.  I failed to realise that this was part 1 of 3 though.  If it hadn't been recommended I would've binned it very early on.  By the halfway point I'd dropped the difficulty all the way down to invincible baby mode, and some of the screens were still annoying.

A few years ago I went in on Horace in one of these threads, settling on a [5] because despite the wonderful story segments and delicious sense of humour the actual playable sections felt depressingly flimsy and basic.  This reminds me of Horace, albeit with cutscenes that are even worse than the gameplay (unless relentless jokes about the titular character being a greedy chubster float your boat).  It all feels like a cobbled together Amiga game - y'know, the dreaded Europlatformer vibe - and I did not like it one bit.  The deflating mechanic threatens to be interesting once or twice, but otherwise this is a turd.  Still, the rec is appreciated as I can definitely see why someone might think I'd like this on paper - it's retro leaning, relatively short and pretty straightforward.  It just pays like arse, looks even worse and doesn't do anything well.  Thanks @regmcfly [3].  



174. Osman - Arcade (35mins)

Spiritual successor to Strider, developed by the original game's lead programmer sans Capcom licence.  It doesn't seem to have stopped him making a game that feels like a direct sequel. I didn't know it existed until I spotted a rerelease on the Eshop (yours for the princely sum of £24.99 full price, or £7.49 in the current sale). Put off by the price, it was one of the first things I tried to play when my emulation consoles arrived, but it turns out it was pointless looking for Cannon Dancer because it's called Osman in certain territories (and my ROM list).  A lucky find as I was scrolling through the menus yesterday.

It's a pretty good game, although it leans a little too heavily on the screen clearing specials that re-up every life.  You get three, and they're super useful, but the game feels a bit unmanageable in places without them.  Ergo dropping more money in makes it more enjoyable.  A vicious cycle, but that's the nature of the beast. It was all going fine until a checkpoint towards the end of the game did me in.  I forced my way through with luck, but having consulted YouTube the 'keep at it and hope for a bit of luck'  approach seems to be adopted by most other players too. Poor.  I'm glad I didn't buy this on Switch as it'd be horrendously overpriced for what it is, but what it is is worth playing, if only as a curio.  [3.5 out of 6].  Good fun - and crucially, a better to play in 2023 than Strider, imo - but best left in the arcades or on a whistlestop ROM run. Lost a full point thanks to that shitty checkpoint.  Glorious graphics though, and an amusingly wild story.



175. R-Type Leo - Arcade (30mins)

Nope, never heard of it.  Nice looking simultaneous two player R-Type (second) sequel from 1992 that looks rather lovely and doesn't get outrageously nasty until a fair way into the game.  As usual a coin fed push through one of these isn't enough to determine whether or not it's a legit shmup, but my guess would be that it is.  A quick look suggests that purists didn't like the new drone system though.  Can't win 'em all.  Mostly good fun and doesn't outstay its welcome.  [4 out of 6]



176. Racing Hero - Arcade (45mins)

A sort of Hang-On/OutRun hybrid, developed by Sega and released in 1989.  If it wasn't so horrendously punishing of any and all mistakes I would have enjoyed this a lot more, but it took me about 10 minutes (plus some dip switches fiddling) to even reach the first checkpoint.  Basically if you crash in this at any point ever you've had it, even on 'easy mode' (start with a generous 67 seconds instead of the default 65).  There's a good game here somewhere because the traffic weaving feels legit, and I assume you sat on a bike for the original cabinet, but it's so mean spirited I ended up disliking it.  Which is a shame as otherwise it seems to be a decent super scaler racer from when Sega were in their pre-polygons arcade pomp.  It even does the OutRun style top-down route taken thing after the Game Over screen.  Git gud maybe, but without continues, save states and persistence I would've failed miserably.  [2 out of 6]



177. Riding Fight - Arcade (40mins)

One of the things I love about games is that's its still possible to play something unlike any one package you've seen before, even when tombola surfing 30yr old titles on a moody Chinese emulation device.  This is a glorious hodgepodge of F-Zero, Road Rash, scrolling beat 'em ups and trailers at the start of Manga videos for films I never got to watch. It's also legit cool, given its age, rather than achingly try hard; the hoverboard Mad Max stuff would set eyes a-rollin' in 2023, but in 1993 this must have oozed wow.  Which it still does, looking back for the first time.  I ended up explaining that with less commitment than intended but I've got review fatigue now so I can't be bothered to rewrite - this vibe might be rubber stamp stuff now but I'm giving this a massive pass considering its age (it's not a modern retraux game trying to look like an early 90s rad hoverboard combat racer, IT IS AN EARLY 90s RAD HOVERBOARD COMBAT RACER).  Look, there's a martial arts ice hockey boss in this and I loved every second of it.  It all works surprisingly well too, despite combining numerous genres at once, so the score below isn't just for the rush of the ride - it's actually a semi-legit game too.

Even the way weapons fall out of defeated enemy hands and spiral in the air waiting to be grabbed by the player feels good.  The set-up:

Riding Fight is a Front View Speed Action Game. Two radical dudes fight the gnarly "Death Serpent" gang and get mucho dinero by shredding on their sick hover boards and doing sweet martial arts moves.

Jazz Club nice.  One of the radical dudes is called BURN BOWIE, which is great work.  The other is called Keith Jager, which doesn't scale such dizzy heights on the nominative determinism scale but it'll do.  A wild ride that I'd never heard of until I spotted the thumbnail on the giant ROM list.  [5 out of 6]



178. Rockman: Power Battle - Arcade (25mins)

Cuphead style boss rush.  Bosses have always been the highlight of the Megaman games I've played anyway, so this unexpected find was right up my alley.  I've got no idea why it was so easy, especially as I was bracing myself to bounce off it immediately, but I'm not complaining.  I only died three times!  I only played through as Rockman/Megaman, but there are three characters available, presumably with their own unique set of very particular skills.  The boss order appears to be randomised, but there could just be a standard route through and the pot luck style could just be smoke & mirrors.  I can't confirm as I only played it once.  Each time an enemy is defeated you assimilate a particular skill, in keeping with the mainline entries, and some make shorter work of subsequent baddies than others.  The boulder attack seemed particularly powerful.

The visuals are bright and chunky with some surprisingly great animation on some of the bosses, particularly the one in the gif below.  A good time.  [4 out of 6]



179. Sly Spy/Secret Agent - Arcade (25mins)

Data East 007 inspired horizontal fire run & gun that's amusing, reasonably playable but, realistically speaking, utter tosh.  I enjoyed it, despite the simplicity and general whiff of unfairness throughout.  I think it's fair to say that most of us would have loved stuff like this in 1989, so I can't be too harsh on it even with the benefit of hindsight.  This appeared a year after the Robocop arcade game yet doesn't allow diagonal fire and lacks both the iconic characters and general punchiness of that game's audiovisual wallop.  I know which one I'd rather play, but decided to rollsafe and play both anyway.  [3 out of 6]



180. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Arcade (35mins)

A big one from my childhood.  I was Turtles mad and for two summers this drank as much of my dad's money as I could beg for during caravan holidays.  I don't think I ever managed to wangle enough to finish it, having vague memories of the hoverboard section and not much past that point.  It wasn't until this appeared on XBLA that I played it in full and realised that time had been massively unkind to it.  Revisiting it a second time yesterday hasn't changed my mind - it's a polished package that was undeniably wonderful at the time.  There are plenty of neat touches and it's respectful to the source material and generally feels bang on for that kinda Hero Turtle vibe (rather than the dark Ninja chops of the 1990 film) but as a belt scroller it's weak, as are most of the classic Konami offerings imo ymmv.  

As a coin-op this was a huge deal and sounded exactly right, even down to the COWABUNGA shout as you drop more coins in.  The appeal has withered though, it's not a patch on subsequent Konami Turtles games (either in the arcade or at home) and it's probably best left in the past. The simplistic screen to screen combat is just about OK against fodder enemy types, but the coin guzzlingly brutal bosses ruin it and it runs out of steam after about 15 minutes.  TLDR:  Play it with four or don't play it at all.  [2.5 out of 6]

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me sounds like a laugh in multiplayer. Hope it hits Game Pass soon

Honestly finding it in the bargain book box at a small shop I occasionally had to work in at The Bluebell Railway was one of the highlights of my pre-teen life.

Review it pls!

Do it.  We need to know if it's 3 points shy of a [10], 3 points higher than a [0] or somewhere in between.  Or higher or lower.  

Edit: Or both, because opinions.

*shuffles feet, looking at ground*

Yeah, s'pose..

Oh no, absolutely not. A DOUBLE ICON sbc came out last night and my brain instinctively swiped on my phone to get to the app, that I have deleted. Staying strong.

@moot

Currently playing this Foot-to-ball simulator (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/football-tactics-glory-review) and it’s actually really good.

First impressions weren’t great, but it unfolds into the closest thing to classic PS1/2 era master league that I’ve ever played - all in a turn-based “Football Manager meets XCOM” fashion.

No time to put a review up yet, but this is a proper good’un.

Minnesänger wrote:

@moot

Currently playing this Foot-to-ball simulator (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/football-tactics-glory-review) and it’s actually really good.

First impressions weren’t great, but it unfolds into the closest thing to classic PS1/2 era master league that I’ve ever played - all in a turn-based “Football Manager meets XCOM” fashion.

No time to put a review up yet, but this is a proper good’un.

Under £2 in the Steam sale. I am on it

I've modded my first game and started at Gateshead. My assistant is hot as fuck, this is going to end in tears

Heh, sorry Sparky.

I thought the first season was rough and, like I said, first impressions weren't great. Some of the exam / tutorial bits were infuriating. The level of strategy seemed a bit crap. 

But then it started to click. And I learnt how to use skills properly. And I came up against teams better than me and slugged it out for a result. I'm in my 2nd season and i've now turned into Boring Arsenal, after getting promoted. My free-flowing, high-scoring old Amateur League days now given way to successive 1-0s or 0-0s. 

I have a team that is in desperate need of a refresh and new blood, and one wunderkind who I can feasibly sell to do the refurb I need. But at the same time I'm still in the hunt for promotion, and it's about finding the right time to cash in on him so that I can buy an actual winger, and maybe a striker who can head the ball. A 2nd midfielder who knows how to pass would also be nice. 

Games are quick, too, which helps - though, again, that was sth that frustrated me at first as I was trying to play "proper" football. In fact, you're effectively playing a highlights reel of attacks that matter, attacks that break down, last gasp tackles and one on one triumphs from your goalkeeper.

So yes, it starts bad. I also got it for fuck all money in the steam sale off the back of a rec, and i did not have a good time with it. Like you, paid fuck all and still felt cheated.

Then it started to click. Then I played 8 hours of it in under 2 days...

Paul the sparky wrote:

I just can't get past 6 at the back being a legit formation that the AI use against you.

How does that even work?

Love the digital box shot for this.

Didn't even know that existed.  If I buy FTG I might create Vornander and Minanda out of respect.  And maybe Burchet as an injury time supersub.