Just completed - The Bear and Badger

Unlikely

Thrust was a top game. Inverted gravity was a great twist.

Bob

As a bbc model b owner I have conflicting feelings about it

davyK

Thrust was solid on most micros as far as I'm aware. Played great on the CPC464. It even got a latter day homebrew port to the 2600 and it plays great on that.

EvilRedEye

Another one from Atari 50:

Surround (Atari 2600) - Competitive Snake, a bit like a non-licensed Tron light-cycle game. Now admittedly this was clearly designed as a primarily two-player experience and it would have been at least decent in that regard back in the day. However, it is undeniably aesthetically drab with a deeply irritating tone playing with each animation frame. I often felt bored playing it. The CPU has a tendency to be suicidal, even on the harder difficulty. I feel like even in two-player mode it would be a tempered, short-lived, and rather dated, kind of enjoyment. I thought about giving it [4] but I think it deserves an extra point for the actually-quite-nice digital art mode and the multiplayer potential. [5]

EvilRedEye

Outlaw (Atari 2600) - Primitive shooting game. The single-player modes are an insult. Should have shipped this as a two-player only game. [2]

davyK

Aye CPU in Surround is an imbecile. It's a splendid 2 player game even with the racket it makes though.

Surprised the homebrew community hasn't remade it. Outlaw got an excellent remake a few years ago called Gunfight.

EvilRedEye

Maze Invaders (Arcade) - This is an arcade game that had a few test units made but ultimately wasn’t rolled out as a proper release. It’s a mix of Pac-Man, shoot ‘em up and unique meta-map navigation where you navigate between screens using a map that is printed on the arcade cabinet in search of watermelon slices (the slightly frustrating aspect of this is that Atari 50 doesn’t display the full map around the game display - I had to look at a MAME border on my phone).

It seems to have split opinion online, with some finding it meh and others finding it underrated. I am one of the latter - I think it has a lot of charm and is fun to play. It has the ‘music only plays when you move’ mechanic from Dig-Dug, which I like. The map navigation mechanic is pretty interesting.

To ‘complete’ the game, I fully circumnavigated the map, completing each screen. I then also followed the watermelon around a full rotation of the map for good measure.

I think it’s a shame it was never released as I think it’s good old-fashioned arcade fun in the style of classic Namco machines. [7]

Blue Swirl

EvilRedEye wrote:

I then also followed the watermelon around a full rotation of the map for good measure.

Sentences you'll only see on a video games forum.

Moot_Geeza

It's actually dialogue from Christopher Nolan's Dirty Dancing 2.

hunk

Half Life: Black Mesa

Finally finished Xen. I could've sworn there were sonic like jump pads and stupid platforming bits involved in the final boss fight in the og hl? For better or worse crowbar changed the nihilanth boss fight. It flows a lot better, that's for sure, so I'm not complaining.

All in all, a terrific and very necessary remake. This is now the definitive way of playing Half-life 1. Lots of love, care and attention have been given in all the right places. The black Mesa complex itself is an awesome setpiece as is the otherworldly Xen. The enemy ai (especially the human SF) can be terrifying as they try to circle you, outflank you and flush you out. Remember, the og game was released in 97-98, which was 3-4 years before Halo combat evolved. Noone had ever seen fps NPC AI as advanced like this before. Good stuff. They toned it down in the sequel for some reason tho, but here the AI goes full tilt.

Gameplay is decent with a nice range of weapons. Some of the enemies and enemy models haven't aged particularly well. The aliens and bosses can look a bit out of place in the detailed environments as crowbar has chosen not to mess too much with the original designs. Like in the og, the NPC guards are hilarious. They seem to have a more prominent role now as backup with more lines of dialogue?

Sound and music are pretty good. Everything sounds as it should and the music drives the forward momentum of the gameplay.

The only criticism I can think of is there's no true stealth system implemented so you can't really sneak up on enemies. If you can see an enemy, no matter how far, the enemy will spot you -all, if not most of the time. There are also a lot of trial and error insta death chase sections. Nothing impossible, but they can sometimes hamper the flow of the game.

Still, for a remake it stays very close to the original. Not a bad thing as the original Half Life still plays like a monster. A monster who has stood the test of time quite well. Here's to 25 years of Half-life!

acemuzzy

Right, thank fuck, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch).

I actually think this is a bad game. It has poor mechanics, weak control fidelity, poor signposting for this kind of game, inconsistent difficulty, at times frustrating checkpoints, no real sense of difficulty progression, insta-death segments that you can't readily foresee, a losing sequence just long enough to grate, buddy characters that are only sometimes there, some better suited for the next bit than others often without clarity about which, nonsense rhino cameos, a bullshit snowball bit, weird camera angle changes, the odd silhouette section from nowhere, and just all a bit of a mess.

It looks pretty nice, which almost let's me stretch to a generous six, but fuck it, I'm going [5]. Fuck you moot, it sucks - I thought maybe I'd twig something I missed by playing all the way through, but no, it just gradually annoyed me more. How the fuck you rate this as top tier I'd a mystery I don't think I'll ever understand.

Wookienopants

Ok now I have to play this. I think it looks fantastic

acemuzzy

Can send you moot's cart once I'm home, if moot will allow. We can deem you The Adjudicator.

Wookienopants

Oh yes please, that would be lovely

Moot_Geeza

Yeah no probs. It's generally considered to be a good/very good game, I just happen to think it's a wee bit better than that. Tldr: me and Muzzy have slightly unorthadox takes on the merits of DKCTF.

EvilRedEye

Didn’t it have a funky new mode that made it easier or something?

acemuzzy

Brett gets it. https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze

Moot_Geeza

Yes - more health and spikes won't hurt you. I played through with Tilly on that mode and she only tapped out on the final world.

Moot_Geeza

Sounds like Brett the wasteman needs more hearts.

Dark Soldier

Muzzy being wrong on two great games in two days not really a shock fuckin hell

acemuzzy

Only two?

FTR Sekiro >>>> Callisto >>> DKC:TF

Moot_Geeza

Venba. This was good so Muzzy would probably either hate it or feel the need to unfavourably compare it to Sekiro.

DrewMerson

Blue Swirl

Regarding DKCTF (pretty sure I borrowed that from someone on here - Moot?), I lie somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it, but I only got through it because I used Funky mode. It was neither GOAT nor awful. I'd rate NSMB2 above it, and that's one of the forum's punching bags.

acemuzzy

DrewMerson wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

I actually think this is a bad game.

I have gone back to that game so many times, wondering what it is that Moot sees that I’m not seeing. I can see why Moot likes all the things he gets too much flak for liking, but this? I don’t think I’ll ever get it.

I've been pondering this, and think it comes down to two points...
- he thinks "trial and error" is good gameplay, and gets perverse satisfaction from persevering through it (laced with some early-90s nostalgia)
- something akin to Trump voter's disbelieving the election results, where if he acknowledged this game was actually shit it would open up too many other big questions about his whole gaming philosophy that his brain just won't - maybe can't - go there; it's a defence mechanism

TLDR: he's moran

Bollockoff

hunk wrote:

Half Life: Black Mesa

Finally finished Xen. I could've sworn there were sonic like jump pads and stupid platforming bits involved in the final boss fight in the og hl? For better or worse crowbar changed the nihilanth boss fight. It flows a lot better, that's for sure, so I'm not complaining.

All in all, a terrific and very necessary remake. This is now the definitive way of playing Half-life 1. Lots of love, care and attention have been given in all the right places. The black Mesa complex itself is an awesome setpiece as is the otherworldly Xen. The enemy ai (especially the human SF) can be terrifying as they try to circle you, outflank you and flush you out. Remember, the og game was released in 97-98, which was 3-4 years before Halo combat evolved. Noone had ever seen fps NPC AI as advanced like this before. Good stuff. They toned it down in the sequel for some reason tho, but here the AI goes full tilt.

Gameplay is decent with a nice range of weapons. Some of the enemies and enemy models haven't aged particularly well. The aliens and bosses can look a bit out of place in the detailed environments as crowbar has chosen not to mess too much with the original designs. Like in the og, the NPC guards are hilarious. They seem to have a more prominent role now as backup with more lines of dialogue?

Sound and music are pretty good. Everything sounds as it should and the music drives the forward momentum of the gameplay.

The only criticism I can think of is there's no true stealth system implemented so you can't really sneak up on enemies. If you can see an enemy, no matter how far, the enemy will spot you -all, if not most of the time. There are also a lot of trial and error insta death chase sections. Nothing impossible, but they can sometimes hamper the flow of the game.

Still, for a remake it stays very close to the original. Not a bad thing as the original Half Life still plays like a monster. A monster who has stood the test of time quite well. Here's to 25 years of Half-life!

The only complaint I had was that the Gonarch section is too long.

hunk

When playing the Gonarch (gonad?) chapter it also felt a bit too long. In hindsight it's very close to the original and almost perfect? It's stuck in my memory that's for sure.

hunk

Haven't played a dkc since the SNES days but....Trial and error in games can sometimes be an enjoyable and legit part of the gameplay learning curve. Think Dark Souls.

Unless you absolutely detest Dark Souls for that very same reason ofc. Different strokes for different folks etc.

hunk

I have no idea if Dkc tropical freeze is a good game or not.

hylian_elf

Wookienopants wrote:

Ok now I have to play this. I think it looks fantastic

It’s shit. You’ll love it.

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