Blue Swirl wrote:

Were there explosions that dealt no damage? I presume your character stumbles at some point, just to add tension?

Got it in one.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

The game game thing might explain why I enjoyed it.

It’s the definition of a 7/10. It was enjoyable, but could’ve been more.

It's laid back but I always liked that one, especially in co-op.

Un-deleted Spider-man 2, and gave it a proper go. Completed it. Still crap. But, maybe, slightly less crap than I originally thought.

Minnesänger wrote:

Un-deleted Spider-man 2, and gave it a proper go. Completed it. Still crap. But, maybe, slightly less crap than I originally thought.

Reads like a eurogamer 3 out of 5

I quite liked it on the whole but the Edge [9] felt very wrong indeed.

aye. fine for what it was but nothing special and not the best game of the year by a long shot.

Bushi Seiryuuden ~Futari no Yuusha~ (Warriors: Legend of the Blue Dragon ~The Two Heroes~ (Super Famicom) - What if Zelda II was a good feudal Japan-inspired SNES game instead of a crap NES game? That is the question that Bushi Seiryuuden answers with aplomb. A Japan-only game on its original release, its title has been translated to Warriors: Legend of the Blue Dragon for the fan translation. The game was released by Game Freak between Pokemon Red and Blue’s original Japanese release and the launch of the Western versions, demonstrating that the critical success of Pokemon was no fluke.

As 15-year-old Jin, you are tasked with taking on the forces of the evil god of the ocean. Joining you is Woku, a girl transformed into a flying monster, who allows you to jump and hover across levels and who is also able to use a range of unlockable abilities. Your own attacks are primarily sword-based but you also have an upgradable ranged weapon that doubles as a temporary shield. Combat encounters are a bit like a side-on Shiren the Wanderer, with the action being turned-based. Each combat encounter is bespoke rather than random with the enemies moving about on the open-world - each have a target number of turns and beating the encounter under target earns you magatama that you need to collect to demolish the evil god’s tower.

The game is a late release for the Super Famicom and looks it - the graphics are a really nice sprite-based affair with big character illustrations by Pokemon character artist Ken Sugimori in the town and story sequences. The game is progressively designed without being a pushover - if you don’t look after your health, you could easily die to ordinary enemies (fortunately save points are frequent). Later on, there some fun puzzle-based dungeons, the hardest of which is a genuine puzzler workout.

The music is competent but not that memorable. The story is a bit more interesting than the generic Zelda narrative but is still sub-Final Fantasy. But overall, if you collect enough magatama to get the good ending, it leaves off on a nice note.

This really hit the spot for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The feudal Japan-inspired setting, while apparently preventing a localisation, is an interesting change from Zelda-esque fantasy worlds and the gameplay works really well. A completionist playthrough took me 26 hours so a nice length that doesn’t outstay its welcome. I’d give this a strong recommendation for fans of SNES JRPGs and Zelda - this would be a well-remembered game had it received a Western release. [8]

It’s worth saying my play time is longer than any on How Long To Beat, which says a basic story playthrough is 14.5 hours.

I almost never play long retro games unfortunately. Replaying Shinong Force 2 a couple of years ago was the exception.

Jurassic Park (Mega CD) - This is a completely different game to the other 16-bit versions and is a point-and-click. Your task is to collect seven different varieties of dinosaur egg, place them in the incubator and then escape the island.

The major CD content comes in the form of information terminals dotted around the island. There is a nice edutainment aspect as the real-life dinosaur expert who consulted on the movie gives you facts about the dinosaurs, which you then need to utilise in the game. You also receive the occasional FMV update on the story from a scientist lady. There is also the occasional FMV-based transition from one location to another, plus some of the background audio is real audio. That’s it. The FMV is all people talking to a camera and stuff that was probably filmed at the local park. There doesn’t seem to have been any real budget allocated to the FMV. The most high-effort section is the visitor centre, which is rendered in 3D with animated 3D transitions but this is just the one area. This was hyped up as featuring Q-Sound, which is supposedly a revolution in multi-directional sound. The sound design is utterly mediocre and the limited music appears to have been composed with GENS.

There is some nice pixel art and consequently some nice 2D animations of dinosaurs but other than that there’s not much to recommend this. The gameplay is bad and, frankly, spiteful. It just feels like the developers are trying to spite you to stop you just renting this and finishing it in an afternoon. The whole game is too pernickety. There is an overall time limit that is genuinely quite tight and requires actual min-maxing. I had to restart a nearly complete playthrough of the game due to this. You could also be forced to restart if you don’t retain enough tranquilliser darts for the combat encounter at the very end of the game. You must also pick up random rocks on the ground whenever you encounter them otherwise you won’t have time to go back and collect them later. The rocks are the key to all this - you require each and every one to complete the game. One of the rocks appears in a green night vision section in a sequence where you only have a few seconds to progress before you are eaten by dinosaurs. You are unlikely to notice it unless a walkthrough tells you it is there.

The whole game is like this. It’s understandable that in a game about dinosaurs, fucking with the dinosaurs will get you killed. But the game goes out of its way to put you in these frustrating encounters where you simultaneously need to explore yet also complete actions with lightning reflexes to not die. It’s not really in the spirit of the genre. I would have preferred something a bit more cerebral with some funny death sequences if you annoy the dinosaurs. As it is, the game always does a basic cut to black when you die so you don’t even get much fun out of that.

I was going to give this a point higher but the game ends with a genuinely hateful combat encounter that destroyed what remained of my goodwill towards the game. There was the potential for at least a mediocre, perhaps even moderately good game here but it appears to have been squandered, in large part because not enough resources seem to have been put into the project (I’ve read a quote from a developer along the lines of they did well managing to out the game out at all). Not recommended. [3]

Cheers. I’ll maybe give that a look/listen. The ending (and some recent job listings) suggests they’re not done with the world, even if they’re done with the characters.

Going to give it another go but in VR. The base game just didn’t grab. Admittedly I only completed about 3 levels.

I thought it was great, Elf showing his class yet again.

tbh I'm please for you all

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade) - My entire personality is Cadillacs and Dinosaurs now. I’ve been playing the games, I’ve been watching the cartoons and I’ve been struggling to source a copy of the comics.

Due to man-made environmental collapse, the Earth becomes uninhabitable for humans and people have to hideout underground, Fallout-style, for hundreds of years. Humankind re-emerges to find that evolution has mysteriously surged in their absence and dinosaurs now once again stalk the Earth. People are divided as to how to live in this new Earth - some decide to respect nature to avoid another catastrophe while others are poachers, disrespecting nature, and some even seek to use science to drastically change or destroy nature. The good nature-loving guys (and gal) of New York are surprisingly hyper-masculine and now drive Cadillacs (powered by dinosaur poop according to the lore) and beat the shit out of poachers with their powerful physiques.

Consequently, this well-remembered arcade game is an side-scrolling beat-em-up where you punch, shoot and vehicular-manslaughter your way through eight levels to protect the environment from an evil plot. Three players are able to join the fun and the game adds an original fourth character to the cast so that three fellas can play without one of ‘em having to play as the lady like some kind o’ stinkin’ homo.

The sprites are big and the unreconstructedly masculine combat is violent and fun, with blood splattering off enemies as you shotgun them to ribbons and so on. It’s very much a 16-bit side-scrolling brawl on steroids of the kind you simply wouldn’t be able to get on console.

It’s a fun game but as a single-player freeplay game it turns into a bit of a mindless slog through the content as the multiplayer focus means you continue on the spot instead of, say, having to use your skills to complete each level within a single continue. The parasite boss is also a bit cheap. I imagine it was very fun to play with friends at the arcade back in the day though.

Overall, it’s a solid one-o’-these and worth a look if you like the genre. [7]