Recently I’ve been playing some Midnight Club II. Originally I was going to wait until I finished it to talk about it, since I was making pretty quick progress through it and it’s a very short game in general, but I’ve hit a point where I doubt I’m going to play it any more.
I have played this back around release on the original Xbox, but never touched it since then up until somewhat recently when I gave the PC version a shot. I didn’t get far on that attempt, but then in the last few days on a whim I tried it out on PCSX2 and found myself having a surprisingly good time with it. Or at first I was anyway.
This game has a pretty cool and distinct style compared to Midnight Club 3 that has an appealing nostalgia to it. It has more of a Y2K aesthetic rather than the mid-2000s hip-hop theme of the sequel. It also has a more international feel in taking place in cities from around the world rather than just the US. The music is all EDM, and changes depending on the city to fit the locale better. It has something of a darker and moodier tone, but it’s also in a way more cartoonish. All the racers you face are individual characters that are portrayed with plastic-looking and highly stylised 3D renders. They’re all different personalities from a range of different nations, usually as some stereotype with their own local slang. This can range from fun subculture archetypes to pretty racist caricatures however. The latter of which shows up a lot when you arrive in Tokyo.
The actual gameplay feels pretty good though, and has a similar appeal to MC3. It has that same sense of inertia and snappiness to the cars. Although it doesn’t have quite as much nuance to it, and the cars feel sort of toy-like in comparison. At the beginning of the game it has less of a sense of chaos that could drag down the fun of MC3, but that changes over time. It gradually ratchets up the chaos as cars get faster, more traffic litters the streets, and the environments get more crowded with obstacles. While playing on the emulator made things a bit more tolerable thanks to save states allowing for quick restarts, and a 60fps hack that ironically makes this better than the frame limited PC version, that only goes so far. It’s so easy for a race to go irredeemably wrong because an opponent brushed you and spun you out, or traffic was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was too late to react, or any number of the tiny split-second things that are out of your control happen and send you careening off in to the wall.
The general design of the game feels underdeveloped compared to the follow-up as well. Some of this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just that it’s a simpler game with less to offer. There are no car classes and so cars don’t feel as different to each other. There are none of the class-specific abilities. There’s no upgrades or customisation. The only races are the ones against other named characters, with only at most a couple available at any one time. That stuff isn’t all bad, but I think when it comes to the layouts of tracks there are some serious issues. A lot of extremely sharp and unnatural feeling turns, and a higher number of the non-ordered checkpoint races that aren’t strung together in a way that feels logical, and where checkpoints are clustered together in groups rather than just being one per location makes for some really messy and confusing navigation that isn’t even particularly satisfying to get right.
Although I started off enjoying this game I eventually hit a brick wall about 75% of the way through where all these annoyances bubbled up to a point where I just lost patience with it. Near impossible races where it felt like most of my failures were no fault of my own or too twitchy to react to, along routes that weren’t enjoyable and felt carelessly laid out. Not worth the perpetual restarts to inch forward to make progress towards the next inevitable wall. I guess it was fun to get a bit of nostalgia revisiting this game that I haven’t really engaged with in so long, which at one point was a pretty big deal to me, but that has since kind of slipped in to obscurity behind the later entries. I don’t really like leaving things off on this point, especially since I’m so near the end, but I felt the desire to post something anyway, and put some kind of conclusion to my time with it.
Whatcha Been Playing?
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Jobobonobo
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- Joined: July 27th, 2016, 4:30 pm
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Since Yakuza: Like A Dragon will be featured on the podcast next week I have been trying to finish it up as quick as possible. Just started the final chapter now so hopefully I will get that sorted before the podcast is out. Been enjoying it a lot and the turn based system has been a great change of pace to the tried and true Yakuza formula. Also has one of the strongest stories in the series as well. Hopefully they stick the landing with the ending.
Also have done over 100 hours on Pokemon Radical Red and am now starting Victory Road! Not in a hurry with this one but yeah there is so much to do with this game and the battles are so much tougher that this is easily one of the most challenging and compelling Pokemon games I have ever played. Lots of fun and easily recommended to anyone who wants a more substantial experience with the Pokemon series.
Also have done over 100 hours on Pokemon Radical Red and am now starting Victory Road! Not in a hurry with this one but yeah there is so much to do with this game and the battles are so much tougher that this is easily one of the most challenging and compelling Pokemon games I have ever played. Lots of fun and easily recommended to anyone who wants a more substantial experience with the Pokemon series.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Xenoblade Chronicles - on my third attempt to play this. I played around 15/20 hours on the Wii original and the same again on the Switch remaster last year. Just came back to my save and decided to start again. I really want to like this game but I just find it so confusing and complicated. It throws so much at you right at the start, gems, combat, crafting, tutorial after tutorial, it's really overwhelming. I'll try to stick with it this time! I do like the game, the combat is a lot of fun, they just throw way too much info at you to get your head around I think. Don't think I've ever got too far in the story because I have spent most the time grinding levels in previous tries!
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Started a new game which was released last week for the deluxe edition but tomorrow for standard called Classified France 44. It's published by Team17 and is an XCOM like set in WW2 in the run up to D-Day. I've been enjoying it a lot. It introduces some cool new systems like a morality system whereby every unit (both your units and the enemy) have a morale bar, just like a health bar which gets depleted when they get shot at or explosions near them. When this depletes to zero that unit becomes 'broken' for one turn which just means they can't do anything, even move, for one turn. I really like it because it means that even those shots with have a 0% chance of hitting have some kind of impact to proceedings.
Then there is the overwatch system which has a neat feature whereby once an enemy enters your overwatch cone, you can decide to shoot them or ignore them in favour of the next enemy that might come within range. It's good if there's 2 or more enemies you know will be going through your radius but you know one is nearly dead whereas the other is full health, or maybe one of them needs to be prioritised over the other if they're more dangerous.
The base camp isn't as deep as XCOM 2 or Warhammer Dameonhunters but there is more depth to it than something like Mario Rabbids or Gears Tactics. Each unit has a skill tree but the real depth comes from the map where you have choices of which regions to target and which factions to partner with. Each decision you make has ramifications for your preparation to D-Day which the game is counting down the days to.
My only real slight issue is that graphically the game isn't great, it looks like a PS3 game, especially when it does the up close action shots. It's current gen only which surprises me as I don't see why this wouldn't work on Switch and last gen.
Well worth checking out though if you like XCOM style games.
Then there is the overwatch system which has a neat feature whereby once an enemy enters your overwatch cone, you can decide to shoot them or ignore them in favour of the next enemy that might come within range. It's good if there's 2 or more enemies you know will be going through your radius but you know one is nearly dead whereas the other is full health, or maybe one of them needs to be prioritised over the other if they're more dangerous.
The base camp isn't as deep as XCOM 2 or Warhammer Dameonhunters but there is more depth to it than something like Mario Rabbids or Gears Tactics. Each unit has a skill tree but the real depth comes from the map where you have choices of which regions to target and which factions to partner with. Each decision you make has ramifications for your preparation to D-Day which the game is counting down the days to.
My only real slight issue is that graphically the game isn't great, it looks like a PS3 game, especially when it does the up close action shots. It's current gen only which surprises me as I don't see why this wouldn't work on Switch and last gen.
Well worth checking out though if you like XCOM style games.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I got a new Evercade cartridge in the post this morning, the Tanglewood/Xeno Crisis double pack. So instead of writing a risk assessment for court like I'm supposed to be doing I obviously had a little go...
Xeno Crisis is a fantastic top down twin stick shooter, developed for the Sega Megadrive (and that's the version we have here) which uses the face buttons to shoot. You might think it would be a bit fiddly but you soon get the hang of it. It's a brilliant little arcade shooter. Tough, too. I only reached level 3 on my first go, and I think there's a rogue-like aspect to the game with randomly generated layouts of the stages. You can upgrade weapons and armour etc. between levels with currency you've collected, and it looks and sounds gorgeous, especially on the smaller Evercade handheld screen.
Tanglewood is another genuine Megadrive game. A mascot platformer where you play as a fox who can run, jump and use special abilities. More emphasis is put on puzzle solving as although there are occasional enemies that harm you, you cannot kill them (or at least not so far, anyway) as there is no combat in the game. With a minimal soundtrack and some sound effects the game has a lot of atmosphere. The closest game I think it really comes to is Ecco The Dolphin for how it plays. It's fun so far, look forward to playing more.
I really love the Evercade. It's got such a variety of games. Double packs like this one, the fantastic Alwa's Awakening and Cathedral pack, the Demons of Asteborg and Astebros pack, plus heaps of cartridges from arcade classics like Pacman and other Namco games to more obscure European software houses like Gaelco with World Rally etc. Then still, more stuff with old Amiga classics like Another World and some old point and click adventures, C64 compilations, a Dizzy compilation, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder etc. I went away to London for a few days recently and didn't even take my Switch, just the Evercade. It's a great little system, and cheap too with carts only being £17.99 for up to 10/15/20 games in some cases.
(I do not work for Evercade
)
Xeno Crisis is a fantastic top down twin stick shooter, developed for the Sega Megadrive (and that's the version we have here) which uses the face buttons to shoot. You might think it would be a bit fiddly but you soon get the hang of it. It's a brilliant little arcade shooter. Tough, too. I only reached level 3 on my first go, and I think there's a rogue-like aspect to the game with randomly generated layouts of the stages. You can upgrade weapons and armour etc. between levels with currency you've collected, and it looks and sounds gorgeous, especially on the smaller Evercade handheld screen.
Tanglewood is another genuine Megadrive game. A mascot platformer where you play as a fox who can run, jump and use special abilities. More emphasis is put on puzzle solving as although there are occasional enemies that harm you, you cannot kill them (or at least not so far, anyway) as there is no combat in the game. With a minimal soundtrack and some sound effects the game has a lot of atmosphere. The closest game I think it really comes to is Ecco The Dolphin for how it plays. It's fun so far, look forward to playing more.
I really love the Evercade. It's got such a variety of games. Double packs like this one, the fantastic Alwa's Awakening and Cathedral pack, the Demons of Asteborg and Astebros pack, plus heaps of cartridges from arcade classics like Pacman and other Namco games to more obscure European software houses like Gaelco with World Rally etc. Then still, more stuff with old Amiga classics like Another World and some old point and click adventures, C64 compilations, a Dizzy compilation, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder etc. I went away to London for a few days recently and didn't even take my Switch, just the Evercade. It's a great little system, and cheap too with carts only being £17.99 for up to 10/15/20 games in some cases.
(I do not work for Evercade
)Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Been playing more of this today, it's such a perfect little arcade game. Tough as nails, but such good fun and the controls translate to the Evercade buttons really well. I had a go on the Vita port recently which uses the right stick to shoot and of course it's a little easier, but the buttons on the Evercade do a great job. Would be nice if the next Evercade handheld had some sticks though, especially if they're moving in to some PS1 and N64 era games. I'd recommend anyone pick up Xeno Crisis, I think it's available on pretty much everything.Alex79 wrote: ↑March 4th, 2024, 1:39 pmXeno Crisis is a fantastic top down twin stick shooter, developed for the Sega Megadrive (and that's the version we have here) which uses the face buttons to shoot. You might think it would be a bit fiddly but you soon get the hang of it. It's a brilliant little arcade shooter. Tough, too. I only reached level 3 on my first go, and I think there's a rogue-like aspect to the game with randomly generated layouts of the stages. You can upgrade weapons and armour etc. between levels with currency you've collected, and it looks and sounds gorgeous, especially on the smaller Evercade handheld screen.
Also playing the completely unrelated but similarly named Xenoblade Chronicles still on Switch. I'm about 15 hours in and got about as far as I've got the other times I've played it, but it's clicking a lot more this time, getting my head round all the arts and skill trees etc. The story is surprisingly decent for a JRPG, too. Keeping me interested, anyway. I like the way the game handles side quests, too. Basically just accept every possible side quest (and there are hundreds) because most of them are just kill X amount of monsters or find something quests, and you rarely have to go back to the quest giver to complete them, so you just earn loads of XP by playing the game normally, it's good.
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Cornelius_Smiff
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- Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
For some reason I wasted (it feels like it anyway) £30.00 on Helldivers 2. Now I have nobody to play it with and it's very annoying.
Also hopped back into Elden Ring and trying to do a level 1 run, which is insanely difficult but super fun.
Also hopped back into Elden Ring and trying to do a level 1 run, which is insanely difficult but super fun.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
A few days ago I started Lost Judgement. I have only played Zero, Like a Dragon and Judgement in the Yakuza series and perhaps controversially, Judgement was my favourite of the 3. The detective storyline just appealed to me more than the politics of the Yakuza games. I also really like Yagami as a main character so Lost Judgement was always a game I planned to get around to.
So far it's been great, it starts with a tailing mission which is the one thing I seriously hated from the first game, so that wasn't a great start but after that it's great. The story surrounding bullying in this high school and how it links to the murder of a student teacher has me hooked and it the combat feels better than it has ever been. It seems much easier to dodge and counter. It still has the great atmosphere and hilarious takedown moves you come to expect from the series too. Looking forward to playing more.
So far it's been great, it starts with a tailing mission which is the one thing I seriously hated from the first game, so that wasn't a great start but after that it's great. The story surrounding bullying in this high school and how it links to the murder of a student teacher has me hooked and it the combat feels better than it has ever been. It seems much easier to dodge and counter. It still has the great atmosphere and hilarious takedown moves you come to expect from the series too. Looking forward to playing more.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I think a lot of people liked Judgement best. I really enjoyed it, it's probably my second favourite after Yakuza Kiwami 2. Still need to get round to playing the second Judgement game.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I think I've come to peace with not going back to the previous Yakuza games and just see what happens with the Like a Dragon series. I am tempted by Infinite Wealth but the first game put me off a little due to the grind and difficulty spikes. Due to the voice actor issues it seems like we won't get another Judgement entry which is a huge shame, but I hope we still get a spin off with the brawler combat instead of turn based.
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DeadpoolNegative
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- Joined: April 16th, 2015, 5:00 am
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I've seen it theorized that the Judgment series will continue with the Kaito character in the lead, and the DLC in Judgment is a part of that.
I've been playing Judgment this month on the Series X (It was never made available for the One) to and while at first I thought it paled a bit in comparison to Lost Judgment, and it has a LOT of tailing missions, now that I'm nearly 20 hours in the story's gotten really absorbing, byzantine in the way Yakuza games are but feeling more impactful than they usually do. The series can expand to contain more social issues in an organic way than, say, the Like a Dragon series does.
Dead Cells- this metrovidvania style rogue like has been in GamePass for a While, and I tried it out, got addicted to it for weeks, but then got really greedy in a run and lost a ton of stuff twice, and I was so embarrassed with myself I had to tap out for a while. The gameplay loop is addicting, but not as addicting as...
Brotato- holy crap, I do love this. every run is short and sweet, every run brings a new, crazy awesome item or weapon. the difficulty spikes don't help at the end of the run, but planning your specs and weapons and getting more powerful, it's the best Vampire Survivors clone yet. Speaking of:
Vampire Survivors- the new DLC is in no way sus- I've gotten more powerful than ever before doing the Among Us Planet. Wild! But I've also found it's best to do a bunch of runs, take a break, then start it up again after I've gotten to miss it. Keeps it fresh than if I was just playing all the time.
Call of the Wild: the Angler- thanks, Xbox GamePass! This game is a pretty decent fisihing simulator, if not a particularly deep one, but the open world is magificent to look at and it's worth it to drive around unlocking fast travel areas.
I've been playing Judgment this month on the Series X (It was never made available for the One) to and while at first I thought it paled a bit in comparison to Lost Judgment, and it has a LOT of tailing missions, now that I'm nearly 20 hours in the story's gotten really absorbing, byzantine in the way Yakuza games are but feeling more impactful than they usually do. The series can expand to contain more social issues in an organic way than, say, the Like a Dragon series does.
- Spoiler: show
Dead Cells- this metrovidvania style rogue like has been in GamePass for a While, and I tried it out, got addicted to it for weeks, but then got really greedy in a run and lost a ton of stuff twice, and I was so embarrassed with myself I had to tap out for a while. The gameplay loop is addicting, but not as addicting as...
Brotato- holy crap, I do love this. every run is short and sweet, every run brings a new, crazy awesome item or weapon. the difficulty spikes don't help at the end of the run, but planning your specs and weapons and getting more powerful, it's the best Vampire Survivors clone yet. Speaking of:
Vampire Survivors- the new DLC is in no way sus- I've gotten more powerful than ever before doing the Among Us Planet. Wild! But I've also found it's best to do a bunch of runs, take a break, then start it up again after I've gotten to miss it. Keeps it fresh than if I was just playing all the time.
Call of the Wild: the Angler- thanks, Xbox GamePass! This game is a pretty decent fisihing simulator, if not a particularly deep one, but the open world is magificent to look at and it's worth it to drive around unlocking fast travel areas.
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Jobobonobo
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- Posts: 581
- Joined: July 27th, 2016, 4:30 pm
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
So finally got around to finishing Victory Road and am now facing the Elite Four in Pokemon Radical Red. And it plays a really mean trick on you. One of the (many) QOL improvements this ROM hack has is that you can access the PC at any time so you can swap Pokemon in and out on the go. I would usually grind my Pokemon until the level cap and swap them out for another monster. I foolishly thought this would be the case with the Elite Four. So unlike the base game the first Elite Four member Lorelei has only one ice type and all her other Pokemon are water types. So I packed my team full of Grass and Electric types and felt elated after I finally beat her. Now onto Bruno, better swap this team out for a new round of Pokemon. They disabled the PC function when you are facing the Elite Four! So you really have to make sure you have a well balanced team if you want to tackle these guys! This game loves throwing curve-balls like that. This will probably take a few tries...
If anyone tries a Nuzlocke of this and complete this ROM hack I will be seriously impressed.
If anyone tries a Nuzlocke of this and complete this ROM hack I will be seriously impressed.
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Caligulas Horse
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- Joined: March 28th, 2019, 5:08 pm
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I'm trying to platinum Elden Ring in anticipation for the DLC. I could probably do it a lot quicker if I wasn't also challenging myself to beat the end game bosses without using a mimic tear or co-op. I'm not someone that looks down on people playing the game with Mimic tear or co-op (nor do I think it makes the game easy!), the extra challenge is just to make it a little more interesting.
Malenia is wiping the floor with me at the moment, though, so hopefully I will actually finish by June lol.
Malenia is wiping the floor with me at the moment, though, so hopefully I will actually finish by June lol.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Erstwhile active forum member KSubzero1000 came over to my spot on Thursday and stayed for a few days and we got a good bit of gaming in!
Off the top, we played Schildmaid MX (PC), DariusBurst AC (on PC in ultra wide screen settings), Gradius Gaiden (PS1), Soukyugurentai (SAT), Super Puzzle Fighter II-X (SAT), The Last Blade 2 (on Dreamcast and I was just showing off how beautiful the game is while playing through the arcade ladder with Washizuka), The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (On Gamecube, this time just single player, but maybe next time we'll have the hardware required to play it coop), Mario Power Tennis (On Gamecube and we got way too much into this - sweaty and above all extra stressful stuff), Robotron 2084 and Smash TV (o.g. Xbox on Midway Arcade Treasures), Robotron 64 (N64), Nex Machina (PC) Super Castlevania IV (SNES), Dead or Alive 4 (on X360: it's the sole series of fighting games Ksub ever got into and I only ever played it very casually, so he took me to school on the game's systems), Windjammers and Windjammers 2 (both on Nintendo Switch).
I recently also used my birthday as an excuse to invite a bunch of video game loving friends over for a gaming night and we had about 14 people distributed over and rotating between a variety of screens and consoles, playing a bunch of stuff ranging from Street Fighter II Turbo and Super Street Fighter II on the SNES Classic and actual SNES to Ultra Street Fighter IV on PC, Tekken 8 on PS5, Samba de Amigo ver. 2000 on Dreamcast (thanks to Leon), Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus on Wii, Super Mario 3D World on Switch and Nintendo World Cup with the 4 player adapter on the NES.
Off the top, we played Schildmaid MX (PC), DariusBurst AC (on PC in ultra wide screen settings), Gradius Gaiden (PS1), Soukyugurentai (SAT), Super Puzzle Fighter II-X (SAT), The Last Blade 2 (on Dreamcast and I was just showing off how beautiful the game is while playing through the arcade ladder with Washizuka), The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (On Gamecube, this time just single player, but maybe next time we'll have the hardware required to play it coop), Mario Power Tennis (On Gamecube and we got way too much into this - sweaty and above all extra stressful stuff), Robotron 2084 and Smash TV (o.g. Xbox on Midway Arcade Treasures), Robotron 64 (N64), Nex Machina (PC) Super Castlevania IV (SNES), Dead or Alive 4 (on X360: it's the sole series of fighting games Ksub ever got into and I only ever played it very casually, so he took me to school on the game's systems), Windjammers and Windjammers 2 (both on Nintendo Switch).
I recently also used my birthday as an excuse to invite a bunch of video game loving friends over for a gaming night and we had about 14 people distributed over and rotating between a variety of screens and consoles, playing a bunch of stuff ranging from Street Fighter II Turbo and Super Street Fighter II on the SNES Classic and actual SNES to Ultra Street Fighter IV on PC, Tekken 8 on PS5, Samba de Amigo ver. 2000 on Dreamcast (thanks to Leon), Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus on Wii, Super Mario 3D World on Switch and Nintendo World Cup with the 4 player adapter on the NES.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Had a fair bit of new stuff that I played the last few weeks so I might as well talk about them now! So first off, I downloaded a few demos on my PS4 as there were a few titles I wanted to check out. First off was Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. Took me a while to get the hang of parrying but otherwise, pretty fun little metroidvania from the time I spent with it. Ironically, outside of Metroid I don’t play these games too often but I liked what I seen here enough that it might be a genre I should explore more. I do like that feeling when you get a new upgrade and your mind races to all the past occasions where this item/move could have come in handy so I might try out Lost Crown properly in the future.
The next game I tried was Cherry Tower. It is a 2D platformer where you are a cherry climbing a tower, so pretty self explanatory. It is one of those Super Meat Boy type games where one wrong move kills you and there are plenty of checkpoints dotted along the place so as to not be too frustrating. Very nitpicky but in the first tutorial screen, it tells you that how to jump but the ledge is too high to do a regular jump so you have to double jump. Then after you cleared that, then it teaches you how to double jump! Not the worst design sin but just making the ledge a little lower would have avoided this type of sloppiness. The music also loops for around 15 seconds so becomes monotonous quickly. I hope the soundtrack is a bit more varied in the full game! Other than that, this was just alright. I feel 2D platformers are so well represented these days with loads of top quality entries that standing out can be pretty hard to do. As a result Cherry Tower is OK but definitely not interesting enough to warrant a full purchase.
The last demo I tried was Star Ocean the Second Story R. So I never played the original Star Ocean 2 so all of this was new to me. I liked that it was in HD-2D but in a different way to how Square Enix did it before. Very lush visuals and overall presentation. The combat is nice and frantic and enemies being visible on screen before combat is always appreciated. It does tend to be a little overwhelming with how much it introduces new systems and concepts within such a short period of time though and I figured since I had a three hour limit that it did not make sense to fully read up and learn everything the game throws at you. Also the cutscenes drag on. I swear to god, I was holding the speed up button throughout these chatty parts and the speed of dialogue felt identical to normal speed. Every time that mayor appeared I was thinking “Oh god, not you again”. But I liked what I played so far despite those issues. Not something I am eager to jump into straight away but maybe could be something to try down the line when I need something with a Sci-fi flavour.
Finally, because it was on sale, I got myself Stray as this was always something I wanted to check out and the podcast doing an episode on it gave me the impetus to play it. Still early days but love the atmosphere of this and playing as a cat is delightful in general. Just hearing the purring and trilling sounds your cat makes reminded me of a pet cat I had when I was very small and brings up very pleasant memories to me. Excited to try more!
The next game I tried was Cherry Tower. It is a 2D platformer where you are a cherry climbing a tower, so pretty self explanatory. It is one of those Super Meat Boy type games where one wrong move kills you and there are plenty of checkpoints dotted along the place so as to not be too frustrating. Very nitpicky but in the first tutorial screen, it tells you that how to jump but the ledge is too high to do a regular jump so you have to double jump. Then after you cleared that, then it teaches you how to double jump! Not the worst design sin but just making the ledge a little lower would have avoided this type of sloppiness. The music also loops for around 15 seconds so becomes monotonous quickly. I hope the soundtrack is a bit more varied in the full game! Other than that, this was just alright. I feel 2D platformers are so well represented these days with loads of top quality entries that standing out can be pretty hard to do. As a result Cherry Tower is OK but definitely not interesting enough to warrant a full purchase.
The last demo I tried was Star Ocean the Second Story R. So I never played the original Star Ocean 2 so all of this was new to me. I liked that it was in HD-2D but in a different way to how Square Enix did it before. Very lush visuals and overall presentation. The combat is nice and frantic and enemies being visible on screen before combat is always appreciated. It does tend to be a little overwhelming with how much it introduces new systems and concepts within such a short period of time though and I figured since I had a three hour limit that it did not make sense to fully read up and learn everything the game throws at you. Also the cutscenes drag on. I swear to god, I was holding the speed up button throughout these chatty parts and the speed of dialogue felt identical to normal speed. Every time that mayor appeared I was thinking “Oh god, not you again”. But I liked what I played so far despite those issues. Not something I am eager to jump into straight away but maybe could be something to try down the line when I need something with a Sci-fi flavour.
Finally, because it was on sale, I got myself Stray as this was always something I wanted to check out and the podcast doing an episode on it gave me the impetus to play it. Still early days but love the atmosphere of this and playing as a cat is delightful in general. Just hearing the purring and trilling sounds your cat makes reminded me of a pet cat I had when I was very small and brings up very pleasant memories to me. Excited to try more!
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I've been playing a bit of TOCA Race Driver 3. A game I've long heard good things about but never played before now. I have wanted to, considering it's the predecessor to Race Driver: GRID, one of my favourite racing games of all time. Turns out this one is quite impressive too. It clearly shares a lot of similarities with GRID as well, but with a slightly different focus. The breadth of different racing disciplines is really impressive, and provides a very wide variety of racing styles that always have you doing something different as you make your way through the career. Each type of car does feel very different to drive as well, and most of them are pretty good. It's sort of familiar to GRID in that it's presented in a pretty authentic and serious way, and a lot of real racing concepts and techniques apply here, but in terms of how it actually feels in the hands, it's pretty arcadey and approachable. Cars are generally very grippy and intuitive. Although braking points and racing line do still matter a lot, and losing control with poor application of throttle is a risk in certain types of car. It's a really good handling model that isn't hard to get to grips with but still gets you invested in trying to get the most out of it.
This game is significantly more serious and technical than the follow-up though. It doesn't have the stylistic flair of that game and has a pretty straightforward and basic presentation. It has some personality with the occasional CG cutscene that plays when you do certain things though. You can tweak the settings of your car like in the majority of more serious sims out there, to quite an intricate level. There's also the option to qualify before a race that decides your placing on the starting grid. I found doing so is pretty much mandatory though, as skipping that and starting from the back basically makes it impossible to win. The game also gets increasingly more difficult as you go through it, to honestly an exhausting degree. At around the halfway point of the game I found it to reach an unreasonable level that just sapped all the fun out of the game to be honest. It starts demanding more or less absolute perfection, making it that any single tiny error can ruin and entire race and just make it pointless to continue.
There also seems to be a quirk with the physics that seems pretty unfair. If an opponent car brushes you slightly from behind, that's enough to spin you out and ruin your entire race. But the opponents themselves are rock solid and don't suffer the same disruption from you. It also has an issue that seems to come up fairly often in other racing games too, where if you keep in front of AI racers they tend to drive more slowly, but once they get in front of you they just rocket off never to be seen again. As if they get a speed boost from being in front of you somehow. Again making any minor slip-up in a race result in the entire thing being rendered hopeless.
This game is significantly more serious and technical than the follow-up though. It doesn't have the stylistic flair of that game and has a pretty straightforward and basic presentation. It has some personality with the occasional CG cutscene that plays when you do certain things though. You can tweak the settings of your car like in the majority of more serious sims out there, to quite an intricate level. There's also the option to qualify before a race that decides your placing on the starting grid. I found doing so is pretty much mandatory though, as skipping that and starting from the back basically makes it impossible to win. The game also gets increasingly more difficult as you go through it, to honestly an exhausting degree. At around the halfway point of the game I found it to reach an unreasonable level that just sapped all the fun out of the game to be honest. It starts demanding more or less absolute perfection, making it that any single tiny error can ruin and entire race and just make it pointless to continue.
There also seems to be a quirk with the physics that seems pretty unfair. If an opponent car brushes you slightly from behind, that's enough to spin you out and ruin your entire race. But the opponents themselves are rock solid and don't suffer the same disruption from you. It also has an issue that seems to come up fairly often in other racing games too, where if you keep in front of AI racers they tend to drive more slowly, but once they get in front of you they just rocket off never to be seen again. As if they get a speed boost from being in front of you somehow. Again making any minor slip-up in a race result in the entire thing being rendered hopeless.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
As a GRID fan, have you played Grid Legends? I really enjoyed that. One of, if not my favourite game released in the year it came out.Scrustle wrote: ↑March 26th, 2024, 3:15 pm I've been playing a bit of TOCA Race Driver 3. A game I've long heard good things about but never played before now. I have wanted to, considering it's the predecessor to Race Driver: GRID, one of my favourite racing games of all time. Turns out this one is quite impressive too. It clearly shares a lot of similarities with GRID as well, but with a slightly different focus. The breadth of different racing disciplines is really impressive, and provides a very wide variety of racing styles that always have you doing something different as you make your way through the career. Each type of car does feel very different to drive as well, and most of them are pretty good. It's sort of familiar to GRID in that it's presented in a pretty authentic and serious way, and a lot of real racing concepts and techniques apply here, but in terms of how it actually feels in the hands, it's pretty arcadey and approachable. Cars are generally very grippy and intuitive. Although braking points and racing line do still matter a lot, and losing control with poor application of throttle is a risk in certain types of car. It's a really good handling model that isn't hard to get to grips with but still gets you invested in trying to get the most out of it.
This game is significantly more serious and technical than the follow-up though. It doesn't have the stylistic flair of that game and has a pretty straightforward and basic presentation. It has some personality with the occasional CG cutscene that plays when you do certain things though. You can tweak the settings of your car like in the majority of more serious sims out there, to quite an intricate level. There's also the option to qualify before a race that decides your placing on the starting grid. I found doing so is pretty much mandatory though, as skipping that and starting from the back basically makes it impossible to win. The game also gets increasingly more difficult as you go through it, to honestly an exhausting degree. At around the halfway point of the game I found it to reach an unreasonable level that just sapped all the fun out of the game to be honest. It starts demanding more or less absolute perfection, making it that any single tiny error can ruin and entire race and just make it pointless to continue.
There also seems to be a quirk with the physics that seems pretty unfair. If an opponent car brushes you slightly from behind, that's enough to spin you out and ruin your entire race. But the opponents themselves are rock solid and don't suffer the same disruption from you. It also has an issue that seems to come up fairly often in other racing games too, where if you keep in front of AI racers they tend to drive more slowly, but once they get in front of you they just rocket off never to be seen again. As if they get a speed boost from being in front of you somehow. Again making any minor slip-up in a race result in the entire thing being rendered hopeless.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I picked up Princess Peach Showtime, and you know what, it's alright. It is very easy, even more so than the recent Yoshi games (apart from the darn Cake decorating levels which are very frustrating) but I am getting a kick from something more chilled. The main highlight for me though is the boss battles which even though are still easy, are both really fun and really well done. It has some great set pieces too. I can imagine it being a great game to give your kid to play as a first venture into gaming.