this game is such a mixed bag lol. there are things i like about it (snake and otacon domestic household scenes with their adopted daughter, also just that it’s about a guy whose body is falling apart and he smokes cigarettes to cope with it but also it makes things worse) and things i don’t entirely love about it (some bush years fps / 3ps vibes shooting thru these like genericized nonwestern environments with unlimited spawning enemies, too many forced big battle scenes, slightly incoherent stealth mechanics when they’re adapted to big battlefield levels maybe, also just the way it tries to thread the needle thru like literally every single character and plotline in the series when the other games were full of ambiguities)
also it crashes on actual hardware with actual ps3 discs lol. also tbh it kind of runs like garbage a good consistent 20fps game (not something i hate but it’s interesting how i think part of the visual identity for me of like mgs2 and mgsV is in their 60fps-ness and part of the visual identity of mgs3 and 4 is their 20fps-ness)
it’s interesting that mgsV on the ps3 kind of looks and runs and plays better in a lot of ways lol and also takes place in an entire seamless open world without like having you install every chapter
but then it’s like idk the install screens are kind of iconic to me lol
but it’s like this meticulously detailful game in a way i really appreciate as someone who is maybe more focused on how small details often make a game more memorable and endearing and come to life in a way that the increased focus on massive scale games the past 10 years feels inimical to
as perhaps one of like four resident evil 6 appreciators in the entire world is it a surprise that i admire mgs4… no it’s not lol. i’ve used the word “disasterpiece” to describe them both because they both feel like the end of an era of gaming brought to a sort of Extremely Expensive logical conclusion and have like a disregard for good taste lol, piling on characters and lore! from like 15+ year series, etc.
It’s odd to me, but I feel like Q*Bert was mostly made irrelevant by the imitator game Pogo Joe which was I think onvly ever officially avaiable on c64.
Deciding whether or not to continue with Infinite Wealth. The last time I powered through was Kiwami 1 and the only other one I gave up on was Dead Souls. Just not gripped.
resuming full metal demon muramasa after a long while, i finished ichijou’s scenario and started the third one. i’ve unlocked the possibility of building affection points towards the living mechanical armor muramasa. will kageaki become a robot-fucker? i guess i’ll find out the consequences of caring for your cursed murder weapon
been getting back into Street Fighter 6, due to the post-Evo-watching high. i’m mostly just re-familiarizing myself with stuff, and i’m using Ken until Elena becomes available next year. i think the biggest issue i have with the game is i can’t really identify a character i really want to play as - maybe Ed? idk. maybe i’ll pick up Terry when he releases later this year.
watching the Digital Foundry episode about Sunsoft reminded me to pick up Hebereke 2 and it rules. the felt work and papercraft is all super cute and i feel like it avoids a lot of the needless wandering of most search action games.
downloaded the Visions of Mana demo and…i can’t tell if i like this game or think it’s good. it kind of reminds me of an Xbox 360 game or something, though obviously more open-worldy. character movement and attacks just feel off in a way that’s hard to describe - “weightless,” maybe? played for about an hour, but going to give it some more time. at the least, it’s fun seeing such hi-res versions of Mana stuff
i bought Arkanoid - Eternal Battle because it was on sale for $2 but oops, it’s live service kinda game and there is literally no one playing this, so i can only play against 25 AI opponents.
Picked two fairly different games to play through.
Decided to give Paper Mario a shot when I found out it did not have random battles (you see the enemies on the screen first) which is my biggest jrpg issue handled. That said I think I can only manage to play it for an hour at a time tops and even at the start of chapter 2 I am considering how to best “speedrun” it as… I don’t really care for any part of it that much? The presentation is fine I guess although still very blurry in that N64 way (running it on a modern tv likely doesn’t help either), the combat while better than typical jrpg feels highly dependent on timing which is rough defensively and having my main attack still at 2 damage after four or so hours makes things feel very “running in place”. It’s also twee as hell. Feels like I made a mistake that’s gonna take me another 20 or so hours to disentangle myself from.
Other game is Cuphead finally, I can also only play this for a bit at a time but that’s more due to it being highly demanding of my reflexes and such. The presentation is immaculate as expected, the platformer stages are as weak as I was warned but the meat of the game (the giant boss battles) are highly enjoyable if again a bit exhausting. I think I am getting towards the end of the third main area and this last stretch has finally forced me to experiment with other weapons and while few feel very “can use all the time” they also each have battles they seem well tuned for.
I did not go out of my way to play X-Men 2 after spending my allowance on the first one. Trying it now though and I do appreciate that I can throw the Trick Card from X-Men vs. Street Fighter.
i always really liked how this game starts without a title screen and randomly assigns you an X-Person. i don’t think any other game (that i’m aware of) has done that since?
edit: oops Felix also said this, but yeah, what a sick move for a game that is essentially a B-
I tried X-Men II: Fall of the Mutants on dosbox recently which provided some good humor but really did not seem to have anything going for it outside of that if ur not a child with infinite time, Mutant Academy 2 having Xavier & giving him a Tatsu is inspired however
i remember saving up for what seemed like ages for a pre-owned copy of arcade’s revenge, because the idea of a game with spider-man and the x-men in it seemed like the best thing ever. then i got it and it was shit.
this is crazy talk, though. x-men comics in the 90s included the age of apocalypse, generation x, the phalanx covenant, operation zero tolerance, onslaught (ok onslaught wasn’t great, but it felt big and important at least), and tons of other smaller stories that were also great
i really wanted to play spider-man and x-men as a kid because 1) i like spider-man and 2) i like the x-men. but the only place i could play it was at my friends’ house, and he was a massive controller hog who refused to hand over the pad, so i only ever got to watch him fail the first level over and over. playing it in an emulator many years later, man, i was so pissed off. that game freakin’ sucks!!!
i’m like the one fan of x-men 2 the clone wars (another game with a kurt harland soundtrack), but i will readily admit that mutant apocalypse on the snes is still leagues better. also, you know, all of the capcom fighters too.
spent an hour updating the xbone (VHS player looking one) and tried various xbox 360 games I had lying around. PGR4 didn’t work, Stranglehold didn’t work, Dead Rising didn’t work. But…Gears Of War did. What is this like? Every character looks like they’ve been hit with a truck. I played about 30 seconds of it. The resolution and framerate on the xbone is pretty good
There was a time that multiplayer Gears of War was, like, the number one insert credit/select button online activity. We went through a big enthusiast phase. The story mode isn’t bad
Kinda upsetting there’s no real good way, outside of a PS3 or 360, to play X-Men Origins Wolverine anymore.
Is it a great game? Nah. Does lunging like 200 feet to a helicopter and grabbing the pilot and shoving him into the rotor blades still rule? Yes.
So does hitting a bunch of explosive barrels and watching Wolverine regenerate from a meaty metal skeleton.
Wild they reissued the terrible Deadpool game before they ever came back to this. I’m sure there’s a lot of licensing particulars for that, but still. This one was good! At least good-ish!
