Ampharos healed, lighthouse repaired
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NES PINBALL
SHORT VERSION: This has aged surprisingly well! Sure, it’s maybe a but too simplistic in regards to goals and the lack of a nudge is rough… but the physics are decent, there are lots of bonuses to go for, it makes use of the medium with things like minigames, and it has personality (despite the lack of music).
LONG VERSION: Ay, this is pretty good for a 1984 pinball game! The earliest one I’ve played that takes advantage of the medium… in that it does things not possible on a real table.
Definitely feels like an earlier version of things like Devil’s Crush or Kirby’s Pinball Land (with the latter being made by the team who made this).
A single two field table with lots of scoring elements, moving parts, and even a little bonus minigame where you play an (admittedly slightly janky) breakout clone with Mario and Pauline. Physics pretty good for the time, too!
There aren’t missions/objectives (outside the breakout game) as in later pinball tables, so it’s just trying to go for all the bonuses to get a high score. If you do well enough, eventually they’ll make your flippers invisible… which I’m not sure I like, but it at least makes use of the medium!
Only thing I think it’s really missing is nudging.
But yeah, perhaps a bit too simplistic in table design and limited in content to keep people interested for long today, but I found myself playing this much longer than I thought I would, and would have been very happy with it in 1984.
ELDER SCROLLS: SKYRIM - HEARTSTONE
Why the hell would I want to adopt a kid when I can have a giant rat running around my house instead
TOY STORY
Much like the movie, this is visually impressive (I believe Pixar supplied them with sprites), and it does a great job of following the beats of the film and is full of variety and inventiveness, including an actually fun stealth section and even a little first-person bit (that is kinda boring, but LOOKS cool).
Unfortunately, it’s let down by wonky collisions (your hitbox is much bigger than your already huge sprite), unresponsive controls, and later levels that require heavy trial and error and memorisation to make it through, levels that are bad at communicating what you need to do, and levels that are just frustratingly difficult.
It’s definitely beatable, but it gets pretty tedious! At least they give you passwords… definitely would have had fun with this as a kid, but I’m too old for some of the BS it pulls these days so I save stated it towards the end.
Also, what the hell is going on inside that claw machine?!
EXTREME RISE OF THE TRIAD
SHORT VERSION: A stack of wild new levels that explore the mechanics of ROTT as hard as they can, and sometimes taking them in bizarre (and fascinating) directions. Oh, this game also loves to troll you and expects you to already be a master of the first game, so it’s not for the faint of heart. Me? I had an EXTREMELY good time!
LONG VERSION: Extreme has a reputation for its difficulty, and before you start it even gives you a disclaimer saying that it often isn’t “fair.” So, I thought this meant that the levels would be full of of super-powered enemies and those random rocket dudes I hated from Dark War… but it turns out this has perhaps smarter and more thoughtful use of enemies than the original (and doesn’t have ANY random rocket dudes). So why is it so hard? Well, I’ll get to that later.
So this is an expansion but is basically only new levels… the boss fights are all remixes of the old ones, and the cutscenes aside from the opening one are also identical.
But I loved what they did with these levels! In my review of the first game I complained that levels felt haphazardly designed, and that the weird mechanics the game has were never fully explored. Welp, every level here is basically based around a single mechanic or idea, most have solid flow and don’t feel bloated, there aren’t a billion secrets anymore (just enough for extra health and weapons), they feel cohesive, and they’re so much fun.
Sometimes they are just based around an obstacle, such as one all about rolling boulders, while others are more creative with the mechanics… one gives you the God power-up right at the start, and you have to try to finish the level before it runs out (it IS possible to finish it without it but it’s much harder), another is all about the dog power-up and using a mechanic I didn’t even know existed! Another one has you running around on the paper thin walls of the game.
Oh, before I forget, the dog level has hilarious music. Was it in the original game? I don’t think it was.
There are so many clever, weird, and experimental ideas in here, and they’re all explored just about as hard as they could be. It was so interesting to play through!
There is only one level I absolutely detested, I can’t remember what it was called but it was one that was mostly done in pitch darkness. Any ROTT level with low level lighting I hate, not being able to see is not a good gimmick!
Okay, but why is it so hard? The game gives you plenty of health and super weapons, and the enemy use is… mostly fair. But it’s clear why they give you that warning at the start… first, it throws enemies from the later episodes at you right from the get go.
It is also pretty necessary to play through the original game first, because it expects you to know/understand mechanics and tricks required to make progress.
Thirdly, this is much more puzzly than the previous game. I had to stop and think about how to get through many situations quite a lot (especially obstacle course style areas).
The game is also full of navigational puzzles… I almost bounced off this because the… second or third level felt so confusing to get through at first. But then I realised that was the point… a lot of this game is spent figuring out how to get from point a to point b, kinda like the Marathon games. And I loovvveeee 3D navigational puzzles so I ate that shit up. And lots of the solutions are pretty fun!
But the REAL reason this is considered so hard? This game trolls the fuck out of you. There are so many insta or almost instakill tricks and traps and there are so many areas where if you fall down, it’s just a pit of lava with no way out but death. This game loves to fuck you over.
But, especially considering they warned me, I thought it added to the fun? I definitely can understand people hating the constant trolls, but as long as you make a save at the start of a level that you keep separate from your quicksave, I don’t feel it’s too rough. I often found it funny.
Also some levels are just balls hard battle situations, like the one where you have to jump on enemies heads while they try to do it to you… that was a particularly rough level.
But yeah, overall I had a fantastic time with this. Do I think it would be better if it was less trolly? Eh, probably. I also think that if some levels were toned down in their craziness, this could have been a more accessible 2.5D classic shooter remembered better than Dark War.
But… I also respect how wild they went with it, and how trolly they got with it. There are so many interesting ideas in here, but unfortunately I can only recommend it to people who have the same kind of patience as me for the BS, and also people who are already familiar and enjoyed the original game.
NOTE: I read somewhere that you can get softlocked if you play the game as male characters due to their size? I played through it as a dude via the remaster and didn’t have any problems like that. I did encounter one or two soft locks, but also I could have just not found the way out before reloading a save.
RISE OF THE TRIAD: LUDICROUS EDITION
SHORT VERSION: This is a review of the new episode The Hunt Continues that came with the Ludicrous Edition. I found it to be very much a mixed bag, much like the original game. It definitely feels more balanced with the use of enemies and traps with much fewer cheap deaths, but far too many levels are slogs due to their huge size, disorientating design, and figuring out what the hell that switch you just hit actually changed.
LONG VERSION: Well I was hoping this would be the “perfect” collection of ROTT levels, but that’s sadly not the case! For those who don’t know, these are 24 levels made for the remaster… it reuses all the old content including bosses, but has brand new layouts.
First, the positives… they are much more generous with throwing the extra gun and rifle at you, which is good news for people who do pistol starts or actually play using lives instead of saves (I don’t know why you would, but each to their own).
Second, the enemy balance is much better. There are zero random rocket guys, and the placement of tougher enemies is much better than in the original game, i.e. not putting grenade guys right in your face so you can actually rocket them. They do throw a lot of the bullet sponge monks at you towards the end, but they also give you lots of super weapons including the flamewall so it mostly balances out.
No cheap traps that I noticed, either!
My problems lie with the level design… now, they aren’t all bad. They do a good job of using all the weird mechanics of ROTT in interesting and clever ways, though nothing gets as wild or experimental as the original or extreme. There are some levels that focus on sole ideas, but most of them are a mishmash of mechanics with lots of key and switch hunting, and lots of combat. So, more “traditional” FPS design of the early 90s era.
The problem is that so many levels are too damn big, confusing to navigate, and feel incredibly disorientating… it doesn’t help that walls shift so much that it’s easy to become completely lost due to changing landmarks.
Levels also loop around and through each other so much, making the flow is so bad which adds to the disorientation. There is also lots of going back and forth across these massive, confusing levels. And then there are the switches…
These levels rely on switches so much… and it’s often not clear what they actually changed and you’re left wandering for ages trying to figure out what’s actually different since they’ll often change something not in the immediate area. It felt like the worst parts of Hexen.
I mentioned in my Extreme review that I like navigational puzzles, but these are the bad kind that just leave you lost rather than puzzled. Rather than figuring out how to get from A to B, you’re just figuring out where to flippin’ go in the first place.
So yeah, better balanced than the original game, but too many levels are just a slog due to their massive size and confusing, incoherent layouts (that love to shift around).
The actual remaster is great, though! Some odd choices here and there (like how you access the special edition levels), but overall top stuff.
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At my private International School in Singapore there was a teacher who let kids stay in his classroom during lunchtime to play Rise of the Triad on his computer. The Chess Club was held in his room at the same time, thats how I knew. As a conscientious citizen I often wondered if the school knew he was letting kids play a violent computer game.
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reached an ending in crystar and maybe im very easy but i did cry just a little
got what you asked for but lost everything else. also even before the sudden sinister little sister twist ending it seemed obvious that she’s the one who killed everyone on that bus. she’s like 8 or 9 years old so i kind of think that’s hilarious.
this is probably a yoko taro fangame cause i got sent right back to the beginning but now some previous question marks are legible and everything makes sense with future knowledge, but then they throw you a small bone and immediately advance you to somewhere in the later half of the game and maybe the timeline is slightly different. the ui implies i’ll need to do this loop 2 or 3 times more before i can hope for an ending that matters.
just remembered even before any reveals that the little sister has an occasional dialogue portrait where she holds her hand against her face in a specific manner that is common for yandere and other evil girls, women and gays. like you’ll see that gesture along with a smile while they are covered in blood and/or confessing to killing all your friends.
i have to see it. i have to see the mask off moment. it’s gonna be so funny
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Oh god i can perfectly recall that crackly “heeellooooooo” voice sample that played when you grabbed one of these guys.
My local McDonald’s playplace had a couple of Genesis systems set up with this game playing, but they automatically reset after 15 minutes. I must have played the first level up to fighting Buzz Lightyear in a dream about a thousand times.
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I played some multiplayer with @herknewz and my pal ashleigh so I can comment on this. We were pieing doors occasionally still but there was no stacking up meticulously except when we tried to breach the twitch streamers apt. I used the door wand only a handful of times. Everyone is incredibly confrontational and erratic.
We were doing the first level, where you have to stop a gas station robbery. Immediately after deploying we heard some guy yell FIVE OH start laying down suppressive fire from the fucking front doors. This really set the tone. We split into two elements to sweep the shop area and my friend just kept having to mow people down. You’d just hear gunfire echoing across the building lol. It was mostly about being high speed.
We were more tactical raiding the ped streamer. My friend brought the police gang unit fit and the riot shield for this one. It was kinda funny seeing herk’s commitment to the pepperball gun immediately waver after the quikstop massacre. This was mostly smooth except every suspect had like 3 fucking guns on them. The one time we stacked up was here, outside his door. trying to teach herk how to use the c2 but it was too awkward so my friend ended up getting in front with the shield while herk was kicking the door from the left and I threw a stinger in from the right. funniest thing here was me dropping some guy, covering the hall and watching helplessly as the ped streamer picked up the guys tec 9 forcing me to kill him in a suicide by cop situation.
the survival horror meth warrens of level 3 really challenged the efficacy of slow creeping because the tweakers love hiding in closets and under beds and crawling through holes in the wall. they get around and behind you constantly. also half of them are knife wielding fiends so you really have to be quick on the draw. It’s the kind of level that actually challenges the swat 4 players foolish mentality that door wedges aren’t vitally useful. this was the first time anyone has ever asked me to use a door wedge in a multiplayer swat game. I’ve been playing these for decades. I could have cried. my favorite thing about this level is the very SWAT 4 touch of having a guy get on a stepladder to spray paint NEED CHRISTINA NEED CHRISTINA DIG DIG DIG above a doorframe. that and the guy who circled back through the entire level to camp us with an AK on the front porch and was taking shots at me with a peek so severe it was extremely hard to spot him all the way across the house in the backyard
my guess is that you have to slow down and be more tactical in the later levels where the suspects are more peer to peer. there are also levels with a stricter roe according to my friend so that could require you to play it less like a cowboy. but I dunno in general it feels way faster paced, stingers are actually good unlike swat 4 though and 9 bangs are extremely useful so the tactical equipment is still vital. the AI has the reflexes of a delta force operator so get them before they get you is like the name of the game
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this sounds like you are describing Condemned Criminal Origins lol
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We were playing it flashlights only and I literally told her this was some condemned criminal origins bullshit lol. Some dirty guy in rags attacked me and my shotgun took his hand off like robocop. You end up having to go into the literal tunnels these guys have been digging under the property while thwacked out. It’s actually a pretty good level!! lol that I’m playing this game mp now honestly I was wondering if it was still going to be grotesque and disturbing even with your pals and somehow it is.
everyones developing ready or not fever. my best friends co worker messaged her today saying shes got to get in on it because he replayed the first few levels the other day. you can tell things are going good in the world cause were all making excuses to play a genre of game that’s inherently copaganda. coping by shooting pedos in a videogame like a real freaking adult
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BTW I stand by my statement that this game is like too heavy subject matter for most people I would like to emphasize that my interest in it is not a recommendation! Protect yourself!
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Bready Or Not, the body cam bakery game
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Freddy or Not, Freddy Fazbear is a cop now
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I’ve been playing a lot of games in my Switch 2 lately. Usually that means sitting on my bed and playing hand-held.
Hades II
I already told you about this. I think I’m done done now. Wouldn’t recommend unless you’re depressed and you want to kill time. Kind of funny how that’s also the plot of the game.
Case of the Golden Idol
Playing this in Spanish adds an extra layer of obfuscation. I love it. I am going to be so sad when there’s nothing left to solve. Thankfully, I still have extra episodes and the sequel to work through.
Danganronpa
I played up through the first trial. It’s kind of fun, and I’ll probably get back to it when I’m finished with the more interesting things on my plate.
Penny’s Big Breakaway
Ever since I saw this game, I knew it would be my jam. I played the first level and yeah, it’s a great fit for me. I appreciate how it offers two control schemes at once. You can use the face buttons for actions or perform similar ones through analog stick movements. It’s too early to say which one I’ll prefer in the long run, but it’s pretty snappy to flick the stick around.
Chants of Senaar
This is another game that I clocked as a Minty fav just from the description. It’s not as satisfying as Heaven’s Vault but it’s clearly trying something else. Kind of has more in common with Monument Valley, and it’s worse for that. Still, I enjoy it and I’ll see it through.
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If you like 3D platformers with interesting control schemes might I recommend Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. It may just be one of the coolest 3D platformers I’ve played in a long time
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That looks cute! I’d be more down if I had a relaxing PC game setup. Sitting down with it has been pretty offputting for now.
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Yeah it’s absolutely wild to me that it still hasn’t made it to any consoles it’s made it really weird to recommend it to my friends. Something really odd is their other game CloverPit is on a console, but only Xbox
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Gym five beaten. First steel type gym. Somehow steel has gotten more pathetic over time despite adding better and better pokemon and moves. The only thing more pathetic than a steel type gym or elite four member is an ice type one, and in both cases the reason is about the same: fighting type pokemon had some sort of comparative singularity in development. One Lucario or Kommo-O or Throh is enough to annihilate any of either type pokemon in one hit as long as you go first. Somehow everything is downhill from the debut of two magnemites and a steelix.
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Me booting up Shovel Knight as a side thing to my queue made me wanna finally try Cyber Shadow. Only played up to the first boss, but I’m interested to see where it goes. I get the vibe it’s gonna get hard later on, but I’m not awfully concerned since this sort of thing is my bread and butter. Also I can clearly tell it’s Ninja Gaiden influenced, but I actually haven’t played any of those so there may be some similarities that are lost on me.
Also fun thing is that I didn’t know the Shovel Knight Amiibos worked on it and they actually do some useful stuff. The little guys actually attack enemies unlike in Shovel Knight.
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Lmao is this game made for the idf
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it made me and the person I was playing with think of the nyc chabad tunnels lol
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Nakatomi Space
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