The Elder Cowboys: Oblivion
Not a fantastic shooter by any stretch of the imagination, but it very clearly feels like a passion project of sorts. Inspired by the physics and interactivity of Half Life 2, and spinning them into an explorative series of levels introducing new mechanics with semi-regularity. One of those early 7th console generation games that feel eager to stress test the new hardware capabilities in as clumsy and charming a way as they could. Worth playing just to watch the player's cast shadow while swinging from tree branches with a whip.

A pleasant exercise in minimalism to tell a characterful story in a vibrant world you can only visualise through dots and lines on a radar. Told entirely through a UI styled after a small handful of deep sea equipment, it does wonderfully atmospheric work with its evocative use of seabed imaging and ambient sound design. The narrative itself is fairly rote, but told through a lens so new to me I couldn't help but be enthralled to the end.

Come the midpoint of the game, I found my play cycle and just coasted to the finale with little to no obstruction. Something about how this and games like Killer7 throw an abstract control scheme onto your lap - then expect you to figure it out on your own, is great to me. When it clicks, it's always pretty special.

I dunno, pretty short but really interesting. I enjoyed my time with it, and lament that I don't have much more to spare. I'd love to get all the collectables, would be zen as hell.

Takes a cute concept and spins it into an algorithm-driven gameplay loop completely barren of any soul. Totally threadbare in terms of characters, questlines or narrative. There was nothing keeping me attached to this game aside from rather frantically exploring the admittedly gorgeous and well-realised map to find something that could make the data entry-esque gameplay feel worth it. It's in early access at the time of writing this review - and if history has proven anything, it will feel unfinished long after it hits 1.0. Worthless.

(played Sega CD version)
The hardest I've been impressed with the visuals of a game in years, some of these stages and their tunes are absolutely exhilarating. That sprint across the beehive maze space station ooooh mama. For real implore anyone to dive in blind if at all possible.
What drags Silpheed down is the lack of boss variety, as you're facing up against increasingly annoying variants of the same three ships ad nauseum. Lots of projectiles that get camoflaged by the background and damage that rarely ever feels fair, made worse by the weird 3D tunnel boundary you're supposed to navigate. The final boss is insanely demanding and I respect the nerve of it all.

Way to turn the holy grace of catching and raising your precious and beloved Pocket Monsters into what is essentially just a clicker game. I'm sure you get really sentimental over the fiftieth shiny Zigzagoon. Skinner box incarnate, sweeping through the neighbourhood and grinding the block's population of iconic creatures into Exp with the heart of a feller buncher combine harvester uprooting swathes of lush green forest. Pokemon Go to the gallows and give me your oil money fortune. I'll stop exaggerating and say this shit sucks even though I played it for like 10 hours.

God, Infogrames really did push the envelope, even when it came to their games based on licenced properties. Maurice Noble's classic Looney Tunes background style lends itself INCREDIBLY well to the low-poly necessities of the Playstation 1. These environments do not miss a beat, nor do the character animations - the jagged messes of the models are animated so excellently that they are as bouncy as they are expressive. Full of life in ways few, more capable, games manage to achieve.
Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf is almost overwhelmingly inventive, from its visuals to its level design, and invites you to be just as creative in solving them. I'm stunned to see how well this holds up, this game is a uniquely effective powerhouse of joyful cartoonish energy.
Slap that OST on NOW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZISHX6AfNcw

After finishing Seiken no Densetsu 3 on the SNES, I was excited to examine what the next entry in the Mana series would entail. Up to this point, I was blessed by a series that seemed to strive to make drastic improvements and changes with each entry. SnD3 expanded on the combat of its predecessor as well as explored how the characters you choose for your party can affect the trajectory of the story, as well as battle dynamics.

Legend of Mana did not let me down, it's wild, something I've sincerely never seen a JRPG pull off before. Rather than having a world map that the player progresses through in whatever line the story dictates, you are instead free to sculpt the world for yourself. Cities, dungeons, fields, landmarks - their locations are all up to the player, and you're tasked with making your own adventure through them. It's insanely cool.

Problems do arise. It leaves nearly everything to your imagination. No quest is given more importance than the next, it seems almost random which ones turn out to be inconsequential side-events, and which are absolutely critical. If you do not enjoy visiting, revisiting, and re-revisiting old areas under different variables (time of the week/characters in the party/different quests completed) you're going to be HARD PRESSED to know what the hell you're supposed to do. Poor signposting all around that really comes to a head at the two-thirds point of the game, where even the guides I found online left me totally lost. A progress roadblock that I found so frustrating I very nearly dropped the game entirely.

Thankfully, I managed to pull through. Much of the game once I finally found my momentum was wonderful, a truly imaginative world that thankfully begs to be explored. The spritework, environments........ It scratches the same itch for me as Final Fantasy 9, in how there are astoundingly few human characters in the overall cast. That level of overt fantasy where much of the cast you can speak to and invite into your party are completely alien to one another - Flying lamp makers with venus fly traps for tails, bartenders made out of puzzle blocks, scholars with snake-like features bursting out of their bandages, a straight up giant teapot. This is the stuff that died the moment gaming entered 3D, and I'd like to make it known I think that's a FUCKING SHAME.

The combat is a revised version of the one introduced to SnD3, veering more towards some very standard JRPG action that I am honestly bored to death of. Once you polish slow and clunky combat enough you start to realise you're removing a level of careful deliberateness to the way you think about your inputs. It's buttery smooth, very easy, completely cheeseable. I like how you can customise what action every button does, but why would you ever not use the counterattacks - they're so gamebreaking they make every encounter a joke.

This game is intensely charming, and clearly made with a lot of love. It shows in almost every corner of its design, but not necessarily where it counts. Some more overt signposting would have made this an out and out classic for me.

Slaps like absolutely fucking crazy, but the music isn't my bag, despite their overall presentation absolutely being so. The best UI's I've ever seen adorning amateurish tweening anime girl illustrations set to the tune of JRPG Starting Village. It seems to be adopting a bit of a service model, so I can certainly expect some song packs down the line. Chillin out in the live online mode mostly meant being subjected to League of Legends and Korean MMO tracks.

DJMAX RESPECT is a beast of difficulty customisation and modularity, pretty much making it impossible to feel overwhelmed by a track unless you go out of your way to walk too far out of your comfort zone. Large amounts of modes ensuring a smooth learning curve and a wide array of visibility options just in case you find your eyes glazing over the largely bombastic presentation. Seems bizarrely reluctant to implement controller prompts, though.

In terms of its sheer wealth of rhythm game content, I think this is about the best you can get on the PC. Its DLC packages include songs from every earlier iteration of the DJMAX series to bump the tracklist to ridiculous heights, and if I were keener on the setlist, this game would be where my life comes to its end. Needs more Skepta.

My largest and more valid complaint than that of the tracklist would absolutely be that the anti-cheat module the game employs is fucked. Slams my drive like a sledgehammer and causes stutter with semi-regularity, which is essentially the death of a fast-paced rhythm game. Worth at the very least keeping an eye on how this game is affecting your PC.

(Played on an emulator with a rewind feature, so I could quickly go back and re-do a battle that I lost. Genuinely don't think I'd enjoy this as much as I did without such a great time-saving feature)

Instantly one of my all-time favourite JRPGs. Absolutely incredible spritework that brings the expressive characters and gorgeous environments to life. The soundtrack is a pandora's box of unforgettable melodies. The combat system evolves as you progress and eventually becomes one of the most captivating styles of combat I've ever seen in a JRPG, with its genius obfuscation of an ATB/stamina system. The story is a goofy hodge-podge of every trope imaginable, but the characters are so fun it all strings together perfectly.

Kinda okay Arcade Shooter where you Shoot the Arcade. Banks off of its own absurd premise a little too much, because it's just not all too engaging as a shmup aside from the striking bosses (the classic dancing girl .gif!!!). I'm all for goofball shmups, but you gotta be like Parodius and have the creative sugar rush act in synchronicity with gameplay that constantly attempts to reinvent the wheel. You're crushing your Parma Violets into a fine dust and not even snorting them.

Hard to fault Cruisin Mix as an overall package, it's so full of extras, options, goodies and artbooks. You're not getting fantastic games, but you're getting a lot of cool stuff to sift through. Gunbare Game Tengoku 2 being absent from this collection is the glaring omission that drags the whole thing down, that's the best game in the series.

Aye, makes sense why I'd never heard of this series before. I love the cast and the artstyle that informs their incredible designs but.... that's about it. Basic point and click adventure game with shallow puzzles and obtuse solutions. I'm normally so weak to games with an element of charm that overrides any complaint I'd have about the core gameplay, but not this time. It's just too dull and frustrating.
Mackenzie is a character I'll stock up rent free in my head until the end of my days, but she can leave the game she's from behind.

I've still yet to be convinced by VR. If I wanted to slap physics objects around rudimentary rooms, I'd just play Garry's Mod - which doesn't even require you to wear a radioactive death box on your head that melts the brain and churns the stomach.
Boneworks, however, acts as a showcase for the future potential of VR, a fully immersive museum designed around its myriad gimmicks. Your character is fully rigged with an IK collision solver, lending you a sense of physicality as you climb ladders, run into walls, smash open crates with hammers. It's technically very impressive, but I never found it any fun, in fact it just made me feel violently sick. How the hell do I articulate why something clearly very innovative and forward-thinking just isn't working for me?

The closest comparison I can think of for Boneworks is when you switch to the first person camera while driving a car in a game. Yeah, it's more immersive, but,,, why the fuck would I ever do that. The less is more approach; omniscient camera, invisible player character, and floating disembodies hands is a nicety that eliminates the laborious "realistic, immersive" elements and allows me to focus on the game. If you focus too hard on the game part of Boneworks, it's just some toys strewn around barren environments. We've been talking about the "potential of vr" for fucking years, do something good already.