I played the shareware version of this game countless times as a kid, and finally beat the whole thing a few days ago. Raptor was a formative game for little Alex, and while it's definitely cathartic to have finally completed it nearly 30 years later, the game definitely isn't the masterpiece I grew up thinking it was.

That being said, it's a solid little shmup, and I have SERIOUS ADVICE for anyone who has unfinished business with Raptor like I did.

Tip #1: For the first chunk of the game, the only weapons you should buy are the Always Equipped items. You should obviously pay to top up on health, but that's it. You'll acquire a handful of toggleable missiles just by playing through the game, and those will be plenty until you have enough money for your first big purchase. (More on that later)

Tip #2: When using multiple selectable missiles, the best way to murder everything in sight is to spam the Alt key to cycle through whatever weapons you've acquired for free while holding the spacebar. This will not only increase your rate of fire, it will make sure you're hitting enemies on the ground as well as in the air with more than just your machine gun. This is the strategy that works best until...

Tip #3: The OD55 Odin Laser Turret. This is going to be your best friend. There is a weaker gun that also auto-targets like the Odin does, but it fires machine gun rounds that take time to travel across the screen, while the Odin's laser is instantaneous. It's absolutely the best weapon in the game, and one of the only that allows you to do damage without being directly below an enemy. This costs half a million dollars, so it'll take a while to get there, but selling the selectable weapons you've acquired will go a long way towards funding your purchase.

Tip #4: Outer Regions Wave 3 has an extra shield very early in the level after just two little waves of enemy ships. It'll be on the left side, and you should grab it, then immediately abort the mission. Aborting does not restart your health or inventory, so you can replay the first 45 seconds of this level over and over to build up shield layers. If you buy shields from the store, you max out at 5 (and they're too expensive to justify until late in the game). However, if you acquire these shields through this specific level, you can hold as many as 11 of them. This is invaluable! I recommend getting to this level as soon as you're able, and then holding off on any Outer Regions progress beyond the first part of level 3 until you have completed the Bravo and Tango missions entirely.

Tip #5: Avoid any laser-wielding enemies like the plague, and don't be cocky with missiles either. You can tank those yellow circle shots without too much trouble, but some enemies fire like 8 missiles at once, and a single laser shot (only appears late in the game) will completely melt 2/3 of an entire layer of shields. DO NOT ENGAGE, IT IS NOT WORTH IT

Tip #6: When you've finally got enough money, your second weapon purchase should be the Twin Laser, which costs $1.75 Million, and is the most expensive weapon in the game. The big strategy here is to mainly use your auto-targeting laser until a boss shows up, and then waste the boss with the Twin Laser while it's entering the visible area, as bosses will not start firing until they arrive in the center of the screen. Once they begin firing, it's best to let the auto-targeting laser do the rest of the work while you focus on dodging shots.

Tip #7: There is one exception to that last rule. On the final wave of Outer Regions, the giant laser will be your best bet for most of the level, as there are too many enemies with too much health for your Odin to keep up with, so melt as many enemies as you can before they get the chance to fire at all.

I hope this helps someone, Raptor is definitely worth revisiting if you have any history with it, though I don't think it's a must-play for newcomers unless you watch some gameplay and are really into the vibe.

I picked this up because there seemed to be a consensus that this was the best Mario Party in ages, going back to basics after Mario Party 10 and Super Mario Party. I definitely agree that Superstars is better than having all players move around in a single car together, but to me, this doesn't feel like a Mario Party worth getting excited for. Having recently played each of these boards in their original titles via the NSO, I don't really see the appeal of Superstars, as it takes some of the simplest and least-engaging boards in the franchise, and eliminates their charming N64 aesthetic in favor of that standard "Generic Mario" visual style. The minigame collection is solid, but these boards really don't do it for me.

I've played this, Super Mario Party, and 1-7 with my kids over the past few years. This feels really weird to say, but... I feel like I need to get Mario Party 8. Maybe that was secretly the best one all along. At least it had interesting boards!

Using pointer controls with a Joy-Con makes me miss the Wiimote. The sensor bar was so crucial! There was a reference point at all times, so when you pointed at the screen, the cursor actually showed up where you wanted it to! The Joy-Con work well enough for short bursts of movement, like a shake or a gyro aim assist, but the pointing is just not happening.

So how should I go about collecting thousands of star bits to feed my hungry Luna babies?? I played through the game completely in handheld mode. Touch is completely accurate, but it presents its own challenges since you can't aim and use all the controller functions simultaneously. There were countless moments when I wanted to sweep my index finger across the screen to swipe up those delectable space candies, but I was in a boss fight or a sequence that didn't allow for pauses in movement or jumping. Oftentimes, I'd risk it and swipe anyway. I recklessly died dozens of times due to my insatiable greed, wistfully remembering the days of being able to run, jump, AND point my controller accurately at the screen all at once. I didn't appreciate the Wii Remote enough while I had it. And now, here I am, praying that the Switch 2 dock functions as a sensor bar for Joy-Con 2s with IR somehow crammed next to the shoulder buttons.

Anyhow uhhh this version of the game is very pretty and it's still a great time, shame about the pointer controls though!

TAIKETSU FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH

After dozens of DBZ games that just tell the story of the show over and over again (which, admittedly, this also does), it's incredibly refreshing to have "What If?" storylines like what the first Budokai had. I got to play as Frieza, massacring the entire Saiyan and Human races before blowing up the entire Earth while killing Cell! That probably doesn't sound like happy fun times, but it was just nice to have a different narrative! Very solid for a GBA fighter, looking forward to trying the sequel soon.

Uhhh this kind of rules?

Look, I have no delusions about being cool. When I was a kid, my dad was getting his PhD until I was like 9 years old, so I often found myself killing time in empty classrooms on Oklahoma University campus. That meant 30-60 minutes of just me and some chalkboards. For most kids, I assume that would mean a whole bunch of doodling. But for this radical 90s youth, it meant coming up with the most complicated long division problems I could and seeing how fast I could solve them.

I think basic math is fun! Sue me! My wife and I often watch 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and compete with each other for points throughout the episode. The 2-player mode of DK Jr. Math gave me the same vibes, but with some NES jank thrown in, and being limited to using single-digit numbers for each step of your equation. I had a great time!

The single-player mode was extremely anxiety-inducing at first while I tried to figure out if I remembered how to do this kind of math without being able to write down remainders, but once I got the hang of it, I knew this was exactly the kind of edutainment that little Alex would have loved. This is absolutely not for everyone, but tiny geeks and nerds (both currently and formerly tiny) will have a blast.

Picross games and fakeout endings, name a more iconic duo

I don't get why this wasn't released! It's an accessible, friendly first Picross game which could have turned plenty of young Pokemaniacs into Picross addicts. The art is the clear highlight, with each image being quite lovely, especially for the hardware, and the Pokemon theming gives the game plenty of charm. There are 151 puzzles that you'll complete in the main game, one for each Pokémon (at the time). If you complete a puzzle, that Pokémon is added to your Pokédex, and the puzzle is marked with a Poké Ball. However, if you beat the puzzle under the target time, it's marked with a Great Ball instead. Is there any real reason to go for Great Balls on all of them? Not as far as I can tell! I came in under the target time on every single puzzle, and I'm unsure if anything in the game changed as a result. Probably not worth all the retries!

Throughout these 151 puzzles, I feel comfortable saying this is an entry-level Picross game. Nothing is too difficult, largely due to the small resolution of the Game Boy. This means that you won't encounter any puzzles larger than 15x15, though the game does fake its way to 20x20 and 30x30 pictures by splitting those images into 4 quadrants, essentially just being a group of 10x10 or 15x15 puzzles that must be completed in a row. It keeps things quite simple, but they definitely did the best they could with the hardware limitations. Though there is one adjustment made by the dev team that might be controversial; instead of actually drawing the pixels in the images, you're sort of highlighting over the lines in broad strokes, allowing for more detailed stills. You can see in this image how there are black lines underneath the dark blue filled squares. This does end up causing a LOT more completely filled-in rows than your average Picross game, but again, I think it works well as an introductory title.

However, after the game rolls credits, a new mode is unlocked. In the Safari Park, you'll be completing images of multiple Pokémon in a variety of settings. These puzzles skew towards the larger side, have stricter Great Ball times, and most crucially, multi-screen puzzles which are split into 4 quadrants no longer tell you if one quadrant has been successfully completed. You must verify for yourself that no required square has been left unfilled, which ultimately soured me on my experience quite a bit. When you're trying to make that Great Ball time, nothing is more frustrating than thinking you're done, only to have to go check your work across 4 different 15x15 puzzles, searching for the single pixel you missed. Later Picross games tend to change the color of the numbered prompts associated with a row or column once you have filled the proper number of squares, a QOL improvement which I desperately missed here. The game does allow you to mark the numbers yourself, but that takes enough time to do that I don't think I'd ever make a Great Ball time in the Safari Park while doing so.

In short, Pokémon Picross for the Game Boy is Baby's First Picross, until the Safari Park happens. I think it's a great introduction to this style of puzzle, and a much more worthwhile entry than other titles on the Game Boy. But there is a serious handbrake turn towards frustrating difficulty in the post-game, and I haven't even taken into account any time penalties for marking the wrong squares. As an unearthed relic that never saw a formal release, I think it's absolutely worth checking out, just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

I love the idea of some middle-aged guy in 2001 buying a Game Boy Color just for this game so he can play FreeCell on the train to work

This is a pretty cool oddity, it's a few of those classic Windows 95/98-era games that everyone's dad had, but shrunk down for the Game Boy. The handheld market was no stranger to demakes of popular games, but there's something unique (and more than a little charming) about the presentation here. The main screen is a shrunk down version of the default Windows 95 UI, complete with that one shade of teal in the background and a Start button in the bottom-left. It's a small thing, but as someone who grew up around computers in the early 90s, I feel the presentation really elevates the experience.

Unfortunately, the selection is a bit odd. FreeCell, Minesweeper, and SkiFree are solid inclusions (and the animations in SkiFree are actually quite smooth), but who thought that we needed TicTactics instead of Solitaire or Hearts? I guess they might not have wanted too many card games, but was anyone really picking this up for Tripeaks on the go?

In any case, the Game Boy renditions of these PC classics are all faithful renditions and don't seem to be drastically inferior in any way. I'd say if you've got any nostalgia for Microsoft Entertainment Pack games, check it out for the novelty.

Turns out, this is secretly a Downhill Jam prequel.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that THPS on Game Boy would be a completely different experience, but I was still taken aback at just how different it is. The core gameplay of completing objectives across sprawling maps is nowhere to be found; instead you've got a Half-Pipe mode and races. The controls are extremely limited, so don't expect to be pulling off massive combos here. In the races (playable as player vs. a single cpu or in "Tournament Mode"), you'll tap up on the D-Pad to accelerate, trying to reach the end first while collecting Skate points and Tapes for bonuses. If you do a trick after going off a ramp, there's no animation. Instead, the game pauses and cuts to a little splash image of the trick you performed.

Radical.

Half-Pipe Mode looks a little better in terms of animations, but it's still awfully basic. Going back and forth while limited to one trick per jump won't scratch the THPS itch for anyone. The game as a whole feels awfully light on content for a Tony Hawk title, but it honestly makes sense as a basic Game Boy skating game.

Tired: Uncharted telling me I'm a bad person for shooting mercenaries

Wired: My own crippling guilt after picking someone's pocket and realizing they only had two dollars

This was fun! Getting to be a rainbow-colored little scamp on a road trip to fake Vegas, robbing literally everyone in sight along the way. The game doesn't overtly dive into the morality of your choices, and I think that's the right call. There's just enough conveyed by some of the people you rob that you can feel bad all by yourself without the player character telling you to. This is not a guilt trip game, this is an "Aren't you so sneaky and clever" game, in the most rapscallion way possible. Like, when you inspect items, you just kick 'em. Angst!

~ ~ The lightest implications of potential spoilers below, but I do not state anything that actually happens ~ ~

I've seen a couple of reviews that seemed very upset about the story shift late in the game, but like... come on. There was a point less than 30 minutes in where my wife and I both said at the same time "Oh, X is gonna happen". With all the 90s vibes from the game, I really shoulda said "jinx". Do kids still do that? Do Zoomers jinx each other? I have no idea. Anyhow, I don't think the "reveal" (if you can even call it that) could have been implied more clearly. It's the natural, if predictable, way for this story to play out. Thankfully, random NPCs and supporting characters make the tropes more fun in practice.

The animations and art style are delightful, characters are wacky, length was perfect, story was serviceable, and the dialogue got a handful of legitimate laughs out of us. If you've got Game Pass, I'd say it's very much worth trying!

The only thing you race against in Gotham City Racer is the clock. This Twisted Metal wannabe is comprised of a series of Batmobile missions, bookended by clips of the 90s animated series. The story presentation is done quite well, but that's just because the show that it's derived from is fantastic. What you're really playing here is the time spent traveling between scenes. Sometimes you're pursuing another car, shooting assorted Bat-projectiles to wear them down, but quite often your objective is just "QUICK GET TO THE LOCATION WHERE THE STORY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS".

I was going to jokingly say that this is a game where you watch the action and play the loading screens, but there are actual loading screens in the middle of most of the playable segments. See, Gotham is split into a few chunks, and most missions will take you to more than one of these partitions. Each time you enter a new area, you're struck by a 15-30 second loading screen in the middle of your "race". It really kills any hopes the game had of creating tension or excitement when you have to take a mandatory time-out during your high-stakes car chase.

But even if all of that was fine, the game fails for two more fundamental reasons: First, the controls are real real bad. And second, the map is practically worthless. When you're playing a destination-based stage, you've got an arrow over your head pointing in the general direction that you need to go, and you've got a minimap in the corner. But without the ability to zoom the map out, you'll quickly find yourself unable to proceed towards your target location due to fences or bodies of water. Unless you memorize all the maps AND the destinations using guides online, you essentially just have to make guesses and drive blindly, hoping you'll stumble across an area where you can reach the goal without Michael Scott GPS-ing the Batmobile into a lake.