JimTheSchoolGirl
1983
My actual first Mario game, loaded from a cassette tape onto a Spectrum and played with the keyboard. Not particularly interesting or fun to handle. Years later I played it with Fisher and co, it's a good laugh when you're working against each other. One time I won by grabbing a mystery mushroom, shouting "MYSTERY" as the characters swapped places and my opponent ran into a koopa.
I was so excited for this because a pal was streaming it and some folk insisted it was a big improvement. I eventually got to the end and was like "oh so that's what that was all about".
2020
Alligator please leave me the fuck alone, I'm trying to get big and strong
How do you follow up an all-timer? You write out a big list of things you could change, for better or worse, and then you put a blindfold on and throw some darts.
Beam ammo adds nothing fun to the game, translation locks are basically keycards and feel out of place and artificial, the exploration doesn't flow particularly well, the 3D map is a pain in certain areas, the endgame key hunt is a chore, and the menu interface is plain bloody stupid.
To be fair, there's some great stuff in here, it's definitely worth playing if you're planning on doing the trilogy, it's just that my current thoughts on this are tainted by the fact I'm replaying on Hypermode, which turns all the bosses into tedious bullet sponges. Don't do that.
Beam ammo adds nothing fun to the game, translation locks are basically keycards and feel out of place and artificial, the exploration doesn't flow particularly well, the 3D map is a pain in certain areas, the endgame key hunt is a chore, and the menu interface is plain bloody stupid.
To be fair, there's some great stuff in here, it's definitely worth playing if you're planning on doing the trilogy, it's just that my current thoughts on this are tainted by the fact I'm replaying on Hypermode, which turns all the bosses into tedious bullet sponges. Don't do that.
2021
Pretty sure I played this back in the day and shrugged. Quake 2 got my attention, and then Half-Life shook me by the shoulders, and then Deus Ex grabbed me by the balls, and I stopped thinking about games that didn't ask me to think.
Going back now though, Quake is an absolute dream, a breath of fresh air. Twitchy, speedy, visceral, it doesn't ask me to think so much as feel and react, it's buttery smooth and the sound design kicks ass and you can explode anything into chunks thanks to the king of powerups: QUAD DAMAGE.
Quake feels like the true seed of what's great about Doom 2016, and I live in hope of a Quake 202X.
Going back now though, Quake is an absolute dream, a breath of fresh air. Twitchy, speedy, visceral, it doesn't ask me to think so much as feel and react, it's buttery smooth and the sound design kicks ass and you can explode anything into chunks thanks to the king of powerups: QUAD DAMAGE.
Quake feels like the true seed of what's great about Doom 2016, and I live in hope of a Quake 202X.
2016
Having just lost several powerful characters named after folk I know online, I feel like it's time to take a good hard look at this whole experience in the hopes of convincing myself to sack it off and spend my time in other ways.
There's a triangle of elements that need to be balanced for a strategy game to really get its hooks into me: dynamic tactical combat, varied base management, and a sort of non-linear open progression. XCOM has routinely done it best, all the way back to UFO, but Darkest Dungeon makes a cracking alternative. That feeling of running an organisation which has a specific end goal but you get to choose the path that takes you there, every single step of the way, sending out crews to do the tasks that support the big picture. It's just very satisfying, it looks and sounds and plays great, and there's so much of it you could play for months on end. It's a very good game. And I'm always on the lookout for more games that fit in this box.
HOWEVER
It's very easy for this one to start feeling like a routine. A job. A chore. Often you do a bit of it, but can't see that you've made any progress. Estate's haunted, grab a musket and head on in. Ah wait we need more of two of the six currencies, better go again. And again. And again.
Slowly I realise I'm not an adventurer risking life and limb for excitement's sake, I'm the guy in the prologue. I'm old and tired and I've had enough. Time to shoot myself and let someone else manage the guild. Bye!
There's a triangle of elements that need to be balanced for a strategy game to really get its hooks into me: dynamic tactical combat, varied base management, and a sort of non-linear open progression. XCOM has routinely done it best, all the way back to UFO, but Darkest Dungeon makes a cracking alternative. That feeling of running an organisation which has a specific end goal but you get to choose the path that takes you there, every single step of the way, sending out crews to do the tasks that support the big picture. It's just very satisfying, it looks and sounds and plays great, and there's so much of it you could play for months on end. It's a very good game. And I'm always on the lookout for more games that fit in this box.
HOWEVER
It's very easy for this one to start feeling like a routine. A job. A chore. Often you do a bit of it, but can't see that you've made any progress. Estate's haunted, grab a musket and head on in. Ah wait we need more of two of the six currencies, better go again. And again. And again.
Slowly I realise I'm not an adventurer risking life and limb for excitement's sake, I'm the guy in the prologue. I'm old and tired and I've had enough. Time to shoot myself and let someone else manage the guild. Bye!
1996
My mum got well into this, but late into the game she did a swan dive off a sphinx then hit quicksave instead of quickload, hasn't touched it since.
2013
Really enjoyed this for a while, then I got obsessed with doing Impossible Ironman and had an actual mental breakdown
Funny, with a bit of a Rhythm Heaven / Warioware vibe to the cutscenes, but the puzzle element doesn't quite work and you just end up frantically mashing. Still enjoyable, but I never felt like I was playing it properly.
If it wasn't for the chief telling me to "Check the precog eggs" I could not tell you what movie this was tied into.
I remember seeing a screenshot in a magazine labelled "ouga gaiden" and thinking it looked rad. It was! Satisfyingly deep combat, catchy tunes, branching story. Blew my mind how big a game they'd crammed into a GBA, it lasts about 40 hours and I must have played it through a dozen times before I moved on. When my GameCube started giving me disc read errors, the one reason I kept it was because it would still boot up the GBA player and let me play this on the telly. Magic stuff.
1997
Played this a bunch at Fisher's house. A less popular choice as there were five of us taking turns, but a good laugh to watch. I didn't really get it, but I enjoyed Hwoarang's mad legs. Crossland was always banging on about supposed secret "4-button moves" and would get roundly mocked for it.
CROSSLAND
CROSSLAND
I liked it better on the DS
There's no way I'm spending dozens of hours here. I almost get the appeal, seems like it might be a fairly rich world, but again it just feels like total crap to interact with. I'll stick with the funny videos ta.
2007
I once spent an afternoon discovering I'm crap at Draughts. Lost about five games in a row. What I thought were good moves invariably turned out to be bad moves. I felt like my brain was incompatible with the requirements of the game, even though I understood all the rules. Very frustrating, haven't played since. But then it's a pretty basic game, not particularly exciting, am I really missing out by just leaving it behind? Nope. Sometimes it's fine to walk away and find better things to do.