Today I booted up John Madden Football. Don't find much time nor do I have the energy to play video games as much, so I figured maybe a round of John Madden Football could get me in the mood. I didn't really feel like looking at any controls or rules or anything, but I caught on and got a touchdown and then eventually won my first game. I said out loud to myself "Wow! What a thrilling football simulation" as my favorite team, 'Philadelphia' scored a whopping 7 points against 'New Jersey'; both of which are supposed to be the Eagles. As I sit in my chair full of excitement after winning, I turned the game off and opened up backloggd to document my experience. Tomorrow I will be playing the sequel, John Madden Football 92. Maybe that game will have officially licensed teams. My pussy is quaking in excitement.

Not gonna give it a rating since I didn't have the peripherals, but still kinda disappointing. Charts were meh and the soundtrack was kinda just there. None of the songs really stood out, but i appreciate the variety by trying to cover plenty of genres with some ska and electro industrial tracks on here.

Not sure how different the PS2 port is from the arcade port, but since this is the only listing on here and it mentions the PS2 version in the description, I'll just leave my review here for now.

It's fine I guess. The fun begins to wear off after like 3 races, but it's not a bad game. I really like a lot of what the game does. The game does a great job at really making you feel like you're going fast. The track designs are mostly good besides like maybe 1 stinker and some minor flaws in the other tracks such as fucking dying if didn't go down the hill in Greece properly. The game can get really competitive with some surprisingly good ai for the time. I would find myself going head to head with some of the other drivers only for them to end in one of us getting fucked in the end. Speaking of which, crashes in these games are intense. Going 200 mph and then bumping into someone and then doing some spiraling through the air or spinning on the track at least 10 times. It's surpassingly reminiscent of crashing in Burnout, just without the takedowns or damage models. Catching up usually isn't an issue if you're in the McLaren F1, which the game basically forces you to use. I did my first race in a Lotus, and I struggled to keep up. Some balancing would've been nice, and I imagine it would've kept me playing the game longer after I played on all of the tracks.

The start of Touhou is a really interesting one. I honestly really enjoyed this breakout style of gameplay even if it was jank as hell. Any of the boss stages were just so easy to due being able to just use a bomb and wipe everything out, but the bosses of this game were truly the peak. While nowhere near being great, they were really enjoyable and actually presented a challenge unlike the rest of the game. My favorite part of this game was the imagery and style. This game is really nice looking and it has some weird style to it I guess I would say. Everything about this game just looks unique, and the bosses are probably some of the coolest design-wise.

Despite its many flaws, i absolutely love this game. Instead of actually talking about this game, i need to discuss how amazing progression feels in this game. The game starts out with you joining the gang doing basic gang things until you are introduced to 3 missions types. Story Missions which progress the story, Strongholds that are basically just smaller scale missions without any story, and then there are the side missions. Side missions are interesting because while you don’t have to do all of them to progress, you need to do some of them to progress. These charming little missions even come with little cutscenes that introduce characters that will even show up in the sequel. Doing these side quest will raise your respect, but respect can be boosted depending on what clothing you wear and this is where i love the progression system. When you first start the game, you’ll be wearing just a shirt and pants; your only gun will be a handgun and your car will be a 4 door sedan that you stole off the street. For quite a bit of the game this will be your set up. You can’t afford anything nice, but around halfway through the game, you’ll get yourself some nice jewelry, some high end clothes, and maybe even a shotgun. towards the end of the game you’ll have an expensive sports car, an rpg, a big house, and platinum jewelry. it’s just so nice playing a game where i actually feel like i’m making meaningful purchases. buying my first piece of platinum jewelry felt so rewarding in this game when in most other games i would never care about jewelry. in other games where i can get a loaded gun anytime for cheap, it’s nice to just barely have enough money to afford ammo in this game. With so many games so focused on making you feel like the strongest person in the world as soon as possible, it’s nice to play a game where you actually feel like you’re progressing.