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1992
As mentioned in my review of the first Road Rash, these games were staples of my whole family's gaming experience. However, where I have a story to tell about the first game, I will instead spend this review paying tribute to the Wild Thing, the secret bike that could go over 220mph and handled like a motorcycle going over 220mph. To any normal mind, the risk of flying off your bike at 220mph and having to run all the way back to get it would never outweigh the reward of driving 220mph. Except I was a kid, so I picked it every time I played it, and just ate horrific shit every time I did. Doesn't matter! Still rules!
2012
My personal favorite match 3 game. I find the ending of Bejeweled games to be wholly unsatisfactory, where the game informs you that there's no moves left like you're in charge of what the board gives you. In contrast, 10000000 gives you so much board control that there's no way to run out of moves, so instead it asks you to make the right moves under pressure. I find that much more satisfying than the alternative.
This is not a review of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. This is, instead, a takedown of the worst thing that's ever been in a Monster Hunter 3. "Oh you mean the underwater parts?" No. I mean Quropeco. While I've only played four Monster Hunter games, so I'm sure there's some total bullshit encounter I've completely forgotten about, this hideous bastard with its armor throat and its explosion clapping and its Rathalos summoning song is the worst thing that's ever been in a Monster Hunter game and it is a blessing they're not in the other Monster Hunters. And surely you may think "now that you've said that, they'll put it in another game." At this point? Do it. Do it and make everyone else choke. You already killed my Hunting Horn. I don't care anymore.
2008
SHOOT PORTABLE MISSILES
GET PORTABLE FRUIT
SCREAM PORTABLY
GET PORTABLE FRUIT
SCREAM PORTABLY
Castlevania games are better with whips than with inventories.
2002
The only game I've ever really considered speedrunning. I love this damn thing, warts and all. Everything about how the combat works feels like the game that Arkham Asylum simplified to make itself popular.
1990
One of the handful of games from my childhood that made the 2000s roguelike wave feel so strange, since I was done with that kind of game by the time I was in high school. Admittedly, I don't know how many roguelike tactics games exist so it's got that going for it?
1990
like if robotron wouldn't shut the fuck up
1981
Of early shootemups, this is probably my favorite. It takes the natural stress of the escalating speed from Space invaders and makes the course more treacherous based on your own actions, thus making the game a constant balance of undoing your own hellscape as well as completing your objectives. Good friction.
2017
"Oh cool! I find that whole rock paper scissors shit really demeaning about Fire Emblem, but honestly assigning squads in a Warriors game format that have to follow those rules seems neat! Usually the squad movement thing in those games is an absolute afterthought so I'd love to see a game stress that further."
[two hours of play pass]
"Oh. I'm supposed to know who these people are already. Damn. That's a real shame."
[two hours of play pass]
"Oh. I'm supposed to know who these people are already. Damn. That's a real shame."
Or, "Sid Meier's Wet Hot Barbarian Summer"
Or, "Sid Meier's Endless Legends Envy Tantrum"
Or, "Sid Meier's Espionage Victory"
Or, "Sid Meier's Regretting Letting the Civ 4 People Walk"
Or, "Sid Meier's Skipping Multiples of Three From Now On"
Or, "Sid Meier's Endless Legends Envy Tantrum"
Or, "Sid Meier's Espionage Victory"
Or, "Sid Meier's Regretting Letting the Civ 4 People Walk"
Or, "Sid Meier's Skipping Multiples of Three From Now On"
better at being a wolverine game than those batman games are at being batman games
2002
I love this game but on general principle refuse to beat it. I made the mistake of attempting to 100% it before I beat the last boss, and having finally achieved that and made it to the boss, when the big reveal was that he was going to rule the world with a giant cymbal crashing monkey, I set the controller down and said aloud "I'm not doing this." I still haven't.
Played it in an arcade at age 11 and was struggling. A literal soldier in his literal dress attire set his huge duffelbag in front of the cabinet and asked if he could join in. We beat this god forsaken thing, and yet aside from a few bits at the end involving shutter doors, the only thing I remember about this game was thinking "wow, it sucks that you are a soldier, you seem nice."
1992
I tried to play this as a child and found it unwieldy and difficult. Plus, my brother loudly complained at seeing it because of how it handled perspective. I beat it last week, at time of writing. By the time I was jumping off cliffs and rounding my jumps at the right time to bypass elevator patterns, I felt like I was capable of doing all sorts of great and terrible things. I'm aging and I feel possibilities closing more and more often, but look at what I made myself do this year.
also I sent my brother a clip of me making that jump and he said it made him physically ill, so, that's pretty good
also I sent my brother a clip of me making that jump and he said it made him physically ill, so, that's pretty good