jtduckman
More like Kirby and the Stupid-Ass 12-year Wait. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. This shit is personal. Buckle up.
Going through the mainline kirby games this was the one title that always eluded me due to the fact I really started playing these games on the DS instead of the GBA and never could really find a copy back when I was a kid. I would only look at it through stuff like the kirby wiki, the museum and history book in kirby's dream collection, and various internet comments reminicing on how the GBA kirby games were the peak of the series in terms of game feel. When they announced it was going to be on the 3DS through the ambassador program, I was extremely excited to play the one mainline sidescrolling kirby game that I never had before at that point.
As I played for the first time those 10+ years ago, I was confused. Where were the levels? Why I am I going in circles? What's up with all these other kirbys that just bumble around? Where do I go? I think I accidentally skipped the intro cutscene when I first played because I felt like I was thrown in with NO idea what was going on. Unbeknownst to me, this game has levels structured in this large open world where you need to explore and find all the bosses to get all the mirror pieces. It's structured entirely differently from any other mainline kirby game, for better or for worse, and the in-game map isn't really the most obvious. Espically for 11-12 year old me. Combine that with the several unmarked one-way doors, and I was just kind of running around in circles on my first go, eventually dropping the game MAYBE halfway through, if that.
Fast forward a few years. In trying to get every US kirby game as a collector goal (in the times where collecting games definitely wasn't cheap, but was still in the realm of affordability to be a hobby, but that's a whole other rant for a whole other day), this game was the last game I needed to complete the set. The first copy of the game I got literally didn't work because it had what I assume to be black sticky tar on the inside back of the cartridge. Perhaps it was an omen that this game is just cursed, but I eventually got a second copy that actually worked on the actual GBA. I give it a play, knowing a bit more about what I was going to get myself into. In still getting as completely lost as before, I realized that the core problem must be the fact that the large open world is designed to be explored jointly with up to 3 friends, creating a much more social kirby experience as everyone explores a giant open world together, calling out what they find, and working to uncover all the level secrets. I knew that if I were to truly experience this game, I would need to get 3 friends.
So I bought a GBA link cable and asked around. By this point in time, it was the mid-late 2010s. Nobody had GBAs. Nobody had copies of this game. The period of time where you could concievably get a consistent group of people to play this had LONG since gone. Eventually, more time passed, I graduated from high school, my friends and I went our distant ways, and getting a group of people to play through this game went on to be a sort of bucket-list thing. I would find a way to play this in its entirety with 3 other people. If only someone made a GBA emulator that supported netplay...
And then it happened. When they announced that switch online was getting GBA support, This was the one title on my mind. When I saw it on that sizzle reel of upcoming supported games, that was my nintendo direct hype moment™. So I waited the extra few months or so for them to actually drip feed this game out, and when it finally arrived, I knew it was kirby time. Surely the various qualms I had with the game could be mitigated when divided up between 4 players, right?
WRONG!
(so firstly I have to get this out of the way because its not inherently the games fault. I was playing with one person on wifi with satellite internet and one person in Japan whereas the rest of us are in the US, so the connection was awful. Inputs pretty much took an entire ass second to register, but we soldiered on despite the many, many, MANY, problems that the poor netcode caused. The game also had a lot of periods where there would be a tangible amount of slowdown, and since the audio itself wasn't also slowing down I'm not sure if that's actually something that happens on the actual GBA hardware, but honestly for the benefit of the doubt I'm going to assume that was also a connection quality thing.) ANYWAYS
In a 4-person game, there are a few benefits and there are a few downsides. On the positive, the cell phone is actually a really cool feature. Provided you have enough battery, you can call your friends and teleport them exactly to where you are. It's helpful in situations where you need a specific ability, so you can have a friend get what you need and call them over to where you might be stuck, or if you need to solve a puzzle that requires multiple people. It also is handy if you need backup in a fight against a boss or mini-boss. The only problem about the cell phone is the fact that its super easy to teleport around between your friends doing stuff that it makes it even easier to lose track of where you are supposed to go. There were several times where I was doing something then got completely sidetracked by another player needing an ability I was close to, or help on a miniboss I had already fought. The game keeps track of which doors have been went through already between all players, and since everyone is bumblefucking around on their own, its easy to accidentally be wandering around in an area where someone else already wandered in The in-game map is still nowhere near as helpful as it needs to be for a game of this kind of calibre, though the confusing aspect of it was the least of our concerns. Oh my god, the map. Despite the fact that every player has their own bespoke screen with their own bespoke game boys doing their own bespoke thing, if ANYONE presses the map button, EVERYONE gets disrupted to see it. And even when it is showing for everyone, all players have to be looking at the same part of the map, theres no way for one player to look at one area while another person looks at another. It's like if you were in class and if one person has to take a piss everyone has to go get up and head out until they were done. Because of how disruptive it is for everyone to be checking the map so goddamn much, we'd all eventually just stop trying to use it as not to piss anyone else off, but then that just meant we were all wandering around aimlessly in circles again!!!!!!! The ability design doesn't work at all for this kind of game either!!! Losing your ability after getting hit makes sense in a linear style of game like kirby's adventure, but here where abilities have a more utilitary purpose, it gets incredibly annoying having to try and avoid touching a single obstacle just so you can keep the burning ability that can break iron blocks, or the hammer that can pound pikes. People like to describe this game as a "metroidvania" due to its non-linear structure, but then it'd be like playing metroid but every time you get hit you lose your upgrades and have to scramble around to get them back before they disappear. Don't even think about trying to get your ability back with friends dude, if everyone is getting hit everyones gonna be accidentally taking other players abilities and passing that shit around like its fucking chicken pox. Again, the phone can mitigate the ability problems (they are a lot worse in single player where you can't rely on other players), but the problems are still there. If they made it so that you could take 2 or 3 hits before dropping your ability, things would have been signifcantly better. Being careful not to get hit is also a lot harder when playing through molasses connections... The game also has all these dead-end "goal" areas scattered throughout the levels that do nothing besides net a couple of extra lives and send you all the way back to the starting area, which feels like its deliberately punishing the player for exploring because they weren't exploring in the right direction. The whole game just feels contradictory and not really well thought out. It wants you and your friends to explore a world but doesn't give the correct tools to do so, makes looking at resources for directions annoying, and punishes going the wrong way despite there not being any direction to begin with. Like they thought to make a multiplayer kirby game with a big explorable world then just kinda shrugged off the execution and instead just made a linear kirby game but with all the doors linked to one another in a confusing fashion. The level design genuinely feels like it takes cues from more obtuse non-euclidean experimental famicom and game boy games. This shit is the Atlantis no Nazo of the kirby series. (though definitely not as egregious.) Oh, and the final boss has 6 phases with only one player getting the easy-to-lose master ability to actually do any meaningful semblance of damage. Try doing that shit with a wifi warrior. If me and my pals didn't discover you could cheese life grinding by using the phone constantly at the goal areas, I think some of the players I got for the journey wouldn't have stuck around to see the ending.
Overall, yeah. Not very fun by yourself, not very much better with friends. One star is certainly harsh and the game has the amount of polish and misplaced ambition to it that I'd normally give something like this a two, but fuck man. I waited over a decade to play this, thinking it was going to be this really cool multiplayer experience lost to time finally come back. In order to have a smooth multiplayer experience, you either need friends that live close-by that still have GBAs and copies of the game around or friends with switches and actually good internet. Both of which are equally impossible for me unfortunately. I do think it also brings up the importance of having good netcode when it comes to things like this, as while it makes these old games all the more accessible for multiplayer, it can compromise the actual play experience and misrepresent how the multiplayer for these titles actually was meant to be played. If they waited a bit and made this for the DS, where it was a bit easier to get multiplayer game sessions going and they could have used the bottom screen to do an actually competent map, then they could have had something really cool. Flagship coulda made squeak squad for GBA and this for DS. They did it backwards, dammit. Not the worst game I've ever played but the actual game is bleh made all the much worse by my personal expectations and bad connection. At least it's off that bucket list...
Going through the mainline kirby games this was the one title that always eluded me due to the fact I really started playing these games on the DS instead of the GBA and never could really find a copy back when I was a kid. I would only look at it through stuff like the kirby wiki, the museum and history book in kirby's dream collection, and various internet comments reminicing on how the GBA kirby games were the peak of the series in terms of game feel. When they announced it was going to be on the 3DS through the ambassador program, I was extremely excited to play the one mainline sidescrolling kirby game that I never had before at that point.
As I played for the first time those 10+ years ago, I was confused. Where were the levels? Why I am I going in circles? What's up with all these other kirbys that just bumble around? Where do I go? I think I accidentally skipped the intro cutscene when I first played because I felt like I was thrown in with NO idea what was going on. Unbeknownst to me, this game has levels structured in this large open world where you need to explore and find all the bosses to get all the mirror pieces. It's structured entirely differently from any other mainline kirby game, for better or for worse, and the in-game map isn't really the most obvious. Espically for 11-12 year old me. Combine that with the several unmarked one-way doors, and I was just kind of running around in circles on my first go, eventually dropping the game MAYBE halfway through, if that.
Fast forward a few years. In trying to get every US kirby game as a collector goal (in the times where collecting games definitely wasn't cheap, but was still in the realm of affordability to be a hobby, but that's a whole other rant for a whole other day), this game was the last game I needed to complete the set. The first copy of the game I got literally didn't work because it had what I assume to be black sticky tar on the inside back of the cartridge. Perhaps it was an omen that this game is just cursed, but I eventually got a second copy that actually worked on the actual GBA. I give it a play, knowing a bit more about what I was going to get myself into. In still getting as completely lost as before, I realized that the core problem must be the fact that the large open world is designed to be explored jointly with up to 3 friends, creating a much more social kirby experience as everyone explores a giant open world together, calling out what they find, and working to uncover all the level secrets. I knew that if I were to truly experience this game, I would need to get 3 friends.
So I bought a GBA link cable and asked around. By this point in time, it was the mid-late 2010s. Nobody had GBAs. Nobody had copies of this game. The period of time where you could concievably get a consistent group of people to play this had LONG since gone. Eventually, more time passed, I graduated from high school, my friends and I went our distant ways, and getting a group of people to play through this game went on to be a sort of bucket-list thing. I would find a way to play this in its entirety with 3 other people. If only someone made a GBA emulator that supported netplay...
And then it happened. When they announced that switch online was getting GBA support, This was the one title on my mind. When I saw it on that sizzle reel of upcoming supported games, that was my nintendo direct hype moment™. So I waited the extra few months or so for them to actually drip feed this game out, and when it finally arrived, I knew it was kirby time. Surely the various qualms I had with the game could be mitigated when divided up between 4 players, right?
WRONG!
(so firstly I have to get this out of the way because its not inherently the games fault. I was playing with one person on wifi with satellite internet and one person in Japan whereas the rest of us are in the US, so the connection was awful. Inputs pretty much took an entire ass second to register, but we soldiered on despite the many, many, MANY, problems that the poor netcode caused. The game also had a lot of periods where there would be a tangible amount of slowdown, and since the audio itself wasn't also slowing down I'm not sure if that's actually something that happens on the actual GBA hardware, but honestly for the benefit of the doubt I'm going to assume that was also a connection quality thing.) ANYWAYS
In a 4-person game, there are a few benefits and there are a few downsides. On the positive, the cell phone is actually a really cool feature. Provided you have enough battery, you can call your friends and teleport them exactly to where you are. It's helpful in situations where you need a specific ability, so you can have a friend get what you need and call them over to where you might be stuck, or if you need to solve a puzzle that requires multiple people. It also is handy if you need backup in a fight against a boss or mini-boss. The only problem about the cell phone is the fact that its super easy to teleport around between your friends doing stuff that it makes it even easier to lose track of where you are supposed to go. There were several times where I was doing something then got completely sidetracked by another player needing an ability I was close to, or help on a miniboss I had already fought. The game keeps track of which doors have been went through already between all players, and since everyone is bumblefucking around on their own, its easy to accidentally be wandering around in an area where someone else already wandered in The in-game map is still nowhere near as helpful as it needs to be for a game of this kind of calibre, though the confusing aspect of it was the least of our concerns. Oh my god, the map. Despite the fact that every player has their own bespoke screen with their own bespoke game boys doing their own bespoke thing, if ANYONE presses the map button, EVERYONE gets disrupted to see it. And even when it is showing for everyone, all players have to be looking at the same part of the map, theres no way for one player to look at one area while another person looks at another. It's like if you were in class and if one person has to take a piss everyone has to go get up and head out until they were done. Because of how disruptive it is for everyone to be checking the map so goddamn much, we'd all eventually just stop trying to use it as not to piss anyone else off, but then that just meant we were all wandering around aimlessly in circles again!!!!!!! The ability design doesn't work at all for this kind of game either!!! Losing your ability after getting hit makes sense in a linear style of game like kirby's adventure, but here where abilities have a more utilitary purpose, it gets incredibly annoying having to try and avoid touching a single obstacle just so you can keep the burning ability that can break iron blocks, or the hammer that can pound pikes. People like to describe this game as a "metroidvania" due to its non-linear structure, but then it'd be like playing metroid but every time you get hit you lose your upgrades and have to scramble around to get them back before they disappear. Don't even think about trying to get your ability back with friends dude, if everyone is getting hit everyones gonna be accidentally taking other players abilities and passing that shit around like its fucking chicken pox. Again, the phone can mitigate the ability problems (they are a lot worse in single player where you can't rely on other players), but the problems are still there. If they made it so that you could take 2 or 3 hits before dropping your ability, things would have been signifcantly better. Being careful not to get hit is also a lot harder when playing through molasses connections... The game also has all these dead-end "goal" areas scattered throughout the levels that do nothing besides net a couple of extra lives and send you all the way back to the starting area, which feels like its deliberately punishing the player for exploring because they weren't exploring in the right direction. The whole game just feels contradictory and not really well thought out. It wants you and your friends to explore a world but doesn't give the correct tools to do so, makes looking at resources for directions annoying, and punishes going the wrong way despite there not being any direction to begin with. Like they thought to make a multiplayer kirby game with a big explorable world then just kinda shrugged off the execution and instead just made a linear kirby game but with all the doors linked to one another in a confusing fashion. The level design genuinely feels like it takes cues from more obtuse non-euclidean experimental famicom and game boy games. This shit is the Atlantis no Nazo of the kirby series. (though definitely not as egregious.) Oh, and the final boss has 6 phases with only one player getting the easy-to-lose master ability to actually do any meaningful semblance of damage. Try doing that shit with a wifi warrior. If me and my pals didn't discover you could cheese life grinding by using the phone constantly at the goal areas, I think some of the players I got for the journey wouldn't have stuck around to see the ending.
Overall, yeah. Not very fun by yourself, not very much better with friends. One star is certainly harsh and the game has the amount of polish and misplaced ambition to it that I'd normally give something like this a two, but fuck man. I waited over a decade to play this, thinking it was going to be this really cool multiplayer experience lost to time finally come back. In order to have a smooth multiplayer experience, you either need friends that live close-by that still have GBAs and copies of the game around or friends with switches and actually good internet. Both of which are equally impossible for me unfortunately. I do think it also brings up the importance of having good netcode when it comes to things like this, as while it makes these old games all the more accessible for multiplayer, it can compromise the actual play experience and misrepresent how the multiplayer for these titles actually was meant to be played. If they waited a bit and made this for the DS, where it was a bit easier to get multiplayer game sessions going and they could have used the bottom screen to do an actually competent map, then they could have had something really cool. Flagship coulda made squeak squad for GBA and this for DS. They did it backwards, dammit. Not the worst game I've ever played but the actual game is bleh made all the much worse by my personal expectations and bad connection. At least it's off that bucket list...
They made a full game out of the prototype that was the first motor toon grand prix! The tracks are more track-like (though I definitely miss the absolute insanity that was the first games track design), the controls are tighter, the physics are firmer, the visuals touched up. A marked improvement in almost every aspect. The items are also overhauled with there being a system where you can spend coins to get a random item at any point of the race, which can add a bit of strategy to the game. They also added new pre-rendered FMV cutscenes that have that rad yet also kinda uncanny vibe that's in mid-90's CG.
The game just has this playful vibe in it throughout. By winning the main grand prix mode on higher difficulties you can unlock various goodies that have their own bespoke menu. Not only are there your typical extra characters and tracks but there are these neat unrelated minigames that you can earn as well. The minigames also all run at 60 FPS with 3D graphics, which is quite the rarity on PS1. The minigames feel like little side projects the devs had that they decided to put in the game just for fun, and it keeps the whole rookie-dev-studio-experimenting-with-fancy-new-hardware vibe from the first game alive despite the main game being much more polished. There are even like 30 different menu background textures that you can choose from in the settings, I can tell that the devs were enthusiastic to use as much of the CD space they could, and I like that energy.
The gameplay is way more down-to-earth than most other arcade/kart racers of its time, and while the items certainly can help, the main key for victory is good driving technique. Knowing good braking and cornering points for the various courses are essential to winning, as the game doesn't have your mario kart/ridge racery drifting in it. Each vehicle also feels distinct from one another, and I found the most success with the unlockable train guy. The two highest difficulties surprisingly turn items off altogether, making it a true test of driving mastery. If you manage to clear the game on the hardest difficulty, the final unlockable minigame is Motor Toon Grand Prix R, which is a 60 FPS time trial on the first course of the game with a real F1 or stock car that controls much more realistically than the main game, which is really cool.
It's got that soul that a lot of Japan Studio-produced games contain. This Polys team sure has both a passion for cars and enthusiasm for the PS1s hardware. Sony should give these guys the budget to make a full-fledged racing simulator! I think they have it in them to make something truly special down the line.
The game just has this playful vibe in it throughout. By winning the main grand prix mode on higher difficulties you can unlock various goodies that have their own bespoke menu. Not only are there your typical extra characters and tracks but there are these neat unrelated minigames that you can earn as well. The minigames also all run at 60 FPS with 3D graphics, which is quite the rarity on PS1. The minigames feel like little side projects the devs had that they decided to put in the game just for fun, and it keeps the whole rookie-dev-studio-experimenting-with-fancy-new-hardware vibe from the first game alive despite the main game being much more polished. There are even like 30 different menu background textures that you can choose from in the settings, I can tell that the devs were enthusiastic to use as much of the CD space they could, and I like that energy.
The gameplay is way more down-to-earth than most other arcade/kart racers of its time, and while the items certainly can help, the main key for victory is good driving technique. Knowing good braking and cornering points for the various courses are essential to winning, as the game doesn't have your mario kart/ridge racery drifting in it. Each vehicle also feels distinct from one another, and I found the most success with the unlockable train guy. The two highest difficulties surprisingly turn items off altogether, making it a true test of driving mastery. If you manage to clear the game on the hardest difficulty, the final unlockable minigame is Motor Toon Grand Prix R, which is a 60 FPS time trial on the first course of the game with a real F1 or stock car that controls much more realistically than the main game, which is really cool.
It's got that soul that a lot of Japan Studio-produced games contain. This Polys team sure has both a passion for cars and enthusiasm for the PS1s hardware. Sony should give these guys the budget to make a full-fledged racing simulator! I think they have it in them to make something truly special down the line.
Once again, not nearly as bad as I feel people say it is. I already got the gist of things out of the way when I reviewed its sister game, so I'll spare repeating myself here too much.
The core gameplay and structure is predictably the same as Faces of Evil, with the same controls and mostly the same items, all the control quirks are still present, yadda yadda. This game is a bit more streamlined, as I was able to do most of what the game wanted me to do without needing to really consult a guide whereas with faces evil I was nose deep in that gamefaqs page. The levels themselves are also a bit less solid this time around, with a lot of spots where using a rope to progress is unavoidable. There's also a bit more money grinding in this game, as the levels are designed in a way that requires using ruby-consuming items a lot to make it through. There's no snowball/fireball shenanigans this time around though! Instead theres a flute and a loaf of bread that I never had to use once in my entire run, so that's something.
I think both this game and faces of evil have their share of upsides and downsides from one another to the point where I'd say they are about equal in quality. I'm not really sure why they felt the need to split the game into two sister releases, but they sure did. Maybe they were going to have some sort of cross-compatibility between the two or something during development, idk. Someone has probably done the research to find the answer to that question. Regardless, I didn't find either of these titles to be a really bad time. Definitely rough around some edges, sure, but nowhere near "worst games of all time" level. Not even "worst zelda games" to me either, I'd gladly play more of this over something like the oracle games or phantom hourglass any day. Maybe these "bad games" are pretty cool after all.
The core gameplay and structure is predictably the same as Faces of Evil, with the same controls and mostly the same items, all the control quirks are still present, yadda yadda. This game is a bit more streamlined, as I was able to do most of what the game wanted me to do without needing to really consult a guide whereas with faces evil I was nose deep in that gamefaqs page. The levels themselves are also a bit less solid this time around, with a lot of spots where using a rope to progress is unavoidable. There's also a bit more money grinding in this game, as the levels are designed in a way that requires using ruby-consuming items a lot to make it through. There's no snowball/fireball shenanigans this time around though! Instead theres a flute and a loaf of bread that I never had to use once in my entire run, so that's something.
I think both this game and faces of evil have their share of upsides and downsides from one another to the point where I'd say they are about equal in quality. I'm not really sure why they felt the need to split the game into two sister releases, but they sure did. Maybe they were going to have some sort of cross-compatibility between the two or something during development, idk. Someone has probably done the research to find the answer to that question. Regardless, I didn't find either of these titles to be a really bad time. Definitely rough around some edges, sure, but nowhere near "worst games of all time" level. Not even "worst zelda games" to me either, I'd gladly play more of this over something like the oracle games or phantom hourglass any day. Maybe these "bad games" are pretty cool after all.
2021
combining 2D physics with 2048 gameplay is quite a dangerously addicting formula indeed. It's certainly no surprise why this game has taken japan by storm so suddenly, it's perfect vtuber/streamer bait. It really has that mobile game time killer energy, for better or for worse. Like all fad games though I doubt this game has much staying power in the super long term. It's 200 yen, you might as well give it a go and contribute to this game staying on the top of the switch eshop charts in japan.
1995
good lord what in the hell is this
I know that the CD-i isn't a powerful piece of hardware, and that getting pretty much anything that isn't a static picture to run on the darn thing is a herculean task for the system. But I kinda expect a compilation title of 3 early 80s arcade games to at least have some sort of consistency here. It really feels like each game was ported by a completely different team using completely different bases, and they threw it all on a disc regardless. Galaxian looks like a port of the famicom version, except weirdly smoother than I remember it feeling. Galaga takes forever to load, is letterboxed in its own tiny window for some reason, uses what I assume to be recordings of the arcade audio for its sound effects, and has a weird low-res jittery image to it, almost like they are doing some sort of unholy interlacing to the whole game in order to fit its miniscule resolution. Ms. Pac-man looks like it takes inspiration from the 16-bit tengen ports, though it lacks the pac-booster option to make the gameplay frenetic that those versions have. The sound effects for Ms. Pac-man are also off and your hitbox is way too deep into your character.
At the end of the day, even bizarro-world weird versions of these namco arcade games are still pretty fun all things considered. I'm just confused why the hell this game even exists. This came out in 1996, where by then the PS1, saturn, and N64 were the focus of gaming. Why the hell did Namco greenlight such a hodgepodge of ports for the CD-i of all things by then?????? Who the hell was buying this???? Truly a gaming enigma. Worth a play if you are an insane and curious namco fan like me, otherwise it's really not worth the effort to check out, just play ANY namco museum or something jesus christ
I know that the CD-i isn't a powerful piece of hardware, and that getting pretty much anything that isn't a static picture to run on the darn thing is a herculean task for the system. But I kinda expect a compilation title of 3 early 80s arcade games to at least have some sort of consistency here. It really feels like each game was ported by a completely different team using completely different bases, and they threw it all on a disc regardless. Galaxian looks like a port of the famicom version, except weirdly smoother than I remember it feeling. Galaga takes forever to load, is letterboxed in its own tiny window for some reason, uses what I assume to be recordings of the arcade audio for its sound effects, and has a weird low-res jittery image to it, almost like they are doing some sort of unholy interlacing to the whole game in order to fit its miniscule resolution. Ms. Pac-man looks like it takes inspiration from the 16-bit tengen ports, though it lacks the pac-booster option to make the gameplay frenetic that those versions have. The sound effects for Ms. Pac-man are also off and your hitbox is way too deep into your character.
At the end of the day, even bizarro-world weird versions of these namco arcade games are still pretty fun all things considered. I'm just confused why the hell this game even exists. This came out in 1996, where by then the PS1, saturn, and N64 were the focus of gaming. Why the hell did Namco greenlight such a hodgepodge of ports for the CD-i of all things by then?????? Who the hell was buying this???? Truly a gaming enigma. Worth a play if you are an insane and curious namco fan like me, otherwise it's really not worth the effort to check out, just play ANY namco museum or something jesus christ
1992
GIIIIIIIIIIIIRLS CLUB
GIIIIIIIIIRLS CLUB PARTY
Fuck yeah, we got a CD-i equivalent to those really strange early 90s FMV party games on 3DO that I enjoy a bit too much! This shit is up there with like toejam and earl 1 in terms of aesthetic presentation dude, it's got that nickelodeon sitcom dregs-of-the-80s-carried-to-the-nineties style to it. You know the one.
The game itself is a party game that supports up to four players with only one controller. The game basically consists of the CD-i generating 4 random dudes and you need to pick which one is the dreamiest while also guessing which ones your fellow bachelorettes would want to date based off of the likes and dislikes that they put down. I put it on the record that my type has to have a "columbo meets sans" fashion sense, be a goofy kind of dude, hardcore into lawnmowing, and aspires to be an entrepreneur. I ended up going for this dude that writes poetry, plays the bongos in a succulent fashion, hates capitalism, is hella into lawnmowing, and went on to become the CEO of a greeting card company. Fuck yeah.
Regrettably, I played this solo with 3 CPU players, and while I was very happy to see that each CPU character has their own FMV animation of them using a CD-i controller to select their choices in the game (a very important attention to detail that most games do not have with their CPU characters), I do wonder how different the experience would be with actual people. On one hand, things could be too easy given the fact that if I was with real people and they saw me losing my mind over Patrick's lawn mowing hustle, they'd know I would never leave his side until the end of eternity. On the other hand, you could absolutely very blatantly lie about which dude you are going for, which makes the game absolutely impossible at that point turning it into a completely blind guessing game. I guess I'll have to bust the ol' CD-i out next time I have friends over for some field research in that regard (but not before locking the door so they can't escape).
If this game is actually kino with friends then I'll bump this rating up by a star retroactively because I love dumb shit like this I eat it up like its breakfast. I figured that the 3DO and CD-i would share a lot of similar game ideas and vibes, so I'm glad there's a stupid party game on the thing. Hell, this game actually predates 3DO stuff like Twisted, station invasion, and zhadnost, so if anything the CD-i did it first. A true period piece of its time.
bro did you also know the composer behind the bangin opening is the same mfer that did the entire tetris CD-i OST????
GIIIIIIIIIRLS CLUB PARTY
Fuck yeah, we got a CD-i equivalent to those really strange early 90s FMV party games on 3DO that I enjoy a bit too much! This shit is up there with like toejam and earl 1 in terms of aesthetic presentation dude, it's got that nickelodeon sitcom dregs-of-the-80s-carried-to-the-nineties style to it. You know the one.
The game itself is a party game that supports up to four players with only one controller. The game basically consists of the CD-i generating 4 random dudes and you need to pick which one is the dreamiest while also guessing which ones your fellow bachelorettes would want to date based off of the likes and dislikes that they put down. I put it on the record that my type has to have a "columbo meets sans" fashion sense, be a goofy kind of dude, hardcore into lawnmowing, and aspires to be an entrepreneur. I ended up going for this dude that writes poetry, plays the bongos in a succulent fashion, hates capitalism, is hella into lawnmowing, and went on to become the CEO of a greeting card company. Fuck yeah.
Regrettably, I played this solo with 3 CPU players, and while I was very happy to see that each CPU character has their own FMV animation of them using a CD-i controller to select their choices in the game (a very important attention to detail that most games do not have with their CPU characters), I do wonder how different the experience would be with actual people. On one hand, things could be too easy given the fact that if I was with real people and they saw me losing my mind over Patrick's lawn mowing hustle, they'd know I would never leave his side until the end of eternity. On the other hand, you could absolutely very blatantly lie about which dude you are going for, which makes the game absolutely impossible at that point turning it into a completely blind guessing game. I guess I'll have to bust the ol' CD-i out next time I have friends over for some field research in that regard (but not before locking the door so they can't escape).
If this game is actually kino with friends then I'll bump this rating up by a star retroactively because I love dumb shit like this I eat it up like its breakfast. I figured that the 3DO and CD-i would share a lot of similar game ideas and vibes, so I'm glad there's a stupid party game on the thing. Hell, this game actually predates 3DO stuff like Twisted, station invasion, and zhadnost, so if anything the CD-i did it first. A true period piece of its time.
bro did you also know the composer behind the bangin opening is the same mfer that did the entire tetris CD-i OST????
2022
vibes as all hell. The mere existence of this game is kinda subversive imo. The harolds walk guy still making his neat little explorative games on 3DS when the eshop was about to close and the switch was on its fifth year of life really just says something, yanno?
A lot of what I said about harolds walk can be said here except things are done in a grander scale here. Just this gigantic bizarre world populated with nothing but collectables, with no explanation on what to do, where to go, or what anything means, really. Despite the absolute lack of any direction, the game does a good job still making its primary objective of collecting all the things in the levels rather clear. It's one of those games that lets you do things however you want, and I liked that kind of freedom as I just took in the various different levels n setpieces as I found things along the way.
The game is no longer available on the 3DS itself but there's a steam version that I bought anyways to support my boy Luke Vincent. Given the fact that this is an extremely late 3DS title compounded by the visuals being like better-than-PS1-but-not-quite-like-dreamcast in quality, I don't know if the vibes particularly translate to the PC environment. But its def better to have the game still available somewhere rather than have it be stuck on a dead platform, plus its better to support one-man projects like this in any way possible. Give it a try!
A lot of what I said about harolds walk can be said here except things are done in a grander scale here. Just this gigantic bizarre world populated with nothing but collectables, with no explanation on what to do, where to go, or what anything means, really. Despite the absolute lack of any direction, the game does a good job still making its primary objective of collecting all the things in the levels rather clear. It's one of those games that lets you do things however you want, and I liked that kind of freedom as I just took in the various different levels n setpieces as I found things along the way.
The game is no longer available on the 3DS itself but there's a steam version that I bought anyways to support my boy Luke Vincent. Given the fact that this is an extremely late 3DS title compounded by the visuals being like better-than-PS1-but-not-quite-like-dreamcast in quality, I don't know if the vibes particularly translate to the PC environment. But its def better to have the game still available somewhere rather than have it be stuck on a dead platform, plus its better to support one-man projects like this in any way possible. Give it a try!
...really?
This is supposed to be the "worst" zelda game? The game so infamously awful that it spawned the reactionary absurdist art for that is the YTP??? The game so irredeemably terrible that Nintendo themselves would rather bleach it entirely out of the canon, out of the official release timeline, and out of the public conciousness??? Perhaps I have high kusoge pain tolerance, but I actually found this game quite impressive.
The game is entirely side-scrolling, with areas segmented into these little 2-4 screen mini levels that usually have an item or a boss fight at the end. The game uses scanned images of hand-drawn pictures to form the level backgrounds, and it works surprisingly well. The collision detection functions rather solidly. The controls take a little bit of time to get used to, as theres the typical zelda item-based gameplay at play when the CD-i controller only has 2 functional buttons, so the pause/inventory screen is done by pushing the item button while crouching. It does mean you unfortunately can't pause the game or switch/use items in front of any door, as the second button becomes a context-sensitive door use button. Juggling between the lamp and other items to keep dark rooms visible is also a bit of a pain. Outside of that, the control feels rather solid. While I initially thought it would play more like zelda 2 given the side-scrolling perspective, this game actually feels like a bit of a mix between castlevania and ghosts n goblins. It has the slow, methodical pace and movement as castlevania yet the more lateral level design and "throw shit at the wall" enemy placement that loves to be just too high or too low to hit def reminded me of ghosts n goblins. The only part in the game that's actual horseshit is the final level, ganon's lair. There are too many got damn snakes that do too much got damn damage and sometimes the high enemy count lags the CD-i to a crawl.
The game def has some design problems but its nowhere near as absolutely garbage as I was led to believe all this time on the internet. If anything, the fact that they made a game like this work so decently on what is essentially a beefed-up photo CD player is really lowkey impressive. The OST also bumps way harder than it has any right to, even with tracks that dynamically change depending on whether you are indoors or outdoors. I honestly had more fun playing this than I did with some actual Nintendo-ass zelda games. Would definitely suggest giving the game an earnest play-through instead of just brushing it off as "the funny bad meme zelda game". You might be surprised.
This is supposed to be the "worst" zelda game? The game so infamously awful that it spawned the reactionary absurdist art for that is the YTP??? The game so irredeemably terrible that Nintendo themselves would rather bleach it entirely out of the canon, out of the official release timeline, and out of the public conciousness??? Perhaps I have high kusoge pain tolerance, but I actually found this game quite impressive.
The game is entirely side-scrolling, with areas segmented into these little 2-4 screen mini levels that usually have an item or a boss fight at the end. The game uses scanned images of hand-drawn pictures to form the level backgrounds, and it works surprisingly well. The collision detection functions rather solidly. The controls take a little bit of time to get used to, as theres the typical zelda item-based gameplay at play when the CD-i controller only has 2 functional buttons, so the pause/inventory screen is done by pushing the item button while crouching. It does mean you unfortunately can't pause the game or switch/use items in front of any door, as the second button becomes a context-sensitive door use button. Juggling between the lamp and other items to keep dark rooms visible is also a bit of a pain. Outside of that, the control feels rather solid. While I initially thought it would play more like zelda 2 given the side-scrolling perspective, this game actually feels like a bit of a mix between castlevania and ghosts n goblins. It has the slow, methodical pace and movement as castlevania yet the more lateral level design and "throw shit at the wall" enemy placement that loves to be just too high or too low to hit def reminded me of ghosts n goblins. The only part in the game that's actual horseshit is the final level, ganon's lair. There are too many got damn snakes that do too much got damn damage and sometimes the high enemy count lags the CD-i to a crawl.
The game def has some design problems but its nowhere near as absolutely garbage as I was led to believe all this time on the internet. If anything, the fact that they made a game like this work so decently on what is essentially a beefed-up photo CD player is really lowkey impressive. The OST also bumps way harder than it has any right to, even with tracks that dynamically change depending on whether you are indoors or outdoors. I honestly had more fun playing this than I did with some actual Nintendo-ass zelda games. Would definitely suggest giving the game an earnest play-through instead of just brushing it off as "the funny bad meme zelda game". You might be surprised.
1999
God Damn.
The first Tokimemo game was an honest stroke of genius. While it certainly wasn't the first gal game, Konami used their experience in game development to make a social simulator that gamifies the high school experience in a way that combines the snappy, quick, replayable nature of arcade games with the narrative and stat growth systems of then-contemporary console and PC games. With the sequel, Konami set their sights to the goddamn moon. and they actually delivered.
The core gameplay remains unchanged between this game and its predecessor. There's still the fun balancing act of having to juggle academic stats, personal health stats, and relationship stats within your 2 actions per week. The iconic bomb system is here, albeit nerfed a tad (I don't think I had more than one bomb at once to worry about on my playthrough here, whereas tokimemo 1 might as well have been mfin bombergirl). They didn't bother reinventing the game mechanics, instead focusing on bolstering those mechanics with a world as dense and alive as the Playstation 1 could possibly provide.
The cast of characters in this game is much more vibrant and quirky here than in game 1, for better or for worse. It can make the game feel a bit more tropey than the more reserved and down to earth vibes that the first game provided, but it also has a bit more spice in it because of that. There's even a prologue section to establish childhood friend relationships/give the player a personality test that influences stat growth in the proper game, rather than just throwing you into high school with no proper context of your classmates. Despite each character usually having a central trope or gimmick, none of the characters are one-note and have a myriad of different events and situations to enjoy. Each of them live different lifestyles, and as such require completely different approaches. Even the dude side character has gone from the comedic relief sleazeball homie that hooks you up but isn't a threat in the first game to two rival characters that look for love of their own, even potentially competing with you. Hell, they even managed to make a GOOD Ijuuin character!!! Characters are what make or break a game like this, and this game has an extremely strong cast.
The world and overall interaction with it is done with such a bespoke attention to detail, it's crazy. Characters have a myriad of outfits they wear depending on the weather and their affection with you. You can choose which honorifics to use with each character, where calling characters differently at different stages in their relationship yields different results. There's a seasonal brochure you get every few in-game months that lists various timed events and happenings in the area, whether you care about them or not. You can even sacrifice an entire memory cards worth of data to create voice synthesis data for a girl of your choosing to pronounce your name in dialogue. To put the amount of content this game has in terms of detail into comparison here, this game uses a whopping five discs to contain all the different events, interactions, and variations of everything, yet completing a run still only takes 8-10 hours. The world density also makes the game incredibly personal; no two runs will ever be the same. I highly suggest finding someone else to play through the game alongside you to compare and contrast how each of your playthroughs and school lives are going.
Overall, yeah. They took the already incredibly solid base the first game had, and polished it to a wonderful, glistening sheen. The technical culmination of the genre. The gal game to end all gal games. The Gran Turismo 4 of dating sims. With how modern hardware is and game budgets/manpower ballooning to the point they are today, I doubt there could be another game to challenge this games relative scope for its time. It really does feel like konami gave the tokimemo team a blank check to make the best thing they possibly could, and they succeeded. I can't say something like that could ever happen again. Did I also mention that the OST and its many arrangements are absolute bangers?
I have a pretty big backlog to the point where a lot of games I play are one-and-dones, but I can safely say for certain this won't be the last time I play through this game. I've only got Miyuki's ending, there's still so much more to do! An absolute must-play.
The first Tokimemo game was an honest stroke of genius. While it certainly wasn't the first gal game, Konami used their experience in game development to make a social simulator that gamifies the high school experience in a way that combines the snappy, quick, replayable nature of arcade games with the narrative and stat growth systems of then-contemporary console and PC games. With the sequel, Konami set their sights to the goddamn moon. and they actually delivered.
The core gameplay remains unchanged between this game and its predecessor. There's still the fun balancing act of having to juggle academic stats, personal health stats, and relationship stats within your 2 actions per week. The iconic bomb system is here, albeit nerfed a tad (I don't think I had more than one bomb at once to worry about on my playthrough here, whereas tokimemo 1 might as well have been mfin bombergirl). They didn't bother reinventing the game mechanics, instead focusing on bolstering those mechanics with a world as dense and alive as the Playstation 1 could possibly provide.
The cast of characters in this game is much more vibrant and quirky here than in game 1, for better or for worse. It can make the game feel a bit more tropey than the more reserved and down to earth vibes that the first game provided, but it also has a bit more spice in it because of that. There's even a prologue section to establish childhood friend relationships/give the player a personality test that influences stat growth in the proper game, rather than just throwing you into high school with no proper context of your classmates. Despite each character usually having a central trope or gimmick, none of the characters are one-note and have a myriad of different events and situations to enjoy. Each of them live different lifestyles, and as such require completely different approaches. Even the dude side character has gone from the comedic relief sleazeball homie that hooks you up but isn't a threat in the first game to two rival characters that look for love of their own, even potentially competing with you. Hell, they even managed to make a GOOD Ijuuin character!!! Characters are what make or break a game like this, and this game has an extremely strong cast.
The world and overall interaction with it is done with such a bespoke attention to detail, it's crazy. Characters have a myriad of outfits they wear depending on the weather and their affection with you. You can choose which honorifics to use with each character, where calling characters differently at different stages in their relationship yields different results. There's a seasonal brochure you get every few in-game months that lists various timed events and happenings in the area, whether you care about them or not. You can even sacrifice an entire memory cards worth of data to create voice synthesis data for a girl of your choosing to pronounce your name in dialogue. To put the amount of content this game has in terms of detail into comparison here, this game uses a whopping five discs to contain all the different events, interactions, and variations of everything, yet completing a run still only takes 8-10 hours. The world density also makes the game incredibly personal; no two runs will ever be the same. I highly suggest finding someone else to play through the game alongside you to compare and contrast how each of your playthroughs and school lives are going.
Overall, yeah. They took the already incredibly solid base the first game had, and polished it to a wonderful, glistening sheen. The technical culmination of the genre. The gal game to end all gal games. The Gran Turismo 4 of dating sims. With how modern hardware is and game budgets/manpower ballooning to the point they are today, I doubt there could be another game to challenge this games relative scope for its time. It really does feel like konami gave the tokimemo team a blank check to make the best thing they possibly could, and they succeeded. I can't say something like that could ever happen again. Did I also mention that the OST and its many arrangements are absolute bangers?
I have a pretty big backlog to the point where a lot of games I play are one-and-dones, but I can safely say for certain this won't be the last time I play through this game. I've only got Miyuki's ending, there's still so much more to do! An absolute must-play.
It do be taisen puzzle-dama but tokimemo 2 flavored. They really had puzzle game spinoffs for everything back in the day, eh? Not really much differentiates this from the other puzzle-damas of the same type like twinbee and tokimemo 1s puzzle-dama edition. Though if you like Tokimemo 2 (and I definitely am, I'm still playing through it as of writing this but i can assure you that shits undeniably kino), then you are going to like this.
1992
This game was the real reason why I bought a CD-i. The most beautiful photorealistic animated backgrounds of nature adorn the edges of your tetris playfield monolith, while the smoothest, most weather-channel-core kind-of-vaporwave-but-not-really music plays. While the purpose of it was likely to showcase how CD media can be used to make a more "real" game compared to other variations of tetris up to this point, it also turned this game into an incredible aesthetic piece/time capsule.
As an actual tetris game, it's kinda mid at best. Only one direction to rotate the pieces, true random piece selection, no soft dropping, hard dropping relegated to a button press instead of the more logical up/down input, and no lock delay making having a low pile integral to survival. Despite all those problems, it's still Tetris. And I like Tetris. The game has a bespoke scenic background and song for each speed level, which does mean every 10 or so lines the game has to stop and load in the next level which can break the pace a bit. For once, I wish I wasn't so decent at Tetris so that I could spend more time in each level to really soak in the atmosphere.
I've heard this game be described as a proto-Tetris Effect due to its heavy aesthetic emphasis and I definitely see the similarities. Even when I made a mistake due to the myriad of minor gameplay gripes, I was never frustrated. If anything, starting over was exciting because I could vibe through the game from the beginning all over again. This game is basically the killer app of the system for me. It's a bit obscure, it's got that optimistic 90's CD-ROM energy, it's got an extremely strong aesthetic, and it's not the best in the gameplay department. Can you get any more CD-i than that?
As an actual tetris game, it's kinda mid at best. Only one direction to rotate the pieces, true random piece selection, no soft dropping, hard dropping relegated to a button press instead of the more logical up/down input, and no lock delay making having a low pile integral to survival. Despite all those problems, it's still Tetris. And I like Tetris. The game has a bespoke scenic background and song for each speed level, which does mean every 10 or so lines the game has to stop and load in the next level which can break the pace a bit. For once, I wish I wasn't so decent at Tetris so that I could spend more time in each level to really soak in the atmosphere.
I've heard this game be described as a proto-Tetris Effect due to its heavy aesthetic emphasis and I definitely see the similarities. Even when I made a mistake due to the myriad of minor gameplay gripes, I was never frustrated. If anything, starting over was exciting because I could vibe through the game from the beginning all over again. This game is basically the killer app of the system for me. It's a bit obscure, it's got that optimistic 90's CD-ROM energy, it's got an extremely strong aesthetic, and it's not the best in the gameplay department. Can you get any more CD-i than that?
those mfers at nintendo took my least favorite parts from the zelda games and made a whole game out of em. And then told me to play it entirely with a stylus. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I remember when this game was announced, thinking it was just going to be a port of the first space channel 5 to VR, and was pleasantly surprised when they said that it was going to be its own bespoke game. Unfortunately, like a LOT of other VR titles, this game doesn't really have enough meat on its bones to justify the price point. The whole campaign of the game PLUS the extra miku DLC can be finished in less than an hour, which for the 30 dollar total price point, ehhhhhh its not really the best dollar-to-content ratio, that's for sure.
The game is pretty much exactly what to expect from a space channel 5 game in VR. The button and D-pad controls are entirely replaced with gestures, and there's a decent enough sense of immersion inside of the space channel 5 world. The gesture controls are a bit understandably loose since if they were too strict the game could be really frustrating, but also the looseness makes it feel like I could just wave my arms around and hit the correct poses/gestures. Didn't help that there's no way to recenter your person, so I was slowly getting shorter as the game was progressing. There are only 4 levels in here (five if you count the miku DLC), and the new songs are great! Though the lyrics in some songs are localized a bit roughly, with verses that feel like they are said by the micro machines man with how many syllables crammed into em. The plot is a giant pile of nothing, given the short runtime. None of the new or returning characters really get any time to be in the limelight, not really even Ulala. Visually the game still has the space channel 5 dreamcasty vibes to it, though being in VR makes things like lower-poly environments and sparsely expressive characters stick out all the more. When there are big crowds of people all dancing around it felt less like I was in a big lively party and more that I was in a room with a bunch of dancing mannequins, shit was a bit uncanny. Also due to being in VR, the fancy camerawork and setpieces are gone as the game is entirely in first person and you are standing behind ulala most of the game, and there can't be a lot of movement so as not to give players motion sickness. I didn't feel bad playing it and I am particularly sensitive to VR stuff, so hey, mission accomplished on that front.
There's definite care put into this game, as I was following its development it really seemed like the dev team put their all into making a new Space Channel 5. I just think this is the weakest out of the 3 by a pretty large margin, and for the price they ask for (which VERY rarely gets discounted) it's just not really worth it imo. I feel like if you are a space channel 5 fan it'd be a bit underwhelming to play this after the first 2 games, and if you aren't a space channel 5 fan, you'd think it's just a boneless VR rhythm game. If it were like 5-10 bucks then I'd say go for it. At least my money goes towards telling sega I want to see more space channel 5, right? That's how it works, right??? Right??????
I will admit, it was amusing to see ulala and the gang crucified to fidget spinners though, so it's got that going for it. Sad to see a lack of space Michael anywhere, but I understand why he's not here.
The game is pretty much exactly what to expect from a space channel 5 game in VR. The button and D-pad controls are entirely replaced with gestures, and there's a decent enough sense of immersion inside of the space channel 5 world. The gesture controls are a bit understandably loose since if they were too strict the game could be really frustrating, but also the looseness makes it feel like I could just wave my arms around and hit the correct poses/gestures. Didn't help that there's no way to recenter your person, so I was slowly getting shorter as the game was progressing. There are only 4 levels in here (five if you count the miku DLC), and the new songs are great! Though the lyrics in some songs are localized a bit roughly, with verses that feel like they are said by the micro machines man with how many syllables crammed into em. The plot is a giant pile of nothing, given the short runtime. None of the new or returning characters really get any time to be in the limelight, not really even Ulala. Visually the game still has the space channel 5 dreamcasty vibes to it, though being in VR makes things like lower-poly environments and sparsely expressive characters stick out all the more. When there are big crowds of people all dancing around it felt less like I was in a big lively party and more that I was in a room with a bunch of dancing mannequins, shit was a bit uncanny. Also due to being in VR, the fancy camerawork and setpieces are gone as the game is entirely in first person and you are standing behind ulala most of the game, and there can't be a lot of movement so as not to give players motion sickness. I didn't feel bad playing it and I am particularly sensitive to VR stuff, so hey, mission accomplished on that front.
There's definite care put into this game, as I was following its development it really seemed like the dev team put their all into making a new Space Channel 5. I just think this is the weakest out of the 3 by a pretty large margin, and for the price they ask for (which VERY rarely gets discounted) it's just not really worth it imo. I feel like if you are a space channel 5 fan it'd be a bit underwhelming to play this after the first 2 games, and if you aren't a space channel 5 fan, you'd think it's just a boneless VR rhythm game. If it were like 5-10 bucks then I'd say go for it. At least my money goes towards telling sega I want to see more space channel 5, right? That's how it works, right??? Right??????
I will admit, it was amusing to see ulala and the gang crucified to fidget spinners though, so it's got that going for it. Sad to see a lack of space Michael anywhere, but I understand why he's not here.
im never eating at burger king again dude jesus christ
streamed this to the boys in a late-night VC and it was as funny as it was viscerally disgusting. Did burger kings just have CD-is in the back for training purposes? There's not much in the way of gameplay, considering the fact that this is an employee training program. There are 2 different videos; one for general orientation and one for learning how to operate the various broilers that may be in the establishment. Ask your manager if you don't know which one to train for. The general orientation video is your standard fare, the CEO spouts some corporate bullshit, badda bing badda boom. The broiler training is where the stuff of nightmares comes from. Seeing the broilers shit out greasy floppy patties gave me the same primal disgust as watching a live birth in health class.
I don't really know what else to say here, it's a 1990s training video. I guess burger king employees are used to the unspeakable horrors that happen inside the kitchen, because I sure couldn't handle seeing that shit on the daily, let alone eating that slop that comes out. At least the soundtrack is a banger and the video quality is actually quite high. Definitely wouldn't recommend checking out on your own, but it is quite amusing to look at with friends.
streamed this to the boys in a late-night VC and it was as funny as it was viscerally disgusting. Did burger kings just have CD-is in the back for training purposes? There's not much in the way of gameplay, considering the fact that this is an employee training program. There are 2 different videos; one for general orientation and one for learning how to operate the various broilers that may be in the establishment. Ask your manager if you don't know which one to train for. The general orientation video is your standard fare, the CEO spouts some corporate bullshit, badda bing badda boom. The broiler training is where the stuff of nightmares comes from. Seeing the broilers shit out greasy floppy patties gave me the same primal disgust as watching a live birth in health class.
I don't really know what else to say here, it's a 1990s training video. I guess burger king employees are used to the unspeakable horrors that happen inside the kitchen, because I sure couldn't handle seeing that shit on the daily, let alone eating that slop that comes out. At least the soundtrack is a banger and the video quality is actually quite high. Definitely wouldn't recommend checking out on your own, but it is quite amusing to look at with friends.
2005
Man, nothing more me-core than "I should play some gizmondo while waiting for fedex to deliver my CD-i" today. I gotta play all like 12 of the games on that thing before it melts, yanno? Honestly this game has no right being this solid when it's stuck as an exclusive for a console more known for being linked to a mafia than being an actual system for playing games.
It's a physics based puzzle game where you knock balls around billiards-style in order to stick em together. If all of a color is stuck together, it clears out and you get points. Clearing all of the balls on a board takes ya to the next level, it's very arcadey. The depth comes from the fact that you have a limited number of shots, though connecting one loose ball to another of its color gets you your shot back. It's all about observing the board and knowing what the best course of action is for getting clear shots in the right order, and honestly given the solid physics there's a lot of player agency on board. Probably a decent skill ceiling, though I can't imagine many other people have played it enough to really wring out any potential depth here, considering the whole "gizmondo exclusive" thing this game has going on. It makes sense that this game is also so solid too, considering the fact it was made by the Pickford Brothers, of Plok and Wetrix fame. Apparently it was going to be a PSP game but somehow got relegated to the ol mafia. As it happens. I guess it got an iOS port though, so hey! that's something. If you are one of the statistically improbable that has a gizmondo, this is probably in the killer app territory. Which really isn't saying much. The game has a really funny name, too!
It's a physics based puzzle game where you knock balls around billiards-style in order to stick em together. If all of a color is stuck together, it clears out and you get points. Clearing all of the balls on a board takes ya to the next level, it's very arcadey. The depth comes from the fact that you have a limited number of shots, though connecting one loose ball to another of its color gets you your shot back. It's all about observing the board and knowing what the best course of action is for getting clear shots in the right order, and honestly given the solid physics there's a lot of player agency on board. Probably a decent skill ceiling, though I can't imagine many other people have played it enough to really wring out any potential depth here, considering the whole "gizmondo exclusive" thing this game has going on. It makes sense that this game is also so solid too, considering the fact it was made by the Pickford Brothers, of Plok and Wetrix fame. Apparently it was going to be a PSP game but somehow got relegated to the ol mafia. As it happens. I guess it got an iOS port though, so hey! that's something. If you are one of the statistically improbable that has a gizmondo, this is probably in the killer app territory. Which really isn't saying much. The game has a really funny name, too!