nomeking
5 reviews liked by nomeking
Dark Cloud
2000
Interested in Dark Cloud but haven't played it yet?
Maybe it’s an all-time favorite and you want some more history?
Check out this “Prep Kit”, full of pre-release coverage, interviews, advertising and merchandise to get you in that Launch Day mindset!
https://goatedquest.blogspot.com/2024/04/068-dark-cloud-prep-kit.html
Let me help make every game you play feel brand new, no matter how old
Maybe it’s an all-time favorite and you want some more history?
Check out this “Prep Kit”, full of pre-release coverage, interviews, advertising and merchandise to get you in that Launch Day mindset!
https://goatedquest.blogspot.com/2024/04/068-dark-cloud-prep-kit.html
Let me help make every game you play feel brand new, no matter how old
Install instructions at the end of this review...
The sequel to Outrun vastly improves upon the original game by adding a handful of empowering mechanics, and adding layers to the original vision. This can be annoying in bad games, but Yu Suzuki and team made something sparkling and beautiful here.
Outrun 2 gives you five gears to work up through. You'll rarely want to use anything but the last two. The speedometer is drawn in the right-hand corner, and every car has a different optimal place to upshift. When the space behind the needle is white, you're in a good place with your gear and speed. The starter cars have yellow spots on the speedometer that signal you should upshift, which are missing from the faster cars; you just have to time it so you upshift before your needle spills over to the red. I'm not sure if there's any mechanical bonus for upshifting while in the optimal spot, but even without that this feature brings the satisfying timing rhythm of the reloading mini-game from Gears of War.
The trick of the original Outrun is downshifting into corners so you can maintain control of the car, otherwise you will slide too far on either side off the road and into obstacles. When you downshift on the corners here, your car slides into a the most satisfying drift ever made. To me it feels somewhere between the Mario Kart 8 drift and the manual mini-game in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. You have to lean your analog stick left or right into the drift, and time it just right when you come out of a drift to straighten your car—you also need to remember to upshift back into a higher gear to maintain your speed. Downshifting while turning isn't the only way to enter a drift—you can use your brake too—but it's the way that felt the most natural and optimal to me.
Drafting is as important as drifting. I smiled like a baby when I drove behind another car and not only got a slipstream effect, but a big SLIPSTREAM title in the middle of my screen like a trick from Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and when my Dino 246 GTS zoomed quickly behind the other car, sling-shotting around a DeVille with ease, it felt amazing. Unlike other arcade racers, there aren't dedicated boost spots on the road or nitrous you can kick off: the other cars on the road are your speed boosts. I've never played another game where the slipstream effect, a real-life racing technique, is this useful (or fun to use). There is also some risk-reward to this mechanic. Since you're going so fast, it's easy to smack into the back of the car that's pulling you forward. This isn't an unrecoverable moment in a race, so long as it happens early enough, and it doesn't mean you won't reach the goal in time in Outrun mode—you're afforded a few mistakes, but you will cut it close if you're not fast. Besides killing the momentum, what it does do is push the car you hit in front of you. There is no pit maneuver or side-swipe mechanic to take out the competition—if you hit the car in front of you, you are giving it a boost of their own. It's a beautiful solution to enforcing race etiquette afforded purely by its arcade style.
The slipstream effect is helpful in the rote races to speed around your rivals, but it is delightful in the Outrun mode, which is where you should be spending most of your time. You aren't racing other drivers through the five (or fifteen) locations; you're just trying to get to the end before the timer ticks down. And since you're in a hurry, of course there's traffic. But the traffic is an opportunity to get ahead of it and impress your girlfriend. While you're weaving through it like the most annoying 24 year old on the highway, your girlfriend asks, in a voice that's sweet yet coy, "How far are you going to take me?" The driving in Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast feels so visceral and satisfying, so good, that it's impossible to deny its sensual effect. I can't remember the last time I fell harder in love with a game than this recent tryst with Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast. I've played it every day since I started playing it; I only want to play more of it.
There are certain games I like to have on every PC I use, and this has quickly become one of those. I've written install instructions below, in case I forget.
---
Download Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for PC from MyAbandonware dot com; use the MagiPack repack, which comes with the FXT mod pre-installed. After installing the MagiPack repack, navigate to the folder you installed it on your hard drive and run the FXTConfig.exe executable as admin. If you are installing this on a PC that hasn't had many games installed on it, you will need to install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 x86 version. In the FXT mod settings, turn off XInput, or rumble might not work. After opening the game and saving your license, open up the license settings, set your name to ENTIRETY, then back out without saving to unlock all cars and tracks.
The sequel to Outrun vastly improves upon the original game by adding a handful of empowering mechanics, and adding layers to the original vision. This can be annoying in bad games, but Yu Suzuki and team made something sparkling and beautiful here.
Outrun 2 gives you five gears to work up through. You'll rarely want to use anything but the last two. The speedometer is drawn in the right-hand corner, and every car has a different optimal place to upshift. When the space behind the needle is white, you're in a good place with your gear and speed. The starter cars have yellow spots on the speedometer that signal you should upshift, which are missing from the faster cars; you just have to time it so you upshift before your needle spills over to the red. I'm not sure if there's any mechanical bonus for upshifting while in the optimal spot, but even without that this feature brings the satisfying timing rhythm of the reloading mini-game from Gears of War.
The trick of the original Outrun is downshifting into corners so you can maintain control of the car, otherwise you will slide too far on either side off the road and into obstacles. When you downshift on the corners here, your car slides into a the most satisfying drift ever made. To me it feels somewhere between the Mario Kart 8 drift and the manual mini-game in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. You have to lean your analog stick left or right into the drift, and time it just right when you come out of a drift to straighten your car—you also need to remember to upshift back into a higher gear to maintain your speed. Downshifting while turning isn't the only way to enter a drift—you can use your brake too—but it's the way that felt the most natural and optimal to me.
Drafting is as important as drifting. I smiled like a baby when I drove behind another car and not only got a slipstream effect, but a big SLIPSTREAM title in the middle of my screen like a trick from Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and when my Dino 246 GTS zoomed quickly behind the other car, sling-shotting around a DeVille with ease, it felt amazing. Unlike other arcade racers, there aren't dedicated boost spots on the road or nitrous you can kick off: the other cars on the road are your speed boosts. I've never played another game where the slipstream effect, a real-life racing technique, is this useful (or fun to use). There is also some risk-reward to this mechanic. Since you're going so fast, it's easy to smack into the back of the car that's pulling you forward. This isn't an unrecoverable moment in a race, so long as it happens early enough, and it doesn't mean you won't reach the goal in time in Outrun mode—you're afforded a few mistakes, but you will cut it close if you're not fast. Besides killing the momentum, what it does do is push the car you hit in front of you. There is no pit maneuver or side-swipe mechanic to take out the competition—if you hit the car in front of you, you are giving it a boost of their own. It's a beautiful solution to enforcing race etiquette afforded purely by its arcade style.
The slipstream effect is helpful in the rote races to speed around your rivals, but it is delightful in the Outrun mode, which is where you should be spending most of your time. You aren't racing other drivers through the five (or fifteen) locations; you're just trying to get to the end before the timer ticks down. And since you're in a hurry, of course there's traffic. But the traffic is an opportunity to get ahead of it and impress your girlfriend. While you're weaving through it like the most annoying 24 year old on the highway, your girlfriend asks, in a voice that's sweet yet coy, "How far are you going to take me?" The driving in Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast feels so visceral and satisfying, so good, that it's impossible to deny its sensual effect. I can't remember the last time I fell harder in love with a game than this recent tryst with Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast. I've played it every day since I started playing it; I only want to play more of it.
There are certain games I like to have on every PC I use, and this has quickly become one of those. I've written install instructions below, in case I forget.
---
Download Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for PC from MyAbandonware dot com; use the MagiPack repack, which comes with the FXT mod pre-installed. After installing the MagiPack repack, navigate to the folder you installed it on your hard drive and run the FXTConfig.exe executable as admin. If you are installing this on a PC that hasn't had many games installed on it, you will need to install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 x86 version. In the FXT mod settings, turn off XInput, or rumble might not work. After opening the game and saving your license, open up the license settings, set your name to ENTIRETY, then back out without saving to unlock all cars and tracks.
Animal Crossing
2001
The series has become progressively less mysterious with only marginal quality of life improvements. This for me is the best in the series - the weirdest, the most thoughtfully punishing, the most rewarding played over a long period of time.
Animal Crossing
2001
The best animal crossing by a lot. It captures the feeling of a new world to explore so well. A big problem with the new games that I have is that they make you the central figure. You get to be the mayor, you get to design and change the entire island layout. To me this is not what animal crossing is about, you are a nobody moving to a new town that should be it.
Ikaruga
2001
Light and darkness
Ikaruga's reach has no bounds as someone that has barely got a toe into the shmup genre has heard it. For some godforsaken reason, I thought this would be a good entry into getting my bearings on the genre and build upon some muscle memory to use in the future for the genre, this game destroyed me on my first run through on unlimited lives on normal. I "beat" Ikaruga but I was battered and bloodied that it almost felt hollow, anyone can win with unlimited lives and I enjoyed my time but I had to go again until I got a victory that felt earned.
The heart and soul of Ikaruga is the gameplay and it might seem simple at first glance but there has never been a more betraying impression. The main mechanic is being able to switch polarities to eat bullet rewards timing with charging your special homing lasers and extremely important to survival as well. The game starts easy enough and then throws some disgusting patterns that almost feel hard to predict until you memorize them and it all finally seems possible. The game doesn't throw a lot of bullets at you more than gives you these unique situations that require you to remember what to do and how to do it while dodging those said bullets. First run, I was legit dying every 9 seconds and then very quick improvement on my second run as I was remembering where enemies come from and naturally figuring out what to do to the point it was starting to feel like a puzzle game. The game's extremely short run time lets you know that you have to come back, you will get your ass kicked but you can always return and do better.
Something that fascinates me about Ikaruga is the general art for the game, it's some of the most beautiful art I've seen for a game of this genre with pieces such as this and even this character piece. This is official art and despite not seeing most of it despite the imagery and themes. Games like these aren't as exciting without an amazing fast paced soundtrack to accompany them and Ikaruga is no exception, surprisingly my favorite theme is the one you hear at the very end with the credits rolling and the imagery I refuse to spoil feeling like a period to a very hectic experience.
Despite Ikaruga's devastating difficulty (can easily say this is a personal skill issue too), the game's very first poem tells you to not give up which I feel is very accurate to the experience. To never give up, being strong means you will have more obstacles you have to overcome and so forth. Don't regret living, don't regret not giving up and maybe we will learn to understand each other for who we really are. The achievement might never happen but I only hope existing within the people close to you is more than enough.
Ikaruga's reach has no bounds as someone that has barely got a toe into the shmup genre has heard it. For some godforsaken reason, I thought this would be a good entry into getting my bearings on the genre and build upon some muscle memory to use in the future for the genre, this game destroyed me on my first run through on unlimited lives on normal. I "beat" Ikaruga but I was battered and bloodied that it almost felt hollow, anyone can win with unlimited lives and I enjoyed my time but I had to go again until I got a victory that felt earned.
The heart and soul of Ikaruga is the gameplay and it might seem simple at first glance but there has never been a more betraying impression. The main mechanic is being able to switch polarities to eat bullet rewards timing with charging your special homing lasers and extremely important to survival as well. The game starts easy enough and then throws some disgusting patterns that almost feel hard to predict until you memorize them and it all finally seems possible. The game doesn't throw a lot of bullets at you more than gives you these unique situations that require you to remember what to do and how to do it while dodging those said bullets. First run, I was legit dying every 9 seconds and then very quick improvement on my second run as I was remembering where enemies come from and naturally figuring out what to do to the point it was starting to feel like a puzzle game. The game's extremely short run time lets you know that you have to come back, you will get your ass kicked but you can always return and do better.
Something that fascinates me about Ikaruga is the general art for the game, it's some of the most beautiful art I've seen for a game of this genre with pieces such as this and even this character piece. This is official art and despite not seeing most of it despite the imagery and themes. Games like these aren't as exciting without an amazing fast paced soundtrack to accompany them and Ikaruga is no exception, surprisingly my favorite theme is the one you hear at the very end with the credits rolling and the imagery I refuse to spoil feeling like a period to a very hectic experience.
Despite Ikaruga's devastating difficulty (can easily say this is a personal skill issue too), the game's very first poem tells you to not give up which I feel is very accurate to the experience. To never give up, being strong means you will have more obstacles you have to overcome and so forth. Don't regret living, don't regret not giving up and maybe we will learn to understand each other for who we really are. The achievement might never happen but I only hope existing within the people close to you is more than enough.
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