the "friction" in this game is hotly debated but i think a lot of it stems from this fact that this game is pretty fundamentally flawed on a structural level. the insanely stunted fast travel is done entirely on purpose not to instill a sense of adventure in the player, but because walking across dirt roads and fighting the same three enemies is literally the meat of the game. that is the gameplay, and if you don't REALLY fuck with it then you have my pass to give up on it without feeling like you're losing out on your gamer badge of honor. fighting guys does feel really good but its hard not to feel like -- yet again -- im just playing the demo for the actual dragons dogma.

cant say that i or anybody else should be disappointed because a lotta folks are gonna come to find out thats just what dragons dogma is, but if this game is going to continue that tradition then i gotta come to the same conclusion i think a lot of people come to: dragons dogma is really just ok

i am so fucking tired of every game being sekiro. please god can one acton game come out where you do something besides read animations and deflect on the right key frames. can one historical game about the tokugawa shogunate have some personality to it and not be more boring than reading a book about the actual events. can one open world game come out and have shit to do in it thats fun and beneficial for more than just clearing icons and getting bigger numbers. anyway, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is available now on digital storefronts everywhere

ChatGPT takes over the world, but you're lead to believe humanity is locked in a struggle against a hostile race of monsters who made the planet inhospitable. While I can't give it any points for originality, I do like the story overall.

As you set off to eliminate the really big evil monsters to get the cores which actually combine into a bigger core for some reason, you start to uncover the truth behind your mission and who you really are, and throughout the game Eve is a very consistent character. She has a mild tone, but she's not boring either, I quite liked her. However, pretty much every other character is completely forgettable and a lot of the dialogue is just out of place or awkward. Definitely the weakest part of the game. There's only three characters worth mentioning and those are Eve, Tachy and Raven.

The gameplay is not quite hack and slash, but as you become more powerful and unlock more abilities, it does become increasingly easier to deal with groups of enemies. It starts out as more of a challenge where you try to play carefully, balancing combos between perfect parries and dodges, sometimes chaining them into other moves. They flow together well, like the blink dodge into a stun, which lets you charge up your beta moves or do a full combo. You eventually get a gun too, which has a separate dodge mechanic which exposes a ranged weakness. Further on from that, they utilise the gun in some boss fights to interrupt them using an instant kill move, so you can tell they had a clear vision for how combat should work and flow in this game. Not that it's perfect, you could just spam block and get a perfect parry most of the time, or constantly use burst skills to deal with everything until the game feels completely repetitive.

My favourite use of the gun though is the two sections where all melee combat is disabled and you're sent through human experimentation facilities because apparently you're play Dead Space now, complete with exploding body bag enemies.

What I enjoyed most in this game was just exploring the world, because you never knew when you were going to find a new outfit for Eve. That's right, the true purpose of the game is to dress the main character up, and the amount of nanosuits available is impressive. Some are more revealing that others, so if you want to be a degenerate then you can, but if you're not into that then you can wear the bear suit which covers you up completely. The devs have got you covered. There's also New Game Plus on launch which added even more suits, even if they are just alternative colours.

We know it's a certified RPG too because there's fishing involved. They had to make use of that PS5 controller tech somehow.

Im so mad I wasnt there for you when you were new...

I love this game, bitch.

Rollerdrome is a 3d rollerskating 3rd person shooter and this is such a specific genre combination that i feel like coulda gone wrong so hard but they nailed it. I love the cel shaded style, there's pretty light story happening in the background of this yearly dystopian championship sport, and everything is so satisfying to pull off. If you're like me and you're familiar with Tony Hawk Pro Skater or THUG then youre gonna get a nice taste for whats cooking with this quick
It's refreshing playing a game centering on skating after playing one that had it more as a side activity/traversal option

Thoughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Rollerdrome is NOT really like Tony Hawk! You're up and shooting robot dudes that are practically always breathing down your neck if able, snipers and tanks and guys with mines will be constantly flung at youuuu and you better respect that shit especially when youre watching your health.
In a way I guess you could say this comes together more as a 'character action game' than it does somethin like a regular third person shooter game or a sport game. Pullin off stylish 900 degree Coffins, prowler grinds and mambas- they pretty much got you covered with every possible combination.

You have a nice arsenal of weapons to make use of too! I think my favorite will always be the grenade launcher because of how much distance you get with managing the arc, goes crazy
the dual pistols still have their uses but honestly apart from a couple moments beyond the starting levels, i found them dwindling fuuuurther and further out of the spotlight and the Z-11 and Shotgun were the most reliable ones to fallback on

the Z-11 itself never really felt like I MASTERED that shit though, it was fun but i feel like i still didnt really have it all on lock! yk! But thats one of the best parts about this game, progression is tied to you finishing the levels but u aint going no where if u cant also fulfill an objectives quota. Youll be circling back to earlier levels, and this SOUNDS tedious yea

but i actually liked this because this game already has a handful of similar Looks for each lvl anyways, and youre gonna wanna test your skills and read up on that Tricktionary and will some shit cause you cannot be mindless in this game.

Infact i think this game is one of the best ive ever seen in regards to seamlessly mixing complete chaos and also you doin tricks and dodges in the air and flips to keep that combo no matter what's hurdling at you. It also does that type of acceleration where its stacking n not something where you gotta hold forward to keep yourself skating forward. This rules but if you lose your mental rhythm on whats going on, you can absolutely spiral outta control and fly head first into complete nuclear arms shit popping off LMFAO

There's also a thing where if youre pressed to a wall you can bounce off of it but it feels so awkward like the wall is just dejecting your model in the mirrored shot you came at it from, but otherwise there wasnt much in the way for clunkiness
The super reflex time shit is really what brings it all together too oh my godddd, for repositioning or getting multiple shots off and watching 'em all fall, its sick. Every time you think youre done the loop gets you back in it again cause you Know you can do better you Know those highscores aint worth shit when you master shit, its HARD but very rewarding

some side notes

my heart sank when i saw how low the player rates for the xbox trophies were for this game </3 when i got halfway in the game it was basically saying less than half of all ppl tht played it on xbox even made it there
and a whole like 3% even actually finished the game fully
Aint that SAD? i know this game dropped on other consoles including PC but, jesus

on a lighter note i saw a really funny bug where i was going real fast up and when i was coming back down i was mid trick and going into the voidddd buuuuuuuuuuuuut... i didn really.. go out into the void and respawn.. i just glitched through the stage and the enemies were trying their hardest to kill me but couldnt do it LMFAO and they tried their asses off, the tanks even getting some cheap shots in on me. I was trying to do a highscore objective challenge too and I totally did it EVEN W I T H the par time penalty and losing time from that little hiccup which was pretty cool

but yeah its a game that has a structuring and cel shaded look that i just drool over, it kindof gives me graphic novel vibes if anything, and the story isnt rlly why you play this but just something neat to chew on a little in thought while youre doing these levels. It honestly FEELS like a game that didnt even come out in this console generation, like in thought process for somethin like this it seems like smthin thatd get executed in the ps3/xbox/wii era or late ps2/gamecube/xbox era of things. And i mean that in a compliment in the same way as me sayin that with Hi-Fi-Rush. though the two are incomparable in nearly every way

so yea thats all i got, play it on gamepass if you got it or hop on steam to do it(between you and me, i think the game is fine on controller when you crank the sensitivity up.. but its most def a lot easier to sink your head in with a mouse to look around with i bet. thats how ive always been with shooters though).

also there's like two bosses.. and i dont really think theyre show stealers here LMAO like not a selling point, liked them but really funny how theres only two and they kinda flow the same for the main campaign
Kara Hassan, youll always be famous to me <3...

Marriage pros:
finally sex heheeh

Marriage cons:
Have to share your dolphin lvl 3 super unblockable setup projectile with wife

Ever play Metal slug and think to yourself "That was great and all but it really needs 100% more dolphin". Well boy do I have the game for you!

Evidently some former Metal Slug developers had the same thought when making this run and gun for Sammy Corporation in the early 2000s. Initially only released in arcades on Sammy's Atmoiswave arcade boards but later ported to Dreamcast by fans a few years ago to allow more people to experience it. Though adding in it's own unique ideas Dolphin Blue is such a close representation of Metal Slug you would think it was actually a spin off by SNK themselves. The military uniforms, guns and even the sound effects in places sound like they are just samples taken from it's influential forebear.

You get two characters to potentially play as, Erio an Arms Dealer and Anne a soldier. Regardless of who you play as in this adventure you will shoot through hordes of soldiers as they kidnap the Kingdom's Princess as the main premise. The most striking thing about Dolphin Blue are the visuals. It uses a mixture of chunky 3D backgrounds with 2D sprite characters and it's a gorgeous mix. Whilst the sprite work isn't the best I have seen of that era the colours and contrast with it's backgrounds make the game a real looker to play through. There is a lot going on at any one time with a lot of action and enemies on screen. A lot of the humour of the Metal Slug games is present such as scuba diver enemies suits inflating up when damaged and soldiers dangling precariously off of runaway trains in a very comic fashion. The levels themselves are pretty memorable with flooded mines, battleships, airships in a 1940's style diesel punk aesthetic.

There are only 5 levels but there only needs to be because this game is bloody hard. There are 3 types of gameplay in it's hour or so runtime though all three are run and gun type of foot, swimming or dolphin riding. Each have the same principle of shooting enemies, stabbing them if they get close whilst picking up some weapon power ups like Vulcans, missiles or firecracker grenades. These weapons have limited ammo and though frequent aren't always frequent enough and your base rifle can barely kill basic enemies but little else. Aside from that you also get a special attack that has a charge bar I was calling the RPG in my head (Rocket Porpoise Grenade) where your Dolphin flies forward doing a strong homing attack or on land you do a more powerful shot.

Now where the game gets hard is in both it's design and execution. On land your character feels stiff to control and shuffles rather than walks with no way to speed up. You can only shoot in 4 way directions despite some encounters clearly needing 8-way which I found extremely vexing often leaving me in no win unavoidable situations. The enemies will come in force from all angles leaving deaths often unavoidable and without the abilities to really deal with them except learning the game and the later levels are utterly brutal. The other modes are a lot more fluid for both underwater sections feeling more like a shoot 'em up and the dolphin Riding sequences which are a genuine blast to speed though. Even then though you can't fire backwards sometimes leaving you open to attack from the enemy encounters which was also a small annoyance. If it wasn't for the Dreamcast port I would never have beaten this as it has infinite continues and in places I just died endlessly.

I guess overall no matter how I look at it this is a good looking fun game that's a bit weird but there isn't a lot here that I don't think to myself Metal Slug already did and better. Certainly worth a playthrough for run and gun fans or people that like playing obscure retro games like me but it's not quite the hidden gem I was hoping.

+ Dolphins!
+ Great visual style and colours, striking looking game.
+ Dolphin riding!

- Too hard for me in the latter half.
- Stiff characters on land and no 8-way directional shooting. Really?

The year…is 2012. The London olympics have been hosted, Whitney Houston died, and West Ham beat Blackpool to return to the premier league. But I feel like we are missing something important, a small piece to this very large puzzle. A year ago to this year, Skylanders spyros adventure released. An experimental game to not only attempt to bring back spyro, but to also birth a new gaming trend: toys to life. And so, on 2012, that is when, I finally got my first toys to life game: Skylanders giants. To any onlooker of this series, they would simply assume giants is quite possibly the weakest and most cashgrab entry. But today, I’m here to disprove that, and hopefully give people a taste of what one of my favourite games as a kid was. So without further ado: let us begin.

The story is pretty simple, basically these Skylanders have been brought to earth and forced to just be these figures, which we the ‘portal masters’ have to save by spending actual currency to put them on a FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then they get brought back into the game. Simple right? Well we also have to stop this evil dude called kaos, who is just as evil as me when I leave the toilet seat up. He basically is trying to reawaken the arkeyan robots whom the giants stopped years ago. And that’s it in terms of plot.

Gameplay wise it’s VERY simple. You scan a Skylanders onto the FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then that Skylander is put into the game. You then go through really simple and basic levels. You beat the enemies, do a tiny bit of exploration, and you move on. At certain points you’ll find certain areas that can only be unlocked through having a skylander of a certain type (fire, water, etc) so you know what that means! Spending time! There are also little puzzles and also…the legend that is: skystones. Remember tetra master from final fantasy 9? It’s basically that but better in every way. It is the quintessential card game.

The music is also something I have to stop by and talk about. Lorne Balfe put his heart and soul into this soundtrack. Levels like the junkyard isles and wilikin village give me an instant hit of nostalgia that is unparalleled. The other tracks as well are also quite memorable and honestly he did a really great job of giving the game that cinematic feel to it.

To be perfectly honest, I do kinda miss this franchise. Not to sound like I’m 8 but man collecting the figures was a lot of fun. Fortunately I still have mine and I do look at them from time to time just because I can’t get rid of them. Even if I could I’d only get a penny from them and that’s the unfortunate downside of toys to life as a whole. But that’s a story for another day. Giants would also be the game to bring other competitors in, those being Disney and Warner bros. and oh man, this is gonna get real big and go down very quickly. But until then, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on a classic childhood game of mine. Gone but certainly not forgotten.

…also for those who might ask, my favourite was jet-vac.

Ok story, simple gameplay, brilliant music, skystones is peak, also the drill-x rap lives in my head rent free

You’re trying to tell me these are mechs? They look like potential rayman characters

One of the last games released for the famicom during the shift to the super famicom in Japan, joy mech fight was nintendo’s last attempt to create a fighting game for the famicom (like what they did with urban champion). This game was actually never brought to the west until Nintendo switch online a year ago so uhh…good job Nintendo. Good to see the game finally got a localisation! Oh wait-

So because I can’t read what’s going on, I’m currently going off of what it says on the Wikipedia page. Dr. Emon and Dr. Walnuts create these really cool robots until walnuts steals them and plans world domination. Thankfully, Emon brings a robot called sukapon and turns him into a military robot to fight back against Walnuts and all his robots. Pretty simple plot.

Gameplay is your typical fighting game, though it has quite a lot of charm to it. In the story mode, you eventually get 36 available fighters, each with their own abilities that you can use. These can also be played in the multiplayer modes, and some are extremely easy to master. The story mode consists of beating 7 fighters per level until having to face a boss at the end. After finishing the boss, you move onto the next level.

Overall, whilst not the best game on the famicom, I must admit that joy mech fight has a really nice charm to it. And as one of the last famicom games, it has a really nice presentation that I love and it doesn’t feel stiff at all. It is probably one of the best fighting games on the famicom, but whether it is on a similar level to that of street fighter 2 or tekken is possibly a very big stretch.

Fun gameplay, really nice presentation, neat music, rayman if it was a fighting game

Captivating and horrifying, worth playing for the story and atmosphere alone given that it's not a massive time commitment. That being said, I found the actual gameplay segments to be the weakest part of the game beyond the first 90 minutes, as fighting waves of the same handful of enemies and repeating variations of the same awkward visual puzzles became super repetitive. It works in some cases, but I found the set pieces and narrative to be hands down the best aspects of the game.

More engaging and intuitive puzzles with more enemy and combat variety will guarantee the sequel to be a home run, assuming it can match this game's narrative strengths.

Having played it's predecessor before the sequel I could not help feeling like there were opportunities missed in this entry just like in the first. It feels very different from the original. But they share a lot of the same design philosophies. Where the game really shines over the original it's the graphical fidelity and overall world as well as some QoL improvements. The camp mechanic really lends itself to the cross country adventure. It's a real shame that they removed the layered armor system from before as there was depth stripped from the original.