2002
Everyone has to start somewhere right? Every person had to start with something that inspired them. Whether that be an event, maybe a tv show or film, maybe even a book, or maybe a 3D platforming shooter on the ps2. Or for me at least.
Ratchet & clank was a game born from the gods. If people were destined to do stuff, then this was the game that saw me in that direction. After insomniac lost spyro they needed a new big platforming series, so they borrowed naughty dogs engine which they used for Jak and Daxter and were able to create what would become the first ratchet game. After the release, the game would spawn a PlayStation staple franchise and specifically for this review: a boy with a small dream. But that’s for later. Let’s get onto the actual game itself.
Act 1:
Now I know I’ve reviewed this game in the past, but it certainly lacked the depth it needed, so why not give it that missing depth right now? The story sees you in control of a Lombax named ratchet. He’s alone on the desolate planet of veldin with the dream to escape and to explore other planes across the solar system. Meanwhile, there’s a malfunction in a robot making factory and the result of this is clank, a tiny robot. He finds out that an evil man named chairman drek is planning on destroying planets to create a planet for his own. Clank quickly begins to try and escape but is shot down by other bots and ends up landing in veldin. From there, he meets ratchet and clank helps him to escape the planet with the deal of finding captain qwark and putting a stop to chairman dreks plans. But before we continue the story: it’s time to go into gameplay.
Compared to future instalments, the first ratchet game isn’t as shooter heavy as its successors but it is still a core part of its gameplay. Considering the fact that before, insomniac’s only really major work were the spyro games, you can see that formula kind of applies to the first ratchet game. Even with this however, it still ends up sticking out on its own. You get a choice of 16 weapons all with different attributes. I’m not going to go too in depth about the weapons, because you can tell they were still trying to work out what works and what didn’t and believe me, the taunter is a big showcase of that. Some weapons include the decoy glove, whereby a small inflatable version of ratchet will stand and enemies will instead attack it instead of you. The suck cannon sucks up enemies and even crates which can then be launched back at enemies, this then brings me onto the next bit of gameplay.
The currency in the game is something that would still define its successors. These are bolts. These can be found by killing enemies or even finding them in smashable beige crates, or even surprisingly: bomb crates. Bolts are now explosive! There are different types of crates in the game. Those being the normal beige crates, bomb crates which explode in 3 seconds, metal crates which can only be opened through some form of explosion, and nanotech crates. Nanotech is essentially the health in the game and the crates can be found practically everywhere. Before I go in depth about the currency and its themes, let’s continue the story shall we?
Ratchet and clank end up crash landing on planet novalis but end up getting a ship from the planetary chairman (a very imaginative name) and end up finding…the plumber. The absolute legend. The crack of all jokes. But anyway. They end up going to different planets to try and find captain qwark. But just before I get onto that, I just want to take a minute and talk about another part of the gameplay.
Something that makes the first ratchet game certainly stand out is its non-linear progression. Essentially, in almost all levels you can take different paths to get to different things, these could be important items, important story beats, or just nice little bonuses. What I like about that is that, it encourages exploration and almost pushes it on the player to keep returning to places and just checking out everywhere they can. It’s a very nice bit of gameplay that I wish was continued and pushed a lot more in later ratchet games.
They end up arriving on planet kerwan whereby clank gets a heli pack upgrade and ratchet ends up getting a swingshot. To start off with, the swingshot is one of the gadgets that helps ratchet out with puzzles, these pop up all over the games and work differently to weapons as well…they don’t kill anyone. The heli pack is also an upgrade that helps give ratchet a lot more flexibility in terms of things like reaching hard to reach places. Clank ends up getting 2 other upgrades later on which help with similar things and can come in quite handy. I’ve never met anyone on this planet who hates the heli pack or thruster pack, and if someone does…do you really?
They eventually do end up finding qwark and he ends up taking them to his base on planet Umbris…however, he ends up turning out to be helping drek this entire time and leaves them to the slaughter, thankfully tho ratchet and clank make it out with their lives…but maybe not so much their friendship as clank fell for qwarks tricks. This then leads us into act 2 of the game! Oh wow!
Act 2:
So they end up getting a brand spanking new ship and end up having to try and track down qwark, however before they can…there’s a bunch of issues. For starters, they’re on the planet orxon and the air is very dangerous to breathe, so they are forced to try some form of gas mask to find the infobot and locate qwark. If you don’t know what it is, it’s essentially a small little robot that gives the coordinates of the next planet.
Also, just wanted to also talk about the themes of the game and I thought this would be an excellent time as any. So, if you’re following this I’m just wondering…have you noticed how expensive everything is? Well, you’ll never get what that is! Why it’s good old consumerism my favourite! The main theme of this game and the entire ps2 quadrilogy are obviously the satire and extreme push of consumerism. Stuff is advertised everywhere and practically nothing in the game doesn’t not come with a price. But that is the sort of genius of the writing. Everything has to come with a price and if you can’t pay it then tough shit. It gives the world an almost slightly depressing view. But I digress.
Eventually they get a gas mask from planet pokitaru and go to a bunch of other planets, including hoven where they thwart one of dreks plans…and clank hits on a girl??? This is until they eventually decide to confront qwark on the gemlick base. And oh man…this is where it gets good.
Come on, I had to mention the music at some point. The entire score was composed by David bergeaud and unfortunately he hasn’t returned to the series since quest for booty. His soundtracks in almost every ratchet game he did were excellent and fit with every planet they were inserted into. Whether it be the futuristic and busy landscape of planet kerwan or the desolate yet dangerous gemlick base, everything he composed for the game fits perfectly and encapsulates each world perfectly. It’s a shame later soundtracks wouldn’t encapsulate the same feeling the first few ratchet games did but, hey, we still have the work he did and it can still be appreciated today, if they put it in streaming services…
Act 3:
After attempting to confront qwark, they get into a fighter jet and he crashes onto the planet of oltanis. It’s at this moment when ratchet and clank decide to put aside their differences and actually defeat drek for the good of the galaxy. They try to get oltanis but clank can’t come out because of the lightning and dangerous conditions of the area. Ratchet is then forced to go on his own where he finds qwa- I mean Steve and gets the gagdetron pda…which I have to dedicate a paragraph to.
The gadgetron pda. What’s so good about this baby? It’s essentially the get yourself out of having no ammo card. You can use this thing absolutely anytime you want is essentially a portable vender. The only downside is the fact that the ammo costs more than it does at an actual vendor but who cares! If your loaded this is a perfect way of getting out of dangerous fights.
After getting an infobot, they travel to quartu, otherwise known as the robot factory from where clank was created. Clank ends up becoming giant in a pretty short section which I’m not going to go too in depth about. Essentially they end up getting another infobot for their trouble and end up making it to kalebo III to try and sneak into the robot factory in quartu. Kalebo III just happens to be the headquarters of none other than gadgetron, the company that has been selling you weapons and everything. They meet the chairman and end up having to participate in a hoverboard competition.
Hoverboarding is essentially a little racing game that you can be in. There’s only two tracks with those being in Rilgar and kalebo III. They aren’t that exciting but they certainly were for younger me, but nowadays they frustrate me as all hell. I also forgot to mention about some of the other important gadgets. Those being stuff like the grind rails which let you grind on railings (shocker), the magnet boots which let you walk on magnetic surfaces, the gas mask which I already touched upon. These not only help with puzzles but they also look really swag on ratchet.
After the competition, ratchet receives a remote that turns him into a robot. He decides to use this to his advantage and sneak into the robot factory on quartu. After doing so, they end up finding the exact place where clank was born. I’m not going to describe the scene because…I think it says everything perfectly. Afterwards however, it turns out that drek plans on destroying veldin as a sort of fuck you to ratchet. They decide to try and return to veldin immediately and stop drek in his tracks. Drek ends up revealing that he was the one that polluted his kinds homeworld and he was going to do it again on the new planet he was creating, just to make more money and repeat it over and over again. With this, ratchet and clank finally decide to take drek down once and for all.
The final battle is pretty excellent and cinematic. With the desperate attempt to try and stop drek at all costs from destroying veldin with his deplanetizer ray. Ratchet and clank end up succeeding and shoot drek to his own planet, destroying it in the process. The end shows ratchet and clank finally being really best buds and deciding to live with each other and just be…the best duo like come on.
Epilogue:
After everything…I still love this game. Of course it isn’t perfect but that’s ok. If it wasn’t for this game I probably wouldn’t reviewing different games at this very moment. This was the first game I ever played and I hold it really dear to my heart and hell even the entire franchise to my heart. The story of the first game and the themes it touches on are still perfect to this day. And whilst gameplay could’ve done with a few fixes, that’s what the other games would later help with. And even back then, I called it the game with the biggest heart, because that’s true. It was. It’s still well liked today and I honestly couldn’t thank it enough. And I can’t thank you guys enough either for sticking with me for so long!
Great gameplay, excellent story, breathtaking music, interesting selection of weapons and gadgets, and the plumber still has his cra-I mean back, thanks for the 100th review!
Ratchet & clank was a game born from the gods. If people were destined to do stuff, then this was the game that saw me in that direction. After insomniac lost spyro they needed a new big platforming series, so they borrowed naughty dogs engine which they used for Jak and Daxter and were able to create what would become the first ratchet game. After the release, the game would spawn a PlayStation staple franchise and specifically for this review: a boy with a small dream. But that’s for later. Let’s get onto the actual game itself.
Act 1:
Now I know I’ve reviewed this game in the past, but it certainly lacked the depth it needed, so why not give it that missing depth right now? The story sees you in control of a Lombax named ratchet. He’s alone on the desolate planet of veldin with the dream to escape and to explore other planes across the solar system. Meanwhile, there’s a malfunction in a robot making factory and the result of this is clank, a tiny robot. He finds out that an evil man named chairman drek is planning on destroying planets to create a planet for his own. Clank quickly begins to try and escape but is shot down by other bots and ends up landing in veldin. From there, he meets ratchet and clank helps him to escape the planet with the deal of finding captain qwark and putting a stop to chairman dreks plans. But before we continue the story: it’s time to go into gameplay.
Compared to future instalments, the first ratchet game isn’t as shooter heavy as its successors but it is still a core part of its gameplay. Considering the fact that before, insomniac’s only really major work were the spyro games, you can see that formula kind of applies to the first ratchet game. Even with this however, it still ends up sticking out on its own. You get a choice of 16 weapons all with different attributes. I’m not going to go too in depth about the weapons, because you can tell they were still trying to work out what works and what didn’t and believe me, the taunter is a big showcase of that. Some weapons include the decoy glove, whereby a small inflatable version of ratchet will stand and enemies will instead attack it instead of you. The suck cannon sucks up enemies and even crates which can then be launched back at enemies, this then brings me onto the next bit of gameplay.
The currency in the game is something that would still define its successors. These are bolts. These can be found by killing enemies or even finding them in smashable beige crates, or even surprisingly: bomb crates. Bolts are now explosive! There are different types of crates in the game. Those being the normal beige crates, bomb crates which explode in 3 seconds, metal crates which can only be opened through some form of explosion, and nanotech crates. Nanotech is essentially the health in the game and the crates can be found practically everywhere. Before I go in depth about the currency and its themes, let’s continue the story shall we?
Ratchet and clank end up crash landing on planet novalis but end up getting a ship from the planetary chairman (a very imaginative name) and end up finding…the plumber. The absolute legend. The crack of all jokes. But anyway. They end up going to different planets to try and find captain qwark. But just before I get onto that, I just want to take a minute and talk about another part of the gameplay.
Something that makes the first ratchet game certainly stand out is its non-linear progression. Essentially, in almost all levels you can take different paths to get to different things, these could be important items, important story beats, or just nice little bonuses. What I like about that is that, it encourages exploration and almost pushes it on the player to keep returning to places and just checking out everywhere they can. It’s a very nice bit of gameplay that I wish was continued and pushed a lot more in later ratchet games.
They end up arriving on planet kerwan whereby clank gets a heli pack upgrade and ratchet ends up getting a swingshot. To start off with, the swingshot is one of the gadgets that helps ratchet out with puzzles, these pop up all over the games and work differently to weapons as well…they don’t kill anyone. The heli pack is also an upgrade that helps give ratchet a lot more flexibility in terms of things like reaching hard to reach places. Clank ends up getting 2 other upgrades later on which help with similar things and can come in quite handy. I’ve never met anyone on this planet who hates the heli pack or thruster pack, and if someone does…do you really?
They eventually do end up finding qwark and he ends up taking them to his base on planet Umbris…however, he ends up turning out to be helping drek this entire time and leaves them to the slaughter, thankfully tho ratchet and clank make it out with their lives…but maybe not so much their friendship as clank fell for qwarks tricks. This then leads us into act 2 of the game! Oh wow!
Act 2:
So they end up getting a brand spanking new ship and end up having to try and track down qwark, however before they can…there’s a bunch of issues. For starters, they’re on the planet orxon and the air is very dangerous to breathe, so they are forced to try some form of gas mask to find the infobot and locate qwark. If you don’t know what it is, it’s essentially a small little robot that gives the coordinates of the next planet.
Also, just wanted to also talk about the themes of the game and I thought this would be an excellent time as any. So, if you’re following this I’m just wondering…have you noticed how expensive everything is? Well, you’ll never get what that is! Why it’s good old consumerism my favourite! The main theme of this game and the entire ps2 quadrilogy are obviously the satire and extreme push of consumerism. Stuff is advertised everywhere and practically nothing in the game doesn’t not come with a price. But that is the sort of genius of the writing. Everything has to come with a price and if you can’t pay it then tough shit. It gives the world an almost slightly depressing view. But I digress.
Eventually they get a gas mask from planet pokitaru and go to a bunch of other planets, including hoven where they thwart one of dreks plans…and clank hits on a girl??? This is until they eventually decide to confront qwark on the gemlick base. And oh man…this is where it gets good.
Come on, I had to mention the music at some point. The entire score was composed by David bergeaud and unfortunately he hasn’t returned to the series since quest for booty. His soundtracks in almost every ratchet game he did were excellent and fit with every planet they were inserted into. Whether it be the futuristic and busy landscape of planet kerwan or the desolate yet dangerous gemlick base, everything he composed for the game fits perfectly and encapsulates each world perfectly. It’s a shame later soundtracks wouldn’t encapsulate the same feeling the first few ratchet games did but, hey, we still have the work he did and it can still be appreciated today, if they put it in streaming services…
Act 3:
After attempting to confront qwark, they get into a fighter jet and he crashes onto the planet of oltanis. It’s at this moment when ratchet and clank decide to put aside their differences and actually defeat drek for the good of the galaxy. They try to get oltanis but clank can’t come out because of the lightning and dangerous conditions of the area. Ratchet is then forced to go on his own where he finds qwa- I mean Steve and gets the gagdetron pda…which I have to dedicate a paragraph to.
The gadgetron pda. What’s so good about this baby? It’s essentially the get yourself out of having no ammo card. You can use this thing absolutely anytime you want is essentially a portable vender. The only downside is the fact that the ammo costs more than it does at an actual vendor but who cares! If your loaded this is a perfect way of getting out of dangerous fights.
After getting an infobot, they travel to quartu, otherwise known as the robot factory from where clank was created. Clank ends up becoming giant in a pretty short section which I’m not going to go too in depth about. Essentially they end up getting another infobot for their trouble and end up making it to kalebo III to try and sneak into the robot factory in quartu. Kalebo III just happens to be the headquarters of none other than gadgetron, the company that has been selling you weapons and everything. They meet the chairman and end up having to participate in a hoverboard competition.
Hoverboarding is essentially a little racing game that you can be in. There’s only two tracks with those being in Rilgar and kalebo III. They aren’t that exciting but they certainly were for younger me, but nowadays they frustrate me as all hell. I also forgot to mention about some of the other important gadgets. Those being stuff like the grind rails which let you grind on railings (shocker), the magnet boots which let you walk on magnetic surfaces, the gas mask which I already touched upon. These not only help with puzzles but they also look really swag on ratchet.
After the competition, ratchet receives a remote that turns him into a robot. He decides to use this to his advantage and sneak into the robot factory on quartu. After doing so, they end up finding the exact place where clank was born. I’m not going to describe the scene because…I think it says everything perfectly. Afterwards however, it turns out that drek plans on destroying veldin as a sort of fuck you to ratchet. They decide to try and return to veldin immediately and stop drek in his tracks. Drek ends up revealing that he was the one that polluted his kinds homeworld and he was going to do it again on the new planet he was creating, just to make more money and repeat it over and over again. With this, ratchet and clank finally decide to take drek down once and for all.
The final battle is pretty excellent and cinematic. With the desperate attempt to try and stop drek at all costs from destroying veldin with his deplanetizer ray. Ratchet and clank end up succeeding and shoot drek to his own planet, destroying it in the process. The end shows ratchet and clank finally being really best buds and deciding to live with each other and just be…the best duo like come on.
Epilogue:
After everything…I still love this game. Of course it isn’t perfect but that’s ok. If it wasn’t for this game I probably wouldn’t reviewing different games at this very moment. This was the first game I ever played and I hold it really dear to my heart and hell even the entire franchise to my heart. The story of the first game and the themes it touches on are still perfect to this day. And whilst gameplay could’ve done with a few fixes, that’s what the other games would later help with. And even back then, I called it the game with the biggest heart, because that’s true. It was. It’s still well liked today and I honestly couldn’t thank it enough. And I can’t thank you guys enough either for sticking with me for so long!
Great gameplay, excellent story, breathtaking music, interesting selection of weapons and gadgets, and the plumber still has his cra-I mean back, thanks for the 100th review!
1995
So, you’ve come hoping for a really in depth and detailed review? Unfortunately I’ve only ever played this game once and to be honest…it is a much MUCH more interesting story. In the future, I promise I will actually sit down and review this game. But for now: get a drink and a nice snack, sit back, and enjoy my glorious tale.
It was around about 8 years ago I’d say and me and a friend were in a random arcade. We were sort of browsing around, looking through all the different games they had to show. And that’s when…we saw it. Time crisis. For those that don’t know, time crisis is essentially a first person on rails shooter which were pretty popular in the arcades during the late-ish 90’s. The thing is here is that you have a small pedal which if pressed: will allow the player to duck down and reload their weapon. So when me and my friend saw this game, we decided to give it a go. How hard could it possibly be? We said to ourselves.
I’m sure this is the point where in your mind you’ll probably hear thinking ‘oh this is the part where he reveals how hard it actually is and then there is some funny moral to the story later’. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to crush those expectations.
So my friend inserted 50p of British currency into the machine and started playing. We’d both agreed that he’d have the first go and later I’d have a go after he died. But after 10 minutes or so, we realised that he was better at time crisis than we thought. He was brilliant at it in fact. I just sat there watching him. He decimated every single enemy in his path. The villain laughed: thinking that he was some sort of joke. But, he was so, so wrong. My friend kept pushing the pedal like there was no tomorrow and landing every hit. After a while, I began to wonder if the machine was rigged. But those thoughts were soon put to sleep as finally: he beat the game.
So what is the moral to the story then? Just because you think a game is gonna be really hard doesn’t mean it always will.
Great gameplay, story happened, pedal was harmed, ACTION! RELOAD!
It was around about 8 years ago I’d say and me and a friend were in a random arcade. We were sort of browsing around, looking through all the different games they had to show. And that’s when…we saw it. Time crisis. For those that don’t know, time crisis is essentially a first person on rails shooter which were pretty popular in the arcades during the late-ish 90’s. The thing is here is that you have a small pedal which if pressed: will allow the player to duck down and reload their weapon. So when me and my friend saw this game, we decided to give it a go. How hard could it possibly be? We said to ourselves.
I’m sure this is the point where in your mind you’ll probably hear thinking ‘oh this is the part where he reveals how hard it actually is and then there is some funny moral to the story later’. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to crush those expectations.
So my friend inserted 50p of British currency into the machine and started playing. We’d both agreed that he’d have the first go and later I’d have a go after he died. But after 10 minutes or so, we realised that he was better at time crisis than we thought. He was brilliant at it in fact. I just sat there watching him. He decimated every single enemy in his path. The villain laughed: thinking that he was some sort of joke. But, he was so, so wrong. My friend kept pushing the pedal like there was no tomorrow and landing every hit. After a while, I began to wonder if the machine was rigged. But those thoughts were soon put to sleep as finally: he beat the game.
So what is the moral to the story then? Just because you think a game is gonna be really hard doesn’t mean it always will.
Great gameplay, story happened, pedal was harmed, ACTION! RELOAD!
2012
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
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
2014
Alright then. So I was in my computing class and we were about to get underway with the lesson. Slowly everyone came in one by one and sat down at their computer and turned it on. I was funnily enough the first one there and had already turned everything off. By the time I turned chrome on however…there was an error. The Wi-Fi in the school had completely gone down. Everyone in the class was confused and so was our teacher. As soon as he saw the Wi-Fi was down he went out the classroom and left us to it. So it was just us. 18 kids in a classroom seeing the same ‘there is no internet connection’ and the same…dinosaur. Immediately, someone in the class looked at me and knew exactly what we needed to do. He gathered the other boys in the class and all at the same time…we pressed the space bar. The small pixelated dino jumped and that’s when it began. We set up a mini tournament right there and then and so we all tried to get as far as we could. After 5 minutes, I’d already made it to a high score of around 2000 whilst the person next to me, who was essentially my rival at this point, was at around 2100. No one even came close to where we were. We had almost got down everything about the game and could easily predict when we needed to jump and when we didn’t, even out the corner of our eye. Eventually, however, our teacher returned and announced that the Wi-Fi would be turned back on soon. Surprisingly, he was actually impressed with what were able to do in the game, and by the time the lesson finally continued to how it was supposed to be. We were all very very satisfied.
Dino, jumping, no internet, fuck them pterodactyls
Dino, jumping, no internet, fuck them pterodactyls
1993
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
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
2001
So…I’ve been putting off this review for a while, it’s mainly because I’ve been afraid, afraid that I’m gonna fuck this review up somehow. But it’s time I face my fears and finally returned to review this game and finish the 90’s sonic games. When it comes to Sonic Adventure 2, I’ve always preferred the original, however I’ve had a slight soft spot for this game and that’s why it has a similar score to SA1. So let’s get into it and see what I can say about a very loved sonic game.
We have quite a few new characters, mainly shadow and rouge. The story is split into the hero and dark sides though they all culminate with the same end. Basically eggman finds that his grandad left him a secret weapon named shadow, who is a hedgehog just like sonic. So him and eggman decide to find all the chaos emerald to conquer the world, with rouge joining later as she secretly works for the government. Later it all culminates in the ark where we find out shadow was doing all this naughty shit because of a girl he used to know, named Maria, told him to help mankind yet he interpreted it differently. Basically getting it completely confused and almost completely obliterating Maria’s wishes. So him and sonic defeat the finalhazard and that’s the end of that for now. And there was a lot of piss on the moon.
In terms of gameplay, it’s similar-ish to sonic adventure 1 with a few very clear differences. The structure is much more linear and follows a straight path. Instead of getting to choose characters, you’ll simply go from one level where you play as someone like sonic and then move onto another with playing as knuckles or someone. After every level as well you are forced to be into the chao garden which I’ll talk about a little bit later. The level types as well are mainly inspired by sa1 or at least the better level types. The sonic levels and knuckle levels made it over and the gamma levels somehow made it through though a little modified to make it fit with tails and eggman’s levels.
The chao garden also makes a return. We have 3 gardens actually: the neutral garden, the hero garden, and the dark garden with the latter two being unlocked after raising a hero and dark chao. you basically just raise the chao like you did in the last game. Raise the insufferable, puny, disgusting, cute, adorable, funny, little guys.
The music is also absolutely brilliant. Crush 40 return to do their work on the game and this is probably the only part of the game which I believe completely outshines the last. The music is phenomenal in every single way. I did like how sa1’s ost did have neat callbacks to the older sonic games, especially sonic cd, but this soundtrack is just absolutely exceptional. If anyone hates city escape then you clearly are just hating for the sake of it.
Unfortunately, after sonic adventure 2 released, it was soon announced that the Dreamcast would be discontinued and Sega would end up becoming a third party publisher. So sonic adventure 2 ended up being the end of an era, one full of lots and lots of creativity and experimentation. Even though later games would also experiment I felt that it was a lot more grounded through the Sega genesis (mega drive) era to the Dreamcast era. So with that, it ends my talk on some of the main sonic games for now. But who knows, maybe I will talk about 06…nah.
Great story, decent characters, excellent music, chao return, how do you like that Obama?
We have quite a few new characters, mainly shadow and rouge. The story is split into the hero and dark sides though they all culminate with the same end. Basically eggman finds that his grandad left him a secret weapon named shadow, who is a hedgehog just like sonic. So him and eggman decide to find all the chaos emerald to conquer the world, with rouge joining later as she secretly works for the government. Later it all culminates in the ark where we find out shadow was doing all this naughty shit because of a girl he used to know, named Maria, told him to help mankind yet he interpreted it differently. Basically getting it completely confused and almost completely obliterating Maria’s wishes. So him and sonic defeat the finalhazard and that’s the end of that for now. And there was a lot of piss on the moon.
In terms of gameplay, it’s similar-ish to sonic adventure 1 with a few very clear differences. The structure is much more linear and follows a straight path. Instead of getting to choose characters, you’ll simply go from one level where you play as someone like sonic and then move onto another with playing as knuckles or someone. After every level as well you are forced to be into the chao garden which I’ll talk about a little bit later. The level types as well are mainly inspired by sa1 or at least the better level types. The sonic levels and knuckle levels made it over and the gamma levels somehow made it through though a little modified to make it fit with tails and eggman’s levels.
The chao garden also makes a return. We have 3 gardens actually: the neutral garden, the hero garden, and the dark garden with the latter two being unlocked after raising a hero and dark chao. you basically just raise the chao like you did in the last game. Raise the insufferable, puny, disgusting, cute, adorable, funny, little guys.
The music is also absolutely brilliant. Crush 40 return to do their work on the game and this is probably the only part of the game which I believe completely outshines the last. The music is phenomenal in every single way. I did like how sa1’s ost did have neat callbacks to the older sonic games, especially sonic cd, but this soundtrack is just absolutely exceptional. If anyone hates city escape then you clearly are just hating for the sake of it.
Unfortunately, after sonic adventure 2 released, it was soon announced that the Dreamcast would be discontinued and Sega would end up becoming a third party publisher. So sonic adventure 2 ended up being the end of an era, one full of lots and lots of creativity and experimentation. Even though later games would also experiment I felt that it was a lot more grounded through the Sega genesis (mega drive) era to the Dreamcast era. So with that, it ends my talk on some of the main sonic games for now. But who knows, maybe I will talk about 06…nah.
Great story, decent characters, excellent music, chao return, how do you like that Obama?
2013
So uhh…there was this one time in my history class, and I was sat pretty much in the middle whilst this other kid was sat at the very front. Now this kid had a laptop because his handwriting was awful and the teachers had agreed to give him a laptop so he could write better. Now this kid loved to use the laptop in history, and any chance he got you would bet that he would be doing something that he shouldn’t be on it. It wasn’t anything horrid or crude, it was just what any normal young kid with a laptop would do: either play games, watch YouTube videos or just mess around on Microsoft paint. But this one lesson, we were learning about history in dissection. Personally anything to do with surgery always makes me feel sick and I tried to find any sort of way to distract myself from the lesson this one time. Thankfully the kid who was in front of me with his laptop was playing a game: cookie clicker. The kid slowly worked himself up, he got more and more auto clickers, he increased his building levels and buildings. The more and more he played the more I got mesmerised and eventually I was probably more glued to his screen than he was. Eventually the kid clicked on that I was watching him play the game, and slowly but surely he started flexing his ability. He got even more factory’s, even more auto clickers, and got achievement after achievement. Eventually after it all, he had reached the end. The game asked him if he wanted to ascend and just when he was about to click yes…the lesson had ended. We both got up, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. I’m sure to anyone looking we looked like madmen, but in the end it was probably the funniest thing I’d ever slightly been apart of.
Good time waster, chill music, funny ideas, grannies
Good time waster, chill music, funny ideas, grannies
2003
How to successfully change your E rated game to a T rated game in one easy step:
Step 1:
“I’m gonna kill praxis!”
Jak II was definitely something not a lot of people were expecting from naughty dog. How do you follow up a really quirky and silly platformer? You make it serious as fuck with guns, alcohol, and a bunch of sex references. Mario is practically pissing himself in fear right now. Basically, naughty dog were scared that a Jak sequel which was similar to the first game would not sell well, so instead of making minor changes they basically shoved Jak and his good pal daxter into a whole new world…oh and kicked daxter off the title of the franchise…until high impact came along but that’s a story for another day.
The story of Jak II takes place after the first game’s secret ending. They open this portal only to find creatures called metal heads storming their world and Jak, daxter, Samos, and Keira are forced into the portal where they are brought into haven city. The city is controlled by baron praxis, who is basically your big brother of the whole place. So as Jak, with his good pal daxter, you work with the underground to defeat praxis once and for all. On the way you’ll be joined with new characters including torn, ashelin, sig, crew, and many others. The story eventually shows you that this whole time, the city is actually the future and there are many other plot twists that are shown during the ending…but why spoil everything?
Gameplay is…probably the best and worst thing you can talk about. The gunplay is pretty good but it isn’t really the best part of the game. You get 4 weapons, the scatter gun, the blaster, the Vulcan fury, and the peace maker which is the crème de la crème of the weapons. The weapons aren’t the best and I think Jak 3 does it a lot better. The driving is also pretty annoying but feels very satisfying once you get the hang of it. The jetboard is also my favourite part of moving around. All you’ve got to do is jump up and press R2 and movement has finally peaked…can’t say that about normal skateboards. Boss fights are also not the best but are serviceable for what they are. And fuck those crimson guards…oh wait…I forgot about dark Jak. As a new ability in the game you can use dark Jak! Eh. It’s not really the best and I don’t find myself using it that much but some moves can be pretty good and it’s a decent last resort.
Jak II is definitely my favourite in the franchise. It perfectly throws you into its world and gives you some of the best gameplay I’ve experienced. And the music, oh my god the music. The music can change when you start using your weapons to a more stressed and anxious version and it flows into it really well. And let me just dedicated a moment for the best music in the entire game: haven forest. Aphex twin has nothing on this masterpiece (I’m joking I love Aphex twin and nothing can beat stone in focus). And the story is also at its peak here…how could Jak 3 improve this?
Don’t hold your breath
Best story, decent gameplay, good open world, haven forest is beautiful, “I miss pants”
Step 1:
“I’m gonna kill praxis!”
Jak II was definitely something not a lot of people were expecting from naughty dog. How do you follow up a really quirky and silly platformer? You make it serious as fuck with guns, alcohol, and a bunch of sex references. Mario is practically pissing himself in fear right now. Basically, naughty dog were scared that a Jak sequel which was similar to the first game would not sell well, so instead of making minor changes they basically shoved Jak and his good pal daxter into a whole new world…oh and kicked daxter off the title of the franchise…until high impact came along but that’s a story for another day.
The story of Jak II takes place after the first game’s secret ending. They open this portal only to find creatures called metal heads storming their world and Jak, daxter, Samos, and Keira are forced into the portal where they are brought into haven city. The city is controlled by baron praxis, who is basically your big brother of the whole place. So as Jak, with his good pal daxter, you work with the underground to defeat praxis once and for all. On the way you’ll be joined with new characters including torn, ashelin, sig, crew, and many others. The story eventually shows you that this whole time, the city is actually the future and there are many other plot twists that are shown during the ending…but why spoil everything?
Gameplay is…probably the best and worst thing you can talk about. The gunplay is pretty good but it isn’t really the best part of the game. You get 4 weapons, the scatter gun, the blaster, the Vulcan fury, and the peace maker which is the crème de la crème of the weapons. The weapons aren’t the best and I think Jak 3 does it a lot better. The driving is also pretty annoying but feels very satisfying once you get the hang of it. The jetboard is also my favourite part of moving around. All you’ve got to do is jump up and press R2 and movement has finally peaked…can’t say that about normal skateboards. Boss fights are also not the best but are serviceable for what they are. And fuck those crimson guards…oh wait…I forgot about dark Jak. As a new ability in the game you can use dark Jak! Eh. It’s not really the best and I don’t find myself using it that much but some moves can be pretty good and it’s a decent last resort.
Jak II is definitely my favourite in the franchise. It perfectly throws you into its world and gives you some of the best gameplay I’ve experienced. And the music, oh my god the music. The music can change when you start using your weapons to a more stressed and anxious version and it flows into it really well. And let me just dedicated a moment for the best music in the entire game: haven forest. Aphex twin has nothing on this masterpiece (I’m joking I love Aphex twin and nothing can beat stone in focus). And the story is also at its peak here…how could Jak 3 improve this?
Don’t hold your breath
Best story, decent gameplay, good open world, haven forest is beautiful, “I miss pants”
This review contains spoilers
Foreword:
I’m back. I promised I’d return, and with that I promised I’d return with a review of a much newer game. I hope everyone had a wonderful (and late) Christmas and new year, and I hope that you all enjoy this review. I admit it’s odd for me to review the older game in a series and work backwards but I feel as though it’ll be much easier for me in this case. I hope you have a wonderful evening and I hope you enjoy my first review of the year. And now back to the review.
Intro:
So sandman was the reason New York had an orange sky back in June, that makes so much sense now.
Contrary to popular belief: I like superheroes. I’m not the expert on them nor am I gonna act like I am but I think I know a decent amount about them. And what’s one superhero series I like? Well it would have to be sp- fantastic four. I adore the fantastic four but Spider-Man is a close second, and it also happens to be the more popular of the two. Spider-man, the series about some random teenager called Peter Parker who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and then turns into Scott the woz…with superpowers. In terms of spider-man games, they’ve never really…been that brilliant. That was until insomniac came into the picture. But we can talk about the original later. Just the original. Just the original game on the PS4.
Story:
Alright so where are we. I’m not gonna go too in depth but to summarise, Harry Osborne, remember him? Yeah neither do we, is now finally out of treatment for his disease and can now see Peter again. What a romance! Harry sets up a foundation for them where they can help people and find a cure for everyone. But uhh then the 19 inches of venom come in and uhh…anyway what’s going on with miles?
Just an fyi: if there’s one complaint I have it’s probably miles’ side to the story. It’s not that interesting. It can be summed up with: it happened. Most of the ‘plot points’ are just set ups for side missions which I’ll get into later. But essentially he learns that revenge isn’t a great thing to seek and he ends up kinda making up with Martin li from the last game. Honestly that’s his whole story and it doesn’t interest me that much.
Back to Peter, the 19 inches of venom end up affecting him and kraven ends up believing that venom (or venom attacked to Peter) is his ‘final hunt’. Though eventually miles gets it off of him. But then it ends up joining with Harry again and uhh. Yeah them 19 inches go crazy. So then Peter and miles have to track him down and stop his mini inches from ‘curing’ New York. And that’s spider-man 2 In pretty much 2 minutes.
Combat:
Damn they really upped the combat here, huh? It’s pretty much kinda the same as the last few games, though Peter and miles have some cool new moves they can try out.
Peters symbiote abilities are really cool but they do not beat miles’s new abilities. They mainly come from li as that is one of miles’s big plot points yet the moves are actually pretty interesting and feel like a much needed breath of fresh air from his standalone game’s abilities (and they also make a return!) overall the gameplay isn’t changed too much but is a pretty cool step up.
Gameplay in general:
Swinging is back and is as great as ever and now we have a new thing to manoeuvre around New York with: the wingsuit. You know when people ask can pigs fly? What about spiders? Cause that’s just the thing I want to see happen when I try to get into bed and see a spider fly over me. I mean it’s definitely a new way of getting around New York and it helps in some areas.
How could I forget the side quests? These are definitely some of the best and worst parts of the game for me. The flame cultist side quest is actually really interesting, though it left me on a MAJOR cliffhanger. Which I won’t spoil for people but geez. I hope it does manifest into some form of dlc. The whole jazz side quest is ok as well. I only know miles davis so uhh, most of this unfortunately went over my head. The Brooklyn visions side quest is pretty dull but you get a nice suit. Don’t even talk to me about the spider bots side quest.
Before I bore you with more of that I’m gonna be real: all this stuff sort of happened. None of the side quests were really that interesting and most of the time kind of blew over my head. Not to say they were bad or anything, just not that interesting.
Characters:
“That’s like getting a shotgun for a haircut”
I really did want to like the characters in this game, and they aren’t necessarily that bad. I mean considering I gave the game 4 stars, I certainly didn’t find them insufferable. There were a good cast of characters and it’s best I get them out of the way first.
Kraven was a really good villain. Like if there was a way of giving me a really good first villain for the second game it’s kraven. He was hyped up well by insomniac as well and I found him to be a really interesting character. Whether he beats out li is another matter but I still really enjoyed what he did and what he signified in the game.
Speaking of whom, I quite liked li in this. He was sort of needing a redemption arc, or at least that’s how I felt, and I’m glad he got it. I shit on the miles story a little bit but li really did steal the show for that. I’m just so glad he realised what he needed to do and now looking to better himself.
Hell I’ll even make the argument Peter was a pretty good character. Like I was much more invested in his story. The symbiote slowly changing him made it seem really believable for his character and his slow dive into it controlling him. The same sort of goes for Harry, though he’s still a weak character if you ask me.
Wait, Harry Osborne, a weak character? How could you say such blasphemy! I don’t know he’s just not that interesting. His whole story arc just isn’t that interesting for me. I knew what was gonna happen and in the end it just annoyed me because of how predictable it was, well that is until the end. Venom takes him over yadayada. And then miles brings him back, because the last redeeming quality would’ve been to teach Peter a lesson but nope.
Miles uhh, yeah. He does shit to be honest. He mainly sets up side quests and only has a big plot with li which I’ve already discussed and I hate to sound like the 19 inches of venom is talking but all he really does is get in the way sometimes. Near the end he’s a hell of a lot more helpful but that’s the problem, he’s a little too helpful. Though I’m not gonna blame him for saving Harry as much as it is a little bullshit. And also who actually thought his new suit was good. ‘Miles morales original’. It’s funny cause I saw that exact same style in the Nike store 5 days ago
…man just fuck what they did with mj’s model.
Conclusion:
So we made it. Overall, it was certainly an experience which didn’t disappoint. Whilst it’s definitely better than miles morales, I feel the original still tops it, just because of its brilliant array of ideas. Whilst they are still here, the messages get a bit thrown around, couple that with a few weak stories and barely and gameplay tweaks and you should be setting up for a mid game. Yet I still enjoyed it. After all is said and done, I do hope spider-man 3 can explore more ideas and maybe that dlc can finally answer some questions. Like whether carnage knows who candice is?
Decent game, fine combat, good Peter story, fuck the spider bots, nice to see yuri again, 19 inches of venom
I’m back. I promised I’d return, and with that I promised I’d return with a review of a much newer game. I hope everyone had a wonderful (and late) Christmas and new year, and I hope that you all enjoy this review. I admit it’s odd for me to review the older game in a series and work backwards but I feel as though it’ll be much easier for me in this case. I hope you have a wonderful evening and I hope you enjoy my first review of the year. And now back to the review.
Intro:
So sandman was the reason New York had an orange sky back in June, that makes so much sense now.
Contrary to popular belief: I like superheroes. I’m not the expert on them nor am I gonna act like I am but I think I know a decent amount about them. And what’s one superhero series I like? Well it would have to be sp- fantastic four. I adore the fantastic four but Spider-Man is a close second, and it also happens to be the more popular of the two. Spider-man, the series about some random teenager called Peter Parker who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and then turns into Scott the woz…with superpowers. In terms of spider-man games, they’ve never really…been that brilliant. That was until insomniac came into the picture. But we can talk about the original later. Just the original. Just the original game on the PS4.
Story:
Alright so where are we. I’m not gonna go too in depth but to summarise, Harry Osborne, remember him? Yeah neither do we, is now finally out of treatment for his disease and can now see Peter again. What a romance! Harry sets up a foundation for them where they can help people and find a cure for everyone. But uhh then the 19 inches of venom come in and uhh…anyway what’s going on with miles?
Just an fyi: if there’s one complaint I have it’s probably miles’ side to the story. It’s not that interesting. It can be summed up with: it happened. Most of the ‘plot points’ are just set ups for side missions which I’ll get into later. But essentially he learns that revenge isn’t a great thing to seek and he ends up kinda making up with Martin li from the last game. Honestly that’s his whole story and it doesn’t interest me that much.
Back to Peter, the 19 inches of venom end up affecting him and kraven ends up believing that venom (or venom attacked to Peter) is his ‘final hunt’. Though eventually miles gets it off of him. But then it ends up joining with Harry again and uhh. Yeah them 19 inches go crazy. So then Peter and miles have to track him down and stop his mini inches from ‘curing’ New York. And that’s spider-man 2 In pretty much 2 minutes.
Combat:
Damn they really upped the combat here, huh? It’s pretty much kinda the same as the last few games, though Peter and miles have some cool new moves they can try out.
Peters symbiote abilities are really cool but they do not beat miles’s new abilities. They mainly come from li as that is one of miles’s big plot points yet the moves are actually pretty interesting and feel like a much needed breath of fresh air from his standalone game’s abilities (and they also make a return!) overall the gameplay isn’t changed too much but is a pretty cool step up.
Gameplay in general:
Swinging is back and is as great as ever and now we have a new thing to manoeuvre around New York with: the wingsuit. You know when people ask can pigs fly? What about spiders? Cause that’s just the thing I want to see happen when I try to get into bed and see a spider fly over me. I mean it’s definitely a new way of getting around New York and it helps in some areas.
How could I forget the side quests? These are definitely some of the best and worst parts of the game for me. The flame cultist side quest is actually really interesting, though it left me on a MAJOR cliffhanger. Which I won’t spoil for people but geez. I hope it does manifest into some form of dlc. The whole jazz side quest is ok as well. I only know miles davis so uhh, most of this unfortunately went over my head. The Brooklyn visions side quest is pretty dull but you get a nice suit. Don’t even talk to me about the spider bots side quest.
Before I bore you with more of that I’m gonna be real: all this stuff sort of happened. None of the side quests were really that interesting and most of the time kind of blew over my head. Not to say they were bad or anything, just not that interesting.
Characters:
“That’s like getting a shotgun for a haircut”
I really did want to like the characters in this game, and they aren’t necessarily that bad. I mean considering I gave the game 4 stars, I certainly didn’t find them insufferable. There were a good cast of characters and it’s best I get them out of the way first.
Kraven was a really good villain. Like if there was a way of giving me a really good first villain for the second game it’s kraven. He was hyped up well by insomniac as well and I found him to be a really interesting character. Whether he beats out li is another matter but I still really enjoyed what he did and what he signified in the game.
Speaking of whom, I quite liked li in this. He was sort of needing a redemption arc, or at least that’s how I felt, and I’m glad he got it. I shit on the miles story a little bit but li really did steal the show for that. I’m just so glad he realised what he needed to do and now looking to better himself.
Hell I’ll even make the argument Peter was a pretty good character. Like I was much more invested in his story. The symbiote slowly changing him made it seem really believable for his character and his slow dive into it controlling him. The same sort of goes for Harry, though he’s still a weak character if you ask me.
Wait, Harry Osborne, a weak character? How could you say such blasphemy! I don’t know he’s just not that interesting. His whole story arc just isn’t that interesting for me. I knew what was gonna happen and in the end it just annoyed me because of how predictable it was, well that is until the end. Venom takes him over yadayada. And then miles brings him back, because the last redeeming quality would’ve been to teach Peter a lesson but nope.
Miles uhh, yeah. He does shit to be honest. He mainly sets up side quests and only has a big plot with li which I’ve already discussed and I hate to sound like the 19 inches of venom is talking but all he really does is get in the way sometimes. Near the end he’s a hell of a lot more helpful but that’s the problem, he’s a little too helpful. Though I’m not gonna blame him for saving Harry as much as it is a little bullshit. And also who actually thought his new suit was good. ‘Miles morales original’. It’s funny cause I saw that exact same style in the Nike store 5 days ago
…man just fuck what they did with mj’s model.
Conclusion:
So we made it. Overall, it was certainly an experience which didn’t disappoint. Whilst it’s definitely better than miles morales, I feel the original still tops it, just because of its brilliant array of ideas. Whilst they are still here, the messages get a bit thrown around, couple that with a few weak stories and barely and gameplay tweaks and you should be setting up for a mid game. Yet I still enjoyed it. After all is said and done, I do hope spider-man 3 can explore more ideas and maybe that dlc can finally answer some questions. Like whether carnage knows who candice is?
Decent game, fine combat, good Peter story, fuck the spider bots, nice to see yuri again, 19 inches of venom
1985
NES Week: Day #7
So, we’ve finally made it. After enjoying some simple pinball, ‘climbing’ up some icey mountains, hitting a ball with a racket, finding gems as a red blob, being a motorcyclist, and fighting with some balloons, we have finally made it. We’ve made it to Super Mario bros.
I could’ve gone for duck hunt for the last game but I thought that wouldn’t be great enough and that the perfect game to play at last is Nintendo’s mascot himself! My history with this game is pretty short. I used to play quite a bit of it but never get past world 6. Turns out there was a way to getting to world 8 all the way from world 5 so…that was nice to know at last after I’d gone through quite a lot of pain but oh well.
In the game you play as Mario on his way to save princess toadstool from the evil king koopa (or peach and bowser). On the way you’ll come across goombas, koopa troopas and buzzy beetles. You’ll also find lakitus who just love to annoy you every chance you get. As a game, Super Mario bros. has aged pretty well. Not ridiculously well but definitely well enough for it to still be played today. And yes: it is pretty difficult near the end but not as difficult as some other Mario games on the NES (looking at you lost levels) but overall you’ll still be able to enjoy a timeless classic.
Classic, recognisable music, decent enemies, bullet bills come at the wrong time, your princess is in another castle!
So, we’ve finally made it. After enjoying some simple pinball, ‘climbing’ up some icey mountains, hitting a ball with a racket, finding gems as a red blob, being a motorcyclist, and fighting with some balloons, we have finally made it. We’ve made it to Super Mario bros.
I could’ve gone for duck hunt for the last game but I thought that wouldn’t be great enough and that the perfect game to play at last is Nintendo’s mascot himself! My history with this game is pretty short. I used to play quite a bit of it but never get past world 6. Turns out there was a way to getting to world 8 all the way from world 5 so…that was nice to know at last after I’d gone through quite a lot of pain but oh well.
In the game you play as Mario on his way to save princess toadstool from the evil king koopa (or peach and bowser). On the way you’ll come across goombas, koopa troopas and buzzy beetles. You’ll also find lakitus who just love to annoy you every chance you get. As a game, Super Mario bros. has aged pretty well. Not ridiculously well but definitely well enough for it to still be played today. And yes: it is pretty difficult near the end but not as difficult as some other Mario games on the NES (looking at you lost levels) but overall you’ll still be able to enjoy a timeless classic.
Classic, recognisable music, decent enemies, bullet bills come at the wrong time, your princess is in another castle!
2020
Sometimes consoles need the perfect game to launch with. Some consoles have done this perfectly, the NES and SNES all had a 2D Mario game to launch the platforms with. So when the ps5 was on the horizon in 2020, Sony needed the perfect game to launch with out of the box. So they thought: ‘why not take a few notes from what Nintendo did all those years ago and launch with a platformer? They had already confirmed a new ratchet game was in the works but it was at least a year after the ps5 would launch so they had to come up with something. ‘Hmm…why don’t we use that Astro bot guy?’. That question would then birth a surprising legend.
Astro’s playroom feels like your average tech demo with a heart and soul, and oh man, what a heart and soul it has. You play as Astro, a little robot on his quest to retrieve every single past PlayStation console and defeat the ps1 tech demo dinosaur…and that’s kind of all there is to it. there isn’t some big plot but why should there be? When you break it down it’s a simple tech demo…its main punch comes from its environments and simple gameplay.
The gameplay is like most 3D platformers. You can jump, punch, and use lasers on your legs to get over gaps…just like every 3D platformer! There are 4 main levels in the game: memory meadow, a level based around the ps1 era with a windy and cloudy environment. SSD speedway, a level based around how fast the SSD is! It’s based around the ps2 era and features a space-like environment. Cooling springs, a level based on the big ass fan that you can’t see on the ps5. It’s based around the ps3 era and features a beach and summer vibe to it. And finally the GPU jungle, a level based around the graphics card. It’s based on the ps4 era and has a jungle environment to it. Each level tries to make itself different to the last and it’s an excellent nostalgia trip.
What else can I really say? Astro’s playroom is a quirky little tech demo with tons of love and heart. For a simple game that’s meant to show off the ps5 it’s absolutely excellent and became my most played ps5 game for a time. It’s definitely a game that, if you’ve picked up a ps5, you should definitely try because it’s an excellent demo to show the ps5.
Great tech demo, lovely little gameplay, adorable references, some weird ass frog
Astro’s playroom feels like your average tech demo with a heart and soul, and oh man, what a heart and soul it has. You play as Astro, a little robot on his quest to retrieve every single past PlayStation console and defeat the ps1 tech demo dinosaur…and that’s kind of all there is to it. there isn’t some big plot but why should there be? When you break it down it’s a simple tech demo…its main punch comes from its environments and simple gameplay.
The gameplay is like most 3D platformers. You can jump, punch, and use lasers on your legs to get over gaps…just like every 3D platformer! There are 4 main levels in the game: memory meadow, a level based around the ps1 era with a windy and cloudy environment. SSD speedway, a level based around how fast the SSD is! It’s based around the ps2 era and features a space-like environment. Cooling springs, a level based on the big ass fan that you can’t see on the ps5. It’s based around the ps3 era and features a beach and summer vibe to it. And finally the GPU jungle, a level based around the graphics card. It’s based on the ps4 era and has a jungle environment to it. Each level tries to make itself different to the last and it’s an excellent nostalgia trip.
What else can I really say? Astro’s playroom is a quirky little tech demo with tons of love and heart. For a simple game that’s meant to show off the ps5 it’s absolutely excellent and became my most played ps5 game for a time. It’s definitely a game that, if you’ve picked up a ps5, you should definitely try because it’s an excellent demo to show the ps5.
Great tech demo, lovely little gameplay, adorable references, some weird ass frog
2004
This review contains spoilers
“Oh don’t worry, Jak beats things all the time, eh Jak?”
I fucking loved Jak II. It’s everything I could’ve possibly dreamed a T-rated gta game could be like…except bully but that’s not the point. So naughty dog now had a new task: to outdo themselves from their last effort, and did they do it? Well…not really. The thing about Jak 3 is I don’t necessarily hate it…but I don’t think it’s as good as Jak 1 or 2 for that matter and I almost feel as though it lets itself down. This isn’t a completely bad review though, I do want to point out what is good about the game whilst also pointing out what is bad because I’m going to do my first ever big critique of a game and why not let it be Jak 3? But first: what is good about Jak 3
The good (or at least what there is of that):
The wasteland - it’s basically advertised on the front of the box that ‘welcome to mad max but it’s Jak and daxter’. I really love this portion of the game and it feels cool that we’re actually trying to help this society which is cut off from everyone else. Whilst I do have a minor gripe with the driving, the missions didn’t annoy me that much and some were actually quite enjoyable. It’s just a shame that after the first act your done with the wasteland with only the odd mission with sig or the temple.
Damas - he is probably the best written character in the game and my personal favourite. Damas is introduced near the very start and takes Jak in from the desert and gives him the chance to reinvent himself as a wastelander. Slowly through the game he begins to warm up to Jak and becomes a father figure to him which connects to the plot twist near the end of the game. What I like about Damas’s character though is that he is more then just ‘oh yeah, I didn’t like Jak near the start but now I do’. Damas has a reason to like Jak, he is like the son he lost and it makes sense why he holds him up to that regard near the end of the game.
Precursor orbs - they have an actual use now which is nice. In Jak II they were used to unlock a few extras and some cheats near the end of the game. But in Jak 3 they have a much bigger use. If you get enough you can buy weapon upgrades, new desert vehicles, and even more extras than ever before. It feels like they want you to go out and get the orbs…shame about the weapon upgrades being slightly unnecessary.
The precursors being ottsels - you can’t tell me you didn’t at least do a slight chuckle when this plot twist came up. This whole time…the precursors were actually the same creatures that daxter got turned into. It’s such a nice little call back to what the original game was always pondering and it gives daxter yet another thing to brag about. It’s such a nice full circle twist and I love it.
The bad:
Keira - holy shit what did they do to Keira. “You know one of the sweetest characters that was always trying to help Jak no matter what in both games? Why don’t we make her do absolutely nothing and lose her as the love interest”…I’m sorry, why? Supposedly her actor was off doing other things or something and they decided to go for Ashelin to be the new love interest but like…they could’ve at least made Keira do something useful like she did in the last 2 games. She doesn’t even say anything. Even in the extras menu when you view her character she looks lazy and half arsed. I’m so happy she was back to how she was in Jak X because Jesus Christ.
Ashelin - I think this more goes towards her writing more than anything, her as a character is pretty sound. She has some of the biggest throwaway lines in the game. During the final scene, as Jak announces that his true name is mar, Ashelin just had to say: “wait so, Jak is mar, the mar”. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU IMPLYING. Do you mean that he’s the mar that is meant to be the next ruler of haven city? Do you mean he’s the original mar that is talked about so much? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN??? AHHHHHHH-
The ‘villain’ - so uhh…remember Errol from Jak II? He’s back! Just uhh…with a terrible design. What the hell did they do to him. The thing about Errol is he doesn’t really feel that threatening. Sure, he looks like an absolute menace and I wouldn’t want talk to him if I passed him on the street but like…I feel kinda bad for him. Like they may as well have just made veger the main villain because he at least has more of a reason then Errol does. Errol is only doing it because ‘he hates Jak’ and I just don’t find that to be a good enough reason. Like yeah sure he turned him into what he is but like…does that mean you also have to destroy the rest of humanity?
Driving in the wasteland - let’s set the scene. As they were developing the wasteland and trying to do the driving controls, instead of dedicating a button for drifting they decided to make it automatic drift and it sucks…like really sucks. The last mission was absolutely painful as I tried to wrestle with it and I just couldn’t. I had to put the game down for ages because of it. Eventually I would beat the mission but I could never forgive who decided automatic drift would be good except for maybe realism.
Guns - I see what they were doing here. The ratchet series allowed you to choose whichever type of gun you wanted and gave you a lot of options when it came down to that. In Jak II you only had 4. But that sort of worked as it gave you a decent challenge and fit into the gameplay really well. In Jak 3 you get not 2 extra guns, not 4, but 8. Combine that with the 4 from Jak II and you have 12 guns…and these guns absolutely decimate the enemies. I’m not gonna go too in depth about them but let’s just say they should’ve increased the difficulty to compensate for the guns.
The council - let me put it for you simply:
Near the start: Ashelin: “the council are too powerful”
Near the start of the third act: Ashelin: “count veger, I hereby dissolve the city council”
So how the hell did she just do that and why didn’t she do it near the start? It is just another throwaway line from Ashelin but it really bugs me and it clearly bugs other people.
No dynamic music - this might be me being a little nitpicky but remember when you’d pull out a gun in Jak II and the music would change to a more pumped up and anxious sounding ost? Well it isn’t here in Jak 3. I mean it is a shame they didn’t reimplement it but I guess they had other stuff going on.
Light Jak - so now alongside dark Jak we have light Jak which is so broken. You get 3 abilities with light Jak: flying, stop time, and heal. The heal ability is extremely broken, allowing you, mid battle, to heal yourself up completely. It only adds to how easy the gameplay has become which is in complete contrast to how Jak II operated. Also, you know those other abilities I reeled off? You barely use them. The flying ability is used a few odd times but the stop time ability is basically useless. There’s this one bit when you are trying to get to Errol where there are these spinning blades and I thought we finally needed to us the ability to go through. BUT NOPE. Instead we had to play as daxter to stop it…what. You made an ability which showed you that you could go through those things and like…you don’t even use it for what it’s meant for…also don’t even bother with dark Jak.
Haven city - this is probably me being nitpicky yet again but haven city feels kind of pointless. You do most of the missions in the harbour area and there are only a few areas left from the Jak II. I mean I do get that they showed how most of the areas had been destroyed but they could’ve at least spread the missions out a bit. I mean there are a few in the new haven section but what about doing a few in the slums where it all started? Or maybe even bring back how haven forest actually used to be.
And that was my critique of Jak 3. I don’t necessarily hate it, there were actually some parts I really liked. But it is a stark contrast from what Jak II was doing. While Jak II just missed the mark but did stuff really great, Jak 3 completely missed the mark and did only a few good things.
Piss easy gameplay, muddled up writing, some decent written new characters?, ost is still alright I guess, DAXTER GOT PANTS!!!
I fucking loved Jak II. It’s everything I could’ve possibly dreamed a T-rated gta game could be like…except bully but that’s not the point. So naughty dog now had a new task: to outdo themselves from their last effort, and did they do it? Well…not really. The thing about Jak 3 is I don’t necessarily hate it…but I don’t think it’s as good as Jak 1 or 2 for that matter and I almost feel as though it lets itself down. This isn’t a completely bad review though, I do want to point out what is good about the game whilst also pointing out what is bad because I’m going to do my first ever big critique of a game and why not let it be Jak 3? But first: what is good about Jak 3
The good (or at least what there is of that):
The wasteland - it’s basically advertised on the front of the box that ‘welcome to mad max but it’s Jak and daxter’. I really love this portion of the game and it feels cool that we’re actually trying to help this society which is cut off from everyone else. Whilst I do have a minor gripe with the driving, the missions didn’t annoy me that much and some were actually quite enjoyable. It’s just a shame that after the first act your done with the wasteland with only the odd mission with sig or the temple.
Damas - he is probably the best written character in the game and my personal favourite. Damas is introduced near the very start and takes Jak in from the desert and gives him the chance to reinvent himself as a wastelander. Slowly through the game he begins to warm up to Jak and becomes a father figure to him which connects to the plot twist near the end of the game. What I like about Damas’s character though is that he is more then just ‘oh yeah, I didn’t like Jak near the start but now I do’. Damas has a reason to like Jak, he is like the son he lost and it makes sense why he holds him up to that regard near the end of the game.
Precursor orbs - they have an actual use now which is nice. In Jak II they were used to unlock a few extras and some cheats near the end of the game. But in Jak 3 they have a much bigger use. If you get enough you can buy weapon upgrades, new desert vehicles, and even more extras than ever before. It feels like they want you to go out and get the orbs…shame about the weapon upgrades being slightly unnecessary.
The precursors being ottsels - you can’t tell me you didn’t at least do a slight chuckle when this plot twist came up. This whole time…the precursors were actually the same creatures that daxter got turned into. It’s such a nice little call back to what the original game was always pondering and it gives daxter yet another thing to brag about. It’s such a nice full circle twist and I love it.
The bad:
Keira - holy shit what did they do to Keira. “You know one of the sweetest characters that was always trying to help Jak no matter what in both games? Why don’t we make her do absolutely nothing and lose her as the love interest”…I’m sorry, why? Supposedly her actor was off doing other things or something and they decided to go for Ashelin to be the new love interest but like…they could’ve at least made Keira do something useful like she did in the last 2 games. She doesn’t even say anything. Even in the extras menu when you view her character she looks lazy and half arsed. I’m so happy she was back to how she was in Jak X because Jesus Christ.
Ashelin - I think this more goes towards her writing more than anything, her as a character is pretty sound. She has some of the biggest throwaway lines in the game. During the final scene, as Jak announces that his true name is mar, Ashelin just had to say: “wait so, Jak is mar, the mar”. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU IMPLYING. Do you mean that he’s the mar that is meant to be the next ruler of haven city? Do you mean he’s the original mar that is talked about so much? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN??? AHHHHHHH-
The ‘villain’ - so uhh…remember Errol from Jak II? He’s back! Just uhh…with a terrible design. What the hell did they do to him. The thing about Errol is he doesn’t really feel that threatening. Sure, he looks like an absolute menace and I wouldn’t want talk to him if I passed him on the street but like…I feel kinda bad for him. Like they may as well have just made veger the main villain because he at least has more of a reason then Errol does. Errol is only doing it because ‘he hates Jak’ and I just don’t find that to be a good enough reason. Like yeah sure he turned him into what he is but like…does that mean you also have to destroy the rest of humanity?
Driving in the wasteland - let’s set the scene. As they were developing the wasteland and trying to do the driving controls, instead of dedicating a button for drifting they decided to make it automatic drift and it sucks…like really sucks. The last mission was absolutely painful as I tried to wrestle with it and I just couldn’t. I had to put the game down for ages because of it. Eventually I would beat the mission but I could never forgive who decided automatic drift would be good except for maybe realism.
Guns - I see what they were doing here. The ratchet series allowed you to choose whichever type of gun you wanted and gave you a lot of options when it came down to that. In Jak II you only had 4. But that sort of worked as it gave you a decent challenge and fit into the gameplay really well. In Jak 3 you get not 2 extra guns, not 4, but 8. Combine that with the 4 from Jak II and you have 12 guns…and these guns absolutely decimate the enemies. I’m not gonna go too in depth about them but let’s just say they should’ve increased the difficulty to compensate for the guns.
The council - let me put it for you simply:
Near the start: Ashelin: “the council are too powerful”
Near the start of the third act: Ashelin: “count veger, I hereby dissolve the city council”
So how the hell did she just do that and why didn’t she do it near the start? It is just another throwaway line from Ashelin but it really bugs me and it clearly bugs other people.
No dynamic music - this might be me being a little nitpicky but remember when you’d pull out a gun in Jak II and the music would change to a more pumped up and anxious sounding ost? Well it isn’t here in Jak 3. I mean it is a shame they didn’t reimplement it but I guess they had other stuff going on.
Light Jak - so now alongside dark Jak we have light Jak which is so broken. You get 3 abilities with light Jak: flying, stop time, and heal. The heal ability is extremely broken, allowing you, mid battle, to heal yourself up completely. It only adds to how easy the gameplay has become which is in complete contrast to how Jak II operated. Also, you know those other abilities I reeled off? You barely use them. The flying ability is used a few odd times but the stop time ability is basically useless. There’s this one bit when you are trying to get to Errol where there are these spinning blades and I thought we finally needed to us the ability to go through. BUT NOPE. Instead we had to play as daxter to stop it…what. You made an ability which showed you that you could go through those things and like…you don’t even use it for what it’s meant for…also don’t even bother with dark Jak.
Haven city - this is probably me being nitpicky yet again but haven city feels kind of pointless. You do most of the missions in the harbour area and there are only a few areas left from the Jak II. I mean I do get that they showed how most of the areas had been destroyed but they could’ve at least spread the missions out a bit. I mean there are a few in the new haven section but what about doing a few in the slums where it all started? Or maybe even bring back how haven forest actually used to be.
And that was my critique of Jak 3. I don’t necessarily hate it, there were actually some parts I really liked. But it is a stark contrast from what Jak II was doing. While Jak II just missed the mark but did stuff really great, Jak 3 completely missed the mark and did only a few good things.
Piss easy gameplay, muddled up writing, some decent written new characters?, ost is still alright I guess, DAXTER GOT PANTS!!!
2012
Yes I cried to this game. A bunch of 2D shapes and I cried to that. I swear I’m not going insane.
Thomas was alone is a game I wasn’t expecting to particularly like. Granted, I had heard the acclaim it had almost 10 years ago but I never really saw it as a game I could really sink my teeth into. Yes I’ve played my fair share of platforming puzzle games and most of the time they never cease to not get on my nerves. Platformers can be difficult for me sometimes by themselves, couple that with some puzzle elements and I’m gonna be either throwing my controller out the window or simply trying to compose myself as I tackle the same level for 61st time. However, This game was…different. Yes I still struggled at quite a few levels and it did feel quite repetitive but, it had something not many puzzle platformers can say they have: a heart.
In Thomas was alone, you play as a set of Ai’s, which are being experimented on by some sort of research company, which take the form of different 2D shapes (mainly squares and rectangles). One of these rectangles is named Thomas, and he is almost like your main character in a sense. He is eventually joined by Chris, John, Claire, Laura, James, and Sarah.
Chris is essentially your grumpy, Scrooge like character when you first meet him. He tries to keep himself to himself and he’s someone that gets annoyed at people who try to help him. As the game goes on however, he begins to soften up more and more and when he meets Laura, he begins to genuinely feel something. It’s his lack of purpose that keeps him as this grumpy and fed up little square. Without something to live by, he just sees everything and everyone as a chore, but as soon as he meets Laura and gets used to everyone, he realises how important being with people is and how important you can be to other people.
John is the show off, or at least that’s how people see him. He likes to see himself as the superior ai and have quite the audience. He’s shown as being quite egocentric but hardly unlikeable as even throughout he still shows a respect to the others. As soon as Sarah shows up and shows that she can jump higher than even John, he learns to support her nonetheless instead of feeling jealous and aims to support others.
Claire is quite a childish yet very protecting character which goes along with her traits. She can swim through poisonous water which the rest of the cast cannot. As soon as she learns she can she gains a higher purpose and begins to show her true personality. She even declares herself as ‘super Claire’ sporting the whole world as her nemesis and spikes as her kryptonite. She is shown to be quite childish yet still wishes to protect her friends at all costs.
Laura is a character with a very low self-esteem. She feels as though she has been used by many different ai’s and especially the pixel cloud (an entity that appears through most levels and gobbles up the characters at points) as bait. Her ability is almost like a trampoline as when people land on top of her they bounce up, which fits in with the fact she feels used by others. That is until she meets Chris. At first she was quite wary that he would just leave her like the others, yet eventually learns to cling to him as they share a mutual love for each other. She is quite a depressive character who is only truly brought out by Chris and shown to be a much more happier character.
James is quite an introverted character and is meant to be the opposite to Thomas both mentally and physically (and coupled with the fact that he walks along the ceiling and jumps towards the floor). He is a green shape whilst Thomas is red, and whilst James is much more introverted, Thomas is shown to be more extroverted. However, James slowly learns that being himself isn’t too bad and that he does have a purpose. He shows that, both him and Thomas need each other and that they are the perfect yin and yang to each other, which also happens to reflect itself in the levels as well.
Sarah is…she’s kind of there to be honest. Granted, she has one of the best abilities in the game with the fact she can double jump, she talks about the ‘fountain of wisdom’ and leads them onto them helping others become sentient but other then that she doesn’t really have that polarising of a personality. She was part of the dlc known as ‘Benjamin’s flight’ but whether I’ll ever play that is slim to none. Yeah she’s kind of there.
After all of that you then have the ‘second generation Ai’s’ which are the Ai’s that the original gang decided to help. They have a mini plot where it turns out one of them, named Grey, was going to attempt to betray the others that were also trying to escape, but he got eaten by a pixel cloud and the only 2 that made it out were shapes names Jo and Sam.
The gameplay of Thomas was alone is pretty good to begin with but slowly starts to become very repetitive. Whilst it was fun to see what you could do with the different shapes and their abilities, eventually it did become quite simple and easy to get. I think if it didn’t have such a brilliant narrative, I probably would’ve given this game an even lower score but, that’s what’s so great about games. The gameplay does spice up a bit once you start playing as the ‘second generation ai’s’ but it still feels a tiny bit repetitive. But hey, I still really enjoyed it. The music was also brilliant and definitely worth mentioning. David Housden’s work on the game was brilliant, sounding like a mix between the band ‘explosions in the sky’ with a tiny bit of electronic inspiration behind it. The narrator as well, Danny Wallace. He isn’t your Stephen fry from littlebigplanet nor is he your Kevan Brighting from the Stanley parable but he’s certainly up there and does a very great job.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It was short but also an absolute blast and I’m thrilled to have given it a try. I might give the dlc a go, however I haven’t heard the best things said about it so I might leave it off. This was an absolutely brilliant experience and I do encourage others to give it a try, even if it has been practically 10 years since it was first released. Mike Bithell, you have my respect.
Brilliant narrative, decent yet repetitive gameplay, excellent music, wonderful narration, shapes made me cry
Thomas was alone is a game I wasn’t expecting to particularly like. Granted, I had heard the acclaim it had almost 10 years ago but I never really saw it as a game I could really sink my teeth into. Yes I’ve played my fair share of platforming puzzle games and most of the time they never cease to not get on my nerves. Platformers can be difficult for me sometimes by themselves, couple that with some puzzle elements and I’m gonna be either throwing my controller out the window or simply trying to compose myself as I tackle the same level for 61st time. However, This game was…different. Yes I still struggled at quite a few levels and it did feel quite repetitive but, it had something not many puzzle platformers can say they have: a heart.
In Thomas was alone, you play as a set of Ai’s, which are being experimented on by some sort of research company, which take the form of different 2D shapes (mainly squares and rectangles). One of these rectangles is named Thomas, and he is almost like your main character in a sense. He is eventually joined by Chris, John, Claire, Laura, James, and Sarah.
Chris is essentially your grumpy, Scrooge like character when you first meet him. He tries to keep himself to himself and he’s someone that gets annoyed at people who try to help him. As the game goes on however, he begins to soften up more and more and when he meets Laura, he begins to genuinely feel something. It’s his lack of purpose that keeps him as this grumpy and fed up little square. Without something to live by, he just sees everything and everyone as a chore, but as soon as he meets Laura and gets used to everyone, he realises how important being with people is and how important you can be to other people.
John is the show off, or at least that’s how people see him. He likes to see himself as the superior ai and have quite the audience. He’s shown as being quite egocentric but hardly unlikeable as even throughout he still shows a respect to the others. As soon as Sarah shows up and shows that she can jump higher than even John, he learns to support her nonetheless instead of feeling jealous and aims to support others.
Claire is quite a childish yet very protecting character which goes along with her traits. She can swim through poisonous water which the rest of the cast cannot. As soon as she learns she can she gains a higher purpose and begins to show her true personality. She even declares herself as ‘super Claire’ sporting the whole world as her nemesis and spikes as her kryptonite. She is shown to be quite childish yet still wishes to protect her friends at all costs.
Laura is a character with a very low self-esteem. She feels as though she has been used by many different ai’s and especially the pixel cloud (an entity that appears through most levels and gobbles up the characters at points) as bait. Her ability is almost like a trampoline as when people land on top of her they bounce up, which fits in with the fact she feels used by others. That is until she meets Chris. At first she was quite wary that he would just leave her like the others, yet eventually learns to cling to him as they share a mutual love for each other. She is quite a depressive character who is only truly brought out by Chris and shown to be a much more happier character.
James is quite an introverted character and is meant to be the opposite to Thomas both mentally and physically (and coupled with the fact that he walks along the ceiling and jumps towards the floor). He is a green shape whilst Thomas is red, and whilst James is much more introverted, Thomas is shown to be more extroverted. However, James slowly learns that being himself isn’t too bad and that he does have a purpose. He shows that, both him and Thomas need each other and that they are the perfect yin and yang to each other, which also happens to reflect itself in the levels as well.
Sarah is…she’s kind of there to be honest. Granted, she has one of the best abilities in the game with the fact she can double jump, she talks about the ‘fountain of wisdom’ and leads them onto them helping others become sentient but other then that she doesn’t really have that polarising of a personality. She was part of the dlc known as ‘Benjamin’s flight’ but whether I’ll ever play that is slim to none. Yeah she’s kind of there.
After all of that you then have the ‘second generation Ai’s’ which are the Ai’s that the original gang decided to help. They have a mini plot where it turns out one of them, named Grey, was going to attempt to betray the others that were also trying to escape, but he got eaten by a pixel cloud and the only 2 that made it out were shapes names Jo and Sam.
The gameplay of Thomas was alone is pretty good to begin with but slowly starts to become very repetitive. Whilst it was fun to see what you could do with the different shapes and their abilities, eventually it did become quite simple and easy to get. I think if it didn’t have such a brilliant narrative, I probably would’ve given this game an even lower score but, that’s what’s so great about games. The gameplay does spice up a bit once you start playing as the ‘second generation ai’s’ but it still feels a tiny bit repetitive. But hey, I still really enjoyed it. The music was also brilliant and definitely worth mentioning. David Housden’s work on the game was brilliant, sounding like a mix between the band ‘explosions in the sky’ with a tiny bit of electronic inspiration behind it. The narrator as well, Danny Wallace. He isn’t your Stephen fry from littlebigplanet nor is he your Kevan Brighting from the Stanley parable but he’s certainly up there and does a very great job.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It was short but also an absolute blast and I’m thrilled to have given it a try. I might give the dlc a go, however I haven’t heard the best things said about it so I might leave it off. This was an absolutely brilliant experience and I do encourage others to give it a try, even if it has been practically 10 years since it was first released. Mike Bithell, you have my respect.
Brilliant narrative, decent yet repetitive gameplay, excellent music, wonderful narration, shapes made me cry
1993
And on the 7th day, god gave us the resources to make sure doom was on every single thing with a screen and buttons because he’s just chill like that.
Doom definitely lives in one of those sorts of times where it has become so respected, some people just can’t live without it. It stands alongside games like final fantasy VII, Super Mario bros., and Tetris to become one of the most beloved titles of all time, a title that wouldn’t have had such a sick ass name of it wasn’t for Ethan Hunt from mission impossible himself. It’s certainly the game that truly coined the term first person shooter, and a game that has inspired countless after it.
You play as doom guy (or doom slayer or whatever the hell you want to call him) as he is posted on Mars and is forced to fight off a bunch of demons. It has a bit more to it but I can’t really be bothered to get into it. The game consists of 3 episodes, and an extra fourth episode, which are filled with simple levels with enemies and secrets to find and shoot.
Gameplay is pretty simple but it makes sense. You go around these simple maps, hunting down aliens and finding keys to open up new areas until eventually you make your way to the end. It’s pretty simple honestly but it definitely set the staple for how other fps games would work and build off it. They had quite little to work with so it makes sense why it seems so minimal. The music also works well with the levels. Some of it makes it seem so liminal and I think it works wonders with what the plot is trying to go for and meshes so well. My only complaint would probably be the lack of enemy and level variety. Most of it seems very similar and it kind of lowers it for me. It’s still a good game but it just slightly misses that variety that could’ve made it excellent.
So does doom still hold up? Surprisingly yes. It’s still an excellent precursor to most fps games and can still be enjoyed today. There are a few parts that stop it from being a masterpiece in my eyes, but it’s still a really solid game.
Good gameplay, excellent ambience, decent weapons, them bosses…
Doom definitely lives in one of those sorts of times where it has become so respected, some people just can’t live without it. It stands alongside games like final fantasy VII, Super Mario bros., and Tetris to become one of the most beloved titles of all time, a title that wouldn’t have had such a sick ass name of it wasn’t for Ethan Hunt from mission impossible himself. It’s certainly the game that truly coined the term first person shooter, and a game that has inspired countless after it.
You play as doom guy (or doom slayer or whatever the hell you want to call him) as he is posted on Mars and is forced to fight off a bunch of demons. It has a bit more to it but I can’t really be bothered to get into it. The game consists of 3 episodes, and an extra fourth episode, which are filled with simple levels with enemies and secrets to find and shoot.
Gameplay is pretty simple but it makes sense. You go around these simple maps, hunting down aliens and finding keys to open up new areas until eventually you make your way to the end. It’s pretty simple honestly but it definitely set the staple for how other fps games would work and build off it. They had quite little to work with so it makes sense why it seems so minimal. The music also works well with the levels. Some of it makes it seem so liminal and I think it works wonders with what the plot is trying to go for and meshes so well. My only complaint would probably be the lack of enemy and level variety. Most of it seems very similar and it kind of lowers it for me. It’s still a good game but it just slightly misses that variety that could’ve made it excellent.
So does doom still hold up? Surprisingly yes. It’s still an excellent precursor to most fps games and can still be enjoyed today. There are a few parts that stop it from being a masterpiece in my eyes, but it’s still a really solid game.
Good gameplay, excellent ambience, decent weapons, them bosses…
1999
Thanks to @Appljous for letting me play on his copy of the game and also making me realise how much I wanna kill Kirby.
Fighting games are…interesting, to say the least. They’re an opportunity to not only bring lots of characters together, but to bring people together too. There are always some really fun opportunities which come out of fighting games, and lots and I mean lots of button mashing. For many, their first foray into fighting games was most likely smash bros. One of the most well known fighting games on the planet. But before there were a total of 82 fighters, with franchises from all over, there were only 12, on a little console known as the Nintendo 64. The game came together once Sakurai was interested in making a 3D fighting game for the console with, drumroll, Nintendo characters. He made a demo with Mario, donkey kong, samus, and fox and the reception was very positive with the game eventually being green lit. So let’s take a look at it!
So to begin with you have a few options, you can either play single player or multiplayer. Now before you ask, no, the single player mode is not for the loners. If anything, it’s actually quite an important mode. But we’ll get onto that later. You have the choice of 6 characters to begin with Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. All from their respective franchises. As you play the single player however, you have the opportunity to unlock 4 more characters: Luigi, Ness, Captain Falcon, and Jigglypuff. The thing about the bonus characters is that, well they make sense how they got into the game. Luigi and Jigglypuff are both basically copies of Mario and Kirby respectively. The only 2 outliers are Ness and Captain Falcon. Though Captain Falcon feels like he took some liberties from Samus whilst Ness is just…well Ness. But how do you unlock these characters?
The single player mode of course! This is a journey whereby you choose between your fighters and go through a set of fights and bonus stages. The fights are all with certain characters on their respective stages (the stages include: peach’s castle, Kongo jungle, hyrule castle, super happy tree, dream land, and saffron city, however you can unlock mushroom kingdom as a brand new stage). You even have 2 bonus rounds: break the targets and board the platforms. They are both what they say on the tin and can change depending on the character - a complete difference to the actual single player mode. The problem is that…the single player mode always has the same stages in the same order with barely any changes (unless you changed the difficulty or amount of stocks). The multiplayer mode is also what it says on the tin, being a fun mode to play against friends until one of you plays as Kirby.
So, how is smash bros? It’s actually pretty fun. Later entries would obviously improve or unimprove certain mechanics. Overall, this is still a really fun fighting game with some really interesting mechanics and it’s still aged pretty well (we don’t talk about Kirby). Also a huge thank you to the smash remix discord server. Ya’ll gave me some really good strategies and, eventually, I do promise to play smash remix.
Good first try, strange stages, great character selection, fuck Kirby
Fighting games are…interesting, to say the least. They’re an opportunity to not only bring lots of characters together, but to bring people together too. There are always some really fun opportunities which come out of fighting games, and lots and I mean lots of button mashing. For many, their first foray into fighting games was most likely smash bros. One of the most well known fighting games on the planet. But before there were a total of 82 fighters, with franchises from all over, there were only 12, on a little console known as the Nintendo 64. The game came together once Sakurai was interested in making a 3D fighting game for the console with, drumroll, Nintendo characters. He made a demo with Mario, donkey kong, samus, and fox and the reception was very positive with the game eventually being green lit. So let’s take a look at it!
So to begin with you have a few options, you can either play single player or multiplayer. Now before you ask, no, the single player mode is not for the loners. If anything, it’s actually quite an important mode. But we’ll get onto that later. You have the choice of 6 characters to begin with Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. All from their respective franchises. As you play the single player however, you have the opportunity to unlock 4 more characters: Luigi, Ness, Captain Falcon, and Jigglypuff. The thing about the bonus characters is that, well they make sense how they got into the game. Luigi and Jigglypuff are both basically copies of Mario and Kirby respectively. The only 2 outliers are Ness and Captain Falcon. Though Captain Falcon feels like he took some liberties from Samus whilst Ness is just…well Ness. But how do you unlock these characters?
The single player mode of course! This is a journey whereby you choose between your fighters and go through a set of fights and bonus stages. The fights are all with certain characters on their respective stages (the stages include: peach’s castle, Kongo jungle, hyrule castle, super happy tree, dream land, and saffron city, however you can unlock mushroom kingdom as a brand new stage). You even have 2 bonus rounds: break the targets and board the platforms. They are both what they say on the tin and can change depending on the character - a complete difference to the actual single player mode. The problem is that…the single player mode always has the same stages in the same order with barely any changes (unless you changed the difficulty or amount of stocks). The multiplayer mode is also what it says on the tin, being a fun mode to play against friends until one of you plays as Kirby.
So, how is smash bros? It’s actually pretty fun. Later entries would obviously improve or unimprove certain mechanics. Overall, this is still a really fun fighting game with some really interesting mechanics and it’s still aged pretty well (we don’t talk about Kirby). Also a huge thank you to the smash remix discord server. Ya’ll gave me some really good strategies and, eventually, I do promise to play smash remix.
Good first try, strange stages, great character selection, fuck Kirby