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RECENT GAME ROUNDUP

Whoops! Haven't posted in a while. I find that a lot of the things I want to say about games I feel would be better in a video format. I don't have the skills to do that yet, but I feel like I would get my points across better than a big fat stinkin' wall of text. Audio-visual game reviews are the future!

Anyway, here's some of the games I played recently.

CONFESS MY LOVE: Found this randomly for free on Steam, and wow! Lovely little game. Super short, can be beaten in a few hours. It seems simple, but when I started getting deeper into the endings, it was amazing!

SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 (JPN): A sequel in the truest sense. If you play this before beating the first game, it seems washed up and bad. But once you beat Mario 1 (without warps!), it gets so much more fun! It's like a challenge pack add-on!

SUPER MARIO 64: Controls like a dream. The camera is a double edged sword; it makes the game harder to play at first, but when you figure it out, it makes the game feel MORE fun. The thing I don't like about the game is that... the midgame is kinda bad. The first several courses are awesome, but once you get into Shifting Sand Land, Hazy Maze Cave, and Big Boo's Haunt, it feels like the game noticeably dips in quality.

DOOM: Been having a lot of fun with this! Advice: DO NOT go into this game thinking it's super fast action-packed gun slinging insanity, because it isn't. When you first start out, it's a lot more methodical and slow, and the action segments are pretty spaced out. You'll be using your minimap a lot to figure out where to go next. But on second playthrough, you'll know the layouts better and get through it faster. Later, even faster. The more you learn, the more action-packed it gets. It's a slow boil, but super worth it. I've only beaten Episode 1 so far, but hopefully the rest of the game is good!

GARTEN OF BANBAN: Yuck! I thought this would be funny-bad, but it was just bad-bad! The drone controls terribly, the chase section is unintuitive, the game is optimized like ass, and it's over before you know it! Super bad game. Even though it's free, I wanted a refund when it ended.

FITNESS BOXING FIST OF THE NORTH STAR: Man! When I saw this in a Nintendo Direct, I got so hyped! This sort of thing is right down my alley. But goodness, Kenshiro's English VA is so BAD. That just turned me right off the game. The rest of it was pretty whatever. I wasn't expecting the world with this one, cause for what it lacked in quality, I would fill in the blanks with my own enjoyment, but this game is too lukewarm even for that! Bleh!

PIKMIN 3: Right as the long-awaited fourth game releases, I start playing the decade-old third game for the first time. I don't know entirely how I feel about it yet, but it's a Pikmin game, so it's a good game.

#game review #roundup #confess my love #smb2j #sm64 #doom #garten of banban #pikmin

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I MADE THIS IN APRIL AND TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE

hello Bloons community

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Pikmin

Pikmin is one of the most unique games ever produced. If you're looking for something new, I think I would strongly recommend it... probably.

The main conundrum I have with this game is how it is when you first play. If you play this game blind, it will be one of the most confusing and stressful experiences you will ever have playing a game. Even after putting several hours into the main story, you'll still feel lost.

While the game does give you a detailed tutorial on the controls, the story quickly becomes free reign over the world, and your objective will be unclear (the stress of which makes most people forget the controls from the tutorial). This isn't a beginner-friendly game, in short.

My second issue with this game is that the engine is quite unpolished. It has a reputation for being the most buggy game in the series. The Libra is notorious for glitching into the ground, or even out of bounds (in which case you may be forced into a bad ending without returning to a previous save). Pikmin can glitch through the floor and fall into the death barrier when going under diagonal bridges or under enemies, resulting in the death of several dozen Pikmin at once. You don't even get to see their ghost. Seeing my friend fight Puffstool, only for the game to sentence around 30 Pikmin to their unintentional death after its tripping animation was heartbreaking. The Smoky Progg, while a cool optional boss, is way too easy to activate and is incredibly jarring for new players if they accidentally so much as touch its egg.

HOWEVER... it is still one of the best games I've ever played. After the rough first playthrough, you'll come to realize that the game is actually pretty short. On my second playthrough, I 100%'d the game in around 5 hours. When the game goes from stressing over getting something done during the day, to multitasking and enjoying the open-endedness of the world, Pikmin becomes an incredibly enjoyable game with tons of replayability. Topped off with the Pikmin's adorable nature and appearance, the funny little designs of the enemies, and Olimar's ship logs and commentaries about his ship parts, Pikmin is one of the Gamecube's best games.

It's a hard game to pick up, since, again, it is not very friendly toward new players. But if you don't mind that complete blindness and having no idea what to do, you'll have a great time. The game has a tough exterior, but a beautiful interior.

Overall score: 9/10. One of my favorite games of all time, no question.

#game review #pikmin

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Pikmin 2

In my previous review, I mentioned how the Devil is used as the very embodiment of all that is evil, and that, for me and my little video game hobby, the Hotel Transylvania Social Game is the embodiment of all that is awful, evil, terrible, and no-good in games. But, then what is my God? Who is all that is holy and virtuous, and everything I want in a game? And that brings us here.

Pikmin is my favorite series of all time, despite the fact that I've only played the first and second games. You play as a little man who controls tiny little leaf creatures to defeat enemies, collect valuables, and harvest nutrients to produce more Pikmin.

What I love about Pikmin 2 is how much more experimental it gets with the series. The first game was well known for its time limit to beat the game, which is completely removed from Pikmin 2. To go even further, while Pikmin 1 has you working under a ~15 minute time limit each day, the majority of Pikmin 2's gameplay takes place in underground caves which completely stop time above ground. Instead of collecting ship parts to get home safely, you collect licensed products to pay off your company's debt. There are new items you can use in a pinch called "sprays," or "potions," the game features a smorgasbord of new bosses. The list can continue for a while. Game sequels come in many forms, but easily my favorite is the one that throws a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Pikmin 1 was, again, a fairly small game, and Pikmin 2 feels like it completely burst open at the seams with content.

Alright, enough talk about concepts. How does the game hold up? Well, it's got holes, that's for sure. The new Purple Pikmin type is obscenely overpowered. Though you can't get that many throughout the story, even just 10 of them is enough to flatten most enemies with ease. The game's dungeons can have just awful layouts that feel straight out of a kaizo hack. The game feels like it's being an ass to you, which is usually charming, but when you spawn next to 3 Decorated Cannon Beetles, or fall victim to a Spotty Bulbear falling out of the sky, it's pretty annoying. The game's lack of time limit in dungeons means that the most logical course of action is to go by yourself, with no Pikmin, and start punching the enemies on the floor. The punch is meant to be a silly input for when you have no Pikmin in your hand, not to be used to kill entire enemies. It's a major pace-breaker when it comes to that. Easily the worst pace-breaker is the Doomsday Appartus, a treasure that requires hours of very tedious, monotonous, boring grinding to obtain.

The game has a lot of flaws! I must confess... this game isn't a 10/10. It just happens to be the best game I've played so far in my life. The game can feel very irritating, but at the end of the day, the gameplay is still pretty fun. Most dungeon floors hit a very nice difficulty level to keep you on your toes, the overworld maps are still fun to explore even if they have been relegated to a small part of the game. Most of the games bosses are really enjoyable, the game's dynamic music is a phenomenal fit for the series.

Topic change real quick. I adore the writing the Pikmin 1. Olimar was this man who you would only see talk through the ship parts you find and his end-of-day writings, and they are some of the most heartfelt things I have seen in any game. You see Olimar as this very kindhearted person, curious about the planet he's on, yet feeling isolated and lonely at his situation, fearful that he won't escape. Pikmin is a very confusing game for new players, but these writings help let the player know they are not alone. You see Olimar talk about his family back home, about the new things he discovered about Pikmin, about his thoughts on life, and you see him grieve when his Pikmin fall in battle. It is hands down the best part of the first game.

In Pikmin 2, this feature is no longer in the game, instead replaced by a silly little email system. The reasoning is simple: Olimar has been through this before, his diary isn't nearly as impactful. But replacing it.... replacing it is my favorite thing in any video game, ever. The Piklopedia.

The Piklopedia records almost every enemy you find, every boss, every interactable object, and even the flora and fauna around the map. Each one of these is given notes from Olimar, and you start to see his nature as a scientist, and god, the way they are written sends my pilgrim heart aflutter. They're funny, they're intriguing, the wording they use is just absolute perfection, they're lengthy without feeling exhausting, and it all plays over some peaceful background music. After beating the game, you unlock Louie's notes for each one, providing even more insight into the game's frankly phenomenal writing. Pikmin 2's writing in the Piklopedia is no lower than a 10/10, it is absolute beauty and perfection. I could go on for days and days about it, something I have already done previously to my good friends, who for years have been subject to my passionate ramblings about the little things I like in life. I hope they don't get too tired of it. I just have a lot to say about Pikmin 2. Perhaps a Tumblr blog post isn't enough. It's hard to keep undepleted adoration at an acceptable length.

Overall score: 9/10. It's been avaliable on every Nintendo console since the Gamecube, go play it! Maybe one day I will find a game I truly consider a 10/10, but until then, Pikmin 2 reigns supreme. God bless it.

#pikmin #pikmin 2 #game review

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My honest thoughts on the official release versions of Minecraft (not individually ordered)

Seriously though, what was up with 1.5 skeleton AI.

#minecraft #minecraft java #tier list

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Hotel Transylvania Social Game

Society, in large part, is held together by fictions. From birth, we are taught words that have been smeared and tampered in meaning for generations before us. To some, the word "Italian" is a word their family taught them to love and cherish, and to others, it is an accursed word, one that their family drilled into them hate for. Both of these meanings are entirely fictitious, yet are more binding than most reasonable laws are.

At its most basic interpretation, one of the great pillars of Christianity is its two fictitious characters: God and the Devil. The former represents all that is good in the world, and the latter all that is evil. These two are both extremes in their own right, and thus, it gives people an easy fiction to follow. Bound by stories of respecting thy neighbor and living a satisfying life, Christian order is established into people. The importance of these lessons, of course, requires the Devil to be a scapegoat for all evil. Without the darkness, we would not know the light. More than brute force, great fictions show people the truths we have deemed good, even if those truths are less true than the words of all conmen.

Hotel Transylvania Social Game, for me, is my Devil. I have played over 300 video games in my lifetime. Some briefly, some for countless hours. I have played some pieces of crap in my lifetime. Even the platformer bonus feature that came on DVDs of Illumination's The Lorax. I can say confidently that the Hotel Transylvania Social Game is the worst game I've ever played.

Produced by Zynga, a company most gamers wouldn't even consider a video game company, it is a cheap piece of crap made for people who don't have any standards for what they play. A lot of people have shit on FarmVille, but at least I get something out of that game. I can make my dumb little farms, my weird avatar, my promotional Megamind decoration. Hotel Transylvania lacks what little soul something like FarmVille has.

The game has you running a hotel. Hotel Transylvania, at that. Monsters will show up at your lobby and you must send them to a room. As you make money from this, you have to construct more rooms for more customers. That is the gameplay. It's vague enough that it sounds almost enjoyable, but keep in mind that there is nothing outside of those confines. The only strategy in the game is to provide someone who will spend less time in the hotel a room before someone who will spend more time. The main thing I can compare this game to is opening a daily chest in a game, especially since many tenants will take hours, even a full day, to conclude their stay. It's certainly about as riveting.

The customization in the game exists, but is incredibly minimal in both artstyle and how much they stand out. Everyone's hotel basically looks the same. The game's art in general is incredibly cheap to the point it feels like I'm playing a kid's game.

Even the social aspect, the very thing on the title of the game, is practically nothing. From what I remember, it wasn't much more than visiting another player's hotel and sending them a daily gift. You get far more social interaction in the general chats of most online games. I get more social interaction playing on a Minecraft server that's in a region whose language I don't know and my base is ten-thousand blocks out.

There are no charm points to this game, nothing I like about it. It is abhorrent garbage. Even something like Crazy Bus I can at least laugh at. There is no laughter here. Hotel Transylvania Social Game is the devil, and as such, resides in Hell. If you ever play it, chances are you're being tormented for your sins.

Final score: 1/10. Unforgiveable.

#game review #hotel transylvania #hotel transylvania social game #satan

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Cloning Clyde

Hours played: Around 10

Completion: 100%'d

I believe this was among the first wave of games for the Xbox 360 marketplace, and man, I remember playing the shit out of the trial version of this game as a kid. I don't think I even knew what the concept of trial version meant, but that didn't stop me from replaying the game again and again. Recently, I saw it was cheap on Steam and decided to buy it and finally see once and for all what was in the full version of the game.

The biggest thing I love about the game is its graphics, honest. Everybody has some old video game artstyle they really love, be it the beautiful pixel art on some of the titles on the PC-98, or the early uncanny stages of 3D on the PS1. For me, it's gotta be the specific kind of 3D in this game that I can't find the words to describe (maybe when I get better at writing). Combined with the surprisingly animated Clydes you control, and the game has this style that, while old, does not feel very dated. I absolutely adore how this game looks.

Anyway. You control the Clydes in individual levels, defeating security robots and exploding chickens to reach the goal while using various switch mechanisms, using animals to get further, and combining your Clyde WITH an animal to gain new abilities. The game only really has a handful of assets: just four or five level types, the aforementioned enemies are the only enemies, and the number of different puzzle-related objects are probably in the single-digits. Despite that, I never really got tired of the game's small handful of assets. I always enjoyed kicking the crap out of the security robots or jumping around the map riding a sheep, or pulling a random lever to see what happens. What the game has is charm.

However, the game does have a big weak point: the level design. Aside from the occasional puzzle that made me think a little bit, most levels can be beaten while functioning on autopilot. If you're going for 100%, the levels can just feel tedious, since some of them have 15 or 20 Clydes that you have to control and have escape individually, one at a time. Other times, the levels just get questionable, like how there were a couple levels toward the end that were very, very spacious for seemingly no reason. I didn't hate it, but it felt like instead of doing something new, they just took a level and spread it way out. GImmicks get reused, objects get used in the same way, and thus, a lot of the game's 30 or so levels blend together. There were a couple that stuck out, like a neat catapult puzzle that made me have to think for a minute, or the penultimate level, which was this absolutely massive sprawling course that felt like this game's The Great Maze from Brawl, but generally, most were forgettable.

Another gripe is the lack of background music. You'll get a little melody at the start of levels or for defeating every security robot in a level, but otherwise, it's just silent. In a game like Frogger Returns, I'm focused so much on not dying that I don't notice as much, but in a more explorative, relaxed game like this, it really bugs me.

For what the game has, I still really like it. It pretty much was what my childhood self remembered: this fun, jank little game with funny little character animations. I really, really wanted to give this game a 7, but it just doesn't quite reach that bar. Too much of the game just doesn't feel like it's pushing what it has to the limit. It's not the lack of assets that's the problem, it's that they mostly get used in very surface-level ways. Most levels in the game you could stick at the beginning and few would bat an eye.

Overall score: 6/10. Can recommend, was a fun experience. If you're an achievement hunter-type, this game is pretty easy to 100% on top of being relatively short.

#game review #cloning clyde

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Hong Kong '97

Time played: Less than an hour

Completion status: Beat Tong Shau Ping and died

You know the game is good when it opens with an advertisement asking you to publish games with a 66% revenue cut on your end.

Hong Kong '97 is a game as short as it is absurd. The intro cutscene manages to make me laugh every time I see it. "A herd of FUCKIN' UGLY REDS." Where do you even come up with shit like this?

The game itself is a shoot-em-up where you have to blast compressed images of random people, whose AI varies between running straight, zig-zagging, and shooting at you. On death, they'll drop things that look like power-ups, but actually kill you. Also on death, a tiny gif of a nuclear explosion will play, followed by an image of what looks like a dead guy. It's extremely compressed though, so you can't see a whole lot.

The background is a random still image of what I presume to be Chinese propaganda, and the background music is a 6 second loop of I Love Beijing Tiananmen, a Chinese patriotic song. Definitely one of the most politically charged games I've ever played, even if its messages seem confused.

The game continues as a shoot-em-up forever. Occasionally, you'll have to fight China's ultimate weapon: the severed head of Tong Shau Ping. On death, you're greeted by the same compressed photo of a dead body made to fit the whole screen, with the text "Chin is DEAD" (Chin is Bruce Lee's relative, and who you play as). Definitely a one-of-a-kind game, that's for damn sure.

Gameplay-wise, the game is trash. Had it been generic assets, I would rank it a 2/10. But between the storyline, advertisements at the beginning, all the compressed images loaded onto the game, and just the raw absurdity that captures this game, I give this game a solid 3/10. This is definitely one of the most known games of its breed, maybe I'll have to try other obscene games sometime.

#game review #hong kong 97

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Yuuma Game

Status: 100% complete

Time spent: Around 5 hours

It's a Touhou fan game I got from somewhere off Twitter. Like the series it's derived from, it's a bullet hell, but with a twist! You can EAT the bullets the enemy shoots at you, and you're able to SHOOT them back at them!

The game has you paying attention to two screens. On the left is a bullet hell where you have to both dodge and eat the enemy's bullets. On the right, the bullets you eat get stored similarly to those mobile game ads where you have to press all the blocks of the same color to clear them. It's the exact same principle as that. You click a bullet you ate to shoot it back at the enemy, and if there's multiple of the same color around it, you deal more damage.

The game is this super enjoyable mix of watching your left to make sure you're not getting hit while getting ammo, and watching your right to micromanage the blocks around to launch a powerful shot. It's a super novel concept! The bosses of the game will even sometimes throw in their own custom block that you either have to use against them, or are actively disadvantageous for you. I'm a huge sucker for divided attention setups like this one, so I was pretty quickly sold. If that sounds worrying to you, don't worry, there is a time stop mechanic in the game for when you need to stop for a second and ponder your surroundings. You can't move in that state, but you can click whatever you want on the right side and even shoot bullets while paused. I felt like it was an unnecessary feature for most of the game ... until I got to the post-game. Then I had to start using it so my ass would get kicked less.

The overworld of the game has you running around a modest map full of Touhou characters to fight. Don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the series to play. The dialogue between the characters is mostly just a lot of swearing, anyway (nothing serious, just the fuck word and the shit word and the like). The humor of it does eventually wear off, but the game still lands some decent jokes from time to time, it's just that it sometimes feels like it's trying a bit hard to be funny.

The overworld also contain little puzzles and obstacles to get through that remind me of Undertale. I don't know if that's a good comparison or if my naivete is showing. It also has the option to level up your stats, which I think is a neat addition. Feels like there's more progression.

Overall, pretty decent game! Again, super love the main gimmick, and would definitely play a sequel for it. The dialogue is a bit weak, and the game has a few pretty rough difficulty spikes, and it can take a bit to get the hang of the game, but overall? Pretty solid, can recommend. Here's the link if you want to give it a go: https://woah-maaan.itch.io/yuuma-game

Overall score: 6/10. Enjoyed it, held my attention to the end, can recommend!

#yuuma game #game review #touhou

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Frogger Returns

Platform: Nintendo Wii (WiiWare)

Time Played: ~7 hours

It’s a fun little challenge game. It’s not groundbreaking, but I think it fulfills a decent niche as a dinky little game you can play on your own trying to conquer the Arcade mode, or as a quick burst of entertainment with friends. Both stand on their own as being perfectly okay. 

The game consists of four levels: The Big City, The Subway, The Sewers, and The Swamp. You must hop to the end five times without dying to the many dangers to frogs, such as toxic sewage and giant rats that blend into the background. You’ve gotta really squint to see them. 

The game’s tough, beating those four levels took me a while. I was certainly nervous every time I got to the final level. You’re always timed, too, so you can’t be too slow about it. The most irritating part are the log crossings at the end, because you always have to go against the current trying to get to one of the far exits. It’s a real annoying task of positioning yourself just right. Everything else in the stage can be pretty annoying too, but that’s the one that sticks out the most.

You have power-ups to help you along the way though. I don’t even remember what most of them do.. except for the gold star one. Full invincibility. You can walk on water, go through all manner of snakes, rats, trains, and cars. It’s a free ticket to the end if you mash hard enough. It’s way better than all the rest, which goes to show the power-ups are wildly unbalanced. 

The game doesn’t even have an ending. Once you beat the first four stages in Arcade mode, you just get sent back in a loop. What’s Frogger doing this all for? Why’d he go back to the Big City after coming home to The Swamp? By the way, I beat this game with the music off. I didn’t realize I had it off until the very end, I just thought the game was intentionally weirdly quiet. The only sounds were my hops, the screeching of trains, and the squeaks of mice. A minor slip-up on my part. 

Anyway, the Multiplayer is a pretty fun mode too. You and some other lucky frog-kin share a screen trying to see who can get 3 of the 5 exits reached first. What makes it a good mode is that if you hop on your opponent frog, they immediately die. That’s the one thing that makes it fun for multiplayer. It gets old after a while, but it’s a pretty fun moment to share. 

Score: 5/10. It’s a very decent game. Not one I really wanna pick up again, I beat it and now I’m done with it. Just a truly average experience. 

Subjectivity level: Low, you probably won’t get many varying opinions from people.

#game review #frogger #frogger returns

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what does reblogging do i dont understand this website layout

33. Your enemies

the whole world is my enemy

34. Your friends

cat