Game #1005: Dexter's Laboratory - Mandark's Lab?

  Wish I could convey Mandark's laugh through text.

 Dexter's Laboratory used to be one of my favorite, if not MY favorite, cartoon back when I was younger. I tried watching it again a few years ago, and it hasn't aged very well, there are a few bits that a bit sexist and most of the jokes aren't funny, at all, at least for a grown-up, but hey, the memories will always remain. And that's why I got Dexter's Laboratory: Mandark's Lab? as another piece of nostalgia for my collection.

 This game is a mini-game collection, that's it. Some can be played in multiplayer at least. The game opens up with the show's opening, which was pretty cool, and the story mode has some new footage as well as repurposed footage to cut on costs. That said, the voice talent from the show voices the characters in the game, and it's fully voice-acted, so that's pretty neat.

 Single player is divided into 4 stages through which you roam around trying to find the two mini-games you must complete in order to get to the next stage. I must admit, roaming through part of Dexter's House in full 3-D, it being stage 1, was SO COOL.

 Most minigames are super basic. A Rhythm-button-tapping minigame that gets repeated, a on-rails cootie-shooting gallery,  a weird on-foot race-like thing against a bag, a gallery shooter with a dodgeball motif, etc. The only standout being an almost decent kart racer, with power ups and what not. The big problem with the minigames, besides how simple they are, is that they go on for TOO long, they get boring really fast and they feel like they go on forever... even though the game can easily be completed in an hours.

 In the end, this is nothing more than a bland mini-game collection, but I think it worked well on the nostalgia factor. A few minigames were references to specific episodes, which I adored, and having the cast of voice actors from the show itself was great. It lasted for a short while, but I loved walking through Dexter's house!

 3.0

Game #1004: All-Star Slammin' D-Ball

  They should slam whoever came up with that title.

 What you may or may not infer from a game titled All-Star Slammin' D-Ball is that this is a dodgeball game. But it's not just 'any' dodgeball game, it features pretty 2-D sprites and super moves, making it quite similar to the Kunio-kun dodgeball games!

 The game offers 2 modes: Single Match and Tournament, the latter being the closest thing to a story mode, but hey, there's multiplayer! There are 8 different teams to play with, each one having different stats... which I think are negligible in the grand scheme of things, but hey, the players look different on every team, having their own styles, so that's neat.

 The game works like this, you have four players on the field and three players on the enemy team's sidelines and you have to hit the enemy's four main players with the ball to beat them. When the ball is in your hands, circle can be used to pass it around and square to shoot it towards your targeted enemy. When on the defensive, circle dodges and square catches the ball. It's more important to try to catch the ball, as that charges energy which you can spend on super throws by inputting the right commands before a shot! There's all sorts of wacky, physics-defying shots to use, but you can't overly rely on them ,as they can be caught!

 All-Star Slammin' D-Ball is a small game, but a very entertaining one. The gameplay is solid, just wish there was more to do in Single Player. 

 5.0

Game #1003: Cool Boarders

  I like my boarders hot.

 I don't remember what motivated me to get the entire Cool Boarders series, but here I am and this is only the beginning. This is an arcadey snowboarding game that isn't half bad, but just like Ridge Racer, it's lacking in content.

 What you get is two very goofy-looking snowboarders, a male and a female, each one having 4 alternate skins each. Then you get 6 boards, which are pretty much identical sans stats and paint job and.... 3 courses, with an unlockable fourth, as well as an unlockable character. That's it. No alternate game modes, no nothin'. There's not even multiplayer. It does have 8 fantastic music tracks though! It's not licensed music, but most of them sound great.

 Controls are super simple and clearly pre-Tony Hawk, X jumps, Square is used for hard-turns and R1 is used for grab tricks. The purpose of tricks is scoring points, and the purpose of points is unlocking stuff, and that's it. Movement is a bit clunky, but overall it's fun.

 And that's it, a few words for a small game. There really isn't much in this disc to hold someone's attention, and while the gameplay is passable it's not nearly as tight as Ridge Racer to justify a playthrough despite its meager substance.

3.0

Game #1002: Paris-Dakar Rally

  Da cars are here.

 Alright, so last year I realized I liked driving games in which you went from A to B instead of lapping 'round a course, so I decided to get a few rally games, like this one here, Paris-Dakar Rally. What I expected: A racing game like Cruis'n, but it turns out rally games aren't really racing games...

 The game offers three modes: Time Attack, Arcade and Campaign. The only difference between Arcade and Campaign is that you can switch vehicles after every stage in Arcade Mode. There's no multiplayer of any kind, which is absolutely criminal. The trek through Dakar is divided into 10 stages with 4 tracks each, for a total of 40 tracks, and most of this tracks feature forks in the road, which was pretty interesting. There are also four vehicle types: Quad Bikes, Bikes, Buggies and 4x4. Maybe it's because I'm really bad at these games, but I felt like Buggies and 4x4 were too sensitive and would curve too easily, while bikes and quad bikes felt much more responsive and fast, therefore, more fun to use.

 As said before, this is not a racing game, it's a driving game. You are not competing against other cars, sans a few exceptions, but rather, you must make it from point A to B trying to get good times. Once again, maybe it's because I'm terrible at driving games, but the game is super tough, and if your times aren't up to par you won't be able to finish the campaign. I'm not ashamed to admit that I managed to experience every track in the game... thanks to a cheat code! Yeah, I'm pretty bad at these games.

 Sensitivity issues aside, I felt like the game played decent enough, at least when using bikes. The one bug I came across was after my buggy fell in a crevice, and I wasn't able to drive, neither forward nor reverse, myself out of it. The 'repair' button wouldn't work either so I was forced to restart.

 I'm pretty sure this was an early PS2 game, because it certainly looks the part. Graphics are super basic, but... I think the art design works in its favor, as you'll drive through some interesting locales.... not that there is much variety, as you're pretty much driving from desert to desert. The worst part about it is the music, there are only two tracks: The menu music and the gameplay music, and that's it. Sometimes, the gameplay music refused to load! Speaking of loading.... the loading times are not obscene, but they are just long enough to become annoying.

 Paris-Dakar Rally is just... forgettable. I don't think it's a bad game, I was entertained for a bit, but it's definitely not a game I'll remember in a few weeks time!

 5.0

Game #1001: Franklin - A Birthday Surprise

  This ain't a Ninja Turtle... right?

 I guess I should explain why Franklin: A Birthday Surprise is here, huh? Well, I didn't use to watch the series perse, but, believe it or not I used to be an early bird, and every morning between 6-7 AM this show would be on TV while I waited for my toons to start. And as someone that runs on nostalgia, I decided to plunge into this game.

 First of all, the good, it looks A M A Z I NG. No, really, the graphics are gorgeous, everything looks super clean and very colorful. It is a simple 2.5 platformer so it's not like the game requires a ton of processing power, but the fact is: It looks beautiful. I don't know if it uses the voice talent from the show, but it's alright. The music is very pleasant... at first. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the game is super boring, but eventually the music started grinding on my ears.

 So the game is a very, VERY basic 2.5 platformer. That'd be fine, except for the fact that it's really boring. Your only enemies are spiny bushes and sometimes bees that chase. Exceptionally slowly, so they are easy to evade. Still, one of my biggest pet peeves with the game is how SLOW it is, to the point that it's super boring. Besides jumping, Franklin has a watering can to water flowers with in order to turn them into platforms or trampolines. Problem is... the game has the world's slowest watering animation, no, really, it should make it into the Guiness World Records.

 To spice things up, pretty much every level has a 'minigame' with Bear, in which you must slowly approach him while he isn't looking and hold still when he turns back. It's lame, it adds padding and slows down the game EVEN more. Another recurring mini-game is a follow-the-leader type in which one of Franklin's friends copies your movements from behind. It's super clunky and adds nothing to the game.

 As long as you collect flies(Is it a reference to the show? you'll unlock a new minigame after every stage, and since the game is 10 stages short you get a total of 10 minigames. They are dumb and very basic... and sometimes, very luck-based. There's one in which you must hide behind the right object, but the right object might turn out to be the one behind you, leaving other players no chance at all to get to it. Oh, yeah, once unlocked, you can play this with another player, in case there's a very special someone that you hate.

 Y'know, maybe, maybe for a kid's game this one's alright. But I need speed in my games. Franklin isn't broken, but man, it was so boring I couldn't wait for it to end.

 3.0

Game #1000: Resident Evil 4

  For number #1000 I'm brining out the big cheese.

 There are few games one can say that changed everything, but Resident Evil 4 is one such game. It revolutionized 3rd person shooters forever thanks to its innovative over-the-shoulder aiming, as well as changing Resident Evil, although some would say for worse. I wouldn't. I love me some classic Resident Evil, but I also love modern REvil.

 Resident Evil 4 says good bye to zombies, now you fight Spanish people possessed by Las Plagas, so sometimes that oh so satisfying head-shot pop may have the Plaga show its ugly, sharp head to attack you. Leon is not the most nimble hero, you can outrun your enemies, since they are even slower than you, but in order to shoot you must root yourself to the ground. It works really well, the aiming is fun and fighting enemies is fun. This game also introduced melee attacks, by hitting enemies in certain body parts(Head, Knees) they may enter a special stagger animation during which you can run up to them and press X for a powerful melee attack that works wonder to disperse enemies around you.    

 Furthermore, chests are a thing of the past, you get a single inventory and have to play tetris with the items you find. The game, on the basic difficulty setting, features an adaptive difficulty, the better you do, the more aggressive enemies will become and the stingier the game gets with pick ups. There were a few times in which I was cutting it close with ammo and herbs, but I never found myself out of anything. Alongside that, in this REvil you can upgrade your health via Yellow Herbs and spend money, dropped from enemies or containers, to upgrade your weapons, which was a brilliant addition.

 The game does have two points of contention. Firstly, it abuses QTEs. There are way too many, the worst one being a knife fight near the end of the game. Thankfully, the game is SO good I didn't mind them all that much, I got a few cheap deaths out of QTEs I wasn't expecting, but nothing too bad. The other point is... over half of the game is an escort mission, as you must protect Ashley. It's not too bad, really, usually you can find places to have her hide from enemies, and enemies are slow enough so they give you plenty of time to stop them from capturing them. Ashley and Leon are separated a few times throughout the adventure, and the game is definitely at its best when Ashley isn't in the picture, but trust me, it's not too bad.

 The game is very meaty. This was my 3rd playthrough, although the last time I played it was EONS ago, on my ol' Switch, and it still took me about 14 hours. And after you finish the game you unlock a mini-campaign with Ada, 'Separate Ways', a mini-game, also featuring Ada, 'Assignment Ada' and if that wasn't enough you unlock Mercenaries mode, with four stages and about 6 characters. Not to mention more weapons for New Game+ as well as costumes for Leon and Ashley. Needless to say, this is quite the game.

 The game features top-notch production values, the graphics and sound design are phenomenal, reminiscent of Silent Hill with its more brown and grainy textures, as well as the audio cues and what not. That said, this PS2 port is probably the weakest version on a home console. So, the controls are not as great as the ones on Wii, that's fair, but it still works REALLY well, but this one has easily the lowest quality textures. Not only that, cut-scenes are pre-rendered instead of being displayed in-engine. They look pretty sharp all things considered, but you'll see some pixels here and there. Look, it's Resident Evil 4 on the PS2 and it runs very smoothly, I'll take lower quality cutscenes if I need to!

 Resident Evil 4 is still every bit as good as it once was. I mean, I've never hated escort missions as much as other people, so I don't really mind the Ashley factor, that said, I am the number 1 QTE hater, but when the game is REALLY good, like the God of War series or this very game, I can take them. I'd be all up for a remaster that removes them though!

 10

Game #999: Tiny Tank

  Sets out to prove once and for all that size doesn't matter.

 Back in the 90's I had no way of avoiding Tiny Tank ads while I read my gaming magazines. It looked so rad! Plus, he was yellow, my favorite color! I guess Tiny Tank and Buck Bumble were the two tiny yellow heroes I never got to play, but always wanted to.

 Tiny Tank is a third-person shooter with a few original ideas to its name. Most defeated enemies drop weapons that you can equip on the four corners of Tiny's base, two shoot forward, two shoot backwards. Furthermore, enemies may drop P-Brains, green orbs, that you can shift at any moment between your guns in order to strengthen them, you can even enhance your basic gun, Tiny's nose cannon. Placing a P-Brain on one of your secondary weapons has the added      of making it so that the next gun you pick up won't replace it.

 The shooting will take some getting used to. For the most part it works well enough, and when there are few enemies on screen it's pretty decent. Thing is, Tiny's automatic lock-on isn't always very smart, sometimes he'll prioritize aiming towards an enemy that's behind a wall next to you rather than the enemy that is actually in front of you. You can slowly rotate Tiny's head, but it ain't good enough. There's no sidestepping, but rather, step-jumping and step-jump-rolling, it's not the best movement system ever, but it's serviceable.

 Level design varies from stage to stage. It's a short game, 13 levels in all, but some objectives can be hard to figure out how to actually complete, while others are much simpler. It's a tough game, like most games of the era, so it's to be expected some trial and error. That said, some levels, like the snow slide, are lives sinks that aren't much fun. The platforming isn't the best either.

 Where I give the game the most credit is in its humor. There are cutscenes every now and then in which Tiny's bleeped foul-mouthed attitude is up in full display, and through levels themselves you'll hear the main villain interviewed by radio hosts as he talks about your shenanigans. It's a funny game that got a few chuckles outta me.

 I'm sure I would've loved this game back in the day, but sadly, it's a bit too clunky for my modern tastes. The game requires patience, not only because you need to learn levels if you want to get to the end, but because you have to contend with less than stellar controls and sub-optimal combat mechanics. And mind you, it's not terrible, far from it, I'm sure that back in the day it was about on par, or even a bit more innovative, than anything else in the market, but nowadays its age is starting to show. That said, the game is worth experiencing for its humor alone.

 6.0