Game #1124: Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1

  The king of pocket fighters.

 

 The Neo Geo Pocket was a console I always wanted to own, ever since I first laid my eyes on SNK VS Capcom screenshots. The sprites looked cute, but badass in a way, and the game received praise everywhere. I was so happy the day I learned it could be emulated, and I played most of its relatively small game library this way. Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1 is a compilation of 10 games, 10 game which I think are the best the system has to offer, featuring most of its fighting games(I think only the first KoF pocket release is missing) and a few others in a neat little cart.

 So, as far as general goodies go, this compilation offers beautiful 3-D renditions of each of the game's boxes as well as of the Neo Geo Pocket cart. You can play every game in Color or B&W modes and you get most of the instruction booklet for every game. You can change between the NA and Japanese version of every game. There are no savestates, which is a bit disappointing, but there's a rewind feature... although it's a bit limited, as it can only go about a minute back in time, I think. It's an odd limitation, but it's not too bad. You can some of the game in multiplayer, each player holding a different joycon, since the screen gets doubled and turned 90 degrees so that players should face each other holding one end of system. I thought it was pretty ingenious.

Games:

SNK VS Capcom: The premiere fighting game in a system known for its fighters. The character roster is top notch, and considering the system only had two buttons, it works really well. One button punches and the other one kicks, depending on how long you press the button you'll either perform a weak or fierce punch/kick. You can battle in 1 vs 1, tag play or in KoF styled teams. It's amazing. The one problem with the game is how much time it takes to unlock all characters, as it will take you many, many playthroughs. And that taking into account that it was made easier than it was in the original release!

 The Last Blade: Sprites are a bit smaller than in SNK VS Capcom, but the controls are basically the same. It has most characters from TLB1 and 2, and after you finish the game with every character, Arcade Mode begins covering the TLB2 storyline! Unlocking characters is also a bit of a chore, but it's much, MUCH easier than in SNK VS Capcom. Just abuse the Rewind feature to score Perfects and amass a ton of points.

 Big Tournament Golf: For a golf game... it was pretty decent. I mean, it was nothing worth writing home about, but it kept my interest for a few minutes.

 Samurai Shodown: An adaptation of the Samurai Shodown 64 game. It's surprising how they kept the Slash/Bust versions of each character, as some characters even change their stance and not only their moves! Thankfully, there are no annoying hidden characters. It's decent, but I liked The Last Blade a bit more.

 King of Fighters R-2: It's similar to SNK VS Capcom, but limited to SNK characters. It was pretty fun.

 Metal Slug - The First Mission: Metal Slug but with a life bar and bit sized levels. It's a fun 2-D sidescrolling shooter, and you even get to pilot a plane and a tank.

 

 Metal Slug - The Second Mission: Very similar to the previous game, but adds a few more secondary weapons and a few submarine sections. It looks better and it's a bit longer, but I liked the first one better.

 SNK Gal Fighters: A bit kooky, a bit silly, but it's surprisingly fun. While it features some of the same sprites from KoF R-2 and SNK VS Capcom, characters have sillier movesets in this one. It's also the fastest-paced fighter in the cart, which made me an instant fan. I don't really like the concept, but I think that gameplay wise it's the best one, as I liked its speed.

 Fatal Fury: An adaptation of Real Bout 2, while it features the same sprite-style as SNK Gal Fighters, KoF and SNK VS Capcom, this one features a ton of characters exclusive to this one. And that's about it, it's similar to the aforementioned fighters, but sticks to 1 on 1 fighting.

 Dark Arms - Beast Buster: The only game in this cart I hadn't played before. Basically, you create different guns, which range from Punches, Fines, Proper handguns to doppelgangers and then you can evolve them, by feeding them capture enemies. There's a Pow/Stamina gauge for each weapon as a way to encourage you to switch your weapons, and there's also a day/night cycle, but what's truly staggering is how many weapons there are, and they can change a lot when they evolve. I feel like the capture system is a bit annoying, as using your guns kills monsters outright, so in order to capture them you must use a very weak peashooter instead of the guns you are building up. Still, overall, it was pretty good.

 And those are the 10 games featured in this cart. The biggest hurdle SNK has now is how to market the next collection, as I feel like these are the best games the system has to offer by far. As for the collection itself, every game in here is great, and while most of them are fighters, there's variety in here, there's even a Golfing game! 

 

 8.0

Game #1123: Tony Hawk's Motion

 And you thought 5 was bad....

 While your mileage may vary on how good the latter Tony Hawk games were, there's no denying that 5 marked an all time low.... or did it? Well, Tony Hawk's Motion released a few years before, and it seems it went under the radar because this is easily worse than 5 in every way.

 There's a gimmick to this game: It comes bundled with a motion cart that you insert in the original DS' GBA port. Yup, this means that most DS systems can't play this game, and in an ironic twist of fate, that might be a good thing. This motion pack is how you play the game, basically, you must tilt the entire system to move your skater. Somebody thought this was a good idea. Somebody was an idiot.

 So... I could complain about the fact that half of this game's stages are snowboard stages. I could. But then again, I could complain about the fact that the game only has a pathetic grand total of four levels, two skating and two snowboarding. I could. I could mention how piss-poor the character creator is or how ugly the character model is. But why bother with all of that if the game itself is pretty much unplayable because of how awful the motion sensor is?

 And they knew how bad it was because most of the time there are not 'goals'. Stages have about 6 challenges, 5 not counting Free Ride, and they don't have set goals. In Score Session you must score as much as you can before time is up, but you don't need to hit any threshold. In Hawkman challenges you must collect green pellets and avoid red pellets, once again, it doesn't matter how much you score. It doesn't matter on ANY of the challenges. Bah! Rail Hopper, the hardest challenges in the game in which you must grind from one end of a stage to the other, do have a failure state if you fall over five times. But that challenge aside, any points you manage to gather are enough.

 And the problem is that moving left and right using motion just doesn't work. Either it's too sensitive or not sensitive enough, and the timing for tricks is way more lenient, making it very hard to bail a trick, because of how unwieldy it is. In a way, having so little content, barely an hour's worth, is a blessing in disguise.

 Alongisde the main game, there's an alternate, kiddy game called 'Hue Pixel Painter'. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with Tony Hawk, but it's more fun. I had to tinker with the motion sensitivity, but once I hit a sweetspot(I had to make it very sensitive) it became playable. Basically, you must stomp on a color fountain, and then go from color blot to color blot under a small time limit. It's silly, it's fun for about 5 minutes, but even so, it's the only passable thing about this cart.

 Absolutely terrible. There's barely any game here, and what little there is is nigh unplayable. Absolute garbage.

 0.5

Game #1122: Top Gear Rally

 There's 3-D and then there's 3-D on the friggin' Gameboy Advance.

 Looking to expand on my racing game repertoire, I figured I might enjoy Rally games since they tend to be of the 'Drive from point A to B' variety. Top Gear Rally on the Gameboy Advance was next in line, a game I'll freely admit I got because I wanted to try some of the 3-D Advance games, and, by golly, was I surprised.

 As previously stated, the goal of every race is to reach the end in first place. The game features 10 different challenges, with 3 tracks each, and available in three different difficulty settings. The game is fairly easy to grasp, A to accelerate and B to hit the breaks, and since this is a rally game, how you tackle every curve matters. Before each curve you'll receive a green, orange or red curve sign, indicating its shape and how sharp it will be, and it's up to you to deal with it in the appropriate manner.

 The game features a surprising amount of vistas and settings, from cities, to snowy mountains, to beaches and even hills you can fall down from! There are many different surfaces, for which you'll need to swap tires to perform your best, as well as different weather conditions. The controls are super responsive, and every time I messed up a curve it felt like it was my fault. Playing the game is very simple and getting the hang of everything is very easy, making the game very enjoyable.

 On graphics alone this is the most impressive GBA game I've ever played, looking akin to a PS1 game. The 3-D cars look amazing, the environments are very sharp, well defined and good looking too, it truly is a visual treat.

 I think this might be one of my favorite GBA games. Gameplay is smooth and easy to grasp, the game is well designed and it's a total looker. I haven't played enough racers on the system to call it one of the best, but damn, if it didn't win me over.

 9.0

Game #1121: Star Wars Rogue Squadron III - Rebel Strike

 

 And you thought Star Wars Kinect was the first time Han Solo danced.

 My taste in videogames has changed since I was younger. RPGs and Metroidvanias are still my favorite, but I don't like fighting games as much, and I have discovered a newfound love for Survival Horror as well as taken a liking to some racing games. But one thing remains the same: I don't like dogfighting games. I have tried Ace Combat as well as a few others, but... they don't seem to gel very well with me. My best friend during my schooldays owned Rogue Squadron on the N64 and believe you me, I gave it many, many tries. But I heard that Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike had on-foot sections that looked interesting, albeit I was prepared before-hand and knew they were bad, plus, it's a Gamecube Exclusive, so the planets aligned and I took the plunge. And maybe I shouldn't have.

 The introductory reel, with the company brandings and the such, starts off with the cast from Star Wars dancing to the Star Wars theme song, and that definitely set the tone for what was to come. The game is three campaigns in one, sorta. There's a cooperative mode that features every level from Rogue Squadron II, which is pretty neat, although I didn't get to try it since I wouldn't subject my sister or my girlfriend to playing a game I didn't like. Then there's the single player mode, which consists of about 20 stages, give or take. Some follow the plot from the original trilogy, including footage from the movies themselves, and others follow a separate plot that runs parallel to the original plot, albeit playing as Wedge instead of Luke, Han or Leia. Progress in Single Player is gated through Medals, which sucks if you suck like me, but there's an 'unlock every stage' code which I used. I'm sure I could spend time to learn every stage and get decent at them and thus progress through the game.... but I don't like the genre and didn't care to, I just wanted to experience the entire game at my leisure. You can also unlock ports of three old Star Wars Arcade games, which is a cool little extra.

 Something I found quite interesting, is that most missions are made up of about three sections. And between sections the location may change, maybe you'll go from space to inside a planet's atmosphere or even get out of your vehicle and go on-foot. Aerial fights felt a bit sloppy, at least in my opinion, but they work well for what they are. Although I had two caveats. Firstly, you can't change the Y axis aiming, so you have to deal with reverse controls: Up aims down and vice-versa. Secondly... sometimes the game is too vague about what you have to do. In one mission I had to use Ion Lasers to incapacitate a vehicle, a prompt pressing the B button appeared. I pressed B but I had ran out of missiles, was I screwed? Maybe holding down B? Nothing. I lost all three lives and had to restart the mission, but a tip in the Game Over screen told me to hold down B until the aiming reticule turned blue. Would've been nice to know beforehand! Another time you have to destroy a shield generator. How it looks like? Who knows. But whatever, there were two of them and one was blown apart, so I figured I had to destroy the other one, and then the game told me to destroy the one below it. Below on the Star Destroyer's Surface? Below the Star Destroyer? Nothing else on the ship looked like the generator I blew up, so what was I supposed to do? Yeah... I didn't have a fun time.

 But it got worse, at last the latter I'd argue that I felt like besides the lack of direction, the gameplay worked well, it was only boring because I don't like this genre, but then I got out of my ship as Luke and... Oh. My. God. It's a very sloppy shooter, characters move all over the place, you can only roll if you crouch, the auto-aim is very rudimentary, you can't even strafe and you have to deal with fixed camera angles. They play like hot garbage. And you'd think once you get the lightsaber, in three missions total, it'd get better, but it's even worse, you don't even have a 3 or 2 hit combo with the saber. And you get a Jedi double jump that barely works given the fixed camera angles and slippery controls, and the game wants you to do platforming over the Sarlacc Pitts... yeah, no, the on-foot sections only make the game worse.

 Between the fact that I don't enjoy vehicle combat games and the fact that it has some truly awful on-foot sections I can't say that I enjoyed my time with Rogue Squadron III. At least I'm willing to accept that the shooting works, I didn't enjoy it very much, but I can understand how someone could. This one's one I probably won't be revisiting any time soon.

 5.5

Game #1120: Ridge Racer 3D

  It's Riiiiiiiidge Racerrrrrrrrrrrrr, now in 3D!

 Before the Vita's pathetic Ridge Racer outing, we had Ridge Racer 3D on the Nintendo 3DS. It's an interesting beast, as just like the PSP entries before it, it's sort of a compilation game, albeit less comprehensive and more interesting.

 The game offers a very interesting amount of one player content. There are a lot of Grand Prixes to partake in, there are 15 tracks,  a few ranging from the very original game others to even Ridge Racer 7 as well as three gorgeous original tracks. You can unlock Reverse, Mirrored and Reverse Mirrored versions of every track. You can have One-Make races, single races and even have the game craft an original Grand Prix based on how much time you want to play. Winning races grants you money that you can spend on one-time advantages on Grand Prixes or buying new cars.

 Something I really liked was that this game, unlike the PSP games, use the modern Nitro/Slipstream system. So you can store up to three Nitros and use x1 Nitro, x2 Nitro or even x3 Nitro, as well as change the Nitro system of your car. Maybe use a system that is constantly recharging your nitro at the cost of less stocks, use one that has longer nitros but less stocks, etc. Then there's slipstreaming, by driving behind other drivers, except that....

 It doesn't work very well, considering this game has one of the dumbest pseudo-rubber band AI I've ever suffered in a racing game. First of all, enemy racers will spend their time at the spot they are supposed to be, this means that the driver in front will always be in front, the one in third place will always be in third place. Sometimes you may come across two AI racers competing, but eventually the AI that is supposed to be first WILL keep the first place. The racing itself is like this, it seems like the game will randomly decide that you have struggled enough against the driver you are trying to pass, and you can tell it's like this because you may be driving in a straight line, using Turbo, and the guy behind you will just pass you, without even using turbo. Just because. And then, out of the blue, even though the driver in front of you is using a turbo, even though you aren't even slipstreaming, even though you barely recovered from a botched drifting... you'll easily pass them as if nothing. The game isn't hard, at least not the four initial category Grand Prixes, but having to perform this dumb tug-o'-wars against other drivers until the game decides that you should get ahead was annoying and predictable. Admittedly, I'm no racing game expert so I haven't played everything and anything the genre has to offer, but I've never seen an AI that behaved like this before. And I didn't like it.

 The game looks relatively good considering it's a very early 3DS release, and I must admit, the 3D in this game is AMAZING. On the other hand, it has sever framerate issues at times, nothing like turboing when there are other racers on-screen and watching the framerate plummet. It doesn't make it unplayable, but it's a bit disappointing nonetheless. I also found the game to be very repetitive. Not only do you have to play the Grand Prixes in order(finish category 4 to unlock category 3 and its cars, then with cat 3 to unlock cat 2 and so on), but... you are unlocking very few truly new cars, as most cars are just 'tunned up' versions of the same car that looks identical to the one in the other categories, only faster.

 Thankfully, despite my grievances with the AI, I really like modern Ridge Racer, and this game is no exception. As someone that isn't very good at the genre, I like the simplicity it offers. It's very easy to learn and play, and it's just as easy to get into races. That said, I can't help but find it a bit subpar keeping in mind when it was released and what had come before it.

 7.0

Game #1119: Sonic Adventure DX - Director's Cut

  My Sonic adventure continues

 Well, unlike with Adventure 2, this isn't my first rodeo with Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut, as I had played the PC port years ago... and decided I really didn't like Sonic. But it's a new, older me, one that is giving Sonic a honest try and discovering that these games I've blindly lambasted for so long.... aren't half bad. The original 3-D Sonic game, as Jam doesn't count, is next in the chopping block.

 Adventure wasn't just the first true 3-D Sonic game, it was also the first game that started adding separate campaigns. Sure, Sonic 3 did it with Knuckles and Tails, but it wasn't the same deal as they played pretty similarly all things considered. You get 6 campaigns in this one. Sonic is 10 stages worth of platforming, easily the most fun and lengthy of the bunch. Tails is a bit weird, because his 5 or so stages are about racing and beating Sonic Knuckles was surprisingly fun too, you get medium-sized areas you must explore while searching for 3 Emerald shards, all three radars are active at the same time, so it's better than in Adventure 2. Gamma's stages are mediocre 3rd person shooters. Amy is a bit interesting, as they are platforming stages, like Sonic and Tails, but she is being chased by a robot. Lastly, Big the Cat, easily the most boring, in which you must fish for a frog. Thankfully, his is the shortest campaign, at 4 stages and a boss that is very easily defeated. Big the Cat's campaign was the only one I really despised, as the others went from mediocre to fun, so I'd say that the variety is relatively welcome. If anything, Sonic's Casino stage was really boring and borderline chore, but it was the only part of the game I actively hated.

 The game plays as you'd expect, movement is a bit slippery and clunky too, as it's easy to lose your acceleration or randomly stop in your tracks because you ran to close to the side. Despite how it may sound, it really isn't too bad, and it seems like the levels are designed with these shortcomings in mind, as they won't cost you a life. The camera, however, is a bit spotty, as it tends to get stuck on parts of the environment every now and then. Oh! And one time I slipped through the ground out of bounds. So yeah, it's not the most polished game ever, I mean the talking animations are awful, but the game is fun all things considered. There's a lot of spectacle and the game definitely veers into style over substance, but I think it works.

 The story is not very good, at times it can be laughably bad so you can get a few kicks out of it. Finishing every campaign unlocks a final Super Sonic stage that brings the whole thing to a close. But that's not necessarily the end of the game, you can replay stages, with every character, to get alternate goals that will reward you with more emblems. The more emblems you get, the more unlockables you get, which include old Game Gear Sonic games!

 While not quite as good as Sonic Adventure 2, this first game is pretty fun. When it comes to platformer, I like them slower-paced but more precise, so it speaks well of this game since it managed to win me over. The audiovisual presentation is very dated, no doubt about it, but all gameplay styles, sans Big the Cat's, still work well to this day and I do feel like the variety works in the game's favor, making for an entertaining romp through Sonic's world.

 7.0

Game #1118: Tony Hawk's Underground 2(Gameboy Advance)

 Skating apes.

 Well, it's time to play my favorite Tony Hawk game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, albeit now on the Gameboy Advance. Well, turns out I was right, Underground 2 is better than Amerikan Sk8land in a few areas I thought it would. It's still far from perfect, but hey!

 The game starts you off creating your own skater and... my god, why does everyone have huge heads and hands? It's a very weird stylistic choice that doesn't fit the series or the game, nor does it make it easier to see your character or how they move, so... what gives? The game features Arcade Mode(Classic), Free Skate and the Story Mode, and all play exactly like you'd expect. 

 The game is made up of about 7 Skate parks, a few missing from the original console game, and the others are truncated to better fit the isometrical perspective. If you've played the original you'll be able to recognize key sections from these adapted skateparks. For whatever reason, Suburbia, from Tony Hawk 3, made it into the stages, which... is another weird choice. Maybe they figured they couldn't make decent adaptations of the missing stages? On the other hand, unlike the generic soundtrack from AS, we have about 3 licensed music tracks... that sound like garbage. The main menu music is particularly bad. Be careful what you wish for I guess. Oh and there's an in-game clock that does nothing, as the time of the day doesn't change anything, not even the lighting.

 The Story Mode is the meat and potatoes of the game. Just like in the console game, and unlike American Sk8land, you increase your stats by performing certain feats, such as three flips in a single combo. In Story Mode you are thrown into the stage and must find NPCs to trigger missions. Stages are much smaller than in American Sk8land, so finding missions is never a chore. That said, you'll notice that a lot of goals are repeated on every stage, most annoying of all, the minigames which involve pressing buttons when prompted or shooting tennis balls at passersby. Not only are the mechanics lame, but eventually these get too long. One type of mission that irked me were the races, in which you must drive through checkpoints... except that you have to search for the checkpoints because the screen is just too small. 

 The core gameplay elements are really solid, the game plays like Tony Hawk, albeit on an isometrical perspective. That said, there's a tiny wrench thrown into the mix... the Team mechanic from the console game. In the main game you had to find a Pro Skate, a Special Skater and a vehicle character, and each character unlocked a new set of challenges. They tried something like that, in this game you start with an initial set of challenges that include a Team Challenge. You only need to finish the Team Challenge to move on to the next stage. Anyways, after you perform the challenge, you must find the van icon on the level and go into, change into a Pro character and perform the SAME objective. This will unlock Pro challenges as well as a few other Skater challenges. Problem: Only the Pro Skater can attempt Pro challenges, and only your created character can attempt Skater challenges, this means.... if you want to 100% the game there will be a lot of annoying pausing and character swapping. There are 3 Team challenges per stage, that means at least 5 character swaps. That said, when I was on the last two levels I discovered you can jump into the Skater van through the pause menu. Still, any character should've been able to attempt any challenge, it's a needless inconvenience.

 While still a few way off from what I'd consider the ideal take on an isometrical Tony Hawk game, I feel like this one is a much better option that the game that came after it. Even if some of the design elements leave a bit to be desired, and even though the art direction is less than ideal, I feel like the core gameplay is undeniably fun.

 6.0