Game #1035: Lemony Snicket's - A Series of Unfortunate Events

  Now I really want to read these books...

 Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events is yet ANOTHER bargain bin licensed game based on a movie I didn't watch. Hey! These last few games I've been playing were like 2 a pop so I said why not, let's waste some pocket change. But hey, at least it's not another LOTR videogame wannabe.

 First impressions were most definitely not good. Cutscenes had an obnoxious amount of slowdown, movement was super janky, to the point you must be PERFECTLY still when you press circle to push things otherwise the game won't register the input and the game starts off making you find objects. Yeah.... I thought I was gonna hate the game. But... but it grows on you, the game is decently fun, I promise.

 The game follows a very strict formula all throughout: Find certain specific items around the environment you are in, sometimes they are hidden in plain sight, otherwise you might have to solve a simple puzzle or platforming challenge, and once you find everything you assemble the items together through a boring minigame and then you clear an obstacle that required this new tool, rinse and repeat. But as formulaic and dull as that sounds, the game keeps throwing different challenges at you, so it's not boring at all.

 The puzzles can be pretty decent, particularly the ones in which you must actively switch between Klaus and Violet to proceed and the platforming gets the job done. Where more work could've gone was into the combat, as fighting enemies ranges from boring, mostly the bosses, to a bit lame. You either mash square with Klaus to punch them to death or mash square with Violet to shoot them to death. It's not very involved and most of the enemies are repeated over and over again. Boss fights aren't even hard, but they have too much health making them boring. The best approach would've been, considering how easy they are, to make them fall after you hit them three times.

 I've played better licensed games, but I thought that A Series of Unfortunate Events is a decent, uncomplicated time, and, hey, it made me want to read the books, so that's gotta count for something.

 6.0

Game #1034: Disney's Tarzan - Return to the Jungle

 Loincloths are back in vogue.

 Not one to stop playing dated, licensed garbage on the GBA, here we have Disney's Tarzan: Return to the Jungle, a platforming game that gives Sonic a run for is money when it comes to speed.

 The game has short proper animated cutscenes which I think are borrowed from the show considering Tarzan's loincloth is a different shade of brown from the one in the movie clips from the PS1 game. That said, midway through the game Jane and her father introduce themselves to Tarzan so it's hard to pinpoint just when this game is supposed to take place. Not that it really matters, all things considered, but it definitely doesn't follow the plot from the movie.... even if it covers Tarzan growing up and Tarzan meeting Jane, albeit in very different ways.

 The first few levels were surprisingly fun. The game is incredibly fast paced, to the point that it's entirely possible to get hit by stuff you just couldn't see coming. It also threw me off just how janky it can feel considering it's a 2-D game. Climbing edges or jumping on vines can sometimes look very spotty, but, in a weird way, it compliments the game's speed so I didn't really mind it. If anything, I think that performing high jumps seems like luck of the draw, sometimes Tarzan will make it to the edge of the platform and climb on top and other times he won't, so if you can't jump up a wall... keep trying a few times, you just might make it.

 You start the game as child Tarzan and his boomerang, but after 3 or 4 levels you get downgraded to adult Tarzan... Downgraded, because he trades the boomerang for spears that run out. Which sucks until you realize that you have a rolling attack. The game NEVER tells you about it, but pressing the attack button while running will let Tarzan perform Sonic's spin attack. Would've been nice to know a few levels ago while I was counting my precious spears.

 Sadly I think the game gets worse as it goes along, because level design takes a dive. Midway through there's a mazelike level in which you have to find 8 monkeys. If you make it to the end without finding them... tough luck, go back on your tracks and try to find them. The next maze-like level is the final one, and it's a bit easier but still entirely possible that you might miss a Dinosaur Egg before you reach the end, and the end of the level has you running from a Giant Dinosaur in which not landing the high jump fast and well enough will cost you a life. Oh, and in one level there's a gate that requires a key... I was able to simple jump over the gate through the ceiling. Speaking of keys, levels that require finding keys are usually the worst, because levels are huge, both horizontally and vertically. There's one in which a special blue-coated Pirate holds the key, and you don't even know you'll need a key to finish the level or that an enemy might hold it. While I was backtracking to search for this key I felt this enemy looked special enough so maybe, JUST maybe it had the key. I was right. But I could've just avoided him, because... why not? It's not like enemies held keys before.

 It's kinda disappointing because Return to the Jungle starts off really fun, but the level design just becomes more and more annoying the further you go through the game. For as many tutorials as the game has, why you are never told about the rolling attack is beyond me. Still, at least the game has a few decent levels here and there, so it's not a complete loss.

 4.5

Game #1033: The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

 'Cause sometimes you gotta get inside the closet.

 Yes, another bargain bin game based on a movie I didn't watch, however, I did read The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as well as the rest of the Narnia series, so it's not like I'm completely in the dark. Considering it was yet another game I bought for a couple of bucks I didn't really expect anything too good, however, the game proved to be a little more than I... bargained for.

 If you're gonna rip something off might as well rip off the best, and in that regard this game takes more than a few cues from the Lord of the Rings games, and it's all the better for it. The simple button mashing combat, the decent movie clip-to-gameplay transitions, the menu, the extras such as recording sessions... it feels like another entry in that series of the games. There's a tiny issue with the presentation, and that has to do with the game being built around co-op. So, in order to facilitate that, Edmund now goes inside the Wardrobe alongside Lucy for the first time on the first stage... but since they couldn't edit the scenes from the movie, after the level finishes Edmund, like the other two siblings, doesn't believe Lucy about the world inside the Wardrobe... Even though he was in it! That aside, it felt like a decent adaptation of the story, and there's a really good amount of footage from the movie.

 So, gameplay, it's based around co-op. On most levels you'll have all four siblings available, but sometimes it'll be down to two or maybe even three. Every character has their own unique context-sensitive actions: Lucy can crawl inside tight spots, Edmund can climb on trees, Peter is the strong one so he can break stuff the others can't and Susan is the only one that can attack from afar. There are other abilities, but that's the brunt of it. That said, puzzles are very sparse, as most of the game is a beat'em up. Peter and Edmund are the most developed in this regard, getting exclusive attack combos that can easily waste enemies. There are plenty of abilities to buy, with money found spread around every level.

 And if that was it, that'd be just fine, it's just that... the game was built around multiplayer but the friendly AI is useless and the enemy AI is relentless. Most of the time you're beating up enemies you're also trying to do something. For example, there might be gnomes shooting at you, so Susan must take them out with her bow. But the CPU won't use Susan's bow, so it's up to you, but the enemy AI will SWARM the player, while the friendly AI does nothing. It feels borderline unfair at times. The Beaver level is incredibly annoying, as the same three cutscenes, Beaver kidnapped, Wolves Returning and Trolls returning, will play over and over again, so you'll have to rush, as Susan, to take them out. But as you move from place to place enemies will try to attack you, preventing you from shooting at your targets. And do remember, you are under time constraints. It's like the game, at least in Single Player, is constantly towing the line between fun and annoying.

 Weighing the good and the bad... I think the fun I had with the game outweighed by a little all the annoyances. It's definitely not as good as the games its trying to imitate, but it tried and I think it's a fairly decent licensed game all things considered, and it's probably more fun with another player in tow.

 6.0

Game #1032: Guilty Gear Strive

  Can't you see I'm blazing?

 It's been a while since I last got hyped about a fighting game, and Xrd never managed to really gel with me, it's seems they went hard about going full anime and full Blazblue with the waifu archetypes and the fanservice. And then... Guilty Gear Strive was announced. Brilliant character redesigns, brilliant character picks(Except Ramlethal... but gotta keep the waifu-lovers happy I guess), brilliant new characters that actually fit Blazblue and the soundtrack, OH. MY. GOD. the Soundtrack! Yeah, I was hyped for Strive. Well, the game managed to most of my expectations, but as per usual with ArkSys, it has some digital content shenanigans involved.

 First things first, only 15 characters. Kinda. Here's my biggest issue with the game: The beta had all 15 characters. They announced 15 characters. The back of the box boasts about 15 characters. So why the **** do I have to download the patch to play as Anji and Ino? Why are there less content on the disc than there was on the beta? Why did they ship the game like this? English voices are also missing and part of the Story Mode is also missing. The disc is a glorified download key. The game shouldn't have shipped like this, and yes, this did sour some of my time with the game.

 Mode offering is alright. You get the visual-novel styled Story Mode... and I won't lie, I didn't even check it out. This approach ArkSys has been taking with Blazblue and Guilty Gear with their story modes that have 0 gameplay isn't really my thing and I wasn't a fan of where they took the plot since Xrd, so... yeah, I didn't even check it out. But it brings a close to Sol's story, if that's your thing. There's a very basic training mode but the game continues its tutorial through Mission Mode, and it's pretty thorough, even going into some pretty basic match-up hints VS every character. So, yeah, Mission mode is a must if you want to learn the ins and outs. There's also a Training Mode, VS CPU and Survival. Lastly, Arcade Mode. There's no real ending, and the most story you get are a few dialogue lines with your Rival(if you trigger it) and the final boss. I don't mind having such a barebones Arcade Mode, Guilty Gear never paid much mind to it, however, the difficulty is bullshit. The difficulty increases the better you play and decreases if you lose, thing is... it won't decrease until you get to the next fight. I'm AWFUL with Millia and I was stuck against an Extreme difficulty Potemkin. I was stuck for like an hour trying to beat him. Why not let the player select the difficulty setting they want? It's so dumb. And the secret boss? Oh my god, the secret boss takes very little damage and hits like a truck. It wasn't a fun time.

 Fishing is back too, and thankfully, no more random worthwhile rewards such as colors. ON the other hand, you only get 6 colors per character, so maybe that's why. Not to say that rewards aren't random, fishing gets you random stuff like always, but at least it's not the stuff you actually want... because there are no unlockables you actually want.

 Gameplay has been streamlined a bit, roman-cancelling is back and so are bursts, but combos are shorter and the game isn't as fast. It's still fast, mind you, but not quite. The game looks amazing, and I really liked the new dynamic camera that zooms, turns and shifts around when powerful moves are landed, dust pop ups are landed, you 'break' the wall left-or-right and transition to another part of the stage or a round concludes. It adds a lot of excitement to the match. The one thing I miss... is that Instant Kills were completely removed. They've been a staple of the series since the very first game, so I don't know why they did it... except maybe because it was rushed?

 If you can't tell... the game feels very rushed when it comes to content. A paltry amount of alternate colors, missing content that must be downloaded, not a whole lot of interesting unlockables... It's quite disappointing. That said, I think the rest of the game is top notch. It has the best soundtrack in the series, a lot of the music has lyrics, and I truly adored all the new redesigns as well as the two new characters. Still, I can't shake the feeling that with a few more months of development time and thus releasing a properly finished disc would've been SO much better.

 8.5

Game #1031: Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones

  Should've stayed in a galaxy far, far away.

 I never, ever forgot about Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones for the GBA because it was one of the worst games I had ever played on the system. That holds true even now. It looks, plays and feels like a Chinese bootleg NES game, no wonder THQ lost the license.

 The game takes 11 stages to cover the plot from the movie, and thankfully it's about an hour long, so your suffering ends quickly. You play as this ugly, gigantic sprite of either Anakin or Obi-Wan, as well as Mace Windu in a single level, as you go through some of the most boring stages ever devised. It also has 3 vomit-inducing first-person flying stages that go on for too long. Well, some of the main stages, like the Tattooine level and the factory level also feel like they go on forever. Constantly going left-to-right, praying that the enemy waves end one day.

 The game is a beat'em up, but it's so stiff. Your characters take like half a second to turn around, and sometimes after landing from a jump your character won't react to your inputs. Attack is so weird, you must hold down the A button and then press different directions on the directional pad to perform different attacks. Your sprite is gigantic, and as you go from left to right, enemies will fly or run towards you giving you no time to react to them, so sometimes it's safer to just move around by performing jumping kicks. You also get Force Powers, your force gauge fills automatically up to certain point, but to charge it past the threshold, and perform stronger attacks, you need to pick up orbs left behind by fallen enemies.

 The only force power you can perform at the level it automatically refills to is the Super Jump.... a technique that is required to proceed on some levels. Do you know what this means? Some levels will have you WAITING for the gauge to refill so that you can continue super jumping forward. Whose idea was it?? I demand names. Oh, and the game runs on passwords. Fun times.

 Attack of the Clones looks and plays like garbage, and it's boring to boot too. I've no qualms in saying that this is the game I hate the most on the system, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not a single positive to its name. NOTHING. The game is as lifeless as Anakin's delivery. I went there.

 0.5

Game #1030: Ghost Rider(Gameboy Advance)

  You could say he is very hot-headed.

 I feel like Marvel had a very decent success with their games on the Gameboy Advance, and Ghost Rider follows that trend. Not an exceptional game by any means, it's still a fairly decent beat'em up to the play on the go.

 This game is quite probably the closest thing the GBA got to something like Devil May Cry or God of War, as it's a beat'em up in which you get your combos graded, and the better you do the more purple souls you get which you can then use to enhance your stats. You have to main forms of attacking, punch combos with the B button and chain combos with the A button. If you wanna get naughty you can then use special moves, such as grabbing enemies with the chain by holding down A, perform aerial punches, the trademark Penance Stare or even use mana to set you body on fire. Or why not perform a sliding kick? The combat system is not super deep or anything, but your attacks look and feel powerful, and the combat system is snappy enough to feel good. That said, blocking enemies are just pricks, I wish they'd stop blocking my attacks!

 As not to get stale too quickly, every now and then you get behind-the-back bike stages which mix avoiding obstacles with a very rudimentary combat system: Just mash B when they are next to you or A if they are in front of you. Bike stages were a bit boring, but I feel like they give the player a necessary respite from the main meat of the game.

 Yeah, Ghost Rider is a neat little brawler on Nintendo's handheld. There are better beat'em ups to be found on the system for sure, but it considering how poorly so many GBA games have aged... this one can still stand on its own.

 6.5

Game #1029: Rat Attack!

  Did somebody call the exterminator?

 Ahh, yes, it's time for yet another game I wanted to play back when I was younger but never got to. It was impossible to avoid ads for Rat Attack!, although it was the N64 version I actually wanted since, well, I was a Nintendo lad. And even the mediocre reviews, once they came out, didn't deter me from longing for this game, which is how we end up here.

 This is the entire game: You get thrust into an square arena filled with objects, obstacles, hazards and pads. There's always at least one pad, the Eradicator, but other bonus pads may appear such as the enemy cloner and enemy upgrader. It's not too long before the rats spawn, and it's your job as a S.C.R.A.T.C.H Cat to kill them all. There are multiple ways to do so. Collect cat coins and unleash your super move, unique for each cat, maybe they get murdered by the same hazards that could kill you.... or you go, capture them and touch the eradicator pad to finally kill them. That's th game, and it holds true for all 40 stages.

 I like the aesthetics, I liked the idea but... the gameplay is way too basic, so the game gets boring during the first five stages. There's a multiplayer component which is probably more enjoyable, but sadly the mechanics aren't good enough to sustain the single player campaign. It's nice that you have different cats to choose from, and while their stats and designs are different, they all play basically the same.

 Yeah... Rat Attack! has a neat concept, but it's not good enough for a full-fledged game. I give it bonus points for the aesthetics, but that's as far as I could go.

 

3.0

Game #1028: Cool Boarders 4

 We're almost down this hill...

 After the developers changed and they got to make their own different but interesting take on the series I was excited to see what they would do with Cool Boarders 4. Well, it turns they didn't do much of anything, as the game is as derivative as it gets.

 Modes are similar to the third game, you can play a Single Event, a Tournament or Practice, but there's a new 'Trickmaster' in which you must perform specific tricks as you go down a hill. Like before, the game is divided into 5 mountains and each mountain has its own set of six events: Downhill, a race against other boarders, Slope Style, in which you race by yourself while scoring points, Half Pipe and Big Air which are self-explanatory, CBX, which is a race against other players while trying to go on the right side of certain gates and, lastly, the six event is single player-only and specific to each mountain. You might have to bump against every snowman on the track, or go down a hill while avoiding aliens. This sixth event is were most of the developers creative juices were put to work, which is a shame as it seems that's the only place in which this game shines.

 Seems extreme sports hit their stride by this time, because now racers are made up of, mostly, real boarders. There's an extremely basic character creator, to the point that you might not even want to bother. Cool Boarders have never had the best character models around, but.... why is everyone's head so big? This game is supposed to have real boarders, but they look SO weird. Honestly, the character models really threw me off.

 I thought that the previous game needed more speed, and, well, there is more speed in this one, which is welcome. Gameplay is exactly the same, with the jump charge gauge, streamlined trick system and even punching left or right is back for whatever reason. So, in theory the game should be better, since it plays exactly the same but faster, right? Well.... The tracks just feel so uninspired. Not counting the special events, every single track might as well be the same. The previous game had much more variety, the terrain might be different, the time of the day might be different, there were various visual clues to set each set of tracks apart. In this one, every race but the event ones feel the same.

 Yeah... Cool Boarders 4 wasn't exactly what I was expecting, seems like the series will end end up dying since it refused to evolve. That said, since the next game would make the jump into the PS2 I'm still hopeful that we can end on a high note. And mind you, the game is far, far from being bad, it's just that I expected something more of such a long-running PS1 series.

 6.0

Game #1027: Splashdown - Rides Gone Wild

 Nope, this is not a 'Gone Wild" spinoff.

 Splashdown was a surprisingly fun game, and while I don't think the IP ever got as much recognition as it deserved, it at least got enough sales to warrant a sequel, Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild. The game's cover tells you everything you need to know, as the game turned up the wackiness dial but, thankfully, without turning it into a parody of itself.
 

 The modes are: Training, which is a very decent tutorial on how to play the game, Arcade mode which is basically Single player events, Career which is a series of events and multiplayer. The game has one major change in its design, now there's more than just racing, and every event type has its own set of courses. Circuit events are your basic races to the end, you get 8 different themed tracks as well as all 12 'stadium' short tracks. These 8 tracks are the best in the game, and man... they look gorgeous. They are pretty large and they change from lap to lap, sometimes the changes are just visual, other times shortcuts open up if you can spot them. THAT said, these tracks are so intense.... that you'll probably be playing sub 30fps most of the time, which is disappointing. The wackier and crazier the track gets the more slowdown you'll suffer. Then you get Freestyle, which is a Single racer event in which you try to score point on five stadium-themed stages. Then you get Time Trials, single player affairs again, and Technical Time Trials which feature 20 different small tracks. You can race against other racers on these ones.

 As for this new event-driven courses I'm not sure what to make of it. Racing is when the game is at its best, and I'll tell you this, the 8 themed tracks are brilliant and better than anything the previous game had to offer... but you do get less racing 'non-stadium' tracks than the original game. Sure, the Stadium-themed tracks can be used too, but these are a bit boring.... although as a consequence of that, the framerate holds up much better! Plus, as a whole, this game is much bigger in quantity than the original.

 As far as gameplay goes, its basically identical to the previous game. Submarining, Bunny-hopping nad the performance gauge all return and play exactly like they used to. Well, almost. The performance gauge is now tiered, and now you get different tiers of stunts to fill each tier faster. In execution it doesn't really matter. Plus, the original game got the basics so well that not making any major change was probably the right idea.

 At first I wrote in my notes how the new music was very whimsical and tropical and... boring. Turns out that the 8 circuit tracks, by default, play this 'cinematic' music, but you can change it in the in-game pause menu to the licensed music that I expected. The new licensed music is a bit harder sounding that the original, and truth be told, I preferred the original game's soundtrack, but this one isn't bad at ALL.

 I'd hesitate to say that this sequel is superior to the original, while a lot more work went into the new racing tracks and the graphics are definitely better... the game has a lot of framerate issues that the original simply didn't have or didn't have it as bad. So taking the good with the bad... It's just as good as the original, exceeding it in a few areas while being inferior in a few others, which is why I'd find it hard to recommend one over the other.

 8.0

Game #1026: The Mummy(Gameboy Advance)

  Should've been left under the earth.

 I was never a fan of The Mummy, neither the movies nor the TV show, but the games were so cheap that I just had to get them. Maybe I shouldn't have.

 This is a puzzle/adventure game in which you play as the whole O'Conell family. Each member has a different ability, Rick is strong so he can push balls, turn levers, throw dynamite and hits the hardest... while walking super slowly. Evelyn's strength and speed are in between, she can shoot, um... sticks and can vault over pits as well as read hieroglyphics. Alex, their son, has access to magic spells and is the only character that can open certain chests, he is the weakest and runs the fastest. You can swap at any time by pressing R and every character gets their own health bar... which is a bit more problematic than it sounds.

 For you see, you need specific characters to clear specific tasks. If a character dies you are screwed unless you can fin a revival spot. And if you don't have enough money... well, good luck. Near the end of the game I had pretty much killed everything so I had to constantly get in-and-out of caves to respawn chests so that I could SLOWLY amass the money I needed to revive everyone. Getting myself killed was out of the question because I had pretty much cleared the dungeon, but since I couldn't open the chest and get the objective.... it meant the password wouldn't update and I REALLY didn't want to go over the entire dungeon again.

 Yeah, the password system isn't all that great. It's not based off your progress but rather goals, so every time you use a password you're back to 50 gold coins. And it could be a while before you get a new password.

 But the bigger problem is how boring the game can be. Everyone's running speed is pathetic, so you are moving to and fro ever so slowly. The puzzles aren't even hard, they simply take too long. Combat is awful too because your range is pathetic as well. I'll say this, the game was a bit more fun at first, so it's probably better enjoyed in short bursts.

 In short, The Mummy isn't a very good game, but I think they had the right idea, it's just that... they couldn't make the most of it.

 4.0

Game #1025: The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

  Budget Uncharted.

 I went into The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor with 0 expectations and I found myself going through so many ups and downs. Sometimes this low-budget Uncharted wanna be can be so undeservedly fun only to find yourself playing through poorly thought-out segments. It got so bad I didn't even finish the game.

 The game follows the plot of the movie with the same name... I think, since I didn't watch the movie! It opens up with a very choppy reel of the movie but then all you get are in-game STILLS but with a cellshaded coat of paint on top. That said, the in-game graphics are pretty decent for a licensed game, the framerate holds up well 'n' all. That said, you can tell this was made with the Wii in mind, because there are a ton of dull first-person gimmick segments in which you must use the analog sticks to emulate opening doors or turning cranks. It's really dumb and adds nothing to the game.

 The game is a third-person shooter/beat'em up hybrid. You get dual guns, dual shotguns, an assault rifle and grenades, but you also get a weak attack button, a strong attack button and a grab. There's not enough ammo to kill everything with bullets, so you should be mixing in some close-quarters combat in between your gunplay. In order to entice you to keep it varied, you'll get upgrades to your guns by defeating X amount of enemies with melee, X amount with guns and X amount with grabs... somewhat. You aren't told of these objectives until the level ends... and for whatever reason after stage 3 you stop getting upgrades for melee kills. Would've been nice to know, because I always tried to get those upgrades first, which means I didn't get the other upgrades 'cause I was waiting for the melee kill upgrade announcement to pop up.

 Since the game wants to be Uncharted, you also get a few parkour climbing sections, super simple and super unexciting, but they are there. You get regenerating health too, not like modern games in which the screen gets redder and redder, but you actually have a health gauge that slowly refills over time. There's no cover system, so if you want to heal... just run away from enemies until you feel safe. It's... a weird design choice. Speaking of weird, you can only save AFTER you clear a stage, and each stage lasts about 30 minutes, so you're in it for the long haul. On the other hand, the game is only six stages short.

 The game's basic gameplay feels decent enough, fighting enemies isn't the most exciting thing ever, but it can be fun. But later in the game you are bogged down by overly-large enemy waves. And they keep respawning from the same points. For instance, Stage 3, there's an arena in which about 10 grenade-men respawn in the same place. And these guys can get you from anywhere, so you want to prioritize killing them, but they keep coming, and in-between you also have to deal with the other enemies that are both swarming you and shooting at you. It goes on for too long, and at some point you'll probably have to run away to let your health refill. And Stage 3 has an AWFUL on-rails shooting segments in which enemies can very well stunlock you if they get to shoot at you. And it's pretty much impossible to kill the grenade-men before they get you at least once.

 And then... comes Stage 5. After this AWFUL turret section in which you've barely got enough time to defeat the enemies coming towards you WHILE defeating the enemies shooting at you... You face one of the worst bosses I've ever fought in a videogame. It has a three-tiered life bar that goes on forever as you slowly chip away itse health. And there's no pattern, it could take a while before its shield goes down, and for how long it stays down is completely random. Now then, you must lock on to it in order to keep track of it and not to miss your shots, but you also need to jump over its shockwaves. But to jump you need to let go off the lock-on, otherwise your jump turns into a roll. You'll probably try to jump without moving, as not to lose track of the enemy.... so sometimes it loves to shoot two shockwaves that you must jump, but AS you jump the second shockwave it LOVES to attack you. And since you are in the air, if it decides to do so, there's no way for you to avoid it. And every single attack depletes like a third of your life bar. Look, I tried more than a few times, but after a while... my time is more valuable than this garbage. I gave up, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

 Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is another one for the bargain bin. It's a bit saddening, because the core mechanics aren't bad at all, but man, are some parts of the games just too poorly designed to the point that it becomes annoying.

 4.5

Game #1024: Shrek Super Slam (Gameboy Advance)

  Surely it's gotta be as surprisingly good as the console game, right?..... right?

 Shrek Super Slam on home consoles was SO good, so much better than it had ANY right to be. In my mind, I remembered a fighting game with chibi-sprites  featuring Shrek, so I thought it might be this one. It wasn't. Also, since the console game was so good I expected something at least half as good. It isn't.

 From an arena-fighter to the blandest 2-D platform fighter, think Smash Bros., you could find, that's Super Slam on the Gameboy Advance. The controls are terrible, UP is used to jump and the jumping arc is so stiff. You mash A to attack, and you can use Up or Down to change the attack, B and Down+B are your other attacks. But there's like no knockback on attacks, so it feels so weird. Like, you can mash A while the enemy mashes A and you both hit each other. It feels so cheap and floaty. The objective of the game is to land attacks to fill your Slam gauge and then your next attack is a Slam and you score a point.

 There are 10 characters and three modes: Story Mode, which features and intro and an ending for six of the characters, and I kid you not, Prince Charming's story mode ends with Shrek with magic wand up his butt. I am not making this up. It has you fighting through various forgettable battles. There's Challenge that features more battles sans context and then Melee in which you and up to 3 other players or CPUs can duke it out. That's it.

 Man, I gotta comment on the graphics, they are so ugly and the animations are so choppy that this feels like a bootleg game. This officially licensed game feels like one of those NES Chinese bootlegs, it's THAT bad.

 I've absolutely nothing good to say about this travesty. It's not fun in any way, shape or form, not even in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. And the fact that the original game was so good only adds salt to the injury.

 1.0

Game #1023: Franklin's Great Adventures

  And I thought the other Franklin game was slow as a turtle....

 Man, what is it with Franklin that he gets these slow as molasses platformers? Well, it seems I like to torture myself, because here I am again, this time facing the horror that is Franklin's Great Adventures.

 This game takes after the PS2 game I played recently, being a mixture of a platformer but also having various simple and boring minigames to play. Minigames are all kinds of dumb, like sorting items, flying a kite(In which you only need to mash A, that's the whole minigame), etc. And as you unlock minigames in the Story Mode, be it by 'purchasing' them on the overworld from NPCs or by finding every collectible in a stage you'll then be able to play them by themselves from the main menu, but why would you?

 The platforming sections could've been fun if only there weren't so slow paced. By the second or third stage, Franklin will be joined by one of his friends, either Bear or Beaver, and they each have different abilities. Bear can climb on certain stairs and Beaver can swim, as well as push floating platforms. Then the game quickly turns into a puzzle platformer, in which you must figure out how to get to different switches and how to activate them. The problem is... it's SO slow. Say, you might walk with Franklin a long stretch only to figure out that it was Bear who should've gone that way, so now you must slowly backtrack to were bear is, since you probably left him at the fork, take the OTHER path with Franklin and then swap control to Bear and go back through your first steps. And you might need to think how to solve the puzzle, by moving around, which is also so slow and therefore boring.

 And that's all I have to say. The switch-based puzzles aren't half bad and the graphics are pretty good, but the game is slow to the point of boredom, and that's what killed any enjoyment I could have gotten out of the game.

2.0

Game #1022: Spongebob Squarepants - Revenge of the Flying Dutchman

  This game is as full of holes as its hero.

 Mandatory I don't really like Spongebob but I heard the games were good disclaimer. With that out of the way, if I'm not mistaken, Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman was Bob's first outing on the PS2, so expecting something as good as Battle for Bikini Bottom would've been pure folly. And that's the right mindset, as RotFD is on a whole different league.... beneath it.

 When I first started the game I didn't know just what I was supposed to be doing. Was it a platform game? An open world game? What was I playing? Well, all I had to do was press Start to get a to-do list of objectives. Basically, you must go through seven stages while completing every single goal on that level's list. Goals are from simple platform challenges, to collecting X amount of coins or fulfilling other more specific goals. I'll tell ya this, at first I wasn't really feeling it, but the game slowly grew on me.

 At the start, Spongebob has access to the world's shortest Karate chop, making it so that combat is a chore, a jump, a charged jump, rolling and sneaking. As you make your way through the game you'll unlock costumes. Fishman, which lets you capture Jellyfishes, plus, now you attack with a rod that grants you longer range on your attacks. Merman costume, which you only need to you twice, and turns your attacks into projectiles and, lastly, windblower, which is used to push a few objects when the game requires it. The one annoyance with the costumes... is that you need to find a tent to change outfits, worst case scenario you'll have to go to another zone to find a tent... and that's a risk.

 Before I get to the game's largest issue, I'll mention a few smaller gripes. For instance, every level has Jellyfishes that you must collect, and you must, because the game will put two roadblocks, one requiring 100 total jellyfishes and another one 150 total jellyfishes. And, if you don't know that 150 is the last time you'll need Jellyfishes you might, like me, get tricked into continuing the hunt. Oh, and in one of the final levels, you have to use the windblower to push a golf ball through a course.... you'll waste SO much time here because it's so easy for the ball to fall down. It was SO annoying. And unlike, say, Battle for Bikini Bottom, you DO need to fulfill every item on the list in order to finish the game.

 Alright, now onto the big one, the reason I mentioned that changing areas is a risk. Y'see, at first I thought it might've been my Ps2's laser, since this game comes on a CD and not a DVD, your PS2 will produce sounds akin to an electric saw the whole way through. Well, whenever you enter a loading screen there's a chance that the game will freeze or return to the memory card menu. I managed to finish the game, but at some points I had like 5 of these 'returns to memory screen menu' in a row while trying to reload my save, I thought that the disc had finally broken or something. But nope, it's a well known issue with the PS2 version of this game. And it's super annoying. 

 The game, at its best, can be quite decent, but mixed between the fun goals you also get a few that are super boring or annoying, be it because of tedium or questionable level design. But, really, it's the Loading bug that ruins the game, as having to be paranoid about saving your game before and after every loading screen isn't my idea of fun.

4.0

Game #1021: Star Wars Trilogy - Apprentice of the Force

  Don't panic! It means the old trilogy, the original trilogy.

 First of all, lemme say that the premise behind Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force is brilliant. Basically, it's a 2-D action game that covers all three movies from Luke's point of view. Like, why haven't we gotten a game like this before, albeit on more powerful hardware and with a larger budget? 

 Apprentice of the Force, being made by Ubisoft, recycles their PoP: Sands of Time Advance engine, and on paper it works decently. While it looks bad, 3-D digitalized graphics on the GBA are too ugly, it's fairly fast paced, and Luke can jump, dash, cling on to platforms, roll, and perform all sorts of fun slashes, from ground pounds to spinning aerial slashes, saber uppercuts, etc. I'll tell ya this, Luke's moveset is pretty complete, and you even get more and more abilities as you go through the game, eventually unlocking force powers, which consume energy: Push, Heal, Slodown time and an enemy-clearing attack.

 So far so good, but... it's a bit bland. While you get a nice amount of moves, the game quickly looses its luster as you fight large waves of enemies. And most of the time, you can't keep moving forward until you defeat every enemy, so have fun. Ironically of a game using the PoP engine, the platforming leaves a lot to be desired. Early in the game you are faced with pixel-perfect jumps which are just annoying, eventually you get a dash and a double jump, but still, the early going is rough. And what's up with clinging on to platforms? Sometimes Luke will easy cling on to a platform, while other times he simply won't for no reason whatsoever, leaving you trying to jump to its edge over and over again until Luke finally grabs its edge.

 The first set of levels, Episode IV, also include a few ship levels that are SO bad that they give you regenerating health. So you shoot a few enemies, take damage you just can't avoid and then escape for a minute or two waiting for your health to regenerate. Boring! The game did need a few respites from the frequent beat'em up/platforming stages, but these variety sections are so bad they shouldn't even have bothered.

 Despite covering all three movies, the game is fairly short. Probably because it keeps to Luke's point of view. That said, considering how repetitive it gets by the last few stages... maybe it's for the best.

 Apprentice of the Force it's not too bad, but it's not very good either. It's a bit too repetitive and boring, which is a bit of a letdown considering how good the concept behind the game is. It's said concept that makes me appreciate what the game does despite its gameplay shortcomings. But really, one could do much worse when it comes to Star Wars games than this one.

 5.0

Game #1020: Crash Bandicoot - The Huge Adventure

 Crashing into the GBA.

 About 10 years ago I played the second Crash game on the GBA, and it was pretty good so I made a mental note to get the first game, Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure sometime. And, 10 years later, here we are.

 The Huge Adventure does a decent job at adapting Crash to the little handheld, featuring bite-sized levels that pay homage to its big brothers on home consoles. Most stages are 2-D platforming affairs, using the GBA's ugly-but-trademark digitalized sprites, as well as some swimming stages, some running-towards-the-camera-chase stages and a few flying stages, the latter ones being the least fun. While stages are brief you do get everything that classic Crash had to offer, a pink gem on every level, a silver gem for breaking all boxes as well as colored gems that open up secret areas on some stages, heck, there are even time trials and the platforms that take you to bonus stages! It feels very complete.

 At first you start off with Crash 2's basic moveset, the jump, the slam, the slide and the spin attack, but as you defeat bosses you unlock new moves, just like in Crash 3, the super slam, the tornado glide, the double jump and the running shoes. The tornado glide and the double jump don't feel very good, however. I don't remember if this holds true for its sequel, but when you double jump Crash stops for a few seconds before the second jump goes off which threw me off a lot at first. As for the Tornado glide, it seems like the sections that require it to proceed are a bit too tight, and mashing B hoping you glide isn't the most precise of maneuvers. 

 The game has 20 levels, as well as a secret 21st level. It is super short, you can probably finish the game in 20 levels, provided you aren't going for 100% completion. Still, for a handheld game it works. I do want to gripe about the level design, as some of the latter levels can get a bit nasty, with obstacles that are impossible to know are coming until you get hit by them, heck, I remember having to deal with a few leaps of faith here and there, praying that I'd land somewhere safe. On the flipside, the game is super generous with extra lives, so when you are rockin' over 60 spare lives, losing a few to cheap deaths doesn't feel too bitter.

 I quite liked The Huge Adventure, as I feel it did a great job at adapting the game to a handheld. On the other hand, I do wish some of the level design was a bit tighter, and a few more levels wouldn't have hurt either. Still, not a bad way to kill some time.

 6.0

Game #1019: Cool Boarders 3

  We still goin' down this Cool Boarders slope!

 Now this is different, Cool Boarders 3 is more than just the third iteration of the series, as we've actually changed developers now. And it shows, it feels very different from what came before, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your own personal taste.

 The gameplay is very different. Now we get a charge gauge for your jumps, start charging your jump too early and you'll actually lose 'power' on your jump! The higher the charge by the time you let go of the jump button the higher you'll jump and the faster you spin. If you asked me, I think copying Tony Hawk's controls would be the best alternative, but what they did here works too. No longer confined to limited shoulder button + specific directional inputs, now you get flip tricks on the circle button and grab tricks on the X button, the same button you use to jump which does take a bit of getting used to. R2 and L2 are used to spin around. Overall, I much prefer these controls to what came before it, now doubt about it. In this game they also added, erm... punching. Yeah, L1 and R1 can be used to punch other boarders.... can't say I found it a good addition, but it takes nothing away from the game I think. It's just an amusing new feature.

 While I think the gameplay is much better, I do feel like the presentation took a bit of a hit. Mind you, these character models are better than the ones from the previous game, but the game feels slower. It's not too bad, but I miss the sense of speed I got from the previous games. Heck, the music was what made the first game memorable, but this game's music is just bland rock riffs. The game might have more than one track, I don't know because it all sounded so generic.

 Modes are now divided into Tournament, which is a set of events back to back, Single Event, Practice and Multiplayer. The game is divided into 5 Mountains with 6 events each, and each event has its own track on the mountain. The events are: Down Hill, which is a race against 3 other boarders, Boarder X, which is a race in which you must go through the right gates, Slalom, which is a two man race going through gates, then there's Half Pipe and Big Air, both based on scoring points by yourself and, lastly, Slope Style, in which you race by yourself down the track while trying to score the most points. There's also a sixth bonus mountain in which you must survive an avalanche, not a bad way to end the game!

 Despite the game feeling slower than before, I gotta say I really enjoyed the changes brought to the series. I found this game to be more enjoyable to play than the ones that came before, so I'm excited to see how 989 Studios tackled the next few games.

6.0

Game #1018: Disney's Treasure Planet(Playstation 1)

 Treasure Planet also got a smaller PS1 release... is this a Treasure Asteroid?

 Now this is something I miss so much, when games used to get widely different releases between platforms, as Disney's Treasure Planet on PS1 is not just a 'downscaled' or 'downgraded' version of the PS2 game, but rather, a completely different take on the same license. And, while not many would agree with me, I'd say a pretty good one too!

 I'll be honest, coming to this game right after finishing the PS2 version was harsh. I boot up the game and everything feels so clunky, the animations are janky, the framerate is pathetic and the graphics are rudimentary to say the least. But I kept on playing, I got used to how it felt and played and I learned to enjoy it. Just like the PS2 release, this is a platformer with a small collectathon element. This time around you are collecting Tokens, the game has 32 in all but you only need 18. That said, the final three Tokens are found on the final stage, so technically, you need 18 out of 29 to get to the final stage. The game has four worlds with 2 to 3 stages each. Worlds 1 and 3 have a platforming and a racing stage each, while worlds 2 and 4 have a platforming stage, a racing stage and a boss. Yeah, it's a bit short, but it doesn't overstay its welcome.

 On platforming stages, Jim gets a clunky sword attack and a short-range blaster. Some enemies are better tackled with the sword, others with the gun. You get a double jump, and the range in which Jim can cling onto an edge seems pretty arbitrary, so just try jumping against everything. You also get a glide by tapping Triangle, and you aren't told about this move until the third world, which, dude, I could've used this move before! Moving around feels a bit clunky, but once you get used to it its perfectly tolerable. Each platforming stage has 5 tokens to find. Some are hidden behind minigames, such as first person shooting galleries, others are obtained by solving simple platforming challenges or combat.

 Racing stages are this game's version of Solar Surfing, and just like on PS2, these are surprisingly fun. In this iteration these are literal 6-lap races against time, and you can get up to three Tokens depending on how fast you clear the stage.

 Just like the PS2 version, this game does a poor job at conveying the story from the game. It actually has a few more clips than the PS2, but once again, John Silver's infiltration and betrayal isn't well conveyed.

 I've seen both critic's reviews and 'unofficial' reviews and neither were very kind to this game. But I disagree. I think that while short, every level has the right amount of variety and obstacles to overcome so the game keeps feeling fresh. While there's no denying that the overall game is kinda janky, I think it's far, far from terrible, and all the jank is something you can get used to and actually enjoy the game hidden beneath. I dunno, I think it's worth a look.

6.5

Game #1017: Disney's Treasure Planet(Playstation 2)

  A hidden Jak and Daxter game?!

 Well, Disney's Treasure Planet took me by surprise because it's a linear platforming game that takes its cues from Jak and Daxter, of all things. While I never watched the movie from beginning to end, I did catch it a few times on cable, midway through, and I liked what I saw, so I guess I have some sort of a soft spot for the original material.

 In this game your objective is to turn on beacons. The game has about 20 stages, and 17 of those have 5 beacons for you to 'collect', the other 3 being bosses. You don't need to turn on all 85 beacons, but game progression is gated behind them. All in all, you only need about 62 of them to finish the game, so you could skip some stages if you want. There are two types of stages, on-foot and Solar Surfing. Beacons are not simply 'found', some technically are since they are activated after clearing some sort of platforming challenge, but others require clearing conditions such as collecting every Doubloon in the stage or 10 bits of green energy. Solar Surfing stages tend to have beacons unlocked by performing time feats, such as performing three laps around the stage, going through rings, etc.

 The on-foot stages were my favorite, Jim gets a spin-attack and a lounging-punch, just like Jak. For platforming you get a double jump. It works pretty well, it's not the smoothest platformer around, but it works pretty well and the stages are fun. Sometimes you'll have to work with temporary power ups, such as Power Gauntlets that lets you lift heavy stuff, another one that lets you activate switches, one that lets you glide, etc. It's super simple, but I think it's pretty competent. There were two small annoyances, firstly, sometimes lifting stuff with the gauntlets can be cumbersome, since you must use the Crouch button but you need to position yourself right next to the thing or it won't work. The other one is the camera, sometimes you won't be able to twist it the way you want to. To be fair, R2 will zip the camera behind your back no matter what, but still.

 Alright, so I'm usually pretty anal about 'mini-games' and the sort... but Solar Surfing was pretty decent. In a way, these are more platforming stages, except that you are moving around on a flying skate and the goals you're given are less puzzle-y. The board is responsive to your inputs, I liked how speedy it could get and the level design was pretty good. That said, I'll admit I skipped a few goals on the final two Solar Surfing stages since I couldn't be bothered.

 I think the game does falter a bit when it comes to portraying the movie's plot. We get scenes from the movie, which is pretty neat, but the story is not told very well. I don't think John Silver's betrayal is well conveyed at all. If you've seen the movie or if you're familiar with the Treasure Island novel you'll know how the story pans out, but otherwise the story doesn't feel very cohesive, which is a shame.

 From the fact that it borrows gameplay elements from Jak and Daxter to how fun the levels were, it took me by surprise just how good this game was. Mind you, it's nothing ground-breaking, it's a low-budget licensed game after all, but I feel like the developers tried their best and managed to get something quite good out of it.

 7.0

Game #1016: Freekstyle

  Time to get freeky.

 Seems this year will be filled with extreme sports and getting out of my comfort zone, as Freekstyle is a flippin' dirtbike racing game. What am I doing playing this? I don't know!

 The game has a single player campaign, named Circuit, which is where you'll unlock most things, Single Race, letting you race on any of the measly 6 tracks available, as well as Free Ride, which is self explanatory and Freestyle in which you must aim to score points on 3 unique tracks to this mode. While the amount of characters is pretty decent, and each one has an assortment of bikes and costumes to unlock... there's no denying that there is a noticeable lack of tracks to race in. I'll give it this, all six main tracks are fairly distinctive and well designed, although I thought the final track could be a bit confusing, but it's still a rather small amount.

 Gameplay keeps it simple: X accelerates, Square boosts and R1, R2, L1 and L2 perform tricks, what's more any combination of the shoulder buttons nets you different tricks and pressing Square while performing a trick will get you another trick. If you continue to land tricks without wiping out you'll fill a red gauge, once full you can attempt the all-shoulder-button super trick, which upon landing will get you a super long turbo! I gotta say, I loved the sense of speed in the game.

 I don't have much more to add as I'm clearly out of my element here, but I thought Freekstyle was pretty good, I simply would've liked to have more of it.

7.0

Game #1015: Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

  Did we learn NOTHING from Shadow the Hedgehog?

 Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal is.... is.... is a third person shooter/beat'em up hybrid. Who... who asked for this? No, really, who thought that the Looney Tunes carrying guns was a good idea? I want names and I want heads! But, y'know, a terrible premise can be salvaged by tip top gameplay, something that this game clearly lacks.

 Is there a story to this game? There seems to be, but there's no intro, you press the 'Story' option and you are thrust into Mission Select. It seems the Looney Tunes must band together and go back in time to destroy countless, generic robots. A terrible idea with a vapid execution, exactly what the doctor ordered! At least the game can be played in co-op with another player, and there is a deathmatch mode in case you want to torture someone. If you are by yourself, you can swap between characters with the L1 button, each character having his own independent life bar.

 70% of the game is played like a beat'em up, Square is your three hit combo, triangle is your strong attack and circle performs a super weak attack that hits all around you. Every character has different animations, but they play exactly the same. You can power up your attacks by collecting green pick ups and filling up your green energy bar, up to two levels, and to be fair it's kinda neat how their weapon changes. Marvin's swords get bigger, Bugs gets different, bigger guitars, Daffy gets different, bigger hammers, etc. On the other hand they cut costs with Taz and Hulk Bugs Bunny(Yeah...) since they only get differently colored trails. Lame(Taz is my favorite Looney Tune!). There's this very weird mechanic in which CERTAIN enemies, and only certain enemies, can actually zap some of these energy from your gauge, even leveling down your strength level! It's kinda dumb, particularly when enemies pelt you away from afar and as you awkwardly make your way towards them you are penalized because screw you.

 Eventually you may come across a gun, maybe you spend in-game money to get it or you find it... they have very limited ammo but are definitely stronger than your melee attacks. Despite proudly displaying guns in the game's cover, they sure play a small part in the game. Weapons 'try' to be silly, like a gun that shoots baseballs, a gun that shoots bear traps and a useless gun that shoots a mallet that hits enemies, but they just come across as uninspired.

 Lastly, there are 3 or 4 racing stages and these are awful. They are too long, which makes them boring, but the controls are awful, who tested this? Who thought this worked? Triangle accelerates and... X jumps. HOW does that make ANY Sense at all? AS far as I know you can't change controls, so how did people testing this game never protest about this? It makes no sense!!! And to make it even more fun, R2 is used to shoot. Basically, during racing stages my right hand would bend into this very awkward position so that I could hold down triangle and R2 together while letting me tap X to jump. It makes no sense.

  The worst part about the game is how lifeless it feels. The game is so unbearably boring, with a combat system that lulls you into sleep. Hitting stuff just isn't fun, satisfying or rewarding, and if 70% of your game is about hitting stuff... you are doing something VERY wrong. Guns are just as drab, everything in the game lacks weight and oomph, heck, your characters slip all over the place when attacking. It feels as cheap as it looks.

 So, to get you up to speed: Terrible premise and boring gameplay, how could it get any worse? Well, it runs like hot garbage, at least on PS2. The game is constantly stuttering and micro-freezing while you play. One stage had the music get stuck and a blue screen of death would start showing up saying "Difficulty Reading the disc"...but my disc looked fine. I looked it up only and at least another person got the same error even though their disc looked fine too!

 Acme Arsenal is easily one of the worst, if not THE worst game I've played so far in 2021. It kinda makes me glad to know that it'd be hard to play something worse than this. Can't say I don't look for the bright side, eh!

 1.5

Game #1014: Tarzan

 I'll have none of your monkey business!

 While I don't think I thought it was a great game, back when I was younger, even though I didn't watch the movie nor was I interested in it, I'd play Tarzan all the time, albeit the PC port. Having given it another go yesterday, I can understand why, as I feel this is one of Disney's better licensed games I have played recently.

 The story covers the plot from the movie, while using a fair amount of scenes from it, they even kept some songs! That in and of itself makes it a fantastic licensed game. As for the gameplay, it's a 2.5D platformer. All the graphics are in 3-D, and it looks quite good for the PS1, but you move strictly in 2-D, even if there are a few twisting paths here and there than play with the third dimension. Near the end of the game there are 2 stages in which you actually get full 3-D movement, but they are fairly short and the exception to the rule.

 It's not particularly hard, but you'll probably want to be careful and try to amass as many lives as you can, as every single animal in the jungle is out to get you. While Tarzan can jump and swing like the best of them, you get two forms of attacks: Low and High fruit throws as well as a knife attacks, if you can find the knife in each level. The thing is... all your attack animations are super slow, so you'll probably get hit a bunch of times before you actually hit the enemy. Movement feels a bit janky too, and sometimes it's hard to spot enemies before getting hit. Like I said before, it's not too hard, but there's a certain challenge here... but it doesn't feel quite like getting hit is your fault most of the time.

 Jankiness aside, I feel like the game is fun. The levels you explore are entertaining, and since you'll want to gather as many lives as you can you'll find yourself exploring them in order to find the collectibles so that you can play the bonus levels. While about 10 of the 13 levels take place in the jungle, somehow they managed not to make the game feel repetitive, I think it has to do with the obstacles you have to face as well as the unique segments each level has. The music is absolutely delightful, which probably helps in making everything feel so charming.

 It's not the best platformer game you can find on the system, that's for sure, but I think the game manages to be at least competent and it succeeds as a licensed game by adapting the movie. The fact that we get scenes AND songs from the movie only makes it better.

 6.0

Game #1013: Punky Skunk

  It doesn't stink!

 Punky Skunk is an interesting case, it's a fully 2-D platformer that was originally conceived for the SNES, but after they finished it... they decided to remake it from scratch on the PS1. That's why, for all intents and purposes, this feels like a proper SNES platformer, albeit with more colorful graphics, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 Punky has a very basic moveset, a jump, do be careful as you can't defeat enemies this way, as well as, umm... a short-range stinky spray as his basic attack, he is a skunk after all! This game's gimmick are costumes, as in every stage Punk can find a costume that gives him an alternate moveset: Parachute, to glide around, a Pogo Stick for higher jumps, as well as the ability to smash on enemies, a Snowboard to slide around, Roller Skates which work as a more manageable snowboard and, lastly, Digging claws. You can take off your costume at any moment by pressing Circle, and sometimes you'll need to since you lose the Spray attack while wearing a costume. A few of the final stages will feature two costumes, but you can only have one to swap with at any time.

 Y'know, the game is fairly simple, but it works well. Stages are fairly small, but there's an incentive to explore: Extra hitpoints. Hidden throughout most levels are Candle enemies. Defeating them allows you to try a minigame, beat the minigame and you get a hitpoint-piece, collect four and you'll get a permanent extra hit point! Some mini-games are a bit annoying, like the Reels, but it's not too bad.

 Something I didn't like too much were the boss battles, as they are usually mini-game-ish. At best they are, well, dull, and at worst they are annoying. The Volleyball boss is particularly wonky, I looked up online what I was doing wrong, but once I figured out that pressing square as soon as the ball touched Punky's hair spikes it became a piece of cake. That said, the final boss was the best fight in the entire game, thankfully.

 Another thing I didn't like was the final stage, it's a maze, and until you figure it out you'll be going around in loops. Not fun. A few levels were a bit poorly designed, usually the ones in which you are supposed to use the snowboard or the skates and need to react to a pit in seconds flat. The game is fairly generous with lives, however, so I was never close to a game over.

 It's not perfect, far from it, but I enjoyed my time with Punky Skunk, and I sort of find it neat to have a SNES-style platformer on the system. It could've used some more polish in the gameplay department, but, y'know, it's serviceable.

 6.5

Game #1012: Cool Boarders 2

 And now, it finally has hot boarders... with a cheat code.

 And thus, I continue sliding off the snow mountain that is the Cool Boarders series with Cool Boarders 2, the second entry that made the first game look like a beta. More racers, more coursers and more modes... it's certainly a step in the right direction.

 Let's start with the Modes: Competition is the Story Mode in which you go through all 10 tracks against 7 CPU racers. Freestyle is either a race against yourself.. or against another player, yes, we finally have multiplayer! Big air is a mini-mode in which you try to score the best you can off a huge jump, Half-Pipe is about scoring as you go down a half pipe and Board Park is a pseudo-tutorial. Basically, this feels like a proper game.

 There are more racers than in the previous game, and you can customize their clothes, there isn't much variety, but hey, they tried! Character models are still a bit goofy, but not as bad as the first game. Oh! And there's a code to dress up the girls in a leather corset(It was the 90's, cut them some slack) and a school uniform.

 While the added content is very welcome, I still think the game is a bit clunky. The trickset is very limited and very specific, for example, R2+Left does nothing, and coming out of the Tony Hawk series that feels... it feels wrong. And it is unfair, but as someone that doesn't play sports games, that makes it less fun than another game I could be playing to scratch a very similar itch. I doubt it was my joystick, but sometimes it felt like the timing to pull off tricks was very... strict, as my tricks failed to come out at times. I don't know... Also, while the music is still good, I think the first game had more memorable tracks.

  While it's a step up from the first game, I think that it still feels a bit too clunky. Look, it's not like I can't step out of my comfort zone, I really liked Trick 'n' Snowboarding, for example, but I think it'd take a snowboarding fan to enjoy a game as aged as this one. 

 4.5

Game #1011: The Powerpuff Girls - Relish Rampage

 It's missing the chemical X.

  If you didn't watch The Powerpuff Girls your childhood sucks. If you did, and then in your adulthood you play The Powerpuff Girls: Relish Rampage then your adulthood sucks... hey! Wait a minute...

 Well, this game is even worse than I expected. First, the good. It's semi-open world, you play as one of the girls while the other two float behind you and do nothing. You can swap characters by pressing L3, but... there's no benefit. Buttercup has a different-looking projectile attack than the other two, but that's about it. Anyways, flying around town feels decent, and if you hold down R2 you'll fly very fast, and... it can be fun. While the girls fly, and you can increase or decrease their altitude with L1 and L2... you can't fly over buildings, so you are stuck to the streets, which is a bit silly, but, in a way, moving around while taking curves and the such doesn't feel half bad! That said, that's about the only good thing I could say about the game.

 For you see, even the intro when you start the game is lame. It's in-game footage of the girls flying around the the blandest tune ever composed. The game is semi-open world, but you always have an objective and you are guided towards it by a yellow arrow. Not all objectives are limited by time, but besides health pack there's no reason to explore town, there are very few collectibles, but they are worthless.

 The combat is SO bad. Not only is the range on your attacks pathetic, meaning you have to get obscenely close to your enemies to hurt them, but your special moves, like the eye beams, run on a cooldown. You can spend Chemical X bottles to use stronger moves, like a tornado or ice breath, but they aren't particularly useful, heck, you can get hit while spinning in tornado form, making it more of a hassle than anything else. But the real kicker is that the targeting system sucks. Sometimes the game wouldn't lock onto my enemies I don't know why. I'd go in circles around them mashing R1 to no avail, I think it had something to do with getting on the same altitude level as them, but I'm not sure. But even once you lock onto an enemy... there's no guarantee it'll be the enemy you wish to target! And there's no easy way to cycle between targets, just keep mashing R1 until you get the right one. Dumb!

 Wait, there's another good thing I can say about the game! It only lasts an hour and a half, and then you are done with this shovelware. Man, the Powerpuff girls deserved much better.

2.0

Game #1010: Resident Evil VIllage

  So... the next one is gonna be Resident Evil Ixnay?

 I shouldn't have played Resident Evil Village considering how constrained I'm for time, how it's not even October and how I haven't played VII yet, even though I own it. But then again, I've never played the series in order(3 was my first!) so why start now? I skipped pretty much every trailer, sans the reveal, for this game, but what little I saw gave me Resident Evil 4 vibes, so I somehow fell into the hype and played this game before I planned to. Ah, well!

 The game follows VII's blueprint. You play as Ethan, the same guy from the previous game, it's in third person and once again, it's you against a family of monsters. There's even a moment in which you are captured and you get to meet all four of them(I haven't played VII, but I've seen the family dinner scene!). On the other hand, just like REvil 4, you start off in a Village and even visit a Castle, there's a mysterious merchant that manages to find his way everywhere you go and you even fight creatures that are far, far from zombies, including werewolf-like creatures and even pseudo-vampiric creatures. That said, at least Las Plagas behaved like Zombies. At no point did I feel like I was playing a Resident Evil game, but it's not something I'd hold against it. Heck, you even get to hear Chris curse which felt odd...

 ...speaking of Chris, nobody ever believed that he was Evil. Oh, c'mon, it's not even a spoiler, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. But I'll tell you this, the writing surrounding Chris was terrible. Of course he has some very dumb lines that are supposed to paint him as a villain, but you'll never believe them, and him being such a prick only makes him look like an idiot. The entire game could've been avoided if he gave Ethan some explanations, y'know, the guy he met in the previous game? It's just bad writing, but doesn't enter the realm of cheesy, sadly, as cheesy could've helped. The rest of the plot is alright, I liked the four main baddies and I definitely liked the setting the game is set in, although the interior of the factory was a bit too much. But hey, REvil 4 went into a military island, so REvil VIII gets to have its own out-of-place area too! 

 The game feels like a Metroidvania of sorts. Besides the four domains of each Lord, the village acts as a HUB to which you'll return after every boss fight. And as you advance through the game you'll be getting tools that will open up secret areas or secret goodies, so while you could keep moving from objective to objective, exploration will reap bountiful rewards, such as new, stronger weapons or maybe just supplies. There are animals out in the wild that you should kill, as you can use their meat for permanent upgrades to your health and defense. Oh! And just like in Resident Evil 4, you have a limited inventory, which you can upgrade, although I never found myself out of space, but then again, I purchased the inventory upgrades as soon as they became available. You'll also come across treasure, and just like in the fourth numbered entry, some treasure can be combined to add even more sale value!

 The shooting part of the game works really well, not only will you be getting multiple weapon types, but multiple weapons for each type. There's no reason to carry two different pistols since they use the same ammo source, but it's nice to have options. You can also upgrade your weapons when you are at the merchant. The one thing I didn't like so much is that you only get four shortcuts. That's fine... at first, but you'll want to have the knife at hand, which while completely useless in a fight, trust me, I tried fighting the very first enemy with the knife and got myself killed, it's the best way to break vases, and then you get three slots. Maybe the pistol, the shotgun and the Rifle? That's fair, but... you've also got mines, you've got grenades, you've got the grenade launcher, you've got the Magnum... there's too much weaponry for only four slots. I think maybe having double taps(Like pressing left on the digital pad twice) to have up to 8 slots would've worked well. Short cuts aside, I've no qualms with the combat. It's slow paced, if you shoot like a madman your accuracy will decrease a lot, but it's a survival horror game, so it makes sense in this context.

 There's a very simple crafting mechanic, which you'll use to get healing items and more ammo. I played in the Standard difficulty setting and a few times I cut it really close with running out of ammo, a few times I had to use my money, which I saved up for weapon upgrades, on ammo. Like in the REMAKE games, the map will highlight in red areas in which you haven't found every item, which was pretty useful.

 The game has an interesting pace. The first lord, Lady Dimitrescu, is sort of like Clock Tower, you must explore her castle while solving puzzles, but be ready to run at any moment as both her and her daughters will randomly spawn near you. The castle isn't big enough for the stalker mechanic, I think, and it's pretty easy to just run to the merchant's room, since they can't get there, and watch them through the open door, since you are invisible to them while inside that room, until they are gone. That said, since the castle isn't too big this is not too annoying and you'll be able to clear this area without too much hassle, but it's certainly one of the longest bits in the game. The next Lord is puzzle-based, you are deprived from weapons and even the fight is just a puzzle. The game isn't very scary, but this is probably the scariest part in the game.

 The next lord has no gimmicks, it's got a few puzzles and a bit of shooting, but it's not like Dimitrescu's castle in which you went round and round, gathering items to solve puzzles. And, the fourth lord is pretty much completely based on fighting, and you'll wish you had more ammo! These firefights can get intense because their numbers are so high and your ammo isn't. Well, it's certainly a very varied game, which works well in this game, but it also means that there are parts you will probably like more than others, so it's a bit of a double edged sword.

 Beating the game unlocks the Extras shop, where you can buy weapons with infinite ammo as well as The Mercenaries. It's a bit more limited than other Mercenaries mode, you can only play as Ethan and all 8 stages are made up of recycled environments, not even repurposed. But hey, it's fun, and you can collect perks as you beat baddies.

 Lastly, back when the game was only announced for current-gen games, there were rumors that Capcom wanted to release the game on older hardware but it ran very poorly. Well, I played the game on the base PS4 and it ran amazingly. It runs above 30 fps, looks great and if the game had slowdown it was barely noticeable.

 I had quite a bit of fun with Resident Evil Village. I really liked the Metroidvania elements, as it made going back into the village to get goodies quite rewarding, never feeling like I was wasting time. That said, and this is my personal preference, I prefer Resident Evil when it's in third person, as the first person does nothing for me and it doesn't make the game any scarier. That said, the game played so well that I didn't mind it being in first person. On the other hand, I think the game's weak point is its plot, because everything revolving around Chris falls apart, even if the rest of the plot isn't so bad.

 8.5