Now Playing: Spider-man

 Neversoft struck gold. Again.

 Neversoft once again prove their worth, not only did they create the ultimate Skating game for its time, they also made the ultimate Spider-man game. Y'see, before Neversoft arrived, Spider-man games came in two flavors, either they:

A) Were good games, like Separation Anxiety or the Arcade game, but at the cost of being a bit more... 'generic' when it came to mechanics, only using the most basic of Spider-man's abilities.

or

B) Were Spider-man games, like Spider-man and X-men or Spider-man VS the Sinister 6, which were built around Spider-man's unique abilities... but weren't good games.

 Spider-man on the Playstation manages to be both a fantastic game and an Spider-man game. Like, Spider-man's got so many abilities, and they are simple to get the hang of. I've gotten up to the helicopter raid escape and I've been having a blast. I have very fond memories of Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro, so it'll be interesting to see which game has aged better.

 As to why I started Spider-man? I'm 10 hours into Shadow Hearts 3 so I decided to take a little break from all the turn based battles, plus, I'm running out of space on my Spider-manathon shelf, so might as well start now!

Now Playing: Shadow Hearts - From the New World

 It's... it certainly is different.

 Koudelka was pretty good. Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 were pretty darn amazing. From the New World is... different. Just the opening scenes lets you know that this is gonna be a very different game, in tone. The first part of the game takes place during the day, there's no threat of war or what have you, and the protagonist is very happy go lucky. And the very first opening moments have a sexy woman getting naked just because Japan is Japan and go forbid a woman doesn't show her assets.

 I got through the first dungeon, and it's alright. I find it interesting how Johnny is kind of a weakling, I got so used to Yuri and his 3-attack judgement ring, how he'd have SP for days and what not, but Johnny feels like a glorified Anastasia, with his silly 'Snap' ability, 1-hit judgement ring and low SP threshold. It's an interesting change!

 So far, I'm not very hopeful. I think the most probable scenario is me liking the game because it's fun, but not being able to enjoy it as much as previous Shadow Hearts since every single horror element, sans demons, is gone.

Review #405: Hidden Invasion

 The hidden invasion of bad games.

 Welcome to 'How not to make a beat'em up 101'. That's the fastest and easiest way to describe this travesty.

 You pick your character, generic dude bro cop or generic sexy woman cop and must battle the aliens that managed to invade earth and take control of most of the population. Both characters play more or less the same, but at least their cutscenes get different voice overs and both characters change clothes three times throughout the entire, and mercifully short, adventure. There's a two player mode, in case you're a dick and want to sucker someone into enduring this with you.

 Both characters can punch, kick, grab, shoot and grenade their way through endless waves of enemies, but you'll quickly find out that the best ways to deal with enemies is using their own guns or exploiting the overpowered grabs and throws. And why wouldn't you? Enemies respawn constantly, gang up on you constantly and love to get in some cheap hits when you're busy. Bosses can be particularly annoying when playing by yourself, since enemies may respawn infinitely even during boss fights.

 You'll be permanently under a timer for no reason whatsoever besides pissing off the players, and while I never ran out of time, it's a needless annoyance. Usually you'll be given a compass to guide you on where to go next, but it's absolutely useless and changes direction more often than the camera. Oh, the camera is absolutely nuts, it changes angles ever 2-3 steps which messes with the controls and how you're moving, so you might get stuck between angles until you figure out how to deal with the controls.

 That's got nothing on the numerous bugs and glitches though! Certain enemies have the ability to 'lock' your progression until you kill them, kinda like older beat'em ups in which the scrolling would freeze until you defeated every enemy. Well, turns out that some of these enemies can move you by moving away from you and thus moving the 'invisible wall'. It's particularly prevalent during stage 2, in which enemies would move by position as they fell down when I shot at them! And this one time, one of these 'screen lock' enemies decided to escape away from me, moving me around until it finally got me stuck on a crate, leaving me unable to progress. Fun.

 Avoid Hidden Invasion. I know, it's very tempting since the game is dirt cheap, I got my copy for 2 bucks. 2 bucks! But not even the multiplayer mode is worth it. Not only is the game not fun to play, it's also filled with bugs, glitches and inconsistencies, it's not even 'so bad it's good' bad. This game is better left off hidden in the annals of history... for our own sake.
 2.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Hidden Invasion

 This game is a joke.

 I hope you don't have motion sickness, because boy oh boy is this game a trip! The camera is absolutely insane, bonkers! You can't walk half a mile without the camera shifting and screwing up your movement. I also LOVE how enemies respawn constantly, and they love to throw stuff at you, knives, batons, bullets, you name it!

 It's horrible, horrible! What a bad, bad game.

Review #404: Jersey Devil

 The hero we deserve, not the one we need.

 Jersey Devil is a pretty obscure 3D platform game released exclusively on the Playstation 1. Starring the Jersey Devil himself, a little anthropomorphic animal styled like a nightly super hero, not unlike Darkwing Duck, that must do battle with Dr. Knarf, a pretty basic premise to outline the entirety of the game. The game is also prefaced by a beautiful 2D animation detailing how JD and Knarf first met. As a matter of fact, the game deserves some praise for the presentation, everything looks as if it came straight out of an animated show.

 There're 12 levels as well as four bonus levels. In each level you must destroy all Nitro Boxes in order to increase your 'power'(Does nothing for gameplay) and be able to enter the bonus levels, as well as save every hostage(2 per level, they do nothing but add to your completion level). Of course, if you can't be bothered you may as well just ignore both as the game can be finished ignoring either anyways. There're six worlds, with two stages each(not accounting for the four bonus stages), and it's usually one long stage followed by a shorter stage. Each level has a boss too, and they are relatively decent, since a few may require a bit of thinking.

 Jersey Devil has the most basic of movesets, he can jump, glide, punch, spin-attack and lift-and-throw boxes. The combat is pretty wonky, since enemies have weird invincibility frames during certain animations and JD's punch range is pathetic, so it's better to just spam your jumping spin attack and hope for the best. The jumping fares much better, while the physics behind jumping and gliding don't feel quite right, it works... when you're not going through platforms, which is a rare occurrence, but frequent enough as to be worth mentioning. Some things that may look like stuff you can stand on may just be decoration you can simply go through, and the camera does you no favors, while you can move it around with L2 and R2, it's pretty slow, and very rarely, the camera will also get in your way. The second slides level was a bit glitchy too, one of the slides threw me into the void three-four times, so I opted for an alternate route.


 Weirdly enough, JD will autojump whenever you get close to the edge of a ledge, which is annoying. The jump may throw you off and get you killed, or it may screw up with the jump you were planning to make, thus getting you killed again. And die you will, a lot. There're a lot of ways to die instantly, but the game is very, VERY generous with lives, I finished the game with over 70 lives to spare.

 I wish I could say that Jersey Devil is a 'hidden gem', but it's way too rough around the edges. What I can say, however, is that the game was left crying for a sequel that fixed everything, because Jersey Devil is a fantastic foundation for something else. A likeable, if a bit generic, cast of characters, a fantastic art direction and gameplay that needed refinement but works relatively well already. But alas, it wasn't meant to be...
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Jersey Devil

 A super hero with horns.

 Jersey Devil's a game I've been interested in for the longest time and today, for the first time in my life, I got to play it. I've played a small section of the first level, and it's alright. It lacks the oomph that other mascot platformer games of its era have, and the jumping doesn't feel quite as good, but I think it's got a very interesting premise, and a very neat character. And the opening animation was brilliant.

 Here's to hoping that the game maintains this level of quality and doesn't dip, because I think we may have a fun little romp in our hands.

Review #403: Midway Arcade Treasures 3

 More like Arcade antiques, am I right?

 Midway Arcade Treasures 3 was the final compilation they released on PS2, this time focusing on Racing games. While this offering only housed 8 games, it features more modern, heavier games than previous volumes. It's also the only volume to focus on a single genre, whether that's a good or bad thing depends entirely on your taste.

 What I discovered while playing some of these games for the first time and replaying others is that... most of these haven't aged well, and most of them are good for arcade releases, but will feel lacking in content if held to console game standards. Also, most of the games were meant to be played with a steering wheel-type joystick, so the analog stick doesn't work quite as well due to the sensitivity of the steering.

 Super Offroad and Super Offroad track pack: An isometric four-player racing game, it's rather fun for what it is, and it's got a nice upgrade system that lets you enhance different parts of your vehicle after each race. Tracks start repeating after a while, sometimes having you race in the opposite direction, and controls are rather sluggish. The track pack is basically the same gameplay but on different tracks.
 5.0 out of 10

 Race Drivin is a very primitive 3-D first-person driving game. It's slow and clunky to a nigh unplayable degree. The game is nice to have as a curiosity of what the earliest days of 3-D were like, but as a game it's terrible.

 1.0 out of 10

 Badlands is, basically, Super Offroad on a post-apocalyptic setting. The same enhancement system is here, but now you can shoot against other racers.

 5.5 out of 10

 I think S.T.U.N. Runner could've been a fun game if only the hadn't botched the emulation on the PS2 version of this compilation. Basically the game runs faster, WAY faster than intended, which makes certain obstacles pretty much unavoidable. It's a bit different from other games, although you are being timed, you can only steer left and right to avoid obstacles, there's no acceleration button, and you also get to shoot at obstacles ahead of you. It's an interesting game, and it's possibly fun when running as intended. Possibly.

 3.0 out of 10

 Now we get into the good stuff, starting off with San Francisco Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition, yeah, the title is quite a handful. You've probably got good memories about the game, but, sadly, it hasn't aged very well. Handling feels very clunky, and the once oh-so-fun physics now feel a bit wonky. There're 7 different tracks, and they are a pleasure to look at... sadly, the music is awful, just awful. And the sound design is absolutely terrible, the screeching tires will make your ears bleed. It's particularly grating since laps are rather long, and in between the annoying music and the horrible tire sounds... let's just say that extended play sessions will take a toll on the player.

 6.0 out of 10

 I had never played Offroad Thunder before, heck, I had never even heard of it, but boy was I pleasantly surprised! It features three different modes, which are basically all just variations of racing with a flag gimmick or a point based gimmick, that can be played on the same 8 tracks. Speaking of those, the courses are brilliantly designed, discovering them was quite a treat. The game does suffer from some hefty slowdown though.

 7.0 out of 10

 The bad news is that this is not an arcade perfect port of San Francisco Rush 2049, the good news is that this is a port of the Dreamcast enhanced port of said game. This means more modes, more tracks, more everything even a fun little multiplayer battle mode. Not only does this game look better than San Francisco Rush, it also looks better, sounds, plays better and smoother too. There're only six tracks total, with two being unlockable, but you can customize a lot of parameters, like number of laps, fog, wind or even if you want to race through the track the other way around. Rounding this up, you can also customize various parts of your car to personalize its stats, looks and style. San Francisco Rush 2049 is pretty good! Very skimpy on content, but very replayable.

 7.5 out of 10

 And lastly, the crown jewel of this collection, Hydro Thunder, and once again, we get the Dreamcast port of the game, which adds a few new tracks for a total of 12. The game plays like a dream, you must course through water and sea, collecting boost icons trying to beat all 15 other races. Tracks are gated behind how you perform in races, get Top 3 on all easy tracks to unlock medium, get top 2 on those to get hard tracks, etc. Sadly, this also means that if you're not good at the game, or don't care to get good at it, like me, you won't get the final 7 tracks, oh well! Hydro Thunder is a blast to play, and it's the best all-around package.

 7.5 out of 10

 If you ask me, how much mileage you'll get out of this compilation is directly tied to how much nostalgia these games manage to get out of you. A lot of the games simply haven't aged very well, some are better off left as curiosities, and the even a few the best games are lacking in depth and/or content.

 7.5 out of 10