Review #827: Ridge Racer V

 More polygons, more tracks and even more ridges!

 And so, with the newest Playstation system at the time cam a new entry in the series, Ridge Racer V. It's pretty good, not much has changed since the past game, and thankfully, we keep analog support and split-screen multiplayer, which shouldn't need mentioning, but since Unbounded removed offline multiplayer....

 So, modes, the usual: Grand Prix, which is a collection of various sets of races, Time Trial, VS Player and Free Run to run by your lonesome, trying out cars and tracks. The game has 7 tracks that can be played in reverse, but... they are pretty lazy, man. Every track, sand the 7th one, is based on the original track of the original game, and they share parts between each other, so how each track looks kinda blends together. The seventh track is a giant oval. By now I should know not to expect much variety, but considering how good RR 7 had it... On the other hand, Grand Prix is pretty interesting. On the first GP you can play at the start you get to choose a car, and depending on the car you picked is which cars you'll unlock. So if you want to unlock more cars you have to play the first GP with another car, and then play the other GPs with the new car you unlock and so on. You can also unlock Duels against other, special cars, and once beaten you unlock them. Oh! And by playing a lot(accumulating 1500 miles) you can unlock Pacman and his ghostly enemies! Playing the game you can also unlock different color patterns to customize your cars with, which is a simple but welcome addition. Lastly, this game's soundtrack wasn't as good as the ones from the other RR games. It's still really good, but not AS good.

 At first I hated this game. I played the first Grand Prix and it was SO slow. And then I unlocked the advanced Grand Prixes as well as a faster engine for the car and... the drifting was SO bad, it felt very stiff and sluggish. And yet... I managed to get the new timing right and I learned to like it.... and then I discovered that my car was of the GRIP type. Turns out that the car I chose for my first GP, which was a DRIFT type, unlocks a GRIP advanced vehicle. As soon as I finished the game, I went back to the first GP and picked a new car and, after finishing this slow first GO, unlocked a advanced DRIFT type car, and boy oh boy, it was buttery smooth. I went from HATING this game to LOVING it so hard.

 And it's true, the driving is still based around drifting, and somehow it feels better, tighter and more responsive than in R4. GRIP type cars were never my thing, but once again, after I learned how to take curves with that car I started to like the game, but, DRIFT cars is how you should play the game, they feel so fast and drifting through corners is so much fun.

 I think that Ridge Racer 4 was a better product, it had more variety with its tracks and the soundtrack was a bit better, but as far as gameplay goes, I think Ridge Racer V is a competent upgrade on that front. It's not a huge evolution of the formula, but it feels tighter and more responsive, while the new graphics, as jagged as they are, convey a better sense of speed. All in all, a decent follow up and another excellent entry in the series.
8.0 out of 10

Review #826: Rune Viking Warlord

 Featuring Odin's floating head!

 I love early PC-to-PS2 ports, such as Rune: Viking Warlord over here. The slippery movement, the poor performance and the somewhat muddy textures that didn't make the jump to PS2 intact. It may sound like a diss, but it's anything but, I find it super charming. Rune was an action/adventure game on the PC that was well received enough to get a port to PS2, and it's more than just a port, we get new levels as well as the multiplayer mode that would be part of the PC game's expansion.

 In the game you play as Ragnar, the last surviving Viking of his tribe, who is rescued by Odin... kinda, kinda because while Odin protected you, now you must get out of Hel yourself. What follows is a story of revenge, you as Odin's Champion vs Loki and his own champion. The story is simple and unintrusive, there are very few cinematics in the game, and it's mostly just Odin's floating head checking up on you. The game has about 8 different sets of levels, it starts off in Hel and then you'll go through goblin caves, snowy mountains, viking castles and even dwarven enclaves.  All in all, it can probably be beaten in about 8 hours. I played the game on medium and it was relatively easy most of the time, a few awkward jumps over botomless pits here and there, but it doesn't get hard until the very end, which is ironic considering you get a massive power up.... but you'll need it, since you'll be fighting the hardest enemies in the games in large numbers.

 Combat is quite clearly the focus of the game, and it plays like a PC game, while combat takes place in close distances, strafing around the enemy and mashing the R1 button is the name of the game, like any PC game of its era. It's not elegant, it's not deep, but it's fun. Ragnar can carry Maces, Axes and Swords, a shield as well provided you aren't using a heavy weapon. And even between these types of weapons you can carry many of each, so in actuality Ragnar carries about 15 weapons: 5 swords, 5 axes and 5 maces. While weapons get progressively stronger, there's a point to carrying the old weapons: Each one has a unique Rune power, which consumers energy from your rune gauge. Ragnar can throw his equipped weapon by pressing triangle, which is necessary a very few times to solve some puzzles, but by the end of the game I threw away my weaker weapons since cycling with the L1 button was a bit boring, however, since powers are unique... I was compelled to keep the fourth sword, since its vampiric rune power proved invaluable a couple of times.

 Rune energy is extremely valuable, for you can only recharge it by finding yellow runes hidden throughout the level, which also means that you can't use your runic powers wily nily. Hidden through the game you may also find the elusive blue runes which permanently increase your health bar, or the more common red run that activates your berserk mode on the spot. Berserk status can be reached in two ways: By finding the aforementioned rune or by landing hits on enemies, once the red bar fills to the top you enter Berserk status. Berserk lasts for a few seconds, and you are invulnerable throughout its duration.

 Level design is what you'd expect of a PC game of its era, a tiny bit mazelike with a ton of levers to find in order to open up doors or extend bridges. Think something like classic Doom but without the keycards. There are a few puzzles here and there, but they were pretty easy to figure out. That said, the Snowy Mountains felt a bit poorly made. You have to realize that the blowing wind will carry you through gaps, and you also have to figure out that you must jump into the crevice for the wind to carry you. Then there's another segment in which the icy road cracks below you as you run, and if you fail to react and get to safety... you'll fall into currents that'll push you back to the start of the section, which quickly got boring. Platforming is as lackluster as you'd expect, which is why fact that there are so many bottomless pits or murderous lava is so surprising. But the worst part about it... the game has obscenely long loading times, and if you die, for example due to a spotty jump, you'll have to sit through another loading screen. No bueno!

 I had fun with Rune, but I'll admit that the frequency and length of the loading screens do put a damper on the experience, but luckily, that's the game's biggest problem. The combat itself is fairly shallow but also very charming, I enjoyed this throwback to an older era of PC games, I find these kinds of ports very appealing, and as janky as the game is by today's standards.... I still think there's something a bit timeless about strafing around skeletons while madly slashing around.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #825: Ys - Memories of Celceta

 This is.... what? Ys IV's third version?

 I really haven't played as much Ys as I would've liked. I loved Oath in Felghana on PC, which was my first Ys game, and I enjoyed Ys I & II on the DS, but as far as Ys goes that's all I have played... so far. Ys: Memories of Celceta is another once-exclusive of the Vita that is a sort of-pseudo remake of Ys IV. Look, Ys' timeline is weird and a lot of games got remade, some more than once, and it really doesn't matter since Ys is, according to the lore, a collection of stories about Adol, so, in a way, all versions of the same game can coexist as different versions of the same tale. I'm telling you, this is one of the weirdest JRPG timelines to keep track of.

 In a weird twist, Ys - Memories of Celceta could very well work as a your entry point in the series. Not only does it start off with an amnesiac Adol, but throughout the game as you pick up your memories you'll get a look at Adol's childhood and why he decided to became an adventurer. But getting this mute hero's memory back is but one story thread, the bigger story thread concerns Adol and a man that claims to know Adol, Duren, who undertake the town's mayor request of exploring the nearby forest and charting a full map. As you go through the city you'll discover towns, some which Adol visited, some he hadn't, as well as meet new friends and foes. To be honest, characters are pretty one-note and the plot isn't very interesting, but it's serviceable. What really drove me when playing this game was me wanting to explore the forest, not caring about how the story developed because it was so dull.

 The game's world is large enough, and while it seems like the forest is open for you to explore in any way that you want... it actually isn't. There are plenty of barriers that require a character ability or an artifact ability to proceed, so while you can take your time to explore, and you should since you get money and item rewards for charting the map, most of the time there's only one road that'll take you where you need to be and others that you'll eventually get to go through. I liked it, charting the map was fun... although the map percentage is busted, if by the end of the game you haven't got the full 100%... well, have fun revisiting every area hugging every wall, because the black fog also counts towards the map's percentage. Ridiculous.

 There's plenty of sidequests to partake in, so it pays to revisit every town after you triggered a new story event. Although it's better if you wait until you get the Golden Wing, an item that lets you teleport to ANY stone tablet you've found. At first you can only travel between tablets of the same color, which makes backtracking a bit of an annoyance, but once you get the golden wing, you can, at pretty much any time, open the map, press R and just pick where you wanna warp. As for side quests, they come in various flavors: Slay a monster, gather a material or a set of materials, help a vendor tend to his store... there's quite a bit of variety. As you go through the game, you'll come across minerals, plants as well as beast parts from fallen enemies, these can be used to refine or strengthen your weapons or use them to trade for money, which is surprisingly hard to come by. By the end of the game you'll have a six man team and it'll be very tough to maintain your healing supplies, since no character can heal, as well as everyone's equipment up to date.

 Combat is fairly fun in this game, it takes place in real time. While you have six party members, your party can only be made up of three, although you can pause at any time and swap party members. You take control of one character while the AI takes control of the other two, and you can press circle to swap between active party members. AI allies deal less damage, but also take less damage and can't die, since their health bar never goes below 1 HP, so you don't really need to babysit them. What takes the most getting used to is how loose the combat is, even your basic square attacks will propel your characters forward. And it's weird at first, but eventually you'll get used to moving all over the place as you fight. Every character has a different weapon type: Slash, Blunt and Pierce, and some enemies are weak or strong against a certain type. I didn't care about this system, and bosses don't have any weakness or resistance, so I just played with the party I wanted to play with.

 But that's only half the fun. You also get a dodge and a block button, and if you time them right you'll get a Flash Dodge or a Flash Block, which will slow down your enemy for a few seconds, allowing you to retaliate with free hits. And if that wasn't enough, every character has access to a ton of special moves, although you can only equip four at a time, used by holding R and pressing the face button they are assigned to. Special moves can level up as you use them, and they run on a 100 energy gauge, skills costing 40 energy at most. You can recover this energy by landing hits and defeating enemies. So, basic hits charge your energy for your special moves, and special moves, in turn, fill another, yellow gauge, once full you can press the L button to unleash a powerful super move. It's a good system, and it's very dynamic too, since you recharge your energy by landing hits you are encouraged not to store your energy for 'tougher enemies'. And tougher enemies there are! Besides bosses, you may come across particularly tough monsters, which you can try to avoid or try to defeat for a higher amount experience points than regular enemies.

 One of the game's biggest problems is how annoying it can get to proceed through the environment. First, the 'puzzles' which aren't actually puzzles, y'see, each character has a different ability: Ozma can strike walls, Karna can shoot daggers, Duren can pick locks. The 'puzzles' are as simple as selecting the appropriate character, pressing triangle and watch what happens. You don't have to think too hard, although, to be fair, the final dungeon does have a few brain teasers. Regardless, this means that if a character isn't in your party... you have to pause the game, enter the party menu and swap them in to do their trick, then go into the menu, go into the party section and swap them out again. This is a regular occurrence with artifacts, you'll come across a steep wall that you must run through, or rocks you must break, or need to get smaller to go through a cranny... Once again, you have to enter a menu and equip the appropriate artifact. At least artifacts get a shortcut, you can press the tiny red button on the HUD with your finger to open up the item menu, from which you can use healing items or swap your equipped artifact.

 I liked Ys: Memories of Celceta, and... it kinda rekindled my interest to invest in the rest of the series, like, I really want to get a physical copy of Oath in Felghana for PSP. But I digress, Memories of Celceta is a fine RPG that fails to stand out, but succeeds in being really fun.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #824: Killzone Mercenary

 The Vita at its finest.

 I had never played a Killzone game before, and my, oh my, what a fantastic first impression Killzone Mercenary makes! It's not just a great little game, it's also a brilliant showcase of what the Vita could've done. I've been playing a lot of Vita games that... didn't look all that great, like Mortal Kombat and Ys VI, and as good as Ridge Racer looked it struggled to maintain 30 fps. But Killzone Mercenary looks almost as good as a PS3 game, and maintains a steady framerate to boot! This is the future the Vita promised. This is what the Vita could do.

 The game pits you as mute hero Danner, a merc for hire that is currently hired to battle the Helghast, space nazies, through small skirmishes that begin with him and another buddy rescuing a ISA commander. I knew very little about the series' lore, and while the game didn't really ease me into it, I had no trouble following the story. The story is quite cliched, so much so that its twists fail to impress, but very early into the game I realized that I wasn't here for the story, I was here for the gameplay. The story's main drawback is that it's told mostly through boring de-briefing segments before each mission, working as a sort of veil while the game loads, and you can skip them as soon as the game does so. The game comes with two modes, a 9-mission long single player campaign as well as a online multiplayer component. You can replay story missions, and after beating them for the first time you gain the option to replay them with three different sets of mini missions for better money rewards, mini-missions such as scoring X amount of head shots with X gun, only using X guns, finishing the mission in under X minutes, etc. Considering that the story campaign is lengthy enough, I think it's not a bad offering.

 Mercenary follows the modern FPS blueprint to a tee, regenerating health, two weapon maximum and melee kills in one hit. That said, since you play as a Merc, the entire game is built around money. Killing enemies, and how you kill them, reward you with money, achieving certain milestones, such as killing everyone stealthily without being noticed, or using a certain type of weapon for a long time, will also reward you with money. You can then spend this money on new weapons, the only way to swap them, get new armor, get a drone or get grenades. The thing about the armament in this game... there really isn't a 'best' weapon or 'best' drone or 'best' armor, every piece of weaponry has different stats and functionality, so it's not like there's a 'best' gun. This means that it's easy to get a loadout that you really like and never change it, heck, you can do just fine with your original loadout. I never changed my armor since the starting piece was perfectly balanced with resistance and mobility. This also means that money quickly loses its purpose, and while you can use it to instantly refill your ammo and bring your drone back from its cooldown period.... you can just as easily refill your ammo from fallen enemies. This is probably why there's a small fee for re-equipping armament you already purchased.

 The game has this beautiful weight to it, running and jumping around feels so satisfying thanks to this. It also makes the game a bit more slower paced than you'd think at first glance, but I really liked it. Controls... do the best that they can. For example, since there are not L3 and R3 buttons, sprinting is done by pressing circle while moving, and crouching is done by... pressing circle while standing still. It's not ideal and may ruin your stealthy approach, but it's not awful. Being an early Vita game, it has a lot of mandatory touch controls. You can disable in-game touch button, which is neat since it cleans up the HUD, but it also means that the ammo counter is gone, because it's tied to one of these buttons. What where they thinking? I learned to live without knowing how much ammo I had left. Regardless, this doesn't do away with every touch feature. Menus are entirely touch based, but since they don't have scrolling, they work much better than they did on Ridge Racer. There are a few in-game hacking mini-games that are entirely touch based, and are quite dull to be honest, but most of them are optional. While I claimed that melee is a one-hit kill, I lied a bit, the melee button triggers a 'swipe the screen' QTE, which can fail if you swipe the wrong way. As a hater of all things touch/motion that aren't optional... I learned to tolerate them because the game was just THAT good, which is pretty much exactly like what happened with Uncharted - The Golden Abyss.

 On one hand, Killzone Mercenary is the perfect showpiece for the Vita, but on the other it's also a great first person shooter. Not only does it look amazing, it also features very satisfying gameplay, I mean, every headshot you land turns into a delicious pop of their heads. They could've gone with an upgrade system to make money matter a bit more, but I'm not complaining because the game is great as it is, and definitely one of the finest games on the system, no wonder Call of Duty and Resistance on the Vita reviewed so poorly, this game set the bar too high.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #823: Ridge Racer(Vita)

 Ridge Racer 7 - Shareware Edition

 These last couple of months I've been finally delving into Ridge Racer, and now it's time to delve into the black(est) sheep of the family, its Vita release. What this game is, in a nutshell, is like a demo of Ridge Racer 7, you get the same amazing gameplay, but 10% of the content... unless you pony up some cash for the DLC, which I'll never.

 What you get with this pathetic little cart is 3 courses and 5 cars. That's it. It's pretty much on par with the classic Ridge Racer games, but that era was long gone by then, so there's absolutely no excuse. I'd like to say that the picked 3 of the best tracks from RR7, but every track in that game was a winner, so I can't even claim that, but at least you can play all three tracks on reverse, I guess. The Single Player content is pretty much non-existent: Spot Race, which is a basic 3-lap race on any course you wish and Time Trial. The rest of the modes are exclusively online, which is pretty much dead so they don't count. You are meant to play the single races on the same three tracks over and over again, which will slowly upgrade your car, making you faster, while the CPU racers get stuck with their old machines, making it easier and easier. You also rack up points which you can use to add abilities to your car, such as change the way Nitro works and how you charge it. I mean, I was done with the game less than an hour in, but soldiered on through two more hours because Ridge Racer 7 was amazing and this game is pretty much a demo for RR7.

 The game comes packed with 7 different songs, and these are the best songs in the entire series. And that's saying something considering the entire series hasn't disappointed me yet with their OSTs. The graphics are quite good, all things considered, but the game struggles to maintain a 30 fps, I mean, it's acceptable, but sometimes it'll drop a few frames even when you are driving by your lonesome. Since this was an early Vita release it HAD to use its features, which means that the menus are exclusively touch-based and they are rather finicky, they should've gone with big, static buttons instead of menus and options you can scroll through. I mean, just like with the framerate, the menus are acceptable, but they are far from being an ideal in-and-out of the game.

 Despite the game being a complete failure as far as content goes, the game plays exactly like Ridge Racer 7. You got your big emphasis on drifting, you get a three-tier nitro gauge that fills as you drift and can be used with different multipliers: Use a basic nitro, X2 nitro or X3 nitro, managing it at your leisure. Even with a mediocre framerate the sense of speed is fantastic, and the amazing soundtrack makes it an easy game to get lost into. They also added a new blue/red static filter every time you collide with something which felt quite cool.

 This game presents me with the same conundrum the classic RR games did: The gameplay is top-notch, but there is no content. However, the truth is that it was easier to be more forgiving on the older games due to the era they were released in. That said, the fact is, this game has three completely unique tracks and a more refined driving system. That's why I'm gonna go with a 5.0. It has pretty much no content, true, but the gameplay is fantastic. I managed to get three hours worth of fun out of a measly three tracks, so that's gotta count for something.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #822: One Piece - Pirate Warriors 4

 A Pirate I was meant to be, trim the sails and roam the seas!

 While I only got into Pirate Warriors with 3, I could instantly tell that it was good stuff. One Piece and its creative character design and powers made for fantastic movesets in a Musou game, and the lack of a proper jump wasn't as bad as I feared when I first heard about it when the first game came out. One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is here, and boy, they have changed things up, there's a jump button for one, as well as other mechanics that make it fairly experimental as far as Musou goes.

 As per usual with the Musou games, there are three modes: Dramatic Mode, which is the game's story mode, Free Mode, which lets you play Dramatic Mode with any character and without cutscenes and Treasure Log, which is a collection of about 99 mini-missions under silly circumstances while random mini-scenarios occur, such as having to fight any of two combatants or having to rescue a villager from a random character. The story mode is a mixed bag. It features 3 pre-timeskip scenarios: Alabasta, Ennies Lobby and a mix-mash of the Sabaody Archipelago arc and the Marineford arc, as well as 3 post-time skip scenarios: A mix of the first post-time skip chapter when the Straw Hat Pirates reunited with the Dressrosa arc, the new Whole Cake arc and a new, made up version of the Wano arc. As any connoisseur would know, One Piece is fairly long and a LOT of stuff happens between these arcs, so the game tries to condense as much as possible the in-betweens through cut-scenes. New comers will probably have a hard time keeping up, core characters such as Chopper and Brook get some pretty shallow introductions and barely any scenes afterward. On the other hand, the cutscenes are really good and do a great job of adapting some key scenes from the series. There are a lot of them too, so while every scenario is divided into 6 12 minute stages, there are so many scenes to watch that it'll bump up your play time, which isn't a bad thing when it's so entertaining to watch, at least to someone that knows One Piece.

 Basic gameplay remains the same: You vs thousands of brain-dead enemies and stronger generals. Y is a basic attack string that can be peppered with X button presses to produce more powerful attacks. The first change is an emphasis on air combos, B is now a jump button that can be pressed mid-combo to launch enemies up into the sky, and A is the power charge, a dash that deals low damage and can be used to cancel your attacks...or jumps. So you can push an enemy into the air and tie combos along, by power-dashing, your limit being a Stamina gauge, which refills over time. The other change was to the Super/Musou attacks, as they have no dedicated button... or slot. Each character starts off with four special moves, at least one of them being a Musou attack, which are used by holding down the R button and pressing any face button. Each character has MORE than four of these abilities, but you can only equip four at a time, and gain more by leveling them up. Not every character has the same surpluss of abilities, Luffy being the one with the most, from form changes(Gear 2nd, Boundman, etc) to Super moves. These R-button abilities refill as you deal and receive damage. It's an interesting idea, and works quite decently. You could equip four Musou/Super attacks if you want, at the cost of taking longer to refill, or you could use some quicker but weaker super moves, heck, you don't really need to equip a Burst(Such as a form change) at all!

 The leveling up system is completely different, you no longer gain traditional experience points, but rather spend earned money and coins, the latter mostly from defeated enemies, on growth Maps, to obtain stat gains, extended attack strings, new moves and even passive skills you can equip. There's one shared growth map and two exclusive maps per character. The three-tiered enemy life gauges I hated from PW3 is gone, but bosses now have armor gauges that you must deplete in order to deal more considerable damage, but these gauges regenerate every time you destroy them. The game claims that the new giant enemies can only be harmed when they are attacked, but I could deal damage just fine even when they weren't doing anything, which is a good thing, since otherwise they'd be a bit of a bore. To be honest, I'm not fond of this new armor gauge, but I prefer it over the three-tier life gauge. A new aesthetic change is that you can damage the environment around you, sometimes you can even destroy entire buildings. It's not a game changer, but it's a nice detail.

 There are 13 new characters, made up from Kaido, Big Mom, some of the Pirate Super Novas and all of Sanji's siblings, his father isn't playable, for whatever reason, though. Sounds pretty neat right? Well, in something I haven't seen since the classic PS2 era, they actually removed characters. Garp actually got turned into an NPC, which is completely ridiculous since he used to have an entire moveset. Enel, my favorite villain, got removed because who knows why, Moria and Perona are gone too. And the Strawhats? Only Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Usopp get their pre-timeskip forms, which, once again, is ridiculous since the other pre-timeskip characters they had movesets in Pirate Warriors 3 and they even have their models/skins in this game. And while it's true that this game is using a new graphic engine, old characters animate pretty much exactly like they did in the previous game, so what gives? Yes, characters have expanded movesets thanks to the R-palette, but keep in mind that, sometimes, these moves used to be X-combo enders in the previous game. There's no excuse other than laziness, and don't worry, they'll nickel and dime you with 9 DLC characters anyways.

 Speaking of no excuse, the targeting system still sucks. It's been a long while since Musou games haven't had a decent targeting system, but in this game it was particularly egregious. The lock-on camera loves to get stuck around, and sometimes, even get stuck in angles you can't see the enemy you are targeting. Their solution was to make it so that if you press the Power Dash button while standing still it'll automatically take you to the targeted enemy. But it's not a decent a solution. If they are gonna cut corners so bad they'll better fix the most basic of mechanics. And the loading times are pretty darn long too.

 As many corners as they cut, the sad reality is that this is still one of the most fun series of Musou games. Honestly, the crazy powers and the ways these characters move are a perfect fit for the genre. The new changes they made to the mechanics feel like a step in the right direction, and the aerial combat was way more fun than it deserved to be. I love the Musou game, but they are very shallow affairs and they never change too much, even with the new additions this game still follows the same blueprint very closely, so removing characters doesn't sit very well with me. The new aerial combat also really brought to light how much they need to work on the targeting system. When it's all said and done, Pirate Warriors 4 is still a choice game when you feel like playing Musou, when you just want to turn off your brain and feel like a one-man army. But it can be better.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #821: Sonic Mania Plus

 This settles it once and for all 2D > 3D.

 Sonic Mania Plus is the truest example of a modern classic, it feels exactly like the old, classic Genesis Sonic games and looks like them too. The most intriguing thing about this game is that it wasn't developed by Sonic Team, but rather by a team of fans that earned their chops by producing hacks for the original games, then developing official ports of said original games and culminating with Sonic Mania, a completely original new game endorsed by Sega themselves. This is the Sonic game for scorned fans, for people that longed for a return to Sonic's golden years.


 The game is more meaty than what you'd expect. The main game is made up of 12 zones with 2 stages each, as well as a secret final stage if you manage to nab all 8 Chaos Emerald by finding the hidden 3-D rings that take you to a bonus runner stage in which you must catch a flying UFO. These 12 zones are a mix of remade old stages from Sonic 1-3 as well as beautiful and creative new zones. The whole game should take you about 3 hours to complete. If that wasn't enough, the game can be played as Sonic, Tails, Sonic & Tails, Knuckles, Ray or Mighty, each character having a little something that makes him different from the others. Sonic can perform a new Drop Dash, being able to come out of a jump into a spin dash, Tails can fly, Knuckles can air-dive and climb walls, Ray can glide and Mighty is the "I win" character, get a ground pound and invulnerability as long as he is turned into a ball(Spin dashing or jumping). There are not a whole lot of character exclusive areas, but each stage has a ton of alternate paths and routes, and considering each character has slightly different abilities... I'd call it a win. Finally, there's an Encore mode, which changes stages a bit, but only a bit, however, it adds a new ending and drops the life system entirely, now instead of lives you rescue every playable character and you play as a pair, being able to switch between both at any time. If you die, you'll play as the next rescued character on your roster until you've got none left. It's a nice twist on the formula, so even if stages weren't changed too much, you get an entirely new way to play the game, one that has you, potentially, playing as all characters. Lastly, there's a set of multiplayer mini-games.

 Gameplay is classic Sonic at its best. Full disclosure, while I've played every Sonic game... I've always been more of a Mario fan, and the only classic Sonic I've ever beaten is 1. Regardless, if you like Sonic's brand of running and jumping you'll love this game. A few stages have very light puzzle-like segments, but nothing too taxing, just find the correct bumper to jump on or figure out how to reach enough speed to clear a wall. Every stage ends with a boss, and they are pretty simple too figure out too, well, most of them. I had a bit of trouble with a few bosses, but no hurdle was too high. All in all, I think the game offers an adequate challenge. The game runs on the classic lives system, as long as you have lives left, if you die, you'll pick up from the last checkpoint you touched, run out of lives and it's back to the start of the level.

 As you should know, Sonic runs on rings. As long as you've got at least one ring, if you tough an enemy or an enemy hits you, you'll survive the hit but lose all your rings, although you are given a short window of time to try collect a few of them back before they disappear. Get hit without a ring and you die. If you manage to retain at least 50 rings when you get to a checkpoint, you can jump into it to trigger a classic blue-orb catching mini-game, and it's in your best interest to try to win these, because you'll get medals that will unlock little bonuses, like Sonic's Sonic CD abilities, the Debug Mode and the 'and Knuckles' mode that let's you play as Sonic & Knuckles.

 The game is absolutely beautiful. Every new sprite and every new animation made for this game are nothing short of amazing, featuring some very smooth animation. It's incredible how they managed to make such tiny sprites look so GOOD. The music too is brilliant, it's very jazzy and it certainly adds to the experience. As I played through the game it transported me back into the 90's, which is incredible since I skipped the SNES and GENESIS during said era, going straight from NES to N64. That said, as good as the game looks, a few stages were so detailed that it was hard to distinguish if parts of the environment could harm me or not, like the moving flowers on the flying Desert stage, as well as a set of crates on, I think, Studiopolis Zone, which I wasn't sure if they were part of the background or not. None of these few confusing spots actually resulted in me dying or getting hit, so it's not a big issue, but I think they could have done a better job with color-depth and detail to make it more obvious, which is kind of a necessity when your game is based on speed, I think.

 Now then, taking into account that I love Mario and am somewhat indifferent to Sonic.... I felt like a few stages dragged on for too long. Hell, I feel like the entire game might be a bit too long, although this one might be on me since I decided to finish the game in one sitting, and once I started to feel a bit bored I still soldiered on. Still, other retro games of similar length, like Ninja Warriors or the faux-retro Shovel Knight and Blazing Chrome didn't tire me so soon. On the other hand, people that actually enjoy Sonic get a game that plays just exactly how they like it that also lasts a fair amount. Not to mention, a ton of added replay value thanks to multiple playable characters and the multiple routes per stage.

 So... here's the thing with Sonic Mania Plus, it's a game that so closely mimics the older games that old fans of the hedgehog will absolutely adore it, but it also means that it won't make Sonic any new fans. I can appreciate the game for what it is, an amazing throwback to the classic series, but since I've never been too much of a fan of this speedier, looser take on the platform genre... it didn't completely win me over. I liked my time with the game, but I'm not sure if I'll be coming back any time soon. Still, what really matters is that fans of the Blue Hedgehog will get exactly what they want and then some.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #820: R4 - Ridge Racer Type 4

 Going out with a bang

  Well, they finally did it. They finally released the fabled 'complete product' and then some with R4: Ridge Racer Type 4. Analog support? You got it. Split-screen? It's here. Content? Hell yeah! This game felt almost as good to play as Ridge Racer 7 did, and that's saying something.

 So, modes: Grand Prix, Time Trial and the unlockable Extra Trial. Car customization is completely gone, save for the car's color, and honestly, I can't say I miss it. Time Trial is exactly what it sounds like and Extra Trials are collections of trials under certain conditions, such as only Assoluto cars. But Grand Prix is entirely different. First you pick a Team, which determines the story line(Dialogue bits in between races) you'll go through as well as a few of the vehicles' stats, and then you pick the manufacturer. This means a total of 4 teams and 4 manufacturers for a total of 16 different car branches. As you play through Grand Prix, and depending on your positions, you'll unlock different cars with different stats. It's a woozy. Grand Prix's structure is also different, now you go through 8 different tracks, because now we have 8 different tracks(Although to be fair most tracks share elements with at least another track, but then again, like 80% of each track is unique). On the first two races you must finish on 3rd or better. On the second two you need to be 2nd or better and the final four require you ending up on first. Your standings on the first four tracks determine which cars you'll unlock as you advance through the mode and can latter use in other modes.

 Most new tracks are a bit softer than what came before, and the graphics too feel softer, although way more detailed than Rage Racer, so the game as a whole feels a lot more chill. I play racing games with Automatic Transmission because I'm really bad at them, but this game did something I wasn't too fond of... AT also has Drift Assistance. I mean, once again, it made the game even more chill, but I would've wished I could turn off drift assistance, since a lot of my wins didn't feel earned. I'm all in for accessibility options, but they should be that, options. Regardless, the game's feel strikes a nice balance between Ridge and Rage racers, and I wound up loving how this game plays a lot. I also really enjoyed how the new Grand Prix plays out, it's a very interesting idea that feels endlessly rewarding since every Team/Manufacturer combo yields new cars. And if you're really good, you can even unlock Pacman!

 So, by now I've made it clear that this Ridge Racer has it all. But what if I told you that it has something else to offer? This game comes with a bonus disc. It has Namco Museum slides(Lame!!) as well as ads for Guncon Games, like Time-Crisis, and Ace Combat 3. It also comes with a playable demo of Klonoa 1, which is glorious, and contains the first two levels, as well as a demo of Tekken 3 in which you can play as Xiaoyu and Eddy, I played it a few times and I managed to fight Lei and Paul on their own stages so it might have a few fighters. I got Eddy twice as an opponent before I got bored. Pretty neat extra, right? There's more. It has a small sample of the original Ridge Racer, you can play the original Easy version of the track in Time Trial mode... and it also has a Turbo Ridge Racer, which is a new version of Ridge Racer made from the ground up, with new graphics a 60 FPS. You can play both versions of the track in either Time Attack(Try to make the best time with no AI opponents) or Time Trial(You vs a CPU). How AMAZING is that?

 It took Namco a while, but they finally delivered a game that feels more than complete, as it's overflowing with content, content that doesn't feel grindy at all. Gameplay hasn't evolved much since the first game, but it didn't really need to since they hit the nail on the head on their first go, yet driving feels the most polished it has been, I think they learned what didn't work about Rage Racer and tried to make it more similar to the original games. That said, my biggest gripe is how AT comes with a forced Drift Assist, not cool!
 8.0 out of 10

Review #819: Gold and Glory - The Road to El Dorado

 No gold and no glory, only pain and misery.

 I used to love this movie, yo! I loved Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado so much that I went to the cinema twice. Twice!! While it was a bit of a sleeper hit it did well enough to justify two games: a graphic adventure on PS1 and PC and a platformer on the GBC. I used to own this game on PC and I played the Gameboy version at a friend's house and I remembered both games as decent. Well, this PS1 version is a disaster, so I hope to god that the PC version is free of all its technical issues.

 The game does a pretty mediocre job at retelling the story of the game. It consists of about 8 stages, 2 stages getting out of Spain, 1 stage on Cortez's boat, 2 stages getting to El Dorado, 2 stages escaping the stone Jaguar and final stage inside a water tower. Needless to say, it takes a lot of liberties with how the plot advances, and in this case the plot is framed as Miguel and Tulio retelling their adventures. This is also an excuse to gloss over parts of the movie, like how the entire part with Miguel and Tulio mingling with the natives being glossed over with a few throwaway lines: "They treated us like god. But then the bad guy summoned a giant stone jaguar". Just like that. Considering this is a point-and-click game they really could've made some puzzles out of Miguel and Tulio convincing everyone they are gods. Really, I think the genre fit the license quite decently, and I liked the puzzles that the game has, but I think even more could've been done with the plot. There's no reason as to why the Jaguar escape needs to be so long and divided into two sections, a stage on El Dorado among the natives could've worked really well and build up the narrative even better. The game is fully voiced acted, not by the cast of the movie, which is really neat, and it uses a few mostly-voiceless clips from the movie every now and then.

 Alright, so this is a point-and-click adventure game, which means that you are supposed to move around an environment, searching for items you can use on NPCs or on objects to produce different results and sometimes other items. So, how did they translate a genre that you play with a mouse onto a PS1 game, on an era before Grim Fandango and it's mouseless interface released? Well, they failed miserably. You can move around in a tank-like fashion with the directional pad or with a more 360-degree movement with the analog stick, in theory. In reality both options work like crap. In the end I resorted to a mix of both digital and analog movement in order to try to get through the game, but man, it was hard. Sometimes the analog stick would get stuck moving in one direction even though I had already moved the analog elsewhere (And my sticks work just fine!), while other times the digital pad wouldn't work like it should. It's hard to explain, but trust me, getting ANYWHERE in this game is an exercise in frustration. This also makes the few 'stealth' segments, in which you must crawl, fairly unfun. And it's not just that, sometimes even interacting with object on the ground is hard, because even though it looks as if it's highlighted your character will refuse to interact with it. So just try to fidget around until Miguel and Tulio figure it out.

 And look, while I enjoyed most of the puzzles, others where so boring. For example, on the ship level, you have six keys and you must select the two right keys. I had to restart this level so I was unfortunate enough to discover that the right keys are random. You have to ask a monkey to give you one or two keys, if you ask for three you'll wake up a guard who'll take your keys. Once you have your keys you have to trigger a slow animation in which Tulio goes over handrails to the other side of the wall, now you can try the keys. If any of them doesn't work, you have to go through the handrails again, return the keys that didn't work and take new keys. And every time you ask or return a key you have to sit through the unskippable animations. I swear, I liked most of the puzzles, but every now and then you'll get a poorly designed stinker.

 I mentioned how I had to restart a level, well, let me tell ya, there's a reason why any time you pause the game you can "restart mission", and that's because it's a glitchy mess. The performance on the PS1 is nothing short of tragic, it feels as if the entire game runs at 10 fps all the time. When the game first started and I took my first steps as Tulio I couldn't believe how bad it was. And then there are the glitches. On said Ship level, I tried to use biscuits on a rat. Turns out you have to put the biscuits inside a trap, but trying to use the biscuits on the rat soft-locked the game. I don't know why that happened, because I tried it again after restarting the mission and it didn't get soft-locked. Then, during one of the poor "platforming" sections in which you have to jump on stones over water, Miguel jumped ON the water. So I tried running on water to the end, since I was gonna exploit this glitch, but nothing happened, so I somehow jumped onto a platform but... since I triggered a stone as Miguel, Tulio wouldn't push the stone into the water which meant that any attempt at jumping triggered a conversation with Tulio. I had to restart the mission. There's no excuse as to why such a simple game should run this poorly.

 Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to playing this game again, because when I was younger I remember having fun with it on PC. But at least this PS1 version is almost unplayable, it runs like hot garbage and controls even worse. The glitches are just the cherry on top.
 1.5 out of 10

Review #818: Rage Racer

 Get mad.

 There are three things I've been complaining about since I played the first Ridge Racer: No analog stick, No multiplayer and no content. We've still got no analog support, no multiplayer but at least we've got content now! Rage Racer is the third console iteration of the Ridge Racer, gaming was still quite young as it seems Namco didn't discover the importance of brand recognition yet!

 The set-up has changed a lot. Upon entering the main menu you can either play in Grand Prix or Time Trial mode, eventually unlocking the Extra GP, which are the Grand Prix but in mirror mode. As soon as the Grand Prix loads up you'll notice something... you've only got one car you can race with. There's now a very simple customization element to the game, not only must you now purchase other cars from the shop but you can also change their colors(Finally!), their transmission(A few cars only have Manual Transmission, which sucks!!), how their Drift works(You must change the balance between Grip and Drift) and the logo your car brandishes on its hood. I like the new customization feature, but I hate how now you must purchase cars, so it's neither a step forward nor a step backward, more like a sidestep.

 The game has a grand total of four tracks, the first three tracks share the initial and final sections, but the rest of the tracks are completely different, so I'd say 85% of every track is unique, which is about time. The fourth track is an Oval that shares very few assets with the other tracks. So far, so good... Except the game can be a bit of a grind. Let's start with progression, as now the Grand Prix is divided into classes, 5 classes in all. Each "class" refers to the strength of the vehicles. Your starting car is a Class 1, so after you finish 3rd or higher on every track you'll unlock Class 2. While I was pretty close to winning a few class 2 races with my class 1 vehicle I was clearly outmatched. Why did I try that? Because winning Class 1 didn't reward me with enough money to purchase a class 2 car or upgrade my car into a class 2. The same happened after I unlocked class 3, but this time around my car just didn't cut it. The only solution? Replaying lower class Grand Prixes in order to make money in order to stand a chance against my new opponents. In other words, you are expected to play the same four tracks over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. This isn't my idea of fun, and this isn't what I wanted when I complained about Ridge Racer lacking content.

 The game also feels different. I don't think I ever managed to get the hang of how drifting really worked in the game, sometimes I'd get perfect drifts, other times I'd slide all over and other times I couldn't even initiate the drift. The camera is uncomfortably close to the back of the car which took me a bit of getting used to. The soundtrack is still pretty good, although a tiny bit harsher sounding to go along the theme of "rage". The graphics have been completely overhauled, so much so that I also had an adjustment period with it, since at first everything looked so busy and grey, but there's no denying that it looks better than the previous games. 

 It kinda sucks, but I think I didn't like this one as much as the previous ones. It's a better product, that's for sure, there are only 4 tracks but they are very different from one another and look quite pretty to boot. I think car customization was a sidestep in the right direction, but making the game such a grindfest was not. While I had fun with the game I just think the previous games played better. But, hey! At least now we've got content!
 3.5 out of 10

Review #817: Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker

 Batman sure had it rough, huh?

 The Arkham series was not just a fantastic game series, but also games that managed to get the Batman license right. But we're not here to talk about the good, we're here to talk about Ubisoft's Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, a horrible beat'em up that's inspired on the movie of the same name. But how bad can the game be? They misspell Nunchaku and the back cover's filled with lies. 10 gadgets? Where? There's the Staff, the... "Nun Chaku", the discus, the shield and the glider. That's 5. 5 batsuits? Standard, Offensive, Defensive and Nimble. That's 4. 16 stages? Oh no, no no no no no no. There are only 4 levels. 5 if you count the incredibly short Drake Lab stage.

 The game lasts little over an hour, and that's counting retries. You start off with 2 lives, and if you lose them you have to start back from the start of whichever stage you died in. There's no save feature, despite what the back of the game would have you believe(Another lie!), but at least the game is short enough. While it is a beat'em up, the final 3 stages have a lot of awful platforming that kills you instantly if you fall, which made an already bad game even worse. Between stages you get some very bad looking stills and some wonky text trying to convey the story of the film, but it's quite bad.

 Terry can punch, kick, block(he takes damage anyways) and jump. Before you get excited at the prospect of batsuits, know that they don't change Terry's appearance at all. You change suits by pressing select, pick your suit of choice and then pressing circle, which will make the game ask you "EXIT?" and you must actually pick YES in order to change into another suit. The standard suit's only feature is that it has access to the Discus, which can get some use, sometimes, the Staff, which has a single an area-clearing attack and the nunchaku that can be charged for a stronger single-hit attack. The offensive suit lowers some stats while increasing your attack damage, now you can perform proper punch and kick combos, instead of gadgets you get a spin-kick. The defensive suit lowers some stats but raises your defense, you get an impenetrable shield that nullifies any damage coming your way. The nimble suit enhances your speed at the cost of other stats and allows for either a double jump or a glide, as well as letting you roll and dodge around. Your suit of choice during those awful platforming sections.

 Gameplay is pretty dumb. Enemies only get into hitstun from your attacks sometimes which means you'll probably trade hits most of the time. But... there's one solutions. This is how you beat the game: Select the Defensive suit and then alternate between block and kick. It even works on bosses. Did I mention that this game is REALLY bad? Combat is overall pretty bland and lifeless, even when not using the defensive suit. At least the graphics manage to capture Bruce Timm's style pretty well.

 The game isn't broken or glitchy, but man is it lifeless! The music is bland, the combat is drab and there's very few, if any, moments of fun to be had with the game. At least it shouldn't rob you of more than an hour of your lifetime, but then again, there are plenty of other worthwhile things you could waste an hour on.
 2.0 out of 10

Review #816: Ridge Racer 7

 And now, let's take a dip into the future of Ridge Racer.

 It's no secret that I harbor no love for the Racing genre. I have a soft spot for Outrun and will never say no to a round of Mario Kart, but driving ain't my thing. I'm horrible at Ridge Racer, and that didn't change with Ridge Racer 7. But that doesn't matter, because this game is amazing. I liked the game a lot after I tried out my hand at a few Arcade races, but after playing the original games I couldn't help but admire how far the series came.

  The modes in this game are fairly predictable. There's a Grand Prix mode, which is actually a single player campaign in which you race for money and Fame points. The more grand prixes you win, the more Manufacturer Trials you open up, clearing manufacturer trials allows you to purchase cars and customization parts for your cars, and you'll also open up UFRA challenges, which are races that might involve a bit more than just landing first. Sometimes, anyways. There's an online mode, which, y'know, is dead, there's a Global Time Trial mode, that can thankfully be played offline, there's Arcade, in which you can race with preset cars in single or multi track formats. Word of advice, there are no difficulty settings and the AI is relentless, so... get good. It can be played in two player mode. Then there's also UFRA Challenge which allows you to download event races.... which is also dead since the servers are long gone. The last pertaining tab on the main menu is "Machine Connector" which is actually the place in which you can customize your cars. The game offers about 40 cars, which I think is a bit of a lie since some cars are just faster versions of previous cars, as well as 22 tracks that can be mirrored. More than one track? Oh, how far we've come!

 Cars look fantastic, and the fact that you can customize even up to their paint job is pretty dope. The environments are a bit simpler, but they are very pretty so they make up for their lower poly count thanks to the artistry. The game runs pretty well for the most part, but there were a few uncommon bouts of slowdown when many cars were on the screen at the same time, nothing to worry about. The soundtrack, save for a few stinkers(Which I searched up on YT and they have some fans anyways!), is brilliant.

 So, the focus on drifting is still here, and the basics have changed so little that you can even play with the digital pad in case you hate yourself or want to dabble in nostalgia. It's gotten a bit more nuanced, however, since cars can now have any of three types of Drifting: Standard, which is how the played before, Dynamic, which is a bit better at steering through the drift and Mild which reduces drifting for more stability. I really liked Mild cars and stuck with them. There's a new addition, which may have made its debut in a previous game but its pretty new to me, Nitros. Drifting fills your three-tiered nitro gauge, however, how much it fills depends on the sharpness and length of the curve, so you can't just drift willy nilly because it will only cost you speed. You can customize the Nitro gauge too, so you could have a four tiered Nitro gauge, or a two-tier gauge with longer bars as well as a few other types. This matters and will affect how you play, because you can't use a Nitro until it's completely full, and with some gauges you can even store multiple nitros in order to use a Double or even a Triple nitro boost. There are even more nuances to this mechanic, for instance, you can't fill the gauge while using nitro, but if you drift on a curve JUST as your nitro wears off you'll get an extra juicy refill. I really liked this Nitro mechanic, and I feel like it adds a lot to the formula without getting in the way of what Ridge Racer is all about. Using the slipstream, meaning driving behind another car in order to gain a boost of speed by having it break the wind in front of you is also a thing now.

 The Arcade Mode is pretty relentless, and the Grand Prix can be a bit tough. I had to restart some races multiple times before I finally finished on the first places which would grant me more points. It is a tough game, at least for people that don't play racing games often, and there's very little you can do to tailor the difficulty to your abilities besides turning Automatic Transmission on. While it can be scary, it's also a load of fun, so I didn't really mind having to retry some courses oh so many times.

 Well, I can safely say that Ridge Racer 7 is among my favorite Racing games. I haven't played many of them, true, but I've played a fair amount, and I can easily put this one next to Outrun 2, if that even counts as a Racer. I've read that Unbouded changed the gameplay a lot, so it's gonna be interesting seeing where Namco took the series after this one.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #815: WWF In your House

 Now, if I could get this disc out of my house...

 Every time a company strikes gold they inevitably try again, and that's how WWF In Your House happened. It's... well, it's more of the same. General consensus seems to agree that it's a worse more of the same, but... I'm not too sure about that, I think this game has a few things going for it.

 The wrestler roster has been bumped up to ten. The Undertaker, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels are joined by superstars like Ultimate Warrior, Goldust and a very early Triple H, long before he used the Triple H moniker. The other new guys are Vader, Owen Hart, Ahmed Johnson and the British Bulldog... names that, sadly, mean nothing to me. Considering I can recognize more wrestlers in this game.... I was much fonder of this roster. Each character has their own ring, they look ugly, but at least we've got more than one ring. Speaking of ugly, the new digitized sprites seem much less detailed and more pixelated, and am I crazy or is Owen Hart's sprite tiny? He looks incredibly out of place. Meanwhile, Triple H is already larger than the others, which makes Owen look even more minuscule. ON the flip side, every time you beat the Arcade ladder you get a 5-8 second long highlight reel clip of your wrestler which is a nice, if small, extra.

 Gameplay is pretty much exactly the same, two punches, two kicks, running, head locks, a block button and a very glaring missing movelist. Power ups were added, and can be turned off, which come in the form of White power ups and Red power downs. They are random and sorta lazy, they might heal you, stun you, stun your opponent, make you stronger, make you slower... and you don't really get a clear sign of what you got, except for the stunners. The two unfair Arcade ladders from the original game return, but there's a new 10 match 1-on-1 ladder, thank god, and you can play with up to four players with a multi-tap, not bad!

 Look, it's more of the same. A more recognizable roster made it more inviting for me, but still not enough to make me care about it. The controls still feel sluggish and I hate not having a readily available complete moveset, not even on the instruction booklet, which probably soured me on the game since I had to struggle to guess my character's reversals and headlock throws. When it's all said and done, I'm sorry to report that I can't say I enjoyed either of these games, but I'll give the edge to this one, if only because the roster was more recognizable to me.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #814: Ridge Racer Revolution

 Oh, here's the second track!... but where are the rest??

 Well... it's more Ridge Racer. Ridge Racer Revolution is little more than an upgraded version of the original, to the point that it's almost ridiculous how small this thing is. That said, it's still fun as hell, and pretty much every change they did was for the better. Except for the soundtrack.

 Once again, one track and one track only is all that you get, but you get six different tweaks: Beginner, Mid and Expert versions, as well as unlockable mirrors of each. Each different level adds a new part to the track, so after playing the beginner course you'll have played 80% of the game. Each track can be played in either Race(3 laps), Time Trial(VS CPU) or in an endless Free Run mode. It's a better set up than the original, that's for sure, and I appreciate how every version of the track adds something on top of the other, unlike the original in which some variations only upped the max speed. I'd also like to mention that this new track is more detailed and more fun to race in than the one in the original, so bonus points for that. It's also a bit more challenging. And, y'know, despite it only being one track, it has a nice assortment of pieces and panoramas to make it interesting to look at and race on. The graphics as a whole are a bit better, but on the other hand, the soundtrack isn't as amazing. It's still a really good soundtrack, like 9/10 instead of the original's 10/10.

 There's a multiplayer mode now.... if you own two Playstations, two copies of Ridge Racer Revolution and the fabled link cable, so it might as well not be there at all. There's still no analog support, and, once again, the brunt of the playable vehicles are hidden behind a brief Galaga 88 loading minigame. There's a cheat to automatically destroy them all this time around, which is welcome.

 And that's pretty much it. Same fantastic gameplay, a slightly better set-up and another single, but more entertaining, course to race through. It's still far from being a good product in this day and age, but I'm more comfortable vouching for this one since it feels like it has slightly more content than the original. And once again, scoring the game is tough, because as far as gameplay is concerned, it checks all boxes, but there simply isn't enough content here to justify a purchase.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #813: WWF WrestleMania - The Arcade Game

 Mortal Kombat gone Wrestling.

 I've never been much of a fan of digitalized sprites, however, WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game looked so weird that it intrigued me, so of course, I went ahead and got both it and its sequel. What makes it so weird is that this game isn't your average fighting game, it's more akin to Mortal Kombat, with life bars and a block button, as well as a very similar sense of humor. Undertaker can summon ghosts, Bam Bam Bugalow can throw fire punches and Ramon Razor can turn his arms into deadly blades. It's a weird game, alright?

 This is a straight up port of the Arcade original, without any bells and whistles. You get 8 wrestlers: The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Yokozuna, Bam Bam Bugalow, Lex Luger, Ramon Razor and Doink. Wrestling wasn't a thing over here, even though curiously enough, Hulk Hogan was a household name, so... I could barely recognize anyone besides The Undertaker, so the roster might resonate a bit more with American households, or people big into wrestling during the 90's. Single Player Mode is made up of two Arcade Ladders, but you can also play Co-Op and Deathmatch with another player. It's... it's quite lacking. And the Arcade Ladder is quite annoying, one of them starts off with 1 on 1 matches, but then you have two one VS two matches and ends on a one VS three match, while the other ladder is even worse, starting off with one VS two matches, then two one VS three matches and ends with a fight against all 8 characters. It's tough and it's unfair and I recommend turning off blocking for this mode.

 The game has a very Mortal Kombat five-button setup: Punch, Kick, Super Punch, Super Kick and Block. Punch+Kick makes your wrestler run, while S. Punch+ S. Kick allows you to grab opponents... with a specific few characters. Other universal inputs are forward-forward-S. punch to get your enemy in a headlock, back-back-S. punch to throw your enemy towards the rope and back-back-punch to throw your enemy into the ground. You can also get out of the ring and get on top of the torn buckles to produce jumping attacks. There's a combo gauge that lets you use Super Moves, but the instruction booklet is no help and there's no in-game moveset, and I couldn't care enough to google them, so I wasn't able to pull off any of them. Even so, controls didn't seem very responsive, and the fighting system was a bit clunky, so I didn't have much fun. That said, I'm sure it's better against other players, since the CPU just isn't fun to fight in this game, they react to fast to your head-locks, producing reversals before you can try to figure out what input combination works with the Wrestler you picked.

 I'm pretty sure this game has a small cult following behind it, but sadly, I just didn't enjoy it much. Combat in the game is bit wonky and unresponsive, although not altogether bad, just subpar, and playing solo is more of a chore than anything. I give them props for the idea, however, and while I wasn't so fond of the end product, I'm glad that such a weird idea can live on as a game.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #812: Ridge Racer

 It's RIIIIDGEEEE RACEEEEEEEEEER! ....but where's the rest of the game?

 So, last year I decided to give Ridge Racer a try which meant I bought a ton of Ridge Racer games. I decided to start with 7, and spoilers, it's pretty darn fun, but the original piqued my curiosity so I started it shortly after. And I was done with it 2 hours later.

 The game offers a single track with 7 variations. Beginner, which has a slow max speed and a 2 lap race, Mid, which raises the max speed and makes it into a 3 lap race, Expert, which once again raises the top speed and adds another very sinuous part to the track and Time Trial which raises the top speed even further but turns it into a race against a single AI opponent. Getting first place on all four variations will unlock mirrored versions of each. And... yeah, that's pretty much it. It's just a simple racing game against 11 racers, while trying to make it onto checkpoints too since you can lose if the Time limit expires, even before anyone reaches the finish line. There isn't even a multiplayer mode, this is a single player racing game. You get 4 cars to start with and can unlock another 8 by... beating the Galaxian minigame upon start up. The game is so small that it's completely loaded into memory while the brief Galaxian minigame runs, and once that's done you can swap out the CD with a Music CD to play your own tracks, which doesn't work very well and... why would you? This game's soundtrack is AMAZING. As for the graphics... it's pretty rough and undetailed, pretty telling of a very, very early PS1 game.

 The game's main mechanic is its drifting, you have to let go off the accelerator, or make a short break, turn your car and then go full throttle. The instruction booklet is of little help, but Ridge Racer 7 prepared me a bit better for it. When drifting you have to be quick to straighten your car, lest you take a massive loss of speed. It feels slippery, car-on-car collision doesn't feel quite right and the lack of analog support is harsh.... but I can't deny the game's charm. This single track was a load of fun, and I had so much fun during my 2-2.5 hours with the game, as I very slowly got better at drifting and actually managed to score first places! Having a banging soundtrack helped so much to keep me invested in the game, no lie.

 It's very hard to score Ridge Racer because while it's oh so very barebones... it's also pure bliss. It's a fun game to play, it's a fun course to race in and working out how to drift was fun. I mean, I was, heck, still am terrible at the game, but I had so much fun losing over and over again. That said, since I already played RR 7, and I know RR 4 has a very simple(and even more barebones!) remake of this game.... I just can't recommend it in good faith. It is a fun time, I think it's worth a look, but I don't think it's a game that deserves to be paid for in this day and age. And I'm telling you already, there's no way this game is making it into my "Worst of 2020" because, at its core, it's REALLY good.
 2.0 out of 10

Review #811: Ultra Street Fighter IV

 Greatness born out of laziness.

 I loved Street Fighter X Tekken, despite its garbage DLC practices which played a huge part of why the game bombed so hard. But if Capcom knows one thing it's how to be lazy and sell you a recycled product, so they grabbed all the Street Fighter assets, Rolento, Poison, Hugo, Elena as well as its six stages, they also repurposed Cammy's model to make Decapre and then resold Super Street Fighter IV AE as Ultra Street Fighter IV. Love it or hate it, Street Fighter IV rekindled the mainstream interest in Fighting games, making it a legendary game alongside Street Fighter II. This game came out at a time I was falling out of love with the Fighting genre, no longer watching every Evo and every other Tournament that came out, so I ended up skipping Ultra.

 Truth be told, there are more novelties to the game other than the new characters and stages. Now you can pick a third option when picking your Ultra: W Ultra Combo Double, which nets your character access to both Ultras, albeit a bit weakened to make up for the added tools. There's a new focus attack, Red Focus, which can tank any amount of hits instead of only one. Lastly, there's delayed wake up, to play tricks with your opponent. Nothing to mindboggling, but they are good additions. There are no new offline modes, which kinda suck considering Street Fighter IV was already pretty lacking there, but now you can play Versus matches with Edition Select, letting you pick any SF 4 version of whichever character you like. If you download the free dlc, you also get wacky Omega versions to pick from.

 Included with this game was every piece of DLC released up to that day, this means veteran characters get 3 DLC costumes, Super and AE characters get 2 DLC costumes and the newbies get none. You still need a Street Fighter IV savefile if you want access to colors 11 and 12 for the pre-AE characters, something I found out since my PS3's HDD got murdered a few years ago and didn't have a SFIV save file. Oh, and the last nine new characters(AE plus Ultra's new comers) still don't have Trials, which is ridiculous since they shouldn't be hard to implement, nor do they get Rival cutscenes, making them stand out from the rest of the roster. Remember how every iteration of Street Fighter IV up to now came with very beefy instruction manuals? Nope, not this time, Capcom had to follow their time-honed tradition of cutting corners.

 As far as the new characters go.... I really didn't care about the SF X T newcomers. I guess Hugo is so huge he is fun to fight, but that's it. Surprisingly, I really, really liked Decapre, the lazy model repurpose. She's like a much cooler version of Cammy and isn't wearing a glorified bathing suit.

 While I've got nothing but criticisms about Ultra Street Fighter IV as a product, there's no denying that underneath it all you've got Super Street Fighter IV, a classic through and through. The game is an absolute blast to play, it's always been. That said, I understand why I skipped this game back in the day, I didn't really care about the new characters and the new gameplay mechanics were but a few small nuances to an already spectacular set of mechanics so I never saw any need to get the new update. That said, anyone who is this late in getting into Street Fighter IV should undoubtedly pick up this final version, and someone that never made the jump from Super to AE might find 9 new characters a much more enticing offer.
 9.0 out of 10