Day 81: The Novelist (PC)

My ongoing efforts to play one title from my 553 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

The Novelist for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

In a roundabout sort of way the indie game blow up of a few years ago is a large part of the reason why my backlog is quite so big as it is. 

Back then, when the boom was fully booming, my trusty laptop was suddenly unable to play the kind of small independently produced games that weren’t available on consoles.

With the success of Xbox Live and PSN smaller games were getting more attention, XBLIG saw even smaller games get some of the spotlight, and by the time Nintendo embraced this market with it’s ‘Nindies’ showcase coverage of small, arty, games with development teams whose number you could count on one hand were as important to traffic on most games websites as that of the latest COD or [insert name of competitive multiplayer game no-one really cares about].

So to continue playing indie games that weren’t coming to console, or were but at a much later date or hugely inflated price, I had to join the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race. 

I often wonder if people who seriously profess to be part of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race understand that the name ‘Glorious PC Gaming Master Race’ was actually coined ironically? And that by continuing to describe themselves as members of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race they are only further highlighting the ridiculous attitudes that the name ‘Glorious PC Gaming Master Race’ was making fun of?

What am I saying…? Of course they know… Right?

Anyway, I bought a PC which meant, at the time, getting games from Steam, which meant Steam sales and Humble Bundles, which meant a huge backlog of games I bought for 50p and never played.

I’ve got in the habit now of regularly ‘Marie Kondo’-ing my digital games but, despite regular pruning, they still make up a sizable chunk of my collection and my backlog.

What was I talking about again? Oh right! The Novelist. The Novelist was one such game.

Day 80: NBA Street Showdown (PSP)

A portable version of the best hoops games ever? Where do I sign? Continuing my efforts to play one title from my 553 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

NBA Street Showdown for the PSP
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

It’s amazing to think that, given the company's reputation with gamers today, EA was once the home of the E.A. Sports ‘Big’ series of games.

'Big', for those out of the loop, was basically a sub-label of E.A. Sports that focused less on trying to accurately recreate a given sport and more on taking the aspects of each activity that made it entertaining and exaggerating them in the name of OTT style and fun. 

A lot of these games had official licenses and, unrecognisably from the EA we know today, were possessed of an almost reverential respect for each game’s history; these games, from the most soulless corporation in gaming, had heart.

Over the 8 years it was going, Big released 21 games with installments based on Basketball, Football (Soccer), American Football, Wrestling, Motocross, Rallying, Skidooing, and, most famously of all, Skiing/Snowboarding (with the SSX series). 

I’ve played 14 of them, and they are all various kinds of amazing fun.

Five of the games comprised the ‘NBA Street’ series. Volumes one, two, and three were put out on sixth generation consoles, Homecourt was the fifth in the franchise and was an early generation seven release. Fun fact: It was the first game of that generation to be native 1080p resolution.

But back when ‘NBA Street Vol.3’ was being released onto home consoles, ‘NBA Street Showdown’ was released for the PSP. 

I picked it up cheap from eBay last year in the name of completionism and it turns out the box and manual of my copy are both in Chinese! 

Luckily, the game itself is identical to the US version.

Day 78 - Skate it (DS)

Will touch controls prove ingenious or maddening in today's randomly selected title from my 556 game backlog. I'm playing one a day while I'm enduring Covid-19 lockdown...

Skate It for the DS
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

All the back on day 7 I took a look at Skate It on the Wii; a spin-off from the main PS3/360 series that was pared back and reworked to fit the Wii and it’s motion control system.

I thought it worked pretty well despite some idiosyncrasies to navigate, and in the end it was a fun game with a unique control scheme that was interesting and reasonably responsive to use.

Launched simultaneously, the Nintendo DS version arrived with the same ethos. It was pared back even further, and this time the controls were re-developed for the DS touch screen and stylus.

That either sounds like an intriguing idea or a horrifying one depending on your outlook. 

I try to keep an open and neutral mind but I admit to being excited to try this one when Selectron™ chose it for me.

Day 76: Evasion (PC VR)

Some co-op VR makes the latest dent in my 560 game backlog. I'm playing one a day, every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Evasion for the PC (VR)
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

At the beginning of my recent blog post for 'Brute Force' on the Xbox, I talked briefly about the state of VR, about how it’s waiting for the individual elements of greatness that are slowly emerging in disparate software to come together (with cheaper hardware) to create a game that will bring the platform into the mainstream.

It’s only fair that I make it clear from the start that Evasion is not that game.

Way back on day 7, I played 'Space Pirate Trainer'; a VR game that ostensibly has a lot in common with Evasion, but which is not as successful thanks to the high level of repetition that leads boredom to set in very quickly.

Evasion and SPT share similar weapons, similar shields, and even a similar ‘leash’ mechanic, but Archiact’s 2018 game adds two things that help it to hold off the yawns far more effectively; Environments (with the requisite ability to move through them) and co-op play.

'Evasion' marks the third attempt by me and my brother-in-law (let's call him Bob, as that is, after all, his name) to play something in VR multiplayer since lockdown.

The first endeavour involved freebie social gaming platform ‘Rec Room’ in which we wandered around, got beaten by 12-year-olds at paintball, and ended up with me depositing my lunch into the nearest suitable receptacle during the intense VR activity of ‘Ten Pin Bowling’. 

Note to self: Leave the Cubre Libres until after VR in the future.

Day 75: Slipstream (PC)

The spirit of OutRun is invoked in today's randomly selected title from my 561 game backlog. I'm playing one for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Slipstream for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

OutRun is one of the most iconic, and for me one of the very best, video games of all time. As such, it’s imitators are legion, and have been arriving regularly ever since its original release back in 1986.

I’ll save you a long monologue on Yu Suzuki’s masterpiece now, as I’ve already written about it at length before, and, as I said the last time this came up, the fact I titled it ‘A Love Letter to OutRun’ should give you a clue as to my feelings.

Slipstream is one of the more recent games to pay homage to the old master, with the whole OutRun series serving as inspiration, and a dollop of ‘Initial D’ added for good measure. It began life on Kickstarter in 2016 and finally gained release exclusively to PC (including Linux and Mac) in 2018.

I saw it originally on Rock, Paper, Shotgun in mid 2015, when the developer released an initial demo onto their itch.io page. I saved it to my Google Keep and promptly forgot about it. A digital tidy up brought it back to my attention three and half years later, and this time I immediately took myself to itch to buy it… and then forgot about it for another six months. 

Which brings us to today.

Day 74: Brute Force (Xbox)

A game billed as a 'Halo Killer' is today's randomly selected title from my 563 game backlog; one played for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Brute Force for the Xbox
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

One day, probably in the not too distant future, VR is going to catch on, properly catch on and slowly become the norm for video games.

It will take a few things for this to happen. Hardware prices need to come down, obviously, but more importantly software quality needs to improve.

VR is currently a growth market, and more and more games are trying to take their piece of the pie. Yesterday I played ‘PayDay 2 VR’, a free add-on for the main game that was itself free on one of the major platforms not so long ago. It was a bit of a mess; a low effort grab for a slice of the VR pie, but another game ticked off the ‘unplayed’ list nonetheless.

There are very good VR games out there. ‘Half Life Alyx’ may not be the giant leap that many claim (Valve’s control-freak tendencies sadly ruin it’s potential) but it’s a great tech-demo for what can be achieved on the format in terms of presentation and, when games start to emerge with the playability of ‘Superhot VR’ or ‘Robo Recall’ and the polish of ‘Half Life’, VR will finally become the next chapter in the ongoing history of video games.

And make no mistake: Video games need this to happen. The medium has been stagnant for two decades. The last notable step forward was when consoles entered the online space in their sixth generation, and all that has happened since has just been the application of layer upon layer of polish.

When VR finally sticks it’s landing, the knock on effect will be that games from the turn-of-the-century will finally be believably categorised as retro - and first in line for that (dubious) honour will be games like ‘Brute Force’.

Day 69: Pogo (ZX Spectrum)

The ZX Spectrum returns in my ongoing efforts to play one randomly selected title from my 564 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Pogo for the ZX Spectrum
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

It’s going to be a short one today because ‘Pogo’ is... well... it's ‘Q*bert’ - and what new could I possibly find to say about ‘Q*bert’?

Lets see...

Day 68: To the Earth (NES)

Busting out the NES Zapper in my ongoing efforts to play one randomly selected title from my 565 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

To the Earth for the NES
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Did you know there are only seventeen games for the NES ‘Zapper’ accessory? That’s sixteen games that no-one has ever played because they aren’t ‘Duck Hunt’.

Okay. That’s not fair. 

I know there are fans out there of ‘Wild Gunman’, ‘Gum Shoe’, ‘Hogan’s Alley’, ‘Operation Wolf’, and ‘Freedom Force’. And a lot of people know of ‘Bayou Billy’, and ‘Barker Bill’.

But I reckon that about does it for the Zapper games that most people could name off the top of their head; not even half of them, by my maths.

Which is a shame because there’s a couple of games in the ‘other’ half that are better than most of the better known games. I don’t own SNK’s ‘Mechanized Attack’ as it’s US only, but I was able to play it at a game show a few years back and it’s definitely one of the better games for the peripheral and deserving of attention for more than it’s infamous debug screen. 

And then there’s ‘To the Earth’, which, incidentally, has possibly my favourite box art on the system; the lettering alone is pure joy to behold.

Day 66: Henry Hatsworth in The Puzzling Adventure (Nintendo DS)

This fun hybrid platform/puzzler is the latest randomly selected title from my 566 game backlog, from which I'm playing one a day while the UK is in lockdown...

Henry Hatsworth in The Puzzling Adventure for the DS

Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I was recently reading a review on Eurogamer of a Nintendo DS game called 'Scurge: Hive' (a cracking isometric Metroidvania), in which the writer was lamenting the fact that so many DS games only used the lower display as a map screen. 

I don’t deny this is a fair point, but it is one mostly limited (luckily) to the sort of game I don’t really play.

I’m actually struggling to recall a game (other than 'Scurge: Hive', obviously) that didn’t have some practical or interesting use for the second screen. Even Sonic Rush (which I bounced off pretty hard on day 56) looked beautiful split across the dual screens, and now here’s 'Henry Hatsworth', the very next DS game I play, wherein the second screen is not just used well, but used to play almost a completely different game to that being played on the top.

This is a game that combines an action-platformer, played on the top screen, with a match-three puzzler, played on the bottom. And ‘combines’ is the correct word, it would have been easy for the two, very different, games to seem disjointed or only have a faint connection, but Hatsworth brilliantly manages to ensure that actions in one game directly affect events in the other.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 20: Ape Out (PC/Switch)

I'm playing one title from my 626 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. 

Previous days games can be found here. Today's game is...

Ape Out on PC/Switch

Oh. My. Goodness. I actually have chills.
This game is PHENOMENAL!

Here's what happened:
I played the first set of levels. I took a breath to write this and to buy this game on my Switch because I got it on PC for free and because jesus christ do these guys ever deserve my money.

And now I'm going back to play some more.

Right. Start again.

I love video games. When video games are done properly and the player feels like they are the final component in someone else's work of art... There is nothing else like it.

It's games like Ape Out that make me wish I were a better writer. I don't think there is any way I can properly convey the excitement, the thrill, the pure joy of playing this game. It's an expertly crafted thing. Ostensibly a top down brawler with a style not unlike Teleglitch; the columns and walls of the architecture reaching up infinitely to provide a stylish way to bring line-of-sight
into play. 

The art design is very Saul Bass (if you're not familiar with the name then I'm sure you'll recognise the style) and the music. My god the music. If I were to describe it as 'Percussive Jazz' I'm sure half of you would stop reading but as recogniseable descriptors go it's the best I can do. It accompanies the action so perfectly that it becomes a rhythm game - not overtly so - more in the manor that you can't help but become part of it.

Sound effects add additional percussion literally and conceptually. But I need to take a step back to explain that properly.

You are an ape. You start the game in a cage surrounded by your dead brethren and a guard, and there are two instructions emblazoned on the floor: Left Stick. Right Trigger. I'll spare you what happens immediately after this because it's a beautiful thing to be experienced for yourself - but I pretty much knew after 30 seconds that I was going to love this game.

The game is split into four sets of levels, called albums in keeping with the jazz motif, with each level being a track thereon. In the first of these 'albums' you thunder through a facility of some kind punching armed guards into walls, windows, each other, where they are eviscerated into a pool of blood and loose limbs accompanied by a cymbal clash or a bass drum thump.
Not long into the game another mechanic is revealed. Left Stick Grab. Right stick Aim. From this point you can get hold of an enemy 'human shield' style, in panic they will fire their weapon, only once, but it's enough bring another level of depth to the insane pace of the game.

There are other things that mix up play later on that I'm going to leave you to find for yourself, but suffice to say in what I've played thus far the game has yet to take even a small misstep. It exhibits perfect execution of everything it strives to achieve.

In 1987 I played 'Into The Eagles Next' on my brothers Commodore 128 and a love of top-down games was born. 33 years later I think Ape Out might be best example of this genre I've ever played. Gabe Cuzzillo, take a bow, because this is an amazing example of the focus and vision that auter game development can bring and the pure perfect artistry that is apparently impossible with large teams and, potentially, large budgets. 

And it's so much damn fun I can't even quantify.

Ape Out - Go and play it. Now. Right now.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 13: Jungle Trouble (ZX Spectrum)

The latest in my attack on (at least) one title from my 631 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

Back to the vintage days again as the randomiser chose...

Jungle Trouble on the ZX Spectrum

Mike Richardson is a name that means the same to me that Shigeru Miyamoto might mean to you.

As half of Durrell Software (interestingly wrongly credited as 'Elite' on the covertape I'm playing from) Mr Richardson was responsible for Turbo Esprit. A game I first played in 1987 and one I have loved ever since. It's easily in my top five games of all time. It turns out, 3 years before Turbo Esprit Mr Richardson was working with even less ram (16k) on a little game called Jungle Trouble - and it is delightful.

The entirety of Jungle Trouble is just a single screen divided into 4 'events' over 3 levels. First you have to hopscotch over the crocodile invested river, then you have to fell four trees, then rope swing over a pit of fire. Finally. You have to jump a chasm that opens in the ground just when you think you're 'Home'. There are also three monkeys who interfere with whatever you're up to.

This is it. This is the whole game. There are entirely two sound effects. Walking and dying, and there are 6 colours - including black and white. As video games go it doesn't get more basic than this, and that, usually, is a really bad sign.

I'm not really a fan of nostalgia. I'm not immune to it and I understand it's a powerful thing but too often I see it's rosy hue creep into peoples opinions - often without them noticing. Very old games are an area where I've seen this the most, so let me break this to everyone gently. The vast, VAST, majority of games from the early eighties and before are absolute rubbish. The majority of the Atari VCS library: Awful. 16k Spectrum games: Unplayable.

And yet there are always exceptions.

Jungle Trouble has it's idiosyncrasies... Without reading the instructions you would never find the axe required to chop down the trees. It takes trial and error just to realise that you have to release 'run' before you can jump. The keys are 5=Left, 6=Down, 7=Up, & 8=right - these were the cursor keys for the Spectrum and I've never seen them used before... Nevertheless, it kind of works. Still.

To get any longevity from the game you'd have to be obsessed with beating your high score on each of the speed settings (Charmingly, it literally just increases the speed that everything in game runs out) and I'm not pretending anyone is going to spend time doing that in 2020. But as an example of a properly vintage game that is actually playable - and enjoyable - nearly 40 years after it was made, Jungle Trouble is a lovely thing.

Jungle Trouble (ZX Spectrum) - Don't listen to me, play it yourself

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) quick burst Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the disappointingly awkward Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Day Nine was the idiosyncratic Ring of Red on PS2

Day Ten I lost half my text while trying to explain how Assassin's Creed Syndicate on PC was a pleasant, is simplistic, surprise.


Day Eleven was the utterly broken Perfect Dark on GBC


Day Twelve was the fun Rescue Raiders knock-off Glory Days on the GBA

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 12: Glory Days (aka Super Army War) (GBA)

Latest in my attack on (at least) one title from my 632 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

A step forward from the GBC yesterday to the GBA today as the randomiser has chosen...

Glory Days on the Game Boy Advance

Way back in 1984 there was a game on the Apple II called Rescue Raiders. A forerunner of Choplifter, it featured similar gameplay to that later game combined with light Real Time Strategy elements. 3 years later, initially on the same machine, came the slightly better known Wings of Fury. Similar to Rescue Raiders with it's side on view but with a more attack focused outlook and the helicopter swapped for a WWII, carrier launched, Hellcat fighter.

For some reason, 20 years after Rescue Raiders first saw the light of day, a french developer called Neko (who spent most of their days phoning in cash-grab licensed games for whomsoever hired them) decided to take these two classics, smoosh them together, and remake them into a game called Glory Days which was then rebranded to the mind numbingly generic 'Super Army War' in the US.

Being a wholesale rip-off of two good games means that Glory Days is itself a good game. You fly either the chopper or the Hellcat over the battlefield as the good-guys advance from the right and the bad-guys from the left, attacking with the weapons specific to either vehicle.

During their advance your troops capture bunkers, these generate extra cash, which in turn generates extra troops. So in destroying the enemy you help the ground troops advance to the next bunker and eventually to the enemy base for victory. Pretty standard RTS stuff, just simplified into a side on view.

The depictions of the troops, tanks, choppers, and fighters are all small but quite detailed. The style is pseudo-realistic and while it looks nice, to my tastes the pixels of Wings of Fury on the Amiga - or even the GBC - were more attractive. Glory Days is by no means a bad looking game, it just lacks a little personality. Additionally, on the original GBA or even the front-lit SP, Glory days can be quite hard to make out when there is a lot going on. It looks great on the Micro though and if that's not an option the DS is a great alternative.

I'm not generally a fan of the RTS genre but so much is taken care of automatically in Glory Days that I found it didn't bother me at all. In the earliest levels strategy is as light as choosing which targets to hit, more depth follows later in the game but it never takes away from the feeling that your actions in the air are having the most direct impact on the tide of the battle.

Basically, this is game that steals directly from too highly addictive classics and essentially lets you play them both at the same time. It may leave a bad taste in the mouth for some, but on pure entertainment value it's a hard game to fault.

Glory Days (GBA) - Perfect pocket plagiarism. 'Wings of Rescue Raiders' if you will.

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) quick burst Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the disappointingly awkward Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Day Nine was the idiosyncratic Ring of Red on PS2

Day Ten I lost half my text while trying to explain how Assassin's Creed Syndicate on PC was a pleasant, is simplistic, surprise.

Day Eleven was the utterly broken Perfect Dark on GBC

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 11: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Latest in my attack on (at least) one title from my 633 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

The GBC is one of my favourite handhelds so I was intrigued when the randomiser chose...

Perfect Dark on the Game Boy Color

Made as a showcase of what the hardware could achieve, Perfect Dark has big, beautifully animated sprites, lots of in game speech, lots of colour, a rumble pack built in, support for infrared transfer and even content for the mighty Game Boy Printer.

Sadly, the usually reliable folks a Rare were apparently so busy doing all this that they forgot to make an entertaining game.

Viewed from a weird kind-of-above, kind-of-side-on, not-quite-isometric view, the game tries to offer about four different types of gameplay. This is admirable, but only one of them is actually any fun - and one of them is game-breakingly bad.

Firstly, there's the run around killing guys sections. Thanks to the tiny screen and large sprites your only hope here is to stand toe-to-toe and trade bullets until someone dies (and hope it's them). The game tries to balance this out by letting you search the corpses for health and bullets, with which it is admittedly pretty generous, but which is also very slow and repetitive.

Secondly there are door 'puzzles' which are literally 4 colour, 'Simon says' efforts... should you forget the sequence the only way to quit and retry is to get it wrong another 2 times... every bit as enjoyable as you'd imagine.

Next there's the shooting galleries. It's the very definition of damning with feint praise to say that these are the most entertaining sections in the game. They are little Operation Wolf style affairs that mix up the pace nicely and work well.

Lastly, and most frustratingly of all, given the pedigree, we have what is laughable called the 'Stealth' mechanic. During the game you can walk and run. Walking is 'stealth', if you can walk up behind an enemy undetected they can be killed with one shot. Given this is the GBC the simplified concept is sound. However, given this is the GBC, the screen is so small (made smaller by a health bar covering the entire right side) that the stealth approach is like trying to sneak up on someone in a lift. Does that sound bad? How about if you add an insta-fail mechanic to the mix? Yeah? no.

Perfect Dark (GBC) - A great example of how all the polished presentation in the world can't save a very bad game.

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) quick burst Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the disappointingly awkward Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Day Nine was the idiosyncratic Ring of Red on PS2

Day Ten I lost half my text while trying to explain how Assassin's Creed: Syndicate on PC was a pleasant, if simplistic, surprise.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 10: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

The latest in my attack on (at least) one title from my 634 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

After a run of pretty old stuff the random game selector has picked something almost up-to-date today...

Assassin's Creed Syndicate on PC

Now, as anyone with a sizeable backlog can attest, it's a bad idea to pick up every game available for free or in one of those ubiquitous 90% sales. Personally I will only add a free game to my library if I was interested before it was being given away. By way of example I have only grabbed 2 free titles from the Epic store since they've been going; Ape Out, and this; Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Until now, the most I've played of the whole rambling Assassin's Creed franchise was about an hour on the second one while babysitting at my brothers house back when it was new. I wasn't particularly taken with it to be honest - but I've been interested in Syndicate for a while because, as I grew up on the fringes of London, I always love seeing the old city in games.

I've found myself in the habit of given a little background on a game when I write these things, but I'm finding it pretty difficult AC:S. I'm presuming that the future people are able to do some Quantum Leap thing with assassins from various times? I have genuinely no idea. Needless to say that there are some folk that need assassinating back in Victorian London and I'll be in the business of doing so by controlling one of two twins; Jacob or Evie Frye.

In terms of how the game plays, having not played much of the series before, I was put most in mind of Prince of Persia 2008, a game of which, to put it lightly, I am not a fan. This may lead you to believe that I wouldn't enjoy Assassin's Creed Syndicate, after all, the traversal in autopilot that I hated in PoP '08 is taken to it's natural conclusion here - you literally just run at everything and the game takes care of the rest. The difference though, is that while PoP '08 is ostensibly a platform game (in which the player controlled nothing that makes platform games fun) AC: Syndicate is not, it's stealth game, albeit a fast paced one in which it is very difficult to fail. For the free running/climbing aspects I actually think it would be a far worse game if you did have full OG Tomb Raider style control of your avatar - the size and detail of the environments would make it infuriating just getting from point a to point b on your period defying GPS.

...and I've lost the rest of this post for some reason... :-(

Basically to my surprise I enjoyed the game in a very 'bubblegum' kind of way. Helped no doubt by the fact I don't play a lot of open world games.



Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) quick burst Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the disappointingly awkward Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Day Nine was the idiosyncratic Ring of Red on PS2

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 9: Ring of Red (PS2)

Latest in my attack of (at least) one title from my 636 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

The random game selector has actually picked two titles today, but the one I'm going to talk about is

Ring of Red on Playstation 2 (Played on 60gb PS3)

The other one, Crazy Cars on the C64 was so irredeemably terrible that I actually played it for less time than it took the tape to load. But still, another one off the the backlog list at least.

Crazy Cars (C64) - Avoid like Covid 19

There's a tenuous link, I guess, between the old 8 bit days of Crazy Cars and Ring of Red which was released exclusively for the PS2 in 2001

The cover tape on the front of the August 1990 issue of Your Sinclair featured a demo of Back to the Future II, about which 'young me' was very excited. Having rushed home with my copy and waited patiently for the tape to load I soon discovered that this game was awful. Fortunately, also on the tape that month was a full and complete copy of Rebelstar II, which was definitely not awful, but also scratched my naive desire for a movie tie-in game. Rebelstar II, in case you're not familiar, rips off all of its character and enemy designs from the Alien movies.

And thus, on that day, my love of Turn Based Strategy games was born.

It's a genre completely at odds with my usual tastes (I grew up with the arcades) so I have to make a special effort to discover new games in this area. I think I remember reading a retrospective of Ring of Red and the author being so enthusiastic about it that I decided to track down a copy - it's certainly not a game that's been in my backlog from its release date and equally not something I've stumbled across at a boot sale or CEX.

Set in an alternative universe post-WWII Japan that has been geo-politically divided between East and West, Ring of Red has you as the pilot of an AFW (Armoured Fighting Walker), a hulking mechanised tank of the kind that apparently rule the battlefields of this other reality.

In gameplay you control the AFW and two infantrymen who provide both small arms fire and other support roles. Battles take place on a standard grid with units getting the usual allocation of movement and firing ranges.

So far, so every-TBS-ever, but Ring of Red really starts to stand out when two units are engaged in direct combat. Rather than the sort of canned animation that is usual for the genre, here you take direct control of the mech and issue real time orders to the support troops. Even though this is rather limited (interactions are ostensibly 'forward', 'back', 'stop' and 'fire') they have a real impact on events. The battle combat system is based on range and time; get into the optimal range, take time to aim, and the resulting damage will be maximised.

All this is viewed from a low angle next to your unit which provides a tangible sense of scale and a real immersion in the battle.It does make Ring of Red a very slow game, but for me this had an almost mesmeric effect - the game has a unique rhythm that I found captivating.

There are issues, though most of them lie with polish and presentation. The most jarring is the translation job, which is all over the place. At one point early on I was asked a question with two possible, detailed options as answers, and then given the option to answer either Yes or No... Unfortunately this was not the only nonsensical passage I came across in my short time playing.

On the positive side the game certainly has a consistent, if perhaps overly brown, art style.The graphics in the combat sections are borderline low-poly and the AFWs look all the better for it. They have a real sense of size and weight.Outside the combat the game reminded me a lot of the Ace Combat series on the same hardware; the tone is similarly serious on the subject of war despite the fantastical setting.

Ring of Red has left me with a dilemma that I knew was coming when I started this endeavour: The desire to keep playing without the capacity to do so. I'm also wary that the last game I completed was a TBS and I'd rather mix things up than return to the genre so soon. For now I've marked it as s priority play on my spreadsheet and it will be in the mix to return to when I'm done with Pyre.

Ring of Red - Idiosyncratic, but recommended for fans of the genre

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) short blast Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the unplayably dated Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 7: Space Pirate Trainer (PC VR)

The latest in my attack of (at least) one title from my 638 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

Old school yesterday, bang up to date(ish) today as the random game selector picked:

Space Pirate Trainer on PC/VR

Technical stuff out of the way first in case anyone is interested: My CPU is an i5 4460, GPU is a 6GB 1060, and the VR is the vanilla Lenovo Explorer. I was lucky enough to be given the VR for free as the previous owner was upgrading and knew that with my IRL skills I'd be able to fix the hinge he broke and with my nerd tendencies I'd enjoy a new toy.

These specs sit right on the bottom edge of what is recommended for VR but I've played Superhot, Halflife, Rec Room, and now Space Pirate Trainer with no issues whatsoever.

Anyway. This game is very simple: The player stands on a platform on the edge of space and attempts to shoot down waves of enemy droids as they fly around you. This is pure arcade blast and it knows it. The standard game mode is three lives and you're out and is even called 'Arcade', another mode; 'Old School' makes the enemy attack in Galaga style patterns.

The weaponry at hand is great fun. The standard blaster has eight different fire modes, ranging from the stand rapid fire blast to a shotgun and even a grenade launcher. You can have a gun in each hand but keeping track of which gun was doing what in which hand was bewildering. Fortunately there is also the option to use a secondary weapon which is kind of a dual purpose shield/light sabre affair. Yes, before you ask, you can absolutely deflect enemy fire back at them with the blade and, as per the game's primary defensive gimmick, you'll be doing so in bullet time.

The secondary weapon isn't done there though. It has an additional function in a sort laser lasso which can be used to charge nearby friendly auto-turrets or, a much more fun use, is to tether the enemy droids and then subject them to whatever punishment you fancy. I enjoyed pulling them in close and blasting with the shotgun but they can also be smashed into the ground or brought close enough to slice with the laser sword. I even picked up an achievement for destroying one by pulling it into it's own laser blast.

You've probably got the impression that there's a lot going on in this game - and to extent that's true. But the problem is that all the complexity is on the side of the player - the enemies have very little variety at all. Little round droids make up the majority of the cannon fodder with the occasional swarm of slightly different shaped droids thrown in to attempt to mix things up.

Which leaves me with a weird contradiction. Space Pirate Trainer makes no attempt to be anything other than a throwback arcade shooter with modern trappings - and it succeeds brilliantly at that - but somehow I can't help but feel I want more from it. It almost feels like a proof of concept that is yet to have the rest of game built around it.

Having already played Superhot VR and Robo Recall before coming to this game it's hard not notice the lack of depth. Both of these games take the concept of a fire fight with bullet time action and do brilliant things with it. Space Pirate Trainer was made with a fraction of the budget - and this should be applauded - but it doesn't make the game feel any less vacuous, and, despite having a fun time with it for an hour, doesn't make it any easier for me to recommend.

Space Pirate Trainer - Worth grabbing in a sale, but don't go out of your way.

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 6: Enduro Racer (Sega Master System)

This is the latest in my attack of (at least) one game from my 639 strong backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know:A) What they're all about.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

I put a random selection button in my game database and today it threw up...

Enduro Racer on the Sega Master System.

This is the first time I've but the hardware in the title of the post - I'm going to keep doing it from now on but there's a very good reason why it's important for this game.

We used to call these 'Coin-op Conversions'; games that we knew and loved from the arcades brought to home consoles (apologies if this is patronising to anyone). It's worth remembering that there were pretty much no 1:1 arcade-to-console accurate games until the Dreamcast, that's pretty much half the time that home consoles have existed.

So, as you can imagine, a ride-on arcade motocross game that used Sega's 'super scaler' technology was not going to be 'Arcade Perfect' on an 8 bit console in 1987.

'Arcade Perfect', by the way, would totally be the name of my garage band if I had any musical talent whatsoever.

So instead of riding into the screen and hoiking back on a life size bike, the Master System version of Enduro Racer has the player on an isometrically presented course, riding from the bottom left to the top right corner.

Initially it all feels a bit too basic. You press a button to accelerate and move left or right, as you would expect, to avoid other vehicles and obstacles, occasionally pressing down on the d-pad to pop a wheelie over a jump. But I noticed I was losing a lot of speed on landing, so I dug out the manual to see if I was missing something - and lo-and-behold the game features a pre-cursor of Crazy Taxi's Crazy Dash to keep the speed up over the jumps.

That may seem an extreme analogy, but when you're playing it really does have that exact rhythm. You press back as you hit a jump to wheelie then forward as you hit the top - I assume to simulate the action of pumping the bike over the ramp - but the timing and result immediately put me in mind of Sega's 1999 masterpiece.

On top of this, the game is further elevated beyond the basic by the developers decision to embrace the distance from the original and actually turned the game into an endurance event, rather than the checkpoint racer from the arcades.

Your bike will inevitably get damaged in the course of the stage and it becomes of far more concern to keep the wheels turning than to make the fairly generous time gates. Fortunately you can patch up or upgrade your bike between stages using points you earn from passing vehicles on course, and today it might even be called a roguelike, as each upgrade only lasts a single stage and nothing in carried over beyond the game over screen.

All in, this is one of the best games I've played on the Master System. That might be considered damning with feint praise by some, but personally I love Sega's plucky underdog in the 8 bit fight.

Enduro Racer (Master System) - A 100% nostalgia free 'Recommended'

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 5: Skate It (Wii)

The latest in my attack of (at least) one game from my 641 strong backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know:A) What they're all about.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

It's gonna be a waggly one. Today the randomiser has chosen...

Skate It on the Wii

Lets just right away address something: The Wii was not a shit console.

Yes, Nintendo's under-powered little box had more terrible games than it's possible to count, but that's totally irrelevant; what matters is the good games and there are dozens upon dozens of those on this system. So lets see on which side skate it falls.

The first thing that hits you is how old the game looks. It was released n 2008; the same year as GTA IV, and it's no exaggeration to say it looks at least 5 years older than Rockstar's bowling simulator.

Obviously this is a spin-off from the amazing 'skate' series on 360 and PS3, only as this is the Wii we have to have motion controls and we have to have everything scaled back. Considerably.

In a piece of live action footage read by a guy who is obviously even less of actor than I am, the game sets up a clever conceit: San Vanelona, the series fictional home, has been ravaged by a series of natural disasters and 99% of the population has been evacuated - which basically means the hardware couldn't cope with the living city we'd grown to love from the other games.

While the visuals are more than a little ropey the sound is exactly as you'd expect from a skating game, with old school ska rubbing shoulders with pop-punk and a little electro for good measure. Noteably the voiceover provided by your off-screen cameraman is surprising great and often has genuinely funny 4th wall breaking gags.

The environments are pretty decent in terms of generating fun lines and trick opportunities, but I rarely spent any time exploring them. All the challenges in a given area can be selected from a menu and, with in game indicators only showing up when you're already on top of them, it would take a better human than me to resist just clicking on a list and warping to a location. All this means that the gameplay is far less fluid than in the other series entries and I think a persons enjoyment will depend a lot on how ok with that they are.

Another thing that enjoyment will hinge on is the motion controls. Obviously back in the day the Wii got a lot of hate for adding 'waggle' where it wasn't wanted and I can imagine that 'skate it' was subject to this same criticism. But, honestly, I think they work fine. There's even an option to play using the Wii Fit Balance board - I didn't try that out but I just might. The motion controls are kept simple and after some practice I was pulling off the trick I wanted 95% of the time.

And lets face it anyway, if you tell me you always know exactly what trick is going to pop out on any modern skating game then you're just flat out lying to yourself.

Overall it was just really good fun to be playing a new (to me) skateboarding game again.

skate it - You know what? I just accidentally played this thing for 3 straight hours, so, screw it. Recommended

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 4: Pyre (PC)

Latest in my attack of (at least) one game from my 643 strong backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know:A) What they're all about.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

Back to the Steam catalogue for day four as the randomiser coughed up...

Pyre on PC.

Even though it doesn't really sound like my kind of thing, I'm quite excited to play this one. I bought it because I absolutely loved Transistor from the same developer.

Okay so I'm a little bit confused right now. Something, and I don't think it's any one 'thing' in particular, makes me very happy when playing this game. Like. Eurphoric.

Pyre appears, in the short time I've been playing it, to be ostensibly an RPG; Story appears central and there are skill and levels. However, central to the 'plot', are 'Rites' during which the player has full control and agency and which are essentially some kind of celestial basketball.

And yet the whole thing is imbued with a kind of 'newness'. The characters are not based on any pre-existing lore as they are with so much fantasy fiction, the world doesn't adhere to any rules and geography that is recognisable, the voices are all spoken in a fictional language that somehow feels real.

I think, if I had to pin it down, it's this feeling of being completely new that is exciting me so muc- as it brings with it a complete sense of the unknown; and I love nothing more than the sense of discovery that comes with being completely in the dark.

The artistry of the game is maintained in the dialogue and interactions, where it brings real character to the cast. The music, also, is exceptional and goes a long way to generate a very specific atmosphere and tone.

The only question that remains is how well the core gameplay of the Rites can stand up to extended play - but what I've seen so far has the feel of a very strong foundation upon which solid meta will be bullt.

Pyre is now my regular game. The intro says there is no 'completing' the campaign but I wlll carry on playing for some time yet!

PYRE - Absolutely recommended without reservation

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 3 - Dead to Rights II (Xbox)

Latest in my attack of (at least) one game from my 643 strong backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know:A) What they're all about.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

For day three my random game selector has picked...

Dead to Rights II for the OG Xbox.

Third sequel in a row but at least this time I've play the first game!

For a series with 4 instalments, Dead to Rights has always had a rough time with the critics. I really enjoyed the first game though, certainly more than I enjoyed Max Payne 3, to use a pertinent comparison; so I'm quite looking forward to this one.

Sadness first of all, as this is the first time I've tried to use my beautiful 21" Bang & Olufsen CRT this year and it appears to dead. RIP old friend. Guess I'm playing this on the plasma...

Which is kind of apt as the game can be played in 16:9 ratio - funnily enough if the developer wasn't called 'Widescreen Games' I wouldn't have thought to check.

The game starts with a perfunctory story in which a kidnapee is revealed to have the name 'McGuffin' - My eyes hadn't stopped rolling at that by the time the oh-its-the-2000s-and-this-character-is-a-girl-so-TITS moment happened. Very different times indeed.

And talking of different times, lord is this game ever brown! So brown that it's difficult to tell the reddy browns from the yellowy browns and the greeny browns... which basically means it's annoyingly difficult to spot enemies against the backgrounds - which is a shame because the simple fun of diving around in slow-mo is a bit of a winner, so it's frustrating when the fun is cut short by a shotgun wielding guy in a brown (yellow) shirt hiding in plain sight against a brown (red) wall.

This single issue might not be enough to ruin the game on it's own, but paired with a weird control scheme (trigger to aim, A button to fire?) and the fact you have to always switch the target manually it's enough of a mess that I gave up after only a couple of levels.

I'm slightly intrigued to know if this works better with a Dualshock controller, or if some of the brownness is due to the set up I had to use... but it's something I'm not really in any hurry to find out in all honesty.

Dead to Rights II - Don't bother

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC