Day 89: Trackmania DS (NDS)

My ongoing efforts to play one title from my 546 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

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

As I was hitting the instant reset button on Trackmania DS for about the 457th time in my first 10 minutes, two things struck me...

At some point, fairly recently in the history of video games, it became the norm to suggest that ‘trial and error’ was a mechanic flawed by definition. I’d have to imagine this was towards the beginning of the 7th console generation, as it was at this time that frustrated film makers started to ply their trade in video games, and the very idea of ‘failure’ became very unfashionable.

Trial and error is the same as any gameplay element; it can be clever, fun, and addictive - or it can be boring, frustrating, and cheap.

This was ‘Point A’: The idea that trial and error is a poor mechanic by definition is bunk.

The other thing is related to this. As the mainstream courted audiences outside the core gamer demographic by offering (barely) “Interactive Experiences”, the indie scene reacted in the best way it knows how: By making games that revelled in failure, embraced trial and error, and excelled because of it.

Trackmania wasn’t born from this era, but it was at this time that it started to be noticed away from it’s cult following on PC, and I put that down to a growing appetite for this kind of thing thanks to the success of other games.

And this is ‘Point B’: The best way to describe Trackmania to someone who hasn’t played it: ‘Super Meat Boy Kart’.

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 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 71: Kane and Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox360)

My ongoing efforts to play one title from my 566 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men for the Xbox 360
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Is it a 'getting old' thing that makes me not like killing police in video games? 

I've played about an hour of Kane and Lynch and the small amount of time I've actually been in control of the character has been spent murdering dozens upon dozens of officers of the law.

The first time I ever remember feeling this way was playing 'The Getaway' on PS2 back when it was new. 

I think it's something that has come hand in hand with not just my advancing years, but also the mediums improving graphics. 

From the start of gen 7 onward it's been possible to imagine that the old cop I just headshot had grandchildren, that woman cop has fought tooth and nail for respect all her life and now her brains are all over that middle-aged '2 days to retirement' captain cop's shoes, which are 12 yards from his pelvis.

I don't like it. And I don't like Kane and Lynch.

It's really tempting to end this write up there but I guess I should explain why.

Day 70: Puyo Puyo Tetris (Switch)

Quite a recent game by my standards, chosen randomly as I continue to play one title from my 564 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Puyo Puyo Tetris for the Switch
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I started this blog to maintain a feeling of control for my life when it was in upheaval. It was a thing I had control over and a daily routine where otherwise there would be none.

Now, as America burns and the British government implodes, it has also become a welcome distraction. 

70 days ago the atmosphere in the UK was one of resolve. As a nation it seemed we were looking inward, finding the best in each other, and steeling ourselves to come together and make the best of a bad situation.

For the first time in a very long time the news wasn’t led by stories from America, China, Afghanistan, or elsewhere; the most important world events for the UK were happening in the UK. 

For a while even politics took a step backward - half the nation didn't want Boris Johnson in charge, but in charge he was, so in these crazy times we would listen to what he had to say and do as we were told for the good of the nation and those most at risk.

70 Days later, I don’t think things could be more different. 

America dominates the news again for the most horrifying and tragic reasons, politics lead the agenda, and politicians are, again, acting exactly like politicians. 

The rules we strictly and unquestioningly lived by for so long are being chipped away by selfishness, boredom, warm weather, and massive distrust towards the people imposing them.

It is, and I don’t use the word flippantly, depressing.

But I’ve always preached that it’s folly to be affected by things that you yourself cannot affect. As terrifying as the events and attitudes are in America there is no practical way for me to influence them beyond expressing solidarity and encouraging the few Americans I know to vote when the next opportunity arises. 

As for closer to home, I live in a nation that endured two consecutive unelected Prime Ministers followed by a general election in which the choice was literally between two evils, of which who was the lesser is still entirely unclear. So I’ll just have to bide my time for a general election in the UK and hope that enough people of my nation are not fooled by populism and bluster again.

And, as I wait, wishing I could do more and frustrated that I can’t, I’ll distract myself, as always, with video games.

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 67: NBA Playgrounds (PC)

Hitting the courts in my ongoing effort to play one randomly selected title from my 566 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

NBA Playgrounds for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

"All opinions are valid" is a nonsense statement. 

On a more important scale than video games there are far too many opinions based on prejudice or ignorance that have been expressed loudly, and protected inadequately, by the concept that an ill-informed opinion has the same value as an informed one.

Back in the world of video games this isn’t as dangerous or scary, but it's still annoying.

I touched the problem way back on Day 14 with Mr Shifty; a game that isn't, and isn't trying to be, Hotline Miami - but was still criticised often for not being Hotline Miami; which is not a valid opinion.

NBA Playgrounds is not NBA Jam. This is obviously a fact, but it's also been expressed often as a negative opinion. However, the validity of this rests on the answer to a different question: 

Is NBA Playgrounds trying to be NBA Jam?

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.

Day 65: Gyron (ZX Spectrum)

A genuinely fascinating title is the latest random selection from my 567 game backlog. I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as the UK is in lockdown...

Gyron (and Gyron Arena) for the ZX Spectrum
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I never really intended these blog entries to be as ‘reviewy’ as they have become. I don’t have a problem with it, it’s natural to lean that way when writing about a game you’ve just played, especially when the method of writing is as unstructured as mine is. (Play game - Open blog - Write until I’ve got nothing else to say - Pass to wife to edit).

In the case of 'Gyron' I’m going to get the review out of the way early and in far fewer words than usual:
It's a fascinating feat of programming with incredibly creative tools to aid your navigation around a fully realised 3D labyrinth. It’s devious, it’s hard, it’s impressive, it’s addictive, and it looks utterly amazing for a 48k Spectrum game from 1985 [a year older than the aforementioned wife! - Ed]

The rest of this post is just going to be some stuff I find fascinating about this game.

By the way, this is all info I’ve gleaned from the internet so if you are familiar with the game already then there’ll be nothing new here. Sorry.

Day 64: Pixeljunk Shooter (PC)

One title picked at random from my 568 game backlog. One a day, every day, as long as the UK is in lockdown...

Pixeljunk Shooter for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Despite playing this game on PC, the Pixeljunk brand is one I can’t help but mentally associate with PlayStation, largely due to the acclaim it received on the PSN platform all the way back in 2009. I feel the ‘console wars’ of the PS3/360 era were the most prevalent since the SNES/Megadrive days, and I expect this played no small part in an indie game getting heralded as much as this was.
It took a year and half to appear on PC in any form and, evidently, another decade after that for me to get around to playing it.

It’s a bit strange to say that a game ‘isn’t what I was expecting’ when all I’ve  had to go on is a name.
Pixeljunk Shooter is one of those ‘picked it up in a bundle’ games, but, as I've said before, I don’t keep games I get in bundles unless there’s something about them that appeals to me. In this case that’s very likely to have been the words ‘Pixel’ and ‘Shooter’ in the title.

This could have left me hoist by my own ‘expectation is the mother of disappointment’ shaped petard, as the game not only doesn’t feature any pixels, but it’s also not really a shooter. 

Day 63: Yanya Caballista City Skater (PS2)

Back to obscurity as I continue to play one title from my 570 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Yanya Caballista City Skater for the PS2
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

At some point last year I became obsessed with getting a copy of this game, not because I’d heard it was particularly good or interesting or rare, but because of the ‘fingerboard’ controller accessory you can see pictured above.

I love stuff like this; odd little experiments and gimmicks that developers come up with for their games. Things like the Lenslok anti piracy device, the little paddle controller that came with ‘Puchi Carat’, and even Namco’s fantastic ‘NegCon’ controller that I mentioned yesterday, all have enthralled me at various points in my games collecting history.
So it wasn’t a surprise that Yanya Cabalista’s tiny skateboard deck attachment caught my attention.

I set up an eBay alert and waited patiently. Eventually, about two months after I started looking, I was able to get a Japanese copy with the board for a decent price. Weirdly, a day or two after that, an American copy was listed ‘disc only’ for a pittance so I snapped that up too.
Annoyingly, when I went to play the games, neither would load using my Swap Magic discs, so they went onto the shelf as curios for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday, however, I started having some loading issues with ‘Ridge Racer V’. I was poking around in my PS2 and realised the brake release pin on the disc lid wasn’t working properly and this was slowing the disc down. As I fixed this issue I was reminded of the Swap Magic problems, so I tried it again, and it worked right away!

Long story short, (too late!?) today I’m playing the American version of ‘Yanya Caballista’, with the fingerboard from the Japanese version, on my European PS2 Slim, using Swap Magic 3.6.

Day 62: Ridge Racer V (PS2)

The only Riiiiiidge Racer I've never played features in my ongoing efforts to play one title from my 571 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Ridge Racer V for the PS2
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I kind of love Ridge Racer. I've had most of the games in the series from new with only Rage Racer and this added to the collection later on. As a matter of fact I just checked Wikipedia to see if I owned every Ridge Racer, and ended up ordering RR64 for the N64. Other than that, the only one I don’t have is Ridge Racer Vita - but then I don’t actually own a Vita (yet) so that would be a bit pointless.
So yeah, bit of a fan.

Why ‘Ridge Racer V’ has sat unplayed since I picked it up a couple of years ago, I don't know. I always struggle to see PS2 games as particularly 'special' though, which I know is ridiculous, but I guess that might have something to do with it. 
That notwithstanding, it’s weird that I haven’t played a game I own from a series I really like - especially as it supports the brilliant NegCon controller; Namco’s proprietary device that is, for my money, the best way to play driving games that isn’t a steering wheel.

Day 61: Soft Aid (C64)

I'm usually playing 1 title a day from my 581 backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown, but today I played 10...

Soft Aid for the Commodore 64
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

The game actually chosen by Selectron™ today was ‘Beam Rider’, a C64 game that’s part of a compilation called ‘Soft Aid’ - nothing to do with impotence awareness - this was actually launched in 1985 to coincide with the original Band Aid and Live Aid projects. 
It features 10 games all donated to the compilation so that the proceeds could go to charity, although I came to own it as part of a stack of games I got from eBay many years after the original release.

As this compilation is on a cassette the inlay helpfully indicates the position of the tape counter for each of the games, but when I fast forwarded to the position shown and tried load 'Beam Rider' it wouldn’t work. 
I tried all the other counter-positions for the other titles until eventually one started to load, albeit not the one I was expecting. 
It turns out none of the numbers on the inlay bear any relation to the actual positions of the games on the cassette.

Even even the counter-number for the first game is wrong as each side of the tape starts with a copy of the ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ Luckily I was able to work out the true starting position by leaving the tape playing for 3 minutes and 50 seconds (the playtime of the single) and from there I worked my way through the whole compilation noting the new counter digits as I went.

And thus, one write up became ten.

Day 60: Star Wars: Dark Forces (PC)

Playing one title from my 582 game backlog while the UK is in lockdown...

Star Wars: Dark Forces for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Back on May 4th I started my post by saying I had two candidates from the franchise to play in honour of ‘Star Wars Day’ and ultimately chose ‘Rogue Squadron’ on the N64 because the other option required installation. This was that ‘other’ game; ‘Star Wars: Dark Forces’.

If memory serves me correctly this was part of a whole bundle of Star Wars games I bought from GOG a couple of years ago. At the time I asked around the internet to check if it was a good option for a non-Star Wars fan and the consensus seemed to be positive, and Dark Forces was one of the reasons why.

As a PC game released in 1992,this is not something that comes with Xbox One controller support as standard and, as I don’t believe in playing with keyboard and mouse, I had a little fun setting up joy-to-key before I could get stuck in, and then tweaking my assumptions during the first mission.
Fun fact: The XB1 controller has exactly one too few buttons to assign every command you’d like in Dark Forces, but luckily I haven’t found a reason for the dedicated map screen as the overlaid version is so useful. 
Also, I know there are plenty available, but other than joy-to-key I didn’t use any other mods or tweaks.

Day 58: Crack Down (Amiga)

A rare outing for my Amiga 600 as I continue to play one title a day from my 585 game backlog during UK lockdown...

Crack Down for the Amiga
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

You may have noticed that in this little intro section for these posts I sometimes like to give a background of the game in hand. Whether that’s on the development of the game, or it’s journey to my collection, I’ve always have a habit of ‘setting the scene’ and I hope you’ll indulge me at least one more time:

I first came to own this game, and a Commodore Amiga, when an old work colleague asked if I’d like some old computers he had, as he was clearing out to move abroad. 
These ‘old computers’ turned out to be an Atari 400 and an Amiga 500. 
In the collection of software for latter was, of course, Crack Down.

It was never my intention but I actually ended up selling both machines. 
The Atari was non-functional beyond my skills to repair, but the Amiga 500 was just too big for any of the 4 different games rooms I’d had set up while I owned it, so I sold it and used the proceeds to pay for repairs to an Amiga 600 I had picked up for a tenner at a boot sale in the intervening years.

Day 57: Spiderman (PS1)

Doing whatever a spider can in my ongoing efforts to play one title a day from my 586 game backlog...

Spider-Man for the PlayStation
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Comic-book timelines and character iterations are complex at the best of times, but, although I'm not speaking from a position of any great knowledge, Spider-Man, Marvel's almost 60-year-old web-slinger, seems to gravitate more than most towards alternative versions; with many plot elements that are cannon to some arcs, but not to others. 
Moreover, Spider-Man's fictional convolutions have manifested themselves into the 'real life' story of the IP, with the machinations around rights ownership between Sony and Disney being only the most recent in a long and twisted history.

On the plus side, this gave us the fantastic 'Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-verse' movie, perhaps the best animated superhero film ever. On the downside, as a member of a very casual audience, trying to figure out where this Spider-Man (No number, no subtitle) fits into the great scheme of things is a bit of a head-scratcher.