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.

Day 55: Everybody's Tennis (PS2)

It's Strawberries and Cream time as my quest to play one title a day from my 588 game backlog continues with...

Everybody's Tennis for the PS2
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I was recently perusing my PS2 collection and noticed that I had a game for every letter of the alphabet except ‘E’ and ‘Q’. Having a bit of an obsession with this kind of thing (as anyone who read my post on 'Xtreme Games' will know) I immediately set about putting this right.

I was always a big fan of ‘Everybody’s Golf’ on the original PlayStation. It’s a great, relaxing game to play alone, or a screaming deathmatch of rage and frustration when playing a friend - although that may have been due to my propensity for taking the flashiest, riskiest shot available while Dave, the friend who I’d more than likely be playing against, had a tendency towards a more practical approach. This led not just to many hours of entertainment, but also the coining of the verb to ‘Don Johnson’, a reference to the fine movie Tin Cup, meaning to play the safest, or most boring, shot available.

So with this in mind I ordered a copy of ‘Everybody’s Tennis’. 
I’ll be grabbing a copy of ‘Quake Revolution’ at some point to round out the full A-Z, but as it’s not something I’d be in any hurry to play I figured this is not the time.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 18: Burnout: Revenge (PS2)

I'm playing one title from my 629 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. 

Previous days games can be found here, but today we have...

Burnout: Revenge on Playstation 2

I find myself wondering what to write about this game that could possibly be interesting, worthwhile, or new.

It was in my backlog because I hadn't played it - but then, after the VERY turn of the century music had played, and the VERY turn of the century intro movie had finished, and I actually started playing, it was... well... it's Burnout, isn't it?

Sandwiched between the breakout third entry 'Takedown' and the landmark 'Paradise' (Both of which I've played a lot), Revenge is much more an iteration on the former than a step towards the latter.

There are small tweaks to gameplay in a lot of areas and the titular Revenge mechanic is the largest of them - and it is a good one. Essentially you get extra points for taking out the car that last took you out. A different coloured icon over the vehicle is about as much as this amounts to, but it really works. I found myself desperate to put my rival in a wall and genuinely disappointed if I hadn't achieved this before the race was over - even if I had won.

As a polishing of the original Burnout formula it's a hard game to fault. It comes with EA's trademark sheen and there's an impressive sense of speed for a 6th generation game - with the sound effects of particularly of quality when it comes the all round atmosphere of careening through city streets. 

I'm in the minority that really can't be arsed with 'Crash mode' so for me nothing before Burnout: Paradise even comes close to that game's quality. But Revenge is the 'next best' in the franchise and if you hadn't played any of these games from the pre-HD era then this would probably be the best place to start.

Although, with that said, I'm quite partial to Dominator on the PSP. Let's face it, these are not deep games, it's a pure arcade blast from start to finish and that structure suits handheld gaming really well.

Burnout: Revenge - You've probably played it already, but if not, you should

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 16: Catherine (PS3)

I'm playing one randomly selected title from my 630 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown. Todays game is...

Catherine on PS3

I don't really know why, but for a long time I felt almost obligated to buy Catherine. Generally speaking my taste in games falls outside the mainstream, and definitely away from the strong western influences that dominated so much of the games zeitgeist ten or so years ago. I think Catherine's ostensible existence outside these themes had a lot to do with the strange magnetism it held for me. It's very apparent oddness somehow appealed beyond the fact that the gameplay appeared to be an amalgamation of two genres I don't really care for: Sliding block puzzles and visual novels.

The visual novel aspect sees the player character Vincent torn between two women. The block puzzle elements are a nightmarish dreamscape that Vincent finds himself in whenever he sleeps. The presentation of both is beautiful, with first rate animated cut-scenes segwaying into the cell shaded graphics extremely well. Voice acting is also of the highest calibre, and the music, too, is high quality throughout. I found myself a little surprised at the level of polish on display, apparently I was subconsciously expecting a more 'indie' quality experience.

Unfortunately I found the game to fluctate wildly between being completely dull when it was too easy and infuriatingly frustrating when it was too hard - in the three levels I played it never found the sweet spot of enjoyable challenge.
To exacerbate this there are (well documented) control issues. The most prevalent is that, at times, the required directional control is unclear - in itself this wasn't something that bothered me too much. However, a short time into the game an enemy arrives who's primary mode of attack is to reverse the input controls. It was at this point that I stopped playing. 

Were the other part of the game, the visual novel/ role playing element, more compelling I may have been tempted to try again. But, having constantly read over the last ten years that Catherine appears to present maturity in the sleazy way, but actually delivers maturity in the more literal, 'grown-up' way, I was perturbed to find myself somewhat uneasy with it's themes - or rather, how they are conveyed. 

Without knowing how the story plays out I hesitate to throw words like 'misogynistic' around, but neither version of C/K-atherine is particularly sympathetic. One is a cold, marriage-obsessed control freak, and the other an emotionless temptress. In this game-world women are to be either feared or lusted after.
And I'm not really cool with that. 

There's always the argument that we are interacting with characters with these thoughts and worldviews, that this misogyny isn't what the game is conveying, just the thoughts and actions of 'realistic' characters with the flaws and misjudgements thereof. 
But even if this were true it doesn't make me want to spend any more time interacting with these characters or playing this game.

Catherine - Disappointingly, not for me.

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 1: Luminees II (PSP)

Trying to look on the bright side of being stuck at home for the next 3 weeks (minimum) I've decide to attack (at least) one game from my 645 game backlog every day.

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 keep a spreadsheet of all my games and have half-arse-coded a randomiser button into it to select which game I will play...

So. Lockdown day one. I hit the button and it selected...

Luminees II on the PSP.

I don't think there can many people who own a PSP and not a copy of at least one of the Luminees games - I own both of them but have never played either - until today.

Firstly, the music is extraordinary. Usually when people talk about great music in games they lean towards orchestral melodrama or chip tune bounciness. I was relieved that the music here is neither; instead offering industrial electronica the likes of which I've not really heard in a game since Rez.

When I stopped playing I was still unsure that I had the mechanics entirely down. Simply to play, hard to master is one of the biggest cliches in the medium but it's very apt here, and, as with so many block based puzzle games, it has to compete with decades of Tetris reflexes and muscle-memory - the unlearning of which will take some doing.

I've left it in my PSP with the battery charging so I can come back for more, so I consider that an unqualified success - and I'll be keeping my eye out for a sale on the 'Remastered' edition on Switch.