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

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 2: Sanctum 2 (PC)

I've decide to attack (at least) one game from my 644 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.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

Lock-down day two, I hit the random selection button on my spreadsheet and it has selected...

Sanctum 2 for PC

Second sequel on the bounce for which I haven't played the first instalment. I must admit to almost total indifference when this popped up in the selection box, I have genuinely no recollection of how/why I own it or what it's about.

I'm, thankfully, reassured by the fact that I don't keep games from bundles if they don't at least look interesting, so at some point in the past I would have read the blurb for this and decided to keep it based on that...

Reading the Steam store description though, I'm worried by the pronounced use of 'co-op'...

Let's see.

For the uninitiated (like I was an hour ago) this is essentially a fairly basic 'Hoard mode' FPS - I've got very limited exposure to this kind of thing so it put most in mind of exactly that gameplay mode from Gears of War, with enhanced battlement building between waves. As far as I can tell there's not much more to it than that.

There's jumping and (yay) double-jumping. Weapons are fun and everything is upgrade-able. Progression is rewarded with weapon slots and the like as you would expect, and it's all very confidently put together.

There's nothing particularly exciting or original about either the character or enemy designs but they are pretty decent and certainly do the job well enough - everything in the game has that shininess to it that is often the calling card of a lower budget project. There are comic book panel intermissions which are quite nice and the voice acting is enthusiastic if a bit cheesy - it all leads to a game it's easy feel a certain amount of underdog affection for.

All in all Sanctum 2 was a very pleasant surprise, it's clear this is not really designed to be a single player game - even in the 'Campaign' mode - but after some initial reservations I found myself having a blast and I'll definitely suggest it the next time a mate wants a co-op session.

Sanctum 2 - Recommended (if you like this kind of thing)

Previously...

Day one was the excellent Luminees 2 on PSP

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.