Day 52: Blade (GBC)

It's open season on all suckheads in my efforts to play one title from my 590 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Blade for the GBC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

This is another of those games that I have no idea how I came to be in possession of. 
The best guess is that it was part of a bundle that included something I was looking for, although there’s also a chance I was doing some midnight eBaying and picked it up for a pittance out of curiosity. Either way, it’s here, Selectron™ has spoken, and so, let's find out if it’s any good.

Obviously my expectations are neutral from the outset, but when the name of Hal Laboratories appears in the opening credits I admit to being intrigued. A quick trawl of wikipedia doesn’t turn up much info but, with Kirby’s handlers on board and my (at this point well documented) affection for Game Boy movie tie-ins, my interest is piqued.

Day 51: Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (Wii)

Can the bad-boy of Nintendo overcome my aversion to their platform output? Find out as I continue to cope with lock-down by playing one title from my 591 game backlog every day.

Wario Land: The Shake Dimension for the Wii
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a bit of a personal taste paradox when it comes to Nintendo products. I own and love nearly all of their mainstream hardware, but I’m really not a fan of most of their mainstream franchises, having fundamentally failed to connect with them - be it the ‘Mario’ platformers, the ‘Zelda’ series, ‘Donkey Kong’, or ‘Smash Bros.’.

Interestingly, or at least I think so, there’s a lot of Nintendo IPs that are developed by ‘2nd party’ studios that I find it much easier to enjoy - I’ve loved most of the ‘Star Fox’ series, a good half of the ‘Metroid’ games were developed via this route; I even found the Capcom developed ‘Zelda: The Minish Cap’ easier to enjoy than the other games in that franchise.

One such developer that has recently risen to prominence is ‘Good Feel’. Their big break came with ‘Kirby’s Epic Yarn’ and even more so when they retooled the striking aesthetic of that game for ‘Yoshi’s Woolly World’. They’ve continued in a similar vein with ‘Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World’, ‘Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn’, and ‘Yoshi's Crafted World’ but their first game for Nintendo was this ‘Wario Land’ effort, subtitled ‘The Shake Dimension’, ‘Shake it’, ‘Shake’, and ‘Shaking’ in various territories, and which is arguably even more of a visual departure from the Nintendo norm (Nintendorm?).

Day 50: Fire Emblem Warriors

Thanks to the wonderful people from the r/consoles subreddit, who, given five random options, chose this as the game for me to play to ‘celebrate’ day 50 of lockdown.

Fire Emblem Warriors for the Switch
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

It seems crazy to think that I started this project 50 days ago. That’s fifty days of no work, stuck at home, when, as the whole Covid-19 thing started to take hold, I was working for 3 of 5 days a week 250 miles away. 
I was travelling by train from my home on England’s south coast to Manchester in the north west on Sunday night and returning on Wednesday. To help cope with the nine hour round trip, my brother generously bought for me what he called an ‘early birthday present’; a Nintendo Switch. 

For as long I was staying in hotels for half the week I was doing a really good job of sticking to a self imposed ‘complete one - buy one’ rule for games, but when I got furloughed and the travelling stopped I may have accidentally bought  two or three titles, including this one,  that have added to this ridiculous backlog.

Day 49: Xtreme Sports (GBC)

Xtreme-ly happy to back on the GBC in my ongoing efforts to play one title from my 593 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Xtreme Sports for the GBC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

A little over a year ago I was compiling a large imgur post titled An A-Z of great Dreamcast games. I had a really good game that I was already familiar with for every letter of the alphabet except one...
I do quite a lot of video game A-Zs, it’s a good way to mix up the format rather than trotting out the world’s millionth ‘Top 25’ list, and usually ‘J’ is the problem letter - but obviously this is not the case with the Dreamcast - the phenomenal ‘Jet Set Radio’ has that more than covered. 
No, it turns out the Dreamcast has only one game in it’s entire library that starts with the letter ‘X’, and  technically that's only in North America where the game otherwise known as ‘Sega Extreme Sports’ or ‘Pepsi Max Extreme Sports’ was given the radical new name of, simply: ‘Xtreme Sports’.

Obviously I had to do some research and play the game to include it on the list, and in the course of that research I discovered that alongside the Dreamcast & PC game was another, completely unrelated, game of the same name for the Game Boy Color, and what’s more it was developed by none other than WayForward Technologies, a developer of whom I am quite a fan. So I bought both versions.

Day 48: All Walls Must Fall (PC)

One title from my 595 game backlog played every day that the UK is in lockdown...

All Walls Must Fall for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

There’s been a couple of occasions, playing these games and writing these posts, that I’ve tried and failed to connect to a game to such a degree that I’ve not bothered to do my usual 5-700 words. I’ll just mention it in this opening bit and move on to something that clicked with me a little more.

All Walls Must Fall came very close to receiving this fate, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the game, but it’s at least interesting enough to warrant the proper word count.

Day 47: CT Special Forces (PS1)

Back in slightly obscure territory as I continue to play one title from my 594 game backlog for every day that I’m in lockdown. Today’s game is…

CT Special Forces for the PlayStation
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

CT Special Forces was recommended to me by a guy who used to co-own the retro game shop ‘Ninja Game Den’ in Brighton before it sadly closed down. This is a guy who knows his games and, as a long term customer, knew me and the sort of thing I like. Had this not been the case I don’t think I would have given this a second look.

On appearances everything about the game screams cheap ‘Metal Slug’ knock-off, from the unknown developer to the obviously GBA port graphics. This is not a game that would leap from the shelf at anyone - nor, to be honest, does it fill one with inspiration when it first loads up. 
Real world pictures of military vehicles and stock marching music clashes with the cartoon character art from the very beginning and, once I started playing the sprites are slow moving and weapon pointing is limited to left, right, and straight up. 
As far the prerequisites for quality run and gun action goes, the first impressions are not exactly inspiring.

Day 46: Gun (PS2)

Heading to the wicky wild wild west as my efforts to play one title from my 595 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown continues with...

Gun for the PS2
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

It's always surprised me how few games are set in the old west. You'd have thought that given the vast majority of games feature gun violence of one kind or another, late 19th century America would be the perfect environment for many more titles than it actually is.

In the very earliest days of gaming it was popular enough; way back in 1975 Taito's 'Gun Fight' was the first microprocessor powered video game, but for some reason the wild west has never really caught on to mass appeal. 

Rockstar's two 'Red Dead' sequels, it should be noted, are an exception to this rule - but even that series' own opening episode 'Red Dead Revolver' was only a moderate success, and it and 'Gun' from Neversoft (taking a rare break from the Tony Hawk license), were the only western themed games to gain any sort of exposure in the 6th generation; a time when games popularity in general was soaring.