Day 99: Limbo (PC)

On the edge of hell for today's randomly selected title from my 536 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

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

'Limbo' is a game I didn’t so much ‘know about’, so much as ‘know of’.

I knew a lot of people liked it, I knew it was short, and I knew many have hailed it as a very special game, a game that deals with, or produces from the player, ‘EMOTIONS’.

Well, I guess infuriation and annoyance are emotions…

Day 98: Ridge Racer 64

A return to one of my favourite franchises for today's randomly selected title from my 538 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Ridge Racer 64 for the N64
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

Back when I played Ridge Racer 5, I said that it was the only Ridge Racer game in my collection that I hadn’t played. Having rectified that anomaly, I promptly ordered two more for my collection - because why would I ever want to see an end to this backlog?! Right?

One of the two was Critical Velocity, a spin-off in the series that was only released in Japan. This was something of a collector's indulgence because, seeing as I can’t understand Japanese, it’s unlikely I’ll have any idea what is going on. 

This is still on it’s way to me from Japan, it’s a little late actually so I’m getting worried, hopefully it’s just corona-virus delays.

The other was Ridge Racer 64. This turned up after just a couple of days, and has been sitting in my backlog waiting for the random selection tool (Selectron™) to choose it for me.

All this means that I am now the proud owner of every Ridge Racer game except the one on the Vita - because I don’t own a Vita. I’m sure I will one day, though, and when I do you can guess what the first game on my ‘want’ list will be.

Day 97: Human Resource Machine (PC)

Today's randomly selected title from my 538 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Human Resource Machine for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

There are games I get in bundles and decide to keep because they sound interesting.

There are games that I buy because they’re bargains, even though I know I’m not going to be able to play them right away.

And then there are games that, bizarrely, I bought excitedly near launch and have no idea why I haven’t yet played them.

Human Resource Machine falls very much into the latter category. I absolutely loved World of Goo, but for some reason, having eagerly anticipated their arrival, both Little Inferno and HRM (from the same close knit publishing team) have lain dormant in my collection for years.

I wish I knew why so I could stop it happening again, because Human Resource Machine is a brilliant game that has unexpectedly devoured the majority of my Sunday.

Day 96: Sonic Drift (Game Gear)

The Blue Blur takes to the track in today's randomly selected title from my 539 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Sonic Drift for the Game Gear
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

In November 2012, Sega unleashed upon the world the ludicrously titled ‘Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed’ and, for two and half gloriously blue-skied years, the title of ‘best kart racer’ was in the hands, for the first time ever, of a franchise that wasn’t Super Mario Kart.

Eventually Nintendo would wrestle back the top-spot with ‘Mario Kart 8’, and rather than rejoin the battle with a Racing Transformed sequel, the follow was 2019’s ‘Team Sonic Racing’, which was, if every review written by anyone, ever, is to be believed, a step backwards for blue-blur racing.

Looking back at those thirty months at the top, it’s hard to imagine this was a journey that started in 1994 with a Japan-only handheld racer - but that's exactly how Sonic Drift was perceived; the first salvo in the battle for the karting crown.

Day 95: Sceptre of Bagdad (ZX Spectrum)

Between Iraq and a hard place in today's randomly selected title from my 540 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Sceptre of Bagdad for the ZX Spectrum
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

That’s not a typo, by the way, it appears it was common to spell Baghdad without the ‘H’ until about the time of the Gulf War… I guess exposure to the correct spelling was fairly limited until that time. Anyway...

If you show a sheet of graph paper and an HB pencil to most people who played games in the 80’s, they will be immediately swept away on a tide of nostalgia to their era appropriate childhood bedroom: Lamborghini Countach poster on the wall, barely used Big Track in the corner, and a self-drawn map for the latest ZX Spectrum game bathed in the radioactive light from a television the size of a small family car.

Personally, however, I would be swept back to a maths class: Trigonometry poster on the wall, barely used overhead projector in the corner, and me dutifully plotting the reference points for a parabolic curve. 

It’s not that I wasn’t playing games in the eighties, it’s just that I wasn’t really into the sort of games that required a map to play, I can’t even tell you why. In later years I came to love Metroidvanias and other adventure games where referring to the built in map is essential - but I was never interested in creating cartography for myself - something that many players of similar vintage consider an essential part of the experience.

Certainly, ‘Sceptre of Bagdad’ is borderline impossible without a map and, as such, feels borderline impossible to me.

Day 94: A Fistful of Gun (PC)

You'll need to get more than three coffins ready for today's randomly selected title from my 541 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Fistful of Gun for the PC
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

I bemoaned the lack of Western Games while writing about ‘Gun’ back on day 46, but, it has to be said, it’s a much better supported setting in the indie scene than it has ever been in the mainstream.

'A Fistful of Gun: For a Few Gun More', to use it’s full title, started life as a free release on GameJolt named, simply ‘Fistful of Gun’. It’s actually still available on that service and has even been updated with the new engine and modes that were added when the game was picked up for distribution, by those masters of pixelated violence and irreverence, Devolver Digital.

The idea behind Paul Hart’s top-down shooter was originally to allow three people to play simultaneously on a single set-up. To this end, there were three characters; one designed for keyboard, one for mouse, and one for a joypad.

It’s a really clever idea and the balancing for each character is pretty ingenious - but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what happened when the game received it’s full release.

Day 93: Dynamite Heady (Mega Drive)

A real 'Treasure' for today's title randomly selected from my 542 game backlog (already reduced by over 100!). I'm playing one a day, every day, for as long as I'm furloughed from work...

Dynamite Headdy for the Mega Drive
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

It seems a little absurd to suggest that a game from Treasure; one of the most respected and well known developers of the 16 bit era, could be a ‘hidden gem’, but Dynamite Headdy, only the third game they made after the utterly magnificent Gunstar Heroes and the… rather less so… McDonald’s Treasure Land, is pretty much that.

Obviously this depends on your personal definition of ‘Hidden’ (the gem part is not up for debate) but to me most consoles have their mainstream, super well known titles, their ‘B’ titles that are less well known but not exactly obscure, and then there’s your hidden gems.

Dynamite headdy could arguably fall on the line between the second and third categories, but no more than that.

Which is a shame, really, as despite having all the brilliance of Treasure’s best games, it was largely ignored at launch and, in terms of popularity, has never quite recovered.

And the probably reason why is really annoying.