DreadToaster
2007
tech demo for a real game (mario odyssey)
2003
Kusoge level disaster. Excellent video game to play in front of a friend in a one delirious sitting
1998
rage quit this like thirteen years ago because Expert is/was cruel as hell with massive slowdown and no room for error but playing it at a clean, consistent 60 FPS on Switch...it makes the game's svelte, hot design shine bright. One of the best racers on a system full of them.
2016
played the royal edition which is logged separately here but like, I'm not splitting hairs here, this game was ludicrously assembled. Against all odds, it works. Classic Square - far too ambitious and clearly a compromised piece versus the original vision but the decision to place the bulk of emphasis on hanging out with your friends instead of designing plot setpieces goes a long way. Most of the plot is in the last six hours of the game, not all of it makes sense, but the pathos is there because you spent thirty hours zooming around with the same three guys.
People told me for years that HL2 was worse, that it was limited, pretentious and unfair. Didn't feel that way about it at all. It is difficult, it is an actively aggressive game. It is also, much like the first, a game that twists your emotions and transforms the player into what it wants them to be. This duology is a nasty piece of work and Wrong Number is a great sequel and closer because it revels in the core contradiction of the series - that this obtuse, difficult and too violent game is addictive because its obtuseness, difficulty and violence is achieved with pointillist precision.
p.s. I know Dennaton cited Lost Highway as an influence on the first game but if another person calls this thing Lynchian, I'm coming to your house.
p.s. I know Dennaton cited Lost Highway as an influence on the first game but if another person calls this thing Lynchian, I'm coming to your house.
2012
top down blitz action that successfully overrides player decency and turns them into full out murder machine. one of the more important games of the 2010s.
dropped at the second dungeon. the threat that this game could become more difficult or tedious or complex, whatever word you want to use, made me want to play literally anything else.
Has incredible ambition but feels like the more tedious version of Ages. You can't tell me that the "Ages is more puzzle-based, Seasons is more action-oriented" pitch isn't just marketing speak to cover up Seasons' bad puzzles. Seasons still has puzzles, they're just perfunctory and dull! And while "Seasons has more action" is like, a nice pitch to a thirteen year old who hated brainteasers (which is what I was when I beat the game the first time), the cold truth is that Ages has an appropriate amount of action given this duology's limited screen space and frustrating lack of hitstun. Seasons' alleged focus on action doesn't square with the fundamentals of 2D Zelda design - at least the GameBoy ones. Seasons is too damn busy! Lovely color pallet though.
1989
screaming at this user score. if you put this lower than four stars, you're going in the contraption.
As good as it was hyped up to be. That last level...that's the stuff!
1986
disturbingly low rating, you children need to respect the classics...
"old games absolutely are better at everything modern games try to do than modern games are"
"old games absolutely are better at everything modern games try to do than modern games are"
2016
yeah that's the stuff
2002
One of the single best concepts for a game period. The PlayStation 2 buckles under the weight of the game but it's really a must play in the system's catalogue. The football stadium collapse has to be played, controller in hand.
I could feel this entire game, Spider-Man plus DLC, rewiring my brain like I was a rat. I didn't like it. Game's fine or whatever, of course it is. They spent $80 million making it, you think they were gonna let it be anything less than pleasant??
The problem with Tokyo Rumble is that the only way to gain EXP is by throttling dudes. I don't take too much issue with that in principle though even River City Ransom let you gain EXP by eating food and that came out in 1989. Tokyo Rumble is a shuffle backwards for the series since it doesn't fully double back into Double Dragon/Vigilante and just ends up feeling like a grindier-than-usual River City. Mini-games were fun though!