A big part of my interest in these really obscure older games is seeing how they go about their design. More than enough genre-defining games existed by this point, but a lot of these titles feel like they loved to throw whatever ideas and mechanics they wanted at the wall when they could have just been copying the homework of the greats - for better or worse. Drome Racers effortlessly sticks out on the ‘worse’ side of the spectrum, and I could easily tear it to shreds if I wanted to; I could go on about the atrocious physics and collision that can kill you on a whim, or the multitude of powerful undodgeable powerups with no counterplay, and yeah that’s all bad but it isn’t interesting, and I don’t like senselessly ripping into games for no reason. Thankfully, it did have the courtesy to be bad in such a bizarre and funny way that now I have to make it everybody else’s problem.

The career mode is split into ‘cups’, and you race a certain amount of tracks each cup while getting knocked out if you place badly enough in a race - nothing too unusual so far. But while the first race in each cup starts everybody on the grid, each race after that has everybody pulling in from the pits one by one. And the spacing between everyone depends on the difference in the last race - if I finish 3 seconds, or 20 seconds, or 2 minutes ahead of someone in one race, they’ll be about that far behind at the start of the next. I’m SURE I don’t need to explain how absurd that is, so I put together a little collection of some of the funniest starting grids I saw throughout the game instead. And it sounds like this should be great for you, right? Well, kind of! It’s obviously great to get a completely undeserved free lead, but lapping the back few drivers is pretty much an expectation, and it gives them ample opportunity to hit you with the last thing you could possibly want - eighteen tons of raw undodgeable homing missile in the back, sending your paperweight car into a triple backspin and ending up facing the complete wrong way, giving you a perfect view of everybody who’s about to overtake you.

It’s a bad game, it’s real bad, but it’s a hard one to truly hate. I got interested in it as a sort of ‘Lego Racers 2.5’ after playing the joyless void that was LR2, and while it might be even worse than that game to actually play, it absolutely delivers in soul. It’s got this great, charming ‘c-tier’ energy where it’s trying to come off as cool as possible, but it’s still very clearly aimed at children - similar sort of vibe to one of the Hot Wheels games I played earlier this year. It’s backed by a surprisingly great soundtrack that carry the ‘mindless driving while in first’ parts to an insane degree. And though most of them don’t end up translating well into gameplay, there’s some decent and unique ideas in here! Probably the most affectionate bad score I can see myself giving a game, if that’s worth anything?

Before moving on from Postal 2 for a bit to see what the later entries in the franchise have to offer, there was one last stone I had to turn over. This officially licensed Russian expansion from, get this, Akella and one of its own internal studios. Yeah, that’s right. The company responsible for the nigh universally hated Postal III. After playing this though, it's not hard to see why Running with Scissors might have thought they'd be up to the task of making the third main installment. It’s actually quite solid.

That's because this is more along the lines of a fan-made total conversion mod than anything. The new protagonist even uses the exact same character model as the Dude despite what the cover art shows for crying out loud. So, this is enjoyable simply because base P2 is enjoyable. That’s not to say there aren’t any distinguishing characteristics to make it worthwhile. You can tell most of the effort went into the entirely original map. I’ve never been to Russia, but this looks like nearly every picture I’ve seen of a typical Russian town and considering it was made by actual citizens from there I’d wager it’s a pretty accurate, if somewhat satirized given the property’s brand, depiction that’s a blast to explore. There are also a ton of cool new NPC models to check out, a few of which are surprisingly detailed and well done.

I think the biggest thing people will have a problem with here is the writing. So far this is the most immature piece of the Postal series I’ve experienced, and I highly doubt that will differ by the time I’m finished with my marathon through it. The plot which puts you in the role of an amnesiac ex-pornstar on a quest to recover his missing manhood after awaking to find himself the victim of an unwanted sex-change operation feels as if it was penned by a bunch of twelve-year-olds. The "comedy" frequently dips into homophobic and borderline transphobic “jokes” because that was the sort of thing that was funny back in the 2000s, especially in countries like that. Plus, there’s a shocking amount of smut as well. RWS was prone to throwing up images of those half-naked IRL models they used to promote the games with on walls here and there, but Corkscrew Rules regularly displays blatant pornography in the form of fully nude women on its posters and billboards!

So, should you check this out? Only if you can handle what is easily the most offensive content any Postal game has to offer. Not to mention, it can be kind of a pain to get a translated/dubbed version running if you too aren't very computer savvy since the one on Steam's Workshop is broken (although not being able to understand the dialogue would probably be a plus). For better and worse though, this is essentially Russian Postal 2 and it's pretty fascinating because of that.

7/10

Random notes you may find interesting:

- The campaign only goes from Monday to Thursday rather than the whole workweek

- Objectives are doled out in a linear manner, and even when you are given the option to visit more than a single place at a time you're supposed to do it in a specific order.

- In the original, unmodified version you can't pee and there are only three new weapons, but in the tweaked English-dubbed release they reskinned a couple guns to better fit the setting, added a drunk visual effect whenever you drink vodka, and gave you the ability to urinate, but only straight down (because you have a vagina instead of a penis).

- Believe it or not, there is a legitimately humorous bit where every secretary you talk to in a business just sends you to a different one on another floor before you can eventually reach "the boss" you were looking for in the first place. It stands as the sole clever moment in the entire package.

The secret behind Pikmin’s success was not that it somehow outclassed classic real-time strategy franchises, but rather that it was never competing with them to begin with. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, he came up with the idea for Pikmin one day when he observed a group of ants carrying leaves together into their nest. Miyamoto then imagined a game focused on cooperation rather than competition; he asked, “Why can’t everyone just move together in the same direction, carrying things as a team?” Nintendo EAD’s design philosophy went along with this line of reasoning, melding design mechanics from different genres to create an entirely new yet familiar experience. As a result, instead of competing against other players in Pikmin akin to classic RTS games, Pikmin forces players to explore and compete with the very environment itself by introducing puzzle-exploration and survival mechanics. It made sense in the end; after all, real-time strategy is concerned with minimizing time spent to get a competitive edge over opponents, and what better way to translate this than to force players to master their understanding over the terrain itself, managing and optimizing the one resource which governs them all?

Perhaps Nintendo’s greatest challenge was figuring out how to translate a genre considered by many to be niche and technical to an intuitive yet layered game, and even more so, translating classic actions from a mouse and keyboard allowing for such complexity to a suite of simplified controls using a gamepad. Coming from the other side as someone who played Starcraft as a kid and didn’t get into Pikmin until recently however, I’m surprised at how well EAD’s tackled this endeavor. Classic RTS games focus upon base-building and resource gathering through the micromanagement of units. Pikmin’s take upon this is to introduce a dichotomy between the player character Captain Olimar, who is incapable of doing anything by himself but can issue commands to the units only he can create by plucking out of the soil, and the Pikmin, who are essentially brainless but represent the units that must do everything. The player as Olimar must be present to figure out exactly how to best traverse and exploit the environment around him (replacing the base-building with management/prioritization puzzles) while the Pikmin provide bodies to construct, move, and attack the world around them. However, the Pikmin’s AI is fairly limited and as a result, Pikmin will sit around helplessly once they finish their actions and often get distracted by nearby objects while moving around, which is where the micromanagement kicks in. Therefore, the player has to decide how to best build up their supply of Pikmin to allocate tasks to surmount bottlenecks while exploring and opening the world, all while working against the limited thirty-day timer throughout the game’s five areas.

A part of me expected to really struggle with the gamepad while playing Pikmin, but the available actions on offer allow for a surprising degree of control despite the simplification. For instance, take Olimar’s whistle; as a substitution for dragging and clicking to select units on PC, the whistle on the GameCube lets Olimar quickly rally groups of clustered units. Holding down B for longer allows the player to increase the size of the whistle’s AOE, which allows the player to better control and target how many Pikmin to rally in any cluster (hence, the analog of dragging and clicking boxes of units on mouse and keyboard). The Swarm command is another interesting translation. The obvious use is to allow Olimar to quickly move nearby Pikmin by directing them with the C-stick versus needing to aim and throw them by positioning and rotating Olimar himself. However, because it can be used to shift the position of Pikmin with respect to Olimar, it can also be used to swap the Pikmin on-deck for throwing (since Olimar will always throw the Pikmin closest to him) without needing to dismiss and re-rally separated Pikmin colors, and most importantly, it allows you to directly control the group of Pikmin following Olimar while moving Olimar himself. This second application allows the player to kite the Pikmin around telegraphed enemy attacks, and properly funnel them so the Pikmin aren’t getting as easily stuck behind walls or falling off ledges/bridges into hazards. That said, noticeable control limitations do exist. Olimar cannot pivot to move the reticle without changing his position with respect to the Pikmin around him, which can make aiming in place annoying if the Pikmin types you need to throw aren’t close enough to be moved with Swarm. Additionally, there is no way for Olimar to simultaneously and directly control multiple separated groups of Pikmin, which does make allocating tasks a bit slower. However, given that the tasks themselves usually don’t necessitate more than one Pikmin type at a time, this limitation is understandable, especially since the sequels would tackle this challenge with more expansive controls and multiple playable characters on the field.

Pikmin’s base model as a result is a fantastic translation of an abstract design philosophy, but I can’t help but wonder if the original could have been pushed further. Don’t misunderstand me: I absolutely take pride in mastering a game by learning all about its inner workings and pushing its mechanics to the limits simply by following a few intuitive genre principles. As such, I wish that the game was a bit harder in order to really force me to squeeze every bit of time from the game’s solid premise. For example, combat is often optional in Pikmin given how many full-grown Bulborbs are found sleeping, but given that most enemies don’t respawn within the next day after killing them and I can bring their carcasses back to base to more than replenish my Pikmin supply, combat is almost always in my favor, especially since certain enemies will spawn more mobs if they aren’t defeated. If circumstances existed where it would be unfavorable to engage (such as losing a significant number of Pikmin every time, or having so little time left that engaging would waste time), then I feel that this would add an additional layer of decision-making of deciding when to sneak past sleeping Bulborbs rather than just wiping out as many foes as I could as soon as possible. In a similar sense, I felt that certain design elements such as the Candypop Buds for switching Pikmin colors were a bit underutilized; outside of one environmental puzzle, I never had to use the Candypop Buds, mainly because I had so many remaining Pikmin and time to never justify their usage. I’ll concede here that Pikmin’s one-day Challenge Mode does at least provide a score attack sandbox where I’m forced to take my Pikmin stock and remaining time into higher consideration, but it’s missing the connectivity of the main story mode where my earlier actions would greatly affect how I planned later days in a run, particularly in making judgement calls on which days to spend at each site and which days I dedicate towards building up my Pikmin numbers versus hauling in ship parts. Regardless, I found myself completing the main game with all parts in just twenty days on my first run with minimal resets, and I’d love to try a harder difficulty mode with a stricter time limit and tougher Pikmin margins to really force me to better conserve my working force and dedicate more time to restocking my supply.

Gripes aside, I’m glad that my friends finally convinced me to try out Pikmin, not just to better appreciate RTS games as a whole but to also gain an appreciation of how different genre mechanics can work in tandem to intuitively convey concepts without spelling everything out to the player. It’s classic Nintendo at their core, and while I had my reservations coming in as a fan of older RTS franchises, they’ve managed to convince me once again that the best hook is not simply offering something that’s visibly better, but rather offering something that’s visibly different. I still think that there’s improvement to be had, but given how much I’ve enjoyed the first game, I can’t wait to see what they have to offer from iterating upon their memorable beginnings.

If I could jump that high...would I ever find the ground again?

Is it bad to jump that high into the sky of nostalgia? To let yourself slip away and put your head into the clouds? Will those clouds of nostalgia turn you against your peers who don't see the vision? The vision of a children's playground for you to jump around to your heart's content? Planting yourself on a little conveyor and riding on it like a first-person roller coaster? Pretending to pet the non-threatening round green birds that chirp "kiwi!" if you dare to shoot them?

I wish I could jump like Robbit, I wish I could shoot lasers like Robbit, and I wish I could make funny noises whenever I took a step forward like Robbit. Why is life such a bore? Why can't it be just playgrounds and rainbows? Why can I not be just like my hero Robbit? Fighting funny evil men with funny palm tree jellyfish henchmen.

Was it my mom's fault that she bought me this during a time where I got nothing for a majority of the year due to being a poor December baby? Is she to blame for this mess? My poisonous care for a simple video game that I had played too much? The rare time where I can attach my mom to a game instead of my gamer dad? My yearning for days that I didn't need to care about getting up for work in the morning? When I didn't have a constant worry for the struggles of others? Is it truly bad for me? To just make me forget, and make me care only about smiling and struggling to hold back my emotions? To just, feel once more?

Is it bad for me to feel like a kid again? For just one hour?

Why must life be so grounded...?

Let's go Robbit, let's jump and go...for old times' sake once more....

I'm sure you saw the five stars I gave this and thought to yourself, "man, this guy's either joking or super weird!". Well, I'm definitely weird, but I'm only partially joking! If we're being ~objective~, Faces of Evil is nowhere near a five star game, but get this: reviews aren't objective, they're windows into the hearts, brains, and souls of individuals, so expressing your emotions, no matter how "unusual" they may be, is where it's at! Faces of Evil is a game that has been there for me for years even though I never really got to play it until now. Many moons ago, I tried a CD-i emulator and not only did it not work well at all, it also had the audacity to try and get me to pay money! CD-i emulation is far from perfect even now, but it has come a long way, at least enough to allow me to find plenty of ways to appreciate it as much more than just the "failure" history considers it to be.

If you're familiar with YouTube Poops, I was the kind of dorky kid that chugged those things down real good. I would watch so many of them and I just couldn't get enough. Seeing these absolutely ridiculous looking takes on characters like Mario and Link that I had known for years always gave me a good laugh and it got to the point where friends and I will still break out random quotes from the poops and the actual source material alike. Even in their original poopless form, the cutscenes in the Mario and Zelda CD-i games are still hilarious! So hilarious, in fact, that a game released this year, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (made in part by the same person who made this remaster), used them as its most compelling hook! These cutscenes are truly special, but there are actual games beyond them. Said games have long been the butt of jokes by reviewers and YouTubers, but when you actually sit down with them, are they really so beyond redemption? It turns out the answer to that is no and we have Dopply to thank for making that conclusion easier than ever to come to.

The first two Zelda games for the CD-i (this one and Wand of Gamelon) play in a way that resembles Zelda II. This is a good thing because Zelda II is my favorite one! They're certainly not as tightly designed or challenging and magic isn't a thing, but the general skeleton is there, which is still appreciated. Speaking of skeletons, this game is still very much a Zelda game once you look past its legendary presentation. You go to various areas in the world, find items that let you explore new areas and defeat new foes, and you ultimately go on to defeat Ganon. You start off very weak and end up becoming a force of nature that can spam deadly ranged attacks, so even with the different style, that form of progression the series has always done well is still here. You get so strong that all it takes to defeat Ganon is throwing a book at him!

Even if the combat is simple, the variety of items you get is as satisfying as you'd expect. Some Zelda staples like bombs and the Power Glove are here, but there are some interesting new items mixed in. A rope lets you create spots to climb upward wherever you want, which can cleverly cut down on the game's tendency to want you to take the long way around things. Snowballs and Firestones replace arrows and magic, which might sound like a downgrade, but the sheer speed at which you can toss them (if you stock up) makes short work of any enemy. The winged helmet predates the Roc's Cape by several years with its ability to let you glide across gaps. Even though I've emphasized the power you can gain, Faces of Evil still finds ways of forcing you to be careful. The number of hearts you get for this adventure are extremely limited and the canteen only lets you carry one healing item, so this isn't a game where you can come rolling in with four fairies in bottles and effectively be invincible. Instant death pits litter most stages, which when combined with enemies that love to throw huge projectiles, can make finding your footing surprisingly difficult. It's not nearly as hard as Zelda II, but it still has some of that methodical swordplay that makes it work so well.

Perhaps moreso than several other Zelda games, the land of Koridai is legitimately strange and compelling to explore. Every single person you meet is some kind of freak that's way too eager to touch Link, creepily smile at him, or go on about some nonsense that the player won't have any context for right away. Except Morshu, that is; he's not a freak, he's a national treasure! This is the only Zelda game (well, and Wand of Gamelon) where encountering NPCs is just as fun as finding new items! The environments themselves are really interesting, too. There's a unique, hard to describe "lived in" nature to each level. Loads of detail can be seen in the backgrounds, especially when you enter buildings, which have all kinds of random little items in the background. It's maybe not what you'd call ~environmental storytelling~, but it gives every single screen a handcrafted, remarkably detailed feel, as if each one was an artist's canvas for them to do with as they please. Just the act of exploring is such a joy because you're guaranteed to see something you've truly never seen before, which is more than a lot of games can say.

It's worth quickly mentioning the upgrades that come with this remaster because they really do make a difference. Aside from expected niceties like enhanced image and music quality, the remaster has an added tutorial and an optional mode that includes some modern QoL like infinite lives and better checkpointing. If you're one of the rare folks who have mastered the original game, there's even a hard mode built in the image of the "Hero modes" added to official Zelda remasters. If you can beat that, you get an entirely new playable character complete with unique animations and spritework, which is a seriously delightful level of effort!

The whole package really shows just how much respect Dopply has for the CD-i and its Zelda games. It's easy for people to take one look at the CD-i and dismiss it, but perspectives like this in which people truly take the time to examine the positives of what the platform was doing are so valuable. By being humble enough to not see it as something to "fix" from the ground up to prove a point but rather something to use as the basis for a creative experiment, Dopply has proven that there's legitimate beauty in what the CD-i was doing. Faces of Evil, whether it meant to or not (I'm sure it didn't), serves as an example of what Nintendo once was in the eyes of those who have seen them grow into the obnoxiously litigious behemoth that they are today. Nintendo used to have moments of experimentation, weirdness, and "mistakes" that they simply don't now. They're a megacorporation and megacorporations are not your friends, but they absolutely were "fun" in a way that they aren't now. Things like the live action Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Game Boy Printer, Mario Paint, ROB, the Virtual Boy, all have a raw creative energy that takes risks in ways that they wouldn't dare consider now. Faces of Evil is a way to tap back into that fun period of Nintendo history, that period where I consumed the heck out of YouTube Poops, and as short as said reminiscence may be, it's an opportunity that I find impossible to say no to.

God this sourceport was, and still remains a total disaster. dude. frame interpolation. lmao
Putting aside the "enhanced" graphics for a moment. Even after numerous patches the game is still littered with gamebreaking bugs, some that can completely softlock your save. Awesome!

Its understandable considering how little material the Nightdive crew had to work with between lacking the source code and original footage for the FMVs (nevermind the lack of budget). But the project shouldnt have even been greenlit under those circumstances. Barring consoles there isnt a single reason to play this version over the orginal in ScummVM

Nightdive hits it out of the park once again! The last time I beat this game, I had just come home from getting my wisdom teeth pulled and I was all doped up with a mouthful of bloody cotton. It was nice to get the chance to beat it again in full command of my faculties.

I was pretty impressed this time around at how well the game holds up. It's impossible not to compare it to Doom, and in that regard I think it makes an admirable showing. The enemy and weapon variety and design are pretty weak. Bad guys are basically all hitscanners with various levels of health, and several of the weapons don't really have a very well defined role. The thermal detonators and land mines in particular seem undercooked to the point of being missed opportunities.

Where the game really shines is in the level design. Here it is enormously helped by the setting and lore. The levels aren't naturalistic, but Star Wars movie sets themselves are rarely naturalistic, opting instead for a strong, unifying aesthetic that's instantly recognizable. It's that aesthetic that the game nails so well and made it feel like a genuinely authentic Star Wars experience.

Dark Forces came out at a really awkward time in the franchise's history. The Extended Universe existed, and there was a fanbase, but LucasArts wasn't really putting the series to work in any meaningful way. I liked the movies and had a bunch of the guys, but I was the only one I knew who was into it at all; the kids at my school thought of it as "old." It was far from a given that a AAA Doom clone in the Star Wars universe would sell, much less start a whole spin-off franchise. My memory is that this was the first 3-D Star Wars experience, and it delivered on that in spades. The authentic sound effects, extremely detailed sprites and beautiful interiors made it more immersive than anything I had seen from this franchise before.

The technical improvements over Doom are very impressive and do a lot to really open up the maps. Moving walls, conveyer belts, rooms over rooms and a handful of true 3-D objects really expand the desingers' toolsets and make for a lot of really great little surprises and help keep things fresh. This time around I did notice a bit more jank than I remember the first time; in particular a few instances of really badly misaligned textures that I thought were pretty disappointing in what was otherwise such a polished experience.

I'm mostly reviewing the original game here because as always Nightdive just nailed the remaster. The uprezzed (?) textures look great, controller play feels fantastic, the new look for the cutscenes is spot on, and the extras are all really interesting. Geezers like myself (and anyone interested in games preservation really) truly are blessed to have these guys doing such diligent, skillful work keeping these old classics alive, and I can't wait to see what they have coming next.

Very weird game. I love the PS2 era games, because some of them just were batshit crazy convoluted stories filled with action, demons and shit like that. This is like the antithesis of that.

Ico got my interest after I played Shadow of The Colossus for the first time and got obsessed with it. I had to know more, to immerse myself in this world. Then I learned that all games made by Team Ico are supposedly in the same universe. So I booted up my emulator and got to it.

I loved the mysterious nature of SOTC - Ico has that too. I loved the art, the characters - Ico has that too. I loved the Zelda vibe - Ico has that too.

Still, Ico FELT like something else. Whereas Shadow was beautiful and entrancing, Ico was eerie and unnerving. It feels like something’s always creeping around the corner, in the shadows of this abandoned castle. It’s not a horror game, but it is one the scariest games I’ve ever played. But instead of jumpscares, it seeks deep into your mind, makes you uncomfortable and uneasy. I’ll probably have eerie dreams about it.

The absolute SILENCE of this game had me tense, if not sometimes bored. Midway through I was talking with a friend about it and said “it’s missing a soundtrack, it’s too empty”. I don’t think that anymore. It’s supposed to be like that. When something DID HAPPEN it always gave me some reaction, frequently shivers or stiffness. The sound of flapping wings of the shadow monsters while they try to get the girl had me in shambles.

Story wise it’s just as cryptic and mysterious as Shadow of The Colossus. Even weirder though. It follows the same structure too, cutscenes at the beginning - gameplay - cutscenes at the end.

Gameplay is solid puzzles, annoying combat (maybe on purpose) and good platforming.

When there is music, almost never, it goes hard.

I can see how this is considered influential, the way it tells a story with gameplay and minimal use of cutscenes feels very modern. Kinda like Inside. Very artsy game too, for sure. One of those showcases of games as art type of situation, Fujimoto definitely is an auteur.

Can’t wait for The Last Guardian now. This Fujimoto Ueda guy has me intrigued.

Before last year when I played through Konami's Contra collection release I had barely played the series. For the most part they aren't games I'd play again (except for the amazing Contra: Hard Corps.) but they are fun well made titles that do hold up well. Having gone through the collection however I found out that for some reason it was missing the third NES game in the series Contra Force. Having now played it I understand why though, I suspect Konami themselves hope people forget it.

It was originally developed as a totally different game called Arc Hound with no ties to Contra but was cancelled in Japan and never released. I was going to say that I don't know the reason for the cancellation but based on how bad the game is I imagine it's self evident but considering what existing content of the game was rebranded as a Contra title and released in the US anyway? who knows the truth of the matter behind it. By the time it actually came out was after Contra III on the SNES which only really helps to emphasize the low quality here as everything about this is worse than the original Contra released 4 years prior.

Firstly the games performance is awful. The game has constant slowdown even when there isn't much going on. I have played more intensive NES games so know the hardware is more capable than this but even without the slow down the actual game just feels slow and cumbersome moving and firing around, it's like playing in slow motion through treacle. The technical limitations don't stop there though with constant sprite flickering and even the auto scrolling at times just doesn't work leaving your playable character stuck on the very front of the screen. This is just an ugly title to play and feels unfinished which considering the information on it's development history I have managed to find? That may well have been the case.

The issues don't stop there though with Arc Hound's original set up meaning this isn't actually a contra so the enemies and especially the bosses you fight are just so...bland. The first boss for example is just a slightly larger commando that jumps and fires a couple of bullets. There are no aliens, large machinery or anything interesting at any point to engage with. The closest thing is a jet plane but even that somehow when you fight it is somehow kind of boring with no interesting bullet patterns or abilities.

You can choose between four characters to play as with slightly different load outs because the only, and I mean only, interesting thing this game does is to implement another Konami property's weapon upgrade system from Gradius. Instead of new weapons dropped from enemies or locations there are generic suitcases that act as power ups. Each one you collect pushes along a bar of choices that you can then manually select. The issue is most of the weapons are crap, slow demolition, grenades with no range, guns that feel the same and missing classic contra weapons to boot. You can change characters by pressing the start button to go to the menu. From the menu you can even select another character to do an AI attack for you on screen which was kind of neat though I initially thought it would be a permanent companion as going into the laggy menu is also a chore to no ones surprise. Speaking of which to continue feeling like this is an incomplete prototype when going into the menu from a jump and coming back out your character jumps again in mid air meaning in some levels you can by pass huge sections by jumping almost infinitely. It's just broken.

And there you have it, Contra Force. Worth playing for an hour or so only if you are interested in it's historical placement as the odd game in the series Konami doesn't want to acknowledge by repurposing an (I assume) incomplete cancelled project with the Contra branding. It runs terribly, has pretty mediocre bosses and gameplay over it's 5 stage run time and generally isn't a fun title. The Contra Collection I played was missing a lot of titles on it but honestly? this one I understand why at least.

Pints for being possibly the worst game I've played but with the coolest cover art though.

+ Gradius Power up system is an interesting implementation....

- .....though I don't think it really fits the game.
- Technical issues everywhere, slowdown, sprite flickers and broken auto scrolling.
- Levels, bosses and weapons are just unfun.
- It's bad.

Hearing that new video game system you’re about to buy comes with a free title designed to show off its special capabilities likely calls to mind some paltry minigame compilation à la Welcome Park on PS Vita. Sony has actually preloaded their latest home console with a full-fledged 3D collect-a-thon platformer of remarkable quality though! It may not end up being as iconic as Wii Sports, but is a very welcome member of the PS5’s library nonetheless.

It feels like a gleeful celebration of the company’s long history. Not in a supercilious, self-aggrandizing way, but in a manner more akin to sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing fond memories. Everywhere you look there’s an Easter egg or deep cut reference that’s been lovingly placed there to bring a smile to the face of any abiding PlayStation devotee while reminding them of the types of experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

As delightful as all of that is though, it’s the gameplay that matters most and if that didn’t hold up then this package would carry no value. Astro’s Playroom manages to succeed due to spacing out the stages meant to make use of the controller’s unique functions with excellent traditional ones that you can explore and grab things in at your leisure. The levels that see you tilting the DualSense and playing around with its touchpad and adaptive triggers admittedly are a tad gimmicky (especially those dang frog suit sections), but remain fun in spite of that by never outstaying their welcome.

Another aspect that really impressed me was the sheer amount of interactivity. In the starting hub area alone, you can smack all of the little Bots to have them tag along behind you and amass a huge horde of followers. What purpose does this serve? None as far as I can tell! It's just a single example of the many neat little features the devs have included that allow you to find extra amusement in engaging with your surroundings. It's something I wish more games would do.

This might also be the perfect length, striking that nice balance between charming demo you spend a little time with before moving on to the games you actually bought the console for and a more fulfilling offering that can keep you coming back for a few additional hours via the healthy amount of collectibles to hunt down. AP won't be on any top ten of the PS5's lifespan lists when all is said and done, yet is a fantastic freebie regardless that there's absolutely no reason for you to not check out if you own the hardware.

9/10

I never thought starting this year that by the end of April I would have finally played all 4 of the original classic Phantasy Star games. They have been on my bucket list for years and the experience has been a mixture of surprises and Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium is no exception.

To start with I really want to get this out the way that this game is by far the best of the 4 games. It takes all the good parts of Phantasy Star II and builds on them in all the right aspects while still linking the story of every game in the series together. It really feels like it ties the plot up for all of them while still being able to play it on it's own. It's an incredibly well made experience with a couple of aspects that really stood out in particular.

Story wise the game takes place 1000 years before Phantasy Star III and 1000 years after Phantasy Star II which in turn was 1000 years after Phantasy Star I. We are once again in the Algol star system following mercenary hunters Alys Brangwin and her apprentice Chaz Ashley on planet Motavia. They have been hired to take care of some monsters that lead them on a steadily longer world saving adventure than they could have anticipated. The writing and story of Phantasy Star IV is a massive increase in quality over it's predecessors with full comic like panel cutscenes, genuinely funny jokes, facial expressions and stand out personalities making the story moments actually a delight rather than simply a cardboard set of instructions for the next location. This was such a pleasant realisation within less than 10 minutes of starting that this was going to be a much different experience than I initially thought.

The game moves at a fast pace generally and while certainly not linear I would say it seems very focused so it's quite clear in most cases where to go but still plenty of space for side exploring and without being super grindy. The combat is still turn based and the dungeons are third person. The most interesting thing about the combat is how kind of insanely ahead of it's time it feels. Though it has the basics of the genre in that you can attack, use magic and items it also lets you can set up macros from a list prior to fights. These serve as pre selected moves for your whole party for that turn. For example I had 'macro A' set up as my opening gambit to cast buffs for defence, attack, speed up and a strong attack spell so I didn't have to manually select them each time with 'macro B' as all attack, C as spells etc. Certain combinations of spells or skills would also unlock extremely strong special attacks like a combo though you would have to experiment or look them up to know what they are and set them off in the right turn order uninterrupted.

Another stand out feature I didn't expect is the game also has a hunt system at the guild so at this point I am really feeling like Final Fantasy XII took the gambit system, hunt system and Star Wars influences entirely from Phantasy Star IV... It's obviously more limited here to only a dozen or so and are essentially side quests you (sometimes) get rewards for but with the improved dialogue, characters and towns it all comes together to make the game and world feel very alive for a title in this era.

Visually it's colourful and crisp and the aforementioned anime scenes are fantastic. I love the art style and designs that Phantasy Star II really solidified for the series. I've generally enjoyed all the music in the games so far but like everything it feels like Phantasy Star IV just cranks it up to eleven with every track creating this crunchy electronic bass the megadrive was so good at. There is even a great Phantasy Star 1 remix as part of the OST.

Honestly I really loved Phantasy Star IV and it is easily in my top games to recommend for the megadrive for it's pacing, production values, compact design and scenes but there is one thing that does hold it back from a five star award from me. It goes through party members at such an insane pace it's a bit strange with characters constantly coming and going sometimes within the space of a dungeon or two. They were often the ones I liked most leaving me consistently with Chaz who, and let's be polite to him, is an unlikeable idiot. It is however only a small nit-pick really in an otherwise fantastic RPG I would recommend.

+ Anime scenes and dialogue make the game feel slick with personality.
+ Macros are such a great feature for setting up combat instructions in a seamless way.
+ Music is fire.

- Going through party members like disposable cutlery with the story pacing.