2024
Came at the right time for me, a really charming a calming little first person puzzler that has you searching round an large manor house looking for clues and details on how to grow a variety of picky little plants.
While it is overall a very relaxing experience, it is a little too on the easy to complete side with most puzzles being quite self explanatory and relying mostly on memorisation of data than anything else with solutions often just boiling down to remembering or writing down key facts to determine things like light sources, heat, sound or PH level.
Its still charming, soothing and very much the sort of game you'll finish in an afternoon but I do wish there was a touch more variety in the puzzles.
While it is overall a very relaxing experience, it is a little too on the easy to complete side with most puzzles being quite self explanatory and relying mostly on memorisation of data than anything else with solutions often just boiling down to remembering or writing down key facts to determine things like light sources, heat, sound or PH level.
Its still charming, soothing and very much the sort of game you'll finish in an afternoon but I do wish there was a touch more variety in the puzzles.
2005
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
I don't want to be too harsh on this since this is obviously a beta/prototype that Piko bought up when hoovering up small companies but its just bland. The UI is cheap and basic, the controls are on the loose side and the AI isn't really anything to talk about.
Theres not much progression outside of a basic 'RACE 1, RACE 2, RACE 3' linear set of levels and none of them are worth talking about. Add in a rather bland looping track that plays across most of the game and you've got a racing game that barely makes the grade. It may be 2/5 but theres so little to talk about here.
I don't want to be too harsh on this since this is obviously a beta/prototype that Piko bought up when hoovering up small companies but its just bland. The UI is cheap and basic, the controls are on the loose side and the AI isn't really anything to talk about.
Theres not much progression outside of a basic 'RACE 1, RACE 2, RACE 3' linear set of levels and none of them are worth talking about. Add in a rather bland looping track that plays across most of the game and you've got a racing game that barely makes the grade. It may be 2/5 but theres so little to talk about here.
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
You know the idea that you're always better off focusing on one thing and making that thing good. Clearly nobody told the developers of Top Gear/Racer as this essentially is their take on Road Rash, the motorcycle stuff clearly is the bit they put all their passion in. Sure its occasionally a little clunky and the range of the kicks when attacking other players is absolutely questionable, but it mostly works.
What doesn't work is the jet-ski component. While the motorbike racing still has that Top Gear/Racer sense of speed and excitement, the Jet-ski parts are just boring with bad track design and a general dull pace. These cut into the Motorbike stuff too by forcing you to often pace and save up money for the better upgrades as both the Motorbike and Jet-Ski have separate upgrade menus.
If this was just the Motorbike stuff, i'd call it a 3/5. Not bad but certainly has its moments. The Jet-Ski stuff just sinks it lower.
You know the idea that you're always better off focusing on one thing and making that thing good. Clearly nobody told the developers of Top Gear/Racer as this essentially is their take on Road Rash, the motorcycle stuff clearly is the bit they put all their passion in. Sure its occasionally a little clunky and the range of the kicks when attacking other players is absolutely questionable, but it mostly works.
What doesn't work is the jet-ski component. While the motorbike racing still has that Top Gear/Racer sense of speed and excitement, the Jet-ski parts are just boring with bad track design and a general dull pace. These cut into the Motorbike stuff too by forcing you to often pace and save up money for the better upgrades as both the Motorbike and Jet-Ski have separate upgrade menus.
If this was just the Motorbike stuff, i'd call it a 3/5. Not bad but certainly has its moments. The Jet-Ski stuff just sinks it lower.
1993
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
Finally onto Top Gear 2... Sorry I mean 'Top Racer 2' and honestly its more of the same from the first game with a few steps forward but then a few steps back.
Firstly before we hit those, lets just copy and paste a lot from the first games review. The controls are still really good, the music banging and the AI often feels aggressive but generally quite fair.
That said, onto a negative, the game's difficulty curve is a little off. Its actually quite hard at the beginning, you'll often be hurting to catch up with others and it can sometimes feel like you've been stacked against impossible odds. On the other side, the late game is really easy thanks to the AI not really keeping up with you as you upgrade way past them.
On the plus side, the entire screen now is yours, no more forced split-screen. Huzzah.
So yeah, if you enjoyed the first game, theres a lot to like here.
Finally onto Top Gear 2... Sorry I mean 'Top Racer 2' and honestly its more of the same from the first game with a few steps forward but then a few steps back.
Firstly before we hit those, lets just copy and paste a lot from the first games review. The controls are still really good, the music banging and the AI often feels aggressive but generally quite fair.
That said, onto a negative, the game's difficulty curve is a little off. Its actually quite hard at the beginning, you'll often be hurting to catch up with others and it can sometimes feel like you've been stacked against impossible odds. On the other side, the late game is really easy thanks to the AI not really keeping up with you as you upgrade way past them.
On the plus side, the entire screen now is yours, no more forced split-screen. Huzzah.
So yeah, if you enjoyed the first game, theres a lot to like here.
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
Blah blah. Honestly I could copy and paste most of my review for 'Winter Challenge' and get away with it. The faux-3D graphics still chug away slowly, the music is still questionable and the CPU players are still rather miserable to play against.
The only upsides here in comparison to Winter Challenge is theres generally more variety here and some of the new stuff thats more track and field focused actually plays half-decent but thats not really enough to make this a game worth playing.
Blah blah. Honestly I could copy and paste most of my review for 'Winter Challenge' and get away with it. The faux-3D graphics still chug away slowly, the music is still questionable and the CPU players are still rather miserable to play against.
The only upsides here in comparison to Winter Challenge is theres generally more variety here and some of the new stuff thats more track and field focused actually plays half-decent but thats not really enough to make this a game worth playing.
2022
As others have stated, this is basically what you get when you combine elements from Breath of the Wild and A Short Hike and its just absolutely a big charm-fest in every single way thanks to a rather touching story, cute characters that ooze sillyness and a pretty fun core mechanic of searching, smashing cardboard cutouts and helping others.
The only real issue I have is the map can sometimes be a little too easy to get lost in. While this isnt too much of an issue as the map isnt 'that' big, it can make finding and hunting down specific items and characters a bit of a pain in the behind, something thats alleviated a bit with end-game content but its not something I feel I should 'have' to do to stand a chance of clearing the game.
Still, a cute happy little time all around.
...
Im totally the kid who wanted to make pretend restaurants.
The only real issue I have is the map can sometimes be a little too easy to get lost in. While this isnt too much of an issue as the map isnt 'that' big, it can make finding and hunting down specific items and characters a bit of a pain in the behind, something thats alleviated a bit with end-game content but its not something I feel I should 'have' to do to stand a chance of clearing the game.
Still, a cute happy little time all around.
...
Im totally the kid who wanted to make pretend restaurants.
1993
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
Eesh. I had this game back on the Amiga and I always wondered if it would play better on a console with more than one fire button. Answer is... No. In fact its actually worse here than on the Amiga.
It plays like absolute arse. Its basically bad Ocean platformer design at its very worst with chunky level designs, enemies that run at you quick from offscreen, boring looping music, collectables strewn across the level like troll dolls in a 90s kids bedroom and a terrible control setup with the football attacks whiffing and sailing over enemies heads 9/10 times. Trust me, any actual hits on enemies is completely unintentional.
Sure theres some decent enough sprite art that manages to 'just' make this game dodge a 0.5/5 but its not like 1/5 is anything to talk about either. If you absolutely need to try this game, please just pick up the Amiga original. I mean the Amiga original still isnt that great but its sure better than this mess of a SNES port.
Eesh. I had this game back on the Amiga and I always wondered if it would play better on a console with more than one fire button. Answer is... No. In fact its actually worse here than on the Amiga.
It plays like absolute arse. Its basically bad Ocean platformer design at its very worst with chunky level designs, enemies that run at you quick from offscreen, boring looping music, collectables strewn across the level like troll dolls in a 90s kids bedroom and a terrible control setup with the football attacks whiffing and sailing over enemies heads 9/10 times. Trust me, any actual hits on enemies is completely unintentional.
Sure theres some decent enough sprite art that manages to 'just' make this game dodge a 0.5/5 but its not like 1/5 is anything to talk about either. If you absolutely need to try this game, please just pick up the Amiga original. I mean the Amiga original still isnt that great but its sure better than this mess of a SNES port.
1991
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
I kind of get what they wanted here but theres absolutely no way the Mega Drive could handle the 3D effects they attempted here. What we have is six mostly similar variants of 'throwing yourself down a snowy mountain' with three of the six given to ski related activities, two to luge based events and one ice skate-race game.
There isn't really much variety in the levels themselves, the controls are stiff and unfriendly but the worst issue is the fact that everything is so slow and laggy with most events just feeling like a slog to go through despite the rather short runtimes. Graphically its a rather ugly affair and whatever music that plays is just Sierra from wish. The computer players are rather mean spirited to go up against and the whole thing just feels tired.
Again, I can see what they were going for but this wasn't the way to do it.
I kind of get what they wanted here but theres absolutely no way the Mega Drive could handle the 3D effects they attempted here. What we have is six mostly similar variants of 'throwing yourself down a snowy mountain' with three of the six given to ski related activities, two to luge based events and one ice skate-race game.
There isn't really much variety in the levels themselves, the controls are stiff and unfriendly but the worst issue is the fact that everything is so slow and laggy with most events just feeling like a slog to go through despite the rather short runtimes. Graphically its a rather ugly affair and whatever music that plays is just Sierra from wish. The computer players are rather mean spirited to go up against and the whole thing just feels tired.
Again, I can see what they were going for but this wasn't the way to do it.
2013
You know you're in for an interesting time when you first start the game and Steam gives you an EULA that just says 'have fun'.
This game is just a jank-filled mess with very little redeeming it. The voice acting is abysmal, the controls are awkward, the menu and UIs are dull and lifeless, the graphics are ugly and the music is generic as it comes.
But wait, its gets worse, text hangs often on some screens, there's multiple pickups that haven't been coded properly so they just come up as 'Undefined', combat is slow and dull but the game can never decide when to do long range attacks or short range melee properly so often you'll just be wailing at random hoping for the good attacks to come out.
There's NPCs who spin while rooted to the ground, there's ground elements that block your progress that look exactly like the walkable ground, there's passageways and doors the character just flat out refuses to interact with for no reason other than 'I Cant do that' and there's text errors and spelling issues all over the place.
Just a total mess.
This game is just a jank-filled mess with very little redeeming it. The voice acting is abysmal, the controls are awkward, the menu and UIs are dull and lifeless, the graphics are ugly and the music is generic as it comes.
But wait, its gets worse, text hangs often on some screens, there's multiple pickups that haven't been coded properly so they just come up as 'Undefined', combat is slow and dull but the game can never decide when to do long range attacks or short range melee properly so often you'll just be wailing at random hoping for the good attacks to come out.
There's NPCs who spin while rooted to the ground, there's ground elements that block your progress that look exactly like the walkable ground, there's passageways and doors the character just flat out refuses to interact with for no reason other than 'I Cant do that' and there's text errors and spelling issues all over the place.
Just a total mess.
It clearly wants to ape what Spyro and such does but while the controls are sort of ok, the game just fails to really have anything all that good inside of it.
Attacks against enemies work well enough but are vague at the best of times, the music is sort of there but the worst bit is the general level design being mostly blocky, vast and empty without enough detail or design to it all to make any given level worth remembering.
If you happen to love 3D platforming collect-a-thons then feel free to stick another half star on. For anyone else, this is just a little too on the bland side to really stand out.
Attacks against enemies work well enough but are vague at the best of times, the music is sort of there but the worst bit is the general level design being mostly blocky, vast and empty without enough detail or design to it all to make any given level worth remembering.
If you happen to love 3D platforming collect-a-thons then feel free to stick another half star on. For anyone else, this is just a little too on the bland side to really stand out.
2011
This is absolutely one of those games that has all the ideas in the trunk from the oddball art style to the collection mechanics and overall bendy plot... But the problem is that it floods all those ideas across the screen all at once and demands speedy reaction times, while assaulting your eyes with UI elements, particle effects and providing peashooter weapons that feel watered down in comparison to everything around it.
Thrown in enemies that often blend in with their surroundings and the whole thing just feels a lot harder than it really should be. The entire game hinges on score-chasing, speed clearing and accuracy and none of this works in its favour for the thing its wanting to achieve.
Thrown in enemies that often blend in with their surroundings and the whole thing just feels a lot harder than it really should be. The entire game hinges on score-chasing, speed clearing and accuracy and none of this works in its favour for the thing its wanting to achieve.
2012
Honestly not a bad game for a quick throwaround as its fast, frantic and absolutely a blast in short bursts which honestly made it perfect for its Vita port.
On the PC its a little more difficult to love but its still a rather fun, if shallow little affair with a decent amount of stuff to unlock.
On the PC its a little more difficult to love but its still a rather fun, if shallow little affair with a decent amount of stuff to unlock.
1991
Boring and an absolute snooze-fest in every single way. The first proper level is fun enough but from the second one onwards, the entire thing just drags itself slowly as you realise you've already seen most of the variety the game has to show you.
Graphically its bland, sound-wise its forgettable and the combat itself is stiff and has no oomf to any of it. Theres a reason SEGA doesnt really roll this one out.
Graphically its bland, sound-wise its forgettable and the combat itself is stiff and has no oomf to any of it. Theres a reason SEGA doesnt really roll this one out.
2000
Yes, the gameplay sometimes is a little on the clunky and funky side. Aiming webs can be stiff and the combat can be a bit basic and the whole game is very on the short side.... But who cares really when the game is this joyfully silly and bombastic.
Its honestly so much fun swinging around and exploring the various stages in this game, collecting comics, beating up badguys, hearing some of the silliest quips from Spidey, Venom or Stan Lee. I was very worried on a replay that it wouldnt hold up and while, as mentioned, there are some issues, the overall theming and fun tone helps carry it along through to the end.
Its honestly so much fun swinging around and exploring the various stages in this game, collecting comics, beating up badguys, hearing some of the silliest quips from Spidey, Venom or Stan Lee. I was very worried on a replay that it wouldnt hold up and while, as mentioned, there are some issues, the overall theming and fun tone helps carry it along through to the end.
1991
Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2
Starting the Piko Collection 2 with a game thats.... ok? I don't think its a particularly bad game, heck, I had quite a bit of fun with it but despite some nifty little ideas like the shop mechanics and the flicking between top-down and third person racing providing a set of fun little distractions, there just isn't really enough to do here.
The races themselves, while amusing enough, are all too similar and samey thanks to almost every single race being a strict race from bottom to top affair. Theres some turns about but no real variety in the layouts. The art is also absolutely ugly as sin, especially the massive gurning character faces in between races. Owtch.
Starting the Piko Collection 2 with a game thats.... ok? I don't think its a particularly bad game, heck, I had quite a bit of fun with it but despite some nifty little ideas like the shop mechanics and the flicking between top-down and third person racing providing a set of fun little distractions, there just isn't really enough to do here.
The races themselves, while amusing enough, are all too similar and samey thanks to almost every single race being a strict race from bottom to top affair. Theres some turns about but no real variety in the layouts. The art is also absolutely ugly as sin, especially the massive gurning character faces in between races. Owtch.