I think this game is great. Kind of underrated honestly. It received pretty average/mid attention from critics, in fact there weren't many professional reviews. Now, granted, I didn't play Worms 3D or Worms 4: Mayhem, so I do have some bias towards this game. I don't think it matters much though, Worms: Ultimate Mayhem still holds up pretty well and is a lot of fun. It's simply a solid turn-based strategy where you fight worms with worms. The story and challenge missions are varied enough to keep me engaged. Now, I did say it holds up well, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t age. Particularly, the compatibility with modern systems, more specifically the infamous jittery mouse. Someone did make a fix and even updated it semi-recently to address an issue, and from my experience it works like a charm. There are other issues. For some reason, you can’t skip cutscenes in Worms 3D campaign. It seems like a simple quality of life improvement, but Team17 didn’t implement it. You can skip cutscenes from Worms 4: Mayhem story missions but not Worms 3D, which is baffling. One more issue I noticed is one of Worms 3D campaigns doesn’t work if you have anti-aliasing enabled. Maybe it’s another side effect of modern OS/Hardware compatibility. There is one downgrade I know compared to Worms 4: Mayhem, and it’s the music. That game had 2 tracks per theme (construction, medieval and so on), while this game only keeps one track in a remastered form. It's good music, but less of it can be a legitimate criticism, an understandable reason to like this game ever so slightly less. Nevertheless, despite some faults, this game is simply a blast to play. I spent countless hours playing against CPUs. I did actually try to play with randos in an online game recently. The game is fairly dead, but you may stumble upon a few people waiting to play. And there's a Steam thread if you're looking for friends to play with. Definitely worth bringing friends over. Overall, Worms: Ultimate Mayhem is as much a classic as earlier 3D games.

Super Squidlit is a sequel to Squidlit, now in color. Besides the color however, the game also makes the adventure longer and more varied. Plip the Squidlit gains a new ability - dash, this can allow to gain greater heights since bumping into a wall refreshes double jump. It also allows for new ways of attacking or dodging enemies. There are new play styles as well. The First Person Shooter sections are the most prominent. The game is advertised as "Strives for total accuracy to Game Boy Color hardware!". Given that Tyrannosaurus Tex exists, the first person shooter on a game boy color is not unfeasible. Heck, Faceball 2000 exists for the OG Game Boy. I actually quite like them and they aren't "unplayable" as some may suggest. The game does offer a modern control sheme option if you have a controller. Or a Nintendo Switch version. But I'm a big boy, so I played with default "Game Boy Color" scheme. Holding left or right normally turns the camera unless you hold a strafe button. You can also lock onto the enemies by pressing said strafe button. Switching weapons is only forward which is a minor inconvinience. It may be clunky at first, but you can get used to the controls and these sections play adequately. They are admittedly fairly repetitive, there's not much variety. The devs do spice them up a little with "gimmicks". There's an "on-rails" section where you move automatically until the predetermined section where you have to defeat enemies. There are a few boss fights, and a falling section that uses the FPS perspective, where you simply avoid bumping into surfaces. I enjoyed them so much that I'm actually craving for more. Maybe something like Wolfenstein 3D will satisfy me. What I did find "unplayable" however are swimming controls. It's similar to the likes of Super Mario Bros., but you can only swim in a given direction, you can swim up, up-right, up-left, and down. You can face down-right and down-left but can't actually swim in that direction which is kinda awkward. Moreover, in order to attack the enemies, you have to turn around, which is also awkward, and the shot goes in upward trajectory (if you aren't aiming straight up/down that is). Works the same way as in 2D platforming sections but it's just so clumsy. I didn't find the associated level and the boss to be very enjoyable. I think modern swimming controls would've worked greatly. It's a Squidlit afterall, not a fat plumber.

In conclusion, I think Super Squidlit is a worthy successor. More variety makes the journey more engaging, but the longer run time also means there's more chances of unpolished sections to crop up. The first person sections for instance are rather devicive. Still though, it's a good game. Cute, approachable and fun.

Half-Life 2: Episode One is more of Half-Life 2, which is a good thing because Half-Life 2 was a great game. But man, I didn't expect it to be that short! The clever level design returns, mixing gunplay with puzzle sections. The complete darkness section was honestly my favorite part and imo one of the best moments in all of Half-Life 2. Up to this point the flashlight served a utility purpose for dark areas but here it's in the spotlight. The drain rate is slower than recovery, so sitting in the dark for the Aux Power to recharge isn't too bad. With limited visibility, this section is tense. Then it's mixed with more clever environment interactions. There are gas canisters and other flammable objects that can be thrown at zombies with a gravity gun. Not only does that kill them faster, it also lights them on fire, giving a light source, which is pretty cool. The Strider section at the end is admittedly not that great and it feels you're forced to take L and eat up damage to proceed, but to be honest, I didn't find Strider sections of base Half-Life 2 to be very enjoyable either, so I think it's par for the course. Overall, as I said, it's more of Half-Life 2. If you like that game, then you'll likely enjoy this continuation. It's short, but sweet enough.

Disney's Bolt for Nintendo DS is an action platformer that doesn't follow the movie's plot, instead it is set in a fictional TV show within the movie, starring Bolt the super dog and Penny as they're trying to find Penny's dad and foil evil's plans, which is an interesting choice for a movie tie-in video game.

As I mentioned, Bolt is an action platformer, and a 3-Dimensional one. The platforming itself is actually rather basic, there's no way to die in a pit or anything like that, the jumps are sort of scripted so you always jump over gaps, and you can only fall off ledges if there's ground below for you to try again, so failing ends up as a minor inconvenience. The movement honestly feels a little clunky, you can't turn instantly, as a small animation needs to play, and the momentum when jumping isn't always consistent, sometimes I didn't have a lot of momentum after a jump, I think it's because I jumped from stand still, and also it seems like you can't jump as soon as you land, and need to wait a little bit before you can jump again. The game also has combat, and it's honestly not that great, I avoided most confrontations whenever possible. You can attack with Y and X, and perform combos with said buttons, and you unlock more as you progress, you can also perform special moves by blowing into the microphone or touching the screen, both Penny and Bolt have different special powers, for instance, touching the screen as bolt will make him invincible, and he can actually damage enemies and objects this way, while blowing into microphone will make him perform a super bark, while Penny can do a spinning attack on touch and a smoke bomb on microphone input. There are only a few enemy types, so there's not a whole lot of variety or strategy. The game features a level progression, like a light RPG, when the enemies die, they drop an item that can be used to boost main character's abilities, attack, defense or speed/energy depending on which character, and once you spend enough points on all three, you level up and unlock new combos that may prove to be more powerful and useful, so fighting enemies isn't a complete waste, but the combat is not very difficult to be honest. There are also upgrades that can be found in levels, health and energy boosts, so there's a light element of exploration, and normal containers can feature health pickups, energy or EXP. Aside from platforming and fighting, there are occasional mini-games that use the touch screen, like hacking which is basically "connect the dots" and avoid hazards, or tracing a line to cut something with Bolt's eye lasers.

Your objectives through missions are mostly the same, get somewhere, defeat enemies or play a mini-game to progress, though there's a little bit more for variety, like destroying objects, surviving for a set amount of time and disarm rockets as Bolt. There are a few standouts, like towards the end, where you need to get Bolt in cage to Penny, which is rather awkward, also can't Penny just pick the cage? I mean it is big, but I don't think it's that heavy. In the same level you have to bait the enemies to break a container with Penny's Wheel-Bar so she can fight them and continue with the mission, but these moments are few and far between, I found the game to be pretty repetitive overall, and the levels can take more than 10 minutes to complete, though it's not consistent, as some levels are much shorter than others. Luckily, the game saves at certain points mid-level. My big issue with this game is camera. The game is fully 3D, with some open areas and some corridors, and occasional top-down view, but for the most part the camera is zoomed in on the main character a bit too much for my liking. It makes it easy to lose enemies from the view and for them to hit you when they're offscreen and it doesn't help with finding the correct path or key elements for progression, the most you can do with camera is pan it left or right with shoulder buttons. There are occasions where the camera is further away, and there's no noticeable performance problems if the devs were worried about that, so I don't know why it's so zoomed in. I think the game would've been much better if it was a little further away all the time, and not sometimes. Another issue I have, though this one is pretty minor, is that I wish the tutorial text for controls didn't have to say control schemes for both right and left handed options at the same time, but only said one depending on the control scheme chosen in the options.

Aside from the main game, there's also a small side game, Rhino's Mission, which is like a Super Monkey Ball sort of deal, you tilt the screen by using D-Pad, touch screen or the face buttons, if you're left handed of course. The controls feel janky at first, but honestly it's kinda fun, you guide Rhino through corridors on a time limit, collecting seeds and avoid hazards. There are only a few levels, each based on a world of the main game, so it ends up being a bit short, but it's easily the most fun I've had with the game, if it wasn't for this inclusion my opinion on this game as a whole would've been a bit lower. The only issue I have regarding this mode is that there's no camera control, and hitting some hazards turns the camera, creating awkward situations. I beat both easy and hard options, hard mode makes the time limit stricter and the hazards deal more damage, but otherwise it's identical.

Let's talk about graphics, music and overall presentation. The graphics are pretty decent, and the game runs very smoothly, I'm convinced it runs at full 60 FPS, and the frame drops are rare. But, as I mentioned, the camera is zoomed in on the player for most of the time, which not only hinders gameplay, but also the graphical fidelity. It's clear the game can show a lot of geometry on screen without any noticeable performance issues, as there are some cinematic shots, and occasions where the camera is distanced away, like for certain platforming segments, or pulling/pushing something as Bolt. I honestly wouldn't have minded a smooth 30 FPS if it meant I could see more of the level. Maybe achieving full 60 with full 3D isn't as difficult as I think it is, I haven't played very many DS games, and admittedly there's not much complex geometry in the levels, but still. The models also look decent. The presentation during cutscenes I'm more mixed on, sometimes the characters look good, but sometimes they look strange. The music is kinda average, not bad but I don't think it's anything special, and it's not very high quality, compared to, say, The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody: Circle of Spies' soundtrack which sounds high quality for the hardware, and it released earlier the same year.

Overall, Bolt for Nintendo DS ends up being a pretty mediocre action game, the combat is repetitive and not even necessary most of the time, the platforming is basic, with occasional mini-game or unique objective breaking up the pace, but ultimately it's nothing special. The only things I can confidently say I liked are the game felt pretty smooth to play, and the Rhino Mission was decently enjoyable.

I don't know what to make of this game. Is it supposed to be relaxing? Because I found myself grinding by spinning the stick in a particular area of the body a bunch of times to get multiple endings for multiple personalities to get a true ending. That's pretty much the game. Well, there is a little mini-game after you're done being intimate, and these mini-games are probably the only decent part. And I don't mean the imagery, I mean the actual gameplay part. The story isn't very compelling either. This game actually feels like a cashgrab, including obligatory spades of DLC, which do include new characters if you're really craving for more reflexology. I know the foundation of Senran Kagura series is extreme fan service, but I'm sure most other games come with this nice bonus called "good gameplay". Particularly the hack and slash ones. But I have never played those, so what do I know. Well, I know that this game is bad. I'm the type of person who is about gameplay first, and the gameplay is actually kind of tedious if you're going for completion. Maybe this game is just not for me. If you're looking for fanservice... you better look elsewhere. If you're looking for good gameplay... you better look elsewhere. Really, you better look elsewhere, this game isn't really worth it.

I started the first batch of licensed games with a Stuart Little game, and I’ll end it with a Stuart Little game, with a game number 51 being Stuart Little 2 for Game Boy Advance. The immediate question that comes to mind is: is this game better than Stuart Little: The Journey Home for Game Boy Color? The answer is…………….. yes...
…which isn’t a high bar to clear.

So, the problems. Do keep in mind that I played this on default difficulty, which is normal. There are only 2 difficulty options, so it’s gotta be hardcore. From what I can tell, easy only adds some guidance and more health pickups. With that being said, I can’t say that the difficulty is of fair variety. First off, you have platforming sections. The physics are basically Super Mario Bros. style, but somehow worse. Midair control isn’t great, it can be surprisingly difficult to make small adjustments or jump on a higher platform that is close. While ramming into walls and higher jumping from stand still are thankfully absent, the fall damage remains, and it’s pretty inconsistent. I really don’t know how it works, there are a few instances where you are required to fall down, and you take damage! That’s not fair.

Speaking of not fair, there are a few other play styles besides platforming. There’s top down racing, which thankfully only shows up once. The time limit is very strict, the controls aren’t very good, and it’s not aided by the screen resolution. Next, there are flying sections. Again, the screen free real estate doesn’t help, you’ll have to memorize the enemy or pickup locations. Okay, let’s talk about the elephant the size of a Stuart Little 2 GBA cartridge in the room. The game is heavy on trial and error. I think the best example is the drain level. You descend into it on a string and use a flashlight to scare spiders that want you dead. The problem is that they can appear from anywhere. Including on top of the player! And the level itself is pretty long and slow, which means redoing a long portion of this level. A cherry on top of this frustration inducing cake is the password system. The game doesn’t feature saving, but it dispenses a password after each level. The problem is that the password also saves your lives! If you beat a level with just one life, you’ll be stuck with a password that starts you with one life. This is a terrible design choice, especially since you can’t skip cutscenes, that means losing a single life you have, entering password, rewatching the cutscene, then repeat until success.

Stuart Little 2 is arguably a better deal than Stuart Little: The Journey Home. It’s longer for one, more varied and features higher production value, like voice acting during cutscenes that doesn’t sound too bad. Also, keep in mind that I played the GBC game on easy difficulty, which was the default, so I imagine playing this game on easy would alleviate some frustration. I don’t think it matters much though, Stuart Little 2 would still be mediocre at best. The easy difficulty would remove some trial and error elements, but the presence of those elements don’t equate to good challenge. The level design is nothing to write home about and I wouldn’t call it “engaging”. And lastly, the aforementioned flaw with the password and lives systems. I can’t recommend Stuart Little 2, unfortunately, this is another game that is rodent rubbish.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, a game that wasn't about Mario but about marketing it in a similar fashion to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was succesful enough to spin into its own thing. Meet Wario Land II. Is it a worthy successor though? Well, kind of. The controls are definitely an improvement, refining Wario's movement, both physics and abilities. He can dash at will, and jump higher if you hold up on the D-Pad. There are also transformations that give Wario different traits to overcome the obstacles, like becoming fatter than usual, or getting thin by being squished into a pancake. Those are intersting ideas to spice the game up. The graphics and overall optimization are better, Wario stands out against any background and the game only lags when multiple blocks are destroyed at once or there are many sprite coins on-screen, for the most part it's a smooth experience. The music is good Wario Land fare.

That's where my praise pretty much ends. I'm not gonna lie, I think I actually like the first game a bit more. I like the more traditional platformer aspect of the first game. First, you can't die in this game. When you take damage you'll lose a few coins and get knocked back. Personally I find that more annoying than actually challenging. Given how much money you can find in every level, the punishment doesn't feel severe enough and you'll usually end with a net positive. I don't feel like the game promotes skillful play. The bosses in particular totally suck. I'm not saying the first game had stellar bosses, but these are just annoying. They don't even take your wealth away, only your time for getting back to them, and I feel they're a bit on a trial and error side. I'm also not fond of how the treasures are handled. In the first game, the treasure is a reward for exploration, but in this game your reward is... a repetitive memory mini-game that you have to spend money on. It's simply not as rewarding. In the first game, the mini-games where completely optional, to obtain more money or lives. What is rewarding in this second installment is finding secrets that contain massive amount of coins or big coins, and these can be found behind breakable walls and such. The amount of such secrets is staggering. There's also a picture mini-game at the end of each stage, which does seem to change slightly after you obtain a certain amount of pieces, but it's pretty much the same thing over and over. Guess the number picture to unlock the chest containing a piece.

Initially, the game doesn't have a map, flowing linearly. It would seem disappointing at first, until you actually beat the game once. Then the map opens fully with a few branches. The game is actually packed with content. Though one minor knock towards this game's map is it's not like the first game's world-by-world, instead it's a tree of branching paths. In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, you could actually affect certain levels and the world map, like the flooded beach or Mt. Teapot. This sort of environment and level manipulation is lacking in the sequel. Now, I don't know if I just suck, but I couldn't find the alternative path in a few levels, such as "Escape the factory!". Not to say I didn't find a few, I managed to skip the snake boss on my first go by finding a simple exit, but for the most part these seem pretty obscure. For example, in the very first level, to get an alternative route, simply press nothing for a couple seconds. I only found this thanks to a YouTube video. To be honest, I don't feel very inclined to 100% complete this game and find all the treasure and alternate routes, unlike the first game.

Don't get me wrong though, overall, Wario Land II is still a good game, with nice presentation, smoother controls and a good amount of content. The game is decently enjoyable and holds up well. I think it's just a matter of preference, but I didn't find this game to be as fun as the first game. Again, I think I like the more traditional platforming of the first game, and treasure hunting that feels more rewarding.

A solid collection of Disney/Capcom Classics, which includes 6 NES games. The games themselves are fun, though maybe I'm being greedy, but I kinda wish there was more. I know The Little Mermaid wasn't a part of The Disney Afternoon block, but the game was another Capcom production and at the moment isn't commercially available (though the game is based on the movie and not on the cartoon show, but still). Y'know, the guys who made this compilation advocate for preservation? They can't make a case about DuckTales being unavailable at a GDC, but can mention The Little Mermaid now. As well as Goof Troop and Bonkers, but I think that would've been too much. The compilation also acknowledges Game Boy versions of some of the included games, and they are actually unique, they include new level design that feels similar, yet different, and, in case of DuckTales 2, even feature new mechanics. Not available legitimately.

Again, what is there is solid enough. All the games are at least decent. In addition, there's a boss rush for each and a time attack mode. 1 hour boss rush and 2 hour time attack achievements are a joke, even for TaleSpin, which I consider the hardest game in this roster. Lastly, there's a gallery with some artwork and behind scenes for all of the games and, of course, music player. For those interested in that sort of thing. A good compilation that leaves me wanting more, which is probably a sign of something great. Or again, maybe I'm just being needy.

Phineas and Ferb for Nintendo DS is a 3D platformer with mini-games that utilize touch screen and microphone. The 3D platforming aspect feels rudimentary, because it’s constantly interrupted with mini-games and is pretty basic on its own. The mini-games themselves aren’t too bad though, there’s a decent variety, with more mini-games unlocking as the game progresses. Your goal is to collect important parts for various rides, the worlds are based on particular episodes of the cartoon, like S’Winter.

During your adventure, you’ll find blueprints for various items that are required to progress, such as Spring Boots that allow for higher jumps, and they can be upgraded as well. You only have 2 active slots for items at the time, and I can’t help but wish there was something like L Pocket from Rune Factory games that would allow for a quicker item swap, having to touchscreen the backpack and drag required item into one of the slots isn’t the most elegant. There’s a busted meter that fills when you do pretty much anything, even simply moving around. And when it’s at 100%, Candice will try to get you busted, which involves a Pac-Man style maze mini-game, you have to collect screws and avoid her, you can hide in bushes or distract Candice. These aren’t too tough, and are non-issue if you stock on shortcakes and invisibility potions which will decrease bust meter or stop its progression, respectively. Also, pro-tip: avoid falling from high places that increases bust meter pretty quickly.

After you finish obtaining parts, you have a riding section. Rest assured, it isn’t as exciting as the real deal. It’s basically an autoscroller, jump over random paint buckets scattered throughout and use wipers if you’re in a mess. You’ll have an opportunity to choose branching paths, and you have to jump over obstacles. The goal is to collect a certain amount of stars to move on, but you’ll have to replay the ride a few times for later worlds, can’t have too many stars on any one path. There are a few loop sections where you can launch yourself into space, which triggers a lame “rhythm” mini-game. Just press appropriate buttons at appropriate times.

Once you finish all the rides, the game transports you to the Perry the platypus action against Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Pretty cool, right? I thought so too. …until you realize that it’s a string of mini-games that is repeated three times. Don’t you love when the game’s summary is in the game itself? The cherry on top is after the fight ends and Phineas and Ferb’s inventions disappear in the usual fashion, the brothers invent a time machine and transport to before the rides disappear. So the cycle could continue…

Overall, Phineas and Ferb for Nintendo DS ends up being a rather mediocre experience. Again, the mini-games themselves are fine, but you’ll be doing a lot of them and a lot of touch screen action. The game isn’t as cool as it thinks it is, and the repetition is pretty much the name of the game. While definitely not the worst thing ever, if you feel like you haven’t used your DS' touch screen enough, you’ll have to look for a better game than this.

This is a meme that you had to pay for. Everything about this game is bad, sound design is the worst I've heard from Game Boy Advance, the graphics are poor and inconsistent, and the gameplay... well, it's interactive I guess. The powerups don't make sense, the rubber banding is awful, I breezed through the first two races, but the last two were pretty much impossible, it's easy to get stuck in shit, or fall into pits or water, or get pushed by other racers that all use the same "Bye Bye" voice clip. The framerate... it's not very high to begin with, but it manages to lag pretty bad on occasion. The bar for Shrek games is pretty low, and this game manages to smash though several floors with its existence. Needless to say, avoid this one.

Boulder Dash EX is not your typical Boulder Dash game. The game contains story mode, which is basically a damsel in distress situation where you have to collect “Mirror Jewels” to open a portal to jump between worlds until the last one. However, the story is definitely not a selling point of this game. The gameplay is what should sell one on the game with a good story being a nice bonus. And in that regard, the game delivers.

Boulder Dash EX brings some innovations to the usual Boulder Dash formula. You still have to dig around, collect the jewels and avoid getting crushed by rocks or bodied by enemies, but there are some changes to make it a little more interesting. The main protagonist named Alex has a Life meter, which means touching an enemy doesn’t mean an instant death. However, that’s not the only thing that decreases life, things like pushing rocks or suffocating while surrounded by rocks also slightly decrease life. Speaking of pushing rocks, Alex can also kick a rock from the side, which will send it flying across all gaps until it reaches an obstacle, and it can be used to crush the enemies. There is one more major addition – inventory. Alex can carry up to five items that aid in puzzles. There’s a Crystal of Hope, the name of which is silly, but it allows to rotate the entire level 90 degrees, which is cool, and it affects the enemies and the gravity of rocks. There are also Magic Gloves, which allow the main character to grab a far away jewel or an enemy from the side. There are Time Bombs, which can be placed anywhere and detonate after a short time to clear some walls or rocks or enemies. Lastly, Super Pick allows to destroy a single rock. Those items do spice things up, adding a layer of complexity and strategy. Aside from inventory items, there are traditional pickups, which are various mushrooms, that can restore life, speed up or slow you down, and a mystery one, the effect of which is random. Now, those innovations may have appeared in some earlier iteration of Boulder Dash that I’m not aware of, but those definitely make the traditional gameplay feel fresh.

There are 6 worlds in the game, first three contain 10 levels, and the last 3 contain 15 levels, with a total of 75 levels. The levels range from traditional tight puzzles, to more open ones, to action levels where you simply need to act quick. In my opinion, only worlds 5 and 6, World of Ice and World of Evil respectively were particularly challenging, with a few challenging or frustrating levels before. You can try to just collect a set threshold of jewels to advance to the next level, or try and collect them all, earning a Perfect!, which I did for all levels. The reward is one of the game’s Cards for the Card Collection. There are 40 in total, received for completing worlds or killing enemies. They only serve as fleshing the game’s lore and inhabitants, which is a neat inclusion. I mean c’mon, there’s a penguin that has killed, and will kill. Also, there are two of main character’s friends that don’t appear in the story mode, but serve as additional characters in battle mode.

That’s right, prepare your Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable and try out the multiplayer Battle Mode, another neat inclusion. Actually, you don’t have to whip out the Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable, sorry for wasting your time like that. The game supports multiplayer, but you can play it single player against CPUs. The goal is to collect more jewels than the other opponents. They can randomly appear in some spots, but also the ever so helpful items can also aid in that task. There are also pre-made stashes with many jewels inside, and if you collect them, you’re pretty much guaranteed to win. None of the CPU players where able to get out a single digit count, while I had around 20. I only played a single round, so maybe the tides could’ve turned further down the line. Still though, I imagine this being enjoyable to play with other people.

BUT, that’s not all! What I talked about, was all in EX Game. When you start the game, you have three options between EX Game, Classic Game and Options. Classic Game is more content for the game, basically making it a 2 for 1 deal. According to the game itself, it’s based on the 1984 original release. The level design does look familiar to me, thanks to me playing NES and Game Boy ports of the original, but it’s also remixed several times for different letters. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it is in the original, y’know, to save on memory by slightly altering existing level design (not too dissimilar to Super Mario Bros. for example). It looks, sounds and plays pretty much the same as the original. You can dig or collect a gem from the same spot by holding A (this isn’t a thing in EX Game), you explode when crushed by anything or even when you’re right next to an enemy. The only issue is that scrolling isn’t smooth. I checked the footage of some of the early versions of the original, like Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64 and MSX, only MSX didn’t have smooth scrolling. I wish there was a toggle for that to make it easier on the eyes. On the other hand, a quality of life feature of map preview, carried over from EX is present, which is nice.

The presentation is also quite nice. The graphics are pleasing, they’re colorful and detailed. The animations are good, and there are even a few charming ones like a close call when dodging a rock or sleeping when left the game idle for long. The animated cinematics and card images look a little rougher since they use pre-rendered graphics. They don’t look bad, but do stand out from the traditional pixel art. The music is pretty great, utilizing sound channels both legacy and new, creating some great memorable tracks and chiptunes. The remix of the classic game’s title screen theme is good as well.

Overall, Boulder Dash EX is a good game. Great even, the puzzles are generally solid and the new gameplay changes make it a fresh experience. There’s a good amount of extras, not least of which is classic mode, for those who have never played the original game. If you’re a fan of Boulder Dash, or puzzle games in general, I highly recommend this game.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a decent action adventure. The combat is pretty solid. There's that kicking meme, but it serves its combat utility purpose well enough. Swinging your weapons and performing power attacks and using physics objects against enemies (like creating an avalanche of stuff, or using telekinesis spell to throw objects with greater force) is satisfying. The platforming... admittedly, it's kind of mediocre. My biggest issue is how unbelivably janky the ledge climbing is. Later I discovered that you have to hold down the jump button to climb stuff, I've never seen this implementation of ledge grabbing anywhere else. Even then, Sareth will fail to climb some objects. You also have to sprint to make across some gaps, which doesn't always feel reliable. The fast paced sections where you have to quickly run feel a little trial and errory for my tastes Later on, you obtain a rope bow which allows you to shoot at wooden objects to create ropes to climb them up. Pro-tip: Don't jump onto the rope as soon as it falls, let it straighten itself, otherwise you may find yourself out of bounds, since the rope itself doesn't have collision. Speaking of bugs, I had to fix some compatibility issues that caused crashes, that 4GB issue and Nvidia's Threaded Optimization thing. After which, I've experienced no crashes at all, but be aware of those technical issues. The story... it's kind of basic. The ending in particular felt kind of underwhelming, I chose to purge the demon power, and I think I used the skull to use its power instead of freeing the father, but really, all I did was to plop it at pretty much the same place it's been before (though looking a different direction). The ending cutscene is short and I didn't gain much from it. I guess the world is saved? The game is also relatively short. This isn't necessarily an issue, but a noteworthy observation. The game definitely has rough edges, but the gameplay is fun and engaging enough despite some jank. An interesting spinoff to the Might and Magic series.

The game has pretty nice graphics and incredible atmosphere for a PS1 game, the survival-horror aspect is interesting, and Alien creatures are a real threat. Also, that one GameSpot review. However, I cannot in good conscience call this a good game.

My biggest gripe with the game is it's difficulty and trial and error aspect. I probably made a mistake by selecting normal difficutly, but according to other reviews and sources, easy isn't that easy either. As I said, Alien are a real threat, which is good! But they're also a threat for wrong reasons. Mostly because of their positioning. At times, they can jump at you from around a corner or when opening a door or swarm you. Maybe that's supposed to be scary, but to me, that comes off as cheap and unfair. Instead, what is scary in this game is losing progress. The save points are pretty far apart. This wouldn't be so bad if the game wasn't reliant of trial and error, not to mention that this game is on a slower pace. I swear, you can't get past any of the game's sections without dying, you have to memorize enemy placements and everything. If you find a save spot, abuse it as much as you can, and keep multiple saves handy. I had to reload prior save a couple of times because I missed something important (in the case of Level 6 - Maximum Security, which is a somewhat more open level and I missed one of the keycards at the beginning) or to retry a section so I could save more precious resources for the tougher sections.

Let's talk about controls. As we all know, "The game's control setup is its most terrifying element.". But for real, the game was the first, or at least one of the earliest games to utilize dual stick control scheme which has become a standard in modern gaming. I only really decided to play this game just to pay respects for it's innovative controls. It's implementation isn't there yet, there's no aim assist, which makes aiming clunky. The stick just isn't as precise as using motion controls/gyro, or a mouse. Speaking of, there's a Playstation Mouse support, which I did try... and it only helps ever so slightly. It does increase presicion and moving the camera around is better, but the camera bop when moving doesn't help when shooting at smaller targets, and I mean facehuggers. I actually planned to give this game a big treatment, not as big as Star Wars: Dark Forces, since it's a PS1 exclusive (though there are prototypes from when it was a third person shooter), but, basically, I wanted to do two playthroughs, one solely with dual stick controls, and one with PS Mouse and compare the experience, but since I couldn't even finish my first playthrough...

The game is just so incredibly frustrating and little fun to play. I'm convinced playing this was a medieval torture. Bonus points if played on a standard PS1 controller. I was very tempted to start using savestates, as I reached level 7, but a realization came to me, that it's probably not worth it, I mean what to expect from Alien Resurrection going forward? More trial and error and rage inducing deaths? No thanks. It's a shame really, as I said, it has excellent presentation and a potential for a decent experience, but the game pretty much fights me every step of the way, as if it doesn't want me to have any fun. I heard that this game is actually better than the movie, then it must be a very bad movie. I can only really recommend checking it out for its novelty, but I don't recommend it as a game that you should play.