Bio
Creator of Johou Battle!
I've reviewed every other game I've ever played and made top 10s for every year I've played 10 games in going down to 1980.
idk why but I did it!
Badges
GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
GOTY '22
Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event
Treasured
Gained 750+ total review likes
Epic Gamer
Played 1000+ games
2 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years
Best Friends
Become mutual friends with at least 3 others
Gone Gold
Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
Trend Setter
Gained 50+ followers
On Schedule
Journaled games once a day for a week straight
Busy Day
Journaled 5+ games in a single day
Shreked
Found the secret ogre page
Organized
Created a list folder with 5+ lists
Roadtrip
Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap
Donor
Liked 50+ reviews / lists
Listed
Created 10+ public lists
Adored
Gained 300+ total review likes
GOTY '21
Participated in the 2021 Game of the Year Event
Popular
Gained 15+ followers
Well Written
Gained 10+ likes on a single review
Loved
Gained 100+ total review likes
Noticed
Gained 3+ followers
Liked
Gained 10+ total review likes
Elite Gamer
Played 500+ games
Gamer
Played 250+ games
N00b
Played 100+ games
Favorite Games
1128
Total Games Played
061
Played in 2023
009
Games Backloggd
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GTA IV is pretty interesting actually. It has a compelling story and fantastically voiced characters (though the animations could absolutely have used more work) in a very detailed world. The amount of insane things on the radio, how people respond to having their car jacked, all the specific ways you can interact with people and the environment, the overall physics of everything...it's very nice, very well done.
But ultimately, I've come to realize that GTA in general just isn't for me. Or maybe I could continue my adventure in Liberty City another time, but something about the mission structure and the very basic combat (in both hand-to-hand and shooting) just turn me away, and I know there's a lot more you can do than mission to mission and I wish I knew how to better put my thoughts into words, but while GTA IV is a much better game than GTA III, I just don't think it's a good fit for me personally, but I still wanted to leave the game with some praise and think if you're into this type of game you should absolutely play it.
I think the Aladdin war should be like some kinda personality test on what it says about you as a gamer. If you saw my review of the other Aladdin, you'd see I prefer the SNES one.
For example, Aladdin for the Genesis' strong point is that its animation was done by professional Disney animators. The game is definitely beautiful and the movements have so much personality to them. You can even detect strong secondary motion which still wasn't very common in sprites at the time. The cutscenes also have portraits of the characters that are very expressive. The only fault for the visuals I have are that the bats are way too small, and for some reason they made parrots random enemies when Iago is a major character in the movie and even a boss in this game.
The other major difference is that Aladdin has a sword here. It doesn't amount to an awful lot in the grand scheme of things as you can still throw Apples and that's the better move 99% of the time, especially against bosses (Even Snake Jafar who has a safespot if you switch phases while he is completely off-screen) While we're talking about Al, he doesn't speed up right away, and if he goes too fast, he'll slide before stopping which is a bit frustrating. Hitboxes of platforms and enemies are also tricky, as they will either feel too accurate to the image or fairly off like certain platforms.
There are also camera issues where Al can get too far close to the right. This can be solved by turning left and then turning back right, but it came up enough for me to notice it. This was likely fixed in the Final Cut version of the latest rerelease.
The levels, as eh as they are for gameplay purposes, do lift a lot of elements from the movie, especially in the Agrabah Rooftop level where most of the things presented in the song segment show up in the game. Both games are faithful but you still love to see it so I will still mention it here.
The music pales when recreating the film's soundtrack as the Genesis soundchip just wasn't built for it, but it was good enough to get me humming the songs all over again. Prince Ali plays on level 1 while One Jump Ahead plays on Stage 3 which feels out of order. The original songs work well as they were made with the Genesis in mind, I like Escape the Cave of Wonders and Jafar's Palace myself.
The level that compiles all these problems into a package is probably the Sultan's Dungeon. It's a bunch of dark blues, precise timing platforming with wonky collisions, the goddamn bats that blend into the background so you're bound to take a hit, and the maze-like design...I'd rather not do that again. Not exclusive to the Genesis version is the unfairness of the Rug Ride while escaping the Cave of Wonders which sucks in both versions.
Some people prefer this version, that's fine, but I prefer the SNES one for how it plays. You can't go wrong with either version of Aladdin however so while I'd recommend the other one more, you can't go wrong with the Genesis either.
My favorite part of the E.T. movie is where he stretches his neck to get out of a pit, only to immediately fall back in no matter how you steer. Multiple times in a row. Kind of poetic about how the game where ET ends up in pits, well, ended up in a massive pit.
Those that call the game confusing haven't read the manual that break every mechanic down, but at the same time that doesn't make ET's pit adventure any less tedious. You're still moving blindly searching and searching for the phone pieces and where to use your abilities to get out of this game. Once you DO get the phone and find the Call Home spot and the mothership drop you have to make sure no humans are on the screen (except Elliot sometimes) and it's a lot.
It gets 1 star instead of half because this game at least had an idea rather than try to just blatantly copy something which I can respect. Like all "Worst games of all time" it just suffered heavily from circumstances outside of its control, and gets all the blame for the crash when it was really only half of it, and only half of that was this game's fault.
You don't need me to tell you that you shouldn't play this one outside of historical curiosity, but I know there are worse games than ET at least.