donproject
I'm not going to lie, most of this review is based on the absolutely groundbreaking power of the Sega CD system to deliver a fantastic soundtrack. The graphics are fine, the game play is fine, it's a bit silly, which is good, but the sounds are what set it apart. This is also one of my earliest memory of significant anime-style cutscenes and the CD-quality dialogue laid over them are just stellar (pun intended). Sure, there's the slow load times of the Sega CD to deal with, but listening to this game is a joy. It's actually one of the few game soundtracks I'd listen to on its own. It's probably the best Sega CD game I owned and played!
Review from thedonproject.com
Review from thedonproject.com
1990
You guys. I've played this game off and on for 26 years as of the writing of this review. I have never beat it. Probably never even made it halfway. I'm just too impatient and unlucky, I guess!
I started playing Angband in college. I was stuck with an x86 PC of some kind I can't remember that a parent got from a work trash can, probably. Having grown up with video games, I wasn't about to quit just because my computer was trash (literally). I found a few games the old beast could play, and Angband became one of my favorites.
No-nonsense, Ascii graphics defined the dungeons and monsters that would repeatedly murder me over the years. Like any fantasy/sci-fi admiring nerd, the Tolkien world provided the motivation to return to the mines of Moria... I mean Angband, many times on many different personal computers. Mostly I've played it on Mac and tend to play with the graphic tiles now, to be honest, but it all started on that old PC.
The gaming is surprisingly complex, with various types of combat and magic, a wide array of items to manage, a horde of monsters and unique monsters, and numerous traps and dangers like starvation or just plain getting lost. It's not an easy game, but it does draw you back in to give it another go. Actually, doing the research for this little review has informed me there's a new version, so I should probably download that and see how fast I die these days...
Review from thedonproject.com
I started playing Angband in college. I was stuck with an x86 PC of some kind I can't remember that a parent got from a work trash can, probably. Having grown up with video games, I wasn't about to quit just because my computer was trash (literally). I found a few games the old beast could play, and Angband became one of my favorites.
No-nonsense, Ascii graphics defined the dungeons and monsters that would repeatedly murder me over the years. Like any fantasy/sci-fi admiring nerd, the Tolkien world provided the motivation to return to the mines of Moria... I mean Angband, many times on many different personal computers. Mostly I've played it on Mac and tend to play with the graphic tiles now, to be honest, but it all started on that old PC.
The gaming is surprisingly complex, with various types of combat and magic, a wide array of items to manage, a horde of monsters and unique monsters, and numerous traps and dangers like starvation or just plain getting lost. It's not an easy game, but it does draw you back in to give it another go. Actually, doing the research for this little review has informed me there's a new version, so I should probably download that and see how fast I die these days...
Review from thedonproject.com
1991
I probably had better things to do with my time than play fake cards. But that's what I did.
My first year of college, I was stuck with a crappy x86 PC. I know, "Boo hoo, you had a computer!" I'll acknowledge my privilege here. I will say I spent more time on the Mac and Unix computers in the lab once I found those, but that PC did get some work and game time done. Since FreeCell was included with Windows, I played that a bit, for sure. It's a version of Solitaire that claims to be always winnable (apparently only 1 of the 32,000 included in Windows is unwinnable and 8 in the first million possible deals...) and is pretty good for whiling away the hours while you wait for someone to invite you to a party or whatever college kids do. I wish it had a cool winning animation like Windows Solitaire, but the congratulations menu does okay.
Why does that King guy look so smug when you win?
Review from thedonproject.com
My first year of college, I was stuck with a crappy x86 PC. I know, "Boo hoo, you had a computer!" I'll acknowledge my privilege here. I will say I spent more time on the Mac and Unix computers in the lab once I found those, but that PC did get some work and game time done. Since FreeCell was included with Windows, I played that a bit, for sure. It's a version of Solitaire that claims to be always winnable (apparently only 1 of the 32,000 included in Windows is unwinnable and 8 in the first million possible deals...) and is pretty good for whiling away the hours while you wait for someone to invite you to a party or whatever college kids do. I wish it had a cool winning animation like Windows Solitaire, but the congratulations menu does okay.
Why does that King guy look so smug when you win?
Review from thedonproject.com
Everyone's played this game when their boss wasn't looking.
Minesweeper is a classic case of the advantage of a monopoly since the only reason you know this game is because it was included with Windows and Windows is everywhere. Is the game really that great? I don't know... it's a puzzle game, so it is what it is, I suppose. It was unique at the time, was free and included with many computers, and it looks alright. So, that's a significant advantage over most games.
At any rate, I'm sure you all have your techniques for playing this time waster. The goal is to find the bombs without blowing up and the only clue you get is how many bombs are close to the tile you just clicked. You have to think a bit and I'm sure there are some fancy algorithms to solve various cases. My method: click randomly a few times trying to get a big open spot and hopefully avoiding bombs, then go to work.
So, for me, this is a game of hope and logic.
And a smiley face!
Review from thedonproject.com
Minesweeper is a classic case of the advantage of a monopoly since the only reason you know this game is because it was included with Windows and Windows is everywhere. Is the game really that great? I don't know... it's a puzzle game, so it is what it is, I suppose. It was unique at the time, was free and included with many computers, and it looks alright. So, that's a significant advantage over most games.
At any rate, I'm sure you all have your techniques for playing this time waster. The goal is to find the bombs without blowing up and the only clue you get is how many bombs are close to the tile you just clicked. You have to think a bit and I'm sure there are some fancy algorithms to solve various cases. My method: click randomly a few times trying to get a big open spot and hopefully avoiding bombs, then go to work.
So, for me, this is a game of hope and logic.
And a smiley face!
Review from thedonproject.com
1990
Basic arithmetic and monsters, what could be better?
To be honest, though, there's a debate I've always had as an educator: Do educational games actually teach you anything that translates to real life or does the math learning just make the game less fun? That is, does the education wreck the game or does the game wreck the education?
I would posit that not a single person reading this mastered factoring or multiplication because of Number Munchers. The game itself could be played without math at all and it would be just fine (I mean, they made other "munchers" games...), so clearly the math part of this is not beneficial to the game. The converse statement is the one that is debatable: is the game beneficial to the math? My theory is that most of the time when you hit space bar on the wrong number it is because you made a mistake, not because you don't know the math. Since the game punishes you for your mistake, you're probably more likely to give up on the game and go play Oregon Trail instead of finding out why 9 is not a multiple of 2 or whatever. So, it's not really an educational game, it is an assessment game.
Playing it all those years ago on the green screen in the computer lab when we were supposed to be... doing something else felt like skipping school, though. Maybe that was the real draw for this game: it convinced parents and educators that learning was happening, but kids didn't care and just wanted to play games!
But it has monsters!
Review from thedonproject.com
To be honest, though, there's a debate I've always had as an educator: Do educational games actually teach you anything that translates to real life or does the math learning just make the game less fun? That is, does the education wreck the game or does the game wreck the education?
I would posit that not a single person reading this mastered factoring or multiplication because of Number Munchers. The game itself could be played without math at all and it would be just fine (I mean, they made other "munchers" games...), so clearly the math part of this is not beneficial to the game. The converse statement is the one that is debatable: is the game beneficial to the math? My theory is that most of the time when you hit space bar on the wrong number it is because you made a mistake, not because you don't know the math. Since the game punishes you for your mistake, you're probably more likely to give up on the game and go play Oregon Trail instead of finding out why 9 is not a multiple of 2 or whatever. So, it's not really an educational game, it is an assessment game.
Playing it all those years ago on the green screen in the computer lab when we were supposed to be... doing something else felt like skipping school, though. Maybe that was the real draw for this game: it convinced parents and educators that learning was happening, but kids didn't care and just wanted to play games!
But it has monsters!
Review from thedonproject.com
1985
Yeah, yeah, dysentery or whatever.
Everyone's favorite buffalo-murdering game about westward expansion. I mean it leaves a lot of the violence out that went along with the colonization of the U.S., but it was written by white folks, so what do you expect? There's also a question about what exactly you learned from the game...
As a game, though, it was sufficiently accessible and complex for even a single-digit aged youth like myself to get into. I vaguely remember the first time I had enough time in the lab to raft down the Columbia river and win. I definitely remember murdering excessive amounts of buffalo without worrying about the longevity of the species, just like colonizers did!
But that's really the question that bothers me about this game, what did kids learn?
They learned about RNG, for sure!
Review from thedonproject.com
Everyone's favorite buffalo-murdering game about westward expansion. I mean it leaves a lot of the violence out that went along with the colonization of the U.S., but it was written by white folks, so what do you expect? There's also a question about what exactly you learned from the game...
As a game, though, it was sufficiently accessible and complex for even a single-digit aged youth like myself to get into. I vaguely remember the first time I had enough time in the lab to raft down the Columbia river and win. I definitely remember murdering excessive amounts of buffalo without worrying about the longevity of the species, just like colonizers did!
But that's really the question that bothers me about this game, what did kids learn?
They learned about RNG, for sure!
Review from thedonproject.com
You'd have to pay me to play this game again.
So, back around the turn of the century, I was employed by the Nintendo folks to do testing. It seems like a pretty sweet gig, but really, it's... fine. The game I spent the most of my temp, basically minimum wage time on was this little gem, F Zero: Maximum Velocity for the Game Boy Advance. The game itself is a fine, peppy Mario Kart clone with spaceships. Playing it on the GBA for 8 hours a day for a few weeks was pretty grueling, though and I remember my hands regretting my life choices more than a few times. The worst assignment was unlocking the Jet Vermilion ship the hard way: completing the championship 255 times! Since I had done some racing game testing in the past, I think they thought this would be fun or easy, but it was neither. The game itself is a decent amount of fun and has solid GBA graphics and a peppy soundtrack, but if I never play it again, I'll be fine with that.
Pro tip: maintain your momentum!
Review from thedonproject.com
So, back around the turn of the century, I was employed by the Nintendo folks to do testing. It seems like a pretty sweet gig, but really, it's... fine. The game I spent the most of my temp, basically minimum wage time on was this little gem, F Zero: Maximum Velocity for the Game Boy Advance. The game itself is a fine, peppy Mario Kart clone with spaceships. Playing it on the GBA for 8 hours a day for a few weeks was pretty grueling, though and I remember my hands regretting my life choices more than a few times. The worst assignment was unlocking the Jet Vermilion ship the hard way: completing the championship 255 times! Since I had done some racing game testing in the past, I think they thought this would be fun or easy, but it was neither. The game itself is a decent amount of fun and has solid GBA graphics and a peppy soundtrack, but if I never play it again, I'll be fine with that.
Pro tip: maintain your momentum!
Review from thedonproject.com
Of all the racing games I tested, this one gave me the most nightmares and physical pain.
Oh man, this game, folks. I think the Euro version was basically my first assignment at Nintendo and it was excruciating. It's not a completely terrible game if you like R.C. ProAm style 2-D racers, but just don't play it for 8 hours a day with regular-sized hands on the tiny Game Boy Color for basically minimum wage.
Probably the best feature of this game is the music in that classic Game Boy synth voice. But again, 8 hours a day of the music is A LOT. The race tracks are interesting enough, the Mario Kart-style power-ups/weapons are fine but not really varied enough, and the graphics are probably the best they could do on the underpowered GBC. The GBC limits the gameplay and "vision" of the track to a pretty small amount, so driving is actually pretty tough until you memorize the tracks, as the turn indicator is very late and very hard to notice at the top of the screen. I recall the controls being pretty bad too, or at least my fingers were indented with D-pad and button imprints for days afterwards. Ugh.
Rubbin' is racin'!
Review from thedonproject.com
Oh man, this game, folks. I think the Euro version was basically my first assignment at Nintendo and it was excruciating. It's not a completely terrible game if you like R.C. ProAm style 2-D racers, but just don't play it for 8 hours a day with regular-sized hands on the tiny Game Boy Color for basically minimum wage.
Probably the best feature of this game is the music in that classic Game Boy synth voice. But again, 8 hours a day of the music is A LOT. The race tracks are interesting enough, the Mario Kart-style power-ups/weapons are fine but not really varied enough, and the graphics are probably the best they could do on the underpowered GBC. The GBC limits the gameplay and "vision" of the track to a pretty small amount, so driving is actually pretty tough until you memorize the tracks, as the turn indicator is very late and very hard to notice at the top of the screen. I recall the controls being pretty bad too, or at least my fingers were indented with D-pad and button imprints for days afterwards. Ugh.
Rubbin' is racin'!
Review from thedonproject.com
2000
I was on the localization testing team for this. For one day.
While I was on the testing team for this game, I learned a fun gamer trick. If you're trying to do a mini-game where you have to smash the button as fast as possible, get yourself a cheap ballpoint pen. Lay that pen on the N64 controller button you're about to smash. Then, roll it back and forth over the button while pressing down and you'll smash that button faster than you've ever smashed before. Fun trick, right?
Basically, Mario Party is a board game turned into a video game and filled with mini-games. The games are pretty fun, definitely when you play with a group of friends, if you have enough controllers... and friends. I spent the day testing the multiplayer mode near the end of testing, so we didn't really find a lot of bugs, we just had a day of fun playing games with fellow testers. With that challenging group, it was definitely an accomplishment to win any mini games. It was a little weird to be competitive with my work colleagues on kind of a childish game, but once you get past the kid-level style, there's some "real" gaming to be done on this one. Don't let the style fool you!
And don't forget your pen!
Review from thedonproject.com
While I was on the testing team for this game, I learned a fun gamer trick. If you're trying to do a mini-game where you have to smash the button as fast as possible, get yourself a cheap ballpoint pen. Lay that pen on the N64 controller button you're about to smash. Then, roll it back and forth over the button while pressing down and you'll smash that button faster than you've ever smashed before. Fun trick, right?
Basically, Mario Party is a board game turned into a video game and filled with mini-games. The games are pretty fun, definitely when you play with a group of friends, if you have enough controllers... and friends. I spent the day testing the multiplayer mode near the end of testing, so we didn't really find a lot of bugs, we just had a day of fun playing games with fellow testers. With that challenging group, it was definitely an accomplishment to win any mini games. It was a little weird to be competitive with my work colleagues on kind of a childish game, but once you get past the kid-level style, there's some "real" gaming to be done on this one. Don't let the style fool you!
And don't forget your pen!
Review from thedonproject.com
2000
I know very little about Pocket Monsters, alright?
So, when I was working for Nintendo as a tester, I played this game for exactly one shift near the end of development. I had never played a Pokemon game before and I am pretty sure this game made it so I never played a Pokemon game again. It is definitely not the way to be introduced to the Pokemon world. I can remember early in the day wondering what the hell was going on and how the rules even worked. I did learn that Snorlax was my favorite because it was ridiculous to just have a character that fell asleep as a power. Anyways, I didn't log any bugs that day, for sure.
Anyhow, gameplay is sort of your standard JRPG turn-based fighting scenario with the monsters from your collection that you choose to bring? The plot seems to be... that you are in a competition of some kind? The graphics are fine, I guess, and the music is solid Nintendo style but not super memorable unless you play for 9 hours. I just needed something more to get me into this game when I wasn't paid to play it, and this version of Pokemon did not do the trick. It was clearly an add-on peripheral for a game series that you had to like first before you got this game. Maybe a way to get Pokemon fanatics to buy more stuff, I suppose. Well, that tactic was not super-effective on me (see what I did there?).
Pika!
Review from thedonproject.com
So, when I was working for Nintendo as a tester, I played this game for exactly one shift near the end of development. I had never played a Pokemon game before and I am pretty sure this game made it so I never played a Pokemon game again. It is definitely not the way to be introduced to the Pokemon world. I can remember early in the day wondering what the hell was going on and how the rules even worked. I did learn that Snorlax was my favorite because it was ridiculous to just have a character that fell asleep as a power. Anyways, I didn't log any bugs that day, for sure.
Anyhow, gameplay is sort of your standard JRPG turn-based fighting scenario with the monsters from your collection that you choose to bring? The plot seems to be... that you are in a competition of some kind? The graphics are fine, I guess, and the music is solid Nintendo style but not super memorable unless you play for 9 hours. I just needed something more to get me into this game when I wasn't paid to play it, and this version of Pokemon did not do the trick. It was clearly an add-on peripheral for a game series that you had to like first before you got this game. Maybe a way to get Pokemon fanatics to buy more stuff, I suppose. Well, that tactic was not super-effective on me (see what I did there?).
Pika!
Review from thedonproject.com
1990
Let's see, a game where you get to play a god and build towns of loyal followers as well as do a little light platforming as a knight or something with a sword and magic? Yes, please!
ActRaiser was definitely one of my favorite SNES games. Pretty sure I never owned it but just rented it from Hollywood Video several times. Dragon Warrior, also made by Enix, was one of my faves for the NES and a few of the callbacks to that JRPG style but in an action RPG/sim/platformer mix was entrancing. It's like a Castlevania/Sim-City mashup with the added benefit of god-like powers. Incredible.
The soundtrack absolutely rules with orchestral tunes, angelic melodies, and baroque-sounding vaguely-hymn-like jams. The graphics are classic 16-bit goodness with a couple Mode-7 tricks for funsies. Balanced difficulty and a decent pace made it fun and appropriately challenging for middle-school me.
Fantastic.
Review from thedonproject.com
ActRaiser was definitely one of my favorite SNES games. Pretty sure I never owned it but just rented it from Hollywood Video several times. Dragon Warrior, also made by Enix, was one of my faves for the NES and a few of the callbacks to that JRPG style but in an action RPG/sim/platformer mix was entrancing. It's like a Castlevania/Sim-City mashup with the added benefit of god-like powers. Incredible.
The soundtrack absolutely rules with orchestral tunes, angelic melodies, and baroque-sounding vaguely-hymn-like jams. The graphics are classic 16-bit goodness with a couple Mode-7 tricks for funsies. Balanced difficulty and a decent pace made it fun and appropriately challenging for middle-school me.
Fantastic.
Review from thedonproject.com
1991
Oh dang, that awesome intro, am I right?
In my youth, I had a massive crush on JRPG's. Well, anything made by Squaresoft, really. The Final Fantasy series held my interest all the way until FFIX or FFX even though I never really understood the plot of a single one of them. I love turn-based battles, fantasy/sci-fi elements, and sweet, overpowering orchestral soundtracks, so I was hooked even if I didn't know what was going on. FFII (or IV in Japan, of course), has all my favorite elements, but playing it so many years later makes the game seem pretty slow-moving, but the battles are still fun and the game is generally still pretty great. Plus the fancy SNES graphics as you fly the airship around and the transitions between scenes and battles were a bump up from the hugely important NES debut. Overall, excellent.
And the final battle was great!
Review from thedonproject.com
In my youth, I had a massive crush on JRPG's. Well, anything made by Squaresoft, really. The Final Fantasy series held my interest all the way until FFIX or FFX even though I never really understood the plot of a single one of them. I love turn-based battles, fantasy/sci-fi elements, and sweet, overpowering orchestral soundtracks, so I was hooked even if I didn't know what was going on. FFII (or IV in Japan, of course), has all my favorite elements, but playing it so many years later makes the game seem pretty slow-moving, but the battles are still fun and the game is generally still pretty great. Plus the fancy SNES graphics as you fly the airship around and the transitions between scenes and battles were a bump up from the hugely important NES debut. Overall, excellent.
And the final battle was great!
Review from thedonproject.com
1994
Wait, is this a horror series now?
FFIII has incredible graphics, but I recall much less of the game than I do for FFII or FFI. That might be because it is substantially weirder and moves the series out of straight fantasy and into the weird techno-fantasy world that most of modern day Final Fantasy fans know. The battle mechanics changed a bit with a new variant of the "Active Battle" system and, as mentioned, the graphics were at the peak of late-era 16 bit JRPG's, but there's just not the level of nostalgia for this one for me as there is with FFII and FFI.
Chocobos, though. I guess that's worth it!
Review from thedonproject.com
FFIII has incredible graphics, but I recall much less of the game than I do for FFII or FFI. That might be because it is substantially weirder and moves the series out of straight fantasy and into the weird techno-fantasy world that most of modern day Final Fantasy fans know. The battle mechanics changed a bit with a new variant of the "Active Battle" system and, as mentioned, the graphics were at the peak of late-era 16 bit JRPG's, but there's just not the level of nostalgia for this one for me as there is with FFII and FFI.
Chocobos, though. I guess that's worth it!
Review from thedonproject.com
Another game in the blur of JRPG's I played in the early 90's.
I'm pretty sure this was a rental game in my youth and we didn't own this one. My goal as a young one was to play all the JRPG's on our consoles that I could and this game was... one of them. It looks generally a lot like your Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but the battle menus look different and there are a number of advances to the genre, like tons of items and customization of the order of things and other menus. I don't have the nostalgia for this game like I do for the bigger JRPG's of the time, so... it's fine.
Fine.
Review from thedonproject.com
I'm pretty sure this was a rental game in my youth and we didn't own this one. My goal as a young one was to play all the JRPG's on our consoles that I could and this game was... one of them. It looks generally a lot like your Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but the battle menus look different and there are a number of advances to the genre, like tons of items and customization of the order of things and other menus. I don't have the nostalgia for this game like I do for the bigger JRPG's of the time, so... it's fine.
Fine.
Review from thedonproject.com
Man, these Ace Combat games are pretty good...
A little bit of storyline with some pretty fun-to-play jet fighting? I'm up for it!
The graphics are pretty solid, player interface is very nice, sound is superb, storyline is kinda sweet, and generally it's a good game, doing a lot with the limitations of the PS2. However, the gameplay and physics are the star attraction to the whole series of Ace Combat games. They're enough to feel realistic while still being accessible to regular non-fighter-pilot folks. Flying around and shooting rockets when you hear the lock sound is awesome. Blasting ground targets is even satisfying. I'm surprised the US Airplane Dudes didn't license the engine and make it a recruiting game or something, honestly. I'm glad they didn't and the fantasy world you play in only uses real weapons and planes instead of real targets. That keeps the game generally enjoyable and worth a second look.
Good job Mobius 1!
Review from thedonproject.com
A little bit of storyline with some pretty fun-to-play jet fighting? I'm up for it!
The graphics are pretty solid, player interface is very nice, sound is superb, storyline is kinda sweet, and generally it's a good game, doing a lot with the limitations of the PS2. However, the gameplay and physics are the star attraction to the whole series of Ace Combat games. They're enough to feel realistic while still being accessible to regular non-fighter-pilot folks. Flying around and shooting rockets when you hear the lock sound is awesome. Blasting ground targets is even satisfying. I'm surprised the US Airplane Dudes didn't license the engine and make it a recruiting game or something, honestly. I'm glad they didn't and the fantasy world you play in only uses real weapons and planes instead of real targets. That keeps the game generally enjoyable and worth a second look.
Good job Mobius 1!
Review from thedonproject.com