Tuesday 19 May 2015

The March of (Anti-)Progress

I'm not known for completing games with any great expediency. I'm not even known for completing games at all; my ratio of playing to beating games is very poor indeed.

With that in mind, I bought a collection of 49 games. It's called Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (PS3) here in Europe, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection in America. This contains a whole bunch of classic MD games, and also some terrible ones like Sonic Spinball. I'll talk about the few I've played so far here:
  • Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is somehow the fifth game in the series, despite looking like a Klik 'n' Play game made in a week. I find it incredibly dull to play, but I might beat it soon simply because it's not very long.
  • Alien Storm is a brawler, not my favourite genre, but I've played it before a long time ago and it doesn't seem overly difficult.
  • Altered Beast is a terrible brawler/platform thing which is unfortunately represented twice in this collection. Emily and I have been bashing at it but the stage four boss is giving us some trouble. However, it's super short so one day, it'll go down.
  • Bonanza Bros. is an odd game; split-screen even in single player, it's something like an extremely simple forerunner to Monaco and Way of the Ninja. Haven't played much yet, have the feeling it will get very difficult later on.
  • Columns doesn't have a campaign, only a high score mode, so I've marked it as Null on Backloggery. It's good enough I suppose, but I'm not a big fan.
  • Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine however is one of my favourite MD games, and I beat it again as soon as I got the collection just for fun (and the trophy).
  • Fatal Labyrinth is that oddity, a commercial roguelike. It's very simple and very ruthless. Down to level 10 so far; it saves every 5 levels.
  • Flicky is a godawful arcade game which is painful on every level. I originally marked it Null for not having a real ending, but apparently the stages loop after a while so I'm going to have to slog it out. Only played briefly so far.
  • Ristar is a charming platformer with good music and graphics, slightly marred by the overuse of terribly digitised samples. I don't think this one is a pushover.
  • Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention is probably the first strategy game I played, on emulator when I was little. Despite being kind of dated, it still has some good moments and is quite difficult. Done a few battles.
  • Sonic Spinball is a horrendously laggy mess with dreadful music and sounds.
  • Super Thunder Blade is an autoscrolling shmup which has both going-forward and going-up modes. Not sure which I like least.
Despite owning a Mega Drive in my youth, I haven't played most of these games. However, I do know a fair bit about a lot of them, and almost all of them have excellent speedruns should I need some reference material.

I still have a lot of games to talk about; beaten and bought... some of these are from months ago!

Monday 4 May 2015

Hull Loot

I seem to remember promising 'proper updates' more regularly. This isn't one of those.

Emily and I just got back home from a short break in Hull. While there, we bought ten games.
  • Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3)
  • Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends (PS3)
  • Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires (PS3)
  • God of War III (PS3)
  • Way of the Samurai 4 (PS3)
  • White Knight Chronicles (PS3)
  • Halo 3: ODST (360)
  • Halo 4 (360)
  • Warhammer: Battle March (360)
  • Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (DS)
Keen-eyed readers might notice that I already have DW7. Well... yes, but I persuaded myself to get them for PS3 because 360 doesn't have Xtreme Legends, so it would be weird to have one but not the other. Maybe I'll trade in my 360 copy.

The other games are either things I've had on my wishlist for a while, sheer stubborn completionism or random things Emily found which look neat.