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DOS version, with XcomUtil to iron out the bugs.

1/3: Super Mario Bros 2: Lost Levels (Luigi Run) (3DS VC/NES)
1/4: Super Mario Bros. (Wii / All-Stars)
1/15: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
1/20: Super Mario Kart 8 (WiiU)
1/28: Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)

Not enough good can be said about this game. This is my second playthrough and I think I enjoyed it more than I did the first time. I did not 100% the entire game but I did 100% everything up to the conclusion of the normal game. I will spend some time finishing the post game content later but I'm going to take a break first because, man, that content is rough.

A Wolf Among Us (01/03/15)
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (All courses S ranked on 01/08/15)
Distance (beta 3315, 01/11/15)
Shantae: Risky's Revenge- Director's Cut (01/16/15)
Sega Bass Fishing (01/17/15)
Fairy Bloom Freesia (01/17/15)
BasketBelle (01/18/15)
Tiny & Big: in Grandpa's Leftovers (01/20/15)
Sideway: New York (01/22/15)
Doom 64 EX (01/23/15)
Shadow of the Ninja (NES, 01/29/15)
Shatterhand (NES, 01/30/15)

Shatterhand was fantastic! I love the graphics. I love the music. I especially love the play control. It all feels like it lands right in the pocket. I even like the unique alpha/beta power-up system for acquiring different types of robot buddies. It's such a joy to play, it's a wonder this game isn't better known.

I beat the game on an emulator, and as with Shadow of the Ninja, I had to rely on save states. I was beginning to think I might be able to beat this game legit, and then I reached the final level and remembered why I had never beaten this back when I first played it on original Nintendo hardware. The last level is a nightmare. It's one of those final levels where they make you fight all the final bosses again, only this game doesn't give you any health refills right before the boss, or right after, and the bosses are split up with more of the level to complete, and the level is HARD. The only health refills are in the middle of those levels, so it's really an endurance test to see if you can get through a portion of the level, beat a boss, get through another portion of the level, and find the next health bonus. If you die you go all the way back to the beginning. No checkpoints. Without save states, this would be grueling.

The bosses in this game are pretty tough too, since they are more agile than your character and have ranged attacks. Your character's only attack is close-range punching, unless you manage to build a robot buddy with firepower and keep it alive long enough for a boss battle. The most intense parts of the last level though are the portions in-between boss fights. You have to make deft jumps from chain-link fences that, if you don't clutch to correctly, will lead you to hitting your head on an awkwardly placed ceiling and falling into a pit of fire below. You're doing all of this while being shot at and other flying characters are slowly pursuing you and refuse to die until punched 8 times, forcing you to punch, retreat, punch, retreat, until you win. Suffice to say, this is damn hard. Nevertheless, the game is immensely satisfying and if you're fine using save states, you'll still have a good time as you push your way to the final finish line.

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16

Well shortly after complaining about the last level I managed to beat it after slightly adjusting my rush on the right base and realizing I could make it to the left base with a starting Rabbit. The enemy is much less scary when I keep them off of their reinforcements. I still have the Advance campaign to do, but I lump that in with things like the Second Quest in Zelda; something to come back to as a bonus.

This game came out a year after Nintendo Wars and is much more advanced. It uses a hex grid and has a system of support and surrounding to make positioning critical. When you have friendly units next to you and your target/the enemy attacking you you'll get a bonus, and if you have a friendly unit on the other side of the enemy it slashes the enemy's stats. Add in the zone of control system and it becomes a game of maneuver warfare. Unlike the Wars series the game doesn't have unlimited units; you start with some on the field, you might start with a factory (which store and repair units), and then there will be several neutral factories on the map. This turns the battles into more of a puzzle game, as if you can figure out the first several moves then you'll be set for finishing the map. Generally a strategy involves either properly rushing/cutting off a neutral factory to minimize the enemy numbers or blitzing to the enemy HQ to capture it for the quick win. One thing the game does is tend to give the computer piles of the best units in the game while forcing you to stick with the bread and butter units; I only got a few Hunters throughout the game and most of those were from managing to cut off a CPU's factory and the same thing happened with the Slaggers. All in all it's a fun game for the Turbo but it does get frustrating at times.

A Wolf Among Us (01/03/15)
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (All courses S ranked on 01/08/15)
Distance (beta 3315, 01/11/15)
Shantae: Risky's Revenge- Director's Cut (01/16/15)
Sega Bass Fishing (01/17/15)
Fairy Bloom Freesia (01/17/15)
BasketBelle (01/18/15)
Tiny & Big: in Grandpa's Leftovers (01/20/15)
Sideway: New York (01/22/15)
Doom 64 EX (01/23/15)
Shadow of the Ninja (NES, 01/29/15)
Shatterhand (NES, 01/30/15)
S.C.A.T. (NES, 01/31/15)

After playing Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand back to back, I decided I would continue playing more NES games by Natsume, so I moved onto this game even though I had beaten years ago, around the time of its release. S.C.A.T. (short for Special Cybernetic Attack Team) is a shmup where your character is a man with a flying suit rather than the typical spaceship or aircraft. Despite being perhaps the most unfortunately titled gaming in history, S.C.A.T. is nowhere near as shitty as its acronym implies. Actually, it would have been a more appropriate title for one of Natsume's other releases, Abadox, since the goal of that game is to shoot your way through the digestive system of an alien creature.

But all scatological referencing aside, this is a fun and demanding shmup that manages to be challenging without being unreasonable. It also has a unique gameplay set up. Your character has a gun with which he can shoot to the left or the right, depending on which direction you have him pointing in. This alone would be frustrating because you are often battling enemies that require several hits, and you often have to pull back, which turns you around unlike a more traditional shmup. S.C.A.T. works around this dilemma by also arming your character with two roaming cannons that can shoot in any direction. When untouched, the two cannons rove in a left-to-right half-circle pattern above and below your character. By pushing the "A" button, you can make them hold in place, and if you press it again they return to their roving pattern. It takes a bit of skill to figure out how to place them well to use them to best effect, and the level design, particularly in later stages, insures that you will want to regularly alter their direction rather than just angle them for a spread shot (which is typically the most effective setup early on).

This game is another winner from Natsume, despite the fact that their NES games were never huge commercial successes. These are all fine gems for a retro collector to dig up though.

Are you playing these on original hardware, JT? Retron5? Emulation? You mentioned save states for one a while back...how are you deciding a fair approach to using thise? In games you use ghem, is the way you employ them different on a game by game basis?

dsheinem wrote:Are you playing these on original hardware, JT? Retron5? Emulation? You mentioned save states for one a while back...how are you deciding a fair approach to using thise? Is it on a game by game basis?

I'm playing via emulator (Nestopia). I've used save states on all three. I used them to gain ground in both Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand, but in S.C.A.T. I would only allow myself to save directly before and after a boss battle. I'm considering returning to S.C.A.T. for a legit win because it seems doable, but I think I'll probably move to Abadox next to continue my tour of Natsume's NES titles.

Congrats on beating both Shatterhand and S.C.A.T.! Natsume had some real gems, and I'd love to get a cart of the latter.

The Last of Us
Infamous
Infamous 2

I think I've already waxed poetic about my thoughts on TLOU, so I won't get into that here.

The inFamous games are interesting to me. They were really good as far as I am concerned, although I do have various nitpicks. The city of the first game is bland, boring, and a mess to get around in. However, the gameplay saved it overall. The story was alright, nothing special. Also, Blast shards. inFamous 2 had a much better city, in my mind, and I much preferred it. The story was much better this time around, and Cole's mix of powers was more interesting. I didn't like the "lol religious people" moments, and the fact that nobody in the game comments on the idea of a group name Weremacht 88 is just idiotic to me. These guys sound like a supremest group? Ah whatevs. Blast shards were much easier to find, which I was thankful for. Less of the comic moments in 2 was also a bit disappointing.

I don't know if I'll replay these anytime soon though. Good games, but I'm not sure about replay value besides going for the other end of the moral choices and cleaning up trophies.

My brother really enjoyed the Infamous games. They're on my list to play someday. Just... not today, I suppose.

I just finished Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers on SNES. Of all the games to play... I don't even like Power Rangers! Well, anyway, it's a bit like Capcom's X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse and War of the Gems, although much simpler. Single-plane, beat up some goons, some rudimentary platforming. Finish up the game with a couple of mech fights, of course. It's... surprisingly not awful, and it could have been.

(And yes, I put the apostrophe after "morphin". The show doesn't do it, but I don't care.)