Games Beaten 2018

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:06 pm

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 33
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)

February (17 Games Beaten)

33. A Night Out - PC - February 27

So this friend of mine, Froey, sent me a message on Facebook not long and said that she was making a short visual novel called A Night Out and that she'd love it if I'd play through it and review it. "Sure," I said. I mean, I just played through six handheld Army Men games over the course of about a week; no matter how good or bad, it was guaranteed to be one of the best games I'd play this week. Fortunately, however, it's really quite good. I'm not just saying that as her friend; it's legitimately a compelling story.

A Night About is about a trans girl named Elle who's at the very start of her transition. She's not out to her parents yet, but she knows who she really is inside. After making up some excuse to skip church in the morning, she pretends to go to bed sick Saturday night, dons her feminine attire, and sneaks out of the house to catch a Lyft to a concert, presenting in public as female for the first time. The story from there is her night out as as female, her anxiety about passing as female, and her thoughts about the prospect of coming out to her devout Christian parents.

The characters are all drawn by Froey, and while they may not look quite as detailed as some of the commercially sold visuals novels on Steam, it's worth noting that this was made start to finish in a month for Trans Girl Jam. While there's not a whole lot of music in the game, what music it does feature is excellent. Some of the instrumental music heard in the game was done by another good friend of mine, Rose Estrada, and the song played at the end is a track by Madison Turner. The art direction here, both visually and musically, is really fantastic.

Going into the game, I wasn't sure what to expect. You always want to support your friends, but I'm sure we've all had that friend who's really proud of something he or she has written or made or whatnot but it's really just...underwhelming or sometimes even outright bad. To my immense delight, this was FAR from that situation as it honestly is excellent. Still, the quality aside, I wasn't sure if I personally would be able to get into the story simply because, as a cisgender male, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to identify with a transgender female protagonist. Most folks have a hard time getting hooked into a story if there isn't a major character with whom they personally can identify, and I'm no exception to that. In what I consider to be a testament to Froey's writing quality, despite being from a totally different world as the protagonist here, I got hooked within the first five minutes. Part of that might be because, thanks to the number of transgender friends I have, I can sympathize with the character even if I can't empathize with her. Either way, once Elle was sneaking out of her window, I was at the point where I had to know what happened next.

A Night Out might not be everyone's cup of tea. I know that a lot of folks just don't do visual novels as they're a fairly non-interactive genre. There are bound to be some with the same concerns about being able to identify with the protagonist that I had. There are going to be a LOT who, either consciously or subconsciously, go "Eww, transgenders, gross" and don't even give the game a shot. I totally get folks in the first group, I 100% understand folks in the second group, and folks in the third group can go fuck themselves cause y'all are ass holes. But for the folks in the first two groups! I would urge y'all to give it a chance. It only takes about half an hour to play through, and it's absolutely free. Just follow this link to Froey's site for it, and give it a download. You won't regret it.

Post by **Exhuminator** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:03 am

14. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker | Wii U | 2014 | 7/10

Captain Toad is a game I'd looked forward to playing for a long time. When I finally played it, my enthusiasm was tempered. There've been plenty of glowing reviews praising Captain Toad, this isn't one of them.

What I didn't like about Captain Toad:

This game's camera is a serious pain. You can only cycle between two viewpoints, one is too far away, one is too close. I never felt comfortable with the camera distance. A third option somewhere between the two extremes would have been great. Also, when you pan the camera around, and Toad is behind walls, the walls should turn transparent. That would have been rational. Instead, you just see Toad's shadow through the opaque obscurities. This BS was done deliberately to make the game artificially harder. Yes, when unavoidably bad camera views kill you, that's artificial.

Because the Wii U GamePad has a touchscreen and a microphone, Nintendo decided to abuse the player with them. You will have to needlessly rub all over the touchscreen to manipulate objects (which often generate huge camera obscuring icons in doing so). You will have to blow all over your GamePad as you desperately try not to coat its screen with spittle.* Nobody liked this stuff back in the DS days, and yet Nintendo still pulled these same stupid shenanigans again with a Wii U game. It'd be fine if this sort of "enhanced interactivity" was optional. It's not optional.

Progress is gated behind "optional" hidden objects, in this case gems. In every stage, besides a goal star, there are three hidden gems to find. And you have to find 155 of them just to beat the game. This is an asinine game design tool Nintendo's been using for a while now, to artificially lengthen the amount of time it takes to beat a given game. Nintendo used this in Super Princess Peach and Super Mario Galaxy 2, for example. Once again in Captain Toad, you will find yourself locked off from stage progression, due to lacking said gems. Because you had the audacity to only collect the goal star in levels, rather than waste your life with hidden object gathering busy work, you're not allowed to progress. "Go back and replay those levels punk! Isn't it fun to beat levels over again that you'd already beaten before? No? Too bad sucker!" <--I imagine Nintendo saying.

There are only two bosses in Captain Toad. 2. Battles with these two bosses are repeated multiple times. One of the best things in 3D Mario games are often the boss battles. Unfortunately in Captain Toad, you will be re-beating slight variations of the same two bosses over and over. Yawn.

There's not nearly enough music. It seemed like I was always listening to the same handful of tracks.

What I liked about Captain Toad:

Captain Toad has tons of charm, charm falling from every orifice, and you have to love Toad. (Maybe not Toadette so much.) The graphics are above par, they look quite nice, and pull off the isometric aesthetic wonderfully. I was particularly fond of the water levels, but unfortunately there's not very many of those. Stage designs are sometimes very ingenious, reminding me of the stellar designs of Super Mario Galaxy once in a while. Cart rides are a lot of fun, so is using the gyroscope controls to aim and shoot. Also there's TONS of stages. Even after you beat the game, a suite of bonus stages unlock. You'll definitely get your money out of the stage quantity. The controls (sans touch / microphone) are very simple and easy to use. Making your way through a stage just to get the goal star is actually fun. And I'd call the overall difficulty "breezy".

Ultimately I'm sad to say Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker didn't live up to my personal expectations. That's not to say it's a bad game. It's a solid 7 out of 10 in my book. However I expect more than a 7/10 from a first party Nintendo release. On the other hand, Nintendo was trying something new here, a fresh idea rather than their usual recycled ideas. (Also Toad is a fantastic protagonist, he deserves more games of his own.) So I give Nintendo points for all of that. Some folks will play Captain Toad and love it to pieces. They won't be bothered by the little things that drove me nuts. They'll have fun collecting all the gems, blowing platforms around, and will remain blissfully oblivious to the crap camera. As for myself, I didn't track any real treasure here, though I'll admit the excursion had its gilded moments.

*Instead of blowing in the microphone, just rub your fingertip over the mic hole. This works for DS / 3DS games too.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:18 pm

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 34
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)

February (18 Games Beaten)

34. Army Men: Turf Wars - Game Boy Advance - February 27

Army Men: Turf Wars is the last of the three Game Boy Advance Army Men games. I've read that some fans consider Turf Wars to be the best of the series (at least on handheld), and I thought I might agree with that at first. A lot of the game really is quite excellent, but almost immediately, the flaws became apparent, and those flaws are so glaring that they sadly overshadow the positive aspects of the game.

Turf Wars, like Army Men Advance did, features Sergeant Hawk as the protagonist. Unfortunately the characterization of Hawk and Colonel Grimm is even more botched in this game than in Advance. They play up the paternal attitude that Grimm has towards Hawk WAY too hard. They also make Hawk's character far too flippant for my taste. He acts like a kid going to the playground rather than a soldier going to war. While he's always been a bit of a goofball in the games, this takes it to a new level.

Visually the game looks pretty good. I still prefer the more traditional look of Operation Green, personally, but I don't have any real gripes with Turf Wars. There were a few occasions of slowdown, but nothing like the Game Boy Color entries in the series. They were more hiccups than true impediments to gameplay. Sound effects were all appropriate and fitting for the weapons and action on screen, but the music is a major weak point in the game. It does not have the feel of a war game. It's upbeat, cheerful, and jovial. That's not bad in itself, but it's about as far from fitting for an Army Men game as one can get.

As bad as the music is, and as awkward as the characterization is, the game's worst offense is, without a doubt, the controls. The control in the game is HORRIBLE. The movement controls are cumbersome and feel completely unnatural; it took me into the third mission probably to be able to control Hawk's movement even halfway decently. The vehicle controls aren't any better. You can drive tanks and jeeps, but if you're moving at all when you try to shoot, it will start turning your cannon/turret instead of your vehicle making it extremely difficult to move and fire simultaneously. That, in turn, makes it extremely difficult to avoid damage while trying in a vehicle.

Turf Wars was, apparently, developed with an emphasis on local multiplayer. I wasn't able to test that, obviously, but one of the effects of that is that the single player campaign was extremely short - only seven missions that lasted between 7 and 15 minutes each. Even with deaths and retries, I'd say it took me roughly two hours of game time to finish. The short single player isn't bad (aside from the aforementioned flaws), but it feels extremely shallow. Truthfully, it feels like a late-2000s Call of Duty campaign in a lot of ways; shallow and tacked on just for the sake of having one.

Army Men: Turf Wars isn't bad, per se, but it's definitely not what I would call "good." I spent a lot of time debating what score to give this game. The levels feel shallow and token, enemies take WAY too many bullets to kill, the control is utter balls, the characterization feels wrong, the music doesn't fit, and it just feels like a rushed job. Turf Wars had a LOT of potential, but it lived up to almost none of that potential. Disappointing is an understatement. Y'all should know the drill by now regarding my recommendations for these games if you've read any of my past Army Men reviews; if you're a fan of the Army Men series or a big Game Boy Advance collector, then I'd give it a go, but otherwise, avoid this game. It just doesn't have much to offer.

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:38 pm

I hope you rank these Army Men games for us when you get through all of them...

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:42 pm

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I hope you rank these Army Men games for us when you get through all of them...

Will do, boss man. I intend to play through every version of every game at some point. Of the ones I've played and reviewed, I'd rank them:

1. Army Men 2 (PC)
2. Army Men: Operation Green (GBA)
3. Army Men 2 (GBC)
4. Army Men: Major Malfunction (Xbox)
5. Army Men: Air Combat (GBC)
6. Army Men: Turf Wars (GBA)
7. Army Men Advance (GBA)
8. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 (GBC)

Post by **ESauced** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:06 pm

So did you fulfill your side of your contract with the Devil elkinfencer10? I hope whatever you got from him was worth having to suffer through an eternity of handheld army man games.

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:11 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:
prfsnl_gmr wrote:I hope you rank these Army Men games for us when you get through all of them...

Will do, boss man. I intend to play through every version of every game at some point. Of the ones I've played and reviewed, I'd rank them:

1. Army Men 2 (PC)
2. Army Men: Operation Green (GBA)
3. Army Men 2 (GBC)
4. Army Men: Major Malfunction (Xbox)
5. Army Men: Air Combat (GBC)
6. Army Men: Turf Wars (GBA)
7. Army Men Advance (GBA)
8. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 (GBC)

<slow clap>

<uproarious applause>

<standing ovation>

(We’re saving Rodney Dangerfield, a pool party, a Kenny Loggins song, and a dancing gopher for when you finish up the rest of the series.)

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:10 pm

I legitimately expect a celebration of some kind when I finish playing all 36 of these games.

Post by **Ack** » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:26 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:I legitimately expect a celebration of some kind when I finish playing all 36 of these games.

I'll get no respect in the danger zone, little gopher.

Post by **Sarge** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:32 am

I'm going to be changing how I update my Games Beaten posts. It's a pain finding my last one, so I'm updating the full list in my original post. I'll post the most recent entry as I go. Hopefully it will make less work for me overall.

Phantis (C64) (3.5) (2/28) (0.25 hours)

Anyway, I got a little bit of a head start on next month's Together Retro with Phantis, also known as Game Over II. This "series" was rather infamous for some risque cover art; I don't believe Phantis was part of the series, but was localized and censored in the UK as Game Over II. Anyway, why wouldn't you want to play as this character, amirite?

The protagonist shows their assets in the platforming segments as well. I actually am having a hard time finding a screenshot of these sections, so here's one straight from the emulator.

Anyway, about the only thing the game has going for it is sex appeal. The game starts with a standard shooter segment, which goes through three zones of varying difficulty. The last tunnel is pretty easy if you stick to the bottom. The opening bit is probably the toughest, actually. Once you finish that, you get to ride on a tauntaun and wield some kind of bolo / diskarmor-like weapon. Once you finish that, you get an access code to play the other side of the disk.

Enter that, and you start in a platforming segment with a jetpack and no ability to shoot. The little critter following you can kill enemies, though. Once you dive down the pit after several screens, you pick up a blaster. Then poking around will find you an upgrade for it, and poking around more gets you a medal that unlocks a door. Keep on trucking through the areas, and you'll find a helicopter that takes you to the next area. It's all lava-like for the most part, with some tough pixel-perfect jumps. Oh, and falling blocks in some screens that kill you in one hit. Finding your friend will win you the game. This takes around 15 minutes; with the loading times of the original, maybe it would have taken 20-25. :roll:

Seriously, y'all, does this seem kinda helter-skelter? That's because it is. The controls are just functional; you move slowly and your jumps are very, very floaty. Also, you can only have one shot on screen, so this can bite you a few times. You also have to watch out for screen edge-spawns from enemies.

That being said, I've always wanted to give this one a go, because an homage to it was developed a while back called Ultionus, and that game was scored by Jake "virt" Kaufman. Without his involvement, I'd never have known it existed. Where Phantis is extremely primitive, Ultionus keeps the general style of play but expands things considerably. It also sports some lavish pixel art and a great soundtrack. And a buxom "heroine", of course. So go play that instead if you're pining for the old computer platformer days but want something that plays a bit better.

racketboy.com

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