Games Beaten 2020

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. ACA NeoGeo: Cyber-Lip (Switch eShop)
2. Pengo (Atari 2600)
3. Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
4. Knights of Xentar (PC)
5. Hoshi o Sagashite... (Mark III)
6. Dead Zone (Famicom Disk System)
7. Samurai Sword (Famicom Disk System)
8. High School! Kimengumi (Mark III)
9. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (NES)
10. Sindbad Mystery (SG-1000)
11. Steins;Gate (Vita)
12. Champion Boxing (SG-1000)
13. Squidlit (Switch eShop)
14. Skyblazer (SNES)
15. Tokyo Dark: Remembrance (Switch eShop)
16. Bubble Bobble (Famicom Disk System)


Bubble Bobble originated in the arcades as a 1986 Taito single-screen platformer. It then received a downright criminal amount of ports for consoles, handhelds, and computers alike. Most of these appear to have been well-received; apparently in Europe the Commodore 64 and Amiga variants made quite a splash. As an American, I sank countless hours of my childhood into the NES version. However, this review is dedicated that game's more obscure Japanese cousin: the Famicom Disk System port, released in October of 1987. The game was sold in one of those translucent zippered pencil cases. No kidding.

One or two players take on the roles of Bub and Bob, two adorable chubby dragons. As the "English" introduction conveys, the brothers are journeying into the "cave of monsters." Apparently these "dragons" are actually humans who have been transformed into dragons, and they're attempting to rescue their respective girlfriends, who I believe have been captured by a big bad guy but are otherwise still human. Point being: the goal of each stage is destroy all enemies and move on.

Each stage consists of a series of brightly-colored platforms and a swarm of foes. Vertical wraparound is present; a dragon who falls through the screen's bottom appears at the top. Meanwhile, the horizontal edges are always walled off. Controls are fluid, with the classic A-jump/B-attack scheme. Defeating an enemy is a twofold process. First, each one must be encased in a bubble emitted by a dragon's mouth. Making contact with a captured enemy destroys it for good. Time is of the essence. An ensconced enemy that is ignored will eventually escape from its tomb: red-hot, angry, and exponentially faster. The last remaining foe of each stage also descends into red-hot madness automatically. "Popped" enemies transform into fruit that may be collected for points, and popping a cluster of trapped enemies at once guarantees mega-points. The bubbles themselves have a secondary use, as empty ones can be used as makeshift platforms, though one must tread lightly to avoid vanquishing them outright.

The game exudes a lighthearted and comical vibe. Sprites are endearing, and many stages contain sly references to other Taito classics (like Space Invaders). A good number of levels are cleverly designed, forcing players to make some unconventional moves to clear them out quickly. Linger for too long, and Bub and Bob face the wrath of an invincible white whale. There isn't a tremendous amount of music in the game, but what's here is peppy and memorable. Stages flow rather seamlessly into each other (for the most part - the FDS does have to load occasionally), and the music doesn't pause during these brief transitions. This is an infectious "happy" game, and now a favorite of my own children.

Bubble Bubble seems to have arrived during that second wave of arcade platformers. Games like Donkey Kong were score-chasers first and foremost, containing a very small number of "boards" that were designed to be completed (and looped) in a very regimented manner. In contrast, Bubble Bubble is massive, with 100(!) stages, and difficulty that fluctuates wildly through the dragons' journey. This is one of very few arcade ports that actually contains a save feature (password for NES) to accommodate its massive runtime. Infinite continues are mercifully doled out as well. The game is undeniably overindulgent. 100 stages could have easily been slashed down to 50 or so. And it admittedly feels like the developers were running out of ideas somewhere along the line. Far too many of the later stages feel like pranks and needless troll attempts.

Additionally, the game oftentimes feels as if two players are required. The time limits get incredibly tight towards the journey's end, to the point where specific stages tackled alone are almost inconceivable to beat without going overtime and summoning the aforementioned indestructible cetacean. To add insult to injury, a single player is granted a "bad ending" should they reach the end of the game alone, the screen displaying some ham-fisted message about friendship. Bubble Bobble features an assortment of power-ups, but they show up inconsistently. Most will never be seen, even throughout the course of a full playthrough. Moreover, extra lives cannot be earned via accumulation of points (in contrast to the NES game), which spirals FDS Bubble Bubble down into "credit-feeder" territory. Expect to see that Game Over screen, a lot.

That's Bubble Bobble. A light and airy "pick up and play" experience. But its innate sloppiness and lack of polish is hard to overlook. That said, the game's biggest issues only really begin to shine through should one attempt a complete start-to-finish single-player run. This is one of those games that's most fun to pick up on a random Sunday morning, with a buddy in tow, and to play through a decent and respectable chunk of stages before calling it a day. As far as this particular port goes, stick with the more common NES variant. You'll get the extra lives and the ability to leap ahead with passwords. The English intro is even tidied up a smidgen. So, why did I play this.......?

[ElkinFencer10]

Games Beaten in 2020 - 6
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)

1. Pokemon Sun - 3DS - January 14*

February (2 Games Beaten)

2. Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order - Xbox One - February 15
3. Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee! - Switch - February 29*

March (3 Games Beaten)

4. Pokemon Shield - Switch - March 1*
5. Doom [1993] - Switch - March 6*
6. SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays - PS4 - March 6

6. SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays - PS4 - March 6



Gundam is a MASSIVE franchise in terms of games, movies, anime, and manga. A few years ago, I played through SD Gundam G Generation Genesis, a strategy RPG game that goes through the majority of Gundam's Universal Century timeline. Cross Rays is the companion game to Genesis; it keeps the same gameplay format, but rather than going through the Universal Century timeline, Cross Rays takes you through four of the Gundam alternate universes - Wing, Seed, 00, and Iron Blooded Orphans. As far as gameplay goes, if you liked Genesis, you'll like Cross Rays.



Despite having the same basic gameplay, I found myself enjoying Cross Rays significantly less than Genesis. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why. Are the levels longer? No, but there are more levels in Cross Rays. Maybe that was it? No, that can't be it; I was feeling the game fatigue before I was even halfway through the game. Maybe the dialogue was longer? Not that I could tell; the cutscenes and dialogue segments were pretty much as obscenely long as Genesis was. Then it finally occurred to me - it was the source material. I LOVE Universal Century. I'm heavily invested in that timeline, and each series you played through in Genesis took you farther in that same timeline. When you go through different segments of Cross Rays, you may have multiple series within the same timeline, but at the end of the day, the game has four separate timelines rather that one massive, unified timeline like Genesis. That's not to say that it's a good thing or a bad thing; I just found myself much less invested going through four different timelines especially given that Iron Blooded Orphans is the only timeline in Cross Rays that I'm particularly attached to.



For those who haven't played or read my review for G Generation Genesis, let's explore the gameplay. If you've played a game like Disgaea or Fire Emblem, then you know the core gameplay - you move your units around a grid map and fight the enemy force in a turn based strategy battleground. One of the big questions that comes up with every strategy game is "Are deaths permanent?" Well, yes and no. Yes, if your unit is destroyed, you lose that mobile suit forever. The pilot of that destroyed unit, however, is not killed. You keep that pilot; you just have to buy a new mobile suit for him or her. That's a pretty fair balance in my opinion. It takes away the mobile suit that you've been leveling up and improving, so it does discourage reckless gameplay; but you don't lose the pilots you've been leveling up and improving, so it is forgiving to a certain extent when you have an inevitably bad RNG roll or just make a bad move.



While the core gameplay mechanics are pretty much the same between Genesis and Cross Rays, that's not to say that it's identical. Cross Rays definitely did make some changes, and some of these are definitely changes for the better. Unit level-ups, for example, have been modified. In Genesis, when a unit leveled up, it was given a flat boost to all stats plus a couple of points that you could assign to whatever stat you wanted. Cross Rays took away that flat bonus and left it on the player to assign all stat points. This gives the player a little more agency to craft units to whatever role they want while also diminishing the massive disparity between early game and late game units. There's definitely a gap in power between those early and late game units, but it's not quite as drastic a difference as it was in Genesis.



The most significant addition is the Dispatch Missions. You can dispatch up to three of your four teams on missions that auto-complete in real time for capital, experience, and item rewards. The longer the mission, the better the rewards. Some of them complete in as little as two hours; some of the missions you unlock later on take 15 or 20 hours to complete. If you're a little short on cash, just take a break and do some dispatch missions. If your mobile suits are a little underleveled, take a break and do some dispatch missions. If you're just tired of the game but want a little nest egg to come back to, put your teams on some 12+ hour missions, and let your teams do the work for you. It's a pretty passive addition, but it's a fantastic addition.



SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is a MASSIVE strategy RPG that exposes you to four of the biggest alternate universes in the Gundam franchise. For me personally, it was an overall step down from SD Gundam G Generation Genesis, but it definitely made a lot of improvements, and a lot of folks will definitely see Cross Rays as a big step forward. Whether you see it as a little better, a little worse, about the same, or if it's your first exposure to the SD Gundam series, Cross Rays is a fantastic game. Play it on PC, play it on Switch, or play it on PS4, but if you like strategy gameplay and giant robot space battles, make sure that you play it.

[Ack]

1. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)(Adventure)
2. Final Fight [Japanese Version] (Switch)(Beat 'Em Up)
3. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
4. Magrunner: Dark Pulse (PC)(FPS)
5. The King of Dragons [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
6. Captain Commando [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
7. Knights of the Round [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
8. The Witcher (PC)(RPG)
9. Tenchi wo Kurau II(Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
10. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (PC)(RPG)
11. Lichdom: Battlemage (PC)(FPS/RPG Hybrid)
12. Star Wars: Republic Commando (PC)(FPS)

Lichdom: Battlemage

Lichdom is a game that I wanted to like more than I did. In it, you get magic powers, and over the course of the game, you unlock new schools of magic and can learn to merge and create more powerful spells, eventually leading to extremely powerful ways to devastate your enemies and even some spells that combine schools with devastating results. For example, you might go from shooting fireballs and locking people in their point in space into dropping a meteor on them. Cool, right?

In execution, it doesn't work out so well. While you have some varieties of magic, you eventually will understand the limits of what you can build, with spells fitting into three types: offense, shield, and area. These are further broken up by what type of spell you choose to cast (so offense can be a missile, a lob, or a ray), which is further split by whether you chose to focus on destruction, control, or mastery with the spell. While these all give you different results, it all comes back in the end to relying on how you play the game. Figure that out, and there really is never a reason to change anything beyond simple upgrades.

Also, with each new level, spell parts acquired go up in levels, but what you get is luck of the draw, so you might never see the upgrades you need to actually improve your spells. For example, at the end of the game, I was finding level 8 components, but I never got the right stuff to make something better than the level 4 area spell I was using. Also, the basic magic types can level and unlock new abilities, but these can be frustratingly annoying in how much they vary. For instance, you might get lucky and have to deal damage; I built a spell that consistently did 100k+ of damage, which would cause a magic school to level in usually fewer than 5 attacks, even at the highest levels. Or you could get the critical kill one, which means you now have to kill enemies with critical hits 300, 400, 500, up to 1100 times. That takes significantly longer and drags things down. Worse yet, some spell types remove the ability to do damage, so to get credit for the kill, you have to combo it by following a hit with something that does do a crit...it's a mess, and it felt radically frustrating to suddenly jump two levels in the space of five minutes for damage and then not see another level up for five hours because you have to get critical kills.

Also, criticals are pointless anyway, because you can charge spells to automatically crit. While this takes time to charge (and still means you have to get the killing blow with it 400 times), it removes the need to ever focus on crit chance stats. Thankfully the game has a secondary critical called Apocalypse that when it goes off, it goes off. I managed to build a spell with a 40% Apocalypse rate and thus ended the world of everything that walks.

Or at least I wish I did. Enemy health jumps between each level, so the one-shot you could pull off might now take 3 hits in the next level.

That's ok, as you have time to build. Levels are long. LONG. Like hours to get through long. There are only a handful in the game, and while they can offer some pretty locales to view, they also just get tedious. To make matters worse, enemies have a few types but really only get cosmetic changes throughout the game. Even when demons get introduced later, they have a few abilities that are identical to the human and undead enemies you face, just now with more health, so you're rinsing and repeating the same handful of foes over the course of your two hour long level.

Look, if you can handle the monotony, then Lichdom offers some fun and even includes some interesting post-game content to keep you going for more, so you can max everything out and become awesomely powerful. Just, it's gonna take a lot of patience that I didn't have.

Star Wars: Republic Commando

Hey, a tactical FPS in the Star Wars universe! Now this is the kind of variance I like to see in SW games; I don't want to be the same stupid Jedi characters time and time again. I want gunplay, tough aliens, and war stories or crazy cantinas to explore for the scum of the galaxy. Republic Commando gives that to me, and while it wasn't always successful, it worked out well enough that I had a wonderful time remembering what kinds of creative things could come out of the Star Wars franchise when it was handled well.

You play as the clone leader of Delta Squad, an elite group of special forces clones given unique enhancements in your creation process to build you into the Commandos. While each soldier under your command has specific things they like, in execution it tends not to matter, but at least they have their own personalities. You also have a limited amount of control over what your troops can do in combat, such as setting them up to snipe or chuck grenades from certain areas, man turrets, follow closely or run ahead aggressively, heal up, revive downed teammates (including yourself), and plant explosives. Once you get the hang of directing everyone, they're actually fairly efficient. Not perfect, but good enough to get the job done so you can tackle whatever task must be handled, be it turning on a generator or demoing a machine delivering robot troops. Sometimes the AI will go full stupid, but eh, it could be a hell of a lot worse.

You also get a decent array of weapon, including a recharging pistol, modular battle rifle that can convert into a sniper rifle or grenade launcher with the right attachments, four different types of grenades, and a fifth weapon slot available for whatever you pull off enemy soldiers or find. Yeah, only one slot for findable weapons, though in truth many of them aren't actually that useful anyway. The battle rifle and things like the SMGs you find make for pitiful peashooters, but you can wreck an enemy with most other tools, and everything but grenades have melee. And that melee is damn good. The game even has a nice touch of have oil or gore splat your facemask and then electronically cleaning itself off after you get in and get a good kill. I used melee a lot.

Unfortunately, the game is not without its problems. Not only does your squad AI sometimes go full batshit, enemies will sometimes clip through walls, and their hit boxes can be weird, especially for the Geneotian bugs. While often fights are a challenge, there are some stupidly powerful energy beam weapons that enemies will get too, and these can chunk your shield and health to nothing in seconds. All of the enemies that get these are small or have weird hit boxes and high health, adding to the frustration level. When I first encountered these in the early stages, I thought the rest of the game would be terrible. It wasn't, but ugh, some way of balancing this would have been preferred.

Despite the limits to what you can command your squad to do (I'm admittedly spoiled by the likes of GRAW), this can be a fun game, especially when your team executes well. You'll actually feel proud when you pick your spots to hold from well and use your squad to great effect. This is how a tactical FPS should make you feel, even if it's not exactly legit in any sort of real world scenario. And it's great seeing something different in Star Wars. If only they still made SW games that were this creative.

Stupid Jedi...

[pook99]

34. Mega Man 3 (nes)
35. Mega Man 5 (nes)
36. Links crossbow training (wii)
37. Castlevania: shadow (nes hack)
38. Mega Man 6 (nes)
39. Punch out (wii)
40. Magical Quest 3 (snes)

1) Mega Man 3, 5,6

For some reason Mega man 3 seemed very flawed to me this go round, maybe because of the abundance of quality mega man fan games I have played recently but for a game that gets hyped as much as it does, some even saying it is the best in the series, I was just unsatisfied with my playthrough of it.

To start, this game has to have the worst weapons in the series, it just seems that most weapons are either projectiles that travel straight ahead (ie: needle shot, spark shot) making them reduntant unless used for a weakness, or weapons that are virtually useless (ie: the snake). I never wanted nor needed to use them and that takes a lot away from what makes mega man fun

I also developed a new hatred for the MM2 boss stages, for those of you who dont know when you beat the 8 robot masters you have to replay modified versions of 4 stages where you fight 2 reskinned bosses of Mega Man 2 bosses. The levels are redundant, reskinned, and not that much fun, while the robot masters, who are now in much larger bodies, lose the balance they had in their original form. Woodman for example is not impossible to jump over which was a big part of the fight in the first place.

I don't hate the game by any stretch, it is still a mega man game, which makes it better than most other action platformers by default, but it definitely lost some notches in my mega man hierarchy

On the flip side MM6, which is a game that I always put squarely in the middle of my MM rankings, was far more enjoyable than I remember, I really like the rush suits and would love for them to bring that back at some point.

Finally, I will use this opportunity to remind everyone that MM5 is hands down the most under rated game in the series, this is not nostalgia speaking, I didnt play this game until I was like 35, it is just a really well made, fun game, with lots of cool, creative stage gimmicks.

2) Magical Quest 3 starring Mickey and Donald

I don't know why we never got this game here, the original magical quest was a really fun game, that I would imagine sold well, and its sequel, the great circus caper, was also a lot of fun. I just discovered this game existed recently and played it with an emulator and a translation patch.

Like the other Magical Quest games, you play as Mickey (and/or Donald) on a journey to stop Pete from causing havoc. The draw of these games is you get several different costumes that you can switch between on the fly. Mickey himself can jump on enemies heads as well as grab stunned enemies/blocks to throw them at enemies. Each costume adds some new dynamic to the gameplay, you get a knight costume that has a shield and a melee attack, a climbing suit that gives you a whip and the ability to latch onto vines and other climbable objects, as well as a magician that shoots magic at enemies and causes different effects depending on what you hit. All 3 suits are useful, fun to use, and can be used in a variety of different ways.

The game looks like what you would expect from a 16 bit disney/capcom game, nice vibrant colors and varied backgrounds, it came out pretty late in the SNES life and does a nice job of showcasing the power of the SNES

The game spans 7 levels, you have 3 lives, with respawns right where you die, and unlimited continues which put you back to the nearest checkpoint, it is a pretty easy game and definitely kid friendly but if you enjoyed the other games in the series this is a no brainer and definitely worth a look

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)
3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)
4. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3) *
6. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
7. Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
8. Pictobits (DSiWare)
9. Puzzle Quest: The Legend Reborn (Switch)
10. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
11. Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
13. Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (Xbone)
14. Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake (Xbone)
15. Dynamite Headdy (Genesis) *
16. Shovel Knight: King of Cards (3DS)
17. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (3DS) *
18. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch) *
19. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch) *
20. Shovel Knight: Showdown (Switch)
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4)
22. ActRaiser (SNES)
23. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)

24. Mega Man X (SNES)

This is another game I played when I was little but could never beat. I got stuck on the Sigma levels and could just never complete them. However, I was talking about it with MrPopo and Gunstar in the Slack the other day, and they mentioned how to get past the certain area I had been stuck on. I decided to use my Classic Controller Pro with my SNES Classic and give this one another go. I ended up 100%-ing it (even got the Hadouken ^w^) and beating it in a little under two hours, and I only used save states for time-saving purposes (I needed to retry Sigma quite a few times, and didn't really care to hadouken my way through the first two forms every single time XP).

Mega Man X takes place far in the future from the original Mega Man games (although who knows exactly how far). X and Zero are maverick hunters who used to work with Sigma, who has gone mad and wants to kill all the humans to make a world just for robots. The story isn't terribly important and a decent deal of the back story is in the manual (I assume, as a good portion of stuff I just didn't understand and had to infer from context). The presentation is very nice for an earlier SNES game though, and the music is absolutely excellent~

The main gimmick and difference of this game compared to the original MM series is that there are hidden power ups in each stage. Every stage has an upgrade to your maximum health, half of the eight Maverick stages have a sub-tank (no more E-tanks for you!), and half of them also have an upgrade for Mega Man's general abilities. These upgrades for his fighting abilities are one of the game's greatest strengths as well as one of its greatest weaknesses.

For starters, the first upgrade you get (or rather the first one you're intended to get) is a dash move. I have never found performing the dash all the comfortable or easy to do if I need to do it in conjunction with wall climbing (another new mechanic in this game) and/or charging your weapon, even though the game does let you rebind all the buttons if you want. The bright side is, however, that that is why I used the Classic Controller Pro to play this on my SNES Mini. It made hitting the shoulder buttons way easier than the awkward way that pressing buttons on the original SNES controller works (at least when you have to hit them in conjunction with anything on the face of the controller).

From a larger design element, the hidden nature of these ability upgrades really mess with the pace of the game, and they also really advantage someone who already knows where they are. If you've never played Mega Man X before, you'll likely have a very difficult time if you don't do Chill Penguin's stage first, you won't have the charge move, and doing any of the other stages will be far harder (although I think still technically possible) since the game seems to think you'll have that. You also better get all of the secret powers (hadouken aside, which is super secret on purpose, and requires all other upgrades to get, but can one-hit any boss if you get it!), because that allows you to charge your weapons other than your Mega Buster, and the invincibility granted by Sting Chameleon's charge move (among other benefits from the powers) are gonna be pretty invaluable during Sigma's stages. The secret powers are neat in concept, but they're so necessary (and I think may genuinely be necessary because I don't think you can damage Sigma without the buster upgrade, the last of the four normal ones) that them being hidden is more frustrating than fun for me. If you just look up where they are (or like me, remember where they were from watching AGDQ a couple years back ^^;), it isn't so bad, but it makes playing the game blind far more frustrating than the original Mega Man games.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. I still prefer the way the classic Mega Man games work compared to X, but I still had a lot of fun with this game. It's an excellent action game I'm glad I finally went back to finish after giving up on it so many years ago.

[MrPopo]

So you do get the upgraded buster after Zero dies if you didn't already have it, so all you miss out on is the helmet (which is used to get some of the upgrades) and the armor (take half damage).

[ElkinFencer10]

Games Beaten in 2020 - 7
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten)

1. Pokemon Sun - 3DS - January 14*

February (2 Games Beaten)

2. Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order - Xbox One - February 15
3. Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee! - Switch - February 29*

March (4 Games Beaten)

4. Pokemon Shield - Switch - March 1*
5. Doom [1993] - Switch - March 6*
6. SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays - PS4 - March 6
7. Lego DC Super Villains - Switch - March 19

7. Lego DC Super Villains - Switch - March 19



If you've played one Lego game, you've pretty much played them all. Likewise, if you've played one Lego game, you probably want to play them all because they're freaking awesome. Lego DC Super Villains is no exception; it has the same lovable Lego aesthetic and feel with the familiar gameplay but in a game where you play as some of the best villains from the DC comic universe.



The premise of DC Super Villains is that you're a super villain (obviously) working with Lex Luthor and Joker to cause chaos and take over the world or whatever cliche super villain scheme they have. That changes, however, when the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3 shows up and zaps the Justice League into purgatory or something. Suddenly being the lesser of the two evils, the Legion of Doom begins to recruit other super villains to oppose the Crime Syndicate and whatever it is they're planning besides the standard world domination trope. That was actually the source of my main disappointment with the game - I wanted to be a VILLAIN, not a normally-bad-guy-but-forced-to-be-good-ish-due-to-circumstances-guy. Don't get me wrong, the game is still super fun, but it wasn't quite what I'd been expecting.



Being a slut for customization options, my favorite aspect of the game was the character creator. You get to create a Lego supervillain as wacky or terrifying as your heart pleases. Naturally, being one who takes as little in life seriously as possible, I went for as wacky as possible. Behold...the universally feared and reviled Buhtseks Bandit! They thought their silly language filter would keep me from being pointlessly vulgar, but once again, my mental depravity proved superior. Your custom character's gimmick is that they can absorb and gain new superpowers, so your character starts off kinda meh but becomes more and more useful as the game progresses.



Visually and audibly, the game is fantastic. It looks great although the smooth plastic Lego aesthetic isn't exactly super intensive on system resources. Still, though, the game's colors really pop, and the Lego brick models do a great job of blending the unique Lego look while staying distinctly DC. The characters are all fully voiced with some serious industry heavy hitters reprising their usual characters. Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, and Tara Strong all lend their voices to their usual characters just to name a few. The quality of the voice acting can really make or break a game especially when it uses characters that have a well known voice in other media. Keeping those voices for this work were a big part of my personal enjoyment here as I'm just a huge fan of Hamill, Dorn, and Strong in general.



While I wasn't able to test this myself because I have no friends to hang out with (cue sadness), there is two player local cooperative gameplay in Lego DC Super Villains. Since I wasn't able to test it personally, I can't speak to how well it works, but if it's like other Lego games, I imagine it's a great way to share the experience. In this increasingly online-obsessed age for gaming, the inclusion of local multiplayer of any kind in a game just tickles me pink.



I may have had my personal disappointment with not ACTUALLY being an evil supervillain in the context of the game's story, but Lego DC Super Villains was still a hella fun experience that definitely fits in with the other licensed Lego video game experiences. If you're a fan of Lego games, especially the other licensed comic book Lego games, then you definitely need to check this one out. There are over 150 playable characters in the game plus over half a dozen custom character slots plus all of the collectables hidden throughout the world that Lego games usually offer, so you can definitely play around with it for a long time to experience everything the game has to offer.

[Note]

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2020!
*Denotes Replay For Completion*

1. Pikmin 2 (GCN)
2. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
3. Contra: Hard Corps (GEN)



I beat Contra: Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis this evening!

Markies, I just want to give you credit for beating this game. I was playing it again last night while testing the 8bitdo Genesis controllers I got recently and this game still kicks my ass. I've only been able to beat it using a lives cheat. I really wish they didn't remove the three health bars from the US version. The game is action packed and I like it a lot, but damn it's tough.

[Note]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:

22. ActRaiser (SNES)

You beat that quick! Lol, glad you were able to though. I'm still in Fillmore, up to the second action level where I have to face the Minotaur. Hope to play the game for a few hours this weekend.

[opa]

Alan Wake - 360

Fans of Twin Peaks/Stephen King/Twilight Zone should play this. Really interesting story but the combat is so repetitive I was ready for it to be over with at the half-way point (and this game is only like nine or ten hours long). Basically between story points you walk twenty feet, three to five shadowy figures come out of the woods, you shine your light on them to break their defense and then shoot. Repeat ad nauseam. The driving segments had super slippery controls and seemed mostly a waste of time. Despite the monotonous gameplay, I will give the devs some credit: the story kept me playing just a few more minutes to see what happens next.

If this were 2009 I'd call this one a weekend rental. Nowadays you could probably grab a disc out of a bargain bin somewhere. If you like a thriller/horror storyline, I'd pick this one up if you can find it cheap.