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Last Topic's Ratings:
Buckle Up - AA - 50% (2)
Brave Fencer Musashi - GAGGBGGAGA - 75% (10) (2 SR)
Colony Wars - AGBAGGAGA - 67% (9) (1 SR)
Hexen - GGBBABA - 43% {7}
NCAA March Madness 2001 - GGGG - 100% (4)
Ridegear Guybrave - GB - 50% (2)
This was pretty much in line with what I expected, though I'm pleased to see that even these very obscure imports are getting at least a couple votes.
Games for this topic:
Action Man: Operation Extreme
All-Star Racing
ESPN Extreme Games
King of Fighters 96
Syphon Filter
V2000
A funny note, I always thought that 2Xtreme and 3Xtreme were sequels to Extreme-G, it wasn't until this topic that I learned they're actually sequels to ESPN Extreme Games instead.
Action Man: Operation Extreme - G
ReplyDeleteAll-Star Racing - B
ESPN Extreme Games - A
King of Fighters 96 - A
Syphon Filter - G
V2000 - A
Wow, Action Man is a way better game than I expected. It's an action game that is predominantly split into two gameplay styles, vehicle stages that somewhat resemble GTA1, and on-foot stages that play more akin to a standard action game. Even between these stages, though, there's a huge amount of variety, the vehicle stages will have you piloting many different types of vehicles, like cars, bikes, and even helicopters, while the on foot stages have constant variation in the action, switching constantly between action and puzzle sequences. The game also has a great sense of style, with a lot of fairly-well directed cutscenes throughout the game, the menu being Action Man's penthouse, loads of dialogue between Action Man and his allies and enemies, etc. The boss fights are also surprisingly well-done. This is just a really well-polished game in general and I definitely didn't expect this level of quality going on. The only issue is that it does hold your hand a lot, but at least that ensures that you're not likely to get stuck.
All-Star Racing is a very weird game. For starters, it's packaged as though it's 4 racing games in one, though they are all effectively identical, using the same engine, just with slightly different cars and tracks. The game has no progression whatsoever, all 4 games are just of the standard "arcade style racing game that has 3 tracks to choose from" type, which might be somewhat tolerable if not for the fact that the controls in the game are utterly terrible. All cars handle extremely sluggishly, which forces extremely heavy use of brakes on pretty much every turn and kills any sense of speed. The game also has lousy collision physics and just generally feels very cheaply made. Definitely not worth looking into.
ESPN Extreme Games is another game that isn't what I expected, I was expecting a sports title of some kind, but instead it's basically a minor variant of Road Rash. Though the game uses the same perspective and features the same general combat options as the original Road Rash titles, there are a few differences. Probably the most notable one is the stamina meter. Unlike Road Rash, these aren't motorized vehicles here, so you have to pedal or push to make them move, which requires stamina. Stamina regenerates when not pushing, though obviously this is slower, so you want to try to tuck on straightaways (particularly downhill ones) to gain speed and conserve energy. This is also important because being hit by rivals or hitting obstacles uses the same stamina bar and can knock you off your ride. This is a pretty clever mechanic that helps the main gameplay feel a bit more nuanced compared to Road Rash. There are also four types of rides, though they all play almost identically, just having slightly different strengths and weaknesses in terms of stats. There are also gates you can go through, which are worth extra money and points, which helps you buy new upgrades. It's a solid setup and the core mechanics are fun, though there aren't really a lot of tracks and the game's overall presentation and UI are also quite basic. This seems like a concept that can easily be improved upon, though, so it'll be interesting to see what the sequels bring.
My thoughts on KOF 96 are almost identical to KOF 95. The core game is great, and not many sacrifices have been made in the conversion to PS1, the frames of animation appear to be pretty intact, the backgrounds retain their animation, and the game runs at the correct speed. Also, obviously, for its time it has a ton of characters who have a lot of variety and it's also quite well-designed in general. The only downside, and it's a big one, is the load time. The game loads before every character comes in, and it really interrupts the flow of the game. You can somewhat mitigate this by playing the 1 vs 1 mode, but that's really not what King of Fighters is all about. With there being a million ports of the games in this series, it's generally recommended to play one of the ones that lacks this load time, but you could have done worse if you wanted a competitive fighter at the time.
DeleteSyphon Filter is a very solid game, even for a first effort. Gameplay-wise, it's a solid third-person shooter that feels pretty modern in terms of design, with a fair amount of voice acting, varied mission objectives, the ability to climb over various objectives with an action button, and a useful checkpoint system that games like Goldeneye would have massively benefited from. However, what I think impresses me more about the game is actually how smoothly it runs from a technical perspective. Areas are pretty large and detailed, with no loading or slowdown in sight, and the entire game just feels pretty impressive for a 3D game on PS1. The only thing I'm not super impressed by is the controls, I feel like the movement feels a little slipperier than I'd like and the auto-aim is probably a little bit too aggressive, and it can also sometimes be a little bit tough to figure out where you're intended to go, but it's still an impressive product nonetheless.
V2000 reminds me a lot of Magic Carpet in that it's a flying game with some light strategy elements, but it also feels rough and unpolished, which hinders its otherwise innovative design. The basic idea behind V2000 is that you fly around on a transforming hovercraft of sorts, rescuing people and destroying giant bugs. Your goal on each stage is to kill all the bugs, though you also can't let more than 3 people be killed. A secondary objective is that you can bring the rescued people back to factories, where they'll make weapons for you. The core idea is fine, though the game has significant issues with pacing, specifically it moves way, way too fast. Your craft moves at any almost uncontrollable rate of speed, though this is necessary because villagers can be being attacked at any point on the map at a moment's notice and they can be killed in a very short time. The breakneck pace of the game doesn't mesh well with the villager-rescuing gameplay, which generally takes too long (you can only carry one villager at a time back to your base, if you could scoop up a bunch of them it might be more reasonable to grab them all), generally leading to a strategy where you just blitz the enemies as fast as possible and if you want powerups you do it after killing basically everything, which feels kind of mundane. There are also some technical issues, most particularly the fact that the craft also has a flight mode, but you fly very high off the ground, which not only makes it impossible to shoot anything with any accuracy, it also causes fog to obscure most of the landscape, so this mode has little use other than quickly zipping from one point to the other. It's not completely terrible, but I feel like it needed a little bit more tuning.