This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Adventures of Lomax - AGGG - 88% (4)
Breath of Fire 3 - GGGGAGGGG - 94% (9)
Cindy's Fashion World - BBB - 0% (3)
Mr Driller - GAGAAAG - 63% (8)
Plane Crazy - BA - 25% (2)
Sammy Sosa Softball Slam - BBAA - 25% (4)
I was kind of surprised by the somewhat middling reception to Mr Driller. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the sequel, whenever we get around to it. Also, we've now officially finished all the Cindy games! That is one franchise I won't be sad not to see again.
Games for this topic:
Alfred Chicken
Command and Conquer
Gamera 2000
Need for Speed 2
NHL Blades of Steel 2000
Zero Divide
I keep thinking Zero Divide and Zero Escape are related. Also, I'm looking forward to trying out the Gamera game, it looks kind of neat.
Alfred Chicken - G
ReplyDeleteCommand and Conquer - G
Gamera 2000 - G
Need for Speed 2 - A
NHL Blades of Steel 2000 - G
Zero Divide - A
Wow, I didn't realize Alfred Chicken was a new game and not a port of the SNES game. At first, I wasn't a big fan of the game's considerably more zoomed-in perspective compared to the SNES version, but after playing it for a while I quickly got used to it and came to appreciate all the other things the game does well. For starters, this game's presentation is actually surprisingly good. Pretty much every level has a distinct visual style, with some pretty decent foreground / background effects, and the somewhat off-beat jazzy soundtrack also helps give the game a unique feel. I definitely think it has much more identity compared to the SNES game. There's also a decent variety to the level design and each level has some hidden secrets, which are often cleverly hidden without feeling unfair. While the first Alfred Chicken was a serviceable game that probably got more of a bad rap than it deserved due to its title, I feel like this one could actually be considered for hidden gem status. It is, at the very least, an interesting title that's worth a look.
Command and Conquer is very similar to its predecessor, Dune 2, but with a ton of QoL updates. The overall game flow still feels a lot like Dune 2, both in terms of the overall gameplay (particularly the way unit and base construction works) and the mission progression, which uses a similar map to Dune 2, but everything is generally a lot more polished. For starters, compared to the original version of Dune 2 (we'll get to Dune 2000 in a moment), the interface is much better. For starters, you can multiselect units, which is obviously a massive upgrade, and the unit AI is also a lot better. There are still some annoyances in the interface, most particularly that select units and move units are still on the same button (how have they not figured this out yet?), causing frequent and annoying issues where you can lose your unit selection during battle. You also can't queue up units yet, so creating units in bulk effectively requires you to sit in the create units menu and hammer the button over and over. Still, I do appreciate the simplicity of the interface, it's certainly much better than the very clunky one in Dune 2000, this feels well-tailored to the PS1. Another area where the game has seen a huge upgrade is in terms of its presentation. Besides just generally looking better in terms of environments and unit animations (it even looks better than Dune 2000 in this regard), the game also has a ton of cutscenes that are actually really well done and add a lot to the experience. Even though the game is still quite basic, it still kind of has that classic feel that Dune 2 also has and the polish is generally pretty good. Compared to the PC version, this version lacks multiplayer, which is lame, but everything else is here, including the game's expansion, so as long as you're only interested in single-player this is still a pretty solid port.
Gamera 2000 is effectively Panzer Dragoon, but for PS1 and with Gamera instead of a dragon. For those who aren't familiar with Panzer Dragoon, think Star Fox 64, but with the ability to rotate your view to look to the sides or back (from which enemies can also attack from, a radar tells you when they approach) and that's the basic idea. Despite its lack of originality, it plays and looks great, I feel it actually surpasses Panzer Dragoon in both regards. It's a very easy game to import, too, for whatever reason all of the cutscenes are in english, and the voice acting and production values are pretty solid as well. I wouldn't consider it to be quite on par with Star Fox 64, largely due to having less content and not quite as much replay value (some kind of score system would have helped a lot), but this is still a super solid title for people looking for this type of game on PS1.
Need for Speed 2 is a big improvement to the first game, but it's still not quite there yet. While the first game looked and controlled like ass, this game now looks and controls okay, but it's still not quite up to the standard set by later titles. The entire game sports a weird kind of "low-rez" look to it, where the cars are very blocky and bits of the environment lack detail. It doesn't look terrible, but compared to Need for Speed 3 the difference is night and day. The controls are also a lot better than the original, but there's still a bit of stiffness here and drifting doesn't quite feel right yet, also car collisions are absurdly punishing here, often a simple sideswipe causes both cars to be sent flying, which costs you a ton of time and just generally feels lousy. The biggest issue with the game though is its progression system, namely that there basically isn't one. Don't expect car upgrading or anything like that, you can't even unlock new cars or tracks yet, there are hidden cars and a hidden track in the game, but you simply unlock those by entering codes rather than completing challenges, which is too bad because that would have helped a lot with replay value. I imagine this probably wasn't too bad for its time, but there's still not a lot of reason to go back to it when the series will make another huge leap forward with the next game.
DeleteBlades of Steel 2000 is a pretty solid game. In a certain sense I feel like it doesn't really stand out that much, but it looks pretty good and the gameplay is quite well-polished, as you'd expect from Konami. There are a number of nice minor touches in this game that help increase playability, like a sound effect whenever a turnover happens and indicators for players who are off-screen. I do wish the commentator had more things to say, though, you'll hear "fires it on the fly!" at least 50 times per game. A solid arcade-style title in any case.
It looks like I was mistaken about Zero Divide, it's not actually an Arena fighter, it's basically just a better version of Tekken 1. The gameplay is nearly identical to Tekken's, it's a string fighter with tons of overheads, some lateral movement, and you don't instantly turn around if the enemy gets behind you. Compared to Tekken 1, it plays faster and the jumps aren't as floaty (well, they are, but there's a low jump you can perform by pressing up and letting go quickly). As noted, it also has a block button, which is clearly unnecessary but is tolerable since it's only a 2 button fighter, the biggest problem is actually the hit detection. This game seems to have weird issues with moves just not connecting even though they clearly visually hit, this is most obvious with jump-ins and whiff punishes, which often just go straight through the opponent without making contact. In many cases I neutral jumped a low from the opponent, only to whiff my button on the way down, then immediately perform a low attack to punish their recovery that also went through their body, which feels very sloppy. In general, the game feels a bit mashy as moves come out very fast and there's the aforementioned issue with moves not always connecting well, but at least the presentation is generally decent. Tekken 3 is still way better, but it gets a little bit of a boost for coming out so early into the system's lifecycle.