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Last Topic's Ratings:
Body Harvest - BAGBAGBBAG - 45% {10} (2 SR)
Chameleon Twist 2 - BBAA - 25% (4)
Knife Edge: Nose Gunner - ABBAAA - 33% (6)
Robopon 64: Robot Ponkottsu 64 - GA - 75% (2)
Super Bowling - ABBA - 25% (4)
War Gods - BBBBABB - 7% (7)
This one wasn't pretty, I wonder if this was the lowest scoring N64 topic so far. Body Harvest is also probably the most divisive game we've done yet, no surprise it got the squiggle bracket.
Games for this topic:
Bottom of the 9th
Mission: Impossible
Monaco Grand Prix
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness
Super Robot Spirits
Wave Race 64
I remember renting Mission Impossible way back when and I've wanted to go back to it again sometime to see how it holds up. Also, I've heard good things about Ms Pac Man, which interests me because I want to see how they attempted to transition the franchise to 3D.
Bottom of the 9th - A
ReplyDeleteMission: Impossible - A
Monaco Grand Prix - A
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness - A
Super Robot Spirits - B
Wave Race 64 - G
Bottom of the 9th is a fairly solid baseball game. It's another one of the games this gen that features a batting indicator, where you have to line up the batting box with the ball as it comes in to score a hit. This generally makes batting feel a little bit more involved compared to past games and is generally a welcome addition. The presentation of the game is also decent, with reasonable commentary and decent animations and player graphics. There's also a scenario mode which I think is a neat idea, where you're placed into various memorable moments from baseball history with a goal to achieve, I think this is a neat idea for a game of this type and I'm surprised there aren't more games that use it. My complaint about this game is actually a bit of an unusual one, which is that I feel that fielding in this game is slightly too strong. Fielders run really fast in this game and there's a clear indicator of where the ball will land, which means that the vast majority of runners will always be caught out, even on line drives. This is fairly realistic to the real sport, and you'll often be seeing scores that are pretty close to the real thing, but it also makes the game feel a bit less interactive. There's not as much incentive to pitch well because most of the time even if they do make contact with the ball they'll just get caught out anyway, and even if I do let a runner on base he's usually not going anywhere. I feel like it would probably be better if it was a bit harder to make contact with the ball while batting (this is also pretty easy), but have a successful hit be at least a little more likely to get on base, thus rewarding skillful play a little bit more (in general, the best sports games are those where defense is a bit weaker compared to the real thing). As it stands, it kind of feels like the game plays itself to some extent, though at least it looks and sounds pretty good while doing so.
Mission Impossible is pretty different from how I remembered it. I always remembered it as being a bit similar to Goldeneye, but it's really not. For starters, Mission Impossible has much less focus on gunplay, it's really closer to being an action / stealth game where you can sometimes use a gun. The levels are also much smaller and simpler compared to Goldeneye and there's more of a focus on puzzles. Some aspects of the game are pretty cool, for example I like the little briefings they give you before the missions, and the facemaker is a cool gadget, even though its use is completely scripted. Actually, I think that's probably the game's biggest weakness, the missions are fairly small in scope and are often very linear, often leading to the gameplay mostly just invovling running from one coloured dot to another, and with the decreased focus on combat compared to Goldeneye it sometimes can feel a bit dull. Overall, I feel like Goldeneye is clearly superior in virtually every way, but it still feels okay, it's just doomed to always be compared to a drastically better game.
Monaco Grand Prix is a fairly basic F1 style racing game. As was noted by other posters, its main strength is its accessibility. The game options are very customizable, allowing you to have either a very arcade-style experience or a more sim-like game or anything in between. Beyond this, though, I kind of feel like it lacks any kind of standout feature to set it apart from its competition. It doesn't have many modes, basically just a typical season mode and single races, and there's no real progression to the season mode or anything like that. Apparently some of the other versions of the mode feature a track editor and some bonus features, which probably would have helped extend the longevity of the game, but these have been axed here, leaving it as a somewhat basic affair. There are a decent number of tracks and the game runs well, so you could certainly do worse, but it's probably not something that's going to be highly memorable after all this time.
DeleteMs. Pac-Man Maze Madness is a reasonable effort at bringing the Pac-Man formula into 3D. It's actually more similar to the original games than I expected, much of the game still revolves around gathering dots and the levels are still set up along a grid-type pattern, but it's been expanded a lot as well. Obviously, the levels are way bigger, being divided into little sub areas of sorts, and there are also many new level elements like jump pads, pushable blocks, boost pads, conveyor belts, and many others that are used to create puzzles. There are more enemies too, and a variety of hidden secrets in each level. Something I'm not crazy about is that there's also now a health bar, health pickups are common and you're allowed to take quite a lot of hits from the enemies, which makes the game feel a bit too simplistic. I often just run through enemies instead of avoiding them because death is so unlikely. Coupled with the fact that you get tons of lives and checkpoints are everywhere, you never have to pay to much attention the the enemies. It probably would have been better for you to die in a single hit, like in the old games. I also find it a bit weird that your movement is locked to the grid, when it's not even grid-locked in the original game, this sometimes makes movement feel a bit stiff or unresponsive. Levels are also full of unmarked points of no return and sometimes you can't 100% levels the first time through, which I find a bit annoying in a game like this. There's also a multiplayer mode, and I appreciate that it can be played against bots, but I also don't think it's especially remarkable. Overall, I think the game is just all right, it's not a bad effort, but I don't think it's really a classic either.
Super Robot Spirits is a crazily basic 3D fighting game. Something that stands out immediately about this game is that there's no cancelling whatsoever. Each character has a certain set of strings and that's about the limit of what they're capable of. You have supers, but they just have to be done raw, most characters don't even have anything that could be considered a proper jump in. Using special moves also costs a bit of meter, and you can fly into the air, though it's not very practical. And that's about all there is to the game. The concept behind the game is cool and the animations and sound aren't too bad, but there's just so little game here that it would be hard to recommend it in any capacity.
DeleteI've said before that when a game is G, you can often tell right away, and I think Wave Race 64 is one of those cases. It grabs you from pretty much the second you start it up, even though it's a pretty unique concept (I'm surprised there's still so few water racing games) the controls are very intuitive so it's easy to get into, and the presentation is fantastic for its time, it still looks pretty decent even today. That's not to say it has no depth, though, the buoy system in this game is pretty interesting, you're allowed to miss 5 per race, and it's generally advantageous to miss at least a couple, so figuring out when you want to skip them gives it a layer of strategy (and you may have to adjust on the fly if you miss one by accident). Some of the later courses also change somewhat from lap to lap, and the AI becomes quite vicious on the expert difficulty, but once you get it down it feels very smooth to play. I also like that you can unlock the ability to play the tracks backwards as this actually feels very different (it's far better than mirrored tracks). My only complaints are that there's a bit of a weird mechanic where you can't turn if you're going too slow, though you do eventually get used to it, and I kind of miss the turbo mechanic from Blue Storm, but it's still a good game in any case.