Solo Playstation Night

Hey Hitman Tommy here! While Tyson was busy accumulating some new toys and games I haven't really picked up anything new. I've ran into a few crazy Xbox 360 deals at a few retailers that were majorly clearing them out. I think I've already outlined some of those on the podcast or on Instagram. However I haven't really found time to hit the pawn shops or even hit the overpriced "Retro" gaming stores.

In recent weeks I started trying to play a few more games. I spent a bit of time on a few Xbox titles and then about a week ago it felt like it was time to have another Playstation 1 night. Usually Playstation 1 night for Tyson and I devolves into "Shitty PS1" night as between the two of us we have a plethora of titles to choose from, many of which are below average. While the PS1 has many of my favourite games of all-time, it's also home to some of the worst titles imaginable. But we still have a great time drinking some beers and every now and then will find a game that is awful that has enough redeeming qualities to make it enjoyable. Of course we also usually stick to multiplayer games so that we can both play at the same time.

Anyways I suggested to Tyson that we have another one of these nights as my wife was out of town with my son but unfortunately our schedules didn't work, instead of wasting my night doing nothing I decided to have my own PS1 night but this time I could play pretty much anything that I wanted. The goal though was to stick to titles that I've never or barely ever played. Not only did this keep me entertained for an evening but I still had the house to myself the next day so I extended it through the next morning and afternoon. Of course in typical TCD fashion the gaming experience was fueled largely by Original 16 beers.

I also started to give mini 3 sentence reviews on each game after I played them but this only lasted for the first few before I stopped. I won't be going through each game one by one but I wanted to share my thoughts on a few of the good, few of the bad and maybe some of the surprises. But before get into that here's the list of what I played:

Sunday
Ape Escape
Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters
Buster Bros Collection
Danger Girl
Dora the Explorer: Barnyard Buddies
Lego Rock Raiders
Pipe Dreams 3D
Sabrina the Teenage Witch: A Twitch in Time
The Smurfs

Monday
Pac-Man World
VIP
Pitfall 3D
The Fifth Element
Planet of the Apes
Spider-Man
Strider 2
Pandemonium!

Worst game of Sunday Night:
Runner Up- Danger Girl
Winner- Dora the Explorer: Barnyard Buddies

Okay this one is probably not even fair. I'm not in the demographic that the Dora game is meant for so of course I didn't enjoy it. From what I recall it controlled relatively okay. However again it is meant for small children so I'm going to spare it the wrath that it would have gotten for being a shitty game. That being said will my son enjoy this game when he's old enough to play.... probably. Danger Girl may be the worse of the two overall but I'm going to talk about it in a different category.

Best game of Sunday Night:
Runner Up- Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters
Winner- The Smurfs

Again this wasn't a hard one to figure out. I've discussed my love of the Smurfs game on many social media platforms however I hadn't played in damn near a decade which is how it even became an option for the evenings game selections. I wasn't sure if a lot of my love for this game was rooted in nostalgia or was it actually a good game. Well this confirmed that not only was it as good as I remembered but will definitely be going back in the pile to be played again real soon.

The Biggest Disappointment of Sunday Night:
Runner-Up- Sabrina the Teenage Witch: A Twitch in Time
Winner- Danger Girl

Sabrina and Danger Girl both had some real potential. Honestly I wasn't expecting much out of Sabrina the big disappointment came from not being able to unlock any Melissa Joan Hart nude photos. I'm joking of course but this leads me into one of my disappointments about Danger Girl which was a lack of unlockables. I love the Danger Girl comic series and I believe the artist J Scott Campbell even did brand new art for the instruction manual and loading screens so how do you not include extras in this game like finding sketches or unlocking additional artwork. This isn't exactly outside the box thinking lets face it this is something that most comic book games of the era were doing but you know what else it worked. Even if the game play wasn't the greatest did I still want to go find that hidden comic cover or unlock concept art. Absolutely. That aside the game play of Danger Girl didn't do it any favours either. The combat was awful, movement not great. Every now and then it would show signs of having real potential but overall it just didn't work. Which is too bad cause I really wanted to like it.

The Biggest Surprise of Sunday Night:
Winner- Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters

This was a title if I hadn't planned on playing other games that night I would have just spent the entire time with this. Bugs and Taz both controlled rather well. There was a good supporting cast of other Looney Tunes characters and lots of items you had to find in each level. Definitely lots to explore in this one and I barely scratched the surface in about the hour I spent with it. One of the levels I did have to ride a dinosaur or dragon in and it controlled like a tank. However that was one small moment and even then once I got used to how it moved it was easy to deal with. I'm really looking forward to playing more of this one real soon.

Worst game of Monday:
Runner-Up- Planet of the Apes
Winner- The Fifth Element

This was tough to decide on simply because in a lot of ways these games felt similar and as such felt equally shitty. I spent a bit more time with Fifth Element just because I like the movie and wanted to give it benefit of the doubt. But the movement in this game was atrocious. The combat was hit and miss but more miss than anything. The highlight was playing as a jagged polygon Milla Jovovich in the little white suit she wore however I died shortly after getting to that point and that was all she wrote for me.

Best game of Monday:
Runner-Up- Spider-Man
Winner- Strider 2

I had a vote on Monday to help determine which game was going to be one of the last I played. It was between Contra: Legacy of War and Strider 2. In the end Strider was the winner and I had the privilege to play about an hour of it. Granted my Strider skills were severely out of shape but I was able to progress a bit further with each play and you can't ask for much more than that. No surprises here the control is awesome and was a real enjoyable gaming experience overall.

The Biggest Disappointment of Monday:
Winner- None

Honestly I hadn't expected much out of a few of the games so when they were bad it wasn't a surprise. Everything else at least had something about it that made the experience worth while.

The Biggest Surprise of Monday:
Runner-Up- Pitfall 3D
Winner- VIP

Not going to lie, the only reason that I owned Pitfall 3D was because Bruce Campbell provided voice acting for the game. Beyond that I had no major interest in it. However I was pleasantly surprised with the game. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it made me say "I'd play this again" obviously it did it's job. The real surprise was VIP. For those of you that may not recall VIP was the TV show that starred Pamela Anderson. Essentially the premise is she was the face of a protection agency but it was the rest of the team that had the talent in protecting the clients. As such I expected the game to be absolutely horrible. Now the gameplay it's self was extremely simplistic. There was combat sequences and areas with nothing but shooting. The shooting was pretty straight forward aim, pull the trigger, repeat. The combat scenes were controlled by preset button presses. For example it would flash up X,O on the screen and if you pressed those buttons in the correct sequence then you'd kick the guy. If you messed up you would take some damage. Pretty straight forward but surprisingly fun. It didn't hurt that every successful strike counted towards your combo until you made a mistake. The graphics seemed about average for the era and the cut scenes were short but long enough to provide a decent amount of story so that people who were unfamiliar with the series could kind of get the jist of what was going on. Of course like any good action game you get points for everything you do and receive a ranking at the end of each level. What good are these points you may ask? Unlockables!!!!! Granted it's very basic trade in your points for being able to rewatch the cut scenes or unlock Pam Anderson promotional photos. But still it was something. I'm going to go back and finish this game.


Anyways I hoped you enjoyed getting a sense of the experience I had over that 24 hour period and maybe you'll even find a title or two that you'll give a chance next time you see it in a clearance bin. I spent way too much time playing games and drinking way to many beers but I can't wait to do it all over again. If you have any of your own comments or experiences with these games feel free to hit me up on twitter @TCDpcast.


Until next time, keep gaming!