Hey all. I've finally figured out that I want to have for gaming goals this year. I put a lot of emphasis on beating games last year and that didn't get me anywhere. Call it too much pressure or just bad goal setting whatever you like. This year like last is going to be mostly about playing games and not so much collecting them. I have a few specific things that I want to achieve in 2016 so I'm going to stick to that as opposed to making up a bunch of bullshit that I don't really care to do. So without further ado here is my goals for 2016.
1. Add 15 new titles to my NES collection.
You're probably sick of me bitching by this point that it's hard to find NES titles I need locally. However I did grow my collection by about this amount in 2015 so it should be realistic to do again. There are still plenty of low end titles that I need to fill out my collection so the focus at first will be to knock a few of those off and maybe be able to knock off one or two of the heavy hitters by year end.
2. Play 100 different NES games throughout 2016.
The emphasis here is play not beat. Ultimately as gamers what is the point of gaming. To enjoy the experience and ultimately beat the game. This year I want to try out a bunch of the shitty NES games that I've amassed throughout the years. But I also want to enjoy old personal favourites. This goal goes hand in hand with another one of my goals which I'll touch on in a bit. But really what I hope to achieve is to enjoy my favourite console as much as possible and maybe discover a few new hidden gems as it were that will become a part of my future rotation.
3. Play the PSP.
My eyes were opened by my fellow Instagrammers in recent weeks when seeing multiple posts about the PSP. Usually when I say I want to play a handheld device I automatically think of DS/3DS. I have so many good PSP games that get neglected and gather dust on my shelf. I'm not setting a number for this one. I just want to reintroduce PSP back into the rotation and if that means I play one longer game and really enjoy it, or play multiple games here and there so be it.
4. Stream/Blog more content in 2016.
I sort of took most of 2015 off from doing anything aside from Instagram. I do enjoy the social media aspect of the gaming community and that's why I want to keep up with the blog/podcast/youtube whatever the case may be. I enjoy looking/watching what my fellow gamers are playing or hearing their thoughts on games past and present. In some cases it inspires me to seek out a copy of a title for my collection and in others it reaffirms how awful a game is and reminds me to stay clear. Again I'm not putting any sort of number associated with it. If I feel like streaming a game, cool! If I want to write about some pickups or about a movie I watched; Power to me. As soon as I attach a number to this goal then it'll start to feel like something I have to do. One of the best things about doing the Two Crude Dudes podcast is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. Don't get me wrong we enjoy when people give us a listen and interact with what we have to say. But we're just as happy if we do an episode and if no one listened we'd survive. We do this cause we like to BS with each other, tell dirty jokes and give ourselves an excuse to drink some beer and talk about the things we're passionate about.
That's it I'm keeping it simple this year and just want to have fun playing games and maybe adding a few titles along the way. As always I appreciate that you took the time to read what I had to say. Til next time have fun gaming and remember The Dudes Reign Supreme in 2016!
TCD Logo
Friday, 22 January 2016
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
Hitman Tommy's 2015 Goals Final Update
I'm back as promised with a quick little update on last year's gaming goals. I haven't updated these since my July post so I'm just going to run through them quickly to see where I ended up. Sometime in the next couple days I'm going to finalize my 2016 goals and will post that once they're finalized. Let's get right to it.
1. Find 25 more NES carts for my collection.
Final Progress: 13/25 = 52%
As I mentioned in my previous post being able to find games that I need locally has really dried up. I mentioned the local retail shop and online buy and sell but additionally our local flea markets selection has been extremely stagnant with usually only one game that I'm looking for. The last 4 times I went it was actually the same game each time cause the vendor has it priced for more than it's worth and I'm not paying that. He does give alright trade on DVD's and what not so I may have to put some sort of package together to bring that one home. Otherwise it's the same titles over and over again that are just collecting dust on their shelves. I used to also be able to luck out at Value Village from time to time but those of you that frequent VV know what I'm talking about when I say that their pricing for retro titles has become absolute horseshit. I went from checking Value Village on a weekly basis to maybe going down there once every month or two. All that usually comes home on those trips is some magazines or other useless shit that I didn't really need. IE: Robotech VHS tapes.
2. Complete 5 X-Box 360 games.
Final Progress: 2/5 = 40%
For a few months after my last update I don't think I even turned the Xbox on. It's become pretty hard to play while my 2 year old is awake. Firstly he wants to play cause it's new to him and thinks it looks interesting but secondly most titles that I want to play aren't age appropriate so I don't want him seeing that sort of thing. I did find the time to finally play through Tomb Raider which was a lot of fun. I got hooked really hard and polished it off in about a week. Aside from that I tried a few other games but didn't make much progress with them except for Deadpool. That I've probably played through 75% of the game but I needed to take a break just cause it was getting a little repetitive in terms of combat. I may have finished it off but I got an Xbox One about 2 weeks before year end and I got focused on playing newer titles. On a side note when I got my 2015 recap from Microsoft I only had logged about 135 hours on the Xbox all of last year.
3. Beat one game for 10 different consoles/handhelds
Final Progress: 3/10 = 30%
Not much to say here. I beat a few NES games last year but that only counts as one toward the tally. I'd already beaten an Xbox 360 game so Tomb Raider didn't count. All in all I don't think this goal was thought out very well. The idea was to promote playing more games on different systems which I did. Focusing on beating them was maybe the wrong idea.
4. My 5 biggest wants of 2015.
Final Progress: 1/5 = 20%
I didn't find any of the other 4 titles that were on top of my want list. Just as a reminder these were the titles I was looking for and Dragon's Revenge was the only one that came home.
1. Professor Layton and The Last Specter
2. Secret of Mana
3. Blazing Lazers
4. Grandia
5. Dragon's Revenge
That's it, like I said I just wanted to cap off last year with a quick little update and now I can move forward into 2016. As always thanks for reading. See you in a bit with some new goals for the new year.
1. Find 25 more NES carts for my collection.
Final Progress: 13/25 = 52%
As I mentioned in my previous post being able to find games that I need locally has really dried up. I mentioned the local retail shop and online buy and sell but additionally our local flea markets selection has been extremely stagnant with usually only one game that I'm looking for. The last 4 times I went it was actually the same game each time cause the vendor has it priced for more than it's worth and I'm not paying that. He does give alright trade on DVD's and what not so I may have to put some sort of package together to bring that one home. Otherwise it's the same titles over and over again that are just collecting dust on their shelves. I used to also be able to luck out at Value Village from time to time but those of you that frequent VV know what I'm talking about when I say that their pricing for retro titles has become absolute horseshit. I went from checking Value Village on a weekly basis to maybe going down there once every month or two. All that usually comes home on those trips is some magazines or other useless shit that I didn't really need. IE: Robotech VHS tapes.
2. Complete 5 X-Box 360 games.
Final Progress: 2/5 = 40%
For a few months after my last update I don't think I even turned the Xbox on. It's become pretty hard to play while my 2 year old is awake. Firstly he wants to play cause it's new to him and thinks it looks interesting but secondly most titles that I want to play aren't age appropriate so I don't want him seeing that sort of thing. I did find the time to finally play through Tomb Raider which was a lot of fun. I got hooked really hard and polished it off in about a week. Aside from that I tried a few other games but didn't make much progress with them except for Deadpool. That I've probably played through 75% of the game but I needed to take a break just cause it was getting a little repetitive in terms of combat. I may have finished it off but I got an Xbox One about 2 weeks before year end and I got focused on playing newer titles. On a side note when I got my 2015 recap from Microsoft I only had logged about 135 hours on the Xbox all of last year.
3. Beat one game for 10 different consoles/handhelds
Final Progress: 3/10 = 30%
Not much to say here. I beat a few NES games last year but that only counts as one toward the tally. I'd already beaten an Xbox 360 game so Tomb Raider didn't count. All in all I don't think this goal was thought out very well. The idea was to promote playing more games on different systems which I did. Focusing on beating them was maybe the wrong idea.
4. My 5 biggest wants of 2015.
Final Progress: 1/5 = 20%
I didn't find any of the other 4 titles that were on top of my want list. Just as a reminder these were the titles I was looking for and Dragon's Revenge was the only one that came home.
1. Professor Layton and The Last Specter
2. Secret of Mana
3. Blazing Lazers
4. Grandia
5. Dragon's Revenge
That's it, like I said I just wanted to cap off last year with a quick little update and now I can move forward into 2016. As always thanks for reading. See you in a bit with some new goals for the new year.
Hitman Tommy's 2015 Five Month Recap
I've toyed around in the last couple weeks with how I was going to cover off pretty much 5 months of last year in one blog post. Prior to the video that went up earlier today the last time a blog was posted was in mid August of last year. Recalling the time period wouldn't be much an issue as most of it has been chronicled via my Instagram account (@hitmantommy if you care to have a look). But I felt it important to make a point of capping off 2015 aside from the goals I set for myself last year. However how far does one go? Five months is a long period of time to cover off, at what point does it begin to bore the shit out of the reader. To that end this will be a very brief recap of the end of 2015 highlighting some of the important gaming pickups that I had and to touch on a few of the games that I played as well. As for my 2015 goals those I will cover off in a blog post coming in the next couple days and we can put a pin in 2015 and look forward to 2016.
Just a quick note for fans of the Two Crude Dude Podcast. There will hopefully be new episodes in the works in 2016 but no promises at this point. My counterpart Super Robot Tyson is the one responsible for editing the show. For those of you who've listened you know that once him and I get going we talk and talk so each episode can get in the 2-3 hour range depending on what we our topic is. As you can imagine this then means he needs to spend several hours taking that and turning it into something that could be pleasing to the ears of our audience. Finding that amount of time is nigh impossible these days. We do have a few options which are shorter shows which of course means less editing, or taking one show and breaking it into shorter chunks. We both do really enjoy doing the show but only time will tell what happens. In the mean time we are going to explore other alternatives ie: YouTube and other forms of media but I'll go into that at a later date.
Anyways back to the point of this entry; what the fuck happened to the rest of 2015? As it often does life got in the way of this hobby of ours, but some time was still found for picking up a few titles as well as playing some games too. Finding NES games that I need has been bloody impossible locally as 2015 drew to a close. I did manage to pick up a few titles thanks to Central Canada Comic Con in October as well as a Toy Show that held at a local hotel that they do a few times a year. As I've mentioned before usually I walk into a place and if they have NES games I usually have what they have to offer. You'd think that saying I still need approximately 150 titles that it wouldn't be that hard but sadly it is. The main source of finding new titles is a retail store which quite frankly doesn't have a god damn clue how to price things. But when they finally have something I need it's hard not to get excited about the chance to add one more title to the collection but luckily restrain usually prevails. The other main source is the local online buy and sell but I don't need to explain to you the kind of scum that trolls those sorts of sites and unfortunately resellers usually come away with the good stuff off of there. Despite these issues which I'm sure we're all facing in our respective areas I was able to add Pac-Mania, Krazy Kreatures and Metal Fighter. I did manage to snag a box and manual for Clash at Demonhead to complete my copy as well.
Aside from the NES there wasn't too much to call home about. We did fall into a nice chunk of Famicom games at comic con for a cheap price so it was fun going through those and I did grab a copy of Star Control on Genesis from the Toy Show. It was a tough decision simply because there was some damage to the box. Star Control 3 is one of my favourite PC games so I really wanted the original. I ended up pulling the trigger and was happy that i did. I did one more loop to the table I found it at about 15 minutes later and a guy was inquiring about the game as he had decided to come back for it but was too late. Chalk up a win for Hitman Tommy. All of these games are pictured on my Instagram so i won't take the time to link the pictures here.
October was sort of a loss as it was once again time for the annual Horror Movie Month. In past years gaming usually takes a back seat during October and this year was no exception; quite possibly even more so. My son is old enough now that he pays attention to what I watch or say and all that good stuff. Thus being able to watch slasher movies where bitches are getting stabbed(and all other sorts of nonsense) during a normal waking hour is no longer an option. I could get the occasional one in if he was napping if there wasn't something else to be done. Otherwise the bulk of my horror watching this year took place between the hours of 10pm-4am depending on the day. I won't go into as much detail about this years movies. Like everything else they are on my Instagram but I will say that the final total this year was 27 movies. Down a little bit from the last couple years but all in all with everything else going on I'd say that's pretty respectable.
Back on the gaming front I did have a Solo drunken PS2 gaming night. Tyson and I like to do that with PS1 games and I posted about having a night like that by myself earlier in 2015. I had got looking at my PS2 games and though wow there's some stuff here that I've never really given a chance. I gave 8 title a fair shake that night. Some of them not too great and a couple good surprises. I even went back and played Kim Possible for several hours the next day.
In December I finally went back and finished the Tomb Raider reboot from a couple years ago. I restarted as it had been so long since I started my initial save. Once I got going I couldn't stop and ended up plowing through it in little over a weeks time I believe. But the real gaming news for me in December was that an Xbox One joined my family of consoles. My parents/sister/brother-in-law all went in and bought me one for my birthday. Very unexpectedly but highly appreciated as I knew that I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on a new console at this point in time. The bundle they picked up for me included Fifa 16, The Lego Movie game and Rare Replay. As an added bonus my sister also bought me a copy of Toy Soldiers only because she saw you could be He-Man and Cobra Commander that's all she needed to know. A week later it was Christmas and I added NHL 16 and Arkham Knight to my Xbone titles and my wife picked up Yoshi's Woolly World for us to play. Less than 24 hours later it was Boxing Day, while I hadn't planned on doing much shopping but now that I have a new console to pick up for there were actually some deals to be had. I picked up Rise of the Tomb Raider, Transformers Devastation, Watchdogs Limited Edition, Sunset Overdrive and Rory McIlroy PGA Tour. Considering that a week earlier I had no Xbox One, to end Boxing week with 11 games for the new system was a pretty damn good start. I have had the opportunity to sink some solid hours into a few of these games so far and my wife and I have played some co-op Yoshi and managed not to murder each other so chalk up another win.
There were a few other decent Boxing Day grabs mainly some Star Wars figures, DVD Box sets and a couple Amiibos. Again as the theme was with this post if you want to see pictures. Feel free to hit me up on Instagram.
I think that about covers it. Surely I glanced over some other important notes but pretty much that was my last few months in 2016. Wordy as all hell I'm sure but you try putting five months into a couple paragraphs. I shall be back in probably another day or possibly mere hours with my 2015 Goals Recap which will just be a short post to see where I ended up. SPOILER ALERT: I didn't do very fuckin' good. But hopefully will improve upon that in the new year.
I hope 2015 was good to all of you and I wish you a belated Happy New Year. See you soon, the Dudes will reign supreme in 2016.
Just a quick note for fans of the Two Crude Dude Podcast. There will hopefully be new episodes in the works in 2016 but no promises at this point. My counterpart Super Robot Tyson is the one responsible for editing the show. For those of you who've listened you know that once him and I get going we talk and talk so each episode can get in the 2-3 hour range depending on what we our topic is. As you can imagine this then means he needs to spend several hours taking that and turning it into something that could be pleasing to the ears of our audience. Finding that amount of time is nigh impossible these days. We do have a few options which are shorter shows which of course means less editing, or taking one show and breaking it into shorter chunks. We both do really enjoy doing the show but only time will tell what happens. In the mean time we are going to explore other alternatives ie: YouTube and other forms of media but I'll go into that at a later date.
Anyways back to the point of this entry; what the fuck happened to the rest of 2015? As it often does life got in the way of this hobby of ours, but some time was still found for picking up a few titles as well as playing some games too. Finding NES games that I need has been bloody impossible locally as 2015 drew to a close. I did manage to pick up a few titles thanks to Central Canada Comic Con in October as well as a Toy Show that held at a local hotel that they do a few times a year. As I've mentioned before usually I walk into a place and if they have NES games I usually have what they have to offer. You'd think that saying I still need approximately 150 titles that it wouldn't be that hard but sadly it is. The main source of finding new titles is a retail store which quite frankly doesn't have a god damn clue how to price things. But when they finally have something I need it's hard not to get excited about the chance to add one more title to the collection but luckily restrain usually prevails. The other main source is the local online buy and sell but I don't need to explain to you the kind of scum that trolls those sorts of sites and unfortunately resellers usually come away with the good stuff off of there. Despite these issues which I'm sure we're all facing in our respective areas I was able to add Pac-Mania, Krazy Kreatures and Metal Fighter. I did manage to snag a box and manual for Clash at Demonhead to complete my copy as well.
Aside from the NES there wasn't too much to call home about. We did fall into a nice chunk of Famicom games at comic con for a cheap price so it was fun going through those and I did grab a copy of Star Control on Genesis from the Toy Show. It was a tough decision simply because there was some damage to the box. Star Control 3 is one of my favourite PC games so I really wanted the original. I ended up pulling the trigger and was happy that i did. I did one more loop to the table I found it at about 15 minutes later and a guy was inquiring about the game as he had decided to come back for it but was too late. Chalk up a win for Hitman Tommy. All of these games are pictured on my Instagram so i won't take the time to link the pictures here.
October was sort of a loss as it was once again time for the annual Horror Movie Month. In past years gaming usually takes a back seat during October and this year was no exception; quite possibly even more so. My son is old enough now that he pays attention to what I watch or say and all that good stuff. Thus being able to watch slasher movies where bitches are getting stabbed(and all other sorts of nonsense) during a normal waking hour is no longer an option. I could get the occasional one in if he was napping if there wasn't something else to be done. Otherwise the bulk of my horror watching this year took place between the hours of 10pm-4am depending on the day. I won't go into as much detail about this years movies. Like everything else they are on my Instagram but I will say that the final total this year was 27 movies. Down a little bit from the last couple years but all in all with everything else going on I'd say that's pretty respectable.
Back on the gaming front I did have a Solo drunken PS2 gaming night. Tyson and I like to do that with PS1 games and I posted about having a night like that by myself earlier in 2015. I had got looking at my PS2 games and though wow there's some stuff here that I've never really given a chance. I gave 8 title a fair shake that night. Some of them not too great and a couple good surprises. I even went back and played Kim Possible for several hours the next day.
In December I finally went back and finished the Tomb Raider reboot from a couple years ago. I restarted as it had been so long since I started my initial save. Once I got going I couldn't stop and ended up plowing through it in little over a weeks time I believe. But the real gaming news for me in December was that an Xbox One joined my family of consoles. My parents/sister/brother-in-law all went in and bought me one for my birthday. Very unexpectedly but highly appreciated as I knew that I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on a new console at this point in time. The bundle they picked up for me included Fifa 16, The Lego Movie game and Rare Replay. As an added bonus my sister also bought me a copy of Toy Soldiers only because she saw you could be He-Man and Cobra Commander that's all she needed to know. A week later it was Christmas and I added NHL 16 and Arkham Knight to my Xbone titles and my wife picked up Yoshi's Woolly World for us to play. Less than 24 hours later it was Boxing Day, while I hadn't planned on doing much shopping but now that I have a new console to pick up for there were actually some deals to be had. I picked up Rise of the Tomb Raider, Transformers Devastation, Watchdogs Limited Edition, Sunset Overdrive and Rory McIlroy PGA Tour. Considering that a week earlier I had no Xbox One, to end Boxing week with 11 games for the new system was a pretty damn good start. I have had the opportunity to sink some solid hours into a few of these games so far and my wife and I have played some co-op Yoshi and managed not to murder each other so chalk up another win.
There were a few other decent Boxing Day grabs mainly some Star Wars figures, DVD Box sets and a couple Amiibos. Again as the theme was with this post if you want to see pictures. Feel free to hit me up on Instagram.
I think that about covers it. Surely I glanced over some other important notes but pretty much that was my last few months in 2016. Wordy as all hell I'm sure but you try putting five months into a couple paragraphs. I shall be back in probably another day or possibly mere hours with my 2015 Goals Recap which will just be a short post to see where I ended up. SPOILER ALERT: I didn't do very fuckin' good. But hopefully will improve upon that in the new year.
I hope 2015 was good to all of you and I wish you a belated Happy New Year. See you soon, the Dudes will reign supreme in 2016.
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
2016 Hitman Tommy Game Room Tour
Hey everyone. Still working on piecing together my next couple blog posts. In the meantime I've shot a quick game room video. Please check it out if you haven't yet.
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
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!
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!
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