WackerJr
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Posts posted by WackerJr
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SpoilerI wonder if they’ve kept the ending, as that won’t have aged well!
The Jimmy Saville reference doesn’t seem quite so funny nowadays… 😳
I think I’m more excited that this opens up the possibility of more Rare games on NSO which I hoped for, but realistically didn’t think would happen.
I haven’t played JFG for such a long time. I don’t remember having an issue with the controls, just an issue with accidentally decapitating the tribals I was supposed to be saving! Great music and difficult towards the end.
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On 14/11/2023 at 7:01 AM, Hero-of-Time said:Yeah, it seemed like a perfect game for families and I'm happy to see you guys are enjoying it, @WackerJr. How are you finding the camera setting in the game? I know when I was playing it sometimes felt a little too far zoomed out but then I suppose this is to accommodate 4 players on screen at once.
Now you mention it, it did bother me at first, especially where I try to record video at times and worried it was too hard to see what was actually happening. I quickly adapted though and it doesn’t bother my wife or daughter. I agree it must be to accommodate 4 simultaneous players and gives more opportunity for everyone to remain on screen, especially where the camera only follows player one.
If there had been combat, or tight platforming then I think it would’ve bothered me more. As it happens, it’s quite generous with jumps and platforming, and the enemies are drawn to clearly show up against the backgrounds, so it hasn’t impacted gameplay for me.
I think I know the answer then, but does it regularly zoom out a lot even when playing it with one player?
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I’m currently playing through it with my wife and young daughter, and it’s probably the ideal game to play for us all together. We’re about 3/4 through and I agree with @Hero-of-Time’s assessment so far.
It’s gotten a little repetitive for me and my wife, and I wish they’d made the different areas stand out from one another a lot more. I like the humour (in keeping with the recent Mickey short shows on Disney+ that have enough humour for grown-ups as well as children) and my daughter is really enjoying it.
Oh, and a great inclusion is the ‘hug’ move, where two characters can choose to hug each other and this gives each player an extra temporary heart. In our household this has lead to many occasions where someone’s lost a heart and waits with their character arms outstretched ready for a hug, nobody noticing until one of us yells “hug meeeeeee!” 😂
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That was a really fun evening. While I’m still disappointment (in the main) by the choice of tracks in the final wave, they’re definitely better in multiplayer!
Still, one of my favourite moments is when a bunch of us all ended up just driving round the roundabout on Daisy Circuit, completely missing the actual exit! It doesn’t take a genius to work out how I finished in such a low placing! 😂
https://x.com/mike_wakely/status/1723459115387642045?s=46&t=u1D72kG-jusZXYg6nCGrTg
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On 04/11/2023 at 1:13 AM, Glen-i said:Nah, it's not as bad as two Wii tracks being there. Wii tracks aren't exactly the high point of Mario Kart.
At least the Tour tracks are new to people who didn't wanna touch Tour. Also, there's technically three of them here.
You make a good point about the Wii tracks, and this is even after Mario Kart Wii had over half of its tracks already in MK8DX before wave 9 (something I hadn’t even realised!).
Your correction at the end there saddened me even more! 😂
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Am I ungrateful? I’m excited by many of those new tracks, but I can’t help feel slightly deflated by two Tour tracks when there’s still quite a few tracks I would love to have seen.
But that finishes the additional FORTY-EIGHT tracks! That’s an incredible feat and has increased the life-span of the game ten-fold! Suddenly I don’t think I should feel ungrateful anymore!
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Has anyone heard when this is likely to drop on any of the streaming services without having to buy or rent it, in the UK?
I haven't yet found anything beyond paying for it on Prime.
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Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy (PS4)
I admit I'd never played any of the Crash Bandicoot series before this. As a fan of platform games I went in with high hopes for this and to see what all the fuss was about with one of the PS1's high-profiles series.
Boy was I disappointed.
It looks great and Vicarious Visions did a great job technically, updating the 32-bit polygons to make it look visually excellent. Sadly there wasn't much more they could do about the gameplay. I wasn't prepared for just how difficult the games were. My main frustration was because of why they were difficult, with you being unable to see hazards until it's too late or the camera angle making it incredibly tough to judge where Crash is landing, especially on the many small ledges with little margin for error.
The levels where you run into or out of the screen have the camera just too close to the action, and there's a LOT of memorisation needed for where obstacles will appear.
It's a shame, as there are some clever design moments here. For instance, there are times where they really play on the usual timings for when you'd initiate a jump. One example, is where you're waiting for a wall to raise up. We've been trained over the years to dash through it as soon as it raises, but here there are many levels where actually doing this will cause you to die because timing it that way will mean an enemy or obstacle will get you. Rather you have to know this ahead of time, and instead dash past the wall just before it comes back down again.
So the usual pattern for me was that I'd die, I'd learn, I'd likely die on the next attempt, and repeat until I got past the obstacles, inevitably losing all of my lives before reaching the end of the level and doing it all again!
Crash 2 and 3 are much better, introducing new moves (even if it doesn't tell you about all of the vital techniques) such as the double jump to make things easier. They are still tough though, with their fair share of frustrating rather than difficult levels.
I just don't get the love for Crash, or at least the first few games. There are some really clever bits of level design within the games, but I found myself getting way too frustrated throughout to properly appreciate and enjoy it.
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On 28/10/2023 at 12:59 PM, Dcubed said:Ahh, the days before multiplatform development and common hardware standards. Where each console would often get entirely unique games from different developers. Tell the truth? I miss it.
Even in this era (3DO/Jaguar/Saturn/PS1/N64), multiplatform releases were pretty rare (and almost exclusively western-developed). It wouldn’t be until the following generation (DC/PS2/GCN/Xbox) where multiplatform development really started to become the norm; and a big reason for that was the popularity of newly developed middleware engines (especially Renderware), and the introduction of formerly Windows PC-focused developers being brought onto consoles.
Wow it really does seem like an age since we had similar consoles having completely unique takes on the same game. I personally don't miss it, after all it usually transpired that someone felt as though they'd missed out with one version being better than the other. The likes of Aladdin, Batman and Jurassic Park were all very different for example. Nowadays though, we have the likes of Mortal Kombat 1 where the same games are released but are easily compared and it can become VERY evident where one console has the inferior version, so there's still much to be said for releasing different takes on a game!
Not to go diverge too much though. Great job @Cube it's really interesting reading up on the many different games in a series, and I certainly didn't realise the TWINE differences back in the day.
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On 17/10/2023 at 3:56 PM, Dcubed said:That’s gonna be interesting with how that handle that one, since CPT is actually two entirely different games in one cart; depending on whether you play it on the original DMG/GBPocket model or the GBC (they don’t even share save files, they’re literally entirely different games, with different level design).
Ahh Conker, in those innocent happy-go-lucky days before he discovered alcohol..... He was so much more naive back then. I'd love to see this on NSO, although I'd expect to see the Banjo-Kazooie GBA game before this, which was also a much better game!
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On 19/10/2023 at 7:11 AM, Dcubed said:But yeah, @Glen-i’s general sentiment is right. It’s a trope that surprisingly doesn’t crop up very often in video games… considering how hype inducing it can be? You’d think it’d happen more often!
I saw this and the other great suggestions made by others and I just assumed there would be plenty of games where this happens, due to how exciting and surprising it would be. I've really struggled to think of any other examples though!
The closest I could think of was Eternal Darkness, but in that one:
Spoilerthe protagonist(s) you face aren't from previous games, but from earlier on in the same game!
The other game was Donkey Kong Jr, but then facing Mario wasn't exactly a surprise, considering he was advertised as the nemesis from the outset.
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On 27/09/2023 at 7:54 PM, drahkon said:Horror game? Booohhhh.
Farming Simulator? Boooohhhh.
Weird West? Hmmm...might check it out, probably won't.I'm fine with a bad month for me...got way too much stuff to play
Those were precisely my thoughts when I saw the list too (although can’t be sure my booing was identical 😂).
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On 31/03/2023 at 12:28 PM, Ike said:Anyone else having issues loading threads sometimes on Android devices? It causes the system apps to crash sometimes resulting in a full reboot.
Pretty sure it's when there are embedded YouTube or Twitter posts (possibly both). I can't open the E3 memories thread on my phone.
I’m having a similar issue with page 3 of the Your Gaming Diary thread.
Trying to view it on my iPhone causes the page to initially load and then change to a “A problem repeatedly occurred on…” message.
It works for me when viewing it on a laptop. I’m assuming it’s to do with the embedded posts like Ike says. Does anyone else get the same?
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Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? (Switch)
Wales Interactive made a few FMV games during lockdown. This time they’ve used actors in both the US and UK to replicate one of those virtual quizzes many people did for entertainment during that time.
The twist here is that Abby’s Uncle Marcus has somehow been poisoned by one of their dysfunctional family members at a recent gathering. Rather than call in the police, he’s called upon Abby to use the annual family quiz to speak with members of her eccentric family to try and work how who the culprit is, how they did it & why. While absurd, the set up works in this darkly comic game.
You watch proceedings take place as if you were watching a Zoom call, occasionally you get to choose who to speak to, or which response Abby should make as a part of the conversation, which may or may not result in a clue being revealed.
Clues are stored against relevant family members, and towards the end if you have acquired enough evidence against someone you can accuse them. Thankfully evidence is kept for each subsequent playthrough, of which you’ll need a few in order to have a chance of revealing all the clues.
The writing is ok and witty, and the other family members are all deliberately dislikeable and all seem just as likely to be the culprit. I thought it was a good decision to use recognised actors from the likes of The Office (American version), Once Upon A Time and Coronation Street, as I felt they were convincing as their characters, and not as cheesy as I feared they might end up being (or like the acting in most older FMV games). The editing is good as it really does feel as though they are all conversing and insulting one another in real time.
I expected this to be a bit like Cluedo, where I’d be gaining clues and feeling smart with my Sherlock-like deductions. Sadly, who you reveal clues against feels random. As you’re just guessing what response will end up with anything being revealed.
It’s very much trial-and-error, as the game really just wants you to watch the conversations play out. Thankfully I found most entertaining, with Aunty June’s sheer disdain & uncaring bluntness to everyone a particular highlight. You can skip scenes you’ve seen before, although one issue is that scenes are often repeated regardless of choice (you may get a few new lines before reverting to the scene you’ve seen previously). If you selected a different option you can’t skip the scenes you’ve seen before. You can only skip them if you’ve selected the dialogue choice in a previous playthrough. This would be ok if some scenes weren’t standard and appear in every playthrough regardless of choice, so I ended up spending minutes watching the same scenes maybe 6 or 7 times. Not a big deal, but a little frustrating.
My wife asked why this couldn’t simply one of the multiple choice stories that Netflix have started included. I agreed, as it would have felt right at home there.
It was an entertaining watch, and at just a few hours was probably the right length (possibly even a little too long). I didn’t come away with the feeling of satisfaction and cleverness I was hoping I’d get from solving it, as I didn’t really feel in control of getting to the solution. I did enjoy the family banter and this was certainly more entertaining than my work Zoom/Teams/Skype calls!
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Enjoy! It’s been great hearing everyone’s thoughts on the game, so looking forward to hearing what you think (positive or not).
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While the tracks are limited in number right now, by picking the easier tracks to start with it is at least making it accessible to so many more.
F-Zero tracks, especially the later ones, I thought really do get tough. I enjoyed F-Zero GX but never got close to opening up the Arcade tracks.
This is a great surprise, runs smoothly, and while I’ve only managed a top 10 finish once so far (I’m usually only finishing top 50) it’s been a blast and a really positive move for the series.
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4 hours ago, Glen-i said:Man, I hope I can get one. Second instance of Nintendo producing a toy with a Disney character ever! Landmark moment!
I’m going to feel stupid when I know the answer, but which was the first?
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I still didn’t think that Nintendo could get the go-ahead from Disney, so well done to everyone involved in the negotiations. I hope I can get hold of one if these.
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5 hours ago, Glen-i said:I'm racking my head wondering how some of the puzzles work in this version! Because I still remember the Home puzzle in the sequel.
That was one of my first thoughts too. The first one had a couple of devious ones that relied on the DS’ features and the clamshell design. Hopefully they’ll come up with a clever alternative.
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Last chance guesses, which is mainly an enhanced look at what we already know about:
• Princess Peaches Peaches PeachesPeachesPeaches
• Luigi’s Mansion 2
• Mario Wonder
• Mario RPG
• Glimpse at one new Mario Kart course in the final batch.
• Baiten Kaitos 1&2
• Silk Song
• One more thing: Zelda Wind Waker for 2024 (yep l hope not but expect them to release that and Twilight Princess separately).
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On 12/06/2023 at 7:35 PM, Glen-i said:Yup. Visually, and audibly, it's such a vast improvement, that the in-game feature to seamlessly swap between retro and modern graphics, while very cool, feels unnecessary, because I would never want to stay in the retro style for long.
It's the kind of remake where I feel it's "perfect", not as in, it's suddenly the greatest game ever made, but there is no real reason to play the older version if you own this one.
You should try it, I feel it retains the gameplay feel of the original game, the only real difference is that they added some difficulty options, and the original difficulty is still there, it's just the hardest difficulty now.
Wow, you are absolutely right!
Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Switch)
It really does feel like this was a labour of love for developers Lizardcube, and the hand-drawn graphical style gives it so much more personality and character.
I have a bit of a mixed history with Wonder Boy 3. In short, I was conned as a child, by a local company (effectively run by one man) who ran a games swap. I ended up being persuaded to swap my impeccably conditioned Sega Master System games Sonic 2 and Donald Duck Lucky Dime Caper for poor conditioned copies of Wonder Boy and Wonder Boy 3, both missing instructions. Oh, AND on top of that I had to pay for the exchange as well. A few days later I discovered new copies of the games in town, my games unsurprisingly having a much higher value than the ones I’d gotten.
After playing Wonder Boy and feeling exploited, I didn’t get into Dragon’s Trap since I didn’t know how to use items and not really understanding the purpose.
Thankfully a few years later I revisited Dragon’s Trap, discovered how to use items, and ultimately discovered it to be one of the Master System’s best games! (Oh and even more years later I managed to buy used copies of Sonic 2 and Lucky Dime, play & enjoy them again before recouping my losses on eBay!)
The fact that the remake plays the same was fine by me. I had a blast playing this again. It’s only a short game, only lasting a few hours, and yes ultimately games like Shantae have taken the main character-transforms-into-animals-with-unique-skills and improved upon the whole concept, but thankfully The Dragon’s Trap remake has reminded me of when I finally grasped the game and not my frustrating first impression.
Oh, and yeh guy who originally conned me, he built his business up into a high street store, and then went bust. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…
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On 07/09/2023 at 8:11 PM, Ike said:I don’t think that answered anything.
I agree, and put my thoughts in this other thread. Acknowledging his contribution is lovely and the right thing to do, but I thought they could have put together a more impressive video package, representative of his work and the importance of being the voice of one of gamings most iconic mascot and it’s influence.
Previews so far for Wonder have been wildly impressive from what I’ve seen and read. It sounds as though journalists have had around a hour with the game in a selection of levels, and so far so positive.
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It seemed a nice thing to do, to acknowledge him. At the same time though, it seemed a very strange way of doing it!
I liked their little insider reveal that Martinet refers to Miyamoto as “Papa”, and it was touching for Miyamoto to publicly thank Martinet.
It was a little awkward mind, to view what could easily have been viewed as a private conversation between the two (if you ignore the clear looks beside the camera to the script) and one can only hope they’ve had proper conversations before this.
To me, doing something like this to thank Charles Martinet is a lovely act, and not something a voice actor would usually get. If you were going to do it though, to me a video package highlighting Charles taking over Mario’s voice and then showcasing how he took on more characters and more dialogue, with footage to highlight the sheer volume of games, interspersed with how he’s voiced Mario at events and include within the package the kind comments by Miyamoto (& even a sentence or two from others). That would have been a more fitting thank you (if you’ve seen the types of video packages companies like WWE can put together it gives you able idea of what is possible).
But this is Nintendo, and they do things their own way! At least we have the anecdote about how Martinet almost banged his head on the door….
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Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS)
I've played the previous games in the series sporadically since Curious Village first came out, and having finally gotten around to playing the 6th(!) installment of the series, I was sadly disappointed with this one. If you haven't already, then read @Dcubed's write-up earlier on in this thread. It's very accurate to my own opinion on the game, but with more scorn, and I appreciated the research into the other Layton games to get a more accurate comparison of the puzzles on offer.
There were still good puzzles in there, but such a high volume of ones that relied on moving objects via the touchscreen, as opposed to the logic puzzles of previous games. There is certainly a place for these, but I wasn't expecting such an over-abundance of them.
There are additional dlc puzzles, or at least were. Thankfully i downloaded the 365(?) additional puzzles before the eShop was shut down, although these are split into 20 different puzzles, just with varying difficulties, and to be honest I didn't get into these.
The story was also weaker than the other games.
SpoilerWhile previous games were maybe a little convoluted and extravagant when they finally revealed with the mystery was, at least they tried to put some form of logic into the explanation. Here, ultimately, it was just "it's magic"! The little mysteries were good in the way they broke up the locations, but they were too short to be of real interest, and they caused the main storyline to come to a halt, and by the time it resumed I'd almost forgotten what Layton and co were actually trying to do.
Hopefully the break before the Switch game will enable Level-5 to freshen up the series a bit, and hopefully research some more puzzles.
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N-E Mario Kart 8 DX Get Together
in Nintendo Gaming
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Thanks all for tonight, that was fun. The low player count meant I got my highest finish too!