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[frank_one]

These days I'm playing the Quake 2 - The Reckoning (1998 ), the first expansion pack for Quake 2. More of the same with very few new elements, but it's ok, the maps are well designed.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by Leo656

FINALLY!
https://scontent.fewr1-6.fna.fbcdn.n...90&oe=602520C3
https://scontent.fewr1-6.fna.fbcdn.n...80&oe=60257B7E
https://scontent.fewr1-5.fna.fbcdn.n...a9&oe=6025D995

Good Brother Josh Adams (aka "Violence") sold me his entire Master System load for a song. I just need to get the plug wires and we'll be in business! Pretty nice haul of games, too! Really pays to have friends in high places.

To illustrate how important this excursion and acquisition was... I missed today's entire block of "My Little Pony" for this.

Oh wow, jackpot! I am very happy for you! I may have never owned or played on a Master System, I'm still interested in one and playing the games (I know sone of it's library of games are also on the Game Gear but still). Always wondered what gaming was like on the MS. This is great dude! Sucks that you missed MLP for this but I don't think you should regret it.

[Leo656]

It's busted, though. I'm trying to find a guy who can repair it, but I might have to just keep the games and buy a new console. We'll see what happens!

[Storm Eagle]

I'm finally playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD after getting it in 2016 when it came out. I started playing last month, and I'm almost finished with it.

By the way, I realized that Minish Cap is the first Zelda game where I haven't bothered to find every item.

[Leo656]

Had a busy few days so I haven't been playing much. Just short, simple stuff.

I played a little Frogger (SNES) for old time's sake (although I came up playing it on the Atari 2600 as a kid). I like the graphics a lot but I get why some people have issues with it, as it's not a perfect port. In particular, the lack of music is kind of a bummer. Some people complain that the gameplay isn't on point but it plays just fine for me. I'll still probably pick up the Genesis version at some point, though, since that's supposed to be a near-perfect arcade port. Wonder why they didn't bother to finish the SNES version?

Trivia: Apparently Frogger was the very last game released for both the SNES and Genesis. Which might explain why the SNES version had better graphics but no music, and why the Genesis version was a simple arcade port with no upgrades whatsoever. Both version were probably just pushed out the door for a quick buck at the end of the consoles' lifespan. BUT, either way it's fine by me; I love Frogger.

I also took a swing at Tetris 2 (SNES) for the first time. I'd never played it before. It definitely took some getting used to, and it's a lot more like Dr. Mario than regular Tetris, but it's still a lot of fun once you get used to that. I wouldn't say I'm great at it but it's a fun game to just unwind with before bed or whatever, which is what I mostly play Tetris-type of games for.

I also got Hook (SNES) and Tom & Jerry (NES) in the mail today but haven't played them yet. Hook, I finished a couple of times as a rental back when I was a kid. Never played Tom & Jerry.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

I love Tom and Jerry on the NES! I've played it since I was a child. A great platformer! The music despite not having many tracks in the game is so catchy and very faithful to the classic soundtrack of the series. Let me know what you think of it whenever you play it or if you have any trouble in the game, Leo! I've beaten it before.

[Leo656]

True story, I always wanted to play it since I was a kid, and Game Players magazine had a walkthrough on it in one of the issues I'd bought. I believe it was the issue that featured Super Mario World on the cover, and an extended preview of "Hook" (the movie as well as the various games) inside as well. I could be mixing things up but I don't think I am. There may have even been a walkthrough on "Batman: Return of the Joker" for NES as well.

Anyways, it always looked neat but I never got to try it out because none of the rental stores around here ever stocked it and I never saw it for sale, either. I think it came out right around the time the SNES was catching fire and like a lot of NES games of that era subsequently went overlooked. Like forget bringing in new NES games to rent out; once the SNES hit, the video stores around here started selling off ALL their NES titles at discount prices just to clear up shelf space for more SNES and Genesis stuff. So there's a LOT of NES games that came out after like 1991 that I've only seen in magazines and YouTube videos. Like "Chip & Dale 2" or "G.I. Joe 2" and stuff like that. I know they existed but nobody around here carried 'em.

Thankfully this one is nowhere near as rare as some of those others, and I got it very cheap. Actually not a huge Tom & Jerry fan in general, but I AM a big fan of NES-era platformers. So I figured it's worth picking up for what I paid. It seems to have a good reputation. I plan to check it out within the next couple of days.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Nice story. I remember owning a Nintendo Power magazine with Final Fantasy 2 on the cover that shows the entire level layouts of the game. I think I ordered the issue online just to have it rather than needing a lot of help with the game.

It's a really good game. For me personally, I think it's my favorite NES platformer based on a licensed property. You could say it was my "Ducktales" during my youth. My dad would always play the game whenever I got stuck and it's one of the few games he's actually better than me at (which is saying something since he doesn't play video games). It will get hard at times but not frustrating. Because I always loved Tom and Jerry's music, I would keep Jerry still just to listen to it (also a nice attention to detail: if you pause at certain points of the music track, certain beats of the track will disappear until you jump and it will reappear which I think is a nice touch. Try it!).

I'd would have liked to play as Tom as I prefer him over Jerry but it is what it is, he is the antagonist of the game.

I saw Mike Matei play a stream of NES games and when he got to this game, no joke I wanted to strangle him. He spent most of the game complaining for the sake of it over stupid little things. I came close to pulling my hair out. No offense to the guy but he needs to learn some patience.

[Leo656]

Mike is the entire reason I don't watch more Cinemassacre stuff.

Watching videos of other people playing video games is honestly kinda boring to me anyway, but watching and listening to Mike just makes it unbearable.

Anyways, once I do play Tom & Jerry I'll be sure to post one of my usual detailed reviews. I can't promise that it'll be the next thing I play but probably soon.

[Leo656]

Got some more stuff in the mail today. Specifically, Ghostbusters (Sega Master System) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Gamecube). Never played either, looking forward to checking them out. I'm aware that the SMS version of Ghostbusters supposedly plays much better than the NES one. The graphics are obviously much better but I never played it so we'll see how it plays. Especially that staircase sequence. Ooof.

[shredder orokusaki]

I just finished Yakuza Like a Dragon ! After 126 hours and one day before release of yakuza 3 4 and 5 on PC! Imust say the story was very good but gameplay not good becuase it is turned based and not real action like the other yakuza games. It was my first turn based game that i played. Cant wait for 3-5 tomorow but i dont recomend like a dragon to anyone who dont like turn based games like me! It could had been 1000 times better if it was action game like all the others.

[Storm Eagle]

I went and played Star Fox Zero for the first time since 2016, when it came out. The control scheme alone makes me want to rank it as the lowest in the series.

[Leo656]

Spent the last few days playing some SNES. I spent most of my time with The Adventures of Batman & Robin, which is one of the most highly-rated games on the SNES as well as one of the most highly sought-after, with authentic cartridge copies fetching around $200. I managed to get a $20 reproduction cart, just so I could finally play it (the rental stores near me never had it when I was a kid). After all the hype, I was really looking forward to this one.

...I'm glad I paid $20. To be blunt, it's NOT as good as everyone says it is, and in re-reading a lot of the reviews it's quite clear to me that people were generally enchanted and bedazzled by the admittedly-stellar graphics. It's not a BAD game by any means, but all the 9/10s are undeserved. I'd give it an 8, maybe even a 7 for some really frustrating and annoying level design and needlessly difficult sections. The graphics, absolutely, are 9 or 10/10 for the SNES; but outside of that there are lots of problems that were easily fixable and would have seriously helped the gameplay. But big chunks of it just aren't fun. A lot of it IS fun; about a quarter of it is just plain awful, though.

I've got a lot to say, so this will be another split post.

The game plays out like a selection of Animated Series episodes, and you end up fighting one of the iconic Batman villains at the end of each level, as well as a Boss Gauntlet in the final level. It's a great premise, well-executed, and again, I think this premise along with the graphics are why the game gets such high marks from people. It seems like it SHOULD be the "perfect" Batman game.

Unfortunately, like a lot of games that can't decide if it wants to be a beat-'em-up or a platformer, it does NEITHER of those things very well. The beat-'em-up levels are fine, if a bit thin, but the platforming parts are pretty lousy, due to Batman's jump not going as high or far as it honestly should; he jumps like he's got rocks in his pockets, leading to TONS of cheap, no-reason deaths, especially late in the game. Enemies aren't even a concern in this game - the enemy AI is frankly pretty brick-stupid, so you'd have to really try to take damage from any non-Boss enemies - but you WILL die a lot thanks to countless "I totally landed that!" jumps, which can be quite infuriating. Also, two levels make heavy use of the Grappling Hook, which is unreliable at best. The spots where you need to use it demand precision, and that's not something you get the luxury of in this game. Shoot the grapple too soon, you might plow right into a wall and die without any chance to correct yourself. Shoot it too late, you'll die helplessly. In some levels you'll breeze through the entire thing, only to get to the end and lose ALL of your lives in seconds thanks to the grappling hook failing or the floor collapsing out from under you, at which point you'll have to play the entire level again... and lose all your lives in the same place, again. There's only two places in the game where it gets REALLY bad with that, but that's plenty.

As a beat-'em-up, it's merely functional. You can punch, do a jump kick, a crouch kick, and throw your enemies if you get close to them, but that's it. No cool combos, no "grab then and then hit them" like Double Dragon of Final Fight... it's very simplistic considering this was a late-era SNES game. You get a few gadgets like Smoke Bombs and such but honestly you can make it through the entire game without using any of them except your Batarang, and even that only comes in handy when facing guys with guns. You can pretty much get through 99% of the encounters just by mashing the Attack button and doing the same basic punch; except for a few sections where the game forces you to use Knockout Gas, which is almost useless given how fast the enemies wake up.

I'm legit shocked that I've never read anything about how bad the list of regular enemies is. Most beat-'em-ups get crucified for only having a small selection of bad guys to fight, but this one gets a pass for some reason despite having a grand total of THREE enemy types (aside from the Bosses, obviously). For 99% of the game, you'll be fighting Gangster In Gray Suit and Gangster In Tan Suit. Tan Suit guys have either a pistol or a Tommy gun. And they almost always attack in the same order: Gray Suit, Tan Suit, Repeat (although late in the game they'll add a second Tan Suit Gun Guy in a row to add some "variety"). The other 1% of the time, in one single level, you'll fight Blonde-Haired Poison Ivy Clone Who Shoots Gas At You. This is the one and ONLY enemy type you'll face on Level 2. You can't hit girls, so you have to use the Knockout Gas.... except their gas has twice as long a reach as yours, so to knock them out you almost have to take damage. And they wake up really fast, so if you haven't managed to make it to the next ledge in time, you'll take MORE damage. So there's exactly three fodder enemies you'll face for the entire game, and two of them are simply palette-swaps of the same guy. Also, you'll almost always only see ONE enemy onscreen at once, and occasionally two, and that's it. So as a beat-'em-up, it's entirely pedestrian. Again, just for the sake of argument, "Death and Return of Superman" generally gets scored in the 6 or 7 out of 10 range, with MOST of that criticism coming from the fact that there are only a few different enemy types. And yet that game has more than TWICE as many fodder enemies as this game does, has more attack variety, allows for more enemies onscreen... seriously, people must have been so in love with the graphics and animation in this game that they were unwilling or unable to be objective about anything else.

What helps the game stand out is the level variety; there are eight levels (technically seven plus the Boss Gauntlet) and they're all pretty unique. Each one plays like an episode of the cartoon, with one of the main Batman villains causing havoc and in turn Batman has to complete an objective and make it to the end of the level before fighting the Boss. Some levels are more about platforming (these levels are tedious), some are more about fighting through the enemies to the end, one has Batman rescuing hostages in a darkened museum, another sees you trying to navigate Riddler's virtual reality maze, one has you chasing Catwoman across the rooftops of Gotham City and there's even a top-down driving level. All of this keeps things from ever feeling stale as you never get two same-type levels back-to-back and it's really rather creative.

The Boss fights are mostly pretty good, and a real highlight of the game. Most of the Boss patterns are pretty predictable, but most of them are still fairly challenging, although sometimes that's more about the circumstances than anything. The Level 1 fight with the Joker, for example, takes place on a moving rollercoaster; Joker himself has a very predictable pattern and its possible to beat him without taking any damage at all, BUT if you're not careful you can end up tumbling off the side of the coaster to your death pretty easily. Scarecrow, on the other hand, is one of the most pathetic Boss fights in video game history; you fight him twice (he's even easier the second time) and he's laughably easy, BUT takes a lot of hits to kill making the fight very tedious. Again, you can beat him easily while taking no damage at all but it takes SO long it becomes annoying. Batarang before he can shoot you, punch him, let him jump over you, repeat... multiply like 50 times. The Boss Gauntlet has you revisit most of the Bosses from earlier in the game, but adds a couple of cool new ones in Clayface and Man-Bat. The second and final Joker fight, sadly, is almost as underwhelming as the Scarecrow fight. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they didn't make all the fights crazy difficult - there's already one that's unbearable to the point of being almost unplayable, so we didn't need MORE of that - but some of them, including the Final Boss, are just plain TOO easy. Overall, though, the Boss fights are some of the best parts of the game.

(Cont.)

[Leo656]

By far, the WORST part of the game, however, is the Riddler level, the second-to-last stage in the game, particularly the second half of it. It starts off fine; you make your way through a labyrinth, solve three riddles, fight a Minotaur, then advance. No big deal; once you do the maze once, you can breeze through it again with no problem. It's just time-consuming, and a bit tedious after doing it a couple of times. The problem is the SECOND half of the stage, where you make your way across a giant chess board while pieces of the floor crumble away beneath you, and the Boss Fight, where giant chess pieces try and crush you WHILE the floor is collapsing from underneath you, and the chess pieces kill you in one hit. Try and dodge the chess pieces, you'll fall through the floor and die instantly. Dodge the floor, have the Chess piece land on you and kill you instantly. Three lives, gone in under a minute, hit Continue... BACK to the very beginning of the level, spend 10+ minutes doing the maze AGAIN, solve the same three riddles AGAIN, beat the Minotaur AGAIN... and then lose all three lives on the chess board stage AGAIN.

I don't mind telling you, this was one of the most tedious, unfair, annoying, and not-fun stages I've ever played in my entire LIFE. I really liked the Maze section... but NOT after 50 or 60 times in a row just trying to get back to where I'd died on the chess board. And the visuals on the chess board level are very, very good, and the concept works well... but the other nonsense just ruins something that should have been one of the coolest parts of the game. There's ways this level could have easily been fixed - more Checkpoints, being able to Continue from the chess board section instead of having to do the entire level over, and not being one-hit killed by the Boss, for example. Even if the stupid floor still collapsed out from under you, the level would at least be playable and maybe even fun. As it is, it's atrocious. I don't plan to EVER play that level again. Thankfully, there are Level Skip Passwords so I don't have to.

That's another thing; despite being a late-era SNES game, there's no Save function and limited Continues; instead there's a bizarre Password function where you assign shapes to a grid. It's tedious. It's not like SNES games by then didn't have battery Saves or at least easier passwords to use. Apart from the graphics, SO much of this game feels like it belongs in 1991. Thankfully, once you know exactly what to do, it's not a very long game. But you'll still need the Password system for once you finally give up on the godawful Riddler level. I HIGHLY recommend skipping the Riddler level and going straight to the Boss Gauntlet.

There's also a glitch where no matter what Difficulty level you select on the Options menu, the game assigns you however many Lives it feels like. If you select Easy, for example, you're supposed to have 5 Lives; but after a few levels, you'll automatically start with just three, and on the Boss Gauntlet, only ONE. Why even bother having difficulty levels at all when the game just "forgets" how many lives you're supposed to have and gives you however many it pleases? Likewise, sometimes you'll get three Continues, other times only One, no matter what setting you're playing on. So yeah, get used to writing down wacky shape-based passwords.

It probably sounds like I hated this game, but I really didn't. It's a lot of fun in MOST places, and it definitely captures the look and feel of the Batman Animated Series. The music is good and the graphics and animation are amazing for the SNES. Visually, it's a 9 or 10, no question. But from a gameplay and level design perspective, the stuff I've outlined really drags the entire experience down. It is NOT a 9/10 game unless all you want to do is look at it. I could see it being an 8 if a person is rather forgiving, but I'd also accept a 7 or even 6 based on that goddamn Riddler level. Seriously, the audience for this game was ostensibly kids, but NO kid was gonna have the patience to figure out the Riddler level or the part where you have to use the grappling hook on the blimp. They'd get sick of dying over and over and shut the game off and never go back to it. WHY is this game so cheap and unfairly difficult in places? To counter-balance the fact that huge chunks of it are also too easy? That's just poor design.

Overall, I LIKED it, but I wanted to LOVE it, and I don't. I'm glad I finally played it, glad to finally have finished it, but it was more relief than satisfaction. "Thank God I don't have to do THAT part again, ever." I don't like feeling that way when I play games. As it is, when I do play it again - and I probably will, for the Good Parts - I will ALWAYS skip that goddamn Riddler level. That's a promise.

I'll be generous and say it's an 8 out of 10 for potential, visuals, and most of the execution. But it's SERIOUSLY flawed. I can't believe that this game gets raves and 9/10 scores, while "Death and Return of Superman" gets 6 and 7 out of 10. That game is much, MUCH better and more fun to play than this game is, I'm sorry.

I'll give it a high recommendation and say that it's a must-own for Batman fans, but don't bother buying an authentic cart. The frustration factor in places is just too high to make it worth more than $20. You will have fun with it, for sure, but one or two spots threaten to ruin the entire experience, and even the good parts could have been better.

NOT a Great game. Just Very Good. But it needed some SERIOUS tweaking. After all the hype, for all the fun I did have, I came away more disappointed than anything, and relieved that I was done with it.

[Leo656]

It was still early-ish when I finished the Batman game, so for a palate-cleanser I decided to pop in Hook, which I'd played and beaten once so long ago I barely remember it.

I played the SNES version; in looking around, it appears that the SNES, Genesis and even Master System versions are all nearly identical, but the SNES is the clear best pick for graphics and sound (the NES game was entirely different and not as good).

It borrows some of the music from the movie, and it sounds good enough. Again, developers generally got more out of the SNES than the Genesis when it came to music and sound effects.

The graphics are really good, if a bit "busy" in spots. This was one of those licensed games where they didn't bother getting any of the actors' likenesses, so everything has a stylized, cartoonish look and I feel it works pretty well. There's some good variety in the levels, with forests, mountains, caves, some underwater spots and of course Hook's ship. Everything looks great by early-SNES standards. The abundance of forest can be a little overwhelming in a few places but overall the graphics are really good with lots of detail.

The plot only loosely follows the film, but it makes for a better game experience. The gameplay is a little bit stiff; Peter moves a lot slower than you'd think BUT he also jumps higher and farther than you'd think, especially if you hold the button down. It's primarily a platformer, and it works pretty well with that. There's some light exploration elements where uncovering "hidden" or hard to reach places can grant you Extra Lives, additional hit points, and so on. You start off with a small dagger for fighting enemies, but you can find the magical Pan's Sword hidden in some levels, which has a longer reach and can shoot projectile's like Link's sword in the Zelda games. Unfortunately, it's WAY too easy to get hit by enemies, especially on the later levels where they have guns, and ONE hit costs you your Sword, and you can't get it back until you find it again in a later level. It's not uncommon to find the Sword and only have it for mere seconds, which is very irritating. I pretty much gave up on even looking for it, since I so often lost it immediately after finding it. You can easily beat the game without it, it's just something they needed to do better.

There are 10 levels, all pretty short. Some of them, you only need to make it to the end, while others have a short and fairly easy Boss Fight. At the end, of course, you fight Hook, and even he's pretty easy. Some of the earlier Bosses are actually way harder, mostly because of the stage design, but you fight Hook on a mostly-level playing field where it's easy to move around and he doesn't take too many hits to beat. It's pretty easy to beat the game without dying more than a few times, but the game is also really generous with Extra Lives, including at least two places where you can farm and hoard up to 99 Lives, way more than you'd ever need.

On the whole, there's not a lot to it but it was better than I remembered it being. It's short and very easy but it's a good game for kids or just if you want to play something not too deep for an hour or so before bed or on a weekend afternoon or something. Definitely recommended if you like SNES platformers.

[shredder orokusaki]

i STARTED playing Yakuza 3 and Journey to savage planet 3 days ago. Both are amazing action games but yakuza 3 is the best of the 3 of course! A must play for all japanese and ninjas. At the same time , i also play Ghost runner a hard core ninja game where you lose with just one hit but you also kill evryone with one hit. A must play also for alll ninjas and ninja masters. Here take a look at it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfrJCGKlqPw

[PizzaPower1985]

I've been getting into emulators and ROMS lately, which, for collectors may feel like a cheat, BUT yeah... they're fun with a USB/port pad/control.

A lot of Genesis Roms, SNES ROMS

Still figuring out how to use MAME!

[Icebot]

Playing the legend of Zelda ocarina of time, I’m going to see if I remember where all the heart pieces and gold skulltulas are.

[Slade]

Finished Valhalla last week. Other than that, mostly been playing around on Sonic Mania and Mario Bros. U Deluxe on the switch.

I don't game near as much as I used to. Need to change that.

[Leo656]

Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble In Wackyland came in the mail. Never played this one, it was one of those games that no rental places by me ever had.