PixlBit

Reflecting on what I played this week as I wait to see Hotel Transylvania 3 [posting this later. Already saw the movie. It was good. I love seeing old SNL comics doing the voices like Adam Sandler, Molly Shannon and David Spade]. I hit the retro first with PlayStation games. Later I'll mention catching up in the Banner Saga series and then getting sidetracked by Bomber Crew while waiting for Banner Saga 2 to install.

PlayStation One: Mark gave me his PSOne a while back and now I’m unboxing it and playing it. I used to own one myself. Not sure what happened to it. But I always liked the design of this version of the Playstation. It’s smaller and has rounded corners. The buttons are big and it’s all white. It’s super cute and nice and portable. I’m going through all the games I still have for it and then maybe I’ll give it back to Mark. I’m not sure yet. I’m already feeling like I don’t want to let it go.

Pong Next Level: Who would’ve thought to update this in the 90s, but here it is. Pong is rendered in three dimensions and you play variations on the same old table tennis style back-and-forth. I played the first level against the computer where the play field is ice and penguins cross in the middle. Every time you hit one another snow ball enters play until it gets pretty hectic. You can also hit a diamond that appears which gives you some advantage I couldn’t figure out. All I know is that my AI opponent got a seal on his side to save snow balls from getting past. Not fair!

                Another level was a soccer field and you have goalie and offensive paddles. It was surprisingly fun; although, I hate playing against AI. It always feels unfair.

                There are more levels but I’d had enough for now.

Hooters Road Trip: More stupid than you would expect and what you expect is not much. Your gameplay is a cross country road race. The controls are terrible. I couldn’t stop weaving. I turned the analog sticks off to use the d-pad and that helped a tiny bit. Your reward? If you win some Hooters girls (women) appear in full motion video and praise you. Believe me, it’s not worth suffering through the lousy driving.

RC Stunt Copter: Tommy Tallarico’s name was on this in the credits. I guess that’s something. He was a gaming celebrity before there were very many of those. Anyway, it’s a pretty good RC copter simulator. I, for the life of me, couldn’t quite get a handle on the controls. Maybe I needed more time in the tutorial but it was not readily playable by me, which sent me to something else.

Blazing Dragons: I’ve had this in my collection for so long. It’s written by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and features Cheech Marin as a voice (maybe he wrote too, I forget now). It’s a point-and-click adventure for your PlayStation. The graphics are beautiful and still hold up well today. It’s darn funny too. I played it for several hours before getting stuck, as I usually do in these adventure games. I couldn’t save the Knight of Vanity. I couldn’t figure out what item to use to get him from gazing at his image in an enchanted pond, and believe me, I tried everything. As usual, some bizarrely obscure solution is buried in this game somewhere. I was impatient to get along and so didn’t go online for a solution. Maybe I will later though. It was very entertaining.

Legacy of Kain Blood Omen: I love the feeling of gloom in the graphics in this game and the creepy story of a knight turned in to a vampire. I believe Amy Henning of Uncharted fame wrote this. I wanted to do more than drain a few chained innocents of blood and slice skeletons to dust but I got stuck in a room with spikes that I couldn’t get past. I turned all the switches but still couldn’t fit my brooding mass through the gap. Oh well, gotta move on.

Blasto: Phil Hartman, I loved your voice as Blasto in this game but darn if this game isn’t lacking in visual content and kind of balls in the shooting controls. I need to adjust the sensitivity of the analog sticks I think. Controls seemed wobbly in every game I’ve played so far. Onward.

Raising Zan: This game has a super cool anime feel that reminds me of the zaniness of God Hand. You have a giant sword and guns. You fight it out against bizarre demons and creatures in a wild west setting. There's some gore here too, which is why I used my sword more than the guns. Heads were a rollin'. Guns are cool though. Super easy to use in this game. Autotargets multiple foes for you. Sweet.

Duke Nukem Land of the Babes: Ugg. Really can’t stand third-person Duke Nukem. There are still some funny lines in these games (there were three third-person Duke games) but I really don’t like the gameplay.

Crash Bandicoot Warped: Saw this recently on Metacritic’s list of 90+ games from the 90s. It’s definitely quality 3D platforming. I can never get the hang of those segments where you run towards the screen. Obstacles appear so fast.

Wargames Defcon 1: Mark and played a lot of this way back then. It’s real-time strategy wargaming. We’d play the campaign co-op against the computer though. You control tanks and vehicles and planes from an isometric view and take out enemy bases. Now I think of it, it’s kind of like Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance if it was a wargame. Or Warcraft II with more direct control of your units.

That be retro this week. I still have another stack of PSOne games for next week.