I love that Kirby figurine with the pancakes and butter!
I want to see your WWE Battlegrounds character.
Game Review Feast
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 On 11/15/2020 at 08:49 PM by Cary Woodham See More From This User » |
I’ve cooked up a feast of game reviews for you all to read over at GamerDad.com! Please click on the links and read as many as you can and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d really appreciate it. After reading all of these, you should have nice, fat, full tummies afterwards! Bon Appetit!
The main course for this evening features fish! Why? Well here’s why: The Umihara Kawase game series has had quite a long history. It started back on the Super Famicom in Japan (SNES in the US). It never came out in the US then. In the game, you use a fishing line to hook and swing around platforms, similar to Bionic Commando. You can also hit and reel in fish-related enemies with your fishing line as well. The game was also known for being super hard, which has carried over into later games in the series. The first time the series reached the US was with Yumi’s Odd Odyssey on the 3DS, which I reviewed way back in 2014. The main character also appeared in a fighting game called Blade Strangers! Other games have appeared in the US recently, like last year’s Umihara Kawase Fresh!, which took a more open world adventure approach. But what happens when you mix the gameplay of Umihara Kawase with single screen arcade action games like Bubble Bobble? You get the newest game in the series: Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!
What better video game character to talk about food and eating than Kirby? Well, maybe Pac-Man, but I don’t have an article up about him…yet. Anyway, I thought I’d share something cool I got recently. A while back I ordered a “Banepresto Box” which is kind of like a loot crate except you know what you’re getting. This one had Kirby items and it was called the Kirby Dolce Collection. Not sure why it was called that but it was food related and a good deal at only 25 bucks or so. And you all know how much of a Kirby fan I am! Anyway, click on the link to take a look at what’s inside.
And now for dessert! Cake Bash is a multiplayer party game where you play as a piece of cake or other confectionary as you complete challenges in a bakery. Smack around the other cakes as you get the most toppings so you can be the best tasting cake in the store. It’s pretty fun and I really like the graphics.
Personally, I’ve never been able to get into professional wrestling on TV. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly have respect for the athletes and performers, but it’s just not something that has kept my interest. Although I do have a bunch of friends and family members who like wrestling on TV. One of my online friends suggested I review the new WWE 2K Battlegrounds game, as it’s a game that might appeal to kids and younger fans. Many kids do like TV wrestling, and who can blame them? It’s all about super cool, strong and athletic guys and gals performing over the top moves on each other. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone and give this one a try. The game didn’t win me over, but I think wrestling fans will like it. I did like that it had a character creation mode. It’s not as robust as say, Soul Calibur’s, but it’s still fun. I made a female wrestler that looks like a cross between Reiko Nagase from Ridge Racer and She Hulk. So basically my dream woman. Ha ha, just joking! Or am I…?
Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix (PS4)
Now this one’s more my speed. Ha ha, get it? A couple of years ago I reviewed Nickelodeon Kart Racers, a kart racing game featuring characters and tracks from multiple generations of cartoons from kids’ cable channel Nickelodeon. Now it’s back with a sequel with more characters, more tracks, and just more stuff in general. Sure it’s a cash grab, but I think kids will still enjoy it and I liked that characters from Invader ZIM and Rocko’s Modern Life made it in. And there’s a track based on the obstacle course from Double Dare!
Got a couple more amiibo figures recently. This time they are of two RPG characters who have appeared in Smash. They are the main hero from the latest Dragon Quest game, and Joker from Persona. Let’s take a look.
The Last Blade: Beyond the Destiny (Switch)
The NEO GEO Pocket Color was a handheld game system that SNK made in the late 90s to compete with Nintendo’s Game Boy Color. I loved SNK’s handheld and for a while I enjoyed it even more than Nintendo’s. So I’m really glad they’ve been releasing some of their games on the Switch. SNK is mostly known for their 2-D one-on-one fighters, so a lot of their series got entries on the handheld. One of their lesser known series is The Last Blade, which only got a couple of entries as opposed to other ones like King of Fighters or Samurai Shodown. I’ve even read that some say that The Last Blade is like a spinoff of Samurai Shodown, since they are both weapons based 2-D fighters set in medieval Japan. But I don’t really know if that’s true. It’s still a good game and I like that the last boss isn’t cheap, but it’s still probably my least favorite NGPC game on the Switch. The characters just aren’t as interesting.
Back in the olden days, one famous act of chivalry was when a lady was about to step in a mud puddle, a man would put his coat down over the mud for her to step over. And what could be more chivalrous than knights? In Puddle Knights, the queen has invited all the nobles and debutants to her castle, but there is a strict dress code. Everyone must be spotless! No mud! Which is pretty difficult when the paths to the castle are littered with the dirty stuff! Luckily there are knights with capes for them to step on. Puddle Knights is a pretty inventive puzzle game, but it sure could’ve used a hint feature!
To this very day, one of my top favorite puzzle games is still plain old Tetris. But another puzzler I really liked back in the day was Pipe Dream, also sometimes called Pipe Mania. In that one, you arranged pipes so water can flow through, and you tried to keep that up as long as you could. But what happens when you combine Pipe Dream and Tetris? You get Powertris! It plays almost EXACTLY like an older arcade game from Taito called Tube-It. But don’t worry, I never heard of that game either until I played it on one of the PS2 Taito Legends collections.
OK try to keep up with this. You are an octopus creature who recently hatched from an eyeball. You must explore a dungeon filled with rooms and creepy floating dragon heads. In each room you must compete in an arena styled battle with robots. These battles are mazes where you can shoot the robots with your one bullet. In order to fire the bullet again, you must catch it before it hits you! In some mazes you must shoot robots, in others you must paint the maze all your color. GORSD combines aspects from classic single screen arcade games like Pac-Man, Crush Roller, Qix, Mr.Do!, and more. It’s a neat idea, but way too hard and I just couldn’t get into the weird aesthetic. I think it would’ve been better with a classic 80’s look, and maybe be a bit easier, too.
And that’s all for now! I hope you all have nice fat bellies now after reading those reviews in my feast! Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! --Cary
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