Game Reviews – Page 84 – Obsolete Gamer

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved

There are different kinds of enemies each with their own attack style pattern. The most basic enemy, a star just comes at you in a linear path, so they’re usually easy to dispatch. There is a diamond shape one that does about the same only that they spawn in groups. There is a green square cowardly one that will stay away from whatever direction you’re shooting in, will try to go around you to tag (kill) you. There is a pink one that when you kill will spawn two smaller enemies that will go kamikaze for you in a circular pattern. You have a snake one (I call them sperm) that you can only kill by shooting the head off. There is a black hole enemy that eats other enemies and also draws you in via gravity, but the best attack is also has is spitting out really fast seeker enemies when it ate until it burst.

Commodore 64

Honorabili

Aztec Challenge (c64) review

Basic and obvious joystick controls. The fire button usually either makes you jump for some of the stages. Some stages have different kinds of jumps that vary in height/length. These are done by pushing the joystick different directions to vary the jump. In the traps stage, you press the fire button to stop running and up to jump. In the piranha stage, you press the fire button to dive for a few seconds, to prevent being eaten alive. Controls get a 7 out of 10 because the game doesn’t explain in game what you need to do and you might die the first time playing.

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

Max Payne

ou take the role of Max Payne, a New York detective who has the American Dream, an attractive wife that loves him, a small baby, living in your suburb home. As soon as the game starts these Valkyr (a new drug, sort of like Nuke in Robocop 2) junkies brake into your house and murder both your child and soul mate. After killing them, you sob over their corpses like a helpless child. Soon after that, you transfer into vice work, working deep undercover infiltrating the mafia to get to the source of the drug Valkyr. You have been working doing that for a few years but when you are finally getting some good leads, they kill your partner, the only real person who knows exactly what you were up to and you are framed with his murder.

Indie Games

Honorabili

Tomenet: A multiplayer roguelike game review

This game is one of the most difficult I’ve ever played considering the fact that it’s a turn based game turned realtime, with no real changes to the benefit of the player. The dungeon scales considerably quickly, so expect to stay at low depths for lengthy periods of time to acquire the proper equipment and resistances required to descend further. I also give this a 10 out of 10 for difficulty considering I’ve only seen one player truly master it, after 10 years or so of refining his skills. Anyone up to the challenge of proving me wrong is more than welcome to, but it won’t happen!

Commodore 64

Honorabili

Lazy Jones

The difficulty is rather the same overall, although most of the enemies do kill you if you touch them once. I’ve had instances where I die simply by the game spawning an enemy as soon as I leave a door, which is pretty rough. You can set the game to give you from 1 – 9 lives. In the terms of Diablo, you can be “hardcore” and set the game to only give you 1 life if you really want a challenge. Since you set your mortality, difficulty versatility gets a rating of 7 out of 10. I find the game easy myself but it’s still nerve wrecking when you’re down to your life (or only) life.

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

Batman Arkham Asylum

Many of the secrets you find will help you level up faster and they help you find out more about how really evil some of the villains are. There are three types of secrets you can find: interview tapes, Riddler question marks, and Arkham lore symbols. The interview tapes are usually tapes that were recorded by psychologists interviewing specific villains in the course of their therapy. The Riddle question marks are usually a matter of you exploring every little bit of the map and picking them up, as well as knocking down walls or climbing up to or gliding down to hard to reach places. The Arkham lore symbols are the hardest to find and they help explain the history behind Arkham Asylum.

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

Nation Red

If you enjoy shooting endless hordes of flesh eaters with the constant stress of being under siege then this is your game. The developers update this game at least once a month, usually making it into a different game because of rule/item changes so this keeps the game fresh. The game has a sheer level of destruction that will bring a smile to any pyro’s face. They keep adding new guns every month and that is a sweet pleasure. I give Red Faction a Fun Factor score of 8 out of 10 with variations to that based on how the latest build changed the game.

Computer Games

Honorabili

Master of Orion

The game consists of you taking turns (non-simultaneous) with your rivals, managing your planets’ development, research directions (allows multiple research projects at a time vs 1 in later space empire games, which I think that’s unrealistic), your spy projects (they can sabotage, steal tech, be sleepers), your diplomacy (make alliances, actually never do almost, and trade tech, start trade deals, threaten and demand tribute, end and start wars), and conquer conquer conquer. You can orbitally bombard planets to dust basically or be smart about your killing (because later the weapons can literally scorch all populations out of existence, even one ship) and enslave, I mean welcome the conquered population to your empire.

Commodore Amiga

J.A. Laraque

Techno Cop

Truth be told the graphics were pretty bad even for the late 80’s. Both the driving and side scrolling part of the game used the same backgrounds over and over with very little changes. Each level was the same, drive shooting at cars until you get your next subject then get out and traverse a rundown building until you find the boss and either kill or capture him. Your H.U.D. or heads up display took up 40% of the screen in the form of your arm and a predator-like wrist device which displayed your target, score, health, time limit, lives and an option to switch between a net or your gun.

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast

Outrun is one of the classic arcade games that put Sega on the map in the arcade world and helped them later become a major player in the console market. If you’ve never played Outrun, Outrun is a very fast racing game where you are driving really fast in a bunch of Ferrari cars to get to the finish line, with a time limit. There are different game modes, some where you race against rivals, the traditional one where you are trying to get there as soon as possible with your girlfriend riding shotgun, and another one where you are trying to get the girl excited (no, seriously) by completing challenges. You do different stages depending on the game mode you set it to and unlock new courses, girlfriends, cars (which you buy with money), and music

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

GRID

It’s thrilling to take control of a 500-1000 horsepower race car and push it to the utter limit. Since the game has a damage engine, one can’t simply drive the car straight through walls and one has to be strategic regarding making the car last the entire race. I think that makes the game a more fun vs something like Grand Turismo. The only part that kind of gets boring which you must do (not really but I’m a perfectionist) is the 24-hour LeMans race which literally is an endurance race which will take 24 real minutes to complete. I’ve literally done that over 100 times and I’m kind of sick of it. I would have liked them to have offered some variations to it like 12 hours at Sebring or some other real epic races rather than just that one over and over in between the transition of racing seasons.

PlayStation 3

Honorabili

Tom Clancy’s HAWX

HAWX puts you in the role of being the flight leader for a squadron of an elite air combat unit that works for the US military and soon into a private military corporation in the near, plausible future. The game flies a LOT like Crimson Skies as far as gameplay goes and it has nearly as much action as Afterburner with the spirit of U.N. Squadron’s mercenary attitude and the fun weapon configuration of your squadron of fighters. The game has just about most jets that have been around since the 60s and up and even some hypothetical fighters that are yet to be released in the military for most countries.

Game Reviews

J.A. Laraque

Obscure Gamer – Review of 2009

It’s traditional to round up what has been happening at the end of the year, and to take a look forward at what is coming next. So here are some of my highlights of the gaming year.

Game Reviews

J.A. Laraque

Obscure Gamer – Three Horse Race

Every year there is a major race on for the consumers’ money. And this winter is no different. So what is the form guide for the runners going into the race, and what are the odds on a new leader?

Modern PC Gaming

Honorabili

Trackmania

Trackmania is pretty much the most played racing game series in the history of PC gaming. Most people in the US don’t know it because it’s from French developer Nadeo. Also since it’s mainly a pure PC racing game (although a Nintendo DS version was released) most of the console crowd (where most people who play racing games are) never heard of it. Sure, people might play Need For Speed whichever is the newest at the time but after a month they will probably never play it again. With Trackmania, since the game has been around since 2003, and now in its 4th game “United” one can just not play it for a while and revisit it months/years later with tons of new content and the game never disappoints.

Commodore Amiga

J.A. Laraque

The Amazing Spider-Man (Amiga)

One thing that freaked me out was the health meter on the Amiga display. It showed a picture of Spider-Man on the side standing tall in his costume. When you would take damage his body would slowly fade away revealing his skeleton beneath. So as you are playing and losing health you see yourself turning into a skeleton which to me added a really creepy element.

Xbox 360

Skeezy

Assassins Creed 2

Assassins Creed 2 has made an incredible improvement from the first game in terms of game play. No longer do you walk around cities quickly doing three of the exact same missions. Ezio has specific people to go to that provide him with a large variety of missions that never once become repetitive. The original idea for Assassins Creed was to be a mixture of Prince of Persia and Grand Theft Auto, however the first game never delivered on that. Assassins Creed 2 definitely delivers. Combat has been improved in a big way making it so much more fun. You have about 30 weapons to choose from now rather then just three (including using enemies weapons), and each have different styles of killing enemies.