GameTZ

7-Dec-03 9:25am
#1

Guru

This topic had many older posts which were moved here: http://gametz.com/Vi...

15-Apr-23 3:29pm
#241

PizzaTheHutt


Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue {} 6/10

I remember playing this on the Nintendo 64 way back when it first released, trying to help one of my younger nephews who couldn't get the hang of 3D platforming. I didn't put a lot of time into it, but I recall thinking it was a pretty decent game and not the usual licensed trash game I was used to getting as a kid in the 8 and 16-bit eras.

Revisiting it all these years later though and looking at it differently, I can see the faults more easily now. I don't like having to deal with the camera. You control the camera with the L2 and R2 buttons instead of the right analog stick. The DualShock had released 2 years prior to this game, but I guess it took a while for developers to figure out what to do with the extra analog stick because it's not used in this game at all. Also, the audio during the FMV scenes is really too loud (a problem I wouldn't have noticed on the N64 version since the FMV would have been replaced by still images). Finding collectable items can also sometimes be a pain because this suffers from a problem pretty much all 3D platformers of this era had, where you can't see the items (or enemies, power-ups, etc.) from a far distance until you get close enough to them, so you pretty much have to inspect every area of the level if you are going to hunt them all down. Enemies you've defeated will also respawn if you walk far enough away.

The rest of the game itself still seems decent, I guess. I mean, it doesn't hold a candle to 3D platformers released these days, but then again I don't think any 3D platformers from 32/64-bit era can. Overall it feels a bit on the easy side (and surprisingly they removed all cheat codes even though they didn't add in Trophy support), and if the camera wasn't an issue I probably could've breezed through this over a couple of days, but since the camera controls annoy me as well as a few other things like Buzz's repetitive one-liners, I just played through one or two levels per day and for that it's fine since every level pretty much has the same objectives anyway, the only thing that changes is the scenery.

-=-
Tray Racers! {} 3/10
I'm always hunting through the eShop for trash to play (it usually doesn't take long because there's certainly no shortage of crap in there), and this just released and happened to be free. Somehow I still feel ripped off.
Basically you are racing through sand dunes in a "post-apocalyptic world". The tracks are randomly generated which might explain why none of them felt well designed. Before you can officially race you are forced to do several minutes of practice runs with the other players you are matched up with. The game supports up to 16 players, but I never found a lobby that had more than 5 in it. Maybe the ridiculously long load times turned most players off, I know it did for me. One loading screen was so long I thought the game had crashed. Anyway, it'll be a strong contender for worst game of the year.

15-Apr-23 8:39pm
#242

Kommie


Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - 10/10 This is amazing stuff. Didn't know this would be so good. It's like Zelda, but good.

15-Apr-23 8:48pm
#243

Archer


Kommie wrote:
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - 10/10 This is amazing stuff. Didn't know this would be so good. It's like Zelda, but good.
I saw this on GP the other day and downloaded it. Haven't tried it yet.

15-Apr-23 8:53pm
#244

Kommie


Maybe I should have checked GamePass before buying it on Steam, oh well!

15-Apr-23 9:45pm
#245

Slickriven


Yes Turnip Boy was a blast and pretty short. Highly recommend playing, especially if you've got it via GP.

16-Apr-23 2:35pm
#246

PizzaTheHutt


The Artful Escape {} 8/10
I had no idea what to expect from this, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. It's a 2D platformer with an emphasis on music and a story about a dude who learned to play guitar like his famous Uncle but feels those are some big shoes to fill and everyone expects him to live up to that. He ends up getting abducted by some alien dude and that's when the crazy journey begins. The voice acting is good, so is the music, and the graphics are really good and cartoon-ish kind of like Rayman Legends. It's a short game though, I feel like I'm maybe 4 hours into it and the thing on the console home screen says I'm about 81% through it already (a feature I wish more PS5 games used).

16-Apr-23 5:58pm
#247

Kommie


Octodad: Dadliest Catch - You're an Octopus and your family doesn't know. And there's a chef who knows and wants to kill and eat your. Controls are very, very janky.

17-Apr-23 10:18pm
#248

nonamesleft


Been playing Omori. At about the 5 hour mark. Got to a point in the game where there didn't give any other option other than for the main character to stab himself. Next thing you know, you continue with a different character's story arc. What a shame. I was doing a lot in the other arc. Had a lot of more places to explore. I really hope this isn't one of those games where there's a ton of things to do but each playthrough is different depending on how you go about it.

17-Apr-23 10:22pm
#249

TalonJedi87


Yoshi’s Story is a little weird. The only objective is eating enough fruit to get to the next stage. 6/10 so far and I’m about 5 levels in.

18-Apr-23 12:27am
#250

theyrhere


I just beat Sekiro for the first time, owned it since launch. Once it clicks, it really fudging clicks. 10/10. Way different from Elden Ring, but honestly I'd say probably just as good.

18-Apr-23 12:42pm
#251

Anxiouz


Started playing Mafia 3 (PS4) and am really enjoying the story. It surprisingly feels a lot like Mafia (empty city, sluggish controls, straight-forward main missions) but everything is much improved. What is absolutely killer though is the soundtrack. Hearing songs by the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival absolutely nails the vibe.

18-Apr-23 1:26pm
#252

Heavyd814life


Anxiouz wrote:
Started playing Mafia 3 (PS4) and am really enjoying the story. It surprisingly feels a lot like Mafia (empty city, sluggish controls, straight-forward main missions) but everything is much improved. What is absolutely killer though is the soundtrack. Hearing songs by the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival absolutely nails the vibe.
The soundtrack and the story/world in Mafia 3 are awesome. I didn’t care much for the open world or mission design, though. Felt like a paint-by-numbers open world game for the most part. I played it at launch and it was also buggy as hell. But glad you’re enjoying it!

18-Apr-23 2:14pm
#253

nonamesleft


Anxiouz wrote:
Started playing Mafia 3 (PS4) and am really enjoying the story. It surprisingly feels a lot like Mafia (empty city, sluggish controls, straight-forward main missions) but everything is much improved. What is absolutely killer though is the soundtrack. Hearing songs by the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival absolutely nails the vibe.I'll have to give the soundtrack a listen. I need some new tunes.

18-Apr-23 2:29pm
#254

Sun


TalonJedi87 wrote:
Yoshi’s Story is a little weird. The only objective is eating enough fruit to get to the next stage. 6/10 so far and I’m about 5 levels in.
Yeah, it's a weird step back IMO following Yoshi's Island which was awesome.

20-Apr-23 2:39pm
#255

Archer


Kommie wrote:
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - 10/10 This is amazing stuff. Didn't know this would be so good. It's like Zelda, but good.
This game is pretty funny.

20-Apr-23 3:48pm
#256

Kommie


Archer wrote:
Kommie wrote:> Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - 10/10 This is amazing stuff. Didn't know this would> be so good. It's like Zelda, but good. This game is pretty funny.
...

22-Apr-23 1:01pm
#257

sinnie


So Dead Island 2 finally came out and I'm having a freaking blast with it. There is some lag though but they're patching stuff to fix it. It's still a ton of fun though and the characters are great!

24-Apr-23 2:21pm
#258

DarkLord


sinnie wrote:
So Dead Island 2 finally came out and I'm having a freaking blast with it. There is some lag though but they're patching stuff to fix it. It's still a ton of fun though and the characters are great!
It's really good. The quality of life improvements are incredible. I love the original and Riptide, but they definitely show their age nowadays. DI2 is just a pleasure to play, well worth it!

24-Apr-23 2:42pm
#259

PizzaTheHutt


Chicory: A Colorful Tale {} 6/10

I played this in co-op with a friend (remotely via SharePlay because the co-op is local only) and honestly if we weren't playing it co-op and I was just playing it single player, I probably would have bailed on this after the first hour or two. At times it just wasn't holding my attention much.

We finished the game last night, but since we were only able to play it once a week, I feel like I've forgotten half of the story already because I'm playing other games to fill in the gaps during the rest of the week. I will say though, if you're a parent and looking through the eShop, PlayStation Store, Steam etc., looking for a co-op game to play with your kid and you come across this game because it has cartoony graphics and looks like a kid's game, there are times where the story goes kind of "dark" and before a cutscene it will warn you when a character is going to "self-hate" or touch on sensitive snowflake topics like mental health, or say angry things to your character and they will give you the option to skip the cutscenes but overall I didn't find them to be too bad.

I feel it's important to note that the co-op mode is just "girlfriend mode", like Super Mario Galaxy where the second player doesn't actually have their own character to play as, they just use a paint brush to help the main character and paint in the environments. For the most part they're really not doing much and they're just riding your coattails, but you let them think they're being a great help and you couldn't do it without them. They can really come in handy during boss fights though, because multitasking by controlling your character with the left analog stick and your paint brush with the right analog stick simultaneously can be overwhelming sometimes, but it's fine during the rest of the game because there are so few enemies you need to worry about.

26-Apr-23 3:35pm
#260

PizzaTheHutt


Star Wars: Republic Commando {} 6/10
I had wanted to play this back in the day on the original Xbox but I never got around to it, it just wasn't a priority. As one of Nintendo's recent free trials I figured I'll finally check it out and, well, it feels very much like a 2005 first-person shooter alright. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it does feel a little rough around the edges.

For the most part this is basically a straight up port of the original Xbox game, but stripped of the multiplayer modes (both online and split-screen options are absent in this version), making it single player only now. It wasn't given the full remaster (or better yet, remake) treatment it could've used to better compete with more modern shooters of today. I don't know that anything was added to this to make it better besides a minor touch up to the graphics, but I'm disappointed at the lack of gyro controls. Without gyro aiming, I feel like Joy-Cons are among the worst controllers for this genre of game. I think we are (thankfully) at the point where most devs putting their first-person shooters on Switch know that Nintendo fans like our gyro aiming, so I think more fps games support it than not and so I always get disappointed when a developer puts their game on Switch and didn't include the option, but at least that is one way to know which developers listen to the players and which ones don't. Anyway, beyond that, the game's performance is a bit lackluster. There are plenty of times when playing that I notice the frame-rate dropping. I know Switch is outdated, but it shouldn't be struggling to run a game from 2005 unless the developers are just lazy.

So far from what I've played (around 3 or 4 hours), it's not that difficult of a game. You have CPU teammates you can boss around and tell them where to go, clear out a room or whatever (it's not as deep as Rainbow 6, think more along the lines of "baby's first tactical shooter"). You don't really have to worry about them dying because they just fall down until you revive them (and health refill stations are pretty common to find). The player also can be revived by them, so the only way to actually see a Game Over screen is if the whole team gets wiped out at once, which I have yet to see happen.

I kind of regret that I will not be able to finish this before the remainder of the free trial period is over, because I am enjoying it, but not quite enough that I want to buy it due to how poorly optimized it is on Switch and as I said it is missing the multiplayer mode from the original release, so once I've beaten this there is little chance I'd return to play it again. For what it's worth, after watching some comparison videos on YouTube, the PS4 version is also missing the multiplayer mode but at least it runs at a consistent 60fps (unfortunately I don't think I want to buy it on PS4 either because I'd have to start over completely).

26-Apr-23 4:12pm
#261

Slickriven


@PizzaTheHutt I beat SW:RC co-op back on the with my then college roommate and recently beat it again on the - which is really just the same game tweaked some to run via Xbox's back compat program. Nostalgia surely played a little role for me, but yes it's an old game that's mediocre now and wasn't amazing back then either.
The difficulty did ramp up in 2 noteworthy places, the 1 being right near the end, so missing out might not be so bad for you. Knowing it is 18 years old, it wasn't horrible, but your 6/10 score unlikely would've gone up, IMO, had you played it on a different system.