Last Week's Games: Streets of Rage 2, Vectorman 2, Bioshock Infinite, Star Wars: X Wing and Final Fantasy II

I’ve picked up and played quite a few games over the course of this week. Let’s see what they all are: 

Some cosmetic differences to the
characters in the game, funnily enough...

First game I had a go with was my favourite game of all time, Streets of Rage 2. I’ve waxed lyrical about this game many times before, and I still get it out every now and then because I’ve only got one thing left to do with it now: try to beat the game on the hardest difficulty without cheating. I tend to use Max for my play through, which might seem like an odd decision because of his speed, or lack thereof. However, at 20,000, 50,000, and every 100,000 points thereafter, you get an extra life, and this happens far more quickly with Max than with the other characters because you score more points for his high-impact grapple moves, and I can make up for his lack of manoeuvrability with his sliding tackle. I can therefore rack up a huge amount of extra lives in the early game, which generally keeps me going until the 6^th – or if I’m very lucky, the 7^th stage.

I didn’t manage it this time; I fell down on the one part I always manage to mess up on – the elevator on the 7^th stage, where there’s a huge ‘minor boss’ rush section and barely any room to move. Max isn’t great at manoeuvring and against the high-speed ninjas, it’s a struggle. It tanks most of my lives, with barely any left for stage 8 if I’m fortunate enough to get there. On this occasion I did, and I got as far as the boss rush in the elevator and finally died to Z.Kusano. Next time…

The other game I had a go with on the same disc is Vectorman 2. I’m after the achievement points for this one, and to get them I simply have to get to Scene 11. The problem with this is that the game is boss-hard and I can’t get past scene 5. It’s a throwback to old-school gaming where you have to study a level to find all the secret areas and power-ups. I wish I could wrap this up a little more quickly but this game was designed at a time where the longevity of the game could be increased by its difficulty!

That's the bit I've just done, if you're wondering...

I played Bioshock Infinite as well; I’m slowly going through it. For me, with the Bioshock games, the story takes a long time to get going. I’ve played all of them up to this one (not the DLC though,) and found myself having a standard experience for the first few hours of the game, before the story and the stakes ramp up in the second half. I’ll keep going at it; one of the better qualities of the game is that it is divided in to sections that you can play through for roughly an hour or so at a time – it’s not necessary to sit down and beat the whole thing in one go.

I played Star Wars: X Wing on my laptop as well. I had this game in several iterations in my youth, and enjoyed it immensely at the time. It harks back to an era of flight simulators where potentially any key on the keyboard does something, and while the control schemes can feel a little contrived sometimes, it’s probably closer to the experience of being a fighter pilot than an arcade shooter! I’m trying to get through all the Y-Wing training and historical missions; while the latter are easy enough, the proving ground was very tricky, as the lack of speed meant I needed to be on it with my targeting!

I continued the game of Civ IV I mentioned last week but I found I was getting stuck in a rut, so I don’t know how long I’ll keep that.

Finally, when I was necessarily restricted to a handheld, I was playing Final Fantasy II on my old Gamebody Advance. I tend to play this one very small bit at a time, in this case the rescue of Princess Hilda from the Palamecia Coliseum.

Am I going to play as many games next week? We shall see…

Last Week's Games: Civ 4, Eberron and Shinobi 3

I thought I’d start trying to do a regular blog on the games I’ve been playing in the week. I normally only do it when I’ve beaten one, but in many cases that takes ages and I rarely play a game to completion these days. That significantly reduced the output of blogs, and while I don’t intend to write so much that it becomes more work than fun, I thought I’d make an effort to describe the games I’ve been playing in what little of my free time remains available to me!

Haven't quite achieved this level of grandeur yet...

First up, earlier on in the week I had a go at Civilization IV on my laptop. I bought it as it was at the top of the list of Rock Paper Shotgun’s 50 Greatest Strategy Games. Now, 4x strategy games haven’t always agreed with me; I find the lack of personal involvement in what I’m doing takes my head out of the story of the game somewhat. But I have recently been enjoying turn-based games a lot more and this certainly gives me the time and space to think about what I’m doing. I’m playing as the Americans at the moment and I’ve put an hour or so into the game on the second-to-bottom difficulty. I’ve enjoyed my time with it so far and I hope I continue to do so; it’s an enjoyable enough game and arguably the best in the series (not that I’d know, having not played another Civilization game since the first. There was a version on the Nintendo DS at some point that I finished in a single evening but I’m not sure that counts!) 

In the Roleplaying group we continued the Dungeons and Dragons Eberron campaign in which I’m playing a Halfling Monk called Corrin. I’ve never played a Monk before and it’s an odd experience; they’re great at combat and rubbish at everything else. That takes me out of the game on those occasions where we’re not in combat, but at the same time I really like being good at it! Combining the multi-attack damage output of the monk with the mobility of the Halfing means that I can very easily set up flanking moves (yes, they are a thing in 5e!) and potentially inflict the most damage of the party so far!

The adventure our GM is running, Murder in the Dark, was clearly designed as an introductory adventure to the Eberron setting and I’m not sure I’m enjoying the way it’s designed. Without wishing to spoil, it was quite obviously written for certain aspects of the adventure to work out in a certain way, and it does grate somewhat when you were always going to lose the macguffin item in order to advance the plot – I can see why it has to be done, but it doesn’t feel very organic! But then again, it’s on the players and the GM to make a good roleplaying experience and I have been enjoying the game, on the whole. I just wish it wasn’t at the end of a full and very long day at work; then I wouldn’t be so tired while I was doing it!

This bit is cool. I want one of those boards!

Also I had a go on Shinobi III on the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection on the Xbox360. This is a game I owned during the time I owned a Megadrive, so I’ve been playing it for a long time indeed, and I still find it enjoyable even to this very day. I’m not quite as good at it now as I was back then – I can no longer beat the game on the hardest difficulty – but I can take a certain amount of pride in knowing how to do all the special attacks. The dive kick, for example, makes the game a lot easier to play, as does knowing the functionality of the Ninjitsu techniques. I got to the fifth stage this time, but got frustrated when I died due to falling down a hole – a silly mistake, and one I knew would cost me later on – so I gave up and went for a shower.

I might have a bit more time next week, so we’ll see what that brings. See you soon!