Last Week's Games: Streets of Rage 2 and Hydro Thunder Hurricane, plus buildng Warriors of Khorne

It’s been a bit quiet on the gaming front this week, due to being extremely busy for most of it and asleep for the rest. Here’s what I’ve had going on:

For a while I’ve been meaning to start a new game on my Xbox360. Which one? I don’t know yet. I’ve got quite a few single-player narrative-driven games to play, many of which I’ve never even touched despite having owned for years, and I’d like to get down to playing some of them. However, because I’m out most evenings, and because I’m very tired when I come home, I put on my Xbox, try to work out what I’m going to play (Current frontrunners are Blue Dragon, Shadow of Mordor, Of Orcs and Men and Enslaved) and invariably go “Never mind, I’ll have another bash at Streets of Rage.”

I can cheese that big fat guy on the right -
but only if I face him alone...

So that’s the principle game I’ve been playing this week, and I find myself using Axel more than Max for my play through these days, perhaps as way of keeping the game fresh for me! Interestingly I got as far as the fifth stage and found that I wasn’t concentrating anywhere near as much as I should have been; for this reason I lost the game on the elevator boss rush on the seventh stage. I don’t usually get much further than that but I could barely keep my eyes open!

It's big, it's dumb, it's fun. I love it!

I’ve also been playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane; I’ve been really enjoying going for the gold score on every level. I don’t play many racing games; there’s fun in learning tracks and optimal customisation options, but it is a long-winded process which gets tedious after a while. With Hydro Thunder, you pick the right boat for the track and away you go; any customisations are purely cosmetic – so I know if I’m going wrong it’s because I don’t know the track very well, not because I don’t know how to set up my vehicle and am therefore knackered from the start. It’s the kind of arcade racer I used to play when I was younger, and I’m enjoying it a lot more than I might for not taking itself too seriously.

In my quest to tackle my ever-growing backlog of hobby models, I had some time in Warlords ‘n’ Wizards on Sunday and put together some of the Warriors of Khorne from the Age of Sigmar boxed set that came out – and I bought – over two years ago. I built and painted most of the Stormcast Eternals, and some of them appeared in my previous blog, but it was so long ago that I can’t actually remember how I painted them. (Yes, I know they’re blue. I can’t remember what I did to get the highlights etc. I don’t want half my army looking different from the rest!) This is a problem I never even considered I would run in to before, but with many, many paints in the Citadel range, I’ve started keeping track of my paint schemes a little better now. I build all of the character models and monsters, and five of the Blood Reavers; I’ll do the rest at some point but that should keep me going for now.

If I have a large number of models from the same army I like to alternate painting the “rank and file” models in blocks of five, and then paint something else. That keeps it as fresh as it’s going to get and I get more done for not having to paint the same model over and over again, or take ages to see any progress for painting too many models at a time. I like to do a good job – or as good as I can manage – but I fall foul of many of the fallacies that plague many amateur painters: Rushing the last few parts, trying to get as much as I could do in the time and not taking breaks when I need to. I try not to paint to a deadline anymore, as this puts pressure on me to do something I’ll never manage and I get disillusioned.

Went on a bit about the paint there, but I’ve not got much else this week!

Last Week's Games: Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Lock's Quest, Shinobi III, Streets of Rage II, Vectorman 2 and The Story of Thor

With a well-received week off one of my two jobs, I found myself with a bit more time to play games this week, including some important finishers. Let’s see what they were:

I recently downloaded Hydro Thunder Hurricane for free from Xbox Live Gold, and inspired by Youtube’s MetalJesusRocks, who likes games like this, I thought I’d give it a go. It’s a speedboat racing game, and is good fun; it has a good selection of modes and there’s plenty to unlock. I probably won’t ever complete it, as some of the achievements rely on local multiplayer of all things; I currently only have one controller. But I’ll dip in to it now and then to see what it’s got to offer.

Also I had another look at a game I’d been meaning to finish for roughly five years and have now got round to coming back to: Lock’s Quest on the Nintendo DS. I started the campaign again as I’d forgotten most of the plot and the mechanics, but I found it coming back to me quickly enough, even if I had forgotten how hard the game is! I’ll try and get to the end of it this time, when it’s convenient for me to be playing a handheld system.

But the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection is still in my Xbox360 and is not leaving any time soon. I can’t think of any other Xbox360 game other than XCOM: Enemy Unknown that I’ve got more mileage from during the time I’ve had the console. I gave Shinobi III another go, and very nearly got to the end. I lost on the last stage; the fighting is easy enough but at one point you come into a section of the final level where most of the floors and walls are electrified, and you need some precision platforming in order to survive; I just don’t have the right set of skills! Also, during a quiet night at work, I transcribed the tune “Whirlwind” from the game’s soundtrack into Guitar Pro. One of my hobbies is listening to old video game music and transcribing them; it’s a great way to train my musical ear!

I attacked Streets of Rage II as well, because why wouldn’t I. Once again I fell down on the last boss rush, however I’ve been varying my runs by playing as Axel every so often. Normally I would play Max, but Axel has his own charm. His Grand Upper attack does a huge amount of damage, and spamming it is a great approach to most of the bosses, but I find other aspects of his style a little hard to deal with – he’s nowhere near as good with the heavy weapons as Max.

I played, and to my surprise beat, Vectorman 2. After being stuck on the fifth level for goodness knows how long, I took a more methodical approach to playing the game, and got to the eleventh level with a good amount of lives in reserve. Feeling that I had a good chance of beating the game, I ploughed ahead to the end and did just that. You can read my full review here.

Finally, I played the oddly-titled The Story of Thor. Oddly-titled because in North America and Europe it’s actually called Beyond Oasis, which makes more sense in the context of the game, and also the story has nothing to do with any iteration of the character Thor that I am aware of. It was called The Story of Thor in Japan. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty good Zelda-like RPG, designed for the Mega Drive’s 6-button controller and with surprisingly good graphics and sound. I’ve enjoyed my time with it so far, though I’ve only got as far as I needed to unlock the Water shrine, which is what I needed to do to get the achievement points.

This brings my quest to get all the achievement points for the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection to an end, and it’s been quite a journey! There’s still mileage out of some of the games and I don’t think I’ll ever say goodbye to Streets of Rage 2 again, but it’s still a milestone for me.