Last Week's Games: Fire Warrior, Hotline Miami, Shinobi 3, Golden Axe, Takenoko

I’ve missed the last few weeks of this! Sorry about that…

In the last few weeks, I’ve played and beaten a couple of games. One of them was Fire Warrior on the PC, and I’ve posted the review for it here. I have a few additional remarks to make here: Many of you will have noticed by now that I really enjoy games based in the Warhammer / Warhammer 40K universe. However, I rarely make the argument that they’re good games, and Fire Warrior is no exception. A lot of what eventually became first person shooters were being standardised during the period where Fire Warrior was released, and in many respects, the game fell short of the mark.

Wouldn't it be great to order one of
your squad-mates to cover you?

It is also worth remembering that the Tau were in their infancy in the 40K universe when this game was released, and with almost two decades under their belt, they have become quite a distinctive force in their own right, rather than the “new kids on the block,” so to speak. I don’t know how well they work in the most recent edition of Warhammer 40K, but certainly as far as 7^th edition, they relied on their squads working together more than almost any other army in the game. That got me thinking: What if a 40K game was made with Tau as the player characters, but instead of a standard FPS game, it became more of a squad-based game like SOCOM and Star Wars: Republic Commando? A rather odd comparison for me to make, since I’ve played neither, but I understand the general premise of those games and having an FPS game with a team of Fire Warriors with different abilities could be something very special indeed. Could it happen? Let’s hope so…

Get used to the game telling you you're dead
'cause you'll be seeing it a lot!

I also played Hotline Miami on the PC, getting to the end of it. I’ve got a review for that coming out on Friday, but I might as well tell you now, I really enjoyed the game. It takes a certain rhythm to get into it but once you have, you can have a lot of fun with the trial-and-error gameplay – as long as you don’t take it too seriously. There’s a lot to be said for being good at what you do. By the time I reached the end of the game, I was still having fun and wasn’t quite ready to get off my crazy horse quite yet, so I downloaded Hotline Miami 2 and I’m playing my way through that now.

These will go down in one hit if you
know what you're doing...

On the Xbox 360, I’ve been once again getting some enjoyment out of the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection. I’ve often spoken about my fondness for Streets of Rage 2, but funnily enough I didn’t even touch that this time. I came back to my old sparring partner Shinobi 3, running, chopping and, er, shuriken-ing my way though the seven stages, and even though some of the platforming is frustratingly difficult, it is always a fun game to play. The furthest I managed was the final level on the flying airship, because as with many platforming games I died to falling off it more than anything else!

The platform sections of Golden Axe
were never great...

I also played Golden Axe with my daughter. This is one of the first games I ever played on the Megadrive, and some of you may remember I beat it several years ago. I had no intention to return to it, but I thought it was a simple-enough game to explain to Jessie, so we gave it a go! It went reasonably well until Jess forgot what button she had to press to continue the game when she died and locked herself out of the game. I managed to reach the end of the game but lost to the final boss.

Everyone loves cute pandas.

Finally, me and Kirsty played Takenoko – a board game where you must grow a garden and feed a hungry panda. Kirsty will play just about anything with cute animals in it, and she managed to win it this time by taking a lot of the panda-feeding cards and scoring points that way. It’s a great little game, about the right balance of luck and skill for us, and I’m sure we’ll come back to it again soon!

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.

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!