by beargirl1
I haven't logged my completed games for the past few years, but I missed writing so I'm doing it again. That's it, really.
Showing 1-4 of 4 items
• January 17 • PlayStation 2 (via PCSX2 emulator) • 14h playtime • ✓ Completed career mode A friend of mine linked a retrospective written by the photographer who snapped the cover for Midnight Club: Street Racing and... well, it made me wanna play Midnight Club: Street Racing. So, I played it. Midnight Club 2 and 3 were my kinda games, though I never got around to playing this first one. I always thought it looked a lot like Angel Studios' Midtown Madness 2 (which they seemed to have released a month before this game!) just with, like, illegal cars and stuff set at night. And... that's kinda pretty much what it is? You can see the blueprint for future Midnight Club games laid out right here, with non-linear checkpoint progression and lots, and *lots* of chaotic vehicle physics that, to be honest, seem to take the laws of physics for fools. The drifting is so completely insane in this game, with even just breathing on the e-brake sending you into Ridge Racer-esque sideways turns. It's... fidgety, and fast, and totally chaotic but it's fun as hell for what it is. No-frills open-world street racing with a killer soundtrack. Some stray thoughts: - I love how cute the menus are. Stock car SFX and music that sounds like it could be out of a million other PC racing games of the era. For this being a PS2 launch game, it weirdly feels like not *quite* next-gen, and more like just a decent port of an old PC racing game... which, I guess it is considering this is pretty much a re-skinned Midtown Madness game. - So quaint. Even Midnight Club 2 became so much more feature-rich and flashy... it's fun to think that this would eventually become the Red Dead Redemption studio. - Hi! It's nice to have a place to write my game thoughts again. I held off for a few years to see if it would get me to write more long-winded blogs more often (it did not) and also... things had been real, real rough. But I'm optimistic, and more confident than ever that the future is going to be okay, no matter what. <3
• January 26 • PlayStation 5 • 9h playtime • ✓ Completed story on Path of the Acolyte Between this, and Virtua Fighter 5, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer all dropping in the same stretch of time, it feels like all of the things I like are cool again. Or, at least cool for a teensy amount of time. I'm not complaining - to have more of my favorite things to sink my teeth into during what is absolutely a horrific moment in my life right now is refreshingly nice. Anyway, this is a Unreal Engine remake of Ninja Gaiden 2, and it really does feel like one... though more in the sense of that this feels like a fan decided to recreate his favorite game in UE5 as a hobby, or something. This definitely lacks the distinct flair and charm that the Team NINJA games of this era had, feeling like it lacks a lot of the sharpness and additional features that the original Ninja Gaiden 2 (and even its numerous other versions) had. I mean... it plays fine, it plays like if you remade Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 in a different engine, but I also think it runs off of the idea that the excessive blood and gore was the only thing that made Ninja Gaiden II separate from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Maybe at a glance, sure... but there are foundational changes to the game that Sigma 2 made that, well... sort of made it a different beast. It's weird. This is a weird release, and it definitely doesn't make good on the prestige that the "Black" subtitle holds in the Ninja Gaiden series. It's a statement from Team NINJA - one that I can appreciate despite everything, but I think it's a misnomer to call this Ninja Gaiden II. And I know that's extremely nitpickey, but I've played Ninja Gaiden II and Sigma 2 A LOT and given that this game seems to be going for a direction that appeases hardcore fans, I would've normally expected the development to be pretty nitpickey, too. Normally is the keyword here, because this was just something that was announced and released on the same day. I've learned not to expect too much from (admittedly very exciting) surprise releases like this.* This is not definitive, not by a longshot. But, it is another version of Ninja Gaiden, so... I don't know, can't be too mad about it. *Unless it's Hi-Fi Rush. That sort-of set a new standard for these types of drops, especially from Microsoft.
• February 14th • Nintendo 64 (via Mupen64Plus emulator) • ✓ Completed campaign on agent My desktop finally croaked, so I'm not playing Tokyo Xtreme Racer or Virtua Fighter 5 REVO anytime soon. I decided to play Goldeneye since I was thinking about it. It's fun.
• February 16th • PlayStation 5 • ✓ Completed story with Shu Wow. I liked this game a lot. I've always been, at best, a casual but passionate admirer of the Musou games with most of my experience being with Samurai Warriors or one of the million crossover off-shoots. This was my first real sit-down experience with a Dynasty Warriors game and I think this is by far the best depiction of the Musou series' attempt at creating these absolutely massive, chaotic battles. It is overwhelming, and messy, and over-the-top, and heroic and exciting and everything that these games have always tried to be. This is the best shot at it yet, and I think this is a great foundation for what the Musou series can, and should be going forwards. (Just, add a side mode or two next time, please.)