Today, Le Broken Sword Trilogy for PC, which I got off Le Steam for Le Pittance during Le Last Big Sale. THE GAMES ARE SET IN PARIS BY THE WAY.

 

Shadow of the Templars (3/5), The Smoking Mirror (2/5), and The Sleeping Dragon (2/5).

Hello! For the newcomers out there, the site is kinda a janky mess at the moment as we're in the middle of a re-build. That's slated to launch late Juneish. Keep a sharp eye out for asbestos and crackling wires until then.

Today's weekly contribution to The Pile is a couple of Bond games: From Russia With Love for PS2 (3/5), and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent for Gamecube (1/5). I have no idea what happened to that Hacker Evolution: Untold review down below, got beamed off the planet by aliens or something. Unfortunately I also deleted the original text of it too so I'd have to write another from scratch. I don't think it's key to the internet's survival so I'm in no big hurry on that. Review was basically just "more of same, still sux" anyway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I take on three spy/hacker-themed games that are cult favorites, but that I thought were pretty much rubbish. The only people who will read these reviews are fanboys (who have already played the games in question to death) who might find them through a Google Alert or something through happenstance, go sneer about this affront to their collective tastes on a message board, or possibly escalate to sending me some shitty email about it.

Y I KEEP DO DIS.

Anyway, The Operative: No One Lives Forever (2/5), Hacker Evolution (1/5), and Hacker Evolution: Untold (1/5). All for PC.

Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires (PS2, 3/5) is all we got for today. Yep, it's true.

Whew, we had our first 90-degree weekend here, so I guess it's a good time for ... Scantily Clad Wimmins Day? Our offerings are Dead or Alive Paradise (PSP, 1/5), which fails even in the modest task of polygonal perversity, and Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2, 3/5), which manages to be fairly substantial (without scrimping on the fanservice)

I didn't even realize today was gonna be a Friday the 13th, probably should have planned something. Oh well. Instead, you get some unrelated PSP action with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (3/5) and Ys: The Oath In Felghana (4/5). Felghana actually just came out a few weeks ago for PC (via Steam) as well, but it's a complete coincidence that I happened to pick up the PSP version just before that.

Zeboyd Games seems to be movin' on up in the world, having landed the third installment of Penny Arcade Adventures. As it happens I picked up their previous games Breath of Death VII (3/5) and Cthulhu Saves The World (4/5) over Xmas on the Steam sale. They're very good parody romps of 8- and 16-bit RPGs, the latter with notably more depth and polish than the former.

As for site update news: Slow progress, but progress. I'm anticipating launch of the revamped site around Juneish. Also, some questions as to why no ratings for the last couple months of games? Well, we're switching over to the 5-point system with the re-launch and for some reason I felt like not bothering to list them here. I guess I can if you really want them though.

Apparently the new Kid Icarus for 3DS is some big thing now, so it seems like a good time for Mythology Day. First we have the little-known Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (3/5) for the original Gameboy, the direct sequel that's actually better than the NES version due to being way more playable and less frustrating. Then it's round two with Kratos in God Of War II (2/5) for PS2, in which they seem to have isolated the worst gameplay elements of the first game and then centered the sequel almost entirely around them.

Cowabunga! For some reason I got a bug up my ass to play some old-school TMNT beat-em-ups, but then I found out yesterday it's the latest property from our childhoods that Michael Bay is going to shit up in cinematic form with ugly CGI. Hooray! In the meantime here's TMNT for GBA (2/5), TMNT 3 for NES (2/5), and Hyperstone Heist for Genesis (3/5).

Spring Break bruuuuuhs, get your spray tan on! I'm off for a week and a half as of today, and made some decisions about the site. I think we're gonna go for a Plato 2.5 thing here at Talkspot rather than jumping to Plato 3.0. The place won't be as slick as I want it to be, but it'll definitely be more appealing and usable. And I'm doing the work in such a way that it's an intermediate step that can be built on in the future to finally create the Ultimate Turbo Super Collector's Edition of the site.

All the drudge work will be going on in the background, no worries about service interruptions or whatevs. For today, here's Actraiser 2 (SNES, 2/5), a disappointing follow-up that I think suffered most from being a "budget" project and not getting a save battery, and Taboo: The Sixth Sense (NES, 0/5), a bigger waste of money than Miss Cleo.

Still futzin' with the site. In the meantime here's a completely unneccessary review of Portal 2 (PC, 4/5), kinda like that 8 month old copy of Newsweek or Good Housekeeping you flip through while waiting at the dentist's office.

Haven't had time to have a good Diddle with the site improvement stuff yet. Got a midterm coming up in a couple days here, so probably after that.

Always have time to blow off some steam with some games and then rant about them afterward, though. FEDA: The Emblem of Justice (3/5) answers the question of "What would Shining Force have been like if it came out on the SNES intead?". Well, sort of. For further detail please consult le review. Ultima 4  (2/5) for the Sega Master System is an interesting attempt to do a fairly straight port of a complex PC RPG to a not-so-complex console. Unlike the NES port, which JRPG'd everything up, this one stays pretty faithful to the PC original.

First, today's update - the Urban Chaos series, which is only a "series" in the loose sense that its two games that came from the same publisher with the same name. And centered around chaoticness in urban areas, I guess. Otherwise pretty different.

Urban Chaos (1/5) for PS1 and Urban Chaos: Riot Response (3/5) for PS2.

Next, onto the ongoing Site Improvement/Moving Saga:

After poking around in the bowels of my Talkspot account, I found that they actually let you execute your own Javascript on-site now. So it's possible that I could have the full functionality of what I want to do here, it just wouldn't look quite as nice (still Web 1.0-ish, but better than it is now.)

So, will we stay in place after all? WHAT A TWEEST! It would save a heck of a lot of time and trouble in moving the 1000-ish pages that are here and setting up a new support structure for them. Would save a bit of money too. The only downsides would be that the site is still stuck in a prefab "template" system that could be made to look better, but still not entirely professional. And there's also always the possiblity of a future unexpected Talkspot "update" knocking everything out from under me somehow.

Hmm. Gonna fool around with stuff onsite and find out. Don't panic if the site disappears for a bit or does something weird in the next few weeks.

Decided to continue with the updates here while the whole moving process goes on in the background. Won't really generate all that much extra work, after all.

Got some stuff in the pipes here, for now please enjoy this statue of Dr. Mario perving it up

I've been jobbing Talkspot a bunch so far this year, but we've had some good times here. I like the ease-of-use if you're content with a Web 1.0-ish looking site based on a limited set of templates. And the HTML editor is working again now, so there's that. Can't beat the price for (theoretically) unlimited storage and bandwidth either, even if the whole site is about 120 MB all told and we get only maybe a few hundred visitors a day.

All these issues with updating lately have made me realize, however, that I've lazily just been Web 1.0ing it up the last couple of years, when really I should have been more ambitiously building toward what I envisioned this site being when it started out back in 2007. Actually, that's not a lot more complex than what we have now, but it would involve a more Brofessional looking frontend and some PHP, neither of which is possible here.

So I've made the decision to move and rebuild. Not anytime soon. The place is paid up until the end of the year anyway, so there's no real pressure, I can spend as much time as I need taking this slow and doing it right, and in the meantime what's already here is in no danger of going anywhere. If you need it for some reason. I was just looking at my live stats and apparently someone from Google does. Sup bro or brodette (as the case may be).

Anyway, what you can (eventually) look forward to in Plato 3.0:

+ Brofessional frontend with PHP database search functions, search reviews on the fly with multiple variables. Good times.

+ New 5-point rating system for increased patina of legitimacy. Also so we can wreck Metacritic and Gamerankings metascores and send fanboys into a tizzy. Also also so maybe you can actually click on a review on those sites of a game that's more than 5 or so years old and not get a dead link or some bullshit that was written by a chipmunk.

+ Re-reviewing a few games that I was kinda lazy about. None of them are indie games though.

+ Fixing ALL broke screenshots and gameplay vid links. I'd estimate 1/3 of the gameplay links are dead now, mostly stuff from 07-09.

+ Moar Groader

I'm divided on putting any new reviews here. It's back to being easily doable, but it's more work that just has to be ported later. Let me get a better handle on how long a transition is going to take.

Alright, I'm missing a Pens game so that's it for now. More later.

For all my bros and brodettes Han Soloin' it out there today, let's ease our pain by pointing and laughing at a terrible game. I can't even remember how I found the wall of our hearts (PC) originally but I had a note scribbled next to it saying "play for V-Day maybe?" Now I can't help but read that in a Zoidberg voice for some reason. I guess it's another arty-farty platformer, I don't even know anymore.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to suck dwarf cork.

I didn't originally plan to pair these two games up for an update but they make an interesting comparison in using "mature" themes. God of War (PS2) is just balls-out blood, violence and tits to excess (though I'll give it credit for being the first time I can remember seeing bare tits in a console game). The Witcher (PC) isn't above some tits, but goes about it in more of a restrained way, and focuses more on mature writing and characters. Also both games you can get for like 3 bucks if you fish around a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two more games for the Inferior PS Dipple with Shadow of Rome and Silent Hill 2 . Actually I've got a whole pile of PS2 and PC games right now so if you don't care about either of those platforms, uh ... maybe check back in April or so?

We're back to bagging on overly hard games for a bit. But this time, ones from major publishers, so everyone can feel good about it. Well, except fanboys, I guess.

Anyway, two entries to the PS2 stable - Shinobi and Gradius III & IV . The Shinobi review comes off as negative but I actually thought it was OKish, if you see it lying around for 2 bucks I'd grab it and give it a shot, it might tickle your ninjer balls. Gradius 3 and 4 are garbo, on the other hand. Which is baffling since I liked Gradius 3 on the SNES, but apparently the original arcade versions of Gradius games suck worse than their eventual console ports.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The masses have spoken and they want MOAR OBSCURE ODDBALL GAMES!!!

 

We are pleased to oblige. First there's Revengers of Vengeance (Sega CD), runner-up to the title of "Worst Game Name Ever" (presently held by VVVVVVV). The game, surprisingly, is not a *complete* train wreck. It's actually an interesting fusion of RPG, fighting game and space shooter, even if it doesn't come out all that well.

 

I'm sure you've heard of the Sega Genesis Moonwalker, and maybe you've seen the arcade version too ... but did you know there's a PC version of Moonwalker that predates both of them? It actually came out for all the major home computers of the time ... and is markedly worse.

 

The beast Lu Bu must die today! I dunno why it took me so long to get around to Dynasty Warriors. Up 'till now I only played a demo of #3 ages ago and that craptacular one for DS. Random trades landed me Dynasty Warriors 4 and Dynasty Warriors 5 at the same time just before Xmas, and I think the smileys speak for themselves. Of the two I think Dynasty Warriors 5 is probably the better introduction to the series if you're completely new since it does a better job of explaining stuff in-game and has more linear campaign missions, but Dynasty Warriors 4 I like a little better for various reasons (mostly butt rock soundtrack tbh)

Not gonna bother with the blackout thing today because only like 20 people read this site and I'm sure they're already very familiar with and opposed to SOPA and PIPA already if they're in the U.S.

I had to share this, though, absolute comedy gold has come out of the Wikipedia shutdown today: Herpderpedia, retweeting the tweets of random people who are clueless about what SOPA/PIPA are.

 

The thing that really gets me about this one is all the students tweeting "OMG I HATE U WIKIPEDIA I HAVE ESSAY DUE 2MORROW". I don't even know where to start. I'm in university myself and Wikipedia is a great "starting point" to get a general overview of something you're unfamiliar with and leads to follow. If you completely rely on it to write papers at the last minute and don't even consider maybe even going to a library, you're officially a joke-tier student that doesn't deserve any sort of college funding and should be kicked out of uni immediately and shipped off to a Wal-Mart Training Camp.

OK, after this one we're done beating up on poor struggling indie game designers who donate their games to charity bundles for a while. The Binding of Isaac is actually a pretty interesting take on the Roguelike genre, but I felt like it came out of the oven way too soon or something.

 

Unfortunately the PSP gets its first (and the first of 2012) with Generation of Chaos, a strategy/RPG that also appeared to come out of the oven way too soon. That or the designers were smoking something through the whole dev and shipping cycle.

It's Indie Opposites Day! Nightsky is part of this whole sedated Zen Games thing where you peacefully roll a ball. Shank is a game that gives you the opportunity to kill 30, maybe 40 men (per screen), in a variety of gruesome ways. Both for PC, incidentally.

Tearing thru the Indie Bundle while I have time. Today, for PC, Bit.Trip Runner , Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles .

Man, back to the student grind in just a week :(

I got in the mood for lighter and more arcadey fare so I decided to finish up the Humble Indie Bundle 4. Mixed start so far. The quality of Jamestown surprised me for a little first-time indie outfit, but Super Meat Boy is another in this trendy "overly hard Flash platformer" thing that I don't understand. File it away with dubstep I guess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll start off 2012 with Daggerfall (which is freeware now) and Morrowind for PC. Instead of Skyrim. Because this is how we ball in the y12k.

 

Have a FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU New Year!

 

 

Talkspot as usual kicks off the new year by doing something that frustrates the shit out of me. You see that little sidebar menu to the left there? Talkspot has some proprietary WYSIWYG system called "widgets" that you have to use to make all these pages, rather than just straight ballin' with HTML in Notepad then uploading via FTP. When it actually works right, it's actually more convenient than doing everything the old school way. The problem is that they constantly change and tweak the interface without announcing anything, so you log in and suddenly some derpy, glitchy new shit is staring you in the face and have to figure out how to work it. Their primary targeted customer also seems to be 85 year olds making pages about their boats or something, so everything is dumbed down to a ridiculous degree ... to the point where you lose basic control over the most basic things sometimes.

Anyway, all I wanted to do was add an "Old News 2011" line to that sidebar on the left over there. Should be very simple. Load up the "widget", add a line to it, done. Well, see, no. You can't just edit an existing menu widget. It basically auto-deletes it, then replaces it with a list of EVERY SINGLE PAGE YOU HAVE EVER CREATED ON THE SITE, then is like "lol k bro just delete all the ones u don't want ololololo." That's obnoxious enough by itself ... but then through some glitch I can't even figure out, it teleported that massive list of hundreds of pages to the sidebar of EVERY SINGLE OTHER PAGE ON THE SITE.

I had no idea how to fix it, so I nuked it from orbit (restored a backup from the 26th of December.) That means I have to entirely recreate the stuff from the last two updates (saved to a local backup). I was gonna do an actual update today, but this bullshit just wore me right out for the night.

 

So here's the link to the Old News Page for 2011 in case you want any of the goofy JPEGs for your forum avatar or something. I can't add it to the sidebar because I'm afraid to touch that demonic thing again. I don't think demand for it will be great enough to merit it though, at least until that glorious day when Talkspot gets over their fetish for auto-loading every single resource you have ever uploaded any time you want to add or change anything, to ensure Granpa Ernie doesn't get confused and cant find the pictures of the squirrels he took last March. Until then its just gonna be stuck down here, sorry bros. And maybe a real update tomorrow if no other craziness happens.