Road Rash III: pixels
I played Road Rash a lot when I was younger, and Road Rash II about ten times more than that. I have played both recently, and can quickly get back into the rhythm of the first few races - snaking through the back markers, taking the chain from Viper, avoiding Natasha, and rolling out to the front before the finish line. The low framerate is slightly jarring, but the games still look clean and fresh.
Despite my love for the second game, I never bought Road Rash III, largely due to middling reviews. Having now played it, I can see why. It's still a good game, but the differences from Road Rash II are minimal, with slightly more varied locales and more weapons (which you don't really get to experience, since you carry a weapon from race to race and so effectively get stuck with the first one you grab forever). The biggest change is in visuals, with the artists moving away from clean pixel art to more photorealistic sprites.
And it just makes the game look messy. The main character - the one you're looking at half the time - looks washed out and indistinct ... and even more so when you upgrade your bike and find that you no longer have the coloured band on your clothes.
There is one great addition, though. An opponent called Scab Boy.
Despite my love for the second game, I never bought Road Rash III, largely due to middling reviews. Having now played it, I can see why. It's still a good game, but the differences from Road Rash II are minimal, with slightly more varied locales and more weapons (which you don't really get to experience, since you carry a weapon from race to race and so effectively get stuck with the first one you grab forever). The biggest change is in visuals, with the artists moving away from clean pixel art to more photorealistic sprites.
And it just makes the game look messy. The main character - the one you're looking at half the time - looks washed out and indistinct ... and even more so when you upgrade your bike and find that you no longer have the coloured band on your clothes.
(Pictured on the snow stage just to doubly emphasise the point).
It's still a good game, don't get me wrong. The problem is that the second game was pretty much perfect, so all the changes they implemented - and of course they had to implement changes to be able to sell a sequel - make things worse. Muddier graphics. More complicated bike upgrade screens. Less catchy music. More boring dashboard. Garish or pixellated backgrounds.
There is one great addition, though. An opponent called Scab Boy.
Road Rash III: pixels
I played Road Rash a lot when I was younger, and Road Rash II about ten times more than that. I have played both recently, and can quickly get back into the rhythm of the first few races - snaking through the back markers, taking the chain from Viper, avoiding Natasha, and rolling out to the front before the finish line. The low framerate is slightly jarring, but the games still look clean and fresh.
Despite my love for the second game, I never bought Road Rash III, largely due to middling reviews. Having now played it, I can see why. It's still a good game, but the differences from Road Rash II are minimal, with slightly more varied locales and more weapons (which you don't really get to experience, since you carry a weapon from race to race and so effectively get stuck with the first one you grab forever). The biggest change is in visuals, with the artists moving away from clean pixel art to more photorealistic sprites.
And it just makes the game look messy. The main character - the one you're looking at half the time - looks washed out and indistinct ... and even more so when you upgrade your bike and find that you no longer have the coloured band on your clothes.
There is one great addition, though. An opponent called Scab Boy.
Despite my love for the second game, I never bought Road Rash III, largely due to middling reviews. Having now played it, I can see why. It's still a good game, but the differences from Road Rash II are minimal, with slightly more varied locales and more weapons (which you don't really get to experience, since you carry a weapon from race to race and so effectively get stuck with the first one you grab forever). The biggest change is in visuals, with the artists moving away from clean pixel art to more photorealistic sprites.
And it just makes the game look messy. The main character - the one you're looking at half the time - looks washed out and indistinct ... and even more so when you upgrade your bike and find that you no longer have the coloured band on your clothes.
(Pictured on the snow stage just to doubly emphasise the point).
It's still a good game, don't get me wrong. The problem is that the second game was pretty much perfect, so all the changes they implemented - and of course they had to implement changes to be able to sell a sequel - make things worse. Muddier graphics. More complicated bike upgrade screens. Less catchy music. More boring dashboard. Garish or pixellated backgrounds.
There is one great addition, though. An opponent called Scab Boy.
Retropie: how to access screenshots
I have been playing games on my RetroPie recently, and taking screenshots while doing so. When trying to access these to put them on the blog, I ran into some difficulties. I worked it out in the end and thought it worth documenting.
Screenshots are saved by default in ~/.config/retroarch/screenshots/. Unfortunately if you use samba in Windows or OSX to connect to //RETROPIE, you don't get shown this directory - instead you are shown ~/RetroPie/ which is the folder in which the configuation and ROMs is stored.
You can adjust this, but it makes uploading ROMs more difficult in the future. Instead, you might as well just copy the screenshots folder into one of the available folders temporarily.
So, SSH into the Pi, and navigate to the retroarch folder:
Screenshots are saved by default in ~/.config/retroarch/screenshots/. Unfortunately if you use samba in Windows or OSX to connect to //RETROPIE, you don't get shown this directory - instead you are shown ~/RetroPie/ which is the folder in which the configuation and ROMs is stored.
You can adjust this, but it makes uploading ROMs more difficult in the future. Instead, you might as well just copy the screenshots folder into one of the available folders temporarily.
So, SSH into the Pi, and navigate to the retroarch folder:
cd ~/.config/retroarchThen copy the screenshots folder into the splashscreens folder within the RetroPie structure:
cp -R screenshots/ ~/RetroPie/splashscreens/Then look at the splashscreens folder through samba in Windows explorer, and the screenshots are all there. You can then delete them after copying them elsewhere.
Gravity Rush: completed!
(First drafted 27 February 2017)
It was pretty straightforward from the underground section back to the top; the greatest difficulty I had was interpreting the map of the underground system, with one mission causing real problems until I realised the flower at the North of the map was actually an actual island.
I'd completed many sidequests before this point, and as a result when I got back up there was little to do except progress to the end of the game. There was an odd bit where I was transported to some sort of virtual world, and then tying up a story where I found out that an old couple had died ...
... but my biggest concern was where all the children from underground had disappeared to. I was expecting them all to suddenly appear at the end boss and help out, but I won't spoil what actually happened other than to remark how frustrating yet beautiful the last sections of the game were.
Maybe the extended break in the middle of the game did it some good in that I never felt the story was outstaying its welcome - there are a large number of time challenges and so on that I've not completed, but I have no desire to do so.
It does pose me with a conundrum, though. I would (now) happily pay for this game given the amount of enjoyment I got out of it, but I doubt I would have bought it before playing it - the only reason I did get to play it was that it was given away free. It seems I will have to work out a better way to discover games that I will like.
It was pretty straightforward from the underground section back to the top; the greatest difficulty I had was interpreting the map of the underground system, with one mission causing real problems until I realised the flower at the North of the map was actually an actual island.
I'd completed many sidequests before this point, and as a result when I got back up there was little to do except progress to the end of the game. There was an odd bit where I was transported to some sort of virtual world, and then tying up a story where I found out that an old couple had died ...
... but my biggest concern was where all the children from underground had disappeared to. I was expecting them all to suddenly appear at the end boss and help out, but I won't spoil what actually happened other than to remark how frustrating yet beautiful the last sections of the game were.
Maybe the extended break in the middle of the game did it some good in that I never felt the story was outstaying its welcome - there are a large number of time challenges and so on that I've not completed, but I have no desire to do so.
It does pose me with a conundrum, though. I would (now) happily pay for this game given the amount of enjoyment I got out of it, but I doubt I would have bought it before playing it - the only reason I did get to play it was that it was given away free. It seems I will have to work out a better way to discover games that I will like.
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