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Out Run GB: a valiant effort

Posted on 01/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

I previously wrote about Hero GP, a fun little Game Boy Colour game I bought which is pretty difficult given its speed. I have played it on occasion since, since it’s ideal for a very short play session (which can turn into a much longer one with just one more go). The maker of that game has wondered “what if OutRun came to the Game Boy Color?”, and despite his misspellings of both “Out Run” and “Colour”, it’s a valid question. Luckily, he has answered it.

Yes, there are limitations. No branching paths, limited roadside furniture, blocky cars. But it feels like Out Run, with undulating tracks and traffic getting in the way, and if you hit another car or a tree with enough force, the car somersaults in the classic advert for seat belt wearing.

It feels slower than Hero GP, which is probably a good thing given the tighter feel to the track space. The controls are very precise, other than the brake which seems to have too much of an effect. Hitting other cars slows you down a little too much, meaning that two hits is almost enough to mean you fail the first stage, whereas that’s not usually the case until the second stage at least – depending on DIP switch settings, of course. It’s a very accomplished bit of coding, and while it can’t be released commercially for obvious reasons, I hope that Sega keep it available as a curio – it’s free to play from the link above.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Emulation, Game Boy Colour, PC

Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp: blasting through

Posted on 28/08/2025 Written by Xexyz

AW1+2RC is a compilation of the first two Advance Wars games (not the first games in the series, mind – Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars hold that honour) with new graphics, the war room separated out into a combined section, and a few niceties added to make the game run a bit smoother. It also has a ‘casual’ mode which I seem to have been enrolled on, even though I answered “no” when asked if this was my first time playing Advance Wars.

As a result I am powering through the levels, getting S and the occasional A rank. The most difficult level I’ve found so far was against Kanbei, when his heavy units were obliterating my army; I realised a few turns too late that he had left the South of the map undefended, which is where his HQ was; it took me a couple of turns to send an infantry unit along and capture it, meaning I won the level but with a much reduced score.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: switch

Mario Kart 7: back online

Posted on 08/08/2025 Written by Xexyz

With the help of the Pretendo network, I’ve managed to have a few games of this online over the past week or so, as well as doing some more time trials. The lobbies aren’t full, but any stretch, but even when there’s only three people in a race the catch up algorithms mean that it’s fun to compete. On a couple of occasions there was one player who knew glitches on levels which meant they won easily, but they never stayed online for long. I won only a couple of races, but my ranking has slightly improved from 1000 so the game thinks I’m doing OK.

Coming from Mario Kart World, the 3DS isn’t that comfortable to hold, and I keep forgetting that I need to hold the shoulder button down in order to train a shell or banana behind me. There were a couple of times I wished I could have a feather to jump a gap, and I got very confused in Shy Guy Bazaar where the World version of the track is just a little bit different. Still, this is a great game.

In 150cc the game still feels pretty unfair, but in time trial it’s amazingly tense

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: 3ds

Wreckfest: this isn’t a PC game

Posted on 07/08/2025 Written by Xexyz

So why is it crashing as if is one?

Unfortunately the debug menu option doesn’t work, and instead it just quits the game. I’ve tried deleting and redownloading, and I get the same error, which means it might be an issue with a locally stored save file or update file or something. Pretty frustrating.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Xbox One

APB: twitchy siren

Posted on 04/08/2025 Written by Xexyz

Maybe it’s the conversion to the Xbox pad, but APB is incredibly difficult to control. In order to arrest someone you have to have your cursor over them and press the siren, because obviously criminals are only going to pay attention to a police car which is an exact distance away from them. The thing is that the cursor is not at a set distance from your car, but instead varies with the speed you’re going. In order to have enough of a gap between your car and the cursor to be able to arrest someone, you have to be going quite fast, certainly faster than the criminals you are chasing. For littering this isn’t so much of an issue, since you need to signal to them once. By the time you get to chasing down dopers, it’s much more difficult because you have to signal on them three times, meaning you are almost guaranteed to crash; too many crashes and you’re out.

I’ll have to see if there’s an original cabinet next time I go to somewhere like Arcade Club, because the concept of the game – a semi-open world, different criminals to find, extending time through fuel and doughnuts – is quite attractive. It’s just the controls which frustrate.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Arcade, Emulation, Xbox 360, Xbox One

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98: There Were No Ramekins
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Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? Of course not. You don’t listen to the podcast so why would some random jangling entertain you, eh? But do listen, because it’s only bloody Christmas again!

In Episode 98, deKay and Kendrick chat about some The Game Awards stuff, Half Life 3 (or not), and games!

98: There Were No Ramekins
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96: Magic Beans
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