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Pepper Grinder (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’ve often said that some games that are previewed too far in advance of release are not doing themselves any favours. For me, anyway. Pepper Grinder is one such game, that piqued my interest in a Nintendo Direct long, long ago and then when it came out I’d totally forgotten about it whereas if it was wowgoshlookithtis and it was released a couple of weeks later, I might have jumped on it immediately.

Then I saw it in an eShop games-on-sale roundup video somewhere and I was repiqued. So I bought it. And it was great!

The main gimmick is that you have a big ol’ drill bit which you use to not only mole your way through soft earth, but also to damage baddies and turn gears and stuff. Digging through the ground (and ground that’s, uh, in the sky) will sort of launch you when you break out of it, so much of the game is about aiming your drill so as to launch and land in the right place.

There are some puzzles in that certain things have to be drilled or activated in specific orders, and tricky platforming where angles and timing are key to success, but you’ve also got baddies everywhere, and some clever bosses where you often have to make alternate use of your drill to damage them. Oh, and sometime you get a MASSIVE GUN and there are also shops to buy upgrades with stuff you collect along the way,

It’s also got nice pixel art and feels like the sort of game you’d play on a Game Boy Advance only this game didn’t exist then. Was Drill Dozer similar? I never had the £££££ needed to buy that rarity.

Cat Quest II (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Since I enjoyed the first game, and also had a free copy of the second, of course I was going to play that too. It isn’t actually vastly different to the first one, although you now have two characters you can swap between (you’ll never guess that the other one is a dog), and as well as a largely-similar map to Cat Quest OG there’s a whole dog-populated area north of it.

Gameplay is mostly as before, although upgrades to your equipment are now more like a traditional RPG with an actual upgrade shop rather than a lootbox-y gambling mechanic. The graphics are noticeably more polished too. Other than that, it’s pretty much more of the same, which it turns out, is Just Fine: a pretty laid back Zelda sort of game with silly characters lots of dungeons.

Dordogne: why am I here?

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A charming adventure game, with a really unique art style and setting. The story is a little confusing at first, without an explanation for why you are in a car with your dad asking where you are, but it quickly starts to piece together: you are on the way to visit your nan’s house, after her death, to find stuff that she left for you – and your dad doesn’t want you to go there. When you arrive and start to explore, you trigger memories of what happened in the house one summer when you were sent to live there (I’m guessing when you were around 10 years old), and you have to explore each day to see how the summer went.

It is very slow paced, quite simple, but utterly charming. The little girl who you control, Mimi, has such a defined expression throughout, with uncertainty but stubbornness as an adult, and – at least initially – petulance and sadness as a child. She misses her friends, her family, and her home in Paris, but gradually the beauty of the location and the kindness of her grandmother change her perception.

The game is stunning to look at, even more so in motion as the environments pan around as you move. Some of the locations are very atmospheric indeed. I have played four days so far and am starting to see links between the young Mimi’s actions and the the older Mimi’s visit. I’m looking forward to finding out all about the secrets that have been kept.

Road Rash: I’ve been on a diet

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Road Rash was one of my favourite games during the Mega Drive’s heyday – Colin had the first game, which we played in turns for hours at his house, and when the second game came along with split-screen multiplayer it was a day-one purchase. I still have that cartridge, and last played it back in May 2023 – it still works. I have written about the third game on this blog, which felt like a downgrade from the second.

Talking about downgrades, I suppose it’s a wonder that they got Road Rash working on the Master System at all. It barely runs; the framerate is in the single digits, the graphics are messy and disproportioned (the cars in particular look horrendously narrow), the controls are imprecise. It’s almost impossible to avoid oncoming obstacles since they only appear 10 metres up the road. Thankfully, given the difficulty in steering, the opponents tend to leave you alone – I saw no evidence here of certain opponents catching up with me after I’d overtaken them, just so they could lash out at me.

I’m sure that if I’d had only a Master System back in 1992, I’d have been delighted with this. But I didn’t, and now I have access to 32,616,381 different consoles, of which 33% of them have a better version of Road Rash on. One where the main character sprite doesn’t look as if the aspect ratio’s gone wonky.