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Streets of Rage 3 (MD): COMPLETED!

Posted on 07/05/2016 Written by deKay

Streets of Rage 3 is certainly the hardest of the trilogy. As far as I recall, I’ve only completed it once before, and then I don’t think I got the best ending.

And so it is that I didn’t get the best ending this time either, unfortunately. I reached the chief in Stage 6 too late (and only just too late as well), and so Shiva was the final boss for me. It’s frustrating, as I played through the game three times today, and on the second attempt I did save the chief – then died on Stage 7. On my third and final try, I didn’t save him. Annoying.

Click to view slideshow.

Streets of Rage 3 probably isn’t as good as Streets of Rage 2. It has lots more moves, bigger sprites and in some parts (like the disco) some incredible graphics, but SoR2 plays better and has more variety and much, much better music. Also, Zen (in 3) is rubbish. Where has Max gone, anyway?

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Hudson Hawk (GB): COMPLETED!

Posted on 07/05/2016 Written by deKay

I seem to recall, back in the day, that although the film Hudson Hawk was utterly dire, the games based on it for various platforms were actually rather good. The Game Boy version, which I decided to play today for no specific reason, wasn’t fantastic as it turned out, but was reasonably playable.

Hudson Hawk is a platformer (because of course it is – pretty much all film licences at the time were), where Bruce Willis throws balls at things and steals paintings. There are two puzzles in the entire game, both really quite simple, and aside from not being able to see very far ahead of you (making some baddie appearances a bit of a surprise), the whole game was surprisingly easy. And short. It’s a very short game, especially since the first mission is longer than the other two combined, giving you a false sense it’ll be a much bigger than it was.

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Affordable Space Adventures (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 06/05/2016 Written by deKay

Affordable Space Adventures was, like Freedom Planet, another one of the recent Nintendo Humble Bundle games. It’s a game I’d intended to buy at some point anyway, but I just never got round to it.

Taking control of a tiny spaceship lost on a strange planet inhabited by long forgotten machines, you have to pilot around taking care not to get spotted, crushed, frozen or lasered. As your damaged ship starts to self-repair, additional systems come online, and eventually its fully functional with two different drive systems, a scanner, assorted types of landing gear and so on. Each on-board system generates noise, heat and/or electricity, and the machines you come across are variously sensitive to these, so you have to be careful which ones you activate, and how you use them.

This makes the game a bit more of a puzzle game than I was expecting. Tweaking power outputs and turning off unnecessary systems using the “heads-down display” on the Gamepad is genius, watching your outputs to ensure you can safely glide past a sentry or a mine undetected. Sometimes you need to coast along on minimal (or no!) power, other times you have to switch from your fuel engine to electric engine, or make use of your heat shutters to appear cooler to enemies. It’s very clever, really.

Later on, environmental hazards start playing havok with your ship’s computer, changing settings for you or completely disabling certain abilities, so you have to pay attention to your computer at all times.

It’s a beautiful looking game, and quite unlike anything else I’ve played. It’s hard to see how it would work properly on any system other than the Wii U (expect, perhaps the 3DS at a push), and it shows just what kind of thing can be done with Nintendo’s unusual hardware. It’s a shame more games don’t. There’s a multiplayer mode too, which is how the game was really designed to play, with up to three players taking over different aspects of the ship – a pilot, and engineer and a science officer – but I played through solo without too much difficulty. Apart from Level 37, the final section of which took over an hour’s worth of attempts. I scraped through eventually. Affordable Space Adventures is an essential game for any Wii U owner.

Click to view slideshow.

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New Game – Galaxy of Heroes (iOS)

Posted on 03/05/2016 Written by gospvg

I've started playing Galaxy of Heroes recently on the ipad, you collect Star Wars heroes (Light/Dark) and battle through campaign missions & various PvP modes.

Getting new characters is all down to luck in a pack or a lot of grinding for shards to unlock them. The two good characters I have at the moment are Ima-Gun Di who is a tank type class & Talia who is a healer.

Freedom Planet (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/05/2016 Written by deKay

Almost a year ago, I played the demo of Freedom Planet which was released with a million other Wii U demos as part of Nintendo’s E3 stuff. This is what I had to say about it then:

What looks like Sonic and sounds like Sonic but is terrible (like Sonic is now, I suppose)? Freedom Planet! Awful animation, screen juddering everywhere and all hopes and dreams of a possibly good Sonic game (even though it isn’t Sonic) up in smoke. Boo.

Numerous people have told me since that these animation and juddering issues aren’t in the PC version, and in fact, when the Wii U version came out, finally, I was told they’d gone there too.

They haven’t.

The screen still jerks around like the camera isn’t sure where it’s supposed to be. The animation is excellent in cutscenes and set pieces, but when you run round loops and up hills, the animation is really quite terrible – the sprite is rotated instead of redrawn, and it literally just looks like the sprite is being rotated. The physics are all wrong, and you’re able to run up vertical slopes (and upside down) without needing much momentum. The controls are unresponsive, especially the “dash” button which caused me to die numerous times as it didn’t activate. And yes, I did have enough power to do it.

It rips off Sonic so much, even though your main character Lilac is not really much like Sonic at all. Many of the levels are similar – there’s a Lava Reef Clone, an Aquatic Ruin Clone, a Death Egg Clone, a Flying Battery Clone – and there’s even a bit with what are remarkably similar to Chaos Emeralds. You loop like Sonic, there are springs and bumpers like in Sonic games, the music could easily have come from a Sonic game and the power-up “bubbles” are effectively clones of Sonic 3’s. One of them even sucks in rings-er-gems when you go near them. Marble Garden’s spinners are here too, and many of the enemies could well be lifted from various Sonic titles as well. The extra life sound effect is eerily familiar.

Click to view slideshow.

But. And this is a huge but. I really rather enjoyed it. Once you see past the Sonic bits, you realise that it a more than decent game in its own right. The levels are gorgeous and huge, and some aren’t Sonic-like – such as the shopping centre. The bosses too are pretty impressive, with normal character fights and massive several-screens-wide dragons and things. There’s a proper story too, which you have the option of completely skipping (I didn’t, as I thought it might separate it from Sonic a bit more – it does), with some mixed success voice acting and humour.

It was a pretty easy game overall, with almost all my lives lost on bosses, most of my deaths coming on the final boss, and most of them lost on the final boss’ final form. I’m pretty sure now I know how to defeat the bosses I’d be able to complete it on a single credit, so it isn’t too difficult.

I can’t completely commend Freedom Planet, as the animation and jerkiness does detract a little and the unresponsive controls are a crime, but I paid just over a pound for it, and it’s definitely worth more than that. I’m glad I gave it a chance as it surprised me, and if I’d just left it at the demo I’d never have realised there was a decent game there. Stupid demo.

Click to view slideshow.

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