It's 2024 already?!? What the heck man!

[isthatallyougot]

Ok, I'll start with a refresher of my rankings and what they mean as I usually do. I use a five star scale because for me it's the most comfortable metric to account for all potential feelings regarding the enjoyment (or lack thereof) for any game. I don't get into all the 10 point nonsense or, god forbid, 10-point with decimals / 100 point ratings. "Yeah, this game is an 8.4, but this other one is a 8.1." Nonsense.

1 Star - Yeah. This stinks. Essentially nothing of merit, although sometimes there may be an element of worth buried in a pile of trash. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Terrible. Thankfully, I don't encounter these too often. Some years none at all.

2 Star - There may be some enjoyable aspects and a whisper of "what-could-have-been" in an otherwise unfortunate display. Sometimes I'll find compelling aspects in games of this rank, but they are simply dwarfed by problems and other negatives that hold it back. These can be frustrating, especially when I see aspects that could have made for a worthwhile game. Either way though, these are poor games when taken in their fullness.

3 Star - These games are, well, average and most years make up the bulk of what I play since they're, you know, average. They may have some really engaging elements that are counterbalanced by deficiencies or they may just be mildly enjoyable through and through. Either way, the sensation on balance is a decent game that failed to distinguish itself. Easily forgotten most of the time, and sometimes less memorable than worse games because of their mediocrity. To be fair, I did enjoy these games, even if they didn't light me up.

4 Star - This level and above is what I always hope to play when starting a new game. These are above average to very good games that really get me engaged. I find myself absorbed by what they have to offer and look forward to playing every time I get a chance. They may have some minor issues or just end up missing the special final ingredient to rise to truly excellent heights. But, make no mistake, I was left satisfied and grateful for playing games in this category.

5 Star - The whole reason I spend time gaming in the first place. These games ignite my passion for this hobby and reinforce why I've spent so much time gaming in the course of my life. I get *LOST* in these titles and have to pry myself away from their seductive grips if I want to do something else.

REPLAY




I *love* pinball, virtual and real. And the Pinball Arcade by FarSight Studios is always in my rotation. I can put endless hours into pinball when I find good tables. This year I probably played Space Shuttle more than any other, although I did enjoy a variety of different tables. It's (Space Shuttle) a simple table with great flow and is one of my all-time favorite boards. Hey, and it's credited with saving Williams and the pinball industry in general. What's not to love?!? I don't really need to describe pinball. If you know, you know. This particular set of real-life recreations in the FarSight collection is one of my favorite examples of virtual pinball and it's an all-time classic for me. And I have a particular fondness for virtual pinball based on real tables, which the entirety of this collection represents. I may as well include this in my "replays" by default every year. It's always going to be there. 5/5

(Just a heads up. I'll probably go slow, like I always do + I'm old, ha. Give an old dude a break! And hey, it's a little regular ongoing content for this board. )

[canedaddy]

Just a heads up. I'll probably go slow, like I always do + I'm old, ha. Give an old dude a break! And hey, it's a little regular ongoing content for this board. )

Works for me! Dishing out a bite here and a chunk there makes it more digestible.

[isthatallyougot]

Works for me! Dishing out a bite here and a chunk there makes it more digestible.

Well, I don't think I'd have the energy to do it any other way, ha.



Not to steal your persona, lol. But I'm catching up. Wait, is that possible?

[isthatallyougot]

35) Betty Boop's Double Shift (DS)





I'm not exactly sure why I picked up Betty Boop's Double Shift ("DS", oh Nintendo!) for the DS. I guess it was a strange curiosity about why it even existed in the first place. Given the success of the DS, there was understandably a glut of shovelware, but that avalanche of worthless software at least attempted to cater to modern interests, you know, get kids (or adults) interested in the content's essence. But Betty Boop hasn't been (or wasn't, even at the time of release) relevant in a long time. I mean, she is an enduring symbol in some regards, but she hasn't really had a significant mainstream presence for ages, despite her historically iconic status. So, I wondered, WHY? And who was the market?

I went in with that odd fascination, expecting little. The basic premise of the game is divided into two elements. In the first, you are a waitress in a club and must attend to patrons. They make their orders, which you take to the counter, and then retrieve and deliver to the appropriate tables once they've been filled. It's very simple and just a matter of clicking on the most urgent demand and repeating until the shift is done. It wasn't satisfying in any way - just boring, rote, and lacking any sense of engagement. The second is a “music”, and I use that term very loosely, game where Betty is “singing”. You must match notes for her “song” from a selection underneath the representation of those notes. However, there is no element of timing or music involved whatsoever. You simply must select the proper notes in the proper order before the timer runs out. Tap, tap, tap, tap. No reflection of any sense of musicality. Gah, I've spent too much time on this review. This game was bad. Avoid. 1/5.

34) The Wizard of Oz (SNES)






When one medium pulls from another medium to offer an interpretation of a beloved fiction, it can be a double-edged sword. You've got immediate affinity *because* of the relationship to the popular source material, but you've also got the burden of living up to the standard and draw inherent in that property. Enter a game based on the wonderful and layered fairy tale The Wizard of Oz, released for the SNES in 1993. I've always loved the 1939 musical, and have found it to be a thoughtful and deep work of art that is rife with room for interpretation, despite just being an enjoyable fantasy on the surface. With that love in my pocket, I decided to try out the SNES interpretation, a platformer on a machine that was littered with them.

You start off in Kansas and, of course, are whisked away by a tornado to start your adventures. You've got a magical wand that can fire projectiles at foes, which is very useful in some spots, although ammo or charge for it is incredibly sparse. You can jump, duck and kick, and the worlds are colorful and inoffensive if not necessarily always tightly tied to the film. You meet up with the primary characters from the film in the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man on your way to Oz. Each world has multiple stages as you travel along the yellow brick road to find these friends-to-be. Thankfully, you can switch between characters who each have their own health bars. There's also a password system for progression which, if you're not emulating and using save states, is very necessary as losing your lives sends you all the way back to the very beginning of the entire game otherwise. And it is very easy to die, mostly because of some utterly inexplicable platforming. You see, in this game about jumping from point to point, you can bizarrely fall right through platforms. That's right. It seems that if you are still holding the directional pad while landing - like is quite reasonable to expect in a game about *movement*, you can slip right through what otherwise would be a perfectly safe landing point. WHO DESIGNED THIS?!? And who tested it? I cannot comprehend the thought process. This aspect *alone* makes any positives moot, and they were pretty sparse to begin with. The general controls are stiff and lacking any joy, and things weren't designed very well in general. I had played through a couple of “worlds” and decided to read some reviews before putting down this abomination to see if my views were shared, and in doing so I also learned that the Tin Man, who I never reached, cannot even jump. Yes, in a platformer, one of the main characters cannot even jump, lol. There's plenty of negatives to express here that I won't bother going into, and why would I, given the fundamental issues I've already mentioned? It's like they tried to construct the worst possible interpretation of the film, poetically enough, given the transposition of release dates of ‘39 and ’93 for the film and game respectively. A surreal mirror image indeed. I really feel for any kid who's parent picked this up for them, or worse, some poor child, who *gasp*, spent their own limited cash. 1/5.

[argyle]

Fun fact (that my wife reminds me of every Christmas) - the actress who played Aunt Bethany in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - the old lady who wraps up her cat as a gift and is asked to say "THE BLESS-ING!" - was the original voice of Betty Boop.

the more you know.gif (1.37 MiB) Viewed 15137 times

[isthatallyougot]

Fun fact (that my wife reminds me of every Christmas) - the actress who played Aunt Bethany in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - the old lady who wraps up her cat as a gift and is asked to say "THE BLESS-ING!" - was the original voice of Betty Boop.


the more you know.gif

Thank you and mrs. argyle for broadening my horizons. Now, I've unfortunately got endless streaming scenes of Christmas Vacation playing in my head. I've seen that movie *way* too many times.

[isthatallyougot]

33) Guppy (PC)




Browsing my itch.io library, looking for any curiosity that caught my attention, I picked up a watercolor graphics game called “Guppy”. I had assumed that it was probably an aquarium simulator of sorts, and that's what got me to download it without having read any description. Instead, you are a little fish who swims around on hand-drawn 2D randomly generated areas. There are flies to eat that tally up a score, as well as other guppy-brethren in your “pond” of sorts. As you eat flies, bigger fish eventually appear that will chase you and eat you if you can't avoid them. You can hide under Lilly pads and swim away with an admittedly interesting control mechanic where you alternate or hold left and right directions/arrows to simulate the movement of your tail fin. It was a bit unintuitive to manage your path in the water, but it eventually became more comfortable. Unfortunately, there are no levels or any real progression. It's just random levels and eat flies until you are, yourself, eaten. I got a high score of 9 in the brief time I spent with it. I understand it's a small project and didn't expect a lot, but it still under-delivered relative to my very modest hopes. It could have been worth spending more time with had it expanded upon the basics because the controls were, as stated, interesting. But there's just not enough there to warrant any real attention. It's $2.99 on Steam and I would have felt terribly ripped off had I paid that for it. A 2/5 that needed some more gameplay built upon its central idea.

32) Pixel Boy and the Ever Expanding Dungeon






I picked up an old game that had been delisted on Steam in a Fanatical sale earlier this year, a game called Pixel Boy and the Ever Expanding Dungeon. I was tempted in part by the fact that it couldn't be purchased directly anymore, and because I got it for next to nothing. It's a procedurally generated twin-stick dungeon crawler with character leveling, power ups, and crafting. In concept, I was very into it. The graphics are quite simple, being a small indie title from close to a decade ago, but they were inoffensive. I can always look past modest visuals if the fun is there. You begin in an over-world and must descend to dungeons beneath a town to take out the baddies. Within the interconnected rooms, you must find three keys to form a whole - a blue, red and green key to unlock the exit to the next stage. While searching for these, you encounter enemies that you deal with in typical twin-stick fashion. You can also gain levels to increase your attributes - traits like health, damage, range, etc. And there are power ups that can be found and employed to add to your arsenal by giving your shot a spread-function, heat-seeking ability to auto pursue foes, and a host of other tweaks that improve your chances. Again, in premise, I was very intrigued, which is why I picked it up in the first place. Unfortunately, the execution of things is where Pixel Boy was shattered into bits. The first problem I encountered was the controls themselves. The aiming stick was inverted, and I found no way to remedy that. I can, and did, adjust, but it's awkward to point your aim in direct opposition to your targets, and was a baffling choice. Much like camera controls, I can adapt to any setup, but I did not like this design at all. More problematic is that there's just no speed, impact or “juice” to the combat. Everything was just so plodding and ultimately quite dull, really. There was a fine foundation for an enjoyable experience, but when the core interaction is just tedium, there's not much to grab onto. There's also an annoying narrator that is trying to be funny, but it didn't land for me, both in terms of the attempted humor itself and the grating voice work. To be fair, it's not a broken game, and there are surely elements that are worthy of a good game, but the developer didn't put it all together for me. I gave it more than a fair shot, playing for about 3 hours and finishing half of the main campaign, and I considered just powering through it, but when you're not really having any fun, what's the point? I dropped it, and could have done so sooner with adequate justification. 2/5.

[canedaddy]

Those first two seemed oddly appealing to me until I read your write-ups.

[crimson_tide]

Oh dear lord, izzy doing end of the year wirte ups! Dammit, I knew this day would come...please go easy on The World Ends With You. Please. My heart can only take so much ...well at least it's not in danger of being a one star with the likes of The Wizard of Oz and Betty Boop .

[isthatallyougot]

Oh dear lord, izzy doing end of the year wirte ups! Dammit, I knew this day would come...please go easy on The World Ends With You. Please. My heart can only take so much ...well at least it's not in danger of being a one star with the likes of The Wizard of Oz and Betty Boop .

Your world ends with me.

Seriously though, I can guarantee you it lands in the top 31.

Really seriously though. Don't worry about my opinion, one way or another. Yours is the only one that should really matter (to you). My opinion is just as smelly as everyone else's...more so if I go by the people that have passed through my journey of life.