VA-11 HALL-A
Vita
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0994-PCSE00756_00-VALHALLAPSVITA01

Added.

2064: Read Only Memories
Vita, Switch
https://ign.com/images/games/read-only-memories-vita-20046143
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/2064-read-only-memories-integral-switch

The Switch version was already listed here. The Vita version has been added here.

I write my reviews directly in the submission box! Like a true old school GameFAQs gangster.

I use OpenOffice Writer to write my reviews, even though I have and like Microsoft Word. I use Irfanview to do most of my image work around the site, even though I have and like Photoshop.

I make use of several programs in the interest of writing review articles; I would like to help others by sharing some of these free programs to aid them in their journalistic pursuits and simple convenience. Feel free to contribute with some great freeware programs you use! I'll update this post as the topic progresses.

4K Video Downloader is my program of choice for saving videos from YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and more to examine at a later time, which is handy as my internet connection is pretty spotty and I don't have to worry about being at a lack of certain information if I save the video to view at any time. This excellent, efficient freeware supports playlist downloads, subtitles (including annotations), resolutions up to 1080p 60FPS, and a variety of file formats, including mp3. Plus, it isn't browser-based, which means you can pin it to your taskbar to bring up regardless if you're swapping between browsers. There's even more features to love, such as a communicative interface and automatic downloads from subscribed channels, yet I think I've made it clear that this is the definitive YouTube to mp3/mp4 program.


EditPad Lite is my favorite alternative to Notepad. With convenient tabbing, search options, and a dearth of backup features, this can be a real beast for writing, especially if you get some good plugins.


ShareX is essential for my screenshot-capturing purposes. With its hotkey functionality and variety of capturing options, ShareX is easy to use from the start yet grows more appreciable over time.

Congrats on getting this one out quickly. I have Kingdom of Amalur and The Witcher II, but I haven't even come close to starting either. Maybe one day. I've mainly been sinking hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is a way, way better game than DA2.

Thank you for placement, congrats to Pick and Mariner!

Thanks for the RotW, OD! And to Masters and EmP for the thanks in return.

It was really a crunch getting this review finished, writing and combing it up until the final hours of 9/9. I try putting a Dreamcast or Sega-related review up on that date; some years I get it, some I completely miss it, and others I miss it by a few days. So, I'm glad the review didn't feel rushed, and the flow I was aiming for translated well enough to get it the top spot!

Congrats to Mariner and Joe for nabbing their respective placements, and for everyone else who kept throwing up reviews this week til the final minutes!

Props to Pick, even if he lowballed Sonic Mania by 2.5 stars. I can still see myself playing Mania years and years from now, but it was interesting to see what the other side thought didn't stack up as well.

Props to Mariner on the off chance he checks these things and well played Joe for continuing to out-consistent us all. Some great stuff on the podium fringes this week would have been a hard call to pick a top three.

Nice job getting this up on Tuesday -- that's fast. I'm always glad to see Pickhut get his props as his style seems a bit underappreciated around these parts in my view. And the mariner comeback tour continues. And Joe continues to Joe.

Looks like I have nine reviews by seven different people to whittle down to three winners this week. And it looks like there are no hold-overs, so I don't have to worry about last week's really tardy RotWer (EmP) yelling at me for forgetting about him again and again, which is a victory in itself!

With no further ado because I have no ados to give, here are my rambling, incoherent comments about either what you wrote or just whatever popped into my scattered brain while I was thinking about something to say about what you wrote.

Since everything was good this week (something I've said in some form or another every week I've done this for some time), to briefly touch on the non-placers.

Both MidCore and Sam1193 have really informative reviews that, depending on personal reading preference, may have put too much focus on setting the stage, as it takes multiple paragraphs in both reviews to actually get to the game being reviewed. MidCore sets up the history leading to the creation of Boot Hill, while Sam opens with a lengthy discussion of former Burnout games and then concludes with that series' eventual fate, as well as that of its design company. I enjoyed both reviews, but when I'm looking for nits to pick to rank the top three of a given week, "takes a long time to get going" is as good of one as any.

Follow Freeman had a strong review for Devil May Cry 4, which also took a little while for me to get into. In this case, it's mainly because I played the first DMC a long-ass time ago, but haven't touched the series since then, so to me, there was a touch of familiarity in the first couple paragraphs that had me a bit confused. After getting past those couple paragraphs, everything was really good, though, and I could definitely understand the complaint that you have two super-diverse characters, but not enough content to truly delve into all that they can do.

With Masters' two reviews, I had some trouble finding random nitpicks. Well, maybe not with Xargon, which had this "Here's information about this old game and, you know what, it's really blah and forgettable, so this is getting wrapped up quickly!" vibe, but Death's Gambit was a fun little review illustrating a certain disappointment with a game that had potential that was unfulfilled. I really liked your Street Fighter reference in describing the bosses as being simple encounters that are tough simply because you take so much damage for getting hit by their really basic attacks. One game I'm playing right now is Mega Man Anniversary Collection on my PS2 and I had that exact issue with the final alien hologram boss in MM2. Simple pattern and simple shot attacks, but if you get aggressive, you might collide with it and, therefore, lose 2/3 or so of your life in collision damage. And then I got annoyed and frustrated and it took me like 25 tries to beat the damn thing. And let me tell you, knowing that virtually everyone who's played that game describes that as a simple and easy MM boss DID NOT HELP with the frustration factor. For that matter, neither did the stabbing pains in my thumbs after shooting through the rest of Wily's Fortress. Anyway, that was a definite placement-worthy review any week; this was just a really tough week to get on the board.

THIRD PLACE

JoeTheDestroyer's Beyond Oasis (Genesis)

You reviewed two games for this week and here's a fun fact. I own both of them in some form (original Darksiders and not the remastered one you hit up AND I have Beyond Oasis on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection) but haven't even touched either in just one more example of how bloated my backlog has been for years. To add to the fun, your (first) review this week for DA Origins 2…another game I own, but haven't touched. If you spend the next 2-3 weeks reviewing Witcher 2, Record of Agarest War (and RoAW Zero) and Kingdom of Amalur, I'm gonna think you're spying on me and my gaming progress, since those games are in the same category of "own; haven't touched".

As for this review, it got moved in front of Darksiders (and, essentially, a couple of those non-placers) because of how I related to it. I always thought this game was a Zelda-clone, so that first paragraph was essentially my impression as well. From there, you describe it as a hybrid of Zelda and beat-em-up, but not as good as it could be because it's kind of linear and simple, marring the Zelda-ness and because you have limited number of enemies that get palette-swapped to make the beating-em-up a bit more tedious than it could be. This was an easy read that I enjoyed a lot.

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SECOND PLACE

mariner's Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Switch)

This was a really fun review to read. Your tagline questioned whether the game might have too much content and you made a very persuasive argument as to why it might, but is still a really fun and awesome game to play for at least a good while. You did a good job of explaining how this game plays as pure action, opposed to the slower pace of the action-adventures that Zelda is known for. And did a great job of explaining that it's a really fun game, but that 100-percenters would probably snap at some point due to just how many characters there are and how maximizing some of them can be really frustrating due to features such as how some Master Quest maps can be amazingly difficult to pull off under said levels' criteria. I enjoyed this one a lot -- it was both really informative and easy to read.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Pickhut's Sonic Mania Plus (PlayStation 4)

I thought this was just a great review, as it did a great job of showing how this was a novelty act game that added new content, so you aren't just rehashing classic Sonic games, which is too easy to do nowadays (hell, I own PS2 and 360 collections that have all the Genesis Sonics on them) to make a simple rehash particularly viable. What really made this review awesome was how you tackled the dual argument that both the rehashing and the new content were flawed ideas. The new content because so much of it wasn't as good as the original stuff that inspired it and the rehashing because, as someone familiar with a lot of the old-school Sonic stuff, you found yourself most enjoying the old stuff that you weren't so familiar with. It was a really good argument that makes sense. If you're playing 5 classic games that you love or know you'll love and you're really familiar with 4, it goes to show that you'd be most fired up about playing the one that you aren't familiar with because that'll be a new experience that you aren't going through for the dozenth time or so.
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Man, I am on fire getting these out quickly. I better save the next one until Friday so everyone doesn't start worrying that I got got by the Body Snatchers or something.

I got half way through Cry of Fear. Has some good ideas (and a great camera themed opening) but the rest of the game felt kind of aimless. Should be a step above the others, though.

D'oh! I meant to comment on this thread last week, but my irresponsible nature Dragon Age: Inquisition stopped me. Thank you for placement. I'm sorry you nixed the Yakuza 0 rant. I do dig a good growl, both reading and writing them.

I will be doing more shovelware horror, regardless of the more rote reviews I put out. Grizzly Valley should me coming up next, followed eventually by Red Lake and Cry of Fear (which I hear is actually good).

Observer
PS4
http://ign.com/games/observer

Added.

You are probably right. The Kemco Khallenge was a fun diversion at the beginning, but after a couple dozen or so of their games, they do quickly get to the "blend together" phase, which probably makes taking some sort of hiatus from regularly playing them good for both my review-writing and sanity.

I am looking forward to the eventual Asdivine Menace review when I finish that one before starting my hiatus. It might wind up being my most "phone it in" review ever! Because if that's what they're doing with their games, I might as well when writing about them!

Boot Hill
Arcade
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/arcade/583969-boot-hill/data

Added.

Rob: I don't think it's a coincidence that you won RotW with your only review that wasn't for a Kemco game in the last who knows how long.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy week of drinking scotch and playing Yakuza for hours on end to get out a fairly timely RotW. (And thanks for the breakdown and win!) I thought the Nogalious review was going to get more love than Quackshot, so that makes your take doubly interesting. I didn't get to read all the reviews, but I read Pick's and liked it -- congrats to him as well.

You know, I'm kind of thinking the same thing about Kemco and I. It wasn't that game that did it, but right now, after playing Asdivine Menace, I'm really thinking I'd be better off taking a break from them. Menace is a direct sequel to Asdivine Dios and is basically the same game with more (smaller) worlds to explore and three new sidekicks for Izayoi. The only real difference is that you can level up skills, so they get more powerful (and broken) as the game goes on. It's not a bad game, but it's so damn derivative that if not for it being fun to power up skills in that RPG-grinding sort of way, I'd have quit it a while ago.

Right now, I have a system of playing one 360 game, one on another system, one ROM and one Kemco game. I'm thinking Kemco will get folded into the "another system" group where I play one from time to time, but never really put the same focus on them that I have for the last three years.

It was fun having my own little niche, since there's only really one other reviewer out there (at Touch Arcade) who has tackled their games like I have. But when THIS is your niche, you're up for a lot of "meh, it exists" tedium. That game existed. This game exists. The next one will exist. I think I want something a bit more than that...

Oh man. I should have submitted my AA Double Dragon review for that week, too; I could have doubly ruined your fond memories!

But yeah, Renegade takes the cheapness to a whole extra level, especially for an 80s arcade title. However, I have yet to experience an arcade game as cheap as Baraduke II. A hectic action/shoot'em up (?) game where a single touch from anything ends the game. Play it! I dare you!

Thanks for the second placement, and congrats to Masters on getting RotW!

There was a Yakuza 0 has taken all my free time rant here once. It’s irrelevant, and it’s gone now.

So, other people’s review listed in an order of preference with added blurb. I can do that. Let’s do that.

Rob talks about more Kemco games like an absolute trooper. Marc and I were talking about writing multiple reviews for an ongoing series and how we keep returning to various franchises like R-Type, or Silent Hill or Broken Sword. But we kept coming back to these things because we loved talking about them. Poor Rob doesn't seem to have this connection with the Kemco stuff, but he just keeps going. I made some throwaway joke about how he scores a tally into his wall every time he ticks one down. I’m starting to feel like it might actually be a thing. Is this a cry for help?

This isn’t going to be one of his best ones, and the game seemed to ensure that it was never going to be. It’s mired in ordinariness, which Rob does well to chronicle. Valient work, but maybe it’s time for a break? There’s some 32X titles I could recommend


Freeman takes an interesting angle going into his Halo review, building the game around a need to be a console FPS rather than a PC one. It’s a good read and brings up a lot of good talking points, but Halo was always going to be a console FPS alongside the PC. It was even touted as a Dreamcast title at one point, just to drive home just how long its development hell really was. Think it was still a third person shooter at that point, though; who can even tell anymore.

I liked the review, even it it was a bit unorthodox and works better as a companion piece of sorts. There’s a lot of nostalgia and some well thought out theory involved. A thoughtful addition to our Halo library.

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THIRD Alone K.W. [PC] by Joe

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Joe has a go at a $1 horror game and, to no one’s surprise, it’s rubbish. More so now he’s dropped the ‘plot’ and we can all be glad he decided to play it and we didn’t. From invisible obstacles to nonsicale plots to the big bad monster not actually doing anything at all, it sounds like the shovelware nonsense Steam is quickly flooded with. You’ve taken one for the team by shuffling it off everyone’s list.

The review works like a diary of awfulness, jotting down the myriad complaints as it goes. It’s probably the best way to go about this short, buggy games. Posing yourself a question to transition into a new point is a bit of a cop-out, but you do as well as you can with the material you have.

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SECOND Arcade Archives: Renegade [PS4] by Pickhut

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Renegade didn’t have a huge arcade presence here; I don’t remember seeing a single cabinet, in fact. My memories of this game came from the the brave Spectrum 128k home release that I played the hell out of. What relevance does this have? I guess I’m saying I still see this game through the rose tinted specs, just in a slightly different way.

In what seems to be this week’s trend, Pick then takes those fond memories and starts telling us that they don't really stack up anymore. Some of these points bought back long forgotten memories, like vietnam flashbacks, of desperately chasing down random thugs because they kept skipping back and I only had seconds left to pummel them in before I ate a game over. It was probably telling that this game barely got a look in once I obtained Double Dragon for the same system and bid farewell to sunlight.

Better taken to task is how the the re-release handles the arcade implemented issues that were a part of its era. Games then were supposed to be somewhat cheap because they wanted you to keep feeding it money into their greedy cabinets. But those things can be easy supplemented for home releases and yet, here, haven’t been. Though I will never say “bwha?” at an options menu (NEVER!) you were right to draw focus to the lacking options available to the player. Hard reset save states are something I’ve seen used heavily in strategy games to stop player save scumming their way through battles; I don;t think I’ve seen them used in side scrolling brawlers before. Strange stuffs.

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WIN Quackshot Starring Donald Duck [GEN] Masters

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So, it was a week or so back. I was ploughing through Yakuza 0 innocently enough, not bothering anyone. Suddenly, a wild Masters appeared. “Have you seen Venter’s review on Quackshot?”, he scoffed, with not a care for my blossoming real estate portfolio being attacked by Japanese gangsters. “I’ll show him!”

Why is this relevant? Because people need to know what a menace Marc is Because I think a lot of people are going to have a similar reaction to a lukewarm review of Quackshot, such is the regard many hold it in. Marc references this in his review; it’s the right angle to take because it puts him in the shoes of the majority. And then argues against the assumption we all unquestioningly adopted. Quackshot was great. Was it though?

Like Jason before him, Marc goes on to point out that it probably was once upon a time, but it has not aged particularly well. I think what really sold this review to me though is that it did it from a relatable standpoint; I’m just like you, person openly scoffing at my lowball review. I remember and wanted the game to be better as well. Screw that Jason Venter even though he might actually be right on this one.

Looks like it’s up to me to provide the site’s Donald praise review after all.

Nah, the PS4 is still "the" system to own. Reasons include:
1. Yakuza (remakes of parts 1 and 2 are already out, with more coming -- eventually the entire series will be on PS4)
2. Falcom (all their new games come to PS4, most come to Steam, none come to Switch -- except Ys 8)
3. Utawarerumono
4. Assault Suit Leynos

Certainly a Switch is a good #2, and if someone only has a Switch, then they can play the slightly lesser version of Ys 8 and pretend they're getting the same experience as they would on PS4 or Steam. But they won't be playing any of the other stuff I just named.