Invalid characterset or character set not supported Recent Stuff 15: 2016





Recent Stuff 15: 2016
February 12, 2016

Been meaning to make a new blog entry for the past few weeks, but always held off. The reason being: moved into a new place, and it literally took an entire month for it to happen! The moment I woke up everyday, I had to slowly juggle moving everything out and into the new place, all before heading to work, so by the time I had some free time at night, all I wanted to do was rest.

I did manage to squeeze in a few games to review, along with some other stuff after most of the moving was done, which I'll talk about below.

-GAMES-

Balloon Fight: in the last blog entry, I mentioned that, if I didn't have time to do a review for the ??? game, I would do a review for something smaller. I settled for Balloon Fight, since I long considered doing a game Iwata had a hand with before the year was over. While it was an easy review to do, I was actually surprised how much I actually talked about concerning the game.

As for the ??? game...

Spelunker World: back in December, after putting the finishing touches on my Star Wars Battlefront review, I wanted to do one more PS4 game before year's end, and I wanted it to be a PSN exclusive. That's when I stumbled onto Spelunker World, a free-to-play download. Spelunker for the NES is a flawed game, but it's an oddly charming, challenging game I couldn't stop playing, so I gave this a go. To my amazement, it stuck close to the "quirky" tone of the NES title, even right down to replicating specific flaws, to my surprise. It plays just like NES Spelunker, except with 3D graphics and introduces some modern mechanics into it, like a crafting system. It actually helps put extra emphasis on exploring for items, which gives the IP's name more legitimacy.

Spelunker World is also SUPER LONG, especially for a free-to-play title. I tried committing five stages a day to this game, and even then, getting to the end felt like a pipe dream. Finally, fatigue and the moving process wore me down, and I sadly abandoned the game. Maybe I'll return some day, but I doubt it... Also, since it's a free-to-play game, there's also a pay element. However, to the devs' credit, and even the publisher's (Square-Enix), I got incredibly close to the end of the game, and not once was I pressured into using any pay options. You can beat the game without it, no problem. The pay aspect is soooo trivial, that I wonder why it's in here in the fi, okay, well, we all know why.

Johnny's Payday Panic: I was in one of those moods where I was just browsing the 3DS eShop, prowling anything unusual that caught my eye. I spotted JPP, and after viewing some pictures and the video, I gave it a shot. As mentioned at the end of the review, the game reminded me of the Japanese-exclusive, PlayStation 1 game Ore no Ryouri, due to both emphasizing preparing food with their respective control gimmicks, analog sticks/stylus-touch screen. It's a simple, fun title that's very reliant on hand-eye coordination. And it was only after submitting the review that I realized this was created by the same dev team that does the Cooking Mama games, which makes sense. Though, I've never touched a Cooking Mama game, so I can only imagine quality is the same.

3D Streets of Rage 2: Several factors came into play that resulted in me doing a review for this, one of which was because I was in the middle of moving and wanted to do something quick. I mentioned in the review for the first 3D Streets of Rage that I wasn't really fond of Streets of Rage 2, however it's been ages since I actually played it, so I wanted to see if my opinion stuck. I was also curious to see if the extras weren't as stupid as they were in the first 3D Rage... To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I gave this port a 2/5, but I would like to mention that, if I was reviewing the original Genesis version, it would actually be a 3/5. Just throwing that out there. I don't want people to think I did the review with the sole intent to bash the game.

Witch & Hero: the choice to do this game was more for curiosity's sake than anything else. I was browsing the eShop yet again when I bumped into this, and I noticed this game got a lot of flak and a bunch of low-scoring reviews. It didn't look all too bad, so I took a chance with it. While I completely understand why this isn't for everyone, after playing it myself, it got surprisingly entertaining at times for something so basic. Though, it's not without flaws, which you can read in the review, if you want. And yes, that's a Firefly reference.

The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human: shortly after finishing Witch & Hero, I dove into Steam for a game released in 2016, simply because I felt like doing a review for a game released in 2016. I picked TAAotLH because it had a pretty interesting premise: a Metroidvania submarine title. This game started off cool, had so much promise, but the more I played, the more its design bugged me. I think it was just way too ambitious for the small indie team, and it probably would have made a better impression if they stuck to a more linear blueprint.

As mentioned in the review, I thought the ending of the game is dangerously terrible. I won't explain the ending, but I will say why it bothered me; you take control of a blank slate character for the entirety of TAAotLH, so the actions taken throughout the game is up to interpretation. Then you reach the final cutscene, and that blank slate character, which the player has molded into whatever they felt he/she was doing this whole time, is no longer in their control. For that brief cutscene, that blank slate character is now the dev team's character, and they inject their interpretation of what that character is and what they've been doing the whole time. Like, imagine if Link at the end of The Legend of Zelda suddenly started spouting political or social commentary after defeating Ganon. Jarring, right?

-MOVIE/TV SHOWS-

Well, other than staring at stuff on YouTube, I haven't watched a whole lot. Been trying to catch The Revenant in theaters for a friggin' month, but no luck so far. Only managed to watch some blu-rays on my PS4, the only use that machine's been getting since the new year. I want to review some more PS4 games, but all the ones I'm interested in keep getting delayed or haven't come out yet...

Shogun Assassin: For some reason that I don't remember, I was reading/researching martial arts movies to watch, and I eventually came upon a website article about the Wu Tang Clan's movie influences. This was on it, thought it sounded cool, and watched it. I can not for the life of me recall, but I faintly remember this movie from my past... Anyway, it's a fun, bloody samurai movie(s) with some slick, often classy cinematography. And yes, I'm aware of its Lone Wolf and Cub history; I wish I could watch the whole series without putting a dent in my wallet.

Mobile Suit Gundam: So recently, Sunrise, in partnership with RightStuf, has begun a DVD/Blu-Ray release blitz of the Gundam franchise in the US. I thought it would be an appropriate time to return to Gundam 0079, since the last time I attempted to watch it was during its first US broadcast back in 2001. Maybe I wasn't in the right mind frame back then, but I guess it was because I was expecting it to be something else. Another thing that drove me into giving the show another shot was my purchase of the first two The Origin books a few years back. I was really digging those books, since there's more characterization and an emphasis on the horrors and politics of war, but I drifted away due to other priorities.

I've only watched the first five episodes as of this writing, but the thing that's sticking out to me so far is the pacing. Particularly, the first two episodes alone have a surprising amount of content. It feels like not a single moment is being wasted, but I guess that's to be expected considering the urgency in those episodes. Wonder how I'll feel a couple episodes from now. I mean, I thought Zeta Gundam started off with some great pacing that even Kamille's amazing stupidity couldn't weigh down, but then that show's latter half.....

-----------

That's it for now. Hopefully the next blog entry won't have such a wide gap.

Edit: oh, and Bluberry recently sent me an e-mail. He sends his regards to all that remember him.

Most recent blog posts from Wendell B...

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joseph_valencia joseph_valencia - February 13, 2016 (08:34 AM)
The original Gundam is a classic that only gets better as the show goes on. Believe me, you haven't seen nothing yet. I'm in the minority of Gundam fans that doesn't think too highly of Zeta. It just doesn't have the heart of the original series. By the way, consider giving Turn A a shot. It's a really cool show that's unlike most anything in the mecha genre.
honestgamer honestgamer - February 13, 2016 (07:00 PM)
I'm glad to hear that bluberry is still alive and well. As for the games you picked to cover, it's a lot of obscure stuff, which is always cool. Sometimes I'll get in the mood to play something random, and I'll look around the site to see if we've covered it... and we have. Or, more precisely, you have. Keep doing what you do, pickhut!
dementedhut dementedhut - February 14, 2016 (02:27 AM)
JV: I would like to give Turn A a try, especially since it seems to give a polarizing reaction to viewers. Though, I'm bummed they only did a DVD-only US release, considering a blu-ray collection exists in Japan.

Venter: Yeah, I just realized the last few games I've reviewed seem somewhat unusual. I just go wherever my curiosity takes me, but the downside to that is that I might play something so bad or boring, that I can't convince myself to write a review for it... >_<
Germ Germ - February 15, 2016 (03:15 AM)
What a coincidence! I'm actually trying to watch 0079 after failing my first attempt a few years ago. There are Gundam stores nearby where I live so my interest has been again piqued. I'm even considering trying my hand at a model some time
Genj Genj - February 15, 2016 (06:59 AM)
I'm also watching the original Gundam because of the recent bluray release (I tried watching it on Toonami in 2001 but they never finished it). It's a huge shift in pacing after finishing Kill la Kill.

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