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Leftover Contra 4 Complaints
I had more gripes with Contra 4, but I didn't want the review to drag on since it was already long enough.
-The Hook
This had to be the most pointless addition in the game, as its only function seemed to be just to show off that your character can bounce between the two screens. Worse, the first stage did a very good job discouraging its use soon after you learn how to use it; there's a section where you can either traverse a bottom path or a top path that involves moving along a pole, and if you choose the pole, you're immediately punished, because, turns out, it's a monorail. The only major advantage I could think of its use was during the starting section of stage seven, where you can use it to reach the rooftops and skip over the annoying bottom section.
-Stage Two Boss Weird Platform
You can optionally fall through the platform you're standing on while fighting the second stage's boss. There's no reason or tactical advantage in doing so... it's just something you can do, or accidentally do, and fall to your death. This actually comes to bite the player in the ass during a very specific moment during the boss fight, when the giant alien lifts the platform closer to its giant face as it fires off huge projectiles. If you try to jump, in an attempt to dodge these projectiles, as the alien is lifting the platform, you fall through it and to your death.
Odd Stage One Boss Weapon Glitch
I don't know why or how this happened, but there was this one time I reached the wall boss with only a fire weapon equipped... and the flames went right through the red orb weak spot. I thought maybe it was because the orb was impervious to the flame weapon, which would have been really stupid, but the flame weapon worked just fine when I fought the boss another time. Weird.
Lazy NES Two-Player Support
The emulation of the NES games don't have actual two-player support, like, playing with another person with another DS/3DS. But again, for some reason, you're still able to select the two-player option and have both characters on screen. Interestingly, you move both characters simultaneously, however, the second character can't jump or shoot, which means he can quickly get stuck in a ditch and die. What's the point???
Recently Played/Playing
3D After Burner II
I bought this just to support 3D series. As much as I enjoy After Burner Climax, I gotta say... I was never a fan of After Burner II. Of all the Super Scaler titles I've played, I can't really enjoy the action in the game because I feel like there's waaayyyy too many effects cluttering the screen to actually see where stuff is coming from. I still think the game looks cool and the soundtrack is fun, though. I didn't fiddle much with the 3DS port of the game, but from my short time with it, the analog stick really sucks when controlling the plane; feels really sensitive. If you get this, I recommend modifying the controls so the d-pad gets main control.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
You can still pick up these games new at a surprisingly decent price on Amazon, and since the digital Trilogy version just came out on the eShop recently, I figured I should finally give this series a shot. I've been trying to avoid any plot related stuff from the series for the past ten years, and after playing through two and a half episodes of the first game, I'm really glad I did. I know the series is heavy on text dialogue, which was one of my main worries because I wondered if I would be able to keep interest. But so far, the game has been really engaging, and being in court is pretty fun. My only complaint with the game so far is that, when I failed for the first time (presenting a specific piece of evidence in the second episode was confusing), it sent me all the way back to the start of the chapter (episodes are further divided into chapters), meaning I had to wade through all the text boxes just to get back to court. They could've at least restarted me at a decent point.
Gunpey DS
Played, like, five minutes of this puzzle game. Have yet to return... Current impression: I wasn't really thrilled with the "connect the lines" angle of the game because it gives you so little time to work with. Maybe I need more play time with it.
Recent Movies
3:10 to Yuma
Picked this up based on JV's suggestion. For the first 30-some minutes, I was still unsure of the movie, despite what's happened so far, but after a little while, I was really getting into it, especially the conflict between Crowe and Bale's characters. Loved the final leg of the movie, and it had one of the most "It's a Man thing" moments I've seen in a movie in quite some time.
The Wild Bunch
I've wanted to see this, but JV's suggestion kinda drove me into finally checking it out. I will say this: the director really loved watching people fall in slow motion. I've heard that, for a 1969 movie, its violence was pretty brutal, but watching it in 2015, it's still pretty brutal. Every time someone got shot, you feel it, unlike in other movies where it's just "oh, that person got shot." The gunfights in the movie are so intense and edited together really well.
Postal
Uwe Boll!
Well, I have never watched any Uwe Boll film in my life, other than brief clips, but I checked this out because, again, a brief description of the movie was talked about on a Super Best Friendcast (think it was 76). Specifically, they mentioned how two of them went to a premiere of the movie with Uwe Boll in attendance, and they mentioned how Uwe Boll wanted to make the film just to kill a bunch of kids in a scene. At that point, I was like "What." and watched the movie. It actually wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be, and while the movie does have a lot of tasteless moments, there have been many more R rated comedies in recent years that have been more crude and less funny. Seth Rogen comedies, for example. Though, I was totally not expecting to see Dave Foley's penis in this movie... Still, not really a good film, but it could've been waaayyyyyyy worse.
Taken
I've seen this move several times now, but I've yet to own it, and snatched it up at a cheap price. Liam Neeson being subtly and unabashedly ruthless is what makes the movie for me. I've yet to watch the sequels, but I've heard they never matched the quality of the first film.
The Castle of Cagliostro
A new release finally came out on DVD, and picked it up purely to have a newer version. Along with the Japanese track, this version also has, I think, all of the English dub tracks, including the 1992 version, and a "family-friendly" track. The case also came with a cool slip cover that beats the crap out of the previous English-released DVD cases, and the actual case cover itself is, I assume, the original cover of the VHS release? You can also flip the cover to match the slip cover. Overall, a classy case.
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joseph_valencia - January 28, 2015 (01:23 PM) "Contra 4" was a let down. I really hate having to pay attention to two screens at once. |
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dementedhut - January 29, 2015 (01:16 PM) I'm trying to think if another action game did a similar thing with the DS or 3DS screens for comparison, but nothing comes to mind. |
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