What Games Have You Completed? (2023 EDITION!)
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Join Date:Posts: 50057
- Sonic Frontiers (PC)
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
- Aladdin (SNES)
- Crash Bandicoot 2 (PC)
Crash Bandicoot 2
I played this through the recent remaster.
The first crash game isn't a good game. It has a real lack of variety in its challenges and level design and at its worst it's down right obnoxious. I kept hearing from Playstation fans how Crash Bandicoot 2 was the best of the trilogy and remembered enjoying Crash Bandicoot 3 so I went into Crash 2 expecting an enjoyable platformer after Naughty Dog had honed their craft. Well they certainly improved a hell of a lot since Crash 1 but Crash 2 really isn't the masterpiece people make it out to be. It's a perfectly cromulent platformer that it trounced by many platformers of its vintage, even on the PS1.
They've made Crash 2 a lot less obnoxious. The frankly idiotic save system of Crash 1 is gone, you can now save after every stage. There's also a hub structure to the game where you can play any 5 levels presented to you and move on to the next set of 5 after beating the boss. Level design has improved massively over Crash 1 but its still rather lacking. Enemy design is pretty boring and there's no sections of the game that had me thinking it was cleverly designed the way a top tier platformer would. The bonus rooms are the height of design really. While the level design never reaches the same level of obnoxious as Crash 1, there's some really obnoxious challenges in the later levels that near drove me insane, especially with some bullshit moments when the game actively breaks its own rules. The boss battles are all universally awful. I actually can't get over how bad these are.
There's some new gameplay additions. The biggest are the two new moves, the slide and the bellyflop. The slide allows you to slide under obstacles and hit some enemies. It's a good addition. What I'm not a fan of is that you can now jump out of a slide to get some extra length to your jump. The issue is that this slide jump is not consistent and the game can often kill your momentum out of nowhere and lead to an unfair death. Compare that to Mario 64's much more intuitive duck jump. The belly flop seems totally redundant. It's used to kill and break certain blocks and enemies and adds nothing to the game other than frustration when you accidentally hit the trigger during a jump and screw yourself over. It can also be used to gain slightly more height to reach platforms that are just out of reach. This feels like a glitch but is strangely a gameplay mechanic you are expected to master. There's a few other new gimmicks and vehicle sections that don't stand out other than the nitro crates. **** nitro crates. I mean having a crate that destructs on contact is all fine. Having this type of crate randomly hop into the air is next level ballocks.
Everything else I have issue with the game is my own personal opinion. I just don't like the Crash character or universe, it's just so try hard to be crazy and zany. The music really grates and I'm absolutely baffled that some people have found memories of the soundtrack.
So that's a lot of negatives for a game that was for the most part a decent enough diversion. It will be interesting to see how Crash 3 stacks up as its the Crash game I've the most experience of.
Post edited by Retr0gamer on
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Join Date:Posts: 50057
- Sonic Frontiers (PC)
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
- Aladdin (SNES)
- Crash Bandicoot 2 (PC)
- Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped (PC)
Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped
Well the final Naughty Dog crash game is the least rage inducing of the game. It's tricky enough but it didn't fill me with rage at how god awful the level the design was in Crash 1 or how unfair Crash 2 could be. Level design is just a lot fairer overall and even the nitro crates barely lift off the ground when they do their little random hops. There's two problems though with Crash 3. Firstly there's a lot of gimmick levels. And secondly, even when Crash Bandicoot is at it's best, it's just not that great a platformer. The core gameplay just isn't that great. Level and enemy design is still lackluster. At least the bosses are a little bit better if still not great.
Now for the Gimmicks. Crash 3 introduces a variety of vehicle levels that vary in quality. The racing levels are by far the most irritating and frustrating. The jest ski levels are actually all pretty good, on PS1 these were very graphically impressive and made a good stab at the wave effects that Waverace 64 was pushing. The flying stages are so vapid and dull they really shouldn't have bothered, except for the final flying racing stage which can go die in a fire.
While the gimmick levels in this feel like wasted content I still probably prefer warped over Crash 2 due to it not being so obnoxiously designed. While non of the Crash games are anywhere near classics I suppose they did come at the right time on a platform that was starved of platformers so can understand the love for them (same goes for the baffling hyperbole surrounding the perfectly serviceable CTR) even if it's totally undeserving. If you have a hankering to play the Crash games my advice is not to bother and get the Klonoa remaster or play Tomba.
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Join Date:Posts: 50057
- Sonic Frontiers (PC)
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
- Aladdin (SNES)
- Crash Bandicoot 2 (PC)
- Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped (PC)
- Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC)
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Ah yes, the game that gave us dumbed down consolisation. For a game that caused so much uproar and gnashing of teeth I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it. There's a lot of truth to the criticisms this game received at the time. However when you take the game at its own merits and not compare it to what many would consider the greatest game ever made, it manages to hold its own and be a really fun and interesting adventure.
Deus Ex: Invisible War is an immersive sim set in a dystopian cyberpunk future. Playing as a member of a shadowy government agency you (very) quickly find out that said agency might not be all it seems while other shadowy conspirators pull the strings in the background trying to shape the world as they see fit. This leads to a globe trotting adventure where you part take in hacking, sneaking, sniping, back stabbing and, eh, undercovering the secret behind global coffee franchises.
Invisible War stays quite faithful to the original game. Missions can be approached in a wide variety of creative ways. Objectives can be completed to play factions against one another. You also have to make some tough choices when it comes to upgrading your agent. Do you sacrifice cloaking for the harder to level up hacking ability? The biggest issues come when you compare the game to other immersive sims and PC RPGs of the time. The original Deus Ex let the player run wild and explore large intricate levels. These presented the player with multiple ways to traverse them. While Invisible War is no slouch in the level design department, the levels are tiny in comparison to accommodate the original XBox's lack of RAM. I had to laugh in the Trier, Germany area when I asked a guard where a bar was. They told me it was at the other side of the town, which actually meant around the corner and behind the building he was patrolling. The RPG systems have been dumbed down as well. Ammo is universal, the same pistol ammo can be used to reload a rocket launcher or flamethrower. I initially liked the biomod system which locked out abilities based on your choices, a real sophies choice in the beginning of the game. However before I left the second area of the game I was already fully powered up with all the weapon and biomods I needed to complete that game.
These are all minor complaints, if Invisible War wasn't following up such a legendary game it would have been very highly regards (in fact it reviewed very well, even in PC publications). Despite the dumbing down there's a lot to like here. The level and mission structure is excellent. I really enjoyed how the game reacted to your mission choices (even though ultimately they cheated a little and made them not really matter). Story wise the game is quite interesting a makes for a compelling follow up to Deus Ex. It's a pretty bleak take on the ending of Deus Ex with similarly morally grey endings that reminded me of the Shin Megami Tensei games.
It there's one complaint to really make, it's that the game runs out of steam and feels rushed after the first 3 areas. Levels become filled with highly modified troopers that are just bullet sponges and the strategy goes out the window, replaced with pitched rocket launcher showdowns.
Don't sleep on Invisible War if you are looking for a Deus Ex follow up. Despite the annoyances there's a lot to love, if you can get over the wonky visuals and can actually get the blasted thing running.
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