So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Was listening to Jeremy parish talk about Marathon Infinity so I decided to start Marathon 2 Durandal. It's a pretty decent shooter that in someways is better than shooters of its time and in others, not so much. The level design is great and a big improvement on the first game. The art has been tidied up as well although it still feels a big amateur compared to contemporaries. The story is really interesting with some great writing and it's interesting to see some of the new designs in this game and how they carried over to Halo.

I beat Klonoa 2 and I've got to say something that I'm finding really annoying about the PlayStation 2 hardware that it got lambasted for on release. The lack of any anti aliasing is really noticable and makes games on the system just look a lot rougher than the Dreamcast, especially since most only support interlaced modes. It's really jarring and jaggy city.

Playing Ponies Poin on the PS2 and this is such a strange game. It's a 3D platformer that was a PS2 exclusive and never made its way out of Japan.

So first you can select if you want to play the game in Japanese or English and in English the entire game is in English. And by everything even the voice acting. There's some Engrish in the the level descriptors and some typos but otherwise it's kind of an exceptional English localisation. The voice acting is really high quality. It feels like it was set up for a western release but as you play the game you understand why it didn't make it over.

Firstly, it's quite a simple game that is obviously aimed at kids. However some of the content really isn't for kids. A lot of the characters are very horny for a girl that follows you around and there's a lot of vulgar language in the game. Your sidekick even sounds like Eric Cartman.

The game also looks a Plays very strangely. It's on the PS2, a system with dual analogue yet the control scheme feels like a PS1 or N64 game. You don't control the camera and instead press the shoulder button to move the camera behind the character. It's awkward and the camera can get stuck in scenery. Also the game uses a lot of untextured polygons. It means it runs at 69 fps but looks kind of like a 32 but platformer like ape escape or crash bandicoot. It really feels like a throw back to mid tier N64 platformers.

Anyway I'll stick with it. It's meant to be pretty short and it has some interesting ideas where you use different colour 'Poins' to change the mood of characters. The platforming is kind of frustrating though especially in vertical stages.

So armored Core went from an uncontrollable mess to being a game I can't stop thinking about. The Dystopian atmosphere it presents is fantastic. Some of the first missions have you being hired by faceless corporations to kill squatters or striking workers looking for better pay. They can't send the police in but they sure as hell can hire a mercenary in a mech is shift them with a dose of ultra violence. And yet the money you earn barely covers your own expenses to take on a mission which highlights how you yourself at a slave to these corporations.

Playong a bit of Michigan Report from Hell on the PS2 and it's not great. Feels more like a janky interactive movie. You play a camera man during an event in Chicago which apes Stephen kings the mist. There's not a lot you can do except find trigger points to engage scripted sequences with your sound guy and reporter.

There's a few interesting mechanics that aren't fully fleshed out. If your reporter is killed a new reporter will take over. But all this means is you skip a few levels and miss out on content rather than it being true branching paths. Annoyingly the triggers to keep your reporter alive are quite obtuse or you are told the solution after it's too late to save them.

The other mechanic is that you are judged on three metrics on your reporting suspense, immoral and erotica. Suspense you just get by filming people talking. Immoral you get if you keep filming people being killed in pre-rendered cutscenes but there's so few of these it's like the dev team forgot about them. And erotic you get by knocking the reporter over and film up her skirt which... Yeah. Apparently you could find pictures of a Thai S&M model who would join you as a reporter for some post game missions but they were removed from the English version, most likely due to likeness rights rather than it being censored. So basically you can only really get suspense points and they don't feed into anything.

There's some good ideas here but the game never really gels. I'd recommend a walkthrough so you don't miss any content.

I'm also playing Spirit Tracks and not loving it. The touch screen controls are fine if a bit imprecise at the wrong times. The actual dungeons are really good and I love the use of the touch screen to add notes to maps, something carried over from phantom hourglass. The big issue is the train. While not terrible it's just a bit boring and sedated making your way through points on a map. Even worse are that all the side quests involve ferrying people and goods between points so are just a big series of fetch quests. It's not a terrible game but the train is no replacement to actual exploration.

You aren't playing it properly.

And I'm speaking from experience. You will fumble your way through the game and then the game will click. But then you won't be playing the game properly then either and get stuck on the final boss of the ordinary stages.

So the secret to the game is about juggling i-frames. You keep dashing through enemies which has I-frames to build up the meter to unless a barrage attack. Each barrage attack has about a second or two of iframe. Fire off enough bullets and kill enough enemies and you will have enough meter to dash again.

However the secret to those asshole bosses is to use a move you forget about, freeze. You need to freeze their bullets and, I can't remember how, send those bullets back at the boss (and make sure you freeze them as close to you as possible) for maximum damage.

If you get to the final final stage it's about 5 minutes long of absolute insanity and three of these assholes at the end and I never want to play that level every again.

Anyway once it clicks with you you'll have fun.

Oh btw if you have trouble there's speed runs of every level by one user although there's a stage filled with boxes and you won't be able to beat it as he did. It took me ages to figure out but it's just a case of firing and moving g diagonally through them.

It's an awesome game. I love how every stage plays completely differently and how it can feel so different despite using the same mechanics.