Wednesday, December 31, 2025 at 1:05 pm Comments (0)
I swear to god I thought I’d posted this back in the Summer — I might have thought “I can’t queue up multiple posts about beat-em-ups, for crying out loud,” but it’s not like I’ve had opinions on anything else this year!
This is a game that’s been on my Steam wishlist for a million billion years, long past the point of remembering what gameplay footage endeared it to me, but I assume, “if I put it on my wishlist then I must still be interested in it, surely!” A generous thank you to RifeXD for finally sating my curiosity.
I do feel bad that most games I’m gifted end up being critiqued to shreds, but I am grateful for the gesture and consider it nourishment one way or another. If it’s a good game, hooray! If it’s a not so good game, then I get to chew and gnaw at it like a dog on a bone ’til I can hopefully glean some faint praise for it, or at least an understanding of why it didn’t click. Everybody wins!(?)
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged game, review
Monday, December 29, 2025 at 3:14 pm Comments (0)
Looking up resources for G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra, I was curious what reception was like from G.I. Joe fans — lord knows beat-em-up fanatics were not thrilled with its offerings. While some were pleased with its fanservice, the consensus seemed to be that it wasn’t anywhere near the quality of standard as Turtles, and that it had no hope of winning over anyone who wasn’t already a fan of the franchise.
A pity! I don’t know how often it happens in this day and age, but I’m certain a number of franchises owe some of their popularity to a knockout video game tie-in, and part of me wants to see it more often. I’m hesitant to include Turok among those examples because motherfuckers are not reading the comics. I’ll change that one of these days, I swear.
More than one Steam review also made the comparison that this officially-licensed product simply wasn’t as good as Assault On Cobra Island, a fangame in the same vein made in the OpenBOR engine. Well, I guess I gotta investigate this too if I wanna be thorough!
OpenBOR, or Beats of Rage, is an engine used to create your own side-scrolling beat-em-up, similar to your MUGENs and what-have-you. I’ve known of it for decades, I think because of some light coverage on the olde Streets of Rage Online fansite? Back when folks really had to spelunk to find new entries in their favourite genre, but this is my first time getting hands-on with one of its creations.
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged game, review
Friday, December 26, 2025 at 11:51 am Comments (0)
More bloody children’s books! Look, I listened to some Kurt Vonnegut and had a ripping good time of it, I think that permits me to at least two adolescent “let’s see what the fuss is all about” reads.
I listened to the audiobook of The Hundred And One Dalmatians read by Joanna Lumley, and she does such a lovely job of delivering it. So gentle and sweet and pleasant, perfectly capturing the whimsical mundanity of its setting, the sort of adventure story I could see resonating with kids or folks who just love animals.
It’s only this month I’d finally seen Disney’s animated adaptation of 101 Dalmatians… and I feel like I missed my moment with it. It’s perfectly charming and beautifully animated, but it also made little impression on me? I feel the book did a much more compelling job of giving us a glimpse into the world and mindview of canines, courtesy of conversations between them or insight into their thought processes.
You gotta trim that fat to work in a visual medium, of course, but Disney’s fare just comes across like your standard animated adventure, because how do you set apart an animal-centric story from all your other animal-centric films? Though I might’ve spoilt myself watching The Aristocats first as a kid; it’s hard to top Scatman Crothers literally bringing the house down with a raucous jazz number.
(that, and the film opening with Pongo ogling a bunch of women and trying to hook up his owner with one probably didn’t win me over. I used to look at that great tongue-lolling expression and think, what a great piece of emotive cartooning, but knowing the context I can’t not think “that dog is hornyyyy”)
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged book, review
Monday, December 22, 2025 at 10:03 am Comments (1)
It’s a little humbling looking back at the old Some Games I Played articles and seeing how I was burning through at least a dozen books a year (including stuff i might not have felt the need to review), when nowadays committing to any form of entertainment feels like an endeavour if I don’t turn it into a project. It’s quite possible I’ve opened more books and tossed them aside than I’ve read in full the past five years…!
Sometimes you just have to be gentle with yourself. There’s a lot of classics across all mediums I figure I ought to experience, but trying to force yourself through them when you’re not feeling pliable isn’t doing yourself any favours. And if I’m not reading much outside of the occasional comic book, then maybe it’s about taking baby steps to re-acclimatise myself. Like listening to an audiobook! Or reading a children’s book! Or listening to an audiobook of a children’s book!
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged book, movie, review
Monday, December 8, 2025 at 10:00 am Comments (1)
It’s been a funky year, to put it politely. My rambling ass has been spewing thoughts into a dictaphone for the sake of possible blog posts, some of them even about subjects that aren’t beat-em-ups, but having the energy, time, motivation, and other variables required to get things done is a bit of a crapshoot in this weather. Thank you for your patience. In the meantime, more freakin’ beat-em-up opinions.
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged game, review
Monday, August 11, 2025 at 10:21 pm Comments Off on Some movies I watched in 2025: Lightyear
You thought you were getting a movie review as a reprieve from two entries of Battletoads content? Surprise! This is actually an extremely contrived continuation of that conversation! Buckle in, suckers!
A couple of dear friends invited me to see Lightyear in cinemas in 2022, and it was a nice time, if largely just enjoying the company of pals I had not seen in two years because of the pandemic. I’ve very little to remark about it that armies of dedicated Disney reviewers haven’t already picked apart.
I thought it was pleasant enough! You can see its themes and character arcs coming a mile away, and its third act feels like it drops the ball in some regard, but it’s just nice to see a CGI animated film that’s a straightforward sci-fi romp. It’s not interrupted by musical numbers, or transforming the cast into animals — you get what you sign up for, more or less.
At least, I got what I expected! Scampy of The Spirochaete Trail discussed the film’s various foibles, from its wishy-washy marketing campaign that made people just expect more Toy Story, to even its text prelude that gives the impression this is setting itself up to be a ’90s throwback.
The latter was a thorn in a lot of people’s sides, apparently; I can understand the internal discussions that might’ve led to its inclusion, but I figured the movie ought to do the talking instead of three lines of intro text.
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged movie, review
Monday, July 28, 2025 at 11:23 am Comments Off on Some comics I read in 2025: Battletoads: The Lost Adventure
Hands up: who knew there was a tie-in comic to the Battletoads reboot? Anyone? I know I was clueless!
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged battletoads, comics, review
Monday, July 14, 2025 at 11:28 am Comments (1)
This is a long one and I haven’t got it in me to do a preamble. I’m still on my Double Dragon kick, and it feels only natural to finally dabble in the Battletoads series as well. I honestly quite liked the look of this reboot based on its cutscenes, even if seeing them next to gameplay did one-eighty my perception, but it’s only fair to give it a swing myself.
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged battletoads, game, review
Monday, July 7, 2025 at 1:30 pm Comments Off on Tales From Storage: Action Man
Now, this one is cheating because I don’t flippin’ have any Action Men left in my collection; they all went to friends with children years and years and years ago… or so I thought until the day before this publishing when one mucky fellow was unearthed from the bowels of who knows where. He looks filthy and I do not want it near me, but I’m grateful to not have to gank images from eBay again.
The toyline was practically inescapable during the ’90s, so it’s always odd to me hearing from folks whose home country never got the things. Action Man is a series of 12-inch poseable dolls that I believe were an off-shoot of the old-school G.I. Joe dolls; I guess where the US favoured the 3¾-inch playset-driven angle of A Real American Hero, the UK and Europe instead leaned into the gimmick-laden roleplay angle of Action Man. Why have a different dude for each specialist duty, when just one man can do everything?
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged tales from storage, toys
Monday, June 30, 2025 at 11:02 am Comments Off on Some comics I read in 2025: Earthworm Jim
It was only after writing the last blog post about Earthworm Jim comics that I was able to get my peepers on the two recent hardback endeavours, Launch The Cow and Fight The Fish. Rather than limited-series or one-off comic books, these are proper graphic novels, a good 150 pages each of continuous content made to be read in one gulp.
It truly makes the most of its medium, taking the time to really establish a sense of place to every location and setpiece, and how all these seemingly disparate characters and concepts connect together. Aside from a one-shot starring Evil the Cat, I believe this is the first time we’ve seen Doug draw these characters in more than just promo/concept art and animation layouts, and it’s interesting to see him tackle this world with his own vision, warts and idiosyncrasies and all.
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged comics, earthworm jim, review
