I'm simply not much of a PC gamer. I don't have the patience to keep updating my hardware to play the latest games, nor have I ever adapted well to the keyboard and mouse setup. The most I play are emulators, small pick-up-and-play games, and a bit of online multi-player if the mood strikes me. I love how immeasurably vast the PC game library is, but it also intimidates me.

Just to make things less awkward than it needs to be, I'm only listing stuff I know for sure I'll write about eventually (or at least said something about it somewhere else on the site). If I were to include every single PC game I ever owned, every free games I downloaded, ever... well, jeez, we'd be here 'til the cows come home.

3D Movie Maker, when you look at it, is pretty crap. It's hideously clunky, takes hours to make only a couple of minutes of content, and even the fanmade expansions are awkward to use. Yet I've managed to maintain the same level of fun and enjoyment with it as when I first got it over a decade ago. It would need to be a special kind of game for me to feel that way about it, and that it is.

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[no review]

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My brother had seen this quite frequently on the sparsely-populated PC shelves of GAME but had always fought against his desire to pick it up and see what it was like. We learnt more about the Crazy Chicken series, believing this was a rare gem of an adventure series hidden among the cluttered PC game library, and imagined that getting a hold of this title would be a gateway into exploring potentially overlooked classics. To no one's surprise, it turned out to be a generic platformer aimed at the casual audience. Oh well!

It's a fairly no-frills title - you run, you jump, you climb and you shoot. The goal is simply to progress from one end of the stage to the other, collecting treasures and defeating enemies along the way. The titular Crazy Chicken is capable of double-jumping and can stomp on enemies to defeat them, though you also have the option of either punching enemies to death or just whipping out a pistol and blasting them. Naturally, some enemies are immune to certain styles of attack, and the pistol is meant to be the lazy man's solution, though it doesn't always work, usually on particularly frustrating enemies. Which is frustrating.

The game proudly proclaims that it only has 21 levels, three sets of areas (a jungle, a temple and a volcano), though it's very, very barebones. The level design is simplistic and uninspiring, and although it does offer score-hounds lots of gems on precarious platforms to collect, it otherwise offers little in the way of interesting secrets or challenges, and the game doesn't even have the ambition to include bosses, never mind a level select!

The titular Chicken (who's meant to be referred to as Moorhuhn, the manual says) controls reasonably well, though there are quirks that make him a nuisance in later stages, especially when playing on a gamepad. When he's close to an edge he gravitates towards it, meaning unless you move him back he'll fall off of his own accord, which is especially nasty when the game includes falling damage - glitchy falling damage! Although it's not an issue when playing on a keyboard, on a gamepad I had a lot of trouble actually getting the guy to stop when I wanted him to; all too often I'd let go of the direction and the Crazy Chicken would just keep running. It's probably just an issue of wonky joystick compatibility, but it's not an ideal feature in a platform game, fellas.

I almost feel I'm dedicated an unnecessary amount of wordage to such a generic platformer. Yeah, it kills some time, and if you're absolutely starved for more digitised jumping amusement then there's probably worse options available. It's unremarkable and the fun factor is rather questionable, but I will commend it for having some neato graphics. I'm normally not the biggest fan of prerendered sprites, but these are high-quality and very nicely animated! It's just a pity they weren't used for something less bland, y'know.

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(reviewed June 24 2016)

[NEW!] Two wandering adventurers have been cursed to be forever hounded by monsters wherever they go, which, as far as plots go for single-screen wave-attack beat-em-ups, you can't argue with that. You run around a flat plain as enemies come in from all angles, and it's your job to punch, uppercut and jump-kick them to death before time runs out. Do this for ten waves until the boss appears. Rinse and repeat!

Pixel artist Justin Cyr helms both the art design and the game design, and the game looks beautiful because of it. The quality of animation and detail is tremendous for the scale and limited colour palette; each background feels lush and full of depth, and even the most basic of enemy grunts have exuberant gusto to their animations. There's so many little details that are so artfully done, I could bang on about the visuals all day.

The gameplay, however... just feels underwhelming. I think my problem is I was expecting in-depth combat mechanics, something on the level of Astro Boy: Omega Factor, with combos and launching baddies into each other... when instead the game is more about screen management, with hitstun and collision damage. Learning enemy patterns, knowing how to lure them and defeat them quickly, using or reserving items efficiently, that sort of thing. At times it is almost engaging, with lots of varied foes crowding the battlefield as you tick them off one by one, with a big boss to look forward to at the end.

It take some time to get going, though. The difficulty curve is adequate for the most part, but the fact each level consists of 10 waves just feels needlessly long; it's a long way to retread if your only stumbling point was the boss, who are alternately vicious or pathetic. The item-mixing function in the hub, at first a bizarre curiosity, later becomes key to unlocking the final stages and getting the true ending, as you mix increasingly rarer items to make keys. This effectively turns the game into a grind as you replay stages for money or valuable items to sell or mix, ad infinitum. It adds a solid hour or more to the playtime, and given how the secret stages are among the most tepid in the entire game, it's most assuredly not worth it.

At times I think there's merit in Curses 'n' Chaos, that I just wasn't appreciating it in the moment... and then I go back to it and it feels like cogs grinding and gears crunching. I want a game like Astro Boy, and the game's combat has all the depth of Alex Kidd. The visuals are beautiful and the base concept is right up my alley, but it's simply not the game I'm after. You can say that about all of Tribute Games' work, sadly...!

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I've ranted and raved about Halo many times before, ranging from blog entries, Memorable Halo Moment volumes or just in various places. I've listed every possible downfall about it, and I think everyone who's looked at it all gets the point that I'm not the most praiseworthy of it. So here's the things that are good or how they can improve it!

For one, the fact you can only take two weapons at a time adds nicely. The likes of Doom just aren't up my alley, both because it's more about finding keys and exits than first-person shooting, and the fact you've got ten different guns to use and it's all a little overwhelming, but only having two weapons keeps it simple and adds strategy to what you should take. Well, not really, since you're pretty much invincible if you have the rocket launcher, fuel rod cannon or flame thrower on hand. And the pistol if you're one of those people with "skills." If they split it so you could only have one "light" weapon (pistol, machine gun, etc) and one "heavy" weapon (aforementioned) then it could possibly be more balanced. Possibly.

Co-operative modes are highly underrated in this day and age, and it's nice to see them in the main game. Except, well, they removed it from the PC version. Even if it wasn't online, just LAN or two people on one machine wouldn't hurt, would it?

Vehicles are awesome, but honestly, make them balanced. The turret car is almost unstoppable until a tank, banshee or well-placed grenade is brought in, whereas the rocket car features slower speed and a weapon that is impossible to kill anything with; it's good only for transportation or the ever enjoyable ramming. Tanks are powerful, yes, but thanks to banshees having paralysing bullets and the fact it takes forever for you character to exit one, they may as well explode at the slightest wind. Ghosts also have paralysing shots, but without the aid of someone else or the opponent lacking a vehicle or being terrible, killing takes forever. Banshees can simply escape and refill their shields for another sweep, feature both paralysing bullets and cannons, and wield long wings for cheap ramming kills. And ramming kills instantly; it doesn't damage you, but it kills you. The shields and health can be set to max, taking a fuel rod cannon's entire ammunition supply to kill a man, but a car will sort them out instantly. I've no idea how you could sort that mess out without simply removing the banshee and rocket car.

Grenades are good, especially in those dire sniper servers where it takes a year and a half to kill someone with a pistol while a grenade takes care of it in no time at all, but the fact they can be set to unlimited while ammo is still limited is a bit uneven. In Metal Slug, grenades are emergency weapons and are pretty damn powerful; if they were unlimited while your regular handgun ran out after a minute of button pounding, which would you go with? Of course, have options for both unlimited ammo and grenades. You know what they say, the more the merrier!

Also, the reason betraying is so fun is because you start off right in the battlefield and can get stuck in to killing folk. Slayer ruins this completely by giving you huge maps and everyone dotted around it, meaning it's difficult to have a massive brawl. If you were given the option of cutting the map in half for Slayer, that would be super.

And imitating the friends function of Xbox Live would be decent. I know Xfire and GameSpy have that function, but yeah, I don't like either.

In a nutshell, Halo is fun, but not necessarily for what it's for. It's more because the people who play it are hilarious and can barely back up their beliefs on why it's good and everything else is "gay." It can be genuinely fun at times, but a majority of the time it's just amusing analysing the behaviour of a man on the internet with a variety of numbers wrapped around the word "Spartan" or "Caboose" looking big by being racist.

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(reviewed June 25 2016)

[NEW!] A crossover of Inti-Creates franchise into an 8-bit platformer, featuring representatives from Azure Striker Gunvolt, Gal*Gun and the then-unreleased Mighty No.9, all serving in what's essentially a Mega Man-lite. It's a very compact little game, with five short stages in a campaign that can be finished in under 20 minutes, three playable characters, and only four bonus stages (originally released DLC in the 3DS release) to pad it out.
It's a game designed to be replayed and mastered, both for speedrunning and as a score attack. Defeating enemies and collecting fruit will extend and increase your score multiplier, which resets if you go too long without eating or killing. Moving fast and aiming true is key, but it's something you can safely ignore if it's not your bag; the game does very little to push it, and I think they missed a step there. Leaderboards or ghosts to compete against would've been a neat feature!

The three characters all play quite differently, bringing different abilities to the same set of stages. Gal*Gun's Ikaru is essentially easy mode, with a lot of airtime thanks to her wings and the ability to 'befriend' or hurl enemies as projectiles. Gunvolt is a strong contender, with a double-jump and a massive directional lightning storm you can charge up.
Confession time: I bought the game because I was eager for a taste of what Mighty No. 9 would play like (i don't remember them publicizing a demo release, if any!), and playing as Beck was a sour first impression. He's weak. He's slow. His dash isn't nearly as useful as the slide, and has a half-second of wind-up on it. This is supposed to be our Mega Man successor!?

He takes some getting used to; after seeing how the others play, you acknowledge his differences and have to treat him almost as a rush-in character, using his charge-dash when you've an opening to get in and get out safely. He lacks the long-range options of Ikaru and Gunvolt, and you've no reason to keep a dash charged unless you're using it immediately. He requires a more patient style of play compared to the others, and a different kind of patience than you'd expect if you've any history with Mega Man.

That was my stumbling block; I entered the game expecting another Mega Man when it's an 8-bit platformer of its own design, with a fair share of differences. Little things like the criminally short invincibility time are a nuisance, but there's some nice design like a lack of instant-death traps and parts of levels geared for one character's particular abilities, giving them time to shine. Rushing into the game with the wrong perception made it a slog, especially starting the game with the hardest character, but taking time to play it at its own speed gave me a better respect for it.

It's not quite my ideal as far as 2D platformers go, but it's cool to see a cheap little title like this bring something different to the table.

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I admit, I bought this for the two stupidest reasons ever: I wanted to phase out my consoles and turn my computer into a gaming machine by getting ports of the games (laughable because both my computer and those ports suck), and for hoaxing reasons.

Honest to God, FOR HOAXING PURPOSES. And I spent £25 on this! I am a terrible person.

The port itself isn't too bad; the graphics are vaguely improved, and all the sounds, music, voices and movie scenes are kept in convenient file formats so you can access them straight from your computer, which is probably the best thing about it; obviously, the Game Boy Advance is removed from the Chao Garden, and you can't discuss the game on forums without everyone asking for a save that has all of Mission mode finished. And it required me to input my controls on an entirely different gamepad just for it to work with my regular one. So yeah, it's clunky.

Aside from the whole "WHY DID I BUY THIS" factor, it's not really that bad, and you can get it cheaper than the GameCube version now, but seriously, WHY OH WHY

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(reviewed March 2008?)

Everyone loves Sonic CD. Many have said it to be one of the best games in the series, citing innovative gameplay, outstanding soundtrack and incredible gimmicks as the reasons why.

My thoughts? It's okay. Nothing great, though.

You can easily tell it's developed by a different crew than the four main Mega Drive games, and one telltale indication is the level design. Each zone makes more blatant use of gimmicks than the other instalments, such as Collision Chaos' abundance of bouncy destructible objects, Wacky Workbench's floors that launch you into the air, and Stardust Speedway being nothing more than lanes and lanes of speedways. Palmtree Panic is the closest the game gets to "normal." Similarly, every boss is more a trial than an actual fight, such as keeping yourself alive long enough for Robotnik's platform to grind itself down to exploding, playing pinball to reach the top, and so on.

This is a mixed bag. See, sometimes the gimmick is made use of in a right amount and isn't exactly taxing, such as Collision Chaos. The likes of Wacky Workbench, however, is just a downright chore. The acts have small gateways you have to get through, reaching them via slow-moving platforms and snake-blocks. If you miss them, you get blasted to the top and have to make your way down again. There's very few enemies but little opportunity to make use of the time travel signposts, meaning to warp to the past where the floor doesn't work is difficult. Similarly, it's not until the last three levels that the bosses become a mild hassle, and even then the only way you can really die in them is through your own ineptness. Kind of like the boss fights to Labyrinth Zone and Mushroom Hill: In comparison to the rest, a nice change, but when the whole game is filled with them it's just a little tiresome.

Also, time travel. Interesting at the most, but really kind of pointless. The thing is that each time zone is meant to be different; present is of average difficulty, future is hard and the past is easy, and allows you to destroy Robotnik's machinery to make a good future, effectively making the rest of the act a breeze. However, going to the future before you solve things out in the past is ultimately pointless unless you're looking for a mild increase in challenge, and there's really no need to go to the past aside from to make the game easier. Essentially, it's a really cumbersome difficulty selection that requires you to hit a signpost and then keep running without slowing until you warp there. Not to mention that getting all of the Time Stones in the Special Stages gets you a permanent good future, so I don't know. It's an interesting experiment, but I'd probably prefer it if there was just a difficulty option that changed the levels accordingly.

If anything, I really do love the visual element of the game. Each zone has strange, bizarre environments, and I'd love to say it's almost art deco but I'd probably be talking out of my ass, but that wouldn't be anything new. The fact the game takes place on a planet that's more or less alien isn't really exploited terribly well outside of the manual's story, so it definitely makes up for that. The soundtracks of both regional versions are also pretty rad, the Japanese one being ludicrously peppy and upbeat whereas Spencer Nilsen's compositions are primarily atmospheric, but still pretty great.

I'd like to enjoy the game, but it really does just come across as a hassle to me a lot of the time. The time travel makes one cautious of going too fast because it's just a waste of time, and the gimmicks range from pleasant to overwhelming. The non-gameplay elements, the figure-eight dash and Special Stages are great, but that's as far as I'd go in praise.

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The third Sonic racing game, only this time it's less of a ripoff of Mario Kart, as they're on foot this time, and you can actually play it, unlike Sonic Drift 1 and 2.

It's more enjoyable than the Drift games, and it's got a more diverse cast, with the only character it's lacking being Nack. However, it's only got five courses, and the AI varies between being easy peasy and bastardly brutal. Not only that, but the characters are severely unbalanced. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and the robot equivalents are all very flexible and manoeuvrable, whereas Robotnik, Amy and Egg Robo are slow and clunky and can barely keep up with them, and the only advantages they have are crappy guns that speed up opponents rather than slow them down, and a booster that makes turning a nightmare. There's also a balloon hunt and a tag mode, which sadly aren't multi-player.

It's an awkward, unbalanced game, but it's interesting, to say the least.

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(reviewed March 6 2019)

[NEW!] SEGA finally take another spin at the whole mascot racing malarkey, and with Sumo Digital of OutRun Coast 2 Coast fame behind the wheel, it makes for a fresh twist that isn't just another Mario Kart facsimile. Although there's no shortage of wacky weapons, including homing missiles and traps, drifting is the real name of the game - building up huge boosts, chaining them together for incredible speed... it's a game that truly rewards mastering the mechanics, and not just coasting on good fortune.

That's the big appeal, honestly - although a mascot kart racer on the surface, its solid foundations make it feel more like a legitimate challenge. There's room for casual play among friends, and also for intense mastery of the controls. Notably, there's no 'equaliser' the way there is in Nintendo's franchise - no blue shell to punish the leader, no lightning to hinder all racers, it's just you, your driving skills, and maybe some homing missiles if you're lucky. In the wake of Mario Kart Wii which threw everything but the kitchen sink at players in first place, it's nice to see a game with a little respect for positions - you don't climb up if you don't earn it, and you've got to defend that pole position!

The game has stacks of personality, from its lively commentator to the expressive character animations, not to mention the... eccentric character roster. Even the Mission Mode adds a lot of flavour, not just for its fun twists on convention challenges, but for its ridiculous prompts for why this character is collecting macguffins or blasting targets.
In a move lifted straight from OutRun, you earn SEGA Miles after every race which are used to purchase music tracks, courses and characters. On one hand it's a fun incentive to replay challenges and allows you unlock characters in any order you please... on the other hand, it means you have to unlock individual tracks for use in multi-player or time trials, which is a bit of a pain. Maybe it means you savour each purchase?

If I had to grumble, the game lacks clarity at times, with some courses either too dark or just bizarrely designed; the Super Monkey Ball courses are rife with square corners that are easy to get stuck in. I'd argue it lacks the party game appeal of Mario Kart, with its barrier of entry perhaps a little high for some. Still, it offers a keen challenge even to folks who played the sequel first, and as a huge fan of OutRun 2, this is a fun twist on the formula with oodles of fanservice that flies over my head.

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(reviewed July 4 2015)

[NEW!] Tiny Troopers is a vaguely tactical top-down shooter wherein you command your small squadron around a map (using only the mouse, for the most part) to accomplish basic objectives - wiping out enemies, destroying outposts, rescuing prisoners, and escorting journalists.
Missions aim for a more strategic approach rather than running in, guns blazing, and you're offered a number of support options to assist you. Before missions you can apply one-off upgrades to your units for boosting defence, range and strength, or even recruit specialist soldiers for the mission with even better weaponry or unique abiltiies. During a mission you can even call in item drops or airstrikes, but all of these bonuses cost Command Points which are earned by collecting items or killing enemies. You want to be well-prepared, but you don't want to blow it all on one inconsequential mission!

It's not the kind of game I was expecting, but it's an interesting enough premise and leads to lots of sneaky scenarios, like scouting out the map to find the best approach to an enemy encampment. It's let down, however, by the sluggish pace; the levels are quite vast with lots of hidden items to collect, but you cannot trudge across it at a pace faster than "glacial."
There's also no such thing as evasive manoeuvres: the squad will follow the leader in a straight line, and will actually stand in place waiting for their position should you try to retreat; this means all specialist units you recruit are often unintentional bullet sponges, refusing to move out of enemy fire until everyone else has. And because of their strict path following, units tend to get stuck on the scenery, and the game makes no attempt to free them or notify you until you go back and find them.

It's not a bad little game for what it is, and it's nice to see a slower, more thoughtful shooting game. It's just not my cup of tea, is all.

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(reviewed 18 Feb 2012)

Evidently the Xbox Live Indie edition was considered a test run, and this later PC release is the real deal with a bit more spit and polish. There are new animations, Player 2 is now a unique character rather than a recolour, there are separate save files for Tobe, Nana and the co-op mode, and so on.
But for all the minor tweaks and higher price, the game still doesn't feel totally polished. The physics are still quite gammy, if not more so than the Xbox version, with all kinds of weird new bugs: Some gems refuse to be picked up until you jump around erratically; standing too close to a wall makes you wall-jump off it; trying to use the rope item can be unresponsive; climbing a shaft via wall-jumping but can be incredibly slow, and so on. They're mostly minor glitches that can be lived with, but some of them simply make the game less fun than it should be.

Minor gripe alert! For a game that tries to feel like an ol' retro game or something, it requires a honkin' big screen resolution that's a pain to try and fit onto a 1024x768 screen. Even in windowed mode, you can't actually reduce the size of the entire window, just the screen inside it. Using a DVI output cable to play the game on a TV only got me half the screen when in fullscreen - I had to put it into windowed mode and muck about with it some more.
Likewise, controller setup is cumbersome - as far as I'm aware, it doesn't save controller configuration, so you have to set them up every time the game is booted. It also wildly interpreted the D-Pad input on my Logitech Precision gamepad when used through the in-game gamepad setup, but playing it with Joy2Key was comparatively hassle-free.

I like Tobe's Vertical Adventure. For a retro-styled indie game, it's got an incredibly slick and polished-looking package going on, not to mention it's a simple concept with a great arcade charm to it; it should be buckets of fun. Instead, the constant gamminess of the engine hinders the experience. Sure, you can live with the quirks, but a good game shouldn't require the player to make compromises, right?
I feel like a right dicknose for saying this, but I kinda felt that the Xbox Indie version was a bit less glitchy.

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I never played the original Virtua Cop, so I've no idea how innovative this is compared to the first. All I know is that this one has a WOMAN in it. Innovative! Sarcasm on the internet aside, this is a very good game. Busting up terrorists in a city, cruise ship, train station and whatever the last level is has never been so fun! It's even better when they fall off high ledges. Doubly better if it's a fat guy.

The game keeps you on your toes; as expected of a rail shooter; and the sound effects add to this. Somehow, hearing "RELOAD", "DON'T SHOOT", "SOMEBODY HELP ME" and lots of gunshots a lot really helps. According to a review of the SEGA Saturn version there's fitting music, but the PC port must suck as there doesn't appear to be any. Does it share the same problem as Sonic R?

And as if all this wasn't good enough, there's the obligatory 2-Player mode, both by LAN and on the same computer. Plus, a practise mode of sorts! Good stuff.

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