__Hello, and welcome to another list of my thoughts on the games I've been playing over the past month. In other years, my mini reviews on Twitter have focused on movies (and it'll soon be time for me to catch up on some movies from this year), but it's mostly been video games that have occupied my time lately. There are a lot of titles in my collection that I haven't played and therefore rated yet, so I'm going through them all in a list arranged by year. I never claimed to be a good player, so, with some exceptions, I'll usually give the game a try and then, if it becomes clear that I can't progress quickly and easily, continue via watching a longplay on YouTube.
__This time, I have fewer games to talk about than in other months, partly because they're starting to get longer (particularly Majora's Mask). But, to compensate, I got so passionate about one of them that it inspired me to write a full review – a rarity these days – which I'll save until the end. The game in question is Conker's Bad Fur Day. I'll probably get a lot of flak for this, but it is by far the worst game I've played yet! Bear in mind, I have no intention of playing infamously bad ones like Superman 64, Sonic '06 or Ride to Hell: Retribution.
The controls are awkward, but the game's appeal lies in its focus on killing quietly and donning disguises to remain inconspicuous. I also like how close behind the character the camera is, which adds to how tight the environments feel.
My rating: 65%.
It recycles many elements from Ocarina of Time and, while not quite as compelling overall, does a few things better, like a more concise world with its own interesting history, and Tatl is a huge improvement on Navi.
My rating: 85%.
This sequel's plot is slightly more interesting and successfully builds on the first game, but I still can't muster much excitement for either of these games. The use of Vivaldi's Spring as the Sulphur-Bottom theme is just bizarre.
My rating: 50%.
It brings nothing new gameplay-wise (except the ability to duck), but stands out thanks to its apocalyptic storyline, complete with a countdown to a cataclysm. The constant dialogue boxes are so intrusive that I wish it were fully voice-acted.
My rating: 65%.
It is somewhat fun, but neither the environments nor the gameplay are overly inspiring; I'm tired of this method of unlocking stages through a collect-a-thon. My favourite level is the Precipice because of the intense chase.
My rating: 60%.
It's an anthology of smaller stories, which pack very little punch. It seems the development team had little passion for it, and that transcends onto the player. The prequel stories are unnecessary and, in my view, contradictory.
My rating: 55%.
It's much shorter than the main game and Opposing Force… but it's still Half-Life.😀 It maintains the effortlessly fun gameplay that proves why Half-Life was the best FPS of its time, and hasn't lost its appeal even today.
My rating: 85%.
It's all one big escort mission, which you'd think would be dead on arrival, but it works.🙂 Every room is a different puzzle, there's barely any dialogue, and words can't express how stunning it looks! The vast rooms make you feel incredibly small.
My rating: 85%.
Thanks to the colourful graphics, energetic characters and exaggerated animations that give it the air of a 3D cartoon, it's a ton of fun to explore the open world, performing a variety of tasks from racing to fishing.
My rating: 85%.
__And, before we move on to the feature presentation, I have a couple of extra comments.
__I got the impression from the Majora's Mask longplay that the controls could get incredibly frustrating at times, particularly swimming as a Zora and manually aiming with your bow and arrow. Considering my disdain for N64 controls in general, you can imagine how angry I would have got if I'd kept playing to that point.
__After Majora's Mask, Mega Man Legends 2 was my second game in a row with four main dungeons. Considering the superstition around that number, I wonder what that means to Japanese players?
__Half-Life is one of very few games in this marathon that I have played and completed myself.🙂 To put into perspective how short Blue Shift is, it took me 14 hours to beat the main game, 7.7 hours to beat Opposing Force, and Blue Shift took me only 4.3 hours.
__Ico and Jak and Daxter were originally released on the PS2, but I have the HD remasters on the PS3. That's how I began playing Ico, but the longplay I watched was the original PS2 version. I have to say, the graphics are jaw-dropping for the time! Going from Rayman 2 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the PS1 and then to this was as big a graphical leap as you can get! However, from what I've seen, the HD remaster takes another step up in terms of beauty. It's truly spectacular, one of the best-looking games I've ever seen.
__But now let's end, on a less enthusiastic note, with my 450-word review of a game that drained my happiness so much it was like a Dementor in video game form!
Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
__This is a supposedly funny game that struck me as the exact opposite! Of course, I already knew how unashamedly vulgar it was, but I still found it almost universally unamusing.
__Right off the bat, the dialogue rubbed me the wrong way. It's impressive that all the voices were done by one man and one woman, but the accents are often inconsistent, so I couldn't tell what accent each character was supposed to have. Doesn't help that their speech is so muttery that it kills any sense of timing.
__That's partly why none of the jokes got any rise out of me at all. It wasn't the anger-inducing kind of unfunny: more like a barren, joyless void. I wasn't angry, just reduced to a state of such pure misery that it was like my soul had died. Is this what falling into depression feels like?
__There's no wit to the jokes whatsoever; it's like the crudity itself is the joke. Other times, the humour stems from utter nonsense. I mean, what is the logic behind a Terminator haystack?! The few times it breaks the fourth wall come straight out of nowhere and are too incongruous to be funny. And towards the end, the pop culture references are so blatant that they just become maddening.
__Conker himself is a slimeball who often cheats and swindles the other characters he meets, then unleashes a monster that brutally butchers them, just to kick them while they're down. That might have been funny under other circumstances, but the game did nothing to hearten me beforehand, so it just came off as mean-spirited, like the game was made by straight-up sadists.
__Its absolute nadir is the Big Big Guy – or, as Conker calls it, the big-bollocked boiler. When I saw that, it completely broke me; I had to pause and silently weep for a few minutes.
__The only scene I liked (apart from the Clockwork Orange homage in the opening shot) was the Great Mighty Poo. Maybe it's because I knew it was coming because I'd seen it in a Joshscorcher video, but I think that's the only time the game actually did something funny with its vulgarity, namely the boss's excessive confidence in what he is and that he can beat you.
__In conclusion, this is, hands down, the worst game I have ever played! It's bad enough that it's on my least favourite console, but its humour depressed me to the point that I felt like I'd never be cheerful again. In my mind, this game is where joy goes to die!
__My rating: 25%.
__And thus ends my brief run of Nintendo 64 games. All I can say is: good riddance! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I hate the N64 controller! It's possible the console itself handles better, but the USB controller I was using for the emulator brought me nothing but frustration! Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie are great games, but the controller severely hindered my enjoyment. In fact, the only game that came out unscathed was Mario Kart 64.
Psychonauts 2 is out, are you gonna play it?
ReplyDeleteYes, eventually. It'll be a while yet before I get to the modern games.
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