Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Mega Battle
The side scrolling brawler has never been my favourite genre. Not the 'classics' (I use inverted commas as I don't class them as such (cause they're super over rated)) like Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and such, or the late 00's revival with the likes of Scott Pilgrim and Castle Crashers. But the bizarre 20+ year old licence of something I loved as a kid sold me. Interestingly, you may think that this is to advertise the upcoming movie but they all look like the originals, not the characters from the trailer and certainly not like a fleet of multi coloured Iron Men. Also, I love how it's only based on the original series' from when I was a kid, none of these newer ones that obviously can't live up to the heights of the classic. This game was clearly aimed at me and my type with the age of both the franchise and genre (though not the genre for me, obvs).
On to the game. It plays fine, it's got all the things you'd expect and it works. Thankfully, it's a lot easier than some of the earlier games of it's type (mmpr the movie (on mega drive (the better version)) of course included) because I always found them difficult, but you can turn it up to hard if you insist, but be warned, the save points are far apart. The game is aimed at a multi player crowd so could make for a fun party game. Obviously when the first Zord battle came up, I was very excited, but what a let down. Each has 2 rounds, the first a point and shoot mini game that would have been a lot better with a light gun (though no Virtua cop of course), then the second a simple combo game (though no Parapa the rapper of course). It's very simple for the end of a level which is a bit of a let down.
Ultimately this is a great homage to Might Morphin' power rangers with the classic character models, the ability to morph, the story of turning the evil Green ranger good, the battles with Goldar, Rita and Zedd which is all realised with beautiful graphics and a great art style. Of this genre of game, it's fantastic, so long as you were a fan of the show as a child (Wow, there was a lot of unknown words in that spellcheck; 'Multi' 'Zord' 'Virtua' 'Goldar'...).
Batman: The Telltale Series
Remember when everybody loved Telltale's walking dead? In case you don't Telltale games are animated stories where you pick from conversational options to tailor the story the way you want it with small bits of game play put in. The famous issue is they haven't improved their game engine that was outdated 5 years ago. To be fair, it's all about the story though, and this is a good one. It's an interesting change of the Batman story with Bruce's dad a secret crime lord and Two face running for Mayor. Those changes and others keep the story fresh and unpredictable which is necessary for a such a well known story. I don't want to go too deep in to the plot so as to spoil it as that's basically the whole thing but it is worth looking in to for yourselves.
On the negative side, yes, the game engine is bad but I've already mentioned that and is well publicised already, but as long as you know that going in then it's bearable. The other problems are classic Telltale issues that I'd forgotten about since it was a long time ago that Walking dead season 2 came out (the last Telltale game I played). Over use of quick time events and some conversations where no mater what you pick you say the wrong thing. These can frustrate but as long as you're in to the story you'll work through.
Super Mario Run
Nintendo made a big deal about making phone games a few months ago when they made a deal with apple (I think it was apple) and no we can all feast on the fruits of their labour. A constant runner game where you control the jumps by simply tapping the screen but it actually has levels in it. I know this has been done before, notably with Rayman but this is the first of it's type I've played personally. The levels are wonderfully designed for this game style, which is the point really, but still has to be commended, even though it must be said that all Mario games have well designed levels.
The problem with having those well designed levels seems to have meant that there are very few of them and the main game is over very fast. the designers have added in a large series of collectable coins, an online challenge for racing other people to get the most coins and also some weird kingdom making thing. These are all commendable for extending the game, but as I've said many times, I don't like playing games over and over for collectables, but many people out there will like it, and that's fine. The online runs lead on to the other problem. The game always has to stay connected so you can compare your scores against those of your friends and be able to do an online run at any time. This is a huge data drain for your phone (well, it is for mine) and it's constant updates take up a lot of storage.
To summarise, it's a fun little game but Nintendo need to figure out the finer points of making mobile games, but this is hopefully just the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus
Not a great picture I know. This is where my new addiction may be coming in at 3d mascot platformers. Rewind a year or so and see what I wrote about last years Ratchet and clank and you'll see many mentions of who I never played any of these games throughout the ps2 and ps3 life cycles because I'm an idiot. So, after loving last years re-imagining of the original game I wanted to play an older one to see what's up. So, I decided upon the last ps3 game, as it seems to be the most stand alone of them all. There clearly is a lot of lore that I'm missing but it's not all intertwined like the Internet tells me the others are (or so the internet tells me). Getting back to what I was saying about the action platformers is that upon booting my ps3 up for the first time since The stick of truth came out, it turned out that I had loads of them that were never played. I've got all the Jak hd collection, Sly Thieves in time, Ratchet tools of destruction as well as quest for booty, which came free with nexus (not bad for £5). So there might suddenly be a lot of these turning up on here, which I hadn't planned on.
Talking of other things that aren't related to the game, What's with the PS3 menu? It's awful. No wonder I went all in on the 360 over the PS3, what a terrible menu, store and online system. The other, the dual shock 3. Back when I got my first dual shock for PS1, it seemed like an amazing piece of hardware, but 10 years later when the PS3 came out it was outdated and now, some 20 years later, it's awful. It's so weird to hold, so small and let's not start on the length of the charging cable. Thank god they made a nice new controller now, although not the charging cable. What game was this again?
Obviously I'm very new to this 15 year old series so I can't discuss back story or new ideas on the series, but I can say that it's terrific. It's very close to being as good as the one my beloved game from last year and was left to wonder how I could have missed this series for so long. Obviously it doesn't look as good as last years which takes away some of the brightness and the game doesn't really pop from a looks perspective. The gameplay is very similar to the one last year, only dropping a little of the speed (well, not dropping I guess as this was out first, but you get my point) and the little Clank gravity switching platforming segments are fantastic. The weapon choices are fun again (as is apparently always the case in Ratchet games) but towards the end there was so many you had to swap between two pages of weapons, which was a bit excessive for me (or they could've just made a bigger weapon wheel). It had all the great collecting elements, weapon upgrades and levelling up that made me love the last years game. The only issue I have is that you can't fully level up and collect everything without playing through twice, but fortunately it doesn't impact the game as a whole.
I can really see myself going back to play more of the older ones, as well as Sly and Jak. I lost time playing this game which rarely happens to me, but Ratchet and Clank: into the Nexus really took me in.
Just on a side note, I've gotten really stuck on Oddworld thanks to some bad controls (or that's the excuse I'm going with), so not sure what the situation there is.
Completed
Mekazoo
Bastion
Sound Shapes
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Pony Island
Undertale
Mighty Morphon' Power Rangers Mega Battle
Batman: A Telltale series
Super Mario run
Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus
Underway
Oddworld New n' Tasty
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