Game Pass: Hypderdot

Dot dot. Still grinding through Gears Tactics, and it is beginning to be a slog now unfortunately, I do enjoy the gameplay but there are only a few mission types and it is beginning to get old now, if I was nearing the end I could accept it, but I'm still early chapter 3, so there's still a third of the game to go, which means I'll damn well finish it now no matter how tired I'm getting of it. Not really any games of note that seem particularly interesting to me coming out for a while, picked up the re release of Scott Pilgrim and to be honest it doesn't stack up to modern competition. Obviously I have been speaking about the brawler genre a lot recently, and compared to the likes of the aforementioned Streets of Rage 4 and Mother Russia Bleeds it does not hold a candle. I'm sure I told myself back 10 years ago that I really enjoyed it when I really wanted to support indie gaming, which I still do, now though, with a modern lens, I cannot recommence it.

A game I can recommend is Hyper dot. Talk about making an old idea new again. From Asteroids to passive mode in geometry wars 2, this game takes these concepts and perfects them. A simple idea, you are a tiny dot in a circular arena set out to avoid all the enemies. It's not the most exciting concept, or at least not to most, but I was immediately interested just from watching the trailer. I loved Geometry Wars 2 and spent a long time competing with my friends for the highest scores, and my area of expertise was Passive mode. The lead would constantly change, but sadly one person kept playing after the group had retired from the chase and now he holds all the high scores. Bastard.

This take on the genre happens in levels (although there is a survival mode, amongst others), always throwing in new challenges, from different arena and dot sizes, a mix of enemies, dark arenas, icy arenas, collection based levels, levels where the enemies move along with you like Super Hot, the variety available far surpassed my expectations going in. Needless to say with a game of this nature it starts to get very difficult towards the end, but there is not a story that might have forced me to keep playing beyond my wishes. With the time I spent with it, it turned out to be a fun challenge which you can play with some music or a podcast going on, whatever's your poison. 

So, it's another Game Pass rank. Another really good game available on Game Pass. Maybe I should sell my PS5 and just play on my Xbone... Actually, no. 

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Anyway, now I'm pretty much done with this, or I better be before all my hair is pulled out, I need to find another game to break up the monotony of playing Gears Tactics other than playing Rocket league over and over again, I could do that in reality, I do love it so, but I don't feel like I'm really achieving anything (yes, including achievement points/ gamescore) or indeed experiencing anything new, so a new game must be found fast whilst I force myself though 1 repetitive tactical battle a day.

Game Pass: Power Ranger Battle for the Grid

 Whoops, it's Game Pass, not Games Pass, oh well. The next game I picked up lead me down a rabbit hole of researching Power Rangers Comics, watching a Youtube documentary and the 2017 Power Rangers (not enough Green Ranger), so, that was a thing for a couple of days and indeed, another reason to delay starting Gears Tactics, though I'm getting deep in to that now, at least until I get distracted again, HyperDot is calling out to me right now (edit, it's awesome).

After going on a rant in my last post about brawlers, I failed to mention a game (well, a few really, but only one is relevant here), that being Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Mega Battle, an acceptable brawler from a few years ago, and a fine sequel (in my mind) to the two Mega drive Power Rangers brawlers, The movie one being of particular interest to me at the time, as it had both the original and what I will refer to as the 'Rocky cast' (remember how bad of an actor that guy was, I was 7 and could tell he was crap) as well as multiple different Megazords, of course, being a child, having a game based on a franchise I liked at the time made it seem better to me, and though I haven't touched this game in probably 25 years, most franchise games from that era tend to be terrible retrospectively, so maybe it was, but I don't want to know. Point is, the game that came out a few years ago was heavy on presentation and nostalgic references, and pretty light on it actually being that good of a game, so i went in here expecting essentially the same thing, but in a fighting game instead.

But what a pleasant surprise, it was pretty good. Certainly no Street Fighter 2 (the 30 year old untoppleable (is that a word) pinnacle of the genre) but still fun. a 3 on 3 team fighting game, with just a few buttons, simple to use combos to learn, special moves, Zord attacks and some extremely over powered characters. Jason should be the best one anyway, he is the leader after all and if I lost him in a shopping center, I would be frantically calling after him too.

Aside from just versus mode and classic arcade mode, there is a story mode in here, which seems to be the normal now in fighting games after I first encountered it in Injustice, and just like Injustice, the story was lifted straight from Comic books. As mentioned earlier, I did some research on the modern comics, because that's where the story for this comes from (apparently they're really good, but a couple of times in my life I tried to get in to comics, but can't (books are better anyways (not that I can be bothered to read them either))), with a transdimentional Tommy Oliver, having teamed up with Rita rather than performing his classic Mighty Morphin face turn, then killed her, took her armies and conquered the universe and now he's come for the rest of 'em. It's a decent enough story in the game, but as with every other fighting game story, there's only so many characters and possible match ups that the lack of variety gets a bit tiresome. There doesn't even need to be though, even though there is a season pass you have to buy to unlock many of the characters and skins ((which is pretty shitty) though not as egregious as street fighter 5), it allows you to play as some of these charters in the story mode, but nowhere near all of them. Then, when I finished the story (which came with no achievements!!!!) I assumed something would be unlocked, Kimberley was heavily involved in the story for instance, but no. Gotta spend that cash I guess (hope there's enough left over to pay off my tab at the Juice bar).

Once that was all done with, it was morphin to online play-time (too much of a stretch?), and after 10 successive wins, knocking off considerably higher rated players than myself I knew I could go pro. Obviously after I met my first loss I gave up and never played again, thus keeping a fantastic win to loss record in the only way I know how to get one. As Farkas Bulkmeier once told me 'quit while you're ahead', then he beat me up and took my lunch money (that's a thing in America, right?).

This game gets the rating of Game Pass, another that's passed my test of a game (whatever that is). An enjoyable fighting game that doesn't require great skills to succeed, so grab your Dragon Dagger and make your excitement grow for this very good fighter.

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Still slugging through Gears Tactics, it's good but really could've done without some of the side missions. PS. I can't believe the words 'Morphin', 'Megazord' or 'Megadrive' aren't in the dictionary on this site, they're on the one in my head.

Games Pass: BattleToads

 Long time, no type. Game of the year coming up, just one more game to try first to judge its' potential challenge, and that game is Gears Tactics, which is why, despite having a PS5, I dusted off my Xbone to get games pass, which I was fully prepared to pay the full monthly cost for, but in a pleasant twist, got 3 months for £1, I'm not sure if it's £1 total or £1 per month, for three months, but at that cost I'm happy to just pay and not worry about it (until I forget to unsubscribe when the time is up, like I just did with BT (British Telecom) sport and now have to pay for another month).

So there I was, ready to sit down and crack on with Gears Tactics, but then I thought, having just finished Cyberpunk, a long game, that I needed to whet my pallet with a shorter game first, which bought me to the question of what, so I considered the PS plus games I had, or any PS5 game I could buy, until a light flicked on in my head, that I now have games pass for 3 months, and hey, there's bound to be something interesting to play here, it's not just going to be Jump Jet Rex anymore, like when I got game pass the first time around. Turns out, there's quite a few interesting games on there (hence this idea for a series on Game Pass) and the one that stood out at the time was the heavily promoted 2020 remake of Battletoads, so why not give it a whirl, I can't think of anything else bad that came out of 2020.

Firstly, I never plaid any of the Battletoads games when I was a youngster, so have no nostalgic attachment, I might have played a bit of one on Rare Replay, but If I did, I don't remember it (must've been great then). I have, however, after years of neglect, finally come round to really appreciating brawlers, I enjoyed the likes of Streets of rage, Golden axe, Alien storm (the list could go on) in my formative gaming years, but there wasn't a lot around then, and as I grew older, I started to look down on the genre, going back playing these older titles no longer appealed to me, and the likes of Castle Crashers, which took off for a while there in the late 00's (Is that nauhgties now or two thousands, I'm not sure if there is a common consensus yet, and it's been 10 years!), didn't appeal to me. Then, some time late, I played Foul Play (granted, about 5 years after it came out, but that's PS Plus for you). This game reignited my passion for this genre, helped last year by Streets of Rage 4 and Mother Russia Bleeds, which were both fantastic, which lead me to this point, downloading Battletoads and eagerly anticipating it, something I couldn't have imagined just a few years ago.

To my delight, the brawling was pretty good, not a large move set for each character, but an interesting array of enemies that could be arranged in different ways, alongside environmental challenges that made some encounters quite challenging, especially as you got towards the late game where many of the fights turned it to almost as much of a puzzle as it was about the fighting.

So, that was good, but not everything was. There were many different types of game modes involved, from platforming, to a twin stick shooter and a god awful level where you had to fix your ship with via mini games in a certain amount of time when I couldn't even tell what the order was. Asside from that individual nightmare, there was a wide variety of success or failure in the different game play segments, for instance, the platforming was far too easy compared to the rest of the game, adversely, the twin stick space shooter was way harder than anything else in the game. The most notable sections though, are the once infamous speed bike sections from the original games. These were much maligned for being almost impossible back when the original game came out (supposedly), so here they have flipped the view to behind, and play similar to the crash Bandicoot polar bear/ tiger riding sections. As the first of these kicked off, it seemed really exciting, enough of a challenge to not make it too easy, but possible to get in a good rhythm, these sections played really well, the problem is they were way too long, and I sure don't like things that go on way too long (e.g. the last of us part 2 was at least twice as long as it needed to be, if not more). Seemingly never ending sections, that started well but became so stale by the time I was half way through a level that I was hoping for death (In real life, not the game (I would have have to played a large section over again!)).

Seems like many people don't like the art direction or story as it doesn't fit with 'classic' Battletoads, but as a non BT (not British Telecom) fan, I didn't have a problem with it, and let's be honest, there aren't that many people who have a positive affinity for the original ga.mes, so what does it matter what they think anyway. The story was presented as a passable kids cartoon, it helped the story flow in a different way to most games, though the dialogue is hardly Shakespearean

Overall, the game was good, the brawling sections were certainly good, with the others a mixed bag, I don't want to do a score review, So I'll just say wether it would be worth playing if you already have game pass, and for this I would say Yes, it's a Game Pass, it has ticked the box to deserve to be played in this context, I'm not sure it would be worth paying the full price (depending on what it is), but as it's available on a pre-paid subscription then yes.

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What's next? spoiler alert, I already played yet another game before I started Gears Tactics, which I have now started, and so far so good, though honestly, unlikely to challenge for the Prestigious Andy Pearsall Game of the year.