A Flood Of Quickie Game Reviews

It's been a long time since I last posted any opinions of video games I've played on this blog. Funnily enough, I stopped not long before Jumpropeman launched The Game Hoard and became the de facto game reviewer of the community. He does a fantastic job at it and I couldn't compare... but after four years, I've decided to dig through the games I've beaten since the beginning of 2017 and share my thoughts on them. As a caveat, some of these memories are quite old, and I also skipped some games I just don't have much to say about. Let's get right to it.

GB's Vidya 2016: Year In Review

You guys know the drill by now! Every year I give a short review to every video game I beat in the past twelve months, ranking them from least favorite to most favorite as I try to find my favorite video game of the year. Two years ago I played only a handful of games, and last year I played a whole bunch but many of them were small, quick games played more for the blogpost than anything else. This year I focused on "major" games - only nine titles are represented (I have combined two of them into one entry, so there are eight reviews here), but the majority of them were long games I had to sink a lot of hours into. With three Pokemon games, two Ace Attorney games, and another RPG on top of that, I spent a lot of time gaming this year - just not on a lot of different games!

First, lemme just give a shoutout to last year's winner, Robot Arena 2. Just as I was finally tiring of it, I found another mod that completely overhauls the game, introduces a bunch of real-world robot opponents, and basically just breathes new life back into a well-worn game. I still mess around with this game almost daily, if only for a few minutes. Definitely deserved that win last year if I'm still playing the dang thing.

Let's get started.

43 Games I Haven't Reviewed Yet

For years, I've been doing mini-reviews of my video games. I started with the "100 Games" project in January 2013, and since then have done a roundup of everything I beat each year. But that means that some games got left out - ones I didn't include on my initial list.

Not getting on the original 100 Games list doesn't mean these games are bad. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed quite a few of them, and some of them probably deserved to make the list. I never claimed to be good at ranking stuff, as fun as it is.

As usual, only games I cared about enough to see to the end get listed here, and everything I haven't already written about is up for grabs. Sifting through my Backloggery turned up 43 entries' worth of games (a few games are combined into one entry). Instead of trying to rank them, I'll cover them alphabetically.

I've also linked a gameplay video for each game. It's a longplay whenever one is available. Looking at how few games DIDN'T have a complete longplay up on YouTube speaks volumes as to how good longplayers are at doing their job.

Ariel's Pokemon Randomizer Adventure

Pokemon Randomizer is a Java-based application that scrambles around data in Pokemon rom files to create a new and unique experience - changing which Pokemon appears where, what their stats are, their abilities, their movesets, and more. It also features extra bonuses such as the ability to turn off trade evolutions and the ability to catch every Pokemon without trading - since, when playing an emulated version of Pokemon, trading is impossible. It works with every mainline Pokemon game from the first five generations. For this run, I'm using Emerald.

With her big sis Josephine occupied in Kalos, it fell to Ariel to become a Pokemon League Champion in the region of Hoenn. But, carrying over from her brutal 2013, Ariel might just be in over her head in the upside-down world of Pokemon Randomizer.

GB's Vidya 2013: Year In Review

Last year I made the twenty-one post series "GB's 100 Games", wherein I gave short writeups of 100 games I had beaten that I considered to be good or better. Since then, I've beaten over a dozen more video games. I've decided to make a sequel of sorts to 100 Games in the form of a "Year In Review" that gives writeups on every game I beat this year. In addition to that, I'll be putting the games in a rough ranking. Remember, the game can be released in any year, and I can first acquire the game in any year - as long as I first finished the game in 2013, it qualifies for the list.

First, however, to get them out of the way...

Unranked: A Horde of Atari Games
Trying to place all the new Atari 2600 games I played this year would be far too difficult. It's hard enough ranking such old games alongside modern ones as it is - with this many, it'd just be a pain and the list would be littered with them, so they all get shoved here.

Games in bold were played on an actual Atari 2600 with a cartridge. Games in italics were played on my Atari Flashback plug-and-play system.

Atari Climber - A game similar in some respects to Donkey Kong. You must climb from the bottom of the stage to the top, avoiding hazards and scoring points.

Atlantis - You control three cannons and try to shoot down flying ships that want to bomb your city. The cannons cannot aim or move, so timing is literally everything. Nice graphics for the 2600.

Demon Attack - A very similar game to Phoenix. Demon Attack is a static shooter in which you fight wave after wave of "demons". They come in many shapes, but they mostly behave the same.

Dragonfire - In this medieval quest, you alternate between two screens. The first screen is about jumping over and ducking under fireballs to reach a castle. Once there, you gather treasure for points while dodging the attacks of an angry dragon.

Off the Wall - I've never been good at Breakout-type games. Off the Wall is not an exception.

Secret Quest - One of the rare games on Atari that cries out for instructions. I can't give this Zeldaesque game a fair shake because I didn't know what to do a few levels in.

Space Jockey - Space Jockey is hurt by technical limitations - only three enemies are onscreen at once, making the game far too dull. A difficulty option to make the enemies move randomly may help your experience somewhat.

Video Checkers - Not sure how I'm supposed to win. The computer seems to counter my every move. Then again, I don't play much checkers.

Video Chess - Same problem - the computer consistently outfoxed me even on the lowest difficulty. I played chess a lot back in elementary school, and I don't remember being this bad at it.

Yar's Revenge - One of the strongest Atari games I've played. Yar's is more complicated than most Atari games, but it can be figured out pretty quickly, and it's a lot of fun. Once upon a time I had a Game Boy Color version of this game, but I wasn't any good at it and wound up selling the cartridge in a yard sale.

Chatzy Madness 95: Roll D20 to Not Explode

The Deleter: yo bro
The Deleter: do you remember what the russian on this says
SteelKomodo: squish
SteelKomodo: basically :U
The Deleter: i see
The Deleter: :U

---

SteelKomodo: you know what ticks me off?
SteelKomodo: ...sorry, that should have been
SteelKomodo changed name to Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin: YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS

---

Gooper Blooper: Last week I put up something on the GTS and asked for a Petilil. Some Japanese dude gave me a shiny one
Gooper Blooper: I didn't even notice

---

Saberwulf: I'm pissed that making a webcomic requires the ability to draw

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RubyChao: you know what sucks
RubyChao: forgetting to heal and getting KOed by tubba blubba after beating his heart :V
The Deleter: that sucks

---

Gooper Blooper: I have found what shall help pass the time as I await christmas
Gooper Blooper: IT'S
Gooper Blooper: HAPPENING

GB's 100 Games: 10-6

We're no longer talking about games that were just fun, or engrossing. We're talking about games that had significant influence on my childhood and teen years. Games I bonded with people over, games that I've memorized up and down, games that have implanted themselves into my subconscious. These are THE video games.

It's the first half of the final ten.

GB's 100 Games: 30-26

As Nappa would say, "This shit is getting crazy."

We are about to reach the games that were huge parts of my childhood and shaped my gaming preferences and direction. The games that my teen self eagerly discussed on GameFAQs message boards. The games that influence my writing and creative projects.

The game that began the long, tortured, twisting road to the Sarahkin.

It's all here, and the next thirty games are, as far as I'm concerned, some of the all-time greats.

Kick it.

GB's 100 Games: 35-31

As we reach the upper echelons of the 100 Games, we are starting to pass from "games that were pretty great" into "classics". Right now it's a bit of a hazy zone between the two categories.

Five different games from five different systems are the stars of today's installment. And yes, all five systems are from Nintendo. Again, though, a fair mix of the known and the unknown here, plus the highest-rated licensed game!

GB's 100 Games: 40-36

The list continues its' unstoppable march towards the mighty final ten games. As for todays' batch, one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

GB's 100 Games: 45-41

As you've probably guessed from the list so far, I'm a bit of a Nintendo loyalist. I was a Sega fan in the early and mid-90s before Pokemon drove me to Nintendo. In recent years I've been taking advantage of my brother's purchases of a PS2 and Xbox 360 to branch out a bit, but I've always had a connection to family-friendly Nintendo fare, and it makes up the backbone of my collection.

Here, we have five different games from four different time periods - pre-Nintendo, Nintendo, late Nintendo, and the branching-out period. And only two of them are actually Nintendo-produced games, so... variety, I guess?

GB's 100 Games: 50-46

Poop jokes, tanooki tails, robot deathmatches and the best damn photography game ever await you as we return to GB's 100 Games!

Additionally, I think a much better spot to place Mario 64 and Sunshine would be somewhere around here, maybe a tad higher.

GB's 100 Games: 55-51

We're all over the map in today's installment of GB's 100 Games! A game that everyone's heard of, a game that next to nobody's heard of, long entries, short entries, and everything in between.

And remember, U R MR GAY. And a hipster, as well.

GB's 100 Games: 60-56

A pretty motley crew in today's installment. We've got a couple obscure titles, a spinoff, and a port/remake up for evaluation, plus a company famous for doing only one thing finally deciding to make a game that did something else.

Gaming Retrospective (Part 4)

Shortly after getting the Game Boy Color (or perhaps before - my memory is extremely fuzzy on this point), my family also got a Nintendo 64 (OH MY GOOOOD). Now that I think about it, it was probably the fall before we got the Game Boy Color - so, Fall 2000. Anyway, it was very late in the N64's lifespan, so we were able to buy it pretty cheaply. My brother and I had saved up money together for it, and we each got to pick out a game to go with the system. My brother's choice was Bio Freaks, a pretty crappy Mortal Kombat ripoff (but it was made by Midway, so I don't know why it wasn't just another installment of Mortal Kombat). My pick was the complete opposite - Kirby 64. In retrospect, Kirby was a great first N64 game because of the 2D controls - it helped ease me into 3D gaming and the insanity that is the N64 controller.

The majority of our N64 games were rentals, not purchases - we didn't have much money to spare on gaming at this time. We picked up a few more games here and there, mostly lesser-known ones, while all the big names in N64 were rental-only, like Pokemon Stadium, Mario 64, Mario Kart, and the two Banjo-Kazooie games.

One day we visited our rental store to find they were offering a game I'd never seen before. It was called Paper Mario. Intrigued, we checked it out. And I could not stop playing. I had never played an RPG that wasn't Pokemon at this point, and Paper Mario's length and epic feel blew me away. We wound up keeping the game for nearly a week (you were supposed to return game rentals two days after paying) because I had to see the end, and I did. The whole thing was spectacular and cemented Paper Mario as one of my all-time favorite games. I love everything about it - the gameplay, the music, the art style, the dialogue, the atmosphere, it's all amazing and I love it to pieces.

In direct contrast to the N64 and Game Boy, we got right on the GBA train when that came out. Well, almost - my brother has a birthday in August, and we were going to give him a GBA with Super Mario Advance, but although we found the game, we didn't find the system! They were simply out of stock. Rather than hold onto Mario Advance until the system was available, my mom opted to return it. That Christmas we each got a GBA and a game: I got a white one with Mario Kart Super Circuit, and my brother got a purply see-through one with Earthworm Jim. Neither game made much of an impression on me, and it wasn't until Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire released that I really got into the GBA. The best times of the GBA's life for me were actually well after I'd replaced it with a DS, as a number of GBA games came into my possession for cheap as the system began to die out. Even as recently as 2010 I found new-to-me GBA games I liked, like Drill Dozer.

GB's Nintendo 64 Favorites:
Paper Mario
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2
Mario Kart 64
Super Mario 64
Space Station Silicon Valley

GB's Game Boy Advance Favorites:
Pokemon RSE
Pokemon FRLG
Final Fantasy I (Dawn of Souls)
Final Fantasy IV
Super Mario Advance series
Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror
Metroid Zero Mission
WarioWare: Mega Microgames
Drill Dozer