bugsonglass said:

The most negative thing for me playing MGS1 ... The character models looked like chunks of clay and the faces looked as though someone went at them with the lawnmower.  ...

Sounds awesome to me!

bugsonglass said:

The most negative thing for me playing MGS1 relatively recently was how terrible it looks.  The character models looked like chunks of clay and the faces looked as though someone went at them with the lawnmower.  And I remember this was supposed to be a great looking game for its time.  PS1 3D games really haven't stood the test of time well at all compared to say N64 games which look fine even today (maybe because of the very different and colour palletes)

N64 visuals in 3d were always a hell of a lot better. Its just back in the 90's, we could tolerate the shit 3d that the Saturn and Playstation were pumping out...and every game that even attempted to look as good as an N64 title we put on rose tinted glasses and pretended it really did look amazing.

Updated with Dragon Quest Monsters 3: Caravan Heart. I used to joke that S-E could shit in a box, put a Dragon Quest label on it, and I'd buy it. If I had actually paid for this game, I could completely and 100% stand by that statement. No bueno.

bugsonglass said:

As I didn't have either a PS1 nor an N64 at the time I'm approaching games without any nostalgia or rosy tinted glasses and I am finding that this is true for most of them.  N64 games still look blocky and polygonal but still quite clear and not unpleasant whereas PS1 games look more smeared and and messy.  I thought it was more to do with Nintendo games being brighter and more colourful and having lots of primary colours (kiddie pallete) and Playstation games being very beige and gray (mature palletes).  I didn't know there was a significant difference in the quality itself.

Yeah but if you wanna compare mature tones, stuff like Goldeneye, Turok 2 and Perfect Dark pretty much destroy any mature toned game on the PS1 in full 3D.

And comparing the more kiddie tones stuff....Banjo & Kazooie or Conker vs Crash or Spyro? More destruction.

PS1 was much better used when developers would hide the limitations by using pre-rendered stuff with CGI sprinkled in, like the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy games. Going toe to toe with N64 in full 3D was never a good idea.

Updated with Kororinpa.

For those who don't remember the name, this was one of several "Marble Madness" type game for the Wii.  It is actually really good.  It is entirely motion-controlled and the controls are in fact so terrific that this is a great reminder of what a great piece of kit the wii-remote was for those who cared to program the right games for it (and were talented enough to make a good job of it).  Tilting the wii-mote tilts the courses on which your "marble" moves and it is your job to get it to the finish.  Unlike Monkey Ball for example you don't just have to get it to the finish in the fastest time possible.  You have to collect some  (now what were those things?) ... orange pellets (which are compulsory and some green pellets which are optional and unlock extra courses) along the way.

Also unlike Super Monkey Ball in which movement is strictly in a 2D plane, Kororinpa lets you twist the levels in full 3D allowing for some wonderfully creative and inricate level design.  For example what looks like a vertical wall can be used as platform for you to roll your marble on if you twist the remote 90 degrees.

The controls are truly excellent.  In fact I don't remember another game mapping the spacial orientation of the wii-mote with such precision.  Also the  physics engine is fantastic.  The way your marble reacts to the different forms of terrain, and to every nook and cranny is amazing.  Also the force feedback you get by the oh so subtle rumble of the wii-mote is just perfect.

The game is really short. There are 45 distinct courses, a handful of hidden ones to unlock by picking up the green gems and after you complete them you unlock mirror mode.  I stopped associating the value of games with their length but if I did, I'd have propably felt very cheated as I finished it in a matter of hours.  BUT, what there is ... is really good.  Also the difficulty ramps up quite nicely and the last 20 or so levels are truly fiendishly design and will have you playing them over and over many times to get through.  They might even make you want to put the wii-mote through your TV in frustration, but never because it's not doing what it is supposed to.  As I mentioned already the controls are excellent so every time your marble falls into the abyss you have only yourself to blame.

What lingers with me having finished this game though is the question of the Wii-remote and of motion controls in general (even though it is supported by WiiU no one makes games that use it).  It seems to be a thing of the past now and in many cases something for which we are even ashamed of.  I wonder if truly realised the potential of the Wii-mote though.  For every dozen or more games which had you frantically flailing your arms like a moron there was one with controls so subtle, elegant and perfect like Kororinpa.  Motion-controlled should not be a dirty phrase.  It is sad that this aspect of gaming is probably lost forever with the Wii.

bugsonglass said:

Updated with Super Mario Galaxy.

"Did you only now play this game?" I hear you say and point the finger.  Well, yes and no.  My original save file greeted me as I booted the game up with the grand total of 24 stars next to my name and a date from many years ago.  I promptly deleated it to wash my shame and started afresh.  I have been playing virtually non-stop for the last three days.  My oh my, what a game?

What can I say about this beautiful wonderful game which hasn't already been said more eloquently by professional reviewers and by lots of you guys.  I will just say that I feel stupid for sitting on this for so many years but it is such a blast to play through this game even nearly eight years after it was released.

I loved almost every level and every challenge of the over 100 stars I picked up.  Even the daredevil comet challenges which I remember I hated originally because such things as time limits and races stress me out (I like to enjoy levels at my leasure).  But I loved them this time around, and learned to enjoy the intensity and the challenge (and the satisfaction after completing them).

That's a biggy then ticked off the old backlog.

Isn't it crazy wqhen you boot up an old game and see your profile and stuff from years ago? Kinda makes me all nostalgic and shit. I remember one night awhile back my nephew was playing Jet Force Gemini from the N64 and it had my old save game from 1999 on it....now that was a trip down memory lane.

Mario Galaxy was a badass game, congrats.

18. Beat Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - 9/10

There was a good stretch I humored the idea that I might like this more than Snake Eater, and depending on how my playthrough goes, that might still be true for me. I agree with anyone that Snake Eater's more open feel gives that game a lot of room to experiment, but as far as a satisfying challenge of room by room sneaking sequences that test your handle of the mechanics I think MGS2 is simply tighter.

I didn't find getting nodes to be a real issue, in fact I thought it added things to the gameplay. You needed to scout more using the FP view, and lets be real headshots were a premium. Which you think would break the game, but given a lot of the major areas have call ins, it's not always in your best interest to just tranq a dude's head off. I think people remember the fatman bomb stuff as this boring, tedious thing, but I really liked that part. You get large stretches of just sneaking and exploring gameplay sequences.

Way too much emphasis put on context and not enough on what you're actually doing gameplay wise there as far as I'm concerned, and where as some bosses like Fatman and the sniping part suck, I think others were mostly solid, if not a few legit ones. I think Olga is a better way to do the Revolve Ocelot fight, and incorporates line of sight gameplay into it which I like. Vamp's first fight is a real good test of your handle on being able to use MGS2's first person shooting mechanics, and Arsenal Gear and Solidus provide a great spectacle in their own right. I find Arsenal Gear a little less interesting compared to the 2nd half of the Rex fight (where again you have to break line of sight and be sneaky), but Rex had that first half where I threw chaff grenades. This had me fighting an onslaught of Mechs, so yeah.

Where the gameplay didn't always hit comes down: The Emma Emmerich stretch, I thought that entire stretch of gameplay sucks. She's the fucking worst. Otherwise while the visual variety probably isn't there for people, this game had an actual variety of stealth encounters from room to room to room, and easily dwarfs what the original MGS1 does gameplay wise, and for the record I still really like MGS1, but gameplay wise I feel like this had better thought out encounter design. So yeah, suck a dick mooksi.

Beyond that I can't say the over done cutscenes and codec conversations don't bother me. On one hand I do love Metal Gear's sense of style and lord knows I appreciate it for the sheer rebellious nature of Kojima's games, but fuck man some of these conversations about the most inane shit, pointless filler, and just...why in the fuck would anyone want to know this? I mean most of Emma's cutscenes can fuck off outside of that badass hand shake and that swag walk they did after she died LOL. I swear there is this one part right, where Emma dies, and Snake, Raiden, and Otacon like strut away as if it's not too soon or anything. It's so dumb, I love it.

Anyway knowing what the story is all these years later sort of gave me a certain appreciation for presentation tricks, Game over for Snake and Mission Failed for Raiden being highlights, Roy Campbell's voice acting because I'm with Matosis his rather static robotic nature comes off intentional and effective, and the many ways the game plays on the players expectations is legit cool. The meta nature and how it completely destroys the 4th wall is shit I admire.

But I can't get around the part that Metal Gear has all this ridiculous bullshit be it just straight bad writing (in terms of dialogue regurgitating itself), to you can't just act like the patriots stuff isn't a part of the story, or S3 or GW, or whatever the fuck. No amount of it's "Post Modern" turns that away for me, a lot of it requires either for me to ignore a significant chunk of that games plot. That said I do admire and respect aspects of it, but it's still dumb as fuck.

Then again Kojima was ahead of the curve when it came to letting me skip cutscenes and codec conversations, so his games are still highly replayable. The mechanics are great, every complaint about the controls just comes off as whiny to me. Are they "ideal" for certain things? No, but can you execute most of the things you need to do to kick ass in this game? Yes. The only thing that I feel could be smoother was the sword gameplay (I hated the controls for that, e-gad), and um when you're in cover and you need to pop out to shoot people. That itself isn't an issue, but the part where you don't just go back right behind the cover was annoying at times.

Otherwise Metal Gear Solid 2, absolutely a fantastic game. On to Snake Eater and it's status as Best Metal Gear until The Phantom Pain.

Didn't Fatman say something awesome like "Live free and grow FAT!" or some shit like that? lol

edgecrusher said:

Didn't Fatman say something awesome like "Live free and grow FAT!" or some shit like that? lol

"Laugh, and grow fat!" is the exact quote apparently. He was a complete boss. Hilarious boss battle.

edgecrusher said:

Foolz said:

"Laugh, and grow fat!" is the exact quote apparently. He was a complete boss. Hilarious boss battle.

Haha...that's it! One of my favorite memories of the game.

And how absurd was it to have him on roller-blades?  That was awesome.  Who comes up with stuff like that?