sitebender

Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja is an awesome looking game. The small problem is the levels are a mess of enemies, yet still simple. They still manage to be enjoyable and entertaining. The major problem are the bosses. Upon each death with single player, it resets the bosses, but at least you get an egg with a random weapon, which makes the challenge feel curbed by luck.

Good port like the other Johnny Turbo's Arcade series, but wow Bad Dudes is dull, bland and generic with dumb AI that will just walk into your fists. It's a step up from Kung Fu on the NES. The game looks good and it's a bit stiff, but manageable.

Still every bit as stiff and brutal as it's ever been. I like the game, I've completed the PC version, it's just every level takes around an hour to get good enough to complete it when there are two halves to each level with a boss at the end and the only checkpoints are when those stages start. You're not seeing a lot, you're just memorizing everything to be good enough to make it. I'd like it a lot more if it were easier or there was more to see.

Still every bit as stiff and brutal as it's ever been. I like the game, I've completed the PC version, it's just every level takes around an hour to get good enough to complete it when there are two halves to each level with a boss at the end and the only checkpoints are when those stages start. You're not seeing a lot, you're just memorizing everything to be good enough to make it.

It's a basic needle platformer with some minimalist art style. It's not too brutal and you can place your own checkpoints, just don't place them on a moving platform or you'll spawn kill yourself infinitely. It lost my progress, which feels like the biggest sin. So it's mediocre enough to get through it, but game breakers that can easily be programmed out are still here.

Link's Awakening's remake is a good game with a lot of interesting tweaks to set it apart from the original. I just don't feel it is as great as it once was. Like I'd rather be playing A Link to the Past than this. Link's Awakening was a fantastic game for its system, I just didn't need a remake of it for $60, the same price that I can get better games for the same price.

I loved it. Good upgrades from the Wii U version. Lots of tracks, stupid amount of racers. I wasn't nearly as into Mario Kart as some people were, but even the single player experience is wonderful. As fantastic as it is, the glaring issue here is the lack of anything beyond championship cups. Once I plowed through everything, I didn't really feel the need to keep playing.

I really enjoy the graphics and the gameplay silliness of full spin whacking other cars and boosts, but it's a struggle to get into the game when these courses are so short, because it's designed to get you back to the micro transaction store. I spend just as much out of game as there is in it. Post race screens, pick a new course, wait for things to animate, loading, viewing card packs, upgrading, digging through the store. The courses should just be longer. I completed 20+ events in 40 minutes. A free game has to make its money somehow, but I feel like I can just play another racing game that lets me play it more than introducing me to everything that isn't racing.

The VideoKid is a 3 lane infinite runner / shmup / Paperboy look alike filled with 80s characters. Carebears, He-Man, John McClain, Axel Foley, Scar Face, the Delorean and the list goes on and on. These are all random obstacles and methods to get points. On the surface, the game looks like Paperboy, but you shift between three lanes and you can jump on things. You can grind your skateboard on some vehicles, but not all vehicles. Even convertibles, you can grind on, but not all. It's a simple, but fun game with unlimited things to throw, making it more of a shmup where you just shoot everything. There is one hit death and only one life. So when you get hit once by the game's questionable collision detection, that's a game over. It wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't take so long to get back into the game. The costumes and tricks that you can purchase feel meaningless. There are no leaderboards, nor is there a high score for something so "arcade." For $4 or cheaper, it felt well worth it for the fun, entertainment, and amusement this game brought me. I also question just how much nostalgia they can pack in, since it doesn't feel like parody.

Tiny Hands Adventure is a dirt cheap Crash Bandicoot clone. It looks good, with the exception of the graphical interfaces and Arial font. The tutorial was slow, cumbersome and annoying. There's lots of clipping such as your head will clip through platforms when you jump up. Sometimes the camera shoots to a different angle for a split second. You die and respawn with all your progress, collections and enemies killed, so it's odd having empty segments of course. You fall in pits and die without hitting the bottom. It's a pretty clunky game that needs polish and something to make it feel better and be more enjoyable. There's no indication as to what courses you've completed in the hub. Characters start cut scenes out of position for a split second. Some enemies can blend in with the shadows and are poorly placed. One hit deaths. Lots of towers where falling leads you to have to climb. For a game that looks like it's geared toward kids, the difficulty fluctuates between dumbly easy and tough. It's just a mess of little issues that keep me from enjoying what could be a good game.

It truly is the last 2D Mario game you'll ever need and they heap it on. Story mode, make your own levels. Endless levels and endless modes categorized by difficulty. You can play it a minute or hours and there's something new, fresh, creative, ugly, or fun around the corner.

One button game without depth that really isn't that enjoyable. Back and forth while more objects get thrown across the screen. I think the addiction aspect comes from the 1 hit you've lost and lives last a brief moment depending on your skill..

Fair Q-Bert clone, score system could have had more depth. I don't like how the game holds you still before an enemy pounces on you. Worth a few plays for the cheap price.

For anyone who felt the Mario series got stale, this coin mechanic and silly coin based power ups add a whole new dynamic and fun to a thirty year old series. Golden enemies that leave coin trails, a block head power up that gives you coins depending on your speed, a golden flower. There's a lot of enjoyment here with fun level design as always.

I love Puyo Puyo, but this just feels like a middle of the road release with frills like character selection. Good portable game and worth the $5 I spent to get the nostalgia out. The real joy I get out of this game is its infinite mode where once you defeat a competitor a new one jumps in. Otherwise, playing one match and getting kicked out to the title screen is hardly enjoyable, unless you only have 2 - 3 minutes of time. Still better than Mean Bean Machine.

Kid Tripp is an auto-runner that is a struggle to enjoy due to poor and cramped level design. One hit deaths and precision jumping hinders what looks like a fun experience. Even the first level can be tough or brutal. Get the demo first. Might be worth the risk for $1 on discount.

The Floor if Lava, truck edition is a good and beautiful game to watch someone play. I never got skilled enough to overcome the incredible luck that this game takes. It's brutal, but at least there's no game over, which is the mark of well designed levels. If the game never throws you out, then you have the potential to never quit, so you can get over those brutal hurdles. For me it was the controls, it felt like I needed three hands to make it all work. Playing with a controller wasn't much better.

One of the rare, enjoyable budget Space Invader clones out there that gets the feel right. There are a lot of these types of games, but Super Destronaut DX seems to do it far better, while keeping the formula simple, but mixing it up with a lot of modes and challenges. Will you get hours of play out of this? Probably not, but it's enjoyable to pick up and play.

Horizon Chase Turbo is finally a retro style driving game that doesn't rely on pixel art. I was shocked at just how many courses they have that all look different. Vibrant colors, it looks great and the fact that there's steer helping makes the game easier and more accessible. I was hesitant about the price, but it's probably the only retro style indie driving game worth the money for its content and style. All courses seem to be closed circuit. Hitting things won't take you out of the action for more than a brief second. After playing other retro arcade driving games, this was a joy to play, because the others manage to mess it up in some way, with a complex driving mechanic, ads everywhere, grinding, or an endless course that gets dull once you've played it once.

$10 for offline battle royale and infinite Tetris feels like an okay purchase. The battle royale against CPU lets you pick different difficulties the first two or three are easy, but the rest will make you sweat. It makes me wonder if I'm actually playing against real opponents with the standard Tetris 99 mode. CPU battles will increase your score. The infinite lets you pick 150 lines or 999 lines. Having a goal feels great and 150 lines feels like the perfect amount of insanity for normal players. With all that said, I more or less paid $10 because I enjoyed Tetris 99. There is nothing dazzling about this DLC. It's still missing a mode B from the GameBoy version.

Dragon Quest Builders gives a relaxing, cheery, charming vibe to Minecraft, even if they put you in dire days of Alefgard. I am into Dragon Quest far more than Minecraft and this is just a world I want to be in. It's enjoyable and everything is broken into chapters so you don't spend the entire game hunkered down in one place, although there is a sandbox mode. You're working in limited space and you need to make everything fit into your little town. There are boss battles and the game continues to amaze me with it's never ending bag of tricks. Except magic... doesn't seem like there's any usable magic at least in the early 10 hours of the game.

Endless Arcade game of Pac-Man that is a lot of fun, but has its struggles like getting poor random placement of red ghosts later on. It can increase the frustration. No ads helps the game a lot from the Android version. The extra power ups can enhance the experience, but it takes hours upon hours to unlock them. I'd much rather play this than a lot of other Pac-Man iterations.

Stupidly easy rock paper scissors style game when you play as the only ranged character. It's like bringing a gun to a sword fight. 4 moves, dash left, dash right, attack and block (or quick attack depending on the character). Most typical attacks require two presses one to ready, one to attack. Blocks release after a brief second. Stupidly quick game too even on arcade mode with best 5 rounds out of 9 for each competitor. Since there's not much going on, I focused on how low resolution the pixel art is. It's just a bit ugly, shallow and I didn't enjoy the experience. I bought it for 50 cents, so I got my 50 cents worth, but It would be a struggle to return.

Avenger Bird is a slow, sluggish collect-a-thon that's a combination ****, a chore, and dull. The colors are flat and the game is trying, but one hit deaths and some poor mechanics just get in the way of what could be fun.

Two game collection, with the first being excellent, enjoyable, but a quick nostalgia trip. The second is tougher and feels like a true second half to the quick original.

Great version **** platformer that adds a puzzle game to the mix that makes it worth the money spent. I have this on several systems and it's enjoyable on each, but the puzzle game makes this version the best.

Revenge of the Bird King is a little rough around the edges. Bright and ugly colors, sometimes complicated combat. Tough to acquire guns from gun trees. Feels almost like a good game, but it just has a lot of flaws in design and gameplay. I'd still much rather play this than other games.

It's an fun infinite digger that ultimately hinges on having a card to power up your drill speed. They give you this card immediately when you start the game and it runs out after about 20 minutes until you buy or get a new one. Without this card, it makes the game an awful, slow experience and an entirely different game that I just don't enjoy. That first 20 minutes saw awesome though. Good enough for a higher rating.

I loved it, but I'm into Dr. Mario in general. The new twists are enjoyable, a Dr. Luigi levels add a new dynamic of dropping 2 locked pills at once like Tetris pieces. Having high scores. I can finally stop playing NES Dr. Mario.

Perhaps the slowest brick breaker game that I suppose is all about the achievements. The ball moves so slow there's no point in moving the paddle and you can answer texts. It's a super dull game.

For a dollar shmup, you can do a lot worse. Die for the Empire has a few issues like the store menu is messed up. Assuming you make it to the store in this shmup that throws random enemies at you. The thing is you have one life and death kicks you to the bland title screen. It's tough to see some of the bullets and it's just a bland shmup with good DOS era art.

It's a tough game that uses touch screen controls or in my case mouse click and swipe controls resulting a tough to dodge experience. Plus, other cars will come into your lane as close as possible, giving you no time to dodge.

It's a good game, mostly because it emulates Super Metroid quite well, if not too good that it will never be its own game. The flat colors hurt the environments and atmosphere. Other than that it's quite enjoyable.

Killing Floor 2 felt like a far more entertaining FPS than Killing Floor 1 ever was.

Barring intense moments of terrible gameplay like sticking to the wrong cover in a parking lot, Spec Ops was a great third person shooter with a memorable story.

Hydrophobia was a fun, short, third person shooter. It was just a bit clunky. I made it all the way through a few times, but there are better third person shooters sold for dirt cheap a decade later.

Doom with a controller... yikes. Anyway Doom 3 on XBox was still a fun survival horror FPS. Get the special edition because it comes with Doom 1 and 2.

The biggest issue with Doom 3 BFG is no mod support. I do find it funny that critics and fans rated this so poorly compared to the first despite being pretty much the same game with perks like using a flashlight and a pistol and its expansions + the original 2 Dooms.

Despite this not being as good as the first two games, Doom 3 managed to be fun in a survival horror, trapped in darkness sort of way. It was just a struggle to even play it on a PC when it first came out.

The New Order was good enough to make it all the way through, but some moments toward the end were rather annoying. It felt like iD's stab at a linear war shooter.

Risk of Rain is a slow paced grind of a shooter with random levels, random items and spawning enemies. Online multiplayer was a chore to setup. Despite lots of abilities, combat never felt fun.

As bad as Walden and the Werewolf is with it's terrible audio screeches and drug induced terrible production values, it feels far better than a lot of other dirt cheap horror games out there.

Portal is a fantastic game that I've gone through quite a few times. I can speed run it in less than an hour. It's a great game because it's short and sweet, so it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Cut scenes leave a bad first impression, but the game's level design and actual gameplay are serviceable. Production is good, but not good enough in this modern age. I played the remastered version, which is probably better than previous versions from a year ago.

Its the cheapest discounted game I've seen on Switch at a mere 9 cents. I gave the game a fair shot, it's just stupidly simple. Spam the dynamite button and harvest the fish. Drop a special item, collect more fish. There's a good amount of content, but none of it feels fun or interesting. It's cringe worthy since it's dynamiting fish, but maybe it's for kids... even if it's still dynamiting fish. Feels like mobile trash with its death can get revived for money.

I enjoyed THPS2 at the time when it came out. It was a lot of fun, but wow a 95 from pro reviewers? Wow. They did an admirable job with an isometric view and still put together something enjoyable.

If you ignore the fact that everything is flat, Mario Kart Super Circuit enhances the SNES version and includes all its tracks as an unlockable, to make that entire game obsolete. Still a fun, portable game.

Felt like a much better story than the previous two games, even if it's a prequel and has logic gaps like Batman having cooler gear in this adventure than others that would come later in the timeline. It's also the same city from the previous game, but the action and fun here is top notch, on par with previous games, just not different enough from the previous games.

Another shocker that no one has reviewed the GOTY edition. It's now the standard. Great game, no disappointments, but the series just goes on to bigger and better things.

Shocking no one bothered to review the GOTY edition. Seems like the standard edition now. Anyway, Arkham City is a small sandbox that doesn't take much effort to get around from point A to point B when you can fly. Expands on the first game and has a fantastic atmosphere that no other game other than another Arkham game can make happen in an open world game.