Last Retro Game You Finished And Your Thoughts

I’m guilty of playing any old rubbish really, but I only post about the games I’ve completed if I feel like I’ve got something to say about them. Some are more remarkable than others. Rabbids 3D is remarkable for just one reason: it’s the most middling, so-so and unexceptional game that I’ve ever played in my life.

By any metric that you could measure a game’s quality, Rabbids 3D is stunningly average. With regards to the graphics, the gameplay, the controls, the level design, the sound design, the length and it’s mastery of the new-at-the-time 3DS hardware, Rabbids 3D is just fully okay. There’s nothing bad about it any of it, but there’s nothing good about any of it either.

The only thing that kept me going with Rabbids 3D was how mindless it was. That was it’s advantage over anything else I could have played. It meant that I could do two things at once, and play it while I was having to sit through boring online work meetings; Rabbids 3D was so mentally untaxing that I never lost concentration on either the game or the meetings. Other than being an impressive feat of human multitasking on my part and being slightly more entertaining than a two-hour Community Planning Partnership Teams call, there’s nothing else to say about my experience with Rabbids 3D. It looks, sounds, feels, smells and tastes like a 5/10.

Have you ever rummaged through your games collection, picked something up and said “what the fuck is this” and “when the fuck did I buy this”? True Pinball on the SEGA Saturn everybody!

I’m not knowledgeable enough about pinball to know how the ball should travel, or what constitutes intelligent table design, or any of that. My experience with pinball doesn’t go much beyond sticking a quid into a table when I’m halfcut at a pub and playing a couple of games until I lose and get a game over. I feel like I know a bit more about what makes pinball entertaining in a video game though. And more often than not, these types of games are worth at least a couple of hours of my time.

I think that True Pinball is a decent example of what a pinball game should be. The ball moves around fluidly and the four tables featured all have a decent sense of flow. You’re not getting your ball stuck all the time like in other, worse-designed pinball games, and I found myself hardly needing to use the tilt button at all. It was fairly fun to just slap the ball around with your two flippers and watch it whizz around while you rack up massive points.

Boredom can set in quite quickly though, as I found all of these tables to be a bit uninspired and lacking in features. Likewise, neither the graphics nor sound create a whole lot of excitement. Then there’s the presentation, which has that same ‘futuristic yet unconfident’ feel that a lot of early PSone games had. It’s strange to describe, feeling like an NC student making their first ever video game...but in 1995. It’s presentation would look shite today, let’s say that.

That’s True Pinball: a game that might look and function like ‘true’ pinball, but in all honestly I’d rather just spend my time on Psycho Pinball, or Pokemon Pinball, or basically anything that jazzes the experience up a bit. 4/10.

Oooh, this is still really good.

Only my second time playing Super Metroid, and both times I've bashed through it in one weekend.

The music: great.
The atmosphere: palpable.
The map: varied, interesting and memorable.
The controls: . . .

This game has aged a little in actually controlling Samus. Using some of the more complex moves, and having to cycle through all the weapons on one button, can be frustrating when you're simultaneously dodging attacks and trying to shoot enemies and land on a tiny platform. After Samus Returns it was incredibly noticeable, but even Zero Mission felt a lot tighter.

On the other hand, this map has so much more character than SR, and I felt like I could tell all the different zones apart and remember how to get to each one and what weapon I was waiting for at all the different points of the map. There were a couple of trial-and-error, bomb the whole room moments which wouldn't happen these days, but overall this game held up really well.

Still a high point for the series and genre.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

This was my first PlayStation game ever! It's so good that I can't even find it any more, for some reason.

All I remember about it is that one of the music tracks in it had a bit in the melody that sounded very much like part of the theme tune for One Foot in the Grave.

Buskalilly wrote:

Only my second time playing Super Metroid, and both times I've bashed through it in one weekend.

The atmosphere: palpable.
The map: varied, interesting and memorable.
The controls: . . .

This game has aged a little in actually controlling Samus. Using some of the more complex moves, and having to cycle through all the weapons on one button, can be frustrating when you're simultaneously dodging attacks and trying to shoot enemies and land on a tiny platform. There were a couple of trial-and-error, bomb the whole room moments which wouldn't happen these days

I played it through for the first time in a weekend a couple of months ago and I agree with the quoted at least! (If you're interested my full write-up is here)

I never knew that you can press Y to quickly switch back to beam though, that would have helped the fiddliness of the controls I think.

I found out about the Y thing right near the end! There were a couple times I was using missile and beam, would have been handy to skip cycling through super missiles.

The fiddliness of changing weapons seems to be a difficult problem for them to solve as I remember using different sub-weapons and such to be a bit of a pain in Dread. There seemed to be so many different button combinations to access Samus's arsenal that I found myself fumbling about with the controls more often than not.

It was a little fiddly in Samus Returns but I could get the hang of it. The difference is the cycling through them, which takes a little too long.

Buskalilly wrote:

I found out about the Y thing right near the end! There were a couple times I was using missile and beam, would have been handy to skip cycling through super missiles.

Pretty much the same as me then

Disney’s A Christmas Carol is the DS adaptation of Charles Dickens’ seminal redemption story, released around the same time as that reimagined CGI feature film in 2009. That’s supposed to be Jim Carrey dressed as Scrooge there.

An overall pleasant puzzle-adventure, the first thing that struck me was that Disney’s A Christmas Carol DS strangely ignores the film’s computer animation and instead uses its own hand drawn visuals. This presentation is mostly well-designed and pleasing to look at, albeit it was plainly created on a tighter budget than most other Disney games. You can give Sumo Digital (!) and their art team a pat on the back for this artistry, they did good work in this sense. Sadly though, that quality doesn’t transfer over to the linear and unimaginative gameplay. The games puzzles are somewhat logical, but they’re undemanding – which is fair enough for a DS adaptation of a children’s film I suppose. A Christmas Carol is a classic tale for all ages, but let’s not pretend that the DS game was designed for anybody who’s old enough to be learning their times tables. That said, what’s less easy to forgive at whatever age and whatever stage is the repetitive and uninspiring Christmassy minigames, and how lightweight it all feels.

Ironically for a then-£30 computer game, this shallowness is juxtaposed with the hefty amount of additional non-game extras that are included here. There’s an interactive advent calendar, unlockable Christmas carols, recipes to make your own Christmas scran, and there’s even the full A Christmas Carol novel for you to read. I prefer watching it than reading it – and in Muppet form, natch - but it’s a nice thought.

Playing this through, I felt it was a comfortable way to while away a frosty Christmassy night, although as a game it’s one that doesn’t put much effort into being creative or memorable. 5/10.

The mere existence of an Konami-developed arcade-style side-scrolling brawler for the Super Nintendo would surely be enough to pique anybody’s interest. Yet it’s the fact that there’s one that an adaptation of Tim Burton’s superb Batman Returns film that makes this one truly worth your attention. This is a brilliant Christmas game that doesn’t seem to be reminisced about enough.

Fairly creative by the standards of the genre, Batman Returns alters its form several times throughout its seven levels and roughly hour long playtime. It’s a well-realised and satisfyingly crunchy side-scrolling brawler for the most part – just as you’d reasonably expect, as Konami were the masters of this. Yet for variety it’s got some tight platforming levels and a graphically-impressive Mode 7 driving sequence chucked in as well. Batman Returns is stuffed with loads of little things that typically make any game great, many of those little flourishes that highlight that the developer took a lot of care when they were making it. Destructible environments, interactive backgrounds, changing weather effects and the clever use of light and shadow contribute to this, but it’s the admirable closeness to the source material that really elevates Batman Returns into being something properly memorable.

It’s an unusually atmospheric and melancholy SNES game too. It recognisably takes place in Gotham City, itself you’ll know as a bleak and – aye - gothic-looking place. Yet there’s a downbeat yuletide feeling laced throughout the whole game. The presentation has lots of visual festivity, but it doesn’t transmit a feel-good mood at all. I think the game’s dark colours, slow pace and unlively (but excellent) sound design all contribute to that. Maybe Konami designed it this way by choice to better reflect the film, rather than to feel like your typical Christmassy computer game. Either way, Batman Returns stands out in many great ways. Let down only by the lack of multiplayer, I had a brilliant time with this. 8/10.

I played some on Mega Drive, can't remember them being good, guessing classic case of different devs for multiformat games.

My main memory of the Mega Drive games based on Batman films was Mortal Kombat-style digitised sprites. Is this one like that? I was impressed in the 90s but they probably don't look like much now.

Noooooo, this one's nothing like that digitised Mega Drive game. You're thinking of Batman Forever, which is so manky that I included it in my bottom ten games of all time for a different thread earlier this year. Batman Returns is basically a licensed Final Fight.

I’m sorry if I’m ruining anyone’s Christmas by telling you this, but The Polar Express on GameCube isn’t a very good game. Based on 2004 CGI film of the same name, you explore the North Pole-bound Polar Express train in search of Golden Tickets. These Golden Tickets are what allow the other passengers to go see Santa and take part in all the best yuletide activities, such as eating chocolate for breakfast, watching World’s Strongest Man, and lying about in your wanking chariot until 4pm on a Tuesday.

The Polar Express film still looks all right considering it was made with early ‘00s digital technology, but even by the standards of the time it’s computer game has low production values and generally ropey performance. This is coupled with controls that are poorly executed, and some really peculiar difficulty spikes that are dotted throughout the game’s short, sub-three hour runtime. This isn’t in keeping with the recommended tone I think The Polar Express should have. That said, the music and sound is really nicely done, stuffed with festive cheer and warmness. However, that starkly contrasts with the fairly standard and dull gameplay. Exploring each of the train’s carriages and completing a verifiable Selection Box of action, platforming, puzzling, shooting and stealth challenges is a nice concept for a Polar Express computer game, but it just isn’t all that fun to play.

It’s typical mid ‘00s licensed computer game fare, then. The Polar Express is mostly unenjoyable and pretty uninspiring stuff. 4/10.

Cappa: plays these games so no-one has to. Or wants to.

Has anyone actually seen the real Express film?

'The Polar Express is mostly unenjoyable and pretty uninspiring stuff' is a fair assessment of the film too tbf. As for games, I'll play any old shite!

I watched Polar Express as a DVD rental with my family back when it released. It was boring and shite.

Imagine plonking down £40 for that at Christmas, to see little Johnny dump it after half hour. Someone, somewhere, is still lighting cigars with £50 notes from the sales of all those poorly made movie tie-ins.

They've probably donated half of those to the Conservative Party in exchange for a peerage. Lord THQ of Shitegames.

A proverbial tangerine treat in my GNamer Christmas stocking, Die Hard Trilogy is a bonafide PSone belter. Promoted as being ‘3 games in 1!’, the whole marketing strategy behind it was that Die Hard Trilogy would be a coming together of three different gameplay styles across the (then) three different Die Hard films. ‘3 games in 1!’ is normally a phrase that’ll strike fear into the heart of any self-respecting gamer, but in this rare case I really feel that having that variety really improves the experience.

The first Die Hard game admittedly doesn’t really follow that film’s plot all too closely, but because you kill terrorists, rescue hostages and cut about in a dirty white vest it’s recognisably Die Hard enough. Playing almost like a third-person Robotron 2084, you fight your way up floor-by-floor to the rooftop of wired-to-explode Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper. With health to replenish, armour and health to grab and all sorts of weapons and explosives to choose from, this becomes a bit more strategic and involved than something like Robotron – but it’s just as intense. Especially on the graphically-limited hardware, this is impressive and overall excellent stuff.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder draws close inspiration from Virtua Cop, played wholly through the eyes of John McClane as he races through the Dulles Airport concourse and onto the runway to destroy all the same terrorists, dictators and drug kingpins from the film. It’s perhaps a little sluggish compared to the day’s finest arcade light-gun shooters, but it’s suitably violent, manic and once again commendably faithful to the source material.

Die Hard With A Vengeance changes pace yet again – it’s a 3D driving game with some of the wildest car physics that I’ve ever experienced. Seeking out and commandeering different vehicles, outrunning terrorists and unwiring bombs in New York City’s Chinatown before they detonate might all sound derivative of Grand Theft Auto III…but remember that this came out in 1996. That was before Grand Theft Auto was even a thing. Die Hard With A Vengeance would have blown my mind twenty-five years ago. It’s a bit rusty now for sure, but it’s still enjoyable in a retro way. And everybody know that the retro way is the best way.

The attention to detail that Die Hard Trilogy pays to the, er, Die Hard Trilogy is seriously admirable. It’s one of the best film tie-in video games ever! While it’s perhaps held back from true greatness by it’s severe difficulty (cheats are needed), Die Hard Trilogy is nevertheless a Christmas cracker. Enjoy that pun, and enjoy your Christmas! 8/10.

There's a score I didn't expect to see! Is it a Christmas game though?

Yes.

Die Hard Trilogy is class! I remember playing that back in 1997/1998 and very much enjoying it, although yes it was brutally tough. Trying to defuse bombs in those shonky 3D environments - definitely deserves a remaster/remake.

I liked it as a kid because although I was crap at all three games, at least I could switch between them when I got fed up