Monster Rancher 2 - Full Review (PlayStation 1 game)

This is no ordinary virtual pet game and, despite comparisons to Pokémon, Monster Rancher has a defined identity with its own tantalizing hook; find your monsters by inputting your own CD disks into your console. Unlike typical ‘pet raising’ games you don’t buy them from shops or trek through jungles in search of powerful creatures. Instead you must put any audio or PS1 game disk into your PlayStation console and, depending on the disk, receive one of over 400 monsters with many of these only being acquired once you’ve earned the right to raise them.

Developer: Tecmo
Genre: Simulation
Release date: 2000
Platforms: PlayStation 1
ESRB: E –Everyone

‘Monster Rancher 2’ is arguably the most successful and popular game in the Monster Rancher series despite later editions boasting better graphics and additional features. Often compared to Pokémon, ‘Monster Rancher 2’, or simply ‘Monster Rancher’ if you have the European edition, puts you in the role of a certified monster breeder where your job is to train monsters to fight in arena style battles. This strangely enticing game has the potential to take up hours upon hours of your time and dozens upon dozens of your old CD disks as you try and unlock the hidden mysteries within your CD and PS1 game collection.

Gameplay and Story

After introducing yourself and taking a short personality test you’re thrown into the role of a certified monster breeder with your assistant, Colt, by your side. The story of Monster Rancher 2 is mostly non-linear with key events only occurring when you choose to engage in them or when you meet specific requirements. The game also never has to end if you don’t want it to as you can carry on playing even after watching the ‘end’ video so this is a fantastic game for the casual gamer. The general aim of the game however is to raise different monsters, unlocking rare breeds and rising through the 6 ranks by beating other monsters in tournaments and cups. 

Gameplay is split into different segments that mostly revolve around training your monster or battling other monsters. After finding and naming your monster, be that by purchasing one of the three available at the market or by finding one on any audio or PS1 games you happen to have, you take it back to the ranch with you. This unusual twist to the game is painfully addictive and you’ll find yourself rooting around the house for any old CDs that you still have but, in this new digital age, I personally lacked enough CDs to get a real variety. Frustratingly a lot of CDs contain a ‘rare monster’ that means you haven’t met the requirements to train it yet but, by playing the game and advancing through it, those rare monsters will be unlocked with enough time and dedication and if anything it gives you an incentive to continue playing. 

 

Almost every aspect of your monster’s training regime can be controlled by you including choosing what food it will eat at the start of every month, all of which have different effects, which drills they engage in or when they should go on an ‘errantry’. All monsters have a collection of stats to be raised; Life, Power, Intelligence, Defence, Speed and Skill but monsters exceed at these in different ways, for example some monsters are intelligence based rather than power meaning rather than brute strength they adopt entirely different attacks that focus on not just damage but reducing the ‘guts’ of their opponent. ‘Guts’ is what you need to attack your opponent so by reducing them in the enemy it means they cannot physically attack you and allowing you to chip away at their health gradually until they either die or the match is up. Battles are won by having a greater percentage of health at the end of the battle, whether or not you K.O your opponent doesn’t tend to come into it as matches are fought on a time limit. 

The battles can, admittedly, be frustrating as luck tends to factor into it quite frequently and often you’ll be battling against your monster’s unwillingness to listen to you. How many opponents you face depends on what kind of tournament it is and there’s a nice round mixture of tournaments where sometimes you’ll be fighting for the most wins and sometimes where you’ll only be battling two or three other monsters who were the winners of previous fights. Whilst occasionally battles can become repetitive there’s a huge variety of opponents that are genuinely quite challenging and, when you enter a new grade or start with a new monster, verging on impossible. Due to the quite steep rise in difficulty level as you rise through the ranks the game is kept constantly challenging and rewarding so there’s no worry of out-levelling any of your opponents without some serious dedication to training. 

The amount of interaction you have with your monsters fighting and training regime is kind of variable as during battles you can choose to control it yourself or allow your monster to fight by themselves. You will always see how the fight plays out but this effects your ability to select the techniques, when to select them and whether you advance or retreat during matches. You cannot use items during battles which may seem a little odd at first but, provided you use them outside of battle, there are still plenty of items that can be used though with unusual effects. Generally however these items don’t affect the outcome of a battle as that depends entirely on how well you’ve trained your monster and how well you can play to their strengths during a match. 

Training your monster involves drills or errantry but you can also select whether to train using light drills or heavy drills. Each light drill will raise a single stat whereas heavy drills will raise two and decrease one as well as tire your monster out faster. When you select which drill your monster will perform it takes an entire week and, with only four weeks in a month, you can at most only get away with three training sessions a month and with one week to rest. During the drills themselves you can either watch the scene of your monster engaging in it, for instance swimming around a course or enduring the force of huge battering rams pounding into them, or you can just skip the cutscene and get straight to the results. Your monster is not just limited to failing or succeeding; they may also cheat or exceed and this often reflects how they are raised or their individual personalities. The way in which you can praise or scold your monster is an added dimension and a contributing factor in how loyal your monster is to you, as well as how spoilt they may be. Monsters that are frequently scolded, refused praise, pushed too hard during training sessions or doing their individual ‘dislike’ such as feeding them something they hate or forcing them to battle when they dislike it will ultimately stress your monster out. A stressed out monster means that they will die sooner, are more likely to fall ill and will frequently be tired and unable to fight properly. Monsters that are stressed out or neglected may even run away and this usually occurs when they dislike you but, on the other hand, a monster that likes you and that has more loyalty is more likely to listen to you during battle. Unlike many ‘virtual pet’ games, if this can be considered that, the fact that the way you raise and train your monster has a huge impact on the game makes it all the more absorbing as sometimes your personality and training regime will clash with a monster. What worked with your previous, precious monster now no longer works for your brand new one who needs to be brought up to speed. What this results in is you and your new monster both hating one another and either this poor partnership continues or you change your tactic and adjust to the new personality and style of this new, baby monster.

A huge part of the game and one I particularly enjoy is the feature of combining your monsters into new ones and unlocking more disk stones. Your monster won’t last forever and, depending on the type of monster, will have a lifespan that will decrease depending on how stressed or mistreated they are. There’s no actual way to view the lifespan of your monster so sometimes it can come as a bit of a shock when you wake up one morning, open the barn and find them motionless on the ground. Combining monsters is something of an art and it’s fairly confusing at first as it can be temperamental. The basic idea is that you raise two kinds of monster, the same breed or different ones, you can only have one at a time but you can ‘freeze’ them which is essentially putting them in a cryogenic freezer to be defrosted whenever you want to use them again. Once you’ve got two fine specimens you can then combine them for a flat fee, this merges their DNA to produce you one new monster that is supposed to have traits from its parents including stats, personality and any techniques the parents learnt. To help push your combining in the right direction you can use special items that you’ve picked up from expeditions, won from battles or found in other way. Items can include bits of a broken disk stone which is basically an essence of another, possibly rare, monster. Your new monster will always be back at the lowest grade for battles, level E, but this is doesn’t mean he’ll be lagging behind as the monsters you fight in battles do not raise their stats so, just as his parents did, your new monster can climb the grades and attempt to become a champion. 

Graphics and audio

As PlayStation 1 games go, Monster Rancher is reasonably attractive though not especially detailed. The sprite animations for the dialogue are particularly nice however and each character you encounter has an original look so there’s no rehashes of models. Everybody, including your monster, rae rather animated in their emotions and what’s especially nice to see is that your monster’s personality shows through the way they express themselves and move around. There’s also a noticeable growth in monsters as they age and visual indicators like this are always appreciated. Depending on the breed of monster and the sub-species that they may contain they all look different; colours, textures and features like horns or spines may be integrated into a base monster’s original appearance and this diversity is critical to making each monster feel like an individual. The environments too are pretty decent though the ranch is very unfurnished and mostly consists of just an empty expanse of rolling green hills. The weather is done particularly well in the game and you’ll notice the change in seasons is quite apparent due to the level of light and little things like the hue of the grass, how rainy or stormy it is and whether there’s snow or not. Finally, the battle arenas and town areas are fairly well drawn however, even though most of the buildings in the market do remind me of a bunch of disturbing faces, but overall I’d say the graphics for the game are of a decent level of quality. 

The music is something I particularly enjoy in the game as it’s very atmospheric and, the battle music in particular, changes depending on what kind of tournament you’re playing. It’s a very memorable soundtrack that after several sessions of playing is likely to be stuck in your head forever. There’s no verbal dialogue in the game as everything is done via text but your monsters will make noises that reflect their mood so I guess that’s something.

Overall

There’s a great potential to get hours and hours of gameplay out of Monster Rancher and still not quite understand how the complex calculation system of combing works, but it’s fun all the same. Whilst the graphics aren’t exactly the game’s strong point and gameplay can become repetitive and uneventful there’ s still this sense of achievement when you raise your monster’s rank or find a new, rare creature. The game is a nice level of challenging but is still very accessible and I particularly love how connected you can feel to your monster and how you develop favourites, I hate Pixie’s for example because I personally believe they’re a bunch of spoilt brats who never do what I say and who cheat all the time. Ahem. The game is definitely addictive and extremely time consuming, the original spin of finding your own monsters by using your own disks from home is always a draw for me and there’s a lot of replay value in the game due to how different the monsters are. This is one of those games where you can play it for the long haul or for a short stint but, I warn you, it’s a rare find and will cost you more money than your average PS1 game. If you can pick it up for less than £20 I advise you to buy it, immediately, because it won’t remain that cheap for long.

The Good: 

• Original premise of using your own CDs
• Lots of personality
• Huge selection and of monsters
• Nice difficulty curve
• Addictive gameplay
• Monster combination very fun to toy with
• Monsters are very interactive
• Lots of hidden features to unlock rare monsters
• Some nice quirky events to break things up such as birthdays and expeditions
  

The Bad:

• Can become repetetive and boring
• Training your monster takes a long time
• Graphics are a little grating
• Could use more features and places to go

The Score: 7/10

Final thoughts: "This is the golden age of Monster Rancher, it's really fun, super addictive and just has bags of originality. It's not like Pokémon, I swear."

Beyond: Two Souls - Full Review (PlayStation 3 game)

If you’re looking for something that’s intense, cinematic and extremely immersive then 'Beyond: Two Souls' may be exactly what you are looking for. More like an interactive film than a game, 'Beyond: Two Souls' follows the life, jumping through random points in time, of a young woman called Jodie Holmes who has been connected to an invisible, mysterious entity since birth. This unknown entity is called Aiden and, in single player you control both characters whilst, in co-op one player plays Aiden and one plays Jodie. 

Developer: Quantic Dream 
Genre: Interactive drama, action adventure 
Release date: 8th October 2013 (EU: 11th October 2013, JP: 17th October 2013) 
Platforms: PlayStation 3 
ESRB: M - Mature

This beautifully unique game strongly emphasises player interaction and, in this sense, is considered to be an interactive drama game with some action elements. Whilst I usually hate quick time events in this game it works perfectly and, in a style similar to Heavy Rain, you’ll find yourself performing actions for everything you come across. Through the use of motion capture actress Ellen Page and actor Willem Dafoe star as Jodie Holmes and Nathan Dawkins respectively and, alongside their flawless voice acting, you’ll be hard pressed to find a game that’s more realistic than Beyond: Two Souls is. This is a beautifully crafted, extremely emotional and fantastically animated game that changes the face of gaming. 

Gameplay and story

The game revolves around a woman called Jodie who is somehow physically connected to an invisible entity dubbed Aiden. The story flicks about between different times in Jodie’s life ranging from when she was a child to the shocking events we see in the prologue with the premise being that Jodie’s forgotten how she’s come to where she is. Whilst the story is primarily focused on Jodie there will be times when you control Aiden and see things through his ghostly perspective. The ending of the game varies on your decisions and throughout the ‘chapters’ that you play through there will be some room for manoeuvre and make your own decisions but, generally, the overall storyline is a fixed series of events.

The game is primarily designed to be some kind of interactive film and it is, in this sense, extremely cinematic. There’s basically no HUD aside from a white dot showing what can be interacted with and no map to guide you places. The camera moves very organically and tends to focus on what Jodie is looking at whether that’s somewhere she’s been ordered to go or something that’s just caught her attention. It won’t take you long to adjust to the mannerisms and personality of this game and you’ll almost immediately be sucked into the episodic telling of Jodie’s life. The great thing about dipping and diving between different times in Jodie’s life is the great variation in gameplay that this provides. Protagonists are usually presented ‘as is’ with the occasional reference to earlier events that helped shape them but with Jodie you live so much of her life from the simple times of playing in her bedroom as a young child, through troubled teenage years, to the moment she learned she was to leave everything she knew and join the C.I.A. You follow her through her initial training and, when real life interrupts this and Jodie’s forced to apply these newly acquired skills in desperate, life changing situations, you truly appreciate the depth and breadth of her character. If Jodie was constantly on the run and beating people up it would quickly become a boring, 2D interpretation of life as this is not how people live. Instead, by living through the very normal, domestic aspects of her life you see everything put into perspective. It’s not just watching a troubling childhood it’s living through that and then, when Jodie unleashes her revenge, it’s more than just petty violence but bitterness, hurt and frustration all balled together into an intense and dangerous explosion of emotion. 

But it’s not just Jodie who tugs you headlong into the immersive nature of the game; Aiden, too, is a fascinating subject though I found his connection with Jodie to be initially a little disturbing. After all, you know nothing about him and for all you know he’s utterly malevolent. However, as you view the tentative interactions between a little girl and this mysterious spirit as he pushes her on the swing, defends her when she’s wronged and protects her from harm you understand just how much they need each other. What’s great about Aiden is even though you never see him and only occasionally see the world through his eyes he still has a very distinctive personality. From the beginning its made clear how quickly things can go wrong due to the sheer power Aiden has but, unusually so, when you yourself are in control of Aiden you feel the exact same way. Aiden’s power and tendency to take things too far is quickly reflected in your own gameplay and sometimes you find yourself doing things that, usually, you’d never do. It’s very much a case of you can break windows, scare people half to death, set a building on fire, tear the world apart so you end up doing so because, God dammit, why shouldn’t you? 

I think what surprised me about this game was how absolutely terrifying it could make itself as initially the game came across as creepy, a little eerie but otherwise nothing particularly noteworthy, I was wrong about that. The intensity of encounters is very quickly elevated later on and there are some moments of absolute, genuine terror that I was simply not expecting. In particular, the reliance on the player to survive encounters by performing quick time events means that it’s your responsibility to get Jodie to safety and, when required to jump, duck or smash through something there’s almost zero on-screen help and instead you must accurately read what she intends to do by following the movement of her body with your controller. When you’re faced with an extremely pressured situation this can quickly deteriorate into a frenzied attempt to survive but, as you can imagine, shoving your controller every which way is one sure fire way of getting yourself killed. It’s not all fast paced action though as I alluded to earlier but that doesn’t mean you’re not involved in things. Almost everything Jodie does is guided by you from cutting up her dinner during meals, tidying her apartment before a date, training with the CIA to hitchhiking on the side of a road. When Jodie’s working hard, you’re working hard and the ties that this creates between protagonist and player is not just an added layer of immersion but an invaluable approach to ensuring you’re emotionally invested in the storyline and characters. 

As games go I tend to prefer ones which are open world and, despite this game not being this way it still manages to convince you that you could go anywhere at a moment’s notice. There’s almost always a set path or a few paths that you have to follow but these take place in large, sprawling environments that should not be explored anyway such as a desert landscape or a laboratory. Doors would be, quite naturally, locked in a laboratory where conditions are strictly monitored so it’s unlikely that a little girl would be allowed to go off wandering around as she pleased when she’s being escorted somewhere. So she can only go through one door, so what? That’s where she’s going anyway. What’s interesting is that it’s simply not in Jodie’s personality to run off in any random direction anyway because she’s a very straight down the middle, straight to the point sort of character. When she’s got a job to do by God, she’ll go and do that job and follow it through until the end. In this sense, even though the game’s path is constantly linear that doesn’t ruin the story in any way as even through you’re following this track there’s a fair bit of wiggle room where you can mooch off a little, change the story here and there and choose how you ultimately reach the end goal. Whilst the game didn’t have as much ‘change the story’ elements as I would have liked there’s options and different paths you can take; you can escape from certain scenarios in different ways, take things to far with Aiden or maybe leash him in a bit more, things like that. Either way all of the choices you make will be within the boundaries of what Jodie may or may not do and there are no outlandish choices that would break her character. For a game like this it’s important to remember that you’re not your own character such as in the Dragon Age series or Skyrim and you’re more like… Corvo from Dishonoured, there’s some breathing room in how you do stuff, but you still have to do things his way.

Graphics, animations and audio 
 
Nothing negative could be said about the graphics and animation of this game, they are utterly flawless and astoundingly realistic. 'Beyond: Two Souls' is more film-like than any other game I’ve ever played and this makes for a totally original experience. A complete lack of HUD adds to the immersion value and the only time you’ll encounter game like elements are when you’re prompted to make a decision in conversation or perform a quick time event. Everything looks stunningly realistic whether that’s water captured on skin or rust etched onto metal, there’s not one aspect of the game that’s not polished to perfection. The landscapes are vast and detailed as you explore a beautiful assortment of locations that range from the super modern such as shiny laboratories or 21st century offices to the totally rustic, somewhat dilapidated Native American farmlands and homeless squatting grounds. This is a game where you will genuinely struggle to find something that’s not flawlessly detailed and utterly realistic. 

The interesting application of CGI and motion capture for the faces and movements of characters is very effective. Each individual wrinkle, mole, hair, scar and pore is clearly visible adding to a huge range of emotions to be portrayed on a wide variety of individuals. No two people are the same, each NPC is their own person and rather than coming face to face with hundreds of similar looking people this game has opted for a few dozen of totally unique individuals. 

The animations are something to truly behold and you can instantly tell that this is something the developers should be extremely satisfied with. All of the animations are very organic and natural feeling, for example when carrying a bale of hay Jodie occasionally adjusted it but not in your usual sense; each adjustment was different, realistic, evolving. Tiny, subtle movements ripple throughout every interaction and you are constantly barraged with her conflicting emotions, her moments of feeling self-conscious, her pain or anger and by the time you’ve sunk into the game you realize that this is truly the most human of all game protagonists. It really is incredible to experience. This massive variety of animations whether that’s walking or idle ones and, having experienced a lot of impressive animations in my gaming time, I was taken aback by the sheer detail to the point where I literally made a new category to talk about this in this review. 

There’s not much that can be said about the audio of this game as, quite simply, it is flawless. The voice acting is perfect, emotional and extremely high quality. Everything, whether it’s gentle breathing or full on screaming is etched with emotion allowing you to truly understand the thoughts, feeling and experiences of the characters. The music isn’t particularly noticeable as its very subtle and only tends to come into its own when there’s a great deal of action on scream, at which point it rises in tempo and intensity to reflect the direction of events. All in all, there’s not a single fault with the aesthetical aspects of Beyond: Two Souls.

Overall

Quantic Dream have been in and out of my consoles for some time; I first played their game ‘Fahrenheit’ and for some unknown reason could never get into it, despite appreciating how original it was. I’d toyed with the idea of ‘Heavy Rain’ but again it passed me by and I still haven’t got very far into it. ‘Beyond: Two Souls’ changed my opinion of this genre of games entirely and I found it to be deeply emotional yet incredibly intense experience that merged full throttle action sequences with slower, more tentative gameplay. There are quite a few endings to this game depending on choices made in later sequences which is a fantastic way of rounding off a game that boasts how much the player affects the storyline. Nothing bad can be said about the way it looks, sounds and generally portrays itself as everything is a flawless representation of life however, there’s room for improvement. Critically I would say that there is not a huge number of alternatives when faced with encounters and that sometimes, ok, once, the game didn’t take into account how I’d responded to a scene. Despite this you will find yourself playing a slightly altered version of the game compared to your friends and, taking into account how fantastic the game otherwise is, I think that’s a pretty reasonable expectation.

The Good: 

• Looks flawless, very detailed, beautiful lighting
• Sounds fantastic, voice acting is superb
• Alternate endings for replayability
• Controlling Aiden is super fun
• Great variation in gameplay
• Something for everybody 
• Interesting storyline keeps you on your toes
• Immersive, passionate, emotional

The Bad: 

• More impact on storyline by doing things in different ways would be good
• The fact it's more like an interactive film than a game may put some off
• Bit of a slow starter

The Score: 9/10 

Final thoughts: "I hope there's a second one released for the PlayStation 4 but, how the hell would they intergrate all the possible endings? Maybe they'd do it in the same world but not following Jodie... Hmm..."

MicroMachines V3 - Full Review (PS1 and Nintendo 64 game)

MicroMachines V3 is truly a forgotton gem of retro gaming. It was the first game in the MicroMachines series to feature 3D graphics in an already successful video game series and it were as though somebody opened the floodgates of awesome driving games. 

Devloper: Codemasters, Novalicious
Genre: Racing
Release date: March 1997 (PS1), 1998 (PC),  Aarch/April 1999 (Nintendo 64 port)
Platforms: PlayStation, Windows and Nintendo 64
ESRB: E - Everyone
 
The game was later re-ported for its Nintendo 64 debut, albeit under a different name because Sega likes to look original and from that point on lots of successful, similar style racing games came out including.. Super Mario Karts, woo. So, the MicroMachines series is a racing game featuring toy cars on somewhat unusual courses that are typically places around the house and garden, since you’re driving miniature vehicles everything is oversized so you feel a little like a teenage Borrower skidding about on somebody’s kitchen table. Overall the game is extremely memorable and comes with bags of personality and nostalgia for those who grew up in the 90s.

Gameplay

There is no real skill required in playing this game and in that sense it’s very simple to play. Saying that, this is a really funny and enjoyable party game and the more people you get involved the more fun you’ll find it. You can pick which vehicle you want to race out of a pretty wide selection including ice cream trucks, offload trucks, racing cars or big rigs and then race them across crazy, oversized courses that take place in various mundane settings like on a school desk or on the breakfast table. These places are mundane in theory but agonizingly dangerous when you’re essentially a matchbox on wheels as the courses often take you over perilous bridges made out of rulers and baguettes or through deep trenches of sticky honey. To make things more interesting some of the courses are on the surface of a pond meaning you get to race in speed boats rather than ground vehicles which is great if you want to change things up a bit.

The diners must be pretty immature to line their vegetables up like this.

But it’s not just the environment that’s there to slow you down; your opponents too have the ability to send you hurtling off the table top to your demise. The game a good amount of healthy competition as you can pick up plenty of weapons and power ups to help you win the race. If you like you can pick up a mallet power up that will quite literally stick an enormous car-smashing hammer onto the front of your vehicle, there’s something greatly amusing about chasing your friends around the course and beating them to a plastic pulp. So, the game doesn’t just have a mallet to pick up but your standard power ups too like turbo boost and force fields, that stop your friends from beating you into plastic pulp, there’s also some particularly destructive items like explosive mines and dynamite that can ricochet off solid bits of scenery and hit you slap bang in the face if you’re not careful.

I imagine this is how pond-skippers settle their differences.

The gameplay is generally fun but only if you’re playing against human opponents due to the excessively simple AI of the computer opponents. A fairly frustrating element of the game is that if you fall too far behind the other cars you just automatically respawn close to the others and this can take away a lot of the challenge and, especially when playing against friends, can take away a lot of the competitiveness. There’s no split screen feature, which may be why the cars respawn rather than fall back, but on the Nintendo 64 port you can have up to 8 people playing using pad-share which greatly enhances this game’s status as a party game.

Graphics and race tracks

Even though the graphics of this game are dated now the levels are still looking undeniably great. The race tracks of the game are split between various themes such as the breakfast table, in the garden, on the surface of a pond and on a snooker table with each theme having thoughtful little design features. Sticky honey that will slow you right down and milk that will send you skidding off the table to your death are really quaint features of the breakfast table level and it’s great how even the borders of the track change with each area. Whilst the breakfast table has chocolate cereal outlining where you’re supposed to stay the pond has little drops of algae and the wine stained cloth of the restaurant table has peas and carrots instead. It’s all very cute and very charming with great little touches like a snail retreating into its shell when you bump into it and giant frogs and dogs to the side of the track.

That's either an extremely tiny note or the scaling is way off.

My only criticism of the levels of this game is that they can quickly become repetitive as many tracks are rehashes of the same few themes which results in the cuteness and personality of your surroundings wearing off, leaving you feeling a little bored due to the unchallenging gameplay. Despite this, there are 48 different courses and they have varying difficulty levels like beginner and master. You can also attempt the time trials and challenges that they game sets you or you can try your hand at a tournament which is great fun with lots of friends, all in all there’s a lot packed into this game so you can get quite a few hours out of it by trying to complete everything.

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be cheese or extremely round butter. And why is that bread miniture?

Conclusion

MicroMachines can wear on you a little if you’re playing by yourself as most of the fun comes from the competiveness of racing with your friends rather than beating the AI. Despite this, it’s a fun racing game with lots of playability and some great features that can be easily overlooked. The menu system and tutorial are fun and quirky and give the game a feel good factor that you don’t often get with driving games and the different driving modes like time trials and tournaments add in a much needed variation to the standard winding around a memorized track. The camera angles are a little dodgy but tolerable and quite common in late 90s games. The fact that this game is a PlayStation childhood staple means it is worthy of having a few modern day flaws here and there and overall it’s still a fun, eccentric miniature car racing game that will get everyone involved. 


The Good:

• It's always fun being this tiny
• Fast paced, competitive racing
• Quirky and original
• Nice looking maps, very detailed
• Decent variety of vehicles including boats
• A good party game with lots of people
• Fun 'beat em up' power-ups

The Bad:

• Despite lots of courses, maps feel repetitive
• A little grating after a while
• Boring on your own
• Camera can be rather temperamental 

The Score – 7/10

If you're playing this game maybe you want to check out the PS1 cheats and debug mode codes for MicroMachines V3, find them here.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Full Review (PC, MS-DOS game)

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a point and click adventure game from 1995. It’s based on a short story by Harlan Ellison published in 1967 though differs in plotline to the original book. The game is set in the, hopefully distant, future where the Earth has been taken over by supercomputers that have enslaved/eliminated the human race. It’s a very conventional backstory for a very unconventional game. In this story our murderous supercomputer is called AM; short for Allied Mastercomputer and is voiced by Ellison who flawlessly pulls off the disturbed persona as only somebody who truly understood AM could. AM was one of three super-computers tasked with the running of a violent world war to minimize human causalities. Unfortunately, this plan backfired as much as a plan can backfire and, upon becoming self-aware, AM conducted a mass genocide of the human race. Only five people were left alive by the machine who, if we can call it a who, by now has subsequently lost his mind shortly after discovering it. AM is a calm, collected and cruel being with bouts of manic but twisted teasing. He taunts, jibes and mocks with abandon and his discourse often slips into the grotesque. AM’s five captives have been made practically immortal and AM tortures and torments them endlessly for 109 years. This is where our story picks up as AM, inventive as he is, has come up with a new way to aggravate his disgruntled prisoners. 

The pillar of love, courtesy of AM, just one of many affectionate displays.

Gameplay and characters

The game essentially has five separate episodes as you take control of each individual prisoner then a final, sixth scene at the end that wraps it all together and determines the ending. The ending of the game is open-ended and may result in four conclusions, three of which aren't exactly optimal and the last being rather positive.The stories of each of the five characters are varying in length and quality with some good puzzles but other quite easy, simplistic ones. The gameplay itself is nothing particularly special and it’s fairly typical but the plot is enough reason to stick around and play it. Some may find the game too dark and depressing due to the seriousness of the topic, after all we’re in post-cold-war apocalyptic times so you can expect things to get a little gloomy. The narrative of AM is consistently good quality though the five prisoners are fairly unbothered by their eternal torment. There’s a dash of fear and disturbed reactions from the characters but mostly they’re just kind of irritated and bit fed up of their taunting host. If they’re not disturbed though, you certainly will be, as the game manages to strike deep into places that games rarely venture. There are plenty of sensitive topics that aren’t exactly tip-toed around though luckily the game reins it in visually on some of those particular issues.
 

Ted may look a little skinny back there but the detail of the room is beautiful.

The controls are your very standard point and click style in which you have several actions at the bottom such as ‘pick up’, ‘open’ ‘look at’ and so on reminiscent of LucasArts SCUMM gameplay like my beloved Monkey Island games. You’ll generally need to click and use on things in your inventory or on the environment to advance through puzzles. Some things like can be a little frustrating at first. For instance, you must manually pick ‘open’ to get through a door else you’ll bump around it until you realize what you’re doing wrong. There are no hotkeys for the different actions so it’s all mouse guided. Cutscenes are very easy to accidentally skip as if you press any button or click the mouse then it will automatically go to the end of it, this is very noticeably in the first, long opening scene which is essential for storyline.

Gorrister hanging in the public restroom of Little Chef, the poor guy.

Each character has a defined personality and it’s not simply a measure of sticking a new face on and going in a new area. You’ll instantly notice the shift in tone and temperament as you move from one character to the next and it’s a refreshing aspect that helps to keep things interesting. All of the characters have their own, secret past that you’ll learn about from their stories though each share’s something in common. They all need to face their past and learn to move on with it. Your role will be to help them come to terms with what they have each been through. There’s an unusual mechanism in the game called a ‘Karma meter’ that surrounds the character’s face; this will lighten or darken depending on their mood. Certain actions will cheer them up and others will bring them down into deep depression or anxiety. Part of the gameplay is to not do what AM expects you to do; the options generally bounce between doing something positive or honourable and doing something cowardly or destructive. With this in mind, it’s usually fairly obvious to work out what to do in each moral scenario.

Graphics and environment

Despite the fact that this game was released in 90s it's still greatly detailed and quite gory when the story calls for it. Generally the environments are dark, gloom y and macabre but that doesn't mean the game is limited to dull browns and greys. Some areas are lush and green with vibrant and almost scenic settings and the transition from the murky depths of a concentration camp to a lush, though somwhat dingy, tropical island is fantastic. The variation in environments is very apparant as each character has an entirely different setting than the last which makes it feel as though you're getting 5 very short games in one.
 

There are plenty of subtle little bits; like how that tree looks almost mechanical in nature.

The expression on characters faces are vivid and detailed especially due to the close up shot at the bottom of the screen. Objects that you're meant to pick up are blended well into the surroudning scenery and, as is common with point and clicks, it's not always apparent what you're supposed to be grabbing.There’s nothing plain or bare about the graphics and each area is rich in detail; pots and pans in the kitchen, twisted vines around headstones, colourful cave paintings and finely carved patterns at the end of a bed are just a few of the environmental additions that are to be enjoyed in the settings of this game. Admittedly, there are a few slight graphicsl issues like the colour goes a little manic or the screen fuzzes during a cutscene but that's more likely due to trying to play a 90s game on Windows 7.

Another completely different and finely detailed environment, Ellen looks tired though.

Audio

The audio is fairly well done and, if nothing else, is atmospheric.  The music is jarring and disturbing in parts but not loud enough to distract you or interfere with what you’re doing and contributes nicely to the overall feel of the game. As I’ve mentioned the voice of AM is particularly well acted but the five main characters are also satisfactory with their own strengths and weaknesses. Ellen is particularly annoying due to her sarcastic, off the cuff comment when apparently she suffers from anxiety. Ellen tends to come across more as a disgruntled housewife than a victim of torture which is rather mood-breaking. Everything has a sound, there’s nothing left untouched, so you can pick and prod at everything that can be interacted with without being disappointed. 

Overall

I Have No Mouth and I MustScream is definitely worth a play through if you enjoy point and click games, and even if you don’t, then you should play it for the storyline. If you’re squeamish of psychological horrors however then you should definitely give this game a miss as once you’re in there, you won’t be getting back out again. The game explores recesses that few games dare to enter; this isn’t a murder mystery game, you won’t find soldiers full of bullet holes or serial killers dragging entrails across the walls. When you finish the game you’ll have journeyed through an environment of unsettling madness of apocalyptic proportions. Whilst this may not sound like a barrel of laughs and fun for all this game entertains in a way that’s almost forgotten in modern games. If you’re looking for something a little different, then you should definitely give this a go.

Score: 9/10 

To discover more of my old PC game reviews, check out this page here.

Goat Simulator - Quick Review (PC game)

Before I begin, let me ask you a question; have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a goat? Of course you have, everybody has, so you'll be pleased to know that this game is a goat simulator; simulating the everyday life of a goat. But not just any goat, this goat is a super speedy, super destructive, super 'what the actual hell is going o- OHMYGOD' goat. 

I think it's tongue is coming out of its nose, is that normal for goats?

Goat simulator is by no means a serious game so for those of you hoping to be munching grass and scratching your ears I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. This goat simulator is designed to play as an extremely broken, surreal and glitchy game and you'll very quickly notice the intensely rag doll animations and overtly exaggerated gameplay. In this game you can bounce off trampolines and air vents, perform flips and tricks, glitch your way to the top of a construction site, ram your head through supposedly solid objects and lick passing humans with an ultra sticky tongue, allowing you to drag them around like deflated jellyfish.

The unfortunate reality of owning your own trampoline.

The game has numerous areas where the core aim is to rack up as many points as possible by destroying as much as possible. The goat has rag doll like physics meaning you can send him flying in every which direction with not much adherence to little things like gravity or bones. If anything it’s pretty similar to an old Tony Hawk game as, whilst catapulting through the air, you can perform tricks to earn even more points.  The best way of getting points though is by destroying things and almost everything can be demolished with your furry hide. Is there a point to this game? Not really, it's very much a sandbox game and it's designed purely to maximize fun without any real objectives or constraints. The game plays like a sandbox game because you can basically do anything and go anywhere you want, no matter what the obstacle. Want to push people into the road so they get hit by trucks? Go ahead, climb up onto roofs then flip off them onto trampolines to string together a series of goat-style combo moves? Why the hell not. The freedom is really refreshing and I just love a game without boundries even if you have to suffer with extreme glitchy-ness to experience it.

Go wherever you want and pass out from sheer enjoyment.

In case you’re looking for meaning in this game there’s a lot of hidden collectibles dotted about throughout the levels which add a bit more depth to the game and which encourages you to explore all the areas. There are 'quests' though this is far from resembling any form of actual RPG game and also achievements for doing particularly impressive things. There’s something crazy awesome about finding a mask that summons up demons to help you in your destructive conquest. The only real drawbacks of the game has to be how glitchy and broken it is; though they may be partly the point as a lot of glitches can be exploited to make everything even more unbelievably funny. The graphics are fairly realistic and a cross between the latest Sims and an older GTA game with great urban environments nestled in amongst the farmyard ones. The animations are coupled with tinkling fairground type music that adds a whole new level of surreal to this quirky, senseless game.

Everything the light touches, you can go to. And also the shadowed bits. Generally it's open world.

Overall, I’d say this game is well worth the modest price they’re asking for as it’s a great laugh to motor around in a goat that feels more like a skateboard. You’ll get plenty of laughs out of this one and I’m pretty sure this is going to become a staple of Let’s Plays everywhere as it’s not only awesome but memorable too. If you're still not convinced, check out the trailer below, I'm sure this'll answer any lasting reservations you may have.

Score: 7/10

To discover more of my PC game reviews, check out this page here.

Rugrats: Search for Reptar - Full Review (PS1 game)

Note: This was my April Fools Day post.The rest of the review is overly positive but does contain real info :D

Rugrats, Search for Reptar is a gem among all the other PS1 games of its time. If you love the television show or watched one of the films then I’m sure you’re familiar with the characters; this game brings back all that childhood charm into a well formulated little puzzle game with three great game modes and numerous storylines that will keep you entranced. Ok so the camera is a little odd and it doesn’t recognize the analog sticks on my PS2 controller but who needs forward facing vision and working fingers anyway? Years of retro gaming have deformed my hands to that of extreme double jointed-ness and partial muscle damage anyway so I barely feel the strain of mashing on the D-pad to navigate difficult terrains in this incredibly clever game.

Gameplay and plot

So the game starts out with Tommy, chief baby guy, losing all his Reptar puzzle pieces out of his Reptar shaped puzzle holder. Oh no! You have to find all the puzzle pieces by completing a series of mini-games and earning them back. There are other game modes though and the puzzle piece main storyline makes up a large chunk of gameplay. The main game includes the storyline, side storylines and the occasional mini-game type activity. This is the game mode you want to play because, let’s face it, you just can’t wait to play so you don’t want to waste time on the mini-games. The other two game modes include a training level which is a mish-mash of some of the episodes along with advice on dealing with things like ice and lobsters, essential information as the game is really difficult in some parts and you need all the help you can get. The final game mode is the mini-games which I mentioned above, these are four bonus levels that are technically available in the main game and includes modes like an Easter egg hunt, a race against Angelica and two types of game that’s like playing piggy in the middle with chocolate milk or cookies.

Incredibly realistic Pickles house makes you feel as though you're a part of the episode.

You start the main game in your play pen in the Pickles house and from that point on you have free run of the house and garden. You can only open the doors to the garden but any closed doors only like that temporarily and open up when the side stories are taking place. All around the house are some sparkling items and by interacting with them you can start an episode which is what the side stories are called. There’s quite a few of them, one for every room of the hosue so approximately 12 episodes to play through as that’s how many puzzle pieces you need. After the puzzle is complete you get a special level where you play Reptar himself, destroying a city in a Godzilla type fashion. During the episodes you will control different characters including the dog, at one point you’re able to ride Spike like some kind of stubby horse and, in another episode, you will float through a space station so the variety is good and I like how you’re not restricted to just playing Tommy.

The game takes a decidedly weird twist when you’re in the episodes as they are very surreal. At one point I had been transported into an upside down version of the house and had to traverse the ceiling and climb up the stairs to go to the ground floor. The episodes vary in difficulty and some of the harder ones include floating about through a space station with creepy talking aliens, chasing down a goose that’s stolen Grandpa’s teeth in a weird hedge maze as Tommy and trying to avoid a creepy robot doll who wants to be your friend. Easier episodes includes a game of hide and seek, playing Chuckie who had his glasses stolen and a golf course that is toy and sweet themed, aptly named ‘Ice Cream Mountain' because when you win the gold tournament you win an actual geological wonder, I never knew people took Crazy Golf so seriously until this game!

It looks as though they're trying to decide which mount is more efficient.

The interactivity in the game is brilliant! You can pick up and throw a variety of items and all of them make an appropriate noise like the guitar or the ball bouncing. If you’re not feeling so agile you can also just put stuff down again without throwing it, essential skills for a baby to learn. If you’re feeling particularly creative you can play a miniature piano or if you feel quite athletic play fetch with Spike in the back garden. There’s a couple of curious things in the Pickles’ house like an overactive popcorn machine and a weird bubble maker in the garden. Wandering around the place Tommy usually has a fair bit to say about his surroundings but the Pickles house is just kind of the menu in between the games. Just like the television series the missions of the game are pleasantly set from a child’s point of view where you, as an adult, can see what’s really going on that makes the game so enjoyable. Any game can string together a few mini-games and call it a game but this one has such a weird perspective and series of storylines that it’s pretty intriguing, if not plain trippy. The ghosts in the house are just Tommy being afraid of the dark and, as he desperately searches for the light in the fridge, his kiddies flashlight is the only thing that will make them disappear. Fail to get rid of them and your health will deplete until Tommy gets too scared and starts crying; forcing you to restart the level.

Graphics and environment

This game is for the PS1 and though the Rugrats doesn’t exactly stretch it to its capabilities it’s still amazing to look at. The areas are all designed in perfect correlation with the original 1991 – 1999 television show, even the starting cutscene is the same, and the house is as close as you’re going to get to being in the actual TV series. The colours are great; playful, fun and accurate and all the characters look just like the real thing so the transition between watching the show to playing this game is absolutely seamless. It's basically as though they made the TV program interactive with a controller it's so realistic.

I never thought I'd see a flying fish, this game makes fantasy reality!

The game takes place in several different areas depending on which side storyline you’re playing. Whilst a lot of the game is set in the Pickles house and garden you’ll also visit the supermarket, a toy shop, the park, a space station, an upside down version of Tommy’s house after going into ‘mirror land’, a golf course and a sort of sewage plant where you play Spike, the dog. The environments are pretty varied and even though several side quests are set in the Pickles house they’re all under completely different circumstances. In one instance you’ll be exploring the house at night whilst ghosts roam the hallways, in another you’re confined to the basement where Tommy’s inventor father has accidentally created lots and lots of Mr Friend toys who just want to befriend Tommy.

For some reason, Tommy doesn't seem keen on the idea.

Overall

The game sounds great; the theme music is the same and the voice actors are the same as the television series and the films so everything will be just the way you remembered it; only with edges so sharp you could cut yourself on them. All in all though it’s a fun, silly and weird game that will give you many, many hours of entertainment and frankly I’m still working on it because some of the levels are too hard for me to get past! Even though it’s really frustrating trying to kill those ghosts I keep playing because the storyline is so appealing to me and quite complicated that, by skipping a level, I’m sure I’d lose track of what was happening. This game deserves much more attention than it’s been getting and for that reason, I highly recommend you play this right now.

Score: 4/10