🚀 go-pugleaf

Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusions

I basically bought this game for my kids and because it was going out of 
print and expected nothing. Boy what a surprise, the game is an 
excellent platformer (done by Sega for the Dreamcast I think originally 
later the PC got an updated version)
And it is really hard compared to other platformers. Definitely to hard 
for my kids (although i am not sure anymore they have become really good 
at platformers lately)

Highly recommendable if you want to play excellent 2d platformers (and 
if you still can get it, it currently is in IP limbo))

Werner




Am 01.11.16 um 04:28 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
> Happy Halloween! I come not to offer you treats and candies, but
> instead an opportunity to share opinions about what games we've all
> played over the last 30 days; that's just as good, right? Hey, stop
> that; why are you all egging my house?
>
> It's been a month and I doubt you've forgotten the drill, but just in
> case you are new or amnesiac, here it is anyway. Play the games, then
> tell us all what games you played here. Optionally, share a few
> thoughts about them. But just in case you still don't get it, I'll
> show you all how it's done... again ;-)
>
>
> --------------------
> Short and Sweet
> --------------------
> * Halo: Reach (replay)
> * Eurotruck Simulator 2 (replay)
> * Duke Nukem Forever (replay)
> * Flashback (2013) (new)
> * Crysis 2 (replay)
> * State of Decay (replay)
> * D/Generation HD (new)
> * Skyrim Special Edition (new)
>
> TL; DR
> ----------
>
> * Halo: Reach (XBox360) (replay)
> The main games of the Halo series are - at their best - a mediocre
> experience more notable for their innovative control scheme than
> anything else, but I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the side
> titles: Halo Wars, ODST or Reach are all far more memorable to me than
> Halo 2 or Halo 3. Reach was Bungie's swan song with the franchise, and
> it shows; it has the best characters, set-pieces and graphics. Again,
> that's not too high a bar to pass given how average all the rest of
> the games were, but it's still a step up.
>
> Okay, in truth Halo: Reach is still fairly average, with a humdrum
> story and gameplay gimmicks of questionable value. But the backdrop of
> an invaded planet sets a terrific mood that is well supported by the
> excellent music and saturated graphics. Some of the gunplay remains
> tedious - it wouldn't be a Bungie game if some sequences didn't
> overstay their welcome - but in general there is enough variety and
> change of pace to keep things from becoming too bogged down. Reach may
> not be a great FPS, but it is possibly the best of the Halo series and
> a enjoyable enough romp through the battlefields of the future.
>
>
>
> * Eurotruck Simulator 2 (replay)
> I have very little new to say about this game; for all that it's
> difficult to explain its appeal, I find Eurotruck Simulator 2 to be
> one of the most relaxing games I own. But I'm at a loss for anything
> else to say about it.
>
> The biggest problem I had with the game this month had less to do with
> the title itself and more to do with Steam and its idiotic and
> gamer-hostile policy of forcing updates on players. ETS2 has a
> significant modding community despite the fact that updates to the
> base program frequently break the mods, and this problem is
> exacerbated by the fact that you can't prevent Steam from applying
> patches. This stupidity hit me hard this month, as just as soon as I
> had finished downloading and installing the latest versions of my
> favorite mod, Steam patched the game and I had to start all over. Long
> story short, it was two frustrating days before I could play a game I
> usually rely on to bring me zen tranquility. This resulted in a rant
> of which this is a blessedly edited and shortened version. But damned
> if I don't hate Steam.
>
> And that's all I have to say about that.
>
>
> * Duke Nukem Forever (replay)
> Ah, Duke Nukem Forever, the running punch-line of game development. I
> decided to give the game another try just to see how bad it really
> was. And it was really bad; terrible enough that I gave up on it after
> five or six levels.
>
> A lot of reviews claimed it failed because its humor and attitude -
> Duke's gross sexism and dated pop-culture references - just didn't fit
> in well with modern sensibilities. Personally, I disagree. I think
> that Duke's hyper-masculinity and love-affair with memes-from-the-80s
> would have been quite enjoyable HAD THEY BEEN DONE WELL. But
> everything about DNF was awful. Its levels were cramped, linear and
> uninteresting to look at. It's weapons were boring. It's monsters
> lacked threat and character. The controls were stiff, the graphics
> were unappealing. The dialog too was tedious, but not because of its
> subject matter; it was just badly written. It felt like an amateur
> effort rushed to market. Personally, I'd love to see Duke make a
> comeback, with all his hoary quips and politically incorrect opinions
> intact. I just want him in a game developed by a team with talent.
>
>
>
> * Flashback (2013) (new)
> The reviews for the Flashback remake game were all negative, but
> nostalgia - and a sharply discounted price - convinced me to give it a
> chance. And you know what, it wasn't half bad. My biggest complaint
> would have to be with its voice-acting, which was just awful.
> Otherwise I felt the game was a decent-enough remake. I think a lot of
> the problems other reviewers had with the title was that the original
> game wasn't all that great to begin with, and the remake did little to
> fix the original's gameplay or narrative problems. Then again, the
> reviewers would also have cried foul had the remake strayed too far
> from the original, leaving the developers in a no-win situation.
>
> Flashback HD isn't a great game, but it's a good remake of an average
> title. It gave me a chance to play a title of yesteryear that I
> semi-fondly remembered with modern graphics that worked on a modern
> system. Not expecting more than that, I came away pleased with my
> miniscule investment of time and money.
>
>
> * Crysis 2 (replay)
> Crytek - the developers of Crysis 2 - were such a marvel when they
> burst upon the gaming scene in 2004. Seemingly coming out of nowhere,
> their first two games were graphical powerhouses backed up with
> impressive - albeit not flawless - gameplay. And then it all went
> wrong with Crysis 2. That game is such a far cry (ha!) from its
> predecessors; linear maps, brain dead enemies, and unexciting gunplay.
> It's almost a chore to play to the end of the game. This time, I set
> myself the self-imposed challenge of only killing aliens just because
> I was bored of the usual grind. I wasn't fully successful at this goal
> - there are several set-pieces where you have to kill some human
> opponents to progress - and sadly the game and plot took no notice of
> my attempted heroism (I was still frequently accused of murdering
> fellow soldiers even though I'd done no such thing). Even so,  this
> didn't make the game a jot more difficult; the AI was so stupid that
> sneaking by them was effortless, and even when I was forced into
> combat, the computer-controlled opponents rarely put up much of a
> fight. The levels were rarely interesting to play through either - too
> linear to offer much in the way of tactical maneuvering, and not very
> interesting to look at either. Crysis 2 suffered from the ultimate sin
> of computer gaming: it was dull.
>
>
>
> * State of Decay (replay)
> In many ways, State of Decay feels like a prototype for a bigger,
> better game. It's not so much a game that focuses on what it does have
> - an open world, hordes of zombies, bases, recruitable NPCs, crafting
> - as what it doesn't, but feels like it should. Like co-op, or a
> story, or being able to have more than twenty monsters on-screen at
> once. I was constantly running into the game's limitations and wishing
> for more features or decrying some of its amateur game-design
> elements. It felt like the developers planned to have more in the game
> but - either because of lack of resources or talent - were unable to
> follow up on those ideas. Nonetheless, the core of the game remained
> enjoyable and I enjoyed wandering the wilderness bashing zeds even if
> the specific nuances could have used improvement.
>
>
> * D/Generation HD (new)
> I have a story about the original D/Generation, of which this is a
> remake. Back in the day, I purchased this game from an Egghead
> computer store (remember them?); upon taking it home, I discovered
> that not only was the box missing a disk, it also had half a pencil
> incongruously stuck into the carton. Upon taking it back to the store,
> the manager there refused me an exchange or refund, savagely accusing
> me of attempting to pirate the game and trying to rip me off. He later
> went bankrupt and I still laugh at his misfortune every time I pass
> the storefront that once housed his business.
>
> It's not a very interesting story, I know, but neither is D/Generation
> HD a very interesting game. The original had an appealing look, but
> suffered from loose controls that contrasted poorly with the accuracy
> required by its puzzles. The remake is slightly more forgiving - it,
> at least, allows you to use a gamepad while the original didn't even
> support a joystick - but suffers from a range of other issues. The
> graphics are atrocious, even compared to the twenty-year old pixelated
> artwork of the original; it looks like it uses the graphics engine
> from the Sims, but with worse animation. The use of a "lives" system
> while also allowing unlimited saves is a poor choice, however, and
> forces tedious save-scumming. The game is insufferably buggy:
> important clues don't show up, dialog boxes get stuck on the screen,
> the graphics mess up if you change the default settings, and the game
> locks up if you access certain computer terminals. It's embarrassingly
> bad.
>
> The core gameplay, however, is identical to that of the original and
> that alone saves the game from being completely terrible; it is an
> interesting blend of shooter-action and puzzles and I played it until
> - inevitably - the game broke and I could progress no further. But I
> probably would have just been better off playing the original.
>
>
> * Skyrim Special Edition (new)
> I didn't so much play this game as give it a brief look-over. Kudos to
> Bethesda for offering the "Special Edition" as a free upgrade to
> anyone who owned the original game. Having said that, I have to say I
> was pretty disappointed with the end result, even if I wasn't
> surprised. Having heavily modded the original, the Special Edition was
> a significant step backwards not only in graphics but also in
> interface and features. Honestly, until the modders get up to speed
> and port all their fixes and upgrades to the new version, there is
> absolutely no reason to even look at the special edition and -
> although the original has remained on my hard-drive since its release
> - the remake barely lasted an hour. Maybe in a year or two I'll give
> it another chance; until then, I'm satisfied with the six-year old
> version.
>
>
> --------------------
>
> So, that's what kept me busy over the past month. How about you guys?
>
>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN OCTOBER 2016?
>