Anyone who describes themselves as a gamer, or even those who read a lot of books, collect DVDs (remember them?) or are avid fans of various other arts, know about The Backlog. It is, as a gamer at least, a list of games that have been bought (or acquired – most games are “free” these days) under the full intent to play, but for whatever reason are Pushed on the stack and have not yet reached Pop. Why these games …
And the first completed game of 2024 is… A Tiny Sticker Tale! Which you already knew because that’s the title of this post. Free on Amazon or Epic or something (it’s hard to track these days), A Tiny Sticker Tale was on my Switch eShop wishlist following John Walker’s enthusing on his blog. But since it was free elsewhere, and Steam Deck-able, I moved there instead. It’s not often I have to rush to complete a game. With this one, …
There was no way I was ever going to not buy a game called Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. It was even more likely I’d buy it when I saw the graphics, in their Zelda sort of way. And I’m glad I did get it because it was lovely. Bad things first though. It’s short. Very short. I was expecting a Zelda length epic, but got maybe two hours tops out of it. Swapping items requires pressing Y and then …
It’s Where’s Wally? on hard mode! Level after level with minute characters and things hidden behind other things and the occasional puzzle, where you have to find stuff from a list with sometime cryptic clues as to where they might be. Click on everything just in case! It might sound easy, because Where’s Wally? is easy (and the Mega Drive game based on it is probably the easiest game I’ve ever played), but this is not. Things aren’t static like …
You know, I’m actually enjoying Apple Arcade a lot more than I thought I was going to. This is another of the titles on there I’ve completed. I won’t go too much into the plot, but it’s a story of a girl solving a murder which turns out to be more than “just” a murder. There are interrogation sections where you prod people and question them about evidence you find, lots of puzzles (often of the jigsaw and press-the-right-buttons variety), …
It’s the age old story: Man released from prison, man tries to find the reason he was framed, man gets caught up with the mafia, man visits strippers, man fights everyone and everything via the medium of a Match 3 puzzle game. We’ve seen it so many times before. And that’s exactly what this is. There’s a branching story, with four endings (three of which I’ve seen so far), a lot of violence and somewhat graphic sex. Also, swearing. So …
I’ll tell you what’s actually missing: the rest of the game.
I find the term “walking around simulator”, which games like this have often been categorised as, somewhat derogatory. It’s as if there’s nothing to the game at all, bar walking around, and it should be derided because of this. Which is missing the point. The aim of these games is not to “win”, not to solve puzzles and leap gaps and shoot Nazis, but to discover the story. Yes, you do this by walking around, but there’s more to it …
First up, here’s a massive spoiler I don’t mind giving away: Captain Toad is actually the prequel to Super Mario 3D World. I mean, everyone knows it’s a spinoff based on the Captain Toad levels from 3D World, but the end sequence of Captain Toad actually shows how it’s a prequel, what with Toad returning from his adventure then setting off to the Sprixie Kingdom after green stars. Who knew? Captain Toad is pretty much just more levels like those …
Invade-o-Trons from Planet Q Paul E. Collins Starglider’s Review: Claims to be the worst Space Invaders clone ever made, and I would be quite ready to agree. it even tells you that there is an error that occurs quite often.BUT… it does play, and error aside, it is possible to play. Still, it is an awful game! 6/10 Dunny’s Review: This is a BASIC port of the classic 70’s smash, “Space Invaders”. And what a mind-numbingly great port it is too. …
A lot of things, it seems. I’ve had a glut of new games over the last month and I’ve been playing each for a short time. I’ve yet to settle down and just work on one or two, so I’ve not made much progress in each. So here’s a list, in no particular order: Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition (Vita) My subscription to PS+ was autorenewed before I could cancel it (the whole service got DDOS’d and I couldn’t log …
