deKay's Lofi Gaming

A Tiny Sticker Tale (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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, …

Mega-lo-Mania (Evercade): COMPLETED!

Yes. I played Mega-lo-Mania again, and yes, I completed it again. This time, however, it was the recently released Evercade version! Which is just the Mega Drive version again only on an Evercade cart of course. I chose to play as Scarlet this time through, and for the second time ever, one of the other players managed to stick some people in suspended animation for the Mother of All Battles. Of course, they only had about 10 of them whereas …

Human Fall Flat (Switch): COMPLETED!

This is one of those games I’ve had my eye on for ages but for whatever reason have never bought. Well, I probably have it on Steam or something but that doesn’t count. Anyway, it was on offer this week and has recently had yet another level added and I’d just finished Scott Pilgrim and wanted another co-op game so it all fell into place and, well, here we are. Human Fall Flat is one of those purposefully awkward to …

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (Wii U): COMPLETED!

You know pretty much what to expect with a Lego game. You know there’s a series of levels with fixed characters and loads of secrets you can’t get see or access, some sort of hub world with more secrets you can’t see or access, a lot of silliness, and approximately two thirds of the game locked off until you’ve finished the story. Then it’s back to the earlier levels with new characters and abilities you didn’t have previously to attempt …

Batman: Arkham City (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Well, look at that. It turns out the final 15% of the main story takes less than 20 minutes to do. I literally just had to make it to a cinema, then have two fights inside with the end of game boss. Two very, very easy fights. I have to say, the difficulty, and quantity, of the “big” fights in Arkham City both fall way short of those in Arkham Asylum. I think there’s only been one I didn’t beat …

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 Demo (360)

As much as I liked the previous C&C games on the PC, and the best RTS game ever made ever Dune II, I can’t get on with them on consoles. The controls have never fitted a controller, and I found the C&C 3 demo last year too fiddly and complicated. Since this is based on the same engine, I expected the same problems. And, yes, I struggled my way through the training and the demo Russian mission. I enjoyed it, …

Mega Man 9 Demo (360)

Yes, I know I bought the Wii version this morning. I just thought I’d try it and see how it fares on the 360. Of course, it’s virtually identical. I’m glad I did buy the Wii version though, as the 360’s pad isn’t designed for digital control – the dpad is in the wrong place, and the stick has too much dead-area. As well as that, the added XBLA bits on the menu break the retro-game illusion too.

Bomberman Live (360)

Played quite a few games of this with my wife this evening. Although she didn’t win any matches, she did win some games. Played with pretty much everything on Random, but seemed to get the map where there are brown sticky splodges on the floor appeared to crop up half the time, which is a pain as I hate that one!

Bomberman Live (360)

No messing with demo mode for this, it’s Bomberman, so was bought straight off. Firstly, the bad: I don’t like the 3D graphics. I much prefer proper sprites, like the Saturn and PCE versions I’ve played recently. Secondly, the not-quite-overhead view is annoying, and although you can click the right stick to flick it back to the way it should be, you have to do this every single game – there’s no option to set it as default. Next, there’s …

Bomberman

World 5-5 now. Looks as though all the game stereotypical stages are in this one – Desert World, Grass World, Forest World, etc. Ice World is up next, I think, and then Lava World. There’s bound to be a castle at some point too. I have racked up so many powerups now that it is just silly. I have over 60 bombs I can activate, should I die, but I’m sticking to four at a time for the moment. I …

Gal Guardians: Demon Purge (Switch): COMPLETED!

Why yes, this is another Metroidvania style game! And yes, it’s another one based on a different game, this time Gal*Gun by Inti Creates. Inti Creates, who have made some of my favourite platformers (including some other Metroidvanias) like Azure Striker Gunvolt and Blaster Master Zero. Of course I’m going to buy it. The ‘hing with Demon Purge, which differentiates it from all the other “explore a castle” games is that you control two characters at once, each with different …

Super Adventure Hand (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

One of the great things about the Steam Deck, especially with Heroic set up so it can seamlessly work with my GOG, Epic and Amazon game libraries, is the huge number of free games I manage to accrue and actually play. Super Adventure Hand was a recent one, free on Amazon Gaming, which I’d stumbled over on the Switch eShop as “eeeer, dunno”. Can’t argue with free though, can you. And, I’m glad I didn’t pay full whack for it. …

Project-X Special Edition (Evercade): COMPLETED!

Bloody hell that was hard. Save states at the start of each level and still the last couple of levels were near impossible. Although I loved this back on my Amiga, what I hadn’t realised back then was how poor the collision detection was, which, coupled with the jerky movement, caused so many deaths as I slammed accidentally into walls as I tried to scrape by. Perhaps this was because the first two levels are pretty easy but I never …