deKay's Lofi Gaming

Rayman Origins (3DS): COMPLETED!

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A delight from start to finish. I’ve never been a fan of Rayman games, really. I had the one on the Jaguar, a few of the 3D ones on various consoles, and have played several others. They just seemed more on the Bubsy/Gex level of platforming dullness than Sonic/Mario. Rayman Origins somehow won me over, though. Maybe it’s a combination of nostalgia, quirkiness, and inventiveness. Who knows. Today, I completed it. Like most games, completed isn’t the end, and Rayman …

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (360)

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Well, that took a little while, didn’t it? Thankfully, that’s mainly because I haven’t played it rather than because it’s all I’ve played. In fact, it’s only really been the concerted effort over the last week that’s done it, finally getting the last gold brick and then mopping up the remaining achievements this evening. Like all the other Lego games, it’s an OCD fest, but also like all the other Lego games, it’s great fun and (two achievements aside) never …

Mad Dog McCree (3DS)

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Well, why not? I loved it in the arcade 20 years ago. What could possibly go wrong with a 3DS conversion? Nothing! As it turns out, actually, surprisingly little went wrong. And it’s still a pretty good game. Unlike every other home version I’ve ever played, the full motion video is clear and good quality. Unfortunately, it’s a bit small and that did make one of the bits hard to play as it was virtually impossible to see a bandit …

Tokyo Jungle (PS3)

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Progress! After $hlmun attempts, I finally unlocked Beagle with my Cat. For the first time, I managed to get as far as the Beagle Boss without being eaten by some animal bigger and hungrier than me, and took him down. Hurrah! I also succeeded in unlocking the Rabbit by touching the Rabbit Boss with a chick. A chick! What a useless animal. With the Beagle, I’ve been merrily slaughtering the Retriever population of Shibuya, but have yet to encounter the …

Hana Samurai (3DS)

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I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while, and it seems to have been months – maybe even a year – since it’s release elsewhere in the world as Sakura Samurai. It was released last Thursday, and I eagerly downloaded it. Sadly, it’s not that great. Sure, it’s not terrible, but there’s not really very much to it. I’m only at the first boss, so things may yet change, but so far the whole game has been dodge-and-parry …

Liberation Maiden (3DS): COMPLETED!

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It’s a short game, sure. The reviews all seem to centre on that fact. It doesn’t matter, as it’s utterly fantastic. Five levels (well, four as the fifth plays a bit differently) of Kid Icarus Uprising/Rez hybrid gameplay, with lovely graphics and nonsense plot: You’re a female president of Japan who must save the country from an unknown enemy by piloting a flying transformer whilst wearing a tight fitting catsuit. Obviously. Took me about two hours to complete, but I’ve …

Tokyo Jungle (PS3)

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Now see here: I’m not happy about this being a PS3 exclusive, and worse – download only, but in times like this, I have no choice. Sure, I have to brave the PS3 controller, and yeah, it took three days to download on my terrible connection, but having seen it at Eurogamer it was a NEED. And it is totally nuts. It’s set in Tokyo after an as-yet unknown event whereby humankind were wiped out. You take control of an …

Machinarium (iOS): COMPLETED!

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Ages back, I bought the Mac version of this in a hitherto unplayed Indie Bundle. Or Humble Bundle. Or something. I was using my laptop the other day, and my daughter, being nosy, wanted to see what I was doing and decided we had to play something. One of the few games I had installed was this. We had a go, and she liked it, but she can’t use a trackpad so kept getting frustrated and tried poking the screen. …

Rayman Origins (3DS)

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More of this sort of thing, please. I’m becoming increasingly bored with the way gaming is going. Grim first and third person shooters aren’t what I’m after anymore (or ever was, come to think of it), and games like those on the Megadrive and SNES are missed. Thankfully, there are a few game makers who seem to agree, and things like Rayman Origins happen. Happy fun blue skies platforming, with excellent up to date graphics. That’s what we need! Bizarrely, …

Stuff I’ve been playing recently

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I’ve not just been completing things, you know… Johnny Kung Fu (3DS) I was really looking forward to this when it was announced. Reviews were not kind, but I thought – they’re wrong, right? They were not wrong. Sure, it’s not terrible. And, separately, each level is fine. The problem is the game is a confused mess of Game & Watch, Kung Fu Master, and Wario Ware and it doesn’t really gel properly. Oh well. Marvel Pinball 3D (3DS) It’s …

Kirby’s Pinball Land (3DS): COMPLETED!

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Easiest pinball game ever! OK, so pinball games just go on for ever and ever, but there’s a definite target in this one – to beat the three table bosses and then defeat Dedede. So that’s what I did. And it didn’t take very long as it’s pretty easy, not least because when you lose the “ball” (i.e., Kirby) you get a chance to get it back. Every time. The physics are a bit shonky too, but other than that, …

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (3DS): COMPLETED!

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With all my now-playing games completed, it was time to start something new. So, instead of starting one of the games on my Pile of Shame, I bought Kirby’s Dream Land 2 on the 3DS Virtual Console. Because, y’know, I didn’t have enough games already. And then I completed it. It wasn’t especially short (especially for a kirby game), but it was pretty easy. It was also much closer to Kirby’s Adventure (for the NES) than the original Kirby’s Dream …

Super Pokémon Rumble (3DS): COMPLETED!

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Blimey. This turned out to be a pretty tedious slog by the end. I didn’t really expect much depth from it, to be fair, but after 14 hours of pretty much just pressing A and sometimes B to slap other Pokémon about with no levelling system (you just swap to more powerful Pokémon), mostly useless money to collect (don’t think I ever spent any), and no real difficulty, the appeal did start to wane a bit. Playing in relatively short …

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure (3DS): COMPLETED!

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Yay! Really plowing through these partially-started, not-quite finished games at the moment! Rhythm Thief was excellent. One part Layton, one part Sega Rhythm Game Compilation. Bonkers plot, twists, lots of nice pictures of Paris, clever rhythm games (some of which were somewhat hard!) and some OCD screen-tappage. What more could you want? Apart from the clearly planned sequel, of course. If you have a 3DS, you MUST buy this. If for no reason other than to tell Sega that this is …