When I started the blog, the idea was to stop me from resorting to playing the old favourites every night and start discovering something new. With this in mind, I thought I'd take a look through the games I'd reviewed this year which I had no idea about until I went to review them and pick out the 5 most pleasant surprises and the 5 worst disappointments. I'll start with the best games as discovering them was essentially what this blog was designed to have me do.
#1 - Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox)
Although I was a huge fan of Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast, I never got around to giving it's sequel on the Xbox a proper go. What I found was a game that built upon the formula of the original, allowing both newcomers to the franchise and fans of the series to enjoy an experience which evokes the feel of the first game and brings new ideas to the table.
While thesedays it's probably easier to get hold of a Dreamcast, Xbox 360 or PC copy of Jet Set Radio than Jet Set Radio Future, I think there's definitely a case for playing and enjoying both. There's a lot of things that could have gone wrong in making Jet Set Radio Future, and upset fans of the series, but I think on the whole, the game's production was handled well and is a must play original Xbox title.
#2 - Super Smash TV (Mega Drive)
Super Smash TV is a game that embodies everything excellent about the 4th generation of video games consoles. Released for both Mega Drive and SNES, the game presents itself as a gameshow in which players must shoot their way through hordes of enemies and earn prizes, working their way through a series of rooms, collecting weapons and upgrades to finally beat the boss of the level and total up their winnings.
While one player mode is fun, playing with a friend allows for the type of teamwork which isn't often seen in video games thesedays. One player controls the movement of the contestant, and the other controls the direction in which he shoots, necessitating communication, forethought and lots of practice at the game. This is the sort of game you can bust out when a friend asks if you have anything fun to play, and end up wasting a good few hours on.
#3 - Toy Story (Mega Drive)
While most licensed video games are disappointing due to a combination of movie inaccuracies, poor gameplay and rushed development, Toy Story for the Mega Drive managed to avoid all of these problems and deliver a fun, movie accurate(ish) experience with varied and interesting gameplay. Its platforming levels are well designed and intuitive, as well as being nicely offset by a variety of racing, first person and other ideas.
Not only is Toy Story an impressive game for the era both in terms of graphics and gameplay, but it allows players to work through the story of the film and experience the best moments and scenes for themselves. There's not really much more you could ask of a video game that's based on a popular film, and because of this it's one of the best.
#4 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist (Mega Drive)
Another licensed game to make it into my top 5 is TMNT: Hyperstone Heist. It's SNES counterpart "Turtles in Time" is well known as a great Beat 'Em Up of the 4th generation, but this game gets far less attention, and it's difficult to see why. While there are some big differences between the two, it holds up pretty well against other similar games of the era, and is definitely worth a play.
With two players the gameplay improves even further, and there's a good hour worth of Beat 'em Up goodness before you reach the final boss. With the option to have the turtles in either comic book or animated series style, the only real letdown is the quality of the soundclips included. Nonetheless this is just as good as Turtles in Time, in my opinion.
#5 - Sonic Colors (Wii)
In recent years, new instalments in the Sonic the Hedgehog series haven't exactly been getting the best of reviews. In particular Sonic Heroes, Sonic '06, and Sonic Unleashed met with lukewarm critical reception. Aware of this, I tentatively began my playthrough of Sonic Colours, but quickly discovered that as long as you're using the Gamecube controller, it's a pretty excellent return to the sort of gameplay I remembered from Sonic Adventure.
With a few new features and additions, I was glad to see that Sonic Team had opted to focus the story entirely on Sonic, make use of an overworld screen rather than level hubs, and use some actual humour in the game. While it still could have been a little better, it gave me hope for the newer Sonic titles and pleasantly surprised me.
Fresh from this enjoyable experience, I was pretty excited to try other Sonic titles; perhaps they weren't as bad as people said and could actually be enjoyed? This brings us nicely onto the games that I discovered this year which I'd been sort of excited to try, and then hugely disappointed by. The first of which is;
#1 - Sonic Unleashed (PS3)
Just as I was starting to think that the recent harsh criticisms of the Sonic franchise may have been unwarranted, I started to play Sonic Unleashed. Within the first few levels I was aggravated, frustrated and generally disappointed. The night levels were tedious, the day levels were either short or constantly attempting to kill players through poor controls and most of the gameplay was spent running around hub worlds or collecting more sun/moon medals to unlock other levels.
Everything good about Sonic Colours hadn't yet been thought up, and most of the game seemed like filler to make up for its lack of core gameplay. I thought that completing the game might have made me like it a little more, but the story ended disappointingly and the final battle was pretty anticlimactic too. Overall the game was a huge let-down.
#2 - The Sniper 2 (PS2)
The game that began my interest in the Simple Series, The Sniper 2 introduced me to woeful budget titles which have about as much content as an Atari 2600 game. With boring cutscenes, rubbish gameplay and the credits rolling after every single mission, this game makes Pac-Man look like GTA V in terms of content. The only reason it isn't #1 on this year's worst of list is that I wasn't particularly looking forward to it before playing (although I was still hugely disappointed).
Apparently there's a "The Sniper" for Playstation, which has the potential for being even worse, but I can't see a game being much less interesting than this. I challenge anyone to enjoy a single moment of this horrible affront to gaming.
#3 - L.A. Rush (PS2)
When I was about 11 years old, I used to watch the MTV show "Pimp My Ride", and during the advert breaks, they'd advertise this video game. I used to think about how cool it'd be to customise your own cars, and get the West Coast Customs crew to hook you up with the latest audiovisual equipment, paint and neon undercar lights.
It turns out that besides being an extremely mediocre street racing game with a laughable plot and horrible controls and AI, the customisation is automatic, meaning that the player has no choice whatsoever as to the changes made to their car. It's lucky that I bought Juiced with my PS2 instead.
#4 - Need For Speed Prostreet (PS2)
I'm undoubtedly a fan of the Need for Speed series. Underground, Most Wanted and Carbon are some of the best street racing games available for the Playstation 2. Need for Speed Pro Street brought such confusing change to the series that I wasn't really sure what to think of it. For a start, events and races were contested at race days instead of on the streets (which is odd considering the title), car customisation was minimal, and most of the normal race types weren't present.
The worst offence of all was the AI which was so easy to beat that the game invited you to "dominate" your opponents instead of actually bothering to programming them to be competitive. The game ended up as a strange race day simulator type idea, which didn't really impress me at all.
#5 - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (PS1)
As a licensed game based on a film, you'd expect Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to at least vaguely follow the plot. Instead, it skips the first half hour or so of the film, goes off on a wild tangent as soon as it can, and meets up with the plot just before the final battle. Many of the most memorable scenes from the film are missing from the game, and those that remain are done so badly that it's hardly worth them being there at all.
In addition to the problems above, the game is horribly short, and horribly frustrating at times. Growing up, I only really knew of the Game Boy Color version of this game, which is a whole lot better. I'm sure I'd be far less interested in the Harry Potter series as a whole if I'd have owned this in my childhood.
Anyway, through the good and the bad games I've enjoyed my year of video gaming and reviewing. I hope that you'll continue to read my reviews in the coming year and find out what new games I enjoy (and don't). All that remains is for me to thank you for reading my blog and to ask that you share my reviews with your friends (and enemies, who cares?) to get meaningful and interesting videogaming discussions started!
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