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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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marvelvscapcom2:
21. Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005) [XBOX] - Finished - April 7th, 2025



First time finishing 2 games in 24 hours. Possibly in my life? Idk.


Review

Have you played need for speed most wanted? If not here's a tour down memory lane. My dad got an original xbox from a pawn shop maybe 14 Earth Trips around the sun ago. These days almost felt as if the sun shined a tad bit brighter. My cousin lived downstairs. Cookouts. All nighters with video games until crickets chirped. And this game was one of the big 5.  I havent even played it since I was in 8th grade and even then that was my 2nd playthrough.  It was about time to rejoin an old friend. The air seemed crisper. It wasnt just connecting with mere black plastic and interactive media. It was a sort of nostalgia you can't bottle. But doing it as a almost 30 year old?  Thats about as close as you can get :) 


THE GREATEST NFS EVER MADE


I mean the need for speed community is in fairly consistent consensus about this. Rarely you come accross someone who says otherwise. Some say Carbon but Carbon is just most wanted but at night. Also a solid game.


Need for speed is imperfect perfection.  It has flaws. But somehow the flaws make it better. Like the flaws suck. But it also makes the game what it is. And if removed. It'd faulter because of it. 




The pros?  A sick soundtrack. The days of 2004 Static X, bullet for my valentine and disturbed make up a set list that is half Death emo alt metal and half bling era hip hop. It's pure silk on the ears!

The cars? Perfect balance of exotics, tuners and muscle. The game was the first need for speed to say. Hey want a 250mph ford gt? Here ya go. Enough mucking about. We are a full fledged racer now. And young me. Driving a Lamborghini Gallardo at 222 mph through a speed trap. Red blur off the taillights.  It's back. Hes me. I love him. I love this.


The customization isnt too much. Its not too little. Its just right. Complete with junkman parts. Unlockables. A fun card system and pink slips to rival cars.


The game comes at a time frame where EA releases the following

NFL Street 1,2 and 3
NBA street 1,2 and 3
Fifa Street 1,2
Simpsons Road Rage
Madden 2004-2008
MVP Baseball 2005 to 2006
BLACK
007 Agent Under fire and From Russia with love
Need for speeds underground 1, 2, most wanted and hot pursuit 2
Buffy the vampie slayer chaos bleeds

I mean you get the point. This company was NOT MISSING lol.  They dominated all that in one singular console generation. EA kicked major, wholesale, chuck norris levels of ass. And I love them even when they fail just off comroterie.


You make your way up a black list of 15 racers. Which overall is a tad lengthy but fairly paced.

You are guided by Mia Townsend. A sorta street racer turned bestie that is basically big sister that guides you through a wild west of rockport lunatics. From crooked cops to dudes who cheat to win races. It all has a good plot. To me the best plot in nfs history. Unbound coming close. 


One major issue with it is?

RUBBER BANDING


"Rubber band man, wild as taliban, 9 in my right. 45 in my other hand" lol.  The game pumps artificial difficulty by means of rubber banding your opponet. You can 100 percent drive flawlessly and still watch as an AI does game bending 300mph speeds to fly into the sky like a boeing 747 to shamelessly cheat.  Its hard. And unfair. But like I said before. Necessary.


Without the rubber banding the game would be a cake walk. This gived it some umph. Some moxie. You gotta earn beating it.

XBOX CONTROLLER PRAISE



So the game is unplayable on PS2. Graphics are 10x worst and controller is not designed for this type of racer. Imo abyway. Which led me to this glorious, beautiful piece of tech.  The original xbox.  I got lucky and got a 1.6 model from late 2004. With fixed clock capcitors. The controller honestly feels like it was designed in 2025.  Black and white buttons ⚪️ ⚫️ absolute chefs kiss. Its so smart. It might even be as good as Xbox One X controller or ps5. Im dead serious.  Its so comfortable for hours of play. So ergonomic. It has nice sensitivity. Rumble. I cant praise this beast enough. It definitely revolutionized racing and shooting games. Hence forza and halos dominance. You can just feel it. Nothing at the time was touching it to me. Its a beaut.


Conclusion - its a window into the best days of my childhood and most of all. Its nostalgic. And I got to play it on my dads original copy. From so many years ago. Almost 2 decades ago now. Jeez. It feels full circle. This was therapuetic to the soul.


Rating - 96/100

bikingjahuty:
46. Death Crimson OX (Arcade)

I hate when I'm on a certain genre kick and there's that one game I play that's so bad, it takes me out of that mood and makes me want to play anything but another game from that genre. Tonight the game that ended my arcade light gun kick was Death Crimson OX. I've owned Death Crimson OX on the Dreamcast for a long time, but it's never a game I've ever got around to playing. Had I known it was as bad as it is, I'd have likely not wasted my time playing it in the arcade.


I've played a lot of light gun shooters in my life, and without a doubt Death Crimson OX is one of the worst. Its visuals are absolutely gross. Character models look both hilarious and disturbing with how disproportionate they look, enemies are fairly bland, bosses are recycled too often, most stages are kind of dull, and just overall, this game looks more like something from 1996 and not 2000 when it was released. I do have to give it some credit for having a few cool enemies and bosses, but none of them look that great, especially compared to many contemporary light gun games from Sega, Namco, and even Atari. There are also cut scenes within and between levels where the characters just stand stiffly with little to no movement. It just all comes across as ugly and bland for the most part.


Perhaps the only thing I did enjoy about Death Crimson OX was is OST. While not amazing, it was fairly catchy and enjoyable to listen to. It's too bad that was the only thing enjoyable to listen to since voice acting is only present when your character gets hit by an enemy or you die. There is a narrator voice at times, but only during select parts. Sound effects of guns and enemies is a mixed back, but mostly its not that great.


My biggest gripe with this game ended up being its actual gameplay. A combo of poor enemy balancing and placement, your character swaying for no reason to make the game artificially more difficult, and boss weak points that are difficult to determine, this game is not enjoyable to play. I did like how impactful the weapons feel and how the enemies and bosses reacted to getting shot, but there was little else to love about Death Crimson OX's gameplay. I will also say this game as the distinction of having one of the most annoying and tedious final boss battles in a light gun game I've ever had the displeasure of fighting. Seriously, it took me over ten minutes to kill it while many of the above mentioned issues with the gameplay made fighting it an absolute chore. Oh, and did I mention you fight it three times in a row, with the only difference between your encounters with it being its color palate. And that's not even mentioning the various other recycled boss fights throughout the game.


By the time the credits rolled at the end of Death Crimson OX, I was relieved it was over. I never want to play this game again and its one I have no lost love for or regrets not being able to play it back when it first came out. The game, like almost all bad games, does have a few redeeming qualities, but they are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that it still makes this game crap no matter how you look at it. (4/7/25) [20/50]

bikingjahuty:
47. House of the Dead III (Wii)

The House of the Dead series partially defined my arcade experience in the 90s. Between being completely blown away by the spooky setting and gore of the first game, and then the second game upping the ante with better graphics, the first two House of the Dead games were and still are some of my favorite light gun games ever made. When House of the Dead 3 came out you can imagine my excitement, however for whatever reason I never really loved it like I did the first two games. It's been a long time since I replayed through the third game in this franchise and I decided to revisit it again tonight to see if my opinion on it has changed any, for better or worse.

I guess depending on how you look at it, my opinion of House of the Dead III is more or less the same as its been for the last 20-years. The game is just as much fun to play as the first two games. Having the default weapon in the game being a shotgun instead of a wimpy handgun like the first two makes your shots more impactful and it shows with the damage done to zombies and other creatures you'll be destroying. It also has non-linier progression with there being branching paths and secrets that encourage replayability to an extent. All be it, the game lets you deliberately choose your path rather than it being more organic like in the first two House of the Dead games where failing to save a scientist or not killing an enemy fast enough will result in your taking a different path. I definitely prefer how progression was handled in the first two games better, and overall there is less alternate paths present in three which serves as a bit of a downgrade. Speaking of downgrades, despite House of the Dead III obviously being a newer game than 1 and 2, I never thought it looked as good despite running on more powerful hardware. The areas, monsters, and characters just look more cartoonish for lack of a better term, which kind of kills the excellent horror vibe of the first two games for me. I also didn't care for how Sega modeled the human chafracters who all have derped faces and giant hands like they're trying to be Looney Toons characters. Luckily the voice acting is still terrible and cheesy which is somewhat of a hallmark of a good House of the Dead game. Unfortunately, however, the soundtrack isn't on the same level of awesomeness of its predecessors, but is still pretty good for the most part.

I do really enjoy House of the Dead III, but I can still safely say it doesn't quite have that X factor that makes me still love 1 and 2 so much. Maybe it's my nostalgia for those games (even though I also played 3 at a fairly young age too), or maybe I just like the art direction and overall presentation more in the first couple titles, but either way, this will always be the inferior entry of the original three games. (4/9/25) [34/50]

bikingjahuty:
48. The Last Guardian (PS4)

If there ever was a backlog game for me, it would definitely be The Last Guardian. I've had the intention of playing this game ever since it came out in 2016, but there was always something I felt like playing slightly more or I just didn't feel like playing anything at all. Years went by and finally a few days ago I said, enough is enough, I'm going to FINALLY play this game! And I've done just that! As always, I have a lot of thoughts I need to put out in the open.

When The Last Guardian was revealed during E3 2015 and then finally released the following year, I'd already played and beat Team Ico's other excellent game, Shadow of the Colossus (I've still never played Ico, so I don't have an opinion on it), and I expected to enjoy The Last Guardian about as much, give or take. In some ways, The Last Guardian met these expectations; the visuals are excellent and aside from semi-frequent frame rate dips, poor lighting in a few areas, and also there being a bit of repetitiveness in the various environments within the ancient ruins setting, the game looks absolutely amazing. It had me marveling at the ancient city Trico and I were traversing through and had me speculating on the lore behind it, which is only partially revealed throughout the game. On top of that, Trico's design and animations definitely do an excellent job of making him feel like a living, breathing creature, one the game does an excellent job at making you bond with and care about. I have very, very few complaints about the visuals, which are just barely shy of being perfect in my book.

There isn't much in the way of audio, at least when it comes to The Last Guardian's soundtrack. Most of the game doesn't have music playing and instead you'll just be hearing your character and Trico interact, as well as various environmental sound effects depending on what's going on. Still, there is a soundtrack there and overall I found it to be very enjoyable. Like the rest of the game, the audio definitely takes on a minimalist approach, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but I wish this game had more songs that complemented the atmosphere of various sections within the game.

While the visuals absolutely met my expectation of how good they'd be, and the audio almost did, The Last Guardian's gameplay is where I found myself the most disappointed. The Last Guardian's gameplay can be incredibly frustrating at times. I can't even count how many times throughout this game that I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I couldn't get the game and controls to do what I wanted. In other words, Trico wouldn't listen to me or perform the act I was clearly telling him to do. And look, I get that this was intentional, as Team Ico wanted Trico to act as much like a animal with his own free will, fears, and quarks as possible. But being a video game which you're supposed to, you know, play and control, this all proved to be way more frustrating than endearing. There are also a few other sections of the game that don't even involve Trico, well mostly, that are also very frustrating even though you're in full control. These include throwing food barrels into specific places, a part where you have to move a cage you're stuck inside of, and also a handful of platforming parts that were just downright annoying. This is all made even worse by the controls of the character you play as being kind of flimsy and unresponsive a large chunk of the game too. Things are not all bad in this game, as it definitely has some interesting and even fun puzzles I enjoyed solving with Trico, and also the excitement of exploring the ruins was mostly something that felt well within my grasp. So yeah, the gameplay is pretty meh, but does have its moments regardless.

However, maybe more than all of what I've just mentioned is the fact that The Last Guardian has an incredibly intriguing and heart warming story. I am definitely not going to spoil anything, but I loved bonding with Trico and finding out more about him just as much as I was finding out more about the main protagonist you play as. Also, the last third of the game was by far the best in terms of story. The very end of the game had me smiling and feeling good inside, when I was so certain at a few parts the writers were going to go in a completely different direction. It's honestly Trico, the little boy main character, and the overall story that made me love this game the most and what made me forgive the frankly sub par gameplay.

I think anyone with a PS4, or PS5, who hasn't played The Last Guardian absolutely owes it to themselves to play it at least once. It's a very unique game, unlike anything you've probably ever played, and it's charm will definitely keep you engaged, even through its often frustrating gameplay. The game may have not lived up to the immense hype and anticipation behind it prior to it coming out, but it's still a pretty enjoyable game and definitely worth a playthrough. (4/11/25) [36/50]

dhaabi:
21. Snak || Playdate || 04.12.2025



After going a good while without playing it, I decided to revisit my Playdate handheld. I am still slowly playing through the bundled collection of games that are distributed with the console, and I found myself trying out Snak this time.

As one may imply from the game's title, Snak is a modern re-imagining the the classic action game Snake. For those unfamiliar to Snake, it's an arcade-styled game tasking players to amass the highest score by controlling the titular snake who consumes apples while avoiding both the edge of the screen and the snake's own body. However, each apple eaten lengthens the snake's body which creates more possibilities for the player-controller snake to collide with itself. (Does this mean the snake dies upon trying to eat itself in an act of ouroboros?) It's also worth mentioning that there is no penalty for missing an apple as they, in this game, move from one side of the screen to the next, and there is also no time limit. With that said, I did mention how Snak is an adaptation to these basic rules.

Just like how Snake tests players' reflexes, Snak also introduces new mechanics. First, the snake is now able to cross its own body but only during a short time window upon triggering a button. Second, apples which are not directly consumed by the snake's mouth but still make contact with the body become a part of the snake's body, although they do not count toward the player's score. Instead, the player is required to cross over the snake's body to consume this uneaten but stuck apple. When crossing over the snake's body, the ability lasts indefinitely so long as the snake stays overlapped. When uncrossed again, the effect must be triggered again or else the expected fail state will activate. From what I've gathered, I think that the snake can only cross over the same segment of its body once, and attempting to do so a second time will again end the player's current run. Before starting a new run, five difficulty options are available to select which range from Snak to Snaaaaak.

Seemingly at random, I've reached the game over screen despite not colliding with either the field edge or with the snake's body on several occasions. I think what may be happening is that an apple that's been lodged in the snake's body is directly colliding with another free-moving apple. So, players seem to be incentivized to successfully eat these apples too. Unfortunately, I can't know for sure exactly what's happened as the game over window covers the majority of the screen that shows my previous attempt. Still, this is the only possibility as to why I'd be reaching that fail state. And while this isn't a fault but instead a deliberate design choice, I'll still mention now how the game makes no use of the hardware's crank.

While not entirely original, Snak still offers fun in short bursts. Unlike its inspiration, it's much more interesting and strategic as a result of two small added mechanics. When trying to think to when I last played this kind of game, I think it was all the way back in the early 2000s when I had Snake preinstalled on some Nokia device. With that said, I highly doubt that much time will pass again before I revisit Snak.

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