Thoughts on Games Played

[A Black Falcon]

I've been thinking of making a thread like this again for a while, and I've finally gotten around to it. The idea here is to have a thread for posts about games I've just tried or played and want to say something about, but don't think deserve a thread yet. I know that there have been threads like this before, but not for a while.


I'm going to start by saying a little about the Vita. My most important impression about the system got a thread already, that it has very few games that aren't available elsewhere, and really the main reason to get it is to play games you already have on PC (or maybe console) portably. It does have some exclusives though, and a few games that are only on PS4 and Vita which I'll play here since I don't have a PS4 or plan to get one anytime soon. Most notably in that latter category I really want Summon Night 6, though I don't have it yet.

As for games I do have though:

TxK - This is Jeff Minter's Vita-exclusive shooter. This game pretty much just is straight Tempest 2000 with a few names changed, so I can see why it got Jeff Minter in more trouble with 'Atari' than Space Giraffe did; that game is of course also Tempest-inspired, but it has some new ideas which changes the gameplay in noticeable ways. This game doesn't do that. So, Atari went after him and while this game is still available, his attame to the PC have been sadly blocked, making this a Vita exclusive. For a big Tempest 2000 fan like me, this game is a definite must-play and yes, it's great! It's classic Tempest 2000, but with nice graphics and new levels. It's awesome and a lot of fun, and at only $10 it's well worth it. The game is tiny too, so even though it's download only and a Vita game the size is not much of a problem.

Exist Archive - I don't think I had heard of this game before, but it's a game from Tri-Ace with gameplay inspired by Valkyrie Profile, and a somewhat isekai-ish anime story about people who seem to have died in the real world and been pulled into a fantasy land. The plot is decent and fortunately isn't really isekai (which is a genre full of really terrible mangas/animes), but the gameplay and exploration ar the main draws here for sure. Dungeons are side-scrolling, but they have multiple layers and are fun to explore. The battle system's good too, though the difficulty level is unfortunately low. The game looks nice and plays well, though, so I like it so far.

Mod Nation Road Trip - While probably better than the PSP game, this kart racer is, lie its predecessors, quite average. Sure I've only done a couple of races, but I didn't see much here to keep me going. There is plenty of content and customization, but the controls and gameplay are quite generic.

Operation Abyss - This game is a decent-to-good first-person dungeon crawler. It's no Etrian Odyssey, but it seems fun. I'll definitely play more.

Ridge Racer - This game has good graphics and standard (ie, decent but I have issues with the drifting) Ridge Racer handling, but is brought down with its total absence of real single player content. Basically, this game only has two modes: single race, or online. There is no campaign, unlike the PSP Ridge Racer games. There's nothing to unlock ingame, all unlockables are things you have to purchase separately. It comes with only a couple of tracks built in, and you have to buy the rest as DLC. While some games can get away with this heavy multiplayer focus, this game definitely is not among them; I'm sure it never had the kind of online community that would be required to make the design make any sense at all.


I'm sure I will say a bit more about more Vita games soon. That last one reminds me of another game I want to mention though...


Micro Machines World Tour (Xbox One, also available for PC and PS4) - This game brought back the Micro Machines franchise after over a decade, and as a fan of the series since the first one I had to get it despite the bad reviews the game got. And playing it,. I'm torn. On the one hand, the graphics here are fantastic! The cars in this game look much more like real Micro Machines vehicles than anything I've seen in a videogame before. The controls aren't the best and take some getting used to, but they're fine once you adjust. The other gameplay issue of note I want to mention is that the game has a weapon system now, making races more chaotic than ever before. It's mostly fun, but it gets frustrating when you repeatedly get hit right before the finish line. Still, it's mostly a good game, ignoring the serious flaws in the second paragraph below. I like playing Micro Machines World Tour for sure. There are a good number of tracks in this game too. If they had only included a single player game, I'd definitely be praising it here!

Unfortunately though, this is yet another game that has no single player campaign. Instead, this game has randomized races in a couple of game modes, Overwatch style but with overhead car racing, and loot boxes as a "progression " system. Yes, it's Micro Machines with lootboxes at the core of the experience, and that's not good. Sure, you're just unlocking cosmetic stuff with these loot boxes, but it's still a bad, exploitative system. Unlike Overwatch, however, nobody is playing this game online because it didn't sell, so the exclusive focus on online multiplayer wrecks the game. There are bots to race against, so you can play the game at least, but there are NO options beyond choosing a mode -- standard race, classic Micro Machines battle, arena battle with weapons, and such. You can't choose your track, that's random. And while there are a bunch of tracks, the randomizer mostly seems to pick the same few over and over. You can't choose the difficulty of your AI opponents, either, and the one difficulty level they have is fairly high, so this game will be frustrating and you'll be hit out of the lead a lot.

So overall, most people just passed on this game and called it not good, but I'm honestly kind of sad for this game. It's so close to being a great return to form for a classic series I like a lot... but because of some very bad game design choices, it's not. I still don't regret getting it, but only serious Micro Machine fans should even consider it.

[A Black Falcon]

While I've played some Vita, I've gone back already to mostly playing the 3DS for handheld games. There are basically two categories of games I've been playing -- first, the two digital-download puzzle games I've been playing in recent months, and second a couple of cartridge games.

The puzzle games are Picross e7 and SubaraCity. Picross e7 is pretty good, a solid traditional picross game. It's no Picross DS in either featureset or puzzles, as the images here are just generic stuff and not anything related to Nintedo and there is no puzzle editor or freely downloadable addon puzzles, instead you have to buy the other Picross e-series titles to get more puzzles, but otherwise it's good. That absence of a puzzle editor is disappointing though, and it is shared by all 3DS Picross games I know of, even Picross 3D Round 2 for no good reason, considering that that game doesn't have DLC or additional titles to buy or anything. It's really unfortunate that all of the 3DS Picross games *lock you to only playing the puzzles included and don't let you make your own, it makes them worse games than their DS forbears. Still, Picross e7 and Picross 3D Round 2, as well as the The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Picross title that I have also been playing here and there, are great and really addictive puzzle games. Picross has a fantastic balance of strategy and fun, and usually puzzles are solvable with skill and not luck which is fantastic. e7 has a lot of puzzles in it too, impressively for a cheap game.

SubaraCity - I mentioned this in the 'games I bought' thread when I got it, but this simple puzzler is one I've been oddly addicted to. I mean, it's a very simple game with a high luck component, and it's a mobile port too! And you can't win either, it's just a score-attack game where you play until you lose. And while skill matters, luck often matters more. Why have I been playing it so much over a better game like Puzzles & Dragons Z / SMB, or something? I'm not entirely sure, but I do like its simplicity. This is a good game to chill out with for a few minutes, as you tap the city squares and build your city.

So, in this game you've got a 5x5 grid. Each space on the grid has a building on it, and they come in several colors. When you tap a square, all tiles touching it in the four cardinal directions only that are the same color as that square will all combine into that one space, and its building level will go up. Then, new tiles will drop in from the top of the screen, each with random colors attached. This is the games' luck component -- what colors will drop, the one you need to keep going, or one which blocks off that area? Chance determines it. There are strategies I've learned of course, but luck definitely matters a lot. In the default mode you can do one thing to keep a game going once things block up though, and that's destroy buildings. You start with two building destructions allowed, and then get one more for each 100 years (aka turns) you survive. You also are gifted destruction counts for getting particularly high level-10 buildings, as I will soon describe. Additionally, you can also use these for taking back your last turn. This only goes back one turn though, and costs one of your precious building-destroy points, so you need to be really sure you want to go back... but the option is there. Overall it's a good system which works pretty well.

As you combine more and more tiles, eventually some will reach level ten. Once a tile reaches level ten it can't improve anymore on its own, and turns white. Your goal is to get as many level-ten buildings as you can, all contiguous together. Once you can't get any more level ten buildings and have to combine them into one, just as with anything else, if you touch the block of lv. 10 buildings they will combine into a building on that space. The catch is, these buildings themselves CANNOT be combined into anything! Instead, they block off spaces on the not-too-large board. The resulting special buildings come in many forms, with fancier and bigger ones for getting larger blocks of lv.10 buildings, and there is a list in the menu of all the buildings you have unlocked, so the game does reward you for good games in this way even once your game ends. There are a few other things like that as well, including a list of achievement-style goals.

Visually, the game looks very simple but nice enough. The music's good too, I like it. It's not what I'd expect from this kind game in a good way.

So the game is simple and fun, and I like it because of that. It's really cheap, too. However, it has some issues. For the price, I can't complain about the simplicity or repetition; those are acceptable things, particularly considering how fun I find the game. However, the randomness is frustrating sometimes, first. Getting the higher tiers of above-lv-10 buildings is nearly impossible without insane luck, because even if I use good strategy the luck of the draw dooms efforts to get the entire screen filled with level-10 buildings. Ah well. Additionally, though, this game has two modes, a simple mode with only three different space colors but no destroy tokens allowed, and the main normal mode with four colors and the destroy things option. However, there are NOT separate leaderboards for the two, which is dumb. The game doesn't even mark which one a high score came from, sadly! It really should, as it's easier to get high scores in the simple mode than normal. That's probably my main complaint with the game though, otherwise it's good for what it is.


As for regular games, I finally got around to starting Fire Emblem Fates, so I've been playing that. So far (in mission 8 or 9) it's been very easy even though I've been playing on Hard. I wonder, will it get tougher, or should I have played on Lunatic? It's fun enough otherwise, with that classic FE gameplay I like a lot, but I've been breezing most of it so far.

Also, 7th Dragon III: Code VFD is oddly compelling. It's a somewhat average game in a lot of ways, but I've been having quite a bit of fun with it despite that and I'll definitely be going back to it a lot more.

[A Black Falcon]

So when it comes to the Switch hardware so far, I think that I'd say that it's like a portable Wii U, except with slightly better graphics, but worse controls and a far worse featureset. Does just adding portability make up for all of the missing stuff, from a web browser to backwards compatibility to a pointer control option to good large-volume storage options and more? Most people seem to think so, given how it's a massive hit, but I'm not so sure. Portability's awesome, but the thing is large and less easy to hold than a DS because of that, and its joycons have small, handheld-sized buttons, which aren't great for a home system.

And that's not even getting into how much worse its stupid capacitive-touch screen is for gaming than the resistive-touch screens of the DS, 3DS,a nd Wii U, either! I know most people prefer capacitive, but for gaming I have no idea why because having to use your finger or a horrible, mushy capacitive-touch stylus makes precision impossible, and that's a crippling flaw in gaming. Cellphones manage because people don't expect too much, but game consoles like the Vita nd Switch show how bad capacitive screens are on systems which are trying to play serious games. It would be a huge shame if the far-better-for-gaming resistive touch technology goes away.

On that note, I tried the demo for the Switch version of Sushi Striker; the game's not out yet, but a demo is. It's a pretty good puzzle game and I enjoyed my time with it for sure! I'll be getting this game. However, I don't want it for the Switch, because this demo shows off how awful trying to control a game like this that actually requires precision is with your finger. Sure, you can use a controller too, but the game is designed for touch and should be better that way. I'm sure the 3DS version will indeed control a lot better than the Switch version with buttons does, but Switch buttons v. Switch touch? That's much closer, and buttons might even win...

So yeah, get Sushi Striker when it releases, but for 3DS because that system actually has a good touchscreen. Or try the free demo now to see what you all think.

[A Black Falcon]

Switch
--
Splatoon 2 - My first impressions of this game is that it's really good, but I like the controls better in the first game. The Wii U gamepad is used to great effect in Splatoon, and this is definitely a worse game without it. Sure, you do still have motion controls, though they seem much more sensitive this time and require adjustment to feel right, while in the first game they are perfect without any adjustment needed, but losing the map on the Gamepad screen is a big blow. Now you need to hit a button to see how the match is going or warp to an ally, and it's a problem which makes it much harder to know how a match is going while it's in progress, since you are often not going to have time to hit that button, while just glancing down at the Gamepad is easy. Splatoon 2 is one of the few games which never will be as good on one screen and shows the advantage of two.

Otherwise though this game looks fantastic, and Splatoon's a really great game so that is very good.


Fire Emblem Warriors - This is a Musou game, but with Fire Emblem. It's fun, but I don't like it as much as Hyrule Warriors; as great as FE is it's no Zelda, and that shows throughout. The character selection is part of the problem, as this game mostly draws from Fire Emblems Awakening and Fates, to the exclusion of most all of the older games except for the original FE (Shadow Dragon). That leaves out a lot of games, including my favorites on the GBA, so that's unfortunate. The plotline explanations for how these people from different worlds end up together is worse than it is in Hyrule Warriors, too. Still, it's a Warriors game so it's the same simple fun as usual for the franchise. I do like that you can give your other characters in a battle movement orders on the pause screen, for a FE-like touch, though, and it is fun to play. Of the Nintendo Warriors games Hyrule Warriors is the best one, but this is worth playing too if you enjoyed that game.

[A Black Falcon]

Octopath Traveler Demo (Switch) - So a demo of Square-Enix's upcoming Switch RPG has a demo, and I tried it. I of course have never exactly loved Square RPGs, but I wanted to give this a try anyway and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the visual look of this game is amazing! The sprite art in 3d worlds graphical style this game has looks fantastic, and just wandering around and looking at stuff is cool because it's such a stylish and nice-looking game. The story, writing, and gameplay are far less impressive, however. The game has eight characters, and you can choose to have any of them as your main character. Each origin story is maybe an hour long, and after that you merge into the main game, which goes on some quest you mostly can't do in the demo. Your main character choice matters a lot though, because while you can get the other 7 characters as party members, only four can be in your active party at a time and the main character you chose must always be in the active party. Oh, and you get only ONE save slot, at least in the demo version, so if you want to play as the other characters... sorry, you can't? What? How could they actually ship it like that? Yes, you can play all of the origin stories in one file, as when you find a character you get the option to play their origin, but that's not the same as actually having them as your main, for the reasons I described above.

So that's one issue. Additionally, the writing and combat are pretty generic. The 8-characters thing made me think of the SaGa franchise, which has weird plots and bizarre, never-explained-without-a-lengthy-guide game mechanics, but Octopath Traveller is, for better or ill, not anything like that at all. The stories, at least in the three origin stories I played, are very generic and forgettable. While I was playing this game for the first time I felt like I'd played the game before, and that wasn't because I had, but because it's so much like almost every other game or anime thing that it all blends in. NPC and party interactions sound limited too. And apparently from people who got farther into the game in the demo when you get the other characters in your party they have minimal interactions together, which doesn't sound great. I saw some of this in the demo, too; if you play as the merchant girl, when you go into your family's shop and talk to your parents they... just say the same couple of generic NPC lines they'd say to any character. Blah.

And as for the battle system, battles are random and take way too long, at least at this early point in the game. Battles feel like they drag on and on most of the time. The encounter rate isn't too high, but it's still kind of tedious. It's mostly a very standard menu-based JRPG combat system. The one unique-ish element is that every turn you get some meter building up, and then you can use those meter points to do stronger attacks. Unlike the Bravely Default series you get meter every turn that you don't use it, so you don't need to waste turns to build meter; this is good. Also, each character has some kind of unique ability, and it's not just all the usual stuff. Of the ones I tried the best is probably H'aanit's, which is so good it's kind of broken against regular monsters -- she can capture monsters, and the capture chance is very high after just a couple of rounds of hits and when captured you get full experience and item rewards for the match. You can then use captured monsters as limited-use supports from a special menu, and each type has a different ability. That makes battles quicker. And maybe the game gets better as you go along, as you get more characters and such.

So far though, Octopath Traveler seems fine, but unexciting outside of its graphics. I definitely won't get it for full price, but might pick it up eventually. (I still don't own either of the Bravely Default games, which are this studio's previous games...)

[A Black Falcon]

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Vita) -- This game is really good and addictive! Ys VIII is a great action-rpg, with a well-thought-through mixture of elements from both the classic Ys games and modern titles. I've been playing quite a bit of this game over the past few weeks, and quite enjoy it. As with Ys VII, the game has three characters active at a time, and you control one and the AI control the others. A button switches between the three, and once you get more than three you can swap out the others on the pause menu anytime. It seems that only the three active ones get experience points though, so you will need to switch characters out to keep them levelled. The combat is simple but has some depth, as there's a roll command to dodge incoming attacks -- using this well is vital -- and you have special attacks and a meter that limits how much you can use them. There are also super moves, if you use enough special moves to fill another meter. You're fighting a lot as expected from the always-grindey Ys series, but combat is fun so it's not too bad. The game does seem a bit easy on Normal difficulty though, so I've mostly been playing on Hard.

Ys VIII has a more interesting story and setting than most previous games in the series, though. Adol and a bunch of other people were on a ship, but it wrecked on the coast of an uninhabited and mysterious island full of danger. The whole game is set on the island, and you explore it, find new survivors to add to your party or base camp, and collect stuff. As with many modern games this game has a crafting system, but as fitting with the deserted-island theme, it doesn't really have a money system at all. Instead all purchases in the town are done through barter with the stuff you collect, so the monster-parts-collection element of this game fits the setting well. There isn't any complex crafting either, you just get stuff that people say they want and bring it to them, either for side quests or for getting new items in the shop and such. That seems simple enough, if you know where to find the things they need, but that latter part can be a challenge sometimes. Story quests, on the other hand, usually have you going to a specific point in the map, either to search for a survivor, kill monsters there, or just to explore to that point.

And the story is actually kind of interesting, which is a rarity for Ys. Oh, Ys game plots are fine enough heroic journeys, as Adol fights monsters and discovers ancient civilizations, and you do a lot of that here, but the many fully voiced cutscenes give the characters personality in a way I don't remember seeing in this series before. Ys VII also had a party, but this one makes you care about your party members a lot more. The deserted-island setting is also reasonably interesting. The game is definitely anime though, and has some dumb anime themes in it for sure. It's always weird to see how little actually medieval anything Japanese "medieval fantasy" games have in them... though apparently this world has advanced far enough to make some guns, so there is that. Still, that ship in the beginning or most any characters' clothing doesn't fit the ostensible setting at all, as usual. Oh well.

Graphically the game looks great for the Vita, and is probably one of the better-looking games I've played for the system. I'm sure it looks even better on PC and PS4, and probably the Switch too, in framerate particularly as the Vita version is 30fps and the others try for 60, but I am quite fine with 30fps and I think this game looks very nice. The soundtrack is fantastic too, it's great stuff.

So it's mostly good, but even as early-is in the game as I am (maybe 10 hours in?) there are a few issues to mention. First, this is a long game, as much as 70 hours to finish, and a lot of that time will be spent levelling or killing monsters for parts. I'm sure the grind gets old after a while. And second, the Vita version of this game here is the original version of the game, which means that it's missing a whole bunch of features that the other three versions added. The additional content of the other versions includes a bonus dungeon at the end of the game for Dana to play through, more combat modes for Dana to switch to when you play as her near the end of the game, a bunch of interface and map improvements and such, and more. On the other hand, this versions also cost a lot more than the Vita one does -- this version is easy to find for under $40, while the other three are still a full $60. So despite the cuts I got this version, and don't regret it. I probably will also get the PC version someday as well, but this is great.

[A Black Falcon]

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - So I tried this, and immediately greatly disliked it. Yup, I still really dislike this series and can't understand why people like it so much... the games play so badly! I have Tekkens 2 through 6 and Tag 2, and the one I 'liked' the most was 3, and it isn't good, just average. For that time, on the PS1, Tekken 3 played alright, but the series feels about the same now as it did then, while other fighting games actually improved. With awful, janky controls, bad movement, no fun, and so much more, why in the world is this series actually popular? Like, if you compare Virtua Fightesr 1 or 2 to 3 and beyond, or Dead or Alive 1 to 2 or beyond, or Soul Blade/Edge to Soul Calibur and beyond, there was a generational leap there to the gameplay of the modern series. But Tekken? Tekken's still pretty much the same, it seems on first impression (and yes I'm sure Tekken fans could tell me a thousand ways it is not), and it feels horrible to play.

The 3d movement is terrible too. How do you even move in 3d consistently? I don't get it, or care to look it up... I don't want to play these bad games again.


Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (GBA) - Unfortunately this game is also pretty bad. I love Gauntlet, and Legends and Dark Legacy in particular, but this is not the Gauntlet I love! Instead, it's a boring and poorly designed isometric action game, a bit like a bunch of other forgettable licensed GBA games, except with a Gauntlet theme tossed on. Levels are massive, empty, and horribly designed. Everything looks the same, there are few enemies and monster generators, and there isn't a map, so it's very easy to get lost; indeed, I don't know how you wouldn't get lost, with visuals this similar and lacking in variety, and with a zoom this close in mostly-empty stages! Had the people who made this game actually played a Gauntlet game before? This game manages to make Gauntlet Seven Sorrows look okay, and that's saying something...

[A Black Falcon]

Starlink (Switch) - Starlink is a surprisingly fun Ubisoft open-world game, with spaceships. You're always in a ship in this game, either hovering over a planet or flying through space, and hover/fly around killing things and picking stuff up, pretty much. The graphics are great for the Switch, and each planet is large. The planets are pretty much big open spaces though, not areas hard to navigate, so navigation is pretty much just 'follow the waypoint, killing anything along the way', but that's pretty much how Ubisoft open world games seem to work; Assassin's Creed Odyssey isn't too different, it has mountains and such but you can just climb over any of them (and can't die from falling) so it's not all that different... and I might like combat more in Starlink, the game is not too complex -- strafe around and shoot works great for a lot of land battles -- but space battles are pretty cool, and challenging until you get used to them in a way I haven't found ground combat to be. The weapons have some nice variety, too. The story is a simplistic tale, but the cutscenes and talking-head conversations are reasonably well done and it's enough to keep me going.

Of course, Starlink isn't just an open-world shooter, it's also a toys to life game. There are currently 9 pilots, like 7 or so ships, and 15 weapons available, and you start with only a few. Sure, the game is beatable with just the default stuff, but it won't be fun without more weapons, and without more ships it'll be a lot harder than it should be. The pilots feel like the least important of the three, but they do unlock things in your home base ship and each one has a unique special power, so having those is useful too. Now, you can just buy everything in this game digitally, or you can get it physically. Buying it digitally is both cheaper and saves you a lot of space, because Starlink's ships are sizable. I got physical ships and such though, and I don't regret it because the ships are actually pretty cool looking. The Arwing that comes with the Switch version is particularly good, but the other ships you can get look nice too. The Arwing definitely is best, though, and of the four ships I have now it's the only one with movable parts -- you can flip up and down those four maneuvering thruster things on the Arwing, while the other ships are just big lumps of plastic. Arwing wings have lasers in them too, while other wings do not. And the game has playable Star Fox of course, maybe the best character, and a Star Fox story arc as well, so why is this game even on PS4 and Xbox One, where it doesn't have any of that stuff? Anyway though, the physical toy addons for Starlink are nice, and right now there are just a small enough number of them that owning all of the toys to life pieces for this game is quite plausible. I already have like half, and will likely get the rest eventually, particularly if Starlink prices drop as I'm guessing it's likely they will (unless it somehow becomes a bigger hit than it looks like it is?).

So yeah, Starlink is cool and fun, but it does require DLC or toy addons to be good. The addons are integrated into the game WAY better than Skylanders are, though -- all of the pilots are characters in the story, and you see their ships in cutscenes and such as well. This makes you want the other characters in a way you don't see in other toys to life games, but it does make adding new ships or characters tougher, if the game did well enough to get them -- what do you do, like say 'here's a new character! They aren't in the cutscenes or stuff though, you can just fly around with them and we added voice lines for them'? That's less than impressive compared to the characters in the base game, so the toy-DLC model Lego Dimensions used might not work here. If the game does well enough for a sequel they could add to it that way, though, like Skylanders did. I like the amount of stuff in the game right now, though; more ships and toys would be a bit much to want to have all (or most) of, like how I'll never even attempt to get all of the Skylanders stuff.

[A Black Falcon]

How about short first impressions about some Intellivision games, since I got the system last week? Well, here goes. I'll say something about the games I've played, which is mostly the more interesting-looking (and not two player only) ones that I've gotten.

Snafu - This might be my favorite Intellivision game I've played so far, at least at the moment. It's like Surround on Atari 2600 -- think Tron Light Cycles, or versus Snake -- except with four players and more. You versus three AIs is the default, though there is also a two human and two AI mode. There are a bunch of modes, some simpler ones with only the regular four-direction movement of most games in this genre, and some with eight-direction movement, which is a lot to get used to in a lightcycles game... it's good, though.

Auto Racing - This overhead racing game has decent graphics, but the controls are hard to get used to and I haven't figured out how to turn consistently at all yet, I usually just go off the side. It looks like that's a common problem people have with this game, the controls are confusing and not that good. Also there is only 2 player versus or one player timetrial, there isn't an AI opponent. For 1980 this is probably a good effort at a more realistic racing game, but the controls, with the Intellivision disc, are an issue.

Golf - This golf game tries to be more simmish than Atari 2600 Golf, and it succeeds... and thus I find it quite boring.

Space Armada - This is Space Invaders, but not as good -- there are fewer aliens, very few modes, etc. Play Space Invaders on 2600 instead, the graphics aren't as good but the gameplay is better.

Space Battle - This is an interesting game for the time, but it's one of those 2nd-gen games that's over in minutes. Either you'll win and defeat all the enemy fleets, or lose and die, but either way there's basically only one level then the game ends. Lots of 2nd-gen games are like this, if they aren't endless they're absurdly short... the industry was young and people didn't know what would work yet. The strategy bit about aiming fleets around is interesting, though the controls are a bit confusing, and the shooting works fine, but it's nothing above average overall, this game was a lot better then than it is now.

Astrosmash - This popular game is also on Atari 2600 (well, so is Space Battle, but I don't have that one for 2600, while I do have Astroblast, the 2600 version of this), and it's very simple: move left and right and shoot the asteroids as they descend. That's about it. You get extra lives so quickly that games will go on a long time, as you get lives faster than you lose them for what, like at least a half hour or more. I find the game gets boring long before that. Also, the 2600 version has paddle controls, which are better than the Intellivision disc controls here. This controls okay, but that one's better in controls... though this looks a bit better of course. Anyway, this is another average to below average game. There is something here, later in the game, but is it worth the tedium to get there?

Lock 'n Chase - One of the few arcade ports to Intellivision from Mattel, this game is a Pac-Man clone. It's a good port of the arcade game, but this game is no Pac-Man, and isn't as good as games like K.C. Munchkin or Turtles on Odyssey 2 either. I mean, it's a fine, quality game, but between the high difficulty, mediocre graphics, and sometimes tricky controls for using the locks, I doubt I'll be playing a huge amount of it. Still, decently good game I guess.

Atlantis - The Intellivision version of Atlantis has a reputation for being the best version of the game, and after playing it I can see why. Imagic's take on Missile Command plays like usual here at the start, as you fire the left and right diagonal cannons at the enemies, but instead of the straight-up center cannon of the 2600 version, here you have a spaceship that you can take off with and fly around the screen instead, directly firing left and right at the enemies. It's fun stuff and adds something to the game. Atlantis is, like most games of the era, very repetitive and is not as good as Missile Command, but it is a good game for sure, and this is a pretty good version.

Pinball - I had pretty low expectations for this one, but Pinball surprised me. For the time the ball physics are actually decent -- this plays a lot better than any 2600 pinball games I've seen -- and there are even two different screens in the table, instead of just one! It kind of looks like a pinball table, too. This is hardly some great game from a modern standpoint, but for the pre-crash era it's good.

Vectron - I've heard this game is kind of good but has very confusing controls, and well, yes, it has very confusing controls. I haven't figured them out yet, I need to find a copy of the manual to read! The games' sense of style is great, but I can't say much about the gameplay, so far all I've done is not been able to move and then get game over.

Space Hawk - This game is kind of like Asteroids, if you could fly in a large, endlessly scrolling area, looking for one or two enemy ships flying around. The controls are kind of tricky and I find navigating frustrating as there is nothing to tell you which way you should go, if you are actually chasing them and not waiting for them to attack you, but I haven't played it much and it does have some promise.

Night Stalker - This single screen action game plays a bit like a slow-paced Berzerk or Wizard of Wor, except you need to get bullets before you can fire by picking up gun powerups. Get gun powerups, shoot enemies, repeat. It's alright, but a bit slow and, of course, repetitive. Decent stuff though I guess?

Skiing - This is another one where the disc controller makes for tougher controls than you'd have on a d-pad... though the somewhat more realistic player movement than you'd see on Atari doesn't help either. As with skiing games on Atari and O2 this is a skiiing game where you head down the screen, going through gates as you go, but you'll need to line up carefully to make these gates, and it's way too easy to stop when you turn a bit too much. I'm sure there's a trick to it, but still, it's okay but fairly average I think.

Star Strike - the 'death star trench game' is pretty much that. You have to avoid/shoot enemy fighters that initially come at you from behind but then can be shot when they zoom ahead of you, while carefully timing bomb drops on the five circles you need to bomb in this trench. Timing the bomb drops is pretty hard, I haven't gotten it down yet; there is an audio cue, but you need to be lined up at just the right times, while dodging fire. Once you do get it though, the game is very short either way -- if you die that's it, game over, and if you bomb all five ports, you win, game over. Again, game length in 2nd-gen stuff is weird...

Dragonfire - This is a straight port of the 2600 game of the same name, with very few changes apart from slightly improved graphics... except that it plays less good with the Intellivision disc than it does with an Atari controller. This is a tough game even on 2600, but it's definitely harder, and less fun, here. It is still a good game, but it's not quite as good as it is on 2600 I think.

Demon Attack - Unlike the above game, Demon Attack is nicely improved over the 2600. There is now a much more detailed background environment on the screen, first, and second a boss stage has been added that isn't in the 2600 original! This game is a good shooter, if derivative (Atari actually took Imagic to court over this game, over how similar it is to Phoenix...), but it was popular then and yes, is still good.

Microsurgeon - I really have barely played this one, but I'd just like to say that the controls are pretty interesting -- you use two controllers, and move with one disc while shooting with the other. The game is somewhat complex, in that you have to move through a human body, use different medicines, and such, but the core gameplay is one of the first ever appearances of true twin-stick shooter controls in a game. (There is a better TI 99/4A version of the game, but that's the only other platform this game seems to have released on.)

Mission X - This is another port of a Data East arcade game, along with Burger Time and Lock 'n Chase. For some reason Data East was the only arcade company Mattel got rights to at the time, I wonder why; I guess Atari and Coleco locked down all the other big ones? Anyway, this game is a vertical scrolling shmup, but it has a height component, you can fly up and down... which naturally makes hitting flying enemies in front of you nearly impossible, since judging height is not going to happen. Fortunately, most targets are on the ground; you spend most of this game bombing Xevious-style, at a target in front of your ship which moves forward or back depending on your altitude. It's neat to see a scrolling shmup from '82, but this game gets old fast and the height component is not great. It's average at best.

Motocross - Another racing game, another game with hard to figure out controls. This game is better than Auto Racing, though -- it has an AI opponent option, and two control options, one a simpler 'left turns you left and right turns you right' one. Unfortunately even in that mode I find turning overly difficult here, and often don't make turns... figuring out this disc thing in games that want to use it like a wheel is not intuitive! The game is very slow too, this has aged badly. It's alright for the time but is pretty flawed.d

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (aka AD&D Cloudy Mountain) - This game has the D&D license, but it isn't really an RPG. Instead, this is a maze exploration action-adventure game, building off of games like Adventure (Atari 2600), Hunt the Wumpus (TI-99/4A), and Quest for the Rings (Odyssey 2). You wander around random mazes, collecting arrows and items and looking for exits while using those arrows to kill monsters, if you can't avoid them. The mazes are large enough that the absence of a map is kind of frustrating, and I don't really want to wander around them long enough to find all the items, but you've got to. At least there is a run button for faster movement, but eh... this game's good I guess, but I'd kind of rather play the simplicity of Hunt the Wumpus, or something better on a newer system which can do more. Still, for the time this is a solid evolution of this still-early genre, heading towards better things. The Intellivision sold itself as a more complex console with better-looking and more complicated games than other consoles, and you see that here. That doesn't make the game better though...

Beauty & The Beast - This fifth Imagic game is the only Intellivision-exclusive game of theirs that I have. This game is a Donkey Kong clone. It's far worse than arcade Donkey Kong, but holds up nicely compared to the junk that is the Intellivision version of DK... but with jumping as stiff and not good as this game has, that's not saying all that much. Some people like this game, and I do like the movement and speed, but the awful jumping holds it back. It feels very similar to the jumping in Dragon Fire, except here it's even more central to the game. Oh, and the core gameplay is really simple -- go up 3 floors by moving up windows when they open, and keep moving to new screens to get more points. It's an alright game but isn't anything above average, in terms of gameplay. The graphics are nice though.

BurgerTime - This popular Data East arcade game is highly regarded on Intellivision, but I wasn't sure how worth it this would be since I do have the better NES version. Well, it was worth getting, because yes this is a pretty good version of this game. Sure, the NES version is even better, but this is a nice-looking and well-playing version of the game and is one of the better games on this system. This isn't a game I've ever played very much of so I'm no good at it, but it has a solidly addictive quality to it here.

Frog Bog - Also known as Frogs and Flies on 2600, this first party game is another one, like Astrosmash, that might actually be better on Atari's console... odd, that; Coleco's games are always best on Colecovision and worse on Intellivision and 2600 (this is one reason I haven't bought any Coleco games for Intellivision yet, despite seeing several), but that was not always the case for Mattel. Anyway, in this very simple game, you jump back and forth between two lillie pads, trying to eat as many flies as you can during those jumps. You get points for each insect you eat. It's a very basic game, too simple really, but has at least a slightly addictive quality to it. Fortunately there is an AI opponent, though it's much better as a two player game I'm sure. The default AI is pitifully bad...

Loco-Motion - This puzzle game is a sliding tile puzzle-inspired thing. A train car is moving around a screen, and you have to slide tiles around with various tracks on them so that the train goes around all of the edges of the screen without crashing. It's harder than it might sound, but the extremely slow pace of the train's movement gets boring fast and you can't speed it up much so far as I've found, and I really don't understand the controls; why are they upside-down, I had to hold my controller upside down in order for them to make any sense... odd. This is a good effort for the time, but it is another thing where newer games like this are a lot better. I've never liked sliding tile puzzles much at all anyway, and wow is that train slow...

Tron Deadly Discs - On the easy difficulty, this game is kind of boring. It does some interesting things for the time -- it's another early twin-stick game, as you move with the stick and fire with the keypad -- but you can only shoot one disc at a time and have to wait quite a while for it to return to you, and at least as far as I've played it so far, everything about this game is a bit slow-moving. I'm sure it eventually gets hard, but aiming shots with the keypad is kind of frustrating when if you miss you have to wait so long to get another shot. You can call back your disc, and use a second controller to fire if you want, but still, this game is too slow to be fun for long. There is a Regulator boss in the game which the 2600 version doesn't have, and the shot aiming thing is much improved here too, but still, this game's pretty average.


So yeah, so far I think the Intellivision is alright, but has issues -- the game library is uneven, and the controllers take a lot of getting used to for some games. I like the look of the console, and I am glad to have it, but I definitely don't love this thing yet.

[A Black Falcon]

To mention a little about the remaining 11 Intellivision games I have:

B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad, and Space Spartans need the Intellivoice to make much sense, so I'll hold off on saying anything about those until I get one. B-17 Bomber looks like a fairly complex (particularly for the time) flight sim; Space Spartans a flight action game inspired by Star Raiders; and Bomb Squad a puzzle game which uses voice to give you instructions about how to disarm a bomb. They sound promising.

Major League Baseball and Tennis are two-player-only sports games. Baseball looks good for the time and Tennis decent, but unfortunately I won't have many opportunities to play them. They are both games I'd potentially like if I could play them, though, which is why I got these and not the (also two player only) basketball, soccer, or football games I saw. At some point I should get the later baseball games for Intellivision which do add AI...

Armor Battle is a two-player-only knockoff of the 2600 game Combat. Won't be playing this much either, but it's worth having for comparison.

Sea Battle is a sadly two-player-only naval strategy game. It looks pretty interesting and is way above anything like this on Atari, so it's really unfortunate that they didn't make any AI for the game.

Bowling - Bowling is a pretty good bowling game for the early '80s. You can move up and down, aim and curve your shot, and adjust power. You even can select your ball weight at the start, and that does affect the game. It's an okay-looking game with a lot more depth than bowling on the 2600, so it fits in with the general 'more complex games' theme the Intellivision went for, and it does seem to be good. Of course there is no AI so if you're playing by yourself it's a solo affair, but oh well. Of the games I've played in this post, this one is definitely the best.

Triple Action - This three-in-one cart contains another Combat knockoff, which like Armor Battle is two player only and plays a lot like Combat; a pretty decent little vertically-scrolling straight-road racing game where you try to get as far as you can, scoring a point for each car you pass successfully; and a two player only biplane flight combat game, where you get a point for each time you shoot down the other plane or they crash. For some reason in the flying game, up on the disc makes you fly upwards and down flies you downwards, so the game doesn't use flight controls unfortunately. You can shoot and change your speed, and have to be careful because stalling and crashing is very easy. This cart is not great for one player, but the one single player game, the racing one, is kind of fun so it's alright I guess. The other two also look decent, particularly the flying one, if you have two players. This feels like a game that should have been a pack-in with the system, but it wasn't...

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack - Instead, for some reason I do not understand, this card game was the pack-in title with the Intellivision for its first few years. The games are fairly complex for the time, with three different poker variants and blackjack all on the cart, playable in 1 or 2 player for blackjack and 2 player only for poker, but I don't like this kind of game at all and don't want to play enough of this to learn how to play it, so even though I do have a complete copy with its detailed instruction book I don't know that I will ever play this again. It's fine, and probably even impressive, for the genre for the time, but I do not know how to play or want to learn poker (plus, poker here requires two players), and while I do know blackjack there are much better ways to play electronic blackjack than here, not that I want to do that almost ever.

Sharp Shot - This very simple minigame collection looks like it was for kids based on the box, and it's pretty simplistic -- it's a one-button game where you just need to hit the button at the right time to do something. One minigame is football passing, one shooting enemies in space when they pass through your target sight, one shooting enemies with arrows, and one shooting ships with torpedoes, but in all of them you just hit the button at the right times and you get points. This is also meant as a two player only game, so the only single player game here is to just go for points on your own. Either way it's not that good really.