The New "Games I Bought" Thread -- Copied For Your Enjoyment

[A Black Falcon]

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention one more that I got at the same time as Contra and James Pond 3... the N64 game Top Gear Overdrive.

N64
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Top Gear Overdrive -- Pretty good game, based on a few races. This is one I'd wanted for some time (as well as Top Gear Rally 2), and it was great to finally find a copy of the cart again... I'd seen one a few months back, but was stupid and didn't get it, so I was very happy to see this one, and didn't pass this one up. The game has fantastic graphics, particularly in high-res mode (it uses the expansion pak). In November 1998 when it came out, this must have been some of the best graphics ever in an N64 racing game... plus it's the only one of the four N64 Top Gear games with on-cart saving instead of always-annoying-and-unreliable Controller Pak only save! And it has four player mode too, with four computers in the race too... very nice (though sadly, there is no music in multiplayer, while single player has full vocal rock music tracks... not really my thing, but it's one of the very few N64 games with full vocal music, which is interesting...). The gameplay is very simple, classic-style SNES-ish Top Gear, without any of Top Gear Rally's depth, but it's quite fun for what it's trying to do. So yeah, overall, a good game. I love N64 racing games... it's without question the best racing game platform ever, in my opinion.

If you played it for that long, you enjoyed it.

It's a great game.

First, I never played the first game. I know some things about it and its story, but I haven't played it. So I don't have experience with the series. I'd get the first game if it was this cheap, but didn't want to spend too much for it without knowing if it was good... but for $2, I couldn't resist, no matter which of them it was (I wasn't sure, the disc isn't really clear that it's the second game...).

The story is interesting, but the difficulty level is near zero... and so far at least you probably spend more time watching story than doing anything. I was really tired, though, so the very low difficulty didn't matter much...

Oh, the fact that save points are like half an hour to an hour apart at times in the first few hours (seriously, the first one is like 45 minutes into the game, intro videos and cutscenes included...) is kind of annoying. Not that you're going to die (and even if you did it just restarts you from that point at this point in the game), but annoying anyway.

Nah, I ate a can of tuna I hated. Explain that. There was other food, I had choices, I ate the whole thing, go ahead, bust out the TI on this one, DJ.

Yeah, you don't have to like something to do it... it definitely helps, but sometimes, you play the game (or whatever, as you say) anyway, even if you don't like it.

... I mean, how else can you explain things like those people who write reviews on GameFAQs saying how much they hated some game they've played for dozens of hours or somesuch? It just doesn't make sense, on the face of it... though I'm not saying I disliked it that much, just that with the extremely simplistic gameplay (hit X, hit X some more, then occasionally mix it up by pressing triangle when it tells you to... rinse and repeat) and minimal difficultly level the actual gameplay isn't exactly thrilling so far. It's mostly the story, world, and ease of play that carries it so far... not the gameplay. And games should be about gameplay first, so I think "it's not even all that good" is quite fair. I'm only talking about the gameplay there.

As for the others, based on initial impressions:

GTA III: It's still just as much fun as I remember it being back in 2002, when I last played it... :)

DQVIII: HARD! Very traditional design, fewer modern conveniences than other games... games like this really, really should have save anywhere. Still, potentially worth the time, it's obviously good, if you don't mind required grind and deaths that wipe out a bunch of progress (or at least money). It has great graphics with a very nice sense of style, and good, funny writing.

.Hack Part 1: Bad graphics, mediocre ([overly] complex system, but with very simplistic combat) gameplay. Not exactly great first impressions, I was hoping for more.

Contra: Great of course, though I'm not as much of a Contra series fan as some... but still, it's one of the NES's all-time greats, for sure, and is a great game. The behind-the-character levels just seem kind of ridiculous now, really... funny stuff. :)

James Pond 3: I'll need to spend some time with this one, I've only played it for a few minutes. The Password save system is good to have, as it evidently has lots of levels... all with names that are bad puns. :)