Retro Game Friday: De Blob

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a cult classic. It’s De Blob!

Plot Synopsis: Initially a lively and colorful city populated by its equally colorful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of color through its “War on Color”. Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and color-draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into “Graydians”, encased in homogeneous gray prison suits distinguished only by a bar code on the back of each shell. The Graydians are forced to serve as both menial labor and as a living resource of ink, the latter of which is mined literally from their sadness…

Plot: The plot is nothing amazing, and it fits the family game setting that De Blob has. So nothing amazing, but nothing super bad either.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty simple, you get paint of the three primary colors and paint the world to restore it. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s pretty fun for a while. That being said it’s a bit a one trick pony as the gameplay doesn’t really ever change all that much.

Art: The art is okay, but is dated. Thankfully there are ports with updated graphics to the current generation of consoles including the Switch.

Music: The coolest part of the game, at least to me as a person who knows game design from coding to artwork, is the fact that the music changes as you play. As you continue painting objects the music becomes more and more active, and Blob’s current color determines the instrumental being soloed. It’s pretty interesting, and a brilliant piece of game design.

Overall: If you get the chance, you might want to check this out if it’s on sale.

For those who like: Platforming, Fun Gameplay, Great Musical Score.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

 

 

 

 

Retro Game Friday: Quest 64

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a really old game. It’s Quest 64!

Plot Synopsis: The playable character is an apprentice mage named Brian. Brian sets off to find his father who has left the monastery of the mages.

Plot: Wow I completely forgot how lacking the story of this game was, but yea it’s pretty bad.

Gameplay: The gameplay on the other hand made up for a lot with a unique leveling system that had no experience but instead leveled up stats based on what you did in battle. If you got hit a lot, you’d raise your defense for example. There were the standard four elements to use for magic as well, and it was pretty decent. However everything else about the game was pretty boring.

Art: It was one of the first Nintendo 64 Games, and thus it has aged really badly.

Overall: An easily skippable game, unless you find a copy for a dollar.

For those who like: RPGs, Interesting Leveling Systems, Mediocrity.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Red Faction Guerilla

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a game I got for free! It’s Red Faction Guerilla!

Plot Synopsis: Alec Mason, a mining engineer, arrives on Mars Tharsis Region to reunite with his brother Dan and begin a new life. While on work detail, Dan testifies about the Earth Defense Force’s (EDF) cruelty to the Martian people and asks Alec to join the Red Faction, of which Dan is a member. Dan is soon after gunned down by air support from an EDF assault team. Alec is rescued by Red Faction guerrillas and reluctantly becomes a freedom fighter.

Plot: The plot isn’t super amazing, but it’s pretty good. That being said the real draw of the game was it’s gameplay.

Characters: They were fairly bland, even Alec isn’t that interesting and that’s always a bad sign for a story.

Gameplay: The gameplay however was quite fun and allowed the player to destroy any building they pleased including bridges or catwalks, which could lead to lots of fun. While the story mode isn’t super interesting it did have an open world that allowed the player to go around destroying any building they wanted. The Nanite Rifle in particular was an amazingly fun gun to use, although ammo was very scarce unless you cheated and enabled infinite ammo.

Art: Not amazing, but not too bad compared to Gamecube or Nintendo 64 era games in terms of aging.

Music: Sorry don’t remember a thing about the music.

Overall: If you can get this game cheap, you definitely ought to try it out for a few laughs.

For those who like: Third Person Shooters, Open Worlds, Destroying Everything.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Road Rash 64

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a game that was fun to play with others. It’s Road Rash 64!

Plot Synopsis: Oh wait this is a Racing game, it definitely doesn’t have any sensible plot. Moving right on!

Gameplay: The game plays similarly to previous games developed in the Road Rash series, which involves the player racing their motorcycle against other motorcyclists. While racing, the player has the option of punching, or using weapons to attack other racers, to slow down their progress. It was rather fun to play with others, but it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable alone, which was a drawback at the time. Personally I never really enjoyed it except as a fun party game that I enjoyed when at a friend’s a couple times. To me it’s barely interesting enough to compete with Diddy Kong Racing, let alone something like Mario Kart in terms of fun to play with other people.

Art: Terrible, but since this was a N64 game I’m not surprised that it’s aged poorly. That all being said it did keep an impressive consistently high frame rate on the screen for everything that takes place during a race.

Music: Some actual bands contributed music to the game, but as I personally didn’t have any interest in music at the time I didn’t pay attention and I can’t remember a thing!

Overall: A very skippable game, go find a copy of Diddy Kong Racing instead and you’ll be much more entertained.

For those who like: Racing Games, Road Rash Games.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Darksiders

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a game I enjoyed, despite it being pretty clunky. It’s Darksiders!

Plot Synopsis: Since the beginning of time, the Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell have waged war, with neither side ever being able to gain an advantage over the other. Thus, in time, a mediator group named “The Charred Council”, arose to maintain order and balance; to this end, they created a warrior brotherhood, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Death, Strife and Fury) to intervene and enforce their laws where and when necessary. Amidst the conflict, humanity emerged. Foreseeing that humans would be integral and contribute to the balance’s stability, the council declared them a third Kingdom, the “Kingdom of Man”. The Council brokered a truce between Heaven and Hell: the Seven Seals were created to be broken when the Kingdom of Man was ready for the Endwar.

In the present day, War arrives on earth where the final battle appears to have begun; armies of angels and demons wage war with mankind caught in the middle.

Plot: Nothing super amazing, but it wasn’t bad.

Gameplay: It played a lot like a Zelda game, although Zelda games were a heck of a lot less clunky in my opinion. This game tried to be like too many games and suffered for it. The sequel was much better in terms of gameplay pacing. That being said it was fun, but it suffered from War being so slow.

Characters: I didn’t really like any of the characters in this entry, at all. But that’s okay as I was really just playing the game for the gameplay.

Art: The art was good, nothing super amazing, but good.

Music: Was decent, not as good as the art.

Overall: This was pretty fun, but if you played the sequel you’re not really missing anything.

For those who like: Action, Adventure, Post-Apocalyptic settings, Decent Gameplay, Good Artwork.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, or clunky controls.