Retro Game Friday: BattleTanx

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a game that I have been meaning to cover for a long time. It’s BattleTanx!

Plot: The plot of BattleTanx is pretty much nonsense, a plague kills 99.99 of all the women in the world and the rest are held up as feudal ladies that are the leaders of all the various gangs that come after the world went to crap. If you are looking for a really deep story, this isn’t going to satisify you.

Gameplay: Thankfully that wasn’t the point, and the gameplay was. The gameplay is purely Tank vs Tank combat in various locales across the US, such as Chicago, and New York. It was pretty fast paced and fun to play, especially with a friend or two. This also included destructible enviroments, though you could say that took up much of the power that was used in the game. Still it was fun to play as a kid, even if it was a bit violent. Still what kid doesn’t like explosions?

Art: The art has aged incredibly poorly since it was first released, but given that this was released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64 that isn’t too surprising.

Music: I honestly don’t remember much of it. I was too busy talking with my friends while we played.

Overall: A fun game, and if you get the chance to play it with a friend or two it’ll entertain you for a bit, but not too long since games have improved greatly since this was released.

For those who like: Tanks, Explosions, Action, Drama.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Oddball Uses of Gaming Tech

Hey all I’m back with a fun Video Game Tuesday. It’s some Oddball Uses of Gaming Tech!

PlayStation 3s in Hospitals: These were networked PS3s used for their processing power, it was cheaper to buy these consoles than other PC hardware for hospitals. The only way I know about this is because my Dad sold technology to hospitals for his job and he remarked on it at dinner one night.

Simulating Fake Crowds: Yeah you’ve probably heard about this, or seen it on TV if you watch sports, but various TV providers are now using game engines to produce fake crowds for sporting events and other things due to COVID-19. It’s going about as well as you might expect, which is to say as well as a flaming trash can. Don’t look too close at the crowds, or you’ll notice how utterly fake they are.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. What are some of your favorite oddball uses of gaming tech? Post them in a comment down below.

Retro Game Friday: Killer7

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a rather oddball game. It’s Killer7!

Plot: The plot is pretty complex and not at all kid friendly. That said this is a Suda51 game, so that is to be expected.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty poor, with it being an On The Rails shooter for the most part. Honestly I enjoyed the story more than the gameplay by a very large margin.

Art: Killer7 used Cel Shading extensively and while it’s aged pretty well since then, it still has aged.

Music: The music is pretty good, and fits the game well.

Overall: An okay game, but much better story. Honestly you might just want to watch a Let’s Play instead of actually playing this.

For those who like: Action, Drama, The Noir Genre.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Next Gen Thoughts

Hey all I’m back with some of my ponderings regarding the next generation of consoles for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s my Next Gen Thoughts!

Which is more powerful?: Let’s just get this out there right now, it’s a pretty close race between the two machines, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, with the Series X having a bit more processing power, while the PlayStation 5 has a near instantaneous load time due to it’s SSD according to Sony. Frankly we don’t know all the differences just quite yet, we might have learned them by now if they had some big news conference ala E3, but with COVID still an issue that has really hampered both Sony and Microsoft’s ability to make such things.

Which are you going to buy?: At this point I’ll probably be getting the PlayStation 5, but that’s personal preference for the game lineup thus far. This could change in the future, but as of right now that’s my current decision. I’m more interested in the Spider-Man game than I am in another Halo game.

Maybe that’ll change in the next few months, but those are my thoughts thus far.

What are you planning to get, if at all?

Video Game Tuesday: A Note on Review Scores

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m answering a question I was asked a few days back. It’s A Note on Review Scores!

Review Scores?: First off if you don’t read my game reviews on GiN, this post won’t really affect you. That being said I ask that you do take a look at them if you can. Now regarding my review scores I’ve been asked why I’ve given several games 0’s, either in certain categories or just across the board in general. I have good reasons for doing that, and they fall into generally three categories, as I’ve only done it 3 times, although the third time the developers actually fixed the issue before my review was posted so I went back and didn’t give 0s across the board like I intially did.

My First Reason: Playing the game, Coffin Dodgers, made me physically ill. I couldn’t play it for more than 15 minutes before I got so sick I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. I don’t get motion sickness in general, though I do get it on extreme cases like very twisty roads like the Road to Hana on Maui. So I gave that game some 0s for it’s score. If it didn’t have frame rate issues, with multiple frames missing each second I would have been fine and I’d probably have enjoyed the game quite a bit.

My Second Reason: Plagiarism and Laziness, Sword and Fairy 6 is a Chinese RPG that was utter crap. It had terrible localization, plagiarized the hell out of Starcraft out of sheer laziness and was in general unplayable, period. It had frame-rate issues, the opening cinematic was utter nonsense and the very first on screen tutorials had multiple instances of improper grammar on just one screen. Games are made by people who should take pride in their work, if I don’t see that in the game, I have very little reasons to score it favorably.

My Third Reason: Being unbeatable, literally. Star Horizon is a game I reviewed very recently and it’s 8th level was literally unbeatable. They didn’t include certain enemy targets in that mission which led to mission failure, nothing I did fixed that issue until they patched it a couple weeks later. If a game isn’t actually beatable, I don’t care how amazing the story and gameplay might be, I’m going to give the game 0’s and advise people to avoid it like the plague.

I hope this clarified my stance on Review Scores.