It’s time for another review round-up, in which I give my thoughts on the games I’ve managed to squeeze in during baby naps.
In this round-up yer man Scullion:
• Plays with some balls in Pool Panic
• Attempts another square meal in Picross S2
• Finally gets the joke in Miles & Kilo
• Is grateful to have a halo in F1 2018
• Gets down to some free-to-play fighting in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode
Continue reading “Review round-up: Pool Panic, Picross S2, Miles & Kilo, F1 2018, Disney Heroes”
Kartography is my regular series in which I look at licensed kart racers throughout gaming history, and figure out where they fit on my all-time kart game leaderboard.
For more information on my scoring policy for Kartography, check out this introductory article.
After kicking off Kartography last week with the mediocre Hello Kitty Kruisers (which scored 13/40), it’s time for game two to drive up to the… um, judging chamber. Or something.
Shortly after I posted the first Kartography I was informed that Garfield Kart was available for a dirt cheap price on Steam (it isn’t any more, but it’s still only £3.99).
Since it seems to have some sort of internet buzz around it at the moment as the alleged “worst game ever” (presumably by meme kids who’ve never experienced the joys of Wheelspin, Ninjabread Man, Rise Of The Robots or Superman 64), I decided to cover it next.
Although it was also released on mobile and 3DS (where it reportedly looks horrendous), today I’m looking at the version on Steam, where it currently has a suspicious 9/10 rating. You pesky meme kids.
TO THE JUDGING CHAMBER WITH THEE, GARFIELD KART. Continue reading “Kartography #2 – Garfield Kart”
This week, someone at IGN stole someone else’s review, and was fired for it. Fun fact: he also stole one of mine! Let’s podcast the piss out of it. Continue reading “TOH Podcast 32 – Taking the words out of my mouth”
Kartography is my regular series in which I look at licensed kart racers throughout gaming history, and figure out where they fit on my all-time kart game leaderboard.
For more information on my scoring policy for Kartography, check out this introductory article.
For the first instalment of Kartography I’ve decided to look at the most recent karting game I played.
Hello Kitty Kruisers With Sanrio Friends – to give the game its full name – originally launched on the Wii U back in March 2014, where it was released in such limited numbers that it’s become one of the system’s rarest games (in America, at least: you can still get it fairly cheaply in the UK).
Just a few months back, it was ported to the Switch and published by Rising Star Games. I recorded a First Play video at the time, but have since completed it.
Because it’s fresh in my mind, then, it’s the first game to get the Kartography treatment. Continue reading “Kartography #1 – Hello Kitty Kruisers With Sanrio Friends”
I’ve always been fascinated by karting games.
Ever since I got the original Super Mario Kart 26 years ago, I’ve always been tickled by the idea of countless developers and publishers imitating the formula with any group of licensed characters they can get their hands on.
What makes it interesting to me is that the karting genre – maybe more than any other – has continued to stick to a solid set of rules that’s almost always the same across the board.
Cups consisting of four or five races. Boost starts. Weapons, some going forwards, some going back, some homing. Maybe a power slide or drift mechanic. Unlockable tracks or characters. The vast majority of karting games tick all those boxes.
What intrigues me, then, is seeing how developers take a wide variety of licensed IPs and try to pour each one into this rigid mould, with the success of the resulting creation varying wildly.
Every time a new karting game comes out, then, I can’t help being interested to try it out. Even though the vast majority are utter piss, I’m always curious to see how each IP is treated and how the developers managed to shoehorn it into strict karting game guidelines.
Sometimes it’s a hit: Star Wars Episode I Racer was a no-brainer. And sometimes – most of the time, actually – it doesn’t work quite so well (step forward, Crazy Frog Racer).
Kartography, then, is my new regular series dedicated to mapping out the world of karting games over the past three decades. Continue reading “New regular feature: Kartography”
The year was 2011. Yer man Scullion was Games Editor at the Official Nintendo Magazine, and was about to review yet another mini-game collection for the Wii.
You’d have forgiven me at the time for being far from excited. As everyone who owned a Wii knew at the time, the popularity of the console meant that every shitmuncher publisher and developer was trying to capitalise on its success with cheap and nasty shovelware games.
More often than not, these took the form of mini-game collections, in an attempt to appeal to all the families who bought their Wii primarily for Wii Sports.
As ONM’s main reviewer, this meant I’d spent the past five years suffering my way through countless half-arsed money grabs. To this day I still occasionally wake up in cold sweats thinking about Carnival Games, Big Beach Sports and the unfortunately named Water Sports.
Go Vacation, then, didn’t exactly have me soiling myself with excitement when the disc came into the office, a fact I’m sure my colleagues welcomed. And yet, I was curious. Developed by (what was then) Namco Bandai and published by Nintendo itself, it seemed that there was a lot of confidence around this one.
Sure enough, I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. I gave the game 80%, and warned readers not to follow my lead. “Don’t fall into the same trap so many others will,” I advised. “Don’t take one look at Go Vacation and pass it off as shovelware. It’s not.”
This isn’t a retrospective rewriting of history either, mind you. You can see my full original ONM review at the bottom of this very page, and my 30 Best Wii Games article on Tired Old Hack has none other than Go Vacation nestled comfortably in the list.
Now it’s been granted a surprise re-release on Switch, and it’s just as entertaining as I remember it being seven years ago. Continue reading “Go Vacation (Switch) review”
Louise and I had our first daughter three weeks ago, so that’s why there’s been a relative lack of updates on the site. That doesn’t mean I haven’t managed to squeeze in some gaming though, so here’s my takes on what I’ve been playing.
In this round-up yer man Scullion:
• Jumps back in for a second helping of retro goodness in Sonic Mania Plus
• Decides whether Lumines Remastered is back with another one of those block-dropping feats
• Enjoys some 8-bit scrapping in Pocket Rumble
• Embraces his inner Japanese schoolgirl in Sanrio Characters Picross
• Discovers that Agony is appropriately named
Continue reading “Review round-up: Sonic Mania Plus, Sanrio Picross, Agony, Pocket Rumble, Lumines Remastered”
Visit Nintendo Life for my review of the 3DS version!
By this point, the intros for reviews of Switch games like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker write themselves.
“Despite the Wii U’s poor sales,” they begin, “it continues to offer a fruitful source of material for new Switch releases.”
They then list a load of other Switch games that are ports of Wii U titles, along with links so you can read those reviews too and get the site more hits.
You know: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Bayonetta 1 & 2, Pokken Tournament DX… that sort of thing.
Captain Toad is the latest in this now tried and tested process, and it’s proof that if it still isn’t broken there should be no attempts made to fix it just yet. Continue reading “Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch) review”
Mario Tennis and I have been on bad terms for the past couple of years.
It’s a series I’ve loved ever since the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color days, but in recent years it’s been up and down more times than an eager ballboy.
In 2009 the brilliant GameCube game Mario Power Tennis was re-released on Wii, its once-tight controls replaced with frustratingly inaccurate Wii Remote swings.
Then, a few years later, the series was redeemed with Mario Tennis Open, a brilliant 3DS offering with great online multiplayer and a host of unlockable characters and costumes.
This return to form was then unceremoniously dumped with Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on the Wii U, a game I described in my video review at the time as “a monumental cauldron of shite” due to its complete lack of anything other than a bare-bones online mode and exhibition games (not even a tournament mode).
Mario Tennis Aces is here to right that wrong, and it succeeds… mostly. Continue reading “Mario Tennis Aces (Switch) review”
It’s World Cup time, that lovely quadrennial football occasion where English football fans start thinking they’re going to become world champions again while Scots like me moan about the BBC cutting to the England camp at half time during every single match, regardless of who’s playing. Not that I’m bitter.
But hey! Never mind that. There are people out there who love football, and people who love video games. And what do you get when someone ticks both boxes? People who love football video games, of course. Look, this isn’t hard.
What you may not realise is there have been official World Cup football games since way back in 1986, each trying to help gamers get into the World Cup spirit by capturing the atmosphere of the real-life tournament going on at the same time.
I’m a massive fan of ‘event’ football games like this, so I’ve decided to put together this extensive feature listing each of these World Cup games and how they fit into the gaming landscape at the time. Enjoy! Continue reading “The complete history of FIFA World Cup video games”
Tired Old Hack 