I still remember the moment I got my shiny new PS4, booted up Killzone: Shadow Fall and found my first collectible audio log. When it started coming out of the controller, and not my TV's sound system, I nearly dropped the bloody thing!
Just a shame that I usually prefer playing new games with headphones, and so I usually have to double-check for, and deactivate, such novelties nowadays.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I remember having the same experience nearly dropping the controller with Resogun. Although it’s a cool system with a lot of potential, I also prefer the sound quality of using headphones, so the DS4 speaker features don’t get to shine unfortunately. (Ex. - I think the controller coos like a baby in Death Stranding when you have to rock BB, as well as the light turns color to yellow). Maybe someone who doesn’t use headphones can confirm this. I just have bog standard TV speakers without a surround-sound set up so the headphones are so much better as a whole.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Oh God, that sounds like unintentional nightmare fuel! If my controller started cooing like a baby, I wouldn't just drop it, I'd never pick it back up!
I stuck a custom sticker over my lightbar, so that it didn't reflect in my television. Meant I missed out on some of its neat party tricks, like the flickering bonfire light in Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition or going to Red Alert during combat in Star Trek Online, but now I've got one of the second generation ones, meaning there's that visible sliver along the top of the touchpad.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I’m seeing a lot more utilization of the DS4 light bar in games I recently played. God of War definitely used it to change colors and I seem to recall flickering a time or two out of the corner of my eye. Another prominent game I played recently did some similar things. Maybe Ghost of Tsushima or RE2... can’t remember.
In a way it’s a little distracting, but it’s also a nice touch when we’ll implemented
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Better late then never @Ralizah but I got round to reading your Bowser's Fury review (I'm working my way through your galaxy one as soon as I post this!)
I've actually ended up watching some extended gameplay of Bowser's Fury so I actually know how this title plays out and the progression is handled in this compared to all the other mario games I've neither seen or played (but have an obvious gist of how they play seeing as they are just platformers).
First of all I very much approve of the usage of metal in the Fury Bowser segments. Very nice indeed! 😎 It did honestly throw me for a loop and a half though (especially the vocals which ended up reminding me a bit of FF X and the first appearance of Sin) as the first time you see him when you start up the mode it does have that rather lovely, albeit very ominous, orchestral track instead.
It's nice Bowser's Fury makes Boswer come off more like an actual threat rather then the bit of a nuiscance he's looks to been as of late (I mean he looks fairly nice in that Tux in odyssey... but it's not exactly very threatening)
Though the whole mechanic of having to wait for Bowser to fury to obtain certain cat shines does seem a bit obnoxious (and ironically make him a bit of a nuisance), especially if you don't have any Boswer amiibo that let you summon Fury Bowser at will.
The music you've posted is rather lovely indeed and some of the other stuff I've heard is fantastic too. And it does look very nice too and it's very cool to see them impliment a photo mode a too!
Uhhh... Yeah the whole everything being a cat thing is a bit overkill to say the least. Cat Mario has always looked a bit funny to me anyway for some reason... But yeah EVERYTHING being cat themed is kinda taking the piss 😅
The islands having mutiple varients to them with the various objectives seemlessly popping up as you return is really cool and well implimented I thought... Though the missions themselves do look a little repetitive at times (Like the cat & kitten missions you mentioned).
Overall very good stuff Ralizah with your review (Nice little bits on regarding it's perfomance as well) and glad to hear you enjoyed your time with it!
I finally finished reading your Super Mario Galaxy review as well @Ralizah and boy was it worth the wait! I don't have as much to say about this compared to Boswer's fury as I haven't seen any footage of it... But you've really made me want to try it out!
I loved the way you weaved the game's soundtrack throughout the review rather then just leaving it as a small section at the very end. It's very majestic, beautiful even, and suits the grandoise nature of the game and paired with your writing made it all the more enjoyable.
It's a very informative review that's filled to the brim with admiration for the title and you should really be proud Ral. Utterly fantastic.
Oh and you mentioned Galaxy 2 a couple of times in your review... Is the ommision of it from the 3D All Stars Collection come off as rather notable to you or are not quite as fond of the title?
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
Not so much a full review from me (as this isn't really where my skills lie!), but just thought I'd share some impressions on Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider.
So I spent a good chunk of my Christmas and New Year obsessing over the Uncharted series - eventually finishing six titles within as many weeks. Craving something similar, but having exhausted the series, I looked towards Tomb Raider. These two series are so often compared, plus I grew up with the original Core Design games and really enjoyed Tomb Raider 2013 when it first came out, so thought I'd give the modern trilogy a spin.
Tomb Raider (2013) still holds up well as a standalone title. Gameplay-wise it combines the combat and action setpieces that Uncharted is known for with wider spaces, backtracking, and RPG elements. Although I'd argue that Tomb Raider is weaker in the former (the combat is much easier and your encounters are usually briefer and simpler, and the action sequences generally aren't as diverse or exhilarating), the latter is a somewhat welcome addition that helps this game to carve its own identity. In particular the ability to gain skill points to enhance Lara's skills, as well as to collect salvage to modify your weapons, gave me an additional thing to look forward to while playing through the story. The world is littered with secrets to collect and reasons to backtrack if you're into that - but I'll get back to that in a second.
For me, the story is one of the stand-out features of this game. As a continuity reboot, this game seeks to explain how Lara became the eponymous Tomb Raider, through her fight for her and her crewmates' survival following a shipwreck on a mysterious island harbouring a murderous cult trying to resurrect an ancient queen. Playing as a less-experienced Croft does a lot to make the player feel more vulnerable - and for the first few hours of the game it maybe does feel a bit more survival horror than your typical tomb raiding (although, Tomb Raider as series did always have horror elements!). Overall the tone is much darker than Uncharted - the personal stakes are higher, the deaths are gorier (and allies aren't immune to death!), and even the colour palette is muted to go along with this. Journals add an extra dark layer to the story but, if I'm honest, I mostly skipped over these as I'd be keen to get to the next section.
And this is where my main criticism lies - pacing. This is probably all personal preference - but I found little to motivate me into exploring the wider world around me. Sure, if a secret tomb or chest was in my path, I would consider exploring it - but anything beyond that felt like a massive halt in the pace of the game. The game is a juxtaposition of very tense story-telling and open segments with backtracking and collectathon missions, which generally doesn't sit right with me. Luckily these things are optional, so I didn't have an issue skipping them.
Overall, this was a fairly solid game with fairly diverse gamplay elements that is made memorable by the tense situations that Lara is put in. Definitely a respectable start to a new continuity.
Rise of the Tomb Raider follows on from Tomb Raider (2013) by giving us Lara's first big adventure as the eponymous tomb raider. I'll keep things short and say that, while I generally enjoyed this game, I was left diappointed.
You may wonder why Lara has decided to go into tomb raiding following the disastrous events of the first game. In attempt to clear her late father's reputation as a crackpot historian, Lara ventures into Siberia to find the lost city of Kitezh, which he believed to hold the secret to immortality. Unfortunately she faces competition along the way, stumbling upon a military organisation known as Trinity which are willing to do whatever they can to obtain such a treasure. The story seems very cliche and...well, it is. Honestly I don't think it ever really gets better than that. There is some further drama between the characters along the way - but none of it is particularly compelling, nor does it come close to any of the character interactions of the Uncharted series (which I believe to be one of that series' strong points).
The gameplay is more of the same, except with some enhancements. Now more experienced, Lara now has access to a wider repertoire of tools for fighting (different arrow and bullet types) and climbing (climbing arrows, a grappling hook for swinging and making more difficult jumps) - these are welcome but fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. Puzzles seem to be more abundant - I'm fairly neutral on this, but this is a welcome addition for Tomb Raider veterans who enjoy the puzzle-focused nature of previous entries. However, probably the most notable change gameplay-wise is in the implementation of open spaces and resource gathering. Rise expands the crafting system from 2013 to include a number of resources - with different resources needed to craft different items. This adds an extra layer of complexity to anyone interested in crafting but, personally, this just made the process more tedious. Rather than appreciating the surroundings***, entering each area became a tedious process of using "survival instinct" to scan for, and gather, resources. Again, this was a massive break of pace in the game - much more so than 2013 - and worked to its detriment IMO.
*** To add - generally I found the environments in this game to be quite forgettable. I'm generally not a fan of snowy environments in games...and this game has a lot of it.
Altogether, while Rise of the Tomb Raider retains some of the core elements that keep me interested, it really went in a direction that was off-putting for me. I was motivated to finish the game to see where the story went, but also felt that it fell really flat.
So far these seem like good games that probably aren't 100% to my tastes.
I'm curious to know what direction Shadow of the Tomb Raider goes in, and whether it really is for me. Does it just go further into the things I was less keen on with Rise?
Again, I have no aversion to open world, collectathon, metroidvania, or RPG elements (some of my favourite games are in these genres!). Perhaps I've been coming in with the wrong mindset just off of Uncharted - looking for something that is as exciting, action-packed, and with as engaging (if cliched) a narrative.
RE: Bowser's Fury: Yeah, the inclusion of metal was a pretty inspired choice as a way to add to the perceived danger of Fury Bowser. I think the segments would have worked out better overall if he was actually more of a threat, but, as with Galaxy, I think the koopa king is in top form here. He'd become quite defanged over years of overexposure in various games and spinoffs. Bowser's Fury makes him scary again, and I like that.
I'm a bit more mixed on the choice to connect levels seamlessly via an oceanic open world setting ala The Wind Waker, but it's definitely a refreshing break from the usual style of Mario game design. The best Mario games almost all take chances and try out weird new concepts.
RE: Galaxy: The music was just too good to stuff into one corner. It has one of the best video game OSTs of all time, and was a MASSIVE departure from the scores for previous Mario games, and Nintendo games in general.
As for Galaxy 2... it's not a bad game. A lot of people prefer it to the original, and I do understand their position, but, for me, the game removed way too much of what made Galaxy special. The melancholy, the sense of beauty, the space theme (aside from gravity manipulation mechanics, Galaxy 2 barely feels like a space-themed game at all) and the way new mechanics and level designs were integrated with that theme, the approach to level design in general... it streamlines or removes too much entirely. Honestly, despite the title, it feels much more like a predecessor to the 3D Land/World games than it does a successor to Mario Galaxy.
I do think Galaxy 2 is worth remembering, nonetheless, and I hope it gets ported to the Switch at some point for people who don't own a Wii.
@timleon You know, the more I read about the recent Tomb Raider games, the more I have to wonder why it's taking me such a long time to get to them. Because, frankly, the idea of an Uncharted-esque adventure game with actual exploration, wideness of level design, and light RPG elements seems splendid.
I'm bumping Tomb Raider 2013 up my list. Not least because I recently purchased the PS4 version on sale for cheaps.
Thanks for contributing your honest and well-thought-out feelings on these games!
@timleon Fantastic Tomb Raider reviews! I enjoyed reading them and can mostly agree with your well organized assessment. A few comments —
I do agree that, although there is a tendency for people to compare Tomb Raider with Uncharted (aka “Dude Raider” as someone recently remarked) they really are different styles of games. The Uncharted masterclass of breakneck pacing, cinematic moments, character interactions, and overall storytelling is not really the focus of Tomb Raider. I agree with you that the first TR game has a reasonably good narrative, but the style of game design means that the story unfolds in a less natural way and can be off-putting if a person is expecting that level of cliffhanging narrative. And I agree that, although I enjoyed Rise of the TR for what it was, I found the story to be the most forgettable and least engaging of the series. And I think it’s not necessarily the story’s fault, but as you eloquently explain in your review, it’s more because of the way the game unfolds it’s narrative in a rather start-and-stop style because of the interspersed survival elements. And I also have never been a fan of snowy settings in games. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I think it’s subconsciously why I could never get excited about the HZD expansion, but I digress...
As for Shadow of the TR, I’m sure you’ve heard or read by now that some of the criticisms you have of the first two games, Rise in particular, are less of a problem in Shadow. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that the exploration of areas feels more natural and each area you travel through seems to hold more interesting story elements and gameplay which is less tedious. At least that’s how I felt. It is still not like an Uncharted game, though. And although I liked the story miles better than the story in Rise, it isn’t one in which you’ll fall in love with character interactions and well fleshed-out relationships. But I really like the jungle setting a lot and the core conflict which drives Lara through the game. And the best part about it is that she returns to tomb raiding. It has the best tombs, puzzles, and exploration in the series. There is some combat and survival, yes, but it doesn’t feel like it gets in the way of the fun parts like climbing, discovery, and solving a satisfying ancient puzzle for treasure. Definitely let us know how you get along with it! I’m always glad to see new people discover these games!
@Ralizah@Th3solution Thanks for the feedback! It's my first time posting in this thread and quite nice to hear others' thoughts in relation to my experience.
@Ralizah I'd say give it a go! These are objectively great games, even if they don't do as much for me personally as the Uncharted games do. Did you play Lost Legacy? I really like how they approached more open level design in that title, but Tomb Raider goes a whole lot further.
@Th3solution Yeah, I tried not to be too harsh on these games as I was very much coming in from the perspective of Uncharted (this is partially why I was reluctant to call these reviews and more "impressions"...I don't doubt that my thoughts were coloured by my expectations going in!) Beyond the surface-level similarities, they are quite different. Funny you mention Horizon Zero Dawn actually - because in my mind, Tomb Raider really feels like a hybrid of Uncharted and Horizon. Unfortunately, I just love the latter two much more - I feel they do a better job at being what they try to be, whereas, while taking elements from both, I never felt that Tomb Raider reached the heights of either game.
Great to hear about Shadow though, and that really makes me keen to try it soon (after maybe a week's break...). I've actually heard very little about it. A jungle biome is appealing, as my favourite memories from the old Tomb Raider games largely lie in Tomb Raider 2's Great Wall and especially Tomb Raider 3's India. What you describe actually sounds reminiscent of my earlier experiences of the series!
@timleon As a huge Tomb Raider fan, I've got to hand it to you; that was a great write-up on your experience with the first and second reboot games! I agree with all of your points... well, almost all of them. I didn't mind the pacing issues you highlighted, but that's because I'm showing up to explore as much as I am to be told a story. I respect that, especially off the back of the Uncharted games, not everybody is gonna have the same focus. Having said that, I do agree that Rise of the Tomb Raider feels less focused, as it tries to sit in an awkward middle-ground between action and exploration. I like it, but can understand how others wouldn't so much.
As already mentioned by Sol, the balance is finally struck in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and it's an experience you can tweak to your own personal preferences, as well, as it boasts separate difficulty sliders for combat, exploration and puzzle-solving. It's much closer in spirit to the originals (particularly those classic levels you mention, the Great Wall and India) and should be, as we're finally tracking Lara's progression towards becoming the Tomb Raider we know and love.
If you do give it a shot, I hope you'll come back and write up your thoughts, either in another impressions piece or a full review. For now, though, thanks for sharing what you have already!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Forgive me one final foray into a world of Double-Oh derring-do but, having suffered through the waking nightmare that is 007 Legends, I sorely needed a reminder of why I love James Bond. This would normally see me reaching for one of EA's PS2 classics, my favourite of which would've made for a potent antidote against such pernicious poison, but this time around I paused.
Why bore everybody by droning on about well-established greatness? Why not bore them by taking a deep dive into an oft-overlooked alternative instead?
JAMES BOND 007: EVERYTHING OR NOTHING
GameBoy Advance / November 2003
You might not believe this bit, but I promise you it's true: Electronic Arts once delayed a game because it wasn't ready. They spent most of 2003 hyping up their latest and greatest Bond game for the forthcoming holiday market and then, at the last minute, prioritised the wellbeing of the product over its potential profits. Everything or Nothing missed its lucrative release window... on home console, that is. EA Redwood Shores (better known as Visceral Games before their untimely demise) made the most of this uncharacteristic display of common sense, and went on to deliver the best Bond game ever made in early 2004, but what of those EA executives' Christmas bonuses?
Step forward, Griptonite Games. They'd been hard at work developing a parallel GBA incarnation for simultaneous release (as was common practice for such tentpole, multi-platform games back in the good ol' days) and so, whilst the 3D laser-scanned Bond was still downing a festive martini and adjusting his bow tie, his 2D sprite-based counterpart was already ready.
EA quickly repositioned the lower-profile GBA release as a teaser for the main event and, if I'm honest, it works well as such. Griptonite's in-house interpretation of Bruce Feirstein's script charts its own course, with events reshuffled, locations changed, some characters reassigned and others deleted entirely. That isn't to say its outcome will surprise you, in any way. You're still signing up to help Bond (Pierce Brosnan) beat back Nikolai Diavolo (Willem Dafoe), a former foe's protégé with a high-tech plan to revive the Soviet Union. It's just that, if you're familiar with this adventure on home consoles, playing it again on handheld can feel decidedly divergent. I suppose it's rather like asking two separate people to tell you the same anecdote; you'll get the broad strokes both times, but the individual flavour could end up being wildly different.
And yet it's also remarkable to see how much of the outlandish experience Griptonite was able to cram into a tiny GBA cartridge. This wizardry is evident from the outset, as you suddenly find Bond mid-mission atop an exploding skyscraper. You don't need M (Judi Dench) and Q (John Cleese) to tell you that time is of the essence, and soon you're sprinting down the front of the building, blasting any baddies not unfortunate enough to get caught in the fiery chaos.
"Bang goes my window-cleaning side business," sighed Bond.
It's over within a minute, but it's an effective introduction to the new third-person gameplay which replaced the more traditional first-person shooter template associated with the franchise (even on GBA, where an earlier port of NightFire had ambitiously eschewed raycasting in favour of true texture-mapped polygons). From a locked isometric perspective, you'll spend most of your time with Everything or Nothing firmly on-foot, running Bond back and forth between objectives across several sizeable environments. Well, I say "running" but you can also tap the R button to crouch-walk, and you'll need to because, whilst not crucial to incomplete success, total victory depends largely upon stealth. Check it out, folks; a game which actually tries to portray Bond as a spy. What a freakin' novelty.
Of course, there are guns aplenty, but you're also able to engage enemies in hand-to-hand combat. It's admittedly simple stuff (there's only a single input; none of the counters, throws and melee weapons survived the translation from home consoles) but it conserves ammunition, and can stop a small skirmish from attracting wider attention. A steady stream of gadgets from Q-Branch can increase your tactical options even further, and gleefully invert the standard gaming trope of threat escalation by being well-timed additions to your arsenal. Oh, the guards are wearing bullet-dissolving nanotech armour now, are they? Here, have a device which neutralises nanotech. You're very welcome.
The entire game seems to grow as you progress. That opening blink-and-miss-it escape is an introductory outlier, and subsequent assignments allow you to get comfortable in your new surroundings. All of them live up to the globetrotting of the Bond brand; whether you're gunning through the jungles of Peru, climbing some Egyptian ruins, or sneaking around cemetery in New Orleans, you'll start to notice that it takes longer to reach each mission's results screen.
They seek him here, they seek him there, but he'll happily murder them anywhere.
This is often thanks to dynamic objectives being added to (and sometimes subtracted from) your checklist whilst you're in the field. It's a welcome touch that'll keep you on your toes, and prevents predictability from undercutting the excitement of each outing. Even better, however, are the optional secondary objectives which can add a non-essential layer of challenge wherever you go. They sound simple on the surface (usually "use a stealth takedown on six soldiers" or "find three hidden data discs") but can be quite tricky to accomplish. I've played this game several times over the years, and yet I still only managed to tick 'em all off for the first time last week. In previous playthroughs, I'd obviously rage-quit after being berated by M for the umpteenth time. As lovely as it is hearing fuzzy little voice clips from Judi Dench, sometimes I'd give real money if she'd shut up.
Dial 'M' for 'Meddling Old Cow'.
You won't want to ignore too much of this extra workload, because it's your best source of Style Points. These can be spent on numerous gadget and equipment upgrades between levels, ranging from some standard stuff (better body armour, improved accuracy, etc.) to the more outlandish of necessities (automatic health regeneration kits, or contact lenses which allow you to see through cloaking devices). Bond becomes a bit of an unstoppable one-man army if you manage to unlock all of this bounty, but the Style Points needed to 100% your inventory demand perfection; at least the cartridge's three battery-powered save slots mean you can return to replay any mission and mop up anything you might've missed, and you can also skip any upgrades you reckon would be game-breaking.
None of these helping hands apply to the driving sections, which interject three times on your way to saving the world and can cause a bit of a roadblock, if you'll pardon the pun. It's yet more isometric action, putting Bond behind the wheel of either his Aston Martin V12 Vanquish or Porsche Cayenne Turbo and tasking him with destroying a getaway vehicle. You have machine guns, guided rockets and an oil slick to aid your efforts, but scarce ammunition and swarming traffic (belligerent or otherwise) can complicate matters, making these short segues more difficult than they should be. Don't get me wrong; it's awesome that Griptonite made an effort to uphold EA's push for such diverse gameplay. I just think that there's a slight balancing issue here, s'all.
...yeah, and so are your puns, pal.
Since I've now started to be critical, I might as well continue, especially since most of my issues are variations on a theme: put simply, in trying to cover all the same bases as its home console counterpart, Everything or Nothing on the GBA can cause itself some unnecessary headaches. When you've got Bond back on his feet, the limitations of an isometric view can be frustrating, especially when desperate to maintain stealth. The HUD boasts a radar and an enemy awareness meter, and you can also hold down the L button to scout ahead with a manual targeting reticule, and yet remaining undetected is still a crapshoot. Instead of carefully planning my approach to certain situations, I found it more effective to just run around like a headless chicken (albeit a suave, well-dressed one) and hope for the best. Even if you can arrive safely behind your prey, you'll press B to trigger a silent takedown and end up loudly lashing out with a one-two punch instead, because you were half-a-pixel out of alignment. It's a fault you'll eventually learn to compensate for, but you shouldn't have to.
There's also some temporary confusion in later levels, when Bond infiltrates an underground lair and meets a bunch of scientists wearing both white and blue lab coats. Some will attack you, and killing them is fair game, but others are innocents, and one of your objectives specifically says to prevent excessive innocent casualties. Shoot at the wrong sprite and Q will loudly disapprove, but you've already made the mistake and jeopardised the mission in the process. Some kind of heads-up would've been nice.
And the boss battles are uneven, as well. They throw you in at the deep end, which is a legitimately pulse-pounding design choice, but it can lead to mixed results. The two fights in the finale are fantastic, but an early encounter with the metal-mouthed Jaws (Richard Kiel) is undefined, and never fails to be a fumbled win. You know that feeling, when you beat a bit of gameplay and say to yourself, "Was that really what I was meant to do?" Yeah, we've all been there, haven't we?
But at least everything looks and sounds the part, so you'll never be simultaneously struggling against any technical limitations. The graphics are detailed, distinct and vibrant, and the framerate stays steady throughout (addressing one of the crippling flaws from NightFire's GBA port). I also wholeheartedly adore the inclusion of voice clips from Judi Dench and John Cleese. As much as I previously lamented their admonishment, it's an undeniable pleasure to hear a congratulatory "Good job, Bond!" or a "Nice driving, Double-Oh Seven!" whenever you successfully hit certain milestones. What's perhaps more impressive is that, over the credits, you'll hear a full rendition of the game's original theme song, sung by Mýa (who also pulls double duty by portraying NSA agent Mya Starling in the story). I might be wrong in this assertion, so feel free to fact-check me here, but I think this is the only GBA game to feature music with full, studio-recorded lyrics.
Naturally, me being me, I much prefer the in-game score. Composed by Ian Stocker, it draws from a wide array of instruments (some sampled, others faked convincingly enough) to create a Bondian sound akin to the original GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo64. The soundtrack is not incessant, though; whilst the vast majority of environments have their own unique tunes, some will occasionally have pure SFX backing tracks, like jungle ambience or howling wind. It's a smart decision, making the twanging guitars and techno drumbeats all the more satisfying when they inevitably kick back in.
As was standard at the time, you can unlock a few extra distractions by linking your GBA to a GameCube and playing this cartridge in conjunction with its disc-based brother. Reportedly, you'd dabble in a few minigames in order to win some new maps for the multiplayer mode; a four-player arena deathmatch which requires everybody to have their own copy of the game. I can't speak to the quality of these features first-hand but, with respect, I wouldn't expect any great shakes. The home console version's arena brawling was a sideshow to its main multiplayer attraction, which comprised a wholly original co-op campaign running parallel to Bond's adventure. Sufficed to say, there's nothing so extensive on handheld.
But broadly speaking, and all minor grumbles aside, it's just nice to be nice again... and brief, because that's kind of it. As much as I've always been awestruck by Griptonite's compression of a home console release, it's still constrained within a GBA cartridge and, as such, is more of a gaming snack than a main course. With its multiplayer difficult to access nowadays, and even including the aforementioned replays for the secondary objectives, you're looking at three hours, tops.
Is that another criticism? Absolutely not. Bond is best in short bursts, and the portable format is more suited to twenty minutes here, thirty minutes there, and so forth. It's substantial enough.
And whilst I'd always recommend Everything or Nothing on home console, it isn't essential to being able to comprehend its handheld variant. These smaller incarnations of major Triple-A releases might've been intended to act as shelf-saturating companion pieces, but those wishing to enjoy this as a standalone GBA game should still be able to find the fun.
For a concentrated and refreshing dose of stylish spycraft, you could do far worse.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger So this is the GBA game you were playing! I'll admit, the music you posted sounds pretty good, and would serve well to get the juices flowing.
I'm definitely sharing in that experience of fully completing games I've beaten but never seen all of in the past more recently. Given my recent completionist streak, the way I used to play games feels shockingly haphazard by comparison.
While I play almost no licensed games, I do kind of miss these smaller, bespoke portable versions of games. Even if I find the Switch's ability to play full fat modern home console games away from the TV to be insanely impressive, there's definitely a sacrifice insofar as an entire type of video game has effectively vanished. It's increasingly looking like the 3DS was the swan song for dedicated handhelds as a whole, and, with them, the types of games that would only be made for and released on low-resolution handheld devices.
Those screenshots look amazing, by the way. Did you find them online somewhere?
An impressive piece, as usual. If I ever get around to rebuilding my GBA collection, I'll absolutely keep an eye out for this game, as it sounds like a lot of fun, unnecessary headaches aside.
@Ralizah Well, the beauty of the GBA back-catalogue is in its brevity. Returning to play Everything or Nothing again made for a very pleasant day, but it was still only a day.
Nevertheless, it sparked a realisation that I adore the whole GBA period for gaming (the smaller, simplistic and yet equally ambitious versions of major releases, as you say, and free from the touchpad-touching, microphone-blowing gimmickry of the subsequent DS era) so I've been carrying on with some old favourites and purchasing new additions ever since. I think you're right; I don't think we'll ever see another dedicated handheld console, not if current trends continue. Which is a shame, as I have some fond memories of certain release days, when two totally different games would show up.
I suppose nowadays you'd get a smartphone game instead, and then only for the major brands and licenced games. And that just sucks all the creativity out of a developer, because they'll be forced to chase low-effort, high-income trends and end up making a Candy Crush clone. During my trip back in time, I kept stumbling across things that, by today's standards, would be laughed out of any pitch meeting. Splinter Cell and Driv3r were on GBA, for crying out loud!
And yes, it was Google Image Search to the rescue this time. Suppose I should've acknowledged that somewhere up there, in all fairness. Thanks for reading yet another of my rambles!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger 3DS era will always be tops for me. Portable games were still recognizably portable games (nobody would mistake the 3DS catalogue for something from a home console), but the hardware was still ambitious enough to do impressive things that were simply impossible on older handhelds. And you also had the benefit of a touchscreen device that wasn't beset with gimmicky, because developers had already exhausted their "creativity" during the NDS generation, so the touchscreen was usually only used for stuff that made sense and objectively improved the controls and user interface. Only time I ever blew on my 3DS was either when playing NDS games or when I wanted to see the little icons on the dashboard spin around (very cool easter egg). 3DS was also the first handheld capable of gyro aiming. It was a perfect moment in time before the sun would set on the dedicated handheld game forever (not TECHNICALLY the actual hardware; like with Switch Lite, I expect future Ninty hybrids to continue receiving cheaper, dedicated handheld models).
GBA would definitely be second place for me, though. Lots of really good games on that device. It was also, interestingly, one of the first handhelds that benefitted heavily from ports of previously home console only games. Nowaways, you can play stuff like The Witcher 3 portably, but, back then, being able to play SNES games on a handheld device was pretty awesome and mind-blowing.
Both 3DS and GBA were somewhat lower-selling hardware that didn't have immense libraries like their predecessors, but I feel like this just made room for the high-quality library on this devices to really shine.
I really hope we see a proper GBA virtual console or mini console one day, since its best games can be pretty intimidatingly expensive now.
I'm impressed you found images with such high clarity on google, which is why I asked. With the exception of PS2 games, which I'll sometimes emulate on my PC JUST to get high quality screenshots, I also have to use online screenshots to show off older games, and the quality and sizing of them are usually fairly wonky. The screenshotting tools on modern consoles (especially on Switch, where I can post them straight to twitter) are such a godsend.
If someone told me a couple of years ago that I'd enjoy reading lengthy analyses of ancient James Bond video games, I'd have laughed in their faces. But you do a good job making your reads entertaining. And I even have half a mind to try out some of these games after some of your more glowing pieces!
Although it's a tough choice between whether I enjoy the passionate, effusive joy found in reviews you do of your favorite games over the hilarious schadenfreude experienced when reading a piece you write about a game you really hate.
@Ralizah Yes, your passionate advocation of the 3DS is single-handedly responsible for my infrequent personal doubts about whether I missed anything back there or not. Some quick reminder research usually reinforces my thinking that it wasn't for me, but I suppose that just underlines how big of an impact it had on you, and how convincing your well-written nostalgia can be.
At least a select few of the 3DS's hits have found new life on Switch. Like you say, we're long-overdue the resurrection of the GBA's back-catalogue in some accessible form. Whilst I do love snuggling up with my DS Lite, headphones on, and playing the original cartridges on an actual handheld, my oversized Western hands start to cramp up after an hour. The fidelity of the era's sprite-based artwork would lend itself to a larger screen with a minimal of effort, so it's not like modern audiences would immediately recoil in disgust (providing it was packaged properly).
Oh, I absolutely agree, seeking screenshots via Google is a crapshoot. Depends on what you're looking for, and I'll admit that a lot of licenced games seem to be better-preserved because there's always some value in revisiting them further down the line (like me, writing all these Bond retrospectives because of the Project 007 announcement; there has been a similar uptick in YouTube content creators making similarly-motivated video essays in recent months).
You're too kind. [blushes] And I'll be honest, it might always be nice to be nice, but occasionally it's equally as fun to let loose and stick the knife in, as I'm sure every review-writer knows!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
I loved the GBA, and its type of portable games. Games like that Bond game are a type of game that are practically extinct now, even though I loved those games back as a kid.
(I really disliked the DS and 3DS. Gave them both away after playing a few games on them.)
@mookysam Thanks for reading! Part of me avoided reviewing Everything or Nothing on home console because you've mentioned having it in your backlog, and I didn't wanna go into details that might spoil it for you, or give you any preconceptions. In terms of fully translating its gameplay to the GBA, I'm convinced that this was the best Griptonite could do. My appreciation of them making such an effort far outweighs any minor headaches and, at the end of the day, it's still very playable.
Well, at least the game's short, so when the batteries do die I won't be losing much. I play it so infrequently, I always return for a complete playthrough anyway.
Good to see another GBA fan around these parts! I'm finding some real crackers of late!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Completion Status: All puzzles completed across both games, totaling 8.5 hours of playtime. No achievements for the first game, but I collected all but one of Puzzle Agent 2's achievements (the one I'm missing would've required me to play through the entirely of the second game pretty much perfectly from beginning to end, which I'm not really willing to do)
Professor Lameton
The Puzzle Agent games were developed by a very early career Telltale Games back in 2010 as part of a pilot program exploring alternative types of game design to supplement their episodic licensed adventure game model (as most readers will recall, they hit it big on this front not long after with their Walking Dead series). I'll be talking about this game and its direct sequel, which released a year later, as one entity, because they're really one experience. The gameplay and presentation are identical between the two games, and the mystery from the first game isn't really resolved until the second game.
The plot is, put nicely, absurdist. Nelson Tethers, the character you play as, is a member (the only member, in fact) of the FBI's puzzle research division. A bit of welcome satire is introduced early in this regard, as it's clear almost immediately that Tethers is bored out of his mind and really has nothing to do in this largely pointless pocket of the federal government. His tedium is brought to an end when he receives a field assignment, however: the lone factory that appears to supply the President of the United States with his preferred type of eraser (as in, pencil eraser) has mysteriously shut down production, and isn't responding to communication attempts, so Tethers is put on the case to find out why factory management isn't responsive. Tethers arrives in the strange little town of Scoggins, Minnesota, where the factory is situated, and quickly finds himself ensnared in a bizarre mystery involving a local cult, lost astronauts, strange scientific formulae, missing persons reports, and sightings of so-called "Hidden People." The key mystery seemingly tying all of this together is the inexplicable disappearance of the factory's foreman, Isaac Davner, and finding him becomes something of a fixation for Agent Tethers.
Despite the initial stupidity of the premise, this is still a lot to work with, and it could have been executed well. (Very) early on, there's a pleasant sense of mystery to proceedings: everyone in town is acting squirrely, and Tethers keeps experiencing strange phenomena. Unfortunately, this potential is largely squandered: the plot becomes dumber the more you learn about it, and, especially in the second game, a kitchen sink approach is taken to explaining the mystery. You start out with something manageable, with cover-ups, cults, and possible supernatural phenomena, and by the end of the second game, the plot is some sort of bizarre mess that attempts to tie together aliens, sentient garden gnomes, big foot, government conspiracies, mind control devices, etc. It's like the writers were trying to poke fun at bad conspiracy writing and you end up with something so convoluted and weird that you don't really care about anything that happens because none of it means anything.
Structurally, these games are dead ringers for the long-running Professor Layton series on the Nintendo DS/3DS. In particular, the very first game in that series, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, is called to mind: in both properties, you play an investigator with an aptitude for puzzle solving who is asked to journey out to a strange little town to solve a mystery that everyone seems to be in on, all the while hunting around for hint coins and solving puzzles for the puzzle-obsessed locals, each of which you're scored on depending on how many times it took you to get the answer and/or how many hints you used to solve them. Instead of hint coins, you hunt around for pieces of used chewing gum stuck everywhere, which Nelson Tethers will then disgustingly put in his mouth when he needs a hint because gum helps him to think. The scoring system in the Puzzle Agent games strikes me as a bit odd, though, as, unlike the Layton games, there's nothing really incentivizing skilled play. The grades you earn don't ultimately affect anything. In the Layton series, getting more Picarats (the currency obtained from solving puzzles) would go toward unlocking a variety of extras and bonuses after the game was done. But there's no post-game content here. It's all very barebones, in fact: Puzzle Agent 1 only has 37 puzzles total, with a similar number of puzzles in the second game.
I wouldn't necessarily mind a miniature Professor Layton-esque experience, but the failings of Puzzle Agent 1 & 2 highlight was made that other series special. The Layton games didn't always have amazing plots, but they held together as narrative experiences because of the engaging connection the professor had with his young apprentice, Luke Triton. Later games had large casts of interesting characters. Puzzle Agent has a cast of characters, but they're all utterly forgettable, and the writers didn't really bother to build up a connection between the main character and anyone else in the town. This would have been fine with sufficiently good mystery writing, but, as I established, the plot is ridiculous and not meant to be seriously considered.
What's left then? Well, gameplay, I suppose. Puzzles, primarily, aside from point-and-click adventure game navigation around your environments, which barely even counts as gameplay. The puzzles here actually aren't terrible, but considering how few they are, they're really lacking in variety. There are only a few different types of puzzles, so you'll have a sense of deja vu as you play through the game. The Layton games had similar puzzles as well, but those games had several hundreds of puzzles each, so some level of repetition is expected. With 37 puzzles or so in each Puzzle Agent game, you'd think each one would be unique and well-considered. The game also has an issue with occasionally explaining a puzzle poorly, which might cause the player to have to guess at the rules the first time through if they want to get a sense of what they're supposed to do. Once or twice, it also expected me to know things that I don't think were necessarily reasonable to expect from a logic-based puzzle, such as one that presented a sequence of numbers and challenged me to find the pattern and guess the next number in the sequence. I came to discover that there was no independently discoverable sequence, but that it was, in fact, the number pi, and the game wanted me to input the numbers seven or eight digits in. Now, dear reader, maybe you're a mathematic prodigy that has memorized pi past the first three numbers, but I ended up having to look it up, because I had no other means of answering the question.
With that said, I feel like I'm probably being harsher than I probably should be, because most of the puzzles are fun and well-considered, and these games scratched a very particular itch I've had for years since I finished the Layton series.
The unique visual style in these games is the result of a collaboration between Telltale Games and Canadian cartoonist/animator Graham Annable. Stylistically, it's almost indistinguishable from his work in comics, and while it's not a style I'd normally take to, the offbeat designs of these bug-eyed weirdos meshes well with the generally parodic feel of the games in general. Scoggins feels like a rudimentary send-up of the American Midwestern setting prominently featured in films like Fargo. With that said, the low production quality of the project should be noted: the animation featured in this game is VERY basic, and you won't notice a lot of movement on-screen at any one time.
Sound design-wise, there's next to nothing in the way of music, which is a bit disconcerting, but I did appreciate the fact that these games are fully voice-acted. And the voice acting is decent!
The Puzzle Agent games aren't terrible. The art design is unique, the offbeat style of the humor elicited a few chuckles from me, and the fundamentals of the game design, which feel ripped straight from Professor Layton, are solid enough. Unfortunately, the games don't feel fully developed, are lacking in puzzle variety, feature next to no music, and, in what is ultimately the series' biggest sin, there's no real reason to care about any of the characters, or even the story more broadly, which feels like two subpar, four-hour episodes of Gravity Falls and almost entirely falls apart near the end anyway. With that said, given the emphasis on puzzle-solving and their short length overall, the games don't wear out their welcome, and I can't really say I disliked them. Given how similar and interconnected the two games are, I'm giving them a combined score of 5/10.
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