@Ralizah All done! Methinks I've got everything (including the missing letters) but if you notice anything amiss, or want me to make any changes, please do let me know. Hope this helps!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Ralizah No worries! It was nothing compared to everything you've done thusfar, creating and maintaining the database and this topic to begin with. Besides, it's kinda my fault that the second half of the alphabet is so overloaded, thanks to my obsessions with Sonic, Star Trek, Star Wars and Tomb Raider, so taking responsibility for keeping my own mess tidy is the least I can do.
I tried to match your formatting as best as possible, but I tend to type on autopilot, so I apologise if I've created any extra work for you in that regard. Please do let me know if I need to change anything!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RR529 A little late to the party, but I'm a little concerned that you weren't able to get Stray running at a stable 60 fps on a (albeit mobile) RTX3070.
Presumably this at 1080p?
Did you experiment at all with the settings, or with a lower resolution?
I also use a gaming laptop, but with an RTX2080 Max-Q. Having accepted that it's nowhere near as powerful as my PS5, I regardless expect it to give me a solid 60 fps 1080p for the next couple of years of games, and it is my preferred platform over the PS5 despite the power difference. However if I can't achieve 60fps I suppose I'll go with the PS5 version.
A lot of people complained about not being able to hit 60fps on Elden Ring as well on their fancy 3060s, but my ancient 970 maintained 50+ fps through the majority of the game at 1080p on high settings.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (Impressions after 4 hours)
It’s about time I talked about Crash Bandicoot 4. I have wanted to play this game since its release in September 2020. So, when it launched as a part of PS Plus Essential’s monthly games for July 2022, I jumped at the opportunity to try it out.
“Only if this f*cking camera!”
This was my first time playing a Crash Bandicoot game and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I knew the games were renowned for their difficulty — less to do with figuring out the way forward and more to do with landing precise jumps — but not much else. I figured that since I had played and beat Celeste, maybe Crash 4 wouldn’t be so much of a challenge. Boy was I wrong.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is not an easy game. At first glance, the jumps look simple enough to make. Enemies and hazardous objects are clearly visible, leaving it up to the player’s skill to decide whether they can move forward or not. Simple enough right?
Well for veterans of the series it might be, but for someone like me who has never played a Crash Bandicoot game — or any hardcore 3D platformer for that matter — there was one obnoxious obstacle to overcome. The camera.
3D platforming just doesn’t come so easily. Depth is a big issue here, and on many occasions, I was unable to tell how far into the environment I was jumping. Another stumbling block of the behind-the-back is the player’s ability to judge speed. Since Crash is moving “into the screen”, it is hard to tell how fast he is moving. This can lead to the player overshooting or undershooting their target, without being able to do anything about it.
At first, I revelled in this newfound challenge. It was annoying for sure, especially given that I had to restart from the previous checkpoint — and not from the beginning of the room like in Celeste (a game that you will see me referencing many times despite their vast differences). But I found myself persevering, again and again, to clear the single jump that was holding me back.
Unfortunately, for me at least, as I progressed further into the game, my gripes with the camera and my inability to adjust to its unique characteristics meant with each death I was becoming more frustrated with the game. While previously I followed each death by slamming the side of my first into my desk, I now found myself simply saving the game, and playing something instead.
Crash 4’s camera just went from a mildly infuriating nuisance to a serious put-off.
When it works, it works.
I know I just rambled about the annoying camera, but let me go ahead and contradict some of that. When Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time works, then oh boy does it work. Some levels can be played swiftly and fluidly. Spinning into a clump of crates transitions fluidly into a jump over a pool of water. It’s in these moments that Crash 4 shines. The game manages to keep hold of its difficulty and challenge without the camera inhibiting the player from fairly attempting these jumps.
Crash 4’s camera is also not a hindrance during the game’s side-scrolling sections. While these usually consist of simple enough jumps, they are spiced up with level-specific features like vines to swing on and fires to slide under. They may not be as challenging as the normal sections, but they provide a nice change of pace from Crash 4’s more frustrating moments.
I enjoyed the boat driving sections in this game. Crash moves much faster here, and while both interactivity and challenge take a nose dive in these parts, just like the side-scrolling sections, they serve as an oddly serene and slow moment that at times is much appreciated in a game like this.
My first exposure to Crash Bandicoot in the form of actually playing it and not watching a video was in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, where Nate challenges Elena saying he can beat her high score. You got to play a level of the original Crash Bandicoot game from 1996, and it was one where you were running towards the camera and seemingly out of the screen — a chase sequence if you will.
And while I don’t have any strong memories about that experience, it was forgetful if you will, that is certainly not the case with Crash 4’s very own chase sequences. These sequences require quick reactions and split-second decision-making, much like some of Celeste’s later levels where you don’t know what jump or obstacle is coming up next.
Crash 4 throws almost everything in the book at you here, all the while ensuring Crash moves at a rapid pace. These sequences were one of the most enjoyable and memorable parts of the game, and I wish they took place more often.
Visually stunning environments.
The environments that play host to Crash Bandicoot 4’s levels are simply beautiful. I reached the game’s 4th main level, Tranquility Falls, and I have to say every single level before and this one included has some of the most jaw-dropping environments of any game I have had the honour to play.
Each island is visually distinct and has a charm of its own, from the tropical forests and sandy beaches of N.Sanity Island to the loud mechanical mines of The Hazardous Wastes. But my personal favourite was the pirate-themed Salty Wharf.
Just take a gander yourself:
Isn’t it a sight to behold? The use of colour makes everything POP! out of the background, with the precise path laid out between wonky shapes and crazy designs bringing order to the seeming chaos. Everything just seems so random but works so well in practice.
The Salty Wharf introduces you to this village area by bringing you out of the starting cave on a grind rail that dips and flows through the crests and troughs between rock and house. With nothing but water underneath you, Crash 4 forces you to pay attention and keep your fingers on the buttons, making every glimpse you get of this awe-inspiring sight more worth it than the last. And, if you kept on dying like me, you get to do it all over again.
A twist on boss battles.
Just like every game in existence, Crash 4 features boss battles. Celeste was a game where I did not want there to be boss battles, and the ones that were there certainly weren’t my favourite parts of the game. I felt adding boss battles to a platformer took away from the game’s real appeal — the platforming.
But, in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, I goddamn loved the boss battles. At least the two which I played — Dr N. Gin at the end of The Hazardous Wastes island and Louise at the end of the Salty Wharf island. Both were fun because they were more about the platforming aspects of the game than about actually fighting the boss.
My favourite of the two? The Dr N. Gin fight.
This boss battle sees you having to jump, slide, and spin your way through three different waves of enemies, running forward and spinning into the boss after each wave was outlasted. This was fun because you were partaking in fast and fluid platforming, not boring combat in the move-hit-move-hit form.
And just like all other levels in the game, the stage for this elaborate dance was exquisitely crafted and stunning to look at. I seriously cannot understate the creativity and passion the designers at Toys For Bob put into the creation of this game's tens of levels and enemies. They are some of the most visually diverse and interesting I have ever seen.
Odd choice of progression.
Before we wrap up, let me quickly talk about the game’s progression system. Or should I say its lack of one? Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. Crash Bandicoot 4 has a progression system. It’s just that it’s insanely difficult to move through it.
Crash 4’s progression system comes in the form of new skins for Crash and Coco. These can be unlocked by, wait for it, collecting all 6 gems in each level. But it’s not so straightforward because to earn each gem you have to complete each of these challenges. Gameranx has them listed out for us:
20% Wumpa Fruit Collected
40% Wumpa Fruit Collected
80% Wumpa Fruit Collected
100% Crates Smashed
Die No More Than 3 Times
Find Hidden Gem
That means to unlock a new skin for Crash or Coco, you have to play through the level as them and basically 100% every aspect of it while finding the hidden gem and not dying more than 3 times. For someone playing the game for the first time, this is a steep hill to climb, and one that most players won’t be willing to do.
This meant that 4 levels or 4 hours into the game, I was still playing as Crash and Coco with their default skins. To some extent, I understand why Toys For Bob did this. It rewards the most skilled and dedicated players for thoroughly beating each level. But the vast majority of people who either don’t want to or are unable to pull this off, are left with no form of progression regardless of how far into the game they are.
. . .
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time seems like great fun. The platforming is fluid, the environments are gorgeous, and the levels engaging. But the iconic marsupial’s latest outing is not without its flaws. A frustrating camera, some steep difficulty curves, and an almost non-existent progression system prevented it from really clicking with me.
I have my gripes with Crash Bandicoot 4, and while I enjoyed most of my arguably limited time with it, it wasn’t enough to stop me from putting down my controller and not returning to it for weeks.
For now, the game is behind me. But I look forward to a point in future when I realise it’s about time I returned to Crash Bandicoot 4.
@DominusPlatypus good review . i wouldn’t recommend the old crash games either to anyone who’s easily frustrated . i beat the n sane trilogy and never wanted to play it again
crash may be having a sonic situation where his games just fit better in the past but i could be wrong
@DominusPlatypus Nice write-up! The camera angle adopted in these games has always seemed like the worst possible one for a 3D platformer, so it's nice to see that frustration echoed in your experience with the game. There are so many aspects of the series I know I'd have to rip apart if I ever actually seriously sat down a completed one of these games.
The progression system does sound extremely weird. I have heard that this game has nightmarish platinum trophy requirements, but I'm surprised to hear that even just the act of playing through the game normally is tedious.
It IS very pretty, though! Games like this and the new Ratchet and Clank titles make me wish Sony and Microsoft would double down on using the grunt of the next-gen hardware to create more truly stunning 3D platformers, as, IMO, stylized art-styles benefit dramatically from the jump in tech when effort is put in to make them look nice.
Finally finished Guardians of the Galaxy today! Won't post a proper review for a bit because writing takes time but right now all i'm gonna say is that it was an utter delight from start to finish. It was emotional, funny, charming and most of all, fun. It utilised odd, cool and obscure marvel comics characters like Fin Fang Foom, Lady Hellbender, Adam Warlock, Ruby Thursday and Cosmo the Space Dog really well and made them feel like characters instead of cameos to check off a box. The writing was tight and the action was fun but the boss fights sucked. Other than that, amazing game!
Didn't think I'd complete this game anytime soon considering I started it up months ago, decided to restart it halfway through by playing the vastly better remastered version and then lost interest since I didn't feel like playing the same missions over again. But I've finally finished Grand Theft Auto: Vice City! I'm really glad that I dropped the original Xbox version which ran poorly and started playing the Series X version which is so much better. I didn't like Vice City that much originally but due to this better version, I actually enjoyed it a lot.
So what did I think about the game? Well for starters, I think it's overall better than GTA 3 in a lot of ways. The story missions were more fun and varied, not to mention less frustrating than GTA 3's. Having a checkpoint system in the Series X version also made the missions less frustrating in general. Moreover, the 80s setting of Miami is absolutely lovely and listening to a soundtrack full of classic tunes was a delight.
What I didn't like about the game is the properties. The fact that you have to buy six properties and finish each one's missions in order to unlock the final story mission was very annoying. I basically had to grind for money after every couple of missions, which bogged down the experience severely. Not to mention that you could potentially miss out on some very cool missions if you don't purchase certain properties. I had to use a guide for the last half of the game in order to find out which properties had these missions. Otherwise I would've just skipped over a few and missed out on several missions.
Granted, it did feel nice to have so much freedom to choose which missions I wanted to do next instead of having to do all of them in a certain order. But I can't help but feel that you could miss out on so much content because of the way the second half of the game is structured.
One thing I want to mention though is that I feel like Vice City is rather overrated. It is a good GTA game but it's nothing more than a reskin of GTA 3. It doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from that game. It's not like the jump from San Andreas to GTA IV, or GTA IV to GTA V. The story wasn't all that captivating either and the missions felt like your bog-standard GTA missions. And because of property missions, half of the story missions felt disjointed. Even the world felt smaller than the one in GTA 3. Simply put, the game didn't blow me away as I expected it to do when going into it.
So all in all, I enjoyed Vice City a lot and I like it more than GTA 3. But to me it's an overrated game as it doesn't do anything special. An 80s setting isn't enough to differentiate a game that shares so many similarities to its predecessor. To sum it up: it's basically more of the same, but better. And that's honestly good enough for me as I love GTA.
I feel like one reason Vice City caught on so much is that Rockstar injected it with a sense of personality that was just missing from GTA 3. Same with San Andreas, actually, although that was also different in a number of ways from its predecessors. Both sequels had much funnier dialogue, more interesting characters, and made better use of color than GTA 3, which felt very... drab, IMO.
And yeah. the 80s theme was popular. Granted, you see a ton of nostalgia for 80s American culture now, but back when this came out, there wasn't necessarily this deluge of such content.
@Ralizah I wouldn’t say that GTA 3 was missing personality per se, it just wasn’t as in your face. The humour’s a bit darker, like the Kyle McLachlan missions where it slowly insinuates he’s a cannibal. There’s still plenty personality, it just takes a different form, which is mostly Mafia caricatures and that also applies to the dull colours and abundance of skyscrapers in a clear effort to reflect the style of those movies around that time. It still has some of the goofy stuff obviously like basically everything Maria gets up to or the radio talk shows though.
@LtSarge There is a very good reason why Vice City feels like a reskin of the third game, as it was only released in 2002, the year after. Development starting just as 3 was finished in late 2001.
Personally, I think it is an outstanding achievement all things considered! I am a bit biased towards towards the games though, as I can remember being totally blown away by them at the time.
Thanks for the review! I do plan in eventually getting round to the remasters eventually as I hear that most of the bugs and glitches have been fixed by now.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
I have to agree with @nessisonett, the personality was certainly there in GTA 3 but it just wasn't as explicit. It didn't help either that the world of GTA 3 wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as Vice City. Although Tommy Vercetti is a much more interesting protagonist than the one from GTA 3 (obviously).
@JohnnyShoulder Yeah that's what I thought and I don't mind that. I think Vice City helped popularise the franchise even more after GTA 3, which is great. I would've probably liked the game even more if I had grown up with it, but alas I missed out on that time.
Your welcome! That's actually one thing I didn't mention in my post but considering I didn't mention it, you could probably figure out that I wasn't bothered enough by bugs/glitches to bring it up. Which is true! I only experienced some visual bugs here and there but nothing that impacted the gameplay. So I think it's safe to say that Vice City works great now, at least on current-gen systems.
I once wrote a letter to a gaming magazine criticising GTA: Vice City for a number of reasons. They edited it out of context to make me sound like an absolute lunatic and then published it in their "rage corner", so I guess it's a good thing that I signed it with a pseudonym.
@LtSarge Regardless of the game in question, it's always good to go back and give something a second shot, especially when you end up enjoying it more than you'd done so previously!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
2001. Officially The Future™. While there unfortunately was no actual space odyssey in that year, we did get to see the first movies in the Harry Potter, Fast & Furious, and Lord of the Rings franchises. The year also gave us Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me (yes it was Shaggy, you cad). More than anything, 2001 delivered crimes against humanity such as 9/11, The War on Terror and DJ Ötzi’s Hey Baby.
FIFA 2002 smacks you over the face with Noughties nostalgia as soon as it boots, with Gorillaz’ 19-2000 accompanying a seizure-inducing cacophony of footballing scenes. This culminates in a strange slow-mo pan around Thierry Henry, the cover star. The menu’s a rather drab affair in comparison, with barely any fluff. You’ve got season mode, kick-off, and various cups, all set to generic techno. No EA Trax here, folks!
Gameplay is a lot better than FIFA 2001 although still a bit odd. The best change is obviously the inclusion of a power bar, although it has basically three modes depending on where in the bar it lands – tickling the ball with your toes, a regular shot, or blasting the ball at 400MPH into the stratosphere. The power bar is also used for passes, which are completely manual and allow for creativity such as long through balls. Deadball situations are mostly unchanged from FIFA 2001 however. The bicycle kick exploit is also patched out, meaning no records are being broken by Larsson this season!
On the defence front, tackling is either ‘bash them off the ball’ or ‘send them to the mortuary’. As was customary in these early titles, you can also absolutely annihilate goalkeepers for no reason other than watching the red card cutscene. To be honest, you’ll spend most of your time mashing Triangle to sprint after the ball, with the occasional Circle to boot the other player in the shins. With the basics covered, let’s see how Celtic’s 2001/02 season went.
In real life, Martin O’Neill’s Celtic squad were coming off a treble-winning season, just like we achieved in FIFA 2001. During the summer, they did lose players like Berkovic to Man City, and Alan Stubbs to Everton, but they also had a brilliant crop of players coming in. Steve Guppy rejoined O’Neill for about the millionth time like a budget stalker, fan favourite big ol’ bloke Bobo Balde arrived from Toulouse and John Hartson, everybody’s least favourite pundit, signed for £6 million. So with this new squad, did results go our way? Well, to start with… no.
While it’s easy to blame my lack of skills and attempting to get to grips with the new systems for the 6-3 defeat to Rangers in the first Old Firm of the season, I blamed my defence and goalkeeper like a good manager does. Something had to change other than taking a rusty machete to 5-goal scoring Claudio Caniggia’s knees. It was time to explore the transfer market.
As I quickly learned, the market is not sophisticated. At all. Like a dodgy pawnbroker, if you have the money then you can buy anything you want. No such thing as club reputation or player loyalty. So Celtic were now the proud owners of Oliver Kahn in goals and Roberto Carlos in defence/on free kicks. The results quickly came pouring in, aided in no small part by the giant German wall between the posts. Larsson (42 goals) and Sutton (36 goals) proved just as lethal at the other end, along with a surprisingly prolific Neil Lennon (22 goals), complete with bleached blonde hair that was scrubbed from my memory.
This stellar form meant Celtic overtook Rangers in the league in March, along with knocking them out of the cup in the semi-finals. The Scottish Cup final against Hibs (shortened to Hiber annoyingly) was a tense affair, with the score being 2-2 going into extra time. Stilyan Petrov secured the trophy for the second year in a row with a screamer that… ended the match. Apparently Golden Goal was still a thing in 2001. With the league and cup secured, all that remained was the Champions League. Unfortunately, the season ended in tragedy with a semi-final against Juventus decided on away goals. 2-2 away and 3-3 at home ensured Celtic went home empty-handed. David Trezeguet scored all 5 goals for Juventus, meaning he is now on my kill list. Heartbreaking.
All in all, it was a successful season for Celtic, having won the league and Scottish Cup despite early jitters. Martin O’Neill’s job is safe for now. The game is honestly pretty decent as well, with the manual passing adding an element of user skill missing from other similar games. We’ll just have to wait and see how Celtic fare in the next season. First, however… there was another game released that summer by EA. Looks like Scotland are going to World Cup 2002!
I think I'd have switched the game off the instant it showed me Thierry Henry in bullet time, so props for sticking with it, and congratulations on engineering an impressive comeback for Celtic! Bad luck with the Champion's League, though. In terms of gameplay, your description of the new power bar reminds me of that old "you have selected Power Drive" chestnut but in all seriousness, it's great when sports games (particularly older ones) give you any degree of freedom over your actions, as I seem to recall the handful I've played being quite restrained, in the name of "realism".
Enjoyable, often hilarious review, just as before! Thanks for sharing, and onward to the World Cup!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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