Previously on Logging the Backlog...
The "Fuser is Being Pulled from Sale" Special
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Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N Roll, Alligators and Cults
Before we get to what I've played over the last month, there have been some updates to the list resulting in more games needing to be played. First, with the new year, I've added any releases from 2022 that I didn't finish to the backlog. Resulting in nine new entries. I also went in and added about 10-15 games from Rare Replay that I previously hadn't added as separate entries, so now all of Rare Replay is either on the backlog or in the finished list. But with that out of the way, we move forward... to last month, I guess.
Games Left
481 470
What I Played
Agony - 1/5 - We begin the sex portion of the list with what has to be the worst game I've ever played. A game so bad that I'm not even sure what genre to put it in. Action? Adeventure? Puzzle? It does all of them so poorly that I just don't even know what it's going for. Whatever it is, I suppose I should say that I didn't finish it. It's set in hell, and I'm pretty sure it only exists to be shocking and scandalous. You walk around hell, which is just full of naked bodies, usually mutilated in some fashion. Sometimes there are monsters there, sometimes you hide from them. Sometimes you possess them to break a wall or something that is impeding your progress. The game looks terrible. It feels even worse to play. It's level design, if you can even call it that, is even worse than that. It mostly just feels like they just threw stuff into the game without any thought, or it was produced by the worst procedural generation of all time. I'm pretty sure the only thought that went into making this game was put into the naked demon lady's bare ass, who I think is the villain of the game. I have no idea what the story of this game was. I should also mention that I played this thing on Xbox One. Apparently, there's a version on PC that has some really, truly abhorrent shit in it that was cut from the console versions. How this game even made it onto consoles is a mystery to me.
Senran Kagura: Peach Ball - 2/5 - As we continue the sex section, for those unfamiliar with the Senran Kagura series, think Dynasty Warriors, but with ninja girls whose clothes come off when they take damage. The series has also branched out into different genres with spin-offs, this being one of those, and this time it's a pinball game. I'm no expert when it comes to pinball, but this seems like a bad pinball game. The premise is that the Senran Kagura girls have been turned into animal girls, and naturally, the only way to turn them back is to shrink them down into a pinball machine and pelt them with balls (I don't know. Maybe this game belongs in the drug section). There are two different tables in the game, each with three different variations. As far as I could tell, there's absolutely no difference between the variations. They might have different lighting, but that's all I noticed. The tables are almost entirely empty to make room for the scantily clad cg game model that sits at the top of the table for you to pelt with balls. Both tables are almost identical as well. They both have a basic ramp that goes behind the girl. One table has a secondary ramp that shoots the ball into some bumpers, and the other table doesn't have a secondary ramp at all, it just gets some bumpers next to the ramp it already has. The tables have a meter sectioned into three parts that fill up as you complete score goals or defeat enemies that'll spawn on the table. Once the meter is full you knock the ball into the girl and you get sucked into a "sexy challenge" minigame that involves knocking balls into something that'll strip the girl, none of which are even the least bit sexy. Once you do this three times, you whack the girls' ass or breasts with the flippers, and they're returned to normal, by which I mean naked, or as naked as you're allowed to get on Switch.
Judgement - 3/5 - On to drugs! Prescription drugs in this instance. I think the main plot is probably the most entertaining aspect of this Yakuza spin-off. You play as lawyer turned detective, Yagami, as he unravels a murder mystery tied up in the creation of a miracle drug that is to be the cure for Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, I think it's one of the weaker entries in terms of its side content, which can really make or break standout games in the franchise. I also don't think it brings much to the table in terms of gameplay. None of the detective mechanics are all that engaging, and the combat is just in line with the beat 'em standards of the franchise. Anything it does add is mostly a nuisance, like certain attacks you take doing permeant damage to your health bar until you pay a fairly expensive price to recover it, or the enemy encounter rate being increase at random times in the game.
Everything - 3/5 - This is a game I'd probably like better if I smoked drugs. Without drugs, it's just kind of a whacky little interactive screensaver type thing that you poke around at to see what happens. It even has a mode where the game will just play itself. The game's primary mechanic consists of taking control of any object in the game. You progress by taking control of either increasingly larger things or increasing smaller things. You can be a camel, talk to a bunch of other camels, have the camels dance in a circle, which makes more camels, then shrink down into a flower and do it again.
GNOG - 3/5 - Very much in the same sort of "poke at things while on drugs and see what happens", except this one might be better on acid. Or worse depending. It's more of a traditional puzzle game, so maybe it's not the best thing to do while high. There were some puzzles I solved that I didn't even understand how they worked while I was solving them. The game features a handful of puzzle boxes for you to solve, usually by rotating the box, looking for switches to flip or levers to pull that effect some other part of the box. It's all very colorful and whimsical compared to other puzzle box stuff which is usually either very dry or very murder-y.
Guitar Hero Live - 3/5 - And now we rock. Sort of. Unfortunately, what I felt was the neatest part of Guitar Hero Live, is no longer accessible. That being its online mode that set up a live "MTV-esque" 24/7 music video channel for you to play along to. Without it, I think its offline mode is pretty sparse. Both in terms of genres of music or bands I'd like to play personally, and even the selection of songs from artists I would play don't seem to be the ones you would want. The FMV videos playing in the background are a goofy idea, but when you're playing a song, you're only catching glimpses of what's going on there because you're trying to watch the note highway. I go back and forth on the decision to change up the buttons on the control. On one hand I think it's neat that the buttons more accurately reflect the motions your hands would make playing a real guitar. On the other hand, I have stupid fingers and bringing the struggle I have to play real guitar to a video game isn't always fun.
Rare Replay - I continue to make my way through Rare's catalogue, chronologically, and have hit the point where we start to get into 3D video games.
Solar Jetman - 3/5 - Probably my favorite game in Rare Replay so far. It's like if Asteriods was a more fleshed out game. Each level tasks you with collecting fuel for your spacecraft to launch off of the current planet as well as collecting the part of a warship on each level. Every planet has its own unique gravity that you have to contest with and enemy types to fight as you navigate the level, with upgrades to your ship's boosters or combat abilities to help exploration.
R.C. Pro-Am II - 3/5 - While I wasn't big on R.C. Pro-Am and the top-down view making it impossible to see the track in front of you, I did enjoy this sequel slightly more. I don't think track visibility was any better here, but I did find the upgrade system they added to the game interesting. Also, I just think I like the look of it better.
Battletoads (Arcade) - 2/5 - I'm going to be honest here, I have already forgotten everything about this game in between the time I finished Battletoads and the time I'm writing this. So, I'll just say this, Battletoads sucks. Every version of it sucks. Despite the fact that I remember absolutely nothing from it, I say confidently that this is the best Battletoads game.
Killer Instinct Gold - 2/5 - I hate how this game looks. I'm normally a weirdo that kind of likes the look of early 3D graphics in games. But I hate looking at this thing. So much so that I could not be bothered to learn how to actually play KI. I made it to the final boss of the arcade mode, who apparently needs to be knocked off the stage to actually finish the fight after depleting all its health, couldn't be bothered to figure out how to do it, and ended my time with Killer Instinct Gold.
Blast Corps - 2/5 - Blast Corps is a good premise for a game. Drive construction vehicles threw buildings and break stuff. And it's fun enough in its first few levels. However, it becomes exceedingly more annoying and frustrating as you get into the harder levels, where the game's physiques and somewhat squirrely driving mechanics aren't quite up to do what is needed to be done, in the time it needs to be done.
100ft Robot Golf - 3/5 - A goofy little golf game that lives up to its name. Its big robots golfing. I don't know that the giant robot part adds much to the game. They're kind of just there to blow up obstacles in your way, which you can always just golf around anyway. It's got a silly story mode that parodies bad fan dubbed anime, which I don't think it necessarily nails the vibes of, but it all looks very nice, and it's got a fun voice cast that seems to be having fun with it including the likes of Mica Burton, the McElroys, Eric Pope, Brad Muir, and someone named... *checks notes* VoidBurger... in the credits.
Cook, Service, Delicious! - 3/5 - A very frantic time managing a restaurant. Just one of those games that is pure gameplay loop, that I can enjoy losing an hour of time too without even realizing it, even if I did tend to come out with a headache at the end of an hour more often than not.
Japanese School Life - 2/5 - A visual novel about a high school student named Brian who moves to Japan for a year and befriends two of his female classmates. I found the main character to be completely insufferable. He's just the biggest dorkiest weeb, who is constantly amazed by the most trivial of things that the two girls explain to him, purely because it's something in Japan. I don't know if this was done intentionally by the developers or not, but they nailed this character's cringeiness 100%. And yes, I realize the irony in all this, as I myself am a guy on the internet, named Brian, who has an anime avatar.
Punch-Out!! (NES) - 2/5 - I'm a 30-year-old man. I don't have the reflexes to play Punch-Out!! anymore, and I don't have the time or interest to put into memorizing every single fight pattern anymore. In a similar manner to Blast Corps, I think there's fun to be had in the early game, but none to be had in the later game, where simply blinking can ruin a fight at times. Some of the racial undertones, or overtones, don't really help it either.
Super Punch-Out!! - 2/5 - Slightly easier in some spots. Slightly harder in others. I think Super eases up on the hyper fast twitch reflexes is some spots but is made harder by having reads that are slightly less discernable as compared to the simple art and animations of the NES game. It also doesn't help that your character is visible in the foreground, covering much more of the opponent than the NES game. Racial undertones also slightly better in some spots, worse in others.
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures - 2/5 - As ridiculous as it may seem, I think this was the first video game I ever saw. I played it at neighbor's house before I had any video games of my own, and apparently that neighbor's parents then convinced my parents to pick up a Genesis at a yard sale. So, thanks Pac-Man 2. You know how point and click adventures of the era could be obtuse and confusing? Well, what if you didn't have control over your character? Because you don't. Pac-man just walks constantly. He never stops. If he comes across an object, he'll interact with it, even if you don't want him to. You can tell him to walk the other way, and you are equipped with a slingshot you can shoot to try and knock some items away to avoid unwanted interactions. But this game just makes Pac-Man come off as a giant asshole. Not just because he's a pain in the ass to control, but he's also just constantly screwing with people. Kicking their stuff, popping balloons. You're a father now Pac-Man. Grow up.
The Shrouded Isle - 4/5 - While the game itself is fairly simple, I just really dig the vibes of this one. You're in charge of managing a town cult. The cult has five houses comprised of different family members that each have unique traits. You're essentially tasked with two meters to manage. The happiness of your cult god and the happiness of each family in the cult. At the end of each season, you are required to sacrifice a family member to please the god, but angers whatever family they belong to. The strategy becomes find out which family member has the most undesirable trait that's negatively effecting your god's happiness the most and sending them off to be sacrificed. All of this is easier said than done. I played a few runs, and only made it about halfway through the game. But that's less important to me. I just think the art in this game is rad.
Later Alligator - 4/5 - Another game where the art is rad. It's a cute and silly world of alligator people, with just really fantastic, old school cartoon animation vibes. The game itself is a point and click adventure, where you play as a detective trying to find information for a client that thinks someone is out to get them. You go around the city and interrogate people are usually only willing to hand out information if you do a favor for them in the form of some sort of wacky minigame. Something like exercising a haunted phone or playing a visual novel dating sim parody.
EDIT: Forgot to add Solar Jetman to the list. The website I use track what I've finished seems to get kind of wonky displaying stuff in the proper place. I'll have to remember to double check stuff in the future.
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Logging The Backlog: February 2023
Ranking the Log
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