ArbitraryWater

My most recent stream was a handful of PS2-era licensed games and the answer is "yes absolutely they were almost always that bad."

The consistency at which Sony fucks up its back compat stuff even when it makes the slightest of efforts is impressive.

I mean... it's gonna launch on Game Pass. That makes any concerns I have about the game entirely nil because I'll just play it for "Like a dollar" when I re-up my subscription in like November

Of the three games, I think Call of Pripyat seems like the most accessible by a pretty serious margin, even in its vanilla form. For one, you start with an AK-74u, which you may recognize as "A compact assault rifle capable of killing things" and not "a limp, inaccurate nerf gun." That said, oh god when that comes up for this feature I hope you're ready for a dissertation on what it's like to peek one's head into a modding scene that has been incredibly active for more than a decade and often in a language I don't speak.

That also said, STALKER 2 is ostensibly still coming out this year despite... you know, the part where most of the developers are (were?) located in a country currently being invaded. If it does end up being a real product, I'm interested to see how they try to make it more approachable, if at all.

I own a RetroTink 5x and if you like throwing money in a hole and having original hardware look good on a HDTV that is a good way to do it.

I do wonder how enthusiastic I'd be about trying to get all the Jiggies in Banjo-Tooie. As you said, a lot of that game is just *finding* how to get them, and some of that stuff is involved in a way that's downright impressive for a N64 game. The flipside of that is you can spend a lot of time in earlier levels running into stuff you have no way of solving, which definitely makes it less of a "gratification per minute" deal compared to its predecessor. Some of those later levels especially make you work for that stuff.

I remember finding Bomberman 64 more-or-less indecipherable as a kid, though this is one of those things where an instruction manual probably would've helped.

anyway, our most recent podcast foray into the Nintendo 64 Hole, covering the three RPGs of note for the system not named "Paper Mario" or "Ogre Battle 64" has thrown me into an existential despair regarding the idea that maybe most of the games for this system were bad, actually. Please look forward to Off the Deep End's new worst game: Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

Here's the thing, Heretic is mostly fine, as someone who goofed around with Heretic last year. It's a lesser Doom with wizard weapons, but it's mostly solid. Hexen, on the other hand... for all of Raven's technical wizardry and design chops even that early, Hexen is a game that somehow hangs its entire hat around finding eight hidden switches of gobbeldygoo to progress, which is a nightmare hellscape and 100% dubious. Hexen 2 is a little better on that front (mostly because it's more limited by the constraints and benefits of the Quake engine) and here's hoping one of the weird outcomes of Microsoft buying Activision is we finally, finally get a digital re-release of Heretic 2.

Sherlock Holmes though... that's likely gonna get a write up. I straight up bought the other two recent Frogwares Sherlock games because of how strong an impression Crimes and Punishments gives, even if it sounds like they don't quite reach the same level.

Excuse me that's the art of the 3DO Interactive Multi-Player.

I'm glad this wheel, at the very least, didn't end in anticlimax the same way the last RPG one did. While maybe not the weirdest games I played for this feature, they're definitely up there. Dear lord Witchaven is such a janky thing it almost feels wrong to play it using a modern source port.

Thank you to Mrs. Unbeatable for your important contribution to the tier list of farming games.

Having witnessed this game first hand, it's probably best to emphasize how much of a weird fever dream this game is between the obtuse puzzles and janky production values. Remember the metal face that had a black goo tentacle monster? Remember the *incredibly racist* portrayals of Inuit and Maori people as weird superstitious ooga booga tribesmen? It's a lot, and it's why I still think there's more to offer with this game than there is with the likes of um, Drowned God.