2001

Welcome to the fully formed 5th generation of consoles. Like always the motto is out with the old and in with the new. At this point we see the end of Sega’s attempt at sustaining their console and welcome Microsoft into our industry with the Xbox. Nintendo continues their portable dominance and introduces the Gamecube with mixed results. Sony just loves being on top so they don’t do much of anything at this point Since I have 3 more paragraphs about each new device this year I’ll save my comments about the games for my conclusion paragraph this time.

Game Boy Advance

A Super Nintendo in my pocket? No way I couldn’t buy it day one. Looking at it now the GBA’s lack of backlit screen makes it hard to play certain games. Any games that have small enemies made it tough for me to see them especially if they blend in with the background. So other than this first year I’ll mostly be using my Gamecube GBA player to play the rest of my collection. Getting to play a lot of remixed NES/SNES games on the go was half of the appeal of this device. Which is why you’ll be seeing almost every Super Mario release Nintendo put out along with other port jobs done by other developers. Even with a heavy focus on reboots this device had plenty of new franchises to fill out its library like Advance Wars.

Xbox

Like the PS2 before it you won’t be seeing any games on this list. More so than you might expect with only 4 games in my collection. I got rid of most of them other than a few I really liked after my Xbox started having disc read issues. Most of my playtime with the Xbox was with the variety of games that I rented compared to the ones that I bought anyway. Hard to not bring up the Duke controler. I never had any issues with it yet it is quite large and if you have small hands it would be quite annoying to play something with it. On the other side I never quite understood why they added a white and black button. All they did was put them in a position that was awkward to hit while playing a game. Yet overall this had more power and even a hard drive that would mirror the direction the industry was going in. Even if the users weren’t quite ready for online this device still managed to maintain 2nd place position in the market sales wise.

Gamecube

Nintendo continues to do what they do best by once again by trying something different. They couldn’t just use DVD’s no instead they went with a mini dvd format. This format does have its advantages like having quicker load times but it also has less storage space leading to some games like Resident Evil being spread out between 2 discs. Didn’t really effect me much since the Gamecube still had plenty of good games that I enjoyed playing. I even liked the controller since it doesn’t seem that different compared to the rest other than a minor change in where the buttons were placed. Although the dpad is really to small. Plus how can you hate a console that has a handle? I actually got some use out of that fact when we went on trips the GCN was the console I always went with since it is more portable than the rest.

Some of the best post Goldeneye James Bond games aren’t based on movies at all. Agent Under Fire is one of those games. This is still a linear experience but it makes up for that by having multiple types of missions. The main focus is still running around a level doing spy stuff. Also known as blowing everyone away with gunfire while occasionally using a gadget to unlock a new area. I do like the 007 moments where the James Bond sting happens right after doing something cool like blowing up a gas station or using a gadget. A few turret mission’s are scattered throughout this adventure along with some car based ones as well. Plenty of variety and a unique story makes this game pretty good.

I think I’ve reached my limit of playing overtly bad games. For a game that came out a year after the console releases this one somehow ended up being a worst game. The limits of Game Boy means this is a top down game instead of a FPS so other than the narrative this is an entirely new game. Once again Bond must reclaim Sir Robert King's money. Since the GBC can only really tell a story via text it takes a back seat to shooting dudes. Too bad the combat took the brunt of the perspective shift. Now instead of fast paced shootouts each enemy takes 3 hits and you have to wait a few seconds before they are vulnerable again. If I felt like attempting the first stage again it might have been a good idea to just run past all the enemies. Slowly taking them down burned any interest in seeing any other level.

Advance Wars is set in an age of war between 4 nations. As a Orange Star advisor it is up to you to wisely control units on a battlefield to secure victory. Commanding Officers like Andy will asset you with CO powers like being able to heal units. They also have different stats like having better tanks while also having disadvantages like less attack range. Overall this game expects you to place your units correctly and if you don’t your enemy will easily take advantage of your mistake. A fun series that I kept up with till they stopped making them for some reason.

Armored Core 2: Another Age just throws the player into the action like they’ve been a Raven pilot for a while now. Which makes me think this might pick up right after AC2 but I’ve never played it so I don’t know. Being a mercenary that is only loyal to money does have a few amusing moments in this game. Early on Zio corp has the player defend their bomber from an attack from a rival. Yet a few missions later you can take a mission from Emeraude to destroy the bomber you just protected. Who doesn’t like double crossing evil corporations. Not much has changed in the way the AC handle other than the game runs at a better frame rate and looks nicer. Plenty of missions to go through with the back of box touting that this has over 100 missions. I wonder if From Software will get to make a new Armored Core one day? It has been a while since AC5.

This series just seems to get worse as we go along. Army Men Advance goes back to its roots. Regressing back to a top down shooter did this game no favors. Using a slow firing gun against a bunch of enemies that will at least hit you once no matter how hard you try to dodge is not fun. Odd that the menus still have the semi realistic style of the other AM games around this time yet it has a cartoony graphic style. Most of the time this is a good thing but this one looks so generic that I don’t like its style.

Bangai-O may be the smallest looking mech game ever. But it makes up for its really small sprites with a metric ton of missiles. The special attack with Riki is a Itano circus attack with a ton of missiles poping out that then lock onto any nearby enemies. Each level is set up in a way you need to blow through a bunch of enemies and then beat up a boss. The storyline of Riki getting his revenge on a pirate gang with his giant robot is set up for a bunch of stupid jokes. If I remember correctly this has over 100 levels. To bad it looks rather repetitive with the same bosses showing up over and over again. Still fun to just blast a bunch of stuff with missiles though.

Squaresoft once again shows off that they know how to make some nice looking CG cutscenes. They even still know how to put on some nice tunes while you're beating up dudes in this game too. Yet they made it awkward to beat up said dudes. Slow moves that barely combo into other attacks just isn’t that fun. Although I do give props to Square for using ragdoll physics so at least each battle ends hilariously. Also it is unfortunate that this game has a constant blur effect over every in game scene. At least they get better at this style of gameplay over time.

I would call this the most Zelda like Bomberman game. Along with giving Bomberman 3 hearts he gets to explore a big overworld that is connected by towns. I remember dungeons being part of the game as well. Not sure if the Carbons you collect are used to solve puzzles or not since I didn’t get that far in. Pommy lets you warp to any town so it is possible they are used in other ways. Since I brought them up Carbons are once again brought back to add in some Pokemon like battles. How they expect the player to set 3 battles plans before hand is odd. Leaving it up to chance isn’t something I like to see. Oh well the main part of the game is what you would expect from Bomberman.

I tried to get my Dad interested in playing games by buying random hunting games for him to try. This was the last time since this is kinda a bad game and hunting games were just getting more complex which wasn’t a good thing for someone that could barely play a game on NES. I do want to meet the person that convinced the dev team to swap the controls around. Camera control is on the left while movement is on the right. Doesn’t help that when you do start moving around it is apparent that they went with tank controls as well. I don’t have the patience to try to hunt something the right way so I tried to run over the deer with a 4x4. It didn’t work…

The very first portable Castlevania is a mix of old and new. Nathan Graves is the protagonist and he is a vampire hunter who wields the trademark Vampire Killer whip. He has gone to Dracula’s castle to confront him with Hugh and his master. Sadly Dracula was ready for them and captures his master and banishes him along with brother in arms Hugh to the basement. They both go their separate ways to explore the castle and defeat all of the hellish minions that await them. The new part of the Castlevania is the DDS system which is a selection of tarot cards that give Nathan new abilities. Like a flame whip or a shield to block projectiles. The layout of the castle is set up for the player to explore it. Going by my save file I thought it was at least worth 100% this game in about 10 hours. Not my favorite of these portable Castevania’s but still a great game.

Wow the title of this game tells you everything you need to know. Charge up a weapon and blast a bunch of monsters. Who needs a story other than your a guy/girl with a suit of power armor that must stop a rampaging reptile from destroying the world. Coming into this blind isn’t the great way to get very far in other than the 3 level. A lot of the games I picked up on Dreamcast were apparently arcade ports like this one. Simple premise but still hard to master because they were mostly made to drain quarters. As for the charging aspect of this game it kinda slows the action down a bit. I don’t have to wait for it to fully charge but depending on the type of ammo it can be useful to have max charge. Plus being able to miss while locked on is a bummer. Before booting this up again I can’t say I remembered owning this game but it seems fine.

Gotta make even more CRAZY MONEY. At least that is what I wish I was doing. Not sure why but this is my only Dreamcast game that was scratched up enough that it wouldn’t play. So I’m going to assume I haphazardly placed this game in its case leading to a bunch of crashes. At least I’m not missing out on much. This is just more Crazy Taxi but now you can pick up more than one passenger.

Well Digimon World 2 tries something new again. This time the Digiworld is connected to the real one right from the start. As a rookie digicop on his final training mission you must take down a rogue Leomon. Now instead of exploring an island the goal is to explore a bunch of dungeons. Like Chocobo’s Dungeon this is from the top down perspective and you run around each area looking for items. Once you run into another Digimon it turns into a standard turn based battle. In the end this is a mediocre dungeon crawler with a few extra gameplay elements in the form of collecting and breeding Digimon.

The crazy thing about this port is that is an accurate representation of the arcade game. Everything is heavily pixelated on the GB but you will press buttons correctly to cause Dirk to survive his trip through a castle full of stuff that wants to kill him. Memorizing what you need to do per scene is required. It does give you some pity on new players by including a tutorial that spells out what you need to press to survive each scene. Doesn’t mean I can’t still miss time button presses thus dooming Dirk to never succeed. I do remember beating this version at some point though.

So the start of Dark Cloud begins by phrasing this story as a ancient fairy tale that has been unearthed is a unique way to start up the narrative. Once the tale actually starts it begins with a dark genie being awaked by a man who wishes to control the world. A young boy named Toan is chosen by the fairy king to rebuild the world. Before the Genie could wipe out half the world the fairies enclosed every house and inhabitant into geospheres. In gameplay terms this means that the player must guide Tone through dungeons to reclaim the spheres that will then be used to rebuilt the world city builder style. In some ways this is sorta the spiritual sequel to Actraiser. I prefer the sequel although this is certainly has all the elements of why I like Dark Cloud 2. Just not as much polish. I’m sure the fact that players had to worry about weapons breaking and having to worry about running out of water might have scared a few players away. Even if it has some issues this is still a solid game.

I waited till the very last moment to get into the Monkey Island adventure games. The wit and charm is still intact with this release. At least I got to play through some of the games that were referenced in this intro later on when Lucasarts remade the first and second game. Guybrush’s adventures are not over yet. Once he and Elaine returned from their honeymoon it was apparent that something had gone horribly wrong on Melee Island. To start off with he must stop the destruction of the governor's mansion and gather a crew of pirates to sail off to Lucre island to meet with some lawyers. As the title implies they will eventually end up back on Monkey Island. Other than being in 3D this is still a classic adventure game. Go around talk to people while you collect everything that isn’t nailed down. Use the massive collection of items you’ll gather to continue the narrative to see what silly thing will happen next. I glad that I can always count on a Lucasarts adventure game to make me smile and laugh.

A port of Final Fight but with a few new additions. I assume this is mostly a port of the SNES version but they added coop back in along with Guy. Dialogue was also added in before each boss battle as well. Otherwise the rest is the same. Quick Story recap: The Mad Gear gang kidnaps Mike Haggar’s daughter and he decides to bash his way through the city to rescue her. Guy and Cody are around too and are willing to help out. Even if it isn’t likely you’ll ever play them in coop. I’m not sure I ever used the link cable although I did own one for the GBA. As one of the first beat em ups Final Fight still holds up.

Huh I forgot this showed the entire party in a intro video before flashing back to the past. Hah part of this intro is just to show off how good characters look up close on the PS2. For a famous Blitzball player Tidus really has to run down the street to get to his B ball game huh.It’s all fun and games till a freaking giant monster appears and Squaresoft once again shows off how good they can create CGI cutscenes. Oh right this introduction is pretty weird. I do appreciate that they wanted to show off that battles could go from out of battle into one without a transition. Random battles still happen later but for these set piece moments it is a nice touch. The dynamic camera during battles and how good everything looks it is easy to see why so many people must have enjoyed this game. Ah yes the sphere grid the somewhat overcomplicated level up system. Well it certainly lets you spec in almost any way you would have wanted to try. Overall this is still an impressive game.

I remember liking the story in this game even if I don’t remember anything about it. The intro doesn’t give me much insight other than Isaac has a tragic past before going on a journey 3 years later. As a RPG this seems perfectly adequate. Flashy magic attacks spice up combat along with Djinn being summonable creatures that assist the party. The Djinn can even be equipped like armor giving each party member different stats and even a different class. Wish I had more to say but nothing really stands out as being something different than the norm. Being at the right pace at the right time must have helped as well since this was the first RPG on the GBA.

I’m curious to know how many people knew that Half Life was ported to the PS2. It even included a new coop campaign called Decay. The back of the box also claims this has improved graphics which was true at the time. After all this did come out 4 years after the PC release. I’m sure I don’t need to go over the story of Half Life. In this case Decay is the most interesting part if you ever wondered who had the other two EVA suits. Seeing their side story was the main reason I bought this other than the fact I never got to play HL till now. As I mentioned before this mode is entirely coop although they made it playable solo by letting a single player switch between the two Doctors. Not the best way but better than nothing. Gearbox added in lock on to cover for the fact that it is tougher to battle the monsters since they were originally made for the quicker reflexes of a mouse. Overall a great port of a classic game with some extra features that could make it worth seeing if don’t own it on PC.

This has a lot of good ideas but nothing about it kept my interest like the previous Harvest Moon games. Right off the bat you get access to a partner that you can order around the farm while you go off to do something else. Like I told him to break rocks and till the ground. For some reason he can’t cut weeds out of the way so I had to do that. I assume this was put in to give the player more time to do other stuff like explore for items or tend to the animals. The farm you get access to is quite large too. Maybe a bit overwhelming without AI help. Oh this is also the first HM game that allows you to choose your gender. Wooing the guy or girl of your dreams is still possible as well.

Ha ha they actually let me say no and just leave the farm without doing anything to help the Harvest sprites. It may not be a official ending but letting me do that is pretty great. I’m trying to figure out why this Harvest Moon game didn’t click for me. It has a nice cel shaded art style and it follows the layout of the previous games. Maybe the fact that this only allowed me to go through one year before getting a ending was a turnoff for me. This has the usual relationship building with all the characters which is required this time to get different endings. Saving the homeland from being demolished to build a theme park is the main goal of the game. Huh maybe I just like my harvest moon games not giving me a mandatory objective. Just let me do what I want without worrying about a time limit is the way most of the Harvest Moon games I like are presented.

Ah I can’t believe how aggressively bad this beat em up is. The artstyle they went with is horrible. They wanted a cartoony look yet didn’t use normal sprites so all the characters look bad. Punching and kicking is your only option. Which is fine for some but enemies taking way too long to defeat along with only having 2 per screen is absurdly boring. Storyline wise this follows the events of the cartoon where Jackie must reclaim the scrolls that would doom humanity if the Black Hand obtains them all. So really it doesn’t have any story at all.

I forgot how bad the GBA screen is to play certain games on. Jurassic Park III has a Donkey Kong Country 3D art style which makes it really hard to see certain dinosaurs while using the original GBA. A very bad thing when enemies damage you by touch. Not sure I like how the game requires me to pick up weapons and the first one is just a knife. Very short range and is only useful against Chompies. The goal of each level is to get enough dna that was scatter scattered all over Isla Sorna. Collecting enough orbs scattered around each level will let the player exit the level at the end. After completing each level a mini game starts up. Although it is unlikely you’ll fail since it is a basic match the colors game if you do the level you just competed will need to be replayed. I remember enjoying this game but looking at it now I don’t know if it was a good idea to look at it again.

Along with the more traditional games Hal Labratories liked to use Kirby as an experimental franchise to allow them to do different styles of games. As you might be able to infer by the title this game requires you to tilt the Game Boy around to move Kirby through each course. Far as I can tell this was the first use of accelerometers in a video game. Making this more of a puzzle game where the goal is to make sure Kirby doesn’t fall off the stage. Enemies can hurt him but they don’t appear to be much of a threat early on. Other than rolling Kirby around he can also get a powerup that allows him to fly through a stage using his puff attack to take out any foe who dares stand in his way. As this was the first use of this tech I’m sure I was quite impressed by this game. These days not so much but any game that lets me play as my favorite pink puffball is a-ok in my book

I’m almost certain that I also own Oracle of Seasons but I seem to have misplaced it. Unfortunate since that is my favorite one. Sure Ages is good too. I just don’t like the focus on having even more puzzles to figure out. Seasons has more of a focus on the combat while still having a more reasonable amount of season related puzzles to figure out. Time is your ally in Ages so going back and forth through time is the way to succeed. Gotta give some credit to Capcom they knew how to put together a pair of good Zelda games. Pretty amazing that both of these games were two unique stories that linked together to give the player some unique content if you have both.

Crawfish interactive is back with another open world GBC game. This time it actually controls fine. Pepper delivers a pizza to Brickster who somehow escapes a few moments after he gets the pizza. Thus it is up to Pepper to save the day for some reason. By running around the island collecting items for other lego people that then unlock more places to explore. Looks like throwing pizzas around is the main offensive tool Pepper has but I didn’t get a chance to use it. Running around Lego Island talking to random people isn’t interesting enough to make me see more than the very beginning of this game.

At the time Luigi’s Mansion wasn’t the strongest launch title for the Gamecube. Yet over time it has gained some traction for the fact that it was unique. Luigi exploring a haunted mansion wasn’t something anyone expected to see. The fishing like mechanics of catching ghosts works well and with each unique ghost requiring the player to solve a mini puzzle to catch them was also a nice addition. I’m sure the short length didn’t help this game any at the time. But it does have some replay value if you wanted to go for a better score. Really I wonder if this game had Wario as the protagonist since Luigi isn’t one to care about amassing a fortune.

Quite possibly the best Mario Tennis game. I still don’t know why they only did this once but adding in a RPG story mode was a brilliant idea. As a new student of a tennis academy you must work your way up the ranks to become the best tennis player in the school. The mini games that have become the bread and butter of every Mario Tennis are built in as a way to gain xp. Which will then improve the stats of your character. Without this mode this game would have been quite hollow just like recent games that have come out from this same developer.Arcade tennis games like this one are fun to play on the fact it feels pretty great to smash a ball past an opponent.

One last hurrah for Mario Party. I was willing to rent these games after this one but this is the final one I thought was worth buying. No longer was I expecting them to expand a formula they apparently wanted to keep the same. At first it may seem like they are adding in a Story mode but it actually has less story than MP2. The gist of it is that the millennium star fell onto the mushroom kingdom and once again Mario and his friends argue about who deserves it. With the best way obviously being to play a board game that relies on luck or a lot of coins to win. I’ve never seen it but Waluigi being the final boss sounds pretty dumb. More so than the rest 1v3 seemed to show up a lot more because of everyone landing on a green space more than usual. Oh well luck was on my side for this session since I got 2 hidden ? blocks. Only one star but it mostly guarantees a victory unless the random gods of MP screw me over at some point.

I bought this to just to support the need for more Mega Man Legends. Turns out that was a bad decision since it is fated to never get a proper sequel. This is just a port of the first game with some minor differences. Capcom managed to keep the voices intact on N64 although they do sound worse. A few color and text changes are throughout the game as well.

The many forms of Mega Man #3 Battle Network. No longer is he a robot instead he is a program. Lan a young boy is his master and together they stop many viruses that seem to be infecting the world. This is more of an action RPG than a standard Mega Man game. Random battles occur while roaming around different networks. Battles are set up in a 9 by 9 grind and MegaMan.exe can load up at least 1 card per turn. After choosing said card the game switches over to action based combat. Allowing the player to mash out some weak attacks along with using the cards he has loaded up. Which can be in the form of a cannon or even a heal. Not a series I stuck with for very long but certainly a very unique take on Mega Man.

Well at the time this looked like it could have been the end of the X series. Obviously that isn’t the case with this franchise going up to X8 before it ended. The main gameplay additions to this one is a duck button and a time limit. Ducking seems tailor made for you to dodge attacks from bosses that would otherwise harm you. While the time limit changes the tone of the ending depending on how well you do Sigma is now just a nebulous virus that is infecting the world and he now plans on dropping a colony onto the planet which is why the player has a time limit of 16 hours. They don’t waste any time giving X his white armor at the start since this time you have 3 other armors to collect from all the levels. A pretty good X game if you didn’t get tired of this series at this point.

Mega Man Xtreme is a unique semi remake of a few stages from MMX and MMX2. The story is framed as a side story where a rogue group of Shadowhunters decided to hack into the mainframe that holds all the data of every maverick in the world. They use that data to infect the world and lock down the mainframe. It is up to X with the help of Middy an expert hacker to transfer him into the mainframe and relive certain moments from this past. I assume the final stages are unique but every boss stage is a remake of that stage for the GBC. Going by Chill Penguin's stage they did a pretty good job recreating the stage and the boss battle.

I’m impressed with myself looking at both of these Xtreme games. In both of them it looks like I competed them multiple times. With a completed save file of hard mode and extreme mode in 2. Anyway back to the game. A new threat has arisen on Laguz island someone is bringing dead Mavericks back to live. Both X and Zero with the help of Iris as their navigator raid the island to figure out what is going on. Yup Zero is playable and he gets to take on bosses he wouldn’t have been able to beat otherwise like Blast Hornet. The full roster is a mismatch of bosses from different X games up to X3. Overall not a bad way to play some Mega Man X on the go if you like this series a lot.

The best Metal Slug game ever in my opinion. Nothing wrong with the rest of the series but this re-release of 2 is very well balanced. Doesn’t hurt that this is the only one I’ve ever thought I might be able to 1 credit clear. The additional modes in this version made me pretty good at the game. Combat School is all about either beating levels in a speed run fashion or beating the entire game in one life. The additional missions mode also adds some replay value with repeatable challenges till you succeed at getting number one on the leaderboard. Some of these challenges are pretty much set up like a endless runner which isn’t something I expected to see.

Hm was this the first instance of mixing billiards with a RPG? Seems like a lot of phone games like to go with this style of game now since it is easy to slam one thing into another. While giving you a few strategic options by lining up shots so that one enemy will ram into another one. The same can be said about this game which also has a sci fi setting as well. Metal Walkers are kinda Pokemon that you slam into other evil robots. With the goal of reuniting with the main character's Dad since they get separated by Metal Busters during the introduction scene. Slamming robots into other robots is fun but I’m not sure how much I like automatically throwing all my healing items into battle without me setting them. I do hope that was just becuase items from the store are automatically equipped since I really don’t need to constantly throw out healing items that the enemy could also use.

I’m not sure if this game would be apart of anyone's top 10 Gundam games yet the developers of this game put a lot of heart into making this. Between the redone animated clips and detailed intro to each mission this does a lot of things well. The controls is where it falters the most with the Gundam feeling like it moves super slow. Making it nearly impossible to dodge any attacks other than by using the shield. Fighting other mobile suits is also really slow. I don’t mind either of this issues since the story makes up for it. If only the full story was represented here I might have enjoyed this game more. As the title implies this only goes up to the defence of Jaburo. Leaving out the entire space story arc. Also making the game pretty short at only 9 missions that I would most likely be able to beat in about 2 hours. Oh well the presentation is what still impresses me to this day.

Sometimes a wacky adventure story is what I like to see from my RPG’s. Super serious is fine but a silly storyline can be just as good. Our unfortunate hero Ari runs into Stan who is the self proclaimed Shadow King. After possessing him Stan forces Ari to destroy the town. Yet nobody's afraid and together they accidently save the town instead of destroying it. Thus the adventure starts with them going off to reclaim Stan’s lost power since he no longer has most of it. Once you get into battle this is a standard JRPG. Take turns and blow away enemies. The narrative was the reason I replayed this a few months ago. Didn’t hurt that this is only a 20 hour RPG so it wasn’t a big time commitment.

I thought this would be more common but a mandatory training stage isn’t something I’ve seen a lot of after playing all of these games. But Oni starts off with a step by step introduction to all of the controls. Not a bad thing really since this uses R1/2 to attack for some reason. I guess they wanted to make it easy to shoot and punch by having them on the same button. As for the story it follows Konoko a new rookie cop that is more than she seems. It is obvious that Bungie was inspired by Ghost In The Shell when they were putting this together. The Ai seems pretty basic leading to these early battles being pretty easy. Although I remember this getting pretty hard at some point. Whoever had this before me must have thought so too since they wrote down the cheat codes on the instruction booklet. In the end this has a few good things about it and after seeing what Bungie mostly does today it was a unique spot in their development history.

I really not in the mood for a game like this right now. Outtrigger is an early example of a third person shooter without a 2nd analog stick. It doesn’t feel that great although most enemies are ground level so aiming up and down isn’t needed most of the time. This doesn’t have any kind of story other than being apart of a spec ops team that is training to take down terrorists. I do think this was meant to be played primary online. Quickly shooting a bunch of fakes terrorists or collecting medals just isn’t much fun in this game.

Before this collection I didn’t even know most of these games existed. Pac Man Arrangement is a remake of Pac Man that adds boost pads and a new ghost. Pac Mania is a super slow 3D version that adds in a jump. Pac Attack is a puzzle game where you get points by dropping Pac Man onto ghosts. Regular ass Pac Man rounds out a solid collection of games.

Well I got in at the tail end of the Point Blank series. Which is most likely a good thing since this is just a collection of mini games that test your lightgun skills. I’m sure it would have gotten old if I owned every game. Each mini game can be summed up by requiring you to hit a target. Different situations are set up where you will have limited ammo or how fast you can fire the guncon. I may have only played through beginner but this might have been the first time I’ve ever gotten a S rank. If you somehow have a guncon but don’t own Point Blank 3 it is worth picking up.

As required by Pokemon law this is the third game of the 2nd generation of Pokemon games. The biggest obvious new addition is the ability to play as a girl. I’m sure this has a bunch of small changes along with making Suicune the prominent rare Pokemon going by the box art. Wish I had more to say but I don’t know of anything else new to mention that wasn’t already covered with Silver.

Yup this is more Pokemon Stadium. Now with the additional Pokemon from Silver/Gold. This was also the one that included a GB pack to put on your N64 controller. This allowed you to play the GB games on the big screen. At the time it added some value since a lot of the modes link up to Gold/Silver in some way. Just like the last one the selection of 10 mini games was most likely where I spent most of my time. Kinda makes this a poor decision value wise since I didn’t really spend much time on this game.

This is one of the best loot based dungeon crawler games ever made. Phantasy Star Online obviously did a lot of things I liked. The narrative made good use of text logs from Red Ring Rico to slowly dish out hints at what really happened on Ragol. Other games have done it but this was the first time I played a game that let me create a character as well. It doesn’t hurt that the combat is real time too. Shooting my way through a bunch of angry animals only to face a dragon as the first boss was a great moment. The bosses in general made great use of elements that made them all have unique moments that required you to dodge or blow something up to avoid damage. The most addictive thing was constantly feeding my Mag to make it transform. A recent playthrough I ended up with a eggplant Mag as its final evolution. This isn’t the quickest loot driven game ever with some sections taking a while before you end up finding a nice upgrade. Once you do find better loot it really lets you overpower the enemies in the section you're currently in. PSO holds up extremely well too with everything that worked back then still able to have an impact on me now.

Heh I guess Rainbow Six: 2 wouldn’t work very well huh. Instead they decided to go with the other choice which was to give it a sub title. The intro movie and the title itself kinda makes it sound like we might have to deal with rogue Rainbow Six operatives at some point. But I could be completely wrong going by the first two levels which are just your run of the mill terrorists. Defusing bombs is now apart of R6 ops but the ever relevant hostage rescue still remains the jack of all trade objective in every mission I've seen. Once again geneous auto lock on is the only reason this is even playable on a console. Being able to take down some of these quick draw enemies would be nigh impossible otherwise.

A alternate history where the world made mechs instead of tanks is a pretty good way to get me to check out your video game. Or in this case mostly Japan because the conflict here is the fact Japan got split into two and now they are fighting each other to reunite the country. Not quite sure of their choice to slow down combat even more in a turn based strategy game. Mech battling in this game requires you to wait for better accurate shots while also worrying about your opponent firing early to interrupt your attack. In this case I think it would have been better if they just gave me a % to hit instead. Without knowing anything about the game I thought these mech battles had more of an action focus but I was wrong. Thus making the alternate history narrative more interesting than the gameplay.

For someone that doesn’t hold Sega in high regard anymore I was all about rebuying their old games in different collections. At first I didn’t think it was possible to back out of any of the games to switch to something else but that label only applies to Virtua Cop 2. Compared to the rest of the games this one looked like a direct port. I must say the robbery this virtual cop is trying to stop must be the most armed a gang ever. Shooting over 100 guys because of a jewel store robbery is a bit much. Since I only played Streets Of Rage 2 at a friends house I’m sure i was glad I could finally own in myself in this collection. Beating up random thugs while listening to some nice music felt pretty great around this time. Overall a good collection of games even if the emulation isn’t perfect.

Changing the fate of someone that is fated to die is not an easy task. Not sure how much I trust this disembodied voice that gives Eike the power to travel throughout time. The fact that he wants him to survive could be a bad thing for the world. But maybe that is just me looking into it a bit to much. Preventing his death over and over again is the name of the game. Puzzling out what you need to do is the main objective. Like gathering a bunch of people around so the killer won’t be bold enough to stab you. Or even going back in time to plant flowers instead of a tree so they won’t have a place to hide in the present. Wish I had more time to play through this since the plot is compelling enough to keep me hooked to see what’ll happen next.

A journey through the deranged mind of James Sutherland. The gloomy world of Silent Hill holds so many answers yet they are never the form of something good. Only tragedy and sadness can come from revisiting this floggy town. Silent Hill 2 is widely known as the best game in this series. An ongoing sense of dread is felt by the player as they continue to wander around the fog shrouded town. Psychological horror can be so much more effective than the other more standard jump scare tactic. It is good a thing this game does that well since actually playing it is kinda bad. Tank controls with a big focus on melee combat makes this part less than stellar. I didn’t get to any of them but puzzles are another part of Silent Hill as well.

At least for me Sonic Adventure 2 cut a lot of a extra baggage off from the first game and stuck to the 3 most enjoyable sections into the sequel. I also liked how they decided to tell the story from both the good side and the dark. A unified story that goes from one character to the next was also a better way to tell a coherent storyline. None of this works obviously if you didn’t like Sonic’s action stages or Knuckles collection stages. Tails gets to ride in a mecha version of the tornado 2 how can you not like that? Even if you don’t like this game you at least have to appreciate the soundtrack. The one thing Sega always gets right is the music.

Spider Man is back and much has changed since last time. Now with a more realistic art style that actually hurts the game at this point. Like the game before this one this is a simple brawler that retells Spider Man’s origin story. This is a licensed movie game so the stigma that comes with that fact is present here. Mediocre missions design along with straightforward city levels makes this game rather bland. Although that is my reaction now not back then when it was still fresh Fun times were had seeing Spider Man beat up fools for a while.

A very successful reboot of the Spy Hunter franchise. Turns out it doesn’t take that much to update it. All Midway had to do was update the graphics and add multiple objectives for the player to compete in each mission. Gameplay wise this sticks to what worked before yet obviously in 3D now. Although you can’t shoot every car car with reckless abandon anymore since the one objective that always stays the same throughout the 15 missions is to minimize civilian casualties. Completing the primary and most of the secondary objectives is needed to continue the campaign to stop NOSTRA’s vile plan of sending the world back to the stone age via a satellite EMP wave. A fun game that makes me wonder why I never picked up any of the sequels.

Star Wars Rogue Leader fixes the mistakes from the first game and blows every other aspect out of the park. If you're looking for twitch based action dogfighting this is the best Factor 5 has to offer. Each level is more balanced making it possible for you to beat every level without dying. Graphicly this really impressed me at the time and even now this looks nice. This game lets the player play through every notable Star Wars battle between blowing up both Death Stars and fighting on Hoth. Between the notable battles they also included a loose framework of unique missions that add to the narrative already in the movies. Like showing how they got the imperial shuttle or reclaiming Bespin. Even the extra stuff is neat if you get enough points to unlock them. A what if the empire won is a neat perspective switch with the Death Star mission. I do remember later missions in this game being quite tough especially if you don’t constantly shoot down fighters when protecting something. Still a well put together package and a reminder that Star Wars can create some fun games.

This is the spiritual sequel to Super Dodge Ball. Although I’m sure you could tell that just by the title. It just doesn’t feature any of the River City Ransom guys like in the original game. Gameplay wise it is the same with the obvious goal of smashing a ball into the other teams face till they die. THIS IS A BLOODSPORT! Death awaits all who enter the ring. Against the CPU trickery doesn’t quite work which is half the game if you're playing someone else. Passing the ball around to confuse your opponent is half the battle. Yet my strategy with the CPU is just to spam special attacks. Which works but is rather boring.

Huh I thought this was mostly a direct port of Super Mario Bros 2 but it is actually more of a remake. New enemies are added that weren’t there before. Birdo has VO before the first mini boss battle now. Giant enemies and new backgrounds have been added when going into pipes. Even Mario Bros is somewhat of a remake as well even if they constantly include it with every other Super Mario Advance title. Doesn’t look like I spent much time with this one going by the save files. My top save file is only at 2-1. Oh well still a great Mario game.

The spiritual sequel to Marble Madness now staring monkeys. Dole branding is all over the game but why not? Heck the arcade version of this has a banana controller as your joystick. The main mode is all about getting one of the 4 monkeys through an obstacle course within a strict time limit. With 3 tiers of difficulty going from beginner to expert. I’m sure this is pretty obvious but the harder the difficulty the more levels you’ll have to go through to obtain the omega Dole banana. Other than the main mode this also has 6 mini games (3 you have to unlock) to play as well. Racing, fighting and monkey target are the ones that are unlocked from the start. All together not a unreasonable amount of content for a game that is about monkeys rolling in a ball.

Fifteen years later I somehow stumble upon Mew finally. I know he is random but after 50 hours of game time back when this first came out you would have thought he would have shown up. Playing Melee again reminded me that the newest release was missing one part that I enjoyed a lot and that is adventure mode. It may not be much more than some platforming sections mixed in with fights but going through small sections of a lot of the characters games is neat. Obviously they ran with this idea in Brawl which apparently told them it wasn’t worth it in the latest one. Oh well this is the game that created modern Smash Bros that will only change mechanically over time keeping most of the special moves you see here. This was the first game to include trophies that might be the reason why we have Amiibos today. Smash Bros has truly doomed us all.

At least for me Time Crisis 2 was the ultimate lightgun shooting game. Half my time in my local arcade was spent playing TC2. For one the shooting just feels perfect with the constant back and forth action thanks to the hide mechanic that lets you avoid damage. They also didn’t overdo it with new weapons letting the player rely more on being accurate while occasionally giving them a machine gun unload on a bunch terrorists. Overall this is a game of ascending action where the stakes constantly get raised. Going from running through the streets to a speedboat chase is just the first part of a story that just keeps ramping up till the end. The side mini games are just as fun with the highlight being Quick N Crash which is a skeet shooting game that surely must be playing off my nostalgia for Duck Hunt. Oh did I mention you can dual wield guncons in one mode? Fun for a bit but it is harder to handle than you might assume.

Glad I got into Tony Hawk with the one that everyone loves. The addition of the revert was the missing piece that allows for crazy combos. Going by some of my old scores I never really got close to a million points other than in the airport level. For the size of each level the time limit helps keep the player focused on certain objectives. Licensed music was cool too and was kinda my only exposure to this kind of music. Making it pretty easy to tell what kind of music I tend to prefer. This holds up insanely well too. Getting into Tony Hawk 3 and going crazy with the tricks is just as fun as it ever was.

Wario is back to once again try to make it rich. This time his scheme is to spelunk his way through a pyramid that is full of riches. Unluckily for him it is also cursed and to make any progress he must go through paintings to locate gems to unlock doors to get deeper into the temple. Each level requires him to find a key using his standard set of moves. Bashing into stuff and throwing things along with random transformations is still what makes up a Wario Land game.

Mission based car games were all the rage around this time it seems. Along with turning car based tv shows into a game as well. Looks like Activision did at least get commentary from the host of World's Scariest Police Chases when putting together this package. Pursuit mode is the main mode focused on chasing down criminals. It starts off by making the player go through some training courses before putting them on the streets. It may make sense but I really wish car games felt better when ramming one car into another one. Half the time in these older games you will ram into the enemy vehicle and then get stuck on the side of the road while the criminal gets away. I do wonder if Cops can shoot at a moving vehicle while chasing them. I highly doubt it since it would place so many people in danger but this game has no issues with letting you fire a bunch of shots. Even if they don’t really do much damage thus making me ram into foes more often than shooting them.

Literally more Worms with nothing new at all other than some new single player missions. I also assume it has some new weapons. Turn based worm combat just works so I didn’t really see any issues with picking up another game. It really is to bad the transition to 3D didn’t work out.

Conclusion

I’ve been constantly impressed by the quality of games that were put out on the PS2/GCN. For some reason this isn’t a time period that I look upon with glee. Yet I’m seeing a lot of games that hold up narratively even when the gameplay is slowing forming into the type of games we play today. No one has really standardized controls for certain types of games yet so the amount of variation between games can be a bit much. I kinda like the fact that I have to take some time to figure out the controls from one game to next. Without an in game tutorial it is like a small puzzle that needs to be figured out every time I start up a new game.

As a list of games this has to be the most convoluted year yet. When you were going down this list I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to predict what device the next game would be on. 7 different consoles/handhelds were represented in this year. Each one still has reasonable amount of games featured too. With the new mixing with the old it is easy to see how much games were improving graphically even if the controls were still similar. Tune in next time to see Tom Nook get paid while also getting the chance to see the world from the perspective of a mosquito.