Some Thoughts On Video Games December 2017

Well the year is already over at this point but I still got some cyberpunk games to talk about. The last game doesn’t quite fit into that mold even if the movie looks like it was filmed in some dark future. Along with some help from a sale the gritty future mold seems like its speaking to me a bit more now. But what kept me entertained was the different takes they both decided to go with in the gameplay department. Which I hopefully will explain a bit better bellow this introduction. So shall we get into my somewhat hastily written thoughts on the games I played in December?

List items

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  RONIN

  This game is 100% a clone of Gunpoint. Just trade detective noir with a revenge story in a grim cyber future and your now describing Ronin. The protagonist doesn’t have a gun either focusing on slashing any foes in her way with a katana. Luckily I didn’t have to worry about dodging my way through the endless supply of evil office buildings in real time since the game's main mechanic is the fact combat takes place within a turn based system. Once a enemy sees Ronin everything freezes and then she must rely on dodging shots to get up close finish off any enemy. Since slashing a foe causes time to move forward good some good use of the learnable skills is very helpful to finish every room in the game. Just to note a few you can earn a clone image that’ll distract a few enemies for 2 turns and the ability to throw the sword. Sadly they can’t be spammed because they are earned by killing enemies.

  Put all of this together and we’ve got a game with a bit of style and very little else. The actual level design doesn’t ever change other than adding in a few instant death pits and more enemies. By the end the only change is that fact the final level doesn’t have checkpoints. Which turned a fun little puzzle into a painful slog that I didn’t feel like playing more of once I did get the rather abrupt ending. This doesn’t change the fact that the rest of the game managed to maintain a challenging yet brisk pace. Each room felt like a puzzle I needed to solve. If it managed to keep that pace throughout the entire short 4 hour adventure I would have enjoyed it more.

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  Ruiner

  Boy this game just oozes style from the moment the first level loads. Putting the player into a cyberpunk world right out of Blade Runner isn’t something I’ve seen done so well till now. Adding to the ambiance is some grunge music that fits right in with the visuals. As for the gameplay it is a fast paced top down shooter with a lot of focus on dodging everything. A variety of skills lets you customize your loadout in a way that it fitted to deal with different situations. Which only really came up a few times during my playthrough. Focusing on extra health, dashes and the deployable shield seemed quite effective at dealing with any situation other than a giant laser flying me in one shot.

  The only real flaw with the combat is that it doesn’t seem like it has a good ramp in difficulty. Some enemies are just super annoying to fight making random sections of the game harder than the rest. With the final boss fight actually being a breeze compared to random mini bosses. Not having enough unique weapons to finish a fight can be a issue sometimes too. Yet it is a minor one since the default pistol is effective. Overall it really just matters if the combat seems fun. The gist of the game is just one arena after another. For me it was fun most of the time since it wasn’t that hard to deal with wave after wave of enemies. Sure it would be nice if the story had a bit more flair other than go kill a thing with a bit of world building text logs along the way. If your looking for a top down shooter with some style this is a worthwhile purchase.

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  Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

  Ended up playing through this again when I brought out my Genesis for some coop fun time with a friend. Turns out unless it was a fighting game I didn’t have much of a list of games that 2 players could play. (Streets of Rage is one of my favorite beat em ups and I don’t even own a cart.) This is really a run of the mill beat em up with very little flair. It is also pretty obvious that the developers were making a game based on the Power Rangers tv show before bolting on scenes from the movie. It starts off with beating up ooze monsters before skipping over half the movie to a point where they could have a flashback. Which is a good thing since enemy variety is quite lacking. But whatever the point is to beat up a bunch of random enemies with a friend and it does that well enough.