PS4 Purchases #13

Children of Morta by 11 Bit Studios / Dead Mage (2019)

Many of my PS4 games - about half I reckon - were kindly given to me as Christmas or birthday gifts by my wife or family but I haven't received any for a good while now. In fact, I believe Children of Morta was the last one and I received it at least two years ago. Yes, that's long it takes me to get around to posting about stuff! I have finally been playing it a bit lately though. Unlike some other games in my collection, it's a no-frills package - just game and disc - but the game itself seems to be pretty good. It's an isometric action RPG, and a pretty simple one too, by genre standards. This is good for me since I'm hardly a veteran and find some RPGs more than a little daunting. Here, you get a little of the story (something about clearing the land of an evil called the Corruption), then you're off to to explore the area and chat with locals. There are several playable characters, all members of the same family, and procedurally generated dungeons full of monsters to vanquish. There's a bit more to it than that, of course, but it's looking great so far. Literally, in fact, thanks to its lovely pixelly graphics as well as moody music and excellent voice acting. I'll need to spend a lot more time with this one. Look out for the review... one day.

Run 'n' Gun Games #9

Assault Suits Leynos a.k.a. Target Earth (1990)
By: Masaya / NCS Corp Genre: Run 'n' Gun Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PS4, PC

I played rather a lot of games on my Mega Drive over the first half of the 90s and even knew all about the ones I didn't play too, thanks to the magazines of the day, but there was of course the odd one or two that slipped through the net. One of these, if you hadn't already guessed, is Assault Suits Leynos. It was released in Japan, and also in the US under a different name - Target Earth (actually not a bad alternative name for American standards) - but for some peculiar reason our humble territory here in Europe was apparently bypassed. Nonetheless, I still often knew about other import-only games and owned a decent number as well, since some of our magazines covered them, so why did they ignore this one? I don't remember seeing a single mention of it except in the listings of mail order companies. Oh well, time to once again educate myself I guess!

Film Round-Up #40

It has somewhat startlingly been well over two years since I last posted a selection of Tom Hanks films. The challenge then was to find one that wasn't all that great since up to that point, all his films that I had seen had been good. That previous selection did yield one example that I wasn't too enamoured by, but it's still usually a safe bet to watch his films, so why not watch some more? None of the films chosen here were previously unseen by my eyes on this occasion (unless you count parts of the first one) but I hadn't seen some of them for many long years. Had I managed to find another non-great one in his filmography?

Big (Extended Edition) (1988)

Yes, I've already looked at Big in a previous Hanks round-up, but that was before I discovered there was an Extended Edition which I didn't know until very recently! I wouldn't normally bother with such releases except with my ultra-fave films, but an excuse to spend more time in prime 80s movie-land was one I couldn't pass up. I was somewhat concerned I might not even notice at least some of the new stuff - it's not like I've watched the normal version of the film dozens of times - and indeed, I hadn't noticed much for the first hour or so, but from the point when Josh and Susan have their trampoline session there are lots of extra scenes, most of which feature the two of them having dates and working together. They appear to be having a full-on relationship here, most of which was apparently cut from the theatrical release. I guess I can understand why too, but it's not just them - there's some 26 minutes of new stuff in total including lots of other extra bits and pieces, and for most the end product is probably even more enjoyable overall than the wonderful original... 9/10

PC Round-Up #1 - Part 2

After perhaps world record levels of procrastination (I started this post two years ago, which was itself some five years since my first 'Catacomb' post!), I've finally gotten around to resuming my coverage of first-person shooters... which never even started to begin with. This is due to my mild-yet-prevalent OCD which dictated I review the first FPS before looking at the later, more well-known ones. This led to a problem: what was the first FPS? My initial research into this subject has yielded several answers. Many might say Doom; oldies like me will remember Wolfenstein 3D; but the answer lies even further back than that - Catacomb 3D and its sequels.

Catacomb 3D: The Descent (1991)

Also known as Catacomb 3 to tie in to the 2D games and also known as Catacomb 3D: A New Dimension to emphasise the added dimension, this possibly first ever first-person shooter by the now-legendary id Software casts you in the same role as before - that of wizard Petton Everhail who must save his friend from the evil lich Grelminar. This seems to involve wandering around various mazey stages shooting lots of monsters with fireballs from your hand as you try to find the portal that takes you to the next such example. I was expecting an ugly, clunky, unplayable mess to be honest but I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, the stages are all flat and there's not much variety but movement is smoother than I thought it would be which includes a helpful strafe button, and there are plenty of scary monsters and stuff to collect, and even some secret areas! Frankly, I was just going to play it for long enough to grab a screenshot and get a reasonable impression of it but I kept playing simply because I was enjoying it. Okay, it's very basic and repetitive (especially the music) compared to later examples, but it's not at all bad, all things considered... 6/10