sebastianali123 Reviews

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001 Video Game)

Still a simulator on the surface.

[4/10 · 22 May 2024]

Poliphony Digital really knows how to make games to feel realistic out of the box, thats what they proved with the Gran Turismo series and a few of their other series that were strangely forgotten (maybe one day i would talk more about them), and, despite not convincing me, I recognize that they were the pinnacle of the fifth and sixth generation in many things... including the graphics. One of the most detailed video games on the PS1 and PS2, and in this case, the PS1 was already saying goodbye and giving way to the next generation. How Gran Turismo could be improved on the next gen? Well, i wouldnt repeat what i always repeat with the series because it would be redundant. Poliphony Digital arguably was the only company that could rival Naughty Dog. In the past it really was one of the companies that pushed the hardware to its absolute limits and made PC gaming cry to shame. But, thats not enough to make a game good.

The Gran Turismo series up to this point wanted to impress more than give the player fun, and while at least in GT1, 2 and 4 i could appreciate various innovations to the racing genre, those were pretty much non existent in 3. Is clearly that GT3, being released early in the PS2 lifespan and developers having problems with the hardware, ended up being pretty much inspired in GT2, but i didnt expected for the most part to be a carbon copy, even the UI looks the same which is very lazy, and a lot of things that made GT2 a more "memorable" experience in the genre here were gone, the insane amount of cars, the racing modifications or the variety of events (for some reason all of the different tiers have almost the same race events just harder).

For a moment i though that reducing heavily the amount of cars like GT1 would make the experience more focuses and feel each car awarded satisfying like the first game, but GT3 reminded to me that the series at this point was more like a car museum and not a classic career experience. Having only 100-200 cars and still somehow recieving the amount of cars per race like GT2 makes the money pretty much useless in this game, no car feels like my cars, it all feels like rental cars. I barely bought 10 cars and recieved more than half of the list.

And well... i guess i shouldnt mention all of the criticism of previous and newer games, because increasing the power of the hardware wouldnt automatically fix anything without work. AI is still trash, crashes at high speed still arent penalized, is only realistic on a surface level when it wants to be. It wouldnt be that bad for other racing games, but for one that wants to take itself so seriously? It is a shame because the "slogan" shows that the devs really wanted to make you feel inmersed in this beautiful car simulator, but things like this only go on the opposite direction.

GT3 is kind of dissappointing, and this comes from someone who isnt a fan of the series. The other games like GT1, 2 and 4 werent perfect games either, but i can admit they had a sense of innovation and a great core that... unfortunately GT3 lost. If you played GT2 then you played most of GT3. It could had pass as a remake of the second game honestly (which to be fair, it was the thing they show on the PS2 tech demos of the late 90s). Despite having its own improvements over GT2 like the handling and looking great, and not being terrible (of course), honestly GT3 wasnt even worth my time.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001 Video Game)

When the leap of technology actually benefits the gameplay.

[9/10 · 5 May 2024]

Jak And Daxter TPL is in short what ND wanted Crash to be if the PS1 hardware allowed to exist, especially after reading multiple interviews, it really seems like that was their idea if they somehow got the Crash rights. JaD feels in many areas inspired by it, the moveset, the aesthetics, hell even some of the character designs. It is really its spiritual succesor, the true Crash 4, and not, IAT never was.

Naughty Dog since 1996 showed they knew the hardware more than even the same guys who made it in the first place. They really proved you dont need hardware specs to succeed at being technically impressive. I already said it so many times, but all of their games not only are imo the peak graphics of the generation even compared to the most technological advanced games on more powerful platforms, but also are comparable as some dedicated tech demos or benchmarks... and that includes PC... Anddd now the PC master race fanboys chasing me to death.

But of course this wouldnt be just Crash and thats it, oh no (with inspiration of Banjo Kazooie and Spyro, needless to say), ND would do something else to separate from the rest and break new ground on technology. This is not just the first 3d game without loading screens, but also the first connected (or seamless) open world game in history. Reading this wouldnt seem like a big deal, but haha you have no idea of what this really means and what you could do with it in the right hands instead of being just a "cool gimmick". And there was so much disinformation in this topic (probably for people who just wanted to devalue ND achievements). Because yes, games without loading screens were a thing even in the 70s-90s, and yes, the N64 transitions were fast, but first, those older games werent 3d, and second the N64 open worlds still interrupt in some way or another the action and they dont feel in any way seamless or connected. Its really funny how the cartridges are so justified by some N64 lovers as the best for videogame media even today (yes, there are some extremists like that) but the disc drive of the PS2 showed a way better streaming despite being on paper slower.

Some people may not recognize it but this game without loading screen and a fully true open world wouldnt be possible, first of all you can affect other things in the enviroments both visually and gameplay wise, you can help other NPCs to do things in different areas that the ones they are to win a power cell giving you both an explanation and maybe a bit of backstory instead of just feeling like another collectable, you feel inmersed by just walking to one area to another or seeing all of the game world in a high place with the affected elements i said before or one of my favorites, being able to do half of the task and leave it for later, or do multiple tasks at once. This level of full open world reminds me to some modern games like Horizon Zero Dawn with the difference this was 2001. This is just peak inmersion in videogames.

And speaking of inmersion, that is what JaD is. Is not just a 3d platformer like Crash or a regular collectathon like BK, but also an adventure game, and this is important because this is a triple A adventure, if you know what i mean. There is NPC interaction, a feeling of progression, and thats the key word, progression, it almost feels like RPG, with an insane amount of cutscenes for a platformer. And while the story is simple, its also very effective and doesnt treat you like dumb... Twinsanity...

The story interestingly enough, is like in terms of tone, an evolution of the previous ND games. ND was already trying to make their stories a bit more dark with Crash Warped, and Jak 1 already expanded on the plot. There is more humour (thanks to the budget and PS2 power), but is the good type of humour that is only present when its needed, and in a very intelligent way, making a good balance. I know this point is subjective, but Crash after CNK was never the same, and JaD was a surprisingly breath of fresh air. I love how they took so many inspiration from many cartoons, but with more budget and power they could create more "weird" looking characters. This may be the very first game in history that makes me feel on its entirety that im watching a cartoon.

The funny thing is that you may think this open world with all of this characters, for how big it is would look like trash, but actually is one if not the most detailed game of the time. Im not just amazed that the power of the PS2 was able to surprass Crash visuals, but having levels 100 times bigger at 60 fps.... Wrath Of Cortex.

The Jak GOAL engine has to be one if not the best game engine ever made, at least not taking into account modding or accessibility, just pure optimization and capabilities (like being able to change code while the game is running). I dont want to write so much on this, but to be as short and concise as possible, they created an entirely new programming language, just for this game. I really want to see that again. Needless to say, it was kind of funny checking all of the LISP software that was made, with most being used for serious purposes like mathematical stuff on computers or even science, just to see GOAL, a videogame. If i was a teacher, my student would get a 10 definitely. Seriously, if you read about the Naughty Dog history and development of their games, programmers like Andy Gavin are a genius, arguably one of the most prolific programmers in history. Is a shame that his talent was only used in a handful of games...

PC and other modern console games in general would never be as optimized unfortunately since that implies an intense knowledge of both programming and mechanical/electricity stuff and skipping many "rules" that probably wouldnt make your boss to be happy about it. But as i always say, if its illegal but does a greater good, then do it..... dont look at me.

Actually as i play this game more i realized this game has a lot in common with Crash Team Racing, which kind of makes sense. The engine of JaD feels like an evolution, even the LOD system is the same, very unnoticeable compared to other games before this. I think it also really shows how ahead of its time CTR was.

And of course the animations. Some people for some reason find the characters to be the low point of the graphics, but i disagree. Some characters looks incredible good for 2001 standards, ranging from 4000 to 10.000 polygons which is a lot and having animation smooth as butter even today. Some few models may not age all that well, but aesthetically speaking i find their excentric designs to be very pleasant and it does justice to Crash characters. This game is just so charming, so beautiful and never drops a frame.

Now going into the gameplay. Jak, much like Crash in 2 and 3, controls pretty much perfect. He has ton of moves he can combine that are satisfying to just watch thanks to the animation work and he maintains full control in mid air so each time you die never feels unfair. JaD not only was revolutionary but also perfected the collectathon genre.

I only have two minor complains with this game, first of all, while Jak is very satisfying to control or to utilize its eco powers, the truth is that he is not satisfying to control as Crash in Warped. In Warped he really feel like unstoppable once you win the game. Here it feels like an natural evolution of Crash 2 but not Crash 3, and i get it, but i still prefer how the control was in Warped. Plus my second minor complain, maybe a bit more harsh is that much like Crash 1 and 2 there is nothing more to do once you finish this game, again taking notes of those games instead of 3 and especially CTR. And the game is too short, which would be actually a good thing in other games, but here the core gameplay is so good that you really really want to continue playing it. As unpopular as it may be this two things are the only reason that i think Crash 3 and CTR were just a bit better. Maybe the fact that most of the game development went to make it work on the first place meant that they couldnt make the game as replayable as their two previous works. I think however is way superior to Crash 2 which is saying a lot. Im not saying neccesarily TPL is objectively inferior to Crash 3 and CTR, in fact in terms of core gameplay and innovation the three are tied in my eyes, is just the satisfying gameplay and replayability that just puts it slighty below in my eyes. Hell, if there was like one extra area or something after beating the game 100% i think it would put it even above Crash 3.

In conclusion TPL is one of those few games that represents what the leap in technology can do and not simplify it to just a gimmick or the visual side. The exploration, map design, animation, infinite draw distance and so on would had been just impossible on the previous gen. The world of JaD was so ahead of its time, that makes GTA 3 Liberty City to feel fake in comparison. The streaming system in JaD was not just revolutionary for the videogame industry but even on the field of technology as a whole.

While this review may seem like a bit agressive for some, the truth is that we have to go back in time. It wouldnt make any sense for ND to make yet another linear game on a new hardware and that formula being already perfected. WOC, Twinsanity and IAT, which pale and feel outdated in comparison, should had learned about this game, and leave the comfort zone if they wanted to make something at the heights of the OG Crash trilogy, which imo the first JaD really succeeds. It is a bit of a shame that this game would be the last ND true platformer as i feel they are very talented for this genre. Jak 2, 3 and all of their other series would be worthy games imo despite being significantly different, but they wouldnt impress me as much as the Crash series and the first Jak, which were in other words.... more majestic.

Thumper (2016 Video Game)

Ain't rhythm

[5/10 · 28 April 2024]

As i do with movies i usually do the same random stuff with videogames. Rhythm games arent usually my genre of preference but i did found some hidden gems here and there that should be talked more often, and it is also one of those few with weird genre combinations so if you dont like rhythm games as a whole, maybe you could enjoy rhythm as a subtle feature, and Thumper does that for the most part. Granted, i only played this game because it was free on PS Plus a long time ago. If it wasnt for that, this review wouldnt exist and that would be a bad thing for my precious community, as i write each review with sweat and blood like if it was my last one, lol.

Thumper unfortunately was sold primarly as a rhythm game and that part is kind of mediocre. I would actually classify it as a runner or even a survival game with elements of rhythm, as there is rarely music. Most of the time is just sound effects with different intensity (though incredible inmersive with headphones i have to say) which sounds in a consistent way... for the most part. And this would be a creative and a very good way to push the rhythm genre forward.... if it werent just for one thing that kind of ruins this idea... Not all of the parts are telegrapphed by listening to the tempo or the rhythm, but by your reflexes, which is a huge flaw, since sometimes in the same part of a level the tempo can change inmediately and it can take a player by surprise, and a single hit can be very punishing.

The sense of speed is amazing, and if the game excels and is saved for one thing is for the inmersion and adrenaline. Every single level is like a travel, like going into an spiral of hell. The intensity of the tempo (for the most part as i said before) and visuals really makes you feel nervous but also prepared on the most challenging areas. Unfortunately there is very little difference between bosses and levels and the only thing that really changes is the colour or the filter of the screen. If If you were so inmersed in the game like me, this after an hour or two of gameplay can make the whole thing to feel repetitive and even boring. The same "red face" or the same purple walls being repeated over and over and over again. This could really had benefit of something like Rez, which had abstract subrreal visuals with enough variety to not feel tiresome.

Maybe the fact that this is an indie and therefore low budget affected the overall package. There is no online too, or barely any options to configure out controls or accessibility. The game can be ridiculous hard at times though i admit i had a lot of fun and is well designed... until the tempo gets messed out for no reason, or the collision detection is confusing due to the flashy colours or speed the game is moving.

I admit im not the type of person who recommends games with less than a 7 but Thumper is surprisingly an exception. It is by no means the best in the genre, contrary to what many "professional reviewers" can make you think. But this is one of the very few times of a good 5. It isnt ruined by its flaws per se, but only because it lacks enough reason to be replayed and it doesnt feel like a rhythm game despite being sold as one. It had a lot of potential. But if you have the money, is really worth the time, trust me, despite the low score i couldnt recommend it enough.

Crash Nitro Kart (2003 Video Game)

An amazing game that is somehow COMPLETELY overshadowed by its predecessor.

[8/10 · 3 April 2024]

This may been one of my most nostalgic games ever, and contrary to many one, i started with Nitro Kart before CTR (or at least i think, but definitely played more CNK in the past), so that could give this review at least an interesting twist? Well kind off, because i was like some that tried to defend this game a lot, calling it not only one of the best Crash games but also the best out of the post ND era, and while a part of me still thinks that (yeah, mention the remakes, Crash 4 or whatever, but the remake are still remakes and Crash 4 is just fundamentally not fun to play, i would talk about it another day maybe) my other half self still can understand the huge criticism of the past and still recieves to this day, i mean, we are talking about a Crash game being released in the early 2000s, in that time Crash was still in the mouth of most players, maybe WOC dissappointed everyone and everything but people still have a good heart for Crash nonthenless (ok i admit that reference was unnecesary), a spark of hope, the series wasnt still doomed. So a sequel to CTR! What could be wrong?

Unfortunately even if CNK was somehow as good as CTR would had its destiny doomed, i mean, CNK as well as WOC werent just sequels that needed to be at the same level as their PS1 counterparts, but also give a JUMP forward, something revolutionary, something really impressive that couldnt had be done on the PS1, we are talking about a generational leap, which neither of these PS2 Crash games feel they had besides visuals (and WOC dont even had that). Thats why i can see why CNK was so dissappointing when it came out, besides other flaws that in retrospective are more noticeable that i would tell later, but what at least i can forgive the game is that despite all of that, is a game that somehow feel like they TRIED its best. Vicarious Visions did really had a huge respect to Naughty Dog, maybe to a fault though, as if Crash were always with VV, Crash would had been a franchise with zero innovation probably (though it would still be preferable than having the likes of Boom Bang or Twinsanity).

Nitro Kart as i said before doesnt feel just like another PS2 Crash game, but a Crash game with a soul, at least thanks to the visuals. I still maintain (like i said in other reviews) that videogame graphics as a whole never needed to get any better than the cutting edge sixth gen, but i realize repeating that constantly wouldnt make any difference, plus i guess i learned to live with that. Maybe Nitro Kart on the rest is nowhere near as impressive and they even had to copy a lot of things such as the UI which... is kind of lazy... but returning to the visuals, this was the only post ND game which had the same artists from the trilogy, and it really shows. Most of the character and track designs are incredible beautiful even to this day and exactly what WOC should had been since day one. I wouldnt say too much about this topic besides the fact that i never liked how the animations in podium are too much stiff at times (strange that a PS1 game had better animation) and how basically they got some models worse because they reemplaced their gourand shading of the originals with poor blurry textures that while arent noticeable on a CRT they somehow scale worse than the OG CTR. I think this is more noticeable in characters like N Gin, Cortex or my favorite Pura, they just look too much blurry. The proportions are the same as the originals and they have more polygons but sometimes they just look worse. Fortunately the enviroments didnt suffer any downgrade and is the first time i meet a game that reuses some assets of a previous gen prequel game, but in this case i think its something good because sometimes they feel upscaled to a higher res, and lets be honest, the originals could pass as PS2 games so good for me. On a technical perspective this game is not bad either, in fact it looks very impressive for 2003, even compared to cutting edge PC games there was just nothing like it, especially the Xbox version which runs at 720p, thats really a FEAT for the time. I think this may been one of the first HD games in history, at least on consoles.

But speaking about the gameplay and going straight into the negatives, i wouldnt mention the typical you can always heard: "is a carbon copy of CTR" because thats part of the issue, but its really really a minor issue in this specific case. The OG CTR had a very unique aproach to the kart racing genre that changing it completely wouldnt be ideal. And some downgrades in the gameplay or other gimmicks makes it feel different.... Yeah, thats not the general consensus but i would explain it. Unfortunately VV didnt fully understand what made CTR gameplay well, though i dont think its their fault, probably in 2003 people still didnt know everything about the CTR mechanics and so on, so i think anything changed in CNK is because of that, some mechanics are still there like reserves, u turn or hang time boost, but they dont feel anywhere as good or satisfying to pull off. There is a rumour where VV recieved from ND a pile of corrupted files when making CNK. I dont know if thats true, but that may explain some strange changes. The physics were also heavily tweaked to the worst, and before saying that it feels different (which kind of is), its something it really limits the overall gameplay and makes each aproach to each track very linear. We have to add to that the position of the boxes in time trials or the CNK letters or the amount of shortcuts and it kind of makes CNK like a regular kart racer at times. Like it doesnt feel as physics heavy as the OG, which wouldnt be bad if they actually designed it like a true kart racer, but it still carries some of the racing sensibilities of CTR. Some people may say that CNK tracks are overall better than CTR and that with the proper engine CNK could be better, but honestly? I dont think so. There is too much little changes to the formula that made CTR to stand out and CNK not as much and kill me for saying this: I dont think CNK track design is anywhere as good as the ones from CTR. I would admit though its very good for the most part but there are certain tracks that arent just interesting to play like meteor gorge or the very first one, and for a game with only 13 tracks (needlees to say a huge downgrade in terms of content), every one should be amazing. The tracks in CTR were way more dynamic, let you play around with the revolutionary physics engine and the most important thing, every player could tackle the tracks in a different aproach. CNK tracks are all way more flat in comparison, even with the antigravity which while its cool in terms of visuals its at the cost of the gameplay so pick your poison. CTR was like a racing game combined with platforming, exploration and kart racing mechanics. CNK is just a kart racer with a heavy driving system, and while that slow aspect of the kart and heaviness can be somewhat mitigated by doing powersliding, the truth is that the game has very inconsistent pace. It feels like CTR when doing powersliding on a straight line, but after a sharp turn or antigravity section it all gets ruined. In CTR you could do a sharp turn if you were skilled enough at almost max speed. When dominating CNK controls much of the flaws became less obvious and the game is actually more challenging than the original (though i have to say ND always wanted to make accessible games), but the problem is what i was mentioning before, is just less satisfying and less polished in every single way.

I think thats why i cant say CNK is close to CTR, they are just too minor and major things to ignore that detracts from the main experience: clunky collision detection, the use of weapons which feels now useless and everything depends on the driving, and the feedback is also worse, which makes things more difficult or the sound when hopping or doing boost is very off. And i still maintain it isnt doing a JUMP of quality that anyone was expected in a next gen game.

I still love CNK but its kind of strange that despite all of its issues i give it an 8. Is like WOC but well made in that regard, with the difference of being more polished and more "different" at times. CNK is a great game overall but is probably the only one i played that as great as it is, is somehow overshadowed to the original in every single way. Is somehow... dissappointimg.... And Nitro Fueled just ended up killing it. But i still respect it for being better than all of its PS2 counterparts, and making Crash feel like Crash... for the last time.

Top Racer Collection (2024 Video Game)

Top Racer Collection encapsulates everything wrong with modern re-releases.

[3/10 · 9 March 2024]

Dont get me wrong, the classic games are still classics so if I come across as more negative than I should (as always, lol), it's because I'm discussing the collection itself, the glass instead of the juice, the trailer but not the movie, and the fireworks without the boom. I still love Top Gear 1, 2 and 3, and after Horizon Chase, the "franchise" seemed to "reborn" (if we consider it from the same series), so of course when this collection was announced at first I was excited, however then I remembered how many companies these days were abusing of remakes and ports of old video games, making the minimum possible effort... and well... Being that these games are so easily accessible, in my ideal scenario I would ask for a decompilation at this point. But of course, they had to do the minimum as always. And not even that. I feel like we have been fooled to some extent.

Let's go in parts, we have the trilogy completely intact for better or worse, in this sense I say it because all the flaws are present, such as the low framerate or the permanently split screen of the first game (although at this point I think i would consider it as its "charm", whether i like it or not). I know these games are basically running on emulators but even at those standards it falls flat. Why? Ugh, lets start with it: There is barely any filters, the scale options are trash, there is no way for overclock the game, the menus somehow have loading times, hell i think even the menus are poorly optimized (how this even asks for a I5?). This is one of my problems with modern exact ports of old games, and maybe one of the reasons of why i hate modern gaming (for the most part), and is that it somehow ask you for very modern hardware even if it didnt need it. I mean, anyone has probably those PCs nowadays, is just that is still bullit. Most things are easily modified on modern emulators, so why something you have to pay like $10 (which in my country anything pass $5 is expensive, sorry for living there, lol), doesnt even had some basic options? How is that the Super Mario All Stars Collection which was fundamentally better (at least for Galaxy and Sunshine) was criticized and not this?! Top Gear deserves better, is one of the most underrated SNES games and this is what we get?

And later we have Top Racer Crossroads which for a moment i though it would be the equivalent of Sonic Mania, but oh no, is just a damn hack rom for the first game.... A hack rom disguised as a new game... It can even barely classify as that! Is just a palette swap for the cars! This entire collection just feels barebones in every single way! Well, almost.

I think if i said that there wasnt any decompilation i would be lying since there is a custom cup mode and you can play the individual tracks (online doesnt count since that is easily achievable by emulation), which made me think why they didnt took more time and tried to decompile the entire thing to have the closest to the best version of these games? Its really a missed opportunity.

Modernist people could easily get a better experience in the other way. I mean, may not been legal, but it shouldnt be legal either to sell roms with barely any effort behind. I honestly only recommend this if you somehow are scared of configuring out emulators, or want to try a few features, but i still think even if this was like $1, i feel like people just got used to this practices and well, what more i can do? Not supporting it thats for sure.

Worms Armageddon (1999 Video Game)

The best game i ever played that i cant fully enjoy.

[7/10 · 1 February 2024]

Most people know the phrase: "If you dont like the game its fine, but you have to admit it is good". I honestly never agree with that in the past, because in most cases if you dont like the game, you dont see whats so great about it. You dont see why everyone is praising it. Its a hard place to be, and no one wants anyone to ruin their "party". Criticism shouldnt be excluded for any game.... except CTR.

However Worms Armageddon teach me a hard lesson... you can still admit a game is good even if i cant like it. However, whats strange about this game is that... literally every single one love it! And say it is very accessible! And say is the only good game in the series! No no and no. Even if i admit a game is good but i dont like it, is not just for my tastes. My tastes are so varied that unless we are talking about sports games, it would rarely affect my vision about it. Its about flaws, so i would do my job like always.

Worms is a series i played a ton as younger, though only played specific games in the series because of how they kick my butt. Is an strange relationship, because i saw the games, you see them, they are really really fun and creative, and Worms Armageddon has one if not the best core gameplay in the entire series alongside the best multiplayer (i have to admit, pretty impressive for 1999 standards), the best quick match customization, one of the best team customizations and so on. This game hits the mark in some many areas and is also packed with content How i cant like it? Well, lets start with the "horror".

First of all, the game is very far from being accessible. Most of the content is locked and you have to do training courses, missions or challenges. Seems pretty straightforward right? No, because this are some of the most unfair missions i seen in a while. Getting gold, even on the first missions is very hard, with times that barely are enough or require finicky precision. I know you dont have to get gold in any of these to continue playing it. But the game expects you to do it, otherwise you wouldnt unlock anything from the quick matches or multiplayer. Plus starting in mission 6 or so, difficulty gets ridiculous in the campaign, especially the one where you have to shoot arrows to the Eiffeel Tower to do a platform. It wouldnt be so bad if they werent mines in the entire place! And when i reach the top of the tower, the entire place gets nuked with missiles and thats it. Give me a break! Even when you know what to do (i had to watch many walkthroughs) is still hard. While Worms Armageddon feature surprisingly good controls, the jumping in specific situations like this can be very frustrating. And the AI is only hard artificially, doing shots a player would never be able to do, with 100% accuracy from far away. I think it doesnt help either that many of the mechanics like using arrows to make a platform or using the ninja rope as a weapon for example, are hidden from the player. And dont get me wrong, this would actually be a good thing, if the game didnt demand it. Thats why i praised a lot the mechanics from CTR because they were the culmination of perfect accessibility in videogames; they were optional for the most part. Both new players and expert ones can fully enjoy the game because of that, complemented with a hidden dynamic difficulty that was strangely absent in the remake.

Some may say they focused all of the attention in the multiplayer, which is true, is incredible what they had done, but this is 1999. Not everyone had a good Internet connection in that era and not everyone had friends to play. Also, a good multiplayer would never excuse a bad, or in this case, a subpar singleplayer.

It is really funny because the PS1 version, despite all of the criticism it recieves this days for lacking content and so on (which is unfair especially considering its based on the original launch version and not the updated one from 2020), it fixes some of this issues. AI is not more 100% precise, times are way more forgiving to get gold (like a minute of difference more or less), you can manually load in any time which can save you from repeating the same deathmatch or campaign mission over and over again and some missions give the player more powerful weapons (although it was for a limitation). Yes, it is worse in terms of multiplayer and there is no fire, but... it is more fair singleplayer wise. If your goal Team 17 was to make a hard game, it needs to have a difficult curve, it needs to explain the hard to pull off mechanics. As younger i even struggled to do the first mission when i could entirely complete both 4 Mayhem and Arnageddon 2. Many of the later Worms games like Armageddon 2 would had all of the good from Armagedon 1 and focus its attention on the singleplayer plus better graphics. So why Armageddon 2 isnt considered the best in the series? Or World Party? Its a question only the die hard Worms fans know. But im not a die hard fan of this series. Im an average player who expects to be treated like the rest. And Worms Armageddon is very far from being accessible. I even think is even less accessible than the first Worms game since that game just gets straight to the point. It was also more fun imo.

Despite every negative thing i said, i still maintain Worms Armageddon has excellent qualities: Its multiplayer is fantastic, all of the team, map and scheme creation are very ahead of its time and there is a lot of stuff to play around, but without the good level design of the main campaign or the appropiate training to teach a new player about all of these hidden mechanics and the devs expecting you to be 100% perfect or just "get good", it doesnt quite reach the heights it could reach. For those reasons alone, i can admit that yes, Worms Armageddon is the best game i ever played... that i would never be able to enjoy. Not matter how much i try.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

A thousand mediocre unfocused movies.

[5/10 · 16 January 2024]

You know the drill. Movie based on another story (in this case a comic I think), movie that I will review as another one and will be judged on its own merits. And if you don't like it, too bad, there are many reviews here and there.

Valerian was one of my films chosen at random as I already mentioned once that I like to do. I'm only usually a fan of science fiction movies if they have a good sense of adventure and fortunately this one achieves that (for better or worse). In that regard it succeds (and more than well) with the title. There are tons of places that are shown and all of that with an artistic and technical level that is finger-licking good, and all with their diversity of species and their varied "culture." However, there lies my biggest problem with the movie. It might remind me of many things, like Avatar, Treasure Planet, Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc., but that doesn't mean that all the themes it touches on are well exploited... In fact, it's the definition of mediocre. It is one of those few cases in which with a story they try to touch on all the themes and settings that you can imagine, however, unlike Doctor Who, it does not work here. Maybe it did work in the comic but here 2 hours feel short. Everything feels half baked! Damn! This film tries to be action, war, drama, science fiction, cyberpunk, a brawler, romantic comedy, fantasy, adventure, virtual reality, among others. A thousand of different mediocre movies do not make a good movie. And if we talk about the romantic comedy... Man. Needless to say, it is unbearable. This couple is not made for each other, and even less so for carrying out a plot like this. In fact, I ended up enjoying the secondary characters more, which aren't that bad. Although others are completely filler. And yes, there is too much filler overall. The one that stood out the most is the entire dance scene that is only used so that Valerian goes unnoticed. This would be normal filler in video games, but not in a film!

Its also kind of strange that the film is called Valerian, but he doesnt appear as much as Laureline. Maybe they didnt want a cliche independent woman to appear in the title, but... well... i though we already got used to that!

Ambition worked against this. It's so unfocused and so stretched that every little story that we seen is mediocre. So this end up just being mediocre overall. I really like how the movie looks and how the environments progress. It makes you want to explore these places. But don't get it wrong, this is not Treasure Planet, lol. This is Valerian! A thousand mediocre stories ready to be watched one after the other. Only in theaters.

The Bad Guys (2022)

We are good or actually... bad?

[5/10 · 4 January 2024]

My first movie review since a long time, and nothing changed. Today we have a rain outside, a rain of unpopular opinions as well as haters. Would you believe i watched this movie only because it was commented on a Crash subreddit? Thats how desesperate im these days to find a good movie, lol. Anyway, it is not that bad actually. We can see a creative animation that kind of reminds me a bit to Mitchell versus the machines mix up with Zootopia. Im not a fan of plastic looking models specially in modern animated movies, but if there is something that The Bad Guys does really well to compensate is the colours. Possibly one of the best uses of it and it makes the character models to dont look so flat and the facial animation is also very convicing, specially from Snake which i noticed that in some parts of the movie he is shown close to the camera while looking angry. As an interesting note, some few old cutting edge games tried to show most of the time the character face because thats where all of its polygonal detail was and they also tried to hide its body or make it not look so visible and here with Snake in those particular scenes looks amazing. You can feel exactly what it feels. A shame that the story was also flat, let alone generic and with mediocre execution.

I feel like the movie could had done so much more with this concept of trying to slowly build up the characters to become good, and also trying to decide wheter being good or continue to live up in the comfort zone, but instead the devs showed, alongside the rest of the industry, that they were the ones that still prefer to be in the confort zone. We saw this types of stories countless of times that making another generic review telling the whole story would be an insult for my intellect. The main cool character with a romantic interest, the big fat comic relief doing jokes that nobody cares, the modern girl with all of the accesories that does modern references in a movie that doesnt need them, etc. The only decent written character in the whole movie was Snake which had surprisingly a good arc and even him in the whole movie seem to separate from the rest of the group a couple of times because he is just too good for them to match.

I could also praise some action scenes at the beginning which i admit, they were pretty cool, but seems that there goes all of the budget of the movie (and it was the part they showed the most in the trailers for a reason). Is just not enough to compensante all of the generic parts.

And now we have to talk about the flaws, because yes... this movie actually has real flaws, not just being generic. If it was well made at least i could forgive it.

Lets start with the main topic of the movie: "Can we change?" "Could the Bad Guys turn into Good Guys?" The movie has a lot of problems with this. First of all, apart from Wolf, we never see the rest of the cast to change its mind, in fact, until the prison we see the other guys still wanted to be bad. You may think they had reasons but the truth is that nothing is show by the movie. Only Wolf, which apart from those strange tail moves (which they were honestly awful and i dont count them as a real reason) he seemed to be tired of being always evil, kind of like Megamind, and he got in love. He had at least a reason, the others dont. They just forgive Wolf and follow him whenever it goes i guess.

Its funny how despite all of the things they stolen, that may go up to millions of dollars, they get out of jail in just a year. Im not a lawyer or a judge but you dont have to be clever to know that returning all of what you stolen doesnt excuse what you did. I know this movie doesnt want to take itself too seriously, like most nowadays trash, but an story is an story, it has to make sense.

I also feel like the movie ends too abruptly. They would continue to steal or just live normal lives? Foxy was always a thief and she never seem to be regretful of their actions (that scene were she wanted to confess doesnt count, she technically never paid for their crimes).

Ughh... basically this movie is a mess in what it tries to do. It tries to give bad characters a second chance without deciding for themselves and still hiding its crimes despite accepting their fate. It is not a terrible movie, it is kind of saved for the action scenes (especially at the beginning) and the animation and excellent use of facial expression (Snake in particular) alongside the colours to not just adapting perfectly to the enviroments artistically but also disguise the low quality models, but that doesnt change the fact that like most modern animated movies, this wouldnt be remembered in the future. Dreamworks, Disney and Pixar stopped from making true timeless art a long time ago. The Good Guys as a whole doesnt feel like true art, but just something to fill up their wallets. Maybe the Bad Guys were actually the directors and we didnt know about it.

Crash Bandicoot (1996 Video Game)

The first playable tech demo in history.

[8/10 · 26 December 2023]

I dont like to talk about common games, but sometimes i do an exception. Thats why i also skip some important aspects in my reviews because i want to talk about things most dont. If i dont do that, it would just be a copy paste. The first Crash game is also pretty much criticized these days for not aged very well, and while i agree that its the weakest in the trilogy, i feel like people doesnt give the credit it really deserves, but lets calm down a bit.

For one, i think it manages to be, to my knowledge, to be the first 3d game in history to match or even surprass the graphics made by prerender stuff (like Donkey Kong Country) or even tech demos made in super computers. Most people may know all of the clever programming that made this game possible on the first place. I feel people dont give enough credit to how ahead of its time the PS1 Crash games looked. You had everything, z buffer and texture jittering almost fixed, dynamic lightning, facial animation, a great amount of polygonal density present at all time, basically thanks to the fixed camera and focusing all of the poly count available in a reduced space, plus some of the best optimization ever made for a videogame would make some graphical techniques unthinkable to be possible even on a console not made for that, on real time at 30 fps on a 2mb ram machine... Crazy. In comparison, the best looking game on the most powerful platform at the time, which was obviously PC, was arguably Quake 1, which needed at least 8 mb of ram, a decent graphics card and a Pentium, miles more powerful than the PS1 MIPS, and all of that for a game that had blurry brown textures and characters that walk in slow motion and zero expression. Dont get me wrong, i think Quake 1 still is very impressive for 1996, and a top 3 in terms of graphics, but Crash 1 was just in another level. Honestly, if nowadays a game could do photorealism by doing fixed cameras and run on something as old as a pentium 4, by all means do it.

Obviously all of those miracles wouldnt be anything without a good gameplay, because i swear, the amount of times i played an impressive trash game is to write a book, but fortunately Naughty Dog did know how to make the gameplay addictive. It may seem less revolutionary that something like Mario 64 at first glance, but you should treat Crash 1 like an evolution to old 2d platformers. The 3d in Crash is used in a different way. Not to give you exploration (even though sometimes you have more than one path to go), but to give you a new layer of gameplay. Of course we all know this game has different camera perspectives for each level, but how important is that? Well, a lot. The boulder levels for example kind of reminds me to a scripted sequence in a modern game. Different perspectives can make a level to look better in the right hands. The boxes also makes the gameplay very stimulating by making you control your jumps or your spins at times. Yeah, we all know they screw the save system and the one life one run is still unfair, but honestly... the game isnt that hard? I mean, it still is very challenging for a first playthrough, but is nowhere near as hard as many games of that era or before. Accessibility was always a thing for Naughty Dog, and Crash 1, while not perfect, i think still gives a good margin of error in most levels.

I honestly could talk about more things... but... it would be repeating what people did for years and i would be lying if i say that i made this review to talk about something more than the graphics. Nowadays a bunch of polygons on screen may not seem much, but i think this game still looks very impressive thanks to the unique artstyle, inspired by a lot of sources (seriously, Zembillas is a genius and if you were an artist you should feel inspired by its art), and its optimization techniques that could theoretically be used in a modern game in the right hands. Making those enviroments divided in multiple pieces was probably a headache, i couldnt imagine how much the devs were suffering by making this game. But something no one could deny is that, it doesnt look like a PS1 game. I mean, is so impressive that even the 3d renders made to promote the game arent too different from the true thing, thats how good it is. The first time i saw where an actual game, could be used as a tech demo to showcase the power of a console. Go away T-Rex and Batoidea, Crash Bandicoot will be packaged on your disk along with you.

Crash Team Racing (1999 Video Game)

A review of my most important game in my life.

[10/10 · 18 December 2023]

The perfect day to talk about this game. This time im gonna talk about CTR since i may not enjoy this christmas and this game is the most important in my life, so i would give it the reward it finally deserves while giving someone at least a bit of happiness. I would also focus this review in other aspects so it doesnt seem copy pasted.

Have you ever played a game that feels like an old friend? Im not kidding, just think about the thing you enjoyed the most in your life and share moments with someone. You may think a videogame is not the same, but what if i tell you that without it some of my past memories would be sadder. I wasnt exactly... the most happy person in the world two decades ago, and still i feel bad at times, but every time i come back to CTR all of the bad feelings dissappear and i cant just but feel like its a game that was specifically made for me. Everyone has probably a game that clicks instantly with them, even the ones who arent fan of videogames as a whole.

It is kind of sad that even after the remake and after the community saw the merits of CTR, they still didnt do justice to how well made and groundbreaking this was in a lot of aspects. Even considering other 1999 games which were also innovative, especially in the arcade scene. 1999 was a year of major evolution for videogames, probably where videogames started to feel more modern; (depending which one). But i do believe that CTR at the very least managed to balance its innovations with its refinement, without sacrificing one for another.

CTR is a kart racer, inspired in previous ones like MK and DKR. That may seem like it isnt revolutionary. The truth is that CTR feels like everything but not your typical go kart. And not only just for the hidden depth in the core gameplay which together with the physics engine and the track design makes the gameplay have an incredible skill ceiling while still remaining accessible in a way i never seen before, but something no one ever mentions is that CTR also takes inspiration from actual racing games in some different subtle ways. Starting with the hang time boost which was based on how much a ball in American Football is in mid air (well, thats sports but nevermind). Later we have the boss battles which resembles to me to a slalom test: the bosses throws you tons of items in zigzag mostly, and they remind me to a pace car. There is also some realistic aproach to the physics like the up or downhill sections or how the kart handles different terrains like dirt, grass, water, etc, that wouldnt never be taken into account or at least as much in this genre. Or the spin out caused by drifting too much with the car (its a car not a kart shut up). The physics arent realistic, dont get that wrong, but the subtle realistic aspects that are there makes the entire experience feel more special. Did i also mention that CTR also has a first person hidden camera? Or what about supporting a racing wheel? That just further proves my point. Or also the last two tracks in the game which looks like an actual circuit.

Of course, again, those realistic things are subtle and doesnt take away from what CTR actually is: a celebration of the crash franchise, from the characters, to the tracks, to the items, to everything else. With just three games in 3 years they were able to create an universe from scratch and make them work in a kart racer. Cool.

Aspects of the main series core gameplay are translated here well which again, is something i didnt saw in other kart racers, like the platforming. Yeah! It succeds at being a good racing platformer too, since one of the main mechanics of CTR is jumping and the tracks are filled with shortcuts, crates in harder to reach spots or tracks that are never flat so you could pick up your jumps to gain speed. The kart feels weighty like a platformer.

Most people tend to praise HL2 this days to be consider the first game in history to have incredible physics or a physics engine at all, and while i agree that its great, i cant but feel like its not old enough. In fact, i would argue that one of the games that made revolutionary changes in the physics (even though no one ever used again) is actually CTR, maybe one of the oldest games with a dedicated physics engine that actually uses it in the core gameplay, and (like HL2) without it the game wouldnt be nearly as good. And guess what? They dont aged a bit! In fact, i think this game has better physics than its remake which feels kind of heavy and not in a good way. One of the very few games i played where i have absolute control over the character. And since even the same area on a track is different, with the ground looking irregular from side to side, that means each race could feel a bit different and each player can express themselves in the circuit, getting advantage of the physics engine by bouncing the kart in a different position and playing around with it, for example. I ironically prefer when racing games makes me doing something different than the usual race. This and other things makes me see CTR as one of the most meticulous games ever programmed even after 24 years. Even when taking into account the ninth gen Crash games, they just doesnt seem to have the same level of dedication and polish.

I already praised a lot the controls and physics. What about the graphics? OMG... Lets calm down a bit.

Like i said in my wonderful review (no pun intended) the PS1 in 1999 was starting to show its age. It can do open enviroments with enough effort very well but it always had to sacrifice something. Fix camera, flat textures, limited draw distance, etc. If it didnt had at least one, it would ran like trash. But CTR is literally the only open game i ever seen on the PS1 that has NO sacrifices. I mean, there are optimizations of course, the PS1 had clearly a limit that already peaked with the Crash trilogy, but like this game is so insanely optimized and well coded that those optimizations arent nearly as visible. Yeah, the character models arent exactly great looking (through they really compensate in the podium and cutscenes) and it still uses LOD, but it is not nearly as agressive as Spyro.

Wonderful and CTR (also in 1999) are similar in the sense that they build the open world and the tracks in a strategic way to take advantage of an extreme culling to not render what you arent seeing it, but CTR takes that to the absolute extreme, and puts LOD and culling everywhere, even the asphalt has LOD and the tracks uses even the own non flat road to hide textures, so that makes the level of detail and draw distance to skyrocket to unseen levels on the PS1. Naughty Dog was crazy, just look at how big and detailed tracks like Oxide Station or Tiny Arena are just to give few examples. CTR has easily the best draw distance on the PS1, with the player being able to see other drivers from one point of the track to another, like in Crash Cove. The HUB world also looks very impressive and its actually a seamless 3d world with no loading screens... I think you can see the reference...

Even something that may seem very minor like the boss garage portraits looks insanely detailed. I couldnt BELIEVE the PS1 is handling such complex textures that even for a PS2 game they would look good enough. All of that at a constant 30 FPS while other worst looking games of the late 90s ran worse. In a game that was made in just 8 months! Thats why i dont buy excuses from other companies. Naughty Dog made just the impossible. A great game in a short time.

Seriously, i cant do enough justice to how great CTR looks for 1999. It really is one of the greatest looking games of the era, if not the best. It has the beautiful artstyle of the previous Crash games combined with a superb programming that makes impressive open enviroments on PS1 possible without sacrifices. It can fight one on one even to some of the best looking of the Dreamcast and even some early PS2 titles. Is like if most of the game was programmed entirely into assembly. I know that im repeating myself too much with this review, i admit it, but you have to consider that while the trilogy had more polygons in some places, this was full open world. To be anywhere close the trilogy, or even surprassing it in some areas is really a merit that no one should take it away.

And for last the scrapbook. Simply the best credits screen in history. They know this was going to be the end and Universal would do anything they want with the franchise, so ND wanted to make CTR so special. All i can say is... thank you Naughty Dog... for everything.

There are a lot more things i could talk about but im running out of space and i wanted to make this review as unique as possible. Making you feel like you are in the couch is starting to become my job, lol.

Just to make something clear. Despite thinking this is imo not just Naughty Dog magnum opus but also the only game i gave a perfect score for now, this is not objectively the best game in the world (no one is). This is just... a tribute.

If you read this to the end, all i can say is thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed this wall of text and merry christmas. Not, seriously. Enjoy it. Because that is the most important thing in the world, enjoying your time with whoever you are with. And if you dont have anyone to share gifts for some reason, then try to share your christmas with Seaman.

PS: There is a chance you wouldnt see this on christmas as intended. Thanks IMDB, youre really helpful. It wasnt enough to spend days trying to cram my reviews into your small space and strict politics?!

Doom (1993 Video Game)

The ageless grandpa.

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

There are too many versions of Doom that I don't know where to start. But as always, let's start with a little history. I got to know the franchise thanks to Doom RPG in Java a decade ago, and I was pleasantly surprised that a little cell phone had such a great game, however, as I explored subsequent versions, the chronological order and distinct variations left me a bit strange... Several years passed and I decided to try the PS1 version, which by the way I loved it, then I saw one of their games on the Internet (I think it was an emulated Super Nintendo), then I decided to try the MS DOS version when I started to get interested in that platform. The point is that I was very confused, since the order of levels and certain differences made each version of Doom almost its own game despite being basically the same. And now that I have more experience... Where can I start? Do I start with the original version? Do I start with the PS1 one? What do I start with? It's one of the challenges I face when having thousands of versions of the same game. And it doesn't help that for a long time i actually played the MS DOS version more in Source Ports, which greatly polished the formula, although they also differentiated it from its 1993 version. So I said screw it, I'll play all the versions of Doom. So now I'll talk about the original and a little about the PS1 one, which are by far the best ones.

Some modernists may say: Duh, its a FPS of the 90s, it is worse than the newer Doom games or Call Of Duty or whatever other generic trash game!!! But the truth is that it is surprising how well it has aged in many aspects. There are some things, however, that, even though the fanbase does not want to admit it, could have been solved, especially in its release version. I wouldnt want to say obvious things, especially for how many reviews there are from this game, so i would just try to be direct here.

Obviously, Doom is the inspiration and evolution from previous FPS like Wolfenstein 3d, and although at first glance it may seen like a direct improvement, the fun fact is that i feel Doom is less adrenalinic and challenging than Wolf 3d. I may argue though that they did it for the best, since in that game you could die very easily, 99% of the attacks were hitscan and the levels were just a bunch of mazes paste together which drag the game by a mile, but when the game decides to throw you tons of enemies, the fast pace action gameplay actually works better than Doom imo, especially how the character moves there. In Doom you still move very quickly but not as quick as Wolf 3d. Is funny how with each FPS we move forwards in everything but speed. Speed always got lower and lower and thats something i really miss. However Doom thanks to making enemies with hitscan not longer the norm, that means movement and level design is very important, and sometimes this can turn into a kind of bullet hell, depending of the difficult level and map of course. And the controls in Doom are fantastic, Doomguy is one of the best videogame characters to control especially in the Source Ports where he seems to go in roller skates. Yeah, you cannot look up and down and thats clearly for technical limitations and whatever design choice they come up with it, and that can throw away some modern people, and it really can ruin some aspects of the gameplay that i would talk later, but if you can get use to it you would find an FPS that you never played. Its so fast, the level design is amazing with a near perfect difficult curve, there are a tons of enemies and satisfying weapons to use and the soundtrack puts you up to eleven. Doomguy is just so badass.

The enemies are also a kind of "limitations works on the game favour", since they may have a very simple AI, but they have such a meticulous zombie like programming that makes them very dangerous. Sometimes they continue to crash into walls, but they do that to "figure out" the map limits. And they can also fight each other. A good solution i guess to not program a better AI that again, it works on the game favour. Everything on Doom seems to be so meticulous programmed that you couldnt teorically take something out of the game without the entire experience suffering. Is a 1993 FPS that is more meticulous programmed that most modern games and thats saying a lot! This may as well being one of the oldest games i ever played that pass the test of time for how well made it is.

Im also surprise how Doom manages the difficulty. There are 5 difficulties in this game and each one makes a huge difference, and it makes the game accessible for everyone! Thats seriously impressive. Though i would argue the Nightmare difficulty is really unfair though... oh man, if you can complete it you are a better man than me!

The graphics are also amazing for the time, and they managed to cram so many textures and detail in a 2mb file and 35 fps with tons of enemies in screen at once. A technical marvel.

And this is the part where fanboys would start chasing me with dislikes, but im more than used to it. The flaws. First of all, whats wrong with the aiming? The autoaim is really trash in this game. Since you cannot look up and down that means all of the shots would redirect above where your gun is, but the gun isnt perfectly place where the aiming is, so while at close encounters is ok, at longer distances, especially when the enemy is above you, it can be tricky to shoot at them. There are a lot of purist in this regard where they think about autoaim being part of the game "esence", but it is clearly that it was just for the time. I mean, yeah, bosses like the Icon Of Sin in its sequel require the autoaim or the battle would be broken, but designing the game on a gameplay limitation, doesnt mean those limitations arent still annoying.

There is also the infamous "infinite height behavior", where your character is infinite taller. What does that mean? That you cannot pass below or above and enemy. That probably made someone to think about that Doom isnt 3d, something as fake as a 2 dollar bill...... I dont have a fake 2 dollar bill, dont look at me.

The problem with this is that when you go to an area where it has stairs, you could get stuck with the enemies below you, or also with the lost souls flying over the level and is so annoying. It makes the gameplay feel more like camping in a position than actually shooting and dodging fast that it was suppose to it from the beginning. Fortunately this isnt as bad as Doom 2 where the levels are compose of entire buildings.... Oh man... dont expect me to talk well about Doom 2...

The controls like i said before are near perfect, but there is a problem with the Doomguy speed in places where you have to be so precise about your movements. Its clearly that Doom wasnt designed to be a platformer.

Most of these flaws seems to be more about the experimentation and the relatively new state of that genre in the 90s, and thats ok, but what i cant forgive about Doom is.... the pistol start mechanic.

This is something that needs explanation. Supposedly the developers when designing the game, made each level intended to be beatable just starting each level with the basic equipment (a pistol and your fists), and the idea was that in each level you should obtain your weapons again, without them being carried onto the next level. And that would be fine, if it werent for two things. First of all.... How damn they FORGET to program it! You dont lose the weapons after beating a level! In fact, none of the versions had this feature unless you cheat, so this makes me thing they really got repented or they just lie to excuse its second thing... The final boss its an absolute joke without pistol start. One of the easiest final bosses in history. So why did i said excuse it? Well, because the pistol start thing both in Doom 1 and 2 makes the difficulty very unbalanced. Some levels are easier and others are harder, but there is no proper curve. May been an incomplete feature? Idk.

Even if some fanboys think this is the "true" way to play Doom, i disagree, even if that was the intended way by the devs, they never program it not even in the modern releases, and when the game launch it launches. A lot of people wouldnt care about the history of development of a videogame (and a lot of people wouldnt care about my history either, lol). I shouldnt cheat in a videogame to get the "intended" experience, especially when that experience is inferior. Its so weird all of this pistol start situation that it actually ruins the game a bit i think............ Shut up.

But other than that.... this is as close as the genre achieved perfection and yet is one of the earliest games. Surprised? Well, if you didnt had enough with this game, what about the PS1 version? OMG, i actually prefer this version over the original! I love how it mixes Doom 1 and 2 together to make it a more seamless experience, and the graphics and soundtrack are just superb. The only thing i can criticize is the lack of split screen, a shame i guess.

Or what about mods? Doom came out in the perfect time, and the source code was released in the 90s actually, so that means some of the most varied and best mods ever made for a videogame. I dont tend to install mods, but Doom is an exception. And Doom probably is the epitome of preservation, and i wish more companies made at least half of the effort Doom has. Im talking about tons of source ports and decompilation proyects, prototypes, early releases, etc.

Doom is not just a game, but is also like a DOS museum that is waiting for you to discover.

Power Rangers: Ninja Storm (2003 Video Game)

All the nostalgia in the world cant save this.

[2/10 · 7 November 2023]

This review of course would be for the PC game, not for the GBA since i didnt played that one, though it would deserve another review for being completely different.

Where did i know this game? When i was more younger thanks to my grandpa (rest in piece), as a gift from them. The only thing i can say is... thank you for everything you did for me... and thank you for.... giving me another trash to review it in the future!

To be fair, i pretty much love the game in the past, and i didnt even know who were the Power Rangers until some time if im not wrong (we are talking about 20 years in the past, lol). But my past self was pretty much dumb, honestly, anyone until 2010 more or less wasnt as critical with videogames like today, for the better or for the worse, and i said that because i live that era and i remember it almost perfectly. I may wanted this game for how cool ninjas feel: "I want to be a ninja", but kids are dumb anyway and as adults one remember that 90% of the most weird moments in their life happen as a kid. And of course i wouldnt let nostalgia blind me with this one. I still have the original disc, but this is another case of 100% abandonware, so dont fear the law like i always say.

Now playing this game on a super computer, i have to say... wow, i have to give the merit in one thing. First of all, this still works, like without patches? Yeah, this game somehow still works on modern PCs at least in my case. For a bootleg shovelware (spoiler alert i guess) very old game, the fact that this still works is nothing short of a miracle. Even official Steam games that you pay for you have to still fix it by your own. Its kind of embarrasing honestly, and idk why Steam wants W7 to die when is more compatible with their games. Unless they fix their store, i wouldnt accept it. But well, lets continue with the review before this turns into a criticism about politics and society.

And thats it, there is no more positive points about this game, because anything else goes from average to one of the worst ever made.

First of all, this is a minigame collection, obviously based on the Ninja Storm TV show. There are 5 minigames at the beginning but after winning those you unlock the final stage where you have to win those 5 minigames again in hard mode plus a new one. So there is 11 minigames in total i think, and no one is good at all. The only one that could be decent was the breakout clone, but the physics are a bit glitchy, the hit detection of the power ups are all over the place, the ball goes extremely slow and is so annoying to hear the Rangers speak like kids EVERY damn second. Was this game made by little kids? Because every minigame has an annoying voice for each character or the narrator who tries to be overly edgy. Just never choose the blue or the yellow Ranger if you dont want to turn into a maniac.

Later we have a 2 match minigame... nothing more, just that. It is the less buggy, i give it that i guess.

After all we have a race, and if you watched a gameplay this wouldnt seem bad, but oh boy trust me, it is. Instead of driving with the keys like in.... any normal racing game, you drive with the mouse? Is like playing one of those maze games made in Powerpoint but even those were better. And every hit with the car makes the character say childish gibberish (im joking but it almost seems like that).

The fourth minigame is a maze, where you have to use the mouse to escape the maze. This one in hard mode is particularly annoying and the only hard of the bunch.

Later we have the plane minigame which is just collecting time and balance the character in the middle of the screen with the mouse.

And the last one, exclusive to the "hard section" is just a glorified rock paper scissor as a, hear me out: a final boss. No strategy, just pure luck.

Everything about this game was pretty much terrible. I find other bootlegs to work, or play better than this. Work? Didnt work perfectly in new systems? Yes, except for one thing: the loading times... Oh boy, this really is the definition of the cherry on the top that would make most players to not complete this game. And this happens also in an early 2000 PC, so the game is just poorly optimized overall.

And thats it, bad game and probably also bad show. Dont play it. Even with nostalgia isnt worth it. Trust me.

Taboo: The Sixth Sense (1989 Video Game)

Just, get a real tarot oracle and stop fooling around.

[2/10 · 1 November 2023]

Oh.... Taboo The Sixth Sense, the urban legend. When was the last time I played this "game"? Well, when I was quite young, but I must say that they were just sporadic moments. The first time I was so scared that I wanted to get the snot out of my nose, the second time with a little more courage and curiosity but still not fully decided when playing it just doing a reading and leaving the "game" and like that for about 5 or 6 times until I left it for several decades. And now I grab it just for the sake of doing it (and to have another excuse to write a review and show to the world my lexicographic superiority) and obviously none of the dark factor of it penetrated me anymore... But...

Taboo has to be one of those things that even within its self-imposed limits is very poor. There were quite a few Tarot simulators even at that time, it was not something new, but one would hope that at least some entertainment factor the "game" would provide (some minigame, scoring system or something) but there is nothing. It's writing your question, waiting to read the cards and that's it, and of course the fortune numbers that to this day I still don't understand how it works.

I have to admit that this "game" does a couple of things pretty well, at least everything related to presentation. Even today it continues to give off a certain "bad aura", and although Taboo is not a horror game by any means, I must admit that the fairly well detailed sprites with that black background and the music accompany very well that relatively suspenseful aesthetic that it tries to achieve. . And guess who composed the music? David Wise. Yeah, David damn Wise. For those who don't know, he is one of the most famous composers in the entire video game industry, and although at this time he and Rare (I suppose another reason why this game caught my attention lately) were not even half as famous, I must say that David Wise's talent is evident here. Just like all the religious references and my god... it's surprising that Nintendo hasn't complained or maybe they reached an agreement and censored it a little. I wouldn't be surprised if there ever existed a more satanic and dark prototype of this "game".

Notice how i put in quotes constantly "game", because is one of those few ones that i couldnt even classify as such. Yeah, some ones like Big Rigs or ET were a disaster in terms of programming but at least they had some kind of gameplay and they clearly had more effort than this. Literally they put more effort in the presentation than in the game code.

I respect if someone believes in Tarot and all of that kind of things, though i think even a believer would stay far away from this. Like just stop fooling around with Taboo The Sixth Sense and get a real oracle!

Choro Q Wonderful (1999 Video Game)

Choro Q Beautiful

[8/10 · 29 October 2023]

The Choro Q series. How is that no one talks about it these days? Although it has recently gained a cult following, the truth is that it is still very unknown to most players in other parts of the world other than Japan. It seems like my job is to make known all these forgotten and misunderstood Japanese games. It's not that I planned it that way, but it's as if I felt deep down that I should do it.

Although Choro Q was originally born as a toy line, we're not here for that, right guys? We are here for the games. The beloved little games. How to describe them in a few words? Many would say that they are racing games with toy cars, others would say that they are arcade games just to pass the time, but as always I separate myself from all of them and just say: They are revolutionary, or at least the first four games. Open world, car customization, basically the Midnight Club from the 90s in a nutshell, although today i would talk about Choro Q Wonderful, or as I like to call it: Choro Q Beautiful.

Graphics arent my typical starting point in a review, but this is an exception. The Tamsoft trilogy was very colorful and it showed large scenarios, especially Q2 and Q3, which had a fairly large open world for the PS1. They were not the most detailed games of their time, but they have its charm. I don't know what E-Game was thinking, but they nailed it. When it came to doing 3D, the PS1 was a very capable console, but it really had a hard time making large open areas, often sacrificing texture quality and draw distance, unless a fixed camera was used. Clearly at this point the PS1 was showing its age, but that didn't stop talented developers in the late 90s from continuing to get the most out of it, and one of those games is surprisingly one that no one gave it credit for, not even after someone release an English translation (thank you, "insert kiss here"). I wouldn't be surprised if the devs improved in what we seen in Q3, which already looked pretty good, but this is unexpected. And I'm not just talking about artstyle (because otherwise I wouldn't give it so much thought), but about the fact that Wonderful on a tech level is easily one of the best looking games on the PS1... arguably one of the best of the era. With very careful design of the open world to hide undrawn textures, it ends up looking better than many N64 or even some Dreamcast games, and that's no exaggeration. I never thought that in an open world game on the PS1 I would see so much detail, but somehow those at E-Game did it, I can literally count EVERY detail in every map in the game. Blue City walls and buildings, the vibrant colors of Green Park along with its attractions, the shopping area of Red City, all areas are unique, extremely detailed, and genuinely beautiful. Not to mention how these areas have their own little plot. The Choro Qs are not far behind either, I find their models more "cute" than before, but they still feel like cars. The Choro Q games on PS1 compared to the rest of the games in the series have a small degree of realism in the maps, apart from the ones that looks fantasy of course. I would go as far to say that Wonderful looks better than the PS2 titles, and the reason i say this is because i always though the PS2 Choro Q games looks like everything was made out of plastic, like it has no detail. That could be actually applied to most "toy like" games to be honest.

They really pushed the hardware to the absolute limit with this game: very large maps, an extremely high draw distance, textures that dont have noticeable LOD and "Choro Qs" roaming the map freely. Not your typical programmed traffic; these little guys keep going even if you lose sight of them. But, of course, there's consequences. You can't have all this glory and a perfect framerate on a PS1. They didn't sacrifice draw distance, texture quality, or popping, so guess who took the hit? The framerate, oh god, this has to be the worst one I've seen on the console since NFS HS. We are talking about 90% of the game being played at around 10-20 fps. But hey, what were you going to do with this little machine.

Now, what Wonderful does to differentiate from the rest of the trilogy? A lot. And it makes sense, considering Choro Q3 perfected the formula so much that the only place you could go is anything but backwards. Wonderful focuses more on exploration and the adventure itself. Races are here, but you wouldnt expend as much as travelling around the Q world, doing quests, collecting items, doing fun minigames (included the proto. Of Rocket League) and solving "people" problems. That may dissappoint someone, but i swear, if you give it the chance you may aprecciate its innovations. Also i think the races while they are less, they are more interesting than in previous games, not in the variety, but at least in terms of mechanics. Now the driving for example was completely changed. Before the handling was basically zero or perfect grip depending or whether you release the gas or not. It was decent and it work but it could be a bit frustrating. Now cars drive a bit more realistic, in a good way. While it can make travelling around the open world a bit annoying at times, in races it works great. There are some unexplained mechanics though, like the reverse brake working basically being ABS, or less fuel meaning more acceleration. And speaking of fuel, i think its a great mechanic, though i wish they used it more, like an endurance race or something. Only the last three races exploit it.

Customization returned; more limited but more complex. While they are way less parts, i think they make more difference in the car performance. I particularly like the jet, the wing and the rudder since they add depth into the gameplay. Sometimes you need to save fuel, sometimes you would want to reduce the downforce or increase it to take advantage of the little jumps there may be in a track, have more grip in a certain section or my favorite, in the last hidden track, "flying" on the course. It may take a while to get use to the driving in Wonderful, but imo this may be my favorite handling model of the franchise. It takes itself a bit more seriously but still is accessible enough, which is something i always praise in old games, especially japanese ones.

Talking a bit about the exploration, besides having a great sense of adventure, part of that thanks to the visuals, it is mostly well done. There are some issues that i would talk about it later, but there is a lot of things to do, and the stamp system could almost be considered a precursor to achievements in videogame. There is 100, so i hope that could summarize it, since damn IMDB, i need space!

The plot of the game surprinsingly its also very interesting, although it starts a bit comical by the fact that you do impossible things just for get another trophy, it later gets slighty dark with the Gold City and Blue City subplot. Racing games should have a plot. Fact.

And for last the OST. Its incredible. It has mostly the same midi instruments compared to Q3, but still, the Wonderful soundtrack is catchy as hell, and it becomes more epic over time. However, I should note that there has been some controversy surrounding the soundtrack in the series. Starting with Wonderful or HG, some people have criticized it for mostly reusing songs from other sources, including games and licensed music. While I understand the concern, I think it's acceptable for a few reasons: First, the songs aren't mere copies but have been remixed to match the game's tone, second, it's not the entire soundtrack, and there are original themes as well, and third, most of these songs might have faded into obscurity if not for Choro Q. It's a polemic opinion, but I believe in giving credit where my ears find excellence. Leave the controversy to the lawyers and composers; I'm just here to appreciate an amazing soundtrack.

But now the part that i didnt wanted to write, the flaws. Wonderful is the worst case of victim of its own ambition. It may be a miracle that it still remains accessible enough compared to many japanese games, but it is not as accessible as Q3, which is a shame because Wonderful has masterpiece qualities, but to fully enjoy it, you might need a guide or multiple playthroughs. There is some backtraking involved in the game, and although is not AS much as some may seem, in fact, i think the only real bad part is building up the jet, the worst offender of this is the maze. Previous areas where connected, so why there isnt a point of return? The fact that you have to use the maze each time to come back to a city only drags the game to a mile. It is worst if you forget an item or something to do. At least the game does mostly a great job by saving the maze directions (alongside other useful tips) in the notebook.

Another thing that doesnt make sense is the lack of playable cars. In Q3 they had a whopping 100 cars available! Now you just have a misserable 6 cars (without cheats).

There are also some few stamps that are a bit unfair to get, but i think the worst flaw of the game is easily Noteway, the only part where even to this day, after almost 100 playthroughs (any 100 number being repeated intentionally is pure speculation) i still use a guide.

The main issue may be that for every thing it surprises, you have to forget a few really annoying things. Thats why i dont recommend starting here. I recommend finishing at least Q2 and Q3 and later trying Wonderful. But like i said before, you may really enjoy the experience to its fullest if you play with a walkthrough and replaying the game until you know it from memory. If you are able to do that like me, trust me, is one of the best experiences not only in the console, but also the entire genre. It might not top its predecessor, but its different and good enough to make it worth it.

And as a fun fact... was this game called Wonderful on purpose? Wonderful, Wonderfour? Whatever.

Burnout 2: Point of Impact (2002 Video Game)

It is incredibly fun until you reach a corner.

[6/10 · 26 October 2023]

After the objectively mediocre first installment, one wouldn't expect the sequel to be such a big change. Although in many ways, especially if you watch gameplays, it is more of the same, it is so much polished for the most part. They fixed most of the track design issues from the previous installment, the impact detection and the car itself doesn't feel as fragile (although sometimes you can still crash after a low speed impact or just scratching something, but it's still way better), a lot more content with game modes that actually manage to contribute to the main game instead of being against it (I'm looking at you survival mode), as well as better AI, physics, graphics, etc. A little more refinement in this areas overall. This is really the first game on steroids, what it should have been in the first place... And first impressions with this game were amazing, for the first two hours of playing I thought it would be a PS2 classic, like an 8/10 game or something... But.... The problems that I gradually noticed at the beginning, as always, only got worse over time, to the point of taking away my desire to continue playing.

How is it possible? Even all or most of these problems that I will mention come from the previous game and arent as bad, and in fact I did not point them out in my previous review. Well, the issue is that the first game had so many flaws, much worse that I did not consider it necessary to point them out, because next to them it was like nothing lol.

I have already said that I am not a big fan of brake2drift, especially in old racing games where the drift, instead of being instantaneous, has a kind of delay and the drift angle does not feel natural at all. Considering that Burnout 2 has more sharp corners than its predecessor and more narrow roads, this poses a very serious problem where on many occasions I end up crashing into a traffic car that I cannot avoid, since when you are drifting you cannot change the direction of the drift easily. There are some cars that also have bad acceleration, which makes it difficult to recover from an impact or just by scratching the wall, alongside the AI rubberbanding that is still bad, this can cost you many races. And for some reason they decided in this game that to unlock everything you have to complete all the tournaments by coming in first place in each of the races.... and some of these tournaments can take half an hour or more!!! Can you imagine losing it to something as random as a simple crash near the end of the finish line in the last race?

I think Burnout 2 is, along with another racing franchise that I won't mention, the only racing game I've played that has masterpiece points, but they are horribly ruined by its driving system. How damn they ruined it!? I was having a lot of fun at the beginning, considering that in the end the strong thing in these games was always the adrenaline and reflexes, dodging thousands of cars in traffic at 200mph, but it is until you reach a corner where the fun ends.

Burnout (2001 Video Game)

Burnout in the literal sense of the word.

[4/10 · 24 October 2023]

The Burnout series is one of those countless of PS2 classics that i didnt get the chance to play back in the day and everyone recommends it, so how it holds up without nostalgia blinding my big head? Spoiler alert! Is trash. At least the first one, which interestingly enough seems that it was forgotten by the Burnout community itself as no one talks about the first entry! Thats honestly never a good sign.

Well, i would be lying if i say i never never played a Burnout game. I played it a bit the PSP Legends one but it was so quick in the past and just played it for curiosity when i wasnt even thinking of becoming a dedicated reviewer. All i remember it that it was an ok game, maybe a bit repetitive at times, but since in that era i was only interested in Patapon 2 and Locoroco 2, two of the greatest games ever made even outside the PSP (fight me), i didnt give it a chance, so i say now: Lets give the entire series a fair chance starting from the first game.

While technically you couldnt criticize the first Burnout series for this, its funny how the series had evolve so much over the years that the first one feels so outdated and different in comparison. No takedowns, no weight stats, no crashing mode, nothing, just pure racing avoiding traffic. In fact i think this game is basically a carbon copy of a Konami game called "Thrill Drive", and they didnt even attempt to hide it (even the UI is similar). This wouldnt be bad if there would be enough differences between the two and they polished the experience a bit.... but no, its somehow much much worse.

First of all, the controls. Im never was really a fan of Brake2drift physics in racing games, part of that its not because its easier to drive like most people said but because i ironically found it very clunky, especialy in this game where the car doesnt start to drift inmediately but it seems it has an specific spot where it has to make contact to start drifting, so there is a bit of delay. Its so awkard! The turning radius is also very unpredictable as the car opens a lot and the chances to crash with a traffic car when you are drifting are so high that i would have better chances to drive perfectly while being drunk in real life. And speaking of traffic crashes it is ridiculous, remember how i complained in Stunts about how you could destroy your car by just scratching the wall at high speed? That was annoying. Now imagine destroying your car by scratching it at the lowest speed possible. And the hit detection is all over the place, sometimes the game says you take a hit even if you were a few inches at the side of a car or wall. And of course not terrible racing game would be save from having one of the worst rubberbanding AIs i ever seen, we are talking about miles worse than Underground 1 or Hot Pursuit 2, thats how bad it is. Did i also mention a ridiculous low time limit? All of this did make me to restart the first level.... a lot...... THE FIRST LEVEL.

Speaking of other game modes, they are certainly hit or miss, we have face off which is honestly.... not too bad, rubberbanding isnt as atrocious and i like how in two or three races the opponent uses so big cars like a Bus... and yeah, this is certainly one of the highlights of the game, probably the best thing of the game. It is so funny how you could race with so big cars that could take almost all of the road at the side of those small mosquitoes. Its really a shame that there is no weight stat, since even this cars gets crashed by a single low speed hit, so they are more for casual rounds with your friends in split screen or time attack mode. I also like how when cars crash you could sometimes make a barrier with the traffic cars and caught in the accident at the rest of opponents. That certainly makes the gameplay addictive, though it is still more frustrating than fun. Later we have Survival which is honestly terrible. Having to do 3 laps without crashing once? That clash with the entire game mechanics and is just impossible, even in the first tracks driving at snail pace.

Completing 100% unlocks just a single race mode without traffic which should be available from the beginning.... and thats it. This game is way too short thankfully, because i wouldnt gonna want to play it anymore.

Lets talk about other things like the visuals, they are good for its time, and they managed to make the game run at 60 fps constantly with dozens and dozens of traffic cars on screen at once, thats kind of impressive. There is also enough detail on the textures and a decent draw distance to make the game still appealing in my eyes. But what takes the cake on the visuals is that this game is one of the very very few early sixth gen games to support true widescreen. Yeah. Most early PS2 games just supported the -vert variant or what i would like to call, fake widescreen, because.... whats even the point of a "wide-screen" when you see less on screen? It should be called "narrowscreen" or "tunnelscreen" or "assscreen".... or "imdumbforsayingthisscreen".

I also like the soundtrack and the main menu aesthetics, it kind of reminds me to an early flash game... in a good way.

But other than that there is nothing more to say about this game, its just not good enough to compensate all of the bad and on top of that it still somehow resembles too much of Thrill Drive so even if it ended up being good it would still be ironically bad, but between the frustrating controls, frustrating AI and frustrating everything they really advertised well this game in the boxart, in fact, i think this is one of the best games of all time in that regard. This game would seriously give you a burnout to the point you would want to destroy the box with the disc inside! This Burnout game at least its nowhere near as close to be a Playstation 2 classic.

Stunts (1990 Video Game)

The very best of MS DOS.

[8/10 · 10 October 2023]

4D Sports Driving, or more know as Stunts in my country. Did you want to hear a little story like always? Its never bad that one knows its reviewer a bit more, so just sit down and imagine you are with me with a cup of coffee in your favorite couch.

This was a game that i was searching for literally more than a decade, as i remember its name (more or less) but still didnt find it. Just search for a game called Stunts on Google and tell me what you find without telling me countless of real people doing... well, stunts... or sex with their cars after countless of jumps.

But anyway, i played it in the past more or less, and if my memory isnt flawed, this may been one of my first games i ever played in my life alongside Crash Team Racing, Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt and Need For Speed 3. What game was first? Well, who knows, i though about that for years but i dont care anymore. It was one of those and thats what matters. But my point is, while it may been one of my first games, and you think i would overrate this game to death, the surprising truth is that this may as well been an unnostalgic review, because like i said before it was a so long time i played the game and most of my memories were erased, so this is a relatively fresh start for me. How i found it? Well, while i started to get interesting in racing games and retro games in general, i started to find the appeal in the aesthetics of some old DOS games. Doom was one of those and i find it to be a damn great game, even to this day (one day may talk about this game), but even Doom imo couldnt hold a candle to Stunts, aka 4D Sports Driving. What does this game to be so good that surprass imo the grandaddy of first person shooters? Well, to get started, the early 90s was still the 2d era of videogames, and 3d games were mostly relegated to expensive arcade powerhouses. Consoles and even powerful PCs at the time were almost uncapable of running triangles or any kind of deformed geometry without burning like my pizza in the oven... dont tell anyone about that. Im not saying they didnt exist, is just that they were so rare, and in consoles they depend mostly on additional resources like the super fx chip which increased the price of the game and that honestly isnt as impressive as seeing the game running on vanilla hardware. The thing is, i never heard anyone praising Stunts for being basically one of the first true 3d racing games ever made... available for a consumer right out from the box, without also using additional hardware that supports the 3d graphics or any kind of fake 3d, graphics accelerator or anything like that. This is honestly huge for 1990. The SNES which was arguably the most powerful console of that time barely run something like Top Gear in native hardware and that wasnt even 3d. I know that PCs were generally more powerful, but still the optimization wasnt quite yet in that time and you would probably find late 90s PC games that look like trash compared to mid 90s console games or early 2000 PC games thst look like trash compared to late 90s console games and so on until 2004 or 2005 more or less. The graphics in Stunts nowadays may seen primitive, but i think the use of colour in menus and ingame for some things like the cockpit view really makes the game really pleasant in terms of aesthetic for my eyes, so for me at least it still looks nice, and i made a bunch of widescreen like pictures that proves how beautiful even some old games can look and if you are interested you could find it easily with a single search. Obviously from a technical perspective while it was really impressive for its time, nowadays it just looks like textureless 3d forms, with zero shading but well, if you have at least some interest for the past of videogames, dont let things like that blind your mind, and honestly, even without counting how old this game is and how some dated things or flaws it can have for modern standards, this is still a great racing game, one of my favorite ones in fact, and arguably one of the MS DOS games that age the best.

For starters, the handling of the car strikes a great balance between arcadey and realistic. I dont tend to enjoy racing games where you dont feel under absolute control, especially the ones that demand a lot from the player but still have some minor nitpicky that doesnt make them 100% realistic and breaks my inmersion like a toilet. I can enjoy realistic games dont get me wrong, but they have to be so perfect in that regard and also somehow still be fun, because zero fun is the thing i want the least in a videogame. Stunts doesnt give complete control over your car, in fact there is a simulated understeer and oversteering and different levels of grip depending on the car or terrain, but is not exaggerated so you still feel in control. If you know how to turn in this game, cars feel very tight. I think it can be confusing at first, because it seems that each car has an speed limit to when they spin out after turning but if you test the different cars and find that speed value you could drive great in this game. This game was also before analog sticks, so everything you had is a keyboard and the fact that it plays so well is incredible.

But of course this game isnt just driving in roads like a real racing game (which i think even in that succeds) but also there is many types of obstacles and crazy stunts like jumps, loops, corscrews, highways, slaloms, etc. This makes the game so exciting and somehow even more fast and adrenalinic than even modern racing games, while still feeling real enough for the time at least (ignore the lack of gravity while doing a loop). Racing alone was never so fun, but this game manages to do this, by turning the track into an obstacle course....or a damn maze. There is an IA mode as well where you could race against 6 opponents included what it seems to be the Glass Joe of racing games. Did i also mention 11 real life cars? Thats honestly a record (most racing games before only had at most 3 cars).

Of course its not the first racing game to have racing with obstacles, this game is the inspiration for a few other racing games in the past but i think this one succeds even more for their realism, way better controls and... hear me out: a replay camera and a track editor. DAMN, this game was so ahead of its time, and the fun fact is that this track editor is still very comfortable to use. Of course you can just download a program like Bliss to create your own tracks, and i actually recommend creating tracks in external programs because the low resolution of the game means you cant see the entire track and it can be a bit awkard to navigate, plus you can do even more things by tricking the game engine which they would be harder or practically impossible in the normal game. But the single fact that this track editor is very accessible even for people who is used to modern games deserves an achievement on its own.

And of course the soundtrack is iconic, fantastic, just perfect, MIDI as its purest form and perfected in its simplicity.

Racing satisfying as hell, varied, packed with basically infinite content, impressive visuals and a hell lot of community support for this game: More tracks, cars, online competitions in a singleplayer, this game has everything to be perfect right? Well.... almost...

Lets talk about the issues shall we? Starting with the physics. Like i said before i love them, the car feels weighty but isnt like a truck, the problem is that while is also weighty, the car itself seems that its made from paper. Something i have to really praise about this game is how a crash at high speed could make the race over, which even a lot of "Real Driving Simulation" games (looking exactly at you) lack. However, this system is very inconsistent. Sometimes the car resist a few impacts at low speed, but not a single scratch from the side when you are going just a bit fast, and other times even an impact at 1mph can destroy it depending on the object. For some reason the devs put the damn finish line as the strongest object in the game so even if you literally touch it your car gets destroyed instantly. Which you may say: "You have to be bad on purpose". And i say... maybe, if it werent for one time that i lose a race of almost a half hour just for going way too fast after a sharp turn that led me to the finish line, i oversteer accidentally and i crash into the finish line instead of going through it.... Almost half hour of progress was LOST. Of course i have to mention the glitches. While its satisfying to execute some of them to minimize your lap times and going to insane speeds, sometimes they can work against you and when you hit anything at a strange angle your car would literally fly up to outer space. And finally the last flaw and i think is the most serious one.... Remember that i mention before online competitions in a singleplayer? Well, thats because there is ZERO multiplayer. Nothing... What?! Seriously?! Racing games had multiplayer even in the early 80s! I know this is true 3d but at least a LAN connection could have worked just fine, im not even asking for split screen or direct IP, just a basic LAN option for 2 players!

But overall... yeah, this game is amazing. Possible the oldest game i ever played that still holds up and i personally replay constantly. Its so rare to find old games, especially old 3d games and first starters in their genre that nail it on the first or second try, but Stunts does basically that. Its a bit buggy but yet a very satisfying and complete experience. And im also happy that this has a community supporting it, and it didnt sold very well i think. Its also abandonware, so just search for Zakstunts and download it, dont fear about the rules of "illegally downloading a copyrighted game" (which honestly im a bit sick of those people anyway).

Hope you enjoy the review, the coffee, and i see you next time.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002 Video Game)

A new era for NFS.

[5/10 · 6 October 2023]

Oh man... Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is considered one of the best games in the series. How would i make a review of this game without sounding hysterical and have all fanboys chase me? Dont worry, i got you cover.

For a long time i always though if this game was really made by Black Box or if EA Canada had also something to do with this game. You see, the first five NFS games despite being technically the same game between platforms, with the same tracks, game modes and cars, were significantly different between consoles and PC. This is something common between old games because consoles were like a potato compared to PCs at the time (well... always). But this is probably one of the very very few cases were subtle changes to the formula changed the entire experience both for creative differences or maybe also time crunches. Opinions may vary about whether the PC or the Playstation version is the best one for all of these games (personally, the Playstation versions of all but Porsche may go to trash, and all of you who thinks otherwise are wrong, but i dont care). But returning to the topic, multiple pages tell me that EA Canada made this game, others was Blackbox.... who the hell made this game? So the game says Blackbox at the beginning but the credits screen says EA Canada? Maybe EA Canada was merged into Blackbox? Maybe both worked together? Idk... i tried to look at the credits screen of all games both on PC and PS1, but only High Stakes on PS1 and PU on PC shared the same programmers. So i said, whatever, i would play the game.

I couldnt stop thinking about what version to play first. Obviously most people recommend the PS2 version, but wasnt sure after the previous entries, but since those entries were the last ones i played i said: "Whatever, lets see how they upgrade the trash", plus i really was curious about how they would aproach the series. So i played the PS2 version... and.... yeah.... nope, this didnt really convince me. I can see some genuinely effort here and there and i can see "EA Canada" (assumming they work on the game, which may be the case considering some things are shared from High Stakes) to solve previous issues, but still isnt enough. First lets talk about the positives, like the graphics which are so beautiful for being made on 2002 on early PS2. They really aged very well, and they look still fine even on modern display. Every enviroment is so highly detailed, full of colour, insane lightning and special effects like particles and with an impressive draw distance. Cars are also well modeled and im also impress by the fact that now the power of the PS2 can allow up to 4 racers on a police chase while maintaining stable fps, while the PS1 NFS games seem to struggle a lot with this even when racing alone. And speaking about the framerate... yeah... this game may been one of the few earlier PS2 games capped at 30 fps, but im fine with it, and considering how good it looks it was a sacrifice that needed to be made.

Lets talk about the cars now. This has to be one of the best car selections in the entire series, arguably the best, as most of the cars present would become iconic in later games and some of the other ones were in previous entries, so this game feels like a love letter from the series in that regard; all time fan favorites like the Diablo SV, the Mclaren and Mercedes CLK GTR, Porsche Carrera GT, hell, they even managed to put australian cars on the America version, like the HSV, which was previously introduced in High Stakes in Australia. I honestly though it was always dumb in previous games to lock ingame content depending on the game region, and it unfortunately wouldnt remain forever (cough Underground 2), so i really appreciate it. But the reason may not been clear to me (maybe Australian people are racist? Just joking, is just to promote the game better as those cars were in the boxart in High Stakes). I also really like how they restored the upgraded CLK GTR and the upgraded Mclaren, both of which were unfinished in the PS1 version of High Stakes.

Changing a bit the topic... is it just me or the devs really loved ferraris? Nevermind.

And for last the soundtrack... just so epic, nothing more to say. It matches with the intense racing. Though if i have a minor complain about the soundtrack is that there is only one song from Rom Di Prisco, which is sad considering that after this game he wouldnt work again in the series (and also RIP). His song in this game was okay i guess, it captures the classic relaxing esence of the classic games in the series but idk, is just isnt as good, probably because its mostly a generic tecno loop that i heard countless of times. And why he didnt compose more songs? Maybe EA didnt want to pay him more or Blackbox was just convince to make this game as arcadey as possible which i would talk about that later.

Unfortunately we have to talk about the bad, and oh man... this game has a lot of bad.... First of all, where the hell is the damn career mode?! Instead we have a challenge mode with specific cars, which is nowhere near as exciting or fun. If this was like the Factory Driver mode of Porsche Unleashed it would be fine but its not. Challenges often repeats a lot, and it doesnt help that tracks are so damn long, another reason why i think EA Canada made this game, but even in those games it could be at max like 5 or 6 minutes but here a track can be as long as 10 or more! And this is something common in the game!

Later we have the rubberbanding which is funny how people this days criticize Underground 1 when in this game its literally impossible to have the AI 3 meters far from you.

The handling its an improvement of previous NFS on PS1 but it is still a bit stiff. It sometimes feels like a mix between High Stakes with Underground 1 handling but it is still not as satisfying as something like Underground 2 or Most Wanted. I also dont know whats the point of extreme handling since its almost the same. Maybe they didnt want to make the tracks to feel unbalanced, but idk.

Police chases may seen like great, and in fact, i admit i had a lot of fun in some tracks, even thougj they are really over the top, which wasnt the point in previous games and the missiles from the chopper arent telegraphed easily, but at least they are automatically an improvement when you can get arrested up to 3 times no matter how far you survived which was so unfair in the PS1 NFS games but also not like the PC version where you could get up to 8 tickets which you would never come close to it. It was a nice balanced and im glad EA Canada learned about it. Unfortunately, even this mode gets tedious and repetitive quickly due to how boring tracks are, and speaking of it... i think it doesnt help that tracks repeats themes. In previous games each track differ significantly from each other making it feel more like an adventure from start to finish and they were based on real places. Here is just pure arcadey, and this NFS game really feels arcadey, the score points (which is also somehow poorly designed and the thing that gives the most points is activating the 360 degree camera when you touch the finish line for some reason), real info of cars being extremely simplified (so lazy to include the same descriptions for all of the NFS special edition cars btw), limited weather effects and so on. Basically this was the game that started the arcadey aspect of NFS even though it seem like a remake of previous entries but it lost its touch and it would lost it even further with newer games (for better or for worse, depending on each one).

But what i think it was the worst sin about this game was the insane amount of camera freezes the game had. If you crash with a roadblock, your car is destroyed by a missile or just with the push of a button, the race freezes, it does a 360 degree in the car and then continues... Is so akward! Not only because it stops the flow of the race but also because it removes my depth of perception in a hard moment. I think it can be disabled but what ot cannot be disable is that 360 degree camera with the push of a button, basically be what breaks this game. If it had a limit, like a 3 uses per race or something it would be fine, but it is unlimited. And also the fireball with the other button is broken as well.

After all of that, i would probably say the most controversial thing about this review. For years i read that people generally consider the PC version of Hot Pursuit 2 to be the equivalent of an ovarian cyst, but honestly, i consider it to be on par with the PS2 version... if not slighty better.... i give you a moment to read it again if you want........

It has its issues? Yeah, that goes without saying and i overall think it was dissappointing coming from EA Seattle after NFS3 and High Stakes on PC.... but what is so bad about it that people hate it? They managed to put it an actual career mode this time... and im really want it, and they got rid of the desert tracks which were honestly pretty terrible.... the PC version has its issues.... but whats so bad about it? This is obviously coming from someone who didnt enjoy the PS2 version so.... take it how you want and remember to enjoy whatever you want to like it. Peace.

Seaman (1999 Video Game)

The roots of artificial intelligence.

[8/10 · 30 September 2023]

Oh yes, Seaman, a game that I have been wanting to review for quite some time. Although more than anything because the game is long.

Before starting the review I will tell you about the challenge that one faces when playing this type of games: accessibility. Many older games have a sense of creativity and effort that is not always seen today. But sometimes its experience for modern people can be diminished by a number of factors. Accessibility is always something I value in older video games, but unfortunately very rare, even for some of the best games. Let's not even talk about old obscure niche games, like the Japanese ones because those must surely be the pinnacle of the inaccessible. And don't get me wrong, I don't consider things like the different culture, since that is subjective and depends on each person (Japanese culture personally fascinates me, and the world of entertainment, especially video games, benefits greatly thanks to it). What I'm referring to are three crucial factors, their gameplay/mechanics (often unclear or extremely complicated for the average or even experienced players), the language itself (with exceptions of course), and their status as niche content (which makes them very unknown to most, even Japanese people themselves at times). These things makes many Japanese games either go unnoticed or are not given the merit they deserve, which is a shame, because if you are a fan of retro video games and their innovations, you would be surprised to know the number of Japanese games ahead of their time that no one mentions, and even in Japan some of them were forgotten. Of course, there are the Japanese games that "feel" American too (like Phoenix Wright), or those that are known around the world thanks to their impact (like Pokemon). My point with all of this is that it is a miracle to find obscure accessible Japanese games, so they really care about it when they do it. An example may be the Choro Q series (although some of its first installments were only released in Japan, without mentioning of course that nowadays they can be played with patches in English). Which is something that people should appreciate, since it allows you to experience the innovation of Japan and the creativity of old games, without having to eat your head.

But after all that book I wrote, what is Seaman like... Is he accessible? Well, to which I answer: It's as accessible as you are willing to play it. The aesthetics may be strange, and the gameplay unclear at first, but if you have the manual and dedicate a little to it each day without being impatient, everything will make sense plus you'll find Seaman strangely endearing. I say this because the first time I played the game I also didn't understand what it was about. Seaman is also a virtual pet, but that doesn't mean he has to be immortal or overly cute. This is the problem I have with new virtual pets... and also the old ones... Because although the new ones are technically more accessible and so on, it is at the cost of making them all the same, unimaginative, and so ridiculously easy and lacking mechanics, being more of a festival of minigames. On the other hand, the old ones are more reminiscent of a life simulator. Pets can die, sometimes they handle genes (like Creatures), or other complex mechanics, unfortunately at the cost of more modern people not being able to access them. I think Seaman, in my opinion, strikes a good balance between these two worlds. It handles some of the concepts of old virtual pets such as the evolution and care of Seaman day after day (otherwise he will die and you will have to start over, without ifs and buts and as it should be), but it gives a good margin of error so that neither be ridiculously difficult and tedious. Of course, something I value about old video games and virtual pets in general is that they are not copy and paste, and Seaman has something that would make it so revolutionary, that in fact, it is revolutionary even outside of the video game industry. His AI. Seaman's AI is so far ahead of his time that I would almost classify it as the beginning of AI as such; i could honestly see an IA build up from Seaman (and in fact, the Seaman developers after this game, worked with actual AIs) and it is unfortunate that no other game of this nature exists. Once Seaman grows and evolves it's your turn to answer his questions, and he will remember some of your answers, as well as give his opinion on what you have said. Seaman's dialogue and responses are extremely varied (in fact, I think Seaman has 20 hours of dialogue in total, so crazy consider this is 1999). Many of his dialogues sometimes make me feel like Seaman understands me and it seems like a psychologist made Seaman's character. I think the best way to describe Seaman would be a combination between Insaniquarium and Akinator, but even that is an understatement.

The game is even able to provide a different experience for each person, or even some replayability, considering that you lie in your answers.....if you don't want them to find out the location of your house.................... Nah, don't worry, it's not online.

Of course, a game so ahead of its time, and still impressive today, couldn't be perfect, so let's talk about some of its flaws (which is a shame, since if it didn't have them, it would surely be a 9 or a 10). First of all, Seaman's AI is flawed, and that's to be expected. Seaman feels intelligent, very intelligent, surprinsingly intelligent, but we must recognize that he is so intelligent since many of his dialogues are scripted. While the game reminds some answers, it is not Chatgpt by any means (a remake of Seaman like that would be incredible). It is not fully utilized, and part of Seaman's AI also feels real thanks to the fact that he does all the talking. The developers clearly put a lot of effort into implementing it in a way that feels as natural as possible, however, it still feels a little strange that most of the time we talk to him is just to give a short answer, just so that answered us with a wall of text (like me, resist it). Plus Seaman has hearing as good as Lou The Coonhound. There were a lot of times were he didnt understand what i mean, and while my English isnt perfect, it is perfectly understandable! Dont treat me like a fool! There is also some serious technical issues, despite the game looking like an early PS1. The facial animations of Seaman are very impressive for its time, i give the game that, but apart from that, i struggle to see how this is demanding for the Dreamcast, and lets not even speak of the glitches the game has that can ruin your save file, at least in the US Dreamcast version. However for now i wouldnt take that into account since im not sure if it happens in real hardware (Don't start with your moral discourse of legality).

And for last the damn spiders... Those things can make you waste 10 days for the sickness, and the way to remove them is ridiculous, almost like if the devs didnt program it properly (just put them on Seaman aquarium and leave the game quickly, thats it).

After finishing the game, there is nothing more to do, other than waiting for specific days for specific Seaman dialogs or playing around with the Seaman limited AI (seems that he get a bit tired...). There is also a PS2 port that came out in 2001, and it seems that it fixed various issues and improved both the microphone aspect and gameplay mechanics, but its only in japanese... Japan, why you always get the best games?

Other than that... Its honestly one of the most impressive games in the 90s, arguably the most impressive. The AI despite everything is believable even to this day, and Seaman has a good balance between being realistic, but not impossible, so it has a bit of good for every virtual pet fan out there. If you have enough time, please take good care of him... So lets get over to the tank...

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Iron Mask (2019)

An epic adventure, ruined by a story as well balanced as a potato.

[5/10 · 17 June 2023]

I wasn't expecting anything, considering it was a Netflix exclusive for a while, but as usual, I go for it. It could have been a lot worse to be honest.

First things first, the setting is fantastic. Old London and China are very well represented: if the film takes place in a realistic time I wouldn't be surprised. I also partly like how the movie takes its time to show you everything that happens in both places, the contrast between science and magic, and the journey that all the characters make makes you feel a sense of adventure, at least in my case. The problem is that there are TOO MANY main characters and villains, so many that the two hours of film I feel are not enough to develop them all. And most of the time they spend it either with good action scenes, or telling jokes that falls flat, and that completely break with the tone of the plot. The plot can sometimes become a bit confusing or contradictory at certain points, such as: If at the end of the movie they explain that the Dragon listened only to those with a good heart... Then why bother during The WHOLE movie in getting that magic necklace?

I can see some potential in this film, which unfortunately was wasted. But that's what happens when you have a Netflix exclusive. Simply, his condition does not give up for more.

Samurai Jack (2001–2017)

This is really a "Jack" of something.

[8/10 · 12 April 2023]

Samurai Jack... considered by many one of the best series made in Cartoon Network, and even for critics, revolutionary at the time. I only saw her out of curiosity, I have no nostalgia or anything, in fact, i have more nostalgia for the old intro of Cartoon Network (yes, I am older than most of you guys, lol).

Currently people who see this series may not seem like its a big deal at first, let's be honest, the animation in the first four seasons is quite basic, even for 2001, it does not aspire to be something incredible at all at the technical level , but that its compensated to some extent with a minimalistic art style that btw it changes depending of the episode. Sometimes I wonder if this series was called "Jack" on purpose since it has everything: time travel, ancient civilizations, Cyberpunk cities, mafias, gods, in short, it doesnt lack originality, it is almost as Doctor Who in that regard. Samurai Jack is a series that if you are looking for variety and entertaining situations with a story that occasionally takes it seriously, it has a lot of it. Of course, sometimes the tone of the series can be inconsistent, but I do not consider that at least here is a problem. Jack may not be the most original hero in the world, in fact he is quite flat at the beginning, but the simple fact that it is the brave samurai stereotype, crossing places that one cannot imagine such a character in such a place is what makes it so original, along with its way of resolving conflicts with their skills, ideals, etc. I must say that all that is better reflected in the first season but well... but if there is something that I can say that breaks standard for the time is that in some episodes everything gets silent, it tries to replicate the feel of a "silent movie", and this added to the very carefully placed camera angles makes Samurai Jack feels more than an animation, it is more as if the developers used techniques seen in the cinema, this makes the series very fresh to see, even today, and masked very well the negative aspects in which it may seen it didnt aged very well. Because yes, it doesn't matter what the fandom says, it is far from being perfect. If there is something in which the series ruins it is to abuse these silent scenes to extend certain chapters too much to the point that it generates serious problems in the pacing. It does not always happen, but there are some episodes that can become very boring to see up to more or less the last quarter of it. The pacing itself of the series is all over the place. Removing this, I think that in the first four seasons there is not much more to comment, besides it ends without concluding and the last season wasnt released until ... 13 years later?! What will be the reason? I have no idea and I dont care a damn sh. A shame the people who didnt watch the last season just because it wasnt properly advertised or... they go to hell... idk.

And now let's talk about the last season. Many people will not agree and hate this season, others would seem their favorite for the change of tone. As always, im in the middle in these situations. On one hand the first episodes are incredible to me! It is exactly the evolution that the series shows that it wanted from the beginning but that could not because of Cartoon Network, which by the way, I loved how those subtle references with blood and oil did (which this is something that applies to the entire series by the way), being much darker and more intense, but on the other hand I can see those who bother the complete elimination of comedy, in addition to the slightly forced tone change (although I would not say that it has a crisis of identity, since it continues to feel as an evolution to what has already been seen). Nor does it help that it has very basic flaws and serious plot holes that it really shows that it wasnt made by the same developers. I mainly felt that the entire relationship between Jack and Ashi was very rushed, and that she was really created as an excuse for Jack to travel to the past, instead of developing previous conflicts such as why "the guardian" does not let Jack to use the time portal. And finally the end ... My god, the final episode is so predictable that I already know what would happen!

Overall, although I would say that this last season has the highest points in the series, it also feels the most messy, since its quality is inconsistent and only has 10 chapters instead of 13.

Samurai Jack is definitely worth seeing. In terms of how to tell the story and develop the hero's trip, it is a masterpiece even today. It is sometimes ruined by silly flaws, but nothing that ruins it completely of course.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–2020)

One of the most underrated series of all time, but with a serious identity crisis.

[7/10 · 13 March 2023]

First of all, no, i didnt watch any of the other MLP stuff, just this one and some fan made videos in Youtube (which was the main reason why i was interested in the series on the first place). After i ended up watching it (the long 9 seasons), idk what to say. You see, this is the difficult i face when im reviewing series, especially long ones. Its not like a movie where you can resume the entire story in a few sentences. But you also cannot just review every chapter because it would take forever. Reviewing an entire series wouldnt be piece of cake since you have to take into account all of the seasons and the individual episodes as well. The perfect way to aproach to this imo is by giving examples of some of the best and some of the worst episodes so i have some interesting points to talk about. Its impossible to talk about the entire series especially on a subpar page like this, and its also not my topic, im more of reviewing videogames and movies but i would try to do my best, so lets start.

MLP is a series that, at the beginning, i was very ashame to look at it, but i was so interesting because the fandom seemed to take this very seriously, and for what i seemed to be just a bunch of colorful horses being friends and so on, surprinsingly ended up having more depth and complexity than what i though, and what everyone though. But to be honest, when i said that, i was younger and not capable of doing serious reviews. The animation is the most "childish" aspect that the series has and even then i wouldnt consider it a negative point. After watching movies like Bambi i discover that even an adult can be very relaxed and comfortable with cute little characters, is just a way to do animation, which again, these days animation seems to be taked on a more "light" note than it was 30 years ago, when animation it should be as valid as any other medium to tell an story and i ever seen animated movies that are more mature than some hyper realistic productions. Obviously MLP isnt like this, in fact, the first episodes start very light but with an aproach for all ages instead for little kids. You see, whats the difference between, idk, Sesame Street, Teletubies or Barnie than My Little Pony Friendship is Magic? Is the fact that in the other three they dont bother to expand on the cast, making them evolve with each episode and having a world building filled with its own legends, mythology, rules, etc. Thats a clear difference, so no, MLP from the outset, in its more "childish" episodes is not a show for just little girls, is for all ages which is a HUGE difference, seriously, some people really dont understand this (maybe the original show released before this it was, but idk, i just read something on a random page and for now im not interested). I would go as far to say that some episodes are for teens, but i would leave that for another moment.

The first episodes shows how everything works in Equestria, and the personality of the protagonists, which, again, is another reason people underrate this series. Maybe the protagonists at first glance may be the stereotypical mono personality they show, but after watching more episodes they really evolve, and ended up solving conflicts with the ones who seems to be the oppositive of them. MLP intentionally or not, uses the stereotypes to make the characters evolve into something else and learn at the end of an episode, which, honestly... is brilliant. But there is a huge flaw which i would mention later.

Each episodes of the first seasons are basically that, solving different problems with some interesting twists here and there and learning a good message about friendship. It truly may seen like is a little kids show, but you wouldnt believe it until you havent seen. The messages sometimes are really touching and very original. I really cannot say much of the first seasons so lets go to what i call the mature era of MLP. Starting with season 4, seems that the developers wanted to exploit even more the lore of MLP so they ended up adding much more elements of fantasy, little secrets and so on. This is were the series its at its peak imo, especially the season 5. Previous seasons also have this, but this is just on another new level. The first season was about the introduction of friendship, the second and third about the magic and the four and fifth are... Final Fantasy... and... well... the season 9.... If there is something i dont like is that they reserve most of the interesting episodes to the first two and last two episodes of the season, with the rest being just a bunch of episodes showing how the Ponies lives their lifes, something isnt inherently bad, just i want to watch some better continuity. And some of this episodes can really be boring at times. Some of them really shines too, like the ones of the cute mark crusaders. Overall they are serviceable.

Now after telling all of this i would start with the flaws, because yes, this series that i defended to death for unfair reasons also has actual flaws, way more important than being "too cute". I already said how MLP uses the stereotypes at its own favor to build characters around that, but what it screwes everything up is that in next episodes characters INVOLUTE! Especially Fluttershy and Rarity seems the most affected. One episode learn the lesson and the next one return to be the same blank paper they were before. Bit thats not all, MLP has... for the better or worse, the most unique flaw i ever seen in a TV show or better said, in a piece of entertainment, the what i call the Jak 2 syndrome but extended. For the ones who dont know what damn im talking about, Jak And Daxter was a videogame series that started qith a very light for all ages 3d platformer and ended up in its sequel having one of the most radical changes i ever seen, being from a 3d platformer to a GTA Sandbox game, with a way mire mature story. The thing is that it also wanted to make childish jokes like the previous entry at times and it was a bit odd in a world that taked itself so serious, so the game and change was more or less good, yes, but inconsistent. MLP isnt that mature like Jak 2 of course, but the reason im giving this example is that while the change from season 3 to 4 is noticeable, it honestly was for the better imo since it remained consistent and expanded the world building, but starting with season 7... ugh... the series goes back to season 1 route or even much worst. After having some more mature chapters, then MLP goes back and flanderizes the entire cast and giving more importance to minor characters than the main ones in a LOT of episodes. I just cannot enjoy the "school" chapters, the entire group of the "younger mane 6", and the ridiculous amount of jokes that fell flat. Honestly if people want to criticize MLP for being for little kids they have my own invitation here. There are also a lot of filler and a lot of plot holes EVERYWHERE. Why Cozy Glow wasnt be tried to reformed like Starlight which did arguably worse things? Why she has send to what was basically hell but later turned into stone at the end of season 9? What happened to the real Grogar? Why Celestia and Luna feel in the urge to leave the throne when they dont seem to age? There are way more things but this review is being overly long anyway. Its really a shame that for a series that was being one of my favorites at this point (literally a 8 or 9/10) manages to ruin its own perfection, this three last seasons really takes a huge chunk of MLP. The only reason i can think of that is that MLP is more succesful as being marketed for little girls because well, the entire toy lines, the rest of spin offs and maybe the previous show... and wanting to do that ended up being very inconsistent to the point where it doesnt seem to know for what public is, but again, this is just imo. The last episode of season 9 was surprinsingly good though, showing how the entire cast grow up and closing with what it seems to be a very good tribute to the entire series, even though Twilight and Spike looks like if they were poorly made fanfiction, like seriously, more awful than the ponies of the original show... Fight me. And for some reason Twilight is the only one that seems to eated steroids and not the rest of the mane 6. Also, why is everyone so old? They were like young adults before. And Twilight still looks normal adult! Its for being the queen that he ages slowly than the others...? She drinks a potion...? She makes a pact with Discord...? Do i really care...? Idk.

Also not a fan of the forced defeat of villians with just the power of friendship which of course is as dumb as a NUT!

After all of that, i can still say MLP is a series worth of watch. Dont listen to the haters or your parents that tells you that this series is for babies, since they wouldnt probably watched it anyway, it has more depth that you imagine it and its "cuteness" plays in its own favour. I still think it has a serious identity crisis though, that its own fandom doesnt seem to realize, so yeah... the plot is a mess and is a shame that it doesnt exploit its lore in the last seasons... but does its positive unique points (that not other series has) outweights the negatives? Absolutely.

Vicky and Her Mystery (2021)

The only mystery here is that this movie even exists.

[5/10 · 7 March 2023]

Well, to be fair, the movie is okay, so take it as a joke. Mystere gets to the point in terms of the events that occur in the story. There are no plot twists or anything that is not predictable.

Like any movie based on a true story or based on a book or whatever, I most likely don't know the source material so as always I'll judge it on its own merits and if you don't agree with that... read another review.

Mystere starts... with a relatively weak presentation. You see, like i said before, what you see is what you get, and looking at a group of hunters chasing wolfes isnt really the most original concept in the world. Lots of times when im just bored i just watch random 5 minutes clips of movies to see whats the most interesting to watch, assuming there is not any interesting one that was announced and i have a lot of free time. I wouldnt even bothered to watch this movie if it werent for a parent who wanted to watch something, and i though: "Well, it seems that this is the best lightweighty thing to digest..." Did you enjoyed my little story? Well, a shame, we have to continue.

The main problem with this movie is, now that i realize, is that it doesnt seem to decide in which side it wants to put us on. They make us try to get attached to the wolf, but then we find out that the others in his pack are killing sheep (and that's it). The thing is... Vicky doesnt seem to realize the dangers of the other wolfs, and the moment when she follows Mystere close to the end of the movie is so dumb i couldnt believe it. Its also very strange how the old man at the beggining of the movie managed to obtain a Wolf. Did he think it was lost? Did he think it was a dog? Did he think it was Arnold? Idk.

The rest of the characters besides the Wolf (which i admit, is very charming at times and what it saves the movie) are very bland, just your typical dudes to make the story progress. For being honest, i though the hunters would chase Vicky and his dad after they encounter the wolf on the house, but my experienced mind decieved me, i guess.

I dont... really have too much to say about it. Is your typical B tier Netflix movie with a bit of charm along the way. The fact that this was based on a real story doesnt make the movie any less boring. The main issue with it is that it was way too predictable. I could literally predict everything what would happen with the movie, and when everyone in the "town" discover the secret of Vicky then the movie goes downfall after this... However! If you get pass all of that, you can find some worthy charm along the way.

Anddddd like always i finished another meticulous, hypocritical and egocentric review for the few irrelevant fans that may follow me and i didnt even noticed, and if you disagree i dont care.

Jung_E (2023)

Another doody Netflix exclusive.

[4/10 · 25 February 2023]

Not surprise here. Despite very very few exceptions, all of these can go to the same trash bag. Despite some decent visuals and some more or less impressive long action sequences (that seriously, this gives some extra points because i wasnt expected to be somewhat good), the story and characters are trash and dumb, the relations between Yun Seo Hyun and Sang-Hoon are very cringy.

Later in the film btw i forgetted about the civil war it was there because nothing in the film (despite some few scenes in a screen showing what happened) really gets affected by this. Even when they show the exterior, the humans lives normal lifes. Everything is normal!

Overall, very forgettable trash like most Netflix exclusives that only modernist people would watch.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Disney... Learn from the master!

[8/10 · 11 February 2023]

When I saw the trailers, I knew that it would surpass how disappointing the remake was, but not to such an extent! It is literally one of the best animated movies to come out recently.

Although I clearly notice that I am not going to extend myself too much with this review, but I will tell you some things that I loved. Oh my gosh, stop motion animation is so underrated. It is incredible that it is so rare, perhaps because of how expensive it can be? Although what I did not expect was that he combined it with CGI as well, and this is not noticeable at all, it still looks like stop motion all the time. The new songs composed also surprised me and they continue to maintain the classic charm. But now let's talk about the most important part... the story... How to say it... Its different... like... really really different. I know they were inspired by the original book, but it seems to me that they may have also taken inspiration from other adaptations, as well as things invented by Guillermo himself. The fairy having eyes for example and the constant references to the religion may not been coincidence too.

This "reboot" to call it in a way, contrary to the remake that we had recently is practically the opposite of this, if we think about it carefully. This reboot is not afraid to show anything. We are talking about showing war situations, drama, there is even a scene in which you are given to understand that Geppetto is drunk. The remake wanted to include new situations such as the fact that he had a son who died, but they never say why nor do they expand on any of that, apart from flanderizing the entire original story. This reboot recovers part of the lost magic of the original, in addition to introducing situations that do not break the tone. I loved how dramatic they made it honestly... Although that could also be its biggest flaw... at least for some people, since as dramatic as it can be sometimes, it almost seems like I'm watching another movie. Did I mention that Benito Mussolini appears? Yep, in a Pinocchio movie. At those levels of "different" we are talking. They could have even changed the name of the movie and no one would have noticed the difference.

If I had to mention flaws that bothered ME personally, I would have to say that it shares two small problems with the remake, which in the remake made it much worse than it already was, here they don't affect it as much but they still exist. First, the cricket is still not as relevant as in the Disney classic... It is definitely much more relevant in Guillermo's than in the remake, don't get me wrong, but in the original he was so charming, he accompanied Pinocchio constantly and he gave you very good messages... Here, again, they wanted to get rid of him very quickly. And second, but much more subjective, I'm not a fan of the new message of lies. To escape from the whale, in Guillermo's, Pinocchio lies to get out, the same in the remake but to escape from the circus' cage. Some could tell me that it's fine, and that the original was very vague about it, and although it's partly true, I'm not a big fan of the way they implemented it in both situations. Again, just my opinion... And lastly, and also very subjective... was it necessary to call her "Guillermo Del Toro Pinocchio"? Have you ever seen a movie that has the director's name as its name? It's not something that subtracts points obviously, I'm just curious. You can tell the guy was very proud of his work.

In short... almost a masterpiece. Disney should be ashamed of what they did and that in just a month they were far surpassed. It is not as perfect as Disney 1950 original imo (just because it was one of the best animated movies of all time), but Guillermo's Pinocchio doesn't have anything to envy.

I hope Guillermo Del Toro continues to surprise me with more animated movies like this in the future.