Super AiG Screenshots of the Year: 2021

There are two Super Adventures traditions that I give a damn about: the site always begins a new year on January 30th and it always ends a year with screenshots. And sometimes GIFs. Maybe even graphs if I'm feeling statistical. This is the last article of 2021 so that means it's time for another Super Adventures clip show!

I'm a little worried about the screenshots this time though to be honest. It's been months since I played most of these games, I can't remember what screens I took, but I do know that I played a lot of mainstream critically-acclaimed mega hits this year and it's possible that the images are going to be a bit... I dunno, normal. Mundane. Humdrum. There has got to be a few good ones in there though, surely. I guess I'll see what I can dig up.

If you want to go read a game's original article you can click on the highlighted game title, and clicking the images will sometimes open a slightly bigger version to look at/collect/post on Discord to give me free advertising etc.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still taking a look at Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies! It's a JRPG, so it takes a while to get started. If you want to jump back to PART ONE instead, just click that text.

This was the second mainline Dragon Quest game to be released in Europe and the first to get a number. Dragon Quest VIII was just called Dragon Quest here, so if you're going off the titles it seems like we skipped 8 games. The series had made it over to the US though, where it was known as Dragon Warrior for a long while, and I tend to use the titles interchangeably when talking about earlier entries just to be unnecessarily confusing.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS) - Part 1

Developer:

Level-5

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Release Date:

EU/NA 2010 (2009 JP)

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Systems:

DS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at Dragon Quest IX (not to be confused with the latest game in the series, Dragon Quest XI).

This year I've been playing games that have made it onto someone's top 10 list and this one did one better than that, making it onto Gamesutra's "Best Of 2010: Top 5 Handheld Games" list. In fact it got first place, beating Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Persona 3 Portable, and Warioware D.I.Y.

There's no remakes, ports or mobile versions for me to mention for this Dragon Quest as the game only ever came out on one system: the Nintendo DS. They actually went and did it, they made a handheld exclusive sequel to a console exclusive series! Those monsters! I know it made total sense at the time for them to move to the DS because of the much lower costs, but I wasn't keen when Metal Gear Solid pulled this and I'm not keen on it here either. Handheld gaming isn't really the same experience and it doesn't necessarily appeal to the same people, so people who own one system aren't necessarily going to have the other. I suppose it could've been worse though: Dragon Quest X is an MMO!

I've actually beaten this one before, in the distant past, but I've no idea what to expect because I can't remember anything. Except maybe it has a side view battle system for a change? I do know that it's a bloody long game though, so I'm going to have to stick with it for a few hours longer than usual to give it a fair test. Long enough to get a party together and go complete a quest together at least. What I'm saying is... this is going to be another two-parter.

Stonekeep (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Interplay

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

MS-DOS, Mac

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out Interplay's notorious first-person dungeon crawler RPG Stonekeep.

All this year I've been playing games the people have placed on a top ten list, and I found Stonekeep in Computer Gaming World issue 148. It made it to #10 in its '15 Top Vaporware Titles in Computer Game History" list. The game was a bit of a Duke Nukem Forever in its day as development dragged on for way longer than intended when feature creep took hold. It was supposed to cost $50,000 and take 9 months, it ended up costing $5,000,000 and taking 5 years. That's longer than Daikatana took to come out!

Sure 5 years seems like nothing compared to DNF's 15 years in development hell, but time worked differently back in the early 90s. 5 years was the difference between Ninja Gaiden and Doom, A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VII, or Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. When the developers started work on Stonekeep the average PC was put to shame by an Amiga 500 and they couldn't assume that players would have a hard drive or a mouse. When it finally came out it was released on CD with live-action cutscenes and full voiced dialogue. They just kept working on it until PC hardware had caught up to their ambitions, even after main programmer Peter Oliphant quit because he'd had enough. Here's some trivia for you: he went on to work as an extra on the TV series Deadwood, and no I'm not getting him mixed up with Timothy Olyphant.

Okay I'm going to play the first hour or so of the game, and hopefully get far enough to understand the basics of what you're actually supposed to do in it. I haven't had the best track record with games like this, but I'll do my best.

WARNING: There's a jump scare coming up at some point. I'll let you know when.

Blinx: The Time Sweeper (Xbox)

Developer:

Artoon

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Release Date:

2002

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Systems:

Xbox

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a game about a cat called Blinx: The Time Sweeper. I gave guest poster mecha-neko plenty of chances to be the one to write this, I know he's a cat person, but he decided to pass so now I'm stuck with it. But there is a good reason why this has to be this particular game on this particular day.

It's because today is the Xbox's 20th birthday and I'm covering an original Xbox exclusive to celebrate! I needed to select a game that was never released on PC but could be played on an Xbox One to make it easier for me to get good screenshots, and once I narrowed my list down to games I could get hold of easily there was only one name left on it. But I think this was probably the best possible choice; I mean it's even got "Only on Xbox" written on the title screen, how perfect is that?

Oh plus it had to be on a 'top ten' list somewhere, that was also important seeing as that's Super Adventures' gimmick this year. Fortunately I found the game on videogamer.com's Top 10 Most Disappointing Console Exclusives. I suppose poor Blinx is probably on a 'Top 10 Failed Mascot Characters' list somewhere as well, seeing as Microsoft straight up abandoned the trademark in 2015. That's not entirely fair though, as he's actually doing pretty well these days as the mascot for the Poorly Aged Things twitter account.

The game's by Japanese developer Artoon, which had a pretty mixed output, with lots of red and yellow scores on their Metacritic page. Though they did also create Blue Dragon and The Last Story with Mistwalker. Unfortunately that really was their last story, as they went defunct in 2010. It was directed by Naoto Ohshima, the legendary character designer who came up with Sonic the Hedgehog. He also directed Sonic CD and Nights into Dreams... and his latest project was designing characters for Balan Wonderworld. So Blinx is actually part of a pretty, uh, remarkable lineage.

Anyway I'm going to give it an hour or so and see what it's like.

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PC)

Developer:

BioWare

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Release Date:

2017

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Systems:

Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

---

Today on Super Adventures I'm celebrating N7 day by writing about the Stargate: Atlantis of Mass Effect games - Mass Effect: Andromeda! Not to be confused with the Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda of Mass Effect games, that would be something different. If you haven't seen Atlantis or played Andromeda, I'm referring to the fact that this is a spin-off that jumps over to a brand new galaxy to start its own isolated story where the events of the main series theoretically can't reach it.

The game went through a troubled development process, but then it's by BioWare so that's no huge shock. This article you're reading also had a troubled development though, as I started the first draft way back in 2017, when the game was shiny and new. I don't generally write about new games, as I figure that the rest of the internet's already got that covered, however I'd already written about the original trilogy and felt that I should complete the set. But then I shut Super Adventures down for a year and the draft got shelved. I got back to it in late 2019 and nearly got it into a publishable shape... but I figured people would rather read about Super Mario 64 and Suikoden etc., and it got buried again. Now I'm finally finishing it in 2021, exactly six years to the day since I wrote my epic four-part Mass Effect 3 article. I won't be dragging this one out to epic proportions though, I'll be trying to keep this brief.

My gimmick for 2021 is that I'm only playing games which have appeared on someone's top 10 list, and I found Mass Effect: Andromeda at #2 on Screenrant's '20 Most Disappointing Video Games of 2017' list, just beaten to the top spot by Star Wars: Battlefront II. The game came out five years after the controversial Mass Effect 3, and received a very different reaction from players. Mass Effect 3 got fans emotionally invested and then pissed them off to the point where they started campaigns to get the endings changed, but Andromeda had them laughing out loud at the awkward dialogue and dodgy animations. Then people just kind of lost interest with it as far as I can tell. Maybe people still play the multiplayer, I dunno, but it didn't sell well enough to even get DLC, never mind a sequel.

Okay, I'll be sharing screenshots of the first few hours of the game so there might be SPOILERS here for things you don't want to know. Just giving you a heads up.
 

Splatterhouse 2 (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Developer:

Now Production

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Release Date:

1992

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Systems:

Mega Drive

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out Mega Drive brawler Splatterhouse 2! I figured I should play something with a bit of a horror theme for Halloween... for a change. I generally only remember to play a Halloween game 40% of the time, so you got lucky this year. Or unlucky, if you came here hoping to get away from it.

Horror's never really been my favourite genre to be honest, plus I get bored of side-scrolling beat 'em ups very quickly, but I found Splatterhouse 2 at #1 on Horror Geek Life's Top 10 Spookiest Horror Games on the Sega Genesis so it has to be something special. Unless it's just not a very spooky console. Splatterhouse 3 also made the list, but not the first Splatterhouse... which makes sense as it was never released for the system. Splatterhouse 1 started out on arcade and was ported to TurboGrafix-16, FM Towns, PC, but not the Mega Drive. The two sequels, on the other hand, were Mega Drive exclusives. So that must have sucked for all the TG-16-owning Splatterhouse fans who wanted a sequel, and the Sega-owning completists who wanted them all.

The original arcade Splatterhouse was by Namco, but this sequel was outsourced to Now Production, the folks who'd made the Splatterhouse spoof spin-off Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti on the NES. They've got 70 games listed on MobyGames and they're still going strong to this day, releasing Switch titles like, uh, Spaceship Curse, Seal Electric Railway, and Shark Copter vs. Zombie Dancers.

Bloody hell, I've written Splatterhouse 9 times and it's only the intro. 10 times now. Alright I usually stop after the first hour, but that would probably be enough to beat Splatt... this game twice over, so this time I'm only going to cover the first ten minutes. Fortunately I can probably drag those ten minutes out all night, as I'm crap at these kinds of games.

Content warning: this is a horror game so it's going to be a bit horrible at times. Lots of 16-bit gore and nastiness. There'll also be spoilers for the first game.

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Previously on the self-explanatory Y II K: A Post-Modern RPG, childhood buds Alex and Michael encountered a spooky ghost in an abandoned factory and freaked the heck out! Are you ready to see the photos they took?

You are invited to review the game's Content Warning in Part 1. Oh, and don't forget to click the screenshots to enlarge!

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Part 1 - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, indie guest reviewer mecha-neko is giving under-rated indie RPG YIIK a fair chance to impress him. Uh, I don't mean it's underrated because people aren't giving it a high enough score, I mean it's gotten fewer ratings that you'd expect for a game so notorious. 186 user reviews on Steam, 35 user ratings on Metacritic; it's like people don't even want to play it for some reason!

I don't know much about the game myself, though the title claims that it's a post-modern RPG, which I guess is a bit like a post-nuclear RPG except without so many super mutants. I'm sure mecha-neko will bring us all the facts.

Developer:

Ackk Studios

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Release Date:

17th January 2019

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Systems:

Windows, PS4, Switch

---

Take a seat and enjoy the strange, warbling, echoing elevator muzak. It is time for our minds to be expanded and our preconceptions to be obliterated as we begin Y II K: A Post-Modern RPG.

Other than knowing it's an RPG set in the modern day (yaaay!), I'm completely oblivious to all things YIIK. Some people can't stand it. Maybe I'll like it! There's only one way to find out:

Click the pictures to enlarge!

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2)

Developer:

Ubisoft Montreal

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Release Date:

2003

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Systems:

PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Win (HD on PS3)

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing the fourth of the legendary Prince of Persia games, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time! Okay technically it's the fifth of the games, but no one ever talks about Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures and I'm sure there's probably a reason for that.

Sands of Time is the second 3D Prince of Persia and the first of the Ubisoft trilogy, which lasted for four games in the end (after being interrupted by a temporary reboot part-way through). Ubisoft still owns the franchise to this day, but we haven't gotten a new Prince of Persia out of them since 2010. They got a bit distracted after a planned sequel called Prince of Persia: Assassin became too powerful, took on the name Assassin's Creed, and launched its own series.

By the way, my gimmick on Super Adventures this year is that I'm only playing games which have appeared on someone's 'top 10'. Well it took some serious research, but I finally found Sands of Time at #8 on stuff.tv's 10 faithful video game to movie adaptations list! I have the feeling it's probably on a few other top 10 lists too, seeing as it's got 92 on Metacritic. It's in the top 2% of PlayStation 2 titles!

Alright, this isn't my first time playing the game but it might as well be. I tried it out for 20 minutes or so back when it was new and didn't really feel a need to keep going with it. This time around I'm going to try to stick with it a little longer so it has an actual chance to win me over... or give me a real reason to quit.

The Sims (PC)

Developer:

Maxis

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Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

PC, Mac

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing The Sims! The original game from the year 2000, installed right off the CD I bought and played it from years ago. In fact I don't even think you can buy this digitally, which sucks. I haven't got any of the expansions but from what I've heard I'm probably better keeping my installation light. At least if I want to avoid suffering long loading times and crashes.

My Super Adventures gimmick for this year is 'games that have appeared on a top ten list' and I found The Sims on an old list of bestselling PC games ever, right up at number 1. It kicked the ass of all the previous 'Sim' games like SimCity and SimAnt, and I can see why. It's pretty much the most relatable video game ever made as it's simulating everyone's normal life, to a degree that no game had ever managed up to this point. This time you're controlling the people who live in the SimCity, the tiny Sims that complain about crime and traffic all the time, and you get to dress them up and buy them microwaves and stuff!

To be honest I've been meaning to write about the game forever, but it's always been too daunting for me. Other people always manage to construct insane narratives around their Sims' lives and I know my own playthrough is going to be depressingly sedate and uneventful by comparison. I just don't have it in me to torture my little computer people! I'm not going to let them use the oven and burn the house down, I'm not going to seal them up in a wall in a puddle of their own urine, and I'm definitely not going to build a swimming pool and then delete the steps when they're in. So really, what's even the point of this?

But eventually I came to an epiphany: if nothing interesting happens then that's the game's fault, not mine! I'm just going to play it as boring and normal as possible and if see if the various interacting simulations can give us some entertainment. C'mon game, amuse me!

Super Adventures in Face Editors III

This week on Super Adventures, it's been exactly one year since my second article about video game character creators and six years since the first, so this feels like the right time to bring the trilogy to its epic conclusion.

But this time around I'm not going to write paragraphs of text for each game going on and on about what sliders they have and how many hairstyles they include etc. You can check out the other two articles if that's what you're after:

Super Adventures in Face Editors I - Making Solid Snake
Super Adventures in Face Editors II - Making Lara Croft

And I'm not going to spend ages trying to accurately recreate a specific character either, getting each of the shapes and proportions exactly right. No, this time I'm just going to push the sliders to their limits and make some aliens! Or monsters. I'll take whatever I can get.

Well that's my plan anyway, but how many character editors actually have the power to create a truly alien looking creature? I'll need colourful skin tones, excessive proportions, weird hairstyles, pointy ears, bumpy foreheads... I predict Oblivion's going to do well.
 

Cat Quest (PC) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, guest reviewer mecha-neko is playing a game about a cat! I'm as shocked about it as you are.

My gimmick for this Super Adventures this year is that I'm only playing games that have made it onto a top ten list, but mecha's not restricted by my self-imposed limitations, so he does what he wants. Though I went and found a top ten list with Cat Quest on it anyway! It's on MacRumour's Top 10 iOS Games Released in 2017, along with games like Fez, The Witness and The Binding of Isaac. So if you like those games, maybe it's worth reading about this one.

Developer:

The Gentlebros

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Release Date:

8th August 2017

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Systems:

Windows, Mac, iPhone

---

Hello everyone! It is August once again, which means it's time for a cat game! This time, the internet seems to have provided the cattest game of them all, Cat Quest!

We've got cute cats on the title screen, peppy music blasting out the speakers - everything's set for one colourful kitty caper!

Click the images to enlarge!

Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm learning that Dragon Quest VIII is a very long game. So long that I'm going to have make a second article just to reach the second town.

I'm looking for the right place to stop playing, hopefully somewhere that looks cool and has a third party member to recruit. I mean how am I supposed to tell people I've got opinions about the game with a straight face when I've only gotten as far as running around a cave with my buddy Yangus?

If you want to read PART ONE instead just click that text.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2) - Part 1

Developer:

Level-5

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Release Date:

2006 EU (2004 JP, 2005 NA)

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Systems:

PS2, Mobile, 3DS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing another Dragon Quest game! In fact this was the very first main Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior game released here in the UK where I am, so that's why it's just called 'Dragon Quest' up there. (The first game in the series released in Europe was Dragon Warrior Monsters in 1999 if you're curious).

To everyone else though this is Dragon Quest VIII, the eighth game in the legendary RPG series... though it is the first to be made by Level-5. The original five Dragon Quest games were by Chunsoft, then Heartbeat took over for six and seven, and now Level-5 has become the third developer to take the reigns. Like the last two games it came out pretty late in its console's life (JRPGs take a while to cook I guess), but at least it wasn't last gen on arrival this time! Well, except for when it finally arrived in Europe two years later.

I've been playing games from 'top 10' lists this year, and I found Dragon Quest 8 at #4 in Metacritic's top 10 PS2 RPGs list, between Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 (the number 1 game is Final Fantasy XII if you're curious). DQ8 and I have never really gotten on, I got frustrated early on by its combination of unskippable cutscenes and 'guess what NPC you have to talk to' gameplay, but I figured that if everyone else likes it so much I should probably give it another shot. And by 'shot' I mean I'm probably going to be stuck here playing it for five hours or more. But if it hasn't won me over by then, it's a lost cause.

System Shock: Enhanced Edition (PC)

Developer:

LookingGlass

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Release Date:

1994

|

Systems:

DOS, Mac, PC-98 (EE version: Windows)

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out the original System Shock, a game I've somehow never played. Well okay maybe I put it on for five minutes once and got scared off by the controls, and I did play the demo of the remake, but this is something I'm mostly clueless about. It's a big gap in my important video game knowledge. I mean up to this point I assumed I'd be playing as the guy with the chunky metal headwear from the box cover, but that's apparently a Cyborg Elite Guard. Seems like the player character is the guy in the sneaking suit on the right.

My gimmick for Super Adventures this year is that I'm playing games that have appeared on someone's top ten list and I found System Shock at #9 on PC Gamer's Top 100 from 1996... even though it actually came out in 1994. I guess it's the kind of game that takes a while to win people over.

System Shock was LookingGlass's next immersive sim or '0451' game after the Ultima Underworld games and introduced something absolutely crucial to the genre: a door locked with the code 451. There are many things locked with the code 0451 in many games, but this is its origin. The game probably introduced other things too, I'll let you know if I spot anything.

I'll be playing Nightdive's Enhanced Edition, which is an entirely different thing to Nightdive's upcoming remake. It's basically the same as the original game, just with modern resolutions, redefinable controls, video options, that kind of thing. They likely even patched a few bugs while they were at it. Plus it comes packed with lots of bonus features, like artwork, guides, the soundtrack (in MP3, FLAC and MIDI!) and even an interview with Warren Spector, which I need to remember to watch. It also includes the original version of game and a copy of DOSBox to run it in, just in case the Enhanced Edition isn't authentic enough for you. Very handy if you happen to be taking screenshots to compare versions.

Okay, I usually play games for an hour or so, but I suspect this is going to need a bit longer than that. I'll keep going until I've finished the first floor, or at least succeeded at something. I'm sure someone will eventually want me to flick an important switch and I will make sure that switch gets flicked.

The Lawnmower Man (SNES) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, virtual game reviewer mecha-neko has returned with a quick look at perhaps the best video game to ever have the word 'lawnmower' in the title. It's probably better than a lot of games with 'man' in the title as well, like Superman 64, the DOS version of Mega Man, that Amazing Spider-Man game from 1989, and The Running Man. Though this and The Running Man would both make it onto anyone's "Top 10 Video Games Based on a Stephen King Story" list, because as far as I know there's only ever been five of them.

By the turn of the millennium a technology known as VIRTUAL REALITY will be in widespread use. It will allow you to enter computer generated artificial worlds as unlimited as the imagination itself. Its creators foresee millions of positive uses - while others fear it as a new form of mind control...

Developer:

The Sales Curve

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Release Date:

8th November 1993

|

Systems:

SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy

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Hello, everyone! I'm going to take it easy and play a 16-bit movie license today. This game was recommended to me because it has flashy graphics and fancy effects. The person recommending it to me hadn't actually played it themselves, but what can you do?

I'm not going to go in-depth talking about the original film. In fact I played the game before having seen it! But I'll warn you about potential spoilers for it anyway now if you'd rather not read anything like that.

Resident Evil 4: Ultimate HD Edition (PC) - Part 2

Good news, this week's Super Adventures has been extended with bonus content, as my quick look at Resident Evil 4 has turned out to be a little less quick than I expected. This is definitely the final part now though, and you can click this link to check out PART ONE.

Despite the title, Resident Evil 4 is actually the sixth mainline Resident Evil game... I think. The first three RE games started off on the PlayStation, then there was Code: Veronica, which launched on the Dreamcast first, and Resident Evil 0, which was a GameCube exclusive. So if you were an impatient RE fan who wanted to follow the story you needed a Sony console, a Sega console and a Nintendo console. Resident Evil 4 was announced as GameCube exclusive too but fortunately it went multiplatform with a PS2 release later that year, and I'm sure all the fans who bought a GameCube because of it eventually got over it. Especially as the GameCube original is apparently the better version.

The game did something else to annoy fans: switching genre to a third-person shooter. RE4 has a much more modern gameplay style and made a lot of people feel like the series would never return to the awkward survival horror gameplay they loved it for. Fortunately Capcom did eventually return to Resident Evil 2 and 3 and gave them big-budget remakes... to make them more like Resident Evil 4. Someone must have liked them though as they sold enough for Capcom to start working on Resident Evil 4's remake! Wait, hang on, what happened to the Code: Veronica remake?

Resident Evil 4: Ultimate HD Edition (PC) - Part 1

Developer:	Capcom Production Studio 4	|	Release Date:	2005	|	Systems:	GC, PS2, Wii, Win, iOS, Android, Zeebo
	HD Edition -		Release Date:	2011 (2014 PC)	|	Systems:	Win, X360, PS3, XBOne, PS4, Switch

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm going to be hating on another beloved Resident Evil game! Perhaps.

I mean there's no doubt that it's beloved, you can find the game on all kinds of top ten lists (often just behind Ocarina of Time), I just don't remember liking it much myself. Other people considered the innovative over-the-shoulder aiming to be a big step forward in third person shooters, but I was left wondering why I couldn't move and shoot at the same time like I could in Max Payne 2. I also remember finding the aiming to really awkward for some reason, maybe because I had to use a controller to do it. You've got to be accurate in a hurry and that's not an analogue stick's strength.

But I'm willing to give games a second chance... that's why I went back to it again right after beating Resident Evil 5. I played it up to the lake and got sick of it; it just seemed really awkward by comparison. But I'm willing to give games a third chance, especially if I haven't written about them yet.

Anyway I've already said too many words, but I have to mention that I'm playing the Ultimate HD Edition with the higher resolution visuals, on PC. I wish I could do my thing where I compare all the different versions, but have a glance up at the list of systems on the top right, there's about 10,000 of them! Windows actually got two ports and I don't even know what a Zeebo is! All I know is that the first PC port had... issues.

Command & Conquer (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Westwood

|

Release Date:

1995

|

Systems:

PC, Mac, PSX, N64, Saturn

---

This year on Super Adventures, I'm celebrating 10 years of the site by playing games that you'd find on a 'top 10' list, and that means I've ran out of excuses not to write something about Command & Conquer. The game was retroactively relabelled Tiberian Dawn, but I'm not calling it that. Partly because I always get it mixed up with the sequel Tiberian Sun, partly because I can never remember if it's 'Tiberian' or 'Tiberium'.

You might be wondering why I've been so reluctant to write about such a well-respected and beloved classic. Well that's because it's an RTS game and that means it's going to take effort. I have to play it for hours and then somehow summarise what I did and how it plays with just a handful of screenshots, all of them of little dudes standing in a grassy field firing at smoking buildings. This is why I write about so many platformers, they're easy! "Hey it starts with a forest level, huge shock. I guess I'll go jump on the spiders then? Oh no the bottomless pit killed me! And now I'm in a sewer, wow." RTS games almost never have sewer levels for me to whine about!

There's lots of different ways to play this game now, like a modern source port, or fan made patch for Command & Conquer Gold. But the best way is almost certainly Command & Conquer: Remastered, which improves the sound and visuals, and updates the interface without messing with the gameplay. Everyone showers it with praise and it seems like it's earned it. But I won't be playing that. Instead I'm going back to my original CDs, the very first DOS version, unpatched. Why? Because the DOS release is incredibly zoomed in compared to later versions and I want to give you a fighting chance to see the tiny little tanks and soldiers in my screenshots.

Sonic Generations (PC)

Developer:

Sonic Team

|

Release Date:

2011

|

Systems:

Xbox 360, PS3, Windows

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Sonic Generations, which is something like the 73rd or 74th Sonic game I think. Somewhere around there.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because this year I'm (mostly) writing about games that have made it onto someone's top 10 list. So when I say this reached #9 on Polygon's The Best 12 Sonic Games Ranked list, you can picture how many games it had to defeat. Sonic's Schoolhouse, Tails' Skypatrol, Sonic Kart 3D X... none of these games could stand against Sonic Generations' might.

Here's some more trivia about the game: it was the first mainline Sonic game to make it to Windows PCs since Sonic Heroes 7 years earlier, it has nothing to do with the movie Star Trek: Generations, and it was made to celebrate Sonic's 20th anniversary.

Oh, plus it's 10 years old, as it's Sonic's 30th anniversary today... which means it came out the same year that Super Adventures started now that I think about it.

I've never been the biggest Sonic fan to be honest, I usually get bored of the games after a level or two, but I've actually finished Sonic Generations before. You'll have to keep reading if you want to know what I think about it though. Or you could just scroll down to the end I suppose, but then you'd be missing out on all the screenshots, many of them with whole paragraphs of text underneath!

StarFighter 3000 (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, heroic space reviewer mecha-neko has returned with a quick look at another classic game. It's Star Fighter 3000, by the people who made Stunt Racer 2000 (no relation to Stunt Racer 64). It came out on a few systems and on most it's kind of obscure, but on the Acorn Archimedes it was an actual big deal. I was browsing an Acorn owner forum called StarDot and it's in basically everyone's top 10 lists for the A3000... possibly because there aren't too many original games on the system to choose from.

Hey everyone! While rooting through all my old DOS stuff like Fade to Black and Halloween Harry, I've found another game I'm familiar with but haven't played in a really long time.

Developer:

FedNet

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Release Date: Acorn Archimedes: 19th September 1994 MS-DOS: 8th October 1996 Iyonix: April 2008

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Systems:

Acorn, 3DO, DOS, PS1, Saturn, Iyonix

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It may sound like a boxing game about robots in the future, but it's actually about spaceships and lasers! Wanna see?

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)

Developer:

Konami

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Release Date:

2003

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Systems:

Game Boy Advance

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the 17th 2D Castlevania platformer, Aria of Sorrow!

My gimmick this year is that I'm playing games you can find in a top ten list, and this one can be found in Nintendo Power's 20th anniversary Best of the Best list (in the 'GBA' section). It actually made top three, with the other two games being Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Metroid: Zero Mission. Hey I've played both of them already!

This was the last of three Castlevanias on the GBA, though the first to have a title beginning with 'A'. The series continued on the DS with a direct sequel called Dawn of Sorrow, which cleverly referenced both the 'D' and the 'S'. Sadly the adventures of Soma Cruz didn't get a second follow up on the 3DS, so we never got to see how they would've worked the number 3 into the title.

There'd been handheld Castlevania games for over a decade by this point, ever since Castlevania: The Adventure came out for the Game Boy in 1989, but whenever people talk about the classic 80s and 90s Castlevania titles they're generally talking about the console games. Something weird happened in 1999 though. Veteran game series were making the switch to polygons, with sequels like Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid presenting a good argument for 2D being hopelessly archaic, and Castlevania was no exception. The thing is, Castlevania 64 was bloody terrible (I've been told), especially compared to Symphony of the Night from two years earlier. So when the 2D GBA games started mimicking Symphony's style and carrying on the 'music term of X' naming tradition started by Rondo of Blood, they were ones that came across like the true successors to the Castlevania franchise instead of the 3D games.

Anyway I'm going to play the first hour or so and write too many words about what happened. Plus there'll be screenshots! So many screenshots.

Katamari Damacy REROLL (PC)

Remastered -	Developer:	Monkeycraft	|	Release Date:	2018	|	Systems:	Win, Switch, PS4, XBOne
Original Game -	Developer:	Namco	|	Release Date:	2004	|	Systems:	PS2

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This year on Super Adventures, I'm mostly playing games that have appeared on a 'top 10' somewhere, and I found Katamari Damacy REROLL on Hard Drive's Top 10 Games That Came Out This Year After We Published our Top 10 List list. According to the site's 'About' page "Hard Drive is a very real video games news site that you should not question," (as opposed to being the video game equivalent of The Onion), and that's good enough for me.

I've played the game before, back when it was just called Katamari Damacy, but I've suddenly found a good reason to come back to it with this remake: my friend surprised me with a copy as a gift and is expecting a proper review in return. And he'll get a review alright, I'm going to tell everyone exactly what I think about this game...

But first here's some trivia, straight from Wikipedia:

Those kanji sticking out of the Earth up there are a bit wonky, but when they're written properly they look almost identical to each other, as a bit of clever visual alliteration. When you read them out they say 'katamari damashii', shockingly, which means something like 'clump spirit'. You know, like 'team spirit', except for clumps. The kanji are even on the American cover, because they go along with the wacky Japaneseness of it that they were using as a selling point. They assumed it would be too weird for Europeans though, so the classic PS2 game was never actually released in PAL regions. It never got ported to other systems either... until it was remade in Unity for this REROLL remastered re-release.

One more fact: it was not too weird for Europe. In fact the series has been a massive worldwide hit and now everyone knows what the game is and how it plays. Describing it for you would likely be pointless, but hey I've already explained how to play Super Mario Bros. and Pokémon Red, so this is far from the first time I've wasted both your time and my own. It's what I do.

Super Adventures in Pinball

This week on Super Adventures, I felt like writing about pinball games. A whole lot of pinball games.

Actually all I really wanted to do was stitch some screenshots together and show off lots of giant-sized images of virtual pinball tables, but I really have to write something underneath them. It's a bit awkward though, as I don't really know anything about pinball, plus I suck at it. I don't even know what I'm going to type for all these games, seeing as every single one of them is going to be about using flippers to smack a ball into targets. But I can at least tell whether or not I'm enjoying something and sometimes I can even pin down why that is.

I'll be writing about 23 pinball games in total, spanning 1980 to 1997 (to be honest I was aiming for 15 and missed), and they'll arranged in chronological order so they'll get prettier as you scroll down... theoretically. They certainly won't look any worse than the first game does.

Dragon Warrior VII / Dragon Quest VII (PSX) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still playing Dragon Warrior VII, a game that never actually starts.

It'd better give me some gameplay soon though, because there's not going to be a part three to this. There's countless other shiny things competing for my attention and I'm sure your patience isn't infinite either.

(If you want to jump back to part one click any of these words.)

Dragon Warrior VII / Dragon Quest VII (PSX) - Part 1

Developer:

Heartbeat

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Release Date:

2001 NA (2000 JP)

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Systems:

PSX, 3DS, iOS, Android

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This week on Super Adventures, it's Dragon Quest VII! Or Dragon Warrior VII if you're in the US (even though it was the fifth game released there).

If you're in Europe it's... nothing at all, because it just didn't come out here. We had to wait until until the 3DS remake was released 16 years later (with the new subtitle Fragments of the Forgotten Past). Enix basically ignored Europe so Dragon Quest wasn't a thing over here and I have absolutely zero knowledge about this game. Well, except for what I've just read on Wikipedia. It's apparently number 20th on the PlayStation's all-time best selling games list with 4.1 million sales!

The thing is, it was only sold in Japan and the US, and in America it sold just 200,000 copies over its lifetime, so that means 95% of those 4.1 million sales were in Japan alone. For comparison, Final Fantasy VII sold 330,000 copies in the US in its first weekend and it's currently up to 12.8 million sales worldwide (it's number 2 on the PlayStation all-time list). That one did come out in Europe btw.

I did another five minutes of research and learned that this was the last of the two Dragon Quest games made by Heartbeat, as they took a break afterwards and then never came back. I guess making a game this huge takes it out of you, especially when you're fully aware how massive the fanbase is. This was also the final main series Dragon Quest game to be published by Enix... because they merged with their nemesis Square in 2003. On the other hand, it's the first of the series to be released on the PlayStation, and it somehow came out after Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX. In fact the US version was released just six weeks before Final Fantasy X arrived there on the PS2!

Of course none of these games came out on the Nintendo 64, because Nintendo had pretty much opted out of JRPGs for that generation by opting to use low capacity cartridges instead of CDs. Though the game was originally announced for the N64DD!

I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh right, this year I'm playing games that made it onto someone's 'top 10' list for whatever reason, and Dragon Quest VII was voted the 9th best game ever made on the 2006 Famitsu reader's poll. I'm going to give it an hour or so and see if I agree.

Loom (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Lucasfilm Games

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

PC, Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, TurboGrafx-CD, FM Towns

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about Loom, one of the final point and click adventures by Lucasfilm Games (because they became LucasArts later on that year). Lucasfilm Games was actually revived this January, but only as a brand to stick on licenced third-party games, so that's not much to cheer about.

My gimmick for Super Adventures this year is that I'm playing games that have appeared in someone's top ten list, and Loom made it to #8 in IGN's Top 10 LucasArts Adventure Games list (it could've possibly made it higher, but they were listed in chronological order). You might be wondering if LucasArts even released more than 10 adventure games, and they actually did! But only barely. (Spoilers: Zak McKracken and Escape from Monkey Island didn't make their list.)

Loom's maybe not LucasArts' most famous adventure game, in fact I imagine a lot of people only know about it because of the dude with the 'Ask Me About Loom' badge in Monkey Island, but I believe it's fairly well liked. Personally though I don't have an opinion on the game, because I remember almost nothing about it. I've definitely finished it before, played through the whole thing, but I have zero memory of it past the first 10 minutes. Possibly not a good sign, but at least it'll be new to me!

As usual I'm planning to play the first hour or so of the game and then quit so I don't ruin the whole damn thing for people, but I promise you'll get more than your recommended daily amount of screenshots.

Handkerchief. (Demo) (PC) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, rogue guest reviewer mecha-neko has returned to dredge up a forgotten piece of PC history. And this time he's even found an ancient demo of it so you can try it for yourself!

Handkerchief doesn't exactly fit in with my 'games from a top 10 list' theme I've been going with this year, as it's so obscure that even the people making 'Top 10 Most Obscure PC Games' lists apparently haven't heard about it. But whenever mecha-neko plays a game I get a week off, so I'm giving the theme a week off as well.

Developer:

Opus Corp.

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Release Date:

22nd September 2000 (Full game)

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Systems:

Windows

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Hello everyone! It's my tenth anniversary of writing for Super Adventures! It seems like just yesterday that I was rummaging through mouldy disks and finding gems like David Wolf: Secret Agent, and doing foolish things like trying out sports games.

To mark the occasion, I'm playing a much-loved game from my secret past. It's one that doesn't appear on any Top Ten lists that I can find, sorry Ray. This is Handkerchief., a demo that I used to play endlessly back in 2000, over twenty years ago!

Let's go!

Drakengard (PS2)

Developer:

Cavia

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Release Date:

2004 (2003 JP)

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Systems:

PlayStation 2

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Love. Crimson blood. Poison. Eternity. Revenge. Two. Sacrifice. Mother. Ritual. Scarlet. Prayers. Heresy. Hell. Solitude. Clouded skies. Madness. Goddess. The World. Watchers. Adore. Us.

That's what a voice says if you leave the title screen on too long... so that's different. And a little creepy. I don't know what any of it means, but then I don't know anything about this game. Except that it made it onto thegamer.com's 10 Great Games With Storylines That Didn't Make Sense list.

Oh, this week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Drakengard, or Drag-On Dragoon as it's known in Japan. The original title was considered to be wrong for a western audience, and I think they made the right call there.

The game's by defunct developer Cavia, who made an impressive number of anime games seeing as they were only around for 10 years. I mean games based on an anime or manga, like One Piece: Nanatsu Shima no Daihihō, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors etc. They also made two Resident Evil rail shooters and the original Nier, which is actually a Drakengard spin-off.

Here's a fun Drakengard fact for you: there's apparently a model of Neo from The Matrix hidden in the game's files (Twitter link). Some more incredible trivia: a voice says "Square Enix" when the game starts up. It's not up to the standards of the 'say-gah' jingle from Sonic the Hedgehog, but it's handy if you're not sure how to pronounce the publisher's name (it's pronounced Eh-nix, not Eee-nix).

Oh, also it's the PlayStation 2's 21st birthday today, which I only just found out now. It's honestly a coincidence that I had this scheduled to be published on this exact day. A creepy coincidence.