Lufia / Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES)

Ignore what the title screen says; today's game is actually Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals for the Super Nintendo. They dropped the number for the European version as the first game wasn't released over here and they didn't want consumers to have the unnecessary distraction. To be fair, the game's a prequel so it probably stands on its own just fine.

People have been asking me to take a look at this one forever; so of course I ignored them all and played the original Lufia instead. But today I'm finally playing the one that everyone's been recommending to me. This is the good Lufia (apparently).

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC)

Now that's the kind of picture I like to see when I put a video game on.

Today I'm playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein, third in id Software's Wolfenstein franchise, though it was developed by Gray Matter and Nerve. This was actually Grey Matter's only game before they were absorbed by CODBlops devs Treyarch, though they'd made games like Redneck Rampage and Kingpin: Life of Crime in their previous life as Xatrix Entertainment. Perhaps not a very interesting fact, but I just wanted an excuse to type CODBlops.

Here's another potentially underwhelming fact: I've played and finished this game before, so I'm not coming into it even slightly unaware of what to expect. Though I'll make every effort to pretend to be surprised.

(Click the gameplay pictures to expand them into exciting new resolutions.)

Top Banana (Amiga)

Today I'm taking a quick look at obscure Amiga platformer Top Banana, because I must. I played this once when I was really young you see and it's haunted it me ever since. I can't actually remember anything about the game though, like I've formed a mental block in my head to protect myself from going entirely mad by thinking about it. But the time's come to confront the game one final time and hopefully get some closure on it.

Warning some/all of the screenshots in this post could likely give anyone a seizure, especially the image coming up next.

Don't Starve (PC)

First up, I want to apologise to the guy who was kind enough to gift this game to me as I've taken forever to get around to playing it. For a while I at least had the excuse of it not actually being finished yet, but that hasn't been true since it was released back in April, so I'm sorry about that. I done fucked up.

Today I'm taking a short look at Don't Starve, an "uncompromising wilderness survival game" by Klei, the makers of Shank and Mark of the Ninja... both of which I haven't played yet either. Man I really am bad at this.

Anyway, the developers say that part of the fun of the game is trying new stuff out and learning things for yourself. So if you've got any interest in playing the game and haven't already, by reading this you'll apparently be depriving yourself of fun. Just thought I'd warn you.

(Click the images to expand them to 1280x720 resolution.)

Mega Man X4 (PSX)

Today on Super Adventures, because YOU demanded it, I'm taking a quick look at another Mega Man game! Last year I played the original Mega Man on the NES (plus a game claiming to be Mega Man for DOS), but I thought I'd skip the others and jump right ahead to the PlayStation era and the fourth of the Mega Man X spin-off series, mostly because I was asked to.

The first three Mega Man X games had been developed for the Super Nintendo, though X3 eventually found its way to PC and the shiny new PlayStation and Saturn systems. But by '97 the SNES had retired, so the series jumped to the fifth gen machines exclusively.

I was kind of surprised to see that Sony America let another childish low-tech antiquated 2D platformer slip out onto their edgy mature 3D game system, so I looked it up and it seems they weren't overly happy about it. It apparently took sustained pestering from Capcom before they relented and allowed the game to get a US release.

Mirror's Edge (PC)

Today's game shall be first person parkour platformer Mirror's Edge on the PC, though I imagine it's much the same game on PS3 and Xbox 360. It's not my first run through the game so I can't say I'll be playing it blind, but that's probably for the best because (spoilers) it looks totally fuckin' sweet.

In fact this may end up having a few more images than I'd normally use because, well it's Mirror's Edge; it's my moral duty to show it off.

(Click the images to view them at a practically exorbitant 1280x720 resolution.)

Spelunky (PC)

I can't tell if that's Indiana Jones wearing a clown nose or a clown doing cosplay.

Today I'm having a quick go of the PC port of the Xbox Live Arcade port of PC platformer Spelunky, as it was requested of me. I think I even heard the guy cackling manically as I accepted the gift on Steam, his laughter echoing through my mind. Not that I'm not grateful, it's just... well, that's a bit creepy.

Spelunky has a bit of a reputation for being soul crushingly difficult and unrelenting in its cruelness, and I have a bit of reputation for being crap at games, so I'm expecting this post to end with me whining about it being too challenging and not having saves, but accepting that other people look for different experiences from their games than I do and that I should be celebrating variety rather than complaining when things don't entertain me personally.

Actually now I've said all that I guess I won't even need to write a conclusion, so that'll save me a job later.

(Click on the pics if you want to see the original sized screenshot. Unless they've obviously been cropped, in which case you're out of luck.)