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

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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

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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

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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)

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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.