#games completed

Silent Bomber (Playstation):

“Here’s another game from the original Playstation that I’ve recently completed. Silent Bomber is quite a nostalgic game for me. Like most of the Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 games, I’ve experienced this one on a demo disc. I had so much fun with this game, but sadly never owned it. Recently, I’ve bought a Playstation Mini Classic, and I’ve been messing around with it, so I had to play this game. This is a really good game. It’s full of action, fun platforming sections and...as you can tell by the title...A LOT OF EXPLOSIONS. This is literally what a modern Bomberman game should be. This game also as a pretty decent plot. It’s nothing out of this world, but it’s better than a lot of games in the PS1 era. Our protagonist, Jutah, is also a very intriguing one. Always wondering what he’s doing is right or wrong, and wondering if he’s losing his humanity and become a full weapon of mass destruction. Quite an interesting plot, but I wish it was a lot more developed...but sadly, that can’t happen because the game is very short. You finish this game in 2 hours...that’s nothing. Personally, I’ve spent more than that because I’m awful at videogames, and I’ve struggle with a bunch of the bosses...specially the last one...oh god that one is terrible. Either way, this is a game full of great challenges, fun power-ups and a lot of cool enemies to deal with. It may be a hard and short game, but it has to be on my top 10 favorite PS1 games. It’s that good.”

GC 2026 #1: Kirby's Dreamland 3

Played: Crypt of the NecroDancer

NecroDancer is still in Alpha, but the gameplay is so perfectly solid that you would never know it.

I've been playing it casually since it was released on Steam Early Access, slowly getting better, learning enemy patterns and how to use items. This morning I woke up with one of the game's song's stuck in my head, turned my computer on, and finished Hardcore Mode for the first time.

Uh. Hm. I always try to focus on pointing out the positive aspects of games, unless they have some element that is truly problematic to me. But Metrico...oh, Metrico.

It's a PlaystationVita exclusive that was announced fairly early in the system's life, and it's painfully clear that that is when the game's puzzles and ideas were solidified. No puzzle solution is more clever than trial-and-error, each section of the game using a different gimmick of the Vita's features. 

For example, one area forces you to aim projectiles using the Vita's rear touch-pad, for no reason other than "Look, the system has a rear touch pad!" and one area is notoriously painful to play because it requires you to aim the Vita's camera at a bright source of light. 

But the thing is, unlike games like LittleBigPlanet Vita and Tearaway, these gimmicks add nothing to the puzzles. They could easily be replicated via button presses, and at no point do they feel intuitive or natural. 

The only thing I can say for Metrico is that its visual style is pretty cool. The whole game looks like a series of charts and various infographics, and it looks really cool. But there is no substance beyond the surface.

This was a very nice genuine surprise! It was super cheap, so I figured I'd give it a go despite being largely unimpressed with the other New titles, and I'm glad I did!

If the portable New SMB titles are callbacks to the original Super Mario Bros, then U is a callback to Super Mario World. In other words, a huge improvement.

The platforming is just incredibly tight, with everything working exactly the way it should. In any good platformer, each death should make it clear why you died and how you can do better, and NSMBU pulls this off well. This goes double for the new Challenge Mode, which tasks you with completing bite-sized stages with absolute perfection. Some of these were as hard and exciting as the best stages in Super Meat Boy, and that's a huge compliment coming from me.

I would like to start seeing more variance in the Mario story; nobody would mind if the plot wasn't about saving a princess! The gameplay and worlds could be exactly the same without having to rely on that trope, really. But I suppose that's an argument for another day.

I actually thought I would have more to say about this game than I do. It's a great concept; a civilization of steam-powered robots lies above the ruins of the long-forgotten human world, and you play as a digger robot who ventures down below to find the truth.

There's some really cool environments, and I had fun making progress and feeling myself become more powerful and versatile with each new power. But that sense of progression didn't really come to a head, because the climactic battle was very easy (especially compared to the rest of the game), and the ending wasn't satisfying. 

It's Mario Kart. There honestly isn't too much to say about Mario Kart that everyone doesn't already know, but it's easily my favorite racing game. Everything about it is tightly packed together in a way that is always engaging and challenging, but demands no knowledge of cars or realistic racing techniques. 

One thing I'll comment on is the highlights-sharing feature. At the end of every race, 8 gives you a little highlights reel that uses an algorithm to automatically capture the most game-changing or exciting moments, and then lets you upload them to social media. People have gotten creative and uploaded some real laugh-inducing stuff.

It's nice to see Nintendo finally embracing the fact that the internet exists. Miiverse still has a lot of issues to work out, and the fact that the Friend Code system still exists is baffling, but they're getting there. Online multiplayer in MK8 works really well, too.