What Did You Play? RIP Club Nintendo Edition (March 2015)

Welcome to another almost-on-time recap of what games all y’all played in the last roughly one month. Played a ton of games? List as many as you want or can remember! Only want to hit the highlights? Sure! Only played a few? Tell us why you are a filthy casual/are just way hardcore into this one game! Didn’t play any? Fucking LIE!

I may have gotten carried away there. Now to get carried away talking about games!

Castle of Illusion (Genesis) – via PS3. This game is actually pretty short, but it can be tricky to avoid damage! Got to the final (as far as I know) area but didn’t finish.

3D Out Run (3DS) – Another bang-up job by M2. The new tuning options are surprisingly fun. I like cranking the difficulty up and the timer down and then seeing which ones I can get away with turning off. High speed and tighter turning are super fun.

3D Fantasy Zone (3DS) – The final attack from the final boss is a bastard and even taking every advantage added to this version of the game I haven’t yet been able to beat him and unlock the new Upa-Upa mode.

OutRun 2006 (PS2) – OutRun‘s great but this sequel is the best, and playing the new version of the old game on 3DS made me fire it up again. The only thing it lacks is the careless disregard for seatbelt regulations that was so funny in the original.

Sega Ages OutRun / Sega Ages Fantasy Zone (PS2) – Sega Classics Collection is an okay little collection of these budget remakes that got individual releases in Japan. OutRun and Fantasy Zone are two of the better ones. The budget 3D modeling and texturing is a bit cruddy, although Fantasy Zone looks pretty good despite some aliasing. Both games have a few special features that are unique to these versions, notably some optional new levels in Fantasy Zone.

Spelunky (PS3) – I continue to flirt with (and lose to) danger by picking up the alien blaster on daily runs, forgetting I have spring shoes, and jumping and firing into a ceiling right in front of my face.

Mighty Switch Force (3DS) – Somewhat short, but for $1.50 on sale a clever little puzzle / action game. Nice Super Metroid reference death animation.

Excitebots (Wii) – Like a better Excite Truck, although I still have problems oversteering with the Wii Remote.

CRUSH3D (3DS) – Got stuck fairly early on and haven’t gone back to it, but it’s a pretty cool spatial puzzle game. Nice little references to the original PSP version.

Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (3DS) – Game looks amazing and I’m so happy to be playing more Ace Attorney, as it’s been a while for me. I want to go back to the original three and relive all the epic freakouts and crazy twists now.

Impossible Mission (Wii) – It’s possible.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (Xbox One) – Played a little co-op at the library, of all places. Not bad.

Katamari Damacy (PS2) – Forgot just how good the soundtrack is on this. Own it on PS2 but bought it again for less than a buck on PS3.

Bomberman ’94 (TG16) – Looks great, plays great! I’m awful at Bomberman. The single player mode in this seems to be one of the better ones for the series.

Battle Lode Runner (TG16) – Many TG16 games on the Virtual Console look rather blurry for some reason, and this is one of them, in direct contrast to Bomberman ’94. Still don’t know what’s up with that. Anyway, been forever since I played some Lode Runner, and I forgot how tough it could be. Looking forward to playing the unique battle modes sometime. This and Bomberman ’94 were picked up with that in mind.

3D Classics Twinbee (3DS) – One of my final pickups from Club Nintendo. It’s decent, like a fun version of Xevious, and I’m already accustomed to the fun of the bell system from playing Parodius. 3D isn’t bad, although being an earlier effort at 3D retrofitting from Nintendo it’s not nearly as robust as Sega’s series.

Tech Romancer (Dreamcast) – Who loves giant robots? Pulled my Dreamcast out of dry dock and decided to give this one another spin. I’ve forgotten a lot about how it plays. Some of the best presentation aspects in a fighting game ever, though. Those chunky spherical explosions are great.

Cyberbots (PS1) – Who loves giant robots? After dicking around with cameo Jin and Blodia in TR I went back to play as them in this one a bit on PS3. God, those PS1 loading times suck. Other than that it’s one of the better PS1 Capcom fighting game ports.

Rock of Ages (PS3) – Another cheapo pickup from the flash sale. Haven’t played much but I love the thematic conceit of it.

Stuntman Ignition (PS3) – Played most of the first “movie,” getting bare passing grades on most of the scenes. I like this game’s style. Load times are a bit annoying if you jump around between levels but restarts are instant. A fun game.