Saturday 21 June 2014

New project and stuff...

Hello all (All one person reading this... Am I right?). I've just started out a new project following along the lines of my passion for wrestling, I'm hoping to have more details to share soon but there's not much at the moment. I'm working in Stencyl and I'm not sure whether this will see light of day on Newgrounds or maybe Android. It's not your typical wrestling game, you'll mostly be in a management position in a similar strain to Management of the Ring from FFPW. The game is going to focus on how you manage your wrestler and what choices you make impact on their career.

Speaking of MOR, I've finally rooted my PSP and have Final Fire Pro on it. I'm not planning anything other than a bit of fun but if anything interesting comes of it, I'll be sure to share. I've also setup a rather extensive Doom compendium cover Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, No Rest for the Living, Final Doom and Master Levels of Doom 2 all on my PSP, chuck in Final Fantasy 7 and the 14 year old me would totally lose his shit!

I'm still playing my 3DS almost religiously. My top picks for the moment?

Monster Hunter Ultimate 3
Luckily I hadn't registered my 3DS on Club Nintendo and NoE just so happened to be running the "Hunt with a Friend" promotion, so I bought a code online. almost a year later and I've made a start on it. It's really good fun and I'm a bit shocked it's not pushing the 3DS sales. Huge environments and an excellent level of depth to it. I would give this a total recommendation making owning a 3DS worthwhile on it's own.

Tomodachi Life
Go back to 2009 and I was on holiday in Tokyo. Around this time there were adverts aplenty for Tomodachi Collection. Fast-forward to present and I've now got the UK version for 3DS. I've made quite a community featuring my favourite wrestlers, actors, the cast of my name is earl and the odd comedian.
High Points

  • Randy from My Name is Earl singing "Time After Time"
  • Patrick Stewart doing a freaky dance after drinking protein shake
  • Walter White in a rap battle with Anthony Hopkins
Low Points
  • I've got a prison cell for Anthony Hopkins but no prison clothes or Dr Lecter mask
  • Thor won't pair off with Lady Sif. It just wasn't meant to be



Thursday 17 April 2014

3DS eShop - Putty Squad

I'd been busting to play this game since I first read about it almost two years ago and now it's here!

To give you a bit of background, Putty was originally released on the Amiga but ported to the CD32 and, more importantly for me, the SNES as Super Putty. Super Putty was a bit of an oddly charming game; it has a weird sense of humour with abstract enemies and a plot I'm not sure I entirely understood when I was 7. I distinctly remember we picked up a copy from the local shopping centre after doing the weekly food shop. I had french stick bread and watched Diff'rent Strokes, playing Super Putty afterwards. I played round-robin with my brother (You play until you lose a life and then pass the controller over), which worked to my advantage as he was 3 years younger and not particularly good at video games. Now 21 years later, I get to try the sequel on 3DS.

The game starts you off with a 'Training Level', which is much needed as there are quite a few abilities and power-ups to get to grips with including stretching, inflating, absorbing, jumping and throwing bombs at enemies. The button layout is pretty simple, using L and R to punch left and right respectively, with X, Y, A and B used for the various other commands. There is some use of the touch screen too, primarily as a head's-up display but also allowing you to choose between your power-ups. Subsequent levels require you to save all of the red putties before you can exit the level.

The graphics are quite nice, simple and quirky. This is definitely a throw-back to when game featured some bizarre collectibles and enemies, thinking back to games like Manic Miner and Dizzy. This game makes use of the 3D feature, however I'm still on the fence as to whether or not it adds much to the experience.

Sound and music fit in with the off-the-wall look and feel of this game. There aren't any tracks that immediately jump to mind but they seem natural and work well to enhance the experience. The sound effects retain a lot of the idiosyncratic appeal of the previous Putty outings.

Game-play wise, the first few levels are simple enough but it does get progressively tougher and there is plenty of replay value with each level having three goals, secret levels and achievements. There are over a handful of worlds with each having 7 or 8 individual levels. There's also the addition of challenge mode, where you can replay the same levels again with additional goals (e.g. Don't lose a life, kill all enemies) which earn extra stickers.

It's unfortunate that the majority of the reviews this game received are based on the PS4 release of it. Understandably it is panned as not being worth the money by people who've just spent about £450 on a brand new console with precious few games. It harks back to a simpler time of gaming where you could have your protagonist throwing up down a toilet as cover art (Seriously! Google the cover for Jet Set Willy!), freaky characters and odd concepts were developed and fostered. It is a throw back to when indie developers weren't trendy or cool, but hardcore gaming fans working out of a garage or bedroom, creating games they enjoyed. At £17.99 it is a little steep in comparison to similar games like Mutant Mudds, but if you're a retro gamer looking for something that seems vaguely familiar, I'd suggest checking this out.

Thursday 3 April 2014

Farewell to Fire Pro

Well I'm afraid it's getting to the point where I'm posting annual updates. Between this post and my previous post I think I've booted Final Fire Pro up once! So I think rather than keeping people holding out for an update, fix, patch or little bit of news, I will state that I'll almost certainly not be creating any new content for any current Fire Pro Wrestling games. 

It was a really fun project for me and created many great memories. It allowed me to escape from some of the stress of life (Mainly my dissertation!) but I've moved on. I'm still passionate about portable gaming, and I'm hoping to continue running this blog as a 3DS reviews/ranting place so feel free to unsubscribe.

Thank you to everyone that has helped me with the patch, particularly cactusj00, who (Being the only patch user to my knowledge!) motivated me to keep doing stuff with it. I might have a FFPW play-through at some point and I will be sure to share my progress with you all on here. Until then, please enjoy my play-through of whatever the hell I decide to play next.

By the way, if you're just looking for a download link, Ewzzy has almost everything I've ever done on his site

Much love,

TM