Mersey Remakes

Rage Of Magic 2

Sent my monitor out of range. Nothing to see here then!

Scrubbles

As if Puzzle Bobble hasn’t been arse raped enough by the shareware community over the years, its now got to suffer the indignity of being wrapped in horrible kiddy-goth clothes with someones idea of ingenious additions to the formula for good measure. Of course, this means Scrubbles is a bag of cynical twee cock.

Very depressing. I’ll be in the corner listening to Bauhaus to forget about this for the next day or so

Sensational Soccer

Sensational is probably overstating things a tad, although I’m sure the reasoning behind the title has nothing whatsoever to do with Sensible Soccer at all.

To be fair, no-one could possibly make a bigger hash of something than Codemasters managed with the great revamp of the license and Sensational Soccer whilst not brilliant, is fair enough in an old skool kinda way and at least 4 squillion times better than the “official” update.

Perhaps if I had someone else to play against, Sensational Soccer might open itself up more to me. Final verdict - probably better in 2 player, but very far from grim.

Star Defender 3

Grubby and dour models and about as much fun as being punched repeatedly in the guts.

“Star Defender 3 will change the way you think about Space Shooters forever!” reads the blurb.

“Bollocks” says me.

Steam Brigade

Imagine if you will, Choplifter. But gone slightly askew with a bit of strategy and some lemmingsy style things thrown in for good measure. Thats pretty much Steam Brigade in a nutshell, and I’ve barely been so bored in my life as the 5 minutes I spent crawling around Steam Brigade. The graphics are murky and have a strange cut out feel to them, and the game itself appears to be little more than tedium incarnate.

Tasty Planet

How on Earth this gets marketed as a Katamari-a-like I haven’t the foggiest. “But you eat things and grow big!”, I hear you cry… yes… its not really Katamari more like Shark! Shark! from the Intellivision with some different graphics on each level. And its really, really soulless and lifeless to play.

Just like Shark! Shark! then.

The games only saving grace is the slightly kitsch music. And if somebody, somewhere could explain to me the propensity towards really shit comic book introductions to shareware games I’d love to hear about it. (No, second thoughts - I don’t actually care, so don’t bother.)

Titan Attacks

Titan Attacks far and away has some of the best pixel work in any of the games I’ve had to face so far. Ok, ok, it *is* little more than Space Invaders dressed up and with a shop thrown in for good measure, but that doesn’t stop it looking gorgeous now does it?

Well, it does make me wish for a game with a bit more fun and substance to it (and without the shop, I hate shops in games for some reason) - or just something a little more frantic than what Titan Attacks has to offer. Ultratron nearly got it right, so fingers crossed eh? But oh man, those graphics…

Toribash

Ach, Toribash is the gaming equivalent of claymation. For all the blood splattered across the screen - there’s no escaping the fact that its so incredibly anal a game that I’ll never have the patience for it. Tweak a bit here, tweak a bit there, tweak another bit and continue tweaking. Throw in some online cock waving (”Hey, I can tweak better than you”) and despite being something apart from the crowd, its just not my bag at all baby.

I’d hate to suffer from OCD and play Toribash at the same time. I’d never finish a move.

Tube Twist

Tube Twist well outlasted its five minutes because I couldn’t get the stupid fucking thing to stay in focus on my screen, and then when I finally caved in and tried to exit - it still wouldn’t stay in focus so I could click out of the thing. Killed in the task manager eventually after much swearing.

For the record, its another of those tweaky set it up and let it ride games but with some “cinematics” to keep you entertained as well. Its a bit Locomotion but without the timer.

Virtual Villagers

Oh, what on Earth is the point of this? I detest micromanagement, and this games full of it. Still, I managed to name my villagers Fannyflaps, Cockface and Cunt amongst other things in the 5 minute time. I also tried to throw the child repeatedly in the water. That was really as fascinating as Virtual Villagers got.