Annalynn
I would like to preface this review by stating that I have been aware of this game’s development since early 2019. At that time, I acquired an early build of Annalynn from 2016 from the developer Cruise Elroy’s Twitter page. This version lacked many of the features of the 2021 version, and was more similar to an 80s arcade game (perhaps a bit more blatant with its influences as well). Nonetheless, I liked it.
Then I found out in November 2020 the game was being remade, through Cruise’s gameplay demos he posted on Twitter. I thought it looked better than ever before. I then played the SAGE demo and loved it. I replayed it often trying to inch toward a higher score each time. Of course, the demo ended after 6 rounds.
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Platformer Games.
~ DIFFICULTY ~
▢ Easy
▢ Normal
- Hard
▢ Impossible
▢ Dark Souls
~ PLAYER BASE ~
- Everyone
▢ Kids
▢ Mature
▢ Casual Players
▢ Tryhards
▢ Pro Gamers
~ GRAPHICS ~
▢ What Is This?
▢ Acceptable
▢ Good
- Great
▢ Beautiful
▢ Masterpiece
~ SOUND/MUSIC ~ (Using Headphones)
▢ Bad
▢ Nothing Special
▢ Good
▢ Great
- Beautiful
▢ I´m Gonna Cry
~ STORY ~
▢ This Game Has No Story
- Like Playing “Pac-Man” For The Story
▢ It´s Alright
▢ Well Written
▢ Epic Story
▢ Thinking About It, When I Sleep
▢ Five Nights At Freddy’s
– Real player with 10.9 hrs in game
PAC-MAN 256
Pacman 256 is different from traditional pacman games, But it is a very nice take on the game with a lot of powerups to take on the ghosts, leaderboards and even 4 player local coop with your friends.
The Original Pacman level 256 is and impossible to complete corrupted level due to the technical limits of the arcade machines. Half the screen got corrupted with strange letters, The Glitch is practically famous. And Pacman 256 goes beyond this level.
In Pacman 256 you don’t have to collect all dots, there are no levels, and there are more ghosts than the traditional few. It is just 1 endless level in which you have to escape from the corruption that is slowly eating up the level behind you, If you go in to the corrupted zone you are dead.
– Real player with 101.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Retro Games.
A pleasant throwback to early gaming
Full Review at GameDragons.Net
Presentation
Named after the famous level 256 glitch, Pac-Man 256 brings back the best things from the game that changed an entire generation back in the 80s and combines them with new ideas that make this game just as addictive as it was in the arcades decades ago. Played from a 2.5D perspective, the biggest feature of this installment is the 256 bit glitch that will constantly follow you from the bottom of the screen, making time an important element of the game, as you can no longer dance around the same spot for too long and must constantly be on the move to avoid the glitch catching up with you. Unfortunately there are only 2 game modes, a single player mode, and a multiplayer mode for up to 4 players via local play, but even with that in mind, Pac-Man’s addictive nature will make the hours pass without even realizing, especially when playing with friends.
– Real player with 31.7 hrs in game
Geometry Wars™ 3: Dimensions Evolved
This game is a very good use of $15, and you should purchase it. You should absolutely not hesitate to buy it at sale prices. If you are looking to play “Geometry Wars 2, but better,” you should continue reading.
There’s a lot of people who played Geometry Wars 2 on the XBox. Some of my most fond memories of my last year of undergrad were spent in front of a TV trading the controller off with a friend of mine, making him curse my name for making sure that all of “his” high scores were actually mine. Undeniably, a rerelease of Geometry Wars is going to attempt to play off of that nostalgia.
– Real player with 121.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Twin Stick Shooter Games.
For those of you that are looking for a quick answer whether you should purchase this game or not, I give you, “Yes, you should buy this game, at $14.99 it is worth every cent and it is insanely good!” and I’ve also added an overview in the code box below. For everyone one else, you are in for an Aficionado treat.
After 6 long years, the moment I thought never possible is here, as ‘Lucid Games’ releases to us the next chapter of intense arcade action with Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions. This is the epitome of “arcade” gaming, the reason why kids everywhere stood around a cabinet, converted their lunch money into quarters and pumped them into a machine to top each other’s score. If you ever wondered what a “Twin Stick” game is, this is the perfect definition.
– Real player with 45.4 hrs in game
ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA
If you’ve ever played the original arcade game, you won’t notice any difference playing this one. It plays exactly like the arcade original. However, I don’t like the fact that the fire button is defaulted to the oversized spacebar. By default, the game is meant to be played with the left hand utilizing the movement of the ship (ie the arrow keys for example) and the right hand pushing a button to fire. This will require a player to have to “cross his hands” in order to use his right hand to press the spacebar. My suggestion is to allow the player to map any key he wants for movement as well as firing. Otherwise, change the default button to fire to say the Enter key on the number pad. Overall, this is a great game and the way it’s set up now, didn’t keep me from scoring 999,990, taking the top spot on the learderboard as well as completing successfully all 20 achievments in the game.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Great game, terrible port.
I love Galaga, but this port needed more work.
- Controllers\Joysticks not officially supported, and only kinda work
I tried using an Xbox 360 controller and it did work. However there’s no joystick deadzone, so if your joystick isn’t PERFECTLY centered at rest then you’ll be unable to control your ship properly.
Come on, who forgets to put decent joystick support in an arcade game?
- Can’t rebind keyboard keys
Just…why?
- Poor fullscreen support (Edit: kinda sorta fixed, see revisit edit at bottom)
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
METAL SLUG X
OVERALL: 7.5/10
Great game, from a totally cult franchise, METAL SLUG. 7.5/10 because it’s mainly a remake of METAL SLUG 2, it’s definitely the weakest edition of METAL SLUG but still an amazing 2D shooter / platform for anybody not familiar with its even better counterparts METAL SLUG 1 and 3.
GAMEPLAY: 9.5/10
Get yourself a good pad or an arcade stick, boot the game on normal difficulty with 20 credits max and see how you fare against this challenge ! METAL SLUG X is like any other METAL SLUG: fast, precise, brutal and unforgiving. Only projectiles, moving tanks/vehicles can hurt you, this is vastly different from your usual 2D game where touching the sprite of an enemy hurts/kills you, this creates a trully unique gameplay. Hectic and chaotic as can be. Combine that with a whole array of weapons, “slugs” ranging from a camel with a mounted laser turret, to your classic metal slug (tank), to a top end military jet and now you’ve got yourself a game ! You have got to be tight and aware at all time, classic yet masterfully executed and with that METAL SLUG flair on top of it !
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Why do people defend technical shortcomings in ports of retro console games, but flog modern companies when a PC release has any sign of console limitation?
The short of it is that this has “legacy” slowdown which just shouldn’t exist anymore. If any modern console game showed up on PC and had technical issues because it was a dump of a console game and not enough was done to hone it for PC hardware, it would be eaten alive. This game is a good game from a “retro” era, however shortcomings due to “retro” technology should get ironed out when something is released on superior technology and a price tag is attached. So despite liking the core game, I know realistically what it is, and I have to hit not recommended. What’s especially weird given all this is that one of the major improvements X made on 2 (it’s the same game being upgraded) was that it removed the slowdown - but in this version, the slowdown is back, so it isn’t even legacy slowdown here. It’s just a poor port.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
METAL SLUG
OVERALL: 8.75/10
First iteration in the METAL SLUG serie and it sets the bar high: GREATNESS. The best Metal Slug episode only surpassed by Metal Slug 3. The definition of an awesome 2D shooter/platform plain and simple.
GAMEPLAY: 9.5/10
Get yourself a good pad or an arcade stick, boot the game on normal difficulty with 20 credits max and see how you fare against this challenge ! METAL SLUG 1 is like any other METAL SLUG: fast, precise, brutal and unforgiving. Only projectiles, moving tanks/vehicles can hurt you, this is vastly different from your usual 2D game where touching the sprite of an enemy hurts/kills you, this creates a trully unique gameplay. Hectic and chaotic as can be. Combine that with a whole array of weapons and your classic metal slug (tank) ! You have got to be tight and aware at all time, classic yet masterfully executed and with that METAL SLUG flair on top of it !
– Real player with 24.8 hrs in game
Overview
Metal Slug, or as some might know it as, Super Vehicle-001, is an arcade shoot’em up, 2D side-scroller that requires quick reflexes and precision aiming. For those that haven’t been into the arcade scene much, or didn’t play these in their prime, Metal Slug is a pillar in the arcade arena. Smooth controls, hand-drawn animations, detailed levels and overall solid gameplay help to make Metal Slug a timeless classic, even after all these years. With that being said, let’s take a look at both the game itself for those who might not be as familiar, and the quality of the port itself.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Knight Squad
So I will start by saying this I bought this game while ago when It was on sale, and I have to say this game has far exceeded my expectation, and as a testimate I think I have a little over 30 hours logged in the game. There are a few bugs admittedly, but none that hinder the gameplay in anyway as far as I could tell. The game has a variety of gamemodes meaning you can keep the fun going for hours, and especially with friends no game is ever the same.
The single player challenged are difficult but not impossible. And I feel as though they have provided a difficult yet enjoyable challenge, and even on easy the higher level challenges require patience, and well timed strike before the enemy returns fire. I especially had trouble with the attack pattersn of the cell/plantdragon hybird challenge. There is hours upon hours of content here even with no friends, as the bots in certain games can easily compete and overwhelm the players.
– Real player with 36.5 hrs in game
Knight squad is a simple, top view, competitive combat game.
At its intitial release it already felt like a complete game, and yet I have yet to play an early access game with as much content released as frequently as knight squad.
The combat is simple, all buttons do the same thing, attack. There are, however, various weapons and powerups that spawn.
Knight Squad has a large range of game modes.
all vs all modes include:
-
Last man standing
-
A mode where points are aquired by staying alive in a central arena, and killing other players
– Real player with 17.3 hrs in game
ARCADE GAME SERIES: PAC-MAN
Pac-Man, the king of arcade games, seeing this game on Steam and on sale just made me insta buy the bundle that includes all of the other amazing arcade games, Galaga and Dig-Dug.
I will specifcally talk about the port :
I have played Namco Museum Essentials on the PlayStation 3 back in around 2011, and this port is slightly worse than Namco Museum Essentials, it includes more challenges and more game settings to mess around with.
The slightly bad thing about this game is that you can’t make the game fullscreen (from what I’ve seen so far), so you have to play with the backgrounds, don’t get me wrong, they are a very good backgrounds.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Classic game at it’s best. Simple yet difficult all at the same time. Navigate Pac-Man through each level to eat all the dots and stay clear from the ghosts. Different colored ghosts offer different levels of difficulty and if you want to get a high score you’ll have to get the special dots on the corners of the levels in order to make them temporarily vulnerable so you can eat them. Eat all four ghosts with each temporary vulnerabilities and you’ll get huge points.
The first levels are easy, but as you progress the speed of Pac-Man and the speed of the ghosts increase greatly to the point that they will catch up with you easily, forcing you to use the warp areas of the levels where it slows them down and they have to readjust for your new location.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
ARCADE GAME SERIES: Ms. PAC-MAN
I have been in love with Ms. Pac Man since it came out in 1982. What can I say? I love the girl. I prefer floating fruit to stationary fruit because eating them is more of a challenge. If anyone knows anything about the design of Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man, they know that Pac Man has patterns you can master while Ms. Pac Man does not. The ghosts move around at random. This means you can get astronomically high scores on Pac Man while you can only expect to get in the 100,000’s in Ms. Pac Man if you are really good. For a long time in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the high score for Ms. Pac Man was in the 400,000’s as recorded by Twin Galaxies. I’m much better at playing Ms. Pac Man on a full size arcade machine using a joystick than I am pushing the arrow keys on a keyboard with my fingers. I think that is probably true for most arcade fanatics that love this game. However, it is always fun at the end of a long day to come to my computer and play a game of Ms. Pac Man. We are all very fortunate that Ms. Pac Man is available for purchase and play through Steam given the fact that there is now a lawsuit over royalties regarding the Ms. Pac Man game itself. Buy this game and enjoy it – it’s probably the only way you are going to be able to enjoy the original Ms. Pac Man in all its glory for a while.
– Real player with 26.4 hrs in game
Ms. Pac-Man is a classic. It surpassed Pac-Man in ways that most sequels can’t achieve. The levels are all symmetrical, mostly, and all offer that one spot where getting caught can be easy.
As most know, this is a third person maze game where you must eat all the dots and not get captured by the ghosts. If you eat the large dots, at each corner of the levels, the ghosts temporarily become vulnerable and you can eat them like a dot. Each level adds more speed to the level and less time where ghosts can be vulnerable.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
ARCADE GAME SERIES: DIG DUG
While many ports of this game suffer from processor speeds that differ from the original (NES port in particular. nearly all online emulators use the NES version). smaller screen size(Gameboy and GBA) or poor graphics(Mac/commodore/Atari ect.) This port does not have any of these problems. It plays exactly like the original arcade cabinet. So if It doesn’t feel right this is probably the reason.
Some may find backgrounds annoying but I personally don’t mind.
If the price seems a little steep don’t worry there is quality here. Most free ports use the NES version and it’s one of the worst ports of this game. Your money will be well spent.
– Real player with 139.6 hrs in game
Hello Everyone,
Looking back fondly on my youth, I decided to play one of the earlies titles in my memory. That title is one of Namco’s biggest Digging Juggernaut’s Dig Dug from the Bandai Namco Arcade Game Series. With our introductions out of the way let’s start this party.
Arcade Game Series: Dig Dug is a Steam adaptation of the original arcade cabinet of Dig Dug that was released by Namco in 1982. For those of you unfamiliar with this franchise, Dig Dug is a 2D style digging simulator where the players goal is to clear a series of levels with the highest scores that they can possibly get. In order to make score, players have to destroy enemy’s, collect hidden vegetables/fruit that appear on levels, or simply dig thought the bricks that is on the various stages.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game