An Unqualified Game Reviewer

In my recent review about the whole of the Oddworld series (which missed out two of the main games, but whatever) I went on a quite some length about why Munch’s Oddysee is the weakest of the main line-up, citing the easy gameplay and far goofier tone compared to the earlier games with its cartoonish graphics and voices, and the bouncy, jaunty soundtrack. I have another thing to add: for a game called Munch’s Oddysee , I found myself playing as Abe for about 80% of the gameplay time. in the vast majority of levels I have Munch just sitting at the respawn points waiting to revive Abe whenever I get him killed, which seeing as there is absolutely no penalty for death in this game happens a lot. I’ll occasionally have to use Munch for something in most levels, but more often than not it’s an aside to the main thrust of the levels action and/or puzzles. Story-wise the two characters have roughly equal attention. Abe needs to break into Vykker’s Labs so save his unborn brothers, while...

The Oddworld franchise has, for the longest time, been my favourite video game franchise (with the possible exception of Half-Life and Monkey Island ). The original Abe’s Oddysee was one of the first games I ever played along with LEGO Racers , Lemmings , The Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink , and a demo for Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions . Well, that being said, the word ‘played’ is perhaps misused in this circumstance; I’m not sure when I first played Abe’s Oddysee myself, because for a while I insisted that my dad play it while I watched. Anyway, the point being it was one of my first games and I’ve played it (or watched my dad play it) at least once a year ever since I was about 7 years old; often far more than once a year. And with that said, I never actually played it myself without cheats and no-clipping until I was during the first half a decade or so. Right, enough yabbering; Abe’s Oddysee . The game was originally released on the PS1 in 1997 and like Cas...

I’ve recently finish with the three Castlevania games that were release for the Game Boy Advance and I say “finished with” instead of “finished” because I actually only complete one of them. Why? I hear you ask. No, I’m just kidding, I know nobody reads these things. The first of the GBA Castlevania’s was Circle of the Moon, first of the post-Symphony of the Night 2D Metroidvanias in the Castlevania series, which were a lot more popular than the 3D shite the series the pulling on the N64 and later the PS2. Circle of the Moon sees the player take control of some guy called Nathan (I think?), an apprentice of someone who I think was a Belmont, which would explain why Martin has the iconic and annoyingly awkward to use Vampipre Killer whip. Dracula has been resurrected by... uhh, someone, I can’t remember her name, and sends Mark down a long shaft into the bowels of the castle, where he vows to... I can’t remember that either. If some ranked all the Castlevania games by memorability of ...