amphibious_ReViews

The original  LEGO Star Wars games were a huge part of my childhood. Alongside my brother and my dad, I completed both of them, unlocking every character, finding every collectible, and finishing every challenge. As a testament to their quality, I kept on playing them, even hours after there was nothing new left to do. My love of the first two games made  The Complete Saga  an appealing title. Not only did it offer the entirety of both games in one seamless package, it included a bunch of brand new content to keep me engaged. I'll admit, I never actually hit 100% in this game, but I do own it on four different platforms, so I have plenty of places to go if I need a quick hit of nostalgia, or just some humorous Star Wars fun. LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga takes you through the first six Star Wars films, retold in an abridged format by humorous, non-speaking Minifigures. Each movie is represented by around half a dozen stages. These levels take some necessary liberties with t

Defender was another arcade game that snuck up on me. I had heard the name plenty of times, but I had never actually seen the game played, let alone actually played it myself. Based on the name, I was expecting something along the lines of Missile Command , but I was way off. With it being an earlier arcade release, I also wasn't sure what to expect in terms of the quality or the quantity of the game's content. Fortunately, while Defender doesn't offer much variety, it is a solid, well-polished alien-shooting experience. The game takes place close to the surface of a barren alien planet, requiring you to avoid crashing into the terrain as you evade enemy fire. Similar to other space shooters, Defender is broken into a series of increasingly difficult stages, and you progress between them by defeating every enemy in the given stage. However, the aliens know how to take advantage of their space, and aren't all going to be in firing range at once. Luckily, the mini-map

If you're looking for a bite-sized game that puts your skills to the test but doesn't punish you for failure, then you're in luck. VVVVVV is a hard-as-nails platformer with no lives system and generous checkpoints. In fact, it almost completely ignores how many times you screw up. Because of this, its platforming challenges feel like obstacles to overcome rather than frustrations to be dealt with, making VVVVVV a rewarding experience from start to finish. You play as Captain Viridian, the leader of a small space-faring crew, who must find and rescue five members of his team (whose names also start with "V") after their teleporter malfunctioned during a multi-dimensional emergency. The alternate dimension you find yourself in is full of ledges, walls, and platforms, but Viridian is completely incapable of jumping. Instead, he must completely invert gravity in order to maneuver, but even that has a catch. Gravity can only be flipped if Viridian is planted on the g

To be completely frank, fighting games aren't really my thing, so my interest in Yie Ar Kung Fu was almost purely for its historical value. Although not the first game in its genre, it was the progenitor of the health bar that would soon become a staple in series like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat . The feature is pretty simplistic in its debut here, broken into eight equal segments that detract one by one with a hit of any kind, but as an early title, I wasn't expecting something super advanced. That mindset was good to have going into this, as the rest of the game matches the health bar in complexity. In Yie Ar Kung Fu , you can jump, crouch, and walk as you would expect from a fighting game, but your actual combat potential is pretty limited. You can punch and kick, but the segmented health bars mean the only difference between the two is where they hit. There's no risk-reward balance for heavy and light attacks, there are no combos, and there are no other playable

I tried to play the original NES Metroid multiple times. Each attempt would start with optimism and end with disappointment and frustration. I wanted so badly to appreciate it the way I had with Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda , but I just couldn't get past its archaic controls and cryptic structure. Metroid: Zero Mission helped to fill that gap by modernizing every aspect of the original that had previously frustrated me, while still offering the same world and story that I wanted to experience in the first place. That, along with the fantastic new content, made this game as hard to put down as the original was to pick up. Zero Mission has you taking the role of the bounty Hunter Samus Aran as she attempts to defeat the space pirates that have taken over the planet Zebes. When you first start the game, Samus is pitifully weak, with only a short-range beam in the way of firepower and an equally short jump as the sum of her maneuverability. Her relative incompetence se

Combining the gameplay of Namco 's Galaga with the perspective of Atar i's Tempest , Gyruss ends up feeling like a perfect evolution of both. Since most of my early-childhood arcade experience was actually through various iterations of Namco Museum , games like this didn't just pass me by, they virtually didn't exist. If this game wasn't on the list of 1001 Games to Play Before You Die , I probably wouldn't have ever played it, and that's a huge shame. With the Galaga series being some of my favorite arcade titles, Gyruss fits snuggly as a favorite as well. You've probably guessed already, but if you're familiar with Galaga , you'll likely be pretty comfortable with Gyruss . Practically everything is recreated here, from the way enemies fly on screen in formation, giving you a chance to take out a few before they fall in line with the rest of their crew, to the bonus stages that give you a chance to earn some extra points without threatening

When I first picked up Time Pilot , I wasn't sure what to expect. Most of Konami 's arcade games escaped my attention up until recently, so they tend to be a surprise every time I pick one up. Although the game's title kind of gave away its concept, I was only seconds in before I started geeking out over traveling through time and battling weaponized aircraft from five different decades. It's still just as basic of a story as any other arcade game, but the concept just did something for me that shooting aliens without an origin didn't. When you boil it all down, Time Pilot is a game about shooting and surviving. You are given what seems to be a horizontal view of the sky with 360 degrees of navigational capability in which you must maneuver to avoid enemies and incoming fire. However, you won't be able to win as a pacifist. The game requires you to take out a certain amount of opposing aircraft before it spawns the boss-like enemy that you must defeat in order

It's pretty much impossible to live in the United States (and I'm sure elsewhere) without having at least a minimal understanding of what Minecraft is. The game has been released on practically every console of the previous few generations, has spawned spinoffs and countless imitators, is represented in the books, toys, bedding, and clothing sections of your favorite retailer, and has been on the minds of children everywhere for nearly a decade. You shouldn't let the overtly kid-centered marketing scare you away though. Even without owning a themed pajama set, you can enjoy the creative freedom that Minecraft offers its players.  The basics of the game are pretty simple. You are presented with a randomly generated world constructed largely of destructible blocks made of various materials. Despite it's blockiness, the world feels alive, with expansive forests, active wildlife, and even bustling villages! However, the true magic of Minecraft comes in the fact that you

Scramble introduced the world to level-based side-scrolling shooters and inspired the development of legends like Gradius , but has since faded into relative obscurity. Like most firsts in the video game world, Scramble is impressive more because of what it started than because of what it is. Playing this game now, it's easy to see why it was a big deal when it released, but why nobody is really talking about it anymore. In Scramble , you are tasked with surviving as long as possible while your ship automatically flies to the right. You have free range of motion on the left half of the screen, which you absolutely have to take advantage of in order to avoid both enemies and the terrain. To help, your ship is also equipped with two types of weapons. A regular blaster that fires straight forward, and a bombs that arc towards the ground. The blaster is especially useful for clearing your path, but proficiency with the bombs is about the only way to keep your ship in the air. As you

I'm cursed when it comes to arcade games. My experiences always follow the same cycle. I'll boot up the game, immediately appreciate the simple, yet intelligent, design that made it popular, lose a lot, become disenchanted, and decide to play something else instead. Ultimately, I'm just not very good at them, and I lack the patience to get good, so I move on. I thought that's how Centipede would go long before I realized I was cursed, so I never actually gave it a chance. I was right. However, I wasn't as right as I thought, and I actually surprised myself with how much fun I was having by blasting all of those darn bugs! It's pretty ambiguous what you actually play as in Centipede , and I never figured it out. What I do know, is that you can shoot projectiles that defeat enemies and break hazards. Based on that alone, I figured this would just be a clone of Space Invaders , shoot the enemies that move side-to-side while getting progressively lower, use shot-st

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a delightful puzzle-based visual-novel-style game. Through the unique artistic style and the humorous dialogue, the developers were able to craft a cute little world chock-full of bite-sized puzzles which make up the core gameplay. However, as the eponymous professor's first adventure, it's still a little rough around the edges. The game's core structure is solid, but the tactics used to increase the playtime could definitely use some polishing. I'm still more than satisfied with the time I spent with the game, it's just unlikely that this is an entry in the series that I will be returning to. In the Curious Village , you take control of Professor Layton , and his apprentice, Luke. Your goal is to solve a variety of mysteries that arise during your time in St. Mystere, which you do by investigating the town, speaking with its residents, and solving puzzles. The town itself is interesting, but the real fun happens during

  As an earlier arcade title, I sort of expected Missile Command to be more simplistic than its "newer" peers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually seemed to be quite complex. Instead of infinite ammo, resource management is a necessity. Instead of controlling one little character, you take command of three silos and protect cities throughout the whole bottom of the screen. Instead of comfortably picking off enemies one by one, you have to race to take out incoming missiles in groups before they spread too wide and overwhelm you. Perhaps the most impressive though was the fact that your failures stick with you as the game progresses; if you let an enemy rocket take out a city you were trying to protect, it won't magically return the next round. It's just gone. Missile Command has a simple objective. You are tasked with shooting down scores of enemy missiles before they destroy all of your cities. You have one aiming reticule, but three missile silos.

After my experience with Battlezone , I had a really tough time deciding how I felt about it. The game is technologically fascinating, and is truly a well-made tank simulation for being four decades old. However, it would have taken a miracle for me to survive more than a minute or two in my playthroughs, which is pretty disheartening. Battlezone puts you in the role of a tank with seemingly no allies and legions of enemies.  Without the ability to strafe, I could never really figure out how to balance dodging and shooting in order to be successful. However, that difficulty aided my suspension of disbelief; even though I have no idea what driving a tank feels like, this game made me think I do. Unfortunately, constantly seeing my screen crack after less than a minute of roaming this endless wasteland was pretty discouraging. I was usually able to take out a couple enemy tanks before I lost, so it wasn't all for nothing, but it still sort of felt like it was. Of all of the classic

  Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a murder-mystery visual novel. The game's linear structure may leave some people frustrated, but, I found that the combination of intriguing mysteries and over-the-top characters was enough to keep me happily engaged the whole way through. The game did a great job of making me feel like I was the one making smart deductions and groundbreaking discoveries, even though they were all inevitable pieces of the main story, and I definitely consider that smart game design. I didn't find the whole game to be perfect, and the final episode suffers from a serious lack of cohesion, but that was far from enough to sour a game this good. Playing as an amateur defense attorney who seems to think he's also a detective, you are tasked with trying to protect your innocent clients from conviction, despite insurmountable odds. The only way this is possible is by finding every little contradiction in witness testimonies while in court, and interrogating the h

As Mario 's first polygonal-3d adventure, and one of the earliest games to take advantage of such technology on this scale, there were so many ways that Nintendo could have messed this up. Luckily, they didn't, and Super Mario 64 quickly earned it's place as one of the best 3d adventure games ever made. I personally still prefer Mario 's later 3d escapades, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this title. As Mario , the game tasks you with exploring a surprisingly large amount of sandbox-style levels in order to collect power stars. Each level hides seven, but there are an additional fifteen that clever players can find while exploring Princess Peach 's castle. These power stars are used to open up new areas, eventually leading you to a final battle with King Bowser himself. As I made my way through the castle and the worlds hidden with it, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed exploring the same levels over and over in order to collect each of their stars. I wo

  If the pictures didn't make it painfully obvious, I am bad at this game. Classic arcade games usually give me trouble (that's their quarter-eating job), but Frogger kicked it up a notch. Other arcade legends eased me into the intense difficulty by making simple adjustments every level. However, just the second level of Frogger added faster vehicles, more diving turtles, less frequent logs, and two kinds of alligators. There's no room for learning - this game is a trial by fire. Each level tasks you to escort five frogs across a street and over a river while avoiding obstacles and, optionally, grabbing some extras for bonus points. With nothing deliberately seeking to kill me, Frogger did end up being a more "zen-like" experience than I'm used to from the genre. Unfortunately for me, zen and simplicity are not synonymous. Frogger  wrecked me, and like most other arcade games, I lack the dedication to improve. If you have a chance to play this game, by all m

  Before Breath of the Wild , Ocarina of Time was arguable the definitive 3d Zelda adventure, and honestly, it might still be. It was a remarkable feat in video game development that Nintendo was able to translate the item-collecting, dungeon-exploring, world-saving structure to three dimensions almost perfectly on their first try. A Link to the Past set the series standards for decades to come, but Ocarina of Time showed, without a doubt, that those standards worked just as well outside of two dimensions. The game definitely had areas for improvement upon its first release, but practically everything I had an issue with on the N64 was fixed in the 3DS remake. Quality-of-life improvements, such as making the boots an item, or displaying the map on the screen at all times, made this adventure largely seamless. Plus, the graphics are leagues better than before, which is always a win. The story in Ocarina of Time is nothing exceptional, but it got the job done. Starting as a young boy,

  Galaga is an absolute classic. Upgrading the formula and gameplay from its predecessor Galaxian , this space-shooter has an almost perfect feeling of simplicity to tie its more complex mechanics together. I always leaned towards Galaxian amongst the two, mostly because I was the most familiar with it. However, it is clear that Galaga is an improvement in almost every way. Although the main gameplay mechanics of this title were popularized by the legendary  Space Invaders , I believe that this is the definitive alien-blasting arcade experience. Galaga tasks you with taking down as many fleets of bug-like aliens as possible, while dodging them as they fly by and avoiding any of their return fire. This title also introduces the possibility of losing a ship to an enemy tractor beam. If you get caught, you'll lose a life, but rescuing the lost ally let's you pilot the two ships together and wreak serious havok. Galaga also introduces bonus rounds that test your ability to hit

  Pilotwings brought impressive flight simulations to the SNES , with realistic physics assisted by pseudo-3D graphics that pulled the whole experience together. Unfortunately, it just wasn't very fun. Nintendo incorporated bonus rounds that were far more fantastical than the main gameplay, but it all still ended up feeling like I was performing a simulation instead of playing a game. The variety in challenges was nice, and it was an interesting experience when piloting each vehicle/character, but I often felt like I had to force myself to play this over other games. The gameplay loop of Pilotwings revolves around completing different challenges in order to achieve higher levels of your in-game pilot license. You'll have to demonstrate your skills with a plane, a jetpack, a hanglider, and a parachute in the main stages, which make up most of the experience. If you achieve a secret goal while completing one of the regular challenges, you'll have the opportunity to earn ad

  While franchises born on the NES , like Mario , Zelda , and Metroid , continued on to have highly successful careers, Kid Icarus only got a sequel on the Gameboy before being abandoned for decades. If you just play the first ten minutes of each original game, that decision seems to make sense. Kid Icarus starts slower than it's peers, and begins at a higher difficulty, so it doesn't quite hook you in the same way. However, playing through the whole game reveals that it actually combines some of the best aspects of Nintendo's NES -era lineup and deserves far more recognition. In Kid Icarus , you'll find character growth and platforming reminiscent of Metroid , an adventure and menacing enemies that rival The Legend of Zelda , and linearity directed by clever variety similar to the likes of Super Mario Bros. Playing as Pit, an angel with wings too weak to fly and a bow that can't shoot very far, you attempt to climb out of the depths of the underworld, cross the