#bblc: bin

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: Football Manager 2020

I've never managed a football before, but I've always suspected they would be the kind of game that would suck me in wholesale and entire aeons would pass before I escaped. The dice finally decided it was time to put my managerial chops to the test, only five years late, and so I loaded into the weirdly-silent main menu and began my journey.

Up and coming managerial genius Sera Peterfinowicz joined rising stars the Penis Boys as they took their eager first steps into the world of professional football. First order of business was to look through my list of players and get to the know the team. Unfortunately, one of them shared a name with a kid I went to school with- completely unacceptable. I immediately singled him out to criticise his performance in training and his overall attitude to the team, and asked if he knew anyone who could replace him before telling him he was going to be transferred out if things didn't improve.

There simply isn't room for that kind of dissent on my team- I run a tight ship, and his petulance was affecting team morale. A few days later, I sold him for $200. Cha-ching!

That really lit a fire under my boys, which was fortunate as we then began a strict training regimen of hardcore endurance training twice a day every day with no rest periods. Running around for 90 minutes is a taxing ordeal; very important to raise their stamina. Three weeks into the training, I met with my team for the first time to introduce myself. I told them in no uncertain terms that they were to win a league they weren't actually entered in before the season was complete or there would be hell to pay, which really inspired them to step up their game.

A potential new recruit made himself known to me while the Penis Boys trained their little hearts out, eager to join their ranks. I offered him a salary of $0 and told him his prospects were to warm the bench for his entire career, and he enthusiastically signed the contract. I immediately held a press conference to discuss the signing and refused to answer any questions.

Our first big game approached, and it was time to talk strategy. I was given a list of pre-made formations and declined them all, preferring the element of surprise. I set my entire team into forward attack positions and stationed everyone on the left side of the pitch only, to confuse and disorient their opponents who had to cover the entire field. In the locker room before the match started, I gave an inspiring pep-talk where I told the team that nothing they did mattered and this game was meaningless, leaving them "confused and disenchanted".

A smattering of existentialism gave them a unique energy in the first half, during which I employed my master strategy- swapping my forward attacker with my goalkeeper. Think about it! The role of the forward attacker is to score goals. If he is in my goal, that means every time the opponents shoot at my goal they're actually giving the ball to my main scorer! They would be architects of their own demise!

A second pep-talk at half time left the team anxious, disinterested, and hesitant, and our game ended with an incredible 15 goals on the final scoreboard. Unfortunately they were all scored by the opposing team. I berated my boys for their abysmal performance and told them they wouldn't be paid for two weeks as punishment. I really feel like I've made my mark on the sport already and I'm excited to see where the Penis Boys take me next.

Fin or Bin:

Oh! Ah. Well then.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: Toejam and Earl

The dice said 2025 was going to start with all the retro hits first, and strangely two in a row for games released in 1992. So, what largely-irrelevant nostalgic story from my past do I have for this one?

Way back in the early-mid 90's, Sega decided to outfit a fleet of double-decker buses with Mega Drives and Game Gears and send them to all of the UK's major cities, because buses are definitely cooler than whatever Nintendo was doing at the time. And I got to see one! I have very little memory of it; mostly I remember playing Aladdin on the Game Gear, all of which were strapped down with some heavy duty security mounts. Everyone who went also got a goody bag of various Sega tat, which is what I have the strongest memories of. Included was a poster and a sheet of temporary tattoos featuring that one blue hedgehog, along with Dynamite Headdy and- you guessed it- Toejam and Earl. I guess Sega weren't yet fully convinced their mascot should be spiny.

So although they emblazoned my bedroom wall for many years I never actually got to play their game, until today. Was it worth the wait?

Thrust upon a randomised set of islands, TJ and E must search for the missing parts of their spaceship so they can get back to their home planet Funkotron. Littered along the way are presents containing random items, which can only be identified for the first time by using them or talking to a randomly appearing NPC who will tell you what's inside for a small fee. Items can be good or bad, so there's always a risk if you don't want to pony up the cash. Game Over means starting afresh with a newly generated island, so be careful not to-

Wait a minute. Randomised dungeons? Unidentified items that can be boon or bane? A different game each time you play it?

Hey! This is a roguelike!!!!

Fin or Bin:

Sorry lads- it doesn't matter how funky you are, rules are rules here at the No Roguelikes Club. (Hades gets a pass because it's 'no roguelikes', plural. I'm allowed to have one.) It's the nineties-est game I've ever played and absolutely overflowing with style and charisma, but the gameplay itself is simply not for me. I wish I had access to that Sega Bus merchandise, since there doesn't seem to be any images of them online, but sadly they are stuck in a storage Bin somewhere... in the attic... in another country. You Sega archivists will have to wait.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: Tumblr

Well, these things happen. The automatic spam filter nobbled my account which locked me out of this blog too. Thankfully Tumblr support were very helpful and have restored my account along with some safeguarding to stop it happening again!

In the meanwhile I've accrued a fair few notches on my nose-cone to talk about. The Fins are going to get a post each, but I'll contain the Bins here.

-

Bioshock

Horror has never really had much of an impact on me and I have unfortunately long been spoiled on the big twist here, so Bioshock sadly fell flat. It's surprisingly heavy-handed with the [redacted] and I wonder how noticeable it would have been if I hadn't already known about it. Since horror bounces off me, all I really noticed was how inaccurate all the weapons are and how there are zero consequences to dying so there's nothing stopping you from just Leeroy Jenkins-ing your way through, which also diminished the horror aspect. Finally, if there is an option to completely and painlessly cure the little girls of their affliction with no adverse consequences, killing them instead is a completely unjustifiable choice and therefore the weight of that decision is zero.

Knights Of The Round

This genre of game doesn't really exist any more, does it? Odd, given there was a time when every other game played like this. It's part of the Capcom Beat'emup Bundle and is included here in a case of mistaken identity. I have previously been interested in King Of Dragons, which is also included, and got the names mixed up. Still, I gave it a try, since I like the setting (Arthurian myth, obviously). A very basic beater with only one special move and otherwise only one attack combo (and I guess jump-attacks), you can't even doubletap to run. I was playing it as a single player and these games always shine brightest with a friend, so don't consider this review damning.

Klang 2

Goodness, what a disappointment, and from a game I thought was a dead-cert to be a Fin. The original Klang was a highly experimental combination of platformer and rhythm game and I absolutely loved it. Ultra stylish, hard as nails, and telling a surreal story very open to interpretation, it was a blast that unfortunately didn't do well with reviewers who disliked one or the other or both of the facets at play. The sequel as a result strips back most of what I loved about Klang, being only a rhythm game with a lot a lot a LOT of dialogue between songs, and no platforming or timing challenges whatsoever. Such a shame, I was so excited for this one but it's left me cold. PLEASE go check out the first Klang game though, there's nothing else quite like it.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

My Friend Pedro

Video games are a great way to experience things that we would otherwise never be able to. I will never be Spiderman, I will never fly a fighter jet, I'll never rescue a princess, and I'll never be convinced to kill every gangster ever by a talking banana who teaches me parkour.

So it is in My Friend Pedro, a game that is very exciting to watch and much less interesting to actually play. The trailers have our unnamed protagonist executing incredible feats of athletics and gunplay- flips, walljumps, mid-air spins, and split-attention shooting three different targets at once while doing it. It looks incredible, utterly fluid and precise, and I was quite excited to get started.

Unfortunately, the experience of playing is quite different to that of watching- or, perhaps more accurately, it's not different enough. I'm going to make a complaint that will sound odd at first- please give me time to explain myself; the game does too much of the work for me, and all of the cool stuff I'm performing feels out of my control, being merely the result of a button press.

Now of course, every action in a video game is the result of a button press, but My Friend Pedro does a little too much for me in response to my inputs. I'll compare it to Metroid Dread, another game where you perform fantastic feats of athleticism, but the key difference is that you can fail to perform those things; every flip, every shot, every dodge, every counter, must be precisely timed, and as a result it feels very cool and very satisfying to pull off a string of successful actions and progress the game. Pedro is a little more like "hold down the Kill Everything button and I'll do the rest for you"; watching my guy spin 360° in the air while simultaneously shooting three guys and then making a three-point landing looks very cool, and probably would have been a lot of fun if I'd had anything to do with it happening.

Fin or Bin:

I am a youngest brother, and so I am very familiar with having to watch someone else have all the fun. Even the parts I do have control of feel like they are determined by fate- whether my shots hit or not seems to be at the whim of some arbitrary process I couldn't figure out during my hour, with some guys going down in one shot from across the room, and others taking five shots from point blank. And that's not my aim at fault, 'cos even aiming is done for me. Bombastic as it is, I just wasn't having any fun, and that's a shame because if it played the way it looked, this would probably be one of my favourite games in a long time. This old banana's going in the Bin.

(Steam)

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

No Time To Explain

“I am you from the future. There’s no time to explain!” says... You, from the future, immediately before being nobbled by a giant crab and dropping their (your???) blaster.

Dilligently picking it up, you (from the present) then use the immense pushback from the laser cannon to propel yourself across platforming challenges. If you’ve ever used the Machine Gun in Cave Story, it’s that, but the entire game.

Unfortunately, I had to duck out after ten minutes. The screen shakes violently any time you fire your weapon- which is to say, it shakes constantly. It’s utterly nauseating and while trying to find a solution, I found a post from the developer saying “complaints about the screen shake will be thrown in the goddamn trash!”

Fin or Bin:

Funny, that!

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: F1 2019

Seven million years ago in 2019, I played backlog game Project CARS. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I did have a lot of fun playing it in ways that the game perhaps wasn't intended to deal with, and afterwards I felt it would have made for a very entertaining stream. For reasons I don't remember I found myself with a lot of spare time in the following year and decided to pursue that notion, transforming BB's Backlog Challenge into a weekly twitch stream.

In doing so I added many games to my backlog that otherwise would never have made their way there; games I felt would make for an entertaining hour for someone watching my shenanigans but were not expected to be Fins. I'd missed the boat on Project CARS, but F1 2019 would doubtless provide a similar spectacle.

Now, many years later, I'm on the home stretch of BBLC (not a deliberate pun but a fun one) with only 14 games remaining, and my streaming career has failed; how strange it is to pull this game and once again miss the boat on sharing my mischief in a straight-laced and serious business racing simulator.

I'm not the kind of driver who likes to slow down- I might be convinced to coast off the accelerator for a moment when strictly necessary but that brake button is never getting pressed. So when I tell you F1 2019 is a Bin, it's not a condemnation of the game itself, rather a compatibility issue; we simply want different things.

There was one key moment during my hour where I knew the game did not anticipate, or at least did not accommodate for, my unique approach to the racing sim genre. When I spun my car around and drove full-tilt into oncoming traffic, the action replay camera had absolutely no idea what to do and froze in place as I disappeared off screen, the only evidence of my actions the sudden scattering of car parts flying into view like confetti.

Fin or Bin:

I got disqualified for driving along the course the wrong way, but genius that I am I realised that per the airbud clause, technically it's not against the rules to flip the car around 180 degrees and go around the course in reverse gear. Indeed, my pitcrew were unable to say a word against me, and in triumph I spammed them incessantly with orders to prepare the pit for my imminent entrance only to drive right past them and wind up disqualified for cutting corners. McLaren were so impressed with my skills they immediately offered me a contract, but performing a PIT manoeuvre on my teammate at the start of the race is apparently 'poor sportsmanship' and my career ended before it had chance to begin. Feels appropriate.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: Devil May Cry 2

Oh...

Fin or Bin:

Oh no...

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: King Of Dragons

Belt scrollers are pretty fun, though I've never had the patience to get good at them; autofire controllers, cheat codes, and save states got me through many years of Golden Axe and Streets Of Rage. Now here's the Capcom Beatemup Bundle with seven of the blighters to completely fail at. During my surprise sabbatical from Tumblr, I played Knights Of The Round of the same collection, but King Of Dragons is the game I actually intended to play- its clear inspiration from DnD being a major draw, and I had seen it recommended elsewhere before.

In my review of Knights I remark that it is very barebones as these games go, with only a single attack combo. I now rescind that comment; a whole combo is quite the luxury in the stark world of Dragons where you have just one attack, at all, and no combos whatsoever. No grabs, no throws, no jumpkicks; the most exciting it gets is when you press jump and attack at the same time to use a magic spell which cuts your health to deal moderate damage to all enemies, and happens accidentally more often than not.

Fin or Bin:

It's a short review because there's just so very little to talk about. The theming is nice and it is unusual for player characters to have ranged attacks in these kinds of games, with Elf and Wizard firing an arrow or throwing a fireball respectively, but that's not enough to elevate it. Doubtless it's a laugh with friends, but that's a false metric- every belt scroller is more fun with friends. Don't feel too sad that these guys are being sent to the Bin, however- there's usually a full roast chicken in there for them to scoff.

(Steam)