DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!

[DrBloodmoney]

@The_Kopite - just realised I made a mistake on your priority assignment, and put RE5 instead of the RE2 Remake! 

 

Corrected now! 

[The_Kopite]

26 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

@The_Kopite - just realised I made a mistake on your priority assignment, and put RE5 instead of the RE2 Remake! 

 

Corrected now! 

I thought there was something going on, maybe Chris' muscles demanded RE5 be first lol

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, The_Kopite said:

I thought there was something going on, maybe Chris' muscles demanded RE5 be first lol

 

He may be able to punch his way through a boulder, but no one can punch their way through science!?

[pinkrobot_pb]

I have no idea what the game Zero Zero Zero Zero is, but if it does not end up at the very bottom I will be severely disappointed.

[DrBloodmoney]

10 minutes ago, pinkrobot_pb said:

I have no idea what the game Zero Zero Zero Zero is, but if it does not end up at the very bottom I will be severely disappointed.

 

? Have to wait for the science, of course, but I have to warn you - I doubt it...

 

If you've never subjected yourself to the 'wonders' of The Mysteries of Little Riddle, I can assure you, it will take some beating for the wooden-spoon award! - I don't expect Zero Zero Zero Zero to make much of a showing - it's not great by any stretch, but it's not in that league by a long shot...

 

We'll just need to see how it fares once I put on the lab coat though ?

Edited May 4, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

 

 ?? NEW SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! ??

 

Hello Science-lads and Science-Ladettes, as promised (and in some cases requested), here are the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

Cities: Skylines

 

Summary: 

The premier city-building simulator on console (and arguably on PC too at this point, as I understand it,) Cities: Skylines is simultaneously a ton of fun, an endless sinkhole one can lose entire days into, and the final nail in the coffin of Maxis' Sim City series' long and illustrious tenure as the king of the City Sim!

 

I was an enormous fan of the original Sim City version that was released on the SNES back in the day, and even more so for the incredible Sim City 2000 on PC, but I fell off the City-Building tip around the release of Sim City 3000. The reason for that was simple - despite being as a result of improvements and refinements, the level of simulation those games trafficked in simply outpaced my personal attention span and tolerance for learning the more complex mechanics required to be a successful mayor.
Learning the amount of complicated game mechanics driving the background of the simulation became more work than fun for me - which is not a slight on the games, of course, but meant my relationship with them waned.

 

Reading that, one might be tempted to assume - considering how much I liked Cities: Skylines - that its simulation had gone back to a more simplistic flavour, but actually, the opposite is true. 
Where Sim City 3000 and other city builders of the era became more and more complex, pushing me out, Cities: Skylines is the first entry in the genre to become so much more complex, that it actually looped around, and pulled me back in!

The reason being - the simulation mechanics has become so good, and so nuanced, that it no longer feels like learning a phone-book's worth of complex rules and win conditions, but actually feels like... well... running a city!

Where in City Builder games of the past, if you had, say, a problem with traffic management, you would need to read all about how the rules of the game work, and figure out a solution to meet their conditions. With Cities: Skylines, when I had that exact problem, the solution was not to look up strategies to work the game mechanics - it was to look up actual cities with good traffic management pull up some Google Earth images of their road layouts and highway junctions, and actually recreate those in the game! The simulation is now complex and realistic enough, that aping real life scenarios is the way to succeed, and as a result, the game is oddly more approachable. The player does not need to think about how to 'game the system' - instead, they need to think about what would work in a real City and go from there. That is an astonishing achievement!

 

The game has a clean, never breathtaking but more than serviceable art-style, a very well implemented and approachable control scheme (not often the case when mouse-and-keyboard games are transposed to a console controller), and runs very well on console, even once your city grows to a massive size.
It avoids stuttering by purposefully throttling the game speed down as the city grows, which might be seen as a compromise, but I never found it to be an issue, as once a city is big enough for it to be noticeable, the player has so much more to do and keep track of anyway, that the extra time is more of a blessing than a curse.

 

Supported with a metric ton of DLC packs, each of which adds quite a bit to the game, and with 7 or 8 packs now available, the game is an absolute monster in terns of content - and I highly recommend playing with them all installed from the get-go if possible.

I sunk well over a 150 hours into this one, played long after all the trophies were achieved, and never felt bored. I will still pop into one of my 4 main cities (Onett, Twoson, Threed and Fourside☺️) for a few hours every now and then, and always feel like I'm coming home when I do.

 

The Ranking:

No real direct comparison games on the list so far, but I began in the middle of the list since - as I'm sure y'all can tell by now - this was a real gaming treat for me!

The sheer volume of content and literally endless playability and repeatability propels this high up towards the top of the list. 

Its not really fair to compare with many of these games, as 'City Sim' is a very specific genre, but in the end, I had to err on the side of "What shorter, but bigger game is just too impressive for this to pass, and is repeatable enough to counter it", and the first game I hit that met that criterion was... Sekiro.
Therefore Cities: Skylines find's its plot of land, ready to begin expanding outwards and upwards!

 

 

 

 

Detroit: Become Human

 

Summary: 

David Cage games are an odd beast really - a cousin of Adventure games, a distant relative of FMV games, and the gorgeous-but-dumb girlfriend (or at least, friend with benefits) of Telltale style choice based narrative games... and I'll admit, I'm a bit of sucker for them!

 

The stories of his games are often a little over-written and a bit under-thought, and they do tend to be a little too in love with their own premises and taking themselves more seriously than their uncanny-valley visuals will unironically allow, but I think in Detroit: Become Human's case, the formula works better than it has previously.

The uncanny-valley nature of the visuals (which - let's not fuck around here - are uniformly beautiful) are offset a little by the idea that many of the characters are in fact not human, and so looking a little inhuman is fine. Even on the actually human characters, it is noticeably less jarring than it used to be.

 

The story, while not based on a particularly original concept, is well executed, well paced, and - much more so than in previous Cage joints Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls - genuinely variable and branching. Unlike with those previous entries, the 3 or 4 playthroughs required for the platinum of Detroit was still throwing up entire new scenes and long sections I hadn't seen before, and that is very impressive, given the high level of polish the game has.

 

The acting is good, and motion captured well for the most part, and forgiving some hokey or rote moments, it's not difficult to find oneself forming an emotional investment with at least some of the principle characters here - Kara's journey is a particular stand-out in that regard.
The story overall is probably not going to get anyone welled up or weepy, but there is plenty to attach to to keep you wanting to see it through, and to want to keep the characters safe from their many perils.

The 'action' scenes (mostly chases) are still a bit on the ropey side, as they always have been, but have been refined a little, and are less fiddly than in previous Cage games, though I still question the logic of painstakingly crafting beautiful visuals, then forcing the player to concentrate only on a bunch of overlaid button prompts!

Also, the decision to show a full 'timeline-tree' showing where major deviations can or did occur is a welcome addition to the formula, in games where seeing all the content it has to offer is the biggest draw.

 

The Ranking:

Starting point is similarly cinematic and graphically realistic Until Dawn, and with Detroit, I think Cage succeeds more than that game did in terms of emotional investment and scope. 

Other obvious comparison is Telltale's The Walking Dead, but I think that game does far more using a lot less, and hooked me much harder - there were multiple moments in that game where I felt genuinely wracked as I tried to decide what choice to make, and that never really happened with Detroit. 
Lower on the list is A Plague Tale: Innocence, which had some similar feelings of protection over the characters - which is really Detroit's strongest suit, but again, that game did it a little better I feel. 

In the end Detroit makes it up past such games as Rain, Jak and Daxter, but is outdone by the classic Grim Fandango, who's Adventure Game irreverence and intentional humour beats out Detroit's self-seriousness and occasional unintentional humour.

 

 

 

 

 

Headlander

 

Summary: 

A charming and smart Metroidvania, with a really cool and original head-swapping mechanic, tight controls, a good mix of action and puzzles, and a fun, 70’s Disco inspired aesthetic that is both great to look at, and plumbing a vastly less commonly tapped aesthetic than the sometimes over-used 80's visual style frequently used in games.
 
Not too long or difficult, but fast-paced and fun from the very start to the very, and a with a silly, and often funny, story.

Gets a special dose of "awesome points" for the completely unnecessary, completely ridiculous, and completely bizarre and hilarious addition of a 'dance' mechanic, allowing every different character your disembodied floating head attaches to to dance in a (really quite varied and surprisingly well animated) 70's disco fashion!

 

The Ranking:

Doesn't quite beat out Trine in terms of 2.5D platforming puzzling fun, and its frantic action and over-the-top visual aesthetic don't quite do enough to unseat The Walking Dead, but it's fun factor and smooth, satisfying controls are enough to place above slightly above Dead Space Extraction, and so it lands its head on a robot body there, and starts doing the Hustle in it's robotic flares.

 

 

 

 

 

LEGO Movie: The Videogame (PS4)

 

Summary: 

The first LEGO game to be placed on this list is not the worst one of its kind, but far from the best of the bunch either. 

The LEGO game formula is pretty standard across their games - break down environment find the parts needed, build puzzle solution then platform your way forward and repeat - but can be a ton of fun in the right circumstances. Those circumstances being: with someone else! 
Vastly more fun in Co-op, there is a reason why there are quite a few of these in my list - they are perfect co-op fare to be played with the (slightly) less gaming-savvy Mrs. Bloodmoney, and the relative ease and relaxed low-stakes action is generally a welcome thing around the vicinity of my couch.

 

Unfortunately though, here, while the co-op is still good, and the set pieces relatively fun, one of the most alluring and fun parts of the LEGO games is seeing LEGO parodies / homages to very not-LEGO movies - it's why LEGO Star Wars is fun, why LEGO Indiana Jones is fun, why LEGO Harry Potter and LEGO Lord of the Rings is fun... and why The LEGO Movie: The Videogame is a bit less so. 

The LEGO Movie is great - I have no issue with that film at all - it is genuinely funny, sharp witted and far better than it - in concept - has any right to be...
...which is to the detriment of the game. 
Where a parody of a live action scene done with LEGOs is ripe for comedy,  a simple recreation of an already LEGO-themed animated scene (even an already funny one) is not really-  all it can ever be is an imitation, and here it is often a pale one.

 

Theres nothing inherently wrong with the game formula here - it still works - but there is just less comedic stuff to latch onto, and the game, being pretty long, suffers for that. 

 

Also, unusually, this one seemed to have a bit more in the way of glitches and jank than some of the others. I recall rather more frequent 'stuck on the environment' type issues than is usual for a Traveller's Tales outing. That's never a dealbreaker, as the games allow for that with a quick and non-puntitive 'suicide' mechanic, but it does get old if happening too frequently.
These issues suggest this one might have been a bit more rushed out the door, (to meet a movie release schedule I'd imagine,) than the others.

 

The Ranking:

Not awful, but a bit lacking, and sure to be overtaken by many of its LEGO brethren before the list is done. 

Co-op fun takes it past the real stinkers, and over the top of some of the well-meaning but lacklustre games such as Chronovolt and Adventure of Mana, but even Need for Speed: Rivals is a better game overall. You might be wondering what the real difference, if any, is between the quality of our currently side-by-side  Artifex Mundi joins Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek and Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne is?
The answer is: LEGO Movie: The Videogame (PS4)!

 

 

 

 

Resident Evil 2: Remake

 

Summary: 

I'm what would probably be best described as a 'fair-weather Resident Evil fan' - I haven't completed every entry, and there are some I haven't played at all, but among the fair chunk I have played, the original Resident Evil 2 was the chief - both in preference, and in number of times I played it through.

I really loved that game on PSOne, and remembered it very well, and held it in pretty high regard, so when the remake was announced I was hesitantly excited, but more than a little skeptical as to whether the old game would really translate. I assumed it would either feel very modern, but do so at the expense of the game and not really feel like RE2, or that it would be overly faithful and still feel clunky by modern standards.

 

Well, I needn't have worried. Between this game, the Final Fantasy VII Remake and the PS4 Shadow of the Colossus, we are seeing the pinnacle of remade games in my opinion.

 

The RE2 Remake does what every remake aims for, but few ever achieve - it manages to be all the same, and all different for the better.
It captures every nook and cranny of the iconic police precinct, but does it using how the place felt in my mind, rather than how it actually was on the screen. 
Granted, I had not touched the original in over a decade, but every part seemed to be faithful, and every room I expected was exactly where I expected it to be - yet every time, I was impressed with how it looked now.

 

The game holds up as a completely modern action-horror-shooter, and if it did stand out among a group of brand new games in the same genre in 2020, it would only be because it was better - one would never know that its design roots go back 22 years! Graphics, Lighting, sound design and controls are all en-par with the best modern games, and in some cases, can outshine many of them. 

 

Shooting feels good, the zombies are  gross and hokey in the best possible B-Movie way, the bizarre puzzles (that suggest the police precinct's architect was Jigsaw!) are still there, but don't feel out of place, giving the whole game a slightly metroidvania feel as you find items to progress (a task that is made all the more user-friendly by the inclusion of an excellent check-mark map system that other games should all be adopting).

 

The slightly increased focus on, and earlier inclusion of, Mr.X - the unkillable monster who follows you around, forcing you to keep on the move and on your toes at all times - is a welcome deviation from the original.

 

While I'm not personally a fan of the 'you never know how many bullets each zombie will take to kill' mechanic, I'm forced to concede that it does have the intended effect of increasing tension dramatically when bullets are scarce, and helps force the games best, most tense, and most sweat-inducing moments - those times when you know you don't have enough weaponry to kill everything, and just need to fire at the right zombie or two to stun them, push past, and run like hell!

 

The silly and fun story is still silly and fun, Leon is still a bit dull, but Claire is a little sassier and funnier than I recall from the first outing. She gets extra points for her line after finding a particularly grisly collectible lore videotape and watching it: just a deadpan, sarcastic "Glad I watched that!"

 

 

The Ranking:

Not many Horror games on the list yet, but in terms of 3rd person action games, there are a few notable points of comparison. 
The remake handily outdoes Assassin's Creed II, though despite Resident Evil 2 Remake's formidable graphical prowess, its story and lack of emotional investment renders it unable to to dethrone The Last of Us, so we find ourselves somewhere in between. 

Its shortish story, despite fair repeatability, does make it a tough sell against similarly technically accomplished, but all together much bigger and grander Horizon Zero Dawn, and while it is doing great things with an old formula, Pac Man Championship DX is doing a similarly remarkable job modernising a game even older, and even more addictive and repeatable, so Resident Evil 2 Remake finds its very high spot just below that game, and above powerhouse indie Cuphead.

 

 

 

 

 

Serial Cleaner

 

Summary: 

Serial Cleaner is an oddity of a game in concept. 
Imagine Hotline Miami, with a blander (but still okay), more iPAD-esque visual style, and rather than entering the gangster's hideout and causing the blood-soaked mayhem, you are arriving after it has all happened and cleaning it all up!
The police are already on the scene, and your job is to wipe the crime-scene clean, remove all the evidence of a crime, and get out, all without getting caught.

 

Its an original concept, though really, it boils down to a top down vision-cone avoiding stealth game, where you play cat and mouse against a variety of cops, cleaning as much of the scene as required.  Without any method of fighting the cops, it is pure stealth, which can be fun, though not everyone's cup of tea, and personally, I prefer a little more in the way of 'powers' or abilities in my stealth-heavy games. 

The visuals are serviceable at worst and pretty nice looking at best, and the game controls well and can be very satisfying on a good run.

It has its issues, though.

The game takes the rather counter-intuitive approach of randomising the enemy placements, routines, and the mess you need to clean with every restart. 
That is presumably to dull the feeling of repetition on harder levels, but in the end it has the opposite effect - because you can't 'learn' the level, when you hit a tricky one you end up having to repeat it far more often than you would if you could actually rely on a set enemy layout staying constant.
Since randomisation across such small levels can only go so far, the result is just enough variation to be a burden, but never enough to make it seem particularly fresh.

 

The Ranking:

The most obvious corollary is Hotline Miami, but that is useless as a comparison, as this game may be derivative of that one it in many aspects, but it is a country mile away from the league that game plays in. 

There is fun to be had here for sure, quite a bit of it in the middle portion of the game actually, and easily enough to jump it up the list as far as The LEGO Movie: The Videogame. 
It can pass that game on the basis of a more original premise (it may be derivative of Hotline Miami, but there are a bakers dozen LEGO games that came before that game that were far closer in design to it than Serial Cleaner is to Hotline.)

It has enough single player fun to pass Need for Speed: Rivals' lack thereof, and considering Hidden Agenda needs 4 people to have any real fun at all - and even then, is lacking - it can pass that too, but I think pound-for-pound there is more good time in a playthrough of The Order: 1886 than there is here, so Serial Cleaner finds it's spot on the list!

 

 

 

 

Split/Second

 

Summary: 

2010 saw the release of two driving games that attempted to split the difference between arcade racing and kart racing games, merging the chaotic fun of a Mario Kart with the speed and excitement of a Burnout - Split/Second, and Blur. 
Both were roundly successful, and personally, Split/Second's ever-so-slightly-more-on-the-arcade-racer-side was my favoured flavour of the two. (Both games were very good, and as I recall, my opinion was the minority one here, but not by a huge factor.)

 

Structured in episodic form, as if the player is taking part in some 'Running-Man'-era high-violence, high-thrills future-sport, Split/Second's races look great, control well, and feel incredibly fast and visceral.

 

The game incorporates it's kart-racing racer-vs-racer 'attacks' in a slightly odd way - rather than collecting weapons or power-ups and directly 'attacking' other racers a-la Blur or Mario-Kart, the player collects power which can be banked, ad used at certain parts of the track to cause varying levels of destruction in the environment - wrecking ball swings, bridges collapsing, all the way up to massive building explosions or towers collapsing onto the track - based on the level of power banked. It's a cool concept, and has a well implemented risk/reward factor - immediately triggering a level 1 destruct might take out a racer or two, but waiting, banking a full power bar and unleashing a massive level 3 destruct could, if well timed, decimate the whole field, and let you slip from last to first place.

The slight problem with this approach is that unlike 'direct-attack' kart-racers, Split/Seconds powers require a fair bit of knowledge of the tracks before they can be used most effectively - one needs to know where exactly the destructions have their most devastating impacts ahead of use to know when to use them - not a deal-breaking factor, as any player will likely play each track a good number of times - but that does also highlight the other issue. As great as some of the destructions look - and they really do - they of course lose a bit of visual spectacle after having been seen a few times.

 

The game had a serviceable, if not particularly innovative or ground-breaking, multiplayer component, but finding a game became difficult pretty quickly (probably due to the audience for the game being split, what with Blur coming out so close to its release) and now is, I'm sure, as dead as disco.

 

The Ranking:

Excellent, thrilling race credentials make any competition with the lacklustre Need for Speed: Rivals a joke, so as far as driving games already on the list, Driver: San Francisco is the best comparison.

Split/Second's races are undoubtedly better - more exciting, thrilling and more visually stunning - than the equivalent activities in Driver, but that is, of course, the only thing Split/Second does - Driver has an entire story mode and open world on top of that, and also does more innovative and interesting game modes in its multiplayer, so Split/Second falls below it.

Mafia II features a significant amount of driving, and was released the same year, and while also, of course, featuring an open world and significantly more variety of gameplay than Split/Second, I struggle to come up with any particular one of its many aspects it did do with the level of finesse Split/Second does its only one, and as a result, I can feel comfortable placing Split/Second above it.

Working up from that point, Split/Second makes it past a few solid entries, but can't quite outdo other new entry Headlander for crazy, fast, fun-factor, and slams on it's breaks, before a collapsing air-traffic-control tower crushes it to smithereens.

 

 

 

 

 

Terminator Salvation

 

Summary: 

It's hard to quite tell whether my personal biases are helping or hurting my view of this one - on the one hand, I am a huge Terminator fan, and consider the first Terminator movie to be one of my favourite films of all time, and like the second one a lot, and most others enough to enjoy an occasional watch. On the other hand, I liked Terminator Salvation the least of the bunch (even including the weird-as-all-hell and bizarrely misguided (and inexplicably misspelled!) Genisys,) and so, on balance, I think any inherent bias I am bringing to the table is probably a wash!

 

The game tie-in to Terminator Salvation is a basic cover shooter. That's it. There is nothing much beyond that, for better or worse. (Spoiler Alert - it's worse.)

 

For a 2009 game, it is remarkable, notably ugly. Visuals in a game where the environments are destroyed rubble, and the enemies are metal need to be good so you can effectively see what you are doing, and here, they are... incredibly not. 

 

The game does nothing outside of the film for lore or side-story really, it follows the plot of the movie, giving one mindless, dull level of rubble after another, in which poor controls hamper an already dull game, and enemies are all either far too easy to take down for something supposed to be metal (and scary), or far too bullet sponge-y to be fun. 

There is no chance of emotional engagement with the story - the writing, poor voice-work and bad animations take care of that, even if the visuals had managed to reach the dizzying heights of 'passible' - which they rarely do.

 

Cover shooters can be simple and still be effective, but at the time this came out, there were more than enough of them, and I struggle to think of any less interesting than this one.

 

A dull, uninteresting plod through a turgid, forgettable story, with forgettable cut scenes, and bland, forgettable levels. The only memorable thing about it is when it swings occasionally from bad, to out-right awful.

 

 

The Ranking:

The Terminator-ness of it all shakes off the notion of being the worst on the list so far, but not by much. I'd rather play Jak II, and, my scientific friends, that is really saying something!

Limps past The Mysteries of Little Riddle and barely-a-game Paint Park Plus, but can even outdo the least interesting of Artifex Mundi's Photo-hunt games on the list so far before being blasted to shreds by a T-101.

 

 

 

 

Watchmen: The End is Nigh

 

Summary: 

Speaking of dull, uninspired movie tie-ins, here's another hot-mess.

 

The Watchmen tie-in game opts for doing a 3D brawler (an idiotic notion really, given that Watchmen as a comic book - and even as a film for the most part - is not about fighting at all, but about the brilliant characters and thoughtful, smart story, and would lend itself perfectly to the kind of choice-based narrative game that Telltale do.)

 

Even taken on brawler merits though, this one has sweet fuck-all going for it. 
Combat is a flat, uninspired and poor imitation of an Arkham Batman-lite-lite-lite, so breathtakingly simplified that it pushes the bounds of the term 'inspired-by' and borders on 'parody'.

 

The game is short, comprising only 5 levels, each of which is broadly the same, never gets harder or easier, and never offers any additional mechanics. There is no distinction between enemies, no AI worth writing home about, and nothing to do but plod along and punch your way from one boring NPC to the next.

Visually, it is nothing to write home about - the palate is at least in line with the film it is tied-into, and the characters models of Rorschach and Nite Owl are fine and look the part - except in motion, where bad animations make it all look a bit 'Team America: World Police'.

 

There is couch co-op, which helps a little - even the dullest of games is better with a friend, even if that is simple because there is someone else to laugh at it with! - but alack of 2-man combos etc. means you are really just playing in parallel, rather than actually teaming up.

 

This was one of the last of the wave of lacklustre movie-tie in games on console, before that branch of the gaming industry made its way to iPhone games instead, and it is a great example of why that is no great shame. 

 

The Ranking:

Co-op can't save the day here.

Even Terminator Salvation had some fun to be found here and there, and it was a least a full length game with some variety to it's weapons and enemies, and to be fair to it, the movie it was tied into was remarkably dull already - it was working form a difficult point to begin with. Watchmen, on the other hand, is one of the all-time great graphic novels, and a pretty serviceable movie, so fumbling this ball here  is a far more egregious error. 

 

It's happened folks! ?
It's finally happened! ?
After 5 rounds, I can finally stop having to type out 'The Mysteries of Little Riddle' so often!

Watchmen: The End is Nigh cannot even pack the punch required to make it up that first step, and falls on its dull, uninteresting, uninspired and totally misguided face, landing squarely in the current 'Least Awesome Game' spot!

 

 

 

 

 

Zero Zero Zero Zero

 

Summary: 

The first (I think?) Ratalaika game to be put on the ranking, and I know two things:
1. There are people who will be desperate for me to rank it at the bottom.
2. I'm not going to.

 

I won't get into Ratalaika's trophy policies (of which I could say plenty, all negative,) but I have been fairly vocal on the site about my assertion that on merit, there are plenty of perfectly serviceable games published by the indie out-reach publisher. 
I stand by those assertions - and Zero Zero Zero Zero does nothing to dissuade me of them.

 

A simplistic, monochromatic quick-fire puzzle platformer, each of the games 100 levels has one goal - navigate some (often quite tricky) obstacles and hazards, collect an item (a key(?)) and escape. 

 

All levels are short and fast, some more difficult than others, but what makes it interesting is that the levels are on 'shuffle-mode' - each time you die, the level you are presented next is randomised, and so you are always dealing with a new environment, and can't easily practice one level until it is mastered.

Trophy-wise, yes, the game is terribly easy, as the platinum requires less than a third of the levels to be completed, but overall, on gameplay, it is simple and satisfying, and runs well on the vita, which is the ideal way to play it. A quick 10 minute blast is a fun way to pass a short train journey or bus-ride, and there are much worse games to spend your time with.

 

Will its simple gameplay and relative shortness hold your attention for long?
No.

 

Is it fun while it lasts?
Yeah.

 

The Ranking:

Not making a massive impact on the list due to limited nature, and never reaching even the modest heights of say, Serial Cleaner (another visually-simple game where randomisation is used to increase longevity), but beats out other vita quick-fire game Chronovolt on fun factor.
Short-and-fun trumps long-and-boring any day of the week, so it slips past Adventure of Mana, but can go no further on the current list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

 

Thanks to @YaManSmevz, @The_Kopite & @Soraking1991 for putting in requests - hope my reviews are acceptable, or at least sufficiently explanatory if not!

 

An exciting round this time - Dark Souls retains its crown as 'Current Most Awesome Game', though Cities: Skylines making a hell of a showing...

 

...but the biggest upset is The Mysteries of Little Riddle finally being given its reprieve from its questionable glory as 'Current Least Awesome Game' by mustard-burp of a game Watchmen: The End is Nigh!

All hail the new sewage-king! ??

 

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the glory... or the ignominity?

 

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

 

 

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! ☮️

Edited May 5, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Soraking1991]

I'm not surprised at where Detroit landed on the list, great review  

Obviously couldn't (scientifically speaking) beat Manny Calavera's charm.

Thanks for the science!

 

If I'm allowed to suggest another game, I'd like to put forward Dokuro (a game I recommend for Vita, for sure) for scientific judgement! 

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, Soraking1991 said:

I'm not surprised at where Detroit landed on the list, great review  

Obviously couldn't (scientifically speaking) beat Manny Calavera's charm.

Thanks for the science!

 

Glad you're enjoying mate, and happy to be of scientific service ??

 

3 minutes ago, Soraking1991 said:

If I'm allowed to suggest another game, I'd like to put forward Dokuro (a game I recommend for Vita, for sure) for scientific judgement! 

 

Absolutely - I'll flag that one with your name on it... (from memory though, I must warn you, the science might be a little less aligned with your personal assessment there than on Detroit... ??)

[Soraking1991]

3 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Absolutely - I'll flag that one with your name on it... (from memory though, I must warn you, the science might be a little less aligned with your personal assessment there than on Detroit... )

 

No worries, I might be remembering this game through rose-tinted glasses. I tend to over-value Vita games overall as I have an enormous soft-spot for the little handheld ?

 

Still, science must be heard! ?

 

 

[AJ_Radio]

Terminator Salvation is what some regard as one of the 'OG' easy platinums. I rented it from Gamefly to see what the buzz was about, and yeah, it was crap from the day it came out.

 

The movie of the same name was just as forgettable. Terminator 1 & 2 basically cemented Arnold Schwarzenegger's legacy in cinema, Hollywood history. Terminator Salvation was utterly laughable and dull.

[DrBloodmoney]

Just now, AJ_Radio said:

Terminator Salvation is what some regard as one of the 'OG' easy platinums. I rented it from Gamefly to see what the buzz was about, and yeah, it was crap from the day it came out.

 

The movie of the same name was just as forgettable. Terminator 1 & 2 basically cemented Arnold Schwarzenegger's legacy in cinema, Hollywood history. Terminator Salvation was utterly laughable and dull.

 

Yup - can't disagree - you can make a perfectly serviceable cover shooter out of pretty much anything, but if you're going to use a bad movie to start with, you'd better be prepared to bring the funk, and on this one, what they brought was funk-all ?

 

[AJ_Radio]

8 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Yup - can't disagree - you can make a perfectly serviceable cover shooter out of pretty much anything, but if you're going to use a bad movie to start with, you'd better be prepared to bring the funk, and on this one, what they brought was funk-all 

 

 

Games based off a movie have a history of sucking and this one was no different.

 

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Cities: Skylines

 

Summary: 

The premier city-building simulator on console (and arguably on PC too at this point, as I understand it,) Cities: Skylines is simultaneously a ton of fun, an endless sinkhole one can lose entire days into, and the final nail in the coffin of Maxis' Sim City series' long and illustrious tenure as the king of the City Sim!

 

I was an enormous fan of the original Sim City version that was released on the SNES back in the day, and even more so for the incredible Sim City 2000 on PC, but I fell off the City-Building tip around the release of Sim City 3000. The reason for that was simple - despite being as a result of improvements and refinements, the level of simulation those games trafficked in simply outpaced my personal attention span and tolerance for learning the more complex mechanics required to be a successful mayor.
Learning the amount of complicated game mechanics driving the background of the simulation became more work than fun for me - which is not a slight on the games, of course, but meant my relationship with them waned.

 

Reading that, one might be tempted to assume - considering how much I liked Cities: Skylines - that its simulation had gone back to a more simplistic flavour, but actually, the opposite is true. 
Where Sim City 3000 and other city builders of the era became more and more complex, pushing me out, Cities: Skylines is the first entry in the genre to become so much more complex, that it actually looped around, and pulled me back in!

The reason being - the simulation mechanics has become so good, and so nuanced, that it no longer feels like learning a phone-book's worth of complex rules and win conditions, but actually feels like... well... running a city!

Where in City Builder games of the past, if you had, say, a problem with traffic management, you would need to read all about how the rules of the game work, and figure out a solution to meet their conditions. With Cities: Skylines, when I had that exact problem, the solution was not to look up strategies to work the game mechanics - it was to look up actual cities with good traffic management pull up some Google Earth images of their road layouts and highway junctions, and actually recreate those in the game! The simulation is now complex and realistic enough, that aping real life scenarios is the way to succeed, and as a result, the game is oddly more approachable. The player does not need to think about how to 'game the system' - instead, they need to think about what would work in a real City and go from there. That is an astonishing achievement!

 

There's no doubt in my mind that Cities: Skylines was heavily influenced by the SimCity franchise. Will Wright spent years studying and tinkering to come up with a city builder game, took a risk and the rest is history.

 

SimCity 2000 is definitely a nostalgia trip. I was too little to play it when it came out but I was lucky enough as a kid to play it on a Windows 98 PC back in circa 1998 - 2000. I only ever beat Dullsville in the scenarios, the others were much too complicated for my young mind to figure out. But I played the game a couple years ago and it's easy to see why so many people loved it. It has good music, a good interface, everything is neat and laid out.

 

I never knew why Coal Power Plants were bad and why things like industry and prisons lowered the desirability of housing. As a kid I wanted to have skyscrapers but I didn't know you had to have a lot of commercial demand, which you usually didn't get until you could build an airport. Kids aren't going to understand this stuff, my dad however did.

 

Fun times.

Edited May 5, 2021 by AJ_Radio

[pinkrobot_pb]

I could not help but think they had more enemy types in Terminator Salvation at some point and basically had to remove them at the last minute because of AI or general performance issues. Or maybe someone at the film studio had to approve the game and told them they could not have a generic soldier enemy type because they were not in the film, so they had to take them out a week before release.

 

If that is not the case and the execution is 1:1 what the design was, then they really had no clue from the get-go.

 

Still, I quite enjoyed getting the plat in this game within a couple of days. But then again, I only paid a couple of euro's for it. Paying full price for it would have been very unfortunate back in the day.

 

Also, I have pretty low standards and I am very much not a scientist.

Edited May 5, 2021 by pinkrobot_pb

[DrBloodmoney]

15 minutes ago, pinkrobot_pb said:

I could not help but think they had more enemy types in Terminator Salvation at some point and basically had to remove them at the last minute because of AI or general performance issues. Or maybe someone at the film studio had to approve the game and told them they could not have a generic soldier because they were not in the film, so they had to take them out a week before release.

 

If that is not the case and the execution is 1:1 what the design was, then they really had no clue from the get-go.

 

I do remember hearing an interview with the studio lead - a Giant Bomb feature I think? - a long time ago, where the excruciating deadline was mentioned, and the amount of compromises required to get the game delivered on a ridiculous schedule was discussed, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were the case.

 

That studio (Grin) is the one who did the Bionic Commando Rearmed game, which was a brilliant 2D game, so they did have some chops at one point, but I think that game's wild success catapulted them out of their depth a little, and between Terminator Salvation, the Wanted PS3 game and the big 3D Bionic Commando game, it started to show.

 

A shame, because that interview showed the lead dude to be a hell of a nice guy, but the studio is long gone now, and never came close to reaching the heights that Bionic Commando Rearmed promised.

Edited May 5, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[elpoko]

Void Bastards and/or Dead Cells please.

Two similair but different games, I don't want a comparison between the two but simply what you thought of each.

I found Void Bastards to be much more fun than Dead Cells but I recognise that Dead Cells is objectively the better game.

Also I like how Void Bastards encouraged the restart ship function while backing out/creating saves/ restarting areas in Dead Cells almost felt like cheating making the game much more of a chore (I presume thats how you approached the game, if not I salute you and your gaming skills).

Anyway, I really like Void Bastards as a game and a concept so I hope it fares well on your list wheras I'm confident that you enjoyed Dead Cells and I'm sure it will hit top 10 if not top 5.

 

I like your checklist and it's great that you have such a big completed game list to choose from.

I look forward to your next update.

[Slava]

Jeez, Watchmen: The End is Nigh was that bad, huh? No wonder I haven't heard about it after the release.

 

It was also divided into two parts for some reason. I guess the second part was as boring, if not worse. The critics score is even lower.

[DrBloodmoney]

17 minutes ago, elpoko said:

Void Bastards and/or Dead Cells please.

 

Both added to the priority ranking - courtesy of your good-self ☺️?

 

9 minutes ago, Alderriz said:

Jeez, Watchmen: The End is Nigh was that bad, huh? No wonder I haven't heard about it after the release.

 

It was also divided into two parts for some reason. I guess the second part was as boring, if not worse. The critics score is even lower.

 

Ho-boy, yeah - I actually bought both parts at the same time if I recall correctly, but after the first one, I think I would have rather rubbed my face across a rusty rake than ever load up that second part!

[Cleggworth]

Great to see Cities Skylines so high up the list ?

[DrBloodmoney]

40 minutes ago, Cleggworth said:

Great to see Cities Skylines so high up the list

 

Yup - takes a well deserved high spot - the only thing harder than trying to rank that game on the list, is trying to put the controller down and go to bed once you start playing it ?

[EcoShifter]

On 5/3/2021 at 2:41 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Sounds like you would enjoy doing your own scientific ranking list, my friend  - you want a lot more wordiness per game than I can be doing.

 

When you’ve got 500-plus games to get through, you need to rely on brevity, and in the end, a game I found to be as staggeringly dull, bitterly irritating and desperately disappointing as Jak II, isn’t that much fun to write about, so it gets a quick review and a ranking - but comparative to the others, I think it got it’s fair share of my thoughts and time 

I stand by every word of what I said about Jak lI

 

I am putting in plenty of though to what I say, these aren’t off the cuff remarks.

 

Having S-Ranked every one of these games, I feel perfectly comfortable and well within my rights to say what I say about all of them, and to stand by it.

 

Can’t win ‘em all though, and as I said at the top of that post - I had an inkling Jak II would be a controversial one  To be honest, I’m surprised you are the first dissenting voice to castigate me on it - but I’m sure you won’t be the last to take issue with a scientific analysis before I retire my labcoat! 
 

 

Meh. Didn't want to reply, but you made certain edits to the post since and then added another separate post after that. If I got something out of it, maybe. No, "wordiness" isn't the issue. The issue is how one-dimensional and unauthentic the Jak II description is. This also applies to your overly generous description for TLOU, which I originally had a comment for with the JII post but ended up scrapping. 

 

Having 500+ games is not a valid excuse to give poor descriptions and be selective with how much time you look into a game because of personal feelings and emotions. You're sharing your opinions online—with the undeniable intent of influencing people's minds/feelings on these games—and going even further by foolishly treating them as these unbiased, highly analytical/scientific reviews, when that really isn't the case for multiple games, so if you're going to take on that responsibility then you need to honor that and do it right. Some critics and players who also disliked/hated the game and listed negatives did a much better job with their review, because they weren't blind to the game's great designs in other places and listed them. The game was among one of PS2's best when it released and remained so to the end of the generation, and it still holds up great overall (audio quality, voicework, story, graphics, performance/60fps, skippable cutscenes, physics, animations, and I can go on).

 

You can stand by your word and keep that pride, but it's still a horrible, disingenuous, and inaccurate description of the game [Jak II]. Not that I like appealing to groups, but if the game truly somehow was that bad then there would be a widely greater and more prominent backlash against it, like what's been the case with Ride to Hell Retribution, Fallout 76, etc. The game has virtually been out for 20 years—plus re-released across three-four completely separate platforms (two-three of which even put the game in a more disadvantageous position by being inferior to the original, something to actually take into consideration with newcomers and old players wanting a "refresher")—and that has not been the case. It just doesn't make sense for a "review" to be so narrowly pessimistic and blatantly ignores good qualities that utterly deserve acknowledgment. Negative descriptions like yours should only apply to the absolute worse of games in all of history.

 

Plenty of thought? Based on some of the other games' descriptions I can't see it. It seems to be a selective case.

 

Having S Ranked the games doesn't mean much on its own. You're a single person, reviewing a multi-hundred number of games, spreading across various timespans and generations, in the present, within a quick/weekly timeframe. It's already an insane task to do such a thing. It's not even like you're actually replaying all of these older games too, instead relying heavily on extremely old memories from many years ago in some cases. Revisiting all the games for a few hours, assuming you've done even that, doesn't cut it either. It also can't be denied that especially with this many games being covered that recurring false memory would be a problematic variable clouding your judgment at points. Another issue is the collective information and formed thoughts on ports and remasters, which aren't always the definitive/superior experience, even the good ones. The original versions of games/series like Sonic Adventure, Silent Hill, and even Jak, and more, are the best ones. There are differences big enough to score them differently than their original counterparts and completely different games. Etc. S Ranking these games also doesn't mean you possess the knowledge to speak on a game during the timeframe it released during and how it stacked up back then. For so many reasons "having S Ranked games" just doesn't hold much weight here. Of course one thing that it does mean is that you have some experience with the games. If this topic didn't have an agenda, some of this would be a lesser issue and not one at all.

 

No-one stepped up. Someone's gotta do it. I already know your other opinions on a few other games I disagree with (just about all of which pose some kind of competition or connection with TLOUII), and eventually those will be added here. 

 

At the end of the day people are going to do whatever they want, because they want to. That's why one part of me doesn't care. The other part of me couldn't help but respond to the abysmal Jak II description, especially since there isn't even a single good quality or pro listed. It's almost as if the description is bait. Some of your other game descriptions are fine, but conceptually I think this topic is a mistake. The topic would have been better off like the ones made by many other people describing their experiences and feelings with the games on their profile. Your topic is different and goes for this "objective" style that isn't honest and fair.

 

On 5/3/2021 at 11:23 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Still, even going with the issue as framed, I think it’s a bit pedantic to want to go as far back as the pre-Sony days, just to try and prove Jak II isn’t technically their worst game...

 

I mean, at that point, you are delving so far into history that I’d be surprised if any more than a tiny handful of personnel - if any - from that era are still within the company.

 

If someone made some grievous error in their life, and described it as ‘the stupidest thing they had ever done’, you wouldn’t rush in with an old photo album and shout “um well, actually, when you were a 1 year old, you covered yourself in peanut butter and then fell over, so...” I mean, sure, that might be technically correct, but that hardly whitewashes the stupid thing they did as a grown adult 

 

It's not, it's completely fair to count those games if you want to actually have a serious, genuine, and truthful discussion on the topic of "the company's worse game". You don't get to choose what does and doesn't count so that it can fit your narrative. If you don't like it, then improve your writing and use the appropriate formation of words. Otherwise, you don't have to right to complain about a claim being criticized for being literally incorrect and misleading.

 

Funny thing. That can be said about Crash Bandicoot, especially since Naughty Dog actually lost all their design documents for the series, but we all know you and other people would count it as relevant history under their name. Don't even try to tell me "I wouldn't count Crash either" or try to rationalize why you would list it. It's a lose/lose position you put yourself in.

 

It's best not to complicate this with the insertions of false equivalences, and that's a pretty bad position to take. They legitimately made at least 6 whole games. . . and had them published before Crash Bandicoot. There's multiple other developers who have created great and successful games their first attempt and then others through their first few attempts. Naughty Dog isn't part of either those groups. That's how it is. Just because you might feel they are the best game developers now doesn't negate where they came from, what they produced, and how not-so-great they once were.

 

Sorry I couldn't submit this directly after your responses. ?

Edited May 5, 2021 by EcoShifter

[The_Kopite]

Great to see RE2 Remake in the top 10 for now, and I think your assessment was very detailed and fair. Best chance I feel of seeing one of my 3 favourite franchises in your top 5 list is on of the Final Fantasy's I feel. Will be interesting to see!

[DrBloodmoney]

36 minutes ago, EcoShifter said:

 

[snip]

Having 500+ games is not a valid excuse to give poor descriptions and be selective with how much time you look into a game because of personal feelings and emotions. You're sharing your opinions online—with the undeniable intent of influencing people's minds/feelings on these games—and going even further by foolishly treating them as these unbiased, highly analytical/scientific reviews, when that really isn't the case for multiple games, so if you're going to take on that responsibility then you need to honor that and do it right.

 

[snip]

Some of your other game descriptions are fine, but conceptually I think this topic is a mistake. The topic would have been better off like the ones made by many other people describing their experiences and feelings with the games on their profile. Your topic is different and goes for this "objective" style that isn't honest and fair.

 

[snip]

It's not, it's completely fair to count those games if you want to actually have a serious, genuine, and truthful discussion on the topic of "the company's worse game". You don't get to choose what does and doesn't count so that it can fit your narrative. If you don't like it, then improve your writing and use the appropriate formation of words. Otherwise, you don't have to right to complain about a claim being criticized for being literally incorrect and misleading.

 

*sigh*

 

? 

 

Okay mate, listen...

 

I don't like ruining the fun, and so this will be the only post in which I do this...

 

 

I can't believe I actually have to spell this out to you...as it is so plainly, clearly and obviously apparent from the very beginning on my thread - and has been completely understood by everyone else, including people from all over the world whose first language is not even English -

 

Spoiler

THIS BEING 'SCIENCE' IS A JOKE.

 

It is tongue in cheek!

Of course these are opinions!

Jesus Christ - a fucking child could understand that.

 

I mean seriously, get a grip on yourself - did you actually even read the intro to my little project here?

Did you actually think I, or any of the people following along are under the impression that i am conducting real 'science' here or am under any obligation to be 'objective' - whatever that could even be, where criticism of entertainment is concerned?

 

These are my opinions, obviously - I am ranking MY GAMES, on MY PROFILE, and doing it on MY CHECKLIST.

 

I am having some fun ranking my games, and some other people are following along.

 

I'm happy to engage in spirited debate about my analyses, and I love passionate debate about games - but to complain about the whole endeavour conceptually, just because you are the one person in the entire site who didn't get the joke, and then to fill up massive posts like yours whinging about it,  to the extent that I have to drop the fun of it for a moment, take you by your angry little hand and explain that to you, is so sad to me.

 

You are only embarrassing yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

27 minutes ago, The_Kopite said:

Great to see RE2 Remake in the top 10 for now, and I think your assessment was very detailed and fair. Best chance I feel of seeing one of my 3 favourite franchises in your top 5 list is on of the Final Fantasy's I feel. Will be interesting to see!

 

Glad you enjoyed, mate ☺️

 

As far as the other two franchises go - I'm not a big Sonic guy, but as far a FF goes, we'll have to see how this science comes out, but I did love that Final Fantasy VII Remake an awful lot, so I expect it to make a good showing when its time comes...

Edited May 5, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Glorious Fury]

Great read so far! I also love a good list and ranking stuff too.

 

If I can suggest something, I'll go with Mass Effect 2. It's something I've not played personally, but would be interested in your assessment and something I'm interested in with the collection out soon. Seems many love the game, but I'd interested where it would fall your personal ranking.

[DrBloodmoney]

1 minute ago, GloriousFury9414 said:

Great read so far! I also love a good list and ranking stuff too.

 

If I can suggest something, I'll go with Mass Effect 2. It's something I've not played personally, but would be interested in your assessment and something I'm interested in with the collection out soon. Seems many love the game, but I'd interested where it would fall your personal ranking.

 

Nice to hear mate, cheers ☺️

 

I shall flag Mass Effect 2 for priority with your name on it - quite a few on there now, (and that's a big one there!) so may be a few more rounds before it gets it's go, but I'll get there soon ?