Preparing for Sonic 4: Episode 2 + Other Talky Stuff

I decided to play a little bit of Sonic 4: Episode 1 today to get ready for the coming release of Episode 2. The game still really stinks with its awful controls and deaf-inducing soundtrack. As I said at the end of my Episode 1 review, there's really no point in purchasing a game with crappy remade stages of the Genesis titles, since you can download the original games on Xbox Live Arcade together for almost the same price. It's just pointless. I'm not really thrilled about playing Episode 2, honestly, but I'll keep an open mind when the time comes.

Anyway, I finished and submitted my review of Cho Aniki on HonestGamers a few days ago, which reduced my gaming backlog a little bit. Currently, I have Rayman and Mobile Suit Gundam for the Saturn to play through, and I'm not even sure I'll bother with the latter. The reason I got Rayman is.... surprisingly, I have never actually played through any of the games in the series, the closest being the Rayman 2 demo for Dreamcast. Since Rayman Origins came out last year, I've been itching to play it, but I have this thing where I don't like jumping into a game late in the series if I never played previous ones. In most cases, not all. So I just wanted to play the game that started it all. Dunno if I'm gonna play any of the 3D titles, though. I wasn't too impressed with the pacing of the Rayman 2 demo all those years ago, and Rayman 3 appears to be a forgettable title, since I rarely hear people talk about it.

Also in my backlog are games that aren't even in my possession yet! There's the upcoming Episode 2, and then there's the new Xbox 360 shoot-em-up release Akai Katana that I should be getting at the end of the week. While I'm not sure I'll have time for the shooter this weekend, I figure I should support the release, since we're rarely getting new shoot-em-up games nowadays... if you don't count the thousands of zombie shooters on Xbox Indie.

Video Game Stuff - Brave Fencer Musashi and Imports

This week I managed to get my second Sega Saturn and three import titles to play with it, though I'm a bit of a scatter brain at the moment to really dig into them. I was busy finishing my Brave Fencer Musashi review which took longer than I expected. Having replayed the game for the first time in over 10 years, I forgot it was a longer game than I originally thought. I guess that's why I was so hesitant to play the game at first for the PsychoPenguin Contest, because I was unsure if I was going to make the deadline, which I missed. Looking back now, I'm kinda glad I missed it, giving me more time to play the game thoroughly and manage to write at my own pace without rushing it out.

As for the imports, I snuck in a little bit of game time for two of them, and I'm still on the fence on whether I want to review either. My impressions of the two Sega Saturn titles so far:

Mobile Suit Gundam - This was something I actually forgot existed for the longest time, originally seeing a two page spread of the game in GameFAN magazine. An action title, it has all the makings you'd expect from a product released by Bandai: heavy reliance on voice acting and cutscenes, use of ugly CGI stills, and somewhat decent play mechanics. It's alright, but since I JUST finished playing and writing a review of Wolf Fang, it just feels really generic in comparison.

Choaniki - Yeah.... I've know about the game since, like, forever, but never had a chance to actually play it until now. The game's gimmick of manly bald men in thongs quickly wears out its welcome after just four stages, and I just wanted the game to end after that. But it kept going, and going, and going.... I actually gave up because I needed to sleep. This one I might actually review, so I'm gonna be a little reserved here. Sonic 4 Episode 2 is right around the corner though, so it's a matter of how much of a mood I'm in to write one.

New Place, Same Groove

So I found out my website with GoDaddy has expired on May 5th, 2012. I didn't realize this until May 6th. I wasn't planning on renewing, but I thought I had more time to get some of the stuff off there that wasn't even on my computer. Problem is... I don't remember my password. Oh well.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm starting from scratch with a new "site". Maybe it will be this, maybe not. Who knows.

As a reference for myself: last review I published was for Wolf Fang on the Sega Saturn.