An actual completion, and a bit more variety in the game playing department. Pretty late with my post again though.
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Douglas Adams.
Completed this month
Streets of Rage 4 – GamePass
What a great game this is, girlfriend and I finally managed to beat the last boss. We’re still playing it though, and now working on unlocking all the other classic playable characters. Excellent fun.
Games played during May
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Switch
Predictably I’m still playing this everyday with no end in sight. Patiently waiting for them to bring along Brewster in an update though.
It seems both Switches, and the game are in relatively short supply at the moment, although you can at least pick up a download code from Amazon*. Won’t help if you don’t have the console though!
Chess Ultra – PC & Switch
Enjoying playing chess again, and the asynchronous gameplay is handy for playing with my friend when we’re not both online. Still really annoying there is no notification for when it’s your go though, you have to periodically load it up to check. Ho-hum.
SNK Gals Fighters – Switch
Have spent a bit of time with this now, and am really convinced we need more of the Neo Geo Pocket library bringing to Switch. Bring them all, and I’ll buy them!
Power Rangers: Battle For the Grid – Switch
Thanks to my new Cronus Zen (detailed below) I now have use of my Hori arcade stick on my Switch. Great excuse to revisit Power Rangers and play some of the story mode.
Spider-Man – PS4
As mentioned below, this month I bought a new TV. As yet I don’t have any 4K capable games machines, I’ll probably hold out for a PS5 for that now. However, I do have some games that support HDR on my existing consoles, so I finally got round to starting Spider-Man. Really enjoying this and so far it does live up to the hype. We’ll see if in a month or two it shows up on my completion list.
Now pretty cheap on Amazon*
Fantasy Zone – Switch
Much as with Power Rangers, I found myself playing a bit of this again once I got my arcade stick running.
Forza Horizon 4 – Xbox One
Felt the urge to do some racing this month, and went back to Forza Horizon 4 to pick up where I left off in the LEGO DLC. Made a lot of good progress, not sure if I’ll 100% it though, for that I’ll have to do all the drifting challenges and we all know those are rubbish.
Pacman 256 – PC
A few of my friends starting playing this recently, and although I picked it up years ago, I’m not sure I ever spent any real time with it. Have enjoyed an hour or so of high score chasing but not sure I’ll stick with it.
May Pick-ups
New Television
As the pandemic crisis continues, so does the cancellation of public events. Over the last few years I’ve been regularly attending the NFL London games, and have held a season ticket each year. As they’ve now been cancelled for 2020, I decided to put the money I would have spent on tickets, travel and beer towards a new TV. As it happens I think I have enough left over to pick up NFL GamePass when the season starts up.
It was also an opportunity to tidy up the wiring behind the consoles, and in doing so I also packed up a number of systems I wasn’t playing as much. They’re still easily accessible in the loft should I fancy playing anything from them, but for now my Dreamcast, Wii, original Xbox and PS2 are removed from the permanent lineup. (To be fair the N64 only survived because it shares a SCART block with the Saturn and Mega Drive so wasn’t adding much extra cabling.
For anyone interested, it’s a 55″ LG LED 4K HDR screen and my Mega Drive looks fantastic on it via the OSSC*. Haha.
Aero Fighters 2 – Switch
Another one that can be played vertically on the flipgrip, this was on sale for silly money so seemed a good time to pick it up.
Mini Trains – Switch
Speaking of silly money, this was 80p. Haven’t played it yet, trains though.
Looking for Heals – PC (Early Access)
I’ve been intrigued by this for a while. A single player dungeon crawler type game, where you play as a healer. Not sure how well it’ll play but as a healer main in games like World of Warcraft, I’m looking forward to finding out.
Cronus Zen
My buddy hooked me up with an early release of these, following a discussion about controllers on Instagram. Much like the CronusMax I bought back in 2015 and discussed on my cross-platform peripherals post, the Cronus Zen is a tool for allowing you to use a variety of controllers on games systems they weren’t intended for. It also has a secondary (to me) function in modding & presumably cheating in games, in the style of old school GameShark or Action Replay carts. I do still use my CronusMax to use my 360 arcade stick on my Xbox One, now with this Cronus Zen I can also use it on the Switch. Result.
The Cronus Zen is available direct from Cronus and well worth looking into if you want to use a favourite controller on other systems.
Dragon Blaze – Switch
Another sale, another vertical shmup for the Switch. This one has dragons though! I did regret buying this immediately afterwards when I realised it was included in a bundle of other shmups I could have bought instead. Oh well, I did realise before I bought Gunbird 1 & 2 as well, so I may still pick up those bundles later.
Puzzle Bobble 2 – Switch
Yeah I cracked and paid full price for this, because as covered in my Puzzle Games round up, I love this game and really wanted to play on the Switch. This is a nice “no-frills” arcade port, and I’ve had fun with it already. Even if the old Saturn version is still the better option.
Thunder Force AC – Switch
Another fantastic SEGA AGES release on Switch, pretty much buying all these of games I like, to encourage more games receiving the SEGA AGES treatment. Unlike the Neo Geo ports above, these are very polished releases, with often extra content or quality of life improvements added.
Wireless Retrobit Saturn Pad
This was a birthday gift, and is fantastic. Playing on my SEGA Saturn with a high quality modern wireless controller in 2020 feels a lot like witchcraft. Think I’ll treat myself to the Mega Drive one as well next. So very, very good.
*As usual, these links are affiliate ones, which may earn me a small commission if you buy something.
