The Real Neat Blog Award – 5 YEARS of NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog Special

Well, it hasn’t taken long. Since the Sunshine Award from a few weeks back, I got another community award. Thanks to my buddy from IPlayedTheGame, I got the “The Real Neat Blog Award”. I’m so thankful for all the praise my blog is receiving lately. Also, this is a special article for my 5th year I’m writing this blog. Yes, today marks the day that I’m writing this blog for 5 years now. Anyways, let’s get to answering the questions.

Question 1 – What is your earliest gaming memory?

The earliest games I’m able to remember are Pac-Man on the Gameboy, Freddi Fish, Tetris, Lego Island… But the biggest memory for me is Pokémon Blue of course. I still have my childhood cartridge to this day.

I remember individual moments like where I was standing or who I was visiting when playing certain games but they are too short to actually write a small story about. For example, I remember beating the first level of Pac-Man on the Gameboy while standing in the doorway at my grandparent’s house.

I remember playing a lot of casual games on my early computers as well. Rollercoaster Tycoon, Age of Empires, Midtown Madness 2, Puzzle & Magical Inlay, Feeding Frenzy, Iggle Pop… to name a few.

I played a lot on the computer with my sister. We had limited time on the computer and when one’s time was up, we switched and watched the other play. Ah, great times. I still remember when we got our hands on Rollercoaster Tycoon. In our copy, the game has a glitch on Windows XP where you were unable to load saved games. So, that’s why we always left the computer on in the hopes that nothing drastic happened while we were out. So, we could win the scenario.

Question 2 – When did you start blogging and why?

I talked about this question before. Actually, this question I have answered in a recent interview. Click here to read more about it.

Question 3 – What feature do you wish any of your consoles had that they currently don’t?

Well, I have two things. At first, since I recently bought a Nintendo Switch, I’m loving the easy screenshot and share feature. This is going to help me a lot when I’m going to talk about Nintendo Switch games. Now, I wish all my retro game consoles had that. Now, I need to either use an emulator to create them or use press pictures.

Another feature is something a lot of collectors would love. A backup feature, as in, you are able to back-up your games onto a hard drive of the console. With some restrictions, like you are only able to back it up to one console.

This would be so extremely handy for me since I’m always afraid that some old game discs might get too scratched and become worthless. In addition to that, it would be so handy to not have to switch cartridges around without having to resort to illegal flashcards.

Question 4 – Name a movie that you wish had a video game made after it and what developer would you want to make it and why?

Now, I’m not that big of a movie guy myself. I don’t watch a lot of movies since I’m mostly watching YouTube or anime series. On the odd occasion, I watch an anime movie or a movie related to a game.

One of the last movies I saw in the theater was the Tomb Raider movie. While the reviews are mixed, I have to say that it’s a good enjoyable action movie. But it helps if you are a fan of the series and/or have played the reboot games.

Now, I’m going to cheat a little bit and turn the question on its head. A game I wish they created a movie from. I could cheap out and say “Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine“, but I’m already waiting for the 5th Indiana Jones movie in 2020.

I think my friends from LaterLevels will agree with me on this one, but I would love an animated movie of the Monkey Island series. I wouldn’t be able to name THE game they should make a movie out off since I have only played three titles in the series.

On the other hand, a movie about the Broken Sword games would be mindblowing as well. Or a Bioshock movie. Well, truth to be told, I have quite a long list of games I want to see turned into movies. As long as LucasArts does the movie side of things. I wish they were still around since I really loved their movies and style of production. Yes, they are still around but only to make Star Wars movies it seems.

Question 5 – Do you have a Games Room or Corner? If so let us see it and show your favorite thing in there?

These pictures are from February 2018. My collection has expanded a bit since then, but the way I store them doesn’t look a lot different. My bedroom has been transformed into my gaming room. I also use my bedroom to write, study, practice my lines for the plays I’m in… and yes, to sleep too.

My project for this summer is fixing the cables of my consoles. It’s too big of a mess right now. I want to label them and hide them a bit from sight.

This answer is going to be a bit cheap, but my favorite thing in my game room/office is my collection. When I have time off work or some free time I love picking up a game I haven’t played in a while or want to try out. Most of those games turn into an article anyways.

These pictures aren’t everything in my gaming collection. I haven’t included my figurine cabinet, console games cabinet, better pictures of my handheld cabinet… One day I will organize them all a bit more and create an index for you people to take a look at.

Question 6 – Do you have a Child or a Pet? Which character do you name it after?

I’m currently 25 years old and I think that’s a bit too soon to have children. One day, I wish to have children of my own. In a certain way, you could say that I’m already a proud “father” actually.
A proud father of Sparta.

My pet cat is one of the nicest and most laid-back cats I have ever met. I have loads of personal pictures of her sleeping on family members with her belly exposed. For people who don’t know a lot about cats, if a cat exposes his/her belly, it’s out of trust. Since that’s the most unprotected part of their bodies. She means a lot to me.

If you follow me on Twitter, you will see the odd picture of her. To answer the question for where she has her name, well… Thanks for this song. The Mean Kitty Song by SMP Films. It’s about a cat who is playfully aggressive. And when I first met Sparta, she was playfully aggressive. She wanted to play but after a while, she feels asleep on my lap.
There are a lot of stories I can tell about Sparta, but to avoid that this article becomes too long, I’ll keep those for another article.

Question 7 – What keeps you going when Gaming?

Besides the snack and soda’s, the thing that keeps me going is either the entertainment value of the game or the thought of: “this will make for an interesting article.”I’m always extremely busy with my work, personal life, theater group or my blog. So, having something where I can be in another world is an amazing feeling to me.

In addition to that, the nostalgia rush I get sometimes. In addition to that, games lately are able to hit a personal level. I love it when that happens when a certain message of a game pulls my emotional strings. A Hat In Time, Super Mario Odyssey, Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series are just a few games that were able to bring me to pull those emotional strings.

Besides that, the people I meet because of gaming. I love to adore this community, with flaws included. I have met a lot of people and learned a lot. We gamers are able to play games with complete strangers and trust them completely to work together towards one goal. Which is having fun. Of course, there are those rotten apples giving us a bad reputation.
What also keeps me going is the interesting and new approaches games take at entertaining us. When I think I’m able to say, this game is like this game… I find a load of games doing something completely new and unique. And when everything comes together in one game paying homage to previous titles, I get overly nostalgic again.

And that was all my answers. So, it’s my time to nominate five blogs I really like, huh? Well:

LaterLevels

OverthinkerY

Hundstrasse

Sheikah Plate

AmbiGamingCorner

Feel free to answer the same questions or talk about something blog/game related. I’m really curious about what you guys and girls are going to say about this.

In any case, let me finish this article by saying a few words of gratitude. In the 5 years, I have been writing for this blog, I have reviewed over 200 games. I have gotten over 55k visitors, over 400 followers on Twitter and 180 other bloggers following me.

Besides that, I have been called a great gaming blog by two external sources. Both FeedSpot and MarketInspector placed me on great lists with the best of the best. Besides that, I got various community awards and on other blogs, I get praised. I even got quoted on Steam Store pages!

Thank you so much for everything. Everybody who visits my blog and leaves a comment, you put a smile on my face. Thanks to you, I’m proud of what I’m able to achieve here. At the start of this journey, I had no idea that I would be able to meet so many people and have so much fun with my favorite hobby of them all, writing.

I also got a lot of opportunities from various developers to review their games and I learned a lot about game design and how the gaming industry works. Besides that, I got a lot of games for my collection as well, which I don’t mind since I love expanding that.

So, thank you, dear readers, for making for giving me this experience. I can’t wait to provide you with more articles about the games I have been playing or the random thoughts I have about the gaming industry. I hope you enjoyed the ride so far since I’m going to keep going.

This year, I got the greatest form of flattery. Imitation. Well, to be more exact, the copying of my articles on other blogs and websites. Thankfully, those 5 (yes, there are 5 now) sites are down and hopefully, I don’t have to spend a lot more time with that. But, to finish this article; I want to leave you with a quote that the giver of this award said to me on Twitter when all of this copying went down:

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

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First Impression: Computer Tycoon (PC – Steam) ~ Computers Everywhere

Official steam page – Official website

It’s no secret that I’m studying to become a computer science guy. My biggest dream job is that I can be the IT guy for a big school or group of schools. There is just something about tech and education that I adore. Not too long ago, I found a game called Computer Tycoon on Twitter. When I saw it, I got interested quite fast in the game. This game can be an educational game about how the computer industry works and things like that. This is just great, so I got in touch with the developer and we talked back and forth. So, the developer provided me with a review code for this game and said that I was free to talk about my own opinions. So, even when I got this game for free; this review is all my opinion.

Note: This game is still in Early Access, but the developer wants your feedback to improve the game! Most of this review is based on v0.9.1.20.

Note: Just recently, this game got MAC support. But, I’m a Windows user, so I reviewed this game on Windows.

Starting out!

In this game, you play as a young fellow that is looking to start building computers and selling them. Your goal is to build a big computer empire. When you are just starting out, I highly recommend that you disable almost every opponent.

You start in the early ’70s. You are greeted by an informative message from the developer. The information displayed in this information box is quite helpful to get you started. I highly recommend that you read it.

Then you pick a country to get started. Think before you pick a country since this will decide how your game is going to play out. Also, choose your starting country depending on the stats of the country.

By default, you get a random world. That means that all stats of the countries are randomized. So, in one game, Sweden can be a rich country looking for features on their computers and in another round, they can be a poor country looking for more ease-of-use in their computers.

So, after you picked your starting location, it’s time to create your office and a place to build your computers. Build an office and a factory. After that, you start creating your own computer. Add as much as you can but try to avoid making the computer too expensive.

After that, sell your first computer and try to expand your company and improve your technology. Keep in mind that you can set up your new computer when you have the time paused.

I hope with these helpful tips you can get started and enjoy the game. While it’s quite helpful if you know about how computer work and what part does what, it isn’t really needed. The developer provided a lot of explanation and tooltips in the game that explains things when you don’t understand what you are doing.

If you think that games today are easy, you are in luck. This game provides you with a lot of challenge. Depending on how many opponents you picked and the difficulty setting, you will have to think on your feet.

Whenever something requires your attention, like you need to upgrade your factory, you will have a voice sample playing. I think this can be expanded a little bit. There are deaf people on this planet and I think it would be lovely if these things show in a text box like other things. Yet, I must say that the voice acting is very nicely done.

Clicking around

The most important thing to play this game is your monitor and your mouse. You barely use your keyboard in this game. I would love some shortcut keys in a feature version, like “W” to open the world map or “R” to open your research tab.

Visually, this game looks great. When building an office; it raises out of the ground. I really like the visual presentation of this game. I wish there were a few more character portraits for me to choose from while starting a new game.

The UI of the game is good. Do remember, that this game is still in early access. So, some parts of the UI might look unpolished. Just report them to the developer on the Steam forums. He is a great guy and really listens to what the people who play are saying about his game.

In addition to that, he asks frequently for the player’s input. For example, where he asks where players get stuck to improve the tutorial. I already gave him a few suggestions right before I have published this article and I think they will get into the game.

Personally, I recommend playing this game in full-screen. It makes the UI better in the current versions of the game.

This game has an autosave feature. You get notified when this game has automatically saved. You can always save from the pause menu and give your save file a unique name.

The soundtrack of this game is very good. The soundtrack really fits the atmosphere of the game and I’m thinking about adding some of the tracks to my playlist.

I highly enjoy playing through this game and when I have the free time, I boot up this game and start playing it. Like I said earlier, I recommend that you play this game when you aren’t tired. Since this game requires your concentration.

Flaws and such

The gameplay is fun, the music is great, the UI is good and the game provides a good amount of challenge. The game gets regular updates to improve the things that the community tells him. But, does the game have flaws are things it should improve?

Here are a few things I think can improve to make the game more enjoyable or that frustrate me about the game.

One, in my first playthroughs, I got heavily discouraged seeing how fast the rival company was in “owning land”. The whole map was colored in my rival company’s color in a matter of minutes. I think the AI is a bit too smart in that front.

Two, I think that the “hardware” menu needs the most polishing up before the game goes out of early access. There should be more filters so you can look more easily for parts of a computer you took off the market. Also, I think it would be handy if you could “bulk-archive” (Archive more than one piece of hardware at one time). Finally, I think that the order of the list should be a piece of hardware instead of the seemingly random mess it is now.

Three, make the text more readable. Some parts of the UI aren’t readable. Especially on some screen sizes, the text flows together into one big blur. Or when something is crammed into a box, like “United Kingdom”. Thankfully, this is something the developer knows about and is going to fix.

Four, building a computer can be a real mess. When you click on “RAM” to add RAM, you can build a new piece of hardware. Now, I can pick any part of a computer. Even a hard disk for example. When you try to add the wrong part to the RAM, it goes to the right place in the blueprint. I honestly think that this part of the can be polished up and made easier.

All in all, most of the flaws I find in this game are fixable. For real, once I understood this game and its little quirks, I got addicted. This game is a lot of fun for people who build the computer and are looking for a new tycoon game to play.

The more I play this game, the more I’m amazed by the quality of this game. I always say that a game has a lot of potentials, but this game sure has it.

When the game is more polished up and fixed the things that irritate me, I think that this game might become a game I will play whenever I have that tycoon itch.

I really urge everybody to support the development of this game. Buy a copy, since it’s quite cheap on Steam. You get a lot of value for your game and you get a developer who listens to the community and tries to improve the game so that as many people as possible can enjoy this game. He doesn’t need to do a lot to make me enjoy this game since I’m already doing that!

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: Coffe Noir (PC) ~ Detective Business Educational Game

Official website

It’s quite clear from the fact that I’m writing a gaming blog that I love games. I also work in a school secretary. Now, I came across this recently translated game that combines both worlds called Coffee Noir. Yes, this is an edutainment game. This game is developed by Doji Educational Innovations, a Poland-based company that specializes in educational and training tools. This game is browser based, so no installs needed. So, I have played this game for a few hours and I’ll describe in this article my thoughts about the game. This is my first impression of this game, which means I haven’t finished the game. As usual for my articles, feel free to write a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Solving that crime

First, before I forget to mention, the version I played was the version that is meant for casual gamers. That’s also the version I linked at the start of this article. If you want to know more about the educational side of this game, feel free to visit this website.

In this game, you play as a private detective solving crimes. Your name is Arthur Oliver. You try to solve a disappearance case and you go undercover as a boss of a coffee producer to try and get in contact with the suspects who could have kidnapped your client.

In this game, you will learn a lot about various topics like business management, economics, negotiation and many other skills. The developers created a video with more information about the story and the game, which you can see here.

The original language of the game is Polish and it’s recently translated into English. Due to the high amounts of text, I can forgive some parts of the game not being translated. While I was playing this game, I screenshotted the areas where I still found some Polish and mailed them to the developers. They replied a day later and they said they are going to work on it.

Another issue that I ran into is that in multiple areas the textboxes overflow. What I mean by that is that the text continues outside the UI. It’s a shame since this game looks great visually. I also notified the developers of this issue and they said that they will work on that as well.

The presentation of this game is well done. It didn’t take long for me to find my way in the UI. When I wanted to adjust some sales settings, I had to click on “sales” and I was there. The only thing I couldn’t find easily is an overview page of all my income and expenses. That would be a great tool in this business simulation.

Visually, this game looks great. Most of this game looks like it’s drawn by hand. I like the art style that is used in the game. I sometimes forgot that this game is an educational game and I was enjoying myself and if you can achieve that, you know you are doing a good job.

Something I wasn’t too fond off is the music. Don’t understand me wrong, it’s good music, but there isn’t too much music in the game. And when I heard the same music track for the 6^th time, I got bored with it. So, I muted the music and played my own music in the background. The sound effects in this game weren’t muted, and thankfully so, since they add so much atmosphere to the game.

Still in development

If you visit their IndieGoGo campaign, a campaign they ran in 2016, they said that there is still much in the pipeline for this game. A year after the IndieGoGo campaign we got the English version of this game. Now that it is released, we will get one major new feature in late 2017 and that is voice acting.

That’s something that the version I played lacked. The game sometimes felt boring due to me clicking in some many menus and reading so much text. If there were more voice acting and more animation on screen, this game would be more interesting to casual players. But, we should wait and see before we give our final judgment.

Something I applaud in this game is the fact that the educational parts aren’t forced upon the player. If you want to try your own strategy to finish this game, you are free to try. The game doesn’t stop you with annoying math puzzles you must solve before you can continue. This is how edutainment should be, since this way you teach players about something and they have fun. An example is that when you want to train your employees, you must finish the short test to gain a bonus with that employee. Don’t worry, you get the chance to read through the theory before you take the test. I was also happy that I could access it in negotiations since I could look up terms and theory of things I didn’t know.

Another big plus in this game is the handbook and wiki. In the handbook, you can find many pages with usual information about psychology and other usual topics that can aid you in solving the case. While I studied economics in high school, I don’t know a lot about psychology. And this way I don’t have to look up all the information.

Also, the wiki is quite handy to have nearby. When I forgot how to do something or how something worked in the UI or what something meant, my answer wasn’t too far away in the wiki.

This game also has a tutorial. The tutorial itself is quite long and holds your hand throughout the whole process, it’s highly recommended that you go through with the tutorial since it teaches you the game mechanics. The first time I played this game, didn’t end well. I tested my skills without following the tutorial.

Opinion of a teacher

As I said in the introduction of this article, I work in a school. But I also have some experience in teaching classes. This game would be great to use in an economics class. I wonder if the educational version of this game is different since you could use this game in two very different classes and it would be a shame that teachers didn’t use this game. I can imagine that teachers don’t use this game because, for example, an economics teacher doesn’t want that students have to bother with psychology in the economic classes.

This game isn’t for everybody. If you don’t enjoy mystery games or tycoon games, I would skip this game. If the videos from the developers interest you, give this game a try. This game is rather interesting.

There is a lot of replay value in this game. Since you can tackle the business side of things in some many ways, each playthrough is different from the last. So, no playthrough will be the same. Unless you do it on purpose of course.

Before I wrap up this article, I want to thank Doji Interactive for giving me a free copy of this game to test out. Thank you for putting this game under my attention. I have been playing this game here and there and I have been enjoying myself. When I wrote this article, a lifetime account costs 9,99 USD which is extremely cheap for the content you get in my opinion. Before there is confusion, this isn’t a paid article.

Conclusion

This game has a lot of potentials. When I have more time, I certainly will finish this game. This will most likely happen in my summer break. Most things I missed in this game like voice acting are things on the to-do list of the developer.

So, this game will only keep improving in the future and I can’t wait to see where it goes. If you are interested in mystery games and tycoon games, I would highly recommend checking the official website of this game since it’s a great game in my opinion and I can’t wait how this game is going to evolve.

Before I say goodbye, I should add something. The developers told me that in the coming months, there will be some updates and patches to the game. Another reason to get excited about the future of this game!

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog, but until then take care and have a great rest of your day!

Gamer’s Thoughts: Why RollerCoaster Tycoon ruined Tycoons for me.

Link to my review

Lately, I have been playing the old PC games in my collection. While I’m highly enjoying myself. Some thought is actually popping up here and there. It’s a feeling that the Tycoon games could have been so much better. But when I played Zoo Tycoon, it actually hit me. RollerCoaster Tycoon spoiled me with features so that I start to enjoy myself less and less in other tycoon games. And in this article, I’m going to try and explain why. Why do I enjoy the original RollerCoaster Tycoon that much and why don’t I enjoy other tycoon games? Also, fair warning, I haven’t played a lot of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, and I bought the expansion packs years later. So yeah, I always played the vanilla version of the game. Feel free to leave a comment on the content and/or your opinion on this article. Do you have a similar thing with Tycoon games and/or with a different game & genre? I’m curious to know. In any case, enough stalling. Time to put these thoughts on paper.

What are tycoon games?

I haven’t, to be honest, played a lot of Tycoon games throughout the years. But before we continue, we have to agree with a tycoon game actually is. Even the Wikipedia article on Tycoon games gives a pretty vague definition.

So, let me be clear for this article. With tycoon games, I mean games where you are an owner of a company where you need to run it. So, for example: in Game Dev Tycoon, you are the owner of a game development studio and you need to make games and manage the finances.

A few games I have played that it that played that fit that bill are RollerCoaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, Game Dev Studio, Game Dev Tycoon, SimCity 3000 and Lemonade Tycoon. And honestly, I don’t think I have played other Tycoon games. The genre honestly interests me, but why don’t I play a lot of it? I blame the excellent game RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Addicted to RCT

So, I have been playing a lot of RollerCoaster Tycoon lately. I have finished 7 missions so far. I’m playing with the two expansion packs installed. Something I wasn’t able to do when I played this game in my childhood.

I have rarely played the sequel RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. I remember one time picking up an expansion pack by accident before I knew how expansion packs worked. Yeah, I didn’t know that I had to own the base game. I have played the game recently, but I was let down by the interface. The interface of the original was more accessible than the sequel. But, that’s an article for another time.

After RollerCoaster Tycoon, I played RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. But that game interests me less than the original game. But the game has a ton of features I would love to have in RCT 1, but I enjoy myself a lot more with the original.

Why is RCT so good in my eyes?

Why do I love RollerCoaster Tycoon so much? Maybe it’s because it’s the first game that introduced me to the Tycoon genre. And let’s be honest, it’s one of the best games created in the Tycoon genre.

I remember playing Zoo Tycoon and always comparing it to RollerCoaster Tycoon. “Oh, you can do research in this game too.” That’s one of the sentences that went through my head. Other similar things did as well.

I was also disappointed with the fact that your guests were able to go off the paths and walk to other animal cages/exhibits.

The building system is the best system I have seen in tycoon games. There a lot of things you can’t do with it, like curved paths. And that’s the charm of it, it’s simple and easy to use. You don’t need a lot of buttons to create something amazing. I rarely had to struggle with the controls. Something I had to do with the recent games in the franchise.

The biggest reason why I enjoy RCT so much, I think, is the simplicity of everything. Most things are just one click away and/or one button press away. The interface has all the options you could wish for and I love to use it. Also, the game is easy to play but difficult to master. The game has just enough depth to be challenging & fun and to avoid being overwhelming.

In the more modern Tycoon games I played, there are way too many little things that I can do and/or have to pay attention too, I rarely remember checking them. And that makes the game more difficult for me and less enjoyable.

I have only two complaints with the game. And that is that some missions are ridiculously difficult and some better mod support would be great. You can add custom scenarios but it’s difficult to create your own custom scenario. Thankfully, there are a lot of tools floating around on the internet to aid with this.

In conclusion

Writing this article has been interesting. I honestly can’t explain why I compare the tycoon games I have played with the original RollerCoaster Tycoon. Possible factors are nostalgia and the gameplay, but I can’t pinpoint it.

I also considered the fact that I don’t really like tycoon games and that RCT is just an exception. It was a rather interesting question to think about. And this article was the best way I could explain it.

In any case, thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

First Impressions: RollerCoaster Tycoon (PC) ~ Build Those Parks

Link to Wikipedia entry

So, lately I have been playing Rollercoaster Tycoon on my old Windows 98 machine. This was one of the games I played as a kid over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of it. I remember that I didn’t have the patched version and I didn’t have the expansion packs. So, I didn’t get all the content and I got one nasty bug. I was unable to load save files. And to make matters worse, my sister and I were only allowed a limited time on the computer. We always asked our parents to not shut down our computer so the scenario was able to finish. Meanwhile we were hoping that nothing happened so we wouldn’t lose the scenario. Because everything can happen. While I was playing the game the other day, I was so close in winning a scenario… When just before the deadline, one of the most reliable and oldest rollercoasters crashes and I lose the scenario. Anyways, enough stalling. It’s time to take a look at this game. But for this article, I will take a look at the whole package. So, the two added expansion packs and patches are installed. “Loopy Landscapes” and “Added Attractions Pack”. As per usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this game and/or the content of this article.

Build, build and build some more

So, in this game, there isn’t a story to speak off. Well, some missions provide some minor backstory to the park you are going to play. But it doesn’t go very in depth about it. This game is about building parks. You have to build the attractions, roads, stalls, manage staff and prices and etc.

In the original game, there were 20 missions. But, if you install the expansion packs, you more than double the amount of missions. Surprisingly, both expansion packs add a lot of content. Here in Europe, the first expansion pack is called: “Added Attractions Pack”. In the USA, you will know this game as: “Corkscrew Follies”. Which is a way better name in my opinion, since it doesn’t mislead the player. Since the “Added Attractions Pack” adds more then attractions alone.

In any case, each mission is more difficult than the last. I have currently finished 4 missions and I liked them. The first park is a nice small park to get used to the mechanics and the last park was a tiny beach side park I had to build. So far, each mission brings something unique to the table. I wonder how far they took this, since I fear that this might end up in similar ideas with different skins.

This game was originally released in 2000. Sixteen years later, this game still looks wonderful. It aged pretty well. The attractions looks colorful and bright. The only thing I would have changed is that some guests had a more female look.

When you aren’t happy with the colors of the attractions, you can choose from a pretty wide color pallet. Want to paint the supports white? Well, you can. And the best part is, it changes in real time. And you can change the color of almost everything. When you get the color drop down, you can make it the color at your heart’s content.

The animation in this game is top-notch. It makes the game come truly alive. The walking animation of the guests are really adorable in my opinion. The visual presentation and the animation of the rides and guests of your park give a certain charm to the game.

Learn on your own

While the missions have a set goal to reach like for example, have a rating of X and X amount of guests in your park before the end of month X. And then it’s up to you. This makes the replay value of this game extremely high. I’m quite sure, that no two parks are exactly the same. Every playthrough is different.

Here and there, there is some down time. When you are bored in the game. Mind you, that happened quite rarely with me. You can click the balloons the guests let fly to pop them or click the ducks to make them quack. Lovely attention to detail.

 

The most important thing you will need to play this game is a mouse. Everything is done in the UI. I really like how simple everything is set-up. The UI is so well designed, that I can pick up this game every time and I don’t have to look where everything was. There are a few keyboard shortcuts, but honestly, I rarely use them.

Play how you want

 

The game is can be unforgiving. When you fail your mission and you haven’t saved often, be ready to restart the whole mission. Some missions can take several hours to complete. A golden tip from me, save every few months. It will be easier when you need to roll back when you made a stupid mistake.

Something I really like is that even when your mission is finished, you are allowed to continue to play in the park.

I could talk for hours and hours about the gameplay of this game. Let’s just say that this game is pretty in-depth and has a lot of variety to offer. When you are bored with managing your staff, you can go build some attractions. Bored of managing the finances of your park, you can go and landscape your park. And so on and so forth.

But this game has a few problems in my opinion. The music is pretty nice to listen too, but I remember that when I played this game in the past without the expansion packs, I couldn’t let the rides play music. So, I ended up listing to my own music instead. The expansion packs added the feature to let any attraction pack a nice selection of music. Yet, some minor bugs stop me from enjoying it. When you let two rides play the same music, they play out of sync. And I had some music cut out on me when I just moved the attraction one pixel off screen.

Also, sometimes the game doesn’t save my settings or change them without asking me. Out of curiosity, I started up the tutorial and it changed the screen resolution. And I have to set the option: “Use real name of guests” each and every mission.

Oh, and there is not an easy way to go to the options from the main menu. You have to be in a mission before you are able to change any settings.

Something bugs me about the message to raise my entrance fee. When my entrance fee is already 30€, and some guests come only with 60€… Well, he spends more than half of his budget. Then, when I read the thoughts of my guests, I get complaints that rides and such are too expensive.

I also wished that there was a sign to stop my staff from entering an area. You have only a sign to stop from doing that.

Something I truly disliked was that, even when I put a security guard in the area; I still got broken benches.

In conclusion, I think that this is a very nice game is truly worth playing. I enjoy myself a lot while playing this game. It’s very well put together and challenging. There were a few things that could have been polished up a bit more. But the game we got is a real classic. This game is on Steam for 6€. It’s truly a steal for that price!

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about RollerCoaster Tycoon for now. When I ever finish all the missions or come close to it, I will write a review of the game.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in the next article, but until then; have a great rest of your day and take care!

2016 – I’m looking forward to you!

Alright, 2015 is almost over with. So, I think it’s time to look– nah, that’s for later this month. Let’s look forward now. In this article I want to talk about a few games I’m looking forward to in 2016. The ones I have pre-ordered. But keep in mind, I haven’t watched or read much about the games I’m going to talk about. Since I want to keep myself as spoiler free as possible. I really hate hype trains. Since your expectations can go through the roof and then when you get an awesome game, you are disappointed it didn’t meet your ridiculously high expectations. In a few cases, I only watched to the trailer or saw some screenshots. Others just sold me on being a game in a series I enjoy. In any case, this is in a random order. Also, feel free to talk about your most wanted games in the comments. Which ones did you pre-order? Or feel free to comment on the games I’m looking forward to in 2016.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 – World

The Rollercoaster Tycoon series is one series I have played too much. When I was a child, this was one of the only games I played on the PC. For a while I didn’t care about other games. I kept playing this one. While I wasn’t very good at it; I enjoyed myself quite a lot. When RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 hit store shelves, I heard that people weren’t all that happy with the game.

I can understand why, the game could used a few more months of polishing. But the expansion packs really helped quite a lot. I didn’t experience a lot of problems so, I thought it was a very good game. Oh, I remember that one time my computer bugged out and installed everything of one expansion pack in Dutch while I install all the rest in English. That was easily fixed by reinstalling the expansion pack.

In any case, I was always hoping for a new entry in the series. And now, we are getting it in 2016. RollerCoaster Tycoon 4. Funded by the mobile app. I have only seen a video on it. Not a trailer, but somebody who messed around with it on a game show. So, I got even more excited.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon

If you follow my blog, it should be pretty clear I’m quite a big fan of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series. The story always manages to make me emotional at the end. Now, that Mega Evolution are introduced, I’m very curious how they are going to build it into the game. I was really waiting for this game since when I saw the trailer, I was hooked.

This game is going to be released in February. That’s around my birthday. which will make this game a perfect gift. That’s why I really have faith in this game. Since it’s coming out in the best month of the year. (In my opinion.)

But hey, I’m just glad it’s not a remake or remaster of a previous title. That this is a totally new game. A total new story. In the meantime I’m playing Etrian Odyssey Mystery Dungeon. But that’s a totally different experience. I honestly love this series a bit more then other mystery dungeon games. It’s more simple. It’s “easier” and more fun. Again, in my opinion.

The Legend Of Zelda – Wii U

So, this title is getting a lot of hype. When one screenshot or trailer appears, it’s all over all the game news sites. From the trailer I saw, it appears that this game is going to have a different hero then Link. Which makes it even more interesting for me to play. I’m really curious what they are going to do with this game. But what I’m really looking forward too is the world. Since the visuals show a lot of promise.

This will be one of the best Zelda games ever. I have a gut feeling. I just hope that this game gets the polish it deserves since they are releasing two Zelda games next year. A HD remake of Twilight Princess and this title. Wait, actually three titles. Man, it’s going to be a great year to be a Zelda fan!

So, I’m also waiting for the sequel to Hyrule Warriors. In my eyes, it’s a sequel, Hyrule Warrior’s Legends. But hey, I’m getting off topic here.

So, this is the first game I pre-ordered for next year. It’s holding the most promise for a fun gaming year. Something big and fresh with the amazing Zelda formula. Come to think of it, I’m praising this game to heaven and back when I only saw a trailer and some random screenshots. It’s so hard to not look at the news or the other trailers. I want to be kept as spoiler free as possible.

Wrapping up

So, there are a couple of others that I wanted to mention in this article. But two of them are already released. Yokai Watch, lucky Americans… and the new Tomb Raider game… Lucky XBOX ONE users.

The sequel to Bravely Default is the other game I’m looking forward too. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m sorry that it’s a bit shorter then usual, but I have a cold and can’t really focus my writing this weekend. In any case, this is the end of the article! I hope to see you in the next one~

10 most influential games (series) in my life.

I played a lot of games. On the computer, DS, gameboy and many other platforms. In this article I will talk about my list of games/game series that had the most influence on my life, game life and or style. This list is somewhat in an order, but sometimes this list can change for me currently. I won’t update this list but it might happen that I make another list with 10 influential games to me. But one thing is for sure. These 10 are the current games that have or had the most influence on me. They either made me love a game genre, a series, make me happy or made me change my personality. As experiment, I would like to know what games you guys think changed you. Drop them in the comments. Probably there will be similar games. But all these games on this list come extremely recommend. There is rule though, when I select a game from a series, I won’t use the series again in another slot. That’s why I allowed myself to pick game series.

#10: 9 Hours, 9 People, 9 Doors & Virtue’s Last Reward

I already explained why I liked Virtue’s Last Reward so much. In that review I also mentioned the game 999. This game didn’t come to Europe and I had to import this game.

I am truly glad that I imported this game for my DS. The story is quite thrilling and made me love the visual novel genre. Since this game, I got a harsh judge on game stories. I get somewhat disappointed when a game has a weak story that doesn’t draw me in. All thanks to this game.

I often listen to the music, which makes many situations intense. I often use it as inspiration when I am writing stories, whenever I have to write a trilling part. It makes the story write itself.

What I loved so much are the puzzles to escape a room. I often try the Android games where you need to escape a room. It doesn’t do the same thing to me but hey, nostalgia!

In addition to that, the different endings where genius. There were based on the path you took and really made you come back to see what actually happened.

#9:  Game Dev Story

 A fair warning, when you download this game onto your Android or iPhone, well be prepared to not put it down for quite a while.

This game is getting pretty popular to the point where GreenHartGames made a spin-off on it. But it’s this game that made me think. Are there good games on the Android market like this one? And yes, there are. I explored the Android Market and really got some fun games to play.

I was against tablets but thanks to this game I got myself a tablet for my last birthday and I sometimes continue my adventures on the Android market.

The game actually made me do something I always wanted to do. Make games and being the head of a game company. The amazing references really make the game have some humor that even make it less easy to put this game down. The other games of this studio are extremely fun and really a play worth but this game is where it started for me.

#8: Age Of Empires / Age Of Mythology

This game series was very important to me since it introduced me into strategy games. I recall many moments where I go online with the Age Of Mythology to do some matches.

It made me even go so far that when I played cop & robber with my friends that we got somehow to a version of this game. Yes, I swear that we played these kinds of things in my backyard.

This game series is nearly flawless, expect the major failure that is named Age Of Empires Online, and I still love it to this day. I follow blogs and people who make expansion packs on their own for the games and I often try them out.

This game really made me and my sister sit behind the computer for hours on end. We even asked if we could install the game on our parents their computer, so we could play over LAN. Those were fun days.

I once even entered a tournament where I lost, but I truly remember getting ready for it and trying new strategies out all day.

I’m now grown out of the game. It has been quite some time since I played one of the series. Well, maybe after this article I go get my game discs and install and play it.

#7: Halo (PC)

I hate shooters, yet I often play one. My view on shooters really changed thanks to this game. I might call myself a fan of the series. I don’t own a XBOX 360 to play the other games, and I don’t plan to. A good friend of mine told me that they are going in the wrong direction with the series.

This game I played online so often that my mother got angry that I didn’t play anything else then shooters. And I had to shut down the game for a while.

I played this game even with my girlfriend and I truly had some big fun. The story in this game was extremely well done and made me try other shooters. A genre I think is overpopulating the market now-a-days.

It also made my interests go to space for quite a while and when I heard there was a DS game under development I got extremely excited. And man, was I disappointed that this game was canceled or fake. I don’t know it for sure yet.

If you haven’t played this game, shame on you, get this game and play it after you read this article. It’s fun and after I finished this game again, I will sure to write a review on this gem of a game. But yeah, most people probably played this game already since the first XBOX got popular thanks to this game.

#6: Rollercoaster Tycoon

“Mom and dad, please don’t shut down our PC. We’ll lose our progress.”.  I don’t remember how often I told that to my parents when playing this game. The version we had, had trouble loading save files and we finished to scenario’s in one go.

My sister & I played this game an awful lot on the computer, and we actually took turns to finish a scenario. When one of us was playing this game, the other sat there watching carefully and enjoying seeing the park grow and getting more money.

As kids, we weren’t all that great in finishing this game. We made stupid decisions yet, we had some major fun.

Like with the 3rd game. I was so thrilled when I got my stronger computer for Christmas and when I was able to play this game at home. Before I had to wait when we went to my grandparents because their computer was strong enough to run the game. I even remember that I had to write on their blackboard in order to ask permission to play the game. Yeah, bad handwriting.

But I never played the 2nd game in the series. Now that my collection is complete of this series, I am going to try the 2nd game rather soon after I finish the first game.

#5: Ace Attorney series

Playing as an attorney is boring! OBJECTION! It isn’t. At all. This game actually introduced me to the visual novel series, and I am grateful for that.

Nearly everything in these games is perfect in my eyes and when I’m going to review them, I will have some major trouble finding bad things in these games.

Some quotes of the game even slipped in my vocabulary and yes, some character movements actually slipped inside my handelings.

I’m extremely excited to see the 5th game in stores since we didn’t get one game in the series.

This series truly made my love for my Nintendo DS even grow bigger and I never could put it down since then. So HOLD IT, and give this game a go. You won’t regret it if you like games where you need to think and get a great story.

#4: Minecraft

Do you truly require me to explain why Minecraft has such a big influence on me? My review wasn’t clear enough about that? Oh well, let me tell you why it’s so important to me.

First of all, it made me travel to Paris again. For MineCon, where other Minecrafters gather. I rarely go outside my house. (Let’s ignore my theatre group here)

Secondly, this game brought my friends and myself pretty close. My best friend MiseryLC & I wouldn’t be such good buddies if it wasn’t for Minecraft.

Third, this game let me do what I want. Nothing in the game is going to limit me to play the game how I want.

And last point is, I met my girlfriend thanks to Minecraft. Long story, I’ll spare you guys. But that are 4 major reasons why this game deserves such a high spot in this list.

#3: Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine 

Surprisingly enough, this game doesn’t get the number one spot. The game that spawned my nickname. I love the Indiana Jones series and actually it’s something that has been extremely important in my life.

I remember seeing the first movie in the rental store and after I watched it as a 7 year old, mostly not understanding a letter of what they were saying, I was hooked.

I watched the other movies and once one of my cousins learned that, he showed me this game. And I loved it right away. I didn’t play anything 3D before this game and when we started playing this game, like I told, I couldn’t stop playing.

My love for the Indiana Jones games went a bit downhill once Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb was released but I prefer this game above the other one. This is a game I know nearly by heart. I often try to play it and I got me sad when I found out that I wasn’t able to finish my LP on my Youtube channel.

I played the levels in my backyard together with friends. Yes, we tried to make it exactly go like how the developers made the level in the game.

Oh, and thanks LucasArts. Rest in peace guys.

#2: Pokémon (and all their spin-offs)

Find me one gamer of my generation that doesn’t know the first Pokémon game. This game is almost so well known it might just be popular then the flagship title of Nintendo.

I really love this series, and I’m ashamed that I didn’t finished the latest entries yet (I got distracted by other games),  and I plan to replay the games rather soon.

The many spin-offs in this series really made me love the series more. I loved to draw circles in Pokémon Ranger, and I even started to have interested when I played Pokémon Pinball.

Every game in the series has an element that draws me in and makes me finish the game.I’m really looking forward to the newest games X & Y. To see what they are going to do with the series next. But now, I need to finish the latest Mystery Dungeon game.

So, what’s your favorite generation? Mine is the 3rd one. The Ruby, Saphire and Emerald games are truly my biggest favorites and recently have beaten my old favorites Gold & Silver.

#1: The Legend of Zelda

The people who know me really should have seen this one coming. I simply can’t put down a Zelda game. I truly am a big Zelda fan. When I was on my trip to America, I bought myself a wallet, shirts and other merchandise of the series.

I nearly got a tear in my eye when I was able to hold an actual NES cartrigde of the first game. (I don’t own a NES, but I have the first game as the GBA release).

I am such a big fan that I even saved up to go to the concert of the Zelda music. Wait, that’s mostly classical music and I listen to electronic genres. Yes, my dedication for the series is that big.

I own even the Zelda Historia AND I pre-ordered my DS for the only reason that there was a Zelda game released on it. It was also my first game I played and did I enjoy it.

I can talk ages about the series but I won’t. I need to finish this article.

Honorable mentions.

Let’s just write it in a list. Freddi Fish, Broken Sword, God Of War, Dragon Quest, Time Hollow, Peggle, Tetris DX, Draw My Life, Corpse Party, Hungry Shark Evolution, Kirby, Desperados, Devil May Cry 4….

I can go on for a long time but this article has run long enough. It pains my hart that I had to leave out so many great games. I might even have forgotten some great games. Oh well, maybe I write another article about this subject where I talk about 10 other games that changed my life. But like I said, these 10 games are the 10 MOST influential. Thanks for reading and I hope that I see you another time on my blog.

Cheers,

NekoJonez~