Stokkolm
Reviews
Soko-Ban (PC-88)
Brilliant puzzle concept
The Good
Easy to pick up and understand. Despite being the first in the series, the game design is already quite polished.
The Bad
Controls are slow and delayed due to low graphic capability power of the PC-88. Later stages introduce fake walls which are not fun.
The Bottom Line
It holds up better than most games from the era because it's a solid concept that does not need much improvement
By Stokkolm on May 16, 2024
ESPN Espn2 Extreme Games (PlayStation)
Fun premise but frustrating game design
The Good
The idea of having races between bikes, skateboards, longboards and rollerblades is pretty bonkers, but in a good way. The levels look quite appealing for early PS1 graphics.
The ability to kick the other competitors is pretty hilarious, the animation of characters falling is quite satisfying. Though it's a double edged sword, because they can kick you back too and sometimes is very hard to avoid.
The Bad
Unfortunately the rubberbanding of AI opponents is ridiculous, you start 16th and slowly work your way towards top 5 over the course of the race, then you hit something and in a second you are back to 16. And mistakes are inevitable, there are are moving obstacles, there are rocks falling of cliffs randomly knocking you down, there are opponents coming from behind and pushing you into obstacles.
Another issue is that like many 2D early 90s racing games, the camera is attached to the race track, instead of the vehicle/character, making the feeling of the racing controls quite unnatural and unrealistic. It's especially frustrating that you can't easily tell the slope of the road ahead, which matters, because you want to know when to pedal your bike, and when to glide and let the slope accelerate you.
The Bottom Line
This probably works best as a split screen experience where the goal is to mess around and have a laugh with a friend. Trying to actually win or get a good time is way too dependent on luck.
By Stokkolm on March 4, 2023
Out of This World (Windows)
But not just another game!
The Good
The windows version of Out of This World (Another World if you prefer) released in 2006 is a straightforward remake of the classic 1991 game. The differences between the original version and this one are very insignificant so I'll fill them quickly.
The graphics have been slightly updated (they are higher resolution), the menu has been brought to today standards, and the checkpoints are saved and can be restored without needing to type a password (I assume that method was used the old version). And above all, now the game is fully Windows XP compatible (and most likely Vista also). Nothing has been changed, only updated, and as a remake this edition of Another World is as good as it could get.
Enough about the remake, let's talk about the game itself. Another World is a truly unique and brilliant game, Eric Chahi did a great job making a solid game almost entirely by himself. The gameplay elements form different genres. It plays like a side-scroller, but the main purpose of the game is solving the puzzles like in an adventure game. The cut scenes are very well tied in the game, sometimes the transition is so fluid that you may not realize when you get the control on the character. Another amazing fact is that the game requires only five buttons, and four of them are the arrow keys. Those are the buttons that will serve not only the side scrolling part, but also in some different situations, like balancing with a suspended cage in order to loose the chain that ties it, and there are other moments but I won't spoil them.
The Bad
It tries to be original at any cost, and sometimes ignores the consequences. It's quite short and linear, and it's not the type of game you'd want to finish more than once, because the main attraction is discovering the story, the gameplay isn't to rewarding on it's own. In fact is rather demanding because it requires both quick reflexes, and some heavy thinking. You have only a way to bypass a situation and you have to get through all the wrong ways until you find the right one. This involves a lot of dieing and trying, and is the most frustrating aspect of the game.
The Bottom Line
It draws some of its inspiration from the good old Prince of Persia but this inspiration resembles to some gameplay mechanics. Anything else is completely out of this world.
By Stokkolm on December 6, 2007