[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Sonic Boom Fire and Ice Profile Gift + FEARLESS Challenge now on! (2024)

CHECK IN: WEEK 3

This week, thanks for basically dealing with the worst virus I have ever faced in my life so far, I had a lot of time to eek out a few games in the backlog. Specifically, completing half-finished games. But that isn't to say I knocked out a few new ones this week either. Let's run 'em down.

GAME 11: FORTNITE - CHAPTER 5, SEASON 1: UNDERGROUND (PS5) 100% COMPLETE:

I recently really got into Fortnite during the tailend of Chapter 4, when Optimus Prime arrived. But I think this season cemented my love for the game, cause I really got to experience everything I was once very hesitant to do. I'm not a Battle Royale guy, I suck at it alone. So Creative was where I spent a lot of my time. Either that, or Party Royale.

But with this season, all of sudden, I'm squadding up with a lot more of my friends and having the time of my life in all the corners of Fortnite. Playing with Winston, Luigi, Marie, Echo, Bloxx, and even getting Ryan to finally play after all this time. And it's been a sheer blast.

I will say I don't like this new island compared to Chapter 4, but a lot of the refined mechanics make travelling the island a lot more fun, like the bosses, and the ability to heal while moving. Man, that's a blessing.

With my friends, I was finally able to reach level 200 for the very first time in the Battle Pass!

And that isn't all, I got to experience all the new games added with this new chapter. LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, all really help keep the game fresh and varied where I can finally cement myself as a bonafide Fortnite fan.

Can't wait for the Shredder update!

GAME 12: TRUXTON (SEGA GENESIS) 100% COMPLETE

Growing up, I used to watch Classic Game Room. You know, when they were actually doing like, actual game reviews? Good times. And a running gag in the channel is Mark praising an almighty game on the Sega Genesis: Truxton. No game console is actually perfect unless it plays Truxton. So naturally, little me was curious.

What IS Truxton? Can I even beat it? I kept putting it off, but now is finally the time to play it.

And yeah, it's a really good space shooter.

The cool thing about Truxton is that you really feel incentivized to stay alive for much more than just "you'll lose a life". As you play, you will continuously power upyour ship to the point where it can turn into basically a screen nuke. You are a powerful force of nature, vaporizing everything on screen. But if you die, you get nerfed back down.

So you feel compelled to keep staying alive, just to keep that power fantasy going a little while longer.

The game has 5 levels, and each time you do the 5, you get a different ending, and the game starts over to another "round", where you play the 5 levels again. You need to repeat the game 5 times to see all the endings and watch the credits. So what you see here is me completing the fifth and final ending.

Short, sweet, satisfying. It's Truxton, baby.

GAME 13: SUPER MARIO LAND 2: 6 GOLDEN COINS (GAME BOY) 100% COMPLETE:

To think this is how Wario got his start, huh? A lot has changed since we last OBEYED WARIO, DESTROY MARIO.

This was a very quick, easy little game. Which isn't a bad thing, far from it. After Mario 2? Boy, do I need it. It's also interesting to have a Mario game where there's no set world order to play in. You just choose where you wanna start and go from there. That definitely caught me by surprise.

It doesn't do anything amazing, or spectacular, but it did its job at the time, to be a fun Mario experience for the kiddos who only had a small white brick as their portable option.

GAME 14: SONIC R (PC) 100% COMPLETE:

Like Sonic Adventure, I hear the argument that Sonic R is a game ruined by the ports it has faced over the years. But if you could mod the game to restore the many bits and pieces omitted from the Saturn release, and earlier PC releases, you have a solid racing game!

Is that true?

...Eh.

The game still is a clunky, content-lite, poorly balanced racer. But there is a charm in its dinky presentation that you can't help but have a decent enough time with it. It's not like completion is that long of a task either, far from it. It's something you can squeak out in an hour or two. And when you stop treating these characters like platforming scrimblos, and just cars with the ability to jump, controlling them is a lot easier.

Can't really say it'll brighten up your day, but there's enough sunshine to feel that you can't help but crack out an ironic smile... and maybe the odd unironic one.

GAME 15: SKYLANDERS GIANTS (3DS) 100% COMPLETE

I am just missing ONE SKYLANDER, BUT HE'S LIKE, 200 DOLLARS AND AAAAAGH

Anyway, I went above and beyond what counted as 100% completion for this Challenge, since this covers everything locked behind all the required toys. (8 Elements, 1 Giant, 4 Adventure Packs)

The Skylanders games on 3DS are an odd beast. They are completely different games from the console counterpart, with a different story and a different genre. Ditching slower paced Diablo-based Dungeon Crawling for fast paced hallway based platforming not too dissimilar to a Crash Bandicoot game. Just with combat encounters.

The 3DS games get worse and worse with each installment, not living up to their console brethren, but with this being the second game, it was still pretty up there.

While I think the story and overall level aesthetics are much less interesting compared to Spyro's Adventure 3DS, the level design themselves are much more expansive. As the name implies, the presence of Giants require the levels to be much more open compared to SSA's more Crash inspired hallway level designs. Much more elbow room to explore and look for hidden goodies, and more enemies to fight. That kind of makes Giants 3DS an interesting hybrid of the handheld and console Skylanders playstyles.

It allows us as well to experience each character in a different way than normal. Due to the different playstyles, this is one of the few times Skylanders can have completely different movesets than just the same one carried over from game to game. And its crazy to see how some shoot up to my favorites when otherwise, they were pretty average. For example Gill Grunt is slow, and fiddly in the console version. But he's an ideal platforming legend with his jetpack on 3DS.

Solid game, better than I remember it being. Just know it kinda goes downhill from here on 3DS...

GAME 16: MARVEL'S AVENGERS (PS5) 100% COMPLETE:

Playing these remaining post-game missions I never touched until now, it's like saying goodbye to an old friend. Yes, I know the ol' rhetoric. Avengers is an unstable, grindy, live service riddled mess that never lived up to its potential.

...And yeah, you're right.

But I dunno, I always have a soft spot for it. I really enjoy being Iron Man, I enjoy the costumes, I had a blast with friends. And now that the game has been updated to include all the cosmetics, a lot of the more predatory mechanics have been scrapped for a more streamlined experience. And it feels a lot more manageable than it was at launch. It's nice to see it still going despite being axed and delisted, not many live service games have that luxury. Especially ones that bombed as bad Avengers did.

I really enjoy the story, the character writing, and some of the Avengers are really fun to play as. Shout out to Iron Man and Black Widow when it launched, and Black Panther was a standout DLC character when his lengthy expansion hit us.

You were a mess, Avengers. But you know what, you were MY mess. I'm glad I got to spend these last few little moments with you one more time to fully consider you completed.

IN PROGRESS:Still trucking through Persona 5 Tactica on XBOX. On PlayStation, Spider-Man 2, is almost done. Got almost every suit unlocked. On Wii U, I still planning to play Skylanders Giants and getting the secret ending to Nightmare mode to qualify for completion, but not before knocking out LEGO Dimensions one more time to reach completion (in this case, beat the game, all accessible Adventure Worlds, and maxing out the Batmobile).

Edited January 29 by Failinhearts