WhoRoger

Yea I'm still at it, checking out the shooters on a system that definitely wasn't made for them. And still finding some that are good.

==========

Brothers in Arms (DS)

I had nooo clue what to expect from this. I've owned one of the PC games for ages but never played it beyond trying out a training mission. Well, let's see...

From the start, it's apparent that this game will outshine the Call of Duties. The European battlefield looks actually damn good and immersive. This genuinely feels like a frantic WWII battlefield, with vehicles driving and exploding everywhere, ground shaking, squadmates running around and Germans shouting, planes bombing and crashing, and people falling from windows. Madness.

And soon enough, you get go drive a tank too. But unlike the one snail-paced ultra-linear tank mission of COD:MWM, here you get to actually battle other tanks on a field, blow up towers and drive through walls. Vehicle controls aren't the best, but this is actually fun! Color me impressed.

The other controls are decent enough, and you run with a brisk pace. The framerate is on the lower end, and there's no sensitivity setting, but since this is a 3rd person game, neither is a real deal breaker. And the game actually looks good enough that the slower framerate is warranted. The DS really has its work cut out from it here. With all the insanity it obviously struggles. It can feel a bit janky, and yet I never had a problem following the action.

The missions are quite free form. Commands are more like suggestions, and how you proceed and finish objectives is largely up to you. Need to destroy a tank? You can blow up nearby gas tanks, or find a panzerfaust, or run to it and treat the crew to a grenade.

Some parts are more scripted, but it's still a major step-up from all the other strictly linear shooters. It's weird needing to re-learn not to run directly at an objective marker. Modern gaming gives us some weird habits.

There's some tactics involved, but it's not like the full console BiA games. This one is very much arcade-y, you even get a score and rating at the end of each mission. It's truly immense fun and checkpoints are frequent, so even if you die or fail, there's no frustration, just hop back in. Failures are often hilarious anyway, like going to set a demolition charge but getting crushed by a tank. It's almost shameful to make war look this exciting.

There are three campaigns, each one shorter than the one before, and sadly it's over way too soon. Or at least that's what it feels like. A bit over 3 hours feels much shorter than about the same time spent in the likes of COD. Higher difficulties and more weapons are unlocked after finishing, so maybe it's worth it going at it again.

Games like this aren't made too often nowadays. I imagine this is what it would look like if someone wanted to make a squad shooter in the Sega Genesis era, if it had the power. Or, it's like crossing 2001's intensity of Medal of Honor with the craziness of The Saboteur. How can that be a bad thing?

Rating: 8.5/10 - even with the struggling framerate and some jankiness, this is another highlight of DS shooters and an amazing achievement.

==========

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (DS)

Release year of 2005 makes this a very early DS shooter and as such... I'm quite impressed? It controls well, runs fast, doesn't look too disgusting, there's multiplayer with bots... The setting is pretty cool as well - you play as a "bad" agent under a Bond villain, so you get to do more crazy stuff than usual.

That said, it feels like a mission pack for the N64's GoldenEye, it's so quaint. If you're nostalgic for that game, you could have some fun with this. But while the N64's 007 held me just out of some morbid curiosity when I tried it recently... This one certainly offers more.

The level and game design are indeed straight out of 1996. Okay, you can only carry two weapons, but you get to go wild with railguns, miniguns, akimbo P90's and disintegration beams, so I rest my case. Even the music sounds like MIDI, and the sprites, varied real world environments, interactive set pieces and animated fire textures make it look and feel so much like a Build engine game.

So while maybe it's quite primitive by modern standards, for such an early DS shooter (if not the very first) the game works very well, and I didn't feel tired at all while playing it. It is quite charming.

And then it goes onto... Oh wait, it's over. The whole single player took me an hour and a half to finish, and that includes having to replay two difficult sequences a couple times. Well, that explains how it fits onto a 16 MB cartridge.

Still, if N64's GoldenEye gets so much praise for bringing shooters to consoles, I'd say Rogue Agent deserves recognition for bringing them to the DS. I can imagine how in 2005 it might have seemed outdated and a bad deal due to being so short, but today it actually feels retro-fresh, and at least not outstaying its welcome.

Rating: 6/10, and I retroactively declare it an unappreciated gem of 2005.

==========

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Mobilized (DS)

Hey, it's time for another "it's time for another Call of Duty" joke!

Obviously nowadays COD is quite a meme - until recently (as far as I know at least), every year brought a new COD. Well, "new" but not really new, you know. More like a good old, comfy reliable thing.

And that's what I expected here too - COD4 for DS was good enough but flawed, so the direct sequel should be about the same, hopefully less flawed (it makes the dumb double-tap iron sights optional). And it would also be interesting to see the further progress the same devs have made from Rogue Agent through COD4 to beyond.

But... Hold on, something isn't right. This feels terrible. The framerate is crap. What the fuck. This is unplayable.

It could be borderline passable if the game remained the simplistic shooting gallery of COD4. But the devs wanted to make a big boys FPS now with more aggressive AI, while the player's health is apparently lower, walking speed is slower (you now need to sprint to get anywhere) and the red mist effect when you get hit is stronger.

It's a deadly combination, and the DS simply can't handle all that, so it often chugs into an an unplayable mess.

Oh great, I got a "slow learner" award for dying too much because I can't see shit. Well fuck you too, game.

It does improve a bit after the first two levels, especially since I figured that the best way to play is to just let my squadmates do all the killing while I hide until everything is dead. At least there's more music to listen to while ducking behind cover. They really blew the sound budget apparently, because there wasn't anything left for more than one lame death sound.

So why even bother? Well funnily enough, the game does have some merits. Again the turret sections are the most fun, as are various vehicles. You get to fly a drone, sneak around with a RC robot and drive a tank. Although that's just one mission and an incredibly shitty tank, so still not much to write home about.

Also the minigames are pretty cool, and for the first time among these DS shooters, I actually got invested in the story. You chase after a nuke all around the world, but are always late and thus fail the mission objective every time. It's not typical videogame territory to be constantly undermined like this, so I appreciate it.

So, um... I guess there's a pretty fun game in here, if you cut out all the Call of Duty bits? Granted, the presentation is fairly impressive, but dammit it's still the DS, so it feels more like doing a demake of COD in a Wolfenstein engine anyway. It would be cute if it wasn't a real product.

To be honest though, the shooting bits are about the level of playability I originally expected DS shooters to typically be at, so it's still cool that there are some good games of this genre. But it's bizarre that Rogue Agent, the oldest shooter of the bunch and from the same devs no less, is so much more playable.

Rating: 1.5/10 - half a point for finally some minigames that aren't crap, and that's about it.

==========

Older reviews:

Moon, COD4, C.O.R.E., Ironfall: 3DS community - Patient gamers

Chibi Robo, MechAssault, Bionicle: 3DS community - Patient gamers

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3175498

I'm on a mission to try out lots of first/third person shooters on the DS and 3DS. It's quite an underappreciated genre on these systems, even though the DS has quite a rich selection. They can be quite fun and some can be finished in an evening.

This time they just happen to be mech/robot themed.

First batch of reviews: 3DS community - Patient gamers

==========

Chibi Robo Park Patrol (DS)

This isn't a shooter per se, but you do control a humanoid character in 3rd person, and you get to fight enemies with a squirt gun, so it still kinda counts. And I played through it, so at least if I write about it, it wasn't a complete waste of time.

So the story is, you're a pocket robot whose job is to battle pollution by renovating a park, which you do by planting flowers, watering them, and... Help them grow by dancing for them. Yes, it's a Japanese game, just roll with it.

You also get to manage and build structures and features of your park, employ and meet a bunch of colourful characters, and battle against a personified pollution. I found this game on a list of open world games for the DS, which I guess is technically true, if you count a few buildings, one road and an alley as open world.

It's pretty charming if repetitive and not very rich experience, especially at first before you get to unlock minigames and figure out other stuff to do. There are even a few vehicles, sadly with silly touch controls.

There's an elephant in the room however. Never have I played a game that wastes my time this much. With every new day you start (which is about 10 minutes), you need to sit through close to two minutes of the same fucking monologue, every time. Worse, you need to confim Every. Fucking. Sentence to continue. And of course the text rolls out one letter at a time, because again, it's a Japanese game. Someone explain why is this a thing?

It still gets worse. Need to recharge - which you need several times a day at first - same monologue. Found a cartridge with new features? More yapping and tapping. Talking to someone? Blah blah blah tap tap tap. Building new stuff for the park? Unskippable animations, and more monologues to tap through, one sentence at a time, rolling out one letter at a time. The day is done? Animation... Yea there are 3 kinds of animations you can skip, and dozens which you can't.

Seriously, screw this. The game itself is pretty addictive and catchy, if you fancy this quirky park management thing, but half the playtime is spent just watching the same stuff over and over and over and oooooveeeeeerrrrrr. It's ridiculous.

Definitely skip this if you value your time at least a little bit.

Rating: 2/10

==========

MechAssault: Phantom War (DS)

So this is a proper Microsoft MechWarriors game on a DS. How is it that the DS has so much cool stuff?

What can I say about this? You have a mech and you battle other mechs, in valleys of various planets rendered in this 3D engine like every other mech game. There's a future war of some sort like in every mech game, you do war stuff and mech stuff and sometimes you leave the mech to do a bullshit hacking minigame, because this is also a DS game and those are mandated by law. You have different mechs and tanks that do different things and different weapons and armor and jump jets and grappling hooks and stuff. You know, it's a mech game.

I quit at the typical bullshit mission of protecting a base made of wet tissue paper against neverending waves of mechs. Fuck the person who came up with these damn missions with a sharp peppermint stick. They will never, ever be not annoying. Also, I wish that the mech would sound like a giant mechanical beast rummaging through the world, and not like walking in wet flip-flops. Why can't things in games sound loud and boomy anymore?

Either way, it's a completely standard little 3rd person mech game that's fun for a while, and then you get bored, or you die and the checkpoints are sparse, so you go play something else, and then someday open it again to blow up some mechs. Nothing has changed much since the inception of the genre. It's a mech game for the DS. Nothing else to it.

Rating: Mech/10

==========

Bionicle Heroes (DS)

Now back to a regular first person shooter. Time to destroy some LEGO creatures.

First impression: well what do you know, sensitivity of touch aiming can be increased beyond the "old man in a wheelchair" speed some other games max out at? Who knew!

In fact, this one has surprisingly fast, responsive and natural feeling controls. Even double-tap jumping feels just about right. Unfortunately the precision isn't at the same level, especially on high sensitivity setting, but the controls are made for pace.

The speed is pretty important here, because this is a proper retro arena shooter - I get reminded of Rise of the Triads or Painkiller. It doesn't even bother with a story - at any time you can select out of 6 worlds (ice, volcano, castle...) and in you go.

Just go in, and kill everything by circle-strafing Quake-style. Every world also has a new weapon to collect in the first level, and upgraded versions in later ones. The combat feels punchy, especially with the upgraded weapons. I mean, we know there's something oddly satisfying in talking apart LEGO, especially if it's done violently.

The levels aren't any slouches either: there are secrets, jump pads, environmental hazards, bridges to rebuild. As you power up, new and more powerful foes show up. It never gets too challenging though, to be honest.

At first I wished there were more enemy types in different environments, but over time there are about 10 distinct types in about 40 variants, so still more than other games offer. Bosses also give you powerups to replay older levels and find more secrets, plus challenges and cheats to unlock, so there's a decent engame too.

It also looks and sounds fine - the rather simple style allows for better resolution I guess - and always rocking some catchy electronic music.

What starts as just a cool and stylish game to quickly blow off some steam, turns into a really good FPS by all accounts. At first I launched it just to check it out, and then realised I've been playing for 4 hours.

I do wish the controls were as precise as they are fast, but considering the nature of combat, it's not a huge deal. This is how you do a retro shooter.

Rating: 8.5/10, if you are okay with just some old school arena shooting

I'm on a mission to try out lots of first/third person shooters on the DS and 3DS. It's quite an underappreciated genre on these systems, even though the DS has quite a rich selection. They can be quite fun and some can be finished in an evening.

This time they just happen to be mech/robot themed.

First batch of reviews: 3DS community - Patient gamers

==========

Chibi Robo Park Patrol (DS)

This isn't a shooter per se, but you do control a humanoid character in 3rd person, and you get to fight enemies with a squirt gun, so it still kinda counts. And I played through it, so at least if I write about it, it wasn't a complete waste of time.

So the story is, you're a pocket robot whose job is to battle pollution by renovating a park, which you do by planting flowers, watering them, and... Help them grow by dancing for them. Yes, it's a Japanese game, just roll with it.

You also get to manage and build structures and features of your park, employ and meet a bunch of colourful characters, and battle against a personified pollution. I found this game on a list of open world games for the DS, which I guess is technically true, if you count a few buildings, one road and an alley as open world.

It's pretty charming if repetitive and not very rich experience, especially at first before you get to unlock minigames and figure out other stuff to do. There are even a few vehicles, sadly with silly touch controls.

There's an elephant in the room however. Never have I played a game that wastes my time this much. With every new day you start (which is about 10 minutes), you need to sit through close to two minutes of the same fucking monologue, every time. Worse, you need to confim Every. Fucking. Sentence to continue. And of course the text rolls out one letter at a time, because again, it's a Japanese game. Someone explain why is this a thing?

It still gets worse. Need to recharge - which you need several times a day at first - same monologue. Found a cartridge with new features? More yapping and tapping. Talking to someone? Blah blah blah tap tap tap. Building new stuff for the park? Unskippable animations, and more monologues to tap through, one sentence at a time, rolling out one letter at a time. The day is done? Animation... Yea there are 3 kinds of animations you can skip, and dozens which you can't.

Seriously, screw this. The game itself is pretty addictive and catchy, if you fancy this quirky park management thing, but half the playtime is spent just watching the same stuff over and over and over and oooooveeeeeerrrrrr. It's ridiculous.

Definitely skip this if you value your time at least a little bit.

Rating: 2/10

==========

MechAssault: Phantom War (DS)

So this is a proper Microsoft MechWarriors game on a DS. How is it that the DS has so much cool stuff?

What can I say about this? You have a mech and you battle other mechs, in valleys of various planets rendered in this 3D engine like every other mech game. There's a future war of some sort like in every mech game, you do war stuff and mech stuff and sometimes you leave the mech to do a bullshit hacking minigame, because this is also a DS game and those are mandated by law. You have different mechs and tanks that do different things and different weapons and armor and jump jets and grappling hooks and stuff. You know, it's a mech game.

I quit at the typical bullshit mission of protecting a base made of wet tissue paper against neverending waves of mechs. Fuck the person who came up with these damn missions with a sharp peppermint stick. They will never, ever be not annoying. Also, I wish that the mech would sound like a giant mechanical beast rummaging through the world, and not like walking in wet flip-flops. Why can't things in games sound loud and boomy anymore?

Either way, it's a completely standard little 3rd person mech game that's fun for a while, and then you get bored, or you die and the checkpoints are sparse, so you go play something else, and then someday open it again to blow up some mechs. Nothing has changed much since the inception of the genre. It's a mech game for the DS. Nothing else to it.

Rating: Mech/10

==========

Bionicle Heroes (DS)

Now back to a regular first person shooter. Time to destroy some LEGO creatures.

First impression: well what do you know, sensitivity of touch aiming can be increased beyond the "old man in a wheelchair" speed some other games max out at? Who knew!

In fact, this one has surprisingly fast, responsive and natural feeling controls. Even double-tap jumping feels just about right. Unfortunately the precision isn't at the same level, especially on high sensitivity setting, but the controls are made for pace.

The speed is pretty important here, because this is a proper retro arena shooter - I get reminded of Rise of the Triads or Painkiller. It doesn't even bother with a story - at any time you can select out of 6 worlds (ice, volcano, castle...) and in you go.

Just go in, and kill everything by circle-strafing Quake-style. Every world also has a new weapon to collect in the first level, and upgraded versions in later ones. The combat feels punchy, especially with the upgraded weapons. I mean, we know there's something oddly satisfying in talking apart LEGO, especially if it's done violently.

The levels aren't any slouches either: there are secrets, jump pads, environmental hazards, bridges to rebuild. As you power up, new and more powerful foes show up. It never gets too challenging though, to be honest.

At first I wished there were more enemy types in different environments, but over time there are about 10 distinct types in about 40 variants, so still more than other games offer. Bosses also give you powerups to replay older levels and find more secrets, plus challenges and cheats to unlock, so there's a decent engame too.

It also looks and sounds fine - the rather simple style allows for better resolution I guess - and always rocking some catchy electronic music.

What starts as just a cool and stylish game to quickly blow off some steam, turns into a really good FPS by all accounts. At first I launched it just to check it out, and then realised I've been playing for 4 hours.

I do wish the controls were as precise as they are fast, but considering the nature of combat, it's not a huge deal. This is how you do a retro shooter.

Rating: 8.5/10, if you are okay with just some old school arena shooting

And here's the other side, a view against subscriptions or rather any monetisation of features, specifically in cars but can easily be applied to lots of other industries.

This article can be quite agitative and speculative (tho I can't really disagree with much), so be warned - but like with that other post, there you go - some points "against".

It's a bit of a cucumber season, so I thought I'll post something from both sides of the argument.

This video discusses some positives of subscriptions, though specifically in comparison to free services. I think they're forgetting a few things - such as that just because a service is paid, doesn't mean it's inherently better or more private - but there you go. Some points "for".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3035900

The 3DS and DS aren't systems created with shooters in mind, but that won't stop me! Especially since I'm stuck without any other gaming system at the moment, so I'll deal with what I have.

All of these games have touchscreen aiming. I personally just use my thumb, holding the 3DS like a controller. This way I find controlling these games pretty serviceable, not too different than using a second thumbstick. I just wish all of them had the option increase the sensitivity beyond the maximum setting.

==========

Moon (DS version)

This game has one main shtick - using a small remote-controlled robot to solve puzzles. Which means crawling through a low space and opening the door. It is kinda cool maybe once, not so fun a hundred times. Especially if you need to do it again when backtracking, which is close to 50% of the game. Yep, get to the objective, then all the way back. Over and over. At the beginning there are some shortcuts, but those eventually disappear.

However, at one point you get to go out to the surface of the Moon and even use a moon car... This was pretty great. Two missions, a few minutes each. So why is the rest of the game just crawling through the same repetitive halls and vents?

The weapons are functional albeit standard, and the AI is about right, so combat and controls feel decent enough if rather bland.

Terrible music, I had to turn it off. But the atmosphere is pretty decent without it... The game does sell the loneliness of the setting well enough. These devs also made Dementium, which I've not played yet, but I sense that they were going for the somewhat spooky feeling too.

The story is classic B-Movie shlock. Alien artifact, government conspiracy, logs from scientists, you know the drill.

Overall, while I appreciate these guys were trying to make something slightly different, I'd give it a pass. Maybe I'll check the 3DS remake a shot if it's available, but if it's the same kind of game, I'll bounce very quickly.

Rating: 3-4/10

==========

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (DS)

If anything, I was expecting something worse than Moon. Surprisingly, this is... Pretty good?

There is one major flaw: to use iron sights, you double tap the screen - which is much easier to do by accident than to get it on purpose. It's not completely game-breaking, at least on easy difficulty, so I managed to live with it. Eventually.

Other than that, it feels like a COD game through and through, just simplified. There are some annoyances, like a few sections where you get offed by a sniper, which really goes with the COD territory rather than this being a bad game, if that makes sense.

The game knows what it is, and works with the limitations of aiming with the touch screen, so the combat is more like a whack-a-mole shooting range. Again, just standard COD stuff, but I think on DS it would work better as a light gun style game. The turret sections are really the most fun anyway. Some bomb-diffusing minigames are thrown in too.

It sorta follows the story beats of the main COD4, sadly without the interesting parts. No Chernobyl here.

Music is mostly absent, only kicking in during some events, making the game eerily silent most of the time.

Lots of bugs like falling through floors and sound cutting out, but for those few hours it's tolerable.

The sequel has the option to trigger iron sights with a button, and honestly I'm quite looking forward to that improved game. It also helps that this one is the shortest of this review batch, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. Overall, a decently worthwhile endeavour.

Rating: 5-6/10 (knocked off two for the stupid aiming system, and bugs)

==========

C.O.R.E (DS)

This game REALLY wants to be a 1997 PC game. The intro cinematic is competent, the level design is surprisingly solid (if somewhat confusing and with no map), the industrial music slaps, there's lots of blood and no reloading, heck you can even jump?! There are secrets (at first)!? And is that damage grunt from Quake? First impressions: This gonna be good.

Also coming with that retro territory are manual save points and health/armor stations. That's less welcome on a limited system like the DS in my opinion, but could still work.

So what went wrong? EVERYTHING. The shooting, the combat! The stuff you play a shooter for! Most enemies are hitscan, pack a damn punch and are placed such that they start shredding through your armor as soon as you open some doors. Sometimes from behind, or from the sides. Not a good combination with slow, imprecise aiming, and non-regenerative health.

Additionally they are often difficult to see (everything is grey on grey) and very difficult to hit, so even the lowliest spider is a formidable and annoying opponent.

The weapons aren't exactly impressive either, despite all being swiped from the Quake and Unreal series. You can rocket jump however, so there's that at least.

Even on easy difficulty, I'd run out of ammo or die of lead poisoning pretty often. This design is simply unsuitable for the controls DS offers.

The story? It's an underground military base with alien science experiment going wrong theme, what can you expect. Pretty much the same as Moon.

Such a disjointed game. Something special could have been here, but I suppose half the team was smoking crack.

Rating: 2/10 for gameplay and generic setting 9/10 for the 90's-era shooter style if you're into that, and music

==========

Ironfall: Invasion (3DS)

I had to keep rewriting this review as I was playing the game, my opinion of it kept shifting that much. It began at "painfully generic Gears of War clone with very decent visuals for the 3DS" through "damn good looking game feeling like mostly made from store-bought assets" to "really impressive indie project that actually has some personality of its own".

If C.O.R.E. is ripping off games of the late 90's, Ironfall is ripping off games from the early to mid-00's. Movement and mechanics straight from Gears of War, weapons from Unreal II I guess, the whole feel reminds me of games like Pariah or Resistance.

Together with ridiculously generic basic enemies (a metallic, humanoid robot like from a 70's B-movie), and other things ripped wholesale from elsewhere, I feel like it could've worked better to add some humour and sell it as a parody. It still is in my head.

But it keeps getting better as time goes on. It certainly has a lot more variety than Moon or C.O.R.E. - just like in COD4, you travel around the world - and overall it has some weird charm to it. Even some cool bits thrown in, like one cool boss or playing as a different operative. And some minigames too, can't be without those...

The story is another alien invasion/rescue nonsense - is this the only way to make a shooter with a new IP on the DS or 3DS? But it is just enough to not be too offensive. Music is the typical action game/music bank kind of stuff - but there's a lot of it, so it helps.

At the end, I guess it wasn't such a bad idea to put together a game from other people's ideas, backed by great tech. I've played worse shooters on better systems. I'd probably even rather play this than the first Gears... Which isn't saying that much, but still. (I'm just not a fan of GoW.)

In addition to touchscreen aiming, you can use the C-Stick too, but it just doesn't work for me with such a fast-paced shooter.

So yea... Good enough for what it is. Quite a blandburger, but still deserving to be a 3DS cult classic, if for nothing else than because there are so few games like it on this system. It could hardly be any better under the circumstances of a three-person dev team; I just wish someone else could have used this engine to do something really new.

Rating: 7/10 (because there are so few games on the 3DS like it, otherwise it's a very average 5/10)

The 3DS and DS aren't systems created with shooters in mind, but that won't stop me! Especially since I'm stuck without any other gaming system at the moment, so I'll deal with what I have.

All of these games have touchscreen aiming. I personally just use my thumb, holding the 3DS like a controller. This way I find controlling these games pretty serviceable, not too different than using a second thumbstick. I just wish all of them had the option increase the sensitivity beyond the maximum setting.

==========

Moon (DS version)

This game has one main shtick - using a small remote-controlled robot to solve puzzles. Which means crawling through a low space and opening the door. It is kinda cool maybe once, not so fun a hundred times. Especially if you need to do it again when backtracking, which is close to 50% of the game. Yep, get to the objective, then all the way back. Over and over. At the beginning there are some shortcuts, but those eventually disappear.

However, at one point you get to go out to the surface of the Moon and even use a moon car... This was pretty great. Two missions, a few minutes each. So why is the rest of the game just crawling through the same repetitive halls and vents?

The weapons are functional albeit standard, and the AI is about right, so combat and controls feel decent enough if rather bland.

Terrible music, I had to turn it off. But the atmosphere is pretty decent without it... The game does sell the loneliness of the setting well enough. These devs also made Dementium, which I've not played yet, but I sense that they were going for the somewhat spooky feeling too.

The story is classic B-Movie shlock. Alien artifact, government conspiracy, logs from scientists, you know the drill.

Overall, while I appreciate these guys were trying to make something slightly different, I'd give it a pass. Maybe I'll check the 3DS remake a shot if it's available, but if it's the same kind of game, I'll bounce very quickly.

Rating: 3-4/10

==========

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (DS)

If anything, I was expecting something worse than Moon. Surprisingly, this is... Pretty good?

There is one major flaw: to use iron sights, you double tap the screen - which is much easier to do by accident than to get it on purpose. It's not completely game-breaking, at least on easy difficulty, so I managed to live with it. Eventually.

Other than that, it feels like a COD game through and through, just simplified. There are some annoyances, like a few sections where you get offed by a sniper, which really goes with the COD territory rather than this being a bad game, if that makes sense.

The game knows what it is, and works with the limitations of aiming with the touch screen, so the combat is more like a whack-a-mole shooting range. Again, just standard COD stuff, but I think on DS it would work better as a light gun style game. The turret sections are really the most fun anyway. Some bomb-diffusing minigames are thrown in too.

It sorta follows the story beats of the main COD4, sadly without the interesting parts. No Chernobyl here.

Music is mostly absent, only kicking in during some events, making the game eerily silent most of the time.

Lots of bugs like falling through floors and sound cutting out, but for those few hours it's tolerable.

The sequel has the option to trigger iron sights with a button, and honestly I'm quite looking forward to that improved game. It also helps that this one is the shortest of this review batch, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. Overall, a decently worthwhile endeavour.

Rating: 5-6/10 (knocked off two for the stupid aiming system, and bugs)

==========

C.O.R.E (DS)

This game REALLY wants to be a 1997 PC game. The intro cinematic is competent, the level design is surprisingly solid (if somewhat confusing and with no map), the industrial music slaps, there's lots of blood and no reloading, heck you can even jump?! There are secrets (at first)!? And is that damage grunt from Quake? First impressions: This gonna be good.

Also coming with that retro territory are manual save points and health/armor stations. That's less welcome on a limited system like the DS in my opinion, but could still work.

So what went wrong? EVERYTHING. The shooting, the combat! The stuff you play a shooter for! Most enemies are hitscan, pack a damn punch and are placed such that they start shredding through your armor as soon as you open some doors. Sometimes from behind, or from the sides. Not a good combination with slow, imprecise aiming, and non-regenerative health.

Additionally they are often difficult to see (everything is grey on grey) and very difficult to hit, so even the lowliest spider is a formidable and annoying opponent.

The weapons aren't exactly impressive either, despite all being swiped from the Quake and Unreal series. You can rocket jump however, so there's that at least.

Even on easy difficulty, I'd run out of ammo or die of lead poisoning pretty often. This design is simply unsuitable for the controls DS offers.

The story? It's an underground military base with alien science experiment going wrong theme, what can you expect. Pretty much the same as Moon.

Such a disjointed game. Something special could have been here, but I suppose half the team was smoking crack.

Rating: 2/10 for gameplay and generic setting 9/10 for the 90's-era shooter style if you're into that, and music

==========

Ironfall: Invasion (3DS)

I had to keep rewriting this review as I was playing the game, my opinion of it kept shifting that much. It began at "painfully generic Gears of War clone with very decent visuals for the 3DS" through "damn good looking game feeling like mostly made from store-bought assets" to "really impressive indie project that actually has some personality of its own".

If C.O.R.E. is ripping off games of the late 90's, Ironfall is ripping off games from the early to mid-00's. Movement and mechanics straight from Gears of War, weapons from Unreal II I guess, the whole feel reminds me of games like Pariah or Resistance.

Together with ridiculously generic basic enemies (a metallic, humanoid robot like from a 70's B-movie), and other things ripped wholesale from elsewhere, I feel like it could've worked better to add some humour and sell it as a parody. It still is in my head.

But it keeps getting better as time goes on. It certainly has a lot more variety than Moon or C.O.R.E. - just like in COD4, you travel around the world - and overall it has some weird charm to it. Even some cool bits thrown in, like one cool boss or playing as a different operative. And some minigames too, can't be without those...

The story is another alien invasion/rescue nonsense - is this the only way to make a shooter with a new IP on the DS or 3DS? But it is just enough to not be too offensive. Music is the typical action game/music bank kind of stuff - but there's a lot of it, so it helps.

At the end, I guess it wasn't such a bad idea to put together a game from other people's ideas, backed by great tech. I've played worse shooters on better systems. I'd probably even rather play this than the first Gears... Which isn't saying that much, but still. (I'm just not a fan of GoW.)

In addition to touchscreen aiming, you can use the C-Stick too, but it just doesn't work for me with such a fast-paced shooter.

So yea... Good enough for what it is. Quite a blandburger, but still deserving to be a 3DS cult classic, if for nothing else than because there are so few games like it on this system. It could hardly be any better under the circumstances of a three-person dev team; I just wish someone else could have used this engine to do something really new.

Rating: 7/10 (because there are so few games on the 3DS like it, otherwise it's a very average 5/10)

Plastics are one of the greatest and most prevalent human inventions... And also one with risks that have only recently began to get the proper attention.

It's not only about the environment, wildlife or trash piles either. "Microplastics" are a particularly bothersome issue we're not very sure what impact it will have and how to deal with it.

Another potential issue is hygiene, as plastic is easy to scratch, with the gaps becoming good home for microbes.

But plastics are also hard to avoid. Sometimes we just need to buy a drink in a plastic bottle, or we don't have a store nearby to get cheese without plastic packaging. And the plastic containers are so practical to stock up the freezer...

Do you try to limit the use of plastics around food, or have you mostly given up on that particular cause?

I find it curious that I've never seen a video of someone controlling their DS/3DS touchscreen with just a finger.

I've used touchscreens on mobile devices even before the DS was out, and I almost never use the stylus, just my fingernail.

Recently I've been on a binge of trying out DS shooters that control the aiming via touchscreen, and just using my thumb I can hold the handheld like a normal console controller, with aiming similar to having a right thumbstick. Can't imagine fiddling with a stylus to aim, ew.

And no I don't have long fingernails, just completely normal human ones. I'm also not worried about damaging the screen - if anything, fingernails are softer than hard plastic.

Am I really the only one?

Made a poll in the comments, please vote by upvoting, I'm curious.

In case someone is like me who just assumed it's not possible and never tried to look it up before.

When playing a DS game (or GBA apparently), press Home, then hold Start and use up and down on the D-Pad to change the brightness.

No need to exit the game. Neat.