#PastebinMonday 12/17/2018

Forcing Myself to Play Video Games Edition

Hey guys, how’s it goin?

I’ve been feeling REALLY good about my Pokemon Puzzle Challenge gameplay lately. Hardly a night goes by without me improving at least one of my individual stage best times. That said, I’m still choking in quite a few points throughout the run so who knows when I will be able to get close to that Intense mode record. I can’t see me stopping myself from trying anytime soon, though.

I am also forcing myself to route Tetris Attack V-Hard now by streaming it. I’m glad I did because I’ve already found several viable stage 1 layouts that are faster than the fastest stage 1 I used for Panel de Pon S-Hard. As it stands right now, this is the stage that I am going to use:
https://twitter.com/CardsOfTheHeart/status/1073814151041036288
I still have several stage 1s to explore so I will continue to do so on most Thursdays and Fridays in the coming weeks.

In other stream news, I finally have a NES Everdrive in my hands and the NES should be here on Wednesday. Assuming that the NES will work, I will have it in time to engage in some NES shenanigans on my Christmas break. I will probably re-record runs of 10 Yard Fight and Home Alone for shiggles, at the very least.

In other gaming news, I have started my donation incentive playthrough of Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko for the N64. It’s been a long time since I’ve held a N64 controller for so long. (I play Pokemon Puzzle League with a SNES controller.) I still have some slight inflammation on my left thumb from handling the stick so much. I had forgotten how uncomfortable the N64 control stick was.

As for the game experience so far… it’s disappointing. It does not feel natural to constantly fight with a camera view in a 3D experience, but this camera does not immediately follow the player so I feel compelled to press C buttons constantly so that I can see where I’m going, especially unhelpful when I have to navigate a narrow walkway like the one in the fairy tale land I run into trying to scale a beanstalk. The individual areas are also expansive-looking, but don’t have much to do in them so they feel empty. The soundtrack is forgettable. Enemies feel like an afterthought. The bosses don’t feel inspired, but they do try to take advantage of the pop culture references and innuendos that the game uses constantly. The first boss fight takes place in a wrestling ring against a mash-up of The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It’s the only thing that has made me legitimately laugh out loud. The rest of this game has left me facepalming so far. I don’t want to play it anymore, but play it I must.

That's my life story for the week. Until next time, everyone, thanks for reading!

--Cards