Best Forklift Operator (Switch, PC)
My real life full time job is at a major hardware store big box chain. And if you’ve been inside one of those stores, you may have seen employees driving forklifts around. Since I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth, I don’t drive the forklifts in the store, but I am part of the safety team so I’m pretty familiar with how they work. So when the opportunity arose for me to review a game where you drive a forklift (yeah they’ll make a game out of anything these days), I thought it might be interesting. And of course, forklifts play a part in other video games, too, whether it be your part time job in Shenmue or as a boss in the AtomisWave arcade game DemolishFist. Best Forklift Operator is available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.
Pretty Princess: Magical Garden Island (Switch)
Believe it or not, this game is actually a sequel (or spinoff) to one I reviewed a couple of years ago! In the first game, you play as a girl who gets whisked away to a world inhabited by rabbit people. You get transformed into a princess and the rabbits need your princess magic to help rebuild and decorate their castle. The game was pretty much a rip-off of the indoor decorating aspects of Animal Crossing, and the sequel rips off pretty much everything else from that title. In the sequel, you and your princess friends decide they want to try some Princess Cake. Your rabbit butler knows an island where you can get the ingredients. So now you set off for that island, where you’ll farm, fish, and gather materials to build shops and farms so you can make more things to restore the island to its former glory. The game even uses the same ‘rolling log’ viewpoint that Animal Crossing does!
Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, X/S, PC)
The Raiden series is a super popular group of 2-D vertically scrolling shooters. I’ve seen them in arcades and ported to nearly every home console since then. Just like NIS did earlier this year with Raiden IV, now you can play the third one with some new features and additions. Still not sure what the MIKADO in the titles mean, but you can play it on all current consoles and PC (reviewed on PS4 here).
Agriculture (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, X/S)
Summer of the SEGA Genesis Mini 2: Part 2
Toodee and Topdee (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, X/S, PC)
Toodee and Topdee literally combines the action of a 2D platformer with the puzzles of a top down style game. The story goes that an all-knowing being created some vastly different worlds. One is 2-D and another is a top down world, for instance. This god-like being created all this with just words, and used a semicolon to unite them all. But the assistant to this god, named Toodoo, he got worried that his master would get rid of him after finishing all his work, since he wouldn’t need an assistant anymore. So he stole the semicolon that provided order to everything. Now all the worlds are mixing up and combining. So now Toodee, who lives in the 2-D platform world, and Topdee, who lives in the top down viewed world, must work together to get the magic semicolon back. Toodee and Topdee is available for all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.
Tiny Dragon Story (Switch)
Summer of the SEGA Genesis Mini 2: Part 1
While they aren’t as huge as they were a few years ago, mini consoles are great because they package some of the systems’ best games onto one tiny console you can relive the classics on. But the problem is they don’t put ALL the great games onto one console! Luckily last year SEGA released a second version of their Genesis Mini console with more different games, including some unreleased and SEGA CD titles. I heard it was kind of hard to get, and even though I paid a tiny bit more for mine than I wanted to, it still wasn’t that bad. So let’s take a look at what’s on the Genesis Mini 2!
Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon: Party Edition (Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, X/S, PC)
I’m a big fan of stop motion and clay animation. I even took a class on it once back in my college years so I have a lot of respect for the folks who do that stuff for a living. One of my favorite stop motion animation studios is Aardman. They’ve done stuff like Creature Comforts and the Chevron car commercials, but probably their most famous work is the Wallace and Gromit series. One of the side characters in Wallace and Gromit was a sheep named Shaun. He was so popular that he got his own spinoff TV show and movies about his adventures on the farm with his barnyard friends. Heck, even the youngest sheep on that show got his own preschool spinoff show called Timmy Time! So yeah, a spinoff of a spinoff. Anyway, now Shaun the Sheep and his fleecy friends are in their own video game: a 2-D action puzzle platformer on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.
Feeble Light (PS4, PS5, Switch, PC)
Feeble Light is a randomly generated vertically scrolling bullet hell shooter. It features retro style aesthetics with four color graphics like what you’d see on the Game Boy. Avoid everything and shoot crazy planets and stars with angry faces as you try and get as far as possible and maybe even unlock some new color palettes you can use. It’s available on PlayStation consoles, Switch, and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.