For those who never experienced it or played the game when it ended on storefronts, Kingdoms of Amalur was an open-world action RPG taking place in fantasy world brimming with magical and ancient dangers, well-crafted lore, and a good amount of quests and side quests to keep you busy.

Following a decent character creation process, the main character’s story begins after challenging Fate and reviving after certain death. There is a brutal conflict going on but the Gnomes are busy conducting research into resurrection and getting their Well of Souls working.

The MC proves to be a success and of great interest to one researcher who accompanies the MC in escaping hostile forces and puts them on the path to finding out more about their new existence. Along the way, the main character experiences many adventures while also lending their power to the difficult forces combating the Tuatha and more regional dangers and threats.

Kingdoms of Amalur Had a Lot Going for It

Honestly, that’s as brief an explanation of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (or Re-Reckoning, the remaster). There’s a lot of stuff going on here. It featured everything that would’ve been standard for an open-world game at this time.

You have your farming of materials, crafting, a decent-sized skill tree with flexibility for some flexible build crafting, rewarding side quests and encounters that allow you to test and stress your progress and build.

The developer, Big Huge Games had a boatload of ideas and managed to put the majority together and craft their mechanics around them. And it works! Whenever I installed this game, I ended up sinking hours into the quests, building up my Fateless One (the main character who exists beyond Fate which governs the world), and crafting gear and weapons to better utilize those skills.

It’s all stock open-world RPG fare but it’s all put together in a way that works and is actually fun. In addition, you had two creative powerhouses in fantasy and comics with novelist R.A Salvatore and writer/artist Todd McFarlane fleshing out the setting of the Faelands, its lore and inhabitants.

What I found interesting about all of this is that at the time of its release, visually Kingdoms of Amalur looked like nothing too special. There were definitely that looked better crafted graphically but Amalur was far from a horrible-looking game. In some ways it existed between slightly dated and of its time but didn’t come off as a game that would push the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or gaming PCs of the early 2010s.

The World and Scale

Instead you had regions that were colorful, bold, and at times dark and gloomy. You actually felt that your Fateless One was engaged in this large, lengthy quest where you decided how it progressed. Adding to this was the scale of the world. You could look at the map and see what region your were in and which ones were close but traveling through these areas wasn’t exactly a quick jaunt.

You were going to clash with enemies and beasts, you would be distracted by loot and stories, and enticed by exploration. The size of different areas within a region encouraged exploration and after a few encounters, that curiosity in what else could be gained as far as gear and weapons.

I would say this is what really kept me in Amalur: the scale and crafting. Sure, the combat was fine but the possibilities and tiers of crafting material and what could be made had me trying to create the best possible gear for my adventures. The game encouraged that heavily but made it so that if you were into combat, there was plenty of that but you had to explore to be more effective.

Fate of the Kingdom

Ultimately, Kingdoms of Amalur managed to move a million copies but the developer closed due to financial factors as EA had to be repaid for investing a significant amount into the project. Also, the development itself had some issues that seemed to be am indication of how things would shake out for the end product.

Despite the cash sunk into Amalur, there were unfavorable takes into different elements of the game. It was viewed favorably enough to warrant a remaster by Kaiko roughly eight years later. While there is a potential series or even a franchise there, Amalur hasn’t seen much interest or movement in future entries.

Share your thoughts on Kingdoms of Amalur. With the other RPGs of a similar vein out and thriving at that time, did you have expectations of a sequel? Or did you gather that “Too much was out into this game, it was going to get the axe and thrown in the vault”?

Let us know!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

There are many directions some games could’ve taken, even the blockbusters and Greatest Hits. We’re going to look at five odd adventures (good and bad) from the Sega Genesis era. I’ve mainly lived in a PlayStation, Nintendo, and PC household but in the 1990s there were some memorable journeys on the Genesis.

Let’s dive in!

Sonic Spinball (Sega, 1993)

Pinball games on a console used to seem a little lazy to me and that’s mainly as a result of having played Sonic Spinball. It’s not that the game was bad, it was actually a lot of fun. It’s just pinball with a Sonic the Hedgehog theme that worked. I remember thinking that Sega should’ve dropped another Sonic game for the Genesis…only for them to drop them awesome Sonic 3 the following year.

This was the age of quick turnaround for non-sports games. What made this game more odd is that there was no sequel. Just “Here’s some Sonic in the meanwhile.” Alex Kidd Pinball would’ve probably bothered me less because Alex Kidd had long since been shafted and thrown in the vault. If there was no sequel, it would be expected. It’s Alex Kidd.

Unfortunately, Alex Kidd was all stiff (as were many video game characters from the Master System and NES period) and couldn’t ball up and spin like Sonic and Tails could. On that note, Sonic Spinball has mobile gaming potential.

Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck (Core Design, 1993)

The character Chuck Rock had one game on multiple consoles including the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear. It was also on some Atari consoles (not too unusual) but it was just that 1991 game. There wasn’t a ton of Chuck Rock games, he wasn’t a character who became a promoted star from a long-running franchise. He was just there, saving his girl in a Flintstones-meet-Super Mario sense.

Two years later, Chuck Rock Jr is off to save his father in a Flintstones-meets-Donkey Kong Jr sense. The game was fine as a platformer and had fun enemies and boss battles, it’s just an odd adventure when you hadn’t played the first Chuck Rock. Of course, after playing Chuck Rock II, you’ll find that it makes sense why there was no Chuck Rock III. Besides the studio closing down years later, there was nowhere else to go with the series.

Krusty’s Fun House (Acclaim, 1992)

It’s the 1990s, The Simpsons run the world and it makes sense that there would be games based on The Simpsons on multiple consoles. It’s just odd that we have a game based on Krusty the Clown who is built like Homer Simpson but doesn’t get into the overly involved situations that Homer gets into.

Sure, Homer has a gut and is at home on the couch any day of the week but he’s out and about doing something. Krusty? Not so much. This isn’t to say it was a bad title or that all Simpsons games should feature Bart. This game was fun and there was an Itchy & Scratchy platformer.

To a degree, it’s the idea of a Simpsons puzzle game. This could’ve been any game. It was actually another game that was given the Simpsons coat of paint because why develop something from scratch when you could just re-design the setting and main characters like Super Mario Bros. 2?

Revolution X (Midway, 1994)

Revolution X was an arcade shooter that was ported to the Sega Genesis. It is best known for being the game that features Aerosmith. They’re not playable characters but they are collectible. This is the only outright bad game on the list because it was often dicey when an arcade shooter or even a PC shooter was ported to the Genesis or Super NES.

But that’s to be expected. No, the odd thing here is we’ve got a band shooter. This isn’t a run-n-gun affair. It’s not a DOOM situation either. This is more like Area 51 or House of the Dead. The game is filled with odd design choices. You’ve got women in bikinis but few on the beach, you’re fighting with a hostile group, and Aerosmith has been kidnapped.

I mean at this time, Aerosmith was delivering the goods but I just don’t know about putting the band and a shooter (or any genre together). Then again, it could’ve been an early 1990s Kiss shooting game.

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool (System Vision, 1992)

Hmm. Both the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo were no stranger to bad mascot games. Every mascot game can’t be Cool Spot but they can aspire to be Global Gladiators. Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool meets the standard set by Global Gladiators. That is to say it’s mediocre at best but no one would say it was a good or great game.

Mechanically, it worked like most mascot or cartoon platformers from this period with the stiff jumping and movement. I remember my dad bringing this game, Krusty’s Fun House, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Klax from a Friday jaunt to the video store.

It was a dreadful haul but this was the one I played the most since the Cheetos Paws was my favorite snack at the time. You don’t have to reserve judgement and no grace is warranted, I also bought the Combo Man comics because I liked the Combo pretzel snacks.

The odd nature of this game comes from the game obviously not being good but Frito-Lay being invested in it because it was part of an advertising run that was supposed to include a Chester Cheetah cartoon. The toon was canceled but we got two Chester Cheetah games.

Again, this one wasn’t good at all. It was a little under mid, didn’t feature anything new or unique, looked like an early Genesis title (which it was) but someone said “Make another. The streets want another.”

I mean, I wanted another Cool Spot and more Taz-Mania games but never mind that. Much like the Geico cavemen only working for commercials and not warranting a whole television show, Chester Cheetah didn’t need ongoing adventures in video game form.

What are some odd games you’ve played that you feel probably shouldn’t exist. Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

The collecting, battling, and evolving monster games pool was a bit crowded and roughly half of those titles made into the 2010s and 2020s. What set Monster Rancher apart from other games in its early entries was the ability to pull monsters physical CDs. Some CDs in your CD binder or shelf could feature a powerful monster that you couldn’t train yet.

That leads us to what really makes this my favorite of the Pokeclones: the life-sim aspect.

Monster Rancher Went Further with Monster Training

There was a lot going on with Monster Rancher mechanics-wise that I love. Most of it would be pretty applicable to Pokémon if the in-game time was treated differently from real time or “Earth time” as Final Fantasy XIV calls it. See, Pokémon always felt like the longest summer ever because you could catch monsters, train them, collect gym badges, and spank the Elite 4 in pretty short order.

You’re not going to spend months going through a Pokémon title doing the core game even if you have other things to do. That isn’t the case in a Rancher game, either. Depending on the game, you could go through the ranks quickly. The main difference is that the monster you’re raising and the way you’re raising it might not get you to the top.

Time Was Everything

That’s because of the life simulation gameplay in the series. Players have to feed their monster, let them get rest, give them treats, encourage them for great results, choose their training regime throughout the month, breed them other monsters, watch their weight, and enroll them in battles and tournaments (some which determine the monster’s ranking).

All of this is managed by a very simple in-game calendar. Matches and tournaments are scheduled and if the monster’s rank is high enough, they’re able to enter that competition. In the games on GameBoy Advance, the calendar featured Official tournaments hosted by the organization in the game that allow for rank promotion to the winner.

Tying all of this together is that each monster has a lifespan. The crushing part in a Monster Rancher title is that sometimes when a player thinks their monster can advance in rank, it can kick the bucket. So, the game gets some longevity and replayability by requiring the player to summon and raise another monster.

Then again, if a player wants to avoid dealing with a dying monster they can retire the monster, get them registered as a trainer, and have them on the ranch training the next potential champion.

What Happened with Monster Rancher?

The franchise is still around and as of 2022, Koei Tecmo has released a game for Nintendo Switch in a crossover with the Ultraman franchise. The method of summoning or generating monsters has even been modernized since CDs aren’t used much now.

On that note, the game’s success is pretty easy to determine since it didn’t get much buzz after being released and the franchise’s peak in the West was between 1999-2000 when the animated series was on broadcast television.

Monster Rancher is the pokeclone that has simply always been around. The games maintained a consistent level of quality but never garnered buzz with the newer releases like Dragon Quest Monsters would with the Joker series and Devil Summoner games on Nintendo DS.

If you played the Monster Rancher games, which were your favorites and monsters? I was never a fan of Suezo and always preferred Tiger of the Wind or Zan. Also, what were your thoughts on the short-lived animated series?

Share your thoughts below!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

It’s a slower burn but Little King’s Story even eased that to where it was manageable for players not familiar with RTS. The Wii was meant to reel in all kinds of gamers despite experience, genre preference, or free time. Little King’s Story was somewhat different in that RTS aren’t exactly “I’ll play a bit and come back to it later.”

No, like RPGs, simulation games, and strategy games; once you start it up, you’ve pretty much accepted that you’re going lose time in that day. Again, this game dropped in 2009 and was well-received, so where are the sequels?

Where’s Little King’s Story?

LKS was developed by Cing, a defunct indie developer that went under in 2010, just under a year after releasing this title. Most their titles were on the Nintendo DS with a run of roughly seven years. You could say they got a lot done before shuttering.

Their work included games in the Another Code and Hotel Dusk series as well as the DS debut of Monster Rancher. Of their games Little King’s Story and Monster Rancher DS were the two I played the most.

It was an interesting time in gaming with the Nintendo printing money despite having a home console that was underpowered and lacked the expected features of that period, an approach that has continued into the Switch 2. If anything, Cing should’ve made money as well due to its close working relationship with Nintendo starting in 2005.

An issue could’ve been the pace at which Nintendo released games (which is still on the sluggish side) but that’s mainly with its first party games. The company takes its time for Mario and Zelda for quality reasons. Think how long it was between Metroid Prime 3 and the fourth entry release in 2025. In that 19-year period, we saw a number of remasters, spinoffs. Mind you, Prime 4 came out roughly four years after the previous main installment Metroid Dread, which is a solid amount of time between main games in a franchise if there are no other major titles being developed.

Again, all of that is for a first-party game being developed by Nintendo’s own development teams. Cing was an indie developer who happened to have a regular working relationship with Ninty. The fate of Little King’s Story was up in the air.

The Game Ended on a Cliffhanger

With Cing shut down, the rights to LKS fell to Marvelous, which published the game in Japan on the Wii. On paper, that looks fine since Marvelous is still putting out games regularly and working on titles in known properties. They’re active but they have a lot on their plate with their own titles and others.

While LKS is one of their titles and proved to be a popular title, that was in 2009-2010. Gaming has changed a lot since then and a title like Little King’s Story might appear dated or unpredictable in performance compared to its tried and true titles Rune Factory, Story of Seasons, and Senran Kagura as well as handling Monster Hunter Stories, No More Heroes, and Valhalla Knights.

Now, I regularly bring up titles that I’d like to see revived and believe that developers technically have a new franchise in an older one if we haven’t seen anything from that franchise in decades. I’m still waiting on Capcom to drop another Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance. However, LKS like Beat Down has gone too long without anything new or fresh to get a franchise going.

It’s unlikely that a Little King’s Story 2 that continues from the game’s ending is developed and we likely won’t see a reboot. It would take Marvelous having a “what’s old is new again” approach similar to TV and film studios with these sitcom revivals and continuations.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

I still have the physical copy and enjoyed it when I played it. Mind you, it was the kind of enjoyment you got from having only a few games and that game being one of the better ones of the bunch. When I played it over ten years later, I had experienced better beat ‘em ups since then and revisited better ones that came out before and during 2002. Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance being a good example.

E.O.E and Its Flaws

One of the issues E.O.E had was the camera which I’d say contributed to the difficulty. Mind you, the game had a manageable difficulty that wouldn’t have you putting the game down and revisiting hours later. You could chunk through this game in a week at the longest and only get mildly frustrated. The cause of that frustration: the camera which had you taking hits that should’ve easily been dodged or blocked.

I say “easily” because the foes in this game weren’t exactly programmed to be proto-Dead Souls or anything. Of course, slash ‘em ups tend to require more patience and timed evasion and blocking. Beat ‘em ups have developed to require that level know-how while playing.

However, in the early 2000s they were still pretty straightforward with the main change being the setting of a 3D arena. If early the PSX  and Nintendo 64 showed us anything: 3D needs a camera that isn’t cheeks. It really helps to be able to see around your character fluidly. This was an issue with Eve of Extinction.

Another issue that was more tolerable was a basic, mostly uninteresting storyline. The main character Josh has a weapon containing his girlfriend Eliel that can change during gameplay. Basically, it can be whatever you might need for the combat situation you’re in. That would be great if E.O.E wasn’t in that weird space of fun combat but having bricks for enemies.

Again, it was 2002, so no one was really expecting Ghosts of Tsushima or Metal Gear enemies. Instead, it was more like Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage or early Dynasty Warriors scrub soldiers just marching in to get spanked. The enemies were so uninteresting, that it’d be hard to go into the bosses in the game outside of their AI being better than the rank and file scrubs.

That’s expected but nowadays you have situations where field bosses, sub bosses, and even a few scrubs that prove to be more of a problem than the bosses. The Borderlands series tend to have a number of them across multiple games.

Was There Any Hope for a Sequel?

With any older game or series, I like to dive into sequel or reboot potential. Often you hear from gamers that there are few original concepts or games being put out by the larger studios or that franchises are getting run into the ground. The magic solution to fixing that is to come up with something new that isn’t a sequel to something we’ve played for the past decade.

I’ve always felt that an easier solution would be to revive or reboot a title that is collecting dust in a developer’s vault. If we haven’t seen the game in a long while, see what can be changed or built upon. There are more mechanics and storytelling is better now than 20 years ago in games.

E.O.E: Eve of Extinction is one of those games that would need to be rebooted before moving it into a sequel. The original wasn’t that good or memorable from start to finish. I remember more about R.A.D: Robot Alchemic Drive than E.O.E and that was another mid-at-best title from the PS2 era.

At the time, there was no hope for a sequel in part because the solo game ended in a way that one game was enough. It was a standalone story and as it was, no one was really clamoring for another trip into Josh’s world to deal with a revived Wisdom Company.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Two strengths for Saints Row included always having fun locations and its turf war approach. We’re going to look at both.

Location, Location, Location

Open-world crime games typically run with a fictional location inspired by a real world city. GTA has Vice City (Miami), Liberty City (New York), and San Andreas (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas) while Mafia has Lost Haven (Chicago), Empire Bay (mostly New York), and New Bordeaux (New Orleans).

Saints Row has its own fictional areas with Steelport and Stillwater being the two main focuses. The 2022 reboot introduced Santo Ileso which is based on Las Vegas. It’s another strong location but there were a few things that didn’t make this a contender for replayability for me. It wasn’t a dismal game but it wasn’t as fun of an adventure as the previous four were.

That’s for another time.

Stilwater in Saints Row 2 and Steelport in SR: The Third were my favorite locations in the franchise. The player spent the first SR game assisting in taking a small gang to the top of the city only to wake up from a coma and find the gang in shambles. Not only that but they’ve lost a lot of turf and parts of the city are changing.

Mind you, between the first and second game—canonically five years apart—the city grew in size. That just meant more room to groove, more space for chaos, and more activities! You could even go on the stroll in SR2. That was very new when you’re used to just picking up sex workers in GTA games and having them drain your money while the car rocks.

In SR: The Third, the gang has gone from a recovered street gang to gangsta celebrities. They’re in a different city away from their power base of Stilwater and the Ultor Corporation isn’t the threat here. Steelport is run by The Syndicate which is made up of three gangs. There’s also the threat of the government’s anti-aging task force which has shown up to drop the hammer.

At the time, there were grumblings about the new location but there will be grumblings about any particular feature or element of a game. I did find the city to be not as active as Stilwater while appearing to be larger—which is always a problem.

That aside, what you were able to do in the city and missions that had you out and about in Steelport were very fun. It also helps that the team you put together in SR2 are better rounded out which is something that would continue in SR4 with the characters having matured while remaining immature and bringing in some new faces.

Turf Wars in Saints Row

Turf wars or gang wars made their debut in open-world crime gangs with GTA: San Andreas. Saints Row, The Godfather, and to a degree Mafia improved on that mechanic. Of the three, Saints Row did the most with it because it was tied closely to the gameplay and story.

Volition got away from that element somewhat in SR4. Sure, there’s still turf to fight for but your main character The Boss is trapped in a simulation and the main opposition comes from an alien controlling things.

No, the first three Saints Row games and to a lesser degree the reboot got turf wars right. Rival gangs were introduced, they were prominent in areas they controlled, and the main missions focused on taking them down and taking over their spots. Success resulted in some perks for the gang, being able to go through a piece of turf without enemies lighting you up, and seeing Saints purple on the map indicating your territory.

Sometimes the battles were pretty spicy, especially if the law showed up or were just passing by. Most of the times, it was your usual slam all the enemies in this mission until you wipe the waves or achieved some objective. In some ways, it was very straight forward but it wasn’t purely “clap the ops to sleep.”

That was the San Andreas approach and sometimes it didn’t work when a stray Balla gang member was stuck somewhere or at the border of the block or turf you were fighting over and you couldn’t find them. It was always that one guy.

If you’ve played the Saints Row franchise, what was your favorite and least favorite title? Also, it was mentioned in passing but have you played The Godfather?

As always, let us know down below!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

GTA: London 1969 (1999)

This was a fun expansion of the OG Grand Theft Auto. This was top-down GTA with a late-1960s London setting. Yes, the red double buses, bobbies, and phone booths were there.

Also there were enjoyable missions with dialogue fitting these gangs and firms. Yeah, the missions in GTA and GTA 2 weren’t the most involved—things were still 2D—but there’s just something about 2D open world and that lack of fluid motion.

This early Grand Theft Auto approach will appear again in this list.

GTA: Liberty City Stories (2005)

Originally a PSP release, Liberty City Stories is prequel to Grand Theft Auto III, which was released roughly four years earlier. This story focused on low-rank Leone Family mobster Toni Ciprani. Toni has returned to Liberty City after four years in hiding following a situation where he killed a made man. At time, Ciprani wasn’t a made man and the killing wasn’t cleared—meaning he broke one of the tenets and had to go.

Sure, he could’ve faced his fate but fleeing to Sicily and letting things die down worked as well.

While the game played a lot like Vice City, the story was better than GTA III. This is in part because the protagonist speaks and seems more involved with the world than Claude Speed from III and later San Andreas. Another thing it had going for it is just the approach of playing through a previous time in the Grand Theft Auto 3D universe and seeing how things came to be in present day—the 2000s.

I will admit that the game is pretty skippable but for lore fans, if you can find it on PSP or PS2…maybe give it a play. It’s fun but I wouldn’t say essential.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006)

Another PSP and PS2 release by the studio duo of Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North, GTA: Vice City Stories is the stronger of the two Stories games. However, with the 3D universe, that was just the case with games released after GTA III. Each game was an improvement over previous titles because Rockstar utilized mechanics from other games in the franchise.

Vice City Stories is centered around Vic Vance, an army corporal who was dishonorably discharged in a double cross for trafficking drugs. Since the game isn’t available to play now, if you’ve played Vice City, Vic is Lance Vance’s brother who was killed at the beginning of the game.

VCS takes place in 1984, two years before Tommy Vercetti’s arrival in the city and allows the player to experience the rise of the short-lived Vance Crime Family.

Again, this plays like an early-2000s 3D universe Grand Theft Auto title but it had a little something extra that really made this a fun time investment. San Andreas featured a couple of features that allowed the player to experience San Andreas through CJ: clothing stores, dates, cheeks, bars, lowriders, clubs, businesses, and gang wars with claimable territory that weakened the opps’ influence in the city.

While GTA: Vice City featured businesses, it was a simple affair of raiding a gang’s front, taking it over and investing money into it. San Andreas typically had more of a story involved in taking over businesses. In Vice City Stories, we have turf wars in the form of a more involved business system. Not only did players take a front over, they also invested in the upkeep and growth of the business both by dropping money into it and doing related missions. Not only that, these businesses had to be defended from opposing gangs.

This mechanic was something I wished returned in future GTA games and is my favorite part of the game. Aside from that, VCS also featured improved combat, with the hand-to-hand stuff taking heavily from San Andreas’ improved combat.

GTA: Chinatown Wars (2009)

This game launched on the popular Nintendo 3DS console. It’s the only game on this list that Rockstar has available for download via app stores. Chinatown Wars uses the GTA and GTA II top-down approach but mixes in some features that weren’t seen in either the 2D or 3D titles.

First, let’s getting a bit into the story. Huang Lee is the nephew of a triad boss living in Liberty City. He is visiting from Hong Kong to hand him a ceremonial sword that belonged to his father. While en route, he is ambushed and the sword stolen.

This results in a lengthy story with some interesting twists and turns along the way. Can’t have a GTA story without some kind of betrayal by perceived allies and/or FIB having the main character by the balls. Maybe Grand Theft Auto VI will break that trope.

Tasked with various jobs to make up for the dishonor of being ambushed, Huang experiences crime the American way. This brings me to a few mechanics I really enjoyed with one being something I wish would return in future titles.

In GTA V, it’s possible to get the cops off of you by making them crash in a chase. Chinatown Wars featured this and while it should’ve been easier because it was top-down, the streets got congested often in this game and could ruin a fun chase. However, the featured did its job well—when players had room to groove.

Another shared feature between the two is hotwiring cars. Being that it was the 3DS and using that stylus was just something developers or Nintendo insisted on, hotwiring in Chinatown Wars could be more involved before players rode off in their in their criminally captured cars.

The featured that impressed me the most and was a feature I loved in GTA-clone Scarface: The World is Yours was the drug trafficking. This was basically Rockstar Games Presents Dope Wars and it was great! Drug prices changed, CCTVs were a problem, suppliers taxed, rivals were salty, drug trucks could be hit—this was the most entertaining part of the game hands down. It was GTA criminal shenanigans and hustling but it was something unique to this game.

Which of the games have you played in the past? Where would you rank them? Are there any gameplay mechanics or characters you’d like to see return?

Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Now, I’m not as hardcore a Destiny 2 player as my younger brother. As a matter of fact, while I did catch the most recent “World’s First” raid, I wasn’t heavily active during the expansion launch. A large part of that had to do with crashes on PlayStation 4.

However, as far as Destiny 2 creators and keeping up with news, I follow to a degree. Even while playing, unless I’m playing with my brother, I tend to get in and find activities where I can just get in and slam such as Iron Banner, strikes that are on the shorter side, or just public events. I’m not particularly interested in jumping puzzles or figuring out mechanics, two important ingredients in the franchise’s gameplay.

Destiny: Rising Launches

I had come across Destiny: Rising on the Google Play Store when it was still in the pre-register phase. Mind you, I didn’t pre-register as I was looking for another game to play. Since it was a bigger mobile game—I don’t reckon Sony or Bungie would get on board with a trash mobile title—it would remain in the “For You” section until launch.

After my brother reminded me that it had launched, I logged on the day after launch and dove into the issues of Haven, the hub city of Destiny: Rising. As mentioned above, this is a sequel to the main Destiny games and I’d say that so far, it’s a good entry.

I’m still going through the story—in true Destiny fashion, character really chat. Everyone’s a yapper in the game and the urge to hit “Skip” was ever present. Fortunately, some cutscenes allow the player to double the speed as a soft skip. I feel this should be for all cutscenes and cinematics.

Move it along, already.

It should be noted that as a NetEase title, there’s the expected gacha element here. It’s actually an important element of the gameplay since the characters are all built to substitute for the more focused build and gear crafting of the main titles.

Characters and Build Crafting

That isn’t to say this game is pick-and-play. The Guardians (characters) all have a light element: solar (fire), void (gravity/space), and arc (lightning). Stasis (ice), strand (kind of like void and stasis) and prismatic (all abilities) aren’t featured yet. However, in true gacha fashion, expect more characters to drop and some to be loaded up with the best skills of those elements.

In Destiny 2, players are free to jump among elemental subclasses as desired and craft builds around certain abilities and aspects. Over on Destiny: Rising, the characters have pretty much settled into their most proficient subclass. The player just has to select the best Guardian for the activity.

Players will get to do some build crafting here but it’s streamlined for both mobile gameplay and how players tend to play mobile. For those who have explored Destiny 2, you will know it’s a bit of a time investment regardless of your skill level. Whether you’re mainly a PvP (player vs. player) or PvE (player vs. environment) gamer, you’re sinking time into the game because there’s so much to manage, improve, craft, and hunt for—never mind actually getting into the adventuring, raiding, and dungeon delving. It’s not necessarily a game where you can jump in for 10 minutes here and there for bite-sized, quick sessions.

In Rising, the approach is geared mainly towards shorter sessions or if you really want to just drain your battery. On the road to team level 61 at the time of writing this, I’ve hovered between both.

Back to the characters! They’re pretty much different subclasses with baked in builds—or abilities geared towards their intended combat and utility style. From there, you’re able to level up their relic abilities—the elemental powers Guardians can use in combat and improve your weapons.

If you haven’t gotten into Destiny: Rising, you might be wondering about armor sets and the like. Don’t worry about that, the focus is on weapons in DR—meaning the Guardians are just rocking with their established armor sets. No one’s running around with mismatched gear or anything.

All of that has been streamlined to cut down the micromanagement aspect of Destiny for mobile. There’s still micromanagement but the amount of stuff to manage is reduced.

Gameplay and Adventuring

I’m certain the build crafting and micromanagement are big draws of the franchise for some players but this game shines with the actual adventuring and in-the-field stuff. The activity and menu UI sets up everything in mainly one location while checking your ghost (your Light imbued companion who guides and revived you).

From the main story mission to PvE, PvP, PvPvE activities, players can find it here along with stuff like rankings, the map, season level, characters, and items. Just like the main games, selecting any kind of adventure or activity will get it started for matchmaking.

There are some adventures that require the player to travel to certain areas. The game will drop you in the region at the closest fast travel spot but there might be some hiking required to the objective. It occurs for some main story missions but for specific characters that aren’t Wolf, the game just drops you in the location their story takes place.

The gunplay in Destiny: Rising is really good. It’s not to the level of Destiny 2 but for a mobile adaptation, it’s really fun and easy to learn. The game allows the player to experience the game in third-person or first-person and I strongly remember going with first. When using super abilities, the perspective is snapped to third-person for the duration as it does in the main games.

I found it odd that third-person was even an option but NetEase Games tend to offer both.

Loot and Odds N’ Ends

Any combat activity or adventure rewards loot in the form of leveled engrams (which can have weapons, weapon mods, etc), one of the game’s various currencies, fragments that can make full engrams), weapon enhancement material, and miscellaneous loot that can be used for other activities.

For instance, you could get bait for fishing from doing strikes or whatever activity. Fishing itself rewards nothing but the fish and occasionally guns, but fish can be sold for fishing shop currency—which can then be used to purchase a variety of fishing and non-fishing goods.

Matchmaking for fire teams tends to be very quick. Very rarely have I left the matchmaking or mission screen because the matching was taking a while. Players are even warned that matchmaking could take a while because of a low participation pool (which I got twice).

Speaking of warnings, in a nice bit of a quality of life feature, Destiny: Rising warned me that a character mission would take at least 15 minutes. I greatly appreciated that.

Another warning: this is a gacha game as far as the meat and potatoes of its business. That means some characters can be purchased and getting the battle pass is recommended but not necessary. The extra bonuses are nice but the grind isn’t too bad in this game. Hell, I primarily grind strikes and other PvE activities…and fishing.

The first wave of characters can be gained via pulls using the associated currencies. Those can be purchased as well or gained as a potential reward. Expect Rising to push players more towards purchasing content when even better or more interesting characters are released.

As a matter of fact, two new characters have been announced as coming soon. All of that said, I say that Rising is a game worth playing.

Will you be play or pass on Destiny: Rising? If you’re already in, what are some of activities and characters you enjoy? Let’s us know in the comments and if you playing, feel free to add me: MetalSwift.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Gaming gives us that and simulation games apply that to occupation and business simulators to great effect. It’s essential to gameplay and keeping players hooked. But this isn’t about status screen UIs or human improvement, we’re looking at three simulators worth diving into right now.

All games but the second are available on PC and console.

Drug Dealer Simulator (Byterunners)

Currently, this has been my primary jam. It’s also my weekend stream starter before getting into some Cyberpunk 2077 shenanigans. Drug Dealer Simulator puts you in the role of a dealer, smuggler, street pharmacist, trafficker, and businessman all in one.

The player is dropped into a city under heavy lockdown with a hard stance against drugs. Eddie, the player’s mentor and plug trains the young trapper on how to do business, get drugs, launder money, and keeps him abreast of story-advancing developments. The narrator fills the player in on more granular aspects while giving an abrasive and humorous take of the trapper’s rise.

While a major aspect is giving out samples and making enough for sales and to hand off to your dealers, I find that the most enjoyable part is actually growing and cooking. Then again, I love crafting in games.

Byterunners have released Drug Dealer Simulator 2 and it looks great but for those who can’t play the sequel, the OG DDS is still a time-eating blast to dive into.

American Truck Simulator (SCS Software)

Honestly, either American Truck Simulator or European Truck Simulator 2 are a great pick for your simulation game session. It exists in this realm of having time limits on deliveries, fines for traffic infractions, and needing to gas up but also being extremely chill.

The most stressful parts tend to come from falling a bit behind on a delivery. Even worse when is cutting it close, being at the destination but being unable to get the truck and trailer in the loading area exactly.

Beyond that, the player mainly  manages their trucking career, handles their skill points, purchase trucks and upgrades. As the game advances and the player makes more cash from deliveries, they can invest in their own trucking company and hire drivers NPC to do deliveries.

There’s also an online mode where players join other truckers for convoys. It’s not a mode I’ve explored heavily but it was fun doing deliveries through Nevada and hearing my fellow trucker lamenting about traffic up ahead.

Of the games in this list, I’d say American/Euro Truck Simulator has the best music. It uses streaming radio in-game and it works perfectly as traveling music with a lot of variety. This is also the game with the most longevity. The games are all addictive and the player might have fun in restarting or advancing their businesses further but the Truck Simulator titles are different in that it’s as close to a perfect balance of chill and challenge.

That goes a long way for simulation games and replay value.

Gas Station Simulator (DRAGO Entertainment)

Now this is a game that increases the stress of cops chasing the player in DDS while also having a chill approach like the Truck Simulator games. Sure, placing and stocking shelves is easy (as someone who has done it, it depends) but keeping the store clean and seeing that tour bus pull up to the gas station is another story.

Most of the week, it’s basic dead end gas station in the desert business. Yeah, there’s an element of shadiness going on as far as cash flow but business is steady and manageable. However, the weirdest things go down in the gas station once the bus rolls in but the player is going to make a wad or two with the bump in business.

Managing inventory, store cleanliness and tending to the service at the pump are the player’s initial duties but eventually workers can be hired to manage that. There is stronger storyline here than in the other two entries and exploration plays a part in that. There are also a few other activities to get into outside of pure business.

What are some of your favorite simulation games and are there any you’re currently playing? Share in the comments!

Staff Writer; James “Metal” Swift Jr.

Gaming since 1989 and headbanging since 1999, James is a talented writer, podcast host, and lifelong comic book fan who loves all things old-school and retro. His passions include RPGs, wrestling, and classic gaming culture. You can also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Meanwhile, a gamer could feel strongly about a title and want it modernized or to at least get a sequel—yes, decades after the previous release. Obviously, I’m not a game designer or associated with a developer, so you can guess which group I fall in with this list.

We’re going to look at five titles that could do with a comeback season whether it’s a sequel or a reboot.

Sleeping Dogs (2012, United Front/Square Enix)

Sleeping Dogs is considered the spiritual successor to the True Crime series, a PS2 GTA-clone where the police detective element was the focus. The True Crime series was supposed to have a third entry based again in New York—that later became Hong Kong with United Front’s work on the then unnamed title. However, that was axed by Activision. Mind you, the True Crime: New York City did have some big-name TV and film actors doing voice work for a game that…it flopped, folks.

We’re talking less than 80,000 units sold in its first two weeks. That lets you know that this wasn’t going to meet the budget put into the game at all.

Then United Front came along with what would become Sleeping Dogs after Activision passed on publishing it. The rest is history: it was received very well and presented enough that a sequel wasn’t out of the question. Performance-wise, it sold enough units to warrant exploring a sequel—yet here we are.

The game was supposed to see a sequel which followed the future cases and adventures of Shen and was to feature a mobile gaming aspect that impacted Sleeping Dogs 2’s gameplay. While there is no sequel on the horizon, the license was picked up and is being turned into a film.

Kengo (2000, Genki/Crave)

Let’s get into even older franchises that have seen no recent developments—such as Bushido Blade. Well, let’s go with the spiritual successor: Kengo. While Bushido Blade added a realistic element to the 3D fighting game genre with wounds and bleed outs resulting in victory or defeat, I enjoyed Kengo’s approach of putting the player in the shoes of a traveling swordsman.

This wasn’t going through different parts of a village and slaughtering the opps and their heavies. No, you went from established dojo to established dojo to practice, learn techniques, and apply those techniques in duels. Then you fought the masters of the dojos and eventually participated in the imperial tournament. Outside of the absence of some slice-of-life stuff, this was basically a swordsman simulator.

Now, the third entry was a bit of a bust because it was a garden variety fighting game with swords and we already had Bushido Blade 2 as well as Soulcalibur and Battle Arena Toshiden by that time.

Rival Schools (1997, Capcom)

On the one hand, it’s like—there are enough fighting games out there, do we really need to bring back one from almost 30 years ago? Especially if nothing new is done, it’s just a return of this game’s roster. Capcom even did something new with Street Fighter 6, so a Rival Schools return would have to be something fresh instead of an expensive investment in nostalgia.

I say add aged Rival Schools characters to the Street Fighter roster because Capcom had some great characters from the R.S and Street Fighter EX titles. Batsu? Skullomania? Yes, add them to the roster.

Inindo: Way of the Ninja (1991, Koei)

I can’t say enough good things about this Super Nintendo title. It was like playing as an officer in Romance of the Three Kingdoms in turn-based JRPG. For a game released in 1991, it had features that would make many RPGs worth playing multiple times. The main feature is the recruiting of allies actively forming a rapport with them.

However, some potential allies or teammates might not agree with your motivations, or they might believe that serving Nobunaga is the ultimate job—when you’re trying to take him out for razing your village.

The other major element is that each month, the landscape/map is updated with the battles that went down. The player can work for a daimyo and by doing mission for them successfully, they can participate in battles. Meaning, they can impact the power dynamic in feudal Japan and probably weaken Nobunaga’s influence.

With the advancements in development and writing over 30-plus years, I’d say Koei could make the ultimate ninja game if they decided to revisit this title.

Alpha Protocol (2010, Obsidian Entertainment/Sega)

Listen, Alpha Protocol wasn’t perfect at all and at times it could drag at points, but the game was one of the best espionage games made. The only franchises or games I would put over it are Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex (under Square Enix). Having to travel to different locations around the world for missions, decisions that impacted future missions, a decent combat system that could’ve been more polished in a sequel—Alpha Protocol had the makings for a good, regular series for Sega.

It was a spy game that was purely about spycraft. This wasn’t a shooter based around a spy or spy fighting game, no—stealth was necessary here, folks. Negotiation was necessary as well. You could tell that Obsidian Entertainment had plans for the gameplay mechanics in place and that more could’ve been done with those mechanics.

My two gripes with AP are that the game felt a little short for what was going down—it’s the same feeling I had for Deus Ex: Human Revolution—and it ended on a something of a cliffhanger. The combat, camera, and all that didn’t bother me as much as it bothered others, but a cliffhanger will always burn my biscuit.

What are your five games that you’d love to see get a reboot or sequel? Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.