I’m not sure at what point I managed to lose my way but I do know me of relatively few years back would be ashamed by more recent me for avoiding Skool Daze Reskooled because of how it looks.
Like, I’m not here to argue it’s an amazing looker of a game but I’m definitely here to point out that for someone who defends making games at most levels, it’s pretty bloody hypocritical of me to make a thing of this. Especially when what it might well lack in looks, it more than makes up for as a remake.
I’ve been kicking myself about this for week or so now. Considering my roots in remakes, it’s pretty atrocious of me. I’d be made up to be able to write a Skool Daze a tenth of what this is and Molyneux only knows, I’m personally responsible for making games that look worse. Honestly, I’ve no defence.
Crucially, I’m not damning it with faint praise. It is a great take on Skool Daze. If this had landed on my old remakey haunting grounds and/or been entered into one of the prominent remake competitions I used to run, I’d have been a strong advocate for it. You would think the recommendations of my friends and peers would have tipped me off, but nooooo.
Live and learn though, eh. Not exactly the first time I’ve been wrong.
Skool Daze Reskooled is pretty cheap on Steam as well as Android/iOS. It’s pretty good! Sorry.
I know it’s almost like the Ubi-game fan club round these parts recently but I promise, that’s mainly because I’m clearing out a backlog of things I meant to post but didn’t.
I enjoyed my time with Far Cry 5 a lot though it certainly had its Very Ubisoft issues with magic villains and a side order of out of place Very Ubisoft nastiness, amongst other things.
It’s par for the course with the main entries into the Far Cry series, that’s 3 out of 3 now since folks settled on the icon clearing formula where the joyous systemic chaos of crashing a car into a tree, accidentally setting fire to some wildlife then getting into a boat just to crash that into a tree and now everything is on fire and is that a bear, oh no is offset by the edgy and ill fitting nonsense of a story.
Maybe I’d appreciate it more were I fourteen or something, I dunno! That was quite a long time ago now.
The inbetweeny games are where I look to for the more interesting stuff. Blood Dragon misfired as much as it worked but painful tutorial aside, made a great showcase for how well the base raiding silliness works with a lot of the peripheral stuff sidelined even further or removed entirely. Primal’s riff on survival clearly filtered through to Days Gone and stretched the formula a bit. New Dawn, on the other hand, felt a lot like the game I wanted Far Cry 5 to be.
With only a short interlude into absurd magic mans stuff and its embrace of allowing the player even more freedom with few interruptions, it fixed a lot of the issues of 5. Also! What an amazingly beautiful game!
Its colourful view of a post nuclear future incredibly at odds with the usual videogame grey and green dullness gave the folks working on the map rework the leeway to go to town. Still very much the photorealism of Ubi games that we’re used to but now with a slightly more fantastical bent and honestly, I loved it.
Back in glowing arena shooter territory (you know, for a change), I’ve been playing a fair bit of Funtime recently. It’s enjoyable!
If you’re already well acquainted with Geometry Wars RE 2 then the arcade modes will be fairly familiar. You’re plonked in the middle of an arena, glowing things are going to attack you, you shoot them before they kill you. Videogames!
Particle spuffing enemies right here.
I’ll be honest, that was all I really wanted from it and it acquits itself well in that department. I’ve easily sunk a few hours into it and been really happy, all told. Would recommend etc…
It’s worth noting that the survival modes (as they’re known) come in three flavours too, each presenting a different sized arena. I found the initial survival mode a bit too cramped and the third choice, “open”, where the game moves to an infinitely scrolling asteroid field, a bit too much. Large, on the other hand, is where I’ve settled.
There are other modes, mind. The main attraction is a colour switching dodge and shoot variation, navigating the arena requires a lot of button pressing to ensure the player is the right colour at the right time and constant movement is a must.
Lasers. Every game needs lasers.
Not going to lie, I couldn’t play it. That’s not really a slight on the game, I’m just older and more sore these days and my ability to rapidly button mash is not what it was. I genuinely couldn’t tell you if that aspect of the game is any good, so I won’t! It looked nice, if that’s any consolation.
Dragging the game back into more familiar territory is the waves mode requiring the player to clear one wave of baddies, then another, then another.
There’s a few walls placed within the arena to shuffle things up a bit and I’ve churned through around 20 of the 50 possible stages so far and it does get pretty frantic. I wouldn’t even consider ducking in to this mode until you’ve unlocked the maximum level of firepower, the friendly drone and have a few bombs under your belt unless you’re really good at this sort of thing though.
A yellow thing goes boom. In yellow.
I’m not 100% sure but I think some of the later stages may be impossible to complete without either earning the colour switching or having some bombs in your inventory. It’s an odd thing to let you play unequipped but maybe I’m just rubbish and can’t see the way out! Can’t really rule that out with my attention span. I do have a really poor attention span. Did I mention I have a really poor attention span?
The final two modes, “Zones” and “Funtime” require colour switching so I can’t say I’ve been compelled to give them a shot for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. I can’t really do them justice so no point really.
All told, that’s a fairly nice selection of modes to toy around with. Survival and Waves are enough fun that I really don’t mind there being modes I rather literally cannot play.
If your mum asks, I haven’t got your rotating space laser cube.
Oh! There’s also an unlock system where the stuff carries across all modes that I’m not entirely convinced has much benefit in being an unlock system (rather than just handing the player all the abilities from the off). But! I am the person who starts the player off overpowered in virtually every game I make so maybe don’t listen to me. Regardless, it’s not exactly a grind to get everything maxxed out so perhaps it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things anyway.
A few rounds before you’re a colourful death machine never hurt anyone.
The online home of Rob Fearon, disabled videogame maker, games journalist, crap film watcher, gobshite and doodler. Rob’s been around games a very, very long time now and Punching Robots Club is their personal blog featuring whatever nonsense takes their fancy.
Sometimes it’s a sketch, a review, an article about videogames, a pointer to something Rob finds cool. Whatever, really. Expect anything, Rob’s tired of being a brand online and so it’s just stuff and things these days. Nice stuff and things, mind you.
