Lord Spencer's Gaming (and other stuff) Blog

Of all the video game mascots born in the 90s, Gex has always been the one that most embodied the spirit of the decade. With his sarcastic humor and misuse of parody as a style, he was as obnoxious a 90s star as you can get. Other than the character himself, the games he featured in were not unique, even if they were not actually bad. The first 2D platformer was a competent game that played well on the Saturn at a time when 3D platformers were ugly as sin. Enter the Gecko was Gex's first foray into 3D platforming, and it works well. However, I am not sure "well" cuts it when there are so many better platformers than it. 98: Gex: Enter the Gecko: Year: 1998. Genre: 3D Platformer. Publisher: Midway Games, Crystal Dynamics. Developer: Crystal Dynamics. First things first, I am changing my rating system to a simpler 10-point system. Any game scoring above a 7 is fully recommended, and any scoring below that I consider a waste of time. That leaves an ambiguous score of 7,...

  Disruptor is a competent Doom-like FPS with little to deviate it from the scores of such games. It is worth remembering only as a footnote in the development history of Insomniac Games, which started with this unremarkable game and then went on to become a powerhouse developer. 99: Disruptor: Year: 1996. Genre: Doom-Like FPS. Publisher: Universal Interactive Studios. Developer: Insomniac Games.                   First things first, I am changing my rating system to a simpler 10 point system. Games that get above a 7 I fully recommend, and those that get below that are mostly a waste of time. That leaves the score of 7 to depend on your taste. "Walk softly and carry a big stick" Games in the 5th generation started to have more of a narrative focus, and games like Disruptor could not avoid having a story. This time, the story is revealed through poorly acted FMVs before any mission. To be fair, maybe it is not fair to comment on the ac...

 It came, it saw, and it sure as hell bloody conquered. With its entry into the console race, the electronic giant, Sony, was a pro athlete competing against high school kids. Not only did Sony convincingly "win" the 5th generation console wars, it forever changed the gaming landscape. At least, it started the change finalized with Sega's exit with the Dreamcast. Simply put, Sony managed to grab all the momentum of the SNES and run with it, expanding gaming into a worldwide phenomenon. Selling better than the N64 in both North America and Japan, but also selling over 10M units in the rest of the world. Sony did this by having the largest quantity of quality games, with most of the star publishers on the SNES migrating to the PS1. It had an early start to the N64 and managed to get exclusivity deals with major publishers. Also, the 5th generation is where 3D gaming exploded, and Sony's console was better at it than the Sega Saturn which was released at th...

  From the moment the opening cinematic played, when the game's theme opening notes started and the music began to soar, I realized I was on to something great. That was my experience when I first played Grandia more than 20 years ago, and I am happy to say that my experience has not dimmed one bit playing it again on the Switch remastered port. If anything, I appreciate it even more now. Made by the same team that successfully brought Anime to life in making the Lunar JRPG games, their magnum opus on the Sega Saturn and the PS1 was, and may still be, the closest homage to the adventurous spirit of Studio Ghibli classics such as Castle in the Sky . With its great story, charming cast of characters, innovative and brilliant battle system, and lovely sprite and portrait work, I can easily say that Grandia is one of the PS1's best games. 29: Grandia: Year: 1997, 1999, 2019 (Switch). Genre: JRPG. Publisher: Sony, GungHo Online (Switch). Developer: Game Arts. F...