curiousities - the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex

okay, so there was a tiny little bit of a delay as far as updates go on here, but that's what happens when you got a old virtual machine set up and you goof around with it for a while. for now, have something a bit different.

one of the things i've been taught as a kid is what decisions to make, and sometimes those decisions are really hard. as we grow in age, we also begin to outgrow the toys we liked in our younger years, which leads to one of the hardest choices we have to make. do we give our old playthings to a new generation of kids for them to enjoy? or do we keep them as mementos of a time long gone?

for me, i went the middle road of "keep and actually still use to a degree since i've resigned to the idea that i'm still a kid at heart and enjoy kid things despite being in my twenties".

long name for that road, but hey. first time reviewing a toy on here. and for that first time, i'll be reviewing a Jurassic Park toy. :"D

i'll be honest, i never watched Jurassic Park as a kid, let alone the third film. then again i've heard less than favorable things about the third film so it's probably for the best. despite that, i was familiar with the Jurassic Park brand, half because it was one of those series of the 90s that most kids were familiar with due to being plastered everywhere, and half because i really liked dinosaurs.

never did own much of the toys or anything that came out of it, but i did own a few demo CDs from cereal boxes, and the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex.

the bare dex itself (img courtesy of the Museum of Play), my sticker-covered dex, and the open dex

manufactured in 2001 by Tiger Electronics and Hasbro, the Dino Dex was pretty much John Hammond's response to the Pokedex. this five-inch-tall handheld not only served as a comprehensive (if outdated) database on over 50 dinosaurs, but also a planner, notepad, and calculator. it also had two games that were enough to keep kids occupied for a while.

while nowadays pretty much all of those functions can be covered by stuff like Androids and iPhones, for the early 00s, this was a pretty nifty device for kids. it was a PDA built for kids and younger dino fans, and was a cheap alternative to more expensive PDA devices at the time, and pretty sturdy for what it's worth. kinda surprised mine still works after 15 years, even if i had to get my dad to replace a rusted battery coil in it recently. and the fact that mine's covered in dino stickers that are well over several years old.

anyhow, let's give this thing a more indepth look, shall we?

STEAMPUNK - Undertale

well, this took me a while to do. half because i needed to complete the game before writing this, half because it's kind of hard to really describe this game to newfolk without spoiling a great deal.

hoo boy

hoooooooo boy

back in 2013, word about a demo for an RPG by the name of Undertale came about. a bloke i knew recommended it to me, saying it seemed like something i'd like since i liked cute monsters and such. i'm not one to turn down anything with cute monsters, so i took a look at the demo. and hoo boy, in that hour-long span, i didn't think i'd end up feeling so much over a demo.

i wasn't able to help fund the kickstarter for Undertale when it came out the same year (i had no idea how to use a credit card until 2014 ok), but i kept watch on the game via twitter and Steam Greenlight and such so i could buy the game when it came out. two years later, just last month, Undertale finally saw release on Steam. and what did i do when i saw it available for purchase?

well okay i actually held off on buying it since i already spent a lot on a copy of Soul Nomad that month, but a pal of mine was kind enough to buy me a copy as their half of an art trade. kudos and shout-out to you, Muno. you're a rad pal. <3

so i guess now i should actually talk about what Undertale actually is, right? developed almost entirely by indie musician Toby "Radiation" Fox, Undertale is a charming role-playing game about a young human kid who falls down a hole while exploring a mysterious mountain. this hole leads to the Underground, where monsters have been trapped following the aftermath of a terrible war between the humans and monsters. what follows is a tale of... well, many feelings. happiness, sadness, fear, love, friendship... and maybe a bit of "what the hell just happened" at points.

i think it goes without saying that i seriously recommend that you grab it off Steam right now if you have the ten bucks to spare or try out the demo for a taste of what to expect. though, it wouldn't be that much of a rec if i didn't explain why i love this game so much, right?

well, if the 98% positive reviews or 97/100 metascore don't convince you, read on. or read on anyway if they do convince you, i dunno. don't worry, this review is spoiler free, and all screencaps used for the review are from the game site page and steam page.

STEAMPUNK - LUFTRAUSERS

sometimes a game i rec merits one of those long-winded sort of forewords like i did with my Conker rec; how it stands out to me, a few general opening thoughts on it and games like it, and why i like it amongst other wordy things.

however, i won't be doing that today. namely since this is more in-depth than a standard rec of mine, so most of the wordiness will come from further in. aaaand there's not much i can open on outside of "i friggin' LOVE bullet hell shmups" as far as this game's concerned. so with that out of the way, welcome to STEAMPUNK, a new segment dedicated to reviews of Steam games i particularly like despite being named after an aesthetic i'm not all that fond of.

yeah. anyhow, let's talk Luftrausers.

developed by Vlambeer, Luftrausers is a arcade-esque shoot-em-up (shmup) game featuring multi-directional movement (as opposed to just being top-scrolling or side-scrolling like in other shmups), and gameboy-like graphical aesthetic, and customizable fighter planes. by completing missions, you can unlock more weapons, plane bodies, and engines that change how your plane functions.

and in line with bullet hell games like DoDonPachi and Touhou, it is and will get very hard. though if that sort of thing is your cup of tea, keep reading.

gen recs - Conker's Bad Fur Day

been meaning to do an actual game recommendation for a while. it'd kind of be a stretch to say these are reviews; i find it hard to rate things on a 1-5 scale, so i just say things from my own experiences and say whether i like it or not. whether you want to check these things out is up to you.

quite a lot of video games have been described as an "experience"; to me, an "experience" is something you never really forget, whether in real life or video games. for video games, what people view as an experience really depends on who you ask; people fondly look upon platformers like Spyro and Banjo-Kazooie for their colorful worlds and cast, adventure/RPGs like Final Fantasy 7 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time for their epic scale and story, and games like Doom and Mortal Kombat for being those types of games that you played when your parents weren't around to scold you for playing violent stuff like that (or if you were particularly unlucky, you got scolded for playing them anyway).

well, it'd probably be a stretch to call Conker's Bad Fur Day as epic a story as FF7, but it's definitely got some colorful characters that also tend to use equally-as-colorful language. alongside some other things that parents would probably yell at their kids for seeing/hearing. and yet said kids still played it anyway because it had a cartoony squirrel as a playable character. also bathroom jokes. how they managed to get ahold of copies of the game is a mystery, though probably not one that's too lost to time if we have 12-year-olds playing Call of Duty and GTA and all that.

so while i work on the next segment of my Disgaea 1 manga readthrough, why don't we give this game a bit of a look-at? though keep in mind, this game is M-rated for a reason, and the warnings on both the ESRB rating and the box itself will remind you of that (front cover/back cover ; images courtesy of DKvine).

so yeah, unless cursing, cartoony bloody violence, sexual themes, and poop jokes are your bag, steer clear for the now.