What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

August 9th, 2025

I just went to get a drive thru coffee, and an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile drove by while I was waiting. It has nothing to do with games, but it's interesting to be waiting for an overpriced latte and see a giant hot dog zoom by.

Anyway, last night I rolled credits on Vampire Survivors. I don't even feel like I'm at 25% in this game, so it's not a big accomplishment. It's a nice milestone, though.

Before that, I tried a super cheap game called Mars Survivor on my PS4. I was expecting a little Survivors-like in space, but it was more of a super-simplified survival game. It drove me a little crazy that it's trying to get me to pony up for mobile style microtransactions on console, but it seems small enough that I kind of want to press on.

As far as kart racing goes, I tried Smurfs Kart on my XBox last night. It was actually fine! I really like the 80s Smurfs cartoon, so there is some bias at play here, but the Smurfs being tiny allowed for some charming tracks that play with scale. There's quite a lot to do and unlock here, too. It's not an amazing game, but I can see myself putting quite a lot of time into it.

August 8th, 2025

Yesterday, in kart racing, I tried Garfield Kart on Steam. It's kind of boring, but was pretty amazing compared to the Wii games I was playing the day before. It was a little less fun because it was working predictably, but it was still kind of a relief that this game worked. I cleared the first cup in 50cc and felt great ambivalnce about continuing.

After that, I tried Griffin, a PC port of a Game Gear tank shooter I had stashed away, before kart racing totally cracked me. I expected a typical shmup, but this was slow paced and deliberate, which isn't a bad thing at all. It has some nice pop-art-y style to it, too, which is charming. The second stage boss's patterns are mysterious to me, but it'll be fun to figure this all out.

To finish this post off, I finished one of my silly numbers-go-up mobile games yesterday, called Idle Cat Fish Pond. I haven't been posting about these things much because they feel more like fidget toys than games, making them boring to write about. In this one, I just clicked on stuff and sometimes ignored an ad that it showed me. Still, even though it was low effort and no skill, it was kind of satisfying to collect every fish. I have some more games from this company on my phone and tablet, too, and they all seem pretty similar. Another one will probably pop up soon.

August 7th, 2025

Last night, I tested some cheap and wonky Wii kart racers from eBay, and it was a doozy. Myth Makers Super Kart GP was a doozy in a fun way. It has bad motion controls, weird and muffled music, and seems extremely unforgiving. I kept hitting walls, bursting into flames, and launching into rivers, though, and I was having a blast. If I'm going to be playing a bad game, I want to play one that is bad in a funny and entertaining way, which this was fulfilling for me. I probably won't ever clear it, but I'm at least going to unlock the girl with cat ears.

Please note, the screenshot below is of a race I lost badly.

I tried M&M's Kart Racing, too, and found it completely incomprehensible. The controls were also bad in this, but it had dingy, pixel-y looking graphics and a total lack of charm, too. It's going to be really funny when I get someone else to play it with me.

That kind of killed my kart racing spirit for the night, so I played Sonic Wings Reunion a little before bed. It was a nice palette cleanser.

August 6th, 2025

I tried All-Star Fruit Racing last night. My biggest thought on it right now is that, if you actively fall asleep during a race, it's difficult, if not impossible, to catch back up and win. I will hopefully have some slightly more in-depth thoughts on this after my next play session.

August 5th, 2025

Last night, as I turned on my Miyoo Mini+ and decided to try the Game Boy Color port of Woody Woodpecker Racing, I said to myself, "If I cannot play as Chilly Willy, I am going to jump off a cliff." Chilly Willy, upsettingly, is an unlockable character, but I don't even know where any cliffs are and didn't have shoes on to go find one at that point. Instead, I played the game for a few minutes and vibed with it a lot more than I expected to. I'm not very used to isometric racers, and I lost every race I tried. It was easy to understand where I'd gone wrong, though, and it gave me that good "ah, I'm sure I'll get it if I can just tighten a turn here, and shave off a second here," feeling. Maybe I can't race as an excellent little penguin yet, but I will not mind getting to that point too much.

I also did a couple of puzzles in Picross S: Genesis & Master System. It was fine!

August 4th, 2025

Yesterday, I decided to see if I could get Hello Kitty and Sanrio Friends Racing over and done with. It wasn't very fun! The race opponent AI was so bad that I won the final race when every single one of them got stuck on a hill. Keroppi drove past the jam-up on the last lap, and then I watched his little car turn around to join them in the purgatory of gentle slopes. The boat controls made the apple collection missions on water really miserable, too, with turns that were difficult to control and godawful terrible drifting.

The graphics are cheerful and sunny, though, and as a proud cute-stuff-liker, I have to admit that I really liked a lot of the track details. The vehicle colors were all vibrant, all the characters got cute little race outfits, and it was all just very colorful and pleasant to look at. It's a shame it wasn't actually fun, but I can't say there was nothing I enjoyed here. I just wish all these cute designs had been used for blind bags and stationery, not a rubbish kart racer.

That being said, the slowness of Hello Kitty and Sanrio Friends Racing makes the 20 tedious missions a lot more doable than the unhinged speed at which Supersonic Tank Cats operates. I kind of like the races in Supersonic Tank Cats, but the controls are not well suited to the precision collection missions require, at least on Switch.

In non-racer gaming, Ad SHOOt got patched on Switch, so I gave that another try. It actually fixed up a lot of the slowdown issues I'd been having, so I got to the stage 3 boss in one credit last night. I do think the gimmicky bosses are more fun to play than the stages, so I'm not sure if I want to try and one credit clear this on easy yet. There's still enough slowdown present that I think I'd have to pick this up on Steam for a real chance. It's fun, though, so for now, I'll just enjoy it.

August 3rd, 2025

I finished Halloween Racer yesterday! It had a charming theme and some nice fake-3D hills and valleys around the tracks, and I kind of liked the focus on checkpoints rather than flat out competition, too. It was more dull than challenging, though, and it must have been a chore for kids back in the day to run 18 races in one sitting on real hardware. Still, after clearing Expert cup, I was rewarded with one of the finest game completion screens I have ever seen. "Great. You have won all races," is such a wonderful message for players! I can almost hear the dev team going, "Wow, good for you, you want a medal or something?" It was delightful.

I don't have racing games out of my system yet, so I went from this to Gensou Skydrift, a Touhou kart racer where the girls ride each other like skateboards. It's the kind of game I'd be excited to explain to my co-workers. It was a little buggy, and had some loops so incomprehensible my brain struggled with how they related to the concept of 3D space. As a Sonic fan, I felt right at home and played until my system's battery died, then came back for more later. I'll probably finish the campaign here in the next few days.

I also played a round of Vampire Survivors, but didn't accomplish anything.

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