PlayStation Game Recommendations | mariteaux

[#] NFL Blitz (Midway, 1997)

Uncalled for, but a LOT of fun to watch.

Despite being raised in a Madden household, my affection for the games begins and ends with the early 2000s entries. I think it was accidental I liked any of them, as they're a bit slow and technical for my taste (but so is the real game). Thankfully, EA didn't yet have exclusivity over the league, so there was no shortage of much speedier, more gratuitous competition—chief among them NBA Jam's sister series NFL Blitz. And y'know what, playing it now? I think I missed out!

NFL Blitz was originally an arcade game, and it shows in the quick matches, simple control scheme (you pick receivers with the D-pad), reduced player count, no run plays (quarterbacks can still run the ball), and automated kickoffs and punts. The hits are nasty, and you have the ability to toss around and leg drop fallen players on the other team after the play is over. The NFL was not happy about all the violence back in the day, but really, isn't that why people watch real football?

This port looks about standard for 3D PS1 football games, but it's super slick to play. The Season mode is about my only real gripe—you get a few games in, and the game RNGs cheap fumbles and interceptions into existence constantly, cheating you out of easy wins. But then that ridiculous TV commentator pipes up ("that was uncalled for, but a lot of fun to watch!") and I have a giggle and all is well. Seriously, Blitz entertains and satisfies like few other PlayStation football games do.

[#] Pac-Man World (Namco, 1999)

Ah shit, here comes Pac-Man.

I already beat the next two Pac-Man World games. Had to go for the hat trick, right? Mostly, I remember this one frustrating me as a kid—and then frustrating me as an adult, to the point where I actually streamed it back in 2019 only to give up on the Anubis Rex boss and play Minecraft instead. Sure enough, it all came flooding back to me—this game was built by assholes. It might look bright and colorful (and it certainly is lush), but it's got the heart of an NES platformer, so take your time, learn where's safe to stand for the bosses, be precise (I relied on the D-pad in my playthrough), and expect unavoidable damage.

Pac-Man has to (and I do mean has to, as the game rudely reminds you should to get to the final boss without them) rescue six of his friends from the clutches of Toc-Man, scattering them across six lands from ruins to space to weirdass, spinning funhouse levels. These levels are nicely varied, not all that long, let you save often, and provide ample opportunities for bonus lives, thankfully. Mazes are naturally built into the levels and provided as optional extras for finding Galaxians in levels, but the ghost AI and occupational hazards of some of the later mazes make them a headache, especially when you're trying to conserve lives for the actual quest portion.

And of that quest portion! If you're used to the free camera of the PS2 Pac-Man World games, here, you're given a fixed 2D platformer-like camera—though Pac-Man still moves in 3D. This means, yes, you can fall right off the edge of stages quite easily where your depth perception fails you. I'm not even getting into the variety of flame jet hazards, wonky spinning platforms, clunky bosses, and traps that basically expect you to tank damage. I don't like save states, but I wound up relying on them as levels got more..."creative" over time. At the end of the day, Pac-Man World is a quick, cute adventure with some neat ideas that nonetheless finds your suffering very, very funny.

[#] Quake II (Activision, 1999)

Great port, average source material.

I was in the mood for a PS1 FPS, and among the pack, Quake II stood out for lineage alone. That said, I was pretty underwhelmed by the PC version of Quake II, a decently built and yet unremarkable, overly-long blastathon through too many grimy metal corridors and the occasional human torture chamber. Fun enough while it was on, but really kinda boring next to the first one. One thing that attracted me to the PS1 port is that it's half the length, featuring an abridged version of the campaign with five out of the ten areas from the PC version. Turns out, for a game with so little variety, shorter is better!

The default controls suffer from the game being released pre-Halo. While the analog sticks are supported, it's not "one moves, one looks"—both move and look, just on different axes. This would make the game unplayable if not for the wonderful fact that the PlayStation Mouse is supported. In mouse mode, the sticks aren't supported, but the D-pad moves, left shoulders switch weapons, and the Mouse aims, shooting with the left button and jumping with the right. It feels completely natural even with the one-handed DualShock grip you'll need to use. (The stiff D-pad does mean movement still isn't as fluid as the PC version, however, and even on Easy, the game likes to spring enemies on you, so definitely crank the difficulty down.)

As for the port itself, it's damn impressive. The framerate stays very respectable about 95% of the time with few concessions on graphics from the software-rendered PC original, even adding lens flares on lights, and minimal texture warping. There are routine chamberlocks for loading chunks of the very split up original levels, but these are so quick, I really didn't mind. Things aren't perfect, mind you. You can only save at designated loading zones (where the PC version lets you save whenever you want), and it can be weirdly buggy, with stage buttons and menu options not registering and the like. (That could be DuckStation acting up though.) On the whole, Quake II's PS1 port is as great as Quake II itself is average.

[#] Rage Racer (Namco, 1997)

Max speed on the mediterranean.

Here's two things you should know about me: I like racing games and I suck at racing games. The first Ridge Racer is a PlayStation racing classic (how could it not be? It was the pack-in title for the whole system), but it's never been my favorite thanks to the bonkers, slip-and-slide car handling. Rage Racer, on the other hand, the third in the series, may just be my favorite racer on the entire system—I might even like it more than Gran Turismo 2.

Rage doesn't support the analog sticks, but it controls great, with tight turning and a really satisfying weight to the cars. There's still power sliding, but it feels more like a punishment and you'd best avoid it unless you're trying to stall out. You earn credits after each race you can use to very coarsely tune up your car, get a new paint job, or even put your name on the hood of your car, making this one of the first racing games to feature a garage and tune-up system.

While you only get one course, it is eye candy—waterfalls, gigantic cliffs, bridges and tunnels (your speedometer even glows when you're inside, nice touch), and a beautiful Mediterranean shoreline. These are genuinely some of the most appealing 3D graphics I've ever seen the PlayStation put out. A curious midpoint between the bumper cars of Ridge Racer and the sleep-inducing extreme detail of later racing games, Rage actually avoids the pitfalls of both to great success.

[#] Robotron X (Midway, 1996)

Electrifying—on the right setup.

I've had a morbid attachment to this game since I was a wee lad. In fact, it was one of the original game reviews I wrote for this section when I started doing them on cammy.somnol. To be clear, on console, Robotron X is still a mess. The framerate is horrific (hovering around 10FPS at worst), which makes it difficult to tell what the fuck is going on when dragged-out waves of respawning robots fill the screen, and the lack of DualShock support means you're holding down that shitass PS1 controller D-pad for minutes at a time. Not great!

All that said, we happen to live in The Future (not the Robotron one—yet), and emulators might just be able to fix most of these issues. I normally like my emulation console-accurate, but I've already gassed RetroAchievements up for making me like PS1 Space Invaders, so let's keep going. A little birdie tipped me off once that overclocking DuckStation gets this game's framerate up, way up. Paired with being able to map the face buttons to the thumbsticks, plus memorizing a power-up code or two, that should fix most of the issues, shouldn't it?

Yes! A 500% overclock gets you a solid 60FPS in damn near any chaotic situation, meaning navigating near-death Robotron encounters and picking up humans becomes more than possible—it becomes mesmerizing, habit-forming, fun! Seriously, I've been itchy for this one all week, cleaning out 25 levels at a time like a creepy bald chimney sweep. Even the eerie, skeletal visuals have grown on me. None of this makes Robotron X a better game (Robotron 64 is still the way to go on hardware), but it does make it a better experience, revealing its true form as a psycho zoneout game with a thrilling, throbbing electronic soundtrack.

[#] Space Invaders (Activision, 1999)

The songs you grow to like never stick at first.

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to judge a book by its cover? Mine didn't, and that probably explains something. Still, this game drew me in in a weird way, so let me give you the Wikipedia rundown of PS1 Space Invaders so I can make my point. It's a 3D remake of the original, ten waves to a planet, each with bosses and aliens with funny attacks and power-ups, and you can unlock the original emulated Space Invaders. It was a little slow and easy at first, and I had a pretty middling review written up for it and scheduled for weeks—and then I went to try out its RetroAchievements set.

RetroAchievements is a site that gives you achievement sets, points, and trophies for various emulated retro games. If that sounds dumb to you, hold on. RA has given me reason to dive into games I'd written off as stupid, simplistic, frustrating even, to learn how to beat them or to get the high scores, and I walk away with a new appreciation for them every time. I thought the original Space Invaders was just obnoxiously difficult and required ungodly reflexes until I learned of the "wall of death" setup that turns the pace outright leisurely, making the "4,000 points without dying" achievement a game of clean execution instead. Suddenly way more fun, cool as shit now.

Just so you don't think I wrote this solely to glaze RA, let me talk some about the remake. Shooting four aliens of a color in a row will give you a powerup based on their own attack. The horizontal sweep weapons and the laser are easily the best in the game, and there is actually a lot of satisfaction to taking out a whole row or column with one shot. You get into the groove of clearing waves, visually, it's solid and clean, you can save at any time, and if you're looking for a challenge, you do get it on the higher difficulties. Like the arcade original, Space Invaders is definitely a little underwhelming at first blush, but dig into the details and you might just find some appreciation for it.

[#] The Adventures of Lomax (Psygnosis, 1996)

Adorable and punishing, which is also how I like my women.

Lemmings is one of those legacy franchises that's left a ton of forgotten little spinoffs in its way, Lomax being one. Lomax is a squeaky lemming knight out to rescue other lemmings who have been transformed into an army of ugly, ghoulish creeps. Lomax is a platformer, and the classic Lemmings gameplay is the twist on it: Lomax can pick up icons that enable his lemming powers, from building bridges to digging through walls.

The first thing you notice about Lomax is that it's gorgeous. The backgrounds and animations are intricately detailed pixel art, cloud cover drifts through the stages, 3D is worked in as foreground-background stuff, it's genuine eye candy. The second thing you notice is the difficulty. Lomax can only take two hits. Worse yet, he can't swim, and platforms tend to be a little loose with their collision detection. I wouldn't call it unfair, just exacting.

My recommendation for Lomax comes on the basis that you enjoy trial-and-error platformers. The controls aren't well-explained in the game itself (double-tap X for a spin attack, Circle is your hat attack, Select picks abilities, and Square uses them), and you only get so many lives and continues, so be sure you're keeping track of your passwords and restart the whole game if need be. It's a very pretty game with a lot to like about it—provided you can handle the intense difficulty.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (Activision, 1999)

The one that landed the first 900.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a fucking powerhouse. Everyone loves this game, and going back to the first game leaves no doubt as to why. You play a skater given two minutes to accomplish a set of tasks in a building or part of a city, stuff like scoring a certain amount of points, smashing scenery, or grabbing items or letters. Points are awarded for ridiculous flippy grabby grindy trick combos. Land the combo, get the points. Fall on your ass, you get nothing. It's dead simple.

You'll be taken from a dingy, leaky warehouse to schools, malls, dams, and top-secret government labs on your quest to skate everything. The flavor of the game is excellent, from the absurd trick names to the videos of each skater you unlock, and if Dead Kennedys, Primus, Suicidal Tendencies, and Unsane float your boat, great songs from each play during your runs. Some people defer to the Dreamcast version for its smoothness and draw distance, but the PS1 holds its own very nicely graphically.

Pro Skater can be a little wonky to return to after playing the later ones in the series. Combos and lines are less extravagant, spins feel stiffer, no manuals, no reverts, and it's harder to perform nollies or tell when you're skating switch. The core of the game was always here though, and that's what counts. The series would return to these locales several times in its run, which I think speaks to its icon status. Seriously, even my girlfriend loves these games.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Activision, 2000)

Improved to near-perfection.

If the intro video, with its crazy rooftop jumps set to "Guerrilla Radio", didn't clue you in, you're not paying enough attention. The pinnacle of this series on PS1, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is that perfect sequel that keeps all the good stuff and polishes everything else to a sheen. This time around, the scores and the jumps get higher, and manuals (where you press up or down and then the opposite and try to balance) help you glue it together. It gets downright absurd at times—and I love it.

The first game suffered from some stiffness, and I wouldn't pick most of its levels as personal favorites, but 2 gets everything right. The levels are much more intricate, more fun to explore, and visually, I think they're more inviting. It's hard to forget the summer heat of Venice Beach, the creepy, seedy subways of New York, or the, er, Bullring (featuring a loop! Must be a Tony Hawk game). I even think the soundtrack is better—less ska and more Fu Manchu and Styles of Beyond, yes please.

There's tons to unlock in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, from cheats to secret characters to entirely new secret stages, and believe me, you'll wanna play to unlock them all. Add in a create-a-skater mode and a fucking park editor, and you simply will not get bored. You can play through ten times and find new things every time. You even have the ability to remap tricks and specials this time around! Sublime. Possibly the best game on the entire system.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Activision, 2001)

An odd duck blend of new and old.

I was a little harsh on this port in my initial review. In the halcyon days of the PS2, because the PS1 was still quite a strong seller, companies would sometimes backport their new PS2 games to it, leading to strange little ports like this. Using the 2 engine with warped versions of the much more expansive 3 levels, it sounds pretty lame on paper, but y'know, I enjoyed the hell out of it. If you liked the other PS1 Pro Skater games, it's more of the same—but how can you go wrong with that?

While 3 on the PS2 was known for its breathing worlds that feature pedestrians, this version has zero pedestrians, making the levels feel like ghost towns—something Shaba Games clearly noticed, given the post-apocalyptic makeover they gave Los Angeles. Even still, the reworked levels definitely have a unique vibe, so it's still a pretty different experience. Reverts are included, though hilariously, the score goals from 2 haven't been increased at all, making them pretty trivial.

A lot has been recycled from 2, actually, like the park editor and create-a-skater options, though the game features all the skaters from the next-gen versions (plus some exclusive ones, like Wolverine) and retains their kickass soundtrack. This still isn't the ideal way to experience Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, but it's still a lot of fun, and even if it basically amounts to a 2 expansion pack, there's a lot worse you could be than that. You should play them both, really. Really!