Gameplicit 最近的评测

Videopac Collection 1 is a set of 10 video games from the 2nd generation. It's nice to see that in 2024 I could get some rarely covered Philips Videopac games for my Steam library. Compared to today's titles, these retro games have a short playtime, but sometimes it is nice to appreciate their simplicity and how their design was adjusted to the technology of their time. The Philips consoles (G7000 and G7400) had many more games, and some titles like Alpine Skiing!, Cosmic Conflict, Monkeyshines!, Pickaxe Pete, Race/Spinout are missing from Collection 1, so I hope that one day we'll see a Collection 2.

Collection 1 opens the emulator in a window, and you can choose the game from a menu. Games load instantly and run smoothly as expected. You can press Esc anytime to pause the game and view options. The keyboard remapping menu lists all buttons, including letter keys from the G7000's keyboard, which means you can type text, such as your name in '4 in 1 Row'.

Here's how the devs can make a collection like this more interesting:
Create a custom menu that features box art or sceenshot/gameplay animation for each game for easier preview
Include simple intructions or the manuals for each game so that we get more explanation for on-screen events
Show the most important buttons' mapping on an overlay during gameplay for first-time players
Create Steam achievements and monitor the games' score or winning state so that players have a reason to come back to each title and try to beat them
Release another collection and put it in a bundle with the first one

As I'm writing this review, it's been 14 months since Collection 1 got released, and I don't know if or when another compilation of retro titles like this will see the light of day. I hope that Philips keeps contributing to the preservation of video games by making them available from their former platforms.

For Steam users, I would recommend this collection if you love retro games and want to play games you will find nowhere else. If you want to play retro titles but don't like games in the trailer, e.g. because you are looking for something more complex, then you should probably look for games that are one or two generations higher, or maybe check out some CD-i games from the developer.

Do not buy this if you have a 3000 series GPU. I bought this game when I had an 1050ti laptop. It ran fine on that config. Now I have a desktop with RTX 3070. The game does not start and according to forums there is no solution for that.

RIDE 4 is my first bike racing game. I'm used to play car racing games and wanted to try something different. Already knew that it will be difficult to adjust to the characteristics of riding (brake much earlier, turn much earlier, accelerate much later), but after a few hours of trial and error I managed to get the hang of it. The European tracks are more difficult compared to Americans and Asians, so I suggest starting with one of the last 2 options. At launch, time trials were savage - a few centimeters off the track and the lap got invalidated - this has been patched. Bikes with high acceleration value are insanely difficult to control on certain tracks, and you can easily fall off your bike in certain places (like the back straight in Suzuka, in Virginia or certain parts of Nordschleife) if you hit a little bump on the track that is not properly represented in the track's visuals. Carreer progression is clear if you read everything in the menus. You don't have to do all races to make progress, only collect a certain amount of points in each category of events. Some of the qualifying rounds are too hard at first, but with a little patience all of them are doable - you can also adjust difficulty in racing events if you need to make progress faster. If I have a VR headset plugged in, the game boots in a fake VR mode, but there is no VR support - the whole image is scrambled and you can't even see menu items. Overall, the graphics are well made, sounds are amazing, and if you have the specs to run this game at high FPS it really gives you the feeling of a chill ride. The difficulty feels unfair at first, which is discouraging, but if you give this game another chance after failing in succession, it will thank you.

As a fan of the sport I like getting into this experience. The difficulty can be customized so that beginners can also enjoy driving, but the whole game is built around the real struggles and challenges of F1 drivers, thus I only recommend it if you already like the technical side of races.

Some dynamics are not obvious for the player. It is easy to get lost, since trigger points are hidden in the environment.