What's the deal with menu screens?

 Press any button to start

Oh, is he going to write an entire blog just talking about Main menus? Yes, yes I am; because the art of the menu screen goes so often unsung and unloved in the grand tapestry of game creation. I mean, who even stops to think about what the menu that stands between you and the gameplay actually looks and feels like? Despite the fact it is most usually the first thing that you'll see everytime you load the game and it should be the last thing too, but I'm pretty sure there's not a living person on this planet that doesn't skip past the 'exit to menu' option whenever they're playing a game. When I want out, I'm getting out; ain't nobody getting in the way of me and the desktop! Oh, and I'm talking pure visuals here; not about the options provided within those menus. As cool as being able to edit all the graphical options I want is; I don't care that much.

I've actually had this topic bouncing around in my head ever since I played Prototype 2 back in the day. For anyone who has played that game, they'll probably know exactly why that game's menu stood out to me. The menu is actually very simple the first time you log in, just your bare basic options; it in the proceeding visits where the menu gets interesting. Whenever you log into the game the next time around, the background of the menu screen will be a shot of the ambient world going about relative to where you last were when you logged out. Which could mean you'll see citizens going about their day in the non-violent city, or maybe a war between infected monsters and military helicopters firing rockets in the war-torn part of the city, depending on where you quite out last time. The really interesting part, however, comes when you press 'continue'. Then that very same scene in the background pans back a little to reveal the player character, waiting there, and the game immediately starts. That's right, the menu screen loads you into the gameplay before you've even started; how cool is that? That always stuck with me and I think back about it's wizardry all these years later, even if my tastes in cool visuals and presentation have 'matured' in the time since.

On it's face, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a very straightforward, if intensely atmospheric and cinematic, main menu. It's just Geralt of Rivia meditating in a field during the events directly before the game picks off, about to mount the search for Yennefer. It's direct, it bring you into the moment and world immediately and it allows us to see CDPR's lovingly rendered Geralt model, which deserves showing off. But when you get the DLC, the menu changes accordingly. Hearts of Stone has Geralt meditating just outside the grounds of the Von Everec estate, a location intensely linked to the narrative of that expansion. But my favourite, Blood and Wine, has Geralt meditating on the outskirts of Toussaint outside of a dilapidated farm-house within which a shadow of a woman can be seen fleeting in and out of view, softly singing 'Lullaby of woes'. A reference to the best Witcher 3 advertisement featuring the very same concept; hauntingly marvellous and memorable.

For such an evocative franchise, the various games of FromSoftware's Souls series menus are surprisingly tame and to-the-point. Typically they're formatted exactly the same to one another, with Bloodborne perhaps being the loudest, featuring the visage of 'The Hunter' in it's background. What I think stands out as memorable for the Souls games is actually the use of music employed in their, otherwise stark, menu displays. Any familiarity with the franchise will impart that music has something of an important storytelling role in this franchise, and the creators grew more synergistic with their music as another arm of the narrative as their craft evolved. Still, Dark Souls 1's main menu theme is perhaps my favourite in it's iconic peacefulness. Utilising everything from harmonising choirs to ringing bells and harps, it sounds like the relief-stricken notes you'd expect from Resident Evil's safe zones. It's almost deceptively peaceful given the relentless nature of the game it vanguards, but this is intentionally so as it represents the peace before the storm of enduring the depressive and decomposing world of Dark Souls once again. 

Spec Ops The Line is a famous example from a game that I haven't played myself, but have heard more than enough about over the years. The way that Spec Ops' menu works is simple, you'll overlook a sniper perched over the desert tomb of the game's setting and he'll be your stop-in point throughout the process of the game. As you return the Sniper will change his routine, maybe he'll go back in for the night, or take out his binoculars to go sight-seeing during the day, but you'll remain at the same vantage looking over the same land everytime you log in. Later on in the game you'll see the towers in the background start to catch aflame, matching the progression of the story and then, suddenly, you'll find the sniper's dead body being picked on by crows. The final shot is a washed out scene of the same perch, a fallen and tattered American flag and the desiccated husks of skyscrapers behind that. A mirror to the moral and emotional degradation of the game behind the menu screen.

Going back to something a bit more simple, the Main Menu for Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is actually very straightforward but oddly featured, in a manner fitting Kojima's design style. On it's face it's just a silhouette of Naked Snake performing one of signature CQC takedown throwns on an enemy solider in slow motion as a camo print rolls like a filter over the scene. But for some utterly inane reason, the analog sticks on your controller can be fiddled around with in order to change the colour of the camo pattern or the type of camo being scrolled. It's an utterly bizarre functionality that absolutely didn't need to be considered and ultimately adds nothing to the core game itself, but that's just the way that the big man makes his games. He and his team pursue any odd fancy they think of and if they can make it, it typically stays in the final product! 

And finally, the game which made me revisit this idea I had so very long ago; there is the Persona 5 menu screen. (Yes, I've finally gotten my hands on the game after falling for it seven years ago. Thank you ATLUS for torturing me.) For a game dripping in style and passion, it only makes sense for the menu screen to be slick and jazzy, and of course it absolutely is. We see the Phantom Thieves dotted around the streets of Tokyo in their three-scale white, red and black colour schemes, all posing like this is a Jojo poster. As you flitter between options, you'll dart around to different perch's across the city square and the Thieves will relocate appropriately. It's dynamic as well, meaning that whichever option you approach a certain option from (above or below) the animation of the Thieves relocating dynamically changes; a simple switch of shoulder will become a full cartwheel. Now that is the definition of putting way too much effort into a aesthetic, but I love the overachieving all the same.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going the bare basic route for a menu screen that really effects nothing of the game's overall experience; but at the same time, wouldn't you want to go that extra step to put the most amount of effort in everything you can? With all the work that goes into nailing the intricacies of gameplay design and visual flair, what's wrong with doing something a bit more interesting and pretty with your menu designs? Even if it's ultimately insignificant, people do come away thinking about the menus whether they expect to or not; and I consider menu reveals for new games to be their own kind of special. Isn't it that last special mark of a masterpiece to ensure that every last inch of the product sparkles to it's utmost? At least that's the way I look at menus, don't know how you see it...

HULK ultimate Destruction

 Hulk cause significant property damage without providing adequate reparation funds

So we all know Hulk, right? I'm being serious with the question, because whilst I feel like we've all heard of Hulk, given how the modern world's understanding of the Marvel Universe is almost solely formed by the machinations of the MCU, there's a chance some out there might not know this big green guy used to be the star of his own stuff too. Heck, Hulk even got 2 movies back in the day. (Two!) One of which used to put me to sleep regularly, and the second one (which acts as, but is crucially not, a sequel) starred an annoyed Edward Norton who found the popcorn material too limiting on his immortal form and shed the franchise before it could become officially part of the MCU, despite it still having one of those old school Nick Fury stings at the end. Actually, Marvel's What If has confirmed now that second movie (and my not-real proxy the first one too) is still part of the MCU, by animating one of the big action set pieces from the film with Mark Ruffalo recast into it. (Which, I guess, makes Banner's infatuation with Natasha an act of infidelity against Betty Ross, then. You don't think these thing through before you implement them, do you Marvel?)

You'd think this big green boy would be a perfect fit for games, given how the juvenile destruction-driven green alter ego of Bruce Banner lines up with the typical annihilation driven desires of your average video game enjoyer. But somehow there's only been a couple of Hulk games throughout the years too. (And I've played both, for some reason.) The 2003 Sony PS2 Hulk game was actually a part of my childhood, and I distinctly remember myself playing that very game the day I jumped on my bed too high and made a dent in the ceiling. (It was plasterboard, I'm not The Juggernaut) So take it for what you whatever you will, the fact that I'd rather cause bodily harm on myself than play that Hulk game, but (perhaps due to that very crash) I remember the game even less than the corresponding movie which, remember, I've fallen asleep during every time I've watched it. All I can remember is a fight against what my hazy memory is telling me was Red Hulk, but logical deduction says was most likely Abomination. Either way, it was so tough I genuinely thought the game was sentient and becoming harder each time I fought him. (That impression stuck through the concussion.) 

But then there was the other Hulk game, coming from 2005, so still on PlayStation 2, only this time based on the comic book licence. The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction was a Hulk game smart enough not to make us endure extended sections where we play as Bruce Banner. I didn't think that needed to be learnt by society, but the original Hulk video game proved that otherwise. In fact, whereas that original one was based around levels which you spent mostly indoors trying to fight against small fire arms that really shouldn't so much as dent an unstoppable behemoth like yourself, Ultimate Destruction had honest to goodness free roam. I kid you not. They just set your Hulk free on two different playgrounds, one in the desert and the other in a city, and let you go absolutely hog wild in whatever way you wanted to. (Wow, remember how different things were when developers played games too?)

I've no stories of grievous self-inflicted bodily harm whilst playing Ultimate Destruction and that's because the eye candy on screen was more than enough to keep child me entertained. I'm talking about the sort of gameplay loop here that has players going running through the streets, picking up taxis and chucking them down the road whilst the military presence builds in the wake of all your carnage, before you leap up a building just high enough to run diagonally up it's face, leaving footprint gouges as you go. True destructive freedom that harkens back to that primal allure of smash-'em-up games like 'Rampage Total destruction'. (Another game that live rent free in my mind shack of twisted childhood influences.) Any one with even a passing liking of the Hulk has dreamt about what that sort of power would be like to wield, and short of buying those plastic Hulk fists that make the noise when they touch something, this game is the answer to that age-old conundrum.

I can't pretend to have been some sort of diehard Hulk fan my entire life. My biggest connection to the character goes back to that old 1996 cartoon with the iconic thudding drone behind the main theme of "Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, the incredible, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk". But I'd like to imagine that if I were a marvel comics Hulk aficionado, this game would have appealed directly to my comic nostalgia bone. They included, oft overlooked character, Doctor Samson, (Pre-Sasquatch, unfortunately) Abomination (obviously, can't have a Hulk anything without that dude) Hulkbusters (Not the Stark suit, the military versions) and even a surprise appearance from Devil Hulk, a character so obscure during this point of the lore that, despite my reverence for this game, I totally forgot his presence and boss fight prior to writing this blog. (I even watched the fight, no memories sparked whatsoever.)

Visually this is a game that really does show its age, but one of the boons of deciding not to base your game off of a movie but instead try for the comic iteration is that there's this lovely comic-book heart to the artistic style that ages much slower than the hardware powering it. Just look at the exaggerated gasp of strain that Hulk performs as he swings Abomination around by the head, that looks good even by today's standards. (Hell, FromSoftware still doesn't have NPCs that can open their mouths outside of cutscenes) In fact, for a 2005 game I have to say that Hulk doesn't look bad at all, but then when I compare it's contemporaries (RE4, Chaos Theory, Timesplitters 3) I guess 2005 was just a year for games that aged gracefully. It just makes me all the more sad that this is one of those titles that disappeared from licensing before it got a PC launch, because I would love to load up this smasher once more.

One of my favourite things about it, the reason I still bring it up to this day whenever there's a conversation about good super hero games and the sorts of building blocks you'd need to make another classic in the future, was the levelling system. Now I know, every modern adventure game and their Karen side-cut sporting mother has a levelling system and typically I find them annoying and badly conceived. But back in 2005, during an age where we knew how to make action adventure games a bit better, (as we should, every other game was one) levelling and upgrades had a lot more impact. I remember being so excited when I finally unlocked the ability for Hulk to lift up a large truck and bisect it so that he could fashion each half into boxing gloves. That move is my single most vivid memory of this entire game, and it was an unlock which made me feel so powerful for having pursued it. Why can't we have more stuff like that nowadays, rather than boring stat gains or buffed healing rates? (Some modern games do it right, but Ubisoft is not one of them. Which is strange given how heavily they've jumped down the throat of RPG levelling systems.)

Unfortunately Hulk is another game that I couldn't play, making this not a review but more a wistful guide into a loving memory I once had. A memory of a superhero game that was cool for being exactly what you wanted from this character. I didn't care much for the villains, or the heroes, or even the story at large, (as is evident from the fact I totally forgot the major appearance of the, now mainstream comic badguy, Devil Hulk) I just wanted to blow things up and this was game that catered to that in spades. We don't really get many comic book hero games anymore (thanks Disney) so it's nice to reminisce about the good ones now and then. Especially given Bruce Banner's bench-warmer status in the MCU pretty much dooming the character to not have star-power for any project in the near future, we may never get another Hulk game again. And that might make me sad, but I have a feeling there's a fictional bespeckled nerd living out of an old run-down church who finds that news very angering. And the thing about this nerd- you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Scarface: The World is Yours

 Throttle wide open like a bat out of hell

Scarface, another entry on the long list of movies loved and enjoyed by people who seem to have left halfway through the flick and didn't seem to grasp any of the salient messages held within. (Just line it up next to Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street) This movie marked Al Pacino's other biggest role after that one crime movie he did that one time, and I guess Heat was pretty big too. It followed the endeavours of one Tony Montana as he entered a world of crime and organised hard drug selling, becoming steadily more infused in the fake glitz of dirty money and tainted pleasures of corruption, all leading him to a violent and brutal end brought around by his own greed with a tad of slipping out of his depth without ever realising. It's a fine movie, I like it, but do you know what I've never said whilst watching Scarface; Huh, I want to play the game of this.

And that might just be because the game of Scarface already existed, and it was called Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Seriously, playing that game after having just watched the movie, you'll be wondering how Rockstar can walk down the street without getting picked up by that warrant they must have for their terminal sticky fingers. Not only did they nick large chunks of the visuals, some of the premise, and a bit of the character, they even kept entire narrative arcs practically verbatim from Scarface and even 'homage' to it's dialogue with their own. So we don't really need no video game adaptation of that movie anymore... and we never got one. (That's right, I fooled you with the title of this blog, it was all a trick! Well, not quite.) There is actually a game bearing the name 'Scarface: The World is Yours', but it's not an adaptation.

Spoilers for an almost forty year old movie (which some consider a classic, but honestly no one is going to flip a table if you never watch it for as long as you live. It is very dated) but Tony Montana freakin' dies at the end. In a movie that is already decently bloody throughout, the finale goes full on action movie as our 'hero' has an extended heavy machine gun fight with the entire Colombian drug empire before some lone totally-out-place weirdo sneaks behind him and blasts him in the back with a shotgun, putting an end to his violent cocaine fuelled reign over Miami. (Parts of Miami. The drugged parts) This mysterious figure manages this somehow and was never seen before or after, so I guess Tony died to a rando. (Seriously, how did he get behind Tony? Only his office was behind him. This guy must have pulled out a Dimension door or something) So that's how the story pans out. To quote an angry Pinkerman agent: "You people venerate savagery and you will die savagely." So what do you think could possibly happen in the game based on this movie, bearing in mind what I now tell you; it's a direct sequel.

If you answered 'they obviously devise a clever way for the legacy of Tony Montana to be carried on by another character, thus mirroring the moral dilemmas of the movie whilst leaving ample space for the writing to grow past it's roots and branch out in new directions', then you have a lot more faith in the gaming industry then anyone else did back then. No. Instead this game just starts with that exact final shootout and basically says, 'what if Tony was a video game protagonist?'. So yeah, you start off gunning down armies until a hit marker tells you that someone is chipping away at your backside so that you can swoop around and dome that shotgun guy. Tony Montana lives. All the ethos of the movie, getting your just desserts, completely waived. Tony is now free to become an even more violent, terrible human being than he already was. (Yay.)

'Scarface: The World of Yours' tells the rather straightforward, but still pretty fun to experience, tale of Tony Montana going around and restarting his cocaine empire, only this time with as few middle men as humanely possible, (given that he literally sells it on the street himself) and a little bit of rampant revenge thrown in there too. I found and played this game back in the days when I was a Nintendo Wii kid and so yes, this and Dead Rising were games that I played  on my Nintendo Wii. And just to hammer home how weird that is; this is a game with rampant swearing, wherein the currency of missions is 'balls', and for which the signature feature is to activate a first person rage mode wherein the player's gun somehow starts shooting bullets powerful enough to blow off limbs. Nintendo welcomed a port of that game to their consoles. (And yet a proper 3D Grand Theft Auto had to wait until current year, why?)

Back in those days, when I was on the most dire of Grand Theft Auto draughts, Scarface was my everything, and it's commodification of the 80's drug dealer lifestyle is always going to go down in my hazy memory as that one special little open world experience that no one else quite remembers but me. Whatsmore, when I squint my eyes and peer just through that fog of ages, I can actually recall this game not being all that bad at all, but in fact coming together as a half decent and enjoyable title with it's location changes, gambling  cock fights, mildly customisable home, (Rockstar still hasn't introduced home customisation in any of their games) and by-the-books but still kinda dumb fun shooting combat. I just... don't feel like picking the game up again anytime soon in order to prove those elements are as good as I remember them to be.

And if there is one boon I can say about Scarface the game which cannot be said about 90% of other open world video games on the market; it's that the soundtrack freakin' slapped. I don't know what it is or why, but typically whenever anyone other than Rockstar goes shopping around for licencing deals, they come back with bargain bin crap that only five or six other people in the world has even heard of before, yet alone like. The only notable exception I can think of is Saints Row, and even then only most Saints Row games. (I don't know what 3 and 4 were on.) Maybe it was because of the pedigree of the name attached, disillusioning the contract negotiations, or maybe it's simply because the setting of this game meant that the developers could shoot for more old school tracks that weren't as hotly contested on the licencing scene, but this game has some true bangers. Super Freak, Push it to the limit (obviously) and freakin Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa.

Unfortunately, like a good many games out there, this is one of those ones that has slipped into obscurity once the team didn't have the ability to host it anymore. Nowadays you can't even find it on any online storefronts, and there was a PC version released so I guess this just means people aren't interested in buying these rights and hosting them on Steam or GOG. (Heck, who even holds the rights at this point? Is the thing just left approaching public domain? Online data laws are so stupidly antiquated that I don't even have a clue, to be honest) But if, through some means I shall not name, you magically come across some way of playing this game, then I would definitely recommend it's rough, sometimes bad taste, but always flashy gameplay for it's appeal to that inner juvenile somewhere in us all.

The Simpsons: Hit and Run

I am so Smart. S.M. R. T. I mean- S. M. A. R. T

It might make me grimace and scrunch of my toes nowadays, but back when I was a stupid kid who just liked to see the same faces everyday on the moving picture box, there was nothing I loved more than a licensed game. We could be talking Spiderman 2 or Iron Man 2, as long as there was a recognisable person attached to the box I was all about it everyday of the week. Which is part of the reason why my back catalogue is full to the brim with the sorts of games that, in hindsight, belong in an on-fire bargain bin being wheeled off of a canyon. I mean come on; the Captain America tie in game? What was I, and they, thinking? Later years and countless burns would eventually hammer it home that 'tie in' almost always meant 'half assed', but even with that knowledge today there are some old school tie in games that I refuse to look back on with anything other than love. One of the least controversial of that number being the beloved 2003 hit game, 'The Simpson's Hit and Run'.

Who couldn't bring themselves to loving a game based on the Simpsons? Back in the early 2000's that family were pretty much the mainstays of every TV screen, even all the way across the pond and down in the cesspit which is my local community. Simpsons was as close as we got to a 'Marvel' back then, in that it was a property which every could relate under because we'd all been watching it, maybe not so much to keep up to date but enough to bond over the humorous hijinks of our favourite lemon family. I think we were just aged out of the demographic where actually quoting the Simpsons was still cool (thank god. I don't need traumatic childhood memories of me running around saying 'Ay Caramba' at people) but I, at least, was definitely far gone enough down the fandom rabbit hole that when I was presented with a box of video games, this was one which stood out like a sore thumb. A Simpsons video game? Something that would allow me to, even in that most fleeting of ways, enter the world of Springfield? Count me in.

In premise, 'The Simpsons: Hit and Run' is approachable, simple and straightforward; all it does is throw all your recognisable Simpsons lead characters into various different parts of Springfield and gives them various challenges that they can only do by driving their cars really fast and smashing things. That's about the extent of the gameplay loop and back in 2003 we didn't really ask for anything else because games could be just that basic and as long as it was handled decently we wouldn't really complain. (And even if it was handled poorly, we wouldn't know who to complain to.) Still I think that what makes this game stick out even now is simply the fact it remains on of the only games to give people their near unbridled access to the town of Springfield, where dreams are made. You get to drive up Evergreen Terrace, swing past Apu's store, and even do donuts on the Elementary School's lawn. Sure, all of Springfield is sort of warped around what looks feels like a linear race track (with shortcuts) from one part of the neighbourhood to the other, but all the important landmarks were there so who are we to say the town shouldn't be laid out like that? Seemed to work fine at the time.

Of course, any reviewer at the time, or since, has that one buzz-phrase to throw around when looking at a game like this, the one practically all free-form driving games got before Dark Souls launched and that became the comparison king of the day. "It's The Simpsons meets GTA". But is there any truth to that comparison? Well, you do drive around and smash things, and the police can get called out to pull you over (which they tend to do rather violently, and they'll throw you a fine if they catch you); but that's about the end of the similarities. There's no hard-core crime element to the story, you never actually kill anyone and as for the eponymous 'car stealing', you can feasibly do it but every single car in the world is so embarrassingly inferior to every one of yours that there's pretty much no point to doing so. But apart from that, sure, Simpsons GTA all day. (It was clearly inspired by GTA, isn't that enough?)

The story of the game is technically an original one, but with the amount of actual substance to it, I find it difficult to call it a 'narrative'. Robot wasps descend upon Springfield alongside the unveiling of a brand new energy drink 'Buzz Cola' which is eating up the airwaves and becoming widespread fast. The mystery of who is behind all of this is pretty clear from the get-go to anyone with a passing familiarity with the series, but that investigation aspect is really just the dressing, a vehicle for the onslaught of references to the series. Nearly every single mission is a direct reference to an episode or something that happened in an episode, the cars you can unlock through the coins you get from smashing things are all featured from the show, and there's even alternate costumes you can (and sometimes are forced to) buy from similar origins. In this way, Hit and Run was just a celebration of Simpsons culture and fandom, pointing lovingly to series highs whilst handing out little anthropomorphic blue berries and saying ' 'Member when Marge was a cop? 'Member?'.

My favourite part of the whole experience when I was a kid was the exploration, as I slightly hinted, because as with many other adventure titles of the time, this game was a collectathon and I just couldn't get enough of that noise. Climbing up Bart's famous Treehouse, (it's always bigger in the show) jumping atop Apu's secret rooftop garden, trying to navigate ceiling propeller fans in the nuclear plant; all of this was nectar to a Simpsons fan like me. And the fact that every chapter not only put you in charge of a new character with their own set of outfits and vehicles, (from Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Apu) but also moved you to a new parts of town so that there always more to see and collect the whole way through the campaign, was just everything to little me. Even cooler than that, the final area is a homage to the non-canonical part of Simpsons 'Treehouse of Horror', which means a Springfield filled with zombies! If only more big open world games realised the potential of adding zombie modes onto their games. (Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V)

Simpsons Hit and Run would go down as a classic, even amidst the deluge of Simpsons games that hit us in the early 2000's, with it remaining the gem of it's age and console. In fact, the reason I started thinking of it again recently was because of a Youtube video the other month of a coder who just sat down and remade the framework of the game in a week, stitching the entire game world into one map as he did so. (A fascinating watch if you're interested in the building blocks that would go into such a project) Yet with all that love, and considering the game is about 18 years old now, one might wonder why the game never got a sequel. Well, one was actually in the works for a time, before it was killed by, who else could it be, EA. Radical Entertainment would pretty much dissolve shortly after the release of Prototype 2, with mass lay-offs, and the studio would be drafted into working on Destiny under Activision. Whatever's left of them now, they aren't going to be making Hit and Run 2 anytime soon.

So a sad ending to our little celebration blog, but that doesn't mean we can't glow in the brilliance of our nostalgia. Unfortunately, nostalgic memories is about as far as we can legally go with it, because no one has the rights to the game and thus no modern gaming storefront sells the thing. (Although the PC files are said to be floating around the internet somewhere, for anyone who might find that information interesting for whatever, totally legal, reason.) But whilst this was easily the most beloved, Hit and Run is not the only Simpsons game floating around out there from this golden age of PS2. In fact, there's a whole bunch of them, and I played a lot of them, so stay tuned for the next few weeks as we take some time out to go on a trip down a rollercoaster of memories. And yes, I played the bad ones and the really bad ones too. Lacking any way of playing the game again to see how it holds up today, I'm forced to give Hit and Run my utmost recommendation for those that haven't played it. Perhaps not to modern day Simpsons fans, as they'll find little they recognise here, but to anyone with a heart for the basic games of yesteryear. Just bear in mind it can get a little frustrating near the end. (Those finale timers are no joke.)