Happy New Year to you all.

As we get to the end of the year and the inevitable question of whether to do a reluctant-sounding round-up of 2022 on FFG (spoiler: we will) I figured it might be worth trying something a little different as well.

I do quite like our semi-official policy of mainly only talking about games that fall within our remit in a full review, perhaps because in the old days I was guilty of acquiring and flitting between different games at the expense of sitting down and focusing on one thing. Choose the game, play the game, review the game: it’s a simple enough formula.

However, just as the introduction of the Vault of Regret allowed us to dig through our thoughts on games that we probably aren’t ever going to finish or write about, I figured it might not be exactly the worst thing in the world to share a note on a few write-ups that didn’t come to fruition this year.

This is neither a list of all the games that were considered, nor everything that has definitely been ruled out. All were tinkered with for a short while this year, with the idea of a possible review as motivation.

I might play or write about the games on this list again, but for the time being, they’ve had a fairly strong line put through them (in pencil).

And so I present to you: The Unreviewed (2022 edition):
 

Clive Barker’s Jericho
(Codemasters, 2007)

I bought this ages ago on the basis that I liked Undying, even though I knew the two potentially had very little in common. Rather than an olde-worlde spooky supernatural vibe, this one is a more modern caper with manly shooter men (and women).

I haven’t played a lot of FPS games in recent years, for whatever reason, and even though I didn’t play Jericho for anything like as long as I would need to in order to form any kind of serious opinion, there was something about its vibe that was just an instant turnoff.

It could have been the horror elements, the prospect of managing a squad, or the fact that the opening was a bit like those 80s action franchises where you think, these guys are dicks and probably all deserve to die at the hands of whatever it is they’re looking for, but it just didn’t seem like my cup of tea at all.

Jericho is also one of those relatively recent games that has been deleted from Steam and I found out, via an RPS feature on the topic, that unused keys apparently fetch over £100 these days. Or are at least being listed at that price anyway.
 

True Crime: Streets of L.A.
(Activision, 2004)

After finally completing Vice City last year, I developed a bit of a taste for exploring other 00s open-world action games, and this contemporary title had been sitting on my shelves for a while.

Early signs were promising, with extremely amusing, irony-free cut-scenes featuring a protagonist, Nick Kang, who seemed destined for the ‘dickhead hero’ hall of fame. And, like GTA, there were a number of Hollywood heavyweights among the voice cast, too.

Unfortunately it kept crashing every 15 minutes or so, erasing any progress, and it was all just too annoying to persist with. One to come back to, maybe.
 

Fuel
(Codemasters, 2009)

Having hammered early-mid 00s street racing titles pretty hard already, a slightly later era of arcade racers has been on my radar for a little while. Fuel, an open-world effort with a post-apocalyptic setting, always looked quite interesting.

Contemporary opinion was that it was too much open-world and not enough racer, though, and based on my limited dabbling that seemed like a largely accurate summary. Not off the list entirely, then, but put on the backburner for now, in favour of games from the same era that people actually thought were good.
 

Old World Cup Games
(Various)

World Cup Soccer: Italia ’90

Italy 1990

World Championship Soccer

My line on old footy games – and some may disagree – is that they remain quite interesting to look at, even if lots of them might not actually be very enjoyable to play.

They do, however, have to be broadly functional. With maybe one exception, even the horrors locked at the bottom of the FFG Football League provide a few hours’ entertainment for moderately spoddy enthusiasts such as myself. Those that don’t make it are, in my humble opinion, only for the truly hardcore sado-masochists among us for whom pain, torture and gnashing of teeth are all part of the fun.

As the sketchiest real-life tournament in history kicked off at the wrong time and in the wrong place, I realised that we’d never actually featured a World Cup tie-in before, and set about examining various candidates. World Cup USA ’94 had previously been dismissed, on the basis that the last time I tried it I hadn’t been able to get past the opening menus, and I then whizzed forward a couple of generations to EA’s 2002 tie-in, which was based on the generally-awful FIFA 2002 and of little historical significance other than being representative of how crap FIFA was in the early 00s.

And so with some trepidation I ventured back further, to 1990, and two similarly-titled games: World Cup Soccer: Italia ’90 and Italy 1990. The first of which ran far too slowly to be playable; the second was more promising, but also kind of a struggle. And, to be frank, both of these DOS relics appeared inferior not only to the ST and Amiga versions, but also to those released on 8-bit machines as well.

(Which was the ‘official’ tie-in? Mr C. notes over at The Good Old Days that World Cup Soccer: Italia ’90 was the official game, but U.S. Gold were allowed to make one as well – Italy 1990. The much better-looking Amiga version of which he doesn’t seem to rate very highly. On PC, the players all look as if they are wearing nappies, presumably in service of recreating the tiny shorts of the late 80s/early 90s era.)

In desperation, I turned to World Championship Soccer by Elite, which I remembered did feature the 1990 tournament and even had real player names. Like Italy 1990, it was briefly playable, but is one of those games where you get hemmed in by the opposition because you can’t lamp it out of your own half.

Plus, you have to take manual control of your (hat-wearing) goalie, leading to mildly farcical self-imposed defensive catastrophes that you could well do without. Probably better experienced on the Megadrive, or maybe not at all.

—

As previously promised/threatened, we will be back with a round-up of the previous year before too long, but I’ll take this opportunity now to thank you all for reading, and wish you the very best for 2023.

Hi there.

Believe it or not, this review was all set to go live at a suitably relevant point last week, but, as regular readers may have noticed, we had a few technical hiccups to sort out.

Anyway, the big international footy thing was in the winter this year, for all kinds of dubious reasons. Here’s a reminder of a late 90s summer tournament, as we go back and revisit EA’s World Cup 98.

This also means a new entry in, and a revision of, the FFG Football League standings. Which, in spite of my attempts to pick and choose titles from the Electronic Arts stable and set each one in context, nevertheless now has a rather FIFA-heavy section in the lower-mid reaches of the top division. Ah well.

(Oh, and in case this is our last post before Christmas and/or the end of the year, I’ll take the opportunity to wish all our readers the best for the festive season. Thanks, as always, for reading).

Hi there. Welcome to Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!), a series which should really have a generic introduction in italics at the top here but, for some reason, doesn’t.

Today’s game is Emily Is Away Too, a 2017 follow-up to the previous game we covered. Yep, you’re back on Windows XP, exchanging IM messages with someone called Emily again. Although this time, there’s another friend – Evelyn – also vying for your attention, making things a little more complicated.

Otherwise, it’s a similar tale of teenage awkwardness and intense feelings clumsily expressed, with some potential moments of hot shame thrown into the mix too.

Here’s a trailer:

Emily Is Away Too is available fairly cheaply, although its predecessor can be played for free, so that’s probably where you want to start if you’re not sure if these games are for you.

Otherwise, unless you’re sure you’ll never play this game but nevertheless want to read a transcript of two people talking about it, or just don’t care about spoilers, we’d advise you to go no further.

Here’s our ***FINAL SPOILER WARNING***!

(I’ll also add, although it’s not particularly representative of the game, or our discussion, that there’s a brief mention of self-harm below, too).

Discussion: Emily Is Away Too (spoilers!) continued »

Hello.

With a modern tale of an expensive investment quickly destroyed due to a fundamental weakness unfolding as we speak, how about we go back a long time, to a galaxy far, far away (again) and try and blow up the Death Star?

It’ll take some doing, though. For me, it’s taken 28 years.

Yes, it’s that ‘white whale’ I mentioned a little while ago. Here’s a review of X-Wing.

Ah one two, microphone check; one-two, microphone check one-two; microphone checka one-two, tell you what I’m gonna do!

Yo yo yo yo yo! It’s ya boy Rik from the F-to-the-F-to-the-G, with a sick new ride comin’ to you from 2005, when they knew how to do it! Y’know what I’m sayin’? [No – and can we please have another word about these intros – Ed.]

Ahem. Here’s a review of Street Racing Syndicate.

Hello! This is Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!) – a series which, like Ronseal quick-drying woodstain, does what it says on the tin. [What tin, you say? What’s Ronseal, you say? Never mind! Let’s move on.]

Today’s game is Emily Is Away, a 2015 interactive novel by Kyle Seeley. During which, you are whisked back to the year 2002, and a Windows XP-alike environment, to take part in a series of instant messenger conversations with the eponymous Emily. Starting in the final year of high school and spanning the next five years, the game features all of the awkward ups and downs of teenage relationships, as well as plenty of era-relevant pop culture references. Choose your dialogue options, tap away at the keyboard, and prepare to cringe a little bit as you remember what it was like to be young.

Emily Is Away is available for free on Steam and itch.io, although the latter allows you to make a donation to the developer. And it’s short even by the standards of what we usually discuss here, so if it sounds at all like it might be of interest, we’d recommend checking it out before proceeding to the discussion below. Which, like Ronseal quick-drying woodstain, contains lots of plot spoilers. [No – Ed.]

Oh, and here’s a short trailer:

Ok? Here’s your ***FINAL SPOILER WARNING*** for the discussion below…
 
Discussion: Emily Is Away (spoilers!) continued »

Hi there.

Once hyped as an exciting new chapter of the Star Wars canon, with input from the grand high beard himself, now officially relegated to ‘never happened, sorry’, today’s game is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

(Not to dazzle you with thrilling ‘behind the curtain’ insight, but I had a more old school title, and something of a personal white whale, lined up for the next review, but, uh, it’s probably going to be a while. It *will* happen though. That’s the FFG guarantee.)

Soundtracks is where we take a look back at the use of licensed music in games. Go here if you want to know more.

Hello and welcome to Soundtracks, a series that is likely to be ending soon.

For a finale, let’s do some more racing games: why not? Specifically, all of the Need for Speed games that have some good tunes but not quite enough for me to be able to write an individual piece about them. Need for Speed: Underground and, especially, Need for Speed: Carbon might not be the best games in the series, but I’d argue that their soundtracks are the most memorable.

So what do we have left? A mopping-up exercise involving the best of the rest, in my completely subjective opinion? Or a bloody great compilation showstopper to send this series off with a bang? [The first one – Ed.]
 

Need for Speed: Underground 2

Need for Speed: Underground 2 has more *stuff* in it than the first game, and is probably a marginally better game overall. But it also has adverts for Burger King and Campbell’s Soup, as well as a less enjoyable selection of songs. I don’t want to hear an Australian rock band’s cover version of Black Betty, which also featured on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Without a Paddle (starring Matthew Lillard, Seth Green *and* Dax Shepard), ever again, thank you.
 
Soundtracks: Need for Speed Special continued »

Hi there.

We’ve got some 90s karting action for you today, plus a bonus feature on its slightly nightmarish music. The game is called Manic Karts.

[What did we talk about with these intros, Rik? – Ed.]

Ah, ok. Also – how are you? Did you have a good summer? September already, huh? What about all of those troubling domestic and world events? I’m fine, yeah. Can’t complain, can’t complain.

[Great stuff – Ed.]

Hi there.

We’re heading to the newer end of our normal reviewing territory today (so about 10-ish years ago), although there are plenty of echoes of older games here, in Wadjet Eye’s sci-fi adventure, Gemini Rue.