Console Catch-Up - February 2025 Monthly Recap

Finally, I have an end-of-month recap that ACTUALLY recaps a console game. And for this month, I managed to get not one, not two, but THREE titles in (okay, sure, two of them I had been playing since October 2024, but it still counts!)

Name: Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged

Date Completed: 13/02/2025

I originally played the first game back on the PC, and in all fairness, that title had not impressed me much. Maybe I was spoiled with the PS1 game Hot Wheels Turbo Racing.

So, why did I bother playing the second title then? The first reason is that it came with the PSN membership, so I didn't spend any money on it. The second reason is that I needed something just to waste five minutes on, and the racing mechanics weren't bad. With this being the second game, I figured maybe there might be some improvements.

And there were... to a degree. The game didn't feel as long-winded as the first game. Because of this, it took a while to start setting in that a lot of the races were just the same track layouts but either with different race modes or dangers. You don't notice it at first, but by area five, you notice it quite a bit.

I did, however, like the fact that the Boss races weren't just standard lap races like they had in the first game.

One weird feature/direction that they took the game was that the single player had a "story" to it. I put it in inverted commas because there was absolutely NO REASON for it to be there. The story made no sense at all and was cringy every time there was a cut scene.

Name: Pac-Man World Re-Pac

Date Completed: 22/02/2025

This ended up being an impromptu install after it became available for the February PSN Membership downloads. I remembered playing the PS1 version of the game, and I think I had a good time playing it, so I decided to install it.

At first, after playing through the first level, I was mostly amused and telling myself: "Wow. This is hardly a challenge." The layout of the levels was hardly difficult, the enemies not that tough to get around, and with a little exploration, the collectibles weren't really that hard to find.

I soon, however, ate my own words when I sank half my lives because of the shoddy platforming. I was getting frustrated when I would leap to a platform, thinking I judged it right and either overshooting or falling short. OR, because I am accustomed to the double jump in platformers, I go to do that in this game. But in Pac-Man World, our titular hero doesn't double jump. He butt bounces instead. So if I happened to be over a pitfall when I did it, well... there went another life...

By the time I got to the final boss (which still didn't take long) I was happy to beat his ass and get the game uninstalled. I would prefer to remember it in the past than have to replay it again.

Name: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Date Completed: 26/02/2025

I finally finished this game - and I was cutting it close, too. At first, I thought I would have to start this post saying I had beaten two titles but not this one.

Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy. However, I felt the second game was better in gameplay. This one, a lot of the time, it felt like it was being dragged out by the amount of collectibles, and they weren't as interesting (except for the letters) as the second game. In the second game, I actually made the effort to find them all before the point of no return. In this game, however, I was just grateful to have finally reached it.

And then there were the "creatures". Again, just like in the second game, they weren't as impactful as the Stormguard from the first game. I cannot even say that the Yaaxil were better than the Deathguard because, honestly, in my eyes, I felt the same level of disinterest towards them.

And then lastly, the final chapter/boss. A lot of that time you are spent platforming to the final confrontation. Through radio messages you hear there is a lot of chaos happening around you. I mean, at one point, the senior members of Trinity who were brought in to oversee the success of the mission (really dumb move) are killed off-screen. Your "fight" with Amaru's right hand man - which I had hoped would be entertaining - was spent behind cover shooting at his men who tried to charge my position until he ran out of ammo and got overrun by the Yaaxil. And then the final fight itself. Fill Amaru with lead, stab him when stunned, rinse, and repeat another five times.

As I said, though I enjoyed the trilogy and I am happy to have crossed them off my list, but I would say Rise of the Tomb Raider was my favorite of the three.

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So, at least things feel like they are slowly getting back on track. It had been a difficult start of the year for me these past two months. There had been some personal goings-on that were affecting my motivation and opportunities. Some of the stuff is still going on, but it's being worked through, and I feel it's moving in a positive direction. Time will tell now.

But for the blog, well, l need to see what is next in store. I should pick up God of War while it's available. But I also want to play Legend of Heroes: Trials of Cold Steel 3 (mainly because it's been a long while since I completed the first two back on the PS3)