Halloween is coming up soon, and I’ve got some treats for you! No tricks! It’s a new batch of game reviews I’ve recently written at GamerDad! Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
Cool Halloween Fast Food Promotions
The spooky season is here, and I’ve found some neat fast food promotions that I wanted to talk about. So let’s take a look…if you dare!
Lately I’ve seen some crazy crossovers in McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. So I thought I’d share them with you here, just for fun.
Garfield: Escape from Monday (Switch)
I’ve been a huge fan of Garfield ever since I was a little kid back in the 80s. Newspaper comic strips like Garfield were a big part of my childhood. You might even say that I liked Garfield almost as much as Pac-Man. And if you know me, that’s saying a lot. So I’m always on the lookout to review Garfield video games. Unfortunately, they haven’t had the best track record in recent years. So how does this new one stack up? Pretty well, actually. In the game, Garfield accidentally takes a bite of vegetable lasagna and the shock causes him to pass out. Now he’s got to escape his dream while dealing with Chef Monday and Garfield’s other nemeses like Nermal the cute kitten. All the while getting help from his friends like Jon and Arlene. Garfield: Escape from Monday is a 3D platformer.
Piece together wooden dioramas to tell a story in Woodo. Foxy is a city fox who just graduated elementary school and is spending the summer in the country. But she’s not happy about it. No friends, nothing to do, and worst of all, no WiFi for her cell phone! But her outlook changes when she meets Ben the frog. Woodo is a cozy puzzle game.
Thunder Hoop Collection (Switch)
You’ve probably heard of arcade game makers like Namco, Capcom, SEGA, etc. But have you ever heard of Gaelco? They were an arcade developer from Spain and while you may not have played many of their games, they did do some that gained international fame in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some examples I remember would be Radikal Bikers, a game where you deliver pizzas on a scooter. There was also a pretty fun street luge game called Rolling Extreme. But their most famous game was probably Smashing Drive, a game that looks like a Crazy Taxi ripoff but isn’t really. But here’s a collection of a series from Gaelco I had never heard of: Thunder Hoop.
Have you ever heard of an arcade game called Rapid River? It came out in the late 90s and was made by Namco. The arcade cabinet had you sit on a chair shaped like a river raft and you used real oars to paddle down a river. Two could play at the same time, one for each oar. You could also play by yourself but man that would be a major workout! One cool thing about the game is that there is one part where a T-Rex is chasing you down the river, but there is a secret way to change it to be a giant Pac-Man chasing you instead! I never got it to work myself, though. Anyway, Rapid River was pretty fun and I still see it in arcades today sometimes. It never got a home port but that’s kind of understandable due to the nature of the game. But now you can play something close to it with Paddle Paddle Paddle.
A guy is playing fetch with his dog at the beach. But this isn’t just any dog, this dog can instantly teleport a few feet in front of him. When the guy throws the ball too far, the dog sets out on an adventure somehow. Dimensional Animals is a 2D platformer where you play as animals with special powers and the game has “Metroidvania” elements.
Birdcage is a 2D vertically scrolling bullet hell style shooter. But this one has some unique gameplay ideas that set it apart from the rest. It almost kind of reminds me of a PSOne shooter called Einhander from Square of all people!
Lucky Luke is a popular European comic series. Despite being set in the American Wild West, it’s relatively obscure here in the States. The only other time I’ve ever seen it before was a few other video game releases. And now you can have a Lucky Luke desktop clock on your Switch. Does anybody really use their Switch as a clock? Well, this also has a little mini-game in it, so maybe they’re going for a modern Game & Watch motif.
And that’s all for now! Thanks for reading my reviews and posting ‘likes’ and comments on them! I do appreciate it! Happy Halloween! --Cary
I like some of those fast food toys but I am completely fast food free right now for health reasons.
I like those wooden dioramas in Woodo and I put that Thunder Hoop collection on my Xbox wish list.
I really should break out the Switch, even though I'm not playing it right now, for its other features like as a clock.
I try not to go to fast food as much either. It's not healthy and it's getting pricey now.
I can't really recommend Thunder Hoop Collection since it only has two games and only one of those is decent. But I did just finish a review of Joe & Mac Retro Collection so I'd look at that instead.
I don't understand why people would use the Switch as a clock.
I solved some minor health problems just by staying away. Plus, I got properly sick one day from McDees. Never again!
Joe & Mac does look fun.
I've been trying to figure out ways to use my Switch while I'm not playing games on it just to keep it working. I get nervous when it's not being used. Maybe that battery is dying from neglect.
The high price of fast food is really what keeps me away from it. One of the reasons why you only see me write about Happy Meals mostly is because they are cheap and the portions are small. I did just read an article about Domino's teaming up with Minecraft so I am going to look into that.
I remember enjoying the Star Wars tie in at Pizza Hut back in the early 2000s. Weirdly, I saw the pizza boxes at Retro Con for sale last month. The cup toppers were the best though. I used to have them all.
I think I have a couple of those cup toppers. Darth Maul and that blue bug guy. I forget his name.
Wato. I remember the Nute Gunray (back row, second from left) topper being different, like he had his walking chair. Maybe there was a toy? Oh, here it is.
I have a lot of Phantom Menace rare collectables because a close relative of mine used to work for Frito-Lay and they did movie promotions with it back then.
I'd love to see them.
Most of it is packed away in storage. I have a Star Wars beach towel that I use over my window to keep the sun out, though.
That Garfield game actually looked surprisingly decent, glad to hear it turned out well, I might have to check it out eventually.
Yeah the Garfield game isn't something I'd be all like, '"DUDE YOU HAVE TO CHECK OUT THIS GAME NOW!" And I can understand why some reviewers might've said it was mediocre. But I still enjoyed it for what it was. I just watched a video talking about how it's OK to enjoy mediocre games as long as you have fun, and that describes my time with the Garfield game pretty well.
I'm kind of interested in Garfield, honestly.
But it wouldn't be a Garfield Monday without a "Splut!" Or a "Gorsh!" (which is Samoan for "Splut").
The Garfield game doesn't have that deep of a cut. Really the biggest deep cut that game has is that one of the characters you fight is Squeak the Mouse.
Hey, those reviews got pretty not-spooky as we went. I'm on to you, Cary.
Hey I write on a web site geared toward parents and families, what did you expect? :) On these review blog dumps, I usually put the best and most interesting games near the top, so you could say the games near the bottom are so bad it's scary! :)