Posts Tagged ‘PlayStation’

Hooters Road Trip Review

Hooters Road Trip Box Art

Developer: Hoplite Research
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PlayStation, PC

The PlayStation was the start of something amazing for console gamers. This system brought about fan-favorite franchises which continue to this day such Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and many others. Of course, tons of shovelware came alongside the classics. Enter Hooters Road Trip.

Hooters Road Trip is supposedly about traveling between various Hooters restaurants across the United States for no good reason. This manifests as an OutRun-style racing game. As such, the different courses link together, meaning that each race brings with it different state-themed backdrops. It’s rather blurry, though, and the draw distance on the PS1 version leaves much to be desired.

Hooters Road Trip Featured

The racing itself is miserable. Until you unlock the final vehicles (or cheat your way to them), the controls are outrageously slippery. Instead of racing you’ll be careening across the road like a pinball. Suffice it to say this doesn’t work well with aiming for first place. You can’t even do the full road trip right off the bat! Instead, players must run partial trips five times beforehand because the developers wanted to artificially extend their awful gameplay or something.

It’s not all bad. Apparently, Hooters Road Trip launched at $9.99 making it bargain bin trash from the get go. The only enjoyment comes from watching the FMV sequences with Hooters waitresses who all seem to slyly be making fun of the camera person/player. Here’s hoping Hooters never lends their brand to a game again.


Score: 11 out of 5 alpacas


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Stranger of Sword City Review

Stranger of Sword City Boxart

Developer: Experience Inc.
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: PlayStation Vita

You awake among the rubble of a plane crash, seemingly the sole survivor, and find yourself lost within unfamiliar ruins. As you make your way out, you learn that you were transported to an unknown location known as Escario, the Sword City – a city beset by monsters. Facing a deadly wyvern, you are saved by a strange young woman. She, too, has been warped to this land, and takes you to meet others that have experienced the same thing. So begins your journey in Stranger of Sword City. Read more »

Paca Picks: PlayStation DTL-H1001 Blue Debugging Station

This is a PlayStation “debugging station”. These were released as DTL-H100x (blue) and DTL-H120x (green) in the United States, Japan, and Europe – my version is DTL-H001 (NTSC-U). Unlike Net Yaroze systems which were purchasable by public hobbyists, debug systems were used by development studios to quickly test games. As such, the console plays burned discs and is also region free.

How did I come upon this unit? It was sitting alongside 20 other PlayStation systems at my local thrift store. In contrast to the grey exteriors they all had I was immediately drawn to and curious about the blue version. After taking it home I learned it was a debug unit and was incredibly pleased since it had only cost $5. Unfortunately, the blue controller was nowhere to be found.

Who is VNM-Chicago? Presumably they owned all the systems that were unceremoniously dumped off at Goodwill. Maybe one day a Net Yaroze will pop up there too…