107. Screencheat (Samurai Punk, Playstation 4, 2014)

After our Soul Calibur VI tournament ended (with me at dead last), a friend suggested that we try out Screencheat, a game I had purchase a physical copy of years ago intending to play with friends. AS established with this blog, I have way too many games, so Screencheat got mostly forgotten about and I assumed I would probably never play it, so it was great to have the opportunity to do so with 3 friends.

Screencheat is a multiplayer first person shooter designed around "screencheating", or looking at other players screens to determine where they are. This was a common (and commonly maligned) tactic used in multiplayer shooters in the days of split-screen multiplayer. I will admit that I freely screencheated when playing with friends. I found that it didn't really affect the outcome of most games, because I was so bad at first person shooters, though I have certainly played a lot more of them in the last 10 years than I ever had before. As a youth, I hated on first person shooters because popular perception was that they were for dumb bros, and I had to grow up a little to get over that and realize they could be a lot of fun. Halo probably helped.

Anyway, enter Screencheat, a colorful, goofy, always split-screen first person shooter where your character is invisible in every screen but your own, so you have to look at other players' screens to determine where they are. Maps are small and color coded into quadrants to make this actually fun and intriguing. Upon respawning, you can choose from one of about 10 interesting and varied weapons. Most of the weapons don't feel amazing to use, but they are weird enough that I had a good time experimenting and finding ones that worked for me. Also, it turns out years of looking at my friends screens in Halo and Goldeneye paid off, and I did much better in Screencheat than in Soul Calibur VI.

4/5, exactly what you would expect: a dumb, fun, nostalgic time