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The People's Republic of Clogher
I have bought this. It has begun...

I've got a drawer full of Sanwa arcade buttons and a 19" 720p TV sitting in a cupboard so all I really need to build my arcade is some MDF and some wires. And the ability to solder.

I hate soldering.

Mass Effect 2 is free on Origin, everyone!
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan



Hellloooo Cindy - Scary Movie (2000)
It took 55 hours of my life (this playthrough). It's just a game, it's an old game, I used a walkthrough at times but I feel satisfied, I'm proud. I finished Dark Souls. I bought it back in 2011 on the 360, fell in love but got half way through and stopped. Attempted it again throughout the years maybe 4 times with an average play time of no more than an hour or two each time.

Now It's done, what can? The games one of the best I've played. If I was to compare it to any game I've played I feel like its a F'ed up version of Zelda Ocarina of time. Certain areas will be eteched into my memeory for an eternity just like in Zelda. How many times did I run to the firelink shrine through the undead parish to the blacksmith and so on.

I never summoned a NPC, never obtained the drake sword, never learnt or used a spell (I don't understand the mechanics haha). The hardest boss was Sir Grey Wolf, not because I had some emotional attachment to the beast but I was using a long slow thrust weapon. Smoug and Orstein where the second hardest and third is tied with the centipede demon and the last boss. The easiest was Pinwheel, that was a first attempt, ceaseless discharge was also a first attempt. I didn't defeat the asylum demon at the bottom of the undead asylum and that weird boss monster stuck to the wall in Blighttown, my only regrets.

I felt the difficulty levels out after Smoug and Orstein, the environments are also not as memorable after Sen's Fortress. The first half of the game is so strong, so difficult, the pace seems to drop mildly although it's still enjoyable but not as tense, more of a slog. Mind you this is a minor criticism as I regard it as one of the greats and given I'd been playing it flat out, I'm sure thats mental fatigue.

The strongest asset of the game, along with the excellent level design is the melee combat. There's something so satisfying. It's timing and skill. Your timing, your reactions, your thought. Press this button shield goes up, press it to late and you are hit. Judge the distance. Strike to far away and you leave yourself open. If the combat is bettered in souls 2 or 3 then I will be happy but I don't see how it can be, frame rate could use a hand though.

I never officially cheated, like I said, no drake sword, no summoning. Yet, I joined the forest hunter conventant and defeated a online player. He dropped an unbelievable amount of souls. Something like 300,000. I had defeated O and S at this time and was on my last quarter of the game but....those souls gave me about 15 levels. I'm sure they helped haha.

So what next? Well new game plus is waiting and it will continue to wait. Dark soul 2 and 3. Eventually. I think I need a nice, easy friendly game, Ninja Gaiden Black perhaps



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
Left with no choice but to stay in the house and stare at a screen, I'm trying to finish off Rise of the Tomb Raider and download Let it Die. 3 hours later and still waiting.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”


After many months of sporadic playing and spamming this thread, I am done with Rise of the Tomb Raider.

It was enjoyable, but it became a burden/chore towards the end of the ride. The controls are not as tight as other Indiana Jones games and some of the later platforming really suffers because of this.

The story is very vanilla and definitely one of the weaker parts of the game. After playing this and the latest Nathan Drake adventure....I'm going to have to swing back to Uncharted, which I was so easily ready to dismiss.

There is only one part where this seems to outshine Naughty Dog's latest pup and that is with the rpg elements. There are 500-eleven different collectibles, shoot this, caves, tombs, etc. All result in some xp upgrade, new weapon or ability leveling. If you like this sort of stuff, there is plenty of it.

I grew tired of it when I realized how much it dragged things out and how little I benefited from it. I pretty much went through the game using the bow along with the axe melee. I didn't use any of the healing until the very end in an attempt to expedite the ending.

It is worth a play, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first in the reboot. A solid game with less than stellar controls and a generic story.







The People's Republic of Clogher
I ended up enjoying it a lot more than the initial reboot but still faded out after 15 or so hours.

This current team have done 5 Tomb Raider games and still haven't figured out that the pull of the first three titles was doe to them being, essentially, puzzle games with exploration and a bit of action. They're now (very well made) action games with barely any exploration and puzzles.



Tyler isn't here! Tyler went away! Tyler's gone!
SSX Tricky,



it is the best snowboarding game out there

They need to get SSX Tricky and Jet Set Radio Future on Backwards Compatibility


Playing Shovel Knight
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...This confession has meant nothing.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
I need to play Shovel Knight. I loved all the games it was inspired by.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”


Captain Obvious realized that an optimal approach to Hotline Miami is no guns. It only took way too long to figure that one out. That and the power of doors.

If you ever have an impromptu house party and you have no music, just turn this game on and let it run. Not like I haven't said that before, but I can't recall music in a game that has ever been that good or fits so well.





A system of cells interlinked
Twisted Metal (2012)

I've finished up playing pretty much everything I wanted to get through on the PSNow service. I decided to make January the last month I subscribed to the service, so before it shuts off on the 20th, I figured I would play some stuff I didn't have on my radar. Way back in the PS1 days, I was a big Twisted Metal fan, so when it floated by on the list, I fired it up.

5 hours later (!!!) I was deep in the campaign mode, having a blast. The game hasn't changed much over the years, but this version had a fun story mode split into three character story lines that keeps the player pushing forward through the various modes. There are also several boss fights, one of which rivaled Dark Souls in difficulty - a brutal four stage boss that had me spitting curses at the screen for over an hour. My wife even said "this reminds me of that other game you played with the spider lady."

This time round, it was a giant, evil doll. I got her down...eventually.

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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
So I'm guessing Persona isn't going to be out for awhile, so I began looking for the next game. It appears to be Resident Evil VII. I start perusing the available pre-order bonuses and they are pitiful. Sorry Capcom, guess I'll wait to read the reviews and possibly not buy the game if it's a poop.

The best pre-order bonus I ever got was with the last RE game (which makes sense, considering how horrid it was). It was an Umbrella umbrella which I gifted to someone who uses it as their go-to brella-ella-ella-ella -eh- eh....



The People's Republic of Clogher
Try out the Nier Automata demo. It looks fantastic - Xenosaga crossed with MGR Revengeance.

Persona V is out in Japan but the English translation isn't coming until April.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
I'll try to DL that before I go out the door today.



Over the last 7 or 8 months I haven't had any new game really grab me (with the exception of playing my buddy's Vive, god that tech is cool). Civ6 feels awesome, I have nothing but great things to say about it, but it couldn't keep me. I struggled with wanting Fallout 4 so bad that I spent literally 6 hours trying to install fallout NV on my computer and running into horrible install problems, finally got it to work, bounced off it in a couple hours, blamed game's age, got a new graphics card later, got fallout 4, bounced off it (though I can tell I'll go back eventually).

But god damn, I've been hooked by DOOM. It's weird I'm even posting this because I hate just saying exactly what others are saying, but it is thrilling. It's funny, the game comes with this reputation for being this ultra-machismo simulator, but I hardly ever feel in control; they nailed the difficulty curve. It feels like it knows that it's pushing how much I think I can handle and getting me to be constantly on the move; almost always running from one demon while shooting at another.

It's great.

Oh, and the sound design is seriously incredible.



Over the last 7 or 8 months I haven't had any new game really grab me (with the exception of playing my buddy's Vive, god that tech is cool). Civ6 feels awesome, I have nothing but great things to say about it, but it couldn't keep me. I struggled with wanting Fallout 4 so bad that I spent literally 6 hours trying to install fallout NV on my computer and running into horrible install problems, finally got it to work, bounced off it in a couple hours, blamed game's age, got a new graphics card later, got fallout 4, bounced off it (though I can tell I'll go back eventually).
I'd be curious to hear more about all this: why you bounced off F4, and why you can tell you'll go back.

Also, please stream it. I've been trying to get people I know to stream F4, particularly if they haven't played much of it before. I will totally watch, possibly for long stretches of time, and I'll even let you control how much information I give (if any) about nearby locations and quests and such.



there's a frog in my snake oil
All this Doom love really does tempt me. But I keep having to remind myself that I don't want to be trapped between two demons . (Basically I worry that a modern day take on all the gore-gasm wouldn't do it for me, as I'm not a horror fan. All round it does sound stellar though, and I do like fast shooters time to time, especially if they've got personality and cunning level design and that. Hmmm).

PS What games worked for you on the Vive? (I'm yet to try VR, and probably shouldn't. My vague plan is to snag a 2nd kit in a few years if it takes hold. It's a good plan. And luckily I can't afford any of my bad plans )
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



I'd be curious to hear more about all this: why you bounced off F4, and why you can tell you'll go back.

Also, please stream it. I've been trying to get people I know to stream F4, particularly if they haven't played much of it before. I will totally watch, possibly for long stretches of time, and I'll even let you control how much information I give (if any) about nearby locations and quests and such.
You know, I just might do that because it's also a really good fit for streaming and I tried for a little bit to stream games that I want to talk out loud about (One of my favorite experiences of all time was when someone was watching me play the beginner's guide for the first time, because I'd stop for long sections and explain what I was thinking, and it really hit me a lot harder when I actually talked through what I thought about the game).

I loved fallout 3 a lot because I really got in the head space of my imagined character. My favorite experience in the game was actually walking the dad back to the jefferson memorial (for some reason I didn't think I could fast travel). As far as I can tell, it's the longest my character got to spend with her dad after the separation, and I kinda got to experience that (that and the dad felt the need to karate chop every single boatfly in a 100 yard radius on the way there).

So I think I'll be more into fallout 4 when I can get in the role playing side, and that might be easier when I'm in talking mode. I'll ponder a bit more, a VOD might appear out of nowhere during a late night session while I see if I like streaming it.

All this Doom love really does tempt me. But I keep having to remind myself that I don't want to be trapped between two demons . (Basically I worry that a modern day take on all the gore-gasm wouldn't do it for me, as I'm not a horror fan. All round it does sound stellar though, and I do like fast shooters time to time, especially if they've got personality and cunning level design and that. Hmmm).
Honestly I don't care for gore at all. I don't watch game of thrones because of it. I saw one particularly gruesome MK fatality and I've actively avoided seeing any more since.

But really, the gore in this game doesn't get to me even a little bit. It feels so played up that there's just such a clear disconnect that it's like seeing Tarantino gore.

It's a very fast shooter, it's got personality, but not the dominant personality that people mean when they say personality (firefly-esque witties tossed between characters); though I don't know if I'd say the level design is cunning per se, it's just very functional (finding secrets is a lot of fun though, and often you'll see something and just know there's something off about it that there's a secret there).


PS What games worked for you on the Vive? (I'm yet to try VR, and probably shouldn't. My vague plan is to snag a 2nd kit in a few years if it takes hold. It's a good plan. And luckily I can't afford any of my bad plans )
A lot of stuff honestly, my head was swimming after the first time.

One of the best parts was part of Zombie simulator where there's a speed challenge to shoot 4 zombies as quickly as possible. I realized that the fastest I could get was by holding up one hand and pointing it at one zombie, holding that hand as still as possible while I looked in the opposite direction and lined up a shot on the other one, pulled the triggers at the same time and instantly moved my other hands to line up on the others. The simple act of aiming at something you're not actually looking at really tickled my brain. It was like learning object permanence all over again. The normal campaign of that game is just kinda aight though, there will be better versions of it.

The archery games have been pretty good. The archery game that comes with the lab has a lot of great haptic feedback on the vive controllers that make it feel like you're pulling a string. And when it gets stressful it gets super immersive. The other archery game is probably even better though, Holopoint. The gameplay premise is suuuuper simple. There are cubes that shoot at you after a few seconds unless you hit it first, but even when you hit the cube, it'll shoot a projectile at the location you shot it from. This forces you to constantly be on the move in ridiculous ways. I'm in decent shape. I was sweaty and out of breath after 20 minutes of this. I just forgot about this until now, but I actually was running around so much that I kicked the wall so hard the front of my toenail came off on my pinky toe and I was bleeding pretty badly but I had NO IDEA because I was so immersed. The people watching me didn't even notice til we saw the blood all over the hardwood floor.

I also enjoyed the spaceship game in the Lab a lot. Waltz of the wizard was a great tech demo, and I hope they put that in a full game (like a VR Magicka). It's also just a ton of fun to watch someone play it in person. My girlfriend got in a shootout and it was awesome watching her crouch and roll around while she was hiding under an office desk in the game. My buddy got tilt brush since I was last there a week or so ago and has been raving about it.

That said, after having played it for about 5-6 hours by now, I think the most exciting thing is the promise. After the first night I very nearly bought my own, but now I'm content to wait until we really capitalize on this. I'm happy that Valve is involved so heavily in bringing this about, I've always been upset that so much of the Wii's potential was squandered by Nintendo's refusal to really open up their platform to independent devs, but I think this will really be something special.

Even then, once there's a few games out that really use the tech I've seen so far in a full fledged game experience, I'd drop 800 on it, no question (and I'm pretty frugal).



there's a frog in my snake oil
But really, the gore in this game doesn't get to me even a little bit. It feels so played up that there's just such a clear disconnect that it's like seeing Tarantino gore.

It's a very fast shooter, it's got personality, but not the dominant personality that people mean when they say personality (firefly-esque witties tossed between characters); though I don't know if I'd say the level design is cunning per se, it's just very functional (finding secrets is a lot of fun though, and often you'll see something and just know there's something off about it that there's a secret there).
Cool, I need to check out some footage for sure. (Yeah I'd heard secrets were one of the things they'd replicated well, plus the flow of action). I normally lean to slower / co-op / vehicle shooters generally, but Titanfall has speeded me up a bit, and it's definitely getting a lot of love.

The simple act of aiming at something you're not actually looking at really tickled my brain. It was like learning object permanence all over again...
That sounds great . There does feel like this world of potential out there for novel gaming and experiences. There was an interesting launch game called Esper 2 that deliberately messed with players by changing objects and characters when they moved out of sightline, for physics puzzles and narrative twists. It look like it supported the 'psychic detective' trappings pretty well.

...This forces you to constantly be on the move in ridiculous ways. I'm in decent shape. I was sweaty and out of breath after 20 minutes of this. I just forgot about this until now, but I actually was running around so much that I kicked the wall so hard the front of my toenail came off on my pinky toe and I was bleeding pretty badly but I had NO IDEA because I was so immersed. The people watching me didn't even notice til we saw the blood all over the hardwood floor....

I also enjoyed the spaceship game in the Lab a lot. Waltz of the wizard was a great tech demo, and I hope they put that in a full game (like a VR Magicka). It's also just a ton of fun to watch someone play it in person. My girlfriend got in a shootout and it was awesome watching her crouch and roll around while she was hiding under an office desk in the game. My buddy got tilt brush since I was last there a week or so ago and has been raving about it.
Yeah the full-immersion injuries seem to really rack up! (I'm kinda intrigued by some art installation stuff that uses bigger floor spaces. Apparently by representing a 90 degree turn as an 80 degree one you can trick people into believing they're in a completely unfettered world).

And my god, I would so pay for a VR Magicka . Setting your own head on fire by mistake would be something else...


That said, after having played it for about 5-6 hours by now, I think the most exciting thing is the promise. After the first night I very nearly bought my own, but now I'm content to wait until we really capitalize on this. I'm happy that Valve is involved so heavily in bringing this about, I've always been upset that so much of the Wii's potential was squandered by Nintendo's refusal to really open up their platform to independent devs, but I think this will really be something special.
Yeah, I'm a bit worried about the strategy though. Currently it seems most Devs are relying on some kind of financial support from the tech platforms. Not sure it's a great space for AAA at any rate, and not sure all the high-end users will be satisfied with indie output. Hopefully all the experimenting at the cheaper end of the scale will truffle out some killer apps tho



Today is a glorious day. I've witnessed a miracle. For the first time in years, I can actually, finally play Jade Empire. I was told great things about it, but no matter what I did I could never get it to work.

2017 is already off to a great start.