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It only took me about five-or-so hours. I was pleasantly surprised myself. On the other-hand though, I am really into puzzle-games and plat-formers.

Bought it - Gamesplanet have the Steam key at a slight discount.

Will know just what I've let myself in for in 20 minutes.

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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

That smug look on his face with that little dance after a Liu Kang flying kick!? aaaaah that would knock my blood pressure into 4 digits!

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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear

Last night I stumbled upon a lonely SNES Classic at the local Target. I missed the chance at the original NES Classic release a while back, so figured why not. I had this system in late high school, but growing up a SEGA kid I only had the Super Mario World game, Street Fighter II, and maybe one other game. I did eventually start collecting ROMs in college, but this should do. Not a bad collection of games from what it appears. I'm really excited to play Super Metroid again, but with a controller this time. Still though, I would much rather have the NES. There were too many great memories on that system, whenever I could visit my step-brother.

It shouldn't be too hard to put all the NES Mini's games on your SNES. I've not done that particular mod but have over 100 SNES games on mine.

I've put about 3 hours into Kingdom Come and one thing's clear - The developers are reaching for the proverbial stars.

First impressions are that it's nowhere near as clunky and buggy as we'd been led to expect and performance is acceptable on my system.

If Witcher 3 and Fable had a baby, it'd probably look a lot like this.

Tutorial area peasant count: Sufficient.

Yeah, one thing I've become hyper-aware of in games like this is "how many NPCs do they think they need/can provide in order to make this feel like an actual town/village." It gets kinda funny (and sometimes sad) when you start looking for it.

There's definitely not the same level of polish that The Witcher has, but that's not a slight - It's a small, new team behind the game. I've just had the latest of late title cards - 4 hours in!



But. Of. Course.

When every screenshot I take in the Shadow of the Colossus remake looks like hand drawn art, it's not hard to get across how beautiful, strange and lonely the game is. Probably even more so now than on its original release, where the PS2 hardware could not do justice to the developers' vision, it is a truly special experience.







I'm blown away. Again.

Looking forward to playing that in 3 years time. I can imagine the FFVII remake yielding a product like this. The original was great, but benefits immensely from non-polygon art.

Yeah, as justifiably important as FFVII is, it's very hard to go back to in 2018 as a PS1 title, same with an awful lot of that generation's games. Early polygonal 3D has dated horribly.

See also: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Tenchu etc

The System Shock remake is being temporarily put on hold.

"On the game’s Kickstarter page, Nightdive Studios’ CEO and founder Stephen Kick has posted to state that development on the game has halted while the Nightdive team regroup to get back on track. You’re probably asking the same questions I asked when I first read that announcement. Well, according to Kick, along the way, the team moved from the remaster to “a completely new game.” After the change in engine from Unity to Unreal, the team “began envisioning doing more, but straying from the core concepts of the original title.”

As the concept grew, so did the scope of the game (and the game’s budget). “The more that we worked on the game, the more that we wanted to do, and the further we got from the original concepts that made System Shock so great.” As a result, Kick has “put the team on a hiatus while we reassess our path so that we can return to our vision. We are taking a break, but NOT ending the project…System Shock is going to be completed and all of our promises fulfilled.”"

Don't quite know why I've decided to play through Dark Souls again, especially with the remaster just around the corner, but playing through it I am. Moonlight Butterfly .... Gonnnnne!

One of the top 5 games of the last generation?

Man, I feel like an old fuddy dud. What with my pattern of buying/playing games almost a decade after release. =\

So I just started Arkham Asylum on PS3. It was another clearance item at the local Walmart. Wow! This game is great!! I remember eyeing Arkham City that had a free download for Asylum, years back at Sam's Club. They kept marking the price down by 2 dollars each week. The last time I went in it was sold. Since then, I could never justify buying JUST one game or the other because the free download version became my obsessive Holy Grail.

Now, I finally breakdown for $12 new. Damn, this game is fun. It has most all that I loved about the Bioshock franchise with its mood, atmosphere, dark voice acting, and all the recorded notes to listen to along the way. It also takes me back to the old Metroid and Super Metroid days of discovery and level replay-ability once you've earned a few equipment upgrades. Level designs are very thoughtful, hiding access points to alternate routes or to find hidden Riddler clues. I especially love how some levels slowly tilt your point of view when closing in on certain boss fights. That is a great nod to the the old TV series and the extreme perspective angle drawings that help make comics so fun. And it's just CREEPY to see your world shift ever so slightly as you play!

In most every game I've played, I find myself drawn to playing sneaky ninja-like characters. Most games only proximate that experience. As Batman though, I can be the best ninja I can be and still be able to vanish under attack, scaring the **** out of the bad guys!

This is good fun.

Talking of top 5 games of the generation...

I started >Observer_. 10/10 on atmosphere, with some cool visual throwbacks to older cyberpunk. Rutger Hauer sounds ill, but his voice is great in it. The story is okay so far. Glitchy bits seem overkill, but really impressive.

My sister, bless her, saw I had Kingdom Come (PS4) on my Amazon wishlist - I'd forgotten to take it off when I bought the Steam version - and bought it for me at the weekend. So I now have two copies of this weird, potentially classic, game.

I'm really really liking it so far.

Gameplay's basically The Witcher 3's world style and questing allied to For Honour's swordplay and Bethesda's (though they've left depth like this behind since Oblivion) levelling system where repeating actions improves your skill at them.

Today I learned to read and am a level 3 drunkard! Basically, an Irish playwright.

If only the guy behind it wasn't a bit of a Gamergater...

Man, I am slightly miffed. I've been keeping tabs on this oddity since early Kickstarter. It sounds exactly my kind of eccentric beast

But having migrated to VR-O-Rama, I must now pin my hopes on dangled future candy like this...

The odds of this Cryengine beast actually culling its greater polyganol excesses down and becoming VR playable seem fairly fricking slim. And that's before adapting the swordplay. Plus I've no idea how annoying non-functioning doors would be in VR...

But there are Cryengine VR games out there, such as the dino-adventure Robinson: The Journey, so I guess a really graphically curtailed version might just work. Fallout style. Like... semi work

Kickstarter dev lasts even longer in VR :/

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

My main negative is the quest structure which, at the moment, is consisting of far too many 'Find Dandelion' type missions. A plot advancing npc is in a vague, undiscovered part of the map and you've got to track them down over a number of steps.

Ugg, 'stalk the plant stalk' quests? That does sound a bit naff. Things like the Witcher 'blood trail' mechanic improved that kind of staged search - kinda dumbed down but with a touch of puzzle and immersion. Guess they can't magic that up though. (I did wonder whether the 'gossip chain' style of mission unlocks would get a bit limiting - they demoed a few in the last few months before launch. Kinda cool in theory, but also begging for some alternate routes in too...)

What's keeping me trodding on with the main story is that Henry is such a likeable fella, so much so that I felt that it would be totally against his character to pickpocket or pick even one lock.

That's the problem with such an open-ended game featuring a named, voiced protagonist. In an Elder Scrolls game you could simply roll a Dark Elf thief and get up to mischief without compromising the role playing.

EDIT - Capra demon ... gonnnnnnne! Onwards to The Depths.