I thought I’d start a little blog, detailing which games I’ve played over the last week. I know, it sounds incredibly boring, but until the variety runs dry, I thought I’d give it a go.

Virtua Fighter II (Sega Mega Drive/ Genesis)

After playing so much Street Fighter IV, my friend and I played a visit to the 90’s, and played VFII. The game threw up many surprises. The first being that Tom Selleck is in the game. The second was that I quite liked how it played, apart from the terrible pace. If Street Fighter II is Formula One, Virtua Fighter II is Bumper Carts. Or Dodgems as they’re known everywhere else. If fighters were on the moon, they’d play like this. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but VFII hasn’t aged well compared to its Capcom brother, and graphically it caused me to roll on the floor in agony. I’m not exaggerating this time. Okay I am. Next!

Street Fighter IV (PS3/ Xbox 360)

Let’s get this out of the way, because I don’t know a week I haven’t played it since it came out. I got pretty good for a while too, getting 1500 odd battle points. It’s not great, sure, but it’s better than nothing. Apparently Capcom don’t think so, and insist on putting 0BP fighters against the likes of me, or when I was starting out, vice versa. SFIV is a gem of a game, but I don’t think it does now what SFII did to the games industry then, if that makes sense. I don’t hear people talking about it everywhere I go, like I did with SFII. I’ve grown to like it in the visual department too, because at first I must admit I found it an ugly game. Now however, I quite like it, even if some characters shoulders are wide enough to fit several more heads than humanly possible onto them, and certain female characters have manhands.

On a down note, I don’t like the Ultra system. It should take longer to fill up and/ or do less damage. I can pull of Ultra’s, we all can, but I don’t see what it brings to the game, which is all about fighting each other, not watching the CPU spank the other guy.

Full Throttle (PC CDROM)

You know what would look good on your nose? The bar! Sure, it’s not the funniest joke in the world, but it certainly gave me a laugh, and fits the game perfectly. Full Throttle is a somewhat underappreciated Lucas Arts point and click adventure. It has a great sense of humour about itself, and looks pretty good to boot. The pre-rendered stuff looks like something from an early Sega Saturn demo, but the sprites look really decent, and so do most of the backgrounds. It’s even got good voice acting, something that games released many years after suffered with. I didn’t play much of this, I will do down the line, but I am informed its incredibly short.

Persona 4 (PS2)

We are living our lives
Abound with so much information
Come on, let go of the remote
Don’t you know you’re letting all the junk flood in?

I’m not a Wii-hater, but those lyrics speak wise words about a certain platforms quality of games.

I’ve been playing Persona 4, not nearly as much as I’ve wanted to due to work constraints and a little thing called Formula One. This game has grabbed me by the ghoulies though and refuses to let go. At times I don’t know what Persona 4 is, is it a game, a succession of cut scenes or a mind combustion device? At times it lets me do too much, and I’m not sure what I should be doing. Getting those social links up? Finding the current TV prisoner? Levelling my Personas? Getting a job? Man, I really should do that last one, as the money isn’t flowing. For those who don’t wish to spoil the game, jump down to my next entry, but for those who have played it, I’m currently up to Kanji’s dungeon. I’m not struggling with the enemies at all, but I’m using up a lot of SP. I don’t know why, but I just feel I’m playing this game wrong. Maybe it’s me, but I keep thinking I’ve missed opportunities to do things. I hope Shadow Kanji isn’t as hard as the Contrarian King. Rampage.

Metal Gear Solid (PSX/ PC CDROM/ GC)

I’ve got both the GC and PSX version of this classic, one-of-the-greatest-of-all-time video game. I decided to go back and play it through, to see how it holds up to today’s standards. Sure the graphics are pixelated, and the textures warp like you’re on drugs, but if you see past that you’re still in for a heck of a ride. I played up to the Grey Fox boss battle. Along the way I was reminded how well the games soundtrack draws you in. It’s one of those few games that really submerge you in its world. Although I love the beautiful graphics of MGS4, and it’s near perfect game play, I didn’t feel I missed it. Probably because ideally a great game then is still a great game now, and should stand up on its own. MGS is a game that blew me away when I first played it as a teenager, and because of that I can never quite articulate why I think it’s so damn great. MGS is just one of the games that came out in the illegally good late-late 90’s era. Just go play it or something.

Although the GTA III trilogy is certainly funny at times, and Earthbound is undoubtably well written, Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga gets my vote. Probably. Conker gets a mention too.

Chrono Trigger released here on the 6th in the UK and the rest of Europe (I believe), and I was looking forward to that. Now I've got it and it's 100% Chrono Trigger, which is 100% awesome.

Even though SCEE and Capcom have let us down a bit with the missing SSFIITHDR on the Europe PSN I'm still eager for SFIV. Even though my mate will beat me at it.