EuanDewar

Fuck me that looks cool.

Earthbound GBA cause I've never played it before and I'd like to be able to play it portable-style.

Actually there's a fistload of games I'd love to see remastered but there's just too many so I went with the first one that came to mind. Besides, Halo 3 got remastered so I'm good for a while.

Ashly Burch is slowly starting to resemble the secret third sister of Tegan and Sara Quin.

Considering I had to wait an incredibly silent year and a half for Atlus to quietly announce a (digital-only) european release date for Shin Megami Tensei IV the day before it came out, I would welcome a reconsideration with open arms.

the day before

Aw, the fact that you didn't like it bums me out. My hope was that the different setup (dinosaurs over zombonos any day in my book) would hook me but if the biggest Resi fan I know wasn't huge on it then there aint much hope for me.

I've been playing Resi 2 and am up to a bit where- actually it's kind of hard to articulate where I am right now since it's not anywhere near a clearly defined point in the narrative. Basically, I'm like a half hour so after you do that puzzle with boxes and water levels while controlling Ada. So far it has easily, EASILY been the most fun I've had with a 'classic' style Resi game. I'm actually quite taken aback by just how tangible the atmosphere is given it's status as a 17 year-old PS1 game. The police station in particular has actually been quite a tense place to explore, even to the extent that I haven't gotten used to it yet despite pretty much knowing it's layout like the back of my hand. Impressive.

The combat I am much less happy with though. It's not horrible, and my issue with it doesn't come down to the tank controls as it may do for some people. Basically, I just think it feels like a formality. I'm playing on normal and due to the abundance of herbs and save points I'm never really in any danger from dying, the only thing I ever have to worry about is my ammo but really, I don't have to worry much about that either. Encountering a licker and fighting it never feels like a dynamic encounter, it just feels like two character models scrapping at each other on-screen until one of them stops moving. And then I use one of my 'erbs.

Of course, the natural remedy to this would be play the game on hard or something, but that doesn't sound very appealing to me either. That just sounds like more frustration as a result of this gamepaly aspect that already gets on my tits a bit.

Its a shame cause for the first couple of hours or so I felt like I was right there with you. After Resi 3 did nothing for me I felt like I was finally grasping why these games are canonized classics, and to an extent I do. But I'm just not quite there. I'll still keep pluggin' away at it though. Who knows, maybe by the time I get round to Claire's part of the story I'll have been fully converted.

Sorry for writing down a bunch about Resi 2 here on this (sort of but also not) unrelated post. I just needed to get those thoughts down somewhere. Eventually I'll write a blog post of my own about it but I've got a lot of stuff to play right now and most of it I have been assigned to write about in some form, so I don't know if I'll get round to it anytime soon.

edit: FUCK MAN I JUST SAW THE BIT IN RESI 2 WHERE THE THING EXPLODES OUT OF BEN AND SLITHERS OFF OUT OF THE ROOM AND LEON JUST LOOKS AT IT LIKE "HUH... WEIRD" AND THAT WAS STRAIGHT ONE OF THE FUNNIEST THINGS IN A GAME EVER

There's a cameo from a real life musician later on in the story that blew my mind. I know with the whole music theme going on in this game it isn't too far-fetched to expect this sort of cameo but the fact it was this specific person was totally insane to me. Also pretty funny how their appearance is foreshadowed as early as the character creation screen.

(side note: this person being in the game will probably not be very exciting to most people who play Sunset Overdrive, so don't get your hopes up too much.)

Well done Hamilton. Cracking race, what a season this has been.

Keanu enjoying his F1 experience

First up I'll say that I haven't played that much of it yet (haven't been able to play the monster at all), and of course this is an alpha so grain of salt and all that.

I'm really quite genuinely surprised by how much I don't like it. All of the hunter classes that I've been able to play just don't feel satisfying in the slightest. None of the guns, none of the movement, just nothing is as tight and weighty as it needs to be. I could maybe understand the medic or support playing a little loosely considering how they aren't combat focused. But the assault? You know what playing the assault reminded me of? Section 8. Not good.

Basically, I think this game is missing Valve. I don't want to diminish the work that Turtle Rock put into making the Left 4 Dead games the hits they were, they deserve all accolades that come their way for that stuff. But I think the reason those games reached another level, the reason every aspect felt so well-designed was because of the attention to detail and guidance that Valve bring to projects. They did the same thing with Portal, they brought in a team who had created this student project with great potential and helped them bring it to fruition as full thing. Ended up creating one of the most beloved games of all time as a result.

Without that guidance Turtle Rock seem a little lost. Again, as many have said, the core idea is really solid. Tons of potential. But, like Left 4 Dead, it's an idea that only works if the gameplay is polished to the finest of points. My hope is that the shaky feedback they seem to be getting from the alpha allows them to sharpen all this stuff up. Lord knows we've heard instances of games that have only properly come together in those final months (Street Fighter 4 comes to mind in particular). My fear though is that they don't have the time they need between now and release to bridge that quality gap. At this point I would be totally fine, happy even, with another delay.

Who cares as long as I can still keep going with my blog that reviews every episode of Pointless.