Holiday of a lifetime

   So, I've just spent a week in the hospital (don;t worry, It's nothing serious (even though I have been being watched 24/7)) with just what I could fit in a bag for company. That has meant I've spent about 12 hours a fay, every day, staring at a laptop screen, and it's beginning to feel like my eyes are going to fall out. If I never see a screen again I'll be happy (that said, Watchdogs is out Friday and I've been looking forward to that game for about 6 months, so I'll be playing that a lot (more on that to follow (another day))).

   So, what have I been doing? Well, a hell of a lot of time has been spent playing Champ Man 03/04 (yeah, took me 4 seasons to win the prem with West Brom). As I'm down with the Champ man/ FM crowd though I'm well aware that every player wants to talk about their own game but not ever hear about anyone else’s so I wont go in to it any more.

   So, I mentioned I bought a PS Vita before, so I loaded the best games I had for it on to it before I left and thought finally I'd get some use out of it. I got through about half of the first world of Sly cooper: thieves in time and now haven't played it since the second day I was here, nor any other Vita games for that matter. Buying a Vita may have been the biggest waste of about £150 of my entire life (that said, it made me get PS plus, which turned out to be a great purchase on my PS3). I've just got to make a decision on whether to keep it or sell it now.

   I've packed a fair few books as well, and been given a few by family as well, and I've not opened a single one. I can't be bothered. Reading a book to me always seems like a massive effort ahead of time, and inevitably once I'm a couple of chapters into them, I'll love it, but I find it hard to motivate myself to start. It's not just books I'm like that on though, it pretty much goes for any new media, a new TV series, a new game, a new band, whatever it is going in always feels like 'ugh'.

   I have got myself to start watching Babylon 5 though, after hearing great things about it and being gifted the first season on DVD (what is this, 2008?) about 3 years ago. So, I started watching it, got about 3 episodes in, and it was flipping awful. So, I took to the internet (on my phone, I'll be damned if I'm paying the hospital for the privilege (or the equal privilege to watch daytime terrestrial TV)). What I discovered was the first season was pretty meh, but after that it gets amazing, but season 1 is full of set up and you'll appreciate it more. It also seemed like you could start from season 2 and be fine, but I'll be damned that if I'm gonna watch the whole thing I'm not going to start from the start. This is far from the first time I've done this, Angel and TNG spring to mind here as starting very slowly, but I had to watch it anyway (what kind of fan would I be otherwise (and I'd have missed Yar and the Tar!)).

   I've knocked out a few films too and been reminded how lame James Bond films are. It may be because they've been so overdone now, spoofed and the formula repeated so much that It seems so old hat (also the one I watched was from 1971, so that probably didn't help). I also didn't like the Godfather for mostly the same reason, but probably ,ore due to the recent playing of Mafia 2 (and you all know what I think about that anyway), which pretty much rips off most of the film, but as I played that game first, the film seems like I've seen it all before. Additionally I didn't like how it kept skipping forwards in unspecific amounts of time. Evil Dead 2013 is amazing though (even though I've seen it before).

   In the last few days I've started getting so bored that I've started tweeting along to everything I’ve been watching https://twitter.com/andy_pearsall. I certainly hope my 9 followers (2 of which are bots and 6 of which I'm fairly sure wouldn't give a damn and probably think I've got mad) are enjoying it.

   Finally then, what's it like no leaving a room. Firstly, I'll explain that I have to mostly spend the time sitting on either 1 specific chair or the bed, as I have to stay on camera as much as possible. It should also be noted that I have a load of electrodes stuck on my head that I can't take off (hence no shower), attached to a shoulder bag (which I also couldn't take off), that after 7 days was starting to feel pretty damn heavy. I've also had to have a needle in my arm that is very sore, extremely difficult to sleep with (don’t' forget the electrodes, shoulder bag and hospital bed when thinking of this) and even harder to change my T shirt with, which is difficult enough with all this stuff on my head and the shoulder bag that I've already got to get it over. In addition to this, there's nurses, doctors and orderlies coming in every half hour for something or other, and even though I know they're doing their jobs, sometimes I just want some peace and quiet. The only time I do get it is at night, but then I'm woken up at 6AM for a blood pulse test and then given meds, breakfast, tea, checked on and my bed turned all before 8AM.

   Then there's the food. It's not as bad as people make out, but after a whole week of it I just wanted to go out and eat something fancy, or even just a Pizza would've been nice. Add on to this that all 3 meals come within 10 hours of each other, then you have to wait 14 hours until the next one isn't very well planned, so I have to rely whatever snacks my family bring me during the evening, and they're never healthy (not that I really want them to be) and during my time stuck in a room I can't exactly get any exercise done, so I'm probably stone by now.

   That's pretty much it then, you may notice that some of this is in the past and present tense, that's because, even though I'm writing it while I'm still in hospital (I need to pass the time dammit) I decided I wanted to make it seem like I wrote it when I got out, but I'd intermittently remember that I was doing that, but kept forgetting and now I can't be bothered to go back and correct it.

I'll be back with something on Watchdogs next week

Week 12.5

   So, I was trying to delay this until I had finished child of light, but after a busy couple of weeks of TV/football/work, it's obvious I'm still a long way off. So, looks like I did only make 12 games in the end then, which is okay, because that's what I set out to do. So, today I'll be ranking those 12 games that I completed (got to love some ranking), but first, a few more observations on child of light.

   Firstly, I had to get a giant to lift me up to a floating island, but, Aurora (the protagonist) can fly, so why do I need lifting up, when I could have just flown up there? Also, I'm noticing that it's quite difficult to tell what genders characters are. For half of the game I thought that Rubella (the clown companion) was a boy, but it turns out it was a girl all along (at least, I think she is, I'm probably wrong again now).

   And I don't want to hear that she looks like a girl, she's an old timey clown, which means it would be a man dressed as a woman anyway! There are also lots of bonus hidden dungeons with extra challenges, which are great and all, but the occulli (stones that you can combine to create enchantments for items) that you collect just aren't that useful, so makes it seem like a waste of time even doing it as they don't really have much effect (I suppose I could just enjoy it for the fun, but what's the point of fun if there's no reward to it!?).
   Despite the grief I'm giving Child of Light here though, I am enjoying it, and will hopefully have it done before watchdogs come out, it's just that it draws a lot of comparisons to South Park the stick of truth in so much as it's a JRPG light and about the same length (so I've been told), and with it not being as good as South Park (not much is), it's making it seem like more of a drag. If this game had come out a few months down the line, in the July/August gaming lull we're headed for, I'd probably have been more in to it (and yes, I could've waited till then to play it, but I didn't appreciate the similarities at the time).

So then, let's rank these 12.

12. Mafia 2.

   No surprises there then really, I've spoken enough about how this game bored me. It was like I'd gone back to the early naughties and was playing a GTA 3 clone, like true crime or something. The story was passable, but the gameplay was poor, checkpoints too far apart and much like LA Noire, nothing much to do outside the main game.

11. Crimson Dragon

   I bought this one in hopes that it would live up to it's spiritual predecessor series of Panzer Dragoon back on the mighty Saturn, which I loved at the time, but it turned out to be more of the same and little to no improvement in the gameplay front. It forced you in to replaying levels to get upgrades, and although it did have a handy light RPG element outside of the playing of the game, it wasn't enough to make it entertaining.

10. Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes

   Obviously Metal Gear Solid is a legendary game series, but this semi-demo just didn't do it for me, it seemed like the guards were just too good, spotting you in the pitch black from hundreds of yards away, don't get me wrong, I don't want it to be easy, but it seems as though the main game should return to the more corridor based stylings we've seen in the past lest I spend many more hours running round in circles, making piles of bodies and hiding in a tiny gap for 15 minutes before I do anything.

9. Toy Soldiers: Cold war

   So, we're more on to games that I actually enjoyed now, but obviously still up this high on the list, they have problems. The problem here is that it's a tower defence game, so it's never going to be a world beater, but on the plus side, it let you on the battlefield from time to time in different ways, like tanks, choppers, jets, Rambo (so it seemed) and others, which was a nice variation from the normal.

8. World of Goo

   It was a decent puzzler, but not the best. It had a fun little story and got a bit meta at times which all made it better, plus it looked great. It wasn't exactly Portal or Braid or something like that, but it was challenging at times (though sometimes frustrating) and fun for the most part.

7. Mark of the Ninja

   This may have been higher if it ran better on my PC and hadn't thusly got me spotted lots of times due to slowdown coming at seemingly random times. But it was a great little game as a stealth 2D platformer that again looked great (though maybe if it looked a little worse it would've run better (or I could've got it on Xbox I suppose, but I was never going to buy it twice, it already cost me a massive 70 pence or so as part of a humble bundle)). There was some nice collectibles to get and the cut scenes were awesome, but the way it ran for me unfairly has lessened the game for me.

6. Titanfall

   So, the game that every Xbone owner hung their hat of hope on, and it was good. The problem for me was, desepite the sci fi concepts added, it still fell like a COD game to me. I've seen many say that it's so different and they can't go back to COD now, but I haven't played a COD in about 3 years because I was bored of it, and although this is great fun, it's probably mostly because I'd had a break since I played COD, and I haven't played Titanfall in a couple of months now, so take that as you will. (COD is an acronym for Call Of Duty). However, the parkour is a lot of fun in it.

5. Metro: Last Light

   Apart from the occasional swarming of enemies that nearly resulted in broken controllers I really enjoyed this game. It had a great setting and a good story (even if it was a bit forced in places to keep you travelling around) with a fair few twists. It played well and had a nice mix of straight up action and survival horror. It was sort of like a poor man's the Last of Us (except it's an FPS, is a sequel, was out first and is based based on a book).

4. Brothers: A tale of two sons

   A smart little game here with a nice story about trying to save your father and with an ending you're not likely to forget, and all of this without any words as well. Plus, there's plenty to see off the beaten path, like saving a man from committing suicide (how cheery), and an inventive control screen to get to grips with. There's just so much variety here and it's just a few hours long and they've packed so much in, it's excellent.

3. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze

   Heading into Nintendo territory now (as you should be able to figure out what order the top 3 are coming in by now), and the Wii U had a great game out a few short months ago. For me, I enjoy the Wii U, Mario Kart is just around the country and there's already been some good games on it too. This one is up there with the best of them, it was a great old school 2D platformer, I'd never fully played a DK game before, this was the first I've played from start to finish, and it was thoroughly enjoyable, and naturally, a little frustrating at times (but which good 2D platformer isn't?). The only problem with this game is that it didn't really do anything we haven;t seen before.

2. Super Mario Galaxy 2

   It lived up to the first in a way I felt it didn't when I first gave it a go last year. It's just as good as it's predecessor (perhaps the best 3D platformer of all time), but is held back somewhat by it being a sequel, and although it does do it's own new things, the first Galaxy stands more for being entirely new and ingenious, whereas this just builds on what the first did, which is what a great sequel should do really. So, though I'd put the first above this, Galaxy 2 is a terrific game, full of invention and challenge and was better than the WiiU's Super Mario 3D world (despite there being no cat power in Galaxy 2), which is in essence Galaxy 2's sequel.

1. South Park: The stick of truth

   This shouldn't shock anyone, easily my favourite game of the year so far, and probably the funniest game I've ever played and one of the best RPG's I've ever played I can't say enough about this game. It's packed with references to itself (so if you're a big South Park fan like me, that's fantastic), a fittingly ludicrous plot and enough basic humour that you could play this without ever having seen South Park and still get a kick. There's room for jokes in everything, plenty to collect, from costumes to stickers and through to Chinpokomon. Not forgetting you get to go to Canada (which is better than that makes it sound). Play this game!

Week 11

   It looks like I've completed the 12 games with a week to spare then, now that I've finished world of goo. Yes, that's the 12th game completed, and what a strange little game it was to reach the landmark with.
   So, obviously there was some serious difficulty spikes at times, with levels I was getting stuck on for quite some time (there was an online guide used a couple of times, I'm sorry). But I managed to do most of it without any help, and some of the puzzles were strange, and going against what you would expect there to be as solutions, leaving you to luck in to the idea which was so obvious but you would never have thought of it as it's not a gaming puzzle cliche. Plus, to mix it up even more, in world 4 (of 5), the art and gameplay style completely changed.

   Along with the change of look (there was others looks on it too), this picture shows you the gameplay change, with you instead focusing on aiming and firing the goo around the level. This may sound easy, but there was wind, deadly obstacles and the fact that sometimes there was a small amount of goo building to do before you could get it where you wanted. It was nice that there was a change, and kept it fresh. But then, the game went all meta, when you met 'MOM' (possible Futurama name steal?).

   Okay, so I'm sure it wasn't stolen from Futurama (I'm pretty sure they didn't invent the name 'mom'), but the game did go a bit crazy at this stage. So, in the end of previous chapter, the World of Goo corporation reveals the third dimension (product Z), and it doesn't go down very well, so you have to go in to the mainframe to find a way to get rid of it. You meet MOM (who ends up being a spam bot), and getting her to flood the corporation with spam and overload them, which works. However, it also destroys the corporation and nearly wipes out all the goo balls and creates a layer of smog around the planet. In the final world however, you see that there's goo balls off living on another world (they escaped earlier), so you're not actually at fault for genocide. 

   So, that was the 12th game, but as I have a week left, why not go for lucky 13 (Thanks Corey Graves)? However, not with Hitman Absolution. I learnt my lesson with Mafia 2, and I don't want to commit 15 or so hours to something I'm not enjoying again. Sure, Hitman was better than Mafia, but only like how Revenge of the Sith was better than the Phantom menace. I just want to play an empire. (get it? it's topical).

   So I dug in to my wallet (not literally, I downloaded it, and I already know my card details, so I didn't have to get my wallet at all!) and actually bought a game, Child of light (just out on Wednesday). So, it's a 2D RPG made by Ubisoft and running on the same engine as Rayman Legends., which means that this game is stunningly gorgeous (except the main characters sprite, who looks somewhat out of place (sort of reminds me of the Puppeteer sprite)). It's a tale of how a little girl (Aurora) has been sucked away to some dream world (or something, I'm not totally sure what's going on yet, I'm only a couple of hours in), and her journey to get back to her realm. There's help along the way and plenty of different enemies to fight.

Figured I'd make it bigger so you could see how damn fine it looks.

   With all these different enemy types though, there's almost a Pokemon like level of detail you need to go in to to remember what monster is weak to what, which isn't easy as there's no displayed types of creature and so no common sense weaknesses (like Psychic to bug). At the moment it's not too much of an issue, as, as I've already said, It's still early days for me in it. As not a fan of JRPG's (not that this is one, more sort of JRPG  light, sort of like South Park: the stick of Truth (without being anything like it at all really)), I'm wondering if battle locations always get moved to battle arena type areas than where you're already standing, because it doesn't make sense to me really, what's wrong with where we are already? It's not like the battle areas had spiked walls to prevent escaping and a Rancor chained up in the corner. Anyway, it's looking good so far, so hopefully I can knock it out by the end of the week (I have been playing a lot of FIFA though, so I can't guarantee it). So:

Completed:
                 Mark of the Ninja
                 Donkey Kong country: Tropical Freeze
                 Crimson Dragon
                 Toy soldiers cold war
                Metro: last light
                South Park the stick of truth
                Titanfall
                Brothers: a tale of two sons
                Metal gear solid V: Ground Zeroes
                Mafia 2
               Super Mario Galaxy 2
               World of Goo

                

Underway: 

                Child of Light

                Hitman Absolution