Week 7

   For this week (well, last week now) I really fancied an fps, so I was thinking of buying Sniper Elite 4, which came out last week but I didn't want to spend any money. This gave me 3 choices, all of which were last gen (though tht reallu shoudn't matter (but it does)). Firstly Boderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I think this was the last disk based last gen game I purchased as it came out long after the xbone/ ps4 release, and as that time it wasn't announced to be ported up (although I should've guessed really). I got a couple of hours in but got bored and stopped back then. Option 2, Rage. This was the last game by ID (creators of Doom/ wolfenstein/ quake) before the latest Doom game and quite a departure from their usual fare. It had fairly good reviews, but it was nearly 6 years old and the last game they made was my game of the year last year, which might make this seem hard to match up to. Thirdly, Crysis 3. I've never played any Crysis game, and this one came out right towards the end of the old consoles life cycle. I heard it's real good though. Ultimately I went with Alex Rileys' favourite game.

Rage

      Say it to my face! Rage is a post apocalyptic game where you awaken from some sort of human time capsule thing, I'm not totally sure, the story is pretty poor. Point is, you awake to a ruined world where the locals want you to help them take down 'the authority' (sans Stephanie McMahon) who will want to get their hands on you as a survivor from the past (not sure why). That's about all the story that you need to know. The game takes place in 3 types of areas. Town hubs where you do usual hub world stuff; shop, get missions, race, play a card game the developers invented (though hardly Gwent) and other hubby stuff. The second type is an over-world where you drive around in your armoured car to get from mission to mission which frankly seems extremely unnecessary and possibly just there to add hours on to the game (which I didn't take). The third is where the shooting takes place, a series of small areas that are supposedly different with the likes of a Vault, a distillery, an abandoned city and other post apocalyptic type things, but they all play the same as enclosed areas that are shaped as a big circle that brings you right back to the start after you've gotten to your objective. It's basically a game of 'go to area x, press button x, leave' and repeat. 

   So that's the basics. Elsewhere, it comes on 2 discs (3 if you include multiplayer) and I don't understand why. Granted it's not the only 360 game that came on 2 discs, but this is hardly the size of GTA V. Graphically for a 6 year old last gen game it's very impressive and I suspect that has a lot to do with the 3 discs. As for the driving fps, I find it a very strange combo. I know it's not the only game to have this pairing (Half life 2 amongst them) but it is not well applied here at all. It seems to be there to help you explore the open world, but there isn't anything to see in said open world outside of the missions and some jumps which themselves only seem to be a way to shoehorn in some aheivements/ trophies.
   Now, unpack your 1 meg ps one memory cards because you have to manual save the game. I had to repeat so much because I didn't manualyl save as it's not 1997. At least the file size isn't as big as Crash Bandicoot: Warped, because that took all the space on one card! (that's how file sizes work, right?) On the plus side firing up the 360 reminded me that the controller is unbelievably better than the dual shock 3, which is/ was trash. Also, on 360 you could set your console to play every game inverted so I didn't have to change it every time I booted up a new game. Can't do that on the Xbox One.

Horizon is on the... way. one week to go.

Completed

Mekazoo

Bastion

Sound Shapes

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Pony Island

Undertale

Mighty Morphon' Power Rangers Mega Battle

Batman: A Telltale series

Super Mario run

Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus

Westerado: Double Barreled

R-Type: dimensions

Dead Rising 4

Little Big Planet 3

Ratchet and Clank: The quest for Booty

Rebel Galaxy

Rage

Week 5 & 6

   Well, I thought I was going to get through a bunch on my week off, and now here I am, a week after my week off and I got stuck on one game (mostly), which I'll come to in a bit because I did manage to squeeze some smaller games in between. So firstly

Little Big Planet 3

   Many years ago, when Little Big Planet was 'in' I played the first game, and wasn't a big fan. It was a game based around creation, from as small as character models up to making your own levels. You'd unlock extra things to use to make your levels throughout the single player game which also acted as collectables. This was all very well and good, even though I would never create a level, but it was good to know I could, much like when I downloaded Project Spark then never launched it once. but that's other people's things, Mario Maker seems pretty popular these days. The problem really was that for a 2D platformer, a genre so refined, the game wasn't that good to play. The charters were very floaty (floatey?) and the controls were very loose, sure it had our English 'charm' but without much story to go along with it. 6 years later and now being handled by another studio (albeit also an English studio) and not very much has changed. They added in Hugh Laurie to partner with Stephen Fry as voice actors (that must have confused American 'House' fans more than watching an episode of Teachers) which is a fun nod to Britishness, despite the fact that they are really hitting the wrong age group with this refernce.
   The game though, is the same. After all this time the creation suite has improved massively (or so I've read) but when the game still plays poorly, why would you want to spend so much time making a level for it? The single player itself is very short, about 4 hours, with less than 20 levels and a few boss fights. Not that I'm necessarily against a shorter game if it's made excellently. Sonic the hedgehog 2 is shorter (or similar) and was also a full priced game when it came out and was much, much better like this, the difference there is that Sonic 2 game out 25 years ago, LBP 3 was 3 years ago (also, see Inside for a modern comparison). That is an issue. You may wonder why I played it, well, it was free this month on PS plus and as it's a big name game I thought I'd give it a go. It's not the worst game I've ever played, some sections of the game are very good and it's very charming, but ultimately it's very forgettable. if you too got it free, it's charm should be enough for you to take a peek, save your money though.

 Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty

    I Think I might have took this Ratchet and Clank thing too far, it came free with Nexus though so I went for it as a small game to play to break up the big one that's coming up in a couple of paragraphs (or you could just scroll down now I guess). So, I was going to go for Tools of destruction, the first PS3 Ratchet game, but I heard that the series had got clogged up by mini games and gimmicks but quest for booty reset this. It's a condensed version of Ratchet and it was the same fun that Nexus was but with 2 major differences.
   The first difference is that I don't know what the whole long running plot is, I don't know who Talwyn is, how Clank was stolen or any of the call backs that were going on. Obviously that's my fault, but it doesn't help me. The other is that I played it too soon after Nexus. I should've given it a break. It was about 8 months ago I played the rebooted PS4 game, and then Nexus a few weeks ago gave it enough of a break between. This has only been a few weeks though and the game started to drag, it was like how I played Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 back to back last year and, even though they are very different types of fps', the end of Battlefield dragged. Point is, it was fun for the 4 hours it lasted, any longer though and I'd have got bored, I think I've blown my enthusiasm for 3D mascot platformers though, and I never even got to Jak.

Rebel Galaxy

   This game is very hard to describe in a picture, so I'll do it with my words, which will be terrible, obviously. You're a free wheeling space ship pilot in an open universe. There is a main story to go through, but this is such a small part of the game. To start with the setting then, the universe is split in to separate solar systems, and each one is procedurally generated (and named, I had an area called 'dong'). They are filled with space stations of different factions, nebula's, scrapyards, asteroid belts, enemy gangs and more. This all leads to making money to better your ship. Yes, this is a Spaceship RPG and it's a very interesting take on an rpg, it's certainly the first game like this I've played.
   In many ways it's an attempt at 'Firefly the game', but without being able to land. You can be good or evil, save ships for rewards or become a pirate yourself. you can mine asteroids, search junkyards, trade between stations where prices change depending on the status of the station, take on contracts and join guilds. Terrible description there, Moving on.
   If you are going through the story, you need to improve your ship along the way. You need to buy the new ships and armour them up. This brings me on to one thing I really appreciate which is when you buy a new ship, turret, some cargo space or whatever and want to improve it, you can get the face value back for the original thing so you're not trying to save up money for something better, you can top yourself up as you go without adding dozens more hours of grinding on to the game. The story is mainly a way to funnel you forward to more difficult solar systems so you can move along faster. As someone who spent a long time in the first solar system, take it from me to not do that. The money you can make there is pennies to what you'll make a few hours later.
   So, how do you play the game then? I'm going to assume that no one but me has played Star Trek legacy and just move past that. Steering is how you'd expect, with many different speed controls. It's the fighting that's more interesting though. You can control your broadside cannons (really fitting in with the pirate atmosphere) or any of the individual turrets, or the loose bombs weapons. This can be as simple or as complicated as you like. I ended up just controlling the cannons and the bombs while the turrets were automatically fired. I tried to do it all, controlling everything and switching like a mad man, but it was too much. I think I made the right decision.
   In summation, this is a very interesting game, I'm not sure that its 'great' but it's definitely good and worth trying. It even has a good soundtrack including AJ Styles' much loved 'No one' song and more heavy southern rock. There's full voice acting too which I didn't expect from an indie game. Try it, go on.

Completed

Mekazoo

Bastion

Sound Shapes

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Pony Island

Undertale

Mighty Morphon' Power Rangers Mega Battle

Batman: A Telltale series

Super Mario run

Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus

Westerado: Double Barreled

R-Type: dimensions

Dead Rising 4

Little Big Planet 3

Ratchet and Clank: The quest for Booty

Rebel Galaxy

Week 4

   What was that about a 3D mascot platformer? I don't remember that.

Westerado: Double Barreled

   You fantastic bastard. Recommended by a friend and sitting in my Steam library for months, as games tend to, I never thought I'd play this game, but it seemed short enough to squeeze it in this week. This is a 16 bit rpg set in the wild west, but with a difference. Sure, there's a world map to explore, quests to take and side activities to take part in like any rpg, but there's also the simple to understand, but difficult to master shooting mechanic. You can only shoot directly in front of where your character is standing but you have to reload and cock your weapon before every shot. This works both on foot and on horse back.
   The main difference to the classics of it's genre here and this game is that instead of levelling up your character, you get an additional part of the description for the man who killed your family (don't worry, that's not a spoiler (well, it might be if you don't want to know what happens in the first 30 seconds of the game)) as you are out for vengeance. I'm not sure if at the end of all the missions you get a location for him because I just ran in to him in the world and took him down.
   The map is very interesting with different types of areas and hidden locations to explore. There are branching storylines that can add replayablity (which the game encourages by letting you unlock another character to play through after you finish), Hats to collect, poker to play and other interesting little things to see (just like in all 16 bit rpgs). Hell, my guy became such a bad ass that bandits started running away when I came near them (I still showed no mercy though, obviously). The only problem I have is that the last 10 minutes of the game, after you find the killer when you have to tare through all his cronies to take him down which is a long shooting section that you can't get wrong or you have to start it over again.
   Don't worry about that negative though, this is a fantastic twist and call back to classic games that we all loved as a kid. Play it

   So, after this I wanted a game to play in the background while watching something, so I tried Oddworld again, but decided I'm stuck and game up, So swapped to 'shootsumi', which is a space style shooter (think R-type) but with small 10 second levels and everything is fish based (yeah, good name, I know), but I'm terrible at these games and you don't get infinite lives so I couldn't get very far. So then. to keep with space shooters but a change in perspective I swapped to hyper void. A behind view space shooter. It started well but the difficulty shot up, very fast and it became clear that I would never finish this game, so I gave up. If there is one thing I learned doing these game rushes over the years (and there really is only one)it's that I shouldn't force my way through games I don't enjoy. videogames are maid for entertainment and if I'm not enjoying it then I should stop. So, speaking of R-Type...

R Type: Dimensions

   Now, obviously I could never finish this game properly, how could anyone? seriously? These side on (or top down in the case of Truxton, a Mega drive clssic) space shooters were made to eat your change in arcades and are infamously extremely difficult. This game includes R type 1 and 2 with revamped graphics (although you can switch back to the old at any time (which actually looks better anyway)). Now, you can play it the proper way, with 3 lives, but I couldn't even finish the first level, so that wasn't going to happen. However, there's an infinite mode where you constantly respawn over and over, which is how I could play it. Problem is, this really feels like cheating. Granted, I'd never have done it any other way but you can essentially compete these levels by not pressing anything until you get to the bosses, and when you get there you don't need any thought as you can't really die, you just respwan a second later in the exact same place. I still did try and play it as best I could though, but that's not saying much with my average 30 deaths per level approximately (levels are about 7-8 mins long...). I wasn't going to put this on my completed games list, but my xbox achievements say I've finished it, and who m I to argue with Microsoft?

Dead Rising 4

   So, I plugged my Kinect back in so I'm able to get photos (yes, I actually took this one) and videos off my Xbox, which means I have also got this:

   Exciting I know. So, back in 2006 everybody loved the first Dead Rising, and the sequel as well. Dead Rising 3 then came out as an Xbox One launch exclusive, which got away with being very average because of the general lack of competition for console release games (that said, it was the same year as GTA 5, the last of us, Tomb Raider and many more modern classics, but they were all last gen). So it was time for them to kick this franchise up the arse and bring the glory back from the original. they bought back Frank West (the protagonist from the original) and the shopping centre and went for it.
   So, I enjoyed it largely, it's fun to play with a decent story, there's the weapons to find and build, survivors to rescue, side missions to complete and more collectibles than a Ubsioft open world (well, maybe not, that would be insane). If you liked the original then you will like this one too. It's not without problems though. A lot of the weapon blue prints are locked away and you have to search the map for loads of separate keys, which is a pain in the arse. A lot of the interesting boss battles from the original against maniacs are gone as well, which is a shame. The returning shopping centre is pretty disappointing too as it only makes up about a quarter of the map, and you can only get in to it from one location. The outside world really isn't as interesting as it is inside and in my opinion, I think the centre should probably have took up about three quarters of the map.
   There are improvements on the original though. For one the game auto saves, you don't have to keep going to the toilet to save the game (I went to the loo in the first game more often that I do irl, which is a lot).When you rescue a survivor now you don't have to escort them back to the safe house, they can make their own way. There is also no time limit, which was annoying in the first couple of games where it was nearly impossible to do everything in one game, however, this opportunity was wasted here as there is no continue option when you finish the game, sure you can skip back to the penultimate chapter but you've missed a lot of progress and have to repeat a lot of the already completed tasks. I'm not saying it has to make storyline sense to be able to continue at the end, but let us do it anyway.
   A late top tip for this game, during the week I played it (about 2 months after its original release), there was a ridiculously sized 7 gb update, but, it did add on loads of street fighter outfits for your character, like M. Bison, a hot Cammy outfit for Frank West as you can see above, a muscle bound Zangief costume that allowed me to see the finale of the game from a super buff outfit, and more. That's on top of all the street fighter gear that already cones in the game. I know Capcoms big thing is Street fighter, it's one of the biggest franchises in all of gaming, and I do love me some Street fighter 2, but who actually wants a T-Hawk Costume?

Completed

Mekazoo

Bastion

Sound Shapes

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Pony Island

Undertale

Mighty Morphon' Power Rangers Mega Battle

Batman: A Telltale series

Super Mario run

Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus

Westerado: Double Barreled

R-Type: dimensions

Dead Rising 4