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

Week 3

   I think I have an addiction to an out-dated game genre brewing. That will come up later. My attempt to not pay for any games during this ended pre maturely, all of this weeks games were paid for over the last week or two, never mind, moving on.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Mega Battle

   The side scrolling brawler has never been my favourite genre. Not the 'classics' (I use inverted commas as I don't class them as such (cause they're super over rated)) like Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and such, or the late 00's revival with the likes of Scott Pilgrim and Castle Crashers. But the bizarre 20+ year old licence of something I loved as a kid sold me. Interestingly, you may think that this is to advertise the upcoming movie but they all look like the originals, not the characters from the trailer and certainly not like a fleet of multi coloured Iron Men. Also, I love how it's only based on the original series' from when I was a kid, none of these newer ones that obviously can't live up to the heights of the classic. This game was clearly aimed at me and my type with the age of both the franchise and genre (though not the genre for me, obvs).
   On to the game. It plays fine, it's got all the things you'd expect and it works. Thankfully, it's a lot easier than some of the earlier games of it's type (mmpr the movie (on mega drive (the better version)) of course included) because I always found them difficult, but you can turn it up to hard if you insist, but be warned, the save points are far apart. The game is aimed at a multi player crowd so could make for a fun party game. Obviously when the first Zord battle came up, I was very excited, but what a let down. Each has 2 rounds, the first a point and shoot mini game that would have been a lot better with a light gun (though no Virtua cop of course), then the second a simple combo game (though no Parapa the rapper of course). It's very simple for the end of a level which is a bit of a let down.
   Ultimately this is a great homage to Might Morphin' power rangers with the classic character models, the ability to morph, the story of turning the evil Green ranger good, the battles with Goldar, Rita and Zedd which is all realised with beautiful graphics and a great art style. Of this genre of game, it's fantastic, so long as you were a fan of the show as a child (Wow, there was a lot of unknown words in that spellcheck; 'Multi' 'Zord' 'Virtua' 'Goldar'...).

Batman: The Telltale Series

 

   Remember when everybody loved Telltale's walking dead? In case you don't Telltale games are animated stories where you pick from conversational options to tailor the story the way you want it with small bits of game play put in. The famous issue is they haven't improved their game engine that was outdated 5 years ago. To be fair, it's all about the story though, and this is a good one. It's an interesting change of the Batman story with Bruce's dad a secret crime lord and Two face running for Mayor. Those changes and others keep the story fresh and unpredictable which is necessary for a such a well known story. I don't want to go too deep in to the plot so as to spoil it as that's basically the whole thing but it is worth looking in to for yourselves.
   On the negative side, yes, the game engine is bad but I've already mentioned that and is well publicised already, but as long as you know that going in then it's bearable. The other problems are classic Telltale issues that I'd forgotten about since it was a long time ago that Walking dead season 2 came out (the last Telltale game I played). Over use of quick time events and some conversations where no mater what you pick you say the wrong thing. These can frustrate but as long as you're in to the story you'll work through.

Super Mario Run

   Nintendo made a big deal about making phone games a few months ago when they made a deal with apple (I think it was apple) and no we can all feast on the fruits of their labour. A constant runner game where you control the jumps by simply tapping the screen but it actually has levels in it. I know this has been done before, notably with Rayman but this is the first of it's type I've played personally. The levels are wonderfully designed for this game style, which is the point really, but still has to be commended, even though it must be said that all Mario games have well designed levels.
   The problem with having those well designed levels seems to have meant that there are very few of them and the main game is over very fast. the designers have added in a large series of collectable coins, an online challenge for racing other people to get the most coins and also some weird kingdom making thing. These are all commendable for extending the game, but as I've said many times, I don't like playing games over and over for collectables, but many people out there will like it, and that's fine. The online runs lead on to the other problem. The game always has to stay connected so you can compare your scores against those of your friends and be able to do an online run at any time. This is a huge data drain for your phone (well, it is for mine) and it's constant updates take up a lot of storage.
   To summarise, it's a fun little game but Nintendo need to figure out the finer points of making mobile games, but this is hopefully just the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus

   Not a great picture I know. This is where my new addiction may be coming in at 3d mascot platformers. Rewind a year or so and see what I wrote about last years Ratchet and clank and you'll see many mentions of who I never played any of these games throughout the ps2 and ps3 life cycles because I'm an idiot. So, after loving last years re-imagining of the original game I wanted to play an older one to see what's up. So, I decided upon the last ps3 game, as it seems to be the most stand alone of them all. There clearly is a lot of lore that I'm missing but it's not all intertwined like the Internet tells me the others are (or so the internet tells me). Getting back to what I was saying about the action platformers is that upon booting  my ps3 up for the first time since The stick of truth came out, it turned out that I had loads of them that were never played. I've got all the Jak hd collection, Sly Thieves in time, Ratchet tools of destruction as well as quest for booty, which came free with nexus (not bad for £5). So there might suddenly be a lot of these turning up on here, which I hadn't planned on.
   Talking of other things that aren't related to the game, What's with the PS3 menu? It's awful. No wonder I went all in on the 360 over the PS3, what a terrible menu, store and online system. The other, the dual shock 3. Back when I got my first dual shock for PS1, it seemed like an amazing piece of hardware, but 10 years later when the PS3 came out it was outdated and now, some 20 years later, it's awful. It's so weird to hold, so small and let's not start on the length of the charging cable. Thank god they made a nice new controller now, although not the charging cable. What game was this again?
   Obviously I'm very new to this 15 year old series so I can't discuss back story or new ideas on the series, but I can say that it's terrific. It's very close to being as good as the one my beloved game from last year and was left to wonder how I could have missed this series for so long. Obviously it doesn't look as good as last years which takes away some of the brightness and the game doesn't really pop from a looks perspective. The gameplay is very similar to the one last year, only dropping a little of the speed (well, not dropping I guess as this was out first, but you get my point) and the little Clank gravity switching platforming segments are fantastic. The weapon choices are fun again (as is apparently always the case in Ratchet games) but towards the end there was so many you had to swap between two pages of weapons, which was a bit excessive for me (or they could've just made a bigger weapon wheel). It had all the great collecting elements, weapon upgrades and levelling up that made me love the last years game. The only issue I have is that you can't fully level up and collect everything without playing through twice, but fortunately it doesn't impact the game as a whole.
   I can really see myself going back to play more of the older ones, as well as Sly and Jak. I lost time playing this game which rarely happens to me, but Ratchet and Clank: into the Nexus really took me in.

   Just on a side note, I've gotten really stuck on Oddworld thanks to some bad controls (or that's the excuse I'm going with), so not sure what the situation there is.


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

Underway

Oddworld New n' Tasty

Week 2

   A varied week of games, a lot tried, many completed, many more gave up on, so lets begin.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon

   I love far cry and this stand alone dlc (yes, I'm counting this, I make my own rules) is well regarded by many. I didn't play it at it's time of release (not sure why) and it is a last gen game (I'm trying to play more of these games that i missed) that recently came to games with gold. As you may know, Far cry 4 has came out on current gen platforms since this (hence the number 3), which has led this to be, unfortunately, outdated. At least that's how it seemed to me. I like the base idea of the 80's action film set up of the game but I didn't think it followed through with the idea as well as it could've done.
   The open word exists, but was largely empty except for some angry animals and a few classic Far cry towers, hey can safely be skipped through unless you want some weapon bonuses, there seems not to be much point. As I hinted, it plays fine, but not as good as Far cry 4, which is a disappointment, it seems like I might really have enjoyed it had I played it when it came out, but I didn't, so here we are.

Pony Island

   This is an interesting game that gained a lot of interest about a year ago, so naturally I just played it now. It's a PC only game, but that's really the only place that this game will work. The gameplay is simple, largely simple puzzles and simple runner mini games. The story is where it's at. i don't want to give away too much as that's the whole idea of the game. I can say that the game play is quite forgettable, the runner gets annoying at times and the thought did pass hat this whole game was a way to put out a bad game, but that is a very negative way to look at it, so pretty standard for me, but you never know... Still interesting though and definitely worth playing.

   Okay, this is the point at which I tried a bunch of games and got either stuck or bored. So, first I played Furi, an action boss rush game, which was a weird choice for me what with my dislike of bosses and all, so I got frustrated at that quickly and quit. Then I tried Invisible Inc, a turn based strategy game along the lines of xcom, except that it's way more difficult, so I quit. Galak-Z was next, a Rogue like (look it up yourselves) space shooter. It's an interesting idea of flying a defender style ship (not realy but kinda) around a maze on missions. Couldn't get in to it though so I quit. Then there was colour guardians, which is some kind of kids lane changing runner game, it was trash. I hope no poor child ever gets subjected to it, so I quit.

   So, I dusted off the Wii u, for maybe the last time (Switch dependent) to play Sonic and the lost world, a game that I Couldn't believe that I hadn't played before as it hits both the Sonic and Wii U exclusive points that I'd pick it up for, but I didn't remember playing it. So, I spent £25(ish) on buying it, loaded it up and turned out I have a finished save file, and as I'm the only person to have owned this console, it must've been me that has played it through and I had just forgot. So, I played the first few levels, and then yeah, I remembered it, despite the fact that the youtube videos didn't remind me of it at all. i think i have memory issues.

   So then I moved on to another game I didn't really like, but still played a good chunk of it...

Oddworld New n' Tasty

   Abe's odyssey is another game I never played due to not getting a ps1 until very late due to the bloody Saturn (pretty sure I've mentioned that before). Point is that this is a remake of that game and I've been interested in a while since it came to PS plus, and it was time to jump in. One issue though, it has aged terribly. As many of you may know it's a puzzle platformer but as you may also know, or remember I guess is that the jump from 16 bit consoles to 64 was a bad one for platformers. Sure, it's still a 2D one but it does not control well, though I don't really understand why that can't have been fixed here in the remake (but it hasn't).
   The ideas of the game and the look are all good, it's the bad gameplay that really lets it down. I want to enjoy it, it's got a lot to like but it really is tough to get through certain sections that need tight control, which there isn't. I'll probably continue with it, I'm sure over the next 10 weeks I can slowly work my way through it on the side, I'll see.

Undertale

   Another cult hit on Steam, this time from 2015, but again one where I can't really discuss the story without spoiling it. It's a simple 8/ 16 bit rpg but with expanded systems. It has a talking mechanic during battles that is interesting, a bullet hell style defence system where you have to move your heart to protect yourself as well as timed attacks. But that's not the main point of this game, it's in the story and in the world. The world is intricately filled with interesting characters and funny little bits as well as hidden items around the world.
   As for the story, it's filled with branching paths, different playstyles and an array of enemies. Be warned though, the 'true' ending only comes if you don't kill anyone for the whole game. I wish I knew that 5 minutes in to the game. It's hard to advertise this game without giving away a bunch of spoilers, all I can say is that it's worth it. It's often on a Steam sale for a couple of quid and can be finished in around 6 hours (at least that's how long it took me) but multiple playthroughs are encouraged if you want to get more hours out of it. Top tip though, if you get the flowey ending, make sure you reload it after it crashes, there's more, I nearly missed it.

Completed

Mekazoo

Bastion

Sound Shapes

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Pony Island

Undertale

Underway

Oddworld New n' Tasty

12 Weeks 2017, week 1

   Okay, so in recent years I've played a bunch of games in the first few weeks of the year (12 funnily enough) in order to get through some of my big backlog of games that have been acquired one way or another (largely PS plus/ Games with gold). The best way to make myself do this is to do a blog about it, so that's what this is. I've got it all figured out. As I mentioned last week I wanted to try and spend no money on games during this time but in March alone Sonic Mania, Mass Effect; Andromeda, Horizon and the Nintendo switch come out so that seems unlikely.

Mekazoo

   This is an indie platformer that came out in December that I've been interested in for a while. It's not your regular platformer though as you can't really jump, well, mostly. You play as a selection of animals that you can switch between at different places in the game. The levels are full of interactive circles and each animal has a different use for them. For example, the frog swings from them with his tongue, the Armadillo as a launching pad and so on. The Wallaby is the only animal that can actually jump, but he can't stop jumping.

   It gets very tough in places and requires a lot of precise timing of animal switching and interactions. There did seem to be a big difficulty spike half way through the game, but once I got over the hump there it all came together for me. It does have issues though. Firstly, there's a grinding element to it. Each level you complete gives you a token (or coin or whatever you want to call it) and then more tokens if you complete certain level challenges eg. Speed run. Point is, you need a lot more tokens than there are levels in the game to be able to advance in the game so there is a lot of replaying of levels, which I found really annoying by the end, this is not a JRPG. 

   As you can see by the above picture it has 'interesting' art style, and I don't like it at all. You can change how the animals look but i don't like this colour scheme at all and if anything I found it very distracting. Despite this game being unpolished it is still a lot of fun to play, just know that it takes a while and also there's no online guides for it at all, which was very annoying when I couldn't figure out what to do on one of the bosses in particular.

Bastion

   Remember when I talked about Transistor a couple of years ago? no? Well, I did. That was the second game by Super Giant games and this was their first. This game too is an isometric RPG, but this one is a brawler where you travel through short levels collecting Cores from a broken world to restore life to the region. The story is there and is told well trough the continuing narration in the game but is not particularly exciting. 

   This is an action RPG where varying enemies are to be fended off with an array of weapons that you pick up along the way. As you would expect the aim of the game is to loot and collect XP to move forwards, although some of that isn't compulsory, I finished the game at only level 5 of 10. It's a simple game with only a minimal amount of thought to play but it is fun despite not being challenging. It is worth a play although not worthy of all the hype that it had. Mind you that was  years ago. You're better off playing Transistor though. When it comes to Isometric games though, it's no Sonic 3D.

Sound shapes

   Speaking of over hyped indie games from the early 's 2010's... Sound shapes is an interesting platformer that is based around music. Parts of the level move in time to the beat and each of the levels has orbs to collect to add more to the music. If you don't collect these then there will be very basic background music but when you've collected a lot of them it becomes more groovy than Earthworm Jim. It also has the added element to the game play that you stick to the elements of the world, or most of them anyway and this is used well by adding 360 degree platforming. I do like the art direction in this game, the music is pretty good mostly and the difficulty scales well throughout the game and never gets to a point of great difficulty (assuming this is as much as a positive for you as it is for me).

   This is a native Vita game and it seems like this would be a perfect game for a Vita and although I do own one it hasn't worked in years but you can play it on PS4 (and PS3 in fact) anyway. Now, that sounds all super positive and it is gpod, but it's short and sweet. I had a fun time with it but it's not something that will stick with me and given the amount of praise this game launched with back in 2012 I thought it would be something more.

Completed

Mekazoo

Bastion

Sound Shapes

Game of the Year 2016

   Everyone knows 2016 was a terrible year for oh so many reasons, and the world of gaming is not exempt from the curse. So many of the big games of the year have been major disappointments, at least to me, just see the previous post! Even the great games of the year don't hold up to last years, MGS 5 didn't even make my list for last year but would probably have won this year. We do seem to be stuck in an alternate year good/ bad for games exchange. Last year had 2 of my favourite games of all time come out (you can figure out which ones yourself) and 2013 before it as full of modern classics. 2014 on the other hand was dragged from the doldrums by South Park, but that was the first full year of a new console generation, so it's to be expected (kinda), but this year has no excuse. I have come up with a list of some very good contenders here from this year though, but the picks were pretty obvious, hell, I have had this same list in my head since August. Still, on my post from last year I said there were no all time greats, but looking back there clearly was, perhaps all 4 of them, so maybe I'll feel the same about these a year from now, someone remind me please.

Oxenfree

   Despite what I said the year started out with a bang with Oxenfree. This game his on the 15th of January, a point of the year which is usually reserved for people playing their Christmas games and trashy downloadable games that may be able to sell a hand full more copies in the void of new games that exists at this time if the year.
   Oxenfree is a side scrawling 'walking simulator' (as has unfortunately become the name for this genre of game) with a sci fi/ paranormal twist. A group of teenagers go for a trip to a spooky island in some kind of Scooby Do esq set up, but instead of the camp councillor being dressed up as a big horse or something, it's a group of actual ghosts. Time loops help you learn more about the characters and their back story plus the radio adds an extra level of unease to the game, you'll never think of that short wave radio you use all the time the same again. This story is right up my alley, it's just a shame that there are many unnecessarily long walks and a bit less item fetching would've been nice.


Ratchet and Clank

   Now, I never played a Ratched and Clank game before. in fact, around that PS2 era I moved away from the character action plaformers. No Ratchet, No Jak, No spyro, No Sly.. I'm not going to list them all, I'll be here all day, point is after Crash I moved on for a long time.
   What a mug! This game is simply fun. Fun shooting, looting and tooting (about your mad skillz). There's a great array of weapons, One of the best sets since Timesplitters with many ways to play. As Earthworm Jim would say, it's groovy (geddit?),
   The story is great in a pixar kind of way where it's fun for all the family, plot points and jokes for young and old. In the same comparison with Pixar it looks like one of their movies, never before has a game come this close to capturing that magic. This is one I'd recommend to anyone, even if you're like me in my mid teens wanting to pretend I was too grown up to appreciate this genre like i did.


Doom

   The fact that an FPS hasn't made this list since 2013 says all I need to about my current thoughts on the genre. And even that wasn't chosen for the gameplay but for it's story, setting and quantities of pineapples in bins. Doom has pulled me back in. The genre has grown stale to me, The afformentioned Timesplitters drew me in originally (no, I didn't have an N64) and I appreciated the turn to a more serious nature with early Call of Duty games in particular but I'm so bored of the repetition now, probably why I liked Titanfall 2 so much. Don't get me wrong, some games that differ have kept me in with their story and change of gameplay like Half Life 2, The Darkness, Left for dead and the whole Bioshock series, among others. I'm supposed to be talking about Doom here aren't I?
   I had never played a Doom game before (I know, don't say it) but this really makes me feel how I did with Timespitters. It's a call back to those days. If you stand still you will die. Keep moving and  firing to succeed, just like Michael taught you. Sure, you can come up with some tactics over time with picking off certain enemies first and finding you're favourite weapons (this game too has a great selection of weapons). The story is good too, not amazing of anything but it's how the Doom slayer reacts to the tailes of evil corporations by not giving a damn, punching consoles at they tell stories to shut them up. The multiplayer is pretty lack luster but then I haven't particularly loved an FPS multiplayer in a long time due to my lack of ability at them. If only every game was Rocket League online.


Inside

   I liked Limbo, but I wasn't one of these people who thought it was the best thing since sliced brioche. It was a beautiful puzzle platformer where you fought off a giant spider in a monochrome world (Inside was made by the same team btw). It was 6 years on release since Limbo came out, and although some of that time was seemingly spent porting Limbo to every platform conceivable, A lot of it was spent thinking of placing every last pixel of this game. This is proved very early by the perfectly timed dog chase, stop moving and you'll die, don't stop running and you'll escape to safety at the exact millisecond, which makes you feel like you've timed your leap to perfection, but that's how the game makes you feel.
   Again it looks beautiful, more colours are added but it remains dark. The game tells a grim story without saying or writing a word which leaves it largely up to the player to decide what is going on. It is never totally clear what is going on but that leades to the big discussion of theories and thinking of the game long after completion as you try to wrap your head around what you've seen and come to your own conclusions.
   Although it's not the most challenging game you'll ever play, far from it in fact, it's the exact right length that it needs to be. For a budget indie game, this is one of the most perfectly sculpted games I've ever played.

   So, what will join the legendary list of The Last of us, South Park: the stick of truth and Rocket League in the annals of history? The answer, Doom. It's such a fantastic match of fun and strategy with a ridiculous protagonist and a good story if you really want to dig in. This may well be my favourite FPS of all time, it's either this or Half Life 2 (probably Half Life 2), and that is very high praise indeed.

   So, 2017 looks fantastic. Read Dead Redemption 2, Mass Effect Andromeda, Horizon, the Nintendo Switch and Sonic Mania just to mention a few of the games I'm excited for. It's set to be a good one. I'm looking to go forward with my 12 weeks of games as usual, I would like to say I'm not going to spend any money on it, but not only do Horizon and Sonic Mania come out in the following 12 weeks, I already bought a game just before I started writing this, but I'll try and hold back.

Catching up

     I'm back here, not for Robot wars and not for Sonic but for a look at game of the year, but before I just jump to that there are a lot of games over these past 5 months I've played but not given any talk of, so how much can you accept my jump to them being game of the year contenders without me even mentioning them, therefor I'm going to give a brief look at the notable games that have come out this year and that I've played in my writing absence so you can see what might be coming. (Wow, just looked at the games I've played, turns out there's a lot), gonna have to skip many for the sake of my SAnitY)

No Mans Sky

   I'm not sure what I can say that hasn't already been said elsewhere by real people with real opinions, but many people sure do seem to hate this game. Sure, it certainly didn't live up to what was promised, but ultimately my real problem is that it was simply boring. I spent a long time searching around for large quantities of gold to sell and buy a big, bad arse ship, and I did. I was flying around the star systems like a legit boss. But then what? The game then became flying to another system, walking for ages to get the resources to refuel your hyperdrive in order to jump star systems and repeat, over and over and over and over... I did this for a couple of hours after buying the ship, and then figured whats the point? there's no story, just the mission to reach the centre of the galaxy and try and get all the trophies if that's your kind of thing. As I've mentioned I'm mainly an Xbox guy so if it were achievements I may have pushed on a little longer (although i can't imagine I'd have pushed all the way through anyway) but as it was trophies, I didn't care. Sorry to the detractors and the lovers and their 'opinions', I live in the middle ground where the truth lives, and the truth is that No mans sky is just dull.

The Witness

   I was never intending to play this game, I knew I'd find it annoying and boy was I right. Sure, it's a beautifully created game and island setting, but the game (as I knew going in) is walking around solving little puzzles (as you can see above), and it's a great idea for some to slowly work your way methodically around the island finding all it's secrets, but after about 2 hours of this I wanted to throw my controller through the TV, Throw my PS4 in a fire pit, hunt down a lobotomy expert (they exist, right?) and jump off a cliff. This game is not for me, which I knew, and still spent money on, what a stupid idiot.

The Banner Saga 2

I got this one free on 'Games with Gold' when it was released on Xbox (I know it was on PC before but it was new to me damn it) and I would never have considered this game otherwise, but it was great. It's a mix of turn based combat (as seen above), a great looking array of interactive cartoon cut scenes and decisions making which costs you lives of members of your squad.
   I have not played the first game in this series unfortunately so I didn't know the set up going in (it's basically one long story) although I think I figured it out throughout the course of this game but interestingly you get to carry your party and decisions over from the first, but I couldn't of course, having not played it, I felt like some sort of PS3 sucker who had to start Mass Effect at the third game and had generic story decisions made for them up to that point, How will they ever know how much of a shit Zaeed was?
   I love the story of your travelling band of misfits trying to run from evil and get to safety while losing so many members of the caravan along the way due to my own terrible decision making. Add in its RPG element and it makes for a terrific game, and I can't wait for the third game. I highly recommend this one, but unlike me you should probably play the first one first.

Recore

This was an interesting one, a new franchise that was an Xbox one exclusive (unfortunately a bad idea these days, thanks terrible 2013 presentation) which was shown as a teaser a couple of years ago at E3 but little was said about it since. It had the name of Keiji Inafune attached (the creator of Mega Man (and also mighty number 9...)) which is promising, but the fact that very little was shown of the game for a long time and it's 2/3 price point of regular retail releases gave a bad sign going in.
   Ultimately it was okay. It had some good 3D platforming, a good idea about wrestling for the cores of opponents to gain some extra power from them (much like eating the heart of an animal to gain its courage) as well as your little AI buddy that you could put in to different robot bodies to help you out in different ways. The story had a decent set up about humans escaping to another planet but robots taking over or something, I can't really remember now because it really wasn't explored as much as it should've been.
   Ultimately it got stale and repetitive,  also, I got stuck towards the end to game. I didn't grind like I apparently needed to and as you get in to the big tower that leads you up to the final boss you can't go back so it became near impossible to get though, and by that point I really wasn't enjoying it enough to force myself to do so, which is weird because I usually do.

Forza Horizon 3

   This has probably taken the place of Forza Horizon 2 as my favourite racing game of all time, it really is fantastic. It's got everything that 2 had (I never played the first one so can't comment on that) but in a much better and varied location of Australia, with more cars and the ability to import your own sound track using Microsoft Groove, which did take me a lot of faff to get going with the one drive and data transfer and signing up, but was ultimately worth it when Alanis Morissette is pumping out you TV. Of course, you could mute the radio on the game and just play your music from your own chosen source of media, but that's not the point. What game was I talking about again?
   The game controls fantastically as Forza always does, the variety of different types of races keeps the game from growing stale as I find the main Forza series to be in the same way Gran Turismo is. The levelling system is smartly done with the free spin of the car wheel and the upgrading system which doesn't effect the actual gameplay but the money and style points, which are used to level up. The only real problem with the game is that, despite what I said at the start, when you take away the whole package of the game and strip it down to the moment to moment gameplay, it doesn't feel any different to Horizon 2.

Titanfall 2

   I enjoyed the first game, but it was missing a single player game, and now they added one. okay, better take it back a bit. This is an FPS largely based around multiplayer with the hook of periodically being able to call in giant mech suits (or 'titans', hence the name) to use and fight with. For the single player the game is fun. the parkore that is a large part of the out of titan gameplay is implemented very well here, much better than in the multiplayer for me and the shooting is fun too with well designed levels and a solid if not cliched story. There is a very memorable level in that involves jumping forwards and backwards in time that is particularly good.
   The multiplayer is as good as it was in the first, it certainly takes some practise to get good at, but when you get in the groove it becomes a lot of fun. There are 2 major problems though. firstly, there is no where near enough maps and although it means you can easily learn the maps they also get stale quickly. The other problem was that due to its bizarre and unexplained release between battelfield one and call of duty, barely anyone bought the game and therefore there wasn't many people playing online. This didn't really effect the main game modes, but if you wanted to play some of the more varied game modes in the game then you'd be waiting for 10-15 minutes to get in to a game, which I could never be bothered with.

Dishonoured 2

   I loved, loved, loved the first Dishonoured. The fantastic stealth elements, the varied ways to finish missions, the slightly Steam punk world and story of assassination and retribution. This one has the same basic setting and gameplay style but it just didn't grab me. It may have been my own fault, there are now 2 playable characters, Corvo from the first game and Emily, his daughter. Going in I figured I was definitely going to play it through twice so I'd play it through in 'classic' Corvo style first then move on to Emily, but then I got so bored while playing it that I didn't want to play through again. (which was odd for me anyway as I think the last game I played through twice the 2004 hit GTA: San Andreas). This it's not a bad game at all, btw,  but it doesn't seem to be any different from the first game at all to me. I was so disappointed, just like I was with Xcom 2 earlier in the year (scroll down through the older posts) in that a first game in a series (or relauncehed series as in the case of Xcom) was so good, and I loved them like my own non existent children, only for the sequels to seem to take no steps forwards and be essentially the same game. Yes, I'm aware I said this in a more positive manner with Forza earlier, and I can't explain why I still like that and these 2 disappointed me, I don't know why I think things, but the ultimate point is that I was disappointed. Also, I've noticed over the last few years I've got significantly worse at stealth games, so that doesn't help either.

Battlefield 1

   Remember when all Fps' were all set in world war 2, god that was boring, I'm so glad they moved on. But wait, World war one, ooooh, now that's interesting. Turns out no, this game feels like a ww2 shooter and not in a good way. A lot of people seem to enjoy this game for that leap back in time but I feel the opposite. I am not a Call of Duty fan, don't get me wrong, but if I'm going to be playing an FPS it's more likely to be futuristic than set in some kind of old timey war, basically, give me titanfall 2 over this any day.
   The single player mode was a good idea, no long campaign but the 'great war' told from 5 different perspectives across the world and it got quite emotional at times and was well written, but as I didn't enjoy the gameplay I found these tales really dragged on, especially towards the end of each tale where I just wanted to see the ending of the short story but was stuck in some half hour battle to take a castle that I just wished was over. On the plus side, there is a bit where you get to play as a pigeon.
   Battlefield is known for it's vast, expansive multiplayer with giant maps, lots of players and objectives and all sorts of vehicles, weapons and turrets. But, as you can figure by now, I don't like these weapons or vehicles from a WW1 game at all and also, I was terrible at it, but that's my problem. As they say, War, World War never changes...

Watchdogs 2

   I'm still playing this one at the moment and will likely finish it but I feel like I know enough by now to make my point. So, Watch dogs was was fine, i don't have the hatred for it that some do, in the history of the GTA style game it ranks somewhere in the middle. I watched the trailer for this one though and it seemed like all the characters in the game were a bunch of dickheads, and I was right. Am i supposed to like these people? Basically, you're in a not too distant future where everything is controlled by a light Big Brother system where everything is connected and of course, it's being used by the wrong hands to market at you and other such evils. Ooh, these dousche hackers have to fight for the right of the common man because who else can? On the plus side, they do make a reference to DS9...
   The game itself isn't bad but it is very repetitive, a lot of the missions can be completed without getting personally involved and letting your drone and RC car do everything for you. It is somewhat disappointing then when the wrench (haha, geddit (it's the name of one of the characters)) is thrown in to the works and you have to get involved when you haven't bothered to level up your shooting abilities and suddenly you need them. The hacking is improved from the original game, there are plenty of ways this can be implemented well under different circumstances, This feels like a good first step for a hacking system for a game whereas the system in the original game was basically useless.
   The world map is based on San Fransisco. Now, I've been there, but I don't remember any of it. unless you live or have lived there I don't see why anyone would care, just create your own fun place like Vice city or something (or ideally, Watch Dogs 3; Birmingham (that would be bostin')). They have a fast travel system in the game as well where you can travel to many locations in the game which basically negates the point of driving around at all and, although time saving, takes a massive part of the genre of this game away. All in all it's fine, I don't hate it but I doubt i'll remember any of it 6 months from now.


   I should also note that one of the best things I've played this year is the Witcher 3 DLC: Blood and wine. That came out this year and really reminded me what an all time great it is, but as it's DLC, it doesn't count by my own stringent self imposed rules. There are a few other games I've played in this period such as Worms WMD, Deus Ex: Mankind divided, Virginia, WWE 2k17, overwatch and a few others but I don't have anything of note to say about them and obviously they wont be involved in anything else I'm likely to say. Well, stand by for game of the year.