Be Excellent To Each Other

ITS BEEN DISPATCHED!!!

It's with sodding Royal Mail. Well I ain't getting this in the morning then and maybe not on Friday at all. Fucking Royal Mail cunts.

Is it really expensive on the store?

I don't know but I imagine finding the collectors edition might be tricky tomorrow.

9:12am No sign of the postman.

Royal Mail usually deliver around 4pm for first post these days for me.

Calling it 'First post' implies you get a second...

10:28am Still no sign of the postman, I'm trying to decide whether I could have a shower and still hear a knock on the door or whether I should leave a note for the postman.

Shower with the window and front door wide open. You're bound to hear the postman then.

I do wonder if "I'm in the shower, come on in the doors open" would leave the wrong message.

"It's the blind man"

Do you want the game or not?

We've been spending the last decade trying to shed the image of gamers being stay at home types who don't wash.

This game is awesome! Everything I hoped it would be.

Glad I decided to pick it up from GAME and take the day off.

Clocked it.

No post, but I'm now adorning the The Last Guardian T-Shirt and waiting excitedly by the door!

Postman has been...

No fucking box for me. WTF!?!?

Amazon send their own couriers. It'll be fine.

The app says its with Royal Mail and I've got a RM tracking number.

Sweepstake? I say 9pm.

this is brillaint

Have you checked in the bin/behind the bushes/the tracking details?

"... arrived at South Midlands Mail Centre on the 2016-12-09, and is now on its way to the local Delivery Office."

That doesn't sound like it's coming today.

Maybe, maybe not.

Nope.

Much better on the second playthough now I've unlocked the bikinis.

This game seems to be mostly about waiting for a postman. I might give it a miss, though the shower scene sounded interesting.

There's an achievement for leaving the door open.

"The Last Goatse"

We've been having deliveries at 8pm, don't give up hope Sat!

7pm... not here.

Shit. Hope it arrives tomorrow, bud.

Tracking information: In the bin

And this is why we never ever ever pre-order...

But you did anyway.

I'm guessing you don't have Prime then? Whilst Amazon are pretty good at everything else, I don't think they're very good at getting games to you on day one.

Also: In december.

9.30am No sign. If it doesn't come today I'm going to Fuck Someone Up.

What does the tracking say?

"Ready for delivery"

That better mean an actual postman or woman currently has it in their van.

Sounds likely.

I think "ready for delivery" means Amazon have it ready for Royal Mail to pick up

Doesn't it mean that it's still on the shelf in the Amazon warehouse, ready for someone to pick it up, package it and initiate the delivery?

ITS ARRIVED!

So far:all the boxes. No game.

He's finally home.

I want regular updates on this.

No spoilers.

Already the most charming game ever.

I'm a couple of hours in. So far it's everything I imagined and wanted, and watching Trico puts a smile on my face (I wish I had a dog). Not particularly tricky so far. The frame rate is fine, no problem with that at all. The camera can be a bit "retro".

The camera is worse than Shadow of the Collosus and ICO combined though. The camera wants to control what you're looking at but doesn't do a good job of it at all and often just leaves you behind the scenery so you're wrestling control away from it constantly.

The controls are iffy too as you don't have a grip button so, much like the camera, the game wants you to grip Trico when you want to jump off him so you're wrestling with the controls to gain control of your character which, again, is exhausting. There's a button to let go but it's counter intuitive. I just wish they'd have stuck with SOTC method. Apparently there "was" a grip button months ago but the late change has hurt the experience.

And you also have to indirectly control of Trico to do what you want him to do. Now this is part of the experience and, for the most part, I don't mind this at all. You've just met this big bastard and while he's your mate he's not exactly domesticated. So you're wrestling with the commands to get Trico to do what you want and he's slow and sometimes what you think in your head is what you want him to do he's not always getting it first time or at all. The experience should be this alone but with the controls and camera to contend with it feels exhausting.

It's beautiful and despite complaints I've read about it looking like a PS3 game, it really doesn't. It looks fantastic and I seriously doubt that even with all the will in the world they could have got this running on a PS3. Trico is this massive moving platform. You just want to watch him and see what he's doing all the time. How he's interacting with the world, his tics, his mannerisms and so on. He's clearly the star of the show and the irritations in the mechanics really detract from what a fabulous thing he is as he moves about.

Oh and the orchestral score really is fabulously understated.
It's not exactly on par with the rousing tunes of SOTC but it does a terrific job and is a pleasure to listen to as it hums away in the background in certain moments.

I've not really noticed any of the frame rate issues mind. I noticed a drop at one point but only because I was looking for it but since I've just let myself enjoy the game I haven't had any technical complaints. Certainly not the PS2 SOTC style problems with frame rates (which I can't even remember now since my most recent memories are of the buttery smooth PS3 version)

So far so good though, but what a shame about the camera and controls, aye? Tch. At least it exists.

And it defaults to HDR on HDR compatible TVs which is awesome.