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1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)

More of the same ridiculously beautiful hand drawn art, glorious orchestral music and brutal combat. There’s a secret boss in there too with a strange gimmick which was an absolute piece of piss. Loved it. Would play more.
1) Superliminal (Xbox)

Well. That was weird.
1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)


2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)

Remember this post: viewtopic.php?p=1053949#p1053949 ? Well that. Again. Including the fucking dream sequence.

Actually it has some Uncharted 3 bits now. And one of the female characters seems as if she’s stumbled into the wrong game from there an’ all … and much to the games detriment in the final chapter.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good sequel. More of the same but slightly different.
I got a bit bored of it, I gave up about half way through (I think it was about half way through, anyway. I'd just worked with a stranded guard to lift platforms and drive the rats away with tar).
Yeah, I started off feeling the same and it wasn’t until after fleeing the town on boat (just after the bit you quit on, I think) that I was more invested. It’s generally more of the same sort of stuff though (stand here press Y for various actions) (although you get a crossbow shortly after. Oh and there’s a couple of turret sections, weirdly. Oh and you meet this sellsword guy who’s pretty great and make him whack out baddies for you. And this sailor woman who can set fire to grass with a magnifying glass. Actually, that’s one of the less cool bits. Some timed running to cover at the end. Probably some more types of ammo for your slingshot after that too. You seen the tar? A nice open world bit to run around in. The graphics are reet nice later. Oh some bit on a boat. Another boat bit later on that’s pretty decent) (I suppose what I’m saying is, there’s some decent stuff after the bit you quit at but its not gonna blow your mind cause it’s all in the same sort of vein with the same characters. There ain’t a No Russian or nowt, just solid stuff but with the same sort of gameplay. Plus I always found Amicia nice and all but she hasn’t got much of an arc for the sequel. She’s entirely one note. All she ever does is moan about saving Hugo the whole fucking game and yet Hugo’s always been a little shit. She even tells him that he’s a king, mummy’s favourite and kills hundreds of folks for the little bastard. And she coos over him telling him how good and kind he is even after he’s been murdering a few thousand folk himself. I hate that fucker.) (Anyway, I enjoyed it).
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)



3) High on Life (Xbox)

I like Rick & Morty but, fuck me, I hated this. For a comedy game it wasn’t funny. Actually it was twice during the entire play through. And during like 8-10 hours play through and hours upon hours of dialogue that’s atrocious.

The two best lines so you don’t have to play it:

Some enemy says when he dies “Don’t forget to check out Ride with Norman Reedus on AMC” and another says “Water my plants”.

The rest? Who gives a shit. Anyway, the gameplay is alright and it has hookshot, jet pack and slide dash (all good things) but I was sick of shooting the same 7 baddies again and again. And you can only hook shot fixed points so that’s shit.

Honestly, I couldn’t recommend it to Roiland die hard fans. Real bad.
I thought it was generally amusing but a pretty d- shooter. I especially enjoyed watching Tammy and the T Rex.

The ending scene, though? Incredible.
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck

Kind of cheating a bit as I played most of it last year, with the intention to finish it in the new year and kickstart my list. A variety of things like work, Vampire Survivors, general lethargy, etc, got in the way, but I finally found the time to finish it over the weekend (well, not quite, I couldn't work out what I was supposed to be doing in the final battle, eventually died and finished it on Monday).

So, 20-ish years in the making, I think this was my 3rd or 4th attempt at the game, never previously getting past the Forsaken Fortress (the first time). A few years ago I decided that if I could play through it handheld (i.e. on the Switch), I would definitely see it through, but Nintendo brought out the Skyward Sword instead, and I just remember that as being really tedious.

Anyway, now the Steam Deck exists, so I fulfilled my promise to myself and played it through.

There were a lot of times I asked myself if I was actually enjoying it, and I might have to consider whether I actually enjoy Zelda games at all (I would have instinctively said yes, although 3 of the 4 I'd completed before this were 2D ones, so maybe I just don't like the 3D ones), never more so than slogging through the final section of the game over the weekend, which was basically "fight these four bosses again, then fight this one boss you've already fought five or six more times (I wasn't counting), oh, and one more time for luck" before you get to the final boss (or pre-final boss I guess).

So yeah, it's a Zelda game, having not played all of them I'm not particularly well up on the mythology, so have no real idea where this does or doesn't fit in. I did have to give up and start following a walkthrough pretty early on as I had no idea where I was supposed to be going, and, while it was possibly the nature of the walkthrough I was following, have absolutely no idea how I might have worked some of this stuff out.

I might go and play Twilight Princess again at some point, I enjoyed that one.
If you haven't played Tunic, I can strongly recommend it if you want an updated 2D zelda experience. Like you I couldn't get on with the 3d zeldas
Trooper wrote:
If you haven't played Tunic, I can strongly recommend it if you want an updated 2D zelda experience. Like you I couldn't get on with the 3d zeldas


I've heard really good things about Tunic, and it's on my wishlist, but I figured I had enough to work through so didn't pick it up in the last Steam sale. I'm definitely keeping an eye on it though.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)



4) The Forest (PS)

Played it previously on PC but went through it again with a friend. It has some jank still but it still has a fantastic atmosphere, plus it’s proper hard, especially when you’re running out of resources. There’s some enforced feeding and drinking crap that I’d rather do without but it’s super simple and it’s just a case of keeping two bars to the top. The base building is pretty great but you can largely avoid that shit if you just wanna play the game rather than toss yourself off because you made a big wall.

Anyway, costs less than a fiver and was well worth the cash money.
Joans wrote:
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck


2 Overboard - Steam

It's a murder mystery, on a boat. The difference is, you know who did it, because it was you, so can you get away with it?

It's the final day of your voyage to New York, and last night you pushed your husband overboard. Did any one see you, can you discredit them/convince them to keep quiet, or even lie for you?

The game takes place over 9 (I think) locations, with about half a dozen central characters who move about the ship throughout the day. Your husband's absence will be noticed just before you get into port (unless you bring it to the relevant people's attention before then), so you have until then to tidy up after yourself.

As well as the normal set of achievements, the game has a checklist for you to work through, each time you play, you'll learn more about the different characters, and, while your character doesn't actually retain knowledge between playthroughs, anything you've learned will still be an objective to tick off, so you can spend time finding out the other character's secrets, rather than focusing on your own outcome.

It was something nice to pick up and have a quick go at (when I didn't have enough time to play Vampire Survivors).
Joans wrote:
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck
2 Overboard - Steam



3. Mr Fast - Steam
If Quentin Tarantino made a video game, he'd make this. Black and white, apart from the red blood splatters, and a soundtrack out of nowhere.

24 levels of (mostly) you vs hordes action, the game employs the simple tactic of dumping you at the start of the level every time you die. No lives, no game over, no "do you want to try again?" Just, "oh you died, have another go", so you do, and again, and again, and then you make it to the next level.

The levels are mainly isometric shooting, probably meant for keyboard and mouse (keyboard to move, mouse to aim and fire), but works well on the Steam Deck with left stick, and right trackpad/trigger). There are some random levels interspersed with the shooting, like riding round on a motorbike trying not to get caught by cars, running round collecting money while but getting stomped on by giant people, and a side scrolling beat em up taking place in a CRT tv (use the right mouse button/left trigger in this one).

Some of the levels were a bit frustrating, particularly the last one, which is broken up into sections (although it only seemed to be the third section that would send you back to the previous one if you died - although arguably it was one location, so one section), and the levels could do with some kind of progress indicator so you have an idea of how close to defeating the seemingly endless supply of bad guys (in some levels, more enemies will spawn in, which is a bit frustrating if that happens almost on top of you, but there is a finite number to kill, however in a couple of levels you are meant to reach an exit, so presumably the game will keep throwing enemies at you until you realise you have an actual destination to reach). Some levels do have a progress indicator, so the thought was there.

I should probably mention that while 99.9% of the enemies are human, there are two levels in which you're attached by (and therefore have to shoot) dogs, in case that puts anyone off. There's also a level with loads of baby chicks, but you're not meant to kill them.

It's 79p.
Sat is completely wrong about The Forest. The base building doesn't get in the way of playing the game, it is the game.

Who the fuck is Timmy?
MaliA wrote:
1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!


2) Little Nightmares (PS4)

Like Inside, but one hundred times better. It's superb. I loved every moment of it.
MaliA wrote:
MaliA wrote:
1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!


2) Little Nightmares (PS4)

Like Inside, but one hundred times better. It's superb. I loved every moment of it.


8)

Really? I tried a few minutes of it (I know) but it didn't really grab me. But I loved loved loved Inside, so perhaps should return.
Findus Fop wrote:
MaliA wrote:
MaliA wrote:
1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!


2) Little Nightmares (PS4)

Like Inside, but one hundred times better. It's superb. I loved every moment of it.


8)

Really? I tried a few minutes of it (I know) but it didn't really grab me. But I loved loved loved Inside, so perhaps should return.


I think maybe you should. :)
Played for another hour. It's great. But for me doesn't capture anything like the atmosphere of inside. Will nevertheless be happy to guide my yellow clad friend to salvation or Denise.
Joans wrote:
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck
2 Overboard - Steam
3. Mr Fast - Steam


4. A Short Hike - Steam

It is short, but pleasant. Feels like an Animal Crossing spin-off, right from the "driving to your destination" introduction (my main point of reference for Animal Crossing is the DS game, so not sure if anything has changed in the last 15 years (sorry) or so).

I say it's short, but you can wander round the park doing as much or as little as you want, chatting to the various Animal Crossing-esque characters, and doing little side quests, like fishing (sounds familiar).

It took me 75 minutes to get to the peak and back down again to "finish" the game, so there's not a lot else I can say about it, but there's plenty more exploration to be done and I'm sure I'll go back to it when I fancy a stroll round a park (or up a mountain).
MaliA wrote:
MaliA wrote:
1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!


2) Little Nightmares (PS4)

Like Inside, but one hundred times better. It's superb. I loved every moment of it.


3) Erica - it's a choose you own adventure TV show thing which you control with your phone. It's fairly short, but the story is intriguing enough. I really enjoyed it.
1) God of war: Ragnarok- PS5


Bloody marvellous. Loved the story, the swapping of characters and the end.
1) Doom Eternal (PC)

After originally playing this back when it was released and finding it not at all fun, returned to this after replaying doom (2016) and found it to be fun this time around. Until the final boss which can do one, and discouraged me from going on to the dlc.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)



5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)

Surprisingly the nostalgia was nowhere to be found outside of “Who put the lights out”. It did make me want to play the new one again though.
Satsuma wrote:
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)


6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)

Wow, these games are kinda annoying me now.
I found that it took ages for the 'in time' element to come into play on that game. Kind of made it longer than it needed to be.
Joans wrote:
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck
2 Overboard - Steam Deck
3. Mr Fast - Steam Deck
4. A Short Hike - Steam 5



5. Sonic Adventure - Dreamcast/Retroarch/Steam Deck
The nostalgic bit - this was the first game I ever played on a Dreamcast, and possibly the last time I can remember seeing a significant difference from the previous generation. It also has the dubious honour of being the only game I tried to backup myself, using the serial link (thank you Lik Sang) to (very) slowly copy the contents of the disc to my PC.

This was meant to be one of those, played it a lot when it first came out, but never quite finished it, but now I've played it, I'm not sure I recognise much past the third level, so I might have been thinking of Sonic Adventure 2 - find out later this year (maybe).

Anyway, it's not really that good. Taking Sonic's USP of barreling through levels at high speed doesn't really translate that well to a three dimensional environment, because it makes it a lot easier to fall off, so the game spends a lot of time hand-holding to make sure you don't continually plummet to your doom, as that would get quite frustrating. This leads to spending a lot of the game watching Sonic get flung around while you watch, wondering whether you're meant to be pressing anything, or just sit back and enjoy.

There's also the hub levels where you get wander round trying to find the next level (I guess this is the "adventure" part). This usually involves a brief cut-scene of an object appearing "somewhere" and hopefully you were paying enough attention and recognise where it landed (although I did find that talking to people in the game was sometimes helpful). Although there was one occasion where I recognised where the item dropped, immediately went and picked it up, and blundered round for ages before resorting to a guide which didn't mention this object at all and I was supposed to have picked something else up instead (in fact I never did anything with that other object at all).

The whole plot of the game is based around Dr Robotnik trying to get all 7 chaos emeralds to feed to a creature called Chaos, who you have to fight at various stages, along with various battles against Dr Robotnik in his various machines. Er, except you fight Chaos with 6 emeralds, then you defeat Dr Robotnik, again, but this time it's permanent and you've won, well done. As you go through the game you unlock various other characters that you can play with, so maybe you're supposed to complete it with all of them to unlock some sort of true ending, or maybe Chaos just slunk off with the 6 chaos emeralds. There's no way I'm playing this half a dozen more times to find out.
Satsuma wrote:
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)



7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)

I love this series. The Switch seems so underpowered compared to everything else and the graphics look a bit blurry under close scrutiny but, man, the Xenoblade games have this sense of scale and wonder that other open world games only wish they could replicate. There’s something about finding a secret area after climbing up a giants finger for the last ten minutes to just look in wonder at everything you can see and everywhere you‘ve been and everywhere you’re going to go. It’s just great.

The gameplay is typical JRPG fare with so many fight devolving into smacking the most numbers off something. But Christ, the numbers you can twat off a giant spiders face are crazy. All the numbers. Get a weapon that can strike a number of enemies at the same time and tens of numbers of all ranges will fill the screen like you’ve accessed the wrong porn and infected your switch with malware.

The story is pretty great too with a tale about opposing factions of clones with a life expectancy of ten years old trapped in a world where time stands still (a contradiction but hey, it’s a thing that happens) that fight each other to stay alive to drain the precious life from each other. It kinda lacks the focus on giant titans of the other games but the whole game is a mesh of the previous two titles so there’s a world filled with the titans of previous games to climb up and fall off.

Frankly, it’s kinda epic.

But it’s also kinda anime. The pregnant pauses and reactions of characters repeating lines they’ve just heard is so fucking lazy. “The world will end” “The world … will end?…” “You are all trapped” “we’re … trapped” I mean, Christ, can someone sort these Japanese guys out and give them a script where people say real things like humans. The Last of Us this ain’t.

And it devolves into some nonsense near the end too but that’s to be expected for a Japanese game.

Oh and if you’re just playing entirely normally you’ll likely just get overlevelled pretty easily. I was at level 80 when the final boss was only level 75, which is weird for a JRPG where some grinding is usually expected but I’d been playing fairly normally and doing a few side quests. Mind you, I’m probably a JRPG master by now and was just anticipating the level cap for future story progression. I don’t know. I was just so overlevelled by the mid game that I was running through some areas where even the abundant amount of enemies wouldn’t even start a fight cause I was 10 levels higher than them. Still, I’ve been enjoying this so much that I’d instantly clocked it and jumped back to see if I could explore a little more and get into some areas where the super bosses hung out. Loved it. JRPG/10
1) Final Fantasy 7: Remake: Interlude (PS5)
It's MOAR FF7:R! Yay! With Yuffie! Boo!

But it's overall a good time. Yuffie's fighting style adds some good tactical choices to fights (she can flip between ranged and close, and flip her elemental settings on the fly). The story is okay-ish, but does a good job of tying into the wider universe. It's a shame you didn't really see any of the "main" game happening around you, but it was only a short time period that was covered. The game-in-the-game you could play against other people was fun, too.

2) Dead Cells (XSX)
This is great! It's a rougelite metrovania-lite kill all the baddies and slowly power yourself up for each run thing, which I love. The controls are superb, and the number of weapon and skill combinations is wild. It's like a hack and slash version of Neon Abyss, which I also loved. Highly recommended, and it's on GamePass too.
Joans wrote:
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck
2 Overboard - Steam Deck
3. Mr Fast - Steam Deck
4. A Short Hike - Steam Deck
5. Sonic Adventure - Dreamcast/Retroarch/Steam Deck


Strap in, this is a long one. Actually, I'll spoiler it because it is really long.

6. Combat School - Spectrum 128k/Fuse/PC

Part one - the nostalgic waffle
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
The first ever issue of Your Sinclair that I got was the one with Combat School on the cover (Dec 87, I think). I'm assuming my dad bought it, and he probably bought it because it had a game on the front - he would occasionally pick up games on the way home from work, but he had very little interest in the Spectrum (Space Raiders he could handle, but anything more than left, right, fire was too much for him, and he'd have been younger than I am now) so it was always pot luck based on what actually looked interesting in the shop. This method somehow led to him bringing home a copy of Manic Miner, but also a copy of Mastertronic's Election - "it looked like a maze game from the cover". It wasn't.

A two page feature headed "cover game" went on to preview Combat School, while I got quite excited as I took this to mean that the game I was reading about was the one on the cover tape (which was actually the isometric bat and ball type thing Play for your Life). Still, so excited was I to get my hands on a copy of Combat School that when I next had the opportunity to buy a Spectrum game, with exactly enough money to buy one game, I walked out of the shop a proud owner of Jack the Nipper 2...

I did eventually get the game, although I have no recollection of where or when, so let's get on with it.


Part 2 - the game (finally)
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
I probably spent longer getting this to work than I did completing it. Firstly for some reason my launchbox was set up to use some zx81 core for my Spectrum games, then when I changed it to Fuse, it defaulted to 48k mode, then when I finally got the game loaded, the keyboard didn't work, so off to Google for how to fix that. Then defining my keys as the faithful BNKML (I'll come back to this), I discovered that Retroarch uses K to pause, so I shifted the keys over a bit, but H resets. I wasn't in the mood for working my way through Retroarch's impenetrable menus to see if I could disable the hotkeys in the event that the machine I was trying to emulate had an actual keyboard, so I got myself a stand-alone copy of Fuse, went through the 48k is default scenario again, and finally, we're done. Define keys, start game, player doesn't move.
Ah, I didn't choose keyboard, seems a bit of a faff to define keys and have to choose the keyboard separately. Oh, keyboard isn't an option. It all comes flooding back to me as only player 2 can use the keyboard, so I start a 2 player game and just let player 1 fall at the first hurdle (almost literally).

Oh right, the actual game. I was unaware at the time, but this was an arcade conversion, which I did play sometime later, but found the trackball controls a bit fiddly for level three. The game fits quite well into Ocean's late 80s repertoire, as each level is a different type of game (a bit like RoboCop, and, er, maybe some others).

Level 1 is the assault course, so bash left and right as fast as you can and jump/scale the walls. Presumably as a quirk of the aforementioned level 3 where you have to run up the screen, as well as move left and right, when playing on keyboard the game lets you hold down, er, down, and just keep pressing up as quick as you can. This is where the BNKML method comes in, stolen from a friend of mine who shunned QAOPSpace to use ZXKML, this allows you to run on level 3 as you normally would, but also keeps the left and right buttons under your fingers so you can use them when required, and also gives you a "normal" control method for the other levels.

The other levels then, 2 is a firing range where targets can appear anywhere (although they always appear on a horizontal row, and it's possible to set your height so you only ever need to move left and right).

Level 3 is an ironman course, you have to run up screen, jumping or dodging rocks and other obstacles.

Level 4 another firing range, this time a series of tanks descend from the top of the screen and you have to shoot them. At this point, I'll mention the penalties, as this was the point I got them. Each level has a qualifying target, the more you beat the target by, the bigger bonus you get, if you fail, it's game over, unless you only just fall, in which case you get to do chin-ups as a penalty and then carry on.

Level 5 is an arm wrestling contest, presumably designed to bump off either player 1 or 2 so they have to put another credit in. If you're quick enough, you can win this in about 2 seconds, if you're not, it's basically a tedious wait until the 10 second mark (so 50 second in) when your opponent eventually collapses.

Level 6 is another firing range, the gimmick this time is your get 5 targets to shoot at, but some contain pictures if your instructor and if you shoot those, you're frozen out for that round.

The final level is to take nothing you've learnt so far and battle your instructor. You've clearly learnt something though, as there were three heights of wall in the assault course level and you could only jump cleanly over the smallest, but now you can effortlessly bound over your instructor's head. So that's what we'll do, with a well-timed kick to the head as we go past, he only manages to retaliate 50% of the time, so it's an easy victory.

Ah, but now we come to "The Mission" aka the bit I could never do (although there's the possibility I have already done this through emulation and save states at some point, I've just forgotten). It's not so much that it's hard, but if you die, it's game over, even with save states there was a few bits of "oh, I know that's coming now, I won't get caught out next time", if you had to replay the entire game just to get back to that point, I can understand why I never finished it.
So, The Mission then, use your new find skills to walk up to people and kick them before they kick you, occasionally using your immense jumping abilities to jump over knives that are thrown at you, before kicking the knife thrower before he can throw another. Then you get to the "I hope nobody gets this far, because we haven't playtested it" bit. You come to what looks like a warehouse (bearing in mind this is a Spectrum and the whole level is in black and white), and then a woman tied to a chair (I think the mission blurb said something about hostages, I wasn't paying attention), the scrolling stops and "the boss" enters. He doesn't look any different to any of the goons I've taken out on the way here, but I shouldn't have been fooled by his appearance as he confidently walks up to me and kicks me in the shins, causing me to fall over and lose 1 block of energy (I assume that's what would happen if any of the normal goons hit you, it's just the knives and Molotov cocktails that are insta-death). I stand up, attempt to time my kick a little better, but get booted in the shins for a second time. I decide that my mistake is taking the battle to my opponent, crammed up on the left of the screen (for whatever reason this was a right to left scroller), so I back off to give myself more space. However, he chooses to remain off-screen in a cowardly fashion (yes, I know I'm the person that just defeated my instructor by leaping across the screen and kicking him in the face as I went past). I move back to the left to try and coax him out, but he's seemingly done a runner. I aim a kick in his general direction (which, depending on your perception of the 3D might have hit the hostage in the face) and the game locks up. It would have been bad enough having to play through the entire game again to get back here, can you imagine having to load the whole thing in as well?

Fortunately, we're not troubled by such insignificances, and soon I'm back in the warehouse, ready to stay firmly on my own territory (i.e. the right hand side of the screen). This time, I know exactly what to do, and using all my training, I get kicked 7 times in a row and die. My excuse is that every time I got hit, the background graphics corrupted a little bit more, so the game over screen came as a bit of a relief.

Third time lucky, and time for some new tactics, rather than attempting an elegantly timed kick, how about I just bash the fire button on an attempt to recreate Chun-Li's lightning kicks, yeah, that works. And the words "You made it" appear on screen (as they do at the end of every level, you either get "you made it" or "you blew it") followed by the Game Over screen. Spectacular. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes.


Anyway, that went on for a bit, but that's what you're all here for right, in-depth analysis of 35 year old computer games, with some nostalgia about my dad's purchasing methods and my dubious decision making skills.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)


8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)

I vaguely remember really enjoying the first one. This? Couldn’t give a flying fuck about it. Awful story, terrible music, some really eye bleeding garish graphics and some jumps which were so tricky you’d swear you couldn’t do them unless you looked up a walkthrough to find out where to go next (yeah, I did that). And that’s really the problem with this, all good Metroidvanias should be clearly readable whether you can go somewhere with your new abilities. Some of these jumps and areas just didn’t give you the information to identify whether it was worth trying more than a couple of times. So yeah, not impressed.
1) Portal (1 &2 on Switch).
It'd been a long time since I first played the first Portal (as part of the Orange Bawx on 360), still really enjoyable. Portal 2 was a nice step up, feeling quite exciting, a little mysterious, and also action packed in places. I did get a bit frustrated in I think 2 places and look at a guide.

2) Zelda Links Awakening DX (Gameboy/Switch).
I had this on the original Gameboy and got horridly stuck in the last dungeon, trying the get the stupid fire rod to melt the ice. This time, I was going to finish it properly to make my 12/13 year old self feel better. It's still a good game but the backtracking, unskippable text, and the constant item switching show how far game design have come. Also embarassingly, that dungeon I was stuck in, was piss easy. Maybe it being in colour made me notice the bomb-able wall, or the pattern on the floor indicating a secret, that little bit more easily. Next on the list of Zelda games that I really enjoyed but for some reason didn't finish: Majora's Mask.

3) Mario Odyssey
It's ra 3D Mario game and it's really really good, as we'd expect. Not quite as good as Galaxy, but still excellent. The carnival / festival bit was awesome. However, after beating the end boss and playing around for a few minutes in the endgame, I don't really feel compelled to go back and get more moons or anything.
Sir Taxalot wrote:
1) Portal (1 &2 on Switch).
2) Zelda Links Awakening DX (Gameboy/Switch).
3) Mario Odyssey


4) Hue (Switch) charming little puzzle platformer, well worth what I paid for it (on offer, about 2 bucks I think). One of those really neat puzzlers where it's challenging but not frustrating, there were maybe 2 or 3 levels that had me stumped enough to take a break, but coming back with a new approach got through.

The colour changing is clever although it did give me a headache during one of the longer play sessions.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)



9) Bayonetta 3 (Switch)

This has a really ropey start before it eventually lets you get back into ‘normal’ Bayonetta. Well over an hour of shit I’d guess, which was really annoying. It’s just stuff happening.

Finally, it decides to let you play a normal game of Bayonetta and all is right with the world.

Well, if it would let me punch and kick stuff in the face. I swear the biggest problem I had was that I wanted to smack stuff to death and I was struggling to find enough baddies. It’s a problem that few arena fighters have because there’s always enough baddies around the corner, but here I actively had to search corners and other areas of the map to find a fight. Which passed me off cause the combats so nice and interesting (although a little button mashy). DmC never had this problem, and I can’t remember the other Bayo games having a similar issue. So weird. But it’s been years and years since I played the others so maybe it was a problem with those games too?

And it does the whole DmC thing of the makers suddenly being bored with characters that have only had two sodding games and now they’re all like well we’ve got to have another character to play as cause cause people just really dislike playing Bayonetta for that fucking Bayonetta that they just spent fuck knows how much money on! Jesus Christ. I didn’t like the new character and whereas she plays fine it’s like comparing Nero to Dante. Again.

What else? Story was ok, it’s so over the top it’s daft, the side characters are universally awful (still) (except the shop guy), but the biggest offence are now the stupid mini games that litter the game now. Monster boss fight in slow motion; an episode of The Voice, some other silly interruptions, an entire mini game and 3 odd mandatory levels where Jeanne plays a ropey version of elevator action.

I don’t know, it’s good, it’s the same which is great, but with more distractions from the bit that’s universally known about the Bayo games and that’s the awesome combat. I wanted more combat and I don’t think I got that.

Oh! Yes, what I hated! I hate the new enemy designs. Horrible messes that you’ll struggle to see because they’re usually giant blobs of green and white geometry that’s jammed together in no discernible way and only telegraph their moves with a green glow. Now, I kinda don’t like Bayo enemy design in the previous games either but they return here and they are so much more readable than the mess of shit you have to deal with here. You get accustomed to it, but, fuck me, just make more normal looking cool enemies and not just a bazillion limbs attached to a jam of green gummy bears.

Conclusion: good game but with lots of problems that I have and you might not.
I think I read somewhere that due to the increased detail in the terrain and buildings and stuff that they had to lower the number of on-screen enemies so the Switch could keep up, so that might explain why you struggled to find people to whip with your hair.
Weirdly it’s just how it’s designed. I just picked one at random from YouTube (https://youtu.be/FdGxGYgZNjY), so on Chapter 6 you get 10 arenas/fights. The whole level lasts 40-odd minutes according to that video and I’ll bet the actual fights only last a couple of minutes… everything’s else is just dicking about in the environment, exploring, looking for a fight that you might actually miss and the last fight on this video was a mini game boss fight that just a cake walk. And thinking about it, it was probably the same in the previous games, but here it just feels more empty for some reason.

There’s always loads going on so I don’t think it’s the Switch that’s at fault.

Although the frame rate isn’t great and some of the textures are blurry messes but that just the Switch at this stage. I didn’t let it bother me, mind. I’m hard init.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)
9) Bayonetta 3 (Switch)



10) Robo Quest (early access) (Xbox)

It’s sort of Tower of Guns x ArcadeGeddon rogue-like with guns and robots and shooting and perks and stats and modifiers and stuff. It’s also co-op. It’s also kinda cool and kinda fun too. It’s also early access so it’s missing a bunch of stuff and probably an ultimate end game boss. But there’s a boss at the end and then a “to be continued” messages but I finished what they’d done so I’m counting it. Anyway, I really enjoyed what I played and would play it again when it’s finally finished.
1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)

You have 60 seconds before a meteor. what do you do? Unsurprisingly, not a long game

3) Vampire survivors (PC)

All unlocks unlocked.
1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)

nly afew years late to this. Must've finished the tutorial missions 4 times before I managed to play it through. (i.e. the tutorial mission was boring and over long)

rest of te game is generally good, but short.
Joans wrote:
1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck
2 Overboard - Steam Deck
3. Mr Fast - Steam Deck
4. A Short Hike - Steam Deck
5. Sonic Adventure - Dreamcast/Retroarch/Steam Deck
6. Combat School - Spectrum 128k/Fuse/PC


7. Sam and Max Hit the Road - Steam Deck
I'm back with another cutting edge update. The Steam version uses ScummVM and there's a suitable community layout that works well enough on the Deck. As for the game, it's Sam and Max, a 30 year old (cries) Lucasarts adventure game. You've probably already played it, and if you haven't, you probably won't want to.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)
9) Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
10) Robo Quest (early access) (Xbox)



11) Outriders (Xbox)

I remember when this released and my friend was quite excited about it - co-op, third person shooter, giant monsters like Monster Hunter. Then we tried to play it and could never connect to each other cause it was broken as shit. 2 years later and we managed to get a connection!

Turns out it’s a generic Gears of War clone. Probably less boring than Gears 4 & 5 but still pretty dull and unimaginative. One big monster boss and droves of the same three little monsters. It absolutely isn’t Monster Hunter. But wait! You get to kill the same three types of humanoid monsters who, get this, have guns! Just like the Locust. But even less dull to kill cause the game has RPG elements! Yay! Want a +2% modifier? We got you. Mind you, there’s a mod that lets you slow people down, turn them into flames and … well, there’s other stuff in here to make the shooting slightly less dull but more stats and numbers that make the shooting slightly more dull.

Also, it’s piss easy even if you let the game turn up the difficultly automatically, which I did. We basically caned through 90% like murder machines and only stumbled on the two last levels.

Anyway, it’s on Game Pass and if you’ve got a friend or two and want to piss all over a game in a week or so, then I suppose there’s worse things to play. But many things that are betterer.
Mr Dave wrote:
1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)

5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)

A poor relation of thee first games

6) Overboard (PC)

You start off the game by murdering your husband. Your task is to get away with it, this will probably need a few goes through the events of the day to learn how to. Not long, but entertaining.
Edited: Fixed Dave's quotes
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)
9) Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
10) Robo Quest (early access) (Xbox)
11) Outriders (Xbox)



12) God of War: Ragnarok (PS)

I enjoyed it a lot but slightly less than I did the first one of these new uns. I liked the combat a lot, I liked the boss battles a hell of a lot, I liked the story (I suppose); the start is brilliant (oh my god, I swear it made me cry within the first ten minutes. No lie), the ending bits were also brilliant, I even liked the cutscenes, I liked the graphics a lot and the sound and voice acting was all great.

Now the moans:; Christ almighty, the gameplay has not moved on at all - it’s all trapped in arena fights and then press circle to leave the arena by picking up a large stone; or burning something, or jumping a log. The arenas are also fairly bland. Not much vertical space is used and there’s no real set piece arenas to fight your typical foes … which kinda makes the fights much less epic.

And between arena fights? Take your pick: slow boat ride with nothing going on; dog sled with nothing going on; what about opening doors? Oh there’s fucking loads of figuring out how to open doors. Fuck me… ice this door; fire this door, arrow this bit of a door. But there’s NEW arrows that do blue damage or purple damage and these are used exclusively for other kinds of door puzzles. It’s so fucking boring that it turned me off the exploration and really made the bits between the combat sag really really fucking hard. Plus there’s only one new weapon. Boo! But you get your chef knives from the start. Yay!

And the story really sags HARD in the middle with a trip to the land of giants where you basically follow a character around for far too long doing fuck all and not even getting in any fights. And when it was finally done then it has the cheek to ask me if I want to do hang around and do a side quest dicking around getting berries or some shit. No mate, I’d rather punch some faces. Let me punch some faces for Christ’s sake.

Anyway, it’s pretty and it’s fun but it’s a bit too long and boring in the middle. There’s some really memorable moments (just a shame theres no moment on par with Kratos sharing a beer with Boy from the first) and some great lines of dialogue but also I just couldn’t not hear Freya speaking like Leela from Futurma. So that was annoying. Also her character is annoying. Also, lots of the side characters are annoying. Oh but Kratos? What a character he is. I liked the raging psycho of the old games but I’m also on board with this new sad guy… as long as he still enjoys killing things.
KovacsC wrote:
1) God of war: Ragnarok- PS5


2) The Last of Us Part 1 - PS4 remastered.


What a great game, only started playing it because of the show. What a great game, loved the story, and it had me hooked.
1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)
5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)
6) Overboard (PC)
7) Shadow Warrior (2013) (PC)

Played the first level of this when it was new, enjoyed it, but for some reason never loaded it again until this week. Old school esque fps with guns n swords... and ropey humour. Bosses are a bit shit, and the last major fight is quite an abrupt jump in difficulty.
KovacsC wrote:
KovacsC wrote:
1) God of war: Ragnarok- PS5
2) The Last of Us Part 1 - PS4 remastered.


3) Horizon: The Burning Shore - PS5

This is a DLC for the main game and add quite a few hours of game play. Just more Horizon, which is great.
Satsuma wrote:
1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)
2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)
3) High on Life (Xbox)
4) The Forest (PS)
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (PS)
6) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (PS)
7) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
8 ) Axiom Verge 2 (PS)
9) Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
10) Robo Quest (early access) (Xbox)
11) Outriders (Xbox)
12) God of War: Ragnarok (PS)



13) Horizon: Forbidden West (PS)

I’m sure I said the exact thing about the first one but this was boring and for a game about killing giant robot dinosaurs it ain’t fucking good enough.

First off, it’s fucking gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. When you (finally) get to ride a bird (after the PENULTIMATE MISSION for fucks sake) the views are jaw dropping. Second, combat is decent.

That’s the good stuff out of the way, onto the rest:

It’s boring. Aloy is an incredibly dull character yet for someone with no personality she never shuts the fuck up. She endlessly narrates her way through the game and everything she’s doing or wants to do. And unbelievably when she gets a mouthpiece to swim underwater SHE STILL DOESNT SHUT UP. I swear I laughed so hard when I thought I’d finally get some piece and quiet diving through the ruins of Las Vegas and no more than 2 seconds underwater she starts nattering away to herself like she hasn’t got a rebreather jammed in her gob at all.

And the story is boring too. They take a cool premise from the first one and send you on a quest to stop the earth dying cause the AI that makes the planet work has gone missing and a piece of it is being a bit naughty. Which was honestly alright with me. It’s not Shakespeare but it’ll work in a game about robot horses and shit. But no… there’s a true villain out there, some other folks with futuristic weapons and suits like fucking Zod and his pals came to take over earth. It’s all so fucking yawnsome and even sets up a future sequel against, basically, aliens from space. I mean, come on, for fucks sake. And in between that bollocks there’s a story about different tribes I honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck about. Just boring trite characters that someone without any personality dreamt up. Basically Aloy wrote the story.

Anyway, so there’s no point in playing it for a decent story so what about the combat. It’s the same as the first, so if you enjoyed that then blah blah blah. Except there’s no new tricks and you forget all the ones you’ve learned from the earlier game and have to unlock them again. The level system is back and it’s a nonsense here. I played it on hard throughout and reached the final boss without doing a single side mission so every step of the way I was massively underlevelled. It wasn’t easy and, dare say, actually a fun challenge with some of the over powered bosses. Then I reached the final boss and every hit was a one shot kill … so I turned off damage on easy mode and just walked through it. I don’t know, it’s not exactly Elden Ring with builds and shit and you’re basically always going to be the exact same person with about the same moves and weapons so why even bother with 5 or 6 fucking skill trees, stats for all equipment, 10 fucking different status effects from chilly damage to fucking red damage(?), and making my starter bow doing fuck all damage suddenly. AND WHY ARE THERE TWENTY FUCKING BOWS AND I HAVE TO EQUIP THEM ALL IN THE WEAPON WHEEL!? Why can I only fire a normal arrow from one and only fire arrows from another?!

Fuck this game. It’s shit. Never again.
1) Doom Eternal (PC)
2) Meteor 60 seconds (PC)
3) Vampire survivors (PC)
4) Titanfall 2 (PC)
5) Dead Rising 3 (PC)
6) Overboard (PC)
7) Shadow Warrior (2013) (PC)
8) Subnautica (PC)

So, I'd been looking forward to the new zelda, so when it arrived... I restarted this. Whcih I'd got close to the end in 2018, but never completed.

I still have yet to start zelda... this is a good game.
KovacsC wrote:
1) God of war: Ragnarok- PS5
2) The Last of Us Part 1 - PS4 remastered.
3) Horizon: The Burning Shore - PS5



4. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor -PS5

The sequel to Jedi:Fallen Order. This is set a few years later,

Quote:
Continue Cal’s Journey - No longer a Padawan, Cal has come into his own and grown into a powerful Jedi Knight. The Dark Times are closing in - with enemies new and familiar surrounding him, Cal will need to decide how far he’s willing to go to save those closest to him.

Go Beyond Your Training - The cinematic combat system returns with additional Force abilities and new lightsaber fighting styles. Creatively leverage all these abilities and weapons to strategically take on an expanded host of enemies, sizing up strengths and weaknesses while cleverly utilizing your training to overcome your opponents and solve the mysteries that lay in your path.

Explore an Untamed Galaxy - Discover new planets and familiar frontiers in the Star Wars galaxy, each with unique biomes, challenges, and enemies. Master new skills, equipment, and abilities that will augment the ways you explore, fight, and roam



Loved the game, and the 4 different Light sabre stances you get.

My only niggle there is to much precision jumping, which is un skipable, and is bloody frustrating..
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