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Had about half an hour on this and im past the intro and hand holding part. Its really good, straight back into it from playing last time. The graphical style is great, the music is great, its got the same humour as always and feels the same to play. I havnt seen any of the new dynamics yet, im expecting that to pop up once ive found paper mario which seems to be my current quest. I dont remember from the last ones, but in Peach's castle does it play the N64 Mario 64 castle theme? Thats my favourite bit of mario music I think, lots to choose from of course, but as soon as I hear it im sent right into mario land. So far, so good.

This is RPG Maker but stripped down for the 3ds. Based on what I've seen its still pretty well featured, I'm sure it's lacking loads of stuff from the main versions but you could make an rpg with it's, even have branching story paths Notice that I didn't say that you could make an rpg 'easily' because you can't, there's no tutorial. There's a digital manual but that is explains concepts rather than how to use them. Being guided through your first rpg would make an awful lot of difference. The point I'm at now, I've managed to make an event, which includes text, conversation, scripted movement, a battle, then levelling up. I can't work out how to get an event to stop, so that's why the entire game is currently one thing I did work out how too make a battle on my own though, feeling pretty pleased about that There's a free app on the 3ds that lets you download and play other people's creation without having the main 'game'. If I manage to get anything worthwhile made I'll pester you all to download it

I seem to remember Centy, many years back banging on about the original DS Etrian Odyssey. My understanding of them is that they're dungeon crawlers with next to no story, where you have to map out the level yourself (by drawing on the touch screen), so paint the floor, draw the walls that sort of thing. You just get deeper and deeper in to the game's dungeon until you're done, it was all about the gameplay. The Untold games take the original games and add a story, not much of one, but more than there was, and probably more importantly, some set characters. Previously you built your team as you wanted, here it's set for you and you customise them using perks and skills to play more how you want. So you'll have an archer, you'll have a mage, but if you're not bothered about them boosting their agility or whatever, or targeting enemy limbs to cripple them, then don't select those perks when you level up. Aside from that it's a straight forward dungeon crawler. Quite pretty and colourful as far as 3DS games go, but it's really all about the combat. Mostly it's random battles, and you'll have to worry about raising your parties defence and keeping them healed, the weaknesses of the enemies etc. Which is again where the skills come in, plus the grimoire stones which you can equip to give teammates skills they wouldn't normally have access to and it's great. I loved Untold 1 and Untold 2 is as good, arguably a bit better. It's maybe a bit samey, well it is definitely more of the same, but the Etrian Odyssey games are actually brilliant and I feel like they don't get talked about enough. They, or Untold 2 at least, aren't hugely long either. It still long but I reckon I'll have this finished by the 40 hour mark

First things first, having this arrive while working from home was only ever going to go one way! So far so Fire Emblem, minimal time taken to explain how things work, just straight in. More story than I remember and I have had to turn off the voices 'aha' 'mmm, hmm' 'yes sir' etc... It appears to be rather good though, I do feel compelled to just keep on playing! (quickly turning it off when I fuck up, I forgot that once they die, they are really gone! Perhaps I shouldn't have opted for hard). I forget how little I remember of what everything in RPG's means, lots of acronyms, some I understand but am not aware of their meaning, I'll get there. Recommended from here thus farly

I'd never played Dragon Quest 7 before, I'd heard some not great things about it. I finished Dragon Quest 6 a year or so back and swore I wouldn't get 7, it's supposed to be better than 6,but the aimlessness of 6 put me off a bit, with 7 supposedly sharing some of that, and also being a longer game, something 8 suffered with but at least 8 is good Dragon Quest 7 takes an age to get going. I guess it's interesting conceptually to start in peace time, but it was well over an hour before I got in to my first battle. The battles are fairly standard Dragon Quest stuff, only the menus could be better. Maybe a sign of how much you can learn but there's now options for spells, which are then split into offensive, defensive, and other, then skills, which are also split in 3. It might make sense later in the game, but at the minute it feels like way more menus than you need. There's also slow down in battles, I can't place if the rest of the game runs at 60 then the fights drop to 30, bit it feels slower, and it happens less with some enemies. There's loads of fights too, enemies appear in the game world, but they are spawn a few steps in front of you every few steps, so you're always fighting. The story is at least slightly different so far. You're on a small island, seemingly the only island in the world, and you manage to open up an old tomb that slowly reveals the truth. It means revisiting areas you've already been to many years later, that could develop in to something good So far though, if you want a Dragon Quest game on the 3ds, I'd say jump to 8

I finished this with a crap ending the other day. I have since gone back and found all of my tank's (called Sophia III) upgrades, beat the end boss and unlocked some more game. So make sure you comb the game. So it's like Symphoney of the Night style Castlevania games and a bit like the Metroid series, so I guess it's a Metroidvania since we still haven't dreamt up a better name for the genre, yet. But you gotta comb the areas since there is no easy way to get around; like no warp points or shortcuts and that. And the game is set out in a level based way so if you miss something it is just a case of playing a level backwards. Some areas of Super Metroid felt like that, but this is a whole game of it. The action is good and weird, and feels satisfying. Starts off kinda Megaman-y but as you get upgrades that are either weapons with odd properties (like homing missiles, a thunder bolt that shoots downwards, charge beams and a big, screen filling anime laser and many more!). Enemies and the way they are placed often make experimenting with them fun and puzzle-y. You also have the ability to jump out of your tank and control a wee man. There are parts of the game where you take him into a cave or something and play this isometric shooter. And these parts are full of cool, weird action as well; even weirder, maybe. Your weapon has loads of modes: it can shoot a bullet, be a shotgun, be a machine gun and loads more. When you take damage you lose a weapon mode so to keep the best weapon (one that has a wide shot and shoots through walls) you gotta not get hit. The weapon is so good, though that you won't get hit. I would just use the R button to lock myself in a diagonal position and strafe around since not that many enemies have tracking shots and mostly shoot in four directions. Bosses are troublesome, though, and it's here where you will have to start working around your guns limitions and again adding a cool puzzle element to the combat. It's really a legit game and I liked it more than I thought I was going to. I just wish it was less obnoxious to get around at times. But other than that it's top Banana!

I'll post more either on my commute or when I decide to phone in sick because I'm actually ill, but calling in sick would actually be more of a pain in the arse because there's loads of stuff half done that I'd have to talk my boss through... Anyway, it's Shin Megami, more people on here have probably played the Persona games than a proper Shin Megami Tensei game, but they're very good, traditionally harder. The real difference is that you don't have a team of humans, each with their own demons, you instead have a team of demons/monsters who fight along side you, and can be recruited or fused together to make new ones One of the trademarks of the series is the strength /weakness system. You and your demon might be all conquering, but if you're weak to fire and the opponent use fire you're in trouble. Landing a critical strike or an attack your opponent is weak to will get you an extra turn, it might even make you smirk which makes you stronger, more likely to land a critical, and less likely to be hit on your opponents turn. Similarly if you miss or attack an enemy with something they can nullify, you lose turns. So you can see how things could go south quickly, a missed attack giving your enemy a chance to land something one of your team are weak to can lead to your entire team getting wiped out, even against fairly low level enemies

@DifferentClasshas played through it so he might know different, but this is great up until the gates. It's very simple, a rhythm game that involves pretty much just the a button. Timing is where the skill comes in. There's some brilliant games, some I could happily play more of. The problem are the handful that aren't great. The singing one is funny but I hated it, and retrying is a bit of a pain. The coin flip 'boss' level is a real arse though, or at least I'm shit at it. What I don't like about it though is that you have to spend coins to attempt it, and if you fuck it up you're going to have to replay levels you've already beat to make another attempt. Still though I'm enjoying it, it's really inventive

Well, that's that, my life this month is to be spent indoors staring at these 2 little screens. So far, a nice quick intro and I'm in. Feels more modern than previous games, looks great and the touchscreen is a great way to battle. I wonder if it matters which Pokemon you choose to roll with first? I always go with fire ones first so this time decided to try something different, water

Despite my excitement for a new Zelda title I did have converns about ALBW's. I was a little worried about revisiting a classic naturally. More to the point, the video's I had watched didnt fill me with magic and wonder which was what I was expecting. Instead they looked a bit brown and the only differnce seemed to be that you could become a flat painting on a wall that could move. I had a little concern about that mechanic as well, it looked a bit free roaming, like the possibilities it could open up would be a bit too vast and uncontained if you know what I mean. 90% of my concerns were aliviated in the first five minutes. You immediately notice the controls, so responsive and unresticted. The grahical style I wondered about looks really good in 3D. The gameplay isnt just a rehash, it manages to feel fresh and new and themusic sounds incredible through earphones. I did the intro, got to the first dungeon which I enjoyed and finally got access to the painting mechanic - final fear gone. They've just implemented it really well, I wont say too much about it incase you want to discover it for yourself but you know, it's cool. Ive only played an hour, got some other stuff to say but I gotta start work. My plan is to hammer this this week.

1 - I like this game and it looks beautiful. 2 - It's really hard, or I'm shit at it which makes me not want to play it. I'll tell you why. Twice now i've unexpectedly come up against bosses that have both time whipped my ass. You get one continue, so the first boss I got second time by changing my tactics. Second boss didnt respond to my tactical change and fucked me twice. As I didnt expect to fight him i obviously didnt save or anything before hand and lost half hour of play, a half hour that i'd enjoyed. It leads me to believe it's a grinder, nore than i would have expected for the first hour of the game. It all starts with you picking your character, their stats are displayed underneath and there's about 7 of them so I went for one with a good slice of everything (Att, Def and Hit Points). She also happened to be the character with bouncy tits but that was just a bonus, Anyways, little cut scene later and your paired up with a couple of nippers and it's your task, along with a bunch of other adventurers that you only see in the cut scene, to map an area of forest. So off you trot with your dudes, in to the forest. Your top screen is a map that fills out as you explore. It's not a missive area and it fills out pretty quick but it does have sub areas. You get to sell your map after you've explored an area but you get more money if it's 100% complete. I havent sold a map yet, complete or otherwise. So, as you explore you find little things to look at, like an old monument or a hole in the ground. These seem to serve no purpose most of the time. Then there's the enemies. These wonder around the map as a big bug or a black flying devil looking thing and when you initiate the fight there's normally two or three creatures to fight. Fighting is turn based but the game encourages you to use one guy as a blocker. So you pick a fight formation, pick what everyone's gonna do then let that shit play out. Then at the end of the fight you level up or whatever, it's a turn based RPG, you know the crack. Back to that first boss I fought. See, I picked the formation the game wants me to use the most (Pegasus) and I used a blocker at the front and two attackers behind and it didnt work at all. The bosses blows were so powerful that my blocker went down pretty quick, my attacks were weak and the offensive line went down within a couple of the bosses direct blows. So, next go i changed it up. Went to an all attacking line up (where everyoone stands next to each other), swapped the blockers shield for a fucking great sword that he also carries and went to town. The hit distribution was such that everyone was down to very little hp by the time I won but no-one had died so I was still getting in three attacks everytime, plus the added attack strength of my blocker with his super sword. To cut a long story short neither tactic worked for the second boss, which is why it's gotta be a grindathon me thinks. ALTHOUGH... I have an item, i cant remember now if I got it after the first boss fight or I found it just before or after but I think itmay be what I need to do/use, I've literally just thought of that. I'll try it later. I really want this game to grip me but this ass fucking it seems to hand out isn't helping. Lets hope it's just me being stupid.

So this was one of the earlier successes on Kickstarter before (or around) everyone started doing. It's a 2D platformer in the style of classic NES games and it's made by Yacht Club Games who are a few ex-Wayforward people. They left over a year a go and Wayforward games aren't quite what they were; coincidence? I say probably (definitely). Since NES games are the inspiration for Shovel Knight it does play things basic. You play with two buttons and a D-pad; one jumps and one shovels. But you also press down and shovel while jumping to do a downward attack and you use that to bounce off enemies. That's what you mostly do and this game, and it stays damn fun while doing it. They've clearly explored a lot of possibilities with your basic abilities. Enemies are either really defensive knights who can be hard to hit or simpler enemies just placed in awkward places that make things difficult (or fun) for you. It's design we've seen before but maybe in not quite this way. You can also make life a bit easier for you by using items you get through the game. You use them by pressing up and shovel, like Castlevania, and the properties of these items are like the ones you find in that game. That's what Shovel Knight is. It's NES games you know put into one well made game. Specifically it's Konami and Capcom NES games that are the big inspiration: pre-SotN Castlevania and Megaman are clear inspirations, as is smatterings of Ducktails and Zelda 2. But it plays a nicer game than those NES games. It controls well, and does actually look a lot better than those games. It's more TurboGrafx than NES. It also has some more forgiving design choices, like the checkpoints, which can be destroyed for more money to buy upgrades but then you lose them for good (like, they're still not there when you pass them after you've died). That's a cool risk/reward mechanic but I think you can still get a lot of gold without having to destroy them, from what I can tell now I'm at the end, so I suppose it's a case of how fast you want to upgrade your stuff. And when you die you lose a percentage of your gold but it can be picked up again if you don't die on route to where you last died, 'cos Demon's Souls. But overall it's a really fun game in a genre that the indies have explored a lot at this point, but I'd say it's one of the better examples. It's made by people ball achingly passionate about that era of gaming and they've crafted the ultimate love letter with Shovel Knight. That's really cool, but it does mean the game struggles to find it's own identity. I wish they laid off the references as it didn't need them since the game's mechanics were all reference enough. Bottom line though is two thumbs up. It's got some awesome bosses and nice, thick, treacle-y chiptune music. I should go finish it now... Oh, it's pretty fuckin' hard if that needed to be mentioned.

This is a fairly simplistic looking rhythm game that I got of the E Shop for summink like £3.19. You bash bad guys to the beat of the music with your hammer as they run either at the top of the screen or the bottom. At first which part of the screen they are running along was confusing, top and bottom fields seem very close but I soon got used to it. I used the touch screen but you can also use the d-pad or the buttons. Your choice. You also get offered presents which basically adds as a distraction but it's another thing to keep you challenged. Well, the music isnt bad, all original songs so far that remind me a little of Jet Set Radio, I've struggled with a couple of songs that dont have strong beats but then that's a consistant problem with me and rythym games. It looks nice, all cartoony and that, you play the part of a little looking girl called July Ann who is using the pirate radio station you are listening to the songs on as a metronome of justice, taking down perverts and bad guys to the beat. Despite being only top or bottom it picks up the pace quite quick. You can just simply clear the stage but you are given little missions represented by stars, like get a certain amount of great or perfect hits, no miss clear a stage or collect all the white and red presents that are randomly offered to you whilst avoiding the yellow and black presents that are offered as traps. Or tricks. I've only payed the first two chapters that contain five stages each but it's been fun, especially as it was so cheap. It's not the best rhythm game in the world but I like it enough to recommend it for three bleedin quid. Here's some gameplay for your eyes and ears:

After finishing the last Lego game I played (whatever it was) I swore i'd never play another Lego game again. Then I bought this one in the sales (ages ago). I'm glad i'm an idiot that just buys anything for cheap because this is bloody good. Definately for fans of LOTR though, not exclusively but you'll get a lot more enjoyment from the game if you love the world it's set in. The puzzles are genuinely enjoyable, not once have I felt like i'm just playing to get through the levels like I have in previous games. It's full of usual Travellers Tales humour, both in the gameplay and the cut scenes. Oh, the cut scenes. Ones I actually dont mind watching (which is lucky as in Story Mode they are unskippable), a lot of though has gone in to them , they use sound bites from the films that brings them to life. The entire musical score is from the films too which adds to the atmosphere immensly - love that music. So yeah, super impressed especially as my expectations were so low. I think i have two more missions before Story Mode is complete. You can then go through in Free Play and mop up all the collectables, that's possibly where the fun may run out for me but I can't complain at what I've got out of a game that I paid less than £4 for.

This is a better game than I first though. Once I got used to the control sensitivity and learnt to see where I was on screen (although you'll still lose yourself a lot) I started to really enjoy it. There's just so much to do, overwhelmingly so but I would never knock a game for having too much content. You just have to try something, then try something else and so forth. I got predictably addicted to the Home Run game, wanking that Sandbag as far as you can is crack. And then you'll unlock a new stage. And then unlock a new character. And then you realise it's been three unfocused hours of fucking about and your wife is cross with you because you didn't hear anything she said or watch any of the film you said you wanted to watch. Its not without its annoyances, you can still get triple teamed and juggled about and go from 0% to 75% damage in about 8 seconds and the scenery can suddenly move and that's it, your fucked, losing a life that ends up costing you victory. And it's really hard to move a single step in front of yourself, you end up doing a lurch forward which is fucking irritating when you cant quite reach the item in front of you and then you find yourself past it, turn around and then do the same thing again. It makes the Home Run game needlesly frustrating. I could also see the games lack of a focused objective a turn off for some. For the moment though I'm hooked.

This is the latest game from Prope, a small studio headed by Yuji Naka, most famous for his work on Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg and Ivy the Kiwi?. I joke, he's the Sonic and NiGHTS guy. I'd say there is an influence of those two games in here, more so NiGHTS I'd say. It's odd. Okay, I'm mostly going to be talking about the Wii version of the game that comes bundled with the Wii U version. Well, I mean, just look at the difference: The ports weren't handled by Prope and whoever did decided to take out the colour and change up the gameplay into something much simpler and not that fun at all. So the Wii version: The whole game is actually controlled with just the Wii remote. You point at any bit of environment within a certain distance and press B to shoot your robot guy, Rodea, in that direction. You can also do little flicks with the Wiimote to cause an arc if you want to avoid something that would be in your flight path taking a straight route. It's also good for setting up combos and positioning yourself better in combat. It's quite a fun little system to play with. But the camera is the problem. You move it with the pointer and it just isn't responsive enough to keep up with the action. I think nunchucka support would have made it a lot more bearable but instead when you overshoot something it can be awkward getting back on track. So it feels pretty good when everything goes to plan but its a ballache when it goes wrong, like a lot of Yuji Naka's games. Its obviously designed to be a speedrunner's game and I think that's where the most enjoyment will come from but I'm not that sort. But I've enjoyed the chapters I've done and the boss was fun so I think I come away mostly positive. It's weird and fine. I'm okay with that right now.

So yeah, I'm impressed after initially been disappointed with the consumer units. It feels like a sturdy piece of kit and the GUI is very nice. Might take it to the streets when I'm in the city and see if anyone else is doing the sleep mode thing. I have no idea if anyone will be carrying them around but the least you can do is try. We need to get some multiplayer games going to see how much of a fuck about it is. Friend codes might be a pain in the arse, but who knows, playing online might be piss ball.

I don't actually know where to begin, there's just so much that is good about this game that it'd be hard to document. Banging on about them isn't going to bring any of you buggers in unless you've already bit and got the game anyway. If you're teetering on the edge, read on. if you're not bothered about it and never will be, click away. This stuff won't change your mind. The biggest thing I've noticed about this game is that they've learnt from the predecessor and actually put some tutorials in the game in the form of quests that actually explain what the fuck you're meant to be doing. It's not like your modern AAA game where every last little thing has an arrow pointing out what you should be going for, but it a step in the right direction. Walkthroughs for all weapons can be found and it rewards the player with much needed knowledge in how the particular systems and perks work with each arms and what downsides each of them have. It's a nice place for new players to dip their toes into seeing which weapons they feel most comfortable with before setting off on the journey with the one they're going to carry through whatever tasks the guild have for the player. Quests. For a new player they're perfect. Players are eased in gradually, given objectives that cover the basics, such as familiarising themselves with base camp, killing and skinning animals for food and carves, cooking, finding gathering points and harvesting them for items, harvesting from special gathering points such as bug and ore nodes, combining items to make better things and all the other most basic tasks in the game. It walks you through all that stuff. Great for new players. Returning players can actually jump this stuff and move into the 2 star quests. Two star quests are where the game begins properly. There's still a few tutorial things in there, but the game does an active job of being self aware and mocks itself to keep things light hearted for those that already know. All the new features that debut in MH4U are spread out here. It's really easy stuff. This is a good thing for new players, but a bad thing for returning players, mostly because the quests are too easy. In MH3U when you came face to face with your first monster, it was a hard, it put you through the wringer and made you earn that first scalp. Here everything just falls over within 1 or 2 areas. Not to shit on new players achievements, but I don't think they should have gone so soft. If the gradient doesn't transfer smoothly as you progress in stars to how hard it should be, then all but the sternest of players are going to crack when it comes to stepping into the real meat of the game which is co-opping online. For a new player, online is brutally difficult unless you have someone willing to hold your hand through the worst of it. If 4 noobs spent a night trying to beat any of the quests outside of the harvest stuff, they'd get battered and probably decide to throw the towel in. It's not a game that fucks about and it will not hesitate to kick you in the bollocks. This is Dark Souls country being raped by monsters that at the smallest are the size of cars and at the biggest just smaller than your mothers arse. None of them are happy that you want to bash them up and cut up peices of their carcusses for better weapons and armours and they're not about to let you go about your business without a fight. It is hard. It will only get harder. Consider yourself lucky you have some people here that can help you get on the ladder, because there's no way in hell you'd be able to progress far even if your sourced better weapons and armour from the single player portion of the game. Despite the game doing a better job of introducing new players to the fold, it still does a fuckign wank job of explaining what all the numbers, stats, perks and all the other pages of numbers that are in the games menus. It's not totally indecipherable and those that played a lot of JRPG's might understand some of it, but the game does a horrid job of explaining what the fuck is going on in those pages and why lining certain things up will benefit the player. So yeah, grab someone who can walk you through it all, or go to the wikia and learn there. Biggest stuff for returning players is this stuff, right here in this paragraph. There's no water battles. Resource points are earned in missions no matter where you do them, so if you choose to play online only you're not getting fucked by having to harvest a lot of stuff. Returning and new monsters make some of the things that seemed like you'd never ever see the end of farming drop things that make it easier to collect for essential supplies, stuff like traps have several more things that can be combined to make them along with the original items back in MH3U being easier to get, sometimes coming in abundances. Yep, you're still going to have to grind to get a lot of these things, but the way they've done it has sort of broken the back of it a little bit. On top of that, rare carves drop. If you get breaks you're going to get those rare carves and items. I don't know if this is going to carry on into the late game, but I sort of hope it does because grinding for plates and gems can wear thin fast. Going out into Moga Woods has been replaced with a procedurally generated A to B journey where you face off against whatever the game decides to throw at you. It's nice. There's new weapons and shit too, if you want to have a bash at those if you decide to return. Really this games biggest sin is that it has no voice chat built in, in a game where communication are paramount to the enjoyment, locking it down to some key phrases and a few other tools is sort of unforgivable. Conversing locations and tactics is very much part of the game and not having the feature there is a real kick in the teeth. It's one that you can get around easily enough by using Skype/steam/party chats. Apart from that flaw the game really is some sublime piece of entertainment, it's understandable why a lot of reviews have scored it so highly. If you managed to read all the way down here you should grit your teeth and give it a go, the worst thing that can happen is you don't get on with it. It's much better than letting an excellent game pass you by because it seemed impenetrable.

So, I know this probably won't be a popular thread, but I started playing this on Saturday and thought I'd create this to jot my thoughts down. As a general rule with the LEGO games I try not to play too many too quickly, as I feel the repetitious copy n' paste nature of the games and the way they're designed would condemn me to tedium if I played some back to back, its been quite a while since I last played one actually, the last I played was the excellent LEGO Marvel Superheroes on my PS4 back in the Winter of 2013 when it had just come out, really enjoyed that, and the only previous LEGO game I'd played before that was the equally excellent LEGO City Undercover on the Wii U. I dabbled in LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Star Wars back in the day but never really enjoyed them until I played City Undercover on the Wii U, the humour, the city and the gameplay really clicked with me in that game and I ended up enjoying it FAR more than I ever imagined I would. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent here, needless to say, LEGO Jurassic World is the first LEGO game I've played in quite a while, as a massive fan of the Jurassic Park franchise it always seemed like a no brainer to pick it up, I think the LEGO games resonate the most with you if you're a fan of the subject matter in the game so I thought it would probably be a reasonable assumption that I'd like this if I bought it, and....4 hours in, that assumption seems to be correct. In LJW you get the chance to play through all 4 films in the series, however, only JP and JW are unlocked from the start. Being the JP fan that I am, I wanted to start back with the original JW, after I was done with this I moved onto the slightly maligned 'The Lost World:Jurassic Park' which struggles to live upto the heights of its predecessor, but is still a pretty good film in its own right. I think for anyone that's a fan of the films, you'll love this game. From John Williams' spellbinding score to some of the original actors' voices being included in the game, everything feels like an authentic JP experience, just in LEGO. Whilst I've a relatively short history with the LEGO games I've noticed in the 4 hours I've spent with this that there doesn't seem to be too many puzzles anymore, in Indiana Jones, SW, LCU and LMS I would find myself getting stuck on the odd occasion, not knowing which gadget/ability I needed to use a specific point in a level, and where to use it, but everything seems really straightforward in this, they seem to have taken out any difficulty the puzzle-elements of the game had, the other new addition is playable Dinosaurs, and yes they're as cool as they sound! The playable characters definitely aren't as memorable as the ones in LMS though, that's for sure, I was struggling to remember who some of the peripheral characters you can play as in the game were, obviously the main characters through all 4 films are recognisable, but beyond this I had no recollection who some of them were, a far cry from the spades of recognisable characters in LMS. So, yeah, just wanted to give a few thoughts on my opening 4 hours with the game, don't expect anyone else picked this up, but its been pretty cool so far, a nice relaxed easy going game that should keep me occupied for a few days, but nothing more.

Nice little puzzle game from Nintendo. You're a box with legs who can make more boxes, it's kind of a platform-puzzle game, but the platforming is pretty simple I actually found it pretty easy, well, not easy, but it didn't get as incredibly tough as I was expecting. That said there were a couple of moments where I had to use the 3ds coin things for a hint, usually the solution that had kept me stumped for 20 minutes was blindingly simple, which is probably the sign of a good puzzle game. I recommend it, it's fairly cheap, not short, but I did manage to beat it in 2 days. It's a cool little game

Don't ask me why, but I had a very convincing urge to buy this game when it came out. I really have no idea why. This is a project headed by Kenji Inafune, the Megaman guy. I don't know where this fits in with his other Megaman-like project, Mighty Number 9, but like that this game is very Megaman too, at least in structure (you chose which level to do, in any order, and fight a themed boss). You also do a lot of jumping and shooting, plus you can't duck. It has very Megaman-esque rules. And this is why I'm still confused by the decision I made to buy it; I'm awful at Megaman games. I'm pretty good at games like it, but for whatever reason the way Megaman games play is just something I don't sync up with. I almost feel the same about the Souls games, but a little more time with that series will tell. Maybe it's a kind of game I want to be into and it was a last attempt at doing so. But this could be the game to do it. I feel like it's easier to fudge your way through these games what with the abilities you have. You have a bomb like attack and one to fill up your health a little that you can use so many times a level. The game is a little different to Megaman in how you take out enemies. You essentially tag them and then use an electric attack to do the damage, which also creates a shield that deflects certain attacks. You get more points for tagging multiple enemies before using the electric attack so that's where the risk/reward is, but I feel like the enemy placements aren't numerous enough for you to take advantage of that. I often find myself just doing one at a time. It has some platforming in it, but is notably easier than the Megaman games but it certainly still has that kind of design. I'd say the bosses are still troublesome, though. But because of your abilities I mentioned before you can fudge them. There is also some RPG levelling elemnts so I guess you could maybe even grind through, but the individual level ups feel realy weak. It's hard to feel any character progression. I feel like I'm being more down on it than it deserves. It's decent. Thanks to its more approachable design decisions I might actually finish this game but it's still not a kind of game I think will ever do it for me at its core.

Well this is pretty cool and hugely trippy in 3D. It's so fast I think I will be a 2D man. They seem to have done a great job of this, very smooth indeed. Loads of memories - everything is as it was but better. I am no good at it though, I used to be king!

Is there anyone here that hasn't played a Mario Golf Game? There's been a fair few versions now, pretty sure Ive played them all. This is good so far, takes its theme from Mario Tennis on the 3DS, you have a club house that acts as a hub where you can access the different courses, training options and the shop so you can buy clubs and clothing items that can boost your stats. Skills are transferable, if you were able to kick some ass in previous versions you can do the same here without trouble. In my first round to assess my handicap I beat the Forest course in 9 under par, then won the Handicap tournament, then moved on to the course championship proper and won with 10 under par and a nice Eagle for my troubles. That was 36 holes in one sitting but I really enjoyed it. Got all the same shit really, super topspin and backspin on your shots along with power shots. You can chose between auto or manula shot type, auto only gives you so much control where as manual type lets you do all those spin thing I mentioned. I dont like the fact it uses touch screen controls to add left and right spin, it's not a quick enough input method imo. I always find the key to Mario Golf is judging the drop of the ball when approaching the green. The ball bounces alot so I always aim my shot a decent bit before the hole. Also, putting requires more power than you think, i always stop the shot bar a few yards after the hole distance. I also use power to compensate for a side sloping putt, if there is an up then down roll i aim a bit above the whole its self then give it a good hard hit, seems to do the trick most of the time. Anyway, i think if your already a fan of the series you'll love this. I'd be interested to hear from a noob to it, there's more depth to the gameplay than I think first meets the eye. Im off to try the Seaside Course, ill see you in the Club House :lol:

I played through this in the past couple of days, it's pretty good but I didn't enjoy it as much as some people. It's kind of Mr Driller except without a time limit. You go in to a mine, dig, get some precious stones, go back up to the surface and sell them. This lets you buy better tools which makes digging a bit easier and improve your health. There's extra moves unlocked in sub caves that add a drill, sprinting, double jumps etc. The problem with it is that you can end up a long way down before you have to head back up (because your health or light is running low), if you don't have enough orbs (rare currency rather than the gold from selling stones), which you probably wont, then you wont be able to buy a teleport and will have to climb all the way back up and all the way back down. It's compulsive though, you might as well just head back down and get some more stones to sell, it wont take all that long. The problem is that it's really not the type of game that you should play for a long time, there's just too much fannying about heading back to the surface because your light has ran out, or your bags full. It is good though, just don't play it all at once

This is a really odd game for a few reasons. The story is that giant monsters used to roam Japan, Godzilla style, and eventually people got to quite like them, made tv shows about them, and that's how we got stuff like the Power Rangers. The suburb of Tokyo the game is set in has a TV station and it has a giant monster problem, with huge footsteps littering the landscape. Oh, and there's aliens in the town somewhere The gameplay is probably even stranger as you really don't do a lot. You sort of bump up against tasks, called 'episodes', that involve talking to people. Occasionally to trigger these episodes you have to fight other kids in card battles, the cards are based on monsters, but it's basically rock/paper/scissors. The thing that makes it strange is that there's only about 10 of those battles prior to the credits rolling, and while it's obviously not a long game I expected more 'gameplay' over the 5 hours Most of your time is spent looking for glims, little orbs that must be collected to make a new monster card. You also get these for winning battles and completing an episode. Generally they aren't hidden as such, but finding them on the 3DS screen can be a bit difficult What Attack of the Friday Monsters is though is charming as fuck. It reminds me a Totoro style Ghibli films, low on action but making you smile quite a lot. There's some funny lines, some nice ideas, and a quirky story. It looks great too, the 3d character models aren't anything too special but the environment has a nice manga look too it, especially the foreground stuff that makes good, if not very showy, use of the 3D. I liked it, it was a good palette cleanser after the relative stress of Dragon Quest 6 and Crimson Shroud. I think if you liked Costume Quest you'll like this, but even the light Costume Quest has more to its battle system than this