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I think I'm in the first dungeon now, but I could be wrong, as apparently there are huge areas that still aren't classed as dungeons. Without spoiling anything (everyone knows Link is also a wolf right?), I've just had my first encounter with the 'Twilight' and have met my companion. The controls are pretty neat. It was a massive shock, I didn't think it would happen when it did. I was all set for a big adventure, then boom!

So this is the Shantae game that was Kickstarted quite a while ago. It finally came out at the end of last year and after glancing over at it whenever I was reminded it existed with some encouragement it hasn't lived up to it. Wayforward are usually solid when it comes to their own projects but I'm wondering if this is struggling what with it being post Shovel Knight. It started off fine, familiar, dorky and cute; a vibe the games always do. They're never difficult games but throw enough low key platforming that is solid enough to carry this easy going adventure. But this time, after less than a couple of hours when you've accumulated some Zelda style heart containers, it gets far too easy. Life pick-ups are everywhere, as are consumable items, and an ability to turn magic into health and on top of that nothing does more than a fraction of damage... and there is a defense buff. The Metroid aspect of the game finding hidden abilities is solid enough but having it pointlessly easy to get around is more of a chore than it should be. You can just walk through everything and enemies don't do more damage as the game progresses. There are a few challenging areas that have pits and spikes that throw you back to checkpoints that are quite far apart, and the bosses have something of a challenge to them but that's about it. I'm playing the Wii U version and I'm kinda disappointed with that, too. Just a minor thing but it kept bothering me. I'm sure the last game had Gamepad features, and I'd bet that this was meant to as well. The only thing you can do on the gamepad is run the game: what is happening on the TV is happening on the Gamepad. No map or anything. And what is weird is the item screen has these big, chunky icons that look like they should be pushed, but I have to pause the game and cycle through them. Why isn't this shit just on the Gamepad? I swear it must have been on the cards with how the UI is designed but it doesn't work like that at all. I'm no game maker or anything but I just can't see that being a hard addition, especially since Pirate's Curse did (I think, I could check but I'm too lazy). I dunno. It doesn't all play bad, the main loop somewhat remains in other places. It looks really nice. It has hand draw animation for the first time and the levels look really nice, most of the music is great and it's got a lot of the components that made the other Shantae games the fun time they are. But maybe they were games that were always treading water but had enough going on as a whole to still be satisfying. And with this one some things have give.

I have to stop playing Ziggurat a second to tell you about Ziggurat. It's not a game for everyone but I'm really addicted to it. It's a dungeon crawler in FPS style, always limited to 5 floors. It's randomly generated so the same sort of rooms will appear on each floor, you just never know what type of room you will be wondering in to, it's often in the later stages a minion room full of enemies but there are trap rooms, puzzle rooms, secret chest rooms to name a few. The aim of the game is to get to and destroy the boss on the 5th floor of the Ziggurat. The Ziggrat which is a test maze used by a cult of wizards to weed out the average and find the exceptional. To pass each floor the basic requirement is to find the portal key (which is always in a room on it's own but could be anywhere on your current floor) and use this to summon the boss in the dedicated boss room. You can find the boss room before you find the portal key room but the boss cant be summoned without the portal key. Upon destroying the boss, a portal appears and leads you to the next floor. Each floor gets progressively bigger and and the enemies become stronger, later stages introduce some other room types like Obelisk, where you must destroy stone Obelisks that appear whilst the room continus to spawn enemies. All exits are locked untill you have destoyed all obelisks and enemies. You start off wit just your trusty wand but as you progress you can pick up another 3 weapon types. Your wand is unlimited but weak. The other three weapons run off mana, dropped by killed beasties, and must be constantly replenished. Your character can level up by collecting knowledge gems which are dropped mostly by slain enemies. Upon each level up you can pick one from a couple of different perks to aid your survival and it's the wealth of perks available and their varying effects that add a depth to this game. You can choose how to buff your character, for example you can pick to gain more health from potions, you can get a battler cry at the beginning of a fight that gives you extra health, you can choose to increase the mana pools of your varying weapons. You can also choose to do more damage when you drop to a certain health percentage, you can trade in your current weapon stock for a new set of random weapons that have extra firepower, the downside of this is that the fire rate could be a lot slower making some small minion rooms a lot harder. To add to this, each perk can be levelled up itself by picking the same perk again (obviously if it's made available to you) when you level up next time. Each perk can be upgraded 5 times. So do you pick a particular type of perk and make it strong or go for a wealth of abilities that arent strong individually but collectively make you a badass? So you have a choice of how to play the game, peg it through, hoping your lucky and find the portal key and boss room pretty close together so as not to take too much damamge from the rest of the maze or take you time, level up and become more powerfull but potentially fall victim so some fucking tough ass rooms. The real challenge (and addiction for me) has come with the different types of characters available. I think there is possbily only one from the start but you can unlock a total of 16, each with differing abilities which can make each game fiarly unique. For example I just beat the game with a Vampire called Corvus. His energy constantly drains but he gains health by collecting knowlege gems which are normally only for levelling up. Each time I levelled him up it was important to pick perks that aided health restoration (like battle cry or one where damaging in game objects add to your health). I got lucky and had a perk where collecting knowledge gems not only added health but also added mana for my weapons. It started really fucking hard but got easier as I progresseed, I was like a God when I got to the final boss on the fith floor. Other characters have a stong wand attack but shitty mana pools for the other more powerfull weapons, there's a thief character that is really fast, a wizard that has really strong weapons but shitty health or a dude who relies on his battle cry at the beginning of a fight to inject mana and health but knowledge gems and mana collected dont add much to their respective pools. Fuck me it's a deep old game once you get it. I could understand the point of view that it becomes repetative after a few rounds but I'm addicted. It takes between 45 minutes to an hour for a successful run. I've beaten it with seven different chartacters (they unlock as you progress by killing a certain amount of enemies or dealing a certain amount of total damamge) but I want to do it with all of them. I've got one more dude to unlock. Anyways, im off to play again.

The coolest game of 2015 is out now so let me tell you how fresh it is. We know the score, right? We've played the demo? Its still pretty much that. Here's what I said about the multiplayer after the test fire: I still stand by that. But I'd say now I'm more in-tune with the controls, though there is still a lot of room for me to improve, and the stability of the online post-release has been mostly good. So there is a single player aspect to the game which is pretty okay. You have a hub where you find the entrances to the levels, and the levels themselves are very obstetrical course-y that focus on specific mechanics (very modern 3D Mario in design). As fun as they are, they never really wow. The bosses sometimes do, but its mostly a gentle and subtly enjoyable ride. They're certainly leaps and bounds beyond tacked on, but a little something is missing I can't quite pin down. I think I may have just been expecting more. There is also a light RPG element to the multiplayer; it's a bit mini-Destiny with Ts and backwards caps that have perks tied to them that have all kinds of different buffs so you've got that to think about if you want but I've yet to see that much difference. But you gotta make your Inkling look fresh. Overall though I like the game quite a bit. I think it is fair to say that content, as of now, is quite light, but I'm fine with that, personally. With Destiny and Witcher 3 being very time demanding I'm really happy to have a game where matches are short and progress is satisfying. It's not a game to get obsessed with, you'll see everything too quick, but as something to have to the side and play occasionally it fits perfectly. I've heard people say Splatoon is to shooters what Mario Kart is to racers, but I don't think it's quite that. It could be, eventually, but it doesn't quite have as high skill level as MK that allows that to capture as many people as it does. It'll only ever be some silly, cool, messy, unique fun... only I say, like that isn't all good stuff... I'm just saying this isn't the tier of game it could be. It's great, but fantastic was just in reach, and it's just a little short. But I'd say it's better than Smash Bros. And! on top of that, its allowing #teens to explore squid based fetishes: How sweet.

This is early days as I've only one the first level, but the controls, god the controls!! it might be my age but I can't focus on the small wii u controller screen and the big tele. When I thought I had mastered it I looked up at the tele and I was flying into a mountain but my targeting was still showing the first boss. I lost slippy on the first run, but that's the norm anyway. The actual flight controls are great and remind me of the N64 use the right stick to loop the loop and slow down speed up. Graphically, now I could of been spoilt with the ps4 xb1 etc...but Mario kart looked great on the wii u and quite a few other in house games, but this doesn't seem polished enough, the great fox when you first see it in space looks no different to the N64 game. I'm hoping once I get past the controller issues, this will be a great game. I should add my wii u controller was soaked in my sweaty hands after the first level I've never had that with a game before! Betting first comment below will be I disagree its awesome.......

Not sure i'm the right person to talk about this, it's not the sort of game i'd usually play but for the wii u launch it looked like it makes good use of the pad screen, and i wanted a controller pro...so why not give it a try? usually i'd go straight to easy mode on something like this, but they called it chicken mode which tricked me into trying normal. i like how it starts, running away from the zombies oddly reminded me of running away from stuff in mirrors edge. anyway, i did ok at the start, had some good supplies, but then the first time there's really a lot of zombies at once i died a few times. each time you die you start as someone else and loose most of your stuff - it's pretty cool fighting the previous you as a zombie, and that way you should be able to get some of your stuff back whan you die, but it sort of messed up for me as i was killed again before i could loot my previous zombie so lost the lot. in that respect it reminds me of stuff i don't like in 2D shooters like gradius - if you die it puts you back - to before the bit you couldn't do - with much less supplies/firepower. annoying. although when you die close to the safe house it doesn't seem so bad, then later i kept dying (2/3 hours in) at a bit not-close to the safe house so retreated to chicken mode. i have a feeling you're supposed to use stuff like the distractions, door baricades, etc. to give yourself more time to deal with them one at a time or bypass the zombies completely, but when there's more than one of them i just panic and forget all that, try to fight them and die. annoyingly there's only one save slot for the main game mode so i had to delete my normal mode save to start on easy (unless i'm missing something). the screen on the pad (yeah like a dreamcast!) is used in a number of ways - obvious stuff like a map and inventory stuff, but also for scanning for items and stuff which is pretty cool - and while the graphics are good, they aren't as good as some 360/ps3 stuff, but i still think it's impressive that it displays the game from 2 viewpoints at once. so what think you? and would this convince anyone to get a wii u?

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 Super Meat Boy type platformer but oh so much more psychedelic. It fucks with your brain in many ways, it gives you powers, then takes them away when they have already become second nature. It gives you a simple platforming task but bombards your senses with light shows and noise, It's fucking awesome for all these reason but it's also fucking hard. The music is slammin and when your die a chick says "Ooooh yeaaaaaa" in an orgasmic tone that makes you want to bust off. Sometimes a dude says it too, same result. Gameplay trailer: Me winning: http://www.trueachievements.com/gameclip.aspx?clipid=38304519

I have been on this loads, but assume because of the weather around here we had a millisecond drop in electricity and I don't want to think about the progress I've just lost. There is no auto-save, and very infrequent reminders. Save often, people. So while I'm here I'll drop some impressions. It rules. Despite these environments being shown a lot in the run up to this game coming out they do still mange to impress in a different way when you actually interact with them. They aren't just a thing you look at, these places are something you have to deal with. They are laid out in brilliant ways. They're not just big meadows you can traverse as the bird flies, but then they aren't exactly linear paths either; you have to do some orienteering. Like, you can look at a lovely cliff with a pretty waterfall down the way but sometimes getting there isn't that simple. The environment won't make it easy, and neither will the wildlife. Sometimes the only route you can find will be through where dangerous monsters live that are twenty levels higher than you and knowing where to run to escape if you're seen, where it's safe® is something worth considering when going somewhere like that. The first Xenoblade had some of that, but here it's more natural since it's not just high level enemies guarding secret areas for later (there is still some of that) but it mostly feels quite lived in. I suppose that fits with the story. I've played a lot but story beats are few and far between, same as before, but humanity had to flee Earth as two other alien races decided to use Earth's surrounding area as a fight club and it got blown up during the fight. So one ship (we know of) got away and crash landed on this new planet full of horrible beasties. But they're trying to make it home. It has themes of war and refugees, splatterings of racist tension and a bit that reminded me of seal clubbing so yeah, welcome to 2015 I suppose (or any other time). Fighting is like the first one, but different. I don't think I fully understand it yet and I might never since I don't think I ever fully understood the combat from the last one but I still finished it so I might know enough. It's just about getting the right position and/or using the right move on the right bit of animal but not being to liberal with everything since holding back some moves for when your allies calls them out makes them more powerful. There is more to consider as well but I've said enough. There is enough that keeps your brain ticking during a fight, even though when you watch a fight play out without controlling it it does look like utter nonsense but there is quite a fun logic to when you are making the decisions. It's pretty good.

Its rare i start a topic in this thread, but hey i got a new game. Its a download from the wii u shop, cost me £10 not too bad. If you want to play wipeout? if you want to play f-zero? well this is the game for you, It lacks character to be honest and its a bit sterile but the game is fun once you get into it. You have to change the shields to get every boost as you go through the levels. I've only played the first one with the original 3 ships, the AI is a bit rubber bandy you get past them and they fight to get back in, I'm not sure if there's any weapons but with the boost you can keep back up. Visually on the wii u it looks great, plays well, quite like this little game. Uses up 1024mb on the storage and can be played off the mini screen on the pad, will post more when I put some more time into this. Not me but a promotional video:

For those that dont know... Guitar Hero is back... and its Live! Most pressing, the fucking buttons have changed, they've changed the fucking buttons. Gone are the five colours in a row. Now they're all the same colour, theres six of them - 3 at the top and three directly underneath. In theory this is easier but my brain doesnt work that way yet. They symbols are obviously different as there are no colours to match them with so you have plectrum shaped icons that are either black or white. Black are the top three, white are the bottom. You can also power chord by hitting top and bottom together. Ive gone from half decent to being a bit shit again but I spent an hour and a half practicing last night and i was getting better, i was able to do two quick notes on the top and a note on the bottom then switch back up to the top (then power chord) relitively pain free. Still, when it gets fast I was fucking up here and there. So it's a long road ahead to re-learn shit to a point where your brain just does it for you but I am enjoying the experience thus far. The two main modes of gameplay are Live and TV. Live is career mode, you play as part of a 'real' band to a 'live' crowd and jolly on through becoming more awesome and visiting bigger venues getting all famous and shit, same old story. TV is a bit different. TV is a constantly broadcasting network of channels that you can hop on to at any time and play track. It's like an interactive MTV channel, but here there are about 10 channels showcasing different types of music that you can flick between. There are always people to play against wether they are online or offline, I guess it just selects people around your skill level and you have to try and beat their score. The higher you finish the more exp and coins you get, the exp is for leveling up and unlocking skills you can upgrade (i've no idea what these are yet, im level 6 and you unlock your first skill at level 9) and coins are for buying 'plays'. The game did explain what this entails but i didnt read it or listen to be honest and it hasen't really affected me so far so fuck it, I'll find out what it is later. Look, amongst all this shit is Guitar Hero. I just wanted to play Guitar Hero again. And I am. And it's good fun.

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.

I've been playing this a bit the last two days and I wondered how I was going to talk about this game without sounding like a blathering idiot. You see, I knew this game would rule. back when it was a THQ published PS3/360 game I knew it would rule. I play it for a bit, sat the Gamepad down, went to the window and shouted at the world. You cunts were talking shite. I fucking knew it would rule, I have a gift, I can tell. But... That's not say it doesn't have problems. There are performance issues, though I don't think anything startlingly bad, except when you can tell it's loading between sections of levels and it stutters like fuck. And the shooting, more specifically, the aiming is tied up so tight it feels uncomfortable to use. To no-ones surprise it does have that. Well, and it has some weird clipping sometimes. But whatever, here's the hotness: So it's a game that tries to blend FPS action with guy with sharp objects action. There are times it does it admirably, there are times less so; there are occasional times it knocks it out the fucking park. You see, as well as a simple-ish melee system when you pull the left trigger to aim you have some melee options, too: you can press the light attack to leap towards an unsuspecting enemy for an instant kill (but leaves you open as it's slow moving) or throw you melee weapon with the heavy attack (but the you loose it until you pick it back up) which is also a high damage attack. Combo that with you're FPS action and your dodge, roll and slashing and you have a game that is fairly hard to have a bad time with. especially when the levels accommodate all your tools (you have quite a lot of mobility due to a vertical wall run where you can get to more places than than you'd expect in a linear action game like this). There are times where the levels force your hand a bit and make you play it like a cover-based shooter which is where the low points are. They're not always that intrusive, but they can be. But on the good levels it gets good. It even seems pretty hard as getting out of some situations requires you to be mindful of everything you can do. You have the power to stomp through the game, but its about finding the right opportunities. I'd actually be interested to see a speed run of this as I think it would throw up some fascinating strategies. I think the thing that has surprised me is the story. It's schlock, but much better schlock than I was expecting. I didn't think I'd be into that aspect of DT since the trailers made that stuff look a bit 'yeah-yeah' but its cool in the game itself. IVAN, the lead, is a bit of a non-entity, but the supporting cast (the baddies, mostly) have enough personality to carry it to somewhere that has quite a bit of charm. And that's weird since Ninja Gaiden and DoA was never good at that, so its a surprise. I think it pulls it off by having some decent voice acting. It's not too hammy, its all quite earnest and played straight. I love that. I'm not a fan of this idea that things have to be 'self-aware'. It's a game about a tough Russian guy, who is good with guns and melee weapons, and also awesome at playing the drums (and also as 'proficient at guitar' as I found out from some loading screen flavour text) and he has to save America and there is zero irony. It's beautiful. It has the ingredients to be a true cult classic. I think after playing this it does make the game's reception all the more heart breaking. Man, this game is so fucking honest. There is a part where they try to do a Call of Duty style bust through a window and shoot the unaware baddies in slow motion, but it's all a bit off and naff looking, but I was giggling throughout. Not in a malicious way, I just love that they tried to work it in on top of everything. I dunno, there is zero pomposity, some fun stuff that occasionally really comes alive, more charm that games that this is trying to muscle in with just don't have, yet it has this reputation as being the worst game of the year. It doesn't seem right, guys. I don't think I'd recommend Devil's Third to anyone (I think it's something to be discovered), but at the same time, I don't think I'd take anyone seriously if they thought t was the worst game of 2015. I wouldn't trust that person. Ramble over. I'll maybe post about the MP at some point. Seems decent, but those aiming issues might just kill it as you need to be more accurate than you need to be on the SP. If only it had some Splatoon style gyro controls.

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.

So, this is lovely. it's a bit like the old DS game, although i haven't played that for years so not sure how similar. but you draw lines for kirby to move along, tap him to dash - so it controls similar. draw lines to deflect lasers/water. spin dash into bosses like sonic. it's fun. was thinking it's a shame there isn't more stuff like catch! touch! yoshi!...but there is some stuff like that in here, and the kirby transforms into a tank, which is pretty awesome. just done the first 2 worlds. there's loads of stuff to collect/find in the levels, and you get a score at the end with gold/silver/etc. awards so there's reason to replay the levels. music is nice. graphics are nice and colourful, i'm not too keen on the plasticine look mind. and it's a bit pointless having the tv on, you're always going to be looking at the gamepad. there's a challenge mode where you have 15 seconds to get a chest in a number of mini levels - bit like wario ware meets kirby. initial impressions - thumbs up. anyone else got/played it?

I've gone through the game at the leisurely 50cc pace and I suppose we better get some impressions down. I kinow it's lazy to say but I'm going to: this is a Mario Kart game, but it's a good one... well, they're always good so I'll go so far as to say Mario Kart 8 is a great Mario Kart game. I could see it being my favourite (I have yet to play Super and 7). I think it's because of the courses since they're the most imaginative ones I've seen and a lot of them have some surprising shortcuts and split off in ways. I think the good track design is down to the new anti-grav karts. When I first saw it I thought it looked cool but I didn't think it would change the dynamics of the tracks very much. I thought it would just make you go upside down sometimes, but that's not really the case. The tracks sometimes have optional, subtle little sections that require it and those little things open up how you use the track for certain situations. I just think it makes you think about how to deal with the tracks more than you might realise. It's cool. I dunno how I feel about the kart customisation stuff, really. It makes it so it almost doesn't matter who you pick, which is good in a way. It means you can just pick a character you like and tailor a kart more around your style, instead of using a character you don't really care about but they suit your driving style. But we know the score really. we've seen it looks really nice, I can vouch for the new tracks and say they're pretty awesome... and while the game does look nice I played the N64 track and just couldn't get over how good the music is on that track. It's glorious (remember this from the Direct they did?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RslKeW5SHcw But anyway. I need to try the online a bit more... I'm getting my arse handed to me quite a bit.

Whats to say? It's pool. I have this on PS4, it costs about £5.50 with a PS+ discount and its pretty kewl. You can play local or online and theres a career mode with unlockables and levelling up as you go along. It's very pretty too.

Made by the team that did World of Goo and the guy who was behind Henry Hatsworth. You can tell the World of Goo thing by the art style and sense of humour, a mile off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04GSCt2Wiqo It's a little bizarre. It's a sandbox game with no fail state but there is a running narrative and story. You order objects which you place in your fireplace and then set them on fire. Build combos by combing certain objects together and you'll start unlocking more lists of stuff to buy. All in-game money, no IAP's as far as I'm aware. It's oddly compelling but there isn't much point to it. From Wired:

I gots to tell you, I really don't like this game. It's really humourless and annoying. The controls are all nice and I've had no issues with the platforming but the script is boring and flat. I just want to smack his stupid face.

I think this is a game that maybe a bunch of people have picked up at some point during a Steam sale, maybe. It has even been reduced really low on Wii U so I assume someone may have this game as well. I just want to say if you haven't played it yet but have it then get it played. It's a a cool game. What I've noticed is it promotes itself as a game with no real tutorial and you have to just figure it out. That sounds all well and good but therer are a few to many games out there that claim to do that but are just obtuse and a pain in the arse; Toki Tori 2 isn't that. Maybe it has too much of a simple opening, but it's only after playing it a bit and getting to appreciate the level of complexity do I realise why they started this game slowly. What is awesome about it is that the game is based around interacting with wildlife, and when you start off you don't know the amount of interaction you actually have until you've gone through a load of the game, and then you're like 'oh shit, those butterflies were at the start and I could have got them to do such and such'. I guess it's almost like playing a Metroidvania but having all the power-ups from the start, except you don't know what they do unless you play more, which is super cool. It has the most natural progression without you having to unlock anything. I know it's far from the most exciting game in the world but it is such a perfect Sunday afternoon hang out game. You just potter about and solve some surprisingly satisfying puzzles. I think it's worth a punt, but I don't know for certain if anyone herer would like it. But I'm giving it a hearty thumb up, anyway.

Scram Kitty is a pretty weird game. It's a sort of top down shooter and platformer, but the platforming is still side on because you can only move while attached to like a rail wall thing... and you can only shoot in front of you. It sounds like everything in it is just going to hamper you but there is some satisfaction in unlearning what we usually know about these kinds of games and getting good at Scram Kitty. What your goal is for each level is you have to collect four cats in each level: one you get when you reach the goal, another you get for collecting 100 coins in the level, one appears after killing a tough enemy and the final, and most problematic one, is a cat that moves around the level when you first touch it and acts as a checkpoint race which you have a very limited time to get between checkpoints. I have around 30 cats right now and the more you have the more levels you have access to. From what I can tell you just need 70 to get to the final level, but it seems like there may be over 100 to collect. It's certainly got that 3D Mario game structure in terms of progression. The levels are good, in fact they get super tough, especially where I am now and it's all about using the geometry of the levels to kill bad guys, since you can only shoot forwards getting into position is key. In fact the way some enemies move is really erratic and does get frustrating as it often seems you can't avoid them or shoot them. I'd say that's the worst part of it. So it's an interesting game... not sure I'd call it a great one, or even recommend it, but it's certainly something. It's not boring, that's for sure.

I'm probably not going to give this game the credit it deserves in the first impressions, mainly because the thing is so vast, it's easily one of the biggest most complicated games on the market. Easily. The game starts out with a tidal wave that fucks over a tribe that you'll be hunting for. You get told to talk to everyone about the village which gives you the ins and outs of what everyones job is. That's the most uncomplicated thing you'll ever do in this game. You learn that some big fuck off monster is angry for whatever reason and is sinking the fishing boats and causing earthquakes and tidal waves. You are then tasked with sorting out the villages problem by killing this monster. As a rookie the chieftain realises he can't just send you to fight this monster so you must work up to taking on the monster thats making their lives miserable. This path means you're going to have to kill everything on the island. The village makes you report anything you've killed and gives you resources in exchange, some of which can be used to fashion or bolster equipment while other parts are just used to sell to various vendors, as far as I can gather. Credits earned go into purchasing stuff to help you out in the field, or at least some of them do. That's it for story related stuff Out in the field is a missmash of game styles. The combat feels similar to the Souls series. You have stamina management to take into account, and fighting the monsters requires you to learn how to beat each monster. From what I can gather each enemy has ways of telling you what they are about to do before you do it, so if you keep getting flattened it's sort of your own fault for not noticing that that particular attack is going to take you down. The fighting feels very purposeful, you have to see when you have an open spot and commit, if you get it wrong you're going to be thrown across the floor and have your health chewed up. There's different ways of playing with different weapons. Some require you to poke away but make it hard to evade and run about, while dual wielding doubles your damage output but leaves you unable to black. There's also a big fucking cannon that I think is a sword that can utilise various ammos and a set of bagpipes on a stick to beat on the local fauna. I'm not shitting you. Bagpipes! The other game that it reminds me a lot of is World of Warcraft. Anyone that spent life mining or collecting herbs will be right at home here, there's nodes all over the place for you to harvest which will fill up your inventory. Corpses of slain monsters can be carved up to give you loot ranging from food stuffs, vendor trash and reagents for creating things. Creating things. You'll be doing a fucking lot of this. Put simply, you cannot buy potions or anything like that. Those things you collect in the wild? The herbs and the mushrooms? That's your alchemy set for healing yourself. The meat you find can be cooked to refill your stamina by cooking in the field. The stamina and health you have varies on the quality of stuff you consume from what I can gather, so eating a burnt steak can actually hinder you. In fact, the amount of combining you'll do in this game is comparable to most professions in MMO's. The best thing about it it once you've done it once you can just go and select the finished item from the combo list if you want to make potions or whatever, so it's never really a chore. There's also a farm that can grow items for you, although I've not delved into that much I'm betting it becomes something you seriously rely on when it comes down to getting further into the game. There's an area in the game that you can go play in which is detached from the village that has an arena and allows you to play with others and stuff. I actually fought my first thing in there. This is my first criticism of the game. The signposting is terrible. I shouldn't have been guided to the arena until I went out to kill the herbivores you are meant to kill. Again, this reminds me of Dark Souls in the fact that it's just letting you go anywhere you want whether it is the right way or the wrong way. Apart from that I see no problems with it. In fact it's sort of sublime. The graphics on 3DS look lovely, the animations on everything looks amazing and the music adds to that weird view Japan has of recreating the medieval style. The no online on 3DS is a bummer but I can cope with it. There's probably bits I've missed, but really, this game is massive. If you'd played it you would agree.

With great surprise, we have threads for the other Mario & Luigi games but not the first. I think I got most of the way through on the GBA but I think I came stuck due to not possibly not being powerful enough. It's on the WiiU Virtual Console now (3DS too?) and I put a load of money on my account and picked it up. I wondered whether I got some of the mechanics messed up with the second game but I've not long got the hammers so I think I can remember it well. Unless the two games were pretty much identical, mechanics-wise. I'm not finding it as funny as I remember it being, but maybe that was the second game. As far as the WiiU version goes, it's worth noting that it starts up with the "Gameboy Player" logo so maybe that has something to do with how they emulated it? Also if you click in the right stick, you can smooth the scrolling and slightly smoothen up the graphics which I've stuck with.

I'm just going to cut to the chase: this is terrible. Admittedly i've not even done the first world yet but at this moment in time I really dont want to. It starts off ok, a blatent copy of Mario Galaxy but feeling more like Ilo Milo without any puzzles. Nice crisp graphics. Controls are ok. Sonic, like Mario but with less of an excuse, doesn't accelerate as quick as I would like but my immediate problem lies in the homing attack. It doesnt always home in. Instead Sonic bounces and then looses all his acceleration. Anyway, after a terrible cut scene introducing some new badly designed enemies, the next level starts which was just a simplified version of all side scrolling Sonic levels. At the end I fought a boss, Zazz, which I didnt enjoy much. If you lock on and attack for some reason it hits but does no damage. What you have to do it time your air attack so you bounce just in front of him and hit the front of his face. You have to do this for a while. Next level was back to Mario Galaxy, then another piss poor cut scene, then another Mario Galaxy level that becomes a side scroller half way through. Then I had to fight Zazz again. There is a little chase that takes about a minute to get through, then you fight him. Again. He carries this massive yellow ball with a face on it, he chucks it at you 3 times, twice it bounces, once it rolls, repeat. My problem was hitting Zazz. Again. I kept homing him which hits him without damage, you just sort of bounce off. So i was trying to bounce in front of his face like last time but he's standing still this time round: last time he was running at you which made it easier to time as he pretty much ran in to you. This time it just seemed pot luck. I was hitting him sometimes but not really understanding why. Anyway, i died loads. What i havent mentioned is that I used all my lives up and had to continue TWICE before I even got to this boss encounter. Once you get to him and you inevitably die because he's really hard to hit you have to repeat that minute long chase sequence before you get to fight him and his stupid ball again. So I did that five times, repeating that shitty chase sequence and then dying because I coudnt hit Zazz. On the fifth and final time, on the chase sequence I died by trying to homing attack a pinball thing ( you know, red and blue thing with a yellow star) that makes Sonic ping through the air at speed but it didnt home in, it missed, so instead i just plummeted to my death down the gap next to it. Then I turned it off. I dont know why I bother. I honestly had no fun what so ever in the 30 minutes or so I played. Sonic game for sale, only used once. Anybody?