Earthbound and Dune 25.04.16

Lovely Planet (PS4) I'd seen and heard a bit about this when it came to PCs last year and so I was really pleased when this popped up on the PlayStation store last week. It's a simple enough game, and FPS platformer where the levels are condensed into 10-20second chunks. Starting off simply, it progresses enemy types from static squares, to static squares which fire to balls which upon landing kill you instantly (which puts a real sense of pressure on playing as soon as you hear the distinct noise of them launching). The game is so quick to jump into then get back into once I inevitably died that it works really well, and as the levels get harder and seemingly more impossible I found myself doing specific routines through the levels, only ever annoyed at my own mistakes. I had a great time with it, the music is the only downside, at first it's chirpy and novel but it's on a short loop and gets repetitive really quickly. 

Starfox Zero (WiiU) I really, really wanted to enjoy this game. I really don't like what I've played of it, I can't get to grips with the dual screen mentality of aiming and piloting the ship, the issues I had with it started early on when aiming down and the spider like creatures, it felt so awkward looking down at the game pad while I was crashing into all kinds of things on the main screen. With no visibility of health on the gamepad on the rare occasion I felt comfortable enough to look up at the television screen I realised my ship was all but destroyed. When factoring in end bosses with specific points to target I found all of these overly complicated controls way too overwhelming (and this was level one). It got even more rough when adding the chicken walker type ship, the pacing of levels drops to a standstill at this point and I was scratching around looking for fiddly objectives (which on the two occasions I took to this mode of transport where identical). The level I left the game on was a messy affair involving a gyrocopter and a robot hanging off it, which was painfully slow and had the worst application of hacking I've experienced in a video game. I will go back, it was a little more bearable once I'd reduced the application of motion controls, but the issues I had were so much deeper than the two screen features. On the rare occasion it stripped back to just me in a spaceship shooting waves of enemies I had a feeling of nostalgia which wasn't unpleasant. Sadly to even the traditional Arwing combat felt at time sparse, especially the fight against Pigma, I had a feeling of isolation in space which I don't imagine was intentional, searching a sea of darkness for a lone pig in a space ship throwing insults at me. If this was how the game was meant to feel it was a daring take on the genre I guess. To look at it has some nice details and it has some neat throwbacks to the older games. Coming with it is Starfox Guard, which I played a few rounds of, and that was a much more fun experience. I want to play that a lot more than the game it was a bonus to.

Earthbound and dune 10.04.16

Fallout 4: Automatron (PS4), I've still got a bunch to do in the world of Fallout 4 but I dove into some of the paid DLC this week anyway. It's a bit of a shock to the system at first, the early sections of the additional quest are harsh (I'm at level 34 way above the recommended 15) that could be because my character and his weapons aren't well equipped for waves of murderous robots though. The whole landscape seems populated by machines trying to kill me, I hope this is only while working through this content and that the world hasn't been permanently altered. Once I'd completed the early legwork though and got to the robot building content it became a lot more fun, I redesigned Ada (the new companion added) as a massive red tank armed with a flamethrower and a claw topped off with an obscure head riddled with lights and wires. Watching as she slowly tailed me through the landscape as I ticked off objectives was amusing the bonus being that she was also quite handy in combat. The new non robot enemies are also cool, Rust Devils who are introduced as scavengers willing to rip apart robots for they're components (pretty similar to what my characters doing) I've got as far as an assault on they're base which I'll continue through, I like that the gross meat bags usually filled with guts and limbs are now full of exhausts and steel. All in I'm enjoying it, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who was bored of or didn't get into of the main game as its more of the same, but that's what I'm happy to play.

While Miitomo (iOS) continues to not be a conventional game I'm struggling give up the habit. It's social media by the way of Nintendo and demands user input to make it a experience of any sort. When it comes together though it can be really amusing, scrolling through people's answers, comments and photos is addictive whether they're honest or not. The sweet currency, which at first seems pointless is useful for seeing how your own answers stack up against others not that any of this matters. I really want to shake the habit (and I'm sure I will in due course) if only to save my phones battery and memory. 

Earthbound and Dune 02.04.2016

NHL16 (PS4) I really enjoy NHL Hitz in all its forms, and I find it upsetting that its a series which isn't going to reappear any time soon. Its with trepidation that I purchased NHL16 in the Playstation Easter sale. EA Sports games tend to fall further into the realm of simulation, and for a sport I hardly understand that was intimidating. I was pleasantly surprised though, after being forced into a repeat of the 2015 Stanley cup final on starting, then playing a quick exhibition match which taught me that I was much more suited to switching the controls to the NHL '94 settings, the puck zipped about the ice quickly and it had a nice arcady feel to it. I then moved into the career mode, building myself as a young left winger coming from London. After a brief stint with a team i'd never heard of I then got drafted by the Dallas Stars. This was impressive, as for all the goals and assists I was getting I still didn't understand a lot of the basics of the sport. The offside marker is really useful but I continue to be caught offside, skate into offside with the puck (whatever that is?) and called up for icing too, another rule which is lost on me. Its a really cool feature in the career mode to let the game play out whilst your benched, endurance is pictured as a gauge at the bottom of the screen and I could make the call to either bench myself or when there's a break in play I'd be swapped out until the gauge refills. Theres a balance to timing returning to the action, too often I'd find myself returning and begging for the puck to be passed to me only to mess up an attack, my coaching tips are quite predictable at the end of every game, stay onside and try not to ask for the puck as much. The fighting mini game which has been in every hockey game i've played seems more measured now, theres a reason for it. When I take a petulant swing at the puck when the whistles blown I'm instantly put into an encounter I tend to loose. Frustration kicks in a lot though at my own stupidity of getting caught offside or icing (I really should look up what icing is) and its harder not to take aim when I've been pulled up. I'm getting the most fun out of the game continuing my rookie career, even though its about as far removed from the fast paced arcade action of NHL Hitz as ice hockey can get. Hopefully some of the finer points of the sport will rub off on me as I play it.

I also did quite a bit of traveling so played some mobile games, Downwell (iOS) continues to be the best thing I can play on my phone. Its so addictive, I'm still pretty appalling at the game itself, can only get as far as the underwater stages. For such a seemingly simple game (effectively 3 buttons) there is a lot going on, reading enemies weaknesses and attacks and building combos to refill health or gems are things i've learnt more of the more I play. Played a little bit of SkiFree (iOS), more to show my nephew, most of the fun in the game comes from the distance you can get before getting eaten by the yeti but its still charming in its simplicity. Finally I tried a bit of Nintendos first mobile effort Miitomo (iOS) the most interesting thing I found in this game was playing what felt like a very Nintendo experience on an alien device, the colour palette, sounds, UI, characters and music all feels Nintendo. Even down to the fact it took me way too long to sync up my Nintendo ID to the game. The game itself seems to be a sequence of questions, I assume that it would be a lot more fun once a friends list of sorts is built. You can also take "comedy" pictures of your Mii or place him or her into your own photos. Theres a pachinko mini game too to get new clothing items, its not as much fun as the pachinko game in Nintendoland.