Larsen B

Yeah, you definitely don't need to complete every level with every character in 3D World to unlock the final world. You do need every available flagpole, coin and stamp though. It's worth it, although I don't think tegan will respond favourably to the final level!

If it makes you feel any better, it took me almost an entire day and 5 minutes.

Devil's Third is the new game from Tomonobu Itagaki who was the lead behind modern Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2. It's not a sequel to anything so, outside of whatever in-game explanation there is, maybe he considers it his third game in that style? At least it was new when it was announced as a 360/PS3 game in 2009. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because NG was fantastic and the trailer looks goofy and fun but the gameplay they showed on IGN was pretty shoddy.

It seems a weird thing to highlight as a Great Thing but I'm playing the VC version of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages at the moment and there's a lot of RNG involved in getting certain equippable rings to drop. Being able to abuse a save state file has saved me a lot of time and frustration. It's only when I think that I can't do an equivalent thing on my PSN downloads that I realise it's a neat feature.

I bought MH3U on 3DS and Wii U, both physically and digitally. I might have had a serious problem. Sonic has always sucked but I think I'll get that as my free game just because it seems more substantial.

If you believe you can do it, you can. I'd planned start and finish an SL1 run in DS1 before starting DS2 but, midway through, I thought that I'd actually take a break because 50 hours of Dark Souls and then 50+ hours of Dark Souls 2 sounded like too much. Of course, the night that I finished my run, I was lying in bed and started getting withdrawal symptoms and thinking how I really want to play Dark Souls 2. Mainly because I'll be able to level up. You have no idea how much I want to level up.

I honestly could not tell you how Gaping Dragon attacks. Like I remember him running and jumping up but that seemed to be so he'd get into my attack range. Swell dude.

40 hours is mainly due to idling, backtracking, indecision, fear, stupidity and forgetfulness. I think most experienced players can/do it in 10 to 20. Damage output has never been an issue - pyromancy is amazingly powerful and levelled up equipment is seemingly way more important and effective than stat boosts. The elemental damage on upgraded weapons picks up a lot of the slack and most bosses have a weakness to either fire or lightning. I've actually only discovered using the spell buffs like Power Within and that was with about 5 normal/DLC bosses left. Basically you need to try and avoid being hit more than anything or good at endurance management which is what my play style is based around.

Becoming a SL1 Darkwraith was my main objective, other than finishing the game, and I too thought Four Kings were excruciating. Until! I did what I did before, which was just tank them wearing Havel's set. Slightly more detailed tips: Never give up hope!

40-something hours into my SL1 run and I've beaten every vanilla boss apart from Gwyn and the two black dudes from the DLC. It's weird that I really found myself struggling with the "- Demon" bosses, like Stray and the Firesage, when they were the easiest ones I remember from my original playthroughs. I used to always roll a Dex character so effectively having such little endurance has affected my playing style more than anything. Also not having a bow and always requiring melee distance in combat has been a change. If you were like me and put in 100 hours into Dark Souls, you really should try a SL1 run. It's fun!

Hey, here's a thing. How do people who want this plan to incorporate it into their lifestyle? My girlfriend ended up getting annoyed when I played Demon's Souls because I couldn't pause when she needed a hand with something so wearing a headset (and I'd imagine most people would wear headphones too) seems unfathomable. Would you organise set times when you can "jack in to the Rift" or would it be on a situational opportunity basis?

We have phones in our hands all of the time these days and yet more and more people seem to hate physically communicating with people using them. Witness people complaining about having to phone Microsoft to cancel their Xbox Live subscription. You could argue there's a matter of inconvenience to it but the subtext always seemed to me that people didn't like having to actually talk to someone. I've seen posts on NeoGAF that say cultivating and sustaining friendships are not worth the hassle. I have never had the need or desire to purposefully troll or bully online and yet that seems to be more prevalent with each day. If ignoring the world around us with just an iPhone in our hand is bad enough, then strapping the phone to our face and blocking out the physical world is another step further. Basically oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg.

Someone smarter than me could write something about how an already insular industry developing technology that allows customers to become more insular is actually quite a dangerous thing and I would agree with it. VR has never appealed to me so I'm on the wrong side of the fence but the fervour with which people are reacting to a piece of technology that cuts them off from physical space and contact is alarming.

The PS3 inFamous games are the most 7/10 games imaginable. They're eminently playable and you don't mind that the sun is shining outside and you're indoors climbing up sticky drainpipes but there is just absolutely nothing extraordinary about them. When I saw screenshots of Vanaman and the on-screen objective was "power up the node", I couldn't believe they were getting more mileage out of exactly the same mission structures. Which means I will gladly play it when it's on PS+.

As much as I hold the series in high regard, the first game began with a painstaking depiction of the Kanagawa prefecture and the second game ended with a floating sword. I do not want whatever Shenmue 3 will entail.

Only 8 months later, I finally built that PC and, this weekend, I did indeed christen it with Non-Game Home. It's every bit as good as I had hoped and everyone said it was. As I was listening to the familiar wail of Corin Tucker, the thought that someone will get into Riot Grrl through this is so rad.

I don't believe you, you're a liar.

There was a fourth Home Alone movie. It features the same characters from the first 2 films, all played by different actors. Nobody knows why it was made.

After the European release was cancelled, I don't need to be hearing this, Dewar.

It's more changing your way of thinking and approach to combat. The first few combat bowls (eg. the docks) are not very good areas to fight in and the tutorials/introductions you're given aren't very enjoyable ways to play really - throw bottle here, kill dude when he investigates. When I started using the environment items (bricks/bottles) and the inventory stuff (smoke bombs/molotovs/nail bombs) as part of a stealth game, it became far more involving. It can be as basic as making the enemies in an area investigate a brick and then throwing a molotov cocktail or using bricks and bottles to hit enemies directly (look for the targeting circle to appear on-screen) and then melee them for a one hit kill. Some of the best events were when my carefully planned stealth assaults degenerated into desperate survival tactics. It's a tad overselling it to say the gameplay improves a lot and it's still what stops me thinking The Last of Us is a masterpiece but, certainly once I'd adjusted, I actually enjoyed the encounters for the most part.

It turns out there is.

Although I wasn't completely bowled over by the game and the DLC just reinforced my opinion, the difference in quality and enjoyment between the first third and the middle third really is quite something. The way the game explains itself at the beginning is actually pretty poor considering how much better the encounters become and I definitely was of the opinion that people were mad to give it perfect scores within the first 5 hours. Although I still don't agree with them, it's much easier to understand why they'd be inclined to do so having finished it.

Agreed on all of that. Even inside the first hour of Bravely Default, I was zoning out so hearing people say that it's 80 hours+ should be turning me off but the systems are keeping me into it. I predominantly play RPGs so I'm already used to that.

The majority of games turn pretty terrible at the end! To me, Griddle's post read like "this game isn't good enough for me to try and overcome this frustrating obstacle".

Curious to hear your thoughts on the basis for "decidedly better". Persona 4 is one of my favourite games of all time but I don't feel Bravely Default is markedly inferior. It is certainly more traditional (and the story not as amazing as a murder mystery) but the job system allows more scope for play, similar to how Final Fantasy Tactics is a solid TRPG as a base but the ability customisation options elevate it beyond that.