dartmonkey

Has anybody played Never Alone? It's on sale on the eShop and looks interesting.

He doesn't really put a foot wrong. Something about his enthusiasm comes through onscreen. I'd be down for an Obi-Wan spin-off with him.

Okay, just did Attack of the Clones. - I stand by kung fu Yoda being awesome. I like that the lightsaber is a key component of being a Jedi and that he uses one when he absolutely must. - The writing of Anakin and Padme is all over the place. Anakin comes up with the most teenage, corniest shit out of the blue ("I'm haunted by the kiss you should never have given me," "I don't like sand. It's coarse and gets everywhere. Here everything's soft" *lech*). At least he's consistent. Poor Natalie Portman, though. First she has to belittle Anakin to make him bitter when Obi-Wan's not around to do it ("You'll always be the little boy I knew on Tatooine", "Don't look at me like that - it makes me uncomfortable", "Oh, Anakin's not a Jedi Master..."). But simultaneously she has to fall in love with this petulant dude and his schoolboy lines ("Now that I’m with you again, I’m in agony. My heart is beating, hoping that that kiss will not become a scar"). After a quick slaughter trip to Tatooine we find that the corny patter is catching when she declares "I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life...I truly deeply love you..." out of nowhere. Nightmare. - The constant blue screen is a quiet killer. The scenes in the Jedi Temple feel absolutely dead. There's always some light source blooming down a hall and impossible structures. Ironically Tatooine feels like a breath of fresh air when 99% of the screen is in-camera as opposed to one or two real actors. - CG Yoda, in general is still pretty impressive. - Jango should have got more cool stuff to do. He has a scrap with Obi-Wan, blasts a few things, then Samuel L lops his head off. No wonder the Stormtroopers were so shit. It was okay. Maybe I'm going soft, or reduced expectations make it palatable now. The music is top-drawer. Obi-Wan is pretty bad-ass, mullet and all. C-

I thought BB8's 8-pronged lightspider was a bit much.

Episode 2 feels like a bunch of disparate set pieces with no real thread. They sound good on paper. Perhaps the love story was meant to tie it all together. Anakin's trip to Tatooine is a highlight (minus his petulant strop and confession to Padme), as is kung fu Yoda (yes!) but the dialogue really hurts it. I remember thinking the droid factory was this trilogy's trash compactor scene. It's got the humour and the peril but doesn't click this time round. It felt utterly superfluous. Re. Jar Jar, I never really had a big problem with him or the Gungans. C-3PO irritated me more in Attack of the Clones. However, Jar Jar did inspire a great line in SPACED when Tim's boss asks him why he's so down on Jar Jar but not the Ewoks. To which he replies: "Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like, fucking....SHAFT!"

You know, I'd really enjoy some prequel trilogy elements turning up in the new films. The tone of them was so different to the scrappy originals that it was only towards the end of Ep.3 that you started to smell them coming together. It'll be nice to the see the joint language of both inform the new films, with the grandiose CG of the New Republic (or whatever) and the nuts'n'bolts greasiness of the Millennium Falcon and all that. I've rewatched Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith over the weekend. Victory Celebration is no Yub-Nub, but it's still pretty special. And man, I really think everyone's problems with the prequels would be more or less mitigated if Lucas had given his draft to Lawrence Kasdan for a quick dialogue pass. Watching them again brought home the political angle Lucas was going for but he's so cack-handed with dialogue it all turns to mush. Which is a shame because I think kids could have learned something important from the transformation by Palpatine of the Republic into the Empire. It's very stop-start: cool action bit/boring expositiony trade route bit. If he had wound it together more skilfully with the cool shit (like Darth Maul and podracing and Yoda lightsabering and everything going south in Ep.3), it could've been special. But he gets lost in the palatial diplomacy. But there are some really good bits!... And then Ewan MacGregor is forced to shout the word 'Democracy!' before he crispifies Vader. But then there's the cool birth of the twins/Vader cross cutting!... And then Padme bites it because she lost the will to live. Or something. The thing is that you can see bits of it in A New Hope, too. Moff Tarkin is banging on about the senate and surrounding star systems falling in line. Maybe the younger Lucas had a better ear for casual banter (and an outlet for it in Han Solo) but it's there. The Empire review of Phantom Menace posited that Anakin himself could have provided that outlet if he'd been introduced as an older orphan surviving by his Force-y guile on the mean streets of Mos Espa. Maybe. The prequels needed some levity to puncture the pomp and worthiness, but watching Revenge of the Sith highlighted that all these films DID come from the same guy, for better or worse. And rewatching A New Hope last year...the first half is dreadfully slow! Context, context, I know. But my wife went to sleep. Anyway, Polygon pointed me towards an online edit of the prequels. comes in at around 90 mins so I might give that a go now.

Old game crap is great! Occasionally musty, but great. @ syntheticgerbil I wish I had tools and (more importantly) knowledge to do basic soldering and tinkering. I saw a Game Gear yesterday missing a d-pad (and probably with dodgy screen and sound) for 5€. It'd be cool to experiment on it. The Vanamo Online Game museum might be interesting for you guys. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Evan-Amos It's an online resource by a bloke called Evan Amos who is photographing VG hardware and thingys for public use. His photos turn up EVERYWHERE, often uncredited (naturally). It's a really high quality gallery and fascinating for people interested in the design of these objects but will likely never get to play (or even see) 95% of them in the flesh. All the popular iconi stuff is there as well as obscure curios you've never heard of. Chibi-Robo has officially joined the backlog list.

I've been ebaying the soundtrack CDs I was missing. Man, they're spectacular. Found myself welling up to Yub Nub. Idiot. Looking forward to the new soundtrack and I'm sure the film will be fine. PS. I'm assuming 'Salacious Thumb' had been used on the forums...somewhere. Or an episode title?

So the whole thing is housed inside the SNES casing? That sounds pretty great. While there's definite merit to using the original hardware, that's a losing battle as parts become scarce. I like the idea of preserving the aesthetics of the console while modernising the innards. The ball ache of having a TV that will display a 2600 or works with Duck Hunt is a big barrier for people. The Analog NT is an attractive idea, kinda the reverse of your housemate's - authentic innards (plus hdmi gubbins) in a new case. The set-top box design is a bit generic. I hear the build quality is good, though. Then again, it should be expected at $500. I discovered a new retro shop near me this morning and it struck me just how difficult it is to find anything in good condition that isn't still sealed. I guess in most cases the insides are in better shape than out. A good clean will bring some things back but sun damage and scratches and frayed cords are standard.

I have Chibi-Robo for GC, but never played more than an hour of it. Is it the best Chibi-Robo game? Neo Geo bundle is very welcome! If they were all Steam games I'd be all over that, but I'm an infant console gamer who can't take the stress of non-Steam PC gaming. The Neo Geo has always been a desirable thing to me, but simply as an object. Beat 'em ups are a big hole in my knowledge (as are shm'ups) and I could do with an education. The background art in King of Fighters is just incredible. I think that at least 50% of retro gaming is object fetishism. I could get one of those Atari 2600 plug-n-play sticks with 30 built-in games, but besides the holes in the pack-in catalogue, I also want the console itself to look at and display. Things like the Retro Freak or Retron 5 are intriguing but a large part the appeal of collecting comes from wanting to curate and display the objects. I've got an idea that would involve spray painting a collection of consoles gold and wall-mountain them like all the past Enterprises in the TNG Observation Lounge. Oh yes! That's not collecting or playing...it's more like exhibiting. Keeping a collection boxed is a waste.

I think that criticism could be levelled at the other consoles though, more so. The PS4 is an embarrassment of remasters and sequels. This gen has been slow to start, still hasn't produced much that is genuinely fresh and the hardware is looking creakier every week. I like that they tried something with the gamepad, even though they didn't seem sure themselves what it was for until now. I would miss having the screen now. Edit. Hmm. It appears like the no-brainer inventory-on-Gamepad option for Minecraft...er, isn't! I'm sure it's not an insignificant amount of work but come on. Off-TV play is always welcome but this'll need a patchy patch.

Half-Life 2: Episode 3 - Half-Life 3 Prologue.

Commercially, yes. I think there's still money to be made from it before NX but Nintendo fucked up the messaging and squandered a massive head start.Personally, even with a small library, it's got far more games that I want to play than Xbone and PS4 combined. The gamepad finally gets a solid killer app with Mario Maker. Xenoblade looks pretty essential. Even mediocre games like Yoshi or NSMBU or Kirby have things to recommend them. I've got loads of stuff yet to play. I'm having a great time with it. Firing up the PS3 the other day, I immediately tried to turn the volume down using my pad. I'm going to miss that if NX doesn't have that feature. Different strokes. I'm anything but disappointed. Edit. I've never tried Minecraft but that's now on the Wii U list too. Better late than never. I think this could be an indication that NX will play Wii U games or interact with the system somehow - it makes little sense for MS to release this version if it's only going to have legs for one holiday season before a new system. I guess it's an evergreen title, but still.

It's almost certainly Half-Life 2: Episode 0. What's the worst name they could give a new Half-Lie game/chapter? (remembering, of course that Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue is the name of a thing soon to exist.) Edit. 'Half-Lie' was a typo. But AMIRITE?!?! Ha! But no. Typo.

With my other half pulling a 24-hour shift over Xmas Day, I was thinking this could be a nice way to spend the day. What's the online like? If the servers melt over the holidays, will it affect the singleplayer in any way?

I thought Notch was paying for this.

I picked up The Last of Us Left Behind for £4 and finished it in a couple of hours. There is so much STUFF in that game, so much heavy detail but as nice as the story was it's still just not fun enough to do the stealth shooting bit. Technically it's extremely impressive. But I'd have been disappointed if I'd bought a PS3 just to play it (which was the general concensus when it was released, I think).

Square Enix have a big sale on their US site. Lots of physical stuff (incl. Chrono Trigger, The World Ends With You on DS for $6 a piece) that won't ship to the EU

Kind of related to the XABY button conversation, fictiv have torndown (?) every Nintendo pad since the NES. Some interesting pics and short discussions of smart design choices as they become more complex over time.

But they're included in the first category, no? I'd like to see some numbers on third parties. I'm not convinced Nintendo does 'need' them - not if their product is sufficiently atypical. MS and Sony need them because their consoles are extremely similar machines. If the Wii had been a Nintendo software-only console, with zero third party games, I think it would have sold just as many units. Others jumped on the bandwagon and flogged their wares to a massive install base (to varying degrees of success depending on when they jumped aboard), but nobody bought a Wii specifically to play those games, whether they were top-drawer classics, curios or borked ports. Wii U could definitely have benefited from support but mainly because Nintendo failed to show what the Gamepad was and why people should want it. Given a killer app, rather than the gradual accumulation of solid titles with off-screen convenience, it could've got a larger foothold and third parties might have stayed with them - but again, nobody's bought a Nintendo console to play 3rd party games for a decade. The few good ports the Wii U did get that I've played have been mostly great (Most Wanted, Black Flag and Deus Ex, although I've yet to play through the latter), arguably the 'best' console versions. It'd be nice if NX got Director's Cuts/GOTY editions of games like, say, Fallout 4. But those aren't going to be deal-breakers in 12-18 months, and like you say, companies won't bother to do bespoke NX games or even versions of future PS4/Xbone games unless it's SUPER easy. They're more likely to 'wait and see', which may be too late depending on when XbTwo/PS5 start being discussed. I'm sure Sony and Microsoft would like to delay that as long as possible, but tech-wise they're already looking pretty long in the tooth. I agree on your point about limited controller innovation, particularly if NX is backwards compatible, which would necessitate a Gamepad-like controller. But thinking about it, that isn't actually true. All they need is to make the Gamepad play nicely with NX and everyone could use what they've already got. For those millions who skipped Wii U but still want to play Zelda U on NX, there'll be the mythical Gamepad solus pack or the ZeldaU+Gamepad bundle for $99/whatever. The Pro Controller has them covered for 3rd party ports and they can go to town with some doughnut-shaped pulse-sensing Frankenpad.

For any Sega geeks, the Mega Drive/Master System/Game Gear themes are all pretty sweet.

So, following on from the A-B-Y-X talk from a few pages back, I made a little chart following the evolution of the buttons since the third generation of (mainstream) home consoles. I've gone into more depth on my blog but just seeing the variations side-by-side is interesting. Well, to me

Ring the Pachter klaxon. I need independent verification that I'm not being exceptionally dim. I know Pachter's more vg personality now than analyst, but...well, I can't work out if he's trolling or not. He's cracked out the 'Nintendo is doomed without 3rd party support' chestnut. Tosh, but fair enough. He thinks Nintendo could potentially nibble away at Sony and MS' market share. Well, I guess it's not impossible. But where he really comes into his own is here: "Ultimately, the only people who are going to buy it are people that don't have a PS4 or Xbox One. Or, people who have a PS4 or Xbox One, and want to play Nintendo games." Maybe I'm being particularly dim, but doesn't everybody ON EARTH fall into one of those categories? Pachter Shmachter Trashcompachter

I've been trying to track down TWEWY on and off for ages. What you described sounds like antifun, Glol, which actually pleases me because I can strike it from my list. You haven't played Chrono Trigger and thought it was a bit rubbish, perchance?

The eShop has plenty worth checking out. Attack of the Friday Monsters is a fun, delicate little game. Shin Megami Tensei 4 is supposed to be good. There are loads of great ports/remasters (Phoenix Wright Trilogy is excellent). I can't recommend M2's Sega 3D Classics enough, though 'narrative heavy' they ain't. Resident Evil Revelations is cheap everywhere now, if that's your bag. I'd avoid Crimson Shroud.