dartmonkey

Finished The Stanley Parable. 100%. All items. Good ending... Well, who knows? I've played for over 2 hours and reckon I've seen 75%ish of it. Pretty wonderful. Also, I can't think of another game where playing the demo AFTER the main game is just as rewarding. I was chuckling for minutes playing the 8 game. I almost never play demos but I'm glad I went back for this one.

ARghhh that mindset winds me up! Although I understand not having the budget to get everything you'd like, I think 'games are overpriced' is a crazy position for people to take, especially over the past couple of years and especially in the US. Bundles and sales on PC and consoles mean you can pick up dozens of games for pennies. Trip-A games are discounted within 2 weeks of release, and even Nintendo RRPs are creeping down (I can get Splatoon for €33 ). Maybe I'm still remembering the days when Conker was £59.99 and stayed that price for months, but it always grates when people throw beer down their neck at £5 a pint or drop £80 on a few tops from Zara or spend £20 on a trip to the cinema and then say games are an expensive hobby!

Just watched the MK64 run! Never watched speedruns before. I saw my first the other day (Ocarina blindfolded child dungeons) which was actually from AGDQ earlier in the year. Pretty incredible. Somewhere in my N64 cardboard box there's a memory 'pak' with my ghost on Mario Raceway where I managed to do the mushroom jump shortcut on every lap. Felt like a right boss. This reminded me of when I used to read N64 Mag and looked at the VHS timetrial tables of this and Diddy King Racing and didn't believe they could be real! All the tricks are amazing but this runner's driving is absolutely spot on. Just watching Sherbet Land (about 22 mins in) you see him pulling off slide boosts and angles I could only get right 1 in 10 times. And he's just doing it without fault, all the time. Top drawer.

If you're after some palette cleansers, the Sega 3D Classics are all pretty wonderful. VVVVVV is a great port. And Mario 3D Land if you haven't already got it. I couldn't sleep last night and ended up blasting through it. It's beautiful! A couple of great little additions (like you can cycle to the next character when you die) and the 3D is excellent. Highly recommended.

Psst. 3D Streets of Rage 2 just came out. It's very sexy. Probably best music in video games. And check out the interview with M2 here: http://blogs.sega.com/2015/07/21/3d-streets-of-rage-2-makes-its-way-into-the-sega-3d-classics-interview-part-1/ Carry on.

I think mixed messaging and vagueness stymied the whole thing. I think it could have reached $10m no problem. It had an unprecedented wave of goodwill that could have carried it much further if the set-up was clearer. Why not just state the deal? If Sony agree to match every dollar, or a lump sum once a certain total has been reached, they should have made those circumstances clear. Any concern that makes me doubt the budget should have been answered. Even if they can't disclose the details, they need to acknowledge outside funding - I've never made a 3D 'realistic' game in an openish world, but I know $10m is a piss in the ocean. And some of that is going to produce character busts and doohickeys. They should have addressed those concerns, especially in light of Shenmue's budgetary history. The Playtonic KS was extremely well thought through. I don't feel like they're promising anything they can't deliver. Shenmue felt a bit more like a well-meaning lottery.

Okay, I finished Aria is morning, good ending but without 100% souls. I then fired up Symphony of the Night for twenty minutes. First impressions are that the Alucard motion blur thing is weird (maybe supposed to convey he's got special powers?) and it feels slow, BUT I recognized bits of the castle and the UI made sense pretty quickly to me. The music seems completely in keeping with what I've heard elsewhere and I'm fired up to play it. On that evidence, I really recommend playing Aria first, Griddlelol, if you haven't lost patience yet. I feel like it's given me a crash course in 'good' Castlevania and I'll get more out of SotN by being able to see the links and the evolution. I assume SotN will feel less soupy as I unlock abilities too. Anyway, Aria of Sorrow is a classy video game. Edit. Like Super Metroid.

I'm prepping for something mediocre. I really haven't kept up with videos but it doesn't look awful to me. Functional, sparce, but I assume that's an intro level or something? The whole Red Ash Kickstarter and the way they handled this one smells a bit cynical, like they thought 'we need to launch this before MN9 just incase that tanks'. The second KS for this soured a lot of enthusiasm, I think, and knocked backers' confidence. I'm interested to see how Shenmue and Bloodstained progress. Shenmue in particular has a lot to prove after their bungled campaign. What platforms are people getting this for? I'm going with 3DS. Love dat portability.

I went to see Terminator Genisys this afternoon. Obviously my expectations were super low after Salvation and everything I'd heard...but I really enjoyed it! The first two are masterpieces of their respective eras, which this isn't, but it's wonderfully enjoyable tosh. I really don't understand the vitriolic reviews. It reminded me of Wolverine Origins - I remember going into that with similarly low expectations and coming out thinking the critics must have seen a different film. I'm not saying Genisys is life-changing, but at no point did I wince at a terrible piece of dialogue or cringe at dodgy CG. I was worried Arnie would become a ridiculous figure but he really doesn't and he even has a couple of sweet moments. It cribs some choice bits of iconography and on the whole it made me smile a lot. Just to be clear, I don't think it's 5-star fried gold. I've got a solid knowledge of the backstory and previous films, and perhaps without that it might get confusing. Matt Smith's character is pretty bland. Jai Courtney isn't awful but he's no Michael Biehn. Look up 'wirey' in Webster's and there's a picture of Biehn, I'm sure. Frankly, Courtney looks more like a Terminator. That said, he does a serviceable job as stand-in audience-member for those 'WTF?' moments, and perhaps the plot required a blanker slate to bounce off, as opposed to the tortured complex Reese from the first film. I'd have liked to have seen Joe Morton back as Miles Dyson, but that's just my inner-geek wondering why he wasn't. I hope the planned sequel still gets the green light. Looks like international takings might save it, and after Salvation I can understand people being weary. Still can't quite work out the 1-star reviews though.

It's weird seeing YouTube videos of Aria - it looks nothing like the game I'm playing! I remember hearing someone, possibly Jeremy Parish saying they'd blow out the colour saturation to compensate for the dim screens on the GBAs. I'm playing a game of muted browns and midnight blues where the VC version looks like a Christmas tree. Great game though. I'm liking it more the further I get.

Yep, I'm pretty sure I could recall every single button input up to the first star from memory alone. So I did it. Sunday afternoon. It probably says a lot about my approach to problem-solving (or lack of one) that it took me so long. Because I KNEW it was possible without a power up, I continued to bludgeon my way to failure for hours. After far too long I suddenly made the effort to bank a racoon tail which I saved for the last boostplate deathray bit. Within a few tries I'd done it. For me the game was a slow burner. It's beautifully presented but frustrated the hell out of me for the first 3/4 because it wasn't Galaxy. Now I appreciate the differences, though when I play with another character it still feels gloopy where Galaxy was a dance. I think I'll enjoy dipping back into it every now and then, but completing it another 4 times is a bit of an ask. That'd give me all the stamps and 5 stars on the file, no? It would be interesting to experience it with multiplayer but I doubt that will ever happen now. Not wanting to be that guy but, you know, if Nintendo wanted to make Galaxy 3 for the NX launch...man, that'd be just swell.

I bought it the other day in the sale. I had planned to play it after I've finished Aria of Sorrow (I'm about 5 hours in, and enjoying it), but after hearing your thoughts I might take a -vania break. Or maybe do Super Castlevania first. How does that compare?

There's some incredible art being produced, much of which is very heavy. But this is absolutely perfect. https://twitter.com/tebin/status/620450446654636032

There's some incredible art being produced, much of which is very heavy. But this is absolutely perfect. https://twitter.com/tebin/status/620450446654636032

These mornings when I wake and scroll back through my Twitter feed with sadness are getting more frequent now. I keep thinking about all the Iwata Asks I read in bed over a terrible wifi network, stretching desperately to get enough signal for the page to load on my rubbish phone.

Okay, Saturday morning, cup of coffee, power glove on - time to do Champion Road. It's been sitting there for months, the only thing left to do in SM3DW. And...it's destroying me. I think it would be do-able but I can only get the right timing on the last blue/pink switchy box staircase bit about 1 in 20 times. Any tips for that specific bit? Up until then I'm an absolute machine.

Interesting to read everyone discussing 2D. I'm on a gap-plugging Metroidvania mission. After finishing Zero Mission I jumped to Aria of Sorrow which I guess I must be 60-70% though. Although Soma skates around the castle, I'm really enjoying the movement and progression. I wonder if this has ever been cited as an influence on the Souls games. At first it was the grim Gothic setting and the sword names that provoked the thought but from the enemy patterns to the stat choices, I'm definitely feeling a connection. Or maybe I'm just imposing it. Anyway, good game. I too just got SotN on PSN so my hope is that ultimately the original NES game, Super Castlevania, SotN, Aria of Sorrow and Mirror of Fate will give me a nice overview of the series.

Not wanting to be premature, but I THINK the supply issues might be coming to an end in Europe. Last week I saw a Little Mac, Villager, Palutena, Gannondorf, Dark Pit, Zero Samus and the rest of that wave in the wild, and I've just seen Marth, Jigglypuff, ROSALINA, Robin, Greninja, Inklings... Really had to stop myself nabbing Rosalina.

Cheers for the suggestions. Out of interest, what's missing from the VC lineup that you'd want to see?

Are there any particular Snes classics on Wii U VC that you'd recommend? I'm getting a snes controller and feel like it's worth trying out a few classics with it. I've never owned or even played a snes. I have played the GBA versions of Mario World, LttP and Yoshi's Island so not those. Metroid's no.1 on the list, then I'm thinking Axelay?

Well, I really fancied playing Super Metroid with a Snes pad so I just ebayed one. Need an adapter to connect it to a Wiimote and then I'm ready. Really looking forward to it - Metroid and the Snes in general have always been a large gap in my experience. Roughly how many hours is it for a runthrough?

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. It's extremely useful just to have some card numbers to reference. Relatively eye watering prices here in the EU, it's definitely gonna be something that happens over the next year or two. Noob question: is there any appreciable difference between the same GPU from different manufacturers, and if so, who's reliable?

Thumbs, I need Personal Computer advice! I've had my PC since 2008 and it's about time to start upgrading bits. It's started getting a bit dopey, refusing to boot. I got a shop to build it for me - I looked at lists and chose the biggest numbers I could afford (which led me to the nightmare of 64-bit Vista). I'm game for changing bits myself but have zero experience. I want to do it over time. My assumption would be to start with the motherboard and replace from there? This is what I've got: Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780 SLi motherboard Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40Ghz (overclocked to 3Ghz) NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB GDDR3 (x2) OCZ 4GB 1000Mhz (2x2GB) The SLi thing seemed like a good idea at the time but it's flaky and seems to turn itself off. I'd like to replace it with just one card. Right now it's running everything I put on it, but nearly everything comes from bundles. The most taxing thing in my Steam library is probably Batman Arkham City or Bioshock Infinite and it plays those fine. I don't need space-age stuff, but I'd like to lay a foundation for the next 5 or so years. Any advice as to good replacements and procedures would be greatly appreciated.

Yep, nice segue from Song of Storms. The Wind Waker theme and Hyrule Castle Market are standouts too.

Christ. Well, at least the Greek alphabet didn't feature.