Trip Hazard

Mario World handles like a dream, when you get used to it. Just the right amount of "slide" when stopping or changing direction, and a good degree of vertical control based on tapping or holding the button. I love it. The cape is sweet, too The original SMB I can never get to grips with, however. Haven't been able to articulate why so it's a good thing CLWheeljack already did that a few posts ago

Gunman Chronicles? I played and completed that as a kid but had completely forgotten about it. Presumably it is a half-life mod that went commercial? I quite liked it, which is not to say that it is a good game. I wasn't very discerning back then. Undying is GREAT. It is flawed, no question, but I think it is genuinely creepy in parts and features a fun and varied arsenal. Props to the scythe! Looking forward to hearing what you think

Re. Matchmaking: thank fuck for that. I downloaded it again today but have yet to give it a try to see whether this update is worth my while. The combat in Terraria is sloppy as hell. I quite like it.

Conversely, I think my two favourite areas might be the Undead Burg and Blighttown. I prefer darker, more confined areas. Anor Londo has a lot of amazing stuff going on, but I tend to relax going through it, instead of being on a knife-edge. Sen's Fortress strikes a good balance between the two Edit: It occurs to me that Dark Souls has more than enough dark, confined spaces and that Anor Londo serves to break this up and "broadens" the world some. It's appreciated when it comes, for sure.

Get yourself a great scythe, put all your points into dex and two-hand that puppy. The 2h R2 is, in the parlance of Unreal Tournament, WICKED SICK

Yes! Malkael, after I put my comment up yesterday I realised that this is precisely why I'm so frequently taken by surprise. I have a much more cavalier attitude because I think that I know it all, when clearly what I do know is being turned against me

So, I'm playing this quite a lot, really enjoying it. It's fascinating going to Scholar of the First Sin from vanilla Dark Souls 2; seeing the change in certain areas, the different enemy placements and whatnot. Not to mention there is stuff I have just plain forgotten. I'm also recording it and throwing it on Youtube, which is kinda nice. Making decent progress! Have slain the P. and the L.G. (in that order) and something like level 38 now? One thing I'll say for it, which is not a criticism but may sound like one, is that it's much harder than Dark Souls 2. Like, there are areas which I thought were challenging in DS2 which in this are absolutely heaving with enemies, and they're not just standing there in the open but hidden, tucked away and ready to take me by surprise. Eg. the third bonfire in FoFG, behind a Soldier Key door. So many ironclad enemies, and that *bleeping bleep* who appeared from nowhere and gave me a hell of a fight! I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who skipped over DS2 and went straight for this one. Maybe I'd have given up by now? It is brutal, and the difficulty is front loaded with the way estus flasks now have to be accumulated as you go. Anyway, very much looking forward to playing more of this soon

My favourite YouTube let's play thingy at the moment is Matt Lees' thoroughly entertaining (and not too time consuming) Bloodborne Diaries. Give it a deek if you're into that game.

Never minded the memes/references, but the combat and platforming both irritated me. The character felt a bit "sticky", if that makes any sense, like if you jump it seems almost grudging and you can't jump immediately again after landing - like he got stuck on the floor and has to detach. Same with grappling/throwing in the combat sections. I mean, I didn't hate it, it wasn't bad, but the way some people went on about it you'd think it the second coming of Christ

My stepdaughter, who is 7, played through all of MI2:SE with me recently, and she was fine. Nothing really freaked her out or scared her, except the very end where LeChuck aggressively stalks you.

I'll keep an eye out for that. ... So, I finally got around to reading Afterlife with Archie and it's really great. Well written, directed, illustrated and the colours? Pick my jaw off the floor. I'm a brit and knew very, very little about Archie before now, but I think I'll make a point of reading more Archie comics. Btw, did anyone like Moore's "Neonomicon"? I thought that was good, and it's relatively recent I think?

I just started playing it too, Cbirdsong, so maybe it would be fun to team up sometime? I am literally like an hour in though, only level 14 atm

So, everybody has seen the vid for Sia's "Chandelier", and we all agree that it's the best thing ever. But! There's a very cool performance of it featuring the lovely Kristen Wiig which some people may not have seen https://youtu.be/7rFkpcyZ598

I got Deus Ex: Director's Cut for a dollar from the Charity thingy. When I first played the non-DC version, I wasn't too impressed initially but it slowly grew on me, but not enough to finish it. You're totally right, Cordeos, that the over-world locations were confusing to navigate and lacked differentiation in the areas. They felt like an appeal to players of the original game, but Hong Kong and Hell's Kitchen were really memorable, and more appealing visually. Didn't help that I was playing Dishonored at roughly the same time, which I preferred vastly. One thing I'll say which I loved from DE:HR are the long, tense conversations with multiple responses. They were tricky to nail, and caused me much consternation, in a really good way.

I've got one sitting here, shaming me. I didn't speak as I was playing this time, and now want to record some stuff to put over the top of it, but I'm too much of a dumbo to work out how best to go about this

Good ears! No it's the remixed version by A_Rival. I swapped out all the music for the remixes but in the daily challenge, it reverts back to standard

Crazy about Batman being pulled from Steam, hey? It's great that consumers can now get a refund on games which are borked, but I do worry that the bigger publishers are going to look back at this debacle, and instead of thinking "yeah, we have to make sure our game is TIGHT before we put it out on Steam" they'll think "Let's just not bother putting our game on Steam". I suppose a safeguard against that is how enormous Steam is. Presumably it easily has the lion's share when it comes to digital game sales?

It's on my wishlist, sounds like a fascinating game. Also quite amusing watching gators bleating about how it's "the usual SJW misandrist stuff" on the Steam forums and whatnot. Losers.

Ahh, I think I've seen it before actually on one of dibs' vids. Cheers for the info.

Presented without comment

I bought Cook, Serve, Delicious! and Oblivion, the worst Elder Scrolls game. Have spent about ten times longer modding the cunt than playing it

I think (not randomly but whatever) that a fiver for Her Story is a bloody good price and I'll take two, please

Zombies ate my neighbours is still incredible, I can confirm. I spent a lot of time playing it as a kid - always seemed to get stuck at that level with the "Tremors" worms. Just a great game in every single way

*MASSIVE SIGH* I'm actually more annoyed that I can't play and speak coherently than that I died ignominiously to some dumb skellington. Perhaps I'll do what SBM suggested and record my gibber over the replay.

I didn't know CSD! had a co-op mode OMG I wonder, how much juggling of dishes will me and my girlfriend do in the game before we start hurling actual dishes at one another? Only one way to find out! Anyway, Hammerwatch has quite a good online multiplayer mode. For those unfamiliar, it's a top-down dungeon crawler where you pick your class and boldly go go boldly into a dungeon, down and down, killing baddies and bosses and dodging traps until your eventual demise. Along the way you can spend collected loot to permanently buff your stats or give your special move a bit of extra oomph. I liked it, but I would have preferred if a) the dungeons were a little smaller and not so maze-like there weren't quite so many monsters, which probably sounds an odd complaint but it did get a little fatiguing Edit: BOI:Rebirth has a local co-op mode, but one player has to be (would never choose to be) this tiny baby follower who can't pick anything up or make any decisions or do anything at all except shoot. It's boring.