Griddlelol

Yup, the laser arrow and mech-oktoroc had me very interested. I don't think I've been this excited since WW. The art style looks like a refinement of both Skyward sword (which I didn't play, because I didn't own a Wii for long enough, plus the art style was gross) and Twilight Princess (which is in my back catalogue still, and had a great look). I think they've done a great job, especially as the visual aspects of Zelda games tend to get the most noise and anger.

What exactly is Devil's Third? The name implies it's a sequel, but I have no clue what it would be a sequel to. Also, wow, looks like Nintendo released the Wii U a couple of years prematurely. Imagine the difference if they had had SM3DW and MK8 in the release window, with both Zeldas (well Hyrule Warriors, which personally I think looks fun as hell), SSB and all the crap they've got now coming out the year after. It would have changed the story entirely.

Has anyone else noticed that the videos on polygon are preceded by an ad that is longer than the video itself? Really disappointed with polygon' e3 coverage just because of that. I don't mind ads, but I do mind ads that take so long I get bored and don't watch the video.

Wii U purchase is now officially justified. Thanks Nintendo, I knew you'd do me proud!

Apparently there's going to be an hour devoted to it today.

I should probably clarify that I jumped on to someone's account, in a private server...is that a thing? There seemed to be exploding trees, so I assumed it was a private server. Didn't try the main game because that experience left me deflated.

Bloodsouls Beastborne Bloodborne Looks good. Fucking Sony making me buy a PS4. This is why we can't have nice things!

Not entirely. Building a better ship means you could tailor yourself to be a pirate or a viligante or even a big game hunter, as you said, making your own narrative. Minecraft seemed to be about building things that didn't really affect how the game played. Just making weird pointless structures. Still, the game looks cool, but I'm not massively excited for it like everyone else. I'll be waiting for the finished product.

Got to agree with the badass feeling of cycling. It's faster than cars or public transport within my city, and nipping between cars, going on roads, pavements, grass all to get the shortest, fastest route possible feels fantastic. I can't just cycle for cycling's sake though. I need a destination.

I'm not sure if I agree. I hate when I get into a game and it basically says "ok, have fun!" . Minecraft is the most obvious one. I just quit immediately because I don't know where to go or why I should bother. Ok so I have a ship, I can fly to random worlds. I'll see a few then think that I've basically seen all the mechanics and dump the game like yesterday's jam. I would rather something like Don't Starve, where the goal is pretty explicit, but how you go about it is entirely up to you. Not sure what goal they could have, maybe "get resources to buy a bigger/faster/shootier space ship" would be an obvious one, but I feel like I need direction at first or I'll never bother.

All the race bullshit aside, it still looks like a fucking fun game. Seeing an elephant charge and blow up a jeep made me laugh. Hard.

I finished X Zone. No idea why, it felt like a chore. It started off pretty fun though!

Honestly in DS I had completely forgotten about the bells. It turned into "find tough guys to fight, kill them then panic to find the next closest bonfire." When I rang the second bell I was like "OH YEAH! The story! So that's how you open the door!"

I'm pretty much in awe of anyone who's really good at what they do. Just seeing experience form intimate knowledge makes me respect that person immensely. No particular person though.

I certainly can't afford a personal trainer. I'm not sure if I'd want one, but if someone offered me their services to try for a month, it'd probably be an interesting experience. I personally like just to block everyone and everything out. Also I guess it depends on what body type you have. I find getting bigger and stronger really easy. I find losing any weight really difficult. So I have to do days of running and fasting to get the same effect on me as lifting weights 3 times a week has. I had an interesting talk by an eminent obesity professor from Cambridge who came to visit my lab. The take home message he had was while your size is dictated by the environment you live in, if you ranked everyone from fattest to thinnest within that environment, they'd remain the same no matter what. So essentially how fat you are compared to everyone you know is entirely dependent on genetics. However how fat you are compared to someone who live in China is dependent on environment. He went into a lot of biochemical detail, but I thought that message was very interesting.

I just got around to fixing my bike too! I use it for my commute but the back wheel got all buckled and I put it on my "to do list." Which meant it wouldn't get done for months. The commute on a bike can be stressful - people don't notice you/don't care, but I find it better at waking me up in the morning than coffee. On gyms: I love lifting weights, which is weird. I think it's partly because the feedback you get from doing it happens so quickly, also you can do so many different things it's impossible to get bored. Plus it has that high score chasing element that so many great games use to make you keep playing. People tend to judge me when I say I do weights, assume I'm tying to get ripped to look good in a club or something (I have a partner, and it hate clubbing). Or if they don't know me, they assume I'm dumb just because I'm pretty big. I find that whole thing really irritating, and the culture of weights at many gyms is horrible too. I'm lucky I found a good place that's basically devoid of people except those on treadmills; which I'll never understand. While I'd rather do it at home, I don't have the cash for all the equipment I'd need. And having someone there to spot you is invaluable. So basically, I like gyms because they have e stuff I need, and can't get at home until I have a big enough place and enough money. Plus something can be said for getting out the house and into a different frame of mind.

Oh god. I remember that menu giving me the creeps as a teenager.

This is so shallow and lame, but it's the same reason I hate all metroidvainias. I hate backtracking. I wish I could get over that, but I really hate it!

I just finished Super Mario 3d Land. I've not played a Mario game since SM64. I didn't collect all the stars at the start, but I didn't in the last two worlds. So I intend to go back and collect everything. Made it much more interesting. At first I found the 3 dimensional platforming REALLY hard, especially as I'm pretty shitty at platformers in general, but I got used to it pretty quickly. What I liked most about it, is that I could suck at a stage, die over and over, leave it for a couple of days then pick it up and run through the stage perfectly. Also, the pause by closing the "clam" of the 3ds is fantastic. Sucks that I rarely take my 3ds out the house. I do have a commute, but you can't play a game while cycling. Maybe some weird oculus rift app will fix that.

I think the main offender with the combat is that when you move the camera doesn't lock onto the enemy. That simple thing has been around since N64.

I got to the first open villiage. Seems like my kind of game but damn that clunky movement. I get the vibe of a "single player MMORPG" when I play it. Which I'm certainly a fan of. I'll give it another go. I've got 6 hours logged (again tried it on hard and got battered for a couple of hours before putting it back to normal, which seems to be the sweet spot for me), which flew past without me noticing.

Not sure if this is a permanent deal or not, but ZombiU is £5 on amazon at the moment.

I started The Witcher 2 last week. I really like it, but it controls like poop compared to Dark Souls (the game I played directly before it). Worth continuing through the control frustration?

This has been on my radar for a while. Really interested to see how it turns out.

Nah they didn't. D pads for me will always go Nintendo > PS > Xbox.