Yasawas

I loved Super Mario U too! It gets shat on a bit but I think a lot of people just go from left to right and on to the next level, if that if you make a point of going for all the star coins it becomes a different game. Luigi U I enjoyed too but has an annoying flaw if you try to play it the same way - the game is fundamentally harder and I always found lives scarce therefore because you can't save progress whenever you complete a level I was constantly worried about having to use a continue and be made to recollect star coins in several levels again. It's a stupid system and that alone is responsible for me enjoying it way less as the actual content is fantastic and one of the best pieces of DLC I've ever played.

A friend of mine moved to Sweden a couple of years ago and was tweeting about the same thing earlier. I think he mentioned their share is going down though or did I misread that?

It's like they've known me all my life! I believe I mentioned a taco, once, about two months ago. Mexican food terrifies me.

Get updates on my train journeys here. I don't follow too many Thumbs, I am going to rectify this now.

We would withdraw from the United Kindom and England, Wales and N Ireland would remain in the EU under the same name with a much less iconic flag. We would need to apply separately. Why wouldn't we vote to be independent when the chance comes? This isn't an anti-English thing at all which is how it might be being perceived or presented in the media, literally nobody I've spoken to has mentioned that as an influence on their choice. It's an anti-Conservative thing most definitely, it ensures we would never again be ruled by a political party which has slightly over zero support here and yet has been in power for the majority of my life somehow. It means we get to rid ourselves of our nuclear weapons, foreign military personnel, set our own immigration policies and taxes. It promises the benefits devolution has given us except rather than have some of the powers, we get all of them, and I don't see enough benefit to staying in the UK to make voting no an acceptable alternative. I see what's happening to your NHS and your banking institutions and it terrifies me. I don't see Salmond as some kind of socialist superlord, but we have his party to thank for free education for all, free public transport for senior citizens, free prescription medication for all. The Tories gave us the Poll Tax. In the end nobody knows how it'll pan out. We can vote no and nothing changes, Cameron gives us a wee pat on the head and goes back to undermining the NHS a little more, or we can do something hilariously naive and uncool and vote yes because it looks in the eyes of a lot of people like the potential for a positive change (if a little scary). We might go bankrupt within a year! Who knows. But I'll be voting for the party who have done something positive for me in the past which is more than I can say for the shower of shit who are trying to get me to vote no. Really, if the Tories, Labour, UKIP, the banks and Murdoch are encouraging a No vote, then I can work out it's not in my best interests to even consider it. And I didn't even mention oil, look at that.

This won't be news anywhere else in the world but next week we (Scotland) vote on whether or not we should quietly remove ourselves from the United Kingdom. For months now it's been gradually building up and I've been fine with it because I made my mind up literally years ago (yes, we should) and it didn't look like a Yes vote had any chance at all but over the last week it's started to look vaguely plausible that it might maybe be really fucking close, and there's more than a glimmer of hope and if it doesn't happen now I'll be unspeakably crushed. Like, worse than the death of a hundred beloved pets. This is huge, it will never happen again in my lifetime, and the chance of us coming close and not quite making it will be an odd bereavement shared with half the populace that I don't want to experience. How hard can it be to be a country? We can probably do it. Anyway, this is the big thing happening right now and I can't go outside or refresh Twitter or put the telly on without seeing it and it's going to be this way all week and I just wish it was over really. If nothing else it's highlighted to me how naive I am to believe that the BBC is in any way a fair or impartial broadcaster. I know what the first B stands for so I shouldn't be too surprised but their attempt to smear and downplay the Yes campaign in the last few weeks in an effort to turn the undecideds towards a decision that would ensure their future has been an eye-opener. I wonder what else they've misrepresented over the years that I've fallen for. In any case if I actually paid my TV license then I would stop just to make a point. Currently thousands are demonstrating outside the BBC Scotland building and have been for a few hours but you won't be seeing that in broadcast media anywhere. This is mad and kind of exciting. #voteyes

After a heartbreaking experience during my first playthrough two years ago where I nudged the cart and deleted my save game, I've finally gone back to Super Metroid and I'm going to suggest it's alright. The first half I thought was truly magnificent, the second not so much. Part of this is me just subjectively not liking the watery/sinking sand area as a place to be, but it also seems like the point where the ideas ran out, the bosses definitely get worse and the progression either gets far more linear or it just felt that way as I wanted to put it to bed. When it worked it was fantastic and I have a new appreciation now for everything that came after and how much they owe to it but I can't help but be a little disappointed by it overall.

I'm reluctant to mention this because I know nothing of PC gaming and if this has filtered through to me then I imagine you all know about this and are already rolling your eyes but Naya's Quest by Big Tel C is one of the best games I've played all year and it's a Flash thing. Imagine! http://terrycavanaghgames.com/nayasquest/ It took me about an hour and a half and I'm amazed and pleased someone made something so lovely and clever and was so kind as to just give it away for no pence.

I just started playing Xenoblade on my Wii U over the weekend as it goes, it's pretty good but it's noisier than Wii U games seem to be so I'm going to wait until I can be bothered setting it horizontally to go back to it. If only you'd been after a copy a few months ago, I got a couple of sealed limited edition ones that include a classic controller from Argos for £15 each. Fuck knows where they got them from but they didn't last long.

Mega Man (NES). Only other one I've played is Mega Man X earlier this year which I thought was alright but I've had a building notion to give them a proper go, play the entire series in order as far as I'm able and I had some eShop credit just sitting and so this purchase happened. It's excellent, frankly. There aren't many games the best part of 30 years old that hold up as well as this (provided you can forgive the stupidly unfair bits like checkpoints which spawn you right beside an enemy...) and the lack of frills probably helps in that regard in that they were forced to make a tight, concise experience. I'm starting to understand why people get so passionate about these games now.

I'd be amazed if the sound through headphones wasn't stereo. I know it was on that cheap PSP model that only had one speaker and I wouldn't be surprised if a monaural headphone socket was actually more expensive to buy these days.

Am I right in thinking with an October release in Japan this will be just in time for Monster Hunter 4G? I'm almost certainly going to import one, I've nearly bought a Japanese model a few times and this will likely break my resolve. I've also read some speculation that the added stick, buttons and NFC capability make this the equal of the Wii U gamepad, be interesting to if they take advantage of this to release a cheaper model of the home console or have them interact in some way.

Gone Home is coming to the Wii U apparently. I always wanted to play this but my computer is too ancient so this is great news http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-29-gone-home-is-coming-to-wii-u

As great as this is it's probably as close as we'll ever get to F Zero again and that is sad.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215. I'm disappointed with this, it sounded right up my street but it was really dull. The story is pretty strong for a game but there's nothing else there as the box-promised puzzles are thin on the ground and barely puzzling when they do show up, and all you do is wander about this hotel fighting a clumsy-as-fuck interface talking to dudes. The characters are actually pretty interesting and the animated stuff is really cool but the endless repetition of the key story points and reveals is excruciating. It's like they wrote this legitimately interesting story then decided anyone playing a video game would be so dumb they would need every element of it explained to them in minute detail very slowly at least two or three times. This is not the 999 written by James Ellroy experience I was looking for. Edit - Oh God I forgot the music! For real, the worst game soundtrack I have heard for as long as I can remember, like I would actually need to go back to the Spectrum to find a rival for this. It's simply astonishing.

Aye that's what I took it to be and I think I'm going to give it a go. I might get try to one of the DS ones cheap first if I can as I'm going to spend a small fortune on rebuilding my 3DS collection as it is. I'm so pleased to have it back though

Is Inazuma Eleven a baby game or is it something a balding man in his 30s can play too? I like RPGs, football and Level 5 but I don't think I've ever met a person who's played one.

My 3DS broke three months ago, just randomly turned off after I started Dual Destinies and every time I booted it up after that the clock would be reset and it would turn off within 1-5 minutes. I wasn't going to pay for a new one and a repair looked expensive so I sold all my games which I'm kicking myself for now although I did double-down on my DS collection with the proceeds and that's a decent looking pile now I suppose. I found it yesterday and was annoying myself thinking about it again as there are a load of paid downloads on there when I decided fuck the warranty and took a screwdriver to it. Two things: 1) Removing the screws on the back doesn't actually void the warranty apparently, 2) The millimetre or so that the battery can move in its slot is what caused my problem as proven by stuffing a small piece of paper in there to wedge the gap, it's been fine all day. I'm both relieved and a wee bit raging. At one point I almost spent the flat £75 out of warranty fee for on a repair for that, and I've sold all my carts! Most I'd completed or had sitting unstarted for months so I can't feel too bad about it but the £9 copy of Ocarina I sold for £25 smarts and will be a kick in the wallet to replace. On the other hand I get to play Persona Q and Theatrhythm and Smash Bros and maybe Shin Megami Tensei if I didn't dream that it was coming to Europe. Oooh, Nintendo, I miss the days you made solid hardware. Anyway this is just me moaning but if you've read all this then it might be worth bearing in mind if you ever see the same, it seems to be a reasonably common occurence.

I dug out the Super Famicom for a wee retro session this afternoon and had a bloody decent time. Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius - This is fantastic. I never played any of these at the time and I doubt most (any?) of them came out in Europe anyway so I picked this up on a bit of a whim. I'm not crazy into shmups but I've enjoyed Ikaruga, Gradius V and Ketsui in the past and good though they were, none of them let you be a flying cat shouting insults through a megaphone to defeat enemies. This game is beyond stupid in terms of characters, setting, music and the addition of commentator constantly yelping at you (you can turn him off but it hardly seems in the spirit of the thing) but the actual gameplay and mechanics are those of a very solid shooter. Solid as in well-designed with regard to upgrades and scoring and solid in the sense of being pretty fucking hard. I had a great time with it and will be keeping an eye out for a copy of Gokujou Parodius at a decent price. I took pictures as I was playing it as it was amusing to me: Starfox - I played through this so many times as a kid but could barely remember any of it, this was a delightful nostalgic jaunt. Nowhere near as hideous-looking as I'd feared despite me playing it on a far from optimal setup (42" LCD through composite. Yep) and once I'd adjusted to the framerate I was zooming and barrel-rollin' all over the place with the cocksure space swagger I had last exhibited 20 years ago. This is still a really fun game to play, there's a ton of content with the alternate routes and the forced simplicity of the graphics has left it looking a lot better than you might've feared. I enjoyed this a lot more than the 3DS game.

I'm sure it's already been confirmed this will run on FOX engine. He also said something pretty interesting about how they intended that it not be obvious what this was or who was involved until the player had seen the credits so a lot of the look of it including the fact it only runs at 30fps was a move to deceive and purposely look like the output of a smaller studio. Bearing that in mind I can't wait to see what this game is as I don't think PT is going to be especially representative of the final product in anything other than feel and tone.

Shat it after about 20 minutes. I'll still buy it. I love they were able to pull this off, I just wish I hadn't found out via Twitter in reverse chronological order when I got up this morning.

This cannot possibly live up to my expectations after seeing that trailer.

Having spent all that money on a PS4 means I now get to play all the games you guys finished with a year or more ago, it's really cool. I'm still working on Rogue Legacy but today I finished The Swapper. I thought it was downright excellent to be honest. Really atmospheric (the music! :swoon:) and a great, unique look achieved by making all the things out of plasticine apparently. The progression is handled well as you have a fair bit of leeway to explore the main ship if you get hopelessly stuck in one of the puzzle rooms, and I did on a couple, and the abundance of teleporters makes whizzing around the map effortless. The mechanics are very pared back - you can make up to four clones of yourself and choose to take control of any you have line of sight with, with some restrictions later - and they never really add to this beyond what you see in the opening hour which sounds like a negative but they get a lot of mileage out of them and I never felt I was doing the same thing over and over. I often get "puzzle fatigue" in games like this (I finished Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty the other week which I enjoyed overall but gave me this affliction) whereby the act of moving forward into yet another room which I need to scope out and explore and experiment with becomes tiresome in and of itself regardless of how satisfying the puzzles are to solve but that was never an issue here. Partly I think because the rooms are so small and self-contained they're never intimidating scale-wise, and also because there are no enemies or environmental hazards of any kind so I felt encouraged to just sit back a bit and idly peruse my surroundings whilst enjoying some lovely tea and occasionally a tangerine. It was all very relaxing. There's a story but it was too clever for me until a bit right near the end which I got and then ruined the mood of by making my dude dance in an awkward marionette style while some very serious business played out. This game is fun.

I think it's only until the end of this year but aye I've done well with it. If you get a bundled game code (I bought the Wind Waker pack) that counts as £42 (wtf), and the £8 Pikmin 3 code I got counted at full price. That promo has been good to me.

I've recently got into this via PSN and holy shit it's amazing. I was undecided as people raved about Spelunky which sounded similar and I never liked but in the end the temptation of credit on my account and a release week sale proved too much to resist. The platforming feels good, it's challenging, the way progression works means you always have something to work towards even if you've seen the next boss and been comprehensively ground by it like I was last night. And it's on the Vita! at no additional cost! with the best implementation of cloud saves I've seen yet and that might be the best thing. Ooooh. I've only beaten on boss yet but after about five hours this might be the best thing I've played all year. A year in which From released an entirely acceptable sequel to my favourite game no less.