31 Dec 2019

Top 20 Games of the Decade 2010-2019
by | posted in: Games, Games Review, Highlights, top 10 | 0

We made it! And it feels like quite a strong decade of video games overall – Starting in the 360/ps3/wii era, and then transitioning into ps4/xbo/wiiU/switch. VR has been born and somewhat refined during this era as well, from the Oculus Rift’s birth and then refinement with the valve index. Graphics have gone from a shitty geforce 300 series in 2010, to the absurd 2080ti which you costs as much as a preowned car – though I suppose nowadays a top end phone also costs the same amount, the samsung Galaxy S was released in 2010, and the specs in comparison to the current S10 is a crazy difference.

The era has seen the birth of new game genres, Dark Souls popularized the appropriately named soulslike genre, and Battle Royale went from a cult film classic to the next MOBA thanks to games like Fortnite.
Battle passes and games as a service have started to be a thing as well now, instead of the standard DLC or Expansion model we were all still not particularly enthused with, now most games will launch with a season pass and modern FPS will continue to abuse you with micros and lootboxes even after you’ve purchased the game, even if you’ve already paid £50 for it.

Anyway, lets move on to the list!

20. Max Payne 3 [2014]
I don’t really have much special to say about this, I just really enjoy the gunplay in Max Payne 3 and it’s super smooth and satisfying to play.
Whilst the location and story wasn’t as good as the previous 2 games, this was still a great game.

19. Titanfall [2014]
I’m pretty sad about the changes they made to Titanfall 2, because the original game was such a good FPS. The changes they made to movement made waves in FPS for the next few years with wall running and double jumps becoming standard for a bit, and the Titan VS Pilot gameplay was well balanced and allowed for a surprising amount of cat and mouse moments. Respawn also did away with having 8 different assault rifles in favor of unique weapons where everything had it’s place and playstyle, which I actually really liked because it totally cut out that meta of ‘best AR’ because you only had limited options.

18. Resident Evil 2 (Remake) [2019]
They did it, and it was great. I was skeptical of the over the shoulder view initially but they really managed to preserve the feel of the original while still making it a new and fresh Resi game. The engine and graphics were very impressive also.

17. SSX [2012]
Still the best snowboarding game out there in my opinion, and nobody else is really competing for it. It wasn’t the perfect sequel to tricky and had some over reliance on being edgy but it was so fun to play and landing big air was super satisfying. It’s a shame it’ll probably never see a re-release because god i’d love to play it again in 60fps.

16. Mario Galaxy 2 [2010]
The best 3d mario game ever made in my opinion, and oh my god the soundtrack…

15. Dark Souls 2 [2014]
One of the dark souls had to go in, if im honest, I don’t really know if Dark Souls 2 is my favourite of of the soulsbourne games, but it’s the first one which really made me understand the magic, so I guess it holds that special place in my heart.

14. The witness [2016]
I love puzzle games, and the witness was an amazing one, I feel like those who wrote it off never really got very far into it to see the real magic in the game, it had some of the best ‘eureka’ moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game and one of the biggest ‘holy shit’ moments of the decade. If you enjoy puzzlers at all, this really is a must play.

13. Monster Hunter World [2018]
Monster hunter has always been one of those games i’ve wanted to get into, but not been able to hack the controls (and to be fair, it didn’t help that it didn’t have a main release on a console I owned).
MHW was that perfect storm of a fantastic release, a lowered barrier of entry with the QoL additions, a bunch of friends who were keen to play, and it finally being on PC, I have 200 hours clocked already and Iceborne preordered and ready to go when it drops in a week.

12. Red Dead Redemption [2010]
After a slightly too long tutorial, RDR turns into basically the best western game ever made – with the only real contender being it’s sequel. I’m not entirely sure what makes the original a better game, perhaps I just liked the sand and desert over forest and mountains (in a western), or perhaps I just played RDR2 too recently for the flaws to be forgotten yet.

11. Celeste [2018]
Arguably Celeste doesn’t do anything special, but it’s so incredibly refined and sleek, just enough story and world building, fantastic soundtrack, loads of bonus levels, and a difficulty which goes from casual all the way to ‘what the hell am i looking at’.

10. Obra Dinn [2018]
Lucas Pope has once again basically created an entirely new type of game, and in the same way that Papers Please has it’s clones, I really hope we see some similar detective games like Obra Dinn because it was a damn good puzzler.

9. Rainbow 6 Siege [2015]
R6S is the only thing i’ve played this decade to even come close to being the next Counter Strike. Attack and defense feel different yet similar, the operators are enough to keep players occupied and there is just such an insane amount of ways to play each objective that you would have to be playing for a very long time to see all of the tricks each map and operator have to offer.

8. Payday 2 [2013]
Payday is such a simple premise that i’m shocked more people haven’t tried to copy the formula, it was a great game on launch but the relentless DLC which has been released has both worked for and against it, with a fair bit of bloat but also there are now an insane amount of maps and difficulty levels that you can really spend quite a long time playing just trying to clear each mission once. It’s also great coop in coop and most importantly I guess it’s just really fun to shoot hordes and enemies in the face.

7. Yakuza 0 [2015]
My first introduction to the Yakuza series and easily the most memorable, it takes too long to explain the magic of the Yakuza games so if you haven’t already tried one, I strongly suggest doing so. I actually loved the story in Y0 and while later games (6/K2) changed the engine and made huge quality of life changes, I still think Yakuza0 has the best combat.

6. Undertale [2015]
I hate most turn based RPGs but the combat system in Undertale really did something different, that combined with quirky characters, some great humour, storyline twists, turns and multiple endings, and the soundtrack was fantastic too. I had true goosebumps the first time ‘hopes and dreams’ started playing during the final fight.

5. Divinity Original Sin 2 [2017]
The scale and scope of Divinity OS2 was crazy, I really enjoyed the amount of ways you could accomplish things, and the way the world was set out. Combat constantly skirted the border of too hard which had a possibly unintended side effect of forcing you to tactically cheat your way through in a way which promotes gameplay mechanic knowledge and thinking outside the box. It’s the Baldurs Gate sequel we always wanted in terms of freedom, and I can’t wait for Larian’s next project.
This honestly might be the best western Tactical RPG that I’ve ever played.

4. A Hat in time [2017]
Charm for days, Hat in Time was just super enjoyable to play all the way through. Every chapter of the game has new ideas which makes this more than just a generic 3d platformer – It’s a platformer, oh now the floor is literally lava, now you’re solving a murder mystery, now you’re leading a conga line, now it’s a horror game, now it’s open world, etc etc etc.
The powers are well thought out and functional, super tight controls, the game rarely tries to slow you down, also Hat Kid and her interaction with the world is just too adorable – giant grin on my face every time I play.
Did I mention the soundtrack is incredible? This might be my favourite 3d platformer of ever.

3. Grand Theft Auto 5 [2013]
Part of me hates that GTA5 was so good, because it’s become the cash cow that Rockstar won’t stop milking, that said, I played the shit out of the singleplayer in GTA5, getting 100% completion, and I really enjoyed the majority of it. The shooting (on PC at least) is way better than previous games, the world seemed to have loads to do, the story with its 3 characters was much more exciting to me that GTA4’s Niko, and similar to payday2 there is just something incredibly satisfying heists in games. Here’s hoping that GTA6 continues to expand on the world detail and small things which make GTA5 so good, instead of just being a fresh paint of coat.

2. Factorio [2016]
I love a good automation game and Factorio is probably THE automation game – a genre which may not have even existed before this decade. The puzzle and incremental aspects of Factorio just make it really satisfying to play, especially as you take breaks after building to just zoom out and look at how far you’ve come – from literally mining coal by hand to nuclear reactors which automatically process uranium. The modding scene is very much alive as well, making it very hard to exhaust the content – though to be honest, even just launching the missile in vanilla is a real challenge in itself, even on peaceful modes.

1. Minecraft [2010 (Alpha)]
So before one of you drops the ‘um acktually’, the Alpha of Minecraft was only released mid 2010, the 2009 build didn’t even have inventory or crafting, the 1.0 release wasn’t until 2011.
With that out of the way, Minecraft was probably one of the decade’s most influential games, and I’ve clocked a ton of hours in both it’s creative and survival modes. Even the beta was super enjoyable so the kids today are practically spoilt in how huge in scope minecraft has become, with towns, underwater temples, quests, trading, leveling system, enchanting, etc.
We also have to mention the modding scene, because the mods for minecraft are what really take it from a 9/10 to that 11/10 status – there are so goddamn many, you want to play a Battle Royale map? have jetpacks? ingame computers that you can script on? Factory automation stuff? Transport fluids using pipes and pumps? Fly to the moon and have to build self sustaining oxygen? You can do all of these things, it’s actually insane!
Also I genuinely believe that redstone is going to lead and inspire a new generation of kids to become engineers, and that is an amazing thing.

Games which made the shortlist but were cut from top 20
Skyrim
Hollow Knight
The walking Dead
Sleeping Dogs
DOOM
Bioshock Infinite
Shovel Knight

21 Sep 2019

Travel tips, food and advice for Singapore
by | posted in: Highlights, holiday | 0

Returned from Singapore this morning after a painful 18 hours or so of travel, long time readers (if I even have any) may know that this is the third time I’ve been, and so not going to bother doing traditional holiday blog posts, however i’ll probably upload some pictures.

I guess i consider myself somewhat of a seasoned veteran of Singapore now, and so, for anyone interested to go, here are some tips and tricks, as well as must sees/do’s during your stay on the island.

Must do list

In no particular order, attractions you definitely have to see are..
There are of course tons of other attractions, but the ones listed below are the must do’s imo.

Gardens by the bay
The conservatories in particular are $20 SGD and air conditioned inside, I’ve been at least twice and it’s still breathtaking inside, well worth the entry price, flower dome is more traditional (and runs some limited time exhibitions) and cloud forest is just stunning.
The rest of the park is mostly free, and also stunning, the supertrees are unreal up close. Check the website as they frequently run events in the park. The marina bay sands mall food court nearby is your best bet for lunch if you want to dine on the cheap.

Light and water shows
Do them all if possible, well worth your time.
– Gardens by the bay supertree show – 7:45pm and 8:45pm , runs 15 mins, free, plenty of viewing space but come a little early to find a good spot, there is a nearby grass bit which gets filled up early but I think being in the heart of it all is more fun.
– Marina Bay Sands show (Spectra) – 8pm and 9pm, runs 15 mins, free, loads of public seating, good spots will go early but easily viewable from far. There is a walkway in front of the seating area which you can use if you get desperate but you’ll probably get sprayed by the water.
– Sentosa Wings of Time – 7:40pm and 8:40pm, runs 20 mins, 15 Sentosa Tokens. Gates open 1 hour prior, free for all seating, aim for as front and center as possible.
– Changi Jewel rain vortex – Once per hour on the XX:30, from 7 to 11, runs 5 mins, free. You’ll be at the airport at some point, so watch it while you’re there.
– Suntec City Fountain of wealth
Not a full show, but a lovely free fountain at a shopping mall, go during the day to complete ritual for good luck, and/or go at night and take the stairs to street level to stare at the water/light patterns for a while. No specific show or music, but very pretty.

Eat at the hawker centers and try all of the signature dishes
Feel free to use this as a checklist, would advise trying the relevant dishes from the stalls listed later in this post:
– Hainanese Chicken Rice – $4-7 – Simple chicken and rice, but done to perfection
– Char Kway Teow – $3-6 – Wok fried flat noodles with veg/meat
– Laksa – $3-6 – Coconut based spicy curry noodles
– Kaya Toast – $1-5 – Crispy toast with sweet coconut jam and butter
– Congee – $2-5 – Breakfast rice porridge, try eating with You Tiao
– Ice Kacang – $2-5 – Shaved ice with various toppings
– Black pepper / Chilli Crab – Self explanatory, seems rare
– Nasi Lemak – $2-5 – Coconut rice, meat, chilli and various toppings
– Satay – $0.50-$1 per stick – BBQ meat on skewer, served with peanut dip

Sentosa Island
Sentosa market themselves as the island of fun, and it’s hard to disagree. Activities are unfortunately quite expensive and 2 days on the island can easily run you $150 per person, I’d recommend looking into the Sentosa Fun Pass, we did Universal and 80 tokens which is $140.
Here are some personal island highlights
– Adventure Cove – 35 tokens – Really fun few hours, plenty of slides, best lazy river i’ve been to, and includes snorkelling with fishes. Lockers are $10 you can just about cram 2 ppl’s worth of stuff in. Bring some slippers as the floor will grate your feet away quickly otherwise.
– SEA Aquarium – 35 tokens – Best Aquarium I’ve been to, and i’ve seen a few.
– Segway – 10-20 tokens – A fun way to use up any remaining tokens and great experience if you’ve never done it before.
– Universal Studios Singapore – Great fun, though a little small, you’ll still need almost whole day for it just because of the ride queues though. Battlestar Cyclon is a really good rollercoaster.
– Luge – $24-30 – Gravity based karts with multiple downhill tracks, really good fun. Use the chairlift to go back up and try a different course, they have 4.

Other Tips

All public transport can be done with the EZlink card, this includes to/from the airport ($2) , buses, all metro ($0.80-$2.30) , and the Sentosa express ($4). I’ve seen people using monzo cards to tap in/out but I think the EZlink card is safer personally. You can get it from stations.

Hotels – I recommend staying in Chinatown, the metro station has 2 of the most common lines, and it’s walking distance to both the Maxwell and Amoy hawker centers which will save you a bunch of money on breakfast/lunch. If you’re looking for a hotel I can vouch for the Bliss Hotel, but it can be quite expensive (though, that’s Singapore in general to be fair).
As an added bonus, there is a supermarket, Din Tai Fung (famous dumplings) and Daiso (Japanese actually good poundshop) in the nearby Chinatown point right by the MRT.

Money/Budget per day:
Hawkers and small businesses/cafes/food courts are often cash only.
Most restaurants and brick and mortar stores will take card, we used our monzo as often as possible and had no problems.
We exchanged $350 for 9 days and that was about right – no alcohol, but heavy food spend, and spend on souvineers.

– Hawker Centers $2 to $8 for food, you can easily get a good meal for $5 but some seafood dishes or premium dishes can be around $10. A typical noodle/rice and meat is usually $4/5/6 for S/M/Large respectively
– Drinks – $2 fruit juice in many hawker centers, $4 bubble tea at shops, special drinks max at around $7.
Alcohol seems very expensive, $10 for beer seems the common rate, even buying at a 7-Eleven isn’t much cheaper.
– Clothes – Can be cheap at bugis street market ($10-$30), relatively normal priced everywhere else

Not to sound like a little bitch but…
Vaguely plan for air-con during your sightseeing.
Singapore is hot and humid AF (lows of 28^C at night), malls are very common so be sure to make use of them every now and then to cool down – heat stroke is a very real thing, sit down and get a drink/snack every now and then to prevent yourself from literally burning out.
I would say carry water, but I hate warm water so just make sure you have some cash on you for vending machines etc. if you are out on a park or beach day.

Have some spare suitcase space for souvineers or things to bring back. It also sounds really stupid, but if you are from the UK i’d really recommend visiting a Daiso, it’s basically Japanese poundland, everything is $2 but jesus they have so much useful shit in there, it’s like a small supermarket and IKEA rolled in to one and you’ll be shocked at some of the products which just make a ton of sense but we don’t have easily available here.

Make a day of the airport
We had no idea, but the mall at Changi airport is absurd, I think you could genuinely spend a whole day at that airport – Waterfalls, nature walks, interactive exhibits (the sales rep claimed 90 mins), bars on the rooftop garden, extra exhibits/activities on the top floor, free food samples at some shops, a pokemon center, loads of dining…
We were there for maybe 2 or 3 hours and it went by so fast, not allotting more time to explore the airport is my biggest regret of the holiday.

Food Reviews

We were lucky enough to try a fair few of the Michelin bib hawker stalls during our 2019 visit, and also got to try some other popular places… Here are my recommendations.

Tian Tian Chicken Rice
$5 – Maxwell food Center
The chicken was really tender and the skin delicious, rice flavourful, add some spice and it’s easy to see why theres frequently a queue here.

A Noodle Story
$8/11/14 – Amoy Food centre
Best meal we had in Singapore maybe? Big queue as soon as it opens so get there early. Spring noodles, Wontons, pork slice, perfect boiled egg, prawn wrapped in potato, oh yeah. Order extra prawns because they are incredible. The small size is enough for most people.

Hong Kee Beef Noodle
$5? – Amoy Food centre
Bit like a pho? Amazing beef broth with beef slices and noodles. Really friendly staff. one of the few places in this hawker centre open on a sunday so I recommend fitting them in for your sunday lunch.

J2 Famous curry puff
$1.50 per – Amoy food centre
Flakey pastries filled with curry potato or a black pepper saucy chicken, holy shit so good. Must try for sure.

Din Tai Fung
$30-50 per person – Chain store
Famous dumplings, you have to try the Xiao Long Bao at least once in your life. We ordered a few carbs but they were pretty mediocre tbh, so if on a budget i’d actually advise just sticking to the dim sum stuff and then maybe having second meal after if you’re still hungry.

Monster Curry
$12~20 pp – Chain store
Didn’t expect this one to be so good tbh, gigantic plate of curry rice, big cutlet, good taste, good spice, good price point. Spice level of 2 was about right for me, I wouldnt dare go past 3 unless you’re a real spice lord.

Best Satay 7+8
$0.70 per stick – Lau Pa Sat / Satay street
There are like 8 different satay places next to each other, all harassing for your business – except 7+8, who already have all the business. Tasty, plenty of sauce, good char, if you order the prawns they are already deshelled which is nice.

328 Katong Laksa
$5 – East Singapore
Few different locations to try this one, you can find them all online.
The laksa here is really creamy and almost thick, they cut the noodles so you can just eat it with a spoon. I’m not sure if its worth the travel on its own as it was pretty far out, but if you’re in the area its definitely worth a visit.

Ramen Champion
$10-25 – Bugis+ shopping mall
We really enjoyed this place, we went in expecting a restaurant but its actually a small japanese themed food court almost, with a few different mini restaurants inside. The ramen at place right at the back was awesome, and the snow ice from the drinks/desserts counter was one of the best we’ve ever had.

17 Jul 2019

What you should be watching – Anime recommendations Summer 2019
by | posted in: Anime, Highlights, WYSBW | 0

Looking like a pretty decent season as Anime goes, and compared to last season where I was only following 4 series, I think i’ll have a lot to watch this summer.
See below for some of the better ones.

Fire Force / Enen no Shouboutai

Fire force is from the creator of soul eater, and is about a supernatural fire fighting crew – why do they need powers? because the fires are corrupted humans who have spontaneously combusted and become living infernos.
It’s a dumb premise but it has that Soul Eater charm and a very competent animation studio.

O Maidens in Your Savage Season / Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo

It’s a romantic/drama/comedy about girls in a literary club who start to wonder about sexual relations etc. A little bit dirty, but mostly endearing, and so far probably actually my favourite this season.

Vinland Saga

Vinland saga has so done a good job of world building and finally seems to be getting started at Episode 3. About a boy trapped behind enemy lines with vikings and stuff. It actually kind of reminds me of the recent God Of War – with a Kratos and Atreus situation.
Time will tell if this one will live up to expectations, but I’ve heard someone say that the manga is one of the best they’ve read.

Dr Stone

I’m actually a little apprehensive about recommending Dr Stone because i’m not convinced its going to be good, but it certainly seems to have the most hype around it this season, and many have said that the manga is really good. So far i’m enjoying it, but the characters and progression all seem a little too convenient for the main character.

In terms of plot, everyone gets turned to stone and a few thousand years pass, and some science teacher basically intends to go from caveman era to ??? using the power of science. It all plays out a bit like watching anime version of ‘Primitive technology’ from youtube

Honorable mentions:

I’m not sure I want to fully recommend these, but i’ll mention them anyway as they’ll appeal to some tastes:

Cop Craft
Like a mafia/cop tale except his partner is some sort of elf princess or something? Think supernatural cop drama and you’re almost there. First episode was good but i’ve not seen the second yet.

Hensuki
One for the pervs, seems to be a harem show but every girl has a fetish, the first episode has a girl that puts a collar on and asks to be treated like a dog – and the second episode is even more extreme. I’ll just leave it at that.

Okaa-san Online
Almost certainly going to be bad in the long run, but seems to be the best of the trash isekai shows this season. Main character goes into a game world and his mum tags along and is OP as hell.

How heavy are the dumbbells you lift?
A bunch of girls who go to the gym and lift. It’s not particularly good but I feel inspired to hit the gym every time I watch, so theres that at least. Also the opening and ending are catchy as hell.

21 Jun 2019

Barcelona 2019 – Day 0 + 1 – Sagrada, Monumental, Park Guell, Beach
by | posted in: Barcelona 2019, Highlights, holiday | 0

Day 0 – Arrival

My latest travel would take me to Barcelona for 2 and a bit days, departing from gatwick on the Thursday and leaving on the sunday morning.
Our outbound flight was delayed unfortunately – I have no kind words for Vueling airlines and would honestly advise others to avoid at all costs.

Despite leaving the house around 10am, we would only arrive at our Airbnb in Barcelona at around 6pm local time, this trip has been dubbed ‘Book Club on Tour’, there are approx 9 of us in this bookclub and we meet up maybe once a month or so to mostly eat and drink, on occasion we discuss a book though this is usually something we can actually read on the day – so it’s a very serious book club as you can tell.
The first night everyone was so tired from travelling that we decided to order in – which turned out to be a disaster on multiple levels as the deliveroo guy was given the wrong phone number, and then when it eventually did turn up, it was painfully overpriced and plain awful, a selection of tapas which – I think it could probably make better myself to be honest.
We got the short straw when it came to the airbnb as well, having arrived last we effectively got the bitch room, a small windowless room with no air-conditioning and some awful single beds, sleeping over the next 3 nights would be rough, and unsurprisingly, we would turn down multiple group plans of “lets go back to the apartment and rest in our rooms”.

Day 1 – Sagrada, Monumental, Park Guell and Beach

Cordelia and I were among the first to wake up on the Friday, Cath was also awake. Eager to get out and actually see some of Barcelona aside from the apartment, we set out to find some breakfast and do some early sightseeing, the other 6 could catch up later. Tripadvisor directed us to a nice little brunch spot not too far from our apartment, called Billy Brunch, small and cosy with friendly staff, we had some amazing eggs benedict, I thought i’d order some sausages as well to get some protein in and they gave us 5 for 2.5eur which was a nice surprise.

We’d hit up the famed Sagrada Familia cathedral next as it was nearby, still not set to be completed until 2032, the Sagrada is truly a baffling architectural piece – being under construction so long that it already has an old and new side despite the whole thing itself not being finished, you can really see the differences in construction and weathering, to the point where I wonder if it’ll have 3 distinct sides/ages by the time it’s done.
I think the most exciting bit of construction finally finishing is that people will be able to photograph it without the ugly cranes

The other 6 members of book club I believe were still in the apartment at this point I believe, so rather than going back we headed to the next nearby flag on our google maps which was ‘Monumental’
I wasn’t actually sure what Monumental even was when we approached, its name isn’t particularly descriptive and from the decor outside I actually thought it was a synagogue – upon further inspection though it was an old bull ring – still holds some shows apparently, but for the most part it is now a bullfighting museum and landmark. Tickets were fairly cheap and I’m really glad Cath initiated us actually going inside because it was pretty interesting and relatively empty inside, Cath gave us a little history on bullfights (unexpected bullfighting expert?) and we walked about and took some nice pictures, the sky was so very blue in contrast with the arena, i think it made for some nice shots.

We had tickets booked for Park Guell in the afternoon, so we headed there next, I had been before and as far as my memory serves nothing much had changed, unfortunately there was a fair bit of renovation work being done to patch up mosaics, but it was still nice.

We headed back to the abnb to freshen up a little before heading out to the beach for the remainder of the afternoon and stayed until early evening, had a nice walk around the beach and watched George dig his big hole.
Eventually we headed off down the beachfront to find some Paella – and find it we did! Tasty stuff! We had some churros afterwards at a place a few doors down from our apartment – open 24hours (thank god I don’t live nearby or I would be obese)

28 Dec 2018

My GOTY 2018
by | posted in: Games, Games Review, Highlights, top 10 | 0

There was simultaneously too much to play this year, and not really enough.
Whilst I didn’t play a lot of the new games this year, for the most part I just didn’t want to, outside of a few (RDR2, Donut County, Tetris Effect)
Thanks to my brother I did at least manage to play a lot of the large PS4 releases, however on PC i spent most of the year just playing older games and wrestling with my backlog, whilst trying to play all of the humble monthly games.

 

So, here are my personal top 5 picks of the year – You can see a list of games I would have liked to try, but didn’t get to below, as well as games which I did play but didn’t make the list.

 

 

5. God of War 2018 (PS4)

God of War was just an all around good game, I don’t really think it did anything too special but what was there was all well refined and good.
I think it won a soundtrack award, but i’ll be honest I don’t remember anything about that, however I do remember smashing a lot of undead face, and the incredible first boss fight. GoW was also much more of a story driven game than previous titles (from what I remember anyway), which some people will find offputting but I kind of enjoyed the downtime between fights.

 

 

4. Yakuza 6 (PS4)

The Yakuza series in general will unfortunately go unrecognized again this year, but Yakuza 6 was a surprisingly good game. The story is one of the better ones in my opinion, and the new characters introduced are all interesting and quirky in their own ways. The switch to the new engine breathes new life into the series, helping to reduce downtime and allow you to explore with more freedom without worrying about being bogged down with load screens, as well as speed up fighting random thugs on the street as you can transition from exploring to face smashing seemlessly, with only a brief pause to transition out. The minigames are good fun this time round also, with an RTS squad battle one, a fishing minigame which plays like a sega lightgun game, a baseball simulator, and others which i haven’t the space to talk about (the camgirl chatroom minigame is fantastic though).

 

3. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)

Obra Dinn is unlike anything you’ve ever played or seen before – The art style is obviously the most common thing you’ll see or read about this game, but the gameplay is the real treat here. For those unaware (I wasn’t), Obra dinn is a puzzle detective game, where you basically travel through time and see 3d pictures of each person’s final moments, over the course of the game you then have to piece together what happened to them, and who everyone in the scene is – this may be by something obvious, a crewmate saying “Jack, watch out!” for example may easily slap a name on them, but for the most part, the game really makes you work for it.
Obra dinn runs at about 8-10 hours and is truly a unique ride, you need to check this out.

 

 

2. Celeste (Multi)

I bought Celeste on a whim after being bored one day and seeing the game on sale, and i’m so glad that I did.
The main story is a decent length for this sort of game, and is a brilliant blend of challenge and new mechanics, without messing with the core mechanics of your character – the game will pass you through chapters, introduce a mechanic and then pull and replace it with a different one to keep things fresh. I enjoyed the story and thought there was a surprising amount of character development considering the amount of text in the game could probably fit on a single A4 paper.
The soundtrack is also really memorable, and does that thing where the music subtly changes over time based on your progress, I love that shit.
If you go into the game blind, you will be shocked at the additional content, the game and challenge just keeps going for hours after you’ve completed the main campaign, after the 175 strawberries to the B-Side Challenge levels you’re looking at maybe 20-30 hours of solid platforming satisfaction.
Be warned that the game is brutally hard (i’m at 6000 deaths and counting), but the achievement of clearing a hard room is on par with reaching a bonfire in Dark Souls or winning a fight with magic pixel health.

 

1. Monster Hunter World (PC)

It would be hard to not give first place to Monster Hunter World, which I personally spent around 200 hours with during the month of it’s PC release.
I’ve never really understood or gotten into the previous monster hunter games, but the latest entry with it’s lush graphics and quality of life improvements really sucked me in. I spent a good amount of time playing the game on my own but by far the standout experience was playing as a full group of 4 and experiencing the content fresh for the first time without using guides, without worrying about builds or tier lists, just pure “how do we kill it, and how do we not get killed by it”. MHW was genuinely the most multiplayer fun I’ve had in a long time – the horror of seeing Diablos explode out of the desert, making fun of the commander’s voice, and trying not to get carpet bombed by blazblue, are all moments i’ll remember for a long time.

 

 

Didn’t play list:

AC Odyssey, Gris, Obra Dinn,into the breach, Hitman 2, A way out, Red Dead 2, The messenger, Forza horizon 4, Tetris Effect, Guacamelee 2, Octopath Traveler, Frost punk, CrossCode, Wandersong, Iconoclasts, COD blops4, Overcooked 2, Far Cry 5, La-Mulana 2, Pokemon Lets go, Battletech, Shadow of the tomb raider, Detroit Become Human, Battlefield 5, Fallout 76, Donut County,

 

Didn’t make list:

Smash Ultimate, Deltarune, DJmax Respect, Florence, Spiderman, Dead Cells, Subnautica, Lethal League Blaze

 

4 Dec 2018

Brussels 2018 – Day 0 + 1 – 3 laps round the city centre
by | posted in: Brussels 2018, Highlights, holiday | 0

Day 0

We arrived later than expected on the monday, by the time we actually arrived in Brussels and caught the tram to our Airbnb, it was going into 7:30-8:00 in the evening, initially we were planning to drop our bags and then head back into the city for food and exploration but we were way too tired for that. Instead we ended up just chilling in the airbnb, and grabbing food from a local grill shop – to Cordelia’s surprise, she ordered a kebab sandwich thing and then shovelled a portion of chips into the roll as well, I grabbed a kebab meat platter thing with salad and chips, pretty unhealthy but tasted damn good.
The airbnb itself was well sized, though we think the host is leeching wifi from somewhere else, as the signal was atrocious, I was hardly able to connect and Cordelia couldn’t get wifi at all.

~~~

Day 1

An early start for us, considering we went to bed at like 9pm with not much to do, we popped out to the local supermarket to stock up on drinks and get breakfast for the next few days, before heading out to the central Brussels.

The city was fully christmas’d up, with plenty of decorations and lights around the street and shopfronts, as expected all around central brussels were waffle shops, loaded waffles lining the window frame and topped with fruit, chocolate and cream. Chocolate shops were in equal abundance, we went into a few just to grab some samples – can confirm, pretty damn good chocolate.

We spent the majority of the first day doing all of the A-list Brussels attractions, hitting up Grand Place and taking in the views of the buildings lined with gold, the town hall, Notre Dame du Sablon and St Michael’s cathedral were all also equally grand and impressive though obviously only so much I can say about them.
We accidentally stumbled upon the mannekin Pis, which is (rather worryingly) Brussels main attraction? A statue of a small boy taking a piss, he was naked during our visit – for those unaware, Brussels has an unhealthy obsession with statues that piss – along with the Mannekin Pis, they have Jeanekke pis (a girl doing a squat piss) and one of a dog taking a piss on a pole as well.

We also spent a good hour or so in the Delirium Cafe, previously held a guiness record for most beer on offer in a bar, it has since lost it but still serves some 200 different drinks, including 3 types of ‘Delirium’ beer, all of which sit around the 8.5% to 9.5% range.  The Bar we went to was only one of many, they are all kind of down an alley together, and I think all the bars have the same owner so it’s literally just a dead end alley filled with bars on both sides. The decor was pretty interesting, with ceiling filled by beer trays, even all of the lighting was provided by beer lamps.

Dinner at a small place called Baogo, which served burgers but on chinese bao buns, I had a pulled pork one with coleslaw and it was pretty damn good.
On the way back towards the station and christmas market we stumbled into a light show happening in Grand Place – music playing and the entire square lit up in a variety of colours, the size of the crowd was insanity. We’d wander around one of the Christmas markets (Beurs) for a bit before heading home, exhausted from a full day of walking around the city.

Airbnb
grand plaza
grand plaza
Mannekin Pis
Delirium
Delirium
Carved soap

 

14 Jun 2018

Dubai 2018 – Days 1 and 2 – All the touristy things
by | posted in: Dubai/Taiwan 2018, Highlights, holiday | 0

An intense smell of body odour welcomed us to our seats on the plane, which was not a fantastic welcome present to the start of our big 2018 holiday. We had planned to sleep through the 6.5 hour flight and wake up to be greeted by beautiful hot Dubai, instead we both got pretty minimal sleep and arrived in Dubai feeling like shit.

A train across the city and then a long nap in the hotel then, we’d awake around 4pm or so, and head off towards the Burj Khalifia which we had booked tickets for prior.

The Burj is attached to the gigantic Dubai Mall, so we headed there first for a good walk around and quick snack. We hadn’t planned it this way, but we had arrived during ramadan – the holy muslim month where everyone fasts from sunrise to sunset, as a result the mall was somewhat quiet and a large amount of the food and drink shops were closed or had huge blackout curtains or wooden dividers around the shopfronts, with accompanying signs saying saying non muslims and children only. it was a strange sight and environment, but I can appreciate not wanting to see a KFC when you haven’t had anything to eat since 6am, eating and drinking in public during Ramadan is basically an offense – we didn’t feel like pushing our luck to see what is and isn’t allowed.

After having a nice walk around and seeing the huge aquarium fish tank, biggest OLED screen in the world, and the comically large indoor ice rink, we headed to ajoining Burj Khalifia for our booked slot at 6:30. if you’re ever in the area, 6:30 slot is the way to go, you essentially get the sunset view and the nighttime view for the price of one, though an unexpected side effect was that we had to queue ages for the lifts to get out. The Burj really was seriously high, the skyscrapers below look so small it kind of pulls you out of how high you are because it almost doesn’t feel real, but of course, everything looks small when you’re up 125 floors. The night view was definitely worth staying for, and I think worth the price of admission £40ish per person including Aquarium.

biggest oled screen, dubai showing off
ramadan eating rules
burrrj
Sunset from the burj

After a lengthy queue for the lifts back down, we went out to watch the Dubai fountain show over the beautiful man-made marina, which was really nice – not quite a singapore ‘laser projection on water mist’ level of complexity but a really solid lit choreographed water jet show with some of them really shooting up high.

Burger and frozen custard at shakeshack for dinner, which was somewhat underwhelming but oh well. We would have normally gone for something more locationally specialized but we couldn’t find any arabic food restaurants (and honestly, aren’t really sure what Arabic food would even consist of).

We’d walk around the aquarium and underwater zoo for a while afterwards, there were some impressive exhibits which are less common – huge crocodiles, sea otters, and large sharks to name a few.

by the time we decided to come home, we discovered that we had just missed the last train back to the hotel – at a surprisingly early 11:30pm.
it turns out the trains run at different times depending on the day, but we at least expected them to run until midnight. We had to catch a cab home which thankfully wasn’t too expensive at around £8 – if he wasn’t doing meter and said £20, we probably would have accepted it and paid him. Speaking of less expensive than expected, I should mention that the Dubai metro is also very reasonably priced, charged on a zonal basis, the cost is 3, 5 or 7.5 UAE Dirrhams (equal to 60p, £1, £1.50 respectively).

A late shower and then bed for us, to prepare for our second and last day in Dubai.

 

~~~~~

Day 2

 

We overslept.

Granted we didn’t actually have a massive amount planned for today but waking up around half 10 was a minor concern for us.

We’d actually start the day the same as yesterday, heading to the Dubai mall to go to the IHOP we scouted out yesterday, I’m not sure i’ve ever actually been to an IHOP before, even when I was in America, so whilst I imagine quite lame to some readers, we were genuinely quite excited to have some big american fluffy pancakes with bacon.
We’d end up both ordering a combo of eggs, bacon, hash brown and then an entire plate with stack of pancakes and topping – it was way too much for brunch, or any meal of any day for that matter.

From the mall we’d head back for the metro to check out the old town, heading for the spice souk and gold souk, it would all be outdoors, and it was about 39 degrees outside.

Whilst you can kind of mentally prepare yourself for 39 degrees heat, the real deal was genuinely super draining, I have no idea how the people that live there, are able to do manual labour in that kind of weather. Even a brief walk for half an hour made us want a shower.

The spice souk was smaller and less busy than we anticipated, I kind of thought it would be a bustling hub where old women bartered for cinnamon pods but it was actually just a covered alley/street with few locals and even fewer tourists, and a whole lot of spice sellers trying to grab you to visit their shop. Personally I got a whole lot of ni hao’s and konnichiwa’s whilst Cordelia got called Shakira more times than I can count (we can only assume because her hips don’t lie), I also got called a professor, which is a new one to me.

The gold souk was honestly not that much different either, except the staff wait for you to look at the diamonds in the window before coming out and trying to entice you in with their allegedly cheap prices and (more importantly) super cool air-con. It was around this point (about 45 minutes after we left the station) that our bodies were properly sweaty, so all the small licks of air-con we got as staff came to greet us was so very lovely. I actually found a shop which had an air-con leak in the corner, just spewing out cold air, we took advantage naturally.

The next thing on the agenda was the Dubai ferry, an hour long ferry trip which goes round to the palm jumeriah and Burj al arab, unfortunately the Ferry only sails if there are at least 10 patrons – which our timeslot failed to reach, so instead it was back on the train, unsure what we were going to do next.

We ended up at the other massive mall in Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates. We got to see the arcade which had a bunch of games i’ve never seen before (a rabbids 4 player lightgun game, and a tomb raider 4p lightgun game, amongst others), and the super cool looking indoor ski area, complete with toboggan run, little hot cocoa stands and all sorts. Had a small dinner and then back to the hotel to pack and start to prep for the airport. We still have a few hours to burn, but honestly not sure what else to do with such a small amount of time left, we’ve done all of the major inner city stuff so we’ll likely just end up chilling out until it’s time to head to the airport for the next leg of our journey.

mall of the emirates ski park

Would also like to point out that i’ve been annoyingly ‘ill’ during this holiday, with a dry cough situation and what I presume is an eyelash hair stuck somewhere in my eye which I just can’t rid of, it’s driving me crazy!

28 Jan 2017

What you should be watching this season – Winter 2016/17
by | posted in: Anime, Highlights, WYSBW | 0

Small but solid collection of decent shows this season, or maybe i’m just getting lazier in terms of watching and filtering the trash.

 

QT Vampire Tier

Interviews with monster girls (Demi-chan wa Kataritai)

Featuring a teacher in a school with a bunch of demi-human girls and his journey to learn more about them – a vampire, a dullahan, a succubus and a snow woman. Comedy with a touch of harem and featuring some adorable schoolgirls. Definitely recommend giving the first episode a watch at least to see if you like it.

 

Also worth watching I suppose

 

Little Witch Academia

Think anime harry potter but with more emphasis on comedy, and animated by studio trigger. Little witch academia is a joy to watch, just like the films which precede it. Each episode seems pretty self contained as well, if you’re into that sort of thing.

 

Masamune-Kun’s Revenge

A former fatty gets buff and decides to take revenge on a girl who broke his heart, by seducing her only to break her heart back.
That description actually makes this show sound way more hardcore than it actually is.

 

Scum’s Wish (Kuzu no Honkai)

A rather dark and serious romantic drama – saying much more would be telling, but it’s lewd and way more serious than I thought it would be. Best to go in blind.

 

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

As bad as this show sounds, with it’s plotline of ‘a dragon which becomes a maid’, this show is actually surprisingly entertaining and adorable. Won’t be winning any awards, but quite enjoyable to throw on in the background.

 

 

Reminder: Konosuba Season 2 is airing as well.

18 Dec 2016

The best PC games of 2016
by | posted in: Games, Highlights, top 10 | 1

Notable PC games this year: Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Owlboy, Stardew Valley, Battlefield 1, The Witness, Inside, Dishonored 2, Gears of War 4, Titanfall 2, DOOM, Abzu, Planet Coaster, Hitman, SUPERHOT, Overcooked, The Division, Zero Escape 3: ZTD, Mirrors Edge Catalyst, COD Infinite, Steep, Quantum Break, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Firewatch, Civilization 6, Darkest Dungeon, Thumper, Dead rising 4, Oxenfree, Watch Dogs 2, Street fighter 5

 

Top 5 Games of the Year

5. Battlerite

How the hell did this sneak on here?
I may have mentioned before that when I bought Battlerite a few months ago, I literally set a timer so I could decide whether or not to refund it just before the 2 hour mark. I’m now at 61 hours or so, which is more than everything else on this list. It’s a MOBA arena game which just manages to do everything pretty well – Any complaints of ‘not enough characters’ and ‘shit cosmetics’ will almost certainly be resolved later on down the line, as will the ‘high’ price tag of £15.

 

4. Planet Coaster

It has been X years since Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and naturally we were itching for a modern release (as, let’s be honest, RCT3 was pretty barebones in terms of 3d graphics). Then just at the right time, along comes Planet Coaster, with all of it’s gorgeous visuals, it’s curved paths, it’s ‘how fucking many?’ Rollercoaster types and practically infinite ways to decorate your park and shops (provided you have the time). Aside from optimization and maybe some more variation in shops/rides, it’s hard to really think what else could be improved on in Planet Coaster as far as single player experiences go.

 

3. Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma

Kotaro Uchikoshi does it again. Whilst not quite on the same level as it’s predecessors, ZE3 has some great puzzling, and interesting branching story. Best of all, even though you know there is some weird shit going on, the revelation moment will still manage to catch you off guard and give you that holy shit moment. I have to say though that eric in team Q is literally the most irritating character i’ve come across.

 

2. DOOM

Doom did not mess around, it threw you into this linear world filled with hellspawn, gave you a shotgun and then proceeded to just wail guitar and dubstep noises at you relentlessly until you finished the game. It was in your face, dumb and myself and just about everyone else who played doom fucking loved it’s straightforward nature. Shoot things in the face, move on, repeat – No cover, No long story sequences, No vehicle traversal between areas. Anyone looking for a fantastic singleplayer FPS campaign should give this a play.

 

1. The Witness

The witness undoubtedly gave me the most ‘holy shit’ moments in gaming this year, whilst I wasn’t particularly fond of the ending, the puzzles and the unique ways in which you need to approach them are absolutely amazing, similarly the world and it’s mystery and secrets provided plenty of additional things to do between getting stuck. I also really loved that the game basically doesn’t tell you anything, even the tutorials I don’t remember the game explicitly giving me any directions but rather ‘here is something simple, figure out the rules for yourself’ – and I love that, especially in an age of videogaming where developers feel the need to really hand hold the whole way through out of fear of losing the player, Blow’s masterpiece does the polar opposite and sets off with or without you. I’d imagine anyone who has played through the game will agree that it’s puzzles are genius in both creativity and design, and those who have played through and doesn’t probably didn’t ‘get it’, which is of course is a big problem in a game where all of the enjoyment is derived from eventually ‘getting it’.

 

Bonus!

Just missed the list:

Inside – Short and sweet, I completed it in a sitting or two and it was a fantastic experience throughout. Didn’t really do anything groundbreaking but it was incredibly polished and had just the right quantity of mystery to push you forward.

Hitman – A fantastic return to form for the series, it’s a shame there are so few levels, but the levels that are there are some of the best in the series. The new detection system works well too, making more sense than the old blood money system while not being as daft as the absolution ‘ima just hide my face’ system.

Dark Souls 3 – More of the same, and that’s hardly a bad thing, though I have to admit it’s not gripped me quite as well as it’s predecessors.

 

Biggest Disappointment:

Titanfall 2 – I absolutely adored the first Titanfall, hitting the level cap multiple times over, so when Titanfall 2 was announced I was super hype, the potential for basically the same game with new maps, more weapons, more abilities, customization and so on sounded awesome. And then the beta dropped, and somehow they had just gotten everything wrong, the movement was slower, they changed certain mechanics, and whilst the retail version of the game has fixed some of these changes, the result is still more ‘Call of Titanfall’ than the Titanfall I fell in love with. I’m yet to really clock much time with it because I just have no urge to play, the gunplay is as solid as ever but it feels like TTK is down, the titans are crazy fragile and rarer, the new abilities are rubbish, no custom titan loadout choices, can’t change the AI voice and the maps are all really forgettable and boring. A cry everytime.

 

Best Singleplayer Experience:

Titanfall 2 – Okay so yeah I just finished talking about everything I’m not keen on with Titanfall 2, but you’ll notice there was no mention of the campaign that they added. The campaign was awesome, i’d actually argue better than DOOM’s. It was literally the opposite of everything I just said in the paragraph above. Awesome level design, titans feel satisfying to play with the added shield, clever use of game mechanics and a super interesting part which you won’t see coming. The short but sweet campaign was memorable and great fun.

 

Most Overhyped:

Overwatch – I’m still struggling to see the appeal of Overwatch, the time i’ve spent with it was ‘okay’ at best, lacking much satisfaction when you do well and being a real slog if you are on the back foot.

 

 

Game whose servers are going to be empty by this time next year

Steep – Calling it now. that game is boring, people just haven’t realised it yet (or maybe they have?).

5 Dec 2016

Prague 2016 – Day 5 – Castle district
by | posted in: Highlights, holiday, Vienna/Prague 2016 | 0

A frosty morning would greet us as we opened the door to be greeted by minus 4 degrees weather, the czech weather certainly does not play around.

It was a fairly easy train ride over to the castle district, where we would be spending the majority of our day. The station is actually kind of outside of the castley area, so we’d have to take a bit of a trek uphill to get there, to be met by armed guards and airport style equipment to search all who were to enter, the czech appear to still be using the castle as some form of actual fortress by the looks of things.

The view from the top of the hill was impressive, giving a great overview of many of Pragues landmarks, there were droves of tourists of course which was a bit of a shame, but I guess you can’t have it all. The castle was actually more of a small town or collection of huge buildings if you would prefer, cobbled roads lay inbetween tall buildings with some castle remnants spread inbetween the gift shops and cafes. Of interesting note was some random statue of a guy with a gleaming penis, a small crowd gathered around it with people taking it in turns to rub his dong.

Further on up the hill we would come across a small Christmas market and an incredible church – the Cathedral of St Vitus. Unbeknownst to us, you can actually see this cathedral atop the hill from most places in Prague, and for good reason, it was seriously gigantic.

Everyone was queuing up to rub this statue’s dick

After taking pictures of it’s impressive exterior we made the mistake (?) of paying a little extra to climb up the belltower – which turned out to be a a real challenge, I’ll be honest and say was actually expecting to turn the corner after the ticket booth and see a lift, but nope, only a narrow spiral staircase maybe 1.5m in Diameter, with 287 steps (approx 90 meters – an average 2 story UK house is approx 8 meters, for comparison). People coming down the staircase were actually cheering the ascending people on, that’s how rough that shit was. The view from the top, thankfully, was breathtaking, with pretty clear views of all of Prague.

Back down on the floor, we looked inside the Cathedral but didn’t feel like paying the additional entry cost as we could already see most of the goods from the entrance. Some real size to the hall, and some lovely detailed stained glass windows, the church was actually only completed in the 1930’s so I guess that would explain some of the interior detail.

Some christmas market lunch (delicious chorizo hotdog and some trdelnik [Chimney cake] ) and then we were off again to another church, this time the Loreto, which was a Marian pilgimage site with church and treasury inside. The entrance fee was kind of steep, and they actually didnt even want us to take photos inside without paying another 100czk for a ‘photography pass’ but the place wasnt very policed so we had our way with it, the main church area at the back was quite nice and completely empty. The treasury upstairs was a nice bonus as well, featuring a piece called the ‘Prague Sun’ which is a monstrance encrusted with 6000 plus diamonds.

Outside of the castle district, complete with guards

Yet more walking! Downhill this time and eastward back towards civilisation, we stopped off at a chocolate cafe because we were freezing. We ended up at the Prague chocolate cafe and bistro – Cordelia ordered a chocolate beer and I thought i’d try their speciality – a hot chocolate.
What arrived in front of me was very literally hot chocolate – barely even classified a liquid, it looked almost as if thy had thrown a small bar of chocolate into a mug, warmed it up and called it a day, or perhaps my waitress confused the containers for chocolate fondue and drinking chocolate? Regardless of the case, I ended up with a mug of super sweet melted chocolate which I just could not drink to save my life out of fear of sugar overdose.

St Nicholas church would meet us at the bottom of the hill, yet another large church to marvel at, this one featuring a beautiful bright painted ceiling and some very impressively huge statues. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

We’d wander around a little more and stumble upon the John Lennon wall, a rather strange place to put it, given that the Beatles are British, and so is John Lennon but hey ho. The wall itself was graffiti’d from top to bottom with various colours and optimistic quotes.

We had finally concluded our activities west of the river, and could finally make our way across the famed Charles Bridge, the huge paved bridge adorned with various statues which you may have seen upvoted on reddit once or twice. It was equally impressive in person, especially because the Cathedral and castle district sit high upon a hill in the background, making for some really nice pictures (I hope ). We were on it long enough that eventually a huge man with a cloak and cape strolled down the whole bridge and manually ignited all of the lamps on the bridge.

My camera battery was starting to flash by this stage, unsurprising given I had taken almost 300 photos by this point in the day, and didn’t bother charging the battery yesterday. I had hoped to not go to anywhere massively impressive until tomorrow out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to photograph it.

Then as we wandered through the cobbled sideroads, we came across Old Town Square, filled with it’s golden astronomical clock, a massive Christmas market, the largest and brightest Christmas tree I’ve seen all holiday, and some form of church in the background. We blitzed them all, intending to come for a second round tomorrow.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, have some kind of underwhelming pork for dinner and then back to the flat to rest and defrost.

26 Oct 2016

Analysing Battlerite
by | posted in: Games, Highlights | 0

So I’ve been playing Battlerite for the last 2 weeks or so, and I have to say, I’ve been really impressed by it.

Unlike some other games where I spend my non-playing downtime thinking about what the hell the developers were thinking, Battlerite has a really shocking amount of fantastic design choices, and I wanted to talk about some of them.

You are always left side

Through some crazy wizardry, Battlerite has you always spawn from the left. Your enemies will always run at you from the right. I’m guessing it does this through some mirroring and client side magic but god is it cool. The maps are, of course, completely symmetrical.

You only get coins for winning

I’m guessing this is primarily to combat botting or any form of ‘cant be bothered’ attitude. If you don’t win, you won’t get any money. This effectively rules out most bots or any form of AFKing or low effort game joins, as they are essentially pointless.

Maximum health, and fulfilling the counterplay trifecta

Your maximum health can only ever be +X from your current health. What does this actually mean? Say you start at 200hp and take 20dmg, your max hp is still 200 and you can be healed to full, if you were to take 80 damage, your maxhp will drop to 150ish.
So why is this particularly clever? Because similar to other MOBA’s where you particular playstyles have counters, they exist in Battlerite as well. Heal beats poke, Burst beats heal, and poke beats burst (usually).
It also means people can’t whore 3 support/healer teams, which is nice.

Chat is disabled by default

Because nobody really needs to get called a retard.

3v3 Matchmaking tries to give a balanced team comp

Playing solo, about 90% of the time you’ll get matched into a team with 1 support, 1 melee and 1 ranged. Which you would think is just common sense, but other games have shown us otherwise.

Everything is as obvious as possible

All the big damage spells have obvious casting animations and noises, all the buffs and debuffs are obvious. This basically means you always have the opportunity to counterplay.

No shared vision

Holy shit the jukes. 1vs3? still not impossible.

The centre orb keeps the action where it needs to be

Essentially king of the hill all the time, the orb in the middle provides massive benefits and basically keeps the action in the centre.

 

Battlerites let people play how they want, diversifying the champions they have by 2 or 3

The perks system is fantastic. You want a damage support? You want a super slippery Ranged? The battlerites provide plenty of choices, and mostly none of them are wrong.

 

As an aside, The community is surprisingly nice, and everyone seems to acknowledge that if you lose, it’s almost certainly because you got outplayed. Even the few times we’ve seen people leave or AFK, the games have mostly descended into ‘1v1 me’.

Whilst it may be on the expensive side for what will eventually be a free to play game, it’s so much fun.

 

 

 

9 Oct 2016

What you should be watching this season – Autumn 2016 Anime Roundup
by | posted in: Anime, Highlights, WYSBW | 0

Here’s this season’s stuff, from best to worst. Personally I’m probably not going to follow anything under a 7 unless it gets rave reviews once the season progresses.

 

Yuuri On Ice – 8
Ice skater Yuuri tries to go from last in season to champion

zplayer-2016-10-09-21-01-29-83

 

To be hero – 8
Short (12 min eps) comedy about a sleazy toilet seat salesman who gets sucked into a toilet and given superpowers, but physically changes appearance into a perverted fat old man, not really your conventional superhero…

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-59-17-34

 

Keijo – 7
Pure fanservice, and absolutely fucking retarded, but maybe worth watching because of just how shit it is? It’s based on a sport where you have to push people into water using only your ass or tits, and naturally there are girls who can swing their ass into other people’s jaws so fast that they become unconscious (and that other girls can’t even see what she did). Fucking ridiculous garbage but I might have to watch another episode… Bonus pic

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-54-07-53

 

Kiss Him, not me (Watashi Ga motete dousunda) – 7
Otaku Fujoshi suddenly becomes a hottie

zplayer-2016-10-09-21-00-41-87

 

Scorching Ping Pong Girls – 7
“a scorching hot tale of girls who love ping pong.” , hmm……. The first episode was interesting though. Might be like Saki

Drifters – 7
Very stylish action show, a bunch of heroes from different era’s have been dragged from the brink of death to another world and time.

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-53-00-77

 

Udon no kuni no kin’iro Kemari – 7
Udon master’s son returns home and meets a tanuki disguised as a human… Looks like a slow burner but is looking like a warming story so far.

 

All Out!! – 7
Rugby sports anime, probably another zero to hero one, featuring some small dude who probably shouldn’t be playing rugby. Hopefully it’ll be like Slam Dunk but with rugby.

 

Izetta: The Last Witch – 6
40’s era post war story, and then suddenly a powerful witch appears. High production quality, but not particularly enjoying it yet.

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-56-38-90

 

Flip Flappers – 5
Journey to another world with some weird robot thing. Not bad, but nothing too special yet.

 

Magical girl raising project – 5
Looks like it might turn into battle royale with magical girls? There are 16 magical girls in the district but only enough magical energy for 8 of them… Will probably be dark and twisty but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be any good.

 

Tiger Mask W – 5
Wrestling anime, enough said.

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-49-45-33

3-Gatsu no Lion (Lion of March) – 5
The first episode was really boring, but I feel like it might be a good show underneath. It’s a coming of age tale about a professional shogi player, who comes out of depression with the help of family and friends?

 

Occultic;Nine – 5
Train wreck for the first episode, with it introducing a ton of characters and then some weird shit happening. The character design makes it incredibly hard to take seriously. It’s by the same author as steins;gate

 

Nanbaka – 5
Group of talented prison escapers go ahead and escape from some prisons… Everything is sparkly and very colourful.

 

Classicaloid – 4
Hot garbage featuring Mozart and Beethoven fighting aliens with superpowers and gigantic robots powered by their symphonies.

zplayer-2016-10-09-20-50-53-96

 

Long Riders! – 4
It’s Bakuon but with Bicycles – A generic slice of life ‘oh I got introduced to a sports club and look how fun it is’ show about riding bicycles.

 

Cheating Craft – 3
I was really optimistic when I saw the name, hoping for something vaguely kaiji-esque, but it’s some sort of weird school battle shit about students that can fight each other in an exam hall, so they can copy from other people.

 

Brave Witches – 1
I think this is related to Strike Witches but I honestly have no idea. I think it was the only show this season that I dropped before getting to the end of the opening sequence.

 

 

 

Not Viewed:
Bloodivores

8 May 2016

New Forest
by | posted in: A day in pictures, blog, Highlights | 0

Spent majority of the weekend down near southhampton in New Forest national park.

Only last week at the aforementioned strange BBQ, was invited to go camping with some folk down at new forest, didn’t have anything already pencilled in, so I thought I’d take inspiration from that Jim Carey film ‘Yes Man’ and signed up for it, despite not really knowing how to camp.
I don’t think i’ve been camping since my days in scouts or primary school.

So we set out on Saturday morning and hit the camping area around 10:30ish, to which everyone was like “alright, time to go hiking to the nearest pub!”

2 hours and a hell of a lot of walking later, we finally arrived. Nice little lunch, drink and lay down and we were back on the long trail to return to camp, we took a different route of course.
Of worthy note is that one of the guys with us, Tim, had an OG paper map and compass, and without him we would have been very very lost, as google maps doesn’t really have hiking trails on the map, and tbh we weren’t following the paths all the time anyway.

Finally returned to camp around 6:30 (we left at 11:30), literally stumbling out through the forest and straight towards a beautifully timed ice cream van.
I was absolutely exhausted after all the walking, I think we totalled approximately 10 miles (up and down hills, over streams, through woodland and all sorts).
We didn’t actually bring any food with us, so we popped back in the car and went the local shop to buy some food, and came back with one of those disposable BBQ’s, Meat and Ciders. We threw the tent up with everyones help and then got to BBQing (the charcoal didn’t catch fire very well, so it was a lot of effort fanning the flames).

We were sitting in the dark for fairly long until maybe 11pm or so, when a sudden shower started and we were all forced back into our tents.

The night went about as expected, fairly hard ground coupled with a sleeping bag which was simultaneously too cold and too hot, the real problems began around 5am when I was woken up by birds and the sound of rain on the top of the tent. Needed to piss really badly because of the cider but oh my god the rain just refused to let up. Thus ended up laying in bed drifting in and out of sleep until 7am or so. God those birds were noisy.