The House of the Dead 2 is fondly remembered for many reasons: Its incredible gameplay, its abundance of enjoyably gruesome enemies, its complex route system bursting with secrets... and its cheesy dialogue, spoken cheesily by cheesy characters. Today I am going to defend that giant block of gaming Cheddar, and I'm not going to fall back … Continue reading Suffer, like G did!
Not all DLC is created equal. There are traditional expansions, regularly refreshed season passes, and little playable extras that are too good to be free even if they're not quite substantial enough to be sold as a full campaign. There are premium music bundles to listen to (hi there, Super Robot Wars), and shiny new cars … Continue reading One more can’t hurt…
Casio's catchily named PB-100 launched in 1983, and while not cheap (it cost about £50 at the time, which is roughly £170 today) it was always intended to be a reasonably basic BASIC-compatible pocket computer and so has a feature set to match. This relative lack of power comes with one big benefit: Battery life. … Continue reading Playing with portable power
I don't remember much about any part of this trilogy - the last time I played these games they were newly released US imports, which would have been... about eighteen years ago now - but I do remember they were stuffed full of religious imagery, a memory Xenosaga: Episode I is eager to refresh over and over … Continue reading Der Wille zur Macht
I love strategy guides. I use them a lot, and I think everyone should turn to them when they get stuck. When you're time-poor, have no patience or energy for "One of us always tells the truth/One of us always lies" style riddles, and possess a sense of direction so woeful an amoeba would find … Continue reading For FAQs sake
Nintendo ushered in rumble-tastic gaming with the wonderful Star Fox 64 (or Lylat Wars, as we used to call it over here) in 1997 with Sony's PlayStation introducing the new all-in-one DualShock controller just a few months later, offering not only built-in battery-free vibrations but also two - two! - analogue sticks as standard, unknowingly defining the basic features and … Continue reading Let’s get ready to rhumble!
Square-Enix recently published a lengthy FAQ outlining in great detail, with collapsible segments and example conversations, the sort of behaviour they deem to be unacceptable in their hugely successful MMO, Final Fantasy XIV. This is in many ways extraordinary in itself, going far beyond the broad and safely acceptable (and largely ignorable and/or under-moderated) rules … Continue reading Online players are real people
[A quick note before we begin: Going forward you'll be able to find all of these Dragon Quest X diary posts under the new ~Dragon Quest X Play Diary~ tag] At a bit of a loose end and with my brain turned to mush after writing an unreasonably enormous review on brand new Taiwanese RPG Sword & … Continue reading My Dragon Quest X Play Diary: Part 02
When judged purely on its merits as an RPG 2009's Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is... it's fine. It's faux-retro in many of the ways I don't really want a game to be, with multi-level dungeons filled with staircases leading to dead ends (or a solitary chest containing an item that's never quite … Continue reading Four good-lookin’ Heroes of Light
In its original form Dragon Quest X remains online only and exclusive to Japan (the upcoming offline version is an entirely separate and heavily reworked entity), although it's a little easier to get into these days thanks to a Final Fantasy XIV-style relaxation on its entry requirements: Anyone living in Japan (or pretending to be) … Continue reading My Dragon Quest X Diary: Part 01
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 