RedShell

Cheers for the heads-up. How strange though. DR1, 3 and 4 all have full controller support. On the pcgaming wiki page it has a green check mark next to XInput compatible controllers, pretty sure the controller I use can be switched to that. Anyway, even if it doesn't work, I could always use the custom controller mapping feature in Steam, right?

Yeah, I'd heard that the games dip in quality after the sequel. I definitely plan to check out the second game at least, I'm just a bit confused about which version to get as it seems there are 2 Dead Rising 2. As far as I can tell, the "off the record" version is the one to go for, because it features Frank and all the photography stuff again. Indeed there is. And for sure, you would've done it buy driving around the maintenance tunnels, ludicrous amounts of zombies in there. Yup, unfortunately it doesn't make the cat talk, had it also included Garfield's sarcastic commentary I would have replayed the entire game! There is, however, another mod that replaces all cat meows with fart sound effects, which combines well with the Garfield skin.

Yeah, great little game. Glad to hear you also enjoyed it. Been a while since I posted an update, hmm... let's see if I can remember what I've played... Well, February got pretty much completely taken over by one game, a controversial game that a lot of people loved to hate, I am of course talking about: Palworld: While I wasn't exactly sold on it at first, I ended up getting hooked on the damn thing and then couldn't stop playing it! As an early access game (and one made by an inexperienced dev team at that) it obviously has quite a lot of issues, and it's not exactly the most original game ever made *cough* but you know what? Neither of those things stopped it from (eventually) being a lot of fun! Played it for around 100 hours in total and in that time I caught the majority of the Pokém-err... Pals, defeated all bosses and unlocked every achievement. It was the base building aspect that ended up appealing to me the most though, it's super simple to use yet pretty flexible in what it allows you to build. But me being me, I went and made a 15 storey Baby Face tower for my main base: Yep, it was just a bit big: So yeah, base building was really great, and alongside being able to make essentially any shape base you like, there's an assortment of furniture items available to craft for decoration. It's cute how your Pals also help out with constructing stuff and can be assigned to various tasks within the base itself, like planting/harvesting food, manufacturing items or weapons, etc. And depending on the type of Pal/skills, they'll be better suited to certain tasks, it makes collecting and levelling them up feel a lot more worthwhile as a result. Unlike in Pokémon, where I always focus on my team and all remaining Pokémon are just left gathering dust in the storage box, in Palworld you want to have a load of different Pals trained up and then set to your base/s. Another aspect where Palworld seems to make an improvement over Pokémon is in the online play department, although it's not something I personally tested, as far as I'm aware the entire game is playable in co-op. No doubt a contributing factor to the crazy success of this game. Despite Palworld one-upping Pokémon in some areas though, it still needs work, it's an ambitious title with a lot going on and all in a huge open world, Pals can get stuck on parts of the environment, characters will randomly T-pose, all that sort of fun stuff. There were already a few updates back while I was still playing that fixed up some bugs, including a major one where it was possible to capture bosses! That's right, not just the Pals, but their NPC trainers too! Luckily I managed to "catch 'em all" before the fix arrived, an unusual advantage of playing via Game Pass, where patches would be delayed over the Steam version. Oh, quick mention on the music before I move on. For the most part it was basically non-existent, as they were going for that BotW vibe just some light piano here and there. So I'd come to the conclusion that the game wasn't going to offer much in that regard, but then I was hit with this!: Crazy good! It's basically the only memorable track from the entire game (for me at least) but yeah, what a belter. Anyway, I stand by what I said about Palworld originally, in that I just hope its success will snap Game Freak out of their rut. It's quite frankly embarrassing how a small rookie studio (regardless of how they went about it) has been able to produce a more entertaining "Pokémon" game than any of the recent titles in that series. Game Freak needed a wake up call, and hopefully this is it. While subbed to Game Pass I noticed Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night had returned to the service, it's a game that I'd previously played through on there and really enjoyed, so I decided to download and check it out again. A couple of hours into it and I was having such a blast once more that I realised I should probably just buy it, so picked up a copy on Steam. It's rare that I replay games, but this one is so good that I simply couldn't resist. I absolutely love it! The visuals, the music, the flow of the game and huge variety of weapons and movesets all make it super replayable. There's only 1 thing wrong with Bloodstained, and that's the atrocious font they used for the dialogue text. Yuck! What were they thinking with that!? I tried searching for a mod to change it to a serif style, something a bit more... Gothic, but there was nothing. I know, that's such a trivial thing to complain about, but it still really annoys me. On the plus side, I discovered other mods that helped distract me from the horrible font at least. @Jonnas, I see this is one of your games to play this year, hope you get around to it. Very briefly revisited Stray to check out a mod that let's you play as Garfield: Game is now 11/10. No More Heroes III: This also popped up on Game Pass, having already played 1, 2 and Travis Strikes Again, I figured I should finally give 3 a go as well. But apart from the combat (which was really good) and the humour (that's so unbelievably stupid it made me laugh, a lot ) it's probably the weakest entry in the series, I just wasn't a fan of the way it's structured. You have several large areas with pretty much nothing in them that are just like hubs for mission markers, you then have to do a number of these repetitive missions to open up the boss battles, that was ok initially, but towards the later stages of the game it got pretty tiresome. I would've preferred some proper levels to explore with a greater number of enemies to progress through occasionally. Anyway, the boss battles and ridiculous story/cutscenes were enough to keep me playing through to the end, but were it not for those things I would've struggled to finish it I reckon. Dead Rising: Where the hell has this game been all my life?! So I randomly purchased this on Steam as I was in the mood for even more silliness after NMH3, and let's just say that this game did not disappoint! Playing this for the very first time in 2024 was quite the experience, a fantastic blast from the past, back when big developers were still relatively free to make highly entertaining games without needing to worry about political correctness and all the other constrictive nonsense they have to deal with now. Anyway, won't go into details on what I liked about this game, because that's basically everything! So I'll instead comment on the single aspect that I truly hated and that stops Dead Rising from being absolutely perfect, and that's its boss battles. My word, frustrating doesn't even begin to describe how awful they are. Damage sponges that can destroy you within seconds using attacks that are so damn cheap it feels like encountering a cheater in an online game. You need to either possess super human reflexes, or cheese the AI in some way to create a window of opportunity to attack. And even then they can just pull a completely unpredictable move which will be impossible to react to. Infuriating. Terrible bosses aside though, this game is gold. The setting, the freaky characters, the OTT (non-boss) gameplay ... so much fun. I was also super impressed by the amount of zombies on screen simultaneously and the multitude of ways they react to attacks too, that must've been so impressive back in 2006! It still holds up really well today. I completely lost it the first time I threw a metal pipe at one and it got stuck inside them. "Let off some steam, Bennett!" I've come to realise that apart from some indie stuff I actually have a lot more fun playing older games now than modern ones, so I'm going to try and catch up on other classics that I might have missed out on over the years, provided they can be found on PC. Hopefully I'll be able to discover some other wacky gems like Dead Rising. Well, that's my gaming diary up to now, I think. The only other thing I've been playing regularly alongside everything else is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, N-E online battles on Saturday's and creating custom stages the rest of the time I'm on it. Yep, still addicted to making those, here are some screens of my latest creations:

Ok then, note to self: Do not throw Beetle into Piranha Plant's Poison Cloud: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2119049352?t=0h47m20s Yeah, it took me way too long to realise that though.

Thanks. Had a feeling you'd like that one. Great games tonight (as always) cheers everyone. Will have to wait for @S.C.G's vid to confirm, but I think I somehow hit myself (when playing as "Bomberman" Mii Brawler) with the Beetle!

At this rate, by the time they get around to the final DLC (if they ever do ) most people probably won’t even remember that joke. Anyway, will be interesting to see just how many content updates the game does eventually end up with, I get the feeling it’ll be quite a lot though.

No thread for this!? I'll assume most people have already played it elsewhere, but for anyone that perhaps hasn't, do not miss out on this game!! I've played through it on GamePass, mobile and most recently/extensively on Steam (with the DLC), so 3 times now and yet I'm still here contemplating "quadruple-dipping" on Switch! A word of warning though, Vampire Survivors is one hell of an addictive game! It doesn't appear to be up to all that much at first glance, or even when you initially start playing it, but eventually it will get its hooks into you and it becomes practically impossible to stop! If you ever wondered what a NES game with no sprite restrictions whatsoever would be like, here's your answer. When you get a good run going the screen is literally crammed with enemies, items and projectiles, it becomes complete and utter psychedelic madness!

Saving that for the final update. I actually think it's not completely impossible now, seeing as they've managed a Contra crossover! Hope so anyway, Castlevania DLC would seriously be the icing on the cake for this game.

First no Vampire Survivors thread, and now this!? Come on N-E, pull your socks up. I only played through the first Dragon's Dogma fairly recently, and felt like a complete fool for not having got around to it sooner. Had a really great time with the game though, and would say I even enjoyed it more than Elden Ring! So yeah, definitely hyped for the sequel, which is looking very good indeed.

Interesting vid: It really is pretty nuts what some games were able to achieve on that hardware.

I sure did! Nah, just another one of those "happy little accidents", I must be the Bob Ross of Smash Bros stage building. Anyway, cheers for the games, and for holding back the theme night. That 4 player Peach battle was great: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2106271684?t=0h5m38s

The stage is set for Peach!: I have enough other custom stages that roughly follow the theme too. So this would be OK then?: Come on, we can't break the tradition of somehow shoehorning in Goemon Mii Fighter now!

Now this would be a Zelda film that I'd absolutely love to watch: Also, Lol @ Tingle! Sure as hell nothing like what we're going to end up getting, but with AI generated video improving so damn quickly at least there's a chance that an entire film in that style could be created some day.

I’d be fine with the same graphics and just better performance! Think I may have mentioned this before, but I still consider 1080p to be more than adequate when it comes to resolution. I’ve experienced quite a few games at 4K now and while the extra clarity is nice, in my opinion it is nowhere near worth the additional power required to process it, certainly not natively at least. Then again, I don’t use an enormous screen by today’s standards (42”) meaning 1080p content is still crisp on a 4K panel of that size, so even if I’m playing a title that my PC can easily handle at 4K I always drop the resolution down to 1080. And if I’m still using the same size display when Switch 2 arrives, I reckon I’d do the same with that too. Switch wasn’t completely devoid of hardware innovations. We got HD rumble, which has been criminally underused. Having messed about with it extensively in both LABO and Game Builder Garage I became a lot more aware of its potential, so it’s always incredibly disappointing when developers (even Nintendo themselves sometimes ) seemingly put minimal effort into utilising the feature at all! Err... We also got the IR camera on the right Joy-Con, which managed to be even more neglected than HD rumble. It briefly became a bad VR headset. The Ring-Con and leg strap? Yeah ok, it would be cool if Nintendo have some new quirky tech ideas for their next console. I get the feeling they won’t though, at least not anything particularly bonkers as it’s obviously a risk, meaning they’ll probably play it safe. This time. Oh-oh! I just made a prediction about Nintendo! Watch them go and release the wackiest hardware ever now.

A good tip when starting out is to focus on only a few weapons and constantly upgrading those at every opportunity, rather than collecting lots of different ones and therefore having a bunch of weaker attacks. Garlic is a great choice though, especially if you can combine it with the books that rotate around your character and the holy water. Get those 3 running simultaneously and powered up and you’ll be laughing. For most people (as has been mentioned) getting all the achievements is considered the end of the game. I have 100% completion on my Steam copy with around 50 hours playtime. Not sure if it’s still the case, but they used to add new unlocks/achievements with each update and DLC which would lower your achievement percentage, a lot of people were complaining about that though so it might be done differently now. Personally it never bothered me much and I actually looked forward to unlocking the new ones each time, but obviously some people just want to reach the end and be done with the game.

Yep. It also has a ludicrously difficult final boss battle that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite my struggle to defeat it:

Decided to give this a whirl on Switch, seems like a very solid port. It's crazy how different it is when you're just starting out though. The difficultly level in this game is completely inverted, it's actually a lot more challenging at the beginning than at the end.

Yep, that was actually somewhat intentional. You see Hero can also get up there if you time his jumps right and fully charge his up B. The idea was to give him a slight advantage on that stage (similar to what I did with the R.O.B one, where R.O.B's final smash can trigger the stage collapsing ) but as you saw, Piranha Plant can also get up there, and quite a lot of characters can actually, but obviously not everyone, so yeah, it isn't particularly balanced. It's not possible for me to add anything else to that stage though, as the weight limit has been reached, and then some. So let's just all agree to no camping on there!

Oh man, Captain Falcon on Great Smash Ball: "Falcon Falcon Falcon Falcon Falcon Falcon Falcon Falcon Kick!!" Shame I didn't realise what the plan was for that final custom stage match, an all Hero battle on Puff-Puff Jessica would've been cool. Oh well, hope you all enjoyed that stage as much as I enjoyed making it. Anyway, cheers for the games! And have fun next weekend.

Indeed. BTW, I've just remembered that I won't be able to make it for N-E Smash next Saturday, so you'll all get a well deserved break from my silly stages and pro level gameplay! Well... you'll get a break from my silly stages.

A new stage approaches... ...sort of. Yeah, the Dragon Quest one from last week was very rushed, so I've modified it to be what I originally had in mind for my DQ themed custom stage.

Let’s see you flutter jump out of that! That’s a good idea! Thanks a lot!

Ah, I see! Thanks for the explanation. Think I might have a solution to that then...

Shame about all the connection issues last night. I also had something weird happen during the very first match, the L & R buttons on my GCN controller weren’t working at all! It was Sheik. Yeah, random select really screwed me with that choice... a character that I’m terrible with, that’s also insanely fast, on a stage where there’s basically nowhere to move! I thought it was hilarious though. Anyway, @BowserBasher how the hell did you manage to avoid getting launched (as Yoshi) at the start on Freakyforms stage!? Looks like it’s back to the drawing board for that stage then...

Great games last night! My secret trap on the R.O.B stage didn't quite work out as I planned: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2079492913?t=0h3m20s That was some seriously quick thinking by @Glen-i there, nicely done. Also, I go and add a floor to the DK stage to make it more difficult to fall off and look at this: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2079492913?t=0h11m22s Evil. And last but not least: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2079492913?t=0h37m24s "That went well"