RedShell

Credits have rolled for me as well. Yeah, the music IMO is easily the best thing about the entire game! Absolute perfection, (Tee Lopes has firmly established himself as the go-to composer for recreating 90's Zazz ) even though I personally wasn't so keen on a couple of the vocal tracks (cheese allergy ) I get that they totally fit the vibe though, and well, they certainly made me laugh/added to the fun. Shame about Shredder's voice though, so wrong. Grabbing sound bites by James Avery from the TV series would have been way better, but I'm guessing that wasn't a viable option. Anyway, will definitely give online co-op a go later on today. Too bad there's currently no cross-play (other than between Xbox and PC) hopefully it gets patched in at some point, although I suspect if it does it'll be once most people are already done with the game.

I’ve not tried online play yet (am playing via Game Pass on PC) as I want to do a complete solo playthrough first. 6 player mode must be bonkers though. Looking forward to checking it out. As for bugs (apart from the ones you collect in the game ) the only issue that I’ve encountered so far was the scrolling getting stuck for about a minute one time. I was just going to restart the stage, but a bit of freaking out on the right edge of the screen eventually got it moving again. Guess an enemy was just being shy.

I think I should get an actual trophy for unlocking this: ...as my very first trophy. Anyway, played through a few stages (and obtained some less embarrassing achievements ) the game is unsurprisingly very fun, and the nostalgia is off the scale. I love how there are so many throwbacks to the old games, like chucking enemies towards the screen, and those funny animations when you fall down holes or get a little robot stuck on you. Soundtrack is also ludicrously good, as expected with Tee Lopes being involved.

Just been playing the demo... this is absolutely amazing!! It's like a mash-up of all of the very best old-school racing games. Pure fun. Bring on the full game.

Quite a few things that caught my attention during the Xbox showcase (more than I was expecting actually ): High on Life Scorn Pentiment Ravenlok Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Also love that Flight Simulator is getting helicopters in November (the Halo aircraft is pretty cool too). Oh- and they're finally letting you save your ship in Sea of Thieves! Better late that never I guess, and the extra ship customisation is nice. Still not completely sure about Starfield. Sure, it looks amazing, but I also get the feeling it's going to be one of these games that just tries to do way too much and is ultimately a confusing mess. We shall see... But yeah, not a bad show overall I reckon. Is that it for "E3" now then, or are there any other shows coming up?

Yeah, that’s a very welcome addition to Game Pass for me.

Wow! Looks great.

Man, it’s a shame Microsoft didn’t nab this one for Game Pass. Oh well, I shall definitely check it out at some point. A little bit unsure about the context sensitive jumping mechanics. I suppose it makes sense for the type of gameplay they’re going for (and to have more control over the cat’s animation) but there’s no doubt it would’ve been a lot of fun to have the cat jump around at will too. Nice to know they got a dedicated meow button in there at least. The animation on the cat is so good though, all done by hand too apparently, no mocap. That subtle half wink it does at the end of the release date trailer is just spot-on!

Oh nice! I have a Samsung TV, will definitely be making use of Game Pass on there also then, hopefully it performs as well as it does on PC.

Phoenix edition, ey? Very apt. Performance looks vastly improved over the original release. But anyway, unless a PC version is also happening I probably won’t be heading back to the void.

Only put a couple of hours into Nobody Saves the World so far, but yeah, it definitely appears to be another great Drinkbox Studios title. It certainly has their signature style to it, and the gameplay gets nicely mixed up by having to switch characters/abilities regularly. The map seems like it'll end up being pretty large, and there's lots of stuff to unlock and level up. Tunic is nice, especially when it comes to the game's presentation. I love the old-school Zelda vibe, especially the gorgeous hand drawn manual that you gradually obtain as you progress. It's all very obscure and cryptic though, which can be frustrating. To be honest I think I might restart my playthrough, as I began quite a while ago and returning to it now I feel pretty lost. Hades is great, yeah. It infuriated me at times, but I'd keep coming back for more until I finally managed to escape. It was back in December, but I do recall enjoying Halo Infinite. Had attempted several times to play the earlier games in the series, but always struggled to stick with them so Infinite is actually the first and only Halo game that I've played through to completion. Wasn't paying much attention to the story (as usual ) but I did really like the companion character, she was absolutely hilarious in some of the cutscenes. The gameplay eventually got a bit repetitive towards the end of the campaign, but seeing as I was basically new to the series it probably wasn't as bad as it could've been had I played all the previous games. Using the various vehicles in combat was always a laugh and the grapple hook was very cool too. I still play the multiplayer occasionally as well, seeing as it doesn't require a sub to Game Pass. The Hitman trilogy is awesome. Took me a little while to get into it, due to the stealth based gameplay (I imagine it won't be an issue for you ) but once that had clicked it was a lot of fun. The stealth mechanics (on the default difficulty) actually aren't that aggressive either, meaning it was often possible to botch stuff up and still drop the targets/complete missions. But yeah, you can set up some truly entertaining moments either by planning or by accident, which is great, there is a huge amount of variety and ways to go about playing the game. I'd definitely recommend checking it out. I think the £1 Game Pass Ultimate deal is still running, and the game is definitely still available on GP, if you wanted to check it out a bit before picking it up on PS4. Anyway, I best stop derailing this thread. Have Nintendo announced their "E3" Direct yet?

Hehehe! Yeah, the choice is just ridiculously overwhelming. So right now I'm jumping between several "smallish" games: Nobody Saves the World Pac-Man Museum+ Vampire Survivors Tunic Spelunky 2 Dead Cells And previously (since my last post in the gaming diary thread on here) I've played through: Exo One Hades Halo Infinite Mortal Kombat 11 Hitman III (also played 1 & 2 via this as well) Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master Trek to Yomi And outside of Game Pass: Tomb Raider Game of the Year Edition Resident Evil 4 HD Project The Typing of the Dead: Overkill Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Neon Abyss As for what else I've got my eye on, will probably check out some of the post-Nintendo Rare stuff that I never got the chance to play back in the day and which is now available to me via xCloud. Also considering Assassins Creed Origins, which has just gone up. I've not had much luck with that series before but get the feeling the ancient Egyptian setting might help.

I haven’t really been keeping up with gaming news lately, but it’s still going to feel weird if Nintendo don’t have some kind of showcase planned this month. To be honest though, at the moment I’m most looking forward to the Microsoft event (now there’s something I wouldn’t have said a few years ago! ) especially as I’m back on Game Pass and absolutely loving xCloud.

Just a heads-up for anyone that might be interested, there's currently an offer of 3 months GamePass Ultimate for £1. It's not just reserved for new subscriptions either, I was able to resubscribe at that price. Not had Ultimate since cloud gaming became a thing but have to say I'm really impressed by it! Being able to instantly jump into any game on the service without having to install or update anything is just amazing! You definitely notice the reduced picture quality/compression, but it's no way near as bad as I was expecting, and the games I've tried so far have all been very responsive with no noticeable input lag. It's like some kind of video game magic. Also had a quick go on it via my phone, the smaller screen size definitely hides the picture quality issues (it looks super crisp on a small display) but using the various touch controls is far from ideal. It also seems to absolutely wreck your battery charge. So yeah, it's a bit of a novelty on mobile. Great on a PC monitor/TV though. Having instant access to so much stuff does make it even more difficult to focus on a single title though.

Nice. I never uploaded that many unfortunately, but just checked it out and a few of mine are on there. This one was probably my favourite: https://flipnot.es/T2NA6GX Looks like the archive even identifies music used in a Flipnote, very cool.

Pretty sure I just had it set to random, that's what I usually leave it on if custom stages aren't available. Anyway, cheers for the games. Was cool to play a bit of Smash again.

Just a one-off though (for now...) as I'm currently on another NSO free trial. Reinstalled MK8DX the other day and played through a GP, it was not pretty. Man, my MK8 skills have been absolutely wrecked by playing so much MK Tour! I'm guessing because it's not a city/real-life based track like the majority of new courses in Tour. In which case, Merry Mountain will probably not have the "Tour" marker on it either, if that one makes it over to MK8DX as well. Ninja Hideaway is a great course though, probably the best from Tour TBH (the city ones can be pretty bland) so it's great that it made the jump to MK8.

Looks like content swapping with Tour and 8DX with be going both ways.

Well, I like what I'm hearing about the difficulty level in this review: But the current performance issues on PC mean that I'll probably still wait a while before picking it up. I guess Digital Foundry will chime in soon, be interesting to see what they make of it.

I really want to get this, but at the same time... I don't want to get this. Although I (somehow) managed to make it through Dark Souls II and Bloodborne, they were both pretty stressful experiences for me. Nioh is definitely still my favourite when it comes to this type of game. Not that it wasn't also stressful, it most certainly was, but I think perhaps the setting was just more my cup of tea. Shall be keeping an eye on Elden Ring though, I'm especially interested in how it compares to the games I mentioned above in terms of difficulty.

@Glen-i have you been able to check out the VR version of RE4 at all? That's something I'd quite like to try at some point. Supposedly the aiming in that version of the game is super intuitive. It could never be the definitive version though due to being censored.

Probably not, no. Be funny if they did try to bring him (and SMK Mario) over though, as they already look hilarious in 3D karts, so plonking them on bikes would be even funnier.

Is there no separate mod available for that kind of thing? I suppose mouse cursor control is an option with the PC version too, although I've not tried it myself. While gameplay with the default controller settings in RE4 is indeed pretty clunky (especially when returning to it after a long time playing modern games) it also tends to click quite quickly. I did enjoy IR aiming in the Wii version, but I also seem to recall it making the game less of a challenge as well.