Aperson

*Awaits the inevitable headlines of "It's like Dark Souls" and "the Dark Souls of shooters*

At least the show has a chance of actually being half decent now...

What a film. What's even more surprising is how many Marvel tropes this one avoids using and even breaks. It doesn't even have a happy ending... Watching every film before this is worth it I think, they do reference all the previous films quite a bit. Thor Ragnarok in particular directly leads into this film.

Personally I think 2018 has been a bit of a slow year for video games. There have been some big game releases that have come out so far this year (with yesterday's release of God of War on PS4 being a good example) and there's been plenty of new stuff to potentially play but it doesn't seem like the "biggest" games are really out yet and I can't see the picture changing until after E3 when we get a better idea of what's in store for all three major platforms. I guess this is what happens after a very strong 2017 when so many good new games were released (and some controversial ones), but yeah, 2018 so far is very flat. I haven't purchased any new games this year until today when I decided to download A Hat in Time after being interested in that game for some time.

So, since my last update I've made a fair amount of progress in Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. I have reached Ornstein and Smough... but after dying to them repeatedly and noticing it was now April and I had only finished one game this year (Xenoblade 2) which wasn't even a part of my gaming backlog I decided to change course and play something different. I am now playing Burnout 2: Point of Impact. This is a game that's remained unbeaten in my backloggery for 9 years. Attempting what I thought was the last Grand Prix in this game. No, it turns out there's another Championship mode in this game called the Custom Series Championship to which I have just unlocked the qualifier for after beating the Street Storm Grand Prix. I also beat the Crystal Freeway track and unlocked Pursuit 3, eventually beating that too. There was a pretty weird glitch that happened when doing that where my car crashed and then proceeded to repeatedly fall through the track over and over again before respawning. It was kind of bizarre. I think I will stick to Burnout 2 for now and try and beat that. After that, maybe go back to Dark Souls or revisit Donkey Kong 64 or Golden Sun.

Glad to hear the new Spider-Man game is looking like it will be a good one. It's on my "to buy" list although it was only as a possibility, mainly down to the fact that Insomniac was making it and they earned my trust through the Ratchet & Clank series.

Still playing Dark Souls. I must be getting close to halfway through now or something as I've just reached Anor Londo. Sen's Fortress took forever to finish thanks to many comedic deaths and generally struggling against the serpent guys. At one point I managed to get trapped between two enemies and couldn't escape and they hacked me to death as a result. Annoyingly, every time I died holding a strong amount of souls my next death would ALWAYS come every time I got anywhere near retrieving my souls which was extremely frustrating when trying to build up enough for future level ups. However after many attempts and realising that since I was at the bonfire near the Blacksmith, I had to opportunity to grind for souls and mass purchase arrows. I then used these arrows to avoid combat with enemies on the tight ledges with the swinging axes including the crucial final one where the ledge is incredibly narrow. Then I died to the firebombs... and had to do it again but on my second attempt at getting past them I managed to clear that section. After that the Fortress got significantly easier. The boss at the end that had been forshadowed in a cutscene, Iron Golem, turned out to be incredibly easy, all you have to do is stay behind him and hack away at his legs and he's down. The only reason it took me multiple attempts to beat him was that the arena was incredibly narrow and I was either knocked off the arena or found myself stuck in the scenery and subsequently pushed into a bottomless pit, but I beat him on my third attempt and that's pretty much where I am in the game now.

I'm anticipating that if Man City get past Liverpool in the Champions League then they will have to play Barcelona. Unless Roma shock Barcelona but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Of course the tie just so happens to take place with the Manchester and Merseyside derbies in between.

Meant to get around to this for a while, so here goes. I'm currently mainly playing two games. First of all, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. This is my main game at the moment and after a trepid start I'm starting to really get into it now and learning several new things about how you can play the game. The mechanics sounded a bit intimidating at first but it clicked once I realised that if you accept that your character will die a lot during the game, then it can help things all the more. Which ironically fits so well into the theme of Dark Souls. Anyway, rung the second bell of awakening now after an amazing finish to the battle with Chaos Witch Queelaag in which we both died at the same time. I am now in the Undead Parish and preparing to go to Sen's Fortress which a cutscene pretty much revealed was my next destination. Thanks FromSoft, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do after hunting down and ringing bells. Also some big serpent monster has appeared in Firelink Shrine and told me I'm supposed to succeed Lord Gywn. Hmmm... The other game I'm playing is FIFA 18. I'm playing a career mode with my local team Swindon Town. I'm in my second season after winning promotion as champions of League Two and I've pretty much changed most of the squad with the exception of keeping some of the best players that were available in that starting team. I'm just coming up to the January transfer window but the game's had a rest since I started playing more Dark Souls. Squad is: 1 GK Lawrence Vigouroux 2 DF Diego Bejarano 3 DF Ryan Sessegnon (on loan from Fulham) 4 DF Matt Preston 5 DF Luis Abram 6 DF Nikolay Bodurov 7 MF Donal McDermott 8 MF James Dunne 9 FW Jasse Tuominen 10 FW Dan Agyei 11 FW Kaiyne Woolery 12 GK Will Henry 14 MF Matt Taylor 15 DF Davy de Fauw 16 MF Daylon Claasen 17 MF Dominic Griffiths 19 MF Louis Thompson 20 MF Sylla Padt 21 GK Reice Charles-Cook 22 MF Craig Penny 23 MF Mickael Cuisance (on loan from Borussia Monchengladbach) 24 DF Tosin Adarabioyo 27 DF Steven Vitoria 28 MF Clayton McCleary 39 MF Wang Yong Po My main starting eleven is usually as follows (ratings have improved since this screenshot was taken) This is of course assuming that everyone is fully fit. Unfortunately I've had a lot of injuries so far this season, it got so bad at one point that it clashed with international duty and then this happened against Bradford Dominic Griffiths is a 16 year old youth academy prospect that came into the team this season. He's got really good potential and is already a 64 rated attacking midfielder so I was always going to keep him, it's a shame he got injured but he's now back. I've had more injuries since though. Last game was a derby match against Oxford United on boxing day. It got off to a bad start... ...but it turned out pretty great. Got Portsmouth next and then Chesterfield two days straight afterwards.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it DOES turn out to be a new game and have gameplay identical to Melee's. My reason? Super Smash Bros. Melee is kind of the odd one out at EVO as being the only game that is consistently picked for the tournament despite the fact that it is several years older than all the other games that are at the tournament even alongside it's newest entry. Whereas there's only one Street Fighter, only one Tekken, only one Mortal Kombat/Injustice at every tournament. If Nintendo were to release a new Smash that controlled exactly like Melee it would negate the age issue and try to push the Melee hardcore crowd into a more modern game. Whether that would actually work remains to be seen or not but I think the reasoning is important. I wouldn't be opposed to a Deluxe edition of the last game though.

1. Rex - I fear his inclusion could end up replacing Shulk but at the same time I could see them doing an Earthbound type of situation where both characters are in the game 2. Ice Climbers - Seems like a good idea to bring them back since there's only one version this time 3. Spring Man - There has to be an ARMS rep of some sort. I also have a cpuple of suggestions of a new Pokeball release 1. Bewear - When let out of the ball it runs after the nearest opponent and starts hugging them. The user's % damage racks up while they are being hugged 2. Mimmikyu - I don't know what it would do but it's popular enough to be something that comes out of a Pokeball. New Assist Trophies: 1. Zeke von Genbu - We need the Zekenator in Smash somehow but I suspect an Assist Trophy and a collectable trophy will be all that we get out of it.

If I had to guess, then Rex from Xenoblade 2 is probably also going to be a part of the roster, either replacing Shulk or alongside Shulk. I'm thinking a situation with Ness/Lucas in Brawl where one was available from the start but the other was unlockable. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone from ARMS in the game too. Not too bothered if there's a story mode or not, portable Smash Bros that you can play multiplayer with anywhere is appealing enough for me.

I don't care if it's a port, it's Smash Bros. on Switch and it is the one game I think I would get a lot of mileage out of on the go so...

Really enjoyed the Switch so far. The only thing wrong with it really is that the lack of "new" games that it has which aren't ports from other systems although in some cases getting to play Rocket League, Fast RMX and FIFA 18 on it was a welcome addition. Only 5 "boxed games" owned so far which admittedly is about the same amount of boxed games growth my game collection tends to garner per console. For instance, after owning a 3DS for a year I only had four boxed games and while the Wii U grew to 5 games quickly, that was a console I picked up halfway through it's lifespan. I'm a bit concerned about the lack of games I'm looking forward to on the console in the immediate future right now, Nintendo played many of their cards year one and the next year might be a bit light for the Switch. The games of interest I'm keeping an eye out for are Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon Switch but otherwise the games I'm looking forward to this year are on PS4 (Kingdom Hearts III, Soul Calibur VI and the new Spider-Man game)

Playing through Dark Souls although at a relatively slow pace (read: I keep dying). Made it as far as the Bell Gargoyles. Thought I was doing well at first... then another showed up and started breathing fire. However, I have learned that they are also weak to fire (because video game logic) and that you can avoid taking damage from the fire by rolling through it. I will bear that in mind the next time I try.

Well, there goes Man City's hopes of winning the quadruple... Brilliant result from Wigan, they've done it again.

One of the greatest games I've ever played. Personally I think it's the best game I've ever played on PS2 and they've done a great job upgrading the graphics on PS4. Controls take a bit of getting used to but once you do it's one of the most individual and strikingly stylistic games out there. It's like Dark Souls.... no no no, I'm not talking about the difficulty but more so the atmosphere (and the fact that the graphical styles are similar)

Finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 the other week. A game which simply got better as it went along and the last chapter was amazing and really cool. I gave my thoughts about it overall in the Xenoblade thread so I will just skip to other stuff. Been playing a bit of FIFA 18 here and there and playing career mode with my hometown team Swindon. Still in my first season and only just hit January. Was top for a long time but simmed a few too many games and dropped a few points to allow Luton to catch up. Then on Boxing Day there was a huge 6 pointer against Luton. So of course I was going to play it. Luton are now top of the league... On the bright side, made up for it in the next game... Also playing Dark Souls. Made some progress in the Undead Parish and getting towards the latter spaces now. Found a shortcut back to Firelink Shrine from the Parish which helps this not feel so much like a linear path and more like an explorable world. Now, if only I could get past the monsters in the chapel itself...

Here's a gem from a not very well known PC game...

Well, it's not always going to work out, but as long as the developer sticks to the core principles of Metroid and doesn't go too far then we should hopefully have a solid Metroid game. MercurySteam are the only developer to have succeeded with Metroid in recent times. Please don't make this the Halo 5: Guardians of Metroid Prime... oh wait I suppose we already had that in Federation Force. Personally hoping that they don't force everyone to use dual analogue controls, I just don't get on with that control scheme at all.

Haven't touched this game since beating it. I probably could try and grind for rare blades and max out affinity charts but I have a gaming blacklog that's an ongoing issue. The New Game Plus stuff sounds interesting.

Just beaten the game. Full non-spoilerific thoughts below. Found out during the course of the final battle that I had a Special that refilled everyone's HP so just spammed that and it made the fight significantly easier. Had been struggling beforehand and constantly dying at the halfway point. Overall, I'd say this was a game worth playing. It had it's rocky moments here and there, my views on the character designs and the cameraman still stand and I'm not the biggest fan of Rex, but everything else was so good. It probably won't make my top 10 games of all time list but I wouldn't blame anyone who did put it in there. The second half of the game was an absolute treat and well worth the 100 hours I put into playing the game. The ending that I'm watching is pretty insane too. OK, now for Spoiler stuff.

Attempted the final boss at Level 71. I got to the second phase, before...

Currently fighting Amalthus. This boss fight is pretty challenging although I had a three level disadvantage and ended up losing after reviving a teammate while my lead was on low health with only one full party gauge. Was doing well too, but I may level up a bit more to help with this boss and anything that Chapter 10 might throw my way. On another note, anyone toppled a flying enemy before? Takes ages for them to fly up again to allow you to attack them....

Must admit the main reason I kept Tora in my party was because I liked him as a character. Yes, his catchphrase can get annoying but he's SO much better than Tatsu was in X. If you're willing to grind Ether Crystals for hours playing Tiger! Tiger! then Poppi has the potential to be one of the best Blades in the game. I haven't even maxed out the full potential yet but this is what I'm rocking currently.