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Dufniall

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Posts posted by Dufniall

  1. Posted

    I'm almost done with my first listen, it takes a while but that's not a bad thing. :grin: So far the songs that stand out are The Writing On The Wall, Days Of Future Past and Death Of The Celts. But with these new Maiden songs they definitely need to sink in a bit.

    Interesting to see A Matter Of Life And Death at the top of your modern Maiden list! Something you don't see very often. My list would be (leaving out Senjutsu):

    • The Final Frontier (When The Wild Winds Blow is indeed one of the best newer Maiden songs)
    • Dance of Death
    • Book of Souls
    • A Matter Of Life And Death
    • Brave New World (I got into Maiden around the time of Dance of Death, so this album always went by me a bit and is one of the reasons I rank Dance of Death quite high)
    • Like 2

  6. Posted

    On 27-8-2021 at 3:19 AM, WackerJr said:

    The credits have just rolled for me & ONLY NOW do I discover this!?!! 🤦🏻‍♂️🤪
     

    Those health boosts would’ve been useful...

    I can imagine the final boss being a challenge with 4 hearts! It already was for me with 6. Anyway, credits rolled here as well so I'll write up a short impression here soon, and after your input I'll throw it all into the blender for a Throwback Thursday article!

    • Thanks 1

  8. Posted

    Last Friday a 90 eurocents/80 pence bit of DLC launched for The Wonderful 101 Remastered, adding Prince Vorkken as playable character:
     

    Quote

     

    Unlock a new mode that lets you change the main player character to Prince Vorkken Ohgee, heir to the throne of the comet Rhullo and leader of the star-spanning Guyzoch Space Pirates! As Prince Vorkken, the Multi-Unite ability is replaced with "Enemy-Unite," which summons a host of "Unify Monster" alien beasts!

    "The Prince Vorkken" also works with the free Time Attack DLC. Use Prince Vorkken's Enemy Unite to carve out a new path, and perhaps a faster time!

    *Players can switch freely between normal mode and The Prince Vorkken mode after installing "The Prince Vorkken" DLC.

     

    For that price I may give it a go. I'm kind of wondering though when they will share more news of the promised Kickstarter stretch goal modes.

  10. Posted

    Update time! Finished quite a few books since my last post:

    Haruki Murakami - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Not my favourite from Murakami, but still a great read. Again, the story tells the tale of two interwoven worlds (as is pretty common in Murakami books). It's as vague as always and I won't even try to explain, but it's a great read and how the story slowly unfolds and the two stories come together in typical Murakami fashion is well executed.

    The Fork, the Witch and the Worm - Christopher Paolini. A book with three short stories set in the world of Alagaesia (the world from the Inheritance series). For those not familiar, it's the tale of Eragon the dragon rider, I really enjoyed the 4 books from the main series. This has two pretty good side stories and one lesser one (which is written by Christopher's sister but it just misses the point). A quick and decent read if you want more Alagaesia.

    Face It - Debbie Harry. The biography of Debbie Harry, singer of Blondie but also solo artist, and actress. It's always great to read about the start of popular bands, rock and punk music, and this does a good job highlighting the early Blondie days, and the New York City vibe of the 70s/80s. There are some dark bits in there as well, about sexual assault and criminality that fell on her, those were some heavy bits to read. It's a bit less structured than other bios I've read, so it goes a bit all over the place sometimes. Difficult to recommend if you're not into Blondie or the punk from the early days, but if that is your cup of tea it paints an interesting picture. It's also the first bio I read from a female artist.

    Godendrank - Ilja Gort. A Dutch book from a guy who owns a winery in France (his wines are pretty nice!). The book is also about a hippie who sells his record shop in Amsterdam to buy a winery estate. Naturally, it's not all fun and games so he has to go through quite some hoops to make his winery work (such as starting a cannabis plantation in his vineyard). Very tongue in cheek, not literary at all and it's more like watching a comedy movie than reading a book. Perfect for a quick summer read.

    And now I've started The Subtle Knife, book 2 in the His Dark Materials series.

  11. Posted

    After a good 10 hours credits have rolled on Axiom Verge 2. I'm going to throw it into spoiler tags just to be safe. Won't spoiler too much,but will mention some of the upgrades and if you want to go in completely blind better not read the next part. Conclusion: Good game, not as good as the first one, but with plenty of interesting moments, plays well and sounds well, and a bold move to take quite a different approach compared to the first game.
     

    Spoiler

     

    Compared to Axiom Verge 1, there are quite some different choices made. First of all, out with the guns and in with melee weaponry. Combat is much more focused on melee, but overall the game focuses less on combat (you can bypass most enemies if you want), and it's more about (vertical) exploration. Unfortunately this also means the departure of the room-filling bosses from the first game, which is a shame.

    The biggest twist is a hacking mechanism you pick up quite soon, which lets you hack enemies, gates and the likes. You can choose to slow enemies, make them your allies, blow them up, giving combat a more tactical approach. With all your other Metroidvania powerups, you can feel that the dev wanted to avoid reusing abilities from the first game, so your moveset in the end is quite different from the one in Axiom Verge.

    The story is a bit vague and all over the place. The main storyline is kind of clear, but the lore you find underway is vague, unclear and makes it unnecessary complicated.

    The game looks and sounds great. The main world has the same pixely vibe as Axiom Verge 1, but the Breach (a parallel world you can enter as a drone) has a very bright, even more pixely look. Soundtrack is fitting too, it's not only chiptunes but there are some chanted parts as well which gave me goosebumps the first time.

    Would give it a solid 8/10. Love the different approach, although I do prefer guns over melee. Also I miss the big bosses. The world is more interesting though, and the parallel world you can go through works great too.

     

     

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    28 minutes long apparently, that's hefty! Wonder if they'll show anything else outside of the remakes and Arceus. Or maybe another Pokémon 25 years reel or something.

    Also, Pokemon in the topic title, that hurts almost as much as people saying Pokémons! Plus, Pokemon somehow sounds dirty.

  15. Posted · Edited by Vileplume2000

    Perfect timing for this one. Just finished Immortals Fenyx Rising, and I was considering what to play next, and then the Indie Direct was shown, and then Axiom Verge 2 dropped. So yeah, picked it up, only a 450Mb download, and played about an hour. Plays super smooth, vague stuff happening, soundtrack sounds great. This is going to be good!

    @Sméagol: Limited Run pre-orders for the physical start October 1st. Don't know how long they usual take between pre-orders and actual shipping but October is already quite soon.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    Great showing yesterday. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk looks cool, a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio. TOEM looks interesting as well, the black and white photography one. Really happy that Metal Slug Tactics is coming to the Switch, prefer to play it there instead of on the PC. Tetris Effect is a nice addition, although I had my share of Tetris games.

    Axiom Verge 2 drop was the highlight, I don't remember when the last time was that I picked up a new indiegame instead of waiting for a sale, but for this I made an exception. Put about an hour into it and I feel it's going to be good!

    @S.C.G: The first game has been on sale numerous times, with discounts of at least 50% (maybe more). So if you are interested I'd say wait a bit longer for a bigger sale. Part 2 is also 10% off now.

    • Thanks 1

  19. Posted

    Well, this is a pickle. The poll closed (set it to close at midnight) and I forgot to vote myself haha.

    Four titles ended with two votes; Ninja Gaiden got zero. My favourite game from the list is Elite Beat Agents, but I played through it already quite recently. So I'm going to vote for Kirby: Power Paintbrush. It's Kirby, it's touch, it's not too long. It's available on WiiU and Nintendo DS. These are my arguments.

    SI_NDS_KirbyPowerPaintbrush_enGB.jpg

    How long did we usually reserve for playing the game? A month or so?

  21. Posted

    11 hours ago, Jonnas said:

    Well, well, this is the first time we decide this via forum poll, I believe! Intriguing selection of games we landed on, and we can't change votes...

    I was kind of hesitant if I should do a fixed poll or keep it open for politics, but let's see how this goes. In case of a draw we can always do a second vote between the winners.

    11 hours ago, nekunando said:

    If you'd went with Phantom Hourglass ahead of Spirit Tracks and its slow, laborious dungeons, my vote may have went a different direction but I've went for the one I'd love an excuse to blast through again..

    To be honest I would have picked Phantom Hourglass over Spirit Tracks as well (because it is less fresh in my memory, and it is the first Zelda DS game so the order would be more correct), but because @Jonnas preferred ST I went for that one. 

    It's an interesting list, that's for sure! I don't know yet who will get my vote, as a couple of games would be fun to revisit. I'll... think about it a bit longer.

    • Thanks 1

  22. Posted

    A couple of Dutch outlets had a hands-on session and they put some previews up online. They all kind of noted the same things:

    • The colours of the OLED are a lot more vibrant than those of the original Switch. Higher contrast and colourful games like Mario Kart really pop.
    • The screen can go a bit darker than the OG Switch, but also a bit brighter. If this is enough to make it playable outside can't be said.
    • Viewing angles from the side are also a lot better, so if you look at it from an angle visibility is better. Useful in tabletop mode.
    • The device looks a lot more modern thanks to the bezel-less design. The extra 0,7 inch is very noticeable. And although pixels are a bit more visible, it isn't disturbing.
    • Speaker upgrade was not very noticeable during the hands-on for some, others thought it was a decent improvement.
    • Kickstand is a big improvement. Much more stable, and the Switch can be set in any position from almost flat to almost upright.
    • Buttons are different, the cartridge slot is a bit more difficult to open.
    • Thanks 2

  23. Posted · Edited by Vileplume2000

    "Touch the bottom rectangle, you might like it!"

    ***For a general introduction to what the N-E Game Club is about click here. If you are unable to participate this round, but want to join in the future, then go ahead and post your ideas in that thread as well.***

    For the glorious return of the N-E Game Club, it's time to dust of your good old Nintendo DS Phat/Lite and start scratching that bottom screen, because the theme for this round is touch-heavy Nintendo DS games. The dawn of the Nintendo DS led to two major things. First, the trend for publishers to come up with game titles that had DS in it (Deadly Silence, Dawn of Sorrow, Dual Strike...), and second, heavy reliance of the touch screen.

    Plenty of games went for a touch-only, or mostly touch approach and these are the games that will star in this month's poll. The biggest problem here is that a bunch of these titles are not widely available, so I hope we can still get some participants.

    Anyway, here is the shortlist:

    • Elite Beat Agents (available on Nintendo DS) 2 votes
    • Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (available on Nintendo DS, Apple iOS) 2 votes
    • Kirby: Power Paintbrush (available on Nintendo DS, WiiU virtual console) 3 votes
    • Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (available on Nintendo DS) 0 votes
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (available on Nintendo DS, WiiU virtual console) 2 votes

    Get your votes up, I'll leave the poll open for a week so we can decide the winner on Monday August 9. Be sure to vote and declare yourself in or out!

    UPDATE:

    The game that rolled out as the winner is Kirby: Power Paintbrush. Let us know below if you are going to join in. Let's aim for September 1st to round this off and give your opinions if Kirby touched your heart (again).

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    I've been toying with the idea of choosing a Nintendo DS game with the theme:

    "Touch the bottom rectangle, you might like it!"

    Basically, games from classic series that went all-out with touch controls on the Nintendo DS. Think stuff like Yoshi Touch&Go, The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks, Kirby: Power Paintbrush, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword.

    The biggest issue with these games is that they are not that widely available; most are only on DS, and some are on the WiiU virtual console. Still, I would like to test the waters for this theme. So let me hear your yays or nays, and suggestions for other titles if yay so we can get a poll going.

    • Thanks 1
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