Dufniall

Day 20 - Saddest Moment Another toughie, somehow the medium of video games doesn't hit me as hard as books or movies. So I'm going for one I experienced quite recently. It's in Valkyria Chronicles, when

Day 19 - Melee Combat A certain brawler with the word melee in it is a very good runner-up, but the gold goes to Bayonetta 2. The combat in here is so fluent and satisfying, like a hot knife cutting butter. The options to equip different weapon sets for a different playstyle is the icing on the cake.

Day 18: Best mini game I'm not sure how mini it is as it's more of a different game mode but I loved The Mercenaries in Resident Evil 4. Unlocking all characters and getting high scores, I think I played that mode more than the actual campaign. Especially Krauser with his crossbow was awesome. Loved that they put out a Mercenaries game later on the 3DS, although the one in RE4 still feels superb. Shoutouts go to Quickdraw in Kirby's Adventure, Balloon Battle in Mario Kart and all of the Warioware games.

Day 17: Racing game I was also going to go for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, as it's amazingly fun, full of content and such a joy to play, especially online with N-E peeps or local with a friend. But it's more of a party game than a racer in my opinion. So I'm with @Ronnie on this that I'm also going for a game that impressed me a lot when I was a kid. A game that had awesome shining cars like the Lamborghini Countach and Diablo, and the Ferrari 550. A game that had a real sense of speed. It's Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit. The sequels High Stakes, and Underground 1 and 2 were amazing as well. After that I didn't play another NFS but what I've heard it was quite downhill from there anyway. NFS III was amazing, I've played it a lot split screen against my brother on the PC, first two people on one keyboard and later we got a gamepad. Being the police, deploying spikestrips and catching him and vice versa was great. But racing was also superb, very arcadey though (never got into realistic racers anyway) and I thought it looked mind blowing for that time.

I don't think so no. But next week would be the right time for a Direct or at least a trailer drop of something. Paper Mario is out now and for the rest the release calendar is rather empty.

The Contra Collection, Castlevania Collection and the Capcom Classics Collection are all on sale for €4,99. Picked up the first two:

Well, I think that's exactly what you need to do in @Sméagol's level, as you need to be big to get the goomba to drop right? @DcubedI never managed to pull that off! I always hit one of the spikes or slipped from the ice cube! And you call it easy haha.

I think @Dcubed level has a forced hit right in front of the icicle-hits-the-POW moment, on the icecube through the lava. I think it's impossible to get through that bit with a mushroom. Don't know for @Sméagol's. Managed to find your weirdface route @RedShell! And I also managed to grab the speed record. Could have been even faster but for now I'm happy taking it

Mutant Mudds Collection and Outlast: Bundle of Terror are heavily discounted now on the eShop by the way. Would love to play Untitled Goose Game but that never seems to go on sale.

Day 16: Most interesting collectibles The cats in Astral Chain. Because cats are great, and collecting cats for a shelter is adorable. But they are challenging to find and catch as well. Haven't found them all yet!

This is my pick as well. It doesn't happen often that I'm left in confusion in a good way by the end of a game!

Just going for the first ones that pop into my head. But I'm quite a fanatic concert and festival visitor. Mostly metalbands (I tried to keep the number of obscure metalbands in the list to a minimum :P) but I've visited a bunch of pop/rock festivals with the misses as well. Last years I shifted mostly from festivals to clubshows but I try to at least visit a bunch every year! Do livestreams count by the way in the Covid day and age? Missing just two, but that can also just be my memory failing me! Anyway cool topic idea @soag, and a good taste in music too! A = Amy Macdonald B = Bad Religion C = The Cure D = Devin Townsend Project E = Editors F = Flogging Molly G = Ghost H = Hexvessel I = Iron Maiden! J = Jack Johnson K = Kaiser Chiefs L = Linkin Park M = Metallica N = Nightwish O = Opeth P = Prodigy Q = Queens of the Stone Age R = Rammstein S = Snow Patrol T = Tool U = Unleashed V = Volbeat W = Within Temptation X = Y = Yob Z =

Right, played them all, finished them all except one (you can guess which one haha), and here is the verdict! @Dcubed @Glen-i @RedShell @Sméagol I'm also voting for @Glen-i, love the simplicity of it. Thanks for all your levels though, quite some different concepts and interpretations of the theme!

Day 14 - 2D platformer I don't have to think long about this one: Such an amazing game. Full of secrets, great soundtrack, charming cutscenes after each castle, and it has Yoshi!

Day 13 - Best Open World City Game I also haven't played many open world games that take place in the city. Somehow I never got into the 3D GTA games, so I'm just going to enjoy this blast from the past as I've played that a lot. Why it is Grand Theft Auto 2! Elvis has left the building! My favourite thing to do back then was to just park endless rows of cars and create chain-reaction explosions.

Apparently you can register here to get your free goodies: https://register.ubisoft.com/ubisoft-forward-reward/ After registering you will soon receive your free PC copy of Watch Dogs 2 in your Uplay PC library. The other in-game rewards will soon await you directly in the related games. I'll check tonight if it is in my library.

Apparently it also connects to the Mario starter set: https://www.bricktastic.nl/lego-18/lego-71374-nintendo-entertainment-system-nes-verschijnt-op-1-augustus-in-lego-shop/ The site's in Dutch but the images show it. You can also see the backside of the TV. Officially confirmed btw:

I used to be active on a couple of music forums and both have kind of died. One just pulled the plug and shifted to a Facebook group, and there's hardly any activity there compared to when it was still a forum. The other one is still up, but only a couple of users are posting there. And then there is N-Europe, a forum where I have been lurking for years and years but only really started posting when I started writing for the main site as well. I also check out a forum every now and then from a big Dutch tech website. They have a very active community, but the downside there is that a lot of new members keep asking the same basic things (in the Nintendo thread every other day someone asks when the Switch 2 is coming or how the Online Family Plan works). I think there are a couple of reasons why forums are going down and there are only a couple of really active ones left. Like said a lot of the discussion has shifted from web forums to social media. Add to that that I believe that the younger generation is not looking for lengthy discussions. They want their info fed bitesized by short YouTube videos, and they can either agree and feel validated or complain very hard if they disagree. If they do have an opinion they will probably start making their own content on a YouTube channel instead of joining a discussion forum. My Twitter feed is very gaming-centric, but I have hardly seen any good discussions there. In fact it is sad to see that every single post from a bigger gaming outlet (say Nintendo) leads to the same responses. Either people asking for stuff (DIRECT PLS!!1!) or they can only respond in memes. Personally, when I was still in university I had time aplenty and I would post complete bookworks on forums. But now time is limited due to a 40-hour job, my other hobbies and owning a house where there is always something to do. Also I don't feel the need anymore to ventilate my opinion on every subject. So I just pick a couple of topics I'm interested in. But I enjoy what I got from N-Europe, which is a bunch of people to talk games with, get some online games going with. For me that's enough, and I think it's difficult to get it much bigger again then it is now. The only viable thing I can think of is asking old members back (which seems to work!) or grow a lot with the frontpage to attract new members. But that last part is a struggle as well, as most of the staff here also has only a little time to put into the main site due to work etc.

Day 12: Favourite awful game A game not many people seemed to like, but I had a blast with it. I picked it up at a bargain price, but even at full price I may have found it acceptable. I got some of the paid DLC as well. Yes it's repetitive, and basically is following waypoints and going from one battle to the next but it had a nice flow to it, and exploring the universe and different planets was enjoyable.

Haha nice! I still enjoy playing the Thunderbird, such a great looking piece of work. Did you go for the Pro or the regular one?

Yeah I know it should be tomorrow but I don't know how much time I have to play tomorrow so I figured why not haha. I tried some of the courses from you and @RedShell from the other thread, but I need to go back to MM some more. But so much to play these days.

Day 11 - Favourite Town/Village My village of Metopia in Animal Crossing: Wild World. Still my favourite AC game!

Day 10: Credits sequence Another difficult one as credits scenes normally don't really stick with me. Usually I just have to let the feeling of finishing a game sink in. Fun side question: do you guys skip the credits if you can? I always watch them at least once, but skip them if I have seen them already. Games with a minigame like Smash Ultimate depends if I feel like doing the minigame. Anyway, I like games that show enemy lists in the credits, especially with names. Like in Kirby's Dream Land or Super Mario World. But one that stuck with me from one of the more recent games I played is Doom. Really cool perspectives from the Doomguy and his enemies.

Not too fussed about Paper Mario, but I'm curious to see what third party IP WayForward is going to make. I'm trying to think what it could be but can't think of anything. Maybe something Disney like they did with Ducktales Remastered? I love how directly Nintendo fires down the possibility of it being first party. That prevented a possible meltdown or two.