Dufniall

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling Review Reviewed by @S.C.G and me, a real team effort! I really enjoyed my time with it as you can tell. Curious to hear if @drahkon agrees with our verdict.

+1!

Opening section of a game: Fallout 3 The game literally starts with you being born, which you see from an FPS view. In the first bits you experience life inside the Vault during various ages. But then you get to step out of the Vault and see this desolate world before you, and you realize just how big of an adventure this is going to be.

Can you do another 12 posts with the CEST time as well?

Day 1: Earliest Game Memory Pfew, this is harder than I thought! The timeline is so blurry for this. I must have been around 4 or 5 and it was a time we didn't have a game console at home yet. I know my brother was hospitalised back then for a long time (nasty disease) and I was spending a lot of time at friends of my parents when they went over to the hospital. They had a Game Boy with Tetris and Super Mario Land. But I also remember playing Duck Hunt at a very young age on the NES, holding the light gun against the TV haha. And said hospital had a Sega Mega Drive with Alex Kidd. But somehow I think before that I already played the Commodore 64 somewhere, and 2 games come to mind first. Rambo And Radar Rat Race I'm not 100% sure but the Commodore games feel vaguer in my memory than the Nintendo games. I know we did get a SNES and Game Boy a couple of years later ourselves. But whether I played the NES, Gameboy or Commodore first I really can't remember. But my memory thinks it's the Commodore.

I second that! Might elaborate a bit later, but Jesus am I fed up with my job.

Ones that are not yet on your list but on my wishlist/library: Firewatch, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, The Stanley Parable, Bioshock Collection, Subnautica (more of a discovery game than a story-driven game though).

I got the "13 items from your wishlist are on sale" email so I figured this must have been the case. I'm not sure what I want to pick up. Sonic Generations is €1 so I'll take that. But for the rest I'm thinking one or two big titles as I don't really play indies on PC. I'm thinking Hellblade, maybe pick up AC: Odyssey or a sim-game like Jurassic World Evolution. I've been eyeing Ace Combat 7 for a while as well, as I loved both the original PS game and the 3DS one. But that's still pretty steep at €20. I'll let it sink in for a bit.

Apparently this isn't available on the Dutch (or Belgian) eShop because of our regulations concerning loot boxes. I have a Japanese account as well, but I don't feel like making another country account for this. It's a weird thing with the current lootbox regulations we have. They are illegal but can't always enforce it. Some games choose to abide by altering bits of the game (NBA 2K20), others just don't launch here (like Ninjala). And some others just ignore it completely (FIFA 20 for example).

Well The Pokémon Company isn't that afraid of killing off smartphone games either. I think it was Pokémon Duel that got canned pretty fast? Oh and same for Pokémon Rumble Rush. That's getting shut down after a little bit more than a year (had to Google it, released in May 2019, terminated July 2020).

Colour me interested. I enjoyed League of Legends before it turned into a toxic hellhole, and Arena of Valor before the Switch version stopped receiving support. It's good to see there's a Switch version and that it supports the controller. Not sure about those graphics though and how the catching mechanism is going to work in a MOBA but we'll see. Also a pretty boring cast of Pokémon to choose from if this is the starting roster. With League of Legends Wild Rift still without a release date I think this can be massive if they can get Pokémon out earlier.

Some gameplay was teased in the New Game+ Expo 2020. Unfortunately, it was obscured by Suda's head. (starts around 1:12)

I think I'm even 2 months behind! So time for a bit of catch up. First I played and reviewed two games for the main site, Snakeybus which is a racing meets Snake highscore game and Infinite - Beyond the Mind which is a action/platform/run and gunner. Yesterday evening I've finished Bug Fables, but I will save these impressions for another review. I also started a couple of new games I haven't finished yet. Horizon Chase: Turbo is a game I picked up in the sale, and is great for a couple of races every evening. It has an amazing Outrun vibe, both in graphics and soundtrack. It's nice to play a racing game again. I found a cheap copy of Stern Pinball Arcade. It's a much more classic pinball experience compared to Pinball FX3, with realistic tables and no skills, quests or leveling up. But it does feature a couple of good tables like AC/DC, Harley Davidson and Last Action Hero. I find pinball games quite relaxing so it's nice to have another one. I finished another major PC game (more later). So it was time to pick a new main game. I have quite a backlog there with games that take op some time, and I was thinking maybe it was time to start The Witcher III. But the Resident Evil VIII reveal trailer came out and I figured that it is time to continue the Resi series. So I started Resident Evil 6, knowing that it may not be a great experience. I've put about 2 hours in Leon's campaign and the start isn't that bad. There were some tense moments in the opening bit, although the end of Chapter 1 was just one big shoot-out (which I believe is one of the biggest criticisms for this game). But there are two games I finished and want to talk about a bit more: Red Alert 3 - Uprising (PC) I love real-time-strategy, I love Command & Conquer and I especially love Red Alert. The first one was one of the first RTS games I ever played. I played Red Alert 2 a lot during high school. And Red Alert 3 got quite some hours when I was in university; playing it in co-op with a roommate. Uprising is the add-on for the third game and it introduces new missions, units and a Commander's Challenge. This latter I never finished up until now! Well, as you can see in the tweet above I completed all missions but I'm stuck at 59% completion. 100% can be achieved by finishing all missions under par time but for now I'm happy with just finishing it. Usually in RTS games I like to take my time, build up a base and then expand my army. I don't really have the speed or dexterity for rush tactics (which is the main reason most levels aren't finished under par time). But some missions really required some quick acting so they did prove to be quite a challenge! Luckily the game is such a joy to play that I didn't care about having to restart a mission a dozen times. The soundtrack is out of this world. The units are already over the top in Red Alert 3, but Uprising adds stuff like gigantic floating mech heads and tanks with grinders on them. I can understand that a lot of people don't appreciate the colorful, over-the-top game that Red Alert 3 is but I absolutely adore it. One of the great things is that the game still features full motion video cutscenes with tongue-in-cheek acting, something that even in 2008 when the game came out already was outdated. But to me it's a part of what makes the series great. Now that the Command & Conquer remake is out and gets pretty good reviews, and now it looks like EA is getting a little bit of their former glory back, I hope they breathe new life in the series. Or at least start working on a Red Alert 2 remake! Metroid: Samus Returns (Nintendo 3DS) After playing a couple of MetroidVanias lately I figured I wanted to play more of them. Metroid: Samus Returns was sitting on my shelf unplayed so that was an obvious choice, also because I wanted to play my 3DS some more. At the beginning I really had trouble going back to the low-resolution screen, but luckily the stereoscopic 3D in this game is excellent and made the graphics acceptable. It took me a couple of hours to get into the game, and I wasn't really sure if I liked it but after a while I noticed that I couldn't put it down. I kept wanting to see what was in the next area. For a MetroidVania it felt pretty linear, but it does a great job with giving you the feeling of exploration. Some battles are intense and some bosses tough as nails. It introduces some cool new mechanics such as a parry move, although after a while when you have some more advanced weaponry I hardly used it anymore and just blasted my way through everything. It's another thing this game does so well. You start out relatively weak but in the end you are just this all-powerful killing machine. It's a great remake, and I hope that next to Metroid Prime 4 we will get a new 2D Metroid as well in the near future.

He did say though that he doesn't consider Spring Man/Ribbon Girl to be the protagonists though, but rather that the whole cast is a main character. Anyway, great presentation. I just love his dry sense of humour (why ARMS? Because the ARMS producer told me they wanted ARMS in Smash). Also how he hid the amiibo behind his flowers haha. Also love the fact that his living room is basically a couch, 2 big ass TV sets and 10 or so game consoles. What more does a man need? Min Min looks like a great and unique character. You just feel how much thought has been put into her, and that they really worked together with the ARMS team on this one. Only the final Smash is a bit disappointing, as it is basically similar to Hero/Mega Man's final Smash.

Maybe we will get a surprise reveal for ARMS 2, with a new protagonist who will then join Smash.

Place your bets!

Why is that sounding so familiar? For those who want to (re)watch EA's Play Live 2020:

Looks like the Scarlett is a popular choice, and seeing your reactions and reviews online I'm guessing it is the best value for money interface out now. ...However, I decided to go against the grain and got me the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 2. I actually already got it by the end of A pril, but forgot to mention it here! Main reasons were the price at that moment, the aesthetics (the red of the Scarlett wouldn't look so sweet on my desk haha) and the Guitar Rig 5 inclusion. I've been toying with it a little bit, mostly jamming along with YouTube songs on bass or guitar and trying out the different sounds included in Guitar Rig 5. That works pretty well, I can just plug in my headphones and jam along without bothering anyone. I also tried recording a bit. It comes with Ableton Live Lite which I find a bit cumbersome to use so far. I'm having difficulty importing drum tracks or creating them using Ableton, and muting and unmuting channels is not as easy as it should be. So that will either take a while to learn or maybe I should look into a better/more userfriendly program for recording. I did manage to put down a bass track though over a drumtrack our band's drummer recorded. Mailed him the .wav back so our first corona collab song is in the making. I think what I need to do first is take my sweet time in learning Ableton, so at least I know what I'm doing when recording. But there aren't many guides for the Lite version. So any advice for a recording program or some beginner tips are welcome!

...next week!

Oh SNAP!

Can't wait for Pokémon Potty training... Totally going to download it and put it on tonight when brushing my teeth, just to see my GF's reaction haha.

So the Digital Days sale is over. Did you pick anything up? I settled for Horizon Chase Turbo and Gato Roboto, a short burst game and a short game so my backlog wouldn't suffer too much. I did pick up a "physical" (code in a box) version of Stern Pinball Arcade as well, and damn it has some great tables.

I'm at least going to give them all a go, but can't promise I'll finish them all. I played and finished yours @RedShell, and I tried @Dcubed's as well but didn't complete it yet. @Sméagol still needs to be played. But I got a bit distracted by your other levels such as Microgame$ and Mario plays Koopa, I'll talk about them tomorrow in the other thread!

Yeah the postcards are up for other countries now as well. 400 Platinum points plus shipping: Germany - 3,99 EUR / 3,55 GBP / 4,45 CHF Other countries* - 6,99 EUR / 6,25 GBP / 7,80 CHF The other items (Hanafuda decks and card decks) are also available in other countries.

Although it's posted on the EU Twitter account, it looks for now only to be UK only. So get them while they're hot, and here's hoping they come to the mainland as well.