bob

Spotify recommended lots of songs by Two Steps from Hell, who are a group who make songs that sound like film scores (but apparently aren't). Their album Battlecry is pretty good, even if it makes me want to go and see a film that doesn't exist.

I really enjoyed Horizon, even going so far as to get the platinum for it, which i rarely do, so it must have done something right. However, i'm only a few hours into BOTW, so I can't really do any truly fair comparisons. However, I agree with @Ronnie that the exploration was never a big part of H:ZD. You might have wandered through an area, and stumbled across something interesting, but it was always as a means to get somewhere else, rather than exploration just for the fun of it. Indeed, other than finding a breeding ground of new fighting robots, there wasn't ever anything that interesting to find. The odd ruined building that you couldn't go in; a rock that you couldn't climb etc. BOTW meanwhile seems to be all about exploration, where you could find something interesting and diverting over every hill. The combat is where H:ZD really shines. It was a really enjoyable experience taking on the bigger robots, and once you got all the best gear, you could toy with them, taking them apart bit by bit until you chose to finish them off. Timing your slide or jump to dive out of the way of a robot's charge while firing an explosive arrow into it's flank felt like a Michael Bay set piece, and never got old. Ultimately, the robots are the true stars of H:ZD, as finding new 'species' (models?) and working out how to take them down was the most enjoyable part*. I can't wait for the inevitable sequel, not because I wan't to find out about the story, but because I'm looking forward to all the new types of robot it'll have in it. Having said that, the story was still pretty good, and the voice acting was top notch (Lt. Daniels!), where watching cut scenes was actually enjoyable. Compare that to BOTW where any story exposition is like watching paint dry with a toddler narrating over the top. *Excluding glint hawks. Fuck them.

Gah! I spent nearly two hours trying to work out how to do the puzzle with the large turny wheel thingy within the giant elephant, determined not to cheat and Google the answer. I was trying everything, thinking that I had to turn the giant wheel by re-directing water, or by thwacking the giant ball into the middle and holding it there with the time-stopper. In the end I had to Google the answer, and it turns out you have to pull up the map and you can just turn the wheel from there?! WTF?

Kirby's Dream Course (SNES)

Is it actually a fact that he works himself to exhaustion, or is it just assumed? Maybe he clocks off at 3.30pm and goes home to game?

Anyone else keep seeing Jimmy Saville whenever they look at @Sméagol 's avatar?

Dunno, sounds shopping related to me. What were you buying at the time?

Look, its obvious he doesn't want to be friends with you. Just let it go. It's getting really awkward for the rest of us.

So [email protected] is way in the lead?

Yeah it really wasn't my intention to get this far, but there isn't really any indication of what point you are supposed to start the divine beasts...

No, its a hyphen. I'm winning.

I had the day off work on Wednesday to wait for the washing machine repair man, and so got a good few hours of play on this. I was wandering around the Lanayru section of the map when I ran into some Zora chap who told me to go up to the Zora domain to help him. From then on, the next section felt much more Zelda-y. A pretty linear charge up a mountain, followed by some terrible cut-scenes and further exposition of the plot. I was then told to go and kill some Lion-centaur to get enough shock arrows to help stop the giant mecha-elephant from making it rain. However, when i found the Lion-centaur, I found that I was woefully under prepared in fighting him (i've still only got 5 hearts, and a single mean look from Lion-o seemed to take off more than that). So I just snuck around the outside of his plateau and gathered up the required arrows without bothering him (he seemed like a busy Lion-centaur), and went to meet the fish prince. Together, fish prince and I defeated the mecha elephant, and I'm now wandering around inside it. Overall, I'm really enjoying the exploration and puzzle solving elements of the game, but not really enjoying the combat... Which is why i really liked that you could bypass fighting the lion man and still continue with the game. My least favourite parts of previous Zelda games is when they used to lock you in a room with an enemy and your weren't allowed out until you'd defeated them.

That might be intentional? They might have decided to have all of the fighters pass characters come from 3rd parties, which would suggest that this last one will too.

Ah, but I'd have a 100% success rate in predicting characters, which is the highest you can be.