darksnowman

Looks like I did this, just three years later. Got Ghostbusters The Videogame Remastered during the summer for a few quid (thought I'd be better pouncing but it's still going cheap if anyone's interested) and left it for this past week. I had to retry the early streets part time and time and again. Kept getting one-shotted by offscreen ghosts and gargoyles. It was tough to take it on the chin because it seemed unfair. I finally took Ray's chatter on board, and after reading through the menus I figured out you can press L to slam the ghosts you won't be capturing which helped get them out of the way and turn the tide, because trying to whittle them down with the blast stream takes a good while. I noticed the other Ghostbusters actually pull their weight so I put more stock into keeping them alive rather than trying to zap n trap everything myself. It wasn't too much of a great time there when it was taking longer to reload to the checkpoint than the time I was able to spend trying to bust those ghosts, but when I figured out these aforementioned things it got me through and stood me in good stead for the rest of the game... even if I still got tangled up with the buttons now and again... and had to die and retry at various points later on too. With the various upgrades it became more of a shooter and less the Luigi's Mansion sort of experience I expected. It felt great to roll out with the Ghostbusters. The atmosphere, the settings, the cutscenes and in-game banter. Just having a nosey around the firehouse (the employee of the month board, haha) was fun and interesting, as was looking around the various levels. The way you can read notices and placards right there without the need to press A and listen to information on the exhibits in the museum. The way it makes you feel like you're right there is really well done. Then when you're in first-person mode with the PKE meter it's like a horror game. The sound effects had me on edge. A rudimentary character editor might have been nice because the Rookie you play as is as generic a placeholder as they come. A bit of personalisation may have gone a long way. It was a fun time that didn't outstay its welcome. Well worth the couple of quid. Wonder if the Rookie went on to open up his franchise...? I was expecting it to end with a Lylat Wars-style invoice because we absolutely laid waste to everywhere we went.

I played about a fortnight's worth of in-game time. I was only starting to give in to what the game expects of you because there truly seems to be no "good" or even "less bad" way to go about playing this. I just wanted to build up the camp and feed off the follower's devotion positively but nope, every upgrade goes against that and there's that entity reminding you your followers are to be treated as objects to be used and abused. Last thing I did was perform a ritual that sacrificed a follower! Thought it was going to be a celebration that'd level them up. I was horrified! Benevolent cult leaders need not apply. Boo. It'd be great if you can unlock the option to build them a toilet. I wanted to give them beds, provide the foundation to be self-sufficient with cooking and cleaning up after themselves (poo and puke!) and build from there. Like, if they could take care of themselves and leave me free to venture out on crusades, I'm sure we could build a little utopia. The first time I died, a dissenter rose up in the ranks because apparently, my leadership credentials were a sham if I was getting bested out there in Darkwood. The game told me I should either put him to death or in prison. I left him free to roam around and tried engage with him in the hopes of re-education and reintegration into the flock. My attempts fell on deaf ears because he disappeared. Not sure if he's defected to another cult and I should expect him back to steal my followers away. By the second time I'd a dissenter I'd built a stockade so I put him there and re-educated him before he could leg it. The others would wander over and point and laugh at the confused fellow. One follower told me it'd be funny to feed another one a bowl of poop. I didn't want to but if you say no you lose 25 faith with the requesting follower. So I begrudgingly did it and I think it cost me with the victim. Then he came back and said it was such a lark we should do it again. I declined and took the -25. So even though I said I was starting to give in to what the game wants from me, I suppose I wasn't exactly all in on it. Moral quandaries aside, it's reminiscent of ActRaiser, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing and the gameplay feels great—can't fault it there. The dice minigame is cool, fishing's not bad. It's cute that load screens are labelled summoning, but I just wish it was better optimised to load quicker but this seems to be a thing with pretty much all rogue-like/lite games that aren't Shiren the Wanderer. They've unapologetically gone for it with their vision... as troubling as that can be.

Fantastic. Well done. I've been off AC for about a year (only went back to get Paradise Planning up to 30). I still want to get on it again regularly as there's plenty of those Nook Miles challenges to tick off, and I've a vague design plan in mind for the back-left area of the island. The thing is, when I did those last few paradise homes to get me up to the 30 reward, I wasn't seeing the charm of the game any more, I was seeing the "hassle" of it. Still. My island is perpetually decked out for Halloween so I can't believe I haven't been on it recently to enjoy that now it's in season. Are you still claiming the daily Nook Points on the NSO app? I've 5,000+ and no sign of anything new to spend them on.

(video should play @ 1min) I'm hoping people will try out the Mysterious Murasame Castle and be like "oh yeah, Mario Maker's on the shelf" and get back on it.

In the first one to three levels when I was trying to figure the game out, at one point I considered that you might need to talk to all the flowers to get that green stamp!!

Kitties? I thought they were damn dirty dogs. If I remember right, I got them at the second time of asking by going after the one on the right because on the first go, it smugly boosted their attack allowing them to do a swift number on me. I didn't expect that tweak in tactics to work immediately so the cards must have come out right for me and less favourably for it on that second go. Once it was dispatched with, the other one pretty much just sat there and buffed its defence while we (Kalas, Gibari, Xelha) dealt with it at our leisure. I'm sure you can leave those levels for after if you double check to make sure your best ATK and DEF cards are in your decks.

These news story round-ups are handy. Skimming back up them, I'd missed that MK1 was already patched on Switch. I've seen people on my friends list on that Suika game but tbh I thought it looked like shovelware. If N-E is covering it then it must be well-known and somewhat of a gem? I gave Speedstorm a go the other week. It plays well (just had to get used to shoulder button to go)! Obviously, it wants you to spend money but you can just play through the races, complete the objectives and progress pretty painlessly. It's paced well in that respect but I wouldn't be surprised if it's set up so you hit a wall later that you have to grind past races to proceed beyond or, inevitably, get your credit card. It's from Gameloft so if you've already tried Asphalt 9 on Switch you'll know what to expect because it's very much like it except with a Disney coat of paint.

Wasn't it part of your contractual obligations to speak like that anyway? Now that's what you call "Work Time Fun".

*reins Ha, cod bro. That's pretty good. They knew what they were doing with that. Nothing similar's springing to mind except TMS is SMT backwards and I like the way it feels to say DQB2, so I've found this potentially smirkworthy list, some of which you might have sold. Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG) League of Legends Master of Orion Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (apparently lovingly known as STFU) Kung Fu Chaos N.U.D.E.@ Natural Ultimate Digital Experiment Work Time Fun

These stages in the Fungi Mines are very cool indeed. And seasonal to boot. Had to go back through one just to find the Wonder Flower—it was the first time it had been hidden that particular way, I think. And the Didn't know I needed that movement option until I was doing it! Currently got it parked at a level the dude advised me to revisit with the sensor badge equipped so it looks like it's time to temporarily doff the parachute cap.

https://www.n-europe.com/news/play-cult-of-the-lamb-for-free-with-nintendo-switch-online/ There's still time to try out the full game. It seems to have some pretty satisfying gameplay. Send it to your Switch and start your cult today! https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Cult-of-the-Lamb-2210770.html

Meanwhile we've been like martinist? martinist?

If you're enjoying that, I can also do you some Castlevania Anniversary Collection and Contra Anniversary Collection. I'm also willing to hand over the reigns if you want to take over as father figure to Glen-i.

I just did this level earlier. That was a fun segment. Those wee pull-chord guys could be in the running for my favourite new enemy. Think they're called Revvers but I'll know for sure when I see the enemy roll call at the end of the game.

How has this been overlooked for a discussion thread. Buy it. I've had this collection since the sales at the turn of the year. It contains Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow and Vampire's Kiss (a version of Rondo of Blood). Christmas/ New Year didn't really feel like the time for Castlevania so I only dabbled a bit on Circle of the Moon and left it at that until this time of year would roll around. Couldn't remember where I was heading in CoM so I proceeded on to Harmony of Dissonance this week which I've had a great time going through again—the last time was back on the Game Boy Player. It just feels good dashing or sliding around and whipping everything off the screen. They knew how to nail these fundamentals and build from there. Admittedly, the trail went cold at one point but it didn't matter for a good while because I was just enjoying checking around for the next path that would no doubt open up. I think it was during this period, I figured I was on the hunt for the boost jump (for some reason I was expecting new boots) as that seemed to be what the dead ends were telling me... only to come off a ledge at one point with an enemy below, so I instinctively pressed the jump button while in midair... and double jumped. It was a different item entirely that bestowed this ability so I headed back around again, collecting stuff from previously unreachable areas but still nothing really opened up. Ultimately, I ended up squinting through a wall-of-text guide—it was no mean feat to figure out what the last "story" thing I did was—until I read you need to actually equip a bracelet in order to open a door. That had me entirely stumped but at least I was up and running again and never looked back after that. Could have been carelessness on my part because I don't remember a sticking point like this on the GBA. This collection shows you in the border what pickups you've got in whatever area you're currently in, with question marks to let you know if there's anything else. This was very handy and probably helped keep me engaged during that time I was running around looking for where to go next. They could have taken it further and added a menu to allow you to quick check all areas because as far as I could tell, you had to be in the area to see this info. Further QoL could include map improvements to depict why a dead end was impassable which would have cut down on some circling back just to remind myself. Since they already added collectables in the border, I wonder if they could have squeezed the map in too? And with those bracelets, it would have been nice if just having them in your inventory was enough rather than needing to actually equip them because it goes against the logic of wanting your best gear equipped at all times. There's also a nice selection of background images to choose from but these are a bit pointless since the game window covers it. There's also art, box art and instruction books to peruse. Since I had such a good time, I needed to refresh my memory on which was the better received between the double-pack games (Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow) because I know one is supposed to be a dud. I'm surprised to see it's the latter by a landslide. Not saying that's necessarily mistaken, just there's not a lot wrong with Harmony of Dissonance bar the couple of niggles I've mentioned. Apparently the music is bad but I dunno, it didn't make my ears bleed or anything. Castlevania just went from strength to strength during these years. I'm already looking forward to an Aria of Sorrow replay this time next year.

Being an N64 owner, it was doom clone central. I thought TWINE was a decent enough successor to GoldenEye. While it didn't recapture the magic, it offered something more cinematic as you point out, and wasn't the complete abomination a lot of people were braced for with the passing of the license from Rare. I knew Eurocom worked with 3D Realms on Duke Nukem 64 so they had some pedigree. And hey, the more value I got out of the Expansion Pak the better. TWINE v TWINE says you, but I'd say it was TWINE v my controller pak. TWINE was the frequent victor in this contest. If only it had on-cart saves.

Can't blame you. I was about to wrap it up for the evening anyway so if I hadn't fluked it I'd have left it for today and the next port of call, after another few unsuccessful tries, would probably have been to knock the online on to see if that offered any clues. I went through the full troubleshooting repertoire of trying to survive/ hold the thing off, looking for hidden blocks, trying to parachute over it, what about getting up into the top corner to let it break the wall. Every other Wonder Seed part has been go-time but this one was a room with question marks in the background so it must be a puzzle room? The flowers speech bubbles were coming through the side of the screen, was I missing a "see-through" square I could escape through or even be pushed through? Even though I brought the elephant I was still thinking the room gives you a mushroom so that must be the key to it. Nope to everything. It's a great, self-explanatory game but unless I've done levels out of order in W4, I missed the training for that. Goomba's expressions while slow-moing to their doom is quality.

Should be glad it only cost about a dozen deaths on the Secret of Shova Mansion Wonder Seed before I uncovered what to do. I'd come back to it with the elephant power up and all at one point. Even checked out the badge descriptions and action guide to see what I could be missing in Mario's moveset... and I was missing nothing. *blows out cheeks* There was no need for it to be that way.

You know you've been playing Castlevania recently when you're trying to crouch and jump down through semi-solid platforms in Mario.

You'd think it's been a quiet season with the lack of threadage. That lot sodded off to Saudi in the summer. Kane gone. Salah kept. The search for a reasonably priced well rated defensive midfielder. From Postecogl-who to loving Big Ange instead. City with an early blip. Does Arteta really know what he's doing with his goalkeepers? Plucky Luton Town living the Premier League dream outside the relegation zone. The Toon Army in the Champos. Emery's Villa picking up where they left off last season. Talk of an Everton points deduction. VAR roulette. Toney serving a betting ban and Tonioli now joining him. If that's not enough, there putting a fixture on Christmas Eve for the first time since '95. And that's just the Premier League!

I was going Ma-Ma-Manbo during one of the Wonder Seed parts in a W3 level.

*gears up for W3 castle/airship/finale* Well that happened.

Feared you might take this one to the cleaners. Interesting to read that it slots in specifically between two episodes in particular as I figured it would just be a boiled-down retread of the series story in general. The helping-each-other-across-time conceit came up in an episode so it's a good call to utilise the idea in a game. It took me a bit to get used to the characters but once you do, it's a good show with some heart to it. Glad to read the game isn't a complete miss.

I still recall getting the Game Boy Bond game from Woolworths one evening for 20 quid. Had to have been 25 tops. Went through it a couple of times. Never thought of it like Link's Awakening... at the time, it was just a game. I remember lots of baccarat? Blackjack? Both? And going through the catacombs with the machete. Think I relied on the machete a lot to conserve ammo. No idea what the general consensus was or what the boys at EMAP Towers said about it but I was riding high on the joys of GoldenEye 64 and had cash in the moneybox.