WackerJr

Those were precisely my thoughts when I saw the list too (although can’t be sure my booing was identical 😂).

I’m having a similar issue with page 3 of the Your Gaming Diary thread. Trying to view it on my iPhone causes the page to initially load and then change to a “A problem repeatedly occurred on…” message. It works for me when viewing it on a laptop. I’m assuming it’s to do with the embedded posts like Ike says. Does anyone else get the same?

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? (Switch) Wales Interactive made a few FMV games during lockdown. This time they’ve used actors in both the US and UK to replicate one of those virtual quizzes many people did for entertainment during that time. The twist here is that Abby’s Uncle Marcus has somehow been poisoned by one of their dysfunctional family members at a recent gathering. Rather than call in the police, he’s called upon Abby to use the annual family quiz to speak with members of her eccentric family to try and work how who the culprit is, how they did it & why. While absurd, the set up works in this darkly comic game. You watch proceedings take place as if you were watching a Zoom call, occasionally you get to choose who to speak to, or which response Abby should make as a part of the conversation, which may or may not result in a clue being revealed. Clues are stored against relevant family members, and towards the end if you have acquired enough evidence against someone you can accuse them. Thankfully evidence is kept for each subsequent playthrough, of which you’ll need a few in order to have a chance of revealing all the clues. The writing is ok and witty, and the other family members are all deliberately dislikeable and all seem just as likely to be the culprit. I thought it was a good decision to use recognised actors from the likes of The Office (American version), Once Upon A Time and Coronation Street, as I felt they were convincing as their characters, and not as cheesy as I feared they might end up being (or like the acting in most older FMV games). The editing is good as it really does feel as though they are all conversing and insulting one another in real time. I expected this to be a bit like Cluedo, where I’d be gaining clues and feeling smart with my Sherlock-like deductions. Sadly, who you reveal clues against feels random. As you’re just guessing what response will end up with anything being revealed. It’s very much trial-and-error, as the game really just wants you to watch the conversations play out. Thankfully I found most entertaining, with Aunty June’s sheer disdain & uncaring bluntness to everyone a particular highlight. You can skip scenes you’ve seen before, although one issue is that scenes are often repeated regardless of choice (you may get a few new lines before reverting to the scene you’ve seen previously). If you selected a different option you can’t skip the scenes you’ve seen before. You can only skip them if you’ve selected the dialogue choice in a previous playthrough. This would be ok if some scenes weren’t standard and appear in every playthrough regardless of choice, so I ended up spending minutes watching the same scenes maybe 6 or 7 times. Not a big deal, but a little frustrating. My wife asked why this couldn’t simply one of the multiple choice stories that Netflix have started included. I agreed, as it would have felt right at home there. It was an entertaining watch, and at just a few hours was probably the right length (possibly even a little too long). I didn’t come away with the feeling of satisfaction and cleverness I was hoping I’d get from solving it, as I didn’t really feel in control of getting to the solution. I did enjoy the family banter and this was certainly more entertaining than my work Zoom/Teams/Skype calls!

Enjoy! It’s been great hearing everyone’s thoughts on the game, so looking forward to hearing what you think (positive or not).

While the tracks are limited in number right now, by picking the easier tracks to start with it is at least making it accessible to so many more. F-Zero tracks, especially the later ones, I thought really do get tough. I enjoyed F-Zero GX but never got close to opening up the Arcade tracks. This is a great surprise, runs smoothly, and while I’ve only managed a top 10 finish once so far (I’m usually only finishing top 50) it’s been a blast and a really positive move for the series.

I’m going to feel stupid when I know the answer, but which was the first?

I still didn’t think that Nintendo could get the go-ahead from Disney, so well done to everyone involved in the negotiations. I hope I can get hold of one if these.

That was one of my first thoughts too. The first one had a couple of devious ones that relied on the DS’ features and the clamshell design. Hopefully they’ll come up with a clever alternative.

Last chance guesses, which is mainly an enhanced look at what we already know about: • Princess Peaches Peaches PeachesPeachesPeaches • Luigi’s Mansion 2 • Mario Wonder • Mario RPG • Glimpse at one new Mario Kart course in the final batch. • Baiten Kaitos 1&2 • Silk Song • One more thing: Zelda Wind Waker for 2024 (yep l hope not but expect them to release that and Twilight Princess separately).

Wow, you are absolutely right! Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Switch) It really does feel like this was a labour of love for developers Lizardcube, and the hand-drawn graphical style gives it so much more personality and character. I have a bit of a mixed history with Wonder Boy 3. In short, I was conned as a child, by a local company (effectively run by one man) who ran a games swap. I ended up being persuaded to swap my impeccably conditioned Sega Master System games Sonic 2 and Donald Duck Lucky Dime Caper for poor conditioned copies of Wonder Boy and Wonder Boy 3, both missing instructions. Oh, AND on top of that I had to pay for the exchange as well. A few days later I discovered new copies of the games in town, my games unsurprisingly having a much higher value than the ones I’d gotten. After playing Wonder Boy and feeling exploited, I didn’t get into Dragon’s Trap since I didn’t know how to use items and not really understanding the purpose. Thankfully a few years later I revisited Dragon’s Trap, discovered how to use items, and ultimately discovered it to be one of the Master System’s best games! (Oh and even more years later I managed to buy used copies of Sonic 2 and Lucky Dime, play & enjoy them again before recouping my losses on eBay!) The fact that the remake plays the same was fine by me. I had a blast playing this again. It’s only a short game, only lasting a few hours, and yes ultimately games like Shantae have taken the main character-transforms-into-animals-with-unique-skills and improved upon the whole concept, but thankfully The Dragon’s Trap remake has reminded me of when I finally grasped the game and not my frustrating first impression. Oh, and yeh guy who originally conned me, he built his business up into a high street store, and then went bust. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…

I agree, and put my thoughts in this other thread. Acknowledging his contribution is lovely and the right thing to do, but I thought they could have put together a more impressive video package, representative of his work and the importance of being the voice of one of gamings most iconic mascot and it’s influence. Previews so far for Wonder have been wildly impressive from what I’ve seen and read. It sounds as though journalists have had around a hour with the game in a selection of levels, and so far so positive.

It seemed a nice thing to do, to acknowledge him. At the same time though, it seemed a very strange way of doing it! I liked their little insider reveal that Martinet refers to Miyamoto as “Papa”, and it was touching for Miyamoto to publicly thank Martinet. It was a little awkward mind, to view what could easily have been viewed as a private conversation between the two (if you ignore the clear looks beside the camera to the script) and one can only hope they’ve had proper conversations before this. To me, doing something like this to thank Charles Martinet is a lovely act, and not something a voice actor would usually get. If you were going to do it though, to me a video package highlighting Charles taking over Mario’s voice and then showcasing how he took on more characters and more dialogue, with footage to highlight the sheer volume of games, interspersed with how he’s voiced Mario at events and include within the package the kind comments by Miyamoto (& even a sentence or two from others). That would have been a more fitting thank you (if you’ve seen the types of video packages companies like WWE can put together it gives you able idea of what is possible). But this is Nintendo, and they do things their own way! At least we have the anecdote about how Martinet almost banged his head on the door….

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS) I've played the previous games in the series sporadically since Curious Village first came out, and having finally gotten around to playing the 6th(!) installment of the series, I was sadly disappointed with this one. If you haven't already, then read @Dcubed's write-up earlier on in this thread. It's very accurate to my own opinion on the game, but with more scorn, and I appreciated the research into the other Layton games to get a more accurate comparison of the puzzles on offer. There were still good puzzles in there, but such a high volume of ones that relied on moving objects via the touchscreen, as opposed to the logic puzzles of previous games. There is certainly a place for these, but I wasn't expecting such an over-abundance of them. There are additional dlc puzzles, or at least were. Thankfully i downloaded the 365(?) additional puzzles before the eShop was shut down, although these are split into 20 different puzzles, just with varying difficulties, and to be honest I didn't get into these. The story was also weaker than the other games. Hopefully the break before the Switch game will enable Level-5 to freshen up the series a bit, and hopefully research some more puzzles.

For those that have played the game. I’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game before, but I have both the PS4 Ratchet & Clank remake (via the PS+ free game a while back) and Rifts Apart. Would you recommend playing the original before Rifts Apart? That’s what I was planning to do, but it would be useful to get your opinions? Thanks!

They’re saying all the right things, as people rightly have concerns on a number of areas that Bethesda have fallen foul on in the past, or that similar games (of a much smaller scope!) have, but they haven’t been afraid to address them and reassure people that they have considered them and are ensuring that the game plays well. Whether they’re all talk and no trousers we’ll find out soon enough. I’m still surprised it’s so close to release date. It looks good, it has a great premise, I’m not sure it could possibly live up to all of its promises, but let’s see.

Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan (Switch) A game that’s unapologetically friendly and wholesome. If you told me this game has been made by a unicorn I would probably have believed it! The world has had its colour removed and it’s up to Billy to travel the world and restore colour by recruiting various creatures using words of positivity and encouragement. You move between islands on your boat, only being able to travel a set distance before your fuel runs out (to stop you travelling to the end island immediately), and yes, before you ask, your boat is indeed called the “Friend Ship”! It’s essentially a turn-based RPG where each creature you’ve recruited has up to three colours/shapes associated with them. Each turn you select which creature from your group (a random selection from those you’ve recruited are available to use each turn) and which colour/shape you want to use. Each creature you confront is susceptible to certain colours. You can guess or you can reveal some each turn by selecting one of three things to say, with the most encouraging response being the right one every time. In a kind-of similar way to the Paper Mario / Mario & Luigi series. You play a mini-game each for each creature you use. Unlike those series, failing the mini-games mean you deal no damage at all. There’s a slight risk-reward system as you can choose multiple creatures to play in order to ‘attack’ with more colours, with the difficulty of the mini-games increasing as you do. There are a few different mini-games (match the symbols, press the right button combo, an Arkanoid-style game & a few others) although they do get quite repetitive, especially where you HAVE to do it for each attack. Sometimes the encounters force you to follow set rules, such as not being allowed to use certain creatures. These are more fun and creative, but sadly they’re few & far between. While the encounters are a little basic, the most puzzling parts are finding all the various creatures, some involve platforming, there’s switch puzzles, maze puzzles and a few others. Quite a few of these are quite creative and challenging in places. These were the parts I had the most fun with. I played the Switch version, and the game does chug at times, surprising considering the simplistic cartoony graphics, and it is a little rough around the edges. It was a better game than I was expecting, and while I got bored of the encounters, I quite enjoyed the challenge of tracking down all the creatures to 100% the game, although it’s not a difficult game to complete the story without finding everything. It’s not subtle with thrusting its positivity down your throat (I can’t imagine it’ll be top of @EEVILMURRAY’s wanted list!) but I can appreciate the developers putting something a little different out there, and my young daughter enjoyed watching me play and selecting the best responses. It won’t appeal to everyone, and I won’t be going back to it, but I don’t regret playing it.

That’s amazing! Haha! It certainly beats “Bamboozled”, a multiple choice questions game which (besides the latest football scores getting updated, albeit you had to wait for it to scroll through 2 or 3 other pages of scores first! How did we cope before the internet!?) was sadly one of the most exciting things Teletext had to offer!

AI: The Somnium Files (Switch) I’m a big fan of the Zero Escape series, as well as Danganronpa, so the promise of a murder mystery visual novel from Spike Chunsoft was particularly appealing! It was… ok. Not as good as the aforementioned series unfortunately, but the whole premise has potential. You play as Detective Date, who is missing an eye, but with a computerised eyeball in its place, which is sophisticated and advanced enough to communicate direct with Date, and the ability to take on a small bear-like appearance when out of his eye socket. If this sounds weird, it really is! But makes sense over the course of the game and enables lots of banter between Aiba (the AI within the eye) and Date. The majority of the game plays out like your typical visual novel. Use your cursor to click around the screen on items of interest, and read/listen to lots of dialogue, with your dialogue or question choices not affecting the story. While there’s the odd QTE during cutscenes, the other gameplay element is where you enter a dream world to solve a particular problem within 6 in-game minutes. Viewed from a 3rd person perspective, moving around causes the clock to tick down. There are a limited number of objects you can interactive with. Each object gives you a few choices for how to interact with it, each choice will use up a set amount of your time (for example, you find a gun next to a locked door, and can choose whether to try and shoot your way out or use the gun to try and unlock the door). These dream worlds vary in quality, with often only a few objects to interact, and a little on the easy side until later on. There may be a couple of solutions to these worlds, and each cause the story to play out on a different path. I liked being able to select any part of the storyline at any time, to work your way to the true ending. The story is twisting, confusing, and clever, as you’d expect. Date is not the most likeable main character, running the gannet of acting a jerk much of the time, to some tender moments later on. The humour wasn’t necessarily my favourite, with an over-abundance of crude jokes, and too often referencing Date’s particular fondness for adult magazines. It does give a very enjoyable staff credits sequences though! Ultimately, a very mixed bag. I enjoyed the premise of the puzzle sequences, even if the idea was better than the execution at times. It seems odd to say I was disappointed but I’m glad they made a sequel, which I’d like to try this at some point. Especially as there’s no hint of further Danganronpa or Zero Escape games at this time.

I came across this Zelda: Minish Cap and Phantom Hourglass manga in my local library the other day. Is this genuine? I’d never seen it before and very strange to have the page numbers going from right to left (so page 1 is at the back and the final page is at the front). Admittedly my local library has gone up in my opinion, knowing they’re offering books like this!

Ditto. Thanks all. I didn’t even come last in a few races!

I’ll log in tonight and if anyone’s playing then I’ll join a couple of rounds to keep the back of the pack occupied!

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC) Short but sweet. This Phoenix Wright-lite game starring an ensemble of Sonic characters, like others have said, was the best kind of surprise! More amusing than the animated Sonic series’, with witty writing clearing produced by those with an appreciation of the characters in the franchise and comfortable at poking fun of themselves. Great stuff!

I got around to playing this recently, and like everyone else has said, it’s surprisingly good! Short but sweet. Not difficult, but the writing is witty, and clearly written by those with an appreciation of the characters in the franchise, while not being afraid to poke a little fun at themselves. Good stuff!

Apologies if I’ve missed it here or in another thread… so with the tracks on the final two cups to be revealed I wonder what tracks we’ll get. I expect there’ll be more predictions closer to the time, but for now here are mine: Airship Fortress (DS) Bowser’s Castle (N64) Delfino Square (DS) Dino Dino Jungle (GCN) DKs Jungle Parkway (N64) Rainbow Road (Wii) Koopa Beach (N64) Plus one more new course, that’s not a Tour one. I’ve lost track a little on which courses are remaining mind! 😁

Great stuff on the Pikmin 4 Developer interview. I hadn’t found these before, so really glad I read it on the N-Europe news page. I’m not sure who to thank, but thanks regardless! 😃👍🏻