Unofficial Who

It's nothing like Persona 4 but it is great! I'm not so sure what the new character brings to the mix but I (mostly) loved it when I played through it on the 360 years back.

Jul 05/07 Assemble With Care (PC) Bought after reading @moosegrinder's write up. It is short and simple in parts but really satisfying. It inspired me to fix up a few things this weekend that needed maintenance and to enjoy the simple joys such tasks can bring. 04/07 Mushroom Cats 2 (PC) Not sure why John Walker enjoyed this so much. I was looking forward to an expansion on the last hidden object game but after a couple of nice first levels the rest were essentially done in seconds. It's very cheap so I can't complain. And it has cats in need of warm hats. But it's very slight. 04/07 Outer Wilds (PC) If you were ever a fan of Paul Woake's Damocles this is essential. If not? It's still essential. The best detective game ever. Play it. Don't look at a guide for the first ten hours. It's beautiful and terrifying in equal measures. There's so much to say. Far better for you to find out for yourself. Earlier this year.

And I bought it day one. And now it's one sale. Get it. Someone here named dropped Damocles and it is the modern Paul Woakes Damocles experience I've been waiting for except they've made it so much better by making it smaller and denser rather than massive. Over the last week I've played 18 hours of this, I didn't look at any spoilers or hints for the first twelve, just poked and prodded. I do have to agree with some of the naysayers here about Dark Bramble and the end run, I had loads of issues and dropped down my playtime to one run a day over the past few days. I just could not get on with it and it felt like it was more down to luck (it wasn't, it just felt like it.) But what an amazing game. The first time I...well ran out of time I must of died dozens of times, sometimes within feet of my goal that run, sometimes out of stupidity or clumsiness. It's the most beautiful and terrifying game I've ever played I didn't feel bad for using a guide at the end to either nudge me towards a planet or to to confirm I was doing the right thing but needed to do it faster or better. The satisfaction though from flipping the ship or clipping the trees to waking up, running to the ship, suiting up, taking off and flying and landing on Ash Twin with nary a nudge was incredibly satisfying (early runs had the other planet knocking me into the sun). Game of the decade despite my issues. (One stretch of the end game simply isn't fun.) Here's a long play of Damocles for those who've never seen it for comparison.

https://bethesda.net/en/article/22Up6o4uyEqTY5S3SdWYqD/kilter-films-teams-with-amazon-studios-to-develop-series-based-on-fallout Let's hope it's not based on '76.

You can get the original Beneath a Steel Sky for Windows, Mac and Linux on Good Old Games. For free.

Still worth having a joypad on hand though, especially if you are like me and use mouse/keyboard a lot at work. A controller might not be near the best way to play Wolfenstein but it might be preferable to screwing up your fingers and wrists.

Essential bits of advice. Set up an Epic Games store account. Get two games a week for free. Set up a GOG account and grab a lot of classic era PC games for free. (Also it's the goto place for old DOS games that just work on modern systems.) Set up a Steam account and wait for the amazing sales. There's one on now. Keep an eye on Humble Bundle for free games and hard to resist bundles. You'll be swimming in games by years end.

I just stumbled across this neat Intellivision game in progress, a demake of the MSX version of The Goonies. More details here https://atariage.com/forums/topic/308125-gooninuff-working-title/?

Thanks so much for this. My partner is now obsessed with this game and was sad that the only vid's she could find online were "everything wrong with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, they destroyed my childhood edition" and she was looking around for something more positive. I suggested this series to her and she's loving it!

It's a lot more chill than Sky Odyssey.

I've now seen the ending twice and I'm loving it. My partner has declared it one of her favourite games of all time (she's playing it right now on a harder difficulty after finishing the game literally minutes ago.) I can totally understand the pushback because if you take the whispers as being Of course there's an alternate take on the whispers which I quite like It looks like this might be the only game apart from Animal Crossing that we'll be playing over winter. There's little to complain about here. It looks amazing, the soundtrack is stunning. The new battle system once you get to grips with it is one of their best. I'd have no hesitation recommending it to fans or new players.

Getting back to the main topic about the title (sorry, I kind of drew things back to advocating for the game and there are two other threads for that) I was listening to Triple Click today and they were talking about how Remake was totally fine as a title. However...one of them did mention one of her friends who'd never played Final Fantasy before had bought the game because he wanted to experience the whole story. Paraphrasing here. "I can't wait to get up to the bit you tweeted about recently." "Um....for remake you'll have to wait ten years IF they decide to retell that." Her friend had bought it completely on the assumption that it was a remake of the entire 1997 game as it stated on the front of the box.

It's weird but there's been sequels that I've loved that the major fan base seems to hate. And there does seem to be this gatekeeper issue which pushes people away (at least it pushes me away.) So I've enjoyed the Last Jedi, I really liked Answer the Call, I loved Final Fantasy Remake. I found the new Total Recall to be bland. I skipped the new Robocop. But there seems to be this new attitude that if you like an addition to a franchise that does something different regardless of whether you've succeeded or failed then it's somewhat disrespectful and by liking it you aren't a true fan. And this seems to be a new thing. I remember disappointment with The Crystal Skull and to a lesser extent Young Indiana Jones. I don't remember it "ruining childhoods" or "being disrespectful." (Although I remember some rumbles about The Phantom Menace.) I mean we've reached the point where creators are being called self indulgent for putting a different spin on things. I do get the naysayers. They looked to this for comfort, or more likely to recapture the EXACT feeling they had the first time they played it. They wanted a high def remaster of twenty years ago. That's an impossible goal. So I've moved to letting the superfans pull it apart. Just like they did other new takes that I've liked. I think this might be because of my age. I'm approaching 50 now, back in my youth nostalgia wasn't what it is now. Media was fleeting, reprints and re-runs outside of works with massive mass appeal just didn't happen. And it was kind of accepted that new takes would be new takes. I really loved this game. I'm playing through this for the second time. I'm watching my partner playing this so I'm seeing some of this for the third time. And I've started looking for the flaws the naysayers are throwing at it and I'm just not seeing it for the most part. I'm still at the excitement level that Maximillian is at. I guess if I'm handing in my Final Fantasy 7 fan card I could swap it over for a Remake fan card I guess. My personal view? I think it's is the better game. I think it's an astonishing remake with a post modern twist that I can understand some not liking. Replacing the original? Maybe. It had loads of callback that would be missed by anyone who hadn't played the original a couple of times. My partner loves it despite going in cold. And yes, she's since tried the original and bounced off it. Where you and I see a stone cold classic that hasn't dated a bit through her eyes it has...well issues. (For a start "why do people keep merging into the main character? And coming out of his pocket for conversations?" or "why are the player models so inconsistent?") As I said earlier, I'm not sure I can judge this as a fan. I first played this in my mid 20's. I played it twice in the first year and played it once a year for the next four years. ut I don't think people have been unkind with their debate here. In the end you like what you like.