Nick R

But... blue skies in games!

The music choice is giving me flashbacks to Doctor Who Confidential montages.

You might like these links then... when it comes to criticising Batman games for having automated combat, Crisis Wagar of CritPoints is your man! https://critpoints.net/2015/04/17/bam-a-ham-yum/ https://critpoints.net/2017/07/21/rebuilding-bam-ham-combat https://critpoints.net/2015/06/20/bam-ham-city-2/

Oh that reminds me! There was that brief period between the last wave of DC games (Headhunter, Rez, Shenmue 2) getting cancelled in the US, and then that company BigBen Interactive announcing that they would distribute those titles in Europe after all. At the time when it looked like Headhunter wouldn't get released in the UK, I sent Sega an email to do my bit to show support for releasing it. One of the things I wrote in that email was that Headhunter looked like it could be a true rival to Metal Gear Solid 2. I mean, I liked Headhunter when I finally got to play it (in my memory it was better then the PS2 sequel Headhunter Redemption), but next to MGS2, that was just silly.

To celebrate this news, Digitiser has published a NOT AT ALL CLICKBAITY listicle on things that every PlayStation owner will remember. I have fond memories of those bees. https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/sony-is-releasing-a-mini-playstation-so-heres-a-bunch-of-things-every-playstation-owner-will-remember Can I add Legend of Oasis/The Story of Thor 2 to that list? I never got to play it, but I always wanted to as I loved the Mega Drive original. Here's one for the controversial gaming opinions thread: I liked The Story of Thor more than A Link to the Past, whose overworld structure it shamelessly ripped off. SOT had barely any puzzles to speak of compared to LTTP, but had much better combat and more lavish animation. But deciding which had better music is a harder choice...

And best of all, tennis! I still don't think any console has matched the Dreamcast for achieving such a density of great games in so short a time. A timespan that seemed even more compressed thanks to the one year delay to the US/EU release. It took ages for the PS2 and Xbox 360 to build up as big a library of exclusives that I was interested in playing. On the PS2, I wasn't tempted by any exclusive titles until the releases of GT3, GTA3, Jak and Daxter (which had a rave review on Digitiser, I remember) and MGS2 - most of which, IIRC, came about a year or so after its launch. (I did later discover a few good PS2 games that had been released earlier, like Fantavision, but I didn't know about them at the time.)

Variety reports that Kevin Feige is taking "a hands-on role" on a number of TV miniseries - shorter than the Netflix ones - for Disney's new streaming service, starring at least two actors from the MCU. I've removed their character names in case they're spoilers for their fates in Avengers 4: https://variety.com/2018/film/news/[CHARACTER] and [CHARACTER] -tv-series-marvel-disney-streaming-service-1202947551/

That would explain this poll Sega are running asking which game should get a Sega Ages Switch port:

The fact that the original creators are involved is encouraging, but I'm not sure what there is to gain from this, beyond the novelty of seeing scenes and characters recreated in live-action. It's not as if the original series has significant flaws that need correcting. If this was an announcement for a continuation set in the same world, set either centuries before Aang or decades after Korra, I'd be instantly excited, whether it was animated or live-action. Netflix seem to have a good relationship with former Avatar/Korra staff when it comes to producing Netflix original animated series: Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos (king of the fight scene!) have been working on Voltron: Legendary Defender, and writer Aaron Ehasz has been working on The Dragon Prince. So you'd imagine that if Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko approached Netflix wanting to work on an animated series (especially as Nickelodeon seem willing to share the Avatar brand), they'd snap them up. So there must be a good reason why they want to work in live-action. But for me, all I can think is that going to live-action means losing those visual jokes where it switches to complete cartooniness, which were some of my favourite gags in the series:

The thread about the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender working with Netflix on a live-action version of that series reminded me that I intended to start a thread on this a while ago. Former Avatar/Futurama writer Aaron Ehasz and Avatar/Clone Wars director Giancarlo Volpe have recently been working on this fantasy series, which uses CGI cel-shading and low framerates to approximate a traditional 2D animated look. A bit like Guilty Gear Xrd. I've not looked up any detailed reviews of it, but I've heard some good things since the episodes were released a few days ago:

I like The Holy Bible, but you can really tell that the music and lyrics were conceived separately: there are just too many times when the band struggles to contort those ridiculously dense lyrical rants into workable vocal melodies. The counter-intuitive scansion is awkward of the to the point of making even the few straightforward lines incomprehensible. (I challenge anyone to work out more than 60% of the words to "PCP" without consulting the lyrics sheet.) It's not helped by the muddy production, which I understand was improved on the American release's mixes. Whereas Everything Must Go might not have the AUTHENTIC ANGRY ANGST of The Holy Bible, but its music and lyrics fit together far more naturally. Like I say: sometimes the most popular album becomes the most popular for a very good reason. One man's "selling out to the mainstream" is another man's "making better music". I'm going to say... Homogenic Post Medúlla Vespertine Debut Life's Too Good Vulnicura Selmasongs Biophilia Utopia Volta Telegram Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!

For me it was more a solo score attack game, so that puzzle game direction was more to my taste.

Have some gifs!

Ooooh that reminds me of another one of mine: Burnout 2's Crash Mode was too reliant on random luck. On one run you'd hit a bus and it would careen onwards really quickly into several other vehicles, racking up a huge score - then on the next run you'd aim for the same spot on the same bus, but it would barely get nudged. So I thought the mode was improved from Burnout 3 onwards when they added the secondary explosion ability to give you significantly more influence.

The only thing I'm not sure about from that trailer is: I'm pleased for Jamie McKelvie, who designed the comics costume that's now in the movie. Just think, a little over ten years ago, he was drawing a little indie comic about indie music with Kieron Gillen, formerly of this parish...