Games for when you want to relax

Sometimes all you want to do is relax. Kick back, put your feet up and forget about your troubles. And you know what that’s fine. We all have day’s like that.

It’s just that when I have a day like that I still want to play video games and these are my favourites

Flow. Originally released as a free flash game in 2006 by Jenova Chen to accompany his masters degree . Flow was then reworked and given a full release in 2007 by his development company; thatgamecompany. Flow is a simple game about the Flow of life about starting out as almost nothing. A tiny entity that can be eaten by almost any of the other, slightly bigger entities that inhabit the same space as you, Not enemies but simple beings that happen to live in the same space as you. As you play through the game taking other beings into you as you go through the game you grow ever so larger you become more able to defend yourself, more likely to stay alive. Less likely to be attacked or need to attack and as this happens the game changes, evolves with it and becomes less about survival and moves into a more relaxing experience, a more tranquil experience. The games ”final form” sees it slowly morphing into a meditative experience full of wonderful colours and an incredibly ambient music. It hits a switch somewhere in my brain and I just sink into the flow experience an experience that stays with you long after the game has been completed. link here Welcome to Flow in Games (jenovachen.com)

Seyonara Wild Hearts Now for a game with a little bit more action Seyonara Wild Hearts is a game that will have you running, flying, dancing and even skating through psychedelic pop worlds filled with colours. Bright, neon colours all bursting at the seems to pop out of their world and into yours. Yes Seyonara is a bit similar to an endless runner but, you will forgive it as an intriguing story that is coupled with a fantastic soundtrack that makes you want to see what’s around the next corner making the end of the game come a lot sooner than you expect. Your time will be short, the games only as long as the average music album but it will leave a bubble gum flavour on your tongue that will have you humming the soundtrack long after the credits have rolled.

Available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch

We Love Katamari is probably the most bonkers game on this list. It’s probably the most bonkers game on any list- It’s nuts. Originally released on the PS2 a long time ago. In an era when Vib-Ribbon was king and games like PaRappa the Rapper weren’t seen as strange relics from another time but games people were exited to play. We Love Katamari was something of an oddity even then, for it’s a game all about collecting things and I mean ALL of the things. It was all the fault of a God – isn’t it always! they had accidentally( after a drinking binge) destroyed the universe or something like that. And you playing as his son has to put it all back together – Actually I don’t really think the story counts. Just know that’s it’s as bonkers as the rest of the game and go with it. Soon you will be given your ball. A magic ball to help you on your quest. Your quest to pick up everything. Everything and anything. For example a level could have you starting out with your ball looking quite small, small enough to only pick up the tiniest of objects but as you pick up these objects they won’t be swallowed by the ball but become stuck to it making the ball bigger and as the ball grows larger in size you can pick up bigger things. A levels that starts with you collecting flowers will end with you collecting people, cows and even houses and as you go you can see all of the these different items pocking out of your ball in some sort of random order. If you fancy playing this little game of chaos a remake is out now on the Switch and PS4

Proteus A surrealist exploration game is something you don’t come across everyday but, today is that day and Proteus is that game. There are no goals in this game. The game’s only purpose is for you to wonder. Wonder around this magical island, watching the islands flora and fauna coming to life emitting dynamic shifts in audio as they go all based entirely on where you are, what your surroundings are and what season the game is currently in. it’s a lovely little experience, completion coming in about an hour. Currently available on most platforms

Journey I tried to not make this a thatgamecompany love in. But they make games that are so good, so relaxing and such fun to play I couldn’t leave this one out. Journey is game about discovery, about finding yourself and maybe even saving yourself and a game that I must admit I completely bounced of the first time I played it. I just didn’t get it. It wasn’t until maybe a year later when, on a whim I decided to reinstall it. to see if I could say what all the fuss was about, and I was so glad I did. For this time the game just clicked, it became more than a sand simulator. I suddenly didn’t want to rush to the end. Now I wanted to explore the land to see what was hidden just beneath the surface and there looking around me I stumbled across another play doing the same as me – just stumbling along enjoying their walk across the sand. Soon we walked to one another are separate walks became one, we fell into step. We couldn’t talk to each other. Journey doesn’t allow in-game communication. Until you complete the game you can’t even see the other players name, all it allows is for the player to make a small ”cheep” to get the other players attention but in that cheep we both found a way of connecting of somehow gathering together our shared experience of the game. The end goal became something for a later time what mattered to us was the Journey.

I still don’t know who the other player was and in some strange way I hope I never do. We have had all the time we needed to spend together.

Anything I have missed? I am sure there are loads 🙂

Creed PSVR

Its January and just as you can depend on the day getting dark, just as you decide to finally get your day going. You can also depend on me saying that ” this year, I am going to lose a few pounds” and then following that up with” I know I say that every year but, this year…I really mean it” I know I am an idiot, I will forever spend January in a sweaty haze of optimism, trying ever so hard but, not quite hard enough to lose those extra pounds..That have not only been added over and indulgent Christmas but, also those few Kilos that appear every so stealthy, just in time to match the first signs of Autumn in late September. Normally I would fall of the health wagon by, defeated by the offer of a Wagon Wheel or a rogue Jaffa cake left tantalising on the corner on a plate. The words of a friend or colleague, whispering in my ear ”go, it’s just one, you have worked so hard” and of course it would never be just one. My will power, like a sunny day in January would be over all to soon, but this year might be different how ever as I decided to use the power of games consoles to my advance, use a secret weapon. A few years ago I tried it with X Box fitness of and that really worked, it helped me get into and stay to a routine for a good few..months before the inevitable fall. Try, try and try again is what they say and if im anything I am too lazy to go the gym. So I powered up my trusty PSVR looked through the PSVR games on sale and plumped for

Creed PSVR

You see, not only was I going to get fit, I was goign to turn into Rocky whilst I did it. On that note that let me lead into a few lines about Creed PSVR.

Firstly Creed is made by Survious a leading VR team that have made Raw Data and Sprint Vector for the PSVR do if you have played either of those games you will know what to expect a slick, well made game that knows how to get the best out of you and the PSVR tech.

Creed’s Story

Onto the story, which I found…a great one from moving the character on from plot A to Plot point B. It’s a game about boxing after all, You start off not that great and you get better, that’s it really. Lets move on.

Next is the gameplay.

Which is fantastic. With the move controllers as your arms, you are forced to duck, weave and off course punch your foe as many times as possible. It’s a fantastic work out as on anything but the easiest level you will you find your self squatting, duck jabbing weaving and upercutting, if you want any chance of a victory. Added with a block motion where you have to physically hold your arms in front of your face or body to block incoming shots. Its a lovely workout, getting the heart rate up as you try to pick a gap in your opponents defence all whilst not getting knocked down to the canvas. Of course if you do get knocked down it’s not all over as you can get up, all though you may not want to as you have until the count of ten to swing those move controllers in time and try to ”ski” back into your boxers shell. Its a strange sensation as if you are knocked down you are physically knocked out of your body and have to run back to it before  the referee counts to ten.

Mini games.

Now it’s a Boxing game but, not just a Boxing its a Rocky spin-off. So do you get to punch a large slab of meat I hear you ask and the answer is yes, yes you do. In fact you are treated to a whole montage of games to determine your boxers stamina before the next fight, where you will have run on a treadmill, punch the heavy bag, dodge the doge ball and even punch Stallone in the face in a strange combination punching game, where you are charged with hitting the numbers 1-4 in order as they appear on his body before he slowly tries to punch you in the face. It’s all in the name of training and showing the player how to use, or learn new skills and with an online leaderboard attached its very fun, sweat and quite addictive in itself, with the ability to go to a montage or training sessions outside of the main story mode a nice bonus, the only things it won’t have you do is run up and down a set of steps. Sorry Rocky fans.

Graphics.

There nice, impressive on the opposition boxer, some of them really tower above you and bruiseing is shown up in nice red patches on their face or body, but the crowds themselves are nothing to write home about with each different arena made up of indentkit characters.Although the character models  do change, depending on where you are fighting.

Replayability

The big one for any game like this and the deal breaker if you are trying to lose weight is will you want to play it again. Will you want to play it after a hard days work and the answer is yes, yes I think you will. It may be just going through a few rounds just to get rid of the stress of the day or it may just become part of your routine but, I think for a few months at least, It will give you something interesting to play with each difficulty level (in which there are three) really upping the level the higher you go.

Sounds

I like them. They sound like punches, the music you want to hear is there. It may not be perfect, but when I have hit someone it has felt like I have connected and the sound doesn’t sound like I have just hit them with a wet fish. Its good.

All in I have enjoyed Creed and got some good fitness sessions going with it. Even with all those wires I have been able to move around to my heart’s content and haven’t as yet fallen over or broken anything.

 

Just a little note to say that if you are thinking about picking up Creed, please do be careful a friend of mine who is not over weight but is not very fit, played a fight lasting no longer than a minute, had to take the headset off as he was paining so hard. He was however fighting like a mad man, He tried to threw punches for the full-time. His arms flying around like he was Neo from the Matrix. It was very funny to watch.

P.S if anyone wants a PVP match let me know

Rez Infinite

 

Cast our Minds back to 2002. Here is your humble blogger standing in what was the very large HMV building in London’s Trocodero. the reason were here? A chance to play Rez the on rail shooter developed by United Game Artists and finally released in Europe.

Rez was an original and I think still is an original concept on the on-rail shooter. Its not very hard, its quite hard to die with the game more interested in pushing the player forward in having you see all the wonders it has to offer, trying to express above all else the sense of sensory overload with a mixture of beautiful graphics the shapes popping in and out of existence, all to a relentless soundtrack maximising the feeling in tune with the game, to become a part of the whole rather than worrying about a high score or even seeing the end. It has a story of sorts but, its the usual you must do x to save y all very generic and like most video game stories of the time is just a reason to get the player to the start of the game.

How did it feel in 2002?

Not great. I read the reviews of course I did. I was ready for something special, something other worldly and all I got was some strange shapes dancing around the screen to music I couldn’t hear. HMV didn’t supply headphones and the sound was at 0 on the TV. This I now know was a mistake. Headphones are a must. Headphones are the magical gateway, the red pill of the game if you will. Headphones are the key that opens the door to Wonderland.

Another sale. 

After playing through the game on the PS2 I left it alone. It was a good game but gimmicky limited it its appeal . That of course before I spotted it on the PS Store sale, another PS sale. So looking for another PSVR game I bit the bullet and bought the game for a second time.

Second Coming

If I have learned anything from this weekend it has to be that everything deserves a second chance. Firstly Wipeout a game that has truly delivered on its promise of in rivalled speed all those years a go has done so with its VR update, a truly exhilarating game if ever there was one and now REZ a game set to be forgotten as a Dreamcast and PS2 curio, is now reborn as an actual VR wonder.

VR Wonder

Transcendent, that’s the only way to describe some of this game. its wonderful of the course I knew the original game its still there, its great, the added VR really helps, really adds to the experience, its very, very pretty. Its another added area that is the real meat on this package and that is called….

Area X

Area X has to be the closest that United Artists have ever come to truly realising their dream. It is incredible, a wonderful sensory experience and one that made my jaw fall to the floor as soon as I started to play. Yes with the headset on, coupled with a great pair of headphones, Area X is a sensory overload. Yes its short at only 30 minutes or so but its an absolutely joyful 30 minutes with even a bit of replay value if you decide to go back and take a different path for a couple of optional boss battles. Yes this is a wonder of a game, just seeing your Zen like avatar floating through the level is even great on the TV. The depth, the inclusion the VR headset all add up to an amazing experience and one of my favourite VR games.

For once the adverts didn’t lie.

The adverts nothing to do with me. Its just the way that  it encapsulates the progression from the standard TV to VR headset is so perfect and in the case of this game that I had to show it.

Join me, be inside the sound

 

 

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Uncharted, you beautiful, wonderful Sunday afternoon matinee of a game, how close you are too perfection.

Close but not quite close enough. It does so many things right and even manages to add a few new things to a mix that its easy to forget your playing a pared down Uncharted an Uncharted with all the bits you (I) love about the series with most of the boring bits taken out. Heres a few of the things I loved and a few of the things I didn’t like so much.

If you like the floaty, driving, climbing the many, many walls be they old temples or just walls of a run down street to the beautiful waterfalls they are here waiting for you in all their Naughty Dog beauty,

I keep finding myself using the word beauty and it’s not just because I can’t think of another word that can describe the look of this game it is absolutely stunning ( I found one word) At the start of each and every chapter I found myself slack-jawed at the sight of the level in front of me. I can’t think of another game that is as good-looking as this.

Its fun. That’s something I don’t find myself saying enough when playing a game, some you play for the grind, for the reward to come, for the challenge, to say you have done it. With Uncharted I wanted to see what was behind the next cliff, over the next waterfall or in the next temple. The reason for doing this was the fact I was having so much fun with the game, a big smile across my face as I roped swung, drove and climbed through eight glorious hours with the game.

Nadine

Nadine is my new favourite character, Last we saw of Nadine in Uncharted 4  we left her broken her company once owned by her dad now taken from her. Nadine had failed in her mission and she was not happy, She was also a little bit one-dimensional . In the Lost Legacy  she is given a character a whole lot of character from an initial wariness we see her develop and her friendship with Chloe which starts out as little more than a business arrangement blossoms into a meaningful friendship by the time the credits roll.

Now some things I wasn’t so keen on.

It doesn’t for the most part try anything new yeah a few tricky puzzles are thrown in that do add to the game and will probably have you stuck for a few minutes trying to figure them out are a nice touch but apart from that you are playing the same old Uncharted from the wall climbing to risky tomb robbing, right up to the hundreds of mercenaries killed in the name of a profit.Its the same old same old, If you like that great, you will love this, if not it’s not going to convince you other wise

The Driving

I hated the driving segments in Uncharted 4 and I still hate the driving segments in this. I can see the car floating through the air as I try to control it. It’s as if Naughty Dog have given you some control over it but really, really want you to see whats over here and so have strapped a rubber band over your car, Just to show you what you should be doing. I understand why they do it. The game is only ever a few minutes away from another excellent set-piece but, I still find it irritating.

The shooting.

The shooting in Uncharted, is very much like the driving its only ever a means to an end, a way to sign post you to another set piece. It’s just not very good, the guns have no punch, the aiming always feel off (that could just be my aim) but it never really feels like you’re in a fire fight, desperately fighting for you life. It feels more as if you are in a shooting gallery waiting for the next head to pop pop up into view. I have tried upping the difficulty but then it goes the other way. As if all your enemies are suddenly the Terminator, which super hero, speed, hearing and an aim to match,

In conclusion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a great game. It’s not quite up there with Uncharted 2 but not much is and given its lower price point, it’s very much worth a play.Plus its got a photo mode, gets that camera ready and the photos ready to share.

To The End! Or Not

Hello!

You catch me taking what is now becoming, a long break from the Witcher 3 the brilliant RPG from Polish developer CD Projekt RED.  I have really enjoyed my time with it, finished up the main quest. Finished a few of the many side-quests and done a few other bits and pieces and generally avoided killing as many animals, demons, spirits and other unworldly things as possible mainly because I really don’t like killing animals( unless they tried to kill me first, and I can’t run away fast enough) in games and, yes I know its kind of the whole point of the game. To have Geralt ignore the main quests as much as possible, to go far and wide into the land killing anything and everything for as much coin as possible. I ask you however, who was there first the animals or the people?Couldn’t someone just move? Then there are the expansion packs .They look so pretty. Both expansion packs for the Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone and Blood of Wine look incredible but, I realized, that I don’t need to play them. That my time spent in the Continent is done, complete. It’s time to move on. To try something new.

Its not something I do regularly. I try  to complete most of the games I play, but with time to game ever dwindling, I find myself pushing an ever increasing number of games aside. Given up for a variety of reasons, some I haven’t enjoyed, some I find too hard, some I feel I have had my fun with. Of course if I am enjoying it, I will stay for the ride, to see the sights, too embrace the highs and lows. A few of the dirty little secrets on my virtual shelf are: many Assasins Creed games, they sit half finished. Waiting for that day to come when I delete them from my hard drive, cast aside like yesterdays rubbish. Bayonetta will one day, join them to, the combo meter still unfilled and the story half finished (sorry Earth) Ultaron a wonderful little indie, where you control a robot trying to clear out hordes of enemies, the point of which I am not quite clear on but, still I will never finish you. The last level is just too hard. Sadly I know many others will join them in the queue of the forgotten.

Which games have you put to bed, never to wake up again?

 

Have You Ever;

Played around with a games photo mode?

It’s something new to me, managed to completely miss it in Uncharted 4 and was completely unaware that it even existed in any game before that. Now however Horizon Zero Dawn, you big beautiful sand box of a game has gripped me hard with two of its robot arms and stopped me long enough to take in my surroundings made me look in wonder at all the beautiful sites around me. From the open plains of the Savannah, to the rocky mountains above, I was in wonder at how much things there were to see, so I decided to climb as high as I could into the mountains to get a better grasp on the vista below, making the climb up a journey on its  enjoying it for the experience it was not as slog and something to get through. Once at the top I was amazed to see that life in the valley seems to go on without you, the machines go about their daily routines, occasionally finding something that interested them and charging off to see what it was. Later as i set upon another climb to different mountain peak, I notice more life in the valley below this time a group of Nora braves ( or looking at the size of the machine they are attacking, Nora stupid) are fighting a snapmaw, the flight takes so long and as I watch the Sun’s rays start to dim and night starts to cross the Savannah noticing that the stars are starting to appear in the nights sky I slowly move the camera up into the heavens and am immediately rewarded with thousands of stars hanging in the sky above. I instinctively move to take a picture with my camera and there i notice i can take Aloy out of the picture entirely which makes for a lovely shot. Once the picture is taken, I try to get her back into the game and notice that  there are a load of stuff that Aloy will do, she must really love a picture, with her ”I’m not a model” poses which are fantastic to the way she will happily stand one leg on the edge of a tresipic all in the name of getting a good photo, to the way that just after something explodes, or catches fire you can quickly hit the button, jump straight into photo mode and give Aloy a silly grin as she is blown through the air on the shock wave produced from the explosion. In fact I am enjoying the photo mode, it’s now my favorite way of playing the game. Aloy gamely embracing any number of hazardous environments and death-defying stunts all in the name of my amateur photography skills.

It really is fun.

For Freedom! (or something like that)

Dropped into a vast jungle, I quickly grab my weapons and run. I run knowing that the only way out of this nightmare of a hell hole, that I have somehow found myself  in isn’t to hide and hope for someone; better, someone bigger, stronger and hopefully armed with a never ending supply of bullets isn’t going to appear out of nowhere and make it all better. No that isn’t going to happen. It isn’t going to happen because that person, who is bigger, better, stronger and happily, armed with a never ending supply of bullets is ME and I am here to do some saving. Not just of the many captives my enemy seems intent on littering the battlefield with but also my enemy. For you see, I am here to also liberate the devils. To free them from their evil overlords and help them see the light, the light of freedom, of liberty and above all else America. No I am not here to discuss current  American politics dear reader, please rest easy. I am of course here to talk about games and one game in particular and that game is: BROFORCE

A game that has until this weekend sat it my pile; of had a quick play and I really should get back to it games. A game that was only played this weekend in an attempt to show that graphics don’t matter. A good game is a good game regardless of their graphical capabilities (although a game has to get the sound effects right)

Yes dear reader a game so good it helped me win an argument.

and just for clarity the other games we played were: Super Meat Boy, Hotline Miami, Towerfall Ascension and (my current gaming crush) Super Hot but it was Broforce that won the debate for me, the one we kept coming back to it, to have ”just one more go” a lie that all gamer’s have told themselves on occasion and a lie we managed to tell ourselves for more than two hours as we constantly hit the retry button death after death. Death’s that had us laughing in their downright stupidity one second to almost controller smashing the next as we were blown to smithereens by an explosive barrel we really should have seen and definitely should not have been standing on top of.

Maybe its because we are 80’s children

Maybe as we were big fans of 80’s and some 90’s action movies in our teens and this game actually let you play as the ”stars” in this game is what clouded our judgment but we didn’t think. It could also have been that in the earlier levels at least the reward for rescuing a a captive from the enemy wasn’t some arbitrary points or just an extra live, it was that sometimes once certain criteria were met  you were rewarded with a new action hero to play as and as each and every new character gained was announced in extreme 80’s style with the word BRO added somewhere in the title (think Rambro or BroDredd) our tiny little minds were giving something to laugh at and also a reason to keep playing as we each wanted to be the next to find Snake Broskin or my personal favourite the Brominator. Still we agreed the game was better than the gimmicks. It was the way it played. The way a well timed grenade could clear out most of a level the one explosion causing a chain reaction that went on for maybe 30 seconds each explosion leading to the next. Its also tuff ( at least for us) With a one hit and your dead rule. The game is hard sometimes forcing you to plan your attacks, especially against the level bosses as these things could sometimes fell impossible to kill until you had learnt there moves and worked out your strategy for how to beat them.

 

So basically, does a game have to the prettiest graphics of them all to survive? no of course not. A great game is a great game no matter the picture it presents.

The video below is not mine but it may go a little way to show how strange this game is

 

 

 

 

Animal Killing (in games)

Great, absolutely, frigging  fantastic. I need a new satchel, to carry all my crap. Crap that I haven’t even found a use for yet, and yet for some reason I want to hold onto because  well you’ve played a few of these type of games before and gaming logic suggests that someday, somewhere in what could be another 40 hours of game as yet unseen that one, bronze jeweled clay plot could be just the thing to save the prince/princess and get you the true ending. Ending  number 1. But sadly this time, it’s not for you after you tossed it away to make room for yet another herb health potion your only get ending number 2 the one where you still won the day and everyone was mostly fine, apart from that prince/princess, they were eaten. Sorry. Yes, eaten by that horrible gorilla Cyborg, the one covered in Jewels,the one that really, really likes bronze jewel clay pots and you see, you didn’t have any and so, even though you thought nothing of it at the time as you still completed all the stupid fetch the jewels quests he gave you at the time. Why do you want Jewels you thought, There is no where left to stick them you thought. But you were wrong, there was room for one more and in not getting that one, that one extra shiny one that  you tossed away some 40 hours ago and can’t even remember throwing away now.   Leaves you stuck with ending number 2. Nobody ever wants ending number two. So what do you? You keep everything you come across. You steal everything that isn’t nailed down and that means ever bigger satchel bags and bigger satchel bags mean in the case of my current She-God among men simulator or Horizon Zero Dawn as some people like to call it killing small defenseless animals. Which I hate to do. Now it’s not just Horizon’s fault there are many others that are equally culpable, Red Dead Redemption I am looking right into your animal skinning eyes!

 

An in game animal activist

I just hate, killing anything small and furry. Actually after playing Horizon add anything large and mechanical to that list as well. In fact let’s just say anything with the remotest of animal traits, I have a hard time killing. I will happily run through a bandit camp killing and pillaging as I go all for some tiny and mostly insignificant reward. Where if you ask me to kill an animal I will agonize over it for ages and only kill the tiny little creatures if it’s absolutely necessary and there just is no other way. Is it too much to ask for just one vendor to have one satchel bag for sale! Hopefully as I progress through the game, somebody somewhere will sell me one.

 

Its getting Strange

This is something that has only developed lately and is purely down to just how good Horizon really is. You see, with the mechanical animals in the game, acting like they would do in the real world, if we all lived in a distopia, where giant mechanical beats run wild that is I have developed a kind of strategy to fighting the animals in the game a strategy of only attacking if I am being attacked attitude. Now I am sure that’s not the way the game is meant to be played. But I can’t help it they are just to darn real.

It’s not fair.

Now back to admiring the scenery and hiding, a lot.

Cuphead

Cuphead has finally got a release date. Howrah. rejoice!

Originally set to release on the original Xbox in 2014 has finally got it’s release date and its this very year September the 29th in fact .

Its a game I have been looking forward to immensely ever since it was first announced and one of the reasons I ended up  purchasing an XBox One as it made it’s way onto my  reasons to buy an XBox list. The wonderful hand drawn art style coupled with the funky jazz score had me hooked as soon as I saw the footage

Happy as could be

I was overjoyed.The world looked so wonderful and really led me to believe that it could be a spiritual successor to Micky Mouse: Castle of Illusion a game that still makes me smile even now, with its art style so perfectly fitting the sense of a cartoon come to life and a cartoon you could actually control. Pure bliss. Something about just playing the game immediately relaxes me and leaves with a big, silly smile on my face. Excusing some of the dodgy controls of course.  The recent PS3 remake is even better taking the wonderful art style one step closer to cartoon perfection

So with joy in my heart

I  Sat watching a few  streams of the game, not many, I didn’t want to spoil the game too much and i started to notice a few things, outside of the lovable art design and catch music, all of the streams had one thing in common, the games were hard  not as hard in I will give it a few goes, learn the attacks and then be able to kick the bosses ass hard but as in your about to go on a gaming quest hard, controller smashing with frustration hard, your partner looking at you in a strange way as you scream at the TV hard. Hard as in you may never be able to beat a certain boss  hard. Hard enough to reduce you to tears  and I find myself wondering is that something I want from my games? Do I want to scream at the TV, enrage myself to the point of jumping up and down on the spot just to work the anger through my system to stop having a heart attack? I am normally really mild mannered, honestly.

Maybe there is hope

There could be a way out of this misery. Having perused YouTube this morning I noticed a video by the Outside Xbox team and although at first I watched in dismay ( the video is entitled  5 Cuphead bosses that will ruin your life) almost making the decision that this game is really, really not for me, the presenter showed a snippet of the world map and said that the player will not only be able to ear power ups as we progress through the game but also and here is what made me exited for the game again be able to skip the boss and move onto another in a different part of the map. SO maybe there is hope, maybe. If one boss is too tough maybe we could move on in the hope of finding one slightly easier? Where that leaves us if all the bosses are too hard I don’t know, back to screaming at the TV I guess.Now however, there is hope where there was only sadness, I could even with my less than great ability at game playing be able, on a good day, to get somewhere in this beauty of a game.

Probably not, but maybe

Is It Still Worth Buying Games?

I know, I know, crazy ramblings of a madman but, here me out.

After all as gamer’s is buying games not our raison d’etre. Without buying games, where would our hobby  be? Would you have to find something new to blog about, find a new way to make small talk with strangers? After all everybody has played some sort of a game.

But is that about to change?

I am sure you are aware of the current myriad of  streaming options available.With the so called ”big players” Microsoft, PlayStation and EA. Moving towards what looks like a future based subscription model to at least some degree. With EA in two services in particular now offering a plethora of games. With two services that cover both the PC with Origin access and the X Box with EA Access,  With slightly different games available in each service, it looks like EA have taken the decision to make people want to at least try the two services, I guess once you have taken the option to subscribe to one service, its a lot easier to just give the other ago, if you have the right equipment of course. Much like the way supermarkets put the sweets near the till, knowing that once you have committed to at least one purchase in your mind, its easy to just pick something else up.

Will it work?

I am not sure if the subscription model can work for games though, not if you want people to still commit to that day one purchase, after all a massive amount of revenue must be made in able to keep making games. The AAA releases, the reasons a lot of people buy new consoles and upgrade PC’s cant be cheap to make and if there is no reason to buy a new console or a new graphics card is there any reason to make a new graphically advanced game?

The Majority

of gamer’s aren’t stupid.At least we don’t like to think we are. We also all have backlog beasts around or necks judging us on each new purchase, is that what the subscription model is for? will it help to kill the beast, will subscribing to a service help with the backlog. Out of sight out of mind? I am not sure after all there is always the occasional licensing. Will we constantly be falling fowl of a licence issue, similar to Alan Wake’s sudden departure from Steam? Never quite getting round to all those must games before they leave the service forever. Or will we quickly forget them and move on to our next gaming crush? Who knows,  only time will tell. I do feel however that we are entering an interesting phase with our chosen hobby. With the big established hitters and the little indie darlings able to carve out a much bigger piece of the gaming landscape. With the games in the middle the likes of TitanFall 2 and Sunset Overdrive being left of the shelf by the majority of  gamer’s, with people happy to leave them until they appear on the relevant service and a quick months subscription (which the owners of these services hoping that a month turns into three ) and a game able to die, if its a multi player experience quickly after launch only to be resuscitated a few months later and given a second chance as soon as it hits the subscription pay wall.

It could be good for

Exclusives, a lot of exclusives. With Microsoft looking more likely to step back into the exclusive party and Sony still bringing a lot of exclusives out, the exclusive games, the games you can’t play any where else you could be a major selling point of the services, especially with a version of each service soon to able on PC, giving people that would never normally buy a console or two the chance to play something that they never normally had a chance to play and with the only barrier to these games being a strong enough internet connection, the growth could really explode as internet speeds are increased in towns and cities that have customarily gone for one company over the other

Still only time will tell and maybe we might get something from Steam, and maybe even Nintendo,probably similar to the way that the Humble Bundle subscription works. Where this leaves the new consoles is a conversation for another day 🙂