ARTICLE - Speed Running and Jumping

I have a problem with the general term "speed run". I have a memory of a video titled "Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 17:13" and thought to myself, wow that's impossible. It turns out I was right. It was impossible. The player proceeded to start the game as normal, being ambushed by that little twerp Navi and told to go talk to a tree. So far, so Zelda. They carry on to the first dungeon and get to the first boss, Gohma: The Parasitic Armoured Arachnid, only to then start messing about with the boss door. Weird, I think to myself, for a speed runner to be faffing about doing some random nonsense after stating to have beaten the game within 20 minutes. The timer in the corner says about 11 minutes have passed. There's no way this guy is going to make it. Suddenly we are in the tower of Hyrule Castle as it's falling apart at the end of the game. The player is still young Link. They race to the bottom to confront the final boss, Ganon. They beat him and stop the timer. The final cutscene and credits are going on in the background as I stare at the frozen timer: 17:13. This wasn't a speed run of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, this was a speed jump. You don't read the first three pages of a book then skip to the last three and claim to have speed read it. There's "skimming the page" then there's glancing at the front and back cover.

Ah, memories...

Anyway, for me speed running a game is: you start it, play the game in as time-efficiently as possible (no, skipping large portions of the main game doesn't count) and finish it. By all means, stop the timer as the final bosses last breath passes their lips. As long as the playable portion of the game is finished. I can't say I've ever attempted a speed run. I've replayed levels in various games to get better times for rewards, like the boss rush in Shadow of the Colossus, but I've never made the time itself my goal. I like feats of skill. Watching someone play a game I'm not particularly good at (Enter the Gungeon for example) is great. It's educational to watch how good players can clear games. When you introduce game breaking glitches to your playthrough you take away from the experience in my opinion.

One day, I'll exit the Gungeon

I don't like glitchy speed runs because at the end of it all you've done is shown someone how to break the game, not get better at it. I know speed runs aren't really about showing how to efficiently finish games, they are a test and display of skill. I know that these are considered "glitch runs" and there are other runs out there that don't involve glitches (the fastest for OoT being 4 hours 15 minutes 3 seconds) I don't mean to sound overly critical. I understand that some people find joy in where a games cracks are and exploiting them. I just don't feel starting a race, cutting across a few fields and then passing the finish line is considered taking part in the race.

Let's not forget what happens when you mess
with the fabric of the Zelda universe.

Maybe I'm just not "with it". Oh look, they say, there's Old Man Mango set in his ways, complaining about "the kids today". Probably what set me off was the fact Zelda: Ocarina of Time is up there with Final Fantasy 8, Bioshock and Ratchet and Clank in terms of games that blew me away the first time I played them. Strange picks? Sure, why not. Anyway, RANT OVER, if you agree or disagree comment and such. Godspeed!

ARTICLE - Ooo Piece of Candy

What makes a good collectable in a game? Collectables have been around in gaming for a number of years now. PacMan had to eat a stage full of them just to make it to the next level. Mario has his coins and Sonic has his rings. Collecting 100 of either gained you an extra life. (You know, back when games taught you that if you fuck up enough times you go right back to square one. Much like real life) Nowadays, thanks mostly but not exclusively to Ubisoft, collectibles are a way of making you search every square inch of a massive sandbox environment to find every little flag/totem/grain of sand. (I was being totally facetious with the last one until I remembered Ubisofts Prince of Persia reboot *sigh*)
Personally, I rather like a scavenger hunt. Maybe not to the extent Assassin's Creed thinks people like scavenger hunts but I can get into a "find 50 MacGuffins and receive this wicked new, totally OP weapon/armour set". Collectables you find should be interesting in their own right, however. There should be some skill or lore you earn from receiving your hidden treasure.

One of my all time favourite games is Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus for that very reason. In each level, there is a safe. To get into each safe you have to get a combination of numbers from bottles scattered around the level. In each safe is an item that grants you, aspiring master thief, a new ability. This is one of the few games I can remember starting and finishing in one playthrough. Countless deaths and a few tricky bottle locations notwithstanding that was about 9-10 hours of one day, that probably started at about 6 pm. As a PS2 title, I wasn't rewarded with a trophy for completing the game 100%. I didn't need that, the incremental reward system of the unlocking safes was enough to keep pushing on. Nothing makes me want to explore a game more than being handsomely rewarded for my troubles. The story and platforming are pretty great as well so, you know, play it. (The main antagonist is a giant mechanical owl called Clockwerk, 'nuff said)

Play the rest of them while you're at it!

The Bioshock series shares a piece of its universe with every collectable you find. I know what you're thinking, I just recommended a game where you fight a robot owl. Where do I get off writing this like an Edge article? "shares a piece of its universe"? Honestly. But I'm serious. Every log you find gives a tiny piece of the story from one of the many people that made up the world of Rapture or Columbia. They are there to immerse you in the story but you don't need to find them, or even pick them up when you do. I wanted to know more about these worlds though, from basic maintenance of an underwater city to the inner musings of a self-styled prophet. It's always interesting to find out the hows and whys even if it doesn't affect you as the character. It helps to populate sometimes stark environments with "real" people you could possibly relate to. I might even start leaving recordings of myself around the house. I don't know where they would fall in the "Underwater City Maintenance/Self-Styled Prophet" scale though.

Would you kindly play these as well?

 Now I'm not generally one to throw around any "shade" as the kids say but now it's time to focus on what makes bad collectables bad. The aforementioned Assassin's Creed series has had its fair share of tedious tat to pick up. Far Cry 3 onward has also fallen down this dark path. Congratulations, you've created an expansive open world for me to explore. The scenery is beautiful and the cities are fun to traverse. 50+ little flags you say? Whatever for, I ask. Just because and also a different skin for your character for your trouble. And an achievement, can't forget that. Excellent, I think to myself, so then everyone will know I spent 2 hours of my life looking at a guide online tracking down each and every one of the little bastards just to get that sweet 50G. Add it to the pile over there. Do I learn anything when I pick these things up? No, but I do get a wee ding/chime/whistle noise. My what incentive to hear the next identical ding/chime/whistle. Later Assassin's Creed titles have started leaning towards more side quests than random pickups, but they are still a Far Cry (sorry, couldn't resist) from being nearly as interesting as the previous examples. Don't get me wrong, I like both Assassin's Creed and Far Cry. I just feel it can do better than being a collect-'em-up with mild shooty/stabby bits to keep things interesting.

I'm not angry...

I'm just disappointed

I know, I write something about collecting stuff and don't mention Pokemon. Well, there's your mention. I have lost misplaced literally hundreds of hours of my life to that particular series of games and now I can't think why. I realise I'm in the minority in that regard. But anyway, this isn't a post on me realising I've tried and failed to be the very best like no one ever was. It's about certain game devs taking notice of what other certain game devs have done and us all enjoying a game that doesn't waste our time with "Dr Ravioli has lost his jigsaw puzzle while travelling around Germany, find all 1000 pieces and earn some artwork". Comment or something if you've had similar experiences with another game or if you think I'm totally wrong. RANT DONE! Cheers.

ARTICLE - Back In My Day: A Brief Look at One Mans Gaming Origins

I don't remember pestering my mum for my first console. What a fantastic start to a retrospective look at my long gaming "career". More importantly, though, I don't remember much about what I did for fun before I unboxed my SEGA Master System II. Probably a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine on VHS. (Have I used enough phrases to indicate how very old I am I wonder.)

Look at it in all its glory!

It was Christmas 1993 and I took to gaming like a fish takes to walking. I wish I was kidding. I was terrified of playing either of the two games (Sonic the Hedgehog and Micky Mouse: Land of Illusion) I had for the MSII. Watching danger crawl/jump/race/dive towards me and risking my very precious lives stopped me playing anywhere past the first couple of levels. I was familiar with the two games "Game Over" screens to say the least. Thankfully my mum was close to hand. The controller would be quickly passed to her and I would see parts of the game that I could only dream of reaching myself. New stage themes, new enemies and bosses. I had no idea how she could brave these trials with only a muttered (or not so muttered) curse whenever she died. It must have been witnessing this determination against the odds that fortified my nerves. Or not, I remember defaulting to "Muuuum, play Sonic/Micky Mouse pleeeeeeease!" a lot. So she did what any good parent would do. She eventually told me to play it myself or it went in the bin. Fear of losing one's joy is greater than fear of losing one's precious lives let me tell you.

I'm pretty sure this is burnt into my retinas.

Road Runner, Populous, Shinobi, MM: Castle of Illusion, Wonder Boy/Alex Kidd. These are a few examples of the games I collected over the years. I had hours of gameplay from these titles. Not because they were particularly long but because failure was no longer a hurdle I shied away from. I received Shinobi for my 6th birthday from one of my best friends. Here was a true education in hardship. By this point, however, I had managed to defeat Dr Robotnik in his little glass cylinder inside his floating fortress, oh yes! I had fought ghosts and toy soldiers and climbed beanstalks to cloud castles to save Minnie Mouse. If gaming skillz was a currency I was well on my way to affording a pack of Space Raiders and a Freddo. Shinobi was a different animal. Cartoon violence was replaced with men with katanas and guns. Bonus levels had you throwing ninja stars in the first person at side scrolling ninjas before they got too close to you instead of collecting rings and emeralds. Both my mum and I spent two weeks getting to the first boss and failing repeatedly. Nothing would work. He was a massive wall of a man. Eventually, with a slight chortle, my friend's dad revealed you had to hit the boss in the eyes. Boom, one boss down! Oh, there's more? A helicopter? No problem for a ninja. A seemingly never-ending wall of statues that crush you if you don't kill them fast enough? I have met my match, good sir! To this day, 22 years on, I have not defeated that boss or gone on to complete Shinobi for the SEGA Master System II. On long winter nights, I hear the game mocking me from a bag somewhere in the house.

Aim for the eyes they said. It would be fun they said.

I often wonder what would have happened if I never asked for the MSII. Or worse, getting it and never getting over the fear of failure that gripped me at such a young age. I have dedicated innumerable hours of my life and more money than I care to remember in the pursuit of the princess or world domination or galaxy salvation. I don't think a single second/penny of that has been wasted. Don't get me wrong, I've played some real howlers. Games so bad I traded them in! But that's a bag of snakes for another time. For now, let's end on a positive note. Without the Master System II and Sonic, I wouldn't be who I am today. (A crazed shut-in with the social graces of a strung out gibbon? {Quiet you!}) Gaming has brought me closer to my friends, helped me through tough situations and given me something to be passionate about. It only took me 23 years to figure that last one out.

GOTY - Final Hitman Fantasy XV

It doesn't take much for me to like a game. It only needs to do one thing: make me grin. I can't explain clearly why that makes certain games stand out over others but when I'm grinning I know I'll be playing that game to the finish at least twice.

Hitman made me grin. Released on the 11th of March 2016. It was released episodically throughout 2016 from March to December.
I've been playing Hitman since Hitman 2 on Xbox (one of my first games for the console) and with every subsequent instalment in the series, my love for it and its bald pro... an... tagonist(?) has grown. It helped that with every new game the A.I. (artificial intelligence) improved to a degree that didn't send my controller into a wall because that bastarding guard saw through my bastarding flower delivery guy disguise because I stood still for too bastarding long. (Ahem)
The initial release of 2016s Hitman didn't offer a great amount of content, but for me, it was enough to make me grin. It felt good to be plopped into a massive (by previous Hitman standards) level and pretty much left to figure out how to take out your selected targets. Being able to play the level any way you chose was the Hitman game I had been waiting for since Blood Money. (Absolution would have been perfect if not for the levels that were clearly NOT Hitman levels. I'm looking at you "escape from the cops and jump on a train" pfft).
Every aspect of the series that should have been expanded on such as being able to creatively take down your targets while also remaining undetected, to the A.I. to the scale of the levels was vastly improved for this instalment. Introducing "Level Mastery", a system that rewards you for replaying a level repeatedly to unlock new weapons, starting locations and gadgets to help reach your targets. It gives you opportunities to explore every inch of a level to find a perfect vantage point or a discarded disguise. On paper, this sounds monotonous, boring. But there's enough content to each level that you'll discover something new with each play through.
Then there are the Escalation missions. These give you new targets to hunt but after each successful mission, it will add a new objective or handicap. These are great in making you think of the layout of a level in a completely different way. Every assassination is a puzzle and Hitman rewards those who think outside the box and, most of all, have fun trying to figure it out.
The one section of this game I feel I have very little time for is the player created levels known as Contracts. These involve players marking their own targets within a level, assassinating them then challenging everyone to do it better. This was a feature introduced in Absolution and while fun, it can be a bit of a mixed bag in terms of finding a quality mission. I'm sure there's fun to be had here but it really isn't my thing.
For an episodic game to hold my attention and keep me occupied until the next was released is impressive. Even more impressive to me is that for all but two of those months (June and November) there was content released that added 2-6+ hours (depending on your determination to discover every corner and opportunity a level has to offer) of gameplay each. Of recent memory, it's one of three games I've sunk masses of my time into, The Binding of Issac being one and my next pick for game of the year being the other.

Final Fantasy XV made me grin. Released on the 29th of November 2016.
Like a lot of my friends, my first foray into Final Fantasy was with VII (7) which was released almost 20 years ago to the day of this post (31st January 1997). Oh, I just made myself feel old. One of the things I love about the series as a whole is it can have you save a near future world from a giant meteor while another can be pitting you against an insane jester determined to gain the powers of a god. You know, normal everyday stuff. But almost every time it's distinctly Final Fantasy. (Barring a few exceptions *cough* Lightning Returns to name one *coughcough*)
My first hour of Final Fantasy had me grinning from ear to ear nonstop. Everything from the "Stand by Me" cover by Florence and the Machine to the car radio playing music from the previous games in the series. Everything was just so nostalgic and charming. Having not read or seen anything about the game before it was released (except for the demos) pretty much everything was another point of joy on my bro trip. After a certain amount of exploration, I remember excitedly shouting "DUNGEONS" to an empty room. Soon followed by "NOPE" after entering said dungeon at level 14. Pro tip: don't do that.
At the opening of the game, a message reads "A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers". As a fan, this filled me with a certain amount of doubt. What have they dumbed down for first-timers I wondered. Will I have to prove I'm a fan by benching 20 Iron Giants? (I'm sure that's how weights and being a fan of the series works) It turns out that message is referring to the two-button combat system. It's simple and effective. It doesn't bog you down with menus and options but at the same time feels satisfyingly substantial if your fighting one of the more challenging hunts later in the game, quickly being able to switch between weapons and magic at the touch of a button.
The game is split up into chapters, supplying you with the main (make the story go) quests and most of them with oh so many side (hey, go here and do a thing) missions, hunts and other fun distractions. These extracurricular activities will take up the majority of your playtime, my own coming in at 60hrs 5mins for the first completion. That time didn't even factor in all the side stuff I missed. I moved straight on to New Game+ so I would have new stuff to see on my second play through. That made me grin, the fact that I was willing to go into a second playthrough of at least a 60-hour game without even thinking about it.
There is one note of criticism, however. Chapter 13. I get it. The whole game can't be rolling hills and bro-fives all the way to the Chocobo Races. Tonally it's quite appropriate for what's happening in the game at the time. But that doesn't mean that you have to be as miserable as Noctis is while playing as him right? It takes the "Not Alone" section of Final Fantasy 9 and combines it with the never-ending corridor that is Final Fantasy 13 (wait, Chapter 13, long corridors, Hajime Tabata you magnificent bastard) and makes that what feels like 2 hours of your life (might only be about 45 minutes).
After the most recent instalments to Final Fantasy I was sceptical that this would be the one that would recapture the feeling I got from playing 6 through to 9.(Wait, 6+9 IS 15. Hajime Tabata you magnificent bastard) There's still more content to come with the season pass but the game as it is (including a massive patch that added more story content and fixed Chapter 13) is more than I ever expected from a modern Final Fantasy.

When I started writing this post I was fairly sure I knew what game I was going to pick as my game of the year. In writing this, however, I've convinced myself that the negatives of my other choice aren't negatives at all. Why should I punish a whole game for one section that I thought wasn't for me? As a whole, Final Fantasy 15 made me laugh, maybe even shed a tear. One, solitary man tear of respect for a job well done. Not the other kind. Hitman provided a game that I could drop in and out of and have fun with every time for the duration of half the year.
Ultimately my game of 2016 is Final Fantasy XV!

(Now all you needed to do was scroll to the bottom of this post without the hassle of actually reading it, but where's your sense of adventure.)

Introductions and Such

Hey there, hopefully, you've been directed to this blog because you have an interest in video games and the opinions of a random nerd on the internet. This place has both of these things. Stay a while and learn a thing or two. Take in a review or get lost in one of the many articles or lists found here.
All reviews, articles and lists will be based on my own opinion (or the opinion of anyone else I can rope into writing for the blog) and while I try and stay up to date on gaming news or the "hottest" new games I will just do whatever I fancy at the time. I hope that whatever I do post will entertain you.
One main rule to remember about most of the lists here is in no particular order. That isn't a statement against standard ranking systems, more that most of my "Top #" lists will be filled with similar items that are my favourite for various reasons. Without further ado let's commence with Top 10 Weapons (For  Various and Random Reasons)!