Waiting for September

It’s been just over two and a half months since E3 closed its doors and that Sony conference fired grin-inducing bedazzlement at my face. Since then it’s been mostly quiet for gaming news, but fast approaching is the next milestone of pixel related news… September.

A whole month of gaming stuff? Don’t be silly. As of now we have two events confirmed but my excitement for the whole month is borne of whispers and hearsay… At some point within September there could just be a new Nintendo announced. My heart skips a beat.

Those confirmed events though… On the 7th at 8pm UK time I’ll be tuning in to the PlayStation Meeting. Held in New York, Sony are expected to showcase two shiny new bits of kit. Unfortunately for them the first ones already been leaked. Well actually it’s been leaked, had videos of it being turned on and some CEX stores in England and even had it for sale. Instead of one falling off a lorry it looks like a whole lorry fell off a cliff into the laps of Youtubers and trade-in opportunists.

The PS4 Slim is just like a PS4, but it’s replaced chips with quinoa and had a kale smoothie for brekkie. Personally I prefer the look of the original but then it’s not really aimed at me. I’ve already got a PS4. It’s expected to be less expensive than the current model so those folk who fancied one but didn’t have £350 spare can finally join the party. The other model  (which hasn’t leaked but we know it’s coming) is the PS4 Neo. This is the model Sony hope I will buy, trading in my old machine and upgrading to something slightly more powerful with some extra bells and whistles.

I’m intrigued to see what it’s like and how much difference there is. This will be the first time that I remember a more powerful version of an existing console coming out. Normally you buy a console and you’re pretty much set for 5 years. This time they’re trying something different with a mid-gen refresh. My PS4 will still work and still play the new releases but some of you with more pocket money than me are going to play shinier versions of the same games. I will be jealous.

The other confirmed event is the Tokyo Game Show but unless you’re a fan of Japanese RPGS and dancing simulators then it’s probably not for you. I’d say more stuff about it but I’m far too eager to talk about Nintendo again.

Now just to be clear, Nintendo never said they would announce their next baby in September. They skipped E3 and said they’d show it later in the year. They said it releases next March and surely they have to announce it at least 6 months before release. Even that feels like cutting it fine. A bunch of recent rumours all point to the same thing and my fingers are crossed that they’re right. It’s going to be September.

“But what is it?” I hear you ask. Well I don’t blooming know. The rumour mill is fairly convinced we’re getting a handheld that also connects to your TV. Many people are already saying this has no appeal to them, that they want Nintendo to bring a real PS4 competitor. I call these folks idiots. Nintendo cannot compete with the PS4 and Xbox One, at least not for that share of the market. People already own those, their friends own them and they play FIFA or Call of

Duty online to their hearts content. They ain’t going to buy another box just to play Zelda. Although, that also makes them idiots.

Nintendo wants the kids, and the parents of kids. And the overgrown kids like me who kept them alive during the dark post-Wii years. They want the a share of the audience who’s primary gaming device is an iPad and who's Mario equivalent is Minecraft. Will they get them? That answer would fill a whole other blog, as I could gladly discuss this topic for eternity. For now I’ll just stick to me, the 31 year old Nintendo fan who has a Wii U beside his PS4 and a 3DS tucked away.

Nintendo consoles do not provide enough games to only own Nintendo consoles, at least enough for my tastes. What they do provide however is Nintendo games, and those are among my favourite things in all of life. They’ve announced one game for it, the new Zelda and with that announcement alone they had a customer. I was probably a customer anyway but now I’m a giddy customer throwing notes at the cashier on release day. The idea of one console that replaces the two Nintendo’s I own is lovely, the concept of a Nintendo that I play on a train then bring home and hook up to my TV is bliss. All of Nintendo’s uber-talented developers making games for one console instead of two… fudging heaven.

But what if I want to play Batman and Witcher etc? That’s what the PS4 is for, I don’t need two consoles doing the same thing.

Of course all of this is unconfirmed. They could end up announcing a shoebox with Mario puppets and instructions on making your own fun. At which point I’ll break down and cry. My emotional state will be insecure when this is all happening. I know how I get when E3 comes round and my wife knows to generally not speak to me when it all goes wrong (Nintendo’s e3 of 2015.. the raaaage) I will be uncontrollable and emotionally unequipped to deal with this reveal rationally. Which could be fun for anyone observing. Whatever happens, there's no stopping the hype train untill that reveal. Choo-fricking-choo. 

A Few Days In No Mans Sky

Other title ideas for this blog included ‘Nothing to do Sky,’ and ‘How I’ve Spent Six days of Life Doing the Square Root of F all.’ Now you’re thinking that I hate it, but you’d be wrong.

No Mans Sky is a game about doing very little on a very grand scale. Its’ a game in which you travel through space and could potentially visit something daft like 18 trillion planets. Those planets are fricking huge too, each one capable of consuming hours of your life as you walk along, scan things and mine stuff. 

That’s about it. That’s what you do in the game. You look at it. Walk over there, mine some rocks/minerals/plants, take a jaunt over there, do the same again… Occasionally you see some alien wildlife that can range from green space-cow to giant dirty spider-crab that charges at you. Feed the nice ones, shoot the nasty ones and then after that… go for a walk. 

Yet somehow I am addicted. It’s one of those games you put on for a 30 minute session and two hours later your bladder prompts you to take a break. Landing on a planet for the first time and seeing the landscape in front of you is a daunting and yet gorgeous site.  Unlike other games there’s no map and little in the way of instruction. You just go. You’re left to your own devices to explore and to learn about each new world. You see hills in the distance that you want to climb to get a better view. From there you notice caves appearing and you plan your route to those. Once there you see the glisten of shinier rocks and you think ‘bingo.’

Armed with a laser mining tool you spend much of your time destroying this place you’ve just called pretty. Every plant and every rock is a resource to be gathered and utilised. Some you’ll need to keep your life support going, others to ensure your ship has enough fuel to get you to the next planet. After about three days of playing I had got bored of this, of constantly needing more and of doing the same thing over and over again. Then I spotted a giant mound of gold and got genuinely excited. I mined that rock and I sold me a tonne of gold like some nifty space pirate. Fun.

Yes fun, simple but fun. It’s a hard game to really sell to people when you describe what you do in it. (Yet Sony had no problem selling it, it’s already huge) When thinking of a comparison I weirdly thought of Animal Crossing and Pokémon Go. I spent over 100 hours in AC and after all that I can say I achieved very little. Well I made my house as big as I could and decorated it with Nintendo stuff. In real life that’s the ultimate goal, in gaming form it’s a baffling time sink but I loved it. In Pokémon Go you walk and walk, looking for the next Pokestop so you can top up your resources. It’s the same principle as No Mans Sky but includes more fresh air and its better exercise. Although NMS has a much smoother soundtrack and pleasurly atmosphere than the average dander down the streets of Belfast. 

The main point of the game is supposedly to get to the centre of the universe. I don’t know why or what happens when you get there, but it’s a goal at least. Without a goal I’d surely go mad at some point and give up on this journey altogether. Some people already seem to be fed up with it and others never liked it to begin with. As mentioned it has received a massive amount of marketing and the pre-release hype was surreal. Expectations were far too high for a game that was made by about 10 folk (for comparison your average Assassins Creed or Grand Theft Auto would have staff numbers approaching 1000). 

This game is not for everyone, and whilst normally I hate that statement (because nothing is for everyone) it seems apt here. This game is unlike the majority of mass market blockbusters, it’s a game that needs patience and its rewards are found more in admiring its technology that in completing any task. It’s a flawed but mesmerising experience that has consumed my week but yet leaves a hint in my head that I’ll be bored by this time next. Why worry about that though? That’s multiple planet trips away. I’m away to take a walk, mine some stuff, scan some things etc etc

                                                 

the Suicide Squad review

I tend to get ranty sometimes… I’ve a habit of saying things are either the greatest of all time or worse than rusty nails being shoved in my eyeballs. I’m just warning you that this review will probably end up sounding like I vehemently detested Suicide Squad. In reality, it just bored me. I didn’t like it. But that would make a boring review… So here comes the hatred.

First major problem, the trailers. I love a good trailer and I’ll happily rewatch them multiple times in my pre-film hype. Pretty sure there were four trailers for SS. For comparison I think Civil War had two. Four was too fricking many. Half the film, and probably every good bit is in the trailers. The trailers also set expectations way too high. It looked really good, and well I can’t blame them for that. Trailers are ads and they got my money in the end up. The trailers made it look fun and funny. The soundtrack choices, Harley Quinn’s craziness and Cap Boomerang drinking that tin of beer. Trailers should be previews but that tin of beer joke was probably that characters only funny bit in the film. He did f all else. I also can’t help but feel that the soundtrack was chosen or changed after the trailers went down so well. It seemed off, at times annoying and largely a giant rip off of Guardians of the Galaxy…

I bloody love Guardians. Can I just talk about it instead? One of its biggest strengths is something Suicide Squad fails at and it’s a fair comparison. Both are team movies. In GotG you get introduced to five characters who get equal screen time, who all get good lines, backstories and have interactions that feel natural and believable. In Suicide Squad you get Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Everyone else is filler. Spoiler ahoy!!!!   ….. One character literally gets introduced just so they can kill him off 2 mins later. It’s so unbelievably lazy. 

Smith and Robbie are good. They’re the strong points here but I can’t say I really liked their characters. Harley Quinn isn’t half as amusing as I thought she’d be and this might sound odd... but too much focus was put on her being sexy. Her character, her role in the film had less layers than her clothing. Hey she’s an attractive lady and it’s not the first film to make a woman a sex object but I did find it dull that we were constantly being reminded of how short her shorts were, or how pretty she was. Lazy writing again.

Smith’s character Deadshot is a dullard too. Another spoiler, if you can really call it that... He’s actually a good guy really and he has a daughter he loves but can’t see because he’s in jail and blah bla bla. I swear I feel I’ve seen 1000 films with that exact same storyline. Yaaaawn!

He shoots stuff too!! And the rest of the squad beat up stuff. Faceless drones who are there to be mowed down. Kind of like the aliens in Avengers but at least during that you had characters bantering and Hulks ‘puny god,’ scene. In SS you had slow-mo and baddies being destroyed easier than I managed to demolish my popcorn. Hey look, there’s bullet casings dropping to the ground in slow-mo!! I’ve only seen that in that every blooming action film since The Matrix started it in 1999. 

The Joker. What in the great fudgery was that? Hated him. A Joker who’s so crazy he drew a mouth on his hand. Scary stuff. A joker who’s top boss in organised crime, who loves Harley and would risk his life for her… Where’s the chaos? The self-obsessed maniac who cares for no one? Apart from Batman, the Joker crushes on Batman obviously. 

There’s also a villain who doesn’t really do much except make a shiny light beam in the sky and doesn’t like people. Why does she want all humans dead though? The film doesn’t really say. I just assumed someone bullied her about her eyebrows. Amanda Waller was the real bad ass though and Viola Davis impressed in that role. Everything else was meh.

So there you go, my review. After all that I probably should remind you that I didn’t even hate it, just wasn’t impressed. DC, Warner Bros… Sort yourselves out. Wonder Woman better be good damn it.