The Games Inbetween

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is done, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is still a week away.

I am enamoured with Tactics. Big love for it, and I'll be dropping everything to play it at launch. I even pre-ordered the new art book that should arrive at my door a few days later. It's a book that's got art in it; Tactics art.

October will be all Tactics, all the time.

But it's not October yet, it is September, and I've got a little time to play other things. Nothing too significant, as I don't want to commit to anything I can't finish, or at least get my fill of, by 9/30. This is an ideal opportunity to get through some of my backlog, and I've already started to take advantage of this brief window.

Last week, I got the Wii U out, so that I could make use of its Wii backward compatibility. I picked up a handful of Wii games when I was back in the UK in August and fancied putting a dent in them. However, I didn't get very far, as I enjoyed my first selection, Ghost Squad, so much that I didn't get around to anything else.

The Wii is the king of on-rails shooters and most of my favourite games on that system are of that genre, so it's a little odd that I'm only now getting to Ghost Squad. It is peak, on-rails, SEGA arcade nonsense and I could happily play it all day. I even roped my daughter into joining me, and she was equally delighted by the suicidal hostages and the ludicrous number of terrorists you can fit behind one breakfast counter.

Nine, plus a hostage or two.

Moving to modern consoles, I picked up the Mr Driller: Drill Land remake for four quid in the sale. To be honest, I'm not that fussed about the non-standard game modes. I just want to help that little bastard drill down and avoid suffocation or a crushing, so I'm skipping a fair chunk of what Drill Land has to offer, but am greatly enjoying what I do play.

Having cleared the original earlier this year, I decided to bang out Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. It only took five hours, which is a huge selling point. To further expedite matters, I played it on easy, which meant that I could Jedi-force-push-to-death most enemies. That alone was worth the price of entry and I have been further radicalised in my belief that all games should be six hours or less, and allow me to push people off ledges using my mind or whatever. I finished the Force Unleashed 2 less than a week ago and genuinely can't recall anything about it other than its runtime and the force pushing. Would absolutely recommend.

Sticking with colour-challenged games from the 2000s, I finished my first Gears of War, Reloaded. Now that the console wars are over, I'm allowed to play Xbox first-party classics, though I'm still obliged to state that Uncharted's cover shooting is better than Gears' and the Resistance games are browner (complimentary). I really enjoyed it, though that enjoyment lessened the further I progressed. It shows you everything in the first hour or so, and the remainder of the runtime is spent recycling situations and set-pieces with diminishing returns. Still, I liked it overall, and would probably have liked it even more had I played it in co-op in 2006.

Next up was Child of Eden. I bounced off it almost immediately back in the day, but I've taken to it far more readily this time around. The game hasn't changed, so it must be me that's different. I'm perhaps a little more patient than I once was, and I definitely have a greater appreciation for the Mizuguchi-vibe. Stylistically, it's very much a midway point between original Rez and Rez Infinite, and there's a clear shift in audio from the harder edge tunes of Rez to the lighter, atmospheric soundtrack of Infinite and Tetris Effect.

Good news: I am back on my Burnout Paradise bullshit. I re-downloaded it over the weekend and spent a couple of hours bombing around the city. I don't want to call Paradise a perfect game, but it might be a perfect me-game. I'll try to limit myself to just a couple of hours, otherwise I won't get to much else pre-Tactics.

Last night, I did something foolish. Despite telling myself that I wouldn't bother, I've started Hollow Knight: Silksong. I thought the first game was OK, but it wasn't really my cup of tea; I gave up after a dozen hours, the last couple of which were spent being thoroughly lost and thoroughly fed up. I'll stick with Silksong through the first few bosses, after which I'll decide whether to shelve it or not. If I do move on, I've earmarked one of Too Human, Fable Anniversary or Ridge Racer Unbounded to fill up the rest of week, minus the two days that I'll be at Tokyo Game Show - more on that from tomorrow.

Or I might just play more Ghost Squad. The terrorists aren't going to shoot themselves.