Toomanywires

That felt like E3. Microsoft clearly understood the assignment, in a way that Sony didn't quite . The Xbox Games Showcase generated some much-needed positive press, while offering proof that this generation is no longer stalling and that their acquisition-heavy strategy is poised to start paying off.  The Showcase delivered several world premieres, offered a healthy mix of genres, and kept the chat to a bare minimum, at least for the first hour. Game followed game, and the "Play it Day One with Game Pass" graphic featured heavily. And to finish, a Starfield spotlight. The deep-dive was both tantalizing and tiresome, with Todd and his team talking up a good game. We'll soon see whether they can back it up. I tackled the 2-hour stream in chunks. I wasn't getting up at 2 AM to watch it live, and a busy morning meant that I had to pick at the presser as and when I could. I'm not sure whether this made it more palatable or robbed it of its momentum. I've never ...

There was no way I was getting up at 5:00 AM. Not even a heavily-rumoured remake of my favourite game of all time could convince me to set my alarm an hour and a half earlier than usual. That kind of mad behaviour died with E3. Back in the day, I'd get up for conferences whenever the Big Three told me to. I'd be consumed by E3 hype, terrified of missing the latest reveals or failing to grasp the opportunity to score a 7-Like, 2-Retweet masterpiece tweet poking fun at a badly dressed developer. This isn't quite E3, and I was in bed during the PlayStation Showcase 2023. As is often the case, sleeping was the right choice. However, I quickly got caught up, finding just enough time before work to watch the Showcase over breakfast. It was a very up-and-down affair, short on surprises but full of games. Several times I was driven to question whether this hobby is still for me, before falling in love with it yet again. I rolled my eyes at same-y action games, only to get excited b...

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a  series of posts about each mainline FF.  I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games.   I first played Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. A fairly common way to have experienced it, unless you lived in Japan in the early 90s. I lived in rural England at that time, and the only Fantasy I was interested in was  the Fighting kind. Roll a five and turn to page 61. Page 61: You have been fully eaten by a zombified Yeti until dead. Final Fantasy III launched in Japan on April 27, 1990. It was the last in the series to appear on the Famicom, and it went on to shift 1.4 million copies. Despite this success, it would be another sixteen years before it was released outside of Japan, when the aforementioned remake launched on DS. Part III might be the least available Final Fantasy. An upda...

Haven't done one of these for a while. 1. God of War Ragnarok and What's Next I really enjoyed Ragnarok. Far more so than I did God of War 2018, and considerably more than I thought I would. Atreus might be the biggest reason, as he basically grew up and became a far more agreeable lad. I was more interested in the relationship between he and his father, Kratos, this time around, and I felt more invested in the wan Spartan and his largely successful attempts to repress his anger, while still being very good at disembowelment. I welcomed the opportunity to go to war with different allies at different junctures; Mimir is still the best head, and I looked forward to spending time with the larger-than-life rulers of Asgard. Odin in particular was not as I expected, and all the better for it. A very distinctive and memorable take on the all-father, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. It wasn't perfect, sure. Its insistence on constantly showing you just-out-of-reach treasur...

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a series of posts about each mainline FF. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games. ****** Final Fantasy II was a sequel in name only. While certain themes and gameplay elements returned from FFI, no characters or locations were recycled for part two. No great loss. The moderate success of the first game earned Hironobu Sakaguchi and his team a slightly longer leash at Square, though they were still very much considered the B-team. Still, it would appear that they had enough support and/or confidence to make some surprising decisions, the biggest and most impactful of which was not to be tied to the plot or setting of the original. With the sequel, narrative became a much greater concern, as we were given named-heroes, support characters, and more substantial lore. Comparatively, anyway. ...

I'd been on the lookout for a replacement Dreamcast since late last year. My previous DC had several issues, and buying a replacement model seemed more reasonable than trying to identify and fix each of them. I own a soldering iron, as well as several screwdrivers, but have no tinkering skills to speak of. After weeks of Mercari searching, I finally found what I was looking for: A Dreamcast that fulfilled all my requirements. 1. No yellowing 2. Photographic evidence of it reading a disc and running a game 3. ¥5000 or less 4. Non-anime avatar seller It was actually a lot harder than I'd expected to find what I was looking for. But I eventually got lucky, catching a listing just before I slipped into bed one evening, two weeks ago. A brilliant-white Dreamcast, a photo of it running a disc, ¥5000; non-anime avatar. It didn't have a VMU, nor was it boxed, but I didn't need any of that.  I dreamt about all things SEGA that night. It arrived a few days later, encased in bubbl...

Final Fantasy XVI will be with us before you know it. While I'm not as enamored with the series as I once was, a new entry still feels like a significant event, and one worth celebrating. So that's what I'm going to do, by writing about each mainline entry in the lead up to 06/22. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead I'll write around these games, using them as inspiration to cover something related. Hopefully something you haven't read before. *********** A hairy ballsack, peaking out from the start menu. A prickly pair of nads. That was how I accessed Final Fantasy (1987). I first played Final Fantasy I via the NES emulator, NESticle, a crudely named and widely-used freeware program that ran without issue on the out-dated PC that I took to university. I left home in the autumn of 2001 for higher education. Freed from the shackles of the family PC and dial-up internet, I was excited to ha...