I just spent a week staying with my parents back in Orkney. It's not accurate to call it my hometown, because my whole family have moved out of the main town of Kirkwall, to a bunch of fields half an hour outside of it. It always makes me a little self-reflective whenever I visit. How things have changed since I left, what I gave up, and why I couldn't picture myself living there any longer than I did.

After years of pitching the idea to my mum, my recently-retired dad has finally purchased an enormous 4K TV. A big 77 inch Sony OLED Bravia thing with HDR, VRR and all the other bells and whistles I couldn't hope to namedrop. No, he hadn't turned off Motion Smoothing, and sitting through a splined version of Kong: Skull Island was quite the ordeal, but I did get up early to tweak all the settings one morning. The Steam Deck can do 4K on older games, and seeing killer7 like that was quite extraordinary (even if I think the game's aesthetic pairs better with a CRT).

Much of my early interest in videogames was shaped by my older brother. I would be his Tails, his Skate, and less enthusiastically, his Gilius Thunderhead. He suggests he doesn't have a lot of time for games these days, but in spite of that, I know has sunk over 500 hours into the Destiny games, and he's spent a lot of money on fancy controllers with backbuttons. I don't fully know what he thinks of my ongoing enthusiasm for games, whether there's an air of "racecar bed" to it, but there seems to be at least a part of him that's a little envious of it. Like that was part of himself that he gave up for a family, financial security and a bunch of high-end home appliances that he doesn't get to use as much as he thought he would. Maybe he's grown up in ways that I haven't. Maybe we've just become very different people. Maybe time has made our differences more apparent. I first noticed it when I got a GameCube, and in spite of all the lawnmowing and housework we'd teamed up on to afford Resident Evil 2 on launchday, he wasn't making plans to try the Resident Evil remake when I told him how incredible it was. He was more focused on going to T in the Park and talking about how into Muse he'd become. [see note]

He was fairly insistent about bringing his PS5 around to our parents' house. I think he'd been looking for a good excuse since our dad got the new telly. He'd even left his braided HDMI 2.1 cable plugged in, in preparation. For all the talk about how he doesn't really have the time for games now, I know he never stopped investing in them. He has owned every PlayStation, and even bought one of those Dual Play 3D TVs that allowed each player to see their own full-screen image when doing multiplayer on Gran Turismo 5. He was pushing me to take the PS5 with me when we visited him on Monday, but it didn't come over until he brought it for the big family day on Saturday.

The PS5 didn't get as much of a look in as I think he'd been hoping. He brought two Dualsenses, and one fancy SCUF controller with the backbuttons, and those were eagerly held by his son and my sister's many, many children. The only local multiplayer game he had was Gran Turismo 7, and I was stuck helping young children navigate Kazunori Yamauchi's middleclass menus, while he sat with his increasingly drunk wife in the neighbouring kitchen. It wasn't even a full hour before they were asking about the new Mario Kart tracks, and my 1080p Nintendo Switch went on.

The following day, I was scheduled to leave. Poor weather conditions lead to my flight being cancelled, and I was driven back to my parents for another night. Everyone was exhausted. It was as if fate was prodding me to further explore the potential of Ultra High Definition.

I remembered my brother hyping up Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. I hadn't known him to play platformers since the Mega Drive, scoffing at Crash Bandicoot and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos in our subsequent PlayStation library, but I guess becoming a father has pushed him to chase more kid-friendly games, and knowing how enthusiastic I still am for Super Mario, I guess it seemed like a natural recommendation. I saw a digital copy had been installed on his console, and I gave it a shot.

I've been a vocal critic of the shift in direction Sony have taken since the PS3's later years. Shifting their chief base of operations from SCEI Tokyo to the SIE headquarters in San Mateo, California wasn't just a concern for weebs, but it marked a change in the company's values. The PlayStation brand had started as something to bridge the gap between high-end home entertainment and Nintendo-style videogames, with the project originally intended as a SNES with a CD drive, and many of its key developers following that legacy. While games retained the strong standard of mechanical design that had been established on the NES and SNES, they didn't have to follow the conservative family-focused intentions as dictated by Hiroshi Yamauchi. This lead to more adult themes in games like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid, but also artier, experimental projects like Jumping Flash and PaRappa the Rapper. That was the PlayStation that I was a fan of, and one that Sony had shifted away from when chasing the surprising success of the Xbox 360. After a tough few years with the expensive PS3 hardware, Sony finally managed to eke out a success with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and every project they would invest in afterwards would seem influenced somewhat by its quick-talking, cinematic presentation.

Rift Apart is very much a post-Uncharted 2 Sony game. Nothing ever shuts up, and you never really find yourself thinking about anything. You're constantly force-fed setpieces, with little meaningful user input. Don't play it the way it wants you to, and it won't be long until a character repeatedly pushes you towards the correct answer with a looping instruction. Each environment is enormous, with elaborately detailed buildings and rock structures decorating every location, but they're mere facades. You can only explore what's on the pre-determined route, and there's no meaning to any of it beyond set dressing. Characters attempt to project a fun, wacky presence, but I didn't hear a single funny line of dialogue. The script comes off like a TV spin-off of a Disney blockbuster. There's no sense of sincere passion behind anything. It's just a lot of very talented people doing their job.

There's still a shadow of a real game in Rift Apart. For a lot of the younger players trying it, it's likely their first interaction with a twin-stick shooter, and the warping dodges and weapon options play a little like a kids' version of Returnal. Everything is slick as all get out, and presented attractively, but there's little sense of real depth. If you weren't playing it right, the game would bend itself backwards to put you on the correct path.

Seeing my nieces and nephews over the last week got me thinking about kids' games. The most engaged I saw them was when my 7 year-old nephew was messing around with Google Maps, laughing when he warped through a car that disappeared, resolving that he "blew it up", and finding shitty rundown buildings that he'd joke were my house. It reminded me of how I'd messed around with games and interactive CD-ROMs at that age. I wasn't really interested in how I was supposed to play. Kids don't want to be told how to play. It's instinctive. They try something basic, see the effect, and if it was funny or interesting enough, they dig a little deeper. It's why Minecraft and Roblox have become such massive, dystopian revenue platforms. I don't think games like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart have a lot to offer them, beyond a distraction. I never thought the Aladdin TV series or Timon & Pumbaa were ever any good, but the familiar characters and constant motion shut me up when they were on.

I think Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart contrasts very poorly against something like Super Mario Odyssey. A game full of fun, surprising moments that truly has a cross-generational appeal. Young kids can have fun discovering rewards from experimenting with every vertex of the levels, and running around the beach with the funny dog, while their weird Mario veteran uncle finds himself emotional at the implementation of the N64 triple jump and the grand celebration of the character's Donkey Kong roots.

Maybe that's it. Maybe my brother just hasn't been playing the right games. Maybe the Resident Evil remake was that Sliding Doors moment that made him the owner of a two-door fridge freezer, and me, the owner of a Steel Battalion controller. It's a little dispiriting to think he might see Rift Apart as the best that a PEGI 3+ can get. How we could have grown up playing the very same copies of games, and lead to such wildly different evaluations of the medium. I love my brother, and I want nothing but the best for him, but suggesting *I* was missing out by not buying Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart makes me very worried about a lot of things.

I put my PlayStation account on his PS5. Maybe he'll dig through my library and download the Resident Evil remake for himself. I think it's far more likely that he'll just keep my profile on there out of courtesy, uncurious about the doors I've opened up, just in case I ever end up playing his PS5 again. I don't expect I will, either. Maybe his son will try the Tony Hawk's I bought, though.


[note - He has not talked about Muse in a very long time, and it was unfair of me to bring this up.]

I don't feel fully qualified to discuss Gunfighter II's technical issues, given the fact that the copy I bought last week came with an enormous, deep scar on the disc. Who knows how much of my experience can be attributed to that. It mainly seemed to affect the "NOW SAVING - DO NOT TURN OFF" screen, which would take up to a full minute to bypass as the audio glitched out. I don't like to use that worn-out "cursed" patter, but it was clear that I was never going to come back to the misery of running this disc. I either had to do it tonight, or face the very real possibility that it would never play again.

Gunfighter II is a sequel to a Q4 2001 PS1 lightgun game. It doesn't appear to have been brought into production because of the prior game's success, but the idea that these games cost nothing to make and can be thrown together in a month. This is a game from UK developer, Rebellion, years before their cult success with the Sniper Elite series. Their recent history featured titles like The Mummy, Largo Winch and the GBA version of Snood.

Let's talk about the things I like. Both Gunfighter games take obvious inspiration from Time Crisis 1. You reload while ducking behind cover, run from spot to spot, and your gun can take down enemies in a single shot (unfortunately, there are a few too many exceptions to this in Gunfighter II). I've also come to accept I really enjoy wild west settings. Saloons, canyons, desert bandit encampments, singing sorrowful campfire songs to your horse... that stuff all sounds pretty good to me. I could subsist on a diet of bourbon and beans quite happily. Rebellion understand the potential of its theme, and levels explore a good number of those old tropes. The game even utilises the G-Con 2's more advanced tracking for a duel at high noon with the final boss. Cracking.

Let's get into it, then.

Gunfighter II makes one thing abundantly clear - Lightgun games really need strong art direction. Time Crisis was so lucky having mid-nineties Namco on its side. Everything in Gunfighter II is a shade of brown. Not in the way that people talk about PS3 FPS games. I really mean it. It's really difficult to pick out distant enemies, and the game is chock-full of them. And there's innocent victims to avoid too, looking much the same as the criminals. The game really could have used a few Roy Rogers-types. There isn't a single sequin behind all the dust.

Animation quality runs on a scale from charmingly amateurish to concerningly malfunctional. Shoot an enemy multiple times, and they'll shift instantly between poses like you're flicking through Smash Bros trophies. There's even a handful of in-engine cutscenes through the campaign, and it's very funny when they attempt to do a cool close-up on these WWF Smackdown background models.

Enemy hitboxes are some of the fussiest I've ever encountered in a lightgun game. You may argue that I'm not as good a shot as I might like to think, but each trigger pull comes with an on-screen bulletmark, and a ton of them landed right on these guys' cuntnuts. Take my advice and always aim for the torso. The game doesn't always recognise those shots either, but it's by far the most reliable strategy.

Oh, and the audio's pretty crap. The soundtrack's full of short loops that likely came from an archive of stock music. They cheaped out on this one, making a 2003 PS2 game on CD, and I don't think they were even pushing the limits of the 700mb that offers.

The menus are atrociously designed, and my trusty G-Con 2 even seemed to lose connection during one level, but given the state of the disc I bought, I'm giving the game the benefit of the doubt on those points.

You can do a decent lightgun game on a tight budget. Cunning Developments' Endgame was developed under remarkably similar conditions, with remarkably similar intentions, and it's fucking miles better than this. Nothing special, obviously, but I saw that game in Tesco's for a tenner, and if my memory serves me, this was at least double the price at launch. I guess that goes to show why those guys were brought on to do Metroid Prime Pinball, while Rebellion were still stuck in the dirt, doing PSP versions of Gun and From Russia with Love. (Mind you, their version of Miami Vice was shockingly decent.)

You're never going to play this, and I never would have either, but it was one of the last three PS2 lightgun games on my list, and I found a £7 copy on an otherwise fruitless trip into town. I do not have any immediate desire to play either Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica, or Cocoto Funfair, but I can see that hunger on the horizon, and my bounty list is getting mighty short.

I'm awarding this one an extra half-star because the horses don't take damage when you shoot them. I just hope the travelling surgeon doesn't get too cross with me when they discover how much careless lead I put into them.

Disclaimer: There's no Spoiler tag on this, and while I'll refrain from spoiling story details for Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, I will be discussing spoilers for Yakuza 6 and 7, and would recommend avoiding this review if you haven't played through those games


I wasn't sure what I was getting into here. I'd avoided pretty much every piece of coverage after the initial teaser trailer. I was expecting something of a Ground Zeroes. A little Yakuza to present a few new story threads and warm us up for 8. I was also very willing to skip it entirely. I didn't like the idea.

I felt Yakuza 6 left Kazuma Kiryu with a perfect out, and he'd more than earned it. He'd been through more than his share of hardship. It was enough to make The Dragon want to retire, man. We saw him as a new grandparent, making friends at his new local, joining in with the baseball team, and finding happiness in his peaceful new life. He was going to be alright, and it was a lovely way to say goodbye to a character we've all grown so fond of. I knew he'd be back eventually, but I had hoped they'd work a little for it. Like when shit got really real, and more than our new protagonists could handle, he'd emerge from the shadows to bring back justice. Kazuma Kiryu was the nuclear option. When he appeared in 7, I wasn't thrilled with it, but as a means of passing the torch to Ichiban Kasuga, and tie us back to the old side-characters, I accepted it. And I've seen a lot of fans take issue with 7's gameplay, but the game did terrifically well both commercially and critically, and Kasuga wasn't a Raiden. Most people actually seemed happy with him. I had faith that they wouldn't run back to Uncle Kaz to do another game.

It's a shock that Gaiden justifies this seemingly cynical decision. It was naive to suggest Kazuma Kiryu could live a life in peace and obscurity. The people who were securing his identity and the safety of Sunshine Orphanage would want him to do something for them. Like beat up a bunch of guys. To the yakuza, he's as recognisable as Elvis Presley, and even fewer of his fans believe he's dead. It's very in-character with Kazuma's sense of honour and ludicrous, straight-laced forthrightness, that he wouldn't do more to hide his face than wear a pair of sunglasses. He didn't even change his shaving pattern. Gaiden risks disrespecting the fans who bought the Song of Life After Hours Edition who wanted to toast the man's departure with a dram from an officially licensed glass, but there's a genuine reason to keep his story going. We didn't really know him well enough.

Gaiden is a shorter Yakuza game. That still puts it around 20+ hours, and it hasn't lost any of its interest in side-content. There's five whole late-nineties Sega arcade games to play, for a start. Gaiden mainly takes place in Yakuza 2's Dotonbori Sotenbori, it's one of the series' smaller maps, though it's becoming increasingly comparable to Kamurocho-levels of familiarity. It's long worn off its novelty, but it's a decent location to structure a more modest entry around. Side-missions are dished out by new character, Akame, and has you carrying out favours all across town. It gives them a bit more structure and narrative justification than nebulous experience point systems, and I welcome the change. Akame's a lot of fun, and I don't think she's leaving the series anytime soon.

Another surprise - I think Gaiden has the best fights. Maybe it's the shorter length of the game to thank, but it's nice to have an entry where Kazuma doesn't start the game feeling far crapper than he did at the end of the prior one. And now he's got a bunch of spy bullshit to play with. It's inherently silly, and there's a couple of big laughs when he pulls out the Spider-Man shit during otherwise serious fight sequences, but it's a lot of fun to play around with.

I think the relief of playing a somewhat breezier entry (particularly after the overstuffed Ishin) has a lot of fans giving the game maybe a little too much credit. I am pretty tired of the Osaka map, and I was hoping to spend more of the game in any of the series' other locations. Yakuza really benefits from tighter pacing, though. I'm quite used to playing a thrilling Act 1, and then spending a full week trying to get to the exciting stuff again. I dropped out of Judgment before the hypothetical "fun bit" started. I'm, again, avoiding all the pre-release 8 coverage, but I have heard it's intended to be the biggest game in the series, and that's making me quite weary.

Anyway. He's back, and they've convinced me that's the right decision. If you're new to the series, perhaps annoyed that I keep calling it "Yakuza", I don't think you really need this one. It's a side-story for the Kazuma Kiryu fans, but also one that pays off on some recent plot threads that 7 merely glossed over. If you started these games multiple console generations ago, and you're still willing to continue, this could be the thing that brings back the passion. It is more than a prologue for 8. Sega are kind of taking the piss with all the money they're getting out of us, though.

There's definitely a vibe to Super Mario RPG. This isn't nostalgia talking. I didn't play the game until 2017, on the SNES Mini. But the music, the writing, the sequence of tasks you have to perform... this is the game Squaresoft made when they thought Final Fantasy VII was going to be an N64 project. It's a silly, kid-friendly fairytale RPG, but there's a real through line from this to both Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time. It's not that games don't make us feel like they used to when we kids. They just stopped making them like this.

So much of what I love about Mario RPG is in its presentation. It was a real technical achievement on the SNES, but that meant it was pushing against boundaries in every direction. I mean, really, this was an isometric RPG with pre-rendered graphics and a very prominent jump button, and that was about as 3D as you were getting in an adventure game back then. Characters had very limited poses to communicate with, and they opted to keep Mario mute as he gave direct responses to NPCs, expressing himself through pantomime and, again, his trademark jumping. It's a bit of a puppet show, and it's deeply endearing.

Removing the limitations of an old game is always hazardous, and particularly when that carries so much of its appeal. New developers, ArtePiazza, have earned Square Enix's trust from decades of ports and remakes, spanning all the way back to the Super Famicom version of Dragon Quest III, and they've taken great pains to stay faithful to the original game's charm, though you can feel the stress they were under, taking Zoom meetings with Shigeru Miyamoto and Tetsuya Nomura. Playing this game is accepting that it's going to look like a Fancy Modern version, discarding the funny old sprites, and past that, there's very little for the old guard to grumble about. Hell, the bulk of the characters still look like beautifully crude old CGI.

There's a suite of quality of life tweaks that take much of the old SNES RPG pain out of the experience. Downed characters can be swapped mid-battle, timing-based attacks now give a little heads up to help you figure out when you're supposed to press A, and the game's constantly auto-saving. It's less of a commitment. Yes, I like the tension that comes from not knowing when you'll be allowed to turn a game off, but I was still using save states when I played on the SNES Mini. I'm not kidding on that we had it better off in the nineties.

I really don't know what younger audiences will make of this, though. Seeing copies sitting on the shelves of Smyths Toys, with the no-nonsense "MARIO RPG" title and stark box art, it doesn't come with a disclaimer that says "THIS CONTROLS A BIT LIKE LANDSTALKER". If you're not already well versed in 16-Bit games, the game could feel really stiff and awkward. This is a game before there was a consensus on what Mario sounded like. Are kids going to understand why he's not whooping and exclaiming with every jump? Let's face facts. People who have first-hand experience of the 1996 release line-up are fucking old now. Most people buying Mario games aren't us. Are they going to understand? And if not, why doesn't Princess Peach look like the crude assembly of geometric shapes that she did on the SNES? There's concessions made for the modern perception of the Mario brand here, and they really clash against the eight-way movement system and silent text boxes. I think it's a real downer that they couldn't fully commit to the bit.

There's new FMV cutscenes that mimic the movement and animation of the original. I'm sure there's a certain kind of player who will see these and gasp in awe. They're not me, though. I don't think they're anywhere near as charming when freed of the static perspective. Again, this isn't a game that I've had a long relationship with. If I'd played the game at a more impressionable age, and fantasised about a more tangible version of its world, maybe it would have done something for me. I just like the old approach more.

So, it's bittersweet in all. A compromise. A better-playing version of a game I really like, but a version I like less overall. When I next want to play Mario RPG, I honestly don't know whether I'll play this or the SNES version. In all likelihood, I'll grumble about the indecision and play something else altogether. That's a shame. The game's really good, I like it a lot, and I respect the people who worked on this new version. If you want to play Mario RPG, I think the Switch release is the much more reasonable recommendation. But if you're like me, and you admire what developers were able to achieve on more rudimentary hardware, and the amusing, lovable games all those limitations lead to, I think you know that you'd be denying yourself something for the sake of convenience.

Never mind me, though. I'm a nut. Go have fun.

A lovely wee thing that gives a glimpse into a culture I never knew existed. A place named after my own country no less.

Tchia lets you just kinda mess about. Possess a bird and fly over villages. Make it do a shit. Play your uke to summon a plant that bounces you into the air, or a bubble helmet that gives you infinite breath for deep diving. Take out a camp of creatures made from fabric by controlling a plank of wood to roll through a fire and burn them all to unlock some cool sunglasses. Do the palm tree thing from Beverly Hills Ninja. It's a bit of a simple wee playground, but the playground is big.

The story surprised me because despite not being anything incredible, it's quite dark and got me a few times while also being humorous in places. You can just tell there's a lot of love here. It oozes throughout.

I understand the BOTW chat at a glance, but please don't go in expecting that. The elements it does borrow are very light indeed, and we need to stop comparing everything with grass fields and a glider to it. The "collectathon" chat can be taken with a grain of salt too, because that's completely optional, and while there are a ton of map markers, you maybe only have to search out 20 of them unless you like just exploring.

In the nicest way possible, just chill out, switch your brain off, and take control of a chicken that lays explosive eggs.

Hey. So, I got £50 of Steam credit for Christmas, so I bought the new Yakuza and had about £16 left over.

I go through Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 like most people go through loafs of bread. And this is securing it, right? It's in my Steam library, and that's good for the rest of time (or at least until Activision have to pull it from the service because of music licensing complications or some shit). It was free money, and could only be spent on games. Fuck else was I going to do with it? Yes, I already own this game on PS5 and Switch (not to mention the number of platforms I own the original Neversoft versions on), and I was fairly satisfied with the experience of Remote Playing it on my Steam Deck, but why have cotton when you can have silk?

Anyway. Good game.

The old Tony Hawk's remains one of the most successful score attack designs ever presented. You're given a level, and it's up to you to see how many points you can squeeze out of the arrangement of ramps, rails, ledges and obstacles. Neversoft pretty much nailed the design on THPS2, and only lost sight of that as they attempted to chase trends in contemporary videogames and skateboarding culture. I don't want to linger too long on all the Jackass shit that started to creep in from THPS4, or the parkour, or the fucking car driving objectives from THUG. Those later games did introduce some stuff that really added to the basic formula, though. Neversoft were technical wizards, and their games were stuffed to the brim with wild optional content. Don't forget that they included a robust online mode in 2001's THPS3, long before Sony even got serious about releasing a PS2 Network Adaptor. Spine transfers, reverts and even THUG's wallplants are all here. It's just the stuff that added to your combo potential without bogging it down with cavemans and infinite grind spins and all that shit. Remember when they did a stealth mission in one of these games? Sorry. I said I'd try not to talk about the sequels.

THPS1+2 is a game that really benefits from handheld access. Those 2 minute score attack runs kind of beg for instant access at any time. The Switch version is definitely a compromise, though. You do feel the diminished framerate, especially when you're chasing leaderboard positions, and the visual presentation takes a hit overall (even though I have some affection for how the compromised lighting sometimes does a better job of reflecting the original games). The Steam Deck is up to the task of playing the full fat version of the game, and comes with all the customisable settings from a typical PC version, if you want to prioritise presentation or performance. The device itself is a little clunky, and I found myself missing a few too many manuals with its d-pad, but maybe that's just something I need to adapt to. Playing the game docked to a TV with a Dualsense, I was just as capable a player as I am on PS5, though you do lose the fun adaptive trigger support.

There's still some minor things I don't love about THPS1+2. The game-wide Challenges feature seems a little awkwardly implemented, whilst largely ignorable, and the unlockable clothing seems like something that was implemented while Vicarious Visions were arguing with the publisher over how many microtransactions they'd have to stuff in the game. Some of the goals don't work brilliantly with the new engine, and there's a few that I'll have to drop my stats for in order to land in the right places. I still forget how to bluntslide for that one Philadelphia goal, and the game doesn't do a great job of telling you how to, either.

I still love the original PS1 release of THPS2, but this is a more robust and enjoyable way to play that content. The game is rightfully held up as a classic with some of the most consistently positive reviews of any game, and Vicarious Visions didn't fuck up the remake. We all got so excited when EA Black Box made a proper skateboarding game that we let this series die, but THPS remains the real videogame. They'll never be able to match it, so we just have to keep coming back to these nineteen levels until our bodies fail us, and we go to the same place as Bring the Noise.

I have been fascinated by this game ever since I saw a super low-res upload of the intro cutscene in the pre-YouTube days. I couldn't beleive an N64 game could have such good facial animation and cinematics.

I ended up getting it a few years ago on N64 but the performance was so, so poor - especially during boss fights.

Here we are in 2023 and I'm finally playing it at 60fps and it's a cracking bite sized Half-Life style campaign.

Very ambitious and silly. And I will be going back to play the second character's campaign.

Oh, and the remaster work on this is great. Nightdive are some of the best in the business.

Y̵a̵k̵u̵z̵a̵ Like A Dragon Mission: “ K̵i̵r̵y̵u̵ Joryu, we need you to save the cancer-riddled children of Sunflower Orphange from the Big Baby Breakdancing Gang! I’ll give you 5,000 Bronze Dragon Points if you can finish them off with this flaming dildo shaped like a copyrighted anime character and livestream it all on Snitch.tv!”

Y̵a̵k̵u̵z̵a̵ Like A Dragon Cutscene: “I’ve survived past the point of death so many times, often in the place of others who meant so much more to me than I could have known in the moment. Only now, as I face my own end, do I understand the true pain of feelings left unsaid. I tried to live without regrets, but the consequences of a life left living are inevitable.”

------------------------

Long - though comparatively short by franchise standards - periods of drama wholly contingent on the viewer's pre-existing knowledge of plot and history from Yakuza 0, Yakuza, Yakuza 2, Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, Yakuza 5, Yakuza 6, Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon exist in tandem with tutorials for complex game systems like "using the map" and "doing a kick", highlighting the epic contradictions this saga repeatedly unfolds and upholds upon itself. If you're an insane member of this subcultural phenomenon and have played through all ten games in the series, there is no spiritual need for anything beyond Kiryu's story, but ultimately all the Level-Up Daily Login Bonuses are in service of this game's overarching theme of going through the duties while you watch the exterior world move further away from you and begin to accept life in the interior world built for you by the actions of your past. Either you're new to this and woefully out of your depth (don't worry, Joryu will help you), or you've always known the man who erased his name and are now compelled by brotherly honour to remain with him until the end.

I think folk have been awfully harsh about New Super Mario Bros. in expressing their relief with Wonder. It's largely the same thing.

Despite the suggestions I've been seeing, Wonder doesn't represent a huge shift in 2D Mario design like 3 or World did. There's no innovation on par with the P-Meter, the world map, multiple exits or Yoshi. I might go so far as to suggest that the NSMB sequels did more to revitalise the core Mario gameplay. I think those games deserve far more credit than they're given for making 2D design mainstream again after a decade of tech-driven design. I'm not sure we'd have a Street Fighter IV without them. The real value in Wonder is in the soul it injects back into 2D Mario.

For as much as I'll defend the NSMB games, I won't deny they were sterile. You could enjoy playing them, but there wasn't much to love in them, with their sanded-down on-model characters, plastic levels and synthetic sound design. Wonder is focused on surprising and delighting its players. To "put smiles on the faces of everyone Nintendo touches". Wonder is frequently silly, strange and amusing, but kind and gentle in being so. Never obnoxious or upsetting. Even the Talking Flowers are soft-spoken and encouraging, never coming close to Omochao unsufferability. It's a game that will enthral fans, lapsed Mario players and children who are playing Mario for the first time.

It's no World, though. The focus on novelty holds back the depth of each level's appeal, and I don't really see myself coming back nearly as frequently as I would for my favourite entries in the series. With the exception of the Drill Suit, none of the new power-ups switch up the gameplay to the degree of SMB3's. The Power Badges are a welcome addition, but essentially just serve to bring back gameplay styles from more distinct entries like Mario 2. The game didn't feel like the kind of shift I'd expect in an all-new Mario game, but a post-Mario Maker NSMB sequel that had to do more bespoke stuff with its levels to justify itself. When I accept that, it's easier to appreciate the things that Wonder does well.

Within Nintendo, Wonder has been approached as an opportunity to give younger members of the staff more control within their most precious franchise, and it's clear that they've been very delicate with it, while addressing the tastes of 2023 audiences. They've clearly studied the series for inspiration, and Wonder incorporates a lot of features I haven't seen Mario touch in years. I really appreciated the funny little cutscenes after each castle, which are straight out of SMW, but they also help establish the sense that these disparate, wacky levels are intended to represent an overarching adventure. The online features are intended to encourage players who might drop out of frustrating, lonely single-player games, and I appreciate its inclusion, though it's not something I took a personal interest in. Even the concerning Talking Flowers do elevate the experience of retrying a level, with a voice cheering you on through the obstacles and enemies.

The diverse roster of new enemies and multiple playable characters really add to the game's sense of vitality. There's so much energy in their animation, and a lot of great little details. You can play as your favourite, and you're never made to feel like you're not getting the real experience if you don't choose Mario. Even the story's text boxes use a variable field for the character's name, so you can pretend this mission to save the Flower Kingdom was mainly the work of Light-Blue Yoshi, if you so choose. All the transformations are unique to your chosen character, and all of Peach's were really cute.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a really fun game, built with great care and talent. I just can't help but feel it regresses in areas that I don't expect from a new Mario title. Maybe that's the problem with bottling a beloved formula. I don't know if we're ever going to get another 2D Mario game that messes with its fundamentals as much as the new 3D ones do. With Miyamoto and Tezuka taking more hands-off roles on these projects, there's clearly a concern not to break what they established. Perhaps it would be better to follow in their sense of wild, daring creativity than to just play covers of their biggest hits. Maybe that's an unrealistic desire, though. Whatever. It's another good Mario, and I won't feel too hurt if they just make more of those.

I find it hard to describe exactly what it is that makes Death Stranding so special to me.

Maybe it's the beautiful landscapes, maybe it's the unusual setting, maybe it's the relaxing pace. Maybe it's the design, maybe it's the humour, maybe it's the... strangeness.

Yes, I can't tell you precisely WHY, but Death Stranding really is such a special game for me. Just a wonderful, unique experience that is unlike anything I have ever played before.

Thank goodness we have this to enjoy. Thank goodness there are people out there willing to make stuff like this. Stuff that makes you go: OOOOOOOH and WHHHHAAAT in equal measure.

Death Stranding is special. Play Death Stranding.