Favourite computer games of all time. [2]

{{{ Sadly left out along with the Sega Rally series due to poor emulations or not working emulations at all- but Daytona would have done just as well as Rage Racer to explain and show that early change to polygon racing games from sprite based.
But as soon as we move into the age of polygons in racing I tend to think of them more as 'modern' and less as 'retro' anyway as essentially its how they are still made today.  }}

{{ Next vid

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_Emulators/7

That will get you MAME- the arcade emulator.
Relevant game roms from here-

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/7


This time its the turn of the side scrolling beat 'em up or slash 'em up.
These started out as single screen or limited scrolling screen brawlers such as Renegade but soon progressed to full-on side scrolling with the likes of Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. Neither of which is here, the former though it may offend some, because I don't rate it in the game-play department and the latter because the emulation doesn't work for it.
In the case of Double Dragon I appreciate its place and the new ideas it brought which went on to be stables of the genre- the boss fights, the one button multiple attack moves technique, the flying kick move and picking up extras gained from smashing bits of scenery.
But I find the sprites too small the graphics lacking detail and the controls finicky- the template it laid down was bettered by later games in the genre and as the theme here is games still worth playing it doesn't make the list. But it deserves to be noted.

With this genre of games we have entered an interesting period in arcade games development- by this time the early computers and consoles were well established and ports of arcade games were often top sellers. This led to a bit of a feed-back loop forming- arcade games softened a bit, its wasn't they got easier- difficulty was often cranked up just as hard a  before- but there was a longer period of grace before it happened.
Home gamers had become accustomed to games lasting them some time and actually allowing for a learning curve, the arcade was becoming off putting and so you got in these games a difficulty curve that stays pretty flat for a couple of levels whilst you get to grips withe controls and game mechanics, then cranks up very fast indeed. You got more game for your initial money- but if you wanted to see it all you'd have to pay up for those continues to do it- and we had also now entered the era of games not being 20 or 40p a go but 50p or £1 a go, so even though players were at a machine longer than in the past it still worked as a money maker.
For this vid however it means that it would be very long indeed if I kept all the footage from each game, as even a casual gamer could probably make it all the way through the first level at minimum before hitting that difficulty spike. So whilst the same rules apply- 1 credit no continues or restarts- I have cut the footage down rather than show the complete play-through of very game just for the sake of keeping the length of the vid watchable.

There are a few varieties of these games- there is the street brawler style where your main weapons are fists and feet with occasional pickups of short lasting weapons. And there is the sword and magic variety where you usually have a selection of characters like mage or warrior to pick from and a weapon or magic to use as your main offensive attack. These latter games really began with Golden Axe, and got more complex as they went, with more detailed plots, the ability to hold multiple items and select between them but the core game mechanics- kill everything walk to the right kill everything, walk to the right, pick up bonuses, kill an end of level boss, repeat- persists in them all.

Some such as Rastan will add in platforming elements to the mix, which was quite common in the latter period whilst others added two player co-op modes, or even shoot 'em up elements, but at heart they all play and feel fairly similar.
For this reason I dont so much recommend every game here to play, though all are worth a go, but its more a case of finding a setting and look that appeals to you as the game-play is pretty much the same in all.





We start with the granddaddy of the rpg inspired scrolling slash 'em ups Golden Axe - 00.00
as one of the first of its type all the genre templates are established here- there's a character selection screen, potions and upgrades to grab, boss fights, and one of its most memorable things, weird fantasy animals you can ride about on and kill people with.
Its got all the basics and is still very playable but it is the most simple of the games here too and makes it a good introduction game to the genre.

Next up is Magic Sword. This one is a slight anomaly as despite it being a sword and sorcery type setting it borders on moving into the shoot 'em up territory in how rapidly you can fire your weapons at enemies. A nice touch this added and not repeated after as far as I am aware is the ability to pick up keys, which in turn can be used to unlock doors behind which are Companions who will join you and fight alongside you until killed. Faster paced and more frenetic than these games are usually but fun.

Rastan is next. This one adds in platform elements to the hack and slash mix and a great soundtrack. Again fairly fast paced, it encourages you to keep moving to stop enemies spawning in front and behind you continually. Hard game though.

The Asterix game takes its look and inspiration for the soundtrack from the 80's era animated films, which in turn stuck very closely to the look of the original comics.
The moves are limited but fun the first few times you see them and you can choose to play as Asterix or Obelix, which doesn't change the game but does give you another set of animations to watch as you comically beat up Romans. Lots of nice nods and touches to various Asterix comics thrown in too and some fiendish and inventive Bosses mixed with good settings taken from the comics.

Next we have Cadillac's and Dinosaurs, apparently this is based on a comic but I've never heard of it so cant comment on its adherence to source. As a game its here because Streets of Rage doesn't work in the emulator and in terms of game-play its very much a Streets of Rage clone but with added dinosaur presence (and presumably cadillacs but I didn't get that far if there are!). Its got solid controls, all the usual features of picking up enemy weapons, power ups ect if you've ever played one of these Streets of Rage style games you will be immediately at home with it- if not its not going to take you long to pick up the basics.

Long before the terrible films (actually the first one has its good moments!) there was Alien v Predator the arcade game. It sticks to the same basics of the genre but throws in tons of enemies on screen- it fair fills up with Alien hordes and lets you play as a Predator.
Actually this is one of the oddest thing about it- like others in this genre it has a character select screen where you can pick to play as one of two Predators, or one of two humans. Why? Who when given the chance to play as a bad-arsed Predator in a game called Alien's V Predator picks to go a human? Why are they even there to choose?
Anyhow you're a Predator (unless your an idiot)- you do Predator things in the style of a side scrolling beat'em up- you can punch, kick, throw, grab Predator like weapons such as spears, and ammo for your shoulder cannon to blast at the hordes for a brief time. Overwhelming but fun and nice big sprites to enjoy as you cut them to shreds.

Dungeons and Dragons Shadow of Mystara is a spiritual successor to golden Axe in its a pure fantasy RPG inspired game set in the familiar RPG world of D&D. So what it basically adds is one of four character classes to pick from in the guise of one of four playable characters, quick slot style menus allowing you to carry secondary weapons and magic or healing potions, D&D's large catalogue of things to fight and a long winded story full of unpronounceable names. All your basic D&D elements really.
If you liked Golden Axe you will definitely like this as its the same style of game-play but with more depth added, though don't expect too much depth, its still an arcade hack 'em up not an RPG.

Next we have Rastan Saga, the third in the series I think. This one is interesting in part because in the arcade it was not only two player (not too remarkable in itself) but was a double monitor set up making for a very large wide play area to fill with impressive large sprites.
This is probably also one of the easier games here for the first couple of levels- you will probably breeze through them largely just using one move, but then the difficulty curve starts to crank up considerably. But the visuals are nice, the sprite work great and bold, the settings not exactly new but well rendered and imaginatively done and the only version available is in German- which makes no difference to the game-play whatsoever but if your a non-German speaker has the added benefit of making all the bad guys sound really evil (sorry Germans it's probably years of WW2 films!). After Golden Axe to get the hang of the basics of the genre this is probably a good second game as you wont feel like its beating you about the head from all sides until about level 3.

1. Golden Axe 00.00
2. Magic Sword 01.49
3. Rastan 03.33
4. Asterix 04.53
5. Cadillac's and Dinosaurs 06.43
6. Alien v Predator 09.33
7. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara 11.22
8. Rastan Saga 13.44  }}}

{{Red Dead 2 Trailer! }}

Vacation days most definitely sacrificed for this

{{{  Skyrim VR review.

This is a review of the pc version on oculus as I know other versions have their own pros and cons.
And that's pretty much how I'm going to do this I'm going to list the pro's and cons, but I'll start with the cons and get the bad stuff out of the way first.

Its bugged. Now that kind of goes without saying from Bethseida, its not more bugged than normal Skyrim its juts as bugged as normal Skyrim. If you are prepared to play normal Skyrim then this shouldn't be an issue as its no worse than it and better than some versions. But there are some new VR exclusive ones- chief among them is the games inability to remember how tall you are after certain activities or preset scenes. The very start at Helgen is a good example, after being led to the block, forced to crouch down to have your head lopped off, and the subsequent distraction of a dragon attack saving your life, you are asked to follow Raloff, there's a good chance you will do so from the perspective of a hobbit as the game will have screwed up the character height and wont correct it until you go through a loading screen- such as when you enter Helgen keep, or if you save or quit out to the menu and load back up again. So yeah, like all versions of Skyrim the game engine is buggy.

Its not a VR game but its in VR. A lot of the things that you quickly learn to do instinctively in VR and that tend to be standards across games arent in Skyrim because it was never written to be that way.
To take a simple example in almost every VR game the 'grip' button on the controller is used, as the name implies, for grabbing hold of stuff in the game world. So say there is an apple on a table, you just reach your hand out to it and press the grip button and you have it in your hand, from where you can do whatever you'd normally do- put it down, wave it about, throw it across the room- whatever.

Not so Skyrim where the grip button is used to cancel or exit menus because in Skyrim you press the 'action' button to interact. Not only that as Skyrim in first person mode doesn't have a body as such anything you pick up with the action button just sort of hovers in front of your character till you release it- this remains the same in VR so you reach out to grab something, can't, have to use the action button to get hold of it, then instead of being in your hand its sort of hovers in front of you. And there a few other examples of where the games non-VR roots shine through in unnatural or non-intuitive ways taking you out of the world and reminding you your manipulating a game, clumsily.

Melee combat doesn't work. Its not broken in the sense its unusable, ineffectual or mechanically not working, it works the same as in normal Skyrim. The problem is it doesn't work in VR. It feels clunky and weightless. In order to simulate you not being able to attack back when staggered by a blow as in vanilla Skyrim, in VR your weapons temporarily vanish from your hands when staggered, preventing you hitting back. But also looking like you've sheathed your weapons by accident the first few times it happens, causing you to hit the unsheath weapon, only to find your weapons had just been rendered temporarily absent not sheathed, so now you've sheath them in the middle of a fight by accident! Its weird and awkward and immersion breaking.
Weapons have no sense of weight or solidity to them either as of course you arent actually hitting anything so there is no resistance, so the impacts you are seeing yourself doing dont have enough feedback to convince you are hitting anything. But probably the biggest issue is that the game cant distinguish between you swinging at an enemy and you just gently wiggling your sword at it. The upshot of which is you can basically cheat, you can swing your arms like your swinging a sword as in normal vanilla to hit, or you can stick your sword straight ahead and sort of wiggle it about really fast, the game will still register each hit same as if you'd swung, but obviously just wiggling it about is a lot faster and registered lots of hits quickly. So if you want to have some enjoyment out of melee combat you have to wilfully choose not use the games mechanics against it to cheat.


Menus. The menus are not designed for VR, whilst perfectly navigable with the oculus sticks the layout and design is just not suited for VR and the worse issue is that the menu does not appear over things but in the VR world itself, the upshot of which is that if there's any objects between you and where the menu is projected it can be entirely, or partially obscured preventing in you using it properly as you cant see the choices.

Mining and log cutting- both of these could have been fun little VR activities had they been written for VR. Instead as in vanilla Skyrim both activities force a third person view as you mine/chop, but as pull;in gyou into 3rd person would be jarring and motion sick inducing  they opted in VR for the easy option- they just cut it out. Essentially you activate a mine you get the ore, you activate a chopping block you get the logs- no animations, no actual VR chopping, nothing. A missed opportunity but they have taken the easiest cheapest route to solving how to do this in VR, it also just happens to be the most disappointing way they could have done it.

Sound- I'm including this despite an easy mod fix for it because its shocking they put a VR version of Skyrim out without it- directional sound. One of the key components to creating a convincing VR world is the soundscape. If there's a undead abomination coming up behind me I want to be able to tell it is behind me from where the noise comes from. Being able to localise sound in the 3d world is a crucial aspect of any VR experience- and they left it out!

Resolution- this one is not unique to Skyrim its a limitation of the current gen of VR- the resolution is lower than your probably used to playing it- this combined with Skyrims now older and sometimes muddy textures can make things, particularly in the distance hard to make out.

I'll put this last as it is being patched out- but currently the game doesn't know where you are! What I mean by this is that the game still thinks it 2d, so if I say take two steps to my right just by moving, not by using the game controller then whilst my perspective is two steps to the right, I can continue playing from that position and it will look fine, the game thinks my body, the hit box, is still two steps to my left. Traps, combat ect and the damage you take from it will be on where the hitbox is not where you actually are.
This means in practise that you cant walk about examining a room with the game tracking your position, it will always leave the hitbox behind. You have to stand pretty much still and facing the same way and use the controllers to move and turn- which is very unnatural in VR and you are guaranteed to move out of synch with your hitbox in combat against more than one foe where you will be moving, dodging, and turning all the time.
This is being addressed in the upcoming patch however so should be resolved soon. But right now it still a problem.

Pros

It's Skyrim in VR! Its hard to under estimate this one- its a massive world all around you. You'll strain your neck trying to see up to the ops of mountains or trees, dragons really can blot out the sun. I think the effect is even more pronounced if your already a fan- in that its a bit like being a fan of a tv show and the difference between watching it on a screen and standing on the actual set- only its not a set its the actual thing. All the things VR is great for- giving a sense of scale, height, solidity all applies here and because its such a fully realised world that's all magnified by the sheer scale of the map. Its massive and it looks and feels it when your in it.

Mods!- Despite Bethseida saying the VR version would not support mods the mod community disagreed and a means to mod it was available within a couple of hours of the games launch- as a result I have currently 167 active mods running without a problem so far.
The bonus of this is you can negate some of the cons- mainly lots of the bug issues as you can install the Unofficial Skyrim patch- it wont address any VR specific hassles, but it will do its normal job of fixing tons of the bugs Bethseida never bothered too. Likewise texture mods can help with the resolution problem- it wont change the resolution but making the textures hires can help make things look less muddy. Not to mention all the other benefits of playing with mods.

Magic and bows- whilst melee suffers in VR these two areas of the game excel. Bows take a little getting used to in terms of aiming, but when you do its so satisfying- put simply archery is a lot of fun and that's as it should be. Magic similarly is just tons of fun to use, it is totally freed up in VR- in vanilla though you can duel wield magic both hands fire in the same general direction- in front of you- with VR you can point and cast in different directions at the same time- so you can be summoning to your left with one hand and frying someone with fire with your other, or freezing a monster with one hand and use a ward in the other to defend against magic attacks from that side- it totally frees up magic and what you can do with it in an encounter.

Sneaking and swimming- want to sneak? Then you have to physically crouch, want to swim, then you better start making your arms do the breaststroke- yes you feel like a plonker but give yourself over to it and the addition of physical actions, combined with swinging a  weapon about, or drawing bows, and you can get a bit of a work out while you play!

Little details- in VR you have a tendency to look about yourself as you do in real life, but not something you tend to do in a normal 2d fps. In Skyrim VR when you nosey about there's is stuff to see- the world is packed with little details that even after multiple hours playing the game I had never noticed before because I hadn't been looking up, or down the back of something, or in a dark corner- but in VR you do naturally, you check stuff out, and the fact its so packed with little details just helps immerse you in the Skyrim world.

Movement- motion sickness can always be an issue with VR and Skyrim covers all the bases with a comprehensive set of options, from free-movement, snap turning, teleportation, and blinker effects on movement and turns to narrow and focus vision to the centre of the screen. Basically if it still makes you motion sick there isn't much more they could have done to help you- every known VR option for movement seems to be covered here.

Value for money- Outside of Elite Dangerous, which is procedurally generated, Skyrim is the biggest VR experience out there on pc for all headsets and certainly the most detailed. There are hours of gameplay in vanilla- about 14-20 in the main quest and about 80-100 in side stories ect at least- and you can treble that or more with free mods. Its a massive game world and a triple AAA game, and there are not still many of them on VR.

Conclusion- Skyrim VR has its issues mainly centering around it being a game that was designed and made before VR even existed as an option. It's been poured rather awkwardly at times into the vr mould. But where it stumbles on the VR front it makes up for it in content, breadth, and sheer visual spectacle in terms of scale and the sorts of events you will partake of.
All the things that were already good about Skyrim are still good, only now in VR. All the things that were already bad about Skyrim are similarly present but in VR.
The issues presented where the VR and the original game clash are never so large as to ruin your game, but they are often annoying. But the existence of freemods and the high likelihood of continued mod support for it, helps lift it again above what it could have been had there only been vanilla VR Skyrim.

As such its definitely worth the buy, even if you've already played Skyrim- just go a mage/archer build as it's the most fun build I reckon you can have with the VR mechanics, as they play to VR's strengths.  }}

{{Had a cool VR experience last night in Skyrim. One of those weird reality bending moments. You see I had been playing for an hour or so and was heading back in game to Whiterun to stay at the inn for a night and to get some grub and drink (as I use the i-needs mod).

Whilst in reality I had decided to go there save the game and take the headset off and have a munch and a drink before bed, earlier in the day my better-half and I had gone to subway and I still had half of a massive sandwich to eat so I was going to have that.
But then I thought- well I'm going to an inn in-game so my game character can eat- why take off the helmet and eat in my boring living room, when I can have my meal sitting at a table in an inn in Skyrim?!

So in-game I went to the inn, got some food- bread being the closest to what I was actually eating, sat my character at a table in the games inn, whilst I pulled my actual chair up and sat on it in reality- and I proceeded to sit there, chatting to my virtual companion Vilja about her life (great companion mod) , eating my sandwich, listening to the bard and watching the folk come and go in my medieval inn setting! And to make it all more satisfying somehow as I was eating my sandwich at the table next to us where a couple of guards who had just come in at the end of their shift for a pint and munch (thank you Immersive Citizens AI mod!) and so I was watching them eat as I ate, sitting on a real chair matching the virtual one, eating and drinking real food, in a VR inn. After which my character went to bed in the inn, and I went to bed in my actual bed.
So today, my memory of late last night is not of sitting in front of my pc playing a game but of sitting in a Skyrim inn having  some food and drink and chatting to Vilja before going to sleep- this sort of thing can mess with your head!!  }}

Sounds extremely weird and extremely cool - don't know if I should try this, I'm a little worried that I'd prefer the other 'reality'..

{{Personally I cant recommend the VR experience enough- been worth every hour of work I had to do to pay for the bugger! And the example above is kind of why- you can play Skyrim on just about everything, hell there's probably a version will work if you stick it in your microwave, but of all the versions out there you cant have the experience I describe above in any other, its only possible to experience and interact with the game that way in VR. And its not that the game has changed, or its specifically designed for the VR experience- it's not- it's just that it offers these completely new ways to experience a game that just cant happen in any non-VR fashion.
For me its made games interesting again just as I was starting to get jaded with the game industry and cut and paste game experiences stuffed with money making tricks- VR reminds me of the early days of computer games where programmers are  just excited about the tech and what they might be able to do with it and so are trying all sorts of stuff, new ideas, new ways of experiencing stuff. Long may it last! }}

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_Emulators/7

{{That will get you MAME- the arcade emulator.
Relevant game roms from here-}}

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/7


{{{ Onto the next in my suggested Mame classic arcade games still worth playing, and this time it's the turn of horizontal scrolling shooters, ground based as opposed to airborne.

First up we have a real oldie, Green Beret - 00.00 - one that actually takes a bit of time to get to any shooting admittedly, technically its more a stab them up, but it helped establish a lot of the standards of the genre despite the limited use of actual guns; multiple level platforms, end of level bosses ect And you just cant beat that Cold War vibe!

Next we have Midnight Resistance - 01.10 -  1 or 2 player, shoot bad guys, collect keys, leap about platforms. All your standards are here and this an early version of something quite common in this style of game eventually, multi-directional fire.

Rolling Thunder - 01.35 - is a spy style affair with some nice game mechanics that lead to interesting level designs- the switching levels at opportune moments, the limited ammo dumps for special weapons and the sort of villains that seem to have come straight from a classic Saturday morning kids cartoon. Good big sprites too and colourful.

Sly Spy next, also known as Secret Agent in the US- 02.32- this one is a little clunky but its got that 'got to see what's next' thing going for it as whilst levels are made up of the traditional scroll to the right shoot bad guys they are broken up every other level with James Bond style escapades- parachuting shooting bad guys, riding bikes, jet packs, harpooning sharks underwater- every Bond rip off imaginable is in here right down to the Golden Gun. Its simple, but its solid and fun too.

Ah Aliens-04.20 - remember how in the lightgun reviews I mentioned Alien 3 took some liberties- well this takes liberties and then takes liberties with them! You play as technically Ripley, though she is blonde and her job is now inexplicably to go in BEFORE the Marines to secure areas. You have to find and rescue Newt as well. But um that's about where it ends in terms of similarities, the aliens are only vaguely Alien like, with most not and there are floating alien heads to kill, flying winged aliens, purple aliens, pink aliens- in fact you are best not thinking of it as an Aliens game at all as its barely even on nodding acquaintance with the source material- however that said it is a really fun shooter in its own right if you can ignore the whole its supposed to be aliens based thing.

Metal Slug- 07.02 - this one is just over the top comic book style fun- you play as a soldier up against an endless horde of enemy soldiers and just about everything can be blown up- you rescue bearded old POW's along the way for bonuses, you can enter and exit the various vehicles strewn about levels and cause even more mayhem, there are mid-level and end of level bosses- big graphics, big explosions, big sound, big on fun. }}}}

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_Emulators/7

{{That will get you MAME- the arcade emulator.
Relevant game roms from here-}}

https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/7





{{{{ Onto the next load of arcade classics- this time it's the turn of the vertical scrolling shoot-em up.
Of all retro styles of game these for me have probably aged the best- mainly because its a style of gameplay that doesn't benefit from bigger flashier graphics after a certain point- they just get in the way, clutter things up, or screw up your view of the play area, whereas these classics rely for their draw on pure gameplay mechanics.

For this reason the top down vertical scrolling shooter still enjoys a life today on  mobile devices and from indy developers.
They are an easy game for a company to knock out, and for this reason there are probably more of this type of game than any other genre, but they are very hard to do well.

It's all about the fluidity of your own ships movement, the attack patterns of the enemies- you have to be able to predict their movements for it to be fair, and it has to both impress with graphics and effects and be clear enough to tell what's going on.
Throw into the mix balancing weapons, power ups, enemies, bosses ect and you can see why its a tricky balance to maintain.

With that in mind here are some of my personal favourite shoot-em ups. And for me these games, this genre represents gaming at its most pure- its just you, hand to eye coordination and the speed of your reflexes and there is no-one to blame for your failure but your own lack of skill. Its pure instinctive gaming where you dont get given time to think and plan, you just have to do.


We start with an oldie but a goodie. 1943 - 00.00 - based loosely around the the War in the Pacific in WW2 you take on the role of a pilot tasked with seemingly defeating the entire enemy hordes on your own- you start high up in the skies, and towards the end of a level you fly in low to take out ships, destroyers ect as the boss fights. Tight gameplay, well honed and fun to play. All you need really.

This next one, Dangun Feveron - 01.20 - is here for two reasons- first its a great fun example of the shooter and an example of how to do plenty happening on screen without you loosing track whilst playing of what's going on, but the second reason it's barmy!- its the only disco themed shoot em up I've ever seen. Its has disco graphics, disco sound samples and disco power-ups and best of all a disco soundtrack. I could play this just for the music that goes with it- oddly fitting....somehow. The only shoot-em up ever made that can make you feel funky. I demand moire disco themed games!


Dragon Blaze is next on our list - 3.00- just to prove its not all spaceships, in this one you can pick from one of four dragons. Granted itmay as well be spaceships for all the difference it makes to the classic shoot-em up gameplay but it adds a nice graphical variety to the mix and its a solid, tight, well paced shooter in its own right.


Next is a sequel to a classic that isn't so much a true sequel as a sort of directors cut of the original, with some levels changed up a bit, new enemies placed into it and tighter gameplay, its Raiden II - 04.03- Raiden is best known for adding some horizontal movement to the screen, its still a vertical shooter but the screen also goes about half a screen either way too if you go to the edges giving you a wider play area. Fast paced gameplay, gets hectic, but then dont all shoot-em ups? But great fun.

Ultra X Wing Weapons - 05.24- is the second entry on here to get on partly for being completely barmy. This is a Kaiju themed shooter- you'll take on giant lizards, Godzilla types as well as the usual array of flying and ground based enemies. It has very colourful and nicely made graphics that are pre-rendered from what looks like claymation. The gameplay is good, the levels bonkers in a really fun way, your 'smart' bomb looks like a Power Ranger and it has the most out of place soundtrack I've ever heard in any game ever. Its not bad, its just weirdly unrelentingly cheerful, upbeat and sort of fairgroundy- the complete opposite of the on-screen mayhem.

Next we have Gigawings - 07.50- similar in style to Raiden with equally tight and frenetic gameplay. Nicely balanced, good enemies, nice boss fights.

Ray Storm - 09.05- is the most modern of the shooters here, having gone from sprite to rendered we are now in the polygon age. And this is about as far as this style of shooter can go in terms of graphical development- yes you could sharpen everything up, make the texture resolutions much higher ect, but after this attempts to make the games more immersive and 3-d, throw more polygons at it ect just detracted from the purer essence of shooting and dodging bullets which is what the genre is all about. So for me Ray Storm pretty much marks the end of the classic era of vertical shooter and was one of the few polygon shooters to still hold up as a shoot-em up in the classic style, and though not the first to use the secondary fire to target ground targets on different levels from the player, its polygon nature makes it one of the better examples of this style. }}}

{{Being playing Beat Saber- its a VR music guitar hero style game- only instead of a guitar you have basically a light saber in each hand, one blue one red, and boxes come toward you with arrows on them indicating which direction to hit them in time to the music whilst avoiding hitting certain obstacles. Its rather energetic, you get a good work out playing it.
Heres someone playing it who looks like an elegant jedi ninja- this is how I think I look whilst playing it- I dont   }}}

{{{{ Rumour mill is that following the strong sales of Beat Saber on HTC Vive and Oculus that it will be announced for psvr at E3.
If that's the case I strongly recommend it for anyone with a psvr, especially if it retains its pc pricing of £14.99 its great fun, addictive as hell, simple to play hard to master (yeah that old cliche but true here) and a really good keep fit program as an aside (I played through about 5 songs in a row late last night and came out of it utterly knackered and drenched in sweat!   )- and on pc at least you can download fan made custom songs (I've got about 100 tracks to play through now) so that's a lot of game for 15 bucks! (the game by default comes with 10 songs each with four difficulty levels: easy, normal, hard and expert).
If you are fortunate enough to have VR for pc its definitely highly recommended. If it comes out on psvr I dont see any reason it shouldn't be just as fun, even given the differences between pc Vr and console it should still be good and a lot of fun. }}}

{{Much I want to play Red Dead 2 Rockstar seem to be going down the monetization route and selling their soul like EA.
The pre-orders for RD2 includes several versions, base game, special edition, collectors editions ect- one problem here is that they want folk to pre-order versions of the game up to over $100 for a game they so far have refused to show any gameplay footage from. But the real problem however is that some content, single player content at that, and side missions are behind a paywall- unless you shell out more for the special edition you wont be able to access them in the base game or unlock them in-game through gameplay.
Expected better from Rockstar. This is shitting on their own legacy. }}}

Seems to be the way everyone is going at the moment. I play Destiny 2 and that has gone through its fair share of controversy to try and milk people for their money at every opportunity.

I don't mind microtransactions so long as they as the base game is solid. In a game like Destiny where weapons and armour give you an advantage and it is a looter shooter, that means no exclusive, paid for guns that give stay advantages and a generic loot pool that is big enough for all the game activities. Any special, cool looking aesthetic items outside of that are fair game in my opinion.

{{After another glorious day of weather I have to concur with the above video about the combination of hot day and Beat Saber- its like trying to fight off 20 ninjas on speed, in a sauna.

I also have to disagree about it being a good party game on the basis that when I played it in front of a room full of people my mighty saber skills went unnoticed as, what with my kilt flipping and flapping all over the place flashing my hairy blotched red arse and accompaniments by the time I'd finished the song and took the headset off the room was empty! }}}

{{Bethseida take the piss out themselves and the fact they have re-released Skyrim on just about every platform imaginable by now! Prepare yourself for Skyrim- The Very Special Edition!!!  }}}

The Last of Us 2 might be my most anticipated game from E3. The first is definitely in my top 10... possibly 5 games list. Play it if you haven't managed to so far!

{{{Sadly with it being ps exclusive (I hate exclusives) have never played i, have a mate who completed the first one though and still raves about it.

I see Beat Saber did get announced for psvr- at only fifteen quid Lance one to consider!}}

{{Enjoyed this and found it interesting. Its a series using GTAV online and mods to put British police into the game- but more than that its been shot and made in the style of a British TV cop documentary. But what elevates it above the usual is that in this case most of the people involved in the making of it are serving UK cops or serve in other UK emergency services, some of them Senior Officers so its not played for the usual laughs its done pretty straight faced. Also as GTA is obviously set in America its interesting to see UK cop techniques being deployed, given UK police are not armed as a general rule. }}

{{{ After watching the 1958 film A Night to Remember about the Titanic sinking I was nosing through the VR games library and noticed a Titanic VR experience that had got a new update and a was on sale- so I snapped it up, along with a demo for a forthcoming Titanic set game Titanic Hope and Glory.



In the first game, which is titled as an 'educational game' two words normally guaranteed to have gamers running for the hills, but which really works well here, you get to witness the Titanic sinking- you start off on deck watching as boats are loaded (or not!) and then you witness the rest from the perspective of being in lifeboat six, helplessly watching as the ship finally sinks.
As with all VR if this was pancake it would be nice to average but not remarkable- in VR the sense of scale of the ship, of being the sea at night is all amazing and unnerving. Watching the ship go down, hearing the cries of the over 1,000 souls still trapped onboard as she goes is a chilling experience.
The main bulk of the actual game part however is going down in a submersible to explore the wreck, sending a little bot thing to go into the ship and look for interesting stuff and artefacts to recover.
Once you get some stuff you go back to the lab on board your ship and have to treat, preserve, catalogue and work out what you've got.
Its all historically based and interspersed throughout with commentary, interviews ect from survivors and news reports of the time. The lab stuff is all very nicely done as you manipulate and preserve artefacts following scientific principles. And its all fascinating to the point where you dont even notice your learning stuff!
For a tenner its a worthwhile experience.



The second Titanic VR experience Hope and Glory is only available as a demo at this point, in which you get to explore a sizeable section of Titanic in all her glory before she sank.

So between the two, I can roam a one to one recreation of most of the ship interior, go from onboard to a lifeboat and witness her sinking, and then dive to and explore the wreckage and recover artefacts from her.

All in all a very interesting VR experience, more so if you already have an interest in the subject. }}}}

I am looking at investing in a new desktop p.c. in the next couple of weeks. Not getting in to building any myself so will probably buy something far too expensive for what is inside the case!

rofl, British police in the US.

Not getting in to building any myself so will probably buy something far too expensive for what is inside the case!- Lance

{{ I didn't build mine either, couldn't be bothered with the hassle, I just saved for a long time until I had enough to get something that could do VR- not the best, couldn't afford top of the line of duel graphics cards or anything too mad like that.
My specs are -

4.00 gigahertz Intel Core i7-6700K
16324 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB [Hard drive]
ST2000DM001-1ER164 [Hard drive] (2000.40 GB)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

And just got it hooked up to a standard flat screen tv (Samsung in this case)

Not top of the line but decent and not had any problems running my VR in it which is the most intense stuff I have games-wise for needing raw power.
Any idea what graphics card your going for? }}

rofl, British police in the US.- Forest

{{you never know, if you did there might be a lot less civilian deaths at the hands of police in the US! }}