Its the House of the Dead type one isn't it?

Blood & Truth is going to feel like a Revelation.

There's not much in it.  It's more interactive than Rush of Blood as you can choose cover spots and it has some pretty good assult course type sections.  Interested to hear your opinions on it at some point.  If I had to guess I'd say you'll prefer RoB, but if B&T clicks with you it could well end up as one of your favourite PS4 exclusives.

2.Horizon: Zero Dawn - 24 Hours - 8/10 - PS4 PRO

Decided to go back, for a third time...and finally stuck to it and finished this. Unluckily the first time I think it was up against Zelda, the second time I never really tried I don’t think, but this time I pushed through the relearning curve and it is without question an amazing game. Absolutely stunning, good to play without being great, an interesting world and enjoyable story, and most of the main characters are interesting as well as the main being very much so. There’s definitely something missing but I can’t quite put my finger on it. But, I have definitely enjoyed it at the third attempt, really glad I went back...again.

regmcfly wrote:

Narratively I thought it was great, echoes of Enslaved. As a game, what was "missing" for me was it was an open world with lots of "stuff" but very little to do. As if Sony went to visit Ubisoft or someone just got all 50 pigeons in GTAIV

Completely agree with that. Certainly wasn’t something I wanted to do anything more than the main storyline.

10. Sky Blazer, SNES (90mins)

Finally finished this.  I don't think doing it in four sessions helped in the end, I probably should've put more of an effort in.  I'd like to try it on original hardware to see if it's the emulation that gives the controls that 'a little bit off' factor, which can be a problem on the Pi from time to time (the timing of the double jump in Revenge of Shinobi has never felt quite right to me via emulation, for example).  The franky pathetic short range of the attack is my main bugbear, as it exacerbates the already floaty controls thanks to the way certain enemies have to be approached precisely.  Playing this without any nostalgia gives it an unfair disadvantage though; my retro head is savvy enough to know that this would've been legit in 1994.  I know for a fact some of the bosses would've got my juices flowing (some - a couple are bobbins).   It's varied, often a massive tick in the plus column for late period 16-bit titles, but in worthwhile ways.  I enjoyed the forced scrolling levels and Mode 7 always looks sexy af to my Megadrive eyes.  As usual I'll go for a percentage rating.  FWIW my retro scores can be roughly deciphered using the formula 'what I would've given it at the time minus 5-10% (depending on genre)'.  So a healthy 83%, from me - doesn't quite sneak into the low top tier but definitely a good platformer overall.

115. Never Give Up - Switch (3hrs 52mins)
And I never did, so I'm not sure what the punishment is if you do.  I expect I would've binned it if you couldn't mute the main character's incessant quips though, wowsers.  Someone honestly thought it would be a good idea to chuck one-liners in for every death (example: "I am the weakest link, goodbyeeeee", or "NO DISASSEMBLE", to quote a forum favourite). Whichever way you slice it it's a spectacular mistake.  Meat Boy clone with quite good controls and a neat hook to the levels - each set presents progressively harder iterations of the first area.  The whole press & hold L&R to give up if you die enough times on thing seems like a bit of silliness to me, surely no-one who plays the masocore platformers would accept even temporary defeat other than banging the power off in a strop.  Easy for me to say though, as I played it on easy.  'Easy' being 'extremely fucking difficult but with checkpoints' throughout the stage.  Huge nope for playing something like this without checkpoints, it just sounds like torture.  I wouldn't have the skill or inclination to see it through and the 4hr runtime would've easily turned into 10-15 I'd imagine. 

As mentioned it's a Meat Boy clone, even down to the blood splatter residue sticking to the spinning saws, but side by side it's a pale imitation.  That's not to say it's not a very enjoyable game for the most part (if you like this sort of thing!), but it never threatens to get within a yard of SMB's coattails.  The main character can't run, so he builds up speed as he goes along, but he can slide under things.  It's fine - some dodgy wall jumping aside - but Meat Boy is pretty much perfect, so if you're coming at the king you've got to do it better than this.

5. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES) - 6hrs 15mins

The best of the RARE DKC games and one of the best 16-Bit platformers imo. Only SMW and YI spring to mind as definitely being better, which is nothing to be ashamed about.

9/10

My list

Is Donkey Kong Country 1 worth playing? I had a quick crack at that recently and wasn't bowled over. Why is 2 better?

11. West of Loathing - Switch (7-8hrs)

Humorous cowboy RPG with particular attention paid to the humorous cowboy aspect - it's is a very funny game, and not just smile or titter territory; the script made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions.  This is a consistently well written game and the tone never grated on me.  The RPG side of the proceedings seems pretty standard, but the successfully amusing exchanges/text elevate the occasionally trite bob-a-jobbing considerably.  The battle system is perfunctory, but it works.  I'm off to bed soon, so this will be a short review, but I don't want it to sound negative.  I really enjoyed it, and I really don't tend to enjoy the genre at all these days, which means I'm absolutely recommending it to anyone who might be interested.  There's tons to do, and I did most of it.  That's right - I mopped up side quests!  Form an orderly queue to touch me, I'm a changed man thanks to the trials and tribulations of Waylon Hoss 'Danger' Roosevelt. [8]

Nice.  Retro's hot take on the pre-Retro retro DKC games.  What are your thoughts on Tropical Freeze?

Moot_Geeza wrote:

RIVE YES M8

I missed out talking about the best bit. The health and weapon drops from the enemies go on a pattern. Something like 3 or 4 weapon drops then a health one. So you can be on the cusp of death and the best solution is to go mental firing off everything you can. Clear the screen, get the pickups, fire them off, get back to full health and suddenly, from almost certain death, you’re back on top with a full bar. Not from playing it safe and waiting for shields to recharge but from fighting your way out. That happened a lot. The whole core of the game is so well-tuned.

3.Shadow of the Colossus - 6 Hours - 3/10 - PS4 PRO

I hated that. I absolutely hated it. After Horizon I thought I’d look for another unfinished and when I saw it was relatively short I thought I’d go back. Had Colossi 4-16 to destroy and I didn’t enjoy anything but the visuals. The controls are abysmal. The Colossi are boring. The world is beautiful but empty and boring. There’s no challenge beyond getting the character to actually do kind of what you want. The horse is abysmal. As I said, everything but the visuals. That is easily the worst game I’ve forced myself to finish. After seeing the metacritic score all I can think is people are letting it off because of the team behind it and the fact it’s different and blah blah as that was fucking awful.

Cocha give up gaming now. It’s for the best.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Ban request

Granted.

I'm somewhere in the middle. Gave the remake a 7. It's a great experience with ultra high highs, but most of Vere's review rings true to an extent. It really doesn't play particularly well.