Okay yeah it does work. I reinstalled it. I had to wipe my save file to play the tutorial again though, but when an enemy core flashes white to announce an attack you seem to be able to stagger them with LB if you delay the block. Why you'd bother doing that when a block followed by X locks them in for greater damage is another thing (the earliest unlock for me), but yeah, my bad, as they say. Not going to carry on to see how it works out in the real thing though (most attacks seem to have a Y button prompt rather than a white flash in the main game, and those can be countered with the standard attack button).

5 probably is harsh, I just got really annoyed with it after a while.  Almost every attempt to add variety made it worse, with two or three stages that stood out as particularly nasty. 
It's at its best when it's just a big bundle Batman brawler.

125. Islets - Switch (6-7hrs)

Super solid Metroidvania that doesn't attempt anything fancy but rarely puts a foot wrong.  There's an abundance of similar games available these days, so the fact that this one stands out despite not doing anything of note to stand out is testament to its overall quality.  The character feels good to control (even the gradual walk-to-faster-walk momentum increase, which I usually dislike), the combat is basic yet never tiresome, the maps are expertly designed and the drip feeding of abilities doesn't feel drawn out or rushed.  It's not something that's likely to set anyone's world alight, but the devs have done their homework and put together a banging under-the-radar adventure that doesn't shoot itself in the foot with over-ambition.  I've played so many games in recent years that felt to me like the development team shot for the moon and settled for halfway, or were perhaps always happy to release something 'pretty good on the whole' (a particularly heinous crime for many).  This is almost excellent in places, and rarely feels worse than very good as an average.  I reckon the team behind this will be chuffed with their efforts*, and rightly so - it's a very complete game.  Stuff like this is the reason why I'll never get bored of searching for hidden gems, no matter how many duffers I end up wasting my time with in here.      

The shmup sections are a bit weak, it's a little on the easy side (at least compared to what I was expecting) and the ending felt slightly anticlimactic to me, but if you're after a nice looking, medium-sized Metroidvania with solid audio design that plays better than the vast majority of games in the genre you can't go wrong for £15.  [8]



*Edit: Turns out it was mostly the work of one guy called Kyle Thompson.  It's a modern Elysian Tail!

126. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy - PS5 (7hrs)

Quality half-sized side dish to U4.  I thought Nadine Ross was a decent character in U4, which I replayed last month.  I'm pretty sure I was supposed to remember who Chloe Fraser is (and which of the previous games she appears in), but I only played the original trilogy once apiece so I drew a blank.  At first I thought she was the weaker of the two leads, which is a shame as she's the one you're controlling, but she eventually settled in and the business only/buddy adventure thing found its groove.  ND dialogue and delivery is still a cut above anything else that attempts anything remotely similar.  The villain is miles better than the entitled, stroppy, preppy polo shirt guy in the previous game too.  It looks astonishing, and I still like the simple cover shooting.  There's not enough of it here though, and Uncharted needs that videogame core to hit the high notes for me.  Climbing is rarely thrilling as it still boils down for looking for the correct route by following the whiter bits of scenery (#HandholdingHandholds).  There aren't as many push-the-crate 'puzzles' in this one, but there are just as many use-rope-to-escape-slippery-slope bits.  And scripted ledge crumbles.  Secrets/collectibles/lazy trophy nonsense now includes prescribed photo spots, which is just as tedious as the trinket finding imo.  

Overall It's a tired format that I'm not quite tired of, but I've had my fill of late.  I gave this [7] in 2017, which was a bit harsh, but I'll stick with that to pretend I'm not going soft (and also because I hate puzzles where you rotate an image in layers and multiple parts twists at once - it's like a visual representation of what's happening inside my head while I try to solve them).  The characters are great, it's just not quite the same without Nate & Sully.    

I knew I pressed it twice.

Which is why you should pay full price for Statik.

I wish the guy would patch the iOS version. I messaged him soon after launch, he said thanks for letting him know; he’ll fix it he said. Still no fix. Shame, I was really enjoying it.

I got to a puzzle that is just a blank square and even when I draw lines they don’t show up and it won’t refresh.

Was one of the games that proved I could enjoy open world stuff. Up to that point I'd only played a handful, and I didn't really bother with anything optional in any of them, but MM was a fun map to mess around in (although not according to reviews - I think it settled on a metacritic average in the high 60s?). I didn't do many side quests admittedly, but I definitely did a few.

Part 1: Games 1-4 (Ready or Not, Can Androids Pray, Bad End Theater, Anger Foot)
Part 2: Game 5 (Bloodborne PSX)
Part 3: Game 6 (Day Repeat Day)
Part 4: Games 7-14 (Elden Ring, GT7, Horizon: Forbidden West, Emily is Away 3, Fifa 22, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Good Night Knight, There is no Game)
Part 5: Games 15-22 (Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, Deep Rock Galactic, YAKLAD, Manifold Garden, Factori, Circadian Dice, Nier Re[in]carnation)
Part 6: Game 23 (The Sexy Brutale)
Part 7: Games 24-31 (Dragon's Dogma, Vampyr, Rogue Legacy 2, Lair of the Clockwork God, Escape Simulator, Ender Lillies, Rhythm Doctor, Citizen Sleeper)
Part 8: Games 32-33 (You Have to Win this Game, Narita Boy)
Part 9: Game 34 (Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion)
Part 10: Games 35-44 (NORCO, Buck Up and Drive, A Year of Springs, Buddy Game Simulator 1984, Dicey Dungeons, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order, Grindstone, What the Golf, Reigns, Moonlighter)

Game 45: Ctrl Alt Ego

I first heard about Ctrl Alt Ego via John Walker's Buried Treasure review of it - I'm a paying member of his patreon, like a chump, as he's one of the biggest advocates of indies around and he properly covers absolutely tiny undiscovered games, rather than just your Hades-tier "indies". Anyway, he went gaga for it, claiming it was GoTY material and a stunning achievement. It currently has 55 reviews total on Steam. I have been playing it in my lunch and dinner breaks at work now for about 3 weeks. 

It's fucking good.



Imagine, if you will, seminal and incredibly famous GameCube exclusive that absolutely no-one has forgotten about Geist. In Gheist you were able to hop into bodies of other people or animals and, well, do Geist-y things, like thwart terrorism. It was a cool idea, but the game was a bit naff. 

But take that idea and mix it in with a proper Immersive Sim, a la Arkane's incredible Prey, and you get this - Ctrl Alt Ego.

In Ctrl Alt Ego you are a disembodied ego able to travel between various electronic devices. You'll spend much of the game inhabiting a BUG, a kinda cute red blocky thing that controls like it's sliding on ice due to hovering rather than having wheels. Or, if you don't want to possess a BUG, you probably don't have to. Control an Eye Pad, or a MUM, or a wall socket or camera or PUP or...

Well, you get the idea.

Of course, an idea is worth it if the product delivers, and that's where this shines. As an Immersive Sim, it's a cracker. ImSims (as the cool kids call them) tend to be pretty diverse, but lets just put them into a couple of brackets for simplicity, or rather, lets explain their PLAY YOUR WAY philosophy:

Your Deus Ex: Human Revolution types - in this game you can PLAY YOUR WAY and PLAY YOUR WAY means you can talk your way into a place (sometimes) if you invest in the talky tree, or you can pick up a vending machine and go through a gap if you invest in the pick up big things tree, or you can sneak through a vent that every scenario has, or you can go shooty bang bang. Basically, PLAY YOUR WAY = PLAY ACCORDING TO YOUR STAT INVESTMENT. These games rarely roadblock you and always offer 3/4 methods of overcoming any particular challenge, but the solutions can often be pretty prescribed. 

Locked door? Find key or hack door or find vent. You already know how it will go down.

The other type is the Prey type. Prey is different in that an upgrade or tool isn't so much a key to a puzzle, as it is a new set of systems to play with and exploit. That vending machine blocking your way? In Prey it isn't just a STRENGTH UPGRADE roadblock. You can use your GLOO Cannon to create a wedge and tip them over, use a recycler grenade to suck them all up. Don't have any of those? Pick up a gas canister and place it next to the machine - shoot it to blow it away from the door. Maybe you want to turn into a cup and slide through a gap, or maybe you just find another way in - a way that will also have a half dozen solutions. 

The key here is this, though: Every problem has multiple solutions, and every tool has multiple applications. 

Prey's brilliance is in how it gives players tools that allow for improvisational puzzle solving. Ctrl Alt Ego does it just as well. The problem here is that explaining how is also to partially spoil the joy of discovery, suffice it to say that while the option for guns and grenades is there, I had just as much fun using my BUG's vacuum cleaner. 



So yeah, you are a floating EGO on a space station and you can take over things. There's a mystery at the core of the game, and it takes a short time for it to really grab hold, but the long and short of it is that you probably want to escape. Or, at least, find out what is going on. There's a character who talks to you at various intervals, guiding you towards your next objective.

As this is an Immersive Sim, I opted to play with a lot of the waypoint-y / object highlight stuff turned off, as I find that these games are more fun when you're forced to fuck around, but the option is there for those that worry about being overhelmed. Even without those guides, though, the game does the thing that all immersive sims (and I'd argue open world games in general) should be able to do - guide the play without objective markers and detective vision. The space station you are on is readable and well sign posted, and even without objective markers on my HUD I had no issue exploring the environments. 



The game is also linear-ish. Or, to put it more precisely, it is divided into chapters that take you into different parts of one single space station. It's all linked and you can travel between the parts if you wish, but there are loads between different areas and the game prefers to move you into new confined puzzle boxes before moving you onto another, eventually allowing you to loop back to previous areas and access new parts. However, you can actually skip a whole bunch of stuff and even avoid major set pieces - some of which I managed to do myself, others I only knew about after checking the achievements for the game (which all use pictures of cats, by the way). Again, it's a very Immersive Sim-y Immersive Sim. 

So, is it perfect?

Na. The visuals will be divisive, and by divisive I mean opinions will sit somewhere between "not that bad" and "an absolute eyesore". Voice acting was also clearly done on a limited budget too. The physics can be a bit jank - take over a stationary object on a slope or angle and it'll just start juddering across the floor. If there's multiple nodes that you can take over close together, it can be hard to aim for the right one. Combat, as it is, is even clunkier than Prey's and I know a lot of people hated the combat in that. 



But the fact this was made for peanuts by only 2 people means I can't hold too much against it. There's just such incredibly tight encounter and puzzle design, mixed with a gloriously abusable toolset. There's messages everywhere about how you could use certain tools and perhaps the devs were worried people would miss 90% of the possibilities, but I wish those messages weren't there. There's so much fun in discovery here.

It's a very PC-style game - no console version and I have no idea whether one will ever be forthcoming. It's old school and clunky in its designs and sensibilities. It's made on a shoe-string. 

And yet it's also a 25+ hour Immersive Sim epic that competes with the likes of Prey and System Shock and I have no idea how it even exists. Absolute, ugly-arse, impenetrable jank. [10]

Wow!  Glowing review, good read.  Wish it was on console.

Sold. Thank you sir.

Dark Soldier wrote:

Sold. Thank you sir.

Enjoy.

The lack of strafe is supposed to be offset by the special moves you get after the 3rd level, but it never quite feels like a proper replacement. Rocky can even trigger temporary strafe (shown in the gif above), but it takes a couple of seconds to charge. Bit weird.

It deserves extra credit for taking things in a new direction after the first couple of levels though. I think those are pretty much replicas, then it goes off into fresh territory, then comes back to the original at the end.

129. Thunder Force III - Mega Drive  (40mins)

Another upper B-tier franchise synonymous with Sega that passed me by.  I'm sure I've played a stage here and there over the years, but a recent Sega Lord X video had me itching for a proper go (was called 'most impressive levels, in a Genesis game' or something equally squee enducing - if you read it with the comma you can hear him say it, lovely stuff).  I intended to play TFIV as that's the one that blew a young Sega Lord X away (along with a multitude of other games - love him), but I had to settle for this as I thought the ROM for IV was missing on my PS Mini.  Turns out it's on there under the US title Lightning Force, so I expect I'll play that soon.  /End exciting preamble. 

I'm glad I didn't bypass this one as it must've been very impressive in 1990.  I'm not a huge fan of forced scrolling shooters but I have been warming to them in recent years.  Initially I thought the difficulty packed a too-nasty punch - the twin bosses in the second stage (of the order I tackled them) felt like a bit of a FUCK OFF moment - but there are plenty of credits available, plus a few extra lives dotted around the stages, so even with save states clouding my judgement it didn't feel as horrific as something like Hellfire.  It's not as harsh on a power down as, say, R-Type Final 2 either, although obviously it's still preferable to keep your craft as powered up as possible.  You need to learn the stages, especially the ones with environmental hazards, but that goes with the territory and my layman's opinion is that this would've been pure gold at the time of release.  I've been far less impressed with many comparable titles I've tried as retro plays from the era.  The weapon system feels great and the bosses aren't total sponges, plus the visuals are solid and the tunes are very good.  I still think Sagaia/Darius 2 is my personal pick from the 16-bit shmups, possibly because I owned it at the time admittedly, but hopefully TFIV will make an even stronger case to change my mind.  '90 89%