Captain Morton's Notes

When I first went back to the progenitor of whatever genre this series created, it wasn't quite what I expected. While it is still clearly in the same family as Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and as is expected as an early ancestor there remains more of the genres it draws from in it's makeup, elements dropped in later entries for a more streamlined experience. But Demon's Souls surprised me with what it had that none of it's children did, gameplay experiments that didn't go anywhere, and a design philosophy that while familiar, was somehow much more... cruel. (screenshots borrowed from the Demon's Souls English Wiki, the Wikidot one. Cheers.) At it's core, Demon's Souls will be instantly familiar to Souls series fans that missed it first time. All the buttons do what you expect, everything on the HUD is as it should be, assuming you encountered the mana meter first in DS3. But there are slight differences, most notably in the animations, which are simultane...

Space Marine in the yardstick by which I judge all linear third-person shooters. Which isn't to say it's perfect, some of what it does is done better by other games, albeit not at the same time. Space Marine is my yardstick because every time   I play a shooter of it's ilk I can tell weather it's good or not by how much it makes me want to play Space Marine again. In this case, I was inspired to play Space Marine again after playing through Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. I love me some Transformers, and there were times when it hit points of absolute brilliance, but for the most part it was a pretty sub-standard third-person shooter with Transformers Fan-Service. I enjoyed it overall, but it did leave me thinking: "You know, Space Marine did the 'TPS without a cover system' thing better, and it had more satisfying weapons, a better melee system and no dull upgrade system." So I replayed it, just to confirm, and yeah, it's still one of my favourit...

Civ V has changed my view on Endless Legend somewhat, which is interesting though not quite for better or worse. It HAS made me realise that between the two neither quite manage to be EXACTLY the game I want from this genre, but nonetheless the two could do with sharing notes. As I said with Endless Legend, I don't really play these games for the strategy or the deep and balanced strategic battle between players, I play them to role play as the leader of a Civilisation, to create my own historical events, and to imagine the day to day lives of my citizens with the technologies and wonders available to them, and the politics of the world I've become a part of. And to that end, there's a lot in Civ V for me to love. Building up a city and it's borders is brilliant, as workers transform the landscape of your city outskirts into farmland, trading posts, manufactories and mines really feels like you're making your mark. And the game will near-constantly provide you will ...

Well, I call it the aftermath. The only conference that had all it's shit together was Sony really, everyone else was a bit pish. Some short summaries of what I'm into from the conference to follow. If it isn't there, I don't care. Simple. Starting with EA's conference: Titanfall : I skipped the first Titanfall, not having enough interest to put up with my shitty internet connection for a multiplayer only game, Overwatch being the first I've gotten on board with. This time there's a singleplayer, and it looks quite fun. Having a titan as a character is interesting, and it will likely be a better character than the boring white dude it would appear you play as. Mechs have swords now, there's a grappling hook, it all looks like solid fun. Fe : Journey by way of gameplay. Not a rag on Journey, which is spectacular, but I like that Fe seems to have taken that atmosphere, but put it in a new setting and introduced some mechanics to the affair. This has my att...

Strider is so wonderfully cartoony and old-fashioned in it's presentation and sensibilities that I keep thinking it's spelled "Stryder". It's an excellent example of "retro" done right at it's purest, with everything you loved and nothing you hated.         My only knowledge of Strider going into this game was his role in Project X Zone 2, a game with a lot of talking, so I expected him to be a bit more talkative than he was for the first half of the game. Maybe an odd assumption for a ninja I suppose, but nonetheless the game's opening hour or so does a great job of setting the scene without any real expositional dialogue. Just a cool action setpeice to open and a clear path through the introductory area, then a run through various localles of the Space-Russian city while an Evil Man says various Orwell-themed things, to give you a sense of this place you are clearly here to liberate. Did I mention there were Space Russians? There are Space Russ...

Salt and Sanctuary's DNA is pretty incestuous when you think about it. It's Dark Souls by way of Castlevania at it's simplest, but then Dark Souls was born from Castlevania in many senses. So it's like if the son of Mrs Castlevania got together with Mrs Castlevania, which would go some way to explaining those weird potato heads the characters in Salt and Sanctuary have going on. Don't take that as a slight though, Salt and Sanctuary is pretty good. It's been ages since I've played a good Castlevania inspired game. The Metroid half of Metroidvania has gotten some love recently with Axiom Verge, among others, but Castlevania fans are unfortunately burdened by the fact that Konami owns the franchise, so obviously the last Castlevania related product release was a pachinko machine boasting "Erotic Violence", and the last game to come out, while hardly terrible, had basically nothing to do with Castlevania beyond names. So along comes Salt and Sanctuary...