Lost in Random review

I haven't written many reviews lately, but I just had to write one for Lost in Random because I was enthralled by it from beginning to end, managing to finish it in just over a week.  It is now a very strong contender for my Game of the Year, though it is by no means perfect which will get to in due time. 

Since the very first trailer dropped for Lost in Random and we got a first glimpse of the visual style, I knew I wanted to play it.  The comparisons to the visual style of The Nightmare Before Christmas were there for all to see from the start, though what the gameplay actually entailed wasn't as apparent at first glance. I am a fan of anything that takes place in a dark and witty fantasy world though, and I could see bits of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and American McGee's Alice in there too. What I discovered when I played through it were highly original game mechanics beyond just the look of the game.  Let me take you through what made this game so fun and special for me that I couldn't stop playing it until I had finished it.

The world of Random is divided up into six boroughs and when each resident reaches 12 years of age, the evil Nanny, under the employ of the Dark Queen, arrives to roll the black dice.  The resulting number dictates in which of the boroughs you will spend the rest of your life.  Even and Odd are two sisters that have grown up in Onetown and their family has been quite happy together despite being poor.  This happy family life is about to be torn apart though because Odd has reached her 12th birthday.  The black dice is rolled and things initially look good with a one being rolled meaning Odd can stay with her family.  

However, the Nanny manipulates the dice and changes it to a six at the last minute which means Odd is taken away to Sixtopia, the home of the Queen herself. From here Even vows to rescue her sister and sets out on an epic journey across all six boroughs to get her back. Shortly into the journey she find herself in the sacred Valley of the Dice, which is littered by mostly dormant dice.  A little one does come to her rescue in a fight against the Queen's automatons and from that point on joins Even in her quest, giving her vital assistance in battle through the use of cards.

Even having a bit of a chat with Dicey

The flow of battle goes a little something like this.  At first, Even can only use her slingshot which won't do any damage to enemies but can be used to destroy blue crystals growing from them which releases dice energy.  By running close by the dice energy with Dicey or your back or by sending him out with the RB button it will get sucked up into him and fill up your card meter,  You can then choose to roll Dicey when you have enough energy for a few cards or wait until you've filled up your energy completely to choose from 6 cards out of your deck of 15 maximum.  The number the Dicey rolls then dictates how many points you've got to spend on these cards with him only being able to roll a 1 or a 2 very early on in the game.  The cards vary from being free to use to costing 3 points for the very powerful ones. 

There are a few different types of cards including basic but useful damage cards that give you a temporary sword or of a bow to do direct damage to the automatons, ones that give you a one hit shield, and extremely useful ones that grant you an extra point for free or just lower the point cost of all cards in your hand by 1.  There are quite a few other kinds of cards including some that sounded cool in theory but then were pretty crap in practice, such as a cannon that you can drop on the field to fire at your enemies.  However, this cannon doesn't track the enemies, it just keeps firing directly ahead and then disappears after 30 seconds.  It will also hurt you if you get shot by it.  So I quickly removed that one from my deck and never used it again.  It did find the bombs incredibly useful as it is quite easy to lure a group of automatons close to them and then do massive damage.

Throughout the game there are also quite a few board game arenas where there is a massive chess piece that you need to get to a goal.  Every time you roll Dicey in combat the chess piece will move along the board the same number of spaces that he rolls.  Quite often the path of the chess piece will be block until you kill a certain enemy.  These board games take quite a while to finish but it is hard to fail them for the most part.  Should Even get killed you will have to start over but I found there was very little risk of that if I always kept a few healing potion cards in my deck.  There was one board game which was quite stressful because you are constantly being chased by a moving wall which will hurt you if it catches up to you, but I did still beat it on my first attempt. 

The only real difficulty spike I did encounter during my time with the game was in the very first boss fight against Royam, the evil mirror image of Twotown's mayor. This was partly my own fault though, because I was stubbornly trying to muddle through with the same deck I had been using since the start of the game.  When I finally did stop for a moment and put some better cards in my deck I beat him on my very next try.  Once again those bomb cards became incredibly valuable against Royam, especially the the final phase of the fight where you're having to deal with both him and a bunch of regular automatons at the same time. 

You can definitely see the likeness between Royam here and Oogie Boogie, can't you?

We've already touched on the visual influences for Lost in Random but it is still a cool look that works well for this game and the world that Zoink wanted to build. Everything has the feel of a stop motion animated feature about it.  On a technical level I didn't encounter a single problem at all while I was playing through on the Xbox Series X - not slowdown, glitching or any notable bugs of any kind which is impressive as I was playing it so close to launch and so many other games come out with all sorts of bugs and problems these days.  On the audio side of things, the voice acting is very strong across the board with believable performances from all involved and some quite memorable characters being created. The music is decent but once again it does wear its Elfman inspirations on its sleeve.  There are a few songs throughout the game that are well written and help to flesh out the world quite a bit as well.

Lost in Random took me around 15 or so hours in total to beat and I did take my time and make sure I completed every side quest that I encountered.  I didn't go out of my way to find every single hidden card or story book chapter but I did come across the majority of them throughout my travels.  I was quite satisfied with the total time spent with the game especially as this isn't a full priced release, costing about £25 in the UK with a small discount if you are an EA Play / Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member. 

My only real gripe with the game would be that combat can sometimes drag on for a long time because the cards that are chosen for your hand are random from the pool of 15 that you set, so you could for example keep getting health potions come up when you're at full health or get high cost cards that you don't have enough points to use. Some may find themselves getting rather frustrated with this system but I still enjoyed myself even during the fights that went on for 20 or so minutes. It's all part of the random nature of the world that Zoink has created.  I also think that it's a bit of shame that there is no physical version of the game at the moment.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if Limited Run Games or a similar company does something eventually, but these can be expensive and hard to get.

The combination of the art style, the story and the game mechanics all combine to deliver something that feels very fresh, despite the obvious stylistic inspirations that the game draws upon. It's for this reason that I am lining up Lost in Random as my potential Game of the Year. We still have a few months to go though and something else may come along to take that slot.  I do have my eye on Kena: Bridge of Spirits but I recently heard someone describe the combat as "souls like" which was enough to strike fear into my heart. We shall have to see when the game comes out next week.  I hope you enjoyed this review, I shall do my best to write these more often going forward!

Overall: 8 out of 10

Yakuza Kiwami 2 mini review

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a comprehensive remake of Yakuza 2 for the PlayStation 2, and to be honest it was sorely needed. The first two games were really starting to show their age but the story in each of them was still worth experiencing, so Sega took the new Dragon engine that they built for Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 and used it to build these remakes.  The director of these games has gone on record to say that if Yakuza 0 hadn't performed so well in the west then these games wouldn't exist at all, but the series has experienced an well deserved increase in popularity outside of Japan since the prequel game was released.  Being able to experience the entire Kiryu saga on one single console is fantastic.

As usual for this series, the main protagonist of Yakuza Kiwami 2 is is Kazuya Kiryu, an ex Yakuza with a heart of gold who always manages to get mixed up in their clan squabbles and whatever schemes are going down.  This time a group has split off from the Omi Alliance in Kansai, led by the intimidating Ryuji Goda and are aiming to wage war with the Tojo Clan (the group that Kiryu is aligned with).  They have joined forces with the Jingweon Mafia from Korea, whose survivors are out for revenge after the Tojo patriarch tried to have them wiped out in the 80's.

The Yakuza games always manage to tell an interesting and believable (for the most part anyway) story with a compelling mystery at the centre of each one, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 is no different.  The production values are always extremely high too, with lengthy cut scenes, full voice work and attention to detail like no other series. I am always impressed with the foley work in these games, with even the smallest thing getting its own realistic sound effect.

Outside of the main plot is where the series takes the opportunity to get a bit wacky.  There are dozens of side quests to be found dotted around the districts of Kamurocho and Osaka.  These include one mission where you meet a bunch of burly Yakuza who like to dress up like babies and be nursed.  When Kiryu refuses to take part the inevitable fist fight ensues.  That's my one main criticism with all of the Yakuza games actually - nearly every quest will result in a fight at the end, which can make them a tad predictable. I do wish they would get a bit more creative sometimes.

On top of all of the side missions there are tons of other mini games and distractions, like the arcade games that you can find in Club Sega, gambling in the casino and a full underground fighting tournament.  For this remake, Sega have brought back two mini games from other games - the Cabaret Club Grand Prix from Yakuza 0, and the Clan Creator from Yakuza 6.  The Cabaret Club mode is really addictive and a ton of fun to play through, but I found the Clan Creator to be less so.  It's a kind of tower defence style game and I've never really found that genre to be very fun anyway.  Both of these modes do have a fairly lengthy campaign for you to get stuck into though complete with stories and cut scenes, so there's plenty to get stuck into if you do enjoy them.

All in all, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is another solid entry in the series.  I don't think it's my favourite - so far that would have to go to Yakuza 0 for the brilliant way it tells Goro Majma's backstory, or Yakuza 5 for the way it offers you five different characters to play as, each with their own city to explore and unique mini game to play.  For fans of the series, it's a bit of a no brainer that you would play this game.  For newcomers, start with Yakuza 0 instead and work up to this one if you enjoyed the games before it.

New Covertape Chaos Season begins soon, and other news!

At the moment, assuming the world doesn't end first or something, I am planning to start Covertape Chaos Season 5 on Tuesday April 2nd, with new episodes every fortnight until we finish off with Power Pack 64.  As you many know, there were actually only 61 official Power Packs, but the Commodore Format blog have produced three more since the mag closed down for good. All of this will take us most of the way through the rest of 2019, but that doesn't mean that I'm not already thinking about what to do with the series after that.  There are several directions that I could go in - I could go through all of the ZZAP Megatapes, I could morph the series into Coverdisc Chaos and look at Amiga demo discs, or I could change it up even more and look at the CD's that came on the front of Official Dreamcast Magazine.  PlayStation demo discs are also a possibility, but I feel that these are already pretty well catered for thanks to Giant Bomb's Demo Derby series.  What do you think I should do?

Other than that I really need to get PS2 Tuesday's Season 5 finished off.  I was doing quite well at the start of the year with three new episodes, but after that there has been a gap again.  I still owe everyone three more. I also need to crack on with The A-Z of Amiga, make some more RetroGrade episodes, and throw in a few other types of video here and there to keep things interesting for myself, such as Time for a Wii and Last Gen Regen.

I am making slow but steady progress through Dragon Age: Inquisition.  I want to explore the last three or four world areas that that I have yet to visit, then I will tackle the end of the main story. After that I'll put together my review, and then get started on the DLC.  Give me another few weeks and I should have something for you.  I've also been spending a considerable amount of time with The Division 2 lately - my character is level 22 right now.  I might be able to to get to level 30, choose my specialisation and get started on the World Tiers this weekend, I shall have to see how much free time I have. I do hope to review the game eventually.

Looking to the future, we have Days Gone coming out next month which I was not terribly interested in to begin with, but having watched a few videos about it I have to say it does look pretty impressive.  2019 is looking a bit thin compared to last year right now, but there are a few games that I'm looking forward to.  Rage 2 could be pretty good, and I love a good kart racer so I am quite excited about the prospect of Team Sonic Racing and Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.  I don't know if we're likely to see the finished version of Torchlight: Frontiers this year as well, but sign me up for that on day one if it is.  Hopefully it will get a console release, it was disappointing that Torchlight 2 was never ported to anything.

Finally, I want to try and get to back to writing on this blog more often, rather than just making videos on the YouTube channel.  Sometime I end up wanting to talk about a game but I didn't capture any footage as I went along - in these cases a written review makes perfect sense and gives readers something of an exclusive. 

Dragon Age II DLC Round Up

My Dragon Age series retrospective continues today with the DLC round up for Dragon Age II.  Like my round up for Dragon Age: Origins, I will be focusing on stuff that actually adds story content, and not all of the various items that were sold in packs or given away for free for various reasons.

1. The Black Emporium, free from the Xbox store
The Black Emporium is a curiosity shop full of strange creatures, items and relics ran by the mysterious and rather creepy Xenon, but unfortunately there's not a lot to it. It's fun to look around for 15 minutes or so investigate all the weird stuff that's on display, but there's not really a lot to do.  You can buy some equipment which changes out every so often, but you will probably find better stuff on your travels anyway.  You can also change your appearance if you don't like how your Hawke turned out or you get bored of it.  You also get a mabari hound as part of the deal, who you can summon in combat and talk to at the Hawke estate.  One mustn't grumble too much as this is a freebie, but it's not terribly exciting all things considered.

Overall: 5 out of 10

2. The Exiled Prince, £4.69 from the Xbox store
This is the Dragon Age II equivalent of The Stone Prisoner from Origins, seeing as it adds a new recruitable character to the game who is as fully fleshed out and integrated into the experience as any of the others that were included for free.  But whereas Shale was a well written, extremely funny and interesting character with an interesting back story to uncover, Sebastien Vael is rather dull in comparison.  He was sent away by his parents to become a member of the chantry, only for his family to be murdered shortly after he arrived in Kirkwall.  Now he's trying to find out who was responsible and weighing up whether to abandon his religious pursuits in the name of revenge or put try and put the hatred he feels aside and embrace the teachings of the chantry.  It's not terrible, just a little bit bland compared to what has come before, not to mention overpriced.

Overall: 6 out of 10

3. Legacy, £6.75 from the Xbox store
If you have already played both Dragon Age II and Inquisition, but skipped this DLC, then it may actually be of some interest to you. Hawke travels to a recently exposed part of the Deep Roads after being called out by members of the Carta (essentially a dwarven version of the Mafia). It turns out that they are trying to bring back creature by the name of Corypheus that Hawkes father had a hand in imprisoning during his time as a Grey Warden. Corypheus was a major player in Inquisition, and he was introduced here. This pack is actually pretty decent, and as well as some important back story you also get a nice new weapon in the form of Hawke's Key, which you get to personalise a little bit by choosing which attributes it gets powered up with. This DLC also feels more substantial than anything that was released for Origins, at around 3 hours if you do everything.  Worth a look!

Overall: 7 out of 10

4. Mark of the Assassin, £6.75 from the Xbox store
While not as important from a story point of view, Mark of the Assassin is a lot of fun. You team up with the titular assassin, Talis (voiced and modelled on the appearance of Felicia Day) and head off to Chateau Haine in Orlais to try and steal a valuable artifact called the Heart of the Many.  During your time with this DLC you will go on a big game hunt for a wyvern, explore the chateau either with the option to go loud or stealthily, before experiencing some interesting twists with an entertaining boss battle at the end. I sometimes find Felicia Day annoying but she is at least a decent actress who delivers her lines well and makes a convincing elf.  I think this is the best DLC of all the stuff that was released for Dragon Age II and it's fitting that it was the last.  Again it weighs in at about 3 hours of content if you take your time, explore and complete all of the side quests.

Overall: 8 out of 10

Conclusion
With the exception of The Black Emporium which is free, I would say that all of the Dragon Age II DLC is just a tad too expensive for my liking.  Unlike Dragon Age: Origins though there is no complete or ultimate edition that I know of, at least for the Xbox 360, which is a shame. These are included in sales every so often though, so it's worth holding out for one of those before you decide to pick them up. On the whole the quality level has increased compared to Origins, apart from the extra party member where Shale was most definitely better than Sebastien.  That brings us to the end of Dragon Age II then - I will soon be embarking on my play through of Inquisition.  I was thinking I might try playing as a Qunari, as previously I have played it as an elf and a human. I expect there will be a bit of a gap before I return with my Inquisition review as it is extremely long and I don't want to burn out before the end due to rushing through it.  There will be other stuff on the site / channel in the meantime though!

Dragon Age: Origins DLC Round Up

Now, I do realise that this is somewhat overdue, seeing as Dragon Age: Origins was originally released way back in 2009, but I never got around to writing about all of the various DLC that Bioware made in the years following the main game. I am currently in the process of replaying the entire Dragon Age series from beginning to end, so what better time to share my thoughts will you all about the optional extra content? This article will be focusing on the DLC that is quest related, rather than those that just add some extra weapons or armour. There will be a short summary on each pack followed by a score out of 10.  I won't be including Awakening here because that is full on expansion pack which already has its own, separate review.

1. Warden's Keep - £4.69 from Xbox store, free with Digital Deluxe, Collector's and Ultimate Editions
This is a fairly brief, but useful bit of extra content that gives you a quest that will take roughly 45 minutes to complete at the most.  When you're done, your warden will have a new base of operations, although that doesn't really mean very much.  It mostly just gives you access to a party storage chest where you can dump your loot in between quests, and a vendor to sell the junk to.  The quest itself is quite good fun with some interesting lore to listen to or read in the codex, and there are some moral choices to be made at the end.  It's not worth the rather steep price of almost a fiver, either wait for a DLC sale or buy the Ultimate Edition instead.

Overall: 6 out of 10

2. The Stone Prisoner - originally free with pre-orders, now free for everyone to download
This is quite easily my favourite of all of the extra content released for Dragon Age: Origins, and I can't really imagine playing through the game without it. The Stone Prisoner adds an extra recruitable party member to the main game, in the form of Shale, a golem. There's an introductory quest that needs to be completed in order to add her to your party, which takes about half an hour.  After that you can bring Shale along on any quest that you see fit, and chat with her in camp.  She is a very well written and interesting character who has some very amusing dialogue and a bit of a problem with mages and birds.  By increasing your standing with her through dialogue options or gifts, you can eventually unlock a loyalty mission which will give you some insight on her backstory, which is well worth taking a bit of extra time to do.  Shale ends up being one of best party members in the game, and because there's no cost involved you may as well install her!

Overall: 9 out of 10

3. Return to Ostagar - £3.39 from Xbox store, included with Ultimate Edition
This one adds about 45 minutes of extra content again, and allows you to return to the battlefield of Ostagar, which is where the Grey Wardens were betrayed by Tehyrn Loghain at the start of the game and King Cailan lost his life.  Your task here is to recover all of Cailan's armour from the darkspawn that are still lurking about, ending with a final confrontation with a nasty Genlock Necromancer. After that, you should return to Cailan's mutilated body and give him the burial he deserves.  This DLC reminded me very much of the Normandy Crash Site DLC for Mass Effect 2.  It is similar in tone and purpose.  Not too bad, but nothing all that spectacular really.

Overall: 6 out of 10

4. The Darkspawn Chronicles - £3.39 from Xbox store, included with Ultimate Edition
This DLC lets you play out a "what if" scenario, where the darskpawn end up winning during the invasion of Denerim at the end of the main game.  You take control of a Hurlock who hear's the whispers of the archdemon and can enthrall other darkspawn units such as genlocks, shrieks and even an ogre. This one takes roughly an hour and a half to finish, and it's a bit of mindless fun really.  Laying waste to the hero's from the main campaign does give you a bit of a sick thrill.

Overall: 6 out of 10

5. Leliana's Song - £4.69 from Xbox store, included with Ultimate Edition
This takes the form of a prologue to the main campaign and gives you some insight into the backstory of Leliana, the rogue who became a member of the chantry for a time, before eventually joining up with the Wardens. You will be carrying out a variety of crimes in and around Denerim alongside your partner, and lover, Marjolaine. Those who have spoken to Leliana extensively in camp will know that Marjolaine ended up betraying her and leaving her for dead - now you can get the full, sad story.  This is probably the best DLC so far after The Stone Prisoner, as it actually focuses on a character that I already care about.

Overall: 7 out of 10

6. The Golems of Amgarrak - £3.39 from Xbox store, included with Ultimate Edition
This is probably my least favourite of all the DLC that was released for Dragon Age.  The main reason for this is that it doesn't feature any of the party members that you have formed a bond with over the many hours that you spent from them, and instead introduces a couple of dwarves that are looking for assistance in recovering the lost secrets of golem creation from the ancient fortress of Amgarrak.  It's another very brief tale at around a single hour - not enough time to get to know these new characters or care about them.  It's also punishingly difficult, and it's highly recommended that you don't attempt it until you've completed the Awakening expansion. I did quite like the design of the new creature that is introduced, called the Harvester, though it did remind me of the polymorph from Red Dwarf a little bit.  This DLC isn't worth seeking out individually, but you may as well play it if you obtained it as part of the Ultimate Edition.

Overall: 5 out of 10

7. Witch Hunt - £4.69 from Xbox store, included with Ultimate Edition
Witch Hunt is another incredibly brief, and somewhat underwhelming piece of extra content.  Like many of the others, it weighs in at roughly an hour.  This one actually had a lot of potential because it sees the return of Morrigan, a very popular character from the main game excellently voiced by Claudia Black.  After the final battle with the Archdemon, she took her leave from the party and requested that you never go looking for her. Well, here you are, looking for her. The final conversation with Morrigan is incredibly brief and after its over the end credits roll and that's it.  I would have liked the chance to have a quick chat with Finn and Ariane, your new companions that you barely have any opportunity to get to know.  It's a shame you don't, because their dialogue is well written and humorous and I would have welcomed more of it. Instead of going out on a bang with its last adventure, Dragon Age: Origins fizzles out instead, which is incredibly frustrating.

Overall: 6 out of 10

Conclusion
Overall I would say that the DLC for Dragon Age: Origins is worth playing through at least once if you are a fan of the original game. Most of these packs are pretty brief however and are definitely not worth paying the full amount for in 2019. However there is a solution - the Ultimate Edition of the game includes everything listed here as well as the Awakening expansion, and because everything is included on a second physical disk you can buy a second hand copy safe in the knowledge that you will still be able to access everything (as long as the DLC disk isn't missing, of course).  This is definitely the cheapest way to get ahold of everything - copies go for a bout £15 on Amazon and eBay.  While most of these only add an hour or two of game play at the most, it all adds up to an extremely solid package that I think is still worth a punt, despite the rather dated visuals.

One last thing - I wasn't sure if the the Ultimate Edition would work properly on the Xbox One, because you install the DLC from a second disk, put apparently it does work after you jump through a few hoops.  Apparently you should install the DLC disk first, then the main play disk, then put the DLC disk back in before launching the game. Then you should be able to access anything. I haven't confirmed this myself because I don't own a copy of the Ultimate Edition, but if you do this you should be OK.

Game Diary: The Vast Odyssey

Do you ever get overwhelmed by the sheer size of a game and suffer from indecision about what to do next? That has happened to me with Assassin's Creed: Odyssey this week.  I have been playing it every day since I received it last Friday, but yesterday I needed to take a break.  I have already managed to put 20 hours on the clock though so that's probably understandable.  Things were going well to begin with - the game limits you to the fairly small island of Kephalonia for the first few hours, giving you some freedom to explore and get used to the mechanics of the game.  A lot of it will feel familiar to those who play Origins, but there have been some siginificant changes. Origins took some steps towards becoming a full fledged RPG, and now Odyssey has gone all the way there.  Instead of simple outfits that just changed your appearance, you now have helmets, torso armour, gloves, belts and boots as well.  This has increased the level of enjoyment for me because it means the random loot you find and treasure you pick up is a lot more meaningful.  There are a lot more dialogue options with important decisions to be made that will affect direction of the overall plot, ala Mass Effect or The Witcher 3.

Then there are the multiple levels of side quest. First is the mercenary system, which is quite similar to the nemesis system from the Middle Earth games but a lot less annoying.  While random mercenaries will come after you, they will only do so if you have a bounty on your head, which you can pay off from the map screen at any time, or just wait for your bounty level to drop over time.  These mercs have strengths and weaknesses much like the Uruk Hai of Mordor and there are no less than 9 tiers of them to work your way through.  They don't appear to be randomly generated though, or at least not the early ones. At the end of the starter zone in Kephalonia you will get access to your ship, but you won't really be using it very much as much of the first 15 or so hours takes place on land.  There are vast areas of water to explore further on into the game, but it takes quite a bit of time to get there. Not long after you get your boat, the game reveals the next system: the Cult of Kosmos.  There is a large network of 30 or so targets that need to be taken down, and their identities remain hidden to begin with.  You have to explore the world and find clues before you know who is part of the cult, then you can go and murder them. The higher level the cult member is, the more clues are required, and these high end cultist are level 50 or close to it so you won't be able to finish all of this until the end game or beyond.

In addition to this, I also did an optional quest to kill a legendary boar, which then triggered seven more similar quests to hunt down similar legendary beasts all across the Greek world.  When you add in the daily and weekly notice board quests that can be completed for orichalcum and traded for good weapons and armour, you have quite a lot to be getting on with.  You're looking at a game that will easily take 80 or so hours to finish if you want to do everything, which I do and I was fine with, until I got to Athens.  With the city sprawling in every direction as far as the eye can see, and the map screen littered with question marks, I started to feel like it was getting too much, and that's when I needed to take a break. I have no problem with the massive length of the game, as I can just chip away at it a little bit for months to come.  It's more the sheer number of options of where to go next - just visiting all of those questions marks in Athens will take hours, and it's just one district in the huge land mass of Attika. In addition to this, there are another four or five places on the map that I could go to now that I am level 20.

I think what I have decided to do for now, is to focus on taking out the low end cult members, working my way systematically through them and thoroughly exploring the rest of whatever island they happen to be on as I go.  In between I will play around in Athens for a little bit, but not try and do the entire city in one go. For me the best parts of the recent Assassin's Creed games has not been the densely populated areas, it's been the open countryside and the highly atmospheric tombs, of which there are many to be found in Odyssey too.  I haven't even got to the point where you can fight the mythical creatures like gorgons, minotaurs and so on yet, though I know this is in the game because various streams have shown game play of it.  I will also be taking regular breaks from Odyssey to play other stuff like retro games and Forza Horizon 4.  I am really enjoying my time with Odyssey, but I am wary of burning out and not finishing it.   It wasn't that long ago that I finished the DLC for Origins, after all. Kassandra seems like a really great protagonist from what I've experienced so far, up there with Ezio, Edward Kenway and the Frye twins, so I want to see this game through to the end. I might have another update as I get further in, or I may just wait and write a full review when I'm finished, we'll see!

Summer Backlog Diary #6 / Game Diary: Challenge Complete

I had hoped to get at least one or two more of my Summer Backlog Challenge list completed before the deadline of September 23rd, but alas this isn't going to happen.  Still, I did manage to pass the challenge by completing five out my ten choices, so I don't feel to bad about it. I still intend to finish the rest of the games, just on my own schedule. I will try and make a point of finishing sooner rather than later though. A number of things happened which caused me to drop the ball towards the end of the challenge, unfortunately.  Firstly, a ton of triple A games all dropped within a short space of time.  First it was Yakuza Kiwami 2, then Dragon Quest XI, and mostly recently Spider Man. So I spent quite a bit of time playing each one of these instead of focusing on my challenge list.  Then, my cat grew very ill and had to be put to sleep, and I haven't really felt like spending much time gaming since then.  Not on the bigger games, at any rate, I have still been dipping into retro and indie titles a little bit. I will recover eventually, but at the moment I miss my fuzzy buddy.

I've also recently acquired an Nvidia Shield TV, which has done it's bit in distracting me away from my task as well. With this little beauty, not only can you stream 4K video from all the usual sources, you can play Android games, install emulators for retro consoles and computers, and play certain Steam games via Geforce Now. This works amazingly well provided you have quite a fast internet connection, and it means I can play some PC games in much higher quality than my poor PC could ever manage.  I don't own many of the compatible titles just yet, I have tested out Grim Dawn and Two Point Hospital, both of which are fantastic.  The Geforce Now service is currently free because it's in Beta, and I have no idea how much it's likely to cost when it's rolled out properly, though I hear it will be less for Shield owners vs those who login via PC's, Macs or mobile devices.

You also get access to a range of 40 or so games to play around with via GeForce now, though most of these are quite old. I have tried out a few of them to see how well it works and I have to say I am very impressed. So far I've tried the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, Alpha Protocol and Sonic Racing Transformed, and they all look great and play really well.  The Nvidia game pad that comes with the Shield TV is very nicely put together - it's comfortable and the buttons are good quality. I have experienced no lag at all with the games and though I haven't tried streaming at full 4K yet, 1080p still looks very nice indeed.  The main reason I bought the Shield TV is for the retro gaming - though I do have a Raspberry Pi box which is good for certain things, it wasn't quite delivering the goods for me.  With the combination of the ARC Browser, Retro X and ton of great emulators, the Shield TV provides a robust and reliable method of playing the classics, and capturing the footage so I can make more videos for you.  That it also allows me to check out Android and Steam games as well is a very nice added bonus!

You've probably noticed that I've been releasing quite a few episodes of RetroGrade recently.  This is because they are fairly easy to make (though they still take about five hours each). Unfortunately I can't just decide which PS2 game I want to make a video about on a Saturday, play it for a bit and make a video on Sunday (technically I could do this but I would be short changing both myself and my audience), whereas it is possible to play an arcade game for a couple of hours before summing up my thoughts. I realise that I've been saying that PS2 Tuesdays is going to return for a while now, and it is - I just need to work out what I'm going to play and then spend enough time playing it so that I can give it a fair review.  That's also why I don't review many RPG's on the PS2, though I hope to try and rectify that by making them either the first or last game in a season going forward. I think I might take a look at Burnout Dominator, Soul Calibur 3 and Rogue Galaxy during the rest of the season, though this is subject to change.

OK, I've rambled on enough for now. I am really quite excited about the opportunities that the Shield TV offers up though! As always, if you have any recommendations for games I should check it, be it modern, retro, Android or Steam, then let me know! In the meantime, take care.