Games just aren't as ruthless as they used to be!

One of my favorite titles for the Playstation is an action-advernture called 'Alundra', I played it last night for the first time in 10 or so years! I'd forgotten a lot about this game, particularly how sick and twistedly merciless it is with it's one set difficulty, random death traps, barfing out monsters everywhere, brain wracking puzzles and general complexity! I made the same hilariously hideous mistake I made last year when I played Tomb Raider... playing into the game for about an hour and a bit then suddenly dying finding I only had the option of restarting the entire fucking gaaaame, urgh, why do you punish me for playing you?

Yes I did! Now stop patronising me!

14/04/11 update: It took me awhile to figure out but I'd accidentally mapped 3 actions to one button so when pressing square, Alundra was attempting to dash, attack, and use a selected item all at the same time... since I haven't played the game in such a long time, I failed to notice any abnormalities and have continued to play like this for roughly 2 hours! :S

A decent rip-off courtesy of Activision

Screenshot from Smash TV

Me and my other half were looking through games we could cooperatively play. A game he recommended was "Smash TV" for the SNES, a very unique overhead run and gun arcade style shooter... upon playing it, it reminded me of something I'd previously played and enjoyed, after a little thinking I realised it was "Dead Ops", an arcade style 4-player mini-game on Call of Duty: Black Ops, no doubt a changed theme rip-off of Smash TV, but a decent one!

So err nice one on resurrecting a classic Activision, something I can actually praise you on, oh, but overall... you're still twats.

Dynasty Warriors eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, four hundred, and thirty six

Once upon a time Dynasty Warriors 2 could be found where I originally purchased it, in Morrison's 'not a great seller' bargain bin, ten years on and the Dynasty Warriors series has indeed made a name for itself producing a further 4 remakes and numerous spin-offs. As you may or may not know Dynasty Warriors 7 is soon to be released... my main concern in all honesty is if it's an improvement on Dynasty Warriors 6 or for that matter if it's an improvement on Dynasty Warriors 2 from which these screenshots scattered above and below this block of text are snapped.

A quick look on the wikipedia page of Dynasty Warriors 7 shows that Famitsu amidst other reviewers state "it's great improvement over previous titles". Although reassuring I'm not going to let it rest on Famitsu's opinion, I'm going to have a decent look at it myself, that'll probably require me playing it. Before I wrap this up let's take a glance at what Dynasty Warriors 7 has to offer...

For me the most exciting new features are:

- Extended story line, Dynasty Warriors 7 WILL cover a larger time scale than all it's predecessors, introducing a further decade or two of history to the series along with sparkly new characters and a new force.

- The capability of equipping any weapon along with duel wielding, the new combat system itself looks incredibly impressive and contains plenty of much needed visual wankery.

- An additional mode called conquest, perhaps this'll cancel out additional add-on games although I doubt that, downloadables have already been announced...

My favourite feature by far is interlinked cut scenes, the action just flows, very visually impressive, tasty.