Murdered: Soul Suspect

There's always that one game where you wait for the price to drop before buying it because you heard it's ok but not great. That's the case with Murdered: Soul Suspect.

I purchased the game on the PS4 and had a good deal for it. 

The story is as follows: The character you control is Detective Ronan who is investigating a string of recent murders. However, he ends up being murdered himself but remains behind as a ghost until he has solved the case and who bumped him off.

Getting My Nintendo On!

I recently said that after I was finished with Far Cry 4 that I would go out and buy a Wii U which is exactly what I've done! Man of my word see ;)

I bought the Mario Kart 8 premium bundle and also Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and Smash Bros. I also bought Link and DK amiibos to go with it. 

Not even a week old I've finished the main levels in DK Tropical Freeze and played a fair bit of the other games too. Donkey Kong has always been a favourite of mine ever since playing it over my friend's house on the snes all those years ago.

When Do Games Become Too Big?

I'm currently playing Far Cry 4 which is a fantastic game and it's taking up a great deal of my free time. I received the game at Christmas along with a few others to add to my ever growing pile of 'to play' games. However, Far Cry 4 is that huge that my other games aren't getting any attention apart from the weekly high score challenges I participate in.

Ok, so I could take a break and play some others but once I start a game I now try and play it until it's complete as in the past I've taken a break from games and rarely or never returned to them. 

The Evil Within

I always knew this game would be gory, tense and challenging and I was right. Oh boy was I right. I never played it in the dark either.

It was actually nice to play a different survival horror game that wasn't Dead Space or Resident Evil and they are great games in themselves...let's not talk about Resident Evil 6 though ok?

You play detective Sebastian Castellanos who along with his colleagues goes along to investigate a massacre at Beacon Mental Hospital. After witnessing his fellow officers die around him, killed by a man in white, he is knocked unconscious and wakes up in an horrific world of zombies, monsters and more. You thought your job was tough...  

The Tubers High Score Challenge!

Earlier this year myself and a friend, Steve, decided to challenge each other on YouTube at an arcade game. The premise was simple:

One credit, 3 lives, 3 practice runs and then go for it!

The game in question was Thunder Dragon 2 and Steve kicked my butt. He had played it a lot more mind...

It was quite fun so we decided to do another and another. By now or if not straight away another Tuber wanted to join in so we said yeah why not? The more the merrier! Several weeks down the line the High Score Challenge began to become more popular and we all kept in touch via Twitter. Each week it would be someone else's turn to pick the game of choice. As long as you could earn a score the game would qualify.

R Is For...Racing Hero!

I don't think I've covered a racing game on this blog yet so thought this game would be apt after playing it in the Tubers High Score Challenge a few weeks ago.

For those of you who don't know, THSC, is a group of YouTubers who participate in weekly high score challenges on arcade and retro classics. Myself and my good friend Steve started it and now have our own Facebook group for it too. I'll explain more in a future post.

I Finally Completed Blaster Master!

Well it took me long enough! You remember a little post I published last year about a game called Blaster Master? Welql I finally completed it! That's how many years in the making?

A lot.

The truth is though it was such a hard game that I would never stand a chance completing it without using the good old short cut of save states! Yes, that's the only way I managed to complete it. But I finally did it and that's another to cross off my list.

Great game.

Hard, very hard.

Definitely worth a play.

Do you rescue the frog that jumped down the hole into the treacherous underground caverns?

There's also a sequel but um, uh, well it's not very good in my opinion. A let down after the first. I won't be delving into it again.

Now...what other NES classics have I yet to finish???

New York Comic Con 2014

A Small preview of a much larger crowd

Well...New York Comic Con is ever so slightly bigger than Cardiff...just a bit...multiplied by a hundred! I knew it was going to be huge but the scale of the Javits center blew my mind!

Wow just wow and wow again!

Teen Titans go!

I travelled to New York with 3 good friends with the sole purpose of the trip being NYCC. I'd only ever been to Cardiff CC before so this was going to be a real treat. We spent about 12 days here with two of those being at comic con. So after seeing the sights and driving down to Washington D.C for the weekend we hit comic con on the Thursday and Friday as the Saturday was sold out.

Matropolis DVD & Video Game Prize Draw!

For the last few months I have been active on YouTube and participate weekly in high score challenges on retro arcade games.

I've met quite a decent group of people on YouTube so have decided to give something back. Therefore I'm holding a prize draw. To enter all you have to do is:

1. Subscribe to my channel
2. 'Like' the video below.
3. Comment 'I'm in'

So if you fancy some free goodies then please check out the video below:

And if you enter...good luck! Currently there are 13 entrants and there will be 4 winners so that's not bad odds ;)

L Is For...Lara Croft!

Do you remember your first time with Miss Croft? I do! I was over a friend's who had recently picked up a copy of Tomb Raider 2 for PC and he said I'd love it and I did. 

This was a game like none I'd ever seen and you just had to love those blocky graphics! We all know the story of Lara and the Tomb Raider series (the clue is in the title) and I'm guessing most of us are fans of at least one of her adventures.

I Is For...Infamous!

If you had super powers would you save the world or destroy it? This is the choice you have to make from this video game released back in 2009 for the PS3.

The character you play is Cole MacGraph, who becomes caught in an explosion that grants him with electricity based powers.

So the explosion has destroyed a lot of the city and peace needs to be restored but it's up to you how you do it. Do you become it's saviour or conqueror? Tough choices eh? Certain missions offer you a path to choose- good or evil? Each path grants you with additional powers that you can upgrade along the way with experience points.

A Is For...ActRaiser!

I've decided to do an A-Z series for the next 26 posts and to begin with we have a game I recently discovered called ActRaiser which was released for the SNES in 1992.

I knew little about this game but from the screenshots I found I figured it must be a side scrolling action game. Well I was only half right as it turns out there's a twist. There are simulations parts of the game too. You essentially play God by helping out townsfolk who have been plagued by monsters and demons. There are six lands on which you have to rebuild villages. Appearing as a baby angel you do this by flying overhead and indicating where villages should build their homes to. 

Age Of Empires Big Daddy Cheat!

BOOM!

I was never one for strategy games but Age Of Empires is one that I enjoyed. I didn't play many games on the PC back in the day as I would always go out and buy the ones that wouldn't run on my specifications. Doh! But AOE did install and run perfectly and I spent many hours of enjoyment on it.

There's Millions Of Dead Fish All Under One Shoe!

It's called Toys R Us! 

Wait...

Is that right? 

Well anyway Toys R Us was the place to be when I was a kid. Every trip to Cardiff had to include a visit to my favourite toy shop otherwise I wouldn't be a happy bunny. Seriously, being dragged around clothes shops with your parents is ultra boring. It was Toys R Us or no go!

How Addictive Are Video Games?

Growing up a week rarely went by where I wasn't on a console spending hours after hours of completing levels and gathering all collectibles within a game. Whether it be Tomb Raider, Micro Machines, Final Fantasy or Mario, most of my free time was spent gaming.

I was well and truly addicted. I still went out and played with my friends using our wild imaginations but if it came to a game of football then I would always prefer to play it on screen rather than kick a ball around a park. This has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not very good at football of course...

Devil May Cry And Makes Castlevania Lords Of Shadow 2 Weep

After recently completing both of these games I have to say that the reboot of Devil May Cry bested Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2 in the battle to save mankind.

Whereas Castlevania felt heavy to play DMC seemed light and easy flowing. The gameplay was great and not too complicated. Also I managed to follow the story while I got a bit lost with Castlevania at times. Or maybe I just zoned out, who knows?

I prefer the new look of Dante to the older white haired version. I know some fans were disappointed but I think it worked out very well. I believe the designers were right to give Dante a fresher look as it was a reboot.

Upgrading your abilities is simple too. You simply earn enough souls and select which upgrade you want. The upgrade system was much simpler to use than Vania 2 and presented more clearly. 

The soundtrack was pretty good too ;)

This isn't a personal attack against a Castlevania, it's a good game. I'm just comparing the two as I played one after the other and DMC was the more enjoyable experience.

I just hope the next DMC is just as good and the next Castlevania improves which I think it will :)

Retro Gaming Tougher Than Current Day Gaming?

Do you remember those days? The days when you couldn't just save your progress and come back to your game a few days later? The days when it mattered how many lives you lost and how accurate your gaming had to be to beat just one title?

Those were the best days of my life!

It wasn't the summer of 69 though, more early 90's when NES and Mega Drive were all the rage. I enjoyed spending endless hours of fun on those consoles and wouldn't change a minute of it. I even revisit my old games on occasion even though modern gaming takes up the majority of my time.

So being a veteran gamer I thought the old games of my childhood should be no problem to complete right? How wrong I was!

I died. A lot.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2

Good but not great.

That's my overall feeling of Lords of Shadow 2. 

I was quite looking forward to this game and the release date came around quicker than expected. I really enjoyed the first and thought the second would be just as good or better. However I'm not sure if it was.

My Local Game Only Had 3 Copies Of Castlevania LOS2!

Yesterday I set out to trade in 2 games and purchase Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Expecting there to be plenty of copies I was somewhat surprised to learn that they only received 3 copies of the game in the store. This was due to the fact that they had only 3 people pre-order the game hence no more stock was ordered. Strange, no?

Although, the HD remake of Tales Of Symphonia Chronicles accumulated 8 pre-orders and they ordered plenty of the game in. I would have thought Castlevania would have had a few more orders. I ended up buying Tales Of Symphonia in the end.

This just proves to me how more popular it is to order games online and get them sent directly to your door. Take Shopto.net for example. Most of the games they sell are cheaper than what you find in stores and usually arrive the next the day in the post! They come with DLC bundles too. 

I do buy most of my games online but sometimes tend to have a look around the high streets. 

However it makes me wonder how long shops like Game are going to last?  

I Can't Watch Anime For Endless Hours Because...

...I simply wouldn't be able to sleep! It's true. The same goes if I read a book all day, watch the same TV show or play a game non stop. 

Why?

Because all the information becomes lodged in my brain and I can't stop thinking about it! Seriously. Sometimes I even start hallucinating about what I've watched, read or played.