My first few days with Google Stadia

I'm a crazy early adopter and decided to pick up a Google Stadia Premiere edition despite all of the frankly negative response it had its in first week. Is that all fair? Well lets see!

So first of all what did i get with my premiere edition? Well it gets you a White Stadia controller, a Chromecast Ultra, 3 Months of Stadia Pro and the Destiny 2 collection. For it's RRP i still think this is a pretty good deal even this early in the services life.

I actually got the 3 month Pro code when my package shipped so i got to use the service for day using the browser set up and.... to be honest.... i was really worried i had made a grave impulse decision. I had quite abit of visual lag and latency using my ancient Ubuntu laptop wired in via Ethernet. Using both mouse/keyboard and an Xbox controller it was pretty unplayable about 50% of the time which isn't ideal. I'll also point out straight away that i don't have a HDR/4K set up so i was just looking for a solid 1080p look.

Thankfully as soon as my Chromecast and Stadia controller turned up my experience changed dramatically. It was super easy to set up and worked flawlessly which really surprised me. A lot of talk has been about how unplayable Stadia is but in this set up i couldn't tell the difference people it and my Xbox which is crazy impressive this early in its life.

It terms of eco system, Stadia is very lacking at the moment. There's no achievements, browser/chromecast store usage, A LOT of its advertised features such as Stream Connect and Youtube connectivity and Google could really of avoided being criticised for this if they had just said this was Early Access at the moment. On a positive note what is here is very slick and clean, its very simple to buy a game and be playing it immediately which shows me the crazy future we could have if these Cloud services take off.

Now Games! With Pro i got Destiny 2 and Samurai Shodown so whilst i have been hesitantly testing the service i have stuck to just these two games right now. As i said earlier, once my Chromecast set up arrived my experience was great and actually ended up playing a good 10 hours of Destiny 2. A great aspect of Destiny is that you have make your characters cross save so i was able to pick up straight from my Xbox character and keep playing from there which is great. There isn't a whole lot of point me reviewing Destiny 2 but if you liked it on other platforms then you will love it on Stadia. The player count is starting to get up there now too and the community, being so small, is super friendly right now! I played a game of Samurai Shodown and... well... i  suck at it. But it looks and plays great so theres that!

With PRO next month we get Farming Simulator and Tomb Raider DE so i am looking forward to playing something abit more Single player focus and seeing how that experience holds up.

Overall im fairly impressed with Stadia so far. It needs more of its features and some more games but the tech is already in a great place. Would i recommend it? unless you're an early adopter... no i dont. Stadia Base will be free in 2020 and i think that will be the best time to jump in. Gylt is the only exclusive right now and at £30 it is rather over priced to just try out right now!

I look forward to seeing the service expand and don't you worry, i will review a whole lot more when there is more to review!

Sonic: Lost World (Wii U) Review!

After writing my top ten Wii U backlog list last week i decided to play one of those games, after all the large open world games i had recently played i decided on  the seemingly forgotten exclusive Sonic game Sonic Lost World and as it turns out... i can see why no one talks about it.

First of all i must say that the presentation is fantastic. Lost world is a bright and colourful game that oozes the cheesy charm that Sonic used to have. It Runs perfectly well on Wii U too and the music is great which is standard for the series. A few of the worlds are beautifully designed too, Windy Hill Zone, Tropical coast and Frozen factory in particular are so great to look at and provide some of the more fun high speed platforming action. It also contains a few really interesting pieces of Free DLC in the form of a Yoshi's Island world and a Legend of Zelda world. These worlds are super cool and are arguably the best parts of the game!

Now for the bad..... the game just doesn't feel right. It's hard to explain but it feels like 3 different games mashed together and it just doesn't work. Firstly the controls are strange. Sonic now runs while you hold the ZR button which feels unnatural, Sonic just doesn't pick up momentum in a way you would expect, this caused me to fly off the edge of platforms or be unable to change direction as quickly as the level required.

The second part of the control woes is the parkour. look, it felt like every game tried to do this at the time and it does LOOK cool but it just doesn't translate to fun. The amount of times i had Sonic running half way up a wall by accident, failing to jump or again flinging himself off an edge was insane. Couple this with a completely random level design structure (some levels are like Mario galaxy, some pull the camera way back almost like its open world and others are super close behind Sonic in a cylinder) and its a recipe for frustration.

The final and crucially worst part of the game is the damned wisps. Oh my god these things barely work. They almost all required some form of motion control with the gamepad and again do not work as intended and feel shoehorned into the game.

Overall this is sonic Lost World's biggest problem, it just doesn't know what game it wants to be. If they had gone all in on the parkour, fixed the wall run and not used the Wisps i feel like this game could be something special. It looks great, Sounds great and even the new characters are fun... but its just not fun to play.

Its better than Sonic Boom though.... so there's that.

My Top Ten Backlog Games On Wii U (2019)

Hey so it's 2019 and i am still playing Wii U! Although i have talked AT LENGTH about Nintendo's most underrated console (Don't @ me) there is still actually a sizable amount of games i own that i haven't played or finished and sit on my dreaded backlog.

So today i sat down, looked at my game shelf and compiled a list of the Ten games on Wii U i would still like to get to soon! Honourable mentions go to Star Fox Zero, Lego Batman 2, Splinter Cell Blacklist and Hyrule Warriors' Adventure maps!

10. Virtual Console

Ok...so i know this is cheating but hear me out. We are 2 years into the Switch's life right now and other than a limited amount of NES games we still can't play Virtual Console games on that system so the Wii U is really the best way to play digital versions of Nintendo's past from just about every major console apart from the GameCube! 

The games in particular i want to get to are Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii), Super Mario RPG (Snes - Never released in Europe prior to the Wii!) and Metroid Fusion (GBA)

9. Darksiders 2

Another potentially controversial choice here. Last summer i gave the Warmastered remaster version of the Original Darksiders on the Wii U a go and i ended up loving the game enough to finish it. The second game, with its more fantasy driven world design, has been a game i have had sat on the shelf since launch so i really should get to it soon. I played a few hours back when i got it and i did enjoy what i saw so who knows, i may love the rest too.

8. Bayonetta 2

Before anyone hunts me down with pitchforks i HAVE played quite alot of Bayo 2.... i just never finished it. Its one of those games that requires your full attention to play at the harder difficulty settings and as such i got stuck and haven't had the patience to go back and finish it...yet. If you have a Wii U or Switch get this game btw, it really is special.

7. Batman Arkham Origins

Ah yes the forgotten game in the Arkham series. Arkham origins was not built by Rocksteady and as such is often seen as the black sheep of the franchise and i think that is a little unfair. From what i have seen of origins it looks and plays just like the other games. The younger and less experienced batman story is also something that intrigues me alot. I love the other games so i have no doubt i'll love this one too when i get to it!

6. Rayman Legends

Alot of people give Skyrim a ton of stick for being on every console...but in reality Rayman Legends is available on at least 8 platforms that i can think of off the top of my head and as such it is crazy to think it was once planned as a Wii U Exclusive. The delay from its exclusivity is ultimately why i have never got around to playing a game that i was soooo hyped for before Wii U's launch but i picked it up cheap last year and it joins the rest of my games on the backlog pile!

5. Sonic: Lost World

Does anyone remember this game? I remember the hype around it pre launch and the "Meh" response it got on release. It's Mario galaxy style world design and beautifully bright graphics are super appealing to me so i will for sure play this very soon. Not Rise of Lyric though, Even i draw a line guys!

4. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

It's funny, despite my love for Nintendo i have never been a massive fan of the 3D Zelda games. Not because i prefer the 2D games or that i want to be a massive hipster, i just didn't play many of them back in the day and crucially i didn't have an N64 as a kid. Twilight Princess with its dark tone and horse riding combat has also enticed me to play it over the years but the Wii version with its waggle shenanigans has never interested me. Now, with my partner being a Zelda nut and thus having pretty much all the games in the flat i think ill give Twilight Princess my time soon.

3. Yoshi's Woolly World

This may shock a fair few of my friends but i have never played a Yoshi game for very long. Again, not because i hate them, i just never had them! But the adorable and beautiful Woolly art design and calming gameplay makes this one of those games that would be perfect after a hectic day of work. Another game from the many games my partner bought at launch for our Wii U that i need to get to.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles X

So the last 2 games on this list are understandably the largest games and arguably the Wii U games that i really should of played when i got them. Xenoblade X is a massive open world JRPG that is still exclusive to the Wii U. Friends have told me for years that after 20 hours or so when you get a Skell the game because utterly engrossing but i have just never had the time to start a game of this length. I think it is time.

1. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

As a massive Fire Emblem and Persona fan why on earth have i not played this gorgeous JRPG? I guess that much like Paper Mario Color Splash (That i beat and reviewed last year) i think its 2016 release at the end of the consoles life really hurt alot of hype for the game. From what i have seen this could reach the top of my favourite Wii U list when I'm done with it!

So that's my little look at my Wii U backlog! 

A Look At The Sega Game Gear (1991)

For those of us that grew up in the late 80's and early 90's playing games on the go was very different then it is now. Now your basic Mobile phone can play any number of high quality games in just about every genre as well as call your mate, schedule your doctors appointment and take a photo of every dog that you walk past in the street!

But back in the day you had to have a bespoke Game console to play for those long family trips to avoid the endless games of Eye Spy. Nintendo's Monochrome Tetris Machine the Gameboy was the clear undisputed "Winner" of this battle but there were alternatives. The Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket Colour and, the subject of this blog, The Sega Game Gear.

The Game Gear was a handheld from the Master System and Mega Drive magicians at Sega that came out in the UK in 1991. It sported a COLOUR BACKLIT screen which was crazy at the time compared to that dark green and black crap the Gameboy used. It had roughly the same power as the Master System and could even play Master System games with a cheap adaptor!

It had a TV Tuner too which was heavily pushed here in the UK which i can imagine was even cooler at the time but is sadly worthless now in this digital age.

My earliest memories of the Game Gear was playing one at a friends house and being blown away by the quality of the graphics for a handheld compared to my Gameboy. As someone who had a Master System when they were little seeing Sonic The Hedgehog and Fantasy Zone looking this good on the go was frankly crazy. I eventually got my own one much later in life and for a few years i fell in love with the beastly unit with its 6 AA Batteries tha gave me 4 glorious hours of escapism.

Sonic 1 and 2, Fantasy Zone Gear, Micky: Castle of Illusion and Streets of Rage 2 were some of the games that i remember playing to death at the time. Sega were known at the time for the quality arcade style games that they produced and i feel the Game Gear had a version of most of these at the time that was certainly passable for a handheld.

Sadly the Game Gear just couldn't compete with the Game boys battery life in its early life and as soon as Pokemon arrived in Japan SEGA quickly discontinued the system and focused its efforts on its home consoles.

I have recently got a newly recapped Game Gear so i may review a few of the games i've been playing on it soon so if this little look interests you then keep you eyes open for more!

My First Games Console: The Sega Master System!

After spending October taking a trip down memory lane with the Wii U i figured i would take a look back at the very first games console i played and had as a child. Although considered an oddity in North America and Japan the mighty Sega Master System was a massive hit in Europe and South America! Its combined sales in these two regions is actually MORE than the Wii U, Dreamcast or PS Vita managed worldwide but for some reason it is often forgotten by the larger gaming world.

The Master System was Sega's 8-bit console that competed mainly with the Nintendo Entertainment System for most of its life. I wont get into a massive comparison between the two here but power wise i feel the Master System had a clear edge particularly with Colours but the NES has a far more lauded game library.... outside of Europe anyway.

So where do my memories of it begin? Well way back in 1993, My parents got a Master System Model 2 mainly for themselves i suspect but as a fresh faced 3 year old i got to play it too! The first video game i ever played was Paperboy and it blew my tiny little mind. In Paperboy you... well... you deliver papers! But you do this by throwing them into post boxes and at door mats whilst avoiding obstacles, angry house pets and your own bad aim. I remember as a kid the cathartic feeling of "Missing" and throwing papers through house windows and cars and it was great arcade fun.

The next genre of games i got to get to grips with was platformers! Now at the time platformers were the big game genre, characters such as Mario, Sonic and the amazing Disney titles were the staples of video games and i fell in love straight away. The first one i got to play was the often forgotten SEGA mascot platformer Alex Kidd: In Miracle World which was actually built into the Model 2 we had at the time. Alex Kidd is platformer in a similar vein to its big rival Mario games, you run, jump and punch your way through a variety of very bright and colourful worlds, collecting baums and playing Rock Paper Scissors with bosses,,,, ok so its slightly different but it was fun nonetheless! One of things i loved about Alex Kidd as a child was the levels where you got to control Alex in Vehicles such as a helicopter and motorbike. Although somewhat forgotten now it is still a great game and if you were to ever pick up a Master System it is a must buy!

Of course Alex Kidd was replaced by this point by Sonic The Hedgehog and here in the UK we got a few cool Master System game based off Mega Drive titles. The one i got to play at the time was the amazing Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Yes it actually came to Master System! Although there isn't a single level carried over from the Mega Drive title the game still feels like its much faster counterpart. Sonic 2 on Master System wasn't actually the first Sonic game i had played, my best friend at school had a Mega Drive so Sonic 1, 2 and Streets of Rage 2 were games i had played on that BEFORE i got the Master System versions for myself, it was the first one that i owned and as such i have fond memories of it and all its weirdness. The gliders, the special stages and the dark "Omg tails is dead" ending you got if you didn't get all the gems!

When it came to racing games the Master System provided me with an early memory too with the outstanding port of Outrun. Outrun was an arcade racer where you tried to get to the end of the level being the timer ran out by drifting around corners and just generally driving fast. There was also an F1 game i remember too but it was never as much fun Outrun and certainly not as fast!

Lastly for my quick look at my early gaming memories i have to talk about the outstanding Shoot em Up series Fantasy Zone. Fantasy Zone was a side scrolling shooter which puts you in control of the adorable Opa Opa who must complete certain objectives and blast bosses to move to different worlds. Fantasy Zone 2 was the version i had and its bright colours and wonderful soundtrack stuck with me throughout my journey into game development years later. The master system has great arcade ports of Hang On and Space Harrier as well but Fantasy Zone 2's unique looks and gameplay were always more appealing to me.

So i could go on for pages about all the Master System games i played growing up and the great series such as Phantasy Star and Wonder Boy i missed but perhaps i will keep that for a few retro reviews in the future! Overall the Master System was a fantastic little console that i loved to bits, sadly mine broke when i was in my Teens and we foolishly threw it out and sold the games, im sure now i would be able to fix whatever went wrong now but alas it was not meant to be. As gamers we always have fondness for our first console and games and for me the Master System and SEGA as a whole will always have a very special place in my heart.

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 6: 2017 And Beyond!

Here it is the end of the Wii U, In January 2017 Nintendo Confirmed that the Wii U was no longer in production and that The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be its last game for it. This was a bittersweet moment for me, The Nintendo Switch looked like everything we all wanted the Wii U to be, truly a handheld - Console hybrid but i dunno, i still loved my Wii U ya know?

So in the final part of my Wii U journey i talk 2017 and beyond!

The Best Swansong 
In March 2017 the Switch launched alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild for both it and the Wii U. So we did get a Switch at launch but as my partner is by far the bigger Zelda fan she bought the special edition and played BOTW on that but i wanted to play it as well so i picked up the Wii U version!

BOTW was a mindblowing game last year. Never before had a Nintendo game felt so modern whilst keeping its core design intact. Beyond a short tutorial section the whole map is open for you to explore! Want to find all the shrines? DO IT. Want to find all the story cut scenes? DO IT. Want to walk straight up to Ganon and take him down with a stick? TRY IT. It was amazing!

It is fundamentally a return to the formula of the first game in the series and to some this was a massive negative. By this point the Ocarina of Time/Link to the past formula of dungeons, dungeon items and gear had become the established norm for the franchise. I personally found the return to open non linear design to be extremely refreshing and aside from Xenoblade X there really isn't anything like it on the Wii U!

The Wii U version is also a fantastic version of the game. There is a lot of presumption that the Wii U version is vastly inferior to the Switch version but to be perfectly honest they are almost the same. The Switch's newer hardware helps it keep a slightly better frame rate during intense moments but overall you would really struggle to notice the difference if they were played in front of you! The Wii U also got all the DLC for the game and that is again fantastic, if you have the Wii U and not a Switch i would highly suggest that you pick this up! It will also end up being a very expensive game in about a decades time, mark my words!

I really need to sit down and write a proper review for Breath of the Wild and i probably will at some point!

The only other title released to the mass market was Darksiders: Warmastered Edition in May. Now i did a full review of this a few weeks ago so please check out that if you want more info but its a pretty solid version of a pretty good game!

The Backlog!
After that the Wii U was basically done, there was a few indie physical releases such as Axiom Verge and Shantae but they were released in incredibly small quantities so i wont count them here and of course there will be Just Dance releases until at least 2019! So i used the rest of 2017 and 2018  to catch up on my backlog! Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Paper Mario Colour Splash and the aforementioned Darksiders were all games i caught up on in 2018. I have reviews for all 3 on here so check them out!

Beyond this year i am planning to play through and catch up on alot of the titles i have missed throughout the years! Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Sonic Lost World, Super Mario Maker, Xenoblade X and many more are sat on my shelf waiting for a quiet spell in my gaming calendar!

A Closing Thought
Overall after looking back on my time with the Wii U i cant help but feel a little sad at its failure. I loved this little thing, for the last 5 or so years it has been my preferred platform full of great games that you couldn't play anywhere else at the time, The third party support died a death after 2 years but for those 2 years i picked up a ton of stuff i didnt pick up on Xbox 360 before and it felt like the console i wanted it to be, Alas the Switch is out now and kicking ass and maybe one day i will feel as strongly about that as i do the Wii U but for now the Wii U sits in the top tier of my favourite consoles of all time and i look forward to playing and writing about it for years to come!

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 5: 2016

I'm back for part 5 of my Wii U Adventure and here it is.... the dark times! Without spoiling this blog too much i can safely say that this was the worst year i have had so far as a Wii U Owner. It was incredably clear by the middle of the year that the, now named, Nintendo Switch would be coming in 2017 and as such Zelda was delayed for the launch as well as a few other games being somewhat rushed out to move over to Switch development. There was a few awesome games though that have already begun gaining Cult Hit status amongst Wii U fans!

Without further a do....

Neglect

So this is going to be a short article... i actually only purchased TWO games this year on the Wii U! Although i did pick up stuff that came to Wii U as well, i was opting to play else where this year. What i did play was a lot more Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Splatoon and Call of Duty Black Ops 2! These games in particular were constants for me throughout the Wii U Era and with most of them having Switch counterparts by the end of 2018 i suspect they will hold up my Switch too!

The Games I Did Buy!
On a more positive note i did buy two games after all! The first was, of course, The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD in March. It has always been a frustration of mine that the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess has always been so expensive and hard to get hold of for an older game that i just wanted to give a go, so i was very excited when this remaster got announced and i was not disappointed!

Although i still need to get around to finishing it, i suck i know, what i played of this game puts it very high on my best Zelda list. It just perfects the formula laid down by Ocarina of Time with its overall structure and just feels so epic in a sort of Lord of the Rings kind of way. Sure the early hours are abit hand holdy but its really not as extreme as people go on about. We also picked up the Midna Wolf Link amiibo that came in the special edition of the game too which is really cool and very detailed!

The other game that i picked up was... Lego City: Undercover! By this point Nintendo had started putting out its "Nintendo Selects" line of £20 re-releases of its better games so i finally picked this up. Lego City is often compared to GTA but it is really more than that. This game is one of the best written to have come from the already well respected Lego games with lots of nods and jokes for both the young and the older. I LOVED all the nintendo and celebrity references and it was jam packed with content. Like everything else you can now pick this up on the Switch and i really to recommend it, there isn't alot like this on Nintendo platforms and that is a shame.

What Did I Miss?
There was a few cool things that came out in 2016 that i didn't get at the time....but also some less so.
Star Fox: Zero and Guard were hailed as the last big hopes for Wii U by 2016, a game that was delayed a few times to the point some of us really weren't sure that it was going to come out! And then it did... and MEH. I'm not a diehard Star Fox guy to be honest but it seemed like Zero was positioned as a return to the series roots following the side steps of Assault and Adventures and i think people had there hopes and expectations super high but sadly Zero just fell flat.

Most peoples issues with the game are its rehashing of the Lylat Wars on the N64 and the incredibly non-intuitive control system that required the player to concentrate on two separate screens at the same time. I have recently picked up the double pack that includes the downloadable Star Fox: Guard so i will play it  and let you know!

Paper Mario Colour Splash, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Mario/Sonic at the Rio Olympics and Pokken Tournament also came out this year and i was super excited for all three but.... i don't know, i just couldn't drop the big bucks on these games at the time due to the Wii U's dying state. It seems silly now because, as i will talk about in the next few posts, i have played the Wii U sooooooooooo much since 2016 but at the time i just wasn't playing it! I have reviewed Paper Mario on my blog before so please check that out for a more detailed look at my thoughts!

So coming out of 2016 hope was at an all time low. at the start of 2017 Nintendo ceased Wii U production and the Switch was fully shown off and we were all ready to move on. We preordered ours as soon as possible and presumed we would be putting our Wii U away for the foreseeable future...turns out we were very very wrong.....