Out of ten I'd give her etc. etc.

Kinda sorta Nadir.

Have beaten 3 out of 4 bosses. (and they're 4 branches, not sequential)

So yeah, I've beaten a few runs.

Looks great. Solid mechanics, and a couple of ways to skin cat with first character.

I'll mess with the other 2 as well. There's a good solid 50+ hrs to be had, for sure.

Not as many legs as sts, obviously.

Still, well worth a punt in EA or at release if it's not super expensive.

High On Life

It's a totally fine game. I had a good time with it, the jokes mostly land, although some of them just keeeeep going. Think it's the right length, any more and it would've felt like it was dragging.

Of course, now Roiland has been accused of a few crimes which taints the whole thing somewhat.

Telling Lies (Xbox Series X) - FMV search 'em up in the vein of Her Story, by the same director. I really liked Her Story when I played it. I found this slightly less impactful despite it being more ambitious. Just felt like there was a lot of waiting around while the unseen and unheard other person on a video call talked... and then again when you watched the other side of the call. It was quite rare that rewatching calls from the other side felt revelatory. It was a bit unclear whether the game finished because I'd discovered the conclusion or because I'd hit an arbitrary time limit, the later feeling a bit unsatisfactory to me. Really worth playing during its final days on Game Pass as it's an interesting experience, it just doesn't quite manage to be the indie classic it wants to be. [7]

About 3/4 hours? It isn't mega-long.

Saints Row (2022)

Credits rolled last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Got some side stuff left to mop up but I probably wont bother. Definitely worth a chalice.

Hi-Fi Rush (Xbox Series X) - This looks great and has bags of charm. It was clearly a passion project for the developer and even though the game is essentially comedic in nature the world, storytelling and character development work quite well. I enjoyed the core gameplay more and more throughout and the combat really felt like it was starting to click by the end. However, for all it's good qualities, it often felt like a slog to play. The exploration and platforming sections are too much - each level took me about an hour to play and they had all overstayed their welcome by the end. I struggled with the final boss and consequently kind ended up feeling the same about the game as a whole. I'm glad this was made and hope it gets a sequel, I just think the formula has a few kinks to iron out and the experience needs streamlining. [7]

Detroit: Become Human

Thought this was excellent. The basic premise is of course well trodden ground but it handles it well.
Genuinely cared for the characters and had something in my eye at the end of one path.

I'll play it again at some point but I think that playthrough felt like my playthrough. Anything else will be a colder experience.

Scored based on the genre of game it is.
[9]

Uncharted 4

I think I have played them all now, have no idea which was the best as it's been so long between each but that was lots of fun.  Engaging story, varied gameplay and exquisite pacing (as per with Naughty Dog).  Nothing new but a cracking journey, if only all triple A games were this competent.

9/10

Replayed it recently and it is still top drawer

The set pieces are all timers!

Indeed.  But I found myslef stealthing a lot of it and really enjoyed that.

I've been getting into Gaming Historian recently, a really good retro gaming YouTube channel that has a bunch of in-depth documentaries about various retro gaming peripherals. I watched this one recently:



It piqued my curiosity but I don't have the original NES and CRT set-up required to use R.O.B. even if I was interested in splashing the cash to acquire one. Was there another way of accessing these games? Perhaps a way of emulating R.O.B.? Turns out there was: Nintaco, a cycle-accurate NES emulator, has a R.O.B. simulator where a graphical representation of R.O.B. can move around in a separate window. I got everything set up and I've now seen everything there is to see in the two games that work with R.O.B.

Gyromite (NES)

In this game, you use R.O.B. to manipulate gyros. By placing the gyros on coloured switches, a blue switch and a red switch, you can make matching coloured pipes on screen move up and down. By placing a gyro in a gyro spinner, you can leave it spinning on a switch while you press down the other switch. However, this aspect doesn't really work on the emulated R.O.B. - there is no spin state and you can just leave the gyros on the switches.

The game is a platformer (but with no jump - you can only move up and down by standing on top of a pipe and making R.O.B. move the pipe up) where in the main game you collect dynamite while avoiding evil lizards (which with good timing you may also be able to crush to death with the pipes). It is basically an action puzzler. It is quite fun but not especially fun. The difficulty does slightly increase throughout the 40 levels but not by much and the gameplay elements introduced in level 1 are all you get - there isn't really any variation or new ideas scattered throughout. Some of the level design is a bit weak - on the later levels, you are often left with no option but to commit suicide by crushing yourself with a pipe if a level goes wrong, which feels a bit un-Nintendo. On one later level there wasn't even a pipe to commit suicide with and I had to quit back out to the title screen. When you finish the 40 levels, you are dumped back in level 1 with no ceremony. Overall, I moderately enjoyed the main game and with 40 levels it is a reasonably meaty campaign, albeit one that would not have justified the price of a R.O.B. back in the day.

There is also a Game B where the scientist you control in the main game is now sleepwalking and moves automatically through a set of 25 levels while you manipulate the pipes using R.O.B. to keep him safe. The level design on this is a bit frustrating - unlike the main game you can't scroll the screen to look at what's ahead and the game often pulls the trick of offering multiple routes only for some of them to lead to unforseeable death like in a choose-your-own-adventure book. You only get two lives and unlike the main game cannot resume where you left off if you Game Over, so this is quite annoying, although it didn't take me too many runs to complete this mode and a successful run only takes half an hour.

The switches that move the pipes actually work by pressing the A and B buttons on a second NES controller and there is some suggestion online that the game is more fun to play by simply playing directly with the second controller and ignoring the R.O.B. peripheral. From my experience, I disagree. I initially played the game using a second controller on the Analogue Pocket before switching to Nintaco with the R.O.B. simulator. In my opinion, using R.O.B. adds a level of abstraction that makes a potentially overly straightforward game a bit more fun. However, my simulated R.O.B. moves more quickly than the original and as mentioned above it is easier to press both buttons in the simulated version - perhaps the emulated version of R.O.B. is more fun than the original - could this perhaps be the best way to play the game?

Playing this game, you can see why R.O.B. didn't take off - it is more of a Nintendo Land than a Wii Sports in terms of getting out the stall for the hardware. While the game is decent fun, it doesn't aesthetically mesh with the robot idea and was clearly was put together on a tight deadline - the title screen is unlocalised on the Western version, there are no niceties like an ending or credits and little going on with the gameplay or graphics to push the boat. But for all its flaws - and I did consider giving it a [5] due to them - it is more fun than not. [6]

Stack-Up (NES)

Where Gyromite barely holds up, Stack-Up outright fails to come together at all. In this puzzler, you give R.O.B. a sequence of instructions to move coloured blocks from one formation to a second formation illustrated on screen. In one mode, R.O.B. moves after each instruction, in another you have to program the sequence all in one go and only find out if you have succeeded at the end. In a final mode, which is available in a multiplayer version, you jump around a bingo card labelled with instructions for R.O.B. - each time a line is completed, R.O.B. moves.

The simulated R.O.B. version actually improves on the original - not only is R.O.B. faster (which in this game does not impact on the accuracy of the gameplay), but the simulated R.O.B. is now able to check your puzzle solution and communicate to the game to accept it - the original just used an honesty system (the game should be able to work out from your movements if you have been successful but it seems due to the game being rushed this wasn't programmed in, except for the bingo mode which doesn't track the colours of the blocks).

This is one of the most tedious games I have ever played. It is just pergatorial block-based makework. You just move blocks around according to the whims of the random level generator. There is no fun. There is no point. Unlike Gyromite, there is not even the satisfaction of completing a campaign - the game just randomly generates levels forever.

There are apparently signs in the programming that this game was rushed - it really shows. There is not really any concept here, it just feels like something that was hurriedly slapped together in order to ensure R.O.B. wasn't left stuck with one game. A genuine nothingburger of a game. [3]

So that's R.O.B. Overall, I'm glad I sated my R.O.B.-based curiosity - Gyromite is certainly interesting if not excellent. But I don't now regret not having R.O.B. as a child or feel any urge to turn to eBay to get a real one. R.O.B. did its job of enabling Nintendo to get the NES into American retailers during the video game crash by disguising it as a toy. But there's a real sense of a lack of investment in the software and consequently R.O.B. has been left without a killer app. I also think it's a shame that it doesn't even make a good STEM edutainment toy - I think there was potential to make R.O.B. into something that could prepare kids to learn to code but that opportunity was also missed. However, I do think this experience has been something of a triumph for emulation - OK, using a simulated R.O.B. is vastly different experience but it's still allowed me to experience the games in roughly the way they were intended. Hurrah for game preservation and emulator developers!

I had a rob, and the lightgun.

I certainly wasn't a kid . I was probably 16, so kid'ish, I suppose.

I found it very cool but too tedious to actually play the game many times. I played the light gun game (Duck Hunt) a lot more.

Yeah, kinda tied in to the vibes I’ve been getting from it. I’ll pick it up at some point I’m sure, but probably on sale - no rush at the mo.