Monday, June 26, 2017

The Second Coming of SNES

June 26, 2017 - Nintendo rocks my world with the announcement of a Super NES Classic Edition! Following in the footsteps of the NES Classic, this unit will have 21 pre-loaded games, includes two controllers, sells for $80, and releases 9/29/17. And like the NES Classic, it may have a very short sales period, the reasons for which can only be guessed at. Nintendo may have already said (via a report on Kotaku) it will only ship units through the end of the year. I guess Nintendo hates money!

Like the NES Classic, the Super NES Classic is super tiny:


Words can't describe how I feel about this little grey and purple box! The SNES was my first "real" console, the one that got me away from mainly Atari 800 and PC gaming. Yeah, I'm old enough to have played on an Atari 2600 - a lot, actually - but back then it was more of a way to pass the time until you could get to an arcade where the really good games were. While everyone else had NES's (and later PlayStations), I was playing on the Atari 800, Atari ST, and a 4Mhrz CGA graphics PC. My wife surprised me with the SNES as a birthday gift and from then on it was setup in the living room, cords running from the coffee table to the TV. (I can't tell you how many times it got yanked onto the floor by passing feet - that old SNES could take a beating and never quit. Young'ins will ask, "Why didn't you put it next to the TV in the entertainment center?", to which I'll tell them, "Because they didn't have wireless controllers back then, dearie" and watch their eyes fill with disbelief.)

I think one of the big advances that the SNES brought to console gaming was the concept of long term games. Prior to the SNES, games were either play-til-you-died arcade style games, or very short adventures, like the Atari 2600 game, uh, Adventure. I might be reaching a bit with that, but for me it was one of the big differences.

The games coming on the Super NES Classic are (along with my opinions):

  • Super Mario World - For me, the greatest Mario adventure ever! The culmination of everything Nintendo learned from the first 3 games, upgraded to be a 16-bit masterpiece.
  • Super Mario Kart - Probably the most accessible one of the franchise and destined to be most played game on the mini-console.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - The only Zelda game I've ever finished. This is a game I want to play again.
  • F-Zero - This is the kind of game, a balls-hard racer, that some gamers will boot up, crash a lot, then move onto something else.
  • Super Metroid - I really want to think I'll get into this one enough to finish it. It's a tough game though.
  • Star Fox - See my concerns below. Other than that, I welcome more space travels with Fox McCloud and the crew.
  • Star Fox 2 - Everyone was shocked by this. The story goes that its original release was aborted because it was too late in the SNES life cycle and Nintendo was launching the N64. I probably have the ROM somewhere, but I've never tried it.
  • Street Fighter 2 Turbo - I'm not a big fighting game person, but this one was one of the best.
  • Super Punch Out - Also not a sports fan and never played the original NES game, but I'm looking forward to trying it.
  • Super Castlevania IV - I generally suck at Castlevania games which is why I never got this one.
  • Donkey Kong Country - I could just put this on and listen to the music. It's so good!
  • Mega Man X - Mega Man never was part of my gaming life (I was a Mario man), so it should be interesting how I do with it.
  • Kirby Super Star - Probably the most Japanese game out of this bunch. I picked it up on a whim at a Warehouse discount bin back in the day. One of my daughter's favorites, and a weird mix of various mini-games. Today's gamers will find it hard to categorize.
  • Kirby's Dream Course - In my opinion, the oddest choice here. A strange sort of mini-golf-esque puzzle game. Not a lot of fun, to be honest.
  • Final Fantasy III - What we now know here as FFVI, one of the best, from what I've been told.
  • Yoshi's Island - More notes below. Fun and colorful if you can put up with the crying Mario baby noise.
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - Wow! This collection really pulled up the great ones. At the time, Nintendo went out on a limb with this cross-over, taking a 2-D platforming character into a full on RPG. And it worked!
  • Secret of Mana - A deep JRPG. Never had it myself, should have gotten it, and looking forward to trying it.
  • Contra III: Alien Wars - I was never much of a Contra guy - kept dying too much.
  • Earthbound - Geez Us. Could this collection have had a greater line up? I own the original cart and the game on Wii U VC, but I'd still buy this unit if Earthbound were the only game on it.
  • Super Ghouls N' Ghosts - Remember what I said about F-Zero? Probably goes double for this one. As much fun as hitting yourself in the junk with a hammer.
There are some interesting emulation issues that I'm assuming Nintendo has addressed. While the upscaling and HDMI output on the NES Classic was remarkable, they'll have more work to do with some of these games. Ones like Super Mario Kart used the Mode 7 graphics option of the SNES hardware, and games like Star Fox used the Super FX chip which was actually built into the cartridge motherboard. There was also a special chip made for the original Yoshi's Island. I'm sure there will be a lot of scrutinizing by tech-nerds of how well Nintendo has done their job.

For now, we can just wait until outlets like Amazon and Best Buy put up (hopefully) pre-orders. The NES Classic didn't have any and most wanna-be buyers never saw one out in the wilds. I personally only got mine through Best Buy Online. The Super NES Classic will be the hottest Christmas present this year and the ultimate "get" for any and all scalpers. It's going to get ugly out there.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

PiSsed-off 4

This is going to be a short post that will chronicle the problems I'm having with my PS4.

How things were before 6/16 - My PS4 is setup on a 3-in-1-out HDMI switch connected to my gaming TV. The other devices on the switch are my main PC and an Xbox One. Most of the time I boot up only the PC. When I boot up the PS4, the HDMI switch automatically pops over to that input. When I want to use the Xbox One, I have to manually click the selector button on the switch to that port. No big deal. When I've finished playing on the PS4, I put it in Rest mode with the USB ports still active. When I do this, the system runs for a little bit (less than a minute or two) to cool down the components, then it goes to "sleep" (no fan noise). The exception to this state is if it is still downloading an update.

Then, SDG&E pulls the figurative plug on the night of 6/16.

The next time I try to boot up the PS4, it complains that it wasn't shutdown properly. Yeah, I've seen that before - it doesn't like being "unplugged" while in Rest mode. (Hey, who does?) Everything seems fine after the rebuild, but later, long after I've put it back in Rest mode, I hear the PS4's fan running. On top of that, the case is warm and so is the air blowing out the back. What the heck? Interestingly, I think the HDMI port is still active - I don't get that automatic port switching anymore when I boot up the PS4.

So far, I've tried:
  • Turning off the Rest mode USB charging power
  • Picking a desktop theme that's not dynamic
  • Dusting out the console from the back and sides with an air-can
  • Rebuilding the databases from Safe mode (which puts all the PlayStation apps at the front of the queue, by the way)
Nothing has helped. And when you go looking for answers via Google, you find a lot of misunderstandings as to the state of the system when it's running in Rest mode. People think you are just downloading files, or they say, "Well, my system runs for a few minutes and then stops". None of that helps, folks!

At this point, I figure I can:

a) live with it - I won't want to leave games suspended when I play, which means it will take longer to get back into them. Not the best choice, in my opinion.

b) try to open up the PS4 enough to dust out the heat sink, in the assumption that it's too dusty to cool properly. There are lots of videos on YouTube about taking a PS4 apart and I guess it's not too big of a deal? However, I think I'll skip the parts about removing the heatsink and changing the thermal paste!

c) try putting in my old 500gb drive, letting it update, and seeing if that "fixes" the issue. If it does, it also means I'll have to completely reinitialize my 2TB drive because something has gotten borked with the software on there. (One sort of plus of doing this is, I can move P.T. to my PS4 Pro. I read that moving games will not affect your old disc, but will overwrite everything on the new system. This is fine because I haven't put much on the Pro yet. I have also read that drives can't be put in different systems - they are encrypted to only work in the systems they are setup in. For this reason, I should probably do this one before opening up the box since if I "break" my old PS4, I'll lose P.T. forever!)

Update #1 : It's gone. P.T. is gone. I tried putting the old hard drive in and I guess the hardware has been upgraded too much for it to boot. All I have left is memories of Silent Hills. Well, at least I finished it once. *sigh* Anyhow, I tried standing the PS4 on its end, but a) I hate how that looks, and b) it did nothing to help reduce the heat while in Rest mode. Looks like the next step will be to open her up and see how bad the dust is. I ordered screwdrivers and they should be her on Saturday or Sunday. Until then, I'll either play on the other consoles or just turn the PS4 off when I'm not using it. I still might do a complete software reinstall just to make sure the system isn't corrupted at some level.

Update #2: The screwdrivers got her on Saturday (go Amazon!), so I popped the box open and this is what I found:




This is what roughly 3 1/2 years of gaming looks like. Not pretty. For the record, this is the YouTube video I used to get safely into the system:



Very helpful and concise. I originally planned to dismantle the system further but between this YouTuber's suggestion and another video I watched that went further, I decided I didn't have the courage to take it apart that much.

Using Q-Tips and an air-can, I cleaned it all out. After reassembly and hook-up, it was a) much quieter, b) ran cooler, but c) still didn't go into full Rest mode. Time to re-install the operating system.

PS4's actually make this very easy. You download a 900mb-ish file, stick it on a USB flashdrive, plug it into the PS4, boot the PS4 into "safe mode" (which is easier to do than on a PC), hook-up a controller, pick the bottom menu option, and about 15-20 minutes later, you're done! Of course, before you do this, you need to backup all your saves and capture gallery items. Since I'm not in the middle of a game, I don't really have a need for save files - I've either finished a game, or will need to restart any game that I've been away from for more than two weeks. Just easier that way.

Once I got the basic initialization stuff setup, I put the system into Rest mode and...it worked just like it used to! So, I guess the ultimate culprit was the power outage from the 16th that corrupted something on the disc. It still needed the cleanout since it was sounding too much like a jet engine during gameplay. I guess I'll just have to do the maintenance once in awhile.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

E3 2017 Bethesda Conference Thoughts

Some random thoughts on the Bethesda 2017 E3 Press Conference:
  • Not having any interest in VR, the opening items of Doom VFR and Fallout VR didn't do much for me.
  • The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind. Kind of old news guys. We already knew it was coming. Was it worth getting video of 7 or 8 streamers for a combined total of maybe 15 seconds of screen time?
  • The Bethesdaland narration is already getting annoying at this point.
  • The Creation Club will allow modders (and Bethesda) to get paid for their work. Probably a good thing?
  • The Elder Scrolls: Legends...for people who want to play Hearthstone with Elder Scrolls lore and art.
  • Okay, they are making a Skyrim for the Switch. Interesting. And it has amiibo support for Link Breath of the Wild costumes! I just heard the price of Link amiibo's tripling.
  • A Dishonored 2 "expansion"...with my favorite character from the Dishonored DLC's - Daude, voiced by Michael Madsen. Guess I'll have to hurry up and play D2.
  • A new eSport game that I can completely ignore because I'm not young enough and fast enough to play, Quake Champions!
  • Who put a f*ckton of Resident Evil in my Evil Within?! I played the beginning chapter of The Evil Within 1 and it didn't look anything like this horror show. On the good side, I didn't see a single tripwire bomb, so I'm sold. Twitch scream-stream gold in the making.
  • After a live action video shot with an Instagram filter and '50's costumes, it's...Wolfenstein again! Not sure what "The New Colossus" refers to, but B.J. is back to liberate America from the Nazi's. He wants to make America great....NO NO NO, I'M NOT GOING THERE!
  • And they are all coming out this year?? Wow, that's a lot of games to pump out in 5 months (figuring they want them out before Christmas). If I had to make a bet, I'd say they delay Wolfenstein 2. A) The Evil Within 2 wants to hit a specific date because it's a Friday the 13th, B) Wolfenstein will have to contend with two other shooters - CoD:WWII and Battlefront II - around the same time.
  • Final thought: Who was working the sound? Either the audience was asleep or unimpressed because you couldn't hear hardly anything from them. 

E3 2017 Xbox Conference Thoughts

Just some random stuff:

  • The name "Xbox One X" is going to drive sales people nuts. Too close in sound to "Xbox One S".
  • It's pretty!
  • Well, it better work with all the Xbox One accessories. Duh!
  • Forza 7. Meh. Where did they get two hot looking driver chicks? And did you notice they couldn't stay off the curbs?
  • Soooo...it's a Porsche. Hooray.
  • Lots of games to announce.
  • Want. Metro. Exodus!
  • Anyone who doesn't think Assassin's Creed Origins looks phenomenal is in The Nile. (hahaha...oh, nevermind) Did you see the giant snake?? Shades of Conan the Destroyer. Oh, and do you think Jean Guesdon will ever be able to live down the "Xbone" slip up?
  • PUBG on a console? No, not really. Sniping will be impossible.
  • Deep Rock Galactic looks like a multiplayer No Man's Sky.
  • Yeah, State of Decay 2! Not sure what they added from the first one, though.
  • The Darwin Project. Cute name, but not interested in another Overwatch.
  • Minecraft in 4K? Why???
  • Dragon Ball Z Fighters. Not my thing, but it looks like you are playing the cartoon.
  • The Black Desert MMO looks like Final Fantasy. I actually thought it was at first.
  • The Last Night looks a bit too pixelated for my taste, but I'd be willing to give it a try.
  • The Artful Escape has a cool look to it that reminds me of Yellow Submarine. Looking forward to it.
  • Put Code Vein on my Wishlist. 
  • Sea of Thieves looks like a lot of fun with friends.
  • Tacoma coming in less than 2 months!
  • Cuphead FINALLY! I'd be more interested if it weren't supposed to be so hard.
  • Super Lucky's Tale. Did we just timewarp back into the 90's? Should have called it Conker: The Early Years.
  • I predict that Crackdown 3 will under perform due to lackluster gameplay. Nothing I saw reminded me of the things you could do in the first one.
  • Ashen looks really creepy!
  • Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Guess I have to play the first one now.
  • Extended Shadow of War gameplay. A lot going one. I think the orcs sound too...Aussie?
  • The new Ori game had me cutting onions. I just wish I could have done better with the first one.
  • I audibly gasped when I saw the original Xbox logo! Yes! I know it won't be all of them, but I'll take what I can get.
  • Woah! $499. Well, it is A LOT of hardware. A PC with that kind of guts would be well over twice as much. Day 1 buy? Probably not, but I won't say I won't impulse buy it.
  • Geebus! Anthem gameplay looks like you're watching Avatar. I'm guessing it's not multiplayer, just multiple team members controlled by AI. Thought the characters talking about drops was sort of cheeky.

Thursday, June 01, 2017

Chessasaur's May 2017 Gaming Log

May 2017 - Game stuff, day by day

5/01 - Prey Demo. Well, I don't hate it as much as I did before, but I'm still not ready to re-pre-order. And "hate" is probably too strong a word. This time around, I took my time, read all the emails, and got a better handle on who I am and why I'm there. I've also gotten better at fighting the mimics, even if I get hit a bit more often than I've got health packs for. I made a bad choice to use my first neruomod for engineer repair skill when I should have put it into improving effectiveness of health items. Live and learn.

5/02 - When I went to Redbox today to rent Rings, I was given the option to get a free game rental. Figuring, "Hey, why not?", I looked at what they had, and after mentally deleting the games I already own or sports games I wouldn't play in a million years, I was left with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands and For Honor. My first instinct was to go with Ghost Recon because it's a genre I know (ie, a shooter). I've watched a few streams of For Honor and thought it looked interesting, but I'd heard it was hard to get into and other than multiplayer, there wasn't much to it. However, I figured that I'd only have a little while to play and Ghost Recon would probably need more time to get past just the opening cut-scenes. So, I chose For Honor...and I'm so glad I did! I'd heard a podcast recently where they were talking to the lead creative designer and this game is something he'd wanted to make for a long time; basically his dream game where melee combat was handled in a realistic manner. (His words were, "I want to put a sword in your hand!") I'm always more interested in something that a person has put their heart and soul into. It's a very different sword combat game than something like Diablo or Dark Souls (for different reasons), but it was easy to pickup with very helpful tutorials and responsive controls. I think that it must have been reworked quite a bit since launch - it required a 9gb patch on install! The single player campaign is set in a world where war has been raging for a thousand years between knights, samurai, and vikings...so I'm not going to try to defend its story merits. It's just a convenient excuse to get everyone fighting. Anyway, the game is gorgeous! You can get lost in the details of the fighters and the ruins you're battling around. Just awesome! I finished the first chapter and went over to look at multiplayer, figuring I'd just get myself swiftly executed before bed, and couldn't get a match! This game came out in February, less than 3 months ago, and the multiplayer community is that dead? Well, I'm going to get a copy to play the single player game more. A labor of love game like this should not be forgotten so soon.

5/04 - Star Wars Day! Had to do the obligatory Star Wars game, of course. In this case, Battlefront on the Xbox One. I bought the Ultimate edition (to get the season pass cheap) digitally (a rare thing for me) as this is the kind of game where you want to play a bit then move on to something meatier. Looking for the disc just takes more time than it's worth. I have to say I'm getting better at the "run around and shoot people" thing - I even got a number of kills in real multiplayer as a Stormtrooper by standing up on a catwalk and waiting for the Rebel scum to come through a doorway. Sneaky, but whatever works. I also tried out Beam (Microsoft's answer to Twitch) and I'm still trying to figure it out - you get an address for your stream, but I don't see the usual channel page stuff. It's fast though; there was almost no lag between my motions on the Kinect webcam and the corresponding actions on the webpage viewed on my PC! I'll have to look into it a bit more. (Do they do an automatic Twitter link?)

5/05 - Didn't do too much tonight, but I think I'm done with the Prey demo. It's a good game, but for some reason it isn't getting my interest (or my money). I'm not sure if it's a feeling of "been there, done that" space station shooter, the downright ugly models for the main characters, or the over the top "horror noise" when a mimic shows up, but I'm taking a pass on it for now. Maybe when it hits the $20 price point I'll give it a go.

5/06 - Edith Finch. Want to get back to this one and finish it up. Frankly, I'm hoping it makes some sense before the end. If it doesn't, I won't be upset - it's been an interesting ride.

5/07 - Edith Finch. More wandering around. I don't think this game is ever supposed to get scary, not that it has to for me. I do wish that games wouldn't give you the feeling like they are wrapping up...then go back into exploration mode again.

5/08 - Edith Finch. And done. Like a lot of the odd games I play, this one will take some time to process. It's hard to call something like this a "game" since, from what I can tell, you can't win or lose. The experience is just interactively triggering the next mini-story. While you are in each mini-tale, you need to provide some input (focus a camera lens, fly a kite, propel yourself in a swing, etc) but success is only measured by the continuation of the narrative, which deals with a particularly unlucky family and their assorted methods of demise. A "thing" like this can be appreciated for the variety of unconventional mechanics it contains, but by the end I felt the whole "thing" to be less than the sum of it's parts. One part in particular I found pleasantly reminiscent of Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow. The YouTube link is below.

5/09 - Started Little Nightmares tonight and I can't help but think I'd feel very differently about it if it had come out before Inside. LN is trying to do everything Inside did (spooky puzzle platforming) with an added measure of 3D to the environments. Unfortunately, I don't think it works as well. There's an elegant simplicity to Inside's puzzles - if you fail at them, you're just not doing it right. If you fail a puzzle in Little Nightmares, it's likely because you didn't angle your avatar correctly and went off an edge the wrong way or you haven't looked around the room enough. Like Inside, I have no idea who my character is or why I'm where I am, but, like I've mentioned, Inside did it first so this feels like an unnecessary sequel.

5/10 - Little Nightmares. Six's journey continues. Mind you, the only reason I know his/her name is from what I've read outside the game. There's still no "story" to speak of yet. Probably never will be. Is that a "thing" now in indie games? Apparently this is a very short game (HLTB put it at 3 hours) so I should be done fairly soon, even with my propensity for dying a lot.

5/11 - Little Nightmares. Creepy chef time! Made for a good PS4 capture highlight (see below).

5/15 - Little Nightmares. After a little holiday break, got back to it. I'm done with the chef's (I think) and probably(?) near the end. Still keeping with my desire to not finish a night stuck on a puzzle. Keeps me up a bit late, but it's worth it to know I won't come back to a previous night's failure.

5/16 - Little Nightmares. As I suspected, I was able to finish up LN tonight. It's very much like Limbo and Inside - a dark themed, puzzle platformer with no recognizable story elements - and Little Nightmares is both better and worse than the other two. LN allows movement in more than two dimensions, which makes for more variety of environments and more challenging puzzles. However, sometimes the puzzles are more challenging because you have to work in 3D. Aiming projectiles, jumping off platforms, and walking narrow beams is a lot harder! Graphically, I'd say Limbo still has the best atmosphere, Inside has the edge in animation, and Little Nightmares wins for enemy character design and environmental lighting. Plus, the whole game takes place aboard a giant ship so all the rooms constantly roll slowly back and forth. (Good thing I don't get seasick!) But for endings, Little Nightmares beats them all! I was a little afraid (as I get with games like this) that I'd hit a point where it was too difficult for me to win, but the end battle was a perfect set piece that was just hard enough that it took some time to solve without being frustrating. And, while it was still very cryptic, the final moments were incredibly rewarding!

5/18 - Little Nightmares. Wanted to try something that I've heard other gamers do - restart a game as soon as they finish it. I also wanted to see if I could open more "extras" - in this case, concept art images. What I found is that a) I could get through some areas much faster than before, b) areas where I failed (repeatedly) were more frustrating, c) unlocking concept art seems to be tied to just catching and hugging the little hat guys (not easy), and d) in Little Nightmares, the extras you unlock are considered part of your save...which sucks because I deleted my save to start over! That's enough of that then.

5/21 - Haven't played much this weekend because Nagano threw his back out again...or the doggie equivalent of that, but I did manage to dip my toe back into Zelda, This was partially motivated from helping my brother, who has been struggling with getting into the game himself on a new Switch. Plus,  it's easy to forget details from early in the game when you haven't played for awhile. Also, I got back into Steins;Gate...but I don't know if it constitutes a game. Pretty much just a visual novel. Bad part, I lost my saves so I had to start over. HLTB says 23 hours? I doubt I'll stay with it that long.

5/22 - This happens from time to time - I see a game on sale, realize I have it on a different platform, and decide I should give it a shot to see if I want to buy it again.This time it was D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, which I have on Steam, but is currently on sale for Xbox One for less than $4. The game was originally designed to operate with the Kinect 2.0 and, from what I've heard, is one of the few that really worked. For that reason alone, I'll probably drop the few bucks to get it because it was fairly hard to navigate with the controller and it's another one of those bat-shit crazy Japanese games you can't help but just love.

5/23 - Zelda. Always nice to be able to just drop back into Zelda for a little while. Did another shrine and tried to make it to a cliff overlooking a tower (so I can glide to it instead of climbing all the way up), but things didn't go quite according to plan. Back to Kakariko village for some cooking and fairy catching.

5/24 - Another case of SIGS, Sale Induced Gaming Selection. In this case, it was Darksiders: Warmastered Edition. The Xbox One version turned up on Amazon for about $12, but I already have it on Steam (it was a free upgrade because I had the original). Time to see if I should buy it again. I'd played Darksiders a little a long time ago when I got it for the 360 and didn't really understand it, if that makes any sense. I hadn't played many button-mashing, attackers from all sides sort of games and I put it aside pretty quickly. Nowadays, I've played more games like that so I figured I should give the remaster a try. It looks amazing compared to the almost cartoony original, but the action is still pretty much mash-mash-mash the attack button. I played until I got to a boss that I wasn't sure how I was supposed to beat and decided it was time for sleep.

5/25 - Darksiders and Zelda. I had to go back to Darksiders for a little bit - at least enough time to kill that "blue dragon" that I stopped on. I don't like ending something on a down note; I'd like to think I can play better than that. And (with a little strategy help from a walkthrough) I got him. Not sure if I'll play more, but it does have some good points. Played Zelda before bed and finally got to the Faron tower...via a roundabout climb and lucky parasail to just near the top. Nobody down below even knew I was there! But...I really need to strike out north from Kakariko and get to that other researcher. It's the next mission on the main story quest. (Update: No, it's just a side quest.)

5/27 - Zelda. Two more shrines done and moving closer to my next quest point. Also, I found that thorn bushes burn nicely.

5/28 - Zelda. A shrine and a tower. Not bad for a night's work.

5/30 - As I'm waiting for RiME to get here, I figured I'd give Tales From the Borderlands a try...and that will probably be as much as I play of it. I remember playing the demo for a short bit and deciding that I'd rather try the whole game, but now that I have, I feel like I'd just be pushing through it for the sake of finishing it. I know a lot of people really liked it, but it just didn't "click" with me. Maybe I'd like it more if it wasn't a comedy? (There were very few laughs in The Walking Dead Season 1, one of my all time favorite games.) It didn't help that the (basically) QTE sections were made more difficult by trying to first find the cursor on the screen, then position it in the right zone to press a button. I could try it on the PC with a mouse, but I don't know if the story is what I want to spend time on. Probably not.

5/31 - Well, RiME still hasn't shown up. I'm beginning to get the feeling that non-AAA games don't get regular physical releases anymore. At least not on the day they are supposed to be released. Maybe that's just the day they start shipping from the warehouses. Anyway, I thought I'd give the Xbox One version of D4 a play with Kinect - they way it was "meant" to be played. I basically played the same section I did from earlier in the month; that is to say, the first chapter. It took a little bit to get the Kinect setup correctly. I have it under the TV/monitor, but also had to put it on a little box to raise it up a bit. After I moved back from the desk some, it picked me up pretty well, but I had some issues with the sensor "seeing" my hand. It would detect it, but when I tried to hover over an icon, the hand graphic would jump around making targeting a pain. And no, I don't think it was me shaking! Grabbing things was another matter - I didn't realize how stiff my hands have gotten until I had to "grab" items on the screen by making a fist. Sucks to be almost 56! Once I got into the game, it was definitely a better experience with the motion controls, even when they didn't register 100% of the time. The one downside was the fairly frequent "motion hints" that told you what you were supposed to do at a given time. It takes you out of the narrative when everything basically stops until you do the motion that the game requires. Well, it's better than the controller version where I was constantly triggering the "turn" command - that really got on my nerves. I also wasn't ready for the voice "participation" parts (you have to actually speak the line you want your character to say from a list of responses), but it was kinda cool and worked every time. It would actually be a cool thing to put into the Telltale games...and might have been added to Xbox One versions if Kinect hadn't been marched out into the middle of the Microsoft campus and shot through the back of the head. Twice.

Media Highlights...and Lowlights (Changed to "Media" this month because I wasn't Twitch streaming. Maybe in June.)

This month's screenshots are HERE.

The Creepshow from What Remains of Edith Finch (Props to the devs for getting the Halloween theme!)



A little escape in Little Nightmares



Miscellaneous Musings

Finish ups - As May starts and I read over April's log, I realized I need to go back and finish What Remains of Edith Finch. Want to do that before getting into Little Nightmares. (Update: Finished both this month!)

Finishing Moves - Now that I've sort of made a habit (or at least an attempt) at finishing games I've started, am I letting it adversely affect my desire to play something like Zelda that I know is very good, but will take a lot more time to finish than I can provide?