Ni No Kuni II trailer

Video by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe

Happy 25th Anniversary

Tetris origins film

No, thankfully it's not a film about how the blocks came to be.

According to reports Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand)is developing and producing a biopic based on Alexey Pajitnov who designed Tetris.

For those who don't know about the origins of Tetris it was developed in 1984 by Pajitnov whilst he was working for the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The legal and licensing rights then became very murky with several companies 'owning' the rights to the game.

Hyrule Warriors Legends - 3DS

Video by KOEITECMOofficial

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

It has been officially announced that Nintendo will be releasing Legend of Zelda HD for the WiiU alongside a Wolf Link Amibo and for pre-order bonus, a soundtrack CD.

The game will be released 4th March 2016.

Metroid: The Sky Calls

Wow, just wow.

Video by RainfallFilms

Star Wars: Battlefront trailer

Video by EAStarWars

Fighting Games Played Badly

A new upcoming contributor to Game Over Yeah Michael aka GiroMindTricks has his own Youtube channel where he plays fighting games past and present such as the Street Fighter series. So far Michael has a couple of series called Fighting Games Played Badly where he goes through his personal history of fighting games and Learning to Lose where he plays online games.

Take a watch of the video above to see what you think. Hopefully you will enjoy, subscribe and continue watching the videos as they are uploaded. Also watch out for some great upcoming posts from Michael right here on the blog.

Playstation memories

For all the cool kids, September 1995 was a good time.

The original Sony PlayStation hit the shores of our green and pleasant land, and if you were like me (and not actually cool at all) it might have been the first pre-order you ever made.

Console, extra joypad, memory card, copy of Wipeout. Sorted.

I'm sure a myriad of articles or a quick Wikipedia search can give you all the technical stuff (games on CD, easy to modify for imports) so lets just stick to the good stuff, the games.

September completed games

Wahey, two games completed in September.

First was Inazuma Eleven for DS which I first couldn't get into due to the controls during matches but once I started properly giving it a chance I ended up really enjoying it. Second was Sonic Advance 3 for the GBA which despite some damn tough sections was overall a good game.

September purchases

Just the final two Mario toys from McDonalds this month, Luigi and Penguin Mario to complete the collection.

Happy 20th anniversary

Happy 25th anniversary

Lucky moments

So there I was today playing the final match of Inazuma Eleven when I had a damn lucky moment to level the game to 1-1.

I was 1-0 down and decided that I was going to change my play to one touch direct balls up the pitch which worked fantastically until the last touch went past my striker who had broken free and was running on goal. Damn I thought until the ball rolled past the keeper and sat on the goal line. My brain took a second to comprehend what was happening and I quickly slid the stylus. Luckily I reacted quick enough for the my striker to walk the ball into the net.

Konami ceases making AAA games

Well, except for Pro Evolution Soccer.

After my post a couple of weeks ago about the state of Konami it is sad but very unsurprising to read that apart from PES Konami have decided to stop making triple-A titles. Now that the latest (and possibly last) Metal Gear Solid game has been released Konami have decided to leave the console market behind and concentrate on the mobile gaming market.

Super Mario Bros. memories

The first time that I would have played Super Mario Bros. would have been around 1989 when my mother bought me my NES (the TMNT pack which I loved).

It was one of the first games that she bought for me and one that I instantly loved. From the first little Goomba walking towards me, the first time I collected a mushroom that made Mario grow and then another that gave him the fire power-up and then finally finding a star, the way the music changed to that very familiar tune and the way it allowed me to run through enemies without taking a hit.

30 years of Super Mario Bros

30 years ago on this very day one Super Mario Bros. was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Highly regarded as one of the most influential games ever created due to it launching the popularity of Mario, after appearances in Donkey Kong (known as Jumpman) and in Mario Bros. in the arcades, and for helping the NES become such a success to the extent that it reportedly sold just under 62million units.

Football Director DS review

Football Director DS is one of those games that I kept seeing in shops for cheap but never really bothered looking at. Finally I decided to have a look at the box and whilst it didn't look that bad I still wasn't convinced. I then decided to have a look online and found myself reading customer reviews on a well known shopping website where the reviews absolutely slated it. This actually piqued my curiosity because for reason I'm a sucker for punishment and like to try bad games and by the sounds of it this was going to be a bad game.

Konami, what happened to you?

Konami, when I was growing up you were, as the Doctor would say, fantastic and so was I. In all seriousness though you were, what with releasing the likes of Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, TMNT arcade, Tournament Fighters AND Turtles in Time as well as  Lethal Enforcers, Sunset Riders, Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, International Superstar Soccer and many many more fantastic games. Hell, I could probably fill this post with all of the fantastic games that I played and still continue to play over and over and over.

Video Games, the work of the Devil or nothing more than the latest moral panic?

Why do some people view games as being somehow evil, as being some kind of force of nature which corrupts the young and mentally vulnerable? The truth in my opinion is that it probably has a lot to do with fear, in particular the fear of the unknown. There are many arguments that can be made for this fear but one thing that cannot be denied is that a lot of it is whipped up in to a frenzy by the media. I remember being young and the first Mortal Kombat coming out to a sea of negative press about how such a level of gore would pollute people’s minds, there was sensational outcries from this group and that group all of which amounted to the old chestnut ‘’Wont somebody think of the children?’’

Todays post

Todays post is by a good friend of mine kerr9000 who has recently started up his own blog here.

Please be sure to check out the blog especially the 150 SNES games that kerr has been playing as he has been looking at some less common games alongside the big hitters.

Mega Movie Man

With having continued that fine trend of fantastic movies based on video games which earn a lot of money with Hitman: Agent 47 20th Century Fox have now, according to reports, turned to the little blue guy Mega Man to be their next gaming/movie hit.

August completed games

Nothing, again not through lack of trying.

August purchases

Just some little bits and bobs this month.

The six Mario toys were from the McDonald's happy meals (I know but it's Mario) and there are still another two to pick up. The DS game was picked up on the cheap, just one of those cheaply made Sudoku/Picross games that passes the time for a few minutes every now and then.

July completed games

Nothing though not through lack of trying.

I'll be back

June completed games

Quiet month again.

June purchases

Nothing this month.

May completed games

Football Director DS for the DS which I suppose technically cannot be completed due to continuous play but I won the Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League (well the versions in the game) so I consider it to be completed.

May Purchases

Just a couple of things bought this month.

Football Director DS is a game that I keep seeing in places and when I saw it for a shiny pound I figured why not give it a shot. The three mini classics were an impulse buy when I popped into Lidl. They are probably not that good but hey, sometimes it nice to just treat yourself.

Exploring PS3 JRPG's

I would like to believe that I hold no bias towards any one videogame console manufacturer; I’ve owned a variety of consoles over the years from all the major players and my current set-up beneath the TV could be described as an example of console equality. Except…I am a little bias towards one specific set of consoles: the Playstation family. There are various reasons for this but chief among them is that I love RPG’s and Playstation consoles have always been better served than most when it comes to both the quality and quantity of role playing experiences.

Todays post

Todays post is brought to you by a guest writer who is one that I am very pleased to have persuaded to write a fantastic article.

Regular readers and bloggers may (and should) remember the Darkstalker90 blog which was sadly brought to an end a while back by the blogger. Fans of the blog will be very happy with the post that he has produced and hopefully he will back again to do more.

Enjoy.

GOY

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I imagine that by now pretty much every gamer with an Internet connection will have seen or heard about Bloodstained the newly announced game from Koji Igarashi, the legendary Producer of a lot of the Castlevania series.

The Checkpoint

I'm going to use tonight's post to basically advertise a gaming forum that I use.

The forum is called The Checkpoint and at the moment it's needing new members as it's caught in the cycle of low posts due to low members and low members due to low posts.

The people on there are really friendly and welcoming (I promise) so please come along and have a look around and if you like what you see please join up and post.

GOY

Retro gaming, hard games for hard men

I recently found a box of my old games at my parent’s house, they were a bit dusty, but it still felt like I’d found some long lost treasure. And maybe I did, according to E-bay, but I digress…

My first reaction was ‘oh cool, old games’. My second reaction was to blow the dust off them, because that’s what you do with cartridges. My third reaction however, was fear. Fear because it suddenly came back to me how hard these games where. Compared to the theme park ride that is modern gaming, these things where pure evil. Limited lives, little to no saving options, bosses that would destroy you in an instant if you mucked up the pattern… It felt like nostalgia mixed up with a yearning to be punished.

Posts

Back in January I mentioned that due to not being able to post as much as I would like on the blog I was going to have other people writing for it.

Well tonight is the first of those posts so drum roll please for MP White with the post 'Retro gaming, hard games for hard men.'

April completed games

Wahey, a game completed.

The Adventure of Link for GBA.

April purchases

Not a single thing was purchased.

Arkham Knight trailer - "All Who Follow You"

I really want this game.

Top five Guitar Hero games

Since Guitar Hero and Rock Band are making a come back I thought that I would take a look at my top five Guitar Hero games. Unfortunately I never got round to playing Rock Band so there will not be a list for the series I'm afraid.

Return of Guitar Hero and Rock Band

It was announced yesterday that Guitar Hero, alongside the previously confirmed Rock Band, will be rising from its slumber of the past few years to rock our world again.

Well, hopefully...

Zelda II: Day 16

Alas after a break I have finished the game.

Worked through the last castle (which was easy enough with patience), killed the boss in the castle and then fought Dark Link to finish the game.

March completed games

Sigh, another month and again no games completed.

March Purchases

Zelda II: Day 15

Well I would like to say that I overcame the last castle, unfortunately I didn't so nothing to report today I'm afraid. Just a few deaths as I tried to complete it.

Zelda 2: Day 14

It started of a good day as I completed the sixth castle which resulted in me gaining the cross. This then allowed for me to acquire the thunder spell (which uses up half of the magic blocks.

Zelda II: Day 13

Fifth castle completed today which resulted in finding the flute. Off on a walkabout and found another heart container, yay, as well as a hidden town.

Within the town I found another magic container (all of them now found), a spell and a key. Now just need to head into the next castle which hopefully I will complete tomorrow.

One thing that is starting to annoy me at the moment is the constant number of enemies appearing when trying to walk around. I know that games get harder and more enemies appear as you go on but it seems like you can barely walk three steps before running some monsters. Apart from that I'm still enjoying the rest of the game.

Zelda II: Day 12

Fourth castle completed today after having to go on a walkabout. Got to the boss and for the life of me could not defeat it so figured that I needed another spell to take it out, turns out I needed the reflect spell to bounce back it's attacks.

To get this I needed to find a child hidden in a cave which I accidently stumbled on but I did also find a jar of magic to give me another block so it was worth the walk. After that the boss was easy enough and after a little bit more wandering I found the fifth castle. Had a bit of a wander round it collecting keys and will hopefully complete it tomorrow.

Zelda II: Day 11

Decided to sneak some time on the game today and pleased that I did as I managed to find a knight who taught me the stab upwards move.

I also levelled up my attack to level eight but then got confused when I levelled it up again as it stayed at level eight. It turns out that level eight is the maximum for them all and anything after that gains you an extra life. I did not know this until I read it afterwards so was slightly confused at the time I will admit.

Now that I'm all levelled up for attack, magic and life tomorrow will be the completion of the fourth castle. Hopefully.

Zelda II: Day 10

Very busy day on the game today with completing the third castle, levelling up attack to seven and magic to eight, finding the water to get the fire spell and finally finding the boots in the fourth castle.

I didn't complete the fourth castle unfortunately as I died so I'm going to tackle it on Monday when I resume playing the game, still really enjoying it though.

Zelda II: Day 9

Mixed day today as I managed to complete the third castle and level up my life to then forget to save before turning off the DS.

It wasn't all bad though as despite killing the boss it turned out that I had missed collecting the raft so I would have had to venture back in anyway. Having to redo the castle allowed for me to see how many points I could gain which allowed for me to do a bit of grinding to level up the life which now means that when I complete the castle again (hopefully tomorrow) I can level up my attack which is 5000 points.

So not a massive loss really.

Zelda II: Day 8

Today was a good day again as I found a heart container, a new move (the downwards stab), another wise man who gave me the fairy spell and I found the third castle thanks to the fairy spell.

Unfortunately it looks like the third castle may be a bit of a stinker. I only had a quick go at it but it could take me a couple of attempts to get through it by the looks of it.

Zelda II: Day 7

Today was a good day playing the game, I managed to level up both my magic and life to level seven and my attack to level six. As well as this I completed the second castle before working my way through the cave maze to find the hammer and a new town.

I just need to figure out where to go next.

Zelda II: Day 6

Back into the game today and all I pretty much managed to do was level up my attack to level five though this is a good thing as it makes a hell of a difference to killing enemies.

Zelda II: Day 5

Today was rather an annoying day as with it being the end of the week I thought I would spend some more time levelling up before facing the second castle. I needed 2000 points and got to just over 1500 when I died. I attempted it again and got to just over 1700 points when I managed to die again.

At this point I decided to stop playing for the weekend. It was annoying but didn't stop my interest in playing through the game.

Zelda II: Day 4

Today I did some more exploring today and managed to find Bagu who gave me a note which allowed for me to cross the river.

Once across and in the town I found a mirror which allowed for me to visit a magician and obtain the life spell, a spell that I can imagine I will be using rather a lot from here on out.

Zelda II: Day 3

First castle complete, glove found and more levelling up done, yay.

I also found a trophy which allowed for me to obtain the jump spell and I found a heart which gave me an extra block of life. Happy days.

Zelda II: Day 2

Today I grinded, I grinded a lot. I grinded by killing the little blobs over and over, I killed so many that dropped two points a time that I felt like the kids in South Park in the World of Warcraft episode.

On the plus side I did level everything up and I also found the candle so tomorrow will be onwards to that castle.

Zelda II: Day 1

I've decided to play the black sheep of the Zelda series Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I own the NES and GBA version and it's the GBA version that I will be playing through.

Despite my love for the series I've never played the game and I think that it might because of the negativity surrounding it but after all these years I fancy giving it a go. I've also decided to document my daily progress as I play through it mainly because I just fancy it.

February completed games

Like the purchases absolutely nothing, not through lack of trying though I may add.

February purchases

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

250th post

Two hundred and fifty posts, two hundred and fifty posts.

If you had told me this time last year that I would be typing my 250th post I wouldn't have believed it, mainly as I've kind of let the blog drift for the past couple of years (completely my fault for having tiring life changes, happy ones though) which I've been annoyed about.

This year though I've started strongly (ignoring the past three weeks) and it's made me feel reinvigorated about the blog though it is sometimes still hard to find the time and energy to bang out a post, I really do tip may hat to the people who post everyday or there about.

Talking of those people I just want to give a shout out to some of the other blogs that I've really enjoyed reading over the year since I started posting. A big shout out to the following: Gaming Rocks On, Red Parsley, Chalgyr's Game Room, The Gay Gamer, SuperPhillip Central. These people are passionate about gaming and you really should be reading their blogs.

A big shout out of course to the people who read this blog. I really do appreciate it and I know it's a pain when the posts come so irregular but I promise that I am trying and hopefully one day I will get to the stage of the people above and post every or every couple of days.

The Legend of Zelda TV programme

News came out today that Netflix are in the early stages of developing a TV series based on The Legend of Zelda. According to the report (which can be found at The Wall Street Journal website) the series will be a "Game of Thrones for a family audience".

SFII car bonus round in real life.

Video by Versus FightingTV

As the post title states It's the Street Fighter II bonus round done in real life.

Give it a watch.

Resident Evil 2 fan remake

Youtube user Rod Lima has created a fan remake of Resident Evil 2 using the Unreal Engine 3 and it looks brilliant.

Due to it being a fan remake it unfortunately won't be able to play but it can be viewed on Youtube by clicking on the video above.

Completed Games January 2015

Three games completed in the first month of the year. One terrible game, one decent game and one enjoyable game.

First up was Mystery Case Files: Millionheir, a game that I remember being advertised as being like Professor Layton a series which I really enjoy. Well it's nothing like Professor Layton as it's just one of those search for an item and click on it kind of games, the ones that you tend to get free on social media sites and the kind that get repetitive rather quickly.

I'll stop there as a full review will be coming up at some point soon.

Second and third were Pac-Man World and Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, two games that I've alreadyreviewed and two games that I did pretty much enjoy overall despite them being far from perfect games.

Overall January was a time of completion of really mixed games.

January purchases

The first month of the year threw up some very pleasing games and gifts.

First were the late Christmas gifts from a very good friend of mine which are the Mario sweets and they are rather good designs. Second were Dragon Quest, Dead or Alive and Resident Evil: Mercenaries which were picked up rather cheaply in a sale and third was Ace Attorney and Professor Layton. I never thought that I would see the game in the shops round here and especially not new and sealed. It was in another sale so I picked it up straight away which I was very pleased about.

All in all a very good month for buys and gifts I reckon.

Jurassic World / Avengers Lego

Yesterday it was announced that the Lego juggernaut will continue to roll through peoples wallets with two new games to be released this year, Jurassic World and Marvel's Avengers.

Marvel's Avengers will follow the story of the two films whilst Jurassic World will follow not only the upcoming fourth film but also the third film. Avengers was to be expected at some point with the previous releases of Marvel Superheroes and three Batman/DC games but Jurassic World was a pleasant surprise, a pleasant surprise that will also most likely rake in the money.

Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness / Pac-Man World (GBA) review - Part two

I decided at the last minute to split the post into two posts due to the length so here is the review for Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness.

A year after Pac-Man World was released developed Namco and Full Fat released Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness a short and fun game for the PS1, N64, Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance. Playing differently to Pac-Man World which was a platform game Maze Madness is a four-direction puzzle game which plays like the original Pac-Man game.

Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness / Pac-Man World (GBA) review - Part one

Back in 1999 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pac-Man developers Namco and Full Fat released Pac-Man World and a year later released Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, two games that are rather fun to play on the GBA.

Ms. Pac-Man was originally released on the PS1, N64 and Dreamcast whilst Pac-Man was only released on the PS1 before being ported to the GBA. Due to this the games are slightly different to their console counterparts and have less features but this doesn't make them any less enjoyable as far as I'm aware. The main difference is the lack of multi-player which is no big loss though it's a shame that some levels have had to be left out alongside the original Pac-Man which would have been a nice extra to play on a handheld.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters review

"If anybody wants to see, there's a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up."

I imagine by now that anyone with a vested interest in video games will have watched The King of Kong, unfortunately I myself have only just gotten round to watching it and I wish that I had watched it sooner.

Now before I go on I'll just say that there is controversy that surrounds this film so for the purpose of the review I''m just going to concentrate on the actual film and will mention the controversy at the end.

Intros I like 2

Video by neodarkid

Discontinuation of Club Nintendo

Today it was announced that Nintendo is to discontinue Club Nintendo the place where you can go and spend all of your collected stars from the scratch cards contained in select games and consoles.

It's kind of a shame that it is to be closed down as there can sometimes be some good stuff on there such as the Link and Epona statue, the celebration cards and especially the SNES Wii controller that I managed to scrape enough stars together to get a while back.

Intros I like 1

Video by EnciclopediaLusa

Nintendisco Interview

Back in 2011 I wrote some stuff for a magazine called NES-Bit (which you can download from this post here) which sadly did not make it past two issues. Issue three was in the pipeline for release in 2012 but never materialised. When issue three was being worked on I interviewed the guys from Nintendisco/Gamerdisco about Nintendisco and it never got published, it has been gathering dust ever since so I thought that I would drag it out and put it on here for people to read.

Nintendo Direct 14.01.2015

The first Nintendo Direct of the year and it had some good looking stuff included.

Here are the games that I'm looking forward to.

Aliens Infestation (DS) review

Over the years there have been numerous games featuring the Xenomorphs from the Alien series with some being fantastic, some being good and some being not so good. Unfortunately Aliens Infestation falls into the not so good category.

Don't get me wrong there are good points to the game like the graphics which are big and vibrant with some parts being a little tense due to the colour and atmosphere of the game. The alien bosses take up a good chunk of the screen when fighting them, the last one in particular. The weapons are really good (a shame that there are not more of them included) and there is a level where you get to ride along in the armoured car like thing and the last boss is huge and there is a tracker and well that's about it. Oh, you can also use a loader to fight bigger aliens with.

I wanted to like this game I really did but there is far too much wrong with it. The plot is the standard fare of a ship being found that contains the aliens aboard it so I won't go into that as it's what you would expect for it to be. What I will go into is everything else as that's where the problems are such the music and sound effects, the music barely changes and after a while the tracker noise just starts to do your head in with the way that it sounds.

Resident Evil 4 tenth anniversary

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, a game that most likely appears in a lot of all-time greatest game lists and deservedly so as it not only revolutionised the Resident Evil franchise but changed the genre that made it's name.

Resident Evil 4 was actually the sixth game in the main series (one, two, three, Zero and Code Veronica being the first five) and some people felt that the series was starting to become stale. The first five games are brilliant games in their own right, yes they have problems which especially now can seem very dated but overall they are some fantastic games.

Anyway, due to the series going stale Capcom took a new approach (well four approaches before settling on this one) with Resi 4 and pretty much dropped the survival horror aspect of the previous games and turned it into an action game that featured the player shooting and killing rather a lot of infected villagers known as Los Ganados. Capcom dropped the Umbrella/zombie storyline and introduced Las Plagas parasites which is what infected the villagers and what tries to kill you all throughout the game.

As per the previous games there are different types of enemies ranging from the standard zombie like villagers who go around in hordes trying to hack you to death or the Garrador who chases you around with
massive Wolverine like claws and the Regenerator who can regenerate limbs and can only be killed by shooting off parasites until it explodes. It's a fun mixture of enemies.

Game map: The history of video games set to the art of cartography

As mentioned in the December 2014 purchases post for Christmas my partner very thoughtfully got me a game map entitled Game Map: The history of video games set to the art of cartography.

In my opinion it is a fantastic looking map and the pictures do not do it justice (especially the blurry one, apologies for that).

The map is broken down into the following sections: Battle Zone, Sim City, Super Mario Land, Pac-Land, Vice City, Killzone, Borderlands and Castlevanis. Within these zones are game names or an area from the game, for example in one section there is The Legend of Zelda and Hyrule Field. There is also The Curious Village and Arkham Asylum alongside Watch Dogs and Chrono Cross.

One of my favourite sections is the street names which are named after games such as Super Street Fighter II, Streets of Rage and Final Fight: Streetwise.

Completed Games December 2014

Nothing, bad end to the year.

December 2014 Purchases

Two game pick-ups and two presents this month, a month that I'm very pleased with.

Silent Hill I've been after for a while so was very pleased when I bought it from a friend whilst I've also been after Indy for a while due to there being an unlockable version of Fate of Atlantis which I've never played before and of which I've heard positive things about.

The socks were my secret Santa present from the RG forum (thank you very much SS) and they are pretty cool in my opinion. The map on the other hand was from my very thoughtful and loving partner and is something that I will go into more in a post in a couple of days time.

Round up of 2014 completed games

The full list of games that I completed in 2014 is as follows:

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga  - DS
Wario: Master of Disguise - DS
42 All-time Classics - DS
Luminous Arc 2 - DS
Aliens Infestation - DS
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Directors Cut - DS
Colour Cross - DS
Sonic the Hedgehog - DS
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - DS
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - DS
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence - DS

Only eleven games completed in 2014 with ten being games that I'd never finished before. As mentioned in the top ten list due to circumstances I didn't get to play more games across other formats so I found this years to be disappointing compared to previous years.

It's not to say that the games are bad (though Aliens Infestation was) just that it would have been nice to play more.

Hopefully 2015 will be a lot better.

Top ten games I completed in 2014 (Pt 2)

Welcome to part two of the top ten games that I completed in 2014.

At number five is...

5. Sonic the Hedgehog (DS)

The first and original Sonic game makes it to number five on the list and what a game it is. I was a Nintendo/Mario fan growing up so missed out on the Sonic games originally and despite owning a Mega Drive and the Sonic games for a few years now I've only just gotten round to playing them on this collection.

Due to this I feel that I can appreciate the games more as when I was growing up they seemed to be the complete opposite to Mario with just running through the stage as quick as you can, how wrong I was. Whilst the first couple of levels seem and pretty much can be like that the rest of the game is far from it with some levels really requiring for you to slow down to make jumps and to figure out where to go.

The stages are fantastically varied and the bosses, despite all having the same way of being killed, are varied enough to not feel samey. The graphics still hold up and the music and sound is superb. Overall I'm glad that I waited this long to play the game.


4. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (DS)

So despite all my praise for the first game how come number two ranks higher in the list? It's because it takes everything that made the first game great and somehow manages to add to it.

Adding Tails to the canon was a good move as I like the character due to working well with Sonic. Another good move was upping the speed from the first game and adding the spin dash. Apart from that the game is pretty similar to the first one in the way of how stages are devised and Eggman/Robotnik again being the enemy but again the bosses are varied enough to not feel repetitive. The levels are all nice and varied (though Casino Night zone to be a bit of a pain) and like the third one the difficuly ramps up a little near the end but not so much that it frustrates you.

As evidenced by it's placing I really enjoyed Sonic 2 and found it to be the best of the three games. If like me you still haven't gotten round to playing the original trilogy you really should as they are fantastic games.

Top ten games I completed in 2014 (Pt 1)

It's that time of year again when normally I count down the top ten games that I completed in the previous year. Last year however due to time constraints and electronic issues I only managed to complete eleven and all of them were on the DS. It's just enough to compile the list but sadly it won't be as varied or as strong a line-up as previous years.

So here are my top ten (DS) games that I completed in 2014.

10.Wario: Master of Disguise (DS)

Ah Wario, how I loved Wario World on the GameCube. For your DS outing though I just couldn't muster the same enthusiasm which was a shame as Master of Disguise isn't a terrible game, it's not even a bad game, it's just not a fun game.

As it is with Wario the plot involves trying to become rich but it involves entering a TV to find a talking cane who helps you track down parts of a wish stone that other people are looking for. It's all a little bizarre to be honest and by the end not something that you are really taking much notice of as you are too busy just trying to finish the game.

The graphics are good and the music is OK if a little annoying in places. The game play though is a mixed bag which is a shame as the concept is good with Wario being able to use different costumes to solve puzzles and to find secrets but the actual puzzles and game play is just too repetitive and at times annoying. Master of Disguise had potential but just falls short of being a good game.


9. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (DS)

If I remember correctly Lego Star Wars is the first game to appear on the top ten lists that I have previously completed as for the past couple of years I've only tried to play games that I hadn't played before. It's one that I try and play every Christmas as that was when I first played it and also because it's a fun game like the rest of the Lego games.

After all this time and all of these Lego releases is there that much that I can say about the game. It's fun (so fun that I can bare to play through the Phantom Menace levels) and ridiculous, it makes you smile and sometimes even laugh and the graphics and game play are solid. It gives you a lot of characters to use and a lot of secrets to find as well as providing mini games to play if you want a really quick blast on the game.

Overall I still find LSW to be an enjoyable game and one that I like to play over and over again.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all the Game Over Yeah readers and followers.

You may have noticed that posts were sorely lacking in 2014, unfortunately this was for many reasons which I won't bore you with but rest assured that for 2015 the posts will be picking up again though this time with some changes.

Due to being just one person who has limited time I cannot unfortunately dedicate as much time to the blog as I would like so I've opened it up to other people for them to be able to use it as an outlet for their thoughts on the gaming world. I'll still be posting as much as I can (as well as finishing off missing posts from last year) but this year I'll be joined by some new friends and people.

Here's to a brighter 2015.