I bought this at release in 1997, I even remember playing the beta versions that were published in the lead up, but never finished it. This time I played the remastered version that was released recently. This new version adds a feature which draws markers in the world to show you where you need to go next which is very helpful as I think I spent most of my time lost in the original. It’s a great feature that should get added as an option into lots of old maze shooters.
I played along with the Retrograde Amnesia podcast, this is the game for series 5. This game was never released in the UK, though I was aware of it at the time. I’d played Xenogears through an emulator and absolutely loved it. I didn’t have a way to play import PS2 games though. Strangely they released Episode 2 here, but it can’t have sold well since they then didn’t release 3.
This was this month’s pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. I really thought I had already read this, but if that’s the case it was long enough ago that I didn’t really remember the details.
I think this might be my favourite Dragon Quest game now, I loved it the whole way through. Usually Dragon Quest games have a fairly thin overarching story, but a great collection of little stories in each town you visit. I think this one still has the second, but they all tie in to a much stronger narrative. The game also has such a wonderful cast of characters, but Sylvando is a standout. He is just a constant source of joy throughout.
This is the Dystopian Novels Book Club pick for this month. I remember thinking that the Netflix film was okay, but very overhyped. I enjoyed the book quite a lot more, but maybe I’m just able to accept it on its own terms more easily without the hype.
This was published in 1939, and is set in 1930s Berlin. I’m not sure how much this book is real events and how much is fiction. The main character is the author, although he is mostly just an observer of interesting characters. Each chapter is a different subject, or a diary entry of a different time.
This book was written in a rush and then hastily extended and edited during the disastrous Truss government. It shows in places, reading like a tabloid opinion column and lacking depth. It’s fair enough given how little time they had to write it I guess.
I never got around to finishing the original Resident Evil 3, I think I got quite far though. I remember the clock tower. From memory I think they’ve changed a lot in this remake.
This is a return to the earlier style of books where the plot is only there to ferry you from one joke to the next. The dungeon dimensions don’t really serve much purpose other than to add some “boding” as Gaspode would call it. I guess also to be able to wrap it all up in the end so that Holy Wood doesn’t exist again.
This is the sort of meal I really love, unfussy and fulfilling. I think this is a pretty bog standard approach.
Rory Stewart walks from Herat to Kabul in Afghanistan not long after the fall of the Taliban. He does the walk in the winter months, stopping off at the villages and towns along the way. The book is much more about the people and places on the journey than about himself, he doesn’t go into much about why he’s doing this other than talking about retracing the steps of the first Mughal emperor Babur.
Miso soup is a Japanese soup, made by mixing miso paste into dashi. Dashi is a Japanese stock, made with seaweed and dried and smoked tuna flakes.
This is a Japanese food that’s a little like a rice sandwich.
Killer 7 was originally a GameCube and PlayStation 2 game released by Capcom in
- I played it back then, but got stuck in the theme park level. It’s since been ported to Windows, and plays brilliantly on the Steam Deck. When the game was released it looked and played unlike anything else, and although it is still an unusual game it stylistically fits in well with a lot of modern indie games.
Fatal Labyrinth is a roguelike RPG for the Mega Drive by Sega released in 1991. It’s a very early example of the genre for consoles. There are thirty randomly generated floors of a dungeon to explore, then you need to kill a dragon and collect a goblet. I found it quite easy, which is surprising since these games are normally extremely hard. When you die you don’t start completely from scratch but can restart from a checkpoint in an earlier floor.