update: sprint vector is a must have if you have VR, up there with superhot
good year for racing games of various stripes really
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I got .hack GU Last Recode, i think im gonna play it in cheat mode cuz the gameplay honestly sucks and I donāt want to watch a letās play as i wanna do it at my own pace
cave story is good as, tho my patience for the end game boss sequence was def thin
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i played the demo for tetris effect and got In The Zone
recommended if you too would like to visit The Zone
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Did you find the controls a little sluggish? Maybe it was just me
my main issue was instinctively pressing up on the d-pad to rotate and just dropping the piece - the controls have a little bit of delay i think but it might be so it fits better with the music? not sure. didnāt find it much of a problem but iām not exactly a tetris pro
really? I felt the controls were pretty responsive. not like, TGM-level snappy but as good as most modern efforts, if not better (being able to buffer moves and rotations as a piece comes onto the field helps out)
After a few days I think I can give my recommendation for Forza Horizon 4. Itās Outrun 2 levels of fun to race in this! (of course itās a completely different game but you know)
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whoa that is a bold statement
tell me more
The only thing I havenāt liked about Horizon 4 is how damn rough that AI can be (that, and I think Horizon 3 had better tunes).
I accidentally started an off road rally course with a muscle car, and seeing the AI take corners I couldnāt even dream of with the same car I was careening around with, I dunno!
Then again, a running thing with me and games is that Iām bad at 'em, so.
Speaking of! Iām stuck in Oklahoma for work until the weekend, but itās given me time to mess around with my SNES Classic (which also means this is the most Iāve ever played my SNES Classic).
Super Mario World - Iām terrible at it but I appreciate what it does? Pretty sure Iāve just got crusty reflexes, but Iām extremely good at hitting switches and blocks in such a way that I fly off platforms or directly in front of enemies. Iām also maybe too obsessed with trying to find hidden exits and not just taking the game at my own leisure.
Zelda: LttP - Still good! Way more pleasant without those yelps and squawks the GBA version added.
Super Metroid - Maybe the first time Iāve played this game in earnest? Still not wild about how exploration and progression ultimately comes down to ābomb/shoot every block and corner until one of them breaks,ā but Iām having a (mostly) good time with it. Just did that tunnel where the little green dudes teach you to wall jump. Tookā¦a while.
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I will expand upon this tomorrow because Iām currently at a turning point in the gameās progression and I can only say so much now.
The gist of it is that Horizon 4 is a number of racing games in one. It depends totally on the car youāre driving which one. If you drive a Honda Civic itās like a PSX racing game. I tuned my Ferrari 512 TR to a point where it indeed feels like an Outrun game because itās so aggressive and so beastly that you can feel its latent power in your bones when you start to drift at high speeds. The Vantage GT12 is so well rounded and handles so well it feels like a different game entirely again because I donāt really drift with it. Then Iāve got this weird racing car that has a 10/10 handling rating and it made me realize that Iāve flung an object at 250 km/h in videogames before, Iāve just never controlled an object at 250 km/h before. Itās like controlling your ship in a bullet hell shooter. That was a first for me. Thereās so much nuance to this gameplay itās incredible and the audio-visual feedback is second to none. And yeah, āthis is Outrun 2 levels of funā was one of the thoughts I had today while racing.
I really donāt like āmake your own funā kind of games but this one I like. You make your own fun by choosing which car you use and in which event. Itās great.
it is also the most joyously (and successfully) english thing Iāve encountered since like the early blair era, which you may feel differently about
but yeah I wouldnāt necessarily emphasize the outrun comparison (in part as Iāve never really liked japanese arcade racers), itās just a hugely generous racer that is as simulationist as it needs to be while also letting you do cross-country races through back gardens of villages at 250km/h
It does have a very unbritish joie de vivre to it. I mean youāre racing against hover crafts, motocross bikes and trainsā¦
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all the visual noise and clutter of Tetris Effect puts me in whatever the opposite of The Zone is
it pushes me right out of The Zone
itās a large man with a hammer pounding on my temples every time I threaten to edge near The Zone
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I mean lumines needed this shit because thereās no actual game but tetris is tetris 
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Did you have your car all tuned up? Iām not much of a car person so rather than tuning my cars in Forza Horizon I just download one of the setups other players have made. The difference between how a vehicle handles before and after is profound.
Also I just played the Tetris Effect demo to and I agree with shrug that it could do with a bit less of the effect part of it. Itās a bit hard to see the board when moving from one level to the next because stuff explodes and flashes and the blocks all change art styles and stuff but everythingās still falling while all thatās happening.
Cleared some space of dusty old peripherals in exchange for The New Colossus and Shadow of Mordor, just put an hour into BJās latest resurrection.
I knew it was wilder out the gate but hot damn, the first nearly scripted opportunity for a stealth kill just broke me to stop and chuckle.
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Spouse had the same reaction ā sheās medicated for ADD and she immediately said, āthis is like when Iām being distracted by obtrusive things all the time I hate itā.
It works opposite for me; objects in front of the play field, forward-motion implied by the backgrounds (Iāll even love a game that doesnāt really work like Dyad because of this tunnel effect). I think itās the first game Iāve seen that uses substantial dimming and brightening of the play field, forcing my eyes to focus away from play and kicking me into glazed defocus. Neat!
Thereās a āMysteryā mode buried in the Effects game that randomly throws game mechanics at you. Itās cute, although not terribly effective at solving my biggest Tetris problem: I feel like Iāve solved the game and make the same shape patterns towards Tetris clears, but still hit a speed wall and just exit. So Iām not improvising like I want to be, and used to be before I hit my current plateau.
The āZoneā mechanic (player-initiated few dozen seconds of high-score time) helps me act in a self-destructive way, giving me a problem to dig out of, more effective at breaking my normal habit.
I think maybe I ought to just disable the hold rule because it makes my optimal pattern too easy.
Oh and, I finally feel like Iām getting the game Lumines was pitched as. Lumines was a bit too straightforward and the rolling bar didnāt quite give me the musical connection, but the hold-until-beat method of this game fools me into thinking Iām placing these tetriminoes to music and itās just so much better.
Now where would you tie back to music in Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack? Maybe free cursor all the time but the field waits for a beat to update lock in, and runs chain effects on half-, quarter-, maybe eighth-beats? At one point I was making a music-synced tennis game and found eighth to be just a bit too often to feel musical instead of convenient.
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