| 24th October 2018 | Blogging

With Halloween around the corner, my son is asking me for “spooky” games we can play. Seeing as Resident Evil might be a bit soon for a five-year-old, the gem that is Luigi’s Mansion makes a return to my life once more. Not in the recent release of the 3DS version, but by digging out my dusty Gamecube copy. The game was one of the choices you got when buying a Gamecube bundle during the console’s release. Console release games don’t tend to stay with me very long (Smash Bros Melee was my ultimate motivation for acquiring a Gamecube, but you learn to be grateful as a twelve-year-old) but 16 years later, I’m truly appreciating this game for what it is. The game’s premise opens up to Luigi locating a Mansion he’s won in a recent competition- But to his dismay, he finds the entire building to be haunted by ghosts. Classic. Luckily, your new neighbour Professor E.Gadd fills you in on the mansions’ situation and is even kind enough to give you the Poltergeist 3000- a vacuum that hoovers up ghosts that you can then restore into paintings, of course. Then, like the kindly neighbour he is, trains you on how to use it via a quick tutorial in a convenient training simulation in his lab, then sends off a very reluctant Luigi to fend for himself in his newly acquired mansion. If you take a step back from Luigi's Mansion you’ll notice it’s actually a very simple game- locate and vacuum up all the ghosts in the room until the room’s candles light up with a satisfying sound of positive gamification, followed by moving on to the next room. As well as enjoying its calming simplicity in a time when hectic Battle Royale games are peaking, it’s also the classic Nintendo charm that keeps me coming back. Hitting A when near an object will make Luigi give it a whack or shake, usually for drawing out Boo’s or for money- that you cruelly are never able to spend until the very end of the game when your house essentially gets valued. But whilst aimlessly walking around, the same action makes Luigi call out “Mario” in various tones of curiosity, disbelief and frustration as he tries to track down his lost brother. There’s also the Japanese gibberish that back’s Professor E.Gadd’s voice text. No room is ever the same either, which keeps the game from seeming over-simplistic. Each ghost tends to have a different way of revealing their heart to you and therefore becoming vulnerable enough to hoover up. One ghost- A Butler- completely freaks out when you light his candles using the flame elemental medal you gain later on. A Dog ghost gets distracted by the bone of his owner you acquire to have a chew on, a pianist that gets upset and vulnerable when you hoover up her sheets of music (as well as when you answer her Mario-Music Trivia wrong) and so on. A surprising amount of creativity and humour for such a small-seeming game. Like how each Boo greets you with some awful pun upon discovery (GameBOO Advance) satisfying my shameful Dad humour to no end. My five-year-old son felt pretty guilty about hoovering these ghosts up though as a fair handful of them don’t seem to be bothering anyone at all. So, it comes in handy that the aim of hoovering these suckers up is to them put them into paintings in the Professor's gallery, which you can view at any time to admire your recent Ghost-bustings. The only bone I might pick with this game is its controls. The left stick moves Luigi around the area, whilst the C-stick rotates the angle you point your torch or vacuum at. The movement of the C stick is incredibly slow and sometimes a little infuriating when a ghost jumps you from behind and you’re trying to pull a 180 in time to flash-light his heart. Maybe if there was an option to change the sensitivity of this like in most shooters, it might make the game a tad easier, but already I can hear myself being a hypocrite, as it’s the simplicity of this game that made me love it so much.   Overall, this game has aged incre...

Jon | 05th June 2018 | GitGud

A blog series following my progress on getting good at fighting games with a shitty long-term hand injury   Load up Street Fighter II for the first time and it won't take you long to realise it is a hard game. Play it as a regular to Fighting Games and you'll find a challenge.  Play it as a newbie to Fighting Games and it's brutally humiliating- and that's before you realise you were already playing on 'Very Easy' difficulty. Fighting games have a decieving simplicity to them on the surface, but dig a little deeper and you'll find a goldmine of techniques and skills that professional players use to get as good as they are. To truly understand this, watch some pro players online or play SFII for a week and then play Streets of Rage to get an idea on the difference and depth in skill needed. Hell, I didn't even know you could cancel moves until recently. But I have had my fair share of fighting games growing up- Tekken, King of Fighters, Soul Calibur and of course, Street Fighter. All hazy memories now but I don't remember any of them being as difficult as SFII. I recently re-bought Hyper Street Fighter II Turbo for the PS2, mainly for the animated movie that came on the disc which, despite the cringy English dubs, is a very good movie. At least check out the Vega vs Chun Li fightscene! But having a go on the arcade mode of the game itself sent me packing very quickly. Given my usual too-old-for-this-shit attitude about games these days, I was surprised to find myself trying again and again to at least get half way through Arcade Mode. The snag is, I have a sparring injury back when I did Kempo Karate nearly 10 years ago now. Throwing a sloppy left hook left me with a fractured thumb. The x-ray displaying the crack rippling almost all the way down my thumb from the tip of my thumb to the palm of my hand. It's mostly healed now, but I still can't make the "proper" fist that you're meant to in Martial arts where the thumb is neatly barring across the rest of your tucked-in fingers. It also tends to cramp up after a couple of Hadoukens, which isn't ideal. In fear of not being able to draw or write again, I regretfully said farewell to the hobby of breaking my body for fun every week, but not being able to play a fighting game almost irritates me more for some reason. I got talking to a friend about fighting sticks, something I never knew you could even get meta about. There's a lot out there, fairly expensive. But I'm hoping that the way the joystick is used will be easier on my hand. I went with a VENOM in the end, which I managed to grab for 40 quid. it's compatible with xbone, ps4 and pc. Hopefully by the time it arrives, I will have enough spare cash to grab the new Street Fighter Anniversary edition on the Xbox marketplace. some folks on Reddit have pointed out how very different it is fighting real people compared to fighting AI. I'm currently still waiting on a Courier service to drop off the VENOM, which I'm super excited to use. In the meantime, I've had a bash at some old gems i've missed such as King of Fighters '98. Still A pretty difficult game, but I seem to remember my combos better here. I've got a long way to go, but here's a video of me smashing it out on my Instagram below. (You can see me struggling towards then end with trying to pull of one of Kyo's combos to finish) A post shared by Tired Gaming Dad (@gamingdadzzz) on Jun 1, 2018 at 1:12am PDT I've also got a copy of Street Fighter 4 on the way. I was gutted to hear that the most recent V is ps4 exclusive, but I wanted to get to grips with at least the 3d aspect of the new Street Fighter games. Something I'm aprehensive about as a long time fan of the old Street fighters, but want to try anyway. Will keep you guys updated on my progress! If you have any Street Fighter tips for a retired n00b such as myself, leave them in the comments below!  Just to round up on things to improve on for next time: blocking (or timing of...

| 13th April 2018 | SPOILERS

  Or 'Why Can't I Write This Good?   For many, the Life is Strange series has come to an end. the original game by Dontnod had 5 episodes and it's sequel set before the first game by DeckNine had only 3, just as fantastic episodes. As a die-hard fan of the series, like many, I paid for the Special Edition of Before the storm. Nothing crazy came with it, mostly novelty stuff like outfits for Chloe, a Mixtape mode for those who can't get enough of the soundtrack and a Bonus Episode, which was said to release after the main 3 episodes. I didn't hold up much hope for the Bonus episode. I was pretty excited to play as Max Caufield again but the fact that this was a 'Bonus' episode gave me the impression it wasn't going to be anything groundbreaking. Maybe something purely sentimental at most, playing as the younger, more pirate-loving versions of the games two main characters before the chaos of the main story. Whether the intention of DECKNINE was to mislead fans into thinking they were playing an episode of any less quality than their other ones, or the company simply cannot make an episode that doesn't have me bawling my eyes out, I don't know. But I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. Despite knowing that it's extremely unlikely that anything too stressful is going to happen in this episode -If you've played the other two games, you're well aware that the most stressful parts are way behind you (or in front of you) at this point in the story.- I still felt a slight sense of dread exploring Chloe's attic. Praying I didn't find a body in the ice cream cooler or a secret photography dark room. As you procrastinate from tidying Chloe's bedroom by going on one last pirate adventure, it's easy not to even wonder about what day in Chloe's crazy, trauma-filled life this could be. Chloe's mum returns home to the sound of Ben Howard, an artist I've grown to become sick of hearing yet I can't imagine a better song choice for the scene. I'm suddenly aware that I have already experienced this incredibly sad scene. An event that is brought up constantly throughout both games. Yet here I am, telling my wife again "No. I'm not crying, you're crying. Shut up!" This was meant to be a bonus episode. It was not meant to tear my heart out again. So as I watch Chloe lay on the floor, clutching the tape recorder that plays the last of her best friend's voice that she will hear for a while, It dawns on me as a writer and author of fiction, that I will never write anything this good. I've only just discovered since writing this article that DONTNOD have confirmed Life is Strange 2. Bring it. My tear ducts are ready....

| 03rd April 2018 | Tutorials

There's nothing worse than digging out your old Pokemon games and finding that one save file- the one you invested hours of 8-bit-blood, sweat and tears into- to find that it has vanished into the digital ether. The save file in these games runs off an old CR032 watch battery. They can last up to a good 20 years but once the battery dies, that's it. The game won't recall your save every time you reboot the game. Sadly, there's no way of retrieving your old saved games, but there is a way of getting the save function to work again! And the best bit about it all is there is no soldering required, unlike a lot of other retro console and game fixes. The tools you need are all widely available and super cheap on Amazon and eBay. So, here's what you'll need: Electric Tape Flat-head screwdriver (or some form of small plastic palette you get with cheap phone cleaning sets) 3.8mm/4.5mm hex tool bit (usually come as a set) CR2025 battery- Check the number on the battery when you open up the cartridge. Most likely it will be CR2025, but I've heard CR2032 works fine too and apparently can last longer. And that's it! Please note: Please do this exercise at your own risk! I am not responsible for your game if it gets wrecked during the process. I have however done this process a lot and have never ran into any issues. As long as you're patient, it's very easy. The example I'm using is for Pokemon Silver on the Gameboy. Later games like Ruby and Saphire for Gameboy Advance run off a different, smaller battery for the example I'm doing here. Below, I've made a timelapse of my own process which should help understand the instructions that follow. So first off, unscrew the screw in the back of the Gameboy game cartridge. Put the screw to the side and gently open up the cartridge. The battery is the small round disc in the top right of the board. This part is easy but you need to take your time and be patient with it. Slowly, begin prying apart the metal arm that's soldered to the battery with a flat headed tool. Damaging the old battery obviously isn't a problem.These old games can take a beating but be careful not to damage the arm itself. All you need to do is break the two soldered points that hold the arm to the battery. Once that's done, do the same on the other side. This bit is a little harder as the other silver arm on the bottom side is harder to see, but you just need to hold the battery still with your finger and thumb whilst you keep working it with the flat head until the soldering points break. Chuck away the old battery and then cut a small (about 2 inches) bit of electric tape. Feed it sticky-side up to the base of the board beneath the bottom silver arm. Now put the new battery in-between the two metal arms. flatten them down with the flat-head as much as possible so they're hugging the new battery tightly. Then wrap the electric tape around them all. Fit the cartridge back together and screw back in the screw using the hex tool. And there you go! Now you can relive the glory days of Pokemon knowing you're safe for another 20 years.   Still not working? If your save function still doesn't work, try reopening the cartridge again and flattening down the metal arms to the battery as firmly as possible as it could be they're just not making close enough contact to work. Still not working!? There's a slim chance the old battery might have spent a little too long in the cartridge and leaked, causing damage but it's highly unlikely....