Wednesday 28 January 2015

Super Smash Bros. 4 WiiU Review [Gaming]

Smash Bros. on a console. Where most would agree it works the best. But after the 3DS version serving as a big slice of this generation's Smash Bros. pie, would the WiiU version be able to fight its way out of the shadow of its handheld sibling?
The answer leans more towards yes, and as such I'm not going to cut the review right this instant. Instead, I'm going to draw out some sort of comparison between the two - the biggest of which being how you like to play. On a big screen, Smash is in its element, and with that HD image quality, stages look better than ever. But for those that like to play on the go, the handheld version will be the obvious choice. Another big difference between the two is that new major mode added.
On the handheld it was Smash Run - a five minute rampage against enemies from all types of Nintendo system games, collecting the stat boosts earned from defeating them, then a final fight at the end in an over-the-top sort of battle. With the WiiU, that mode becomes Smash Tour, a board game type mode where four players move around one of three board sizes collecting stats, trophies, and fighters. The stats act like they do in Smash Run, improving your abilities in one of six areas [speed/jump/attack/special/arms/shield] depending on what size and symbol you collect on the board. Trophies are assists that can help on the board, in battle, or as a special assist. Fighters are what you use whenever a battle takes place by two Mii's meeting each other on a space. These battles are like the special battles you'd get at the end of Smash Run, except it is one stock only. And that stock is the fighter used in battle. At the start of the mode, each player will be given two fighters to begin with. The fighter collected first will be the first into battle. After all rounds have been finished, one final battle takes place using all collected fighters. Thankfully before this, a semi-final complete screen gives bonus fighters and stat boosts for certain specifics - such as no fighters left, most launched, and highest stat gets boosted further. At the end of the final battle, all the matches that have been played including the final battle get counted for the end results. Don't think keeping fighters will be easy, though. If any two Mii's meet, all four players are called into battle, with no chance of skipping out. You do have the ability to call on a CPU to play in your place for the battle, but sometimes the CPU will make a move that ends terribly bad for you that could have easily been avoided. And if you don't win, you lose the fighter that was brought into battle. I feel the mode itself can be fun, but does little else other than act as a bridge between battles.
All other modes from the 3DS return, but get upgrades. Classic and Stadium modes can be played co-op. Normal Smash gets eight-player Smash, which is hugely chaotic when its a free for all, so its better to use only in team matches. Normal Smash also gets the Special Smash mode return, giving the added customisability of matches, and includes Stamina Smash and Coin Smash. Events mode also returns, coming with branching paths and hidden objectives, as well as a special co-op version with a whole set of new challenges. Classic removes the paths and allows you to choose who you face, with rivals added that get stronger the more you leave them, but give a greater reward. All-Star Mode reverses the date order, going from newest to oldest instead of the handheld way of pitting you against the older foes first.
Also new to Smash 4 WiiU is Special Orders. Master Orders has you pay to challenge a ticket and in turn get a reward if successful. Higher the difficulty, higher the price, but also greater the reward. Crazy Orders tasks you with challenging as many tickets as you can within ten minutes, with only a small health regen between each battle and only one stock, before taking on Crazy Hand himself. The more matches you win, the greater the reward at the end, but lose one battle and all of what you've worked so hard to collect is gone. These modes give a greater challenge than most others, as there is a larger sense of risk-reward.
All of this and I haven't mentioned that little thing known as amiibo. Levelling them up to fifty takes a matter of hours, but they are always learning. They are also useful. Since an amiibo learns from you, it is a much tougher sparring partner than a level nine CPU. Put an amiibo on your team, and you can almost always guarantee a win for your team. Collect more than one, and fully trained amiibo are a spectacle to watch in a full fight. And remeber that useful part I mentioned? They collect things, and pass them to you. All of the customisation options from the handheld version have been lifted over, giving the same moves and Mii outfits from the smaller sibling. You can also transfer characters and Mii Fighters from the 3DS to the WiiU and vise versa, but unfortunately cannot be customised on the console they have been transfered to. Amiibo can also feed on the customisation boosts to upgrade their attack, defence, and speed [but also with a decrease in another stat] as well as gain any special abilities from the custom part they eat.
For the last on the list of this review, there are the new stages. The WiiU version improves on stages, giving access to much better choices in my opinion. There are also more songs per stage, with the ability to customise the rarity of each song. A stage designer allows the player to make stages of their own using the Gamepad, and save them. Making a stage is easy, even if the stage hazards are lacking. Photo Studio allows the use of trophies to make scenes, though there is a limit to only four trophies per scene. It is a good thing to play around with, but does need an SD Card to be in the slot of the console to use. And I'm only touching upon it here since not a lot needs to be said, but the online mode is very varied. Sometimes it works great. And then one match later there can be lag. And then the next match it can be fine again. It is very random as well, it seems. But playing against other people is still fun.
Recommending Smash Bros. 4 WiiU is easier than the handheld version, but that is simply more to do with the extras added. While online is still sketchy at times, amiibo support more than makes up for that. Add that to Mewtwo soon to be added as a playable character, as well as a new stage, plus tournament mode, and that recommendation only gets easier [Mewtwo is also coming to the 3DS version, and as of February 13th, so will amiibo support].

Friday 9 January 2015

2014 in General [Personal]

 The year of 2014 was a big one for me. Nothing too fancy, but quite a bit of stuff. 2014 was also a year in which I continued trends which I'd set in 2013. For instance - going to ComicCon. In 2013, it was my first ever ComicCon, up at Telford. Went with a few friends, and ultimately ended up doing little. In 2014, at Birmingham, I went with one of the friends I'd gone with last time. And this time did a lot more. In fact, I met Brian Murphy, star of George and Mildred and Last of the Summer Wine. Though I didn't talk all that much with him [nerves, can't really blame me], I did get a photo with him, as did my friend. And there was also a Star Wars parade. Who can't love a parade?

One of the other trends continuing into this year was buying more Pokemon Trading Cards. I'd started in 2013 by inheriting a friend's collection of old cards, and ended up buying a new deck from the recently released X and Y collection. This year, while I didn't buy any new decks, I did buy a ton of packs. In the second half of 2014 I had stopped, but I think I'll be continuing this year as well.

2014 was the year in which I also continued collecting digital albums from iTunes. 2013 was Pokemon XY Super Music Collection. 2014 was Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire Super Music Collection. 2013 was Sonic Lost World - Original Soundtrack. 2014 was Sonic Heroes 20th Anniversary Soundtrack, Passion and Pride - Anthems with Attitude, and the It Doesn't Matter 2014 Remix. Also in 2014 I'd bought The Magic Roundabout soundtrack, due to it having some pretty cool vocal songs. I'd bought the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Original Soundtrack - after starting collecting all the film soundtracks in 2013. And a recent purchase being Electric Light Orchestra - Flashback. A collection album, it features over 50 tracks for more than three hours worth of music.

In 2014 I finished my first year at university, having made two animated short videos. Admittedly they didn't feel smooth, and there were errors, but it was my first step. Upon finishing the first year, a Foundation Art year, it was time to begin my first proper year of an animation degree. Halfway through the first year of it, and I've already got the principles down, as well as another animated short completed - and for the first time using Toon Boom Studio, a program I'd bought back in 2013 at a massive discount and hardly used. University itself has been a lot of fun, and I'm definitely improving in skills.

In 2014, I was also definitely using Amazon Prime Instant Video a lot more as well. It's been able to give me the chace to watch films I'd forgotten about - or snubbed, as the case was with one of them - as well as use it as a morning program watcher. As such, I've watched Lilo and Stitch, The Wild, and Meet the Robinsons for the first time, as well as the LEGO Batman Movie, which - as I'd guessed - was all the cutscenes from the second game remade with a few extra parts added in place of levels. As for TV shows, I relived watching Jetix programs by watching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. And I watched the more recently released Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.

The LEGO Movie was released in 2014 on Blu-Ray and DVD in time for the holiday season, with the film having been released in cinemas at the beginning of the year. While I am a big fan of LEGO, I'm not a big fan of cinemas. As such, I waited for the DVD release. I knew what I was getting, sort of, and the film came through as being a great one.

Now, before we get to the last part of this review, it is with regret that 2014 heralded bad news for two of the UK's biggest gaming magazines. The Official Nintendo Magazine was under pressure of closure for a long time, and even fans of the magazine itself were questioning whether its time was up. And on 7th October, the news was finally received. Within a month, Official Nintendo Magazine closed for good. Then, a month later in December, it was announced that Computer and Video Games would finally close up its doors as well. Having been a long time reader of both, not having them around in the future will defintely be something bad. But I'll still be able to get news, having swapped to Nintendo Life's website and a substitute for CVG being IGN.

And now the last part of the review, and this is all Star Wars. In 2013, it was announced that The Clone Wars would stop its TV run. One last season would somehow be released, and a new project was announced. That being Rebels. In 2014, we received that last season of The Clone Wars on Netflix [US only, and German TV]. The DVD and Blu-Ray release has so far only reached those two countries as well. Rebels had its season opener in October, and if you've read my review on it, you'll know that I loved it and have high hopes for the series as a whole. And I haven't been disappointed.

As for other material in The Clone Wars, The Clone Wars Legacy covered that. A comic starring Darth Maul showed what happened after Season 5, with an animatic version of another arc released to the Star Wars website showing Obi-Wan and Anakin track down arms dealers and come across something much larger than they were expecting. Having read the comic and watched the animatic arc, I can say that I loved both. They were crafted well, and I can really see how darker the series would have got as we edged closer the Revenge of the Sith. Then there is also a new novel coming as part of this Clone Wars Legacy, showing Asajj Ventress team up with Quinlan Vos on some sort of adventure. Not much more has been said about it, but with an upcoming Star Wars Celebration, you can be guaranteed more info there.

As well as the Clone Wars Legacy, the Star Wars canon also got an official reboot. And as the first novel would be A New Dawn, written by John Jackson Miller, I decided to buy one of his previous books in the Star Wars universe - the 2013 novel Kenobi. Having enjoyed Kenobi, I was looking forward to reading A New Dawn. That novel impressed me as well. The second book in the new canon would be Tarkin, written by James Luceno. I'd already read some Luceno books, and so this one read like I expected it to. And the story itself was quite good too. It reminded me quite a bit of Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, what with Murkhana and the events of Dark Lord being brought into Tarkin through backing talk.

Back into older canon, the 2013 Dark Horse comic simply entitled Star Wars has been released over the course of 2013-2014. I first started investing in the comic in 2014, having been on a trip to Manchester and walked into a comic book store. But I probably wouldn't have even bought it had it not been for the first two comics I had bought. One was a Sonic Universe comic. Having known about the separate canons of the Sonic universe, but only having invested in one [the games], I thought it might be good to consider the comics. And as such, I wanted another comic to compare against as the series I would invest in. So I bought Darth Maul: Death Sentence. As such, Star Wars won. It's not that I didn't like the Sonic comic, but I prefered the Star Wars comic more. And as such, when I walked into that comic store and had the choice of Sonic or Star Wars, I went with Star Wars.

Since that time, I've bought a Kindle, and most of my purchases have ben digital. As such, the other three parts to Star Wars 2013 are on my Kindle, as well as those three books I mentioned above.
Another comic I bought was The Star Wars. This comic adapted the original script for the first Star Wars film and gave it life. What we got was a very different read compared to normal Star Wars. It wasn't so much the writing, but the fact that everything was so very different to the universe that is loved. And I liked that. The entire comic gave a bigger what-if feel than any of the other comics that do the same thing.

And last of all, due to Official Nintendo Magazine closing, I wanted to find another magazine to fill that gap. But this time, I didn't want a gaming magazine. And the only other area I could think of was Star Wars. Buying into Star Wars Insider for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. What I found was a magazine filled with facts and interviews and inside looks at the full range of Star Wars. And the next issue I bought as soon as I could. Using Zinio for the purchases, I found reading digitally on my computer to be easy enough to do.

Overall, 2014 has been a great year, and I probably haven't covered half of it. But what you've read is what I consider the most important of my year. And so, across the two reviews, I have really enoyed 2014, and can tell 2015 is going to be a bigger and better year in at least two areas already.

Friday 2 January 2015

2014 in Gaming [Personal]

Since video gaming is one of my most favourite hobbies, I decided to split this from the main 2014 review. That will follow up after, since this is probably going to be longer. I was going to do one of these last year, but messed it up.

Over the course of the year, I've been buying a number of games away from their releases in the hopes of getting them cheaper. Of course, the Steam sales do help, as well as those on Origin, but sometimes you can find games without the help of sales. Both Pikmin 3 and Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics 4 were bought off Amazon at reduced prices. Harvest Moon: A New Beginning was also bought at a reduced price as well. Wii Party U was bought more for the free remote than the game itself, but I've still had fun with the game. Then I bought an official Mario remote later on. That's the thing with me - I hardly ever trust unofficial accessories.

Most of the time though, I feel a game is worth the purchase on release. If I know I can handle it financially, I will buy the game on release. Big releases bought at launch include Mario Kart 8, Tomodachi Life, Pokemon Omega Ruby, Pokemon Link Battle, 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric [I enjoyed it for what it was worth, and did manage to score the reduced preorder price], Super Smash Bros. 4 3DS, and the official release of Elite: Dangerous. I'll get back to Elite in a minute, as I want to talk about some of the other purchases.

Mario Party: Island Tour was bought on launch as well. For some reason I bought it, and have enjoyed playing it on occasion. But just like with Wii Party U, it's more fun with friends. Unlike Wii Party U though, more people are going to want to gather around one big screen rather than keeping to their own smaller one. A party game just doesn't feel the same on a handheld, and so while I have enjoyed playing it, Mario Party: Island Tour has only been picked up on occasion. At least I have it with me all the time though, having bought it on the eShop.

I bought Super Mario Kart on the WiiU's Virtual Console owing to the deal. The price of Super Mario Kart off Mario Kart 8 if MK8 is bought off the eShop. I eventually didn't go through with that, instead getting MK8 for cheaper elsewhere. But the time I have spent with Super Mario Kart I have enjoyed. It was also the last Mario Kart game I had to properly play, and owing to Nintendo's distribution of the older Mario Kart's, I can say I own all of them [even if the first three are digital releases]. Mario Kart 8, on the other hand, impressed me so much it knocked my previous series favourite - Double Dash - off the top spot, and also nestled itself in my top ten all time favourites. I've spent massive amounts of hours on Mario Kart 8, and the download content has added a lot more to the game.

Duck Hunt is an old NES game, and on Christmas Day, it was released on the WiiU Virtual Console. Since I actually own the cartridge, but have no way to play it [what with modern TV's not allowing the old NES Lightgun to work], I decided I may as well rebuy. The game itself is good, even if it is basic. Duck Hunt was the end of the year, while 3D Sonic the Hedgehog was the beginning of the year. While not being on the Virtual Console, the original Sonic game was remade for the 3D Classics line of titles on the 3DS. I like the original titles, and the ability to play the original on a handheld appealed to me. As well as that extra mode of enabling the level select without using debug mode.

And so we get onto those titles I bought on the sales from both Origin and Steam. While Steam does have more sales, the ones on Origin are not to be laughed at. After all, find me another place where, at this point in time, you'd be able to get Battlefield 4 for under £10. On the Steam Summer Sale, I did go a bit mad on games involving sci-fi. And so Endless Space, Space Engineers, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II ended up in my library. Of those three, only Space Engineers has been played for over ten hours. Then again, I do like making things. Now yes, I am a Star Wars fan. But I cannot get into that psuedo point-and-click control scheme that certain RPG's like to implement. Not to rant forever about it, but it takes most of the control out of your hands. Dragon Age: Origins was On the House on Origin, and only got one play out of me due to employing the same control scheme. Endless Space I felt was a good game to play, but for whatever reason lost interest after one play. I'll consider playing it again, but highly doubt I will after what I picked up on the Steam Winter Sale.

Between the two sales, I hardly bought any games. Aside from finally buying the full version of Minecraft on PC, and The Escapists purely because of the Team17 label on it, there wasn't much else bought on the PC aside from the aforementioned Battlefield 4. Minecraft has been played by me for over a year now, on the offline version, but when I bought a new laptop, I lost the maps I had made and the launcher. I wanted to buy the full version for quite a while, but never got round to it. Since the new launcher only allowed the demo to be replayed, I bought the full game, made a custom character, and loaded some mods up. I found it to be better than the offline mode, as it also allowed me to play with friends. And removed a whole load of bugs I'd been putting up with in the offline mode.

Now Battlefield 4 was bought on sale for under £10. I'd tried both Battlefield 4 and Titanfall on Origin Game Time, and was quite impressed with both of them. When both were on sale, at the same time, I said to myself I would only buy one. But even then, I'd put off doing so until the sale was almost over. I decided on Battlefield 4, and that reason was simple. It was most like Star Wars Battlefront. And since buying Battlefield 4, not only have I became a lot better at using a keyboard and mouse on certain games, it sets me up for when EA finally release the new Star Wars Battlefront. Since that game is being made by DICE, as was Battlefield, there are going to be similarities in how they play. The game itself has proven a hit with me, and even if you manage to beat me online, I'm not particularly interested in that part. While I am improving, I'm more of a capture person than a killer person. As well as assists. I'm good with assists.

While I'm not going to be covering all the games I've bought this year [and as well as that, you know what I think of three retail games, and another two will be reviewed beginning of this year], this isn't just about the games released the year just gone. But I still want to cover three more games. Two games have been bought from the Steam Winter Sales, and one of them was mentioned as a reason I might not be playing a game bought in the Summer Sale. Both Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Star Wars: Empire at War have been sitting on my wish list for a year now. With the Winter Sale, I was able to get both with a considerate amount knocked off each. I am seriously loving playing Test Drive. I love open world games, as well as racing games, and while I don't think the game can beat Forza Horizon overall, it does in certain areas. It feels like a more... open world, shall we say. But Empire at War is the bigger of the two games in my eyes. Star Wars strategy. A game I have been wanting for ages and ages, and when I heard of Empire at War, I knew I wanted it. But only at the right price. After all, over £20 is too much for a game released eight years ago. Under £10, or around that price I felt was right. And I managed to get half of £10. I haven't played much, except for one battle, but I can already tell I was right. Star Wars and strategy do go together, and if another game like it is made, I will be right in line. Well... maybe not. Not before I've got a good amount of time with Empire at War, anyway.

And now we come to the biggest game of the lot. Elite: Dangerous. The game itself got released on my birthday, and as a gift to myself, I preordered it ages back. From first playing it, I could tell it would be a game I would love. And it was. Exploring space. Being a trader, miner, or combat specialist, you travel the galaxy to earn money any way you can. And the game is not for a casual play. Go into a session, you have to be committed. Mining can take hours. And that's the full of it, from starting off, finding a spot in an asteroid field, using your laser and cargo scoop to collect fragments, then once formed into the metal or mineral itself finding a suitable place to sell them to. Trading is a case of knowing where the prices are. Combat is a case of being better and having a better ship than the other pilot. But most of all, the game is a winner as it has no handholding whatsoever. Run out of fuel - too bad. Get into a fight too heated for your taste - better warm that Frame Shift Drive up, or you'll be biting the space dust. And it isn't a case of respawn at your last reversion point either. If your ship blows up, you either need to buy it back, or get a free ship - one of the most basic ones - and build up all of what you had again. If you have the money, no problem. If you don't, that's bad news.

Now then, considering what I've just been saying, it'll be no surprise as to which games make my most played list. Mario Kart 8 and Elite: Dangerous both get on it. I'm still as strong as ever playing Star Wars Battlefront II. And also Sonic Generations. Mario Kart 7 has still been played a lot this year, as has Pokemon Y. If I had to guess at two more, I'd say Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and a tie between Minecraft and Space Engineers.

A revised top ten of games are as follows. Now this is all-time favourites. I'll only be doing this for games, since it is my main hobby [and numerous lists in the other post would be too much], but it should give you a general idea of what I favour. If a game in a series has been replaced, I'll say the game that has been replaced. I won't be saying what games have been knocked off the list.

[1] Star Wars Battlefront II - This has been an all-time favourite ever since I was first introduced to it back in 2006. No game ever I feel has come close to beating it, and I never miss an opportunity to play it.

[2] Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - This one is more to do with the gameplay than any other factor. More specifically, the gameplay of Sonic. I feel that no other 3D Sonic game has got the feel of control much better than Adventure 2.

[3] Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire - Now, it should come as no shock that the games these are replacing are the original generation three games - Ruby/Sapphire. The region itself had a lot to do in it, I felt, and the remakes add even more to what is a pair of great games.

[4] Mario Kart 8 - For ages, I heralded Mario Kart: Double Dash as the greatest Mario Kart game ever. I felt it had the best control, the best tracks, and the best ideas. All three of those have been beaten by the latest entry. Mario Kart 8 revamped the series for the better. Battle Mode aside.

[5] Super Smash Bros. Melee - I still consider it to be the best. It might be that I still need more time with the latest versions, but there is still something which draws me back the to Gamecube game. Maybe it feels more natural to me.

[6] Kingdom Hearts 2 - The second of the main series, and the only game in the series I consider to even be a contender. It improved greatly on the original, and every game since has used a gimmick battle system of some sort, while the combat in KH2 is the simplest to use.

[7] Forza Horizon - New to Forza and Xbox in general two or three years back, I bought Forza Motorsport 4 with an Xbox 360 Kinect bundle. The Kinect got used and forgotton. Forza was a new love in racing games. But in reality, I'd really bought the Xbox for Horizon. The open world racing.

[8] Elite: Dangerous - It had to place somewhere, and next year, it could even place higher. I've talked about why I love it, and the company who made it are a favourite of mine as well. Frontier Developments have made some of my favourite games, and this is the best of the lot.

[9] Thrillville: Off the Rails - Talking of Frontier, this is another of their games. LucasArts published, the game had you managing a theme park. Not like in Rollercoaster Tycoon though, as anything you placed, you could play. The missions and environments weren't bad either.

[10] Dave Mirra BMX Freestyle 2 - Out of all the extreme sports games, this is the one that stood out most to me. Another one from the Gamecube, I played this a lot. Never got far within the game [in fact I hardly ever saved the campaign], but the game itself has stuck with me more than any others.


The last thing I want to say is about those games I'm most expectant about for this coming year, and of course, the first and most expectant is Star Wars Battlefront. A reboot of the series made by the people whose series Battlefront was inspired by. As I said before, I've already bought Battlefield 4 to see how the Battlefield series has evolved, and that in turn should guide thoughts on how Battlefront will evolve. And hopefully, with the next Star Wars Celebration coming in April, I'll be able to see if I'm right. Of course, there are also other Star Wars games that are sure to be in the works. And if those get announced, I'm sure I'll be following those too.

As I said before, Frontier is one of my favourite development studios, so when they announced Screamride at the Microsoft conference during Gamescom, I was immediately excited by what game it would be like. And it seems like a cross between Thrillville and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I love those games, so I should love this too. And there isn't that long until it releases either, with an announced date of beginning of March.

Most Nintendo games are worth looking at, even if you don't particularly like that genre. But a number of games got me wanting to play them when shown last year. The first was Splatoon. The third-person shooter recreates what shooters are about, and is more like a turf war game in that the team that covers the battlefield in the most ink wins. A lot of people are expectant about this one, and Nintendo know that - so more news shouldn't be far off. The next game is The Legend of Zelda, which seems to be evolving itself. The next in the series is an open world game, and not much else has been said. I've been sidelining The Legend of Zelda series for a long time now, always on the edge about taking the plunge. The game is open world, so this might be the first one I buy. But it all depends on what else is shown. Then there's another series I've been sidelining, and that's Kirby.

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush/Curse [EU/US] is a sequel to 2005's Canvas Curse on the DS. As such, the gameplay involves drawing lines on the screen to control an ever-rolling-forward Kirby. The game itself looks interesting, and a recent Japanese trailer showed off more gameplay, including bosses. As ever, there'll also be Pokemon games, though none have yet been announced. Dependant on what they are, I'll be looking into them for buying.

One other icon is Sonic the Hedgehog, and the last of my big three franchises to mention. But here's the catch. 2014 for the Sonic brand wasn't exactly on top form in terms of gaming. The games were two spinoffs from the same sub-series, and a continuation of content for Sonic Dash and the release of Sonic Jump Fever on mobile devices. The only thing as yet confirmed for 2015 in gaming is another mobile game. This one might be bigger though, but only because Sonic Team themselves are developing it. I just hope there is also a main game coming, otherwise this year, like the last, will hardly have much merit to it.

So there you have it. My 2014 year of gaming. Look out for the general review of my 2014 soon.

Thursday 1 January 2015

A New Year News Cruise [Network]

So. Happy New Year, everyone. 2015 is upon us. There's not much to this update, but I'm covering a bit of new stuff.

First off, there'll be two 2014 Review articles being posted. The first will be my 2014 in gaming. It's a pretty big post, and as such I didn't want it included with my general 2014 review. The gaming review will be posted tomorrow, with the general review next week.

Other reviews. Super Smash Bros. for WiiU and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal [3DS]. I might also have one for Test Drive Unlimited 2, but since the game is a fair few number of years old, it would only be a small one.

I'll be back at university the middle of the month, and I'll be doing more work for animation. I might make a little something for original content, but we'll have to see. As for other video content - I'm sure you've seen both the Sonic World gameplay, as well as the latest Star Wars Battlefront II multiplayer highlights. This month, I've got something planned, but won't say what it is.

If I have anything else planned, I'll be sure to update you on it away from one of these monthly updates, but for this main update - that's it.