Alastor

I have to make do with my weekly excitement of what 5 games CEX has in the window every time I go, which is usually 3 Pokemon GBA games for £80 and Link's Awakening for £80 and the odd Game Gear game.

Playing the open network test for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds and it looks and feels great, at least once you've adjusted to drifting, level design is inventive and there's a ton options to explore with regards to characters and 'Karts'. The only issue is, and it's quite obnoxious so far, is the item density seems super high, I feel like I'm being targeted more frequently than in an MKW Knockout Tour lap. This makes things super volatile and a bit too chaotic right now, I hope they either tone it down or it's just a combination of me being shit at a Sonic Kart racer and/or the levels in the demo are just like that…although that isn't a good thing.

Other than that though, it's a solid game it seems, and the cross world mechanic where the leader of the race chooses a portal everyone drives through is a cool idea, you could be on Green Hill Zone one lap and then suddenly drive through to the Shenmue docks or something (I pulled those level ideas out of my arse, I dunno' if they exist although GHZ is a safe bet surely) which means each race isn't always the same because there seems to be no guarantee which portal someone will choose in the same race in a different session.

I don't think this is a MK8 beater right now (at the risk of sounding like one of those guys who thinks MK is a de facto best Kart racer simply because it's MK, what CAN challenge the content and fun of MK8 in the genre right now?) , I want to say it beats MKW but honestly I don't know yet.

I think I saw that in a Retro Dodo video and I've wanted to go check it out ever since and see what GB-GBA games I can find. I don't think we have anything anywhere near that cool in Manchester.

Bumping this because in light of the last two games I've played, Trails 1st and Metal Gear Solid Delta which are both remakes respectively, also relevant is that I finished the OG version of Resident Evil 4 a few days ago, more on that later.

This is the first 'remake' I've played that is basically 99% the same, some QOL here and there, they added MGS5 crouch walking and rejigged some controls but this is MGS3 for better or worse, some reviews have called this out and some reviews have said it was the right call and so far I have to say I'm in the former camp. I actually think it's kinda' crazy to say that it's okay that it wasn't changed, for a remake.

I think back to a few days ago when I played a demo of 'Trails 1st' which is a remake of Trails in the Sky: FC, which changes basically everything and has a visual upgrade that is more than an UE facelift (tbf it wasn't originally a PS2 game). They completely overhauled combat and it's both fun and feels similar to Cold Steel's combat but a bit snappier.

I think back to Resident Evil 4 Remake, which most people seem to be quite down on these days imo based ON the things it changed but it also changed quite a lot so it was its own thing, a lot of people seem down on theg ame now for changing the pristine formula of the OG where you could headshot/kneeshot and melee your way out of trouble, Leon was also more precise. Story wise the Ashley changes alone were huge albeit not one most RE4 players will care about, but it's there.

MGS Delta is so similar that it's basically the game I loved, it prob wont fall lower than a 7/10, but despite knee jerk reacting to people saying it's a pointless remake, it kinda…is? While also being so close to the best game of all time I'm still having a blast seeing everything look so pretty.

I hope they start drip feeding GC games at like two or three at a time or it's going to take a while to really be awesome. Also I'm very biased but Fire Emblem would be an amazing choice next, not only would it be a huge get to have for the system, freeing it mostly from ebay oversellers, it's an amazing game and great start to the series.