Clearing my backlog, I may be some time.

 So, after starting 99vidas on PS5, I have been kind of playing around with it while finishing RE4, and have completed the story on 1 character (King). As a Final Fight/Streets Of Rage clone, it is quite fun to play, and if you like it, go for it. In another life I would probably try and platinum it, but while going through my backlog, I will be leaving it for now. One thing I will say, the final fight of the game is surprisingly easy, especially after the fight immediately before, and some of the level bosses. I am going to focus on Resident Evil 5 on PC now, so the PS5 will be going back into the cupboard for now, but we will get there eventually. 

I know RE4 is popular amongst many a gamer, but my god the controls are a nightmare. The PS2 had been out for 5 years at this point. 5 years of other developers really getting grips with a dual stick controller. Hell, even some PS1 titles did it better than this game. SH2 was GTA3 was 3 years old at the time of RE4s release, San Andreas was out the year before, so why the hell did we end up with this locked down FoV, unable to move when attacking, forced perspective control system? Now, I have no issue with being forced to look in the direction a character is facing in a 3rd person game, and I get the temptation to use the right stick to temporary change perspective, but why, when you aim, do you loose all peripheral vision, go into nearly 1st person and it uses the left stick to change aim direction? My god, this was infuriating. Not to mention you had little idea of where you were aiming in relation to what you wanted to aim. Unless it was directly at a target, it was just somewhere ...

Wow that was a lot of words, for such a short game. Firstly, this is most definitely not an action game. Very much a playable novel. Quite a nice break from my usual survival horror, souls, or action RPGs. On the whole, it was a pleasant experience, but 2 areas particularly irked me and ruined end game. Firstly, inputting the password at Parallax, appears almost completely broken. On my PS5 controller the touch pad was barely usable, and the only real solution was using the direction buttons and "A", which would have been perfect, I was never a fan of the touch pad, but the "A" button presses barely registered. Even looking up help online the solution is to just smash "A" until the game registers it, WTF? Why is this a problem? This input method works perfectly in every other area of the game, and even the glyph mini game afterwards, but for this 10 character password, it is like the game forgot how to register button presses. Secondly the only mandatory f...

OK, contrary to my original plan, I need to get back up to speed on Hollow Knight before finishing my current playthrough, so decided to go for a proper trip back in time. Another World is a game I originally had on my Atari 1040STE back in the early 90s. It was one of the first games I had for it, so coming close to 35 years. Now, I never managed to finish it back in the day, primarily because it must have been bugged and it was missing a bad guy that was supposed to progress the story, but guess who finished it now? Yeah, this guy. Now, if not finishing a game for the longest period needs an award from me, it will always be Ghostbusters, or E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (yes, that one) both on the Atari 2600, came with the console together, but this is the oldest I am likely to ever finish. I may start going through my PS5 catalogue alphabetically for now, see how it goes. So it looks like I may be moving onto "2064: Read Only Memories" next.

I must admit I am struggling getting into Resident Evil 4. The controls are a bit jank and combat is terrible. The FoV and aiming makes it near impossible to deal with multiple enemies and I absolutely hate escort missions, and the one I am on is notoriously one of the worse. I have been filling my time bringing some of the Dark Souls 2 characters up to scratch, and feel I need a break from the backlog. Also, as I have a PS5, I am still getting free monthly games, so decided that I need a break from RE4 and clear some of the PS5 games while my subscription is still active. I think I will start by finally finishing the PS5 version of Hollow Knight before moving on to The Last of Us (already done on PS3, but you know) and part 2. Looks like it is time to make another spreadsheet. 

OK, so this was not the original 1999 release of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but the remake. While I had strong nostalgic feelings for RE1 and RE2, which meant I quite disliked RE2 remake for various reasons, this was not true of RE3, but I still felt the same. Both RE2 and RE3 seem to be cash grabs off the back of RE7 success using its engine and assets. Mia is still floating her hair about in these games, first person aiming just feels wrong to me somehow, especially with fast moving enemies such as lickers and dogs, and the small changes to the story or gameplay do not really add much to the remakes. I did however love the obvious reusing of RPD and the street behind it when it was applicable. I had not really felt it early on in the game as many of the street scenes look completely different, and less on fire. But getting to Kendo's, seeing the street outside, hearing the discussion between Kendo and his daughter before Leon got there was awesome. And while it was never really ex...