What I'm Currently Playing.....

 

I'm trying to make an effort to post more on my blog, but wasn't sure what to write about as there's not much happening right now. But then I thought, just tell people what you're up to....so here's a look at what is eating up most of my time so far this month!

I bought a couple of games that I've been wanting to play for a long time, but one was taking forever to go on sale and the other wasn't availableon Xbox...until last week, when it suddenly appeared from nowhere!  The latter is of course, Death Stranding, the latest game from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima...and as a fan of those, especially MGS5, I've been interested to see what happens when he has full control over his creative vision!

So now I'm about 8 hours in, and I haven't been disappointed!  Although I can see how this game won't be for everyone,  for me it's one of the best triple A game titles I've played in years, mainly because it doesn't feel like a triple A game!  Let me try and explain...

The gameplay feels like something you would get in an indie title, only with the shine and polish that a bigger game can afford to splash out on.  Wandering around big, beautiful...but empty...landscapes, struggling to climb hills and deliver mail does not initially sound like something that would be mainstream in any way...

But add a large spoon of sci-fi weirdness, throw in some Dark-Souls type multiplayer interactions, and a sprinkle of Kojima magic, and the game somehow manages to live up to any expectations you might have had coming from the Metal Gear series..

I'm not going to go too much into plot details too much or anything right now, as … 1) The more you don’t know going in the better the experience will be and 2) I've only just started really…….but I'm enjoying playing as Norman Reedus delivering packages in a post apocalyptic America more than I probably thought I would have...and the way the game is telling me more and more of what's actually going on as I play through it is keeping me interested way more than anything else in recent years.  I think it's my favourite since Red Dead Redemption 2!  

I'm also loving the sense of community I'm feeling from the structures, messages and packages you can find from other players...who you never see or interact with directly, but you still feel as if you're rebuilding the world together with them as you discover roads, bridges, messages of encouragement, etc.  A truly odd but wonderful experience!  I'm looking forward to sinking a lot more time into...especially since I've just picked up my first vehicle which is already making things a lot easier! 

——————————————————————————————————————————

The other game I've been wanting to get into is RoboCop : Rogue City....a game which is definitely nowhere near as polished as Death Stranding,  but which hits the whole 'being RoboCop' thing so much on the head, that you can forgive it almost anything.

Right from starting the game up, it oozes '80s atmosphere, with the streets you end up walking having just the right gritty-but-with-neon feel.  As you stomp around as Murphy, the weighty feel of your legs just seems right, and his voice is perfect too, as Peter Weller reprised his role for the game! 

The game isn't perfect....some of the voice acting can be a little too over-the-top, and sometimes seems just wrong for a character...and there can be a fair bit of jank as scenes load in, with textures popping in and graphics not looking quite right.  But as I mentioned previously, it just gets so much of the atmosphere right, you can forgive its faults.

The music, the satirical humour, over the top gore, the environments...everything just feels like it's a direct follow on from the RoboCop movies.  It could be argued that it relies a bit too much on the films for it's story, but so far I've been enjoying my play through.  As well as following the main missions, you can do a bit of 'serving the public trust' as you deal with people's problems that send you off on various side missions to find lost vehicles, or tell a crminal that hands himself in that he can't get the reward money....that sort of thing....

Again I'm only a few hours in, but so far it seems like I'm probably going to be sticking with this until it's finished, which saying as someone with a backlog as huge as mine, is saying something!

Anyway, that's enough rambling on about the games...I'm going back to playing them now! I hope I've inspired you to go try them yourselves, as from what I've played of them so far, they both seem very worthy of the attention!

I'll catch you back here soon when I find something else to ramble about!

Later, Stuffers!

* ~ *

More Halloween Pick-Ups!

 I went into town today for a wander, and found some more random spooky stuff that I decided I had to buy!  So let’s just get on with showing it to you all….

First up is this cute little mummy that I saw poking it’s head out of a display bin.  I couldn’t leave him in the shop, could I!? 

Even better is that Flying Tiger,  for that is where I found him,  decided to call him a ‘cuddly friend’….which is just awesome!

Also from those crazy Copenhagen cats at Flying Tiger, comes this wonderful Skull..

..which initially doesn’t look that impressive.  But then,  whenever anyone gets close….

That’s just one of the tunes though…there are another two….

Also, I think I’m going to give him a hat to wear when I take him to my parents and stick him at the door to scare any kids that come near….there we go…

Next up,  I found this guy in our equivalent of one of the US’s dollar stores, Poundland….

Of course,  because of inflation,  even cheap FrankenMonster Bobbleheads cost more than £1….his head doesn’t even bobble that much,  but I guess he’s fine for £1.25…

And then I got some reading materials in the form of these two bookazines….

Should be an interesting read!  I can already see a few articles that look good, including one about something I was going to write about in one of my next blog posts!

And that was it for spooky stuff…oh, I did buy some little led candles to decorate with as well,  which you can see in the very first picture at the top of the page!

Not bad for some spooky swag,  I’m sure you’ll agree!

* ~ *

Wow, only a week to go to the big day itself!  Time really is racing on! Oh well, us in the UK get an extra hour to play with when the clocks go back on Sunday,  but that also means it’s way darker much earlier too!  All the better for scare season though isn’t it….and if you want to be frightened in a fun way,  go check out what everybody else has been posting for the Countdown by clicking the badge below!

Some unexpected Halloween Pick-ups!

 

So today I decided to randomly head in to town for a wander round the shops, which was something I was planning to do tomorrow instead, but we just got a weather warning for more wind and rain…so I decided I’d be better getting it out of the way while it was fairly dry! I had also originally decided to head straight in to Edinburgh, but instead got off the bus halfway through the journey and walked around some of the charity shops in a town called Dalkeith instead…

…and I’m glad I did! As the first thing I saw when entering my first shop was the slightly-dented, tin box of Magnetic Monster Action Figures you can see here and at the top of the page! This is basically a metal-shaped, modernised version of the Fuzzy Felt I showed earlier in the month! It was mine for only £3, although I’ve unfortunately discovered it’s missing a few shapes…but I can’t really complain as it’s still cheaper than it would be bought new. I’ve already created my first monster!

In the next shop, I discovered something that I already own, but mine has fallen into disrepair. This one is in a lot better condition….

For only £2 I have a much better copy of the excellent pop-up book, Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski!

Some great pictures in that one! Anyway, I then headed into Edinburgh and went to couple more charity shops, and in one of them, I discovered some more Alan Class comics..something else I mentioned in a previous post this month….but these ones were even rarer than usual…

As well as the usual spooky tales, these issues of Creepy Worlds contain some of the first British appearances of Spider-Man, which was licensed to Alan Class before Marvel decided to start releasing comics over here themselves! £4 each was the asking price on these!

And that about did it for the charity shop finds, but there was a few other noteworthy pick-ups! First there was the food…

A nice selection of crisps and candy, which isn’t for Trick or Treaters, but for me to munch on while I work on my last few Countdown posts! Here’s a closer look at the stuff..

First up are the Booo Mallows, (£1) which at first I thought consisted of skulls and pumpkins, but looking more closely at the piece below, you can tell it’s ghosts and pumpkins!

Next up are the Boo! Chews, (£1) which disappointingly are just normal chews with some Halloween themed bagging….

And these monstrous Thingies,  (£1.25) are just cheap knock-off versions of Monster Munch, which is a favourite corn snack of mine available all year round!

Last for food items, are these yummy cakes (£3.50)….

Those aren’t going to last until Halloween! 😁

Lastly were some magazine pick-ups, one of which isn’t spooky at all but still comes recommended to any gamers out there…it’s the always wonderful Retro Gamer magazine (£5.40)! And this collection from Fortean Times is all about spooks and spook sightings, so it’s definitely worthy of being included in a Halloween pick-up list (£6.99)!

All in all, an excellent haul! And I wasn’t expecting any of it today! But it did mean I could post about it, as I didn’t have time for my planned post by the time I made my way back home! Hurrah! That will probably be appearing tomorrow now instead…in the meantime, you know what I’m going to say….so just do it, and then I won’t have to! Go on…do it now! Click the badge below….

Christmas Pick-ups 2020 ( Part 2 )

 

More Christmas pick-ups, and as you can see from above I managed to get a nice collection of Get Along Gang comics from an online charity auction! 

I used to be a bit obsessed with collecting the Get Along Gang toys when I was a lad, and can remember getting the first few issues of this comic when it started too! And now I have them again, as this lot has almost all of the first 22 or so....couple of issues missing I think!

I had totally forgotten about Top Dog, who also appears in the comics...he was a character from the same stable as Heathcliff The Cat, and apparently once had a run in with Spiderman...well, that Spidey was actually an actor in the suit, but Peter Parker did put in an appearance in that particular strip....

And above you can see another thing I completely forgot about, Jasmin The Little Japanese Princess, which is actually an English-language reprint of Nahomi, a strip that originally appeared in Belgian in Tintin magazine in the early 80s! The Get Along Gang comic seems an odd place to find that....

Next up is some obligatory Moomin merchandise....a fluffy Moomintroll, the first book in the series, some Moomin stickers and a video which isn't of my favourite Fuzzy-Felt style Moomin series, but the later Japanese animated series! I'd better keep an eye out for Hatti-fatteners trying to steal this lot.....

Some games next, and I treated myself to this lot...

Tak 2 is a pretty decent platformer, Strange Brigade is a groovy multi-player shooty-puzzley-multiplayer thingy from Rebellion, White Knight Chronicles is an RPG by Level 5 that was exclusive to PS3, Need For Speed - The Run is a rip-roaring race across the United States, Shellshock 2 - Blood Trails is a zombie-shooter sequel that isn't meant to be as good as it's non-zombie predecessor but it interested me enough to give it a look and Lord Of The Rings - War Of The North is a nice party-based romp through the world of Middle Earth! Here's a few trailers for some of the games....

I bought quite a lot of stickers for myself this Christmas, mainly so that although I knew what I was getting, I could keep some element of surprise by opening sealed packets!

And so these Skeleton Warriors stickers are the first lot that I bought blind. I never knew much about Skeleton Warriors back in the day, but got interested after I played the PS1 game for the blog a few years back!

You can also see some Cartoon Time stickers that came free with the Marvel comic of the same name, and which I had back in the day but stuck them somewhere and lost them, so thought I'd rebuy this set....and those puffy Mr. T stickers, which are based on the 'awesome' cartoon!

I'll leave you with the intro for that, and tell you that I'll be back some time after the weekend with part 3 of the pickups! Hope you enjoyed checking out this lot of stuff! :)