When all you have are words on the net

Working from Mondays to Saturdays, and then studying for an upcoming selection during your free time (of course throwing in some game time or I’d just go crazy), means I don’t really have the luxury of playing many old games. A tri-fecta of Wind Waker HD, Sunset Overdrive and general pinball doesn’t help.

The low-resolution ground in AMOK wobbles around just like in Robinson’s Requiem.

Just about the only old game I managed to get was AMOk, and what a stinker it is. Now, it is kind of fun in a way, but the lack of a decent save system and the ridiculous difficulty level mean you’ll be replaying the same levels a lot. I was surprised because players’ reviews online seem to hold it in generally good esteem. Unfortunately, nostalgia goggles can’t apply to me in this case. And for submarine games, Archimedean Dynasty is still unsurpassed.

Grinding in Sunset Overdrive is a lot of fun, although the busy railing structure means you need a button to grind – not the same immediacy as JSRF, but still really good. And I often find myself trying to press X to pull off tricks.

Sunset Overdrive also surprised me, but for different reasons: after several hands-on where people complained about dodgy controls and difficult grinding, I was worried about that. Sure, the reviews were glowing, but you can never really shave those complaints off the back of your head until you have tried the game yourself. So now that I did, I’m glad to say that the reviews were right instead. Insomniac must have fixed something big in the last couple months before launch, which is a pretty rare sight.

That’s all for now, I guess. I should at least take the night off for the Champions League final. If I can find it in my heart to forgive myself for not studying enough.