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While I loved all the customization options for my character in The Outer Worlds, I find it somewhat bizarre that one almost never gets to see one’s character in that game after being given so many options. Another game like that is Fallout 3. What are some others?

Ok, here we go, this is my first ever review so bear with me. I'm reviewing The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past on SNES. The game has a lot of interesting traits for a 16 bit game, and some serious differences from other entries in the series. Prologue To start with it is the first one where Zelda calls out telepathically for a hero. Your uncle, (whom you apparently live with despite there only being one bed in your house) is heading out, sword and shield in hand expecting to save her telling you to wait at home and that he will be back in the morning. You instead head out, having all paths blocked by castle soldiers except your path to the castle. Along the eastern side of the castle, all the way to the north there is a bush you can pull up to reveal a way in. You find your uncle there, defeated. He gives you his sword and shield, and thus begins the story. As you enter the castle, you need to start making your way down through the lower levels. You will encounter a lot of guards down there, but they are not particularly hard to defeat. The blue boomerang is down there, which is a very helpful item at least at this point in the game, and one of my personal favorites in the game as a whole. There are floors on the way down that are a single room that will make you think the scripters were drunk when writing the game. They have absolutely no logical purpose, but I digress. At the bottom floor, you will see Zelda locked in a cell being guarded by a gray ball and chain trooper. Stunning him with the boomerang is pointless as he instantly starts waking up. So wait for him to swing his chain then go in for a strike and back out before he starts swinging again. If I remember correctly it takes eight hits to kill him. He drops the big key which unlocks the cell so you can get Zelda out. On the way here you will have encountered 3 chests. One in your house, one in the room right after you got your sword from your uncle, and one in Zelda's cell. The first one you open will have the lamp, the others a blue rupee. If you didn't get the lamp you will not be able to go any further from here. The two of you must then make it to the throne room on the main floor, to escape the castle to get to what Zelda calls "sanctuary", but is simply a church. It takes the two of you pushing the shelf behind the throne from the left to open the secret passage. You enter a darkened room with only your lamp to guide you. There are a lot of rats and keese on your way so you'll have to deal with that. The good thing is that for some reason that even I can't figure out, rats tend to have a lot of money on them. Once you make it through the lower rooms and sewers, you will come through a sliding display in the sanctuary. The priest is there. After a bit of discussion you can open the chest there and get a heart container. You can then continue on with your quest. Part One The game is very straight forward in its objectives, like pretty much any other Zelda game, not counting some of the spinoffs and ROM-Hacks. Your objective as always is to save Zelda and defeat Ganon. If you have never played the game before, the map is your best friend. It always has something marked on it, telling you where you need to go. So there's that. Another good thing, is that once you know your path, you don't have to follow the map if you don't want to. There are a few things you can do prior to attacking your first dungeon. I would recommend collecting some heart pieces to give yourself a little more life. These are easy to find. There is one in the cave on the east side of Kakariko village. Another is in the hedge maze just to the southwest of the village. South of Link's house, there is a ruin. If you go inside of it and pull the lever to let the water through you will reveal a heart piece in the dry waterbed outside with a few fish flopping around. If you pick up a fish and go one screen up and throw it in the water it will give you 20 rupees. Or you can carry the fish to town and sell it to the bottle guy for a lot of goodies. There is another in the Lost Woods in the thieves hideout. You need to drop down from the bushes just above the entrance. One more that you can get now, is in the desert. If you go north just after entering the desert you will find a small cave. Follow it into the room with the old man. Most would easily miss this, but the bottom wall is bombable, and inside is a chest with a heart piece. Another item you should pick up is the mushroom in the Lost Woods. If you take it east, to the witches hut and give it to her, then leave the screen and come back in, her assistant will have the magic powder for you. It has no real use, except for one time later in the game, but it is comical if you sprinkle it on Buzz Blobs. Doing so will turn it into a Cukeman. You can talk to them, but they will still hurt Link if you touch them. If you freeze them with the ice rod or Ether, then hit them with the hammer, they will turn int regular Buzz Blobs again.

I don't touch it once I go up to harder difficulties, unless I'm raising the difficulty. It's why I use a game genie on a lot of my old games. I put in codes that put me at a disadvantage to make the games more challenging because after playing some for 30+ years I've just gotten too good at them to the point that they're just boring as hell. So I put in some codes to tweak the program, put myself under some new settings that leave me weaker and my enemies stronger, and the games run anew.

To be honest, the first time I saw my girl playing it, I asked her what movie she was watching.

RDR2 holds up with this. When you're cleaning your guns, you can get a look at them up close and personal. Or if you go to a gun shop, you can get an even closer look in the customization option.

The skies in RDR2 are absolutely beautiful, and so realistic and appropriate for the weather of the moment. There are times I like to sit back on my horse and just watch the day go by. or take a seat at the edge of camp and watch the clouds move through.

Thank you for your kind words, and for following VGR's articles so closely! You are awesome 🙂

It's a pity that you're disabled. I am happy you found gaming as a passionate thing, your best hobby. And you're a video game writer as well. I've read majority of your contents about gaming not just the forum posts.

@Justin11 You seem to be describing a state of being at which euthanasia would be my preference. short of that, I'd say gaming is the easiest hobby to continue.

My favourite RPG of all time always will be Dragon Age Origins. It's just so well written, the world and lore are thought out and the characters are amazing.

In another thread, @Crazycrab and I were talking about how The Last of Us arguably could never be as good in a film format as it is in a video game format. Personally, I think that the reason for this is in part the sheer simplicity of the story. It is the kind of story that on a screen, I think some people would be left asking “Is there more …?” But in a video game, it worked brilliantly. This got me thinking about what makes for a good story in a video game. What do you look for in order to say that you really enjoyed a video game’s plot? My favorite video game stories are TLOU and the BioShock games. TLOU has a very simple, minimalist plot, whereas the BioShock games have fairly elaborate storylines. So, I think for me, how a story is told counts for more than the complexity or simplicity of a storyline in a game. What these stories do have in common is a strong focus on characters along with a focus on examining moral choices. So I guess that must be what I like in video game stories. What about you?

I had been wondering if I was getting more into walkthrough territory, than review. I’ll try to do another article and try aligning it more as a review, but I’m also going to continue with this one as a walkthrough. There may never be anyone interested in using it, but I’ve had fun writing it. So I’m going to continue it. Thanks. I appreciate all the constructive feedback I can get from everyone willing to offer it.

You said in the tags you wanted constructive criticism so, I think there is a point to be made here. A review is a critical analysis of the game, where you present your opinions on wether you like dislike a certain aspect then explain why. What you've written here is more like a walkthrough or a guide, where you talking through each step of game giving advice on strategy and what you should be doing. Let me explain what I mean. Reviews generally don't need this much detail on how the game functions at every stage. You can use specific moments in the game to make specific points or criticisms like you did here. This was making a point about how important the map is and then explain why you feel it's well designed and fit for purpose. This is somewhat like the type of writing I would expect in a review. The next section however, and most of the rest of the text.... ....reads a more like a set of instructions. Your not really presenting any opinions or illustrating why something is good or bad, works or doesn't work. This is perfect for a walkthrough but for a review it's not needed. As part of a review it might even be counterproductive for some readers since they might want to figure out some of this stuff for themselves. On the flip of the coin in a walkthrough a reader just wants the information and likely doesn't really care if you like it or not. With that being said though, looking at it as a walkthrough, I think it's very well done. You explain things very clearly, it's obvious that you have plenty of expertise on this game and it's nicely paragraphed making it easy to follow if I want to get to a certain point. This is very useful should I want to come back to this later. You've got a knack for this, just think you need to focus a bit on more on what your actually trying to do here. Do you want it to be an informative piece of writing where you explain how to play the game or a review where you explain why you like (or dislike) this game and illustrate why you feel the way you do about it.

It's really a long one for you playing FIFA series from 98 till now. I think you're a legend playing EA FIFA game series. I love the games developed by Capcom too, prince of Persia, and super Mario are old games I still love till now.

Yeah, it's all about exposure, I went further to research about the super Mario game, and I discovered that, I've played the game in the past via Java mobile phone, but I never knew its Super Mario Lol.

In as much as I love playing racing, I never really got myself into GT (Gran Turismo) series much. I recently got to watch the trailer of GT2, it was superb, the graphics is amazing, I've made it a priority to install it this weekend on my PS3.

I'm in my late 20s and I do not even know what the gaming days would be like in anotehr 50 years time. That being said I play with people online that are in there 50s and 60s and the oldest person that I know that play games and streams when he can is in his 80s 🙂 Age is no matter, they are bored and they play.

I've said before in another thread precisely why I think consoles need to exist, and because exclusive games are the main reason to own a console, I'm am actually a little concerned about this. It's good thing for PC players to be able to play these games, but this a step in the direction to wold where people only play digital games on PC or through a stream and it don't want that to happen. So I'd say it's a nice gesture Sony, but don't go all in on it like Xbox are.

I think GT2 is the best option when it comes to picking any one from GT series. That's the one I am going to install via my PS3 on weekend.

Exciting! We will probably be upgrading for sure. I went ahead and added the concert reminder on my calendar for November 11th at 2:00pm ET. I've always loved the Skyrim soundtrack so will be tuning in to listen to the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices Choir.

I don't see any need bragging over a game which we've thoroughly mastered. No one is a perfectionist, I try my best to satisfy myself playing my favourite game and not challenging anyone over a video game that I'm the best.

I've played contra, especially contra 4, played super Mario too. But my favourite childhood to date is FIFA series.

There are more of them that I can recall all off heart but let me just mention a few of them. The Legend Of Zelda The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past Contra Super Mario Donkey Kong Gyrus Dragon's Lair Elavator Action

Off the top of my head, here's a short list of some that I can remember at the moment. The Legend Of Zelda Zelda II The Adventure Of Link The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Blaster Master Castlevania 1,2,3 Contra TMNT Mega Man Mortal Kombat 1080 Snowboarding Conker's Bad Fur Day Asteroids Berzerk Donkey Kong Pitfall Pac-Man Frogger Joust Q*Bert Space Invaders Swordquest (Earthworld and Fireworld)

Pride and self satisfaction with what you have accomplished in a game as well as confidence in yourself to be competitive are not bad things, but when one crosses over into arrogance it becomes a problem. Bragging is a bad look on anyone as it just doesn't project the message that the one doing the bragging thinks. So you've pretty much mastered a game, good for you, but if you're not enough without the acknowledgement from others, trust me when I tell you that you will not be enough with it.

Destiny is the absolute worst of this. Some stats it doesn't tell you what they actually do. Some stats are only described. There are perks in the game that have been in for over 2 years and people still argue about that they actually do.

Unless you are taking a personal computer to work with you, most work PC's are restricted or prohibit downloading software without managers permission. What kind of niche? Are you looking for only free games? Breaks aren't that long at work, so I would suggest looking at MiniClip or Arkadium. These titles load instantly in your web browser.

I play Mini Metro when I'm very bored. It's a cheap game from Steam, and also Origin.

How about T-Rex Run, if someone calls you out you can just tell them your internet is down!