Games

007: Blood Stone
After some more — alright, a lot more — fiddling and tweaking the controls, I got this playing pretty well; to the point where I actually completed the first section (the driving controls really needed a lot of work, and I'd failed on a section like that multiple times before). The best hint I got from somewhere online: because the game has onscreen prompts about what button to press (at least during the training-like first level; maybe throughout, I don't know), ignore what would be sensible keyboard controls and set things up for the controller — i.e. map the controller's A button to keyboard-A, X to keyboard-X, and so on. It would be a rubbish control scheme on a PC (the keys are all over the place, and using A for the A button messes up WASD movement, for one), but it means you don't get "the game says press E, so that's X... or is it Y?" all the time.

Anyway, now that's all sorted, I need to decide what game(s) I'm actually playing — I mean, I've been through tutorials/first levels for three Bond games now! Speaking of which...


007: Everything or Nothing
I got an adapter that allows you to use original GameCube controllers with the WiiU, Switch, and PC — which also works with Steam Deck. Tested it on this a couple of times, plus a quick go on Zelda: Wind Waker, and got it working nicely (the D-pad doesn't work on menus for some reason, but does in game; but I did get the rumble working, so that's good). Also, hopefully this adapter will work with the Switch 2 when/if I get one (still leaning towards when, but when? I don't know).


3D Out Run
I've bought or downloaded a total of 33 games for my 3DS already, but this is first one I've actually played (beyond a minute or two to test carts work). This is a 3D port of a classic Sega arcade game (not to be confused with its original sequel, OutRun 3-D — the Wikipedia entry makes that mistake, in fact). There were a load of these conversions of Sega games made for the 3DS, and many of them are pretty well regarded — not always for the quality of the original game, but certainly for the effort and success of the emulation and 3D conversion. Out Run (aka OutRun) is one of the most recommended for its visuals.

Well, I agree that it's got a very effective use of 3D. It's almost hard to imagine playing it in 2D, so striking is the effect of the road and scenery rushing towards you. It doesn't feel like a particularly deep or long-lasting game, though — I mean, there's literally one circuit. Okay, that has different routes, adding up to 16 variations, but still. The only other customisation options are the difficulty (one to five stars) and a set of four unlockable modifiers for your vehicle, which you can mix and match. So, sure, there are ways to mix it up; and if this had been made in the era of achievements, I'm sure there'd be one for every possible combination of track, difficulty, and mods — that's 400 variants by my estimation. I didn't dislike it, but I'm not going to play this 400 times. But it was free, so that's fine.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Seven new additions this week, including two BD-to-4K upgrades amid a bunch of brand-new acquisitions. On top of that, there's the running time update I had to put off from last week.

Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [up 12]
Number of films: 4,597 [up 12]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
607 days, 10 hours, and 43 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 7 hours, and 23 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.