On the subject of bears

During the many, many trips to the loading screen, Skyrim offers the useful hint that bears, while as deadly as one ton of razor-tipped furball should be, will generally leave you alone if unprovoked.

Lies. Absolute, god-damned lies, issued forth from the mouth of Loki himself. I don't know if my Argonian moisturises himself with steak tenderloin when I'm not looking, but those lumbering fuckers can't get enough of me. The second they clap eyes on me, they come tearing over hill and dale with all piss and vinegar, yearning, aching for juicy reptilian ribs.

And this isn't just me belly-aching. They become as single-minded as a worker ant crossed with The Terminator; a pair of grizzlies charged through the entire Riften town guard, a group of nearby traders and a god-damn dragon, such was their lust for my flesh.

My solution of blowing them downhill with a gust of kick-ass Dovahkiin breath didn't go quite as planned, as it sent the two-dozen warriors I'd been sort of banking on at this point careening towards sea level like skittle pins. On the plus side, they were stopped short when they broadsided the dragon.

But in all seriousness, screw you Bethesda. Just... the hell with you.

Review: Sonic Generations

It's taken an uncharacteristically long time, but Sonic is finally back

As I said in my preview of Generations, I ended my review of Sonic Colours on a fairly bum note. As much as I liked the direction that Sonic Team had taken, I felt that the core gameplay hadn't stepped up its game enough to stop the series sliding back into mediocrity as time goes by and standards continue to rise. I wanted to see Sonic Team stripped of development privileges and to have the series turned over to a third party developer, on the assumption that Sonic Team weren't capable of learning any more lessons. Now, I'm not so sure.

My criticism of Colours was based on the assumption that its flaws were endemic to the gameplay style itself; raw speed seemed to inevitably lend itself to unfair deaths, endless collisions and reaction times beyond the reach of man. It made the new pseudo-racing style feel like a dead-end, one that didn't offer any opportunity for further development and only really had the option of getting faster and more linear. Let me tell you, for a long-term Sonic fan it feels good to be able to say that that is now, very apparently, not the case.

Retro|Spective: Wario Land 2

Barge, kick and elbow your way through with Nintendo's surliest anti-hero

Wario is an unlikely hero, all in all. His story begins in Super Mario Land 2 for the original brick-sized Game Boy, where his appearance as the final boss was that of a bulbous headed, slightly lop-sided and blood-curdlingly ugly troll. He was less of an evil counterpart to Mario and more of a badly deformed twin who the plumber's family bundled into a special home and quietly forgot about; to look at him back then you'd be forgiven for being a bit mystified as to how he could have achieved enough popularity to completely supersede Mario in the next series instalment and transform into a whole new franchise in his own right.

But do so he did indeed, and over the course of two games his appearance was refined from a doughy-faced gremlin into a sneering, leering slab of pork, his frame squat and bullish in comparison to Mario's inoffensive jolliness, with a series of bad-tempered kicks and shoulder-barges and an irate throwing arm comprising his attack range. Here was a character that was, and still is to this day, a delightfully blunt antithesis to Nintendo's pantheon of heroes, bashing his way with bloody-minded abandon in search of nothing more than filthy, filthy riches. Wario is an absolute jerk, and as is generally the case with video games, being bad is always so much more fun than being good.

Digital Remix: JD Harding

This week: video games! Next week: Much the same!

Poor lad Harding is having a difficult time selling his remixes to the masses right now, so this seems to be the right time to big him up and give him a shout. He doesn't stray as far from the beaten path as the OverClocked crowd, but if you're looking for a fresh take on the video game music of the 8 and 16 bit eras that amounts to more than just swapping out instruments in FL Studio then I'd suggest taking a look.

And if you find yourself digging his chops, why not throw wads of money at him at his Bandcamp page?