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Dear Esther: completed!

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I started this a few times but never devoted enough time to see it through - my previous work computer stuttered horribly with it as well.  I tried running it on my seven-year-old iMac and it works wonderfully, even at high resolutions.  Huzzah.

And I played through the whole game in one sitting - I'm not sure, in fact, if there is a save mechanism.  Or, indeed, a game - it is very much an interactive novel, with the story told by narration over the top of the exploration.  Sure, there are some hints to find across the island and some of the things you see constantly make you question whether this is a hallucination or dream, but you can't influence the story in any way, or die; you can only trigger the next part of the story by walking far enough.

It's a complex story as well, and by the end I think I'd figured out a decent interpretation of it.  I believe that your character is lying in a coma, desperate to tell Esther about the circumstances of the car crash which you were both involved in.  The island doesn't exist other than as a construct of your mind - there being no way off indicates the way you are trapped without hope of recovery.  Quite bleak for a game, but continuing the theme of To the Moon nicely.

Gaming moments: B

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Bangai-O: Missile Fury (Xbox 360)

Having played both Bangai-O and Spirits, I was expecting many missiles.  The sheer size and number of projectiles when I first launched a MAX attack stays with me, as well as the slowdown, half of which I'm sure was fake.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)

I am hopeless at the game itself - but I will never forget the car's radio playing Outrun music in the cutscene after the prologue.

Beyond Good & Evil (Xbox)

The final upgrade to your hovercraft ... and suddenly you have a spaceship.  Having become familiar with the world over a number of hours, being torn away to pursue the final fight was unsettling.

Bishi Bashi Special (PS)

ATTENTION!  Matt didn't read the instructions, and failed time and time again.

Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons (PS3)

Calling upon the bravery and spirit of the elder brother to cross the water. An astounding statement made with no words.

Broken Sword (PS)

Unbelievable slowdown when reaching the desert town. I gave up and played the PC verion a couple of years later.

Black (Xbox)

Having made it to the end of the game, the last corridor and boss were just too difficult.  I never completed it and resent the whole thing to this day. 

Populous: the Beginning: an enforced restart

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The best game ever?  I have often wondered if that was just nostalgia talking, with the game's sublime mix of action and strategy existing only in my memory.  I've been without a means to play Populous: the beginning for some time now, but a recent GOG.com promotion let me rebuy it for £2.50 with various patches to allow it to play on modern machines.

Or, at least, that was the idea.  In order to run the game I need to delve into the game directories and find one of the executables, rather than running from the installed shortcut.  Most annoying.  Anyone else who's having issues, look for a file called popTB.exe and run that - you'll need admin rights though.

Unlike most PC games, it's well worth putting up with the game being a little unstable.  The game is as good as I remember it, if not better - the carefully balanced strengths and weaknesses of each character really shines after all this time.

Of course, I had no access to my previous saved games, so I have had to restart.  I initially had difficulty getting past the fifth level - Death From Above - because I didn't notice the timer in the corner of the screen, but soon cracked that.  After that it's been relatively plain sailing, with only a couple of restarts.


I have grown to hate preachers once again, because they have the ability to completely stop an attacking party.  In response I overcompensate by training too many preachers of my own, and as a result don't have enough attacking power.


In the last level I played, Fire in the Mist, I was constantly attacked and had to contend with a volcano near the start of the level.  Still, it made a good platform for a lookout post.


Gaming moments: A

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This isn't the same as gaming memories - this is about discrete moments in games.  Moments like these:

Aladdin (Mega Drive)

After playing through a number of platform levels, each of which accompanied by music from the film, you get placed on a flying carpet for a section entitled "rug ride".  It's an automatic scrolling level, which speeds up over time to the point where you are almost required to memorise the level - but not quite.  The music that plays is an original composition for the game, and fits perfectly with the acceleration. You get to the end, and realise that for the last ten seconds of the level you've been holding your breath ... but you survived, and you are five lives up.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS)

Not the big oozium level, which is the part of the campaign I can remember, but Twin Isle, one of the war room maps.  Twin Isle was in Advance Wars 2, but it never seemed a stumbling block there.  In AWDS, however, something about the balance had changed and I played that one map for weeks just trying to get an A grade.  I managed it, after working out a wonderfully elegant solution, which this margin is too narrow to contain.

Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360)

You get towards the end of the game and suddenly you're in Venice.  And it really is Venice - I've been a couple of times and I recognised it immediately.  There have been few occasions when I've felt such a sense of location. 

Titanfall: I killed one – no, two!

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Two titans, that is.  Big stumpy robots.  I was waiting for this to come down in price given its online-only and multiplayer nature, and I'm glad I did; the game feels a bit light on content from what I've played so far, with matches lasting a relatively short period of time, and everything being a little repetitive.


But it's repetitive fun, and that's the important bit - it takes a while to work out what's happening, but once you do the game's tense and exciting.  The feeling of reward you get for each kill is immense, particularly when the kill is a titan.