EMMA THINKS…NON LINEARITY CAN BE A TOUGH MISTRESS

21:34: Sit down with a full glass of Vimto. Stick Minecraft on. I was building a railway line to make getting water a lot easier. I’ll finish that and then get to bed.

22:18: Still sat down with a half full glass of Vimto. Now I’ve completed the water transport system, I may as well finish the sugar cane farm I was working on.

23:42: Finish the dregs of the glass of Vimto. Oh crap. I used the last of my wood making that hoe. Better collect some more. And plant more seeds. And harvest some wheat for the pigs. Need more pigs.

00:58: Thirsty for Vimto. Pretty tired but I want to get some more iron ore so I’m prepared next time I play. Need more wood to smelt it. Need a storage box to keep the iron ingots in. Can’t you make books in Minecraft? I’ll look into that. That’s a fine looking bookshelf I’ve made. They improve enchantment tables? How do you make one of them?

Aaaahh! It’s two in the morning and all I have to show for it is a shit load of square-faced pigs!

OKAMI REVIEW

Ahhh Okami…poster child of the inventive, ambitious ‘underdog-that-never-gets-the-commercial-recognition-it-deserves’ school of game design. Originally developed for the PS2 by Capcom’s now famously defunct (but brilliant) ‘Clover Studio,’ Okami was one of the gems of the PS2’s vast library, right up there with Metal Gear Solid 3, Killzone, the Team ICO games, and God of War. Okami is often the subject of articles that focus on critically aclaimed games that ended up flopping when it came to sales. In fact Okami couldn’t be a better representative of this phenomenon; it released to near universal acclaim with a meta score of 90 on metacritic and yet it only managed to shift a combined total (Wii and PS2 versions) of under 600,00 units worldwide. Of course those who played the game don’t give a shit about all that, we know that it was a damn fine game and worthy of more than a hand full of revisits and what with the recent announcement of a HD remake coming to the PS3, what better time than to review this classic?