I've written before about how dull I find Lord of the Rings. Having tried as a teenager to read the books, and given up, until the films came out everything I knew about Middle Earth was taken from the ZX Spectrum adventure The Hobbit. What I knew was this: Thorin likes singing about gold, and something about a tunnel-like hall.

It was only upon seeing the first Lord of the Rings movie that I even realised I was steeped in more of the mythos than I realised; all those Dungeons & Dragons campaigns that I played as a kid were essentially LOTR games in all but name. Though, at least the way we played it, with more abundant availability of magical rings.

From there I realised that Tolkein - and I deliberately misspell his name here to irritate Lord of the Rings fans - had pretty much invented the fantasy genre (even if he borrowed liberally from myth and folklore). While this led me to have a greater degree of respect for the books he wrote, it irritated me how derivative the genre was.  

I mean, this is why I can't bring myself to watch Game of Thrones, which I gather is essentially Lord of the Rings with boobs and gore and that, so people can kid themselves they're watching something grown-up and sophisticated.

And yet, weirdly perhaps, I really, really loved Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, the predecessor to Shadow of War. ​Although if you want to tell me how the story progresses in this sequel... forget it. I skipped most of the cutscenes, with their tedious portentous dialogue. Indeed, at least the previous game had something akin to an emotional grounding for your character, who was freshly dead and brought back to life by becoming a half-ghost thing. 

Here you're straight into the achingly self-important cut-scenes about stuff that I found it impossible to care about. It was as much fun as scrunching up some cardboard and rubbing it into my eyes and ears. Fortunately, the game all that bollocks is shackled to is every bit as enjoyable as Shadow of Mordor.

Guest review by SUPER BAD ADVICE
​
While it has its fans, 2010’s Metroid: Other M was a bit of a ‘dandy’s hankerchief’. For starters it made tough-as-nails bounty hunter and original female gaming icon Samus Aran into a boring, whiny character obsessed with her former commander.
 
Worse still, it forced her to plod her way through a middling adventure with a forgettable supporting cast, a nonsensical F-grade Anime plot and cutscenes long enough to be timed by continental drift.
 
Given it came from the well-respected Team Ninja we all thought it was going to be fantastic, so the disappointment it was so much less than the sum of its parts was considerable. It was like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant expecting a delicious meal, and being served a photograph of a delicious meal and a bowl of stale breadsticks the waiter has just coughed on.

The Super NES is my favourite console of all time. You knew that already, right? For my money, it was the most perfect combination of hardware and software in gaming history. Nintendo's first-party exclusives are - mostly - beyond compare, but the system brought out the best in others too. Even the worst SNES games usually had a graphical boldness about them which somehow set them apart. 

For gamers in the UK, we also have the knowledge that we had the best version of the SNES. Yes, alright, it might've run slightly slower on our PAL TVs than those elsewhere in the world, but we had the rainbow joypad buttons! We had the bouncy curves! The American SNES was austere and unwelcoming in comparison.

Just because some idiot can run fast doesn't mean you'd want to go for a drink with them.

Regardless of whatever territory you were in, the Super NES had the best software line-up that has ever been made available - and Nintendo clearly knows it.

Having learned from the mistakes of last year's NES Classic Mini - too few to go around, and then abruptly yanked from stores - this time the company has seemingly ensured there's enough stock of its successor to meet demand. Well, almost. The point is, mine arrived on release day, and that's really all that matters.

And now? And now is my review of this thing which I am mentioning. Hello!

I wouldn't say I've been putting off playing Destiny 2, but I've been daunted by it. I've not been shy in stating that I didn't exactly get along with its predecessor. I played it a lot - admittedly, before all the DLC started dropping, and the game reportedly got good - and I just couldn't get into it no matter how hard I tried.

I mean, I love first-person shooters. It confused me that anybody would make a first-person shooter which seemed designed to undermine all the things I enjoy about the genre. I'm all for breaking moulds, but I couldn't fathom how players were feeling rewarded by its relentless slog.

Most frustratingly of all, I looked on - helpless - as Destiny grew into a bona-fide phenomenon. The people who loved it really loved it, and I felt like I was on the outside, looking through the window as everyone enjoyed a party.

It's the same feeling I get when it comes to Dark Souls; desperately wanting to be part of something, while a sense creeps up on me that - whisper it - this is not designed for me. It's hard not to feel shunned, or like I've been told I'm not worthy enough.

"It's fine. You stick to your little kiddy games, love..."

And yet, that message had failed to go in entirely, because I bought Destiny 2 - and I set out last weekend to play it. This time it was going to click with me, I'd decided. I would put in the work. I'd find a team. I'd do the raids, and suffer the grind, and build my character. I'd play it properly, and I would love it, and it would be my reward for a hard year's worth of work. 

​But first... there were other things which needed doing.

I went to a rainforest once. Years ago, as some of you may recall, I was part of an expedition to Guyana, to look for monsters with a bunch of cryptozoologists. What's weird, looking back, is how much of what we got up to could've come straight out of a video game. 

We climbed mountains and raided tombs. We drove around in jeeps that felt as if they were going to fall apart at any second. We descended into bat caves, met a shape-shifting shaman, and caught a caiman for dinner with a bow and arrow. Our guide - an Amerindian chieftain - told us how he was descended from an eagle, and I got bitten by hundreds of tiny, razor-toothed, fish while taking a bath in a river.

There were also a bunch of things I did which wouldn't make for particularly gripping gameplay; like, using an entire packet of moist toilet wipes to have a nice wash one night after being bitten by hundreds of tiny, razor-toothed, fish. Being forced to wear a pair of ridiculously oversized comedy shorts, because I was too hot in my special jungle trousers. Having a conversation with the aforementioned Amerindian chieftain about the Ronnie Corbett-starring BBC sitcom Sorry...

I wish I could do something like that again - the memories will last my entire lifetime - but the reality is I don't think my ageing feet would be up to the task. Fortunately, I can have much the same experience  thanks to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series.

In this latest instalment, there's even a mini game where your character has a wash with moist toilet wipes! Except: no there isn't.

"Rollin', rollin', rollin'...!" 

Do you remember that song? That was the song which started every Sonic The Hedgehog game, back on the Mega Drive wasn't it? Remember that? Do you? Do you remember it? Do you recall it - with your mind?

"Rollin', rollin', rollin'... Sonic da Hedgehog is rollin'... rollin' into a ball in the shower and sob-sob-sob-sob-sobbin'... Fartin' and sobbing'! Yeah yeah yeah! He's a big, blue, flatulent baby! Fart fart fart! And now he's got the runs - yeah!"

It was the best song ever written, back from the days when Sonic was a contender. You know: before he became the gaming equivalent of a try-hard middle aged man attempting to hang onto his fading youth. Your dyed hair isn't fooling anyone, Sonic. That blue doesn't look natural. There's something about the way the light catches it. Also, stop trying to learn the electric guitar, because you never got to be in a band when you were at college. It's just desperate.

You can't really blame Sega for taking the Sonic franchise in the direction they did. I mean, at the time  all the old 2D franchises were becoming 3D. How many of those worked though? Pretty much only Mario and Zelda, because... Nintendo.

3D essentially throttled Earthworm Jim, Lemmings, Toejam and Earl, and Ecco The Dolphin to death (and if you've ever tries to strangle a worm or a dolphin you'll know that's no easy task). It's fair to say, it would've killed Sonic too had there not been so much residual goodwill built up across his Mega Drive games.

GUEST REVIEW by SUPER BAD ADVICE

​Some people like to make life difficult for themselves. You know the sort – they’ll inexplicably take on an extra project at work they really hate, or offer to do a sponsored swimathon when they can’t swim and are made of alka-seltzer. That kind of thing.
 
If that sort of person were a game, it’d be Lawbreakers. Because short of releasing it on a special sort of disc that gives you the runs, the devs really couldn’t have made the launch much trickier for themselves.
 
The first issue is, it’s attempting to cram itself into a niche that’s full to bursting, with most of that being down to one hugely dominant game – Overwatch. As with that title, Lawbreakers is what they now call a ‘hero shooter’ you see.

GUEST REVIEW by SUPER BAD ADVICE

Oh, man. This is one of the most difficult reviews I’ve ever had to write. Not because I’m under any extra duress – of course, Mr Biffo keeps me chained up in a wheelybin round the back of Boots and regularly ‘incentivises’ me with a jolt from a cattle prod, but that’s no different to normal. No, it’s because I want to give Superhot VR a higher rating than I know it should probably get.
 
There are three things at play here. One is that Superhot (VR or regular) is a bit of a marmite game at the best of times. If you get it, it’s the greatest thing in the world.

​Finishing a level in Superhot, and the same for Superhot VR, makes you feel like some sort of bullet-time demi-god like almost no other game can.

GUEST REVIEW by SUPER BAD ADVICE

​When she was little, my Mum used to think that to be able to clap people had to attach metal ‘clackers’ to their hands to make the noise. Bonkers as this sounds (sorry, Mum), it’s a perfect example of coming to a logical conclusion when you don’t have anything else to go on.
 
It’s much like how clueless ancient types came up with stuff like bird-faced sun gods, the idea of the Earth being flat and Skeletor to explain all the crazy goings on that happened that they were too dense to understand.
 
Of course, it’s easy to assume that once you become a mega-intelligent grown-up with a bulging, knowledge-sodden cerebellum like a Mekon that you’d be well past putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 9 billion.

​But apparently not, as my initial ham-fisted adventures with Splatoon 2 proved.

DISCLAIMER: Mr Biffo was very tired when he tried Brainzyme, and had a bit of a sore throat, and had experienced a runny bot the week before. 

Given that eating is probably the greatest pleasure in life, I rue the fact I'm not offered more edible items for review. There's a depressing irony in that when I did finally get offered something to eat, it was a flavourless pill of some sort.

Brainzyme was promised to us as a product that is "scientifically proven to support cognition and concentration" and is "perfect for gamers and those who need to focus on games for long periods of time such as pro gamers or games reviewers".

Frankly, such a miracle product couldn't have come at a better time for me. The last couple of months have been relentless work-wise, as I rushed to finish half a dozen work commitments, keep Digitiser2000 afloat, shoot the remaining bits and bobs for Found Footage, and prepare for the finale. As is always the way when you come out the other side of a very full-on period, my energy and adrenaline levels were utterly depleted last week, and then - inevitably - I started to get ill.

What I really needed was some sort of enzyme which promised to help me "get smart" and "get more done" and reduce my tiredness. Step forward Brainzyme.

Saturday morning, my first proper day off in months - with said tiredness in full effect - I knocked back three Brainzyme pills on an empty stomach as instructed, and waited to turn into an all-conquering monster of energy and productivity, with veins popping on my head, as fire erupted from my nostrils, and I solved equations and punched through walls while running through Roget's Thesaurus from memory.

Though to be honest I'd have been happy if I'd just turned into someone who had the energy to pick up a joypad and play a few games for the first time in ages.

Guest review by Super Bad Advice

​At face value, ARMS should be absolute cobblers. A motion-controlled game with cartoonish characters sporting floppy appendages and daft gimmicks like a robot dog sidekick or fighting inside a giant noodle bowl? Yeesh. It sounds like a hangover from the original Wii or (god forbid) the Xbox’s relentlessly dreadful Kinect peripheral.

And, as the first entirely new Nintendo franchise for the Switch with no familiar faces or mascots, a potentially risky move.
 
However, this negativity turns out to be about as misplaced as a drunk, flatulent clown giving the eulogy at a state funeral. Because despite all those facts about what’s in the game being true, this is also true: ARMS is chuffing brilliant, and will make you do all manner of big daft grins.

When I was a kid, my nightmares were equal parts thrilling and harrowing.

I recall one particularly stressful dream, which involved a tyrannosaurus rex - bright pink, as if it had been skinned alive - trying to eat me through my bedroom window. It smashed its snarling head and maw through the glass, as I cowered beneath my bed... before, of course, a UFO appeared, picked up the house in a cone of light, and started spinning it around faster and faster and faster and faster and faster... 

A few years later, three workmen came to the house to install a new water tank in the loft. I'd only seen two leave. In my dreams that night, the third man emerged from the loft hatch with a knife, and crept into my bedroom.

I trembled beneath the sheets as he approached, reaching out for me with his free hand... and the second he snatched back the covers, I woke up with a scream, like what people do in films and that.

In the terrifying nightmare I had a few nights ago, I was heading off on holiday when I realised at the airport that I'd forgotten my contact lenses. After I woke, it bothered me for the entire day.

Fortunately, Little Nightmares leans more towards the former sorts of nightmare...

I appreciate that this review is late, but please allow me to explain. You see, it is late for this many reasons: ONE HUNDRED REASONS!!!

Reason one is this reason: Been busy. Reasons two through one-hundo are this: I didn't much love the otherwise much-loved classic 3D platformer Banjo-Kazooie, which Yooka-Laylee is - in all but name and official license - a sequel to.

Consequently, I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to play it. Yes: what a hairy plum of a man I am.

By all accounts, I should've loved Banjo-Kazooie. It was a game by Rare - a developer not unknown for doing well good games - arriving at a time when decent 3D platformers were still a relative novelty.

And yet... to me it compared unfavourably to Super Mario 64, in the same way that I felt that Rare's Donkey Kong Country games paled next to Nintendo's own 2D platformers. Solid... but somehow... I dunno. I still can't put my finger on it, even after all these years.

It was as if... you know when you eat something that mostly tastes fine, but there's something a bit funny about it - like, a flavour you can't quite identify? Sort of as if there was a tiny splash of soy sauce in an otherwise really lovely "Brown Derby sundae", and that somehow taints the overall experience. For me, that's what Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country were like.

But what a difference those years make. I'm not the cynical, scattershot edgy, youth that I once was. Being old-ish, things that I pretended to be irritated by in my prime are now coloured with the wistful glaze of nostalgia.

Whereas once I might've scoffed, now I'll happily watch hours of vintage footage of Richard Stilgoe barking rhythmically in an allotment, or eat my way gladly through a packet of Findus Crispy Pancakes that expired in 1991, 

Uhhh... unh... UNHHH-hhhh. This isn't going to be like all the other Injustice 2 reviews, I'm afraid.

For one thing, it's going to conclude thusly: I don't like Injustice 2. However, rather than lay all fault with the game, I'm going to place at least a degree of the responsibility at my own catflap. 

Because here's a thing: I can't remember a beat 'em up that I loved. No, wait: that's not entirely true. I like scrolling beat 'em ups, like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. I also like boxing games, for some reason. The second I went head-on, and had to remember multiple button combinations, it started to feel like a chore.

For me, that doesn't feel like fighting; it feels more like revision. The more controls you put between me and the on-screen action, the less I engage with it. It's precisely the reason I can't get along with the Dark Souls games; just like exams, they feel as if they favour those of us who are simply really good at memorising stuff, and those who don't get bored or distracted easily. 

Yes, yes... I know you're going to tell me that it all becomes second-nature, but - again - I don't want to have to put in the work. In fact, I'm simply not equipped to put in the work. Good for you if you can do it, but I'm wired in a way that is not conducive to beat 'em ups. I've spent at least 25 years trying to master combos, and they still feel more like trial-and-error.

I prefer entertainment which gives me everything I need to enjoy it, so that I can switch off. I don't watch arty foreign language films, because I don't want to have to learn French beforehand. Similarly, I don't want to embark on a rigorous training regime in order to enjoy a video game. I don't want to spend a week gitting gud before the gameplay becomes second-nature.

I'd put that down to not having the time in my life these days, but it was forever thus. Going right back to games such as Barbarian and Way of the Exploding Fist on my Speccy.

Do you remember the original Prey? Get this: I don't.

Or didn't until yesterday anyway.

In fact, after spending some time with this game called Prey - supposedly a reworking of the 2007 game called Prey - I remained pretty sure I'd never played the original. I thought that was weird, because I'm a sucker for a first-person romp, and it seemed like the sort of puddle into which I'd have furiously mashed my frond.

In the interests of due diligence, I went onto YouTube to double-check... and then it came flooding back: I had played the previous Prey, and it isn't much like this new version at all. I've no idea why I'd forgotten it, but maybe it has something to do with this: unknown reasons.

In fact, aside from both being first-person games, and both being set on alien-infested space stations, they've virtually nothing in common.

Why bother remaking a game that nobody remembers, and then changing more or less everything about it? It's not like alien-infested space station is a massively original and unique pitch. It's like remaking Pac-Man into a game where you play a tax inspector, and have to audit a small, family-run, bakery called 'Yeast Region'.

Anyway. This is the sort of game that Prey is: one of those ones where it's not quite a first-person shooter, not quite an RPG. You know: like Deus Ex, or the classic System Shock. You spend as much time upgrading your abilities - you're one of these cybernetic people they have nowadays, see - and reading the personal diaries and emails of the station's former inhabitants, as you do shooting at things.

​Which is just as well, because shooting at things in Prey is Not So Great.