Geekly Roundup – Ghost of Tsushima, Tony Hawks Remaster

And like that we’re into September, and still none the wiser on when the Xbox Series X or PS5 will release and for how much. Surely news will drop this week right?

Ghost of Tsushima

Last week I made a reasonably slow start to Ghost of Tsuhima. Didn’t spend a particularly long time on story missions and instead explored a bit to find shrines and other side quest-ish things. It was a good few sessions, but all the while, I was getting a little intimidated by just how much was starting to pop up on the map for things to do. Especially the side quests which at the time, I wasn’t completely aware were just side ones.

The last week as the map begun getting cluttered with larger icons that sort of distracted from the smaller things like shrines or bamboo cutting challenges I opted to clear some of the quests.

So this is truly where the fun and beauty of this game kicks in. The quests thus far have all of course involved some form of fighting the Mongolian invasion of Tsushima, but again the more I play of these, the more comfortable and confident I get with the battle techniques and fighting stances, because boy, there seems to be a lot to master initially.

But yes, as more battles occur, the familiarity of switching stances to better break enemies blocks depending what type they are gets clearer. And you start to rack up some skill points to help new ways to take out foes. So obviously exploring is great as this game deserves it because it is gorgeous, but the fun truly begins as Jin starts to learn more techniques as he levels up. Still yet to actually do main progression missions yet. Just Tales of Tsushima and Mythic Quests.

Tony Hawks Remaster

Looking older all the time, feeling younger in my mind….

That in a funny way sums up Tony Hawks. Back in the day, I was particularly good at THPS, even without the ability to manual combo tricks together. There was often little trouble in breaking the highest scores on the levels with any of the skaters. But the easiest option was to spam christ air with Rune Gilfberg.

I started playing the remaster on Friday and boy did it take some time to the muscle memory back to get to grips with the game.

Eventually after an hour on warehouse free skate though, things started to hot up, and combos were landing. So I made a start on the career with Rune, and as of now have Chicago skate competition unlocked as well as School, Mall and obviously warehouse.

Replaying the Mall was just insanely awesome. The nostalgia of the starting 2 ramps came flooding back. I mean warehouse was obviously amazing too. But just skating the mall again, remembering the huge drops down escalators and such. And I cannot remember School being as big as it is.

Remasters are controversial, some see it as cash-ins. Others as capitalising on nostalgia and to be fair remasters do both. But this one, this has been done seemingly with the utmost respect for the franchise. In fairness, I hate saying it, but kudos to Activision in terms of their treatment of properties that have been remastered thus far (maybe not modern warfare 1&2). Crash, Spyro, and now Tony Hawks have been done right. I can only hope the remaster of 1&2 sell well enough to prompt them to do 3&4 next.

– Murr