Since I’ve been incapacitated due to my back, I’ve been limited to either lying in bed, or sitting in a big comfy chair in my living room. Unfortunately, my Wii or GameCube isn’t set up in my living room, so I’ve been unable to play Eternal Darkness, but I’ll try to rectify that if the back pain continues. Instead, I’ve been playing what I can, which has been primarily Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame, which I originally purchased for my Xbox 360 last year, but haven’t really sunk a lot of time into it due to it lacking an online co-operative or competitive mode.
Like its comic book progenitor and movie counterpart, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame pays loving tribute to the 8-bit era of gaming. The over world map invokes comparisons to the over world maps of Super Mario Bros 3 (NES), right down to enemies randomly appearing on the map which you can challenge. The game play is highly reminiscent of River City Ransom, with its mix of old school brawler, RPG, and platformer. The stages themselves contain little nods to other games in the genre, for example the whole final stage is basically the Technodrome from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and a Link (of The Legend of Zelda fame) runs on screen during a stage acting like the little imp thieves from Golden Axe carrying bags of coins.
It took me all this time, but I have finally beaten the game, and enjoyed every minute of it. I have in fact beaten it with all the main characters. I have also spent a lot of my time playing it with my older niece. Co-op is even more fun and chaotic than single player mode. I can not recommend this game enough.
As an aside, as I’ve not been able to start my monthly videogame challenge off properly, I’ve proposed a mini-challenge to myself to pass the time. I’ll be attempting to complete the game 100%, finishing off with a complete gamer score of 250/250. Currently I have the majority of the main game achievements, and none of the DLC ones. Soon that will be rectified. I have five to go.
