Awful holidays. Bad internet access, bad new year’s eve and, in the end, my steam account was hijacked. I’m so furious. I would have never logged in that fake steam if my connection wouldn’t disconnect me from the real steam every two minutes. I may be able to log in again in the next days but for now I’m cut out, without the control of the Gamers Inn group on steam (Catman is currently administrator and has been warned).

Anyway, because of my shitty connection I had to play mostly offline. I replayed the whole Donkey Kong Country series and started Dead Space. It’s really creepy. You never know what’s going to come out of one of the six hundred corridors you’re running in. Its best is the interface. Every menu, inventory, map etc… is drawn like an hologram in front of Isaac and turning the camera makes them rotate, except for the map that is rotated as well inside the hologram frame. Absolutely fantastic!

SNK revealed the roster of The King Of Fighters XII and I got a surprise. KoF’s re-birth affects even the looks of the characters:

According to the official japanese website, Leona and Athena are both 18!!!

Anyway, I miss Mai and the whole NESTS team.

Though I’d rather be playing Donkey Kong Country Returns instead of writing this but I couldn’t delay it any more.

Long story short: Donkey Kong Country Returns (DKCR from now on) is like New Super Mario Bros Wii for hardcore players straight out the 90s. Think of it this way: in the original Donkey Kong Country every enemy/platform was synchronized so you could run through the level at very high pace while in DKCR everything is asynchronous, leading you to get hit if you don’t move perfectly. I’m a little sad that the pace of the game has been slowed down but this represents a greater challenge and I’m fine with that. Other notable features of this “revamped” classic include pieces of puzzles hidden in each level in the least likely places you’ll ever go look and dozens of new enemies. I miss the kremlings! What you’ll love the most in this game is the absolute detail and polish Retro Studios put in each level. Almost every level has a particular challenge/enemy/vehicle that you won’t find elsewhere in the game. This keeps my “surprise and awe” meter high while I play in a way I’ve never felt before.

I’ll now tell you what the downsides are: These continous surprises sometimes don’t leave the player enough time to react. For example, there are platforms that shake and crumple when you step on them, but while they’re shaking you are already falling with them and you can’t jump off, taking you to certain death. In some cases then, you’ll face obstacles that you must have previously met (read: faced and died with) to know how to avoid them.

To sum up, you should definitely buy DKCR if you got bored playing Kirby Epic Yarn or Super Mario Bros Wii but you should avoid it if you hate to replay the same part over and over because you keep dying at the same spot five minutes away from the last checkpoint.

On the Team Fortress 2 front (I bet you were expecting this) the Australian Christmas event is currently ongoing. You can now craft and drop three new sets of items and pallets of hats, or uncrate them, assuming that you’re willing to pay for software you already own.

There’s also a new “medieval “game mode where you can play only with old weapons. The perfect place to blow off the steam you accumulated from critical rockets or randomly flying arrows.

If you want to take another peek at my latest map I’ve taken a screenshot during the “surrounding detailing” process. The map is playable and I’ve tested it with bots to make sure that everything worked fine from start to finish. I’ll release it when it reaches the beta stage, with textures and ammo packs in the right places.