Jamie John

According to last month's issue, the official release date for this month's issue is April 26th, so not for a while yet. I don't know how some people get their print editions so early.

I posted this in ATF but it might get more of a response here. Long story short, I have a Nikon D3200 but no lens and want to know what to buy. I have very little photography knowledge and experience. Any replies would be appreciated

It's been a month since I last updated and I've listened to a few more albums from the list. I kept the Lindstrom album on my commute playlist for a week or so but I just couldn't get into it. I felt the same way with the self-titled Kelly Lee Owens album (number 22), as well, I'm afraid. I like to think that I've got a fairly eclectic musical taste and that I'm open to most genres, but this particular brand of floaty ambient techno, or however you want to define it, just doesn't do anything for me. I might feel differently about it if I was listening to it in a club or something, but whenever I had it on in the background all of the tracks just seemed to merge into one amorphous blob. After that I listened to the Kelela album, Take Me Apart (number 18), which I liked a lot more, although not quite enough to buy the album. A lot of it reminds me of FKA Twigs as they both share a similar electronic R&B sound with some great bass lines. 'Blue Light' is a banger: I can't really be done with The Darkness, so I skipped Pinewood Smile by them and listened to Science Fiction by Brand New instead. I like 6 out of the 12 tracks on it and think they're at their best at their heaviest: It's no surprise to find that the band list Nirvana and Modest Mouse as some of their influences. This week, alongside some other stuff not from the list, I've had French Press by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, all 23 minutes of it, on the go, and its light punk/surf rock sound has gone down very well in the sunshine. I'm up to the mid-20s on the list now with a third of 2018 nearly gone already and I think I may start cherry-picking from the remaining albums on the list based on the stuff I think I'm definitely going to like. Drunk by Thundercat, for instance. So far I think the most glaring omission from the list is Ctrl by SZA, which came out in June. A mate of mine lent it to me at the start of this year and if I'd listened to it when it first came out it would comfortably be in my top 5 for 2017. This Calvin Harris remix of the best track on the album is superb: Recommended if you enjoyed the Kelela album and/or most other modern female-fronted R&B.

The new Marlon Williams album, Make Way for Love, is definitely a keeper. I think I like it even more than his self-titled album from 2016. The sound of the album is really quite mixed, some of it folksy and bluegrass, some of it crooning, like an old-fashioned jazz singer. He's got a lovely voice.

Surely it would be even weirder if the reviewer completely ignored the fact that they were jaded with the game series, though, because then the review wouldn't actually be a reflection of what they thought about the game...? I agree that someone playing AC or FC for the first time would probably like the new entries in each series more than someone who had played the last three entries in the series, but you're going to struggle to find someone in the game industry, who reviews games for a living, who hasn't played at least one of those games and therefore hasn't become jaded with the formula. Also, the fact that Ubi purposefully took a year out between Syndicate and Origins to apparently revolutionise the AC formula and come up with a totally new game to break the mould, but then proceeded to release more or the less the same game, albeit with a somewhat revised combat system, and camels, probably didn't put them in Edge's good books, either. People moan about Edge's apparent bias towards Nintendo, but I think Nintendo are very good at bringing out major entries in their franchises which are markedly different from the ones that have come before (e.g, BotW and Odyssey, and even Skyward Sword with its use of waggle). When Nintendo don't do this and do release just more of the same, Edge tend to call them out on it and mark the games down accordingly (the 5 for MK:DD, for example, and more recently the 6 for Samus Returns).

I can't say I noticed the completion dots, but that's probably because I never got up to 100% completion! I knew what to look for with the secrets as well, and that's what made it more galling when I found that I'd missed so many, as I'd thought I'd combed over everything and was expecting to get 90%+. I didn't realise that the completion percentage appears next to your save file, however, as I never once came out of the game after I'd started playing it, so I didn't see the file load screen until I'd finished the game. I thought you just found out how many secrets you'd found after the credits, and there was no way to find out beforehand. Had I known before the final boss that I'd only found 78% of them, I'd have probably gone back through again! I managed to figure out one of the password secrets myself, too, which was immensely satisfying. But although I got to the room by myself, I needed a guide to figure out how to get to it. That's the only time I used a guide in my entire playthrough, however, and I doubt I'd ever have figured out how to get to it without one. Using it did make the final area and boss fight too easy, though. I just stood underneath it's weak spot, aimed upwards and held down B. And Samus Returns is definitely on my to buy list. It'll be good to dust off the 3DS.

I think this is the reason why Ubisoft open world games get lesser scores; from what I've seen and read, there's little to differentiate the last three Far Cry and AC games, apart from the setting of course. They do what they do well, but it does appear to be just more of the same, and Edge, as well as lots of other reviewers, tend to look more critically on developers who play it safe.

This is the problem I encountered; I kept on double tapping with the stick accidentally. But anyway, all done now. It's a bit annoying that there was no indication whether or not you'd found everything in a room, like in the Metroid games. If there had been I'd have been much more inclined to go for 100%. I was a bit miffed that I'd missed out on over 20% of the items, especially seeing as I went back over the entire map at the end before the final boss fight. I think some of the secrets were a little too well hidden. Lots of them I just stumbled across by accident after spamming the drill into all of the walls. Apparently the secret glitch zones that you occasionally come across are in random locations.

I used the stick. I suppose it's meant to be played with the dpad, really, but I find the stick more comfortable.

I found them a bit fiddly, especially towards the end when you're required to do things like switch back and forth from the drone to the player while dash jumping and so on. I would often dash without meaning too, as well. Edit: and that track you posted was the one I meant to post but I posted the entire playlist by accident. It's great! I've downloaded the entire soundtrack to my Spotify.

I finished this earlier. Just under 15 hours on the clock with 78% of the items. God knows how I missed out on over a fifth of the remaining items - I thought I was being thorough! I liked it, mostly. The backtracking, coupled with the annoying controls, were tiring, and I found the story too obscure to be interesting, but some of the ideas and gameplay touches were creative enough to make it more than just a Metroid homage. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other Metroidvanias I've seen through to the end that I can remember playing (Guacamelee, Shadow Complex and the DS Castlevanias), but when you consider that it was all made by just one guy, it's a pretty amazing achievement. Plus the music is consistently awesome. This track in particular has a real Ghost in the Shell vibe to it: 7/10 from me - recommended.

This is £13 on the PS store at the moment, so I've decided to finally get it. I enjoyed the first on the 360. Love me some Tomb Raider!

I don't know how anyone can bemoan the GOW score, seeing as no one's completed the game yet.

Definitely no chance of an EU release, then? I'm not sure how I'll get on with negotiating the Japanese menus.

Anyone know if this is any good? It looks like it'd be right up my alley. The art style reminds me of a platformer for the 360 that I can't remember the name of. It was on Games With Gold years ago.