Singapore - Now we are cosmic friends forever.

Sometimes things don't go according to plan. This blog was supposed to catalogue a year of intense retro gaming. This was meant to be my opportunity to catch up on all those classics I've missed. Instead I'm living out of a hotel in Singapore. A plesent experience no doubt, but not conducive to gaming. Now on my third weekend here I find myself slightly under the weather. I'm cooped up inside rather than out seeing the sites. So I've dipped into my Steam account and tested the waters with a couple of gems. One old, one new, both thoroughly enchanting.

Pretty Sweet, no?

Singapore is a city of contrasts. It's population is diverse. Its streets hide hindu temples, British colonial facades and modern towers of glass and steel. The rich are rich and the poor are poor, but the same could be said of anywhere. The people are obsessed with technology - Samsung and Apple branded tablets and phones are everywhere, but oddly gaming has almost no visible presence. Except, of course, for that guy in my office with the plushy cactaur sitting on his desk.

None of this bothers me of course.  I'm not in the market for new releases. The lack of Gamestops littering shopping centres is no concern of mine. I've got Steam loaded up with classics from the Hackett Out pile of shame. But where do I begin? 

Two Player Productions are documenting the making of Double Fine Adventure. It's Tim Shafer's latest (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango) and it's being funded through Kickstarter. The passion of the Double Fine team is something else and while watching it, I've been thinking about their 2006 release, Psychonauts. I bought Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil and Shadow of the Colossus all on day one. I take nerd-pride in having sought out these much loved but under-played classics. Psychonauts is another one of those games. Of course, I didn't own an original XBox. That's my excuse, but it's been six years. Never having played Psychnauts is damaging my street cred.

Psychonauts's clunky camera and overwraught opening hour did drive me towards a more carefully designed modern release however and I'm now playing them both. Superbrothers: Swords and Sworcery EP is something of a revelation on PC. I played the original iOS release but it bored me. I lately took to lsitening to Jim Guthrie's simply outstanding soundtrack and it drew me back to the game. The control implimentation for mouse is lacking, most notably in combat where I would have tweaked the configuration somewhat, but seeing the Superbrothers artwork on a 13" rather than a 4.3" screen has made all the difference. The care and love that exudes from every aspect of the game is tangible.

I'll be back to outline my thoughts on Psychonauts. I'm here for another five weeks, rattling around this hotel suite. In between swimming in the roof-top pool, sipping beers in street-side bars and eating delectable €2 meals from the hawker centres, I'm sure I'll fit in the time to complete Double Fine's platformer. And maybe work through Deus Ex too. 

That is, of course, if the outstanding 10000000 on iOS doesn't eat up my every waking second. Get it!