I’m replaying FF7 right now with the Remako mod and I think it’s the best we’re going to get. 4x the resolution for FMV and the background art, remastered sound and music, much higher detailed poly and battle models. It's fantastic. There's not much left to do other than a button to skip some of the summons animations.

I’m currently replaying the similarly upgraded FF7 via the Remako mod and it’s mind-blowing. The background art and FMV have had their resolution quadrupled over the original, which is a staggering achievement. Well worth the hassle of modding it.

All of the original masters and raw film footage from every Star Trek episode and movie is stored under an old salt mine in Pennsylvania (allegedly).

I’ve played FF7 to completion four times and it’s never taken me more than 30 hours (the first time back in 1998 it took 22 hours, but Cloud was way underpowered and turned the final battle into a nightmare, so I always grind a bit now). Obviously that’s just following the main story and side quests, no crazy chocobo…

There’s another bit in one of the trailers where Cloud & Aerith are surrounded by shadow creatures on the streets of Midgar, which I don’t remember from the original game.

Also the same year as Fallout.

Aha, that’s all making sense now. That makes you wonder if the game is supposed to be coming out around the same time, which would be impressive.

Well, yeah, I think it’s pretty clear this will be a spiritual successor more than a direct sequel. Wizards of the Coast’s licencing requirement is that all new D&D games take place in the current iteration of the setting and use the latest rules (I suspect the word “synergy” is in the contract somewhere), and the Forg…

When they released the Remastered Editions in 2012 and 2013, they made modding the engine a priority so there’s a lot of stuff available for both games.

I’m not sure what the game is going to be, but I suspect it won’t really be “BG3.” That story was done and dusted in Throne of Bhaal. Black Isle spent a year or so working on a BG3 and basically gave up because they couldn’t loop the story back in. They moved the setting a thousand miles away and I think the only link…

The three Infinity Engine series represent three D&D approaches: Icewind Dale was all action, all the time, with dungeon crawls and power gaming. Planescape: Torment was dialogue and role-playing heavy with the ability to avoid combat almost altogether, and Baldur’s Gate fell squarely in the middle, with a nice mix of…

They’ve optioned the series but it is not in active development (it doesn’t have a showrunner, producer etc assigned at present).

It’s quite some time ago now, but CoD’s single-player reputation I think rested more on CoD1, its expansion and CoD2, and the fact that a lot of the same time did the excellent single-player campaign for Medal of Honour: Allied Assault and its expansions a few years earlier.

There’s so much wrong with the scene that it’s pretty ridiculous. Euron’s fleet is hemmed in by Dragonstone. Ignoring the fact the Dany’s forces still hold the island, so they should have seen the fleet, sent up warning flares or just been plain bombarding the fleet with their own shore defence weapons, Dany could…

I get the impression that EA is bizarrely reactive to current trends in gaming and then demands that their next games from their studios chase those trends. Unfortunately, them lucking out with Apex Legends (which chased the Battle Royale dream and seems to have nailed it) means they’re even more likely to keep doing…

Having started playing BioWare games almost 21 years ago with the release of Baldur’s Gate, it’s disappointing and disheartening seeing what they’ve been reduced to. I really don’t understand why EA bought a company known for making excellent, story and character-focused, linear, single-player RPGs and have been…

I think the writing has already gone on the wall, been scrubbed off and the wall has been demolished. When most of the team who worked on HL1 & 2 left Valve I think that was the end of any hope we’ll see HL3 soon, and the writer posting the story outline for HL3 (or at least the original planned Episode 3) on his…

George Lucas interfering too much, apparently. Lucas never “got” that you have to lock down story, narrative, dialogue and basic game concepts and design much, much earlier than you can get away with in film, where you can almost rewrite and half-reshoot the movie after it wraps to deal with any concerns. In games you…

Between all of this tomfoolery, EA’s Lootbox Apocalypse and the fallout of Fallout 76, there’s probably a big reassessment waiting to be made of the monetisation of modern games. Is it just greed on the part of publishers, or an acknowledgement of the fact that they can’t go 4-6 years between releases any more without…

Blood, Sweat and Pixels Remastered for Nintendo Switch.