Do they know it's PWB at aaaaall?

Play
Overcooked - My daughter had previously played this at a friend's house and when we saw it in the sale we had to have it. OMG it's so annoying, and yet fun too? I don't really understand. Looking forward to trying it with for players.

Mario Vs Rabbids DLC - Good, not as much of a challenge as the main game and a little limited since there is always one clear best tactic (Donkey Kong throws Cranky Rabbid at bad guys).

D&D - I GMed my first ever total party kill last week. It was good! The players had fun making up a new party of adventurers and I have enjoyed remixing the adventure (Phandelver from the starter box) to fit the events so far and the arrival of some new heroes on the scene.

Want
Tempted by Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment on the Switch.

I really want to watch The Mandalorian, so far I've mostly avoided spoilers, I can't see than lasting for long though.

Bin
The BBC.

My degree. I'm supposed to be sitting exams next at the end of 3rd year semester 1. I think I have managed to attend about three of twelve weeks. Kinda feel like I might have just wasted a large proportion of the last two years.

I haven't done one of these in ages. I don't usually seem to have anything I'm playing, wanting, or binning.

Play
Prey - This is actually pretty good. It's a homage to the Shock games. The first door code you encounter is even 0451. The space station setting is quite reminiscent of System Shock 2, it has hackable turrets, biomods, audiologs, all that stuff. The atmosphere is tense, but the right side of terrifying to still be fun.

Various Mario Games - Yoshi's Island and Super Mario Bros U Deluxe on the Switch, primarily. My son is a huge Mario fan and would play these all day every day if we let him.

The Witcher 3 - I'm dabbling in this, which is absolutely the wrong way to play it. It's really good, obviously. I find the setting relentlessly depressing.

Want
Shenmue 3 - Gar's posts have sealed it for me. I would have got it anyway, but now I feel all all-consuming need for it. The only question is whether to get the remasters of I and II and play through them first. I am quite a time-poor man, so this would be quite the commitment. I'm not sure.

Bin
Problems with my tooth. One of my front teeth is a bridge, and in the last few months it's turned into a real problem. It falls out every so often and I have to get it re-cemented, which is always stressful. However, it's fallen out three times in the last couple of months. It's going to keep falling out. The only real solution is to get a tooth implant, but that will cost at least £2000.

Play

Tales of Hearts R - So far everything I wanted and more, which is Tales on handheld, but I didn't expect it to be this smooth, basically yet another Tales game where I don't mind fighting a lot. The weapon system is interesting too, because all characters weapons come from their heart and emotions which translates in game to you upgrading seperate aspects of them like 'Belief' and 'Endurance' that can increase their magic damage but will eventually let them manifest a new weapon that may have more magic stats over physical.

And the story so far is all about this too. Two people on the run eventually cross paths with the main character who is a 'Somatic' who can go inside people's hearts and dispel certain afflictions like 'Despir'. Except when you do this to one character he finds someone already there and he accidentally shatters her core and turns her into a vegetable. So so far I'm going on a world tour to get everything back.

Tales of Xillia - not much new to say but I'm still enjoying this.

Pokemon Shield - I finished this, and enjoyed it to the end. I won't say the people disappointed about the Pokedex are wrong but hoo boy, most of the other stuff out there has been pretty sad but thankfully futile attempts to hurt the game (It sold a lot, too bad). There are some gripes though, besides the Pokedex. It's far too easy, sometimes you feel like you're being shot from Gym Battle to Gym Battle. Speaking of which, the atmosphere for each one is a highlight of the game, the stadium battles in front of a full audience (who start cheering on the last Pokemon) and the Dynamaxing face off makes the previous Gym battles look really cheap spectacle wise.

Again, people might prefer the 'trimmed fat' although I would argue they cut some meat too. There's a glaring omission at the end of the game for me, and the replacement we got was kinda stretched out honestly. Anyway, I'm in post game now and I can either finish this heavily culled Pokedex or train a good Pokemon team up for either the Raids (4 players vs one big Pokemon) or battling my friends.

Clannad - This is perfect on Switch, in this cold, uncaring world a heartwarming Visual Novel about family and friends is perfect to play in bed imo.

Want

More Tales games, I already own 8 and have beaten just one and I don't care I want them all! And that includes Tales of Arise next year bring it on!

Bin

Shenmue 3 - Already posted my thoughts.

Play

Pokemon Shield. I have a big fiery dog and a small sparky dog and a purple psychic dog. My team is largely dog-based. Glimwood Tangle and Ballonlea are easily my favourite areas in any Pokemon game. It's just a shame they were SO short. Unless I've missed something Ballonlea town is two houses and one gym? I seemed to be able to run from one end to to the other in about six seconds.

The Outer Worlds. Crikey this is good. GOTY contender for sure. One of those rare (shooty) RPGs which, when you think "I want to solve this a different way", the devs are ahead of you and your idea works. And the gunplay, complete with fake VATS system, is superb. If the next Fallout doesn't at least match this game's combat, it'll be a big disappointment.

Cadence of Hyrule. Hmmm. I'm not sure I get this yet.

Play

Shenmue III - probably said enough about this in the dedicated thread but it's so, so good.

Shenmue 3 - Gar's posts have sealed it for me. I would have got it anyway, but now I feel all all-consuming need for it. The only question is whether to get the remasters of I and II and play through them first. I am quite a time-poor man, so this would be quite the commitment. I'm not sure.

I'd really recommend doing this, for a few reasons - firstly, they absolutely hold up (barring the first half hour or so as you adjust to the controls) and are still well worth playing, especially if you haven't done so before. The first game in particular has a very unique atmosphere that really hasn't ever been bettered. Secondly there are more call-backs to the earlier games in Shenmue III than you'd probably expect, and the impact of those moments will be greater if you can actually remember who the various characters are. And finally, you'll appreciate that incredible moment when you go straight from 2 to 3 and it just nonchalantly picks up like 18 years and multiple console generations never even happened.

The Lord of the Rings: The Adventure Card Game - yes, I like deck-builders. Even slightly clunky ones like this. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the actual tabletop version compares on Christmas Day (apparently it's better), and hoping I'll have given myself a head start on the rules by playing this version.

Dragon Quest XI - still plodding through this. It's fun, and seemingly endless, though it's the kind of thing I tend to play for a few hours between other stuff then come back to later.

Want

Oddly, nothing. It's quite remarkable how much GamePass has changed my game-buying habits - barring a couple of must-have titles each year, pretty much everything I could want is on this. I've got a whole list of stuff I want to play, and I keep finding really great games that I probably would never have bought. I have no idea how sustainable this kind of model is for the industry as a whole (I hope the devs get suitably rewarded for having their games on this service - do they get paid a flat rate or by number of downloads?) but it's an absolute winner from the end user perspective and it's impossible to keep up with the volume of stuff that keeps getting added.

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Tories. Bloody Tories. Who the hell is voting for these clownshoes?

"The Outer Worlds. Crikey this is good. GOTY contender for sure. "

Seriously? It's the most uninspiring, bland, by the numbers videogame I've played in recent memory. It's interactive mediocrity.

"The Outer Worlds. Crikey this is good. GOTY contender for sure. "

Seriously?

Yup. It's wonderful.

(I hope the devs get suitably rewarded for having their games on this service - do they get paid a flat rate or by number of downloads?)

Flat fee for a year of being on the service, with MS reserving the option to then renew when that year is up for more cash (so, unplayed games based on their stats are more likely to be delisted).

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Tories. Bloody Tories. Who the hell is voting for these clownshoes?

I guess we'll find out next week…

interactive mediocrity

Another one for my gravestone.

I want to get Outer Worlds but I have too much to play atm.

And I agree Mr Party Hat, I said as much too. You go through areas way too fast. Also, because you have Shield you can catch the Galar Ponyta in Balloonlea, it's just a 1/10 chance to appear. If you remember Ponyta as the Pony with a fire tail and mane well this variant is a Fairy and when it evolves, Psychic as well. Makes a great alternative to the Hattena Pokemon (the memealicious Pokemon that beats the shit out of you for displaying emotion lmao) and it's a fairy horse whose mane glows when it uses magic! <3

Play

After talking about the franchise's later entries with an IRL friend, I went onto GOG and picked up the original Assassin's Creed, which I'm gradually chipping away at. It was always my favourite in the series, and hasn't actually aged as badly as I feared – a lot of its mobility quirks have persisted throughout the sequels, so it's actually not so outdated.

Some more modern approaches would be appreciated, though; having to actually cross the Kingdom overworld between the three cities is a pain, especially with the over-aggressive guards (still not toned down in this "Director's Cut" edition), and there's no way to resume a chapter in progress or jump back in to pick off missing side quests once the assassination is complete – you have to go from the start of the "memory" every time.

Want

I've been waiting on a delivery of expanded polystyrene insulation foam for terrain building for more than a week, which is making me increasingly ratty. I bought a Proxxon hot wire cutting table the same day, and I've had basically no raw materials to use it on. The company I ordered from has agreed to resend the order, but it's still super frustrating.

Bin

I've had this cold/cough for a week now, and it's high time it moved the fuck out.

Additional Play - looking for something lightweight and diverting so loaded up Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition on the Switch and jumped right back in like I'd never been away. I guess I've played this game so much that I've overcome the usual learning curve where you can't remember how the hell anything works when you spend time away from a game. And the bite-size adventure mode maps are perfect for a quick ten-minute diversion.

Anyway, while I was playing my son accidentally sat on my second controller and it turns out it's got split-screen co-op and I never even realised (!) There's literally nothing in the game that tells you this is even an option unless you have a second controller activated. Amazing.

The Wii U one had co-op too though, albeit one on the Game Pad and one on TV. Why would this version be any different?

Yeah it did, though it never had split screen. I’d kind of forgotten about it to be honest, it ran really poorly the one time I tried it and I guess I just assumed it had been dropped from this version in the way that experimental GamePad features usually are from Switch re-releases.

PLAY
Red Dead Redemption 2 - I finally started it! Playing it with my girlfriend, in that we're miles apart and so playing the same game at the same time while on party chat. Late to the party, I know.

I like it. It's very pretty. I'm enjoying exploring, doing missions that are anything apart from the central thread and generally killing animals indiscriminately (the 'confession' option with Karen where you can basically tell her what bad things you've done made me laugh, because mine was all about the innocent animal slaughter). It's Red Dead again, which is fine by me. I'm also not having too much trouble with the ridiculous context controls, although I did accidentally shoot someone in the head during a stealth section, all because the game thought by putting my throwing knives away, I obviously wanted to swap to my revolver. Obviously.

But those pointless mechanics… man, so many pointless mechanics. It's so cumbersome. I don't give a shit about needing to shave! Weight gain and loss is absolutely unnecessary and yet has negative connotations both ways. Health/stamina cores on top of the actual bars can get to fuck. And Dead Eye! Given you need it to spot animal tracks, herbs, anything of interest, why have it so the bloody thing becomes totally unusable unless you're constantly smoking/chewing tobacco, which then damages your health?! Just have a draining bar that refills over time, goddamnit. The whole experience is bogged down in systems and mechanics that just make me cross, rather than immersing me in the experience. I wish there was a way to turn them all off. I just want to ride around, explore and shoot stuff.

Ultimately, I'm really enjoying it. But boy, it sure doesn't seem like it wants me to enjoy it.

Play: Same shit, different month. When this thread popped up I started a post about how I’d finished the story for God of War but wasn’t sure I was still wired to keep playing games I'd “finished”. Cut to 10 days later and an enforced break from gaming due to niggling winter bugs and I’m right back in it. Aside from some challenges, items and a couple of side quests them main areas I’ve got left to complete are the Muspelheim arenas and Niflheim workshop. I landed back in my game at Niflheim which I've been struggling to understand but am slowly getting a handle on it. One thing that was clear in playing this area was that I'd basically spammed my way through the game without paying a huge amount of attention to gear or combat tactics aside from upgrading as I went – it turned out there were loads of combat nuances I'd just skipped over.

With the poison fog in the workshop and items in my inventory that will combat the effects my dumb brain was suddenly like 'what if we equip these useful items and then… what if we check all the runes in the armour to make them more effective for this situation and then… what if I make sure I'm using appropriate Runic attacks' and then suddenly it started to become less of a chore. It's still slightly infuriating so I headed back to the Arena to try my hand at the last challenge I'd struggled with which was the kill 100 enemies one. Holy shit! I had a lot of fun with this. I'd happily play some variation of this mode for a long time; give me more guys to smash!

It's great because these two areas have forced me to engage with the game in the way players are undoubtedly supposed to but… I mean, I've been sitting far away from the TV and the text is pretty small so I'm going to blame that over laziness. Anyway, there's a NG+ which I'm going to play next once I actually finish this playthrough. Everything I've bought in the last couple of months in anticipation of finishing this game can probably cool their boots until early 2020.

Play: Alien Isolation. Very late to the party on this but it was on GamePass so I thought I'd give it a go. It feels remarkably dated for what is ultimately a current-gen game - albeit a few years old now. It's not just the graphics, which are surprisingly jaggy without the advanced anti-aliasing everything uses these days, or the performance, which is a locked 30fps but without any of the motion blur that modern games use to make things look smoother; but also the game design. Specifically the save system, which relies on save points (which in themselves are quite easy to miss) and has no qualms in throwing you back ages to the last save point when you die, without any form of autosave before major encounters. So you can spend ages sneaking round, picking people off one by one, then the last one gets in a lucky shot and you're back not just to the start of the fight but halfway across the station behind a load of cut-scenes and door animations. It's a bit aggravating to say the least.

Still, the game itself is extremely atmospheric, very clearly influenced by Doom 3 but that's no bad thing. And the sound design is incredible, especially using headphones and 3D sound. I'm enjoying it a lot, but I can see that save system ultimately pissing me off a bit.

(Interestingly, this has just come out on Switch, and apparently both looks and performs better on that system, although I assume the save system has been carried across intact).

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Tales of Xillia - Quite possibly the most fun I've had with a combat system in a JRPG ever. Story was a bit weak, but the antagonist was good, I liked Maxwell. Of all Tales games I've played so far (4) this has a really weak cast, the antagonist and protagonist (Maxwell, not Jude) were really good though and the story wasn't bad, just weak as I said. But that combat system though…wew

Play

Tales of Berseria - They completely changed the combat again and it took a while to actually understand it but now I do…it's a blast, just not as good as Xillia's. Story so far is a personal favourite genre of mine 'R E V E N G E'. Someone she trusted took everything from her and she's also been turned into a 'daemon' so she wants to kill him. I'm sure it'll branch out, Tales style but I'm enjoying the more personal motive. (much like the other Tales game I'm playing on Vita, Tales of Hearts >_>)

Want

More news on Tales of Arise, like hellooooo? (also I just wanted to throw another Tales name into my post :/)

Additional PLAY
Shovel Knight: King of Cards - crazy to think how much content is now in this game… it might use a lot of the same resources, but four whole games is pretty something.

The last update added this new adventure and although it's still Shovel Knight, it's not that simple. King Knight is pretty shit in combat, having only a shoulder barge to his name, but that's the key to getting around too - you barge into enemies or walls, which makes you do a spin, after which you can bounce off certain things. Takes a lot of getting used to and more than a few deaths, because the platforming here relies on you chaining barges and bounces to make progress. Slightly frustrating in places, but still decent enough.

I'm not a huge fan of the card game element, Joustus, because it seems the AI is either really shit or unstoppable. You can cheat, because there are cheat cards you can buy that basically hand you the game if you're terrible, but that's not the point. Thankfully, it's all completely ignorable unless you want the trophies for beating everyone at Joustus.

Pretty good then, a nice freebie since I already own the Treasure Trove version of the game. Worth getting on its own? It's more Shovel Knight so if that's your bag, fill your boots.

Additional Play: After abandoning it several weeks ago at what the game assured me was "the final battle", I decided to go back to Trails of Cold Steel II and finish it off.

That was not the final battle.

The game says the final boss takes place in two phases, but it actually takes three; there is then a "divertissement" chapter where you play as entirely new characters in an entirely new location and fight a boss battle against the game's main character; after that there's another epilogue chapter, which eventually introduces a procedural dungeon that hands out triple XP, implying that I need to be grinding for another major boss fight before the credits roll.

I'm pretty sure I'm never going to finish this fucking thing.

(The story is even more ridiculous too, but I ended up fast forwarding through a lot of the cutscenes because I just cannot find a way to care about the convoluted political spiderweb that underpins the "plot".)

All I'm playing at the minute is Titanfall 2, which has had a massive resurgence in players since it hit PS+, meaning I've been able to pretty reliably get a match any time I've looked for one. Gods, it's so much fun, even if I suck pretty badly (though I did somehow finish top of a round of Bounty Hunt earlier).

I don't know if anything quite reaches the level of want, at the moment, though I'd quite like to give Jedi: Fallen Order a go (continuing an apparent Respawn phase).

What're people's picks at 'game what I enjoyed the most this year' then?

I don't know that I've played enough to say, and the handful of things I've finished are mostly little indie things.

Untitled Goose Game was fun but I've not been back to it since I completed it; A Short Hike was great but I finished it in one sitting and there's not much to revisit it for. I wouldn't quite say that I've enjoyed the Trails of Cold Steel games, even though I'll have finished two by the time the calendar ticks over.

I'd nominate Sea of Thieves, but it's from last year and I've not played it in months – there've been loads of new mechanics added since I was last in for more than a few minutes to collect some time-limited cosmetic.

It's been a scattershot year in gaming for me. I'm not sure I bought any major new releases at all.

I’ve played very little that actually came out this year. But my pick for GOTY is Slay the Spire.

It's between:

FFIV:Shadowbringers (something something one of the darkest and best stories they've done in any of the games fyi).

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - surpasses all my expectations on what I though a console FE would feel like compared to so many handheld ones. The strategy is on point, the level of content is insane (4 very different routes, although it could stand to diverge a little earlier than it does) and story really surprised me. It looks pretty good too.

Resident Evil 2 Remake: nigh on perfect (legit think the sewer part with the mini tyrants is the ONLY part I remotely disliked) , not only my gold standard for what I think a remake should be but in its own right a very good game. I still don't get how they're going to remake Resi 3, a game that is kinda' just…completely and utterly carried by the Nemesis who in the PS1 game had set times of showing and also randomly could appear from one area to the next but Mr X in the Resi 2 remake went even further than that and had you so scared to fire your own fucking gun (thus making the zombies which are already a threat now, more of a threat indirectly now as well) even because he literally will hear it and find you. Nonetheless very excited and I have 100% faith in them, just please be very clever with the Police Department this time, since you have to go back there in 3.

Given that I'm saying XIV is in the running (well assuming an expansion pack even counts) based on just the mainquest alone, the fact is…there's MORE. There's the Nier Automata raid, The Eden raid, the extra dungeons and boss fights (they released the new super hard raid based of Alexander and if you can't kill him in time, he locks you in a time prison) they made a new Crafting/Gathering 'raid' in which you the server works together to rebuild a part of the world. Recently they increased the level cap on Blue Mage so they can go back to higher level content and learn more enemy skills.

It's FFXIV.

What're people's picks at 'game what I enjoyed the most this year' then?

…Hitman 2? It's certainly the one I've spent the most time with. It didn't come out this year, though. I don't even know what I've played that came out this year.

EDIT: I just checked, and it's a real short list: Anthem, and Dauntless.

Yikes.

In no particular order, and probably not released this year – What Remains of Edith Finch, AstroBot VR, Crackdown 3, Outer Worlds, Outer Wilds.

Crackdown 3

Oh man, I forgot that I played C3 this year!

Additional Play: Déraciné

Got a few days off work on my own so a good opportunity to dig out the PSVR which doesn't get anywhere near the playtime it should. This seems to have flown under most people's radar which is surprising seeing as it's by From Software of Dark Souls and Bloodborne fame. Nothing like those games though, it's basically a VR walking simulator with a vaguely unsettling air that has you exploring a Victorian school/orphanage and solving little puzzles for the children that live there. I quite like it so far, it's got a really strong atmosphere (though it's not a horror game) and although as always the Move controllers' bizarre button layout make even simple actions more complex than they need to be, it's got a good tutorial and after a while it becomes reasonably intuitive. Not sure it'll turn out to be very long, but it's definitely intriguing and a nice little way to reacquaint myself with VR.

I picked up the Everything Edition of Shadow of the Tomb Raider in a sale ages ago for about £15, so I've been playing that here and there, too. I think the loading screen reckons I'm something like 8% of the way through, but I've only just reached the first base camp, so that seems like a lot?

As with the previous games, the exploration and puzzle stuff is waaaaaaay better than the combat, which this time is just needlessly brutal from the off, as Lara emerges from the bushes to repeatedly and enthusiastically introduce her climbing axe to some poor fucker's trachea.

The writing is pretty grating, a hodgepodge of very dumbed down mythology chatter and ridiculously on-the-nose "ITS A GOOD JOB WE READ ABOUT THIS IN YOUR DADS JOURNAL LARA" clumsiness. It doesn't help that Camilla Luddington was never a very convincing presence, but the reassuring self-asides she provides as Lara edges through various mud-soaked Mayan deathtraps have all the dramatic resonance of an episode of Knightmare.

I kind of asked the question about your favourite game of the year shortly after another 'x thing is bad' post by cav to see if cav has played anything he actually enjoyed this year or if he's just becoming neo-dok in his old age

also for me it is probably Road Redemption or Destiny 2

I picked up the Everything Edition of Shadow of the Tomb Raider in a sale ages ago for about £15, so I've been playing that here and there, too. I think the loading screen reckons I'm something like 8% of the way through, but I've only just reached the first base camp, so that seems like a lot?

As with the previous games, the exploration and puzzle stuff is waaaaaaay better than the combat, which this time is just needlessly brutal from the off, as Lara emerges from the bushes to repeatedly and enthusiastically introduce her climbing axe to some poor fucker's trachea.

The writing is pretty grating, a hodgepodge of very dumbed down mythology chatter and ridiculously on-the-nose "ITS A GOOD JOB WE READ ABOUT THIS IN YOUR DADS JOURNAL LARA" clumsiness. It doesn't help that Camilla Luddington was never a very convincing presence, but the reassuring self-asides she provides as Lara edges through various mud-soaked Mayan deathtraps have all the dramatic resonance of an episode of Knightmare.

So… 7/10?

Yeah. It has a bit of charm, some things I'm very fond of, and the story isn't great, but it's only "average disaster movie" not great. I'm having fun, even if some of that fun is at the game's expense.

I posted quite a bit about this in one of our threads a couple of months ago, probably one of the PWBs. It's my favourite of the three new Tomb Raider games mostly because the emphasis is firmly on exploration for once rather than combat. (In fact there's very, very little combat in the game, which makes the really detailed skill trees distinctly odd). The plot is rubbish, Lara's a dick but the tombs themselves are generally excellent and if you've got the Everything Edition then you've got all the DLC tombs too which are particularly good. I really enjoyed it.

Personally, my game of the year is

Spoiler - click to show HONK

I posted quite a bit about this in one of our threads a couple of months ago, probably one of the PWBs.

I remembered you talking about it, and I have to say even at this early stage, I think my impressions are largely in line with yours.

Outer Worlds is turgid shite, and anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

I'm currently typing this on a new PC gaming rig, with the widest biggest screen you've ever seen. So, so fucking big. 34inches big.

And I'm here to tell you some games I've enjoyed.

Slay the Spire - excellent.
MTG Arena - at last, an actual digital version of Magic that isn't utter horseshit. Out of beta this year, so I count it as a release
Sea of Thieves - eye achingly beautiful and has delivered some of the most amazing gaming experiences (and I count the Anniversary release as being out this year)
Dragon's Dogma on the Switch - weird as fuck, but increasingly one of my favourite games for ages (was it out this year?)
Kingdom Two Crowns - had a lot of fun with this one co-op
Witcher 3
aaaand, League of Legends, which I have been getting into with my kids. I still suck at it, but slowly I'm beginning to appreciate it more and more.

Apart from that, most other stuff has been fairly underwhelming.

But holy shit my screen is so fucking big.

Also, I bought a camper van. That's fucking ace too (though it is 30 years old).

Also, I bought a camper van. That's fucking ace too (though it is 30 years old).

The best ones are the old ones though. Trufax.

Honestly, the game I've had most fun with this year (and I started it this year, so it counts) is also Sea of Thieves. Never has a game made me laugh so much. And since I hate playing games in multiplayer, this is the only one to turn that opinion. Love it. My pirate mates are the best.

Additional Bin: Alien Isolation. Which is a real shame because it's clearly a superb game, the atmosphere is absolutely on point. But I just can't handle that save system. Spending a full half an hour meticulously sneaking around, hiding in lockers, crawling under beds and checking your motion tracker obsessively, only to get killed in one hit on the final stretch by something you couldn't have seen coming, is incredibly frustrating when you have to go back and start everything again. I found I developed an "oh, fuck it" mentality for subsequent runs, haring down corridors and trusting to blind luck to see me through, and it worked about as often as the sneaking around. Anyway, life's too short to spend entire evenings playing the same stretch of game over and over again, so with regret, into the bin it goes.

And, on a separate note, Sea of Thieves: are you all playing with actual friends? I took a very quick look at it and it seemed to want to immediately put me in a crew with randoms, whereas I just wanted to mess about and get used to how it worked, so I dropped out without having seen anything more than the character creator. Can you jump in solo or is that a bad idea?

I found friends after being snubbed by anikichilla. We tend to play on multiple PCs/Xboxes in the same room (it's a fun LAN party style game and the enhanced comms and ability to glance at the person staring at the map for example, assists a lot).

It's actually OK with randos. The community is pretty good - and there's a brig function if people are being dicks. The entire thing is so ridiculous it sort of fosters community spirit.

My only criticism is the glacial pace of progression, but to be honest the progression doesn't really matter. It's just a weird, unique MMO which brings back memories of the glory early days of WoW where just hanging out in the world was fun.

And, on a separate note, Sea of Thieves: are you all playing with actual friends? I took a very quick look at it and it seemed to want to immediately put me in a crew with randoms, whereas I just wanted to mess about and get used to how it worked, so I dropped out without having seen anything more than the character creator. Can you jump in solo or is that a bad idea?

Always with actual friends, never with randos (though we've formed alliances with random people on occasion and had plenty of run-ins with folk). If you pick a sloop (1-2 player boat) and then the option to pick your own crew when starting, rather than the one that mentions other people, you can totally go it alone. The sloop only has one sail and the ropes for it are by the wheel; you can also look over the balcony behind the wheel and see the map, so you won't get lost either.

Alone, it's a very quiet experience, granted, but it's doable. The game scales too, I believe, so you'll never be overrun by enemies or whatever (unless you're doing Tall Tales or things that are combat heavy).

Always happy to join if you want a game!

I really miss Sea of Thieves, but I just haven't been able to find the time for it since Sprog 2 showed up. Once he starts being a bit more robust and actually going to bed of an evening, though, I hope we'll be able to get back on the seas with some regularity.

Where I'm usually as bad as everyone else here for online meet-ups, I'm genuinely up for Sea of Thieves at any point. If anyone sends up a flare to play, I'll answer the call if I'm home.

Sounds like a date.

Bin

Tales of Berseria - 75 fucking hours! Story was stronger than Xillia, pacing was worse. Characters were 100 times better (Magilous is amazing) and combat was a lot worse, but like Final Fantasy they tried to mix it up from the usual so I'll give them that, it wasn't terrible it just didn't last as long as the rest of the game if that makes sense….

Play

Tales of Symphonia Yes get used these titles. :3

AKA The other big Tales game that isn't Tales of Vesperia. So far, so good and it's definitely a Tales game. The only problem is that wow does this feel like it starts at the last 3rd of the game in terms of jargon and exposition. Desiads, Angels, The chosen and less than an hour in and Collette (who I might add, managed to fall over from standing still) has 'received the Oracle' and summoned a big ass Tower and must now regenrate the World..what?

You know what I'm liking most so far? I feel like I'm playing a Gamecube game (Even though I'm on the PS3 for this) and it looks fairly rough but it certainly has the charm from a game of that console generation and God I miss those days so thank this game for taking me back. :)

Sounds like a date.

I'm back in Germany after new year on Jan 4th. I'm not back to work until the 7th. So if anyone wants to sail on 5th/6th, I'll be totally free apart from the short time I need to spend doing washing. Avast behind!

Additional Play: Human Fall Flat. Very much the modern indie game in that it has one idea and one idea only, and milks it relentlessly to the point of utter tedium. In this case the idea is solving basic physics puzzles with a character that's made entirely out of floppy ragdoll physics, putting it in broadly the same ballpark as Octodad and maybe Goat Simulator. In practice this turns out to be amusing for thirty seconds and aggravating for eight hours, as even simple tasks like climbing up a step or pushing a button lead to you wrestling with the controls. Graphically it's very 'my first Unity tutorial'. Overall it's shit.

Additional Bin: Human Fall Flat.

It's bafflingly shit. I assumed it would be some sort of physics puzzle, like a bridge-builder, but it's just a tedious platformer, with shit controls. I'm amazed it was even made.

I've never understood this game, it's atrocious. And yet, it sold so many copies (especially in China) that it played a huge part in saving Curve Digital from the scrapheap. That and Bomber Crew pulled them back from the brink of closure and made them millions. If it'd landed on my desk, I'd have rejected it. Just goes to show, quality doesn't necessarily equal success and sometimes, it's just luck. Sigh.