PWB October 2023

Play

Starfield. I've come to realise that the key to Starfield is suspension of disbelief. You have to work at getting engrossed in its fiction, in the way we used to have to do before games became so slick, so modern. So you need to truly believe that Starfield is presenting you with a limitless galaxy, rather than a bunch of boxy areas separated by loading screens. You need to convince yourself that NPCs have rich inner lives, and are not in fact just standing in one spot waiting for you to come along. You need to believe that a devastating attack on New Atlantis is not in fact one room full of burning crates and half a dozen characters running around in panic. If you can do that: this is a great game.

Quake. I mentioned this word once in another thread and immediately summoned Dok from whatever plane he currently resides, which was actually pretty bloody impressive as well as slightly terrifying. Anyway, while he's almost certainly right and this game will always be designed around mouse and keyboard controls, I maintain it's still surprisingly fun on Xbox and holds up way better than I thought it would. Also, it's a lot more like Doom than I remember, which seems obvious when you think about it but still came as a bit of a surprise.

Cocoon. Weird, wordless little puzzle game that's got some clever design and keeps prodding you forward. I like it a lot.

Want

Upcoming Game Pass delights include Cities Skylines 2, Persona 5 Tactica and Like a Dragon: Gaiden. I'm up for all three of those.

Starfield is giving me the urge to play Cyberpunk at last, I've avoided it for years due to the state it launched in but it does genuinely sound like they've turned it around now.

I feel like I should be looking forward to Assassin's Creed: Mirage more than I am, everything I've seen about it just screams "AC1 remake". I'll wait for reviews this week I guess.

Bin

Nothing really that I can think of at the moment.

Play
I finally got around to trying Horizon Zero Dawn. I've just barely started it. Looks good.

Want
I would quite like to lose myself in something long and involved. Neither Zelda nor Horizon are quite it though. Not quite sure what I do want though. Mass Effect would be it if I hadn't already played it. Maybe I'll give Star Wars Fallen Order another go. Or while I've got my PS4 set up I could actually play The Last of Us.

Play
Baldur's Gate 3, mostly, though we've found time to do (most of?) the last Monkey Island adventure in Sea of Thieves. I'm also occasionally hopping into Titanfall 2 for a round or two.

Want
Spider-Man 2 is just round the corner. Can't wait, even though I have BG3 and Horizon Forbidden West still looming, unfinished, behind me. Also very much want to get my hands on FFVII Rebirth, but that's a ways off just yet. Maybe I'll actually finish something by February?

Bin
I've had a cough and stuffy nose for a fortnight. I thought it was just a bad cold, maybe a flu, but now I'm wondering if it was Covid all along.

now I'm wondering if it was Covid all along.

this game will always be designed around mouse and keyboard controls, I maintain it's still surprisingly fun on Xbox and holds up way better than I thought it would

I mean, you're right, Quake will still be awesome no matter what even if the controls will lean toward mouse+keyboard being vastly superior. I remember playing the Saturn version back in its day and still being impressed that even that controller allowed for a lot of fun.

But damn, quick rocket jumping and all the little things mouse and keyboard can do for you in Quake games is so intensely satisfying.

Yes, mentioning original Doom or Quake will always summon me. Magic. waves arms around

wondering if it was covid

There are no other diseases or maladies any more. It's all covid.

I think it's obvious what I've been Playing, but I definitely Binned XBox (On PC) Live this month (I only dip into it every once in a while for one or two months, I don't keep a subscription active) with a bunch of games that is not my style and/or way beyond the capacity of this machine. Not that I didn't try a couple of games like Pikuniku – it seemed nice but at a point everything was just too "hey, we're going to be incredibly, laughably obtuse about what you should do next, good luck", so I abandoned it. Maybe I'll come back to it and try again. As for the other thing – Starfield, for example – my machine trembles at the prospect of having to run something like that. Slight advantage console, I suppose, but meh. Still rather have my PC.

Slow to get to this thread.

Play

Still got my Switch stack of unopened games, need to finish Republic Commandos and then start Advance Wars, Atari Collection, and now Pikimin 1&2.

Have just started playing Total War Medieval 2 too, played tons of this years ago and already totally addicted to it. About 40 turns in and already in the mire as the Holy Roman Empire.

Want

My dedicated games room back. Had an issue with mould in the converted cellar, so had to start totally gutting it and crating everything up to get a proper opinon and look, apparently the converted cellar is not as converted as I had hoped.

Bin

Games console boxes. Kept all mine for years but now they are just in the way, so weighing up why I have collected and kept them.

Play

Gotham knights

I'm not quite sure what to think. I'm enjoying it so far, but I can't help but think the Batman arkham games dose everything better? It's not really fair to compare them but they have so many similarities. What I really like about this game though is how different the 4 character feels, It's such a nice welcome to have a more old school battle system rather than the chain combo combat in the Arkham and Spiderman games.

Play
Death Stranding - I'm still playing this, and I'm still impressed with it. I am in the process of building a road right from one end of the second map to the other. I have other methods of transport I can use that don't involve roads, but I'm stubbornly sticking to the plan of building the big road. The game continues to be surprising, and sets some things up over the course of 20 hours before casually making a swerve that blows that theory out of the water. There was suddenly a section in a completely different and very weird setting.

Opus: Echo of Starsong - This is a slow, meditative visual novel about the small crew of a mining ship and their low-key adventures trying to find asteroids to mine. It's very beautiful, and has a sad, contemplative atmosphere. I like it.

Want
For the first time in a while there are games that I want. Baldur's Gate 3 primarily, but it's still £50 and that's too much for me, especially when I have about a million games I haven't played yet. Also, the new MGS collection that's coming out, and Jedi Survivor.

Bin
Same as usual. Is it general election time soon? So that we can experience brief hope, before it is once again crushed by the fact that there are more than enough people in this country who are either selfish or stupid enough to ensure that things can never get any better.

Is it ever going to get better, even if things change? Even if Labour do genuinely have the intention of changing things for the better - spoiler: no politician has that, they're all awful selfish arseholes - they'd need to unpick 13 years of Tory terror. During that time, the Tories will blame everything bad on them, and then four years later get another go at fucking it up more. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Go figure.

For reference, my state of Germany just took a big swerve to the right and the AfD (basically Nazis in nice suits) are now set to be the second biggest party in Hessen. Fuck.

(Sorry, this should be in Everything's fucked, yo - but hey, never mind)

You're probably right. Things aren't going to get any better. The hope is that perhaps if Labour get in things will get worse more slowly.

Play
Star Wars: The Old Republic. Slightly odd combination of WoW clone and KOTOR sequel, doesn't really know what it wants to be. I never gave it a second glance back when it was released, but now that it's F2P I've given it a go. It's definitely more KOTOR than WoW. There's tab targeting, sure, and other players are running around in the world, but this is very much a single-player RPG. There's full (and very impressive) voice acting; cutscenes; Mass Effect-style conversations; and 8 entirely different stories depending on whether you're a goodie Jedi, a naughty Sith, a somewhere-in-between bounty hunter, etc.

I'd say it's worth a download (completely free) if you're hankering for more Star Wars RPG. It's also a nice little time capsule of BioWare before they went shit. This originally launched between Mass Effect 1 and 2.

Forza. As much as I hate Horizon's 'attitude', the new grown-up Forza does make me wish for some sort of middle ground. I want Motorsport's menus, restraint and lack of open world combined with Forza's handling and cross-country stuff.

I really liked The Old Republic back in the day, but I've managed to get locked out of my account because I changed my phone and now the authenticator app doesn't work.

I'm sure they would sort that if you emailed them? The same happened to me with WoW years ago, they fixed it with a phonecall IIRC.

Yeah, there's no email support for filthy non-subscribers, so I'll have to ring them and hope they answer in the three hours or so that the lines are open.

I'm sure I know someone - maybe multiple someones? - who left Blizzard to work for TOR customer support when they span up in Galway… though that was before it went F2P. Wonder what happened to them?

Just realised I didn't do this month and we're already halfway done with it. Booooo.

PLAY
Blasphemous - Definitely easier than I remember, but no less wonderful. The new content they added in the free post-launch updates (Strife and Ruin, and Wounds of Eventide) is good, engaging and challenging. Running around trying to find everything again is fun. Will I dive straight into the sequel when I'm done? Probably not, I'll need a palette cleanser, though the awful religious nature of the game sings to me in the same way Isaac always has. Pain, suffering and blessed be the Miracle.
Subpar Golf - Picked it up on Switch on the back of Donlan's Eurogamer review, because the man is rarely wrong. Looking forward to playing.
Something something Wonder - A week out from release, I still haven't finished the final final FINAL level which is very difficult. I can get to the end but not actually reach the flag. Going to give it a couple of weeks after release so that this level gets populated with the standees to save me from death, then I'll give it another go. I can't not 100% it.

WANT
Dave the Diver - October 25th, can't wait.
Red Dead Redemption - Waiting for a discount on Switch before I grab it.
Armello - Someone's finally making a real life board game version! I can't wait, I adore Armello and will back the Kickstarter for this immediately when it launches in February 2024.
More room for board games - I have run out of shelf space. And yet I still have (deep breath) Dead Cells, Metal Gear Solid, Lying Pirates, We're Sinking, all four expansions for Darkest Dungeon, two more expansions for HeroQuest (plus a mini one) and the two expansions for Unfair to come in the future. Probably something else I forgot too. God knows where I'd put more shelves though. Hmm.

BIN
People being bad to people - Too much to ask for people just to be nice to each other. Bring on the global apocalypse please.

Additional Play: The Lamplighters League which has been the subject of some controversy after the publishers declared it an abject failure only a week after release. How many copies they expected to sell in one week exactly given that (a) they'd given it zero publicity (b) it released right in the middle of most of the year's big hitters and (c) it was on Game Pass anyway, isn't entirely clear, but it won't come as any consolation to the team who made it, 80% of whom have already been laid off.

So it's depressing to report that actually, this is a pretty neat game. Part top-down stealth title, part turn-based XCOM-alike, it's got bags of character, a fun 1930s setting and a great soundtrack. It's very much my sort of thing and fills the same sort of niche as Midnight Suns did at the start of the year. The game industry is completely ridiculous, isn't it?

I started it and thought it looked promising, then I checked a reviews, saw it had bad stealth sections and deleted it at a speed so rapid I'm expecting a Marvel movie about my origin story in Phase 6.

Echo'ing MPH taking a wander down gaming memory lane to the early 2010s, I was looking for something breezy to play on the Steam Deck as I'm spending almost this entire month on trains or planes (it's likely my stroke was caused by a clot in my leg, so my impending flights to San Francisco and Chicago should finally give us the result everyone on the Soc has yearned for, for years).

I picked up Kingdom of Amaleur: ReReckoning as it seemed like the sort of thing that might do the trick. And you know what, it's really good. A lot of reviews were quite sniffy back in 2020 about how it wasn't "modern" enough, with nested multi-level inventory systems and interlocking complex mechanics. It reminds me a lot of World of Warcraft in the early years. Wander around bashing red dots highlighted on the map in the top right to make an XP bar go up - the comfort food of gaming.

The combat is fun, and flows between stabby, shooty and blasty. Everyone seems to be voiced by the twat off Critical Role (but he does a decent job). Environments are garish, but interesting. Characters look like they come from a PSone game. But it's all so…. simple. Yes, things sometimes take a few button clicks to get to, but the lack of interlaced mayhem menus means it's very relaxing to tootle about in.

I'd be up for a trend of gaming demakes, where you get a remaster but they've pulled all the bloat out of your typical 2023 game and replaced it with a skill tree with 2 choices on it. Bliss.

oh no, I agree with cav about the KoA remaster being good (as was the original game), what is this madness

I think I'm going to bin Starfield. I'm fed up with dealing with its incessant jank. I'm fed up of never having any ammo for any of my weapons, of constantly being told that RUNNING WHILE ENCUMBRED WILL QUICKLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH, and of having to make repeated journeys back to Space Milton Keynes to offload junk and buy med kits. I'm fed up of Constellation's needy band of randy bisexuals, each with their single manufactured backstory. I'm fed up of weapons that constantly need to be reloaded. I'm fed up of 'abandoned' mining facilities that always, always have hundreds of space pirates in them. I've got no interest in building a ship, or building a base. If I see another inventory screen I am going to scream.

I spent an hour tonight playing a mission where I had to inflitrate a research base by using anomalies to phase backwards and forwards between two different universes. Which sounds great, but in Starfield it was a disorientating, confusing mess where I kept getting attacked in the dark by scorpions and couldn't work out how to get to the blue dot on my minimap. If a game can't make a premise like that work, it's heading for the bin.

The only question is - do I at least try and finish the main quest first? I think I'm right near the end. Or can I simply not be bothered. Hmmmm.

Why not wait till it's patched and come back to it in a couple of years when it's good.

And then replay some Titanfall 2 campaign to experience what high concept level design can actually be when done right.

Watch it on YouTube. This is a serious suggestion, not a jokey one.

The only question is - do I at least try and finish the main quest first?

Yes. It's what I did. It seems like you already put quite a few hours into it. Might as well finish it for good. I agree with everything you said about the game too. Big disappointment and it makes me worried about Bethesda RPGs going forward.

Want

Like a Dragon Ishin

This comes to game pass today. I never got to play it. Anyone got any heads up I should be aware of? I know nothing about it. Apart from it's likely going to play like the other yakuza games (which is a good thing). I know it's old and there'll be a few things that might seem dated compared to the other games so I'll try and take Ishin with a pinch of salt.

Halo season 5

Not played for a while. Liked it when it released but like everyone else the lack of content as a GAAS killed any incentive to keep playing. So I'm happy to see the amount being added to season 5 plus the stuff I've missed since the launch. Can Halo really make a come back? New season is later today.

Sonic Superstars

Really looking forward to this. It's always pretty hype for me when a new Sonic game is released. I'll have to wait though. It's way too expensive for what it is. I'm sure it'll have a discount by Christmas. 🤞

Like a Dragon Ishin is a remake of an old game, but as a remake it’s actually pretty new in itself (this year I think). It’s smaller scale than the other Yakuza games and has a historical setting, I haven’t played it myself yet but it looks really fun.

Big disappointment and it makes me worried about Bethesda RPGs going forward.

Wait… THIS is the one that makes you worried? Not all the shit ones that came before which were basically all the same thing again, just in a different wrapper (fantasy, apocalyptic, space)? Hoooo boy.

Their last good game (Fallout 4) was eight years ago. Their last great game (Skyrim) was 12 years ago. Since then it's just been remasters and duds.

I don't know what the turnover is like at Bethesda Game Studio, but there's every chance the magic has left the building. I suppose we'll find out in five or six years when ES6 launches.

Big disappointment and it makes me> Wait… THIS is the one that makes you worried? Not all the shit ones that came before which were basically all the same thing again, just in a different wrapper (fantasy, apocalyptic, space)? Hoooo boy.

Yeah, that's fair enough but I mean outside of Fallout 76 which was a bit of a black sheep with it focusing on online multiplayer. I think they been great or at least I feel like they been high praised over the years. I think at a stretch you could say Fallout 4 was disappointing but even then I still think it's good. The reason I'm worried after starfield is that there's no excuses. This is a big single player RPG with a big budget and a lot of time to make. They had enough to knock it out the park, but failed to do so. I feel like they made the game they wanted but it's underwhelming and dated. Games are just taking so long to make now. Which is crazy because I've just seen Insomniac release 4 amazing games in the last 5 years. 😆 Sony pulled the greatest heist in history with that $250 million acquisition.

Like a Dragon Ishin is a remake of an old game, but as a remake it’s actually pretty new in itself (this year I think). It’s smaller scale than the other Yakuza games and has a historical setting, I haven’t played it myself yet but it looks really fun.

Was about to start it, but I just remembered I never completed the turn base one. Yakuza like a dragon. I remember loving it but for whatever reason I stopped for too long and kinda felt like I forgot what was going on. So I never went back. It says I've only got 25 hours on my last save so I don't feel too bad starting from the start again. Hopefully I'll be ready before Gaiden and Infinite Wealth.

I've only got 25 hours on my last save so I don't feel too bad starting from the start again.

"Only" 25 hours..? cries in parent

The reason I'm worried after starfield is that there's no excuses. This is a big single player RPG with a big budget and a lot of time to make. They had enough to knock it out the park, but failed to do so. I feel like they made the game they wanted but it's underwhelming and dated.

That's the thing - I don't think they made the game they wanted at all. I'm certain they originally wanted to do some sort of "No Man's Skyrim", with a much heavier emphasis on the survival and exploration aspects of the game, and there are redudant systems all over Starfield that point to that - the crafting system, that you never need to use because enemies now just drop great loot, that relies on resource gathering on procedurally-generated planets that's now essentially pointless; the outpost building, that's designed to get you resources, that you now don't really need; the ship building, that you don't need to engage with, because your starting ship gets you through the whole game with ease and it's simple enough to steal a new one anyway; the various afflictions you can get that you supposedly need to cure but which don't really do much; the fact your ship doesn't actually need any fuel to make its grav jumps, and He-3 is essentially pointless in the game now; the thousands of types of food that clutter up your inventory to no avail.

I'd put money on the fact that halfway through development they were forced to switch focus, maybe for technical reasons, maybe because the money men intervened. At any event, I don't think "Fallout in space with a dozen redundant gameplay systems" is quite what they had in mind initially.

Can you imagine if they released the game with the first trailer reveal date. I wonder why they thought that was possible?

Also, eating all that food to lose weight makes me jealous in real life. 😆

I wish I could get out of Bethesda RPGs even a fraction of what everyone else seems to. I've played (at least the opening few hours of) Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3, and I just… don't get it.

I guess I can see how they were exciting back in the Morrowind/Oblivion days, when open-world RPGs on this scale weren't really a thing, but there's almost zero depth to them. I can be wearing robes that signfify I'm head of the mages' guild, openly wielding fire in one hand and lightning in the other, and a random guard will ask conversationally, "Hey, have you heard about this mages' guild?"

The point at which it really broke for me was the start of Skyrim; after you've done the escape through the cave system, you emerge in the forest near a town I can't remember the name of. There's a shop there, and the shopkeeper tells you that he's heard of this fabulous golden claw and asks you to go retrieve it for him. Okay, so far, so level 2 fetch quest.

You go get the claw, opening a dragon shrine thing and getting a shout power in the process, and bring it back. He says, "Hey, thanks!" and puts it on a shelf. IT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. He doesn't sell it and become rich, moving to a bigger shop in another town, where you could happen upon him later and he'll be thankful and give you a discount; he doesn't retire and close the shop; he doesn't suddenly have the money to marry the woman he loves.

No, he puts it on a shelf, because the purpose of the claw is to get you, the player, to unlock a dragon shout power. It's served that purpose, so the game is no longer interested in it.

Which I think sums up Bethesda RPGs. They only care about anything as it mechanically relates to the player. The world does not exist except as a sandbox for your amusement; none of the characters has any memory, or ambition, or (in most cases) personality. The map may be wide, but it is utterly, utterly shallow.

I played a lot of Morrowind, slightly less, but a lot of Oblivion and found Skyrim almost unplayable, despite trying again and again over the years. I think Ninchilla nails a lot of what's wrong with their output, and while in the early 00s they had little competition, everyone else has caught up and overtaken them.

Shoving lots of stuff into a game and pretending it's depth is a trick a lot of studios tried from 2008 onwards (remember the period when comparing your in game map's size to a real world location became fashionable, until it became ludicrous?). Starfield is absolutely the end game of a studio that has failed to iterate, been overtaken and is just playing the hits on tour like a band where the lead singer left years ago, and the last top 10 record was in 1991.

What's more worrying is that they've managed to bleach the fun even out of quite a standard game set up. Kingdoms of Amalur pretty much delivers a 2008 videogame with a sprawling map and predictable World of Warcrafty mechanics, but it also manages to be fun. Harvesting herbs, killing bears and unlocking a new forest village is something I've done a billion times (also in real life) but it's comfortable and enjoyable. Starfield seems to have lost even that - I played a small section the other night just to give it a last chance and it was an absolutely terrible gunfight with a series of bullet sponge, stupid enemies, interspersed with loading screens and a perpetual lack of ammunition. Everything was grey.

This may be a bit of sharp realisation for them that Elder Scrolls 6 may need to do more than just be big.

I quite enjoy pottering about on planets in Starfield, but it's definitely about as deep as a puddle. Which wouldn't be so bad if it was only a little better at disguising it – but it's so transparently obvious that the entire universe is on pause until the player shows up to interact with it.

I can be wearing robes that signfify I'm head of the mages' guild, openly wielding fire in one hand and lightning in the other, and a random guard will ask conversationally, "Hey, have you heard about this mages' guild?"

Playing Starfield, I made an effort to steal and equip a particular faction's spacesuits in an attempt to get into one of their bases without a gunfight, but they somehow realised, immediately upon seeing me, that I was an imposter and riddled me and my companion with high-velocity laser rounds. What's the point of having faction armour if it doesn't work as a disguise? (Except, presumably, in one or two sidequests that have been specifically coded for it.)

I'm increasingly of the opinion that they're not really RPGs; they're Westworld - a genre sandbox theme park where you can act out some version of an inconsequential heroic or villainous fantasy.

I've never seen the allure of Bethesda. I liked Oblivion for about 30 hours (despite never meeting Sean Bean and therefore not activating the main storyline or seeing a single Oblivion gate), right up until a vampire lord chased me out of a dungeon, all the way to a nearby town and got the shit beaten out of him by the guards at the gate. Realised it couldn't get any better than that, so I binned it off.

Skyrim was the same game, just shinier. Never got into Fallout, despite trying repeatedly. Now this, even though it's free, I don't have the compulsion to do it. I have No Man's Sky. Why bother?

To me, Bethesda is as overhyped as id Software is. Early Doom, fine. Very recent Doom, fine (but not Eternal). Doom 3 and then Rage beyond that… eh. A huge world with tonnes of detail and yet absolutely nothing to engage with a big gun… not exactly revolutionary, is it?

If only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances… Now that would be interesting.

On a slightly more on-topic note, I played a bit more Horizon Forbidden West last night - nothing major, just finished a Cauldron I was halfway through, then ran through a side quest.

Maybe it's just that Baldur's Gate III is slower-paced.generally, but everything in this felt bordering on the hyperactive; even the camera is much twitchier than I remember, but the thing that really stood out was the cutscene animations - nobody ever stands still, instead performatively over-expressing while pacing about, flailing their arms everywhere, and generally moving like they've been sped up by about 10%. It's not something I noticed before, and but it's weirdly jarring to return to.

Anyone got any advice for how to get started with Horizon Zero Dawn? I'm just getting killed constantly and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Beyond the obvious stuff, that every robodino has a weak spot (normally highlighted), rolling like a woman possessed, and making sure you've not wandered into an area you shouldn't be yet…

I'd say it's not a combat game so much as an attack and fade pretend-to-be-an-elf simulator. You don't want to be fighting 14 robo dinos at once, try to pick one off at an edge then fade away if you're getting into a protracted close quarters fight or being swarmed. It's one of those games where you start weak with limited engagement options, but as you unlock skills things will get easier (even though there is also area/enemy scaling) and also you can tailor your playstyle to how you prefer to take stuff out.

I'd also say there's no shame in shoving it on a lower difficulty. The game is still fun in fights without much of a challenge as you have a fair few tools to mix things up and fight in different ways.

I have a slight suspicion you've maybe missed a key control or are doing something the game doesn't expect you too though, as I didn't think it was that difficult and I'm a cak handed buffoon.

Struggling with the desire to uninstall Starfield or not, what a clunker. Even the people who like it sound like they're not actully having a good time when they talk about it.

@cavalcade I suspect I have forgotten something. It happens when you do the tutorial over two days and then don't pick up the controller again for four weeks.

I tried guerilla tactics but I find that I can take out one or two robots and then I'm swarmed by all their friends and I can't shake them to return to stealth.

Easy mode probably is the way to go.

You know you can batter things with a stick, you're not just trying to bow and arrow everything or something like that? Most of the enemies lose interest if you hoof it too, so, batter one or two of them, then leg it.

I have been using the stick. Ineptly. Usually while I’m beating up one robot another will leap in and gut me.

Is that your Tinder bio

If I'm close enough to use the spear in Horizon, either it's a scripted fight, or something has gone wrong.

Use the environment, keep as far away as you can, scan everything, and use elemental damage where possible. If things really take a turn, just run away and break line of sight; the awareness indicator will turn yellow if they can't see you, so just keep running or hide until they leash and reset.

A bit like the Witcher, it's a game that really rewards a bit of preparation for a fight.

Play
Spider-Man 2, at long last! I'm not very far in - only about an hour, I think, and it's still throwing tutorials at me. It looks stunning in gameplay, but massively variable in cutscenes; occasionally there's this weird pixel/checkerboard weirdness on some of the atmospheric effects. I'm having fun, though. Just getting around is great, and the web wings are a really neat addition that doesn't overwhelm the not of swinging around.

Apparently the main plot is only about 15 hours, which, after struggling to find enough time for Horizon Forbidden West and Baldur's Gate III, sounds frankly perfect. Really looking forward to spending more time with this.

Bin: The Lamplighters League. I really thought I'd enjoy this, and what I was able to play was really good, but it's buggy as hell. I can't even complete the second mission without it randomly freezing or crashing, and it seems I'm not alone. Under normal circumstances this would be a "wait until they patch it" scenario, but given the way the publishers have seemingly sent the game out to die, I'm not even sure that's going to happen.

It's weird because the game's got really high production values and is really slick… when it works. There's a story behind this one, for sure.

Additional Bin - Persona 5 Royal leaving game pass. I'm about 20% of the way through it and it's really good! What am I supposed to do now? There physically aren't enough hours available between now and when it leaves on the 1st Nov to finish it. I can't buy it because it's £40 even with the game pass discount and Christmas is coming. Aaargh!

Are you on Series X? The disc version is £24.99 right now on Amazon and might be cheaper second-hand elsewhere. Disc and digital versions are interchangeable on Xbox, ie you can just put the disc in and carry on.

If you’re on Series S then you’re limited to digital, but it has dropped to £30 in the past and surely will again.

Additional PLAY
Suika Game - aka Watermelon Game, aka that stupid viral hit that appeared out of nowhere. I got it from JP eShop, but it's now on the EU one and an English patch is coming next week. It's fun for the price (less than £3?) so that's nice.

Additional WANT
Salt & Sacrifice - I loved Salt & Sanctuary (though I never finished it… I should try again now I'm better at Dark Souls-style combat) and the sequel hits Switch next week. Colour me interested.

Additional BIN
The Knight Witch - Thought this would be good, it isn't. A bullet hell metroidvania that was clearly made for PC because on the Switch Lite screen, everything is so fucking small and you can't see what's going on. Wish I hadn't bothered now.

I FINISHED THE LAST LEVEL OF WONDER.

Fuck me, that was a challenge. The last bit in particular. My partner wants to play this and I'll play it with her, but I'll consider this in the BIN now since I'm totally done with it personally.

Are you on Series X? The disc version is £24.99 right now on Amazon and might be cheaper second-hand elsewhere. Disc and digital versions are interchangeable on Xbox, ie you can just put the disc in and carry on.

If you’re on Series S then you’re limited to digital, but it has dropped to £30 in the past and surely will again.

Thanks. Unfortunately I'm on PC and it's £50 everywhere, even CD Keys. I might try to buy it with Microsoft Rewards points, but I spent most of the ones I had on a new ssd a couple of weeks ago.