PWB January 2025

Play
Paper Mario Origami King - Bright and cheery. Easy but not boring.

Want
Does anyone know if Circuit Superstars lives up to it's trailer? It looks like a lot of fun.

What's Circuit Superstars? Got the trailer?

PLAY
Good Job! - Nintendo published this what seems like ages ago, but it looked like everyone forgot because it never got discounts on the eShop. Until now! It's a two player mistake-em-up along the lines of Overcooked or Moving Out, except you're doing things in a workplace as the janitor. Everything looks like those warning posters you see, because the characters are all just blacked out stickmen. It's fun!
More retro games - Now I've got Saturn emulation on the table, I'm definitely going to play the shit out of Burning Rangers, Decathlete, NiGHTs Into Dreams and some other games I never finished when I had an actual Saturn. Also got a hankering for playing the original Prince of Persia, but on PC Engine for some reason…
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk - Got it cheap in the latest eShop sale and I barely touched it on Xbox, so will finally get around to playing.

WANT
Work to pick up - because I don't have any active projects at the moment and it's really, really quiet. It's almost like my schedule has been deliberately cleared so I have room to take on stuff… not that I know of anything on the imminent horizon. But if I end up working on Metroid Prime 4, I won't complain.

BIN
Not much point complaining given I can't do much about it, but the world's just so depressing right now. What is there to look forward to? I can't think of anything. At least Musk hasn't been meddling in German politics where things are balanced dangerously on a right wing knife edge that could see me deported oh wait a minute.

What's Circuit Superstars? Got the trailer?

Play
I started playing Dragon Age Origins again, of all things. We'll see how far I get through it, but it's been kind of fascinating to revisit after Veilguard and seeing just how much of the big revelation stuff from that game was just there all along, couched in historical misunderstanding or allegorical language.

I've also gone back to Horizon Forbidden West, or rather, the Burning Shores DLC, after picking up the main game in a recent sale (I previously had it through PS+, but it was taken off before I got to the expansion). I remember more of the controls than I feared I might!

Finally, my go-to game when I have half an hour or don't know what to do with myself is Marvel Rivals, which I'm mostly enjoying; I don't think the map design is great, but I like the gameplay, and as long as I don't end up as a Vanguard - I just haven't gotten the hang of any of them, and would much rather play Storm or Mantis from somewhere near the back.

Want
I know Indiana Jones and the Great Circle hasn't met with universal acclaim in these parts, but everything I've seen of it at least looks interesting, and I'm definitely curious. I think it still doesn't have a specific release date on PS5, though, so no idea how long I'll be waiting.

Bin
As funny as Gar's Threads account is, the relentless march of far-right gammons can get in the fucking sea.

I've played a lot of Good Job, it's one of my kid's favourites and it is good fun two player.

Play

Tactics Ogre: Reborn - I had very fond memories of the PSP version of this but bounced off this remake quite hard on release, feeling its pace was glacial and its shop interface in particular hadn't received the attention it badly needed. Both of these things remain true, but going back to it now in a different frame of mind (laid up with a flu-type bug over Christmas, basically) I've completely fallen in love with it all over again. The slow pace is kind of the point, really - it's not the kind of game you rush through in order to play whatever next big release is just around the corner - you're supposed to spend loving hours tweaking your party composition before engaging in methodical, considered combat, and once you approach it on its own terms, the beauty of the game becomes apparent. It's Slow Gaming at its absolute finest, really, and it's quite exceptional.

The Steam Deck - hand in hand with the above, it turns out the Mechanism Gaming Pillow is one of the finest purchases/presents I've ever made/received, and it's completely revitalised my love for the Steam Deck. Such a great piece of kit.

Want

Not sure what's on the way, really. I guess there's a new Ass Creed coming up but I've only just played the last one so I'm in no hurry for that. There's a new Yakuza game (there's always a new Yakuza game) so that'll be getting bought. New Monster Hunter too? Other than that, I'll see what Game Pass throws my way I guess.

Bin

As funny as Gar's Threads account is, the relentless march of far-right gammons can get in the fucking sea.

One of those social media things that's got slightly out of hand, this. Over Christmas I came across a couple of newspaper stories in quick succession that described ridiculous things as "woke" and posted them to my Threads account without comment. They got a surprising amount of attention so I just… carried on. Two weeks later I've posted hundreds of these things, gained thousands of followers and am absolutely drowning in bullshit tabloid headlines. The things I've seen, honestly. But I'm having fun.

Also Bin - the Christmas lurgies - we've all been ill right through Christmas and New Year with some sort of bastard cold/cough/flu bug that simply will not fuck off, it's not Covid but it's wiped us all out completely. Still coughing. Happy new year, everyone.

Also Bin - the Christmas lurgies - we've all been ill right through Christmas and New Year with some sort of bastard cold/cough/flu bug that simply will not fuck off, it's not Covid but it's wiped us all out completely. Still coughing. Happy new year, everyone.

We've been the same - I didn't have the full force of the thing for very long, but I've been coughing for weeks and it just won't stop.

Play

Minecraft - after years of this just being creative mode, we started a world fully on survival and are having a blast. It's on an easier setting still but my daughter is a "flexetarian" (which is a term she got from a book so hopefully Gar doesn't call us woke…but she has always had too much empathy to eat meat) and this extends to our Minecraft sessions. Couldn't find any iron ore for ages and still only found about 4 blocks, and so took us about 5 or 6 in game days to get beds as that presents unique challenges having to find and make sheers. Luckily a random wolf and creeper have killed some things near us that we have put to use too as that was deemed natural.

Crackdown 3 - randomly clicked on this over Xmas by mistake, decided just to play as didn't have much time. And now keep returning to it. Character was just parked in the middle of the map and I didn't seemed to have really done much when I last played it several years ago, but started to level up and power through now. Solid stupid fun.

Championship Manager 3 - fully addicted to this again and as I am playing on 2002 Packard Bell, it makes almost the same hard drive clicking sound our PC did from around that era, it's weird how nostalgic it makes me.

Command and Conquer Remaster - finished Starship Troopers Terran Command and wanted a new RTS to play, bought several in the steam sale and then spotted I had only ever played about 4 hours of this so just went back to it instead. It's very different playing this compared to more modern ones, feels like the worst thing to do is sit back and wait.

Want - Not want as I have it, but I recently got the Cyberpunk Xbox One X console and I love it. Its set up in my cellar so have tried to mainly install games to it I hadn't played or didn't have installed elsewhere.

Bin - Zombi - this was one of the games, I sort of liked the concept but not enough that I will go back to it after my first few hours. And it's the only thing I haven't enjoyed.

Education - I feel bad moaning about a well paid job that I mostly really love. But it's getting harder and harder to be excited to go back after the longer breaks. I can't do this 5 days a week for at least the next 20 years is what I keep thinking. The role itself is fine and I could do the teaching side if it was more like it used to, but it's all the other stuff around it and constantly changing demands and pressure and amount of home life disrupting work that brings. Despite the most recent pay rise being "fully funded" by the government, it's still not come through at ours, and right before Xmas they announced other funding cuts that means we will lose at least 4 support staff.

Next up teacher pay rise for September isn't getting extra funding so means schools would be ever further worse off, so expecting more strikes and disruption.

the relentless march of far-right gammons [on Threads] can get in the fucking sea.

Who could possibly have seen this coming, on a microblogging network from the company behind checks notes Facebook.

Play

Riviera - the Promised Land
Interesting little game, it looks like the typical GBA RPG but you don't get full or even much control of the protagonist, you just move from screen to screen and choose whether to use points to check out parts of each area and fight battles to refill those points. Sometimes you'll find a crack in the ground or a chest and get a QTE to avoid a trap or carefully pull a fragile item out the ground. Combat is also quite interesting, you get a lot of Things but you can only take a grand total of four of them into battle, some items mean different attacks to certain party members so choose wisely!

Only issue so far it has a tendency to yap a bit, the tutorial opening was very heavy handed in that regard, but so far this is kinda neat. I don't really hear much bad about this game whenever it's brought up.

Marvel Rivals - Born to play Groot and Hulk, forced to play Dr Strange or..something like that.

Path of Exile 2 - 'play' is doing a lot of heavy lifting for the moment, but I haven't dropped it, I'm just busy.

Baldur's Gate 3 - I will be super annoying and shilly about this when I beat it I think, sorry.

Wuthering Waves - The PS5 version launched, it's free so I may as well try it out, I can safely say it's as I expected it to be almost entirely. One of the most unapologetic Genshin clones out there (not an insult) but with a drab world (seriously, Genshin on PS5 is one of the best looking games that console has), really fun combat and so so story and characters so far (some truly dreadful voice acting so far, I always rated Mihoyo games VA but after this its kinda..wew lad). Overall if I didn't have Genshin maybe I'd be all over this, it's pretty fun to play and explore and fight. :thinking:

One of the biggest things it has that Genshin doesn't is that all if not most enemies on the field including world bosses are effectively your 'gear', you beat them and you absorb their 'echo' and yes these are subject to the same RNG stats that Genshin/Honkai relics are except these actually act as summons and even make you turn into that Monster for an attack

Want
I missed Metal Slug Tactics on the steam sale, oops. I have it on Xbox but this is 100% a game I'd play way more on the Deck, I also bought Lika Dragon and Persona 3 Reloaded ages ago despite them being on Game Pass too, am I done with the service?

Bin
I could do without having to walk through miles of slush again after I leave work, thank you.

the relentless march of far-right gammons [on Threads] can get in the fucking sea.

Who could possibly have seen this coming, on a microblogging network from the company behind checks notes Facebook.

Gar's posting on threads, but the source headlines he's ridiculing are very much not. I've carefully curated my echo chamber, thank you very much.

Want
Does anyone know if Circuit Superstars lives up to it's trailer? It looks like a lot of fun.

I've got this! (On Playstation, anyway.) There's definitely fun to be had here but BE WARNED! You might go into it thinking that this will be an arcadey thing but the handling model is surprisingly involved and rewards practice. If you're playing with others you might want to make sure that you are putting time into it to keep up with your buddies.

Play
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. This might be the last really good Mario Golf game. It does everything you want it to, including the three-tap system, and nothing more.

Pure Crosswords (Switch). This is great. British-English clues, clever use of screen space, can be played portrait mode. It's everything you'd want a crossword game to be.

Bin
I've got the ol' gaming apathy. It kicks in every so often, and right now there's not much I actually want to play. Despite (or perhaps as a result of) being spoilt for choice. I reckon once the Switch 2 launches, I'll have a focus again. But right now, bleh.

Thanks Prole! Just what I wanted to know.

Want
feltmonkey to buy a PS5

Want
feltmonkey to buy a PS5

This is weird. I bought a second hand one off a guy on rllmuk literally three days ago. It doesn't even have a permanent home next to the TV yet.

You sure it isn't just a PS2 and a PS3 taped together, felt?

It's certainly big enough.

Want
feltmonkey to buy a PS5

This is weird. I bought a second hand one off a guy on rllmuk literally three days ago. It doesn't even have a permanent home next to the TV yet.

HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN

I just Now You See Me'd the fuck out of this thread.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3lfsanguw722d

I know we have some fans of Obra Dinn here, so this post from Jason Schreier seemed worth sharing.

Want
feltmonkey to buy a PS5

This is weird. I bought a second hand one off a guy on rllmuk literally three days ago. It doesn't even have a permanent home next to the TV yet.

HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN

I just Now You See Me'd the fuck out of this thread.

IT'S A BAFFLING MYSTERY

MIND BLOWN

What did you see me playing? :)

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3lfsanguw722d

I know we have some fans of Obra Dinn here, so this post from Jason Schreier seemed worth sharing.

I hadn't heard of this, but if it's an Obra Dinn adjacent game, I'll definitely give it a look. Thanks!

That sounds ace. The references to searching the internet (in-game) brought back memories of one of my favourite games when I was younger, In Memoriam.

That one, you had to search the actual internet as it existed then, finding clues with Google and other stuff on fake websites set up for the game. You'd get emails from the serial killer and everything. It was great. Try to play it now, and all you get through Google are fucking walkthroughs for the damn thing.

Want
feltmonkey to buy a PS5

This is weird. I bought a second hand one off a guy on rllmuk literally three days ago. It doesn't even have a permanent home next to the TV yet.

HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN

I just Now You See Me'd the fuck out of this thread.

IT'S A BAFFLING MYSTERY

MIND BLOWN

What did you see me playing? :)

I saw you buy it on rllmuk :(

Well that's your Christmas present ruined.

Been playing a couple of bits on Game Pass:

Road 96 was recommended by cav. The theme of this is VERY on the nose - teenagers fleeing an oppressive America following a political coup - and I can't help feeling its reappearance on Game Pass a week before Trump's inauguration is far from coincidental. In play it's quite visual novelly - a series of vignettes that you play through without a whole lot of actual interaction - which I wouldn't normally have a problem with, but it's all very cartoony and low budget which rather undermines the seriousness of its themes. The graphics and voice acting are kind of terrible, actually. So I don't know whether to persevere with this, I've done two stories out of six I think and I admire its bravery more than I actually like it.

Wildfrost is a deck-builder that's a bit more complex than Slay the Spire but doesn't have that game's fearsome balance. In particular it overdoes the "roguelike" aspect whereby you unlock new cards and features with successive runs; it's actually very clear that for ages you don't actually have the tools you need, so you're committing to run after run that you know you're going to lose just so you can ultimately unlock something that will help. It's also complex enough that when things inevitably do go to shit, you're not always 100% clear why. It's nice enough, but there are better examples of the genre.

Playing something for the sake of it is a no, especially at our age. Life's too short. Bin 'em both.

Play.

FF7 Rebirth. This doesn't make a great first impression. The intro is plodding (hold R2 to crawl…). The graphics are horrible in performance mode. And once the game opens up, traversing the world is unenjoyable. Considering how incredible the battle and cutscene animations are, and how fluid the game feels elsewhere, the simple act of running across uneven terrain feels terrible. Animations are janky, the camera cuts all over the place, it's just a really unpolished experience.

Then there's the Ubisoft tower and icon bloat, which I'm trying to ignore and play more BotW style – just wandering over to stuff on the horizon that looks interesting. But a lot of the icon bloat seems to hide genuinely useful stuff.

The positives are very positive. The combat is still brilliant, probably the best JRPG combat I've played. The game is still wonderfully camp, and the music's still great. I just hope the other stuff doesn't ruin it for me.

You seem to have had very similar first impressions to me. I made it to the end eventually, but I'll admit it did become a bit of a slog in the last third - it's just very obviously and inelegantly padded out for no reason, which mainly serves to rob the finale of any sense of pace or urgency.

I can't believe quite how much they ballsed this up.

There's so much friction everywhere. The game pauses every time you complete the smallest sidequest. The terrible stealth sections. The traversal. No fast travel between zones. And imagine if you could jump off cliffs on your chocobo and glide, even short distances. These are fairly small decisions that would have been easy to change, and they add up to make the game an absolute slog.

I can't remember another game+sequel with this dramatic a drop in quality.

Given how much I loved Remake, I was really shocked by how unappealing the second one became after a relatively short time.

No fast travel between zones.

IIRC, there is - eventually. But by the point I got truly fed up, I was just mainlining it to the end of the story on the lowest difficulty setting. Going back to mop up sidequests or collectible shite is at the very bottom of my list of things I'm likely ever to bother with.

Can't wait til' you get to Gongaga

Been playing a couple of bits on Game Pass:

Road 96 was recommended by cav. The theme of this is VERY on the nose - teenagers fleeing an oppressive America following a political coup - and I can't help feeling its reappearance on Game Pass a week before Trump's inauguration is far from coincidental. In play it's quite visual novelly - a series of vignettes that you play through without a whole lot of actual interaction - which I wouldn't normally have a problem with, but it's all very cartoony and low budget which rather undermines the seriousness of its themes. The graphics and voice acting are kind of terrible, actually. So I don't know whether to persevere with this, I've done two stories out of six I think and I admire its bravery more than I actually like it.

Wildfrost is a deck-builder that's a bit more complex than Slay the Spire but doesn't have that game's fearsome balance. In particular it overdoes the "roguelike" aspect whereby you unlock new cards and features with successive runs; it's actually very clear that for ages you don't actually have the tools you need, so you're committing to run after run that you know you're going to lose just so you can ultimately unlock something that will help. It's also complex enough that when things inevitably do go to shit, you're not always 100% clear why. It's nice enough, but there are better examples of the genre.

Wildfrost I had a short look at, and while it's impressive for a small team (isn't it one guy?) it's a bit of a dog's breakfast generally.

I think Road 96 creaks left right and centre and looks like it was made on a budget of a fiver and packet of jammie dodgers. But I really like what it's trying to do. As you say, it's brave and bold and shoots for something bigger than the sum of its parts. I really grew to love it by the end, for all its flaws, but I can see why it might not be for everyone. And we've not agreed on any game ever, so there's that too.

Remember your life is short though, so absolutely unlike anyone else here, please try to maximise your life on this planet in the time you have remaining and not waste it playing games you don't 100% enjoy. Live, laugh, love.

Remember your life is short though

Well, the inclusion of 'your' doesn't make that sound threatening at all.

Play

Sacked off the underwhelming Game Pass games in favour of an old favourite: Batman: Arkham Asylum. I've played all of these to completion before (bar Origins) but in all honesty I can barely remember any of them and I am really enjoying revisiting this one. This is more of a classic Metroidvania than the later games' open world shenanigans but the relative simplicity works in its favour and there are a huge amount of secrets and Riddler Trophies to find so it's really not short on things to do. I've just got up to the Scarecrow section and it's every bit as effective as it was back on release. Graphically it holds up well: it is quite distinctively 2009 in that it's virtually monochrome in places, and the character models have definitely dated, but the Steam Deck handles it with ease and it's still surprisingly atmospheric. Mark Hamill, rightly, steals the show. Great stuff.

Asylum was easily the best for me. I didn't get along with City at all, and the third one was good but didn't benefit from the open world.

I'm still shocked when (not super serious) action games don't simply copy Asylum's combat.

Knight was my favourite - there was just so much to do in that one, and I didn't mind the Batmobile sections at all - but it's a classic trilogy for sure, and I like this iteration of Batman better than any of the movie versions I've seen.

The last time I replayed Asylum, I was shocked at how small the map is. Not a bad thing at all, but I remember it being much bigger. Perception, I guess, having then played the later titles in the series.

I have been playing that too as the trilogy was about £4 before Xmas. Similarly to Mart it feels smaller than I remember but also there are bits that are crystal clear in my memory and then others that I have zero memory of doing previously.

I am in the process of trying to get out an easily usable dock for my Rog Ally so I can more easily move to play elsewhere when needed, but it's a brilliant game still.

I think they got better with each one, as a trilogy it's a damn good package.