Hello all. I never start these so felt I should contribute rather than freeload like usual.
Play
It's always Minecraft in our house, but particularly this week with the latest update (new variations of chickens and other animals!) and the film which we are going to see Friday.
Medal of Honour Allied Assault - Still working through this on my Rog Ally breakout station I have set up. Superb memories and really enjoying it.
Robocop Rogue City (think that's its full title) This is superb, it's so self contained with the levels but in a clever way, it feels like playing a lightgun games at times and they have really nailed the feel of the character and place. I have like a little 20-30 minute blast on this every night currently and it's perfect for that.
Championship Manager 3 - Been playing this on my channel now for about 2 months, it's such an addictive game and has seen my channel grow to the stage where I am nearly at 1000 subscribers. It started as a little mental health project that got me also zero views for the first view videos and now is getting me about 600 views a week and people regularly commenting and liking every new video, so that in turn makes it easier to commit time to it, which just makes it all the more enjoyable.
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Been looking into getting a 2TB drive for my Rog Ally, I only have the 512gb model and it's nearly always entirely full.
Switch 2 details.
To start AtomFall, was really excited for this but it was chaotic over mothers day (which is still an incredibly emotional challenge for my partner) and then my kid just refusing to ever go bed by herself currently and often being awake past 9.30pm at the moment, meaning free time and childless time has been utterly squeezed.
Evercade - some of the newly announced Neo Geo stuff looks good.
Bin
Can't think of anything currently.
Play
Atomfall is taking up most of my gaming time at the moment – things have taken a definite turn for the fun since I found a bow. I also finally followed one of the main story quests, so that's a new conspiracy carrot on 't mystery stick.
I do have to wonder about the bodycount I'm racking up, though. This village clearly wasn't all that big before the quarantine went in place, but I've taken down dozens of ne'er-do-wells. What was the original population here?
Want
Looking forward to the next thing on my GamePass watchlist, Expedition 33. It looks like a real marmite game (and some of its UI choices have already caused consternation in previews on youtubelol), but the combat looks spectacular so I'm keeping optimistic.
Bin
I don't know if I'm coming down with something, but I'm tired all the time – more so than usual. Could probably do more to improve my sleep schedule, to be fair.
I got a massive card for my ROG Ally, but the heat it pumps through the card slot is alarming (and of course there are plenty of reports of fried SD readers) so I too will be looking to swap the drive at some point….
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Atomfall - I had a moment last night where I stumbled across a group of people in a disused facility and they… warned me off? Then, as I backed away, they seemed scared and were asking one another if I'd gone. Such a small, simple thing, but I can't remember the last game I played where everyone wasn't either a super friendly NPC or a homicidal maniac the moment they saw me. Looks absolutely glorious too, and runs amazingly well. The lack of icon chasing and handholding is fascinating.
Avowed - after adding 64gb of RAM to my laptop, and using Lossless Scaling and various overclocking techniques I can now play this with only a few stutters. Thanks Unreal 5. It is great, but Atomfall does somewhat highlight that it's very VIDEOGAME. Like a horde of homicidal enemies literally 20ft from the town gates and watching guards. Still very enjoyable though.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst Went back to play a bit of this. It's really good. Quite of its time, but the traversal and confidence to do something a bit different is even more interesting in 2025 than it was back then.
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Expedition 33 looks amazing. Very much looking forward to it.
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My partner has been in hospital in the Republic. I thought UK hospitals were in full collapse, but this also was like the end of days. Finally think the problem is sorted though, which is good. Quite eye opening how many EU nationalities there are floating about in hospitals and shops and in general. I sometimes forget quite how much Brexit fucked diversity in the UK (and indeed, why would you stay considering the sheer hatred on display). That said, I did hear a priest (A PRIEST) doing an anti-immigrant rant in the hospital canteen, which was quite something. I mean, if you pick up ONE THING up from the magical book of nonsense isn't it an appreciation for the poor/immigrants. Isn't that the point?
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I've been working through Mass Effect Legendary Edition and having a great time all over again. I'm almost finished Mass Effect 2 and it doesn't feel like an old game at all. The sandbox structure really works with the different hub worlds, story missions, side missions and occasional found missions. I'm looking forward to replaying Mass Effect 3 as I only played that one once and that was before they brought out the Citadel DLC.
Before losing three whole days of my life (and counting) to Mass Effect I was having a fantastic time playing Paper Mario Origami King. It's just fun and funny, and it's always finding clever new ways to interact with the world even when all you can really do is jump, talk or hit it with a hammer. I'm almost done, I think I'm on the final dungeon, I just need to sit down and actually finish it.
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I'm just thinking about what I might play next. I have Dungeons of Hinterberg on my Xbox so maybe that. Or Pentiment.
Or there's this humble bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/games/dice-and-destiny) which includes Citizen Sleeper and Disco Elysium…
Bin
School. My 13 year old hasn't been able to attend school this year due to a combination of depression, other kids being little shits and teachers being unwilling to help. My kid was supposed to be going in to meet the school's additional support teacher today but they can't face it. So it's all a bit, "well WTF do we do now then?"
Or there's this humble bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/games/dice-and-destiny) which includes Citizen Sleeper and Disco Elysium…
That might be the best value 'hours of fun vs cost' bundle I've ever seen.
Bin
School. My 13 year old hasn't been able to attend school this year due to a combination of depression, other kids being little shits and teachers being unwilling to help. My kid was supposed to be going in to meet the school's additional support teacher today but they can't face it. So it's all a bit, "well WTF do we do now then?"
Sorry, this sounds awful. My first is due to start school soon, and I live in constant fear of not being able to protect them in that environment. The crumb of comfort I have is that, I can just about remember being 13. It won't be long until they're free to find their own group, and realise how unimportant school knobheads are. I'm still best mates with the group I found after leaving that environment.
Sorry to hear that, Bri, that sounds shit for all of you. Platitudes won't help, but I genuinely hope things get better in the long run.
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Still playing Red Dead Redemption, currently rambling through 'Mexico'. Still playing Sea of Thieves but, honestly, my enthusiasm for that wains because there feels like there's fuck all to do in it currently… the spark's gone, it's just the same things over and over. Dipping back into Binding of Isaac because I've not touched it in ages. Still tinkering with the Retroid Pocket 5 since I'm determined to make Model 3 games run at 60FPS (and doing so seems to have undone some positive work I did making Model 2 run perfectly).
WANT
Some rest. The last six months have been exhausting at work, and it won't stop any time soon.
BIN
Everything. The world is horrible right now, the cunts are running rampant with no-one stopping them and it just feels utterly pointless. It's all so bad. Burying my head in the sand does nothing, but it's better than being constantly bombarded with how awful everything is. This isn't where I want to be, and I don't see it ever getting better at this point. Minds are too poisoned, being a good person is apparently weak and bad, I hate it. I absolutely hate it.
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Shadow Hearts:Covenant - This is so far such an insane quality jump from the prequel, a game I really like, that if it keeps this up it'll be one of my favourite RPGs on the PS2. The combat in particular, took a really neat system with the Judgement Ring and really expanded on it.
Xenoblade Chronicles X - I have got my mechanic now! No flying but the mecha fantasy is real. I have found the more sidequests I do in a row the chance of me getting restless increases, feels like a chore sometimes but the minute you start exploring for probes it all changes
Valkyrie Profile - really want to like this but it's making it hard, I have little idea what I'm doing and why I have like 10 rpg towns to visit that do nothing, combat seems timing based but also I'm watching the same special attacks play out every single time. Will probably read up on some tips
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Avowed - this feels almost like a remake of Morrowind, with its amiable NPCs and weird fixation with mushrooms, but it's very enjoyable. It's like it's pretending to be an open world game but actually you're quite carefully led through the story, it means it's very well paced and the characters have far more to say about events than they normally do in games of this type. It looks spectacular too. My only issue is that the horribly complex character and inventory screens seem to have come from a different game entirely to the breezy adventuring that makes up the bulk of Avowed.
Stardew Valley - I think this is meant to be a chilled, relaxing kind of game but my gamer brain can't stop aggressively trying to min/max everything and as such I'm finding it quite stressful, wondering if I'm doing it "right" or letting opportunities slip by with every passing day. Broadly I have no idea what I'm doing. I like it though, it's like someone took the hundreds of Harvest Moon games that are all slightly unsatisfying for various different reasons and simply made one really good one.
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Assassin's Creed: Shadows has been getting some actual decent feedback from players and doesn't appear to have launched in a totally broken state, so it's only the knowledge that these games always drop in price really fast that's preventing me from picking this up right now.
Bin
I managed to get 1000/1000 achievements for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii which is the first game I've done that for in a long while (and the first Yakuza game too). Pleased with that, but there's nothing more to be done there.
Donald Trump - why won't he just fucking die already? Honestly.
Separate note on schools - sorry to hear about your woes, Bri, I really hope you get this sorted soon. My son was bullied to shit in the last couple of years of primary school (smart kid being picked on by the local knuckleheads, basically, plus a nice dose of racism thrown in) and we were actually glad that Covid lockdowns saved him from the last few months of what had become an entirely miserable experience. We were lucky enough to be able to put him into a private school, not something we'd ever thought we'd do and it's wiped us out financially but it's been exactly the supportive environment he needed. I appreciate that's probably not an option for you but do you have the opportunity to look at different schools? They do still vary enormously in terms of the support they provide, and a different environment may be good for your kid. Regardless, as MPH says, 13/14 is pretty much the peak of school misery years and it does get better, honestly.
Assassin's Creed: Shadows has been getting some actual decent feedback from players and doesn't appear to have launched in a totally broken state, so it's only the knowledge that these games always drop in price really fast that's preventing me from picking this up right now.
I'm on the fence about chucking £15 at Ubisoft+ for a month to give this and Star Wars Outlaws a go.
Bri do they not have an outreach programme or outreach centre at the school or in it's chain? And does you son have an EHCP? He should be eligible for some home tuition if he does and you get it updated, or for the school to set up like a home ed online tutor if he would engage with that.
We are in the process of trying to sort some of that out. But it's very slow.
You can get an EHCP privately btw so may be something to look into or consider, seems to be more common that now due to the waiting times of councils doing it are bordering on neglect (not blaming the councils as appreciate it's a funding issue) - just need to find a private educational psychologist.
I still feel Secondary schools need a review or some kind of a massive change but unlikely to happen now as too ingrained and already failing.
Many of the students I teach were coping fine or not massively falling behind in primary and junior, it's always secondary school that causes the issues, disconnect and eventually apathy or poor behaviour that leads to them being excluded. My school effectively runs like a special educational needs centre now compared to when I started, and parents mostly no longer want their kids to leave once they start with us!
Thanks BMB!
I'll talk with Mrs Bloodaxe and may be back to discuss this more.
Sorry to hear about your woes, Bri. My daughter is 6 years old and I'm already worried about secondary school / KS3 / whatever the fuck it's called this year.
It's amazing how quickly the bullies present themselves, though. As far as I can see, the lack of action that the schools can / will take only enables that sort of behaviour.
