Play.
Denshattack! (exclamation not my own) is superb. It's like a lost Dreamcast game in the best possible way. Part Jet Set Radio, part Tony Hawk, but also completely its own thing. You play as a runaway Japanese train grinding, boosting and tricking your way through some of the most gorgeous environments ever rendered, across numerous arcade-style levels. There are secret objectives, high scores, and a surprisingly involved narrative. And the boss battles, good lord. You start every level thinking "well I'm essentially on rails, how can they possibly… oh never mind that was mindblowingly inventive". It's just wonderful, and well worth the 14 quid entry price. Buy it so they make more please.
Avatar PS5. I bounced off this a couple times before, and I have no love for Avatar generally. But the 3rd person camera and 40fps mode patch have brought me back in, and once you get used to it, the gameplay loop is actually really satisfying. By the guys who made Star Wars Outlaws, if anyone enjoyed that.
Want.
GTA6 to have a 40fps mode. Avatar reminded me how effective they are.
40fps modes are the future, I guess the only reason they're not more common is that you need a fancy-pants 120Hz TV to be able to use them. Control recently got updated to add a 40fps/all bells and whistles mode and it's a huge improvement over either of the previous options. Star Wars Outlaws was another one that used it to good effect.
Anyway I'm not really playing anything that I haven't spoken about already, mostly Final Fantasy XIV still. I'm in the post-Heavensward, pre-Stormblood stretch now, I really like these lengthy little interludes as it's where the game does a lot of its character building and it's really fun watching the building blocks of the next expansion falling into place.
I've also been playing a bit of Vampire Crawlers which turned out to have more legs that I expected - nearly done with it now though - and I'm starting to play around with XCOM 2 a bit. So plenty to keep me busy.
Want: I'm not even sure what's coming out in the back half of 2026, GTA6 is sucking all the air out of the room already. I'm not fussed about it at all but it will inevitably sell gazillions.
Play
The kid made me download Planet Crafter on GamePass. It's one of those low-budget "dropped in a desolate landscape with nothing but your wits and an unreasonably deep crafting tree" survival games, which I've never gotten into previously (I liked No Man's Sky before it went this direction) but I've been completely sucked into it this time. There are loads of QoL things that annoy the shit out of me (not being able to stack resources in your inventory slots), but not enough to stop playing.
Want
Quite keen to get Splatoon Raiders, but not sure I can justify it right now.
Bin
The old job, as it turns out. I evaded a round of layoffs, but realised that I can never trust any of the leadership team again, so I've found another role and will be starting there at the beginning of September.
Play
Halo Infinite (multiplayer) - Seeing as they didn't feel a Halo game needed multiplayer with Campaign Evolved I went back to old classics, thankfully this is a separate download and holy shit that is a great idea IMO, they should do that with the MCC! Anyway…why did I stop playing this again? Halo multiplayer might have the best gamefeel of any online FPS for me, it's just insanely satisfying.
Sadly my stick drift was so severe I couldn't even choose the mode I wanted, of which there are tons, without great difficulty (yet in an actual match it was fine?) so that needs to be fixed but I felt like a God every time I won a 1v1 and the guns as usual feel so satisfying. Maybe Halo 3 is still better, I'll have to check that out
Metal Gear Solid - when I have time, for some reason I was hungry for the cold, gritty atmosphere of Shadow Moses
Odin Sphere - Beat the Valkyrie story, on to a new character, Hard Modeg ets quite a bit more tough than it did on Muramasa, I'll try to adjust. Still a great game.
Play
The DS. After finishing Trails in the Sky I didn’t want to immediately play another long game, and I saw a video on bsky of someone playing a bright and cheery puzzle game which looked fun. So I dug out my DS lite and have been having a blast playing Zookeeper, Meteos, Wario Ware Touched and Under The Knife (which is way harder than I remember).
The power switch went nuts pretty quickly though and the DS started turning itself on and off randomly, but then I remembered that my neighbour gave me a DS he found in a drawer last year which is still basically new, so I’m using that instead of my own 20 year old handheld.
After a week of playing fun but forgettable puzzle games I found Chrono Trigger on my R4 card and I am trying again to finish this classic jrpg. It’s fairly fast paced, it opens with the classic “Mum wakes you up to go to the town fair where you meet a pretty girl who isn’t a princess honest” set up but then two hours later you are in Fallout. It’s good fun but it is showing its age.
Want
Legend of Heroes: Trails In The Sky SC. It’s on sale again so I might just buy it for my PC. But I’d like to try playing it on…
The Retroid Pocket Nova! The reviews which keep popping up look fantastic. I going to play so much Burnout and maybe finally explore the Dreamcast library. Can’t wait.
