PWB: April

Been bouncing around a few games this month - played a few levels of Dishonored, a bit of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, inevitably a little Hitman 3, but nothing was really sticking - turned out what I was craving was comfort gaming, so back to the old favourites we go.

Monster Hunter: Rise - I've seen this described as feeling like a coin-op arcade version of Monster Hunter and that's pretty much spot on. It's been hugely streamlined to the point where it's a perfect fit for handheld - you can jump in and out of fights with ease, twat a few dinosaurs then log off again. The old MH systems are still at play underneath all this - you'll need to spend time thinking about weapons and armour upgrades - but everything involving the actual monsters is snappy and streamlined. In particular the multiplayer side of things is, for once, a complete joy, and offers up the perfect combination of World's SOS Flare system and the earlier, hub-and-lobby based approach. Really enjoying this, and it's well worth pushing past all those impenetrable tutorials to get to the good stuff.

Yakuza 5 - I played a bit of this on PS4 last year but decided to start again on Game Pass. It's a ridiculously overstuffed game, with the series' usual soap-opera melodrama turned up to 11, five cities to explore and more side activities than ever before. I'm still on the first section and have somehow spent the last three evenings just pottering around in a taxi, with the occasional break to help out at the local noodle stand. Those yakuza will just have to wait, Kiryu is busy tonight.

My son has started playing Fortnite, I guess it was only a matter of time. No interest in playing it myself but it's actually very watchable - it's got a really odd rhythm to it. Prolonged periods of absolutely nothing happening at all followed by sudden explosions of ultraviolence. I can see why it's been such a big and enduring hit.

Want

Gaming-wise, genuinely nothing except more time to play all the games I've got stacked up.

Bin

This will be forgotten about next week as it makes way for whatever scandal next engulfs this country, but yesterday's report in which the government commissioned a report to say that the country was Officially Not Racist, indeed better at Not Being Racist than all those filthy foreigners, has angered me in a way that few recent events have managed. We've all got our triggers, I guess.

Play

Lots of Hitman 3, as I make my way, glacially, towards the series' end. I've not been so enamoured with the levels in this installment so far, but I don't know how much of that is due to the narrative focus and how much is down to unfamiliarity – I knew most of the Hitman 1 and 2 levels inside out by the time I played them on Series X. They've all grown on me by the time I hit Master 20, but there's no Sapienza or Miami-level standout (so far).

As I make my way through Dragon Quest XI, I'm surprised by how many genuinely surprising twists the story is introducing. The last few JRPGs I've played – admittedly not many – have been seemingly more interested in mechanical twists than compelling character arcs, so maybe Dragon Quest's stubborn adherence to the menu-driven, turn-based combat of old necessitates fresh ideas in other areas. I have no idea how close to the end I am.

I can confirm than I am still playing Princess Connect Re:Dive, but will not be commenting further at this time.

Our Tales from the Loop game continues in place of 13th Age, but with two players still out of commission due to other obligations I'm considering a short Monster of the Week game to fill some more time. It should provide a better framework for the absent players to drop in and out too, until they're more reliably available for 13th Age.

The party has a doozy of a cliffhanger to resolve next week in The Expanse. After killing a God in D&D 5e, I feel like I've finally got a handle on who my character is and I'm looking forward to leaning into a new "by any means necessary" take in the next arc – though the DM has requested some time to prep, so we'll be starting a short Call of Cthulu 7e game in the meantime.

Want

Looking forward to getting stuck into Hitman's Greed escalation and the Easter Egg Hunt. I can't really play this one while the kid's around, but I've got some free time over the bank holiday weekend to dedicate to them.

Modiphius have opened preorders for the Fallout 2d20 RPG, which is tempting the hell out of me, but I'm also looking longingly at the public alpha access you get for preordering Elite Dangerous Odyssey and probably can't justify both in the same month.

Bin

I've been feeling exhausted and lightheaded for about a week now, which is getting real old. No fever or change to sense of taste or smell though, so fingers crossed it's gonna pass without major incident.

Fortnite really never dies does it? I think most kids had decided it was done a few months back, but like Minecraft I've seen it have a bit of a second surge recently. There's probably a fascinating paper in watching how popular streamers influence the most played games - especially content stuffed behemoths which allow a high level of streamer/viewer interactivity. So, while Genshin Impact seems to be the hot game of the moment among most of my kids' friendship groups (aided by the fact it's Android, console and PC and free) you always have the feeling the siren call of Fortnight and Minecraft will draw them back.

My Plays are Valorant (I've had a bad week after a good week), Apex (I get worse and worse at it), League of Legends (I get worse and worse at it), Total Warhammer 2 (I finally beat my eldest child in a match, which he is having trouble accepting), Rogue Company (fucking terrible and we all hate it, but keep playing it), Monster Hunter World (baffling), Doom 2016 (absolutely love it) and Cyberpunk (patch 1.2 seems to have broke it in different ways).

Wants A FUCKING 3 SERIES GPU
The final 200k or so of investment so I can run a business for a couple of years without paying my staff in clubcard vouchers

Bin A government that now seems to be gaslighting an entire nation on an industrial scale.

Play

Monster Hunter World still. I figured what the different monster levels are (one is scoutfly tracking ability, one is your knowledge of monster weak spots). There are still a billion things I can't understand. After finally thinking I understood the gameplay loop, I went on an expedition to hunt a Paulomo. (I needed a water weapon for the next monster, and Paulomo drops stuff that can make water weapons.) Spent ten minutes tracking it down. Spent fifteen minutes fighting/chasing it. And then it just flew away. Gone, off the map. No idea why.

After a quick Google, I found a thread suggesting it flew away because 'that's what a real Paulomo would do.' I just, I can't even…

I'm enjoying the game, very much in spite of the game.

Golf with Friends on Game Pass is less demanding, more immediate fun. It has two buttons, and a lot of 18-hole crazy golf courses. Everyone plays the hole at the same time, and the goal is 50% to get under par, 50% to ruin your friends' evening. It's great.

Yakuza 6 is still going, somehow. I've lost track of the plot, to the point where a big twist/character reveal happened and I had no idea who the character was. I'm still enjoying throwing bikes at people though.

Final Fantasy 10 is easy, uncomplicated fun. With all the intense real-time fights in my other games, it's nice to play a bit of slow, turn-based JRPG every once in a while.

Want

Monster Hunter Rise. And I have no idea why. These games are strangely alluring. If nothing else, it's a looker. Hard to believe it's running on Switch.

Some proper next-gen games to turn up. Come on Ratchet & Clank. Come on Horizon. Come on literally anything from Microsoft.

Golf with your Friends has resulted in more Discord mike destroying rage quits than any other game I've played in recent memory. I've never seen a game delight so much in fucking its players over.

Play
Rez. For about an hour.

I'm still playing in my friend's game, loving every minute.

5e is going good just now. The dungeon at the end of Tomb of Annihilation is worth the trip.

Finished my Edge of the Empire game, it was great. We are starting a new Whitehack game this Saturday. I'll be running the classic module Night's Dark Terror.

Want
I'm definitely going to buy one of those Retroid Pocket 2s, I'm just holding out for the colour I want. All the controls necessary to play SNES, PSone, N64, Dreamcast… I'm going to play all the JRPGs I've never gotten around to and lots of Wipeout 2097 and 3.

Maybe Mario 3D World?

Bin
Tories, BBC, all the cunts dragging the Pandemic out. Everyone who thinks it's time to get back to the office.

God we hated Golf With Your Friends. Such a mean-spirited little bastard of a game. Every hole is just hateful. Raged at it for an hour or so then uninstalled it.

Who'd have thought the only thing Garwoofoo and I would agree on would be a mini golf game.

Monster Hunter World still. I figured what the different monster levels are (one is scoutfly tracking ability, one is your knowledge of monster weak spots). There are still a billion things I can't understand. After finally thinking I understood the gameplay loop, I went on an expedition to hunt a Paulomo. (I needed a water weapon for the next monster, and Paulomo drops stuff that can make water weapons.) Spent ten minutes tracking it down. Spent fifteen minutes fighting/chasing it. And then it just flew away. Gone, off the map. No idea why.

Expeditions are best used for resource gathering, not monster hunting. The monsters do come and go, without much warning, as you've found out.

If you want to hunt Paul then probably best to pick a quest where the aim is to hunt Paul.

I was just about to say the same, as I trust MPH is aware of Investigations, and that’s not just another can of worms to open/throw at him.

Haha yes I've just gotten my head around investigations. The trouble is, to unlock those you need to fight the monster in the first place (I think). I didn't have any Paulomo investigations available despite already having killed one, so I was essentially out farming the ability to begin farming the monster.

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1377971829076340745

that's a pretty wild series of logos to see on the same title screen.

Completed Tales of Eternia (it pretty good) and now I only have 2 Tales games in my collection left to beat, Xillia 2 and Symphonia 2. As far as I know I'll have to import pirate the rest because they were all US/JP, but considering I beat my first Tales game (Vesperia) 3 years ago I'm quite happy with my progress.

Give us the release date for Arise or some remasters any time now, bamco…

Decided to try Persona 2 on the Vita since I bought it in preparation for the big shutdown and…surprisingly really Persona, despite the fact that Persona 3 was a sort of departure in style. Not done combat yet but it seems like it'll be a solid game….

Play:Red Dead. Feels like this will be ongoing for some time. I'm really into it but in what's probably a really superficial way. I'm sort fo following the main quests but then whatever distraction pops up I'll follow or just take a tour to part of the map I've not really seen for a bit. I've not investigated the hunting stuff much with a view to doing that "later" whenever that may be and the same goes for lots of the other side stuff. Realised that in upgrading the camp a lot of that becomes unnecessary… Unless you want to do it. Which is nice.
Last night saw the conclusion of the serial killer side quest which was okay. Finding that I far prefer the game when it's just chugging along and that sometimes when you see the hand of Rockstar it takes you out of the world a bit. Ideally I'd have shot that guy and then delivered him to the sherriff along with the evidence Arthur had gathered. After that I'd have looked up a guide to see that there were actually a couple of cutscenes I missed because I was too quick to shoot the guy. Then I'd shrug and think 'I should remember that for when I play it again' but eventually I'd just watch the scenes on Youtube.

Want: Disco Elysium. If I can whittle down the backlog a bit I'll give myself leave to get this. I've got a real urge to replay Space Marine on the PS3 but know well enough that tracking down a disc will just be the first stage in putting that disc in the cupboard with all the other PS3 discs I've bought in recent years.

Bin: 2016 Rachet and Clank. That was a real treat. Didn't expect much from it but glad I gave it a go. It looked great, the weapons were fun and it performed and played really well. This was really the spark for replaying Space Marine but it won't be as slick or fun.

Atelier Ryza was 24 quid on the Switch eshop, so thought I'd give it a go.

Alastor, any tips? I've never played one before, and the battle system already looks a bit WTF. Also why does the main character have the arse of a hippo?

It's actually a very standard (but imo fun) RPG battle system that will get 'deeper' as you go on, the biggest issue you might have as many have before is that there's no 'wait mode' like in a traditional Final Fantasy so you'll feel rushed to act, but again it's not that bad at all.
I am hesistant to overload you with stuff you might get told later but for combat:

-Everyone, including enemies will get their turn when their character portrait reaches the icon near the bottom left of the screen, again, you can't wait because everyone acts automatically, so if you wanted to act as Lent, then Ryza, you might miss Ryza's during Lent's animation so you can only really play as one person at a time but swap to someone else whenever you want. It's just the FF7 ATB mechanic!

-Under Tactics Level is a number which are your action points, you gain points by attacking and lose them by using skills or upgrading the Tactics Level itself. You can choose to upgrade to TL2 at 10 AP, TL3 at 20 and so on. This will not only give you a bigger upper limit on AP that battle, but upgrade your auto attacks and skills(mash attack at Lv1, then at Lv3, Lent will will attack more and get more AP doing so)

-Skills cost AP, you can see this yourself but I'll say it anyway, if something costs like, 5 AP you can only use it with at least 5 AP.

-If you get a pre-emptive field attack and you should try to always, you can start with 10 AP and instantly upgrade to TL2. This is usually recommended since you'll get it back fairly quickly with a a single round of TL2 autos.

Basic flow is: pre-emptive, upgrade TL then wait for your selected character's turn then either mash attack or use a skill. You can examine monsters but I dunno the button on Switch but if someone is weak to fire, maybe swap to Tao and use his skill for fire. for example.

As for everything else, make as many new Alchemy recipes as you can to level your Alchemy up, doesn't matter how good the items are for now. Just collect fucking everything and make stuff. This is an Alchemy game so items and stuff you make can be pretty overpowered if you want but you're also not forced to do it to survive. The game will teach you how to do this anyway.

Brilliant thanks, very informative! The weaknesses button will help too, I'd completely missed that.

Persona 2 is a very flawed game that so far has a great story and characters, combat is far too easy and at times, sluggish. Dungeons are huge mazes, like Tartarus without any of the feeling of progression and a higher encounter rate. There's a negotiation mechanic like Persona 5 and whilst it's actually very amusing with some of the things you can do, it slows combat own even further and you don't actually get the Demon as a new Persona you get Tarot cards and you need a significant amount to take to the Velvet Room to actually summon that demon.

It's not all bad, the story is actually really cool so far and the characters are likable dorks. I dunno' if I would reccomend the game myself but I'm happy to keep playing to see what happens next. But man, remake this and you wouldn't have to change a lot to make it super good, speed combat up and make it not a complete cakewalk and make Persona fusing work like the newer games.

The new opening they gave the PSP version is a fucking BANGER.(they got the guy who did the rap stuff for P3)

On that note, I did buy Persona 3: FES off the PS3 store the other day (along with Suikoden 3 and 4, the big rescue mission is a GOOOOOOO) because someone on my timeline is playing it for the first time and it's all come rushing back, I doubt I'll play it soon but I'm happy to salvage it from the upcoming digital apcalypse. Only question is now do I technically double dip and save the PSP version? It's the only way to do the female playthrough which was something I still can't believe exists.

We're halfway through an MCU movie rewatch at the moment (first time for my son) and with perfect timing the three Lego Marvel games popped up as a pack in an Xbox sale.

Got to say, we are really struggling with them. We've tried the original Lego Marvel Superheroes, which is kind of a generic Marvel mash-up, and Lego Marvel Avengers, which is explicitly based on the MCU, and so far they are both a confusing mess. Each of them flips you between characters constantly, and each character's got a whole range of bespoke controls, so you're usually just hitting buttons and hoping stuff works. You're attacked constantly by grunts and other stuff flying around so you don't really have a safe space to get used to it all. And everything is really badly sign-posted - we spent fully half an hour on some silly little section at the start of the Avengers section because neither of us spotted that what we thought was part of the background was actually a lever, and the game didn't highlight this in any way.

The last Lego game we played was the first Harry Potter game and that was so much more sedate, characters could wander round much more easily without being under constant attack and the controls were pretty much the same for everyone barring the one special ability most of them had. I'm hoping we get to grips with them soon because frankly it's a bit embarrassing that two experienced gamers are struggling so much with a pair of games supposedly aimed at little kids!

Yeah the Lego Marvel games are dross. Little Miss Bloodaxe just played through all of Lego Incredibles it looks better.

I'm fully on-board the Atelier Ryza train now. Aside from it being weirdly horny (Japan innit), it's a lovely, relaxed, crafty RPG.

It's an addictive mix of bucolic, low-stakes adventuring, and an engrossing alchemy system. The alchemy reminds me of Anno's build chains, if that's your thing. You need 12 of this item to create 4 of a new item, which you need 2 of to create the thing you actually want. It's basically my videogame crack, and it's been implemented well here.

If you're remotely interested, it's on sale on Switch for the next day or two. Apparently this series never goes on sale, so now would be a good time to have a look. It runs pretty well on handheld.

Yay. does the Ryza hand gesture

Horny but also god damn everything is cute, the flute girl is always going "ahhhhhh friends ^-^" every five minutes and you almost feel bad blowing up thise happy slimes to smithereens.

We're halfway through an MCU movie rewatch at the moment (first time for my son) and with perfect timing the three Lego Marvel games popped up as a pack in an Xbox sale.

Got to say, we are really struggling with them. We've tried the original Lego Marvel Superheroes, which is kind of a generic Marvel mash-up, and Lego Marvel Avengers, which is explicitly based on the MCU, and so far they are both a confusing mess. Each of them flips you between characters constantly, and each character's got a whole range of bespoke controls, so you're usually just hitting buttons and hoping stuff works. You're attacked constantly by grunts and other stuff flying around so you don't really have a safe space to get used to it all. And everything is really badly sign-posted - we spent fully half an hour on some silly little section at the start of the Avengers section because neither of us spotted that what we thought was part of the background was actually a lever, and the game didn't highlight this in any way.

The last Lego game we played was the first Harry Potter game and that was so much more sedate, characters could wander round much more easily without being under constant attack and the controls were pretty much the same for everyone barring the one special ability most of them had. I'm hoping we get to grips with them soon because frankly it's a bit embarrassing that two experienced gamers are struggling so much with a pair of games supposedly aimed at little kids!

Have you tried Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 yet? after a fairly confusing start, it ended up being my favorite of the Lego games. It evolves into a great setting, and there's a mind-boggling amount of stuff to do. It's also pretty funny.

I remember that being very confusing in places regarding what you're meant to do, and the hub world is something of a sprawling mess. MSH was better for managing its space, but was still all over the place.

I can't remember the last LEGO game I actually enjoyed. Incredibles was okay? Ninjago was awful. Harry Potter is alright. Hmm.

I really liked Lego Batman 2, it's definitely the best one I've played.

The LEGO games are absolutely criminal in not understanding and maximising what was good about the first phase of them and relentlessly accentuating the bad bits.

When they came out the not dying/no penalty thing was pretty revolutionary in coop. The cutscenes were funny and by and large they were bimbly fun. But, even then the terrible platforming mechanics and obscure puzzle solutions were beginning to creep in and things seem to have just got relentlessly worse. Modern LEGO games tend to be bloated, overly complex, full of fiddly sections with no clear aim and terrible player experiences. All of us with kids must've experienced at least one time we've been asked for help on a LEGO game and been baffled trying to find the solution (and inevitably finding it's something that looks the same as the background, or something hidden behind level geometry).

I think Lego City Underground on the WiiU and Batman 2 were both the peak. They had a lot of the same flaws, but Underground nailed the humour and Batman 2's open world hasn't really been matched.

The Portal world in Lego Dimensions was ace.

Shit, fair point - I liked LEGO Dimensions.

I'm fully on-board the Atelier Ryza train now… It's an addictive mix of bucolic, low-stakes adventuring, and an engrossing alchemy system. The alchemy reminds me of Anno's build chains, if that's your thing. You need 12 of this item to create 4 of a new item, which you need 2 of to create the thing you actually want. It's basically my videogame crack, and it's been implemented well here.

This is very much my thing, goddammit. Now having to look at these games.

I take it you've seen / played things like the 'Merge Magic' games on Android, etc? Scratches exactly the same itch. I had to delete them. They were like crack.

How is your crack addiction by the way?

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I picked up the Master Chief Collection in the Steam sale, as while I think I might own it on Xbox, I fancied giving it a go on PC. Runs amazingly well on my TV PC (with a 780ti) with enhanced graphics and 60fps across the board. It seems to have carried my achievements over, which is nice. I had a bit of an existential crisis recently that I don't think I'd ever played Reach, even though I was sure I remembered the end scenes. Sure enough, having started it I don't remember it at all. Great fun, though it feels very dated in bits (not graphically, but just general gameplay). That said, the fact it isn't identical to every other shooter is a strength and the rhythm of it remains fun and engaging. I also ended up playing it on a pad as M/K just accentuates the fact the assault rifle in particular is somewhat random. Fired up Halo 4 for a bit too to marvel at the fact it originally ran on a 360. Still looks staggeringly good now. And some Halo 2, where I got stuck in the loop where you toggle to the old graphics and find yourself pondering if they're actually better than the remastered ones.

Played a bit of Jamestown on Remote Play with my son. We quite enjoyed it. Can't remember the last time I played a vertical shooter.

Nidhogg 2 has been a big thing recently. It possibly has the worst graphics of any game ever (and this isn't hyperbole) but is great for a quick throwdown between more detailed, bigger games.

Micro Machines, this was doing the rounds as a 29p key recently, so we've been playing that as a group. It's fairly shit, has about 3 courses, barely any power ups and is hideously unbalanced. But it's also pretty good fun. I see there's a new one out soon too.

Sonic All Stars Transformed, picked this up on PC. Still, arguably, the greatest racing game ever? And, though it's hard to tell it still supports online play. My eldest son is ridiculously good at it, so the rest of us spend most of our time fighting for 4th, but what a fucking great game. I've been playing a lot of MK8 on CEMU recently and I think Sonic might be better (though it is close).

Also picked up Fable Anniversary (it's amazingly dated in bits, but you can also see how huge bits of it really changed game design in future titles) and Sunset Overdrive (buggy, but brainless fun).

Also a shout out to Towerfall Ascension over Remote Play. If you can get it to work (and it is fiddly) is there a better single screen multiplayer game? I don't think so. Why aren't there pro Towerfall tournaments?

And apart from that, the usual, MH, Valorant, Apex and League.

Want
GPU prices to go down

Bin
[waves hands]

I wonder if I can convince Mr Party to take up FFXIV crafting/gathering off the back of Ryza. :thinking:

Hey I have a max-level fisherman on FF14, I'll have you know. Or at least I did.

M'baby is pretty well behaved, but not enough to give me time for an MMO.

Oh nice. Try Ocean Fishing when you get back, it's pretty fun, hoo hoo hoo!

Disco Elysium remains very good, but damn it really does feel like I'm going to lose an entire night talking to just one person, might be why I was on hiatus for a while while playing JRPGs. Someone recommended me a book and I went to the bookstore and it was like the whole ass Planescape script just jumped out at me. I've not been spoiled on any of this so maybe it's that but at the heart of it all I do feel like a cop investigating a murder and I'm really intrigued, then add on to that the character 'skill tree' and building seems superb.

We might need to be a bit sensitive around feltmonkey for a bit. Seeing as his team has fucked up football and led to large swathes of people putting their team in the Bin

While I'm happy to blame them in the majority, my team (which is also Wev's team, and also Mrs Gar's team, I believe) will also be joining them in the bin.

A Tottenham (Boo! Hiss!) fan I know has already asked which team I'd be supporting instead if and when this comes to pass (the same one as he would, it turns out, which would be novel for us). It's just rubbish. We all know the whole thing is an awful, tribalistic, cash grab, but did they have to make it so transparent?

Tales of Xillia 2 - The first game had my favourite combat in the series, and I liked Jude and Milla. This so far is somewhat of a bad fanfiction that I'm still enjoying because I just really liked the first Xillia. It has a weird 'debt' mechanic that forces you pay off your insane healthcare bill early on in the game, I dunno if they're going anywhere with it but…why?

The main character is to my knowledge, the only main character in the series to be a silent protagonist except it's done in the worst way because he speaks every now and then, everywhere else it's in mostly pointless dialog choices. He makes affirmative/negative reaction noises every now and then and pulls faces, if it wasn't for the dialog options he'd basically be Hodor from Game of Thrones, again, baffling design choice but okay.

But so far I'm enjoying the old Xillia cast even if I put them originally on the lower end of Tales casts, it feels like people are having slightly more fun. Combat is as good as ever, only the main character has so many options it's honestly overwhelming., thankfully the rest of the cast are varied and fun too so you can and should try them at least once. When all is said and done I think I'll still like it but not as much as I thought I would.

The more I play of Suikoden the more I like it and the more I respect the PS1 as an RPG platform.

Dabbling in the Disgaea RPG, top notch presentation and gameplay mechanics seem fun, they've even added in the ludicrous damage ceiling and do so in the first 30mins ofthe tutorials. (not that I've hit the dreaded 'dailies' part of every gacha) but I think this is the only Gacha I've played to have paid exclusive banners, you can spend money on any banner in Granblue/Revue/Girl's Frontline/Fire Emblem Heroes but this game straight up locks the 'Guaranteed 4 star character' rolls behind cash, if you use in game currency you get no guarantees, that's so fucking shitty it almost makes me want the game to bomb just for that.

So far it's fun but in the back of my head I'm like 'You haven't even got that far in the Vita version of Disgaea 4s endgame???' so it's like, why play that over any Disgaea game which has all that stuff for free?

We might need to be a bit sensitive around feltmonkey for a bit. Seeing as his team has fucked up football and led to large swathes of people putting their team in the Bin

Seeing as I know nothing about football can someone explain why this new league is so terrible?

What's a foosball?

Seeing as I know nothing about football can someone explain why this new league is so terrible?

As I understand it, it's one group of hypocritical capitalists with no respect for a sport where overpaid athletes kick something around for a bit every weekend being massively pissed off and making threats like 'Well, you can't play here any more then!' because another group of hypocritical capitalists with the same, if not bigger lack of respect thinks they're better and have literally taken their ball elsewhere. It's really quite the metaphor for the world going to utter shit.

That's about right, yeah.

Everyone with half a brain knows it's all awful now (game's gone, etc), but there's always still been fun to be had there, if you look hard enough (sometimes fully the other way). This seems to be a bridge too far for many though, so it'll be interesting to see (assuming it happens) how many fans change allegiance, or vote with their wallets in other ways, how many grumble but then just go along with it, and how many just don't care that it's happening.

Ghost of Tsushima is bloody brilliant. It might be the prettiest game I've ever played; the lighting has to be seen to be believed, especially in HDR.

But more than that, it's an open world game that doesn't subscribe to the Ubisoft formula. For that alone, it feels like a breath of fresh air. Sucker Punch are one of my favourite studios, they've had some great games over the years.

Including their best game, obvs, Rocket Robot on Wheels. Which had physics-based gameplay. In a bloody N64 game!

As I understand it, it's one group of hypocritical capitalists with no respect for a sport where overpaid athletes kick something around for a bit every weekend being massively pissed off and making threats like 'Well, you can't play here any more then!' because another group of hypocritical capitalists with the same, if not bigger lack of respect thinks they're better and have literally taken their ball elsewhere. It's really quite the metaphor for the world going to utter shit.

As a non-football fan I'm finding the whole thing quite fascinating because as you say it is indeed "quite the metaphor for the world going to utter shit". The whole history of the last 20 years has been the story of capital consolidating its position at the expense of literally everything else, and there are a lot of people -who have shrugged at zero hours contracts, rising homelessness, an entire generation unable to afford housing and everything else - who now suddenly care now the whole shitshow is affecting their beloved football. I'd like to think it would be some sort of awakening for people but of course there's no way it ever will be.

I'm sorry, but which part of "a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments which will grow in line with league revenues" is remotely capitalist?

I'd assumed that was just a sop to the rest of the football establishment, chucking them a few crumbs in order to bribe them into supporting their money-making endeavour. It's not like they're allowed to play with the big boys any more, is it?

However, I am keenly aware that I am now having a conversation about football (!) so will gracefully duck out in order to let somebody who actually knows about this stuff pick up the thread of the conversation.

Banish this elsewhere!

I blame cav.

I've had a few words and sorted it all out.

Sorry to continue the discussion, but…

Watching from the outside as someone who doesn't give a damn about football, how does anyone who does care put up with this shit? You've now got clubs backing off and barely even apologising to their fans (only one did properly, I think?), the head of UEFA (I think?) making the kind of awful passive aggressive comments you'd expect from an abusive partner who says 'Don't worry, I'll take you back even though you fucked up' before beating you behind closed doors, and the people running this super league with only a handful of clubs left going 'Nah fam, it's all good'. It's absolutely fucking laughable and comes across as a mix between a sitcom and the mafia.

But hey, I don't know shit, I'm just saying what I see from over here.

It's kind of like when Nintendo announce an anniversary re-release of Mario and it turns out to be three roms and an emulator for fifty quid. Then everyone buys it anyway. Everyone is too invested not to.