Play

Hitman 2. In a year in which I've played a number of really excellent games, this has made a very surprising late grab for my GOTY spot. It's really just an expansion to the original but as I never played that - and as all the content for that can be imported into, or purchased for, this release - it's an absolutely massive game that I'm finding completely enthralling. Every level feels almost like a separate game, with its own layout, story and opportunities, and the very deliberate pacing and complexity makes it a very different proposition to pretty much anything else on the market at the moment.

Hollow Knight. Started this yesterday and it's basically Super Metroid as reinvented by Tim Burton, which is fine by me. As with almost everything else these days, it looks absolutely huge…

Mice & Mystics. Board game (we do those here, right?) that has got me and my boy completely hooked, just as we were starting to get a bit disillusioned by board games - with everything we were trying being either stupidly complex or just a version of something we'd already played. It's a simple dungeon crawler at heart but the way in which the storybook links the various chapters together is surprisingly engaging and it's really well balanced in that we don't always complete each chapter first time through but it always seems eminently doable. As usual though the rulebook seems to have been written by an idiot, why are these things always so bad?

Want

Super Smash Bros Ultimate comes out next week so that's us sorted for the foreseeable future.

Beat Saber looks great, in fact so do a number of other VR games such as Moss and Tetris Effect. It's not often I get time genuinely to myself where I'm able to shut myself off from the world with a VR headset and headphones, but I've got a week off before Christmas and I'm definitely going to spend some of that time catching up on my VR backlog.

Bin

I had another go at Diablo III and it went pretty much the same as all my other playthroughs - I enjoyed the opening sections but found myself thoroughly bored partway through Act 2. It's just incredibly repetitive and stupidly easy - you can't ramp up the difficulty to anything remotely challenging on your first playthrough, and even with it set as high as it could go I was just melting through enemies by mindlessly pressing the same two buttons over and over. The storyline and acting is dogshit tier and I genuinely don't see why the game gets so much acclaim. Apparently it improves once you've completed the main story, but I don't feel inclined to go through 30 hours of tedium to get there.

Will do mine later but if that Diablo 3 is a switch physical and you still have it might be up for a trade/purchase.

Play
Hitman 2 - unlike Gar, I played the heck out of the last one. This is more of the same with some improvements, so exactly what I wanted from it (crowd stealth is particularly useful on some levels). I'm still only 2 missions into actual Hitman 2, having spent a fairly ridiculous amount of time going back to the Hitman (2016) targets for useful unlocks.
D&D - I've got an actual campaign starting on Tuesday, which I'm really looking forward to; I've run a couple in 5e, but never played anything long-form, so that should be interesting.

Want
Erm.. not a lot, at the moment. None of the upcoming releases I'm aware of are particularly tempting, and nothing I missed (God of War, etc.) is yet cheap enough to make me reach for my wallet. So I'm good, for now.

Bin
Similarly, not a lot.

Play -

A month I am looking forward too. Been really busy with work lately but we have mock exams the next two weeks and this actually frees me up significantly so hoping to get some more free time for gaming in the evenings.

Still on my Super Mario Kart kick. Made it up to 496 in the rankings last week from the site I mentioned. Every night I have about 15 minutes on it currently.
Fallout 76 - Made it to level 11 today. It's not as good as a single player one and the comments about it being empty are true. However it's more fallout and I am enjoying that.
Pokemon Lets Go - One gym down still, not been on lately but looking forward to getting back.
Forza Horizon 4 - Still loving this when I get time on it. Still not sure if I like the open world mechanic or not. I'd prefer to just be able to move race to race but it at least is fun to drive around in. Unlike say the Crew.

Want - Was quite interested in a few of the deals recently but didn't get anything, not a Smash fan and the more I see or hear of it the more overwhelming it seems. Similar Read Dead which looks great but just far too slow paced.
Mutant year Zero which is being billed as an xcom like is hitting the Gamespass service this week from what I have seen, will grab a month of that to give it a try.

Shenmue, Starlink, Diablo 3 are the ones I am keeping an eye on for sales.

Bin -

Still on my trying not to buy without selling kick. Mainly retro stuff I never touch.

Will do mine later but if that Diablo 3 is a switch physical and you still have it might be up for a trade/purchase.

PS4 digital copy sadly, I've had it for ages and had a couple of previous attempts to get into it but all the buzz around the Switch release persuaded me to give it another go - I guess it's just not for me.

It's more fun with two people as there is some sort of strategic nuance there. But it is generally just a loot grind with a Halo-esque 10 second feedback loop.

Play
University - Turns out 2nd year of Software Engineering degree requires a bit more attention that I've been giving it. I have two exams and a big coursework due over the next eight days.

D&D - I managed to get in a couple sessions of my campaign. Great fun but it's slow going, they are maybe a quarter or a third of the way through after 22 sessions. Still, I wanted it to feel massive moving to apocalyptic and I seem to be on track for that.

Want
Some bits and pieces of PSVR are starting to look pretty good, still a bit pricey though.

To get back to Zelda after I'm finished my exams.

Bin
About half of the OSR community. OSR is the loose gathering of roleplayers playing TSR-era D&D or updated clones of those games or entirely new games inspired by those games. The community has been growing steadily for ten or so years now despite that fact that just a few noisy members are regressive bigots or fucking arseholes. A few weeks back though, after a couple of anti-trans incidents by two of the high-profile reprobates, one of the high profile trans game designers decided she had had enough and removed herself from the scene. cue the community splitting in two, on one side those of us refusing to ignore the hatred and bullying and promotion-through-controversy, the other side trying to convince everyone that they just want everyone to game and we shouldn't bring politics into it and look, the Lefties are only faking outrage so that they can control your fun! It's been pretty exhausting, and I've only been trying to give my support to the people who need it, while trying to stay out of it and get on with my work. I still can't see how it's all going to play out, I hope the incredibly creative community I've been enjoying these past few years isn't about to die. There is a chance that whatever is left will be even better though.

Brexit, obvs.

Super Paper Mario, which was doing good as a 20 minute break and brain-cleanse between bouts of cramming. Unfortunately it crashes in a bit of dialogue half way through level 2-2, which is a bit disappointing.

Super Paper Mario, which was doing good as a 20 minute break and brain-cleanse between bouts of cramming. Unfortunately it crashes in a bit of dialogue half way through level 2-2, which is a bit disappointing.

I remember this one - it was probably the last high-profile bug in a game before online patching became a thing. Nintendo issued fixed discs for this but a quick Google search shows it should be avoidable:

"A Nintendo spokesman, who claims the bug is avoidable, said: "At the start of Chapter 2-2, you will come across a character called Mimi. She will tell you to go to the farthest room on the first floor to meet a character called Merlee.

"Enter that room and press the green switch. A trap will be triggered, and a spiked ceiling will descend upon Mario. Before the ceiling reaches him, flip into 3D and jump on it to find a key.

“If you pick up the key, you won't run into any problems. Use it to open the locked door to Mimi's right. However, if you talk to Mimi without picking up the key, the game will freeze. You will then have to turn off your Wii console and start again from your last save point.” "

You are currently my favourite person in the world.

While you are here, how well do you know C#?

You hum it and I'll play it.

Play

Still grinding away in Elite Dangerous, though now that I've broken a billion credits I've switched focus to picking up engineering materials, which will be put to use immediately upon the release of the 3.4 update to upgrade the ridiculous new ship I've got an eye on. No idea what I'm going to do with it, though, considering there's a shitload of new exploration mechanics that will be tempting me back into the black in my DBX, the mining update has me eyeing up a refit on my Python (if I can think of a relevant name for it), and my Alliance Challenger is looking hefty enough to do some Power Play.

I've also been jumping back into Sea of Thieves to show the ropes to a friend who's planning to start a Twitch stream of it; there's a non-zero chance I will also be on this stream but I still don't know how I feel about that. The game is still great, and the latest update has had some pretty big impacts - the more aggressive AI threats make sailing more engaging as you've got more to beware of than just other players and the fog is slightly terrifying, and I'm still catching up on the content added in the previous couple of updates.

Want

You guys keep talking about Hitman 2 which I feel my cursor inching towards every time I'm on the PSN store. That £55 price tag is pretty offputting, though.

I'm about an hour's focused writing away from having my 13th Age campaign ready to run, but no idea when the group will be ready to play it. We did a session zero already at least, so people have characters more or less prepared.

Bin

This cold-or-whatever that has set up residence in my throat can get to hell.

Want

You guys keep talking about Hitman 2 which I feel my cursor inching towards every time I'm on the PSN store. That £55 price tag is pretty offputting, though.

It's way cheaper on disc, and it's already seen some fairly dramatic price cuts in the US. I reckon you'll be able to get it for around £30 by Christmas. I don't think sales have been stellar.

Want

You guys keep talking about Hitman 2 which I feel my cursor inching towards every time I'm on the PSN store. That £55 price tag is pretty offputting, though.

Doooooo iiiiiiiiiiiit

£33.95 currently from thegamecollection, who are pretty reliable. For that you could buy the game and the Hitman Legacy pack and still have change left over from that ridiculous PSN price.

Translation: Doooooo iiiiiiiiiiiit

Play: Katamari Damacy Reroll. I think… this hasn't aged as well as I'd hoped it would. It's not the controls, which are as idiosyncratic as ever, or even the graphics, which once looked impressively abstract but now just look plain primitive. It's in the way the camera's never pointing quite where you want it to; the way everything's zoomed in just a little too far; the way the areas are just a little too small. It's a 3D game from an era before they really worked out how to make navigating a 3D space an intuitive experience. It's also in the way you lose your progress unless you remember to manually save, the lack of trophies/achievements (even in-game) to make all those high scores and collection percentages feel more worthwhile, the lack of distractions outside of just playing each main level in turn. It's a PS2 game, and it feels like one.

It's a shame because Katamari's one of gaming's greatest original concepts, and it's one of the few games you can sum up in a sentence and it immediately sounds fun (try doing that with Skyrim). It has the best title sequence ever made and some of the best music ever heard in a videogame. But the series deserves better than this (or its long protracted death by mobile spin-off); we should have had a new Katamari game rather than this, the most basic PS2 up-res job I've seen in a long time.

I loved Beautiful Katamari on Xbox 360 and Katamari Forever on PS3, so I'm hoping the magic returns, but right now this feels like I'm playing it for nostalgic reasons rather than because it's actually still fun. Hopefully this signals a start of a proper revival for the series, rather than just a bunch of quick and dirty re-releases.

Bin
Cards Against Humanity
Which isn't a controversial opinion, but it needs started again because my in-laws have been playing for well over an hour and they are replenishing their hands after every play so it is going to go on until they get bored, except that they are drinking so they are finding it funnier and funnier as it goes on. Even worse one of them is criticising the others choices as being not funny enough or too sappy or whatever.
Urgh

Oh, I haven't done this yet…

PLAY
Enter The Gungeon - Gone back to this because I remembered how good it was and it would appear I've suddenly got good at it. Managed to complete all the floors over the weekend, though I only did it with one character and didn't finish it 'properly'… you need to get certain items to do that, and I missed one. But I'm back into this in a big way and reckon I'll be playing it for a while.

WANT
Metroid Prime Trilogy on Switch - Of course it exists. Of course it does. And soon as it's released, I'm having that. Just because.
My own place - A lot of things on hold currently because I'm in someone else's house; not set up my Xbox One, not got my PSVR out to play Astro Bot, not put all my collectibles on shelves instead of in boxes. Hopefully, something's happening this week that should bring all that into focus, so fingers crossed for that.

BIN
The wicked games that people play - Divorce papers came through the other day and they're different to what was agreed in the draft; specifically, I'm being asked to pay all costs, even though the ex and I have agreed to split it evenly. Dunno if it's an error, the solicitors being tricksy or her lying. Despite all the shit, I don't want to think it's the last one… I still see the good in her, as much as she's basically been horrible. Trouble is, asking for advice or assistance from a solicitor counts as delaying or defending, which incurs more fees, so I'm being backed into a corner. I want this over with, really. Need to move on.

Play

Not much, really. Baby duties take up just about all of my time right now BUT Hollow Knight looked nice so I nabbed that.

Want

Some time to play Hollow Knight while I'm still wide awake, and not half asleep.

Bin

Uhhh… Hollow Knight? I've got to the fight with Hornet in Greenpath and FUCK ME do you need all of your wits about you. It's frustrating because I know that, if I was doing this fresh, I'd knock it over in a few attempts but it goes on just a little bit too long for me to keep it together while effectively playing with just one eye open. I spent an hour on it last night before having to give up because I was just too tired to continue. Very frustrating, and a pity because I really want to push on with this game.

I’m finding Hollow Knight more frustrating than fun right now, also in Greenpath. The constant trekking from save point to boss is really grinding me down, and even finding the one exit I could take from the first area involved more trudging around than I would have liked. It might be a bit old school for me, this one. I enjoyed Yoku a lot more.

Yeah, the trek from the bench back to the Hornet isn't fun. Especially if you try and get there quickly and end up starting the fight without all health / spell energy. (If that's what it is. IDK.)

I did enjoy Yoku a lot more, but I think Yoku had a grasp on how best to keep you interested and didn't pad things put unnecessarily. Hollow Knight looks like it might be an awful lot bigger and probably suffers from a mild form of the 'Git Gud' syndrome which has plagued an awful lot of indie titles (especially) in recent years.

Yep. And even the smallest creatures take two or three hits and often have some sort of bullshit counterattack which means you can end up losing a couple of health to some poxy bug on the way back up there. And don't get me started on those Moss Knight bastards.

I'm glad you said you weren't enjoying it, everyone else seems to love it and I was wondering if it was just me.

Damn, now I need to start it to see if it really is overhyped.

It certainly wasn't aimed at me.

I could tell a whole lot of love had gone into the visuals and audio, but I never actually enjoyed playing it.

If you're both only up to Greenpath, which is the second area of the game not counting the surface… well. Fuck me, you've got a long way to go. A LOOOOOOOOOONG way.

It took me a long time to click with it, and I think that was the point where I became powerful enough to deal with things as well as getting a few key abilities. Certainly wasn't immediate. And honestly, if you're griping now about the difficulty, I'd genuinely suggest you stop playing now - it only gets harder, especially when you come across some of the later bosses. There's one in particular that caused a massive bottleneck for me because the only place to go was through it and I just couldn't win…

I'm not entirely sure I loved the game. I enjoyed it, to a point, but it's incredibly telling that I saw one ending and then, instead of going back to see the others, just stopped. Once was enough for me. Getting those last few percent of completion wasn't important, and that's totally unlike me.

So, yeah. Honestly? Find something better to do. It's really not worth the effort unless you're some kind of masochist like me.

EDIT: Just re-read some of this and it comes across as a bit… hawty? Like, me suggesting you're not good enough or something. Don't mean that at all, sorry. I think there are better ways to spend your time though, because Hollow Knight's massive (almost too big, actually) and the difficulty's pretty horrid in places.

This only makes it appeal to me more.

Yeah, I tried again last night and got past Hornet on the second attempt. I had a lot of Geos (like, well over a thousand) because of all of the dying previously and, armed with a new dash move, started to explore areas on the map that I hadn't been able to access before. Then I died twice in quick succession without being able to kill my ghost and lost all of my Geos. "No problem," I thought. "I shouldn't really have had that much anyway. About a minute later I discovered a bank where I could have opened an account for 100 geo and stashed my loot. I only had 27, though.

At that point, the wind got taken out of my sails and I left for bed. It's a pity. I want to like this a lot more (and was enjoying messing around with the dash move, but I have about 5 hours / week 'quality' gaming time now and don't really want to tip it into a timesink like this. Especially one that can punish you relatively severely for quite slight errors. I do like Metroidvania type games, but I think that there has to be the capacity for exploration and error without big penalties. You could argue that, in terms of gameplay, Hollow Knight isn't any harder than SOTN (for example); but in Castlevania games if traversal through an area wasn't working I could just reload a save if I felt that I'd wasted too much on trying to get through somewhere difficult. With the 'Soulsborne' alike mechanic of forcing you back to the tricky area where you've just died so you can recover your geos and complete your guage, it stops you fom just cutting your losses and immediately trying elsewhere.

IDK - I don't want to quit it just yet but (as Mart says) it looks massive. Even if I do make decent progress (or as much as my limited time allows right now) I don't think I'll even dent the enormity of this.

Anyone know any good 20-hour games that'll scratch my Metroidvania itch. I have already got a Platinum trophy for Yoku…

About a minute later I discovered a bank where I could have opened an account for 100 geo and stashed my loot. I only had 27, though.

Yeah… the 'bank'. That's a good one, I actually liked that. :)

Anyone know any good 20-hour games that'll scratch my Metroidvania itch. I have already got a Platinum trophy for Yoku…

Chasm is decent enough, much less punishing than Hollow Knight, but it's a little soulless - all the elements are there but, since it's procedurally generated, the level design feels a little formulaic as it's just stitching chambers together like a jigsaw puzzle every time. I hated Death's Gambit, it's such an obvious Dark Souls knock-off, but others on the internet seemed to like it. I enjoyed Dandara, though it's relatively short. Headlander's great… I'm sure someone else here's already playing that (maybe not you though). Salt & Sanctuary? Guacamelee 2?

I also lost hundreds of geo after being jumped by two Moss Knights on the way back to the Hornet. I don’t know if there’s a closer bench (there might be) but it’s a long vertical slog from where I am to have another go and honestly I think I’m done. I don’t mind hard games, but constantly slogging through the same dozen screens just to have another go at a boss is just pointlessly aggravating.

I really enjoyed Guacamelee 1 so I think I might play the sequel to that instead of Hollow Knight.

honestly I think I’m done.

Maybe spend an hour or so watching someone play it through on YouTube. Not just so you can see it through to the end (so, you'll at least know what happens, the story's actually quite nice) but also to give yourself a measure of what you're not going to see. If you have time, I guess.

Dead Cells?

Dead Cells?

Not a Metroidvania and I'll fight anyone who claims otherwise.

(It's a procedural-generated roguelike with a few elements taken from the genre, so nerrrrrr)

I enjoyed Dandara, though it's relatively short. Headlander's great…

I've completed Headlander. I really enjoyed that. Also, this recommendation for Dandara might just give me the push I need to DL it.

As for the other recommendations… I could revisit Guacamelee? I remember playing it but nor actually finishing it. Must check that out before moving onto the sequel. Also, isn't Salt and Sanctuary meant to be nails hard as well?

Guacamelee is great. The sequel is more of the same - so, a bit disappointing if you've played the original to death like me and were expecting something new, but a good jumping off point if you didn't go too far into the first one. Though, it does start with the final battle of the first one (kind of), so that's a bit of a spoiler.

Salt & Sanctuary is 2D Dark Souls. But it's done right, with style and its own approach, not like Death's Gambit (which is so much of a rip-off, I'm shocked no-one called it out for it). So, yeah, maybe one to avoid if you're not feeling like getting ruined by a videogame.

I had a quick go on Hollow Knight, reached the first boss and got the spirit shot, I know this is still the easy bit but so far I love it.

I love the art style, the controls feel great and so far loving the atmosphere. Dunno if I can carry on anytime soon but early impressions were great.

Additional PLAY:

Starlink: Battle For Atlas - It's really good! Surprisingly good, to be honest. It has that typical Ubisoft thing where you'll be doing the main missions, but get constantly distracted by icons appearing on the map as you get near them. Thing is, I'm okay with that because of my constant need to go elsewhere… I've constantly found myself flying off in the wrong direction to do just one more ruin, just one more shipwreck, just one more hack rather than sticking to the story. The fact that you have entire planets to explore is also appealing, as is the ability to just fuck off into space and go literally anywhere at any point just by pushing a button. It's very, very well done. I'm actually quite sad that it appears to have flopped at retail, because the game that's here is well worth the time and effort needed to play it. I think so, anyway.

So what is it actually like to play? Right now it kind of looks like a mix of No Man's Sky and Ratchet & Clank, which does sound pretty cool.

It's exactly that, really. I won't deny, it can get a little repetitive if you keep doing nothing but side-missions - there's only so many types to discover. But equally, each of the planets have plenty of things to discover (and visual styles that differ greatly), the combat's satisfying, it's visually delightful and there's never really a dull moment. Even exploring space is nice. And having some direction, as opposed to being left to it as you are in Elite or NMS, is definitely the kind of driving force I appreciate in a game like this. The fact that each pilot has all their own dialogue and interactions with NPCs is a nice touch too… I'm playing as the rebellious space cat outlaw, which is better than the straight-laced hero dude you get in the starter kit, even if he does have an annoying cutesy voice.

OH. Important point: you don't get out of your ship. You're either hovering just above the ground, flying around with the ability to 'jump' over stuff, or you're actually flying (which is what you need to do if you're heading into space, which you can do at any time once you're past the first planet). You can't fly if you're carrying something with your tractor beam though, which is what you do if you're doing a collect/deliver mission. So, no wandering around in first person as your pilot. It's all ships, all the time.

The only thing I don't particularly like is the toy aspect. The controller grip that everything plugs onto makes the pad feel unnecessarily heavy; changing bits over is cumbersome and time consuming. It's never really clear if changing ships over has an effect on your gained XP (though it definitely does when changing pilots, since each has their own skill tree to upgrade). In short, it's all a bit rubbish, even if the ships are quite nice to look at. No wonder it's possible to buy a digital version that gives you all the content without having to have the physical stuff. Just a shame that's still as expensive as it ever was.

it appears to have flopped at retail

the toy aspect [is] all a bit rubbish

I wonder if these are related at all.

Exactly.

Thing is, I can see why they did it. Without the toy/physical aspect, it's just a brand new IP that doesn't really have much going for it on the surface - it's just No Man's Sky for kids. Hard sell. Then again, maybe it would have done better without that gimmick? Too late to find out, I guess. But the fact that they already made a digital version that does away with the need for the toys shows at least someone was thinking of the worst case scenario.

Play: Loads for a change. Playing Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, Hollow Knight (barely, I've made it to the first boss), Sleeping Dogs and Titanfall 2.
Finished a play through of Titanfall last night, it was pretty enjoyable. There are a lot of cool and enjoyable ideas in it, the only minor criticism I have is that it's very defined in terms of whether the pilot needs to be in the mech or on foot, there isn't much room for anything in between. There are a couple of really well designed, memorable levels in the game and the nimble pilot's move set is almost what I'd want every FPS to adopt as standard.
If I was still on PS+ I'd guess this would be where I complained about how addictive the multiplayer is but I'm not so…

Play

Kingdom Heart: Birth By Sleep -I posted a few weeks/months ago that I already beat KH1, 2 and Chains of Memories on the 'All in One' Package I bought for the PS4, I went on almost immediately to BBS which is a shorter game split into three different perspectives set before even KH1. Then I got sidetracked, then I saw this recent trailer..(cos it's almost out-ish)

It's obviously full of spoilers but who cares, we see the Toy Story World, Monster Inc world, we even see Elsa do the thing in frozen where she runs across a bridge of Ice she made (I still can't believe how shit that film is). The new song by Utada Hikaru, who has been with us since the beginning (S I X T E E N years ago), those gorgeous visuals…I'm really feeling the hype and am already planning to book time off work to play this. It will be like the time SE released FFXV except hopefully this will actually be a good, finished game.

After BBS I have Dream Drop Distance, there's a movie of 'Recoded' which is good because I didn't even buy that shit and then I guess I need to watch Tangled and errrr the robot hero one.

Warframe - Find me a more impressive free to play game than this. I made a Valkyr Warframe, whose main power is turning invincible and punching things so hard they get literally smashed to pieces. This is very nice in terms of stress relief actually.

Super Smash Ultimate - Not had a chance to play this as much as I want, but when I do it's been very fun. I think I'm dropping Samus to play a character more suited to learn the game, enter 'Our boy' Roy from Fire Emblem. There are enough Fire Emblem characters in here to have a small Fire emblem fighting game except this game has like 50 more characters on top of that.

Persona 4 - chipping away at it, but playing it in work kinda sucks.

White Album 2 - This is a Visual Novel, does this count as a play'? It's getting to Alastor's annual rewatch of the anime but for once I want to replay the Visual Novel, especially now 'Closing Chapter' is fully translated. What to say, it's the best love story ever told don't @ me.

Want

Kingdom Hearts III - 'I want you for a lifetime, so if you gotta' think twice, I don't wanna' know baby' <3

The new expansions for Monster Hunter World and FFXIV Also, Monster Hunter World isn't an RPG I don't care what anyone says.

Bin

I'm hesitant to say it's a definite bin but I tried to get back into Pokemon Moon and good GOD these Pokemon look terrible for the most part, I think the ones I don't hate aren't even new either. But the gameplay is actually still kinda' fun so I might press on at some point.

Shenmue 2 - Beat it, I love the final chapter, which is basically just one long conversation. I think having played the first one now the encounter between Shenhua and Ryo was nicely built up, and the whole chapter felt really mystical even before you get to the cave at the end (I'm not saying the floating magical daggers weren't abrupt, because they were, lol).

I don't see how Shenmue 3 is going to continue on from here, is Ryo going to kill Lan Di against Li Shao Tao's (best character ever) advice and that's assuming he even can, because Ryo isn't that great a fighter in the grand scheme of things so I guess he's going to learn some chinese magic or something which will be silly.

I think I might be back on the PC gaming treadmill. I'd kind of dropped away from it in the last couple of years, but I got a new monitor for Christmas. It doesn't sound like the most amazing upgrade ever, but actually it probably is: with a 144Hz refresh rate and Nvidia Gsync, I'm suddenly finding that my PC actually had loads of headroom all along and now all my games are barrelling along at 90+ FPS at 1440p and looking absolutely glorious. Suddenly my PC is back to being the absolute best place to play my games, after a couple of years of kind of losing out to my PS4 Pro.

So I've mostly been doing the traditional PC upgrade thing of loading up all my old games, cooing at how pretty they are for 5 minutes and then loading something else, but I did put a couple of hours into Subnautica. It's basically a "collect crap to build more crap" survival game, which isn't quite my sort of thing but given that it's essentially No Man's Sea I think it might have some fans here. It's all hand-crafted rather than procedurally generated with a pretty strong narrative and I definitely prefer it to No Man's Sky from what I've seen so far. A nice little watery diversion and it's currently free on the Epic Games store if you want to check it out.

I rather like Subnautica even if it's fucking terrifying. For me, it's less of a crafting/survival game and more of a survival horror.

I have pretty bad thalassophobia, so Subnautica is a great big nope for me.

I played it in VR. Problematic.

NOPE.

Although, it did give me one of the highlights of the year…

Spoiler - click to show 2 in the morning, playing this game in VR. Utterly silent, flat's baltic cold because it's February and I'm feeling tired and jangled. Just out gathering resources in the seamoth. I've been hearing a sound far off in the distance and I have no idea what it is. I'm like, 400 feet deep so maybe that's just the sound that the sea makes when you get this far down. No idea.
Spoiler - click to show Swim out of the seamoth, gather resource, come back in, whip the minisub around and I see a Reaper Leviathan inches away from my face, mouth wide, mandibles grabbing the front of the submarine. It screams, roars and grabs on, beginning to shake it. I almost shit out my pelvis, swear incredibly loudly and just fucking launch a VR headset across the room.
Spoiler - click to show

Play - lots of Pokemon (fun) and even more Smash Ultimate, which is bloody brilliant. It's my first Smash game, and it's such a joy. Once you get your head around the controls, that is.

The only niggle I have, and it really is the only niggle, is that it doesn't tell you what game the Spirits come from. So it'll reference the most obscure corners of videogame history, and set up a Spirit battle, but half the time you have no idea what it's referencing.

If you find Micaiah Lahori, you fucking tell me, please T_T.