PWB March 2025

Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)

Play.
Avowed is still brilliant, and I hope it sells enough to keep this franchise alive. (The Obsidian CEO chatting about being around for 100 years had me worried… don't Microsoft own them? Presumably they're three months away from being closed at any moment.) It's a generous, beautiful game with crunchy combat and secrets falling out of its mushroom-filled arse. 20 hours in and I'm still actively seeking out fights, just because they're so much fun.

Pillars of Eternity. Same world as Avowed, same team, entirely different game. An Infinity Engine-style CRPG that's aimed squarely at people who played, and loved, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc. It's well written with cerebral combat and some lovely pre-rendered backgrounds.

Want.
Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.

Switch 2. That new Pokémon game looks depressing, like a badly made mobile game from 10 years ago. We need some hardware with a little more oomph.

Bin.
FF7 Rebirth. I'm not sure I've ever played a game that respected my time less than this. I managed 40 hours, which is testament to how good the good bits are. But the lows, which make up about 80 percent of the game, are painful. I skipped large chunks of Gongaga. I left the entirety of Cosmo Canyon unexplored, didn't even unlock the Chocobo (after failing the 'minigame' twice). Fast forwarded through whatever was happening in the Gi cave. Made it to Nibelheim, but by that point I didn't care about the story, I just wanted the pain to stop.

It's probably just bad design, but most of the decisions feel genuinely aggressive towards the player. There's so much friction in every moment of gameplay, so much plodding non-interaction, that it's hard to see how this game came from the same team that made Remake. A spectacularly bad 80 hour game that could have been a great 30 hour one.

Gongaga is particularly egregious for me, because despite having the worst design and worst Chocobo gimmick, in the PS1 game it's like a town comprised of like, three screens. They could have kept the town, kept the character interactions that happened there but cut it out as a World Intel zone for the sake of the entire game and I doubt many people would miss it in that form.

A spectacularly bad 80 hour game that could have been a great 30 hour one.

A great 30 hour game is exactly how I'd describe the original, as it took me pretty much that amount of time to beat. Playing Rebirth and OG back to back is a good showcase on why fleshing out every last minute detail of your story isn't always to the benefit of the whole product.

Switch 2. That new Pokémon game looks depressing, like a badly made mobile game from 10 years ago. We need some hardware with a little more oomph.

I get opinions but… what? Hardware's got absolutely nothing to do with how Z-A looks, because it looks like a Pokémon game, it looks like Sword/Shield, it looks like Scarlet/Violet. That's how TPC wants its games to look now, visually, like a playable cartoon. It could be running on Deep Blue and it'd still look like that. Anyone hoping for Monster Hunter Wilds: Pokémon Edition is living in a dream world.

Comparing it to a shit mobile game? Come on, MPH, you're better than that.

Play

Like a Dragon: Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii - crazy name, crazy game. This spin-off has a deeply stupid concept - feared Yakuza boss Majima Goro has a bout of amnesia and washes up on the shores of Honolulu, where he decides to become a pirate captain - but in practice is a glorious riot of fun and colour and action, that distills all the best bits of Infinite Wealth and combines it with a Black Flag-style sailing epic to result in something quite unique. Majima himself is the best he's been since Zero, the combat system's had a definite upgrade, and it's hard to dislike a game that opens with a full-on musical number.

Balatro - this lives up to its fearsome reputation as some form of digital crack. It's excellent. And I'm spending far too much time playing it.

Want

I'd like to get Monster Hunter: Wilds but at the moment it's firmly in "when it gets a discount" territory and may even slip to "when the inevitable expansion comes out". Rise in particular didn't really get good until Sunbreak, and I always felt I missed out with World by never going back for Iceborne.

I'm still intending to check out Avowed but there are a lot of good games out at the moment and something's got to give.

Bin

I'm running out of words to describe how appalled I am by Trump, who appears to be running the US like some kind of Russian mob boss. Come on, cholesterol, do your job.

Play
I picked up a ROG Ally on rllmuk (original white one). feltmonkey is suck an influencer.

I'm impressed. It's hard to shake the feeling you're playing a weird hybrid device that's just a laptop with a small screen pasted to two joysticks, but the absolute ease of just every single gaming store just working with no fucking about and the fact I can take it and a docking station and also do a sneaky Powerpoint on a work trip means it's just a far more comfortable device than the Steam Deck, when it always seems to be the case that you'll fire up a game it has run perfectly 15 times and then it decides to have a Linux moment.

The compactness (even with a protective shell it fits in a case significantly smaller than the Deck) means I think I'm going to swap over as I just can't be arsed sacrificing 18 pairs of pants and socks just to get the Deck in my rucksack (edit: not a euphemism). I do think the screen is a little small, the sticks feel cheap and I'd far prefer it in black, but for £260 with a dock and accessories I think it's a lot of device for the money. It also gave me three months of Gamepass Ultimate, which was nice, so net martcost of £260 - £45 innit.

Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)

Play.
Avowed is still brilliant, and I hope it sells enough to keep this franchise alive. (The Obsidian CEO chatting about being around for 100 years had me worried… don't Microsoft own them?

Haven't sales been mediocre/disastrous? I do wonder though if MS can just not panic if it'll have a massive tail. My son just started playing it after me badgering him and he absolutely loves it and is evangelising it to his friends. It could build momentum over a few months, but no game these days gets a few months, sadly….

Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)

Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.

I should warn you it has wimmin and the genders in it, so it might make you really angry and forced to take to the internet to shout about how games should be about MEN and MUSCLES and GUNS like they used to be before all the NON MEN SPOILED EVERYTHING.

Haven't sales been mediocre/disastrous?

Aren't sales for Xbox exclusives that are day 1 on Game Pass always going to be mediocre at best? The benefit of games like this is how many people they attract to the service - and it's not going to be Avowed alone that does that but Avowed plus all the other stuff - so I don't know how you measure its success but it's not going to be through full price copies sold.

I got the impression some of the reports suggested sales and downloads on Gamepass were pretty poor. As isn't MS's revenue model either a flat fee or a variable one based on downloads shaping what is given to the studio (all moon money of course if they're an MS owned dev house).

I don't know, I don't think its been a smash hit either way. And some of the reviews have been scandalously sneery.

Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)

Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.

I should warn you it has wimmin and the genders in it, so it might make you really angry and forced to take to the internet to shout about how games should be about MEN and MUSCLES and GUNS like they used to be before all the NON MEN SPOILED EVERYTHING.

As long as the women are all attractive and want to sleep with me.

It's in the genre of RPGS where everyone wants to fuck you after about 4 interactions.

It's in the genre of RPGS where everyone wants to fuck you after about 4 interactions.

I'll pass, I play games to escape the real world.

Another quick play…

Star Wars Outlaws
Like a lot of people I'd been waiting for this to hit the inevitable £10 on key sites. But such is the blasted wasteland that is the modern game industry (and the fact I've really been enjoying Avowed and Eternal Strands and didn't really pay anything for them) the £30 on Steam was enough to make me get Outlaws.

I'd been enjoying some aspects of Jedi Fallen Order and been playing it a bit on PS5, but the lead is such a faceless twonk I wondered if Outlaws would give me a bit more WIMMIN IN MY VIDEOGAME and a similar Star Warsy experience without Jedi powers (boring) and the same old shit that's in a million Star Wars games.

And so far its been fine. I like the lead, the cute alien dog thing is cute and the gameplay is Uncharted meets every game ever, but works well enough. Graphically it's very nice, and I think the first game I've seen where Ray Tracing is enforced? It looks pretty good on the Rog Ally, but needs Lossless Scaling to get it anywhere near 60 but looks really impressive on a proper PC. I can't remember if there was a debate here or rllmuk about whether it looked shit or not. I'd say in places it looks really next gen, less so in others.

I can see the stealth loop getting old pretty quickly, but it's all breezy fun so far.

Play

I was a little unsure of Avowed initially, but 30-something hours in I think it's safe to say it's doing a lot of things right. This might be the first Bethesda/Obsidian game where I actually like all of the party members. Their stories, personalities and the conversations at camp are all tremendous, and even their combat and exploration barks are helpful. I love just wandering around the world looking for trinkets and monsters, or scrounging up enough materials to upgrade my current favourite weapon. Combat is snappy and never feels overwhelming even when surrounded, and I'm a little surprised at how often I wade in with a sword instead of hanging back, sniping.

I don't feel like I'm too far on the main story quest yet – there are too many excellent sidequests and diversions – but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lets me fully commit to the rebellion against the emperor who sent me here as his envoy. Aedyr has no business being in the Living Lands. (I am, however, also looking forward to trying a second playthrough as an unapologetic Aedyran zealot.)

Want

More time to play Avowed, mostly. I am, as usual, tempted by the new Monster Hunter, but I know how impenetrable those are and I'm really not sure I need that kind of complexity in my entertainment at the moment.

I'm willing to help if I can, also down for hunts.

And so far its been fine. I like the lead, the cute alien dog thing is cute and the gameplay is Uncharted meets every game ever, but works well enough. Graphically it's very nice, and I think the first game I've seen where Ray Tracing is enforced? It looks pretty good on the Rog Ally, but needs Lossless Scaling to get it anywhere near 60 but looks really impressive on a proper PC. I can't remember if there was a debate here or rllmuk about whether it looked shit or not. I'd say in places it looks really next gen, less so in others.

I can see the stealth loop getting old pretty quickly, but it's all breezy fun so far.

"Breezy fun" is about right, I don't think Star Wars Outlaws is the best game ever but it nails the licence, looks and sounds great and doesn't outstay its welcome. Its depiction of Tatooine in particular is the best I've seen yet in a game.

Strangely the only other game I've seen that enforced ray tracing was another Star Wars game: Jedi Survivor. And the Performance mode on console ran like crap as a result, to the extent that I think they finally patched out the ray tracing for that mode. It looked glorious in Quality mode though. I'm impressed that Outlaws has the full suite of 30/40/60fps modes on console, and they all look pretty good.

Did anyone else bother to grab the mobile versions of Knight of the Old Republic 1 and 2, since they're currently free through the mobile Epic Store? Since the Retroid Pocket 5 is essentially an android phone with controls stuck to it, I grabbed them and wouldn't you know it, they work out of the box with controller support. So, that's nice.

Strangely the only other game I've seen that enforced ray tracing was another Star Wars game: Jedi Survivor. And the Performance mode on console ran like crap as a result, to the extent that I think they finally patched out the ray tracing for that mode. It looked glorious in Quality mode though. I'm impressed that Outlaws has the full suite of 30/40/60fps modes on console, and they all look pretty good.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle had forced ray-tracing too. I don't think it has any baked-in lighting at all, so it's not something you can disable.

the mobile Epic Store

Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.

the mobile Epic Store

Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.

Oh! Well, that's interesting. I didn't even think about that…

the mobile Epic Store

Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.

Yes it is. It's not on the play store, you have to go to Epic's website, but it downloads and works fine. I've got it on my phone and Odin 2, and both Kotor games on each as a result.

Incidentally, does anyone want a steam code for Sam Barlow's Immortality? I have a spare.

the mobile Epic Store

Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.

Yes it is. It's not on the play store, you have to go to Epic's website, but it downloads and works fine. I've got it on my phone and Odin 2, and both Kotor games on each as a result.

I stand corrected!

Now go get those games! 😁

Already done! I've restarted KotOR about five times in the last decade, though, and never made it off Taris…

Other than the Rancor, almost everything with KOTOR has been overtaken in my head by the sequel

Played the first few hours of Dragon Age Veilguard after it got added to PS Plus.

I'm not convinced. There was an absolutely glowing review for this on Eurogamer, but so far it just feels like the final stage in the dumbing down of Bioware. This is God of War Lite, without any of that game's satisfying combat or incredible storytelling.

I reckon Bioware did Dragon Age dirty. I remember reading previews for Origins back in the day, talking about how exciting this new CRPG world was going to be. It was the culmination of everything Bioware stood for blah blah blah. And after Origins, the games got slowly less involved. The lore was steadily pushed out of sight. Until now you've got Veilguard, whose glossary can barely be arsed explaining key bits of the world and its history. You get one line, complete with a Marvel-style quip, if you're lucky.

I'm not saying every RPG needs to have its own in-depth universe with rich lore and layered combat systems. Quite the opposite, that'd be exhausting. I'm all for flashy corridor crawlers. But leave that for new IPs, stop dumbing down existing stuff that people are already invested in.

You've got to wonder whether Bioware (EA?) are kicking themselves now that Baldur's Gate 3 has proved that people want CRPGs. The neverending search for sales figures seems to have completely eluded them.

Two positives. It reminds me of War in the North, the criminally underrated PS3 Lord of the Rings game. And it's nice having a party made up exclusively of interesting women. Even though, as Cav said, everyone could do with being a tad less horny.

If you think Veilguard is horny, I'd love to know how you'd react to Baldur's Gate III; I think I'd played it for less that two hours before one of my party members very forcefully propositioned me.

I'm not sure I agree that Veilguard has "pushed [lore] out of sight", either - the whole game is built around mythology that's been hinted at since the Dalish origin in 2009. I do agree the codex could do with more history, though - too much of it is taken up with incidental, contemporary documents or (as you say) half-joking nonsense.

I played BG3 after the less-horny patch (that was an actual thing that happened). Although yes, I did end up bonking Shadowheart.

There's something about progressive, liberal games that mean you're basically guaranteed some sex. If you can set your pronoun as they, you're guaranteed a good time.

You've got to wonder whether Bioware (EA?) are kicking themselves now that Baldur's Gate 3 has proved that people want CRPGs

It's crazy how much they fumbled that particular bag, BG3 is such a good game that it has eliminated any desire I have to both go back to Origins or look ahead for any future DA game they make, just pure DA legacy erasure backwards and forwards for me

I, on the other hand, really like the worldbuilding in Dragon Age, but don't get along much with CRPGs; before Veilguard came out, Dragon Age II was the high point of the series for me. 🙃

Additional PLAY (not that I think I wrote anything this month yet):
Red Dead Redemption - Played a game of Western Legends (fantastic open world board game) with some friends last weekend, and now I've gone full cowboy. Already had the Switch remaster in-hand, so now I'm playing that. It's still lovely to look at and fun to play, and I always enjoyed it more than the GTA games (despite it being GTA Horsey Edition). Currently getting distracted by random events while on distraction missions, which is about as 'not following the story' as you can get. Plus, shooting birds out the sky because why not. I also dug out my PS4 because I never even scratched the surface of RDR2… so, that's in the future.

Played the first few hours of Dragon Age Veilguard after it got added to PS Plus.

I'm not convinced.

Okay I'm convinced.

🎵 Fastest mind change of the weeeeeeek 🎵

Everything clicked at once. The plot started making sense, the companion stories got more involved (and very well acted), I had a holy-fuck set-piece. And most importantly I swapped from being a two-handed hammer warrior (dull) to a sword-and-shield wielding necrosis spreading purveyor of death.

I've always avoided sword and shield builds in games because, y'know, yawn. But here, Bioware have hidden a frenetic, poison-spreading, playing-tennis-with-a-zombie-shield build at the end of the skill tree. And it's glorious.

That's two games I've almost written off and then fallen in love with in the space of a few months (Indiana Jones being the other). I'm so flaky.

You've convinced me to keep going with Indiana Jones. Beautiful looking, but bloody hell does it make itself hard to love.

Very late this month as had a lot on work wise.

I did finally start the RoboCop FPS last night and already love it. Annoyed I can't play it today as it's obviously far too violent a game for playing on the family TV.

Other than that mainly just been dabbling on weird odd stuff I pick from the charity shops and messing with my Rog Ally.

Still playing footy games too.

It warms my cold withered heart that @cavalcade and @"big mean bunny" have joined me on the ROG Ally bandwagon. I was thinking about this the other day - if you choose to consider it to be a console, then it has to be the greatest console ever made. The "library" is absolutely ridiculous, and the access to games and price are equally amazing. Once you take that into account, the Steam Deck is the only competition, and that is a (small) step down in power, and doesn't have access to the PC Game Pass or the Epic Games Store with all it's free games we've been accumulating for years. Obviously the battery life is crap, but I've personally eliminated that problem with a big high capacity portable battery that can charge the machine two or three times over, so if I ever do want to play it out and about, I just need to have that thing in my coat pocket.

I saw the listing on rllmuk that you bought, cav. I'm envious of the price, but then I got a nearly new PS5 for like £250 with two controllers, so it's not like I haven't also reaped the benefit of the strange habits of people who spend a fortune on consumer electronics and don't use them.

and doesn't have access to the PC Game Pass or the Epic Games Store with all it's free games we've been accumulating for years.

I have no strong opinions on the ROG Ally and am glad you are enjoying your console! I just wanted to point out that the Steam Deck can access Epic Games (and GOG) libraries just fine using a little program called the Heroic Launcher - it takes seconds to install. And you can add games from there to the Steam carousel so they act just like native Steam games. I've used it many times without any problems at all.

PC Game Pass, fair enough, but I find using XBPlay for an "improved" Xbox Cloud Gaming experience is a more than adequate substitute for that one.

Steam Deck can do anything if you can be arsed fucking about to make it do it. But I just reached the stage of not being arsed. And while the compatibility is amazing, it still doesn't run a lot of cheat protection games and there is, once again, fucking about as on many occasions I've gone to launch a game and it hasn't worked because of some Proton related update.

The form factor is also ridiculous. It fills a rucksack if it's in the official case. I used to have to put it in a sock. Comfortable to hold, sure. Too big for a portable device? Yes.

The Ally (I'd imagine the Ally X moreso) is just transformative. Armory Crate just compiles every game from every launcher in one place and allows you to have a custom profile (performance/bindings etc) for each. But it's great I can leave it and use the OS if I need to do something. It's faster than the Deck (noticeably so - with Lossless Scaling on top I've not come across much it can't run at 60fps+). The screen has VRR and is higher rez. The OLED is nice, I guess, but I have an OLED laptop and a non OLED one and I can't say after about 10 seconds of using them I notice much (in fact, I prefer the non reflective screen on the LCD).

The battery life is shit. But I'm just back from a long train trip to and from London and Kent, and I took a 65w power bank (as felt says) for it and other stuff and it was fine. In fact, on most of the trains I just plugged it in. With the bank I get about 2 hours 30. Which is fine on the move as I have the attention span of a moth anyway. I'd say the Ally X which adds longevity and a bit more RAM might well be the greatest console ever made, and if I see one cheap I might upgrade to it. But as is, I don't know what device can deliver what the original Ally can at the quite frankly ridiculous prices it now trades for.

In true rllmuk fashion, not only was it cheap, but he sent it with a whole load of accessories (case, grip, screen protectors etc…). In also true rllmuk fashion did you see I almost sold my Deck to grungekid and the fucker bought the other guys' and then sold it on in about 3 days. The dude is an absolute mess. I think I'll just donate my Deck to one of my kids (even though none of them want it). It also has a stuck pixel, which is fucking annoying (hardly noticeable, but when I was checking before selling it I saw it and told grungekid I couldn't sell it in good conscience). Good job I didn't.

Another Play
For reasons too complicated to go into, I'm moving to the Republic of Ireland next month (EU passport ho!) and I've decided to leave my PS5 in Wales, and just drop to a PC, Switch and the Ally. I scored a 2080ti in Wrexham for a quite frankly ridiculous price (as my second PC was running an old GTX card) and I think I'm set to go. I've been experimenting with streaming from the PS5, with mixed results. The official Sony app is pretty dogshit. 720p and poor quality. But Chiaki has been extremely impressive. Even on my non full fibre connection, the quality/lag is startling at 1080p, so much so that I think I can possibly leave my PS5 remote and use it that way. My only existential fear is being hundreds of miles and a ferry ride away from the PS5 itself means I might end up switching it on one day, not being able to connect and it burning my flat block down. But hey ho.

Other option is a second PS5 on that crazy Astrobot deal at the moment. But I think I have more than enough to play on PC. The one thing I was going to miss was Veilguard, but I picked that up in the Steam sale (happy to buy it twice to annoy the people who get annoyed at it) and I might just play it on the Ally (where it runs amazingly well).

But, all this is by the by. I have been playing the 2014 (?) Tomb Raider. Is it just me…. have games got worse in the last 10 years? In the endless drive to streamline games so nothing you do (picking up resources, traversal etc) is in any way challenging to the player or disruptive, have we ended up where every game essentially feels very similar? All the edges shaved off.

It's a bit old man rants at cloud, but Tomb Raider has been startlingly good. Set pieces, mechanics, visual flair, good story telling, rammed full of tinkery bits and also… like, every time you skin a wolf you've killed it goes through the same animation loop and sprays the screen with mess. No modern game would have you slowly crouch, slice the wolf, gather a resource, spray the screen and repeat every single time it happens. But I like it. It's nice that a game tells you to chill the fuck out while it runs an animation loop. I don't always want to be totally catered for. My time isn't that precious, stop trying to give it back to me.

But it's not just that - apart from the facial animation, which does age it. Tomb Raider looks exactly the same as a game today. I was watching a Digital Foundry thing on Half Life 2 RTX and it was actually laughable how similar it looked to the 2004 original while the two cretins spunked themselves silly about slightly better grass textures. But, apart from Croft's slightly doll-like face and the fact the game hasn't removed anything that might annoy the player, Tomb Raider looks like a game from 2024. And I think we might've been having more fun then. Maybe slow food gaming is the way forward. Maybe we should be putting slow, non skippable animation loops back in games.

Have you reached the St. Francis Folly level? Not played the 2014 version but that is an awesome level on the PS1 version

2014 is the "Survivor" reboot. You're maybe thinking of Anniversary, which came out in 2007?

I always hated St. Francis' Folly. The number of times I plummeted to my death in that bastard place…

I did exactly the same as Al, only I was thinking about Legend. Thought that came out 10 years ago. Nope, 19. 🫠

I simply refuse to believe that is true.

Regarding the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck, I never wanted to kick off the cosnole wars. They're both fantastic machines. I do think that people have kind of missed how good the Ally is, though. It's the sort of thing I personally have been dreaming of since the days of the PSP.

Which must have been at least five years ago.

I liked the 2014 Tomb Raider but I liked each successive sequel (Rise then Shadow) slightly more. The first game was a bit heavy on plot and shooty bits, it definitely wanted to be Uncharted quite a lot. The sequels remembered what series they were part of and had more actual Tombs to Raid. The first game has the single worst bit of narrative/gameplay dissonance I've ever seen in a game though ("oh no I've killed someone I'm really really sad HEADSHOT BONUS HEADSHOT BONUS HEADSHOT BONUS") and it's mostly funny just for that.

Coincidentally I'm playing the remastered version of the PS1 Tomb Raider right now, well I say "playing", I think "swearing at the controls" is more accurate. I get that it was designed with tank controls originally and I understand why but that's a really difficult thing to go back to in 2025; what is particularly odd is how the folk who did the otherwise excellent remaster could then also get their "modern controls" so very very wrong too. The game itself is great, the remaster tries really hard to hide that from you at every turn.

Nah, I disagree with that. The player can cause dissonance, but the game has an entire opening prologue where you're bow and arrowing slavering wolf beasts. No humans.

You then end up captured by a group who are mad, likely about to rape and murder you and your mates.

You escape, with all the ensuing panic. Initially you run. This entire section you're surrounded by the screams of people being murdered in the distance and rapey men saying what they're intending to do to you. You pick up a gun. You use it. The first 3 or 4 kills Lara is pretty distressed about it.

After that, you can more or less return to stealth knocking our or bowing people, and forget the gun. Or, as you might in real life, decide these people might be worth shooting.

Yes, it's still a videogame, but compared to Uncharted where it's WACKY QUIP and then START MURDERING EVERYONE, I think within the confines of game design it makes a brilliant stab (literally and figuratively) at it. You are given clear motive for why you need to kill and put in a position where lethal force is pretty much a desperate last minute choice.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable to more modern games, but even that level of thought would probably be absent. Avatar was shit about turning you immediately into an icon killing death machine. The Far Crys etc. Is it Far Cry 5 where you run from a cultist leader, hide in a shack for a bit, pick up a machine gun and then murder about 860 people in 5 minutes? 4 years later, but even then you have the start of the slow, directed walk, bit of chat, run, MURDER THEM ALL opening.

Regarding the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck, I never wanted to kick off the cosnole wars. They're both fantastic machines. I do think that people have kind of missed how good the Ally is, though. It's the sort of thing I personally have been dreaming of since the days of the PSP.

[Yodavoice] Begun, I'm afraid, the handheld wars have.

IIRC 'Lara's First Human Kill' has always been a thing, getting more focus each time it'sshown. There's that QTE in…….err, Legend? Where she puts the guy down but doesn't finish him off except he just keeps trying to aim back until she's forced to kill him? I can't remember if she feels sad about it. I really like that TR1 is mostly animals except for those men who disappeared when you shot them enough, then in TR3 she watches a dude get hit of a tall building to his death by a bell and makes A Quip. (Not that I'm criticising that bit)

I liked the 2014 Tomb Raider but I liked each successive sequel (Rise then Shadow) slightly more.

I really liked Rise, but never quite mustered the enthusiasm to finish Shadow. It's still on my SSD, though, so maybe I'll bump it up the pile.

Spent some time with the Steam demo of The Alters (coming out later this year, also on console) and I'm not sure I'm totally sold on it, but I'm definitely intrigued.

There's a lot more story to it than I'd expected, which seems (to me) like an odd fit with its base-building, resource-gathering survival elements; the demo suggests they actually go well together, though it's a little too short to say for sure (and doesn't give you any time with all the systems running simultaneously).

It's coming to GamePass, so I'll be giving it a proper shot on Xbox when it's out – our PC wasn't quite up to the task, even on the demo's lowest graphics settings.

How on earth am I going to find time for Atelier Yumia when Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is coming out? One of the cruelest (almost, by a day) simultaneous releases for me in a while. As much as I like Atelier games, Xenoblade is a GOTY tier game IMO and one that is finally getting a better shot at catching on with more players. If anyone has played a Xenoblade game before, be prepared for much less of a focus on an epic narrative (although there IS a story and I wouldn't say it's an after thought exactly but still) and more on a collection of sidequests as you explore the best open world RPG world. You make your own character if that's any indication of how the story works…

Koudelka is nowhere near as bad as I've been told, it's not great but I'm not hating it so far. This is the Code Veronica reputation all over again.

Battle system is slow, but I've survived Xenosaga 2 so ive seen worse. Fix the combat and you have a survival horror type RPG, whatever I just think it's neat.