Play
Well, fair play to Microsoft, they've managed to sucker me back in to the Xbox side of things, but there's no denying Game Pass is an amazing thing.
Crackdown 3 is lots and lots of fun. I can imagine there are a lot of stories to be told about this game's development, as it was clearly intended to be a major title initially then at some point got rescoped to be basically a re-release of the original; I'd love to hear what really happened. It's ended up as this weird game out of time, where it honestly doesn't look great at all and it's not all that long but it's still as much fun as it ever was and while it's not really £50 of videogame it's the perfect loss leader for something like Game Pass.
Wargroove is fantastic. Yes it's fantasy Advance Wars but nothing wrong with that.
Forza Horizon 4 is very pretty but I haven't got into it yet and I'm not sure I will; it's not really my sort of thing, the whole vibe of it is pretty off-putting and it's a whole lot of looking at loading screens as far as I can see.
Want
Definitely going to get Resident Evil 2 now. Other than that I think Game Pass has got me covered for the foreseeable.
Bin
Being ill. I've been more ill this week than I think I've ever been, having been completely torpedoed by an attack of vertigo: some sort of inner ear disorder where even the slightest movement causes waves of dizziness and nausea. I've basically spent several days lying on a sofa in a dark room groaning and being unable to do anything at all. It's subsiding at last, thankfully, and I hope it never ever comes back.
Play
A variety of things really!
Prey Picked this up for like £3 and there's a lot going on in it. It is by far one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. It's fun enough to play but the world is just divine; it makes dishonored 2 look positively dull in comparison; highly recommended if you want to just have a masterclass in art direction play out in front of you.
Northgard Not really sure about this one. It's a nice looking game with a boring story. It's a strategy game that seems to be a town builder at the same time. Vikings, raiding, unit management and micro-scale combat is the order of the day here. Not sure how much longer it has left for me to see if it clicks.
Assassins Creed: Unity Good lord what happened here. I think this was about the moment that the Assassins Creed franchise started to go pretty badly off the rails until Origins. It's a monument to ubisoft's 'just shit icons onto the map and call it content' approach to game development. Kind of bonkers.
Bin
She Remembers Caterpillars A lovely indie puzzler that I just don't have the brain for. It's sort of a sliding block puzzle but you can change the color of the blocks and there are gates in front of certain areas and- it is 100% someone out there's jam but it is 100% not my jam.
Paradigm Indie point and click adventure. It's funny but it leans into the whole 'point and click adventure games require you to know what the developer is thinking' gimmick very hard. It even makes jokes about 'haha how would anyone know to do that?' while actually having puzzles that no one would possibly know how to do. I finished it, though, which is more than I can say for Grim Fandango.
Late Shift An FMV game! It's an FMV game! I can't watch that Bandersnatch thing on Netflix because the tester in my brain goes 'failure state testing do it' where I just go for the same bad outcome to see how long it takes for the game to take pity. Again, my brain's broken so I can't enjoy this.
Want
Less anxiety I guess? We are currently in a longterm and ongoing discussion with investors at work at the moment. We had an okay launch but things are tough and the big R is looming so that's nice. I would just like a bit of job security, you know? Met a friend from highschool that is coming up on his 12th year at his current place. I remarked that I'd only had one job that lasted longer than 12 months and apparently that's not normal?
Also bloodlines 2 I guess.
Play Bin Want? Stop messing with the formula, Luscan! 
PLAY
Pool Panic - Still not got my stuff delivered (next Friday, apparently) so I'm clearing out my Switch backlog in the meantime. I really like this, as utterly dumb as it is. Nearly finished it, though there are loads of extra bits that I'm not going to attempt (hard mode seems ridiculous, and I'm not fussed about the list of trophies it offers in-game). Silly bit of fun really.
Something else on my Switch - Not sure what yet. Will decide when I'm done with Pool Panic.
WANT
Shakedown Miami - Really liked the first game, Retro City Rampage, so this should be a hoot. It's out next week (7th)!
Animal Crossing - Well, duh.
BIN
Ants - My new flat in Frankfurt has ants. The landlord is being a dick about it and basically suggesting I'm a liar/have imported my own ants for my amusement/am imagining things. It's not funny. I mean, they're an annoyance rather than anything else (the housekeeper has been round and done what he can with a massive vacuum cleaner and poison, so there's far less than there were) and they're not in my food or anything, so it's just frustrating. It's being dealt with, I have people on my side backing me up, but even so… stupid ants.
Abject sadness - For the first time in what feels like forever, I'm actually happy. God knows how long that'll last, something's bound to go wrong, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
I was going to make a post saying that I didn't like Pool Panic much, and that Assassin's Creed Unity is indeed a low point for the series but they pulled it back round with the very next instalment, but to be honest I am laughing too hard at the thought of Mart bringing an ant farm to Germany in hand luggage so I'm just going to forget about all of it.
Play
Really only Sea of Thieves, recently. A regular crew has done wonders for my doubloon balance, faction reputation and total playtime, though it has had the side-effect of kind of ruining solo slooping for me. I think my brain is still in a "We can probably take 'em" mode, which is much less viable given my low skill level at everything except actually steering the ship.
Still, the Anniversary Update has landed and I've had loads of fun already with the Tall Tales, and fishing is a good way to pass the time when I don't feel like more directed activities (well, as directed as anything gets in Sea of Thieves). I might try and goad our crew into an Arena match at some point, get that mode checked off at least once.
Want
Time and enthusiasm would be helpful – I'd love to find the mentality to get back to Elite Dangerous or Hitman 2, but it's just not happening these days. Work's just been too busy for the last few weeks and co-op relaxation in Sea of Thieves is so much more appealing than other games can muster.
Bin
Sandstone repair costs can get in the bin. We're getting our house on the market but the front bay window has some pretty gnarly-looking (but structurally unimportant, at this stage at least) erosion. It wouldn't be a concern except it's literally the first thing prospective buyers will see when they come to view the house, so my middle-class "pay to make the problem go away" reaction is flaring up.
Nobody seems to think it'll be an issue in selling the house, though.
Play
Ermmmmm, at the moment I'm playing either phone gacha games (Starlight Revue and Granblue Fantasy) or visual novels if they even count. (White Album 2)
I think I've mentioned before on here my search for a good commute game and honestly, I'm slapping myself in the face for not trying this sooner, phone gaming that is. Whereas a single trip might net me enough to do a week in the life of the P4 protagonist (who I'm going to refer to by his name in every game since P4, Yu Narukami, fuck it.) or a Bracer mission or two in Trails in the Sky. In Starlight Revue I can farm the event boss like 10 times in a row, do my dailies, and upgrade a few of my stage girls and have time to spare.
And it's so easy, any battle you've done you can literally skip to farm it, so if you wanna' blast through the farming stage you can burn all your stamina in less than a minute. Also the game is fun, butei shojos rise up! o/
Granblue Fantasy is an interesting one since I'm primarily playing it on the browser which everyone readily agrees is the best way to do so since the phone app is so so but I guess it works. It has great art in my opinion. And features music from none other than Nobuo Uematsu. It's still a gacha but I'm here for the designs and a decent story I hope. 
I'm going to play more Cross Tag this week though.
Want
Bin
I uninstalled Fire Emblem Heroes after realising all I ever did lately is log in for the free summons on banners and get people I either didn't care about or know of. It's a good game and it plays like a Fire Emblem lite very well, with it's own depth to min-maxing. But everything else is kinda' meh. Lately I've realised that I don't like the post Awakening Fire Emblem games all that much in comparison to the older ones. As a result, I'm way less excited for the Switch game, but as it does look good I'm still going to buy it.
Additional PLAY:
Splatoon 2 - I've had this forever, including the Octo Expansion, but I've barely touched it. Watching the videos of the Splatoon 2 regional championships at work has pushed me back to it. It's lovely! I wish I'd played it before. Only playing the offline modes, since I don't have my internet set up yet, but that's okay.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - I'm not a fan of the Smash games, but it appears to be mandatory to be able to play them at work (the employee lounge has machines set up and everyone plays). I got beasted on Friday by two people on my team, so need to polish up my lacking skills. I'll never be good at it, but I can at least stop being terrible.
Play
Uncharted Lost Legacy. This passed me by on release, but very glad to be giving it a go now. No-one does this sort of thing better than Naughty Dog.
iPad games. I bought the new Air and have been filling it with all sorts. Tropico is a current favourite. I've always loved Tropico games, right from the first one, so getting to play a full-fat 3D version on a tablet is a delight. I'm also playing through KOTOR for, unless my memory is failing me, the very first time. It's obviously aged, and doesn't have any of the sweeping Mass Effect-style vistas you'd hope for from a space opera, but it's enjoyable enough so far. Good conversion too, not relying on crap virtual buttons.
Wolfenstein 2. I loved the first game, although I've stalled on this pretty early. It's just so horrible. In the opening hour I've dragged my crippled body around on the floor, decided which of my friends should be executed, had another friend beheaded in front of me (and had their head picked up and dangled before my eyes), been forced to kill a dog, watched as my mum was beaten by an alcoholic racist father… It's just exhausting. I'm not sure I can go on to be honest.
I'm quite getting into Forza Horizon 4 now - it's a weird game because it doesn't seem to care whether you're any good at it or not. You can come last in every race and it still showers you with praise as well as credits and influence. You'll level up a bit slower but that's about it. So it's a nice game to sort of pootle about in with minimal stress.
Its depiction of Britain is hilarious, too, consisting of one village, the Lake District and Edinburgh.
I had much, much more fun in the off-road races than the street races. Still enjoyed the street stuff, but there's something brilliantly exhilarating about cresting a hill in a pimped out Range Rover.
KOTOR 2 may have a shitty ending, but I think it's miles better than the first, it did the whole 'deconstruction of the Jedi/The Force' thing before Episode 8 too. The way it tied in the RPG mechanics into that stuff was pretty clever too.
Additional PLAY:
Shakedown Hawaii - It's okay. Not as good as the last one. It's really bitty and keeps throwing you all over the map for no reason, other than to facilitate the 'three character' mechanics. There's never really any downtime to do your own thing, you're just constantly being pushed into the next mission. It's also quite broken for reasons not worth mentioning. The continual drive to make you buy more property is dull. It's just a thing. And it doesn't even have a fucking Platinum! In this day and age! Oh well.
Play Red Dead Online. After all the bellyaching I was expecting a big ol' turd, but this is actually great fun. Apparently I started playing just after a content update dropped, but whatever the reason, this is a lovely excuse to spend more time in the game's breathtaking world.
I haven't experienced any money issues. I'm being rewarded fairly for taking part in enjoyable missions and side distractions, and nothing seems overpriced.
Additional Play: I saw Dragon Quest XI discounted on the PS Store just after payday, so I had to pick that up. Only a handful of hours in – so far, so trope-y – but it's a relaxing, brightly-coloured JRPG with a menu-driven, turn-based battle system so I'm happy with it. The not-much-better-than-MIDI music is a little offputting in places – particularly when it tries to do anything dramatic – and the use of "classic" sound effects from eras gone by are a nostalgic touch too far for my taste, but I'm otherwise enjoying wandering about a sunny field shanking cute monsters for marginal XP gains.
Additional PLAY:
DOOM - The reboot, because I've not played it. It's nice. Not really my thing, it's a bit fast for my old man reactions and overly dark on my current setup, but that's okay. Playing on the lowest difficulty purely because I want to experience it, not throw my controller out the window.
Gato Roboto - Out today on Switch, right up my alley (silly Metroidvania in a pixel style). With the launch discount and my gold points, it was £4 and change… it would have been rude not to. 
I really enjoyed Doom, but I haven't had a chance to finish it yet. I really need to go back, I think I'm getting towards the end.
Last week I was on holiday with my friends and their two daughters. I thought the girls may need some distracting and downloaded MarioKart for them to play - thought I’d just familiarise myself with the controls, just in case they asked me any questions.
They never got a look in.
Took it online last night to play with some of the old Chatterboxers and had a whale of a time. Obviously I finished last every race.
Any hints and tips?
Anyone want to join in?
I am totally up for Mario Kart, once my internet gets sorted. I'm in a work WhatsApp group that play MK and Splatoon ALL THE TIME, but I still don't have a reliable internet connection until at least the end of next week (and probably longer, since this is Germany).
But yes, I'm in. Are we Switch friends? Let's be Switch friends.
Come on, Gar, join in. And bring your prodigy son so I can embarrass him at something I can actually play.
I've only got Mario Kart on the Wii U. Sorry. Not buying it again as it's pretty much exactly the same.
