PWB October 2024

Play

Mario & Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - decided to clear off some of my Switch backlog, at least part in an attempt to persuade myself I don't really need the new Zelda game. This is the sequel to the launch(ish) Mario & Rabbids game which I really enjoyed, and it's really more of the same: the combat grid's been removed this time, there's more customisation for your characters and the extra complexity means it's had a bit of a graphics downgrade but it's still Mario XCOM and that's absolutely fine. Also, I know they're just Ubisoft's rip-off of Minions and I know I'm easily amused, but I do find the Rabbids consistently hilarious and I've been chuckling my way through this for a couple of days now.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - getting this to run well on a Steam Deck is a game in itself but it is achievable and it's a pretty good game! If my neck wasn't screwed I'd play it more. I've genuinely ordered myself one of those fancy cushions Alastor was plugging so hopefully that will give my Deck (and Neck) a new lease of life.

PowerWash Simulator - been back to this a bit over the last couple of weeks. It's still the same challenge-free, almost meditative experience and the amount of free and paid DLC it's getting shows that I'm not the only one who likes that. I find this very calming, I genuinely think it's quite good for my mental health.

Want

Monster Hunter Wilds and the brilliantly-named Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii are both out on the SAME DAY and honestly why the hell do they have to do that? They're both going to be huge so I'm going to have to choose which one to get first, that's not fair.

I really should play Assassin's Creed: Mirage, I think I've said that every month since it came out, but it's been so long now I'm starting to wonder if it'll hit Game Pass when the next one arrives.

Bin

Not binned but quietly shelved for a bit until DLC comes out: Star Wars: Outlaws. Enjoyed it a lot, maybe not quite as much as Jedi: Survivor but that's a high bar.

Rabbids are older than minions!

Play
I just played through all of Borderlands 1 and it's DLC. It is still fun, though not as fun as Borderlands 2.

I'm playing loads of old Gameboy games on my Anbernic 35XX H. Oh, and Ikaruga!

I need to boot up my old laptop which still has an SD card reader so that I can add a bunch of roms to the Anbernic. Silent Hill, FFIX, Chrono Trigger.

Play

Monster Hunter Tri, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Monster Hunter Rise and I'm going to try Monster Hunter 4 again, off all these I was just trying Rise for a bit and realised it's gotten so far ahead of me now that I am super overwhelmed, but in a good way because what other game will throw literal pages of content at you for free just for logging in after a few months? I don't want to seriously touch 4 without a Circle Pad Pro anymore but it's a really good game so I will at least try.

Just wnat to say there's something to Tri I like a lot, it's not as complete or as sharp as Portable 3rd but something special about Tri I can't quite specify.

The funny thing is that World would be by far the better game to jump back to because IMO Wilds may as well be a sequel to that going from what little I've tuned into, but I'm not reinstalling that whole game for a few hunts.

Want

Heads up, Monster Hunter Stories 1 and 2 for just over £30 on Steam, if you ever wanted to try these, I hear they are very good games in their own right but also play on the MH elements pretty well too.

Monster Hunter Wilds obviously, this has to be the best series of all time, overall? I mean at a push I like other series more like the Trails series but I can't think of another series where all my friends are getting hyped about it and planning to run the entire game together for like 500 hours and a few years every time a new one drops. Thanks MHW!

Seems the Silent Hill 2 Remake has not only hit it big with the reviews but a lot of people I know, like streamers, who were practically looking forward to hate streaming it have all unanimously admitted it's actually really good. I don't think the first few trailers did it any favours but I have to say, I've been stuffed a whole plate of crow here, and good on them for putting out a solid product when dickheads like me weren't even giving them a chance. Even I don't like the game much I am quite happy for them to be vindicated at least.

I really would like to play it now, but I am already playing the original for spooky month and I don't want to play them back to back or spend any more right now when I'm already buying Metaphor and some Steam games. Otherwise I feel a bit sad because while the original is one of the best games of all time (and spoilers it still holds up, at least for me) but I would have loved to play the Remake this October for once and join in the apparent fun, maybe I can squeeze it in at the end with more spokky games in between it and the original near the end of the month…

Speaking of Metaphor and Reviews though, it's been reviewed like the second coming of Persona 5 almost. I have finished the demo so I already know it's a game For Me but it's pretty cool to see this, feels like another big event for the crowd.

I'm away this week, so all of my plays are on the Miyoo Mini.

Donkey Kong… Land 3? Country? The third Gameboy game. Still great, and I'm surprised how much I remembered, considering it's been 30 years. Every time I boot up a Gameboy game on the Mini, I'm surprised how well they hold up in 2024.

Pokémon Unbound. I forgot that I'd started this for a while (the curse of having every single retro game at your fingertips), but it's still great. The story is a bit too edgelord, but it nails the gameplay. A proper, 2D Pokémon game with all the improvements Game Freak should have implemented 25 years ago.

Streets of Rage 3. I know this is the black sheep of the family, but it's still great fun. Although it's bastard hard, and the easy mode doesn't let you see the second half of the game. Does Onion OS have easy access to cheats, by any chance? I can't find any.

Play

In an attempt to stave off the temptation of Metaphor: ReFantazio, I've restarted Dragon's Dogma 2, which is… fine? For every thing I like about it, it feels like there's at least one thing that increases the friction just enough to prevent a real flow. At least it's not an icon-ridden map of distractions, but I could do with fewer insignificant combat encounters.

Want

There's a reason I used the word "attempt" up there: Metaphor is preordered.

Bin

Maybe Dragon's Dogma? On the one hand, it's very much the same solid core of the original that I loved, but on the other it's like they haven't learned anything from the intervening decade.

Play
Still noodling away at Star Wars Outlaws, shonkily creeping around Imperial bases for as long as I can before getting impatient and stealing an E-11 from the nearest rack to speed things up. It's not a good game, but it's pretty fun, it has a decent cast of characters, and the sense of place you get from the thing is almost unparalleled.

I wanted to finish something before Dragon Age: The Veilguard drops on the 31st, so I went back to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth this evening. I'm going to see it through to the end, but I'm really not sure I'm enjoying it. It's much baggier and more obviously padded than Remake was, and everything you try and do, it plays this overlong, unskippable animation that just… takes… so… long. I've never finished the original, but I'm in Spoiler - click to showthe Cetra temple, so based on what I've heard, I'm getting close to the credits. I'll not be going back for the platinum, though, that's for damn sure.

Want
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, obvs. This one looks more like Dragon Age 2 than Inquisition, which for my money is A Good Thing. Don't really know a whole lot about it, having avoided as much as I can, but what I have seen looks very much like my jam.

Bin
Not by my choice, but they took Horizon Forbidden West off PS+ Extra just after I bought The Burning Shore, and I'm not paying another £35 for it just to play the expansion. Hopefully it'll come along in a better sale soon, but I've got plenty to keep me occupied in the meantime.

Streets of Rage 3. I know this is the black sheep of the family, but it's still great fun. Although it's bastard hard, and the easy mode doesn't let you see the second half of the game. Does Onion OS have easy access to cheats, by any chance? I can't find any.

https://onionui.github.io/docs/faq#how-do-i-add-game-cheats

does this help

Started Fatal Frame 2 (i skipped the first, sue me, i go where the critical/fan acclaim is D: ) and holy shit this seems pretty cool, already getting spooky 'alone in the house and you heard a noise upstairs' vibes and forcing you to keep a ghost in view as it moves at you to do more damage seems like a cool mechanic.

Also Alien Isolation is cheap as hell on Steam at like, the price of a McDonald's meal so this time it did not slip away. I love Alien, I love the concept of this game but the reports of it being roughly 20 hours long makes me a bit put off. These type of games don't need to be anywhere near that long, I feel like you'd either have your nerves burned out being on edge for such a prolonged amount of time to the point it's not fun anymore or you'll get super annoyed at the Xenomorph stalker gimmick, either way what do you even do past the 5-7 hour mark of hide and seek???

Additional Play/Bin twofer: Gave Sifu a shot last night, now it's on GamePass. I'd been curious about this one since it came out, but holy shit am I bad at this game.

The combos are too complicated for me to remember in the heat of a fight, and I cannot get the timing right for blocks to save my (character's) life, even on the easiest difficulty. I did managed to beat the first boss, but frankly even the tutorials in the opening credits were giving me serious problems.

Not For Me™, but I can see what it's doing and it seems to do it well.

Been crazy busy this month with work and then the kitchen refurb. But have I missed the chance to get the PS5 digital PS1 version? I can't even tell and searching just constantly brings up articles about the five grand scalper editions.

There were more up for pre-order yesterday on Amazon, from what I read.

Stayed up 'til midnight to kick the tyres on Metaphor (again). Didn't resume from my demo save, so I only got back to the first boss before sleep overtook me.

I had to manually copy and past my save data from demo to full game but I hit the ground running almost as if the game released a week and a bit ago. I finished the first dungeon and I still love it, the tweaks to the press turn combat are better than ever and I'm always down for a class based system.

Gallica is still the best character.

Middle of the month, so I'm slacking…

PLAY
Arcade games - It's a two steps forward, one step back process as far as setting up controllers, etc goes, because the PC keeps reassigning inputs which fucks up all the mapping. Still, the arcade machine is really coming together. I'm going to make sure I use it, so expect to see a lot of shitty arcade games pop up on my completed list. Finally getting round to making the lightguns work yesterday afternoon, firing up Virtua Cop and then gunning down goons like I hadn't lost a step was just chef's kiss. #stillgotit
Probably more N64 games on Switch - Why not, eh? It's something to do.
Alarmo - No, YOU bought a new musical clock, shut up.

WANT
Eventually, I'd like to get round to playing Echoes of Wisdom (or Zleda as it's known in our house), because I've managed to avoid most of my partner's playthrough and want to do it myself. Maybe this whole 'play what you own on cloud' thing Microsoft is supposedly launching in November will make me play more Xbox, in the same way that the Lite got me more into Switch?

BIN
All the times my PC decides it knows better about which controller is which. Stop that, you technological arsehole.

Those playing Metaphor - are you using the English or Japanese dub?

I hated the English dub in Persona 5 - it just felt completely wrong to have all these characters speaking with whiny American accents in what was clearly a Japanese setting - and I quickly switched to Japanese and played the game that way. I lean towards Japanese voice acting in games anyway so it was an easy choice to make.

I watched a couple of clips of Metaphor though and it looks like they're using actual English actors this time and the setting is more fantasy medieval than contemporary Japan. So it felt like a much better fit on both counts. What are your thoughts?

I've played more of it with Japanese than English so far, partly to practice listening and partly because I'd played the demo that way (I quite liked the English dub for P4G, for what it's worth, but I did play P5 with Japanese voices). I've switched to English the last couple nights after seeing some positive reports – which is a little jarring, though it always is when you change voices partway through – and I'm not sure I'll stick with it.

The dub itself is pretty good from what I've played, but the emote barks for lines that aren't fully voiced don't always work for me.

English all the way for me, I think the dub is great.

Also with the announcement of the second trio of Tomb Raider games in a second collection I finally decided to get the Tomb Raider Remastered I-III remastered collection (thankfully on sale now!). I got some ways into the first game a few months ago on my Vita and in the process renewed my appreciation of the series, the first in particular just nailing that atmosphere of seclusion…barring all the wildlife, where the fuck did they all come from and how did they survive in a cave that is sealed off?*

So far it looks gorgeous, even in the PS1 mode (which can be switched seamless from the remastered visuals in a single button press) and way better than it does on my Vita, my only issue is that making Lara run and turn on the Steam Deck d-pad for some reason makes her stop and revert to neutral, not a deal breaker per se and it might just be me but I'm probably gonna use the analog for most of it. You can of course change the controls but I don't see why you would considering the level design is quite literally designed around her tank controls, but if it helps some people..it helps? And I dunno if they patched the remastered visuals to NOT completely erase level integral items on the floor but even so, it looks amazing in places but in others I prefer the original look over this weird semi-Legends style.

I am in particular looking forward to Tomb Raider Revelations when it comes out, I seem to recall that was very good/hard and was kinda focused on ancient egyptian tombs, which is where I feel TR1 excelled in. I don't hate that the series went to places like Venice in TR2 or London in TR3…but it's not quite the same. And of course, Angel of Darkness is getting a second punt, regardess of hope bad it is, I'm quite eager to play it, I'm sure Lara would understand the interest in exploring an old relic.

Tomb Raider Remastered I-III remastered […] the first in particular just nailing that atmosphere of seclusion…

I'd really like the next Tomb Raider game to go back to this, there hasn't really been anything quite like it since. Give me one fight against a bear every four hours, a total of three human enemies in the entire game, and big, eerie, cavernous spaces filled with waterfalls, long-abandoned buildings of mysterious purpose, and rickety mechanisms to repair.

Oh I forgot to * on how Lara just happens to discover a lost world of dinosaurs in the first game and doesn't seem too impressed

I'd really like the next Tomb Raider game to go back to this, there hasn't really been anything quite like it since. Give me one fight against a bear every four hours, a total of three human enemies in the entire game, and big, eerie, cavernous spaces filled with waterfalls, long-abandoned buildings of mysterious purpose, and rickety mechanisms to repair.

I think The Last Guardian came close to capturing this, it definitely had the sense of location and wonder that original Tomb Raider had and the puzzles were kind of similar too in places. Not much else similar, though, you're right - it seems like a bit of an untapped genre.

Fascinated to see what they do with Angel of Darkness, I wonder if there's enough of a game in there that a good remaster could salvage it, or if it'll just end up being an unplayable curio.

I doubt there's many people that are purist in this regard, I might be reading too much into it but the trailer for the second collection had Lara say 'Time to put things right' and they have every opportunity to at least try. I keep forgetting that these three games are supposed to all have actual continuity in there and AoD wasn't in fact a soft reboot.

Jedi Survivor is great, so far. The PC port got a bit of a kicking when it first came out, but unless I just have really low standards it seems fine to me. Runs well, everything is suitably gorgeous.

Did the first game have difficulty options? This sequel is still part of the Mean Games Club, but the easy mode makes everything much more manageable for the non-sweaties amongst us. The only real negative, so far, is that the platforming is just as much of a guessing game as it was in Fallen Order. Needs more yellow paint.

Additional BIN (and sorry for the moan in advance):
Unhelpful forum replies being unhelpful - I'm grateful that this place is generally nice, welcoming and not particularly troll-ish. When trying to find answers to things that you'd think might be solvable like 'Any ideas why isn't Emulator X isn't showing Game Y on a list?' or 'How do I make this lightgun work properly?', the number of generally cunty and flat out pointless replies is mind-numbing. Yes, I know that the arcade wrapper I'm using isn't being supported by the devs any more, but saying 'Change your wrapper', then repeating the same response in a less jokey way after I say that doesn't help isn't the answer when I'm perfectly happy with it and the problem isn't related. Saying 'You don't need [WORD]' in response to a question about something I don't know much about and therefore I accidentally used [WORD] to describe a different problem doesn't help. You're just replying because it otherwise breaks up the monotony of wanking and crying that forms your life. Be helpful! Try to offer a solution! And if you don't have one, don't reply. Now I'm just left to fuck about with things on my own and ultimately work out the problem after making dozens of mistakes, instead of solving it quickly. Thanks, internet forums.

tl;dr - People on the internet are generally cunts at hearts, and I have no faith in humanity left.

The good old:

'Help me with X please?

EDIT:nvm fixed it'

And no solution

For the third or fourth night in a row, I've stayed up past midnight playing Metaphor.

I think this one might be really good, folks.

I think they way it mixes things up with The Formula is really good, even Runner trips to dungeons feel like anything could happen

I’m not as far through as you both, I suspect, only finished the first dungeon proper tonight, but I’d echo aniki’s sentiments, as I’m loving it so far. Having thoroughly fallen in love with P5 and the Persona formula this year, playing something so structurally similar is very welcome, and I like a lot of the little QoL changes.

I do wonder if I’ll come to like the fantasy elements as much as I do the contemporary style of Persona, or the class-based system as much as the usual Pokedemon stuff, but early signs are good across the board, and it’s started very, very promisingly indeed.

Oh, and Japanese with subs for me. I considered the dub, as it is a fantasy setting, so could’ve gone either way, but the Japanese still felt (and feels) right to me. Not seen any of the dub as yet, but I have no regrets as yet.

All of this chat is reminding me I've been putting off playing Persona 4 for years, for no good reason. Need to fix that.

I started the Metaphor demo last night and haven’t really done much apart from go where it’s told me to go, but it’s charming and I do actually quite like the English dub.

Normally I feel like there's a "proper" choice for a game, based on its country of origin, or its setting, but this one feels like it's entirely reasonable either way, totally a player preference thing.

It feels right playing in Japanese, I'm really enjoying it, and I can't imagine switching now, after about 12-13 hours, but if I'd started in English I'd likely feel the exact same way.

None of your new release games being played over here.

Play
Final Fantasy X - I never completed this when I first played it, because I hadn't really played a JRPG properly at that point and I didn't realise that the game expected you to grind levels relentlessly, so when it got to the end of the game I was many levels below where I needed to be. From memory, the game did have an area where you could grind by fighting some large bosses, but I was so far behind that each battle took absolutely ages, and I needed to do dozens of them. So now I'm replaying it on a handheld emulation device and it's great. I can save anywhere, and I can play a bit of it in a car park if I'm waiting for someone.

I had forgotten how racist Wakka is, though.

Tokyo Crash Mobs - Hmm. This is a game where you play as two women, photographs animated like South Park characters, as they try to reach the front of various queues. The queues are populated by hipsters, and you get rid of them by throwing other hipsters who are wearing the same outfit at them. There are some other game modes, but the idea is to make hipsters disappear by confronting them with someone wearing the same outfit. It's kind of like Bejewelled.

Anno 1800 - Gar mentioned this the other day and that prompted me to reinstall this incredible example of the city-builder game. I don't find it relaxing though - there's always too many demands, too much stuff on fire, too much money draining out of my balance. It's exactly like my everyday life in those regards.

Alan Wake - I'm trying to play through the first game so I can launch into the sequel. It's great, silly and spooky in equal measure. I'm finding that the individual levels are a bit long and samey though. You just trudge through woods in the dark, battling groups of three or so rednecks. I'm hoping there's some more variety later on, because I'm enjoying the bits between the main levels more than the levels at the moment.

Want
It's getting to that time of year when there are new games I want to play. Metaphor, That Star Wars game, Silent Hill 2, I still haven't played Space Marine 2. I'm looking forward to the Indiana Jones game. Machine Games make good games, and I expect this to be a banger.

Bin
The continued likelihood that Donald Trump will win the upcoming US election. The very fact that it's even possible for someone so evil, corrupt, stupid, and now literally demented can get themselves into such a position of power is incredibly depressing. How are his supporters in such a state of frothing delusion that they think he is a force for good is beyond me. How can they look at him rambling incoherently, or standing on a stage silently swaying for 40 minutes and not wonder a tiny bit whether it might not be a good idea to give him access to the nuclear codes?

Additional PLAY:
Why is Netflix so shit at promoting its mobile games? I had a quick scour through the list of what's available and hidden under two layers of menus, I found Braid Anniversary Edition is on there, along with a bunch of other things I fancied giving a try. Braid wasn't out that long ago, so why it wasn't on the front page or marked at Recently Added, I dunno. Finished it back in the day but happy to play again if it's free…

Play
Final Fantasy X - I never completed this when I first played it, because I hadn't really played a JRPG properly at that point and I didn't realise that the game expected you to grind levels relentlessly, so when it got to the end of the game I was many levels below where I needed to be. From memory, the game did have an area where you could grind by fighting some large bosses, but I was so far behind that each battle took absolutely ages, and I needed to do dozens of them. So now I'm replaying it on a handheld emulation device and it's great. I can save anywhere, and I can play a bit of it in a car park if I'm waiting for someone.

I did exactly the same with FFX. On the PS2 I actually got all the way to the final boss before being battered repeatedly and giving it up as a bad job. Ten years later I played it all through again on the Vita, took it slowly, did a big chunk of the side content and had a fantastic time. I don't think you need to grind, unless you want to, but going for some of the big bits of side content like the Celestial Weapons and the Dark Aeons will make you a lot stronger and help level you up in the process. Don't be afraid to use a guide.

Once you're done, make sure you move on to FFX-2, it's a demented fever dream of a game that feels like the cast of FFX getting together to do a musical production. It also has my favourite battle system in the whole series. In that one though literally 90% of the game is side content so do as much of it as you can in each chapter to get the most of the game, it's really really good if you approach it that way.

The endgame/postgame of FFX is quite extensive, if you wanna grind spheres to overwrite all your nodes on the grid to get everyone to the cap it's going to feel like Disgaea levels of grind, I remember noping out of the Luck Sphere grind on the Vita version. Or you know, just use Yojimbo to literally one hit kill everything.

FFX was my first proper JRPG too, and I had a similar experience. I didn't fully understand the concept of grinding levels and got absolutely roasted at one stage and gave up. And like Gar went back to it on the Vita and played it more how it was supposed to be played.

I'm now concerned about Wakka though. I don't remember him being a massive racist. Time for some Youtube research….

They got me again with the upcoming Castlevania DLC so I rebought Vampire Survivors for like the 4th time on a different platform, this time on Steam where it's right at home on the Steam Deck. Second run I managed to evolve a max level Lightning Ring and Holy Bibles with some Garlic in the Library, I got to Level 103 or so and died but I unlocked a shit ton of characters off just that run. Game is still very addictive, I've already done a lot of this on the Xbox version but I still had characters to unlock and all the current DLC is new to me as will the Castlevania pack be as well. If nothing else this is the perfect cooldown game for me when my brain is still fried from playing a really long RPG.

I'm looking forward to the DLC. Only problem I have is that I've unlocked everything so far, so it's almost impossible to lose a run due to all the options I have… every one ends in an epilepsy induced flurry of colours and numbers as enemies get shredded left, right and centre. Still enormous fun though.

That's why you have to keep buying it on new platforms.

I've tried. I got it on Switch, played for ten minutes and got bored. It's absolutely a mobile game first and foremost, any other platform just feels like work.

I can't fucking believe I get to say this but…Xenoblade X: Definitive Editionis real! It's not a meme! Not a hoax! The WiiU can finally rest in peace! This is secretly the best Xenoblade, it's not so secretly one of the best open world RPGs ever made IMO. If they tweak the stuff that was bad then this is probably a Top 3 Switch game.

OVER THE RAINBOW GLORIOUS SIGHTS, ITS LIGHTING OUR DREAMS AND I HOPE WE'REALRIGHT
WE'RE ALL THE SAME EVEN IF FROM ANOTHER WORLD, WE DON'T BELONG HERE ANNNNYMOREEEEEE

That’s it then, the very last game I was keeping the Wii U for. Nintendo have absolutely fucking taken the piss this gen, they’ve re-released the entire library. Looking forward to them doing it all over again with the Switch 2.

To be fair, people have been sacrificing goats on the altar every day for the last few years for this one in particular.

Hardly anyone bought the Wii U, it made sense to bring those games to a 95% new audience.

Hold your horses, those of you who are preparing to plung your stakes into the Wii-U's heart. What about the HD versions of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess?

And Affordable Space Adventures that you can't get anyway because the store closed.

I'm very undecided on the Wind Waker HD graphics

They've not brought over the game where you photograph your head on a giant ape and destroy a city while other people try to stop you have they?

Hardly anyone bought the Wii U, it made sense to bring those games to a 95% new audience.

This. Plus, stuff like Thousand Year Door - you'd be incredibly surprised how small the EU sales were on GC against the seemingly legendary status of it among fans. No fucker played it in Europe, and many people who are playing it on Switch would have never had the chance. I get the point Gar's making, but making good (great?) games accessible to a new audience isn't necessarily taking the piss, especially given the amount of work going in in some cases (Pikmin HD remakes: some but not a huge amount, to be fair; conversely, Paper Mario was a complete remaster with new content to boot).

The community is so contrary. People want to be able to play these games (see: efforts to preserve game history and all the ESA bullshit blocking it), but they don't want to pay for remade versions. It's the usual nonsense:

Community: Do this
Company: (does thing but it costs money)
Community: NOT LIKE THAT

It's like people think they're owed entertainment, just because they lived in the era when it first existed (old thing is old, so must be cheap/free, right?). Bollocks. You can't have it both ways. If you don't want the new version, the old one is right there, go play that instead.

Also! Look at our schedule, we've released practically a new game every month of the year to support our platform. Who else does that? Sony and MS fucking wish they were Nintendo.

Additional PLAY:
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is out on mobile today. I already have Balatro on there. Damn, that's my productivity fucked then.