To distract us from fuel shortages, food shortages and the inexorable slide of British civilisation into ruin and despair, it's the Play Want Bin thread!
Play
Yakuza 6. The end of the Kiryu saga is actually quite a low-key game: after the city-hopping madness of 5, this is a much more personal story and its rural setting has strong Yakuza 3 vibes. I'm really enjoying it, although it's one of the shortest entries in the series: after 16 hours I'm already approaching the end. The story itself though has been excellent, one of the best of the lot, and there are several substantial side-activities (baseball, spear-fishing and the return of Kiwami 2's real-time strategy game) that I've barely dug into at all, so there's still plenty to do.
The Lord of the Rings Online. Elder Scrolls Online is essentially busted on Series X right now, crashing every few minutes for everyone, so I've gone back to LOTRO for my MMO fix - helped by the fact that they've just given 95% of the game's content away for practically nothing. It's a beautiful, relaxing, impossibly vast and occasionally slightly repetitive game, best dipped into for a couple of weeks here and there - but there's really nothing else like it.
Want
I guess once I'm done with Yakuza 6, it'll be time to move onto the Judgment games. I'm hoping the first will hit Game Pass fairly soon - all the Yakuzas are on there, and they must be looking to drum up sales for the newly-released sequel.
Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite are the two big Christmas games, not really feeling the hype for either of them right now but I'm sure that'll change.
I think I'm going to get the Castlevania GBA collection, for a change of pace.
Bin
I can't even. I'm stockpiling toilet rolls, and soaking them in petrol.
Play
Kicked off Scarlet Nexus last night which is… fine? These kinds of action games have always passed me by, but this one feels pretty button-mashy (on Easy, anyway), and there's a lot about the presentation that's not gelling with me. The reliance on red, black and grey for everything makes it tough at times to read the screen at a glance.
I'm making my way through Fallout: New Vegas as "research" for a tabletop (virtually) RPG I'm planning. I finished F3, but never made it this far in the Mojave before, so it's going pretty slowly. I'm slaughtering every Caesar's Legion I can find – a task made simpler (if not easier) by the fact they keep sending assassins running straight at me.
And chipping away at challenges in Hitman 3 continues; still a lot to get through (I'm not finished Sapienza yet, and still have one Escalation to finish in Paris), so this is going to be a long-term project.
On the non-video front, I'm approaching the mid-point of my short-term Avatar Legends RPG mini-campaign and pretty happy with how it's gone so far, even if I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to end it…
Want
I've installed a bunch of my Switch games on the kid's Lite (he's mad into Splatoon 2 this week), which means I can't play anything on mine while he's using my profile. With my Okami save game languishing for weeks now, I'm eyeing eBay for second-hand game cards.
Bin
Turns out my new manager at work forgot to quit his last job, so he's out and I'm back in a position of more responsibility without any additional authority – though at least I only had a couple of weeks of my old workload again, so there's not too much of a readjustment.
Play
Eastward Drop-dead-gorgeous 2D Zelda-like with a unique world, fun combat and interesting puzzles. This is an absolute joy, and I'd recommend it to anyone.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits Another lovely debut title from a different studio. It wears its influences on its sleeve–Zelda, Okami and more–and wraps everything up in an aesthetic that's part cutting-edge PS5 title, part Gamecube game. Again, recommended.
Splitgate This just sort of appeared out of nowhere, with perfect gunplay and a "why hasn't anyone else done that" concept (Halo online + portals). It's staggeringly good for a free-to-play title, and has become a regular fixture of our game nights.
ESO Still.
Want
To start Last of Us Part II, but that might not be the right game for right now.
Play
We've gone back to Sea of Thieves in a fairly big way the last week or so. I was a fan even back in the simple, three-mission-type days, but there's a staggering amount of stuff to do in this now. The new Siren Shrines are fantastic, and we've hardly touched the Tall Tales.
All the D&D. I'm running Strahd on Tuesdays, my homebrew/podcast game on Thursdays (though there's a brief hiatus at the moment due to party members travelling), and play a third game every other Sunday. And I run occasional one-shots for a uni friend and her fella.
Want
Nothing on the videogame front, really; anything I am looking forward to, I don't have the hardware for, but the kids (and sheer volume of D&D, as above) means I'm able to stay enough out of the loop that I'm not risking pillars.
I'd like to play some other RPG systems. I still haven't had a crack at Dishonored yet, Avatar Legends looks great, and I'd love a crack at Alien. It would have to be as a player, though; I don't think I have the bandwidth for running anything else right now.
Bin
Same old.
I'd love a crack at Alien
I just bought the rulebook for this, because apparently I just cannot help myself.
I only have the PDF, and while it is a very pretty book, I'm not sure how useful the layout is; everything looks like a boxout, which hurts the flow for me.
Play: Juggling Hades and Pyre for wall to wall Supergiant Games feel good times. What a studio (he says having never managed to get along with Bastion or Transistor).
Got Hotshots Racing last weekend when it was £2.59 on PSN. Initially underwhelmed but over the course of the week I've dipped into it regularly and would firmly say I'm enjoying it. The lack of variety in the tracks saw me head back to Inertial Drift again but I just don't really like it. Maybe I"m wrong but the steering gimmick doesn't really work for me after years of braking to drift.
Want: A remaster package of all the Burnout games (or just 2 & 3, I'm not fussy). Failing that I"m probably waiting for Dangerous Driving to hit a sale and finally pick that up. Really though, it's the same as always, when I get my PS3 out of storage I'll play Split/Second again.
Bin: Grown up stuff. Rusty fuel tank (mechanic: "just half fill it and make sure you sell the car before the MOT is due"), moving house in the next two weeks, all that shit.
I only have the PDF, and while it is a very pretty book, I'm not sure how useful the layout is; everything looks like a boxout, which hurts the flow for me.
Oh yeah, reading it is a nightmare.
We've gone back to Sea of Thieves in a fairly big way the last week or so.
By 'we', I assume that means you have a crew? SoT is pretty much my main game and has been for over a year now, since I play it with my partner every weekend. Hell, when I'm not playing it, we're usually watching one of a few Twitch streamers playing it…
There's so much content in there these days - even at a base level with the emissaries and the monthly attainable cosmetics, you could spend ages doing that. But then into season content, then the regular tall tales, then the Pirate Life stuff, THEN the new underwater content, it's loads.
The one thing that still alludes me is being able to gather seven other people together to do the final Glitterbeard journal (yet another piece of new content I doubt you've done yet). No idea how we'd do it but if you have a crew and we find a way to get onto the same server (I've never managed it), I'd love to get it done…
Play
Quake - I’ve mostly loved going back to this, although episode four feels like one episode too many. Still, a super nail gun, invisibility and quad mage makes it all worthwhile.
Vandal Hearts - This really feels like a 25 year old game. Doubt I’ll be finishing it.
Baldur’s Gate 2 - This was $4 and I really should have played it by now. I do not have time for it. Might start it tonight.
RPGs - My Traveller game is going well, very low-key, minimal threat. Back to 13th Age on Monday, let’s see if we can get this game moving now that it’s not on sleepy mid-week Wednesdays.
Want
I still want to play Sable, maybe it will be a little more polished by the time it comes to Switch.
Fria Ligan games. I too would like to own Alien, I don’t need it at all, I already have Traveller on the go, Coriolis wanting some attention and Those Dark Places… Vessen is another one I want pretty much just because it’s a really pretty book.
Also there’s a bunch of Gumshoe games I’m tempted to investigate. Sorry, no pun intended. I don’t think I like the system but I really like how they write their adventures. I might have a look at some more Trail of Cthulhu books, or maybe Ashen Stars.
We've gone back to Sea of Thieves in a fairly big way the last week or so.
By 'we', I assume that means you have a crew?
If by "crew"got mean me and my wife bumbling about in a sloop. We've just been raiding vaults and Sunken Shrines, mostly.
Sounds familiar, except we're not married and we don't bumble. Pirate Legends never bumble. 
(For reference, we hate PvP and actively avoid other players unless absolutely necessary… people suck)
Yeah, we generally don't seek out other players, and we're not even close to legend yet. My highest rating is 38 with the Gold Hoarders, then I think 35 with Merchants.
EDIT: we do have a dedicated Sea of Thieves thread, but it seems cav killed it in the second post with a dad joke.
I'll happily take the conversation over there. And since we make four, always happy to galleon up if you want help!
(PS Galleons suck)
Galleons do, indeed, suck… to sail, but I still get a thrill getting on board one, there's a great sense of the scale and weight of the thing, especially after having been sloop-exclusive for a while.
Play
Melty Blood - new anime fighting game based on characters from an old visual novel about vampires and non vampire hunters called 'Tsukihime', now featuring the guest character Saber from Fate/Stay Night. If you want to know it's good know that I was up til' am last night just practicing one combo and it made me take some anadin for the pain. Fighting games are practically entering a second renaissance right now.
Saga: Scarlet Graces Ambitions - I finished the amazing Saga Frontier and almost immediately moved on to the next Saga game I have, well it was this or Romancing Saga 3 but this seems a bit more lightweight which is what I need right now. This is still a 'Saga' game and I can consider myself well and truly a fan of the serties and their own way of doing things, this time they don't even have dungeons or explorable towns and you can still learn gamechanging techniques in the middle of a boss fight. I like how it looks considering it was a Vita game, and the battle system is fantastic:
Picture a turn order like FFX but scrolling horizontally at the bottom of the screen and if you can 'reunite' the portraits of your party by killing or removing the enemy separating them you will get a super attack and all you techs next turn wil be super cheap. Also you learn techniques at random as I said, and you choose a battle formation which dictates how many actions you take at the start and it goes up by one every turn hence why getting them cheap is so good.
Want
To learn Japanese, Matrix style, so I can play Kuro no Kiseki which is out in Japan RIGHT NOW and I can't play it. 
I duno what else compares to that tbh
Bin
Saga Frontier - amazing game, could be one or two characters shorter but I am confident I could play it all again next year and do every route completely different. Long live this series.
Galleons do, indeed, suck… to sail
One of my favourite SoT memories is solo sailing a galleon after a respawn, back to a skelly fort where we'd been sunk by another ship we were trying to rob while they did the fort. I pulled off a handbrake turn right next to the lookout point the other three players were hiding in, just long enough for them to hop out with the fort key and other loot before sailing off again.
Random Play, Knockout City. This is surprisingly good. No idea why it's not F2P, but it's one of the most enjoyable multiplayer online things I've played for a while. Like a mix between Splatoon, PvZ and Rocket League. It's high skill, but also random enough that it's never annoying. Matches between two evenly matched teams are remarkably tense and it has some real strategy to it. You could use it as a textbook for good clean game design - there's all sorts of things about it that show the team sat down and got the fundamentals right before layering shit on top. It does have quite a lot of the usual EA based crap in terms of unlockables etc, but none of it really obscures the core gameplay. Which is great.
The lock-on is the best thing about it, for me. It allows for some hilarious KOs with very little skill, so you’re guaranteed to see a few per match. And on the flip side, shots are fairly easy to deflect, so you never feel hard done-by.
Knockout City is really good. It's not as instinctive as Splatoon (if I went back to it, I'd have to redo the tutorials to remember what all the shoulder buttons do) but it's surprisingly strategic. I reckon it would be great fun if you could actually get a team of three together, because there's a lot you can do in terms of passing and throwing each other around - most randoms just run around and chuck balls at each other.
I haven't played it since launch week, where it was a little barebones - might have to go back to it and see if they've added any maps or anything.
In terms of Play - I started The Avengers, I don't know why everyone hates on this so much because after an hour or so of the main campaign I am really enjoying it. Looks spectacular, has lots of Avengery things going on, maybe a bit weightless in feel but it's done by the Tomb Raider guys and that was much the same. Not sure I'll bother with the multiplayer/GaaS crap but I'm well in for a few hours of single-player fun.
Yeah, we only play as a three. I imagine it might be less entertaining with randoms.
Anyone here played New World yet? It looks like the most MMOiest MMO but the world seems to be going crazy for it.
You know who I'm referring to if a shonky MMO is on offer.
Play - Animal Crossing, the little one has gotten really into this, it's easily the most our Switch has ever been used in the dock as I make her play it there so we can help with the reading.
Star Wars Jedi Knight 2. I think that's the one, it's the one after Dark Forces and that is on the Switch, just having little goes here and there and keep dying on the second level and having to replay huge chunks as I keep forgetting to manually save, but enjoying it despite the aiming on the Switch feeling horrendous.
Super Street Fighter 4 - I found a PS3 at work that was not getting any use, I have moved it to my classroom and got two terrible Giotek controllers from Argos, but we played SSF4 every break and lunch time from Thursday onwards last week and it's been fantastic. We play on a 60/70 inch display board screen and then at the end of the day been playing against other staff who here it running and are drawn in.
Want - Have ordered Super Monkey Ball 'whatever' today, I had planned to just go buy this but it's easier for it to just arrive at my house.
Want - Any PS3 games that are multi player. Going to have a scan on Music Magpie later.
Bin - My 2nd Switch plans, at least for the moment I am holding off to see what people think of the Oled, I think I will go that route as want the bigger screen.
You know who I'm referring to if a shonky MMO is on offer.
sorry busy with d2 still :(
BIN
Beast Breaker - Bought this on a whim the other day after reading an article about it saying a) it was great and b) it was like a pinball combat game. Sounded good! I watched the trailer and had visions of it doing for combat what Yoku's Island Express did for platforming. Nope. If anything, it's Peggle and I fucking hate Peggle. In the bin it goes.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who hates Peggle.
And this is still true as I've never met mart.
Pinball = highly skill-based experience.
Peggle = OH LOOK I DROPPED THE BALL AND ITS GOING BOUNCY BOUNCY, LOOK AT THE PRETTY COLOURS OH FUCK A UNICORN.
Sigh.
Anyone here played New World yet? It looks like the most MMOiest MMO but the world seems to be going crazy for it.
A mate of mine played it and his graphics card literally caught fire. It has reportedly destroyed a lot of graphics cards actually, and not just old cards, 3090s have fallen victim to it. I find it deeply suspicious that Amazon, the world's biggest retailer of stuff, has created a game that actively destroys the stuff you already own, presumably in the anticipation of you having to replace the stuff through them.
new world is a colonialist fantasy made by the most evil company in the world and it sucks so i can see why people are real excited about it
Pinball = highly skill-based experience.
Peggle = OH LOOK I DROPPED THE BALL AND ITS GOING BOUNCY BOUNCY, LOOK AT THE PRETTY COLOURS OH FUCK A UNICORN.
Sigh.
I don't remember a lot of unicorn fucking, you might have downloaded the wrong game.
I had forgotten that New World is made by Bezos, fuck that then. But why are people so excited by it? I watched a little bit of it on youtubelol and it's…. an MMO, like…. all of them.
It does look super-generic but there's always a market for these things. Sometimes you don't realise how many people play MMOs because most of them are happy with their one game and that's all they play. But there's something special about starting a new one at the same time as everyone else, and it's probably the only MMO on the market that graphically actually looks like it was made in the last ten years, so I can see why it's got people's attention.
The colours, the music, the monkeys in balls in Super Monkey Ball Bania Mania are so lovely I think it's added a few days on to my life just from playing it. (It's giving me them so it can shave them back off later when it gets mega hard)
I'm genuinely really enjoying Marvel's Avengers, to the extent that I don't really understand why it's got the reputation it has. I haven't felt this out of step with general gaming opinion since I spent a whole year trying to persuade people to just play through the first 25 hours of Final Fantasy 13 then they'd see how good it was.
Anyway, it's a big dumb spectacular triple A game and sometimes you need one of those. It looks great, you get to play as lots of different characters and punch stuff, new character Kamala Khan is really likeable, and honestly I'm having more fun with this than I did with the Spider-Man game that got so much praise. It's a shame that they don't have the rights/budget to use the MCU actors' likenesses, but you get used to the Cosplay Avengers quickly enough (especially as you're mostly looking at the back of someone's head) and the voice actors definitely channel their movie counterparts, which goes a long way. The GaaS stuff is there in the background but it doesn't impact the campaign at all apart from giving you unbelievably huge skill trees (which you clearly can't complete in the course of the single-player game), quite a lot of pointless loot, and a slightly confusing mission selection screen which doesn't quite differentiate clearly enough between repeatable XP missions and one-off campaign missions. But it all makes sense quickly enough.
I dunno, maybe going into it without the weight of expectation has helped; maybe the next-gen enhancements (60fps and near-instant loading) have taken some of the rough edges off; maybe the fact there's a year's worth of extra characters and campaign modes included now has meant it feels like a solid single-player package now even disregarding the multiplayer stuff. But honestly, trust me: this is genuinely a lot better than you've been told it is.
Separately: Want - Metroid Dread - was a bit concerned this was going to be whiffy and Nintendo hasn't exactly been on a winning streak lately but the reviews have convinced me. A quick trip to Mart's Discount Codes Emporium and it's now preloaded onto my Switch waiting for launch day. Cheers Mart.
I think the biggest issue I had with what little I played of the Avengers was that the whole thing felt kind of small-scale and samey; oh, here's another clinical corporate science facility full of yellow robots to punch/laser/lightning/shoot/shield, woo.
That's a fair criticism, and the game definitely does a bit of a bait-and-switch with a spectacular opening mission and a carefully-crafted opening couple of hours before settling into slightly more generic fare.
However it's mostly the side-missions that sound like what you're describing - the main story missions are generally much better and the story sections between them are great too. For now the combat system, and the variety between the characters, is more than holding my interest and I've still got half the team to unlock too.
I assumed everyone's issue with Avengers was its 'endgame'. Most comments I've seen talk about a lack of stuff to do once you've finished it, which is a bizarre, very modern phenomenon that I don't understand. I think 'endgames' are my Dok moment.
I actually saw someone on Reddit the other day complaining a game was good "until I platinum'd it. After that there wasn't much incentive to carry on playing".
Yeah. You've finished it. Play something else.
Yep. They've obviously tried to go for a Destiny-style endless loot game and it's backfired on them a bit - the actual campaign (plus the DLC chapters) would have done perfectly well on its own I think. A little more polish and they could have had a real hit on their hands. It's not like there's a lack of a market for solid AAA story-based games, after all.
Separately: Want - Metroid Dread - was a bit concerned this was going to be whiffy and Nintendo hasn't exactly been on a winning streak lately but the reviews have convinced me. A quick trip to Mart's Discount Codes Emporium and it's now preloaded onto my Switch waiting for launch day. Cheers Mart.
I'd been meaning to ask him if it was a decent jumping-on point for a series newcomer, hadn't even thought about the Emporium.
Do I need any prior series knowledge, really, besides knowing who Samus is, do we think?
They've never been plot-heavy games at all, really, and what story there is has been specific to each individual title. I'm sure you'll be fine.
You at least owe it to yourself to try out Super Metroid on the Switch Online SNES app, though. It's one of those rare games out of time that seem to have barely aged a day.
Do I need any prior series knowledge, really, besides knowing who Samus is, do we think?
No. 
The intro sums up the story very concisely, so it doesn't matter if you're a lore noob. It's more about knowing how a Metroidvania works… if you're totally new to that, THEN you're going to have difficulty. It's unforgiving and not overly helpful, despite being a million times more helpful than previous games in the series have ever been.
Lovely, thanks. I think I’m approaching the end (or, probably more likely, the middle) of Hollow Knight, so I might make an actual Metroid my next Metroidvania, just for a change of pace.
Hollow Knight never ends. Call me when you're done with the White Castle, which can fuck off forever and a day. Ugh. That damn game.
Playing Metal Gear Solid 3 on the Series S because it was on sale.
What more do I need to say, it's my favourite game of all time, it's probably the reason I'm even here. ^_^
…It still holds up, I also got Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and that game doesn't hold up nearly as well as far as I'm concerned and that's a PS3 game, even if I'm playing the HD Remaster of MGS3. Beautiful story, with beautiful characters as I've heard it described elsewhere, I've really missed this cast.
Gameplay wise this is technically the most fun game and it definitely has the best 'cool shit' but man you really do need to hold back to not completely steamroll the game. The Tranq Gun in MGS2 has a lot to answer for (ofc you can always just not use it…), so I am playing on European Extreme and I will auto-fail if I get caught, so I can have more stealth inbetween cutscenes of men shooting bees out their mouth and juggling revolvers like a clown.
MGS1 is a more consistent game I think, MGS2 is better designed but MGS3 is a great journey I think…and The End is one of the coolest boss fights in any game ever.
I see Square Enix have decided to shoot themselves in the foot, just as the Avengers game was starting to make a bit of a comeback thanks to all the people now playing it on Game Pass: they've added paid XP boosts to the in-game store, after previously promising they'd only ever use it to sell cosmetic items. This comes after they already nerfed progression rates earlier in the year. So basically they've slowed down the rate at which you gain XP, then offered to sell you the fix. Sneaky and underhand.
I've seen the game now referred to as "Avengers: Spendgame" and "Avengers: Infinity Wallet" so you can probably guess how well this is gone down.
What are the odds that they've done this because the game goes on Game Pass, gets a tonne of new players and some bright spark at SE went 'Shit, now's the chance to make some money!'. And worse, how many of those new players are buying them, because the game was free so they don't mind a little outlay?
Monkey Ball is great, I even paid 3.99 to be a Dreamcast in it, I have transitioned into the problem demographic.
