Garwoofoo

Knight was my favourite - there was just so much to do in that one, and I didn't mind the Batmobile sections at all - but it's a classic trilogy for sure, and I like this iteration of Batman better than any of the movie versions I've seen.

Play

Sacked off the underwhelming Game Pass games in favour of an old favourite: Batman: Arkham Asylum. I've played all of these to completion before (bar Origins) but in all honesty I can barely remember any of them and I am really enjoying revisiting this one. This is more of a classic Metroidvania than the later games' open world shenanigans but the relative simplicity works in its favour and there are a huge amount of secrets and Riddler Trophies to find so it's really not short on things to do. I've just got up to the Scarecrow section and it's every bit as effective as it was back on release. Graphically it holds up well: it is quite distinctively 2009 in that it's virtually monochrome in places, and the character models have definitely dated, but the Steam Deck handles it with ease and it's still surprisingly atmospheric. Mark Hamill, rightly, steals the show. Great stuff.

Petition to rename the forum to 'The Society of Some Miserable Old Cunts' please.

Seconded.

There’s nothing to discuss at the moment. It’s literally a Big Switch. Let’s reconvene when we have some specs and some games to talk about.

And we're off!

Not much to see here really - magnetic joy cons? Some sort of mouse mode? A new Mario Kart that looks exactly like the last Mario Kart?

More news in April.

Been playing a couple of bits on Game Pass:

Road 96 was recommended by cav. The theme of this is VERY on the nose - teenagers fleeing an oppressive America following a political coup - and I can't help feeling its reappearance on Game Pass a week before Trump's inauguration is far from coincidental. In play it's quite visual novelly - a series of vignettes that you play through without a whole lot of actual interaction - which I wouldn't normally have a problem with, but it's all very cartoony and low budget which rather undermines the seriousness of its themes. The graphics and voice acting are kind of terrible, actually. So I don't know whether to persevere with this, I've done two stories out of six I think and I admire its bravery more than I actually like it.

Wildfrost is a deck-builder that's a bit more complex than Slay the Spire but doesn't have that game's fearsome balance. In particular it overdoes the "roguelike" aspect whereby you unlock new cards and features with successive runs; it's actually very clear that for ages you don't actually have the tools you need, so you're committing to run after run that you know you're going to lose just so you can ultimately unlock something that will help. It's also complex enough that when things inevitably do go to shit, you're not always 100% clear why. It's nice enough, but there are better examples of the genre.