cavalcade

I…. I think I finished a game…. :O

Ball X Pit on the Switch, that's all the levels, characters and buildings done. There is a NG+, but I actually just bought it on Steam (my Gamepass version is bugged) so I can work through it again (as I find it an ideal handheld game). I went on a journey with this one - started out not sure, but eventually came to really enjoy it. The strange mix of Arkanoid and a farming sim sort of works. I'm not sure it ever really pushes the systems and levels in truly bonkers directions (the last level is pretty similar to the first) and you're at the mercy of the upgrades it offers sometimes, but it's also deeply satisfying. And you can play it in 15 minute bursts. Yay!

I think it's the scale of the Man City thing - clearly all organisations funded by oil money are going to have a massive advantage. Sportswashing is a thing. In eSports, Falcons have bought out almost all the best players in all the leading eSports to create superteams, backed by huge salaries and a team of coaches and sports psychologists. It's hard to root for your favourite players when they're basically paying to win.

Man City though is a step above even that. Massive, systemic corruption, and resources that dwarf even the other teams with dirty money in the League. And in a physical sport with a human referee there's more room for that money to have a real impact, even in a league already sloshing with money. I disconnected from football a while back (used to love Football Ramble and followed Everton closely) but the sheer state of the Premier League drove me away. It's sad, but it's the latest in a long line of things money has ruined, or is about to ruin.

This has been a mad couple of months for games, definitely need to add Galactic Racer to the list.

If you can separate the art from the arsehole, Order of the Sinking Star is great. I've hit a roadblock about a hundred puzzles in though, and my brain refuses to find a solution. Hopefully I'll figure it out tonight.

Annoyingly (and presumably by design) the levels don't have any numbers or names, so it's going to be difficult finding the solution online.

I hadn't really looked at what ol' J Blow was spouting, but holy shit, he's a wrongun on every axis.

There's brake on left trigger and "advanced manoeuvre" on X, which essentially, depending on vehicle is a sort of handbrake. You can't get Golds in the time trials without mastering continually boosting almost the entire lap (alternating between boost and…. er… boost) and then trying to hit corners perfectly with a handbrake slide so you don't lose momentum.

OK, now I'm managing to Gold the time trials. It's the handbrake turns that are critical. But the lack of control customisation on this is driving me nuts. Handbrake on X is a legacy from driving games, for sure, so you roll your finger over the accelerator onto the handbrake to make tight turns. But I've always hated it, and the over reliance on it here to get good times means I'm going to have to custom map it to something else before I break something.

I do think the two different types of brake and two different types of boost is sort of a change for the sake of it, rather than being a genius new addition to driving games. One boost bar, filled when you do stuff, then triggered is fine, with perhaps the explody mechanic if you push it. The interplay here of the systems remains needlessly confusing, or perhaps I'm just getting too old for this shit.