cavalcade

£379 innit.

I do think the landscape has changed quite a lot - portable gaming has come a fair way since the original Switch, but I was surprised to see it did launch in 2017, which doesn't seem that long ago….

I think I'd be interested if it's more comfortable, can play all Switch titles no bother (maybe a bonus if it makes them run better) and perhaps has one or two unique titles you really couldn't do on another portable. A decent Mario Kart and maybe Metroid Beyond would do it.

Otherwise I think I'm more interested in the ROG Ally successor coming out later in the year, which looks like it's going to have a Windows gaming OS reskin and the Z2 Extreme in it. And will be emulating the Switch 2 within a week.

I got a massive card for my ROG Ally, but the heat it pumps through the card slot is alarming (and of course there are plenty of reports of fried SD readers) so I too will be looking to swap the drive at some point….

Play
Atomfall - I had a moment last night where I stumbled across a group of people in a disused facility and they… warned me off? Then, as I backed away, they seemed scared and were asking one another if I'd gone. Such a small, simple thing, but I can't remember the last game I played where everyone wasn't either a super friendly NPC or a homicidal maniac the moment they saw me. Looks absolutely glorious too, and runs amazingly well. The lack of icon chasing and handholding is fascinating.

Avowed - after adding 64gb of RAM to my laptop, and using Lossless Scaling and various overclocking techniques I can now play this with only a few stutters. Thanks Unreal 5. It is great, but Atomfall does somewhat highlight that it's very VIDEOGAME. Like a horde of homicidal enemies literally 20ft from the town gates and watching guards. Still very enjoyable though.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst Went back to play a bit of this. It's really good. Quite of its time, but the traversal and confidence to do something a bit different is even more interesting in 2025 than it was back then.

Want
Expedition 33 looks amazing. Very much looking forward to it.

Bin
My partner has been in hospital in the Republic. I thought UK hospitals were in full collapse, but this also was like the end of days. Finally think the problem is sorted though, which is good. Quite eye opening how many EU nationalities there are floating about in hospitals and shops and in general. I sometimes forget quite how much Brexit fucked diversity in the UK (and indeed, why would you stay considering the sheer hatred on display). That said, I did hear a priest (A PRIEST) doing an anti-immigrant rant in the hospital canteen, which was quite something. I mean, if you pick up ONE THING up from the magical book of nonsense isn't it an appreciation for the poor/immigrants. Isn't that the point?

I saw Atomfall described as W.A.N.K.E.R. - Shadow of Cumbria which I thought was perfect.

I like this trend of very British games creeping back in. Games like this and Thank Goodness You're Here must be absolutely impenetrable for Americans. It reminds me of the 8-bit days where you'd routinely get games like Everyone's a Wally or Jack the Nipper and they'd be like they'd stepped off the pages of Viz or the Beano. And now they're almost time capsules for a very specific 1980s sort of humour.

In terms of other recent-ish games, I really liked Everybody's Gone to the Rapture which is set in a fictional (and deserted) English village but it's very evocative and gets the details exactly right. I think Fallout: London was quite well received recently but I haven't played it myself. Isn't Watch Dogs: Legion set in London too?

It's based in a strangely compressed London, yes. But then there's been The Getaway and other games, I'm sure, based in London. There's something quite dangerous about presenting Americans the UK without Tower bridge I think.

Forza Horizon 4 is Edinburgh and the North. And that was quite enjoyable with a wheel and pedals. Even if often I felt I was commuting to work back in the early 00s.

Everybody's Gone is pretty good, I forgot that. it's got strong Clockwork Orange vibes and is very odd.

I gave Atomfall a crack and I was pleasantly surprised. Not just because it looks lovely and seems to have totally ditched Ubisoft's "hunt-the-icon" approach to open worlds, but mainly because you're repeatedly engaged by scousers, people from North Wales and (of course) loads of people with a Cumbrian accent. I was fascinated to see what Americans made of it, but as far as I can tell they seem to be quite enjoying it too. It made me wonder what other obscure bits of the UK could be adapted into the survival horror genre. Fife springs to mind.

Now, I'm sure Atomfall is going to massively flop (as almost every game does these days) but it's lovely to see a developer try something a bit different. Can anyone else think of some games that take a well trodden genre and set it in a weird, real location? Grand Theft Auto: Newport or something….

Nah, I disagree with that. The player can cause dissonance, but the game has an entire opening prologue where you're bow and arrowing slavering wolf beasts. No humans.

You then end up captured by a group who are mad, likely about to rape and murder you and your mates.

You escape, with all the ensuing panic. Initially you run. This entire section you're surrounded by the screams of people being murdered in the distance and rapey men saying what they're intending to do to you. You pick up a gun. You use it. The first 3 or 4 kills Lara is pretty distressed about it.

After that, you can more or less return to stealth knocking our or bowing people, and forget the gun. Or, as you might in real life, decide these people might be worth shooting.

Yes, it's still a videogame, but compared to Uncharted where it's WACKY QUIP and then START MURDERING EVERYONE, I think within the confines of game design it makes a brilliant stab (literally and figuratively) at it. You are given clear motive for why you need to kill and put in a position where lethal force is pretty much a desperate last minute choice.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable to more modern games, but even that level of thought would probably be absent. Avatar was shit about turning you immediately into an icon killing death machine. The Far Crys etc. Is it Far Cry 5 where you run from a cultist leader, hide in a shack for a bit, pick up a machine gun and then murder about 860 people in 5 minutes? 4 years later, but even then you have the start of the slow, directed walk, bit of chat, run, MURDER THEM ALL opening.

Regarding the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck, I never wanted to kick off the cosnole wars. They're both fantastic machines. I do think that people have kind of missed how good the Ally is, though. It's the sort of thing I personally have been dreaming of since the days of the PSP.

[Yodavoice] Begun, I'm afraid, the handheld wars have.