Julius

Right then, after a lot of back and forth over the last few weeks and what feels like dozens of permutations, I have my 2025 Gaming Pledge ready to share. Donkey Kong Country - long overdue, while I have played a few random levels from the game before, I've never played it all the way through or rolled credits on it. Grand Theft Auto IV - in anticipation of GTA VI, whether it launches this year or next, I wanted to get some GTAs under my belt. I had thought about starting with the earlier PS2 games, as I do own the PS2 Classics released for PS4 prior to them being taken down for the Definitive Editions, but IV just screamed out to me more tonally from watching a few trailers while researching for my Pledge. It also gives me at least one less game to get through before VI, and I think getting through both IV and V (which I have hundreds of hours sunk into through Online but only a couple in the story mode) is pretty realistic. Halo: Combat Evolved - no Xbox, but I do have my Steam Deck, and it didn't get much love last year outside of replaying Chrono Trigger. I've played a Halo before at a friend's house (couldn't tell you which) but this feels like a gargantuan hole in my own gaming experiences representing Xbox that I'm going to need to see for myself. Hollow Knight - it was a toss-up between HK and another indie game for this spot, both of which I picked up digitally as soon as I got my Switch back in 2019, but ultimately HK won out because it feels like it's more of a game from my backlog that I feel I need to get to, because so much of what I hear people love about this game is what I love about video games. Would like to get to the other indie, too, but more on that if and when I get to it. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... - this has been sitting on my shelf for a good while now, and I've been really getting in the mood to revisit NieR in some way over the last few months, with the soundtrack constantly popping up in my Spotify recommendations. I know very little about this other than the whole need for multiple replays for the true ending and experience, so I'm curious to see how I feel about it. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - it's a JRPG with Ghibli charm and a Joe Hisaishi score to boot, I'm more surprised that I haven't got to this yet given my affinity for all of those things. I'm pretty sure this was on my bucket list from way back when I joined this place. Portal 2 - loved the first game even if I did feel a got a bit long in the tooth towards the end, and all I hear is that 2 is bigger, better, funnier and has even better puzzles than the first. And yet another excuse to commit to booting up my Steam Deck. Star Fox 64 - I don't think I've really played many on-rails or N64 games, and for a reason I'll get into below meaning that perhaps some more obvious choices weren't my go-tos, Star Fox 64 has ended up on this list. This franchise was in the middle of dying around the time I got into games and wasn't that big of a name for my generation growing up outside of Brawl, so I'm really curious to see how I feel about it. It's also a great excuse to commit to picking up the NSO + Expansion Pack at long last, and digging out my NSO N64 controller for the first time - which will be my first time using the controller in any way! Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 - I've got great memories tied to THPS from when I was a kid playing them with my cousins, and picked this up at launch back in 2020, booted it up once and didn't really give it the chance to click. I can't wait to spend a quieter weekend with this one. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - and last but not least, the biggest commitment in this Pledge by far. I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3 with my friends, and while that's still pending a complete solo playthrough, after my time with KOTOR last year, it was time to commit to another big Western RPG. I went back and forth between this, Cyberpunk, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Divinity Original Sin II, but ultimately this got the nod because I've got friends who also want to play it after all of us have bounced off the game a few times before, and it's the game I see mentioned most in All-Time Top 10s that I haven't seen credits roll on myself. It's been 7 or 8 years since I last tried to get into it, and I started playing it just last night with a fresh save and a fresh start. Not so much a "goal" but just something I'll be doing, and tangential to The Witcher 3, myself and a friend are doing this thing where we aim to each complete the same game fresh to both of us (TW3); each play a game we recommend to the other (I recommended Shadow of the Colossus last year, while he recommended Days Gone...safe to say I get to recommend a longer game this time around ) with the person recommending having the option to replay the game if they want to; and we also want to play a game we both want to revisit, which this year we've already decided will be Ghost of Tsushima in anticipation of Yōtei releasing later this year. I've already got the Plat and so I don't think I'll be doing 100% of what is available, which means I'm kind of interested to see how the game plays when crit-pathed, similar to how my experiences with Fallen Order and Spider-Man were much different when crit pathing those over the last few years during replays. When making my Pledge for 2025, I decided to have a fresh start, and so haven't included games left over from my 2024 Pledge - though I do still plan to get to those games if and when time allows for it. I also decided that I couldn't have any IP overlap with last year's Pledge, otherwise this list would probably just end up being Mario and Zelda titles, and while I'd like to get to more of those, I see the Pledge more as pushing me to play things which have either languished in my backlog or on a shelf for too long, or to have new experiences - and hopefully any new genres or IP I have got to from last year stick enough for me to want to experience more. Similarly, for some franchises I've been plugging away at anyways, adding them to the Pledge knowing that I already had every intent to play them anyways seemed like it went against my goals with the Pledge. And, speaking of which, that's exactly why a certain game isn't on the list which would otherwise have been a shoe-in - but don't worry, @Hero-of-Time, I have every intention of playing Resident Evil 2 Remake this year after loving the first so much. It's just a goal outside of my Pledge for the reasons above. Picking up NSO + Expansion Pack for the first time, while I don't want to commit to a hard number of games that I want to try get to, there are glaring holes in my gaming experiences when it comes to some of the biggest titles available on the service where I either haven't played them before or have but haven't rolled credits on them, and so while Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox 64 are the only representatives of my intent to get to more games from Nintendo's history - and we're talking some of the BIG name games on there that I haven't rolled credits on, N-E - I will also be aiming to experience some of NSO + Expansion Pack's big-hitters. Similar to H-o-T, last year I aimed to spend less on games, and while I did end up picking some games which ended up shelved or not played at launch, it was much better than it was in years prior. My intent this year will be to only pick up/pre-order games if I have the intent to play them next/at launch. Those games aren't going anywhere, and if they are - such as with limited physical releases - then I'll grant myself an exception where I deem fit. This also applies to games I own digitally and not physically in a way – I love my physical collection, but digital games are only going to be having me pick up physical copies if I find that I love them and want them on my shelves. Having games pile up the way they have - especially with how much I know a mess can impact my mental health and how clean I try to keep the rest of my apartment to combat that - ended up with my shelf looking like this and it causing an insane amount of stress even when just trying to pick a game: So, the morning after the TGAs finished, I'd had enough and boxed up any and every game I knew I wasn't planning to get to or replay anytime soon, as well as anything I had already completed (outside of games I knew I might be planning to revisit or get in a random mood for): I can't even begin to tell you how mentally freeing it was, but hopefully the photos get that across Lastly, similar to last year, I'm still on the look out for more games to round out my personal Top 10, meaning potentially revisiting some games I've already loved in the past, and, ultimately, my main goal for gaming in 2025 is similar to what it was last year: and that's simply playing and experiencing more games than I managed to complete last year (21). Oh, and just to have fun doing so, and not being scared about jumping around a franchise's games if I feel like it, and dropping games like I did with Persona 3 Reload last year if it just feels like the right thing for me to do. That was a lot of yapping, but anyways -- thanks once again for sharing your Pledges @Jonnas and @Hero-of-Time, it was great following your efforts to get through your Pledge games last year and I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with your choices this year; curious to see if anyone else dives in with us! I'm also very curious to hear how The Surge ended up on that list Jonnas! And H-o-T, Secret of Mana very nearly ended up taking the JRPG slot on my own list, so it's nice to see it still be part of someone's commitments and yeah, I really enjoyed Judgment, but man do the trailing missions suck... Anyways, time for some food and then it's back to playing games (oh, and welcome back @Dufniall!)

Time to finish the fight: I rolled credits on one last game in 2024 with less than 15 minutes until the start of the New Year, and of course it's also time to take a look back at this year's gaming resolutions and pledge! Super Mario Galaxy 2 | 2010 If there was one game in particular on my list of pledge games for 2024 that I knew N-E wouldn't give me a break for not getting around to - and myself, given how much I loved the first game - it was Super Mario Galaxy 2. That's right, I broke out my Wii U just for this, which hadn't seen any action for quite a while! In short: total masterpiece. Now, before I get into it, let's be clear: I didn't get all 242 Stars, nor did I just get all 120 as Mario, I think I ended up with 93 at last count. This wasn't because I felt I ran out of time, or because I didn't feel compelled to, but because rolling credits on this game with a certain familiar face and a certain familiar place turning up just before credits rolled honestly left me on the verge of tearing up, and I'm convinced that with the year that was 2024 for me personally, there's nothing the rest of the game could have done to make me enjoy it any more than I did in that moment; I had been planning to carry this over into the new year, but with 14 minutes until midnight as I jumped up and grabbed that final Star, with credits about to kick in, the game peaked for me personally, and I can't remember the last time I ever had the chance to walk away from something with it in the best of places...and so I jumped at the chance. That it happened with the last game I played in 2024, with just a few minutes left until fireworks started to shoot up and jubilants yells and screams started to ring in 2025? I won't lie, it forced a smirk out of me. And, speaking of feelings, my goodness: I can't remember the last time I ever felt so damn much playing a platformer. The game controls so incredibly tightly, every level feels masterfully crafted - because they were - and every jump, every backflip, every mistimed run and every misguided attempt to control a ball through a speedy challenge - shout-out A Stroll Down Rolling Lane and Rolling Masterpiece, I loved to see the back of ya - just gave me this childlike sense of joy and wonder. It left me wishing I played this game as a kid, but getting to play it now as an adult, I feel like I've just done the Child Me a favour: he would've loved this game. Yoshi adds a whole new dimension to the levels he's in, there are the new Cloud Flower and Rock Mushroom power-ups - the former probably being my favourite power-up in the entire game? - and everything just feels so much tighter and focused than in the first Galaxy, such as with how the melancholy of Rosalina's Observatory and it being a hub you could explore, as well as the excellent but simple story it effectively conveyed, was traded out for the straight-up jolliness of the Starship Mario and Lubba (what a guy!) and a more traditional world map, allowing you to just jump straight into the next level without much faffing around. I don't think either approach is better or worse, which I think is so interesting to see in a sequel such as this which otherwise so obviously builds upon the incredibly strong foundation set by Galaxy, and I genuinely think that both are points in favour of each game is a serious testament to the efforts Nintendo went to with both games. In talking about a potential favourite level or galaxy...I'm honestly not even sure where I'd begin. I kept a running list as I went through the game, and I kid you not, it's 25+ galaxies long, never mind particular levels, but to focus on some absolute favourites of those and to try to narrow it down: Chompworks. Starshine Beach (the Piantas dude?!). Space Storm. Boo Moon. Okay, so I guess Slipsand might actually be my favourite galaxy looking through these notes...as I adored both Squizzard's Sandy Sinkhole and Sailing the Sandy Seas (the Sand Bird dude?!?!). Shiverburn. Melty Monster (that first level especially). Time for Adventure in Clockwork Ruins was S-tier, holy damn, I genuinely got the same feeling I did during some of Uncharted's excellent set-pieces throughout this one, just with the sheer variety and absurdity on show. Throwback - guys, I've played the game it was throwing back to ONCE, and I had the absolute biggest smile on my face (this alone also entirely justified my decision to play through the 3D Mario titles in order), and so I can only imagine how much some people on here must have been freaking out. Battle Belt - seriously, a "fighting" gauntlet level in a Mario has no right to be as damn good as this was! Sweet Mystery. Supermassive. Bowser's Galaxy Generator, damn what a fun gauntlet that proved to be! Also, shout-out Fluzzard and The Chimp, which added such a nice touch of variety to the Stars I was collecting as I went through. I haven't even been mentioning the boss fights! I mentioned Squizzard before and he was great, as was Gobblegut (finishing him off with ease and without getting a hit during the speedrun equivalent of his boss fight felt freaking fantastic!), but my absolute favourite in the game was Bowser Jr's Boomsday Machine, which I think genuinely goes toe-to-toe with any other boss fights out there, in any other genre, and is my favourite to date in the 3D Marios I've played, by far. It's just absurd how well it escalates and ramps up, and I found myself long-jumping from cloud to cloud, picking up a Cloud Mushroom, launching myself at the little fella and just hoping things had lined up just right. Oh, and shout-out to the progression you feel moving from world map to world map in this game, it's really something else compared to how I've felt when moving and progressing through world maps in other Mario games. And then, obviously, I've got to mention the music, and this is where I'm going to say something which may be considered a little out of order: while I think there are individual tracks in Galaxy which surpass any individual track in Galaxy 2, I do think that as a collective, for me, Galaxy 2's soundtrack outshines Galaxy's; again, though, if someone said otherwise, I'd hear them out, because both are so great, and again, it's similar to the arguments I can imagine for Observatory vs Starship, with vs without a melancholic story, hub vs world (well, galaxy) map: there's no wrong answer, the second is clearly built on the foundation of the first with steps taken to make things even more refined, and we all won. I've got a long list here too, but again, to try to pick some absolute favourites: Bowser, Almighty Koopa King is far more epic than it could possibly ever need to be. I mentioned Starship Mario before. Melty Monster Galaxy (to accompany the nightmares I'll now have about bowling). The absolutely all-encompassing epic odysseys that are Sky Station and Fluffy Bluff/Cloudy Court. The wistful piano strokes of World 3, interrupted by the warped synths of comets flying on by. Space Storm. Cosmic Cove. Starshine Beach. Slipsand/Clockwork Ruins. Bowser's Galaxy Generator, aka the theme for the "final" level, which opens up with this wonderful big band build-up I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing. And my personal favourite, the Staff Credits: There were times when playing through Super Mario Galaxy 2, with Mario launching himself through the air, and some excellent music blasting away, that time just stood still and I felt as though I understood humanity's undeniable fascination with flight, with space, and with experiencing the great unknown. While the truth is that I can't possibly begin to put words to how people felt flying for the first time, or going up into space for the first time, or landing on the moon, here's a game which plunges its hand into your heart, grabs it tight, and reminds you - with how it firmly instills a childlike earnestness, wonder, and awe - that it's simply because we desire to feel the way we did exploring the unknown as children once again. And with that, Super Mario Galaxy 2 joins my Tapestry of Tens, a running list I've been keeping of games that I would score a 10/10... So, to recap the games I completed in 2024, one final time: Games completed in 2024: It's now time to look back on my gaming resolutions and pledge for the year. Done: 21 games completed in 2024 compared to 15 in 2023. Feels good. Not quite done; while 1 more game has been committed to the Top 10 list, I'm on the fence a little about another, and even if I included it I would still be a game shy of rounding out my Top 10 list. The hunt continues... The new approach to how I play - dropping a need to Platinum a game or 100% it - went great, and was a good part of why I could complete as many games as I did this year despite some months-long gaps where I went without out picking up a controller to play a game solo. I also think there's a further lesson I'll be aiming to take into 2025 which came about from me dropping Persona 3 Reload back in October, after dumping some 35 hours into the game, as while I was playing it, and was having a damn good time - great music, snappy turn-based action, Shuffle Time is absolutely awesome - it didn't measure up to what I look for in a JRPG, taking far too long to do anything with its story, and I felt like so much about the story and characters were already done better in Persona 5. I will still be aiming to beat games I start, because I'm not above beating one out of spite just to roast it (sorry again, Outlaws), but at the same time, I'm glad that I was able to walk away from one when it wasn't tickling my fancy - the first time that's happened in years - and would like to continue doing so in the future. At the end of the day, playing games should be fun, and to quote Reggie from Nintendo's E3 2017 Spotlight: "if it's not fun, why bother?" Well, I got to and completed 5 of the 10: Am I a bit gutted that I didn't get through more of these? Sure...Final Fantasy X, The Last Guardian, and Metroid Prime (Remastered) in particular are the ones that sting the most. That being said? I ticked off 5 games from my own backlog, which feels pretty damn great. In 2024 I rolled credits on a 2D Zelda for the first time with Link's Awakening (okay, the remake is rendered in 3D, but you get what I mean ); finally beat KOTOR, one of the biggest stains on my Star Wars fandom and a game which was on my backlog before I even had one; played through my first Resident Evil, at long last, loved it, and cannot wait until I start the next; got to experienced the weird perfection that is Katamari Damacy; and got to Super Mario Galaxy 2, which has been sitting on my shelf pretty much since I beat the first Galaxy some 3 or so years ago. As for what will be happening with the 5 pledge games I didn't get to? They will follow me into 2025...but will be separate to my new list of pledge titles, allowing me to have a fresh start, and I'll be aiming to get to them as and when I have the time and desire to, with no real pressure to get them done by the end of the year, but absolutely giving myself positive marks if I do get to them - and I will surely be aiming to mark a few of these down as completed by the time December 31st 2025 rolls around. And speaking of 2025? Let's get to it. That's been my gaming in the year that was 2024 - here's to the next one!

Chipped away at the speedrun levels leading up to the 25th to leave myself with only Winter Wonder to complete on Christmas evening, after everyone had gone and home and I could finally kick my legs up and relax after a tiresome first few days off for my break from work. What a level. What a game. Jolliness personified - still can't think of many better ways I could have spent that evening also blown away by some of the Bots they managed to get in the level - I have to imagine that duo could have easily proven a licensing nightmare, even with their ties to PlayStation!

Bit late for a Christmas roast H-o-T, damn...

And another... Please never make it stop

I've got a friend who bought Suicide Squad at launch and has been waiting for this day for a long time, a chance to get our group to jump in... I guess it's time to go throw my PS5 in a river

In all seriousness, lovely write-up; it's been really nice to see Mouthwashed and so many other indie games recognised during end-of-year/GOTY discussions by a lot of outlets, channels and podcasts over the last month or two. Very curious to see how 2025 pans out and if that is capitalised on, and it definitely feels like the tide has started to shift in favour of more widespread indie recognition! MAKE IT A PLEDGE ahem. that's pretty much where I'm at with the Switch as well, which may or may not be reflected in another post of mine at some point maybe. I also think I'm just seriously lacking much excitement in terms of using the console, so yeah, I'm more than ready for whatever they've got ready to throw our way next

I think it came to light during COVID, I feel like there was a bit of a "Who are you?" thread. I'm fairly sure I already knew @Ashley was from around Birmingham (for some reason in my head it's filed next to him talking about the sailors in Shenmue... ), I was surprised to learn @Will was originally from around here too (as I think you were living outside of the UK at the time?). Small world (only made smaller being stuck in Stourbridge )

I've got a few goals for the year that I guess would come under being resolutions, buuuuuuuuuut I think I'll just share them one at a time as I get to confronting or completing each goal to save myself from feeling some sense of additional pressure First up, and one I'm happy to share because it's one I need to start getting the ball rolling on soon, is to get my full driver's license. I'm going to finally pulling the trigger on starting driving lessons – and along with that trying to get my practical test booked and passed by the end of the year; though, of course, scheduling, how the lessons themselves go, and all that means the latter may not be totally in my hands. But the aim is by all means to have my full licence and be driving my own car by the end of the year. I did my theory last year, which went great, and this is just one of those things I've kicked down the curb a few times - understandably I think at times, but I feel like I was clearly avoiding it at others - but to be honest, at this point, I'm just sick of being in Stourbridge all of the time. If figuring on it from that perspective is what it takes to finally get to doing this? Then so be it

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! Somehow the year is now 2025, and you all know what that means...a new Gaming Diary thread to go along with our new Switch Successors™ coming later this year, of course! No doubt it'll be another year of AAA games of high and questionable qualities, a year for new niche and indie titles to be propelled to new heights, and of course, yet another chance to talk about the games we love - and those we don't - with a good dose of respect! And maybe a little disrespect if you're on the level of Star Wars Outlaws, ahem... Once again I find myself asking: does anyone else have any New Year's Gaming Resolutions for the coming year? Perhaps a particular game, series, console catalogue, or developer you're planning to dig into? Or some new and unique approach to how you play? Are there maybe some lessons you'll be taking away from your time spent gaming in 2024 to inform how you spend your time gaming in 2025? As we started off last year, I would also love to make a call out for people to share their List of Pledge Games for the year, if they'd like. Myself, @Hero-of-Time and @Jonnas made pledges last year of different shapes and sizes, and with different approaches to how we selected our games, but I think it's a great way to take aim at a particular set of games and cross them off your pesky backlog. Maybe there's a particular series you've been planning to get into, a sequel you let pass you by for whatever reason, or some little indie darling which has managed to embed itself deep into your psyche which you now have the urge to play. Heck, maybe it's even just catching up on some recent releases from the last couple of years that managed to sail on by! We used Topsters last year to create our lists, and I will be once again this year; to give an example of what your pledge list might look like, here's mine from last year: Whatever the case may be, it would be great to get more people onboard and make this something of a Gaming Diary thread tradition! Your list doesn't necessarily need to be 10 games - 3 and 5 also seem like perfectly nice numbers to aim for too - even if I do think it's a nice round number to aim for, and I definitely found it helpful as a guide to finally get to some of the games I've been meaning to dig out for so long. That's not to say I got to all 10 last year, mind you...but more on that in the 2024 thread later. It's non-binding, of course, and there's no real pressure to it – it's just a good bit of fun to share some of the games you intend to get to from your backlog, and hopefully just gives you that last little push to do so and share your thoughts on them when you're done! I'll be sharing my list later, after I've made my final post in the 2024 thread, as I have one final game that I rolled credits on just minutes before the fireworks started to shoot up at midnight – the pledge list for 2025 itself is something I've spent a good while pondering over the last few weeks, and I think I've finally nailed down, so I'm looking forward to getting it off my chest! Anyways, here's to 2025 and another great year of gaming! N-E's Pledge Lists of 2025 As suggested by H-o-T on Page 3, here's a wall of initial pledges by the fine folk taking part this year, as well as the most recent pledge updates* I've come across for each pledge made**. These have been ordered from the earliest to latest pledges shared - but it's never too late to join! *like the pledge itself, my role in updating this is not legally binding, so maybe message me or tag me if you've noticed I haven't updated it in a whlie? I could also be MIA though so in which case...sorry **I'll use the date of the post of the pledge update rather than any other date noted, such as in a list of completion dates that I know others and myself like to use. Just makes it a bit easier for me!! Jonnas Pledged on 1st Jan 2025... Hero-of-Time Pledged on 2nd Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 18th Jan 2025: Julius Pledged on 2nd Jan 2025... Most recently updated my pledge progress on 4th Jan 2025: Nicktendo Pledged on 6th Jan 2025... drahkon Originally pledged on 6th Jan 2025, amended on 11th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge on 13th Jan 2025: S.C.G Pledged on 7th Jan 2025... bob Pledged on 9th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 14th Jan 2025... WackerJr Pledged on 11th Jan 2025... Cube Pledged on 11th Jan 2025... BowserBasher Pledged on 12th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 16th March 2025... Dufniall Pledged on 13th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 31st Jan 2025... Dcubed Pledged on 19th Jan 2025...

With the year rapidly coming to a close, this is planned to be my penultimate post in this year's Gaming Diary thread, and should more or less bring my diary up-to-date. Crazy how fast this year has gone by, but it's not quite time for reflection yet -- let's get to it! Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance | 2013 After a certain cameo in Astro Bot, I moved onto Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which is one of the most absurd games I've ever played. I'll be honest, its story makes very little sense. If you've played MGS4 - which this game takes place some year after - and feel like you adjusted to just how over-the-top that game got, Revengeance somehow manages to find a whole other level of crazy stupid anime-level shenanigans for you to see play out. As Raiden you'll be sneaking around (occasionally...kinda...) as you'd expect from a Metal Gear game, but with his cyborg abilties, you'll also be making healthy use of flicking around the right analogue stick to slash around your blade as you've likely done at some point as Raiden in earlier MGS titles. QTEs, cyborg soldiers, drones, unmanned Metal Gears...the game will heap on layer after layer of enemy and boss varieties on a world-spanning journey which occasionally touches on the serious topic of child soldiers, and then veers straight off a cliff into the serious deliveries of iconic lines such as "Memes. The DNA of the soul" all the way to the extremes of "NANOMACHINES, SON" and Rules of Nature... It has been several months now since I played Revengeance, and I'm still not quite sure exactly where I land on it. Combat can be electric but it can also be sloppy, as I've hinted at the story goes places (or tries) but does so in incredibly hilarious and cheesy ways which make the game unforgettable for better and worse, and it is interesting to see how and where Platinum decided to try to sneak in some Metal Gear, whether it be in the UI, the way equipment works, or the controls which take a moment or two to adjust to. Above all else, though, I remember the boss fights and the game's Zandatsu and Blade Mode mechanics. The boss fights are the most ridiculous things I've ever seen...and I LOVED THEM. Playing on Normal it becomes apparent that higher difficulties would offer more of a chance to experiment with the game's mechanics, and it seems like there's further depth there to be played around with, but man, I just loved how the game felt to play and how it felt to find a flow. Perhaps this is largely down to how I accidentally found myself approaching the game: while Normal isn't particularly hard, boss fights and some areas had a noticeable difficulty spike, made worse by me not realising I'd unequipped my healing method at the very start of the game and totally forgot it was a thing until I got stuck on a boss at the end of Act 2. Yeah, that's right -- I really got to grips with this game as a result of my own silly mistake, and so very much needed to depend on Blade Mode, which allows you to focus purely on unloading accurate and intricate cuts at great speed, which when coupled with fuel cells allows you to slow time via a mechanic called Zandatsu, where you use Blade Mode to target and attack a highlighted red square for a chance to replenish fuel cells and your health; this, as you might have figured out, was how I spent much of the game healing. Combined with parries and blocks, I went from sheepishly and awkwardly wandering through the first few levels to going through some levels in the mid-to-late game at a breakneck pace, freeing my enemies of their heads and appendages. Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot to mention - this game gets gory as heck because of the physics engine allowing you to very vividly see the results of your fine swordsmanship. Look, this is the weakest Metal Gear game I've played, there's no question in my mind about that...but it's still a dumb fun time. Probably not the greatest introduction to character-action games I could have had, but Platinum still found a way to keep it exhilirating with great-feeling combat and some super fun boss fights, amongst all the over-the-top silliness and corny lines. Totally mark the game down for not featuring my equipped sombrero and poncho in cutscenes, mind you. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth | 2024 Back in 2020, I had a great time blasting through Final Fantasy VII Remake early on into the first COVID lockdown here in the UK, after its street date broke with many question marks in the air about how, what, and when packages and product launches would be handled. Up until the ending I was fully onboard, until it got into some Kingdom Hearts levels of craziness I wasn't expecting going in, and while I came around to the potential avenues the ending opened up going forwards for the VII Remake Project after a few months and viewing it as Square Enix taking some interesting risks - and the game ending up my personal GOTY for 2020, at the time - questions still lingered at the back of my mind about where this was all going. So, how did I get on with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth after the Unknown Journey finally continued this year? Back at launch I played the game's first couple of chapters, and was loving it, but dropped the game due to personal reasons at the time, and ended up not knowing if, or when, I would get back to the game in 2024. I had completed every side activity and quest that I could in the game's opening couple of chapters, challenging the vast majority of enemies I came across, spending over 10 hours with the game before putting it down. This is important to highlight, for me, as when I returned to the game in September, my approach to the game which stretched out the first couple of chapters to a 10+ hour excursion ultimately seemed fruitless, with equipment and character levels quickly falling to a point that they were at or behind the recommended level for main story missions. While this is an action RPG, not seeing the benefit of that early game grind so many other JRPGs utilise so well, I decided to focus instead on treating the game in a more linear fashion similar to what we experienced with Remake, mainly tackling the main story beats and only tackling side quests where they were absolutely necessary (which happened very rarely) as well as the mini-games, because they were a great source of fun to change up the game's pace. What struck me most about this was that I didn't once find myself drastically underlevelled focusing only on the main story missions, often being at or just below the recommend level for any particular main story mission, which meant I ended up with a little more challenge at times and one or two very slight but noticeable difficulty spikes, with combat encounters feeling really well-balanced around being at or just below the recommended level, as it put a greater emphasis on utilising attacks and dodges effectively. I have to imagine this is a result of some weird EXP balancing where it is lopsided more towards main story bosses and missions providing more EXP, with side activities potentially being more about equipment, materia, and item hoarding - perhaps useful for higher difficulties, but feeling totally redundant on a first playthrough, the highest difficulty available at the start being Normal and Hard only being unlocked once credits have rolled for the first time. As a result of many of the side activities feeling redundant or not worth the time investment, then, I came to an even stranger conclusion: this game's open world is perhaps one of the strangest, in that it feels almost entirely optional. I think that's a bit of a shame for someone like me who loves to appreciate a well crafted and integrated open world, and went into this game hoping to find an open world which would challenge some of the great ones we've seen over the last decade, yet I also find myself respecting the fact that it can just become optional, incredibly expensive set dressing if it's not tickling your fancy...and boy is it some of the best set dressing. Dropping the side activities and then just running through some of these enviroments without much of a care in the world felt absolutely freeing and incredible in equal measure, and the game's sense of scale is absolutely astonishing at times. Seeing Junon's cannon from so far away, for exmaple, and then walking around and seeing how it dwarfs Junon and the undercity instilled a sense of awe on the level of some of the greatest open worlds we've seen in recent years, such as in Elden Rings or Tears of the Kingdom. That feeling carries forward in the game, too, with such a great variety of places that you end up going to, and such a varied sense of scale and different balances of nature and manmade structures really hammering home some of the points from Remake and, of course, the original Final Fantasy VII. The earliest example of this comes in the game's opening stages, where you begin to ascend Mt. Nibel in a sequence many who have played the original VII will remember strongly (and, I imagine, fondly), and this adventurous tune kicks in, quickly gathers at speed, and bursts into VII's main theme, before reprising it again in truly epic fashion worthy of the journey you are about to embark upon with this game (Toward Mt. Nibel). It is a jubilant and epic moment I won't be forgetting anytime soon, and is easily one of my favourite moments in the VII Remake Project so far. This leads me to an important point about the utilisation of the VII's Main Theme (original Final Fantasy VII Main Theme, for reference), as while it was used throughout the original game and of course in Remake, it is just as much the overworld theme for that original game as it was anything else; with Rebirth having an open world but not quite an overworld, I was curious to see how the Main Theme would be weaved in, and apparently the answer to that was putting it everywhere and in so many different ways, such as in the Battle Theme, which adapts it into this high octane thrill of an accompaniment, or in more melancholic and softer reprisals, such as that found in With Heavy Heart - A Seabreeze Stroll. The game's score, just like Remake's, feels like such an excellent adaptation and evolution of Nobuo Uematsu's original work for VII, but above all else, it respectfully extracts every last bit of emotion from the original tracks and makes them relevant to whatever seen or sequence they accompany here in Rebirth; it is an obvious choice for the best soundtrack in video games this year -- and yes, it is by far and away my choice for the best video game soundtrack of 2024, once again, against all odds, seeing the team take a 10/10 soundtrack and make it an 11. This is a new game, though, and so what is new and unique about this soundtrack which wasn't around in 1997? Is there a particular song I can point you to? You're damn right there is. No Promises to Keep was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and finally, retroactively, Final Fantasy VII has been given a vocal song of its own that it can compare with its PS1 contemporaries, VIII and IX. Loren Allred lends her voice to the song, and it moved me just hearing a small snippet of it at last year's Game Awards. To perhaps make this a bit too personal for a moment, my aunt passed back in March, and her passing was the personal reason I had to put this game down - and I'm glad I did, as there are a few parts of this game which I think would've been too much to bear back in March. We'd always been very close, with her moving to England to work when I was very young in order to provide a better life for her family back home in the Philippines, and I spent many, many holidays becoming intimately familiar with Bournemouth and visiting my aunts. Ice creams on the beach. Watching X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent on Saturday nights with some Diet Coke in hand. Air Shows and the fireworks rounding out our Augusts for a number of years. She treated me as if I were her own son, and I was very blessed and fortunate to have her as my aunt. I bring this up because, listening back to this song, some lyrics now painfully stand out against the backdrop of the others. I got the chance to see my aunt one last time last summer, as she had returned to the Philippines around a decade ago to spend time with the family she had so greatly provided for. My aunt was a rock, more like the boss of the family as a whole a lot of the time, and she was fierce, but that last goodbye just felt like I knew it would be the last one; there was a heaviness to the air, and we saw her less and less as the trip went on, with this goodbye at her house needing to happen bedside. We'd later, much later, learn it was cancer. Even looking back at photos, the way some shots were framed and coloured, it's obvious that deep down I knew, and I'm very grateful I had that last chance to say goodbye to my aunt. Despite knowing, I think, deep down at the time what was to come, in a way not too dissimilar to what happens to the character who sings this song, my aunt proudly continued to march to the beat of her drum for another 6 months. I miss her. There's no easy way to transition away from this, but I feel like I wanted to share that to be honest about how much I connected to certain aspects of this game. In terms of things I could've been happier with, the game never quite went as wild as I feel the ending of Remake set up, and so while some crazy stuff goes on, there was never a "HOLY WHAT?!" moment that I was expecting the entire time...which made some of their crazier decisions to capitalise on Remake's ending in this game fall a little flat, especially with how they resolve in this partciular game. It produces some incredibly cool moments, but whereas I eventually walked away from Remake respecting Square Enix taking risks, while not particularly bad, I do think the big changes they've made here in line with Remake's ending are the weaker points of the game, whereas the parts more directly adapted and evolved from the original shine brightest; it makes me genuinely question whether the changes in Remake were an example of S-E wanting to take a risk to go somewhere new, bold, and exciting, or if they were fearful of simply remaking and updating the original game's story and systems for a modern audience. Some slightly altered scenes and sequences compared to the original feel like they end up watering down the impact of certain moments (you'll know them when you come to them), and while the heart and soul of VII is well and truly alive and can be found in both Remake and Rebirth, there is an obvious lack of depth in places because of the new story added or scenes altered/omitted; while I am enjoying the VII Remake Project for what it is still and had a great time with this game, I do think it was a glaring mistake by S-E to have this project serve as sequels to a game which is nearly 30 years old and which modern audiences are thus very unlikely to want to go near experiencing, especially because - again, to reiterate - the strongest parts of this game for me are the parts adapted from the original game, and the weaker parts are what has been tacked on and was not part of the original VII. Another nitpick - albeit a much smaller one - that I feel the need to mention because I'm shocked it's still a thing: ATB attacks, synergy attacks, items et al still being swallowed up by phase transitions in boss fights which you can't possibly know are coming up, and so end up wasted if accidentally used at the wrong moment. Sort it out S-E. To speak about more points of praise for the game, though, because there are plenty and they shouldn't be overshadowed by its few shortcomings: the party and its characters are absolutely excellent once again in Rebirth, every single one of them getting moments of levity to balance out their own personal tragedies, with some getting brilliant arcs in this game to really help flesh them out, again improving on the original arcs in the original game. Every character feels perfectly realised and in some cases even improved, with the incredibly annoying Cait Sith going from a D-tier character at best in the original game for me, to an A-tier character, absolutely no questions asked, he's just so damn expressive and at times hilarious in this game. Gold Saucer and its many mini-games were fantastic, and the same goes for Queen's Blood, this absolutely brilliant card game - between this, Pazaak in KOTOR and Sabaac in Outlaws, I think it's finally time to say that I'm warming up to the idea of in-game card games. The combat is absolutely excellent, as it was in Remake, with a much greater sense of balance and variety to boss fights (some of the absolutely best bosses I've faced this year are in this game, which is no small feat considering my love for From Software's bosses and Shadow of the Erdtree) and the newly implemented syngergy attacks for the wider party, a variety of smaller team-ups and then the big team-up attacks very reminiscent of Chrono Trigger's Techs. Seriously, this should be the path S-E take with Final Fantasy moving forwards: this modern take they have on ATB, Action ATB, deserves to be experimented and toyed with more like the original ATB system was across many games, because it's one of my favourite combat systems in an action JRPG, hands-down. While, like Remake, Rebirth is not a perfect outing, it is still one of the best games that I've played this year and absolutely deserves to be talked about as one of the best new releases this year. The music, the party of characters, the sprawling open world, the myriad of mini-games, the best-in-class boss fights, the way that this open world is all tied together with some smartly designed playable segments, the absolute abundance of people in the world and in cutscenes, the sheer scale of it all, the way that cutscenes are framed from a cinematography perspective... Rebirth made me feel more than any other game this year, whether that be in depth of emotion or the breadth of emotions I felt throughout the game, and so I cannot wait to see how the Unknown Journey ends in the trilogy's third and final game. Days Gone | 2019 Days Gone is the definition of swimming in 7s. While not quite as bad as Outlaws, I will once again be pointing you towards my posts in the game's own thread, because my frustrations with the game as I went through it were very much on show: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4. In short, the game does some things interestingly or in unique ways, such as with an excellent depiction of a couple which doesn't really border on cheesy but just seems more realistic in how the pair flirt and interact, and I think it's a genuine highlight of the game. Sam Witwer as Deacon was excellent (even if him yelling at the radio felt a bit much, really got to wonder what the direction was for those lines). Pretty cool main theme. The fuel system in the game is unique in that you need to keep a full tank to keep your bike going, but having run out of fuel just once - at the very end of the game - MAN is running out of fuel super annoying, as is the act of constantly needing to detour in order to top up. Hordes of zombies are cool but not really worth yelling about, although I think they'd be really interesting to implement in another zombie IP of PlayStation's - and perhaps this game would have been received more kindly in hindsight if it were somehow tied into their already existing, premier zombie post-apocalypse IP? Just a thought. On the flipside, man, the level of hubris apparent throughout melts the mind. The game constantly feels like Bend trying to prove a point, perhaps that they're better than Naughty Dog or other big open world games, but fails on the basics of what makes a modern game great. Countless and constant loading screens and transitions to black, even playing on a PS5, well removed from this game supposedly being "fixed" means the story shudders along at best, and feels like smashing your face off five walls in a row before you can control Deacon again at worst. Traversing this open world, at times, feels painful. Combat is unexpressive, zombie designs uninspired, hell, I didn't even realise there was a skill tree until 10 or so hours in because the game never pushed back hard enough for me to think I needed to be stronger in some capacity. While the game could have served as a great foundation for future sequels, and sets up a sequel with its ending very similar to The Order: 1886, again, there's even a level of hubris to this throughout which makes it especially hilarious that Bend didn't get to make a sequel (and also notably didn't want to, because of how much of a pain in the ass some of the creative leads on Days Gone were, who have since been let go) because it feels like it sets up more threads than it closes. Fun but forgettable open world junk food. Spider-Man | 2018 Another year, another Spider-Man playthrough (see: replays in 2020 and 2023), I think this is the 5th time I've played the game through to credits? I needed something light and fun when springing back into games earlier this month, and this was my elixir of choice. I returned to the 2020 PS5 remaster of the game to play through NG+ on Ultimate difficulty to get myself back up to 100% trophy completion on the game, and once again had an absolute blast. I blasted through the game just crit pathing it in 8 hours or so, but man, that final 20-30 minutes before credits roll remains brutal and some of the best acting we've had in a game yet, Yuri Lowenthal's Peter/Spidey just going for it and every part of his performance being absolutely nailed. One of my favourite games of last gen, for sure. There's no doubt there'll be more Spidey replays in store for me yet. Oh, and the above is a screenshot by the way - playing through in the Raimi suit feels incredible, and the game still just looks so damn good. Seriously, those guys and gals over at Insomniac are wizards! Resident Evil | 2002 To summarise my experience with Resident Evil, while it took a while to adjust to the game's tank controls after nearly giving up before changing from the analogue stick to the D-pad, and despite some pretty weak boss fights: once it clicked, this was an absolutely brilliant first foray into the Resident Evil franchise for me. The lines and their deliveries are a bit cheesy, and the story itself as presented in the "modern day" of the game is nothing to write home about, but the lore you uncover while exploring is incredible, and you constantly find yourself reading through new notes - left by scientists, or subjects, or manic puzzle designers - in order to piece together the game's systems and Spencer Mansion's history. The story of Lisa Trevor and her parents was particularly haunting. Spencer Mansion and its surrounding locales bleed atmosphere, be it down to subtle and understated pieces of music, the contrast of shadows and the lighting, the brilliant sound design making you wonder about the dull steps of someone - a zombie? a friend? - down the hallway, or the game's brilliant use of fixed camera angles to build tension with you not knowing what might be just around the corner. The Safe Rooms in particular highlight a certain melancholy of safety in a very unsafe place which I feel only Firelink Shrine has come close to for me from other games, and of course their theme only compounds this - in turn, a lack of it at some of the Safe Rooms only leads to further build the tension of the Mansion. Combat, in and of itself, is less about fighting but choosing when and how to fight - do you burn a zombie so that it doesn't come back as a Crimson Head, or save that bit of kerosene in your flask for later, just in case? Do I even shoot or do I just run away to conserve ammo? Where do I run to? With only 8 slots as Jill, what do I bring with me? More guns and ammo means a greater chance of fending off any zombies I come across, but also limits space for carrying around items which may help me solve puzzles to get further and potentially find the next Safe Room, and also increases the likelihood of me using said guns and ammo just by being on my person. There is a constant trade-off and need to evaluate what you're bringing with you, a puzzle unto itself, and even saves are tied to Ink Ribbons which are limited throughout the game - even playing on Easy (which I selected accidentally at the start as my difficulty because the difficulties aren't conveyed very well), there would be times where I found myself needing to push further with only an Ink Ribbon or two left on me, scrounging around and praying for more of them just so that I could save the game, or more shotgun ammo for how much of a safety blanket a fully loaded shotgun and box of ammo made me feel. The true highlights of the game, though, are the puzzles and design of the Mansion itself. The game's progression is generally gated off by needing a certain type of key, and so you can only ever get so far with a specific type of key, hopefully making some sort of progress but potentially needing to backtrack upon finding another key before you can progress further. "Backtracking sounds like it could be a pain" might be your first thought, but the beauty of it is that you are constantly learning the layout of the Mansion itself - and not just the layouts of rooms, but the positioning of enemies, the locations of locked doors, early doors in particular grabbing your attention early on and thus finding a certain type of key or object to unlock them providing their own eureka moment. Learning the layout of the mansion and unlocking and learning about shortcuts pays off dividends, too, as it means you can avoid some fights where you would otherwise be wasting ammo or healing items in order to recover after the fact. The puzzles have a great variety to them, but many are also fairly cryptic, and so there's a great sense of reward in having figured out the solution to a puzzle yourself, especially in those cases where you find yourself remembering something that you'll need to backtrack to. Even in just writing the last few paragraphs, it is abundantly clear how these systems bleed into each other and pile on top of one of another in order to provide a nuance and depth I can honestly say I wasn't expecting going into a Resident Evil game. This game felt so fresh and revelatory compared to so many other games I've played, as it's so far outside of my wheelhouse, making it exactly the type of game I wanted my list of pledge games to help me find and experience. It's not hard to see where the love for the series - and the praise for this game in particular - stems from, here on N-E and elsewhere. Sure, it's a bit aged, and I have to imagine Capcom are strongly considering a remake at some point, but for now? This game, a snapshot of the design philosophies of the earlier Resident Evil titles updated with graphics which still hold up to this day thanks to a smartly implemented combination of pre-rendered backgrounds and character models, is still worth playing today for the feelings of dread and discovery it instills, and for the challenge to continue on that is constantly proposes. It remains an excellent game to this day, and I cannot wait to see what my next experience with the franchise has in store. Games completed in 2024

The reporting coming out of Spain and higher tier Liverpool journalists that Trent is going to be signing his pre-contract to go to Madrid in the coming months and leave on a free has been heating up over the last few days. Crazy. But yeah, whether he goes or not, the fact that you lot haven't tied down van Dijk and Salah is absolutely mental. Feels like your board is playing chicken and they don't seem to realise how easily they could lose that game of chicken

Looking forward to hearing how you get on with Citizen Sleeper @drahkon, I've been meaning to check it out for a while and with the sequel coming up at the end of next month, I think it might soon finally be the time Meanwhile Marsupilami is giving me flashbacks to terrible 2000s CGI kid's shows and weird off-brand cereal mascots...

Can totally see why you're confused about it, and I agree with you, it has had a very strange release schedule – it seems to have worked for them in the grand scheme of things when it comes to making money, but yeah, not easy to follow at the best of times. Mugen Train was a prime example of this: film was huuuuuuuuuge, it's the best way to experience the story in my opinion for how it is better paced without the opening, closing, and recapping of anime episodes, but then the TV release splits it into a number of episodes with some additional content and it was awkwardly squeezed in as the start to the second season. Anyways, to answer your question, I've just checked on Netflix and it looks like they've done away with calling them "Seasons" (probably for the reason you're citing, I imagine) and instead have just split them into arcs – the latest arc, which is called the Hashira Training arc, is the fourth season I was referring to in my post; it's only 8 episodes long and the final episode is a bit longer than the others. The third season, Swordsmith Village arc, is the one it sounds like you watched most recently. The English dub for the Hashira Training arc/S4 is all out on Netflix too, as it has finished airing, so it's all ready for you to dive in!

Christopher Nolan's next film will be an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. Read this after finishing high school as a bit of a lit geek and thought it was strange that there'd never been some attempt to adapt it to film in a massive way -- though personally I think it'd be best suited as a game or show, just for its colossal length. I always thought it'd be best adapted into a sci-fi, too, so it's pretty ironic that one of the best people to do that, Nolan, is seemingly just making a straight up adaptation could be a way to pay homage to 2001 a bit (even if in name only) if it were sci-fi, but I think the idea of it being set way back when is infinitely more interesting. The film will star Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway and Charlize Theron. So Matt Damon is just going to reprise his role from The Martian, assuming he's Odysseus which is a shame as I would've liked Oscar Isaac or Christian Bale. Tom Holland probably as Telemachus. Feel like Hathaway or Theron could be either Penelope (O's wife) or Calypso. Lupita I can't see being anyone but Circe. Pattinson as a cyclops is the dream for me

Forgot to bring it up, but Jones was back once again at Easy Allies for TGA reactions, and both Kyle and Jones were part of that week's main podcast: Wouldn't say they're quite as all-timer as last year's equivalents, but man, I just miss listening to these guys. I don't really listen to EZA as a podcast anymore - at least the current stuff. Feel like I just cycle back through older episodes of the main podcast and Frame Trap, and recently for around to listening back to the Frame Trap episodes released from lockdown onwards, something I'd dodged doing for a very long time purely because of, well, it being a reminder of such a strange time. I'm also currently watching through Hall of Greats (again), and man, I miss the glory days. The Trial of Kyle Bosman is also S-tier Which brings me to today, when I finally got around to watching most of their deliberations for 2023, what with the end of the year now upon us. I've still got the GOTY discussion to go, but man, I'm shocked that so many of the Allies just straight up skipped some of the strongest GOTY candidates last year, namely Baldur's Gate III. It wouldn't be my pick (based on having only played it in co-op, mind you), but to only have Gabby and Isla beat it and the others to just have thrown in a few hours, when it came out in August/September (depending on your platform), AND considering the fact that they still held their deliberations later than everyone else...I'm at a total loss. I get that they can't play everything, but I had the winner spoiler for me in the comments and am not surprised at all given who is left and who does and does not want to cause a stir during these things, and it's weird to think that a couple of years prior with Brad and Ben present, it's obvious they would've played BG3 and it probably would've won. Similar to how I think Endwalker would've won in 2021 if Ben had actually finished it. Oh well, guess I can only hope that things are handled differently this time next month, if they are planning on holding these deliberations once again it's tough for me because the people my taste most aligned with (Ben and Brad) have long since left, and they were kind of the counterbalances to a lot of the other Allies not getting through as many of the games they probably should've played. Very curious to see how it pans out, in any case. It also seems - from the comments, at least - that Don got shafted, which sucks.

This has pretty much become tradition on here at this point, and it's a great one at that, so thanks for sharing @drahkon, always love seeing your stats breakdown Real shame about Timmy, though... ...not that he didn't have it coming, mind you

And that is credits and a game clear on my first Resident Evil! Played through on Easy, as I mentioned before, because I didn't know the second option wasn't Normal...but in the end that turned out for the better with my time taken to adjust to the tank controls anyways Finally found a use for that MO Disk I'd been keeping at the bottom of the item chest forever, and yes, I did blow up (just the once) trying to carefully go from one room to another in the lab. Not surprised by how certain characters played out, because I mean, some names you just hear through the grapevine, but the game even felt like it managed to get ahead of that with how it's revealed in certain documents anyways. Just one final mention for the Mansion and everything it encompasses from a game design perspective, the sound design of the game, the incredible atmosphere, and those puzzles -- maaaaaaaan, those puzzles. I absolutely adored some of the puzzles in this game, as well as how rewarding some are as a player but also in terms of in-game rewards, such as more powerful weapons or super helpful items -- and (I might be wrong about this?) I think I potentially skipped a boss fight? There was a massive room where a cutscene played out which was clearly set up for one, but never came to pass, because of a puzzle I did earlier in the game and remembered to use after finding a certain annoying critter "protecting" itself as I'd read about in some notes. I lost count of the times I'd find a hint or be part way through a puzzle and rush to grab a pen and something to write on - a notepad, an awkwardly torn scrap of paper, or the back of a stained envelope - before hastily scribbling away. If I had to pick just one part of the game genuinely think this aspect was my favourite That this then is part of an excellent blend of systems, story and lore bleeding into each other, which is very hard to pull off in such a relatively linear and short(ish) game, really makes it clear why this remake was so well received. This was a real blast, and I'm seriously happy that I chose to stick it out despite early issues with the tank controls. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story and mechanics go from here, as well as seeing who turns up elsewhere, and I'm curious to see if the next game can sink its hooks into me in similar fashion. This is one of my favourite playthroughs of the year and I'm glad I squeezed it in -- in an another time where I'd grown up with a GameCube, on tank controls, and boss fights not coming as far as I know they have in the time since, I could easily see this being one I would throw around as being one of my favourites; it's not hard to see why others on N-E and elsewhere speak of it in such high regard and would include the game on their own personal list of favourites. Obviously, this next part probably goes without saying considering where I've ultimately landed on Resident Evil Remake, and that's that I will absolutely be checking out Resident Evil 2 Remake next year -- which I have just now ordered a copy of

First trailer for My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, which will be airing from April 2025. I actually read through the first few volumes of this way back when I started to get into MHA, and it was decent. It ran concurrent to the main series so I do think it's a little bit odd to start My Hero spin-offs with this; think I'd much rather skip to a prequel show about All-Might, if I'm being honest Which has got to be inevitable... right?

Immediately? No, I won't be At some point in the pretty near future, though? Absolutely. All in due time I think I'll be moving onto some jollier and more colourful games to see out the year I doubt I would've got to, or been done with, RE2 by the time it left PS+ next month anyways, but I appreciate the heads-up Very typical that it'd leave around the time I play my first RE, though

Good lord, this is one hell of a game. Finally had my first seriously long stretch of time with the game today (he says, only starting up at the start of the evening) after my previous shorter sessions with it, and have just made my way into what can only be described as a *very* secure location courtesy of a *very* hidden lift. I can't imagine there's particularly long left with how many people/things on my hit list are now crossed off, but given my experience with some other games (ahem...Yakuza) drawing out their finales to kingdom come and me feeling a bit shattered, I'm happy to come back and see the rest of this through tomorrow. And I can't wait. In case it had to be said again, puzzles: Spencer Mansion (the level design, environmental design, atmosphere, enemy compositions...the list doesn't end, seriously): Pretty much everything else I've mentioned before in a positive light: Seriously, if I were taking notes - which I guess I have been, mentally - my only real "negatives" up to this point are that I could take or leave quite a few of the boss fights, and that while an excellent stylistic choice and a way to carry the legacy of the original games on PS1 (and despite the fact that I've pretty much come to terms with them at this point), this game can be tricky to get to grips with purely because of its tank controls, and I think is probably a hard sell to a modern audience/anyone who doesn't have a history with tank controls with that in mind. I bring this up simply to say that sucks, because maaaaaaaan are those people missing out.

The MS-DOS Welltris is coming to the collection. And according to Chris Kohler, more could be on the way: Well, I guess it's time to start the wait for the definitive and complete collection in Tetris Forever And Ever, amirite?

Off the back of the brilliantly weird "This is an Xbox" campaign, Microsoft is apparently looking into the possibility of third parties building Xbox-branded devices, and potentially utilising the Xbox OS. Per Windows Central: He, she, we, they, I, you, it: Xbox.

@Hero-of-Time where are you at with this? I'm a bit curious just knowing your love of Naughty Dog but them also finally taking a bit of a break from TLOU as well?