Cube

I have Facebook set up with privacy set to "Only Me" for the Switch screenshots. I'm curious how the phone scanning will work.

Unfortunately YouTube Music seems to be the best option for me, even though it's a significant downgrade. You can still use playlists of your own plus streamed music (even though they're not as easy to set up), and it works with all my other devices. That said, I seem to be able to use Google Play Music again...probably not for long, but I'll be using it as long as I possibly can.

Google Play Music has been discontinued. The YouTube music interface is horrible, it's features are lacking compared to Google Play Music, it doesn't integrate your uploading music with the streaming music particularly well, playlists are a pain to create.

Sorted out our decorations

My Next 10: 30: Sonic Mania Going all the way back to Sonic 3 & Knuckles and creating a new sequel to that, Sonic Mania is a love letter to the original Mega Drive Sonic games, with the thought of “what if Sega had just continued on this style of game on the Saturn”. This means that Sonic Mania doesn’t constrain itself to what the Mega Drive could do, but also avoids the problem of looking to different to the originals. The style chosen works wonders, and the gameplay itself feels like an improvement over the original three and a half Sonic games. The game consists of alternate versions of some classic levels (which, while great, we have seen plenty of times before), but also some brand new levels, all of which have great style and music. I really hope a sequel sticks to all new stuff. I love Green Hill Zone, but it needs a bit of a rest. 29: Mario Kart 8 Most likely the best Mario Kart game so far, Mario Kart 8 has incredibly solid gameplay, with an amazing visual style and a wonderful jazzy soundtrack. The big addition to this game is “anti gravity”, which makes for some amazing looking levels that twist and turn all over the place. The racing feels extremely well thought out. Physics change slightly when in “anti-grav” mode, where hitting other players will provide a short speed boost, yet moving between the two – along with underwater and glider modes – is incredibly fluid and you don’t really have to think about changing, it all comes natural. The weapons are a good set, and this Mario Kart makes a great change to the items: if you hold an item behind you, it still counts as having an item. This means that you now have to think carefully if you want to drop an item before picking up an item box, as you may end up with something you can’t defend yourself with, which adds to the strategy of the game. 28: Stellaris A game about expanding your empire across the stars. Pick (or make) and alien race, start off on one planet with just a few basic ships and start from there. Explore your galaxy, colonise planets and encounter other aliens. You can focus on taking things by force, or try playing nice – or switching between the two depending on what civilisations you encounter. Sometimes war may be the only option – especially if you encounter an aggressive people and something about your species greatly offends them, so they won’t rest until you are purged from the galaxy. There is a lot in the game that you can manage, but Stellaris manages to not feel overwhelming either. The mod support for the game is great, too – there’s a Star Trek mod that is brilliant, and adds in missions and small events that can happen, turning it into an amazing Star Trek game. 27: A Hat in Time A very charming mission-based platformer. A Hat in Time is comprised of multiple chapters. The missions in these either take place on a section of a larger world (that you can choose to explore, but the missions point you in a certain direction) or singular more individual levels. The more unique levels are the highlight of A Hat in Time. The second chapter is a highlight of a game, with lots of different missions, from one that’s a murder mystery to a mad dash across a collapsing train. The platforming feels very precise, with a simple but effective control system that reminds me of Super Mario 64 26: The Jackbox Party Pack 3 The Jackbox are amusing party games where they answer prompts/questions (or sometimes draw) on their phones in conjunction with what the screen tells them too (it’s aimed at playing locally, but you can stream and have others join in remotely. Three great game are in this pack: Trivia Murder Party is basic trivia questions, but set in a hotel owned by a serial killer. The questions themselves aren’t “spooky”, but after each question, the people who got it wrong take part in deadly mini games. Die and you become a ghost, but you can still answer questions and potentially win if you do well in the final round. Quiplash is just a really simple game of making your friends laugh. People are given prompts (each prompt is given to two people) and people have to come up with a funny answer. These are then compared and everyone picks their favourite. In jokes between friends are great for this. Fakin It is my personal favorite. Each round there are three prompts that requires people to put up their hand (to say yes), hold up a number of fingers or point at another player in response to a prompt (such as “Have you ever had a speeding ticket?”, “Who most looks like Tom Cruise?”). One player doesn’t get this prompt and has to fake their answer and possibly justify it. People then vote on who the spy is – if they can’t figure it out after three questions, the spy wins. 25 :Watch Dogs 2 The second Watch Dogs features a new main character and city, the wonderful San Francisco. It has a friendlier cast of characters, the city is much brighter and the game itself has more humour and just feels like a much happier game. The on-foot gameplay is much improved, too. There are more non-lethal options and you have an RC car and drone to help you do your bidding, both of which are extremely satisfying to use. You can also use hacks to make people targets for police or gangs, so you can cause huge fights as a distraction, or just target people who annoy you (if anyone dies, it’s not though my hands). There are a lot of fun side quests as well, including one where you have to hack into Ubisoft and leak a game trailer to the public (this was supposed to be an actual trailer, but the game was later cancelled). 24: Stardew Valley A farming game that looks simple on the surface, but has a lot to it. You start the game having inherited an old farm. It’s a bit of a mess, so you’ll have to clear land and start planting your first crops. Each day, you’ll need to check on your farm and make sure everything is watered (unless it’s raining). As you progress you’ll unlock tools to make expanding easier – such as sprinklers that will water plants for you. Once you’ve done what you want to on the farm, there’s a village to explore. Here you’ll meet a range of colourful characters, you can chat with them and some will have questlines to go though – some of them could even lead to marriage! There’s a larger questline involving a wizard and magic, a mystery regarding a chain shop, fishing and more. If that’s not enough, there’s a massive cave system to explore, filled with monsters and treasure. Don’t forget to take a sword with you. The game is also still getting updates, with a local multiplayer option being added soon – this game could be a great game for couples. 23: Shadow of the Tomb Raider The third in the new series of Tomb Raider games. You start off raiding a tomb, with loads of the usual warning. Except that these warnings were true, and Lara sets off an apocalypse into motion. There is a way to stop it, deep within Peru, in the lost city of Paititi. Most of the game revolves around this beautiful ancient village, helping out the inhabitants while also trying to stop the world from ending. The combat in the newer Tomb Raider games are great, and the bow is still immensely satisfying to use along side a half-stealth approach. 22: Luigi’s Mansion 3 There’s something about the style of Luigi’s Mansion 3 that just makes it look wonderful. The animation is very….animated and the clean style makes it seems like a Pixar animated film more than a video game. Luigi’s mumbles, screams and occasional words (occasional if you don’t press the “Mario?” button) all add to the lovely feel of the game. You play as Luigi as you explore a haunted hotel trying to save Peach, Mario and some Toads. Using your trusty Vaccuum cleaner and its various settings to catch ghosts and save puzzles. At first the controls were very fiddly, but once you realise you can use the shoulder buttons instead of the face buttons, you’ll be able to move, aim and use one of the poltergust’s features at the same time. The difficulty of the game is also very fair, there’s a bit of challenge in just completing the main story, but there’s a lot more challenge if you want to find everything. 21: Detroit: Become Human The idea of androids/robots gaining sentience, wanting freedom and rebelling isn’t exactly a new one, so the interesting stuff is in how it’s handled. In Detroit: Become Human, you play as three characters, who each have their own part to play in the recolution. Connor is an android detective. His job is to investigate android with signs of being “deviant” – those that express emotions, self awareness or that disobey orders. He’s partnered with a detective that hate androids, although depending on your actions, you could end up as buddies. Kara was bought to be a housekeeper. Upon discovering the father beating his daughter, she breaks programming to stop it and decides to flee with the girl, and tries to escape to Canada, encountering some friends and enemies along the way. Markus is living a fancy life, essentially being treated as a son by a rich artist. During a burglary at the house, someone gets hurt and Markus is blamed, waking up in a junkyard of android. He finds his was to a safe haven and starts the revolution fully. All three stories are extremely interesting, with lots of emotional moments. although Connor’s detective parts are definitely the best due to having more moments where you have to think and solve issues.

The Spectrum Retreat. It feels like two quite jarring games smashed together. Half of the game is about a mysterious hotel which is actually a simulation, you are trying to hack out of it while repeating the same day over and over, you have no memories and are trying to remember what happened to you (although the mystery isn't very engaging, at the start you find "memories" of medical bills relating to your daughter, and with that I pretty much had it figured out). The second half is a Portal-like puzzle game. The concept is interesting. There are barriers in different colours, your not-Portal device has to be a matching colour to go through (although some are bridges, so you want to avoid that colour to walk over it). You "shoot" blocks of colour to swap the colours between it and your device, so a lot of the game is turning the right blocks into the right colour to enable you to get through a corridor of barriers. I do quite enjoy the puzzles and the concept of them. there is, however, a major flaw: soft locks. It is far to easy to mess up something in a puzzle in such a way that it's impossible to proceed (so you need to go to the menu and restart that level). If this was 100% the fault of the player it wouldn't be too bad, but often these soft locks can be the result of making a swap which means something later on in the level (which you can't see or know) needs. Other times, it's because you needed to remember a certain order from 5 minutes ago. These soft lock issues just come across as bad level design. It just felt frustrating and I didn't feel like it was worth it to try and finish it. The Unfinished Swan is very charming. There isn't really that much to the game (a lot of it is kind of just walking forward), but it's very pretty to look at and is quite short, which kind of helps it. I would love an expanded take on the gameplay, turning it into a puzzle game of sorts. I was kind of expecting a bit more "trickery" as well.

Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Conker, Blast Corps, Viva Pinata. Then again, after Battletoads, they may be better off if Microsoft don't use those IPs. There also hasn't been a new Burnout after Paradise (one of my favourite games ever).

I feel dirty hitting enter today. I suppose it might burn in an entertaining way.

Played about 7 chapters of Killzone Shadow Fall and it's absolutely atrocious. Level design is a complete and utter mess, it's an absolute pain to navigate and work out where you're going (especially when the range of the grapple varies massively based on where you're "allowed" to grapple. Combat is not particularly fun, enemies are really dull. Spawning of enemies just seems unfair (you can carefully approach areas but enemies won't actually turn up until you're in a designated ambush location). It's just not fun. I have zero idea what the story is about and it makes no sense. Googling previous games doesn't seem to help.

That's a shame. Mario Maker 2 should have been easy if they built on the first, but they messed up the sharing. Sending stuff to friends via Miiverse was great, and the online browser made sharing courses immensely easy as you could send a link and people could press a button to send it to their game instead of a long code. This version is better than the second for those reasons, it's a shame Nintendo messed up the sharing features of the second.

Watched Ashens and the Polybius Heist. Really fun heist film. It doesn't feel like a "YouTuber film" or rely on references to the channel for jokes, instead the comedy is self contained and I would recommend it to anyone who likes British humour, even if they don't know Ashens.

Played My Time at Portia for a while. A resource gathering, crafting game with relationships and dungeons (kind of a bit like a 3D Stardew Valley). I was enjoying it, but it definitely feels like an early access game. Some thinks are well made, others seem lazy. It only saves at the end of each day, I got fairly far into the game and had a very long dungeon. Finished it, built some other things, then the game got softlocked and I really don't feel like going through that dungeon again.

If you win, I'd happily take the code off you! The Switch version would be nice, but not really worth the cost when I have the Wii U version.

I bought a new avatar! There's also a full image with more on it which I'm looking at getting printed on linen card and framed, but that's for sharing after Christmas, so nobody here can see it yet* *except Ine and Jim