Cube

Supposedly sent to them form Sega, although I wonder if Sega expected IGN to do a bit more voiceover to explain stuff instead of just uploading them as is.

Still waiting for surgery. They've had a lot of emergencies so his operation has been cancelled 4 times so far, it's just not safe to proceed without the equipment and staff available. Ollie is still fine at the moment. The doctors don't actually know why, with a coronary issue like this, he should be really ill, one of the staff members has encountered this situation once before (they've all been working for 20-25 years). Luckily, the procedures they plan on doing are things they have done. They have three things they can do, but they don't know which method they will used until they actually see his heart for themselves. Hopefully things calm down in the ICU so we can get seen.

Unfortunately, the doctor is correct. He did reassure us that this surgery will be a lot less complicated than last time. They're keeping him in hospital until then, not because he needs the medical attention, but because he will get seen to sooner.

So Ollie had a checkup today, the doctor was concerned about one of his arteries and has booked him in for a more in depth scan, which will be next week. If the doctor is correct, then it means another surgery to fix the issue. Even though it's not confirmed, we're absolutely devastated and are absolutely dreading the scan.

My playtime says 12 hours, but due to having the game paused a lot (due to baby) I'd guess perhaps 8ish? It's a bit hard for me to judge playtimes at the moment.

Tinykin A beautiful looking game. It’s obvious that the game is heavily inspired by Pikmin, as you control a bunch of tiny creatures and throw them to get them to do your bidding, but also very much its own thing as it's much more of a collectathon platformer. The game takes place inside a house where insects have gained sapience and worship the owner of the house, who hasn’t been seen for ages. You play as a tiny person trying to find out the origins of humanity and wind up in this strange house. A wise old insect has diagrams of a machine, but needs the parts to build it. It’s up to you - and the Tinykin to find these parts. Each level of the game is quite open to explore, but you’ll need Tinykin to progress and solve puzzles. There are four different types, including the default “strong” ones which move objects and ones that stack to help you reach higher places. The environment, and all the insect NPCs you talk to, are all incredibly charming. It’s a wonderful game. Deathloop A time loop first person shooter. The combat is really fun, which makes any repeated segments still fun, with different abilities and weapons to try out new approaches. The objective of the game is simple: kill eight targets all in one loop. The problem is that the targets are in different areas, and you can only go to one location at each time of day. So you need to investigate what each target is doing, and find out how to manipulate them so you can do one final run to eliminate them all. On top of this, there are weapons and abilities you can find to improve your armour, as well as find a resource that lets you “bind” them so you can keep them between runs. While I massively enjoyed it, I do think it held your hand a bit too much, giving you slightly too much help, especially with the final run. Cooking Simulator I honestly can’t tell if this is a really poorly made serious simulator or a completely humourless “broken physics” parody game. The first thing you’ll notice is how low the turn sensitivity is. It takes close to 30 seconds to do a full turn around and makes the whole game feel like you’re moving through jelly. The object is to cook dishes, which require lots of getting ingredients, cutting them, seasoning them and cooking them. Then placing them on a place. The cutting and plating, however, have virtually no control over them, so none of your meals end up looking nice - they’re just a mess of ingredients on a plate, and part of what makes it look like a “broken physics” game like Surgeon Simulator. The whole game is slow, buggy and a complete and utter mess. What makes it even worse is that the first choice on the modes to play is the DLC you need to buy, which the game doesn’t even say is DLC until you select pay and get taken to the payment page. You Suck at Parking A fun simple game. You have to drive through obstacle courses, then quickly park in the designated locations. The courses and obstacles get crazier and wilder as you progress. It’s a short but fun distraction. Although for such a simple game, it has an immense amount of cosmetic DLC - something like 12 different packs. On top of that, there’s a kind of “battle pass” as well which gets you rewards as you progress through the game (providing you paid for it). If you didn’t pay, the game tells you what you would have unlocked if you pay, a constant reminder that the player is nothing more than a commodity to the developers. Most of these paid additions are used in all the loading screens and menus as well.

All the best @nightwolf, you'll do great, and I hope you have a speedy recovery.

I am hoping Hot Wheels makes it to GamePass. Super hot was on PS Now so I'm surprised it wasn't already on extra. Interesting game completely ruined by the obnoxious narrative.

@Happenstance, have you listened to the Delta Flyers podcast? Going though it at the moment and it's great. The actors of Tom and Harry talking about each episode of Voyager - their thoughts and what they remember from from filming.

Immortals: Fenyx rising The main thing I had heard about this was that it’s very inspired by Breath of the Wild, which is a good enough game to be inspired by. While this influence is undeniable, Fenyx Rising also feels like a completely different game at the same time. With the wings of Icarus, you can glide quite a long distance, navigating the world is very easy but also enjoyable. Another big focus is the combat, with different attack types and abilities to create fancy combos, such as juggling enemies in the air, it’s all extremely satisfying, with a lot of enemies to dodge around. The land is filled with puzzles, and each God you have to find has a great dungeon with its own unique mechanics - those parts felt more like a traditional Zelda than BotW. Accompanying this journey is something I didn’t expect: lots of really fun humour from the narrator Prometheus (who is constantly interrupted by Zeus). Everything about the game is just silly and fun, which really adds to its own charm. I really ended up loving Fenyx Rising a lot. Disney's Dreamlight Valley An Animal Crossing-like game from Disney from a mobile game developer sounds like a horrific thing…so I was really surprised as to how nice this game is. I wouldn’t say it does anything special, it’s just a really pleasant experience - and really nice at the moment as I’ve been able to play one handed while holding a baby. One thing in particular I love about Dreamlight Valley over games like Animal Crossing is the lack of time constraints - it sometimes feels in those games that there’s only so much you can do in a day until you’ve “maxed out”, while Dreamlight Valley feels like it doesn’t matter if you spend an entire day doing stuff or just a tiny bit at a time - it feels like you progress at your own pace. Most of the game is gathering resources, though farming, foraging and mining. These tasks deplete your energy bar, but luckily this isn’t like a mobile energy bar as you can refill by eating (usually there’s a fruit tree nearby) or by entering your home. You don’t even need to sleep, you just walk into your home and leave. Crops can take a varied amount of time to grow (a few minutes to 4 hours), with some crops needing to be watered multiple times. Mining and foraging spots respawn fairly quickly. You will do lots of cooking and crafting. Thankfully, there are no wait timers, just put all the stuff together and you get the results instantly. There are a lot of things to make - especially recipes - so a lot to experiment with if you like doing so. As the game is currently in early access, there are some bugs. Thankfully, I managed to complete all the quests without any breaking. The game also isn’t fully complete, with the main story not finished and a couple of characters not having their final quest. The promise is that these updates (with new characters and areas) will be free, with a kind of “battlepass” like system for some cosmetic stuff as their way of making money in the future.

Ni No Kuni Remastered has just been announced. Out on Game Pass today. And Deathloop is coming to Game Pass on 20th September

It's the new name for the series, a translation of Ryū ga Gotoku, which has been the Japanese name since the start. This one and Like a Dragon: Ishin are spin-off games, but Yakuza: Like a Dragon was essentially Yakuza 7 and Like a Dragon 8 is the next main game.

Yeah, doesn't make sense for Nintendo to be dictating these terms. My complete guess would be that it's more something like any significant changes to the game (new graphics, a custom built online - as the Switch is doing online in a different way, it's fine) would count as a new game and need additional licensing. Perhaps this could even be based on the XBLA version, just with the new graphics removed, because of how it links to Rare Replay and the lack of a PC version.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/09/13/james-bond-returns-goldeneye-007-on-game-pass/ It doesn't have the improved graphics of the leaked version and doesn't have online. Really strange choices. So you have 60fps and dual analogue controls on Xbox, or online on Switch. Very disappointing that you're not getting the ideal version either way. Even though it's free for me (on top of Game Pass, it's a free upgrade for the digital version of Rare Replay, which I got for less than a fiver), it's still disappointing. I can only presume that some strange licensing messed up the release.

Although it looks like this is going to be the original running in a higher resolution/framerate, and not based on the XBLA version with enhanced graphics, which is a shame.

I did this (sort of) with Donkey Kong 64. In Donkey Kong 64, I got everything except the DK coin, and could never fight the final boss. Now, on the Wii U virtual console version, I did "cheat" with save states (mainly because the only "punishment" is walking back to where you were, so I used save states to retry) as well as pause buffering (some minigames are impossible without it due to the Wii U running the game smoother - it was balanced around the N64 struggling to run it). Blast Corps. I was absolutely awful at it when I was younger, so I was surprised that it wasn't actually too bad when I played it on Rare Replay, the game is incredibly good fun. And another was the Tribals in Jet Force Gemini. It's so much better to play it with the updated controls on Rare Replay, and I got to finally complete the game.

If a Metroid Prime/Prime Trilogy HD port/remake with dual analogue controls is announced, then I'll be happy with this direct. If they somehow announce a Zelda remaster/remake that isn't Wind Waker/Twilight Princess, then that would be amazing. I reckon they'll really annoy me by announcing Switch-only Breath of the Wild DLC that heavily ties into the new game.

https://opencritic.com/game/13284/splatoon-3 Reviews are coming in. Looks like the general consensus is "more of the same, a little bit better" and that the biggest improvement is the singleplayer, which is longer and much more like the octo expansion.

I'm quite surprised that Deathloop hasn't been announced for Game Pass yes, unless Microsoft can't announce anything until the exclusive period is over are planning on going "Deathloop is out on Xbox...now" in 10 days. Signed up for the week trial to play Stray and Miles Morales. I wish the service was still available separately to the Online multiplayer portion of Plus (like it was under the name PS Now) I also think announcing the games each month is confusing due to the mixture of the "add to account this month" games (old PS Plus) and the PS Now games.

Powerwash Simulator You could describe this game as boring, and you wouldn’t be wrong…but it’s also just really relaxing and satisfying. You have a pressure washer and have to clean vehicles and locations - such as a skate park or playground. You can choose different nozzles (wide area or power, depending on what you’re trying to clean). It’s an extremely chill game as you can just take as much time as you want. It’s all extremely calming, and unlike some similar games (like House Flipper), feels very more polished with nice visuals and no issues (that I encountered). Evoland 2 Seemed to be one of the few offline single-payment mobile games I could find (for plating while at the hospital). This is a Zelda-esque RPG involving time travel across four eras. Each era also progresses through graphics, with Game Boy style, NES Style, SNES style and 3D style representing the different times you travel to. There is a lot of variety in gameplay, too, with different sections of the game taking on genres like a beat-em-up or a tactical Advance Wars style game. Some of these can feel like they can go on a bit long (especially a horizontal shooter bit), but to keep the game very varied. Playing on mobile, the controls can be annoying at times, plus it is not good at suspending (do something else on phone, it quits the game, and sometimes there can be a bit of time between checkpoints), but on PC these issues would be solved. Really fun game overall with lots of nice ideas. Two Point Campus The new game in the Two Point series, after the Theme Hospital “spiritual sequel” Two Point Hospital. This sees you running universities. The humour is very much intact, with lots of really fun courses you can run, such as Gastronomy (more scientific cooking), Knighthood and Wizardry. Each course has much more focus than the diseases in Two Point Hospital, requiring multiple room types. You tend to focus on one or two courses at a time, trying to make them high quality enough so your students get good grades. As students live on campus, you also have to look after them by providing beds, bathrooms and keeping them entertained by organising parties. This is where I had the most trouble with this game, as these aspects aren’t always well described. I had major problems with students being hungry, thirsty and dirty no matter how much stuff I provided and couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong, making some of the scenarios extremely difficult. The rest of the management is great, just this aspect in particular that I couldn’t get to grips with. As Dusk Falls A choice-based story game. It took a bit of time getting used to the graphics of this - there’s no “animation” as such, the characters move sort of like a slideshow. That said, it still looks good, and allows more focus to be on the choices. As Dusk Falls tells a story about two groups of people: one is a family travelling to a different US state due to changes in work, the other is a group of troublemakers. After a robbery goes wrong, the troublemakers end up at a motel and take everyone hostage, including the family. The characters are all very interesting, with a lot to discover about them, and the plot has some interesting turns. Some choices don’t affect much at all, but even some of those can result in different dialogue later on. You get shown a chart of everything at the end of each chapter and some can be quite different - unfortunately, exploring these after you have finished a playthrough is a bit of a faff, but it’s still worth the initial playthrough. Stray A cat game. Made sense to sign up for the PS Plus Plus for a week trial to try it out, and it’s a beautiful game. The world is intriguing and is something you want to find out about, as humans have gone and it is inhabited by robots (with CRT faces, I do like the “retro future” aesthetic) mimicking elements of human behaviour. Even though a lot of the gameplay is wandering around, it’s still a ton of fun. The cat is very cat-like and there are some interactive things to scratch or mess with, plus a dedicated meow button. It’s the little touches that really make this game. Some parts have puzzles, and even combat and stealth, so it’s not just walking. It changes things up nicely. There’s one thing at the end which I thought was a bit of an oversight (but would be spoilers to say what), but I loved my time with it. Spider-man: Miles Morales The first Spider-man game was great, this one is pretty much more of the same. Miles does have his own style of fighting and swinging which does make it feel like you’re playing as a different Spider-man. Swinging around is still a ton of fun, as well as the side missions of helping people. It would be nice if there were random events, too, just for fun. I do have two complaints. One is the music. The game music is good, but the licensed music feels a bit muted. With Into The Spider-Verse doing such a good job with music plus Miles having a love for music in this, it feels like they could have done a bit more with the actual music. The other is how some abilities/suits are locked to new game+, which really killed my enthusiasm for completing absolutely everything.

Not completely unexpected. They originally announced it as a PR stunt and have realised they can't actually pull it off. This mean no reason to ever download Halo Infinite - which says a lot when I have Game Pass.

There's a YouTube channel I enjoy called Boundary Break that shows a lot of these. I really enjoy it when a game has a camera mode and isn't afraid of letting you see all the mess behind the scenes - Mass Effect Legendary and Jedi Fallen Order both did this. One I really like is Fallout New Vegas, where there's a slideshow at the end with a voiceover (Ron Pearlman). It turns out this is in a room. Behind the slideshow is a unique NPC for the voiceover. It's not even a generic one. (I think the train hat is also Fallout)

A confusing announcement at first as the Dead Island developers are making Dying Light. However, this is being made by Yagar Development, the people behind Spec Ops: The Line.

I got an LENOVO IdeaPad Duet 3i to try as something I can use to work from the hospital. I thought that a full Windows tablet/laptop with detachable bluetooth keyboard for £120 was too good to be true, but decided to give it a try (if not, I would have to lug around a massive all in one PC. To my surprise, it worked amazingly well for the web work I needed to do, and I actually found it quicker to use due to the touch screen. I updated it to Windows 11 straight away. It won't do anything too complex, but for what I needed, it was a bargain. A friend wanted one for themselves, but the price is now £299. Looks like I got it at the perfect time.

And we're off home!