darksnowman

Not watching that! Want to see and hear it during the event for the first time.

You backed down on your stipulation you'd need to dedicate company time to Baten Kaitos??

Anyone with never ending red shells should see their GP. And when I say that I don't mean Grand Prix.

How's your progress? You should be well into it by now.

Nice haul, @Helmsly. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Roost coasters too—they even come in a nice little metal holder. I've manage to whittle my platinum points way down so it'll be a good while before I order anything else.

Chelsea had made that tenth spot their own and now look at them flying high.

Thanks for providing this write-up. Looks like you made sure to do it as accurately as possible based on what you say about boosting, gliding, Mushroom Gorge. Waluigi Pinball sure feels like a long track and I agree it's a pity Rainbow Road 64 has been reduced to a one-lapper—also liked it better when it was more of an endurance race. Now, mind doing it again and cross-referencing these results against your total distance driven (in your profile) after each race?

Hopped back on it over the weekend and discovered I have several cheats unlocked. Fairly certain I didn't check that menu since I perused the options when I first started into the game to see what's what. Activated everything I have though sadly that didn't include the colour shooter cheat @BowserBasher mentioned. One of them disabled headwear which made Chase McCain look weird going around with his yellow dome on show. Otherwise, just some multipliers and block attracters. Still very welcome as I went into the police station and got up to 9/10 blocks in there now I have all the abilities, then enjoyed scooping up blocks outside from far and wide with the attract bonus before summoning an aircraft for a bit of general flight around the map. A lot of the public seemed to be in costumes—I'm not sure if that was also down to a cheat or just the way they happened to generate.

Taz Bars, Freddos, Fudges...

Let's see if you immerse yourself in this one! Will you have a whale of a time or will you resurface with salty impressions...

Well one of you should play it and post about it. I collected bricks as I came across them (and had the prerequisite ability to get them) but I don't remember any "cheats". That'd be amazing if there's a built-in way to streamline having the right colour as it's something I was often contending with!

I'm hoping you and others might still get it because I'd like to hear if it's any use when not powered through for review. Maybe normal players will complete these objectives without really going out of their way through natural play over a larger span of time.

I'd like to see more of your methodology and findings... if only because I wonder if all you did was laps of Baby Park.

I've given it a bit of time since wrapping up Ys VIII and now I've unshelved IX with a view to having some time between it and X. Did about an hour last night and it's good to be back in control of Adol. First impressions: Dogi looks malnourished, Lady Ann from Persona 5 is a voice here, the atmosphere has drawn me in immediately. The interrogation sort of reminded me of P5R too and it was cool to see Adol's past adventures brought up, almost reminiscent of Chrono Trigger. It gave me two items from the off: one from having an Ys VIII save file, didn't catch the reason for the other—possibly from the demo? Not sure about the Monstrum allies so let's see if their personalities develop over the course of the game and I warm to them. Already knew the gameplay felt good from the demo so I sense I'm in for a fun time.

Fairly certain it puts an icon on the map but (provided that's right) I didn't try to hop back to any. I thought the train was your fast travel option however I meandered around on foot a lot of the time. I reckon the missions wouldn't be too bad to replay with all the abilities since they're straight shots from start to finish—it's the collectables around the city I'm thinking about. I wonder if there's optional minor crimes to fight in the postgame or if you're just in the city and that's it. I never seemed to get the "strength ability" so maybe that's something that'd need unlocking still. Thought "Arnie" on the construction site was going to put some muscle on me. Totally. I expected the humour would wear thin or I'd just get used to it but that wasn't the case—found myself chuckling throughout. The wordplay and references were great. The way they worked in, for example, "...commando, oh..." (Commando) drew a smirk and a nod from me. The slapstick visual gags didn't have me rolling my eyes either; it was all part of the charm and well done. I figured all the Lego games boiled down to the same thing reskinned to fit a license. So if you played one you'd pretty much played them all. I've seen a few of them on sale over the years so I'll keep an eye out for Marvel Superheroes (1). City Undercover must have been around a tenner when I weeded it out from among the licensed titles and it was a steal. What a grand way to conclude it. It probably wasn't against the clock but I held down the B button and went for it. The scale of the situation coupled with the visuals and music capped the story off on such a high note. Then of course, after that last bit of gameplay, it ends with some goofy scenes while still giving some closure. Perfect. It really didn't. Just relistening to it now while formulating this post.

Have you been playing Labo recently?

That's a fair enough observation. Don't those lend themselves pretty handily to replaying stages since they're just doors off a small central hub? I can only think of having played Lego Star Wars back in the day and City Undercover is a different set-up due to the open-world nature of it.

Finished this off over the weekend with 37.3% completion. Do I need 100% for a "thanks for playing!" message? Very much enjoyed my time with it—maybe because I was never at a loss for where to go next. Tbh, it was actually a bit naggy with beavering you onto the next mission. Cool too that missions were like self-contained levels once you started into one. I thought the ending chapter was fun to be part of and well done. The music during the final section fit it really well. The humour never dropped off either. They went above and beyond with the guy on the construction site! Kind of weird that there is no save and quit option? I was never really sure what hadn't been autosaved every time I switched it off. It always picked up the story where I left off but no idea if I lost any unsaved collectables. Would be nice if the steam train from the museum is an unlockable. Even though the story is done, I'm not against going back to it in the future to mooch around for some more disguises, rescue some cats, launch (return) pigs. In hindsight, I should have just prioritised doing the missions since you need your abilities for a lot of the side stuff you come across. E.g. just before getting the cat-rescuing ability, I was jumping up around the roof of the airport (as you do) and thought I heard a cat meowing. Cue the next chapter where I got the ability. And the entire game I was wondering what those wobbly ground bits were so now I've the drill I can go around and interact with them. Same with barricaded doorways. But I had a good time following my curiosity and doing some exploring as I went, even if it only took me to a dead end of sorts. Biggest annoyance I'd say is the paint gun since you can only have it loaded with one colour at a time. Overall though: great fun. Am I an open-word gamer yet?

Anton Blast demo gives you access to two levels and two characters. I did one level with one character. The game is obnoxious. Let's never speak of it again. Europa (satellite of Jupiter), can't fault the vision, though the controls have a weird feel to them because you can hold B to charge your jump so if you just tap the button for a quick hop, it takes a hair to register, like it's waiting to see if you want to charge up or not. Doesn't seem like the game will put you in any pressure platforming situations, but still. Gives it a weird feel.

Little Kitty, Big City (May 9th) still looks all right. Yars Rising (Wayforward & Atari, 2024) looks cool but maybe not for me. Refind Self (summer) looks interesting! Sticky Business (out today) looks fun but don't realistically see myself getting it. Antonblast (Nov 12th) looks fun! Demo out today! Valley Peaks (2024) looks relaxing. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (May 16th) is one to look out for. Europa (2024) I hope doesn't just look good. Demo out today! Turtles rogue like (July)... not sure. Need to know more. Cat Quest 3! (Aug 8th) I still haven't got 2! Demo today! Stitch (out today) looks like a nice chill-out game. Already worried about missing loops if you don't start on it immediately. BZZT (summer) looks like an indie platformer. SCHiM (July 18th) is about shadow hopping? Animal Well (May 9th) has nice lighting? Not much to go on, really as these ones came thick and fast. Duck Detectives (May 23rd) could be fun! Another Crab's Treasure (Apr 25th) I wonder if this is any good. SteamWorld Heist II (Aug 8th) I need to catch up with this series. I think I got Heist years ago but still haven't even tried it. I've gold points that will begin expiring in the coming months so I'll have to take a punt on one of these if I don't see something else on sale.

Bub G : indie-made Bubsy Battle Royale. Sports Story update. Easy on the waffle/ interviews. Indie app on NSO.

Had sort of planned to get to this around a year ago when I was hoping to develop some open-world chops for TotK. Didn't happen so I'm on it now for something different. Enjoying it a lot. It's great fun. Brimming with personality. It's like Police Academy, Hot Shots and plenty more rolled in. I like that it drops you in whether you have knowledge or not of what transpired previously and has the confidence to unabashedly bring you up to speed and make sure you get on board with what's going down. As an open-world game, it's going well for me. It tells you clearly where to head next and makes sure to nudge you in that direction every so often. I find myself poking around and going on little detours (mostly to find I don't have the required ability yet) but it's still fun to nosey around and doesn't take you too far out of your way. Probably helps that you're always getting blocks so it never feels like time wasted going on these little excursions. I'll admit I've been getting a sinking feeling in my stomach each time I've been sent to a new part of the map because I don't really want to comb through the length and breadth of all these areas as it's becoming a lot to hold in my head, but so far it seems grand if you just hit the story objectives and ignore the rest as you please. As long as it stays like this without becoming overwhelming or so big it's a chore to get from one spot to the next, I think I'm in for a good time. In fact, it's already in the "have I really been on this an hour already?" category so it must be doing plenty right. Reminds me of Burnout Paradise at times. Which I don't know if that says more about the game than it does about what I know about this genre. Minor gripe is the initial load time and the camera control is back to front for my tastes. Yes, I've driven the train. And loved it.

Did you give the game trial a go? It's light on the metroidvania and heavy on the fetch quests. Overall, it's decent enough if you know what you're getting into so the game trial is a great option.

Think I've seen all but a match and a half this season and it's got extremely predictable recently. Not surprised the opposition has figured it out too. Eze, now. A week's a long time in football. Back then it was about putting a dent in Arsenal's goal difference. Now a goal's been clawed back it's all for nought??

Holy Magic Century Batman!