deanb

Marvels Midnight Suns Completed this on my Steamdeck where it plays quite well (as long as you make a minor tweak to tell the 2K launcher to eff off). Very enjoyable game. Cool mix of marvel characters, fun designs for them too, and the day-mission night-social pattern is easy enough to get into (especially if you've done a Persona title or similar). Neat playing about with the decks to suit your play style. The hub map was actually quite a bit larger than it initially seemed. Only issues would be some of the story tries to create drama for the sake of it that can make some characters seem obnoxious (or tease a reveal that never comes). It's also a bit lopsided in progression - I kind of had to drag the end out so I could level up the few remaining characters friendship stats to unlock their "Midnight Sun" armour and special moves. It also wasn't super clear instructions on the card upgrades and I found out I'd basically ended up with a bunch of "waste" cards that should just be junked (it changes the 'frame' around the cards and you're meant to have inferred that meant it was at max upgrade. But it also had a + on some and a star on others so...yeah) I also wish I'd got the deluxe/season pass version as it does seem it adds quite a bit to the game (especially expanded on Blades mechanic given it adds vampire enemies and Morbius). So yeah if you're looking at it I think the deluxe version would be well worth it - I want to try them out but not worth going through the full game. I'm also unsure that given the base amount of characters it took some dragging out to level up friendship I'm not sure if it'll be even more grinding at the end with more characters to befriend)

This is pretty fascinating. I do miss Tomorrows World. I remember as a kid them showing off "self driving cars". (and here they have a clip from 30 years ago with electric cars!)

I'm finally playing Yakuza Like a Dragon and this game is so fucking fun. Just silly goofy goodness. I knew it was RPG based (specifically Dragon Quest) but wasn't aware it did a bit of Pokemon too. I do occasionally have to check on conversion rates now and then to grasp the impact of like what is being offered. "I'm not risking my life for 5,000 yen" has more impact when I know that's about £30. (heck it'd be understandable sentiment for £5,000). I'm fairly confident I'm still very much in the tutorial stage (especially as no kareoke so far). Nut yeah it's being fun.

I find it great they've added adverts because now it means that they can pump additional cash into their service and...nah I've spent 3 days trying to watch episode 6 because it just gives up even buffering after a while (and it ain't an issue with my internet - everything else runs fine). Once I finally watch I'll give opinion.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor Got it for cheap in the recent Amazon sale. Rather enjoyed it, and liked some of the new traversal elements (even if I think some is a bit sus from a lore perspective :P). I did have a quibble with a particular boss battle and ended up (after some raging on Twitter) dropping down to padawan mode to get past it. I'm also confused on some character motivations too. Kinda looking forward to Outlaws (though I know it's different studio and so on).

I've had a couple Anker wireless. Though not too keen on my current pair - Anker P2 Life or similar sounding. Bit too light and have a long stubby bit that I think is meant to bring closer to your mouth for calls and such (hence the "Life" branding I guess) but kinda just poke you a bit. Last pair were more rotund. USB-C to headphone jack just handy to have as a back up, can be got dirt cheap. I have one that has charging pass through - great for parties where you can just plug into an older hi-fi speaker and keep phone topped up with juice.

Oh phone wise I upgraded from a Oneplus 7, which was starting to wear down, to a OnePlus 12 Came with a walnut-style case but I very early moved to the above clear case with a little dino on the back just cos the actual back is so beautiful it felt silly to put in such a cheap wood effect (did have the Moto Style back in the day with an actual wood back. Loved that phone) Otherwise it's a phone, not much to write about, though the battery life is fantastic. Easy does 2 days with no bother. Nice to be wireless as well; the USB port was starting to go on my old phone (and it was 4 years old so it'd been a trooper - that's like 1,300 inserts minimum), so being wireless should mean the port will last a bit longer. Though sucks that it's only kinda slow on non-Oneplus pads.

Good set of games. I am half tempted by GoT on PC mind. Was beautiful on PS4 - so many pics taken in photo mode! Got this in the sale for Steamdeck The PSP discussion on Discord other day had my nostalgia for the many many many many many hours I put into Disgaea back in the day. I do worry that I am no longer not a working bill payer mind so this might be a danger. And I got this for PS5. Was a quid cheaper than Steam and while I'd like to have got it for PC to play on my desktop the reviews on Steam all hammer it for running like dogshit so I'd rather not bother there. And got the first one on playstation anyway so might as well continue that lineage. Got a long weekend off this week so might just veg out gaming

Oh not so much "irked", just quibbles. Mentat was definitely one; having him attempting to undermine the harkonnens while also combatting maud'dib. Would have made it clearer that genuinely no one knew that Paul was alive. The reduced time frame so that there's no "abomination" running around is another. It doesn't seem he's planning to do Children of Dune and Alia is obviously much larger part there, but you could plant some of the seeds in a third film of the 'dominant personality' (especially given who else we get in Dune Messiah. The person you love to Hayt). I don't mind too much about Paul not getting to take ownership of Jamis' wife due to killing Jamis, they've certainly made a point of trying to make the Freman a bit more progressive (even if there are religious fanatics; their jihad is gender equal). (though she's a decently large supporting character in Messiah and they'd otherwise have to build up some other non-Chainie freman lass for him to be confidant with)

Dune Part 2 Fucking amazing. Pretty as hell. Great adaptation (though I have a few quibbles in some missing bits). Really hoping he gets to do Dune Messiah. Be a great trilogy to put alongside LotR.

i've being playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker on Steamdeck. Runs pretty well, though loading can be slow. Some mechanics are quite obtuse - it's very heavy on Pathfinder mechanics. Had to have a wiki open for the first few hours (especially as the early main quest has some weird triggers from some of the sidequests you also get so it wasn't super clear how to advance). The kingdom stuff is relatively barebones - mostly making decisions and such. Budling up your kingdom is picking stuff off a list. Though I am early days with it and I think from what I can see there's options to expand into neighbouring land.

Suddenly realising I might have to move this thread to "Multi-plat"...or I guess just "PlayStation".

Folks at work are doing a group and it was on sale so I'm diving in.

Blue Eye Samurai, a billion times better. Still thinking about it a few days after and half tempted to run through the whole thing again. The title character is half-western half-Japanese in a time of intense xenophobia which drives a mission of revenge. The characters are great (and some great voice actors too; including Randal Park, George Takei etc), the animation is gorgeous and scenes just look pretty as hell. It's got no fear in throwing a few musical curveballs (including the For Whom The Bell Tolls as heard in the trailer, as well as the odd Kill Bill track). It's not one for kids; strong violence and peaches Really my big thing is Abijah Fowler is voiced by Kenneth Branagh but is clearly Brendan Gleeson. They've put the first episode on YT if you wanna watch (though err, not much point unless you have Netflix in which case you can watch it there...)

I'm about 3/4s of the way through FFXVI (based on how much of the map I have unlocked and amount of Eikons/Mother Crystals dealt with). I'm enjoying it (put it in my GOTY after all), but my god is it not really FF and just continuing the disappointing trend of their action-orientation mainline stuff like FFXV and FFVIIR. Really makes me apprehensive for how they might do a remake of FFIX. For me a big thing that just really sticks out is that you have these elemental bases for the likes of Eikons and such, and thus you can swap between being fire, ice, thunder; but none of it means anything. There's no major difference to the elements on how they impact fighting enemies. Heck there's very little difference to say some being particularly weak to melee vs magic attacks. The game has malboros, but while in other games you'd have to deal with status effects these have "Bad breath" but it's just an AoE attack since there's no status impacts becuase there's only a a few consumables you can use and two of them are potions. Heck you get elemental sword upgrades as the game progresses but it does nothing except change the look of the sword and its stats - there's no effect from it. There's quite a few moves too, but only 6 attack slots so you're kind of dissuaded from mixing it up (especially as the ability points are rather stingy in relation to how much new moves cost to unlock), and given there's no status impact or elemental affinities there's no much point. The main issue sticks when fighting a boss as most fights are group based so I tend to have loaded out with AoE/group attacks and against a boss a lot of these are pointless or no impact (like literally they just glance off a lot of bosses and they can just hit you through your attack which is...annoying) (the story is a bit muddled too; like it has three different strands between anti-slavery, environmentalism, and destiny/free will. The anti-slavery/environmentalism from the same group too, and in fact both aims run counter to each other) I do like the art, and the "airships" (I'll be disappointed if we don't get at least one of the airships airborne). Byron is class. Easily in my top pantheon of FF characters tho. "Can't you have any normal enemies?!"