danielpholt

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope I'm not sure if it was the open world sections, the fact that I just got a Steamdeck (and the Switch feels like a 10 year old machine by comparison) or the fact that I don't have the time to play games that I have to force myself through anymore, but SoH is probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. The original game is one of my favourite Switch games. The sequel never grabbed me in the same way, and I think a large part of that is down to the stuff that goes on around the combat scenarios; the open world stuff was at best boring, and at its worse it was a mind numbing slog that totally sucked any motivation I had to play the game. The characters are wonderful, the combat great...but getting to those moments requires spending far too much time doing other things that just weren't fun.

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope It builds on the first game in some nice ways; ditching the grid-based movement found in most turn-based games in favour of a movement zone that's a little more forgiving, getting rid of the star based ranking system and bringing in Sparks that allow for a little more customisation with regards to your characters and squad. It's far from perfect though. The 'open' hub-world thing they've got going on doesn't work at all for me; I've spent far too much time walking around these pretty uninteresting spaces, solving boring puzzles and trying to figure out how to get to my next combat scenario. All in all though I'm having a good time. Hopefully they find a way to make the next game more focused on the combat and less focused on the moving around between those combat scenarios.

You made it about as far as I did then. I spent the best part of 90 minutes trying to figure out the first major puzzle (you have to go up the elevator) and decided it wasn't for me (or that I didn't have the time to see if it would eventually be for me). To be honest I wasn't even enamored with the art-style which get's old, pretty quick. There's only so much time I'm wanting to spend in a world that's as grey, dark and grungy looking as Scorn's world does.

If we had a more solid constitution this could all be avoided. In the last 15 years we've had 6 different PM's and only *3 of them got elected to that position (I know we don't vote for a PM but yadda yadda yadda). I have no issue with the way we don't directly elect our PM, but I do think it's about time we had a rule that made it constitutionally guaranteed that within 3 months of a change of leadership, we get a GE. As with many things in this country, we need to seriously sit down and think about how our system works. Unfortunately we seem incapable of having calm waters for long enough to actually do that. We've bounced from one crisis to another since the Scottish Referendum and it's starting to really effect our institutions and our democracy as a whole. *Technically only one of them got elected PM without also being the incumbent. May and Johnson already had the job.

The saddest thing is that, despite all of this, you know they're going to get a not insignificant share of the vote when we finally get a GE. I think they time in government is over for the next decade or so, but I can't see them being wiped out entirely. I think they might lose a portion of their vote to the Lib-Dems, but eventually those True Blue voters will revert to type.

Amazingly the situation got even worse than it was on Friday. That's almost impressive.

Reviews seem super positive on it, so I'm more than happy to throw £40 at it, even though I know it'll go cheap pretty quick.

I went to a Church of England school no less. Shame on me.

Fire and Blood: For those of you who don't know, it's a prequel book in George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It covers the first half (ish) of the Targaryen dynasty. The new House of the Dragon tv show is based upon this this work. The book itself is a real page turner, which i'll be honest, surprised me a little. The reviews are pretty positive, but there's definitely a group of people who struggled with the nature of the book itself. It's written as a sort of...history book. Written by an in-universe historian who's collating accounts of the previous 150 years into one book. As such you end up with accounts that may be incorrect, overblown or just flat out falsified; the writer also adds his own opinion into the mix. All in all I can firmly say it stands up as another strong entry into this series. Truth be told, it's likely one of the more readable ones (I'm looking squarely at you A Feast for Crows). A Party With Socialists In It: I'm a Union member, a Labour Party member and a 'politico' so it only makes sense I should educate myself on the history of the Left inside the Labour Party. I'm roughly half way through, and whilst there's certainly a lot to take in (names, so many names), I'm finding it a very interesting read indeed. Nye Bevan seemed alright. Ernest Bevin less so.

Rollerdrome For those of you who aren't familiar with Rollerdrome, it's a really cool 3rd-person-shooter-meets-Tony- Hawk's-Pro-Skater, where instead of jumping over benches and police cars, you rollerskate around an arena 'catching air' and laying down some 'neat tricks' in order to earn ammo for your weapons, which in turn can be used to murder everyone. It feels great, the shooting is solid and the combat has a level of challenge to it that I think makes the game pretty replayable. It looks super nice too, even on the smaller screen of the Steamdeck.

What are we thinking?

I've been bouncing around a few things of late. Destiny: I've cooled on this since I got my Steamdeck, but I do plan on going back to it as the current season progresses. Trombone Champ: Plays well enough on the Deck, although I'd be lying if I said I was good at it. To be honest, I think that's kind of the point; it's all a bit silly, at least for a short while before the charm wears off and you're left playing a rhythm game without the ability to hit a note correctly. Vampire Survivors : Picked this up before the price increase, and it's damn good fun. I usually play a run or two before I go bed. It's not overly involved (you literally just move your dude around the screen whilst he deals damage). I've had one run go longer than half an hour and damn if it didn't feel like a god.

Hi. Name: Daniel Age: 16 Location: England Favourite Band: Funeral for a Friend Favourite TV Show: Skins Favourite Film: X2 Favourite Game: HALO Nice to meet you all.

Stray and Rollerdrome are games I've been wanting to play, but haven't had access to as I don't own a PS5. Both run on the 'Deck.

Got my Steamdeck at long last and went on a bit of a splurge.

How is it on the nudity front? That's a big one for me. I refuse to play games that don't offer me at least a bit of underboob.

Destiny 2 - All the Expansions (I think?), and the season pass and the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. So I never got into D2 in the same way I did with OG Destiny. Much of that was a timing issue (IIRC it came out a few months before the birth of my first child, playing a highly addictive game that demands the player spend hours playing in order to get the most out of it wasn't top of my mind. A few years later though and I think it's accidentally become the perfect game for a tired Dad who works too many hours and doesn't have enough free time; I can play it for an hour or two each evening and not have to think too hard about what I'm doing. And that's exactly what I need right now. Apex had been filling that void for a while, but that game has its share of issues, and the competitive nature of it takes a little more out of me than I'm willing to give right now. That isn't an issue for the most part with Destiny. I get to log in, earn some cool loot, shoot some cool looking bad-guys and don't have to think too much about it whilst doing so.

Treated myself to a new watch. This time it's the Orient Kamasu. Got it for £300 and it's absolutely gorgeous. I may end up switching the band out as I'm not a massive fan of metal bracelets, but aside from that I think it might be my favourite watch in my collection.

I'll take another look at some point. I just wish it wasn't so in your face. Maybe let me experience the game before you make me sign up and hand over my email address.

I actually have no idea what, if anything, he said about the game. I do remember that during Indie Game: The Movie he came across almost offended that people were playing, and having a lot of fun with Braid in a manner he maybe didn't love.

Saw a quick look of this a few weeks ago and it looks really interesting. What's more interesting is the reaction that Jonathan Blow had to this games release. I can't imagine he's the sort of person to take that sort of thing too well. (I get the impression he's a bit pompous?)

Ditched Hotwheels. As I mentioned before, it wasn't scratching the itch that I want a FH game to scratch, so rather than continue to push against it I've jumped off entirely. Not really playing anything at the moment, however I did get a chance to load up Multiverses and I got as far as the games opening menu before I was told I HAD to have a WBgames account to progress further. At that point I closed the game and I'm not sure I'll be going back. I don't remember being forced to sign up for an account in any other game before. IIRC even Rocket League only forces you into an Epic account because of the cross-play, and even that allows you to play without an account.