danielpholt

The Gunk A few technical issues aside, I really enjoyed my time with The Gunk. It looks pretty, it has a nice charm to it and it's got an enjoyable enough core mechanic (sucky suck suck) that the 4-5 hours it took to complete breezed by. Won't win any awards, but yeah, not a bad little game this.

The Gunk The first '3d' game from the Steamworld people, The Gunk is a game about um, sucking up tonnes of...you know, gunk. I'm about 3 hours in and I'm happy to report that I'm 'finding the fun' in that. It's got a highly enjoyable vacuuming mechanic, and as a Luigi fan, I do enjoy a good vacuum mechanic. And whilst I don't see it seriously threatening my top 5 games of the year list, I do think it's another solid addition to gamepass, and one that's worth of a look, especially if you're looking for something linear to pass the time over the Christmas break.

Love to see the Tories lose a seat, especially when it was utterly avoidable. Another nail in Johnson's coffin....which I think might be a bad thing for Labour. IMO they want to keep this mess rolling for a while. I can see them beating Johnson in a general, I don't feel as strongly about Sunak.

This was one the cards when the British Government stripped an IS supporter of her Citizenship a few years ago. Unfortunately because 1) she's brown and 2) she went off to fight for IS the good British public didn't question it too much and now where in a situation where the Govt has carte blanche in this regard. It's an absolute disgrace, but most people just don't care because...you know.

Mark Brown (GMTK) does these annual accessibility round-ups. Here's 2021's. Worth a watch for sure, especially if you're passionate about that sort of thing.

I think we're finally starting to see the Tories lose ground in the polls. Granted, polls aren't everything but it's a decent indicator for how the public is feeling about a certain topic, and right now, the Tories are fighting fires in all directions....and it's finally starting to change people's perceptions of them. My only concern is that with the arrival of BoJo's child he'll have a few weeks to hide away and see if this entire thing passes by. If it does, he might survive for a while but if it doesn't shift soon, I think we're seeing the end of BoJo as (at the very least) an uncontested leader of the Conservative party.

I'm pretty confident that I can throw together a list at this point. Here's my top 5; unordered. Forza Horizon 5 Boomerang X Resident Evil 8 The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes Guardians of the Galaxy Shout-out of Echoes of the Eye (Outer Wilds DLC) that was pretty great; although maybe not as mind-blowing as Outer Wilds itself. And Toem, which is a very neat little game that really helped me get through some pretty bad times during the middle of the year.

Boomerang X I can totally understand why people say this game is best experienced on a PC. The Switch does a good enough job, but I did have some pretty bad hand ache after I'd finished most of the latter levels. That being said, I think this game ends up in my top 5. It feels super tight and is satisfying off the bat. Looks.....I dunno, great (I think it nails what it's going for) to be honest with you, especially one the Switch's smaller screen.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1+2 Grabbed it on the Switch as opposed to the Xbox because I think it fits that platform really well, and I wasn't wrong. Obviously it doesn't look nearly as nice as it would one a new console, but being able to grab it and play for 10 minutes whilst I'm making dinner or um, taking a dump is a game-changer. The game itself? Exactly what I was looking for. I've not played a skateboarding game since Skate 2 (2009) took over my life for a few weeks, so I was a little unsure how I'd take to this, but I'm having a great time at the moment. Some of the menu's are a little small on the Switch (OG Switch), and the game looks....well rough on my TV but those minor niggles aside I'm really impressed with this port.

One of the downsides of being a fully grown adult with kids/a mortgage/a job/back pain is that we have to put up our own Christmas trees. So in the spirit of Christmas (be nice), let's share our own takes on the most frustration inducing of Christmas traditions; the Tree. --- I'll get us started. We don't have much space, especially with the hamster (not my idea - in fact this was one of the reasons I was against it) so the tree has to go where it fits, which is unfortunately in the middle of the main wall in our room. It's not idea, but short of moving the Hamster into the coldest room of the house and having him hibernate over the coming month, we figured it'd do. I give you the Holt family (slim) Christmas Tree! It's not much, but we're happy enough with it. I'd love to be able to really deck it out, but money is tight and yeah....I need to get something to hide the legs, and reposition some of the Christmas ornaments around a little, but aside from that we're done. Also the photo was very much taken in 11am, the lights look so much better when its genuinely dark in the evenings; it makes our rental house look almost cosy for a change. Finally we're going to put a mini-tree up in Mila's room, but that's another job for another day. What about you guys?

The only program I watched (and enjoyed) with games being a core component of them was that old Total War show from 20 years ago where they'd use the game to simulate battles with a team of real humans decided where to position troops and stuff. No idea what it was called but it was super serious and teenage me thought it was great. Time Commanders This program was on in 2003. That's both yesterday, and almost 20 years ago.

I'd heard this was pretty great (especially on PC)....so I grabbed it on Switch and you know what? I'm still really enjoying it.

I've noticed the right trigger is sometimes catching as it comes back up. I spend most of my gaming time playing Apex or Rocket League, both of which basically require you to be constantly holding down that button in order to play. It's far from broken, but I have noticed it during my recent play with Forza.

Had my eye on that for a while, and my OG Series X controller is starting to show some wear (right trigger)... Just grabbed this. I've already played (and loved) Prey; it's the Mooncrash stuff I'm interested in. I can't play Deathloop, but people have recommended Mooncrash as something of a substitute. I know it's not 1 for 1, but I'll take what I can get atm.

To be fair the game seems to be in a little bit of a state. I've had serious issues staying online, had multiple challenges completely fail to pop in and keep having to restart the game to get the damn thing working as expected.

Forza Horizon 5 This series in nearly a decade old. Time is an illusion. As for entry number 5, it's a very impressive driving/racing experience that I think might be the most out and out fun I've had with a racing game in a while; and largely not for the racing. From the moment you jump out of a plane and drop into driving through the wilds of Mexico, this game doesn't let up. I absolutely fucking hate the people that take part in this fucking festival of horror, but damn if they don't put on a good show. Gonna go drive down an active volcano or something now.

I originally posted this to Discord but figured it deserved a more thorough discussion on here. So the poll doesn't really change much from 2016; the demographics break down in much the same ways they did before. The big one here is the '2016 No Vote' category that massively favours 'Rejoin'. I guess I'm just like..where were these people in 2016? If even half of those that could have voted actually went out and voted we'd have avoided a lot of the mess of the last 5 years. I get it, most people in this country feel like they're not listened to, that they don't have any real input into how the country is governed, or that they're only voting for slightly different shades of the same corrupt MP's. I'm totally sympathetic to those arguments and we absolutely have to crack the nut that is getting people reengaged in our democracy because at the moment it isn't working..but fuck me guys please go vote. The Tories get to reign over this country, treat the poor like shit and aggressively chase the votes of a small minority because the young in this country do not go out and vote (and I'm sympathetic to some of those arguments for why this is happening, truly). I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country. My vote essentially means nothing; it sucks and it shouldn't be like this. However, I do vote because for every single vote that goes in a column that isn't blue, my Tory MP has to take a second to think whether or not voting against school meals is a good idea. He has to think if he should be voting against cutting UC for the poorest in our society, he has to think about if he wants to vote for more corruption etc etc. So yes, my vote doesn't 'count' in as much as I'm not going to oust my Tory MP in his safe Tory seat, but the more like-minded people that go out and vote takes his safe seat, and makes it a little less safe, and that's a valid way of influencing our politics. Until our system changes this is what we've got. The system stays the same because it suits those that benefit from it. Until we force change through the voting booth, that's not going to change.

What I will say is that the final 2-3 hours felt like nothing but combat, which is fine because I think the combat is somewhat more engaging that (say) Uncharted, but I still found myself thinking it was a bit much at one point.

Can confirm. It was the first thing I unlocked and I think I used it 2-3 times throughout the entire game.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes The third game in the DPA series, and probably the strongest entry so far. The game takes a while to get going, unlike the previous entry Little Hope (which is also fantastic), but when it does finally kick into gear it's nonstop through the end. Probably my 'favourite' new game of 2021 so far.

I've heard nothing but good reviews for it. For whatever reason though, it just didn't click with me.

The Forgotten City A game I'd been very excited to play for a while now, but an hour in and I found myself being somewhat bored by it. It feels very much like the Skyrim mod that it started out, make of that what you will. For me at-least the central plot just wasn't enough to get me past the sheer amount of dialogue that you have to trawl through. Oh well.

Unpacking It's a game about putting your moving boxes away. There's a very lite story to it (as you complete 'moves' the in-game year will change; implying that your moving through your life as you would in real life). So far I've moved my bedroom around, then moved into my dorm room, partners houses, my own house etc etc. I'm playing it on Gamepass but I think this might be best played on a Switch. Pick up, put down.