danielpholt

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.

Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy It won't win any awards for pushing the medium forward or anything; but Guardians of the Galaxy is an pretty flarking enjoyable romp through Marvels Galactic universe. It's far from the most original game ever released, but it's polished to high-hell and the games story is actually kinda alright. A few technical issues aside towards the end (did anyone else get some pretty horrendous frame-rate issues during the final few battles?) I don't really have any complaints. The game plays well, it runs well (aforementioned issues aside) and it looks fantastic (60FPS is a must). It's linear as anything, but you know what? That's fine. Sometimes a guy just wants to sit down after a long day at work/parenting, grab the controller and zone out right? No decisions; just walking and talking and shooting bad guys, and Guardians is great at that. All in all, after the disappointment that was Marvels Avengers, it's nice to see that maybe Square can give us something that's legitimately fun. 3/5 (Enjoyable) As an aside, I'm interested to see why Guardians seem's to have avoided the flak that Marvels Avengers got in terms of not having the MCU likenesses. Is it simply that Guardians is a game that people are enjoying, and thus the likeness issue isn't being used as a weapon against the game, or is their more to it; maybe the Guardians characterisation is just that bit stronger, so it becomes less of an issue almost immediately upon starting the game?

Exactly! Now if only we had a more left-leaning government in place to handle the transition away from the EU, maybe we could actually make it work in some meaningful way.

AV never stood a chance when those that had the most to benefit from keeping FPTP in place were running a campaign based around this sort of bullshit. (Also, the idea that £250m is a fuck-load of money in the year 2021 is absolutely laughable - it's a rounding error). That being said, we fall for it every single time because our electorate is ill-informed and disinterested....which I totally understand. Democracy isn't working in this country and whilst I disagree with the result, I totally understand why people tune out when it comes to the day-to-day stuff that makes up our democratic system; for the vast majority of people it seems like they're fucked regardless of who's in charge (assuming even that they feel like their vote matters; for many it simple doesn't). I could go on all day about how to make our system more balanced and more.....direct; but we both know there's absolutely no way we see any of those sort of changes whilst the Tories are in power.

I'm maybe 2-3 hours into Guardians and whilst I don't think it's going to blow anyone's socks off, I'm having a good bit of fun with it. It looks great, although I'm a bit disappointed to see that they're splitting Performance Mode and Graphical Modes again. I'd have liked to see that with the additional power these new boxes bring that they could hit 60FPS in both modes. The combat is mostly fine. Sometimes it devolves into a complete mess of characters and enemies that you sort of just continuously shoot at; there's a thin layer of control in regards to telling your Guardian allies what to do, but even that feels less strategic than it could do. I'm here for the characters and they bantz. Let's be honest, that's where a Guardians game lives and dies. And in this instance, it does pretty well. I've laughed plenty, and I don't ever get bored of just listening to these guys interact with one another; sometimes to the point where I'll just leave the controller and here them talk shit. So yeah, pretty happy so far.

I guess in their estimation the 'Left' have nowhere else to go. We do have the Greens, although with the nature of first past the post voting, voting Green could largely be considered a 'wasted' vote (I wouldn't say that, but it massively benefits the Conservative party to see Labour/Left voters splitting their vote). A fairer system of voting would actually sort this mess out; we had a chance to change that in '97, but we did nothing because like most parties in power, we thought it'd last forever and hey guess what? It never does. Without a doubt we need leaders who are solid on substance, but that just isn't how politics works right now. And I'd argue that Starmer is both poor on policy and on charisma. He's being beaten on both flanks at the moment and it's a poor look. Take the nurses pay rise for example. Classic rope-a-dope by the Tories. Come in with a low offer, let Labour shoot themselves in the foot by offering a slighter higher (but not nearly high enough counter-offer) and then come back with an even higher offer that they were always going to come back with. Starmer's been desperate to claw back some semblance of competency, but time and time again he's been out manoeuvred by a Tory party that aren't playing by the rules that they'd stringently stuck to in the past; raising taxes, increased spending (during the Pandemic). They're routinely getting beaten by them on the left, that's absolutely unacceptable to me as a Labour member. I'm a Corbyn fan, but he clearly wasn't a good leader, of that there can be no doubt. The problem is their so scared of the ghost of Corbyn (rightly or wrongly) that they're trying to shift the party into the center, which is a losing position when you're running up against the Tories, and a British public who for the most part, are fairy happy to vote Tory regardless of what they're doing. For Labour to win they *have to* offer something truly different. Yes they have to be highly competent and their leader has to be likeable, but ultimately that isn't enough; it never has been. You've got to offer the British public something different because they have (and will) continue to vote for the devil they know until you offer them something truly new and exciting (and viable). A strong Lib Dem vote doesn't hurt either, sponge up some of those softer Tories that wouldn't dream of voting Labour. Sorry, I didn't mean for that to go on for as long as it did. I deleted Twitter and yeah, this is my only outlet.

HALO 4. I moved around (slowly). I shot at things. I occasionally pressed X to let Cortana do something. You know, Halo shit. In fairness to the game, all of my prior experience with the franchise has come in the form of campaign co-op, and so playing solo felt like a pretty tedious affair; that's probably more to do with my specific situation than anything the game was doing. Onward onto HALO 5 I guess.

I just don't think he's all that good a politician. He's very good at coming across as serious, and that should in theory work well against Johnson's bluster, but it just doesn't chime with what the British public wants from it's elected officials. He's totally lacking in charisma and personality, whereas Johnson has it in droves. As for clear terms, I agree. Unfortunately they've lost all sense of reason and are doubling-down on focus groups and Blairite thinking about how to win over undecideds and lite-Tory voters, at the expense of those that have, and will continue to vote Labour. You can't out-Tory a Tory. Unfortunately there's a complete dearth of talent in the ranks; both on the right and the left of the party. Even if we did change it up, I'm not sure where they'd turn.

So I finished Project: Hail Mary last week and whilst I can't confess to liking it nearly as much as The Martian, it's still a worthy read if you're into that sort of thing. Credit to Andy Weir here, because based on the first third of the book I could quickly see this thing spiralling out of control, but it didn't, and he kept it very grounded (no mean feat for a book set in space).