Be Excellent To Each Other

1) Cuphead: Delicious Last Course DLC (Xbox)

More of the same ridiculously beautiful hand drawn art, glorious orchestral music and brutal combat. There’s a secret boss in there too with a strange gimmick which was an absolute piece of piss. Loved it. Would play more.

1) Superliminal (Xbox)

Well. That was weird.

1) Inside (PS4)

Side scrolling platform puzzler. It's really, really, good. Only had to look something up once, too!

2) A Plague’s Tale: Requiem (Xbox)

Remember this post: viewtopic.php?p=1053949#p1053949 ? Well that. Again. Including the fucking dream sequence.

Actually it has some Uncharted 3 bits now. And one of the female characters seems as if she’s stumbled into the wrong game from there an’ all … and much to the games detriment in the final chapter.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good sequel. More of the same but slightly different.

I got a bit bored of it, I gave up about half way through (I think it was about half way through, anyway. I'd just worked with a stranded guard to lift platforms and drive the rats away with tar).

Yeah, I started off feeling the same and it wasn’t until after fleeing the town on boat (just after the bit you quit on, I think) that I was more invested. It’s generally more of the same sort of stuff though (stand here press Y for various actions) (although you get a crossbow shortly after. Oh and there’s a couple of turret sections, weirdly. Oh and you meet this sellsword guy who’s pretty great and make him whack out baddies for you. And this sailor woman who can set fire to grass with a magnifying glass. Actually, that’s one of the less cool bits. Some timed running to cover at the end. Probably some more types of ammo for your slingshot after that too. You seen the tar? A nice open world bit to run around in. The graphics are reet nice later. Oh some bit on a boat. Another boat bit later on that’s pretty decent) (I suppose what I’m saying is, there’s some decent stuff after the bit you quit at but its not gonna blow your mind cause it’s all in the same sort of vein with the same characters. There ain’t a No Russian or nowt, just solid stuff but with the same sort of gameplay. Plus I always found Amicia nice and all but she hasn’t got much of an arc for the sequel. She’s entirely one note. All she ever does is moan about saving Hugo the whole fucking game and yet Hugo’s always been a little shit. She even tells him that he’s a king, mummy’s favourite and kills hundreds of folks for the little bastard. And she coos over him telling him how good and kind he is even after he’s been murdering a few thousand folk himself. I hate that fucker.) (Anyway, I enjoyed it).

3) High on Life (Xbox)

I like Rick & Morty but, fuck me, I hated this. For a comedy game it wasn’t funny. Actually it was twice during the entire play through. And during like 8-10 hours play through and hours upon hours of dialogue that’s atrocious.

The two best lines so you don’t have to play it:

Some enemy says when he dies “Don’t forget to check out Ride with Norman Reedus on AMC” and another says “Water my plants”.

The rest? Who gives a shit. Anyway, the gameplay is alright and it has hookshot, jet pack and slide dash (all good things) but I was sick of shooting the same 7 baddies again and again. And you can only hook shot fixed points so that’s shit.

Honestly, I couldn’t recommend it to Roiland die hard fans. Real bad.

I thought it was generally amusing but a pretty d- shooter. I especially enjoyed watching Tammy and the T Rex.

The ending scene, though? Incredible.

1 Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD - WiiU/CEMU/Steam Deck

Kind of cheating a bit as I played most of it last year, with the intention to finish it in the new year and kickstart my list. A variety of things like work, Vampire Survivors, general lethargy, etc, got in the way, but I finally found the time to finish it over the weekend (well, not quite, I couldn't work out what I was supposed to be doing in the final battle, eventually died and finished it on Monday).

So, 20-ish years in the making, I think this was my 3rd or 4th attempt at the game, never previously getting past the Forsaken Fortress (the first time). A few years ago I decided that if I could play through it handheld (i.e. on the Switch), I would definitely see it through, but Nintendo brought out the Skyward Sword instead, and I just remember that as being really tedious.

Anyway, now the Steam Deck exists, so I fulfilled my promise to myself and played it through.

There were a lot of times I asked myself if I was actually enjoying it, and I might have to consider whether I actually enjoy Zelda games at all (I would have instinctively said yes, although 3 of the 4 I'd completed before this were 2D ones, so maybe I just don't like the 3D ones), never more so than slogging through the final section of the game over the weekend, which was basically "fight these four bosses again, then fight this one boss you've already fought five or six more times (I wasn't counting), oh, and one more time for luck" before you get to the final boss (or pre-final boss I guess).

So yeah, it's a Zelda game, having not played all of them I'm not particularly well up on the mythology, so have no real idea where this does or doesn't fit in. I did have to give up and start following a walkthrough pretty early on as I had no idea where I was supposed to be going, and, while it was possibly the nature of the walkthrough I was following, have absolutely no idea how I might have worked some of this stuff out.

I might go and play Twilight Princess again at some point, I enjoyed that one.

If you haven't played Tunic, I can strongly recommend it if you want an updated 2D zelda experience. Like you I couldn't get on with the 3d zeldas

I've heard really good things about Tunic, and it's on my wishlist, but I figured I had enough to work through so didn't pick it up in the last Steam sale. I'm definitely keeping an eye on it though.

4) The Forest (PS)

Played it previously on PC but went through it again with a friend. It has some jank still but it still has a fantastic atmosphere, plus it’s proper hard, especially when you’re running out of resources. There’s some enforced feeding and drinking crap that I’d rather do without but it’s super simple and it’s just a case of keeping two bars to the top. The base building is pretty great but you can largely avoid that shit if you just wanna play the game rather than toss yourself off because you made a big wall.

Anyway, costs less than a fiver and was well worth the cash money.

2 Overboard - Steam

It's a murder mystery, on a boat. The difference is, you know who did it, because it was you, so can you get away with it?

It's the final day of your voyage to New York, and last night you pushed your husband overboard. Did any one see you, can you discredit them/convince them to keep quiet, or even lie for you?

The game takes place over 9 (I think) locations, with about half a dozen central characters who move about the ship throughout the day. Your husband's absence will be noticed just before you get into port (unless you bring it to the relevant people's attention before then), so you have until then to tidy up after yourself.

As well as the normal set of achievements, the game has a checklist for you to work through, each time you play, you'll learn more about the different characters, and, while your character doesn't actually retain knowledge between playthroughs, anything you've learned will still be an objective to tick off, so you can spend time finding out the other character's secrets, rather than focusing on your own outcome.

It was something nice to pick up and have a quick go at (when I didn't have enough time to play Vampire Survivors).

3. Mr Fast - Steam
If Quentin Tarantino made a video game, he'd make this. Black and white, apart from the red blood splatters, and a soundtrack out of nowhere.

24 levels of (mostly) you vs hordes action, the game employs the simple tactic of dumping you at the start of the level every time you die. No lives, no game over, no "do you want to try again?" Just, "oh you died, have another go", so you do, and again, and again, and then you make it to the next level.

The levels are mainly isometric shooting, probably meant for keyboard and mouse (keyboard to move, mouse to aim and fire), but works well on the Steam Deck with left stick, and right trackpad/trigger). There are some random levels interspersed with the shooting, like riding round on a motorbike trying not to get caught by cars, running round collecting money while but getting stomped on by giant people, and a side scrolling beat em up taking place in a CRT tv (use the right mouse button/left trigger in this one).

Some of the levels were a bit frustrating, particularly the last one, which is broken up into sections (although it only seemed to be the third section that would send you back to the previous one if you died - although arguably it was one location, so one section), and the levels could do with some kind of progress indicator so you have an idea of how close to defeating the seemingly endless supply of bad guys (in some levels, more enemies will spawn in, which is a bit frustrating if that happens almost on top of you, but there is a finite number to kill, however in a couple of levels you are meant to reach an exit, so presumably the game will keep throwing enemies at you until you realise you have an actual destination to reach). Some levels do have a progress indicator, so the thought was there.

I should probably mention that while 99.9% of the enemies are human, there are two levels in which you're attached by (and therefore have to shoot) dogs, in case that puts anyone off. There's also a level with loads of baby chicks, but you're not meant to kill them.

It's 79p.

Sat is completely wrong about The Forest. The base building doesn't get in the way of playing the game, it is the game.

Who the fuck is Timmy?