Currently playing in 2019...

Already had to turn assist mode on...... dam it can break the game just upped it to two dashes at the moment (after briefly putting everything on with full game speed). Just about to start chapter 5 anyway although I might call it a night for Celeste, a couple of parts have begun to frustrate me in chapter 4 (but I guess that might be part of the point for when you do overcome it?).

Just starting the (well I presume it is) last chapter in Celeste, found the boss in chapter 6 really hard, even with 2 dash jumps still activated.

Just starting the (well I presume it is) last chapter in Celeste, found the boss in chapter 6 really hard, even with 2 dash jumps still activated.

Progress in Elite. Spent around 80 million getting a decent mining ship bought and outfitted.



Made 2 trips so far, each netted me around 100 000 000 creds each. So, worth it.

Also managed to take this which I was quite proud of.

Fallout 4 - I got this at launch, plugged around 20 hours into it and then stopped playing around Christmas and never went back to it properly.

Considered restarting from the beginning but 20 hours is a lot of progress to lose so I've picked up from where I left off. Mechanics are easy to pick back up as I've played so much of Fallout 3 and New Vegas but I have to admit I'm a little lost with the story and particularly my ongoing quests. Still, had a blast going round decapitating ghouls and I don't think I'm that far from the end so I'll definitely play this through to completion and wipe it from the backlog!

20hours and not far from the end? Not sure you’re playing it right.

Perhaps that was badly phrased, I should have said that I'm not far from the end of the main story quests. I imagine I'll clock more hours completing side quests but I'm not one for completing every single quest in the game - too many other games I want to play, there's simply not enough time to sink 100 hours into one particular game.

Finished Celeste, now need to decide what to play next. Night in the Wood, Hollow Knight or Spectre Knights campaign in Shovel Knight (although I should try Plague Knight again as well).

Or I can just go back to Skyrim, yet again (now my battlemage is fully set up they absolutely destroy stuff without breaking a sweat )

I reached the city area in Dead Island last night. I vaguely remember disliking this part of the game from when I last played it.

I'm encountering an awful lot of those suicide zombies that charge at you and explode but rarely have the ammo to deal with them. I think I might need to farm human enemies for a while just to acquire more ammo since you can't seem to buy it in shops.

More and more zombies are turning up armed with weapons too which when thrown at me are incredibly overpowered and tend to kill me in one hit.

Playing Shadow of Mordor on Gamepass. It's pretty fun, runs and looks pretty well on XB1. Not that far in it really.

Fallout New Vegas
Had a big break from this – maybe a couple of months – but went back to it last weekend.
The plot never really grabbed me and so I’m ploughing through the main plot line just skipping most of the dialogue and not really paying attention, but I’m enjoying some of the side quests and have a rough idea of who I want to side with and help out, etc.
Although there’s loads of the map that I don’t feel I’ve explored, I don’t really have much desire to keep going with it, so this weekend I’ll hopefully finish off the main plot line and call it a day.

Tales of Symphonia
Nearing the end of this one. The plot’s increasingly confusing to the point that I’m only vaguely aware of what’s going on, but everything else is good. Had a good couple of hours with it last weekend and hoping I’m hoping I can finish it off soon.

Rayman Origins
Started this after having a yearning for some platforming. Enjoying it so far, probably only an hour into it. Looks lovely, has a few satisfying mechanics and gameplay hooks, and just feels like a quality game all round. Looking forward to playing more.

Rayman Origins is too strawberry floating good.

Been playing Saints Row 3 on Switch and whilst playing in docked mode it does look and runs pretty bad, but portable play it looks great and the game is a lot of fun to boot. Slapping people with a giant purple dildo never gets old.

Still plugging away at Gears of War 4 currently on Act 4, Chapter 3. I am only playing a couple of chapters at a time as it can get a bit repetitive, going into one room, clearing a bunch of enemies then move onto another and repeat. That being said, I am enjoying the game, it’s great to be playing Gears again!

Finally about to do the last mission in Dragon Age inquisition. Done all side quests and 2 of the 3 DLCs. The 3rd unlocks after the final mission apparently.

I've had this since it launched (Nov 2014 ) , so it will be a very satisfying backlog item to tick off!

Shadow of Mordor has got its hooks in me. There's an actual point to the collectable nonsense that usually litter open world games.

Combat is extremely good. They just basically ripped on Batman, but with awesome sword executions. The nemesis system is really interesting.

Lotus wrote:Fallout New Vegas
...
skipping most of the dialogue and not really paying attention
...
I don’t really have much desire to keep going with it

I think a big part of the game is how your choices in the main questline decide the fortunes and fates of all the side factions. It branches significantly in that respect.

Got a few games on the go at the moment: (well in reality there are about 15-20 games that I have started and am not prepared to say I have abandoned yet! )

Final Fantasy XII (Switch)
Despite being a huge FF fan (although not the No.1 of course!) I never got very far in this back in the PS2 days, I didn't like the Gambit system and the story never hooked me either. I remember being disappointed as it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game to me, and coming from the director of Vagrant Story which I absolutely loved as well I think I was hoping it would be a "best of both worlds" collision between VS and FF but that never really worked out!

However I am absolutely loving it on Switch! I think having time away to appreciate that other battle systems can be good has helped - having been a huge fan of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 recently I have grown to see that a system where the player is not 100% hands on and directing every action all the time can be a good thing! The addition of the 2x/4x speed options is a huge win as well - it can be a very grindy game and being able to whizz through battles is a big plus.

It still has its flaws - the area design is incredibly dull and repetitive forcing the player to spend way more time looking at the map than actually in the game world or face getting lost very quickly. And all of the areas being broken up into tiny chunks is very annoying, it would have been nice if they could have stitched things together for this re-release but there you go.

RAGE 2 (PC)
Picked this up cheap (although I expect it will be dropping even lower in the not too distant future...) as something to have as a mindless blaster and it has impressed me quite a lot so far! The shooting is great with a real heft to things, but its the "nanotrite" powers that really stand out. These mix the combat up really nicely - double jumping to clamber up high and get the drop on enemies, dashing around to avoid attacks or close ground quickly, throwing out energy balls that will suck enemies in and can be used to propel the player even higher, pushing out an energy blast to kill enemies or knock them back into others... it all really adds to the experience and just makes taking on a group of enemies feel so damn great!

No idea what the story is - the intro was overlong and tried to make the player care about too many things that seemed dull to me, but I have played about 5 hours or so without advancing this forward so far so I'm sure I will get back to it eventually!

Biggest annoyance so far is that the game constantly wants to throw updates about stuff on the screen that pull you out of the action: clear out a bandit camp - bing! here's a popup about how your status with some faction has changed, open a box - bing! here's another telling you about the item you've found and how to use it (even if you've already found it about then times before!), destroy a sentinel - bing! same again! Stop pulling me out of the game with this gooseberry fool! Just put a little popup in the corner or something. The UI in general feels a bit rough around the edges, like the game was still in beta or something - it can be quite sluggish to move around and often things are hard to read because they are supposed to appear on top of the "window" behind but they are too transparent and you can see both at the same time.

Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
Jumped back into this recently for the first time since late 2017 as I still had some moons to mop up and just felt like a bit of Mario action. Such a sublime game, the controls and move-set are absolute gold. I've been going back to the Koopa races on each kingdom to try and improve my times so I'm gunning for a few people on my friends list leaderboard!

I've been playing FULL SPECTRUM WARRIOR from the old OG Xbox with the magic of Back compat and it now being 4K on X1X.

I loved it back in the day and I'm very surprised how well it holds up, Increasing the Resolution can make really old games look a bit plain and angular but this is not too shabby, the lighting is excellent and the animations are very good.

Not bad for €3 in Xbox BC sale (on this week btw).

Played some more of Spectre Knight, not sure why but its not clicking with me either (much better than Plague but Shovel Knight seemed to hit the sweet spot from the off). So now I’m playing Night in The Woods, only just started but I’m already thinking I’ll enjoy this.