FV looks surprisingly good!  I'll give it a go early if the reviews are decent.   But yeah, day 1 for Turtles.

Part 1: Games 1-4 (Ready or Not, Can Androids Pray, Bad End Theater, Anger Foot)
Part 2: Game 5 (Bloodborne PSX)
Part 3: Game 6 (Day Repeat Day)
Part 4: Games 7-14 (Elden Ring, GT7, Horizon: Forbidden West, Emily is Away 3, Fifa 22, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Good Night Knight, There is no Game)
Part 5: Games 15-22 (Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, Deep Rock Galactic, YAKLAD, Manifold Garden, Factori, Circadian Dice, Nier Re[in]carnation)

23. The Sexy Brutale

Bought this and played some a while back but ended up stopping because the performance of the Switch version is just unacceptably bad. Like an idiot, i decided to spend money on it again on an actual machine capable of running games above 15fps.

If you want the tl;dr - this is a modern version of The Gregory Horror Show.

That was enough for me. It's very good and scratched an itch that hadn't been scratched in many a year.

It's also a bit of a mess. Even with the framerate issues sorted, there's unacceptable input lag, awkward janky sounds cues, a few too many loading screens, inaccurate button prompts, it goes on...

I stumbled accidentally on the solutions to the puzzles occasionally, prematurely and undeservedly ending chapters.  There's pointless collectibles because of course there are. 

But, but, it's the Gregory Horror Show with a gorgeous lick of paint, great character design and lovely soundtrack. Jank be damned, what else is there like this?

It's an [8] with a [5] execution - all good ideas and some great elements, but constantly failing to stick the landing. I couldn't, in all honesty, actively recommend it, yet at the same time i'd welcome a sequel.

A triumph, a disaster, a shame, a [7].

Yes, avoid the Switch port 100%.

Incredible views.  Madness, frankly, but I love the passion so good on you.

Well… they’re ok. But 10/10?!

For once, I can't argue with Vere.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

78. Nobody Saves the World - Xbox Series S (19hrs 11mins) [/img]

I thought this one was a stone cold classic at the time!  One of the 10/10 boys.

With that said, I haven't thought about it much since playing it.  And the first thing I di think about when remembering it: I was feeling sleepy while playing it one night, so I paused it and went to sleep for over 4 hours.  That doesn't exactly scream 10/10 lol

This is why you should ignore everyone except me.

Looks like I'm on the same page as Jon for this one...

79. Card Shark - Switch (8hrs +3)

A beautifully presented game of rote deception where tricks and hoodwinks must be executed near perfectly to progress through the (actually rather good) story.  There's something hugely addictive about the whole thing - I was powerless to resist its charms despite being infuriated with huge chunks of it - but gameplay wise it's a curious one.  And 'curious' might even be a little generous.  If I was going to sum it up in the simplest gaming turns it's a narrative based button prompt learner.  Occasionally you'll be required to think on your feet, but for the most part there's an almost Dragon's Lair quality to the vignettes, which tend to boil down to precise patterns of stick flicks and QTEs.  So, for example, the entirety of the interaction in a 7 minute story sequence/card game could be something like: press down eight times, gently hold left twice (while counting suits perhaps), flick up once and then aim to hit A followed by B then Y on Whack-a-mole timers.  Plus you might have to move your character to a different part of the screen when prompted.  This actually works for the most part - if you concentrate on each demonstration like your life depends on it - but few games in recent memory punish mistakes quite as cruelly.  The main segments have an indicator at the bottom of the screen depicting the mood of your opponent.  If they get too suspicious you have to start the whole section again, and there's very little margin for error in the back half of the game.  You can't skip dialogue so you're limited to just speeding it up on retries and everything in between moves at a glacial pace, meaning the way this deals with rectifying failure is agonising compared to most modern games.  Eventually there are occasional 10 minute stretches of nail or fail, which is a huge ask.  The betting system seems misjudged too, at least for first time players, as 'bet low to avoid raising suspicion' seems to be the only viable tactic for the story parts, and 'bet high twice then fuck off' struck me as the best course of action for winning big on the money farming tables.  The punishing nature of the restarts seem completely at odds with some of the late game tasks, which eventually start to feel like patting your head/rubbing your stomach, trying not to forget a phone number you glanced at for three seconds and playing snap (while losing patience).  I'm a dunderhead at the best of times and the calculus-level cons of the last two excursions made me feel like a pre-rebrand Daim Bar.  There was a massive sense of really?? while watching the demonstrations, and both require you to adjust tactics on the fly (which resulted in me feeling like my systems needed a full reboot half a dozen times; I'm not built for learning or memorising long chains).  

So what did I like about it?  The experience on the whole, believe it or not.  At least I think I did.  I mean, I must have done as I started again after losing 3hrs of progress to a save wipe that buggered up my first attempt (accidental on my part, deliberately coded on the dev's part), then I hammered the rest of it over four days.  If you were dealt Card Shark in Top Trumps the number next to 'addictiveness' would be huge.  No, I can't explain why.  Staunch refusal to fail coupled with appreciation for its individuality is the best answer I've got.  The presentation is magnificent and the story unfolds very nicely.  Dialogue is strong too.  It could have done with more time in the oven to iron out some bugs though, and maybe add a few extra lines of dialogue for the camp scene.  I topped up the camp funds kitty regularly, going Dutch with the Comte, and I swear everyone said the exact same thing every time, which I thought was something these games left behind a long time ago.  You have to suspend disbelief fairly regularly as some of the slight-of-hand/card counting stuff is so suss a spaceship full of 4yrs old would call an emergency meeting in seconds and blow you out the airlock, but I was happy to turn a blind eye to that.  

Overall then, it's an incredibly addictive hot mess that's in desperate need of a more user-friendly fail state.  Maybe more Snakes & Ladders than just a giant snake whisking you back to square one every time?  Something for the devs to address in a patch, perhaps. [6]  A house of cards that just about stays up despite wonky foundations.  Glad I played it but it got deleted immediately after the credits rolled. 

I don't remember that level. Maybe I skipped some. They're were quite a lot.

Yeah I played a little pre-new then completed it New. But a little while ago now, and can't remember how much i fast tracked the end bits. I guess my save will be there still...

22: Cricket '22 (PC) 5/10

This is pretty much the same as every other game in this series.  I only had a go at My Career mode.  The big change this year is it now has a suite of training mini games.  They are not good.  Button mashing to walk on a treadmill and shit like that.  Not only are they not fun, but the nature of cricket means you can lose your wicket at any moment, especially if you're rubbish like me.  Faffing around for 5 minutes in between games just to get out after 1 ball is infuriating.  The physics are a bit off and your player sometimes plays funny strokes and I can't work out why.  I didn't like it but it's on Gamepass so no harm done.

23: Vampire Survivors (PC) 9/10

This is also on Gamepass.  It is only $4AUD though so I bought a copy on Steam.  Absolutely stupid value for money.  It is still in early access but even if nothing else happens I'll be satisfied.

It's an isometric roguelike with auto attacks.  You just move your character around and try to keep them away from the enemies.  You kill enough enemies with your auto attacks, you level up and learn new skills to auto attack with or boost your defence or whatever.  It's mostly about figuring out which skills work best with each other to keep you alive for longer.  It's very compulsive, a little too much as I stayed up quite late a couple of nights last week playing it.  There's always something new to unlock and I do struggle saying no to 'just one more game' with these kinds of games.  There's not too much else wrong with it but I do think runs last a little too long.

24: Retrowave (PC) 7/10

Another super cheap Steam game with overwhelmingly positive reviews.  This is a driving game, the kind that could've come out at any point since video games were invented.  It's just an indefinite length of straight road and you weave in and out of traffic.  This one has a retrowave theme as you would assume.  Retrowave music is the sort of thing I find pleasant enough to hear but it never really sticks with me and I never seek it out.  As such I've been using this to play when listening to a podcast.  It's easy on the eye with it's fake 80's neon look (I understand it's a bit tired now.  I don't mind it!), the controls (minimal as they are) feel pretty nice and there's a fair bit to unlock.  I wouldn't mind a bigger budget proper racing game in this style.  The menus are a bit shit if you're not using a mouse, though.  Boo.  It's not like a classic or anything but much like Vampire Survivors it's great value for money.

25: Mario Strikers Battle League (6/10)

This game is not great value for money.  Even taking into account it's mostly a multiplayer game and they're gonna add more stuff to it later... come on.  This is very stingy.  Single player is playing a exhibition match or playing a range of tournaments, like Mario Kart.  At least Mario Kart has a bunch of tracks.  These are just playing against different teams that have high strength, or high speed, or high skill.  There's only 10 characters!  Come one don't be silly.  I thought there would be like 10 different teams with individual characters.

It's prison rules brand of football is really enjoyable and it looks great though.  I can't lie, I really did enjoy the very lean pickings over the last couple of days, especially the harder games.  It's a nice mix of being a properly enjoyable sport game on it's own merits, with the chaos of power ups and nasty tackles on top.  Smashing that smug prick mario face first into an electric fence is always a joy.  I imagine multiplayer would be pretty good.  As a singleplayer bloke if this had a league, a my player, a mighty ducks style story mode and like 40 characters I'd be laughing.  Hopefully it gets a bunch more content but I imagine it'll be nothing significant.  Bit of a waste.

Yeah, it's frustrating.  Like, I don't know how to make games obviously, but it seems like making the game fun to play would be the hard part.  They've done that, just put together a few different modes to play and it'd be all good.

I'm not helping though by preordering this stuff, knowing what these games'll be like!

82. Sackboy: A Big Adventure - PS5 (8hrs)

I picked up a second DualSense last month, which displeased me as my plan was to thumb my nose forever.  After biting the bullet while bending over Sony's barrel I bought this from Mr. @Tin_Robot at a typically nice price, which took the sting out of paying for another pad.  I've been playing it fairly regularly with Tilly for a couple of weeks now, and the credits rolled this evening.  

I spent a good chunk of the game thinking 'this isn't all that' to be honest.  The controls are fine but far from special.  I'd have to say the platforming is actually slightly worse than New Super Lucky's Tale if push came to shove.  There were numerous occasions where the perspective played tricks on me and the low jump/weak hover shuffle meant head bopping lacked requisite satisfaction levels.  It's a decent platform game, but fundamentally not a great one.  Having said that, I eventually succumbed to its charms as plenty of the later stages are very nicely crafted obstacle courses.  It feels much better than the 2D Little Big Planet games anyway, which always lost me with floatiness.  A common criticism of Super Mario 3D World - one of my favourite 3D platformers and a good comparison for this, given its short stage multiplayer focus - was that the more simplistic stages were dull due to a lack of challenge.  I didn't share that opinion as that whole game was a joy imo, but it's fair to pinch the complaint and level it at Sackboy.  Once it gets going the imaginative juices really start to flow and it starts to level up significantly, it just takes an age to pre-heat.  The final third is great.

The sound design gives this a huge shot in the arm.  The stages that sync and flow with full music tracks never fail to pump it up to full swole doge territory.  In fact, they're among the greatest things in modern gaming and we've played each one half a dozen times.  Not having one on the final world is criminal though, and although it shouldn't really matter in the scheme of things I was bitterly disappointed not to be treated to the surprise I was expecting.  It almost felt like a favourite band not bothering with an encore.  Still, the full track stages that occasionally pop up throughout the rest of the game are pure gold, and raised my appreciation of the overall experience massively.  It's not just the full-lyrics tracks that help this sing either - rearranged classics appear throughout the adventure on numerous occasions.  Outstanding stuff.

So what else then?  Because this clearly doesn't sound like it deserves the [8] I'm building up to.  I guess my appreciation is partly down to the co-op feels Unlikely recently experienced for the first time in the kids thread.  Tilly & I have played plenty of games together over the past few years but I'd be surprised if she loved many as much as she loved this, which (artificially?) elevates it for me too.  Everything from the cut-scenes to the outfit changes landed as pure win for her - it's an excellent game to play with kids.  The only thing she complained about was the re-use of boss encounters.  The final boss announced its arrival with "this is it, the moment we've all been waiting for!", and she said "a different boss battle?".  Got a lol from me; she's right though - the re-used conveyor belt template is fine but it's a sorry state of affairs when something like Super Lucky's Tale blows a near-flagship PS5 launch title out the water for something as integral to a platformer as bosses.

Anyway, this is either quite good or great depending on whether you play it solo or with a much smaller family member.  The progression gating is a bit mean (I'm not looking forward to collecting another 60 orbs solo so she can see the post-game stages), but much like Mario 3D World the secrets are well placed, so the non-hundo hunt isn't a chore.  [8]

I think we've played 13 of 15 Knitted Knight courses.  Meant to mention them because the vast majority are really good.  Only got gold on three though, was happy to settle for silver for the rest.