I stuck with the human powers throughout, but I can't remember why. It may have been because they were just starting to have a meaningful effect, so I wanted to max them out rather than start on a new tree. I was pretty invested in the story as well and was horrified at what I had done, so I was on a bit of a purity/goody two shoes kick and trying to atone for that. There are some satisfying and rewarding achievements for taking that course of action.

I don't think they have any impact on the ending, though as you mention, turrets will turn on you if you get too alien. I think there's an achievement for not taking any, and an achievement for only having alien mods, but I can't imagine going back to do something like that. Maybe in a few years.

Took the plunge and put down the whole £1 to upgrade my Xbox Live to the Ultimate Pass - so until November 2020, I have access to the whole Game Pass library - it's safe to assume that my already neglected PS3/Wii/X360 will be dust traps for the foreseeable future ... fair warning now that I'm a firm convert (at least at the moment) to Game Pass

Over the weekend I took advantage of the Free Play weekends to try out both Fallout '76 and Lego DC Super Villians - and I won't be purchasing either. Fallout '76 had a slow opening, then a mass combat of my bare fists against lots of little bots waiting immediately outside of the vault (so before any weapons), then a slow intro to the settlement, then a random death. DC Villians was a little more engaging (and I ended up playing the first couple of levels two or three times with different members of my family) but I wasn't sold enough to purchase it at this point - though i will say that it seems to be one of the more sturdy entries to the franchise.

A friend has been harping on about State of Decay 2 for a while so I finally downloaded that - actually quite enjoyable. It's still a little glitchy - especially when driving. But it's nice to have a game where I can be slowly getting myself up to speed and my more experienced friend can just pop in and out - go off and do his own thing and come back with loot or to assist as needed. And it's disturbingly satisfying to smosh a zombie with a car door whilst driving. Game pass gives you the heartland campaign DLC but I don;t know if the other dlc is available to me (yet) - the Horde-esque Daybreak mode also looks like it should be fun.

Minion Masters has superceded Brawlhalla as my twenty minutes of fun game, though it's a little marred that the daily quest achievements are not tracking properly, and there is some in-game stutter (just on the X1 version) that makes playing a little more challenging

I also spent a quick 30 minutes on Sea of Thieves - first time playing since before the game launch when I was part of the beta testing. Just tried out the single sloop rather than mess up a random galleon crew with my inexperience - I think with a group that game should be very enjoyable and could be as easily just somewhere to hang out in whilst shooting the breeze, as it could be something with an actual play goal in mind.

I pushed it as far as I could with alien upgrades, stopping short of the threshold at which turrets would start tracking me as enemy.

It does have an effect on the ending, but only in the sense that a LOT of the things you’re doing will change the ending slightly. Saying more would be a spoiler. Go with your gut like you have been for every other choice you’ve made so far, there’s no ‘wrong’ choice unless you’re specifically achievement hunting. (but those ‘human only’ and ‘alien only’ ones are super difficult on a first play through anyway, they’re more for repeat play).

ReprobateGamer wrote: ↑June 19th, 2019, 12:41 pm A friend has been harping on about State of Decay 2 for a while so I finally downloaded that - actually quite enjoyable. It's still a little glitchy - especially when driving. But it's nice to have a game where I can be slowly getting myself up to speed and my more experienced friend can just pop in and out - go off and do his own thing and come back with loot or to assist as needed. And it's disturbingly satisfying to smosh a zombie with a car door whilst driving. Game pass gives you the heartland campaign DLC but I don;t know if the other dlc is available to me (yet) - the Horde-esque Daybreak mode also looks like it should be fun.

It's pretty good! I played it on PC lately and was very happy with it; I kind of played it too much in the end and got sick of it, but overall I thought it was great, bar a few balancing problems on Hard difficulty (I do not recommend playing on Hard).


I'm playing Objects in Space (PC), which is the space trading and fighting game with the indie twist that you only see outside the craft via monitors and ship systems schematics. Like a submarine in space, basically.



It's a bit opaque. Every so often loads of bells and alarms will sound, and you don't have any idea what to do. And unfortunately the UI goes beyond 'old-school charming' and is actually very opaque and unintuitive. Not only are you using keyboard controls like tilde and comma to do stuff, they've made the navigation screen really messy:



I'm heading towards Angoda Giant Gasworks in that screenshot, connected via the purple line, but I have no idea why this has to be so shitty. And you have to click on the arrow symbols on the top right to move around the map and zoom in and out - you can't do it using anything on the keyboard.

On the plus side the story is well written and intriguing, hopefully I can bear with the game long enough to enjoy it.

EDIT: Oops, I take that back about the arrow keys - they do move the map around for you.

That map screen is a mess!

I've been playing a lot of Civ VI. I've been playing on some harder difficulties than I normally do (I'm garbage at these games, but I love them). I've gotten a few victory types I've never had before, so that's been nice.
And, now, the big June update is out so I started a new game. I really do enjoy this version.
And, it's still so pretty.

Moving on from Objects in Space, I think. There just doesn't seem to be much going on outside of the designed clunkiness of the interface. That said, I haven't really experimented with any of the ship's systems, as the developers want you to do. It just appears at the moment that you have to grind stealth missions over and back in order to get the cash to upgrade (like every other space trading game, I guess) and it's not compelling enough for me to do that. I might do a few more missions to give it a chance but at 5 hours in...I dunno.

My original Game Boy died last year, and more recently my GBA SP’s backlight has gone, so I’ve been in the market for some kind of replacement. In May I eventually ordered the new BittBoy Pocket Go with £28 of low-risk birthday money, and it’s arrived. It’s a similar form factor to the original GBA, though I think a little smaller, and that might be a problem with anyone that doesn’t have tiny hands like mine. It has a great screen that’s a little smaller than the GBA SP screen but looks absolutely fantastic, and came with an 8GB micro SD card. The battery seems pretty good so far too.

Now, the plan was to have a very focussed set of the GB, GBC and GBA games I already own on there because it’s a favourite set of consoles, I’ve cherished my collection for them, and never stopped adding to it. But to my surprise, this thing had a ton of games pre-loaded for those, plus NES, SNES, Lynx and loads more emulators included, all the way up to PS1 and MAME.

I had no idea there was any more on this than three Game Boy variant emulators and a NES one, which I really wasn’t fussed about, But I have to say, for the money I spent it’s impressive! Anyway, I’ve had a great time playing my old GB and GBA faves again, couldn’t resist a go on my old flame California Games for the Lynx, and I’m sure I’ll have fun trying out some of the other features too.

Apart from games for the podcast, I've been chipping away at Kickle Cubicle on the NES. What a lovely, addictive little game that is. Yesterday I played through one and a half worlds, passing the controller around with a friend. His words: "This should be covered on Cane and Rinse stat."

I bit the bullet and decided to pick up Red Dead Redemption 2.

After the longest game install in history I had a couple of hours on it last, and boy does that game start incredibly slowly. I'm hoping once the world opens up and I can do more of my own thing the pacing gets a little better.

Motherf....

I've been there!

Are you having trouble differentiating between those two production block types? Very sorry if so, I completely forgot about those... I even booted it up yesterday to check all the player-generated ones.

EDIT: I feel like complete garbage now...

No, it's cool. I was able to resolve this straight away by just building in 3 delay blocks instead of conveyors to slow down the first row. I had accidentally built in some extra conveyors between visualisation and result so was a bit dismayed.

And those two colours won't be any issue. It's more shades of the same type that are a problem.

Chopper wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 3:08 pm I was able to resolve this straight away by just building in 3 delay blocks instead of conveyors to slow down the first row. I had accidentally built in some extra conveyors between visualisation and result so was a bit dismayed.

Nice! And yeah, it's veeery easy to overlook one little thing that sabotages the whole construction, isn't it?

Chopper wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 3:08 pm And those two colours won't be any issue. It's more shades of the same type that are a problem.

Oh, thank Gaia. I was seriously thinking the game had been ruined for you despite my reassurance of the contrary yesterday. Longest 10 minutes of my life right there.

Michiel, I have never heard of this Kickle Cubicle game!

@KSub: Don't worry about it! Colour blindness is often exaggerated anyway

Enjoying the game so far, though I'm finding it very hard to visualise what any block will do ahead of time - it's a lot of trial and error for me.

Chopper wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 3:38 pm I'm finding it very hard to visualise what any block will do ahead of time - it's a lot of trial and error for me.

Yeah, it's a lot of trial and error for most players at first, I would imagine. Just in case you haven't noticed: the game has a very useful fast-forward function every time the machine is active.

Chopper wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 3:08 pm

And those two colours won't be any issue. It's more shades of the same type that are a problem.

Me too. It’s a tricky concept for people to understand. Any 8 player game will invariably have shades and then I’m stumped. I tend to choose yellow as developers seem to single it out as the only colour which comes with one shade!

ratsoalbion wrote: ↑June 21st, 2019, 3:35 pm Michiel, I have never heard of this Kickle Cubicle game!

It's a port of an Irem arcade game, no less! I remember the screenshots of the NES game looking very appealing and always meant to buy it, but only got around to it this year.

I have been playing Wipeout Omega Collection! I'm not a fan of racing games as a rule, but I've always loved the wipeout games to the extent I will put the time into them to get good at them. They play really well, great music, spectacular visuals, I just love them. If I may criticise omega collection though, I think the UI and menu's aren't great, just a lot of samey looking grids.