Video Games

Anyone selling a 1080gtx level GPU, give me a shout.

Fired up BotW for the first time in about 2 years there (nice to play something other than Minecraft or Lego games with my daughter!), and I forgot just how good a game it is. Probably the only game that even comes close to displacing MGS3 off my top spot.

But, how the hell can they get away with only having 1 save slot? Thankfully it's one save for regular mode and one for master, but still. Seems like a pretty ridiculous design choice.

Do you mean save slots for different play throughs?

I've been playing with my son and having a lot of fun lately. I tried myself when I was given the switch a few years ago but couldn't get past vah ruta. Have now got almost 100% with a few notable exceptions - currently on master sword middle trial... holy shit

Yeah, I wanted to start through it from scratch with her, had to overwrite my old regular save file. Didn't mind as I really enjoy master mode so never play the normal one anyway. Seemed like an odd design choice in a Zelda game (then again, if BotW is known for anything, it's throwing series tradition out the window I guess).

Apparently you can make use of different Switch profiles as each will have its own save slots. Maybe one to look into another time!

The devine beasts battles were an unexpected difficulty ramp for sure the first time I played through. I rmember taking a few nights to get through that first one!

Those master sword trials were damn tricky, so satisifying to complete though! Have you got the Champions Ballad DLC? The Maz Koshia battle had me tearing my hair out if I recall correctly!

Oddly the maz koshia one was fine for me - I think I died once (normal mode) but it just reverts you back to the platform with fresh health for you and depleted health for him. And by that time I'd got the + versions of the champion powers so cooldowns on abilities like the lightning storm thing were just a minute or so of training him around. Never used the master cycle I got as a reward! Got the royal horse /ancient armour so can summon it anywhere. Would recommend.

Oddly the maz koshia one was fine for me - I think I died once (normal mode)

Ah, I'd not done it in normal as I'd started my master mode playthrough when I picked up the DLC. Can confirm it's fecking difficult, that and the Trial of the Sword on master mode were a huge difficulty spike vs the rest of the game. Still very enjoyable though. And yeah, the bike is a bit useless. Not even particularly fun to use (unlike the sheild surfing)

unlike the sheild surfing

Which I only discovered literally this week after several months of play when I had a straggler korok to deal with.

Yeah I only found it once I got to the Hebra region where there's a shield surfing race. Definitely feels like a missed trick to not introduce it to you earlier. Especially given the start of the game has you climb down from a tall snowy mountain with no paraglider. Lot more fun this time round surfing down in as opposed to trudging back like I did first time around!

you mean you don't get around everywhere by crawling over the least passable cliffsides at a snails pace in the rain? couldn't be me.

Yep, not looking forward to the Zora area here where it's constantly raining and I've only got one or two additional stamina boosts. Tedious times ahead!

Returnal
Kicking my arse more than I expected.
Haven't even found a boss, the thing I thought was, wasn't.

just brought a fightstick off ebay as I've been consuming videos of the streetfighter 6 closed beta and have visions of me comboing everyone into oblivion, and getting stuck into learning the intricacies of all the characters not named ken/ryu/chun-li/blanka/guile.

note to self, this may take a while as I haven't played a fighting game seriously in over a decade.
another note to self, don't start looking at upgrade mods, until I've actually used it.

depending on what stick you've bought getting a set of sanwa or seimitsu buttons is a massive upgrade from lower quality stock buttons and not expensive (I realise I am encouraging you to do the opposite of what you said). Also watch TheoryFighter. He's a friend of mine but without that bias he does great fighting game youtube videos.

Nice, which one did you order?

I'm fully on the hitbox train now, loving having buttons for movement.

Got a secondhand mayflash f500, and I need to get a usb Bluetooth dongle to use it with my PlayStation.
@zooeyzooey was looking at stick and button upgrades but will wait a bit. Will give your friends YouTube channel a look. Was watching street fighter videos on this one.
https://youtu.be/akjps0VKCwk

Geezer’s voice is a bit annoying at times but he seems dialled in on how skills and combos flow together

Got a secondhand mayflash f500, and I need to get a usb Bluetooth dongle to use it with my PlayStation.

Nice, I have a f300 with Sanwa quiet buttons and a Golden Lever. Does it not have a cable too? For upgrades the first thing I'd look at is the gate on the stick, I prefer an octagonal one to the stock square one.
https://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/Sanwa-GT-Y-Octagonal-Gate.html
Or ideally a stick without a gate at all but that's a bigger upgrade.

Quite enjoyed Day Gone, felt like a combination of Mad Max, Red Dead and Horizon Zero Dawn altogether.

Marvel Snap on the mobile.

A card deck building game. Love slay the spire, now enjoying this.

The Guardian likes it

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/nov/11/marvel-snap-review-superhero-showdown-card-game-is-utterly-compulsive?ref=upstract.com

Looks like a great stick to start with, and yeah, upgrades can for sure wait a while. They mention button swaps in the description so they might have the wires clipped onto the buttons instead of soldering which means it just becomes lego.

I haven't paid much attention to SF6 but might play it when it comes out. I like learning new games. It's usually the post learning grind where I stop playing, and then just go back to playing SF2 Super Turbo on fightcade every now and again, to get told I'm bad by french people.

I’ve still got a Madcatz Fightstick TE from 10+yrs ago when SF4 was new… looks like I can use it with a Series X.
SF6 looking v tempting

I’m old enough to remember street fighter two arcade cabinets with just two big buttons that you had got calluses on your palms from trying to use.
Hoping I have more success with this fight stick than those controls.
I’ve got street fighter five on my PlayStation so will give it a go with that, and maybe soulcalibur as well.

Anyone played this? Thinking about giving it a go as have been looking for old school adventure after playing thimbleweed park.

Not Monkey Island related, but on the Thimbleweed Park note, it might be worth checking out the Darkside Detective games. They're not as long (made up of a few short "cases"), but good fun with a lot of tongue in cheek references to Twin Peaks/X-Files etc.

The old xbox version? I've got one too that I just use as a PC stick because I didn't think it would work on the Series.