Video Games

Agree with both sentiments. Black Flag is also one I'd recommend to somebody as a decent entry point if they'd never played AC before, because it's just one of the best pirate games ever and the introduction to the AC backstory is gradual.

@Festerban if I had to rate the major games between the abysmal III and Origins...

Black Flag: excellent
Rogue: Meh retread of Black Flag and only interesting if you want the Templar perspective
Unity: Looks great but a bit of a wasted opportunity. Gameplay actually a regression compared to previous games. Less meh if you have decent French but easily one you can miss
Syndicate: triumphant return to form and a good way for the old-style to bow out. Genuine innovations in the gameplay, gangs done much better than in the few previous games where you could recruit allies. Can be played like a steampunk version of GTA. Shame that you occasionally see a Penny Farthing but don't get to ride one.

Syndicate is where you could go to Croydon right?

Cheers for the ratings

Syndicate starts in Croydon but then doesn’t return. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Agree with above that Unity was a wasted opportunity. Was a very good setting and look but felt clunky for me.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of it.

Arguments in favour of Syndicate:

1. The grappling hook
   
2. You get to hijack a carriage, stand on the roof while it's moving and shoot people
   
3. Fighing in a brawl alongside (and in defense of) Karl Marx
   
4. The weapons and skill tree systems are a solid precursor to gameplay in Origins, so it eases the transition
   
5. The grappling hook
   

I don’t remember any of those things so might need to play it again.

AC might get you to Croydon but I'm eagerly awaiting a refined release of GTA Streatham Hill Stories.

I don’t remember any of those things

Did you accidentally play Unity twice?

Picked up Rez Infinite for the Quest 2, so damn good.

Though it also does a good job of making most of the other games available on it (perhaps barring SuperHot) look pretty dull in comparison.

Any recommendations for Switch games? Preferably stuff that is easy to pick up and put down.

Obra Dinn on sale on Steam. Worth a punt for a time-strapped dad or are the rave reviews just journo "games are art!!" wank-fodder?

N++ is perfect for pick up & play sessions IMO.

Spelunky is a pretty quick run roguelite that's not too addictive.

Spyro/Crash Bandicoot/THPS remasters are good for this if you're looking for more of a nostalgia hit.

Hotshot Racing if you want some old school arcade racing.

Avoid Stardew Valley at all costs. You'll suddenly find that hours have passed you care way too much about the amount of virtual parsnips you'll be able to harvest by the end of the season.

I very much enjoyed it, it's basically murder sudoku.

Monster Hunter Rise is my current train journey game

Or Hades for another quick play roguelite

Shmups! Mushihemisama, Espgaluda or crimson clover is a good start.

Finally got round to finishing off Bioshock tonight after I just randomly stopped midway through ages ago. Was a bit confusing picking it back up and trying to remember the story and overall objective but ended up getting really back into it and enjoying it. I was definitely too conservative with my ammo, money and health packs throughout the whole thing though. Kept expecting supply to cut off at some point so was really careful with it then ended up with pretty much full ammo on all weapons and a full account.

It's very good but some people will always hate it. It's a mystery/murder game with a strong undertone of Edgar Allan Poe (I could name other creepy writers but that might a spoiler), which isn't everybody's thing. The graphics and the tone are very stylised (and largely static and entirely monochrome), which a larger number of people won't like. There's pretty much no documentation/manual/guide, so you have to work out the game mechanics as you go. It helps if you have a good memory and/or good visualisation/spatial- awareness skills, otherwise I suppose you'd need to take a lot of notes.

If most of those are the kind of things you like, you should enjoy it a lot. For others it's going to be irritating as fuck. It's not a game that makes concessions; it has a singular vision and pushes it relentlessly.

Into the Breach. Great little turn based strategy roguelite type thing, and really good for pick up/put down, even mid scenario.

So, the steam deck is very good. Cue some disappointment when I discovered not all games support cloud save (was hoping to alternate playing Dark Souls 3 between the deck and my desktop pc, but will just have to keep it to the deck and dock it to play in desktop mode).

Picked up Session as a good chill game, and if you enjoy skating games it's very good. I have around 50 hours in skater xl with about half of that being with mods, but with less than 10hrs in session I'd relatively confidently say it's better already. Definitely recommend, and has a lot of the features you have to mod into skater xl just out of the box.

Yeah, the remembering things between sessions is gonna be an issue. Subnautica is a great game but I need to make triple the beacons I think others have to as I can go weeks between sessions. Its a couple quid so I'll take the punt, cheers (and @mmccarthy too)!

Cheers for the Switch suggestions. I had started looking through what was on sale but the huge amount of cheapo stuff on the store made it a bit tricky to actually pick stuff out.

Do prices change a lot? I wishlisted quite a bit of stuff in the hope that the price would come down but I don't know how much that happens.

https://www.dekudeals.com/ is your best bet IMO. You can set up wishlists there and get notified of price drops. You can also see the price history of games for the last few months, so if something regularly goes on deep discount every 6 weeks you can see the patterns and hold out.

However, if it's first-party Nintendo games you're after, I wouldn't be holding out too much for big sales discounts.

Inside is on the switch, usually cheap and excellent.

After I’m done with Zelda (or want a break), Undertake is next, apparently that’s highly recommended.

Cheers, that site looks very useful.

Katamari reroll!
Still such a fun game, if you played the original or not.

I just got a switch so have mostly been playing Zelda, but after that gonna check out the THPS remake, the latest in the boxboy series, and probably that jet set radio homage.