Yesterday I Bought (a bad pun) for 3!

Oooh, that sounds good! Been playing a lot of Catan with my pals recently, and that sounds like the perfect anti-Catan.

It's a heavy game. Run-time is about 1.5 - 2.5 hours (when you know what you're doing), there's a lot of processes you have to do in order. Everyone starts on their own section of the island (and the island size scales with player count), and all the spirits are asymmetric - which is super cool. The game is very replayable. However, it can be a challenge to work out what you should do on top of then coordinating with other people. This is compounded by the fact that each player takes their turn simultaneously. (which I ultimately think is a good thing but it makes the learning curve higher).

Happily, the solo mode is really good and there are lots of tutorials online. Its got a fantastic instructions manual too - which even says that it doesn't matter too much if you miss play some rules or do the order wrong, not like that stupid Batman game you had! (That said, one of the loss conditions is the island being blighted too much by invaders and my girlfriend accidentally kept setting the game up so that our island was always at half health )

As a game it is far more complex than Catan, so if you ever were to get it I would recommend learning it yourself first. It's also pretty expensive. But, if you still have access to my Steam share you can download tabletop simulator and there's a mod for it. The rules are online so you could try before you buy. (I don't like playing it on there though).

The game does have 10 difficulty settings, scenarios, adversaries - the base game comes with the British and Swedish which can modify the difficulty. But we've only played on the default difficulty setting without any customised invaders yet.

It doesn't take up much shelf space - there's a lot of clever design that's gone into the inside of the box, so everything's pretty compact but heavy. It does however take up a fair amount of table space. Each player has their own board for their spirit, which has a couple of tracks which you take tokens off as you develop your spirit. The invaders have their own board, and then there is the island in the centre of the table plus all the tokens. Amazing artwork though.

If your group have not played many board games, Pandemic is probably the best entry level co-op game. Much simpler (but with many difficulty settings), cheaper, and each player has a unique class. The thing I dislike about Pandemic is that because each player has their own turn, it becomes much easier for someone to dictate what everyone else should do. It becomes a puzzle that one person can solve. In Spirit Island, because you are all focused on your own spirit first - and the turns happen simultaneously, a - what can i do to help - rather than a - you should do this - environment is more naturally emergent.

Can't say much about the board games, unfortunately. I'm far too competitive so playing a board game just ends up making my heart beat too fast for too long, even as I pretend not to care too much.

Muss wrote:

Not me, but my girlfriend bought our first Pokemon Plushie: Sobble. I enjoy trying to make it stand up, before it slowly but surely falls over, looking comically unimpressed throughout.

Video/.gif please?

Aye. That's a sealed copy of Wii Play, at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localised entirely within the Oxfam in Troon.

Also, Animal Crossing: Wild World. I thought it was called Animal Crossing: Wide World for months after it came out, which I thought was a much better name.

Isn't wii play meant to come with a wii remote? So that might be a reseal job unless they just didn't have the box the controller came in.

I'd guess it's quite likely someone bought it originally just for the wiimote, then never bothered playing the game

It would have come sealed in the box with the Wiimote but that hasn't got the Nintendo strip on it, which makes me think reseal.

Anyway, I got these tow Wii U games for £6 and the Xbox One controller for £40 which is the one I'll use with my tablet for XCloud and on PC along with Player 2 be it on the One X or Series X next year.



Then yesterday this came, meaning I only have 7 games to go for a PAL set

Double post

Got these retro bits and pieces


Then



Played Destiny 2 till 1am this morning worked brilliantly

How does the controller hold up to other consoles around today?

It's a odd beast as button placement is same as Xbox but it feels like the WiiU or Switch Pro controller that I keep pressing the face buttons the Nintendo way around not Xbox, even though playing mainly Xbox.

Overall pretty nice and feels well made plus I prefer the Dual Shock 4 over the Xbox One controller that with have sticks in Dual Shock place, it's some weird missmash of what I like about all three pads from the consoles.

It definitely looks like the Pro Controller, so I can see where the confusion would come from!

This was my gaming lot over the festive break.



A Hat in Time was supposed to be my Christmas game to myself, but I've only played it for about forty-five minutes. Captain Toad wasn't something I was particularly wanting, but it was discounted at Currys, and it came with a Spotify Premium code and a five quid voucher. Harvest Moon was a case of 'bugger it, why not', and the other two were me spending a £25 vocuher that was starting to fade.

On eShop, I downloaded Sayonara Wild Hearts, Ori and the Blind Forest, Donut County and all those QubicGames advent calender freebies.

A Pokémon game for less than 30 quid seems like a decent deal - those games do not drop in price, even moreso than most of Nintendo's line-up.

I'm on that top-right game at this moment! It's pretty cheerful.

That's bloody good for an Alpha Sapphire, Jay's not talking shit.

A really good line up of eShop games there Cappa, look forward to what you think about them.

Anyway, a few things that I picked up

I missed this in the post this morning as clearly 8 books won't go through the letterbox


What did go through the letterbox though was


And I also got Black and Indiana Jones on OG Xbox with both being backwards compatible

Then this should come tomorrow (European version of course)


PQ goes for about £35 used, that I was surprised when I got a £10 voucher from NIS to use via the online store on a bunch of select games to find it was in-stock for £38, meaning I paid £28 new for it.  The rest of the selection of games were only PS4 or Switch, as I would have bought other 3DS or VITA games if they had some within the deal.

Talking of VITA


I'm clearly a trendsetter with Hatsune Miku

masofdas wrote:

What did go through the letterbox though was

Get it played! etc.

I've decided I'll hold off on my Switch purchase until I've polished off a few Wii games that passed me by. Not only is it cheaper but I feel like there's unfinished business with titles like Xenoblade Chronicles (which I put 40 hours into but never finished) and Metroid Prime 3, which I really want to see more of. One of the few Wii games I've never touched, played or even read reviews for, is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I know there are some mixed feelings towards the title, given its motion controls and traditional Zelda structure, which in 2011, was starting to feel archaic. Reviews heap praise on it though, and it's at an all-time low of £12 in CEX so I picked it up (although it is missing the soundtrack CD ). Got through the tutorial bit and saved it, promptly turned it off. Not because it's bad, but because I wanted to put a day aside to get fully immersed. The look, the music - it's giving me that whimsical nostalgia that puts a big fat smile on my face. And I put it on at 10pm, which was a stupid time to start a game!

Cannae wait to get stuck in, and should tide me over for the next few months.

I absolutlely adore Skyward Sword, so I hope it holds up for you.

Skyward Sword is excellent.

The traditional Zelda structure was fine! I won't say what wasn't for now because I want you to enjoy it unencumbered - keen to read your thoughts.

Persona Q has finally come, and from the talk about 3DS games got Fire Emblem for £15.

Best 3DS Fire Emblem right there! Hope you enjoy it.

Am so far, anyway my Argos games have come costing £20

Ah yes, Yo-Kai Watch. I thought fondly of that at the time. In retrospect, it had a lot of flaws...