#oneaday Day 308: The apparent need to hate

It's been interesting to see the public response to Blue Prince since it came out yesterday. A bunch of folks on Steam, the absolute worst place to talk about video games, seem oddly resistant to the idea that it might actually be quite good.

(For the record, I'll note that for now, after about 6 hours of play, I'm definitely enjoying Blue Prince, but I'm not yet convinced of all the "Game of the Year!" accolades it's already getting. I am open to it convincing me, however.)

Earlier, I saw someone praising a negative review by saying "finally, an honest review", and others noting that the "positive reviews are suspicious", despite the vast majority of them being articulate and knowledgeable about the game and its appeal elements. In the Discussions tab, which is where hope really goes to die, there are some folks getting legitimately angry that some people are enjoying the game more than they do.

I'm not entirely sure why this is occurring, either. Blue Prince is not, to my knowledge, a particularly — and you'll pardon me for using this obnoxious word — "woke" game in that it doesn't force Gamers™ to acknowledge the existence of black, female, homosexual or transgender people. (If it does later, it certainly doesn't within its first 6 hours of play. This is not a criticism — more a side-effect of the way the game is designed and structured, since you are alone while you play, and the other characters appear in photographs, notes, journal entries and suchlike.)

I mention this because the attitude I'm seeing from some people is normally reserved for the "anti-woke" crowd when they want to tear a game down for challenging their narrow-minded perceptions of the world. But… there's seemingly nothing like that in here, which makes the sheer passion with which some people seem to hate this game on principle all the more confusing.

Now I will admit that Blue Prince is probably not a game for everyone. It is slow-paced, thoughtful and contemplative. There's nothing that one would call "action". It requires that you learn its rules through play rather than having your hand held through tutorials. And it is a game where, despite there being no real "skill" involved from a hand-eye co-ordination perspective, you will still fail a lot before you roll credits on it — and where you will doubtless fail even more after those credits have rolled and there is more to discover.

I get that. When I encounter a game like that, my response is to go "Eh, okay, I see why some people like that but it's not for me." Then I turn it off, uninstall it, whatever, and I don't play it again. I might return to it when some time has passed — there are several games I've come to appreciate many years after I bounced off them when I first encountered them — but, in most cases, I won't be mad at the game. I think the maddest I've got at a game was with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, because I found the single-player campaign in that singularly insulting to my intelligence, but even then I just… did what I outlined above. I uninstalled it, then I didn't play it again. Job done.

The funny thing about the people getting absolutely frothing mad about Blue Prince right now is that in most cases, they are revealing themselves to have not understood what the game is doing. Blue Prince is deliberately obtuse in some ways, yes, but I am particularly stupid when it comes to things like this and I got the general vibe of what's expected of me pretty quickly. The people getting most upset by it are the ones who seemingly want a simple, straight line to the finish, to max out all the achievements and say they're "done" with it. Rather delightfully, Blue Prince is not at all forthcoming with achievements and trophies; it eschews the usual "started the game!" and "got a Game Over!" achievements in favour of a small collection of awards that demonstrate you've made meaningful progress. The fact that this is probably making some people mad is quite enjoyable.

Also whiny little babies pissing and moaning about "no ultrawide support" can get in the bin. Buy a normal person monitor, or play the game in 16:9. No-one gives a shit about your "no ultrawide, no buy" policy.

Anyway, Blue Prince has been a good time thus far. Like I say, so far I remain unconvinced of its "Game of the Year" status, but I'm willing to keep plugging away at it to see what I can discover, because there's enough here that I do like. And if I end up tiring of it? I won't be mad, and I won't feel like I've wasted my time. It's nice to be part of the current conversation for once and to experience something that has clearly resonated with a lot of people for one reason or another.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 307: Blueprints to my brain

After seeing the glowing praise it's been getting recently, I decided to give the new indie darling Blue Prince a go. I've been suspicious of sudden indie darlings ever since I absolutely detested my time with Jonathan Blow's Braid, but everything I was hearing about this one made it sound thoroughly interesting. As such, I was more than happy to forego my usual suspicion and give it a go.

For the unfamiliar, Blue Prince positions you in the role of an heir to a rather curious mansion. Said mansion supposedly has 45 rooms… except it doesn't, and there's actually a super-secret hidden 46th room somewhere. Your dead uncle has challenged you from beyond the grave to find said 46th room. Succeed, and you inherit all his stuff; fail, and you're doomed to perpetual roguelike hell.

Yes, Blue Prince is a roguelike of sorts in that it's based around repeated runs of the same thing with a heavily randomised element. But it's not a combat-based game, nor a role-playing game; instead, its focus is purely on exploration. While the roguelike descriptor is apt, Blue Prince is perhaps better thought of as being akin to tabletop games such as Betrayal at House on the Hill.

The way it works is like this: each in-game day, you begin a new run with 50 "steps" of stamina available to you. Each time you cross the threshold from one room to another, whether you're making progress or backtracking, you use up a step. Your initial aim is to make it from the entrance hall in "rank 1" of the mansion to the antechamber in "rank 9"; things get a little more complex later, but I haven't got that far yet, so I can't talk about that side of things with any great authority as yet.

Each time you open a door in the mansion, you pull three room "cards" from the deck you have available and can pick one to draft. This room then attaches to the door you just opened, and you gradually build out the mansion map from there. Rooms are automatically oriented based on the direction the door you opened is facing, and in this way you can plan out your route to a certain extent; as time goes on, you'll familiarise yourself with the "deck" of room cards and know which ones work better where. For example, you might want to find a means of safely ditching "dead end" rooms as soon as possible so they don't come up later in your run, but various rooms have special effects (both positive and negative), too, so you'll need to bear those in mind.

As you progress through the mansion, you'll acquire various resources. Keys are used to open locked doors. Gems are used to draft certain particularly powerful or helpful rooms. Coins are used to purchase items in special "shop" rooms. Dice allow you to redraw three room cards if none of the ones you initially drew tickle your fancy. And then there are a variety of items that show up along the way, too; for example, the metal detector makes it easier for you to locate keys and coins, while the shovel allows you to dig in patches of dirt to find additional resources and items.

You'll run into puzzles of various types in the mansion. These appear to take two basic forms: firstly, there are self-contained puzzles that always show up in specific rooms, and these usually reward you with resources or items if you solve them correctly. Secondly, there's the overall meta-progression puzzles, which involve you figuring out the somewhat convoluted means through which you can actually move forward and, once you reach it, get into the Antechamber.

Blue Prince does have a few things that carry over from run to run, but the main thing is knowledge. Information you learn in one run can be used in the next; there's no not being able to do something because your character hasn't seen a particular piece of info in this particular run. As such, it pays to take notes and/or screenshots as you play, because as you discover new pieces of information, you'll eventually find a use for it. It might not be right away, but you'll get there in the end.

The game also isn't completely randomised. As previously noted, you can learn the deck so you can have a good idea of what rooms you should burn early on in order to draw more helpful ones as you get deeper into the mansion. Certain rooms will only show up in certain positions on the map, or display particular scenery elements if positioned in the right place. A "coat check" room allows you to stash an item in one run and pick it up in the next; under normal circumstances, you lose everything at the start of each new day, aside from the knowledge you, the player, have accumulated.

I've played for about three or four hours tonight and I'm starting to get a feel for it. It's a really interesting game. Some folks claim to have spent upwards of a hundred hours playing this and this intrigues me; the central gameplay mechanic is intriguing and enjoyable, but I am very much under the impression that "winning" the central challenge is just the beginning of what makes Blue Prince so interesting. Right now, everyone is being deliberately obtuse about things — partly at the developer's request, and partly just not to spoil it for everyone else — but I am definitely intrigued to see where things go.

My only concern is that I fear I may be too stupid to figure this game out by myself. But that's what talking about it with friends online is for, right?

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#oneaday Day 300: Paying the tax

I make no apologies for admitting that I preordered a Switch 2 today, even after everything I said yesterday. I thought about it a bit, and I basically came to the conclusion that I was almost certainly going to get one regardless of how much I complained about certain elements of it — and that in doing so I may well be Part of the Problem — and so I might as well just get it out of the way and do it.

So I did. Someone I know happened to spot that Argos had preorders go live today, so I snagged one. I went for the one with Mario Kart World pre-installed, so I basically get that game for £30 instead of £75. Not having a physical copy sucks a bit, but at the same time, Mario Kart World is one of those games that is going to get lots of updates and DLC, making a physical version arguably useless in the long term. That's a thing that happens these days, and that's not going away, so I may as well just enjoy the things while they are current, and I may well be dead by the time it's no longer possible to access the online elements. (Not that I'm planning on being dead any time soon, but you know what I mean.)

There's enough about Switch 2 that I like to make it worthwhile. The "Switch 2 Versions" of original Switch games are compelling, for one; I haven't yet played The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and now it will be nice to be able to do so at higher resolutions and frame rates. I'm by no means a frame rate and resolution snob — I was eminently satisfied with how Breath of the Wild looked and performed — but if the option is there to make it better officially without getting into hacking, modding and piracy territory, I'm all for it.

There's also some of the multi-format "big" games that are quite appealing. I might finally play Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2, for example, or Hitman: World of Assassination. The nice thing about Switch 2 versions of these coming so late is that they should be "complete" versions with all their additional DLC, updates and what have you baked into the Switch 2 version from day one. And hopefully with a physical release.

One thing I'm not super enamoured with is this "game key card" business. If you haven't seen it yet, it's the replacement for the "code in a box" system, whereby you could buy a Switch case that contained nothing more than a download code. This new version actually has a Switch cart in it, but the cart doesn't have the game on it; instead, it lets you download the game and play it while the cart is in. I initially thought this was utterly stupid, but if you read the fine print on the Japanese website (which a pal graciously translated for me earlier) it became clear that this is not the same as redeeming a game on your account from a code; it is transferable, so you can lend it to others, take it round to a friend's house, all that sort of thing. It's still a bit of a weird way of doing things, but I don't hate it as much as code-in-a-box.

(And look, I get why code-in-a-box is a thing; it lets people buy digital games as gifts and give the person something physical to open on their special occasion. But it's still a pisser to find what you think is a physical release of a game only to discover it's… not that.)

I can sort of understand why the game key card thing is being used for stuff like Street Fighter 6, which is a game that gets updated regularly with balance patches, DLC and suchlike, and which has a massive filesize. I'm a bit pissed the Bravely Default remaster is using this system, though; there's no way that game wouldn't fit on a low-capacity cartridge. But oh well.

Like I say, though, there's enough about Switch 2 that I do like to make it, I think, worthwhile. It will be interesting and fun to use the social features if (and that's a big if right now, particularly with the chaos ensuing from Trump's dumbshit tariffs in the States) my friends happen to pick a Switch 2 up; it would be nice to get some sort of regular "game night" going, and the built-in chat features could even be a decent means of recording a podcast or streaming something in collaboration with another person.

Plus Mario Kart World does look good. I'm still not convinced it's £75 good, but I'm sure I can get £30 value out of it.

It's certainly going to be interesting to spend some time with Switch 2 when it arrives in a couple of months. I'm looking forward to it. Yes, I'd love it to be cheaper. Yes, I'd love it if we had a 100% guarantee that original Switch games will work on it (which we don't, yet, but they are supposedly working on it.) Yes, I wish I didn't have to buy a new format of memory card for it.

But I also understand why all these things are the case, and moaning and complaining about them almost certainly isn't going to change anything about them this close to release. So I may as well suck it up, pay the money and enjoy the thing I knew I was always going to enjoy anyway. And so that's exactly what I'm doing!

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#oneaday Day 299: Switch 2 Tax

It was the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal today. And while there's a lot to like about the system — 1080p and up to 120fps handheld, 4K docked, HDR, nifty online socialisation functions, upgrades to certain Switch games that include both a performance boost and new stuff for the games — one thing is giving me a lot of pause that I wasn't feeling before the announcement.

And that one thing is the price of games. As someone who collects physical video games, I naturally will want to continue doing that for any new console hardware I pick up. But the new Mario Kart is seventy-five fucking pounds for a physical version, and the new Donkey Kong game is sixty-six quid.

Donkey Kong is just on the borderline of what I'll consider paying if the game is legitimately good (and it's a real borderline case here as I don't really like Donkey Kong as a character), but more than £70 for a game that will almost certainly also have paid DLC is well over that line for me. I'm sure Mario Kart World, as the new game is called, will be very good, and I'm quite curious to play it — but £75 to have a copy on my shelf (and not much less than that for a digital-only version) feels… excessive. And I'm someone who voluntarily pays £35 to limited-print companies for £10 indie games just so I can have them on my shelf.

This feels like a mistake for Nintendo. It feels like it might put all the goodwill they built up with the Switch at serious risk of unravelling. I'm sure they will justify it by saying the new cartridges are higher capacity, the tech is more advanced or whatever, but it still feels like… a lot.

Couple that with the fact that while the launch lineup looked neat, there wasn't a singular game that made me go "yes, give it to me, I need this right now". We had a bunch of very welcome ports of stuff like Hitman: World of Assassination, Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (though no mention of Rebirth, interestingly) and numerous others, a Bravely Default remaster that I've been hoping we'd see for quite some time, the aforementioned new Mario Kart and Donkey Kong games, and a few other bits and pieces that were perfectly nice enough, but not really "system sellers" for me.

Not yet, anyway. I have no doubt I'll probably end up with a Switch 2 eventually. But today's announcement makes me feel like I probably don't need one at launch. Probably. Probably.

There's a few days until preorders open. I will have to mull it over quite seriously. Quite seriously indeed. In the meantime, though, it's not as if I'm short of regular-ass Switch games to play, including a selection of pretty chunky RPGs I still haven't gotten to.

So we'll wait and see, I guess. It was a good presentation, and there's a lot to like about Switch 2. But I feel like a lot of people who were all set to preorder day one are now having very serious thoughts about the situation, just like I am. I feel like this should have been an easy win for Nintendo, but as it stands, they could potentially have a problem here.

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#oneaday Day 297: Transgender Day of Visibility - Video Game Edition

It is, apparently, Transgender Day of Visibility. My Bluesky feed has been festooned with cyan, pink and white banners all day, so the "visibility" part is definitely doing all right — but, of course, there is still a lot of work to do in terms of trans acceptance, particularly with the steps backwards in tolerance and inclusiveness that the United States administration appears determined to go through with right now.

So with that in mind, I hope no-one will find this patronising or anything, but I thought I'd highlight some trans game developers I've become familiar with over the years and point you in the direction of some of their works. I'm not going to go too deep into their respective histories, because 1) those histories are pretty well documented elsewhere online, where they have been considered to be anybody's business, and 2) if they aren't, it's not really anyone's business. So today we will mostly be focusing on their accomplishments.

Danielle Bunten Berry

Perhaps the most famous name on this admittedly fairly short and hastily assembled list, Dani Bunten Berry was responsible for some of the most ambitious, audacious games of the early 8-bit microcomputer era.

Her most famous work is probably M.U.L.E., an economic simulation that began life on Atari 8-bit and was subsequently ported to a variety of other home computer and console systems. There have also been several attempts to bring M.U.L.E. to the tabletop to varying degrees of success, but part of M.U.L.E.'s genius is that it can only really be done justice on a computer.

People are still playing M.U.L.E. in its original form today. People are playing hacked versions that allow online multiplayer. There have been several modern ports of the game. It's a widely beloved game with good reason — don't let that "economic simulation" descriptor put you off. It's easy to pick up and straightforward to play, and every game is a little bit different — particularly if you're fortunate enough to play it with other human players. A four-player game of M.U.L.E. is very different to a single-player game against three computer opponents.

That's not the only amazing game to her name, though. She also made Seven Cities of Gold, one of the first ever open-world sandbox games. Casting players in the role of Spanish explorers, the game tasks you with just… well, exploring. There was no set goal, no "right" or "wrong" way to play; just a set of mechanics for you to engage with, and the rest of your time with the game would be spent creating a unique emergent narrative all your own.

Dani Bunten Berry was sadly taken from us in 1998, but her legacy lives on, both through her classic games that are still being enjoyed to this day, and through the games that they inspired.

Cathryn Mataga

Perhaps not quite as well-known a name as Dani Bunten Berry, Cathryn Mataga has nonetheless given us some excellent games over the years, beginning with the 8-bit microcomputer titles Zeppelin and Shamus, and moving on to work on a variety of excellent role-playing games, including the original 1991 MMO version of Neverwinter Nights, and several Dungeons & Dragons games: Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Stronghold, and Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands. She also worked on Rampage 2: Universal Tour, but we won't hold that against her.

One of her most notable achievements was the Game Boy Color version of questionable "classic" laser disc game Dragon's Lair. Unlike the original Game Boy version, which was actually a reskinned Spectrum game port, the Game Boy Color version was more akin to the Atari ST and Amiga versions, which recreated the video sequences of the laser disc original with enormous, screen-filling sprites overlaid atop static backdrops. The result is a game that is still… well, it's still Dragon's Lair, but the technical achievement on a cart-based 8-bit handheld format is absolutely something else.

Rebecca Heineman

Rebecca Heineman is arguably best known as one of the first ever video game tournament champions, but she is also a talented, experienced and prolific developer and writer. After winning the Space Invaders tournament that gave her an initial taste of fame, she was offered writing and consultancy jobs, and as part of all this, still aged just 16, she happened to mention that she had, in her free time, successfully reverse-engineered game code for Atari 2600 games, as you do, allowing her to develop software for the machine without having to go through Atari. This early hacking experience got her a job at strategy game specialists Avalon Hill, where she made a game engine and base code for a variety of projects as well as a ton of documentation and a full game all of her own.

In subsequent years, she worked on a variety of projects, including the notorious Chuck Norris Superkicks for multiple platforms, but really hit the ground running when she co-founded Interplay alongside Brian Fargo, Jay Patel and Troy Worrell. At Interplay, she worked on a variety of projects as programmer, with probably the most high-profile among them being Wasteland and The Bard's Tale. She also designed The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate, Borrowed Time, Mindshadow and numerous others, before moving on to other projects.

She's still active in and around the industry today, and can often be found chatting on Bluesky. It's clear that the passion and enthusiasm for video games and development has never truly left her, and it's inspiring to see, to be sure.

Jennell Jaquays

I must confess, I didn't know this name before I looked at Rebecca Heineman's website, but after reading her story, I feel compelled to include her.

Jennell Jaquays, who was Rebecca Heineman's wife, is sadly no longer with us, as she passed on in January of last year. But her influence can be keenly felt in both the tabletop and video game spaces. Her early career included contributing to a variety of tabletop role-playing game publishers, with her Dungeons & Dragons modules Dark Tower and The Caverns of Thracia often held up as her most influential work. She is regarded as a pioneer of non-linear, flexible, multi-path scenario writing, as opposed to the more typical straightforward and linear scenarios that tended to be published at the time. Supposedly, the term "Jaquaysing" refers to creating scenarios with this sort of thing in mind — though this comes from an uncited reference on Wikipedia, so maybe take that with a pinch of salt.

In the video game space, she worked at Coleco, creating several of the excellent arcade game ports for that system, including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. She put together one of the first actual development studios for making video games — at the time, many games were solo efforts — and went on to contribute to Epyx, Interplay and Electronic Arts. She had a stint as a level designer at id Software in the late '90s, working on Quake II and Quake III Arena, and went on to develop a pioneering video game education programme, as well as some particularly effective advocacy for LGBTQ+ folks that lead to Barack Obama taking action on banning conversion therapy back in 2015.

There are a lot of wonderful people throughout video game history. These are just four that I consider well worth celebrating. Of course, every day should be about including and accepting people regardless of their age, race, gender identity, sexuality or any number of other characteristics — but it becomes more and more clear by the day that we still have a lot of work to do. That's why days like today are so important — now, perhaps, more than ever in recent memory.

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#oneaday Day 293: Nintendo Direct immediate reactions

There was a Nintendo Direct today, almost certainly the last one we'll ever see devoted to the original Nintendo Switch. So it seems fitting to go through the stuff that was announced and discussed and provide my own personal feelings about them.

Note: my own personal feelings. If you feel differently about any of these things, great! You have an opinion and a personality. You are not wrong for feeling differently to me, just as I am not wrong for feeling differently to you.

Standard procedure Internet of 2025 disclaimer over, let's get to it, shall we?

Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake

Brilliant news. I haven't bought III yet, let alone played it, but I'm thrilled we finally have a modern way to play early Dragon Quest games that isn't those fucking awful mobile phone ports with the horrible visuals. Here's hoping they give IV, V and VI similar treatment, because while I'm lucky enough to own the Nintendo DS versions, I certainly wouldn't complain at the opportunity to play them on the big screen.

To date, the only Dragon Quest I've played to completion is IV. I got right to the end of V, but was underpowered for the final boss and couldn't be arsed to grind, so I never got around to beating it. I loved it up until that point, though. Bianca was my waifu.

No Sleep for Kaname Date

HELL YES. I love Kotaro Uchikoshi's work, and the two AI: The Somnium Files games are absolute masterpieces. I'm thrilled that we're getting another one. If you're yet to play the first two, I highly recommend setting some time aside for them (they're both pretty chunky by adventure game standards) and playing them fully. Can't wait to get back into that world with those wonderful characters.

Raidou Remastered

I never played the Raidou Kuzonoha games back on PS2, and they're super-expensive to collect today. I remember several folks whose opinions I trust enthusing greatly about them 15-20 years ago though, so I'm excited that I'll finally have the opportunity to check one of these games out. And that Shoji Meguro soundtrack sounds great.

I know absolutely nothing about the game other than it's supposed to be a pretty good time, so I'll likely be going in fairly blind to this. But I will be going in!

Shadow Labyrinth

Pac-Man-themed exploratory platformer? Interesting, and I can see the potential there. The "dark and edgy" thing is a bit of a turnoff, to be honest, but if the game's decent I can live with it. Not something I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to play, but I will follow with interest.

Patapon 1+2 Replay

Yes! Never really played the PSP versions much beyond trying them out at a friends house a very long time ago, but I liked their vibe and their music. Plus me and my wife often tease our cat Patti by going "pon, pon, Patti-pon", so it will be nice to finally educate my wife on where that actually came from.

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

I've played a few Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon games in my time and quite enjoyed them, but my trouble is I've got it in my head that they sort of never end. I don't think that's actually true, and that my opinion is probably largely based on the number of people who have been playing Stardew Valley for approximately 300 years, but it's kind of put me off jumping into any of the more recent ones. I think the last one I played was the one on Gamecube?

Certainly not against this, but not rushing out of my way to pick it up, either.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Cool that it actually exists and seems to be a decent way along. I've still never played a Metroid Prime game, though, so my excitement for this is somewhat tempered compared to many other folks. I do like Metroid from my relatively limited contact with the series to date (mostly Super Metroid) — I just haven't made the time for other entries in the series so far.

Disney Villains Cursed Café

I quite like the concept of this, as the "make drinks for patrons who have their own stories to tell" thing has been done well previously by VA-11 HALL-A and Coffee Talk. I just wonder if the Disney Villains thing won't end up holding it back rather than making it interesting. After all, I suspect there's fairly strict writers' guidelines in place on what these characters are and are not allowed to "do" in narrative terms.

Witchbrook

Well this looks adorable! I have a lot of time for school-themed games, and throw in a bit of magic that isn't the work of a raging transphobe and you have a winner, so far as I'm concerned. Will it beat Mana Khemia? It'll probably be a rather different experience, but I'm very much up for this, particularly with its lush pixel art.

The Eternal Life of Goldman

I must confess, I couldn't remember what this was just from the title as I think I tuned it out a bit when I was watching the show (no shade on the game, I was working at the time) but looking back at it now, it looks kind of neat. The animation on the characters is lovely, but the backdrops look a bit drab. If this has a decent story or some more varied environments, I might give it a look.

Gradius Origins

Yes please. The other Konami collections are excellent, so I will be happy to add this one to the mix.

Rift of the Necrodancer

I like Crypt of the Necrodancer, but my first impression of this is that it loses a bit of its charm by being a more conventional rhythm game rather than a combination of rhythm game and RPG. The visuals are nice, though, and it looks like it plays well enough. I was a bit concerned about the number of times they mentioned DLC, though. Perhaps one to wait for a "Complete" physical release of.

Tamagotchi Plaza

Do not care. Never had a Tamagotchi, have no attachment to them whatsoever, and the dentistry bit looked like one of those spam mobile games. No thank you.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A

I've never been a big Pokémon fan, though I moderately enjoyed Sword/Shield a while back. Another one I'll keep a bit of an eye on, but probably won't rush out to buy.

Rhythm Paradise Groove

I feel the exact opposite about this as I do about Pokémon. A new Rhythm Paradise/Rhythm Heaven/whatever you call it in your neck of the woods is an insta-purchase for me after loving the DS and Wii versions.

Virtual Game Cards

Seems like a decent solution to sharing digital games. A little more cumbersome than it perhaps needs to be, but that's Nintendo for you. I do like that you can "lend" digital games to family members, though; I've been hoping for a way to do that so my wife can play the Atelier Arland series for a very long time.

SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered

I bounced off this hard on PS1 but I'm much more open to it these days. The art is kind of weird though; the heavily pixelated characters on the upscaled backdrops just look a bit odd. Not "ew, I'm never buying this" odd, just a bit odd. Which would be firmly in keeping with SaGa in general.

Monument Valley

Hooray! A mobile game breaking free of its mobile prison! I was always curious about this but had absolutely no desire to play it on a mobile device. Now I don't have to!

Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots

Yes please! Arcadey golf games are very much my jam, and while the Mario sports games are insistent on getting a bit too experimental with their more recent installments, this looks like it will be a good old-fashioned silly golf game. I am definitely there for this.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion

I have zero stakes in the Marvel race, but Tribute Games is always a good time. As someone else pointed out earlier, I hope they don't just get stuck doing licensed stuff until the end of time, though.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream

I had zero contact with (and, really, interest in) the original Tomodachi Life, but I know it's responsible for some funny moments. I also remember having some funny times with… what was it called, Miitomo? So I'll have a look and see what this is, but not one I'll be rushing out to buy or anything

Nintendo Today

Sure, Nintendo. Another app just for your news. I'm fine with this.

On the whole, I think it was a pretty good presentation! As some folks pointed out, this can be looked on as the Switch's last desperate gasp before Switch 2 shows up, and thus there's a lot of "niche interest" stuff here. But that's good! I like niche interest! I am the niche! So I say bring it on.

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#oneaday Day 291: If you like old games mags, here's a podcast you might like

The other day, I was contacted relatively out of the blue (no pun intended) on Bluesky by a chap called Ty Schalter, who wanted to let me know he and a fellow writer, journalist and author, Aidan Moher, were launching a new podcast, and would I mind giving it a bit of a nudge on socials.

Firstly, I was flattered that Ty thought I had anywhere near enough reach online to make a difference these days, but I indeed shared it anyway, and am, in fact, doing so again right now. Secondly, I was 100% on board with the concept for the podcast, which was to take a fond look back at classic games magazines. Here's the first episode for you to enjoy:

Now, as I stated in no uncertain terms just the other day, I am a big fan of old computer and video games magazines, and am always up for some discussion of them. These days, it's a bit tempting for everyone to look at the worst of their output, go "ugh, cringe" and leave it at that, but Schalter and Moher are doing the subject justice, judging by their first episode; they're acknowledging that while there are often faults we can pick from a 2025 perspective, these magazines were a vitally important part of gaming culture, particularly in the days before we had always-online Internet and, later, mobile phones.

What you've gotta remember is that in the '90s, if you had an Internet connection at all, it was a dial-up one that you had to ration your time with so as not to leave yourself with an astronomical phone and/or usage bill; earlier than that, the only online services out there were self-contained bulletin board systems. There was also a curious "in-betweeny" phase in the early '90s where services like AOL and CompuServe came to prominence; these offered global online services somewhat akin to the modern Internet, but in their own curated walled gardens. Later, both services provided access to the broader Web, but initially, they were their own little communities.

Why is this important? Because it meant that it was nowhere near as easy to talk about games with people as it is today. There was no magic black slab in your pocket that connected you to the rest of the world, and there was no guarantee that when you "logged on" with your computer that you'd find someone you wanted to talk to. There certainly wasn't the opportunity for carving out your own little space online as there is today, and absolutely no social media. (Maybe it wasn't all bad.)

This meant that magazines played a crucial role for video game enthusiasts: they were the main way that people who enjoyed games found out about new releases, the latest news and in-depth information about stuff that was already out. They were a point of common contact that, when we met up with our "real-life" friends (remember them?), we could use as the basis for a discussion. They were a connection to the outside world — and for many of us, a lifeline that made us feel much less alone in our passion for what is, most of the time, a fairly solitary pastime.

Schalter and Moher get this. They understand that for many of us, magazines were "the gaming community". We came to the mags not just for the games, but in many cases, for the personalities involved and the opinions we trusted. We'd obsess over a 250-word review of a 40-hour RPG, reading it repeatedly and drinking in the screenshots, wondering what it would be like to actually play the thing. We'd base our purchasing decisions on the arbitrary numbers the reviewers thought up, for better or worse. And we'd get to know the studios behind our favourite games through special features, interviews and preview reports.

Many of these things can be argued to still be present in today's games press, to be sure. But the daily churn of gaming news online makes it somehow less special than it was to get a monthly magazine. What game would be on the cover? What games would get in-depth features? What games were getting walkthroughs, tips and cheats? Would there be any cool cover-mounted gifts or bonus booklets included?

While it can be funny to look back and laugh (or cringe) at The People We Were 20-30+ Years Ago, it's important to take a look at the full picture for an understanding of why things were the way they were — and why so many people are still nostalgic for an era long past.

That's what the Fun Factor podcast seemingly aims to explore, and judging by the first episode — which features lengthy reminiscences about Final Fantasy VII that I'm sure will be familiar to anyone Of A Certain Age — it's going to be a good listen over the long term.

So go give that first episode a listen now, and if you're so inclined, support the podcast on its official website. You can also follow the pod, Ty and Aidan over on Bluesky.

I'm excited to see where the show goes from here, as it's a subject near and dear to my own heart. And if you have any fond nostalgia for that supposed "golden age" of magazines, I recommend checking it out, too. 'Cause heaven knows we could all do with some fun, happy stuff to enjoy right now, I'm sure.

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#oneaday Day 289: Some games magazines I used to like

I love old games magazines, and will frequently re-read them years after they were relevant. In fact, I'm currently in the process of assembling a collection to bung on an SD card and pop in my otherwise unused Kindle Fire 7 to use as a portable retro magazine library. I've also got a vague plan to make some more videos on classic magazines, as I really enjoyed making the first two on Page 6 magazine — you can watch those here (issue 1) and here (issue 2).

In the absence of anything else to write about — I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X for most of the weekend, and I already wrote about that earlier — I thought I'd give a rundown of some magazines I used to like, and which I may well take some time to cover on YouTube at some point.

Note: I say "magazines I used to like"; most of them are magazines I knew someone who worked on, usually my brother. I make no apologies for this.

Page 6/New Atari User

This is the one I bring up most commonly on my channel, and for good reason: three members of my family (my Dad, my brother and me) were involved in it at various points, and it's the magazine that launched the career of my brother — a career that, with him being a big bossman at IGN now, he's still in.

Page 6, as it was initially known, started life as a user group newsletter. Within one issue, the editor Les Ellingham had decided that he wanted to fulfil a grander ambition: to publish the UK's first Atari-specific magazine. And he only went and did it. For an astronomical amount of time, considering the subject matter, too; Page 6 ran in one form or another from December of 1982 until the autumn of 1998, and it was still covering the Atari 8-bit in its very last issue.

Page 6 was an enthusiasts' magazine. It wasn't a games magazine; Les in particular was keen to stress from the outset that while computers were excellent games machines, there was also a ton more you could do with them. And part of the point of the magazine was to educate people on the possibilities their computers offered. It achieved that through articles about software releases (including both games and "serious" software), interviews, tutorials, type-in listings and plenty more.

It was always a pleasure to read. One gets the impression that it was a real labour of love for Les in particular, and there are plenty of occasions where his editorial page came across as very frustrated that other people didn't seem to care quite as much as he did — but I cared. I still do care. Page 6 was a formative part of my youth, and revisiting old issues today, I still feel a lot of the same magic I felt in the early days of computing.

Read them all at Atarimania.

Atari User

Showing up a little later, Atari User from Database Publications (later Europress) launched in 1985 and ran until November 1988, at which point Page 6 acquired the rights to the Atari User name and rebranded as New Atari User. Page 6 was still on the newsstands at that point, and it was thought that the Atari User name would attract more casual interest, since "Page 6" is a nerdy reference to an area of the Atari 8-bit's memory that only people already well-versed in the system's "culture" would understand.

At heart, Atari User was a similar sort of magazine to Page 6, covering both games and "serious" applications, perhaps with a slightly greater focus on things that, if not games, were at least entertainment of a sort. Like Page 6, there were a variety of features each issue, including type-in listings, and often some interesting-looking "Gadgets" sections for electronics projects you could do with your Atari. I never tried any of them — I was a bit young — but they always looked interesting.

I enjoyed reading both Page 6 and New Atari User because they each had a very different style to them. Page 6 always felt like it took itself very seriously, with a fairly no-nonsense, stern, professional-looking layout in each issue — not to say that individual articles lacked personality and humour, mind; I'm talking purely aesthetically — while Atari User made use of the bigger budget it had thanks to being part of a larger corporation by producing colourful issues with large, attractive pieces of artwork and photography throughout. I was sad when Atari User went under, as it was one of those magazines that it was just fun to look at thanks to its colourful cover art.

Read them all at Atarimania.

Antic and ANALOG

Antic, subtitled The Atari Resource, was one of two Atari-specific magazines from the States, with ANALOG (short for Atari Newsletter And Lots of Games) being the other. You could get them both relatively easily in this country via specialist importers. Antic and ANALOG were both, like Page 6 and Atari User, magazines that revelled in the joy of home computer ownership. Part of that was gaming, yes, but it was also about programming, productivity and creativity.

I actually haven't revisited Antic and ANALOG for many years and I think I'm long overdue to, as I remember enjoying them both. I do remember Antic having noticeably thicker issues, while ANALOG became renowned for its excellent machine language type-in listings. So they're both going on my portable magazine library, assuming it works as I hope it does.

Read Antic and ANALOG at Atarimania.

Games-X

Page 6 was where my brother got started writing about games, but it was Games-X that truly launched his career properly; he left home to work on it, and it ended up being the beginning of a whole life in the games press.

Games-X was unusual: it was a weekly games magazine (a decision which founder Hugh Gollner later described as "a big mistake" financially), and most other magazines at the time were monthly. Page 6 was bi-monthly (as in, every two months, not twice a month). This naturally allowed it to be a lot more "up to date" with gaming news than many other magazines, but it was also fun to be able to buy a new games magazine every week, initially for just 60p an issue.

Games-X covered that strange period late in the ST and Amiga's lifespan when consoles were just starting to really get a foothold in the UK. The majority of the focus in each issue was on home computer games, but there was a dedicated console section — and the next magazine my brother worked on after Games-X was Mega Drive Advanced Gaming.

Games-X had a fun, irreverent attitude to it and, in many ways, was very "'90s", with everything that entails. I still really like it, though, and think it stands out as a magazine that deserves to be remembered a bit more than it is.

Read them all at RetroCDN.

Advanced Computer Entertainment (ACE)

I don't think I actually had many issues of this, but I enjoyed every one of them a great deal. Advanced Computer Entertainment, or more commonly just ACE, was a multi-format magazine that one gets the impression liked to think it was a cut above the other games magazines around at the time. It was still about video games, sure, but it lacked some of the '90s abrasiveness of other publications, and took things a bit more "seriously", for want of a better word. One might call it the Edge of its day, only marginally less pretentious. (And yes, I checked; Edge launched in 1993, while ACE folded in 1992.)

That is, after they got over an initial rocky patch where there were more errors in the early issues of ACE than I think I've ever seen in any other magazine. Typos, mistakes, outright blank sections of pages — they had it all. But once it settled down, it was a very high quality magazine that I always enjoyed. The magazine was noteworthy for its "Pink Pages" section in the rear, a no-nonsense "reference" guide to new releases, charts and review summaries, plus a bizarre "Stock Market" section that never really made much sense, but I believe it was an early attempt to try and aggregate review scores for various developers and publishers, if I remember rightly.

I rather liked that ACE took things seriously. The silly humour of other magazines could be entertaining, to be sure, but it was nice to be able to read a magazine about games that was just… about games, rather than about its writers trying to launch a comedy career. As with Page 6, that's not to say that individual articles and writers lacked personality or a sense of humour; it's just that humour wasn't the main point, whereas with some other magazines around at the time, particularly once we moved into the 1990s, it felt like they were trying to be a funny magazine first, about video games second.

Read them all at Atarimania.

PC Zone

Now, this may make me sound a bit like a hypocrite after what I literally just said, but I always enjoyed PC Zone, even before my brother's time there as editor and publisher. PC Zone in its prime always felt like it struck a good balance between humour and information, and I loved it for that. It acknowledged that games were fun, silly and often stupid, but also recognised that people were passionate about them — sometimes to a fault.

PC Zone is also noteworthy in retrospect for being an early outlet for Charlie Brooker, and his articles were always a highlight, as were his eminently silly The Cybertwats cartoon strips, which got the magazine a bunch of complaints on multiple occasions, particularly after he depicted Lara Croft machine-gunning someone's cat to a particularly violent and bloody demise.

When people talk about old magazines being fun, I think of PC Zone. While in retrospect some of it may have been a bit "lads mag"-ish (see: front cover depicted above), it never really felt particularly exclusionary. Plus I spent two weeks doing work experience in their offices and, although I didn't really do much other than make a lot of cups of coffee and tea (and write a review of Virtua Fighter PC) that fortnight remains one of the happiest of my life.

Read them all at Pix's Origin Adventures.

And there's more I could be going on with, but I think that's probably plenty for now. If you're a retro computer and gaming enthusiast, you could do far worse than familiarise yourself with the above publications. And the links I've provided will let you do just that.

Note: I will not be held responsible for anyone complaining at you suddenly taking a lot longer in the toilet.

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#oneaday Day 287: European video game history discourse is happening again

As the title says, European video game history discourse is happening again. I'm not going to link to the post in question, because I like the chap who inadvertently kicked this off and I don't want him to have to put up with any more angry Europeans than he already is contending with. But I will comment on the whole subject, because it's a topic worth discussing with some commonly held assumptions that need challenging.

So here we go.

"The Great Video Game Crash" didn't happen in Europe

This point is one that, I think, is finally getting through to a lot of people. The notorious "crash" of 1983 following the absolutely flooded market of third-party Atari 2600 games was a purely North American phenomenon, and it only affected the console market.

It was a bad thing, to be sure, putting a lot of developers and publishers out of business, and it can probably be pointed at as the main reason that platforms like the ColecoVision and Intellivision didn't survive. And it's definitely true that the arrival of the NES on the scene marked a renaissance for the console games market in North America.

But it just didn't happen in Europe. I didn't even know it was a thing until the Internet came about. The reason? Because most of us in Europe were happily making use of home computers at the time, and we continued to do so throughout most of the '80s and early '90s.

Europe's console game sales are a miniscule fraction of those seen in the States

The same reasoning can be applied to this. Yes, I entirely believe that considerably fewer console games were sold in Europe than in North America. This is because consoles weren't nearly as widespread as home computers were. Growing up, I didn't know anyone who had a console for many years. I didn't even know for sure if the ColecoVision came out in Europe until quite recently when I found an ad in an old home computer magazine.

But I did know people who had home computers. We had Atari 8-bits. My best friend in primary school and a girl I moderately fancied both had BBC Micros. Another friend had a Spectrum. Another still had a Commodore 64. One even had an Electron.

There are a few considerations here. One, home computer games were often much cheaper than console games — though this wasn't always the case, particularly for games distributed on ROM cartridge. Cassette-based games were very cheap, though, particularly on the Spectrum and C64, and disk-based games weren't crazy expensive for the most part — though disk drives were, since back then they essentially had a whole other computer inside them to control the damn things!

However, what you also have to consider is that many games had considerably wider reach than their commercial, officially recorded sales figures might suggest due to piracy. Piracy was absolutely rife in the early home computer sector, and while this probably wasn't good for the overall health of the industry, it somehow never caused a "crash". Piracy has also, long term, been amazing for preservation purposes, because pirated disks (pretty much always disks) often had pre-release or beta versions of games on them, and in many cases these particular versions of these games were not preserved by their original developers and publishers.

Thirdly, home computers were programmable. And, outside of dedicated games magazines, which were in a minority compared to "general computing" magazines for quite a few years, most publications encouraged computer users to get involved in programming their machines themselves. Magazines published type-in listings each month, allowing you to get "free" software in exchange for the cover price of the magazine, a bit of your time and some blank media to save it on. Public domain libraries appeared and thrived. And many folks simply wrote their own software to do something their computer couldn't already do. With BASIC built-in to pretty much every 8-bit machine, anyone could become a programmer just by turning the damn thing on.

Home computers continued to thrive even with the advent of consoles

The NES didn't "save" gaming in Europe in the same way that it did in the States. It was present, sure, but the only person I know who had one was my Uncle Peter (or perhaps more accurately, his daughter Gemma). We certainly didn't have one. I knew one guy who had a Master System, but I think he only had one game for it and he certainly didn't consider himself a gaming nerd.

Console gaming really started to pick up in Europe — or at least in the UK, from my experience — with the advent of the 16-bit era. That's when we really started to get a glut of specialist gaming magazines focusing on individual platforms, and that's when I knew more people who started to get Mega Drives and SNESeses.

But those consoles never replaced home computers. My best friend in high school, Edd, had a Mega Drive, but he spent much more time on his Amiga 500. I had a SNES, but I still spent much more time on the Atari ST and even the Atari 8-bit, which we still kept out and in use for many years. And the press reflected this, also: multiformat magazines tended to prioritise Amiga and Atari ST, with console games often relegated to their own little section, like they were a curiosity. And just as there were specialist gaming magazines for platforms like the SNES and Mega Drive, there were also individual mags for the ST and Amiga, too. And in many cases, those mags were more substantial than their console counterparts — often aimed at a slightly more mature audience, too.

Not only that, but the "free software" sector continued to thrive, too. While the ST and Amiga didn't ship with built-in BASIC like their 8-bit predecessors, there were still plenty of easily accessible packages for both that allowed anyone to get programming. Public domain software, likewise, continued to thrive, with public domain titles distributed through magazine coverdisks, through public domain libraries and through early online services such as bulletin boards.

Particularly notable from this era are STOS and AMOS, flavours of BASIC for Atari ST and Amiga respectively, which featured game-centric features such as sprites, sound generation, interrupt-based music and all manner of other good stuff. Both, as you might expect, were widely used to make both public domain and commercial titles by enthusiast developers. STOS and AMOS were made by Francois Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulous, the former of whom founded Clickteam. Clickteam made Klik and Play, which saw several follow-ups, the latter of which, Multimedia Fusion (or just Clickteam Fusion now), is still in use to this day to make commercial games. Played Freedom Planet? You've played a game whose lineage can indirectly be traced back to STOS.

Things only really shifted firmly in favour of consoles when the PlayStation showed up, but even then, MS-DOS PC gaming had already hit its stride with the advent of 256-colour VGA graphics and sound card support.

Without the European home computer scene, there's a lot of today's developers that wouldn't exist

This is the most important thing to bear in mind, I think. So many of today's developers and publishers can be traced directly back to '80s home computer labels.

Codemasters? They used to specialise in budget-priced cassette games made by teenagers in their bedrooms. Rare? They started out making Spectrum games. Sumo Digital? They can be traced back to Gremlin Graphics, who were there from the very early days of 8-bit home computer games. And there are countless more; if you were to go through everyone Of A Certain Age in today's European games industry, you will almost certainly find a significant portion of them who cut their teeth working on home computer games.

Hell, this is even the case in the States, too. Folks who were making home computer games in North America, in many cases, continued on into careers in the later console sectors. I learned the other day that Cathryn Mataga, maker of the excellent Shamus and Zeppelin on Atari 8-bit, also made the frankly incredible port of Dragon's Lair to Game Boy Color, to name just one example.

Revenue isn't the whole story, not by a long shot

It keeps coming back to this. Sure, the money numbers might look smaller for the European games industry throughout the '80s. But in terms of the usage of these systems, the passion, the things that are harder to track through anything other than anecdotal evidence and the lived experiences of folks who were there? Absolutely nothing beat the home computer scene of the 8-bit and 16-bit era in Europe.

Hell, our favourite Atari computer magazine ran from 1982 until 1998. That's an astonishing achievement for a publication that covered the Atari 8-bit platform from its very first issue right up until its sad finale. And Atari 8-bits were a niche platform; the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad all did way better in the market.

Look, I'm not saying American video game history isn't important. It is. It's where video games as we know them today were born, after all. But we've gotta get over this assumption that anything that happened outside of North America or Japan was somehow not important. '80s home computing was — is — much more than just a fad or a scene. For many folks, it was video games. For many folks, it was life. And acknowledging that doesn't make Pong, the Magnavox Odyssey, the Atari 2600 or the NES any less cool or revolutionary.

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#oneaday Day 286: It's Xenoblade time

It's Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition release day, and I was very good and didn't even boot it up until I'd done all my work for the day and emptied the cats' litter trays and gone out to get some stuff from the shop. Still managed nearly four hours of getting into the swing of things.

It's a delight to return to this game. As I've alluded to several times, I'm going to do some more in-depth coverage of this over on MoeGamer as I play through, but I thought I'd also post some first impressions from the Switch port here, since it's what the majority of my evening has consisted of.

It's been a long time since I played the Wii U version (ten years, in fact!) but a lot of things already feel comfortably familiar. I even inadvertently picked the exact same voice for my character that I did first time around, though I didn't realise I'd done that until she came out with one particular line that suddenly triggered a memory.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is an absolutely massive game, but it does a good job of easing you into things. The early story missions take you through the absolute basics you'll need to know to get up and running, then by about the third chapter you can start enjoying some of the game's more "freeform" structure by taking on various missions. As you continue to progress the main story, you unlock other features such as the online modes and the ability to pilot (and later fly) the "Skell" giant robots. Crucially, though, the game doesn't throw all this at you at once. You can quite feasibly spend a very long time playing the game before even getting anywhere close to jumping into a Skell.

The main thing I was wondering about, which is how they'd implement the hex-based "segment map" that was originally on the Wii U GamePad's screen while you played, has been incorporated about as well as they could have done given the Switch's lack of a second screen. It's now a separate Map screen that you can access from the game's main menu, which means you can't look at it while you're wandering around, but it does also mean you can concentrate on it without having to worry about Tyrants coming to attack you while you tinker with your mining probes.

Performance and visuals-wise, the Switch version does a great job. There are understandable technical limitations of the same ilk seen in other Xenoblade games on the console — most notably characters and some objects "popping in" as you approach rather than being drawn from a distance — but, given the scale of the game and the relatively underpowered hardware it's running on, it's just fine. The tweaks to the interface to make it more readable are very welcome indeed, and I suspect even more so for those playing in handheld mode; this is really a game made for big TVs, though, as the vistas throughout remain absolutely spectacular.

Coming to this almost straight off the back of Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, it's also interesting to note how different the combat feels. While the basic mechanics are almost identical, the focus on responding to your party members' callouts and the ability to switch between ranged and melee weapons on the fly really makes battles feel a lot more dynamic. Enemies move around a lot more, too, meaning you also have to move a lot more to be able to strike them from the side or behind — and a welcome addition over the original Xenoblade's combat is a clear on-screen indicator as to whether you're considered in front of, flanking or behind an enemy.

I'm very happy to be back on Mira, and since I have no other "big games" going on right now, I'm going to see quite how much of this game I can complete this time around. Because although I finished the storyline of the Wii U version, I feel like I only scratched the surface of the things the game has for you to do. Because as I saw someone else point out the other day, Xenoblade Chronicles X is actually two stories: one is about your companion Elma rather than you, and that's the "main scenario" you go through. The other is the emergent narrative you build yourself: your career with BLADE, the missions you complete, the people you encounter, the choices you make. And it's that latter part that goes on for a lot longer than the relatively short main scenario.

Because I was deep into Final Fantasy XIV at the time Xenoblade Chronicles X came out for the first time, I felt a certain amount of "guilt" at getting too invested in the latter. But since I've drifted away from Final Fantasy XIV for the moment, Xenoblade Chronicles X is getting my full attention. And if you're yet to play it, I highly encourage you to check it out this time around. You no longer have the excuse that it's on a platform that no-one owns, because it's on one of the most popular console platforms in the known Universe.

Anyway. I wanted to post something about it today at least. I should probably go to bed now, but there are missions to do, things to find, Tyrants to fight…

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