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I will look past the moral ambiguity and assume Nintendo is fine with this as they're sold through wish.com and they haven't made the effort to stop them sooo... Now, originally this was a 180-1 situation, but considering half of those games were the worst kind of shovelware, card games/board games or games I'd played before, I've deleted them. Now, more as a way of keeping sane today as I've already indulged in my hour of outdoor exercise and my wife has currently occupied the PS4, I'll write some mini-impressions of some wonderfully lacklustre DS games for you all. If you also wish to play some massively outdated games and write a small critique, please do. I'll update mine throughout the day. 007 - Blood Stone: I've completed the first mission. It was exactly what you'd expect from a 3rd person shooter where movement is controlled with the D-Pad and aiming with the stylus. Not actually as shit as you'd think it would be. 007 - Quantum of Solace: The exact opposite of the above. Plays like Phantom Hourglass with stealth and gadgets. I may actually play this for more than the training section. Adventure Time - Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal our Garbage?!!: So it's a 2D platformer (with some punching and kicking), with RPG elements and then when you enter the overworld it becomes a Tales game. Also much better than expected although I never really loved the series. Bangai-O Spirits: I remember seeing this (or the previous iteration) in N64 magazine and wanted it. It's a Treasure game, which is a developer I always forget I really like. Will try it out more although I sense I will be terrible. Burnout Legends: Annoyingly shit as I loved Burnout 2 and looks like a crap 3D0 game. Dementium - The Ward: I'm playing in alphabetical order, but I will come back to this one as I've heard good things and my heart tells me it will need more than a 5 minute play. Duke Nukem - Critical Mass: a 2.5D sidescrolling shooter. Looks and plays like a launch game for the PS1 that no one would have wanted in 1995. 30 seconds was enough with this one. Fifa 11: Well, it's Fifa and we all know how it plays. Though this version seems to handle quite well and doesn't look awful either. Knowing my ability to waste time, I'll end up playing a season of this over the weekend. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Echoes of Time: Eh, honestly not very fun. I know that the Crystal Chronicles iteration of games focuses on multiplayer and I'm going to assume that's the fun way to experience it. Oh well. Ghostbusters - The Video Game: This looks and sounds awesome. You choose a mission you want to take on, drive over to it in a fully 3D realised world (including cars on the road the theme song playing) and then locate and take out the ghost. There's no GPS so actually finding where you need to go is a fucking chore but there are RPG elements and I'm guessing some tactics as you take all the Ghostbusters out for the trip. Goldeneye - Rogue Agent: The controls are just...off? The stylus controls don't seem responsive and at their default setting, you aim with the stylus, move with the D-Pad, throw grenades with the L button and shoot with R. This was corrected changing the control method to Stylus...but still played like shit. Goldeneye 007: It might have been the light in my room, but I could see fuck all. I used the stylus controls and annoyingly it wouldn't let me change to the alternative scheme, but I love Goldeneye and will try it again later. I tried it with using the face buttons to move and aim and it was shockingly bad. Switched it back and the game just wasn't very good which is a shame as I remember hearing good things about the Wii version of this. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Isometric, poor controls, poor graphics considering it was a massive IP. Noope. I did like the fact it used all three characters to puzzle solve, fight enemies etc. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Better that GoF, but the opening parts of the game involved fixing vases and trying to find Ron's badges. It looked more like a PS1 game (compared again with GoF which looked like a reasonable GBA title) so I might give it another chance. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Same sort of thing as Phantom Hourglass (and Quantom of Solace) where you hold down on the bottom screen to move Harry about. It started off promising (looks like the same engine as OofP) but then the missions were all "go find my spectacles", "try and find three wizard cards" etc. I can however see how in 2006, this would be a pretty good jumping off point for a younger person to experience the starting points of some more involved games. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1: Pretty much the same as the one before it, though with a shooting segment from Hagrid's motorbike where I just hammered the stylus on the same point on the screen and beat it. I just wish that the controls were a little smoother, as the idea of puzzling, adventuring etc in the Harry Potter universe isn't the worst thing, except for when you have to battle with the controls. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2: I'll try this later but I'm going to make a prediction, it will be the same as the last few... Kirby Canvas Curse: It was good and well reviewed way back when, still decent now. Lego - Lord of the Rings: I really like the Lego games and I've finished a fair few of them. This however was shambolic. It felt like the framerate was capped at about 15FPS, the audio was gash and what should have been a great opening section was boring - such a shame. Lara Croft Tomb Raider - Legend: Not that bad at all. 2.5D with several paths to roam around and when it comes to combat, you auto-target an enemy, press the shoot button and then it allows you to jab the bottom screen to do the actual shooting. The actual version is better (naturally) but this isn't awful. Madden 2009: this has the same feeling of Fifa 11, better than it should be whilst looking like Madden 2001 on the PS1. Plays well, but it's been a while since I touched a Madden game and need to wrap my head around it again. Meteos: Good puzzle game and more importantly feels good to play. One to keep. Metroid Prime - Pinball: Of all the things, it makes the soundtrack more "rocky" and it's awesome. I'm not massively in to pinball but this was fun (my range of experience has been the free one on Windows 7 and Pokemon Pinball) Mr Driller - Drill Spirits: More goodness, simple premise, good level of mastery...I will be back Mr Driller. Need for Speed - Underground 2: It's not the best racing game I've ever played, but it handles pretty well and I could have seen this being a good distraction 15 years ago. I might be back to this one at some point. International Track and Field: I've tried the 100m and the long jump and the fact it asks me to repeatedly drag the stylus across the bottom screen makes me feel like I'm going to rip it to shreds. Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest: So it's a slasher/adventure game and I'll assume once I get out of the training area, will involve some light puzzling. Rather than the PS1 look a lot of these DS 3rd party games had, this looked straight up Aiden Chronicles. Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End: I'll try this later... Puyo Pop Fever: Fun game, very colourful and bright and made by Atlus. Retro Game Challenge: Finished challenge completed (Cosmic Gate) and I already really like the aesthetic and tone of the game. Ridge Racer DS: This just seems to just be a port of the original, of which I had the N64 port and really liked. I'll be back to this one. Shin Megami Tensei - Devil Survivor: I enjoyed Persona 5, so it was nice to pop into the franchise again. I liked the combat and the look (though I would have enjoyed a stronger art style during the combat sections). The game seemed OK, but I think if I want an overtly Japanese RPG, I'll dive back into The World Ends With You. The Simpson's Game: The first stage was a 2D side scroller with light combat and jumping. Made better by some decent jokes and one-liners. Checking HltB it's only 4 hours, so I might give it a go this weekend. Spiderman - Shattered Dimensions: Vaguely Metroid-y, which is quite cool. The combat was simple, but fun and the general tone was good. Spiderman - Web of Shadows: Basically the same game as Shattered Dimensions, just not as good. Spiderman 2: Like Web of Shadows, except no dialogue. Star Wars - The Force Unleashed: Honestly kind of hoping for a 2D game with force powers, responsive controls and a mix of powers (essentially Super Star Wars). It's impressive that they made the game fully 3D, but it uses the D=Pad for movement and then the attacks and powers were mapped to the touch screen. It wasn't very responsive, to use attacks meant looking away from the stop screen and it ran like ass. Star Wars - The Force Unleashed 2: With the above in mind, will ignore it for the now. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008: It's like Fifa, so much better than I thought it would be. Honestly, most of the more notable developers that ported games to DS did a piss poor job, but EA have smashed it consistency. Tony Hawk's American Sk8land: Thankfully draws on the good aspects of 3, 4 and the THUG games. Also looks great with cel-shading. I'll be playing this on hangover days. UPDATE: So except for a Pirates of the Caribbean game and Dementium (which will be later on), I've given them all a go and based on my time with each game, I'll be: Completing: Kirby Canvas Curse The Simpson's Game Tony Hawk's American Sk8land Mr Driller Dipping into: Fifa 11 Madden 2009 Tiger Woods 2008 Meteos Puyo Pop Fever Retro Game Challenge Ridge Racer Fucking off everything else. Either way, what a terrible use of some of my time today.

Well...might be downloading Rocket League again...

I have some really fond memories of playing Streets of Rage with friends (specifically on the multi-cartridge that also had Shinobi and Goldenaxe) but I don't know if I can go for this much a sequel. Although, if they add some clever updates, I could be interested.

Washington Black is now finished (well, as of yesterday evening) and my next choice is The Overstory by Richard Powers. To steal the Wikipedia synopsis: The Overstory is a novel by Richard Powers published in 2018 by W.W. Norton. It is Powers's twelfth novel. The novel is about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction of forests. I've read the opening pages and it seems good to me.

Some of those chairs look horrendous for a full working day.

Mainly single player and I will usually try and complete the main side quests and then a handful of the more pointless ones until it dawns on me I don't need to. I tend to mostly play single player games, however I do occasionally get the urge to delve into the online world and end up playing something fairly obsessively.

I learned how to wallpaper, which was just wonderful.

That's triggered me to want to listen to the history of Giant Bomb podcast. Going off on a complete tangent, I would 100% enjoy a mini-series about Jeff leaving Gamespot, the formation of Giant Bomb and everything that happened along the way. Back on subject, it sounds like Schreier is making the right call at the moment which is always nice to hear.

I finished Death Stranding this morning. The last few chapters, whilst long, were in-keeping with the tone the game had cultivated and I thoroughly appreciated it. As a game, it might be a perfect storm for me, anticipating being a father in a few months along with the impact of Covid-19, but I thought Death Stranding was a fantastic experience. As a game, it was passable, but as a journey, it was wonderful. The aspects others found disenchanting (traversing the environment, thinking of equipment and the boss fights) all worked well for me. I did admittedly play on a low difficulty setting as I wanted to enjoy the journey and not the stop-offs and felt this was the right decision. If I was to compare it to something, it felt like being part of the Fellowship from Lord of the Rings, but rather than just seeing the set pieces, I was part of the day to day grind. For whatever reason, it really worked for me. I'm downloading Bloodborne now as I feel like I'll have the time to invest in it and we'll see how that goes. UPDATE: So I've played a little but of Bloodborne and I'm not amazing at the game, but I lit the first lantern, had a run around, practised murdering a bunch of RE4-esque villagers and then died trying to kill two werewolf things on the bridge. I just need to accept that I will die in the game, that it's fine to die in the game and that really there's no consequence to dying outside of losing some blood echoes and some progress. I'll dig back into it and actually look to make some progress next time, rather than just getting a handle on the game again (I checked and I had a save from 2016 and I remember I previously blindly ran through to Father Gascoigne so I'm not completely new to the game). UPDATE 2: Made it (and died) at the Cleric Beast, mostly so I can do some upgrading. I honestly forgot how stressful Souls games are, but again it's another thing to get used to.

That is quite interesting and something I'll now need to read about to find out why they bother.

That's a really good thing for them to do, although a little bit of me wonders why they haven't chosen slightly...longer games (or those with a significant online community) to actually convince people to stay inside and then later steal their money from them with battle passes etc. Maybe I'm just bitter that I have both of these through PS+ already.

It would be Mufasa for me. I would have watched it for the first time when I was 6 and I think it might have been the first example of a character dying that I had seen. I will admit though, I watched Coco hung over and it was almost too much.

Jason: Rise of the Argonauts on the 360. I remember buying it as I was working before going to university and had nothing to save or pay for and spent all my money on food, alcohol and games and weirdly the official Xbox magazine rated it highly. They were mistaken. UPDATE: I was trying to think of the games I had on my Gamecube and who could forget Ty and Tasmanian Tiger, Pitfall and Die Hard Vendetta.

I've been playing a lot more in the past two weeks, than I think I did in the past 6 months. So far, I've finished off Resident Evil 2, What Remains of Edith Finch and I'm now on the back straight of Death Stranding and my tolerance to actually sit down and play is much higher, so I should really make the most of this as I'm four months away from having no time at all.

No, we're going with big polka-dots on one of the walls and some nice, blue curtains to keep the room relaxing, although I'm sure that'll change soon enough.

Today is the last day of my Easter holiday, but I've not had any contact from my school or my university, so I guess I'm not working this week (unless I get a very last minute email). We've started to decorate the room for our upcoming baby, so that's involved a bit of painting, a new set of curtains and I've learned how to wallpaper. Suffice to say, it looks alright. If it turns out UK schools aren't going to open properly for a while, I think I'll end up working academically in the morning and then working on my house in the afternoons, sorting out a floor, sorting out my stairs, painting a few bits, clearing out some bits etc

I'm going to finish Washington Black today (and recommend that everyone gives it a read) and then I'm not too sure. I need to read some more fiction suitable for 8-11 year old's, so I might buy a few books on my Kindle and read through them over a weekend.

I could get on board with that, but I'll take your advice. It's strange, like (I assume) most people on here, I read a lot about video games, watch a lot (and play a fair) bit, but for some reason I always though the Yakuza series was vaguely open world (in the same way Persona 5 is). I'm not unhappy and it's not exactly expensive to pick up.

For a person that has heard good things, but has never played one, what do you actually do in the Yakuza games? Is it chapter based or more open world, mission based?

Death Stranding: Chapter 6. I didn't like the complete loss of my 'security blanket' but still really liking the game. i just wish I had nothing to do except play video games as I could honestly sit down and play for about 5 hours without moving at the moment. UPDATE: Chapter 6 finished and I continue to really like the game, even when it does it's best to be awkward. My wife decided she wanted to replay GTAV so we've downloaded that now as well, so I might give GTA online a go as a few university friends have mentioned playing it. Either way, I'm going to try and finish off DS within the week and then I feel like after this, very few games will feel too big or too long to play.

I need to somehow plan some time into finishing Spiderman, Control, Tomb Raider and Wolfenstein 2 all within the 7 day free trial.

Awesome story and such a shame as well.

Very true and that does make my trip to buy some apples tomorrow more justifiable.

I can't sleep so watching some news summaries on YouTube. With the announcement that nearly 9000 people have died in the UK, looking at the infection rate vs deaths, if you get Covid-19 here, there's a 13% chance you'll die from it. Compare that to America's 4% and... Depending on reporting of deaths of course.

Playing Death Stranding has really made me want to play through Phantom Pain (well, I should say complete as I finished the first act) but I couldn't justify the time sink. I've been trying to coerce my wife into giving it a go so I can play vicariously.