Critical Role
4x03 The Snipping of Shears [2nd half's 1st half]
Five-hour episodes require a little more breaking up at this point in my week!
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Monday, 20 October 2025
TV
Critical Role
4x03 The Snipping of Shears [1st half]
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
4x03 The Snipping of Shears [1st half]
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Video Games
Metroid: Zero Mission
Used a guide to look up how to achieve a specific bit I was stuck on, then ended up doing that thing where you keep following the guide just because you've started. It meant I made some significant progress, and probably went in directions I wouldn't have otherwise, and certainly achieved more things I wouldn't have known to do without it telling me... but I also felt like I wasn't really playing the game, just executing button presses as commanded. Guides are great for getting you past a bit you're stuck on, but rubbish to just follow. I'll try not to keep referring back to it too often going forward.
Pullblox
Used a guide to look up how to achieve a specific bit I was stuck on, then ended up doing that thing where you keep following the guide just because you've started. It meant I made some significant progress, and probably went in directions I wouldn't have otherwise, and certainly achieved more things I wouldn't have known to do without it telling me... but I also felt like I wasn't really playing the game, just executing button presses as commanded. Guides are great for getting you past a bit you're stuck on, but rubbish to just follow. I'll try not to keep referring back to it too often going forward.
Pullblox
Sunday, 19 October 2025
Films
Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage (1989)
[#84 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
+ extras from Arrow's Blu-ray: an introduction by Masaki Tanioka, trailer, and video essay by Tom Mes titled Crime Hunter and the Dawn of V-Cinema
[#84 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
+ extras from Arrow's Blu-ray: an introduction by Masaki Tanioka, trailer, and video essay by Tom Mes titled Crime Hunter and the Dawn of V-Cinema
Fiction
Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber
II. The Jewels in the Forest
Originally published under the title Two Sought Adventure in 1939, this was the first-ever Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story published.
II. The Jewels in the Forest
Originally published under the title Two Sought Adventure in 1939, this was the first-ever Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story published.
Tabletop Games
Daggerheart: Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors
Still playing in this every day, and still not sure how to go about logging it — popping it on every day feels excessive, but I am playing it every day.
It occured to me that I'd never dream of not logging a half-hour TV show I actively watched, or not logging a book even if I read one short chapter, yet I'm doing this for longer chunks than that and am hesistant about always mentioning it, so why? Maybe because it's "always on". I don't sit down and do an hour of it (necessarily), but I'll check in for new stuff several times a day; and I might spend a little while writing a post, send it, then check a little later for responses (because a response is rarely instantaneous). I might even do that cycle quickly, with regular check-ins and posts over an hour or two. So, it's kind of like I'm always playing, and because I'm "always playing" it feels odd to log it as a discrete unit, somehow?
Also, it's not a TV show or film or book or computer game that I can link to and someone could learn about or maybe watch/read/play themselves — it's a 'home game' for just the seven of us involved.
I dunno, I'm sure I'm overthinking all this. Maybe I'll just continue to mention it now and then. But is that dishonest to the goal of this blog, when I am actually playing every day? And, in that respect, if I didn't play one day for some reason, how would I reflect that here? (I'm just thinking 'out loud' at this point!)
Still playing in this every day, and still not sure how to go about logging it — popping it on every day feels excessive, but I am playing it every day.
It occured to me that I'd never dream of not logging a half-hour TV show I actively watched, or not logging a book even if I read one short chapter, yet I'm doing this for longer chunks than that and am hesistant about always mentioning it, so why? Maybe because it's "always on". I don't sit down and do an hour of it (necessarily), but I'll check in for new stuff several times a day; and I might spend a little while writing a post, send it, then check a little later for responses (because a response is rarely instantaneous). I might even do that cycle quickly, with regular check-ins and posts over an hour or two. So, it's kind of like I'm always playing, and because I'm "always playing" it feels odd to log it as a discrete unit, somehow?
Also, it's not a TV show or film or book or computer game that I can link to and someone could learn about or maybe watch/read/play themselves — it's a 'home game' for just the seven of us involved.
I dunno, I'm sure I'm overthinking all this. Maybe I'll just continue to mention it now and then. But is that dishonest to the goal of this blog, when I am actually playing every day? And, in that respect, if I didn't play one day for some reason, how would I reflect that here? (I'm just thinking 'out loud' at this point!)
Video Games
Metroid: Zero Mission
I think I made it into an area I wasn't ready for, because the only way back out was to kill myself and let it reload at the last save point (of course, I could've just quit and reloaded, but y'know). Luckily, I didn't lose too much progress. I also finally managed to defeat the first boss-like creature, so maybe I'm improving. Yay!
Pullblox
Nice to do a couple of levels of this cozy puzzler as a palate cleanser from Metroid.
I think I made it into an area I wasn't ready for, because the only way back out was to kill myself and let it reload at the last save point (of course, I could've just quit and reloaded, but y'know). Luckily, I didn't lose too much progress. I also finally managed to defeat the first boss-like creature, so maybe I'm improving. Yay!
Pullblox
Nice to do a couple of levels of this cozy puzzler as a palate cleanser from Metroid.
Saturday, 18 October 2025
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
After a bizarrely quiet month, it's arrivals a-go-go this week! A total of 12 new titles turned up at my door, though a variety of those were upgrades of one kind or another; including a new season of classic Doctor Who on Blu-ray, which single-handedly wipes out five DVDs.
The full net results are, as ever, below.
Number of titles in collection: 3,614 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 981 [down 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,633 [up 9]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 467 [up 6]
Number of discs in collection: 8,698 [up 20]
Number of films: 4,619 [up 11]
Number of additional cuts: 468 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 10,175 [up 3]
Number of short films: 1,271 [up 3]
See you next week, faithful reader.
After a bizarrely quiet month, it's arrivals a-go-go this week! A total of 12 new titles turned up at my door, though a variety of those were upgrades of one kind or another; including a new season of classic Doctor Who on Blu-ray, which single-handedly wipes out five DVDs.
The full net results are, as ever, below.
Number of titles in collection: 3,614 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 981 [down 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,633 [up 9]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 467 [up 6]
Number of discs in collection: 8,698 [up 20]
Number of films: 4,619 [up 11]
Number of additional cuts: 468 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 10,175 [up 3]
Number of short films: 1,271 [up 3]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 17 October 2025
Comics
2000 AD
Prog 2419
Following my very successful 17-day run, I've just had a 10-day dry spell — oopsie. And, as usual, it was only during the first half of those days (more or less) that I didn't have opportunity to read, and the remaining days were just being out of routine — proving my earlier point that getting into the habit is the real key, at least for me. So let's see if I can get to 18+ days this time...
Prog 2419
Following my very successful 17-day run, I've just had a 10-day dry spell — oopsie. And, as usual, it was only during the first half of those days (more or less) that I didn't have opportunity to read, and the remaining days were just being out of routine — proving my earlier point that getting into the habit is the real key, at least for me. So let's see if I can get to 18+ days this time...
Video Games
Metroid: Zero Mission
So, I found the manual — it's not hard if you look for it: it's archived on Nintendo's own site. Nowadays, when most games are delivered digitally and so designed for you to learn while playing, it's easy to forget that once upon a time they all came with manuals and so were designed for you to read that first, or at least have it to reference after you'd dived in.
Even just seeing the controls laid out in the Zero Mission manual somehow made them make more sense; though it also helped show how it's well-built for the device it was designed for, the Game Boy Advance, which only had A and B face buttons and more prominent L and R triggers than the 3DS. I do still have a GBA in storage, but as I don't own Zero Mission on a physical cart (and those aren't cheap: CeX asks £55 for just the cart, almost £150 with a box and manual, and well over £200 if you can find it mint), I guess I'll have to stick to the 3DS.
The manual also explained a bunch of stuff about Samus's abilities and things you encounter in the world that I hadn't been able to infer from playing (at least, not yet), so hopefully that will help my progress and skills too.
So, I found the manual — it's not hard if you look for it: it's archived on Nintendo's own site. Nowadays, when most games are delivered digitally and so designed for you to learn while playing, it's easy to forget that once upon a time they all came with manuals and so were designed for you to read that first, or at least have it to reference after you'd dived in.
Even just seeing the controls laid out in the Zero Mission manual somehow made them make more sense; though it also helped show how it's well-built for the device it was designed for, the Game Boy Advance, which only had A and B face buttons and more prominent L and R triggers than the 3DS. I do still have a GBA in storage, but as I don't own Zero Mission on a physical cart (and those aren't cheap: CeX asks £55 for just the cart, almost £150 with a box and manual, and well over £200 if you can find it mint), I guess I'll have to stick to the 3DS.
The manual also explained a bunch of stuff about Samus's abilities and things you encounter in the world that I hadn't been able to infer from playing (at least, not yet), so hopefully that will help my progress and skills too.
Thursday, 16 October 2025
Video Games
Metroid: Zero Mission
After about 40 minutes of time in-game, I'm beginning to get the hang of how it works... but not really of the controls. Other than running left and right, they feel almost completely unintuitive to me — I'll just as often jump when I mean to fire or fire when I mean to jump as do the thing I actually meant to do, not because I think the buttons should be the other way round, but because they're just not different enough for such fundamental actions. My kind of slightly slow, "take my time over a move" approach mostly works fine while exploring or shooting minor enemies, but I don't think it's going to work well in anything actually action-packed! And this is meant to be the easiest Metroid — I don't think I'd want to play a harder one on the 3DS (as much as I love the console generally).
I may have to think about remapping those buttons, that might help; perhaps putting shoot onto a trigger-like shoulder button. But the 3DS shoulder buttons aren't great for quick action (the screen kinda gets in the way; and it might just be my device, but it's slightly 'floppy', so moving it around a lot can cause it to jiggle and get in the way even more), so I don't know if that'll work. I'll see how it goes, I guess.
After about 40 minutes of time in-game, I'm beginning to get the hang of how it works... but not really of the controls. Other than running left and right, they feel almost completely unintuitive to me — I'll just as often jump when I mean to fire or fire when I mean to jump as do the thing I actually meant to do, not because I think the buttons should be the other way round, but because they're just not different enough for such fundamental actions. My kind of slightly slow, "take my time over a move" approach mostly works fine while exploring or shooting minor enemies, but I don't think it's going to work well in anything actually action-packed! And this is meant to be the easiest Metroid — I don't think I'd want to play a harder one on the 3DS (as much as I love the console generally).
I may have to think about remapping those buttons, that might help; perhaps putting shoot onto a trigger-like shoulder button. But the 3DS shoulder buttons aren't great for quick action (the screen kinda gets in the way; and it might just be my device, but it's slightly 'floppy', so moving it around a lot can cause it to jiggle and get in the way even more), so I don't know if that'll work. I'll see how it goes, I guess.
Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Tabletop Games
Daggerheart: Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors
This is one I'm not quite sure how to log, but I really feel I should because it's definitely a "cultural experience".
A couple of days ago I joined a Daggerheart campaign (with the title given above — that's not a sourcebook or something). But rather than your traditional TTRPG experience of playing once a week / fortnight / month / whatever for a couple of hours, it's what's known as a "play by post" campaign: it's done via text messages on Discord; almost like collaboratively writing a story but, y'know, with rules and dice rolls. And because of that, it's always 'on'; you can contribute at any time (within reason — there's etiquette about posting too much or too infrequently). So I'm "always playing", in a way. Certainly, so far I've been contributing something every day. So should I be logging it every day, then? That seems... excessive.
Well, here's an acknowledgement of it for now, at least.
This is one I'm not quite sure how to log, but I really feel I should because it's definitely a "cultural experience".
A couple of days ago I joined a Daggerheart campaign (with the title given above — that's not a sourcebook or something). But rather than your traditional TTRPG experience of playing once a week / fortnight / month / whatever for a couple of hours, it's what's known as a "play by post" campaign: it's done via text messages on Discord; almost like collaboratively writing a story but, y'know, with rules and dice rolls. And because of that, it's always 'on'; you can contribute at any time (within reason — there's etiquette about posting too much or too infrequently). So I'm "always playing", in a way. Certainly, so far I've been contributing something every day. So should I be logging it every day, then? That seems... excessive.
Well, here's an acknowledgement of it for now, at least.
Video Games
Metroid: Zero Mission
What's the use of winning a Steam Deck if you can't then use it to sideload non-Steam games and play those instead of the dozens of Steam games you own, before also buying a 3DS and a bunch of 3DS games, cracking it, loading even more 3DS games, then also loading some Game Boy Advance games and playing one of those instead?
Yeah, I'm questioning all my life choices. But also, I wanted to try a / some Metroidvania(s), and this is meant to be the easiest Metroid, so that's how I've wound up here for now.
Also, I've finally realised the bleeding obvious: that "Video Games" and "Tabletop/Board Games" should have different post titles, just like I split different types of books under the Books tag. Don't know why that didn't occur to me sooner.
What's the use of winning a Steam Deck if you can't then use it to sideload non-Steam games and play those instead of the dozens of Steam games you own, before also buying a 3DS and a bunch of 3DS games, cracking it, loading even more 3DS games, then also loading some Game Boy Advance games and playing one of those instead?
Yeah, I'm questioning all my life choices. But also, I wanted to try a / some Metroidvania(s), and this is meant to be the easiest Metroid, so that's how I've wound up here for now.
Also, I've finally realised the bleeding obvious: that "Video Games" and "Tabletop/Board Games" should have different post titles, just like I split different types of books under the Books tag. Don't know why that didn't occur to me sooner.
Tuesday, 14 October 2025
TV
Critical Role
4x02 Broken Wing [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Campaign 4, Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
4x02 Broken Wing [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Campaign 4, Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
Monday, 13 October 2025
TV
Critical Role
4x02 Broken Wing [1st half]
After I watched the first episode in one sitting, I had wondered if I might continue that way; and I would have happily, but there's not always the time. Shame I can't just watch it live every week.
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
4x02 Broken Wing [1st half]
After I watched the first episode in one sitting, I had wondered if I might continue that way; and I would have happily, but there's not always the time. Shame I can't just watch it live every week.
[Watch it (again) for free on YouTube, or for subscribers on Beacon or Twitch.]
Sunday, 12 October 2025
Games
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 6 (of 7)
It took about three hours, but we beat this on the first attempt. Feels somehow odd that there's only one 'level' left...
Game 6 (of 7)
It took about three hours, but we beat this on the first attempt. Feels somehow odd that there's only one 'level' left...
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
I've almost gone a whole month without any additions to this, as I commented on last week, but in the end a box set dropped in a whole fortnight early to ensure there's something to report in this month's running time update. As a ten-film set, it did its best to single-handedly get that running time update into the ballpark of a regularly-sized increase, but — even with the support of a Kickstarter reward that dropped through my door last-minute — they still can't get it over the 24-hour/1-day mark.
Number of titles in collection: 3,610 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,624 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,678 [up 6]
Number of films: 4,608 [up 11]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,268 [up 1]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
608 days, 5 hours, and 10 minutes.
(Up 18 hours and 27 minutes from last month.)
I've got a bunch of long-awaited pre-orders scattered across the weeks to come, so I expect the next month will be considerably more active and back to usual. See you next week for that, faithful reader.
I've almost gone a whole month without any additions to this, as I commented on last week, but in the end a box set dropped in a whole fortnight early to ensure there's something to report in this month's running time update. As a ten-film set, it did its best to single-handedly get that running time update into the ballpark of a regularly-sized increase, but — even with the support of a Kickstarter reward that dropped through my door last-minute — they still can't get it over the 24-hour/1-day mark.
Number of titles in collection: 3,610 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,624 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,678 [up 6]
Number of films: 4,608 [up 11]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,268 [up 1]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
608 days, 5 hours, and 10 minutes.
(Up 18 hours and 27 minutes from last month.)
I've got a bunch of long-awaited pre-orders scattered across the weeks to come, so I expect the next month will be considerably more active and back to usual. See you next week for that, faithful reader.
Saturday, 11 October 2025
TV
Friends
10x03 The One with Ross's Tan [6th or so watch]
10x04 The One with the Cake [6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x46 Week 10: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
10x03 The One with Ross's Tan [6th or so watch]
10x04 The One with the Cake [6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x46 Week 10: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Games
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 5 (of 7)
Took two goes to get through this one. The first run was so disastrous it made me worried about the game's balance with only two players, but the second was much smoother without being two easy — we just got unlucky with card draws the first time.
Game 5 (of 7)
Took two goes to get through this one. The first run was so disastrous it made me worried about the game's balance with only two players, but the second was much smoother without being two easy — we just got unlucky with card draws the first time.
Friday, 10 October 2025
TV
Friends
10x01 The One After Joey and Rachel Kiss [6th or so watch]
10x02 The One Where Ross Is Fine [6th or so watch]
Friends still putting out iconic episodes in its final season is, in itself, iconic.
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x44 Week 9: Thursday
8x45 Week 9: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Watson
1x02 Redcoat
1x03 Wait for the Punchline
10x01 The One After Joey and Rachel Kiss [6th or so watch]
10x02 The One Where Ross Is Fine [6th or so watch]
Friends still putting out iconic episodes in its final season is, in itself, iconic.
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x44 Week 9: Thursday
8x45 Week 9: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Watson
1x02 Redcoat
1x03 Wait for the Punchline
Thursday, 9 October 2025
TV
Friends
9x23 The One in Barbados Part 1 [6th or so watch]
9x24 The One in Barbados Part 2 [season finale; 6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x43 Week 9: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Watson
1x01 Watson
Giving this Sherlock Holmes-inspired show a go. I'm not sure if it's been shown here in the UK or not, but I acquired it by other means anyway. It's... alright. It's basically House 2.0 with the Sherlock Holmes stuff explicit this time, but I enjoyed House so that's ok by me. I'll certainly stick with it for now.
9x23 The One in Barbados Part 1 [6th or so watch]
9x24 The One in Barbados Part 2 [season finale; 6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x43 Week 9: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Watson
1x01 Watson
Giving this Sherlock Holmes-inspired show a go. I'm not sure if it's been shown here in the UK or not, but I acquired it by other means anyway. It's... alright. It's basically House 2.0 with the Sherlock Holmes stuff explicit this time, but I enjoyed House so that's ok by me. I'll certainly stick with it for now.
Wednesday, 8 October 2025
TV
Friends
9x22 The One with the Donor [6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x41 Week 9: Monday
8x42 Week 9: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
9x22 The One with the Donor [6th or so watch]
Richard Osman's House of Games
8x41 Week 9: Monday
8x42 Week 9: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]
Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Games
Gray Matter
So, remember* when I found a new way to play non-Mac games on my Mac, and reinstalled this because it runs better that new way? Well, I wondered if whatever differences made it run better overall were also causing the progress bug I had yesterday.** So I re-reinstalled it the original way and, hurrah, it worked: I played for all of 30 seconds just to get past the bug (it took a few hours of effort to get it installed before that, hence not playing more). Next time I can continue in the works-better version, and thus I have the best of both worlds (handily, they both accessed the same save game files, so I didn't even have to faff with moving those around). One thing I won't be doing is uninstalling either copy, just in case I need the less-good one for something like this again.
* Of course you don't. Or maybe you do, because "you" is me, the only person who reads this. Anyway...
** See the final few sentences at the end of the last paragraph in that overlong post.
So, remember* when I found a new way to play non-Mac games on my Mac, and reinstalled this because it runs better that new way? Well, I wondered if whatever differences made it run better overall were also causing the progress bug I had yesterday.** So I re-reinstalled it the original way and, hurrah, it worked: I played for all of 30 seconds just to get past the bug (it took a few hours of effort to get it installed before that, hence not playing more). Next time I can continue in the works-better version, and thus I have the best of both worlds (handily, they both accessed the same save game files, so I didn't even have to faff with moving those around). One thing I won't be doing is uninstalling either copy, just in case I need the less-good one for something like this again.
* Of course you don't. Or maybe you do, because "you" is me, the only person who reads this. Anyway...
** See the final few sentences at the end of the last paragraph in that overlong post.
Monday, 6 October 2025
Games
Gray Matter
My recent purchasing spree has left me with dozens (arguably hundreds) of narrative-focused games that I’m eager to dive into… but I’m still in the middle of this one, and it feels wrong to be playing more than one at once. We may do that with other narrative media — TV shows being the obvious example; some people read multiple books at once — but I don’t really do it with either of those anymore, so why would I with games?
Okay, different gaming genres make a difference because of different mechanics. There are games that are heavily interested in narrative but how they convey that is different enough that which you choose depends what play experience you’re in the mood for. I mean, Control (which I’ve now abandoned thanks to Luna) is definitely narrative-heavy, but it’s also a shooter with fast-paced combat, plus some RPG-like levelling elements. It's an entirely different experience to a point-and-click adventure game. Talking of RPGs, they’re different again, so I’ll be happy to start one… as soon as I can decide which I want to dedicate so much time to out of the 40 RPGs I own with a predicted 25- to 150-hour playtime.*
But (to get back to the original point) I also have 66 point-and-click adventures in my backlog; not to mention up to 48 other games in the same narrative-focused puzzle-solving space where the control system isn’t “pointing and clicking”. So, much like finishing one novel before starting another, I ought to complete Gray Matter before I begin any of those. It’s not that I don’t like Gray Matter, it’s just not shiny and new! So here I am, trying to get back into it properly for the first time in three months (the five minutes I played in August barely count, though I did explore a couple of rooms then). Played for almost an hour, but then I hit a point which repeatedly crashed the game. Can't immediately find a way past that error, but I'm going to have to work it out so I can finish it! That's a problem for another day, though.
* They don’t all have an upper limit over 100 hours, but several do. Two suggest they take at least 100 hours.
My recent purchasing spree has left me with dozens (arguably hundreds) of narrative-focused games that I’m eager to dive into… but I’m still in the middle of this one, and it feels wrong to be playing more than one at once. We may do that with other narrative media — TV shows being the obvious example; some people read multiple books at once — but I don’t really do it with either of those anymore, so why would I with games?
Okay, different gaming genres make a difference because of different mechanics. There are games that are heavily interested in narrative but how they convey that is different enough that which you choose depends what play experience you’re in the mood for. I mean, Control (which I’ve now abandoned thanks to Luna) is definitely narrative-heavy, but it’s also a shooter with fast-paced combat, plus some RPG-like levelling elements. It's an entirely different experience to a point-and-click adventure game. Talking of RPGs, they’re different again, so I’ll be happy to start one… as soon as I can decide which I want to dedicate so much time to out of the 40 RPGs I own with a predicted 25- to 150-hour playtime.*
But (to get back to the original point) I also have 66 point-and-click adventures in my backlog; not to mention up to 48 other games in the same narrative-focused puzzle-solving space where the control system isn’t “pointing and clicking”. So, much like finishing one novel before starting another, I ought to complete Gray Matter before I begin any of those. It’s not that I don’t like Gray Matter, it’s just not shiny and new! So here I am, trying to get back into it properly for the first time in three months (the five minutes I played in August barely count, though I did explore a couple of rooms then). Played for almost an hour, but then I hit a point which repeatedly crashed the game. Can't immediately find a way past that error, but I'm going to have to work it out so I can finish it! That's a problem for another day, though.
* They don’t all have an upper limit over 100 hours, but several do. Two suggest they take at least 100 hours.
Sunday, 5 October 2025
this week on 100Films.co.uk
Welcome to my weekly update about activity on 100Films.co.uk... which, this year, has really been a monthly update. Oh well.
Nonetheless, here's the latest monthly goings on — namely, the regular review of the last month...
...and its accompanying list of things I failed to watch...
More next Sunday? Probably not, but you never know.
Nonetheless, here's the latest monthly goings on — namely, the regular review of the last month...
...and its accompanying list of things I failed to watch...
More next Sunday? Probably not, but you never know.
Saturday, 4 October 2025
Fiction
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
5 The Adventure of the Priory School
Jumping back to the third volume of Holmes short stories for this interesting instance: it's on my "to read" list as not being very good, because that's based on the Pocket Essentials guide and the author only rated it 2 out of 5; but when Conan Doyle listed his favourite-ever Holmes tales he placed it 10th, and the poll-of-polls I keep referring to saw readers rank it =13th. That means the wider fanbase consider it to be in the top quarter of all stories quality-wise vs Pocket Essentials dumping it in the bottom 20% — quite a disparity.
Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the lower score, though I don't think for the same reasons. They assert the story is "dull and goes on too long", whereas I found the bulk of it to be quite engaging, with a reasonable mystery and some decent investigating. It's the solution and ending that sits uneasily. Without giving it away, some characters' actions stretch plausibility, in my view, and the case has been more-or-less resolved before Holmes presents his solution. It's true that his presence brings someone to justice who would probably have otherwise escaped it, but all the other aspects of the resolution would have unfolded the same way without his input. It's not necessarily a 2-star story, then, but I also don't feel it's a great one.
5 The Adventure of the Priory School
Jumping back to the third volume of Holmes short stories for this interesting instance: it's on my "to read" list as not being very good, because that's based on the Pocket Essentials guide and the author only rated it 2 out of 5; but when Conan Doyle listed his favourite-ever Holmes tales he placed it 10th, and the poll-of-polls I keep referring to saw readers rank it =13th. That means the wider fanbase consider it to be in the top quarter of all stories quality-wise vs Pocket Essentials dumping it in the bottom 20% — quite a disparity.
Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the lower score, though I don't think for the same reasons. They assert the story is "dull and goes on too long", whereas I found the bulk of it to be quite engaging, with a reasonable mystery and some decent investigating. It's the solution and ending that sits uneasily. Without giving it away, some characters' actions stretch plausibility, in my view, and the case has been more-or-less resolved before Holmes presents his solution. It's true that his presence brings someone to justice who would probably have otherwise escaped it, but all the other aspects of the resolution would have unfolded the same way without his input. It's not necessarily a 2-star story, then, but I also don't feel it's a great one.
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
Except, for the third week in a row, I have nothing to report here. What is happening?! Did I forget to add some stuff?! (I'm genuinely wondering that at this point, because it doesn't feel like that long since I had a new delivery. But time flies nowadays, so I guess it has been.)
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
I have been preordering stuff, though — I just spent hundreds of pounds on a handful of titles from Australia, which won't turn up until December (or January, if Christmas post is a bugger). And there are a couple of titles due to arrive later this month, so maybe there'll be something to report next week. If not, the monthly running time update will hold steady. I'm not sure that's ever happened.
See you next week to find out, faithful reader.
Except, for the third week in a row, I have nothing to report here. What is happening?! Did I forget to add some stuff?! (I'm genuinely wondering that at this point, because it doesn't feel like that long since I had a new delivery. But time flies nowadays, so I guess it has been.)
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
I have been preordering stuff, though — I just spent hundreds of pounds on a handful of titles from Australia, which won't turn up until December (or January, if Christmas post is a bugger). And there are a couple of titles due to arrive later this month, so maybe there'll be something to report next week. If not, the monthly running time update will hold steady. I'm not sure that's ever happened.
See you next week to find out, faithful reader.
Friday, 3 October 2025
TV
Critical Role
4x01 The Fall of Thjazi Fang
Campaign 4, here we gooooo!
A big moment for me as a Critter, because this is the first CR campaign I'll be watching 'live'. I stayed up for this premiere episode, even, which I certainly won't be able to do every week (it starts at 3am my time). Another complicating factor is I still have 30 episodes of Campaign 2 left, and I absolutely intend to finish it*, so we'll see how all this goes with scheduling and whatnot.
But anyway: what an amazing start. Shakeups to the format that don't break it but keep it exciting. A tonne of characters all well introduced and established, plot threads and mysteries set in motion, and some good laughs and memorable moments already. Can't wait to see where this all goes over the years to come.
* Even though it's been almost two months since I watched any (gasp!) I wanted to focus on getting Age of Umbra finished first, and then it seemed fruitless to try to pick C2 back up with C4 so close.
[Watch it (again) on Beacon, Twitch, or YouTube now if you're a member, or free on YouTube from Monday.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Campaign 4, Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
4x01 The Fall of Thjazi Fang
Campaign 4, here we gooooo!
A big moment for me as a Critter, because this is the first CR campaign I'll be watching 'live'. I stayed up for this premiere episode, even, which I certainly won't be able to do every week (it starts at 3am my time). Another complicating factor is I still have 30 episodes of Campaign 2 left, and I absolutely intend to finish it*, so we'll see how all this goes with scheduling and whatnot.
But anyway: what an amazing start. Shakeups to the format that don't break it but keep it exciting. A tonne of characters all well introduced and established, plot threads and mysteries set in motion, and some good laughs and memorable moments already. Can't wait to see where this all goes over the years to come.
* Even though it's been almost two months since I watched any (gasp!) I wanted to focus on getting Age of Umbra finished first, and then it seemed fruitless to try to pick C2 back up with C4 so close.
[Watch it (again) on Beacon, Twitch, or YouTube now if you're a member, or free on YouTube from Monday.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Campaign 4, Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
Thursday, 2 October 2025
Wednesday, 1 October 2025
Comics
2000 AD
Prog 2413
Just one more strip (although, again, a double-length one), but it keeps it ticking over: Day 12! And that's really the important thing, because it's when I stop reading, due to a busy day or week or whatever, that I fall out of the habit and have a nine-month break.
Prog 2413
Just one more strip (although, again, a double-length one), but it keeps it ticking over: Day 12! And that's really the important thing, because it's when I stop reading, due to a busy day or week or whatever, that I fall out of the habit and have a nine-month break.
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Comics
2000 AD
Prog 2413
I spent so long fucking with Forza that I only found time to read the opening Judge Dredd strip from this issue — though, as this is the extra-long Christmas edition, that is at least the length of two regular strips. Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, I consider anything enough to count towards my catch-up streak, so: Day 11!
Prog 2413
I spent so long fucking with Forza that I only found time to read the opening Judge Dredd strip from this issue — though, as this is the extra-long Christmas edition, that is at least the length of two regular strips. Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, I consider anything enough to count towards my catch-up streak, so: Day 11!
Games
Forza Horizon 4
Today, worked out how to patch my copy to update it to the final version of the game — went so well, I then tried to install a crack to let me play it online — but that wiped my save data, although after some thinking and fiddling I managed to get it back... which apparently disabled the online stuff again. Not exactly a successful day, then. I did consider just starting over — most of my "achievements" are the auto-unlocked free DLC anyway — but, really, the only reason I want to get online is try some of the online-only features, which I'm not sure I'll particularly enjoy anyway, so... Well, now I know how to back up / swap out save files, maybe I'll try again at some point.
Today, worked out how to patch my copy to update it to the final version of the game — went so well, I then tried to install a crack to let me play it online — but that wiped my save data, although after some thinking and fiddling I managed to get it back... which apparently disabled the online stuff again. Not exactly a successful day, then. I did consider just starting over — most of my "achievements" are the auto-unlocked free DLC anyway — but, really, the only reason I want to get online is try some of the online-only features, which I'm not sure I'll particularly enjoy anyway, so... Well, now I know how to back up / swap out save files, maybe I'll try again at some point.
Monday, 29 September 2025
Comics
2000 AD
Prog 2411
Prog 2412
Day 10! Next up is last year's Christmas Prog, which is bumper-length so might take me a couple of days (2022's did; 2023's didn't*); but I'm not aiming to read "an issue every day", just "some every day", so that won't break my run.
* Note how neither of those was read in December, so this is nothing new.
Prog 2411
Prog 2412
Day 10! Next up is last year's Christmas Prog, which is bumper-length so might take me a couple of days (2022's did; 2023's didn't*); but I'm not aiming to read "an issue every day", just "some every day", so that won't break my run.
* Note how neither of those was read in December, so this is nothing new.
Games
Forza Horizon 4
Nearly three hours in this again today! That's slightly inaccurate, in the sense that I wasted a bunch of time trying to fiddle with settings — for reasons I can't ascertain, in handheld (i.e. regular) mode it will crash after about five minutes, max; but when docked to my TV, it runs perfectly for hours, in Full HD with high graphics. Even reducing those settings, it will still crash handheld. I don't know enough to work out why that would be, but it's frustrating. I mean, I'm happy enough playing on my TV, but sometimes it's nice to have a little play in bed or whatever. (*ahem*)
But I did also spend a lot of time actually playing, because there's so much to see and do! Today I decided to head into the LEGO Speed Champions area… and it's basically a whole extra game! I was expecting a couple of sights to see, a few LEGO cars to unlock, but no, there's tonnes of content, on a map that feels almost as big as the main game. I expect it isn't, but that's more because of how huge the main game's is rather than any fault of the LEGO area. (Google says it's actually ¼ of the size. Like I said, the main one is just huge.)
And there's a whole other DLC expansion I haven't visited yet. Assuming it's anything like the LEGO one, I might just leave it a while.
Nearly three hours in this again today! That's slightly inaccurate, in the sense that I wasted a bunch of time trying to fiddle with settings — for reasons I can't ascertain, in handheld (i.e. regular) mode it will crash after about five minutes, max; but when docked to my TV, it runs perfectly for hours, in Full HD with high graphics. Even reducing those settings, it will still crash handheld. I don't know enough to work out why that would be, but it's frustrating. I mean, I'm happy enough playing on my TV, but sometimes it's nice to have a little play in bed or whatever. (*ahem*)
But I did also spend a lot of time actually playing, because there's so much to see and do! Today I decided to head into the LEGO Speed Champions area… and it's basically a whole extra game! I was expecting a couple of sights to see, a few LEGO cars to unlock, but no, there's tonnes of content, on a map that feels almost as big as the main game. I expect it isn't, but that's more because of how huge the main game's is rather than any fault of the LEGO area. (Google says it's actually ¼ of the size. Like I said, the main one is just huge.)
And there's a whole other DLC expansion I haven't visited yet. Assuming it's anything like the LEGO one, I might just leave it a while.
Sunday, 28 September 2025
Games
Forza Horizon 4
Popped in to change a setting and decided to take a drive up to Edinburgh — doesn't take long (the open world map is big, 52 square miles, but far from life-size), but then I ended up just driving about and such things (I did all of one race), and suddenly it was over an hour-and-a-half later. I'm sure that will get boring eventually... but I went back to the game later and spent another couple of hours in it, so not yet!
And then something weird happened. I reached the point where you unlock more stuff — like so many games nowadays (it seems to me, from what I've heard/experienced), it leads you carefully for a little bit, then decides you've learnt the basics and so opens up more. Except because of, um, how I acquired the game, it comes with everything that was available to unlock, all DLC content, etc. And so rather than just a little more progress, I was flooded with stuff. I don't think everything is unlocked — it looks like completing races, earning points, etc, will make still more stuff accessible — but whereas before it offered a couple of options to choose between for what to do next, and stacking up points eventually unlocked the next level and season, all of a sudden I was Level 17 (I think I was Level 2 or 3 before), and the map was covered in options, and notifications kept flashing up with stuff I'd unlocked, and I had enough points to basically jump to the next season every time something in the game might trigger that. And the game crashed several times, I think overburdened with everything it was having to process! (It eventually settled down and seemed to run fine again, thank goodness.)
That explosion of content and progess was... kind of exciting, I guess; but it also felt like I was being rushed past the 'training wheels' phase, and I kind of liked that gradual progression and uncovering stuff. For example, once you've completed the 'training' part — which introduces mechanices and options, but also progresses you through a full cycle of seasons over a couple of hours of playtime (according to reviews) — the game changes season every week. So rather than linearly moving on whenever you complete/earn progress (and you can rack up points by just driving around as much or little as you want, so you'd have some control), if the week you're in is Spring and you want to see something in Winter, you've got to wait up to four weeks for it to cycle through. It's a neat concept, but potentially frustating. And in terms of unlocked races and whatnot, I'm sure everything remains revisitable, so I haven't literally missed it; but, for example, I did one event in Autumn and was pushed straight to Winter, then did one thing in Winter and it was straight to Spring. I don't think it's meant to work like that! I think you're meant to, sort of, be guided along a bit more gradually, then eventually set loose.
Ah well, it is what it is. At least having access to so much stuff is, as I said, kinda exciting, and I can pick and choose whatever I want to do from a vast array of possibilities. And there is a lot to work through!
Popped in to change a setting and decided to take a drive up to Edinburgh — doesn't take long (the open world map is big, 52 square miles, but far from life-size), but then I ended up just driving about and such things (I did all of one race), and suddenly it was over an hour-and-a-half later. I'm sure that will get boring eventually... but I went back to the game later and spent another couple of hours in it, so not yet!
And then something weird happened. I reached the point where you unlock more stuff — like so many games nowadays (it seems to me, from what I've heard/experienced), it leads you carefully for a little bit, then decides you've learnt the basics and so opens up more. Except because of, um, how I acquired the game, it comes with everything that was available to unlock, all DLC content, etc. And so rather than just a little more progress, I was flooded with stuff. I don't think everything is unlocked — it looks like completing races, earning points, etc, will make still more stuff accessible — but whereas before it offered a couple of options to choose between for what to do next, and stacking up points eventually unlocked the next level and season, all of a sudden I was Level 17 (I think I was Level 2 or 3 before), and the map was covered in options, and notifications kept flashing up with stuff I'd unlocked, and I had enough points to basically jump to the next season every time something in the game might trigger that. And the game crashed several times, I think overburdened with everything it was having to process! (It eventually settled down and seemed to run fine again, thank goodness.)
That explosion of content and progess was... kind of exciting, I guess; but it also felt like I was being rushed past the 'training wheels' phase, and I kind of liked that gradual progression and uncovering stuff. For example, once you've completed the 'training' part — which introduces mechanices and options, but also progresses you through a full cycle of seasons over a couple of hours of playtime (according to reviews) — the game changes season every week. So rather than linearly moving on whenever you complete/earn progress (and you can rack up points by just driving around as much or little as you want, so you'd have some control), if the week you're in is Spring and you want to see something in Winter, you've got to wait up to four weeks for it to cycle through. It's a neat concept, but potentially frustating. And in terms of unlocked races and whatnot, I'm sure everything remains revisitable, so I haven't literally missed it; but, for example, I did one event in Autumn and was pushed straight to Winter, then did one thing in Winter and it was straight to Spring. I don't think it's meant to work like that! I think you're meant to, sort of, be guided along a bit more gradually, then eventually set loose.
Ah well, it is what it is. At least having access to so much stuff is, as I said, kinda exciting, and I can pick and choose whatever I want to do from a vast array of possibilities. And there is a lot to work through!
Saturday, 27 September 2025
Fiction / Non-Fiction / Games
Daggerheart: Core Rulebook
Yep, still progressing through this. I'm not necessarily intending to read the whole thing cover to cover (as I said, not the point, I don't think), but I am reading sections to learn stuff — like, today, I read about all the different classes.
Yep, still progressing through this. I'm not necessarily intending to read the whole thing cover to cover (as I said, not the point, I don't think), but I am reading sections to learn stuff — like, today, I read about all the different classes.
Games
Doom
Doom is the 11th greatest PC game of all time and 2nd greatest retro game of all time. I'm sure I played it Back In The Day, but never thoroughly. Nowadays, you can get it dirt cheap along with its sequel, plus a bunch of mods and stuff, with some updated graphics and whatnot (not a total overhaul, but it's in widescreen, for example), so I thought I should give it a go... on the lowest difficulty, natch. And on my Steam Deck, which normally isn't ideal for FPS games (controllers are so hard to aim with), but as you don't have to look up and down in Doom, it's considerably easier. Also, like I said, lowest difficulty.
I would say I breezed through it, and I did in the sense that I didn't die until the boss fight at the end (it took me a couple of goes to realise I could run anywhere — clearly "red floor = lava = death" wasn't a game design concept back in 1993), but my times were atrocious: it took me 79 minutes to play the first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, while the combined par times (given at the end of each level) total under 18 minutes! I presume they're a target to aim for rather than a "what you manage on your first go, while blundering around getting very lost on some maps and having to backtrack a lot", which is certainly what happened to me. Oh well, I mostly had fun shooting stuff and not dying (lowest difficulty, remember). Said episode contained nine levels, while the combined DOOM + DOOM II I referred to reports to have 187 missions all-in. That's the potential for plenty of value from the less-than-£3 it cost me.
Forza Horizon 4
On the other hand, I can't really remember what piqued my initial interest in this. A chain of events got me to download it today, though: somewhere I stumbled across the news that Forza Horizon 6 will be set in Japan, which made me curious where previous games were set, and (long story short) I discovered 4 was set in the UK but is no longer available to buy (it was discontinued at the end of last year due to licences expiring). The UK setting and my background interest was enough that I probably would've bought it, but as I couldn't I learnt something new about my Steam Deck: how to get games on there from, uh, questionable sources. It's amazing how much that world has come on in recent years, but I won't extrapolate too much.
Anyway, I'm glad I did because it's actually a tonne of fun! Being an open world game, you can just drive around roads — which might sound dull because, y'know, I could go outside and do that for real; but not at these speeds, in these cars, on a condensed map that packs in various different parts of the UK. It's fun! And then there are races and story mode bits and stuff to progress. Me being me, I turned the difficulty right down, to the point where actually it was just silly so I turned it back up a bit. Fun times. It looks great on the Deck too, running in full HD to my TV and only experiencing issues on loading animations (which, as you're not playing at that point, I can totally live with).
I can see myself sinking hours into this, possibly.
Doom is the 11th greatest PC game of all time and 2nd greatest retro game of all time. I'm sure I played it Back In The Day, but never thoroughly. Nowadays, you can get it dirt cheap along with its sequel, plus a bunch of mods and stuff, with some updated graphics and whatnot (not a total overhaul, but it's in widescreen, for example), so I thought I should give it a go... on the lowest difficulty, natch. And on my Steam Deck, which normally isn't ideal for FPS games (controllers are so hard to aim with), but as you don't have to look up and down in Doom, it's considerably easier. Also, like I said, lowest difficulty.
I would say I breezed through it, and I did in the sense that I didn't die until the boss fight at the end (it took me a couple of goes to realise I could run anywhere — clearly "red floor = lava = death" wasn't a game design concept back in 1993), but my times were atrocious: it took me 79 minutes to play the first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, while the combined par times (given at the end of each level) total under 18 minutes! I presume they're a target to aim for rather than a "what you manage on your first go, while blundering around getting very lost on some maps and having to backtrack a lot", which is certainly what happened to me. Oh well, I mostly had fun shooting stuff and not dying (lowest difficulty, remember). Said episode contained nine levels, while the combined DOOM + DOOM II I referred to reports to have 187 missions all-in. That's the potential for plenty of value from the less-than-£3 it cost me.
Forza Horizon 4
On the other hand, I can't really remember what piqued my initial interest in this. A chain of events got me to download it today, though: somewhere I stumbled across the news that Forza Horizon 6 will be set in Japan, which made me curious where previous games were set, and (long story short) I discovered 4 was set in the UK but is no longer available to buy (it was discontinued at the end of last year due to licences expiring). The UK setting and my background interest was enough that I probably would've bought it, but as I couldn't I learnt something new about my Steam Deck: how to get games on there from, uh, questionable sources. It's amazing how much that world has come on in recent years, but I won't extrapolate too much.
Anyway, I'm glad I did because it's actually a tonne of fun! Being an open world game, you can just drive around roads — which might sound dull because, y'know, I could go outside and do that for real; but not at these speeds, in these cars, on a condensed map that packs in various different parts of the UK. It's fun! And then there are races and story mode bits and stuff to progress. Me being me, I turned the difficulty right down, to the point where actually it was just silly so I turned it back up a bit. Fun times. It looks great on the Deck too, running in full HD to my TV and only experiencing issues on loading animations (which, as you're not playing at that point, I can totally live with).
I can see myself sinking hours into this, possibly.
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week... except this week, there's nothing to report — same as last week. And, at present, next week. What's going on?!
Well, I guess it's just been a quieter time for must-buy new releases. I don't think I've overlooked anything I really wanted, although I have passed on a couple of maybes in favour of trying to cut back generally. Plus, of course — as recent weeks' posts on this blog will attest — I've been spending a lot more time (and money) on computer games instead. Maybe I should start a collection count for those, too...
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader — whether there's something to report or not.
Well, I guess it's just been a quieter time for must-buy new releases. I don't think I've overlooked anything I really wanted, although I have passed on a couple of maybes in favour of trying to cut back generally. Plus, of course — as recent weeks' posts on this blog will attest — I've been spending a lot more time (and money) on computer games instead. Maybe I should start a collection count for those, too...
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader — whether there's something to report or not.
Friday, 26 September 2025
Games
Pullblox
Starting another new game?! Yeah, well, I considered playing something I already had underway, but this was what I fancied. Also, I’d intended to make it my next 3DS game before Pilotwings nabbed my attention, so fair’s fair. According to Metacritic it's the 6th best game on the 3DS (listed as Pushmo there because that was the title in the US), behind only a couple of Zeldas, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Shovel Knight, and a 3D Mario — all of which I also own, but this sounded the most pick-up-and-play friendly, as it's a cute puzzle game with platforming elements.
And it's a lot of fun! The gameplay — which is based around pulling boxes in and out to create levels to jump up — works fantastically in 3D. I'm sure it would be playable in 2D, but it really works with the added sense of depth. I spent half-an-hour on it initally and got through the 18 training puzzles and first half-dozen Level 1 puzzles, then went back later for another 40 minutes and did the remaining dozen Level 1s. I can see how it would be great to just quickly do a puzzle or two — especially as they do get trickier, and sometimes involve more precise platforming skills — but it's also fun to play for a little while and get through a few. Once the hand-holding introduction is done, it's lightly challenging without being stressful... although, as I say, sometimes the platforming is a little tricker. I hope it doesn't get too bad, because precision platforming isn't really my thing.
Starting another new game?! Yeah, well, I considered playing something I already had underway, but this was what I fancied. Also, I’d intended to make it my next 3DS game before Pilotwings nabbed my attention, so fair’s fair. According to Metacritic it's the 6th best game on the 3DS (listed as Pushmo there because that was the title in the US), behind only a couple of Zeldas, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Shovel Knight, and a 3D Mario — all of which I also own, but this sounded the most pick-up-and-play friendly, as it's a cute puzzle game with platforming elements.
And it's a lot of fun! The gameplay — which is based around pulling boxes in and out to create levels to jump up — works fantastically in 3D. I'm sure it would be playable in 2D, but it really works with the added sense of depth. I spent half-an-hour on it initally and got through the 18 training puzzles and first half-dozen Level 1 puzzles, then went back later for another 40 minutes and did the remaining dozen Level 1s. I can see how it would be great to just quickly do a puzzle or two — especially as they do get trickier, and sometimes involve more precise platforming skills — but it's also fun to play for a little while and get through a few. Once the hand-holding introduction is done, it's lightly challenging without being stressful... although, as I say, sometimes the platforming is a little tricker. I hope it doesn't get too bad, because precision platforming isn't really my thing.
Thursday, 25 September 2025
Fiction / Non-Fiction / Games
Daggerheart: Core Rulebook
I feel like I should mention this, but I'm not entirely sure where it goes. I mean, it's the rulebook for a game — so it's a game... but I'm not actually playing the game, so it's not a game. And it's a rulebook, so that's non-fiction... but the game is all about collaborating to create a fictional narrative, so it's certainly fiction too.
But then, even logging it at all is kinda weird, because you're not really meant to sit down and read books like this cover to cover. It's got various useful sections, and really I think you're supposed to look at the relevant bits as and when you need them. But I'm the kind of person that, when they get a new 'toy', goes straight to read the manual rather than just turn it on and play, so...
I feel like I should mention this, but I'm not entirely sure where it goes. I mean, it's the rulebook for a game — so it's a game... but I'm not actually playing the game, so it's not a game. And it's a rulebook, so that's non-fiction... but the game is all about collaborating to create a fictional narrative, so it's certainly fiction too.
But then, even logging it at all is kinda weird, because you're not really meant to sit down and read books like this cover to cover. It's got various useful sections, and really I think you're supposed to look at the relevant bits as and when you need them. But I'm the kind of person that, when they get a new 'toy', goes straight to read the manual rather than just turn it on and play, so...
Games
Balatro
One thing I find kinda interesting about this is you unlock cards in your collection, not by being offered them in the shop, but by actually purchasing them — they're even listed as "not discovered" when... you can see them; you have discovered them.
But my real point is: some of those cards seem suboptimal, but if you want to complete your collection, presumably you've gotta buy them at some point. Dilemma. I guess you can just 'throw away' a run on collecting stuff, mind — it's not like there's some overall penalty for number of losses. I don't even know if that's recorded anywhere (I feel like it would be? But even then, based on my experience and what I've heard, you're going to lose more often than not anyway.)
One thing I find kinda interesting about this is you unlock cards in your collection, not by being offered them in the shop, but by actually purchasing them — they're even listed as "not discovered" when... you can see them; you have discovered them.
But my real point is: some of those cards seem suboptimal, but if you want to complete your collection, presumably you've gotta buy them at some point. Dilemma. I guess you can just 'throw away' a run on collecting stuff, mind — it's not like there's some overall penalty for number of losses. I don't even know if that's recorded anywhere (I feel like it would be? But even then, based on my experience and what I've heard, you're going to lose more often than not anyway.)
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Audio Drama
Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures
4.1 Snare
It was five years last month since the Ninth Doctor joined Big Finish, and to coincide with that anniversary (deliberately or not, I'm not sure) the thing I suspect most fans have wanted since the start finally came to pass: Rose (Billie Piper) joined him.
Alternating months with the Thirteenth Doctor Adventures* (until at least June 2027), the "fourth series" of the Ninth Doctor Adventures moves on from his solo pre-Rose era, as featured throughout his first three BF series, into... his Rose era, natch, for a series of stories set between Father's Day and The Empty Child (stories set between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town would've been fun, but that's never gonna happen now).
It's a good evocation of the era, feeling right at home with both the characterisation and the kinds of stories told — sci-fi and fantastical, but grounded in everyday real human experiences. That said, much like the opening instalment of the 13th Doctor series, it's solid rather than exceptional. But that's fine, and a decent start.
* The second 13th Doctor adventure came out at the start of the month, and I've received my CD copy. Three episodes into this combined era, I'm aleady two episodes behind.
4.1 Snare
It was five years last month since the Ninth Doctor joined Big Finish, and to coincide with that anniversary (deliberately or not, I'm not sure) the thing I suspect most fans have wanted since the start finally came to pass: Rose (Billie Piper) joined him.
Alternating months with the Thirteenth Doctor Adventures* (until at least June 2027), the "fourth series" of the Ninth Doctor Adventures moves on from his solo pre-Rose era, as featured throughout his first three BF series, into... his Rose era, natch, for a series of stories set between Father's Day and The Empty Child (stories set between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town would've been fun, but that's never gonna happen now).
It's a good evocation of the era, feeling right at home with both the characterisation and the kinds of stories told — sci-fi and fantastical, but grounded in everyday real human experiences. That said, much like the opening instalment of the 13th Doctor series, it's solid rather than exceptional. But that's fine, and a decent start.
* The second 13th Doctor adventure came out at the start of the month, and I've received my CD copy. Three episodes into this combined era, I'm aleady two episodes behind.
Fiction
Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber
I. The Circle Curse
Straight on to the second volume in the collected Lankhmar / Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser / Swords series. I'd sort of assumed I'd read something else next and come back to these another time, but I'm enjoying them so much I just wanted more. I guess I'll just keep going until I fancy a change — each of the seven books is relatively short (and made up of short stories & novellas, so even more digestible than short novels), but together they make up two fairly hefty tomes, and my track record with long books is... not good.
I. The Circle Curse
Straight on to the second volume in the collected Lankhmar / Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser / Swords series. I'd sort of assumed I'd read something else next and come back to these another time, but I'm enjoying them so much I just wanted more. I guess I'll just keep going until I fancy a change — each of the seven books is relatively short (and made up of short stories & novellas, so even more digestible than short novels), but together they make up two fairly hefty tomes, and my track record with long books is... not good.
Tuesday, 23 September 2025
Games
Control
Another 2½ hours (ish), not because I actually wanted to play for that long, but because this is one of those games that restarts you at the last checkpoint (rather than just letting you save wherever) and I was wary of losing progress. Frustrating. (Also, still not convinced I'm going to finish this before it leaves Luna. Increasingly feels like 6 hours 'wasted'...)
Another 2½ hours (ish), not because I actually wanted to play for that long, but because this is one of those games that restarts you at the last checkpoint (rather than just letting you save wherever) and I was wary of losing progress. Frustrating. (Also, still not convinced I'm going to finish this before it leaves Luna. Increasingly feels like 6 hours 'wasted'...)
Monday, 22 September 2025
TV
Fireside Chat LIVE With Matthew Mercer & Brennan Lee Mulligan
Holy moly, Campaign 4 starts next week! It felt kinda far off when they announced it*, but now it's almost here! So it's long overdue that I get round to this introduction-y hour-long chat Matt & Brennan did a month ago today (I've been meaning to watch this for a month?! Where does time go?!)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
* To be honest, it never felt that far off to me, because I immediately knew I wouldn't be able to finish C2 before it began, so the clock was always ticking.
Holy moly, Campaign 4 starts next week! It felt kinda far off when they announced it*, but now it's almost here! So it's long overdue that I get round to this introduction-y hour-long chat Matt & Brennan did a month ago today (I've been meaning to watch this for a month?! Where does time go?!)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
* To be honest, it never felt that far off to me, because I immediately knew I wouldn't be able to finish C2 before it began, so the clock was always ticking.
Games
3D Sonic the Hedgehog
I had two goes at starting the next level, did phenomenally poorly both times, and quit. My 3DS logged my playtime as 1 minute. I might be done with Sonic now… apart from giving Sonic 2 a go, anyway. Can’t imagine it will go any better, but you never know.
Control
Quite enjoying this, but after about 3½ hours played it still feels like I'm quite early in the game — like, it's underway, but I know there are much-discussed gameplay elements I haven't unlocked yet; plus, HowLongToBeat says it takes at least 13 hours to play through, so there's that. Normally that would be fine, but it's making me wonder if I'm wasting my time playing it on Luna, considering that it leaves the free-with-Prime section in 9 days — I either get it done by then, or my progress is lost. I could pay for Luna+ to continue it, but it would be better value to just buy it next time it's on sale: a month of Luna+ is £9 and this was recently available for about £3. (I've missed that offer now, but it'll be back.) Not sure whether to forge on or call it a day — and, say, go back to the last game where this happened.
Pilotwings Resort
Back to the 3DS, with more success: 58 minutes of this. Still annoyed by the time limit on free flight, but I’m beginning to get slightly better at controlling the jet pack and glider. Neither are as fun as the plane, but you have to use them to complete some things, and completing things is the only way to unlock more stuff, so…
I had two goes at starting the next level, did phenomenally poorly both times, and quit. My 3DS logged my playtime as 1 minute. I might be done with Sonic now… apart from giving Sonic 2 a go, anyway. Can’t imagine it will go any better, but you never know.
Control
Quite enjoying this, but after about 3½ hours played it still feels like I'm quite early in the game — like, it's underway, but I know there are much-discussed gameplay elements I haven't unlocked yet; plus, HowLongToBeat says it takes at least 13 hours to play through, so there's that. Normally that would be fine, but it's making me wonder if I'm wasting my time playing it on Luna, considering that it leaves the free-with-Prime section in 9 days — I either get it done by then, or my progress is lost. I could pay for Luna+ to continue it, but it would be better value to just buy it next time it's on sale: a month of Luna+ is £9 and this was recently available for about £3. (I've missed that offer now, but it'll be back.) Not sure whether to forge on or call it a day — and, say, go back to the last game where this happened.
Pilotwings Resort
Back to the 3DS, with more success: 58 minutes of this. Still annoyed by the time limit on free flight, but I’m beginning to get slightly better at controlling the jet pack and glider. Neither are as fun as the plane, but you have to use them to complete some things, and completing things is the only way to unlock more stuff, so…
Sunday, 21 September 2025
Films
An Aleutian Adventure
[#75 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
I've not put a year on this because it's hard to date: it's a very obscure film that I got through a Kickstarter, and the best they can say is it's from the late 1920s. There's nothing else about it online — no IMDb listing, still — and, thanks to the Kickstarter disc coming out this year, TMDB puts it as 2025, which it obviously isn't. Not sure how I'll list it on 100 Films when (if?) I get round to reviewing it, but I'll worry about that later.
[#75 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
I've not put a year on this because it's hard to date: it's a very obscure film that I got through a Kickstarter, and the best they can say is it's from the late 1920s. There's nothing else about it online — no IMDb listing, still — and, thanks to the Kickstarter disc coming out this year, TMDB puts it as 2025, which it obviously isn't. Not sure how I'll list it on 100 Films when (if?) I get round to reviewing it, but I'll worry about that later.
Fiction
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
IV. Ill Met in Lankhmar [the end]
Well, I enjoyed that very much — it's lived up to its rep as a cornerstone of swords & sorcery fiction. My only question is: why has it taken so long for me to hear about it? Why's it not more widely known and recommended? It seems to be one of those series that 'those in the know' know about; like Leiber is the fantasy writers' fantasy writer — like, this is one of those series you've not heard of, but every author you love loves it. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.
Anyway, I've started it now, and I'm thrilled there are six more books, with I-don't-know-how-many more stories between them, for me to look forward to.
IV. Ill Met in Lankhmar [the end]
Well, I enjoyed that very much — it's lived up to its rep as a cornerstone of swords & sorcery fiction. My only question is: why has it taken so long for me to hear about it? Why's it not more widely known and recommended? It seems to be one of those series that 'those in the know' know about; like Leiber is the fantasy writers' fantasy writer — like, this is one of those series you've not heard of, but every author you love loves it. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.
Anyway, I've started it now, and I'm thrilled there are six more books, with I-don't-know-how-many more stories between them, for me to look forward to.
Games
007: Blood Stone
Steam tells me I've spent over two-and-a-half hours in Blood Stone, which is an awful lot for a game I'm "not playing". But, yes, this was even more controller setup. Having got it working with the Steam Deck's own controls the other day, I've since connected my Deck to the TV, so I wanted to see how it worked there with an external controller. Plus, the game does have a controller setting, so I thought I'd give that a go.
Well, it's shit. It still shows the keyboard commands on screen — lazy programming! — which means it's trial and error trying to work out what button does what; and some do nothing, making some actions impossible. So after battling away with that for a while, I gave in and remapped a la my Deck controls. Got it basically perfect that way, too.
After all that effort, maybe I should actually play the game... although Everything or Nothing is really a higher priority (it's been waiting for me longer, and it's meant to be quite a bit better)... and I kinda started the GoldenEye remake, too... Oh dear!
Steam tells me I've spent over two-and-a-half hours in Blood Stone, which is an awful lot for a game I'm "not playing". But, yes, this was even more controller setup. Having got it working with the Steam Deck's own controls the other day, I've since connected my Deck to the TV, so I wanted to see how it worked there with an external controller. Plus, the game does have a controller setting, so I thought I'd give that a go.
Well, it's shit. It still shows the keyboard commands on screen — lazy programming! — which means it's trial and error trying to work out what button does what; and some do nothing, making some actions impossible. So after battling away with that for a while, I gave in and remapped a la my Deck controls. Got it basically perfect that way, too.
After all that effort, maybe I should actually play the game... although Everything or Nothing is really a higher priority (it's been waiting for me longer, and it's meant to be quite a bit better)... and I kinda started the GoldenEye remake, too... Oh dear!
Saturday, 20 September 2025
Comics
2000 AD
Prog 2401
Prog 2402
Prog 2450 was released this week, meaning I have exactly 50 issues to catch up on. Considering the Christmas one covers three weeks, I guess that means I've fallen a whole year behind. Oops. Well, it was a quality line-up at this point — I'm enjoying all five strips, which is certainly not always the case — so hopefully that will compel me to catch up faster.
Prog 2401
Prog 2402
Prog 2450 was released this week, meaning I have exactly 50 issues to catch up on. Considering the Christmas one covers three weeks, I guess that means I've fallen a whole year behind. Oops. Well, it was a quality line-up at this point — I'm enjoying all five strips, which is certainly not always the case — so hopefully that will compel me to catch up faster.
Games
Balatro
I swear people talk about this as a quick “pick up and play a round” kind of game, but I played one run today and it took over half-an-hour, and I only made it about halfway before losing. Maybe it gets quicker when/if you know what you’re doing, I dunno…
Pilotwings Resort
This is my most recent acquisiton for the 3DS and, rather than add it to the bottom of the backlog, I've started it immediately. Kinda counterintuitive, but this was a launch title for the system, and is a relatively gentle experience designed to show off the system's stereoscopic capabilities. It's quite fun, though undermined by some daft decisions — why is Free Flight mode limited to 2 minutes?! It feels like it's enforced just to stop you flying around for a while and getting all the achievements (unlocking 75 locations) in one sitting. Apparently you can lengthen the flight time by completing challenges, etc, but it still maxes out at 5 minutes. Sucks.
Steam Deck
I was going to list this under the heading of the games involved, because I played a chunk of them to test things out... but I didn't really play them, because this was primarily about more fiddling with the tech. But for the last time (I think) — hurrah!
So, what happened was, today I finally got round to connecting my Steam Deck to my TV; and though that bit worked flawlessly, it annoyed me that one of my emulated GameCube games, 007: Everything or Nothing, was in 4:3 when it specifically has a widescreen mode. A bunch of Reddit-browsing later, I'd found the settings I needed to fiddle with to not only get widescreen working, but get the game running in 1080p HD. And it looks so much better for it! (But god knows how many times I've played through the first mission now as part of my testing. I've even completed it on the hardest difficulty with Platinum goals completed! Regular readers* will know how unlike me that is.)
And because I was fiddling with that, I also had a look into my other GC title, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. That was even more involved again, though I do now have it in HD and widescreen thanks to inputting a cheat code for the latter and installing a fan-made HD texture pack for the former — and now it looks so good too! And now, after many hours of faffing, these are finally nicely set up to play. Now I just need to actually play them...
* Don't worry, I know no one reads this.
I swear people talk about this as a quick “pick up and play a round” kind of game, but I played one run today and it took over half-an-hour, and I only made it about halfway before losing. Maybe it gets quicker when/if you know what you’re doing, I dunno…
Pilotwings Resort
This is my most recent acquisiton for the 3DS and, rather than add it to the bottom of the backlog, I've started it immediately. Kinda counterintuitive, but this was a launch title for the system, and is a relatively gentle experience designed to show off the system's stereoscopic capabilities. It's quite fun, though undermined by some daft decisions — why is Free Flight mode limited to 2 minutes?! It feels like it's enforced just to stop you flying around for a while and getting all the achievements (unlocking 75 locations) in one sitting. Apparently you can lengthen the flight time by completing challenges, etc, but it still maxes out at 5 minutes. Sucks.
Steam Deck
I was going to list this under the heading of the games involved, because I played a chunk of them to test things out... but I didn't really play them, because this was primarily about more fiddling with the tech. But for the last time (I think) — hurrah!
So, what happened was, today I finally got round to connecting my Steam Deck to my TV; and though that bit worked flawlessly, it annoyed me that one of my emulated GameCube games, 007: Everything or Nothing, was in 4:3 when it specifically has a widescreen mode. A bunch of Reddit-browsing later, I'd found the settings I needed to fiddle with to not only get widescreen working, but get the game running in 1080p HD. And it looks so much better for it! (But god knows how many times I've played through the first mission now as part of my testing. I've even completed it on the hardest difficulty with Platinum goals completed! Regular readers* will know how unlike me that is.)
And because I was fiddling with that, I also had a look into my other GC title, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. That was even more involved again, though I do now have it in HD and widescreen thanks to inputting a cheat code for the latter and installing a fan-made HD texture pack for the former — and now it looks so good too! And now, after many hours of faffing, these are finally nicely set up to play. Now I just need to actually play them...
* Don't worry, I know no one reads this.
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
After all that stuff nipped in last week, there wasn't a sausage this week. Spending too much time (and money) on games instead recently. I'm sure there's some ordering I need to get caught up on, though.
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
After all that stuff nipped in last week, there wasn't a sausage this week. Spending too much time (and money) on games instead recently. I'm sure there's some ordering I need to get caught up on, though.
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [no change]
Number of films: 4,597 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 19 September 2025
Games
Control
Yep, here I go starting something else! But this one has intrigued me for a while, and is currently free* on Luna — though only for another 11 days, so there's every chance it'll follow in the footsteps of Dungeons of Hinterberg and I'll have to abandon it uncompleted (unless I spend a lot of time on it over the next week-and-a-half, that is), and then buy it and start over if I want to finish. Or give in and subscribe to Luna+... though Control goes for so little nowadays, it would be cheaper to just purchase it and play via my Steam Deck.
Anyway, I played for 2¼ hours this evening, part of which was because I couldn't work out a way forward on the map at one point, which turned out to be I just needed to go to a closed door on a side of a large room I'd missed. Having these big "open world"-style maps is all well and good, but sometimes I feel like good old fashioned level design was more straightforward. I mean, sure, there's loads of places I can wander back to, but I don't need to — they exist as a permanent distraction/confusion from where I need to head next on my most-recently-assigned mission.
That's also one of the reasons I wound up playing for so long: there's no levels like "when I was a kid"; games these days all seem to be rolling updated objectives, one never-ending experience. Which is more immersive and whatnot, but does make it slightly less clear when/if you should/can stop; especially in a game like this, where I found it unclear when it was saving, and if I'd actually resume at that save or back at a checkpoint.
On the bright side, it has an immortality setting (amongst several other personalisable difficulty bits and pieces), so I can just play and follow the story and kill bad guys without having to worry that I'll have to die and start over or get stuck on a tricky boss or something. As ever, I'm sure some "real gamers" find such things distasteful (heck, the game itself asks you to consider playing and see how you find it before you start adjusting the difficulty. I ignored it and just made stuff easier), but I don't care, this is how I like to play. (It's going to be annoying when I eventually dive back into something older and I can't just 'not die', isn't it?)
* "Free" with an Amazon Prime subscription, obv.
Yep, here I go starting something else! But this one has intrigued me for a while, and is currently free* on Luna — though only for another 11 days, so there's every chance it'll follow in the footsteps of Dungeons of Hinterberg and I'll have to abandon it uncompleted (unless I spend a lot of time on it over the next week-and-a-half, that is), and then buy it and start over if I want to finish. Or give in and subscribe to Luna+... though Control goes for so little nowadays, it would be cheaper to just purchase it and play via my Steam Deck.
Anyway, I played for 2¼ hours this evening, part of which was because I couldn't work out a way forward on the map at one point, which turned out to be I just needed to go to a closed door on a side of a large room I'd missed. Having these big "open world"-style maps is all well and good, but sometimes I feel like good old fashioned level design was more straightforward. I mean, sure, there's loads of places I can wander back to, but I don't need to — they exist as a permanent distraction/confusion from where I need to head next on my most-recently-assigned mission.
That's also one of the reasons I wound up playing for so long: there's no levels like "when I was a kid"; games these days all seem to be rolling updated objectives, one never-ending experience. Which is more immersive and whatnot, but does make it slightly less clear when/if you should/can stop; especially in a game like this, where I found it unclear when it was saving, and if I'd actually resume at that save or back at a checkpoint.
On the bright side, it has an immortality setting (amongst several other personalisable difficulty bits and pieces), so I can just play and follow the story and kill bad guys without having to worry that I'll have to die and start over or get stuck on a tricky boss or something. As ever, I'm sure some "real gamers" find such things distasteful (heck, the game itself asks you to consider playing and see how you find it before you start adjusting the difficulty. I ignored it and just made stuff easier), but I don't care, this is how I like to play. (It's going to be annoying when I eventually dive back into something older and I can't just 'not die', isn't it?)
* "Free" with an Amazon Prime subscription, obv.
Thursday, 18 September 2025
TV
Age of Umbra
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; final hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; final hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
TV
Age of Umbra
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; 2nd hour]
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; 2nd hour]
I'm not deliberately stretching this out, I'm just not finding the time between things like work and spending an hour-and-a-half playing card games.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Games
Balatro
The top quote on Balatro’s Steam page declares this game is “the reason Valve should rename their handheld 'the Balatro machine’”, so when I got my Deck, naturally it was high on my interest list. Plus the fact I’d heard how good and/or addictive it was from other sources, such as PC Gamer’s top 100 lists, where it's placed 8th for the last two years (and it didn't exist before that). I didn’t think it would be the second game I (properly) played on my Deck, mainly because I hadn’t bought it yet and had plenty of other games to be going on with, but then I saw a good deal on it a couple of days ago and, well, here I am.
And after two playthroughs… I’m not sure I totally get it. By which I mean, there’s a lot going on and I didn’t quite get how it all worked. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m just getting started or because my brain just isn’t wired for it all. Nonetheless, I played for 81 minutes solid and mostly enjoyed it (even if I often felt like I was guessing what to do rather than having a genuine strategy) — and, like I said, that was only two runs, so I feel like something must have gone right if I wasn’t crashing out in five minutes. We’ll see if I find it addictive enough to keep consuming my time.
The top quote on Balatro’s Steam page declares this game is “the reason Valve should rename their handheld 'the Balatro machine’”, so when I got my Deck, naturally it was high on my interest list. Plus the fact I’d heard how good and/or addictive it was from other sources, such as PC Gamer’s top 100 lists, where it's placed 8th for the last two years (and it didn't exist before that). I didn’t think it would be the second game I (properly) played on my Deck, mainly because I hadn’t bought it yet and had plenty of other games to be going on with, but then I saw a good deal on it a couple of days ago and, well, here I am.
And after two playthroughs… I’m not sure I totally get it. By which I mean, there’s a lot going on and I didn’t quite get how it all worked. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m just getting started or because my brain just isn’t wired for it all. Nonetheless, I played for 81 minutes solid and mostly enjoyed it (even if I often felt like I was guessing what to do rather than having a genuine strategy) — and, like I said, that was only two runs, so I feel like something must have gone right if I wasn’t crashing out in five minutes. We’ll see if I find it addictive enough to keep consuming my time.
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
TV
Age of Umbra
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; 1st hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
1x08 The Tomb of the Heretic Saint [season finale; 1st hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Games
Aperture Desk Job
This free game is basically a half-hour "how to use your Steam Deck" demo. I'm sure it'll run just fine on other systems and work with other controllers, but it's literally laid out to teach you about the functionality of your Deck. It's almost crazy that it's not preinstalled and/or promoted at you when you get one, to be honest.
Anyway, because of its positioning as a "how to" guide, I was certain it was going to be the first thing I played on my Deck. Well, it was the first thing I played intentionally... if we just ignore all those various other games I played bits of to test if they worked. And all that time I spent fiddling and installing other stuff. And that "what I'll do Day One" ended up being "what I did Day 17". And that "Day 17" is actually "Day 21" because that "Day One" came almost a week after it arrived (as noted in the footnote at the time).
All of which said... for me, this still marks the end of "setting up my Steam Deck" and the beginning of "playing stuff on my Steam Deck", so it's The Start in that sense.
Samorost 1
Talking of short games... Longer is better in most gamers’ eyes, it seems. In fairness, when you’ve paid £50–£100 for a AAA title, of course you want your money’s worth. This partly depends on genre, but I’ve seen people complain about a game being short when it takes at least 8 hours to complete. Imagine complaining a movie was only 8 hours long…
Those people might have some kind of fit if they ever encountered Samorost, which has a HowLongToBeat time of 15 minutes. Yes, minutes. It is free, though (whether you get it on Steam, GOG, Epic, or the publisher's website), so how can you complain? I guess nowadays it serves as a kind of demo for the hour-long Samorost 2 (which is free on the Epic Games Store from Thursday, hence how I discovered this) and five-hour Samorost 3 (maybe that'll be free the week after?) It's a quirky little point-and-click puzzler, with no proper dialogue and none of the modern helpers like highlighting clickable items. Indeed, working out what's clickable, and when it needs to be clicked (and, in some cases, how many times), is the whole challenge. I enjoyed it, and am quite looking forward to picking up at least the next one.
This free game is basically a half-hour "how to use your Steam Deck" demo. I'm sure it'll run just fine on other systems and work with other controllers, but it's literally laid out to teach you about the functionality of your Deck. It's almost crazy that it's not preinstalled and/or promoted at you when you get one, to be honest.
Anyway, because of its positioning as a "how to" guide, I was certain it was going to be the first thing I played on my Deck. Well, it was the first thing I played intentionally... if we just ignore all those various other games I played bits of to test if they worked. And all that time I spent fiddling and installing other stuff. And that "what I'll do Day One" ended up being "what I did Day 17". And that "Day 17" is actually "Day 21" because that "Day One" came almost a week after it arrived (as noted in the footnote at the time).
All of which said... for me, this still marks the end of "setting up my Steam Deck" and the beginning of "playing stuff on my Steam Deck", so it's The Start in that sense.
Samorost 1
Talking of short games... Longer is better in most gamers’ eyes, it seems. In fairness, when you’ve paid £50–£100 for a AAA title, of course you want your money’s worth. This partly depends on genre, but I’ve seen people complain about a game being short when it takes at least 8 hours to complete. Imagine complaining a movie was only 8 hours long…
Those people might have some kind of fit if they ever encountered Samorost, which has a HowLongToBeat time of 15 minutes. Yes, minutes. It is free, though (whether you get it on Steam, GOG, Epic, or the publisher's website), so how can you complain? I guess nowadays it serves as a kind of demo for the hour-long Samorost 2 (which is free on the Epic Games Store from Thursday, hence how I discovered this) and five-hour Samorost 3 (maybe that'll be free the week after?) It's a quirky little point-and-click puzzler, with no proper dialogue and none of the modern helpers like highlighting clickable items. Indeed, working out what's clickable, and when it needs to be clicked (and, in some cases, how many times), is the whole challenge. I enjoyed it, and am quite looking forward to picking up at least the next one.
Monday, 15 September 2025
TV
Age of Umbra
1x07 Escape from the Reach [remainder]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Age of Umbra Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
1x07 Escape from the Reach [remainder]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Critical Role Cooldown
Age of Umbra Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]
Sunday, 14 September 2025
TV
Age of Umbra
1x07 Escape from the Reach [1st hour]
Any thoughts I had of finishing Critical Role Campaign 2 before Campaign 4 starts have long since vanished (there's less than three weeks to go, and I still have something like 30 episodes of C2 left), but there's really no reason I shouldn't be able to get through the remainder Age of Umbra before then (this is the penultimate episode, after all).
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
1x07 Escape from the Reach [1st hour]
Any thoughts I had of finishing Critical Role Campaign 2 before Campaign 4 starts have long since vanished (there's less than three weeks to go, and I still have something like 30 episodes of C2 left), but there's really no reason I shouldn't be able to get through the remainder Age of Umbra before then (this is the penultimate episode, after all).
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]
Games
3D Sonic the Hedgehog
Played this for 26 minutes, my 3DS said — long enough to appreciate the 3D effect and remember why I don’t really enjoy platformers. I had a couple of goes at getting past the three acts of Stage 1 and failed; read some hints, ‘abused’ the save function (advantage of modern games is not having to start right back at the start when you die!), and finally beat the stage. Hurrah! Will I bother to keep doing that until the end of the game? Eh. Sonic 2 is supposed to be better, so I’m more likely to give that a shot instead.
And once I’ve appreciated all the 3D conversions of some of these old games that I didn’t really like when I was a kid and don’t seem to have grown into, maybe I’ll finally move on to stuff I actually want to play (not just appreciate the stereoscopic visuals).
Played this for 26 minutes, my 3DS said — long enough to appreciate the 3D effect and remember why I don’t really enjoy platformers. I had a couple of goes at getting past the three acts of Stage 1 and failed; read some hints, ‘abused’ the save function (advantage of modern games is not having to start right back at the start when you die!), and finally beat the stage. Hurrah! Will I bother to keep doing that until the end of the game? Eh. Sonic 2 is supposed to be better, so I’m more likely to give that a shot instead.
And once I’ve appreciated all the 3D conversions of some of these old games that I didn’t really like when I was a kid and don’t seem to have grown into, maybe I’ll finally move on to stuff I actually want to play (not just appreciate the stereoscopic visuals).
Magazines
PC Gamer Top 100 2025
Because I still haven't been buying enough games lately...!
Similar to the retro games list I went through the other day, I came away from this one noting 13 titles I already own, but here there was only one I'd played before (well, only one I'd completed — the original Doom is on both lists, and while I've played it a bit, I've never been through it thoroughly). I did find 28 to keep in mind for future purchasing, and a further 16 that piqued my interest enough to look into more and decide whether to add to that 'wants' list or not — which means only 42% of the list made me think "nah".
One thing that definitely intrigued me was how changeable this list can be. I get that they publish it every year so don't want it to be basically the same with a few tweaks (otherwise who would care?), but, having only recently looked at their 2024 list, some changes were so big they were immediately obvious.
For example, the top ten is 60% the same, and some of that is due to the kinds of small shifts you'd expect: Doom drops out by falling from #10 to #11; Red Dead Redemption II rises from #15 to #10, which is a relatively minor reevaluation (and it's been in the top ten previously, so hardly revelatory). Except it's not just those kinds of small moves, nor new titles entering: last year's #5, Persona 5 Royal, plummets to #49; while a game that was released 20 years ago, Dwarf Fortress, suddenly jumps from #16 to #3. I'm not sure such a reappraisal was prompted by anything, either (although it has also previously been in the top ten, so this is closer to RDR2 in scale).
I guess it's just changing voters and/or adjusted final-total calculations. And there is certainly consistency in places (the top two are identical, for instance). It's just kinda wild that things can fall so far, or (higher up the list) drop out entirely, while old games where nothing's changed fly up, or even enter the list. Keeps it lively though, I guess.
(I also have physical copies of the 2021 and 2022 lists, and after I thought of this I tracked down the 2023 version too, which tempted me to work out a ranking-of-rankings for the last five years. Is it worth the time and effort, though? I don't know... but once I had the idea, it became almost inevitable, so now I'm doing it.)
Because I still haven't been buying enough games lately...!
Similar to the retro games list I went through the other day, I came away from this one noting 13 titles I already own, but here there was only one I'd played before (well, only one I'd completed — the original Doom is on both lists, and while I've played it a bit, I've never been through it thoroughly). I did find 28 to keep in mind for future purchasing, and a further 16 that piqued my interest enough to look into more and decide whether to add to that 'wants' list or not — which means only 42% of the list made me think "nah".
One thing that definitely intrigued me was how changeable this list can be. I get that they publish it every year so don't want it to be basically the same with a few tweaks (otherwise who would care?), but, having only recently looked at their 2024 list, some changes were so big they were immediately obvious.
For example, the top ten is 60% the same, and some of that is due to the kinds of small shifts you'd expect: Doom drops out by falling from #10 to #11; Red Dead Redemption II rises from #15 to #10, which is a relatively minor reevaluation (and it's been in the top ten previously, so hardly revelatory). Except it's not just those kinds of small moves, nor new titles entering: last year's #5, Persona 5 Royal, plummets to #49; while a game that was released 20 years ago, Dwarf Fortress, suddenly jumps from #16 to #3. I'm not sure such a reappraisal was prompted by anything, either (although it has also previously been in the top ten, so this is closer to RDR2 in scale).
I guess it's just changing voters and/or adjusted final-total calculations. And there is certainly consistency in places (the top two are identical, for instance). It's just kinda wild that things can fall so far, or (higher up the list) drop out entirely, while old games where nothing's changed fly up, or even enter the list. Keeps it lively though, I guess.
(I also have physical copies of the 2021 and 2022 lists, and after I thought of this I tracked down the 2023 version too, which tempted me to work out a ranking-of-rankings for the last five years. Is it worth the time and effort, though? I don't know... but once I had the idea, it became almost inevitable, so now I'm doing it.)
Saturday, 13 September 2025
Games
007: Blood Stone
After some more — alright, a lot more — fiddling and tweaking the controls, I got this playing pretty well; to the point where I actually completed the first section (the driving controls really needed a lot of work, and I'd failed on a section like that multiple times before). The best hint I got from somewhere online: because the game has onscreen prompts about what button to press (at least during the training-like first level; maybe throughout, I don't know), ignore what would be sensible keyboard controls and set things up for the controller — i.e. map the controller's A button to keyboard-A, X to keyboard-X, and so on. It would be a rubbish control scheme on a PC (the keys are all over the place, and using A for the A button messes up WASD movement, for one), but it means you don't get "the game says press E, so that's X... or is it Y?" all the time.
Anyway, now that's all sorted, I need to decide what game(s) I'm actually playing — I mean, I've been through tutorials/first levels for three Bond games now! Speaking of which...
007: Everything or Nothing
I got an adapter that allows you to use original GameCube controllers with the WiiU, Switch, and PC — which also works with Steam Deck. Tested it on this a couple of times, plus a quick go on Zelda: Wind Waker, and got it working nicely (the D-pad doesn't work on menus for some reason, but does in game; but I did get the rumble working, so that's good). Also, hopefully this adapter will work with the Switch 2 when/if I get one (still leaning towards when, but when? I don't know).
3D Out Run
I've bought or downloaded a total of 33 games for my 3DS already, but this is first one I've actually played (beyond a minute or two to test carts work). This is a 3D port of a classic Sega arcade game (not to be confused with its original sequel, OutRun 3-D — the Wikipedia entry makes that mistake, in fact). There were a load of these conversions of Sega games made for the 3DS, and many of them are pretty well regarded — not always for the quality of the original game, but certainly for the effort and success of the emulation and 3D conversion. Out Run (aka OutRun) is one of the most recommended for its visuals.
Well, I agree that it's got a very effective use of 3D. It's almost hard to imagine playing it in 2D, so striking is the effect of the road and scenery rushing towards you. It doesn't feel like a particularly deep or long-lasting game, though — I mean, there's literally one circuit. Okay, that has different routes, adding up to 16 variations, but still. The only other customisation options are the difficulty (one to five stars) and a set of four unlockable modifiers for your vehicle, which you can mix and match. So, sure, there are ways to mix it up; and if this had been made in the era of achievements, I'm sure there'd be one for every possible combination of track, difficulty, and mods — that's 400 variants by my estimation. I didn't dislike it, but I'm not going to play this 400 times. But it was free, so that's fine.
After some more — alright, a lot more — fiddling and tweaking the controls, I got this playing pretty well; to the point where I actually completed the first section (the driving controls really needed a lot of work, and I'd failed on a section like that multiple times before). The best hint I got from somewhere online: because the game has onscreen prompts about what button to press (at least during the training-like first level; maybe throughout, I don't know), ignore what would be sensible keyboard controls and set things up for the controller — i.e. map the controller's A button to keyboard-A, X to keyboard-X, and so on. It would be a rubbish control scheme on a PC (the keys are all over the place, and using A for the A button messes up WASD movement, for one), but it means you don't get "the game says press E, so that's X... or is it Y?" all the time.
Anyway, now that's all sorted, I need to decide what game(s) I'm actually playing — I mean, I've been through tutorials/first levels for three Bond games now! Speaking of which...
007: Everything or Nothing
I got an adapter that allows you to use original GameCube controllers with the WiiU, Switch, and PC — which also works with Steam Deck. Tested it on this a couple of times, plus a quick go on Zelda: Wind Waker, and got it working nicely (the D-pad doesn't work on menus for some reason, but does in game; but I did get the rumble working, so that's good). Also, hopefully this adapter will work with the Switch 2 when/if I get one (still leaning towards when, but when? I don't know).
3D Out Run
I've bought or downloaded a total of 33 games for my 3DS already, but this is first one I've actually played (beyond a minute or two to test carts work). This is a 3D port of a classic Sega arcade game (not to be confused with its original sequel, OutRun 3-D — the Wikipedia entry makes that mistake, in fact). There were a load of these conversions of Sega games made for the 3DS, and many of them are pretty well regarded — not always for the quality of the original game, but certainly for the effort and success of the emulation and 3D conversion. Out Run (aka OutRun) is one of the most recommended for its visuals.
Well, I agree that it's got a very effective use of 3D. It's almost hard to imagine playing it in 2D, so striking is the effect of the road and scenery rushing towards you. It doesn't feel like a particularly deep or long-lasting game, though — I mean, there's literally one circuit. Okay, that has different routes, adding up to 16 variations, but still. The only other customisation options are the difficulty (one to five stars) and a set of four unlockable modifiers for your vehicle, which you can mix and match. So, sure, there are ways to mix it up; and if this had been made in the era of achievements, I'm sure there'd be one for every possible combination of track, difficulty, and mods — that's 400 variants by my estimation. I didn't dislike it, but I'm not going to play this 400 times. But it was free, so that's fine.
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
Seven new additions this week, including two BD-to-4K upgrades amid a bunch of brand-new acquisitions. On top of that, there's the running time update I had to put off from last week.
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [up 4]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [up 12]
Number of films: 4,597 [up 12]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
607 days, 10 hours, and 43 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 7 hours, and 23 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
Seven new additions this week, including two BD-to-4K upgrades amid a bunch of brand-new acquisitions. On top of that, there's the running time update I had to put off from last week.
Number of titles in collection: 3,608 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,622 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 461 [up 4]
Number of discs in collection: 8,672 [up 12]
Number of films: 4,597 [up 12]
Number of additional cuts: 466 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,172 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,267 [no change]
Total running time of collection (approx.):
607 days, 10 hours, and 43 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 7 hours, and 23 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Magazines
The Greatest Retro Games of All Time
Because I haven't been buying enough games lately as it is...!
Well, I came away from this list of 100 noting 15 titles I already own (or, er, have acquired), on top of 10 I've already played sufficiently that I don't necessarily want/need to play them again — so that's a quarter of the list off the bat. Mind you, another 25 were of enough interest for me to note down...
Because I haven't been buying enough games lately as it is...!
Well, I came away from this list of 100 noting 15 titles I already own (or, er, have acquired), on top of 10 I've already played sufficiently that I don't necessarily want/need to play them again — so that's a quarter of the list off the bat. Mind you, another 25 were of enough interest for me to note down...
Tuesday, 9 September 2025
Monday, 8 September 2025
Theatre
Macbeth
at the Minack Theatre
The draw here was as much the Minack Theatre itself as the production — the latter was very good, but it was a fortunate coincidence that was what was on when we wanted to visit the Minack, rather than us wanting to see the play and then choosing a venue. To that end, we arrived early to also be able to tour the theatre, which includes an interesting exhibition on the site's creation and history. An incredible place, and a perfect setting for something as dramatic as Macbeth.
As the play reached the point of the murders, night had fallen and a blood-red moon rose over the horizon behind the open-air stage. It couldn't have been better planned if it had been stage managed. You don't get effects like that in any old venue!
at the Minack Theatre
The draw here was as much the Minack Theatre itself as the production — the latter was very good, but it was a fortunate coincidence that was what was on when we wanted to visit the Minack, rather than us wanting to see the play and then choosing a venue. To that end, we arrived early to also be able to tour the theatre, which includes an interesting exhibition on the site's creation and history. An incredible place, and a perfect setting for something as dramatic as Macbeth.
As the play reached the point of the murders, night had fallen and a blood-red moon rose over the horizon behind the open-air stage. It couldn't have been better planned if it had been stage managed. You don't get effects like that in any old venue!
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