Maryokutai

Isn't SW some kind of experiment in the MCU? I forgot the details about her, it's been a while since Age of Ultron or whenever they introduced her. But it's probably not out of the question for a mild retcon either.

Aren't only three of those X-Men adjacent, regarding 'Mutant Saga'? I don't trust Disney to make a good X-Men movie, but Ghost Rider and Midnight Sons might be potentially interesting if they're allowed to have a bit of of a gothic flair to them. Some of the logos are killing me though, but I suppose they are placeholders. I keep reading Nova as nom.

Considering the whole point behind First Class was having a younger cast I don't find it very interesting that this seems to go in the same direction again. Particularly as it doesn't strike me as a creative choice at all, but rather a demographic-enhancing and future-proofing spreadsheet decision. You also kind of lose the X-Men dynamic of an older generation taking care of a new one when the OGs are still babies. That said it is a good cast on paper, but this might just target an audience I'm not primarily part of.

03/01/2026 - Echo Drop! (Playdate) 04/01/2026 - Tomb Raider: Legend (including the Croft Manor) (Series X) 18/01/2026 - Earthion (Switch 2) 01/02/2026 - Mio: Memories in Orbit (Switch 2) 05/02/2026 - Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Switch 2) 17/02/2026 - Timesplitters 2 (Series X) 19/03/2026 - Minishoot' Adventures (Switch 2) 25/04/2026 - Void Blasters (Series X) 25/04/2026 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch 2) 10/05/2026 - Mixtape (Switch 2) 25/05/2026 - Dosa Divas (Switch 2) 27/05/2026 - Soundfall (Series X) 31/05/2026 - Kabuto Park (Switch 2) 08/06/2026 - Screamer (Series X) 27/06/2026 - People of Note (Switch 2) 07/07/2026 - Wax Heads (Switch 2) 10/07/2026 - Thomas was Alone (Switch 2) 16/07/2026 - The Knightling (Series X) 24/07/2026 - Aphelion (Series X) 02/08/2026 - Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (Switch 2) 07/08/2026 - Splatoon Raiders (Switch 2) 13/08/2026 - Star Fox (Switch 2)

Seen all the routes/stages now, this is a fantastic game. Solar is a bit boring but other than that this holds up exceptionally well. To an extent I can understand why Nintendo is so reluctant to make a proper sequel, as there's very little room for improvement here. I feel like both this game and PD2 perfected the rail shooter genre decades ago and there's nowhere else to go outside just making the same game over and over again with different looking stages. Everything you might add on top would just dilute what makes it good. It's the same issue that plagues F-Zero, in a way. I'll mess around with some of the Challenges, too, but only on normal difficulty. Expert seems potentially frustrating and could sour the experience for me.

Super Rare or doing a physical release for this for Switch 2: https://superraregames.com/collections/the-midnight-walk It's a really good port (targeting 60fps), I'm playing it at the moment.

As for the company, probably Nintendo, because they're both a console manufacturer and make games I like on the regular (even if less so in recent years). For me to boycott them they probably would have to turn into what MS and Sony are right now combined, meaning no more physical releases, questionable financial investments (wars, AI) and appalling treatment of their workforce. Realistically I can only see one of those things happen to Nintendo, and not in the foreseeable future. For publishers/developers it's a bit more muddy for me. Crystal Dynamics, for example, has more or less come out and said they're using AI during conceptual phases of their games now. Which, admittedly, probably a lot of studios do without disclosing it. But they've also been victims of layoffs, so AI might have been the only way to keep productivity going. It's also probably safe to assume the fortunes of the studio are resting entirely on the next Tomb Raider doing well after both Avengers and Perfect Dark. So what good would a boycott realistically accomplish here, except allowing me to give myself a pat on the back for sticking to my principles as a very anti-AI person? It's probably clearer for situations like with EA now – I wasn't uninterested in the Star Wars tactics game, but I'm not going to pick that one up and I feel like Respawn will be okay if I don't. But weighing purchase decisions of entertainment products against your moral compass is the kind of question I could frankly live without. Videogames have become such a toxic topic to think about.

I had my first playthrough of this earlier today, after only having played bits and pieces over the years. I thought this was excellent for the most part, still plays really well, huge amount of variety cramped into it. Some stuff I found a beat unclear but that's were the multiple playthroughs come in I suppose. The dogfight mission against Star Wolf was the most difficult for me as well, especially as I have a very subjective issue with the controls (I play railshooters with normal controls but free-roam flight combat games with an inverted Y axis – probably should have just switched in the options midway). For me this also blows every new Switch 2 game they made out of the water, though whether this is due to them slowly angling their shots past my personal tastes or missing the mark more often, I can't really say. It might be a mix of both though, looking at stuff like Bananza and MK World specifically. In any case it made me more interested in Ocarina of Time, because I'd rather replay a game I enjoy than have another feature-creep sequel that misses the point. Going back to Star Fox, an interesting part of this that it's also a look back at a time when Nintendo was still pushing visuals, because this looks absolutely stellar. I wouldn't have given it a second though if it had come out on PS5 instead of Switch 2, it's a really visually accomplished game. I'm of two minds about the cutscenes, because some of them are quite good (mostly the out-of-cockpit action sequence), but the dialogue scenes are very wooden and are trying to carry a script that was previously told in short tidbits during missions. It doesn't really work as a result and the pacing is completely at odds with the presentation – Andross comes and goes without much bravado, because the game was never supposed to have any. Or rather it was meant to be build in your mind, not by a cutscene director. But shove it in a cinematic corset, and there's an unavoidable clash of styles. Anyway, this was my first endgame report card: I thought 999 was an odd maximum if I could reach it on my first try, but it turns out I did indeed get exactly 999 hits

Glad you like it, ended up being one of my favourite books of the last decade. Can't say much about the audiobook, that format just isn't for me.

Yeah, more than anything else I think this makes me wish the movie turns out well. Not sure what role he plays, but if he's, say, the King of Hyrule in a good Zelda movie that would be a cool bookend for his filmography. Always liked Strahovski, not sure which role would be a good fit (much younger queen maybe). Lachman is probably the only person on earth who looks like Impa, so that's a perfect choice.

03/01/2026 - Echo Drop! (Playdate) 04/01/2026 - Tomb Raider: Legend (including the Croft Manor) (Series X) 18/01/2026 - Earthion (Switch 2) 01/02/2026 - Mio: Memories in Orbit (Switch 2) 05/02/2026 - Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Switch 2) 17/02/2026 - Timesplitters 2 (Series X) 19/03/2026 - Minishoot' Adventures (Switch 2) 25/04/2026 - Void Blasters (Series X) 25/04/2026 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch 2) 10/05/2026 - Mixtape (Switch 2) 25/05/2026 - Dosa Divas (Switch 2) 27/05/2026 - Soundfall (Series X) 31/05/2026 - Kabuto Park (Switch 2) 08/06/2026 - Screamer (Series X) 27/06/2026 - People of Note (Switch 2) 07/07/2026 - Wax Heads (Switch 2) 10/07/2026 - Thomas was Alone (Switch 2) 16/07/2026 - The Knightling (Series X) 24/07/2026 - Aphelion (Series X) 02/08/2026 - Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (Switch 2) 07/08/2026 - Splatoon Raiders (Switch 2)

I agree with Naughty Dog, my hot take about them is that they actually hadn't done a truly good game until both Last of Us games. I have a soft spot for Jak & Daxter but had kind of written them off after Uncharted. Both Rocksteady and Mercurysteam, for similar reasons, because their output pre Arkham/Lords of Shadow was mediocre at best, to the point people were questioning the choice of developer at the time for those two big IPs. Maybe also Alien: Isolation, because Creative Assembly looked like the ultimate one trick pony prior to that game, but they also build an entirely new team for that game so it's a bit of an edge case.

03/01/2026 - Echo Drop! (Playdate) 04/01/2026 - Tomb Raider: Legend (including the Croft Manor) (Series X) 18/01/2026 - Earthion (Switch 2) 01/02/2026 - Mio: Memories in Orbit (Switch 2) 05/02/2026 - Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Switch 2) 17/02/2026 - Timesplitters 2 (Series X) 19/03/2026 - Minishoot' Adventures (Switch 2) 25/04/2026 - Void Blasters (Series X) 25/04/2026 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch 2) 10/05/2026 - Mixtape (Switch 2) 25/05/2026 - Dosa Divas (Switch 2) 27/05/2026 - Soundfall (Series X) 31/05/2026 - Kabuto Park (Switch 2) 08/06/2026 - Screamer (Series X) 27/06/2026 - People of Note (Switch 2) 07/07/2026 - Wax Heads (Switch 2) 10/07/2026 - Thomas was Alone (Switch 2) 16/07/2026 - The Knightling (Series X) 24/07/2026 - Aphelion (Series X) 02/08/2026 - Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (Switch 2)

I played a bit of this yesterday, as they released another update some weeks ago, though I don't exactly remember what it does. It's interesting how punishing it is from the get-go, way more than recent Bethesda outings (if you want to call Skyrim recent), and more in line with the likes of Piranha Bytes' output, where every moving object in the distance could potentially be a fatal encounter. Trying archery early on is particularly brutal as readying your shot drains your endurance extremely fast, so the way to go is probably using safe-ish magic at distance and wonky melee until archery skill points make you a bit more of a threat with the trusty bow and arrow. I'm unsure if I keep playing it right now, not because of a lack of quality, but rather not being entirely in the mood for it and having tried it mostly out of curiosity. I do like how it's very noticeably a passion project, which became clear no moment later than when I tried the 3rd person view and a message popped-up saying that it was mostly just there for accessibility reasons and not really polished or the intended way to play. Beyond that the PC-like settings are interesting, being able to set resolution, foliage density and V-Sync, with the end result running somewhat alright on Series X, bar very busy areas. I also enjoy the additional flourishes they added to the opening since I played the demo, rounding it out with a rather impressive pre-rendered cutscene that really nails its uniquely bleak, mutated version of the Arthurian legend. Definitely can see why people have come to like it so much – guess I'll have to see whether I boot it up again over the weekend or save it for another time.

Anecdotally it feels completely random. Some games work offline and some don't, unrelated to whether they are digital or on disc. I could play Wayfinder yesterday (digital) but wasn't aware of any issue so I didn't think of trying a disc game. It's still nonsense of course, everything should work offline. But I wish there was decipherable information available for the consumer so you can consider it when making purchases.