Jamie John

Blimey. Is that on PvP?

My reading has been pitiful this year. I blame children and reading Edge every four weeks. Anyway: 15. The Last Argument of Kings, Joe Abercrombie I enjoyed this, though perhaps not to the extent of the first two novels. It felt like it wasn't quite epic enough to earn its ending, if that makes sense, as if it started off as the third in a series of four before rushing the conclusion somewhat. Still a complete page-turner, however, and I love the characters. 16. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John Le Carré I was inspired to read this after watching the fantastic film version from 2011. It's only taken me 8 years! I enjoyed the intrigue and the double-crossing, but I have to say that I felt the need to re-watch the film after reading the first few chapters so that I could figure out what was actually going on. There is a lot which is deliberately left unsaid that could be missed, as well as a lot of jargon that I had to look up. The book is also very much part of the George Smiley series of Le Carré's novels and makes reference to previous events from the earlier books. Still, a good read. Some of the ruminations on the mind and motivations of a spy are especially engaging. Recommended! Anyone know if the Alec Guinness TV series can be streamed anywhere?

I thought it was a great read as well, although I think that in light of Weinstein, #MeToo and so on, people are certainly more aware of everyday sexist practices, even if we can't say things are improving.

I'm hoping they add a few more games next Thursday. Obra Dinn, Ori and FFVIII would do me nicely. Maybe Donkey Kong and Yoshi, too.

True. Who's it for @Dr Nookie? Your kids? Are they likely to check the eshop? You might be able to use the parental controls app to stop them from accessing it.

You can buy it, download it, delete the download so the icon disappears and then re-download it later, I believe.

I've been hovering over Civ 6, Cadence of Hyrule and Tales ot Vesperia for a while, but they all still seem a bit too much for games that I might immediately dislike and then not be able to sell on. A few reviews I read mentioned the Civ is pretty opaque without much knowledge of the previous games in the series and has a crap tutorial. Anyone care to comment on that?

It looks amazing. Almost suspiciously so, however. That can be proper gameplay footage, surely? CG 'enhanced' gameplay, perhaps. It reminds me of the TLoU2 reveal trailer and the 'gameplay' in that. The animation and non-scripted nature of it all seems too good to be true. I'd love to be proved wrong, of course.

Is that for both GotY and GotD, or just GotD?

Just to say that I listened to last week's episode and enjoyed it a lot. It's a bit long (although I think this was a one off) and one of the blokes says "basically" too much, but I enjoyed their analysis of Death Stranding, even if I haven't played it yet, and the hosts seemed quite relatable. Made me laugh and smile a lot. I've subscribed and will be listening to this week's episode on my commute later this week. Which rllmuk members are in it? Going to try this next!

As someone who never owned a Dreamcast and hasn't played the first two games, I'll be interested to hear impressions from people in a similar position of ignorance. I thought about picking up the HD remasters as they can be had quite cheaply now, but from the reviews I've read/watched they sound like games very much or their time.

Do you mean the characters from the other houses? I find it hard to raise my support level with them. At the moment I've 'recruited' Raphael, although he's a bit crap and the exp that the characters in my house could be earning is wasted on him. With my 9 house members and 1 recruit, however, that's a full party roster, so I wouldn't be able to recruit anyone else, unless I made them adjutants. Can you do that with recruited members? The party roster might increase beyond 10 later in the game. There's quite a lot which seems poorly explained. The online stuff, in particular, has gone straight over my head. It sounds like you have to play hide and seek around the monastery

After my rant the other night (I think I was just tired, and a bit pissed) I've stuck with this and think it's alright again now The social stuff is still needlessly padded out and I'm not really bothering with any characters beyond my own house, but the core battles are still fun, even if they do seem very similar to those in the previous games. I've unlocked a few more battalions now which I'm deploying when I remember to. Am I right in thinking that I can marry any character who I reach an S level relationship with? What about the other characters - do they just need to get to an A level relationship to marry each other?

I played Okami earlier this year for the first time on the Switch but, post-BotW, ended up getting bored, unfortunately. As @SqueakyG suggests above, I think lots of games have a sort of 'play by date' where if you don't play them by a certain time they get eclipsed by later games in the same series or games from different series which refine and polish the seminal game's systems. This is why playing retro games I've never experienced before doesn't appeal to me, as without nostalgia to cushion the blow I find that most of them aren't especially fun to play, even if I can appreciate why they're important to gaming in general.

Thanks @Stanshall. You're a top geezer I'll start with TCGS, I think.