StephenM

I'd say Monster Hunter World. A core loop that's incredibly satisfying, and every gain leads you to a new challenge, and a new grind. Forever.

Having never played a console AC, are we assuming it’s one town per Switch (not one per user account)? Explained to my 11yo that she’ll probably be a mere visitor to my town and she didn’t love the idea.

Are Xbox One controllers generally a bit flakey or could mine be defective? Got one bundled with my all digital and its forever disconnecting, even with fresh batteries in.

So awesome to see people in here loving this. They keep mentioning it over on Giant Bomb and that kicks me into getting into it again. My only issue so far is time — it just seems to take an age to do even 10 mins of ‘proper’ exercise time. Might move away from the RPG into the sets, but I do love the game-y potion making and stuff.

Oh wow. If I get to the end of just one project I'll be winning.

Do we not have a monthly music thing anymore (write something on a theme)? Been several years since I last followed an idea through to being a finished song, so looking for stimulus!

I’ve never known who to ‘single out’ with a strand contract — maybe I should just make some at random to build out a sense of familiarity? Had a nice moment earlier - wondered what absolute legend had put a rope in just the right spot. Turns out it was me earlier in my travels!

I forget my difficulty -- a bit lower than that, maybe 20-ish? -- but I did that world 3 boss last night and it felt like it would NEVER END. Great sense of accomplishment when I smashed his muscly face in though.

I know this is the same positivity everyone posts, but: when you set up a whole run of packages to a place you were headed anyway, and stop off to finish a road en route, and decide the area needs a watchtower which goes on to get lots of likes, this thing sings.

I'm getting started with this too -- will add any friend codes I can find for leaderboard action. Very much a fitness newbie -- did couch to 5k, hurt my foot, so trying to do a more interval-based run every other day. This feels like it's the piece of the puzzle I've been missing -- a way to focus more on strength and posture on the no-run days, which I'm hoping will start a virtuous cycle.

So that deluge of PS4 players may not have come to fruition, which is a crying shame: I’ve been keen on this since Splitscreen and the Bomb/Beastcasts were so not on it — and, although I’ve only played an hour or two, I can see why. I’ve played some decent stuff this year, but it’s been a long time since something pushed this specific button of curiosity.

He doesn’t effect my enjoyment enough to moan about him, but did anyone see Ben on the Death Stranding stream? He was literally falling asleep and it didn’t seem to be for comedic effect.

Is anyone on here still playing this? Big update this week with what is basically four battle passes layered on top of each other. Not for everyone, but exactly what I need to make RDR Online work for me. Suddenly, the general milling around I like to do is rewarded in a way it wasn’t before. So definitely worth a try if you’ve been interested in just exploring more and being in that world. Of course, there’s the buy in. With the PS exclusive unlock, Twitch Prime, and a stock of gold (that just seems to have come from very occasionally playing over the past few months), it wasn’t a big deal. But for all the internet ‘omg they’re trying to make us pay gold to play’, I thought it was all pretty fair given the Catch 22 of ‘We need people to feel like they’re investing into something’ and ‘We need this new content to be accessible and get people in deeper’.

We did it!

I really do like this, especially in terms of the world they’re building out. The whole opening sequence was one of my favourites from this year - probably beyond. Wish I hadn’t started on default difficulty though. I find myself spamming the same few moves (chain wrap is a big one) with little incentive to be creative. Only on file 3 (or 4) so might change it up — is the next one up hard, or just more of your Bayonetta level difficulty?