Exidor

I'm finding this since I picked up the ice axe. NPC invaders that would have been a real challenge before are down in four stomps now. There's only so many times you can shout "eat my frost!" before the novelty starts to wear off. I miss that heart-pumping down-to-the-wire feeling of a proper fight.

You need enough FP as well. Bang some points in Mind.

Every single one of these posts is the Principal Skinner meme. Go to the inventory when you're in an area with the grey monument/gate/portcullis icon on the left of your screen. Select one of your spirits. Use. Once you've got the hang of it, assign them to your pouch or d-pad menu.

There is an easy mode. It gives you a pack of dogs or a big poison jellyfish to bring into the fights if you're playing solo, or random helpful strangers if you're online, or stuff you can add to your weapon to make it poisonous or on fire or electric. I'd still be stuck on Margit 30 hours in if I hadn't taken advantage of some of that stuff.

You can talk about UX grievances all you like but every other game I've played with a horse/mount, you whistle for it, it wanders over from who knows where, and then you have to press another button and watch an animation while you climb on it. With this, you can be in the middle of a boss fight, realise you've made a huge mistake, press a button and he appears under you and carries you out of harm's way. I'll take a bit of fannying about with the merchants if that's the price.

Me yesterday: Well that's the south completely 100% done, time to head north and see what's beyond Stormveil. Me today: I haven't even found some of those caves/mines.

So have the writers just forgotten that one where Picard settles down and has kids and learns to play the flute with someone else's hands? He seemed fairly chill about relationships and commitment in that.

Location spoiler:

There's also nothing like playing an absolute beast of a game like Elden Ring for making you realise you never need to buy another game ever again.

I bet you unleashed a torrent of swearing when that kept happening.

Kind of depends how long you've spent dicking about before following the main quest. Top tip though, always talk to everyone until their unique dialogue runs out.

All right FINE I also cracked and ordered Elden Ring after watching half a youtube review and deciding there was no way I could wait to play it. 1. Jedi: Slip'n'Slide 2. XCOM 2 3. Elden Ring

I cracked and bought XCOM 2 for £2.50 so now I have to play that instead of one of these sexy new games that's out this month. 1. Jedi: Slip'n'Slide 2. XCOM 2

There's tons of good stuff on there at the moment. So much that I'm using the Leaving Soon page to prioritise what I'm picking. Loads of Almodovar on its way out the door soon.

So many titles just sitting there for the taking. Last Nan Standing. Nan on Fire. A Nan for All Seasons. The Running Nan. The Nan Who Would Be King. Ip Nan. Spider-Nan: Far From Home. No, let's go with The Nan Movie

Finally a cinematic universe I can get behind.

The complete fumbling of any dramatic tension or character moments in that last episode was something to behold. Like just basic stuff that they half set up and then ignore. I know this is grown up me having a moan about a family show that kids love, but you can put in a bit of effort and have a family show that kids love for the robots and rancors and adults enjoy because it actually makes logical sense for the characters to do the things they do (and the robots and rancors). Did they have covid rewrites or something?

3. Jedi: Fallen Order Fallen ordure more like. The combat's solid enough, the production design is suitably Star Warsy and some of the puzzling is cleverly put together. It's just that every time it looks like being fun there's another idiotic, pointless design decision dragging it back down again. Nothing says Jedi to me like sliding endlessly off the side of the same bit of ice or swinging in a dead straight line but still somehow missing the connecting rope. Fucking ponchos.

As a neologism, apparently. It's pretty shaky ground though.

I think the tricky part with today's one is

He's obviously going to get a go on Chekhov's rancor isn't he. Just a whole episode of him plodding into town to see the mayor and getting cockblocked again and plodding all the way back.

Oh I have made a huge fucking mistake. Fuck every single person involved in the decision to make half the game uncontrollable sliding.

You can laugh but My Chemical Romance are actually huge in the 24th century.

I was on course for a clean January until I fell for the free Jedi: Fallen Order offer on Prime. It plays like a dog on my ancient pc but I lasted long enough to get into it so I've had to drop £15 on the PS4/5 version this afternoon.

1. Death's Door (PC) This could have been made specifically just for me. Souls-like exploration with looping routes and shortcuts galore, lovely art style, perfect difficulty and development of abilities, and a shitload of cool stuff to discover after you've finished. Plus you're a crow. I'm going through it again now doing a brolly run and having just as much fun as the first time. 2. Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) It's a lot like the first one but nice and short and with massively OP stealth options. Had a good time with it, undemanding but fun to go back to swinging around New York and kicking the crap out of corporate space cops. Then I did NG+ for the platinum and... well... should have left it a while because it adds nothing, has no challenge because you start off with all your stuff and half the cutscenes aren't skippable for some reason. There's still some fun to be had taking down a base by spamming the dodge button until you've banked three finishers in a row but it's definitely diminishing returns. (Still tempted to spend the £20 to upgrade and get the OG Spidey remaster)