It’s the middle of January and, aside from playing some terrible updates for some of the crud that formed the Crazy Christmas binge… I’ve not really touched my Xbox… Skyrim on the PS5 has held sway for a long time.

The malaise towards the Xbox wasn’t helped by discovering that all the updates to the Christmas titles meant my progress through the games were lost, if any of these had related to later game stuff then I’d have had to replay the whole game to unlock them… thankfully, these tended to be along the lines of “Collect XX Red Stars” variety that could be done in Level 1.

As a result of all this my disfigured, mutated, ugly Gamerscore total sat there… ending in a 7.

Hateful, producing a game where the Achievements don’t end in a 5 or a 0 should be banned, or at least burnt to death with vast quantities of fire.

I’d been putting off the obvious fix, playing more of Blind Postman, because that game had annoyed me… I only completed a couple of levels, but the Achievements took 12 hours to unlock… so late that I was fast asleep at the time, and had considered myself lucky the day before that the game hadn’t appeared as a stain on my card.

Back into the breach I went.

Right off the bat the games habit of late pops became annoying… I completed Level 3 and the Achievement popped halfway through Level 4, the Level 4 Achievement popped during Level 5 and the Level 8 Achievement popped before I’d even started the Level.

The guide I was using, didn’t seem to list all the Achievements (some for revealing future dangers weren’t even listed in the guide) and some were listed as unlocking a level or 2 before they actually did… and then the games slow unlock pace started to drag even further, with so many unlocking (the game and all the “updates” now has 134 of them) mid-level I found myself getting distracted by seeing what had unlocked and losing my place in the button sequence for the level.

Eventually I’m down to just a handful of levels to complete… all, maddeningly, worth 13 points each and the game is complete, according to the guide… I have another Achievement lost that has me scrambling for another guide to harvest Purple Walls to take out… then, all that remains are the 2 speed levels.

Complete Level 8 in under 16 seconds and Level 37 in under 18 seconds… these are the reason I didn’t start this earlier in the binge.

At this point I’d completed every game I started 100% which never happened with the Crapfest binges… there would always be one game that had a stupid Achievement I’d fail on (Sigi: A Fart for Mesulina had you complete the whole game and find all the hidden areas in 18 minutes… I missed by 1 second… 300 points lost) or turned out to be so bad I couldn’t stick with it long enough for the 100% completion.

Yet here I’d managed to finish everything… on all 35 titles played… and eventually, I did here as well, they took me a few attempts, agonisingly missing by a single second over and over… but once done, and once the delayed pop of the Achievement unlocking chimed… I was as done with the game as I had been the 35 before.

There are still a couple of games I never started, Super Ninja Miner was another where I thought I might miss on some Achievements for battling giant enemies in later levels… but I’m in no rush to start those, nor am I in any rush to buy more shovelware… the Christmas binge certainly took its toll on me.

You’d think that, as I’ve already played the game through to completion and worked through the all the expansions three times, that I’d know what I’m doing in Skyrim.

Guess not… as I stumbled over something I’d never seen before, which may have been fan created… but something that had me scratching my head.

I knew enough to spam a couple of choice spells to level up quicker (the spell MUFFLE is incredibly helpful to level up early doors) and which side quests offered some helpful rewards at the end… and yet I reached the end of a quest I’d never seen before and had my behind handed me on a plate several times,

I won’t go through the story again… it’s been done before… I always marry Aela the Huntress because I find it hilarious that this Amazon-like, face painted warrior, dressed in animal skin clothing… who is, by the way, a Werewolf… suddenly abandons the Companions for domestic bliss and opens up a little shop to keep herself busy.

I will go through the one quest that had me stumped… I asked a Khajit caravan if they were having trouble and it turns out they’re being attacked by gangs in decided different outfits… all very regimented, all identically clad, and the outfits nothing the likes of which had been seen before.

Save some caravans, attack their bases and you end up in the sewers of Solitude where a Mage has stumbled over the very well-preserved remains of an ancient battle and has been flogging the uniforms to different bandit gangs for profit… once you find him and attack, he summons warriors from these clans and they kill you very, very quickly.

I level up several times and go back, makes no difference… death is swift.

I take numerous potions, improve my gear… death comes once more.

In the end, I just transform into my Werewolf form and it all goes much smoother, some good loot and the spells to summon these warriors myself… which I never do for the rest of the play through.

At the end of another 90+ hour run, all the DLC is done… all that remains is level grinding to hit 78 for the Legendary Dragon.

They’ve changed a few things with the new version, just smashing out Iron Daggers does little for your Smithing skill… so I make use of another method, which helps me level up several skills to the point I can reset them and repeat the process.

I travel from city to city buying up as much Iron and Silver Ore as I can, also small Soul Gems, I travel to various Mines from the map I know have these three items for harvesting… all the while spamming MUFFLE to level that up.

Now there is another spell, TRANSMUTE, which will turn Iron Ore into Silver Ore, and Silver Ore into Gold Ore, and also levels up your Alteration skill, even if it’s a little slow… turn the Gold Ore into Ingots and craft Gold Rings… Smithing is now increased by the value of what you create, if you have gemstones in your possession add these for even more value.

With 100+ Gold Rings in your pockets, head off to the Enchanters table and add an effect to them, Enchanting goes up, head off to the stores with these Rings and sell them… Speechcraft goes up… repeat.

It’s not ideal by any means, but it’s easier than levelling up the more standard and traditional methods and I hit 78 fast enough to not go insane… Legendary Dragon appears and I can delete the game again.

As I write this the rumours of an Oblivion remake are taking off again, and we’re a week or so from an Xbox Developer Direct show with the usual, as yet unknown segment on the press release… in the absence of any new Elder Scrolls that would have to suffice until we eventually get the next instalment… curse you Starfield… had you not existed we might have had a new ES game by now.

I’m never sure if it’s the total boredom of late February, or I’m worried about the onset of Alzheimer’s… but it’s usually the time I start to put together my Game of the Year piece as, almost inevitably, a game will release early in the year (generally delayed from the year before) that I absolutely love.

In the past this has been Horizon: Forbidden West or Hogwarts Legacy… games which, 10 months later, still stood out as being among the best I played all year… for 2024 however, I have yet to touch Baldur’s Gate 3 for which I ordered the bells and whistles “Deluxe Physical Edition” to arrive sometime between April and June 2024.

My Indie game for the year will be based on my ongoing Indie-Fest plan, where I’m scoring all the weird Indie titles that grabbed my attention in the year (or last year as is the case for many of them) as they’re played to give a definitive winner… any way… the games…

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (played on Xbox Series X)

Totally my type of game… exploration, moral decisions and a good story… while I spent my first run through defiantly sticking to my Oath as a Banisher, Death to the Dead and all that, you could clearly see that in EVERY haunting case there would be an argument as to why you should blame the victim and justify killing them to provide the essence to bring Antea back to life.

While this is, budget and hype wise, a double A title, it delivered in spades, take it slow and learn the details of each haunting case and you can see the quality of the writing shine through, if you follow your Oath when it comes to closing each case, you’ll help the ghosts Ascend way more than you’ll actually banish them, most mean well and only want to protect a loved one… very few seem to be actually intent on evil.

The game is also much, much longer than you probably expect from it, even exploiting the fast travel system the game takes a long time to complete first time through… especially if you find yourself examining everything and exhausting every conversation option… the world they’ve created is a wonder to explore.

It took me 61 hours (roughly) to complete my first run, which included finding all the collectibles I needed to pop the multitude of Achievements, and work through all the hauntings and the secondary quest with each… time well spent.

It’s certainly worthy of contending for a Game of the Year accolade, though I doubt many websites will consider it.

Balatro (played on Xbox Series X)

At time of writing, I’m 30 hours in and it’s become my time killer game… whereas a run through in Vampire Survivors would take 30-40 minutes, a good run on Balatro takes me around 25-30 minutes… a run ruined by the bad selection of Jokers and Bosses landing at the end of round at the wrong time may take 15 minutes.

It sounds incredibly complicated to explain, hands are played based on Poker, with Jokers altering the scoring of the cards and hands you play… one Joker may increase the score of an odd numbered card by 31, another Joker will mean that any Heart card played ups the multiplier for the hand by 3.

Tarot cards can be used that offer the chance to change the suit of some of your cards, or increase their value, or even destroy them completely to strengthen your deck… single cards can be turned Gold (which will add $3 to your bank account if played) or to Glass (doubles the multiplier of the hand played if it is in your hand but unused) along with other effects.

Cards can be boosted to add 30 to their base score, or to add 4 to the multiplier, or to be deemed “Lucky” so have a chance of adding $20 to your bank or increase the multiplier by 20… Planet cards increase the base value of the hand played… a basic “pair” with score 10 with a multiplier of 2, increase that and it becomes a score of 20 and a multiplier of 3 and so on.

Spectral cards offer a range of more radical changes to hands or your owned Jokers… but while all this seems complicated, once you get the hang of it the game is a delight… you’ll have your favourite Jokers to buy early ina run, or be ditched later into a run as they’re ineffective in a late game scenario… others are useless no matter what time you have them.

And despite being wary of picking it up at the time… I love it, and I’ll keep playing even if the Achievement loop has slowed considerably (and wasn’t that forthcoming to begin with) but I hold no hope of getting the full 1,000 as it requires a Gold Seal (awarded for completing a run on the hardest difficulty level) of all 150 Jokers for that final Achievement.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (played on PS5)

It’s quite sad, less than a week after release, to see all the negative user reviews on Metacritic… so many people need protecting from “woke” you have to wonder what has happened to people in the last few years… has wearing red caps and spewing vile, racist nonsense really addled their brains that far?

It may have been 10 years since the last Dragon Age game, but this one has been worth the weight, and they finally seem to have got the mix of combat and RPG elements balanced perfectly, performing combos with abilities is a breeze, and incredibly satisfying… as is the story.

Having played Inquisition is a definite help here, the story takes up the Search for rogue Elven mage Solas, who the DLC from Inquisition showed to be an Ancient Elven mage who imprisoned two evil Elven Mages who were so insane and powerful, they were considered Gods.

Having interrupted a ritual he was performing in the opening tutorial level, he is now trapped in the Fade (a sort of Limbo world between worlds) where they were intended to be sent, and the Gods are free in the world to wreak havoc and the Blight, Darkspawn roam, towns and settlements taken over completely… and guess who’s job it is to stop this?

As a fan of the series this is a great game, the usual interaction with other characters at base, companion quests a plenty, enough open world to keep you interested, but not to the point where you’re roaming huge open plains on the off chance something interesting is hiding… and the specialisation classes for your character are a great addition… as soon as I saw “Death Caller” for Mage, I was sold.

It took me around 65 hours to complete… and realise I’d make one error in the whole run that meant I couldn’t fully complete the game and get the Platinum… to do that would require a second, full run… no just mainlining the main quest, as the requirements for the extra end sequence are fairly lengthy… I’d done everything, but killed one character rather than talk them into giving me what I wanted and that screwed the whole game up.

My biggest disappointment was, without doubt, Star Wars: Outlaws… the dodgy camera in the opening scenes should have been enough to put me off that, but the broken forced stealth sections proved to be too much of a drag… I tried, but couldn’t get into it… a missed opportunity at a Star Wars game where you weren’t wielding a light sabre around.

So… after due consideration, I have to give it to Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, a game I went back to for another 15 hours of play to unlock a single Achievement to complete the game… when my backlog is closing in on 50 titles again, I could have cleared 2 or more from that list with that time, but the story was such that I wanted to see the alternate ending… and it was worth it.

I started early as I was worried that I’d accumulated too many games and wasn’t giving myself enough time to work through all of them… as I write this it’s the 16^th and I’m (almost) done, which I’ll explain at the end, having worked through 35 games and started (apparently) another which I need to get back to.

In the first 20 games I collected 542 Achievements and added 73,000 to my Gamerscore… as a side I discovered I was near the top of the weekly score leaderboard on TrueAchievements, which was unexpected, but did have a small influence later on… anyway… more games.

Happy Basudei – 4,000 Gamerscore – 26 Achievements – 6 Shovels

Graphically one of the most basic games I played, the idea here is to not do anything, just survive till the counter runs down, don’t kill anything or collect anything as you dodge the ever increasing attacks, and you move on.

The Fast Journey – 4,000 Gamerscore – 28 Achievements – 6 Shovels

The fourth game by the same developer in the same day (Gabriels World, Fruit Adventure and Crazy Rabbit) and more of the same, here you’re a frog who knows karate and the updates are just as bland as all the others.

Lab Crisis – 5,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 5 Shovels

Looks and plays in a very similar way to ReactorX and is a nice little game, but needed to be longer.

Sissa’s Path – 5,000 Gamerscore – 32 Achievements – 5 Shovels

A block pusher, or in this case balls of yarn and you play as a cat.

Super Penguboy – 4,000 Gamerscore – 39 Achievements – 4 Shovels

I’d bought this thinking it was a block pusher, it’s a side scrolling platform shooter which was a pleasant surprise and one of the better titles I put myself through, even if there was a way to cheat half the levels using your parachute to just glide to the end after a certain point.

Sokobalien – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 5 Shovels

A different take on the block pusher, you’re an alien abducting farm animals and you have to push them into the beam of your ship, some animals can jump obstacles, others slide long distances… nice idea, but can get overly complicated later on.

Perfect Ninja Painter – 4,000 Gamerscore – 28 Achievements – 5 Shovels

Another game that can be played without looking at the screen… the updates added very little, and they even helped you cheat your way through those with items to unlock all puzzles in each of the stages.

Senshi Sokoban Quest – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 4 Shovels

A block pusher, down with charming graphics and a time limit for each level… but if a thicko like me can complete level 47 of 50 without a guide maybe it’s a little too easy… could do with being a little quicker as well.

Mimi The Cat: Mimi’s Scratcher – 3,000 Gamerscore – 27 Achievements – 5 Shovels

More block pushing, here you can stack 2 boxes/blocks to reach a higher level and you can make these into steps by pushing another next to it… not a bad idea, works well.

Lost Snowmen – 5,000 Gamerscore – 35 Achievements – 4 Shovels

What annoyed here is that the 4 updates add nothing to the main game, aside from completing 3 levels to reach 1 where all three characters need to be used, that’s it… the rest focus on additional game modes added with the updates which appear in the menu… looks okay, and there is an obvious story, but Achievement wise you only need to play 8 of the levels to finish it.

#Sinuca Attack – 4,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 7 Shovels

The first game I thought about abandoning in frustration… your attack (shot) direction is controlled with the right stick and defaults to the right, so as you move and jump to hit the balls you have to keep you right thumb steady to make the shot… hated it, by all means use the right stick to control aim, but don’t make me hold it in place.

Sokomage – 3,000 Gamerscore – 26 Achievement – 6 Shovels

Now this looks a lot like the Smart Move games Achievement Hunters will be aware of, but it’s a block pusher… now… don’t make block pushing levels spread across multiple screens at a time… that is not fun… and nor is this.

Foxes Need To Eat – 4,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 6 Shovels

So… I played the first 30 levels in a 15 minute break during a sports event… when I went back to the game an hour later, it had lost all my progress so I had to replay them all… some ridiculous timing jumps required on some levels and I remembered why these later games had been left to the end… they weren’t expected to be fun… and for the most part they weren’t.

Rayland 2 – 3,000 Gamerscore – 22 Achievements – 4 Shovels

This was the fun exception… checking the leaderboard for the week I was still leading but only by a couple of thousand, and these last 2 games were played as a late push for that, I may have played more but the next one… well, still sends shudders down my spine. This was fine and a neat idea, if the original lands on sale any time I’ll probably buy it.

Shiro – 3,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 5 Shovels

Tempted to add more shovels, but is it right to lower a score because the player is old with crappy reactions? The guide I was using said the 100 deaths Achievement will come naturally… in a 50 minute video it popped at the 22 minute mark for me… lots of timing and some horribly fiddly sections to work through, but the checkpoint system is generous to a fault so never that punishing.

And that was that, Shiro had finished me off, I made a start of Blind Postman, completed 2 levels and nothing popped, there should have been a handful of Achievements… but I figured I’d got away with that not on my card… I was done with the binge, 35 Games, 130,000 Gamerscore and 977 Achievements… still in the lead, but less than 10,000 ahead.

Next morning, I’m still leading, which was unexpected… but my score looks off… the Blind Postman Achievements have popped later (very late) so now I need to play more of that as it’s left my Gamerscore on a “bad” number (not ending in 0 or 5 for the record) which I had hoped to avoid… so it’s 130,232 Gamerscore and 984 Achievements… guess I’m going to have to grind through a little bit more of that to put things right.

All in all, not bad for 10 days play… but something I don’t intend to repeat any time soon.

The plan was to start the day after The Game Awards, but with the number of games having increased to 38, before I bought another during the first part of the binge, the prospect suddenly seemed quite daunting… so I started ahead of plan on the evening of December 6^th.

With 3 days of the following week seeing me at home with the cough to end all coughs, I’ve now passed the halfway mark, so here are games 1 to 20 in order they were played and a few thoughts… keep in mind that the higher the shovel rating, the worse the game.

Kitten Island – 4,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 4 Shovels

Mario style platformer with you playing as a cat, clearly aimed a younger market, it’s a decent enough game, but the updates added nothing save for easy points.

Robolifter – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 6 Shovels

Block pushing puzzle game, and it made such an impression I had to look that up 4 days after playing, which is broken in that you don’t need to complete later levels as the following level is opened up as you start the one before… so start Level 18 and Level 19 opens up, and as you only have to start a level for the Achievements the last update took under 90 seconds.

Project Snaqe – 1,000 Gamerscore – 15 Achievements – 4 Shovels

Everyone knows Snake from old mobile phones, brought up to date, purchased to fix my OCD price and potential score wise for the whole event, and then I carried on buying regardless… decent enough update to the old game.

50 Years – 5,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 4 Shovels

Could do with a little polish, maybe making enemy units a different colour in battles so you know which side units are on, requires1 full run and 4 partials for all the Achievements, but not too time consuming.

Ballotron Oceans – 5,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 7 Shovels

Having never played these, ball shooting physics puzzlers, I’ve now played 3 inside 6 days and they get worse each time… all of these could be DLC for the original time, but they don’t make money that way.

Darkgems- 3,000 Gamerscore – 22 Achievements – 7 Shovels

Arcade title that, for some reason (cashing in) is Series X/S only… painfully short arcade game that exists purely for the cash influx from Achievement hunters… this could have been done on the original Xbox.

Primal Survivors – 3,000 Gamerscore – 33 Achievements – 4 Shovels

Has potential for a Vampire Survivors clone, but shooting direction is stick based, and the auto-shoot options slows your movement down, it doesn’t last long enough or offer enough of a challenge… had potential.

Overdrive Blaster – 2,000 Gamerscore – 17 Achievements – 9 Shovels

Truly awful experience, as with Darkgems has separate Xbox One and Series X/S versions, this could have been done on a Commodore 64 over 40 years ago, and for some reason you can only shoot in 4 directions, anything off straight is out the question… awful… truly awful.

Reactor X – 5,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 3 Shovels

I like these, sure the sequels could have been expansions, and I’m as much to blame for them cashing in as anybody else, but these are games were I’ll actually avoid using a guide to work through them… block pushing at it’s finest.

Ballotron – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 5 Shovels

Less shovels than Oceans above, because this was the first game… Oceans (and Coolbox further down) could just have been packs for this rather than titles in their own right.

Super Snake Block DX – 3,000 Gamerscore – 22 Achievements – 5 Shovels

A very relaxing game… original 1,000 could be done in little over 15 minutes with the updates forcing a little grind on you as you have to unlock more levels and addition snakes/trains to use… but almost therapeutic.

Catacomb Master – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 2 Shovels

The best I’ve played, simple 1 screen layouts to work through, but as they go on they offer a decent challenge… shame they stopped at 2 updates as I enjoyed this.

Prizma Puzzle Prime – 5,000 Gamerscore – 32 Achievements – 4 Shovels

Had to use a guide here, after the first few levels things start getting so overly complicated… and I never needed to go near the challenge levels… borderline too hard in places.

Colorful Colore – 4,000 Gamerscore – 25 Achievements – 5 Shovels

What we need less of is games you can complete without looking at the screen in a walkthrough, just parroting the button prompts to complete levels without referring to the screen… another game that could have been done on the original Xbox and looked dated then.

Caterpillar – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 7 Shovels

Much like Butterfly and Synchro Hedgehogs there isn’t much challenge here, 20 levels of dull, exceptionally slow gameplay for the points, 7 is almost too low.

Ballotron Coolbox – 3,000 Gamerscore – 20 Achievements – 7 Shovels

Bought whilst the binge was already underway… and played the same day, more of the same inane ball smashing… should have been an update for the original… cashing in says not.

Gabriels World: The Adventure – 5,000 Gamerscore – 36 Achievements – 5 Shovels

So, I ended up playing 3 games by the same developer in very quick succession, and some of the update Achievements were for finding characters from other games in the other games… a run of the mill platform adventure with 4 pointless updates that added nothing to the game.

Fruit Adventure – 4,000 Gamerscore – 47 Achievements – 7 Shovels

Ever wanted to play as a bouncing Strawberry? Nope, me neither. Effectively a re-skin or remake of the above game as the similarities are immense, and the updates add nothing… collect more stars or different coloured stars that you can complete in 2 minutes!

The Crazy Rabbit Adventure – 4,000 Gamerscore – 43 Achievements – 7 Shovels

See the above… but you play as a rabbit… rinse and repeat.

One Step After Fall – 5,000 Gamerscore – 30 Achievements – 7 Shovels

The one game I paid full price for, no surprise this has never been on sale in the 18 months it’s been out… they knocked out different language versions as separate releases, so you could buy the game multiple times… looks okay, but even for a walking sim this is incredibly short, and the updates added Achievements for things that are literally impossible to miss… such as startling crows as soon as you move forward… terrible

And that was the first 20 titles I went through 542 Achievements for 73,000 points… an incredible waste of time and energy at the end of the day, but that feeling only got worse towards the end of the whole affair.

With the final few games being steadily added to the list, I decide that I will be scoring the “games” played for this, not in the same manner as I previously did for Crapfest… but something more befitting.

Having referred to “shovelware” in the buildup I decide to mark each title a score, up to a maximum of 10… the higher the number of shovels awarded, the more dire and abysmal the game… so something which ends up being a pleasant surprise would only score 1 or 2 shovels max, while a total waste of space, say a truly bland visual novel, would be a sure fit 9 or 10 shovels.

October 18^th

The amount of suitable titles appearing in the sales in slowing rapidly… none in the last sale, so to reach the 100,000 goal I may have to buy some full price, but there are still 2 months to go before I start so nothing to get overly concerned about.

As a bonus, 1 title already picked up has had an update, so I’m now sitting with a potential 84,000 ready to be harvested.

October 22^nd

I speak too soon… 3 titles all appear in the next sale, and I actually pay full price for 1 having seen that, despite having released almost 18 months ago, it’s never once been on sale… so I buy the cheaper Xbox One version.

24 tiles, at a cost of £60.03 (just over what I paid for Star Wars: Outlaws) and 98,000 Gamerscore up for grabs… I could have used some of my Reward points to buy credit to keep the costs down even further, but I see these as part of my usual Christmas Present to myself in terms of spending… obviously a present for someone who hates themselves, putting myself through what maybe a week of gaming hell.

October 29^th

The plan was/is to play something else alongside these games to give myself some (inevitably much needed) quality gaming time amongst the dross… originally, I’d thought of Baldur’s Gate 3, but I’m starting to feel something I can play in shorter bursts may be more suitable.

One element of all this was to add 100,000 pointless Gamerscore to my total and take it up to 650,000 by the end of the year, I’m already sitting at 552,000 so it looks like I’ll surpass that easily enough even if I have a few stumbles along the way.

After picking up a couple of games, 1 of which I was really unsure of when I first started looking at titles for this, I pass the 100,000 mark… I’m on 26 titles and 106,000 sitting… waiting…

I start to give some thought as to the order these are played in… some I’m just not looking forward to at all, others look as if they’d fit right into Indie Fest… 1 or 2 look like nightmares in waiting.

November 12^th

In a small quirk, I add a game and remove 2,000 from the overall total… by removing a game that I had before all this started that I just don’t want to play, and considering the look of some of the “games” I’ve bought for this that says a lot… Ballotron comes in with 3,000 and Kick It Bunny and it’s 5,000 can go die alone in a dark cave somewhere.

Up to 27 games and 107,000 potential Gamerscore.

November 27^th

I decide to call time on the list… I’ve hit 33 games on the list, but did solve some OCD issues.

There are probably too many of the “block pushing” type games than I’d like, a couple that I’m really not looking forward to at all… but also a handful that look genuinely interesting… Catacomb Master looks similar to a game I played previously for points named “Explorer of the Night” which seems to have been dropped by the publisher when it comes to adding Gamerscore updates… a quick check shows this is indeed the case, as well as Castle Walker which I also enjoyed.

(EDIT: Having checked back, Explorer of the Night only managed a 50% score during one of the Crapfest binges, and lost points for being a little frustrating, most likely checkpoint related, and a further check on TrueAchievements shows I game the game 1.5 out of 5, so I obviously didn’t enjoy it that much… Castle Walker I gave 3 to so that seems to have fared somewhat better).

The final game added just 1,000 but did solve the OCD type issues I mentioned in that it took it to the much rounder number of 125,000 and get as close as I could muster to £80 total… what’s 4p when it comes to money.

When I set out to build up the “library” for this I aimed for 100,000 and speculated that 20 games offering 5,000 points to reach that goal, at full price, would total around £84… so I’ve added 13 more titles at a saving of £4.

With family coming up for Christmas, and that I can’t just spend all day when the better half is around playing crap for points, this was going to work out at 4 to 5 games a day… to avoid this I’ve decided to start on December 13^th, a week earlier than planned, the day after The Game Awards… not that any of the games on the list will be in contention for any awards.

Edit – Dec 3^rd

I am weak… 4 more games added, another £9.80 pissed away on crud, and now potentially 139,000 available for harvest… including 2 games I’d avoided picking up until now as they just looked awful, and when you consider some of the “games” that I have bought, that’s not a good thing to say.

Second Edit

Two more added, 142,000 on offer... and I started on Friday 6th as the prospect of 40 games or so in 10 days was quite daunting.

Now here’s a thing… my perception when it comes to ReactorX is a little… jumbled.

I considered the first, and up to this point only, game I played in the series to be total and utter whore material, an easy couple of thousands practically guaranteed to have more “updates” adding several thousand more.

That was Reactor X 2 which, to all intents and purposes, is the exact same game as ReactorX.

There is, seriously, nothing to differentiate the sequel from the original… it’s just another 30 levels that could easily have been added as extra content for the first game… except that wouldn’t have been eligible to add new Achievements… so they called it ReactorX 2, and the 30 levels ended up giving up 5,000 Gamerscore for £4.19

The original ReactorX is in the list of titles to work through as part of my “Crazy Christmas” gorge on easy Achievement titles in the quest to add a minimum of 100,000 to my Gamerscore total… as with ReactorX 2 there are 5,000 points on offer and it cost me just £2.09 in a weekly sale.

And here we have ReactorX 3 which was released at the end of November 2024… a game I picked up at launch to play for actual fun, in the knowledge that there will, most likely, be 4 updates down the road to take the base 1,000 and up it to the 5,000 limit.

They don’t hide the fact that these games are knocked out for the Achievment hunters of the world… the game has 30 levels, and for the base game there are 10 Achievements for completing levels 1 to 10, the 4 updates then cover the next 5 levels on the list, so update 1 gives 5 Achievements of 200 points for each of levels 1 to 15, update 2 does the same for levels 16 to 20 and so on.

Yet when it comes to shovelware, ReactorX feels different, it’s well put together for a shameless cash grab, and the difficulty increases at a steady pace, but never hits the point where you’re getting frustrated.

I don’t expect it to score highly on the Indie Fest scale of things, but it does show that just because a game is cheap and offers easy points, that it has to be a crappy product.

Actual Play!

What the hell are they thinking of?

You have to complete the full game for the base 1,000 points, all 30 levels… how are they going to milk it for additional Gamerscore without having you replay levels?

Story wise and graphically… it’s fine, graphics practically identical to ReactorX 2 and the story even mocks itself as yet another ship decides to go straight through an asteroid field and ends up damaged.

What they have done is add a slightly different gameplay mechanic that doesn’t make much sense in reality, but does add a level to the puzzles… certain levels have chunks of Asteroids or mashed up metal blocks that have to be jettisoned to complete the level… now, logically, surely everything would be sucked out the huge holes in the ship… but it does make planning some levels harder.

Another element of difficulty is that I’m colour blind, and some levels have multiple coloured circuits you have to power up, and some of the colours chosen made it way harder to complete levels… add in that this is a new game, played on release date, and the lack of guides meant that, if I did need help, I was limited in my options.

The whole game took me 82 minutes to complete… with the hardest level being the final one, a whole screen to complete, 5 different coloured paths, 5 lasers to power up cubes as needed and a few blocks to throw out the window… at this point, having not touched the single guide video I did find, I was determined to finish it without resorting to getting help.

Indie Fest wise it’s come in at 64, hampered mostly by the graphics being as basic as they can get, and the lack of any aural stimulation… gameplay it’s solid, adding the asteroids adds another level to the puzzles, so it’s worth picking up in my eyes… just wondering how they’re going to add the 4,000 down the line.

The final conflict awaits… there are some additional level points I could add to some of the companions, each get a couple of skill points to allocate as your affinity with those increases, while Neve is fully upgraded to 10 and Bellara and Taash are at 9, I’m fairly set in my choice of companions when it comes to quests now, so I don’t really feel the need to push the others up for a few points when I won’t be using them much in the game anyway.

With every Alter now milked for its magical abilities, all companion stories and faction quests maxed out it’s just the main plot to concentrate on… so here goes…

November 14^th

Okay… full warning here… there are spoilers for my ending.

Any thoughts of the Platinum are now far away, the missed Trophy around 20-25 hours in means a full replay would be needed to unlock everything, and I’m not sure I have that in me.

Game completed I’m at 48/53 Trophies… of the missing 5 there are 2 that I can unlock on the first play so I’m going back for those, the other 3 being the missed Mythal trophy from Chapter 6, the Platinum… and 1 that would require a full second play as it unlocks in an after-credit scene if you fulfilled certain criteria in the game.

As it took me close to 63 hours to hit the credits… I’m not sure I can do all that again, even armed with the knowledge of having completed it once already.

I lost 2 party members, both through bad decisions in the last few chapters… Harding fell as did Emmrich… so another Trophy was missed for beating the odds, with the “point of no return” save waiting I can go back and save them, see a slightly different ending, but that’s my lot for the game I think.

Chapter 12 is slightly grindy… a long run to a location, swarmed with Darkspawn, it felt drawn out after some of the previous missions, it’s here I lost Harding, given a choice over which companion should case the distraction to the Elder Gods it was a 50/50 choice and I screwed up… so, in the climatic scene for the Chapter, she perished.

In the same Chapter you “lose” another character, snatched away by a tentacle, this was the result of another choice at the end of the game and I managed to get that one correct at least.

The next 2 Chapters see you battle the Elder God, assisting Solas (who has escaped his prison, using you as a substitute prisoner) in his battle, before the final scene of redemption, where he sacrifices his own freedom to save the world from a Demon onslaught… but not before you discover that the reason nobody else acknowledges Varric whilst at your base, is because he died in the opening chapter, kept alive my Solas in your mind alone.

The end of Chapter 13 and the start of Chapter 14 really hammer home this is the end, and that the whole setup is more like Mass Effect than ever, as you are given the chance to talk to all the members of your team before you embark upon the final climb to the boss battle… a nice touch, I intend to see if these change any should I make the correct pick and not lose a character as I did before.

My other lost character was Emmrich… you offer a companion to help keep the hordes of Demons and Venatori Mages back while you climb to fight the last boss, and I chose poorly… Taash seems much better suited to this, so I know who I’ll pick second time round.

The one other Trophy I can collect doesn’t even seem to appear as a quest, collecting 3 flowers in the Wetlands to return to a garden that opened up once I had rid the land of the Darkspawn, this should prove much easier than the 50 hour+ second run through the game.

November 15^th

I load up my “point of no return” save in the Cobbled Swan in the Docks and instantly fast travel to the Wetlands… time to collect 2 flowers and wander into the battle field to pay respects to the fallen, and pop a Trophy… this appears to be something that you have to “know” to do as there are no quest markers of any sort to indicate what you need to do.

After this it’s back to the end of the game… Chapter 12 comes around and I chose Davrin to be the distraction rather than Harding… makes no difference to the outcome… well… it did… but only in the sense that Davrin died this time instead of Harding.

What did make a difference was that I sent Taash to help in the battle rather than Emmrich and the Demon that ceremoniously took his head off previously is now slain instead… so that when the ending scene played out (with no changes whatsoever) the Trophy for finishing with a full team unlocked.

So… 50/53 Trophies unlocked and the game hit Ebay… as a 1 off experience it was a good game to play, I’m glad I did, but I have no desire to replay the whole thing again, because to unlock 1 of those missed, it unlocks in an extra scene after the end of the game, so you HAVE to complete all the character story arcs, all the faction side missions, solve a myriad of puzzles… if I were just missing the Mythal Trophy for getting her essence without killing her, then I’d probably spend a week replaying what was needed for that… but the whole thing again… not a chance.

I go back to Unknown 9 and realise I’ve forgotten how to play it, and when I do manage to make it through the combat heavy 5^th Chapter, the collectibles screen says I missed every Transponder in that whole Jungle session… so I decided to restart the game referring to a collectibles guide along the way.

From what I can gather from the outrage on various websites, one scene is really getting the anti-woke keyboard warriors upset… in a conversation you can mis-gender another character and thus perform 10 press ups by way of penance… this seems to be a step too far, forcing pronouns on people, it’s practically the first sign of the apocalypse.

Now I have no issue with this… except… am I forced to mis-gender the character, in that the line of dialogue will be said no matter what choice I make in the conversation?

At time I writing I’ve not hit this part of the game, or if I have then I managed to totally avoid the erroneous comment… but my only issue would be if there is no way of avoiding the error… when posting online I try to be extra careful of using he/she when I don’t know the person I’m referring to, so would feel that this could also be part of the game, yes you can make the mistake of assuming their gender, but you can also avoid it by carefully choosing your words.

This will probably get a mention when I reach that part of the game… or not as the case may be.

November 6^th

I have reached the start of the storyline where everything kicks off as a companion character talks about how they don’t feel comfortable performing their assigned gender role… and because my character isn’t a total jerk, I’ve been supportive of them… rather tellingly the option for this is not on the first set of dialogue options you’re offered here, hiding in the lower “Other” options for a response.

I’ve also learnt that, the “offending” clip doesn’t feature your character as the person who mis-genders… still not got that far, but at this point it seems like a lot of fuss over something relatively small.

November 10^th

I’m now 50 hours in, and no mis-gendering has occurred, whether I’ve missed the scene by not playing like an arsehole and triggering it, or whether it’s that I rarely have the 2 characters together in my party… I don’t know… and I’m not bothering to find out.

I’m close to the end game, at least as far as companion quests go… 4 of the 7 have reached the end of their story arc, only 1 has had the “epilogue” scene where the relevant Achievement/Trophy pops for completing it fully… of the 3 yet to finish we’re talking a single quest away from the end.

What has popped are the Trophies for killing all the High Dragon’s, and visiting every location in the game… the Platinum is a possibility, with the only potentially tricky Trophy being for upgrading items to Max Level… I need another 17 collectibles (presuming they only offer 50 points each, some from fully levelled up stores have been seen to give 100 points) to level up the upgrade station to do that.

The rest seem possible, there are guides out there for the ancient magic locations I’ve yet to find, and beyond that most are story related and hard to miss unless I mess up big time.

Trying to avoid recency bias, but this is easily one of the best games I’ve played all year, don’t let any of the Youtubers complaining about “woke” affect any decisions you have over picking this up, it’s a fun game… if you have issues with other people being included, by way of a character having an artificial limb, or not feeling happy playing to a perceived stereotype, then that’s your problem… nobody else’s.

Story wise there have been 2 confrontations with 1 of the Elven Gods… both well handled, the last one leading me to believe something drastic has happened with the 1 you’ve twice injured to varying degrees… and that they have been injured, even though they escaped, has had the sort of effect you’d expect on your team… it no longer looks such a daunting task to take them down.

November 11^th

Arse! The quest for the Platinum has hit a bit of a hitch… there is only one really missable Trophy/Achievement in the game, and I’ve missed it… and I have no save file before that part, and, if you use a decision autosave, any before the one you load are instantly deleted, so if you pick the wrong one, they’re gone… I learnt this the hard way.

There is a conversation many hours in where you talk to another Elven God who was betrayed and killed by the others, you need her essence to help you in the battles ahead, if you can persuade her to give it to you then you get a Trophy/Achievement… if you take it by force and kill her Dragon incarnation in combat, you get the essence but not the Trophy/Achievement… I can mainline the story to this point, but need to find 5 of the Dog Statues scattered around the landscape in order to be able to trigger that scene.

Maybe over Christmas as a break from the shovelware I intend to binge on.

I have managed to upgrade the caretaker to the point where I have now unlocked the Trophy for maxing out my equipment… it’s not just levelling up an item to level 10, you have to have unlocked all the abilities for those items as well.

Several more companion quests have come to an end, the full end, with 1 of the remaining 3 reaching its conclusion… main quest wise I’ve not touched it since I completed the last Part, there are other things to do, like go drinking with characters, watching other companions start a relationship with another… I’ll get there soon enough.

November 12^th

The main quest awaits… after a couple of oddities.

First up I complete Emmrich’s story line but nothing unlocks… later, when for some reason I couldn’t interact with anything I restart the game from scratch and I’m welcomed with 2 unlocks for Emmrich and the end of the Crows story line.

I do witness the infamous “press ups” scene and can’t help but wonder what the fuss was all about… huge fuss over something tiny, but I guess the sad acts complaining about it are used to that… but it kicked in at the 55 hour mark, lasted less than 2 minutes and still these losers and semi-literate f-wits are getting upset… they have my pity.

In fact, all the companion quest lines have been completed, as have all the faction quest lines... of the 10 Trophies left to unlock 4 are story related, 3 others seem related to the end game and 1 is for completing all the Alters in the game, and I have just 1 of those left according to the map so that’s what I’m doing next.

For some reason I’m still picking up collectibles when I see them, even though I don’t need them now, up to 151 of the 182 in the game… not sure how many will be left to find considering that I’ve visited every area in the game already, but with the final 3 chapters waiting my attention there may be a couple of new locations introduced for a one off.

Like many people I played the original Dragon Age because I loved Mass Effect, which in turn was played because I considered that Jade Empire and the first Knights of the Old Republic games to have been some of the best RPGs that I’d ever played.

What made me realise the depth of Dragon Age was, having completed the story, I went back to play the Origin stories at the start of the game that I hadn’t chosen before… so having completed the game as a Noble human born into the gentry, I played through the City Elf, Forest Elf, Noble Dwarf, Common Dwarf and Mage episodes that lead the character to the battle against the Blight where Logain turns his back on the king.

Playing these explains why, when you reach the big city, part is closed due to an “incident” in the Elven quarter, it explains why there is trouble in the Dwarven Kingdom, it explains why the Mages Tower is in such a state of disarray… and while some elements of the first game where ones I wasn’t overly familiar with (controlling multiple characters and their scripts) the game was still one I enjoyed.

I even forgave the repetition of multiple dungeons and caves in the sequel, and I hammered through Inquisition even though they made it so open world it was almost over whelming at times… much the same as they had with Mass Effect Andromeda… buying The Veilguard at launch was always going to happen.

October 30^th

A surprise as the game arrives a day early, funnily enough I can’t connect to the EA servers, almost like the game isn’t out yet… so I spend 90 minutes on it either side of watching my football team get beat on TV.

After 20 minutes in the character creation section, I play the intro level, and then the small section at what may well become you base in the Fade before venturing out into the “real” world again.

What I play is promising, no over-whelming open world to wander around, more the set paths with small areas slightly off track to explore along the way that made up the first couple of games… whereas in the past I’ve hated on games for doing this (see the Uncharted titles) here it feels right, I’ve collected some cash but not yet found anywhere to spend it, had the story explained to me, and already flirted with a character who I suspect may be non-binary… no problem with that… if your ego is fragile enough that you get upset about pro-nouns, then maybe join a monastery where the world can’t hurt you or your feelings.

October 31^st

Much further in, and I love that they seem to have abandoned the open world set up of Inquisition… each part of story is focused on one objective… and the path there is fairly linear, there are different paths you can take to get there, but to progress you end up at the same place in the end.

Combat is a lot less complicated than previous Dragon Age titles, which may be due to the difficulty level I’m playing on, but it feels simpler and, for me at least, more satisfying.

Items/chests also seem hard to miss… large chests are marked on your map, so if you pass near one it’ll be marked, if it’s been collected then the icon changes to show that.

It’s also nice to see old hands appear… Varric and Harding have been shown in the trailers pre-release, but it was nice to see another appear in a scene that hints are more involvement further down the line which would be appreciated.

It looks impressive even on a base PS5 and may not be the huge 80+ hour time sink Inquisition was, there seems scope to replay making different decisions at different places along the journey, and you may need to in order to pop all the Trophies or Achievements… but right now I’m having a great time with it.

November 3^rd

I’m not the most observant of people at times, in games I like the option to have things I can interact with and collect stand out rather obviously so I know I can collect them… and here, after 14 hours, I realised that the Snake model on one character was not a fancy pair of boots… but an artificial limb.

That a so obviously “woke” character has been included will no doubt enrage those with small minds and fragile egos… but, at the end of the day, I’d sooner be considered “woke” than have people think I’m a c**t.

Story wise at the end of Chapter 6 there is a large “one or the other” decision, followed by some clean up… as both “options” have very similar factions in play, were I to have chosen differently I feel instead of looking for members of faction A in area B, I’d be looking for members of faction C in area D so, gameplay wise, I doubt there would be little difference.

The map has opened up a little, with each push of the main quest new areas open up, so there will be back tracking a plenty, and these new areas will enable other areas in other regions to be opened up… having just done a smaller quest in a forest, I was then in possession of an item that opened a door in a different region and that’s where I left it.

I’ve levelled the Caretaker up to several times and can now Enchant items as well as upgrade them, there doesn’t appear to be any limits on Enchanting so I’ve done everything, every item of clothing, every charm, ring, weapon and so on… combat, even before this, had progressed to the point where I can take down most enemies fairly easily.

Level wise I’m at 23, have chosen “Death Caller” as a specialist and only branch away from that when I’m hit with a level cap on points, so I have to choose something a little more mundane than infecting every enemy within a set range of my attacks.

Finally, I have met male companions… something I was a little worried about before, I’d gotten 3 companions to pick from when it came to missions, and having selected a female character myself, it was looking a little to forced at the start of the game… granted I’ve already lost 1 male character due to my decision in Chapter 6, but this looks temporary right now.

November 4^th

There are some parts of games that I dread… escort missions, timed missions, shoe horned in platform sections and such like… the Mad Moxxis Underdome DLC for the original Borderlands for example… and here, Dragon Age flirts with danger as I’m prompted to join a newly discovered companion character to the “Halls of Valor” which, given it’s an American developed game, is obviously misspelt.

Turns out this is an Arena battle section, and the mission is to complete 10 different battles… initially my heart sank, I hate this sort of thing, as there’s usually a Trophy or Achievement included somewhere of “complete all missions/quests” so you’re forced to so this if you after the completion.

Thankfully, being in the mid 20s level and having discovered a number of the Wolf statues, levelled the upgrade store up enough and not neglected my companions equipment either… the 10 battles are a breeze as I’m probably over-powered at this point… that will, no doubt, get proven to be wrong when I’m forced to fight something bigger, of a Dragon type nature.

I leave the game as I’ve just met the final character who will join the team… Emmrich, a Necromancer and Fade expert… with more of the map opening up now I’m approaching the midway point and the time when I get swamped with companion quests to see their individual stories through to the end… bring it on.