First things first... this is being written partially to save my sanity, it is a truly weird world we live in with people working from home, being placed on furlough to help preserve their jobs and nobody supposedly going out to keep us all safe.

Further disclosure... for those who didn't read a previous blog piece entitled "Serious Illness" at the end of 2018 I was admitted to hospital with a rare illness with the name Vasculitus, which is where the body comes under attack from its own immune system, I was suffering severe joint pain, a presistent rough and painful cough, loss of hearing, appetite, energy and so on... I dropped 30lbs in just two months, now wear hearing aids and, as part of the ongoing treatment, I'm on immuno-suppressants.

Knowing this I was "invited" to work from home around mid March, after a weeks work I was placed, as were most other members of staff in the office, on furlough till the end of April at least.

On April 3rd I had a hospital appointment with the results of a cancer biopsy I'd had down five weeks previous, it was great news, the wound is healing well, and there is no trace of cancer... I felt on top of the world, couldn't go out and celebrate as all the pubs are closed, but I was happy.

Until I got home.

There, on the doormat was a letter I'd been dreading (but half expecting) saying that I was deemed a "person at risk" as, due to my meds, if I were to catch Coronavirus I'd probably need hospital treatment... I was told to stay at home for 12 weeks from today... which I took as being the date on the letter of April 1st... I'm at home, not allowed out, until June 24th at the earliest.

At least I'd have a chance to work on my backlog... which started at 50

So... I figure I'll document my gaming activities throughout the period... and I'll start with the game I picked from the backlog first... Vampyr.

Vampyr (X1): This cost me less than £10 at the end of last year, delayed by the first annual Crap-Fest in January, then some Forza Horizon 4, Borderlands DLC and, oddly, Death Stranding.

The whole idea appealed to me, deciding who to bite, the fate of half of London and such like whilst tracking down the person who first turned you... it allows a little free roaming, and there are side quests that you can undertake alongside the main quest missions.

I started the game on March 28th and finished my first run through on April 2nd, and then started my second run to pick up most of the missed Achievements from my free run... generally I'll play a game first time through without a guide or even checking what I need to do for them to pop at all.

And it was fun, a solid 8/10 game... and I knew I'd messed up badly at one point (well, several to be honest) and the entire city turned hostile on me... so I could replay and change my decisions, whilst collecting all weapons and collectibles.

It took me a couple of days to work through it all again, and the collectible guide was very heavily loaded on the back end, first 40 items took around 17 minutes of the YouTube video, the last 34 a further 37minutes and, in the process, undid all my good work as most of the weapons you have to collect here is done through killing people... so, having reached the end of Chapter 5, I saw little point in finishing the game any further.

With a new release due on the 7th the next day is spent on the golf course, the Everybody's Golf (PS4) course... when the new release fails to arrive on the day of launch I'm in need of something short to keep me going...

Reducing the backlog even further to 48 is...

The Order 1886 (PS4): Which, using my US account, for a pittance in a PSN Flash Sale this has sat there waiting for its turn for a while.

First impressions... it looks fantastic, but the game play is stunted, nowhere near as good as seen in even the first Gears of War title, it's very clunky, has a bizarre Trophy list (nothing for completion of any of the Chapters, or taking down bosses) and doesn't offer too much help at times when it is really needed.

This time, as I intend to play it through just the once, I am using a guide for all the collectibles straight off the bat, the guide doesn't give anything away plot wise and it's really helpful... I'm trying to keep track of other Trophies but it's times like this that I really wish the PS4 had a tracking system for Trophies like the Xbox has with % progression, I may be 2 short of the 100 head shots Trophy but have no idea, similar to the deaths by science weapons, or melee kills and so on.

I finish my first play with just one Trophy unlocked (kill 3 people with 1 explosion) which was Gold, but for that to be the first Trophy I've unlocked shows how much the game would have benefitted from a more generous Trophy list... less high scoring Trophies, more Bronze for basic things like killing a boss or finishing a Chapter.

I'll be back on this tomorrow.

April 8th: Looks like I'll be back on this on the 9th as well even though my new release has arrived, the game has finally started being a little more giving with its Trophies, but as I'm nearing the end of the game that's not a surprise.

I figure I'm near the end as the collectible guide I'm using is around 25-26 minutes long, and I'm at 23.30 right now... maybe 3 or 4 left.

The game is starting to grate a little, sure the graphics look great but the whole thing is played out in letterbox format, thick black lines top and bottom all the time... and there is also a hell of a lot of QTE's littered throughout the game which also get annoying.

Right now I'm at the start of Chapter 12 which, based on the end of Chapter 11, is where the game actually starts when you first load it up... being tortured as a traitor... and escaping into the Thames.

So it'll get one more days play, and probably a little clean up on the Trophies I'll have missed... there are two for killing enemies in "Blacksight" which I didn't even know was a thing until Chapter 11 and, at most, I have 1 of the 25 kills I need, and I doubt that was one of the 5 headshot kills I need in that mode.

April 9th: Day 3 of The Order 1886 and the platinum Trophy is mine... and well deserved to... I've spent far more time on this than I had planned, but I don't have to replay anything or grind that much for the missing Trophies after I work through the story.

In fact the level of grinding was minimal, one section after the closing credits had rolled, for just a couple of minutes and the last two Trophies I needed popped and I could put the game to bed.

Does it need a sequel? Not really... does it deserve one? Can't really say that it does... sure you "might" want to know what happens to Galahad after the end of the game... but you don't really "need" to know.

Unless they pull the old "drag the old timer out of retirement" cliche you'd be looking at playing with a whole set of new characters and that would sort of defeat the object of a sequel... while it looks good the game is no more than a 6/10

With my backlog now having dropped to 48 (and these are the first days it's been under 50 for months) I start up the new arrival, Disaster Report 4 (PS4) which clearly makes some references to previous games in the series... but as I only played the first game (and never finished it) and that was in the PS2 days.

Japanese dialogue throughout (and no option to change to an English voice over) and subtitles it looks a lot older than the 2 years since it was supposedly completed... dated is very much the key word here, and I do spend a good 20 minutes changing my outfit as there were a good 15 or so available for free on the store.

I also spent 25 minutes playing at a snail's pace as I didn't know the button to hold to run... doh!

From what I can see so far there is a very defined goal in each small area of the map you open up... in the first it was to reunite a teacher with her three missing pupils, once this was done you can move onto the next area with them in tow... once there the objective to moving on was to find (and help) a person trapped in a building.

There are the usual small side quests in some areas, helping a man in the loo get toilet paper, finding an injured man some water, even serving people in a small store as the clerk was too scared to do anything.

Being Japanese I wasn't surprised to find my first Trophy was for using a toilet... or that some of the costumes I could download included a couple of different coloured superhero suits... and the game does at least allow you to customise your character a little... more than the last one I played did, so I'm naturally a female with bright red hair.

I've barely played 2 hours... but I'll be back.