Four me? Yes! ...terday I bought.

Nice! I have a Mario Hanafuda set but . . . I need to learn Hanafuda.



I spent my birthday in Akihabara and even though I picked up a random copy of 3 from a Nagano second hand shop a while back, I'm now properly giving the lost Nintendo platform star a go . . . Starfy!

Very good! I’m hopeful that those games come to Nintendo Switch Online, I’d give them a go. The DS sequel that was translated and released in North America was pretty decent anyway.

Aw, Starfy! Although I'm most jealous of Smurf's Pikmin teatowel. That's the kind of Nintendo tat I can get behind - stuff that also is useful in dealing with the routine drudgery of daily life.

Oh and what a tea towel it is, not only does it look great, it dries things really well and even has a little bit you can use to place it on a hook.

10/10

It's been ages since the last snack review, so it's nice to see a tat review filling the gap.

Jimbob wrote:

That's the kind of Nintendo tat I can get behind - stuff that also is useful in dealing with the routine drudgery of daily life.

I'm very excited to move in with Mercy next year because she agrees with me that the best way to furnish an apartment/ kitchen is with colourful tat covered in characters.

Bought a new car which I've not got a picture of yet as always been raining.

My most expensive buy ever and I've gone from a Blue MK 7.5 65 Reg Fiesta Zetec S 140 to a White MK8 19 reg Fiesta ST-Line X 140.

A 4 year jump in two and half years, not sure be able to do that in 2025/6 as be a 2023 reg car which only be two years old compared to mine now being 4 years old, as cost on the last ever Fiesta the MK 8.5 will likely stay high.

Buskalilly wrote:

Jimbob wrote:

That's the kind of Nintendo tat I can get behind - stuff that also is useful in dealing with the routine drudgery of daily life.

I'm very excited to move in with Mercy next year because she agrees with me that the best way to furnish an apartment/ kitchen is with colourful tat covered in characters.

Chloe felt very much the opposite when we first moved in together but I've slowly wore her down to the point more and more tat is creeping in and the Pikmin tea towel was an easy win.

Meanwhile The Lady has more videogame tat than me! The statue of Garrus is particularly noteworthy and intimidating size-wise. (Not like that.)

...I should note, this is only true until we open all the boxes with my Nintendo plushies in.

My latest pick-ups.



FC 24 has quickly become my most-played game since Tears of the Kingdom, above all else it’s good to have a proper football game on the Switch. The Delphine Software Evercade cartridge was pre-ordered a while ago and I look forward to getting round to that, the Sunsoft one was a case of me saying ‘bugger it, why not’ and the Atari Collection is soon going out of print.

Above those are a TwinBee compilation and a WCW game for the PS1. I use a retailer that sometimes does ‘buy one get one half price’ on retro stuff so considering the condition they’re in these wound up being a very good sub-£25 deal. Oni and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer were games I wanted to give a second look many years after first owning them.

That’s EDGE Magazine’s thirtieth anniversary issue there too. The last EDGE I can remember buying had a review for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U in it, let’s see if things are any better with the magazine a decade on.

Local retailer or a online one?

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

FC 24 has quickly become my most-played game since Tears of the Kingdom, above all else it’s good to have a proper football game on the Switch.

Is it much different from FIFA 23? I picked it up recently and played a couple of games, but it feels a bit naff. I've not played a FIFA in a decade, so it might be my PES programming still influencing how I want to play. An example of this is, the slide tackle basically has the player collapse to the ground. There's no sliding involved. I'm struggling to throw my players in front of shots or make critical last ditch tackles. Is this just a FIFA thing? Feels like it's too easy to get shots off at goal, and at my goal.

I played the majority of the 10 hour FC 24 trial and what you said pretty much summed up my experience, it definitely has it's moments where it is fun but overall it just feels off in what I want from a football game. Also I think the controls are way too complex (even compared to PES) for some of the intermediate/advanced techniques.

gjones wrote:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

FC 24 has quickly become my most-played game since Tears of the Kingdom, above all else it’s good to have a proper football game on the Switch.

Is it much different from FIFA 23?

On Switch it is; up until now they've just been rereleasing FIFA 17 every year so this is the first new one.

Aye, it's the first all-new FIFA since 2017 right enough. It feels leaps ahead of what was regurgitated on Switch these last five years, but I'm not so sure it's much different to FIFA 23 on the other consoles. It feels very familiar, I can't imagine there's a lot of meaningful differences. They undoubtedly could have done more to reboot it as it's own and whole new thing, but still, all I wanted was a good football game on Switch - and FC 24 is that.

~



It's been another expensive week for me, but at least House of the Dead: Remake and Super Bomberman 2 were heavily discounted at around the £20 mark. Those'll be two games that I'll try and rinse quickly and see if I can recoup most of my money by trading them in somewhere. I've finished my first playthrough of Sonic Superstars - it's mostly great by the way - so I'll go onto Super Mario Bros. Wonder after the weekend.

Nice pick up Cappa, I'm still yet to really play Mario and not getting Sonic till Xmas along with Super Mario RPG.

I've got a few things recently, such as Alan Wake II on Xbox Series X for £32 cash instead of the £50 on store as I used Xbox reward points, have to say what I've played so far is a tad disappointing.

Robocop: Rogue City on PS5 that I'm yet to start, from the reviews it looks like dumb 80's film fun. Today picked up Steamboy on UMD, ⁣Max Payne 2 and a good FROM game in Otogi (which I finished back in day) on OG Xbox as they're backwards compatible, also my Tears of the Kingdom Zelda and Ganondorf amiibo arrived on the gaming front.

Outside of gaming got 1989 Taylor's Version on Vinyl and a for some reason the Sports Direct that GAME is located on the sale rail with old Man Utd & Liverpool kits which are still like £45 had a bunch of Green Bay and Tampa Bay Jerseys on, which I'm now a proud owner of a Tampa Bay Jersey with the GOAT himself Brady on the back which is clearly American sized as it's rather big or thinking is big to go over padding though it's not player issue (you may have seen with Football kits in last few years, where you can get Fan or Player issue that's been a thing for years with American Jerseys) that I'm thinking I'll wear over a hoodie which I've often seen with American team jerseys. This is my first American team jersey, which I have wanted one for ages same with weird football, rugby shirts etc you never really see them in the UK and when you do, they're often super expensive like the RRP of this Tampa one was £89.99 which I'm never going to pay or go out my way on eBay etc.

Here's what I’ve bought recently:



In the absence of a ‘big’ Christmas game that’s to my tastes WarioWare: Move It! is getting kept back until the festive break, I’m not in a rush to play it. Hades was spotted unexpectedly in GAME in Glasgow and I’m quite happy to have it physically for £23, it’s the cheapest I’ve seen it in a long time. It wasn’t even two hours beforehand that I had a £32 CEX copy of it in my hand, umm’ing and ahh’ing about finally picking it up. I made the right decision clearly.

Underneath are three games I bought for a total of £1.50 during a fruitful jaunt down to Cash Convertors one lunch break. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for 50p is decent enough, but Wii Party and FIFA 19 are £18 and £38 respectively at CEX.

Why is the even-then-last-generation version of an old Fifa game £38? Bloody Tories / Brexit / etc

You should checkout GGS, Jim as I did a price is right type round and yeah like the last year sports games often keep value or even raise in value like the NCAA games in the states.

The Super Mario Party and Joy-Con bundle seemed decently priced at £72. I didn’t already have Super Mario Party and after nearly two years of near-daily use I can’t trust that the Joy-Con that came with my Switch OLED will fully work for much longer. It makes sense to have replacement Joy-Cons already and to have bought them for as cheaply as I could ahead of when my current Joy-Cons inevitably bugger up.

There’s lots I’m looking forward to trying out and even more I’m looking forward to replaying on the Taito Super Pocket. I thought I may as well get a new game to go alongside it. I’ve commented that I’m not keen on the idea of single-game Evercade cartridges, but at least Full Void has been afforded good reviews by the usual websites.

The nearby British Heart Foundation recently had really good stock from the seventh generation of gaming, around about twenty quality games that would have been good for a collection and/or good for flipping to CEX for a tidy profit. Sadly the discs were scratched to oblivion for most of them, it’s no wonder they’d found their way into a charity shop. Red Dead Redemption, Ridge Racer 6 and Mario & Sonic all looked okay though.

'spend less on games'

'no'



Puzzle Bobble Everybubble was half-price at £17.99 in my local GAME, which still seems quite expensive for Puzzle Bobble in 2023. While it wasn’t something I was desperate to own Bayonetta Origins was paid for in full with Game Collection vouchers that were about to expire. I’m still annoyed that £20 worth of credit expired and just disappeared literally the day before I bought it, I completely missed that.

Mario & Rabbids was on offer everywhere as part of Black Friday. It was cheap at £15 but I might return it, I don't see me getting round to it anytime soon.

I treated myself to a couple of SNES games when I’d seen them for sale on one of the online retailers I used. I’ve been on the lookout for NBA Jam Tournament Edition on any of the ‘90s consoles but I just didn’t come across it. Despite knowing its reputation, understanding that it’s exactly my sort of game and appreciating that Konami were one of the finest developers of the era I’ve never played Sunset Riders before; I didn’t know about it when I was wee, it didn’t come out again digitally or on Virtual Console, and I just didn’t get round to the Arcade Archives re-release. Anyhoo, NBA is – hauld on the noo – WORTH £7! Sunset Riders seems like a proper bargain for £35 – it’s £85 in the same condition at CEX.

Underneath is the latest batch of Evercade games, there's quite a lot I'm looking forward to playing on these.

I've got those Evercade games arriving tomorrow, I'm looking at Goodboy Galaxy mostly from them.

Imagine being a kid in the 90s and those two SNES games turning up cheap-ish. Well actually maybe Sunset Riders isn't really my thing, but NBA Jam is fun for days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days

It was Taylor Swift's birthday on Wednesday so I thought I'd treat myself to few games because I could. Sonic Superstars was the most expensive at £33 and was actually a backup choice when they didn't have Jedi Survivor in stock, none the less it has been played a decent amount so far so I'll share thoughts on that soon. Forspoken was still lingering at the £10 mark so I thought I'd pick it up, looks a fun enough game when I wanna switch my brain off. The Witcher was about £13 and naturally is one I've been meaning to get because one the best games of all time. Last but certainly not least, Kingdom Hearts 3 was £5, obviously I'll pick up 1, 1 and a half, 7 and 3 quarters and the rest of them before I play this but seemed a good price and I liked the artwork.

KH3 might just be my favourite from a gameplay perspective across the series. Maybe it's just the joy of playing a more modern take on KH, but I had a great time with it.

The Witcher 3 is an all time great - you'll love it.