I started The Plucky Squire this weekend.  the drawn bits look great, I'd happily play a game that only looked like that.  The 3D parts are a bit rough in places, although also sufficiently impressive on the Switch2.  The gameplay itself kind of reminds me of Cocoon a bit, in that you'll often be hopping in and out of the book to carry items from one area to the next to solve some slight puzzling.  The gameplay itself is varied, if not very satisfying.  Still, I'm happy to have found a game that at least seems to be able to hold my interest.

Other than that I've been playing MKWorld in persuit of my son's score.  He's still about 300 points ahead of me, a gap that would have been much smaller if the game didn't penalize communication errors so harsh.  I've experienced 3 that cost me a total of about 250 points, which is the equivalent of coming in first about  5 times.  

The Duskbloods is created after an exceptionally long concept phase

11/24/25 - FromSoftware reportedly invested significantly more time in the gameplay concept phase of The Duskbloods than in previous productions. The project is said to have been released before 2019 and, according to Chinese journalist Giwin, has gone through an unusually long validation phase.

Giwin, who has provided accurate information about Elden Ring (PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, PC) in the past, says that The Duskbloods combines many innovative multiplayer mechanics. These include contracts, a kind of nemesis system and different victory conditions, which FromSoftware tests without adopting features from well-known genres such as Battle Royale or Extraction Shooter.

This weekend I've been playing lots of real arcade games; Qix, DK, DK Jr, DK3, Frogger, Pole Postion 2, Scramble, Galaxian, Super Pac-man, Joust, Spy Hunter and Zoo Keeper.

I would have lost my shit if I had unlimited access all these arcade games in the 80s.

I'd never played Zoo Keeper before. It's a fun and frantic game from 1983; gameplay is quite unique:

I'm on vacation all this week, so I'm keeping this early 80s gaming fest going!

travo said:

It looks alright. When run into objects like gates with the Batmobile, they sort of just disappear. I can't remember if the PS4 did that as well. The frame rate doesn't slways feel like a steady 30fps.

Seen some videos, played on switch 2 it does have a solid 30fps but the frame pacing makes it look jittery while driving. The textures and resolution looks awful at times.

That's why I didn't pick up the trilogy. They should either do a switch 2 patch or pack in Arkham Origins.

travo said:

Origins is the one I really would love to play again.

I remember Arkham Asylum was 8 hours long. I still own it on 360.

I bought City 3 times and twice my copy was literally broken as soon as I beat the Penguin.

I own Origins but got it late and my Wii U fell into disuse by then. What I played felt good, though having the same Gotham map as City felt odd, a bit cheap maybe?

Elden Ring/Duskbloods leaker

"From what I know, The Duskbloods was greenlit even earlier than the marketing period for Sekiro's release. It is the FromSoftware title that has spent the longest time purely on gameplay prototyping and validation among all of their games so far. Although it's PVE and PVP, it reportedly contains many innovative elements the team themselves are very proud of."

Michael Crider's headline at PCWorld today perfectly captures how ridiculous the PC memory shortage has become: stores like the San Francisco Bay Area's Central Computers are beginning to sell RAM at market prices, like you'd pay for the catch-of-the-day at a seafood restaurant.

"Costs are fluctuating daily as manufacturers and distributors adjust to limited supply and high demand," reads a message posted in the store's display case, as spotted by Steve Lin. "Because of this, we can't display fixed prices at this time."

Three months ago yesterday, I bought 32GB of memory for my gaming PC and the price of that exact kit has more than tripled since then. It now costs $300 more. ($440 vs. $130, in case you're curious; a more common version of the same kit went from $105 to $400.) Some prices have doubled since October, and while you can still find some 32GB kits for as low as $230, a 64GB DDR5 kit can easily run you $700, $800, even $900.

Leaker Moore's Law Is Dead claims that Microsoft may have to raise Xbox prices yet again to compensate, but that Sony has stockpiled enough RAM for the PS5 to last some number of months.

Scary stuff there in terms of the future of videogames. Movie theaters have seen a decline and now it looks possible that the games industry will as well.

Ravenprose said:

This hobby is quickly becoming unaffordable. It'll be interesting to see where it'll be in 5 years. I've been having a lot more fun playing vintage games lately. I can see a lot of people going back to their older consoles and games if these price spikes continue.  

I probably will or at least hold on to my Switch 2 for years for the NSO games.