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End of January – C’est Magnifique

Posted on 01/02/2026 Written by gospvg

Play

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 (PS5) - Completed

Believe the hype!

Just tick off the checklist below and go and play.

1. Do you enjoy turn-based action RPGs like the old school Final Fantasy games?

2. Do you enjoy a story with a great cast of characters?

3. Do you enjoy a lovely soundtrack and gourgeus graphics?

It also has waterfalls!

Star Wars Outlaws (PS5) - Playing

Sticking with the physical backlog time to enjoy some science fiction action with Star Wars Outlaws.

You play as Kay Vess a young theif/scoundrel who has to escape her home planet after a heist mission goes wrong, with her companion Nix she escapes and lands on Tosharra a planet covered in windswept plains & canyons.

You can explore the planet on your speeder and find treasure, interact with one of the many factions including the Imperials to unlock contracts & missions. You also have the Trailblazer ship to explore outerspace & begin your adventure!

Yes, it has waterfalls!

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (PS5) - Playing

The Claptrap Boys are back! with a weekly PMG enjoying another Gearbox game in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands which is set in a fantasy-themed tabletop world. It plays just as you expect, you get lots of missions and lots of loot!

I've gone with the Spore Warden class which also has a toxic mushroom companion that helps attacks nearby enemies.

It's good to be back playing with the crew and thankfully everything worked smoothly with party chat!

The game also has waterfalls!

2026 Gaming Resolutions

1. Purchase no more physical games until I have reduced my backlog to 3 titles (currently at 13!).

Still intact reduced down to 11 (Started Star Wars Outlaws/Tiny Tina Wonderlands).

2. I did well in 2025 and avoided buying the PS5 Pro and Switch 2, I need to keep that going in 2026, no new hardware purchases except if required PS5 controllers.

Still intact, nothing purchased.

3. I have £80 on PSN credit and this all I can use until I reduce my digital backlog to 10 titles (either by playing or dropping, currently at 35 games). No more shopto top up codes!

I will renew PS+ at the essentials tier in November, I don't need the extra tier it just adds more titles to my backlog!

Still intact, no new games purchased, I spent £13.99 from the exsisting PSN credit on Star Wars Outlaws season pass.

4. I did really well this year with FOMO, I did not go back to Fortnite even with the Simpsons map or the BTTF skins, I also avoided purchasing Arc Raiders. I don't have the free time for these type of games. Need to avoid the hype and just play what I already own.

Still intact, I have been tempted by ARC Raiders but thus far have managed to avoid being weak!

Backlog

Digital Games (37) - +2 added The Witcher 3 DLC that I purchased a few years ago but have never played.

PS+ Subscription - I scrapped the PS+ Extra list because it is not a backlog for games that I have purchased just titles that are avalable on the subscription service that I want to enjoy.

PS+ Monthly (19) - Unchanged, my main focus in on the Physical Games list.

Physical Games (11) -2 Started playing Star Wars Outlaws & Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Total = 67 Games

Shopping

Star Wars Outlaws Season Pass £13.99 (from exsisiting PSN credit)

2026 Target is spend less than £100

Want

I did enjoy playing the demos of Tainted Grail which scratched my Skyrim itch & Dragon Quest VII Reimagined just looks gourgeus!

Both added to the wishlist.

Bin

Nothing at all this month.

Super Mario World: lost in chocolate

Posted on 30/01/2026 Written by Xexyz

I have got further than ever before, but that’s not saying much. I own Super Mario World on multiple systems – SNES, GBA, Wii, Wii U, 3DS – as well as having emulated it on the Raspberry Pi, the iMac, and (shh) my work laptop. I have played the start of it many times over, knowing to go left at the first map screen and turn on the yellow switch, then progressing right up the map to Donut Plains. I know about the secret exit in Donut Plains 2 to get to the green switch palace. I have, very often, given up at the ghost house in Donut Plains because I just hate the way the enemies move and the need for constant vigilance.

Not this time, though. Playing on the Switch (and then the Switch 2), I pushed through, and found new life beyond the ghosts in Vanilla Dome, Twin Bridges, and then the Forest of Illusion. And at this point it became really annoying.

In an effort to actually finish the game, I tried to ignore the red blinking dots that told me there were alternative exits to the levels. I went straight through each level, to the obvious end, making progress. And then in the Forest of Illusion, taking the obvious exit no longer worked; I ended up going around the overworld map in circles. I did find a secret exit in Forest of Illusion 1, but that just took me to the ghost house which I had already accessed from Forest of Illusion 3. The ghost house exit took me to FoI4, and then the exit from there went back to FoI2. I was frustrated for ages until I found the secret exit from FoI3 which was hidden in a pipe I was sure I’d been down multiple times before, just before the normal end of the level.

Keeping a Yoshi seems to make life a lot easier.

Through Roy’s castle, and onto Chocolate Island. I was doing fine until Chocolate Island 3, when I found that the exit led me into a loop which took me back to Chocolate Island 3. I explored CI2 for ages, because there was a sign at the start indicating that if I collected a certain number of coins or finished at a certain time I would get a different exit, but no amount of experimenting gave that result. There didn’t look as if there could be a secret path leading from the ghost house or CI1. And then, met with a facepalm, I realised that the arrows at the end of CI3 were pointing to the right, showing me where I had to go. I rode Yoshi along, swallowed the blue koopa to give me wings, and then made my way over to the other secret exit.

I’ve left it at CI4, which has a lot of diagonal platforms to slide down. Hopefully I won’t get lost again.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (Switch 2)

Posted on 19/01/2026 Written by deKay

Started playing.

Viewfinder: petting the cat

Posted on 05/01/2026 Written by Xexyz

Viewfinder caught my eye when it was first demonstrated, with the ability to take photos and walk into them, and clever world manipulation. When it came out it was £20, and that seemed a little expensive for the technical sandbox I imagined it to be. Towards the end of last year it was free on PS+, and given away on the Epic Game Store, and now, having played it, I can see that I was wrong: it is not just a technical sandbox, it was not too expensive, and a lot of the game doesn’t have you wandering around with a camera taking photos.

Indeed, you don’t get a camera of your own until World 3 (of 5); initially you are reliant on picking up photos (or other pictures), and then later you can use photocopiers and cameras which are fixed in place. All have a limited number of uses; once you place a picture in the world it is no longer yours and instead becomes the level itself, and photocopiers and cameras have limited film or paper. In some ways I was disappointed that there wasn’t a more free mode, where you could experiment with multiple photos and building your own platforms without a set objective. Maybe that is yet to come, or maybe that just wouldn’t work – my PS4 has already crashed twice in levels where I’ve been dealing with many different photos.

I’ve completed World 3 now, and on to World 4. The game focuses on small, restricted puzzles, and there are times when I feel like I’ve brute forced my way through rather than settling on a clever obscure solution. Maybe that’s just my perception. There is a story, which is rather hard to follow, but it seems that the levels you explore have been built inside this simulation, which in turn has been built inside a laboratory that you visit a couple of times. And you’re searching for a weather manipulator? Not sure why that’s in the simulation. The most important thing is that the only inhabitant of the simulated world is an artificial cat, and, when it’s not talking to you, you can walk up to it and pet it. When you do, it purrs, and the controller vibrates.

That’s worth the £20 by itself.

Oblivion Remastered (PS5)

Posted on 04/01/2026 Written by deKay

It’s been a long time since I last played Oblivion, but it’s just as good as I remember. The increased detail, faster loading, and other improvements here no blunt have something to do with that. It still seems to have most of the original bugs intact, mind.