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Lonely Mountains Snow Riders: how do you get there?

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On Friday I met John and Kieron online for an evening of gaming.

We have a great many games that we have played through, and even a few we have completed, most notably Human Fall Flat multiple times (since they keep adding new levels, so we have to complete it again). We haven’t completed Borderlands 2, since sometimes the intensity of the shooting just means it feels too much effort. We have completed Overcooked 2 other than one level where we’ve only got two stars (and the score for three stars seems unreachable). We have completed Halos 3, ODST, Reach and 4, but haven’t really started 5 yet. We’ve started Moving Out 2, Star Wars Squadrons, Astroneer, Plate Up!, and Powerwash Simulator, among others. We regularly play Peggle 2, and Golf With Your Friends.

With so many games left hanging, obviously Friday was all about new ones.

We played All You Need is Help for a bit. It is horrendously confusing on how to start a game, particularly since you can’t start with only three players and one of us needed to control two characters. I accidentally discovered this while we were all pressing random things to try to start a game, which meant I spent most of my time getting very confused over which stick was controlling which character.

All You Need is Help: all you need are better instructions on how to start the game

We got a notification that we had completed the first set of levels, but couldn’t work out how to unlock any others. So we didn’t, and we moved on.

The surprise hit of the evening was Lonely Mountains Snow Riders, a follow-up to Lonely Mountains Downhill. The Downhill game saw you getting a bike down dangerously thin and steep paths, avoiding trees and bushes and cliffs and sudden jumps. Snow Riders loses the bike, gives you skis, and adds in online multiplayer which immediately makes the mountains a bit less lonely. It seems to control much better than Downhill, from what I remember, and paths are wider and more forgiving. That’s not to say it’s easy; working out how to hit a jump at the right angle and speed so you can clear a river or gully took multiple deaths in almost all cases. On one of the courses we had all died a minimum of 23 times.

The mode we played was a race, but it wasn’t as easy as just holding the crouch button and steering. Getting down the mountain had multiple paths between each checkpoint, some of which may have been faster but which required skill that I certainly didn’t have. When you die you reset to the last checkpoint passed, meaning that each waypoint down the mountain gave a feeling of relief; there were occasions when one of us crashed just before crossing the checkpoint, at which point the silence on the microphone was noticeable.

Lonely Mountains Snow Riders: I found it far too stressful to play and take screenshots while navigating down the mountain.

I may well go back to Snow Riders by myself at some point, but there’s a lot of content there and I can foresee us trying that game again on a future gaming evening.

The Good Time Garden (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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This was a quick play after Thank Goodness You’re Here!, and it’s sort of a prototype for what that game ended up being. It’s more abstract, but still very silly.

This time, you’re a sort of naked onionman thing who has to find food for a creature in order to progress. There’s not a lot to it, but it was enjoyable enough – and free on Steam! Bargain.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Sometimes, a game comes along which is properly hilarious. Sure, there are funny games, and games with funny events or “player made” hilarity, but it’s rare for a funny game to be this funny.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is what we used to call an arcade adventure game. I suppose, in some ways, it’s the spiritual successor to such British 8-bit computer games as Everyone’s A Wally and Jack the Nipper. You, as a little (although his size randomly changes somehow) yellow man have arrived at the mayor’s office only to find you’ve some time to kill so wander outside. Then begins a ridiculous chain of events across this northern town where you’re expected to help out in various stupid and nonsensical ways.

For example, one of your first tasks involves freeing a portly gentleman who has reached into a drain to reach a tuppence and got his arm stuck. Off you go to the bakery to nick a load of butter with which to lubricate the arm, which frees him and reveals it to actually be a thruppence, not a tuppence. What joy!

Other tasks include arranging smoking fish in a fishmongers, repeatedly annoying a quiet old man by plopping through his chimney sooting up his living room, and fetching meat to make pies. There’s a huge number of proper Northern people who populate this town, ably voiced by Matt Berry and Jon Blyth, amongst others, who add even more silliness to the proceedings. Events that just happen around you, like the singing rats in bins, the Sausage Man, and the chap who sells bricks, as well as a few romances and rivalries (there’s a near war in the Big Pie vs Little Pie side story). Every few seconds there’s a funny event, new character, or bit of dialogue, and it all feels a bit Python-y and a bit On The Buses-y in the best possible way. There’s also a load of adverts for in-universe products which are hilarious.

The gameplay is pretty simple, mostly involving some minor platforming and fetch and carry requests punctuated with a bit of exploration and pathfinding as various areas are revisited in different ways as routes open up or close. That’s not a criticism like it might be with a “straight” game, as the point here is to enjoy the people and the setting (and the accents) more than the gameplay itself which is mostly just the vehicle to progress the story and events.

It’s a really unique game, and I wish I could forget all about it so I can play it again and re-discover it all.

February 2025 – I’m a netrunner baby!

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Play

Cyberpunk 2077 (PS5) 

It has taken me a while to understand all the systems at play in the game but I finally have my Netrunner V, going in with Contagion & using Overdrive for Synapse Burnout. If all else fails my trust Tier 5 pistol can headshot for 150% damage!

The star of the game is Night City,  just an amazing city to explore and so much to discover from random gang fights to gigs.

I am currently about 75 hours in but I expect I will be playing this game for all of February and maybe even March!


 

Want

I stayed strong and avoided purchasing Star Wars Outlaw, I just need to focus on enjoying what I own.

I have added a few more titles to my shopping list and currently it is quite long but I won't be buying anything for a long while.

Baldurs Gate 3, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Shadow Gambit Cursed Crew, Star Wars Outlaws, Ghost of Yotei, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Death Stranding 2, Like a Dragon Pirate Yakuza, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Mafia The Old Country, The Alters, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, Kriegsfront Tactics, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream & Dispatch.

Bin 

Nothing except maybe my lack of gaming time at the moment being limited to a few hours a week.


 

Half-Life: the soldiers have arrived

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I still have never completed Half-Life. I must have played through the opening levels multiple times, enjoying the scene setting and the initial escape from the headcrabs. The game is still quite spooky and panic-inducing at times, with mild jump scares and swarms of enemies appearing; the library in Halo is an obvious comparison, but Half-Life’s setting is much more varied and less monotonous than that.

I play the game quite cautiously, conserving ammunition as much as possible but shooting at the enemies from a distance. There are quite a lot of health recharge stations around (as far as I’ve got, at least), and I’m making maximum use of quick save functionality to keep my health high as I work through the levels. I get the feeling that this isn’t the way I’m supposed to play it, and maybe once I’ve completed it once I might be a little more gung-ho and run through the levels, much as I do nowadays with the first three Halo games.

For now, though, I’m enjoying it. I’ve reached the part where the soldiers first appear (in the chapter “We’ve got Hostiles”), and the scientists are overjoyed to be saved … until they aren’t. I’ve made my way up the lift and outside, only to run back into the vents as a helicopter started to attack me. They’re now using laser trip wires to set off sentry guns; I get the feeling they’re not interested in a chat over coffee.