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Adventure (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, the best Atari 2600 game. Well, one of the top three, anyway. I got “Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration” for Christmas and although I’ve played a fair few of the games, most aren’t actually “completable”, what with being mostly score-attack arcade titles. Adventure, though, has an end goal – take the Chalice to the Yellow Castle.

The game has three modes. The first is a shorter game with just one dragon, fewer objects and fewer rooms. The second is the “main” version, with the full quest, three dragons, mazes, etc. The third is the second game with objects in random locations.

The random mode is sometimes a bit stupid, because it can mean that (for example) the key to get into the Black Castle is actually… inside the Black Castle. There is a bat which wanders the map randomly picking up items, sometimes swapping them with other items (and hilariously it sometimes swaps whatever you’re holding for a dragon, who then eats you), which can allow you to get hold of these “trapped” items, but it’s hit and miss and may take aaaaages.

I ran through both of the first two modes, completing them (which only takes a few minutes) then completed the third mode six times. It’s a good game, brent.

Lil Gator Game (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Imagine a game where a little alligator plays at being Link with his big sister. Only she’s grown up and busy with college and so doesn’t want to play any more. So Lil Gator’s (ever increasing group of) friends decide to help them by turning an island into a make-believe World of Zelda complete with plywood baddies and quests and powerups and a glider.

Lil Gator wants to make the game the most awesome game because they think it’ll coax Big Sis out of her studying, and you, as the actual player, wants to play the game Gator and friends are playing because it’s a sweet little kids-roleplay-as-video-game-characters game.

There are references to Zelda game-like tropes such as pointless fetch quests, lots of fun characters to befriend and do quests for, and a load of areas to explore – especially if you’re going for “killing” all the baddies and helping all the friends. And you can glide and slide and climb like Link does in Breath of the Wild.

It’s short, there’s no peril, but Lil Gator Game is really cute and funny and really feels like the sort of make-believe world kids would play in.

Little Inferno (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Is this the third platform I’ve played and 100%ed this on now? Probably. It’s still great. I suppose I’d not realised before but Little Inferno is really “just” a simple clicker game. You buy things to make money (by, er, burning them), with which to buy more things. Which you then also burn.

There’s a checklist of combinations of two or three things to burn together for extra kudos, and a story about the world getting colder all the time, but it’s just the silly but relaxing nature of Burning All The Things which keeps me coming back to it. That and the music. Little Inferno just for me!

66: Traditional Christmas Potatoes

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What? It’s Christmas again already? Impossible. And yet – here we are with a festival shambles episode, with all the audio dropouts and edits only a True Christmas Shambles Episode could provide.

In Episode 66, deKay, Kendrick, Zo, Toby and Luffer talk about the Evercade EXP Special Edition theft, Ash Ketchum finally retiring from the world of Pokémon, the exciting announcement trailer for Armoured Core VI, and a few games:

  • FIFA 23
  • Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal
  • Bayonetta 3
  • Pokémon Scarlet

And then! The main event! Luffer has created one of his legendary games for Christmas and we attempt to play it. Apologies in advance for your ears. Oh god.

(Direct link here)

Intro music credits: GaMetal cover of Cool Cool Mountain from Mario 64.

Don’t forget, if you want to contact us with questions or comments for or about the show, you can email podcast@ugvm.org.uk or publicly shame us @ugvmpodcast on the Twittors, or on Mastodon: https://mas.to/@ugvmpodcast

Pokémon Scarlet (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Well, completed insofar as the story is done. Actually, there are four stories – three “paths” to take, then a final story available once you’ve done all those.

As with other recent Pokémon games, getting to the “end”, beating the Elite Four, then completing the story and defeating the final “boss” was all very, very easy. Yes, you need suitable Pokémon for each part, and yes, they need to be sufficiently levelled, but I was totally overpowered by the time I’d done 5 or 6 gyms and was a laughable 15 levels higher than every opponent for the rest of the game.

With that done, though, I realised that I was closer to completing my Pokédex than I’d ever been in any other mainstream game in the series, so I think, for the first time (Arceus doesn’t count!) I might actually try to catch ’em all. I’ve about 50 left at the moment, with around half (I think) easily obtainable from just evolving other Pokémon I have already, and most of the rest available from my daughter’s copy of Violet.