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June Update – oh Sony!, you bunch of idiots!

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Prey (PS5) - Completed 

I've mainly been distracted by the World Cup but I did manage to complete Prey, the ending sequence is tense and has you making some big choices. 

 

I still hate Mimics!

Seas of Stars (PS5)

A shame, see bin

Like A Dragon:Pirate Yakuza (PS5)

A full game with nothing but Majima! I've completed chapter one and unlocked the ship, I need to understand the mechanics of sailing around the opening area to develop my skill/experience.

A RGG game is like your favourite blanket

Animal Busters (Android)

Still playing but I'm getting bored of it so will bin it soon.

Rogue Legend (Android)

This is much more enjoyable than Animal Busters & has regular updates with new content.


2026 Gaming Resolutions Update

1. Purchase no more physical games, yes this resolution is even tougher now!

Another good month, nothing purchased.


2. Focus on PS+ Extra Backlog

I got annoyed with the Sony news and decided to start a physical game instead in Pirate Majima.


3. No more PSN Credit!

Not keen to give Sony any more money given their recent news.


Backlog

PS+ Extra (12) - Cleared out a lot of titles that I have lost interest in playing

Digital Games (46) - Another month with no further additions

PS+ Monthly (13) - Nothing new added

Physical Games (12) - Again, no more purchases

Total = 83 Games


Shopping

2026 Target is spend less than £100 - Total spent £66.00  

No change, nothing purchased
 

Want

Added Momento & Calame to my wishlist.


Bin

Where do I start?

Sony - The death of physical games 

Let's go with Sony news of the end of physical media in 2028.

My initial reaction was what a bunch of idiots! & I still feel angry.

My game shopping process since forever is to buy physical media over digital for all AAA game releases. I don't keep games; I play them and then sell them on to buy the next game.

Digital game shopping started with the Xbox 360 and indie games (my first purchased games were Marble Blast Ultra, Puzzle Quest & Geometry Wars). I don't think I purchased anything on the PS3, and on the PS4 I continued to buy indie titles but did purchase AAA games when they were on sale. To date, Red Dead Redemption 2 was the only game I purchased fully digital on release because I knew I would play it forever. 

So how will not having physical games change my gaming habits?

For now, it doesn't. I have a massive backlog of physical/digital games to enjoy. I'm not buying any more physical or digital games, but going forward I'll continue to purchase older titles on my wishlist on physical media and everything else when it is on sale digitally.

I will be reducing my PS+ subscription down to essentials from premium, mainly because too much choice is dangerous!

After 2028, when AAA games will go fully digital, I will set myself a budget and stick to that; currently, for physical games, that is £25 (occasionally I break this). For digital, I'll probably set the limit lower, like £15 & wait until they are on sale.

I've been a PlayStation gamer (slight blip with the 360 but I ended up finishing that generation on the PS3) since my first JAP imported console, so I'll probably purchase a PS6 console at some point, but if the astronomical figures of £1000! is true, then my day one PS5 console is going to be serving me a lot longer.

 

Sea of Stars (PS5)

A lovely "old school" JRPG with beautiful visuals and a lovely soundtrack but an old school save system that resulted in me losing about 3 hours gameplay because I went exploring and ended up down a cavern surrounded by ant bruisers who kept on re-spawning & eventually died.

For now I've not gone back to the game because to combat this save system I will just end up grinding levels to be over-levelled to ensure I don't die and lose gameplay time.

Gambler’s Table (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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It’s another clicker game! How rare.

This one is themed around flipping coins. You click on a coin, and if it’s tails (or heads? I genuinely can’t remember and it makes no difference anyway) you get money. You spend the money on having more coins on the table, and higher value coins, and little helper people to flip coins for you, or upgrades where you just have to move the pointer vaguely near coins to flip them, or coins that flip themselves randomly, or coins that flip other coins, or coins that flip more than once per flip. Flip! Flip! FLIP. And you unlock different tables, which, like the seasons in Trees Inc, have special modifiers for that run.

Like some of these games you get to a point where progressing further is really slow, but you can reset everything and gain some permanent upgrades to make the next run faster and get you a bit further. Oh, and you can unlock pointless hats for your helpers to wear.

It’s nothing new, but it’s well put together and if you’re in the mood for brainless gaming it, like many of the other clicker games I’ve played recently, is perfect.

Trees Inc (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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If I were to describe this game it would sound very much like it was the same as Timber Rush, which I also played recently. And, I suppose it is. Trees Inc is a cookie clicker type game where you chop trees, get money for chopping trees, and spend that money to chop faster, get more money, and buy helpers to chop on your behalf. So yes, it’s the same game.

Well, not quite. It looks a lot more basic, and you grow different types of trees rather than just have one tree, and you have to wait for them to re-grow (although helpers and upgrades can speed that up). Oh, and you unlock different seasons that have different modifiers (like things grow slower or there are lightning storms) that you can swap between. But it’s still a clicker game about trees. And it was pretty good.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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I tend to claim every single free Epic and Amazon game each time they come up, but it’s not often one catches my eye enough to play. Arrangers, though, looked somewhat different and just happened to arrive when I was between games, and so here we are.

It’s a puzzle game, mostly, where you move by sliding the floor as if it is made of tiles. You know, like those slidey jigsawy picture puzzles you can get. Some items and characters on the same row or column as you also slide with you, and others don’t. Things sometimes “loop” left/right or up/down as well. Initially, most puzzles are just simple navigate-the-room-like-this type, but as you progress you have to move things around, fight baddies, and trigger switches using the same mechanics.

The plot for the game involves you finally plucking up courage to leave the village you have lived in since being found as a baby to try and track down your people. Your only real clue being the symbol on your clothing and, well, your weird movement. Leaving the village means braving the outside world and the “static” – a force which causes things to… get stuck – which becomes increasingly pertinent to the story as the games goes on.

In some ways, the puzzling is a bit like sokoban, only instead of moving the crates you effectively move everything else. I found that when I got stuck, which wasn’t that often, it was because I’d temporarily forgotten one of the core, simple, rules of how the game works, like you can move off the left of a row to appear on the right, or that you can essentially “drag” items behind you from a distance. Other than that, there wasn’t anything too tricky to deal with, although a couple of boss fights were a bit fiddly.

Not that late! April Update

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Star Wars Outlaws (PS5) - Completed

Well would you look at that! I have completed another game!

I started this back at the end of January, it's a very good game. Possibly the best Star Wars game made so far, exploring the open world and the many cities bustling with life and idle conversations.

 

I completed the main story but I will go back to enjoy the DLC content

Prey (PS5) 

This game has been on my backlog for a while, I did start it a few years ago but turned it off at the first mimic jump scare! I'm a wimp!

 

I have turned down the difficulty to make the game easier to play for my "old-school" reactions but it does not adjust the fear factor!

I love the sci-fi setting, you have a small area to explore and metroidvania like not everything is unlocked so you need to figure out passwords or find keycards.

Watch out for the mimics! 

2026 Gaming Resolutions Update
I am updating my resolutions 

1. Purchase no more physical games, yes this resolution is even tougher now!

I just need to ignore all sales & delete the HOT UK Deals app!


2. The hardware challenge was too easy, I have no intention of buying any new consoles. so let's focus on my gaming backlog especially the PS+ Extra which expires end of December and I planned to renew at only the essentials tier.

Currently I have 21 games on my PS+ Extra backlog, some of these are quite short but I am never going to complete all 21 before December so let's go with completing at least 10 of these titles! 


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 am going to stick with this the current balance left is £46 & this is all I can spend for 2026. However I don't plan on buying anything and looking at the physical games I own, none of them have any DLC content. So I should be able to use some of this credit to pay for my PS+ Essentials renewal in December

4. The FOMO challenge again was too easy, I don't really care enough and will just play what I want instead of what is the flavour of the month. So I am deleting this resolution and just sticking with the three above.


Backlog

PS+ Extra (21) - I have until the end of December to crack through as many of these as possible! Good luck!

Digital Games (46) - Added both Star Wars DLC which were not included and Graveyard Keeper (I did not purchase it was free).

PS+ Monthly (13) - Reduced by 6, I've had a bit of a clearout and remove games I have no intention of playing, truthfully I must of done this a while ago because I have no idea what games I deleted!

Physical Games (12) - No change, nothing added or removed.

Total = 92 Games

FALSE ALARM - I do have access to a gaming PC but sorry I'll just stick to PS5 gaming for now. So no Steam backlog list.


Shopping

2026 Target is spend less than £100 - Total spent £66.00  

No change, nothing purchased
 

Want
Added The Artful Escape, Mixtape, Replaced & Outbound to my wishlist


Bin

Nothing really, just the lack of time for gaming!