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Toem (PS5): COMPLETED!

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This looked like a lovely wee game when I saw it appear on the Switch eShop, so because I’m morally against paying full price for anything these days I put it on my wish list in the hope of a sale. And then, it appeared on PS+, saving me even more money!

It’s a unique looking, black and white 2D characters in a 3D world game with a hand-drawn style, which is why it originally stood out to me. For the most part, it’s an adventure-y puzzle game, wrapped around the premise of taking photos of stuff. The aim is to complete enough photo challenges in one area to unlock travel to the next one, eventually reaching the Toem and taking a photo of it. I won’t explain what a Toem is (or even how to pronounce it), but the reason for the black and white graphics become clear when you get there.

None of the photo requests are particularly challenging, and some require you to return to visited areas with new clothes and/or abilities you unlocked later (like being able to see ghosts or break blocks of ice), but it isn’t really a Metroidvania as most are optional.

Each area has a great collection of characters to meet and interact with, from the old guy who has lost a sock (and somehow you find two for him), to the ghost of a horse’s head who wants a photo of what they looked like when they were still alive, to the group of thugs who won’t let you join their gang until you’ve found all their graffiti. There’s also some shady organisation watching you for Reasons, and a number of shy monsters to look out for and somehow get snaps of.

It’s very silly, and probably counts as one of those “cosy” genre games with no timers, deaths, failures, peril or danger, but is really quite lovely.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (Switch): COMPLETED!

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The Stanley Parable is actually one of very few PC games I’ve completed. Certainly before I got my Steam Deck, anyway. It was funny, silly, and I enjoyed it very much. The “don’t play for five years” achievement was also a bit of a struggle because I did want to play it again in that time, but had to wait. I did though, then played it some more. But!

Then! This happened!

Poor Stanley.

Ultra Deluxe is, on the outside, the same original game with some more content. Actually, it’s not just more content. It’s new areas, new stories, and a load of meta stuff about the narrator creating The Stanley Parable 2 (and 3, and 4) as well as some looking back at the reception the original game had in the press. It’s all very 4th wall breaking. And funny. And silly.

Jump, jump!

All the original stuff seems to be still there, but the new things cleverly intertwine. For example, the narrator decides that Stanley would be happier and feel safer if he had a bucket to carry round with him, so one is available to pick up and doing so changes the “normal” outcome of the path you take. Even if in a minor way, such as the classic Broom Closest interaction, where the bucket unlocks more dialogue.

Ma bucket

With a lot more to explore and new interactions to discover, it took me quite a bit longer to finish this time despite already knowing how to reach most of the original endings. And by “complete”, I mean, I reached what I think is every possible ending, as well as collect all the new Stanley figurines (Stanfigs? Figurleys?) which, as is pointed out repeatedly, serve no real purpose but are a purpose unto themselves.

It’s all stupid stuff and it’s great.

Scream Collector (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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With a thousand PC games to choose from in my Steam/Epic/GOG/Itch libraries, mostly unplayed, you’d think I would never need to even look in the Steam store for something else to pass the time, right? And, if I did, you’d expect I might be picking out some high profile or highly lauded title that I don’t already own, yeah? Well, no. For I stumbled across this shambolic looking free-to-play clicker game instead, and then spent THIRTY HOURS completing it. No, you’re an idiot.

The theme here is a haunted house, so instead of cookies or paperclips you buy gravestones and pumpkins with which to bump up your scream income. The mechanics are the same as most other clickers – the more you buy the more you earn more quickly and the more the next things cost. It’s a Numbers Go Up game.

What’s different, is that there are a few minigames that make up part of the game. You get prize spinners to boost your income a bit or give you free items, you can play a game of Simon on the windows of the house, and there are ghosts to catch and witches to melt. There’s also two more clicker games within the clicker game – one set in the basement where you earn “preparedness” by hoarding water and food and toilet rolls and other pandemic stuff, and another which opens up after completing the main game where you deck out the interior of the house with candles and spiders and other spooky things. I also completed the basement, but I draw the line at the house hallway – many of the “jumps” up to the next power-of-ten are missing, so it just takes even longer to get anywhere.

It’s mindless, somehow addictive, and although it has IAPs I had no need of them at all.

World of Goo (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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It’s been a long time since I last played this on the Wii. I blame not having another machine with a suitable input device, as it only really works with touch screens and pointers, not control sticks. Yes, I know I could have managed on the Switch or even on the Mac, but anyway. Trackpad on the Steam Deck it is.

I’d totally forgotten about most of the “story”, and have no recollection of the Information Superhighway “world” at all. Which is good, because I didn’t want to remember the solutions to the levels! That said, I didn’t have any difficultly whipping through the whole game in about three hours

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

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I’ve been eyeing this up for ages but it never really went cheap enough. Sure, I’m a fan of the series (although THPS3 is the best one), but I couldn’t bring myself to pay more than £20 for it. Then PS+ gave it away as a free rental, finally, so here we are.

It’s a remake of the first two THPS games, mostly as I remember them, only in much higher resolution and with some of the music missing because Licencing. It doesn’t feel quite the same in terms of speed and physics, and it lets you do things like revert and tweak lip/grind tricks which didn’t come into the series until later games, but it’s close enough. I had always played Pro Skater 2 much more than 1, so found running through that much quicker than the first game – plus I’d already got all the upgrades from the first game by then.

As (mostly) always, it’s great. It’s better than the previous “best of” remake from 2012 which had terrible reviews but I really liked. THPS3+4 now please and thanks.