Playstation 4

Viewfinder: completed!

Posted on 26/01/2026 Written by Xexyz

World four turned out to be quite long and complex, and the overall tone of the game turned much darker. Many of the level foundations became purple and grey, which could not be destroyed by laying photographs or photographed themselves. What seemed to be a restriction actually quickly became another puzzle, where (for example) a photo of a battery inside a purple cage could be placed as just the battery. Where walls were made of standard material but floors were made of purple, the walls could be vanished with the application of a photo of the sky, leaving a clear path through. I struggled a fair bit with a couple of the levels, before I suddenly realised an obvious solution.

And then onto World 5, where the story became more ominous and the mood ever darker. Cait the cat didn’t want me to find the weather device. Bits of building and objects just hung in the air, with gravity seemingly forgotten. Levels became ever more complex and foreboding. At one point I went back to the first World to explore a bit and find the collectible ducks, just for a break.

One of the more freaky things about the last World is the timed camera, which allows you to run around and take a photo of yourself. Remember in Portal, at the start of the game, when you place a portal and then can see yourself running into it, through the other portal? Imagine that, but instead of seeing a human character you see a mess of interference lines which vaguely take the shape of a person. Placing that photo instantly teleports you to the location of your silhouette, and you need to make sure you have multiple copies if you need to teleport out again.

Even with the rewind function, floating stuff gives me vertigo and a fear of falling off the edge

And then the final level, which suddenly introduced a time limit and required all the different skills that had been present throughout the game. In the end the time limit was more than enough to complete tasks, but working out how to do them was more of a challenge. I think it took me five attempts, before I finally found the science experiment and departed from the simulation.

Really fun as a game, and it certainly didn’t overstay its time; as with all the best games, it introduced new mechanics regularly and only used them a few times before assuming they were now just part of the repertoire.

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.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City: packages, police, and pootling

Posted on 25/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

Back in April, when I completed Vice City, I posited that I might try playing San Andreas in “a few months”. It has now been a few months, and I’m not playing it. I have a bit of a mental blocker on that game, partially around the setting, but also because I remember when it was released that there were countless reviews evangelising the detail they’d gone into, with you needing to regularly work out to keep fit, and eat healthily, and so on. It sounded too involved, and even if that’s not the case, it’s prevented me from playing it.

And so I went back to Vice City, to finish off side missions and collect stuff.

My first objective was to collect the hidden packages. Throughout playing the game, I’d found just over fifty of them, but the other forty were evidently too well hidden. I used a map guide to travel around the city and find them, and eventually I came to the end of the list … and still only had 95. I had to retrace my steps, eventually realising that I mist have failed to save at some point after collecting packages in the airport, because there were five of them still sitting there.

Collecting all the packages unlocked a military helicopter at the South end of the first island, so I spent some time flying around and blowing stuff up, including the annoying planes carrying banners over the city. I got a nice big wanted level, which I then got rid of by landing on the roof of my mansion and running in to change my clothes.

I then bought the car showroom, and found all the cars required by its clients, including the ice cream truck and pizza delivery bike. The biggest issue I had on this was with the games in Little Haiti, who all hate me for some reason and blew up two of their gang cars when I tried to steal them.

Sometimes it’s fun to just watch other people’s chaos. Security guards and gang members like to shoot at each other, and then when the ambulance turns up the paramedics can get caught in the crossfire.

And then I went to the Malibu Club and tried to complete the missions there. I got stuck here before – there’s a mission where you have to break someone out of the police station, and I was being shot to pieces as soon as I entered. It’s a lot easier if you go in without a gun in your hand, and then run straight into the locket room to get a police uniform on. Once you open the cells, they still try to kill you – but I had a fast car parked outside, and a route to a pay and spray planned, so I managed to finish that … only to get stuck on another mission where you have to race someone through the city, with the police trying to ram you (and not him) off the road.

I’m nearly done with this now.

Rocket League: scoring a pizza

Posted on 02/05/2025 Written by Xexyz

There’s a new temporary mode on Rocket League, with some sort of collaboration with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Yes, I said Hero. It’s similar to Snow Day, but played on a split-goal field and with a giant pizza instead of the puck, and you can’t jump, and you have a grapple hook which regenerates over time, and boost which also regenerates. So not that much like Snow Day.

I’m not a huge fan, because of the lack of jumping and aerials, but the game I’ve embedded below was pretty good fun.

You will note that most of my team left, and then were replaced, after a couple of minutes when we were a couple of goals down. They don’t know what they missed out on.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City: completed!

Posted on 01/04/2025 Written by Xexyz

It turns out that pootling around finishing up side missions was actually the right thing to do. I started by finishing up the taxi and ice cream van missions, unlocking the regular payments from them, then I headed for the golf club to see if there was anything more to do there. It turns out that there wasn’t, but I jumped in a boat and found myself on Prawn Island where there was a film studio in need of some tender care. Tender care through the production of tender movies, apparently, but fortunately Tommy Vercetti isn’t the sort of man to be directly involved in those – there’s no hot coffee here – and the missions associated with the film studio were altogether more entertaining and varied.

Two in particular stood out. First, I had to pilot a plane around the city, dropping leaflets advertising the new film along set routes. Second, I had to take a motorbike up in a lift and jump out an office block window in order to land on another building’s roof, and then follow a path of jumps and ramps around until I finally got to a spotlight – which I could again use to advertise. Why I couldn’t just fly there in a helicopter, I’ll never know, particularly because a later mission at the studio had me using one to follow someone to take blackmail photos.

I raised a lot of money through these side missions, so I went to buy the Malibu Club, and completed the missions there as well. Finishing those, and unlocking the earning potential of the venue, suddenly gave me a new marker on the map, next to the Vercetti mansion. So, naturally, I didn’t go there.

It’s always fun to set cars on fire, and then set the fire engine on fire when it comes to help. Fire.

I went and did some other stuff instead. I searched around for hidden packages, to limited success. I delivered pizzas, I robbed some stores, I managed to complete a course over the rooftops using a dirtbike, I went to the shooting range. And then I decided to try to finish the game.

It took me many attempts. The last mission sees you being betrayed by a good friend and meeting the city’s main crime lord, with many enemies attacking and trying to ambush you. The shotgun came in very useful as I chased Lance up the corridors to the roof. The mafia were trying to steal cash from the safe every time I left it, so my foray up to the roof was kept as brief as possible, although I had to progress slowly to avoid being shot by a seemingly endless supply of enemies. At last I killed Lance, after sniping him from a higher platform, and then returned to meet Sonny and kill him as well. Mr Extravagant Lawyer found me sitting on the stairs, and we walked out the front door to the sounds of the 80s.

On to San Andreas next? Maybe. I’ve never played it; I own it for Xbox and PS2 and Xbox 360 and Xbox One and PS4 and PC, but the setting has always put me off a bit. I like the mafia setting of III, and I like the 80s Miami setting of Vice City, but 90s rap culture has never captured my imagination. Maybe I’ll try it in a few months.