Gone to a forest cabin to get away from it all. Brought Bath's entire supply of Galaxy Counters with me and used the first evening to watch the John le Carré documentary. This is living.

An impossible proposition.

Been relistening to various John Kearns podcast appearances since seeing his latest tour. Just an all-timer pod guest, whatever the show. Mix of daft, wistful and poetic. Almost always guaranteed to completely bamboozle the host at some point. Infectious laugh. The best!

Shout out to the lady at our performance of Man and Boy at NT who told off the staff ushering in the late arrivals for disrupting the play, in turn being way more disruptive than the late arrivals. Theatregoers can be real freaks.

My favourite thing about reading a batch of writing from the same preview event is that you realise all the people quietly clacking away in the room with you were having all these big internal reactions and parsing things in different ways. It's like hearing their internal monologues after the fact.

Everyone mentioned here deserves better, but shout out to video editor Alix who was the 'invisible' team member of the RPS Video gang. Edited our first six months of the channel, took my rambling notes and turned them into some early wins. Was an exciting, fulfilling time. Hope someone snaps him up.

Minishoot' Adventures on Switch 2. One of the ten best games of 2024!

Played, and very much enjoyed, Dusk Index Gion over the last week. Slightly bummed out that the top ranking (maybe only) review for it is full of bogus stuff by someone who clearly hasn't played it. AI or just shit? That we have to ask these questions is a theme of the game, so it's quietly apt.

Watching BBC's 1979 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and it's so differently paced to TV today. Writing you can luxuriate in, delivered by all these craggy character actors who turn up and deliver a killer monologue or two (it's mostly a series of accounts and interrogations). Just superb TV.

The new elusive target in Hitman is a surprising riff on another of the week's big releases. Love how much effort goes into these things, even if I did panic (you will too!) and absolutely biff it.

New White Lotus cast is wild.

This is absolutely spot on about the latest season of Industry - particularly the bit about inverting the original bottom up perspective by stacking the cast with toffs. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Love this from Nic: "Even at its dourest and most pensive, this is less a song for the dead, more a knees-up in honour of the rocket launchers and typewriters that came before." www.theguardian.com/games/2026/f...

Ziff Davis are fucking vandals. The way they've treated these sites is a truly rotten business.

Enjoying the demo of this. Nice knotty case and has that extra dramatic charge that you're hunting down Nazi scum.

Honestly quite impressive that Sarah Bond conceived and implemented a strategy entirely on her own at one of the world's biggest tech companies even though everyone apparently hated it

The Charli xcx tracks from Wuthering Heights would make some banging Tetris Effect stages.

Have to be dragged kicking and screaming into these things, but it has some solid laughs and good entries. We're now judging moral dilemmas along with pre-owned games.

Hell yes. I've been sitting on the Switch version waiting for something like this to happen. Now do Xenoblade 2 Definitive Edition. We beg you!

The facial expressions in Paranormasight continue to be the best things.

There's a 'joke' in this week's games court that I worked so hard on that dies such a complete death on delivery that it almost becomes a piece of nigttmarish performance art.

Can't believe Camilla came to Bath to have a Schwartz Bros.

Can't believe that my fourth ever Platinum trophy is the Hitler auction game.

Jay Kelly - odd film, but Billy Crudup is properly amazing in his short scene. I think it's a real magic trick to show 'acting' happening on screen - see also Hugh Jackman going from drunk to pro in The Prestige.

Why did they call it Untitled John Wick Game and not Baba Yaga Is You?

I love the idea of the CRTV in Silent Hill Townfall, almost looks like playing one survival horror while armed with a new Stories Untold game.

Looking forward to inviting the plumber back to our house to be re-embarrassed by me playing God of War 3's dirty minigame all over again.

Metal Gear Solid 4 HAS LEFT PLAYSTATION 3. AN UNHOLY ACT. This is the end!

Ah, that's what it looks like when Leon hits stuff.

@backyardzoo.bsky.social It's funny that you just followed me as just yesterday I was walking past a canal boat on my way home and thought 'why aren't there any games set in those things?' Spooky coincidence!

All My Sons - sensationally good, but doing 140 minutes with no interval in a chair designed for a tiny Victorian has irreversibly changed my ass.

Next level spam bot working out how to get my attention, or simple coincidence?

Leon missing every shot in this trailer to avoid bloodshed is quite funny.

More Paranormasight. Can't believe it.

We had to take an injured sparrowhawk to the vets today. I've never seen an expression that better encapsulates the modern moment than this little guy's.

Playing the Hitler auction game and, er, that's one way of putting it.

Pepsi Max Cherry was always going to be an impossible act to follow, but Pepsi Max Tropical really ain't it. I do sympathise with that R&D team. Like being asked to make *another* nectar of the gods.

Played a bit of Rika 'Hotel Dusk' Suzuki's latest - Dark Auction - which is about a man with a parrot's head auctioning off Hitler's personal effects. I like how coy they are about the man himself - only ever referred to as 'Dictator X'.

A reason to watch Drops of God: someone describes a particular variety of grape as "god and the devil rolled into one".

This run of GTA revisits has been so much fun. Jeremy is really great on this episode, too. It's a winner.

If we do start reviewing critics I hope we get individual scores for graphics, audio, playability and lastability.

Wouldn't have met Katharine without this game. A truly life-changing 8/10. www.nintendolife.com/features/ann...

A new website about PC games, from me, @brendyc.bsky.social and @jonhicks.com. Reader-supported, which means no ads, no guff, and lots of games blogging about delightful things to play. If you liked our work on RPS, we think you'll like @jank.cool.

This is a classic episode. If you have any preconceptions about Phil Fish, I guarantee they'll be smashed by this conversation.

TR-49 is a great start to the year - all the chewy brainfood you'd expect from Inkle, but in more of a traditional puzzle/mystery format. So type in MC-26 and listen to this and heaps of other game recommendations from late 2025.

My little sister told me that everyone in her antenatal group were exchanging their pre-birthing checklists/prep and one guy had just made a list of all the Warhammer he wanted to paint before the big day.

Just huge, huge relief that Fable looks as good as it does. The world, the combat, the giant Ayoade corpse, the life sim buried at the heart of it (I expect to spend many hours blacksmithing garden forks to earn a down payment on a hovel)... looks like they nailed it.

When you go to stroke your cat without your glasses on and realise it's just a bundled up dressing gown.

Slightly baffled by reviews calling Industry S4 the best yet. Still good, but after a couple of episodes feels really unmoored after the events at the end of S3. The old money world of the Mucks feels so far removed from the industry that hooked me in the first place.

The Traitors is the only live TV I've watched in probably a decade, and the advert before it goes right ahead and spoils The Night Manager S2 (which we are taking at our own pace). Just a weird flashback to viewing habits being set by broadcaster and having to keep in step with them.