Enjoyed what I played of Bond. IO could have very easily made Hitman with more of a moral compass, but they've reshaped their excellent stealth in neat ways and taken a good swing (sometimes with a novelty mug in their fist) at boisterous action and set pieces. www.theguardian.com/games/2026/a...

I take it back. Series was ultimately a huge bust. Could only keep the is he/isn't he tension for three episodes and then spent the second half unloading mountains of nonsense to explain it all.

Gotta spend those Patreon funds on something.

Surprised not to see Drops Duchy mentioned in more Titanium Court reviews. Grid-based puzzle round that sets up a battling round - not a million miles away.

I love that even my Mii is dealing with the fallout 20 years later.

DTF St. Louis is a weird show. Has a worthy underlying point about male loneliness and the struggle to address it face on, but by nesting it in a hooky murder mystery ends up being exactly the act of obfuscation it's rallying against.

A fun format this: people submit their least favourite bits of game design and we - with the insight of an actual designer (the wonderful Jamie Smith) - decide whether to banish the idea for good. Much more nutritional value than me guessing at the worth of pre-owned games.

Opus Prism Peak looks like it's going to be a lovely game, but runs like absolute ass on Switch 2 😭😭😭.

Cracking feature on Ontos in the latest Edge. Hook me up to that rat wall, pronto.

In the great big word cloud that we're shown at the end of our lives, my largest phrase will surely be 'no worries if not'.

Making up for birthday alone in London by going to see this absolute banger.

Having to work away from home on my birthday, but another excellent Katharine card helps make up for it. Tomodachi Life - topical!

Alarmo finally earning its keep after today's update.

Like that Expanse trailer. Just something so reassuring about seeing some 360-as-hell cover shooting in this day and age. Nature is healing.

New season of The Capture releases in a tougher ecosystem, where it's easier to scrutinise its ideas about deepfakes. And it does seem bigger and broader than ever before. BUT! The setup at the end of episode one is a killer bit of thriller construction and I'm really intrigued how they solve it.

Crimson Desert is so cobbled together. You only ever know what you're meant to be doing because of the on screen objectives - there's rarely any narrative context for why you're doing any of this stuff. Feels held together with tape.

Was 2018 the greatest year for games? For my tastes it might just be.

Time to put this to bed: the best games criticism is a 110 word review of a 70 hour JRPG that you got £20 to write (+ one image caption that makes a production editor shrug).

That thing where you're a grownup who wants to be taken seriously at work, but you also ate too much pineapple at lunch and want to moan about having a poorly tummy.

Shorter queue at the meat tent for me! (He says, putting on a brave face.)

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!