Some cool news from me. Multiplier is moving over from Substack to Ghost as of this week. You can find the latest issue (feat. @lawksland.bsky.social) and the newsletter's new home over at www.multiplier.au/are-the-down...

Game 46 of 2025 is Cold Fear. An interesting melange of mid-00s horror mechanics. A time capsule from when the genre hadn’t found its feet mechanically, and the jump from RE3 to RE4 was yet to be fully defined. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 45 of 2025 is Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. It was not built for a single player campaign, and that hobbles the entire experience in almost every way. The worst Call of Duty campaign to date. Just utter, dreadful shit. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 44 of 2025 is Pokemon Legends: Z-A. It doesn't make a good first impression, but once the game opens up, it’s wondrous - until it's small again. It feels like Gamefreak has a future in mind for the series. And it feels good to love a Pokemon game again. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 43 of 2025 is Scar of the Doll. A small, pretty tight, horror adjacent visual novel remake. It’s not really a great VN, but it’s solid and fine and I’ve played a lot worse. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 42 of 2025 is Post Trauma. A fixed camera angle survival horror throwback. It’s rough around the edges, but it feels made with love. The puzzles are genuinely pretty great. It’s not an instant classic, but its scrappy presentation is strangely endearing. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 41 of 2025 is Tormented Souls 2. I really liked Tormented Souls 2. It’s a rare fixed camera angle survival horror throwback that feels appropriately of the past, delivering a classic-feeling survival horror experience from a clear place of reverance and love. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Game 40 of 2025 is Ninja Gaiden 4. It’s fast, slick, and smooth. It’s also the Devil May Cry 4 of Ninja Gaidens. It’s character action polished to a razor’s edge. It’s way too complex for me to get truly great at it, but I really enjoyed what I played. medium.com/@lawksland/g...

Yuri: for when you are an adult having Big Feelings you aren't allowed to vocalise.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is character action combat polished to a Razor's Edge. I bet nobody's said that one yet.

Devastated.

"oxford commas are a sign you write with ai," "em dashes are a sign you right with ai" I AM TAPPING THE SIGN, WHERE DO YOU THINK THE AI LEARNED HOW TO DO THAT SHIT? spoilers!! it's from real people that use those things! like can we all please use our brains here

Video games, adjusted for inflation and increased development costs, should cost more to buy, and pricing them so low is unsustainable. Pricing video games higher prices out a large part of the market, which is unsustainable. Both of these things are simultaneously correct, due to capitalism.

Oh get pissed on, Krafton.

I don’t know if there’s a more perfect illustration of the utter fucking nonsense that creative pollution by AI will produce than this choice to illustrate the power of Paramount’s new “localization” and “customization” technology by face-swapping Brad Pitt into the lead role of GET OUT

Hahahahaha

Friend I went to PAX with got a Richard Spencer haircut.

More than 1,200 video game journalists have left major publications in the past two years, and not returned to the media, according to data supplied to VGC. www.videogameschronicle.com/news/more-th...

Eww valnet gross. I'm so sorry. All the best for those affected.

Found a tiny dead bat in the fly tape hanging at the back door. I wish I'd found it while it was still alive. Now I'm sad.

Ninja Gaiden 4 PC performance is pretty weird. I'm getting between 40 and 90fps after some tweaks. I was getting 18 to 60, with a 30 average. Real weird.

This is an Xbox.

This should be the defining image of the year. Any other year, any other president, and it would be.

I wish I had Taunie and not Urbain.

I am interested in Bloodlines 2 in a morbid, see if I can spot the seams kind of way. But I am not ready to have my heart broken like that.

Pokemon Concierge keeps being fantastic, but episode 8 really hit me hard. Just so good.

Oh shit I can't remember if I watched Pokemon Concierge subbed or dubbed.

Hahahahaha

Me getting ready to make a "joke" about the state of my mental health.

People celebrating Japan's first female prime minister

How to know when what you are saying is on the record: 1. you are talking to a journalist 2. you have not said "can we speak off the record" 3. the journalist has not agreed that what is said will be off the record Everything else? POTENTIALLY ON RECORD.

I wish I was Bob Iger.

Toe arthritis playing up and I have to do some walking for work and can I just cut this damned thing off please?

eww

This should be the defining image of the year. Any other year, any other president, and it would be.

Love to see a ceasefire that lets one side air strike a journalist and a child to death.

Just saw my first esafety social media PSA ad on the tv. Lol. Lmao.

"But when the team looked at the employees’ actual work output, they found that the developers had completed tasks 20% slower when using AI than when working without it. Researchers were stunned. “No one expected that outcome. We didn’t even really consider a slowdown as a possibility.” 🎁link

Love a good berserker combat maid.

you don't understand. as someone who isn't inherently good at art, stealing paintings from the museum is the *only* way i'm able to express myself creatively. i wouldn't be able to paint beautiful portraits. but by breaking into a museum and stealing the paintings, now i am

Lol mission 78 @mariobones.bsky.social is going to shit

Yeah buddy, the protest with the guy with the sign that says "hang Albo" is totally fine but the people saying that's bad are the violent ones.

*stares in Jumpy*

Can't believe we got two banger games this year about France.

I was standing by a bench when a cop came up and questioned me. Told her "no comment" to all her questions. Then she tried to beat me up. This game lol.

Haha there's an unlockable traversal skill hahaha that would've really helped a dozen hours ago when I was trying all sorts of weird ways to get to difficult platforms hahahaha

ZA multiplayer is kind of real meh.

Oh yeesh, that news out of Twitchcon is gross.