The 365 Days 2022 Gaming Challenge - achievement unlocked.

[MartyG]

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix - PC - Day 90 Game 90

I can't believe it's not Mario Kart. Well, actually I can, given it doesn't seem to have Mario in it, but other than that you'd probably think that you were. Shamelessly aping the exact game modes as the more revered game, here we have several different Grand Prix cups, Time Trials, Challenges and the Battle Mode (called something else and I can't remember what, but that's what it is).

On the positive side there are lots of different tracks, many of which are quite interesting with fun layouts and multiple routes - I'm sure if you're a Nickelodeon fan then you'd recognise them (I don't, so I didn't). Then there was Spongebob.

Plenty of stuff to unlock and an online mode that absolutely zero people were playing, but the lobby was a nice shade of blue.

I suppose the best thing about this game is there weren't loads of microtransactions, grinding and it works offline in single-player!!!1111!one!! What a hoot.

I give this one 6 Rainbow Roads out of 10. I did say 5 at the end of the stream, but thinking about it, it plays okay, if a bit simply, but there's plenty of content for the £10 this seems to go for. Till tomorrow.

[MartyG]

Tinkertown - PC - Day 91 Game 91

Another adventure and crafting title, again in early access. Not an unpleasant experience but no where near as advanced as Core Keeper, also in early access. Collect resources and build stuff, fighting goblins, slimes and bats.

Create an anvil, a workbench, a furnance and other stuff to make better stuff to collect better resources to make better stuff. It's the usual thing.

Resources seem a little more sparse, so making progress is a bit slow and whilst overall it's not a buggy mess, it's a bit short in content, so for that reason I can't really recommend it at the moment. I was a smurf tho, so that's something.

This one gets 5 Smurfettes out of 10 - when there's more content that score can climb, but given it's still version 0.10 it might take a while. It still seems to be being updated, so that's good.

[MartyG]

The Corridor - PC - Day 92 Game 92

This is a game about walking down a corridor and pressing a button. That's it.

It's a short single player experience lasting about 30 minutes total, but it's £1.69 on Steam. Even if you watch my experience, why not support Thomas Mackinnon and have a go yourself.

I give this one 9 psychological damages out of 10.

[MartyG]

Banished - PC - Day 93 Game 93

It's a town builder - pretty slow paced, lots of micromanagement. It wasn't unpleasant but wasn't exactly thrilling to play.

Don't really have a lot more to say about this one tbh, although you can grow walnuts and pecans, which is nice.

Banished gets 5 It's Nuts out of 10.

[MartyG]

Super Build - PC Day 94 Game 94

A sandbox game where you build stuff, but with the most awful UI/key/mouse decisions I've seen in a building game - there's nothing super about it.

What there is here are plenty of prefab shapes you can just drop on the map, but the one thing that really drove me mad is rather than a right mouse click canceling out, whatever you're doing, it deletes a space in the map (what!!???!?!!).

It is in early access but hasn't had much in the way of updates and the last one was in July 2021, so I'd go as far to say it's likely been abandoned at this point.

Can't really recommend it, so this one gets 3 Barratt Developments out of 10.

[gunrock]

Barratt Homes! Haven't seen that name in years.

Don't know where you're getting the energy for this, but I do hope you make it through to 365. Brava!

[MartyG]

Proteus - PC - Day 95 Game 95

On open-world walk-em-up. Where you walk.

When you walk, music plays. Sometimes if you go to a special place, special things happen.

You can kill rabbit-like creatures by scaring them into the sea to drown. Did that for a bit. No guns tho, no hunting rabbits. No rabbit tracks.

I made the sun turn into a rugby ball shape, that was a good bit.

I give Proteus 4 what am I doing with my lifes out of 10.

[MartyG]

Automobilista - PC - Day 96 Game 96

It's a racing game and automatically better than Gran Turismo 7 by virtue of the fact it isn't laden without grinding and microtransactions just so you can buy a car and go racing. No, get this; you get to pick which car you want to race in, the series type and the track you want to race on. I know, amazing right?

But it's not all roses, it's not the prettiest looking thing and trying to play this game with a pad even with assists on is not the greatest experience, it's very twitchy (ha!) with the oversteer suddenly snapping the other way and spinning you out. I did eventually find a track and a car that wasn't completely uncontrollable but I couldn't be bother to do a 50 minute race all the way to the end.

Ultimately, I can't recommend it, even if it is definitely better than the cash grab that is GT7 as Automobilista 2 exists and is better (so even better than GT7 which wants you to empty your bank account into Polyphony Digitals pockets and then make you write an IOU to them). For that reason this one gets 6 Kazunori Yamauchis out of 10 (which incidently, is 5 better than GT7).

[MartyG]

NASCAR Heat 5 - PC - Day 97 Game 97

Another racing game and another one that's better than GT7 because there are no microtransactions requiring you to spend £180 in real money if you want anything in the Hagarty Collection without grinding for weeks.

However, you will need to like NASCAR and with that, driving around left-hand corners on oval circuits, because that's pretty much all you're going to get (it's not completely all circles, there are a handful of tracks where you also get to turn right - woohoo!).

Having said that, this was actually quite fun, even if it did advertise Fanantec wheels on the loading screens (you don't need an expensive wheel to play this game, it's perfectly fine on an Xbox controller). I didn't like Warren tho. Warren can go and walk into a cold lake, his smile is definitely fake as all agents are.

I give this one 7 you're sending me around the bend again? out of 10.

[MartyG]

X4: Foundations - PC - Day 98 Game 98

A space game where you fly in space. No clue how it works, tutorials were spartan so did the flight training, said hello lots of times to NPCs as that's all they seemed to do and that quit and started a new game where it hard reset my PC. I didn't turn it back on.

I'm sure the X games might be good, but they're unfathomable by most people I think.

It gets 3 Kerr Avons out of 10.

[MartyG]

Treasure Temples - PC Day 99 Game 99

A puzzle game where you collect gold. With 114 levels to work thru, you must solve the path needed to be taken in order to collect all the gold and still be able to get back to the exit. As you walk across tiles, they disappear, so if you take a wrong step, it's a drowning for you.

As you progress, new tiles are introduced, like two-step tiles, springboards that leap you through the air and trigger switches that fire projectiles when you step off them. You'll also encounter skeletons that will move towards you when you step in front of them - if they touch you, that's insta-death.

In all, it's a fairly well-done puzzle game but as the puzzles are fixed, no replayability - once you've done them, you've done them never to return, but it's enough to keep you entertained for a couple of hours.

I give this one 6 one directions out of 10.

[MartyG]

Last Resort Island - PC - Day 100 Game 100

Day 100. Well there must be something special for this milestone right?

If you're a fan of killing zombies with diabetes by feeding them sweets and candy, then this match 3 game is made especially for you. As you work through the levels of hyperglycemia, you will encounter special blocks like sand and chains (did I mention you're building a resort, the last one, on an island?

Venture further into the game and eventually, you'll unlock solitaire too - card away to a repeating loop of showing people where the treasure is.

A gem of a game for day 100. I give this one 6 ketoacidosis out of 10. And I managed not to unmute my mic.

[MartyG]

Satisfactory - PC - Day 101 Game 101

This is a sandbox game where you build factories to do stuff. I love this type of game, with over 150 hours in Factorio and 50 odd in Dyson Sphere Program, so I had hopes for this. I had played it very briefly when it was Alpha. It was a mess. That was nearly two years ago though, I was expecting improvements.

The biggest issue with this game is it's not fun, it's tedious. The joy of Factorio is setting up big factory lines in a way that feels simple but is actually massively complex. Satisfactory makes it way too much manual-based and worse still is when you do get some automated units, it's still faster to do things by hand!

Then there are the annoying creatures that kill you - the limited combat in this game is not fun and it's also seemingly pointless as all you do is respawn. You have no gun, just a partially melee zapper that you can't hold down the mouse button for to do repeated hits, nope, you have to click every time (this is bad).

So, this one is disappointing and there's no way I can recommend it over either Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program, both of which are massively superior games. This one gets 6 deficient disappointing mediocres out of 10.

[MartyG]

Governor of Poker 3 - PC - Day 102 Game 102

It's a free-to-play online poker (Texas Holdem) microtransaction galore game. I did not buy any of them.

What I did do is bust a load of players who kept going all-in on crap hand and took all their chips. I started the game with 30K credits and left with just shy of 211K. Because people don't know how to play poker properly online and go all-in with crap hands before the flop. These are the people you easily bust out.

I hate free online poker games - if you want to play poker online, I'd recommend buying into the £10 sit-and-go tournaments on casino websites, you'll get a better game as people don't just go all-in when they're playing real money pre-flop. I don't recommend this. In fact, install it on your PC and then report it as a virus to Norton Antivirus so it gets flagged everywhere.

Still, it was fun taking crap player's chips. This one gets 2 Johnny Chans out of 10.

[Cepp]

X4: Foundations - PC - Day 98 Game 98

A space game where you fly in space. No clue how it works, tutorials were spartan so did the flight training, said hello lots of times to NPCs as that's all they seemed to do and that quit and started a new game where it hard reset my PC. I didn't turn it back on.

I'm sure the X games might be good, but they're unfathomable by most people I think.

It gets 3 Kerr Avons out of 10.

X3 was a bit of a stunner when it came out at the start of the 360 era. I do remember it being a bit tough to get into, as well as the enemy species being named khack or something to that effect. Sounded a bit silly being told to go off and fight the khack haha.