The 365 Days 2022 Gaming Challenge - achievement unlocked.

[MartyG]

I've played the VR game too and it looks quite nice. The trouble is its competition is Elite Dangerous and that's stunning in VR.

It was better than the poker game at least, although that didn't hard reset my PC

[MartyG]

7 Days to Die - PC - Day 103 Game 103

The Survival Horde Crafting Game - so they claim. You are a survivor in just your pants, beat trees with your fists, smash rocks with your fist, maim plants with your fist and so on. Eventually you'll have enough stuff to build a tiny axe. Beat trees with your axe, smash rocks with your axe, maim plants with your axe and so on.

Eventually you'll have more stuff and you'll be eaten by a zombie or a wild dog. Then you'll respawn. Beat trees with your axe, smash rocks with your axe, maim plants with your axe and so on. Then it will be night and strange noises will happen. Build a house with a tiny door that's too small to walk through without crouching. Stay inside the house trying to work out how to upgrade and block and fail. Quit the game.

And that was my adventure with 7 days to die. I lasted 1 day. It's not that bad, but I think you need to play with multiplayer, probably with people you know to avoid randoms, but it didn't thrill me as it was. I give this one 5 Alexandrias out of 10.

[MartyG]

Staxel - PC - Day 104 Game 104

This one is a sandbox game that is a cross between Minecraft and Stawdew Valley (and perhaps a bit of Animal Crossing too) but with voxel graphics. Once you get over the strange control system (not one for arthritics - no holding down buttons for you) and terribly map which unfathomable lacks a compass, or the ability to set waypoints or markers, it turns out this is quite fun.

Once I discovered I could destroy lampposts and benches and sell them to the town merchants, we were soon rocking in cash, which is just as well as a cow in a box is an eye-watering 10,000 credits (or in this case petals, the chosen game currency).

I went about my day, watering potato seeds, planting a pear tree and trying to dig to the centre of the Earth, only not to make it, instead returning to my cobweb-filled home to sleep off the disappointment. Later I swept away the cobwebs and stacked my ill-gotten gains on a bookshelf.

Sadly I was not able to rob the houses of the townsfolk, but I did get my fill from the town's shop cash register which could be stolen from - no guns required. It's also not possible to become an axe murderer and slaughter the residents with axes, shovels or scythes, depsite that last one being perfectly suited for the job.

Overall, I enjoyed my time in town McFun and this one is going on the favourites list. Staxel gets 9 that's a really dodgy-looking candle out of 10.

[MartyG]

#Funtime - PC - Day 105 Game 105

This one is a twin-stick shooter in the same kind of form as Geometry Wars, but not quite with the same instant pick-up and play stuff. Whilst for the £2 ish it cost, it's solid enough, but there are issues with the way the enemies spawn on screen, which isn't telegraphed quite as well as GW - and I think the hitbox is perhaps just a tad too big.

There are plenty of different modes here for the money and a challenge area where you need to meet certain criteria on each one (although it doesn't stop you from progressing if you don't meet them, which is good).

The biggest issue I have is that there are no standard patterns - this is a bugbear, particularly in the waves mode where you'd expect a standard enemy pattern so you can learn the waves - instead it's completely random and sometimes the prior level can be easier than the one that follows.

There are no upgrades in combat either, instead, you earn credits as you play and can buy ship upgrades to help you on the different modes (bombs, health, colour change, weapons and boosts upgrades). At first, you will die with a single hit - so earn the cash and give yourself a shield first.

The highlight I think is the #Funtime mode where along with the lasers you get a wrecking ball you can twirl around to kill enemies - tricky, but funtime.

I think overall this is pretty decent especially given the asking price, so it's worth a look. I give #FunTime 8 All I wanted was to break your walls out of 10.

[MartyG]

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind - PC - Day 106 Game 106

This one is an isometric time-traveling tactical strategy game, based on the TV series. Across a series of levels, you need to use multiple characters to perform actions on the map, with special skills that only one character can do, then rewind time to allow the other characters to pass thru the block points they wouldn't otherwise be able to navigate. Skills such as distraction, allowing the cones of alert to be changed so they can be sneaked passed, or doors to be opened and small gaps to be squeezed thru.

Along the way, there are collectibles to discover (not particularly interesting) and different ratings (bronze, silver & gold) depending on the time it takes to complete a level - no bonuses for faster other than "pride and accomplishment".

Didn't think it was too badly done, but I'm not a huge fan of this style of game (I thought it was going to be more XCOM than Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines). As it stands I give this one 6 Doctor Whos out of 10.

[MartyG]

Battlezone Combat Commander - PC - Day 107 Game 107

This is a remake of the sequel to the original Battlezone, no, not the Atari wireframe tank sim, but the FPS cross RTS game where you mine resources, create a base and destroy the alien enemy threat.

Starting on Pluto (which may or may not have still been a planet when this game was originally released), you must uncover the mystery plot and not get killed.

Sadly it would seem that the multiplayer side of things is long dead, with just a solitary other player, but this is always where this game was the most fun, a full strategy game map with multiple mates.

The single-player missions are not too bad, but this game does look pretty ancient now - however, the simplicity means that it should run on a potato PC.

If you can get for cheap, it's worth a look at the single-player story, though I think the remake of the original Battlezone is the better game (Battlezone 98 Redux).

I give this one 6 Get Your Ass to Mars out of 10.

[MartyG]

Total War Warhammer II - PC - Day 108 Game 108

Another Total War game that's been sat in my library unplayed for a long time, including all the DLCs (well they were on sale, they were bargains I tell you).

It's the usual stuff, manage your empire, build up your cities, get gold, build armies, research and onto the field battles - this is the always the best aspect of these games. I can't say I enjoy the empire building things quite so much.

If you'd have put the WH1 and WH2 side-by-side, honestly I'd have had trouble telling them apart - I'm sure there are plenty of differences that veterans of the game would notice straight away, but even the tutorial felt similar to WH1 from a couple of weeks back and the outcomes of the first couple of battles were similar too.

What I do have is a massive number of maps and races in which to do custom battles, so that will definitely be something interesting to go back to. There is a lot of polish to the TW:WH games, but there are still quirks on the UI that annoy me (and the lack of undo for when you mess up due to the UI on the strategy map - just do this already) and the constantly repeating slogans that don't need constantly repeating are irritating.

This is a game that you've really got to spend a lot of time with and learn, so you need patience to get the most out of it - I prefer the simplicity of Rome Total War, perhaps that's why I've struggled more with this series as it's gone on. However, it's clear this is pretty faithful to the lore - shame that I had to restart it near the beginning of the stream because it decided that the mouse pointer was pointing somewhere other than where it was actually pointing.

This one gets 7 Tyranids out of 10.

[MartyG]

Hand of Fate 2 - PC - Day 109 Game 109

I had played Hand of Fate 1 a long time ago and for some reason I thought this was a turned based card game battler. It isn't. It has real time battles with a garbage combat system that isn't fun at all. I ended up turning it to apprentice mode for the combat simply because it wasn't very enjoyable to try and see more of the story, but then you're left with RNG BS which spoils things further.

Blocking your progression (or at least making your progression worse) simply because of a dice roll that's massively unlikely to turn up (beat 15 with 3D6) - yeah - not fun. The dungeon progression is very linear too and if you fail at any point, well then you've got to play through the entire level again.

I'm glad this was an Epic Store giveaway game, because I'd have felt massively cheated out of cash had I actually paid for it.

This one gets 3 I'd rather hack off my own arm using paper cuts out of 10.

[MartyG]

What the Golf? - PC - Day 110 Game 110

My first sports game on the challenge. Well, sports would be stretching the truth a little bit - it's a very abstract concept of golf, more a puzzle game.

The good news is you don't have to like golf in order to enjoy this one - with each level I played, the game managed to surprise me with its different ideas, from planetary physics to flappy birds, there are a lot of unique areas to play with.

Add to this a level editor to publish and play user levels and this little indie title is worth picking up for the LOLs for the few couple of quid it costs (I think I paid £3).

This one comes in at 9 Arnold Palmers out of 10.

[MartyG]

Solasta: Crown of the Magister - PC - Day 111 Game 111

This is a CRPG with turn-based combat, using the D&D 5.1 rule set, so lots of virtual dice rolls here for all aspects of environment interaction.

What is great is just how much of that D&D goodness has been translated into this game and done so really well. You can spend ages on the character creation, tweaking all the things you like in your character sheets and of course give yourself a backstory as I did with Fuddy McFud, the egotistic, greedy and violent lowlife fighter.

From there the game introduces to different mechanics in the game as each of your four adventurers tells their tale of how they reached the dodgy tasting beer tavern before the adventure begins proper.

There is also a very comprehensive level editor and adventure creature, allowing you to create entire campaigns - a brief look at this showed there's a lot of complexity there, but I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials about for you to be able to get the most out of this - along with user create worlds somewhere on the web too.

Overall, the first impressions are very good indeed, so this one gets 9 I roll for perception out of 10.

[MartyG]

Dice Legacy - PC - Day 112 Game 112

This one is a strange combination of City Builder / Rogue Lite / Dice game where you have a set of dice the faces of which have different actions - your dice represent your citizens and the upward-facing RNG rolls can then be actions to the matching faces to the hexes containing buildings or resources on your board.

To add to the RNG misery, each dice has a limited lifespan, although these can be increased by feeding them - however, your food supplies are limited, made more limited if you don't get the right rolls with the gathering action to apply to a hex. In winter your dice freeze and you can't then use them. You'll get attacked too, and if you don't have a soldier action, well, you can't stop them.

So, it's a weird one and I'm not totally convinced by the concept, however, it did keep me playing for the full hour and maybe if I restart with a better idea of knowing what I was doing in the initial game start, it maybe possible to make better progress. The rogue part comes in in the later stages as ascended dice which are then available at the beginning of a game, but I didn't progress that far into it.

Overall, I think the RNG bogs things down rather than lifts them up, so this one gets a marginal better than average 6 n! / r! * (n - r)! out of 10.

[MartyG]

Resident Evil Village - PC - Day 113 Game 113

I don't think I really need to explain what Resident Evil is - this one is the eighth game in the series, set on the grounds of a foreboding castle, swept in mist and mystery.

Very atmospheric, but not quite as tense as RE7 felt I think. That one was definitely more creepy. It all starts nicely in a family house, sleeping baby, nice meal and wine, then quickly descends into zombies that are all a bit bitey.

Can be picked up quite cheap now, on PC at least, so if you were on the fence about it, I'd say it's definitely worth the £20 asking price it goes for now.

I give RE8 9 you only really need two and a half fingers out of 10.

[MartyG]

SCARF - PC - Day 114 Game 114

This one is an adventure puzzle platformer game with quite a nice art style - you wake up on an island after being unconscious, with the rather unfortunate trait that you are critically allergic to water. Touch it and you die. For some reason though, a dragon-like create befriends you and provides you with a special scarf. Handy as this then gives you powers, gradually, to allow you to help her out.

As you progress, you'll get double-jump wings, swing ropes and catapult abilities to let you progress further and further across the different areas to get the orbs to help restore the dragon creature's mother.

If you like this type of game, this is worth a look. It's well done and gets the balance between telling the player too much and too little about how to solve the puzzles about right.

I give this one 7 usual puzzle game tropes out of 10.

[MartyG]

Elden Ring - PC - Day 115 Game 115

I got this as a gift, but it counts as a pile of shame game as it sits unplayed. I'm am not the biggest fan of difficult games as, frankly, I'm not very good at them. My reactions have slowed and my patience for them has evaporated as the years have bled by.

Playing this on PC with a high-end rig, I was expecting nice smooth gameplay and for the most part this is true, but the game is plagued with framerate stutters which have yet to be sorted and they're pretty bad in places, really need sorting out.

Ignoring these, it's a nice-looking game, but I wouldn't say outstanding. Character models are really nice though, lots of unique and interesting creatures inhabiting the world. Then there's combat. I would describe combat as ploddingly methodical. This isn't guns out, spray and prey FPS fodder - combat has to be planned, paced and properly timed which is where I end up failing.

I spent 90 minutes wandering around not really making very much progress, died quite a lot but enjoyed the exploring. I'd prefer ranged combat, but could see how to set such a character up.

Will I play it some more? Maybe, but despite liking the environment, it really needs the frame stuttering sorted out before I do.

I give this one 8 You Died out of 10.

[MartyG]

Yakuza 0 - PC - Day 116 Game 116

The start of the Yakuza binge in timeline order. It's about time I got these off the pile of shame. They turned up on Game Pass for a while, but I've had most of them in the PC library for a much longer time prior to that.

An action RPG where you are a member of the Yakuza and accused of murdering a civilian, however, it's all a setup just so the higher ranks can fight it out for control of the family.

But you don't want to go to prison, oh no, and you don't want the current boss (residing at her majesty's pleasure) from committing seppuku after getting into legal woes.

With plenty of fighting, attributes to unlock, side missions to seek out and karaoke to sing, let's hope that Yakazu 0 is setting the standard for the rest of the games in this series. I give this one 8 beating the drunk out of people out of 10.