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S13E10: THE FINALE · The Year Of Shame Challenge

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Trips started, dependencies loaded.
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Booting Series 13 of the Year of Shame challenge.
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Please wait. Hello and welcome to the bonus
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episode of the Year of Shame Season 13, back after New Year.
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Just for a quick follow up and to hand over to the team who
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will be taking over from this on your next year for 2026.
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So joining me as always, we've got Paul.
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Welcome back, Paul. Hi how you doing?
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Wonderful mate. Good, good.
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Happy New Year. Same to you.
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And currently in our time zone for a change, it's Mr Brian
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Riley. How you doing?
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Hello. Hello.
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Happy new year to you both. I'm OK, doing OK.
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Excellent, excellent, excellent. So we've reached the end of our
1:00
allotted time. Well, some of us have and we're
1:04
moving on to the new year, which is pretty cool.
1:06
I hope everyone's had a decent Christmas break.
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Obviously you've had an 18 hour flight to check into the mix as
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well, Brian, so hopefully that wasn't too terrible for you to
1:14
get back home to Ireland. Now the KLM, really good
1:18
airline. I enjoyed the flight with
1:20
someone was quite good so that worked out quite well.
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Excellent cool and it's been all right to get back.
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It's not raining because it's Ireland not to be too.
1:28
No. It's.
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Been cold and damp but no rain thankfully.
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So yeah, back in Ireland my mother said she'd make some eggs
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Benedict. Eggs Benedict.
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So yes, I am back for the Hollandaise.
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Hey I want an early well done. Did that work?
1:48
That's I've been holding on to that one for 30 months.
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Every morning. Awesome, good stuff.
2:00
You had a good Christmas as well.
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Paul Done a lot, been working or?
2:03
Yeah, I've actually been working, so I'm kind of going to
2:06
sort of finish like on the 7th or so.
2:08
I do like a load of post on the 7th and then I'm going to chill
2:11
because you've got to make hair while the sun shines.
2:14
People have got money and they're all going to be skinny
2:16
in January and paying the credit card bills off.
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So it's not part trying to sell anything.
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And that is RAM. Yeah, well, yeah, RAM, people
2:23
just begging for RAM, so yeah. It's been a bit of a, well, it's
2:28
been an interesting quiet one. But we all got to midnight on
2:32
the 31st and I was watching the clock countdown and rather than,
2:35
oh, it's new year or go and get a glass of champagne, it's just
2:38
like, go and look at the PlayStation Store.
2:40
How much money have I got in my PlayStation account?
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What's the bank going to say if I spend money on something new
2:45
like an Xbox X? They'd all be upset, including
2:48
my wife. But it's the things that came
2:50
back to this after a year, which I haven't had to worry about.
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So I mean, it was a tricky one. I was, there's loads of things I
2:58
was looking at that I wanted to buy.
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I've had on a list for a long, long time but haven't done it
3:03
has have either of you gone ahead and snapped anything up in
3:06
the first? Well, what are we at now, 48
3:09
hours of of the new year? I haven't actually bought
3:13
anything in January, but I did have sort of like Christmas
3:17
gifts that I haven't used until January.
3:20
So which is like obviously new games and such like.
3:23
But the wife, she bought me a PlayStation 5 for upstairs.
3:29
So often like in the morning on a weekend, I'd like to play a
3:33
game or something, but she's downstairs on the TV downstairs.
3:35
So I'm like, you know, I've got an Xbox upstairs in there and a
3:39
Switch, etcetera. But still my main consoles,
3:41
PlayStation, I've got a few games as well which is like the
3:45
Assassin's Creed Shadows which is one I've been fun seen
3:48
playing last Berserkers of Kazan which is a souls like game,
3:52
really good looking, gets a lot of props.
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One of those games that's flown under people's radars.
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But and Kingdom come deliverance too.
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But even though I've been let off the leash, how can you say
4:03
I'm still playing the back catalogue games?
4:05
Really. I've been playing out all things
4:06
Team Ninja. I've gone mad for Neo 2 which
4:09
took me 4 years to get past the first boss and will long
4:14
absolutely fantastic both in games.
4:16
Then first bosses are a total I can't what the end of you know
4:21
like a wall to the rest of the game on when she passed them.
4:24
Wow, it's like I've got a brand new game.
4:27
Absolutely amazing. What have you been up to Brian?
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What have you been buying? Anything good?
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Well, as is internationally recognised, there's a moment of
4:35
time between last year and this year, but doesn't that isn't
4:41
included in any time zone so I picked up Arc Raiders.
4:47
Amazing. Claire Obscure hopefully get
4:51
some online gameplay with the two of you and Claire Obscure is
4:55
going to be some ship. Everybody read about it last
4:58
year and I remember we talked about the games coming up, the
5:01
upcoming games for 2025. I mentioned Claire Obscure and
5:06
it's a point to a lot of point to click.
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It's a real time strategy is. It real time.
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Real time, that's it and I dismissed it straight away
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saying this is not my type of game and everybody raved about
5:18
it all all year and I just so yeah, I've FOMO hit me and I I
5:27
fell so I picked that up. But that's just an international
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time recognise internationally recognised.
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You can look it up. I swear I'll do my best.
5:35
That sound like Trump. It's real.
5:36
I swear it's real. You can.
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Yeah. I so in that moment, I picked up
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two games and that's it. That's all I have held off on.
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Ghost of your tie. I won.
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Oh, God. I keep thinking I picked.
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I was between three games. That's why I pick which.
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I pick which I pick if I hit my targets this year.
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Ghosty Hotel of your purchase. Fantastic about that.
6:01
Wasn't. Yeah.
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What about you, Ben? What have you picked up?
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What have I picked up? OK so I'm in the same boat as
6:10
Paul where I had some Christmas things that I wasn't expecting
6:13
because I thought my family would have just not or just give
6:16
me some vouchers or something maybe to spend on the 1st.
6:18
But my my kids convinced my wife to get me Astro bot for the PS-5
6:23
that I have been cranking on about for about 6 months.
6:26
So excited as hell about that. And that's the first thing that
6:29
got installed on December the 1st morning.
6:32
I spent about 2-3 hours on that. My brother got me the latest
6:38
Fatal Fury game, if anyone knows what they are.
6:40
So it's an SNK beat em up, sort of like Street Fighter or Mortal
6:44
Kombat style thing that came out earlier this year.
6:47
And it's what all the championships have been based on
6:49
for the second-half of the year. There was a special edition of
6:53
that which I seem to have got, which has all that, the
6:55
steelbook soundtracks, everything with.
6:56
It's quite cool. It's about like 2-3 inches
6:59
thick. It's a monster of this box.
7:00
Pretty cool. And then on New Year's Eve one
7:03
of my friends turned up and bought me the Marvel Versus
7:06
Capcom collection. So I've got all the classic
7:09
Dreamcast beat em UPS, which is pretty cool too.
7:13
My parents were I'll over Christmas.
7:15
Unfortunately they had to cancel on Christmas morning so we
7:17
didn't see them. So we ended up having Christmas
7:19
Day with them on New Year's Eve or New Year's Eve evening.
7:23
So last minute before we ticked over.
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I also got a present from them what wasn't expected, which was
7:27
the the Astro Bot limited edition controller for the PS-5
7:30
as well to go with Astro Bot, which is pretty nice, which is a
7:33
beautiful controller, absolutely lovely.
7:35
So that's the bit to have from that.
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And did I go mental at 12 O one? I, I purchased so I have friends
7:44
on a Wednesday. We play The Division Two as
7:47
you're saying. Last year we've 100% did the
7:49
game and all the expansions for it so far.
7:52
So I got the Battle for Brooklyn DLC that was on Epic Games,
7:56
think it was down to 7 lbs and unknown to me, and I have no
8:00
idea how I'd done it, I had 5 lbs of reward points on Epic.
8:03
So check your Epic accounts if you've got them on PC.
8:06
There's just a thing that says when you go to the thing you've
8:09
got a reward and you're like, oh OK.
8:10
And it was like 4 LB ninety something of rewards.
8:13
So it was a 3 LB DLC which was rather nice.
8:17
GT7's Power Pack, again, another DLC to make more of the game of
8:21
finished Gran Turismo 7 completely.
8:23
I've done all the menus, done everything in it.
8:25
So that adds like another 30% to the game or something.
8:28
So I'm like, well that's smart investment for what it's 2025
8:31
lbs. So that was 2 DLCS I bought and
8:34
then I got how many games was it?
8:36
3 games, one was a family one which was anyone's heard of it
8:41
and I spoke to you guys about it last year.
8:42
But Fay Farm, which is pretty much like a SIM life farm
8:47
building slash RPG sort of thing.
8:49
It's very easy to play very very sort of no danger or behind
8:54
anything. It's not nothing bad's
8:55
happening. It's kind of very cutesy.
8:56
But my wife, my son and my daughter have been playing now
8:59
for the last 12 months. Like she had to sit and watch
9:01
them do it since my daughter got it for Christmas off my best
9:04
friend last year. So we've now got it over 4
9:08
formats. So I've now got it on Steam,
9:10
Xbox, PlayStation and Switch in my household so we can all local
9:14
Co-op on it. And we spent I think New Year's
9:17
Day. We spent nearly 4 1/2 hours sat
9:19
playing it as as a family, which is pretty cool.
9:21
So we've got that and I think it's about a 50-60 hour game.
9:25
So we've all sort of started a whole new world.
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I'm getting taught how to play it by my 9 year old, which is
9:30
also quite entertaining. I'm working our way through it
9:33
again, so that's cool. So that's the first one.
9:36
I mentioned this about six months ago.
9:39
Ridge Racer, the original arcade game from years ago by Namco,
9:42
they re released it as an arcade classic on PlayStation.
9:45
I bought that because I had to play Ridge Racer again because I
9:48
miss it so much from the original PlayStation.
9:51
I actually planned that the same day in the space of an hour and
9:54
40 minutes. So it appears I can still play
9:56
Ridge Racer quite sadly. So it's kind of like it's
10:00
brilliant, but I've planned it now, but I need to get my race
10:03
wheel out so I can play it properly.
10:04
Like you're playing in the arcade with a steering wheel for
10:06
the next thing. Hopefully everyone in the
10:09
background waving their hands and cheering.
10:10
I also bought Arc Raiders so that's not that's on my Steam
10:14
catalogue. I'll have to buy it.
10:17
Yeah, you'll have to buy it, mate.
10:18
You need to Yeah it. Looks.
10:20
Good. Faye Farm, Ridge Racer and Arc
10:24
yeah that's the three, that's the three I bought so I feel
10:26
it's not too terrible so and I've got 100% completion out of
10:29
1 already granted it's an arcade game, but yeah, that's me,
10:33
that's my purchases. So I was, well, we're kind of
10:37
saying we thought that things were going to be so bad and we
10:40
sort of learnt a lesson from last year.
10:42
And that's feels like it to say the least.
10:46
You know, the I've got like 40 something pounds sat in my
10:49
PlayStation account and I, it's sat there and it's like you
10:52
haven't burned through it. You haven't just bought things
10:54
because they're 3 lbs, which feels feels nice whenever they
10:58
come around later in the year. I'm playing the first Space
11:02
Marine game. They brought like a completely
11:04
remastered version out of it. So I'm trying to play through
11:06
that first. So I get the whole story of
11:09
Captain Titus, whatever it is on that, which is on Game Pass.
11:12
And then maybe that money will buy me Space Marine 2 down the
11:15
line in the summer or something. So that's my intention.
11:18
So that's where we've been. That's pretty cool.
11:21
So well done everybody. I mean well done for using your
11:24
whether it is 5 minutes Brian of International in non existent
11:28
time. Yeah, and Paul, you are now
11:30
obliged to buy our graders, please, if you don't mind.
11:33
Yeah, I'll buy it with pleasure. I was wondering if you guys were
11:36
going to buy it because it'd be nice to have a like a get
11:38
together game, you know, where something we've all got that we
11:41
can all play together or whatever, because it'll be a
11:43
shame not to, you know, catch up at least once a month audio wise
11:47
and all the rest of it. Yeah, it's been a real blast.
11:49
So yeah, that'd be great. And I watched the YouTube on it
11:52
and I've never really bothered. I hate this sort of thing where
11:54
people rave and rave and rave about a game I like.
11:56
It puts me off because everyone's chatting about like
11:59
that Claire obscure game. I think, oh man, I'm fed up
12:01
listening about this game. So I'm I'm don't get an
12:03
interest, but I put that I put a few Youtubes on of our creators
12:06
and yeah, that looks like my cup of tea does that.
12:08
So yeah, definitely going to make the purchase.
12:11
Does it. Good, good.
12:12
Can't wait to play it. I haven't, yeah, it's installed,
12:14
but I haven't touched it yet. I just haven't had time.
12:16
Was busy taking down Christmas trees and stuff.
12:18
But yeah, we'll organise getting together and playing that one, I
12:21
think. Definitely I.
12:23
Was going to say the only other thing.
12:24
The only other thing I picked up over Christmas was that which
12:29
is. Going to I'll do all your brains
12:30
experience. Here.
12:31
Oh yes, great brains. How to Survive Apocalyptic
12:35
Bibliophilia by if you anybody listens to the veteran gamers.
12:39
Duke wrote this book, so I picked it up.
12:43
This is the same book I have of his first reader book I have and
12:50
I have it beside me at home. I can't remember the name of it,
12:53
Always going to kill me. That was really good.
12:55
So hopefully this will be good. But yeah, I picked this up.
12:58
I tried to pick it up last year at Christmas, but I can get
13:01
couldn't get to the house here on time.
13:02
So I got that for Christmas this year.
13:05
Cool. That's my excellent.
13:06
Yeah, that's everything I picked up.
13:09
Seems. Is it really weird?
13:10
Is it just me to see people holding books these days?
13:13
It's just like I got a book, you know?
13:14
Like I. Did a walk.
13:17
I did the same thing. I got my family some books for
13:19
Christmas. I got my dad and my brother some
13:21
sort of books around. My dad loves Michael Palin's.
13:23
I've got to think about his ancestors.
13:25
And then it was the guy who's the is it Reverend?
13:27
Whatever it is, he's part of the commoners.
13:29
It's like his story I got for my brother because my brother's an
13:31
80s kid and used the DJ and stuff.
13:34
And it's like kind of gotten physical books.
13:35
I'm supposed to go, what the hell have you got me a book for?
13:38
How am I going to? It's like, oh, books, Wow.
13:40
And you're like, OK, it still works.
13:41
Excellent. People haven't just moved away
13:43
from the idea of paper being acceptable, which is good
13:47
tonight. I would like to get one of those
13:51
E readers reading manga but I don't know.
13:56
I'm not sure if it'll just be a user for a month and then never
13:59
use it again. And lots.
14:00
I haven't really, we've settled on this, but there's a lot of
14:05
nice E readers out there, not just the Kindles, there's the
14:08
book, books B, Double OX and the whole ranges.
14:12
So I don't know, I've been looking at them for a while, but
14:14
I hold off for the moment. I would like to read, be able to
14:17
read manga. Yeah.
14:19
Because like, yes, yeah, it's like being on your phone.
14:22
The screen is so small. I'd like to be able to see it
14:24
full, full page. Next time I'm in hard off I'll
14:29
have a look. I love the name of that shop.
14:31
It will never get an entertaining.
14:33
It's the best name for a shopper.
14:35
Yeah, that hard off, man. I mean, it's, it's just too many
14:38
commentations and are really there next time he's an hard off
14:40
and he's got no else better to do, you know what he's saying,
14:43
you know? So yeah.
14:46
Quite handy, quite good. Quite handy.
14:49
Handy hard off though. Oh no, got a second seven right.
14:55
Excellent. OK, so I think without further
14:58
ado, I'm sat here and, and our two other people on the chat
15:04
here have been SAT eagerly sort of nodding and being interested
15:06
in what we've been saying for the last 15 to 20 minutes.
15:09
So I feel it's about time that I announce our two new contestants
15:13
for, for the for the coming year.
15:15
So as you may have already read on, on the on the on the group,
15:20
Mr Riley has gone completely postal and decided he wants to
15:24
do another year of year of shame.
15:26
So he is contestant #1 for for 2026 for his sins.
15:31
Well done for using your 5 minute allotted time as you just
15:34
said and I. Apologise.
15:39
No apologies, it's brave. And has anyone done
15:41
back-to-back? I think someone may have done in
15:43
the past, but I think it's been a while.
15:44
So you're picking up and running with a flag mate.
15:47
Well done. That's that's awesome.
15:48
So we'll get a bit more on your battle plans soon on that as
15:52
well. I think is probably what we'll
15:53
do but but in the meantime, you guys waiting in the wings, we
15:59
have Stuart Ramage. Good morning, Stuart, good
16:01
evening in Tasmania. How the devil are you and
16:03
welcome to the show. Thank you.
16:06
I'm I'm good and happy New Year to everybody.
16:11
Thank you. Very much for joining us and
16:13
hope you're prepared for the next 12 months of torment so.
16:17
Severely under prepared. I think for a start I miss
16:22
getting arc Raiders. So, you know, I'm I'm going to
16:25
be the the odd one out. You're the person watching
16:29
streams instead of playing them. I I will.
16:31
Be yes. Cool, right.
16:34
And also waiting to to join the group.
16:37
It's Mr Richard Birch. Rich, how are you doing?
16:40
Yeah, Hi. Thanks everyone.
16:42
Happy New Year to you. I'm very, very excited to be on
16:46
this. I've been listening for, for
16:48
quite a few years now and every year I think, come on, guys,
16:53
it's not that hard. But at the same time, I have
16:57
that simultaneously have the same thought where it's like,
16:59
there is absolutely no way I'm doing that because I've just got
17:02
a new console. I've just got a new, you know,
17:05
graphics card or there's always a reason.
17:08
So yeah, I'm I'm thrilled to be doing it and also terrified.
17:15
Seems like the best way to do it.
17:16
I feel that's literally us. Last January, to be honest with
17:19
you, was kind of like, yeah, yeah, we're finally going to do
17:20
it this is great. We're going to have a go at
17:22
doing this and then thinking, oh geez, there's 12 months of this.
17:25
It's not just me coming on going, Nah, look, I'm doing
17:27
this. It's like I actually have to
17:28
commit now. Do you think it's the scariest
17:31
bit? So yeah, we've been talking
17:33
about games and what we've been doing and if we purchased
17:37
anything, how are we preparing? So I think if you don't mind,
17:40
we'll go through starting with you, Stuart, and sort of say
17:42
with preparations, have you done anything?
17:44
I know you haven't bought ARC Raiders, which is a travesty,
17:46
but have you done anything else or what are you looking to do
17:50
this year? Yeah, so, you know, in the run
17:53
up to, to committing to do it, I, I bought a couple of things.
17:59
Some I think are going to be better play through than others.
18:02
So Indiana Jones and the Grand Circle is there.
18:05
I don't know whether that'll end up being worth the, the, the,
18:08
the outlay for it. Clear obscure.
18:10
I picked up and I started playing towards the end of
18:13
December and much like everybody else, the 1st 15 minutes, I just
18:19
absolutely hated it. And now I am every waking hour
18:25
I'm sitting playing this damn game.
18:26
You know, it's going to, hopefully it goes for another
18:29
six months worth of game time because I'm really enjoying that
18:32
world at the moment. And in terms of preparing for
18:37
the rest of the year, yeah, I've got about 2800 games on my pile
18:42
that I need to get sort of whittled down.
18:46
And so I'd be keen to start focusing on some of those
18:51
smaller indie games that just don't get any of the love that
18:53
they deserve, that I've sat there for years and years and
18:56
years and just work my way through those and get some
19:00
completion, you know, done on at least some of them over the
19:03
year. Cool.
19:05
OK. What platforms are you going to
19:06
be playing on? Well, there's the PS4, there's
19:09
APS 5, there's a Switch in the house, there's the Steam.
19:14
So pretty much anything but Xbox.
19:16
We don't have any Xbox machines in the house at the moment, but
19:20
everything else is around here somewhere.
19:24
You know, all the way back to some of the the old classic
19:26
machines that are sitting in a cupboard somewhere that I was
19:29
going to dig out if I need to. Yeah, awesome.
19:32
I mean, if this is one of those things, if podcasts of audio
19:35
only if you had the video, you could see what's behind Stuart
19:38
in his office. All these frames, Spectrum in
19:40
Sinclair and Spectrum consoles and systems.
19:43
Absolutely amazing. So are you going to go back that
19:45
far? Are you going to try and do
19:46
anything on on Spectrum? I think that might be a first.
19:49
It'd be quite cool to do though. Yeah, I don't know.
19:52
I mean, I've got a little Ambernick sort of portable
19:54
gaming device here that's got any number of Spectrum games on
19:58
it. Whether I'll actually play any
20:00
of those or whether I'll limit myself to just the the Metroids
20:03
and things that I'm playing at the moment, I don't know yet.
20:06
Cool. There's always a chance.
20:08
Though, Yeah, fair play. It sounds like a you've got a
20:09
bit of a plan which is is decent.
20:11
I don't think any of us come into this with a solid plan that
20:14
if you know exactly where you can start from, Clare Obscure is
20:17
a good starting point. And I think Brian's background
20:19
saying yeah, yeah, yeah, OK. It sounds good from from that as
20:22
well. Awesome.
20:24
OK. So Rich, what about yourself?
20:27
I know you said you're quite excited to get get going and get
20:30
the year planned. Have you got many thoughts on
20:32
what you're going to do, what platforms you're running on?
20:34
What's what's the score? Yeah, so I had quite a few
20:38
thoughts that the way my head works is that the minute that
20:42
this looked like being a thing that I was going to do, I had to
20:45
stop buying games at that moment.
20:49
Because traditionally what I'll do is I'll have a bit of a
20:52
splurge of, you know, Steam sale or whatever.
20:55
I'll just hit it hard and get a little kind of queue of games to
20:59
play. And I thought as soon as I'd
21:00
committed to this, I was like, I can't do that because that's
21:03
actually it won't change my gaming behaviour.
21:05
I'll just end up having a pile of games that I would have got
21:09
round to over the next 12 months anyway.
21:11
So I think it's the end of November.
21:13
It was like an instant stop. I've slightly sort of
21:17
backtracked and bent my own rules a little bit and I've been
21:20
picking up the free games on Epic up until the new year and
21:25
I've let those count as backlog. And then in terms of prep, I
21:29
think my backlog size, I don't know about 1600, I think it was
21:36
something like that. So it's, it's a lot.
21:38
And I've been, I've spent quite a bit of time, a little bit of
21:41
it whilst I was at work actually going through that list and
21:44
trying to just pull together a bit of an A-Z of games and just
21:49
pick kind of one or two with each, with each letter of the
21:52
alphabet. I've got some really good things
21:55
on there and they kind of range across my PC collection.
21:59
There's a few things knocking around on Switch.
22:02
So I've got to switch to which has kind of been lost to the
22:05
kids. But this year I will be having
22:08
it back. Father Christmas bought me a
22:10
nice, what do you call it where you convert, You can convert and
22:16
then stream, stream. You kind of switch to gameplay
22:19
over OBS. I've forgotten the name of the
22:21
device, the capture card. That's the one.
22:25
So I've got a capture card. So I'll be able to play, you
22:27
know, things like Donkey Kong Bonanza and like put that onto a
22:29
twitch stream and things like that.
22:32
So I've got all of my letters of the alphabet apart from the
22:34
letter Y. So I need to do more work on
22:37
that because ukulele, but I've already played and finished it.
22:41
So I need to find something beginning with Y in my backlog
22:44
and then I can go through the alphabet.
22:46
So I'll be and then I'll be doing.
22:53
Say again I'm. Going to say some RPGs, they're
22:56
called Y is literally just YS. It's like YS and it's like a big
23:00
range of them RPG games that they're released.
23:03
Interesting. Game called Ya's Revenge as well
23:09
years ago. It's the stuff you probably
23:13
don't want to play. Ignore me but.
23:15
Exactly. I might not even have it in the
23:16
backlog, but we'll see. So and so, yeah, my aim for the
23:19
year is not not so much about finishing absolutely tonnes of
23:23
games, but just experiencing some of the ones that have ended
23:26
up on the backlog and games that I might have picked up and put
23:29
down because something new and shiny.
23:32
A good example being the original Alan Wake, which I've
23:35
played kind of the intro to previously, and over the last
23:39
few days I've just picked it up and gone through the 1st 2
23:41
chapters. It's kind of infuriating and
23:44
junky but also brilliant and that's exactly the kind of thing
23:48
that I wouldn't have stuck with previously.
23:51
So I'm just just hoping to just experience and enjoy games that
23:56
I've already got through the year and not buy anything unless
24:00
it's Arc Raiders related. So if Arc Raiders release any
24:03
kind of DLC then I want to allow myself a Joker for that but
24:08
nothing else. About say you do have your
24:10
jokers and your gifts in there to think about in a year, should
24:13
you feel compelled to do so? So I mean, Stuart, you have got,
24:16
you have got a chance to buy yourself ARC should you should
24:19
you want to. Yeah, I might have to.
24:22
I might have to give in and do that, otherwise I'll be left
24:25
though wouldn't? I just don't lose it straight
24:29
away in like the first month. I'm just like, I'm going to go
24:31
and buy that. First episode Klaxon goes.
24:36
Yeah. Oh, OK, accidentally I've gone
24:38
and bought that instead. Never mind.
24:39
Whoops. Yeah.
24:42
OK, OK, excellent. So Brian, obviously Beaver cards
24:46
are on the table. Now we know you're part of the
24:48
problem for the next year again. So you've told us you bought
24:51
those couple of games. What is your battle plan for
24:54
this year? Will it be the same?
24:55
Is it different? Are you just terrified and have
24:58
no idea why you've done this? Please explain.
25:01
It's just I'm lonely. I need somebody to talk to, a
25:05
couple of people talk to, talk to throughout the year now.
25:08
Well, maybe that too was on the last episode.
25:12
And I think on the previous episode I mentioned I had bought
25:17
specifically to play last year. I bought Cyberpunk and bowling
25:21
skates free on New Year's Eve 2024 just for intending to play
25:28
and I didn't open them. I wanted to play Witch Tree.
25:32
I wanted to finish that. I didn't A and it's I felt so
25:39
when we hit November, I was being hit really, really pissed.
25:42
But we get really, really annoyed at myself that I hadn't
25:45
played them. So I hadn't even start really
25:48
finished them. So I was annoyed.
25:50
I could go back this year, do it again, just play.
25:54
I've made a list of games and now I look at the list of games,
25:58
list of games. It's pretty huge.
26:00
But so this year I'll complete Cyberpunk, Boulder, Skate 3,
26:06
Witchers 3, Elder Ring. They're the three out the four
26:12
levers. Elder Ring will take that long,
26:15
maybe a couple of weeks because I'm most the way through that.
26:19
The others, I have no idea. I'm part way through Witcher 3.
26:22
I'm hoping I can get that done in a month or two and if not
26:27
that I'll probably see Boulders Gate.
26:32
I don't know how long that's going to take.
26:33
I've no idea. But I bought these games and I
26:37
don't know, I want to finish them.
26:39
Please give them a good try. If I hate them, I'll teach them,
26:42
but I want to try them. And then I picked up Arc Raiders
26:45
to play along with you guys and that's and character, of course.
26:49
So lots of short games this year.
26:51
How about I say, yeah, most people put this down as kind of
26:54
a like, this is what I want to do before the next 10 years of
26:57
gameplay and you're like 12 months.
26:59
That's probably 5 of the biggest games that came out in the last
27:02
five years. Let's go for it.
27:03
I mean, I just don't have people playing inside the punk like
27:05
five years on. It's different, but it's it's
27:08
weird. It's.
27:09
Brave, I knew. I wanted to play these games
27:11
before and I sat down. I was going to, and then for the
27:13
entire year I'll take the games. I've completed games and they
27:18
were all good, majority of them good, great.
27:20
And I don't regret playing them. But I didn't do what I intended
27:24
and that really irritated me in November and going November good
27:28
to December, we had lots of stuff going on off all going on
27:31
at home and I'd get time to play any more games really.
27:34
And so that was just, I thought I have got to do this, do it
27:39
again and do it properly. Do it properly.
27:42
That's what I'm telling you. Yeah, yeah.
27:45
So hopefully I don't know. I'm not coming back another
27:49
year. That's definitely not coming
27:51
back another year or the year after.
27:54
No bloody hell, I have to get this like these are supposed to
27:59
be. They were games of the year
28:01
practically when they came out and I don't know.
28:05
I know bowlers gate was Richard pre, but so long ago probably
28:08
was and cyber everybody hates it and the now rave.
28:12
So I need to at least try, try. OK, that's it.
28:18
The end of my confession. I will.
28:21
I'll go to these games this year.
28:23
I have a whole host of short games along with it.
28:25
I was. Going to say if it helps you any
28:28
Brian, they just announced today there may be an additional free
28:32
DLC for The Witcher 3 coming very shortly.
28:38
So. They, they haven't given up on
28:39
it themselves. They're still, they're still
28:41
working on this behind the scenes, you know?
28:43
So maybe next year, maybe next year, we'll see.
28:46
Was just that bridge they're trying to do between 3:00 and
28:48
4:00 like story or something. Is it is something like that?
28:52
I have to admit I've already confessed once this once last
28:55
year. I've got Witcher 3 and I've put
28:57
about an hour into it so I everyone tells me how amazing it
29:01
is. I need to sort my ACT out and
29:02
play that this year as well. I scrolled past the complete
29:05
edition on the PSN store a couple of days ago.
29:07
That was £5 or something, or £7. It's supposed to be good,
29:11
supposed to be good. I but I've played, I found to be
29:13
really the world was pretty much alive.
29:18
If they've done the same again with Cyberpunk, it'd be two good
29:21
games. So yeah, yeah, I feel bad
29:26
that's. I was really annoyed November
29:29
hit. I was annoyed I hadn't completed
29:32
any of the big games I wanted to and so I think.
29:36
Yeah, we did well though we were doing our monthly games and
29:39
stuff we did last year. There's a few we didn't do, but
29:40
I feel that was a really nice refreshing extra to what we did
29:44
last year. Worked out quite nicely.
29:46
I mean, you'll be all played some games where we never
29:49
thought of bother touching them or we go and do it and it just,
29:52
I mean, as as Rich said, it's the experience kind of thing as
29:55
well as just being a big element of it.
29:58
So was it GRI, whether it's called Gris, never thought about
30:02
playing that, sort of just looked at it and thought or
30:04
what's that? It's just an indie game and
30:06
haven't cried about a computer game in years.
30:08
And that's the one that did it. It's just like the story on it
30:10
was just immense. So even just those experiences,
30:13
even if you're not completing it, I mean, I know you still
30:15
completed a fair few games last year.
30:18
I mean, I've got, OK, I had quite a lot on my list that I
30:20
did, but I systematically play shorter games than or less
30:25
narrative games than you do, Brian.
30:27
So I know you competed with it. You've done Detroit and you're
30:30
playing through Beyond Two Souls and games like that, which are a
30:34
lot longer, got more meat on the bones, I suppose.
30:37
Really overall, that's a game. So yeah, you can do it in many
30:40
different ways. Yeah, that's hopefully.
30:46
I've got a goal. I've got a list of the games I'm
30:48
going to click work through. Yeah, we'll see.
30:52
I can clear obscure on top of that, then that may have been.
30:56
It's stupid, but what the hell. At least I'll try out and see
31:00
how it is. Maybe I won't like.
31:01
Maybe I won't like. You might like the 1st 15
31:04
minutes, as Stuart said, you've got to get past that.
31:06
I mean, I wasn't aware of that at all at the 1st 15 minutes
31:09
were a horrible slog. So.
31:11
So is everybody going to be playing that on this chat this
31:13
year? So you're going to be starting
31:15
it. Stuart's already playing it.
31:16
Have you played it Brian? Did you, did you play it on a?
31:22
You didn't play it at all. Did You Know?
31:25
It's bought, it's lined up, it's back home on the installed on
31:28
the PlayStation, but. OK, Paul, you've played it on a
31:33
trial, didn't you? Also in last year as part of
31:35
PlayStation Plus? Is that what you did with Clare
31:37
Obscure? Let's go.
31:39
No, I actually watched somebody play it on Xbox because they
31:41
came around to set it up because they wanted me to do the dodgy
31:46
thing for the account. You know where you use like say
31:48
like a Brazilian thing And I had AVPN, but honestly, you don't
31:52
even need like AVPN. You just literally go onto your
31:55
console and say to Brazil, reset the console, put your two codes
32:00
in, you know, for your like your 12 months or whatever or two,
32:02
lots of three months. Turn it back on, put it back to
32:06
UK, turn it back off. Job done.
32:08
That's how easy it is to do. So yeah, if you want some cheap
32:12
Xbox game, pass those keys. You don't need AVPN these days,
32:16
which is really good. But I watched them play it for
32:18
like an hour or so and it looks good.
32:21
And I think I would like to play it for sure.
32:24
But it's gonna end games, like I was saying before, because
32:26
everyone's talked about so much, you like get fed up evading
32:29
about it. So maybe in like a year or so
32:30
it's time I might give it a proper go when it's all dagged
32:32
down a bit. Seems fair, seems fair.
32:36
Is there some kind of I don't know what it is, Is there a
32:38
tower tower like sub game or like a a challenge mode or
32:42
something in it? I'm trying to think, well I've
32:44
I've done the same thing. I watched someone play it who
32:46
would put far, far too much time in it.
32:48
They were close to the end game and there was a tower or so.
32:51
I can't remember if it was a sub part of the game or it was
32:53
actually like a final part of the story, but it looked
32:56
absolutely insane. Like the amount of like damage,
32:59
weapons, moves and stuff going on.
33:00
I think you'd get to that part of it.
33:02
It's it's unreal the amount of like damage and stuff you're
33:05
doing, but the the enemy seem to be just as hard.
33:08
So it seems like it's going to be a real challenge.
33:10
But I've got it because I've got lucky enough to have Game Pass.
33:13
I have it downloaded on the PC or the Xbox One of the two.
33:17
But yeah, if we're going to play it, I'll give it a go as well
33:19
and try and give some feedback on it.
33:21
I am notoriously useless at this type of game, so I'm sure you'll
33:25
all do better than me. But hey, let's have a stab at
33:27
it. Why not?
33:29
Sorry Rich, have you played the game you played?
33:32
Yeah, I played it in in the in the glory days of 2025 when I
33:35
had access to Game Pass games. I played it and finished it and
33:41
absolutely loved it. Sorry, Paul.
33:42
I'll rave about it for a minute. It's the the thing about it is
33:47
so I find that with these games where you can do like quite
33:50
strategic build and end up, you know, dealing 10 million damage
33:53
per hit. I'm not kind of clever enough or
33:57
patient enough to to kind of optimise a build like that.
34:00
But you can play through the game just as a normally,
34:03
normally kind of person and just build, build things that you
34:06
like and not do that much damage.
34:08
But you can still get there. Or if you want to go absolutely
34:12
all in and optimise everything can really, really strategize,
34:16
then you can do that too. And I think there's little side
34:18
quests. So Ben, you're mentioning like
34:21
the Super hard opponents or whatever.
34:23
I think there's there's little side areas that you can go to
34:26
that are incredibly challenging and more challenging than the
34:29
main line. But because I'd spent, I don't
34:32
know, 40-50 hours in the game, I was happy, happy by the end just
34:36
to kind of mainline it and get get those credits.
34:39
But it's such a good game. The narrative is incredible, the
34:42
graphics are incredible and it's just, it's very original.
34:45
So well worth a try once you once you do get around to it.
34:50
Yeah. Thank you.
34:52
I'm not stereo for too long and actually press play and have a
34:54
go at it. I think that's the main thing.
34:56
So there's now so many things lined up on the front panel of
34:58
Xbox and PlayStation I can actually now do after me.
35:02
I've gone through probably 5-6 different Game Pass and
35:05
PlayStation Plus things from last year.
35:07
Obviously you sat building everything for a year on
35:09
PlayStation Plus and it's like, Oh yeah, I forgot about that
35:12
one, forgot about that one. It's like when I download that,
35:14
I download that, suddenly my PlayStation hard drive is
35:16
getting destroyed. I put an extra 1 terabyte in it
35:19
when I bought it and I've never used it.
35:21
I think it's now half full in like the space of two or three
35:23
days. Yeah, one thing I was going to
35:27
say as well is all these new games that are going to come out
35:31
with you all both having like big backlogs, you're going to
35:34
find there's another game that's just virtually the same game you
35:37
backlog to counter it. Like the new Ghost of your Tie
35:40
came out this year. I hadn't finished the first one.
35:42
I'm still like 1/3 of the way through that one.
35:45
And you'll find it's, it's so easy really.
35:47
You've got something in your catalogue that you can dig into.
35:50
And if you do like what we did, that like little wheel game
35:52
thing where we picked a game out that we all played, some of them
35:55
games we played on there we would never have played.
35:57
And we enjoyed them to the Max. They were fantastic.
36:00
Especially sack Boy, man, that's a pleasure to play.
36:05
Really good. Yeah.
36:06
There's so many games you'll have in your backlog, like
36:08
Stewart was saying as well. That's man, you have just so
36:11
many good games in there, so much meat left on the bone.
36:13
It's just too easy to let the carousel of them games just
36:17
swinging round and round and round.
36:19
And a lot of the time they're the same game in any case, so
36:23
and it's often going back to a game that you haven't played to
36:26
say like 18 months or two years, which is not difficult to do.
36:30
And you'll go back to it, you'll say to self after you got back
36:33
into the mechanics, which is usually the hardest bit.
36:35
Why haven't I been playing this? Why have I not already been
36:39
playing this some more? So yeah, it's a great honestly,
36:43
this is a real it's a great breathing space, you know, And
36:46
then next year you can look backwards on the games that you
36:48
could have bought and pick out the gems that you really should
36:51
have bought rather than gave. And plus all those patches then
36:55
that come out over a six month period.
36:57
The game can almost be transformed in six months.
37:01
So yeah, you get the real experience as well.
37:03
It's. A good chance sounds good a big
37:05
half price gaming won't it in 2027 buying 2026 games.
37:10
Yeah, maybe even less. You might find the games that
37:13
are coming out like that Player OPS Go might hit PlayStation
37:17
Plus or whatever in six months time.
37:19
So you never know, all them sorts of games, games you never
37:23
thought it comes PlayStation Plus that might well be on
37:25
there. So yeah, you'll pick up some
37:27
good games. I mean, I know you mentioned you
37:28
paused your epic game purchases for your freebie games, but we,
37:32
we still picked up the free games, but just didn't play them
37:35
because it's not to pick them up.
37:37
You know, I, I, we picked up all the free games.
37:39
Well, I did in any case. Yeah, I'll be doing that.
37:43
Is there an easy way to actually tell when when you got them?
37:47
Because I think you can sort by last played, you can sort by
37:50
when they were released. But obviously that's no that was
37:53
released generally rather than released to you.
37:57
I just have to draw a line. Epic I think is going to be your
37:59
receipts in your e-mail. They automatically send you a
38:02
thank you for your purchasing and you can check via that.
38:04
So you could do a hunt by that I suppose, but that might be the
38:07
easiest way of doing it if there's anything like me with.
38:10
That. Yeah, they don't actually get
38:12
any of my money whatsoever. I just fleece them for 12 games
38:15
every 12 months. That's that's how everything
38:18
works. So I kind of know those games or
38:20
they come out. Oh, that was no end of November
38:22
last year. That's fine.
38:24
Never start there going like will you please just buy
38:25
something? It's the easiest way to think
38:31
about it. I think.
38:31
So interestingly as well from your point, Rich, we've sort of
38:34
been talking about the Switch too a lot for the last 12 months
38:37
and what's been going on it on the release and things.
38:40
Obviously Paul's had some go for his fingers, get bought in, get
38:43
sold again, but hasn't really played much on one.
38:46
I've had the experience of playing one for literally an
38:48
hour and playing Mario Kart. But it'd be interesting to get
38:50
some sort of more insight onto owning a switch to and where
38:54
it's going for the next 12 months.
38:55
It's one of those consoles that I am excessively excited about
38:59
it because it's it's a switch and I think they're a great
39:00
console. But for me it's been a real slow
39:04
burn on getting good titles out onto that.
39:06
So hopefully the next 12 months will be will be different to it.
39:09
For instance, if you have you got or have you played Metroid
39:12
on it? I have not so I bought it at
39:15
release and this is a classic just kind of hype purchase.
39:19
I I basically couldn't exist without a switch to, but had
39:23
absolutely no need for a switch to.
39:25
The one thing it's that's been excellent for me is that I've
39:29
managed to get the whole family playing Mario Kart together and
39:32
they've got the camera control so you can see your face above
39:36
your little cart and then when you knock each other out, the
39:39
face goes spinning around and stuff.
39:41
So it's been a big win for family gaming.
39:46
I'm trying to get get the kids into Donkey Kong Bonanza, but
39:50
Fortnite exists, which makes it a bit of a struggle.
39:54
So I'm most likely to kind of recapture that Switch to enjoy
39:59
Donkey Kong Bonanza and then a backlog of stuff.
40:02
So I did buy quite a few indie games on the Switch, one that I
40:07
just sat there. So yeah, I'm looking forward to
40:11
a few of those. Absolutely guilty as charged.
40:14
I think anyone who bought a switch and then found there was
40:17
an E shop sale just went on a Bender at some point or another
40:20
buying indie games just because they were like a pound each
40:23
reduced at 90%. And I've, I've looked like,
40:26
well, to explain a bit more, I've now got a Switch OLED,
40:30
which I was expecting to buy this year because as per you, my
40:34
Switch disappears into the ether with my kids and I never see it
40:37
for like a three-week period because of my daughter's
40:40
addicted to Splatoon and won't ever give it back.
40:43
So I was like, I'm going to buy an OLED.
40:44
And Paul buys and sells, as we know from the last 12 months, he
40:48
managed to pick up an OLED at a very, very good price.
40:51
And I was like, right, hold it. If you don't want to get rid of
40:53
it urgently, I'll buy it off you in the new year because I want
40:55
one. I've got spare controllers,
40:57
etcetera. We'll do it that way.
40:59
So I kind of like left it there. I mentioned the wife, I'm going
41:01
to get an OLED so kids can have that continuously and I'll just
41:03
dock mine in if I ever want to do it.
41:05
But as we discussed before as well, Paul, the point is the
41:08
OLED is it's really good for handheld.
41:10
That's what the screen does. That's what the extra battery
41:12
life does, all those things. So I wake up on Christmas
41:15
morning, my wife's like here you go is a present and I'm just
41:17
like, OK, it's like this is a little thing, like this is a
41:18
special present on the tag and stuff.
41:20
I'm like, OK, and then wrap it and outcomes this OLED and I'm
41:24
like, wait, what? It's like, this is exactly what
41:28
I'd agreed. And it's just like, how have you
41:29
done this? It's like, oh, I stole Paul's
41:31
details off your phone and got in contact with him and I had
41:33
bought it for you instead rather than you buy the next year.
41:36
And it's like a that's exceptionally devious and BI
41:39
couldn't be happier. So I've ended up with an OLED in
41:41
a kind of sneaky way. I owe Paul for that one very
41:43
much. But this is how sneaky my wife
41:46
can be at times when she wants to be.
41:49
So I've gone back through that say again.
41:54
She sounds like a keeper. She is a good, is a good and to
41:56
be honest with you, but she puts up with everything like this for
41:58
the last 12 months of me being basically chemically bonded to a
42:02
computer or for TV screen playing games.
42:04
So she is a good and yeah, to be honest, very yeah.
42:07
It got a little bit awkward because then we're asking, you
42:09
know, do you want me to pay for this switch?
42:12
And I'm like, Oh no mate, don't worry about it.
42:13
I trust you, I trust you. I'll send it down soon, you know
42:16
what I mean? But we're all ready at the
42:18
house. It's.
42:20
Like, I've got really, really busy last few months before a
42:22
few weeks before Christmas. I'll try and ship it out if I
42:25
can sort of thing. I'll do it when I get a chance.
42:27
Oh, no rush, no rush, no problem at all.
42:29
I've basically been like it's been under the bed, I've been
42:30
sleeping above it for the last three weeks.
42:32
But you know, yeah. So when I, when I, when I set
42:37
that all up, I suddenly realised the extent of the the indie
42:41
carnage that exists in my game catalogue.
42:43
And there's so much stuff in there and you go through it and
42:45
think, oh wow, yeah, that was Switch only.
42:47
Oh, so was that. So was that all these little
42:49
games that never came out on anything else?
42:52
And yeah, I've installed shed tonnes of stuff onto it.
42:54
I had a memory card kicking around, so I've jammed that into
42:57
it. Totally forgot the Switch OLED
42:59
has 64 gig rather than 32 of onboard memory as well.
43:02
So that was a nice surprise. So more space for me to put
43:04
things on a don't play. But yeah, I'm looking forward to
43:08
it. I mean, I think the switch to
43:10
the cool console, yeah, the two is tempting, but I'd be
43:13
interested to see what you think about it, to go back to it rich
43:15
for the next 12 months. The and what you're doing with
43:18
it and the games you see on it sort of thing for what you've
43:21
got a backlog and stuff. But the only things I know about
43:24
on it are Mario Kart and my friend bought Donkey Cog and
43:26
said it's incredible. That's the only two things I
43:28
really know. It is fun just smashing hell out
43:31
of all of the environments. So I'm trying to think that's
43:36
what we need to do now. It's got, it's a bit weird for
43:38
us because we've had a format for the last 12 months.
43:40
We come on, we've written a list, checking it twice, not
43:44
doing that, but and then sort of work out what we're going to do
43:47
for a, for a show for two to three hours and then we're done.
43:49
And then we come back to you the next month.
43:51
This is a bit of a different format.
43:53
So it's weird and we've gone through and just wanted to kind
43:56
of give you an introduction to the guys and what they're going
43:59
to be doing for you for the next 12 months.
44:01
And the sad bit is this has to be the end section of it has to
44:05
be us saying goodbye for the last time.
44:07
So I think that's the weirdest bit.
44:09
This is the last time we're doing a podcast.
44:10
Well, for me and Paul, that is, Brian's got another 12 months of
44:14
it and he looks concerned by this and it's the last time
44:20
we're thinking something. Sorry, carry on, mate.
44:23
I was. Going to say my regrets are
44:25
beginning. Oh my God, what have I just let
44:27
myself in too? You have to stay.
44:34
Yeah. So it's the last time I've got
44:35
to edit a podcast before putting out to you guys to have a
44:39
listen. So it's kind of a it's a it's a
44:41
bittersweet one for us, but we do now need to say goodbye for
44:46
the for the last time. And so I'll do that first.
44:51
So thank you to everyone for the last 12 months.
44:53
Thank you to you guys who are sticking around.
44:56
Brian. Well done, mate.
44:56
And it's been a pleasure. And I've been looking forward to
44:58
listening to the next 12 months. I wish you both the best on
45:01
doing it for this year. It sounds terrifying.
45:04
It feels terrifying, but genuinely it's not.
45:06
It's just a really good crack to be honest with you.
45:08
So I hope you really both enjoy it.
45:10
I think it'll be awesome. And I'm looking forward to
45:12
listening to your take on it all for the next 12 months.
45:15
Really AM. And, and Paul, it's been it's
45:20
been a it's been a blast, mate. And I'd say we'll keep in
45:23
contact. We've all said we've got this,
45:25
we've got arc Raiders apart from Stu, sorry.
45:28
And we'll be playing that this year.
45:29
And if we do find games or you find multiplayer stuff, just
45:32
shout out and I think we'll we'll join in and be cool to do
45:34
some streams or something, something we wanted to do with
45:36
streams this year and life kind of got in the way.
45:39
We wanted to pay aliens, wasn't it fire team this this 12 months
45:42
gone and we never got to it on our monthly games.
45:44
So yeah, I'd love to still be hanging around in some format if
45:47
if you'll have me. But I mean it's just this year.
45:49
I would have loved to do it again but I just don't have time
45:51
what's coming in the next 12 months for me personally.
45:54
So from me it's a bye bye and I'll hand over to Paul.
45:58
Do you do the same thing mate? Probably not so garbling and
46:01
drawn out as me, but feel free mate.
46:05
Yeah, I'd just like to say thank you very much.
46:07
It's been. An absolute pleasure.
46:08
Never spoke to these two guys before speaking for the first
46:12
time on the podcast. So it's been up.
46:15
We didn't even have like a little pre.
46:16
Well, I suppose we had a little 20 minute chat before we started
46:19
the show, but there wasn't any sort of like big get together,
46:22
etcetera. Other than the previous show
46:24
where we we were introduced. But yeah, absolutely fantastic.
46:28
I think you'll enjoy. It's a massive, massively good
46:30
fun really getting playing all them games rather than worrying
46:34
about what's coming out next. Enjoy what you've already got
46:37
and it's it's been so much fun. And yeah, but yeah, Brian,
46:41
definitely a Man of Steel for doing it for the second year.
46:44
You are the Superman. So yeah, absolutely.
46:47
But what about you, Brian? So.
46:49
Jesus. I don't know.
46:51
Oh my God. Oh my God, it's it's finally
46:53
eating. Thank you to to both of you for
46:57
last year. It's been it was amazing.
46:59
I enjoyed last year so much. I wanted to do it again.
47:03
I don't know. It was a great meeting.
47:08
Just it's so weird because you just meet people you don't know
47:11
and then for over the entire year, you just become great
47:14
friends. It's really, really cool.
47:15
So I've enjoyed this last past year.
47:18
I will miss chat on these calls, but hopefully if we're doing
47:21
gaming, got Diablo as well, going to play some get Diablo.
47:26
Yeah, if we get all playing, that'd be great.
47:30
But yeah, we're going to keep in contact with you playing.
47:33
And it's this podcast is it's really good.
47:37
It's really good crack doing this.
47:39
The other thing is it's sort of it.
47:43
It's for me, I became a bit OCD trying to get every pause as and
47:48
every where I would really, really, really, really good and
47:53
get that down to just one really so or even cut out the release
47:57
and just say it was good. So I was there trying to cut
47:59
out. So you can become a bit
48:00
obsessive with it, but it is good fun.
48:02
I enjoy this again as well. So it's good fun and I will miss
48:07
the two years chatting with you and looking forward to chatting
48:10
to you the 2 new, the two new versions of you sitting here.
48:15
So yeah, that'd be good fun improves definitely.
48:17
I mean the the way they're talking on this.
48:19
Podcast already has been amazing that it seemed like built for
48:21
it. It's going to be good.
48:22
I'm looking forward to it. Absolutely.
48:25
We have a. Professional streamer here with
48:27
us as well, so that will help. But he's even got his light,
48:31
he's even got blue lights on in the background.
48:34
How perfect is that? So yeah, right, the first the
48:38
back of my childhood bedroom. So now we can see it.
48:42
So yeah, no one knew it's your childhood bedroom actually now
48:45
fired. When do?
48:46
We do now, so yeah. That's so that's weird.
48:52
But yeah, no, it's good. It'll be all good.
48:55
I swear. It'll be all good.
48:56
I'm sure it will. At least in 12 months time it'll
48:58
be all good. Then you can have a complete and
49:01
then buy all the games. Again.
49:02
Or you can try and play Cyberpunk next year.
49:06
Yes, yeah, there's. I bet because they one of the
49:10
things CD Red bring bringing us modding for their games and
49:16
you'd be able to mod the console games.
49:20
And I put several 100 hours into Skyrim just in modded versions
49:25
of the game. So I never played the game in
49:27
vanilla. But if they do that with Witcher
49:30
3 or with Cyberpunk, this this year could become a nightmare.
49:36
We can just get totally lost in these games.
49:38
But yeah, I know there's one more update to come out for both
49:41
of them to bring this modding into the games.
49:43
So we'll see how that goes. Yeah.
49:47
Anyway, that's yeah, I've enjoyed last year.
49:51
I'm looking forward to this year.
49:52
It should be good fun. Should be good.
49:55
I may not complete as many games, but there will be larger
49:59
games. That's the intention anyway.
50:02
Thank you to both of you for the past year.
50:05
I'll see you online. Indeed.
50:07
Indeed, absolutely. Thank you.
50:10
Too. I guess all that leaves you now
50:11
is for us to step. Back from the spotlight and hand
50:15
over to whoever wants to do this.
50:16
Rich or Stuart, do you want to sign us off for the first time
50:21
for your 12 months? Does it tenature the correct
50:25
word or what you're doing for the next 12 months, get a get a
50:29
start on things. What's the plan?
50:30
What are you looking to do for for the eager listeners over the
50:33
next month or so? Well, first of all, I think I
50:39
speak for the. Entire community when I say
50:41
thank you to all three of you for the last year, it's, I
50:45
always think it's interesting when you look at the first
50:48
episode of each year and, and everyone's moving into it and
50:53
you know, things are a wee bit sort of feeling your way as you
50:56
go with that first episode. And then you compare that to the
50:58
last episode of the year where you've all got it down pat.
51:01
You know, what has to be said and when it has to be said and,
51:03
and the process just flows. And so watching that with you 3
51:07
guys this year has been very entertaining.
51:10
You know, the, the number of times I've been sitting on a
51:12
plane, listen to you guys laughing out loud just with,
51:15
with something has been said or, you know, just just keeping it
51:18
as generally vested in the community and invested in how
51:23
you guys are progressing as you go.
51:25
Has, has been really, really good.
51:26
So thank you for for all those we've done.
51:30
Our next steps are going to be to take a step back and figure
51:35
out how we're going to approach this.
51:38
We are working on that in the background.
51:40
And so we will be pushing to get that first episode out, you
51:45
know, in the next couple of weeks, I think we'll we'll
51:46
certainly be be organising to to get that down and recorded.
51:51
And then, yeah, watch the usual spaces and then we'll have every
51:55
all published and and put up there just like you guys, of
51:59
course. Fingers crossed, should go well.
52:04
Should go well. Have you got any games you want
52:06
to just try and complete? You could try and finish the
52:11
clear obscure. I don't want to finish it, I
52:17
want to keep. Playing it forever.
52:21
Oh, very good, yeah. Rich, you got any games you're
52:31
trying to work on this month? So in in classic fashion, I've.
52:35
Already started a tonne of games all at the same time.
52:38
So they're all, they're all on a go slow rather than one fast.
52:42
So I've picked up, I've been playing Trooper Brick, which I
52:45
picked up a couple of years ago. So that's on the Switch.
52:49
I'm playing the original Alan Wake.
52:52
I'm a good way through like a dragon infinite wealth, which is
52:55
an absolute sprawling mess of a beautiful game.
52:59
It's it's really good and I'm about 2/3 of the way through
53:03
that, but I've just hit a difficulty spike.
53:05
So I'm just having to kind of grind away and level up my
53:09
characters. And last night I did AI did a
53:12
twitch stream last night. I was going to try and play.
53:15
Is it called Skull Scold against the Black Priory, which is one
53:18
of the free Epic games recently? But the cloud saves wouldn't
53:23
work from handheld across to to my PC.
53:26
So I I pivoted and started on Viewfinder, which is again that
53:31
has been on my wish list for for a good time.
53:33
And again, it was kind of Christmas time freebie on Epic
53:38
and it's absolutely wonderful. I must have put 3 or 4 hours
53:41
into it last night. Really good puzzle.
53:44
Again, beautiful environments, really clever kind of physics
53:47
and concepts. So I think that's the one I'll
53:50
probably be focusing on finishing first.
53:52
Is Viewfinder very good? I think for me, well, I finished
53:58
Beyond Two Souls because Paul record.
54:00
Paul recommended us after I finished Detroit.
54:04
Excellent game. But the game I've got first on
54:08
my list is God of War Ragnarok, purely because I got on
54:13
PlayStation Plus last January when we started this game.
54:16
I always want to play. And then they gave it to us in
54:17
January last year and I couldn't play it.
54:19
And then I saw rumours it was going to go this January, but it
54:23
doesn't look like it. But I still want to get it
54:25
played and finished. So the PlayStation can't take
54:27
away the experience for me. So that's first and then I'll
54:32
start on. Well, I don't know, we'll see.
54:35
Be a surprise. I don't know, don't know yet.
54:38
Be surprised to me. But yeah, so that's why I intend
54:41
to go first. But if Arc Raiders Rich, you
54:46
said you'd help me out. I'm so up for that.
54:49
So up for that. Yeah, let's.
54:50
Do it. That's good.
54:53
And we we could. Talk about we could talk about
54:57
Stewart then back then with all forwards and playing.
55:04
That's good, pretty good. OK, excellent.
55:08
So that's that it. I think that's there.
55:12
Yeah, it was weird. No games that months.
55:14
No, no. No, other than anything else on
55:19
the comments on the community from Brian.
55:21
You're crazy. Yes, yes, I am.
55:24
Yeah, by the end of the year I'll be I'll be so well, I don't
55:30
know. I've got to make sure I don't
55:33
empty my wallet and doesn't. I don't have my cards on mix.
55:35
I reckon I'll be clone to try and buy new games at the end of
55:38
the year, but we'll see. We'll see.
55:42
OK, so goodbyes. That'll be a goodbye from me.
55:46
I'll see you all next month. Paul.
55:49
Do you like to take it? Yeah, absolutely.
55:53
Goodbye from me and I look forward to.
55:55
Listening to you guys next year for sure and been really great
55:58
to meet you. And yeah, it's you've definitely
56:01
got a new listener for next year.
56:02
Yeah, what about you? Ben, exactly that.
56:05
Couldn't agree more. Just.
56:06
Bye for me, it's been a blast. As I said earlier on, can't wait
56:10
to to listen to what you guys get up to.
56:11
It's going to be it's going to be cool.
56:13
I'm looking forward to the different games that we play,
56:14
different gaming styles. It's just going to be it's just
56:18
the way that the year of shame works.
56:19
It's going to be cool. Make it your own, make it your
56:21
own. It'd be my only advice to you
56:22
and just enjoy it. There we go.
56:25
So I will sign over to you guys to to send us out.
56:29
I'll be the person who turns off the recording, but it's all down
56:32
to you. OK.
56:33
Yeah, I just wanted to say thanks.
56:34
Thanks for your. Kind of handover and you're
56:36
welcome. It's it's quite a daunting thing
56:39
coming on to do something new. Like podcasting is brand new and
56:42
all the editing is new. Ben, you were talking about how
56:45
you'd miss stuff if you ever want to do the edit.
56:46
That's no problem, mate. Yeah, thanks.
56:49
Thanks for being so welcoming. And it's been, it's been a
56:52
really nice kind of transition from from your year of shame to
56:55
year of shame. OK.
56:59
Thank you everybody. What a line if the bunch of your
57:02
money. Keeps going maybe.
57:04
Maybe we can get Stewart a copy of our creators to join in with
57:08
all the and it's bedtime stories, please.
57:13
So keep sending in the cash. Welcome.
57:18
All right. Absolutely.
57:20
Cool, right, gentlemen? It's.
57:21
Been a pleasure. I'll I'll look forward to the
57:24
next show and everyone else, thank you and goodbye from us.
57:27
Bye bye. Take care.
57:29
Bye, goodbye.