Hogwarts Legacy: A childhood dream come true

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Released: 7th February 2023

Developer: Portkey Games

System: PC / PS5 / XBox Series X/S / PS4 & XBox One (May 2023) / Nintendo Switch (July 2023)

Price: $59.99 USD / £49.99 GBP

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The time has finally come to go to Hogwarts - we’ve all been waiting for this since we turned 11 years old! I have been a huge Harry Potter fan for over 25 years so when the first reveal showcased Hogwarts Legacy I was extremely excited. I have played previous versions of Harry Potter video games, notably the original PC ports of Philosopher’s Stone & Chamber of Secrets (They went a bit downhill after those two) as well as the Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 and 5-7 games - which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, none of these predecessors really scratched that itch of being able to fully explore Hogwarts and the surrounding areas, discovering all of Hogwarts’ many secrets. Hogwarts Legacy changed all of that.

Even with the surrounding criticisms - Hogwarts Legacy was one of the most awaited games of 2023. Despite the backlash and attempts to ‘cancel’ the game, it still went on to sell 15 million copies and earned 1 billion dollars globally. 

So let’s start with the graphics. There is no denying this game is beautiful. I was lucky to be able to play the game on PC and I have a fairly decent set up (RTX 3080) and went with the recommended High settings that the game suggested. I did have some strange lighting issues while inside caves or inside Hogwarts castle whenever I had ray-tracing switched on, so I played the majority of the game with this switched off.

Luckily I was also able to play the Steam Deck version which I used for a huge portion of my playthrough. It ran pretty well on Steam Deck if I set the graphics to low. However, I ultimately did switch back to playing on PC in the end. I was infuriated to find that, during a 5 hour flight I was unable to load my save file as there was no internet connection. At the time of writing this review a patch has been released which greatly increases the performance on the Steam Deck.

We begin the game as a young student who is starting Hogwarts in their fifth year due to the fact that we are able to see glimpses of ancient magic. The Harry Potter fan in me originally thought this was a bit strange - starting Hogwarts in fifth year? With no prior magical education? Ridiculous. However the game washes this away by making it clear the main character has been training with a Hogwarts professor for a good couple of weeks before term starts. The game has a good opening with decent tutorials and plays very well. However, if you’re like me and cannot wait to get to Hogwarts to be sorted into your house - it can feel like a bit of a drag.

Eventually you do get to Hogwarts, albeit late to the sorting ceremony. I believe there was an option to link your Pottermore account to the game and it would sort you into the House you were sorted into on the website, or you can just take the sorting hat quiz in the game and it will sort you. If you do not like which house you are placed in, you can choose which house you go into. Naturally, I was sorted into Gryffindor. Do note that there are slightly different ways parts of the game play out depending on which house you are sorted into. There is also one sidequest that is exclusive to Hufflepuff which I think many people would like to play - however I don’t wish to spoil what the quest is during this review. 

Hogwarts in this game is an actual dream. It’s everything I wanted and more. There are a lot of mysterious things lying around and doors surrounded by runes which you are unable to open at first. Figuring out the secrets of Hogwarts was one of my favourite things about this game. I spent hours upon hours just running around the castle and exploring. The game does a very good job of opening different parts of the castle up to you as you progress through your lessons and the storyline. The fact that I was still exploring parts of the castle at 25 hours into my playthrough was just wild to me. 

The atmosphere around Hogwarts is just as magical as I hoped it would be. Often while just running around the castle I was highly entertained by suits of armor humming and singing, or even beating each other up! Portraits would talk to you, some students were being harassed by howlers - it was just brilliant. I was also very happy to see that Peeves the poltergeist was in the game. He was omitted from the movies and to have him back was amazing.

There are a lot of side-quests in the game, in addition to the main storyline - some of these are really well written stories, such as Sebastian Sallow’s arc. Others are not as deep. I did find that after about 20 hours into the game, I got bored of side quests - they just became a bit too repetitive for me, and ultimately I just ended up doing the three main relationship quests for Natsai, Poppy and Sebastian, which was my favourite quest.

The combat flows very well in this game. I was interested to see how they would make combat work as it is not your traditional kind of combat. You learn many different defensive spells throughout your playthrough and you use these to hit enemies, following up with basic casts which will grant you higher damage points. One thing I did find frustrating about the combat is when casting spells, for some reason your character steps forward after each cast - meaning that if you’re fighting on a clifftop or close to a ledge, you have to be very careful to ensure that you don’t fall off!

A couple of hours into the main story you will gain access to brooms and flying. The controls for flying were a bit difficult to get used to, especially on mouse and keyboard. In general I think this game definitely lends itself better to gamepad controls rather than mouse and keyboard. The flying controls I found to be so clunky that I struggled with the main flying side-quests which are needed for you to be able to upgrade your broom. Luckily, as I am a filthy casual I was playing the game on story mode I was given the opportunity to skip these flying sections after 2 failed attempts, so all was good there. 

Flying is a lovely way to explore the vast overworld the game offers up. I admit that it took me a long time to realise that you can actually cast the ‘Revelio’ spell while flying which highlights all nearby points of interest - this was really helpful for identifying caves, magical beast areas and much more. 

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the game, there were some issues and things I didn’t like about it. 

When flying around on your mount or broom, quite often you would hit areas you wouldn’t be able to fly through - namely around the Hogsmeade area and the Coastal Cavern. This was annoying to me and really broke the immersion. 

In the early days of the game, you would activate ‘floo’ flames which act as fast travel points. It was a clever idea as the map is so huge it would take a long time to get anywhere, so floo travel was a way to get around the map quicker. Unfortunately, all of the floo flames were accompanied by busts of Ignatia Wildsmith, who continually reminded us of how inconvenient travel was before she invented floo powder. Every time you walked past a floo flame, the bust would basically shout lines at you, catching you off guard and scaring the hell out of you.

‘You can’t IMAGINE how inconvenient travel was before I invented floo powder’ 

‘Off on another adventure, are we?’

‘How nice to see you, my young friend!’ 

‘What are you up to now?’ 

If I had a dollar for everytime that this floo powder lady jumpscared the hell out of me, I’d certainly be rich by now. I am happy to say that after a week or two, the dev’s put out a patch which nuked how often she talked and I think it also decreased the volume of her speech!

One of the biggest complaints about the game I have noticed, which also greatly affected me as well, was the fact that you were unable to pause cutscenes. This was really inconvenient and I cannot understand why the devs did not implement a pause option? Some cutscenes, especially near the beginning of the game were quite long and it was annoying to not be able to pause them. 

In conclusion - this game was everything I hoped it would be and more - it was the Harry Potter game I didn’t know I needed, and didn’t realise I had been waiting for my whole life. If you’re a fan of open world games, I recommend that you definitely give this a try! 

Pros:

• Beautiful Overworld & Graphics

• Gigantic Hogwarts to explore

• Dev team actively working to address any issues

• Some great storylines

Cons:

• No function available to pause cutscenes

• Limitations on flying break immersion

• Flying controls quite clunky

• Can get a little repetitive after 30-40 hours

Is Simon There? 40 Minutes of Genuine Terror (Review)

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Release Date: May 6th 2022

Developer: Stanislaw Truchowski

Platforms: PC (Steam)

Price: $4.99

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“Hi, is Simon there?”

These four words will be ingrained into your memory after playing this short indie game developed by Stanislaw Truchowski. After having been released on Steam on May 6th 2022, Is Simon There? Has been given great reviews and an all-time score of Very Positive on Steam. 

I was mainly interested in this game as I am really into walking simulators at the moment, the last few games I’ve been playing have been along the lines of What Became of Edith Finch, Gone Home and Firewatch. When I discovered Is Simon There? on Stream, it was a no-brainer for me to purchase - walking simulator AND horror? Sign me up! Stanislaw Truchowski does an amazing job at keeping the atmosphere simply terrifying throughout the entire game. Players are informed before starting the game that it will take approximately 40 minutes to complete. For me, it was much, much longer. Players are also informed that the game is best experienced using headphones, with the lights out and alone. I will hold my hands up and openly admit that I did none of these things, and even so - the game was still terrifying.

The gameplay is in first-person view, and you are not given much context - you wake up to a blaring alarm clock (which is, for some reason sitting on a very high shelf) and as you progress through the game, the protagonist is plagued by phone calls all of which are from somebody asking whether Simon is there. The story takes place in the protagonist's home which is small and can feel claustrophobic, especially when the lights are out. As the narrative progresses the protagonist is convinced there is somebody in the house - the main objectives are to find the intruder. I found the game's atmosphere to be so terrifying that even the tall potted plants that were dotted around the house were giving me jump scares. The game does a very good job at messing with you - quite often as you make multiple trips throughout the house things appear that were not there earlier, and you start to feel as though you’re going crazy right along with the protagonist. 

Although it is mainly marketed as a psychological horror walking simulator, there are some puzzles that need to be solved and this was the part of the game that I found to be most frustrating. There is very little guidance or even clues as to how to solve the puzzles. In particular there is a section of the game where you need to find a code to open a safe, and as far as I can tell, there is nowhere that shows any digits or gives any clue as to what the safe code is. It’s entirely possible that I could have missed it, the game did have me too scared to stay in any one place for too long. 

Given that the game is set in a single household, in first person view with jump scares, a terrifying atmosphere and cryptic puzzles, I can’t help but compare this game to P.T by Hideo Kojima which famously released on PS4 back in 2014 and later removed due to the cancellation of Silent Hills. It feels, in some way that this game may be a tribute to P.T.

Considering the game didn’t really have much context as the beginning, the story is revealed throughout the game and everything begins to fall into place as you keep exploring. I will admit that I started to feel sympathy for the protagonist as things started to become clearer. Some people may say that 40 minutes is too short for a game, but as previously mentioned, it took me much longer than this to complete the game. There are also multiple endings and achievements up for grabs if you want to extend your playtime and get your money's worth.

In summary, this game was a real gem - I’m so happy that I stumbled across it one day while browsing the steam store. If you love horror games and also enjoy walking simulators and puzzle solving, this game is definitely worth a try.

Pros:

• Genuinely scary.

• The graphics were nice.

• Excellent theme and atmosphere.

• Multiple endings.

• Well priced.

Cons:

• Quite cryptic, some puzzles are difficult to solve.

• Some may say it’s on the shorter side (playtime wise.)

Funalot/Joystown Steam Deck Dock Review

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Developed by: Funalot (US) Joystown (UK)
Price: $39.99 (US) £45.99 (UK)

Purchase: Amazon US / Amazon UK

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When Valve revealed that the Steam Deck was ready for purchase, they also highlighted that people were welcome to use any third party USB-C Hub docks to output their Steam Deck gameplay to TV or other displays such as laptop monitors etc. Many different companies have released third party docks for use with the Steam Deck - one of which is Funalot (or Joystown in the UK).  We were provided with a sample unit for review.

Firstly, the dock comes well packaged in a decent sturdy cardboard box, a user manual is included in the box which gives some handy tips if you want to achieve 4K output. The deck itself is very sturdy and has a beautiful build quality, it really feels like a premium product compared to the official Steam Deck Dock which is made from plastic. The hub had 4 rubber feet on the bottom, which stopped it from sliding around easily on the tabletop. The slot for placing the steam deck into is suitably large - much larger than the Steam Deck Dock, and this would allow for Steam Decks with protective cases to be docked with ease - which I believe is one of the complaints surrounding the official dock.

As you can see from the above diagram, the Funalot hub has HDMI out, a USB-C port for charging your Steam Deck, as well as three USB 3.0 ports which will come in handy if you wish to play your games on mouse and keyboard. Personally I prefer playing on a controller, however I do like having this option available to me if, for example, I wanted to run my Steam Deck in desktop mode. On the side of the hub there is a gigabit Ethernet port which will be extremely useful for those without stable internet. Fortunately for me, my dock is situated in the same room as my router, so I have not had the need to make use of this yet.

This item truly is plug & play - it was so easy to set up and the signal fed through to my TV instantly - nothing needed to be changed in settings. A welcome improvement over the official dock, as I am always having to alter the brightness of my TV as, for some reason, the official dock makes my TV settings seem overly bright. I am also very happy to reveal that I haven’t had any issues with connectivity with this dock. Many have complained that the official docks need to be power cycled each time in order for the video signal to submit to the TV.

Next, let’s talk about price - as £45.99 in the UK, this is much less than the £79.99 official Steam Deck dock from Valve. Sure, there is no in box charger included with this hub, however I do feel that the postage time compensates for this. It took approximately two weeks for my official Steam Deck Dock to arrive from Valve - and as we all know, Valve have been known to use less than reliable couriers. The Funalot/Joystown dock arrived after ONE day - thanks to them being available on Amazon (Please note - this would probably be two days in the USA - One day shipping is a UK thing).

In Summary - This dock is a beautifully crafted piece of kit - it simply just works. In principle, while playing my deck on the TV I cannot tell the difference between this dock and the official one! In hindsight - given the choice between this dock or the official one now - I would choose this dock.

Pros:

• Great price

• Easy to set up

• It just WORKS

• Durable and great build quality

• Allows for a protected Steam Deck (in a case) to be docked

Cons:

• No charger included 

Splatoon 3: A Super Fresh Spin on a Splat-Tastic Series! (Review)

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Released: 9th September 2022

Developer: Nintendo

System: Nintendo Switch

Price: $59.99 USD / £49.99 GBP

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Splatoon 3 splatted its way onto Nintendo Switch on September 9th 2022. Many gamers wondered if there was a need for another mainline Splatoon game on Nintendo Switch, after Splatoon 2 had released in July 2017 and was still very much a popular game. Luckily, Nintendo offered its fan base a chance to test out the new features of Splatoon 3 during the Splatfest World Premiere which took place on Saturday 27th August, featuring the all new Tri-Color Turf War. This was a big deviation from the norm, whereby three teams would battle it out to ink the most turf. 

I took part in the August Splatfest World Premiere with some friends and I have to say, the new features of Splatoon 3 convinced me to pre-order the full game. Before having tested out the games’ features via the Splatfest, I was against buying the game for many reasons. The number one reason being that there were still only two maps being featured at any one time for Turf War. I will run through the features which impressed me later in this review.

Naturally, Splatoon 3 came priced at the full $59.99 or £49.99 for those based in the UK. For those in the UK who have a Nintendo Switch Online Membership, there is still the option to purchase the game vouchers, priced at 2 Vouchers for £84 - so this is how I bought the game and saved myself some money. If you wanted to grab the game at the cheapest possible price then I would recommend buying the physical edition as some retailers have been known to sell copies for less than RRP.

Let’s jump right into the main event - Turf Wars! Undoubtedly, this will be the feature of the game that most people head straight for. I can happily say that the lobby and matchmaking system have been fine-tuned and streamlined in Splatoon 3. Unlike its predecessors, where you are stuck on a waiting screen to enter a match, you can now freely run around the lobby, inking the area and practicing your moves on the moving blow up squids while you wait to be slotted into a match. It’s no Squid Jump (think back to Splatoon 1) but it’s a major improvement on the boring lobbies of Splatoon 2. Joining friends is much easier now, as you can simply ‘drop-in’ on your friends while they are in a match and wait to join the following match. I’ve found so far that more often than not, I am grouped onto the same team as my friends, which is a very welcome change. 

Splatoon 3 uses a mixture of older maps from previous games as well as some new maps - as far as I know, there will be free content updates in the future which will add more content with regard to weapons and maps. In the new Turf War, you start the match/respawn from up in the air while standing on what seems to be a coffee machine… very random but an interesting change! Nintendo has also changed the way disconnects occur. If someone drops out of the match, it instantly ends and the match does not count towards players scores. Although this does fix the issue from previous games where a team may be down to two players due to disconnects and being slaughtered by the opposing team, it does create the issue that matches instantly ending could become tiresome and be an overall detriment to gameplay. 

As mentioned previously, only two maps are available at any one time and the maps rotate every two hours like in the previous games. One thing I was absolutely delighted to discover in Splatoon 3 is that when the maps change, or when you start the game, you are forwarded to the newscast of the new stages. In previous games this newscast was unskippable, long and extremely frustrating as it disrupted gameplay. Nintendo must have taken this criticism to heart because in Splatoon 3, you can click the left joystick to switch to ‘Listen Mode’ for the newscast, effectively moving it to the top left corner of the screen. I can’t even describe how wonderful this change is - it has changed the game immeasurably, being able to effectively skip having to watch the newscast every time you open the game, or every time the maps change.

There are other game modes available to play such as Anarchy battle which unlocks at level 10, unless you have Splatoon 2 save data, and then it unlocks early. Personally, I do not play league battles or any other modes other than Turf Wars. I’ve found that they make me quite ragey, and therefore I will not be including them in this review.

Nintendo have also added a new Table top Turf War mode that you can play in the Square. It’s very easy to learn, and it uses playing cards that you can find from playing the single player campaign. You are given a starter deck to begin with and instructed on how to play the game. Each card has a certain amount of colored squares on it in different shapes - this is your ink. The objective being to ink as many squares on the grid as you can. All of your ink must touch your own color ink, you cannot ink over your opponent's squares. There are 12 turns, and you also have the option to pass if you have no available cards that would fit into your inked area. It’s sort of hard to describe, but this game mode is actually a lot of fun, I can definitely see myself spending countless hours playing the table-top Turf War mode. You can play against the computer ‘Jellyfish’ or against opponents in the square. 

The single player campaign so far has been impressive (judging by what I have played of it so far at the time of writing this review). To me, it feels like a mix of previous Splatoon single player campaigns with some elements of the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion DLC tied in together with it. It’s a welcome change and I have been enjoying what I have played so far. A nice added bonus is you can find display items, as well as trading cards and stickers to display in your locker in the locker room in the lobby. 

I won’t go into describing the weapons and clothing options in the game, as it would take forever - but the new abilities such as run speed up, ink saver and faster respawn are very useful, and I have enjoyed taking advantage of these abilities to make my Turf Wars a little easier to handle. I believe that all of the previous weapons are available from Sheldon, however, as a creature of habit I just tend to stick with my good ol’ Aerospray! 

Nintendo very recently announced the next Splatfest due to take place between September 23rd - 25th with the following theme - What would you bring to a desert island? Gear, Grub or Fun? I look forward to taking part in the first post-release splatfest! Which team will you choose? Let me know in the comments!

Pros:

Pros:

• Streamlined Matchmaking & Lobby

• Easier to Join with Friends

• Skippable Newscast/Splatcast

• Tabletop Turf War is a welcome addition

• Salmon Run now available 24/7

Cons:

• Still only 2 maps available at any one time

• Sheldon still takes forever to run through the weapons, with no skip button

• I have experienced quite a few ‘communication errors’ so far

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack Review

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Release Date: August 23rd 2022

Developer: Warm Kitten

Platforms: PC (Steam) 

Price: $19.99

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Having been a huge fan of point and click adventure games, I was more than excited to try out Warm Kitten’s Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack. A whistle stop tour of the storyline would be Justin Wack has just broken up with his girlfriend Julia and, following an accident with some metal and a microwave, ends up stuck in the past. Determined to get back to his own time, Justin must figure out a series of puzzles and travel across different time periods to be reunited with his love. 

The gameplay is split across three different time periods: the past, the present and the future. You would assume that this might be difficult to grasp, however, the gameplay does a great job of keeping things simple. Justin - the main protagonist, eventually gains the ability to travel between the past and the future, which is ruled by robots. In the present, we take control of a jolly caveman named Kloot, who has escaped from the past and into the present. Later on in the game, we also take control of different characters, so the gameplay never gets old. 

The storytelling is very well done in the game, and all of the characters are nicely developed as the story progresses. When I first met Justin Wack I can’t say I particularly liked the guy - honestly, who gives their significant other an ultimatum of ‘It’s me or the cat’ and wouldn’t expect to be broken up with? However, as the story progresses I found myself liking Justin’s character more and more and by the end of the story I was rooting for Justin and Julia to get back together. 

The humour in this game is top-notch. It had me laughing out loud on several occasions. One of my favourites was all of the dinosaurs living vegan lifestyles (at least, until nightfall.) All of the characters are so well written and the voice acting is on point. There are many easter eggs scattered throughout the game, paying homage to extremely popular 2D point and click adventures such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle and this was really nice to see, you feel as though you are part of the inside joke. 

The gameplay centres around using items which you find across the different time periods in certain combinations in order to make progress. This is not unlike other point and click games however, if I had to make one complaint about the game it would be that only six inventory items can be viewed at the top right of the screen and this can make it a bit tedious and difficult to combine items. Some of the item combinations and ideas were very clever, and some were rather cryptic. However, the game does offer a hint-system in the game menu should you get stuck. I didn’t make use of this system, however, but it is a welcome addition in my opinion. The game is split into three acts, and overall it took me 22 hours to complete, which is a very decent amount of playtime and worth the cost of the game. The game has a total of 44 trophies and even on my play through I only unlocked 41, so there are still things that I missed!

In summary, this is an absolute gem of a game and if 2D point and click adventures are your kind of thing, you definitely must play this game. The humour, characters, art style and storytelling are top-notch and worth every penny. 

Pros:

• Great Storytelling

• Brilliant Voice-Acting

• Decent playtime length

• Easy to understand/control

• Hilariously funny

• Hints system

Cons

• Only 6 inventory items can be viewed at any one time

Pokemon Centre London pop-up Store Take Two: A Much Improved Experience

The Pokémon World Championships took place between August 18th-21st at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London. Featuring the Pokémon Card Game and also Pokémon Sword and Shield, the event was jam packed with fans, spectators and competitors alike. In addition to the championship events, there was also a Pokémon Centre pop up store not unlike the previous store which was situated as Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, London back in 2019.

I was fortunate to be able to snag a reservation to visit the Pokémon Centre pop up store on Sunday, August 21st and I can confirm that the whole experience was vastly improved upon. You may remember reading about the chaos surrounding the 2019 Pokémon Centre pop up store, with queues lasting upwards of twelve hours just to be able to enter the store. Thankfully, the Pokémon Company have learned from this and a reservation system was created alongside a virtual queuing system for those who did not have reservations to visit the store.

I arrived at the Pokémon Centre pop up store a little before my reservation time, but was allowed to enter the store with no problems. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a line! As it was the final day of the event, there wasn’t much exclusive London merchandise left apart from badge sets, backpacks and umbrellas. The store was very impressive with a lot of merchandise up for grabs. Small Pokémon plushies were priced between £9.99 to £14.99 and bigger ones were around £18.00. There were a few gigantic Pokémon plushies, of which we saw an Arcanine, which cost £299.99 - as you can imagine there weren’t many of these left for sale by the time I got to the store.

Other than exclusive London merchandise and plushies, the store also hosted a range of trading card sets, the trading card game set and also quite a few different t-shirt designs however, these were priced at £39.99 which I thought was a bit expensive for a t-shirt. One of my favourite items I saw while waling around the store were 3 exclusive boards, what I can only describe as skateboards without wheels. There were 3 different designs and they were beautiful. Unfortunately they were priced at £199.99 otherwise I definitely would have bought the Galarian Ponyta one for my niece.

After walking around the store twice and ultimately deciding to buy a Sir Fetch’d and a Magikarp plush, we decided to take a walk around the venue to see what else was on offer. Unfortunately, all the spectator passes had sold out, so we weren’t able to watch any gameplay. The main concourse of ExCel London is huge though and quite nice to walk along. There was a dedicated trade area where many fans were congregated to trade their Pokémon. There was also a Nintendo Switch demo area where you could play some Pokémon Legends: Arceus should you feel inclined to do so. 

An hour or so later, we decided to leave the event and make our way over to the Emirates Airline Cable Cars - which in partnership with the Pokémon event were decorated accordingly! The cable cars take you from Royal Victoria Docks over to North Greenwich Peninsula (Where the O2 Arena is located). Both Cable Car stations had been decorated accordingly - a huge poster captioned with ‘Enjoy your flight’ could be seen just before boarding your cable car.

Every single cable car was decorated with different types of Pokemon! There were separate cars for Rock Type, Grass Type, Fairy Type, Normal Type, Ice Type… You name it, they had it. We boarded the Ghost Type cable car and began our ascent. The views were pretty interesting from the cable car itself - showing the O2 arena and Canary Wharf area of London. The trip was rather short - I don’t think it could have been more than 5 minutes in total. Regardless of this though, it was a really fun activity to try out and the Pokemon themes at both North Greenwich and Royal Victoria Docks was amazing.

It was very refreshing to see that The Pokémon Company have really took on the criticisms voiced from the previous Pokémon Pop-up store and improved the experience ten-fold. The fact that we barely had to wait in line was so wonderful, in-fact we waited in line for the Emirates Airline longer than we waited in line at the pop-up store! If one of these Pop-up stores ends up coming to a location near you, I highly recommend you pay them a visit.

Two Point Campus Review

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Release Date: August 9th 2022
Developer: Two Point Studios
Platforms: Microsoft Windows (Reviewed), Linux, Mac OS, XBox One/Series X & S, Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch
Price: $39.99

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After the success of Two Point Hospital (2018) I was really excited to play its successor, Two Point Campus. The original Two Point Hospital was a love-letter to Bull Frog's Theme Hospital back in the 90s - however, it was never a game I played that much as a child. I was, however a huge fan of Theme Park. The idea of building my own University Campuses sounded like a lot of fun, so I decided to give this game a go.

The game retails at $39.99 on every system, which I find to be a little expensive. However, if you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, you can play the game for free on PC or Xbox systems as it is included in the game pass catalogue. Luckily I was already a game pass subscriber, so this was a no-brainer for me, I was even allowed to pre-install the game, so I could play straight away on release day.

I don't normally play simulation games such as these due to the fact that they can sometimes overwhelm me with endless menus and options. However, Two Point Campus does a good job at guiding you through the different options and menus, teaching you at a nice pace how to build your campus, hire staff, and keep your students happy. I found the controls a bit confusing and difficult to get used to, as this was the first time I had played a simulation game on mouse and keyboard (I had previously played some Two Point Hospital on Nintendo Switch). At the time of writing this review, I still do get caught out on panning the camera around in certain directions!

Much like its predecessor, Two Point Campus works in much the same way. There are a certain number of campuses you can unlock across a vast overworld map - each campus slightly more grand and fancy than the previous. On each level you start off with a slightly higher income for building the campus, this comes in handy later on in the game when you have gotten the hang of how the campuses work - meaning you need to have a good amount of entertainment for the students, multiple lecture theaters, dormitories, a student's union, staff room, libraries etc. One addition I enjoyed in this game was being able to schedule events in the different rooms. For example, you can schedule movie nights in the campus lecture theaters. or organise parties at the students union which really help with increasing student happiness (not sure why it costs $4000 to put a movie night on, though!)

There are many items for sale in the inventory for making your campus bright and fun. You can unlock these items using an in-game currency called 'Kudosh' which is earned by completing objectives, completing career goals, and getting through the academic year. It's a fun system, and I can definitely see myself losing hours of my life to this game trying to unlock fun posters and rugs for my students' dorm rooms and beautiful water features for the campus grounds.

As you work your way through the levels you will begin to unlock more courses to teach your students, you also unlock the ability to build research and training labs so that you can improve your classrooms and train your staff.  Each level has three stars which you can work towards gaining for your campus. It is quite simple to unlock the next level, but you can choose to continue playing your current campus and level it up to being a 3 star campus.

The sound design and music is very well implemented. I always find games like this to be quite relaxing once I've got the hang of how they work. As in Two Point Hospital, Campus also has tannoy announcements which can be quite entertaining to listen to whilst you are building classrooms and dorms, my personal favourite so far being 'Announcement: “Education will brighten your future but cloud you with debt”. There are also radio talk shows and interviews that are broadcast throughout the academic year which also make for an entertaining listen.

Although I have enjoyed what I have played of the game so far, I can't help but notice just how similar to Two Point Hospital the game is. There are some changes however sometimes it does feel like I am playing a re-skinned Two Point Hospital. The game can get a little repetitive as you progress, even with the additions of new courses that present themselves at each new levels.

PROS:

• Pretty graphics, it looked and ran beautifully on my 3070ti graphics card

• It is relaxing when you get a hang of what you're meant to be doing

• The announcements and talk shows are funny

CONS:

• It can get repetitive

• Too similar to Two Point Hospital

Tips and Tricks for Incorporating Gaming into your Wedding Day

It's going to be one of the happiest days of your life, so all the things that make you happy should be incorporated into your day. Family, friends, colour schemes and gaming. Yep, you read that correctly - Gaming. Everyone who knows me and my partner knows that we are avid gamers, we even met on Twitch. For this reason, we wanted gaming to have a big presence on our wedding day because it is a big part of who we are and a big aspect of our relationship.

For our wedding ceremony itself, we incorporated gaming in a very subtle way. We chose three pieces of music to play as our processional & recessional music and also whilst signing the marriage register. If you're curious, we chose 'Romance in the Air' from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for processional, 'For River' from To The Moon for signing the register and 'Fossil Falls' from Super Mario Odyssey for recessional.

We did not have a traditional wedding reception and instead opted for a party with all of our family and friends, this is where we really let our love for gaming shine.

Traditionally at weddings the bride and groom have a post box available for guests to post their wedding cards. We did the same but with a twist; Ours was a question block from Super Mario!

I made this post box by hand with friends a few days before the wedding, it consisted of buying a cardboard cube and spray-painting it yellow. This took a few coats of spray paint to make sure it was a solid yellow.

Once the paint had dried, I took 4x Mario question marks that I'd printed and cut them out and stuck them to 4 sides of the box.

Next, to treat our guests we invested in a piñata in the shape of a pokeball, which we stuffed full of sweets, stickers and miniature Pokémon figurines. This went down a storm as people took turns hitting the piñata while the Pokémon theme song was blasted out of the speakers. This was such a big hit and I would recommend this 100%, nobody is too old for a piñata! Some other ideas I had for the piñata before deciding on the pokeball were: Mario Star, Mario Question Block, Mario 1Up Mushroom, the ideas are endless, and if you search Etsy you will likely find that someone has created these for purchase!

Finally, one of the most important parts of the wedding party - the wedding cake. There are endless ideas you can find online for gaming wedding cakes. While researching I found some very clever Portal wedding cakes as well as ones that were formal on one side, and gaming themed on the other side.

The design we ended up choosing consisted of a 1 tier white wedding cake at the top of a cupcake tower. As you can see from the photo, we went with a Super Mario theme. The top tier featured the Mario and Peach wedding amiibo's from the Super Mario Odyssey set, which were generously gifted to us by a friend.

The lower tiers hosted an assortment of red and green Mario mushrooms, with each cupcake case decorated with the eyes. It looked absolutely stunning and, of course, tasted delicious - we were very fortunate to have close family friends work on our wedding cake, so we were able to have it exactly as we pictured it. If you want to top it off even more perfectly, you can cut your wedding cake with the Master Sword like we did!

So these are just a few pointers that you may consider for incorporating gaming into your own wedding day. Have any of you had a gaming themed wedding? Let me know what you chose in the comments!

Five Hopes for Breath of the Wild 2

I am currently replaying Breath of the Wild in preparation for the much awaited sequel, coming to Nintendo Switch in 2023. Although Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece in its own way, I can’t help thinking about things that I hope will be improved and/or changed in Breath of the Wild 2, so here is my list of five hopes that I have for Breath of the Wild 2.

5 - Easier 100% completion

I always enjoy playing Zelda games to 100% completion with my partner - who is a completionist through-and-through. We always ensure that we 100% complete every game we play if possible.

So, with this in mind - I’d really love for Breath of the Wild 2 to have a much easier way to 100% complete the game. Don’t get me wrong, the Korok seeds were a nice addition to Breath of the Wild, but having to find 900 of them to 100% complete the game was just overkill. 

4 - More story focused

It’s clear that Nintendo was chasing the open world exploration dream with Breath of the Wild, and honestly, it was refreshing to play a different kind of Zelda game.

Although I believe that due to the huge emphasis on exploration in Breath of the Wild, that the story greatly suffered to accommodate this.

I won’t spoil the ending here in case readers have not yet completed the game - but I was left underwhelmed by the end of Breath of the Wild and I hope that the storytelling aspect and the ending of Breath of the Wild 2 are improved.

3 - More traditional-style dungeons

In my opinion, one of the main things people love about Zelda games are the dungeons; they are an iconic part of the Zelda franchise. Breath of the Wild mixed it up a little, with the Divine Beasts being a replacement for traditional-style dungeons. They were an awesome addition, and I especially enjoyed being able to manipulate the way the beasts moved in order to solve puzzles and make progress throughout the dungeons.

My main gripe with the Divine Beasts was that there weren't enough of them. Breath of the Wild is such a huge game, set in the vastly enormous Hyrule - it seemed like there should have been more than four Divine Beasts. In my opinion, it should have been six Divine Beasts minimum. My hope for the sequel is that Nintendo incorporates more main dungeons.

2 - Climbing gear that allows you to climb during rain

Another pet peeve - it seems Breath of the Wild has brought the worst out of me! Climbing mechanics - great! Link can climb anything that isn’t a shrine/dungeon wall - awesome… Except for when it rains. 

Rainy weather turned out to be the biggest buzzkill of Breath of the Wild for me, the weather forecast was foreboding every time I saw the little rain symbol slowly approaching. This is because, every time it rained, I was unable to climb - it was infuriating. I honestly believe that the climbing gear set acquired in the game should have given Link the ability to climb while it is raining. Perhaps it could only activate when Link is wearing all three items in the set, as other outfits give a bonus when wearing the full set. Nevertheless, this is definitely something which I hope is addressed in the sequel. 

1 - Increased weapon durability

This is one of the biggest pet peeves I have about the original game. I agree that weapon durability is an interesting mechanic added to the Zelda series, however I believe that the threshold for weapon durability should be increased in the sequel.

This rings true even mores so for higher level weapons. Nothing made me more angry than using the majority of my weapons inventory killing lynels. 

So there you have it, my top 5 list of hopes I have for Breath of the Wild 2. What are your hopes for the eagerly awaited sequel? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on Mario Kart 8 DLC Wave 2

Nintendo dropped the Mario Kart 8 DLC Wave 2 on Thursday, August 4th 2022. This was a welcome addition to the game and personally, a nice surprise for me as I didn’t find out about wave 2 until release day. Releasing every few months up to and including 2023, the Mario Kart 8 DLC keeps things fresh by giving gamers 8 additional tracks to race on.

This time around, Nintendo has offered up the following tracks across two cups:

Turnip Cup

• New York Minute (Mario Kart Tour)

• Mario Circuit 3 (Super Mario Kart)

• Kalimari Desert (Nintendo 64)

• Waluigi Pinball (Nintendo DS)

Propeller Cup

• Sydney Sprint (Mario Kart Tour)

• Snow Land (Mario Kart Super Circuit)

• Mushroom Gorge (Mario Kart Wii)

• Sky-High Sundae (Mario Kart Tour - coming soon)

Now, if you’re like me and haven’t played much of Mario Kart Tour, then the Tour tracks are basically like brand new tracks and very fun to experience for the first time on Switch. They look gorgeous and the way that each lap changes slightly from the previous ones is a nice change from older Mario Kart tracks.

The fact that Nintendo is remastering all of these old tracks from previous Mario Kart game is a stroke of genius, as it will introduce players to older tracks which they never got to experience if they did not own older systems. For me, personally i didn’t own a SNES or a Gameboy Advance, so some of these remasters are my first ever time experiencing the tracks.

The two tracks that stand out the most for me and are my personal favourites would have to be Kalimari Desert (Nintendo 64) and Waluigi Pinball (Nintendo DS). Having grown up with the Nintendo 64 as our family console - Kalimari Desert holds a lot of nostalgia for me. The remaster is beautiful and the changes Nintendo made in lap 2 were amazing! Waluigi Pinball held a lot of fun memories for me from when I used to play Mario Kart DS with friends.

The Mario Kart 8 Expansion Pass DLC is available to purchase from the Nintendo eshop for $24.99. Alternatively, it is included in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack for subscribers at no extra cost.