Be Excellent To Each Other

<20.84> Wreckfest Season Pass 1 and Season Pass 2 for PC from Steam.

<29.99> 235.... hnnnnngh...... 'ACORNS' in Trials Rising to buy Track Packs with. To buy all four track packs costs 140 acorns, the closest ACORN BUNDLES yield 120 acorns (£16.99) or 235 acorns (£29.99), so I've had to buy 235 acorns even though I have nothing else I want to spend the leftover on. There is no option to buy the track packs with, y'know, actual fucking money.

It's a magnificent game though, I've had hours and hours of fun with it already, and I appreciate it probably wouldn't have even been made if they didn't agree to put some predatory monetisation shite in there.

Also, made by 'UBISOFT STUDIO KYIV' - so there's that too.

Reminiscent of buying stuff on Xbox live in the 360 era. Irksome experience.

Yes I remember that, 400/600/800 points and whatnot, which equated to seemingly random amounts of real life money and never the amount you actually wanted to buy a game with.

I'll forgive Trials Rising for it, I honestly get the feeling they were forced to put shit like loot boxes in there. The game has them in the form of 'LOOT CRATES' and they're dreadful, serving up endless waves of digital cosmetic tat you'd never even remotely spend real money on. You get a crate every time you level up, I'm Level 51 now so I've opened 50 of them, and I haven't seen a single desirable item in any of them. It feels like a bean counter told the developers 'PUT LOOT CRATES IN THERE, LOOT CRATES MAKE MONEY' and the devs were like, 'Fuck you, bean counter, have your loot crates but we're going to put nothing but shit in them'.

Yeah, I have one of the more recent trials games on PS4, and the game is fun, but the system of micro transactions that swaddles it is bewildering to me. But I have the same experience with virtually every modern game these days (the incessant daily challenges, timed specials etc. Completely alienating).

<49.99> Spider-Man Remastered (Steam)
<13.99> Abriss (Steam)

My PC is almost exactly the Recommended Specs for Spider-Man. Let's see how rubbish it runs!

<52.14> Six month sub to World Of Warcraft, to play through Wrath Classic with Mrs Hearthly and Hearthly Jnr.

<8.49> Trials Fusion Awesome Max Edition for PC from the Epic Store in the sale.

Haha, what does that 8.49 get you?

It's the complete version of the game, so you get all the track packs, DLCs and extras in a single package.

I had to Google that to find out though, so that I knew I was buying the right thing, such is the nature of these things.

It worked properly, when I loaded it up for the first time I got about five million splash screens saying 'YOU'VE UNLOCKED THIS THING, CONGRATULATIONS'.

The same version of the game on Steam was £34, so it pays to have a look around.

Primal Rage on the 3DO <23.95>

Very zeitgeisty!

<5.19> Crypt of the Necrodancer: Synchrony DLC (Steam)

It should be more, IMO, to put off the scalpers.

<25.49> LEGO® STAR WARS™: THE SKYWALKER SAGA DELUXE EDITION for PC from Green Man Gaming to activate on Steam

If you don't already have them and want to add yet more Lego Star Wars, see https://www.humblebundle.com/games/star ... ion-bundle

<18.89> Disco Elysium + Control Ultimate Edition (Steam)

<19.49> Return to Monkey Island (Steam)

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space - <15.49>
Return to Monkey Island - <19.86> (used some gold points for this)

<16.99> Trials Evolution Gold Edition for PC from Steam.

<24.99> METAL HELLSLINGER for PC from Steam. They actually did a demo for it, I downloaded the demo, it's a bit like DOOM 2016 but as a rhythm game where the idea is killing demons on the beat. The demo sold me on it so I bought it.

<3.00> Need For Speed Heat which for some reason is on sale on Steam for a mere £3.

<7.79> Descenders for PC from Humble.

<3.99> Quake II for PC from Steam so I can play the full version of the RTX (fully ray traced) game.

<70> CoD MW2 (PC)

<10.43> Hell Is Others (Steam)
<3.19> Vampire Survivors (Steam)

<17:49> Grid Legends Deluxe Edition for PC from Steam. I have been keeping an eye on this one as its normal price is £69.99.

<-10.43> Hell is Others (refunded, takes over 10 minutes just to load to the main menu…)

<54.99> World of Warcraft Dragonflight Expansion HEROIC EDITION which comes with EXTRA DIGITAL TAT.

Nintendo family sub <35>

<59.99> God Of War Ragnarok for PS4 Pro from the Sony Digital Store.

GRRRRRRRRR. RAGE! SMASH! And yet....... tenderness and love.

I absolutely fucking loved God Of War 2018 and indeed it was basically the defining reason for me buying a PS4 Pro so I'll go with more of the same done really well again.

Thimbleweed Park <14.99>

12 months ps plus extra <56>

<3.49> Deadly Rooms of Death: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder (Steam)
<4.49> Batman: Arkham Knight Premium Edition (Steam)
<4.22> Loop Hero (Steam)
<11.99> Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (Top Gun Maverick Edition) (Steam)

//edit:
<1.07> Hitman: Contracts (Steam)
<17.49> Hitman 3: Standard Edition (Steam)

//further edit:
<5.13> Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (+ expansion packs) (Steam)

<20.99> HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED, GOTY Edition for PC from the Steam Super Duper Mega Black Friday Big Savings Roll Up Roll Up Sale.

So apparently, I've not put anything in here, nor did I even vote on his much I was going to spend, probably because I didn't think it would be very much this year.
Let's see how that worked out...
<41.85> £50 psn credit
<0>Cyberpunk 2077 (from credit)
<36.99>Super Mario 3d World
<0> Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
<4>Steam Deck Deposit
<12.79> 12 Month Switch sub
<2.14> Portal and Portal 2 (Steam)
<74.93> £90 psn credit
<0> 12 Month PS plus extra sub
<39.98> 16 gig ram
<3.68> Monkey Island collection (Steam)
<19.49>Return to Monkey Island (Steam)
<565> Steam Deck
<19> Micro SD card for Steam Deck
<2.39> Sleeping Dogs (Steam)
<0.71>Half-Life (Steam)
<0.85>Half-Life 2 (Steam)
<0.66>Half-Life 2 Episode 1 (Steam)
<0.57>Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (Steam)
<1.88>X-Wing Special Edition (Steam)
<1.88>Tie Fighter Special Edition (Steam)
<1.88>X-Wing vs Tie Fighter (Steam)
<1.88>X-Wing Alliance (Steam)
<2.74>Day of the Tentacle Remastered (Steam)
<2.74>Full Throttle Remastered (Steam)

And to counteract all that, I've sold roughly <-519.62> worth of stuff on eBay.

<5.24> STAR WARS Jedi Fallen Order in EA Sale from Origin

<29.74> Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition (Steam)

<4.49> Sniper Elite 4 Season Pass on sale from Steam

<55.00> God of War Ragnarok (PS5)
<29.99> FiFa 23 (PS4)

<5.24> Sniper Elite 3 + Season Pass for PC from Steam, it was on my WISHLIST and they sent me an email to say it's on sale.

(I've put 136 hours into SE4 and SE5 between them.)

<3.69> Vampire Survivors + DLC bundle for PC from Steam.

Looks like my guess was spot on.

2023 thread is now up here : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11749

I fucked it this year but then I did buy a new PC when I wasn't really expecting to, so that'll do it. Mind you, even if you remove that from the equation I was still about £600 under, but I did buy quite a lot of games this year because of said new PC, as well as a last hurrah or two for the PS4 Pro (God Of War Ragnarok when brand new at full price for example.)

I shall try and do better this year.