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7. And does that mean we can re-open Scottish independence? Can the SNP just keep asking until they get a yes? Is that fair? (But why not, if it's done for Brexit?).

It's worth noting that a large part of the case for Scotland remaining in the UK was built on retaining EU membership. Circumstances have clearly changed now.

Yeah, I wouldn't see another Brexit or Indy referendum to be in any way a compromise of democracy. As mentioned, to just redo them willy nilly wouldn't make any sense but when a situation has changed so drastically that the question has completely changed I think it's the only thing that makes sense.

Brexit was massively mis-advertised so a second vote now that people are hopefully better informed makes more sense than ploughing on with it regardless, and Scotland being removed from the EU against our will despite one of the main Better Together campaign points being that we'd be safeguarding our place in it should really necessitate another indy vote.

If the chips fall the same way again then so be it, but at least they'd have gone back to the people and let them have their say in light of new information, which seems the most democratic thing you could do in the situation.

Yeah it's a really stark contrast to compare the original RE2 and the remake. The very first shot of a cheeseburger is about the pinnacle of technology as far as I'm concerned. Beautiful!

Here's hoping they make a mercenaries subgame. I played so much of that on RE3 and RE4.

Capcom have apparently said that if this does well and people want it, they'll remake RE3 next. That would make me really happy as now that 2 is out 3 is the only mainline numbered Resi game that isn't available on current consoles. It feels really good to have them all sitting in my Xbox library so now itching to fill that RE3 shaped gap! Plus I remember it very fondly and I'm not sure I even tried the mercs mode.

People who vote, on the other hand, believe they do have the right to force people to live how they see fit. They believe it's up to politicians to decide whether they can have insulin or not.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter what any of us believe should be the case, what matters is the reality of the situation. You may not think it's fair that Brexit will lead to medicine shortages, but thinking that won't magically stop it from happening.

The system that you want and that you see as fair doesn't exist, so by voting we're using the system we do have in the hopes of achieving the best result. You've made a choice not to engage with the system but that doesn't make you or anyone else immune to its outcomes.

Enjoying the RE2 Remake. Bloody zombies get my pulse racing never mind that bugger in the suit who just wont die. Think I'm most of the way through Leon A though as got to the NEST (which I don't think it was called that originally so must be from the movie).

Absolutely. It might be the scariest game I've ever played! That relentless Dolph Lundgren lookalike you mention is terrifying, most places are so goddamn dark almost to Doom 3 levels sometimes, the aiming is tricky leading to accidents losing ammo and health which are already in limited supply, and Leon seems pretty fragile. You feel very vulnerable playing it, and it's awesome. The scariness factor gets multiplied by how real it looks too, graphics really are getting there aren't they (and all running at 60 fps most of the time on the X)?

Just finished Leon's first scenario, I'm going to jump into Claire's now!

It's amazing, fills me with nostalgia but feels absolutely bang up to date too. An amazing remake (so far, I'm about 5hrs into Leon's campaign)!

I'm playing on the X and pretty sure it is hitting 60fps, but the in-game HDR calibration is a bit wonky so if you follow the instructions you wind up with a really brightened washed out image, so you totally lose that great atmospheric darkness in the flashlight sections. Looked online and found this video which seems to have sorted me out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSyxjnwLOA&t=1039s

It's a long video, but the short version is if you're playing on a Pro or an X then you should follow the instructions on the first screen (the adjust the slider until the square is barely visible one) and then on the next screen (adjust slider until red and blue bars are the same size) you supposedly have to ignore the bars entirely and just set the slider to the 3rd or 4th notch from the left to get the correct level.

I've done that now and it's looking way better, I couldn't figure out why every video I looked at was drenched in atmospheric darkness and I was running around well-lit rooms all the time! A shame the setup is a bit wonky, but it's not the first game to do a confusing job of that (or to just fake the HDR entirely).

The medicine side of things is terrifying, my wife is a hospital pharmacist and from what I understand Brexit is going to be utterly catastrophic. I'd thought it would be a case of stockpiling medicines but apparently that wouldn't work because of the short shelf-life of a lot of treatments.

When something like that is looming with no plan in place to handle it, due to a situation we're bringing on ourselves and that could just be cancelled (it was after all just an advisory referendum which clearly stated there was no obligation to actually leave whatever the result), the attitude of 'just get on with it already' is maddeningly self-destructive.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I had hoped that after using the referendum to gauge the public feeling (as was its sole purpose seemingly) the government would then work to find the best solution, and if the best solution is to remain then that should be the outcome. Any public outcry about the supposed death of democracy that a reversal would signal would die down a lot quicker than the backlash to driving the whole country off a cliff on the say-so of some purposefully (and as we now know illegally) misinformed voters.

The more I was playing the Switch handheld the more my hands were cramping up and getting sore, which I think it probably a side effect of having stupid big hands. Got one of these and it's fantastic, now feels like holding an Xbox controller with a screen on it, which is the best case scenario for me - https://satisfye.com/products/switch-grip-pro

I did get struck with customs tax on it however, which is always the gamble you take with these things I guess.

Got the elite controller for docked sessions too and it's brilliant, very comfortable. All of this because I desperately wanted to play the new No More Heroes, worth it though!

[Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives]

I've seen some Friday The 13th movies but not all, and other than the first one and Jason X I couldn't remember which ones I had seen. Being a horror buff that felt really wrong, so obviously the only way to remedy that is to watch them all in order.

It's been a really rough road because damn those films are rough, and almost all (so far) exactly the same so there's no wonder they all blended into mush for me. Thankfully it finally became worth it with Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, because it was heaps of fun. There's a real tonal shift to amusingly self aware trash that made it really enjoyable, hopefully that's the way the series will continue (I've seen the one in space so I at least know it'll get more and more ridiculous).

Rewatched Resident Evil too, just because playing the fantastic new remake of Resi 2 reminded me I have a real soft spot for those Milla movies and a blu-ray set I never cracked open. I know they're objectively mince, but I really enjoy them anyway so I guess they qualify as guilty pleasures (except I feel no guilt)!

Had never bothered to watch Kong: Skull Island, I think because it had been lumped into the same universe/franchise as the Godzilla reboot and I really didn't enjoy that film. Was buying some 4k blu-rays on a 2-for-£30 deal though and had to make up the numbers so decided to give it a try. Loved it, so much damn fun and exciting spectacle and just a great thrill-ride. Looked incredible in 4K too, the extra detail and the super vibrant colours made it pop so good, plus it has probably the best Atmos soundtrack I've heard at home, really all encompassing particularly when Kong belts out a big grumpy roar.

Really surprisingly thrilling and enjoyable, right on board for the next film in this monstery franchise now.

Distraint Deluxe Edition, (short but apparently rather good 2D horror game), currently free on GOG.com.

Looks interesting. Grabbed it, thanks for sharing!

[The Long Dark]

The Long Dark - I'd still have preferred to have played something with more realistic graphics, as this is going to date badly once some of this year's major post-apocalyptic open-world games hit the market.

Found this view interesting, as I've usually found the opposite! Generally games that aim for photo-realism have always been the ones that I find show their age as the ability to do that advances, while a more stylized art direction will still hold up years later for me. Just my opinion, and I haven't played The Long Dark yet, just found it an interesting take because mine is so different! Think I'll check this out, it sounds like it could suck me in for a while.

[Gerald's Game]

I think if I'd gone into Hold The Dark without seeing his previous films I'd probably have been way more impressed, I did find it absorbing but after the gutpunch feeling of Blue Ruin and Green Room it didn't really have the impact I expected. Decent enough though, loaded with atmosphere.

Finally watched Gerald's Game and loved it, but it's very intense and goes to some dark places. I haven't read the book and didn't know anything beyond the basic 'trapped on a bed' concept and was pretty blown away. It's a pretty common complaint that Stephen King's style rarely adapts well to film and there seem to only be small handful of directors/writers who have managed to capture it, and this felt very King (I really enjoyed Hush as well, so this director is definitely on my watch-list now). The one thing that I thought might really turn people off isn't even the dark story turns it takes, but the [spoiler]really quite intense degloving scene. It takes a lot of gore to shock me, but I was squirming and wincing like crazy at that point, it's horrible. Thankfully the whole film isn't a total gorefest but I can imagine some folk deciding at that point that they've had enough which would be a shame given how things turn out.[/spoiler]

Went straight into Bird Box from there, which suffered a bit from not being as good as Gerald's Game really. It has some neat ideas and I really liked some of the themes outside of the high concept horror conceit ([spoiler]I may have taken my own baggage into the movie and overthought it, but my wife and I have recently been talking about how we feel like we should want kids but we really, really don't have any interest in it, so the whole thing about feeling that cold detachment to parenting felt a bit timely and was interesting[/spoiler]), plus that Reznor/Ross score is excellent (they're so damn good at that blanket of music approach, ever-present but never showy or attention-grabbing, they service the films they work on to perfection I think).

Something about it just didn't hit hard enough for me though horror-wise though and it all fell a bit flat. I straight-up love the basic idea that [spoiler]there is something you can see which causes you to kill yourself immediately, that idea that it might be so indescribable and incomprehensible that it snaps your mind like that is pure Lovecraft (although it's only occurred to me now that with some people seeing it as dead relatives then perhaps what they're seeing is a glimpse of the afterlife which is so beautiful they have to join them? Hmmmm), but I think having the fact you've seen it manifest in that weird clouding of the eyes undermined that a bit and made it feel a bit hokey because it maybe comes across as less psychological that way and more of a physical ailment. Anyway, wasn't keen on that. A solid enough film, but no Gerald's Game.[/spoiler]

Oh, and as a palette cleanser we decided to pick a madcap comedy so watched Gringo, because the trailer suggested that's what we'd get. It wasn't really that at all (it took some pretty depressing turns in places) but was excellent and we really enjoyed it. Not a full-on zany comedy, more of a crime caper with some dark laughs. Very funny in places and there are some brilliant performances in it, so was just what we needed after all that relentless grim.

Looks like a great watch! Seeing that whole thing unravel on Twitter was fascinating, so getting a better look should be interesting.

[Gris]

Regardless. I very much looking forward to Oddworld: Soulstorm (remake of Abe's Exodus, similar to New n tasty, but much grimmer).

Looking forward to this too, always loved the first game but somehow never played any of the sequels. New n' Tasty was brilliant but didn't realize they were continuing with the remakes, should be good!

I just finished Gris on the Switch and absolutely loved it. It's a gorgeously illustrated and animated platform puzzler, gameplay-wise not entirely dissimilar to but with a much gentler atmosphere than games like Inside and Limbo (which I do love too). It feels great, looks incredible, sounds incredible (the music is fantastic), it's a bit of a masterpiece really. Short at about 3-4hrs, which means it didn't outstay its welcome and kept me fully absorbed throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtWnBHG6dis

Interesting, surprised they would do another and a bit of a shame the last reboot didn't pan out. Really wanted that to be great and to do great (if only to prove all the people getting upset about it wrong) but despite all the talent in it I didn't feel like it really worked. Too many comedy improv scenes that didn't find a decent gag, which is a problem I find with most of that style of mainstream US comedy these days, it was all a bit stilted and awkward. If they can capture some magic this time then it could be great, I'd even be up for the reboot cast getting another stab at it, but maybe with a script this time.

[Far Cry 5]

Over the break I was mostly playing Far Cry 5, which I was initially disappointed with, then really enjoyed once I got into the swing of it, and then didn't enjoy the last couple of hours and was glad to see it finish. It's not bad, but mechanically not as absorbing as 3 or 4 were (there's something about the layout of the outposts and the enemy awareness and the constant patrols and planes that makes the stealth way less satisfying - and trying to speak to an NPC to start or end a mission but being unable to because everyone is perpetually in a conflict state because there are always enemy planes passing over every part of the map after a certain point was a constant nuisance) and after enough time with it the cracks really started to show during the weak latter missions. Overall pretty disappointing after loving the last couple so much.

Grabbed Into The Breach on Switch to give me something to play in the corner while visiting the in-laws over new year, and couldn't put it down until I'd beaten the final mission. Absolutely tremendous, and I say that as someone who has never enjoyed 'tactics' games or found them very accessible. Simple to learn, difficult to master and hugely tense and satisfying, it's like Pacific Rim The Game and I love it dearly.

Tried Minit on that same trip but ended up giving up on it after half an hour. The basic premise is great and sucked me in right away, but after a few minute long runs where no progress was happening and I didn't seem to be sufficiently guided as to where I should be looking to find things of interest to do in it I deleted it and played Into The Breach again instead.

Oh and I'm a few hours into Spider-Man and it's magnificent and I love it. Still a way away from finishing it, but it's been great so far, and is one of those rare open world games where just getting from one point of the map to another is a joy.

Oh and also Mario Kart on Switch, which I got for my birthday yesterday and played all afternoon in my pyjamas. Thank you Mario Kart for making me feel less old.

Rogue Trooper is currently on sale on Switch. I think this is the first reduction on that platform.

Grabbed this! Think I've owned it on every platform under the sun at this point but having it portable will be handy.