Now Playing: Coral Island

After clocking just over 100 hours in Coral Island I think I’m pretty much done with it. I feel like I could (and perhaps should) have stopped far sooner but . . . I just can’t help myself, can I? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh? As I said in my First Impressions post, Coral Island is like playing a more thirsty version of Stardew Valley. There’s a lot more emphasis here on the ‘social’ aspects – building friendships and finding romance with the local residents of Starlet Town.

In fact, it feels like there’s a lot more emphasis on everything besides managing your farm. And for me, at least, that’s not really a positive because like Stardew Valley, I was always more interested in the business side of the experience. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy working on my little farm but, by the end of my first year, I was already producing maximum quality crops and goods. And by the end of my second year, I was so wealthy and my farm (and house) were upgraded to such a degree that I no longer needed to keep farming at all.

I did keep at it – for a bit – because it was fun seeing if I could improve upon my maximum daily profit but I was also a little surprised and disappointed by how easily and quickly the actual farming aspect of game became completely irrelevant to the experience. At one point I just stopped planting seeds because I no longer needed to. I stopped harvesting from my greenhouse. I did let my animals out of the barn every morning though – I’m not a monster!

Coral Island puts a lot more emphasis on all the aspects surrounding the farming – and, to be fair, there’s a hell of a lot to see and do. You have a Temple to restore requiring various ‘offerings’ some of which you’ll acquire from your farm but others from out in the wild. You have a museum with collections to complete of artefacts, insects, fish, underwater critters, precious stones and fossils.

You have a cavern (dungeon) to progress through which later leads you onto yet another deep cavern to explore in one of several new map areas you can unlock as you improve the town ‘ranking’ and slowly restore the Temple. As the town ranks up you’ll also unlock more cosmetic items (clothing & furniture) and be able to invest in and build town ‘attractions’.

The town is full of people to befriend, hang out with and potentially romance and marry and pop out a few kids with. They all have their own stories to explore and I had some fun doing so. This ‘social’ side of the game is clearly a key selling point and it can make Coral Island feel more like a dating sim at times than a farming one.

You have an entire underwater map of trash to clear in order to clean up an oil spill which in turn leads you to meet the local mer-folk and even get access to an underwater farm. I didn’t bother with the underwater farm at all though because . . . at that point, I didn’t even really need my farm on the island above.

I feel like I reached a point so quickly where my farm became more or less ‘finished’ – and yes, I know I could have kept tweaking it, making it even more profitable and automated – but for me, my work was done. I had everything I needed. More money than I knew what to do with and so I just focused on everything else to do and that’s where most of my time ended up getting sunk.

Coral Island became a bit of a grind at that point to say the least. Clearing the trash from the ocean was bad enough, but completing the museum? Insects, critters and fish appear during certain seasons, at certain times and during certain weather. If you miss one or two, you might have to wait an entire year for a chance to catch them again. And that’s exactly what happened to me and I ended up skipping through days as fast as possible to grab the last couple of fish and insects I needed.

But what was far worse were the artefacts, precious stones and fossils. The artefacts come in different chest types, the stones in different geodes and the fossils in different fossil nodes. You have to crack each open to see what you’ve found and every item has a different rarity and percentage rate to drop.

In other words – they’re loot boxes. You can open – and I sure as shit did – hundreds of them and just keep finding repeat items. The bulk of my playtime in Coral Island was probably spent farming these various loot boxes so I could complete the museum collections. I eventually started just cracking them open in the morning and – if I didn’t get a least one new item – reloading the day until I did. Eventually, I was able to complete all the collections and get my achievement and that was when I decided to call it a day.

Now, I can’t say I don’t have myself to blame for so obsessively trying to complete the collections but it’s kind of a key part of the game seeing as it’s tied to your overall town rank and I can’t believe they made it this tedious (and randomised) to do. At least with the insects, fish and critters you can know roughly when and where they’ll appear but for everything else, you’re reliant upon what might be a very frustrating RNG.

All that complaining aside – I still enjoyed my time with Coral Island quite a bit. There’s a relaxing aspect to it – even all the repetitive clearing of ocean trash is a nice way to zone out and not worry about anything else for a while. The game looks and sounds nice and there’s a ton of stuff to keep you occupied. And the farming aspect – whilst it lasts – was certainly fun!

And the game is still receiving updates with a new one currently in beta at the time of writing that adds a ‘save anywhere’ option – very welcome for those of you trying to game the RNG system. I think the problem is, they’ve added so much already and there’s so much other stuff to get stuck into that it doesn’t even really feel like a ‘farming’ game any more. At least not to me. Overall – I liked it. I didn’t love it. If you liked Stardew Valley, it might be worth checking out.

7/10

Forza Horizon 6: First Impressions

I don’t buy many games at release these days and of those I do, very few am I willing to pay for ‘premium’ editions. But, in the case of Forza Horizon 6, after absolutely loving the previous Forza Horizon 5 and its post release content with nearly 200 hours clocked on Steam, I figured – why the hell not?

Forza Horizon 6 is bigger, better looking, better feeling to play and features an absolutely fantastic map of Japan to explore. In fact, a significant chunk of my current 20 or so hours with the game has just been spent driving around and seeing all there is to see in each region of the map. The map is large, yet feels densely packed with a variety of terrain and features.

You might think each region is its own ‘island’ as far as terrain goes, but you’d be wrong. Every single region is like a varied, densely packed little map in its own right. It’s one of several aspects of Forza Horizon 6 that just feels so effortlessly perfect. But it likely wasn’t effortless at all – clearly a hell of a lot of design work went into this map to make sure that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re going to love every second of it.

Because it’s not just an open world map – it’s race tracks. Road racing, street racing, dirt racing, cross country – the map had to facilitate not only a fantastic open world environment to explore, but also accommodate dozens of varied and engaging race tracks. The fact it does this and does it so well is pretty damn impressive, and probably not as appreciated as it should be because – as I said – it just all feels so effortless.

Forza Horizon 6 just oozes quality. It’s so polished and smooth and so packed with content that you might not know where to even start. But that’s what I like about this new (or old, I suppose if you’ve played some of the previous Forza games before 5 – I haven’t) wristband system that slowly unlocks new events as you progress. It also restricts many early races to specific car grades or classes.

Some might find this too restrictive, but it serves the purpose of preparing you to build up a varied garage of vehicles that are each tuned at different levels and serve different needs. And I feel like that’s even more important in Forza Horizon 6 than I did in 5 because compared to Forza 5, Forza Horizon 6 feels like it leans more heavily into the ‘sim’ part of ‘simcade’.

You really feel the difference in terrain and road surfaces. You really notice the difference in grip and tyre type. You come to see how some races favour cars tuned for handling and acceleration and others for speed. There have been races where I struggled to finish within the top 6, only to make a few key adjustments to my car set up and then immediately breeze through the race on my second try.

Proper tuning and car parts for the tracks never quite felt as important in Forza Horizon 5 as it does so here, particularly once you start bumping up the difficulty. I started on Average but have since progressed to Expert where, provided my car is properly tuned I can still win fairly comfortably. That said, there are still odd tracks where the difficulty spikes wildly at times which was also a problem in Forza 5, although I’m sure they’ll all be balanced more over time.

Now, this is only a first impressions post, so I don’t want to get carried away, as tempting as it might be. But as you can probably tell, I’m already loving what I’ve played so far. The game runs absolutely beautifully. I was actually shocked at not only how good it looks but how smoothly it runs. I haven’t dared touch the new customisable ‘Estate’ feature yet – I fear I may end up spending all my time building stunt tracks rather than racing so I’m saving that for later. There’s plenty more for me to see and do. I love the little ‘Explore Japan’ tours that you can go on in particular. I should have a full review up next month – if I can drag myself away long enough to write it, of course.

Now Playing: Ghost Town (VR)

In Ghost Town you play as Edith Penrose, a psychic medium living in 1980s London on a quest to find her missing (and irritatingly whiny) brother. It’s a VR puzzle adventure game by the same developers of The Room VR which I reviewed back in 2021. Ghost Town does feel like a good step up, but not quite the leap I was hoping for.

Like The Room, Ghost Town is a very visually impressive VR game, but unlike The Room, it also offers a full free range of movement within its environments. The environments may be small, but they’re packed with detail and fun to explore. This is also a more narrative and character driven experience than The Room.

In that game, the story was told purely through written letters found within the world. Ghost Town features a voiced protagonist and several supporting characters – including several ghosts you’ll encounter as you progress. Edith is a medium who specialises in freeing trapped souls and you do this by locating items of power that are keeping them tethered to the physical realm.

Or at least, that’s a part of what you do, because the focus of the story is actually finding your lost brother and investigating a mysterious cult. Your adventure takes you through several varied locations, each of which has several puzzles to solve. The puzzles are good, but nothing super challenging, although there is a hint system available if you do get stuck.

As you’d expect in a VR game, the puzzles are very tactile and interactive, often featuring curious mechanisms to play with. There’s a nice mix of puzzles too, each level offering something a little different. And it’s a very polished game. It runs smoothly, looks great and maintains a persistent quality throughout.

So why do I feel it’s not quite the leap I was hoping for? Because like The Room VR, it’s a very short and ultimately unsatisfying experience. I always say games should be ‘as long as they need to be’ and like The Room, Ghost Town ends on a rather abrupt note that feels a little hastily cobbled together. As much as I’d enjoyed the game – and I’d enjoyed I quite a lot – I was left with a rather disappointing ‘is that all?’ feeling.

I completed Ghost Town in about three and a half hours and good portion of that is just wandering the environments or talking to other characters. The puzzle aspect only really lasts a few hours at most. Ghost Town really needed a few more levels to play with, perhaps just focused on Edith’s day job before we really get stuck into the hunt for her brother.

That said, I still had a very good time with Ghost Town and I’d still recommend picking it up on sale.

7/10

Coral Island: First Impressions

Coral Island is like playing a more thirsty version of Stardew Valley. You create your character who returns to their home town of Starlet on Coral Island to take over an old, run down farm. You begin with some basic tools and a handful of seeds but over time, you’ll clear the land, expand your plots, craft materials and new tools and reinvest what you earn so you can earn even more next season.

There’s a ‘dungeon’ of sorts where you fight your way down level by level to mine more rare materials. And there’s a town full of people to get to know, befriend and potentially ‘romance’ by giving them shit they like. There’s even an evil corporation threatening to muscle in on the little local economy. So far, so unoriginal.

What sets Coral Island apart is, primarily, the tropical island setting. There’s a big emphasis on cleaning up the island and surrounding ocean after a recent oil spill and you’re tasked with protecting and healing the land and water. And there’s scuba diving! In fact, there’s a whole underwater map to explore and mer-folk to meet and potentially f**k! I’ve not progressed far enough to meet them yet at the time of writing though.

I figured I’d knock out a first impressions post for this one because it’s going to take some time to play through and I’ll likely be dipping in and out of it around other stuff. So far though, I’m having fun with it! As a fan of Stardew Valley, Coral Island scratches the same itch but it does offer its own unique twist.

Coral Island is an island full of hot singles looking to hook up and that’s undoubtedly one of its main selling / marketing points. I’m more interested in the business side of things but even I can’t deny how hot everyone is. I’d say it’s like Love Island, but with far less Turkey Teeth and fake tan. Also, these people can actually string a coherent sentence together so maybe it’s nothing like Love Island at all.

Everyone has their own routines depending upon the season and their own preferences regarding gifts. I can’t say I’ve really bothered with that stuff yet because I’m more focused on my farm right now, but I’m sure I’ll give it a try later. I’m curious if it works the same as Stardew whereby you just keep giving someone gifts until you get married and have kids.

Seriously, why do these games always just go straight from friend to marriage? On an island full of single hotties, you’d think casual hook ups would be pretty common? Why can’t I bang my way across the entire island? I am joking – mostly.

Now Playing: Terran Armada (DLC)

Terran Armada is a new DLC for Starfield (review), my personal Game of 2023 with more than 480 hours now clocked exploring the Settled Systems. Compared to the Shattered Space expansion of 2024 (review), Terran Armada offers substantially less content, but this is reflected in the £8.99 RRP. And because I owned the Premium Edition of Starfield – I didn’t have to pay anything at all. Thanks, Todd!

As someone who already enjoyed what Starfield offered, I wasn’t looking for this DLC or the accompanying Free Lanes Update (more on that later) to ‘win me over’ or ‘fix Starfield’ or be ‘Starfield 2.0’ which was always a ridiculous notion given that Cyberpunk 2.0 – whilst an impressive update – was primarily built upon months of previous fixes, improvements and additions. Things that, for those paying attention, Starfield has steadily been receiving since release.

The big addition with Free Lanes is ‘Cruise Mode’ which gives you the option to fly seamlessly (more or less – they just disguised the load more cleverly) within a star system. It’s a nice addition and there are fun new points of interest to discover in the void between worlds. It’s hardly game changing, but if you value immersion it’s good to have.

Aside from Cruise mode, there’s also the aforementioned new points of interest, and it appears they’ve also tweaked the generation algorithm so they don’t repeat quite so frequently. There’s a new resource (X-Tech) for upgrading high level gear, new side quests (some really good ones too!), action figures to collect (yes, I will obsessively try to find them all!), new ship modules, a new companion (although not Huong Le!). Oh, and some welcome changes to how you enhance your Starborn abilities.

It’s all Good Stuff and it makes Starfield an even better game in my eyes and one I’m sure I’ll continue to sink time into. But this review isn’t about the free update, but the paid DLC, so let’s focus on that because the question is – is it worth the price? If, like me, you’re a fan of Starfield then the short answer would be – yes. The long answer? That would be a – yes, but – kind of situation.

In Terran Armada you seek to thwart a mysterious invading force from dominating the Settled Systems. I say ‘mysterious’ but you discover the truth behind the Armada fairly early into the DLC. And once you do, there are only a handful of missions to complete in order to stop them.

The bespoke missions – what few there are – are all pretty good. I can’t say I cared for the two ‘collect three of X’ missions that were used to pad out the meagre content though! Because that’s the real problem with Terran Armada – it’s far too short. Yes, that’s reflected in the price, but I think they could have done a lot more with this concept, to truly make it a compelling late game challenge for Starfield.

The idea is that even after finishing the main missions, you can still have Armada ‘incursions’ trigger that are randomised, high level encounters you can farm for loot and experience. But is that all this DLC is really there to facilitate?

Given that the Armada are meant to be invading, they sure do like to ‘invade’ mostly empty systems in bumf**k nowhere. What if the initial attacks were just a distraction to lure the UC Fleet away from the core worlds?

What if, using this distraction, the Armada fleet suddenly jumped in and seized Mars? Using the Sol system as the staging ground for an attack on New Atlantis? What if, with the bulk of its fleet too far out to arrive in time, the UC needed to persuade a reluctant Freestar Collective to send help?

And maybe the player could play a role in that? What if the DLC was about building an alliance to stop the Armada? What if they sent an assassination team to MAST targeting the UC President and you have to help fight them off? What if, when the Armada arrives above New Atlantis, you and the outnumbered UC fleet are on the back foot until, unexpectedly, Freestar ships arrive to break the siege and force the Armada to retreat?

What if you get captured by the Armada? What if you have to escape from one of their ships? What if you have to negotiate with their leader? What if there was a dynamic aspect to the invasion and settlements could fall into Armada hands and change visually to reflect this – banners, security guards replaced by Terran robots etc.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I hate seeing a concept like this wasted so badly. Because Terran Armada is great conceptually but very poorly executed. There’s so many ‘what if?’ aspects to it. So many ways it could have offered a truly substantial and exciting piece of content.

I don’t care that it’s cheap or even – in my case – free! I’d have gladly paid double the price to receive a truly meaningful, fleshed out and exciting late game expansion. But that’s not what Terran Armada is and that’s a damn shame. I’m not going to review what I want Terran Armada to be. I’m going to review what it is. And overall – it’s just fine. It’s okay. It’s decent content for the price if you need to pay for it. But it could have been so, so much more.

6/10

Suburban Killbot Year 14

The theme of this yearly update is – who the f**k actually reads this blog? I looked at my blog analytics recently and noticed something strange. For the first ten years – yes TEN years – of this blog, my views were pretty much a flat line with around 2 to 3 thousand views at most across an entire year. But then, in 2023, that changed. My views began to spike to about 20 thousand that year, followed by about thirty thousand in 2024 and leaping to sixty thousand in 2025.

And this year so far? I’m already at around 180 thousand views with nearly 70 thousand of those in the last 30 days! I have no idea why this is, and the Blogger stats page isn’t particularly detailed, so I’ve set up a Google Analytics page to try digging deeper to find out! I’m guessing it’s bots. It’s got to be bots!

Next up: My updated yearly mosaic of my top rated games! I keep saying I need to cut this down to just the 9/10 or above games, but maybe next year, eh?