Stretch616

Count me in as well 👍

Loving these write ups. Really gives a good bit of context to the evenings

Loved it mate, lap times wouldn't have been a million miles away with a clean lap. But that's where I let the car down!!!

No idea Dave. I assume you mean you joined the party chat via the app as your phone was playing music? I'll have a bash later and see if I can replicate your results

Fantastic bit of kit, absolutely love the quality that it gives. Plus the battery life and comfort is just amazing. I use these for anywhere up to 12 hours a day for work and then in the evening for gaming. My ears don't sting at all after this period of use and the battery is only about 1/2 used. Couldnt live without them now, would totally reccomend

No Thanks This is a card game based around numbers and the idea being to have the smallest total once the deck is exhausted. The numbers in play are numbered 3-35. Everybody starts the game with no cards and between 7-11 "pass counters". The first card is then revealed from the deck and then it will be down to the first person to decide whether to take the card or to play a pass counter (No Thanks!) Obviously there is slightly more complexity and tactics to the game which is down to 2 factors. When you elect to take the card, you also collect all of the pass counters that have been placed previously. This will then give you an advantage in being able to pass in further rounds. Any cards that you have in a sequence only count to the lowest value. So collecting the 35, 34, 33, 32, 31 & 30 cards would only actually count as 30 points. This is a great dynamic to the game as you then start to think about not only what cards you need to lower your deck value but what cards you could take that would act as "blockers" for your opponents. We've found this one a bit more tactical in the thinking and given this it was difficult to get the psychology of the game through to the younger members of the family. Another issue is that the game is best played with a minimum of 3 players and it really is noticeable in the enjoyment when you play as a duo. I think i'd love to have a bash of this game with a group of adults as i think it'd be a great game, but maybe not as much a game to have an experience of a laugh with. Stretch's board game rating - At the moment, no thanks 4 out of 10 stretches

Ghost Blitz For anybody that's played Dobble and enjoyed it, this game takes to a whole new level of franticness! In this game there are 5 pieces: White ghost Grey mouse Green bottle Blue book Red armchair Then a card is turned over from the deck and it is down to you to decide which piece corresponds with the card and grab it from the table as quickly as you can. No points here for just shouting out the name! You must physically have the piece in your hand to earn the point Like with Dobble, the card may show an exact match to the piece, however the real curve balls are the cards that do not match anything. You then have to go through a process of elimination with what is wrong on the card which will leave one option remaining which is then the piece you want! So if we take the picture below as an example: The card showing a picture of the grey mouse is an exact match and you need to grab the grey mouse as soon as you can! However the other card doesn't show an exact match. So the process of elimination would go as follows: The armchair is the wrong colour, so this is eliminated The armchair is white which is actually the colour of the ghost, so the ghost is eliminated The book is the wrong colour, so this is eliminated The book is green which is actually the colour of the bottle, so the bottle is eliminated Which leaves the grey mouse as the correct piece to pick up It's amazing how quickly the brain can begin to process this elimination way of thinking once you're dialled in which leads to some really frantic grabs for pieces. When you get the right piece you earn the card, then the next card from the deck is revealed and so on until all the cards have been used. The winner is (shockingly!) the one with the most cards once the deck is exhausted. What is also really good on this game is the fact that age doesn't seem to play a part in this game and kids vs grown ups can be a really competitive affair. As a point of reference, Etta is (currently) 5 and she is able to more than hold her own on this and also correct the grown ups sometimes!! This has been our go to game this year since we've bought it and spent many, many hours having a great laugh with it. The box size is probably the size of 2 playing card boxes which means it's nice and portable and you only need a very small playing surface to be able to have a game. At just over £10 for this, it's an absolute steal and i'm sure this will be at the forefront of my game collection for quite a considerable time Stretch's board game rating - A ghostly 9.5 out of 10 stretches

Rhino Hero Probably the quickest game to play out of my current collection as it can be over in the space of a few minutes depending on how it goes! However, there is no chance that you'd play this for only one game, it's just too damn addictive! This is basically the opposite of Jenga, so instead of having to rearrange a pre-existing tower, you have to build this one up from scratch. It's the method of how you do this that makes this fun and different every time. There are 2 types of card in the game. A roof card, which you place on top of the walls and it will show markings on them to show where the next wall structures need to be built: And the wall cards themselves: There are also some roof cards which show the Rhino Hero character's face. On these cards, you have to move the character up to the relevant spot on the roof card whilst also placing the wall cards You then just continue to build the tower until either somebody makes the tower fall over or you run out of wall cards and you (all) win! I can't stress how much i like this game! It's fun every time we've played and it always creates a good atmosphere in the room. The simplicity of this also means that there is no problem with leaving the kids to have a game and there's no need for a referee to be involved!! There is an expansion pack to this game where there are more complicated structures to build in, but the premise remains the same. I have no doubt i'll be investing in this at some point in time and i'll be sure to add on the review into this thread Stretch's board game rating - A Super Rhino 8.5 out of 10 stretches

Bandido This is a great and simple card game where the object of the game is to trap the Bandido in the tunnels and send him back to jail. You do this by building a tunnel network using the cards in your hand to close off the escape routes. Once you've played a card, you then pick another up from the deck and the game continues until you either trap the Bandido, or you run out of cards and there are still open tunnel routes So in essence the game is very simple, but it is bloody difficult!! I've lost count of the amount of games i've had where i've got the tunnel network down to the last one, but no cards to close them up and then going on a bad run where that 1 open tunnel then proceeded to actually be 7 in 3 cards played time! However, it's such a quick game that there's no real element of frustration or wasted time with the difficulty level and it really gives that "one more try" vibe. The package itself is smaller than a standard set of playing cards which is great for being able to transport it, but you will need a big space to play this game! It has taken up my entire dining room table on many a time and there were times that it was actually overflowing in one direction as we tried our best to close off the network in that direction!! At just over £10, it's a great game and can be played solo or with a group of people. The only catch with the group play is that you cannot specifically say what cards you have in your hand which does lead to some face palming moments but it's all in good fun. Stretch's board game rating - A solid 7 out of 10 stretches

As part of looking for something to entertain whilst stuck in the house this year, i've really started to get into my board games as part of having something different to do whilst stuck in the house. The general feel for these have been to either be single player games or decent group games that aren't too difficult to get to grips with so the kids could join in easily. We've really enjoyed these so far and i thought it'd be good to share the experiences of these games with you all I'll continue to add to the thread as the collection grows as i have no doubt it will! So here goes!!! @GazzaGarratt - Told you i'd make the thread eventually!! 🤣 Edit: To be clear on the Stretch rating, i'm using a proper scale of 1-10 where 5 is an average game not poor

Merry Xmas everybody. I hope you can enjoy it all in your own special ways given the circumstances and we can hopefully look forward to some normality next year. Love you all and to reiterate Rich's comment, if anybody is feeling down at this time of year then please reach out. We're all in this together as a family. Peace and love all, peace and love 😘😘

One of our favourites when camping is home made pizzas. Which is one of the simplest things ever. Just a wrap bit of tomato puree, mozzarella and pepperoni. Bang that in a really hot frying pan for a few minutes and you have a great calzone type pizza for a fraction of the cost. Done this many a time with @G_dub52 and it's always gone down well

To be honest, I was going to do this thread myself but ended up playing on the damn thing a lot later into the night than I should have!!! So, I have a PS5 and I can confirm, its fucking BIG!!!! I thought I had plenty of room for it in my tv cabinet, wrong!! I had do make some quick furniture rearrangement which pleased the mrs no end!! The controller is a significant step forward in feel and weight, much like the difference from PS3 to PS4. If I'm honest, it feels like a pro controller straight out of the box. The feedback system is just out of this world!! It's not just a rumble pack and away you go. Every inch of the controller feels alive with the gameplay and just makes everything that much more immersive. However, the adaptive triggers were the thing that really blew me away. The fact that the specific part of the gameplay will dictate the pressure and feedback required on a button press is just mind blowing. Honestly, this is a game changer in terms of non-obtrusive next gen hardware. UI is simple, if not a little bare for my likings. But familiar at least. No real complaints on it other than that stupid party chat system is still in place. I was able to share my Mortal Kombat gameplay with @GazzaGarratt whilst he grinded away on Destiny. Neither of us noticed and performance drop in doing this. The SSD is a massive quality of life upgrade. Load times are a thing of the past and general interaction between one game and another becomes a breeze. I wasnt playing anything too intensive on loading last night but with that said I dont really recall ever having to wait for anything, which can only be a good thing. With all the positives above, here comes the negative. Games. I'm confused as to how many ACTUAL true next gen games are out at the moment but it cant be more than a handful. I know theres a remaster of that and a collector's version of the other. But true showcase AAA titles just aren't there at release and that is the only way you're going to get £70 out of me for a game. Happy to maybe look around the £40 mark for a remaster but it feels like a bit of a piss take at the moment. The PS Collection helps to redeem the situation somewhat with a great catalogue of games that can hopefully guide the system through this sparse release window. Bloodborne last night looked absolutely fantastic and I'm loving playing it at the higher frame rate so I'm looking forward to seeing what other games are like. All in all I'm happy with it. My PS4 was on it's way out so it made sense to upgrade. YMMV but I'm totally understanding of people that wont invest for a while yet. PS4 was all about the players, PS5 is all about the patience it seems

So, just watched a review and a bit of gameplay of Godfall. At £60/70, no thanks. Would have probably had a punt on it at £30. Back to square one again as I've just not really been grabbed by anything at this moment in time. I'm almost at the point where the first proper PS5 game I'll get will actually be Cyberpunk. Till then I'll make do with the PS4 game pass thingy. Bit underwhelming to be honest for the next gen, almost makes me question why I went to the lengths to pre-order that I did 🤷‍♂️

With all of this said, for me it's a no brainer. Gabe now has a back catalogue of games as long as my arm and its costing me the price of 2 AAA titles in a year. I just think it really sets a benchmark in terms of the "Netflix" for games. I'm more than happy with it and I'm really intrigued to see how it develops with the next gen as it seems a match made in heaven for the series S

As mentioned in the other recent thread, Gabe picked up an Xbox series S this week and for a budget price console I've got to say I'm really impressed with it. As part of setting it up I registered for the Game Pass as it saved me having to fork out for yet another copy of Minecraft! What I didnt realise is just how extensive the catalogue of games is in there. It absolutely pisses all over the Playstation equivalent. I've already told him I'm stealing it when he goes to bed and I'm gonna start smashing out the Gears of War and Halo series! I know we're pretty much exclusively Playstation on here but has anybody else looked at this and the games that are on it? It's arguably the way forward for games that aren't AAA release titles

How odd! So the code didnt work at all on his Xbox. But I went into his Xbox account on the laptop and redeemed the code and all of a sudden it was available for him to download in the store. Really weird but at least he's happy now!

Decided to go for it. Didnt work 🙈 Support ticket raised! Watch this space now

To be honest, I've been quite underwhelmed at the amount of proper PS5 titles available at launch. Most things are remasters rather than true next gen games. Thata With that said Demon's Souls does look amazing

Gabe picked up one of the new Xbox series X's this week out of his own money and hes really happy with it. However, he really wants to play Overwatch on it and the xbox store has it listed at £50 still. So I'm not paying that. However, I've found the game on CDkeys for £20 but it's an Xbox One code. So a couple of questions...... 1) Is CDkeys reliable? 2) Will a specific Xbox One download code work for a new generation Xbox? Thank you hive mind in advance!!

@GazzaGarrattAs the guys before me have already said, what you do for this community is nothing short of astounding and I cant thank you enough. As with some of the other guys as well, I feel bad that I dont participate on here in the way that I'd like to. All good intentions for a while but then it goes South through nobody's fault but my own. Keep doing what you're doing buddy. It's really appreciated from all the members here and we'll try and do our bit on here to support you more. Much love dude 😘

Hell yeah I'm in. Was a good laugh last time. Video chat on discord is a must though. Need to see the whites of your eyes!! 🤣

Brilliant night. Was a really good change from the usual and having people on video made it all the better. @LordBaguette hitting a straight flush in the first game was the highlight for me. Dont think I've ever seen that hand hit in a live game, much less played through to the river as well. Looking forward to the next one already 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

All registered and raring to go. Catch you bitches on Discord in a bit