I'm not sure the just-released Troublemaker 2: Beyond Dream is one of those "good games" you're all so bloody obsessed with. My working summary, based on 30 minutes with the demo, is that it's an unofficial Like A Dragon/Yakuza game developed with a fraction of the budget, and set in "fictionalised" Indonesia. That's to say, it's an open world comedy beat 'em up with a bunch of other genres haphazardly stirred in.

I compared it to Rockstar's work and Saints Row in this week's Maw, which was Mostly Wrong. This is a predominantly on-foot experience, for one thing, and you can't grievously assault people at random. There are designated gangs of hoodlums you're permitted to punch out, and as far as I can tell, you have to wait for them to Make Trouble first. It seems very polite and passive for a brawler. Also, you get to transform briefly into a dying cow.

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Oh, Netflix's The Witcher TV series is back with its fourth series next month, following a lengthy hiatus that's seen Geralt regenerate from Henry Cavill into Liam Hemsworth. The new series premieres in late October, and first official looks at both the HemsGerry and Laurence Fishburne as Blood and Wine vampire Regis have been offered.

Hang on a minute, I thought, when I scrolled past this news on one of the screens in my Adrian Veidt-esque world-watching setup - Laurence Fishburne's in it? Yep, it seems that after not getting around to watching the third series, I've managed to completely blot out all knowledge that the actor behind The Matrix's pill distributor is being cast in The Witcher.

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Sundays are for working out what to do with about 200 apples and 50 pears. The parks round here are full of semi-forgotten fruit trees, so we went out last weekend and gathered a few buckets. It has now dawned on me that if I don't eat apples with every meal and also possibly light fires with them, bathe in their juices and pound them up to serve as a low-grade polyfiller, my flat will soon be overtaken by rats, weevils and feral brewers.

I'll probably take a load to a food bank. I hear apples keep pretty well when they're fresh-picked, at least, but pears are treacherous, adamantium-hard one day and a sopping disaster the next. Anyway, here is some internet writing that doesn't significantly mention fruit at all.

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You might not think of it as one, but Wikipedia is a game. It has untold numbers of characters and stories, each page an interactive slate with your mouse and hand acting as the choice maker for what you learn next, thus impacting your following choices. This is, admittedly, a bit of a wanky, thinkpiecey way of talking about Wikipedia, so instead of that let's talk about Neurocracy, a game that could quite easily fool you into thinking it is another version of Wikipedia.

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In general these days it's never a good time to release a video game unless you're Rockstar, but in recent months it's been made even harder due to numerous payment processors cracking down on digital storefronts like Valve and Itch.io. There's a host of reasons this is problematic, but one less spoken about how this is also an issue of preservation. GOG, another digital storefront, this one owned by The Witcher developer CD Projekt, is known for their preservation efforts, and in a recent interview they shared a bit of their thoughts in relation to these recent issues regarding payment processors.

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This week featured some bordered lands. Four of them, in fact. A real turn up for the books, that one. Here's hoping the five people on Earth who aren't singing songs of silk appreciate a good knob gag, or several bad ones made in quick succession by a rectangular robot. I should de-sark myself. It's Friday. There's no place for sentences that mean the opposite.

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Smile and say AIEEEEE, horror fans! Tecmo and Team Ninja are bringing a "remake" of PS2 survival horror Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly to PC via Steam in early 2026. Why am I brandishing a glyph-covered Canon EOS 90D at you, while singing the Ghostbusters theme? Allow me to explain: Fatal Frame's signature touch is that you defeat spooks using a magic camera. Naturally, this also means that you have to look steadily and calmly at said spooks while they shimmer and sway towards you. Catch some of that nonsense in the remake's announcement trailer.

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