ImmaculateClump

I saw Cronenberg's Spider the day after Possum and they went really well together. Give that a watch as well if you can. Spider is amazing.

雷鸟Thunderbird - Hard 1cc

Mecha Ritz has appeared on the eshop with a release date of 3rd November - https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Mecha-Ritz-Steel-Rondo-2283163.html 2.0 will be a free update on pc if you already own the game - https://store.steampowered.com/app/463070/Mecha_Ritz_Steel_Rondo/ Game is amazing!

Sorry man, no shmups at all on gamepass as far as I know, and it's pretty slim pickings on the xbone in general. Do you have a PC or any other consoles? Decent games you can buy on xbox would be dangun feveron, space moth lunar, natsuki chronicles, star hunter dx, teslapunk, bullet soul infinite burst, guwange, battle garegga, ghost blade hd. There's probably a few new ones I'm missing, hopefully someone here who plays on xbox can offer some more titles. That's the score competition finished. Third place. I'll tek it. Managed to get over 1,300,000, which was my final goal, so I'm more than happy with that. Some amazing scores posted towards the end there! So much fun. 1,302,674 - https://streamable.com/f4876l

Yay! I managed to beat his score 1,298,312 - https://streamable.com/9px1aq Went to the discord only to find that some fresh arse-taster called "nikki" has scored "1,313,482" CyberBlocker and Dead End City out today https://store.steampowered.com/app/2123390/CyberBlocker_Complete_Edition/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1880840/Dead_End_City/

Yeah, it gets a bad rap, but I think it's great. The music is amazing, and I really love the hidden bonuses and the coin collecting. People complain that it's too easy and that you've got nothing to dodge since you cancel most of the patterns, but that's just not true, especially later in the game, and there's plenty of dodging during the bosses. They really nailed the "spectacle" aspect, and the caravan stage is lots of fun. I mean, listen to that! If that doesn't get you pumped to shoot the shit out of some alien scum, nothing will.

This has really stuck in my head for some reason. Been saying "Noooooo Hovris, that is my bottle water" round the house. His dog is dehydrated and he tells him he should have brought his own water. I only realised on second viewing that his picnic hamper is chock full of water bottles! The gum disease bit really reminds of that horrible toothpaste advert where they zoom in on some CGI pricks gums and it turns out they're made of all horrific wavy pink worm things. Grolton and Hovris spin off could be great. I thought this wasn't as good as the shorts first time round, but it really rewards an extra watch. Some of the songs aren't instant bangers like in the shorts, but they are growers, and the episodes I wasn't keen on first time round have become my favourites. Yeah, this was fucking amazing. Hope they do another series.

Second place so far. I don't think I'm gonna make it. The guy in the lead (iaspis) has 1,248,192! He got to the end of the boxes, they actually run out. 1,175,177 - https://streamable.com/ospbzt

Hellraiser (2022) - **½ Had some proper eye-rolling moments, particularly when they were getting pinhead to deliver unnecessary exposition, but I can't pretend that I didn't enjoy it. Felt like a very cosy, naff horror, perfect for halloween time.

雷鸟Thunderbird - Normal 1cc

Thunderbird is out now in early access. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1847380/Thunderbird/ The demo was great. edit: I'd recommend you play on hard first because I think normal is more easy mode. Flesh dev has posted a development update on steam today https://steamcommunity.com/app/1660850/discussions/0/3273564019244009445/#c3397427506592196478 He's aiming for a 12 december release

Yay, got over a million in score rush today. Seems like you're best off killing everything as quickly as possible so you can get past the boss and hyper as many boxes as you can at the end. I can tighten that up a lot more. I wasted a bomb, took ages to kill some waves and timed my last bomb on the boss really poorly. 1,088,965 - https://streamable.com/762qj2 I've been giving the main mode a bit more love as well. The different characters all feel very unique and usefull. You'll probably enjoy playing with the slow middle ship at first until you start to feel the layout of the stage and where the hidden items are and stuff. She has a very wide lock on and uncovers them all easily and you can lock on to bosses without getting too close. The third ship feels great, it's very fast but when you hold focus you have this sort of ball of lighting in front of you which kills enemies and you can drop it to cause an explosion. Feels really good, but you have to get used to the speed, you can run into bullets quite easily with that ship.

This is the real deal, people! Really looking forward to the finished version now. They're having a score competition on the shmupjunkie discord if you want to get in on that. Here's my best run on the score rush mode so far 853,912 - https://streamable.com/sgywhh

Gunvein demo is out now! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2025840/Gunvein/

Hazelnut Hex - Moderate 1cc

Just looked it up on steam and it looks awful, absolute dogshit stage design. Just lazy shit to snatch up the shut-in wanker buck. Thing is, this kind of crap has an audience, and it's way bigger than the shmup audience! Those deep space waifu games sell really well and have thousands of reviews. Then you look at something like blue wish desire, 31 reviews. I'll never understand this sort of thing. You have the internet, christ, if you're that perverted, you have the dark web. Go and sort yourself out first and then play a proper game with both hands. I mean, we had to sit through hours of dullness with Samantha Fox strip poker back in the day for the fleeting, abstract thrill of seeing some black and white pixelated norks, because we had no choice, but things have moved on, surely. You call this progress?! Honestly, good for nintendo, I know one man's trash is another man's treasure, but that's trash in anyone's book. I only wish that Gabe hadn't sat on the sluice gate and broke it that day and let all of that crap flood onto steam. It's still possible, but finding the gems on there is becoming increasingly difficult. A lot of the shmup category's now are becoming swamped with "vampire survivors" clones and other nonsense that you would never call a shmup. Gunvein demo day, boys. How's that for luck?! edit: Oh, and welcome, Sel Feena! Nice to see a new face on here.

Too Funny to Fail: The Life and Death of The Dana Carvey Show - ** We're All Going To The World's Fair - ***½

Vesper - ***½

In Hazelnut Hex, you can change the difficulty in the options from "normal" to "moderate" which seems to be hard mode, despite the weird naming. The dev has uploaded the pc version to archive.org for anyone who can't afford it, which is extra classy, especially in the current financial fuckdown.

Hellbender - ***

Hazelnut Hex - 1cc

It's good. It's fun, I definitely want to play it again, but I do wish there was just a little something extra to it. Maybe if the stars gave you more gauge or more points the quicker you picked them up or something, or if there was an unlockable harder difficulty. It's fun though, I like it. edit: Oh, wait! There's a charge shot. "kill multiple enemies with your charge shot to release more stars and earn more points" Doh! I'll try that next time There, that's a bit better. Effed up the final boss, but the charge shot definitely makes things more interesting!

Yeah, it's all just too much. I know some people like that though. Hazelnut Hex is on itch now https://chunderfins.itch.io/hazelnut-hex

4:00PM in the UK.

Wow, this feels amazing already! There's a score to beat if you fancy trying it. 16,925,480 - https://streamable.com/qwfqr7