Local Multiplayer Party Time! Sportsfriends Released

What are you playing this weekend? No, shut up. I don't want to hear it. Call up some friends, get them over, tell them to bring snacks and drink, and play Sportsfriends until Fanta drips down your giggling chins. The bundle of J.S Joust and other ace local multiplayer games finally arrived on PC last night, after yonks of only being found at games events (well, and PlayStations, later). They are great and this is what you're playing this weekend and no, I don't even want to hear it.

Sportsfriends packs BaraBariBall, which is somewhere between Super Smash Bros. and volleyball, excellent minimalist ice hockey game Hokra, fight-o-football-a-pole-vault game Super Pole Riders, and the phenomenal, the incomparable Johann Sebastian Joust. They are all splendid.

Oh, except Joust only works on Mac and Linux. Windows throws a wobbly about PlayStation Move controllers' use of Bluetooth, the devs explain, with someone from Microsoft even telling them what they wanted to do "is NOT possible in any way shape or form." That is a crying shame. Joust is one of my favourite games. It did already have a high barrier to entry though, what with needing PlayStation Move controllers and all.

The most memorable Joust I ever saw, by the way, was Big Phill Cameron facing down Dear Little Philippa Warr. I think there's about a foot and a half between them. A horrible, horrible tragedy.

Sportsfriends is about £10 on Steam right now, thanks to a launch discount, or about £9 from the devs, who just chuck you a Steam key anyway.

[Disclosure: my flatmate has worked with Sportsfriends organisers Die Gute Fabrik on a different game, but I am certainly well-known for my love of shoving people.]