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I've no idea what happened to my original copy of Fighting Force 2. It's not a good game so it's not the best pick up. I also got a Predator light gun that should work on the Saturn and PlayStation, presumably PS2 too

My memory of this (X-men Children of the Atom) is that it's absolutely nails and Magneto is bullshit

I've waited ...25 years to play this!

Still not entirely sure whether I'll like it but the discount period was about to end and FOMO held a gun to my head.

I've mentioned this before, and it's one of the reasons my #GamerCred is so high, but I have over 110 physical Dreamcast games, and I should probably play them. So I've started a Youtube series that I'm going to try to stick to where I work through them, as they're selected by a roulette wheel. I'm not necessarily going to play through and complete the games, but an hours or so at least to have at least played all these games * *there's a few games, like July, that I might have to skip if they're unplayable in Japanese. I've also hit a bump in the road where one of the games I drew doesn't boot, so that's an interesting wrinkle I need to sort 😅

My copy also arrived I'm kind of tempted to start with Ys Nordics. I've played a lot of Yakuza recently

GOTY has arrived.

Another one to file under 'forgot I ordered'. In my defense I did so almost exactly a year ago when the first TR remaster trilogy came out. Won't get much use out of either so close to the Switch 2, but I suppose they make for cool little collector's items.

First 'true' new purchase of the year. Edit: not pictured but it even comes with a coloured manual.

I never have cool photos for this thread, just screenshots of my digital library. But the stuff about Nvidia removing physx from newer hardware had me looking at old videos of BamHam Asylum and how it's this weird combo of a game looking artistically dated but also really advanced with the environment damage and cloth physics and stuff. So I wanted to try these versions, they're 90 percent off Also Ultrakill is cool if you ever liked the idea of Doom Eternal re-imagined as a DMC campaign with early PSX style graphics

I've been playing the 5hr trial on Xbox, and wanted more.

I've been waiting ages for some of this stuff to turn up, then it's all arrived within a day of each other I've no idea if NBA Hoopz is any good, but unless I'm missing something, I'm pretty sure Shaq has never appeared in a bad game Ecco I've never owned a real copy of, so when I saw that cheap I thought I should. Fighting Force 2, I must have got rid of my original copy. Heatseeker was originally pennies, but because of an ebay fuck up it probably cost me more than Ecco in the end

I'm cheating a bit here because I only played the demo, but this came and went without any kind of exposure but I think it might interest some people here. It's cheap to compare a game to others in an effort of explaining it but I like doing it because it's also quick and easy to get the message across – so this is basically the indie baby of classic Resident Evil and Killer7. At least as far as its gameplay foundations are concerned, the overall tone and setting is somewhere between SMT and Paradise Killer with very weird, supernatural characters that float somewhere between being human and godlike entities. You're playing as some normie girl working a boring late-shift job but suddenly stuff happens and you receive the boon of being able to perceive an alternate dimension where demons live. Gameplay is presented from a bird's eye view reminiscent of the aforementioned RE classics (there's even an option to toggle between direct and tank controls) and mostly consists of figuring out classic adventure puzzles. An early example is that you come across a computer that doesn't have a keyboard attached and is locked, so you need to find a keyboard and a passcode. It's basic, but it works in the sense that it shuffles you through its claustrophobic levels to force you to combat the demons. Combat then is where it morphs into Killer7 because holding the trigger to ready your weapon switches to first person while activating your demon-sensing ability highlights weak points on enemies. Smaller enemies die from one critical attack (melee or ranged are available), bigger ones might need multiple shots. Landing multiple of those critical hits in succession fills up a special gauge for a an extremely powerful shot that discards any normal enemy and is necessary to defeat bosses (at least as far as I can tell – there's only one boss in the demo). You can also attack enemies 'normally', ie. without first scanning for their weak points, but it's suboptimal and kind of a waste of ammo. The risk-reward here is that your scan has rather short range, so while enemies are easier to dispatch, they're also more likely to counterattack. I quite liked the demo, just quickly glanced at metacritic and it's around the 80% mark, so it seems the full version is pretty good. Might pick this up sometime this year. Quick note as well, despite the RE inspirations I wouldn't call this a horror game, it's more of a surreal, slightly spooky atmosphere it conjures.

February done and dusted... let's see what's going on. @Jimboxy scores 19 points with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and 11 points with Rift of the Necrodancer. @mmmark earns 10 points for Sid Meier's Civilisation VII and 11 points with Avowed. @Nag scored 11 points for Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. @DisturbedSwan earned 19 points for Monster Hunter Wilds. Leader board standings... 1. mmmark - 41 points. 2. Jimboxy - 30 points. 3. DisturbedSwan - 19 points. 4. @radiofloyd - 16 points. 5. Nag - 7 points. 6. @HandsomeDead - 4 points. 7. @mfnick - 0 points. March releases... Nag has Two Point Museum and Atomfall. mfnick has Split Fiction. DisturbedSwan has Wanderstop. mmmark has Assassin's Creed Shadows. Some big scoring games last month...

Completed twice now. Got the regular then did all the extra stuff and got the true ending. Yep, fantastic game I properly enjoyed it. Some of the secret stuff was brilliant, some God of War style set pieces hidden away in there. Did have a slight wobble when doing the secret boss - he was a genuine Sekiro Isshin moment and I wasn’t prepared to go through something like that again but like most things in this game which initially seem really difficult he has a major weakness and when you figure it out it made it a breeze. Im going for the platinum now. Annoyingly it has missable stuff you have to play through the entire game again for. But I genuinely don’t mind too much. Im flying through it and it’s so fun being able to beat bosses which used to be a challenge and humiliating them. A couple I beat one handed just because I’ve got the dodges nailed down so well against them. Love it.

I've got 4 hours in on this since launch, including an unusual day session today because I've (half) blagged the wife that I'm feeling under the weather and need to take it easy for a busy weekend's work.🤧😃. Will look to get to level 5 tonight. I'm really liking it. It's looking and playing really well on PC, with a saturated graphical style similar to the Outer Worlds, but very much refined. It's very early, and I don't want to end up with egg on my face by over-enthusing, but it's far better than I was actually expecting. What I want from an open world RPG is, just now and then, to happen upon an NPC just through exploration, who draws you into a quest that branches into numerous paths and lasts for ages, offering lore and moral dilemmas along the way. That's happened already. Great. But it happened rather early in Starfield, and never happed again. So, here's hoping. I'm working on a one handed shield bearer on this first play thru. I've heard there are easier builds, but the combat is so fast, brutal and well put together that I'm having a whale of a time. I'd say it's one of the best first person mêlée games I've ever experienced. You're character really does what you want her to, and you know instantly if you've run out of steam in a fight, with a very well put together UI for things like stamina and special move cooldowns. I'm loving it up to now.

Kinda surprised there's no thread on this yet, but anyway. I've tried to get into the Yakuza series over and over again. I love the juxtaposition of serious gangster shit and nutty stuff like collecting softcore porn and helping a Michael Jackson ripoff remake Thriller. For whatever reason, though, it's just never quite managed to get its claws into me. After 15 hours, I think this might have changed that mindset. It's like Black Flag through the lens of a JP developer, and I'm having a blast with it. Collecting crewmates, making friends, just being a pirate in general, it's just fun. I'll post more a bit later, but I wanted to open the conversation, because this is dumb in all the best ways.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abraham-cozar/elusive Saw this today – Elusive, an action platformer set in a fantasy version of our world but the protagonist is tiny. Think Grounded, but singleplayer. Looks nice, and I plead for more capes/scarves in games, they make movement look so much more dynamic.

I played this during Steam Next Fest and it came out last week. It's a single screen platformer where you have to leap around the platforms avoiding enemies, or jumping over them, to collect 5 items in the correct order. I really liked the demo, the final version has a couple of issues. The controls feel a little slidy, and it's definitely possible to pick up something you didn't intend to, or fall to your death, because you ended up a little further over than you intended. With the former, there's no way to start a stage over, you have to back out and start the world again or, if you've lost a couple of lives, burn the rest and continue with a full set. It's annoying, I'd happily lose a life to not have to redo the first 3 stages over On the level structure, there's multiple worlds with 5 stages (actually 7 but ignore that for now). You can move on from a stage if you don't collect the items in the correct order, but that means you'll need to come back. However, if you have beaten a level properly, on your next run through you can collect the items in any order, it's still marked as complete. You'll end up doing this to beat the last couple of stages in the various worlds. Freddy Farmer feels like it should be the perfect Steam Deck game, but it's here where I've had the most issues. The controls don't feel right for whatever reason, there's also a problem with the level not scaling properly. You'll find that the whole stage isn't displayed on screen in the standard mode, it's missing the edges, and some times that's where the items are hidden. You can switch to a different view that removes the borders, but the borders are where your list of items are. On pc if you remove the borders the item list moves to the top of the screen, on Steam Deck it never appears, so, alongside the more difficult controls, you're left with switching between views to either see all the stage or check what you need to collect I did a YouTube video about it too

There's a few. Metal Arms. Psi-Ops. Plus some of the ones mentioned already.

Vagrant Story Koudelka Killer 7 Freedom Fighters

I'm going to think of something way more obscure and cool as soon as I hit 'submit', but I'm going to say Shadow of the Colossus. It doesn't need a sequel, and shouldn't ever get one, but that would be up there. Binary Domain could probably have done with one. It ends fine, but a 2nd stab at that series could have been really good

Vanquish. Easy!

Sign me up

Invincible continues to be very good

Honestly I don't think it matters. GTAVI showed and it was miles away. No need to get hype. Stuff like Borderlands 4, something I have an interest in, well whatever really. I get around to it when I get around to it. Same with stuff like Monster Hunter. Not that these are bad games, but I feel like when you buy into the hype they can never truly live up to that. So I care not for it it's 2 or 3 years away (Or more in TESVI's case) or a shadow drop. I do think that it sort of becomes a long running joke for some. Duke Nukem and BG&E2 spring to mind. It really is whatever though. They come out when they come out.

Tbh I’ve seen so many big hype games come and go I don’t know what gets me actually excited any more. But it certainly doesn’t get me excited when I watch a game trailer, let’s say in Feb 25, then at the end it says “releasing 2026”. Instead of getting me interested and looking forward to the game it does the opposite where I think ok, well I don’t care and this game can be forgotten about until 2026.

Nowadays, for certain devs, please announce them 2 months after they've been released and suitably patched to a reasonably playable state..... Seriously - years ago I remember buying different gaming mags based on the extensive preview they might have about a certain game, but now we're given so much access to so many things, I no longer get excited by previews. So just give me the firm release date, a handful of review narratives and the opportunity to buy the game at a reasonable price (or play it on Game pass) and I'm happy.

The Devil's Backbone (2001) - Only the second Del Toro film I've seen other than Pan's Labyrinth. Well and like most of Hellboy at some point, I think. It's a lot like Pan's Labyrinth cause it also deals with the Spanish Civil War, set right during it with these kids in a sort of boarding school/refuge place as they're all orphans. It's also like that film in that it combines a story about the war with a ghost story, a young child who has some really creepy special effects to demonstrate his ghostiness. It's good but not amazing, Pan's Labyrinth is amazing and overshadows this film for me cause they really do feel twinned. Also Anora (2024), I'd watched some of it a few weeks back but turned it off cause the opening 30 minutes or so is like a montage of partying, sex scenes and kinda just really loud and annoying. Just wasn't into it. So started it up again and well it definitely gets a lot better past that opening section, though it's an important part all the same to complement the hangover that's the rest of the film. The marketing pushes it as a sort of ironic Cinderalla story or something like that, which I guess is right. I don't know if this is one of those films where it's better to know something or just a little bit, so I guess I'll just say it's about an escort who gets married to the son of someone who's clearly supposed to be a Russian oligarch, and the film is largely about how this unravels in a very sort of intense Uncut Gems kinda way. It goes from being annoying, to hilarious to quietly devastating. It's probably a great film but it's a hard one to recommend but if you like Sean Baker's films you will probably also like this. It's one of those films which will stick around in the discourse past its year of release I think

This got announced a while ago, wasn't really paying attention too much until I read the latest EDGE and found out that this is made by Takaya Imamura, who was the main art director at Nintendo behind F-Zero, Starfox and Majora's Mask, but who also directed some smaller projects before his departure, like Tank Troopers and Steel Diver. This is based on a manga he drew in his spare time just for fun. Never read it either, but I'm kind of interested in the game now. Obviously very retro, channeling a bit of that classic Japanese visual novel/adventure style à la Snatcher and whatnot. Comes out on PC and Switch, though wouldn't rule out a Playstation port down the line.

Leave it to Neatherrealm to animate even fluid in a stiff manner.

PS+ this month is amazing

This thread has a little 'Hot! 🔥' icon now because Nag is so hot for playing Balatro!

I loved IT Crowed the one time I went through them all donkeys years ago. It’s definitely nothing like or as bad as Mrs Browns Boys though.

Been playing this quite a lot, mainly exploring, uncovered nearly as much of the map as Maf above, but without much fighting, really enjoying the exploring, probably played 10 to 15 hours exploring. Then had to do some fighting, at first mainly fighting big slow enemies on the horse where hit and run is effective, then did the area in the south then the north (from the starting area) I feel like I’m sort of rubbish at the fighting (which I expected) but as you can summon 2 helpers at the boss fights, and I read beginner info about what to level up, so have lots of health, I didn’t find the bosses too bad. Still easily die to groups/random enemies at times. I still expect at some point the fighting will get too hard and I’ll give up, but will see how it goes. also the horse is great, it’s fast, it double jumps, I spent so long on the horse now running around without seems really slow.

Backlog time! Through pure coincidence I picked the right timing though, because this game takes place during Valentine's Day (I always enjoy playing games 'seasonally correct'). A rather quick and accurate way to describe this is Hotel Dusk through the lens of Life is Strange. With the former it shares the setting (hotel) and the sort-of detective gameplay, while the latter clearly influenced the overall tone and presentation style, with it being a slow-paced 3rd person adventure and every interaction prompting a short commentary from the protagonist. Unlike HD's Kyle Hyde, Sophie isn't a detective, but a young cleaning lady who likes to balance out her uneventful and sheltered life by snooping around the rooms she's tidying up. In a sort of meta-context, I found this rather interesting, because as gamers we're no strangers to walking into an NPC's house and stealing everything the game allows us to, but add a bit of narrative context and it suddenly feels quite wrong. Though what starts as a questionable, but in context also understandable hobby then evolves into a mystery thriller and it's here where it becomes difficult to talk about the game because it's entirely built on the premise of being this emergent choice-driven adventure. I can't really give many examples without spoiling anything, but there are a lot of variables that are considered here, and not all of them lead to the outcomes you might expect. But at the same the writers don't throw any far-fetched curveballs at you, every outcome feels organic and logical in the context of the people involved with dealing with it. This is all super vague but again, examples would spoil the fun, because even some minor details are impactful here. I think one I can give is that early on after finding out something mildly disturbing in a room, you get the option of calling one of two co-workers, and that person will then become your confidant and have an impact on proceedings. So that's the first of a lot of branches the narrative can split into. I did go over the achievements (which aren't hidden, fair warning) after I saw the credits and there is a surprising amount of different outcomes. Some are more positive than others, but the developers seem to go out of their way to not proclaim any of them 'good' or other 'bad' endings. They are, again, just very organic conclusions to the actions you took. 'My' Sophie, for example, might not have had the most fulfilling job experience in the hotel, but at least she found love. Others might not, but might climb up the career ladder instead. Others might do neither, or both. But it's never the 'pick upper-right option for best outcome' kind of design. In terms of production values I think this is a beautiful example of what you can pull off when you align your goals with your financial means. Both the setting and protagonist choices are very clever in that regard, because as a cleaning lady on duty, you're not supposed to wander off (= smaller game world) while the guests are obviously all out and about (= fewer NPCs). It never feels arbitrarily restricted though, except maybe for a trolley blocking a way at a certain point. The way its cutscenes are shot, with fixed angles and little movement, is probably also a byproduct of its budget, but gives its cinematography a very classic movie feel. Through some strong art direction and good usage of colour this is a very attractive game I think that doesn't even want to punch above its weight class. It's only the rather stiff body and facial animations that can sometimes make scenes feel a bit lifeless, but the really good voice acting (English and French are done by the same Canadian voice actors) usually manages to make up for that. If I had to point out one thing I disliked it would be the somewhat fiddly interaction with items. There's no highlight feature à la Life is Strange, so you have to align your tiny cursor with the object and if the latter is something small, like a key, it's particularly easy to just miss it and mistake it for a non-interactable decor item and run around in circles until you desperately try again (personal anecdote). This is all a very roundabout way of me saying that I really enjoyed this. At about 5 hours for one playthrough it's both a nice palette cleanser but also a very fulfilling and interesting game in its own right. While the branching narrative will probably lead some players to replay it multiple times, I usually tend to stick with 'my' story in these games and move away after the credits roll. Though with its relatively compact playtime in mind I could see myself coming back to it maybe in a year or so. But very much recommended if you like narrative games and/or either one of those other titles I mentioned in the beginning.

Mine's more in keeping with a Jane Austen reader. I've had this for years but Mrs Metroid took it over when doing a theology degree and most of my stuff is in storage in the loft. If I start collecting again this will be reversed.

Pretty sure that amazing one in Southport has closed. The one with like 3 or 4 floors, including new stuff and all the ancient tomes. A little more on topic though, that sucks for users, but I've read you'll still be able to send books direct to your Kindle using your kindle email address (which every account has). How that will work in practice, I'm not sure, but that might be the way to circumvent Amazon's bullshit. Personally I read e-books every day. Usually on Kindle, but the last couple of weeks it's been through my phone just for convenience. I adore real books, there's nothing like them, and when part 3 of The Book of Dust comes out, I'll be there, day one on hardback. Kindle has introduced me to so many books I never would have tried in the past though, so I can never see me fully leaving the digital book space again. If the other e-readers have a way to access Kindle libraries, then I might look towards one of those. Otherwise, I'm stuck in the Amazon ecospace, because I'm not starting to find and buy the books I already own again.

So I did end up beating 10-Day Champion with the mage character and I played around a bit with the other two I have unlocked. I think it's a cool game, but I wish it had a permanent save feature, even if it meant risking running into a dead end, skillset-wise. Anyway, I recently got a new game, called Trackminia. Considering UbiSoft doesn't have any money anymore they're probably safe from any lawsuits. I actually never really played Trackmania, so I can't comment on how similar they are, but the developer does cite the series as a big influence. In this one you drive around flat courses with different backgrounds and try to drift masterfully through corners to beat target times (it's only time trials, there are no races with multiple cars - what you see in the gif are ghosts). There's quite a steep learning curve to handling the drift, which feels like a more loose version of Ridge Racer gameplay, but after a while you'll get a handle on things. I'm at a point now where I can sort of challenge the Silver times, but Gold is still very much out of reach, even on the very first course. Visually I find it quite impressive (it looks better natively than here in the gif, the dithering isn't as pronounced without a backlit screen) and there's even a track builder in there. I know @spatular doesn't exactly love the Playdate but this might be one you'd enjoy.

Played this for about 3 hours so far, I'll admit it's extremely weird seeing the Playstation logo pop up when booting a game on Switch. The easiest way to describe this is probably 'baby's first action RPG', as it is fundamentally part of that subgenre but stripped down to its bare minimum of features and complexities. You start off in a town that works as a hub area and from there certain exits lead to the stages/missions you have to complete. Those stages are all pretty linear and are divided between simple platforming and combat areas. Combat is actually rather fun, at least if you're fighting the robots as the humans are just cannon fodder. Pressing the left shoulder button sends out a pulse that reveals their weak spots which Aloy targets semi-automatically if your line of sight isn't obstructed. Your standard weapon is a bow, but you can find power-ups throughout the levels, like a double jump that send a shockwave downards, fire and ice arrows and some more wacky stuff like a hotdog stand that randomly throws out explosive hotdogs at enemies. Killing enemies yields XP, but the level-ups are pre-determined and alter between increasing your health or your damage. There's four different characters to pick from who all have access to their own set of tools but I've stuck with Aloy for the moment as the hit feedback when landing her charged shots on weak spots feels surprisingly good and rewarding. Unfortunately the levels all feel a bit samey, to the point where you might think they'd be procedurally generated if there wasn't one here and there with a more unique twist. Combined with the random power-ups you can't carry over or the lack of an inventory system it gives the whole thing a rather arcade-y vibe, like if Golden Axe somewhat evolved into an action RPG at some point in time. You can find treasure chests and small structures to build off the beaten path but the only thing you get from them is money (in the form of Lego studs) which in turn can be used to unlock permanent upgrades (more XP, more damage for your power-ups etc.) or to redecorate your hub town. I haven't played the Horizon games but the story seems to be a retelling of the first one. It doesn't take itself too seriously but the humour isn't annoying at least. It's pretty silly, but I've chuckled here and there, though in combination with the very barebones systems it's obvious this is made for younger audience first and foremost. There's also co-op, but only locally, no online modes. Visually it's one of the best-looking Switch games for sure with extremely detailed and clean visuals that really push the hardware (I can hear the fan all the time) – in handheld mode maybe even more-so than on the TV because the sometimes choppy 30fps seem more stable there. I'm enjoying it so far, will continue to play it in short bursts due to its lack of depth and sort of repetitive design.

I couldn't give a fuck, I'm still trying to work through the years 2010 to 2024. If I never bought a new game again I'd probably be good.

Put a couple of hours in. This is immediately much more interesting than the first game IMO. The story is grabbing me far quicker (helped no doubt by being familiar with the terms now). Having a crew is great, having some action choices during the text sections and them being decided by your class strengths adds a surprising amount more involvement. I like having a ship and being able to fly to other areas. I’ve had 3 new ‘locations’ already, giving some much needed variety imo. Just has a few more variables in the normal dice based gameplay bits too. This is so much better than the first. Surprised I’m the first to post about this seeing how I was the most down on it in the other thread. Anyone else playing it? I will say it’s crashed on me 3 times though in my short time with it. Luckily it’s saving constantly so I lost basically nothing but that’s still incredibly shitty.

Arrived half an hour ago with DPD. I've been keeping a close eye on this ever since I first heard about it. I've admired Julian's work from the Mean Machines days. The first 250 orders come with a signed postcard. 🙂

A couple of these weren't cheap, one really was. Gun Grave, I played a bit of on Game Pass, I don't think it's particularly good but it was a fiver and I liked the original. Soul Fighter I've never owned, it's not especially rare so I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to buy it, it's supposed to be a decent enough brawler Gynoug I remember seeing in the video shop all the time when I was a kid but never played it. illdog loves it, raves about it, and told me off for never playing it, so I've bought it. Got to say, what I played was pretty good. It's a horizontal shmup, and it's got great music Cosmic Smash cost me about £100. I've played it a bit over the years but never owned it. It's 3d Breakout with Rez visuals. It's cool, glad to have it and will play it at properly at some point beyond the quick go I had to test it)

forgot i'd ordered this, until getting loads of emails about it arriving anyway, 100+ tracks of monks chanting/refantazio soundtrack