DisturbedSwan

First GH:Live songs revealed: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-rolling-stones-green-day-lead-guitar-hero-live-set-list-20150512 The Black Keys - "Gold on the Ceiling" Blitz Kids - "Sometimes" Ed Sheeran - "Sing" Fall Out Boy - "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)” Gary Clark, Jr. - "Don't Owe You a Thang" Green Day - "Nuclear Family" The Killers - “When You Were Young" The Lumineers - "Ho Hey" My Chemical Romance - "Na Na Na" Pierce the Veil - "King for a Day (feat. Kellin Quinn)" The Rolling Stones - "Paint it Black" Skrillex - "Bangarang" The War on Drugs - "Under the Pressure" Black Veil Brides - "In The End" Rage Against the Machine - "Guerrilla Radio" Judas Priest - "Breaking the Law" Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell" Sleigh Bells - "Bitter Rivals" System of a Down - "Chop Suey!" Alter Bridge - "Cry of Achilles" Alt-J - "Left Hand Free" Broken Bells - "Leave It Alone" Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Higher Ground" The Pretty Reckless - "Going to Hell"

Watched it earlier today, I'd rate it at about 6/10. It's the kind of film that doesn't really go anywhere really, I quite enjoyed it at times, but once the key plot devices and characters were introduced it didn't really take you anywhere else, just stayed as-is and didn't really go anywhere.

22 AC Games since 2007 I'd say.

Lots of new footage from the official reveal earlier today: Debut Trailer: World Premiere: Gameplay Walkthrough: Looks pretty damn impressive, definitely looks like they've taken some inspiration from the Batman: Arkham games with the grappling hook and the new, faster combat stuff. Collectors Editions: Release date is October 23rd.

Played about 15 hours of this now, finished the first two seasons of career mode and played an awful lot of the online stuff as well. I really, really like it. I honestly don't know how much more of the Career mode I'll play because the online stuff is just that damn compelling and addictive, especially when the lobby host includes qualiffying and you get a room full of 32 cars or something, a really incredible experience (apart from the odd rammer of course). Also, my wheel came today: The first wheel I ordered off eBay never came, so ordered another. This one (Thrustmaster F430) was a very reasonable price due to the clamp being broken, hopefully I'll fix it and it'll work right as reign. In pretty good condition, came well packaged but absolutely stunk of smoke, not a huge problem, but annoying nevertheless, not actually tested it yet to make sure it turns on, haven't got my PC at the moment (had to send it back to RMA it back to the place that built it for me) so can't try this with Project Cars until I get it back will have to test it on the PS3 if I can but not got any racing games on there I don't think.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-11-assassins-creed-syndicate-will-let-you-play-as-a-woman-report

I'll try and give it a watch.

Didn't get the chance to try the beta-event-thing this weekend, but I watched the Splatoon Direct, still rather impressed with it and looking forward to it quite a bit. The lack of voice-chat still irks me, but I guess we've all got skype to get around that problem nowadays anyway.

Cheers for those settings, Spatular, I'll plug them into the game when I get on there and see how I get on.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/8/8575239/assassins-creed-syndicate-hits-this-holiday-stars-jacob-frye The Syndicate name matches previous reports on Kotaku about the game. The marketing material states that the game will "transport millions of gamers to an astonishing recreation of London during the Industrial Revolution where they will find themselves immersed in a game world they'll have to see to believe." The game will star an assassin named Jacob Frye, according to the material. Those who pre-order the game at GameStop will receive an Assassin's Creed: Syndicate shilling necklace, meant to be a replica of the one worn by Frye in the game. Ubisoft says it will officially reveal the new title on May 12 at 5 p.m. UK time (12 p.m. ET) during a livestream. Earlier this week, Ubisoft posted an animated teaser for the game on its UK site for the next Assassin's Creed game. The site included a reference to Jacob and the phrase "oppression has to end." Today, the U.S. version of the official site showed brass knuckles on its front page with phrases like "God Save the Queen" and "Strength Through Loyalty" in wood behind the weapon. The word "Rooks" is featured about the brass knuckles with a picture of a bird carved next to it. In the background you can hear the sounds of a church bell ringing and people talking in what sounds to be a bar or pub. New Teaser Trailer: Full reveal on May 12th.

Yeah, I bought a wheel specifically to play this but long story short, it didn't come so I had to order another which won't be here until Saturday/Monday, been playing with the XB1 pad, but you're right there's definitely a deadzone with the left analog stick I've found, not as noticeable in the road cars, touring cars etc. but in the Karts its very noticeable at high speeds going down a straight.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC) - £1.04

Developer: Slightly Mad Studios Publisher: Bandai Namco Games Platform: PC, PS4, XB1, Wii U Release Date: 7th May 2015 (Digital PC), 8th May 2015 (Physical all versions). So, Project CARS is a community funded semi-SIM racing game, developed by the guys that made NFS: Shift and NFS: Shift 2 Unleashed, its just been released this past Thursday/Friday, and here are some of my impressions. Initial Impressions: Started at the very beginning of the Career mode in the Karts, ridiculously hard to get used to the handling and everything, restarted the very first race about 10 times as I kept sliding off here, there and everywhere finished the UK Karting Championship and then went onto the main Karting Championship or whatever its called, won these and reached towards the end of my first season and left it there. There is a lot to like about it, but it just felt pretty dull to me, pretty vanilla, just a bog-standard Forza/GT clone. There was no real incentive to keep going other than wanting to win, in Forza you level up, get tons of cash, cars etc. when you finish a championship, there's none of that here, you just get a trophy and then simply move onto the next season and/or championship, not sure how much more time I'm going to put into the career mode to be honest. After this I decided to try my hand at the online side of things, definitely had more fun with this but it was still a bit hit-and-miss really, some of the lobbies I was going into had numerous settings I had no clue about, like manual shifting, I literally had no idea, pushed the accelerator off the start-line, didn't go anywhere and ended up dead last, the cars are also ridiculously difficult to control, you have to seriously feather the throttle everywhere otherwise the torque of the car will just throw you off into a wall, ridiculously hard to get used to, and not fuck things up but if you nail it is is damn satisfying, more fun with real opposition for sure, always the way really in racing games really, just wish there was some standardised control scheme/difficulty level for the online side of things and not a 50/50 chance you're going to get some mad settings when you enter a game. Further Impressions: OK, my thoughts have changed quite a bit on this now. After initially finding it a bit clinical and dull (in the career mode anyway), I decided to put on the Project CARS Drum 'n' Bass playlist from Spotify in the background, made the entire game 100% better, I'm not even joking, I can't play this serious car games without some decent music on, and this made the whole experience of piloting a cart/touring car etc. exhilarating rather than a bit dull like I found it before. I'm about mid-way through Season 2 in the Career mode and I'm loving it so far, it still lacks that XP-progression system from Forza but I still find it addictive, I'm driving A LOT of varied cars now, from Karts, Super-Karts, Touring Cars, Caterhams etc. every car feels incredibly different from one another, and you have to relearn your braking lines, racing lines etc. everytime you pilot a new car in a new event Another special shoutout has to go to the track variation, I'm constantly bemoaning the track selection in the last few Forza's, going around the same tracks I've gone round a million times before in previous games, just with longer, reversed etc. versions just isn't that fun to me, almost every track in this is different, I haven't played that much of the campaign, but already I've experienced racing at Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Oulton Park, Spa, Sonoma Raceway, Dubai Autodrome, Silverstone, Zolder, Barcelona, Donington Park, Monza and numerous Karting tracks, it's quite frankly, a ridiculous number of tracks, and it means that it constantly feels fresh, you will go from Spa one race to Zolder the next, you're never left repeating the same tracks ad nauseam just in different forms like you are in Forza. Also must mention the weather systems, it really is fantastic. You can go from racing in perfect sunshine, to clouds coming in, to it pouring with rain, and then the track drying out afterwards, with different corners remaining wet, and different corners becoming dry, it is incredibly dynamic and is probably the most realistic weather system I've experienced in a racing game, it is incredibly impressive and puts the weather systems in racers like FH2, Driveclub etc. to shame, it is utterly fantastic and just adds to the realism. Played quite a bit online as well, and it is really, REALLY good as well, lots of customisation in there, if you're a lobby host you can pretty much set up a game exactly how you want it, tweak which aids you want on or off, number of laps, rolling or standing start, weather types etc. Unfortunately, it suffers a bit from 'online racer syndrome' in that you get a lot of people who are shite at racing games in there, that'll just barge you off the road left right and centre, which is no fun at all, but, if you've got patience and are prepared to put up with this a bit, let your skill shine through and eventually take you upto a good position in the race then you'll find it enjoyable, it's incredibly satisfying struggling in a Formula A car that can make you spin at any point in time if you're not careful and treat it with care, getting to the front, dodging the numerous terrible drivers, incredibly satisfying and addictive. I've only played 8 hours, but it's already better than Forza 4 and 5.

Pre-loaded myself a bit earlier, unlocks at midnight I think, will give it an hour or so tonight and see how it is.

Been getting some very good reviews so far: http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/project-cars 86% average from 6 critic reviews.

Wow, this is insane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnPuk2ECaIQ WRC Rally Driver Kevin Abbring playing a stage in DiRT Rally.

Signed up for the Beta, I'll see if I get in.

Finished it today, here's my review: Isometrically Correct For a very long time, I'd heard about the CRPG glory days of the late 90s/early 00s where games like Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate were keeping PC gamers in raptures around the world, I used to watch the old Game Network channel on Sky and see them playing through all these games, always in awe of how amazing they all looked and how incredible it would be to delve into these vast, dense worlds of beauty and danger. Unfortunately, however, I never owned a gaming PC until 2004, so I missed out on a lot of these experiences growing up, sure, I was happy with my consoles at the time but I always felt that the world of the CRPG, and the world of PC gaming was shrouded in mystery, an exclusive club for those that didn't want to bend to the will of the console manufacturers and preferred the openness and highly customisable nature of the PC universe, these games were incredibly intriguing to me, and there was nothing like them on the consoles of the age. The beauty of Pillars of Eternity is that it allows a now fully-grown 25 year-old to experience an old-school isometric CRPG fresh for the first time, all the classic-CRPG tropes are in there for the most part, but Obsidian have tweaked the formula, modernised it and made the experience more pallet-able, more relate-able for the average 2010s gamer. An example of this is the rest system, in the old CRPGs you used to be able to abuse the rest mechanic, killing one tough enemy in a dungeon, resting, then killing another and repeating the formula until you cleared an area of enemies or successfully concluded your mission, with Pillars, Obsidian have made it so you can only do this 4-6 times (dependent on difficulty) when you're out exploring, by having you use 'camping supplies' every-time you want to rest, there are a finite amount of these and once you're out, you're out, so there's no abusing the system. I always feel that RPGs live or die by their ability to pull you into the world. A good RPG should make it believable and make you feel like this is a living-breathing world filled with individual personalities and different factions with their own warring agendas, and this is where Pillars succeeds the most. The first 1 hour 30 minutes of the game pull you into the world so forcefully its almost impossible to escape its hooks, it is possibly the most impressive opening 2 hours to an RPG that I've ever seen and if you're not hooked and wanting to play more by the end of it then I'd be incredibly surprised, it does such a nice job of introducing the world, the mechanics of the game, the controls of the game etc. in an incredibly fluid, non-intrusive manor, there's twists and turns and when you come out of the other end you're left reeling and trying to suss out the mystery that the game has presented you. It is an incredibly beguiling, mysterious world that you are left to explore after the opening, and makes you want to wander out and see every part of it you can. Eora (Pillars' fantasy world) is an incredibly interesting place to inhabit, and just exist, you get lost in the world, and want to explore all the various nooks and crannies you can, this is helped by the varied nature of Eora's different environments scattered throughout the landscape and the loot. The loot in Pillars is endless, you can never fill you inventory, you just have one endless chest that gets magically filled with all the loot you can find, it is fantastic, and means you never have to worry about sorting out your inventory, or being over-encumbered at any point during the game, the only time you'll need to delve into it is to find out information about a new weapon/armour piece you just got or to sort out a few items that you wish to sell at a merchant, all the rest of the time you can just let it fill up to your hearts content and the game will not serve any penalties upon you. The make-up of Eora, is essentially, two main city's (Twin Elms and Defiance Bay) with a few towns (Gilded Vale, Dyrford Village), Villages, Wooded areas and Ruins with a sprinkling of Dungeons, Caves, Enemy dwellings etc. that are just ripe for exploration and adventure. Easily the most impressive place in Eora is Defiance Bay, it's a sprawling city with 5 distinct districts that all feel different to one another, it feels like an incredibly busy, believable city with a hubbub of people milling about, tons of quests to do, a lot of mysteries to solve and various factions vying with each other for power and influence, it feels like a living-breathing city and I loved every second I was here. The areas in-between the city's aren't as impressive but they're still all unique in their own ways, and interesting in their own different ways. Early on in your adventures in Eora you discover the old ruin of Caed Nua, this becomes your Stronghold in the game. You are free to upgrade your Stronghold as you see fit, increasing the Prestige and Security of it, hire adventurers, manage your party-members, send party members off on missions and explore the depths of the Ruin known as the 'Endless Paths', which are 15 levels of increasingly-difficult enemies with an incredibly difficult boss at the end of it. You will get notifications throughout your adventures keeping you updated of the progress of certain builds to your Stronghold, what missions are available and what mercenaries you can hire, these notifications are also used to keep you abreast of any bad situations that happen as well, letting you know if a Bandit party or a few Ogres are on the way to your Stronghold to try to batter down the walls, a few cohorts also come and go that will increase or decrease the prestige and/or security rating of the Hold, which you can either escort out, wait or pay off if you so choose. Like many other RPGs, you meet various NPCs along the way that you can recruit into your party (your party can hold a maximum of 6), all these characters have all their individual personalities, motivations and reasons for banding together with you on your journey, like the rest of the game they're all incredible well-written and in Bioware style you get specific side-quests that deal with their own journey's in Eora that you can deal with if you so choose. You pick these party members up on your travels, but you can recruit more and keep them at your keep to send off on side-quests if you choose. The story itself starts off very strong with the incredible opening mentioned above, keeps things interesting until the last 1/3 and then goes a little flat and the ending feels incredibly rushed. I won't say too much about the story, but it can be a bit confusing at times, and I definitely feel it could've been balanced slightly better but it is still mysterious, intruiging and beguiling in equal measure and you'll want to know how things conclude by the end of your time with the game. I usually enjoy side-quests more than the main-questline in RPGs and its no different here, the story is good enough and serves its purpose of getting you hooked into the world, but the true star of Pillars is the incredible side-quests and the quality of the writing. The quality of writing throughout Pillars is absolutely astounding, almost every side-quest feels meaningful, characters are each given their own distinct personalities and the various factions and tribes you rub shoulders with throughout are all unique and interesting in their own different ways. Obsidian also throw a lot of moral dilemma's in there, not good v evil kind of choices, but choices that are morally grey, these are incredibly clever and keep every side-quest feeling unique. Unlike other recent games such as Dragon Age: Inquisition, absolutely none of the side-quests feel throw-away, there's no collecting shards or anything like that from RPGs, every side-quest feels unique, and most importantly, interesting. Now, I must confess to a few problems I had with the game. The first is the rushed third act, it feels very abrupt and doesn't really wrap up in a nice crescendo like other RPGs do, it does a decent enough job of wrapping up but you just don't get that satisfaction of finishing this 48 adventure you've just been on like you should do, it just kind of ends and you see the credits roll, it feels a bit abrupt and a bit rushed. The second city of Twin Elms feels a bit underdeveloped as well, this could be from the strains of the Kickstarter campaign and the way in which the game was funded, I'm not sure, but it definitely feels a bit sparse and doesn't have the living-breathing city vibe that the First city, Defiance Bay has, it has nowhere near as many side-quests or nooks and crannies to explore either. The next issue I had was the party-AI, sometimes they would get stuck on scenery, other times they couldn't attack an enemy as they'd get stuck in between an Ally, little things like this, not major problems by any means, but small issues nevertheless. I had a few bugs during my playthrough as well, one was a Signposting bug, where I defeated a certain enemy, talked to an NPC who I was meant to turn the quest into but it hadn't recognised I had defeated this particular enemy so I had to go back, reload my last save and defeat him again, not too difficult fortunately, but frustrating nevertheless. The second bug I had was significantly more serious in its nature unfortunately. The entire last 2 hours of the game enemy's would not attack me at all, obviously this was beneficial to me as I could just breeze through the numerous high-level enemies towards the end of the game, but it was disappointing because the Combat became a bit of a chore due to this, and I felt myself just wanting the game to end, rather than enjoying the turn-pause-based combat that I had previously. So, in conclusion, Pillars of Eternity is a fantastic, expansive RPG than will conjure up memories of the CRPG glory days of the late 90s/early 00s, it offers something different to the scores of 3D RPGs out there today and succeeds in giving an incredible amount of depth to every conversation, interaction and the world of Eora itself thanks to its fantastic writing. It is my Game of the Year of 2015 so far, and it is a game you simply must play and experience for yourself. 9/10

Another update in my tales from Eora. Now 44 hours in, Level 9, mid way through Act 3. Since my last update I've completed all the upgrades to my Stronghold, and gradually made my way to the second city in the game, doing plenty of side-quests and exploring all the various nooks and crannies along the way. I eventually made it to the 2nd city and have been methodically exploring every inch of each of the districts, talking to everyone I can, finding every bit of Loot I can collect (without getting caught for stealing) and completing all the side-quests I can, some really cool quests here once again, so many different factions, clans, tribes etc. it's difficult to keep up with who's got beef with who, but I think I've eventually got my head around it, a few of the side-quests I didn't really know why I was killing a certain bunch of people exactly, but I did it anyway and had great fun doing so, didn't lose any reputation (gained a lot with 2 of the Clans) so happy days I guess. Also carried on the main quest-line slightly here, just naturally did one quest just through exploring the 2nd city, don't think I've got long to go now with the main story actually, a few more Quests in Act 3 and that'll be it I think, definitely feels like we're getting towards the end-game phase of the game, feels slightly rushed but its still pretty good. Going to mop up all the side-quests I can do before then though, still got a couple to do North of the 2nd city (where I am at the moment) and a few more ones back near the 1st city that were too difficult for me first time around. Don't think the 2nd city is anywhere near as well designed as the first, the first was such a hubbub of information, quests, activities and opportunities and the 2nd city feels a bit devoid of that living-breathing-city feeling as the first one, but it's still interesting and a great place to explore all the same. Will play some more tomorrow.

I've got a theory that this is just a way to appease the hard-core audience, so they can pretty much do what they want with DiRT 4, make it arcadey, have Gymkhana, Races, Ken Block wanking over himself, Destruction Derbies etc. in there and maybe no rallying and they'll just go 'we've got a game for the hardcore rally fan, it's Dirt Rally". I've still not got got my wheel so can't comment on the force feedback, but will try it out if it eventually comes and report back, I do kind of hope they don't add a map though, I must say, I like it a lot as-is. Did an online custom league today and rallied on some different surfaces in Monaco and Wales (only previously rallied in Greece), and couldn't believe how different the surfaces are, I found the Tarmac of Monaco so SO nice compared to the Gravel, was absolutely aceing these stages, but the Ice/Snow sections are terribly difficult, was slowing the car down so much just to avoid skidding off the side of a mountain or something, had to use the Handbrake a lot here as well, lovely bit of variation though with the different surfaces. Got a feeling this will never make it to consoles, but DiRT 4 definitely will, at some point in the future, but who knows how far off that is.

Shitting hell, that's a good deal, I paid £22/£23 on there for the same game

I've backed Yooka-Laylee for £55, grew up with Rare's N64 games as a lad, so felt they deserved my cash.

I have no faith in 343 to make a decent Halo game, Halo 4's campaign was incredibly dull and they played it extremely safe, the MP was more like Call of Duty than Halo, can only see 5 continuing on down this road, I will buy it as I'm a Halo fan, but I don't have particularly high hopes.

Yeah, those don't really get my gherkin peeling really, Ether One may be interesting to try but I swear I've already got Guacamelee on PS+ last year or something, maybe with the PS3, bit of a cop-out that I feel.

Another update. 34 hours in now, mid-way through Act 2 in the story, all my party members upto Level 8. Managed to leave the City behind after doing everything I possibly could there, including nudge the main quest-line on. Did an awful lot of side-quests and tasks, must've done almost all of them here about from a couple that were a bit difficult or required certain Might/Perception ratings or a shit-ton of cash, so I left them and moved on to other locales out East, discovered a load more side-quests out here and put the main quest-line on the backburner once again. Tried to do do a couple of them in some new areas to the South of the City, but they were too difficult (assume all these ones that are all too difficult are meant for me to do at a higher level than I am now) so did different side-quests in and around a new town I've discovered and a few of the new areas too, lots of dungeons today which I liked a lot, really cool, really mysterious and with a shit-ton of loot. Then decided to progress the main quest-line once more, which meant another dungeon which I didn't mind at all, finished this and I think I'm quite near the end of Act 2 now but I may be wrong, my next destination (eventually) is another City now I think. I know I've said it previously in this thread, but the side-quests really are excellent, seen none of the standard "collect x number of x" fetch quests like in Dragon Age 3 et al, and hardly any of them work out the way you think they are going to, the writing is excellent. Quite a lot of morally grey choices to be made which is always good, the main-story is a little confusing at the moment but filled with morally grey choices and a few twists and turns as well which is good, entertaining so far but a little confusing. Also, almost fully upgraded my stronghold, its at its max now for security, now just need to upgrade a few bits and pieces to get my prestige to the max and it'll be fully up and running, it's really cool going back and seeing it look all shiny and new compared to the ruined state you discover it in.