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So had a quick go of this after it unlocked last night, initial impressions are mixed, they've changed the combat a bit and i'm not sure about it yet, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's annoying, and i've really struggled on two sections so am a bit worried i won't be able to finish it on normal, some of the enemies can be really annoying. having said that the original started with bad combat but i really liked that after you unlock a certain move so maybe this will be similar. and there were easy/hard options so hopefully you can switch between them - also wonder what they change as i personally would want to just make the combat easier and leave the rest, but someone else might struggle with the platforming i don't know. everything else was pretty similar to the first game so far - it looks amazing and there's been some mild puzzles and platforming - generally really enjoying it outside the combat. hope there are some more demanding platforming sections like in the first game. there are combat trials and timetrial sections too - i enjoyed the timetrial one - as above not sure about the combat one - probably could have come back to it later when more powered up. oh and they changed the save system to a seemingly more normal one with pretty frequent checkpoints - that's probably a good change Also apparently there are performance problems/bugs, 2 patches already on xbox? i'm playing the gamepass version on pc and haven't had any patches, bugs/problems. this is a game i would have purchased, but it's on gamepass so i didn't, which is an odd thing. anyone else getting it/trying it on gamepass?

So, played this for around two and a half hours tonight... so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm not going to pretend that it has triple A production values going on but I've been pleasantly surprised by how good it looks all in all... a photo mode would've been nice. The character animation is probably one of the least appealing things in the game Marianne runs a little like Claire from Code Veronica.? I've just made my way to the spooky Hotel and the game has let me use my abilities, it's actually pretty cool to solve puzzles this way... I thought the lack of combat might hurt things for me but so far the story is carrying things along nicely. I'm looking forward to playing more of this, it was always going to be up my street so to speak.

If you want a high octane extreme to the max experience you've come to the right place. i've not really done any of the game like stuff like the tutorials and landing challenges. i'm just flying around in a sort of virtual tourism way, i think the game for me is trying to find things in the game, like i flew over my house and my car was there which was pretty cool. finding things is not as easy as you might think, the in game map where you can choose any point in the world and just load in on, lacks any real detail, mainly just showing airports and the odd landmark, eg in russia there was a university marked on the map, tokyo sky tower, but there aren't many of these. so for example to find my house used google maps to find nearby airports/landing strip, then using those as a reference point click in the area i think it'll be, fly around a bit to find a town i recognised, then follow the roads i know back to the house. it seems like you can edit config files to move some of the in game markers to specific points and use that to find locations exactly but that sounds like a faf and not as fun. at first i was flying pretty low to look at stuff and this sort of breaks the amazing graphics, like the streets in new york were full of trees which is odd. the eden project is flat, as were a number of buildings in russia and vietnam. the textures in the north pole were a bit messed up. the bull ring in birmingham has a normal building texture on the side so doesn't look anything like it should. but then i started flying a bit higher and turned the clouds on and it looks crazy next level good. last night i was flying around cheshire/north west wales, yorkshire, manchester, it looked amazing, and is quite relaxing. i got the game on gamepass, it's not the sort of thing i'd buy, but have played it quite a lot and been enjoying it, which surprised me, i thought it'd be boring, and i guess it is but i'm enjoying it anyway.

I've been meaning to check this game out for ages and finally had a chance to play it online with a mate last night. The premise is you're a clean up crew sent in after the events of your typical first person shooter. Armed with a mop and a variety of tools you have to go in, clean up the bodies and mop the place up. The twist comes in all the physics based sillyness. We played a level set in a space station with a switch that turned gravity on and off. It's just that we didn't realise the switch did that and suddenly there are hundreds of body parts bouncing around, splattering blood everywhere, which then gets stood in and suddenly there are bloody footprints everywhere. It's got a real dark sense of humour to it as well. My wife gave me one of 'those' looks when she saw me laughing at my friends attempts to stuff a rag-doll cadaver into an incinerator, innards flying everywhere. Despite leaving the place immaculate, we got demoted. Turns out jettisoning rubbish into space is frowned upon and we should have used the incinerator on the ceiling more. Can't remember the last time i've laughed so much at a game.

Started this off earlier and put just under 4 hours into it. This has set the record of making me cry the fastest in a video game, just felt overcome with the music in the tutorial ? also the fountain in the middle of the village at the beginning of the game is just amazing, I must’ve walked around that fountain about 30 times just listening to the lovely music (cried again here), amazing. As soon as I got free reign to explore the village I explored every corner of it, there’s not much to it but it creates such a strong sense of place and unique vibe, it’s already memorable and familiar even in my short time there. Combat feels like a more simplistic version of Automata’s. It looks flashy and feels good but is bit more shallow than Automata’s. If I had to compare it, it feels a bit like FFXV’s (without all the warp-strikes) or one of the earlier KIngdom Hearts games. You start off without any ranged abilities with just your sword to rely on, but pretty quickly you pick up a ranged weapon which has added to the variety on offer and cool abilities you can pull off. Story-wise not much has happened so far, I’ve just been given a few meaningless tasks to do by Popola, been to my first dungeon and met a certain literary figure. I’ve done a few of the side quests too just to see how bad they are for myself, and yeah, they’re not great but I don’t mind them so far, they’re inoffensive, a damn boar kept fucking me up in one of them.

You know the first thing about this that made me smile? It comes with a manual! I can't really recall the last game I had that came with a real one? Anyway, this game (at time of writing, I'm not upto the second boss yet) warrants being remade. The original game was made in 1986. Gaming has changed a bit in 35 years and a straight up port isn't really going to garner any positive attention. Which, looking at some reviews and scores, this really has. Which, so far, I can only agree it deserves. Oh and two things. 1) I never played this Alex Kidd game, so there's nothing rose tinted there. 2) I definitely won't be playing this with the infinite lives cheat on. With how extremely generous auto-saving is in this remake, it isn't really necessary.

Took a punt on this after seeing it in the Summer Games Fest. The first one has always appealed and at £35 it didn't seem to pricey. And so glad I did as this is one of those games that has me beaming from ear to ear when I play it. Its main game mode is a 64 player medieval skirmish, two teams hacking the hell out of each other in either all out warfare or some objective based gameplay (storm the castle/free prisoners that sort of thing). There's just a wonderful charm to it all, with a great sense of humour running through it. The combat is surprisingly deep (though it all goes to shit when theres 20 of you bashing the shit out of each other) with three main attacks, a swing, a stab and an overhead attack. Each attack can be dragged meaning you pull the right thumb stick in the direction of your swing to give it more range and heft. You also have a special and a kick as well as your standard block/reposte/evades. I've only had three or four games on top of the tutorial but it's great fun so far, and i'm resisting the urge to ditch work today and play it.

So, I just started this up. I’m actually surprised Konami got off their arse to put this together. They’ve been absolute morons for years, and done literally nothing with their numerous IPs. All they did last year was Metal Gear Survive, which I don’t even need to comment on. So I genuinely wasn’t expecting them to bother with a collection like this. Contra is getting one later in the year, and I bloody love Contra, so will naturally check that out. Anyways. How does this hold up? Pretty good, really. The first game in the series i ever played was 4, due to never owning a NES back in the day. It remains one of my favourite games of all time, from the gameplay to the gorgeous soundtrack. I didn’t think we’d see this anywhere other than a Nintendo console. But I’m very glad to be replaying it. As it’s just as brilliant now, as it was then. I never played the Megadrive version, again due to not owning one at the time. So I’m looking forward to giving that a shot, as it’s generally held in high regard. As for the rest? You’ve got all 3 of the NES games, which I will get though after 4 and Bloodlines. Two gameboy games, which don’t look especially great, but I’ll play them for completions sake. And Kid Dracula, which I have no idea if it’s any good or not. As is par for the course in these kind of collections, you can quick save your game at any time. Though on the PS4 version, you access the save menu by pressing the Share button. Which of course either takes a screenshot, or video, depending on your setting. And there’s no way of changing that to say, the Options button, or touchpad. It’s weird. Maybe they’ll sort it out in a future update perhaps. There’s no way to change button configuration either. You also get access to various promotional material/ concept art of all the games, which is a nice touch.

I've been waiting for this to drop in price for a while. Normal price on Steam is 20 quid which is quite a lot but there does seem to be a lot to it. Also this is "early access" so it's not meant to be finished yet but seems largely there for me, unless they plan on changing a lot about their art style or menus, which mostly seem fine to me. So, it's a Sim City style game but you make a prison. You have to build it from scratch, from the outer walls to the yard, canteen, holding cells, etc. You employ staff from the Warden down to building crew. The game starts out with a tutorial that has a prison all built bar an execution cell which it teaches you how to build that and you get the grim story of the inmate that you're blasting with electricity. It also uses this time to tell you that you're not here to judge on the inmates, just to do your job in holding them and keeping them from wrecking the joint. Pretty much anything you can think of you have to build. If you have toilets they need to be connected to the water system, if you have buildings they must have doors, electrical items like lights need power cables running from the building to a power capacitor that needs to be maintained and not over-loaded. I got an interest in it from the Giant Bomb quick look and it's also proven a useful tool for me to get myself started too.

Couldnt see a post for this, feel free to delete if there is one. So, this is my first Metro game and the first thing I will say is that the story/setting is so immersive that its made me want to go through the other ones. As a game its not the most polished although its really good, solid 7 out of 10, theres just a few little things here and there and it sort of reminds me of Elder scrolls Oblivion at points which is a weird comparison but its what it reminds me of, its just got a bit of a clunkyness to it. The load times are absolutely ridiculous at times, 2 minutes to load up the game. The first time it happened I genuinely thought my PS4 had just given up but apparently its standard. It would be interesting to see what people who have played the series think of this one, mainly @DANGERMAN because I seem to remember him being a long time fan. I get the impression that its a massive departure from the series traditional feel, and I dont know if they decided to just do something different because they wanted to make a kind of open world game. The reason I say that is because it definitely feels like an early PS4/late PS3 game in terms of its open world approach, it gives me some slight Half Life 3 vibes.

Well, ive installed it, and my poor little surface is sort of struggling to play it. Unless the main character saying every line is part of the story.... Looks good though, going to have a play around with the setting and see what we can do, more details when I get a chance to play it properly. Music in this game is absolutely lovely so far, im really liking the game from the brief 20 minutes. EDIT: Changed Resolution, and everybody is happy now. Was trying to run it at 2160 x 1440, looks lovely now.

I don't think anyone has started a thread about Doki Doki Literature Club, but I've a feeling that's not quite how it's spelt and the search can be a bit shit @spatular put me on to this but apparently its doing the rounds on some of the bigger forums. It's a visual novel with a slight dating element to it. Basically once you join the club you all start sharing your poems with each other, you get to pick 20 words the night before to impress whichever of the girls you like (there's 3 very distinct girls you can impress) So far that's probably enough for you to judge the people playing this, especially Spatular, but without going in to things and spoiling what the game is, it's very much not that It's free on Steam, seems to have taken everyone else on my friends list 4 hours, I went out and left it running so it's going to take me about 10. Its an interesting thing so far though

I was just two and a half hours playing the Balan Wonderworld demo. It’s not half as bad as I’d heard on podcasts that had also clearly only played the first two levels of world one before turning it off and deciding to tell everyone it’s the worst game ever. The opening levels are a bit crap but the later sheep and the cog worlds are much better. I’m not talking Mario levels of quality but certainly gets better than the opening world. Plus the later costumes you find you can use when you go back to previous worlds to get to further trophies which in turn opens up more worlds. The music is also better later on. Not completely awful but an alright time waster and with so few games of its kind on xbox and PlayStation beggars can’t be choosers.

About 3-4 hours into this so far so thought I'd make a thread (my first in quite awhile!). To start off its made by the same Dev Team that made 2017's Stories Untold and some of the same developers that made 2014's Alien Isolation so I knew going in it's from a studio with some pedigree. You play as SAM. Essentially the 'Mother' computer AI of the Ship you're on - the Observation. You control numerous cameras situated around the ship and can also take control of remote sphere's that enable you to navigate around - in first person - the ships claustrophobic, dimly lit hallways. You interact with the game in a kind of point and click style, navigating from camera to camera around the station to try to find a passcode, a bit of evidence or open a hatch to advance the story. From time to you'll also interface with certain computers and have to complete little mini-games in order to progress. As for the story, I don't want to give too much away but as SAM you'll assist Astronaut Emma Fisher around the station, helping her in whatever way you can. As you progress, more and more things come to light about the crew, their plight, their mission and why the ship is in the state it's in. Things are quite tense around the station with a pervading sense of dread and foreboding, you never quite feel comfortable exploring but at the same time aren't exactly terrified either, I wouldn't really say it's a scary game at all so far - which is perhaps a little disappointing but it is definitely tense. It's definitely a weird one so far, there's a lot to take in and a lot of confusing aspects to the story that I'm still trying to piece together as I go along. It's consistently engaging, mysterious and compelling though and I find myself thinking about what discovery I'll find during my next session which is definitely a good sign. The way it plays isn't particularly revolutionary or anything but the quirky little computer mini-games are really well designed with that 80s Alien-esque aesthetic that gives them a character of their own and searching for items using the cameras is akin to old school adventure games. We'll see how it pans out but at the moment this is definitely up there as one of my most memorable games of this year, there's not really too much else like it. Some pics:

This arrived yesterday and I've played 11 hours so far...it's really good, it's a bold statement but I think it's the happiest I've been with a game in terms of expectations and how it's been to play it. It's very skyrim in the exploration. It really isn't linear at all, I'm on chapter three now and it's unbelievably open world. This might be the one in the series that brings people in, it's hardly a final fantasy at all.

Great! A game in a series I've enjoyed on and off since the third installment on PS1 has gone 'free' on Game Pass - let's try it out. Hmmm... It's taken me 5 minutes of scrolling and about 15 button presses just to get to the main menu. This isn't the greatest start. No matter, let's see what's about... Wait, what? It's automatically taken me to the options screen now? Ok, ok, I'll just back out of there, then I'll see what's going on. Mishima Saga? WTF is that? Fuck it, let's go. Oh yay. More menus to click through. JUST LET ME PUNCH SOMEONE DAMMIT! Ok - difficulty on Normal. Finally into it. Punching time. Wait. No. No it isn't - I'm dropping young Kazuya off a cliff. Nice throwback, but I just want to fight. Yay, fighting time! The above was a description of my first 10 minutes with Tekken 7. When I finally got into it, the story mode was AWFUL. I played on normal, because fuck it, it's Tekken, how hard can it be? Turns out it gets very difficult, and extremely cheap. To the point I had to play cheap myself to even it out. One fight pits you as Heihachi against Akuma from Street Fighter (because remember when SFxT was a thing? What happened to TxSF? I wanted that so much more). That was tough, but I got through it. Then a little later it switched the roles, and I almost threw my controller at the screen. Then, putting you back in control of Heihaci, it had you fighting against Kazumi. Who can fire lasers, fly, has a fucking tiger that can attack you, can disappear and has unblockable attacks. But the sidestep isn't responsive enough, so you just end up repeatedly getting wailed on. Oh and she has regenerating health. And the final boss is demon Kazuya. Who can do all of the above (except for the tiger bullshit) but stronger. On each of the 13 chapters you have to beat most characters twice - the only exception to this is where you have to defeat 5 army grunts or 5 of Jack-4/6 in a row. But you can't lose a round either. You have to win two rounds without taking a loss on every single chapter. There's also a final chapter that I didn't see last night where you have to defeat Devil Akuma. Really not looking forward to that bullshit. All I wanted was an old-school Arcade mode. Ten fights, best of 3, stupid character movie at the end. What I got was this fuckery. I'm gonna go back in the next few days and look for some traditional modes, but last night I had to take my Kindle up to bed with me to try and dispel some of the irritation. That shouldn't happen with a game.

OK, so I finished the first episode today and I don't really want to give too much about it away because it is so very special. As a result I don't want to give anything away and will put the everything in spoiler tags for those who want to read about them. Lots of pics incl. my choices:

Spent around 4ish hours with this, I'm quite enjoying it so far. The games made by Tripwire and published by Deep Silver and they've billed it as a shaRk PG (very clever)... I don't know how much RPG there is in there but there's upgrades and the like. You start the the game tutorial as a full grown female Bull Shark where you're shown the ropes as games do nowadays, and pretty rapidly you meet Scaly Pete (or murdering scumbag if you prefer) who basically kills you... but not before finding out you're pregnant and chucking the baby back in, this becomes you. so, the game begins proper with you as a pup, leveling up actually adds to your age and thus, you grow. Completing tasks and finding collectables rewards you with evolutionary features that aren't quite realistic... I have electric teeth at the minute.? Combat is simplistic but enjoyable enough, trying to take out boats is a little messy but I can forgive that... it feels like it may get a little samey but we'll see.

Nier Automata isn't quite what I was expecting. The demo, which is the prologue of the game, makes it seem like a fairly standard Platinum Games game. A tight linear action game with Witch Time when you dodge. Instead its that combat dumped in to an rpg And I don't just mean it's got a levelling up system, I mean it feels like a modern Final Fantasy game (or what I imagine they feel like because I I've only ever watched them being played). It's got big desolate spaces, using real world locations, all destroyed beyond recognition, in place of standard jrpg locations. Levelling up is a bit odd. Generally it just means a touch more health and damage, you don't get new skills. The way to do that is to increase the amount of 'chips' you can power. Chips are either dropped or bought and can do minor had things like show how close you are to levelling up, or increase your health, let you fire projectiles from your attacks, and auto heal, these have various levels themselves, meaning if you get a good one it might have a bonus health boost when triggered etc I really like the desolate look, I really like the robots, some bits can look a little simplistic but it's a cool aesthetic The only thing I'm not keen on is the amount of trudging around the map you have to do for side quests. The world isn't massive but it's big enough that returning to the desert is a bit tedious. Aside from that I'm liking its oddness

Been playing this over the last few days, it's been put up on Game Pass but it's actually in Game Preview... so not finished. To the best of my knowledge this is the first game I've played in that state. I'd love to say this is Left for Dead with Dinosaurs but I never actually played those games so I'd be guessing... it's a three man co-op shooter, 5 characters to choose from all with their individual skills and load outs. There's no real story as such and only 6 campaign missions at the minute (one of the reasons I'm classing this as completed, I've cleared all those missions) there are expeditions (basically free roam of the entire map) with objectives to complete in each area. It looks ok, I guess... some views are very pretty but there's also an element of jank to the game that I'm not convinced wouldn't be there if it was a full on 'finished' game... the guns feel nice and chunky though. Missions pan out with various objectives and end in a (done to death) stand off when waiting for extraction, I've faced off with a couple of mutant T-Rex though... that alone is worth it. All in all I found it a decent way to waste a few hours blasting away hordes of Dinosaurs... and what respectable man doesn't fucking love Dinosaurs...

Started this last week and put about 12ish hours into so far. I've been looking forward to this a long time as a fan of the series, with the semi-recent remake of the first game (Abe's Oddysee) New N' Tasty reinvigorating my love for it. It started off as a one-to-one remake of the second game (Abe's Exoddus) but over time - believe it has been in development around 6 to 7 years - it grew into something more than that, a complete reimaging of the second game and a rejuvenation for the series too with added abilities, new action segments, a huge expanded story based on AE and tons of new levels that weren't in the first game. After the excellent New N Tasty I didn't expect this to get such middling reviews, which made me a little hesitant to start it. Thankfully I had nothing to worry about and have found the review scores a tad baffling based on what I've played so far. It is fair to say it is a departure from the classic Oddworld games of old, they have added a double jump, you can no longer use the D-Pad to control Abe, there's modern elements like a crafting system, the ability to tie up Sligs instead of killing them, medals that get awarded for carrying out a certain number of actions or collecting a certain amount of collectibles in a level. On top of this some levels have an action focus to them now where you'll have to run to escape being killed by Sligs and Glukkons in air ships whilst the platforms around you are crumbling into flames, later on there is also a section on a train which ends in a boss fight. So this is a quite a different beast compared to the original titles and even New N Tasty it's fair to say, some folks won't like that, others - like myself - will embrace the changes more. Thankfully though, despite all the changes mentioned above the way the game plays remains largely in tact. You still possess Sligs and can make them explode, you still recruit Mudokens and lead them to safety through butterfly gates, there's still tricky sections where you can't use possession and have to use stealth to avoid enemies, just scraping through to the other side. Thanks to the new additions coupled with those core Oddworld systems there is much greater variety to the game, you'll go through an action-based level where you're getting chased by a Glukkon Blimp, then encounter a level where you're possessing sligs to clear a path through, levels where you can't use possession and have to rely on stealth and timing to make it through, others where more metroidvania elements come into play and you'll be heading into dark caves to find a power source to move on. The levels themselves are obviously much more impressive than the original games but perhaps more surprising is how they're much more impressive than even New N Tasty. You are still on that 2D plain controlling Abe, but the camera does pan around certain paths through the environment and there is much more going on in the background with Blimps, Snipers, mine trains wizzing past, as well as a greater number of Mudokens to save at times (sometimes in the 100s). One level - that is technically the most impressive - is on a train that is whizzing at high speed through the desert, culminating in a boss fight against a Slig in a giant mech. I will say though that one level so far frustrated the fuck out of me. It was the longest chapter so far and its key mechanic is using smoke to hide yourself from enemies, the issue is that in some parts of the level there aren't any smoke valves to hide in, you have to create your own smoke grenades to hide yourself and any Mudokens that are following you. The aiming is really finicky to perfect and on top of this the game is a little janky when it comes to detecting you and your squad in the smoke, a lot of the time I was fully covered but one or two Mudokens could be seen at the end and a Slig would just fly on by, another time they'd get shot up and I'd have to restart from the checkpoint and try again. At the start the difficulty was considerably more forgiving that the older games thanks largely to the double jump and an abundance of checkpoints but since then the difficulty has thankfully ramped up considerably to something akin to the games of old. The checkpoints are still a bit of a crutch and the double jump still helps you out of a few tight spots but some sections like the boss fight mentioned above have been pretty brutal to get through. Graphically, the game is very much a mixed bag. There's something about the art style that just feels a little bit washed out compared to the older games and New N Tasty, on top of this the game uses a very subdued colour palette, lots of browns, greys and muted greens throughout which doesn't help. On top of this the texture quality of rocks and other natural elements all look pretty shoddy with only the industrial areas looking ok. The game does shine with the background details though and the train level mentioned above did impress me quite a lot, but for a PS5 game it is still not really up to scratch. It is obviously an indie title so allowances for that have to be made. As for flaws, the game can be a little buggy at times. I think on about 5-10 occasions I've had an issue where Abe will get stuck mid-jump and no controller input from me will get him moving again, resulting in a checkpoint restart being needed. The controls are also a little finicky and imprecise, a lot of times I've had it where I'll try to climb down or jump up a platform in a hurry and somehow it won't work out. The most glaring issue though is the projectile system, you have to throw crafted/found items quite a bit in order to coat Sligs in a flammable liquid and set them on fire, use smoke to block a security camera/enemies view, rocks to kill bats etc. and it's just very fiddly. The game asks you to be precise at times with your aiming of these projectiles but the system they give you just isn't up to scratch, you're aiming with the right stick then pressing R2 to fire off projectiles whilst controlling abe with the left stick and having to switch items holding in triangle. It would've been much better if you could aim with L2, adjust your throwing arc with the right stick and then let fly or if time temporarily froze whilst you're throwing projectiles to allow you to be more precise in your aim. Overall though, I'm really enjoying it so far and couldn't put it down for the first 5-6 hours. It's included with PS+ this month so if you're a fan of the series or action/puzzle-platformers then I think you might get on with this so give it a go. Definitely not one to sleep on that's for sure, I almost slept on it myself (due to its proximity to Nier) but it gets a recommendation from me. Pics to follow:

Started playing this today, put in about 3 hours. Not really sure what to make of it at the moment, the game looks bloody gorgeous (You can see where Coldwood spent that EA money!), the soundtrack is great, but at its heart it just feels like an average platformer really. If I had to compare it I'd say it feels most like LittleBigPlanet, that kind of floatiness to the controls (if that makes sense) happens in Unravel too, it definitely isn't a tight platformer like Ori and the Blind Forest or Donkey Kong Country, and I don't think it was ever trying to be like those games in its design, but the controls could've been tighter and snappier in my view, from what I've played anyway. What I didn't realise going in was how incredibly infuriating and frustrating a game it is, it just gets me so fucking riled up it's unreal, I've got stuck twice already and had to look up what I need to do online, was just pottering about for 15 minutes trying to get past a certain section and of course I find what I need to do, feel like an idiot and I'm on my way. Some of the problems can be put down to the timing-based platforming sections I've encountered I guess (where the controls don't help), coupled with the harsh check-pointing employed. You can figure out what you need to do in order to progress, almost complete an entire section, accidently drop into some water and suddenly have to start all the way back at the previous checkpoint, just seems needless really. Despite the issues the game has and its mediocrity (in platforming terms) I am still vaguely enjoying it, it's pleasant enough, the environs are amazing and Yarny is charming enough to keep me playing, but I can already tell its going to be a bit of a slog if it goes on for any longer than the 5-6 hours I'm assuming it lasts.

I started this one today. Beat the first world and onto the second. Early impressions is combat has a nice "swimming" movement to it albeit it is very floaty like the spinoff games. Worlds are massive and some of it almost feels like an anime/Disney take on (old) God of War games. Music is great, as usual. Hoping to hear some old tunes return (hopefully Hollow Bastion). I started it on Proud mode cause I figure if I've played three of these games back to back and can't handle its hard mode at this stage well then I'm really just hopeless. So far it's not very difficult but it is a reasonable challenge. It makes it so it isn't just a mash X fest. It is very heavy on cutscene interruptions in the early hours however and it gets sort of annoying, it's a bit Metal Gear at times. WRT spoilers I'm going to defer to riksp or someone else as to the best approach. I'm thinking anything that was in a trailer is fair game for an open screenshot because this is a very pretty game with lots of shiny stuff that's fun to show off. Or maybe all screenshots could be put in spoiler text it's all the same. No HDR in this game, interestingly.

Credit to Genesis Noir for having an unusual story. Before time and existence a good give physical form to his experiences to make sense of the world, falls for a beautiful jazz singer (also a god), her ex gets jealous (also a god), and kills her. The explosion from his gun is the big bang that starts the universe as we understand it, and you travel through time to find a way to make the bullet miss her, something you can do because you don't experience time as we do. All of this is jazz themed, but you'll bounce through various times, from cavemen to feudal japan and so on As a game, its not really anything special. I've played it on pc and did everything with the mouse, it's almost always a case of clicking on something or spinning something, it's rare the puzzle itself is especially difficult. What can be difficult is knowing what's expected of you. I got stuck really early on because I didn't realise I could click on something, and that was all I had to do to move on. I've had it be temperamental too with what you're clicking on which has again led me to being stuck on very simple puzzles. The only but I had was on a clock puzzle later in the game. I needed to set a particular time, but I couldn't back out from the clock view to see the time again. I think something similar may have happened earlier in the game too looking at the clue board. It's not great but there's some cool things to look at, it's original and I could see some people really clicking with it, it didn't really do it for me though

For some reason I got it in to my head that this has more direct control in it, but it's more Oregan Trail, resource management. Not my sort of game really so I sort of regret buying it, but I'm going to stick with it a bit The problem is its difficult all the time. I was expecting it to ease me in, but within an hour I'm having to go without stuff to try to stockpile coal because I can see a cold snap coming. To do that I need to prioritise technology that makes coal use more efficient, makes heating more effective. Problem is my population want things like medical tents and food. In terms of resources, you need coal for your generator, wood and steel for buildings, I had a decent amount of steel so I've stopped collecting that in favour of wood and coal, then I got loads of wood from an expedition so have moved my people off that too to try to stockpile coal. Your civilians are a resource too, a resource that gets sick all the time and moans about everything. You can't have all of them collecting coal and wood, you'll need some to hunt at night for raw food, to work in the cook house to make meals for everyone, and to man the medical tents While your doing this you also have to manage happiness and discontent, people being cold and hungry isn't good, and they'll set you tasks such as heating the tents, do that discontent decreases, miss it by 5 minutes like I did and there's a huge spike. I also lost a day to not understanding how the scouts worked, but they've brought back workers, food and wood so they're pulling their weight so far