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Ok, so I’m 2 hours into this. I’m an absolutely massive Yakuza/LAD fan. In over 40 years of gaming, this is by far my favourite franchise. The reviews for this have been universally high. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first: charging separately for the New Game+ mode, sucks. There’s an entire dungeon, and trophies/achievements locked away behind that. That’s pissed some people off, and I think understandably so. There’s also multiple Micro transactions, ranging in price from £5 for instant level up boosts, to £12/£15 for other stuff. I won’t be bothering with any of that, and so far, the game hasn’t been obnoxiously highlighting them. Right. I’m 2 hours in, and it’s pretty much just been cut scenes. Which is pretty typical for a LAD game. That being said, I’ve already noticed two improvements that have been made to the combat system. You can manually control the movement of each character before making a move, making it much easier to pick up items to hit enemies with. One of the more annoying elements of the previous game, was that if you bumped into another enemy in the middle of your attack, their was a good chance they’d hit you, and cancel your move. That’s been scrapped entirely, thank god. There’s no difficulty options. When I watched the IGN video review, they specifically mentioned how annoying the difficulty spikes became about halfway through LAD. That was what made me eventually give up on my PS4 playthrough, and I found challenging to get through when I eventually finished it on PS5 last December. The reviewer said that there’s none of that difficultly spike nonsense in IW. Hopefully, he’s right… In terms of story, there’s no “Previously on LAD” to catch up newcomers to the story. Most games in the series have optional “movies” to watch, which explain what’s happened before. There’s none of that here. So if IW is your first time to the series, I’d suggest watching a video of at least what happened in the last LAD game. I won’t spoil what’s happened so far. But, I will say, it’s been an absolute joy seeing Ichiban and his friends again. Kiryu is my favourite character in all of gaming, but Ichiban is quickly becoming a firm favourite too. He’s likeable, charismatic, and amusing. Whereas in LAD: Gaiden, you had to wait a few weeks for the English dub to become available, here it’s available right from the start. I played LAD in English, and had no issue with doing so. So, I’ve chosen the English dub for this. There’s been a lot of hate thrown at Jong Jea, the YouTuber chosen to portray Kiryu. I’ll reserve judgement for his full performance. The footage of Kiryu doing karaoke that leaked a few weeks ago was legitimately awful, autotuned to buggery. But, I’ll give him a fair chance. What I can say though, is I’m very dubious about his ability to pull it off. Kiryu is a legend approaching the end of his “career”. From the lines leaked previously, he sounds far too young. Still, I won’t write him off just yet. Im away on holiday for a week after today, so won’t get to play much more. But once I’m back, this will be getting my full attention.

I played the first hour or so of this. The game has a very bombastic opening although I think it was largely shown when they first revealed the game. The opening “escape” sequence is snappy, much faster than the opening of DOS2. Dialogue scenes now play out Mass Effect style which gives the game a slightly more AAA feel. Character creation is pretty breezy, I didn’t spend too long on it. You can choose from five different penises. I just made my character a human fighter. My main takeaway is - no crashes or performances issues. Long may it continue. After a few more hours I should be able to comment more on the differences between this and Divinity, but so far so good.

cheers for the games Duck! it's early days, and a bit all over the place, but i quite like what i've played of this so far. i worry i'll get annoyed with the aiming in the long run. needs more auto aim imo.

Yessir! I like what I've played alot, probably done the first hour. Its extremely similar to the first one but that's no bad thing. Poor fucking bitch, she's already taken a hell of a beating. Agree with Nag on the looks, its stunning. That snow... Controls are lovely: fluid and intuitive. Lots of stuff to do and already had tons of action. Looking forward to spending all Saturday with it.

This had a cool demo so I decided to treat myself to a little sidegame over the long weekend. I'd actually encourage giving the demo a shot, because the game looks like a run-of-the-mill pixel indie title but it has an amount of quality and polish to it that really makes it stand out. In a Nintendo-ish way, it's entirely designed around a singular idea and that's the drill your character carries around. It allows you to drill through certain areas of the map, be it ground, snow or other, it works as a propellor underwater, it can revv up certain machines etc. I'm not going to spoil in detail what the developers have cooked up, but there are genuinely cool surprises here throughout and no two levels feel the same – again, very much Nintendo-like. This seems to have been in development for about seven years, which sounds absolutely bonkers, but it shows, because it's really an incredibly accomplished take on one of the oldest genres out there. There is one caveat though and those are the boss battle. I'm not going to mince words, they're all pretty bad. Well, at least the three I played so far. The first one was okay-ish I suppose, but the two that followed were just very tedious 'death by a million cuts' affairs that don't use its central mechanic in an interesting way. The third one, in fact, is easier if you just don't drill into the ground at all. It's weird to see how devoid those fights are of ideas considering how excellent the rest of the package is – almost as if they had been made by a completely different team. So while that might sour the experience a tiny bit at the end of every world, I don't think it drags the game down overall. From what I read it's not super long, but quality over quantity seems the focus here, and there's time trials for crazy people to get a bit more out of it. As a final commentary, the soundtrack is extremely good as well and I wish I could link a few samples but nobody seems to have uploaded anything yet. It's on Spotify though, if you want to give it a listen. Completely misrepresenting screenshotTM

Well no-one else will so I'll start a topic. I'm very early on, done the mission for the doctor which turns a little "odd". I'm always running out of space in my wallet and my crafting pouch so I'm gonna have to take some time out of the main quest to make some bigger pouches. Having seen what the PC version looks like, the 360 version is definitely poorer visually but it's still passable.

The Half Life 2 documentary made me start up a new save on that game, but then I decided why not play the original. I've played it before but it was on PS2, which has huge auto aim and kinda comes from a point in time where this genre wasn't well served at all on console (arguably, I'd still say this is the case, but PS2 was so much worse). I put it on hard mode, cause I beat Doom Eternal like that so surely I'll be fine. Anyway this game is a dick, it comes from a school of design that feels so odd to return to cause it's really unfair but also that is the point. Not in a Dark Souls way, it's more like it's trying to be an action horror comedy or something. Black Mesa is out to kill Gordon all the time, walk down a hallway and shit is blowing up. They hide things out of sight and then jump you with vortigaunts on both sides and you die. You quick save a lot. There's a lot of 'ffs, how was I supposed to know the platform would crumble beneath me into a room of headcrabs for guaranteed damage or that the elevator would break and drown me in radioactive piss'. But you just continue on anyway I think it's cool though cause it makes Black Mesa feel so dangerous. It helps an old game like this still feel immersive cause the place is trying to fucking kill you all the time, whether it's the extra terrestrials you imported via the bit of cheese you pushed into the laser or cause of the facility's in built security systems. Sometimes when talking about stuff that's old and influential it's easy to file it away as 'important, but not worth going back to'. But a lot of the time the reason that something is influential is cause it was super fucking good and that quality isn't always something which fades over time, even as other things build upon it. The approach to set pieces in Half Life is a lot purer than modern games cause it's always happening around you and you are always in control, you have to react to what's going on and adapt. It doesn't feel like it's awkwardly pausing the bit where you play the game for an interactive cutscene or anything like that. The way it combines combat, exploration, platforming, environment hazards, horror, it reminds me of RE4 in how it constantly introduces new gimmicks and knows when to retire them just in time for something new and fresh. Constant forward progression that always feels satisfying It also still plays really well, far faster than Half Life 2 and a billion times faster than Alyx. I think once they started fucking around with physics in 2 it slowed the pace of gameplay by like a third, at least. Became more about interactivity and puzzling than run and gun violence and explosions. I like how you have to chuck grenades into unknown areas to smoke out enemies, it's more a strategic weapon than it is a damaging one cause of the potential to get sucked punched by some bullshit you don't see. The trap mines are also fun to play with. I'm at the Surface Tension level and will probably beat it over the weekend, then onto HL2. I'll have to play Portal 2 at some point cause that's one I've never completed on any platform. I do remember the final chapter or two being a pile of shit on PS2 so I hopefully it's less of a hassle here, probably not.

I didn't know about this until a few days ago (not that i remember anyway), just released yesterday, and it's pulled me away from persona, for a bit anyway. normal price is ~£12 but seems to be on offer for ~£10 currently. Initially interested because of comparisons to REZ, i like shooters like that, even the dragon one on the xbox one that didn't seem very popular. but it turns out it's not as similar to rez as I was expecting, the shooting (on the right stick) is simplified a bit and shares game time with rhythm action line following (on the left stick). On the normal difficulty you aren't asked to really do both of these at the same time, but i think that changes on harder difficulties. The shooting is quite similar to rez, but you can only aim within a circle and quite a lot of stuff is conveniently at the edges of the circle so easy to aim at, because you will be expected to do two things at once. The rhythm action bit is following a line with your ship in time with the music, a bit like that old psn game i can't remember the name of (and didn't think was that great) but it works really well here, and is good fun, imo. the music is not what i'd normally listen to, don't really know how to describe the genre either, dubstep maybe? but it fits in really well with the game and i was enjoying it. there are some problems mind, the auto lock-on can target stuff you don't want when a missile is just about to hit you, and coming back from a hit can instantly cause another hit, but these might just be me needing time to get used to it more. i've done all the 15 levels on normal, then re-did a few to get more stars to unlock the next difficulty setting but not had much time on that yet. so yeah i've been really enjoying this. wasn't sure if i should pick it up but glad i did.

Started playing this a few nights ago thanks to a free 30 day code I received from a guy on another forum, always wanted to give it a go but didn't want to pay the money to take the plunge I suppose. Decided on a Female Miqo'te (Seekers of the Sun) Lancer with the Oschon Guardian, I'm situated in Phoenix in the Chaos server, Level 8. No idea really if any of what I picked is any good. The game put me into 'Grimaldia' which is a set of forest cities. As for the game itself...still undecided really, very early days 4 hours into an MMO but I like a few things about it and dislike a few things about it really. The world itself seems cool, the servers are stable and even though the graphics aren't upto 2015 standards really it looks alright, runs incredibly well at 1080/60 and I've been using the GamePad throughout without any major problems except I can't seem to find an option to invert the right analog stick which is annoying, but I've got used to playing in default now, despite it not feeling wholly natural. The way they introduce you to the game is very good, you're definitely eased into it, in one little secluded area of the map (Grimaldia), everything is told to you simply and tutorial boxes pop up for pretty much everything, there is still a lot to take it but it doesn't feel like you're bewildered or bamboozled by information and the world itself like other MMOs I've played in the past. Only really explored Grimaldia and its surrounding but it is pretty cool, the scenery is nice, the buildings have a lot of character to them and its cool seeing people potter about with Chocobo's in tow (how the fuck do I get one of them?!). My main gripe though at the moment is the quests, they're all very fetch-questy and traditional MMO staples as 'kill 6 of this creature', 'deliver a message to this person', 'go round up these naughty people and tell them to come back' etc. the coolest one I've done was some woman that was being accosted by this bloke that was a criminal and asked me to meet with him on the edge of town instead of her to see what his deal is, every other quest has been incredibly forgettable and dull, I've played 4 hours and these quests just keep popping up and up and up, they don't seem to go away, but there's not really anything else to do so I keep on just doing them regardless. I didn't understand why I couldn't complete some of the quests earlier, the little 'complete' box was not able to be clicked so I just left these quests uncompleted and went to do some others, tried again later into my session and realised if I pressed left or right on the d-pad I could select a quest reward, once selected the quest was able to be completed felt so stupid. Another stupid moment I had was when I had to get Level 5 gear to do a quest, went to the shop, dropped a load of cash on a set of Level 5 stuff and then realised after that I could've got all of it from the quest rewards I was missing all that money wasted, oh well :oops: Not sure about the Fate-public event quests either, it's a cool concept and when they work and loads of people come to one spot to batter some cunt its a nice spectacle but most just get in the way and are annoying really, only had people turn up in 1 or 2 out of all the ones I've attempted. The combat is really cool though, I mean you can just sit back and just press 1 button here and there, it's not very involved on the face of it, but you feel involved in it which is the key thing, and it feels satisfying enough that when you defeat a tough-ish enemy you're slightly elated. There's definitely something compelling about it though, it just feels like it could be a standard RPG at the moment, it doesn't feel bewildering at all really and I'm just pottering about doing quests, thinking about upgrading weapons, armour etc. like I would a regular RPG, I do hope the quests get better the further it goes on though as I think I'm out if it's another shit-ton of hours of these quests.

Played the first hour and a half myself tonight as well, I definitely wasn't blown away by it, but I had fun with it, and it definitely gave me a kick to be in Max's world and to play as him being a fan of Fury Road. I was impressed though with how well polished everything is, some of the particle effects, sandstorms, explosions and the intricacy of the way the guy moves around on the back of your car is pretty cool, and they've stuck incredibly to the art design of Fury Road, some locations from the film have been mentioned and some enemies I've fought that were in the film already. It really does film like you could be cruising around in Fury Road, incredibly exhilarating feeling cruising around in your own car as Max, the voice acting helps a lot too, all been rather good and the story missions I've done so far have been better than I expected them to be. The melee combat, so far, to me, has been the weakest part of the game, it has the template of the Batman: Arkham games, but somehow it just doesn't have the rhythm that that game employs to go from one enemy to another with ease and feel awesome as you do so, it just feels like an average kind of combat system, like they've just got the combat template from Rocksteady, dumbed it down a bit and thrown it in the game, already feels a bit repetitive as well, but it can be satisfying, again, early on though. Seems like a huge game too, in my session earlier I was just pretty much going through the opening tutorials and main story missions to get my car, meet certain characters and learn all the mechanics of the game, but there is a lot to get stuck into, not encountered any side-missions as such, but there's been a few side-activities I've got distracted by already when they show on the map and collecting scrap and making sure you've picked it all up at a certain location is already rather addictive. Definitely seems like Avalanche/WB have employed a Ubisoft-style design philosophy as well, everything I've seen and done so far has been reminiscent of what you do in the Far Cry games in particular, like scouting bases, then liberating them to wear down a factions influence in a certain area, the car handling also feels similar to FC also. So yeah, pretty positive first impressions, need to play more obviously, but it's one huge game to get stuck into and I reckon is a must-buy for any Mad Max (especially Fury Road) fans out there, definitely the most authentic MM experience you're ever likely to get in game-form that's for sure.

Quick thread to kick it off. I'm 2 chapters in, trying it on hard mode (you cant change after selecting, warning for that upfront). Beat a boss fight It's got some cool visual stylings, but it's a game I'm not sure I have calibrated correctly. It's extremely dark and grey, have went back and forth on what the intent is here. If I set the HDR brightness high it improves things but washes out many of the darker scenes. I think they really want you to play in pitch blackness. I don't want to dunk on the game too early in, it's one I was looking forward to. But I'm finding it a bit boring. It's got some interesting setup, very Twin Peaks. I guess even similar to season 3 in a sense, given the time gap. But I don't really feel like I'm investigating stuff, I'm just sort of running through mazes and corridors unlocking the next exposition dump, and a samey FMV jump scare happens now and then. Then you go into the 'mind palace' and stick photos on a wall by pressing A a lot. I read a review which says it gets off to a very slow start though, so maybe I'll turn around on it. I hope so anyway. By this point with Control though I was completely bought into it. This in comparison is feeling very standard, at least in these early hours

Oxenfree was released way back in January which I guess makes it a retro title by today's standards. I don't know about the PS4 or Xbox One but it's currently heavily discounted on Steam so now is as good a time to pick it up as any. As it turns out, I already own it. It looks like this. http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388880/ss_aae01eea5fc489c7fbb20c2e92440c1cf92f4e83.600x338.jpg?t=1465496144 http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388880/ss_75af452f6e7f6c5dc1ada4f001abcccac6c57db7.600x338.jpg?t=1465496144 I just played it for sixteen minutes so I can give you sixteen minutes worth of impressions. So far it's been a pleasant side-scrolling walk and talk simulator. Not a million miles from Life is Strange if Life is Strange was side-scrolling. The conversations so far have been kind of typical preppy American teenage stuff. At the beginning of the game the characters are heading to some kind of after dark party on an island. The main point I'd like to make is that the game has a really good electronic soundtrack. The art style has a bit of Kentucky Route Zero.

I'm sure this will come to everything at some point, but at the minute I think it's PC only. A couple of months back it seemed to be being played round the clock by various streamers, there was a lot of hype for a simple, cheap (currently less than £2) rogue-like, but it's actually worth all the talk (and definitely worth that price) It's a very simple concept, you control the movement of your character, more or less top down, you're either avoiding swarms of enemies or hunting them down, looking for breakables for money, health, or a couple of the special items. You do not control your attacks Instead your attacks just trigger on a cool down. You start with 1 attack, for the first character this is a whip, others might have fireballs or lightning that strikes in random locations. As you kill enemies they drop experience orbs, pick that up to level up, when you to you then pick a new perk, which can mean new weapons (it can also mean movement speed, cool down on your attack (this is hugely important later in I find), increasing your base attack power or luck), so you could add lightning to your skill set too, or you could increase the level of the whip, so rather than just hitting in front of you, it now whips behind you too, then it does more damage, then it has more range etc As you kill things there's a chance for extra rewards and gold, the gold leaves the level stage with you, so then you can increase your base stats by buying things like improved gold or experience gain, lower cool down, some health recovery, better base damage, and so on; which ultimately means you'll last longer, which means you'll earn more money There's extra weapons to unlock by completing various missions (things like surviving 10 minutes with one of the extra characters), new characters, weapons can be evolved. Basically, there's always something to be working towards which keeps you playing, although of the new characters I've unlocked, I still prefer the 1st character and do tend to just aim for the same build, and on that note, you can only have so many weapons and so many attribute improvements per run, which is a bit of a shame later on, but it means you could have all the random attack spells and leave yourself without anything for if enemies get in close if that's the choices you make It's such a compulsive little game. I bought it at about midday yesterday, and didn't stop playing it until I ordered some food at about 7, then I went back to it. I've got to the "end" of a couple of stages, where I can no longer improve my character and am instead getting money or health recovery as I level up, where I can just stand still and enemies die before they reach me because I'm throwing out so much damage. Eventually though something happens that means you're not going to survive for much longer. That's kind of a shame, but I suppose it's to stop you from completely breaking the game's economy

Guess I might as well, even if ultimately nobody else is going to play this. A bit of backstory, this is the third game from Red Thread Games, Ragnar Tørnquist's studio, which he founded to conclude his Dreamfall saga (with Chapters) roughly a decade ago. Their previous game, Draugen, is IMO an overlooked gem in the 'walking simulator' genre, easily on par with the likes of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and What remains of Edith Finch, so I might as well use these lines to recommed it. Dustborn started development shortly after Draugen's release five years ago, so for a double-A title that's quite a bit of a ride. I remember posting its first screenshots in a forum that got closed down in 2020, which feels like an eternity ago and predates all the Sweet Baby backlash internet assholes have been throwing at it. It takes place in a near future in the USA, or rather the SA, because united they are no more after the assassination attempt on Kennedy failed and took his wife's life instead, turning him into a cynical and bitter person who proclaimed half of the country a police state and left the other half to do as they please. The game is build around the idea of a road trip and you and your fellow travellers ride a bus from the west to the east coast, looking for some sort of safe haven where they plan on selling some valuable cargo. Fundamentally this is some kind of Life is Strange esque narrative adventure, in which you run around blocked-off areas to explore a bit and talk to people. It doesn't have 'person X will remember this', nor are your choices black and white. There's also no morality bar or something like that. Instead, your choices affect which one of three main personality traits of your companions will end up being the most pronounced. So if I keep using the brutish Sai to knock down walls and afterwards compliment her for doing so, she will slowly turn into a 'punch first, ask questions later' type. It's not a high-level examination of psychology, but an interesting take on this whole morality aspect I think. What it doesn't do well is the mise-en-scène of all these dialogues, because frankly there isn't any. It's people either standing or sitting around, looking at each other and talking, while you can spin the camera around a bit. This is most likely a budgetary constraint but it does drag it down - maybe it's a personal preference, but even very static over-shoulder dialogue sequence à la Dragon Age Origins would have been better than what they used here. Unfortunately the writing can be very hit and miss as well. There's one moment where you have to cleanse Echoes from people, which are remnants of misinformation-spreading propaganda thought bubbles influencing people in their line of thinking. At some point I noticed this must be some commentary on social media and then, not two minutes later, one of the characters just literally spelled it out. But there are some good moments as well and your crew, while not particularly likeable, is at least an interesting bunch. Oddly for a game in this style, Dustborn also has combat segments. It's super clunky and unpolished, but I can't deny that it can be some fun and is a nice diversion, especially as it amounts to, at best, 5 minutes every hour of playtime. There's basic attacks, dodges, parries, some special moves, team-up attacks. It's simple, but cute, though the lack of lock-on means you miss quite a few of your bat swings. Both in combat and during some dialogue scenes, you can also use the main character's Vox abilities, which is kind of this universe's X-gene and gives certain mutants Anomals special powers. In your case, that means controlling people with your voice, which can influence dialogue branches and, among other things, stop opponents in their tracks during combat. During the latter it's a pure gameplay system, but using it during dialogue sequences does have repercussions on your standing with teammates or how the story progresses. There's also a (surprisingly fun) rhythm minigame in there, as the cover under which the group travels is that of a band. And a sort-of ghost-hunting minigame (for the aforementioned Echoes) that unlocks new Vox powers. And maybe more, I don't know – I'm only about four hours in but the game just seems to throw random stuff at the wall in regular intervals. I've not fully formed an opinion on it yet. I think the first 90 minutes to two hours are almost excruciatingly boring as it just drops you into the narrative without much introduction (for that, you need to read a prologue comic from the main menu) in regards to what you've been doing prior to the title screen and why you should care. At a certain point it introduces a couple new characters from the protagonist's past, and then goes on a tangent with a bit of mystery stuff and I started enjoying it a lot more. Guess we'll see where it goes from here. On last note but I like the visual style. It's a clean, comic-style look somewhere between Borderlands and Sable, and chapters are introduced with fake comic book covers and such. Gives it a lot of personality the in-engine stuff not always manages to fully pull off in motion.

So the full game is out, I've spent the morning playing it... bear in mind I didn't play any of the demo's so the opening is all new to me. I think everyone by now everyone should be able to gather what happens in the beginning, Chris being all dark and barrel chested, anyhow you soon wake up at night, in the snow... looking for Ethans baby. To me the game looks really pretty, the lighting is really good and so far (using RT) the performance seems to be holding up nicely. I never overly liked the shooting in 7 and this seems very close, I've recently picked up an add on to my pistol and that's definitely helped... I feel much happier in these third person Resi games with a shotgun in my hands though. The start of the game is almost a bit too much, there were times I wasn't sure if I should be trying to kill all these things or running away... that's also happened a couple of times in the castle where I'm up to now. Things have calmed a bit since getting in there though and it's a gorgeous place to explore. I do wish the movement speed was a bit quicker though. So far so good then, looking forward to finding out a bit more on these freaks who are making life a tad rough for old Ethan.

Seems a lot (relatively speaking) people got this, so I think a topic here makes sense after all. I don't think this needs context, but just for the record: this is a collection that includes three classic Castlevania games initially released for the DS (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia) as well as both the original version of Haunted Castle, an arcade game from the 80s, as well as a complete remake with SNES-style visuals and some other changes of this last game. I started with Dawn of Sorrow, because it's my favourite of the bunch and also the first one that came out (despite being placed at the bottom of the list in the menu). Plus from what I recall it's the one that made most 'use' of the touchscreen, so a good litmus test for this specific release, too. On Switch you can use the touchscreen if you're playing in handheld mode, so there's nothing lost there either way, but the alternative is holding a shoulder button and moving a cursor around, which is a less than ideal alternative. Thankfully the magic circles you have to draw are now also QTEs, but stuff like destroying ice blocks is a bit finnicky so I decided to play that section in handheld mode. IIRC the further you get the less frequent these gimmicks become, so it's only really a small issue in the first hour or two. We've already discussed the multiple screen options in the News topic so I'm not going to repeat those, but I noticed there's also a setup where both screens are displayed vertically, like they were on the original system. I think it would have been really cool to have that setup in Tate mode, but that's really just a nitpick because it would only really be useable on Switch (and maybe PC depending on your monitor setup). As you can see in the picture there's a lot of extra stuff in there as well, like the complete OST that works as a music player (and those games have some of the best tracks in the entire series IMO), a gallery which even includes the game manuals, and you can also choose which version you want to play (EU, US, JP and in Ecclesia's case, even the Korean version, though I'm not sure what's different about that one except the language). In any case, I've been really enjoying the little time I played so far. I usually only associate consoles and games I played as a kid with nostalgia, but the moment I stepped into the first area with its wonderful music I got hit by quite the wave of good old times. Absolute recommendation, these are classics for a reason and M2 did a great job of porting them over, as usual. Not to mention that we get a completely new remake as a bonus, too. [Also, a bit off-topic: while I was going through the gallery I noticed a promo picture for Castlevania: Judgement, which was on the back of one of the manuals back then. I wonder if they plan on re-releasing the 3D games as well considering we're now kind of 'through' with the 2D games. I realise they're not as well-regarded, but I think the PS2 ones are somewhat decent and Judgement, despite being a super broken and unbalanced fighting game, is quite a fun little guilty pleasure with a ridiculously good OST.]

I thought there might be a thread for this, but there isn't. So I'll be the one to make one for the weird indie game Premise is you've got 50 games which are emulative of the style of 8bit to early 16bit era, all released by this fake company called 'Ufosoft' which shut down in the 90s. Games which are dungeon explorers, side scrolling beat em ups, weird puzzlers where you're a chameleon blending into tiles, a kinda horse betting game. Game where you hop around platforms kicking soccerballs at things. A platformer all about suiciding yourself. Apparently there's a full 20 hour classic FF style turn based RPG in there, and an Ultima style first person dungeon crawler. Lots of weird shit The games are hard. You have to actually learn them, it ain't Warioware. Naturally, as an impatient person, I'm full of salt and rage at some of it. But it is interesting, the games get more sophisticated and better to control over the 'years'. Eg, pick up the final game they released, Cyber Owls, which is a beat-em-up that 'released' in 1989, and compare it to Fist Hell from 1987. Similar mechanics but more intuitive movement and faster gameplay. Also some of the games have couch multiplayer. Some of the games are good, some seem crap though like the weird egg dungeon crawler at the beginning where they kill you for walking right. I don't have much history with this era of gaming but it's been talked up a whole lot this year so after enjoying Balatro so much that it's potential GOTY for me I thought I'd try to expand my horizons on here. So maybe I bump this later way more keen on it, or someone else might find it interesting. I did find this one potentially interesting title, Bug Hunter (1984), which is this strategic kinda turn based bomberman game you see below where you have to kill bugs. I think the idea is to find your niche and get comfortable with a few familiar games first before branching out into the more scary ones (which for me, are platformers. Fuck man, great way to get me tilted 😠) Very original idea for a game, but fuck I bet it took a shitload of work to get 50 of them. Some are a bit more throaway like the camoflague gecko game though so maybe there's some sensible overlap that they achieve when implementing them This seems to just be Windows currently, but you could probably play it on any old machine. Definitely expect to see it on Switch eventually

Hi Guys, Fallout London is a new total conversion mod for Fallout 4. It's free to download on GOG, but installing it is a bit of a pain in the ass. So I've taken it upon myself to write a short "How to" on installing this game. The reason it's a pain to install is it's made to run on an older version of Fallout 4, even though it's a new game. Most of what I describe below is how to downgrade your Steam version of Fallout 4 to install Fallout London. The first thing to do is to go to Steam, and download/install Fallout 4. Most people will have this game in their library by now. Then, go to GOG and download the installer for Fallout London. Once Steam has installed Fallout 4, minimize Steam, and bring up the Windows Run box with 'Windows Key + R' Type into the Run box "steam://nav/console" Next, you need to copy the following commands into the Steam console, one line at a time, pressing enter after each command. download_depot 377160 377162 5847529232406005096 download_depot 377160 377161 7497069378349273908 download_depot 377160 377163 5819088023757897745 download_depot 377160 377164 2178106366609958945 download_depot 377160 435870 1691678129192680960 download_depot 377160 435871 5106118861901111234 download_depot 377160 435880 1255562923187931216 These commands will force Steam to download older game files for you. But it will not put them into your Fallout 4 installation folder. You will need to do this yourself. This may take a while, depending on your internet speed. Once each command has downloaded correctly, you'll get a report that looks a little like this. "Depot download complete : "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_377160\depot_377162" (1 files, manifest 5847529232406005096)" There will be a report for every command you pasted into the console, so seven in total. Once this has been completed, open up your file browser, and go to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_377160". Inside this folder, you'll find seven folders starting with "depot_" and a number. Open your Fallout 4 install folder in a second window. It's usually "(Steam Hardrive Letter)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4 Go back to the window with the "depot_" folders, and copy the contents of each folder to your Fallout 4 install folder, overwriting any files with the same name. Go to the Fallout 4 install folder, and navigate to the "Data" folder. We now need to delete the Creation Kit files added by the last update. Select all files that start with "cc". There will be several. Delete any file that starts with "cc". Next, on your web browser, go to https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/42147?tab=files&file_id=253313, and download Fallout 4 Script Extender (F4SE). You might need to sign up for this site to download it, but it's free. Once it's downloaded, extract it with your zip program of choice, and copy the contents of the zip file to the Fallout 4 install folder, again overwriting any files with the same name. And the final step. Run the Fallout London install program you downloaded from GOG. point it to your Fallout 4 install folder, and click next. Then let it do its thing. A couple of final notes, guys. First, disable cloud saving as this mod might screw up your regular Fallout 4 save. And second, in order to play regular Fallout 4 again, you'll need to uninstall the game completely, and then reinstall it without the mods and patches I've described above.

Found out about this by chance when I went through the Golden Joystick nominees and after watching its trailer I immediately bought it. Looked like it'd hit all the right notes for me and thankfully that proved correct. It's from a small French studio called Plane Toast (the food-puns seem to be all over the place) and seemingly their first project. You play as a young adult girl who receives an SOS signal from the ship her sister disappeared in six years prior, proceed to leave the space station you're currently residing at and start following the trail of the signal to a mostly deserted colony planet where you grew up. It's not the most unique setup, but it gives you an immediate emotional hook for what is essentially a purely exploration-driven open world game. And it mixes in some slight Dune-ish mystery elements via the titular Sand Witches and some subtext about environmentalism and corporate greed in there as well. The gameplay foundations are very light, there's a bit of climbing and platforming, there's a lot of driving around, and the only thing you find when exploring are either materials to build new tools or certain items you need to collect quests. Because there are still some people living on the planet and they're struggling to survive, so they're more than happy to have a newcomer there who can help out. Story progression is linked to the tools you build, as unlocking one moves the plot and timetable a bit forward. There's no combat, so when I say tools I mean a gadget to allow you to use ziplines or a scanner for your car to more easily find interactable objects, among them signal blockers which jam your map and are basically UbiSoft towers (they only reveal a couple of question marks on the map though, not a hundred). I can't put my hand on what it is exactly, probably just all the gears perfectly fitting together, but it's an incredibly engaging experience IMO. It's not a deep game by any means, at least mechanically. Think of it as a less obtuse version of Sable, or the bigger cousin of A Short Hike, and you get the idea. The world is densely packed and gives the impression of being vast, but you can drive around from one edge to the other in I presume less than five minutes. But it does evoke an incredibly sense of place, mostly due to the strong artstyle, great soundtrack and grounded, believable writing. It's also unmistakably French, and I don't say that with any kind of fun-poking subtext, because the media landscape has become very unified in recent years, so it's nice to see something European with a unique cultural influence for a chance. I guess part of why I like it so much might also be because it just came out of nowhere, which nobody reading this and deciding to pick it up will have the luxury anymore, but I do believe it's a really good 'experience' if you like more challenge-free games. I'm not quite through yet, but I suspect it will conclude at around the 10 hour mark, which seems like a reasonable length for a game without much mechanical depth. One last thing: I play it on Switch because I don't have a PS5 or a decent PC and I wouldn't really recommend that version. It permanently runs sub-30fps and has horrible pop-in and dynamic resolution drops. It speaks to the quality of the game that I'm still enjoying it, but unless you have no other option like myself, I'd strongly recommend playing it anywhere else.

Playing this tonight, met the alien died twice, thought I had done it got to the lift then the cutscene came on doh! Will give it another go tomorrow, if the background in this is the future its pretty good. I do miss my surround sound but that might be too much in this game!

The Demo is out now, possibly the first of two if past Resident Evil games are anything to go off. Based on the demo it's pretty faithful to how the original starts, playing up to the village fight before it ends. The opening moments are expanded and they've developed the combat a little. you can stealth a little now, the knife is a button press, there's opportunities to shoot then melee in a more deliberate way than it felt in the original. There's dodging and parrying, and when enemies are downed you can finish them off, which you need to do and I've had a couple change on me even this early in the game (this could be a demo thing) There are a few changes, as said there's a expanded start with some more story telling played out, and some subversion of what you expect, which runs throughout the demo My only issues so far, I don't like the aiming. I think by design it's easy to miss, but I'm not really a fan of how easy it is to miss even when you aren't being rushed. I'm also not a huge fan of how it looks. That might be a common thing with the engine, assuming this is the same as the RE2 remake, because I thought that could look a little rough at points. I've played the performance mode, and it has loads of ghosting when you turn the camera, whenever there's movement, and just at certain points on any fine detail, so I'm not sure what reconstruction they're using but it's not working great (playing on PS5). I might have another run on the graphics mode to see, then I might even download the PC version

I think this is only on pc currently, but I can't see why it wouldn't come to everything at some point. First thing to say, it's not a racing game, it's a platformer. It's sometimes a Crazy Taxi em up, but it's core game is a platformer. It's structured like Mario 64, and the guy who made you (you being the taxi) is called Morio. It's kind of funny, looks like a Saturn game, and the villain is Alien Musk, who is evil, owns a car company, and wants to get to the moon. I kind of both really enjoyed and was hugely frustrated with Yellow Taxi. It controls like a kart, it's very nippy, but not very precise, so it being a platformer leads to issues. The way the game is laid out is, bar a couple of levels, when you open new worlds (via portals in Morio's home) the point is just to find these corrupted cogs that open up the next world. It feels aimless, beyond the message that pops up saying you've unlocked the next world it doesn't really give you any feedback. However, there's specific characters you can help who will then reappear later, they can be useful, but again, I'm missing some I think, because I mustn't have encountered them. The cogs start off relatively easy to find, and on the Crazy Taxi stages taking people to places rewards you with cogs sometimes, on these levels you have a time limit, with extra time rewarded. As you progress you end up having to boost off ramped scenery to take to the air to land on a small platform to boost and boost cancel to gain height. Eventually cogs are on needle like steeples way off in the distance I did have an abundance of of cogs initially but the requirements ramp up towards the end. Fortunately I discovered there's an area outside Morio's house, and that has levels within it, if you saved those people, which means more cogs to choose from At points I found Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom hugely frustrating, and when I was missing a ton of cogs for the final world I wondered if I'd bother finishing it. I was controlling it like a racing game, using the triggers, maybe if I'd used the A button it would have been easier to control. Its good but it's fiddly. That said I watched a video of someone else and they were ridiculous at it. I did beat it too, so maybe I did ok

My battle brothers First up, so far, orcless. Zero orcs. This time you're fighting the Tyranids, a hive mind swarm of demon like creatures (who may not be demons in the lore, but they've blade like appendages rather than arms), and while you might first encounter a small cluster, generally this prompts waves to follow. A lot of the time you're fighting them in standard combat, swinging your chainsword, countering and dodging the larger monsters, and taking out the distant projectile throwing Tyranids with your bolt gun. There'll be points though where you have the high ground and have to try to delay the swarm by throwing grenades or exploding barrels as the Tyranids scamper over to swarm your position It's fun, it's a bit basic and samey, but it's fun. In some ways I wish you felt a bit more indestructible than you do, but I suppose that's less interesting as a game, and the Tyranids are a threat. There's also another enemy type that's more like the rats from A Plague Tale, nicely you generally get a flame thrower for these sections, that's fun If its anything like the original it's going to kick on in the 2nd half, and there'll be some more variety. I think I'm currently trying to get to a lost/stranded Magus, which feels quite early in still. Also I watched this this morning which was quite a good background to Titus up until this point, I'm not sure how much he's a character outside of the games, but there's a lot there

Been playing this for around 6 hrs on Series S - and it's quite enjoyable. Has some similarities, in terms of roguelike progression, as Into the Breach, although game presentation and pathways are significantly different. I've defeated the first boss, and so I'll see how well it keeps my interest (probably up to a point where it turns into a grind (or not)). Anyway it's certainly a bit different in looks at least to the mainstream.

I was pretty close to just bumping the old thread because man, is this Persona 3. I'm sure there are plenty that want a remake as faithful as this but I was more on the side of using the opportunity to take a second run at it and tighten it up a bit and improve some of the story of the game. There are quite a few changes to the dungeon crawling element, a lot of additions in presentation and mechanics such as the ability to pass a turn to another party member after hitting a weak spot which makes the game easier. But I was a bit disappointed with the AI party members since there are less tactics than the original and they don't use the new mechanics. Just for nostalgia's sake I tried to play it the old way but it's so not optimal. It just seems to be thoughtlessly added and it's clear they're really expecting people to play it with direct control of the party. I just always thought it was cool to be the leader of an autonomous group and it's just faster too. But oh well! Bosses haven't really been touched very much either, mechanically, despite those getting quite a bit better in later games is a big missed opportunity too. Other difference is it obviously looks better... actually, I dunno, it doesn't have the creepiness of the original to me, something to do with some of the colour grading maybe. Looking too clean isn't hitting quite right. More of the game is voice acted, I think it might be a little rewritten but I'd have to look at side by sides to be sure but it's mostly the same stuff happening and even acted out the same way. I'm not new to this game but I think to someone that is or is coming from Persona 5 it's still gonna feel like an older iteration despite the new coat of paint. It's still one of my favourite games, and I've barely stopped playing it but it's my fault, I did at one point dream of a game that felt like a sequel to P5 but with P3's story and it isn't that. It's P3 with some modern concessions.