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Ok, I searched the forum. It ain't on it, but well look at that thread title. It's possibly on here and the search engine went 'fuck that'. This is one I've put off for almost as long as the game has been out. I remember reading about it in magazines and thinking it sounded like some really cool shit, but being sad that all I had was a laptop with integrated graphics and no real way to play. Anyway, with the sequel on the horizon I want to make a more concerted effort. I'm playing on Veteran difficulty, I'm not sure if I have mods installed cause technically this installation has been on my drive for years since my last attempt to get through it. I did however install some mod which enables the EAX stuff, which is some old PC tech that used hardware to process sound, eg sound cards. It doesn't work on modern OS, but you can get it working still. So if you're in a cave or underground bunker or whatever your shots will echo through, or something like this. So far the only place I've noticed it is when you walk past someone playing a guitar. Sometimes this old PC tech can be really neat, it's sad that stuff like that goes away tho (like the phyx stuff we were talking about in the Batman thread) One thing that surprised me is it's not as open as I thought. It's divided into levels, or zones if you prefer. They are relatively open but generally full of little bottlenecks. There's some sidequests and lots of them seem really easy to fail cause of timers. I'm on some bit where I have to meet up with a gang and there's a huge army of bandits in front of me. So I rummaged around a giant radioactive dump (drink lots of vodka) and found an 'artifact', which is a kinda RPG item in this game. I don't really know what it does, maybe you equip it or something. But anyway it's not really open world in the way you might imagine. It's just got a bunch of levels where you can approach things in unique ways, I think. So far though it's pretty pedestrian, but I understand the opening is considered to be pretty slow going anyway. The premise for the game is also kinda bare bones, I think you lose your memory and you're hunting a dude named Strelok. Obviously like the title suggests it's set in the exclusion zone, but I think in an alternate history where there was more than one Chernobyl disaster (as an aside, it still weirds me out a bit that there's so much weird fiction surrounding a disaster which is still very recent in memory. I remember our family hosting kids with thyroid cancer who were the same age as me, to give a sense of how 'recent' it was and the people who were affected by it, a lot of people our age. But anyway) I guess for people who've never played the game I would say to them it feels like Fallout, the Bethesda ones, but way way more 'CRPG'. CRPG meaning like Baldurs Gate or Planescape Torment, in terms of picking up quests and the way your inventory is managed. But only in a really light way compared to those games. I'm pretty deep in on xiv atm so this might end up being another really slow playthrough, but I dunno with all the PC talk recently why not create a thread for one of its more interesting exclusives ahead of the sequel launch later this year? (if there is a thread for this, apologies but I did type it in the search engine both ways)

I thought this was intriguing since its initial reveal (back when we all thought it was called Chorvs) so I picked it up recently and played through most of it during my holiday break. I'm one and a half steps away from finishing it, so this might be as good a time as any to make a topic about it. Haven't seen anyone mention it here so it'll probably be a dead topic, but I absolutely love the game and feel like I owe it to the developers to at least put something about it on the web. I'm not too experienced with this whole space opera genre and I think the last somewhat comparable game I played was Strike Suit Zero. But this genuinely feels like a bold new step for these kind of games. It's not a linear, mission-driven game, which is what I expected, but it's designed like an RPG almost. You visit a certain amount of areas that function as hubs for main and sidequests, three of them medium-sized, the rest a bit smaller. Because space is large and dark exploration is very streamlined: a button press reveals items and money pickups scattered across the world and holding the button unlocks points of interests on your map, i.e. the aforementioned sidequests, for example. Completing those usually rewards you with new weapons and equipment, hence why I say this very much feels like an RPG. But just like the size of its world, the stuff you find doesn't overwhelm you. I completed every sidequests I came across and still only have six different laser weapons, for example. Rather, everything you have fulfills a certain function, so mix-and matching for the best combination is key here. While it does seem like putting on extra hull energy is a good thing, getting hit in Chorus usually means you already made a mistake. So I went to max out my energy meter and recovery instead, to be able to use more special moves. And it's here where you can see just how forward-thinking this game is designed. Usually dogfighting games are 50% shooting at enemies and 50% turning your ship/plane around to find an enemy to shoot. Chorus just gives you all the power you need to reduce that downtime to almost zero and it's just wonderfully executed. Those special moves I mentioned (called Rites in the game) are the key here, particularly the first two: one allows you to instantly teleport behind and enemy in your line of sight to flank them but the most important tool is the so-called Drift. By holding a button, you can freely turn around your ship in any direction while maintaining your current trajectory. So instead of flying straight at a stationary target to destroy a turret and then rinse and repeat until all of them are gone, you can just plot a course alongside them, drift at 90° and shoot them all in one fell swoop. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'll put a poorly played little clip at the end of this post just to show it off, but the feature is so flexible it's really the one thing that turned this game from a very good game into an excellent one. Story-wise it's a modern take on the Dancing with the Wolves formula, but the lore is rather interesting and the two main characters - the pilot, who has a special gift (lore explanation for the usage of her "Rites") and her sentient ship. The ship in particular is really well realised, floating somewhat between the robotic AI of something like HAL and the basically human-like portrayal of the concept in Cortana. It's a very unorthodox pairing but really well realised. I particularly enjoyed how both characters responded to stuff happening during the action scenes, with the ship being surprisingly blood-thirsty or how both of them finish each other sentences the stronger their bond grows. Definitely low-key blown away by this. The excellent gameplay, interesting lore and overall tone and atmosphere (somewhat channeling Remedy at times) just make for a superb combination. I'd probably have to nitpick to find stuff I didn't like, like dialogue being cut off way too often when random encounters spawn (should have looked into that Uncharted 4 tech) or how there can be a tad too much flying around in the beginning and towards the end (think Wind Waker, but at lightspeed) but other than that this is just great. Anyway, here's the simple drift clip to conclude: And for the record, and despite being the only one here still playing on last-gen, this runs absolutely fine on Xbox One and probably on PS4 as well. But I'll definitely go back to it when I have a new system to see just how much it improves by running at 60fps.

I’ve managed to pick this up for £25 (£30 minus £5 slave discount) which is good timing now that the season is over and the better man won. I’ve only played very little so far of the story mode and when you’re racing it’s as good as ever but I’m not convinced by the story yet or your influence over it. In the second race my team mate forced me off the track in a pre recorded story scene. I then made it back past them and everyone in the top ten to win my first race. The win wasn’t referenced tho and all the focus was on that one moment of been pushed off. It’s a small complaint really. The game itself is likely to be better than ever. It certainly looks and handles better than 2019 (I skipped 2020).

I’m very bad at it but 2042 seems alright. There was a 10gb update so I missed out on all the bugs I think. The only jank I’ve noticed is slow texture loading at the beginning of a match (ps4 pro) and sometimes your body might go a bit mad when you die. The levels I’ve played on have been ok but I’ve not played enough to have memorised any of them. The one with the skyscrapers and has a huge tornado rip through the middle of the map was a stand out moment. I got killed because I was stood staring at it. It looked awesome was giving me anxiety. They seem to have stopped giving you anything if you have played any previous BF games which I don’t mind I guess but some recognition would have been nice. Just some gamer card art. I don’t understand the load outs just yet. You seem to be able to give anyone anything? Like give an assault guy a medic pack instead of ammo? I didn’t play around with it much so idk. It all sounds very nice and the pro version looks a lot better than the base ps4. God knows what the og xb1 version must look like. The menu and UI and a lot cleaner and user friendly than what I remember of 1 and 5. It’s Battlefield.

This game reminds me of Outer Wilds (which is also what I plan to play next, the expansion). It’s been compared to Breath of the Wild, and I guess there are some similarities, but it feels more like Outer Wilds to me. You start off in a relatively small area, preparing for a kind of coming of age ceremony which will allow you to leave your tribe and explore the world. Instead of Epona, your companion is a kind of hover bike. You start off driving a banger but then you build your own one which leaves a snazzy tail of red smoke as you drive around. One of the reasons I bought the game at launch was because I love Japanese Breakfast, the band who did the soundtrack for the game. There’s a great moment when you leave the opening area and enter the great wide open for the first time, and a song plays. Brings back memories of that Jose Gonzales song playing during Red Dead Redemption. There’s no combat in the game, that I’m aware of. The gameplay is all exploration and (so far, light) puzzle solving. I’m enjoying it. It looks lovely. There are some minor visual glitches (wall-clipping mostly), but nothing major so far.

The new game from the developer of Pony Island and The Hex. It's hard to say much about it without spoiling things, so if you know those other games you know everything won't be as it seems. It has a great lo fi look and spooky atmosphere. The game starts with you trapped in a cabin being made to play a card game against a mysterious, spooky opponent. It incorporates deck building and rogue like game elements and more. There are also some escape room type puzzle elements away from the game table. I liked the card game mechanics quite a lot, it it's fun to play. In fact I started a new game to have a go at the first act again. There's a free demo on Steam.

I'm going to link the old thread below, but Bright Memory Infinite has just released on PC and it's very good. As a bit of a reminder, Bright Memory was an early access episodic game, that did so well that the developer cancelled development on Episode 1 and decided to work on a full thing instead, with everyone who bought Ep 1 getting the full thing for free. I'm not sure what happened with the Xbox release, I'd assumed the version that came out was the full game at the Xbox Series launch but looking at it now I think that was just a port of Episode 1 and Bright Memory Infinite is coming next year They've changed things a bit, going off memory I think there's a power difference, but there's definitely a difference in enemy types. You spend more time fighting soldiers here, with a shift to the ancient enemies who are mostly melee based but not entirely. What it does really well is change things up, it's not just wave after wave of the same enemies, long corridors, or kill room after kill room, instead you'll start with some combat, switch to something more platforming like, then some new enemies, maybe some stealth, even a driving section. Your powers are there and needed, mostly you'll be looking to block and counter, then attack with your own melee attack. The ability to grab enemies from a distance and explode them with your emp seems a little overpowered in the early game, which isn't a huge complaint because I didn't find myself relying on it too much. There's alternative bullet types for your guns, which you'll add to as you progress through the game, again these can be really powerful, certainly my go to against bosses rather than fighting them "properly" I suppose for context, I got this for free as I'd bought Episode 1 way back when, so this being short isn't really an issue for me, I'd already got my money's worth out of Episode 1, but it is still a short game, took me about 2 hours. It could quite easily have been longer too, there's a bunch of ideas you only see once, areas are fairly short, a bigger budget game would be more 'cynical' and recycle and remix these game ideas for a bit more length, which would have been fine with me. As a cheap PC game this is really, really good, if it launches as a cheap digital console game then I'd say it's a must buy, but it is short, and I suppose that's a criticism amplified because I wanted more, another hours or so at least. Well worth picking up though

Hey, maybe don't buy this Vice City squad, I come to you with gameplay clips littered with copyright claims. Not that there's a shortage of videos out there about this but it helps to see how little the gameplay has changed as well. I'm a couple hours into the opening sections. Actually, I could be a bit beyond the opening sections. Was this game short? I'm already at the bit where you are doing missions for Diaz. Visually I think it looks ok, I think they could have done a lot more work here tho and it's a bit perplexing that this is more demanding for my machine than The Witcher 3 maxed out. No ray tracing or anything like that is in it. It could be a rough one to play on PC for this reason but maybe the settings are more scalable on lower settings. I think the volumetric lighting is what is killing it. Also the game comes close to dying every time I pause, I found out I'm not the only one with this issue so it's a problem with the PC version. Vice City now is a game that is hard carried by its soundtrack I think. I don't think I could stick with this type of thing without these tunes. It's also weird to think Vice City is now more retro than the year 1986 was when Vice City itself came out. It's like a russian doll of nostalgia or something. I will say for VC first thing you should do is turn HDR off and set contrast to 0. The default contrast level is hideously oversaturated and destroys the tone of the game. At zero it is not a million miles away from the original's visual style Going back now also it really feels like Ray Liotta phoned in his performance as Tommy Vercetti, but the people around him do a good enough job to make up for that fact. Especially the lawyer guy. It's weird to think how they got all these really big movie stars in a game like this (Burt Reynolds is in this game, if you forgot). Nowadays you can see that these movie people don't exactly translate their talents to the digital screen, some of them are pretty bad at adapting to it. Or are just used to sell the game. But back then this was a really big deal for Vice City. There's one visual thing which has really annoyed me early on, the rain effect. It is a constant streak of white lines that make it impossible to see anything and actually made me feel a kind of motion sickness I've never felt with a game. I haven't heard anyone else talk about it, it could be a subjective thing. But man, it is rough to look at. On the other hand they add a cool effect where you get puddles and the grass gets wet. You slide in the rain also, I think that's new. Might not be but it seems new. Gameplay clips, spoilered for post length not spoilers cause this game is 20 years old now

Spent a few hours with the game during this afternoon, suffice to say it's bloody amazing to look at... The whole driving to the festival segment right at the start of the game just put a massive smile on my face, it's so stupidly over the top that you can't help but grin. So far there's not been anything massively different from the 4th game but to be honest that was already the best open world racer by a huge margin so this just has to build on that. So far I've I think the game has been hand holding me through the early parts but not enough that I can't decide to put whatever the game is suggesting on hold and do something else, which is nice. I also think that the map is definitely going to encourage going off road far more than Britain did in the previous game. Anyway, so far so gorgeous!

I played through the opening of this, so far better than Avengers I think. The tutorial, which is extremely pink and blue, is a fairly lengthy thing which introduces you to characters which of course you already know about because of all the movies and stuff init. It's mostly a slightly adjusted take on those movie characters, I say that as if I know what the other versions of the characters from the comic are like. Anyway it reminds me of the movie is what I mean, except the guy who plays Mario isn't in it which is a bummer. But I think it's good, not incredible cause it's hard to get a read of whether the fighting turns into something more than what you see at first. I'll say being able to run a game that looks good at 4k dlss and runs at 60 presents a much better impression than watching a stream that runs at 640p and runs at 15fps. I dunno about the console experience, but I do know my experience right here is pretty good *discreetly flexes* As filler tutorials go I thought it was pretty well paced and I was pretty engaged by it, which is saying something cause it really does feel like a 360 game. But it gets away with feeling like a 360 games cause they don't make 360 games anymore, and 360 games didn't run at 4k with ray tracing *dabs*. One screenshot I wanted to get is the little bear guy standing on tree man's back cause I thought damn I like that, but it was in a really dark room and I didn't get the chance. Anyway the rabbit stands on the tree man's back, that is good. I tried to take screenshots but unfortunately they are all super dark cause of weird HDR nonsense. So imagine these screenshots not looking shit, this is what the game looks like (good, not shit) I can't say that this is like game X with a bit of game Y or anything like that cause it's too early to say. One thing I'll say is that it has a stagger meter for certain boss type enemies. Drax (who destroys) has an ability that induces heavy stagger damage. Gamora (the deadliest) has an ability which deals heavy raw damage. Groot (therefore he is) does stuff with branches, uh traps enemies I think, I dunno. Racoon (not a racoon) does ranged attacks. But to translate it in terms I do understand, Drax is Focus Strike from FFVII Remake, Gamora and Racoon are the big attacks that you do when stagger is put on them. Peter Quill (middle name Joseph), he flies around and shoots stuff. The melee part of his combat feels like shit, but this is the level 1 experience. Very early on he unlocks an ability to do a timed powerful charge shot while his guns recover from their Mass Effect cooldown. Kind of a reload that's active, or something like that. I think another game did a thing like this before, I forget. I can't easily follow the flow of fights but I would say having this run at a high framerate is a must for that reason. It's so messy, the way you queue up the skills is a bit clunky. But that's the level 1 experience. It's a very air dashy type game, like a B tier Platinum games joint or something like that maybe. Anyway I'm engaged by the sum of the parts rather than the constituent ones so I will stick with it. Better than Avengers anyway, well the opening is. Also trust me the game looks a lot better than these screenshots, thank Windows HDR for fucking these captures up. Or maybe the brightness adjustment in the game itself, I might try and look into seeing if I can fix that.

Surprised there isn't a thread for this, maybe it got purged. This was the one that came out in 2010 and was the very Bourne inspired where Sam was working outside the usual system and dealing with a missing daughter. So maybe Taken like too. It's that sort of thing and that was a more interesting premise for a game to me but I never got a chance to play it for some reason. I think my 360 was playing up at the time. So 11 years later I'm finally playing it. I've only finished the original and didn't get into any after that so I'm far from knowledgeable about the games. But I've been having a decent time with it so far. I especially do like the AI because it's very readable with how enemies react so it doesn't feel like such a crap shot when trying to get out of an alert state which I feel lots of stealth games are, and especially in these relatively small areas this game has. And the system where you get two free kills after a stealth takedown is satisfying and keeps the game's pace moving. It gets a point knocked off though because as far as I can tell there is no splits smh

Second up in my GamePass games that can be completed in a couple of hours; The Procession to Calvary. A point and click adventure based on Renaissance art that's heavily inspired by Terry Gillingham. Not for the easily offended/religious types - this is the follow up game to Joe Richardson's Four Last Things. It follows a woman who is back from a murder spree in a Holy war and wants to do one final murder as it's now frowned upon. Whilst the humour won't be to everyone's taste, I was laughing out loud from the offset. The game is bonkers. As with my last post, I won't go into it too much as I don't want to spoil it, but a couple of highlights were helping a street magician off a crucifix as he was turning water into wine that killed people, and giving snuff to a midget so he played music faster.

I managed to play a couple of cracking little games on GamePass over the weekend. First up is Superliminal - a cracking little puzzler that I managed to play through in a couple of hours and what a treat this was. It borrows heavily from games such as Portal but by the time you see the achievement for beating the game, it's earned it's place up there with the best of them. The concept is you're someone that's involved in a lucid dreaming experiment and you have 'wake up' in a location that presents you with a series of puzzles based on perspective and your surroundings. It twists these challenges in a way that each never out stays its welcome and the final two levels were sublime. I can't say much more than that to avoid spoiling it (i'd even suggest not watching the trailer) but if you liked Portal/The Witness - that kind of thing, i'd strongly suggest giving it a go. One of the best endings to a game i've seen in a while as well!

Genuinely surprised there isn't a thread for this already. It seems like a game that would be quite popular in here. I started playing this last night in a "I'm gonna play it for 20 minutes and if I don't like it's getting deleted" kind of mood. I'm now 7-8 hours in and it's great fun! Remember Golf Story? It's has a similar sort of Sports-PG charm to it. There's tons of humour running through, and the graphical style is a bit like the Gumball cartoon. You play as Otto, a transfer student to a Dodgeball school, and someone who wants to be world-renowned on the sport. There's a relatively small world to explore, but lots of fun little side quests and plenty of battles to take part in. Speaking of battles, they're a lot of fun too. You play Dodgeball, so if you know the rules you'll have a leg up. Might be worth watching the Ben Stiller film to refresh your Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge memory. There are charge moves, counters, special moves, and all sorts of fun stuff happening on the court. Matches take place in anything from 1 on 1 to 1 Vs 6, or 3 on 3 contests, and the first to lose their HP loses the game. I've noticed TONS of homages to Pokémon. From the Dodgeball logo to the battle loading sound effect, a medical centre to refresh your team, and battles in long grass, it's just got loads of cool little nods to Nintendo's most lucrative franchise. From what I've read it's not super long, but it's really fucking awesome. I genuinely love this game.

Noticed this on the recent PSN digital discount sale. I do quite enjoy a rogue like, so thought I’d give it a go. Hades is definitely going to be one of my favourite games of the year. Is this as good as that? Well, it’s enjoyable enough. But I’d say no. The combat is simple enough, with a melee weapon and ranged weapon. You find various different ones during your run, with different buffs. As with any rogue like, death means you lose all your load out. But as you play, you can collect various currencies that can be used to permanently improve your character. There’s also a light/ dark mechanic. You carry a torch, which can be used to light braziers in each area. If you don’t, you take increased damage if you’re hit while in a dark area. As for the Curse in the title, you have a curse bar, that increases with each door of the arena you open. There are healing areas, but cause significant curse if you use them. You can buy new gear during your run with gold, or get cursed instead. Fill your curse bar up to the max, and you get inflicted with a nasty permanent affliction, I’ve had ones that either increase damage taken, or make it so I can’t see what any curses actually do. You can have a maximum of 5 curses, with the game warning that if you hit curse 5, your run is going to be extremely fucked over. There’s a dodge mechanic, which takes up stamina to use. You have 5 stamina, each dodge drains 1 point. If you’re empty, you can’t dodge, and have to wait for it to replenish, Dark Souls style. You can also parry attacks, but I’ve never been any good at that kind of thing. Story wise, there’s pretty much fuck all. In comparison to the cast of Hades, here there’s literally nothing. Unlike Hades, you don’t go through the entire dungeon at once. You start with 3 to choose from, with a boss at the end. I’ve reached boss 1 three times, killed him on my 3rd attempt, and that was the end of my run. It looks like you have to gradually unlock the option to run through to the final boss. It’s decent enough, and I’ll certainly play a fair bit of it. But it’s definitely not in the same league as Hades.

I've put a few hours into this now and thought i'd post my initial impressions. First up, can't comment on the PS4 version but on PS5 this game is absolutely gorgeous. It starts you off in a dark cave and the moment you step outside it's a real 'wow' moment. The vistas in this game are gorgeous, and the in-game cut scenes could be straight out of a Pixar film. Gameplay wise, i'd echo what some of the reviews say in that it doesn't bring anything new to the table. It almost feels like a PS2 game, but I mean that in a complimentary way. The in-game tutorial is incredibly brief and they seem to have taken a 'figure it our for yourself' approach. The puzzles so far have been pretty basic and involve the use of the 'Rot' - the cute little black blob things that you collect which then follow you around and allow you to interact with certain elements of the level a la Pikmin. Combat is standard Zelda 'lock on' fare, with a basic ability system that lets you unlock new moves and attacks by spending one of the in-game currencies. You can also buy and equip hats for your Rot to wear, which just adds to the games charm. One of my favourite things about it so far has been the music. It could have been lifted from a Ghibli film. So for a first game from a new studio it's not doing too badly. I can't imagine it being a game that lodges itself in my memory for long after beating it, but it's a lovely game that's packed full of charm which is a nice change of pace from the hyper-intense shooters i've been playing a lot of recently.

Played two hours of this so far. It’s a beautiful looking game that combines elements of Zelda and Final Fantasy. The biggest influence seems to be Earthbound, there is even an in-game rpg you can play called Earth Born. I like everything about the game. It takes its time with the opening, there are a lot of references to the “surface world” but the game doesn’t dump you there within the first 5 minutes. As far as I know the game was in development for many years and it certainly feels like it. To use a cliched description, it feels like a love letter to those games I mentioned. My kind of game. I’m happy to see it’s gotten off to a good start on Steam (88% positive rating after 2000+ reviews so far). It hasn’t dislodged Tales of Arise from the top spot in Japan but when I bought it it was the third best selling game so that’s good.

Had my eye on this one for a while, as the concept (two teams of 4 try to steal treasure, in a take on the Robin Hood mythology) seems interesting. Currently £15 in the PSN sale, and there’s a free demo. So I tried it with me and my mates. After one session, we ended up buying it. Basically, it’s a stealth game. Your team of 4 has to find the Sheriff (invincible boss that kills you in one hit), steal his key, open the Vault, grab a chest, and then escape with it. Each character plays slightly differently, with their own special ability. Robin has a longbow that kills instantly with headshots, and can fire a powered up explosive shot to kill multiple enemies.Marion has a crossbow and can temporarily turn invisible to assassinate people. Tuck can throw poison bombs, heal the team, and highlight enemy positions. John can decimate enemies with his hammer, carry the chest the fastest, and open closed portcullis gates to potentially speed up escapes. Stealth and teamwork is definitely important, because if you get spotted, things can go tits up pretty quickly. Killed allies drop a ‘talisman’, if that’s collected and taken to a captured spawn point, they revive. John and Tuck can’t use bows, but are stronger in a fight. Had quite a few tense sessions on this so far. You can play as 4 against just the AI, or two teams of 4 against AI, attempting to steal the treasure before the other team does. Its certainly worth a look, I’d say.

Spent a few hours with this on Sunday... what with deaths and stuff I didn't make it too far. The game starts with you (as Caroline Walker) receiving a postcard from missing twins pointing to an abandoned mansion/hospital, of course she decides to traipse over there and ends up being knocked out... she wakes naked in a bath, connected to respirator and missing an eye. The game straight up plays like the old style Resident Evils, fixed camaras with tank controls... although the new controls included in Remake are also present here. Early on you are given a Nail Gun and Crowbar, these are the primary attack choices through the game... I know you later get a Shotgun too. Enemies are a lot quicker than your standard zombies so I've taken to shooting until they fall then caving in their skulls with the melee weapon. It's gone really old style with limited saves (that work just like Resi) and no auto save at all, you die you lose the progress... and that sometimes hurts, I think I've been conditioned with modern gaming that not much is lost on death. I got to a certain point on Sunday where I basically had to tap out a rhythm on a door knocker to open a door and was convinced that my game was bugged, it must have taken me 15 minutes to get through that bastard door... I turned it off minutes after that but up until then I was enjoying it a lot... they've nailed the atmosphere. Looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow.

Been mucking around with this over the last couple of nights, probably put in 4 or 5 hours (maybe more)... I'm not going to pretend we have GotY on our hands but it's doing exactly what I expected of it, namely leaving your brain behind a blasting the ever living fuck out of anything that moves. It's nailed the look and sounds of the movies, at the start you have a fairly basic create a character menu with male and female options, there's four classes each with their own perks and abilities... so far so normal. I went with the Demolition class as I wanted to be like Drake in the film and repeatedly shout "right on Vas" while I'm mowing down Xenos with the Smartgun. The fodder "runner" enemies don't really offer too much in the way of tactics, they'll head straight at you but some of the other types do use hit and run tactics using vents and stuff to get behind you and cause a little mayhem... I've also just got to a level where it's almost turned in to a Gears game (there's a cover system... which is no use at all with the Aliens) as I'm fighting the Working Joe's from Alien Isolation. I'm only around half way through the game (there's 4 acts with 3 missions in each) and there's been a decent amount of backdrops so far. I can imagine the game is going to get pretty difficult too especially if I play above normal difficulties as when more than a couple of Warrior type enemies appear things generally fall to shit... and that leads to the games biggest failing so far, matchmaking is fucked, so far I've found one game and the game taking the place of real players really doesn't cut it. I hope that they can sort out whatever is going on with that because it is putting a slight downer on the whole experience.

The long awaited sequel is here! And it's generally a decent follow-up. It takes place right after the original and it's like it's never been gone. It just confidently does being Psychonauts. It feels a bit tighter than the original but it's basic fighting and platforming for the most part but it's appeal has always been the imagination of the world and how it takes mental well being and makes these charming worlds out them and from what I've played so far it continues to do a good job of that. And with these new fangled graphics it makes it look really nice too. They really lean all of it into the art style they made in the original and I think it comes out well, it's a nice game to look at in a weird way. All Double Fine have done is make a Psychonauts game for 2021 and that's all I wanted, and that's all we got. Neat!

I played and finished this a few weeks ago now and have finally got round to creating the thread for it. For those that don't know this is a Dontnod title very much in the same vein as Life is Strange, it is Episodic and a teen drama exploring some of the same themes as LiS, where it differs slightly is that it is only 3 Episodes rather than the 5 associated with LiS. In terms of plot, it centres on a twin Brother and Sister in a small Alaskan town in the middle of nowhere. The Brother (Tyler)has just got out of a Juvenile detention facility and come back to his home town for the first time in 8 years, seeing his Sister (Alyson) for the first time since a tumultuous incident (involving their Mother) wrestled them apart years ago. As well as this the Brother successfully transitioned from his gender of birth (female) to become a Trans Man in 'Juvie', so he has many additional challenges, thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. About being reunited with his Sister for the first time since his transition and being back in his backward home town. In terms of how the game plays, it is extremely similar to LiS in terms of being a character driven adventure game determined by key choices and dialogue choices you can make along the way, it even retains a supernatural element similar to LiS as well in that the Twins can hear each others thoughts and both can see each others memories from the past, some of which may differ from the others' perspective in certain situations and events. As a huge fan of Life is Strange I really enjoyed this, with the shortened 3-Episode count it means the whole story arc wraps up more succinctly and I never felt there were any filler or pointless episodes in there, it's all good stuff. I much preferred it to Life is Strange 2 as well, highly recommended. Pics:

Started and finished this over the weekend, took me about 4 hours. It's a weird one for sure, as soon as the intro had finished and I was put into the game itself I had a cursor and had to move the main character with the less analog stick, tapping A to move him to a certain spot or highlight an object or person in the environment, I wasn't expecting this to almost be a point and click adventure game. The art style and top-down camera perspective to the game is really unique too, some Hotline Miami vibes for sure as soon as I booted it up. Once you get into the game things play out as you may or may not of seen in the trailers (I will spoil this just in case), As soon as this is over you go back to the moment where you first enter your Apartment and things play out exactly the same as they did before, your wife greets you, asks you about similar topics, reads her book etc. Until the same cop turns up and repeats the same actions as before. You're stuck in a time loop, Groundhog Day style. Your goal is to escape the timeloop by not dying, to do this you have to repeat the same loop over and over, changing up certain things, asking your Wife questions (that then open up new dialogue options down the line) until you can eventually not die and escape the timeloop. It's a cool premise but after a few hours you start to realise this is just like the bit in PT where everything is Red and you're going round and round in circles trying to do something different to get the SH trailer pop up at the end. It gets tedious real quick unfortunately, after awhile of going around banging my head up against the wall, exhausting all dialogue options with the Wife, trying to get think of new things to try I gave up and looked up a Guide to show me a few tips of what to do next. With the guide it wasn't too frustrating, for loop-after-loop I'd try to do things myself but if after awhile I was banging my head up against the wall I'd consult the guide to get to the next 'checkpoint' and closer to my goal. There are some pretty mad revelations, twists and turns along the way which I won't spoil. But yeah, it's a weird game, I do recommend it and I did enjoy my time with it but if I hadn't of looked up a guide when I got stuck I most likely would've just given up on it as it was just frustrating the hell out of me. Pics: Proper Spoiler Image:

Firstly, Boyfriend Dungeon is itch.io as fuck. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but you're given warnings about content right on loading up, an option to turn off messages from a certain character, and there's plenty of bi characters, possibly everyone is, and a non-binary character pops up later on. I think I was playing as a woman, but typing out the previous sentence I'm wondering if there was a gender option I missed. Either way, the point is that you probably already know from that if you should bother with Boyfriend Dungeon. Although I will just add that after a couple of dates I eventually met a girl I dated pretty much the rest of the game. The dating aspect is really just to move the plot on. There's an overarching story about you learning to be more confident over your summer holiday, with a bit more going on, but dating also means that character raises their level cap and so offers addition perks Additional perks because everyone you date can transform in to a weapon you can use in the dungeon. The combat is pretty basic, you have a quick attack, a harder attack and a roll. The perks you get include things like your roll confusing enemies, damaging them, maybe your basic combo finishing with a lighting attack that chains to other enemies. You don't level up as you progress through the dungeon,only after your run when you either escape or die/pass out. So the next time you'll go in you'll feel significantly stronger I... kind of liked it. I found it very dull to start. I wasn't interested in the dating at all, but Val is a decent enough character, certainly more likable than those you've dated before. The combat doesn't progress a huge amount but you learn to work within its restrictions and it starts to find a way under your skin Not for everyone but it's decent enough

This is very good. The original was a pretty unique take on classic Metroid but this is something else. It still has recognisable hallmarks, especially in relation to the first game but it takes the unique aspects of that and uses those to build off. If anything it proves it wasn't a fluke and the unique aspects can carry a game. I dunno how many people here want to play it as I don't really want to talk about it too much at this point as the abilities you get are unconventional half the time and help keep the exploration a puzzle. It's pretty difficult though since it's mostly melee combat, but it could have been just me adjusting to it from playing the original right before this. The exploration isn't always easy, too. It keeps it a little easier since bosses can just be ran past if you're not feeling like you're ready for them on top of the very light stealth elements for regular enemies. Exploration is the core of the game. I'm stumped at the moment. I'm blocked off from where I need to go but I'm in that situation where do I need an ability I'm missing or is there some hidden way and I gain the ability in the place. I'm leaning to the latter since I've combed most of the (pretty large) map.