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Super hard indie platformer? Count me in and watch as I never complete it. This is made by the people who made Towerfall and although it is 2D and retro styled, it’s a completely different thing as it’s a single player game, more like Super Meat Boy. There’s optional collectibles (strawberries) but the thing I find concerning is part of it is gated by other collectibles. Featured in this video by Dunkey: I’m on the third chapter and it hasn’t been too difficult so far but I can see where it’s headed.

So this is the action rogue-like from makers of Bastion and Transistor. It's a very good one. It has a lot of potential stuff in terms of weapons, buffs and abilities for a run that come together in some surprisingly interesting ways. I don't really want to go into it all, because there is so much and it's a bit of a spoiler, in a way. I do think anyone who likes Dead Cells will have a hard time not getting into this too. It's got the same kind of fast, dash-y combat but I'd argue the upgrades are probably more interesting because they're tied to more than your attacks. I guess Dead Cells has some of that but it's robust with a bigger variety of abilities that can tie to your dash, for example. But Dead Cells is better in some other ways. They're both cool and good; get both! I'm also quite enjoying the story more than I expected. It's set in Greek mythologies' underworld and done in quite traditional way in that it's mostly a family squabble the consequences of which is big, dramatic and violent fights and supernatural displays of power. It's kinda fun that you're trying to escape the underworld in a rogue-like and no-one really cares that you're doing that because they know you'll die and be back. Some give quiet encouragement or Hades himself just rolls his eyes as you leave. It's played pretty straight and it's cool to hang out in that starting area before the intense combat. I'm not sure how many stages there are but the best I've done is get to the third boss, who are a pair of cheaters. I dunno how I'm meant to do it right now. I think since I don't have a brilliant way to do a well synchronised build yet, just out of inexperience, but I'll get it.

Wow, no thread for this? I'm surprised. Been dipping and diving into lots of different PC games and struggling to find something that really grabs me. This is it, I think. I'm only about 90 minutes in, so far it's an adventure set in a dilapidated world that feels marked by communism, or on the verge of some sort of ugly class upheaval. You're a very hungover detective who doesn't really know what's happening but there's a case you got to investigate. But maybe the real thing you got to investigate is who you are and what has happened to you. Sound familiar? I really like it so far. It's basically just a game about reading lots of text so far and passing/failing speech checks. I don't really get all the systems yet, but it's like PS:T through the lens of Jack Kerouac or William S Burroughs. Absolutely fucked up and manky but very beautifully written heaps of text everywhere. The screen where they show you all your perks/specialities is so aggressively wordy. I don't know if there is actually any combat in the game because every perk seems to be based around some personality trait

First "new" game of 2024! (Technically, I've had the twin-pack of this and T7 sitting on my shelf for ..a while) NOTE: I did look to see if this had a Thread already. But aside from a News Thread. Only saw pages for the older SC's titles. Anyway, I've started this up with Libra of Soul. Haven't even touched Story/Arcade modes yet. Immediately, I'm hit by how much lower budget this than previous titles. The previously bombastic opening cinematic that this series has been known for since Soul Blade? Not present?? Now regardless of otherwise decent gameplay, SCV was a clusterfuck that nixed the series. But purely from this secondary mode, I'm unsure why we are immediately back at SC1 in terms of the narrative. Hopefully this will be explained in the story mode? Although basically the traditional Edgemaster Mode by another name. It starts with character creation. Which I haven't liked since this series got it in SC3. But modern gamers loves this shite so whatever. A brief look, turned into an hour play session. My character (Zark VI, naturally) adopted the Siegfried weapon style. There was no rust this time. Muscle memory kicked in with the first battle. Admittedly for the specific challenge missions (Critical Edge only etc) I did have to look up the buttons. But the general move set was with me from the offset. When thinking about it, the last SC game I played (SCV) would be 12 years old at the end of this month. So I was surprised by the moves and combo strings I could pull off. It's definitely ticking the familiar boxes for me so far. Eager to get back to the next session.

So I'm about 4-5 hours into this, and so far it has been nothing less than phenomenal. It's a sequel to 2019's Jedi Order and takes place 5 years after the events of that game, again with Protagonist Cal Kestis (motion captured by Gotham's Cameron Monaghan), this time a lot more attuned to his Jedi powers, a little more dishevelled and world-weary but nonetheless determined to expunge the Empire from the Galaxy bit-by-bit, using his Jedi powers in tandem with small groups of misfits around the galaxy to do so. As this is a sequel, it plays very similarly to Jedi Order. You pilot Cal, his lightsaber(s), wield the force and explore different planets around the Galaxy in way reminiscent of a Souls-like and something like GoW/Tomb Raider 2013, you're able to go round different paths only to come to a dead end that will have a shortcut nearby it which will lead you back to a Mediation point (this games' Bonfires), you'll also encounter areas and paths that are inaccessible to you on your first visit, you'll have to return to these later once you have the required power and unlock the path. There's a lot of games like this nowadays, particularly open world third-person adventure games, so it's likely you've played one similar at some point, pretty much everything is back from Fallen Order, the way the game plays mentioned above, the platforming, certain set pieces, certain slidey bits you drop down into before/after/during said set pieces, you'll be lightsabering a lot of Troopers and wildlife, solving puzzles and collecting trinkets. There is a grappling hook of sorts this time around I don't remember being in FO, there are also stances that enable you to dual-wield, double-end or just have the standard saber setup. You can now customise Cal to the Nth degree (apart from changing his hair colour), including his Beard, Clothes and Hairstyle, along with his Saber (oo err) and your trusty Droid BD-1 who, again, returns from FO. So far I've explored two planets. The game itself starts off in the dingy underbelly of Coruscant, which is every bit as amazing as you think it's going to be, Neon signs everywhere, cyberpunk vibes out the wazoo, flying cars whizzing about all over the place, gaudy electric billboards and all the trappings you'd expect from this City Planet if you've seen the films. This planet is quite linear, you pretty much have your objectives and can still go off into mini-exploration zones which usually circle back and where you first started exploring from, but a lot of it is locked off for the time being, giving you a streamlined approach to the objective at the levels finale. Koboh is the second planet I've been exploring and is absolutely bloody massive. It's a Wild West feeling Frontier planet (complete with the accents!) which seems to just go on and on for miles from the vistas I've found so far. It's rocky but with plenty of beauty and charm, lots of interesting wildlife and interesting flora and fauna to look at and admire, I thought Coruscant was a visual spectacle but some of the vistas in this have been absolutely mindboggling. Compared to Coruscant which felt like a Planet you'd visit, this seems to be the Bogano of Survivor, the hub planet, with loads of different paths possible for you to take, loads of NPCs to speak to, shops to peruse and lots of mini-games and activities you can partake in Whilst I very much enjoyed the previous game, it did have lots of niggling technical issues that would eat away at your enjoyment from time to time, it just never really felt polished. You'll manoevre Cal onto a bit of pipe and he'd randomly do a Tee pose, there would be silly little bugs frequently enough that you'd notice them and kind of roll your eyes but never really annoyed or frustrated, that kind of stuff. But here, thankfully, all that has seemingly been eliminated, in my eyes at least, as everything feels so incredibly polished and buttery smooth, as alluded to above the game is a visual spectacle, it looks absolutely bonkers at times, particularly on my TV. I'm playing in Quality Mode on PS5 for reference. If on PC though, it might be best to wait a couple of weeks for a patch, because, much like most big recent PC releases that version has been borked - which is a shame and not acceptable - but if on XSX on PS5, this would get a strong recommendation from me already, particularly if you're into Star Wars and/or similar third person adventure metroidvania/souls-like type games. Pics:

Picked this up because I needed something to get my gaming juices flowing again and it has reviewed very well. It’s basically out on everything. I’ve played around 40 minutes and it mostly involves solving environmental puzzles similar to something like Hob, without the combat, which was a game that I quite liked. Nothing taxing so far. My current save file is saying 22% which would mean that the game is probably in the 3-5 hour range. I don’t have any problem with that considering the length of other games I’ve played this year.

Sam Barlow's latest game, who did Her Story (which I've not played and know nothing about) and Telling Lies (same) I spent about 5 hours last night and saw credits, however I don't think I'm close to complete I just happened to trigger the scenes which lead into credits. I'm sort of frustrated by it and not sure where it lands with me. It's very hard to talk about without spoiling stuff but at the very least the premise can be explained (it's in the trailer), it's about an actress who starred in three films which never released. One made in the 60s, the other 70s and then 90s. You're reviewing footage of the films and behind the scenes stuff, and some other stuff that's a spoiler. You're supposed to look at the videos and click through different points of interest to unlock other footage, which could be directly connected (same people, same movie) or decades apart. The reason I find it frustrating is there's some stuff it does really well and other stuff I'm not convinced about. The stuff it does really well is it's absolutely an impressive production that's all about fetishising the movie-making form and how it changes over time and between genres. You've got your sexy Chinatown style neo-noir, some weird Lynchian style thriller, some really schlocky yet to fun to watch erotica. It's very self-reflexive, looking through the films at itself sort of thing. That stuff is either going to hit with your or it won't and it will depend on your own movie interests and history with some of the stuff it seems to evoke, I think. It's just the interaction with it all leaves me feeling a bit weird. The three movies basically are a series of linear narratives broken up into a bunch of hyperlinks to each other. There's an obvious thematic link with some of the stuff they're going for and as you slowly thread all the fragments together some of the stuff will lock into your brain as being significant. It's a game about the act of viewing stuff obsessively over and over and unlocking these links. You don't just watch something once and leave it alone, you rewind that shit back and check again to notice stuff that maybe escaped your attention earlier. But the gameplay mechanics for establishing said links seem completely random to me. I ran into one which seemed very deliberate and hinted at a big secret behind one of the BTS events for one of the films, but I went back later and found out that the way the two scenes were laid out was completely coincidental. The thing I deduced was accurate but the act of the game showing it to me seemed like pure RNG. But I guess that could also be the point? I don't know. It's sort of challenging stuff, I think it getting a 10 from Edge and being on Gamepass means it will get put in the crosshairs of lots of 'games should only be fun' type of folk, but I do think the interactive part of the narrative struggles a bit to relay the clear ambition of this piece. I think my opinion on it will change a lot though when I find the rest of the clips and have actually 'beaten' it and can go back and study the footage more freely, rather than doing this weird whack-a-mole type thing unlocking it all

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.

I'm playing it. Early days, on chapter four, but it's bloody brilliant.

i've played persona games before but no smt games, i guess so far it seems pretty similar but without the daily routine/social link stuff, and the demons/personas are in your party rather than being sort of summoned. you have to talk to the demons to try and recruit them, although this is often bollocks as they ask for loads of stuff and then just run away, i still like it though, they say weird things and it can be pretty funny. the demons mostly look familiar too as they're pretty much the same from the persona games. i'm playing the super easy mode (which is free dlc), and it's really easy, i could have coped with some more difficulty, maybe a mode inbetween the normal one and the super easy one. but it's supposed to be quite long so the super easy mode should help with that. it's probably a good job i'm on the easy mode too as my main heal spell changed into something useless, and i've probably given most of my good healing items to demons while trying to recruit them. so i don't have many ways of healing at the moment but it hasn't made much difference. minor spoiler for stuff near the start of the game this is a ps2 game i think, i'm not sure if any graphics have been upgraded, it doesn't really look like it, it just looks like a ps2 game in much higher resolution. so far it's alright, i'm quite enjoying it but it's not been amazing or anything. i'm going to keep playing anyway.

Played about an hour of this, which is not a lot but you're looking at apparently 6-10 hour runtime. Walking sim-esque, echoes of Miyazaki about it (Ico, Last Guardian), seems like a companion based puzzler with lots of pretty environment puzzles, but what I played was pretty linear. What might make it more interesting is it seems to have a strong environmental narrative focus on it, why are things the way they are. What is this city, what is going on with its inhabitants. I'll leave it at that, seems interesting but nothing mind-blowing really in the opening. I would have played more but I got about 2 hours sleep last night so I'm running on fumes. Will update with thoughts when I actually complete it I reckon It's a very pretty game, lots of screenshots and wallpaper material. At the same time I think the game is pretty enough that spoiling lots of views will rob people of the better parts of the game. So check out this screenshot of a cat hanging out in what is considered to be a pretty upmarket apartment in the cyberpunk dystopia FWIW, no HDR or ray tracing or anything like that. Lack of HDR is strange but I like the muted look tbh, don't really need the eyeballs seared right now. The game is so linear that the lighting they use is good enough as is. Runs at 60, these are PC impressions btw but I imagine it's identical to PS5

FAR: Lone Sails is a beautiful indie game that definitely has that special something that the best indie games have, at least in the opening 30 minutes that I played. It looks like this: You’re basically piloting this hunk of metal across a barren wasteland. Gameplay has been very simple so far. The ship will move slowly if you open the sails but you can also fuel it to make it move faster. And then occasionally you come to roadblocks like this which require some gentle puzzling (so far). It looks beautiful. And everything is communicated visually. There’s no dialogue or tutorial. Very impressed so far.

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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 is more of a personal archive than a real topic, as I doubt there's much interest in this game here. Fundamentally it's a relatively straightforward resource-collecting and crafting game. The gameplay loop consists of collecting wood, flowers, stone and other materials to use for some art & craft stuff you can then sell at the weekly eponymous night market, which in turn gives you enough money to buy new gathering tools, which in turn unlock new areas with new resources, which, you guessed it, allow you to craft more stuff. You basically go through this process on repeat until you reach the final area, as every area is part of a larger story that involves a mysterious agency, a legendary guardian animal and a truckload of cats. It does mix up proceedings here and there though. The first time you enter an area you have to free a couple of caged cats and get rid of the agents there, which in gameplay speak is always a little stealth section (albeit a very simplistic one – think OoT's castle garden). Gathering and crafting involves completing short QTEs and every night market ends with a little minigame, like a play, a cat race or something along those lines. It's not really a game that'll draw you in for its gameplay mechanics, but rather its unique charm and presentation, the classic carrot dangling in front of you and a genuinely touching narrative that falls a bit into coming-of-age territory. I've heard people say they find it grindy and repetitive and I technically can't argue against it. Sometimes you need to gather certain materials a couple of (ingame) days in a row to get what you need and if you mess up hoarding season-specific items like, say, certain spring flowers, you'll have to wait for the night market in summer to stock up on them. But I still quite enjoyed it, it's super relaxing and super adorable and its quirky sense of humor and narrative can pull you along when maybe the gameplay alone couldn't. I saw the credits after roughly 20 hours but it's also open-ended, so you can still go about maxing out friendship levels with NPCs (which always involves giving them items you crafted or found) or completing the little museums with resources you found, even after the story has reached its conclusion. Switch version is a bit wonky (though way better than on release) with comparatively long loading times that also result in the music stuttering, making the whole thing feel a bit unpolished. There's also some formatting errors in the text (they have it set up to give plurals always an -s, so you end up with stuff like 'Got 10 sands' or '5 Special Nikko Flowerss'). It also, oddly, doesn't use the B button or the D-pad at all, so you have to navigate menus with the stick and close them with the same button you opened them with. But I can forgive those problems as it's made by a really small team that also had to take a long break in development due to burnout. I suspect at least the loading times being shorter on other platforms, but I also think it's really well suited to handheld play. Disclaimer: it's not a farming game, despite what this image might suggest.

I don't know anything about the main game mode, only played the free battle royale rip off mode. Played that mode loads. It's a rip off of that playerunknown battlegrounds (pubg) game, I'm not too up on that game but the main differences I think are that there are no vehicles in this and you can build stuff in this. There's some controversy about ripping off the idea, and maybe some other stuff, I'm not sure really. I guess the first copies of something popular always get more stick. On the plus side this game has sold me pubg and I'll be getting it on Xbox. Anyway back to fortnite, I think it's great, especially in a team, you start in the party bus with about 100 people with only a pick axe, look at the map, pick a spot to drop in, if there's people going to the same place do you try to get there first and get a gun and fight straight away, or divert to somewhere else. the map constantly shrinks in size as the storm covers the island, loot is random. I prefer to start near the outside in usually less populated areas, running in with the storm there's less likely to be people behind you, but you probably won't get as good loot as if you'd gone to a town. When you see someone do you fight or hide, there's constant decisions like this going on, it's always different and often cool stuff happens. when you get to the end do you build a fort or try and hide. I'm not sure I'm really explaining it very well but then apparently loads of people watch pubg on the internet so everyone probably already knows. I think my friend said this, it sums it up well saying it's a bit like playing a zombie/apocalypse survival film. The building works well too, you can get some really impressive structures people have built at the end. Anyway yeah it's really good, especially for free. Anyone else playing it? Oh yeah I think I should give them some money, but currently I don't like any of the outfits and they're about a tenner each or something, which puts me off, if it was maybe a pack of 5 for £15 or something, and I liked a few of them, I think something like that I'd be much more likely to spend.

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.

A Space for the Unbound is an adventure game set in Indonesia in the 1980s. It’s about a couple of high school students but there are magical elements to it too, which gives it the atmosphere of something like a Studio Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai film. I’m impressed with it so far. If nothing else, l would love to see a Final Fantasy game made in this style.

Made a quick start and done the first set of races/championship & part way through another. Initial impressions, the handling instantly feels great. Just opening up the next set of tours the progression system seems promising with a variety of disciplines to get stuck into. Graphically it’s impressive but I can’t help but be disappointed. It’s a noticeable step down from the initial trailers. & while they do look great the cars have a weird uncanny valley (but in car form) look to them. This is an area GT7 excels, in particular the paintwork and light clusters where I was hoping FM might catch up. So GT7 is still the car porn game of choice. However the tracks themselves along with scenery and weather effects look better here to me & the cars get wear on them throughout the race which gives this a much better visual look & realism overall IMO. Plus when using the chase cam the cars look like they’re actually turning not just pivoting from the center. Huge shout out once again to the audio. They’ve excelled themselves once again. It’s a significant step up even from FH 5 which was no slouch in this department. Only used 3 cars so far but they’re ones I’ve had real life experience with and they sound near perfect. The environmental effects such as heavy rain hitting the roof just fits perfectly too. Top marks. A couple of early concerns though. So far it’s making me do a 3 lap practice sessions before each race. This just feels like a huge waste of time for the most part and should absolutely be optional. Why it’s forced I’ve no idea, I really hope this goes after playing for a bit. Another is the car upgrade path. You essentially level up a car by using it by getting XP for overtakes and nailing sections of the track. What this means is unless you’ve actually used a car for a few races you won’t be able to buy upgrades for it. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me and actively discourages you from using different cars. It’s insane. I’m just hoping it’s not as bad as it initially seems. Apart from those niggles early impressions are still strong though. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my short time with it so far & looking forward to getting stuck in more. It just feels great. It lets you set your grid position too and the satisfaction & fun of starting towards the back & fighting though the crowded pack is pretty much unmatched already.

Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels. You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse. As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space. I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

Started this earlier (didn't try the demo earlier in the year) played for around 2.5/3 hours. Not sure what to think of it yet, it OK to play I guess... definitely not as tight as Elden Ring, there's been a few times where it's seemed like the buttons were a tad unresponsive... and I've also been stun locked which is very annoying. Looks wise it could quite easily be a sequel to Bloodborne... it's very similar. Looks pretty decent though, nice and sharp... I'm playing in quality mode but I have no idea what that does to resolution and framerate in this though. Like most Soulsborne games I'm feeling a little lost at the moment tbh... what with the amount of random items I'm picking up and the amount combat notes being thrown my way... we'll see how far I make it in this as I've read it's fairly difficult and unlike Elden Ring I can't ride on the coat tails of better players so don't be too surprised if my next post on the game is in the "Sacked that off mate" thread.😂

This is like a fps parkour shooter type thing, like super meat boy in 3d, like cloudbuilt, or ghostrunner with more shooting. Also its like a timetrial thing where you have to beat levels asap to get gold/silver/etc medals, which you actually need to progress. You need gold or above on a certain number of levels to progress to the next set, so far anyway this hasnt been too tricky. The levels are between 10 seconds and about a minute long so far, ive done the first 20. theres a jump button, a fire button, a switch card button, and an alternate fire/ability button, all on bumpers/triggers which is good. You pick up card and that decides what fire/alternate do, it sort of works like a context sensitive button, so youll pick up a pistol just before you need to do a double jump (pistol alternate fire is a second jump). Alternate fire also throws the card away. Other cards have alternates like a boost, or a grenade launcher you can use to blast yourself up high. Its a good system as it keeps the button count low so they can all be on the triggers. I found it can confuse me at times though because the same button does loads of different things which sort of fries my brain a bit. Theres some talking/story stuff but it seems unnecessary and can be fast forwarded. its not surprising i like this as i like stuff like ghostrunner and cloudbuilt, and so far its been really good. Unclear if the confusing multi use button stuff will halt my progress later on. anyone giving it a go?

I’m having a blast with this. It’s a completely free rpg in the style of Ultima, but modernised. Developed by one person, Dene Carter, who apparently was the co-creater of the original Fable. I’m about two hours in. It has an overworld map, with lots of dungeons and towns, as you would expect in an rpg. Dialogue is prompt/topic based, which if memory serves was a feature of the old Ultima games. But it’s all done in a snappy, modern way. I feel like I’ve gotten good bang for my (zero) bucks so far. I loaded it up thinking I would play it for 10 minutes today and an hour disappeared.

Mixed emotions! I play for hours having relaxing fallout adventure fun and then it'll freeze, I'll get stuck behind something or worst of all its bugged and I can't get a character to do something they're supposed to. So I'm stuck.

Kinda surprised there's no thread on this yet, it seem like something a few people here would enjoy. Anyway, this is an awesome little title based on Scandi fairytales. It starts as a delightful, personality-filled romp where you, as young boy Olle, climb out of your log cabin window and follow your sister through a forest. Along the way you skip through peaceful, flower-filled meadows, play hide and seek with gnomes, and even shepherd some cherub-like flower pixies into a paddock. You then explore with your sister, climb a mini-mountain and all is right with the world. Obviously this would make for an extremely short experience, so let me be clear. This is the last good thing that happens to you in this title's brief runtime. Amongst other things, your sister is kidnapped, you're hunted by a character called The Butcher, you wade through a lake of lost/sacrificed souls, and you battle against some naked forest lady whose heart is visible through the open cavity of her back. This is truly one of the darkest, most horrifying games I've ever played, and the huge contrast between the gorgeous visuals and the awful undertones means every aspect has a real impact. Gameplay-wise, it's not going to win any awards. A couple of bits are really awkward to control, and at times Olle doesn't quite do what you want him to. Everything else is so, so good, though, especially considering this is the studio's second ever title. The graphics, at times are stunningly beautiful, with this unique saturation that makes the grass and flowers look almost real. The character models swing from charmingly stylised to incredibly creepy. Sound is great, except for one section set in a village about two-thirds of the way through. I love the fact it's based on Scandi folklore, too. Essentially, imagine Little Nightmares if it was cranked up to 11 and you'll be running along the right lines. It only has a 4-6 hour runtime, so if you've got an afternoon or evening spare, it's definitely worth downloading (especially if you have Game Pass, as it dropped there last week). It's one of the more unique titles I've played in a while. And the music for the final boss is In the Hall of the Mountain King. AKA the Alton Towers advert theme.