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I'm shallow and wanted a pretty game for my PC, so I got this. Mainly off the back of Alex at digital foundry comparing it to Crysis a lot It's a fairly boilerplate Far Cry template, for the most part. Big map, fogged up until you go to different areas. Towers must be captured. It's got some things in it though which I think are neat. One thing is I think the criticism about Ubisoft checklist games is reaching some decision makers at the company, as it foregoes map icons and tries to hide the waypoint janitor busywork within a more organic framework. That framework still being a Far Cry template, you craft and gather and stealth archer your way around. But it feels more cleverly integrated and less of a checklist (tho undoubtedly this is something that'll be less the case after time with the game, when the novelty wears off) You play a Navi and your background is a bit fish out of water. I've not seen the 2nd film, and I just don't care enough, but it's straightforward enough and seems to take place alongside the 2nd one I think. The whole ethos of its gameplay seems to be like you're a hunter gatherer on Pandora. There's dynamic time of day and weather, though oddly it seems for the opening this is entirely scripted and not dynamic? I'm not sure why that is. But if effects gathering mechanics cause somethings you want to gather at night, or while it's raining, or vice versa. Then you get better ingredients for cooking. There's also a whole mechanic in the game around 'clean kills' and 'mercy kills' for enemies, which requires you to study their weak spots and basically kill them quick and with few shots. It's very difficult, moreso than it sounds, I haven't done it properly once The game is the most visually spectacular game I've seen in a year full of visual spectaculars. It's Crysis but for the present day. The foliage density is peerless, they even have a 'hidden' graphics setting called 'Unobtainium' which sets everything way higher. I don't find I need that though, one thing I find is after about an hour playing this my eyes are really sore and I might have a headache. Said this before about Horizon, but there's so much detail here it's hard to take it all in and I think I'm not blinking as often as I should. Combined with the HDR highlights it's like my corneas are getting mildly seared. So it's very visually fatiguing. On the one hand, that level of visual noise is annoying. It's difficult to see things when you're running through the forest. On the other, it's weirdly immersive in that the enemies with their camouflage actually camouflage, and you need to use your navi vision to spot them (the visual effect for this sucks though, it looks like a migraine). The fauna behave a lot like the wildlife in RDRII, and do a lot to make the game world feel alive and will scuttle under the foliage and come out to surprise you, and fuck you up. The flora is also interactive, you can shoot certain plants and they will let off a big fart or smoke and I assume that has gameplay implications if you want to fuck with the soldiers. It's not on a TOTK level at all, but it means a lot that the world isn't static. The weather and your own character will displace and move the leaves and things around. It's a world that's really well laid out also in terms of getting around, you have these huge branches which form almost a highway system which let you get back and forth quickly. The movement system feels like a pared down version of Mirror's Edge and all these different systems and mechanics blend together quite well I'm finding. It works well enough that it makes hunting and gathering not feel as tedious as it might be. Naturally those movement mechanics lend themselves well to combat also, my fave trick being to jump between branches and do a charge jump out of cover to headshot a soldier (this has a very nice and generous aim assist, worth using even on M&K) All those details are really cool. It's very standard tho in its gameplay structure. You go to outposts, fix their broken shit, beat up the humans turning the forests into ass, unlock more regions of the map. It's still one of those games, but they try and keep more of it within the world rather than within a map system. It even does a thing where they don't actually give you a waypoint for a quest, they give you a text description like 'go south of the river and look for the smoke, beat up the RDA'. Or 'find the home tree near yada yada'. It makes you learn the geography and orient your way there. All that said, I don't see this landing anywhere but number 10 on my goty list, but it shows how you can make this style of game feel less like a spreadsheet and more like a video game by surfacing it in a more 'old fashioned' way

Well this has turned out to be a very pleasant surprise... So let's get this out there straight the way, although this has strong rhythm elements you could (up till where I've played at least) get by with a bare minimum of rhythm... yeah you'll get damage perks and better scores but you can button mash your way through just as well. It looks lovely, very stylized with a look of Lollipop Chainsaw or Sunset Overdrive and for me pretty humorous too without going too far that way. Special mention must go to the soundtrack which so far has been pretty amazing, especially the original music and the way the whole stage seems in sync with the beat. There's a fairly decent amount of accessibility options too for people, who like me, have no rhythm whatsoever... so far so enjoyable and it's a game I probably never would've given a second thought to if not for my Game Pass sub... Great stuff.

I think everyone knows what this is and what it's about by now... I've played around with it for three or four hours so far and to be honest I think I'm a little bit in love... Up front, so far I'm pretty bloody awful at dodging and parrying but apart from a couple of (I presume) optional bosses things haven't been too bad and it's not punished me too badly. There's a couple of mechanics that I'm not to sure on, mainly Lune and her "stain" system... she absorbs different coloured stains to power up her spells... but I'm sure it'll fall in to place. There's also something in here that reminds me of Lost Odyssey a whole lot which is nice. It looks lovely after turning off all the usual bullshit such as movie grain and motion blur (seriously do people play games with this stuff on?)... another game that doesn't have hdr though. The voice work is top notch unsurprisingly given the talent involved, music has been wonderful and I'm loving just how somber the whole thing is and given the subject matter I wouldn't want it any other way... can't wait to get my teeth in to this properly with more party members and more combat options.

Played 2 hours of this so far and have got through the Prologue/tutorial section pretty much - the section which Journo's played through during the tutorial. So far I'm incredibly impressed with it I have to say, way more than I was with RotTR and probably around the same as TR 2013 - although admittedly my memory of that is a little hazy by now. The first thing I noticed was how goddamn gorgeous this game looks, this is the first game in the series that I've not played in 720p/900p at 30 on consoles and goddamn what a different experience playing on PC - granted it will still look pretty great in almost 4K 30 on Xbox X but at 1440p/60 with everything set to Ultra boy does it shine ?. I thought RotTR had a distinctly last-gen look to it and here whilst there's still a few rough looking textures here and there the whole engine and graphics as a whole looks much improved. I think the lighting is the most impressive though, going through caves, water and a small Mexican town, the way everything was lit was just astonishingly beautiful. It's a shame that so much of the early story has already been revealed by previews and trailers, but the beginning is pretty spectacular. You start out after the shit has hit the fan then go back before it hit the fan to find out what the hell went on (although I knew this already thanks to previews). And it's pretty damn fantastic, lots of slow exposition through a beautiful Mexican town where you can just take in the scenery, music and vibe of the place as you slowly make your way through and investigate followed by some light tutorial stuff and a tomb (yes an actual tomb this early!) which was great fun followed by a nice light puzzle room. After this things go bananas in a typically TR kind of way and lots of mad shit happens which involves you gunning down lots of dudes and running away from collapsing buildings/mountains. I just like the somewhat slow build up this time around, it feels a bit more organic in some ways than having you thrown in at the deep end for the 3rd time in 3 games and let's you appreciate the bombast when it does come all the more. The things they do with the characters already has me way more intrigued than I was for the entirety of RotTR which helps an awful lot too I just hope it continues to bring home the drama. I guess in terms of mechanics, controls and gunplay you know what to expect if you played the previous two games, although I will say I think the new rappel manoeuvre and the way you can now stalk enemies from shrubbery-covered walls is really cool and feels such a good fit for the Jungle environs. I have had some technical issues though. The photo mode is borked for me, everytime I access it the camera does a weird juddery motion and then as soon as I quit the mode everything is ok again, I have also had some huge framerate dips when hanging from ledges which is odd as its been a solid 60 everywhere else so I've had to turn off a few of the superfluous graphical effects and that seems to of remedied it. But yeah, so far I'm way more impressed than I expected to be with it and I can't wait to dig into it again tomorrow night. Some pics:

I picked up the early access version of this, but made the fatal mistake of starting Balatro at the same time which has taken all my attention span and locked it away and thrown away the key. So I only played maybe 2 hours of this. I'm at the apartments It's familiar and different, I was struck by how the VA and framing of scenes feels like a pretty close take of the original without it feeling like an overt homage or anything. The original has very unvarnished vocal performances, I think the main VA was an amateur, so that sort of enhanced the uncanniness of some of it. This isn't quite the same but close enough It looks very good but also incredibly unpolished. It's a very sharp looking game on PC, they seem to have went very hyperreal with it. Not saying it looks realistic just that the high res visuals, the lighting and fog give it this sort of dreamy, heightened kind of look that I'm not really able to explain. Maybe screenshots do it better, I dunno. But it has lots of visual glitches, things like turning the camera causes the culling to not work correctly and objects and lighting activate in front of you. There's some weird occlusion glitch where there's this ghosting all the time, not the spooky kind. Everything between the camera, James and the area in front of James has this visually buggy look when moving the camera. That might be caused by some setting I can turn off, but I don't know what. I only mention the boring technical stuff cause it's a game primarily about immersion in a slow moving narrative, so disruptions like that do stick out a lot more. There's some black crush in these screenshots cause they were converted from jxr, which is a HDR format, and badly compressed to jpg I think it's really impressive what they've done here though. It seems to understand the original well enough and makes sensible changes to not make it too much of a rethread. Example being you walk past the point in the original where you expect to get the radio, but you don't, you get it later and in a different way. Everything takes maybe twice as long, unsure whether or not that will be something I enjoy more or less as it goes on. It has the same town layout, I think, but the distance has been increased and there's more in between areas. So if you haven't played the original in a long time, like me, then it exists in this strange foggy realm of forgotten memory yet also familiarity, like you've been here before. But I'm struggling to have a good time with it. The technical issues are really hard for me to overlook, which is why I mention them so much. I'm usually able to sort of push past stuff like this, but I've not played a lot of UE5 games so I don't think I quite realised how much this game will keep skipping and jumping forward a few frames like it's an old film with a bunch of damage on it. The VRR causes constant flicker in the apartment area on OLED, I guess cause the frame variance is so high. So you can turn that off, or play on a different screen. I also find the combat a bit too much, it's very aggressive and seems to be about spacing, attack patterns, recognising stun animations from attack leadups, knowing when to use your limited ammo or combo into the stick. It reminds me how Homecoming looked. It's not a bad system they've designed, but it goes harder than what I was personally looking for and I'm finding that just to be a bit of a hassle. I'm dying a lot and getting filtered by combat I'll admit, but I was expecting that side to be more basic. So objectively speaking it seems like a good game marred by really bad technical issues, subjectively I'm much more mixed tho. I'll take my time and maybe I'll come around, I'm not coming at it looking to hate it or anything. As mentioned I'm really impressed by the specific changes Bloober have made to some things

Big fan of this so far. If I were to want to be reductive, and I do, it's sort of Breakout meets Vampire Survivors. You play as a character moving up through a lane, enemies drop in on tiles and lanes, and you fire off balls that bounce around and damage the enemies. When enemies die they drop experience, you pick it up and eventually level up, choosing a passive perk or another special ball to throw out. The balls are in 2 types, you baby balls which just deal low damage but come out more regularly, and special balls, which do more damage and have traits like poison, slow, burn etc You level up and gain a stat point, and can level up your perks and balls, which means you can kind of spec towards something. Have lots of things that fire more baby balls, maybe you hold out for the perk that improves their damage, or increases the damage of all balls when they bounce off anything. All of a sudden your weaker stuff is now more regular and doing more damage There's Fusion drops that act like the treasure chests in Vampire Survivors, randomly increasing the level of perks, or allowing you to fuse certain items. My favourites so far are the blizzard (slow and extra damage while frozen from the ice ball, and the area of effect damage from the lightning ball). and the egg sac combines with the laser, where the egg sac spawns baby balls on contact, the laser hits everything on an enemies row on contact; so if it now spawns a bunch of baby balls, all of them fire lasers doing row damage on contact As you progress there's bosses, you can see them coming up on the map. There's an end of level boss, beat that and you get a gear, get enough of them and you unlock the next level. So far the game has been fairly easy, I'm on the 3rd level from a couple of hours play, and have beaten the 1st level with 3 characters. In between stages there's a kind of farming mechanic. I could live without this truth be told, but it does have some gameplay use. You can plant and grow wheat, wood and stone, these are materials you'll need to build things (I'm skipping over some of this). This lets you build the housing that unlocks new characters when you get the blueprint during a run. You can also build totems and things that improve all your characters, so far these have relied on me beating stages, with bonus improvements for each person I beat it with. It's a mechanic that feels a little stuck on, but there is a use to it while its there

Megabonk is basically 3D Vampire Survivors, which sounds reductive, but it largely is. You're more limited in how many weapons you can hold, initially 2, but I've managed to get it up to 3 now. Same with the perks, here they're called Tomes, which is more of an issue with them, because with it being so limited I don't see why you'd select pick up range and item drop rate instead of damage and health regen, or attack cooldown and XP gain. Megabonk mixes it up with items, that are less useful, but can give you armour, or poison damage, health regen etc, by the end of your time they can really stack up The level structure is a little different. You've still got the time limit of Vampire Survivors, but Megabonk introduces end of level bosses, that you can curs if you find the right statues, this will then let you finish that tier, and open up the possibility of selecting a 2nd tier next time, which means beating tier 1's boss, then going to tier 2 through a portal, taking your stats and abilities with you once you've done a few runs you might have met the requirements and earned enough currency to buy new characters and items to take in to levels. It's pretty addictive, which is sort of annoying because I wanted to get other things done, but it does seem a very good Steam Deck game

So, this has been out a while on PC and is soon coming to consoles and now i've finally got around to giving it a go. Like the first game, It's an insanely open CRPG where you can pretty much tackle most situations anyway you like and has an excellent elemental based combat system (cast a rain spell and electrocute it to shock everyone, poison clouds are combustible - that sort of thing). The customisation is nuts - you can spec out your starting character any way you like, even specifying the main instrument used for dramatic musical moments (I went for the cello). You can even choose which specialty you want any other characters who join to have. Once your past the first 'tutorial' area your left to your own devices exploring an area around a fort. There's very little hand holding here and every NPC is worth talking to - the writing is fantastic. The detail level in the areas is bonkers. I'm only a few hours in, and the fights have kicked my arse a few times (still working out a solid character load out) but it's awesome. Oh - and it has full co-op as well which i'm hoping to start up this weekend with three others.

I started playing some of this. I'm definitely going to need digital foundry to hold my hand on what settings I should be turning on, the auto detect option on the game itself recommended I max the game out but that isn't happening. I figured I would settle for 30fps but the camera motion in this is really bad, it doesn't feel good. So I'll have to tweak that. Anyway it's very janky and hard to play so far. Everyone makes a big song and dance about DLSS but it dont play well with camera movement. I guess there is a hell of a lot of detail to be reconstructing all the time. Sometimes the game looks spectacular but sometimes I'm sort of finding it to look kind of terrible. Part of it is the game feels sort of weird. People phase into existence in front of you, cars render in front of you. Obviously there's weird shit with people t-posing but that's minor. At one time in a cutscene V was completely naked for no reason, that made me lol and makes me wonder if your model is always like that cause it's a FPS game and you can't see your tits or dick or whatever. Gameplay wise I find it hard to play and the HUD and text is such a bad clash of colours and design that I can't tell what's going on half the time or what the things I'm picking up are. This could just be the awkward teething phase but it feels kind of gross. The driving is also really swimmy. I mean I'm sure it gets good as you go in but yeah it's like kind of clunky in a really strange way. These guys did make The Witcher III I suppose. It feels like someone took Euro jank and gave it all the money but kept the jank. The game throws a million things at you at once and displays a bunch of info on your HUD that's hard to keep track of. It's not a very gentle easing into the world, it sort of just throws you in and you're constantly bewildered, well I am anyway. I'm confused. There's a lot going on here but it's not so much that it's deep just that there's a fucking lot of it and I can't be arsed to read it all. I played 3 hours of it, one of which was a big shootout. The shooting doesn't feel good, but it sounds good. Aiming is bad, there's a lot of control options to figure out so I will definitely be following whatever guide somebody puts up to fix the issues with it. Anyway it's cyberpunk, it does the Bladerunner thing. Pris is in it, sort of. That's what people wanted, a very Bladerunner-ey game. Except this is less chin stroking and more aggressive 90s Rob Zombie in your face all the time. Feels of an era This game is very hard to run, pretty much never see 60fps at the settings the game recommends for me. It's exactly the kind of game people were expecting, an absolute monster for both GPU and CPU. A new Crysis.

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

I've been wanting to play this one for a long time, as it's sort of the grand daddy of the immersive sim. The team who made it would go on to do the System Shocks and Thief games, and their design can be traced back to this game. Their design brief was to make a RPG dungeon crawler which 'simulates' reality. The idea (and the idea in all immersive sim) is to make a game world feel 'real' (or immersive) by having it be governed by a set of systems with natural rules to them that allow you to reason logical solutions, similar to a table top DnD game. So physics, realism, common sense and logic and a lack of hand-holding (beyond the manual, you also have a PDF clue book which can hold your hand a lot if you want). So it's open-ended, rather than a closed box requiring a specific key. Speaking of keys, a basic example, you don't have a key to open a door, but maybe you can bash the door in with your club. Your club will get damaged but it will work eventually. There's also some funny ones in there like using a lit torch on corn on the cob to make popcorn, which feels like the domino that could lead directly to Breath of the Wild. You can also light incense though I don't know what that is for yet. The setting is this big 8 level underground dungeon that you get thrown in to rescue a princess, or something. There was an attempt by a guy to establish a utopia (underground, in an evil abyss?) but it failed. There are all these disparate factions under the abyss, humans, goblins, lizardmen and so on and they have allegiances and feuds with each other. So along the way to finding out how to rescue the princess you get info about these eight artifacts which symbolise different virtues, which is familiar to me from trying Ultima IV which was kinda the same deal. Similar also is how nebulous and undirected the quest is. While it is the case that each of the eight levels offers an increase in difficulty, the game is very freeform in how you go about things. You can jump down a goblin toilet all the way to level 3 early on and get stuck in, or you can meticulously scan every corridor and room on each level first. The game is all about interaction and combining stuff, so you have on the left of the screen at all times things like 'grab', 'look', 'speak' and 'control/unlock'. Everything you 'look' at will tell you stuff about its condition, its quantity, a NPC's disposition towards you (which affects speech outcomes, and I think barter), you can pick up every object in the game and find some use for it, or throw it away (which triggers the physics in the game). This is, I think, one of the first 3D games or at least one of the first first person 3D games. It predates Doom and Wolfenstein. So it's impressive that there are some rudimentary physics, if you use your sling to attack enemies the ammo will bounce off of them, allowing to collect it again. You also have to take a running start for your jumps, in general the 3D movement is difficult to learn cause it's actually meant to be played with mouse rather than keyboard and you drag your cursor around to make your character move faster or slower. You can get away with WASD a lot but you can't sneak with keyboard and you can't jump. I've seen most of everything on the first 2 levels, fought and killed a floating eyeball in the mines for the mountainmen. I died while fighting it, but I had a silver sapling which turns into a tree which resurrects you, so I ran back and finished him off. Which feels a bit cheap, it's basically a Bioshock vita chamber. Maybe there's a catch to it I haven't realised yet, but I always put the tree in shrine rooms so that when I die I can at least level myself up. But I also don't know that the point in the game is to be an intensively challenging survival game, it's more about exploring and solving problems, and getting stronger equipment to do all the above more quickly. The quests are fairly basic and if I have a complaint it's that 'rescue the princess' is kinda a lame player motivation, so you have to find your own tbh. There's also some really miserable inventory management in here, maybe the worst I can remember seeing, bags inside boxes inside more bags which have day old bits of chicken and spikes and badly damaged cudgels that you forgot about hours ago. But the coolest quest I've done so far is encounter this lizardman and a mute wizard in a prison. In an earlier dialogue interaction some goblin was giving out about not being able to understand lizardmen, and told me what 'yes' and 'no' meant. So what happens is you talk to the lizard, he speaks an unknown language to you, you then go to the wizard and type in the words he says and he uses charades to tell you what they mean. That is imo the coolest fucking quest gimmick I've seen in a game in a while. Anyway, I found out that the lizard wants lots of food to release the wizard. A big thing that is making this click for me better than Ultima IV is that you have this auto map. It fills in as you explore, and you can take notes directly on it. I think this is the driving imperative in the game, being able to explore and understand how the areas in the abyss connect and where everything is. Rather than whatever the main story is about. Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing what's on levels 3 and 4

I know it's out in just a few days, but I was looking for something to play and instead of doing like I said and trying Hollow Knight again I wanted to give this another shot, the early access. I've really turned around on it in this session I think, maybe it's due to updates or maybe the quality of the game is a lot better than Hades I, or maybe it's just that I'm better at the sequel. But I think it's really good, something is really clicking here this time. What I think it is that the battle systems are more intricate, cause of the shift towards this style of battle mage gameplay. It has more or less the same systems and mechanics as the first one, but with a stronger emphasis on finding harmony with your combat options I think. Your basic starter is a staff with decent range, you have a cast which binds enemies and you can stack boons on top of that obviously, and you have your specials which tend to be ranged moves, but not always. The cast is hugely useful for kiting enemies and grouping them, which benefits certain AOEs that like clustered enemies but it can also be used by you with certain boons to regenerate mana. On mana, it feels like a much more important mechanic than in Hades 1 I think, if I recall in that game the game didn't just recharge your mana in each room, but I might be wrong on this. In this game, they specifically tell you to spend all your magic in each room, there's a big benefit to speccing builds that regen mana passively or from certain attack combinations and I think this lends to combat feeling less mashy and more skillful, which is a problem I think I had in the last game, it always felt like I was mashing. Here it feels much more like I'm actually playing the game, but that might be just on me not really enjoying the first one. But I think the sequel's witchiness just produces more interesting kits to fight with and makes it feel 20 percent less unga bunga (but still pretty unga, all told) Another thing which makes high mana use important is the 'hex' mechanic, which is the same thing as the super mechanic in the first game but you proc it by spending mana. So if you're holding onto magic and not finding opportunities to use it up a lot, you are throwing away DPS and crowd control There's an absolute shitload of 'reagents' and things that unlock stuff in your home base, and it has the same gift system as before to unlock accessories you level up in your runs. It has some new mechanics like an armour system which buffs your cast speed, or makes you run faster or whatever, but you lose it when you lose your armour. My favourite weapon so far are these fireball staffs that let you play like a zoner, and they have a special which is about crowd control damage. You unlock boons for it that let you zig-zag the fireballs around when you dash around and things like that. If you've played Hades 1 there's not a lot to say, I'm sort of skimming through the dialogue cause you can't turn subtitles off, which means I kinda just read it quickly and move on. I'm not that interested in it, but there's a few exceptions. One thing is that there are way more Homeric inclusions here, characters like Odysseus and others I won't spoil, so it's stuff I'm more familiar with and I enjoy the stylish twist it offers. There's a boss fight in this I cannot spoil but it's the coolest boss fight I've seen in a game in a while, and Hades 1 really only had one good boss fight imo, the last one. Maybe the first one also, the other two were rubbish. So hopefully that's a standard it can keep up. Anyway, surprised it's clicking with me, as a Hades 1 hater. I think I read that your saves carry across to the full game, but if they don't then I'll just treat it as a challenge to push as far as possible with a low level character come release, and maybe I'll actually read the dialogues this time.

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:

for those that don't know, Horses made the news a couple of weeks back because it was refused a place on Steam. I'm not going to get in to it too much here, but seemingly the devs were asked to submit a build to Valve because they were concerned about some of the content on the store page, they did, Valve didn't like what they saw and refused it. The devs made some changes but no dice. It's also then been refused a place on Epic, and for a day Humble, but they're fine with it now as are Itch.io and GOG What I can say, now I've played through the game, is that there's nothing there that really warrants a ban as it is now. Whether or not the game deserves the attention its had I suppose is another matter, but I enjoyed it, and found the story quite interesting. It's also only £4 on GOG, so its not exactly a huge risk if you're interested Horses is about a student who's strict parents have sent him for a summer job on a remote Italian farm, where he'll be helping the farmer with his work around the farm. The farmer seems nice enough, I mean aside from what he gets up to he's actually quite likable tbh. The thing is, what he's been getting up to is rounding up people he deems to unworthy or unclean, then injecting and them and turning them in to human horses. Literally wearing horse heads, eating hay, giving people rides around the farm and dragging ploughs it definitely gets quite dark, there's things you'll have to do that you won't want to. There's moments of cruelty, abuse and sadism. Scenes that bring to mind the creepier moments of David Lynch. There's lingering pauses and odd close ups, veiled threats. Whatever you think of Horses, it does build some atmosphere However, it's also not what you're picturing, it's not as relentless and "hardcore", it's also quite funny and silly, and never goes as far as it probably could have, and certainly not as far as you'd expect for something even Valve wouldn't put up on Steam The gameplay is basic stuff, like water the plants by getting the watering can, filling it up, then heading to the vegetable patch. Or digging a grave by getting the shovel, a wheelbarrow and so on. It's a narrative heavy game, and it's a pretty good one imo, even if its not life changing

I guess I'll try and kick off a thread for this. I got this yesterday and played through most of the Berlin mission. I'm basically at the end of it but trying to hold off on progressing too fast and want to savour things a bit. These games are so good at designing levels which are rewarding to explore, I always enjoy the feeling of taking a really long time to work my way to a specific area and then finding a really inconspiocus short cut I could have taken, the multibranched progression through each stage and the way it twists and winds into itself makes it fun to literally just walk around looking at shit. Even while not necessarily making much progress on your targets. I play with almost all the HUD elements turn off except the one which lets me see targets are red guys. Not to make the game obtuse or difficult but to get more of the pleasure of just wandering around looking for ways in, or eavesdropping convos. You do sort of need the instinct vision tho as some targets are not very obvious to look at, especially in Berlin I'm not playing Hitman for the story so I was happy to jump right into the first mission that interested me, I tried a bit of Dubai but it looks more like an introductory mission with some story handholding. Not that that's bad, they do it in the other games too. Berlin is very classic Hitman tho. It even has a flavour of Hitman Absolution to it with the way it sets things up, but I think it's better than Absolution The premise of it is Older Hitman games have played with this concept a bit (Silent Assassin, Blood Money) but it takes center stage here It's quite a pretty game, it doesn't look hugely different to the last two but they made some lighting adjustments like screen space reflections. Not ray tracing, but I don't think it really needs it. The older levels get updated with it as well. I posted some screens in the screenshot thread but they came out a little too dark and don't get the visuals across very well. I imagine it looks great on Series X/PS5. There's also some great line reads in this. I'll probably just dip into levels from all three games now that they're all on the one package and 60GB. I still have to do Japan in 1 and every mission in 2. For now I'll stick with the new stuff.

Been playing a game called Sektori this evening. It's a lot like Geometry Wars, like, quite a lot like it. Neon wire frame graphics, EDM beats, enemies dropping in, and the enemy behavior changing as you get further in. The ways that it's different, from my blurry memory because they changed a bit, the level changes constantly, and you need to be out of the red zone when it does otherwise your run is over. You select a weapon like R-type or Gradius, in that when you pick up enough XP a level up item will appear that needs to be collected. On the left hand side of the screen are your perks, each of those level up items you're holding climbs you up the ladder and you eventually select whichever one you want, with different levels to each one like speed, missiles or your blaster. Plus there's card things you unlock at points during your run that give you perks, so I ended up with drones shooting alongside me, and the ability to shoot behind me too. Eventually there's bosses if you survive long enough, plus the word MIRAGE to spell out if you time collecting letters at the right time, I've not managed it yet so I've no idea what happens. It's very difficult to parse at points, but it's also one of those games where you find yourself lasting longer and longer at It's on PS5 and Steam, no idea about Xbox or Switch

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.

A couple of us played the Steam demo of Neon Inferno a few months back, and I'd recommend trying that if you want to see if this is for you. Not that it's a complicated concept, it's just an old-school Run 'N Gun action platformer type thing. It has the sort of gritty pixel look you'd associate with the Mega Drive or a Neo Geo, but with a ton of special effects laid over the top, it's a really pretty game. The most notable thing about Neon Inferno is that it's a pretty difficult game. It's one of those games, not unlike an actual retro game, where once you've inched your way further in to a stage, after multiple attempts, the earlier parts that caused you so much trouble seem really easy. Like the game should actually take you about 20 minutes rather than 7 hours. I played it on medium, and that's about how long it took me to get through the game, but then restarting with the other character I raced through the first couple of stages Gameplay wise, while it's pretty basic in terms of the shooting and platforming, you can also counter green bullets, knocking them back to where they came from, or use your bullet time to aim them elsewhere. There's areas where you can move in to the background, usually in the vehicle sections, dodging incoming obstacles or making enemies easier targets. But you can also fire in to the background, so there's a lot going on at points, particularly when the action ramps up Good game, I enjoyed it quite a bit

Balatro. What can I say about Balatro that will do it any justice...? For the uninitiated, this presents as roguelike poker. You're dealt a hand of cards and use your card counting skills, or your natural-borne luck, to build a game-winning combination. Everything from high card draws to the fabled royal flush will score points, and it's your job to work through eight rounds of three games. I've managed to get half way through a game up to now - ante 5/8 - before crashing out horribly. Like I said, though, it presents as poker. Realistically, it takes poker to a whole new place, and this is thanks to the store between rounds. You can buy a range of bonuses to increase your chances of reaching the end. Tarot cards apply specific bonuses to individual cards from your deck (this could be anything from giving you an extra $3 if it's not used by the end of a round to a multiplier if it's played and scores). Planet cards provide bonuses to specific hands - I'm a fan of bumping up my two-pair bonus, as it's one of the most common hands I play, and it can become especially prolific for points the more you increase its level. You can get packs that add more cards to your deck, and then there are Joker cards (that's Poker with a J... Coincidence?) that give you overall bonuses. The key to the game right now seems to be the Joker Cards. A two pair hand with two 10s and two 5s can score around 50 points as a base. But add in a Joker card that adds 4 to your multiplier if you play clubs, as well as the joker that adds 30 chips if you play a 10, AND a +4 multiplier for the same numbers, and that two pair hand quickly shoots up to almost 10,000 points. Skipping some rounds is an option, and will present you with a bonus if you do so, but this comes at the cost of making more money to go into the store with. Is that card pack, which is usually $6 worth accepting, rather than playing the round and getting to $10 so you can buy a new bonus card or a couple of new Jokers? In each round of three games, there's also a 'boss' match. This will add further complications to the gameplay. Some of the ones I've encountered include all face cards being dealt face down, specific suits being debuffed (so those awesome bonuses are completely negated) and even ALL dealt cards being handed out face down. These are super tough at times, and if you hit a bad run, you're essentially screwed. I'm under no illusions that I'm not great at this game, but it has a fantastic 'one more go' quality that makes you hop in for another round. I honestly can't express how much I'm enjoying it right now. I'm determined to figure out a way to get through all 8 rounds.

Played the first 3 hours earlier. I like it so far but it barely feels like I’m out the tutorial really so very early days. A lot of mechanics are being introduced still and it feels like the reigns haven’t been let go of yet so I’m not free to fully explore the world yet. First things first. There’s a lot of cutscenes. Almost all of them during the Prologue are ones we’ve seen from past trailers so in some ways we’ve all seen the opening hour but without the context you’ll get in the game. After that you’ll start to see some new stuff but at this early stage most of it is just introducing you to characters and locales with not an awful lot going on in terms of plot or anything. I’m not sure I need to go into a deep dive over the way the game plays as we’ve seen the gameplay trailers in the past. If you’ve seen those clips with Sam delivering packages that’s pretty much all I’ve done so far, the tone has definitely been on the serious side - thus far at least - with the piss grenades and Kojima wackiness completely missing during the opening stages of what I’ve played at least. The way it feels to pilot Sam though is probably what has surprised me the most, I read someone else somewhere compare piloting him to driving a car in GTA or something which had me a little bit worried because I assumed he’d control like a tank but instead he controls like a Sports Car if anything. He is incredibly nimble and controls very intuitively which I was shocked about, the walking speed is a light jog as well which means you get places really quickly. Holding L2 and R2 in will enable you to keep your balance much better and it’s a godsend when you’re carrying something heavy or traversing mountains as it will stop you flailing from left to right wildly. The way you load and unload packages feels very intuitive as well and it’s somewhat novel in letting you pick it up and then rearrange it on your person, it feels very tactile. I’ve made 3 deliveries in total in my time with the game so far. It seems fun enough to me to simply get lost in the world and walk about eventually getting to your delivery point but as mentioned previously I haven’t been fully let off the reigns so far so have only been able to explore very linear corridors which have been funnelling me to the next exposition point. I have met the ‘BT’s’ once so far and the whole experience completely weirded me out. I fucked it up first time around and was flailing wildly not knowing what to do before being chased by some kind of monster thing so I reloaded and gave it another go. The atmosphere in those moments is so damn tense creeping around them whilst crouching and holding your breath, the BT’s themselves give me the creeps, they’ve got such fantastic sound design. It probably goes without saying but the visuals are absolutely phenomenal as well. They world design has a really unique art design to it, I don’t really know what I can compare it to really other than possibly Nier Automata maybe? It just has this washed out melancholic but vivid quality to it that I’ve not really seen much elsewhere. If you like somber indie tunes you’ve come to the right place as well, in particular moments the music will swell and the camera zoom out to give you a sense of place whilst adventuring along. Kojima has a great music taste. As far as negatives go, so far the writing has been a little ropey in places and I couldn’t help but laugh when Kojima’s name comes up under every casting title during the credits as well. So yeah, so far so good really but it’s still very early days. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with it this far but am eager for the leash to be loosened so I can fully explore the world.

the new game from Double Fine, and it's a lovely looking game. There's a jerky, clumsy look to the world that adds a bit of character to the lighthouse you play as. The world is colourful, and kind of looks flawless, with some cool effects. It's made using Unreal so there's traversal hitching, and shader stutter, which can last a while, like screen frozen time, and was bad enough that the game crashed on me. Really bad, I wish people would stop using Unreal. It deliberately controls badly for the first few minutes, but I can't say I ever loved how it controls, it's fine, and for some sections quite fun, but I kept losing track of the light's direction. It reminds me a bit of another couple of company's games, Amanita Design, the people that made Botanicula, Machinarium etc, the game has that sort of look. And Hazelight, because it does mix the game up fairly regularly, but probably not often enough. It's about 4-5 hours long, and it changes the gameplay up at least 5 times, which is to its credit I think, but unlike a Hazelight game it still spends too often on them. Particularly towards the end, there's a section that really labours its point, it's not the short, quick punch you dont have time to get bored of, or even realise you don't like It really suffers from a sense of "but why?" in its design. I can forgive it in the plot, because maybe that's just me missing something, but so much of the gameplay/puzzles leave you feeling that way. To give an example, there's a point where you get covered in pink fluff, pollen maybe? You see it happen and you see that it means you can now jump and glide for a while, that's an example of it done well. Pretty much every other time it'll be something like you need to get a gold orb from somewhere to take to a giant thing to put in, which means it will now shine a light that destroys a blockage (you have to do this repeatedly). There's a bit where you have to (I think) carry energy from a plant, to the next one, which for some reason gives you more energy yourself, which you keep doing, then you'll have enough to smash through a barrier. It's just a series of ideas that happen because That said, at least it has ideas, a decent amount of them, and a few of them are quite good. That said, I was struggling to keep my eyes open for the first hour or so, genuinely, granted I don't sleep well so that's on me, but it didn't engage me at all I don't know, it seems ok, I can't believe it's as well received as it has been, but I do think the traditional games media love a bit of double Fine, so it could just be different tastes

So after, what? 9 or 10 years Dead Island 2 is finally here and you know what?... I'm having a pretty decent time with it. The first thing I'll say is it feels like an Xbox 360 game... and it's a matter of opinion if that's a good or a bad thing. For me after Dying Light 2 tried to do far too much (in my opinion) having a game that just wants me to hit things until they fall over in a bloody mess is more than OK. The other thing I wanted to say is the opening hour or so is pretty bad... shit weapons that break way too easy and spongy enemies that hit way too hard... or maybe that's my own fault for picking the poor, frail girl character... who knows... anyway things liven up when you get your first real mission and access to a workbench. Anyone who's played the original games (or the Dying Light games) will feel right at home with the modding of weapons and such, electric swords and and flaming golf clubs... all that good stuff. The flesh system is really cool, thwacking a zombie in the face and seeing its jaw dislocate and detach is pretty mind-blowing and adds a lot to the melee combat (not found any guns yet) The other cool thing us being able to use liquids... I was doing a side mission and reached a part where ther was about 10 zombies banging on glass doors trying to get in... noticed a fuel can and explosive canister, picked up the can and poured fuel the entire length of the doors, hit the canister which ignited the fuel and blew out a window which allowed the zombies to walk straight in to my pre-made Inferno... no more zombies.😂 I've also just picked a perk for a pipe bomb... which is hilarious. Anyway, I like this game, admittedly I've only put around 5 or 6 hours in so far so we'll have to see if it can hold my attention but it's off to a good start.

Played a few hours now, it has that special Silent Hill weirdness going on... where everyone you talk to seems off in someway. Considering the setting I probably should play in Japanese with English subs but I kind've hate them so it's English dub all the way... it does the job. I'm playing this with both combat and puzzles set to "story" as the game has multiple endings and, for reasons know only to the dumbass devs, the puzzle difficulty doesn't stack and I know this'll take at least 3 playthroughs to max out... so I'll ramp up the difficulty in NG+. Obviously being on the easiest difficulty I'm capable of tanking a few hits but multiple enemies are still a handful... I got ganked earlier by 3 (sexy) scarecrows. Attacks boil down to light/strong attacks, attack at just the right time and you'll cause more damage, strong attacks cause enemies to be stunned which in turn gives your light attacks more oomph. You also have a sanity system which allows you to focus attacks, this can be depleted and causes damage if you're attacked while using it... this stuff isn't really coming in to play on these difficulties though. It plays well enough but performance isn't without it's faults (on Xbox) there's a hitching thing going on that I'm guessing is the game loading the new areas as it goes... it's not massively intrusive just a little annoying. The game looks nice though and the audio sets the tone nicely. I'll be putting a few hours in over the weekend.

I think I'm in one of those ruts where I don't fancy playing anything too demanding on the brain, so I've gone from finishing PWSim2, to trying a game from the publishers of Onechanbara called Full Metal School Girl, to this. FMSG is fun, but it's an endless corridor shooter that wouldn't have felt out of place in the PS2-era, so in an attempt to pivot from that, I've tried this - a game about rolling a ball around environments that wouldn't have LOOKED out of place in the PS2-era. Anyway, this is apparently the first completely new Katamari game since 2011. It doesn't do much to upend the classic gameplay the series is known for, but progression feels a little different to the instalments I've played. For a start, you don't just get access to the next level straight after finishing the previous one. Sometimes you need to find crowns in the levels you've already played, and an arbitrary cumulative amount will give you access to the next level. Putting it blunt, it feels a little (ok, a lot) like artificial padding to extend the length of the game. But it's a game about rolling up shit. Give me the option of how much I want to replay levels; don't force me to do it. I mean, I'll eventually go back and do all the levels, because the platinum just requires finding all the crowns on specific maps, but still. Give me the option, let's not make it a requirement. The other thing that's weird with progression is the way it's set up. You go from era to era - I've explored a basic, modern day set of levels, the wild west, a prehistoric chapter, and now ancient Greece. But you have an era select menu, where the ones you've not unlocked yet appear as question marks. So right now mine appears as something like "Modern/?/?/Wild West/?/?/Ancient Greece/Prehistoric/?" (hopefully that makes sense) I imagine it's to clue you in to the different time periods you'll be traveling to, but I feel like there could have been a better way to communicate this. Especially when I'm trying to figure out the best time period and mission to go to next while I'm trying to figure out which levels need me to find more crowns to even get into, and which ones just need me to go back in and find the crowns. Looks-wise, it's very much PS2 in a super-charming way. It still has jaggy edges, characters are still blocky and don't have much animation. For anyone that liked/s Katamari for the personality, you'll find a lot to love here. It's also got those tanky controls that have always defined the series. Much like the visuals, this is either something you'll love for the level of control you can achieve, or you'll hate, because you can't quite get to grips with the intricacies of movement. I'm somewhere between the two right now, but that's normal for me with this series. I've kinda waffled about one of the dumbest game series that have ever been created, but it's also a genuinely fun game. The fact you have no real peril, the fun stuff you can roll up, the silly ideas and charming script all combine to give me exactly what I'm looking for right now. The short run time is also a bonus with these games, so I'm not complaining there either. Last night I went from playing on the PS5 with the big TV to playing on PS Portal, and I feel like handheld is the way to go with this game. On Steam Deck or Switch I can see it being a blast.

I swear, if you ever find you need one of those games that can lull you into a state of meditative relaxation, it's this. From the constant "pshhhhhhhhh" of the different washers, to the satisfying "DING!" of a section completed, it all combines to create a fantastic, non-offensive ASMR experience that's super-peaceful. Since I started this last Friday I've already put about 17 hours in. I've cleaned a Dumb and Dumber-inspired Dog Car, an Art Deco house, and a funfair shooting gallery, amongst other areas. It's basically more of the same when compared to the first one, but there are one or two additions that elevate it slightly. First up is the disc-like steamer that makes light work of flat surfaces. Just walk slowly in a straight line and you'll have sparkly surfaces in no time. Living my best Roomba life whenever I use that one. The soap has also been massively improved. You don't need to buy it anymore for a start. Essentially, you spew white stuff all over the level, and cleaning it off again recharges the tank, so you can effectively use it forever. It's possibly the best new addition, and actually makes the soap useful. One sweep with soap, a second sweep with the widest nozzle and you're generally done. A final big addition is the home base. This hub has a map of the county you'll be travelling across to complete different jobs, and it has a big wide open space on the ground floor where you can purchase and place various bits of furniture. I'm not sure if there's a point to this beyond spending your currencies, but it adds an element of personalisation that's kinda fun, I guess. Yeah, not really sure what I think of this bit right now. One big irritant/criticism currently persists from PS1, though. You know how sometimes a surface will have what looks like a ton of dirt left on it but pings anyway, and other times it feels like you're playing 'hunt the pixel' to clear a section? That's still evident here. It's honestly the only thing that takes me out of it at any given time. If you've ever played the first one, you'll know what to expect. It's great fun, and the humour from the original has definitely carried over into this title. I'm really enjoying it. It's the perfect wind-down game after a long-ass day in work.