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Ok, so I was burned out on the Assassins Creed series. The yearly sequels got me feeling pretty tired of the series. By the time 3 came out, I was pretty much done. I tried a few other games in the series after that point, but never really committed to them. Odyssey got me back into it, and what an outstanding game that was. So I was naturally excited for this. I’m playing this on my day one PS4. Naturally it will perform better on next gen. But having said that, I’m not disappointed with the way this looks at all. The game is absolutely stunning, and apart from the initial long load time, it runs pretty smoothly. I’ve seen video reviews of some hilarious bugs/glitches, but haven’t encountered any myself yet. The combat is a bit basic at the moment. Reviews have pointed out that it takes a few hours to unlock different moves and abilities. So I’m looking forward to that. It’s nice that you can respec your character at any time, so if you fancy a different approach that’s always an option. Wandering around the main settlement, I’ve found three mini games. One which involves out-drinking your opponent, one where you use poetry in a battle of wits, and a dice game which I lost horribly on my first attempt. There’s a micro transaction store (because of course there is), but thankfully it’s totally ignorable. You have to search for it yourself (no obnoxious daily deal prompts bombard you). And the vast majority of the items are cosmetic only. There’s no “pay to unlock XP faster” as there was in Odyssey. So although it’s there, it isn’t an issue. Usually in Ubisoft games, I like going to the Ubistore to unlock various exclusive bits. There’s very little to unlock in Valhalla’s Ubistore page. But again, not much of a complaint really. Definitely looking forward to sinking many hours into this.

Only played a few minutes before I go to sleep, but yep, pretty sweet so far. One thing I thought was really cool is that one of the menu options is you can change the appearance of the food in game. Could be as simple as you’re veggie or vegan and you would rather not everything be meat, but there’s also some silly options like “Castlevaniaesque” and “monster”. In related and weird news, IGN (or their freelancer) appear to have stolen an indie guy’s video review script. Apparently IGN hav taken down their review while they investigate.

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.😂

Have spent around 7 hours with it or so, just mashing around in neutral. The game looks beautiful. I prefer its look to strive, even tho I like the 2d look of that I much prefer the clean look of this, where everything is more readable. Right now you're thrown into a very mixed pool of skill levels, tho there is a generally high enough level of cluelessness and the new mechanics are so powerful that you can sort of get by. I don't know what cancels into anything so I'm just really mashing out opportunities to knock somedown and hit them with fake-ass meaties. Did a 5 match set with some random luke and it was 3-2 to him. had a one and done with a juri just now, she won, but I'm happy I converted drive impact into super at around 15:00. That's my gamer goal achieved for now, who cares that I got bodied :x Then I played Mr Hadouken, the reason I got so bothered by the fireballs is i forgot which of Kimberly's kicks low profiles the fireballs, it's forward down medium kick I think. Also I kept trying to do it on frame disadvantage, anyway put a stop to that shit Drive impact seems.. well impactful. It's a very high committal move with lots of startup and recovery which armours through your opponent's offense (you take some damage but it takes multihits to knock you out of it, or a grab). I imagine at mid to higher levels it introduces a more dangerous kind of RPS into pressure and neutral interactions. It's one of those things where it's hard to know how people will feel about it until the meta settles after the game's release. Right now it's one of those mechanics which I'm just giving the benefit of the doubt to, that when the full game is understood it won't feel so caveman-like. Your ex gauge or whatever it is called is used to control your access to your ex moves (think they have a different name in this, it's when you press two buttons at once for more powerful attacks and conversions). But it also gets drained on block, so if you're very passive you get 'burnt out' or something which means other than you get dizzy and stuff and they can just wail on you. But there are also mechanics in the game to gain that meter back, only one I know of is the parry mechanic which is when you see someone sort of go all blue and smokey, don't really know how to leverage that yet though. I guess there's other things which return meter but I need to learn about it more There's also a mechanic called drive rush, it uses 3 out of your 6 bars to extend pressure and combos, similar to GG roman cancel. You can see the Juri use it, it's when she goes all green and shit (and you can see me labbing it in the training before the match). Seems like a hell of a high cost to do that though. Training mode has cool utilities to display when something is special cancellable and also where the 'links' are in move properties to link into the next normal, which is very useful as the concept and timings of links is something I'm not used to. They seem to have really good teaching tools for that kinda stuff. I'll probably spend a few more hours with it but I largely don't go too crazy with fg betas cause it's just not enough time for me to comfortably spend figuring stuff out. But getting a general sense of the system mechanics is all I really want atm anyway. I don't think I'll main Kimberly in the main game but mostly cause I want to try a more of a zoner character, and everyone in the beta is a rushdown from what I see. I think her gameplan is a combination of controlling neutral space with the canister bombs, and using same bombs to setup pressure concepts in the corner. She has a sprint move which can be cancelled to throw people off, haven't figured out how to really use it tho. She has command grab finishers to some of her stuff. Some of her stuff seems mad fake to me though, like the cross up heavy kick forward thing she has. I don't know how you make that ambiguous, tho ultimately again this is not the character I'm interested in playing just the one that appealed most in the beta. I'll probably stick with her going forward into additional betas tho, to keep up some learning momentum with how short these things are. Diaphone has some cool stuff with the character https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1614357197 Netcode is fine, rollback like Strive. Get basically the same number of frames in this as I do that. Anyone else get in?

Full disclosure I’ve only played 30 minutes of actual gameplay as my eyelids weighed about 500lb. I really like the style of it and opening. Once you’re set free to play you’re pleasantly set up for revenge. The next gen (playing on XSX) has proper elevated this game from past entries. It looks gorgeous but most impressive of all is the draw distance, amount of vegetation and that it is all crisp and clear to boot. Gameplay is how you’d expect from a far cry, or any half decent fps really. The machete is nice and lethal for stealth plays. I’ll be making good use of that. It was real fun to have my own personal alligator run alongside me. I look forward to diving back in.

I’m blitzing through games now. Norco is a point and click adventure game set in New Orleans. The location alone gives it a very strong Gabriel Knight vibe. I say point and click adventure but Norco is closer to a conversation ‘em up. Most of the gameplay in the first hour plays out through conversations. Similar to games like Read Only Memories and Va-11 Hall A, and of course, Disco Elysium, without the rpg elements. The game also has a strong Kentucky Route Zero vibe. Let’s see if it lives up to the reviews.

Booted this up for the first time today just for a look see... played for a couple of hours and completed four levels. For those not in the know it's a Steam punk (I guess) take on Westerns mixed with Vampires which I thought was going to be much more shooter orientated than it is... it's actually much closer to the newer God of War games than Gears of War, shit, you even open and smash chests the same way as Kratos does. So there's a definite leaning towards melee combat over ranged but there's Guns involved obviously being a Western. These work on a cool down rather than relying on ammo drops and are mainly used for hitting exposed weak points with the rifle or chip damage for the pistol then there's the sawn off which is great for obliterating shields... all standard stuff for anyone who's played a third person adventure game anytime recently. So far in terms of levels it feels very old school with very linear levels designed to funnel you from one encounter to the next. As for looks it's been a very mixed bag so far, actual game play looks ok, I'm not sure if it's a design choice or what but there's a really weird glow with everything... fire sources are ridiculously bright and this isn't even an hdr enabled game and then you have the cutscenes which everything just looks muddy and crushed to fuck... I'm not sure whats going on there. Funnily though the pictures I'll post look a damn sight better then they do on a tv.🤷‍♂️ So a bit of a mixed bag... plays fine, looks a little ropey.

Started this on GP over the weekend after hearing a few good things about it but not really knowing what it is. Turns out it's a survival horror game with a PS1 graphical style heavily inspired by Resident Evil. The setting is a bit Dead Space though, in that it's set on an otherworldly space mining facility. All the typical RE accoutrements are present here, you'll be combining objects to fashion a key, using the sparse save rooms as the only way of saving your progress and managing your 6 inventory slots with the help of storage boxes. You'll also be shooting, dodging, whacking and running away from Zombie-esque enemies dotted around the mining facility that creepily glitch out as they approach you with your Pistol and Shotgun (complete with laser pointer) and Stun Rods. You will of course also be solving a few puzzles (none of which have vexed me as much as previous RE series puzzles though) and gradually making your way through the mining facility, trying every door to try to find a path forward, going back to previously discovered wall safes and the ilk, finding keycards and all that good stuff. Unlike RE (I think) you are equipped with a Radio and can tune in to different frequencies which then help with puzzles and other mysteries around the facility. I think I'm only about 2.5 hours in so far, it's not meant to be overly long (HLTB says 8-10 hours) but I'm very much enjoying it. The atmosphere is spot on and the PS-era visuals somewhat unique in a day and age where 8/16 bit visuals still seem to be so popular. I struggled to put it down last night, highly recommend it so far. Pics:

So, the first game was a very enjoyable car-crash. They’ve skipped straight to 3, because why not. And this is legitimately one of the funniest games I’ve played this year. It starts by ripping off the intro to Skyrim (and openly admits as such). Then you’re set loose into the world, to cause total carnage. If you played the original, you’ll know what you’re in for. If not….Jesus, where do I start? You’re a goat. You can lick things and drag them around. You can headbutt stuff. That’s pretty much it. The rag doll physics are proper funny. Head butting an explosive barrel, causing people to go flying is a riot. You can catch on fire/electricity, and spread that through a crowd. There’s various tasks to do, which gift you in game currency. Which you then use to unlock add-ons to customise your goat. Currently I’m rocking a molten lava skin, with 4 paint cans stuck on my feet, and tennis balls on my horns. Most of the add-ons are cosmetic only , but some have powers you can trigger at will. My personal favourite is a firework launcher. Which when fired at cars/ people, causes them to go rocketing into the air at 90mph, ragdolling furiously. That’s had me cry-laughing repeatedly. As you run around the open world, you’ll encounter random missions you can do. Which reward you with more cash, and usually a cosmetic. There’s already been several Easter eggs relating to other games/franchises. So again, many laughs to be had. Oh, and it’s 4 player online co-op as well. Not tried that yet, but I imagine it’ll be utter carnage. So, yeah. This has been bloody hilarious thus far.

it's a bullet hell game, and it's really good! which was sort of surprising as it's by NGDEV, i've not played all their previous games but the ones i have played were sort of average i guess. i'm not sure how to explain what makes a bullet hell game good to me, it's all about the dodging, so the bullet patterns have to be fun to dodge basically, i feel like there's a lot of shmups that don't get this right enough, as in they get it right part of the time and they're fun enough, but only cave stuff and a few others get it right most of the time, and it's early days but this seems to be doing a great job here. imo anyway. there's a few difficulty modes, practice, missions, a roguelike mode which gives you random powerups or something? there's a nice bullet hell tutorial too which explains some stuff really well. unfortunately i also have a problem with the game which is the checkpoint system, i really hate checkpoint systems, i mean it's not as bad as it could be and a lot of people seem to like checkpoint systems and i want people to try the game because it's so good so i'll try not to whine about it too much! I'd usually post about this in the shmups thread but giving it a go in a thread of it's own, see how it goes (probably badly) pc only for now i think but as the trailer below shows it's coming to everything. anyone else giving it a go? edit - steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2025840/Gunvein/

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.

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

Started this last weekend and have got about 90 minutes in, in Act 3. Hasn't made much of an impression on me either way at this stage. I really like the atmosphere and unique HR Giger-Alien-esque inspired visuals, it looks and feels really unique and the only similar title I can come up with is something like SOMA. The way it plays is a little less original, it feels much like an old school PS2-style puzzle game really, there isn't a lot of direction and you're completely left to your own devices to figure out what's going on and what you need to do at any given time. So far I've been put in a level that you're free to wander about and in that level are various weird contraptions you'll have to suss out what they do and what goes into them etc. and once figured out this'll eventually open a door to a new area. The beginning of Act 2 was a bit of an anomaly though as you're just put in this linear desert-like environment and left to figure out where to go, luckily it's pretty easy to discern the path but yeah, no puzzles during this bit. I have been using a guide throughout as I'm so bad at puzzle games and got stuck for awhile at the beginning just in the prologue area lol. So yeah, it's alright, I wouldn't pay anywhere near the £33 they're asking for it on Steam but as a short GP title it's a nice palette cleanser of a game as long as you don't expect to much from it. Pics:

I’ve played about 3 hours or more of the campaign which I believe is about half way. It’s alright but it’s like a ‘best of’ of the series. Think of it as a Now That’s What I Call CoD! Track listing includes: A swimming bit. A sniper bit. A gunner in the skies bit. All the hits dating back many years. The story and overall attitude of the game is awful I’ll say that. Dude bros with guns. No one is likeable or too much different for anyone else. The game is very linear as to how you can tackle each short segment. Be a few metres away from where it wants to be and you’re killed. I look forward to multi once the campaign is done with.

Well this pretty much came out of nowhere. Like, I didn’t even realise it was out. I remember it being announced, but not much after that. The original Tales game was one of the best things Telltale came out with (Walking Dead peaked after their first season, and by the end was crap). I’m not an expert of the franchise, I’ve only finished 1 and 2, and some of the DLC. But that didn’t stop me from having a great time with Tales. So, now we have the sequel. Though it’s “episodic”, it plays out as one big game, giving you a break between episodes. I’ve just finished Episode 1. And so far, it’s off to a good start. The dialogue has been amusing enough. The story, which switches between 3 playable characters, seems solid enough. There’s zero puzzles, so you’re mostly down to making dialogue choices, and occasionally wandering around the area to trigger the next set piece. There’s a fair few Quick Time Events, but they’re easy enough. One review said that the hacking mini game is laughably easy. It is indeed, and makes you wonder what the point of them even is. It warns you “failure has repercussions”. But honestly, you’d have to put your controller on the floor, to fail them. The IGN review said the final episode is a train wreck, and almost ruins the game completely. We will see how that plays out. But so far, yeah, this seems decent enough.

I want my mummy... Spent a few hours with this through Game Pass (Xbox obviously)... think I played Innocence toward the tale end of last year and so far this feels nicely familiar. I'm up to Act 3, the first act being more or less a tutorial and the second playing pretty much how you'd expect. Things start harmlessly enough but it doesn't take long for things to fall to shit and the whole world wants Amicia dead for reasons... this time she can fight back a little more, she has a stealth attack and can knife enemies, I haven't got her Crossbow yet but like I say I'm only up to Act 3. You can also break line of sight and hide again if discovered, I can't remember if this was a thing in the first, if it was it was bloody difficult. Some of the views look stunning and so far it's played nicely... there's no performance or graphics mode so I'm not sure if it's locked to 30fps or not... think I saw somewhere that it's 40fps if your display supports 120hz (mine does so who knows) I ended up really liking the first so I'm looking forward to playing more of this.

Roller Drome seemed to get talked about a lot right before release, then no one mentioned it again. It's a CEL shaded roller skate arena game with similar muted colours to Sable. Presumably deliberately it reminds me of old 70s genre films. The concept is kind of Running Man, you enter arenas and have to shoot the house players. To reload you have to do tricks, this refills your ammo, killing enemies gets you health back,and there's a bunch of different enemy types. I wasn't feeling this originally, it just felt flat and boring, frustrating even. Movement can be a bit odd, you don't control your momentum, press forward to start then leave it, concentrate on steering, jumping and tricks. Get close enough and there's an auto aim to shots, with some of the weapons having slight tricks to them. There's a dodge, time this with the slow down time mechanic, usually used for aiming, and you get an extended period of slowed time. There's challenges to the levels, things like performing certain tricks, kill enemies with certain weapons, and I think it's this stuff that was annoying me. It's probably best to just beat a level then revisit it and try to get one or two challenges each time, that's not how I was approaching it. You need to beat a certain number of challenges to unlock the next set of levels, so I was trying to beat everything all at once, you just don't have that sort of control early on, or I didn't, I did much better when I came back after a break and went back to the earlier levels. I'm still not sure I see the really high scores for it, but when it does all click with you it is fun, really fun at points

Sam wants meaningful feedback so I'll try and give some here. It certainly is a follow up to Fallout 3 in that it is still that at it's core. You have a big, dilapidated open world for you to rummage through, explore and have your own little story. It's that stuff again. But the introduction to this game makes it difficult to like. Your character and equipment just aren't up to snuff when you start off. I died a ridiculous amount on my first proper task, and even when I found a craftier way of completing the mission unforeseen things would happen and I'd have to go again. I just felt like the game was slapping my hand every time I tried something which didn't happen nearly as much in Fallout 3. I also got attacked by a high level glowing Ghoul when I was minding my own business just after I'd talked to a merchant and was killed instantly... while on the main road just outside the starting area. They have improved the shooting but it seems at the moment that V.A.T.S isn't as good so I'm unsure how to play it now. In F3 since the shooting was so shit I only ever used it as cover fire while V.A.T.S charged up then I'd go for a full attack but that doesn't seem to work as well here. During the mission mentioned previously I feel like it wanted me to go full CoD since enemies were lobbing grenades and molotovs like confetti and I just couldn't do anything about it. I just ran off. Maybe it gets better as more unlocks become available but I don't remember being this frustrated during the intro of the previous Fallout games. They had their issues but not like this. It feels really slap dash and unconsidered. But I think the game looks fine. It's the least of my worries.

I don't know how to give impressions on this without getting in the weeds. In terms of features it's an old fashioned 2D fighting game. You have an arcade mode (which is kinda interesting in that the better you do the harder the end boss gets) and there is a story that is literally an anime that you just watch, which is what the last game did too but it's still wild to me. There's also a pretty intense Mission Mode that does it's best to teach you the deeper mechanics of the game which if you're the studious type could work pretty well. I could do with spending more time in it myself but getting wrecked by someone using my character then trying to rip them off in the next match is more fun for me. It's the good netcode that saves it though. Well, the matchmaking is pretty rough at the mo but it plays really well in game. It just means there's always people to play with. This came online at midnight and I was ready to play it so I went to the east coast of USA since it was a more sensible time there and while it was a little choppy visually my inputs were barely delayed, if at all. I really hope they put this in a DBFZ2, in fact it would be shocking if they didn't. I've not saved many fights yet since I think I'm still pretty scrubby but my Gio is coming along a little. And this fight with Zato was fun when I wasn't put in the corner with all his nonsense:

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

So I got on the beta. For all the fucking good that did,haven't even got it to work yet. I'll give it another try after work tonight. But my initial impressions so far are, if it doesn't work for a beta,the full release is hardly promising.

I’m about two hours into this on the Switch. I’ve been playing the main game, haven’t tried the visual novel prequel thing yet. But I’ll probably play them concurrently. The game takes a few twists and turns early on, but nothing overly dramatic. So far, typical jrpg opening (as jrpg stories go). The combat is quite unique though. Enemies have elemental types and during battles there is an elemental field, which, depending on the elemental spells used causes certain elements to get stronger and the opposite type weaker. For example blue and red (water and fire) are opposites. If you use a blue elemental spell, the blue area of the elemental field (this is shown on the screen) will grow larger, and blue spells will become stronger and red spells weaker. One interesting tactic connected to this is when fighting enemies of different element types, their spells can antagonise each other, which can affect the order in which you might want to take them down. In addition to that, when you do a normal attack, you can choose between weak, medium and strong. Weak attacks have high accuracy and strong attacks low accuracy. Every hit that connects raises the accuracy of subsequent attacks. It’s up to you how you choose to string combos together. There’s more to combat than that but those are just a couple of interesting points.

Played til 3am last night, found a dragon. Hardly done ANY story stuff but it's structured in a way where you can't really tell if it's story or not, I did one thing which I thought was pretty out of the way and then it ended up kind of tying in with the story. Managed to kill me some giants and some mammoths, the enemy scaling seems to be pretty nicely sorted, nothing has been particularly easy but it's obvious that there are different levels of challenge available to you. The example pre release was fallout, and taking on one of the giants reminded me of one of the super mutants from that game, they just roam around waiting to be found and if you keep plugging away and are smart then you can take one down, I used a combination of sneak and range, taking a few shots then running off where it couldn't get and then using sneak to hide and then wear them down. Then rushing in when the giant is low on health with my two swords. Levelling up feels better, like a mix of how it was before by doing stuff and it gets better, but also by you choosing skills along those branches you increase, effectively unlocking the ability to choose something on your skill trees. It's never felt like a grind in the way it did before, it's like it was sold to us, you play how you want and you level around that. I'm sort of aiming to be a snooty sneaky character but I also want to be good with two sorts and I think I might start putting more time into crafting stuff, items or weapons I'm not sure yet. As far as critique goes, there are small flaws to be found, examining a texture very very close up shows that it isn't perfect, I don't particularly like the controls( I'm playing on PC don't you know) but the things wrong with it are so minor that you either won't notice that much or won't care, there's so much that it does right. More impressions later on, but can't disagree with the review scores. Edit: for the records it does actually look amazing.

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

I played this on game pass, having tried the demo during one of those Steam events and liking it. Beacon Pines is a cutesy storybook adventure with darker undertones. The big conceit is you find "charms" through talking to characters, looking at things in the environment or overhearing other characters etc. At certain points in the story you're presented with the option of choosing from 2-3 of these charms to decide what action take in that situation. The story branches off according to the choice you make, you might die a grizzly death or head off on a completely different version of the story. You can go back to any of these branches and try the other options, sometimes you'll find another charm down one branch that lets you make a different choice in an earlier decision. The branching thing is more superficial in the end than how the game initially presents it to you, you end up exploring most of the decisions on the way to getting the ending anyway, but it's fun and engaging. It's about 5 hours or so in length, which is just right. It doesn't overstay it's welcome. The presentation and art style are top notch.