Search the Community

Managed to put a little bit of time into this this morning. I am absolutely staggered at how good it is for now. Bearing in mind I've not played a mainline FIFA since '14 or '15 this just feels exactly like a mainline FIFA game, doesn't seem to be any compromises at all, feels like the real full-fat FIFA experience to me. I was playing in Docked mode in 1080p and it just felt exactly like I remember FIFA feeling like when I played the last on XBOne/PS4 in the past. I only thing I really noticed as 'missing' is the PL-partnered presentation over the matches, instead they use that older more blocky style that was in place before 2016 or so, I only knew this having watched some FIFA 16/17/18 preview videos but as I haven't played one for a while, again, it felt just the same as I remembered and lets be honest, it matters very little. Only had time to mess around in the menu's, do a bit of team management and controller setup and do one online game. Looked through all the menus and everything looked like it was in there to me apart from the single-player story thing that they came up with last year, didn't touch FUT yet so don't know how many packs you get to start with or anything but yeah that's definitely a huge inclusion right there, will have to have a word with myself to make sure I don't buy too many packs The game itself felt just like FIFA really, more fluid than I remembered maybe? Some of the technical little touches you could do, being able to lean in and shoulder-charge players off the ball and things like that felt new and the ball/player physics felt way easier to zip the ball around in, less glued to the feet than when I last played for sure. It will definitely take me a while to get used to the controls again, I'm so used to playing FIFA on xbox/PS controllers that learning to play on Cradled JoyCons will take a bit of time to get used to, it feels great to play though, just got to retrain my brain to the new face buttons. I'm quite pleased I didn't lose my first game online though despite a hell of a lot of wrong button presses! I'm sure it'll come back to me.

Anyone else given this a go? It's been free on both Xbox and PS4 now so I'be finally given it a quick go, and yeah, it very much is a Souls game. One of the main differences so far is the lack of customising your character. You can obviously level up which way you want and choose equipment but rather than the silent hero from the Souls games, they're definitely telling a story and want him to match the CG. There'a only 3 classes to choose from and I just went for the hitting things option. A couple of other differences from the Souls games: When you die you have a limited time to get your xp back and the percentage of what you regain will be lower depending on how quick you are. Also you bank xp to either spell points or attribute points. Once banked, those points are locked, but xp you haven't locked in can be lost via death. Doesn't run great. It's not terrible but it definitely seems a bit framey on console and there's a slight delay with hitting buttons and seeing animations whir into place. It's alright, might play some more. Certainly won't be deleting it just yet.

So this is the third game in the Bit. Trip Runner series, the sequel Bit. Trip Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. First impression is I'm disappointed with the title of this game. Runner3 does not do the legacy of the series any justice in terms of title. It sticks pretty well to the formula made in the earlier games so if you've played one you'll know what to expect. It's an auto runner game where the obstacles and collectables create a little tune along with the game's music, and as you progress through the levels the obstacles get trickier. Simple, really. But Runner3 adds a few things to make things trickier. One of them I'm not the biggest fan of and that's vehicle sections. They just turn a very tight and nuanced game into something that feels like it comes from a much worse game. There isn't very many of them but I can't help but have an inner little groan when one comes up. The second addition doesn't seem much but it is applied in some genius and evil ways: a double jump. When I first started playing I thought the double jump was just their to make things easier, like you can correct some badly timed jump. But as you go through the game you start to see that creative use of the double jump is the only way to traverse the obstacles and get all the collectables. And sometimes double jumping is dangerous so you can't do it at all so it's not something you just do all the time; far from it. And combining it with the slight glide (hold the jump button) and the hard drop (dress down to fall quickly which was introduced in Runner2) you get some evil level design to make use of it all. These moves also make it so the levels can have multiple ways of doing them and that is explored in Gold Runs and Gem Runs where the latter is a harder route to collect everything. Sometimes the paths just fork off into a different place but there are also situations where you're required to traverse the same bit of level but in a different and harder way. And it is very hard. I think I remember Runner2 being a little easier than the original but this is much harder, at least to get everything. Maybe just going through the game not doing the gem runs would be easy enough but there is evil, evil stuff in this game and I kind love it.

Space Dave! is a follow up to Woah Dave! that came out a few years ago. It is a retro style arcade game with clever little twists that make it an interesting little game. Woah Dave! is an underrated score attack game and it seems Space Dave! is gonna have the same fate, though I don't think it's as good as Woah Dave!. So I guess that's why I'm starting a thread for it. So what Space Dave is is like a combination of Space Invaders, Galaga and Missile Command. You get waves of alien ships in formation, scrolling along the screen in different ways and you have to shoot them down and protect six trees. You're attacked by simply being shot at but they also dive bomb the ground, destroying the tree and turning the section of screen into a pool of lava, which you then have to avoid while you're protecting the others. You can fix the ground and eventually grow back the tree by killing certain enemies that drop skulls but you have to throw them at the pool of lava yourself. It's taking known, classic arcade gameplay and mixing in these new mechanics that keep the gaming loop really interesting. Oh! and you only get points for picking up pennies so having to pick up items to score adds another element of risk/reward. I think the problem with the game is the visuals. I know they're going for an a look reminiscent of pre-NES games but I just don't think it's striking enough to pull it off. But they're functional so fine. I also think they could have added more types of enemy patterns because there isn't that many and they do loop a bit too often. The bosses are pretty good, though. The fucker I'm on now can fuck off, mind. It's currently under £2 on Switch at the moment and I do think its at least worth that as a score attack game to play for 15 minutes. Or get something that plays Woah Dave! instead.

http://www.abzugame.com/ Anyway ABZÛ is an underwater adventure from the art director of Journey. I don't normally create threads for games after I've finished them, but ABZÛ is only two hours so it's kind of unavoidable. I haven't played Journey so I have no idea how similar it is to that, but in terms of "how much of a walking/swimming simulator" is it, I would say the game is pretty similar to Firewatch (and similar in terms of value for money, as impressive as both games are I'm still glad I bought them on sale and not full price). Essentially in the game you swim through a series of rooms and corridors. There are collectibles to find and light gameplay elements to the game but really they are a negligible part of the experience. Occasionally the game has on rails sections where you are swept along with the current (or the game simply takes control away from you) and these are very impressive. In general, the entire game is impressive, and enjoyable to play. The music is beautiful, one of the best game soundtracks I've ever heard. Like I said in my Steam review, of the four indie games I've completed this year (ABZÛ, Firewatch, Hyper Light Drifter and Oxenfree), ABZÛ would be my favourite. One of the reasons I like it is that it reminded me of the underwater levels in Spyro (and the ambient music reminded me of Spyro). Another reason is that it is an uplifting game, which is pretty rare. I think this would be a good game for parents to play with their children. I give it 8/10.

I've been playing a bit of the campaign, and it is so much better than I was expecting it to be. It is called War Stories and is split into five separate parts following different characters and scenarios. I've only done the first one after the prologue so far, Through Mud and Blood where you and your squad are pushing forward in a British Mk V tank, and it was really good. It is quite poignant in places, and has great use of music. It looks bloody fantastic, too. Not tried the multiplayer yet, which says something of the single player as it's normally the thing I go for first in a FPS. If you leave it on the War Stories menu long enough, a lovely piece of music with a female vocalist starts playing and it is quite beautiful.

Finally Trine has come out on PSN, and rather than the £10 the devs hinted at way back when it's actually £16 (or £17 I forget), which is actually cheaper than Steam still but disappointing all the same. Obviously whether it's worth it depends on the content that's in there and how good it. Also I had £4 in my account still which softened the blow a bit. The game is really good, and shows it pretty quickly. You start off as the thief, who can grapple to certain items and fire arrows, which are a bit shit truth be told but I'm sure will prove useful later. Once you touch the magic stone with her you take control of the lecherous and lazy wizard. The wizard can use a pointer to grab things out of reach, such as platforms or blocks, and he can also create blocks which adds to the puzzle element. Then there's the knight who has a shield on the right stick and a sword on the shoulder or square. The presentation is a bit weird. Some parts of it seem a bit cheap and unfinished, things like the load screen and menus, but then the graphics and voice acting are brilliant. That said there's been a few other things, firstly the knight glitched along while i was walking backwards with my shield up, and secondly a large block i had to pull down got stuck on a wall and wouldnt fall, so i had to force my way through the obstacle. It's really good fun though, the combat isnt perfect, but it looks like you'll be able to use the scenery to help you. There's lots of collectable to find, and some levelling up, which isnt explained all that well yet. Hopefully it's a decent size though

Or not-Overwatch. I can't talk about this game without mentioning Overwatch as it is a massive game that a lot of people have played and Paladins is very similar, to the point of being accused of being a clone. But while I don't believe that since games like this take years to plan and the were announced and released very close to one-another I think it's fair to say it isn't strictly a clone, especially since the devs history shows they've made a number of games that look like they could easily and naturally lead to this. But there is also no doubt that they have certainly leaned into being a lot like Overwatch around and post release. So its a hero shooter where you pick a character with specific skills that are tied to a certain class like Defence or Support, but this time you can't change mid-match which is an alteration I'm not against since it potentially requires some creative use out of a character if things aren't going well. If you have played Overwatch then the characters will be very familiar. Some are like character X from OW, and other are like a mix of Y and Z. And there are the odd few that draw inspiration from elsewhere. I kinda like this even as someone who played a lot of OW because Paladins feels like some weird remix where you have a character who is a mix of Tracer and Mei and trying to deal with that combo is kinda fun. On a pure gameplay level it is some OW style fun but it doesn't have the character of OW. A bunch of them are quite fun looking and charming but OW has some straight up modern iconography which is hard to stand next to. And Paladins doesn't have the character or polished presentation of OW. Character voices don't stand out as much and it makes following the gameplay a little harder since you don't have distinct verbal calls and attack effects. You know, the character and the polish in OW helps communicate the gameplay a lot and that's not quite here in Paladins, or at least its not as clear. I'm sounding more down on it than I actually am. Like I said, I'm enjoying what feels like a remix of characters to me coming from OW. And, tbh, since its been a while since I played OW playing a game that has a much lower current skill level is making it kinda chill (though not all the time). Actually, skill level is wrong... I sometimes get frustrated at some players' I've come across and their decision making. Currently I'm into it. Dunno how long for but I'm on Switch if anyone wants to play some not-Overwatch with non psychos.

Do you dislike giant insects? Are you tired of giant insects running rampant all over your city? Would you like to take your dislike for giant insects out on them with lots of guns? Then sign up to the Earth Defence Force and make giant insects rue the day they descended upon your domicile! Ok, so I've been playing this on and off with @Sly Reflex, and I've finally got enough of an impression to see how I feel about it. First off, I'm going to explain the story. Now it's tough, layered and difficult to fully grasp, but I'm going to do my best to get the nuance across... Kill the giant insects. Pick the right gun (s) for the mission and kill the giant insects. Out in the city - kill the giant insects. Out in the country - kill the giant insects. In an underground cave - kill the giant insects. Not sure if I missed this bit, but while you're doing all this you need to kill any giant insects you come across. In all seriousness, there is a story. The bugs have been gone for 7 years, and in that time they've managed to evolve, become stronger, all the rest of it. Nothing is told through cut-scenes though. It's all told through in-ear communications as you play. The dialogue is horrible though. Laugh-inducingly bad. Which in fairness, I fucking love. Music isn't bad either - low budget, suits the game, but much to say about it tbh. The budget definitely hasn't been spent on graphics either. It's all janky to say the least. But again, I like this. If you see ants on the horizon they use less frames, but it gives them this Jason and the Argonauts quality that makes it more charming - at least for me it does. The levels themselves look pretty basic too, but this means that entire fucking cities can be levelled. And I'm not exaggerating. Trying to farm some armour last night I couldn't get one of the enemies in my sights, so I whipped out the rocket launcher and just started obliterating buildings until I killed the cunt. Very satisfying. Now, gameplay... Choose from one of four classes, choose a couple of guns and, you guessed it, go kill the giant insects. I've only really spent time the Ranger - the generic class that can use plenty of different weapons. It's a nice way to learn the mechanics and, at least on normal, nothing is particularly difficult. It's just a shame that it's so reliant on grinding armour and weapons. It'd feel like it's built better if you could just progress without worrying you're strong enough to do the next level. It's unnecessary padding. I'm having a hell of a lot of fun though. This game is ridiculously low budget, but it has an undeniable charm that makes it loads of fun.

So this is a top down racing game. That's the nutshell at least. I saw that trailer for it a while back and just from looking at it I got a strong impression that it had some nice handling in it. And it does. It's like I have a sixth sense or something. But to be honest, apart from the handling and general act of racing the game has some frustrating things about it. So how the career mode works in MBR is you have a path to work through with it splitting off from time to time so you can get extra money, xp and "gears". Gears are obtained by doing special little missions in a race like "drift for so many metres in total" and "beat a lap in xx:xx time". There's actually quite a lot of them and do add a little pressure to the races. You then use the gears to unlock further races. The progress actually reminds me a lot of 2D Mario games; especially the "New" series if you think of the gears as the big coins. The way its done isn't too bad but since there are a limited amount of tracks, at least a lot less than there are events, you play the same tracks a lot. They are very good tracks, but they certainly could be placed in the progression in a way that makes the number of tracks seem less limited. What also is limited is the amount of vehicles. There are three in each speed class: one light, one medium and one heavy and you have to buy these with the money you've earned, and you need all three as some races require a specific weight class so I don't know why they just don't have them selectable instead of going through this buying process that doesn't add anything. It's not like you have multiple cars in each weight class to commit to. Well, there are others but they are in their own speed class and have their own races. Also, the upgrade system is as clear as mud. You get upgrades to engine, tyre, gearbox, etc and they are like consumables and they seem to be finite and when you remove one it is gone forever. It also isn't clear if it upgrades your vehicle. Like you can use it and find it has no effect. I dunno, I could be being an idiot but it kinda sucks. I also don't think the upgrades that do work even affect the performance much. But apart from the puzzling stuff in the menus the racing itself is really damn good. It has some really nice drift mechanics. When I think of Wipeout I think of how cornering is like smoothly carving the apex and this has that too; it's just as satisfying. And I think the perspective benefits it too since you can see more of the track (more specifically what is coming next to the side because of how they are laid out) the game can run faster. It's like a Scalextric track in that there are a lot of u-turns you can speed around nearly at top speed. It feels really good, especially in the lightweight buggies. The tracks as a whole are so good. They group a lot of u-turns together pretty often and there are a lot of angular turns that make me think of F-Zero on the SNES or any Mode 7 racing game except much more elaborate in that they often loop back and cross over themselves. The only thing that catches me out sometimes is because of the top down view seeing ramps and other gradients that affect handling can be hard to see until you're familiar with the tracks. I've been hankering for a good drift-y racer for a while and this is actually doing a pretty good job of satiating that. Thumbs up.

I couldn't find a thread for this, so I'm guessing no one has played it? Anyways. I have a confession.. I'm a big horror game wuss. Any game that has a thick atmosphere of dread or I know that will have jump scares, I struggle to play. Games are really good at that kinda thing. *shakes fist* So when I seen the trailer for this I thought cool, it's a sci fi game set under the ocean like Bioshock. But instead of a 1950's (? I can't remember) art deco it's a industrial Alien type feel. Coooool! ...Then I seen it was by the guys that made Amnesia. Fuuuuuck that. But I started to hear about the story/premise on GOTY podcasts and I really wanted to play it. I noticed it was on sale this week so picked it up. And so far it is indeed really fucking cool. I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum.. So stuff happens.. and you wake up in a underwater base where the shit has well and truly hit the fan. You don't have any weapons so the only way to get by enemies is to hide, peak round corners and try to sneak by. The story isn't force fed too. But you can explore. pick up objects (letters etc) and twist them about to look at them kinda like Gone Home. You can read computer terminals to try and piece things together. If you want more story it's there.. And you'll probably want more story because most interesting part of the game so far for me is there's robots.. But theses robots aren't any normal ones, theses have started to think they're human. And the game approaches the idea of what does it actually mean to be human and mental health in eerie and cool ways. There's a part early on where I checked myself and was like wait a minute! It's just a robot, why I'm I caring. I want to speak about more but I'll leave it there. Has one else played it. It's been tense so far but not massively scary...yet. It's in the sale on PS4 for like £15 at the moment. I'd recommend it.

So, Soul Calibur is out and it's the first game i've played in the series since SC on the Dreamcast, so I have absolutely no idea what's changed since, though I understand it's a bit of a series reboot - with the story continuing on from the first SC. The weird thing is, after one match everything game flooding back. I remembered a few moves with some familiar characters and it soon set in how to get enemies in the air and juggle. I managed to play around ten games online with a mate and the experience was pretty smooth, with only a little stutter happening in a couple of the matches. One of the new features is the reversal edge - where everything slows down and you're both locked into a rock-paper-scissors situation with the winner pulling off some visually spectacular move. One thing that hasn't changed over the years is it's wardrobe, with a lot of flesh in display. Ivy looks like she's just stepped out of an Amsterdam window display, and clothes can be knocked off during a match. So yeah, really enjoyed my brief time with it last night. I'm surprised how natural it all felt after not playing an SC for 19 years. It has two story modes and a character creator to get stuck into so looking forward to getting stuck into the meat and potatoes of it over the weekend.

I'm a little surprised there isn't a thread for this already, maybe that highlights the problems Telltale had, but it was on PS+ which is why I have it. I've just finished the 2nd episode, so I guess still fairly early impressions, but the story is pretty good so far. I was wondering if they just packed some good stuff in to episode 1 to get people invested, but episode 2 carries it on pretty well. I'm not sure how much of it is cannon, because I'm not sure there'd be any coming back from it, nor do I think it could have been kept quiet for 20 years, but without going in to spoilers it's not worth getting in to. If this is it's own thing it means they can at least write the story they want Gameplay is fairly standard telltale stuff, picking conversation options and things being remembered. So far there hasn't been anything where I've picked it and it's illicited a response I wasn't expecting, I'm not sure how much it really matters beyond people just criticising your behaviour or praising it. What is new, to me at least, is the quick time events. I'm not sure it matters if you fuck them up, I'm pretty sure I've missed a few and still connected. Some feel like they don't give you enough time to respond, others give you an age. There's also sections where you explore an area, looking at evidence then linking it together, which is also how some fight prep works. It's all fine, certainly nothing that detracts from the story I was kind of impressed with how it looks, in episode 1 at least, then I had a conversation where Bruce Wayne's neck was round the wrong way. Episode 2 has more problems, it's framey and clips a lot, I'm guessing because they had less time

Gorogoa is a hand drown indie puzzle game that has been in development for years and years and was finally released today. It's gotten some very good reviews. Basically the game involves you interacting with pictures and moving them around in order to cause something to happen or open a way forward etc. It starts off easily enough but soon gets devilish. I've played it for an hour but am well stumped on Chapter 3 so I've taken a break, but I won't give up... Lovely game so far.

I've seen no mention of this game yet. Like a lot of games like this, it was pushed a bit on the Switch store but it's out on pretty much everything. I thought it looked really damn cool so I bought it. So its a platform kind of game but you don't move in the traditional way. You use the analogue stick to point yourself in the way you want to go and you zip there with a direct trajectory. It's a game you have to really learn from scratch as it's not quite like anything else. When combat is introduced it does vaguely (very vaguely) remind me of PN.03 and I'll take anything that gives me the feeling that game did. Your shot can be aimed the same way as the jump but it has a very short range, though it does have a bit of a spread. It means you really have to get in there to defeat enemies and it makes you really learn this kind of movement the hard way. Yeah, the game is pretty hard, babies. It's kinda preposterous with the plot. As it says in the trailer: "explore a directionless world", and a lot of the messaging in the game is this on the nose. So far I've inspired an artist and a musician to help me and their assistance actually moves parts of the world. But its so earnest I love it. And the one boss I've fought is basically M. Bison's (Dictator for our Japanese readers) disembodied head. There so many games like this at the moment so I think its got lost but I would say it's worth trying. It's a cool game.

Anybody else played this? Im about 4 hours in I guess, I'm not in love with it. It is slowly getting better but it's a hard game to go back to after the high of Syndicate and the change of direction that was Origins. My fault of course for not playing them in chronological order. Still, in order or not, the game feels like it lacks a flow. You sail everywhere in your bloody great ship, you slowly pull up to your destination, often stopping too far away then you have to jump in the water and swim to the dock and then you can carry on with the next bit of the story or whatever you are here to do. You do unlock fast travel shortly in to the game but obvioulsy you can only fast travel to places you've been. Also, the controls are clunky. Or clunkier than recent attempts. And you cant enter in to sneak mode either, the game does it for you when you are in bushes and the like. I don't like that. Story wise, you are Shay, you have a terrible Irish accent and the rest I couldn't give a single fuck about. I do like it now more than I did an hour in though, it does have a quality that makes me want to continue playing. It'sgot that big map to explore, it's got those treasure icons and collectibles all spread out, good old sandbox fun if that's your bag.

I bought this only because it was a fiver in the summer sales on the Xbox. I hadn't heard anything good about it to be honest but I'm a sucker for a bargain. It turns out it's fucking fun as fuck. I'm in the throws of a balls deep love affair with Prey but this has become the game I play every time I turn my Xbox on. For those who don't know, this is miniture golf but indoors (for the most part). You smash the ball around in shops and in kitchens and castle's and the likes, trying to rack up a high score. The aim is to cause as much monetary destruction as possible and you are rewarded at the end of your go by a bronze, silver, gold or platinum medal obviously depending on your score. You have to smash a certain number of objects with your tee shot to unlock a 'Smashbreaker' which lets you launch the ball back in the air and you have control over it's direction and what it smashes in to. This trailer pretty much show you what I said above: It's broken though. I've managed to slip between the boundries of the gameplay field a few times, the camera can be awful, you land inside objects and cant see a goddamn thing. You can drop inside buckets of water to extend your Smashbreaker by pressing both the triggers whilst above the object, the game let's you know there's an opportunity to do this by giving you an on screen indicator yet it's not 100% accurate, you can still miss. You can be square on to a putt and still miss, like it can sit right on the lip sometimes and other times it flys out of the whole like there was dynamite inside. For £5 though i can handle it's janky bullshit, i'm nearly done witht the campaign and it's been 15 hours of mostly great fun. I do love fun. Fun.

So does everyone remember Shadow of Mordor? The Tolkien-themed amalgamation of the best bits of the Arkham and Assassin's Creed franchises? How they added the fantastic Nemesis system to make it feel like a breath of fresh air? Well this is that game again. But The Witcher 3 has come out since then. Assassin's Creed: Origins has come out since then. Batman: Arkham Knight has come out and ruined that series since then. And this hasn't moved on at all. At least not in the first 6 hours or so. I mean, I might have ruined this game for myself in the first place by playing Origins not long before it, but it just feel so regressive to see where that series has moved on and this one hasn't. I mean, it's fun, and it's still got that beat to combat that made the first game feel so much fun to play, but it brings literally nothing new to the table up to now. And it's just so damn easy. Assassin's Creed absolutely punished you for taking on higher level enemies. Not only could you barely damage them, but you also got obliterated unless you high-tail it out of the area quick-sharp. I'm playing on normal and took out a level 15 orc at level 3. I'll try and make that the last comparison between the two games, but all the promotion for the first game constantly compared it to Ass Creed so it's kind of stuck in my brain that the two have a certain amount of crossover. Graphics are fine. Playing on a PS4 Pro and I've not noticed anything offensive, but neither is it particularly beautiful. Horizon: Zero Dawn blows it out of the water (as you'd expect). And I've not noticed any of the more offensive loot box stuff that got so much derision at launch. Apparently it's all in the end game and you need to splash out to get the true ending, but I'm not sure I'll care that much by then. It's fun. It really is. It has that pleasing gameplay loop of 'climb a tower, see some collectables, go get them, kill some orcs on the way. Rinse, repeat'. It's just that so much stuff has come out since the first one was released and this doesn't seem to have moved on at all. I'm disappointed. I wanted more. Maybe I need to play a few more hours. Maybe there's a big reveal that blows the game wide open and this is just to get me used to it again, or maybe they're just doing fucking weird shit with established lore to try and make more cash - Shelob, the big fuck off spider, being a hot gothic woman for example. Just put Yen from The Witcher into a Middle Earth cosplay and you've pretty much got an image of what they've done. I know nothing about LOTR, The Hobbit or any other Tolkien work by the way, I just know that Shelob is wrong. I'll keep playing, mainly for the brainless gameplay loop, and because the Nemesis system is still an awesome idea, but as it stands I'm a little disappointed in the lack of vision for this one. Which is a massive shame...

I've played over an hour of this now in about three 20 minute bursts. I like it but it is very different to Transistor (and the early parts of Bastion that I played). The game is part visual novel, part rpg. It's not as text heavy as a game like Sunless Sea (nor remotely as free-form), but the story is told through text like in the second picture above. Pyre is not remotely an action game. It's been described as a sports game in some reviews, but I think that's a bit laughably over the top. The "combat", known as Rites, does resemble a sport in that you have to take a ball and carry it into your opponents "pyre"...but I think this is the one element of the game that does resemble Transistor to some extent. Actually now that I'm typing this maybe it is closer to basketball than Transistor but anyway, I'm not going to call it a "sports" game just yet. During the basketball match (I've given up) you can perform actions like sprinting, jumping, passing and even throwing the ball into the enemy's pyre (oh my god it's basketball). If you don't have the ball you can cast your aura, i.e. attack an enemy. Each team has three characters and you can only control one character at a time. If a character is attacked they are banished for a certain period of time. Each individual character has stats that govern how much damage they do to an enemy pyre, how long they are banished for etc. Each character also has a skill tree and you can pick new abilities when they level up, and each character can also equip one "talisman" that has some kind of stat boosting effect. Those are the rpg elements. The visual novel elements are basically everything else. You move from point to point on the map (so far the game has been almost entirely linear) and this will usually trigger some kind of story event or conversation among your party that is told through text. In one hour I haven't experience much of the story but basically your characters are exiled in some kind of wasteland, and completing this rites ceremony seems to be some way to obtain freedom for them. There is no full voice acting (the characters make a few squables when they speak a la Zelda) except for the character who seems to control the rites, I don't know what it is but his voice seems to remind me of movies like Tron and Logan's Run. So far, it's an intriguing game, and you definitely can't accuse Supergiant of retreading old ground. Artistically, in terms of visuals and music, it's too early to comment but the signs are that this will match their earlier games.

Arcade race, gimmie. But, an arcade racer with a difference. There's a lot to explain... Made by ex devs of Motostorm under the employment of Codemasters by the way. I've been playing the single player campain which is called Superstar, so called because winning and fufilling certain tasks earns you stars which unlocks further progress. There is a multiplayer but I haven't bothered with it as of yet. The difference as i mentioned is it's all team games, two teams of eight to be precise. You are always Blue team, enemy is always Orange team. There are no positions, just objectives. There are 8 different vehicle classes but what you drive depends on what kind of event you're playing. Sometimes you can drive what you like and even switch mid game, others you are given a specific vehicle to use. Each vehicle type has it's own strengths and weaknesses as well as unique powers. The bikes for example are easily taken down but they are super fast. The other end of the spectrum is the Enforcer which is a fuck off great humvee type thing which is amazing at taking down opponents but suffers a little with speed. There are four event variants: Lockdown - Kind of like King of the Hill. A moving circle will appear on the track and your team has to have the most vehicles within that circle for 5 seconds to win a point. The circle can be disputed, it's green if it's neutral and turns orange or blue depending on the team with the most vehicles inside. Switch - You start off on bikes, fast but vunerable. Each player on each team can be taken down three times, each time you are taken down you go up a vehicle class (bike to buggy to humvee i think). The goal being to be the team that has the most remaining vehicle 'switches', so you need to try and survive in the weakest vehicle for as long as possible. It becomes a game of either being hunted or being the hunter. Countdown - You drive through time gates adding time to a clock that's constanly counting down, the more of your vehicles that go through each gate the moe time you get. So your trying to get through gates whist trying to bash your opponent out the way. Overdrive - This mode counts boosting as score. You earn boost by kumping, taking down both opponents and 'fodder' which are slow, weak and small neutral vehicles that drive round the track and also by tailing and scraping opponents. You try to link all these boost gaining opportunities together so as to use as much boost as possible, the more consistnet the boost the higher the score you get for your team. So the campaign is made up of different combinations of these game types. What's universal across all modes is the ability to activate 'Rush'. I explained how to build up boost, once you reach 100% boost used you can activate Rush to give you an advantage. This always involves you being faster and stonger for a limited amount of time but you also gain a special ability for the duration of Rush which differs with each vehicle type. Some vehicles will leave a harmful fire trail behind them, others leave like a warpfield behind them called Blackout that greatly effects your vision if you find yourself in it's trail. Ohters still have abilities benificial to the team memebers around them, like a shield or boost increase. Fucking hell, i'm going on I know but there's a lot to take in. Each time you win an event you get rewarded with stars for victory and like I said above stars unlock progress. There are also side objectives to achieve whilst racing that range from easy to hard. Easy examples are to take down a certain amount of fodder or hit a certain amount of time gates. Harder examples are to achieve certain types of takedowns or a certain amount of them. With these awarding stars you need to go for them if you want to unlock the latter stages and some are only awarded to you if you fulfill the objective AND win. Just a couple of random things worth mentioning are the fact that the game always tries to keep you in the action, if you fall behind it will automatically dump you back in the thick of things. Also, the tracks are large but circular so you are basically doing laps untill you complete your team objective. It looks great and it sounds great for the most part. It does play well, it's incredibly addictive but equally fucking frustrating, mostly due to the takedowns. It can be bloody hard to catch up to enemy players despite them normally being not that far infront of you. When you do get to them the takedown can go tits up in seconds. Even if you swerve in to them with all your might it depends where you end up hitting them. If you manage to clock them in the rear part of the vehicle the takedown is yours but if you hit the front of the vehicle you yourself get taken down which is horrificly annoying. Actually it borders on pure bullshit. You are then forced to watch the replay of them taking you down (whilst shouting FUCK OFF YOU CUNT I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU DOWN YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE) and then you wait 5 seconds for a respawn which feels like an eternity. Another big problem i have is visability. When it's night time in game you can't see fuck all. You have your objective to concentrate on, other vehicles absolutely everywhere and the track is littered with vehicle destroying rocks, trees and hazards. Sometimes I can barely race for getting decimated by a combination of shitty visbility and poor takedown recognition. However, every time i put it on im hammering it for three or four hours because it's so much fun. Annoying as fuck fun.

Sounds like someone just drew random words out of a hat innit? But you play as an assault android named Cactus so there. This is free on Xbox One at the moment as part of Games With Gold. It's a frenetic twin stick shooter, hook is you have a constantly depleting battery in the top centre of the screen which you can recharge as and when enemies drop them. Like @Sambob in a zoo, it's rock fucking hard. The play area's are small and the enemy dropm rate is high. You can press the L trigger to switch to a secondary weapon that normally has a bit of kick but it needs charging between uses. You start with a roster of 4 character with as extra one unlocking after each of the first 4 bosses. Each character has unique mains and secondarys and some levels benefit a certain type of weapon so there's abit of experimenting involved. I think i'm on the final zone but by Christ it's not been easy. Some enemies shoot big spikey bombs that can knock you down with one hit, this means you have to tap the button to get up and you get deducted points and lose your kill chain. Some enemies appear in the middle of the stage and shoot 4 way lasers that kill with one hit. It's an absolure fucker but it has that addictive 'one more go' quality. Here's the Giant Bomb quick look to get an idea of shiz:

Anyone else played this? I finished it about a week ago, here's my review: Another game that has seemingly been panned by the critics, and another I was apprehensive about picking up and playing as a result, but if you like cinematic story-driven games such as those found in the Uncharted series or The Last of Us I think you'll like The Order 1886 and enjoy it immensely. Let's start off with the games strongest part, the Graphics, they are absolutely sublime in every respect. Everything reflects off surfaces beautifully, there's shadows, light beams through windows of all shapes and sizes, puddles react realistically when trodden in, everything glistens in the rain, fog billows out of chimneys and in the air with a natural fluidity to it that hasn't been experienced before, The Order 1886 is the best looking console game of all time, full stop, it is just absolutely incredible and blows every game that had gone before out of the water, there are hardly any bugs in the game, the frame-rate is a solid 30fps throughout and the only technical blemish is the fact that mirrors don't reflect your characters reflection in game, that is it throughout the entire 9 and a half hours I spent with the game. Ready At Dawn have successfully melded cinematics into game-play, cut-scenes end and you're put right into the action, not realising at first that you're actually in control, the graphical fidelity is that strong that it borders on photo-realism at times it really is a sight to behold. The way Ready at Dawn have constructed the game means that cut-scenes, cut-scenes with QTEs, cover-shooting sections, boss sections, Lycan sections and exploration sections are all melded together into one all encompassing cinematic vision or experience, nothing feels out of place from the simple menu to the toned down HUD, everything in the game compliments one another and keeps this cinematic experience fluid and interlaced together for the player to enjoy, always immersing the player and never pulling their concentration out of the game. The story is integral to RAD's alternative version of Britain in the 19th Century and it doesn't disappoint, the start of the game is very clever in starting you off 3/4 of way through the game and then going back in time for you to piece together how Galahad got himself in that particular situation in the first place, it is very cleverly done and when it all comes together and you see what happens to Galahad after the Prologue the story really delights and includes a few twists and turns I wasn't expecting at all, I thoroughly enjoyed it throughout and cannot wait to see where RAD take the franchise in the future. The characters themselves are all very well realised, although a little more back-story to each wouldn't of gone amiss, the character development of Galahad over the course of the game is fantastically well realised by RAD, the other Knights of The Order have their own distinct personalities, backgrounds and motivations that you discover throughout. Another mention has to go to the game's soundtrack which compliments the game perfectly, ramping up the excitement when needed and giving a beautiful melancholic score that blends perfectly with TO1886's story and London location, as well as its graphical style, it is nothing less than sublime as well. The only negative points I had with the game were the Cover shooting sections and the Lycan shooting sections. I didn't mind the cover-shooting sections that much but it just felt very serviceable to me, like they'd just taken the cover shooting mechanic out of Uncharted and put it into TO1886 without any really modifications or differences, the only thing that brightens up the cover-shooting sections at times is some of the weapons available. A lot of them are your standard fair of Shotguns, Machine guns and Rifles but the Thermite Gun, Arc Cannon and Grenade Launcher all stand out from the rest and are an absolute ton of fun. The next negative point is the Lycan shooting sections, these appear periodically throughout the game and are essentially the same thing every time, something will happen in the story and you'll be left in a warehouse environment having to fend off some Lycans, there's no cover in these areas and you're left just with a X button prompt to avoid the Lycans attacks, before firing off your gun into them and eventually having to go and put them down, all the Lycan sections are exactly the same and don't innovate or do anything different from one to the other, they feel very crammed in, like RAD wanted to give you some enemy variety so decided to keep these sections in the game. You'll notice I didn't put the game's length as a negative in the paragraph above, that's because it took me 9 and a half hours to finish the game, not the 5 and a half as widely reported in the media, 9 and a half hours is probably slightly longer than the average length than the average CoD Single Player Campaign so I think no one should be put off by the length of the game. Overrall, The Order 1886, is a tremendously exciting, visually stunning portrayal of an alternative-history 19th Century London with a decent story, characters and impeccable visuals, for a fan of cinematic story-driven experiences I very much enjoyed my time with The Order 1886 and feel it has been harshly treated by the industry at large. 8/10 Also, picked up the Platinum Trophy in my time with the game :

Well this is a bummer of a story. In a good way. I won’t spoil any story stuff but well worth a couple of hours of your time and makes me look forward to LiS 2 even more. I’m gonna have to do it again as I think I missed quite a bit. Also I had to google one of the puzzle solutions, to unlock the mobile phone. And I’m glad I did as I would never have guessed the combination in a million years, and it’s not something you can just find lying about the place.

Surprised it's me starting this thread. First off it's pretty good. More Bionic Commando than Castlevania, with the powerups being more like Super Metroid (health, weapon boost). It looks nice apart from some glitching in the cutscenes, the sound's brilliant and in terms of budget it deserves the higher price point. I dont especially like the dicking about with plains, especially if you're just nipping out of cover and dont have time to manually aim. It's not always clear what can be used/walked on/smashed. Things like having to leap where there are in fact stairs is idiotic. I've also felt lost most of the way through the game, kind of just stumbling on plot points and never really allowed to explore like I want to. The single most annoying thing though is that you cant see enough of the screen half the time. You walk into a room and take damage because the game hasnt seen fit to zoom out to clue you in. you just have to shoot and hope, maybe legging it towards the enemy hoping to hit cover It is still good (seriously), but there's a few poor design decisions

Let me tell you the story of Vault 111. In the beginning, there was Vault 489 and it was a happy place. For about 30 minutes. It turned out that the Overseer really didn't know what he was doing and had badly misjudged how much power he needed and sent too many of his people out into the wasteland to forage instead of looking after the vault's meagre power station, canteen and water system. So the people left in Vault 489 were pretty much fucked. The Overseer being a heartless bastard abandoned his people and left for a bigger screened vault to look over (albeit with slower, more sluggish technology) and opened Vault 111 to the world. He was expecting maybe a round of applause or special item for naming it 111, but sadly that didn't happen. Everything was going pretty good. The people were happy, the vault was improving all the time. People went out looking for goodies while others stayed behind and looked after the vault, then everyone was called back to work together and help with booting out (or straight up murdering) raiders who broke in, killing giant roaches who burrowed in or putting out random fires. The Overseer paid special attention to hooking couples up in the private quarters and watching them pair up to make new little survivors. Of course the pregnant vault people were pretty useless in a fire or fight but could do any other job the Overseer told them to do. After a certain amount of time (approximately 3 hours), the pregnant survivors gave birth to little ones who would take the same amount of time to become an adult. The Overseer spent this time shouting at his control screen demanding the rubbish ankle biters "hurry up and drop your balls, for the love of Christ", as children can do absolutely nothing but wander the vault smiling in their stupid smug manner. The water, power, canteen and even the vault door got upgraded and everything was going well until supplies were running low and that stupid child wouldn't grow up quick enough and the other pregnant survivors weren't popping soon enough and people started getting sick. Then the roaches came and the Overseer pretty much gave up. About 6 of the 16 inhabitants died before he gave up, turned his control screen off and refused to go back to the vault. I'm sure later on he'll arrive at a new vault and start the whole process over again. With a new goal of seeing if he can cause incest, seeing as the men and women in there will pretty much fuck anything after a while.