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Before I start, I've got to say I didn't buy this collection. Instead, as I had the three games in my Steam account, they kindly upgraded them to the remastered versions. Well, BioShock 1 and 2, that is. It seems the PC version of BioShock Infinite was the best version already, so the consoles got that version, and I kept what I had. Anyway, for those who don't know, The BioShock Collection is all three BioShock games and their associated DLC in one package. BioShock 1 looks great. I'm running it on my new upgraded PC at 1080p 60hz, and all the sliders turned up to 11. Yes, it's not as good looking as a brand new game could be, but there's a noticeable difference between this new one, and the original. There's also an unlockable video diary of the making of BioShock, and apparently a museum you can walk around with prototypes and old ideas. All three games have challenge rooms now. I've not played BioShock 2 yet, but I've read that the upgrade is more subtle, and the multiplayer has been taken out. Anyway, my main thing with this free upgrade is I forgot how good a game BioShock 1 was. I booted it up last night, just to see what it looked like. Two and a half hours later, I'm still wandering around Rapture, and I'd freed my second Little Sister.

I've chucked a good 45 hours in to this. I let the game pick my name in it, I'm a female shield bearer named Stasi Shieldheart at level 56. I can click the right stick in and take a defensive stance that massively beefs her defense stats but consumes stamina and slows her movement. No magic, just a sword and heavy armour. Great game, incredibly deep if you care to delve in more but you can also just rush around and mash the attack buttons, just make sure you have a ton of potions.

So far it's kind of Deus Ex Human Revolution but with better combat and tweaked augment mechanics. The latter sort of work like Crysis now, only with an rpg element so they're incredibly limited until you dump some points in to them (presumably, I haven't got to that point yet. You have skills like silent walking, Batman vision, cloaking, and another one, all of which use your energy meter. This will refill a bit, but it really is only a bit, otherwise you need to eat this game's version of the energy bar from Human Revolution So far I've been stealthy bollocks, although I had to reload a save because the kill to knock people out is the same as killing them, the difference it a tap and holding it down for a nano second. Also, while I'm having a bit of a pop at the controls, the augments are on the F keys (F1, F2 etc), sort of fair enough, I assume they're on the dpad if you're using a controller, but the F keys aren't really easy to find, they should be on the mouse wheel or something It looks pretty The animosity towards Jensen, and all augments presumably but Jensen is the only one I've encountered so far, is a bit heavy handed, but one of his squad shouting "Great fucking job Jensen you fucking bell end" made me laugh

I managed to play a few hours last night, managing to get off the starter planet and visit five or six more. My first thoughts are that it's not a game for everybody - but i'm enjoying just pottering around the planets, hunting down points of interest and making a killing by trading on the galactic exchange. The starting ship looks a bit like a bath tub with rockets strapped to it so i'm prioritising a new one that looks better and has more space to haul my loot. Out of the five or so planets i've visited, i've found an ice planet, a planet of toxic rain covered in phallic looking bright green tree's, and a planet covered in mostly water, where I lucked out and found a bunch of monuments clustered together that taught me some new alien lingo, which by understanding the word 'rare' made me give a load of rare minerals to what looked like a third member of Daft Punk and make him happy. My favourite animal so far is what I can only describe as a meat based slinky with an elephant face, although seen plenty of variety - followed a weird bouncing sea anemone type thing around for a while as it was so bizarre. My only disappointment so far is that they seem to have made it impossible to crash your ship. Theres an invisible barrier above all planets that means you can only get as close to 50 or so feet above the ground. Landing is simply holding down square for a few seconds. But so far so good - as said, not a game for everyone - it's a really slow/gentile game to play - in fact probably one of the most relaxing games i've ever played. And i can't stop thinking about it either.

Bought this back in the Summer sale but only just got round to playing it. Been wanting to play it for ages because I love L4D and this seemed like almost a carbon copy of that game swapping Zombies for Rats. It's pretty much as I expected really, the template is so incredibly close to L4D its unbelievable really, if it weren't for the medieval looking maps it could honestly be a rat-people mod for L4D/L4D2, even the outlines for allies when they're slightly off-screen are the same green and red as Valve's masterpieces. Despite being rats some of the enemies behave in incredibly similar ways too, there's one that pilots a gatling gun (a ratling gun...), one that throws poisonous gas at the group, one that sneaks up on you and pins you to the ground and one that whips you away, even saw one that looked like an L4D tank, there's a few armoured rats too. The maps themselves don't feature safe-houses, but constant rolling objectives to fulfil, choke points with hordes of enemies and bosses/mini-bosses to slay, all the maps seem to have a medieval aesthetic so far but I've only played 2 missions so I can't be sure, can't say they're as interesting as L4D's maps though. Where it differs from L4D is in the protagonists and Loot system, there's 2 melee characters and 2 ranged/magic characters to choose from which offers more variation to L4D's line-up, and there's a loot system where the game will virtually roll a dice after you successfully complete a mission and give you a rare or common bit of loot on a sliding scale determined by the RND. So yeah, it's quite a lot of fun and for anyone that likes L4D I think they'll like this, enemies aren't quite as satisfying to beat up and the weapons aren't quite as nice to shoot/swing but still worth a go if you're looking to scratch that L4D itch that Valve has left unfulfilled. Only on PC at the moment but believe it's coming to console in the very near future.

I might be the only one who has this? I think it came out a month or two ago and is currently on sale for about a fiver so bought it last night. It's pretty much a love letter to old 8-bit computer games, not like the American kind but the good old British stuff like Head Over Heels, Nebulus, Spin Dizzy, Marble Madness, etc. It's a pretty good puzzler so far and I'm very early on so judging by the trailer, I've got loads more to see.

Anyone else given this a go? This is one of this month's freebies on PSN and although at first I didn't think much of it, after a bit more play and some online, I think it's a really cool twist on Tetris. There's different modes to play but the simple description is Tetris with physics. The big change is that you can move half steps left and right and rather than compete lines to get rid of them, you either build up to a finish line or fit as many pieces as you can in a small area. All the while dealing with the fact that physics play a big part and your construction could fall apart at any minute. I've played some online matches and it seems to work pretty well.

Started playing this this evening. @Nag will be pleased to know the servers are still a bag of shit. Once it finally installed I completed the first... Mission? Then it logged me out and proceeded to get itself stuck. The game play seems like a lot of fun though.

I think a handful of us have this now? I watched this video of it the other day and just had to have it: http://youtu.be/BAW-2Fl5KLE I've only played a couple of matches against AI which isn't great, to be honest, but I think it will be pretty special with a group of us. It reminds me of Rocket League in that it's like a version of football I can get behind. It really does play like "Asteroids meets football". You move with the left stick and only use one button to either tap for small shots or hold down for different strengths of shot. Or hold down even longer and make a solid block appear. That's pretty much it. I'm off for a few days from today so if anyone wants a game, give me a shout.

HAWKEN is a free to play game and i'd describe it as a budget mech fps. Think Titanfall, always in the Titans, but don't think Steel Battalion, It's not that slow paced. It doesn't have AAA monies thrown at it and looks to have had a troubled upbringing: Developer(s) Adhesive Games (defunct) Reloaded Games(acquisition)[1] Publisher(s) Meteor Entertainment (defunct) 505 Games (acquisition) I can't say that I didn't enjoy what I played. If anything it needs to be a bit more in your face and make you feel like you're a badass. A little like rocket leagues boom goals or Battlefields/CoDs levelled up sounds would have been nice. To begin with it just throws you straight in and doesn't tell you the controls. I played a few matches before realising holding down O/B replenished your health. Killing an enemy mech has them drop energy which also replenishes you a little. You can't go in guns blazing either as you're overheat and I'm not sure if this blows you up instantly or if you just become completely weak to attacks. The starting mech's 'special' allows for a short time of keeping cool whilst shooting your machine gun with L2 and your rocket launcher with R2. L1 boosts in in whatever direction you're holding so it's also a dodge mechanic and R1 allows you to jetpack around, both of these uses your fuel which replenish when not in use. Graphically the arenas a bit horrible and muddy. It does the job I suppose but a little more spit and polish would have been appreciated. The mechs themselves look ok and there seems to be plenty of them. What there isn't plenty of is players. A few of my matches were terribly one sided. Some were 4 vs 1. A message would pop up begging you to switch sides to make it more even which is embarrassing enough but the message itself was bugged or something and would say something like "Press ['outerboy_autocorretion'] to switch sides to make it even". Maybe there are players there but the match making system is tosh. The first time you start playing online you have to select a region and from what I can tell you couldn't select to include all. The rewards from finishing matches is confusing to me but I'm new to this free to play structure. From what I can tell it's a rip off. It seems like there are 2 kinds of credits. Blue earned in game and red only available using real money? For example, everything in the menu for customising your mech was only available if you had red credits available, while other sections had the option of using either a lot of blue credit or some red. I could have just explained every F2P game ever but I didn't seem to be getting very much back for my time playing. Although admittedly that was only for just over an hour I should have come away with some treats to make me want to jump back in as at the moment I'm on the fence about it. 3 mechs (out of 5).

Me and Sam gave this a go last night. It's a board game with multiple win conditions for 4 players. There's a lot to learn and tons of depth and just as soon as I thought as I was getting a handle on the combat, an AI player attacked me from a stealth position (so you can't see where they are on the board) and then the card battling system is disabled for that turn. So that was shit. You have to go round the hex board picking up quests and fighting the other players, plus other AI guards and creatures. The fighting is done with a dice system but you can also burn cards for better chances or more protection. The aim is to take over the king's position at the end. By the end, he will definitely die and you have to be in the best position to take his place, either by having more power and influence than the others, by killing him and surviving or by collecting 4 stones which will heal him. There's a lot to it and if anyone else is interested, this video shows it better than I can explain.

This is the game you got this month with PS+ and I think it's the best thing they've put up in ages. Furi is all kinds of games. It's a twin-stick shooter crossed with a Ninja Gaiden style brawler that has almost Punch Out style bosses. And the fights are just with bosses; guys and gals like you with unique attacks and patterns. Fights are long, but escalate well making them not seem like a chore, except maybe when having to repeat certain parts if you're unsuccessful since some attack phases require you to just dodge stuff while you wait for an opening to strike. The fighting feels pretty good. It's maybe a little sluggish but apparently a patch is on the way which is good because the dash would be better if it came out a little quicker. There are no combos or anything to learn as you just hammer the square button to use your sword. It's more about timing and being in the right place, as well as taking advantage the parry you can do. You can also use the right stick to shoot in any direction, and all attacks have a charged version by holding down the button. It just all comes together to make a really cool game. The enemies attack patterns make things more interesting and they are the most creative examples I've seen in the genre for a long time. Visually it lacks a bit of polish but the art direction looks amazing at times and the soundtrack is spot on. It has that haunting synth sound that is really popular at the moment and shows up a lot but there is just something in how it mixes with the visuals that shows your game doesn't have to look like Hotline Miami or be an indigo and neon racing game for it to work. I mean, some of the game does look like that but each boss comes with their own environment so its used along with a different look. The story is presented mysteriously but not in a way that's obnoxious; it's quite pulpy. So yeah. This is definately a cool game. I think it's worth trying out. It is hard but... y'know: hard games are cool.

If you've played the last one, Crimes and Punishments, then you should know what this is all about. If not, it's an adventure game where you have all sorts of choices about the cases and can actually get it completely wrong or decide on an outcome way before you properly finish the case. This is very much a follow-up, but they've changed the character models and voice actors and added some extra action sequences. There seems to be more an open-world approach too but not too drastic in that direction. I'm only 2 cases in so far but it's been good stuff, more of the same. I'm sure of you're not as arsed as me it'll end up dirt cheap or free on the Plus or Gold things eventually. But if you like a good detective game it's worth picking up.

I'll just put a general thread down for Xrd. I'm currently playing - Revelator - though there was - Sign - that came out last year (or the year before maybe?) to keep you up to date. I don't actually think there is much difference in the versions apart from a couple of new characters, some on disc that were DLC in past version and some other minor changes that spruce things up a bit more in-game. I think one is the ability to cash in your 'Burst' to make a stronger super and not you can tech throws. I'm sure that stuff makes a difference to those that play a lot, especially the throw tech-ing, but it isn't as dramatic a change the series usually sees with each iteration (from what I've been lead to believe). I don't really know where to start describing it. In a way it's kinda easy because most attacks chain so you can mash out combos that look cool, and most special moves can be used an an ender, much like any other fighting game. What I'm finding unusual so far is just how long these combos can go for. When I was messing around I discovered I could cancel a special move into another then into another which would make the opponent bounce on the ground left open to juggle some more. That is unheard of in SF so even getting in the mindset to do that is odd for me. Having it that open ended is scary. But it is all in the mind as from I can tell there is some major damage scaling with long combos so I suspect it isn't so much about doing optimal damage but showing off. There is a lot of movement in GG as well, what with your air dashes and stuff but it does mean I have no idea how to be defensive other than be as wacky as the other guy. I'm sure there is a method to the madness that happens in a GG match but I haven't found it yet. But it is a lot of fun even though I've not totally grasped it yet. The game looks amazing. I still can't get over what they did to the Unreal Engine to get it to do this. Special mention goes to the tutorial as it is a lot more fun than any other. It basically turns the game's mechanics into a mini-game that gives you a good idea of how the things are working. There is also a more challenging mission mode that teaches you match-up specific techniques and common tactics used by certain players. It is all very educational. But at the same time I still don't think it prepares you for going against someone. Like any other fighting game the best lessons just come from diving in and being mindful of what is happening, but it does prep you better. There is a lot of game here but it is mostly tutorial stuff. There is an arcade mode to go through which alters it's difficulty from match to match by how well you're doing and there is a 'M.O.M' mode which I don't understand at all but doesn't seem all that interesting in my opinion. There is also a story mode which, again, is just watching anime. So I guess it's not a game to get unless you do want to learn it. It's not like Mortal Kombat where you can get a lot of enjoyment out of it without getting competitive. I wish there was more of that here. But it's fun. I'm giving it a college try. I've not won a game online yet out of 10... I did take a round once... But it's fine, fights are close, I'm just not pushing the envelope and the only people that play it clearly have a decent grasp of it so things could be a lot worse. I just need to improve my muscle memory and know what to do to defend then the wins will roll in.

This has been out a while but I've been playing it lately. Did anyone else? It's what some may call an 'old school' shooter. I started fairly unimpressed with it at first. The shooting felt a bit floppy, the swordplay which is also a big part of the game didn't become immediately apparent how to use effectively and it has a really obnoxious head bob for some reason. I'm not susceptible to motion sickness in games but I guess this game proves otherwise. But I stuck with it as there was something keeping me playing, and in doing so I unlocked more skills, moves and perks which started to show me that it wasn't as dumb as it looks. The game has you learning magic and moves for your sword that are pulled off by double tapping in a direction with the left stick and the pressing the left or right trigger. It gives the game a brawler/shooter hybrid feel but on a controller those inputs don't work that well. I can see it working well a keyboard but this is something that hasn't translated well. I'm now more used to it, you basically can't put in the input too quickly, but it took a long time to pull these moves off consistently. This was released as a budget game but so far it feels as long as a campaign in a retail game. But it does have very limited enemy types and it's only really the levels that stop it getting too repetitive since they do get smart with the kill rooms and the drip feeding of new skills also gives you more things to play with in similar scenarios. It's not just the head bob that is obnoxious, though. Shadow Warrior is a reboot of a game from the 90s that was a stablemate of Duke Nukem so of course the game tries to be funny. Credit where it's due; it sometimes - sometimes - is. But expect typical dreadful video game humour; all smart arse quips that aren't that smart, dad jokes and dank memes (there is a 'all of your bases are belong to us' reference for no reason. I wanted to eject the game from my PS4 and eject it out of the window when that happened, but it's yet another downside to the digital future). I'm drawing to the end now, I think. The game is quite fun overall, though.

I've already played the start of the game a few times now, and with all the average press i was starting to get a bit down on this despite having been looking forward to it for ages. anyway so far i think it's a bit like the first game, awesome but flawed, maybe a bit of a missed opportunity to make it all amazing. i just did a level that i loved, the view was amazing, there was some nice running away from people, finding the right route up a tower, some nice jumping to find some hidden stuff, it was really great. combat is a bit of a mixed bag, jumping over something and smacking a dude in the face as you land and running off is great fun, but sometimes you have to stop and fight which is much less fun. the directional kicks so you can kick people into each other or off buildings is cool. other mixed stuff is the some of the side missions are too difficult imo - they need a 3 star rating like the timetrials to avoid frustration - i tried a delivery one and had to retry it maybe 20 times to finish it, you have to find alternate routes to complete it in the time as far as i could tell - this isn't really a bad thing but at the start of the game i just want to have a quick go to get 1 star or something then later go back to it to try and do better. there was a similarly annoying distraction mission that's basically impossible without many retries and finding shortcuts, again not really a bad thing if you know what youre getting into. i actually had a good sense of achievement and ended up enjoying these missions when i knew what i needed to do, but they were really frustrating at first. anyway i know to avoid them unless until i'm in the mood for that sort of thing now - i'll probably enjoy them after finishing the main missions. the main mirrors edge gameplay of parkouring about the place is still there and is generally great fun imo. it looks great, runs nice and smooth, well except for a bug i'm having on pc where the cutscenes stutter and the audio is completely out of sync. so there you go.

Quoting the kickstarter - "Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Descend at your peril!" Anyway, it was funded for over $300,000 in March 2014, spent a year on Early Access and eventually released in January this year. It's due out on PS4 later in the summer. It got good reviews and and has a "very positive" Steam user rating with around 15,000 votes. I've played it for an hour so far, it's cool. The game is structured like Sunless Sea in that you have a base, a safe haven, where you can buy provisions, recruit new members, take on quests etc etc. You can only set out with a party of four each time, but you can have way more than four people hired. One of the things you can do in the base camp or "hamlet" is assign people to certain activities which will reduce stress (like dread in Sunless Sea). If someone is assigned to an activity, you can't take them with you on your next trip. I'm not going to drone on about the mechanics in the game, but it is pretty similar to Sunless Sea really. Combat is turn based. Your party stands in formation and different characters have a preferred position...it's not what it sounds like. Both yours and the enemies position will affect the range of your attacks. That's all I can say about it so far. I did the introductory quest.

Doom! Doom is back! ROAR etc. And after a 5.02 gig update I got to play it too. After a pleasingly short intro you're straight in to the action because stories are for girls. The movement is super slick, old school Doom style, you really ping about like you are wearing buttery shoes or cum-laden socks. Certain enemies dont hang about either. You start off with a pistol but soon pick up a Shotgun. You can shoot enemies to death or.. shoot them till they stager, then they glow orange and blue and this is your prompt to melee them to death in what's called a 'Glory Kill'. The benefit of this is that it makes health pop out of the dying bad guys body. If in real life you stabbed someone in the head and cake popped out would you do it? I've added an Assault Rifle, Plasma Gun and a Chainsaw to my arsenal since. The actual weapons can be upgraded from these little floating robots you see here and there, for example my shotgun can be charged by holding the L trigger, then upon firing with R it spits out powerful explosive rounds (that then need a small cooling off period before re-use). Each weapon actually seems to have two upgrades each, Ive so far also upgraded my Assault Rifle to spit out a volley of missiles which is cool and a second shotgun one that lets you fire rounds in quick succession. You can swich between uprgades with Up on the D-Pad. The chainsaw is a little different. So far it has three fuel cells. The bigger the enemy, the more fuel cells it will take to kill. The plus of using your chainsaw is that it will cause enemies it kills to spill ammo, super handy if your running low so using it it becomes tacticle. Also, the fuel cells have to be refilled by little gas containers that seem to be scarce so far, this obviously stops you using it all the time as it's a one hit kill machine so they had to nerf it or the game would be a piece of piss. It's a really good idea and well used. The levels are fairly decent in size, i have only done the first three but the third level was pretty big. The story is there, it's just introduced slowly and in bits instead of a big lump at the beginning. You bump in to a couple of people along the way, i wont spoil the story incase your interested in discovering it yourself but there's hsit going on, giving you purpose I suppose, if it's needed. I had to use the map to find my way a couple of times as the in-game pointers send you in a specific direction but there are two or three levels of depth sometimes and there is no up or down indicator. This isn't a problem, just saying. The doors make the same sounds as in the original too, i liked that. You need red, blue and yellow keys too which is a nice touch and you pick up green armour in both bits and in whole, like a floating chestplate, just like back in the day. What else. You upgrade your armour, like you can make yourself less vunerable to environmental hazards like exploding barrels and you can give yourself a spidey sense to detect secret areas (of which there are apparently tons but I think i've only found one). There are also in game missions that reward you with upgrade tokens, like kill two enemies with one shotgun blast or melee kill x number of enemies in a certain way. You also get rewards for killing a certain amount of enemies which I just narrowly missed on the third level. It's kinda tough. I'm playing on Hurt Me Plenty (normal) and I've died a few times. The enemies are furious and when they are in number it can be a battle to survive. This is a good thing, makes you play cautiously, backing off where you can, going for glory kills to top up your health, hopping you've saved a chainsaw use to earn some extra ammo. Finally, not far in to the game, scenery wise it reminded me of Metroid. Sandy scenery as far as the eye could see and a desolate lonely feeling. And later, when I was battling hordes of enemies with a similar backdrop I got to thinging how cool a Metroid game with these controls could be. But that's just a deam. Anyways, I wont get to play this again untill Saturday but then I was gonna have a go on the multiplayer and report back. Enjoying this so far.

I'm a few hours in, and I don't want to Ed all over the place, but I think this might be a really really good game. Basically they've taken Uncharted 3 and fixed a bunch of stuff. The framerate is solid, which makes shooting easier, plus they've tweaked that a bit anyway. It's still a little awkward, but you're aiming with analogue sticks, it's never going to be perfect. The melee combat stuff has been massively improved, so far it's not as drawn out as in 3. In 3 I felt like if I didn't just spark my enemy out I was definitely going to be shot in the back by everyone else enough times to kill me It looks amazing. It's not as funny as previous games so far, but the interactions are really well done, they've really spent a lot of time, and presumably money on it. I've been in maybe 4 locations, 5 if you count the 2nd part of one, and I feel it was only in the last chapter the game really got going.

This is up for free on PS+ right now, and I played it, so here is some impressions. I think I just want to vent. Man, do I hate this game. And for God's sake did I not want to hate it, I didn't want to be that guy. Table Top Racing is made by X-Wipeout folk, and that game rules so, so much. And after Sony Liverpool was dissolved this was what came out. A total mess. I'm heartbroken. It looks like Micro Machines from the 90s. I'm from the 90s, and I liked those Micro Machines games. They should have me in the palm of hair hands, nodding to a game from the 90s with me, as desperate as I am to hold on to my youth (got ID'd last week, I'm still a teen really). But no, this game is really, really confused. It is a lot like Micro Machines in a way. The tracks take place on table tops and its all small and cute, avoiding bread sticks and stuff. But, one of the 'cars' you can buy at the start to race in is the Breaking Bad meth wagon (it has official licencing) so I dunno what they're going for with tone ( Coming from a Mobile origin I guess who cares?). But screw all that: It's about the gameplay. That's what gamers tell me. Even though it is Micro Machines in presentation and has adult content officially licensed in a game that doesn't warrant it... and has a soundtrack that tries to beat Motorstorm: Pacific Rift despite in wubs despite not building up the atmosphere to make it work. The game itself is just shitty. It's a crude mobile port. Knowing it came from a gyroscode design I do respect it in a way. It's a Mario Kart style game that solely requires knowing the tracks for the best racing line, a lot like Wipeout I guess, but it is just executed in such an unsatisfying way; a way that is so unfun, especially compared to Mario Kart which it clearly tries to be as well; a game where it is more fun the faster you go thanks to the drift mechanic. This game punishes going fast in a silly way, despite presenting itself as Micro machines, at least visually. It's like it requires you to drive carefully, be sensible, hitting those apexes right (in a game where you drive through billiard balls like they're paper, with wubs, driving a meth van, with Mario Kart power ups). It's just all wrong. Play it! Tell me it works! I just can't believe these veterans got this so wrong, or they don't care anymore and just want to make something to tick enough boxes for loads of people to work. But this shit doesn't click, and it won't work on a large audience.. I guess they looked a Rocket League and thought they had the game to be this year's version. I expected better from these guys. Fuck this game. It's the fucking worst. Fuck this game. I've not hated a game this much in ages. Thanks for that, I guess.

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.

Played the first 2 hours earlier. Really enjoyed it I must say, the visuals are fantastic, frame-rate very smooth, everything feels incredibly polished, love the humour and the way the story is being told from a slightly abstract angle too. The gameplay isn't anything mind-blowing, but it's just so bloody fun. It's great to be playing a colourful platformer again, and the way Insomniac meld the Platforming in with the TPS elements are great too, it just feels such a natural fit and the guns already feel unique to use, its surprisingly cinematic at times too and there's a set-piece on a Train that reminded me of Uncharted! The combat strangely reminded me of an old-school FPS at times due to all the strafing, crazy guns and the number of enemies that are involved in the action. So, yeah, an impressive start, I couldn't help but smile and giggle at some of the one-liners and in-jokes along the way, Ratchet and Clank is a pleasant place to be.

Played 2 hours of it earlier, after it finished unpacking on Steam just after 11. Initial impressions are very positive I have to say, despite my protestations earlier in the year about this coming only a year after Bloodborne and 2 years after DS2 - and thinking I was a little tired of the format and style - it turns out that I was wrong, and I'm definitely not tired of the format or style of these games and had an absolute whale of a time with it I have to say. Surprisingly I actually felt happy to be back in this world, it felt like returning home after a brief sojourn out the Country to find somebodies slightly moved all your furniture around and re-decorated the house. The introduction to the game is definitely the easiest and most genteel of all the SoulsBorne games, there is an actual dedicated Tutorial area right at the beginning, with enemies set up in exact positions for you to practice your moves on (just don't ignore the 'turn back' note on the floor ) with no real danger of being obliterated from behind by some ridiculously overpowered enemy. This carries on into the next area and the first boss, which feels like a 'Souls tutorial boss' rather than something daunting or difficult, it teaches you how to defeat a boss, how to block/roll out the way of a bosses moves, strategise Estus Flasks, when to use an opening etc. It's a far cry from the soul-crushing first-boss in the original Dark Souls that's for sure, and easier than the Cleric Beast in BB, it's by far and away the easiest Souls game to get into. The hardest thing for me to get used to though, was the XB1 controller, I'm just so used to playing the SoulsBorne series with a DS3/DS4 Controller that I was completely bewildered by the stick placements, button placements and how annoying the Bumpers are considering you use them A LOT, I may have to switch over to my DS4 tomorrow, but I'm not sure if the game will have the correct PS buttons on display or not. I was also incredibly rusty as well, having not played Bloodborne since this time last year which didn't help, I must've died about 5 times on the first boss by doing incredible stupid shit like parrying my shield instead of blocking, using an Estus Flask instead of rolling, shit like that slightly embarassing really, but as time goes on I'll eventually re-learn everything and it'll be second nature like it was on BB and DS2 before. It really is fantastic to play it at 60FPS as well, I know people don't like talking frame-rates etc. but it makes such a huge difference, if I went back to play BB on PS4 right now it would feel like walking through sludge, it's crazy how much snappier it makes everything, and the combat is just incredible in 60 frames. The game looks pretty good, it hasn't floored me as such, but it has its moments (God Rays, Dragons etc.) where it's a pretty amazing sight to behold, that melancholy and haunting beauty the SoulsBorne series is known for really comes through in the art design, bits of scenery don't look as polished as perhaps they should be however. The enemy designs are all pretty familiar though really, I've just been facing the usual Zombie-like creatures you face at the start of most SoulsBorne games really, but the 'Venom' transforming creatures definitely give you something to think about and keep you on your toes. A mention must go to the music as well, even when I just turned the game on and heard it bellowing out through my headphones I got slightly overcome by it, it is just an absolutely fantastic orchestral choir score that really helps the games ambience and made the one Boss Fight I've had so far feel incredible unique and powerful. So yeah, it's a SoulsBorne game pretty much, but it's more accessible than ever, the combat feels great and the Boss Fights get your blood-pumping like only a SoulsBorne boss-fight can. And a few pics:

Played 10 hours of this so far, mostly with Sly and Small, absolutely loved every second of it I must say, and a whole lot more than when I played the Alpha in January. The game looks bloody stunning on PS4, the frame-rate seems to be 30 but incredibly stable (had no noticeable hiccups at all) and I haven't seen any bugs whatsoever, someone who I was playing with a bug right at the beginning (I think due to server overload) where everyone was queuing up to enter a button on a computer terminal to complete an objective in the Tutorial, but apart from that I've not noticed anything personally, just the odd bit of pop-in every now and again which is an extremely minor fault. Everything just looks so much better than the Alpha I played in January, I guess that's to be expected as that was running at 900p on the 'Bone apparently and the frame-rate, stuttering and screen-tearing was horrendous back then, but now, on PS4 at least, it's just buttery smooth, easily the most polished and stable Ubisoft game I've played in quite some time. As for the gameplay, well there isn't too much different here if you played the Alpha and/or Beta I guess, but the gunplay in particular (to me) feels slightly better, and more satisfying when you pop a headshot, it has almost that Destiny-level of Headshot satisfaction now which wasn't present in the Alpha I found, the main missions are fucking amazing (especially with friends), all seem rather varied and there's tons of them, tons of side-missions to do and that's not even mentioning the Dark Zone which I haven't been able to access yet (only got up to Level 10 earlier today). So yeah, an incredibly impressive first 10 hours with the game, can't really see me changing my mind, but we'll see I guess, really wish I got the Gold Edition when it was on offer on Amazon now because I just know I'll want that season pass. Also, Me and Sly played a few hours with Jim-fucking-Sterling-son and made it into his Division video , it was an honour playing with the man, the myth, the legend himself a couple nights ago: http://youtu.be/rP7YJYk9ubM?t=23m24s

Started playing this today, put in about 3 hours. Not really sure what to make of it at the moment, the game looks bloody gorgeous (You can see where Coldwood spent that EA money!), the soundtrack is great, but at its heart it just feels like an average platformer really. If I had to compare it I'd say it feels most like LittleBigPlanet, that kind of floatiness to the controls (if that makes sense) happens in Unravel too, it definitely isn't a tight platformer like Ori and the Blind Forest or Donkey Kong Country, and I don't think it was ever trying to be like those games in its design, but the controls could've been tighter and snappier in my view, from what I've played anyway. What I didn't realise going in was how incredibly infuriating and frustrating a game it is, it just gets me so fucking riled up it's unreal, I've got stuck twice already and had to look up what I need to do online, was just pottering about for 15 minutes trying to get past a certain section and of course I find what I need to do, feel like an idiot and I'm on my way. Some of the problems can be put down to the timing-based platforming sections I've encountered I guess (where the controls don't help), coupled with the harsh check-pointing employed. You can figure out what you need to do in order to progress, almost complete an entire section, accidently drop into some water and suddenly have to start all the way back at the previous checkpoint, just seems needless really. Despite the issues the game has and its mediocrity (in platforming terms) I am still vaguely enjoying it, it's pleasant enough, the environs are amazing and Yarny is charming enough to keep me playing, but I can already tell its going to be a bit of a slog if it goes on for any longer than the 5-6 hours I'm assuming it lasts.