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Well, this is officially out now, I got my code from CD Keys around 7:30pm yesterday. Pre-loaded straight away after that on GOG Galaxy (28gb install), and after I'd watched this week's Game of Thrones I fired her up, played the first hour or so (headphones ran out of juice otherwise I would've played more) can't really give any thorough impressions just yet but the combat still seems a bit shithouse to me (never liked it in The Witcher 2) and the graphics look pretty incredible (despite the downgrade) in almost fully-Ultra settings on PC. Just within that opening hour I've found myself wandering away from the main quest, exploring little villages and cubby holes so it bodes well for the rest of the game, shall give it a proper run-through later today.

I picked this up at the weekend. It's good fun, especially if you have OCD for making things in video games. It's really great in co-op too, 2 player local, and 4 player drop-in drop-out online. here's a link to a video that explains the game. http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/17/5518468/nom-nom-galaxy-overview-video

Developer: Slightly Mad Studios Publisher: Bandai Namco Games Platform: PC, PS4, XB1, Wii U Release Date: 7th May 2015 (Digital PC), 8th May 2015 (Physical all versions). So, Project CARS is a community funded semi-SIM racing game, developed by the guys that made NFS: Shift and NFS: Shift 2 Unleashed, its just been released this past Thursday/Friday, and here are some of my impressions. Initial Impressions: Started at the very beginning of the Career mode in the Karts, ridiculously hard to get used to the handling and everything, restarted the very first race about 10 times as I kept sliding off here, there and everywhere finished the UK Karting Championship and then went onto the main Karting Championship or whatever its called, won these and reached towards the end of my first season and left it there. There is a lot to like about it, but it just felt pretty dull to me, pretty vanilla, just a bog-standard Forza/GT clone. There was no real incentive to keep going other than wanting to win, in Forza you level up, get tons of cash, cars etc. when you finish a championship, there's none of that here, you just get a trophy and then simply move onto the next season and/or championship, not sure how much more time I'm going to put into the career mode to be honest. After this I decided to try my hand at the online side of things, definitely had more fun with this but it was still a bit hit-and-miss really, some of the lobbies I was going into had numerous settings I had no clue about, like manual shifting, I literally had no idea, pushed the accelerator off the start-line, didn't go anywhere and ended up dead last, the cars are also ridiculously difficult to control, you have to seriously feather the throttle everywhere otherwise the torque of the car will just throw you off into a wall, ridiculously hard to get used to, and not fuck things up but if you nail it is is damn satisfying, more fun with real opposition for sure, always the way really in racing games really, just wish there was some standardised control scheme/difficulty level for the online side of things and not a 50/50 chance you're going to get some mad settings when you enter a game. Further Impressions: OK, my thoughts have changed quite a bit on this now. After initially finding it a bit clinical and dull (in the career mode anyway), I decided to put on the Project CARS Drum 'n' Bass playlist from Spotify in the background, made the entire game 100% better, I'm not even joking, I can't play this serious car games without some decent music on, and this made the whole experience of piloting a cart/touring car etc. exhilarating rather than a bit dull like I found it before. I'm about mid-way through Season 2 in the Career mode and I'm loving it so far, it still lacks that XP-progression system from Forza but I still find it addictive, I'm driving A LOT of varied cars now, from Karts, Super-Karts, Touring Cars, Caterhams etc. every car feels incredibly different from one another, and you have to relearn your braking lines, racing lines etc. everytime you pilot a new car in a new event Another special shoutout has to go to the track variation, I'm constantly bemoaning the track selection in the last few Forza's, going around the same tracks I've gone round a million times before in previous games, just with longer, reversed etc. versions just isn't that fun to me, almost every track in this is different, I haven't played that much of the campaign, but already I've experienced racing at Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Oulton Park, Spa, Sonoma Raceway, Dubai Autodrome, Silverstone, Zolder, Barcelona, Donington Park, Monza and numerous Karting tracks, it's quite frankly, a ridiculous number of tracks, and it means that it constantly feels fresh, you will go from Spa one race to Zolder the next, you're never left repeating the same tracks ad nauseam just in different forms like you are in Forza. Also must mention the weather systems, it really is fantastic. You can go from racing in perfect sunshine, to clouds coming in, to it pouring with rain, and then the track drying out afterwards, with different corners remaining wet, and different corners becoming dry, it is incredibly dynamic and is probably the most realistic weather system I've experienced in a racing game, it is incredibly impressive and puts the weather systems in racers like FH2, Driveclub etc. to shame, it is utterly fantastic and just adds to the realism. Played quite a bit online as well, and it is really, REALLY good as well, lots of customisation in there, if you're a lobby host you can pretty much set up a game exactly how you want it, tweak which aids you want on or off, number of laps, rolling or standing start, weather types etc. Unfortunately, it suffers a bit from 'online racer syndrome' in that you get a lot of people who are shite at racing games in there, that'll just barge you off the road left right and centre, which is no fun at all, but, if you've got patience and are prepared to put up with this a bit, let your skill shine through and eventually take you upto a good position in the race then you'll find it enjoyable, it's incredibly satisfying struggling in a Formula A car that can make you spin at any point in time if you're not careful and treat it with care, getting to the front, dodging the numerous terrible drivers, incredibly satisfying and addictive. I've only played 8 hours, but it's already better than Forza 4 and 5.

Developer: Codemasters Publisher: Codemasters Platform: PC (Consoles TBA) Release Date: Out Now PC, XB1 & PS4 April 5th, 2016. So, a sudden announcement yesterday from Codemasters, where they announced the latest addition to their popular DiRT franchise, DiRT Rally. DiRT Rally brings the series back to its routes, focusing purely on Rallying and Rallying alone, there's no Ken Block or Gymkhana type stuff in there now and neither is the zaney colour scheme or music, think back to the original Colin McRae Rally and it's a bit like that, this may be Codemasters' first ever SIM racer, everything is incredibly in-depth in DiRT Rally and they've done away with the popular Rewind feature. At the moment it's out for Steam Early Access, and will continue to be worked on in the months to come, with Codies gathering feedback from the Steam Community as to what they like, don't like etc. all future DLC/Features/Expansions etc. are free. Here's the new features they are adding to the game in the months ahead: April - Early Access begins May - Pikes Peak Pack June - Tarmac Terrors & Classic Icons July - Rallycross Pack August - PVP Pack & Rallycross Expansion September - Flying Finland October - Modern Masters November - Winter Wonderland This announcement really caught me by surprise, I guessed Codies were working on something all this time, but I really didn't expect this, the announcement totally came out of left field and the game was released the same day! Crazy, anyway, I love the series, I love everything about DiRT, Codies and the work they do in racing/rallying games over there and very pleased the series has gone back to its routes, was going to wait until the Steam Summer Sale to pick this up, but felt like I needed to have it to try it out with my new Wheel when it comes sometime this week. Anyone else excited by this? 1 hour Dev walkthrough: Played an hour of this tonight, haven't got my wheel yet so just played it with my XB1 pad, I'm incredibly impressed. As others have said in the community, it definitely doesn't feel like an Early Access game, everything feels extremely polished from the menus to when you're in game, the graphics surprised me quite a lot, I don't know if it's just my PC or what, but it looked pretty damn nice, not TO1886 nice, but didn't think it looked bad at all. You start off by setting up your profile on there (Name, Nationality and all that jazz), then you select the number of assists you want (to be honest I was surprised they even had any assists on there) the less you have on, the more of a Credit reward you get etc. They also start you off with 50,000Cr to buy a car. It's all pretty basic at the moment, but they've got Online stuff (Daily Event, Weekly Event and Monthly Event) thought the Daily Event was as good a place as any to start off, so gave it a go, it is definitely as difficult and people are saying, although perhaps a tad easier than I expected or maybe it was just me getting used to it a bit by the end of my 1 hour play session I don't know. Most difficult thing I still need to suss out is hairpins, I end up slowing down far too much and can't decide whether to use the Handbrake or the brakes, so end up using a combination of both and slowing down to a snails pace, want to get a drift round to hairpin going but haven't sussed it yet. Did the Daily (posted an atrocious time of 11 minutes-odd ), you can't restart either you can just 'retire' if you fu*k up as it's a Daily Event and you only get one shot, then I tried a Championship (Single-player offline) event, bought my first car (Mini Cooper) and eventually came 5th after doing a 4-stage 'Event' which then led on to the next one, did a couple on this then moved on to try the Monthly Event, a lot of races in this (24) so only did 3 tonight and then saved and quit. But, yeah, I'm impressed by it, it definitely felt so similar to the Colin McRae Rally PlayStation games of yesteryear. Also, this video is incredible:

So, Wanting to take a break from Destiny, I've had a go at playing Warframe on the PS4, and I have to say that so far, I've really enjoyed it. It's a 3rd person shooter, that feels part wat between halo and Mass effect. There's a (ludicrously expensive) paid currency if you want to go down that path, but everything is obtainable for free, you just have to wait for it. Has anyone else played this?

Anyone else been playing this? I was a massive fan of the first game, had an absolute ton of fun with it, incredibly addictive, visceral and with a bloody incredible soundtrack. The 2nd game I'm not having quite as much fun with...it seems a bit more stop-start than the first game where you could just get in the groove and be at it for hours, they've also tried to do a lot more story stuff in the 2nd one so there's a load of dialogue this time around, and loads of skippable cutscenes. The music is just as good as the first game, but the level design doesn't feel anywhere near as good to me, the first games levels just felt so tight and well designed around the games controls, but it feels in the HM2 that the levels have been chopped and changed to fit the narrative rather than the other way round, it is still decent though and after the initial hour and a half of frustration and bewilderment I am having a lot of fun with it now. I'm about 5 hours in, so probably not got too much longer to go, definitely feel the difficulty ramping up at the moment.

I might as well say something about this since I'm stuck. So on the surface this is basically a classic Metroid game under another name, and I'd even say it's classic Metroid a little under the surface, too. It's hard to get away from the comparisons. But it does have it's own stuff. Gameplay-wise it is less predictable than it initially looks. You can see that there are ares you can't traverse but it doesn't quite use the same kind of abilities as you'd expect from a game so inspired by Metroid and Axiom Verge certainly does a pretty good job of surprising you. I kind of don't want to talk about them, but I will say the drone is pretty inspired. It plays a pretty good shooter. The enemies are really fiendish which really do cause a problem not long into the game and the weapons you get are weird and unexpected, too. They maybe a bit too situational so you will use the default a lot but there is some satisfaction in figuring out the best way of using the weirder ones. It feels quite Turbo-Grafix-y more than Metroid-y in terms of action, actually. I don't think I quite understand the story, though. There is a bit too much jargon that comes across really stupid, sometimes, but the atmosphere is spot on. The environments do pull off the surreal, dreamy, alien sci-fi thing really well. The soundtrack helps a lot; it's mostly really good. I know this has past a lot of people by, it hasn't had much attention for some reason but I would say it stands alongside Shovel Knight as a good modern take on an older style of game. I kinda hate it now because being stuck really blows chunks, especially on games like this.

I'm not very far in, I just thought there should be a thread for it. It's a Crpg, not sure what that stands for, but it's the kind of rpg where the game pauses when combat starts so you can select who to attack and what with, or just let it play out in real time. A bit like Dragon Age, only more fun As a pc game, unless I'm missing something, it seems to be missing a few things. There's no graphics options that I can tell, and I have an issue with the mouse cursor not moving the screen around when I go towards my 2nd screen, but you can use the cursor keys for that seems alright, recent events suggest that potential party members don't have a long lifespan around me, not my fault. On that note, there's text options in the game, choices and the like, one very early on got someone killed, I think it was unavoidable that someone was going to die, but on well The plan id to play the vast majority of Easter, should be fun

Yep, that big new release everyone is talking about It's a motorbike game, which will probably be news to some of you, and it's by the people that do the MotoGP games. I can't tell a huge amount of difference between the 2 but then I'm not really an expert. It's kind of focused on buying bikes. You earn credits for winning, and you can upgrade your bike, but you'll be locked out of certain classes until you buy more. Other than that it's fairly open, if you can afford a superbike then there's nothing stopping you buying one and playing those events. The one bit of structure is the world ranking, a ladder to climb by finishing races. The ultimate aim is to get to rank 1, but along the way you'll hit certain milestones that will open up Elite races. These will reward you with a new bike, although usually you have to buy a bike to enter them, which you then spend money improving, meaning you never touch the new bike you won Here's a video I done. The mic is a bit blown out because it was recorded by the capture kit directly when it shouldn't have been

This is a bit hard then. Them load times too. Played half an hour, mainly been the same bit over and over.

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 :

I'm still not sure of my overall thoughts on this game so I apologise in advance if I ramble. I suppose I've not played it a whole lot still as The Hunters. You have four people, each with a role: you have Assault, he's your gun guy who's only job is to shoot the monster and does the most damage and he can lay mines. Most of my time playing as Hunters has been with this class (I did play once as a Trapper but didn't have a clue what I was doing). You also have Support and Medic classes (I've not even tried them yet). You don't really pick your role, it's assigned to you and then you have to be that role. At this point a lot of people don't know what they're doing (I count myself in that group) so sometimes being on the Hunters team can be a really frustrating thing. Until the game has been out for a while and the community figure out how to play all the roles well then it will be more fun to fumble around with people you can communicate with. At least then you won't feel as bad when you do something dopey. But playing as The Monster is the solo experience, and because of that is more fun moment to moment. Like I feel like tracking the Monster as Hunters isn't that fun, especially when you're still not 100% sure what you're looking for, which I think a lot of people are like now. But as The Monster it's simpler: you keep a low profile for a bit and eat wildlife so you can the evolve into a stronger version and that is more engaging during the downtime, rather than wandering around looking for signs to where The Monster is. But I've been enjoying that side of it a lot. There was one game where a trapper must have got a glimpse of me and set down the barrier. The barrier is a large, well, barrier, that comes down and imprisons you with The Hunters which makes escape very hard, but I did manage it once, and it was tense stuff. I was still at the earliest stage of evolution so didn't want to take them on but I realised they didn't know exactly where I was. The barrier is quite big so when it came down the edges were right in front of me so I knew I maybe had a few seconds to hide and by keeping an eye on them (or a nose, the smell mechanic basically puts a yellow or red outline around people so you can see them through walls) I managed to stay out of sight the whole time, just moving a little out of view, and snuck out when the barrier timed out. Sometimes the combat as a Monster isn't always that satisfying. It's a bit unwieldy and I'm sometimes not sure if I'm hitting someone but the range attacks mostly work well unless you get caught on something. You do have to be aware of whats around you and being a big, ugly shit that can be hard to do sometimes. So, bottom line is it's sometimes really fun but relies too much on certain situations for fun to happen, like it's a game that has to be played to certain rules. I'd say the rules are a bit too specific, though. That could change as the classes expand but they made the, frankly, stupid decision to lock other characters and monsters behind a progress system, because that's what all multiplayer games have to have now. Why they didn't just let you experiment with everything from the get go like they did with Left 4 Dead, God only knows.

Well, ive installed it, and my poor little surface is sort of struggling to play it. Unless the main character saying every line is part of the story.... Looks good though, going to have a play around with the setting and see what we can do, more details when I get a chance to play it properly. Music in this game is absolutely lovely so far, im really liking the game from the brief 20 minutes. EDIT: Changed Resolution, and everybody is happy now. Was trying to run it at 2160 x 1440, looks lovely now.

I know you do son, I know you do. And you used the wrong write you big bell end. I bought it too, made the crazy mistake of only buying it on one console. I am struggling to enjoy it again at the moment, i thought I would love to play this game again as it's been a few years but I'm finding it incredibly dated. I shall play again on Thursday (when I finally get some time to play games again) with the knowledge of what it is and not what I thought it was and see if we get along then.

Very much impressed with Telltales output these days. Walking Dead is brilliant. As is The Wolf Among Us. So being a massive GOT fan, I was well up for this. And Episode 1 is a very good start indeed. Pretty important to state though that the opening section has a massive spoiler if you're not caught up to the events of the start of Series 4/Book 3. So be aware of that. It's the tried-and-tested Telltale format, which I'm perfectly happy with. You play as the Forrester family, and interact with a few of the series main fore-runners. After his frankly god-awful role as Ghost in Destiny, Peter Dinklige is back on form here as Tyrion. 5 more episodes to go, but this is a promising start.

I'd put the subtitle in but I'm on my phone and I don't know how to spell it. Never Alone is an action puzzle platformer, not entirely dissimilar from something like Limbo or Brothers. You control 2 characters, switching between the two, with one opening the way for the other (you can also play co-op). You play as a young girl who can pull objects and use her sling type weapon to smash things, and an Arctic fox, who can scamper up walls and communicate with spirits What makes Never Alone stand out is that it's made in conjunction with native Alaskans. The story is a traditional folk story and they pull in some art, which I wish they did more of. There's also unlockable videos that are pretty interesting. There's a few knocks against the game though. I really liked it, but there is the sense, especially early on, that this is 'this year's indie game', like it's another Limbo or something. It's a harsh criticism, but it's a shame it didn't find its identity earlier The platforming controls let me down right at the end of the game. Nothing too major but it was a shame to end the game on a down note Probably a bigger issue, although I'm not that arsed, is my game not saving. To their credit the devs have been emailing me trying to find the cause, so it's hard to be too annoyed with them (I got sent the game to review but I'm contacting them from a different email, so I'm just a normal customer to them). It's a bit worrying that they can't work out what's causing it. But I've finished the game now anyway Edited to include a video <iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NXC9t9Hmr5g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So this was one of the earlier successes on Kickstarter before (or around) everyone started doing. It's a 2D platformer in the style of classic NES games and it's made by Yacht Club Games who are a few ex-Wayforward people. They left over a year a go and Wayforward games aren't quite what they were; coincidence? I say probably (definitely). Since NES games are the inspiration for Shovel Knight it does play things basic. You play with two buttons and a D-pad; one jumps and one shovels. But you also press down and shovel while jumping to do a downward attack and you use that to bounce off enemies. That's what you mostly do and this game, and it stays damn fun while doing it. They've clearly explored a lot of possibilities with your basic abilities. Enemies are either really defensive knights who can be hard to hit or simpler enemies just placed in awkward places that make things difficult (or fun) for you. It's design we've seen before but maybe in not quite this way. You can also make life a bit easier for you by using items you get through the game. You use them by pressing up and shovel, like Castlevania, and the properties of these items are like the ones you find in that game. That's what Shovel Knight is. It's NES games you know put into one well made game. Specifically it's Konami and Capcom NES games that are the big inspiration: pre-SotN Castlevania and Megaman are clear inspirations, as is smatterings of Ducktails and Zelda 2. But it plays a nicer game than those NES games. It controls well, and does actually look a lot better than those games. It's more TurboGrafx than NES. It also has some more forgiving design choices, like the checkpoints, which can be destroyed for more money to buy upgrades but then you lose them for good (like, they're still not there when you pass them after you've died). That's a cool risk/reward mechanic but I think you can still get a lot of gold without having to destroy them, from what I can tell now I'm at the end, so I suppose it's a case of how fast you want to upgrade your stuff. And when you die you lose a percentage of your gold but it can be picked up again if you don't die on route to where you last died, 'cos Demon's Souls. But overall it's a really fun game in a genre that the indies have explored a lot at this point, but I'd say it's one of the better examples. It's made by people ball achingly passionate about that era of gaming and they've crafted the ultimate love letter with Shovel Knight. That's really cool, but it does mean the game struggles to find it's own identity. I wish they laid off the references as it didn't need them since the game's mechanics were all reference enough. Bottom line though is two thumbs up. It's got some awesome bosses and nice, thick, treacle-y chiptune music. I should go finish it now... Oh, it's pretty fuckin' hard if that needed to be mentioned.

Playing this tonight, met the alien died twice, thought I had done it got to the lift then the cutscene came on doh! Will give it another go tomorrow, if the background in this is the future its pretty good. I do miss my surround sound but that might be too much in this game!

Just dove into to the start of the game tonight. It’s really good if you like hardcore stealth games like the old Hitman or Thief games. The download is around 6 or 8GB if I remember correctly and the game was developed using Unreal tech and it shows for the most part. The characters are nicely designed, but are slightly on the plastic action figures side of things. Styx animations are very well done. He moves with weight throughout the world and walks like a goblin should. The Humans and elves on the other hand are very stiff and robotic-like when walking. The environments are very well design. I’m not far in the game, but it seems that the humans and the elves have some sort of alliance and Styx has lost most of his memories. The only thing he can remember is that he needs to get to the center of the world tree where amber is made. Styx is pretty puny compare to all the other character’s in the game, so it’s not advised to go into hand to hand combat because you’ll die pretty quickly. In most cases they will kill you in one or two hits. Stealth is mandatory and there are multiple paths to get to your objectives. There is a very well done quick save system in place in case you die. So far it’s a solid old school stealth game.

Got to play this at an event yesterday, had a lot more play time than I expected, nearly 2 hours I'd guess. I really like it so far, the handling seems really good - in that middle ground between arcade and sim, but still based on reality, like pgr and forza horizon. Only driven the slow cars so far though. There's point to point and track races. At points around the track there are various challenges to beat other people, like do the best drift, racing line, average speed - these are also based on people from your friends list. There's some time trial challenges too. It looks really nice, and there's going to be a patch to add weather, the puddles and reflections and stuff look ace. They had a wheel there which everyone had one go on to get the fastest time, I couldn't work out how to change view and ended up bringing up the share menu. And the force feedback was set pretty weak. I'd have liked to have a better go on that because I might get a ps4 wheel eventually. I guess there's going to be a lot of people playing this due to the psn+ version? which will be cool for the challenges and stuff. Edit - oh yeah load times are pretty good.

Well so far, I'm doing rubbish. I've died maybe 10 times so the captains keep getting stronger. I am upgrading my abilities slowly but so far it's more frustrating than fun. My one true criticism so far is that the text is really tiny and when moves have come up I've had to guess whether the button is R1 or R2.

400 quid on a new system and my favourite thing on it is a ten quid game I could've bought on the PS3 and did buy on my iPad. This video - http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-counterspy/2300-9358/ - sold me on it. I didn't realise it was on PS3 so I got it on iPad and, well, it doesn't control great on a touch screen. It's all swipes and gestures and too easy to do things you don't intend. So I got the PS4 version knowing that the game has a rather cool feature in that you can sync your progress across from mobile to console and back again. So the couple of hours I put in on iPad weren't in vain. The art style is pretty cool, it's like Team Fortress 2 but side-on. It takes the piss out of both Russia and America and the ridiculousness of the Cold War - both sides are in a race to blow up the Moon with nukes. Why? Because. Before each level you pick which side you want to go against for that mission (CounterSpy is a third party organisation, trying to stop both super powers), taking into account which bonuses you can pick up. Then you go through taking out soldiers, finding money, articles, mission plans, weapon plans and perk plans. You can use up to 3 perks in a level and the most useful ones I used all the time was one to bring the a Defcon level down one each time and one to make your shots take out armoured guards and cameras. The weapons are pretty smart too - silenced pistol is a must, plus a dart gun that makes enemies turn against his mates and take them out. Ultra useful when surrounded by a massive pack of cunts. The snag for these great weapons and perks though is you have to unlock them eventually by picking up pieces in the levels so you'll start off with nothing interesting at first. Grinding isn't a chore though because the levels are all randomly generated and they're still all pretty short. Longest level I've played is maybe 15 minutes long, depending on your style of play. Though I wouldn't really advise all guns blazing. It's an option, but the game is really geared towards stealthy play. I don't like writing too much so I'll leave it there but well worth a tenner. Though I'm sure it'll come to PS+ down the line.

Hohokum is one of those video games that gets caught up in the debate of 'oh, but is it a video game' and I really hate that debate... well, I don't hate it, I just don't think it matters. Is it a virtual thing you interact and have fun/dramatic/entetrtaining times with? well, sir/madam, that is a video game. So with that sorted, let me tell you a bit about Hohokum. In Hohokum you are a one eyed snake (lol) and you whizz around this strange world full of colourful characters living their wee lives and you have to help them out. The reason you gotta help them out is because other one eyed snakes are trapped and you have to rescue them, and they're stuck in unexpected places. You have to decipher the world and try and figure out where they are hidden. It's hard to explain the game without namechecking others so that's what I'm going to do. So think: Fez Nobi Nobi Boy Animal Crossing. Fez comes to me because becuase it's a game with no hand holding. You're left to go and explore and you have to figure out the problems yourslef. I wouldn't even say the problems are that hard to solve, but when you have a game so full of stuff (cool stuff, mind) it can be hard find them. In fact I found them by stumbling into them, and only in hindsight do I see why. That takes me to Nobi Nobi Boy. To me, that game was just fun to interact with; it was a game that was fun to see what would happen if you did such and such. A few games do that but it's usually based around violence, but this was cute stuff. Hohokum has that too. As well as that I like how the game feels to play, in the way you move. It has a real nice feeling inertia to it, and I also discovered how to move really quickly in it by fluttering the L and R buttons to snake at high speeds through the level. There is so much nuance to the movement, I love it. And the reason it makes me think of Animal Crossing is that it just has that simple satisfaction fo doing simple things for people. Get wee man to a certain place and a cool thingy will happen; get wine to the peole and such and such will happen. It's just full of simple rewards for trivial stuff, but it's fun because of just how the game feels to play. Obviously, it's one of those games that are hard to decribe, but I tried my best here. I think I'd recomend it to anyone who like at least two of the games I'd mentioned.

The demo is out now. My thoughts are Vancouver did a good job. Not an excellent job, but just good job. Granted this is the first NHL on new-gen consoles. The pre-game show is scare photo realistic. I thought I was watching a game on NBC Sports. But during the game while the visuals are all glossy the character models look last-gen. At start-up you can select Easy (face buttons with Arcade style gameplay), Standard (Skill stick instead of face buttons and simulation gameplay), or custom. Enjoyed the demo, disappointed the EASHL mode will not be in the new-gen version. It would have been nice if EA knocked $10 off the price, but whatever. Will pick this up when I find it on cheaper sale.

Anyone else given this a go, it's free on the ps4 shop? It's obtuse, obtuse to the point that my housemate, and ign from what he told me, didn't realise they hadn't died and that the demo wasn't over. It's obtuse enough that there's currently no definitive answer as to how to beat the game. Basically you're walking the hallway of a murder house, a man killed his family in what appears to be a spate of similar killings, getting from one end to the other and repeating the loop. Sometimes it's as easy as just walking, other times there's a puzzle to solve to trigger the door to unlock. One of which is actually really simple once you do it, but took me about half an hour and the internet to solve It's creepy definitely, really horribly effective. Until you get stuck, and then it falls down like all horror games do, once you've seen the worst of something it stops being all that frightening. Being exposed to the same creepy noises for 30 minutes means they become quite a severe annoyance, but a lot less scary. Nicely I think it saves your progress, so I'm done for tonight, probably about halfway through, I'd like to finish it tomorrow but it depends how tedious solving the last puzzle is