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Genuinely surprised there isn't a thread for this already. It seems like a game that would be quite popular in here. I started playing this last night in a "I'm gonna play it for 20 minutes and if I don't like it's getting deleted" kind of mood. I'm now 7-8 hours in and it's great fun! Remember Golf Story? It's has a similar sort of Sports-PG charm to it. There's tons of humour running through, and the graphical style is a bit like the Gumball cartoon. You play as Otto, a transfer student to a Dodgeball school, and someone who wants to be world-renowned on the sport. There's a relatively small world to explore, but lots of fun little side quests and plenty of battles to take part in. Speaking of battles, they're a lot of fun too. You play Dodgeball, so if you know the rules you'll have a leg up. Might be worth watching the Ben Stiller film to refresh your Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge memory. There are charge moves, counters, special moves, and all sorts of fun stuff happening on the court. Matches take place in anything from 1 on 1 to 1 Vs 6, or 3 on 3 contests, and the first to lose their HP loses the game. I've noticed TONS of homages to Pokémon. From the Dodgeball logo to the battle loading sound effect, a medical centre to refresh your team, and battles in long grass, it's just got loads of cool little nods to Nintendo's most lucrative franchise. From what I've read it's not super long, but it's really fucking awesome. I genuinely love this game.

appropriately this game is a bit nonsensical. Fortunately, as someone who's only watched what's on Netflix, the plot for story mode takes place right after the 2nd series ends. A young Speedwagon appears as Jotoro, Joseph, and Jean Pierre are attacked by people that had previously been defeated and killed, and explains that he's travelling through dimensions recovering the parts of a holy corpse that will close the rifts. Basically, it's a way to have the various Jojo's in to the same story, with young versions of characters being playable The combat is a bit strange. It's made by the people that make the Naruto games, and plays kind of similar with relatively large 3D arenas. The combos seem pretty basic, but you can by new moves, I'm not sure they fit in to the combos, so you're pressing L1 then a face button to do them, I'm not sure I see the benefit of using those moves over the basic combo, but maybe it will open up or become apparent as I play more. There's a flash move that needs to be charged up to use, this acts as a way to break out of enemy combos. There's a button that, if your partner reciprocates, will mean you both target an enemy and if you do enough damage will launch a special. Jotoro teaming up with old Joseph for their move is genuinely funny. I think this is tied to a super move, where you dash at an enemy, and if you connect do a really powerful move... honestly, I'm not sure what's going on with half the meters in this game, it does tell you, but before you've really encountered it so it doesn't go in. it's not bad, but the fights do drag on a bit, I'll stick with it for a while though and I'm aiming to at least finish the story mode

Noticed this on the recent PSN digital discount sale. I do quite enjoy a rogue like, so thought I’d give it a go. Hades is definitely going to be one of my favourite games of the year. Is this as good as that? Well, it’s enjoyable enough. But I’d say no. The combat is simple enough, with a melee weapon and ranged weapon. You find various different ones during your run, with different buffs. As with any rogue like, death means you lose all your load out. But as you play, you can collect various currencies that can be used to permanently improve your character. There’s also a light/ dark mechanic. You carry a torch, which can be used to light braziers in each area. If you don’t, you take increased damage if you’re hit while in a dark area. As for the Curse in the title, you have a curse bar, that increases with each door of the arena you open. There are healing areas, but cause significant curse if you use them. You can buy new gear during your run with gold, or get cursed instead. Fill your curse bar up to the max, and you get inflicted with a nasty permanent affliction, I’ve had ones that either increase damage taken, or make it so I can’t see what any curses actually do. You can have a maximum of 5 curses, with the game warning that if you hit curse 5, your run is going to be extremely fucked over. There’s a dodge mechanic, which takes up stamina to use. You have 5 stamina, each dodge drains 1 point. If you’re empty, you can’t dodge, and have to wait for it to replenish, Dark Souls style. You can also parry attacks, but I’ve never been any good at that kind of thing. Story wise, there’s pretty much fuck all. In comparison to the cast of Hades, here there’s literally nothing. Unlike Hades, you don’t go through the entire dungeon at once. You start with 3 to choose from, with a boss at the end. I’ve reached boss 1 three times, killed him on my 3rd attempt, and that was the end of my run. It looks like you have to gradually unlock the option to run through to the final boss. It’s decent enough, and I’ll certainly play a fair bit of it. But it’s definitely not in the same league as Hades.

I've put a few hours into this now and thought i'd post my initial impressions. First up, can't comment on the PS4 version but on PS5 this game is absolutely gorgeous. It starts you off in a dark cave and the moment you step outside it's a real 'wow' moment. The vistas in this game are gorgeous, and the in-game cut scenes could be straight out of a Pixar film. Gameplay wise, i'd echo what some of the reviews say in that it doesn't bring anything new to the table. It almost feels like a PS2 game, but I mean that in a complimentary way. The in-game tutorial is incredibly brief and they seem to have taken a 'figure it our for yourself' approach. The puzzles so far have been pretty basic and involve the use of the 'Rot' - the cute little black blob things that you collect which then follow you around and allow you to interact with certain elements of the level a la Pikmin. Combat is standard Zelda 'lock on' fare, with a basic ability system that lets you unlock new moves and attacks by spending one of the in-game currencies. You can also buy and equip hats for your Rot to wear, which just adds to the games charm. One of my favourite things about it so far has been the music. It could have been lifted from a Ghibli film. So for a first game from a new studio it's not doing too badly. I can't imagine it being a game that lodges itself in my memory for long after beating it, but it's a lovely game that's packed full of charm which is a nice change of pace from the hyper-intense shooters i've been playing a lot of recently.

Had my eye on this one for a while, as the concept (two teams of 4 try to steal treasure, in a take on the Robin Hood mythology) seems interesting. Currently £15 in the PSN sale, and there’s a free demo. So I tried it with me and my mates. After one session, we ended up buying it. Basically, it’s a stealth game. Your team of 4 has to find the Sheriff (invincible boss that kills you in one hit), steal his key, open the Vault, grab a chest, and then escape with it. Each character plays slightly differently, with their own special ability. Robin has a longbow that kills instantly with headshots, and can fire a powered up explosive shot to kill multiple enemies.Marion has a crossbow and can temporarily turn invisible to assassinate people. Tuck can throw poison bombs, heal the team, and highlight enemy positions. John can decimate enemies with his hammer, carry the chest the fastest, and open closed portcullis gates to potentially speed up escapes. Stealth and teamwork is definitely important, because if you get spotted, things can go tits up pretty quickly. Killed allies drop a ‘talisman’, if that’s collected and taken to a captured spawn point, they revive. John and Tuck can’t use bows, but are stronger in a fight. Had quite a few tense sessions on this so far. You can play as 4 against just the AI, or two teams of 4 against AI, attempting to steal the treasure before the other team does. Its certainly worth a look, I’d say.

Been mucking around with this over the last couple of nights, probably put in 4 or 5 hours (maybe more)... I'm not going to pretend we have GotY on our hands but it's doing exactly what I expected of it, namely leaving your brain behind a blasting the ever living fuck out of anything that moves. It's nailed the look and sounds of the movies, at the start you have a fairly basic create a character menu with male and female options, there's four classes each with their own perks and abilities... so far so normal. I went with the Demolition class as I wanted to be like Drake in the film and repeatedly shout "right on Vas" while I'm mowing down Xenos with the Smartgun. The fodder "runner" enemies don't really offer too much in the way of tactics, they'll head straight at you but some of the other types do use hit and run tactics using vents and stuff to get behind you and cause a little mayhem... I've also just got to a level where it's almost turned in to a Gears game (there's a cover system... which is no use at all with the Aliens) as I'm fighting the Working Joe's from Alien Isolation. I'm only around half way through the game (there's 4 acts with 3 missions in each) and there's been a decent amount of backdrops so far. I can imagine the game is going to get pretty difficult too especially if I play above normal difficulties as when more than a couple of Warrior type enemies appear things generally fall to shit... and that leads to the games biggest failing so far, matchmaking is fucked, so far I've found one game and the game taking the place of real players really doesn't cut it. I hope that they can sort out whatever is going on with that because it is putting a slight downer on the whole experience.

The long awaited sequel is here! And it's generally a decent follow-up. It takes place right after the original and it's like it's never been gone. It just confidently does being Psychonauts. It feels a bit tighter than the original but it's basic fighting and platforming for the most part but it's appeal has always been the imagination of the world and how it takes mental well being and makes these charming worlds out them and from what I've played so far it continues to do a good job of that. And with these new fangled graphics it makes it look really nice too. They really lean all of it into the art style they made in the original and I think it comes out well, it's a nice game to look at in a weird way. All Double Fine have done is make a Psychonauts game for 2021 and that's all I wanted, and that's all we got. Neat!

I was sure there was a thread for this, but apparently not. If anyone sees it post the link and I'll merge Neo The World Ends With You plays quite a bit differently than the original The World Ends With You. Rather than knock a puck between screens, because now there aren't 2 screens, you're instead using your teammates in a battle arena, do enough damage with one of them there'll be a moment where the enemy is vulnerable to a combo attack where you carry on the attack with a different character. Doing this fills a meter that lets you launch more powerful attacks, but I can't say I've been using the special all that much really. The thing that makes the combat notable, in theory, is that each character is assigned a button based on what pin they're assigned (TWEWY is all about badges 🦡 ). So you mash the X button, then when there's a prompt that the enemy is vulnerable or that character has ran out of attack power, you switch to the Y button, or R, L, ZR, ZL, whatever it is. It means you can be looking at meters a lot, seeing if people are available to attack, although as you stick with the pins you just learn the rhythm of them. It's worth stick with some too as they all have the ability to level up or evolve, so stick with them to max out their potential, then switch to the next one. Nothing new to use, then stick on a powerful one you like The tone of the game is similar to the original game, to a point. It's not as misanthropic as Neku could be, but the flip side to that is that the supporting cast can be very annoying. That Japanese game/anime thing of a character having a particular trait, like really liking maths, so every word out of their mouth is about maths. There's precious few characters I can say I like because of this, there's one from another team who seems alright, but then constantly throws in Spanish, Italian of French phrases because he's travelled, rpgs are too long for that king of shit Given that the premise of what TWEWY is about was already revealed in the first game, to mix things up in this one everyone has latent powers. Fret can plant words in people's heads to remind them or influence them, Nagi (a character you get a few days in, it's a while before you get a full team) can rid them of corruption, and Rin can travel back in time. It's all narrative based, and Rin's power does mean a little too much fucking around, but it's better than them holding back the reveal most of the people playing already know I'll say, so far because it took until the end of the first week for me to click with the first game, that it's not a patch on the original. Which is fine, I just want it to be good, and at the minute it's just a bit dull. Possibly my fault for getting in to too many fights, but it could do with being tighter and a little punchier. The day I'm on at the minute is basically a Conquest mode, I need to run around taking on other teams in their zones to earn points, it's something a little novel and different from what's gone on before, even if I suspect they'll change things and revert back to the fannying around of the first few days

This is very good. The original was a pretty unique take on classic Metroid but this is something else. It still has recognisable hallmarks, especially in relation to the first game but it takes the unique aspects of that and uses those to build off. If anything it proves it wasn't a fluke and the unique aspects can carry a game. I dunno how many people here want to play it as I don't really want to talk about it too much at this point as the abilities you get are unconventional half the time and help keep the exploration a puzzle. It's pretty difficult though since it's mostly melee combat, but it could have been just me adjusting to it from playing the original right before this. The exploration isn't always easy, too. It keeps it a little easier since bosses can just be ran past if you're not feeling like you're ready for them on top of the very light stealth elements for regular enemies. Exploration is the core of the game. I'm stumped at the moment. I'm blocked off from where I need to go but I'm in that situation where do I need an ability I'm missing or is there some hidden way and I gain the ability in the place. I'm leaning to the latter since I've combed most of the (pretty large) map.

First things first, I'm really enjoying this. It's very Japanese, the story has just gone full anime, and it reminds me a lot of Astral Chain, only more engaging. The combat is probably the star of the show without it being as complicated as it appears. You have some very basic attacks with your weapon, this will charge a meter that lets you use your psychokinetic abilities, so you can fling items at enemies. Do that too often and the meter drains so you can't any more, but get in close to an enemy and land some weapon attacks and you'll be fine. Once enemies have taken enough damage, assuming you haven't already killed them, you'll be able to perform a kind of finisher/super move, against weaker enemies this is a one hit kill, against bosses it can be a difference maker. Both while you're exploring the world (although this hasn't been an option yet in the way it was in the demo), and in combat, if you have teammates you can borrow their powers, ranging from your attacks doing fire damage, you becoming invulnerable, or even invisible for stealth attacks, amongst others. These work on a cool down, and are more or less required at points, but they aren't unavailable for long. There's also a meter that fills where you'll become super powered for a bit, I get the feeling once you've levelled up a bit this will be a huge deal, at the minute it's more annoying that you can't trigger it yourself and save it for when you need it There's an rpg element. You level up, although it's not presented what that really means (presumably stats and HP), you can equip items, buy better weapons, healing is done on a slight cooldown which can be a bit of a pain. There's also a skill tree, it takes BP points to buy new perks, but these come pretty quickly, to the point that I feel like I might well max it out before the end of the game unless there's hidden branches to it. You can also increase your bonds with your teammates, this is done in your down time with gifts and bonding missions, and it gets you new layers to their abilities. It seems to be pretty similar to how Persona handles it tbh The only real criticism I have is that it's all presented in a bit of a confusing way. Lots of different, but pretty similar people bouncing around, odd terms, lots of menus. It can feel like it's slow doling things out too, not that it's paced badly or feels like a slog, and maybe this is a consequence of having played the demo, but knowing that at some point I'll have 4 teammates at once, be able to explore certain areas, the way it gates this feels like it's holding you back, even 10+ hours in to the game

You know the first thing about this that made me smile? It comes with a manual! I can't really recall the last game I had that came with a real one? Anyway, this game (at time of writing, I'm not upto the second boss yet) warrants being remade. The original game was made in 1986. Gaming has changed a bit in 35 years and a straight up port isn't really going to garner any positive attention. Which, looking at some reviews and scores, this really has. Which, so far, I can only agree it deserves. Oh and two things. 1) I never played this Alex Kidd game, so there's nothing rose tinted there. 2) I definitely won't be playing this with the infinite lives cheat on. With how extremely generous auto-saving is in this remake, it isn't really necessary.

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

i've played persona games before but no smt games, i guess so far it seems pretty similar but without the daily routine/social link stuff, and the demons/personas are in your party rather than being sort of summoned. you have to talk to the demons to try and recruit them, although this is often bollocks as they ask for loads of stuff and then just run away, i still like it though, they say weird things and it can be pretty funny. the demons mostly look familiar too as they're pretty much the same from the persona games. i'm playing the super easy mode (which is free dlc), and it's really easy, i could have coped with some more difficulty, maybe a mode inbetween the normal one and the super easy one. but it's supposed to be quite long so the super easy mode should help with that. it's probably a good job i'm on the easy mode too as my main heal spell changed into something useless, and i've probably given most of my good healing items to demons while trying to recruit them. so i don't have many ways of healing at the moment but it hasn't made much difference. minor spoiler for stuff near the start of the game this is a ps2 game i think, i'm not sure if any graphics have been upgraded, it doesn't really look like it, it just looks like a ps2 game in much higher resolution. so far it's alright, i'm quite enjoying it but it's not been amazing or anything. i'm going to keep playing anyway.

Started this last week, putting about 12 hours into it and it’s safe to say it’s been a bit of a mixed bag so far. At the very beginning of the game you’re free to create your character as you so choose, there’s about 7 different classes (one of which is locked away behind a pre-order bonus for some reason) - like a Psychic specialist, ranged weapon specialist, all rounder and melee specialist - about 8 different animal-like races you can pick which have various strengths and weaknesses. Along with a way of picking various elements - like Heat, Cold, Radioactivity and Biohazard - you’re strong or weak to and the degree in which you’re resistant or vulnerable to said elements. The classes you pick, resistances you choose and breed of animal you pick seem more like starting points than a set class as you can put as many points into any stats you want to, deviating from your starting point drastically, sticking rigidly to it or ending up somewhere in between if you so wish. You’re then introduced to your mysterious protagonist, who has seemingly come back to town for the first time in awhile but doesn’t remember too much about who he/she is and what happened to the place he/she grew up in. Along with your Protagonist you’re also introduced to the Narrator, his dulcet tones permeate through an awful lot of the game, particularly in the early going. He is reminiscent of Stephen Fry’s performance in Little Big Planet, explaining a lot of the games various systems to you along with acting like a translator to the many weird and wonderful anthropomorphic characters you’ll meet along your journey. It starts off super slow in lots of boring industrial, factory type areas that attempt to introduce you to some of the basic elements in its eclectic crazy mix of various systems. It ends up holding your hand too much though to an annoying degree where you’re stopping to watch a cutscene or some kind of dialogue after every fight or action, not letting you off the lead so to speak until you’re about 2-3 hours in and even then the game still wants to explain a lot of stuff to you. Once you’re out of the early factory area and let loose into the open world things get much better. The moment you step out of the dull factory and gaze upon this luscious, striking world filled with greenery and bathed in sunlight it is a real wow moment that immediately put a smile on my face, it is reminiscent of coming out of the Vault in Fallout 3. I don’t know how they’ve done it with a team of 20 people but the world is an absolute sight to behold, it quite frankly looks ridiculously good and with the added photo mode you can't help but stop and take a snapshot every few minutes. There is a clear Eastern influence running throughout the game with the music, ‘Wung Fu’ combat and design of the characters and world, from the Buddhist shrine-like Tribe outposts to certain enemies wearing Samurai-like armour. The good/bad scale (represented by two light and dark sprites) is a clear nod to the Asian concept of Yin and Yang as well. Even once you’re outside the factory the game still loosely holds onto the reigns for awhile pushing you towards making your first big choice in the game, aligning yourself with a Tribe. On the face of it the choice is a clear cut good vs evil but there’s shades of grey in there with good parts of the seemingly ‘evil’ choice and bad parts to the seemingly ‘good’ choice. I really like this as the whole Renegade/Paramore good/bad swinging scale stuff has been done so many times before and rarely gives you pause for thought, some of the events so far feel a bit like New Vegas where you’re damned to some degree no matter what you choose. The world itself is absolutely massive, as said above I’ve put 12 hours in and have barely made it out of the opening Southern zones you first get to as you get out of the factory. At the centre of the world is the Tree of Life with the different biomes located around it much like a Clock, I haven’t explored much of the world yet but it’s clear there is a lot of variety in its design from the mountainous greenery of the first area to the flooded plains of the next, with the latter being explorable by a makeshift jet ski. There are some biomes that are locked off due to being too hot, cold or radioactive which requires you to get a special suit to be able to venture there safely. The game throws so much stuff at you that it is hard not to be bewildered by it all. There’s about 4 different types of upgrade points you can put into things (character stat upgrades, Psi-points, Bio Points and combat move upgrade points), a loot system where you can find and equip better equipment depending on its rarity, a crafting system where you can make pretty much anything providing you have the right materials, numerous strange animals you can recruit as mounts, numerous machines you can pilot to make your job easier and a multitude of other bits and pieces. The combat is perhaps the most interesting part of the game as it is extremely customisable and it’s possible to play the game however you want once you master or unlock the right elements. On the surface of it, it’s a bit DMC mixed with Max Payne, you have a ranged weapon and a melee weapon (or two) you can use in combination with each other. It’s super fun to just mess about with an experiment, but can feel a little loose and imprecise at times, with hits not quite registering with the required oomph to make them truly satisfying and a somewhat delayed response to your button presses. The world design is possibly the least interesting part of the game. It is very much like a Ubisoft game of 4-5 years ago or perhaps a better comparison would be the Mad Max game of 2015 or Just Cause (as this is made by ex-Avalanche devs), filled with lots of meaningless shite you can do, pickup, explore and engage with. Me being me, I can’t leave these symbols sitting on the map untouched so go around looking for 6 billboards out in the world when my time would be better spent doing a story mission or some of the more interesting side quests. It is a truly fascinating, beguiling and bewildering game that has plenty of promise to it in these somewhat early stages but I’m not sure if all that promise will add up to something in the end or not. I will say again though how astounding it is a game this large was built by 20 developers, it is crazy how big this world is and how much detail, dialogue and character development it has going on in it. The story is genuinely intriguing too which I didn’t expect and I can’t wait to see where things go next.

So, this has finally seen a multiformat release (it’s out on PS4 tomorrow but pre-orders get it a day early). The Ghosts series is something I’ve always enjoyed, but rarely managed to finish. I did complete Super Ghouls N Ghosts on the SNES back in the day, which certainly took some doing. In terms of difficulty, this is certainly the most player friendly yet. If you fancy a serious challenge, stick it on Legend. Squire, the lowest difficulty gives you several hits before you die, but apparently locks away some content, though I don’t know what yet. It’s still a tough game. I died several times against the first boss. And it still has the typical death traps that will almost certainly kill you the first time, due to how unpredictable they are. I do miss the double jump feature from Super GnG, as a lot of my deaths have come from falling into pits. Or getting overwhelmed by constantly respawning enemies. I’ve reached Level 3. The second boss was a bloody chore. We shall see how it goes…

So the full game is out, I've spent the morning playing it... bear in mind I didn't play any of the demo's so the opening is all new to me. I think everyone by now everyone should be able to gather what happens in the beginning, Chris being all dark and barrel chested, anyhow you soon wake up at night, in the snow... looking for Ethans baby. To me the game looks really pretty, the lighting is really good and so far (using RT) the performance seems to be holding up nicely. I never overly liked the shooting in 7 and this seems very close, I've recently picked up an add on to my pistol and that's definitely helped... I feel much happier in these third person Resi games with a shotgun in my hands though. The start of the game is almost a bit too much, there were times I wasn't sure if I should be trying to kill all these things or running away... that's also happened a couple of times in the castle where I'm up to now. Things have calmed a bit since getting in there though and it's a gorgeous place to explore. I do wish the movement speed was a bit quicker though. So far so good then, looking forward to finding out a bit more on these freaks who are making life a tad rough for old Ethan.

Started this off earlier and put just under 4 hours into it. This has set the record of making me cry the fastest in a video game, just felt overcome with the music in the tutorial ? also the fountain in the middle of the village at the beginning of the game is just amazing, I must’ve walked around that fountain about 30 times just listening to the lovely music (cried again here), amazing. As soon as I got free reign to explore the village I explored every corner of it, there’s not much to it but it creates such a strong sense of place and unique vibe, it’s already memorable and familiar even in my short time there. Combat feels like a more simplistic version of Automata’s. It looks flashy and feels good but is bit more shallow than Automata’s. If I had to compare it, it feels a bit like FFXV’s (without all the warp-strikes) or one of the earlier KIngdom Hearts games. You start off without any ranged abilities with just your sword to rely on, but pretty quickly you pick up a ranged weapon which has added to the variety on offer and cool abilities you can pull off. Story-wise not much has happened so far, I’ve just been given a few meaningless tasks to do by Popola, been to my first dungeon and met a certain literary figure. I’ve done a few of the side quests too just to see how bad they are for myself, and yeah, they’re not great but I don’t mind them so far, they’re inoffensive, a damn boar kept fucking me up in one of them.

Started this last week and put about 12ish hours into so far. I've been looking forward to this a long time as a fan of the series, with the semi-recent remake of the first game (Abe's Oddysee) New N' Tasty reinvigorating my love for it. It started off as a one-to-one remake of the second game (Abe's Exoddus) but over time - believe it has been in development around 6 to 7 years - it grew into something more than that, a complete reimaging of the second game and a rejuvenation for the series too with added abilities, new action segments, a huge expanded story based on AE and tons of new levels that weren't in the first game. After the excellent New N Tasty I didn't expect this to get such middling reviews, which made me a little hesitant to start it. Thankfully I had nothing to worry about and have found the review scores a tad baffling based on what I've played so far. It is fair to say it is a departure from the classic Oddworld games of old, they have added a double jump, you can no longer use the D-Pad to control Abe, there's modern elements like a crafting system, the ability to tie up Sligs instead of killing them, medals that get awarded for carrying out a certain number of actions or collecting a certain amount of collectibles in a level. On top of this some levels have an action focus to them now where you'll have to run to escape being killed by Sligs and Glukkons in air ships whilst the platforms around you are crumbling into flames, later on there is also a section on a train which ends in a boss fight. So this is a quite a different beast compared to the original titles and even New N Tasty it's fair to say, some folks won't like that, others - like myself - will embrace the changes more. Thankfully though, despite all the changes mentioned above the way the game plays remains largely in tact. You still possess Sligs and can make them explode, you still recruit Mudokens and lead them to safety through butterfly gates, there's still tricky sections where you can't use possession and have to use stealth to avoid enemies, just scraping through to the other side. Thanks to the new additions coupled with those core Oddworld systems there is much greater variety to the game, you'll go through an action-based level where you're getting chased by a Glukkon Blimp, then encounter a level where you're possessing sligs to clear a path through, levels where you can't use possession and have to rely on stealth and timing to make it through, others where more metroidvania elements come into play and you'll be heading into dark caves to find a power source to move on. The levels themselves are obviously much more impressive than the original games but perhaps more surprising is how they're much more impressive than even New N Tasty. You are still on that 2D plain controlling Abe, but the camera does pan around certain paths through the environment and there is much more going on in the background with Blimps, Snipers, mine trains wizzing past, as well as a greater number of Mudokens to save at times (sometimes in the 100s). One level - that is technically the most impressive - is on a train that is whizzing at high speed through the desert, culminating in a boss fight against a Slig in a giant mech. I will say though that one level so far frustrated the fuck out of me. It was the longest chapter so far and its key mechanic is using smoke to hide yourself from enemies, the issue is that in some parts of the level there aren't any smoke valves to hide in, you have to create your own smoke grenades to hide yourself and any Mudokens that are following you. The aiming is really finicky to perfect and on top of this the game is a little janky when it comes to detecting you and your squad in the smoke, a lot of the time I was fully covered but one or two Mudokens could be seen at the end and a Slig would just fly on by, another time they'd get shot up and I'd have to restart from the checkpoint and try again. At the start the difficulty was considerably more forgiving that the older games thanks largely to the double jump and an abundance of checkpoints but since then the difficulty has thankfully ramped up considerably to something akin to the games of old. The checkpoints are still a bit of a crutch and the double jump still helps you out of a few tight spots but some sections like the boss fight mentioned above have been pretty brutal to get through. Graphically, the game is very much a mixed bag. There's something about the art style that just feels a little bit washed out compared to the older games and New N Tasty, on top of this the game uses a very subdued colour palette, lots of browns, greys and muted greens throughout which doesn't help. On top of this the texture quality of rocks and other natural elements all look pretty shoddy with only the industrial areas looking ok. The game does shine with the background details though and the train level mentioned above did impress me quite a lot, but for a PS5 game it is still not really up to scratch. It is obviously an indie title so allowances for that have to be made. As for flaws, the game can be a little buggy at times. I think on about 5-10 occasions I've had an issue where Abe will get stuck mid-jump and no controller input from me will get him moving again, resulting in a checkpoint restart being needed. The controls are also a little finicky and imprecise, a lot of times I've had it where I'll try to climb down or jump up a platform in a hurry and somehow it won't work out. The most glaring issue though is the projectile system, you have to throw crafted/found items quite a bit in order to coat Sligs in a flammable liquid and set them on fire, use smoke to block a security camera/enemies view, rocks to kill bats etc. and it's just very fiddly. The game asks you to be precise at times with your aiming of these projectiles but the system they give you just isn't up to scratch, you're aiming with the right stick then pressing R2 to fire off projectiles whilst controlling abe with the left stick and having to switch items holding in triangle. It would've been much better if you could aim with L2, adjust your throwing arc with the right stick and then let fly or if time temporarily froze whilst you're throwing projectiles to allow you to be more precise in your aim. Overall though, I'm really enjoying it so far and couldn't put it down for the first 5-6 hours. It's included with PS+ this month so if you're a fan of the series or action/puzzle-platformers then I think you might get on with this so give it a go. Definitely not one to sleep on that's for sure, I almost slept on it myself (due to its proximity to Nier) but it gets a recommendation from me. Pics to follow:

Started this over the weekend with the fiancée. I think we're about 4 hours in and just hit Chapter 3. It's a colourful co-op platformer, you play as either Cody or May, a divorcing couple who aren't happy with their lot in life. They have a kid called Rose, who is unsurprisingly sad about their nuptial break, from her sadness her parents' personas get morphed into tiny clay and wooden mini-caricatures (which you play as). You then meet a strange love book called Dr. Hakim who throughout the course of the game tries to mend your broken relationship. All the environments are very homey, you start off in a shed, then explore the exterior and interior of a tree before making it into the house and experiencing some kind of strange pillow fort (which is where we are at the moment). These environments are punctuated by strange and eccentric characters like the aforementioned Dr. Hakim along with militarised Squirrels, Wasps, Beetles and Bumblebees which aren't too dissimilar to Conker's Bad Fur Day. The homey environments are reminiscent to Toy Story too (there's even a reference at one point). I like it so far but it hasn't blown my socks off it's fair to say, I wouldn't say it has started off as strongly as A Way Out did either. It is good though, and can be a lot of fun, I was just expecting to be more impressed at this point than I am. During the first chapter, it was a fairly rudimentary platformer with some cliched co-op elements (pull a level to open a door then your partner crawls through etc.), after that things have gotten a little better luckily with different weapons and tools introduced. Each chapter seems to give you some kind of unique tools or weapons which work in combination with your partners, during the first chapter I (Cody) was given a Nail Gun and the missus (May) was given a Hammer. You use the nail gun to shoot into yellow coloured bits of board so May can then swing off them to get to otherwise unreachable areas. The second chapter gave me a nectar gun, you shoot the nectar onto surfaces and your partner can then shoot it with her rifle to make it explode, reaching previously unreachable areas. These mechanics are all used in puzzles and during the second chapter there is quite a lot of combat as well, with me shooting the enemy Wasps with nectar and Char then exploding them into little Wasp pieces with her rifle. The second chapter is far better than the first and features quite a few set pieces, one where I had to control a plane and Char was in charge of the gun, having to shoot approaching enemies from the front and rear, along with clearing obstacles in our path. There was another set piece where I had to control a rudimentary boat and Char had to clear the way again with her rifle as I navigated down the river. The coolest one by far though is when I was flying the plane and Char had to fight an enemy on the top of it fighting game style, replete with fighting game style health bars and attacks, a really great moment. I wasn't too hot on it in the beginning and a little bored but the second chapter has turned me around on the game already and if it keeps on going like this it will only get better, can't wait to see what's in store for us next time. Pics:

This is a bit of an odd one, it really should have been called something else - it gets a lot of hate from project cars 1/2 fans (understandable really) as it's a departure - it's not a sim any more, and drops stuff like pitstops. this isn't really a problem for me, while there was some good stuff in 1/2 i was never a big fan, and i think there's a gap in the market for what 3 is trying to be. the handling is more inbetween sim and arcade now - like pgr/driveclub. so it's a similar game to grid and shift now i guess - but while both of those were decent imo there was something not quite right about the handling, this seems better in that regard, although probably not as good as pgr/driveclub. it's much better on a pad too than pcars1/2, i didn't play those with a pad but apparently there were problems - this one i've only played with a pad so far, and it's been good. one thing it still has from previous games is a great selection of tracks - saying great maybe understating how good the selection of tracks is, it's pretty amazing really i think there's ~40 real tracks (lots of these have multiple layouts too), and 10 made up ones. it has some from old toca games that aren't in games often like knockhill and oulton park, etc. so it's sort of close to a pgr style handling game with lots of real life tracks - which to me sounds like it could be the best thing ever - it's not the best thing ever. although i am enjoying it. then we have the problems - there are many problems with the games structure imo - the timetrials - just let me keep going - don't like having to restart every lap. - the 3 lap average time events need to be more lenient on voiding laps imo. - generally it's really harsh on voiding lap times - which i think is fine for online leaderboards but should be relaxed for the career mode stuff. - getting money to buy new cars is really slow going - which compounds into other problems - can't buy cars needed to do events to get more stars to unlock more events. games like forza and GT throw loads of cars at you - this should be the same. - lots of xp points wasted (you need these to get money) restarting instead of finishing events - although i now think i've solved this one - always finish an event and see your xp go up then restart at the last opportunity to avoid more loading but still get the xp. - oddly long loading times from an ssd - although ~30 to 40 seconds is still faster than some games from hdd. - the difficulty is all over the place, and unlocking stuff is tied into the difficulty - for me there should be difficult events with gold/silver/bronze medals etc, but getting bronze should be easy and fine for unlocking everything - here you need the 3 stars/gold etc as much as possible to help unlock stuff. i might have been making things harder for myself by buying the deal of the day cars sometimes from the store thinking they will come in handy, but they are for much later in the game. i've played ~12 hours and think i have 5 cars. also oddly you can pay money (in game money) to unlock events instead of properly unlocking them with stars - this is odd but a very good feature because of how hard it is to unlock stuff normally - but seems like they realised the unlocking system was crap and this was a quick fix for it or something. the graphics are not supposed to be any good, but i think it looks alright, and it runs really smooth, at 4k, with like 32 cars on track sometimes, this is on pc anyway. oh except when it rains, that's less smooth - i should mess with the settings to sort that out. despite the problems though i keep coming back to it, i am enjoying it. the handling is good, the selection of cars seems good if i could buy them, and the selection of tracks is really impressive. i hope they get chance to make a new one of these, with a different name, and with the career/structure stuff improved, i think it could be brilliant, and i'd like to say i think it could be a big hit but i'm not sure this kind of thing sells very well these days so who knows.

I wasn't going to do this. Largely because (a) I've nearly finished the game, without really trying. (b) aside from a fresh coat of paint, it is exactly the same game, warts and all. The original, much like this one, oozes charm with a Tim Burton-ish aesthetic and dialogue peppered with humour. As much as I loved the original, it was a 7/10 game at best. There is a lot of.. jank, that remains in the remake. Hitboxes that needed a little more testing and early 3D platforming issues are still present. Enemy AI is also a strange thing. Bosses have clearly defined set phases and attacks. The rank and file enemies tend to be ..unpredictable and a lot faster than expected. The monks in the Asylum Grounds for example, will hit you regardless of how well you think you're doing. So there we are. I'm currently on 11/20 Chalices. Roughly halfway through the game. In spite of the negatives, still really enjoying it.

I was just two and a half hours playing the Balan Wonderworld demo. It’s not half as bad as I’d heard on podcasts that had also clearly only played the first two levels of world one before turning it off and deciding to tell everyone it’s the worst game ever. The opening levels are a bit crap but the later sheep and the cog worlds are much better. I’m not talking Mario levels of quality but certainly gets better than the opening world. Plus the later costumes you find you can use when you go back to previous worlds to get to further trophies which in turn opens up more worlds. The music is also better later on. Not completely awful but an alright time waster and with so few games of its kind on xbox and PlayStation beggars can’t be choosers.

There's kind of been 3 types of Ys games over the years. The first couple you just bashed in to enemies, then they became hyper, isometric, all about attacking. Then we got to the 3D versions and it was still a game about going on the attack, but now what type of attack was important. You'd eventually gather 3 characters, a sword character (red), a blunt attack character (blue), and a piercing character (green), different enemy types are weak to different attack types, and you can switch on the fly to suit And that's how it's been for a few games now. Ys IX follows the same formula, but brings in a more traditional RPG structure. Previously side quests would task you with just getting certain drops, you'd get them from your home base, which was a tiny area, and that would be it. 99.9% of the time you were out killing things Ys IX is a little different, structured like a traditional JRPG, it starts slow, with the plot set up, then some short easy combat to ease you in, then a chunk more story. The world is no longer 1 small safe area then a world of combat, instead you're in a city, with combat, shopping, side quests, and exploration taking place throughout, I've not seen this in an Ys game before, even if it's fairly typical for the genre. You're eased in to the world with quests to visit shops and buy gear, it's a little slow going. There's still "dungeons", sections where there's nothing but combat and exploration, but now there's also little dimension pockets where you can enter combat and fight a handful of enemies, then just carry on with whatever you were supposed to be doing The tower defence style sections are still here, now you're whisked away at certain points to fight as a team, protecting a crystal, against waves of enemies. Not especially interesting, and the camera annoyed me a little with this, it maybe could do with being pulled back a bit so you see more of the field, but then they've not been too demanding so far, so maybe it doesn't matter also it's all anime goth now

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

I bought the All in one pack for this way back in 2017, played it once, and assumed my free trial would be long expired but no, it’s still active, for however long. I played it for two hours today, basically to the end of the introduction to the game, which felt like it was more or less completely offline. Impressions so far - well the graphics show the game’s age, it was originally released in 2012 on the Wii. But the cut-scenes and close-ups are quite nice. There is no voice acting in the game but the music is nice, and already I think I’ve heard more variety than in the entirety of XI. Battles are initiated by running into enemies in the field, you can move around in battle which seems to be the biggest change, although I’ve no idea if it serves any practical purpose. Four years ago (!) I struggled with the Japanese but I can read it more smoothly now. I have a week off with absolutely nothing to do, so I’m gonna sink some time into this. It will be my first mmorpg experience.