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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.

So I got this for the PS4, but pop the disc in your ps5 and it downloads the extra bits to make it a ps5 game for free, there was a £10 difference in price when I got my copy so bonus! Typical plot bad guy takes all the little sacklings to build a big menacing machine and you as Sackboy run off to save them. There’s 5 worlds im currently on the third. Each world is split into levels where you can earn blue orbs used to unlock other levels, some you can gain 5 orbs others 3 orbs. The levels are fun with some good inventive bits which make the platformer different, there’s standard on the rails train levels, jumpy levels, hold on and grab levels all good stuff. The big thing for me is the soundtrack it’s awesome! Humming away even the most frustrating levels it’s still fun. I guess you guys being more hardcore gamers than me would smash the way through, I’m enjoying replaying a level if I didn’t get all the orbs going back in as they can be hidden away. It’s cute it’s fun it’s annoying at times but the soundtrack takes it away. Possibly the longest I’ve put into a game in a while, plus the oh likes it too!

Picked this up as something bright and colourful to counteract how dark and oppressive Outer Wilds is. You play as Stella, accompanied by her pet dog Daffodil, who has taken over from Charon as the “spiritfarer” - in other words, it’s a death management sim, but it’s not gloomy at all. The game looks and sounds absolutely stunning. I’ve literally only played 30 minutes but I loved it. Seems like the game will be a mix of exploration with gentle management elements.

I started playing some of this. I'm definitely going to need digital foundry to hold my hand on what settings I should be turning on, the auto detect option on the game itself recommended I max the game out but that isn't happening. I figured I would settle for 30fps but the camera motion in this is really bad, it doesn't feel good. So I'll have to tweak that. Anyway it's very janky and hard to play so far. Everyone makes a big song and dance about DLSS but it dont play well with camera movement. I guess there is a hell of a lot of detail to be reconstructing all the time. Sometimes the game looks spectacular but sometimes I'm sort of finding it to look kind of terrible. Part of it is the game feels sort of weird. People phase into existence in front of you, cars render in front of you. Obviously there's weird shit with people t-posing but that's minor. At one time in a cutscene V was completely naked for no reason, that made me lol and makes me wonder if your model is always like that cause it's a FPS game and you can't see your tits or dick or whatever. Gameplay wise I find it hard to play and the HUD and text is such a bad clash of colours and design that I can't tell what's going on half the time or what the things I'm picking up are. This could just be the awkward teething phase but it feels kind of gross. The driving is also really swimmy. I mean I'm sure it gets good as you go in but yeah it's like kind of clunky in a really strange way. These guys did make The Witcher III I suppose. It feels like someone took Euro jank and gave it all the money but kept the jank. The game throws a million things at you at once and displays a bunch of info on your HUD that's hard to keep track of. It's not a very gentle easing into the world, it sort of just throws you in and you're constantly bewildered, well I am anyway. I'm confused. There's a lot going on here but it's not so much that it's deep just that there's a fucking lot of it and I can't be arsed to read it all. I played 3 hours of it, one of which was a big shootout. The shooting doesn't feel good, but it sounds good. Aiming is bad, there's a lot of control options to figure out so I will definitely be following whatever guide somebody puts up to fix the issues with it. Anyway it's cyberpunk, it does the Bladerunner thing. Pris is in it, sort of. That's what people wanted, a very Bladerunner-ey game. Except this is less chin stroking and more aggressive 90s Rob Zombie in your face all the time. Feels of an era This game is very hard to run, pretty much never see 60fps at the settings the game recommends for me. It's exactly the kind of game people were expecting, an absolute monster for both GPU and CPU. A new Crysis.

I'm not sure how much people know about what this is, but I've been playing it during the week and I'm a few hours in. It feels like the gameplay loop has been set in stone at this point, for better or worse, I don't think the game is going to change too much Gameplay wise things are fairly simple. You'll be tasked with catching specific Bugsnax, some are really easy to catch, just set a trap and wait for their patrol route to take them in to it then activate it. Others you'll need to coax over with various flavour of sauces. And some you'll have to be a bit more creative about, maybe they're too hot or cold to touch, maybe they're protected in some way, so you'll have to do a bit more than fling a trap down The point of all this is to meet the demands of the islanders (grumpus) to convince them to move back to their village. Once you've done that they'll give you some side quests and you'll be able to interview them, which moves on the larger story of where their leader is. It's here where things get a bit more interesting. It's not, so far, anything especially dark, but there's definitely more going on with these characters than just being wacky muppets It's... alright. I'm finding it hard to play for long periods, having to move back and forth between areas to find specific bugsnax, particularly if there's a time of day requirement to them or your backpack is full, it can be a bit of a grind. One of those games that's not in any way bad, just not necessarily all that much fun

Been hammering this pretty hard since I got my PS5, haven’t actually played anything else yet ? about 13 hours in. Going in I was pretty confident I was gonna like it but a little bit cautious due to my time with the previous game. I ended up loving it a lot in the end but had a lot of issues with the side activities which felt like they were stuck in the PS2 era, which brought the game down from the highs of the phenomenal story. So with that in mind, this has far exceeded every expectation I ever had for it already. It’s safe to say it plays very similarly to the previous game, the mechanics, the combat, the stealth sections, the Arkham-style Predator sections and - unfortunately - some of the side activities are all very familiar if you’ve played SM 2018. So in lots of ways it doesn’t really innovate, it merely tweaks the formula from the previous game adding in new powers for Miles like the ‘Venom’ Power stuff, but when the core is as strong as it is there was no point starting from scratch. Everything works, and it works really well, the combat is still fun, the swinging is still addictive as fuck and the side activities are still a little PS2-esque but trimmed down a bit from the previous game. It feels a bit like being reacquainted with an old friend really. Whilst that core from the previous game is very much in tact the game still manages to have a very different feel to it thanks to Miles. Miles is just a very different character and a very different Spider-Man than Peter Parker and his identity and charisma is running through pretty much every facet of the game. Whilst the previous game had you taking charge of a confident, assured Peter Parker that had honed his craft over a number of years, Miles is still a teenager who has a lot to learn in general. He is becoming a man, has just become ‘the other’ Spider-Man and has to deal with a lot of strong emotions from the events of SM 2018 coupled with moving to a new neighbourhood and his Mother running for a local Council position. Miles just makes the game so much more refreshing. We’ve seen and played as Peter Parker’s Spidey in so many games and films over the years that getting to pilot Miles in this and see New York from a totally different perspective just feels fresh and unique. The best way I can describe it is akin to ‘The Lost and Damned’ DLC from GTA IV, you’re playing a new character that starts off in a totally different district that it makes the game and the environment itself feel totally fresh and new because you’re coming at it from such a different angle. I think the Christmas setting this time around lends the city a totally different feel to the Summery New York of SM 2018 as well. This being a PS5 launch title I have to mention the graphics. They are extraordinary. Not just the big things you notice like the Ray Traced reflections on every surface (playing in fidelity mode) but the little things like the squirrels that now roam about and run up trees or the little ornate gardens outside some of the opulent buildings that are scattered across Manhattan. Every single building you come across seems to have so much more detail to it than in the previous game, Manhattan in that game often came across as a little bland for me in some of the outer districts but in this every single one has its own identity. There was one section quite near the beginning of the story where you’re walking through a Harlem street market with Miles and his friend and it just blew me away, getting this level of graphical quality this early in the generation is just insane to me. My only real criticism of it would be the side activities again. Don’t get me wrong, they are far less of an issue here and I’ve enjoyed them for the most part but every now and again they’ll get on my tits a bit, nothing to the level of SM 2018, but yeah there still is some room for improvement there in my view. The story moves at a quicker pace this time around. It did take the previous game a while to get going but here it seems to throw you into the deep end a bit sooner with some twists coming relatively early that I never saw coming. I just love hanging out with Miles and his friends really, some of my favourite moments are just walking around his Mums apartment studying various bits and pieces in there and listening to all the banter in Spanish (and English) between them. I will say as well, to anyone that was worried about this being a short jaunt back into Spidey’s Manhattan, don’t be. It has taken me 13 hours so far and I’m only about 50% through, considering the previous game took me 34 hours to Platinum, this will likely end up taking me 25 or so. I’ve just loved being back in this Marvel version of New York again and piloting Miles, he really is a breath of fresh air. I really cannot recommend this enough, this is one of the best ever PS launch titles already in my view, definitely shits all over the PS4 and PS3 offerings that’s for sure. What a start to the next generation! Pics:

I played through ADR1FT over the weekend. I've been meaning to play it for ages, it always looked really interesting, certainly very pretty. You're an astronaut in a destroyed space station trying to survive in your damaged space suit, it's surprisingly not a horror game despite it being a nice looking game set in space. Let me say first, it's a VR game too and I suspect its 10 times the experience in VR. Or it will make you really sick as you spin around in 0g. I think it'd be a cool experience to try though, the first person view with stuff floating past you would be pretty immersive. As it is I had a few problems with it. The way the story is presented, through audio logs and emails, comments through your helmet speakers, none of it went in when I was playing. Almost certainly I think VR would have gone some way to solve this, if only because of the earphones. I picked up on the state of the station being someone else's fault, guy was a real jerk, but beyond that nothing else landed. The gameplay is you floating around trying to keep your oxygen topped up (not difficult), while following the breadcrumb trail to the next objective. There's very little else to it, no puzzles. Still though, I managed to lose where my next objective was a couple of times, found it easier to just turn the game off and start back from a checkpoint the next day It's not all I hoped it would be, maybe on another day, or even with headphones, I'd have clicked with it, and I do think it'd be a better game in VR

Yakuza is undoubtedly one of my favourite gaming franchises. It’s been consistently excellent for many years now. Yakuza Zero is one of my favourite games of all time. So,I’m always up for more. This entry has shifted from the usual over the top action, to an RPG style. Quite the difference. The reviews have said that it’s paid off, for the most part. Though there are some massive difficulty spikes near the end, that require some hefty grinding. Anyway, I’m a couple of hours in. There hasn’t been much gameplay yet, it’s almost entirely cutscenes thus far. Yakuza games always start slowly, this entry apparently takes about 10 hours to get properly started. Another new addition is a brand new character, Ichiban. He seems decent enough, though it’s too early to say how he compares to Kiryu. We will see how it plays out.

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

I've seen this described as a cross between mirrors edge and super meat boy. i think that's a good description, i also really like both of those games, it's a first person platformer with instant restarts, quite a lot of checkpoints, and one hit kill for you and the enemies. but it seems more random than 2D stuff like this as you can't see everthing that's shooting at you. it's sort of amazing. but also really hard and frustrating. in the first 5 levels or so i'd already thought i might have to give up on two different sections. the enemies are very good at shooting guns, maybe a bit too good, you can jump over them and they'll still shoot you instantly, you just have to keep moving and hope you don't get hit. i tried playing cloudbuilt twice (two different versions) and had to give up quite far in both times, i have a feeling this might be similar. really not sure i'll be able to finish it, so an easier mode would be a good addition, but no regrets buying it (although only paid a tenner), it's been mostly great so far. i've just done the first boss, which comes quite late, think i'm on about level 7 or 8 or something, when i saw it it my thoughts were that it's awesome but i might not be able to do it. it took me about 30 mins and 200 deaths, there's a video of someone making it look easy in the spoiler below, this also shows why the game is so good: dunno if anyone else is interested in this? oh and although there are loads of checkpoints these don't save, you have to get to the end of the level for it to save. oh oh and there's powerups and stuff, i can deflect bullets back, but the timing is strict (you can upgrade it) so i just keep swiping and sometimes it saves me a death.

Played the demo of this on Friday and thought I’d give my thoughts on it. Played around 40 minutes to an hour and I definitely would’ve liked longer with it which is a good sign. Graphically it’s very colourful, it reminded me quite a bit of the game Rime mixed with a more cartoony AC Odyssey with a sprinkling of Zelda. To play it’s immediately reminiscent of AC Odyssey. The way the combat system works with all the special abilities is very familiar, but it is definitely more flamboyant and less grounded, it feels like the system has been jazzed up and some of the moves you can pull off are a little closer to DMC than the weight of AC:OD. The way all the landmarks and points of interest are pinned to the top is very similar to AC:OD as well but then a lot of games use that system nowadays. The most interesting aspect to me was the puzzle aspect. I only came across one in my short time with the game but it was a nice surprise, reminded me a bit of some of the puzzles you’d come across in BOTW and was satisfying to complete. The way Fenyx moves is very familiar to BOTW too, there’s a stamina bar that depletes as you run and climb. She sprouts wings when you Glide which looks and feels very similar to Link’s glider in BOTW. It has a playful sense of humour to it as well. The way the demo plays out is that Zeus and Prometheus are narrating a story but keep getting it wrong, so things change on the fly for Fenyx as they adapt their stories in an attempt to get things right. The two have a lot of character and are nowhere near as stoic or uptight as some of their other interpretations in games over the years. Overall I was impressed with it but needed more time real to nail down a recommendation. It’s a lot of fun though and I think it will be a great world to get lost in but I can’t shake the feeling that it might be a little bit unoriginal and not doing a lot of new things per se. Saying that, I’ll definitely keep my pre-order after playing the demo, I love new IP and want to play some more after this brief taste.

I was never going to buy this. I always wanted to play Gal Fighters on the Neo Geo Pocket but never picked it up, now it's really not worth the price, especially as it's just the Fatal Fury game with a different roster. SNK Heroines Tag Battle isn't Gal Fighters, but it leans on it. It's more gratuitous than Gal Fighters, which was just a fighting game, and Mai aside, treats the female characters as it would the males. This takes Terry and makes him a pretty girl, puts everyone in revealing novelty costumes, it's like a Tecmo game. I didn't want to support that, but the novelty got the better of me so I picked it up cheap intending to never play it. Boredom and lack of things to play on the Switch got the better of me, and now here we are It's not that bad a game. It's a tag battle, but with layers of confusion that make it kind of impenetrable. There's an auto-combo system, so press either of the attack buttons and you'll chain together a string of attacks, and you can finish with a special move. Special moves are a button press too, so down + special does one thing, back + special something else, simplistic but it's fun enough. There's orbs dotted around the stage than can be smashed, and I think recover energy from your support character, I'm not sure, this is where the game starts to lose me a bit You pick two characters, one is the fighter, one is support, but you can switch between them. They share the same health bar, so there's no great benefit in switching, but they have different special meters. Whenever you use a special attack your special meter drains, but does refill slowly over times. I'm not a fan of this system at all, I just don't see the benefit. However, and this is something I conceptually like but in practice I find unreadable, you don't win the fight by depleting your opponents health bar, instead you have to do enough damage to get them in to the danger zone then launch a super move. you can only launch a super move if you have enough special bar left. How much is enough? Fuck knows, so it seems better to just switch characters once you've done the damage. You can also have your support character throw shit from the background, the computer does this all the time, the final boss especially, I've never worked out how to do it. Also there's a block button rather than just pushing back, this is shit, plus there's no way to break combos, which I'm not against on principal, but with some of the cheap shit the final boss pulls. And on that note. The game is very easy, it's no wonder I never learnt how to play it, but the final boss is proper cheap, difficult SNK. It will straight up cheap at times, seeming to skip animations so it can dodge or block your supers and countering perfectly to end the fight. I was seemingly getting stunned in one hit so I could be finished too. Infuriating, and enough of a reason to never play it again. It's not irredeemably bad, but there's enough wrong with it, the story, the confusing systems, the slowdown, the final boss, that I'm not looking to learn how to play it

Don't think this ever migrated into the Games thread, but I started playing it today. It's pretty clunky, but already has a few interesting ideas in terms of making you work things out whilst investigating/researching and linking events together when using the psychic flashbacks. The Lovecraft vibe is quite obvious, and combat best avoided at times rather than head on. Promising few hours, so I'll be seeing this through.

So it's star wars, and you fly around in various star was vehicles such as xwings and tie fighters, and you shoot bad guys (or good guys i guess). I'm a big fan of the old school tie fighter game (and xwing etc.) and this takes a lot of things from that - like the engine/lasers/shield power balancing thing, which i like, it adds a sort of mini management thing, you can divert power to any of these 3, choose engines to help evade missiles and charge a boost meter. lasers charges your lasers, and overcharges them added benefits which i'm not totally sure about (either you get to fire for longer or the laser is more powerful, not sure?). switching to shields charges your shields and can overcharge them. it sounds quite simple but i think it really adds to the game as you have to constantly switch between them depending on what's going on - i'm still getting used to it and the controls. there's more settings you can adjust shield power forwards/backwards and other stuff - that's too advanced for me at the moment. i've done 5 missions so far, 2 prologue ones and 3 missions, i'm still getting bits of tutorial, and still getting used to the controls and what all the lights and stuff on the dashboard mean. Ienjoying it so far but I'm not sure if i'm enjoying it because it's good, or because flying around in a xwing/tie fighter in VR is really cool, or maybe it's a bit of both. have only played in VR so far, there are some problems with it, maybe due to my old vr headset, but the graphics aren't great, except for the cockpit which looks great, but stuff like the other ships look pretty blocky and a bit blury. but it is super cool being there, being able to look around for other ships and flying through explosions (which also don't look great) and stuff. The targeting seems to work well too, and there are a lot of options i haven't got the hang of yet like targeting ships that are attacking you. but the default of cycling through current objectives works well - i played a bit of ace combat and had problems with the targeting, it seems to work much better here. you can also issue simple commands to team mates and stuff. multiplayer seems to be a big part of it but i'm not sure i'll play that mode or not. So yeah seems like it's pretty good so far, and even more recommended for VR.

I started playing this and beat the first boss. It's mostly like Crash 1 I think but with lots of new tricks and gimmicks. So far I'm not loving it but not hating it either. I just find it very frustrating as it is extremely punishing of pixel perfect miscalculations. Depth perception is also a thing I struggle with on it, even more than other Crash games. They put in this shadow circle under Crash so they seem to at least be aware of it but it doesn't always fix the problem. I don't know if it's the level of detail in the stages or something else but I am dying a lot particularly with all the new mask juggling mechanics It's really good looking but I'm looking forward to next gen ray tracing as the screen space reflections here have lots of artifacts. I've just noticed it a lot more in games recently that use that technique. Other than that it's very early Pixar looking in a good way. This happens way too often It's more of the same with some decent ideas so I doubt it will win over any new fans or necessarily alienate any old ones. Unless you really don't like the difficulty in Crash 1 which is the camp I sort of fall into. It's the same ultra linear tightly constrained design but now that they have lots of graphics budget on PS4 they don't need to do the thing where they hide the rest of the level behind obstacles like the ND games so that's a cool difference Pretty cool first boss

I enjoyed the original Destroy All Humans back in the day. So when this Remaster was announced, I was all for it. Unfortunately, this is one of those examples where a game isn’t quite what you remembered. For one thing, the difficulty is absolutely all over the place. Most of the missions aren’t too bad. But then you get one thrown at you, that will punish you severely. From awful stealth sections that a chore to play. To enemies that rip through your health in a matter of sections. If you haven’t upgraded specific abilities, then you’re pretty much screwed. Graphically it looks nice enough. And they’ve added some improvements over the original, such as the ability to skate quickly around the map. But other improvements just appear to have been forgotten about. It’s extremely annoying that when you’re in the flying saucer, your shields don’t regenerate, the only way to do so, is absorb enemy vehicles. Might not sound too bad. But when you’re getting blitzed on all sides in hectic battles, it’s a ballache. And ultimately, the final boss difficulty spike just did me in. A saucer only battle. Very few enemies to regenerate your shields. The boss bombards you with rockets if you move too far away from it. And best of all, 3 massive health bars to drain, with absolutely no checkpoints during the fight at all. And each health bar takes aaaaaaages to drain. 3 times the bastard killed me. On my 4th attempt I reached his final health bar. But at that point, I was getting battered with lasers and rockets, and despite my best efforts, I died again. And that’s me done with this game, because fuck going through all that again.

Couldn’t find a thread on it, nobody else played this? It’s a rhythm action game for those who like metal and killing zombies. Worth it alone for noticing how close the fake versions of bands like Iron Maiden and Faith No More are. At least watch the opening few minutes of the story, I’ve been having a great laugh with it. On GamePass currently, worth a look.