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This is fantastic. Apparently it’s inspired by a comic book or something. It’s an rpg where overworld traversal takes place on like a beautiful board game map, which then transitions into proper exploration for dungeons and other “explorable areas” (not unlike the transition in the PS1 Final Fantasy games). The character art and background art is lovely. Combat is turn-based, jrpg style. But the game has a couple of original, interesting ideas. Aside from default attacks, characters have abilities that cost mana, but you also have a stat called overcharge. Default attacks give you overcharge, and if you use abilities that cost mana, the game uses your overcharge first before taking from your mana. So if you have 20 overcharge, and you use an ability that costs 25 mana, you lose 20 overcharge and only 5 mana. It’s an interesting system that differentiates the game from other turn based RPGs. Also, attacks and abilities have casting speeds (eg instant, very fast, fast) which is another thing you have to take into account. I bought it heavily discounted but it’s been easily worth that so far.

FAR: Lone Sails is a beautiful indie game that definitely has that special something that the best indie games have, at least in the opening 30 minutes that I played. It looks like this: You’re basically piloting this hunk of metal across a barren wasteland. Gameplay has been very simple so far. The ship will move slowly if you open the sails but you can also fuel it to make it move faster. And then occasionally you come to roadblocks like this which require some gentle puzzling (so far). It looks beautiful. And everything is communicated visually. There’s no dialogue or tutorial. Very impressed so far.

Demo is out, first chapter of the game. I made a video fighting the demo boss. I did really bad, maybe you can do better. It feels well designed but lacking in polish, I dunno. There's a lot to like here but I hope they get it up to a better standard for release edit ok I spent time practicing and took a better video of the boss fight. This game has really good combat. It's so mechanical, a nice amount to think about. Some AI problems tho. I wish you could call characters to a position but it seems you need to babysit them with switch mechanic

Well. I usually enjoy Rebellion’s output. Sniper Elite is always good for a laugh (who doesn’t enjoy shooting Nazis in the bollocks?). Strange Brigade was a lot of fun. And I mostly had a good time with Zombie Army Trilogy, until I got close to the end, and the massive difficulty spike really pissed me off and stopped me from playing it further. So, I was certainly interested in renting this. First impressions were good. It has the satisfying combat of the Sniper Elite series, and at first, it seems like it could be fun. However, there’s a significant problem: it’s fucking ridiculous, even on Easy. I’m playing Solo, but it’s quickly becoming clear that its going to be nigh on impossible. Most games are generous with health packs, or regenerating health. Not so here. You can hold one medkit maximum, and they’re pretty rare. Your health doesn’t regenerate at all. Well, there is a way to get some health back, by performing a melee kill, but the ability to regain health from that requires you to have killed 10 enemies in a row. There is an ability that lets you get back up after being downed, Borderlands style. But you can only use that once per level. Each level consists of 4 chapters. I just finished Level 2, and that really tested my patience. Especially when the “special” zombies start making an appearance. Those often require to hit a specific weak point. Good luck doing that when you’re constantly getting ganked. I fluked my way through the last two chapters of Level 2, the final one consisting of having to defend two generations, for a stupidly long time. All while horde of zombies keep damaging them, meaning you have to repair the bloody things. All while constantly running out of ammo, or health, or both. The words “for fucks sake” were uttered multiple times. With a team, it would be more bearable. But as per usual, Rebellion don’t seem to understand how to make a game fun in single player. With at least 4 more Levels to go, I don’t imagine finishing it. I play games to have fun, not have my patience tested to breaking point. A challenge is one thing. Taking the absolute piss, is another.

Well, this was surprising. Coming from the people that brought us the god-awful Rambo game, and having pretty much zero hype, I wasn’t expecting much. But this was actually alright. Certainly the best Terminator game in years, though that’s not saying much. Combat wise it’s pretty decent, though it’s a bit annoying that Terminators more or less insta-kill you, and your weapons do absolutely no damage to them. Thankfully the next level gives you a plasma rifle, so it’s payback time. There are Telltale style conversation choices, that affect the ending. Though not dramatically so. Still, the writing is decent, and the voice acting is good. It’s not massively long, I played most of it last night, and finished it this afternoon. But I had fun while doing so. It was certainly worth a rental.

Great! A game in a series I've enjoyed on and off since the third installment on PS1 has gone 'free' on Game Pass - let's try it out. Hmmm... It's taken me 5 minutes of scrolling and about 15 button presses just to get to the main menu. This isn't the greatest start. No matter, let's see what's about... Wait, what? It's automatically taken me to the options screen now? Ok, ok, I'll just back out of there, then I'll see what's going on. Mishima Saga? WTF is that? Fuck it, let's go. Oh yay. More menus to click through. JUST LET ME PUNCH SOMEONE DAMMIT! Ok - difficulty on Normal. Finally into it. Punching time. Wait. No. No it isn't - I'm dropping young Kazuya off a cliff. Nice throwback, but I just want to fight. Yay, fighting time! The above was a description of my first 10 minutes with Tekken 7. When I finally got into it, the story mode was AWFUL. I played on normal, because fuck it, it's Tekken, how hard can it be? Turns out it gets very difficult, and extremely cheap. To the point I had to play cheap myself to even it out. One fight pits you as Heihachi against Akuma from Street Fighter (because remember when SFxT was a thing? What happened to TxSF? I wanted that so much more). That was tough, but I got through it. Then a little later it switched the roles, and I almost threw my controller at the screen. Then, putting you back in control of Heihaci, it had you fighting against Kazumi. Who can fire lasers, fly, has a fucking tiger that can attack you, can disappear and has unblockable attacks. But the sidestep isn't responsive enough, so you just end up repeatedly getting wailed on. Oh and she has regenerating health. And the final boss is demon Kazuya. Who can do all of the above (except for the tiger bullshit) but stronger. On each of the 13 chapters you have to beat most characters twice - the only exception to this is where you have to defeat 5 army grunts or 5 of Jack-4/6 in a row. But you can't lose a round either. You have to win two rounds without taking a loss on every single chapter. There's also a final chapter that I didn't see last night where you have to defeat Devil Akuma. Really not looking forward to that bullshit. All I wanted was an old-school Arcade mode. Ten fights, best of 3, stupid character movie at the end. What I got was this fuckery. I'm gonna go back in the next few days and look for some traditional modes, but last night I had to take my Kindle up to bed with me to try and dispel some of the irritation. That shouldn't happen with a game.

Wow, no thread for this? I'm surprised. Been dipping and diving into lots of different PC games and struggling to find something that really grabs me. This is it, I think. I'm only about 90 minutes in, so far it's an adventure set in a dilapidated world that feels marked by communism, or on the verge of some sort of ugly class upheaval. You're a very hungover detective who doesn't really know what's happening but there's a case you got to investigate. But maybe the real thing you got to investigate is who you are and what has happened to you. Sound familiar? I really like it so far. It's basically just a game about reading lots of text so far and passing/failing speech checks. I don't really get all the systems yet, but it's like PS:T through the lens of Jack Kerouac or William S Burroughs. Absolutely fucked up and manky but very beautifully written heaps of text everywhere. The screen where they show you all your perks/specialities is so aggressively wordy. I don't know if there is actually any combat in the game because every perk seems to be based around some personality trait

Guess it's time to make a thread, maybe? I don't actually have a lot to say because I started it ages ago but put it to the side for some reason. I think I was having a hard time as it's a little more difficult than the first one from what I remember. But I'd played it a lot more than I thought. I had six hours clocked and I thought I was half that in, at the most. After a little flapping around like an idiot while I got used to it again I started having a really good time with it like the first one. Dunno why I put it down. But I got towards the end and it looks like it has that same thing as the first one where you have to get a bunch of collectables hidden behind some hardcore challenges so I guess I'm gonna have to go and see all talented and big dicked enough to get the proper ending.

Ok. So I’m a huge Dragonball Z fan. I first watched the series back in my 20’s, via the heavily edited Toonami dub (people never died, they got sent to ‘Another Dimension’). Years later I rewatched the American dub. And a few years after that, the Japanese original. I still have a lot of love for the series. So I was certainly interested in this. Visually, it absolutely nails it. It looks exactly like an episode of the anime. And it’s certainly a nice touch that you can play either with English or Japanese audio. It doesn’t get off to a great start gameplay wise though, with a pretty poor ‘training’ mission. I’ve seen a few videos of “stuff the game doesn’t tell you”. And a glaring omission is how to fight. Sure, you get three pages of a control pad, showing you what the buttons are. But there’s no explanation given in how to actually fight an enemy. I know, as a fan, that you have to charge Ki to perform energy attacks. But it doesn’t tell you that, so newcomers may be a bit puzzled why their special moves aren’t working. There’s a couple of prompts at the bottom of the screen (hold these buttons to do this move). But as far as tutorials go, it’s not great. I then experienced a bug which meant I had to reload my game. “Walk with Gohan to the fishing spot” I was told. Great. Except Gohan vanished, and after 5 minutes of searching it was clear he’d fucked off into thin air. Part of the game is open world, where you can fly around collecting Z orbs of different colours, to level up your abilities. Again, the game doesn’t tell you what these are for. Then there’s the Community Board, which is frankly a mess. You get a board, and when you meet characters and perform certain actions, you gain their icon, and can place them on your board. Putting certain characters next to each other grants you bonuses in combat. Some characters have their own board (Goku’s wife, Chi Chi, and his trainer Master Roshi). How do you add icons onto their board? I don’t have a fucking clue. It speaks volumes that the first time you access this part of the game, you’re barraged with about 6 pages of information. And I’m still none the wiser on what the fuck to do with it. Anyway, only a couple of hours in. Maybe things will make more sense as I go along. Or it won’t, and I’ll just mash buttons and hope for the best.

edited the title cause no need for two threads for two weird Russian games hardly anyone will play I started this. I don't expect this to be a popular thread, but it's a game I've wanted to try for a long time. Premise is hard to explain cause it just throws you in and your character knows more about the world than you do. Basically there is a plague, and there is a mystery. After a long prologue you're in a town and you have to solve the mystery of what's going on, I think, while also not dying. You've got health and thirst and hunger and a lot of other survival mechanics to manage. You have a sort of notoriety mechanic which affects your influence with people in the town. It's basically some sort of hardcore immersive sim Shenmue thing except if you are not in the right place at a certain time you will permanently miss out on certain stuff. So far I've spent most of my time trying to find the one friendly person in the town who doesn't hate me while rummaging through bins for a few stale peanuts so I don't pass out. Parts of it remind me of what BloodBorne, story wise. It's very weird and unforgiving. Kind of a bit of a David Lynch fever dream at parts. Anyway this game is free on game pass so there's no harm in trying even if you hate it. Game seems really hard, like you're destined to just fail the first playthrough.

I've played a little of this so here's some impressions. It's another indie racing game inspired by the arcade titles of the 90s. Visually and audibly it's very Ridge Racer but the handling is something else. Maybe more like Motorstorm but a bit driftier? Not sure but it's not expected and it's maybe more unforgiving than is satisfying. But I guess that's what this is; a hardcore racer for real gamers, like back in the day. There is a difficulty spike really early on that is a narrow course through the woods and I felt like giving up. But I found that conventional wisdom doesn't work here. I was using a car that was statistically slow but with good handling which in games like this is usually the beginner car but when I was failing a lot I tried another and I found maintaining speed and drifting is so much easier to do so once I learned the track I managed second place. The slower car just snapped out of drifting so easily and I couldn't figure out how to be fast in it. The AI is pretty brutal. Its like when I used to play Gran Turismo 2 and sometimes use the other cars to get round corners since there was little to no punishment for it. Well, get used to being on the other end of it. You cannot corner a little too slowly if anyone is behind you. But it seems okay so far despite that. Once I got a little hang of it I was having fun. But the handling seems like it might click... but might not.

This is a Sad Indie (TM) adventure game, with a lovely art style and pretty good story, told entirely without dialogue. I got it a while ago as a freebie on the Epic store. The game starts with your character after a car accident which killed his wife and left him in a wheelchair. He finds he has the ability to go back to the day of the accident via portraits of people that his wife painted, and tries to change things to prevent the accident. This is the main gameplay element, each portrait gives you control of the person in the painting, and you attempt to change their actions to prevent their part in the accident. Changing that course of events inevitably has knock on events, ending in something else being responsible for your accident, you have to go between the three characters and manipulate things to effect the others. It's fairly straightforward, and takes about 4 hours or so. It's very well made, and I liked it a lot.

Played the opening couple of hours. It’s a beautiful looking game that is graphically far ahead of Shenmue 2. If Shenmue 3 had been released soon after Shenmue 2, it wouldn’t have looked as pretty as this. Ryo sounds the same, pretty impressive given that the voice actor is 20 years older. Shenhua obviously doesn’t, which is a shame. But there’s nothing wrong with the new voice actress either. The music is gorgeous, especially the Bailu Village theme. The gameplay has many returning features, and some things looked to have changed, but I won’t comment on that until I’ve played some more (and everyone else has had a chance to play it). Looking forward to playing more tomorrow. Trophies aren’t available yet, but I assume the game has them.

Here you go lazy bones @Maryokutai. Not hard is it.

Played the first 3 hours earlier. I like it so far but it barely feels like I’m out the tutorial really so very early days. A lot of mechanics are being introduced still and it feels like the reigns haven’t been let go of yet so I’m not free to fully explore the world yet. First things first. There’s a lot of cutscenes. Almost all of them during the Prologue are ones we’ve seen from past trailers so in some ways we’ve all seen the opening hour but without the context you’ll get in the game. After that you’ll start to see some new stuff but at this early stage most of it is just introducing you to characters and locales with not an awful lot going on in terms of plot or anything. I’m not sure I need to go into a deep dive over the way the game plays as we’ve seen the gameplay trailers in the past. If you’ve seen those clips with Sam delivering packages that’s pretty much all I’ve done so far, the tone has definitely been on the serious side - thus far at least - with the piss grenades and Kojima wackiness completely missing during the opening stages of what I’ve played at least. The way it feels to pilot Sam though is probably what has surprised me the most, I read someone else somewhere compare piloting him to driving a car in GTA or something which had me a little bit worried because I assumed he’d control like a tank but instead he controls like a Sports Car if anything. He is incredibly nimble and controls very intuitively which I was shocked about, the walking speed is a light jog as well which means you get places really quickly. Holding L2 and R2 in will enable you to keep your balance much better and it’s a godsend when you’re carrying something heavy or traversing mountains as it will stop you flailing from left to right wildly. The way you load and unload packages feels very intuitive as well and it’s somewhat novel in letting you pick it up and then rearrange it on your person, it feels very tactile. I’ve made 3 deliveries in total in my time with the game so far. It seems fun enough to me to simply get lost in the world and walk about eventually getting to your delivery point but as mentioned previously I haven’t been fully let off the reigns so far so have only been able to explore very linear corridors which have been funnelling me to the next exposition point. I have met the ‘BT’s’ once so far and the whole experience completely weirded me out. I fucked it up first time around and was flailing wildly not knowing what to do before being chased by some kind of monster thing so I reloaded and gave it another go. The atmosphere in those moments is so damn tense creeping around them whilst crouching and holding your breath, the BT’s themselves give me the creeps, they’ve got such fantastic sound design. It probably goes without saying but the visuals are absolutely phenomenal as well. They world design has a really unique art design to it, I don’t really know what I can compare it to really other than possibly Nier Automata maybe? It just has this washed out melancholic but vivid quality to it that I’ve not really seen much elsewhere. If you like somber indie tunes you’ve come to the right place as well, in particular moments the music will swell and the camera zoom out to give you a sense of place whilst adventuring along. Kojima has a great music taste. As far as negatives go, so far the writing has been a little ropey in places and I couldn’t help but laugh when Kojima’s name comes up under every casting title during the credits as well. So yeah, so far so good really but it’s still very early days. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with it this far but am eager for the leash to be loosened so I can fully explore the world.

This is a little known indie RPG from a couple of years ago that has a 16bit JRPG style. On the surface it pulls a lot of inspiration from Chrono Trigger with regards to its battle system, but instead it has a sci-fi setting where you play as a team of future spies. It has been good so far. Well, the story I'm a bit unsure about. Maybe it just needs some time to pick up but currently it has a dodgy mix of some regular sci-fi and a Saturday Morning Cartoon, but in a way that isn't quite working for me. I just want them to pick one so far. But I've been very impressed with the battle system and that's the star of the show here. You have basic moves, moves that can be used once until you've gone in a turn consuming defensive stance, the moves have a lot of different kinds of properties even early on. Every fight with basic enemies feels meaningful. JRPGs are often more of a marathon than a sprint, where you have to get from one place to the next, doing lots of simple fights and making sure you're prepared enough for it. Here, all of your health and abilities are restored after a fight so they're very self contained, puzzle-y things and don't shy away from making regular encounters feel like boss fights in another game like this. It's cool. It's very cheap on Switch as of now and if you want something to challenge your decision making in a JRPG style I think it's truly worth looking at.

Spent about 5 hours with this yesterday and just left the first planet. I really like that sort of game design in open world games. A complete but bite sized chunk to get you ready for the rest. Places like White Orchard in The Witcher 3. As for the game, it's okay. Crushingly okay. There's nothing in the game I don't like but there is nothing I love either. The writing is pretty good and there have been a few funny moments but there hasn't been a character introduced yet that really connected me to the world and the world itself is your generic capitalism gone wild scenario. Which I like, I'm an easy sell on that sort of thing but it's been done so often that it's just okay. Combat is okay. Loot is okay. Graphics are okay. Character creator is okay. Skills are okay. Player choices are okay. You get it. I'll be putting some more time into it today so hopefully it just starts off slow because there is definitely potential but I worry that they have spent so much time on giving the player a million different choices that none of them really mean anything.

Started the campaign on this earlier today and have had an absolute blast with it so far. The feel of the guns and the sound design is just absolutely superb, you can hear and feel each individual shot as you make it and feel the impact much than before when you kill an enemy. The main new addition from previous games is being able to stick, take cover and peek by clicking the right stick in to peek and pick off enemies. It drops you right in the action right away and can feel a little too quick and confusing at first, it really rams the plot down your neck and you’re a bit like ‘hang on...who’s that?’ But you soon just go with the flow really, the Villain hasn’t really been hyped up as much as previous games and I’m still a bit like ‘I’m meant to hate that guy?’ But yeah it gives just enough motivation and slap bangs you right in the action. Still piecing things together now but and trying to understand some bits and pieces but the world building is decent enough without being awe inspiring. The levels themselves have all been really varied. There’s two set in a European city, a couple set in a fake middle-eastern city at different times of the day and one set in the fake Kazakh mountains. I guess nothing too crazy or out there in terms of CoD but they’ve absolutely nailed the atmosphere in all these missions, possibly better than they ever have before. I don’t wanna give too much away and spoil things for people but it definitely pulls no punches in terms of subject matter. It definitely seems to be much more aware of the horrors of war than some previous titles and the subject matter reflects this, featuring burning bodies, civilians being shot, war crimes being committed and other atrocities (and I’m only on the 5th or 6th mission!). Had a few technical issues with the cutscenes running at about 1fps every now and then - but I seemed to rectify this somewhat by switching to borderless full screen - a few weird AI issues and clipping issues with enemy soldiers but apart from this the game has ran more or less flawlessly on my new GPU, it looks absolutely phenomenal. Some pics:

Picked this up last week after reading lots of glowing impressions and very positive reviews. It definitely hasn’t disappointed that’s for sure, I’ve had an absolute blast with it for sure and it’s definitely one of the best platformers I’ve played in recent years. The game takes on two dimensions. The 2D side-scrolling platforming takes up the majority of your time with it and I think the easiest way to describe how it looks, feels and plays is heavily inspired by Retro’s DKC series and Rare’s original DKC series, seeing the game at a glance in motion you’d be mistaken for thinking it’s one of Retro’s games. From the roll Yooka-Laylee do to the hidden coins dotted around the map, the similar way Laylee takes a hit through a level, the hidden doors into puzzle rooms, even the iconic barrels that rocket you around certain platforms. There is an awful lot of crossover here. Some may worry it’s a poor imitation or an uninspired clone but I assure you, to play, it’s every bit as good as it’s DKC counterparts. Worth noting there’s no rocket or mine-cart levels yet though. The second dimension to it and the biggest difference is the world map. With this the World Map is incredibly interactive and inviting, almost a game unto itself. It features a rather large Zelda-esque map filled with charmingly different locales, Pagie challenges, little puzzles to find tonics and new areas, little caves and mysterious little nooks and crannies. By changing the landscape in some way by doing the Pagie challenges you often reshape the landscape to unlock new areas to explore and alter the makeup of a previously unlocked level. A level variation is then created whereby a level can become frozen, overgrown, invaded by new enemies etc. Essentially creating an almost entirely new level to explore based on the outside environment of the world map and where the level marker is placed. The way it feels to play is incredibly reminiscent of the DKC games during the 2D levels, it just feels so incredibly tight to play and definitely has that same difficulty curve. But I think the Interactive World Map is almost just as compelling, you can completely lose yourself in the map just wandering around trying to figure where things fit together and where certain paths will take you. These two dimensions create an incredibly cohesive whole. If you’re getting bored of doing the levels then you can just wander off and explore to your hearts content, if you’re bored of exploring you can enter a level of platforming bliss in seconds. My only real criticism with it would be the level design really. The actual platforming is sublime but some of the level designs themselves are a little generic and nowhere near as joyful, varied, distinct and charming as the likes of DKC. I highly recommend it though, to anyone that’s into tough 2D platformer’s this is nirvana.

Ok. So, this game is awful. Sorry, but it is. I’ve loved the Contra series for a long time, ever since I started with the awesome Super Probotector (aka Contra 3) on the SNES. This is absolutely one of the worst entries to the series. Graphically it’s nothing special. I’ve seen worse, sure. But considering we’re at the end of this generation, it’s nothing to write home about. The effect where an enemy gets thrown into the screen, Turtles in Time style, is pretty laughable. The overheat mechanic is terrible. Your main weapon overheats in a matter of seconds, unless you hold off from keeping the fire button held down. Your secondary weapon is usually more powerful, but that overheats even faster. There’s quite often a ton of enemies on screen. So your natural reaction is to try to shoot them all. Except you can’t, because your bloody weapon overheats. Leaving you frantically rolling around, waiting a good 8 seconds before you can fight back. Within a few levels, content gets recycled. Hope you like seeing the same bosses and mini-bosses, over and over again. There is a store where you can buy upgrades, but it’s absolutely baffling. Huge amounts of stuff to buy, with not much indication of what it actually does. All of which cost an obscene level of cash to buy anyway. Oh, and if you die in a mission, none of the cash you earned gets kept. So that’s fun. You can’t pause a mission. At all. Even on your own. So you’d better not need a piss, or anything better to do for a good 30-40 minutes. To top it all off, it’s just bloody boring. The whole appeal of Contra is running and gunning your way through waves of enemies. Here, the overheat mechanic completely and utterly ruins the flow of the game. Reviews are tearing this game a new arsehole because of it. And they are absolutely right to do so. It adds nothing to the gameplay, instead it restricts you. Oh, and the spread gun? One of the most iconic weapons in the series. Here, it’s a temporary power up that you get to use for about 5 seconds. If you even find it at all in a level. Utter shite.

I thought there was a thread, there should be, Ape Out got a lot of coverage for a few days at release. It's a simple premise and a simple game. You're a captive ape and have to escape. Your captors are gun toting guards or various types, and you bound through the level smashing guards, grabbing them to use as shields, or flinging them into other people or walls. You can take 3 hits, every few sections you start a new level and get your health back. Killing the guards doesn't really do anything for you other than clear the way, there's nothing to stop you from just gunning it, which is what I tend to do and it probably does rob the game of something The thing that makes Ape Out stand out is the jazz soundtrack which is tied to what's going on in the game, and the old European cartoon look. It's a cool game. The problem is that there's not a huge amount to it. I like it but you're getting as much from it on disc 1 as you are on disc 3. You get new enemies and the challenge they throw at you changes, but it still amounts to you grabbing and splatting. For example, the game introduces enemies who smash through windows wearing body armour, they're more dangerous and more useful as weapons, but they still die from being twatted about by a gorilla

Finally getting round to playing this. Far as I’m concerned, Ryu ga Gotoku can do no wrong. From the outstanding Yakuza series, to the insane but glorious Fist Of The North Star. So I had high hopes for this. Reached Chapter 2, and I’m really enjoying it. Kamurocho is as familiar as ever, and looks just as amazing as it did in Yakuza 6. They’ve added some new mini games, though to be honest they’re pretty weak. Following people in forced stealth trailing missions is never my idea of fun. Here, you can quite often have several one after the other. Which is a ball-ache. They’ve ditched Kareoke, which is a real shame. As blasting out “BREAKING THE WORLD” was always fun. The English dub is actually really well done, they’ve clearly put effort into it. I usually prefer the original Japanese audio, but they’ve done a decent job with the dub. The combat doesn’t feel quite as satisfying as Zero’s, a lot of moves are locked in the skill tree. Still, it’s off to a good start.

I've played a few areas of this, and it's... alright. It's not funny or quirky enough for that to keep you playing, there's not a lot to the gameplay that that's the reason you're playing, and there's a few frustrations that pull some of the fun out of it. I do really like how the goose moves though The gameplay loop is that you're locked in to an area and have a list of dickish things to tick off. The first area is the one you'll have seen from the early footage, you're tormenting a gardener, so the list includes things like getting him wet, getting him to switch hats, making a picnic. Some are easy enough, walk up to an, sorry, waddle up to an item, press the button to pick it up, then waddle back off with it. Some you have to set up, do something to get your target to change position so they're vulnerable. It's here where it feels most like a stealth game, or a game akin to Gregory Horror Show or an adventure game, it's also where it's the most tedious Goose Game doesn't have the tells of a traditional adventure game, it doesn't spell things out for you, which might be for the best. It reminds me a bit of Doughnut County, that was a game that never really got complicated enough to get interesting, all style no substance, if Untitled Goose Game was any easier it would be a procession. That said when you can't work out how to do the next task it's a boring experience, I'm not sure if the game starts focusing characters on the actions that will put you on the right track, but it should. Beyond that the only other criticism I can level at it so far is that it can be a bit fiddly. If there's a couple of items that can be picked up, 99% of the time it will pick up the one you don't want

Ok, so it’s pretty clear this is by the team that brought us Until Dawn. As it’s pretty much more of the same. From the stereotypical characters (Jock, nerd, wanker), to the narrator between scenes who questions your story choices. It’s certainly shorter than Until Dawn was. And I didn’t find it particularly difficult to make it to the end with nobody getting killed. Still, it was an enjoyable experience. Graphically it looks great, though at times some of the characters had a bit of a fit when walking for some reason. And the story ended with several parts not really making any sense. Apparently if you play it in multiplayer you get some more explanation. But I haven’t, and won’t be doing. So there we go. It still has the “taking ages to look at an item” mechanic that UD did. Which can be annoying when you take ages to pick something up, only for it to serve no purpose whatsoever. Walking around takes ages unless you constantly hold down the run button. And there were quite a few instances where I wasn’t really sure where I was meant to be going. That being said, it was alright. Worth a rental at least.

Only put about 1.5 hours into it but happy so far. Think Metroidvania X Dark Souls with some extra gruesome and stunning imagery and you’re about there. Feels a bit slower and more deliberate than what I was expecting - was thinking it was going to be more Dead Cells than Dark Souls in this respect - but most importantly it feels and controls really well which is essential because it’s bastard hard!!! Don’t know if I picked a particularly difficult route to take first (top left of the map) but I’m getting battered. Its got a upgrade system too and feel like I could do with a couple of the extra abilities. Got a fair amount of upgrade points but I’m miles away from the area where you buy skills. Hoping another opens up soon. Good game so far, recommend it if the Metroid x a 2D Dark Souls sounds appealing.