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I have been playing this for the last few days and it excellent. The levels are semi-open with different paths you can take and hidden areas with collectables. Strider also has multiple difficulty settings that adds replay value to the game. The visuals are great and Double Heilx also included scanlines which was a nice touch. The gameplay is flawless and just makes you feel like a badass. You can unlock new moves by defeating bosses. Double Helix did not stray too far for the original source material and the bosses from the original game are back and tweaked for the modern era of gaming. Out of all the games I own on Xbox One Strider will most likely be a permanent fixture on my HDD. This is how remakes should be done in my opinion. Too bad Double Heilx is now apart of Amazon, they would have been a great fit as an internal Capcom or Microsoft studio.

Whats to say? It's pool. I have this on PS4, it costs about £5.50 with a PS+ discount and its pretty kewl. You can play local or online and theres a career mode with unlockables and levelling up as you go along. It's very pretty too.

Destiny!?!?!?! So After the first single player mission, which was alright, some very nice views, then it takes you to the mass effect citadel thing where you can buy stuff. Such a bewildering array of stuff, like playing dota, or borderlands, it's hard to tell what the hell is going on and what all the stuff is for, what do all the stats and numbers mean? I don't really like stuff like that, but if I play this as much as previous halo games I'll probably at least eventually understand some of it. Then did some multiplayer for probably a few hours, had to sign up to psn+ first as I'd let my subscription run out. The hover bike things are really cool. There's 2 maps, one quite small and another bigger one with vehicles. You can't use your hover bike on the smaller one don't seem to be able to board vehicles the aiming is like cod, hold left trigger to look down the sights, which is strange for halo, although I guess it's not halo so... There's lots of differences really. It still takes some time to kill someone, so that's good. Grenades are weird, it's like an ability that recharges over time, which is fine until you respawn and still have to wait for your grenade to charge, which seems odd. You can permanently have a good weapon like a sniper or shotgun, supposedly limited ammo, but if you know what your looking for it's pretty abundant - green ammo boxes. I don't think I've unlocked power weapons yet- these are similar as you have them but with no ammo, then there's an ammo drop occasionally or something. The starting gun is a assault rifle type thing but I bought something that worked more like a dmr or battle rifle ASAP. It's wired using the scope in close range gun fights in this, but probably just because I'm not used to it. The only game mode is 3 plots territories style thing. There's different class people, mine had a sort of odd double jump where the first jump is normal and the second is a sort of jet pack/ hover which seems like it would leave you open to be easily sniped while hanging around in mid air. They also have special power things that recharge I don't know how, mine was a ground pound, just like playing Mario. The player levels affecting multiplayer is a big area of concern for me, as is everything having different stats, I have faith bungie will sort it somehow I guess, but anyway I was level 5 for most of my time playing multiplayer and killed lots of level 8 people but it did seem like the odds were stacked in their favour, for example shot gunning then punching someone of the same level seemed to be enough for a kill, but players level 7/8 you seemed to have to get at least one more shotgun hit in. And in halo, all the weapons are the same so if someone kills you with a shotgun you know why you died, because they waited for the right time to shoot or whatever, but in this people fighting with shotguns may have completely different stats so you haven't a clue if it was because of a more powerful gun, or one with a better range or whatever, so it loses some of the tactics maybe, although too early to say for sure. Anyway most importantly I guess it plays really well and I had a lot of fun, after some initial confusion, can't wait to get back on it tomorrow. Sorry for all the rambling/random points, I'm really excited to play this. Thanks again to mr lakitu for the code! Oh and I was just finishing for the night and joined Ed for a quick dance. There's a dance button, amazing! All games should have a dance button. Also there's some impressions from Ed and Sly in the other thread so I'll try to bring thoes over below...

Transistor is an isometric action RPG from Supergiant, the makers of Bastion. It's set in a place called Cloudbank, which mixes cyberpunk elements with early 20th century Art Nouveau stylings, it looks gorgeous. I just looked back at the Bastion thread on here, and I'd forgotten that we weren't as crazy about it as the rest of the Internet seemed to be. I still think it was a very good game, I feel more fondly about it now than when I was playing, and still think the atmosphere, the presentation and the way they delivered the story to you were the best bits. They've succeded in those areas again with Transistor. The art and music are absolutely stunning. I also really like the world they created. Just like Bastion, it excels at creating a lonely, melancholic atmosphere. And I enjoyed playing it a lot more. Although you could potentially play this like Bastion, I can't imagine it'd be that much fun. You don't have much in the way of defensive or evasive moves, instead, combat is all about using the "turn" ability. In combat, there's a bar along the top of the screen. As long as that's full you can use your abilities to fight enemies, or you can hit a button that pauses everything and puts you into a tactical view. Here you can move and queue up attacks that get executed when you resume normal time. These attacks happen much quicker than you could manage in real time, and let you setup up combos. The cost of this is you can't use your abilities until the bar is recharged. I found this combat a lot of fun. Your abilities in the game are called functions, you start with one or two abilities and get more as you level up. You have 4 active function slots, mapped to the controller face buttons, but as you progress you can unlock passive and upgrade slots. Each ability behaves differently depending to where it's equipped. Putting it in an active slot makes it something you can use in combat, but if you put it into an upgrade slot, it will add extra effects or bonuses to the active ability it's applied to. Putting it in a passive slot will do something else again, such as limited health regeneration, a shield that deflects a certain amount of damage, etc. Each function also contains a small biog of a character in the story, but it isn't complete until you equip and use it in an active, upgrade and passive slot. This is a pretty good way of encouraging you to experiment with different combinations (if you care about this background story). I loved messing around with different combinations to see what they could do. The story is delivered in pretty much the same way as Bastion, you're dropped into the world without really knowing what's going on but build up a picture via a trickle of info as the game goes on. This time it's a little more vague than Bastion, and you're left to infer a lot of stuff. It's lead to some interesting theories online. The soundtrack is amazing: http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/transistor-original-soundtrack One of my favourite things is a feature that serves no purpose in the game other than being awesome: holding down one of the bumper buttons makes the character stop. The background fades a little, she is spotlighted in the middle of the screen and starts to hum the music. There seems to be a hummed version for pretty much every background track, and they sound amazing.

Got this from boomerang, only played the first mission so far. Will see how it goes from here. Escaping the police when I fucked up was a right bastard. Can't even be arsed with Uplay anymore. Didn't load once on ACIV for me.

This hasn't reviewed well and while I can see why it's not awful, in fact I can see it being a bit of a cult game. Gameplay wise it's not dissimilar to the Witcher games, particularly the first one. You have 2 stances, one is using a heavy weapon like a sword, the other is quicker using knives allowing you to dodge. You've got fire magic too, there's area effect stuff, but the most useful ones have been a fireball, a fire shield, and the very necessary spell that lets your weapons do fire damage. You can fire arrows, which I did a lot early but haven't bothered with since learning they were limited, and plant traps. The traps are limited too, but I actually found them more useful than those of The Witcher. A big reason the game has been reviewing badly is the combat. At its core it's pretty good, the need to time blocks to counter is pretty fun. The problem is that the combat is unforgiving, you can go down very quickly, and too often enemies will surround you, ignoring your ally making the fight unwinnable. Add to that the only way to learn how best to beat an enemy means failing the fight over and over again. As a general rule you'll always need your fire attacks, but taking on a large enemy with your heavy weapon usually means reloading your save. I suspect the issues became apparent during development as the game saves before just about every fight. The script is awful, your character is supposed to be cool and dry, but he just comes across as a hateful arsehole. It's telling that the demon that has possessed you is the nicer character. Your dialogue is at odds with the rest of the characters and the world too. The story itself, and the set ups for the side quests are actually pretty good though, they've done a good job building the world even if it is fairly derivative. I've not finished it yet, but I can't see it being worth the price they're asking on pc let alone the higher ps4 price. It's not without its moments though

I gots to tell you, I really don't like this game. It's really humourless and annoying. The controls are all nice and I've had no issues with the platforming but the script is boring and flat. I just want to smack his stupid face.

I think that's all the tags for this, basically it's out on just about everything. Child of Light is actually a surprisingly complex rpg, even if it is a bit on the easy side. During combat you and your enemies share a movement meter. Once you get towards the end of the meter you can cue up an action, that action takes a bit of time to activate. If you manage to land a hit on an enemy whilst they're activating their move you'll interrupt them, sending them back down the meter. You also have a firefly who can slow down enemies as they charge, heal you a bit, and pick up items. If you have multiple characters you can switch out characters, this doesn't spend your turn so you can still perform an action with your new character Out of battle the game starts off like a simple platformer, but then you learn to fly. There's still the odd puzzle element to the map, items to find, even alternate characters it's apparently possible to miss (Brad missed one on Giant Bomb). There's gem stones you can equip to add perks, things like fire damage or resistances. It sort of feels superfluous with how easy the game can be but it's nice that it's there. It looks amazing obviously, and the soundtrack is great, made by someone respected but I'd never heard of her anyway, I'm really enjoying it, it's not the greatest rpg ever, it's just missing something, but it's pretty good so far

I played through this over the weekend and it's out today so I thought I should do a thread. There's a ps4 version but I'm not sure when that's out, I think it's this week but I don't know for sure, and it's probably tied to whenever the store updates I'm going to come out and say it, I don't really like Daylight. I streamed my first attempt at it and it was ok, I got stuck on the floor but it was in beta at that point, but it was sort of creepy. I found some stairs, I didn't really want to go down them because it felt ominous, there was a moment where the witch appeared behind a curtain, but as I approached she disappeared. The problem is all the other stuff, the random bangs, screams and wails, the cabinets toppling over and boxes falling, you learn really quickly that stuff is all toothless. Things got bad enough that I was killed by the witch because I didn't realise I could be, prior to that point there was no reason to run from her so I just stood there and eventually dropped down dead. There were a couple of moments where the horror lands. I talked about it in the review and the video I'm going to stick below, but getting chased through a forest, hearing the witch gaining on me through my rear speakers was great, knowing that when I did stop to pick up a note she was going to be right behind me was effective. I jumped a couple of times when she appeared behind me, the first time was that first time I died, but once you've died she largely just becomes a nuisance, more of a problem because she might rob you of your progress which is the problem with it, if you ignore the bits where it doesn't recognise you're trying to pick up items, open cabinets etc. The maze like areas are procedurally generated, so it's possible you will get unlucky and have a really difficult time finding the notes you need (6 notes reveals the key, the key opens the door to the next area). You'll be running around revisiting rooms you've already been in trying to find what you're missing, eventually you'll be killed and you'll do it again, still not finding whatever you missed. That's not fun, if I didn't have to play it I would have stopped at that point and never turned it back on again. If that does happen to you though you can exit the game and reload, you'll get a different map layout which might make more sense. The story isn't great either. It's familiar ground, which is fine I guess, but because of the way it throws you in with no information everything you find is meaningless. It doesn't help that a lot of it really is meaningless, there's stuff there that seems really important but is just dressing, yet the person you need to be focussing on is referred to by a number. It's had mixed reviews, which I'm kind of glad about because it means I'm not on my own, and I can see how it would work for people, it worked for me for about 10 minutes. It's not unthinkably bad though, it's just not fun

Not sure what to say about this, it's trials so it's awesome, it looks nice on next gen. don't really like the tricks so far but you don't have to do trick events much so it's no big thing (and maybe they'll grow on me), and the skill events are incorporated into the career which is cool as it forces me to play them, and some are pretty good, whereas previously i never really played them. looks like the community track editor is back so that's cool, but currently afaik multiplayer is local only and they're patching in online later hopefully. i just rushed through the single player, loads of medals still to get, and each track has 3 optional challenges, which i haven't really looked at yet but it seems like a cool idea. the credits show after the last hard track, then there's some extreme tracks as you'd expect - i did the first but then got really frustrated and failed miserably on the next 2 - *1* i should really go back for some more medals to get back into it before trying these again. there's also some quad bike levels which are alright - it just handles slightly differently. i was slightly worried about using a ps4 controller with trials just because being in control is so important in trials and i'm used to playing it with the 360 pad, and as it's really frustrating at times anyway you really need to feel like it's your fault rather than the equipment - at this point i'm partially blaming the equipment - but hopefully it's just a case of getting used to it and i'll be doing *1* before any more final judgement. i was worried about the triggers but they've been alright, it's the left stick position that's causing me problems, to do a quick hop before some jumps with a quick flick back and forth on the stick, i'm just not able to do it very accurately or often enough when i need to at the moment - it's only really needed on some of the hard/expert tracks. i don't know if this sounds petty but i hate going backwards at something, even if it's better in the long run - see me refusing to use kb+m for most pc games. and who knows if i'd find the x1 version any better because of the looser sticks. i should have probably got the 360 version. edit - i should state again that i really like the ps4 pad, i'm just not used to playing trials with it so currently finding it annoying, if the first 2 games were only on ps3 it'd probably be a different story, don't want to start any pad wars or anything. still, trials is awesome. anyone else get it?

This came out of the steam tombola and it comes out on the newer consoles soonish. Normally I wouldn't do a thread for something only I'm going to end up playing, but this deserves it. Did you like Colony Wars and X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter? You'll be wanting a slice of this if you did. SSZ is a space combat game where you're given a set of orders and expected to follow them. You're not a super soldier killing every last thing, you are part of a machine. If you fail to fulfil your orders the whole thing falls apart and can make the rest of the mission harder or even fail it outright. You're going to spend a lot of time dogfighting but there's other orders that mix things up a bit. You're scored on missions, doing well sees you unlocking medals, medals equals unlocks which can be used to pimp out your fighter. Different fighters have different attributes and slots to fill with weaponry. I've not actually unlocked much yet, but I can see that some are clearly better in some regards than the others. Controls are a bit hard to get your head around when you start, but you can pitch, roll and do all sorts of fancy shit that will see you skidding and barrelling through the depths of space. It seems hard at first but before long I was able to do trench runs in my ship on big freighters, taking out defences whilst avoiding crashing into debris that seemingly ends up floating about from all the ships you end up scrapping. Getting hit or smashing into something isn't the end of the world, you have a rechargeable shield that can soak up the damage. If you take a hit that isn't absorbed by shields, you have to deal with the hull damage it inflicts until the mission is over. You can use a limited amount of boost and the games warning system to deploy preventative measures from getting hit even more. It's here the game excels in providing you feedback through visual and audio cues that make sure you're protecting yourself when it matters most. Speaking of cues and feedback, there's a part where you're attacking this big space freighter and it's firing flak cannons into the air around you. The closer you get to it the more interference you get trying to pilot around it, it pixelates your screen like a corrupt MP4 and stimies your ability to pilot as you would normally. Usually I wouldn't like that, but it feels really good here, the ship itself is just an obstruction flying through space otherwise, every time you have to deal with one it feels risky as you swoop in trying to take out a defence to make the next pass safer and easier. Other aids are reticles that you can aim for that react to inertia, speed and angle so that you've some idea of where you should be shooting at far off targets. It's a little feature that goes a long way to making the core concept of the game fun Other stuff I should probably mention. Graphically it looks amazing. Although it's very minimalist it really does look the part. The music is great, it reminds me of the Mass Effect games composition. The voice acting is also above what I was expecting, I like how it's not just Americans, the vocalisation is very varied. It's hard as fuck. I'm playing on easy because of the games reputation and I'm yet to feel truly in control of something because of how fast everything is unfurling. I'm hoping when it eventually drops on the newer consoles it comes with a demo so people can try it out. It might surprise a lot of people. In no way is it a top tier million dollar budget game, but the people responsible have crafted an exceptional game, or at least the SSZ part of it is good, I've no idea if SSI is any different.

I don't think there's a thread for this, either everyone who bought it posted in the SR3 thread or no one played it. Either way it's free on steam this weekend (added to your library) and so far it's pretty good. There's loads of systems in it now, I'm not entirely sure how they're all earned. You still level up to some extent but it doesn't really affect anything, you need to buy the stuff you unlock so you need money, by the time you've got enough for anything you've levelled up any way. You've also got super powers, powering these up uses some other currency that I always seem to have loads of, not sure how I'm getting it unless it's collecting the orbs dotted around the city, but while you might have 50 of them, a new move will cost 15 or 25. It always surprises me how linear the Saints Row games are at the start, it's a fair amount of time before you get to just wander the city doing what you want, and it's worth staying on that path a bit so you get the super powers, which makes everything else easier. The game feels a bit tighter too, the gunplay is better than I remember it being, the platforming works ok considering, it's a well made game so far

Hello. so this is a on ps4, it's sort of a cross between defender and superstardust and a more normal 2d shooter, if that makes any sense. you fly around a sphere, shooting stuff, the controls are like a twin stick shooter but you can only shoot left/right. you kill specific enemies called keepers (that glow green), it releases a human - you collect the human and deliver them to this pod thing - you don't have to do that it just gets you extra lives and bombs and stuff. sometimes you have to have a certain multiplier to unlock the human, and sometimes you have to kill the keepers in the correct order. i'm not fully sure how the scoring system works but there's a score multiplier that works on chaining enemies to keep/increase the multiplier. there's also bombs, boosting, overdrive (like a special weapon you collect cubes to power), and throwing humans. it's good fun, and it gets really hectic at times. visibility is not great at times. i'm probably going to stick at it, as i don't really have any other single player ps4 games i'm that bothered about playing. it looks nice, especially at the end of each level when everything explodes.

I’ve been spending some time with the early access version of Tribute’s Mercenary Kings. The game is a lot different from what I thought it would be – Which is not a bad thing. I thought it would be a straight-up Metal Slug clone, but while it shares a similar visual style the rest of the game is a little different. You start off by picking your sex (male/female) and clothing color (ethnicity). Once that is done you’re dropped into your home base. From here you can craft guns, knives and bionics, set-up co-op, pick missions, talk to people and other things. Items are crafted via materials looted on missions or on the hunting grounds. You can carry unlimited materials, but your backpack has only four slots for items (Guns, Grenades, Health pack, Riot Shield). The hunting grounds are like a 2D Cabala’s hunting game, but where dead animals drop loot. The wildlife are spooked easily, so it hard to get the drop on them. Over all I’m really impressed with Mercenary Kings so far. PlayStation 4 gamers will have a blast with the finished products once it is finished and comes out of early access on Steam. IMO I feel Xbox One gamers should not feel left out. Mercenary Kings on Steam is designed with Microsoft’s pad in mind. It’s even displayed in loading screen showing button layout before being dropped into your home base for the first time. So while it’s not announced yet, I have a feeling it will find its way to that console too. Maybe after the PC and PS4 release. I made a let’s play video tonight of Merc Kings with PlayClaw 5. I’m hoping to get up somewhere for you all to see.

The first game tagged for a next gen system! Anyway, this is a first person survival horror, much like Amnesia, but in my opinion, not as slow-moving or hard to get into. It has a light mechanic like Amnesia, but it involves using your camcorder as a torch. You use battery power on your camcorder but I've always had at least 3 batteries on the go so far so that doesn't seem to much of a problem. The art style and setting is far more like Condemned and it is grim as fuck. A fair few jump scares so far. I'm playing with a pad in my bedroom with the curtains closed and headphones on and I've literally jumped a few times. I guess I'm coming to the end of the second part and other than one section that I was nearly stuck on and seemingly only got past it by the AI being too stupid to try opening more than one locker to find me, I've been enjoying it massively. There's no combat whatsoever though there is sneaking and some fairly simple puzzles. If you struggle to play scary games, you will poo yourself, because I rarely get affected by them and I've found it the most intense game in a long while. Also the game opens with a warning about gore and sexual content but so far all I've seen is a couple of digital wangs.

Having played the opening scene of this game I'm going to cautiously give it a "highest recommendation". In fact the opening scene was pretty much perfect so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. Two of the games planned five acts have been released so far. The official website gives a pretty good description: So far the game has a Cormac McCarthy feel to it which I really like.

I've had a quick 10 minutes on this, so my thoughts will be brief. The game setting is quite unlike anything I've ever played. It's a 4 player co-op game where you are tasked in casing a job and carrying out a heist. However it doesn't play sneaky like you would expect it to. You basically set up covering as many angles as you can, and then when you are ready you pull your gun and begin being a nasty little shit. The game reminds me a lot of Left 4 Dead for some reason. Your team of people start out with 2 weapons but you can level up and rejig what you take with you. This includes ammo bags and medic stuff among other things. The events work similar to the events in Left 4 Dead but have more persistence. Instead of one event that you complete and pass, you are put into a play area where several events knock on to each other. While these events get deeper and deeper to the objective, the authorities will start to try and stop you from getting to them. Again, this reminds me of Left 4 Dead, security guards are hopeless and easily dealt with, police are harder and then swat and other stuff starts to show up, with each unit having a special niche similar to the Left 4 Dead special infected. A typical section will have you race to an objective, and then defend it against waves of swat before it being completed and moving onto the next part of the heist. It's not too hard to follow. The bad news for some is that I could find no controller support in game. I did a quick scan and found THIS, but I'm not sure how you configure it in. If you cannot get it to work it looks like you're stuck with KB+M controls. It's not so bad though, I'm no whiz and I did fine, there's a lot of leeway that should get you used to playing with those tools instead of a controller. I'm looking forward to playing it in a group, I bet it's a right laugh.

Is this an indie? I think it could be so it gets an 'indie' sticker. But the game! It's pretty good! I say pretty good but what I mean is it's text book good. It doesn't do anything wrong and it uses the 'Metroidvania' template pretty well and has some interesting uses of its mechanics (I'm getting sick of using that word but I don't want to get specific as they get kinda surprising). What I will say is that there is a flip dimensions ability that mixes things up, but only in the same way as Outland does. Remember that game? Guacamelee! is a lot like Outland in some ways so if you liked that you'll like this. But I suppose the combat is better in this. You're a Mexican Wrestler so flinging folks about is important and you do have a big repertoire of combos and moves to do that are fun to pull off and hurt things a lot. You also have a bunch of fun internet jokes to laugh at about cats and stuff in the game, you know, all that referential stuff we enjoy. Like you climb a big mountain and near the top you find the the dead body of the thing from Journey and you go 'hahaha! I know that reference! Choozo Staues! hahaha!' It's so funny, it's like those guys who make the Scary Movie films and stuff made it. In summery: a pretty well made game that is fun but with with shite, incestuous nerd comedy. Play Outland instead.

Played a few hours and it's been very, very good. It's very much another game that's taken more than a few pages from Uncharted's playbook, except it switches a wise-cracking protagonist for someone much more vulnerable and insecure. Well, at least to start with anyway. I've always loved the Tomb Raider series, the original TR was the first ever game I bought for the PS1 and I played it to death, but the series was massively in need of a complete reboot. They've done a fantastic job with this game and the character. Lara is almost unrecognisable from her hotpants wearing, confident predecessor. I say almost as they decided to stick with her two most distinguishing features for some reason. Cans . The sections where you squeeze through a gap or are only able to progress forwards are probably the most elegant way of disguising a load screen I can think of. It's totally seamless and in some case even adds to the experience by allowing Lara time to express how she's feeling.The same goes for the logs she records at some of the base camps, only a few lines of dialogue, but it adds so much. Each area seems to have a discreet sub-objective like smash 10 lanterns or burn 5 banners, and they only activate once you hit the first thing, you're not notified about it otherwise. I can see myself spending a chunk of time completing these as well as picking up all the collectables dotted around. I tried turning on the new TressFX hair technology but it looks a bit weird tbh. It also hits the framerate pretty hard in certain situations. It's a cool idea as game hair usually looks pretty rubbish, but it definitely needs tweaking a bit before making it standard.

I have very mixed feelings about this. I love the feeling of adventure, of not knowing what's down the road and if you'll be able survive. It's brilliant when you do overcome the odds and press on after a tough battle. The combat system is great with loads of customisation on offer, you're even encouraged to change class altogether. The Pawn system works really well, being able to hire and fire helpers and changing the composition of your group entirely as the situation demands. Despite all the good bits, the game so far has felt as though i'm playing the middle portion of an RPG where i'm clearing up fluff quests just to pad out the leveling process. There's been no gravitas or urgency to the quests so it's difficult to differentiate between the story and side quests. Things like not having fast travel I can understand why they left out even though it's annoying to have to walk to the same places over and over. I'm surprised more games don't use the MMO style flight paths to get around. You still get to where you're going quicker but you have to travel to a specific place, rather than just magically teleporting everywhere. It's a happy medium between the two. There's other things which are pretty minor and affect my enjoyment more than they probably should. For instance, why did they overlook mini-map markers for people who have something to say? It's incredibly frustrating having to run around looking for colored speech bubbles above NPCs heads. Likewise with the Pawns. As good as the system is it grates when in combat and you're unable to issue commands for something as simple as a weapon buff - the option just doesn't exist. Most of the time you just have to wait for them to apply the correct buff which is very frustrating against the larger enemies. For all it's issues, there are times when this incredible game shines through, and that's what makes it worth playing. I just wish it was more consistent.

Have you played Minecraft before? If it's a yes, you already know what it's about, probably best to click off the thread. If no, pull up a chair. Minecraft isn't for everyone. It's a very directionless game where outside the simple premise of building a house for yourself, you are free to do what you want. In the day time the game plays out as a building sim where you spend time harvesting blocks of various materials. You start off by punching them, but soon enough you are able to knock together a means which will allow you to make tools. Tools allow specific materials to be harvested faster, axes allow wood to be gathered faster, shovels allow dirt or gravels to be smashed u[p faster and so on. On top of that, each tool you make takes a durability hit each time you use it, although as you progress you can make better and better tools for harvesting materials that you couldn't previously. Of course, the more materials you have the more things you can make, and the more things you can make the more materials you can get. It's a vicious circle or harvesting and producing. At night you have one of three choices. You either hole up in the house or shack you managed to find or throw up before the sun went down and sleep the night off in a comfy bed, you curse yourself for over reaching yourself in building a house or you make equip yourself with the armours and weapons you made during the day time to try and endure the night. If you ended up doing the latter two options, you just entered the survival horror part of the game. They might be blocky sprites, but when you hear their howling or attack call it will make you panic. If you survive the night, it's back to the day time cycle. There are a lot of things to do, even outside of building massive houses and castles for you to live in. The beauty of this game is that you can play for one day cycle which is about 20 minutes from what I worked out, or you could play for hours upon hours. If I was to do some game algebra it would be Animal Crossing + Keftlings + Survival Horror + First Person Perspective + LEGO = Minecraft. It's something you should at least try the demo of and see whether you like it if you have not tried it already. You can have a good piss about before the demo ends and get an idea of what you are getting into. I personally didn't try the online part of the game, but I did grab about 40 minutes in splitscreen and it works really nice. The only think I do not like about it is that the menus have not really been optimised properly for a controller. The crafting part is fine, but just moving stuff about your inventory is a bit of a pain in the arse, I'm not sure how they could have handled it better, but I'm sure they could have done it somehow. It's made even more annoying by the fact that the hints and reminders are constantly pushing the inventory box to one side, it could have seriously done without that.

Diablo 3 had an open beta last weekend, a stress test for the servers, but there's was a decent amount of game to play through It's Diablo, point where you want to walk to, click on enemies to attack them, hit your hot keys when your specials are charged, pick up loot. I'm not sure why these games work, and I'm not sure why Diablo and Torchlight work better than Dungeon Siege. I only played as the barbarian, with these kind of games I tend to find I get swamped, so playing as the character best suited to close combat suits me, but he does seem a lot less interesting than some of the other characters. I will say, and I know it's very early in the game to make any sort of judgement (you play the first act), that it hasn't grabbed me as much as Torchlight did, but it's still enjoyable and hugely compulsive. It's quite easy too, apparently that's just how Diablo plays, and I certainly wouldn't want it to be too hard, but it was only on the boss fight that I had to use a health potion. The problems though, the game has to be connected to the net at all times. It doesn't matter if you're playing single player with no intention of ever taking it online, it needs to be connected to the net. And not just connected in a casual way, checking in every now and then, it seems to be virtually running the game from a server. What this means is that if the server is busy you get lag. Click on an enemy to attack and either you wont perform the action or you will and the enemy wont react for a second or so. You also get put back a few steps from time to time, like you've unsynched with the server and lose the last couple of seconds of play. There's also the obvious issue of this meaning you cant play the game if your net, or Blizzard's servers, go down. I think this is due to the auction house for loot that allows real world money purchases. I get that being offline runs the risk of people hacking the game and selling created weapons when they get online, but I'd happily take the option of never being allowed to sell stuff in exchange for being able to play offline. All this could change as it was a beta, and the lag might never be a problem again. Although I suspect the launch weekend could be a nightmare. Shame because the game itself is very good

I've just done a journey in Journey and it's... just what I expected. Flower surprised me. With Flower I got it maybe 6 months after it came out after listening to game critics swing a gladiola around, waxing lyrical about how emotional it was. I was unsure of that myself but I was surprised to find myself thinking it was a rather fun game. It had a sense of freedom which was really enjoyable. Journey is exactly how I imagined, which is weirdly disappointing. Now Journey, I think it's less game-y than Flower. Judging by the lack of trophies I picked up I guess there is more to the exploration than I saw but it still feels a little lacking. I'd of liked more to do. Though there are times where the pace picks up and some Flower style fun turns up. It's actually really well paced come to think of it: quiet, fast, tense, back to quiet and all that. I had the multiplayer turned on so I could be visited and it did add something to it.. I'll hide this stuff just in case. Thinking about it now, I suppose I like it more than I think I did while playing it. There's an issue with the price and if you want my tuppence I think it's only worth if you do really want to play it. I don't think I'd try and get anyone to get it if they were unsure. I didn't think about it a great deal. I saw it ages ago and liked the look of it, and then I just thought "fuck it" and got it. Best way I think, sometimes.

seemingly the gaming press' favourite game ever, and it's actually not bad so far. As a highlight from the first 3 levels I've done, I jumped out of a plane and caught a girl, then as we were parachuting the plane tried to ram us, so I told her I was going to shoot the window, kill the pilot, kick the bad dude in the face, grab another parachute then jump back out of the plane and catch her again. Sure enough that's what happened and it was fucking awesome Beyond the set up things I'm less convinced. The gun play is fine, though it could do with more aim assist I think, and a melee attack button would be nice rather than having to switch out (which is admittedly just a button press). I've yet to do any real GTA stuff, a few minutes driving but that's about it, but I should be at that point now. One problem I have encountered, and I think this is down to A. Playing via OnLive and B. playing via OnLive wirelessly. The driving wasn't great. You aren't punished for killing people, or at least I haven't been, nor for accidents, but I found myself correcting a lot and having crashes caused by the AI drivers. But yeah, compared to the rest of the game it was very jerky (though it might also explain the feel of the shooting) I can see why people love it and I'll definitely be putting in a bit more time over the weekend

Its pretty tough. Same sort of progress as Demon Souls, so see that thread for the gist of this game. In case anybody plays this and is really stuck, i'll share what i know so far: