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This ain't Banjo... It's been a long, long time since I played an N64 game. There are certain things you forget, that are distinct to that console. "Jank" I believe is the modern term. I don't remember the platforming being as weird as it is here? Perhaps because I was used to how the platform worked regarding 3D jump mechanics at the time. Fast forward to now and it is jarring to say the least. Jumping is precise and quite unforgiving. Ironically, you cast no shadow to judge if you will land on the platform you are aiming for. There was an infuriating little jump early on, along the way to acquiring the Asson that brought out a little frustration. Later exemplified in areas involving death traps and (early game) one-hit KO lava. You have a dodge mechanic. But it doesn't work as smoothly as you might expect, coming into this from the perspective of modern From Soft titles etc The remaster gives us camera control with the second stick. It is both an improvement and not. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the swimming mechanics. The first time I swam in this game. I tapped the action button, as standard and promptly drowned when I couldn't right myself. Later, I discovered the problem and it's solution. You don't use the action button to swim... You use both sticks. Forward on the left stick to move and steer with the right stick. If it sounds like tank controls, it basically is. But being in the water, it does become intuitive quicker. Ultimately my first session went on for about an hour and a half. Collecting four Dark Souls. The second weapon in the Asson and 66 Cadeaux. Quite intrigued to continue at this point.

I thought this was intriguing since its initial reveal (back when we all thought it was called Chorvs) so I picked it up recently and played through most of it during my holiday break. I'm one and a half steps away from finishing it, so this might be as good a time as any to make a topic about it. Haven't seen anyone mention it here so it'll probably be a dead topic, but I absolutely love the game and feel like I owe it to the developers to at least put something about it on the web. I'm not too experienced with this whole space opera genre and I think the last somewhat comparable game I played was Strike Suit Zero. But this genuinely feels like a bold new step for these kind of games. It's not a linear, mission-driven game, which is what I expected, but it's designed like an RPG almost. You visit a certain amount of areas that function as hubs for main and sidequests, three of them medium-sized, the rest a bit smaller. Because space is large and dark exploration is very streamlined: a button press reveals items and money pickups scattered across the world and holding the button unlocks points of interests on your map, i.e. the aforementioned sidequests, for example. Completing those usually rewards you with new weapons and equipment, hence why I say this very much feels like an RPG. But just like the size of its world, the stuff you find doesn't overwhelm you. I completed every sidequests I came across and still only have six different laser weapons, for example. Rather, everything you have fulfills a certain function, so mix-and matching for the best combination is key here. While it does seem like putting on extra hull energy is a good thing, getting hit in Chorus usually means you already made a mistake. So I went to max out my energy meter and recovery instead, to be able to use more special moves. And it's here where you can see just how forward-thinking this game is designed. Usually dogfighting games are 50% shooting at enemies and 50% turning your ship/plane around to find an enemy to shoot. Chorus just gives you all the power you need to reduce that downtime to almost zero and it's just wonderfully executed. Those special moves I mentioned (called Rites in the game) are the key here, particularly the first two: one allows you to instantly teleport behind and enemy in your line of sight to flank them but the most important tool is the so-called Drift. By holding a button, you can freely turn around your ship in any direction while maintaining your current trajectory. So instead of flying straight at a stationary target to destroy a turret and then rinse and repeat until all of them are gone, you can just plot a course alongside them, drift at 90° and shoot them all in one fell swoop. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'll put a poorly played little clip at the end of this post just to show it off, but the feature is so flexible it's really the one thing that turned this game from a very good game into an excellent one. Story-wise it's a modern take on the Dancing with the Wolves formula, but the lore is rather interesting and the two main characters - the pilot, who has a special gift (lore explanation for the usage of her "Rites") and her sentient ship. The ship in particular is really well realised, floating somewhat between the robotic AI of something like HAL and the basically human-like portrayal of the concept in Cortana. It's a very unorthodox pairing but really well realised. I particularly enjoyed how both characters responded to stuff happening during the action scenes, with the ship being surprisingly blood-thirsty or how both of them finish each other sentences the stronger their bond grows. Definitely low-key blown away by this. The excellent gameplay, interesting lore and overall tone and atmosphere (somewhat channeling Remedy at times) just make for a superb combination. I'd probably have to nitpick to find stuff I didn't like, like dialogue being cut off way too often when random encounters spawn (should have looked into that Uncharted 4 tech) or how there can be a tad too much flying around in the beginning and towards the end (think Wind Waker, but at lightspeed) but other than that this is just great. Anyway, here's the simple drift clip to conclude: And for the record, and despite being the only one here still playing on last-gen, this runs absolutely fine on Xbox One and probably on PS4 as well. But I'll definitely go back to it when I have a new system to see just how much it improves by running at 60fps.

I’ve managed to pick this up for £25 (£30 minus £5 slave discount) which is good timing now that the season is over and the better man won. I’ve only played very little so far of the story mode and when you’re racing it’s as good as ever but I’m not convinced by the story yet or your influence over it. In the second race my team mate forced me off the track in a pre recorded story scene. I then made it back past them and everyone in the top ten to win my first race. The win wasn’t referenced tho and all the focus was on that one moment of been pushed off. It’s a small complaint really. The game itself is likely to be better than ever. It certainly looks and handles better than 2019 (I skipped 2020).

I’m very bad at it but 2042 seems alright. There was a 10gb update so I missed out on all the bugs I think. The only jank I’ve noticed is slow texture loading at the beginning of a match (ps4 pro) and sometimes your body might go a bit mad when you die. The levels I’ve played on have been ok but I’ve not played enough to have memorised any of them. The one with the skyscrapers and has a huge tornado rip through the middle of the map was a stand out moment. I got killed because I was stood staring at it. It looked awesome was giving me anxiety. They seem to have stopped giving you anything if you have played any previous BF games which I don’t mind I guess but some recognition would have been nice. Just some gamer card art. I don’t understand the load outs just yet. You seem to be able to give anyone anything? Like give an assault guy a medic pack instead of ammo? I didn’t play around with it much so idk. It all sounds very nice and the pro version looks a lot better than the base ps4. God knows what the og xb1 version must look like. The menu and UI and a lot cleaner and user friendly than what I remember of 1 and 5. It’s Battlefield.

I think I'm going to do a video of this because I don't think a post is going to get over how good this is and how you should play it. Based on an old, presumably renewed, European cartoon called Marsupilami that I barely remember, it's basically a Rayman Legends clone without the touchscreen and co-op stuff It's a 2D platformer, or 2.5D I suppose, but the depth doesn't play a part at all I don't think. Simple stuff, you can jump, land on enemies heads which will kill them and bounce you up. you have a standing attack, a spinning roll attack, and you can slam down to the ground from the air to smash pots and break through floors. Eventually there's enemies you can't kill, boulders you need to avoid and outrun, then also things like toucans and grips that you can grab to either launch you in a specified direction or help you with some in-air platforming It's got a lot of ideas, a couple of different types of bonus stages, and even those get mixed up. The levels can be fairly simple, but eventually can get very, very difficult later on, especially if you're trying to find all the feathers and secret bonus levels. Marsupilami throws lives at you, so you're never likely to run out, and you can revisit easier levels, or even bonus levels, to rack up lives or tickets (to enter a different set of bonus levels that are all about amassing lives). Collect 100 fruit and you'll get a live, smash enough pots you'll probably find an extra life or two. The feathers are used to open up a couple of extra stages to try, nothing really beyond that, but there is an achievement system to keep you going If I were going to add some criticisms, it's a little short. It's a few hours, I'm not sure how many but certainly less than 10, maybe 5? You're basic movement is a little slow, I've found I took to rolling a lot of the time, which isn't a smart idea, but it's quicker. It's also a little jerky on the Switch, I think because it's 30fps, and while mostly it's fine, it's when you need to react suddenly or correct a movement that you really notice it. There's also a slight issue with your ability to slide down walls, a good skill that opens up some really inventive moments for secrets and the like, but it's a very generous snap to, so you'll latch on the wall when you don't expect it, slowing you, messing up your timing, or making you leap off in the wrong direction. Apart from that though, I can't fault it. I'm not saying it's a 10/10 game, but I do think it's a really good platformer, certainly one of the better games I've played this year

Hey, maybe don't buy this Vice City squad, I come to you with gameplay clips littered with copyright claims. Not that there's a shortage of videos out there about this but it helps to see how little the gameplay has changed as well. I'm a couple hours into the opening sections. Actually, I could be a bit beyond the opening sections. Was this game short? I'm already at the bit where you are doing missions for Diaz. Visually I think it looks ok, I think they could have done a lot more work here tho and it's a bit perplexing that this is more demanding for my machine than The Witcher 3 maxed out. No ray tracing or anything like that is in it. It could be a rough one to play on PC for this reason but maybe the settings are more scalable on lower settings. I think the volumetric lighting is what is killing it. Also the game comes close to dying every time I pause, I found out I'm not the only one with this issue so it's a problem with the PC version. Vice City now is a game that is hard carried by its soundtrack I think. I don't think I could stick with this type of thing without these tunes. It's also weird to think Vice City is now more retro than the year 1986 was when Vice City itself came out. It's like a russian doll of nostalgia or something. I will say for VC first thing you should do is turn HDR off and set contrast to 0. The default contrast level is hideously oversaturated and destroys the tone of the game. At zero it is not a million miles away from the original's visual style Going back now also it really feels like Ray Liotta phoned in his performance as Tommy Vercetti, but the people around him do a good enough job to make up for that fact. Especially the lawyer guy. It's weird to think how they got all these really big movie stars in a game like this (Burt Reynolds is in this game, if you forgot). Nowadays you can see that these movie people don't exactly translate their talents to the digital screen, some of them are pretty bad at adapting to it. Or are just used to sell the game. But back then this was a really big deal for Vice City. There's one visual thing which has really annoyed me early on, the rain effect. It is a constant streak of white lines that make it impossible to see anything and actually made me feel a kind of motion sickness I've never felt with a game. I haven't heard anyone else talk about it, it could be a subjective thing. But man, it is rough to look at. On the other hand they add a cool effect where you get puddles and the grass gets wet. You slide in the rain also, I think that's new. Might not be but it seems new. Gameplay clips, spoilered for post length not spoilers cause this game is 20 years old now

I played through the opening of this, so far better than Avengers I think. The tutorial, which is extremely pink and blue, is a fairly lengthy thing which introduces you to characters which of course you already know about because of all the movies and stuff init. It's mostly a slightly adjusted take on those movie characters, I say that as if I know what the other versions of the characters from the comic are like. Anyway it reminds me of the movie is what I mean, except the guy who plays Mario isn't in it which is a bummer. But I think it's good, not incredible cause it's hard to get a read of whether the fighting turns into something more than what you see at first. I'll say being able to run a game that looks good at 4k dlss and runs at 60 presents a much better impression than watching a stream that runs at 640p and runs at 15fps. I dunno about the console experience, but I do know my experience right here is pretty good *discreetly flexes* As filler tutorials go I thought it was pretty well paced and I was pretty engaged by it, which is saying something cause it really does feel like a 360 game. But it gets away with feeling like a 360 games cause they don't make 360 games anymore, and 360 games didn't run at 4k with ray tracing *dabs*. One screenshot I wanted to get is the little bear guy standing on tree man's back cause I thought damn I like that, but it was in a really dark room and I didn't get the chance. Anyway the rabbit stands on the tree man's back, that is good. I tried to take screenshots but unfortunately they are all super dark cause of weird HDR nonsense. So imagine these screenshots not looking shit, this is what the game looks like (good, not shit) I can't say that this is like game X with a bit of game Y or anything like that cause it's too early to say. One thing I'll say is that it has a stagger meter for certain boss type enemies. Drax (who destroys) has an ability that induces heavy stagger damage. Gamora (the deadliest) has an ability which deals heavy raw damage. Groot (therefore he is) does stuff with branches, uh traps enemies I think, I dunno. Racoon (not a racoon) does ranged attacks. But to translate it in terms I do understand, Drax is Focus Strike from FFVII Remake, Gamora and Racoon are the big attacks that you do when stagger is put on them. Peter Quill (middle name Joseph), he flies around and shoots stuff. The melee part of his combat feels like shit, but this is the level 1 experience. Very early on he unlocks an ability to do a timed powerful charge shot while his guns recover from their Mass Effect cooldown. Kind of a reload that's active, or something like that. I think another game did a thing like this before, I forget. I can't easily follow the flow of fights but I would say having this run at a high framerate is a must for that reason. It's so messy, the way you queue up the skills is a bit clunky. But that's the level 1 experience. It's a very air dashy type game, like a B tier Platinum games joint or something like that maybe. Anyway I'm engaged by the sum of the parts rather than the constituent ones so I will stick with it. Better than Avengers anyway, well the opening is. Also trust me the game looks a lot better than these screenshots, thank Windows HDR for fucking these captures up. Or maybe the brightness adjustment in the game itself, I might try and look into seeing if I can fix that.

Second up in my GamePass games that can be completed in a couple of hours; The Procession to Calvary. A point and click adventure based on Renaissance art that's heavily inspired by Terry Gillingham. Not for the easily offended/religious types - this is the follow up game to Joe Richardson's Four Last Things. It follows a woman who is back from a murder spree in a Holy war and wants to do one final murder as it's now frowned upon. Whilst the humour won't be to everyone's taste, I was laughing out loud from the offset. The game is bonkers. As with my last post, I won't go into it too much as I don't want to spoil it, but a couple of highlights were helping a street magician off a crucifix as he was turning water into wine that killed people, and giving snuff to a midget so he played music faster.

I managed to play a couple of cracking little games on GamePass over the weekend. First up is Superliminal - a cracking little puzzler that I managed to play through in a couple of hours and what a treat this was. It borrows heavily from games such as Portal but by the time you see the achievement for beating the game, it's earned it's place up there with the best of them. The concept is you're someone that's involved in a lucid dreaming experiment and you have 'wake up' in a location that presents you with a series of puzzles based on perspective and your surroundings. It twists these challenges in a way that each never out stays its welcome and the final two levels were sublime. I can't say much more than that to avoid spoiling it (i'd even suggest not watching the trailer) but if you liked Portal/The Witness - that kind of thing, i'd strongly suggest giving it a go. One of the best endings to a game i've seen in a while as well!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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