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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

Played through this roughly a month ago but never made a topic. But I feel like I need to lure @Nag away from the dinoboobs so he can play something decent, and I also just dabbled a bit with New Game+ earlier (not sure if I have an entire second playthrough in me, though it is a very nicely paced, frictionless ride). In any case, this is a bit of a weird one because the game called Echoes of the End that got panned by critics upon release and the one you can buy now are two totally different beasts. I never played the original version, but from reading through what they added with the Definitive Edition – skill trees, stat-altering accessories, craftable armour – it must have been very barebones and empty at launch. Not so anymore. In short what it does is put you into the shoes of Ryn, a vestige, which is this universe's moniker for someone who can use magic, in Ryn's case: telekinesis. It's a very personal story mostly revolving around saving your brother from an evil army, but it does feature some believable character development on the protagonist's side. Some key plot points don't hit as hard as the writers probably wanted, but at its very wholesome conclusion I did want to spend more time in that universe and with those characters, so I did something right, for me at least. On the gameplay side it comes as no surprise then that your telekinetic abilities play a big role, in either combat, platforming and puzzle solving. Because this is a good, old-fashioned videogame where you do a little bit of all three of those things in regular intervals. Platforming is self-explanatory (you jump and climb), while puzzles are actually quite well-designed in the sense that you're rarely doing one sort more than once. Some of the more basic stuff, like shifting platforms around with telekinesis, is a more frequent sight, sure – but the rest is mostly unique to the area you're currently in, like navigating desolate ruins with fake mirage bridges, or channeling your powers through a stone that can shift between two time periods, like that one level from Titanfall 2. There's no real headscratcher in there, but they're also not mind-numbingly easy – just a good mix to give you something to do other than jumping and fighting. Combat is probably where the most effort went in, though mostly in terms of polish and options, not necessarily depth. The aforementioned skill trees allow you to develop pure martial art, telekinesis powers, defensive abilities and coop manoeuvres (there's an NPC following your around for most of the journey). You can max out three out of four of these in one playthrough, so it's not primarily about choice but rather about the order in which you unlock stuff. Combat itself is a classic light/heavy attack affair with dodges and parries, plus a couple of telekinesis stuff. The latter feels a bit half-baked early on because the manapool is so low, but in the late game it becomes a bit more integral to the fights. It can be a bit clunky at times – the developers didn't go to Remedy's school of snappy object throwing – but it works well enough and gives you more options than just slashing your way through (which does, at least, feel quite impactful and satisfying). And I think 'well enough' describes this game perfectly: absolutely no part of it stands out in any shape or form, but for a debut title (from Iceland no less, don't think I've ever played a game made over there) it's very confidently put together, it has barely any lengths or annoying bits, doesn't repeat its major ideas and set pieces, feels well-balanced on normal. Overall a really solid 7 that could pave the way for an extremely good sequel if they ever get a chance. It's also that rare breed of a game that is an excellent piece of advertisement for UE5, because it looks technically phenomenal – albeit a tad orthodox in terms of environmental art – and runs at a rock solid 60fps throughout despite the developer's meagre resources. It does have a quality mode, but for some reason activating it makes the game bug out and crash, but I never saw a reason to play it like that anyway, considering it would severely impact two out of its three major gameplay facets.

I played the opening hours of this, it's a sort of mission based Monster Hunter thing. Party based combat, you have a shitload of 'crew mates' you can recruit to go beat up goblins with, who are AI controlled (tho you can swap to them in the pause menu). It's a bit of a mashy party based character action game, and it's very very easy. But from what I hear the real game happens in postgame. The story is basically a long tutorial, apparently. It's kind of annoying, but it can also be pretty hype when you party syncs up their limits breaks. I read a comment somewhere that this is like a PS2 game with all the budget, and I think that explains it. If you want a PS2 game with modern graphics, get this. The characters I'm mainly playing are Narmaya, who I played in the fighting game. Like in the fighting game, she's a stance based character with a katana. She goes between crowd control and one-v-one damage based stances, and can switch and combo between them. Pretty standard archetype. The other is Rosetta, who's more interesting. Kind of a support role, very slow and hits things with a big vine whip and plants roses everywhere. Her combos create party wide buffs, and the roses can be used to distract enemies, beat them up, and be re-positioned to pressure/explode enemies. There's another character who's a fencer who has an ability that makes everyone invincible. There's a ton of characters, so a lot to learn. There's lots of items and resources for upgrading weapons, skill trees and such. There's nothing here that's all that surprising, really. It's just a Capital C Content game, you do lots of side quests and unlock missions and characters and fight things and level everything up forever and ever. Story wise, I've skipped every fucking cutscene. I cannot stand how these characters sound when they talk. I've gathered that they are sky pirates and they're off fucking around the place, fighting monsters and rescuing people. That's all you need to know. But the fighting can be cool sometimes, when you can see what's going on. I genuinely get dizzy sometimes trying to keep track of things so I've set the battle effects to the lowest setting and screen shake off. Even then, it's a challenge to parse.

I got my first match nerves out of the way so I'll start the thread up, but also as a way to encourage others to download it 👀. I ran online with Luna Snow, I think her name is. Did 2 matches and won both 2-0 (best of 3). Chucks healing ice at people and wears booty shorts. I think I did reasonably well with 0 experience in the genre and no idea of how to strategise. I just chucked ice at things if they looked like they were dying, if I even noticed them, and other healers did the same for me. In the second match I did here it looked like there was one Wolverine who clearly got the memo "kill the fucking healers first". Brains and brawn that guy Seems fun but chaotic and hard to get a handle of the UI you're supposed to be looking at. Luna has a move on the shift key which increases her DPS and HPS, I think. She has a move on right click which delivers a freeze on a target and heals her, so that's her self sustain. Her ultimate gives HPS and DPS depending on pressing Q to toggle. E is a sort of tethered heal between you and another character, to give them a passive defensive buff. Very straightforward with Luna, easy to get to grips with in a game that's sort of overwhelming. Healers have always been my preference. That said I don't think she'll be a long term pick, once I get comfortable. I'm interested in the more complicated ones eventually, and I'd like to try a tank as well so I have an alt if the strat role is taken, leaning towards Steven Strange because he's voiced by Grimoire Weiss and thinks with portals, so his match chatter actually sounds good I've also played Cloak and Dagger, who's harder to heal with but the stance swap thing seems interesting. Can't quite figure out the shadow powers, apparently they blind and hide people but I feel like I have to be on the receiving end of this in a match first before I even know what this means and how it impacts strategy. You can shoot a rectangle line AOE heal at people and a little healing bubble which if FFXIV has taught me anything, fucking nobody will be standing in that thing Anyway two people on the first match had 0 percent accuracy on some rounds, it was hard and I was sad. But I got MVP in my 2nd match with her tho, maybe she's cool I'm liking what I'm seeing with Iron Fist, for DPS. He has a defensive stance which procs a stinger attack and can triple jump, all his attacks reduce the cooldown of his defense stance. He also has self sustain with E. He's really agile, just seems like the goto for that role and I don't think I'll be changing my mind

This is the Avatar Game where you Fight. I ran online and I guess I did around 15-20 matches altogether. So I have gotten the day 1 humiliation ritual out of the way of getting my ass beat, after trying to lab some stuff on Katara. I did manage to win one fight, but couldn't tell you why. The big thing that stands out about it is this 'flow' thing. You press A and push in a direction and scoot around the place, with a powered up version of your dash (at least on Katara, but I think this is a general thing with other characters). You can cancel that dash into flips and back dashes (again, on this character) and out of that you get buffs to your other moves, which will set up other combo routes and options I suppose. I guess it's like drive rush, but non-linear in its applications, and it can also be used for defense (Katara has a flow that ducks under overheads). It also shares a meter with your super, so I guess you have to choose schmovement or anime attacks. The combos I've gotten done to me definitely make me feel out of my depth in some of these beta matches, but that's cause I think there's either no skill based matchmaking in the beta, or it's taking a while to get me into the shitter leagues. Katara's whole thing is her water whip. You can do specials and do a stance cancel into your whip stance, which sets up midscreen lows and mids, or close range launchers. You can also use flow during her whip stance and hit people with attacks that feel like EX attacks. She can also do some light screen control with icicles and clouds. But the more crazy thing in this game is that each character has three 'supports', which buff certain parts of the character. The default one I'm on with Katara is faster whip cancels, which lets you craft pressure concepts with how quickly you can threaten the whip, and you have all these combo extensions. For some reason, the whip cancelling archetype is represented by an old lady, I don't know why, I don't watch the cartoon, maybe she beats the shit out of people with a whip in it. There's another archetype that's all about faster dashing (maybe this is where you should start with her tbh), and another that lets you do her icicle zoning more quickly. There's other things going on in the game where certain characters have certain buffs or states if certain things happen in fights, but I don't understand this aspect yet. I'm just trying to get my light light medium heavy forward heavy forward quarter circle light back stance cancel medium BnB down. Also if I can learn a cool conversion out of her heavy forward heavy launcher, that would feel cool. It seems like a deep game with really high execution, but it will be nice when it launches proper and matchmaking is working a bit better. Lots of high ping matches out there right now. I did see online that the PS5 beta seems broken, so probably not worth pre-ordering on that (maybe they might extend the beta though...) One complaint I have is the animations are pretty choppy. My other complaint is this Azula asshole. Play this character if you are looking for the annoying character, it's important to know who the annoying character is.

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:

Maf refused to create the thread for the weird Russian nun game I put about 4 hours or so into it the other day, cause the description sounded pretty weird. Anyway it's sort of a third person narrative adventure with a focus on puzzle solving and platforming. It's set in a surreal realisation of 19th century Russia. You're playing a nun at this like Orthodox covenant, everyone hates you for some reason. It blends together a few styles, mainly the TP narrative thing mentioned but also 2D platformers, which indicates a split in the period of the narrative (the 2D bits are the main character's memories). The 3D sections is fairly standard block pushing type stuff, but also an interesting environmental manipulation gimmick involving prayers and shame, it's like the environment gets all DmC for a bit. There's a few strange things with the setting, a kind of steampunk thing going on and one section with unreasonably huge fish. It sort of straddles the line between feeling like this ironic sendup of... something but also using genre conventions from games and maybe some eastern european cinema to chat about guilt, religious conflict, sexual repression, v. standard stuff. It's alright, I expected it to be weirder tbh. Make sure to light up these Christ icons so you can get a high score and level up your Christian guilt skilltree (points are pointless)

I know they've never had a breakout hit, but I kinda love dontnod's work. I adored Remember Me. Life Is Strange was so cool, and Jusant was just sublime. For whatever reason, though, Aphelion isn't quite landing for me. I'm not sure if it just feels a bit barren (there's no combat, and no real stakes beyond a quick reload), or what's going on, but something is just missing the mark. It plays nicely, and some of the landscapes are gorgeous, too. The story is nice enough, you play as two characters trying to find each other on an alien planet after a crash landing. You're stalked by a weird ass alien 'thing'. The chapters are kinda following the same format. To the point I'm predicting where the chilled climbing ends and the chase scene begins. What I'm trying to say is, like a lot of this dev's output, it's something to buy when it's on sale or play on PS+/Game Pass. Like, I like it. But also, it's very meh.

The very king of fighting games is back, and I'm head over heels with the little beauty. It looks and plays incredible. So much detail and so fluid in motion. I know I'll be posting in this thread in five years time, although tbf, probably as the avid spectator to online tournaments that I've been for 10 years by now. Truth is I've never been able to play the thing to any degree of competence, I just like watching other people do it. Having said that I've decided to do something I've never done when (trying) to play it. I'm going to go with grapplers. Maybe slowing things down a bit for myself might be more appropriate for my age - (advanced)!

Played an hour, on PC. The game defaulted to High graphical settings, so I left it at that. I chose the Vagabond class. So far, so Dark Souls. Looking forward to losing my life to this game. The opening cinematic is very cool. One of my Steam friends has already played this for 8 hours.:.

The reviews, even the bad ones, made me too curious to wait for a sale. I'm about an hour into this now. It's both impressive so far, and a little underwhelming though the parts that are underwhelming are very subjective. This is basically as 1:1 a remake as I've played in a while, to the point that I'm able to rely on my memory from a few years ago to know exactly where to go and what types of curveballs a quest will throw at me, as well as how to deal with those dinosaurs that sound like chickens. Every NPC is exactly where I expect to see them, and the scale of the world seems about as small as the original, at a glance, but this could change as I progress. It is impressive because of this as well though as Gothic's progression is such an important part of its appeal, and so they've tried to preserve as much as possible of it (except potentially, its combat, as I'll mention). Even though it has a very stock UE5 look, default UE5 can still look extremely good in high res. The lighting is a bit overcranked, lots of black crush, but setting the gamma up a bit I think it's a relatively handsome game given how AA it is. Just don't play it while the sun is coming in the window if you're on OLED, cause you can't see shit unless you're on one of those ridiculously newer brighter ones I suspect from the off that this is one of those remakes where there'll almost be no point in trying the original out except for historical curiosity. The one big change I've seen is the combat, which felt like driving a tank in the original. In this, it's much more generic, possibly 'better' but I actually think the awkwardness of the original game's combat is kind of part of the genius of it, cause when you got better at understanding the timing, so did your character get faster at swinging. It's one of the coolest combat progression systems I've seen in an RPG, even if it also sort of sucks. So I'm wondering if the remake will have the same style to it, your guy certainly is shit at swinging a sword early on so they seem to have the right idea. As I'm not german I've no idea what the community has been saying about this leading up to its release, but based on Marys' comments in the news thread I'm guessing they wanted this as 1:1 as possible and that's why it turned out like this

This game, is mental. Could probably stop there and that's enough, tbh. Take a cup of Lollipop Chainsaw, add some essence of No More Heroes and mix well before folding in a little big of Cooking Mama. Drizzle with 2D Pokemon and serve warm. I'm still working my way into the main story, but essentially, you play as Romeo. A character who, at the start of the game, has his face ripped off, so your time-travelling grandfather puts a mask on you that will keep you alive. You're fated with skipping through time and space, finding Juliets to kill. Your first major battle is against a Juliet who cuts her own head before growing like one of Rita Repulsa's monsters. This also causes her to shed her clothes, so you're fighting a giant, naked and sagging Juliet. Who's headless. Honestly, as with any Suda51 game I've played, it feels a little bit awkward. Every now and again it feels like you're not in complete control of the combat, but I'm slowly getting my head around it. It looks good, and the scripting is a lot of fun. But it's the minigames that seem to add tons of depth. I'm still finding my feet on these, but there's one that looks a bit like Pacman. I think as you build up strength you get more fuel you can use here, picking up various power-ups as you go. There's one that looks a bit like a cross between a fruit machine and a cut-out of a pinball table. Still haven't figured out how to do that one. Oh, and there's a katsu curry cooking minigame, too. You add ingredients and make different recipes to give varying benefits. And then there are the bastard seeds. That's where the pokemon bit comes in. On board your time-and-space-travelling ship, you have a little garden. You plant seeds, and they allow you to grow bastards, which are essentially zombies with different powers. You can evolve them, combine them to create different powers, and it seems like there's going to be tons of depth in that aspect. You'll find the various seeds, and the katsu ingredients, as you explore levels and pick them up. Speaking of the levels, I don't know if this will carry through the entire game, but the first one at least is fucking weird. You start off exploring a small section of a shopping mall, and have to switch on 4 generators. But some parts of the mall are blocked, so you have to interact with one of the floating TVs, enter sub-space, explore there, and exit another TV to get to the next bit in real space. I'm writing that with a straight face, but you cannot convince me there's anything 'normal' about that. It's got all the hallmarks of Suda51's normal mental approach, and it combines 'realism' with the blocky flourishes that make his games super recognisable. Yeah, I quite like this. Not sure how much legs it'll have for me though.

Started earlier this afternoon around 2ish and got around 4 hours with it... with around half of that mucking around with the character editor... Made my Arisen... Tried to make Fighter Jill Valentine, to be fair I don't think she turned out too bad...🙂 Next up my Pawn... Who turned out to be a hot Elven Archer called Laurana... Although I've made both of them too bloody tall and they both tower over the male NCP characters wondering around... so once i get the chance to modify them I'll shorten them down a bit. As for actual game play it's very familiar if you've played the first game and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing... it feels really weird feeling lost on the map because of that though as I knew the previous games areas like the back of my hand. It also seems like the Pawns are really ferocious in this as half the time they've demolished the Goblins and Harpies before I've managed to draw a bead on them... It's nice to be back in this world and I can already tell I'm gonna have a ball with the game.

Ok, so it's been out a while, think it had a period on Gamepass too (a while back) but I felt an urge to play it before I really tackled Call of the Elder Gods (which is now on Gamepass). And its distinctly...... okay. It's really just one of those 1990s click screen puzzle adventures presented in a first person world - each scene having no more than a handful of puzzles to progress together with story items to read. But it's not too complex, no convoluted combine x with y to do z, so predominantly reading the things that present the clues in your notebook to apply a solution - rotate this, press these in this order etc but some logical steps are needed at times. What is mostly missing is the compelling narrative - it's all a bit too vague and fragmented and if it wasn't my familiarity with HPL and CoC / Shadow Over Innsmouth, then I'm not too sure it really holds together that well, but is more a fan service for those who already know (inc. the odd document signed by Tillinghast, Dexter-Ward, Pickman etc) A pleasant enough stroll around, and the occasional swim, 8 hrs and probably about 3/4 of the way though it

Imagine being a bus driver, but without the stench of piss surrounding you, people spitting at you, and a general foreboding that you're going to be stabbed at some point. Then put it in America, because obviously we have to drive on the right in this game. That's the reductive premise of Bus Bound, a kinda sim published by Mud/Snowrunner guys, Saber Interactive. This was one of Rosie's free games on Friday, and I've spent time on and off over the last few days just tootling around the city. Honestly, it's puddle-deep, but it's a great way to relax and switch your brain off. You upgrade individual stops by dropping off customers, you can set up your own routes, edit existing ones, and your buses slowly upgrade as you go. The city slowly evolves, between different sectors (which also open up as you upgrade individual stops). Your goal is to make drives enjoyable for passengers. Driving below the limit, obeying traffic laws, nice smooth driving over speed bumps (basically nothing the bus drivers do here). But there's no real punishment beyond reducing the bonuses you can earn per stop. It is nice seeing all the thumbs up and smiley faces appearing whenever you drive well, though. It's not a massively tough game, although you can play in the driver's seat viewpoint to increase difficulty, and all the buses have different feels as you drive. Definitely not a world-beater, but if you want something in a similar vein to EuroTruck Sim, it's worth a mooch. Just don't expect a HUGE city. You can only do 5-6 stop routes at the start, and I'm currently up to 12, so drives take no longer than 20-ish minutes. Pop it on, get a podcast in the background and you're off to the races.

Finally bought a new game for my PC. Sure, it was 37 quid and looks like Skyrim, but that's neither here nor there. I think everyone knows it's a bit of a TES clone, down to most of the controls (at least on Xbox pad) being in the same configuration - Y for jump etc. I'm expecting, over the course of the next 50 hours, to be questing, lock picking, alchemy-ing and, most importantly, collecting flora and fauna for the cooking of. My build will be one handed with shield for parrying, and a side line in conjuration. So, pretty much my favourite TES build. Played an hour. Couldn't be happier. For now, at least.

So I've finally managed to put a few hours in to this and it's good... very good. I've seen this described as a 360 throwback and in a way I could get behind that, it's not gonna reinvent the wheel with what it's doing... mainly shooting and exploration... but what it does do feels really good in practice. You play as Hugh who turns up on the moon along with his team to do... something?? And then for reasons ends up separated and alone before teaming up with D-I-0336-7 who he nicknames Diana... the titular PRAGMATA. It's a good thing too as the moons AI has decided to go cuckoo and make all the robots in the place in to murderous nutters... Hugh has a gun but without the aid of Diana's hacking skills it's about as much use as a pea shooter. The hacking quite cleverly is done using the four face buttons of the controller, think of it as up, down, left and right where you'll try to set a path through various different nodes which will set off different effects... it's cool and in the heat of battle a bit mind frying. Once hacked this opens up the timing for Hugh to get to work with his guns. The shooting feels great (although I do wish I could shoot faster) as does the movement... I know it's not for everyone but I love the weight that Capcom gives it's characters. Hugh is really well voiced and Diana is just the right side of being endearing rather than annoying... childlike characters are hard to pull off in games so far I think they've done alright in this. I like the fact you can go to your safe hub at any point in the levels through shortcuts that are opened up... ditto for being able to return to previous areas whenever you feel the urge... and you'll want to as you won't be able to collect everything on the first visits. The games made a really good impression on me so far and I'm looking forward to putting more time in.

The writing is great, it looks wonderful but I’m stuck on the first dice game to get the ring to feed mutt 😭 I just don’t understand the bloody game despite all of its instructions. My dog is hungry I must work it out! Stop saying I’m bust!

I've been playing this on the side since it came out on Switch, as it's a really good handheld title. It's out on everything though, IIRC on PC since last year. Oddly very little talk online even though it ticks all the boxes for a hit. I don't know if it's the lack of a mascot and it having a rather 'faceless' presentation, or just multiple unlucky release timings. In any case, this is a bit of a mix between various games and genres, like Tetris and Carcassone put into the roguelite corset, but in combination plays like none of them. Explaining this will be a bit boring, but it generally revolves around building a landscape on a playing field by putting Tetromino-shaped blocks on it. The blocks themselves fulfil certain functions: plains, forests etc. generate produce like wheat and wood, others help increase said production (a farm for example), while the third group, military units, bolster your troops in case you land on a field with an enemy. Unlike Tetris the blocks don't fall automtically (at least up until the higher difficulties), but reaping your rewards does require completing a row. The Carcassone element comes into play because it's generally advisable to logically combine blocks of the same type by building a forest, a mountain range or a river, as a lot of production and military facilities work with multiplyers linked to large biomes. The roguelite part of it, meanwhile, is that it features three areas you have to go through and your 'deck' of cards/blocks grows with every stage you beat – even though, to me, it feels more like a classic arcade game than a modern roguelike. Think of a shoot'em up, but instead of shooting enemies you lay out the land and instead of powering up your weapons you unlock new lands. You do unlock some permanent upgrades by fulfilling certain conditions though. I realise this probably sounds very unexciting but it's quite a fun game. There's a lot of depth to it, especially after unlocking secondary factions. The first one, the eponymous Duchy, is a relatively straightforward agricultural deck which is designed around harvesting large fields and interlocking them with military outposts that generate units based on the fields surrounding it, for example. But every other deck has its own unique gimmick they bring to the table: the Order is a religiously-themed, crusading faction that benefits from building and using 'faith' as a currency, the North cannot combine miltary units during its combat phase but can pillage production units for larger benefits, while the Tribe is designed around strategic runestone placement, so that it's central stone momunemt can harness the produce of as large an area as possible. There's also a truckload of additional cards/blocks you can unlock, which are independent from the factions, and add their own little twist on things ('nobles', for example, are very powerful but can't be rotated). But if you don't like some of these, you can banish them, effectively removing them from playthroughs. Combat is a rock-paper-scissors affair, so carefully ordering your units to attack can lead to victories vs. numerical advantages, as seen in the little screenshot below (I won a 162 vs. 180 with 1 unit left). There's a ton of stuff to do here, too. After about 20 hours I'm still not done unlocking all the aforementioned cards, but there are multiple difficulty settings, a trial mode, an endless mode etc. It takes a while to click, because it really showers you in information early on, but when it does it's genuinely good fun. Reading through dwarf's Titanium Court topic, this basically seems like the more approachable little cousin of that game.

Nobody else gonna start a thread for this? Fine. Ok. This shit is hard as balls, but absolutely fantastic. Rahul Kohli is awesome in the role, too. I absolutely suck at it. It's taken me multiple hours just to reach the first boss. But the loop is incredibly satisfying. The action is mostly smooth, but the dash makes things feel a little disjointed for me, and I can't quite wrap my head around the shield concept. But holy fuck it's fun. I know Returnal was a slow burner. This feels like a logical evolution of the concept right now.

This is the first game from a new French studio I think is made up of a few ex Arcane folks, and published by Konami. It's a puzzle adventure game in the vein of something like Limbo, with added stealth elements. There's some strange backstory seemingly involving aliens who are staging a takeover of the planet via manufacturing food or something? Anyway, they suck up the octopus you're controlling from the sea and dump you in the factory, from where you try to escape. It looks very nice, the animation of your octopus character is fantastic and full of personality (even if he does seem to only have 6 legs). Your abilities like being able to stick to surfaces or camouflage yourself are fun to use. The puzzles aren't too difficult and the punishment for failure of getting killed is pretty lenient, with checkpoints generally being pretty close together. There were a few frustrating moments where I died and had to repeat a challenging section which I thought should have had a checkpoint after, but I can only think of a couple of those. I had fun with it. It's cute and funny, and although it felt a little rushed towards the end I enjoyed my time and came away feeling positively towards it. It took me about 5 hours, so plug that into your personal price/value judgements, but I think it's worth trying.

It's finally here and I've been playing it... 😁 Off the bat it looks and feels fantastic, I've really gotten used to these games feeling fairly heavy to play and this feels no different... it's got a nice sense of inertia on the characters and if you've played any of the remakes I think you'll feel right at home. Grace seems like a cool character, I really like the small touch with her hands shaking as she aims due to her being terrified... whereas Leon is just a bad ass from the start, I've never been a Leon fanboy but I already like him in this much more... maybe it's the age thing. Probably played for around four hours so far but I've not made too much progress due to deaths/reloads... I'm playing standard difficulty with modern saving on my first playthrough... just picked up the level one wristband. Also stuck with third person views for both characters. Rhodes Hill seems like the closest thing we've had to that classic Resident Evil mansion or police station we've had in years... the zombies are amazing and there's more things to avoid in this place as Grace than we've ever had... it's constant cat and mouse. I can't wait to pile hours in to this...

Helldivers 2. I've put a bit of time into it now. Here's what I think. It's almost all good. Movement and shooting feel great. Shooting has a mechanic I've never seen before where you have a reticule that is fixed where you aim, and one that moves around it depending on how much you are being rocked. If you are springing about the actual aim goes all over the shop, but if you take a knee and control your bursts it stays accurate. It feels really good for the most and makes you really think about your positioning and shooting, especially when the terrain dictates how you must commit or respond to a conflict. The fights are mostly regimented even with randoms, with people cycling in and out as fights bubble over the map and keeping some sort of structure. When it gets really mad and people start scattering it becomes a bit of a mess, but that's part of the charm in that sometimes you're going to be pressed. I've had games where I have seen people be bait for the entire run, and then I've had dives where it was me that was basically being the lightning conductor that everyone thanks for keeping the attention of the more dangerous mobs that require flanking and precise fire to kill. Only 2 factions in this game at launch. Robot and bugs. The way you fight either faction is very different, I feel like the bugs are more a case of zerging the best they can and just absorbing lots of gunfire, whereas the robots it becomes a bit more tactical. Not that they take over or anything like that, it's more a case of them shooting back and having more offence compared to the bugs defence. They have defence as well, but generally it's just a well placed shot that takes them down. The map from the previous game makes a return, but I think it's altered somewhat to before. For the uninitiated, it's a big circle broken up into tetrominoes. Super earth is in the middle and the factions are on the outside, you fight them towards the outside of the circle, conquer their world and that takes them out of the game until the war is over. If any faction makes it to the middle of the circle, it's a collective game over for everyone. I think they have altered how this works in some manner, because previously although it was tetrominoes you had a linear progression between the middle point and the far edge. Now it looks like any adjacent tile can be invaded so theoretically even though you only have 2 enemies, they can approach Super Earth from any angle. I might be wrong there, but this is how I am reading it. The only other explanation I have is that Arrowhead plan to put 2 more factions in the game so you are fighting on 4 fronts. That's just speculation on my behalf. Other changes you might want to know about. A lot of the strategems are now infinite and just have timers on them. If you played the previous game you would know that if you called a heavy weapon down and you lost it, that was it. Now it's very much a case of just wait for your timer to run down and call another in. In fact sometimes this is preferable if you are running low on ammo. Some strategems have had a rework. The ammo one now has a global cool down and has 4 ammo slots in it. For me this is a mixed bag. Some people are awful at just calling them in the wildest of places. And then you are fucked because your ammo is miles away because the one person that refused to come with the group has all the ammo and you have to wait it out. Or you have people chucking them into areas that are too hot to get ammo. It's just the usual 3head and selfish plays you can come to expect. Same with people walking under air strikes, or throwing air strikes on places you need to traverse though. It's not always like that, everyone is different. Some teams are well oiled and consistent, some are dog shit and couldn't give a fuck if you kill all 3 team mates as long as it means they have full ammo and kill that one bug. Reinforcement has also taken an overhaul. Gone are the infinite call ins, now you have 10 drops for one player with an extra 5 added on for each extra player. You can bolster this with some loadout stuff, but once those lives are out, that's it. Unlike Helldivers 1, if all players die, it will drop all players back into the field if you have the lives to do so. Unlocks are done via a few methods. Gone are the unlocks for beating certain missions, now everything relies on samples, credits, medals and the games premium currency super credits. There's a season pass that's not really a season pass, but it is a season pass that has loads of different weapons and stuff you can unlock, as well as armours and other gubbins. This uses medals which are earned through play. The paid season pass I think can be bought for super credits you find or unlock through the normal battlepass and has all the things you would expect in it, flashier customisation and some weapons that are similar to the free ones you unlock, but not really? For instance I got an explosive assault rifle from a dead body and although the bullets exploded, it was way slower on the fire rate. I sort of preferred the vanilla one if I am being honest. Speaking of weapons and different stats, you can hold reload and alter the fire rate and magnification. If you do intent to play this, or already have it, you can also look down your gun in first person if you aim and then press middle mouse button. I assume that will be a stick click on controller. Helps for those extra long distance firefights. The other currencies can be found all over. There's credits that can be gotten that allow you to buy more strategems. The other thing you can collect are samples with allow you to make the ship that is dropping said drops more efficient. Mostly the perks are just stuff like they have a smaller call down time, or a quicker cool down. Some are more specialised like making the centre of explosions larger for more destructive possibilities. I feel like the asking price for these is a bit of a piss take actually, and also I have a sneaking suspension that the difficulty wall I mentioned at the start has migrated here, as there's different rarities of sample and I am suspecting it may be a case of the rarer ones showing in harder missions. Bad points then. The servers are pretty fucked at the time of writing this. I just played an hour before writing this and had a few disconnected games. Once I got in it was all fine, but those frustrating moments looking for a match only for it to lag out. The only other really bad thing I can point out is it makes my PC sweat like crazy. Even RDR2 on ultra isn't putting my hardware under this much pressure. Some optimisation would be nice. It is a very pretty game and there's quite a bit of destruction going on in it, nothing that will blow you away, but yeah, it all has to be accounted for performance wise. It does look very pretty though, I'll give it that. Will Helldivers 2 have the legs to carry on being the game that I hope it will be? I'm not sure right now. I think it has more mass market appeal than a lot of other 4 player co-op shooters, but I think that it depends on Arrowhead being compliant with listening to what works and what doesn't in regards of the game and adjusting accordingly. We're still heavily in the honeymoon period right now, and I am thinking that it could be a long running thing, but the ball really is in their court and they could smash it or they could fumble it really hard depending on what happens.

This is a massive WRPG based on the Harry Potter book/film series from the early to late 2000s. Potter, Malfoy, Hermione, Ron, Neville & Co. aren't in this though as it is set in the late 1800s, so it's set in the same world and there are certainly plenty of references to the books/films, certain character names etc. and some fan service in terms of locations you'll visit (particularly the intro which is super cool for a Potter-fan, which I won't spoil) but it doesn't try too hard or wink metaphorically at you too much if that makes sense. You play as a new character of your choice who joins Hogwarts as a 5th year, one of the few Witches/Wizards that have done this in history. The game is set in Hogwarts itself and its surroundings, no real surprise there. Hogwarts itself is absolutely gigantic, filled with labyrinthian corridors, dungeons, classrooms with all the key locales you'll recognise from the films like the moving staircase, broom lawn, clock tower etc. everything feels exactly as it should do, everything is in its correct place from the films and just feels right. Outside of Hogwarts is a humungous world to explore based on the Scottish Highlands, with plenty of greenery, forests and undulating hills, flora and fauna, Hogsmeade is largely the shopping district where you'll get all your bits needed for your classes and adventures throughout the region, it's every bit as charming as it is in the films and an absolute delight to just walkthrough and take in all the kookiness of the wizarding world you inhabit. The two core pillars to the game, as in many games I guess, are combat and exploration. The combat is easily what has surprised me about the game the most, I think when you look at it in videos it's quite easy to dismiss as being perhaps a bit overly simplistic but in your hands it's got a lot of depth to it. There's a weight to the spell casting that isn't easy to get across on video, I don't really know how to describe it but there's a wind-up to the animation, a motion, a movement to it, it's not just firing off little bolts of whatever spell, it feels like you've actually cast it if that makes any sense at all lol. Different enemies will have a shield that corresponds with a certain spell colour (red, purple, yellow are the main combat-based spells) which you'll have to use to break their shield and ultimately defeat them. You can have up to 12 named spells in the spell wheel at any one time (need to hold R2 and press one of the face buttons to cast), these act as special spells on a cooldown meter. On top of this you've also got your regular no-name spell which you can cast at anyone at anytime by pressing R2 (or by using L2, going into a 3rd-person over the shoulder aiming mode) which you can keep firing off at enemies whilst your special spells are on a cooldown. There's a lot of different enemy types I've encountered so far. These Guardian/Statue type things I guess a little bit similar to the Gargoyles in Souls games or something (maybe?), your more standard dark witches/wizards, Ashwinders which are kind of suped up dark witches/wizards, Spiders, Wolves, Trolls, Goblins, these little furball looking things that reside in rivers/lakes (can't remember the name), so there's a lot of variety there and each have their own strengths and weaknesses for you to exploit. Combat in this game is far from easy as well, it's not anywhere near something like Souls or something like that but you do have to think about your attacks, strategies etc. quite a bit, it's not mindless button mashing in the slightest, there is some strategy involved and some threat associated whenever you enter a combat scenario. Exploration is handled a little more how you'd expect really, I absolutely hate the 'Ubisoft game' analogy as I feel it's a lazy quasi-criticism, I've played many and they're all slightly differently to one another but the closest analogy I can give to how this game handles its exploration is AC Valhalla. The landscapes are very similar on the surface of it, one being set mainly in England and this being set in the Scottish Highlands, there are these 'Merlin Trials' which are very similar to a lot of the little puzzles and glitches you see dotted around in that game. Standard kind of stuff like getting a ball from the top of a hill down into a hole, lighting three pillars before the time runs out, exploding 4 rock columns, having to lead a group of fireflies into a column to light it up, just little bits and pieces like that. There's a lot of collectibles to get, the field pages are the most plentiful of the bunch, I think Hogwarts alone has over 100 of these that you get by pressing Revelio to reveal hidden objects in the surroundings, much like the pulse mechanic in a lot of games that reveals hidden items, there's also Chests, little statues, seals to find where you'll have to lead a dragonfly-type thing to a cabinet to squash it into the hole and open it up. Nothing too ground-breaking here or anything really no one has seen before, but they all work well in harmony with one another. Again, similar to AC Valhalla there's also dungeons and caves you can enter dotted around the landscape, the infamous bandit camps where you have to clear them out and find the chest to tick them off as completed, Balloons in the sky to pop whilst flying your broom, broom time trials, mini-games with your wand you can compete with other students at Hogwarts. The game has such a fantastic atmosphere to it and is such a joy to explore, whether that's just walking around on foot or flying around on your broom, it's always visually arresting to just meander even if you don't have a set goal in mind. The attention to detail here is just absolutely staggering, there's a sweetshop in Hogsmeade and every single individual kooky wizardy type sweet is included in such an special authentic way, every aspect of the game feels extremely polished, it runs well and everything feels like it has that same attention to detail that the sweetshop has, it really is a sight to behold. Graphically, this is a current-gen showpiece, the world feels so alive and helps bring everything to life and look as magnificent as it does, the music in this game is absolutely fantastic as well and helps place you into this world. There's a few ditties in here that will sound familiar if you've seen the films but nothing is a straight up rip from the movies, everything feels unique and makes you feel like you're on your own adventure in this world, not reliving Harry's. The sound design with all the spells like 'Lumos' sounding exactly how it should from the films, is really special. Again, it just helps drive home how much attention to detail was spent in this world and getting everything right, in terms of world design and world building, it's nothing but a masterpiece. The story itself has been interesting too, I'm not too far in as I've been mostly ignoring it and doing collectibles, side quests and all that good stuff, but yeah it has been intriguing so far and I can't wait to learn more, I've only just got my broom at 22-ish hours in which is meant to be something you get within the first 3 hours, so I think I'm quite behind on this front lol. Talking of side quests, they're in here but largely unremarkable really, they're standard kind of side quests where you'll have to clear out a bandit camp to get an item or something like that, nothing out of ordinary. Occasionally you do get assignments from the various different classes at Hogwarts which will give you a couple of tasks to complete, this are usually more interesting and reward you with a nice little classroom scene once you hand it to the Professor in question. So yeah, I think it is absolutely fantastic so far. I just wish I had more time to play more of it really, it's one of the best WPRGs I've played in recent years, feels like its had an awful lot of money spent on it and is just dripping in polish and attention to detail. A must-play if you're a fan of the films/books but I think a great game (so far) in its own right and well worth playing still if you're not. Pics:

Let me start by saying I hate the Americanised spelling of the title. I'm just copying exactly what's there, though, so don't pull me up for it. Now let me follow up with what @Sly Reflex said for EDF 5... "If you've not enjoyed these games before, abandon thread now. There's no point in you wasting your time here. It's more of the same with tweaks, mostly good tweaks, but nothing that's going to convince you you want to spend time with the series." I've been playing this online co-op with Rosie (it was one of her free games the other week, so I'm like a pig in shit), and honestly, it's tons of fun. The story follows on directly from EDF5, and the invaders aren't happy about earth turning the tide in the last instalment, so they've amped it up to wipe out humanity altogether. I've currently only played as ranger - the default character - but there are a couple of tweaks that are fantastic for QoL. You now have a slot for a backpack weapon. This could be anything from a vehicle to a healing grenade, to regular grenades, to your very own turret. This is a great addition that means you're not completely fucked when the crowds become overwhelming and you're trying to reload. I've been using turrets a lot, just to try and thin the herds in harder levels. The turrets also have a decently large angle of fire, so they're not bad as anti-air solutions, either. D3 have added a visual indicator of damage. Great for the numbers people who like to try and figure out the hit points of any given enemy. I've not given it my full attention, but I do keep a side-eye on the numbers as they tick up and consider whether it's worth reloading or not. Lots of new enemies, as well as plenty of familiar stuff from 5. Off the top of my head, I think there are at least 8 new enemies. That brings it out to about 12-15 different enemy species, not including the kaiju or palette swaps of enemies. Some of the older enemies have been tweaked. There's a new variation on the jumping spiders, for example, that fires electric threads. So that's a new one to consider. I don't know if it's just because we're both playing ranger, or if it's because we suck, or if I've been carried more than I realise in 5, but this one FEELS harder, too. So much so, we've been playing on normal just to try and boost our armour and weapons before heading into hard/hardest/inferno. One of the big criticisms I've seen online is that some assets, maps and exact missions have been recycled into EDF6. Without delving too much into spoiler territory, this is true, but it's also done in a really smart way that feeds the narrative beautifully. Look, this is still B-Movie bullshit, but it's B-Movie bullshit that makes sense(ish). I've been all in on this series since 4.1, and I fully believe that if you didn't like it before, you won't like it now. It's still janky, it's still running on the same 20-year old engine the last few games have utilised, it still descends to single digit frame rates when shit kicks off, and enemies look like they're animated by the same guys that made Jason and the Argonauts when they're in the distance. However, if you've been on the fence, or unsure, or just haven't had much experience with it in the past, I think this is the one that's worth jumping in to. Don't expect much fun in single player. Get a mate or three and have an absolute blast in co-op. Honestly, I think the series has taken over my brain a little bit, because I'm currently playing this 4-5 nights a week with Rosie then dipping into 5 with Sly and a couple of people online each week on top. It's great fun, and if Helldivers 2 has ran its course for you, I think this is definitely worth taking a punt on. Maybe wait until it drops to £30, though. There's enough content to justify full price IMO, but it's far too samey level to level to drop £50-60 on.