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I played the first hour or so of this. The game has a very bombastic opening although I think it was largely shown when they first revealed the game. The opening “escape” sequence is snappy, much faster than the opening of DOS2. Dialogue scenes now play out Mass Effect style which gives the game a slightly more AAA feel. Character creation is pretty breezy, I didn’t spend too long on it. You can choose from five different penises. I just made my character a human fighter. My main takeaway is - no crashes or performances issues. Long may it continue. After a few more hours I should be able to comment more on the differences between this and Divinity, but so far so good.

I want my mummy... Spent a few hours with this through Game Pass (Xbox obviously)... think I played Innocence toward the tale end of last year and so far this feels nicely familiar. I'm up to Act 3, the first act being more or less a tutorial and the second playing pretty much how you'd expect. Things start harmlessly enough but it doesn't take long for things to fall to shit and the whole world wants Amicia dead for reasons... this time she can fight back a little more, she has a stealth attack and can knife enemies, I haven't got her Crossbow yet but like I say I'm only up to Act 3. You can also break line of sight and hide again if discovered, I can't remember if this was a thing in the first, if it was it was bloody difficult. Some of the views look stunning and so far it's played nicely... there's no performance or graphics mode so I'm not sure if it's locked to 30fps or not... think I saw somewhere that it's 40fps if your display supports 120hz (mine does so who knows) I ended up really liking the first so I'm looking forward to playing more of this.

Balatro. What can I say about Balatro that will do it any justice...? For the uninitiated, this presents as roguelike poker. You're dealt a hand of cards and use your card counting skills, or your natural-borne luck, to build a game-winning combination. Everything from high card draws to the fabled royal flush will score points, and it's your job to work through eight rounds of three games. I've managed to get half way through a game up to now - ante 5/8 - before crashing out horribly. Like I said, though, it presents as poker. Realistically, it takes poker to a whole new place, and this is thanks to the store between rounds. You can buy a range of bonuses to increase your chances of reaching the end. Tarot cards apply specific bonuses to individual cards from your deck (this could be anything from giving you an extra $3 if it's not used by the end of a round to a multiplier if it's played and scores). Planet cards provide bonuses to specific hands - I'm a fan of bumping up my two-pair bonus, as it's one of the most common hands I play, and it can become especially prolific for points the more you increase its level. You can get packs that add more cards to your deck, and then there are Joker cards (that's Poker with a J... Coincidence?) that give you overall bonuses. The key to the game right now seems to be the Joker Cards. A two pair hand with two 10s and two 5s can score around 50 points as a base. But add in a Joker card that adds 4 to your multiplier if you play clubs, as well as the joker that adds 30 chips if you play a 10, AND a +4 multiplier for the same numbers, and that two pair hand quickly shoots up to almost 10,000 points. Skipping some rounds is an option, and will present you with a bonus if you do so, but this comes at the cost of making more money to go into the store with. Is that card pack, which is usually $6 worth accepting, rather than playing the round and getting to $10 so you can buy a new bonus card or a couple of new Jokers? In each round of three games, there's also a 'boss' match. This will add further complications to the gameplay. Some of the ones I've encountered include all face cards being dealt face down, specific suits being debuffed (so those awesome bonuses are completely negated) and even ALL dealt cards being handed out face down. These are super tough at times, and if you hit a bad run, you're essentially screwed. I'm under no illusions that I'm not great at this game, but it has a fantastic 'one more go' quality that makes you hop in for another round. I honestly can't express how much I'm enjoying it right now. I'm determined to figure out a way to get through all 8 rounds.

I wanted to play this from when it first came out, but refused to pay full price for a SpongeBob game in... 2023. Huh, I thought this was more than a year old. Anyway. It's a typical mascot platformer that seemed to breed and multiply in the PS2/Xbox/GameCube days, but brought to life with a glorious new-gen shine. I sound highly cynical, and to be honest, I am on this one. It's linear to a tee (definite positive), but you get a few little side quests that require a touch of exploration - collect a number of golden coins, find a specific character, discover golden spatulas. However, a lot of these extra bits and bobs are locked behind power-based gates. Things like a karate kick, or swinging on a fish hook, or a mega smash. What this means is that if I want to collect everything, it's not a one and done situation, but I essentially need to play the game twice. It's false padding. Anyway, how does it play, I (don't) hear you ask? Meh. It's serviceable. Jumps can be very awkward. Combat can be awkward. Skills can be unresponsive. However, despite all this meh-ness, there's still enough to keep me playing. I think this might be one of the first games I finish this year. Won't be getting 100%, though. Fuck that noise.

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.

Booted this up for the first time today just for a look see... played for a couple of hours and completed four levels. For those not in the know it's a Steam punk (I guess) take on Westerns mixed with Vampires which I thought was going to be much more shooter orientated than it is... it's actually much closer to the newer God of War games than Gears of War, shit, you even open and smash chests the same way as Kratos does. So there's a definite leaning towards melee combat over ranged but there's Guns involved obviously being a Western. These work on a cool down rather than relying on ammo drops and are mainly used for hitting exposed weak points with the rifle or chip damage for the pistol then there's the sawn off which is great for obliterating shields... all standard stuff for anyone who's played a third person adventure game anytime recently. So far in terms of levels it feels very old school with very linear levels designed to funnel you from one encounter to the next. As for looks it's been a very mixed bag so far, actual game play looks ok, I'm not sure if it's a design choice or what but there's a really weird glow with everything... fire sources are ridiculously bright and this isn't even an hdr enabled game and then you have the cutscenes which everything just looks muddy and crushed to fuck... I'm not sure whats going on there. Funnily though the pictures I'll post look a damn sight better then they do on a tv.🤷‍♂️ So a bit of a mixed bag... plays fine, looks a little ropey.

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

I was pretty close to just bumping the old thread because man, is this Persona 3. I'm sure there are plenty that want a remake as faithful as this but I was more on the side of using the opportunity to take a second run at it and tighten it up a bit and improve some of the story of the game. There are quite a few changes to the dungeon crawling element, a lot of additions in presentation and mechanics such as the ability to pass a turn to another party member after hitting a weak spot which makes the game easier. But I was a bit disappointed with the AI party members since there are less tactics than the original and they don't use the new mechanics. Just for nostalgia's sake I tried to play it the old way but it's so not optimal. It just seems to be thoughtlessly added and it's clear they're really expecting people to play it with direct control of the party. I just always thought it was cool to be the leader of an autonomous group and it's just faster too. But oh well! Bosses haven't really been touched very much either, mechanically, despite those getting quite a bit better in later games is a big missed opportunity too. Other difference is it obviously looks better... actually, I dunno, it doesn't have the creepiness of the original to me, something to do with some of the colour grading maybe. Looking too clean isn't hitting quite right. More of the game is voice acted, I think it might be a little rewritten but I'd have to look at side by sides to be sure but it's mostly the same stuff happening and even acted out the same way. I'm not new to this game but I think to someone that is or is coming from Persona 5 it's still gonna feel like an older iteration despite the new coat of paint. It's still one of my favourite games, and I've barely stopped playing it but it's my fault, I did at one point dream of a game that felt like a sequel to P5 but with P3's story and it isn't that. It's P3 with some modern concessions.

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:

So after, what? 9 or 10 years Dead Island 2 is finally here and you know what?... I'm having a pretty decent time with it. The first thing I'll say is it feels like an Xbox 360 game... and it's a matter of opinion if that's a good or a bad thing. For me after Dying Light 2 tried to do far too much (in my opinion) having a game that just wants me to hit things until they fall over in a bloody mess is more than OK. The other thing I wanted to say is the opening hour or so is pretty bad... shit weapons that break way too easy and spongy enemies that hit way too hard... or maybe that's my own fault for picking the poor, frail girl character... who knows... anyway things liven up when you get your first real mission and access to a workbench. Anyone who's played the original games (or the Dying Light games) will feel right at home with the modding of weapons and such, electric swords and and flaming golf clubs... all that good stuff. The flesh system is really cool, thwacking a zombie in the face and seeing its jaw dislocate and detach is pretty mind-blowing and adds a lot to the melee combat (not found any guns yet) The other cool thing us being able to use liquids... I was doing a side mission and reached a part where ther was about 10 zombies banging on glass doors trying to get in... noticed a fuel can and explosive canister, picked up the can and poured fuel the entire length of the doors, hit the canister which ignited the fuel and blew out a window which allowed the zombies to walk straight in to my pre-made Inferno... no more zombies.😂 I've also just picked a perk for a pipe bomb... which is hilarious. Anyway, I like this game, admittedly I've only put around 5 or 6 hours in so far so we'll have to see if it can hold my attention but it's off to a good start.

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

I'm shallow and wanted a pretty game for my PC, so I got this. Mainly off the back of Alex at digital foundry comparing it to Crysis a lot It's a fairly boilerplate Far Cry template, for the most part. Big map, fogged up until you go to different areas. Towers must be captured. It's got some things in it though which I think are neat. One thing is I think the criticism about Ubisoft checklist games is reaching some decision makers at the company, as it foregoes map icons and tries to hide the waypoint janitor busywork within a more organic framework. That framework still being a Far Cry template, you craft and gather and stealth archer your way around. But it feels more cleverly integrated and less of a checklist (tho undoubtedly this is something that'll be less the case after time with the game, when the novelty wears off) You play a Navi and your background is a bit fish out of water. I've not seen the 2nd film, and I just don't care enough, but it's straightforward enough and seems to take place alongside the 2nd one I think. The whole ethos of its gameplay seems to be like you're a hunter gatherer on Pandora. There's dynamic time of day and weather, though oddly it seems for the opening this is entirely scripted and not dynamic? I'm not sure why that is. But if effects gathering mechanics cause somethings you want to gather at night, or while it's raining, or vice versa. Then you get better ingredients for cooking. There's also a whole mechanic in the game around 'clean kills' and 'mercy kills' for enemies, which requires you to study their weak spots and basically kill them quick and with few shots. It's very difficult, moreso than it sounds, I haven't done it properly once The game is the most visually spectacular game I've seen in a year full of visual spectaculars. It's Crysis but for the present day. The foliage density is peerless, they even have a 'hidden' graphics setting called 'Unobtainium' which sets everything way higher. I don't find I need that though, one thing I find is after about an hour playing this my eyes are really sore and I might have a headache. Said this before about Horizon, but there's so much detail here it's hard to take it all in and I think I'm not blinking as often as I should. Combined with the HDR highlights it's like my corneas are getting mildly seared. So it's very visually fatiguing. On the one hand, that level of visual noise is annoying. It's difficult to see things when you're running through the forest. On the other, it's weirdly immersive in that the enemies with their camouflage actually camouflage, and you need to use your navi vision to spot them (the visual effect for this sucks though, it looks like a migraine). The fauna behave a lot like the wildlife in RDRII, and do a lot to make the game world feel alive and will scuttle under the foliage and come out to surprise you, and fuck you up. The flora is also interactive, you can shoot certain plants and they will let off a big fart or smoke and I assume that has gameplay implications if you want to fuck with the soldiers. It's not on a TOTK level at all, but it means a lot that the world isn't static. The weather and your own character will displace and move the leaves and things around. It's a world that's really well laid out also in terms of getting around, you have these huge branches which form almost a highway system which let you get back and forth quickly. The movement system feels like a pared down version of Mirror's Edge and all these different systems and mechanics blend together quite well I'm finding. It works well enough that it makes hunting and gathering not feel as tedious as it might be. Naturally those movement mechanics lend themselves well to combat also, my fave trick being to jump between branches and do a charge jump out of cover to headshot a soldier (this has a very nice and generous aim assist, worth using even on M&K) All those details are really cool. It's very standard tho in its gameplay structure. You go to outposts, fix their broken shit, beat up the humans turning the forests into ass, unlock more regions of the map. It's still one of those games, but they try and keep more of it within the world rather than within a map system. It even does a thing where they don't actually give you a waypoint for a quest, they give you a text description like 'go south of the river and look for the smoke, beat up the RDA'. Or 'find the home tree near yada yada'. It makes you learn the geography and orient your way there. All that said, I don't see this landing anywhere but number 10 on my goty list, but it shows how you can make this style of game feel less like a spreadsheet and more like a video game by surfacing it in a more 'old fashioned' way

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.

I'd never heard of this before, but it looked awful so I downloaded it for a laugh. Honestly, I haven't even gotten into the gameplay yet, but it's the most PS2-ass game I've ever seen in my life. It has boob jiggle, a la Dead or Alive (also apparently from some of that series' devs), and this is introduced in the first cutscene. The animation, even in the cinematics is janky, stunted, and exactly like you'd expect from an early 2000s title. If you'd told me this is a Remake or remaster from that gen, I wouldn't have been surprised. I hope this creeps into so bad its good territory.

Spent around four or five hours with this and it's safe to say it's pretty great... I'd go as far to say that this (in my opinion) is Sony's premier franchise now... you can just feel the production values running through pretty much everything. I've spent most of my time getting distracted by icons that pop up as you're traversing the map so in regards to main story missions I've not made much progress... I'm not going to pretend that it's a whole different game from the previous two but if you got any sort of enjoyment from those you'll love this and you'll know just what to expect. It's all about the story in these types of games for me and thankfully I've not been spoiled in that sense yet, looking forward to spending some hours with this...

I haven't played much, but: Positives You can pet cats. This makes it worth the asking price alone. The accessibility options include being able to automatically pick up herbs and collectables. This needs to be in every game. Negatives I can't figure out how to view the credits to add a screenshot of Rosie's name (because that's something that still isn't getting old yet) Anyway, imagine they finally made an assassin's creed japan, gave it a soulslite gameplay loop and you're somewhere in the general area for this. Nothing is massively sticking out as an "oh my god, that's amazing" addition to the game, but it has a fun feel to it regardless.

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

Yet another freebie courtesy of Rosie, and I'm so bloody torn on this game. Let's start with Showcase mode. For those who keep up with wrestling, this year's instalment focuses on 'finish the story' (because Cody Rhodes - son of Dusty and brother of Golddust). You play through wrestlemanias of years past, in some of the most iconic moments from the last 40 years. Each match has a different set of objectives that lead you into following how the actual matches happened. So you need to beat The Rock with a chair at WM XIX, for example. It slips in and out of videos of the real action before switching back to the gameplay to jump onto the next goal. As always, this mode is fun, but also massively frustrating. It's so easy to mess up and have to start the match over if you mess up a specific objective. And it's about 25 matches long. But heavily weighted on the current era. Hell, WM 38 alone had three matches dedicated to it. Anyway, the reason I'm torn is because of how temperamental the reversals are. It's so bloody annoying having to time it perfectly, and a lot of the time it's just guesswork. Triangle reverses grapples - this shows a prompt. Reversing strikes is x/Square, depending on what your opponent is throwing at you - this has no prompts. So good luck guessing, chump. I've bumped it down to easy and reduced multiple sliders to make it more enjoyable for myself. Because fuck that noise. Anyway, I have one match left on Showcase mode (a royal rumble, weirdly) and then I'll jump into the main story mode, which is meant to be good fun this year. I also need to play around with MyFaction (essentially Ultimate Team), but I've heard it becomes a mode you have to jump into daily, and I don't have the patience for that kind of thing. Look, I said I'm torn on this one. And it's because I am. I love what's being presented, but I HATE the execution. I think gameplay needs a few tweaks and it'd be great. But right now I'm almost hate playing it in a way. I want this last match done so that I can move on to the more free-flowing stuff.

Ok, so I’m 2 hours into this. I’m an absolutely massive Yakuza/LAD fan. In over 40 years of gaming, this is by far my favourite franchise. The reviews for this have been universally high. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first: charging separately for the New Game+ mode, sucks. There’s an entire dungeon, and trophies/achievements locked away behind that. That’s pissed some people off, and I think understandably so. There’s also multiple Micro transactions, ranging in price from £5 for instant level up boosts, to £12/£15 for other stuff. I won’t be bothering with any of that, and so far, the game hasn’t been obnoxiously highlighting them. Right. I’m 2 hours in, and it’s pretty much just been cut scenes. Which is pretty typical for a LAD game. That being said, I’ve already noticed two improvements that have been made to the combat system. You can manually control the movement of each character before making a move, making it much easier to pick up items to hit enemies with. One of the more annoying elements of the previous game, was that if you bumped into another enemy in the middle of your attack, their was a good chance they’d hit you, and cancel your move. That’s been scrapped entirely, thank god. There’s no difficulty options. When I watched the IGN video review, they specifically mentioned how annoying the difficulty spikes became about halfway through LAD. That was what made me eventually give up on my PS4 playthrough, and I found challenging to get through when I eventually finished it on PS5 last December. The reviewer said that there’s none of that difficultly spike nonsense in IW. Hopefully, he’s right… In terms of story, there’s no “Previously on LAD” to catch up newcomers to the story. Most games in the series have optional “movies” to watch, which explain what’s happened before. There’s none of that here. So if IW is your first time to the series, I’d suggest watching a video of at least what happened in the last LAD game. I won’t spoil what’s happened so far. But, I will say, it’s been an absolute joy seeing Ichiban and his friends again. Kiryu is my favourite character in all of gaming, but Ichiban is quickly becoming a firm favourite too. He’s likeable, charismatic, and amusing. Whereas in LAD: Gaiden, you had to wait a few weeks for the English dub to become available, here it’s available right from the start. I played LAD in English, and had no issue with doing so. So, I’ve chosen the English dub for this. There’s been a lot of hate thrown at Jong Jea, the YouTuber chosen to portray Kiryu. I’ll reserve judgement for his full performance. The footage of Kiryu doing karaoke that leaked a few weeks ago was legitimately awful, autotuned to buggery. But, I’ll give him a fair chance. What I can say though, is I’m very dubious about his ability to pull it off. Kiryu is a legend approaching the end of his “career”. From the lines leaked previously, he sounds far too young. Still, I won’t write him off just yet. Im away on holiday for a week after today, so won’t get to play much more. But once I’m back, this will be getting my full attention.

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

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)!

This will absolutely not get overshadowed by FFVII. No chance. Played this for I'd say about five hours now. It has the slowest beginning I've seen in a game in a while, to the point where I started wondering around the 3-hour mark if I actually like it. It does, fortunately, find its own rhythm shortly after that and removes the leash around your metaphorical neck. I'm not saying the beginning is bad, but just in case anyone wants to give it a shot, be ready for a relatively prolonged prologue/tutorial cocktail until it gets going. The game itself is probably best described as a very talkative action RPG, not unlike Vampyr which I presume was made by mostly the same bunch of people inside Don't Nod. You arrive in a cursed area in 17th century America as so-called Banishers (old-school Ghostbusters basically) to help out a friend, then everything turns to shit and you have to find out why and how to fix things. It has a relatively desolate atmosphere but there are some light-ish elements sprinkled in, mostly through the dialogue between the two protagonists. The bearded guy, Red, is surprisingly charming and likeable despite his gruff and generic design, whereas his girlfriend/wife seems a bit cool and distanced so far. I'd take a guess and say it's deliberate for now. All the talking you do usually leads to a quest or two and it's here where the game starts to differentiate itself from its ilk. Every quest seems in some shape or form linked to a lingering spectre, which ties into the whole curse narrative. While you do some detective work you often find out things aren't quite what they seem and by the time you've connected all the dots the game ask you whether to release/punish the ghost or the living person who initiated the quest. Each has a very profound impact upon a certain key element of its story which I won't spoil here, but think of the Little Sisters in BioShock, but not as black-and-white and significantly better developed. So far I've had to make three of those choices and only one of them was somewhat 'easy', so in that regard I think they've done a good job. When you're not talking you're fighting and I have yet to make my mind up whether combat is good enough or not. It feels very limited early on but I have unlocked a couple of stuff now (some through progress, some via a skill tree) that starts giving me some idea how it wants to be played. You can switch between two characters at all times, one corporeal, one ghostly, and combat treats this feature more or less like two stances. Enemies are either weak to one or the other, certain well-timed switches give you extra attacks or added benefits, like blocking a corporeal attack and then countering with a powerful punch in ghost form. It doesn't quite flow as well as I think it should, but then again there are so few combat scenarios in the early hours that it could just be me not properly getting used to it yet. There's definitely potential, despite some lock-on targeting issues, and I'll hold off judgment for now until I have more tools and experience under my belt. Visually I think this makes a good case of AA being absolutely good enough and the whole discussions we recently had about the state of high-profile games. It's a pretty game with a very distinct look that's not quite immediately apparent from videos and screenshots. Switching forms looks very satisfying and stylish without being flashy, texture work is sharp, it runs at an almost locked 60fps in performance mode unless it needs to stream in some data. Facial animations are the weak link in its presentation, but other than that this is a nice-looking game. I'd also like to quickly mention that unlike some info saying otherwise, this is not an open world game. The world is interconnected and you can walk through it without loading screens, but its areas are linked and stitched together via premade pathways, not unlike something like Fable, the last Tomb Raider games or Kingdoms of Amalur. Which is a good thing IMO, just pointing it out here.

Just some general impressions here of the unit itself really for those interested. For context, I've only ever used one VR headset before and that was original PSVR. Super simple to unbox, very much like the PS5 in the no-frills aspect of it with all the cardboard and a cardboard/paper based cable tie, seeing the unit for the first time, picking it up, picking the Sense controllers up I was surprised how light everything is. You look at the PSVR2 sitting there in its little moulded cardboard box and for some reason think this is gonna be heavy, but it's not, it's surprisingly light, crazy light really for everything that's going on inside it. The Sense controllers are light too but maybe a little too light at times, I would maybe like a little more weight to them, they are very slippery too so the straps are needed to avoid making a hole in my TV lol. In the box is also another mini-box which contains the instructions, some different buds for the included ear buds and in some plastic (!!!) was the stereo ear buds themselves. The very first time I tried the headset it was with my own HyperX headphones I've had for donkeys years now, but it didn't quite feel right on my head, I felt like something was off. So I took it off, clipped in the stereo earbuds (which attach nicely onto the back of the headset so you don't even know they're on, and even have little holders for each of the buds on the sides of the backstrap of the headset itself) and it was so much better. Yes, I generally don't like earbuds and yes they did fall out my ear a few times before I got them fit in my ears properly but once that was done the immersion was much better and more importantly the comfort was much better than using my HyperX over-ear headphones. If you've ever tried a PSVR1 on in GAME, at an event etc. then you'll immediately be familiar with the design of PSVR2, the two are incredibly similar in terms of their overall design, the way the strap does up, the general aesthetic of the whole unit and feel on your head and all the jazz. As mentioned previously though, it is much lighter than PSVR1, you don't feel the weight on your head at all and it has a huge amount of improvements from that headset whilst maintaining the same overall design philosophy. The biggest change is the quality of the screens, it's almost chalk and cheese compared to the OG PSVR, it's just immediately clearer and you don't get that 'screen door' effect on black screens. You also don't get that pixelated image as much, it is still there to a degree which I was surprised about as I assumed the OLED panels would eliminate this, but it is there slightly, just nowhere near as bad. You can also change the lens location in the headset to match up with your eyes and is much easier to find the 'sweet spot' when wearing glasses. It's just much more comfortable overall. The eye tracking is impressive but aside from menus in Horizon that use it, I haven't really properly tried it out in a game in earnest yet but I believe it does help with the tracking in general that the headset does. The other new button on the headset is the 'function' button which allows you to see the outer world whilst in game and enables you to set up your play area before you play so you don't collide into things or damage anything. You can edit this play area with the Sense controllers to make things bigger or larger depending on your needs. Unfortunately, the living room isn't quite big enough for roomscale so I have to go with the 'standing' option after I've set up the play area. The Sense controllers feel intuitive to use and a million times better than the godawful Move controllers you had to content with in PSVR1, every button seems to be placed exactly where it should be and there isn't any awkwardness, the finger tracking works really well, seeing your hand open and close in Horizon is a really cool moment. Games-wise, I've only tried out GT7 and Horizon: CotM so far. I don't like to have too many games on the go at one time so I didn't want to start about 7 different PSVR2 games and then feel like I'm beholden to all of them if that makes sense. More impressions in the dedicated threads but both of these are amazing in VR for different reasons, showpieces for the headset in general. Overall, it's just a much comfier, easier headset to use than PSVR1 ever was. The 'sweet spot' is much easier to achieve and the picture nowhere near as blurry, less affected by fogging lenses or anything like that. I'm still finding my 'VR legs' so to speak, as a few titles on PSVR1 made me feel sick so I wanted to err on the safe side, but with this, aside from a few early moments at high speed with GT7 I haven't had any issues with that whatsoever thankfully. Not sure if anyone else is too interested in VR in general, but if anyone has any questions they want answered I'll do my best. Here's of video of me looking like a tit in my living room for everyone to enjoy lol. https://imgur.com/a/e9d2Wgt

Ok. So, the knives are well and truly out for this one. IGN has been quite savage, though it didn’t really help itself by saying “We don’t like killing the Justice League”, in a game where that’s literally the name of it. I loved the Arkham games, but right from the start, it’s clear this is a different kettle of fish entirely. You start of as Deadshot, one of the 4 playable characters. He has a jet pack, which he uses to zip around the area. After killing a few enemies, you switch to King Shark, the ‘tank’ of the team. Shark doesn’t use equipment to get around, he can do a massive jump, then dash in the air up to 3 times. Next up, is Captain Boomerang. His mode of transport, teleporting using boomerang’s(funnily enough) took some getting used to, and didn’t quite feel right to me. Finally, you briefly play as Harley Queen, who uses a drone/whip gun to ricochet over the place. If Boomerang felt weird to control, Harley was the toughest of all, in my opinion. Soon after her section, you’re finally given the choice of who you want to control. I went Shark, as being a tank is my jam. After that, a massive battle ensues, where you have to survive for 2 minutes. Amanda Waller, your ‘boss’ says she will teleport you out of there in a few minutes. But then advises that “You have a shield, but it’s not self recharging”. As this is to discourage “Hanging around”. The only way to recharge your fairly low shield, is to shoot enemies in their feet, then melee attack them. Some enemies are shielded, which is only broken by a melee hit. Ive got a little further than that, but the urge to return to Infinite Wealth became too great. I can tell you one thing that is bullshit: the “always online” requirement. Ok, so they’ve said they’re working on a patch to remove that. But prior to the game’s full release yesterday, there has been two occasions where sever issues have rendered this utterly unplayable. And that just sucks balls. I’ve already encountered Kevin Conroy’s Batman, and it’s just a powerful performance as he always was. I’ve seen fans saying that this is an “insult” to his character. Personally, I feel that’s bang out of order. To many people, Kevin WAS Batman, and he wouldn’t have done it, if he didn’t believe in it. It’s most definitely not an ‘Arkham’ combat game, despite there already being several nods to that series’ universe. Still, from what I’ve played so far, it seems decent enough. How it will fare going on, well, we will see…

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.