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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.

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.

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.

I've put a good bit of time into this, playing ranked and with some ppl on rllmuk, enjoying it enough I'd figure to write something about it. Thinking along the lines that it has a free tier, so there's at least a small chance others might try it out and there's an RPG set in the same world coming out in a few weeks, which presumably connects into the story of this (tho I've zero inclination to try the story out tbh). If not, oh well The free version cycles in 4 characters each week, which is a great system and I recommend downloading it to try out. I've been playing the paid version and started off with the character Nier, who's a puppet master, then went to Narmaya who's sort of the Vergil archetype, all zippy with a katana. It's got simple inputs and technical, but unlike SF the game is very much built around the simple inputs (which wasn't the case with versus). There's a 10 percent damage reduction when using a simple input in neutral, but this actually doesn't really matter at all as most of your combo starters will be from normals anyway and the damage reduce doesn't affect skills in combos. There's also a cooldown system and stronger versions of specials have longer cooldown values, so you've got to account for that in your combo routing and general gameplan. I'm finding that a hard aspect about Narmaya, cause she has the most specials due to her unique stance switching mechanic It's got some weird things about it which I'm not super clear what I feel about. It's got a dodge button, and character's blockstrings seem much more plus to a point that the game is balanced around you knowing the timing of when to dodge, and punish accordingly. Sometimes which takes a bit of getting used to. It's got a kinda drive impact style mechanic where you spend 'bravery points' to extend combos, inflict guard crush and also to escape from bullshit blockstrings and combos. When you spend them, you take more damage, so it's a risky thing to do. But you can get them back with super, so there's some interesting decision making I guess What mary won't be pleased to here is that there is a free drive rush mechanic in the form of dash light punch, which costs no resources and leaves you plus 2 on block. Anyway, it's free to try and you can really get to grips with the more basic characters fast. This is sort of a 2nd wind for this game as it did not do well on initial release due to delay netcode and the pandemic killing locals. You definitely don't need to understand all that plus frame bullshit I said to just mash buttons and have fun with it. The only thing you've got to lose is your dignity when someone walks into the room and sees the weeb shit you're playing

It still feels like early days but I'm enjoying this so far. I tried streaming some but my setup seemed to add a few issues to control and framerate, I did a lot better when I wasn't having to play through my capture screen. That said, it's still a Sonic game so I have been launched to my death rather than whatever the next part of the rollercoaster was supposed to be. For all the Breath of the Wild talk it actually reminds me of Mario Odyssey more than anything else. I've no idea if the area I'm in just expands or if eventually it moves you to a new world, but you're on a land mass that's gated, you're essentially playing until you unlock the next bit. There are traditional levels, they're really short, and they're accessed via totems in the main world. You need gears to open these, you get gears from defeating meaningful enemies, I feel like I've got quite a lot now so other than really early on when the game is teaching you, they aren't hard to find. Beating the levels gets you keys, keys unlock the chaos emeralds, doing that seems to progress the story and open more map. The reason it reminds me of Mario are all the little challenges in the game world. Work out the route to a floating platform, beat a horde of enemies, solve a minor puzzle, these all get you things, usually it's the items you need to level up attributes, sometimes it's experience to unlock more skills. There's probably a few too many currencies really, but it does mean that a trip across the map means a hundred diversions because it's very densely packed

Played the demo of this on Friday and thought I’d give my thoughts on it. Played around 40 minutes to an hour and I definitely would’ve liked longer with it which is a good sign. Graphically it’s very colourful, it reminded me quite a bit of the game Rime mixed with a more cartoony AC Odyssey with a sprinkling of Zelda. To play it’s immediately reminiscent of AC Odyssey. The way the combat system works with all the special abilities is very familiar, but it is definitely more flamboyant and less grounded, it feels like the system has been jazzed up and some of the moves you can pull off are a little closer to DMC than the weight of AC:OD. The way all the landmarks and points of interest are pinned to the top is very similar to AC:OD as well but then a lot of games use that system nowadays. The most interesting aspect to me was the puzzle aspect. I only came across one in my short time with the game but it was a nice surprise, reminded me a bit of some of the puzzles you’d come across in BOTW and was satisfying to complete. The way Fenyx moves is very familiar to BOTW too, there’s a stamina bar that depletes as you run and climb. She sprouts wings when you Glide which looks and feels very similar to Link’s glider in BOTW. It has a playful sense of humour to it as well. The way the demo plays out is that Zeus and Prometheus are narrating a story but keep getting it wrong, so things change on the fly for Fenyx as they adapt their stories in an attempt to get things right. The two have a lot of character and are nowhere near as stoic or uptight as some of their other interpretations in games over the years. Overall I was impressed with it but needed more time real to nail down a recommendation. It’s a lot of fun though and I think it will be a great world to get lost in but I can’t shake the feeling that it might be a little bit unoriginal and not doing a lot of new things per se. Saying that, I’ll definitely keep my pre-order after playing the demo, I love new IP and want to play some more after this brief taste.

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

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

First "new" game of 2024! (Technically, I've had the twin-pack of this and T7 sitting on my shelf for ..a while) NOTE: I did look to see if this had a Thread already. But aside from a News Thread. Only saw pages for the older SC's titles. Anyway, I've started this up with Libra of Soul. Haven't even touched Story/Arcade modes yet. Immediately, I'm hit by how much lower budget this than previous titles. The previously bombastic opening cinematic that this series has been known for since Soul Blade? Not present?? Now regardless of otherwise decent gameplay, SCV was a clusterfuck that nixed the series. But purely from this secondary mode, I'm unsure why we are immediately back at SC1 in terms of the narrative. Hopefully this will be explained in the story mode? Although basically the traditional Edgemaster Mode by another name. It starts with character creation. Which I haven't liked since this series got it in SC3. But modern gamers loves this shite so whatever. A brief look, turned into an hour play session. My character (Zark VI, naturally) adopted the Siegfried weapon style. There was no rust this time. Muscle memory kicked in with the first battle. Admittedly for the specific challenge missions (Critical Edge only etc) I did have to look up the buttons. But the general move set was with me from the offset. When thinking about it, the last SC game I played (SCV) would be 12 years old at the end of this month. So I was surprised by the moves and combo strings I could pull off. It's definitely ticking the familiar boxes for me so far. Eager to get back to the next session.

So I'm about 4-5 hours into this, and so far it has been nothing less than phenomenal. It's a sequel to 2019's Jedi Order and takes place 5 years after the events of that game, again with Protagonist Cal Kestis (motion captured by Gotham's Cameron Monaghan), this time a lot more attuned to his Jedi powers, a little more dishevelled and world-weary but nonetheless determined to expunge the Empire from the Galaxy bit-by-bit, using his Jedi powers in tandem with small groups of misfits around the galaxy to do so. As this is a sequel, it plays very similarly to Jedi Order. You pilot Cal, his lightsaber(s), wield the force and explore different planets around the Galaxy in way reminiscent of a Souls-like and something like GoW/Tomb Raider 2013, you're able to go round different paths only to come to a dead end that will have a shortcut nearby it which will lead you back to a Mediation point (this games' Bonfires), you'll also encounter areas and paths that are inaccessible to you on your first visit, you'll have to return to these later once you have the required power and unlock the path. There's a lot of games like this nowadays, particularly open world third-person adventure games, so it's likely you've played one similar at some point, pretty much everything is back from Fallen Order, the way the game plays mentioned above, the platforming, certain set pieces, certain slidey bits you drop down into before/after/during said set pieces, you'll be lightsabering a lot of Troopers and wildlife, solving puzzles and collecting trinkets. There is a grappling hook of sorts this time around I don't remember being in FO, there are also stances that enable you to dual-wield, double-end or just have the standard saber setup. You can now customise Cal to the Nth degree (apart from changing his hair colour), including his Beard, Clothes and Hairstyle, along with his Saber (oo err) and your trusty Droid BD-1 who, again, returns from FO. So far I've explored two planets. The game itself starts off in the dingy underbelly of Coruscant, which is every bit as amazing as you think it's going to be, Neon signs everywhere, cyberpunk vibes out the wazoo, flying cars whizzing about all over the place, gaudy electric billboards and all the trappings you'd expect from this City Planet if you've seen the films. This planet is quite linear, you pretty much have your objectives and can still go off into mini-exploration zones which usually circle back and where you first started exploring from, but a lot of it is locked off for the time being, giving you a streamlined approach to the objective at the levels finale. Koboh is the second planet I've been exploring and is absolutely bloody massive. It's a Wild West feeling Frontier planet (complete with the accents!) which seems to just go on and on for miles from the vistas I've found so far. It's rocky but with plenty of beauty and charm, lots of interesting wildlife and interesting flora and fauna to look at and admire, I thought Coruscant was a visual spectacle but some of the vistas in this have been absolutely mindboggling. Compared to Coruscant which felt like a Planet you'd visit, this seems to be the Bogano of Survivor, the hub planet, with loads of different paths possible for you to take, loads of NPCs to speak to, shops to peruse and lots of mini-games and activities you can partake in Whilst I very much enjoyed the previous game, it did have lots of niggling technical issues that would eat away at your enjoyment from time to time, it just never really felt polished. You'll manoevre Cal onto a bit of pipe and he'd randomly do a Tee pose, there would be silly little bugs frequently enough that you'd notice them and kind of roll your eyes but never really annoyed or frustrated, that kind of stuff. But here, thankfully, all that has seemingly been eliminated, in my eyes at least, as everything feels so incredibly polished and buttery smooth, as alluded to above the game is a visual spectacle, it looks absolutely bonkers at times, particularly on my TV. I'm playing in Quality Mode on PS5 for reference. If on PC though, it might be best to wait a couple of weeks for a patch, because, much like most big recent PC releases that version has been borked - which is a shame and not acceptable - but if on XSX on PS5, this would get a strong recommendation from me already, particularly if you're into Star Wars and/or similar third person adventure metroidvania/souls-like type games. Pics:

Picked this up because I needed something to get my gaming juices flowing again and it has reviewed very well. It’s basically out on everything. I’ve played around 40 minutes and it mostly involves solving environmental puzzles similar to something like Hob, without the combat, which was a game that I quite liked. Nothing taxing so far. My current save file is saying 22% which would mean that the game is probably in the 3-5 hour range. I don’t have any problem with that considering the length of other games I’ve played this year.

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

Played about an hour of this, which is not a lot but you're looking at apparently 6-10 hour runtime. Walking sim-esque, echoes of Miyazaki about it (Ico, Last Guardian), seems like a companion based puzzler with lots of pretty environment puzzles, but what I played was pretty linear. What might make it more interesting is it seems to have a strong environmental narrative focus on it, why are things the way they are. What is this city, what is going on with its inhabitants. I'll leave it at that, seems interesting but nothing mind-blowing really in the opening. I would have played more but I got about 2 hours sleep last night so I'm running on fumes. Will update with thoughts when I actually complete it I reckon It's a very pretty game, lots of screenshots and wallpaper material. At the same time I think the game is pretty enough that spoiling lots of views will rob people of the better parts of the game. So check out this screenshot of a cat hanging out in what is considered to be a pretty upmarket apartment in the cyberpunk dystopia FWIW, no HDR or ray tracing or anything like that. Lack of HDR is strange but I like the muted look tbh, don't really need the eyeballs seared right now. The game is so linear that the lighting they use is good enough as is. Runs at 60, these are PC impressions btw but I imagine it's identical to PS5

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

This is more of a personal archive than a real topic, as I doubt there's much interest in this game here. Fundamentally it's a relatively straightforward resource-collecting and crafting game. The gameplay loop consists of collecting wood, flowers, stone and other materials to use for some art & craft stuff you can then sell at the weekly eponymous night market, which in turn gives you enough money to buy new gathering tools, which in turn unlock new areas with new resources, which, you guessed it, allow you to craft more stuff. You basically go through this process on repeat until you reach the final area, as every area is part of a larger story that involves a mysterious agency, a legendary guardian animal and a truckload of cats. It does mix up proceedings here and there though. The first time you enter an area you have to free a couple of caged cats and get rid of the agents there, which in gameplay speak is always a little stealth section (albeit a very simplistic one – think OoT's castle garden). Gathering and crafting involves completing short QTEs and every night market ends with a little minigame, like a play, a cat race or something along those lines. It's not really a game that'll draw you in for its gameplay mechanics, but rather its unique charm and presentation, the classic carrot dangling in front of you and a genuinely touching narrative that falls a bit into coming-of-age territory. I've heard people say they find it grindy and repetitive and I technically can't argue against it. Sometimes you need to gather certain materials a couple of (ingame) days in a row to get what you need and if you mess up hoarding season-specific items like, say, certain spring flowers, you'll have to wait for the night market in summer to stock up on them. But I still quite enjoyed it, it's super relaxing and super adorable and its quirky sense of humor and narrative can pull you along when maybe the gameplay alone couldn't. I saw the credits after roughly 20 hours but it's also open-ended, so you can still go about maxing out friendship levels with NPCs (which always involves giving them items you crafted or found) or completing the little museums with resources you found, even after the story has reached its conclusion. Switch version is a bit wonky (though way better than on release) with comparatively long loading times that also result in the music stuttering, making the whole thing feel a bit unpolished. There's also some formatting errors in the text (they have it set up to give plurals always an -s, so you end up with stuff like 'Got 10 sands' or '5 Special Nikko Flowerss'). It also, oddly, doesn't use the B button or the D-pad at all, so you have to navigate menus with the stick and close them with the same button you opened them with. But I can forgive those problems as it's made by a really small team that also had to take a long break in development due to burnout. I suspect at least the loading times being shorter on other platforms, but I also think it's really well suited to handheld play. Disclaimer: it's not a farming game, despite what this image might suggest.

A Space for the Unbound is an adventure game set in Indonesia in the 1980s. It’s about a couple of high school students but there are magical elements to it too, which gives it the atmosphere of something like a Studio Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai film. I’m impressed with it so far. If nothing else, l would love to see a Final Fantasy game made in this style.

Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels. You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse. As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space. I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

Kinda surprised there's no thread on this yet, it seem like something a few people here would enjoy. Anyway, this is an awesome little title based on Scandi fairytales. It starts as a delightful, personality-filled romp where you, as young boy Olle, climb out of your log cabin window and follow your sister through a forest. Along the way you skip through peaceful, flower-filled meadows, play hide and seek with gnomes, and even shepherd some cherub-like flower pixies into a paddock. You then explore with your sister, climb a mini-mountain and all is right with the world. Obviously this would make for an extremely short experience, so let me be clear. This is the last good thing that happens to you in this title's brief runtime. Amongst other things, your sister is kidnapped, you're hunted by a character called The Butcher, you wade through a lake of lost/sacrificed souls, and you battle against some naked forest lady whose heart is visible through the open cavity of her back. This is truly one of the darkest, most horrifying games I've ever played, and the huge contrast between the gorgeous visuals and the awful undertones means every aspect has a real impact. Gameplay-wise, it's not going to win any awards. A couple of bits are really awkward to control, and at times Olle doesn't quite do what you want him to. Everything else is so, so good, though, especially considering this is the studio's second ever title. The graphics, at times are stunningly beautiful, with this unique saturation that makes the grass and flowers look almost real. The character models swing from charmingly stylised to incredibly creepy. Sound is great, except for one section set in a village about two-thirds of the way through. I love the fact it's based on Scandi folklore, too. Essentially, imagine Little Nightmares if it was cranked up to 11 and you'll be running along the right lines. It only has a 4-6 hour runtime, so if you've got an afternoon or evening spare, it's definitely worth downloading (especially if you have Game Pass, as it dropped there last week). It's one of the more unique titles I've played in a while. And the music for the final boss is In the Hall of the Mountain King. AKA the Alton Towers advert theme.

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I'd like to preemptively say that I'm enjoying this very much, but I want to start off by mentioning two major flaws because the game can potentially put you off initially before it sarts to come into its own. First of all, do not play it unpatched. Because I have a very slow internet connection but wanted to give it a shot right away the day I got it, I installed it offline and dear god. Whatever "gold" version they pressed on the disc here is basically an alpha version. It looks and runs significantly worse than the finished release, it lacks fundamental gameplay elements (no lock-on for example) and even the settings menu barely has half the amount of options you eventually have at your disposal after it's been patched. Deep down I think it should be unacceptable to release a game in this state but we're so far down that path already that I feel like wasting my energy to point it out. So, tl;dr: don't play this without the Day One patch. Secondly, the game itself has an incredibly weak opening. Think back to how masterfully The Last of Us introduced us to its world, its protagonist and his motivations in a very effective 15-minute rollercoaster. Now imagine the complete opposite if that and you have a good idea of what Atlas Fallen's prologue is like. It's magic mumbo-jumbo mixed with a visually very unappealing tutorial area and leaves a very unappealing first taste. That said, now to the good stuff, because at around two and a half hours of playtime the game does its own 180 and turns into what I'd summarise as a surprisingly enjoyable mix of open world action game and light RPG. After the tutorial it throws you into an open world hub that's big enough to be believable as a place but small enough to not feel overwhelming in a way few modern games are. And while the game's structure with quests and areas being gatekept by enemies above your level is very RPG-esque, the actual progression system does kind of its own thing. Instead of collecting XP and levelling up, your character becomes stronger by upgrading their armour and unlocking Perks associated with that progress. In parallel to this you find, in a very motivating pace I might add, a lot of active and passive "Essence Stones", which are basically skills and buffs that enhance your options during combat. Combat itself is a mixed bag and also a clear indication that this doesn't go all the way as an RPG because there's only one way to approach it and just a couple of variables through the aforementioned stones. The game is build around the so-called momentum gage, which fills up as you attack and do other violent gamey stuff. Said gauge is split into three segments and every segment is linked to one skill you previously equipped, with the third one obviously being stronger than the first. The higher the gauge, the higher your damage and the lower your defense, which is described as a risk-reward mechanic but doesn't really feel that way because you have no control over it. Generally speaking, this all works rather well and is good fun, but I have two problems with it: firstly it's very, very easy to miss the indicator for off-screen attack prompts, so I'm getting hit quite often. Might be a me-thing though. The other one is not though and that's the very wonky lock-on. Bigger enemies have multiple body parts you can destroy for better loot but the lock-on is so finicky against those enemies that you sometimes can't get the right part locked or the game refuses to let go when you'd rather want to focus on the small mob running around etc. There's ways to work around this – my solution is not using lock-on at all until there's only the big one left – but it's still something to point out as a flaw. Outside of combat the game basically just consists of exploration, which is fun both thanks to the world's verticality and the protagonist's mobility, who can double jump and air dash. Moving around feels very good and it's here the game feels most polished. In other areas, like dialogue sequences, you can tell this is at max a double-A, sort of euro-jank title marketed as a big-hitter. Visually it's very pleasing, but with noticeable pop-in and very outdated character models that wouldn't look out of place in a PS360 game. I do want to point out though that Deck13 is using its propriety tech and hasn't jumped on the Unreal-bandwagon so huge respect for that, because all things considered this is a technically very impressive game for such a small studio. Six hours in the story hasn't really evolved much beyond the initial mumbo-jumbo and still resolves around the protagonist's gauntlet and the spirit of a Navii trapped within, but when the actual moment-to-moment gameplay is this rewarding it's not a big deal for me yet. How on earth this is sitting below a 70 on metacritic I have no idea, but then again the same thing happened with Venetica back in the day. I think US outlets in particular have a really hard time accepting the space in-between triple-A and indie, you rarely see them really value the effort put into these games and maybe looking past a flaw or two. Or maybe I'm just too partial because it's a German game, I don't know. Anyway, I think a few people here might end up enjoying this, you just have to be prepared for a sub-standard opening and be ready to play around some QOL flaws during combat encounters. I've also heard it only takes about twenty hours to complete, which I think is a good sign in this day and age of bloated open world releases.

I've played a few hours of this and I think I get it enough for some early impressions. It looks kinda out there but it also sticks to a lineage of Hero Shooters for the most part. There are 10 classes to choose from: 4 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 support. But one of each are unlocked as you rank up (or available from the start if you pay more (yes, there's a bunch of this malarkey, battle pass etc. 😐 )). So how a general game plays out is you pick a class, anyone can be any, it doesn't force anyone into a certain one but I can't see a lot of success in not having someone be one of each. There's 5 people on a team but you are also pitted against another team who is racing you to different parts of the map to dispose of these dinosaurs that are falling out of portals (I'll get to that). You don't interact with the other team, they're ghosts you're competing with in the first round. The second round it changes to something a little different. There's different modes it might change to but most of my games it became a payload pushing mode. Standing next to it will move it and you have to protect it from the dinos. But your opponents are on the map with you, pushing their own payload and it's here there is some decision making. You can go and attack them but your payload is less protected. Though they do meet in the middle so conflict will happen. Another little trick you have is once a match you'll have the ability to summon and control a dinosaur used to go and make the opposing teams life a problem. It's very clunky to use and quite easy to waste if you're not careful but it can be a tide turner. I'm not gonna say too much about the classes because it's one of those cases where if you've played Overwatch you know the deal. They're mixed up a bit but it's generally a familiar feeling game in this regard. What's interesting, in a way, is despite this ridiculous premise of fighting hoards of dinosaurs in a futuristic city is it does try and contextualise all this with an ongoing plot. You and your team crash land on an island where a chaotic AI is sending people back in time at the point when dinos appeared out of portals and destroyed the city (though at first they think it's a simulation). The AI is then analysing combat data and for what reason? I dunno yet. It trickles this out as you play since your team are analysing as well, to figure out what the hell is going on. I appreciate the commitment to the bit but it does lead to a problem of the game feeling too same-y since you're always in a similar urban area and there isn't much using the environment since it's a very grounded game and pretty close quarters. Add some spongy dinos to that and you end up in situations that feel really limiting. I guess it does feel like a game from a few generations ago. Its been making me think of Monday Night Combat, which is a game I've not thought about since then. That time early in the 360 gen where you had all these shooters with hoard modes. So I've been getting a nostalgic feeling I didn't expect but I don't think it's the kinda game I want to play to the extent it clearly wants me to. It's charming, and I generally enjoy it but... some multiplayer games don't get a playerbase when I can't help but think they should have. I don't think this is that. But this is just after a few hours. Maybe something will click and I'll see something special but it's not obvious from the jump, which you really need in a multiplayer game.