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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.

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.

Apparently this was a Stadia exclusive, but is now on Steam. They've just released a sequel, and but the first Figment was free for a while to promote it. The game takes place in the mind of an adult man, who is driving and gets in to an accident. The game isn't about the accident so much as the state of his mind. You play as the manifestation of his courage, the mind's protector, who has all but retired. You and your companion (a bird or something) travel around the different areas and see the state the brain is in, rather than creativity and energy its all stress and spreadsheets Gameplay is simple puzzles, things like putting batteries in a different socket to make a route through. Taking a platform from one area to another while still leaving yourself a route back. There's combat too, but not loads. The mind has been infested by nightmares, dark thoughts that are themed for each section, there's small ones that take a few hits and bosses at the end which require a gimmick of some kind to beat Figment is good, but it's greater than the sum of its parts. The combat and puzzles are fine, but the game has loads of character. It's full of absurd over the top songs, with some good dialogue. It's worth playing

Thought I'd make an impressions thread before illdog gets upset and pops his hip out. I've played about 3 hours, and have opened up zavalla's patrol area after having done a few patrol kind of areas on earth. I think the way that the missions have been set out so far has been really good, its nicely integrated with the traditional patrol stuff so it isn't just select story or patrol. And the patrol type 'adventures' have been good so far, slightly more there than go and kill this random guy or scan this random thing its like a mini mission as it should be. Gun play is, in my opinion, fucking great. I found a scout rifle called thistle and whistle or some nonsense and it was just fun to kill things with, felt great to use and I was genuinely sad to see it get out levelled by an assault rifle that was twice as powerful. Also got a hand cannon called headstrong I think and it looked and felt great, like the gunslinger uses in Dark Tower if anyone has seen that, looks proper clunky and felt like it packed a real punch too. The way that power and light and all that bollocks is done has changed too. Haven't quite grasped the nuances yet but its generally the same principle, better stuff drops from baddies and mission rewards and vendors and so on and you equip it to increase your 'power'. The early game sees you pretty constantly changing gear as more and more formidable stuff drops, and I'm guessing this will cap out to the point where you find a nice set you are happy with and then try and tweak that until its perfect. Not done any multi or anything yet, going to finish main missions first. Oh theres a story too this time, like a proper one with a more coherent plot. Jury is still out on that one though, seems okay so far?

Full disclosure I’ve only played 30 minutes of actual gameplay as my eyelids weighed about 500lb. I really like the style of it and opening. Once you’re set free to play you’re pleasantly set up for revenge. The next gen (playing on XSX) has proper elevated this game from past entries. It looks gorgeous but most impressive of all is the draw distance, amount of vegetation and that it is all crisp and clear to boot. Gameplay is how you’d expect from a far cry, or any half decent fps really. The machete is nice and lethal for stealth plays. I’ll be making good use of that. It was real fun to have my own personal alligator run alongside me. I look forward to diving back in.

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

So Gylt is a Stealth Puzzle-Platformer with light horror elements, made by Tequila Works - the same folks that made Rime and Deadlight. You play as Sally searching for her lost Sister Emily in her surreal - and at times - nightmarish home Town filled with strange monsters and puzzles. For the most part it plays like a basic Stealth game. You have to avoid enemies by hiding behind debris, throw objects to distract enemies, sneak up on them to deliver a killing blow and all the other staples. There is basic combat in the game too which largely involves shining your light onto an Enemies’ weak points to kill them if/when you get spotted, I’ve experienced a couple of boss battles so far which are also taken down very similarly. There’s quite a few basic puzzles which require you to explore other rooms of a particular floor or area, find a switch or item there to enable you to get to a collectible or new route in the original room. Lots of light beam puzzles, lots of valve and locked doors where you’ll have to find the key, not really anything new or exciting in this regard. The game can be a little bit creepy at times as well, it’s never scary per se and most of the monsters are garish in design rather than unsettling but the further I’ve got into the game I have found myself getting a little creeped out with it occasionally. The environs are often colourful and memorable. The whole game takes place in a small abandoned town that’s overrun with monsters so it can feel a little like Silent Hill, Luigi’s Mansion or the Raccoon City portion of RE2 at times, each building I’ve been in has a distinct vibe to it. Similarly with all the different buildings, rooms and floors interconnecting with puzzles and other blocked and later unblocked paths it can feel quite like a significantly less scary Silent Hill or something if that makes sense. You can see the game was heavily inspired by that series as Sally’s own troubles blend into the world you explore and get represented in the game just like the Nurses and other elements in Silent Hill. I’m enjoying it way more than I thought. It is quite a basic game but filled with character and colour. It is a bit easy and the game throws way too many Heath packs and batteries at you for my liking but these aren’t a major bugbear for me.