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Terrible first impression. It starts with a big action set piece - normally I’m well up for that but it just does not suit the feel and control of these games. Especially if you’re mad like me & feel you have to scan everything. In which case all momentum and excitement is constantly ruined by switching visors and scanning. Think I’m going to have to force myself to stop scanning soon, there’s just way too much. Far more than I remember there being in other entries. Anyway, you get past that, lose your abilities and reach your first proper area. It’s gorgeous! & atmospheric. This is much better. Then you quickly reach Miles… he’s as terrible as everybody says. He genuinely ruins the rest of this area with his wisecracking and terrible dialogue. Thankfully this first area/dungeon is short. Before you know it you’re in the 2nd one. It looks incredible and Miles is no longer there. However my stomach sank when Miles started talking again via radio and told me where to go and I “can use an elevator to go down”. No shit Sherlock, thanks… But then it changes, immediately after that he can no longer get in touch with the you and you’re free to just explore and progress through this stunning area & it’s brilliant. It’s basically old Prime with new tech at this point which is exactly what I wanted. Then the desert opens up, it’s already ugly and dull. Made my way to another area and stopped there. Already know this is going to be a game of huge ups and downs. When it’s good, it’s brilliant. The rest of the time, we’ll see as I progress.

I know it's out in just a few days, but I was looking for something to play and instead of doing like I said and trying Hollow Knight again I wanted to give this another shot, the early access. I've really turned around on it in this session I think, maybe it's due to updates or maybe the quality of the game is a lot better than Hades I, or maybe it's just that I'm better at the sequel. But I think it's really good, something is really clicking here this time. What I think it is that the battle systems are more intricate, cause of the shift towards this style of battle mage gameplay. It has more or less the same systems and mechanics as the first one, but with a stronger emphasis on finding harmony with your combat options I think. Your basic starter is a staff with decent range, you have a cast which binds enemies and you can stack boons on top of that obviously, and you have your specials which tend to be ranged moves, but not always. The cast is hugely useful for kiting enemies and grouping them, which benefits certain AOEs that like clustered enemies but it can also be used by you with certain boons to regenerate mana. On mana, it feels like a much more important mechanic than in Hades 1 I think, if I recall in that game the game didn't just recharge your mana in each room, but I might be wrong on this. In this game, they specifically tell you to spend all your magic in each room, there's a big benefit to speccing builds that regen mana passively or from certain attack combinations and I think this lends to combat feeling less mashy and more skillful, which is a problem I think I had in the last game, it always felt like I was mashing. Here it feels much more like I'm actually playing the game, but that might be just on me not really enjoying the first one. But I think the sequel's witchiness just produces more interesting kits to fight with and makes it feel 20 percent less unga bunga (but still pretty unga, all told) Another thing which makes high mana use important is the 'hex' mechanic, which is the same thing as the super mechanic in the first game but you proc it by spending mana. So if you're holding onto magic and not finding opportunities to use it up a lot, you are throwing away DPS and crowd control There's an absolute shitload of 'reagents' and things that unlock stuff in your home base, and it has the same gift system as before to unlock accessories you level up in your runs. It has some new mechanics like an armour system which buffs your cast speed, or makes you run faster or whatever, but you lose it when you lose your armour. My favourite weapon so far are these fireball staffs that let you play like a zoner, and they have a special which is about crowd control damage. You unlock boons for it that let you zig-zag the fireballs around when you dash around and things like that. If you've played Hades 1 there's not a lot to say, I'm sort of skimming through the dialogue cause you can't turn subtitles off, which means I kinda just read it quickly and move on. I'm not that interested in it, but there's a few exceptions. One thing is that there are way more Homeric inclusions here, characters like Odysseus and others I won't spoil, so it's stuff I'm more familiar with and I enjoy the stylish twist it offers. There's a boss fight in this I cannot spoil but it's the coolest boss fight I've seen in a game in a while, and Hades 1 really only had one good boss fight imo, the last one. Maybe the first one also, the other two were rubbish. So hopefully that's a standard it can keep up. Anyway, surprised it's clicking with me, as a Hades 1 hater. I think I read that your saves carry across to the full game, but if they don't then I'll just treat it as a challenge to push as far as possible with a low level character come release, and maybe I'll actually read the dialogues this time.

MK is weirdly different?! Weapons auto-hold behind you, which is nice but needs relearning - It's a good leveller though and will mean our kids don't have such a disadvantage. Feels a bit slow to me (started with 150cc, but this feels closer to 75). The grinding is annoying, it doesn't seem to need any skill and can mean you miss things you want to collect next to a rail. Maybe I need to learn something new? I really don't understand why it was added yet. Looks lovely, runs super smoothly so far! Does not seem to top MK8 yet (although I'm only 1 GP in!).

I swear, if you ever find you need one of those games that can lull you into a state of meditative relaxation, it's this. From the constant "pshhhhhhhhh" of the different washers, to the satisfying "DING!" of a section completed, it all combines to create a fantastic, non-offensive ASMR experience that's super-peaceful. Since I started this last Friday I've already put about 17 hours in. I've cleaned a Dumb and Dumber-inspired Dog Car, an Art Deco house, and a funfair shooting gallery, amongst other areas. It's basically more of the same when compared to the first one, but there are one or two additions that elevate it slightly. First up is the disc-like steamer that makes light work of flat surfaces. Just walk slowly in a straight line and you'll have sparkly surfaces in no time. Living my best Roomba life whenever I use that one. The soap has also been massively improved. You don't need to buy it anymore for a start. Essentially, you spew white stuff all over the level, and cleaning it off again recharges the tank, so you can effectively use it forever. It's possibly the best new addition, and actually makes the soap useful. One sweep with soap, a second sweep with the widest nozzle and you're generally done. A final big addition is the home base. This hub has a map of the county you'll be travelling across to complete different jobs, and it has a big wide open space on the ground floor where you can purchase and place various bits of furniture. I'm not sure if there's a point to this beyond spending your currencies, but it adds an element of personalisation that's kinda fun, I guess. Yeah, not really sure what I think of this bit right now. One big irritant/criticism currently persists from PS1, though. You know how sometimes a surface will have what looks like a ton of dirt left on it but pings anyway, and other times it feels like you're playing 'hunt the pixel' to clear a section? That's still evident here. It's honestly the only thing that takes me out of it at any given time. If you've ever played the first one, you'll know what to expect. It's great fun, and the humour from the original has definitely carried over into this title. I'm really enjoying it. It's the perfect wind-down game after a long-ass day in work.

Played around 4 or 5 hours of this now (split between yesterday and today) enjoying it a lot, the previews really weren't lying when they said it was Dead Space in all but name and in my opinion that's no bad thing as that's one of my favourite franchises of all time. In tone and feel the game shares a hell of a lot from some the survival horror greats, mainly down to inventory space, lack of ammo and how flimsy you are even though you have a suit of armour on... if you've played any recent third person horror game you'd be right at home here. Saying that the game I'm mostly reminded of when playing is actually Control thanks to the weird environments and random floating junk hanging in the air. Supplies are scavenged in the field or can be made through crafting, so far the game is doing a good job with giving me just enough to get the job done... there's no hording ammunition this early on. Story wise I'm very early so don't really know what's going on, I remember reading the devs saying they'd unwittingly made a game about Covid and given some of the logs I've found and read I'd agree with that whole heartedly... whatever is happening has definitely piqued my interest though so that's good. After the Silent Hill 2 remake my main concern was the combat, I found the shooting in SH2 to be a little too skittish and in some ways this is too... there are upgrades that look like it can help out with that but at the minute, with ammo being as scarce as it is, I'll admit I'm using aim assist a little... hopefully I can get rid of that down the line. So far in terms of offensive I have the starting Pistol and the Shotgun equivalent... both can be charged for more damage with the same amount of ammo used, obviously this is risk and reward as charging takes time allowing the enemies to close the gap. Gas cannisters and red barrels make an appearance (of course) and do exactly what you expect them to with the big difference that your suit is completely fireproof and you can literally stand right next to these things and melee them... you also have a defensive fire attack that explodes outward in a 360 circle... handy for stopping the enemies merge mechanic. The biggest niggle so far (and considering it's a horror game it's a big one) the game hasn't been scary... it has atmosphere in spades but it really isn't scary at all. I've jumped once but that was mainly down to a loud noise coming from nowhere. So after some initial skepticism as to Bloober pulling this off I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far and I'm hoping I can get it clocked before my travels next Saturday... I'll definitely be smashing some hours in tomorrow.

I thought there might be a thread for this, but there isn't. So I'll be the one to make one for the weird indie game Premise is you've got 50 games which are emulative of the style of 8bit to early 16bit era, all released by this fake company called 'Ufosoft' which shut down in the 90s. Games which are dungeon explorers, side scrolling beat em ups, weird puzzlers where you're a chameleon blending into tiles, a kinda horse betting game. Game where you hop around platforms kicking soccerballs at things. A platformer all about suiciding yourself. Apparently there's a full 20 hour classic FF style turn based RPG in there, and an Ultima style first person dungeon crawler. Lots of weird shit The games are hard. You have to actually learn them, it ain't Warioware. Naturally, as an impatient person, I'm full of salt and rage at some of it. But it is interesting, the games get more sophisticated and better to control over the 'years'. Eg, pick up the final game they released, Cyber Owls, which is a beat-em-up that 'released' in 1989, and compare it to Fist Hell from 1987. Similar mechanics but more intuitive movement and faster gameplay. Also some of the games have couch multiplayer. Some of the games are good, some seem crap though like the weird egg dungeon crawler at the beginning where they kill you for walking right. I don't have much history with this era of gaming but it's been talked up a whole lot this year so after enjoying Balatro so much that it's potential GOTY for me I thought I'd try to expand my horizons on here. So maybe I bump this later way more keen on it, or someone else might find it interesting. I did find this one potentially interesting title, Bug Hunter (1984), which is this strategic kinda turn based bomberman game you see below where you have to kill bugs. I think the idea is to find your niche and get comfortable with a few familiar games first before branching out into the more scary ones (which for me, are platformers. Fuck man, great way to get me tilted 😠) Very original idea for a game, but fuck I bet it took a shitload of work to get 50 of them. Some are a bit more throaway like the camoflague gecko game though so maybe there's some sensible overlap that they achieve when implementing them This seems to just be Windows currently, but you could probably play it on any old machine. Definitely expect to see it on Switch eventually

Started the demo last night. So far I’ve played two levels and there’s another to do, which is I believe a boss level of some kind. Only a small taste of the game obviously, but I’m impressed with it so far. The world is like a cartoony The Last of Us, but still manages to be really colourful and full of vibe with loads of vibrant enemies and characters popping up. The way it plays isn’t anything ground breaking, it’s a relatively of the mill 3D platformer but it’s so jolly and charming that I really didn’t mind. I will say though that it is ridiculously easy so far, a platformer like this you expect this though but I do hope the difficulty ramps up as you get towards the end of the main game. So yeah, so far so good. A lovely, jolly place to be and a really interesting, charming world to explore from my brief first impressions.

The actual title doesn't contain Shin Megami Tensei in it, which is probably because it's already stupidly long, but it'd do wonders for brand recognition. Anyway, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army was a PS2 Devil Summoner game, and this is a remaster / remake of it, somewhere in between because it's definitely upscaled cutscenes and quite possibly game world but they've adjusted the combat and gameplay. Apparently, I've never played the original. The combat is more active than a usual jrpg, kind of like Ni No Kuni. In battles you're locked in the combat area and you, as Raidou, can use light and heavy attacks, shoot enemies to stop them dodging about, and increasingly lob some slowly recharging magic. What makes Raidou unique as a Devil Summoner is that he can summon 2 demons to help him rather than 1. These demons generally act on their own, although you can tell them to cast specific things, and you can tell them to not use magic if you're low on mp The MP system works differently too. Your team all share one bar, and your demons will constantly be using magic ideally, so you really need to recover MP constantly. Fortunately, using your light attack gets you MP back, although it doesn't do as much damage, so you want to alternate between lots of light attacks and a heavy to mix recovery with actual damage. There's a few other moves too, specials that can be triggered at points, and the ability to hide your demons when really powerful attacks are coming Outside of combat the story has been pretty interesting so far. A girl who asked us to kill her then got kidnapped by demons, so we're sorting that out. From what I understand each chapter is it's own thing. You use your demons out of battle too, occasionally to help with the investigation, sometimes just to recover items So far I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty easy, although I suppose how many fights you get in to determines that. You can avoid a lot, but it's probably not a great idea early on while the combat feels fresh, just so you don't end up having to grind for a boss

We have no Switch 2 tag!☹️ We have a Switch 2 tag!🙂 Played through all the cups on baby difficulty so I feel like I can say some stuff about this. If you have played the previous game feel free to skip a few lines. Fundamentally this feels very similar to RMX or Neo on WiiU, which often got compared to F-Zero, but I never quite understood why. It features heavy, weighty gliders that are more reminiscent of WipeOut than Nintendo's tight racer, though it also ditches the former's weapons, so in terms of design it's somewhere in-between. Like the previous games you collect orbs around the track that feed into your boost gauge, switch colour to drive over appropriately marked speed pads – the usual. The new stuff comes in the form of, well, everything just being better. I really like Shin'en and their games, but sometimes they can have a whiff of tech demo upon which someone dropped a relatively basic videogame. Fusion is a massive step forward in that regard and actually feels like a really accomplished racing game in its own right. I think this is mostly due to two things: handling is significantly improved and track design more ambitious than before. While it does retain the heaviness, the floatiness and all that jazz it now feels more in line with what it wants to be as a racing game. It's hard to describe but like they finally figured out the right weight, the right track widths or something – I can't put my finger on it but it just straight up plays better. The tracks, meanwhile, ditch most of those rather cheap-ish hazards that could lead to instant respawns, while also ramping up the length in some cases, though without any single lap overstaying its welcome. The first cup can feel a bit tame and underwhelming but it really improves with the second and stays on that high for the other two. Also new is a surprisingly well integrated jump mechanic you can use to reach shortcuts or collect orbs that fill your boost quicker. But the jump itself slows you down a tad and there's many parts where you can just jump to your death, so it's a very deliberate feature that has to be timed well and used sparingly. Speaking of orbs, not only do they fill your boost during the race, but they also double as currency, which you can spend to unlock cups, ships and music tracks. And to keep the combo going, the music is a lot more diverse than ever before – different genres, themes and instruments make every track stand out more than in previous games where the synthetic sounds could blend together rather quickly. There's some shortcomings here, too, of course. 12 tracks isn't a ton and it doesn't have any online multiplayer. But then you consider this was made by basically only three people (the credits mention six, but three of them did the music) and I think those negatives start to be easy to forgive, especially as they already announced a free content upgrade down the line. @mfnick will also be pleased to hear that unlike the other racing game on Switch 2, which costs roughly 70 bucks more depending on territory, this one allows you to freely remap your buttons. Also, speaking of options, it has four graphics modes (two in handheld), but I can't speak too much on that because all bar one are for displays with higher resolutions than my TV. No screenshots because I haven't yet figured out how to share them without using their app. Or maybe you just can't.