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Ok, so it’s pretty clear this is by the team that brought us Until Dawn. As it’s pretty much more of the same. From the stereotypical characters (Jock, nerd, wanker), to the narrator between scenes who questions your story choices. It’s certainly shorter than Until Dawn was. And I didn’t find it particularly difficult to make it to the end with nobody getting killed. Still, it was an enjoyable experience. Graphically it looks great, though at times some of the characters had a bit of a fit when walking for some reason. And the story ended with several parts not really making any sense. Apparently if you play it in multiplayer you get some more explanation. But I haven’t, and won’t be doing. So there we go. It still has the “taking ages to look at an item” mechanic that UD did. Which can be annoying when you take ages to pick something up, only for it to serve no purpose whatsoever. Walking around takes ages unless you constantly hold down the run button. And there were quite a few instances where I wasn’t really sure where I was meant to be going. That being said, it was alright. Worth a rental at least.

Put 16 hours into this over the weekend. I will preface these impressions with the fact that I'm nowhere near a Battlefield expert and won't be able to go into the nitty gritty detail about what has been improved, balanced, implemented differently etc. over BF1 and other past titles (I've only properly played a tiny bit of BF3, BF4 and quite a decent amount of time into BF1). So let's dive in shall we? To play, it very much feels like a sequel to BF1 rather than anything else, with some Battlefront 2 elements sprinkled in there. The maps are all pretty good but personally I haven't been as impressed with them as the BF1 launch maps, I guess part of it is when you get a WWII game you expect to have all the infamous locales like Berlin under siege from the Red Army, the D-Day landings and so on but none of that is in here. They've focused on the 'untold' battlefields of WWII like Norway, Northern Africa along with including some Western European locales like Rotterdam, Appas and Twisted Steel in France but everything just kind of feels incredibly familiar if you've played BF1, I actually think the variety isn't as good too, there's one that I jokingly refer to as 'Hoth' as it feels so much like a Battlefront map as well. The only real things I've noticed that's different from BF1 is the customisation options and the ability to repair fortifications at command points around the map and build/destroy bridges. The customisation is roughly what you'd expect of most multiplayer shooters nowadays really but there seems to be less variety of weaponry (for the Medic class anyway - the only one I've played as) than BF1. In the previous game I had the choice of rifles or SMGs etc. but here if you're a Medic you've only got one choice which is the SMG, if you want other weapons you need to be another one of the classes, so as you progress with your particular class you unlock more weapons, outfits for your character and skins for your guns. There are also specialisations (which work a bit like perks) for your gun but I haven't really figured out how to get this to work without resetting the points already assigned to it so I've left it for now. Being able to repair fortifications at the command posts is a bit more of a bigger deal though. As the scenery gets more and more deformed as a match goes on having a decent set of sand bags and other fortifications around a command post when you're defending it can be make or break for some matches, you seem to be able to peform these repairs as any class as well which is cool. Similarly with the destruction of bridges or building makeshift bridges, they can make a huge difference in not allowing vehicles to easily access a certain area of a map and be a huge help to a defence or thorn in your side to an attack of a certain area or command point. I've only played the Grand Operations and Conquest game modes, both are fun enough but incredibly familiar to BF1 players. Not got round to any of the single player 'War Stories' aside from the astoundingly good - but brief - introduction. I want to briefly touch on the technical side of things. I believe this is a pre-launch build of the game that doesn't have the Day 1 patch but I have had a number of bugs, all of them are of the silly variety that break the immersion a little at times but nothing else. There's currently a bug when you're reviving someone that you lean through scenery when reviving them, I've had a few issues where a hand is seen at all times when operating a turret of an APV/Tank, I also struggle on occasion to activate the supply/vehicle drops using LB + RB and the left analog stick and also once it wouldn't let me deploy into the game from the map screen and I had to quit the match. Networking issues and graphical/framerate issues seem to be nonexistant as far as I can tell, I've had a very solid 60fps at all times and the networking has been fast and smooth, there's no micro-transactions in here at all either as far as I can tell. So yeah I quite like it, it is addicting and compelling as ever and I've not really been able to stop playing it all weekend. It does feel like a direct sequel to BF1 with more of that games personality than any from WWII or the previous BF games but yeah it does everything it sets out to do really and at this point if you're a BF fan you know what to expect and this will deliver in spades. Some pics:

I’ve managed to pick this up for £25 (£30 minus £5 slave discount) which is good timing now that the season is over and the better man won. I’ve only played very little so far of the story mode and when you’re racing it’s as good as ever but I’m not convinced by the story yet or your influence over it. In the second race my team mate forced me off the track in a pre recorded story scene. I then made it back past them and everyone in the top ten to win my first race. The win wasn’t referenced tho and all the focus was on that one moment of been pushed off. It’s a small complaint really. The game itself is likely to be better than ever. It certainly looks and handles better than 2019 (I skipped 2020).

My stream from earlier: Started this earlier, put in 2.5ish hours or so and reached World 2. Wow. This has really surprised me, I mean I expected it to be good don't get wrong but it genuinely fucking brilliant. The 30s animation and the music are just absolutely spectacular, this'll sound like a cliche but it really is a feast for the eyes and ears. It feels like you're playing through a slightly more sinister Tom and Jerry cartoon or something, nothing feels out of place at all and everything fits with the animation and music. The way the enemies move and the boss fights flow in time with the music, every boss fight almost feels like a story really that you gradually get further and further into before reaching the end. The run-n-gun levels feel surprisingly good too, seeing them before launch I thought they looked a bit simplistic and thrown in there just to pad out the length of the game and give players a break from all the bosses. The latter is true but they feel so different to the boss fights and provide just as much fun and attention to detail, they're a little easier and a little more fun and relaxing but still provide a decent challenge I'd say and give a welcome break to the more intense boss fights. I guess it plays quite similarly to a lot of run-n-gun side-scrollers really. There's no double jump but a dash, you can fire a variety of projectiles (providing you purchase them at the shop) in 8 different directions at all times using either the left or right analog stick whilst pressing X, you can parry pink enemies/enemy projectiles by tapping the jump button (A) again whilst in the air, there's also a crouched shot to avoid enemy/boss punches too, you put all these together to defeat bosses. Some require more dashing (blue blob for example) whereas others require more precise jumping and crouching to defeat. The boss fights are the star of the show though really, they're just absolutely spectacular. Each one is pretty challenging in their own right with a variety of different phases to learn if you want to defeat it, the way the phases play out feels so organic as well, as mentioned previously it almost feels like a story at times. You fight a blue blob and it'll start out as this relatively innocent annoying-but-not-threatening cheerful creature and then morph into this bigger angrier looking blob and once you've defeated that phase he turns into a tombstone and attempts to flatten you. They're just a joy to fight, you just have to make sure you stay patient as some of them are quite a challenge. I didn't expect the level of depth on offer in terms of weapons, load-out and skills. I thought you'd just have your bog-standard Cuphead with the clicky finger projectiles and away you go but there's a TON of upgrades you can buy at the shop, supers you can get from completing ghost parrying mini-games dotted around the world. I imagine the further you get into the game the more strategy will come into play, I've done well so far with my standard super, +1HP and greater spread projectiles but I know there'll be some bosses later on which'll almost require you to have a certain load-out in order to finish. I guess I'm a little surprised with myself I haven't had a harder time of things though. I wouldn't say I'm good at platformers, I certainly like them on the verge of frustration (DKCR3D is one of my favourites for example) but this hasn't caused me to tear my hair out at all. Every boss seems very fair and easy to learn as long as you're patient and I really like that about it, I'm just a little surprised how quickly I managed to adapt and defeat some of them, the dual frog bosses for example I managed to defeat on what felt like only my 2nd or 3rd attempt whereas others like the Sunflower and Blue Blob gave me more problems. But still, I managed to put them down relatively quickly and before frustration set in, which I think is a good thing, I was worried before I played this that I'd get fucked off with it like Sonic Mania and not go back to it, but it seems much better than that so far, much fairer and less cheap so I reckon I should be able to finish it as long as the difficulty curve doesn't go vertical in this next World.

This game reminds me of Outer Wilds (which is also what I plan to play next, the expansion). It’s been compared to Breath of the Wild, and I guess there are some similarities, but it feels more like Outer Wilds to me. You start off in a relatively small area, preparing for a kind of coming of age ceremony which will allow you to leave your tribe and explore the world. Instead of Epona, your companion is a kind of hover bike. You start off driving a banger but then you build your own one which leaves a snazzy tail of red smoke as you drive around. One of the reasons I bought the game at launch was because I love Japanese Breakfast, the band who did the soundtrack for the game. There’s a great moment when you leave the opening area and enter the great wide open for the first time, and a song plays. Brings back memories of that Jose Gonzales song playing during Red Dead Redemption. There’s no combat in the game, that I’m aware of. The gameplay is all exploration and (so far, light) puzzle solving. I’m enjoying it. It looks lovely. There are some minor visual glitches (wall-clipping mostly), but nothing major so far.

First things first, I'm really enjoying this. It's very Japanese, the story has just gone full anime, and it reminds me a lot of Astral Chain, only more engaging. The combat is probably the star of the show without it being as complicated as it appears. You have some very basic attacks with your weapon, this will charge a meter that lets you use your psychokinetic abilities, so you can fling items at enemies. Do that too often and the meter drains so you can't any more, but get in close to an enemy and land some weapon attacks and you'll be fine. Once enemies have taken enough damage, assuming you haven't already killed them, you'll be able to perform a kind of finisher/super move, against weaker enemies this is a one hit kill, against bosses it can be a difference maker. Both while you're exploring the world (although this hasn't been an option yet in the way it was in the demo), and in combat, if you have teammates you can borrow their powers, ranging from your attacks doing fire damage, you becoming invulnerable, or even invisible for stealth attacks, amongst others. These work on a cool down, and are more or less required at points, but they aren't unavailable for long. There's also a meter that fills where you'll become super powered for a bit, I get the feeling once you've levelled up a bit this will be a huge deal, at the minute it's more annoying that you can't trigger it yourself and save it for when you need it There's an rpg element. You level up, although it's not presented what that really means (presumably stats and HP), you can equip items, buy better weapons, healing is done on a slight cooldown which can be a bit of a pain. There's also a skill tree, it takes BP points to buy new perks, but these come pretty quickly, to the point that I feel like I might well max it out before the end of the game unless there's hidden branches to it. You can also increase your bonds with your teammates, this is done in your down time with gifts and bonding missions, and it gets you new layers to their abilities. It seems to be pretty similar to how Persona handles it tbh The only real criticism I have is that it's all presented in a bit of a confusing way. Lots of different, but pretty similar people bouncing around, odd terms, lots of menus. It can feel like it's slow doling things out too, not that it's paced badly or feels like a slog, and maybe this is a consequence of having played the demo, but knowing that at some point I'll have 4 teammates at once, be able to explore certain areas, the way it gates this feels like it's holding you back, even 10+ hours in to the game

Hey, maybe don't buy this Vice City squad, I come to you with gameplay clips littered with copyright claims. Not that there's a shortage of videos out there about this but it helps to see how little the gameplay has changed as well. I'm a couple hours into the opening sections. Actually, I could be a bit beyond the opening sections. Was this game short? I'm already at the bit where you are doing missions for Diaz. Visually I think it looks ok, I think they could have done a lot more work here tho and it's a bit perplexing that this is more demanding for my machine than The Witcher 3 maxed out. No ray tracing or anything like that is in it. It could be a rough one to play on PC for this reason but maybe the settings are more scalable on lower settings. I think the volumetric lighting is what is killing it. Also the game comes close to dying every time I pause, I found out I'm not the only one with this issue so it's a problem with the PC version. Vice City now is a game that is hard carried by its soundtrack I think. I don't think I could stick with this type of thing without these tunes. It's also weird to think Vice City is now more retro than the year 1986 was when Vice City itself came out. It's like a russian doll of nostalgia or something. I will say for VC first thing you should do is turn HDR off and set contrast to 0. The default contrast level is hideously oversaturated and destroys the tone of the game. At zero it is not a million miles away from the original's visual style Going back now also it really feels like Ray Liotta phoned in his performance as Tommy Vercetti, but the people around him do a good enough job to make up for that fact. Especially the lawyer guy. It's weird to think how they got all these really big movie stars in a game like this (Burt Reynolds is in this game, if you forgot). Nowadays you can see that these movie people don't exactly translate their talents to the digital screen, some of them are pretty bad at adapting to it. Or are just used to sell the game. But back then this was a really big deal for Vice City. There's one visual thing which has really annoyed me early on, the rain effect. It is a constant streak of white lines that make it impossible to see anything and actually made me feel a kind of motion sickness I've never felt with a game. I haven't heard anyone else talk about it, it could be a subjective thing. But man, it is rough to look at. On the other hand they add a cool effect where you get puddles and the grass gets wet. You slide in the rain also, I think that's new. Might not be but it seems new. Gameplay clips, spoilered for post length not spoilers cause this game is 20 years old now

The long awaited sequel is here! And it's generally a decent follow-up. It takes place right after the original and it's like it's never been gone. It just confidently does being Psychonauts. It feels a bit tighter than the original but it's basic fighting and platforming for the most part but it's appeal has always been the imagination of the world and how it takes mental well being and makes these charming worlds out them and from what I've played so far it continues to do a good job of that. And with these new fangled graphics it makes it look really nice too. They really lean all of it into the art style they made in the original and I think it comes out well, it's a nice game to look at in a weird way. All Double Fine have done is make a Psychonauts game for 2021 and that's all I wanted, and that's all we got. Neat!

Tonight I'm going to try this now that the server kerfuffle has seemingly passed. Can we get enough to fill a 3v3 game? Nothing serious, rotate teams after every game unless it becomes one sided. It'd be nice to get a bunch of us on and talking to one another, it seems to be ages since that happened last. I'm looking at around 7 or 8 for kick off until whenever people get fed up and leave. Who's interested?

I've seen this described as a cross between mirrors edge and super meat boy. i think that's a good description, i also really like both of those games, it's a first person platformer with instant restarts, quite a lot of checkpoints, and one hit kill for you and the enemies. but it seems more random than 2D stuff like this as you can't see everthing that's shooting at you. it's sort of amazing. but also really hard and frustrating. in the first 5 levels or so i'd already thought i might have to give up on two different sections. the enemies are very good at shooting guns, maybe a bit too good, you can jump over them and they'll still shoot you instantly, you just have to keep moving and hope you don't get hit. i tried playing cloudbuilt twice (two different versions) and had to give up quite far in both times, i have a feeling this might be similar. really not sure i'll be able to finish it, so an easier mode would be a good addition, but no regrets buying it (although only paid a tenner), it's been mostly great so far. i've just done the first boss, which comes quite late, think i'm on about level 7 or 8 or something, when i saw it it my thoughts were that it's awesome but i might not be able to do it. it took me about 30 mins and 200 deaths, there's a video of someone making it look easy in the spoiler below, this also shows why the game is so good: dunno if anyone else is interested in this? oh and although there are loads of checkpoints these don't save, you have to get to the end of the level for it to save. oh oh and there's powerups and stuff, i can deflect bullets back, but the timing is strict (you can upgrade it) so i just keep swiping and sometimes it saves me a death.

Honestly, surprised there's no thread for this yet. I've put a few hours into this since Friday, and you know what? It's fucking fantastic. It's a metroidvania in every way, maybe a little bit more linear than normal, but it subverts the traditional hero storyline by making you the bad guy. And it's so fucking refreshing. You play as this weird... Form thingy. Movement feels really smooth, if a little cumbersome at first, but there's no jumping, there's no unreachable ledges, you just slide through each screen, and once you get the hang of it it feels so satisfying. You slowly accumulate more and more powers, your size grows as you play through the game, and it brings lots of little elements in that are plenty of fun. The art style is incredible too. The sci-fi side reminds me of Alien 3 on SNES, the animation and artwork of the enemies (so the good guys in this case) is very much like Another World, the world created is just so impressive. It's one of the few games I've played recently where my mind has just hit that point of 'i need to fucking play this'. It's an outstanding idea, and as someone who doesn't normally like Devolver games, it's an absolute credit to their portfolio.

Played a few hours and it's been very, very good. It's very much another game that's taken more than a few pages from Uncharted's playbook, except it switches a wise-cracking protagonist for someone much more vulnerable and insecure. Well, at least to start with anyway. I've always loved the Tomb Raider series, the original TR was the first ever game I bought for the PS1 and I played it to death, but the series was massively in need of a complete reboot. They've done a fantastic job with this game and the character. Lara is almost unrecognisable from her hotpants wearing, confident predecessor. I say almost as they decided to stick with her two most distinguishing features for some reason. Cans . The sections where you squeeze through a gap or are only able to progress forwards are probably the most elegant way of disguising a load screen I can think of. It's totally seamless and in some case even adds to the experience by allowing Lara time to express how she's feeling.The same goes for the logs she records at some of the base camps, only a few lines of dialogue, but it adds so much. Each area seems to have a discreet sub-objective like smash 10 lanterns or burn 5 banners, and they only activate once you hit the first thing, you're not notified about it otherwise. I can see myself spending a chunk of time completing these as well as picking up all the collectables dotted around. I tried turning on the new TressFX hair technology but it looks a bit weird tbh. It also hits the framerate pretty hard in certain situations. It's a cool idea as game hair usually looks pretty rubbish, but it definitely needs tweaking a bit before making it standard.

Second up in my GamePass games that can be completed in a couple of hours; The Procession to Calvary. A point and click adventure based on Renaissance art that's heavily inspired by Terry Gillingham. Not for the easily offended/religious types - this is the follow up game to Joe Richardson's Four Last Things. It follows a woman who is back from a murder spree in a Holy war and wants to do one final murder as it's now frowned upon. Whilst the humour won't be to everyone's taste, I was laughing out loud from the offset. The game is bonkers. As with my last post, I won't go into it too much as I don't want to spoil it, but a couple of highlights were helping a street magician off a crucifix as he was turning water into wine that killed people, and giving snuff to a midget so he played music faster.

Genuinely surprised there isn't a thread for this already. It seems like a game that would be quite popular in here. I started playing this last night in a "I'm gonna play it for 20 minutes and if I don't like it's getting deleted" kind of mood. I'm now 7-8 hours in and it's great fun! Remember Golf Story? It's has a similar sort of Sports-PG charm to it. There's tons of humour running through, and the graphical style is a bit like the Gumball cartoon. You play as Otto, a transfer student to a Dodgeball school, and someone who wants to be world-renowned on the sport. There's a relatively small world to explore, but lots of fun little side quests and plenty of battles to take part in. Speaking of battles, they're a lot of fun too. You play Dodgeball, so if you know the rules you'll have a leg up. Might be worth watching the Ben Stiller film to refresh your Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge memory. There are charge moves, counters, special moves, and all sorts of fun stuff happening on the court. Matches take place in anything from 1 on 1 to 1 Vs 6, or 3 on 3 contests, and the first to lose their HP loses the game. I've noticed TONS of homages to Pokémon. From the Dodgeball logo to the battle loading sound effect, a medical centre to refresh your team, and battles in long grass, it's just got loads of cool little nods to Nintendo's most lucrative franchise. From what I've read it's not super long, but it's really fucking awesome. I genuinely love this game.

I didn't know about this until a few days ago (not that i remember anyway), just released yesterday, and it's pulled me away from persona, for a bit anyway. normal price is ~£12 but seems to be on offer for ~£10 currently. Initially interested because of comparisons to REZ, i like shooters like that, even the dragon one on the xbox one that didn't seem very popular. but it turns out it's not as similar to rez as I was expecting, the shooting (on the right stick) is simplified a bit and shares game time with rhythm action line following (on the left stick). On the normal difficulty you aren't asked to really do both of these at the same time, but i think that changes on harder difficulties. The shooting is quite similar to rez, but you can only aim within a circle and quite a lot of stuff is conveniently at the edges of the circle so easy to aim at, because you will be expected to do two things at once. The rhythm action bit is following a line with your ship in time with the music, a bit like that old psn game i can't remember the name of (and didn't think was that great) but it works really well here, and is good fun, imo. the music is not what i'd normally listen to, don't really know how to describe the genre either, dubstep maybe? but it fits in really well with the game and i was enjoying it. there are some problems mind, the auto lock-on can target stuff you don't want when a missile is just about to hit you, and coming back from a hit can instantly cause another hit, but these might just be me needing time to get used to it more. i've done all the 15 levels on normal, then re-did a few to get more stars to unlock the next difficulty setting but not had much time on that yet. so yeah i've been really enjoying this. wasn't sure if i should pick it up but glad i did.

Started this today as it's included with Origin Access Premier, put in around 3 hours. I really didn't know what to expect going in really. I absolutely adored the original Darksiders but couldn't play more than an hour of Darksiders 2 without throwing in the towel (I will possibly return to it at some point), it just felt too much of a departure from the OG Darksiders formula that I adored. So here we are at Darksiders 3. Another slight rejigging of the original Darksiders formula, this time doing away with the grandiosity of 2 and some of the more Zelda-esque elements of 1 for a Darksiders-Souls-like if you will. The combat feels a bit more free-flowing compared to the other games with Fury's whip dishing out some incredibly satisfying combos but the level designs are much more claustrophobic, metroidvania and Soulsy with enemies placements and how they can ambush you and punish you, little shortcuts you can unlock and boss/mini-boss battles you can take on if you choose. The difficulty so far far exceeds anything found in the previous games, I've died a hell of a lot and most enemies you've got to be wary of and plan accordingly or you're going to go down real quick, dealing with crowds can be very difficult too and they can wipe you out in seconds if you're not careful. The boss battles are a real treat here too. I've only had two so far - against Envy and Wrath - but they were real spectacles and an absolute joy to play through with the latter being way more difficult than I expected. Getting the dodge timing right to dodge a boss' attack at the last second to enable a Bayonetta-like bullet-time effect just feels amazing when you pull it off. I've warmed to Fury already as well. Death was a little too moody and monotone for me (again, admittedly I didn't spend that much time with him) in D2 but Fury has been a real delight. She's sassy and an absolute badass that doesn't take any shit from anyone, I love the little banter between her and the Watcher too as they're traversing through levels. The story though I've already kind of tuned out of, I do remember a few familiar faces from D1 and the brief amount of D2 I played and it was cool seeing War again but I kind of don't care already. Admittedly it's not a huge budget AAA title, but I have been incredibly impressed with the performance of it on my PC as well. I've got everything bumped up to Ultra in the settings and it has run buttery smooth with no technical issues whatsoever at 1440p/60fps, it is quite the looker at times too with the lighting being a particular highlight. So yeah, so far so good. The combat feels fantastic, the level design is engaging and Fury is a joy to spend time with, I couldn't put it down.

Ok, so I wasn’t expecting a lot from this. The movie was a pale imitation of the excellent book. I’d seen almost nothing about this til it was nearly out. Having not heard of the developer,I googled them to see their track record. The absolutely awful Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn was on the list,so I didn’t have a lot of faith in this game. But I’ve just played through the first 3 missions (or Episode 1), and it’s actually fun. The “Left 4 Dead But 3rd person” call is bang on the money,as that’s exactly what this is. From the weapons,to the “here’s a supply drop point”, to the Medkits (hold down on the dpad to heal,either yourself or a mate”. Even down to the “special” zombies (puker,leaper,tank). It literally is a L4D clone. That’s no bad thing, of course. As L4D was bloody awesome, and thanks to Valve not being arsed about making games anymore (Artifact doesn’t count, as that’s practically done for), it’s the closest we will ever get. Still, it’s not just a mere clone. It adds the pyramid swarms that appeared in the film. Throws in automated defences (turrets/mines/barb wire) for tense horde moments. And it also adds perks/customisations to your weapons. You level up your class through gameplay, i’ve gone for medic,as support is how I roll. By ranking up, you gain access to better perks (heal faster, heal everyone with 1 med kit etc). By killing enemies with specific weapons, you rank that type up, gaining access to better weapons which you buy with money acquired from finishing missions. There’s 4 player co-op,obviously. And a VS online mode, which I haven’t tried yet. It has issues. Apparently some people are having their save file wiped on PS4. The game completely crashed on mission 2,to the point I had to switch my PS4 off at the plug due to it hard-locking,which sucks. And it’s allegedly a bit of a pain to party up with friends online,but I haven’t done that yet, and a private server patch is coming soon allegedly. Still,for what it is,it’s fun. If you enjoyed L4D at all, it’s fair to say you’ll like this.

Had my eye on this one for a while, as the concept (two teams of 4 try to steal treasure, in a take on the Robin Hood mythology) seems interesting. Currently £15 in the PSN sale, and there’s a free demo. So I tried it with me and my mates. After one session, we ended up buying it. Basically, it’s a stealth game. Your team of 4 has to find the Sheriff (invincible boss that kills you in one hit), steal his key, open the Vault, grab a chest, and then escape with it. Each character plays slightly differently, with their own special ability. Robin has a longbow that kills instantly with headshots, and can fire a powered up explosive shot to kill multiple enemies.Marion has a crossbow and can temporarily turn invisible to assassinate people. Tuck can throw poison bombs, heal the team, and highlight enemy positions. John can decimate enemies with his hammer, carry the chest the fastest, and open closed portcullis gates to potentially speed up escapes. Stealth and teamwork is definitely important, because if you get spotted, things can go tits up pretty quickly. Killed allies drop a ‘talisman’, if that’s collected and taken to a captured spawn point, they revive. John and Tuck can’t use bows, but are stronger in a fight. Had quite a few tense sessions on this so far. You can play as 4 against just the AI, or two teams of 4 against AI, attempting to steal the treasure before the other team does. Its certainly worth a look, I’d say.

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.

So I can finally share my thoughts on this as the Closed Beta isn't under NDA. First I'll go through the mechanics. There's 3 game modes, solo, duo and 4-man ships you can choose at the start, all have matchmaking and put you into a group of randoms - assuming you have no friends available to invite. At first it was quite overwhelming getting used to the controls at what everything does. You've got a Wheel on the Left Bumper which brings up all the equipment and consumables - Wooden Planks, Bananas, Cannonballs, Bucket, Jug of Ale, Musical instruments, Spade etc. They pretty much do what you expect, planks are used to patch up holes on the ship when you get attacked or run aground, bananas heal you if you get attacked by a shark or skeleton, cannonballs load into the cannons on the top desk, buckets are used to get rid of excess water should you get holes in your ship, the Jug of Ale can be drunk and then refilled numerous times until the screen goes mental and you start being sick over everyone, the Musical Instruments are used to play sea shanty's and the Spade is used for digging up treasure chests. You also have a load of weapons mapped to Y, a Musket, a Sniper Rifle - only available in beta - and a sword. And a map/riddle wheel mapped to RB. The weapons all have a good heft to them, the Musket is slow to reload but you really feel it when it fires, likewise with the sniper rifle - which has a cracked scope, and the sword is just a general sword really, similar to Skyrim in its swing speed/weight if I had to compare it. Whenever you select a mission you get either a map or a number of maps/riddles that you have to solve to tick off all the objectives in that particular mission. Maps are all in-game, they never put a marker on your map or anything, what you do is look at the shape of the islands on the map and then make your way down to the huge world map on the ship and identify it like this. With Riddles they'll usually say the exact name of the island you have to go to, you find this on the map, go there and when you explore the island you'll get more specific clues as to the exact location of the treasure like 'when the sky is at its darkest, look south south-east and walk 7 paces to find what you're after'. It's all really well done and puts an emphasis on you having to do stuff yourself and work things out with your shipmates, no hand holding at all. Aboard the boat you've got different elements you can interact with. You can set the sail length and adjust them with the wind so that you get your destination that much quicker, helm the ship, walk up to the bird's nest and keep a lookout for obstacles ahead, drop/raise anchor, look at the huge world map down below, pick up items, store loot, vote on new missions in the captain's quarters and throw someone in the brig or make them walk the plank if you so choose. The gameplay loop - which has been adjusted for the better in the Beta - is essentially this: You spawn on the ship, identify a nearby outpost using the ship map, travel to the outpost and pick up a mission from a dude that's in a tent. Once you've got this you'll get a paper map or riddle in your inventory which'll let you know the shape/structure of the island or give you the name and you'll have to identify this island from the ship map and sail there. Once you get to the island you'll usually have to deal with a few skeletons or sharks. You'll then find the chest you're after - the darker they are in colour the more Gold you'll get for them - along with a few bonus chests that can be scattered about. You all have to lug these chests back to the ship, then sail back to the outpost and sell the chests to the merchant to get gold. As you cash in more and more chests more lucrative missions with higher gold/chests available open up, there is some kind of ranking system in there too as I had the option to buy a badge that would enable me to take on a next tier of missions I wouldn't of otherwise been able to. So you select another mission at the merchant and back on your way you go travelling the seas. The game has a lot of charm to it. The shanty's are all really cool and it really sets the scene when you're travelling the seas and someone breaks out the hurdy-gurdy, accordion or banjo thing. Being able to get absolutely rat-arse drunk onboard and all the shenanigans that revolve around it, like being sick all over everyone is really cool as well. The way that it doesn't hold your hand at all really immerses you in the world, you can put markers down on the big ship map but that's about it, obviously that means folks will get lost much easier but I think it'll be more rewarding and you'll learn more about the game and what you need to do by the way you have to figure out how things work for yourself, I assume there will be a tutorial mission in the main game that'll teach you the basics before you set off, but I didn't see this personally. Another element that I encountered in the Beta but not the Alpha was being able to hunt down other players. We actually only did this once - sunk this guys ship and then killed him - but he had no loot and respawned right afterwards so there doesn't seem to be a big penalty if you do get killed. As for my own thoughts on the game. I was really quite disappointed with it during the Alpha, I had so many matches where randoms with no mic would just pull up to a random outpost then run around getting drunk for 30 minutes like a headless chicken that I just gave up on it after awhile, I did have some really nice missions where we managed to solve 3/4 riddles and get a whole ton of loot but my overwhelming impression of the Alpha was that of frustration. But the Beta has been much better, after finding that frustration come back initially I found a really good group who all had Mic's after half an hour. We pretty much stuck together the whole rest of the session and were coordinating on missions, finding islands, setting sail lengths, digging up loot, knowing when to drop anchor and getting a shit ton of gold at the merchant that it was quite an addictive loop and I could definitely feel myself wanting to play more. I only discovered the Xbox App's LFG feature when I logged off as well, which will be incredibly handy for folks like me in the full game. It is just such a jolly, charming ton of fun. I've done a complete 180 on it, I now really think Rare could be onto something here. The thrill of seeing other real players in their ships on the horizon was exhilarating too. Any questions anyone has feel free to ask and I'll try to answer.

So yeah played the first 3 hours of this yesterday, bit of a strange one really, not quite sure what to think of it. My thoughts are definitely positive, but I don't feel like I'm blown away by it in the slightest, I'll mention the problems first, there's some kind of weird lighting issues, when it's the day it doesn't quite seem as bright as it should be and the sun seems to follow you about in a strange manner, at night the game looks fantastic but during the day it looks a bit odd at times. Then there is the much publicised 30fps lock, at 1440p this is more of a 30fps estimation than a lock, it goes down to 25fps every now and then and is far from stable. Fortunately, the story so far has been excellent, Lincoln has been a great character to get to know and I'm intrigued to get to know where it goes next, its been rather hand-holdy so far but I've been allowed to stretch my legs so to speak in the last half an hour or so. All the cut-scenes seem to be really cinematic and well-told and there's been a twist already that was executed perfectly. So yeah, a solid, albeit not mind-blowing first 3 hours, I'll be back at it tomorrow, a few pics below:

Played an hour of this tonight. I want to have one long game on the go while I play through some shorter games (although my file on Ori and the Blind Forest has passed 10 hours in two days). Wasteland 2 was the first of the big kickstarter rpgs to be released (followed by Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity) so I want to play them in that order. This is the director's cut version of the game which was recently released on PS4, Xbox One and of course PC. Obviously Wasteland and Fallout share the same dna so this game is very much in the vein of Fallout 1 and 2. Action points, perks, skills, scrap, looting, similar setting etc. I created a character with high co-ordination (the stat that primarily governs long range accuracy and action points in battle) with a proficiency in assault rifles. Then I picked three of the pre-made characters who seemed useful. The game opens with you in base camp, receiving your first mission. The game explains its various systems as you go, every time something new happens, a note pops up for you to read about it. It's pretty handy. It looks nice, the game still has that isometric Fallout look, but you can zoom in and out and freely rotate the camera. Obviously it's not static backgrounds like in the old games or in Shadowrun Returns. It's a nice modernisation of the old style. After getting to grips with the game, I headed out into the Wasteland. Exploration between points on the map is kind of similar to the old Fallout games or a Total War game. I selected the Radio Tower target and my party moved towards it. The first time, the game triggered a random encounter with a few enemies. Combat plays out like every turn-based pc rpg ever. Movement is grid based. Every action (movement, shooting, reloating etc) requires action points. When your action points are used up, your turn is over (or you can just press end turn). I'm playing on the default difficulty (I think it was called Seasoned). The fight I played was very easy. One feature of the old rpgs was that you could die on the drop of a hat, but I suspect that's not going to happen in this game. Early days though. Either way I will be running multiple saves. Actually, after the fight and I was running around the random encounter map, the game crashed (for what it's worth, I emailed inXile the crash folder that was generated). I reloaded my most recent save and headed towards the Radio Tower again. This time the encounter didn't trigger, and I arrived at the mission location. Hopefully it was a once-off thing. That's about it so far. Seems like a really good game.

Started and finished this over the weekend, took me about 4 hours. It's a weird one for sure, as soon as the intro had finished and I was put into the game itself I had a cursor and had to move the main character with the less analog stick, tapping A to move him to a certain spot or highlight an object or person in the environment, I wasn't expecting this to almost be a point and click adventure game. The art style and top-down camera perspective to the game is really unique too, some Hotline Miami vibes for sure as soon as I booted it up. Once you get into the game things play out as you may or may not of seen in the trailers (I will spoil this just in case), As soon as this is over you go back to the moment where you first enter your Apartment and things play out exactly the same as they did before, your wife greets you, asks you about similar topics, reads her book etc. Until the same cop turns up and repeats the same actions as before. You're stuck in a time loop, Groundhog Day style. Your goal is to escape the timeloop by not dying, to do this you have to repeat the same loop over and over, changing up certain things, asking your Wife questions (that then open up new dialogue options down the line) until you can eventually not die and escape the timeloop. It's a cool premise but after a few hours you start to realise this is just like the bit in PT where everything is Red and you're going round and round in circles trying to do something different to get the SH trailer pop up at the end. It gets tedious real quick unfortunately, after awhile of going around banging my head up against the wall, exhausting all dialogue options with the Wife, trying to get think of new things to try I gave up and looked up a Guide to show me a few tips of what to do next. With the guide it wasn't too frustrating, for loop-after-loop I'd try to do things myself but if after awhile I was banging my head up against the wall I'd consult the guide to get to the next 'checkpoint' and closer to my goal. There are some pretty mad revelations, twists and turns along the way which I won't spoil. But yeah, it's a weird game, I do recommend it and I did enjoy my time with it but if I hadn't of looked up a guide when I got stuck I most likely would've just given up on it as it was just frustrating the hell out of me. Pics: Proper Spoiler Image:

I played and finished this a few weeks ago now and have finally got round to creating the thread for it. For those that don't know this is a Dontnod title very much in the same vein as Life is Strange, it is Episodic and a teen drama exploring some of the same themes as LiS, where it differs slightly is that it is only 3 Episodes rather than the 5 associated with LiS. In terms of plot, it centres on a twin Brother and Sister in a small Alaskan town in the middle of nowhere. The Brother (Tyler)has just got out of a Juvenile detention facility and come back to his home town for the first time in 8 years, seeing his Sister (Alyson) for the first time since a tumultuous incident (involving their Mother) wrestled them apart years ago. As well as this the Brother successfully transitioned from his gender of birth (female) to become a Trans Man in 'Juvie', so he has many additional challenges, thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. About being reunited with his Sister for the first time since his transition and being back in his backward home town. In terms of how the game plays, it is extremely similar to LiS in terms of being a character driven adventure game determined by key choices and dialogue choices you can make along the way, it even retains a supernatural element similar to LiS as well in that the Twins can hear each others thoughts and both can see each others memories from the past, some of which may differ from the others' perspective in certain situations and events. As a huge fan of Life is Strange I really enjoyed this, with the shortened 3-Episode count it means the whole story arc wraps up more succinctly and I never felt there were any filler or pointless episodes in there, it's all good stuff. I much preferred it to Life is Strange 2 as well, highly recommended. Pics:

What Remains of Edith Finch is by Giant Sparrow, the people behind The Unfinished Swan, which was inventive and clever. What Remains of Edith finch is shorter, denser, and feels less like a collection of chapters bundled together, and more like a cohesive narrative It's a narrative game, not a huge amount in the way of gameplay other than finding which objects you can interact with. You've returned to the family house, which is almost like a Tim Burton bit of architecture, all your family has died off, often in tragic or strange circumstances, and so your mother took you and abandoned the house hoping to leave whatever "curse" has beset your family. You wander through the house, discovering the stories of your ancestor's lives, and sometimes deaths The vignettes are brilliant. Some are shorter than others, but some really are fantastic, or fantastical, inventive, joyous, and every so often, heartbreaking. You can see the legacy of Unfinished Swan in there, but I was also reminded of That Dragon Cancer, and while it's a horrible thing to say about a game that's as raw and honest as That Dragon Cancer, but Edith Finch does it better, even if it doesn't have the same weight behind it It looks great too, at points I was genuinely surprised by how good it looked. There's some points where it's just that the fidelity is amazing, maybe it's running at a higher resolution on the Pro or something, but there's other moments, an underwater section in particular, that just have superb art design