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I very briefly tried some of this yesterday on PC. I will say you can tell that this is a 8 year old game, especially by how its graphics menu operates. You can't set rendering resolutions in game, you do it via the launcher in 'environment settings'. Which actually doesn't set the rendering resolution at all, you have to edit a configuration JSON in the documents folder. Which doesn't always work. It also doesn't run super well in the lobby. I have a 9700k and it constantly hitches when there are players getting loaded in, it runs on DX9 or something. Also when I loaded a main mission the game crashed immediately. However when it worked it seemed semi interesting. It's more of a hack and slash MMO than what I usually play. The first boss is an 'attack the weak spot' affair and you time button presses to do extra damage or whatever. You eat healing items, so I think everyone is a DPS in this game basically. I've yet to do a group mission (I need to be level 5). I want to at least do a few of those. I've a lot of time off due to COVID cost saving measures so I hope to actually put a decent dent into this at some point. Someone on ResetEra tells me you really need to stick with it until level 40 to see what it's about, so lets see about that I guess. I think this is on Xbox now as well. If you want to try it on PC you have to chance your Windows region first to US to find it on the windows store. (I could not find an existing topic for this)

I'm only a couple of missions in so far. Very much what it said it was - a Diablo clone in a Minecraft skin. Very simple, at least so far. The reviews have been all over the place, from slagging it off, meh, to highly recommended. Early on, seems fine to me. It's on GamePass so worth a download regardless.

This is this month's PS+ game. Its been on my Switch list but I'll have it here for now. It's been a good, chill game to play at during these times and I reckon I can do better than those that run things now. Its kinda cathartic. Yeah, my first attempt I fucked up the water lines and poisoned everyone but it's a learning process... I've built a fairly well functioning city. Its a modest little place but everyone's happy and healthy. It's bustling and pretty green; it's nice. I've bought up some more land to expand but I need more money to build. I could really do with a university as occasionally a place goes out of business due to my undereducated population. But industry keeps complaining when I tax the dirty, polluting fucks. Maybe they're just mad because there was a point their building kept burning down and fire engines couldn't get to them because of my incremental and patchy expansion. It is a bit of a mess. But my next section will be city planning perfection.

I've only played the first couple of bounties, but so far I'm really liking this. As per the trailer, it captures that 80's violent action film vibe really well. The 16-bit style graphics look really good, and the the synth soundtrack is great too. It has tons of character. Gameplay wise, it's a run and gun platformer. You fire forwards in the direction you're facing, you have a jump, a dash and a thrown weapon, and can duck or take cover from enemy fire in doorways. You have a pistol weapon with infinite ammo, and can pick up more powerful sub weapons with limited ammo, or a melee weapon. Each bounty (level) is a short action platforming section that leads up to your target, which is a mini boss fight. It's fairly straightforward, but is smooth and plays very well. I've only tried one player character so far, so don't know if they have gameplay differences. It's Epic exclusive on PC at the moment. With the £10 coupon thing in their sale going on right now it only cost me £7.99.

Chose this as my free game for NHS staff. Already happy I went for this. It looks absolutely glorious, and the story is definitely interesting. A space station on the Moon was providing a rapidly deteriorating Earth with power. Until the station went unexpectedly silent, and all contact was lost. 5 years later, you’re assigned to head to the station, and find out what happened. Looking forward to seeing how the story develops.

Ok, so this is pretty cheap on PSN right now (under £4). I remember enjoying the first T&E back in the day, so I figured I’d give this a go. If you ever played the first one, you know what you’re in for, as this is kind of a remake. If you didn’t? Well, how to explain it.... So, you accidentally blew up your spaceship into 10 different parts, and sucked the Earth into a black hole. Now you have to traverse multiple levels, slowly rebuilding your ship. There’s various types of humans that want to kill you, which you can dodge by either jumping in a river, or hiding in sunflowers. There’s tons of presents throughout the levels, which do either good things (jet powered skates, spring shoes) or bad (damage you, set off an alarm so enemies home in on you). You can gain XP from finding items, or taking part in a rhythm-action music game. Its weird, definitely. But then the rest of the series was too, so I’d expect no less. And at £4 (on PSN, other formats will vary) you can’t go wrong really.

So far, it's pretty good. Very responsive, means early on you can spin around and attack enemies coming from behind, you can feel good at the game the way I felt I'd mastered SOR2. I like the juggling, I've seen people coming up with stuff I'd never think to do, but again, you can start to put some stuff together that shows you're learning and improving. I do kind of wish, as much as I'd accept that changing too much might be a detriment, that there was a parry in there somewhere. You don't have a lot of options defensively, even the special attack doesn't quite work the same way as it did in past games as an escape, some sort of counter, or even a roll like in (but better than) SOR 3 would help on that front. I've only played as Axel so far, I've just unlocked another character but I'm only 5 levels in. It's relatively tough, Iv'e used a continue, it puts you back to the start of that stage, but it did mean I had to learn the boss battle. A couple of the other levels I've beaten on my last life. Streets of Rage 2 I could beat on hard without losing a life, I don't see that happening here

This game is an absolute gem. I’ve played it for five hours since yesterday. It’s a first person exploration game, with no combat. Instead you play as a painter, exploring an island, talking to its inhabitants and painting pictures of various things on the island. I’m hooked. It looks and sounds beautiful. The island of Eastshade is a fleshed out world with its own history, visiting the opening village of Lyndow and the large city Nava is as impressive as the first time you arrive in Oxenfurt or Novigrad in The Witcher 3. All of the characters are animals. I’ve been playing on PC using the Xbox controller. Top stuff so far.

Not just for @bellow, but in general. With the recent multi-platform re-release, it is as good a time as any for those looking to return or jump in for the first time to one of the least contentious fan favourites in the series. With a little something, to set the mood... (Yes, this was a real thing)

I massively bounced off the first game, Grow Home. It was awkward, a little too twee and just not a game I had a good time with, at all. So obviously it's only natural I try this one anyway. And I'm really glad I did. I had so much fun with this game from start to finish. I just really enjoyed it. The artwork and animation were adorable, the gameplay was still incredibly awkward, with your character, B.U.D. seemingly having legs with a mind of their own. Once you built up a little bit of momentum it became really difficult to slow down or stop. But that also tied in with the other systems in play. It was all based around climbing. The story involved collecting the parts of your crash landed ship, M.O.M. to reach orbit and jet off home again. Her 9 different parts were scattered all over the planet, and your job was to navigate your way to each one. Climbing was done with the shoulder buttons, LB/LT made his left hand grip, RB/RT the right. So when you built up a little bit of speed and needed to stop, pulling back then hitting the shoulder buttons would get B.U.D. to grip on to the nearest surface. There were a few other goals - scanning all of the planet's flora, growing star plants, that kinda stuff - but as long as you were restoring your ship you were heading in the right direction. I played it start to finish over the last week or so, and had a lot of fun with it, but at one point my brain said 'this is like a cute assassin's creed'. I'm really starting to enjoy Ubisoft's more artsy stuff. It wasn't fantastic, but I did have a lot of fun with it.

Ok, so I wasn’t sure about this one. Sure, the Predator license is ideal for a quality gaming experience. But I was a bit weary, as the team’s previous game, Friday The 13th was a mixed bag. A fun concept, let down by a toxic community, general jankiness, and lack of consistent support (though that was due to the court battle relating to the franchise). So, I downloaded the demo for this last night. And it’s definitely made a good first impression. There’s no team-killing for a start, something that constantly ruined the experience for Friday. You have a choice of either Fireteam (4 humans), or Predator. The fireteam has to complete various objectives (hack computers, take over control points). Multiple enemy AI will try to stop you, so it’s most effective to team up, and defend objectives when you’re capturing them. It plays like pretty much any FPS, with your typical selection of weapons (Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Pistol). Firefights can feel pretty tense, especially if an alarm gets triggered and you start getting swarmed with enemies. Then....you hear THAT sound. The tell-tale clicking of the Predator. Or it’s cloaking device activating. Or worst of all, see the red beam of its laser cannon pointing directly at you. At that point, all hell breaks loose. The Predator takes quite a lot of damage to take down, spraying recognisable green blood all over the place. Taking it on, one on one, is an extremely bad idea. If you get downed, there’s a chance your team can get you back up. Unless the Predator rips your spine/head off. Though that’s a gamble, as in doing that, you’re locked in place for several seconds, giving the rest of the team time to pump the Predator full of lead. Once the Predator finally dies, two things can seem to happen. If you’re quick enough to shoot it in the head after pulling it’s mask off, you can capture its body. Though you’ll get attacked by a ton of mercenaries for a few minutes, who can shoot up the body and decrease its value. Or, the Predator activates it’s self-destruct mechanism. A large red circle appears on the map. Anyone left in it after it detonates, is going home in a matchbox. If a member of the fireteam is killed, it’s possible to respawn them by “calling for reinforcements”. Which involves legging it to the specific radio point on the map, and defending it for a short time before your team-mate respawns. Though again that’s a gamble, because if the Predator is attacking you, you’ll have your hands full as it is. I spent last night purely as Fireteam, and had a bloody great time with it. I played as Predator for the tutorial, obviously it’s more complicated to play in comparison to Fireteam. Practice will certainly help, no doubt. There’s also a decent ammount of customisation options for both sides. Some are locked behind level progression, others in lootboxes. Lootboxes are earned in game, or bought with in-game cash. The game seems quite generous with money, and duplicate items give a decent bit of cash. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this. More than I thought I would to be honest. I’ll certainly sink some more time into it over the weekend. And I had that much fun playing it with Gary, that I’ve preordered the full game. Well, I’m hardly spending money on petrol travelling to work for the next few weeks.

I played 30 minutes of it. It asks you to create a bethesda account before even being able to play which is really annoying but you can get around by setting steam to offline. Anyway it seems good. Kind of more focused on just murder arenas from the look of things. But I'm totally ok with a game like that. You can turn HUD off but it's hard to play. The HUD is a bit much tbh, I need to spend some time figuring out what parts I can turn off. Playing on ultra violent

This is just for the demo so far... release isn't too far away now though. I'm presuming this isn't too far in to the game, you start out already having met Carlos and entering the Subway train, after a brief conversation you're free to head up to the streets. First impressions... and it's a big one, HDR is vastly improved over RE2... I wish they'd actually go back and fix that but after a year its highly unlikely, anyway it's a lot better in this game. It controls very similar to RE2 but with the added dodge, I actually had to go and change the controller setup as I didn't like where they'd put run (clicking left stick) with the change it felt much better. Obviously it looks lovely, already it's a much more colourful game than RE2, shooting feels pretty much identical... all though I think they may have toned down the zombie dismemberment a tad... presumably because there's more on screen. I've had a good wonder around, it's got some nice little shortcuts you can open up to move around easier and I'm surprised at how many shops you could actually enter. I didn't actually get to finish the demo though... Nemisis killed me...? Everything is looking good to me so far, fingers crossed that shitty real life virus doesn't delay the game.

So had a quick go of this after it unlocked last night, initial impressions are mixed, they've changed the combat a bit and i'm not sure about it yet, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's annoying, and i've really struggled on two sections so am a bit worried i won't be able to finish it on normal, some of the enemies can be really annoying. having said that the original started with bad combat but i really liked that after you unlock a certain move so maybe this will be similar. and there were easy/hard options so hopefully you can switch between them - also wonder what they change as i personally would want to just make the combat easier and leave the rest, but someone else might struggle with the platforming i don't know. everything else was pretty similar to the first game so far - it looks amazing and there's been some mild puzzles and platforming - generally really enjoying it outside the combat. hope there are some more demanding platforming sections like in the first game. there are combat trials and timetrial sections too - i enjoyed the timetrial one - as above not sure about the combat one - probably could have come back to it later when more powered up. oh and they changed the save system to a seemingly more normal one with pretty frequent checkpoints - that's probably a good change Also apparently there are performance problems/bugs, 2 patches already on xbox? i'm playing the gamepass version on pc and haven't had any patches, bugs/problems. this is a game i would have purchased, but it's on gamepass so i didn't, which is an odd thing. anyone else getting it/trying it on gamepass?

Just to let you know what you're in for, Sea of Solitude starts with this screen: It's a beautiful game in places, similar in visual style to Rime. The introduction sees you in a boat in the titular Sea of Solitude. Playing as a young girl who's quite literally overtaken by darkness (seriously, she just has facial features, the rest of her form is just black and a little undefined), you're given a guiding light in this sea of darkness, and that provides the only source of light around you. It's a platformer in nature, so from time to time you have to leave the safety of your boat and walk around the flooded city its set in. When you do climb out of the boat the world around you becomes dark and stormy, and there's a creature that stalks you in the depths of the water. Basically, everything feels like a very heavy-handed discussion on depression. As you work through your problems and face your difficulties, you eventually bring light to the world around you. This is where the visual beauty kicks in, because it becomes bold, vibrant and just stunning to look at in a very stylised way. One touch I adore - you have to remove corruption from the world (this is what makes the world brighter again), but your character's backpack gets more and more full as the game progresses. Again, a very obvious metaphor, but one that's done in a subtle way. It was only near the end of my session last night I actually noticed it. This isn't a game that's ever going to set the world on fire - the controls sometimes feel a little loose, the story has less than zero subtlety, and the graphic design is an acquired taste (but exactly the kind of thing I love). But given that it's a very stark look at the different aspects of depression, it also feels quite brave in a way. I also don't want to give spoilers away, which is why I haven't discussed any of the main story beats, just given a little overview. It feels relatively short, I reckon I'm about half way through it - but I'm really enjoying it at the moment. As much as you can 'enjoy' a story about a young girl's crippling depression.

This is fantastic. Apparently it’s inspired by a comic book or something. It’s an rpg where overworld traversal takes place on like a beautiful board game map, which then transitions into proper exploration for dungeons and other “explorable areas” (not unlike the transition in the PS1 Final Fantasy games). The character art and background art is lovely. Combat is turn-based, jrpg style. But the game has a couple of original, interesting ideas. Aside from default attacks, characters have abilities that cost mana, but you also have a stat called overcharge. Default attacks give you overcharge, and if you use abilities that cost mana, the game uses your overcharge first before taking from your mana. So if you have 20 overcharge, and you use an ability that costs 25 mana, you lose 20 overcharge and only 5 mana. It’s an interesting system that differentiates the game from other turn based RPGs. Also, attacks and abilities have casting speeds (eg instant, very fast, fast) which is another thing you have to take into account. I bought it heavily discounted but it’s been easily worth that so far.

FAR: Lone Sails is a beautiful indie game that definitely has that special something that the best indie games have, at least in the opening 30 minutes that I played. It looks like this: You’re basically piloting this hunk of metal across a barren wasteland. Gameplay has been very simple so far. The ship will move slowly if you open the sails but you can also fuel it to make it move faster. And then occasionally you come to roadblocks like this which require some gentle puzzling (so far). It looks beautiful. And everything is communicated visually. There’s no dialogue or tutorial. Very impressed so far.

Well. I usually enjoy Rebellion’s output. Sniper Elite is always good for a laugh (who doesn’t enjoy shooting Nazis in the bollocks?). Strange Brigade was a lot of fun. And I mostly had a good time with Zombie Army Trilogy, until I got close to the end, and the massive difficulty spike really pissed me off and stopped me from playing it further. So, I was certainly interested in renting this. First impressions were good. It has the satisfying combat of the Sniper Elite series, and at first, it seems like it could be fun. However, there’s a significant problem: it’s fucking ridiculous, even on Easy. I’m playing Solo, but it’s quickly becoming clear that its going to be nigh on impossible. Most games are generous with health packs, or regenerating health. Not so here. You can hold one medkit maximum, and they’re pretty rare. Your health doesn’t regenerate at all. Well, there is a way to get some health back, by performing a melee kill, but the ability to regain health from that requires you to have killed 10 enemies in a row. There is an ability that lets you get back up after being downed, Borderlands style. But you can only use that once per level. Each level consists of 4 chapters. I just finished Level 2, and that really tested my patience. Especially when the “special” zombies start making an appearance. Those often require to hit a specific weak point. Good luck doing that when you’re constantly getting ganked. I fluked my way through the last two chapters of Level 2, the final one consisting of having to defend two generations, for a stupidly long time. All while horde of zombies keep damaging them, meaning you have to repair the bloody things. All while constantly running out of ammo, or health, or both. The words “for fucks sake” were uttered multiple times. With a team, it would be more bearable. But as per usual, Rebellion don’t seem to understand how to make a game fun in single player. With at least 4 more Levels to go, I don’t imagine finishing it. I play games to have fun, not have my patience tested to breaking point. A challenge is one thing. Taking the absolute piss, is another.

Well, this was surprising. Coming from the people that brought us the god-awful Rambo game, and having pretty much zero hype, I wasn’t expecting much. But this was actually alright. Certainly the best Terminator game in years, though that’s not saying much. Combat wise it’s pretty decent, though it’s a bit annoying that Terminators more or less insta-kill you, and your weapons do absolutely no damage to them. Thankfully the next level gives you a plasma rifle, so it’s payback time. There are Telltale style conversation choices, that affect the ending. Though not dramatically so. Still, the writing is decent, and the voice acting is good. It’s not massively long, I played most of it last night, and finished it this afternoon. But I had fun while doing so. It was certainly worth a rental.

Great! A game in a series I've enjoyed on and off since the third installment on PS1 has gone 'free' on Game Pass - let's try it out. Hmmm... It's taken me 5 minutes of scrolling and about 15 button presses just to get to the main menu. This isn't the greatest start. No matter, let's see what's about... Wait, what? It's automatically taken me to the options screen now? Ok, ok, I'll just back out of there, then I'll see what's going on. Mishima Saga? WTF is that? Fuck it, let's go. Oh yay. More menus to click through. JUST LET ME PUNCH SOMEONE DAMMIT! Ok - difficulty on Normal. Finally into it. Punching time. Wait. No. No it isn't - I'm dropping young Kazuya off a cliff. Nice throwback, but I just want to fight. Yay, fighting time! The above was a description of my first 10 minutes with Tekken 7. When I finally got into it, the story mode was AWFUL. I played on normal, because fuck it, it's Tekken, how hard can it be? Turns out it gets very difficult, and extremely cheap. To the point I had to play cheap myself to even it out. One fight pits you as Heihachi against Akuma from Street Fighter (because remember when SFxT was a thing? What happened to TxSF? I wanted that so much more). That was tough, but I got through it. Then a little later it switched the roles, and I almost threw my controller at the screen. Then, putting you back in control of Heihaci, it had you fighting against Kazumi. Who can fire lasers, fly, has a fucking tiger that can attack you, can disappear and has unblockable attacks. But the sidestep isn't responsive enough, so you just end up repeatedly getting wailed on. Oh and she has regenerating health. And the final boss is demon Kazuya. Who can do all of the above (except for the tiger bullshit) but stronger. On each of the 13 chapters you have to beat most characters twice - the only exception to this is where you have to defeat 5 army grunts or 5 of Jack-4/6 in a row. But you can't lose a round either. You have to win two rounds without taking a loss on every single chapter. There's also a final chapter that I didn't see last night where you have to defeat Devil Akuma. Really not looking forward to that bullshit. All I wanted was an old-school Arcade mode. Ten fights, best of 3, stupid character movie at the end. What I got was this fuckery. I'm gonna go back in the next few days and look for some traditional modes, but last night I had to take my Kindle up to bed with me to try and dispel some of the irritation. That shouldn't happen with a game.

Guess it's time to make a thread, maybe? I don't actually have a lot to say because I started it ages ago but put it to the side for some reason. I think I was having a hard time as it's a little more difficult than the first one from what I remember. But I'd played it a lot more than I thought. I had six hours clocked and I thought I was half that in, at the most. After a little flapping around like an idiot while I got used to it again I started having a really good time with it like the first one. Dunno why I put it down. But I got towards the end and it looks like it has that same thing as the first one where you have to get a bunch of collectables hidden behind some hardcore challenges so I guess I'm gonna have to go and see all talented and big dicked enough to get the proper ending.

Ok. So I’m a huge Dragonball Z fan. I first watched the series back in my 20’s, via the heavily edited Toonami dub (people never died, they got sent to ‘Another Dimension’). Years later I rewatched the American dub. And a few years after that, the Japanese original. I still have a lot of love for the series. So I was certainly interested in this. Visually, it absolutely nails it. It looks exactly like an episode of the anime. And it’s certainly a nice touch that you can play either with English or Japanese audio. It doesn’t get off to a great start gameplay wise though, with a pretty poor ‘training’ mission. I’ve seen a few videos of “stuff the game doesn’t tell you”. And a glaring omission is how to fight. Sure, you get three pages of a control pad, showing you what the buttons are. But there’s no explanation given in how to actually fight an enemy. I know, as a fan, that you have to charge Ki to perform energy attacks. But it doesn’t tell you that, so newcomers may be a bit puzzled why their special moves aren’t working. There’s a couple of prompts at the bottom of the screen (hold these buttons to do this move). But as far as tutorials go, it’s not great. I then experienced a bug which meant I had to reload my game. “Walk with Gohan to the fishing spot” I was told. Great. Except Gohan vanished, and after 5 minutes of searching it was clear he’d fucked off into thin air. Part of the game is open world, where you can fly around collecting Z orbs of different colours, to level up your abilities. Again, the game doesn’t tell you what these are for. Then there’s the Community Board, which is frankly a mess. You get a board, and when you meet characters and perform certain actions, you gain their icon, and can place them on your board. Putting certain characters next to each other grants you bonuses in combat. Some characters have their own board (Goku’s wife, Chi Chi, and his trainer Master Roshi). How do you add icons onto their board? I don’t have a fucking clue. It speaks volumes that the first time you access this part of the game, you’re barraged with about 6 pages of information. And I’m still none the wiser on what the fuck to do with it. Anyway, only a couple of hours in. Maybe things will make more sense as I go along. Or it won’t, and I’ll just mash buttons and hope for the best.

edited the title cause no need for two threads for two weird Russian games hardly anyone will play I started this. I don't expect this to be a popular thread, but it's a game I've wanted to try for a long time. Premise is hard to explain cause it just throws you in and your character knows more about the world than you do. Basically there is a plague, and there is a mystery. After a long prologue you're in a town and you have to solve the mystery of what's going on, I think, while also not dying. You've got health and thirst and hunger and a lot of other survival mechanics to manage. You have a sort of notoriety mechanic which affects your influence with people in the town. It's basically some sort of hardcore immersive sim Shenmue thing except if you are not in the right place at a certain time you will permanently miss out on certain stuff. So far I've spent most of my time trying to find the one friendly person in the town who doesn't hate me while rummaging through bins for a few stale peanuts so I don't pass out. Parts of it remind me of what BloodBorne, story wise. It's very weird and unforgiving. Kind of a bit of a David Lynch fever dream at parts. Anyway this game is free on game pass so there's no harm in trying even if you hate it. Game seems really hard, like you're destined to just fail the first playthrough.

I've played a little of this so here's some impressions. It's another indie racing game inspired by the arcade titles of the 90s. Visually and audibly it's very Ridge Racer but the handling is something else. Maybe more like Motorstorm but a bit driftier? Not sure but it's not expected and it's maybe more unforgiving than is satisfying. But I guess that's what this is; a hardcore racer for real gamers, like back in the day. There is a difficulty spike really early on that is a narrow course through the woods and I felt like giving up. But I found that conventional wisdom doesn't work here. I was using a car that was statistically slow but with good handling which in games like this is usually the beginner car but when I was failing a lot I tried another and I found maintaining speed and drifting is so much easier to do so once I learned the track I managed second place. The slower car just snapped out of drifting so easily and I couldn't figure out how to be fast in it. The AI is pretty brutal. Its like when I used to play Gran Turismo 2 and sometimes use the other cars to get round corners since there was little to no punishment for it. Well, get used to being on the other end of it. You cannot corner a little too slowly if anyone is behind you. But it seems okay so far despite that. Once I got a little hang of it I was having fun. But the handling seems like it might click... but might not.

Here you go lazy bones @Maryokutai. Not hard is it.