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So after, what? 9 or 10 years Dead Island 2 is finally here and you know what?... I'm having a pretty decent time with it. The first thing I'll say is it feels like an Xbox 360 game... and it's a matter of opinion if that's a good or a bad thing. For me after Dying Light 2 tried to do far too much (in my opinion) having a game that just wants me to hit things until they fall over in a bloody mess is more than OK. The other thing I wanted to say is the opening hour or so is pretty bad... shit weapons that break way too easy and spongy enemies that hit way too hard... or maybe that's my own fault for picking the poor, frail girl character... who knows... anyway things liven up when you get your first real mission and access to a workbench. Anyone who's played the original games (or the Dying Light games) will feel right at home with the modding of weapons and such, electric swords and and flaming golf clubs... all that good stuff. The flesh system is really cool, thwacking a zombie in the face and seeing its jaw dislocate and detach is pretty mind-blowing and adds a lot to the melee combat (not found any guns yet) The other cool thing us being able to use liquids... I was doing a side mission and reached a part where ther was about 10 zombies banging on glass doors trying to get in... noticed a fuel can and explosive canister, picked up the can and poured fuel the entire length of the doors, hit the canister which ignited the fuel and blew out a window which allowed the zombies to walk straight in to my pre-made Inferno... no more zombies.😂 I've also just picked a perk for a pipe bomb... which is hilarious. Anyway, I like this game, admittedly I've only put around 5 or 6 hours in so far so we'll have to see if it can hold my attention but it's off to a good start.

Played a few hours now, it has that special Silent Hill weirdness going on... where everyone you talk to seems off in someway. Considering the setting I probably should play in Japanese with English subs but I kind've hate them so it's English dub all the way... it does the job. I'm playing this with both combat and puzzles set to "story" as the game has multiple endings and, for reasons know only to the dumbass devs, the puzzle difficulty doesn't stack and I know this'll take at least 3 playthroughs to max out... so I'll ramp up the difficulty in NG+. Obviously being on the easiest difficulty I'm capable of tanking a few hits but multiple enemies are still a handful... I got ganked earlier by 3 (sexy) scarecrows. Attacks boil down to light/strong attacks, attack at just the right time and you'll cause more damage, strong attacks cause enemies to be stunned which in turn gives your light attacks more oomph. You also have a sanity system which allows you to focus attacks, this can be depleted and causes damage if you're attacked while using it... this stuff isn't really coming in to play on these difficulties though. It plays well enough but performance isn't without it's faults (on Xbox) there's a hitching thing going on that I'm guessing is the game loading the new areas as it goes... it's not massively intrusive just a little annoying. The game looks nice though and the audio sets the tone nicely. I'll be putting a few hours in over the weekend.

Balatro. What can I say about Balatro that will do it any justice...? For the uninitiated, this presents as roguelike poker. You're dealt a hand of cards and use your card counting skills, or your natural-borne luck, to build a game-winning combination. Everything from high card draws to the fabled royal flush will score points, and it's your job to work through eight rounds of three games. I've managed to get half way through a game up to now - ante 5/8 - before crashing out horribly. Like I said, though, it presents as poker. Realistically, it takes poker to a whole new place, and this is thanks to the store between rounds. You can buy a range of bonuses to increase your chances of reaching the end. Tarot cards apply specific bonuses to individual cards from your deck (this could be anything from giving you an extra $3 if it's not used by the end of a round to a multiplier if it's played and scores). Planet cards provide bonuses to specific hands - I'm a fan of bumping up my two-pair bonus, as it's one of the most common hands I play, and it can become especially prolific for points the more you increase its level. You can get packs that add more cards to your deck, and then there are Joker cards (that's Poker with a J... Coincidence?) that give you overall bonuses. The key to the game right now seems to be the Joker Cards. A two pair hand with two 10s and two 5s can score around 50 points as a base. But add in a Joker card that adds 4 to your multiplier if you play clubs, as well as the joker that adds 30 chips if you play a 10, AND a +4 multiplier for the same numbers, and that two pair hand quickly shoots up to almost 10,000 points. Skipping some rounds is an option, and will present you with a bonus if you do so, but this comes at the cost of making more money to go into the store with. Is that card pack, which is usually $6 worth accepting, rather than playing the round and getting to $10 so you can buy a new bonus card or a couple of new Jokers? In each round of three games, there's also a 'boss' match. This will add further complications to the gameplay. Some of the ones I've encountered include all face cards being dealt face down, specific suits being debuffed (so those awesome bonuses are completely negated) and even ALL dealt cards being handed out face down. These are super tough at times, and if you hit a bad run, you're essentially screwed. I'm under no illusions that I'm not great at this game, but it has a fantastic 'one more go' quality that makes you hop in for another round. I honestly can't express how much I'm enjoying it right now. I'm determined to figure out a way to get through all 8 rounds.

I started playing some of this. I'm definitely going to need digital foundry to hold my hand on what settings I should be turning on, the auto detect option on the game itself recommended I max the game out but that isn't happening. I figured I would settle for 30fps but the camera motion in this is really bad, it doesn't feel good. So I'll have to tweak that. Anyway it's very janky and hard to play so far. Everyone makes a big song and dance about DLSS but it dont play well with camera movement. I guess there is a hell of a lot of detail to be reconstructing all the time. Sometimes the game looks spectacular but sometimes I'm sort of finding it to look kind of terrible. Part of it is the game feels sort of weird. People phase into existence in front of you, cars render in front of you. Obviously there's weird shit with people t-posing but that's minor. At one time in a cutscene V was completely naked for no reason, that made me lol and makes me wonder if your model is always like that cause it's a FPS game and you can't see your tits or dick or whatever. Gameplay wise I find it hard to play and the HUD and text is such a bad clash of colours and design that I can't tell what's going on half the time or what the things I'm picking up are. This could just be the awkward teething phase but it feels kind of gross. The driving is also really swimmy. I mean I'm sure it gets good as you go in but yeah it's like kind of clunky in a really strange way. These guys did make The Witcher III I suppose. It feels like someone took Euro jank and gave it all the money but kept the jank. The game throws a million things at you at once and displays a bunch of info on your HUD that's hard to keep track of. It's not a very gentle easing into the world, it sort of just throws you in and you're constantly bewildered, well I am anyway. I'm confused. There's a lot going on here but it's not so much that it's deep just that there's a fucking lot of it and I can't be arsed to read it all. I played 3 hours of it, one of which was a big shootout. The shooting doesn't feel good, but it sounds good. Aiming is bad, there's a lot of control options to figure out so I will definitely be following whatever guide somebody puts up to fix the issues with it. Anyway it's cyberpunk, it does the Bladerunner thing. Pris is in it, sort of. That's what people wanted, a very Bladerunner-ey game. Except this is less chin stroking and more aggressive 90s Rob Zombie in your face all the time. Feels of an era This game is very hard to run, pretty much never see 60fps at the settings the game recommends for me. It's exactly the kind of game people were expecting, an absolute monster for both GPU and CPU. A new Crysis.

I got my first match nerves out of the way so I'll start the thread up, but also as a way to encourage others to download it 👀. I ran online with Luna Snow, I think her name is. Did 2 matches and won both 2-0 (best of 3). Chucks healing ice at people and wears booty shorts. I think I did reasonably well with 0 experience in the genre and no idea of how to strategise. I just chucked ice at things if they looked like they were dying, if I even noticed them, and other healers did the same for me. In the second match I did here it looked like there was one Wolverine who clearly got the memo "kill the fucking healers first". Brains and brawn that guy Seems fun but chaotic and hard to get a handle of the UI you're supposed to be looking at. Luna has a move on the shift key which increases her DPS and HPS, I think. She has a move on right click which delivers a freeze on a target and heals her, so that's her self sustain. Her ultimate gives HPS and DPS depending on pressing Q to toggle. E is a sort of tethered heal between you and another character, to give them a passive defensive buff. Very straightforward with Luna, easy to get to grips with in a game that's sort of overwhelming. Healers have always been my preference. That said I don't think she'll be a long term pick, once I get comfortable. I'm interested in the more complicated ones eventually, and I'd like to try a tank as well so I have an alt if the strat role is taken, leaning towards Steven Strange because he's voiced by Grimoire Weiss and thinks with portals, so his match chatter actually sounds good I've also played Cloak and Dagger, who's harder to heal with but the stance swap thing seems interesting. Can't quite figure out the shadow powers, apparently they blind and hide people but I feel like I have to be on the receiving end of this in a match first before I even know what this means and how it impacts strategy. You can shoot a rectangle line AOE heal at people and a little healing bubble which if FFXIV has taught me anything, fucking nobody will be standing in that thing Anyway two people on the first match had 0 percent accuracy on some rounds, it was hard and I was sad. But I got MVP in my 2nd match with her tho, maybe she's cool I'm liking what I'm seeing with Iron Fist, for DPS. He has a defensive stance which procs a stinger attack and can triple jump, all his attacks reduce the cooldown of his defense stance. He also has self sustain with E. He's really agile, just seems like the goto for that role and I don't think I'll be changing my mind

Began this right after 2, using Xemu, am on chapter 9 or thereabouts. Progress is a lot quicker than NG2, so playing these back to back shouldn't burn me out I think especially as it's very different in its approach to stuff. NGB is from that era of action games pre-DMC3 where they were more than rooms connected by corridors with things to kill in them. I consider it to be the most interesting era of 3D action games before they got way less flexible and less imaginative. They could be genre hybrids cause 'character action' wasn't a codified thing yet. So sort of like how DMC1 is Resident Evil with hack and slash juggling combos, NGB is like a single player fighting game with a sprinkle of Prince of Persia/Tomb Raider in it. Combat is heavy on commitment and choosing attacks based on their specific usefulness for a given interaction (aka, don't just spam buttons), and the PoP stuff comes in with lots of puzzles and platforming, not necessarily massively challenging but not trivial either. It's also got a very 'open' structure to its world, with lots of interconnected alleys and paths that are locked early on but can be accessed later, so it's a world you can get lost in, something which is impossible in NG2. It's not quite Metroid but it's something, and it doesn't feel like it's hyperfocused on one thing but tries to execute generally well at multiple things. This is also why I played Black instead of Sigma, as apparently Sigma reduces a lot of these elements (which I forgot, or didn't notice before as I played Sigma 1 first) It makes the world feel a bit more lived, that you aren't just going to each room to diligently kill everything in it and that there might be a platforming or puzzle bit instead. I don't know why exactly that is, but it just does I think. Not all of it is good, some of it is really annoying and the save point placement will do shitty things like put a PoP wall run platforming bit right before a cunt of a dinosaur boss fight, making sure to drive you insane with its repetition. I used a save state for this one area, I just had it and would have izuna dropped my TV if I had to do it again, doing a wall run across a platform with a treasure chest in the way for the fiftieth time was enough. But I think the game is otherwise a more interesting construction than modern types of these games. I was reading a thread somewhere about remaking this game, and someone in there made the point that things we call 'outdated' and 'clunky' are often also just well articulated design decisions, and even some of its flaws are what gives it its flavour and identity and remakes can often smooth out/streamline stuff like that in the name of quality of life. It helps with pacing as well to not just be a constant bloodbath like NG2 is. My weapon of choice is the flail, found it hard to manage in 2 but here you can easily rack up massive multi-hit combos with XXX->XXXXY. Charge up ults with essence to keep the blood flowing. The lunar is not as good in this as in 2 as you can't as easily scoop enemies up in an Izuna Drop I feel, and the way that enemies are far more defensive in this makes it less friendly to spamming as it is in 2 also. The boss fights still aren't up to much, but they're straightforward to beat. I remembered Alma being harder but I dunno, you just zap across the screen a few times, hit her a few more times, and dodge some obviously bad stuff that's well telegraphed.

I think I'm in one of those ruts where I don't fancy playing anything too demanding on the brain, so I've gone from finishing PWSim2, to trying a game from the publishers of Onechanbara called Full Metal School Girl, to this. FMSG is fun, but it's an endless corridor shooter that wouldn't have felt out of place in the PS2-era, so in an attempt to pivot from that, I've tried this - a game about rolling a ball around environments that wouldn't have LOOKED out of place in the PS2-era. Anyway, this is apparently the first completely new Katamari game since 2011. It doesn't do much to upend the classic gameplay the series is known for, but progression feels a little different to the instalments I've played. For a start, you don't just get access to the next level straight after finishing the previous one. Sometimes you need to find crowns in the levels you've already played, and an arbitrary cumulative amount will give you access to the next level. Putting it blunt, it feels a little (ok, a lot) like artificial padding to extend the length of the game. But it's a game about rolling up shit. Give me the option of how much I want to replay levels; don't force me to do it. I mean, I'll eventually go back and do all the levels, because the platinum just requires finding all the crowns on specific maps, but still. Give me the option, let's not make it a requirement. The other thing that's weird with progression is the way it's set up. You go from era to era - I've explored a basic, modern day set of levels, the wild west, a prehistoric chapter, and now ancient Greece. But you have an era select menu, where the ones you've not unlocked yet appear as question marks. So right now mine appears as something like "Modern/?/?/Wild West/?/?/Ancient Greece/Prehistoric/?" (hopefully that makes sense) I imagine it's to clue you in to the different time periods you'll be traveling to, but I feel like there could have been a better way to communicate this. Especially when I'm trying to figure out the best time period and mission to go to next while I'm trying to figure out which levels need me to find more crowns to even get into, and which ones just need me to go back in and find the crowns. Looks-wise, it's very much PS2 in a super-charming way. It still has jaggy edges, characters are still blocky and don't have much animation. For anyone that liked/s Katamari for the personality, you'll find a lot to love here. It's also got those tanky controls that have always defined the series. Much like the visuals, this is either something you'll love for the level of control you can achieve, or you'll hate, because you can't quite get to grips with the intricacies of movement. I'm somewhere between the two right now, but that's normal for me with this series. I've kinda waffled about one of the dumbest game series that have ever been created, but it's also a genuinely fun game. The fact you have no real peril, the fun stuff you can roll up, the silly ideas and charming script all combine to give me exactly what I'm looking for right now. The short run time is also a bonus with these games, so I'm not complaining there either. Last night I went from playing on the PS5 with the big TV to playing on PS Portal, and I feel like handheld is the way to go with this game. On Steam Deck or Switch I can see it being a blast.

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.

This caught my eye when they first showed it because it's really quite impressive visually despite technically being an indie game, and it was recently on sale, so decided to finally give it a go. Fundamentally this is a top-down stealth game with puzzle elements. You could maybe say it's a bit like a streamlined, made-for-console take on what Desperados is, comparable maybe to BioShock's relation to the immersive sim. And while a certain group of people will probably look at that and handwave it away for being dumbed down, I think it's actually a nicely accessible version of a genre that can traditionally be almost endlessly frustrating. A key element here are extremely generous checkpoints, which is a simple but often ignored solution to the problem of stealth games being inherently trial & error at times. There have been moments here where knowing the path enemies are going to take is necessary to solve the area, which is of course a guessing game on the first try. But it pretty much just sets you back right before that moment if you fail, which keeps the momentum going and doesn't take you out of it with a big game over screen. That's not saying that you're going to fail all the time though, of course – simply due to its perspective you have an inherent advantage over all your enemies and I find it relatively smooth so far without many retries, which helps staying in the flow. It starts off relatively straightforward with sneaking being your only tool, but chapter 2 introduces a non-lethal blowdart you can use to get rid of enemies that are positioned in a way you can't pass. You still need to prepare the shot and hide the body afterwards, so it's not a win button by any means. When I checked the controls at the start it also seems that at some point you're going to play more than just Hannah, the initial protagonist, so it's setting up for a certain amount of complexity moving forward. But going by what I've seen so far, very gentle introducing the feature, too. The blowdart for example was neatly introduced by Hanna explaining it to two other, younger orphans of their group, which I think is a nicely diegetic way of designing a tutorial. The story starts rather slow with your brother going missing after doing something that really rattles the local authorities, but it does some rather interesting world-building on the sidelines during the first two chapters. It hints at an authoritarian state in a sort of early industrialised setting that is currently dealing with a sickness called the 'heartpox' (which slowly reduces your heartbeat until you die, hence the name), from which the protagonist miraculously recovers at the beginning. Cutscenes are rendered cinematically with extremely impressive, but slightly overacted, character models that are just a tier below the absolute best in the industry, again quite impressive for a smaller game. I'm playing this in small chunks of one chapter per setting because I heard it's a bit on the shorter side, but I'm quite impressed so far. It's a very scripted, linear stealth experience, so like mentioned earlier maybe not a good pick for people who do live and die for Desperados or certain immersive sims, but except for its perspective it also does remind me a bit of the tone, tempo and ideas found in the Plague Tale titles, even if it's not as bleak (yet?), at least on the surface.

Got Ubisoft+ to play this and 3 days early. I’ve put about 7 hours into this now and I’m quite enjoying it but some of the bad does come in dribs and drabs. Too much of the game so far has been stealth sections in which you cannot use weapons and if caught you surrender and are pushed to the beginning to have to do it all again. Someone at Ubisoft must have thought the stealth section of Ocarina of Time was the best bit 😆 When not doing this though and playing along at a leisurely pace in cities or travelling the large gorgeous world it’s quite a blast and I look forward to getting more into it.

the new game from Double Fine, and it's a lovely looking game. There's a jerky, clumsy look to the world that adds a bit of character to the lighthouse you play as. The world is colourful, and kind of looks flawless, with some cool effects. It's made using Unreal so there's traversal hitching, and shader stutter, which can last a while, like screen frozen time, and was bad enough that the game crashed on me. Really bad, I wish people would stop using Unreal. It deliberately controls badly for the first few minutes, but I can't say I ever loved how it controls, it's fine, and for some sections quite fun, but I kept losing track of the light's direction. It reminds me a bit of another couple of company's games, Amanita Design, the people that made Botanicula, Machinarium etc, the game has that sort of look. And Hazelight, because it does mix the game up fairly regularly, but probably not often enough. It's about 4-5 hours long, and it changes the gameplay up at least 5 times, which is to its credit I think, but unlike a Hazelight game it still spends too often on them. Particularly towards the end, there's a section that really labours its point, it's not the short, quick punch you dont have time to get bored of, or even realise you don't like It really suffers from a sense of "but why?" in its design. I can forgive it in the plot, because maybe that's just me missing something, but so much of the gameplay/puzzles leave you feeling that way. To give an example, there's a point where you get covered in pink fluff, pollen maybe? You see it happen and you see that it means you can now jump and glide for a while, that's an example of it done well. Pretty much every other time it'll be something like you need to get a gold orb from somewhere to take to a giant thing to put in, which means it will now shine a light that destroys a blockage (you have to do this repeatedly). There's a bit where you have to (I think) carry energy from a plant, to the next one, which for some reason gives you more energy yourself, which you keep doing, then you'll have enough to smash through a barrier. It's just a series of ideas that happen because That said, at least it has ideas, a decent amount of them, and a few of them are quite good. That said, I was struggling to keep my eyes open for the first hour or so, genuinely, granted I don't sleep well so that's on me, but it didn't engage me at all I don't know, it seems ok, I can't believe it's as well received as it has been, but I do think the traditional games media love a bit of double Fine, so it could just be different tastes

I think everyone knows what this is and what it's about by now... I've played around with it for three or four hours so far and to be honest I think I'm a little bit in love... Up front, so far I'm pretty bloody awful at dodging and parrying but apart from a couple of (I presume) optional bosses things haven't been too bad and it's not punished me too badly. There's a couple of mechanics that I'm not to sure on, mainly Lune and her "stain" system... she absorbs different coloured stains to power up her spells... but I'm sure it'll fall in to place. There's also something in here that reminds me of Lost Odyssey a whole lot which is nice. It looks lovely after turning off all the usual bullshit such as movie grain and motion blur (seriously do people play games with this stuff on?)... another game that doesn't have hdr though. The voice work is top notch unsurprisingly given the talent involved, music has been wonderful and I'm loving just how somber the whole thing is and given the subject matter I wouldn't want it any other way... can't wait to get my teeth in to this properly with more party members and more combat options.

Stumbled upon this while playing Ruined King, as mentioned, because I thought the developer went silent for a while. Turns out they didn't, but were focused on a (then) PC-only free-to-play MMORPG called Wayfinders. (Un?)fortunately this didn't go to plan, their publisher closed its doors and they were left with a game that had an overwhelmingly negative response on Steam due to its microtransaction model. But newly free of their publishing shackles, they decided to revamp the whole thing, make it a single-purchase game without any additional DLC and refine the offline component to get it out the door on consoles, too. So much for the Star Wars opening scroll. The developer in question is Airship Syndicate, who people might know for Battlechasers, Darksiders Genesis or the aforementioned Ruined King, but for the first time, this is a fully 3D game with a 3rd person perspective. It's somewhat reminiscent of a couple of things, a bit of Borderlands here, a bit of Destiny there, and if you took it under the microscope you might even find some PSO DNA. In other words it's a class-based action RPG you can play solo or with up to three friends. There's a couple of things it does differently though – for example, only three out of the 8 characters/classes are available at the start, a knight/tank, a gunslinger and a rogue. The remaining five will get unlocked by completing certain missions and you can freely switch between them by that point. So unlike similar games where you grind your way through the entire game with one character, this very much encourages you to play around with different playstyles. As a result, none of them have too deep of a progression system and only three unique abilities plus one Ultimate to their name. That is enough for them to play quite differently though. I started off with the rogue who does the usual rogue stuff of being a nimble, fast attacker who can power herself up to damage enemies while dashing through. The character I'm currently playing is the gladiator (character n° 5) who can charge up her abilities, getting hyped by an invisible crowd in the background, and punch twice as hard when releasing the button, which is rather satisfying to pull off. You can, however, mix and match weapons, so if for some reason you want the gunslinger to attack with a sword or the gladiator to run around with a shotgun, nothing's really stopping you. In an unusual twist, both melee and ranged combat feels quite good, the latter makes up for the lack of blocks and parries by having Gears of War's active reload system to significantly boost the power of the next couple of shots fired after reloading. Progression is where I'm a bit split at the moment but I also haven't fully grasped it yet. There's a progression tree, but it only boosts you passively (y does x % more damage). There's also an affinity menu where you can bolster three different types of styles, which influence the stat bonuses you gain from certain equipment linked to that style. So in other words the real growth here happens through equipment, not unlike some of those other games I mentioned at the beginning. But the interconnection between those affinities and the equipment – which also favours using a set for a bonus – can make it a bit difficult to digest at first. Though at least on Normal, it is quite easy at the beginning, so you don't have to run around with a perfect build to survive right from the get-go. Structurally there's a city that works as a hub, from which you can access the first open area. Sprinkled around that area are small caves and larger dungeons, which are partially randomly generated and where the meat of the game takes place. The dungeons can also be modified before entering, increasing the challenge, but also the reward waiting at the end. I've only seen the first open area so far but according to the map there's three in total, so it's quite a big game even if you plan to only play it solo like myself. But I could see how this could be a real time sink if you have some friends interested in it, with all the modifiers and higher difficulties and such. Particularly as some abilities also effect the entire party – the crowd boasting from the gladiator for example is an AOE buff. Of course it also has a story, but it's here you can tell it started off as an MMO because it all happens in stiff dialogue sequences with text boxes. It's good enough to inject some life into the world but hardly the main focus. You also have a neat little apartment you can decorate at will, if you wish, and a lot of the loot you're going to find are weird tables and beds. I'm definitely enjoying it. Exploring the world is fun, the combat feels good, there's really nothing fundamentally wrong with it I think. It won't be for everyone but for such a small studio it's quite an achievement.

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.

Finally bought a new game for my PC. Sure, it was 37 quid and looks like Skyrim, but that's neither here nor there. I think everyone knows it's a bit of a TES clone, down to most of the controls (at least on Xbox pad) being in the same configuration - Y for jump etc. I'm expecting, over the course of the next 50 hours, to be questing, lock picking, alchemy-ing and, most importantly, collecting flora and fauna for the cooking of. My build will be one handed with shield for parrying, and a side line in conjuration. So, pretty much my favourite TES build. Played an hour. Couldn't be happier. For now, at least.

Started playing this yesterday, was recently on a sale (would have loved to pay full price on release, but without a disc on Xbox, well...). The beginning is all over the place and retroactively made me appreciate just how strong an opening Life is Strange had back in the day. Showed you the tornado as the big climax on the horizon and then immediately grounds you with that wonderful sequence in the school's corridors. Lost Records feels more like a JJ Abrams kind of thing where it has that mystery carrot dangling in front of you but remains so vague for so long you start to wonder if the payoff will be worth it. The story starts off very It-like, in the sense that a group of friends did something when they were teens, then made an oath never to talk about it again but at the beginning of the game one of them contacts the protagonist to meet up and it then moves on from there. It's split between the present and flashbacks in the mid-nineties. In an odd twist, the scenes in the present take place in first person – whether this is a stylistic choice or is paving the way towards a twist involving the protagonist's appearance I don't know yet. Kind of leaning towards the latter, and it certainly adds to the mystery. But no matter the perspective this is a Don't Nod narrative adventure through and through, meaning you slowly walk through slightly stylised but detailed environments, look at objects and have your character monologue about things. In between doing that there's dialogue scenes where you pick answers that influence future narrative beats and relationships. So in that sense very much what you'd expect and, frankly, why I'm here for because I really like the LiS games. What's new is that, Telltale style, there's now a time limit on answers, so saying nothing is an option as well. Dialogue also flows naturally 'around' the timing of your picks, a bit like in Dustborn (which was very popular on here), though not as janky, thankfully. The characters so far are relatively stereotypical, but again, that's kind of what I'm here for. Certainly not unlikeable though, the usual bunch of outcasts and nerds that don't quite fit in. Another big element of this game and one I'm not entirely convinced by yet, is using your camcorder to record footage. It's simultaneously used for story progression, for example by having in-universe interviews with your friends, but also doubles down as the equivalent of the camera from LiS1, so to highlight different collectibles in the area, which are thematically linked. For example, if you film a bunch of posters, signs and other things that belong to a movie rental store, they'll get linked up and Swann (the protagonist) will make a little highlight reel with the clips your recorded. On one side it's a neat little interactive feature that does a good job of capturing the magic a camera had on millennials like us before babies got born holding smartphones in their hands. On the other hand it kind of feels like you need to run around with the camera a lot, which distracts from its native visual style and atmosphere. Which might be some clever kind of meta commentary, possibly. I don't hate it, but I think I preferred the simple nature of Max's camera. It hasn't blown me away as of yet, mostly due to how slow the opening is and how often it shifts between present and past. But at the same time I'm quite hooked as to what's going on and it hints rather subtly at some stuff I'm not going to spoil here that goes beyond what I was expecting (though, in fairness, I haven't seen a single trailer or review for this). It took me around 2 hours yesterday just to get to the part where they show the game's title so it's safe to assume I've only seen what would be considered the prologue.

Lots of Oblivion chat so figure I'd post it here I played about 4 hours or so, picked an Acrobat Orc. Lots of jumping, punching and arrow shooting. I have alteration as a major skill, I guess I can use that for shield magic so I don't have to block. It's interesting to revisit as you can imo still sort of feel how BGS generated this sort of inertia with their games that led to them stagnating a lot with Starfield, it kinda starts with this game. But I do think Oblivion is cool in spite of its flaws, it has some of the most interesting one-off questlines. Like the guy who you have to rescue out of a watercolour painting, which I did the other day. I always like the sort of weird episodic style of its storytelling, even if the over-arching narrative is a bit derivative. I don't think I'll be spending too long in Cyrodil this time tho, it's really hard to overlook the level scaling. That you can be at your wits end cracking a hard safe and your reward is another lockpick to replace the 8 you broke and 3 Septims. This is just the kind of thing that when you notice it it can destroy the feeling of exploration, to the point it makes Oblivion the hardest one to return to I think (apparently Skyrim fixed this? I don't know). I'm probably going to just use this as a zone out game now and then when I want a distraction rather than take it too seriously. It got me to install Daggerfall again so I might do the two simultaneously, one for relaxing one for stressing out cause of screaming skeletons. Here's a screenshot with the hardware lumen stuff maxed out, tho I'm keeping it turned off cause it runs badly. It mainly adds/improves self-shadowing to foliage and other things. There's a few minor changes I notice like how when you go up a steep incline, your character's walk animation changes. When you level up, you get these ten 'virtues' to spread across at most three different stats and the amount you spend seems connected with the things you did to gain the level up. So you are still tailoring your character in such a way that their actions govern their attributes, but they don't have this same min-max issue which causes problems in the 2006 game if you get paltry bonuses each level (caused by not leveling minor skills or ignoring the largest bonuses) and falling behind the level scaled enemies. Theoretically that's not an issue here but you won't know until you're at like level 14 or whatever Your health regens out of combat, I don't actually like this change tbh. Hope they let you toggle it off cause I like making potions to do that instead, for the role playing experience and so that mistakes matter more in combat (not that they matter that much or anything, but still) The game looks good enough, but it's got a beige-pink colour grading on everything. It doesn't have the same artstyle as 2006

This is the collection that came out a year or so ago that has both the PS1 games in it. We have a thread for the Wii remake, which I'd completely forgotten about, but that seems to be an actual remake and didn't include the sequel. There's also a PS2 port, which I've played, and we'll get to in a bit, and I think that may have been a remake too. First off, I've played through the first game, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, it's pretty good, and it looks alright all things considered. You couldn't tell looking at it that it was a PS1 game originally. The cutscenes are slow as fuck, there's an option to skip or fast forward them, but a bit of editing wouldn't have been the worst choice, so I've no idea what the plot is because I'm not sitting through all that. The game plays fine, for the most part, the design is pretty simple, early 3d platformer in that it's polygons that you traverse in 2d. You grab enemies and throw them at other enemies and items. Later this is so you can solve puzzles to progress, and these can get tricky, but also use them to double jump. Again, easy enough at first, you're just climbing up to higher platforms, but gets much tougher later. There's a few rough edges, some old fashioned elements with how hit and miss contact can be with enemies, particularly in the background, and it's tougher than something like Kirby which it's most similar too. The bit where it does show it's age is the movement. There's a very digital, block by block feel to how the game handles. There's no overstep to edges, grabs, or the game being generous enough to extend your jump so you make it when you maybe shouldn't quite. It's most noticeable in the more difficult platforming, if you're not precise then it's not happening, but as the world moves in the same stiff pattern as you do it can be a bit maddening. It's where that PS2 version I mentioned comes in. That's the version I've played the most, and I swear the movement is smoother than here. It's that era of Japanese exclusive remakes like the Sega Ages line, so I think it's a full remake of the game, and as such controls a little more fluid. It wouldn't amaze me if that's what the Wii version was based off. Maybe I'm imagining it, but while this is a pretty good version, I'd probably rather play that one

The very king of fighting games is back, and I'm head over heels with the little beauty. It looks and plays incredible. So much detail and so fluid in motion. I know I'll be posting in this thread in five years time, although tbf, probably as the avid spectator to online tournaments that I've been for 10 years by now. Truth is I've never been able to play the thing to any degree of competence, I just like watching other people do it. Having said that I've decided to do something I've never done when (trying) to play it. I'm going to go with grapplers. Maybe slowing things down a bit for myself might be more appropriate for my age - (advanced)!

Randomly decided to fire this up yesterday, maybe finally a topic other people will join in at some point. Anyway, after a solid 40 minutes in the character creator, which is simultaneously very good but also oddly lacking in some areas, I went through the tutorial area they showed in that gameplay clip a few months ago and then did the first proper mission afterwards. Decided to play an elven mage which resulted in a couple of not-important lines during dialogue so far, so I guess the times during which elves were this universe's slaves are over. Combat wise the mage can choose between flinging ranged attacks from a staff or using a magically infused short sword in close combat, in addition to your usual skills you unlock via (a very convoluted) skill tree. My mana pool is very low at the moment so I can barely use those right now, so I hope that changes, because the basic stuff feels a bit dull I think. Not bad, but ... pedestrian? But then again I've barely started and haven't really used the command wheel for my party members either, so I'm not going to judge it on that front yet. Visually this is probably the most impressive game I've played all year and a far cry from BioWare's usual output and an excellent showcase for Frostbite. I'm playing performance mode and it's basically a flawless visual experience, really smooth, really clear, barely any noticeable pop-ins or other distracting graphical scratches and such, while also maintaining all the visual flourishes you'd expect from a current-gen AAA product. I only very briefly switched over to quality but didn't see any noteworthy improvements that would warrant the more sluggish framerate. Annoyingly, while there are a ton of accessibility options, you can't turn of the quest marker for the main quest, so you permanently have some weird snowflake on the screen. Hopefully they patch that out before I'm done with it. The only other gripe I have with its visual presentation is the artstyle, or rather character proportions, as everyone's head is simply too big. We're used to this for dwarven races, but it looks really weird on slim builds like elven characters. But I do enjoy the overall experience so far. Feels good to play a high-end RPG again, even if this falls into a very streamlined action RPG territory that's very far removed from its Origins, eh, origins. Very linear so far, more reminiscent of the earlier games than Inquisition in that sense. So far I like that aspect but that might shift after a couple of hours.

I’ve played this for 4 hours now. And the harsh reviews can honestly fuck right off. They’re way off the mark, in my opinion. Usually, Skill Up does decent reviews, but I don’t agree with his video review of this. He moans that unlocking “Knigthood” for all 4 characters is a massive grind. Is it bollocks. There are two ways to level up. All characters share regular XP, so you can freely switch between them. But each character has a 4th skill tree, Knighthood. This needs to be unlocked for each character, and you do so by killing 3 mini bosses, and solving 10 crimes. In my 4 hours, I’ve got Knighthood unlocked for 2 characters, and almost done it for a 3rd. The way he moans, it’s like it’s a huge chore. He also creams his jeans over Arkham Knight. Personally, I thought that game was boring as fuck. I’ve had more fun with this, than I ever did with that. I’ve also seen some people complain that one fight sequence has the rock remix of Livin’ La Vida Loca. To those people I say “Have you even played Saints Fucking God-awful Row?”. What a stupid complaint. Anyways. Combat-wise, this ain’t Arkham. There’s stealth takedowns, but I’ve not had opportunity to use them much. So far, there’s not the vast array of gadgets that Batman had in Arkham. But, each character has their own play style, and abilities. Robin has been quite fun so far. A lot of people got pissed off when it was revealed this is 30fps on consoles. I’m no graphics expert, and to be quite honest, I’m happy with how this looks on PS5. It looks pretty damn good to me. The story has been interesting so far, and it’s worth swapping characters, as they periodically have their own side missions, which further develop how they’re coping with the loss of Batman. So yeah. I’m having a great time with this so far.

Labelled as a stand alone dlc to the Robocop game from a couple of years ago, there's enough to Robocop Unfinished Business that it feels like more than that. Granted you'd hope for a little more variety in a proper sequel, not because the core shooting is bad, just that it's unchanged from Rouge City The plot is kind of The Raid or the more recent Judge Dredd film, in that it's set in a residential tower block and you're kind of working through it. It's actually where the lack of budget shows because you don't really get a sense you're working through a building, it feels a bit circular and unconnected from each level. The story is that someone has stolen Robocops chair thing, they clearly need it for something nefarious so Robocop tracks them down to an OCP owned apartment block. OCP have moved a bunch of people in but it's all a con, even ignoring the mercenaries that have now taken it over, the residents were sold a con and are pretty desperate. The game is still trudging around and shooting everyone. I still think Robocop is a bit too vulnerable all things considered, but it has to have some challenge I suppose. The issue I have is I tend to linger behind cover and try to pick off enemies, rather than wade in like I think you're supposed to. You get a couple of flashbacks to play through, even at least one none Robocop one. There's a couple of new enemies that I've seen so far, and at least one new weapon. It's been a little glitchy so far, although nothing game breaking for me, although it seems to vary with people experiencing worse than me (I was able to hold 6 health items at some point for some reason). It's still fun though, not as good as the main game, but worth a play if you liked that one, and there's a lot of game for the cheaper price

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

Haven't found as much time for this yet as I wanted between Elena and Switch 2, unfortunately. But I think I'm 10-15ish hours in so enough to form an early opinion. Bit of backstory, but according to EDGE this is a very loose, semi-spiritual sequel to Blade of Darkness, Mercurysteam's debut title (back when they operated under a different banner still). That game can be seen as the progenitor of the souls-like, even though Fromsoftware perfected the formula years later – a bit like the relationship between kill.switch and Gears of War in other words. I never played Darkness though, didn't look appealing to me back in the day and I've since found out it's ridiculously difficult, so I'll continue to stay clear. Playing Blades of Fire I think it's quite apparent that it does approach the genre from a different angle and outside certain mechanics that have been done to death since Demon's Souls – enemies respawning upon rest – they don't have that much in common ultimately. Combat for one is very much its own thing with every face button assigned to an angle of attack, which is both easy to grasp and also leads to some interesting, spur-of-the-moment combos, like swinging a big hammer around from the left and then swirling it around to either hit the enemy in the head or ramming it into their bodies from below. Holding a button executes a heavy attack, which depending on the weapon type has massive windup but usually kills any normal enemy with one blow. Some enemies are vulnerable to specific weapon types or only at certain regions of their bodies, hence the specific targeting. There's a lot more depth here, of course; some weapons like swords and spears can either be swung or used for piercing attacks, which is a toggle that quickly becomes part of your muscle memory. Defensively you have a dodge roll, block and a parry – more on that later – and the block also generates stamina. So while it does have this second infamous energy gauge, it's not some passive thing but just a bit of micromanagement you have to consider. Overall I think the combat is extremely well executed, feels great to play, really solid and satisfying hit feedback and quite gory too if happen to land a charge attack that kills. One of its biggest USPs and also seemingly a point of contention online is weapon forging. Every weapon you wield has to be forged and the process is a mix of putting together materials and completing a little minigame everyone on the internet seems to hate with a passion. I don't exactly love it either, but it's not that bad – plus you can skip it for weapons of the same type after you have done it once. The minigame itself influences how often you will be able to repair said weapon, because, yes, they deteriorate and can break. Usually not a fan of this mechanic (I never used good weapons in BotW) but as this game is so inherently designed around it it's actually kind of a neat feature. They take a while to break, you can always just forge a carbon copy and in my case I found myself using that opportunity to simply try something new when visiting the forge. Case in point I was wielding a spear for a long time to fight small, short-range enemies and by defeating a lot of them I unlocked the blueprints to forge their dual axes, so when my spear broke I did that and are now messing around with this pseudo-Kratos armament. It won't be for everyone but I rather like this 'loop' – and the forge is a cool place anyway with good music and some very heavy, clanky machinery that's fun to watch. The materials you use also allow you to go really in-depth in how the weapon is going to handle, as you can influence damage dealt, stamina consumption, even the parry window (shown in milliseconds) and more. It's pretty cool but thankfully all very easy to grasp, so while you can really dig into the micromanagement, it's definitely not rocket science. And while we're at it, parry timing, even when you really open up the window through forging, is quite strict. We talked about this feature before but it's not really prevalent here and I rarely go for it as a result – but the payoff is huge, as it's staggering enemies for so long that you can land a fully charged heavy attack even for the slowest weapon type. One aspect I have mixed feelings about is its level design. It's of course a significant improvement over the navigational nightmare that was Lords of Shadow 2, but depending on the location its labyrinthine nature can be a bit overwhelming. There's a fort you get to relatively early in the game, with a bunch of stairs circling multiple centralised halls, and some paths are blocked, so you end up never really knowing what floor you're on and what direction you're moving towards (the map is a simple 2D bird's view). Didn't quite enjoy that part, especially as you also have to protect a – thankfully both in gameplay and lore immortal – NPC. Every other area was quite enjoyable to traverse though, those have been more open-sky, woodland + ruins kind of deals, but free from any markers or guidance, so you have to run around a bit to find your bearings. I'm quite enjoying that, feels refreshingly old-school, so hopefully the fort remains an unlucky exception. There's also a sidekick I haven't mentioned yet because he doesn't have a true gameplay function like, say, Atreus in God of War. Instead he's some sort of in-game explanation as to why your logbook automatically fills with weapon blueprints and lore details. In a nice touch he sketches enemies while you fight, so the drawings in the pause menu become more detailed the more you combat the same enemy type. Other than that he's just there to talk a bit here and there but I'd like to point out that story isn't this game's strong suit, at least early on. It does hint at stuff but not much has happened yet. Visually I think it looks a tad dated, but still quite nice. Bit of a hig-res version of a PS4 game, targeting 60 (but not always getting there). They sometimes fill the screen with particles, like if every forest in the world had just burned down, but other than it's neat-looking and the art direction is strong as usual from the team. Anyway, long story short I think this is pretty cool. It's very AA, it has some faults, but the motivating forging and super satisfying combat are real high points. But it's also a game that demands a certain commitment due to how complex its level design is. I've heard it's pretty big so it'll probably take a while until I can give a final verdict. No photo mode and can't turn off the HUD either, so the screenshots are a bit meh.

Started this earlier (didn't try the demo earlier in the year) played for around 2.5/3 hours. Not sure what to think of it yet, it OK to play I guess... definitely not as tight as Elden Ring, there's been a few times where it's seemed like the buttons were a tad unresponsive... and I've also been stun locked which is very annoying. Looks wise it could quite easily be a sequel to Bloodborne... it's very similar. Looks pretty decent though, nice and sharp... I'm playing in quality mode but I have no idea what that does to resolution and framerate in this though. Like most Soulsborne games I'm feeling a little lost at the moment tbh... what with the amount of random items I'm picking up and the amount combat notes being thrown my way... we'll see how far I make it in this as I've read it's fairly difficult and unlike Elden Ring I can't ride on the coat tails of better players so don't be too surprised if my next post on the game is in the "Sacked that off mate" thread.😂