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

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.

The Demo is out now, possibly the first of two if past Resident Evil games are anything to go off. Based on the demo it's pretty faithful to how the original starts, playing up to the village fight before it ends. The opening moments are expanded and they've developed the combat a little. you can stealth a little now, the knife is a button press, there's opportunities to shoot then melee in a more deliberate way than it felt in the original. There's dodging and parrying, and when enemies are downed you can finish them off, which you need to do and I've had a couple change on me even this early in the game (this could be a demo thing) There are a few changes, as said there's a expanded start with some more story telling played out, and some subversion of what you expect, which runs throughout the demo My only issues so far, I don't like the aiming. I think by design it's easy to miss, but I'm not really a fan of how easy it is to miss even when you aren't being rushed. I'm also not a huge fan of how it looks. That might be a common thing with the engine, assuming this is the same as the RE2 remake, because I thought that could look a little rough at points. I've played the performance mode, and it has loads of ghosting when you turn the camera, whenever there's movement, and just at certain points on any fine detail, so I'm not sure what reconstruction they're using but it's not working great (playing on PS5). I might have another run on the graphics mode to see, then I might even download the PC version

Bought this on a whim after seeing DF's video about it. Originally came out in 2022, but has since been ported to every hardware on the planet that has a screen, the latest of which is Switch 2. The only Grid I ever played was the first one they released on PS360 back in the day, when their Ego Engine made their debut (which, to my surprise, they're still using to this day, which is neat). But this feels very much like that game, because it's still fundamentally a take on the MSR/PGR street-racing template, with city courses and other urban areas being the main stages. It also has a minor version of the kudos system in place where certain actions like staying on the racing line and doing neat driving earns you extra XP. This is also the game where people raised their eyebrows a bit upon announcement because it features full FMV cutscenes and some sort of rags to riches storyline. It's super campy and I sometimes skip the scenes, but at the same time it's kind of nice to give everything a bit more context than just picking a track and driving around. It does make me wonder if the production costs were worth it though, considering it stars, among others, Ncuti Gatwa, who can't have been a cheap booking after Sex Education and Dr. Who. But this is only part of the content, because next to the strictly curated story mode (of which there are four seasons) there's also a classic career mode where you start with slow cars, built up some reputation and money and hire your own team. There's even a mini skill tree that allows you to develop commands for your teammates to order them block dangerous opponents during a race for example – though I haven't really tried any of that yet. Handling is like that middle ground between a pure sim and nutty stuff like Ridge Racer, but there's a lot of adjustments you make in the settings that probably can shift it slightly further in either direction. I left it at normal and all the standard settings which feels relatively arcade-y, with oversteering being borderline impossible but you still need to take your corners with care. As for the Switch 2 port itself, it's quite excellent. It has two modes in TV and four modes in handheld mode (one of which is battery saving, which I've never seen before), which you can pick independently, so no switching around whenever you change the way you play. I quickly decided to stick to quality mode because it gives you native resolution in handheld and just overall a very nice picture quality with a stable 30fps (the screenshots below are from handheld mode), but DF's videos suggested they're all good and it's down to personal preference. The big talking point on Switch with these games is always the lack of analogue buttons, but due to the arcade-gameplay of it I don't find it that bothersome – though at higher difficulties without ABS and other assists it might become a more obvious downside. (You can turn a lot of stuff off you see in the screenshots, too – motion blur and basically every HUD element as well.)

Started earlier this afternoon around 2ish and got around 4 hours with it... with around half of that mucking around with the character editor... Made my Arisen... Tried to make Fighter Jill Valentine, to be fair I don't think she turned out too bad...🙂 Next up my Pawn... Who turned out to be a hot Elven Archer called Laurana... Although I've made both of them too bloody tall and they both tower over the male NCP characters wondering around... so once i get the chance to modify them I'll shorten them down a bit. As for actual game play it's very familiar if you've played the first game and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing... it feels really weird feeling lost on the map because of that though as I knew the previous games areas like the back of my hand. It also seems like the Pawns are really ferocious in this as half the time they've demolished the Goblins and Harpies before I've managed to draw a bead on them... It's nice to be back in this world and I can already tell I'm gonna have a ball with the game.

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 through this roughly a month ago but never made a topic. But I feel like I need to lure @Nag away from the dinoboobs so he can play something decent, and I also just dabbled a bit with New Game+ earlier (not sure if I have an entire second playthrough in me, though it is a very nicely paced, frictionless ride). In any case, this is a bit of a weird one because the game called Echoes of the End that got panned by critics upon release and the one you can buy now are two totally different beasts. I never played the original version, but from reading through what they added with the Definitive Edition – skill trees, stat-altering accessories, craftable armour – it must have been very barebones and empty at launch. Not so anymore. In short what it does is put you into the shoes of Ryn, a vestige, which is this universe's moniker for someone who can use magic, in Ryn's case: telekinesis. It's a very personal story mostly revolving around saving your brother from an evil army, but it does feature some believable character development on the protagonist's side. Some key plot points don't hit as hard as the writers probably wanted, but at its very wholesome conclusion I did want to spend more time in that universe and with those characters, so I did something right, for me at least. On the gameplay side it comes as no surprise then that your telekinetic abilities play a big role, in either combat, platforming and puzzle solving. Because this is a good, old-fashioned videogame where you do a little bit of all three of those things in regular intervals. Platforming is self-explanatory (you jump and climb), while puzzles are actually quite well-designed in the sense that you're rarely doing one sort more than once. Some of the more basic stuff, like shifting platforms around with telekinesis, is a more frequent sight, sure – but the rest is mostly unique to the area you're currently in, like navigating desolate ruins with fake mirage bridges, or channeling your powers through a stone that can shift between two time periods, like that one level from Titanfall 2. There's no real headscratcher in there, but they're also not mind-numbingly easy – just a good mix to give you something to do other than jumping and fighting. Combat is probably where the most effort went in, though mostly in terms of polish and options, not necessarily depth. The aforementioned skill trees allow you to develop pure martial art, telekinesis powers, defensive abilities and coop manoeuvres (there's an NPC following your around for most of the journey). You can max out three out of four of these in one playthrough, so it's not primarily about choice but rather about the order in which you unlock stuff. Combat itself is a classic light/heavy attack affair with dodges and parries, plus a couple of telekinesis stuff. The latter feels a bit half-baked early on because the manapool is so low, but in the late game it becomes a bit more integral to the fights. It can be a bit clunky at times – the developers didn't go to Remedy's school of snappy object throwing – but it works well enough and gives you more options than just slashing your way through (which does, at least, feel quite impactful and satisfying). And I think 'well enough' describes this game perfectly: absolutely no part of it stands out in any shape or form, but for a debut title (from Iceland no less, don't think I've ever played a game made over there) it's very confidently put together, it has barely any lengths or annoying bits, doesn't repeat its major ideas and set pieces, feels well-balanced on normal. Overall a really solid 7 that could pave the way for an extremely good sequel if they ever get a chance. It's also that rare breed of a game that is an excellent piece of advertisement for UE5, because it looks technically phenomenal – albeit a tad orthodox in terms of environmental art – and runs at a rock solid 60fps throughout despite the developer's meagre resources. It does have a quality mode, but for some reason activating it makes the game bug out and crash, but I never saw a reason to play it like that anyway, considering it would severely impact two out of its three major gameplay facets.

I'm very early in this, but I picked up my save which was right at the start of the main part of the game, after the prologue. I'll say right away that the prologue is a very poor onboarding to the game. It goes on for about 3 hours I think, involves a lot of tedious, rail-roaded shite, and it's hard to really care about what's going on with Henry at this early point of things. So it's why I stopped. I picked it up again and have wandered around a bit, and I think I'm more into it. Straight off what it feels like is a more sim-heavy version of Oblivion. Oblivion is my point of comparison cause of how the game gives every NPC some sort of routine, they go to sleep and they kick you out of their houses, things like that. Not that Oblivion is the first game to do that but it's the most notable example from the HD generation There's a huge attention to detail in this, having been to a castle just outside Prague and seeing some of the countryside IRL I feel like I can appreciate that part of things more this time around. You go in all these churches and there's these frescoes and things, and they throw a mountain of historical context at you in the codex if you're into that. It's definitely a game for a particular type of history nerd, or, if you prefer, extremely boring people. So I'm into that. I've done very little still in the way of actual gameplay though, haven't even swung my sword since the prologue. I stole an apple and loaf of bread and wandered around at night without a light, which apparently gets you chucked into prison (nevermind that I was right behind another NPC without a light, and did they arrest that guy? Did they feck). I'm still at that point of blindly fumbling through the fog of systems, survival mechanics and quests, but I think these initial parts of a deep, open world RPG where you work your way through your bafflement are sort of the magic hours, before it all settles into predictable routine and czech-lists. So I'll savor it cause it's not often you get a lavish, HD open world game that is anyway hostile to its players and pushes back a bit. I think this game is actually more gentle to the player than its reputation, I haven't had a problem getting food or things like that, but my point is it doesn't feel like a gentle themepark ride the way modern Bethesda games can feel There's a hardcore mode as well, but I'll save that for the sequel, if I complete this one (I heard the sequel is easier)

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

I'm shallow and wanted a pretty game for my PC, so I got this. Mainly off the back of Alex at digital foundry comparing it to Crysis a lot It's a fairly boilerplate Far Cry template, for the most part. Big map, fogged up until you go to different areas. Towers must be captured. It's got some things in it though which I think are neat. One thing is I think the criticism about Ubisoft checklist games is reaching some decision makers at the company, as it foregoes map icons and tries to hide the waypoint janitor busywork within a more organic framework. That framework still being a Far Cry template, you craft and gather and stealth archer your way around. But it feels more cleverly integrated and less of a checklist (tho undoubtedly this is something that'll be less the case after time with the game, when the novelty wears off) You play a Navi and your background is a bit fish out of water. I've not seen the 2nd film, and I just don't care enough, but it's straightforward enough and seems to take place alongside the 2nd one I think. The whole ethos of its gameplay seems to be like you're a hunter gatherer on Pandora. There's dynamic time of day and weather, though oddly it seems for the opening this is entirely scripted and not dynamic? I'm not sure why that is. But if effects gathering mechanics cause somethings you want to gather at night, or while it's raining, or vice versa. Then you get better ingredients for cooking. There's also a whole mechanic in the game around 'clean kills' and 'mercy kills' for enemies, which requires you to study their weak spots and basically kill them quick and with few shots. It's very difficult, moreso than it sounds, I haven't done it properly once The game is the most visually spectacular game I've seen in a year full of visual spectaculars. It's Crysis but for the present day. The foliage density is peerless, they even have a 'hidden' graphics setting called 'Unobtainium' which sets everything way higher. I don't find I need that though, one thing I find is after about an hour playing this my eyes are really sore and I might have a headache. Said this before about Horizon, but there's so much detail here it's hard to take it all in and I think I'm not blinking as often as I should. Combined with the HDR highlights it's like my corneas are getting mildly seared. So it's very visually fatiguing. On the one hand, that level of visual noise is annoying. It's difficult to see things when you're running through the forest. On the other, it's weirdly immersive in that the enemies with their camouflage actually camouflage, and you need to use your navi vision to spot them (the visual effect for this sucks though, it looks like a migraine). The fauna behave a lot like the wildlife in RDRII, and do a lot to make the game world feel alive and will scuttle under the foliage and come out to surprise you, and fuck you up. The flora is also interactive, you can shoot certain plants and they will let off a big fart or smoke and I assume that has gameplay implications if you want to fuck with the soldiers. It's not on a TOTK level at all, but it means a lot that the world isn't static. The weather and your own character will displace and move the leaves and things around. It's a world that's really well laid out also in terms of getting around, you have these huge branches which form almost a highway system which let you get back and forth quickly. The movement system feels like a pared down version of Mirror's Edge and all these different systems and mechanics blend together quite well I'm finding. It works well enough that it makes hunting and gathering not feel as tedious as it might be. Naturally those movement mechanics lend themselves well to combat also, my fave trick being to jump between branches and do a charge jump out of cover to headshot a soldier (this has a very nice and generous aim assist, worth using even on M&K) All those details are really cool. It's very standard tho in its gameplay structure. You go to outposts, fix their broken shit, beat up the humans turning the forests into ass, unlock more regions of the map. It's still one of those games, but they try and keep more of it within the world rather than within a map system. It even does a thing where they don't actually give you a waypoint for a quest, they give you a text description like 'go south of the river and look for the smoke, beat up the RDA'. Or 'find the home tree near yada yada'. It makes you learn the geography and orient your way there. All that said, I don't see this landing anywhere but number 10 on my goty list, but it shows how you can make this style of game feel less like a spreadsheet and more like a video game by surfacing it in a more 'old fashioned' way

Well this has turned out to be a very pleasant surprise... So let's get this out there straight the way, although this has strong rhythm elements you could (up till where I've played at least) get by with a bare minimum of rhythm... yeah you'll get damage perks and better scores but you can button mash your way through just as well. It looks lovely, very stylized with a look of Lollipop Chainsaw or Sunset Overdrive and for me pretty humorous too without going too far that way. Special mention must go to the soundtrack which so far has been pretty amazing, especially the original music and the way the whole stage seems in sync with the beat. There's a fairly decent amount of accessibility options too for people, who like me, have no rhythm whatsoever... so far so enjoyable and it's a game I probably never would've given a second thought to if not for my Game Pass sub... Great stuff.

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.

This is a massive WRPG based on the Harry Potter book/film series from the early to late 2000s. Potter, Malfoy, Hermione, Ron, Neville & Co. aren't in this though as it is set in the late 1800s, so it's set in the same world and there are certainly plenty of references to the books/films, certain character names etc. and some fan service in terms of locations you'll visit (particularly the intro which is super cool for a Potter-fan, which I won't spoil) but it doesn't try too hard or wink metaphorically at you too much if that makes sense. You play as a new character of your choice who joins Hogwarts as a 5th year, one of the few Witches/Wizards that have done this in history. The game is set in Hogwarts itself and its surroundings, no real surprise there. Hogwarts itself is absolutely gigantic, filled with labyrinthian corridors, dungeons, classrooms with all the key locales you'll recognise from the films like the moving staircase, broom lawn, clock tower etc. everything feels exactly as it should do, everything is in its correct place from the films and just feels right. Outside of Hogwarts is a humungous world to explore based on the Scottish Highlands, with plenty of greenery, forests and undulating hills, flora and fauna, Hogsmeade is largely the shopping district where you'll get all your bits needed for your classes and adventures throughout the region, it's every bit as charming as it is in the films and an absolute delight to just walkthrough and take in all the kookiness of the wizarding world you inhabit. The two core pillars to the game, as in many games I guess, are combat and exploration. The combat is easily what has surprised me about the game the most, I think when you look at it in videos it's quite easy to dismiss as being perhaps a bit overly simplistic but in your hands it's got a lot of depth to it. There's a weight to the spell casting that isn't easy to get across on video, I don't really know how to describe it but there's a wind-up to the animation, a motion, a movement to it, it's not just firing off little bolts of whatever spell, it feels like you've actually cast it if that makes any sense at all lol. Different enemies will have a shield that corresponds with a certain spell colour (red, purple, yellow are the main combat-based spells) which you'll have to use to break their shield and ultimately defeat them. You can have up to 12 named spells in the spell wheel at any one time (need to hold R2 and press one of the face buttons to cast), these act as special spells on a cooldown meter. On top of this you've also got your regular no-name spell which you can cast at anyone at anytime by pressing R2 (or by using L2, going into a 3rd-person over the shoulder aiming mode) which you can keep firing off at enemies whilst your special spells are on a cooldown. There's a lot of different enemy types I've encountered so far. These Guardian/Statue type things I guess a little bit similar to the Gargoyles in Souls games or something (maybe?), your more standard dark witches/wizards, Ashwinders which are kind of suped up dark witches/wizards, Spiders, Wolves, Trolls, Goblins, these little furball looking things that reside in rivers/lakes (can't remember the name), so there's a lot of variety there and each have their own strengths and weaknesses for you to exploit. Combat in this game is far from easy as well, it's not anywhere near something like Souls or something like that but you do have to think about your attacks, strategies etc. quite a bit, it's not mindless button mashing in the slightest, there is some strategy involved and some threat associated whenever you enter a combat scenario. Exploration is handled a little more how you'd expect really, I absolutely hate the 'Ubisoft game' analogy as I feel it's a lazy quasi-criticism, I've played many and they're all slightly differently to one another but the closest analogy I can give to how this game handles its exploration is AC Valhalla. The landscapes are very similar on the surface of it, one being set mainly in England and this being set in the Scottish Highlands, there are these 'Merlin Trials' which are very similar to a lot of the little puzzles and glitches you see dotted around in that game. Standard kind of stuff like getting a ball from the top of a hill down into a hole, lighting three pillars before the time runs out, exploding 4 rock columns, having to lead a group of fireflies into a column to light it up, just little bits and pieces like that. There's a lot of collectibles to get, the field pages are the most plentiful of the bunch, I think Hogwarts alone has over 100 of these that you get by pressing Revelio to reveal hidden objects in the surroundings, much like the pulse mechanic in a lot of games that reveals hidden items, there's also Chests, little statues, seals to find where you'll have to lead a dragonfly-type thing to a cabinet to squash it into the hole and open it up. Nothing too ground-breaking here or anything really no one has seen before, but they all work well in harmony with one another. Again, similar to AC Valhalla there's also dungeons and caves you can enter dotted around the landscape, the infamous bandit camps where you have to clear them out and find the chest to tick them off as completed, Balloons in the sky to pop whilst flying your broom, broom time trials, mini-games with your wand you can compete with other students at Hogwarts. The game has such a fantastic atmosphere to it and is such a joy to explore, whether that's just walking around on foot or flying around on your broom, it's always visually arresting to just meander even if you don't have a set goal in mind. The attention to detail here is just absolutely staggering, there's a sweetshop in Hogsmeade and every single individual kooky wizardy type sweet is included in such an special authentic way, every aspect of the game feels extremely polished, it runs well and everything feels like it has that same attention to detail that the sweetshop has, it really is a sight to behold. Graphically, this is a current-gen showpiece, the world feels so alive and helps bring everything to life and look as magnificent as it does, the music in this game is absolutely fantastic as well and helps place you into this world. There's a few ditties in here that will sound familiar if you've seen the films but nothing is a straight up rip from the movies, everything feels unique and makes you feel like you're on your own adventure in this world, not reliving Harry's. The sound design with all the spells like 'Lumos' sounding exactly how it should from the films, is really special. Again, it just helps drive home how much attention to detail was spent in this world and getting everything right, in terms of world design and world building, it's nothing but a masterpiece. The story itself has been interesting too, I'm not too far in as I've been mostly ignoring it and doing collectibles, side quests and all that good stuff, but yeah it has been intriguing so far and I can't wait to learn more, I've only just got my broom at 22-ish hours in which is meant to be something you get within the first 3 hours, so I think I'm quite behind on this front lol. Talking of side quests, they're in here but largely unremarkable really, they're standard kind of side quests where you'll have to clear out a bandit camp to get an item or something like that, nothing out of ordinary. Occasionally you do get assignments from the various different classes at Hogwarts which will give you a couple of tasks to complete, this are usually more interesting and reward you with a nice little classroom scene once you hand it to the Professor in question. So yeah, I think it is absolutely fantastic so far. I just wish I had more time to play more of it really, it's one of the best WPRGs I've played in recent years, feels like its had an awful lot of money spent on it and is just dripping in polish and attention to detail. A must-play if you're a fan of the films/books but I think a great game (so far) in its own right and well worth playing still if you're not. Pics:

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.

Quick thread to kick it off. I'm 2 chapters in, trying it on hard mode (you cant change after selecting, warning for that upfront). Beat a boss fight It's got some cool visual stylings, but it's a game I'm not sure I have calibrated correctly. It's extremely dark and grey, have went back and forth on what the intent is here. If I set the HDR brightness high it improves things but washes out many of the darker scenes. I think they really want you to play in pitch blackness. I don't want to dunk on the game too early in, it's one I was looking forward to. But I'm finding it a bit boring. It's got some interesting setup, very Twin Peaks. I guess even similar to season 3 in a sense, given the time gap. But I don't really feel like I'm investigating stuff, I'm just sort of running through mazes and corridors unlocking the next exposition dump, and a samey FMV jump scare happens now and then. Then you go into the 'mind palace' and stick photos on a wall by pressing A a lot. I read a review which says it gets off to a very slow start though, so maybe I'll turn around on it. I hope so anyway. By this point with Control though I was completely bought into it. This in comparison is feeling very standard, at least in these early hours

So I'm about 4-5 hours into this, and so far it has been nothing less than phenomenal. It's a sequel to 2019's Jedi Order and takes place 5 years after the events of that game, again with Protagonist Cal Kestis (motion captured by Gotham's Cameron Monaghan), this time a lot more attuned to his Jedi powers, a little more dishevelled and world-weary but nonetheless determined to expunge the Empire from the Galaxy bit-by-bit, using his Jedi powers in tandem with small groups of misfits around the galaxy to do so. As this is a sequel, it plays very similarly to Jedi Order. You pilot Cal, his lightsaber(s), wield the force and explore different planets around the Galaxy in way reminiscent of a Souls-like and something like GoW/Tomb Raider 2013, you're able to go round different paths only to come to a dead end that will have a shortcut nearby it which will lead you back to a Mediation point (this games' Bonfires), you'll also encounter areas and paths that are inaccessible to you on your first visit, you'll have to return to these later once you have the required power and unlock the path. There's a lot of games like this nowadays, particularly open world third-person adventure games, so it's likely you've played one similar at some point, pretty much everything is back from Fallen Order, the way the game plays mentioned above, the platforming, certain set pieces, certain slidey bits you drop down into before/after/during said set pieces, you'll be lightsabering a lot of Troopers and wildlife, solving puzzles and collecting trinkets. There is a grappling hook of sorts this time around I don't remember being in FO, there are also stances that enable you to dual-wield, double-end or just have the standard saber setup. You can now customise Cal to the Nth degree (apart from changing his hair colour), including his Beard, Clothes and Hairstyle, along with his Saber (oo err) and your trusty Droid BD-1 who, again, returns from FO. So far I've explored two planets. The game itself starts off in the dingy underbelly of Coruscant, which is every bit as amazing as you think it's going to be, Neon signs everywhere, cyberpunk vibes out the wazoo, flying cars whizzing about all over the place, gaudy electric billboards and all the trappings you'd expect from this City Planet if you've seen the films. This planet is quite linear, you pretty much have your objectives and can still go off into mini-exploration zones which usually circle back and where you first started exploring from, but a lot of it is locked off for the time being, giving you a streamlined approach to the objective at the levels finale. Koboh is the second planet I've been exploring and is absolutely bloody massive. It's a Wild West feeling Frontier planet (complete with the accents!) which seems to just go on and on for miles from the vistas I've found so far. It's rocky but with plenty of beauty and charm, lots of interesting wildlife and interesting flora and fauna to look at and admire, I thought Coruscant was a visual spectacle but some of the vistas in this have been absolutely mindboggling. Compared to Coruscant which felt like a Planet you'd visit, this seems to be the Bogano of Survivor, the hub planet, with loads of different paths possible for you to take, loads of NPCs to speak to, shops to peruse and lots of mini-games and activities you can partake in Whilst I very much enjoyed the previous game, it did have lots of niggling technical issues that would eat away at your enjoyment from time to time, it just never really felt polished. You'll manoevre Cal onto a bit of pipe and he'd randomly do a Tee pose, there would be silly little bugs frequently enough that you'd notice them and kind of roll your eyes but never really annoyed or frustrated, that kind of stuff. But here, thankfully, all that has seemingly been eliminated, in my eyes at least, as everything feels so incredibly polished and buttery smooth, as alluded to above the game is a visual spectacle, it looks absolutely bonkers at times, particularly on my TV. I'm playing in Quality Mode on PS5 for reference. If on PC though, it might be best to wait a couple of weeks for a patch, because, much like most big recent PC releases that version has been borked - which is a shame and not acceptable - but if on XSX on PS5, this would get a strong recommendation from me already, particularly if you're into Star Wars and/or similar third person adventure metroidvania/souls-like type games. Pics:

I guess I'll try and kick off a thread for this. I got this yesterday and played through most of the Berlin mission. I'm basically at the end of it but trying to hold off on progressing too fast and want to savour things a bit. These games are so good at designing levels which are rewarding to explore, I always enjoy the feeling of taking a really long time to work my way to a specific area and then finding a really inconspiocus short cut I could have taken, the multibranched progression through each stage and the way it twists and winds into itself makes it fun to literally just walk around looking at shit. Even while not necessarily making much progress on your targets. I play with almost all the HUD elements turn off except the one which lets me see targets are red guys. Not to make the game obtuse or difficult but to get more of the pleasure of just wandering around looking for ways in, or eavesdropping convos. You do sort of need the instinct vision tho as some targets are not very obvious to look at, especially in Berlin I'm not playing Hitman for the story so I was happy to jump right into the first mission that interested me, I tried a bit of Dubai but it looks more like an introductory mission with some story handholding. Not that that's bad, they do it in the other games too. Berlin is very classic Hitman tho. It even has a flavour of Hitman Absolution to it with the way it sets things up, but I think it's better than Absolution The premise of it is Older Hitman games have played with this concept a bit (Silent Assassin, Blood Money) but it takes center stage here It's quite a pretty game, it doesn't look hugely different to the last two but they made some lighting adjustments like screen space reflections. Not ray tracing, but I don't think it really needs it. The older levels get updated with it as well. I posted some screens in the screenshot thread but they came out a little too dark and don't get the visuals across very well. I imagine it looks great on Series X/PS5. There's also some great line reads in this. I'll probably just dip into levels from all three games now that they're all on the one package and 60GB. I still have to do Japan in 1 and every mission in 2. For now I'll stick with the new stuff.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.