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Finally getting round to playing this. Far as I’m concerned, Ryu ga Gotoku can do no wrong. From the outstanding Yakuza series, to the insane but glorious Fist Of The North Star. So I had high hopes for this. Reached Chapter 2, and I’m really enjoying it. Kamurocho is as familiar as ever, and looks just as amazing as it did in Yakuza 6. They’ve added some new mini games, though to be honest they’re pretty weak. Following people in forced stealth trailing missions is never my idea of fun. Here, you can quite often have several one after the other. Which is a ball-ache. They’ve ditched Kareoke, which is a real shame. As blasting out “BREAKING THE WORLD” was always fun. The English dub is actually really well done, they’ve clearly put effort into it. I usually prefer the original Japanese audio, but they’ve done a decent job with the dub. The combat doesn’t feel quite as satisfying as Zero’s, a lot of moves are locked in the skill tree. Still, it’s off to a good start.

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:

Picked this up because I needed something to get my gaming juices flowing again and it has reviewed very well. It’s basically out on everything. I’ve played around 40 minutes and it mostly involves solving environmental puzzles similar to something like Hob, without the combat, which was a game that I quite liked. Nothing taxing so far. My current save file is saying 22% which would mean that the game is probably in the 3-5 hour range. I don’t have any problem with that considering the length of other games I’ve played this year.

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

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

Sam Barlow's latest game, who did Her Story (which I've not played and know nothing about) and Telling Lies (same) I spent about 5 hours last night and saw credits, however I don't think I'm close to complete I just happened to trigger the scenes which lead into credits. I'm sort of frustrated by it and not sure where it lands with me. It's very hard to talk about without spoiling stuff but at the very least the premise can be explained (it's in the trailer), it's about an actress who starred in three films which never released. One made in the 60s, the other 70s and then 90s. You're reviewing footage of the films and behind the scenes stuff, and some other stuff that's a spoiler. You're supposed to look at the videos and click through different points of interest to unlock other footage, which could be directly connected (same people, same movie) or decades apart. The reason I find it frustrating is there's some stuff it does really well and other stuff I'm not convinced about. The stuff it does really well is it's absolutely an impressive production that's all about fetishising the movie-making form and how it changes over time and between genres. You've got your sexy Chinatown style neo-noir, some weird Lynchian style thriller, some really schlocky yet to fun to watch erotica. It's very self-reflexive, looking through the films at itself sort of thing. That stuff is either going to hit with your or it won't and it will depend on your own movie interests and history with some of the stuff it seems to evoke, I think. It's just the interaction with it all leaves me feeling a bit weird. The three movies basically are a series of linear narratives broken up into a bunch of hyperlinks to each other. There's an obvious thematic link with some of the stuff they're going for and as you slowly thread all the fragments together some of the stuff will lock into your brain as being significant. It's a game about the act of viewing stuff obsessively over and over and unlocking these links. You don't just watch something once and leave it alone, you rewind that shit back and check again to notice stuff that maybe escaped your attention earlier. But the gameplay mechanics for establishing said links seem completely random to me. I ran into one which seemed very deliberate and hinted at a big secret behind one of the BTS events for one of the films, but I went back later and found out that the way the two scenes were laid out was completely coincidental. The thing I deduced was accurate but the act of the game showing it to me seemed like pure RNG. But I guess that could also be the point? I don't know. It's sort of challenging stuff, I think it getting a 10 from Edge and being on Gamepass means it will get put in the crosshairs of lots of 'games should only be fun' type of folk, but I do think the interactive part of the narrative struggles a bit to relay the clear ambition of this piece. I think my opinion on it will change a lot though when I find the rest of the clips and have actually 'beaten' it and can go back and study the footage more freely, rather than doing this weird whack-a-mole type thing unlocking it all

Been mucking around with this over the last couple of nights, probably put in 4 or 5 hours (maybe more)... I'm not going to pretend we have GotY on our hands but it's doing exactly what I expected of it, namely leaving your brain behind a blasting the ever living fuck out of anything that moves. It's nailed the look and sounds of the movies, at the start you have a fairly basic create a character menu with male and female options, there's four classes each with their own perks and abilities... so far so normal. I went with the Demolition class as I wanted to be like Drake in the film and repeatedly shout "right on Vas" while I'm mowing down Xenos with the Smartgun. The fodder "runner" enemies don't really offer too much in the way of tactics, they'll head straight at you but some of the other types do use hit and run tactics using vents and stuff to get behind you and cause a little mayhem... I've also just got to a level where it's almost turned in to a Gears game (there's a cover system... which is no use at all with the Aliens) as I'm fighting the Working Joe's from Alien Isolation. I'm only around half way through the game (there's 4 acts with 3 missions in each) and there's been a decent amount of backdrops so far. I can imagine the game is going to get pretty difficult too especially if I play above normal difficulties as when more than a couple of Warrior type enemies appear things generally fall to shit... and that leads to the games biggest failing so far, matchmaking is fucked, so far I've found one game and the game taking the place of real players really doesn't cut it. I hope that they can sort out whatever is going on with that because it is putting a slight downer on the whole experience.

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I’m very bad at it but 2042 seems alright. There was a 10gb update so I missed out on all the bugs I think. The only jank I’ve noticed is slow texture loading at the beginning of a match (ps4 pro) and sometimes your body might go a bit mad when you die. The levels I’ve played on have been ok but I’ve not played enough to have memorised any of them. The one with the skyscrapers and has a huge tornado rip through the middle of the map was a stand out moment. I got killed because I was stood staring at it. It looked awesome was giving me anxiety. They seem to have stopped giving you anything if you have played any previous BF games which I don’t mind I guess but some recognition would have been nice. Just some gamer card art. I don’t understand the load outs just yet. You seem to be able to give anyone anything? Like give an assault guy a medic pack instead of ammo? I didn’t play around with it much so idk. It all sounds very nice and the pro version looks a lot better than the base ps4. God knows what the og xb1 version must look like. The menu and UI and a lot cleaner and user friendly than what I remember of 1 and 5. It’s Battlefield.

This is more of a personal archive than a real topic, as I doubt there's much interest in this game here. Fundamentally it's a relatively straightforward resource-collecting and crafting game. The gameplay loop consists of collecting wood, flowers, stone and other materials to use for some art & craft stuff you can then sell at the weekly eponymous night market, which in turn gives you enough money to buy new gathering tools, which in turn unlock new areas with new resources, which, you guessed it, allow you to craft more stuff. You basically go through this process on repeat until you reach the final area, as every area is part of a larger story that involves a mysterious agency, a legendary guardian animal and a truckload of cats. It does mix up proceedings here and there though. The first time you enter an area you have to free a couple of caged cats and get rid of the agents there, which in gameplay speak is always a little stealth section (albeit a very simplistic one – think OoT's castle garden). Gathering and crafting involves completing short QTEs and every night market ends with a little minigame, like a play, a cat race or something along those lines. It's not really a game that'll draw you in for its gameplay mechanics, but rather its unique charm and presentation, the classic carrot dangling in front of you and a genuinely touching narrative that falls a bit into coming-of-age territory. I've heard people say they find it grindy and repetitive and I technically can't argue against it. Sometimes you need to gather certain materials a couple of (ingame) days in a row to get what you need and if you mess up hoarding season-specific items like, say, certain spring flowers, you'll have to wait for the night market in summer to stock up on them. But I still quite enjoyed it, it's super relaxing and super adorable and its quirky sense of humor and narrative can pull you along when maybe the gameplay alone couldn't. I saw the credits after roughly 20 hours but it's also open-ended, so you can still go about maxing out friendship levels with NPCs (which always involves giving them items you crafted or found) or completing the little museums with resources you found, even after the story has reached its conclusion. Switch version is a bit wonky (though way better than on release) with comparatively long loading times that also result in the music stuttering, making the whole thing feel a bit unpolished. There's also some formatting errors in the text (they have it set up to give plurals always an -s, so you end up with stuff like 'Got 10 sands' or '5 Special Nikko Flowerss'). It also, oddly, doesn't use the B button or the D-pad at all, so you have to navigate menus with the stick and close them with the same button you opened them with. But I can forgive those problems as it's made by a really small team that also had to take a long break in development due to burnout. I suspect at least the loading times being shorter on other platforms, but I also think it's really well suited to handheld play. Disclaimer: it's not a farming game, despite what this image might suggest.

FromSoft isn't messing around! Giant Mech✔️ Missile launcher✔️ Big gun✔️ Laser sword✔️ Jet propelled agility✔️ ..And go! This isn't Metroid however, this is your standard tool kit. Master it quickly. You get about the first couple minutes to introduce you to the controls. Then, you're on your own. Free to roam and battle as you wish. Your first objective has four markers, to be approached in any order. Naturally there is a lot of distance between each and From is quick to demonstrate that the enemies have the advantage. This is their base, you are the intruder. Be prepared to fight waves around any given corner. Some nice little Codec-like voices are your only warning the enemy has spotted you. The controls have come a long way since early AC's. After only an hour or so, I get what they were saying about taking what they've learned from Souls (more from Sekiro, really) and applying it to AC. Combat is fluid, reactionary and fast-paced. It all feels really intuitive, however. I imagine the first boss will be a rude awakening to any new to AC. I died a handful of times. But, this isn't Souls. This ain't no Vanguard either. I didn't defeat the boss by learning it's patterns, tells and counteracting them. No, I beat the boss by making the most of my own abilities. Your handler gives you one hint to dodge a specific attack. But it's more important than it seems. I mentioned Sekiro before, because you have the same meter system to the boss fights. Get the bar into the red with sustained damage and not only does this put the boss in a stunned state. But they take more damage too. Be careful that it does work both ways. Not to mention the cooldown to all your weapons and dodge/agility capabilities. This is all demonstrated in the first boss fight. When I "got it", I smashed the boss quite easily. I didn't get long to play today and likely even less time tomorrow. But just from the opening mission, I'm very impressed.

So this has a demo out, presumably on every system, and it's relatively chunky at around 90 minutes to two hours. Turns out it's pretty neat and I actually bought it on a whim after the demo ended. One thing I noticed right away is that despite there being lots of discourse about it, most of it was so focused on its technical side that I never really knew what kind of game it actually is. So I was a bit surprised to find out that it's not a linear run & gun shooter, but more of a story-driven adventure with (very) slight Metroid elements, platforming sections, a couple of (easy) puzzles, a skill tree and some downtime sections where you talk to NPC. Not saying a straight up shooter would have been worse than this cocktail but the fact that there's more to do than just click on heads was a welcome surprise. I also really enjoyed its opening act – the story is a relatively trope-heavy YA mix of different things, but it's surprisingly engaging IMO. On the gameplay side, while it's not all shooting, the shooting part is still the meat of it, with every aspect of the skill tree boosting your combat prowess. As the Avatar Unforeseen, you can wield all four elements three magic types, which means you have the funky equivalents of a rifle, a shotgun and an SMG build into the gauntlet on your hand. Per magic type are three subtypes and there's a bunch of other stuff like Overdrive and more powerful spells filled by a mana gauge. It can feel a tad overwhelming at first but you'll soon learn to wield them properly, pick out snipers with blue magic (rifle), pull in supports to finish them off with the red magic (shotgun) and slow down brutes while pumping them full with green magic (SMG). I do want to point out though that it's a very static game in the sense that all the horsepower of the console is being used to make it look as pretty as possible. There are zero physic toys available here, the world is purely decorative. I'm not too bothered by this but it does feed into the discussion that hardware resources are being used for ultimately irrelevant things today. Speaking of, visually it's really stunning, as expected. I think there have been a few patches since release that increase the native resolution and make the upsampling a tad less aggressive. It does look sharp, but I'm only on 1080p, so hardly a high-end benchmark situation. But it also runs a but sluggishly at times and can only really hold the 60fps target in closed-off spaces. Which I think is the exact opposite at what it was at launch, when it was locked to 60 no matter the cost. Probably would have preferred that to be honest, but at the end of the day it's not a dealbreaker for me. But so far, so good. I wish the demo had come out a bit sooner, because I think it might have helped selling a few more copies and avoiding the unfortunate downsizing of the developer. Getting greeted by this when booting it up feels really bittersweet now:

I'm a few hours in, steam says 6 hours but it's closer to 4 with AFK. I'll say so far it's not what I was really expecting, which I mean in both good and bad ways I guess. Firstly it's not really a BGS take on No Man's Sky, or Elite or any of those games. It's not really like Skyrim either though, so far. What it feels more like is a Bethesda take on Mass Effect 1, in that it's an open 'universe' game that's very fragmented. You have central hubs which contain lots of quest givers, then menus which connect you to the rest of the universe. You have bespoke planets like Mars which contain a small open world and settlements. You go in your shuttle and take your pick from a map, and you end up in front of a skybox which represents the nearby planet you're orbiting, and there's some random encounters that can happen out there So that's the way the space travel works in this. You can also immediately just travel somewhere by opening the map whenever you want. That seems kind of spoiling the fun to me though, like a way of making things feel small. In a sense, this is pretty disappointing. Not because it isn't a massive seamless space sim, but moreso the way all the transitions are handled. It seems kind of dated and disconnected. Taken in context it might not turn into such a big deal when the rest of the parts come together and questlines progress. But it does feel a little bit of a misdirect by Bethesda, intentional or not, as to the true character of this game. But in any event Mass Effect 1 is an extremely good game that holds up, so its take on space exploration isn't a bad one to ape. Question is does it work well within the framework of a Bethesda game The setup is pretty dry. It also kind of feels like Mass Effect a bit. You get your macguffin and a companion goes with you. Reviews have said it's a good idea to prioritise the main quest, for gameplay and progression purposes. I don't really know why, but I did plan to mostly stick to it with the odd sidequest rather than drag the pacing out so that's fine. But the universe is not level scaled like Oblivion and Skyrim so at some point you will presumably be forced to do optional stuff to account for that. Also just in general, mainlining a main quest in these games seems like shit advice, you want to weave those sidequests in as well One thing I like: your companion can input on dialogue interactions. Went to a sort of Mos Eisley place on Mars where my companion butted it and haggled with another NPC. This was a sort of tutorial for this mechanic, but it would be an interesting example of the game's flexibility if these quest interactions also extend to the other optional companions you can find. I don't know that they do that for a fact, but you would reckon that they do. Another thing I like is this one quest early on where a guy asks you to find some patient data he misled, and just tells you the general area he lost it in. No waypoint for this quest, you just sort of wander around and it forces the player to take in the environment and incidental dialogue, as well as read signs and develop a mental map of the area layout. Not that the dialogue is riveting or anything, but it's a minor pivot back towards the design of stuff like Morrowind where the world was the point. In terms of reactivity, I picked a trait called 'Serpents Embrace' that made my character addicted to grav jumping or they take a debuff (and a buff if they do grav jump). I completely misunderstood this when I picked it, I thought it meant I had to literally jump all the time, but it means warpspeed jumps with your space ship. Doh. Turns out this also means they are a follow of a thing called the faith of the serpent, which is a pretty edgy backstory for an introverted chef. I got unique dialogue options during one quest because of this, so maybe there's more things like that which branch out and lead to different options. I also like how gravity effects the combat. You can cyberpunk style spring jump over buildings and lightly glide an explosive down a hallway, gently carried by the low gravity of Mars, like a spicey present for the space raiders. It seems like temperature might also play a part in outworld exploration, but I'm not sure in what way really. In terms of hubs, the first hub is a bit boring. Too green. But the 2nd one I went to on Mars was pretty cool and reminded me of Omega in Mass Effect 2. Also seems to be the place where you can take jobs from bounty hunters, if that's the way you want to point your character. Things I don't like, exploring the surfaces of planets seems mad boring. It's just a bunch of fucking rocks, the lack of a Mako is keenly felt. At the very least tho they have different environments. I took a radiation debuff on the surface of the moon which apparently fucked my suit up. Another thing I dislike though it's subjective, they put a weird filter on the game in certain worlds. The starter hub area has The Matrix filter on it. Shit's green all the time. The Mars area has a red filter. You can walk in a room and see the filter fade in and out, it's very weird and overdone and leads to a blown out look. It doesn't look good on OLED, looks fine on LCD though No HDR btw, at least not on PC. You can get auto hdr working using a weird work around, but it looks bad and make things more blown out so IMO stick with SDR. Apparently it's a similar situation on Xbox

I'm sure this will come to everything at some point, but at the minute I think it's PC only. A couple of months back it seemed to be being played round the clock by various streamers, there was a lot of hype for a simple, cheap (currently less than £2) rogue-like, but it's actually worth all the talk (and definitely worth that price) It's a very simple concept, you control the movement of your character, more or less top down, you're either avoiding swarms of enemies or hunting them down, looking for breakables for money, health, or a couple of the special items. You do not control your attacks Instead your attacks just trigger on a cool down. You start with 1 attack, for the first character this is a whip, others might have fireballs or lightning that strikes in random locations. As you kill enemies they drop experience orbs, pick that up to level up, when you to you then pick a new perk, which can mean new weapons (it can also mean movement speed, cool down on your attack (this is hugely important later in I find), increasing your base attack power or luck), so you could add lightning to your skill set too, or you could increase the level of the whip, so rather than just hitting in front of you, it now whips behind you too, then it does more damage, then it has more range etc As you kill things there's a chance for extra rewards and gold, the gold leaves the level stage with you, so then you can increase your base stats by buying things like improved gold or experience gain, lower cool down, some health recovery, better base damage, and so on; which ultimately means you'll last longer, which means you'll earn more money There's extra weapons to unlock by completing various missions (things like surviving 10 minutes with one of the extra characters), new characters, weapons can be evolved. Basically, there's always something to be working towards which keeps you playing, although of the new characters I've unlocked, I still prefer the 1st character and do tend to just aim for the same build, and on that note, you can only have so many weapons and so many attribute improvements per run, which is a bit of a shame later on, but it means you could have all the random attack spells and leave yourself without anything for if enemies get in close if that's the choices you make It's such a compulsive little game. I bought it at about midday yesterday, and didn't stop playing it until I ordered some food at about 7, then I went back to it. I've got to the "end" of a couple of stages, where I can no longer improve my character and am instead getting money or health recovery as I level up, where I can just stand still and enemies die before they reach me because I'm throwing out so much damage. Eventually though something happens that means you're not going to survive for much longer. That's kind of a shame, but I suppose it's to stop you from completely breaking the game's economy

A Space for the Unbound is an adventure game set in Indonesia in the 1980s. It’s about a couple of high school students but there are magical elements to it too, which gives it the atmosphere of something like a Studio Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai film. I’m impressed with it so far. If nothing else, l would love to see a Final Fantasy game made in this style.

Made a quick start and done the first set of races/championship & part way through another. Initial impressions, the handling instantly feels great. Just opening up the next set of tours the progression system seems promising with a variety of disciplines to get stuck into. Graphically it’s impressive but I can’t help but be disappointed. It’s a noticeable step down from the initial trailers. & while they do look great the cars have a weird uncanny valley (but in car form) look to them. This is an area GT7 excels, in particular the paintwork and light clusters where I was hoping FM might catch up. So GT7 is still the car porn game of choice. However the tracks themselves along with scenery and weather effects look better here to me & the cars get wear on them throughout the race which gives this a much better visual look & realism overall IMO. Plus when using the chase cam the cars look like they’re actually turning not just pivoting from the center. Huge shout out once again to the audio. They’ve excelled themselves once again. It’s a significant step up even from FH 5 which was no slouch in this department. Only used 3 cars so far but they’re ones I’ve had real life experience with and they sound near perfect. The environmental effects such as heavy rain hitting the roof just fits perfectly too. Top marks. A couple of early concerns though. So far it’s making me do a 3 lap practice sessions before each race. This just feels like a huge waste of time for the most part and should absolutely be optional. Why it’s forced I’ve no idea, I really hope this goes after playing for a bit. Another is the car upgrade path. You essentially level up a car by using it by getting XP for overtakes and nailing sections of the track. What this means is unless you’ve actually used a car for a few races you won’t be able to buy upgrades for it. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me and actively discourages you from using different cars. It’s insane. I’m just hoping it’s not as bad as it initially seems. Apart from those niggles early impressions are still strong though. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my short time with it so far & looking forward to getting stuck in more. It just feels great. It lets you set your grid position too and the satisfaction & fun of starting towards the back & fighting though the crowded pack is pretty much unmatched already.

Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels. You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse. As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space. I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

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.😂

Kinda surprised there's no thread on this yet, it seem like something a few people here would enjoy. Anyway, this is an awesome little title based on Scandi fairytales. It starts as a delightful, personality-filled romp where you, as young boy Olle, climb out of your log cabin window and follow your sister through a forest. Along the way you skip through peaceful, flower-filled meadows, play hide and seek with gnomes, and even shepherd some cherub-like flower pixies into a paddock. You then explore with your sister, climb a mini-mountain and all is right with the world. Obviously this would make for an extremely short experience, so let me be clear. This is the last good thing that happens to you in this title's brief runtime. Amongst other things, your sister is kidnapped, you're hunted by a character called The Butcher, you wade through a lake of lost/sacrificed souls, and you battle against some naked forest lady whose heart is visible through the open cavity of her back. This is truly one of the darkest, most horrifying games I've ever played, and the huge contrast between the gorgeous visuals and the awful undertones means every aspect has a real impact. Gameplay-wise, it's not going to win any awards. A couple of bits are really awkward to control, and at times Olle doesn't quite do what you want him to. Everything else is so, so good, though, especially considering this is the studio's second ever title. The graphics, at times are stunningly beautiful, with this unique saturation that makes the grass and flowers look almost real. The character models swing from charmingly stylised to incredibly creepy. Sound is great, except for one section set in a village about two-thirds of the way through. I love the fact it's based on Scandi folklore, too. Essentially, imagine Little Nightmares if it was cranked up to 11 and you'll be running along the right lines. It only has a 4-6 hour runtime, so if you've got an afternoon or evening spare, it's definitely worth downloading (especially if you have Game Pass, as it dropped there last week). It's one of the more unique titles I've played in a while. And the music for the final boss is In the Hall of the Mountain King. AKA the Alton Towers advert theme.

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I'd like to preemptively say that I'm enjoying this very much, but I want to start off by mentioning two major flaws because the game can potentially put you off initially before it sarts to come into its own. First of all, do not play it unpatched. Because I have a very slow internet connection but wanted to give it a shot right away the day I got it, I installed it offline and dear god. Whatever "gold" version they pressed on the disc here is basically an alpha version. It looks and runs significantly worse than the finished release, it lacks fundamental gameplay elements (no lock-on for example) and even the settings menu barely has half the amount of options you eventually have at your disposal after it's been patched. Deep down I think it should be unacceptable to release a game in this state but we're so far down that path already that I feel like wasting my energy to point it out. So, tl;dr: don't play this without the Day One patch. Secondly, the game itself has an incredibly weak opening. Think back to how masterfully The Last of Us introduced us to its world, its protagonist and his motivations in a very effective 15-minute rollercoaster. Now imagine the complete opposite if that and you have a good idea of what Atlas Fallen's prologue is like. It's magic mumbo-jumbo mixed with a visually very unappealing tutorial area and leaves a very unappealing first taste. That said, now to the good stuff, because at around two and a half hours of playtime the game does its own 180 and turns into what I'd summarise as a surprisingly enjoyable mix of open world action game and light RPG. After the tutorial it throws you into an open world hub that's big enough to be believable as a place but small enough to not feel overwhelming in a way few modern games are. And while the game's structure with quests and areas being gatekept by enemies above your level is very RPG-esque, the actual progression system does kind of its own thing. Instead of collecting XP and levelling up, your character becomes stronger by upgrading their armour and unlocking Perks associated with that progress. In parallel to this you find, in a very motivating pace I might add, a lot of active and passive "Essence Stones", which are basically skills and buffs that enhance your options during combat. Combat itself is a mixed bag and also a clear indication that this doesn't go all the way as an RPG because there's only one way to approach it and just a couple of variables through the aforementioned stones. The game is build around the so-called momentum gage, which fills up as you attack and do other violent gamey stuff. Said gauge is split into three segments and every segment is linked to one skill you previously equipped, with the third one obviously being stronger than the first. The higher the gauge, the higher your damage and the lower your defense, which is described as a risk-reward mechanic but doesn't really feel that way because you have no control over it. Generally speaking, this all works rather well and is good fun, but I have two problems with it: firstly it's very, very easy to miss the indicator for off-screen attack prompts, so I'm getting hit quite often. Might be a me-thing though. The other one is not though and that's the very wonky lock-on. Bigger enemies have multiple body parts you can destroy for better loot but the lock-on is so finicky against those enemies that you sometimes can't get the right part locked or the game refuses to let go when you'd rather want to focus on the small mob running around etc. There's ways to work around this – my solution is not using lock-on at all until there's only the big one left – but it's still something to point out as a flaw. Outside of combat the game basically just consists of exploration, which is fun both thanks to the world's verticality and the protagonist's mobility, who can double jump and air dash. Moving around feels very good and it's here the game feels most polished. In other areas, like dialogue sequences, you can tell this is at max a double-A, sort of euro-jank title marketed as a big-hitter. Visually it's very pleasing, but with noticeable pop-in and very outdated character models that wouldn't look out of place in a PS360 game. I do want to point out though that Deck13 is using its propriety tech and hasn't jumped on the Unreal-bandwagon so huge respect for that, because all things considered this is a technically very impressive game for such a small studio. Six hours in the story hasn't really evolved much beyond the initial mumbo-jumbo and still resolves around the protagonist's gauntlet and the spirit of a Navii trapped within, but when the actual moment-to-moment gameplay is this rewarding it's not a big deal for me yet. How on earth this is sitting below a 70 on metacritic I have no idea, but then again the same thing happened with Venetica back in the day. I think US outlets in particular have a really hard time accepting the space in-between triple-A and indie, you rarely see them really value the effort put into these games and maybe looking past a flaw or two. Or maybe I'm just too partial because it's a German game, I don't know. Anyway, I think a few people here might end up enjoying this, you just have to be prepared for a sub-standard opening and be ready to play around some QOL flaws during combat encounters. I've also heard it only takes about twenty hours to complete, which I think is a good sign in this day and age of bloated open world releases.

I've played a few hours of this and I think I get it enough for some early impressions. It looks kinda out there but it also sticks to a lineage of Hero Shooters for the most part. There are 10 classes to choose from: 4 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 support. But one of each are unlocked as you rank up (or available from the start if you pay more (yes, there's a bunch of this malarkey, battle pass etc. 😐 )). So how a general game plays out is you pick a class, anyone can be any, it doesn't force anyone into a certain one but I can't see a lot of success in not having someone be one of each. There's 5 people on a team but you are also pitted against another team who is racing you to different parts of the map to dispose of these dinosaurs that are falling out of portals (I'll get to that). You don't interact with the other team, they're ghosts you're competing with in the first round. The second round it changes to something a little different. There's different modes it might change to but most of my games it became a payload pushing mode. Standing next to it will move it and you have to protect it from the dinos. But your opponents are on the map with you, pushing their own payload and it's here there is some decision making. You can go and attack them but your payload is less protected. Though they do meet in the middle so conflict will happen. Another little trick you have is once a match you'll have the ability to summon and control a dinosaur used to go and make the opposing teams life a problem. It's very clunky to use and quite easy to waste if you're not careful but it can be a tide turner. I'm not gonna say too much about the classes because it's one of those cases where if you've played Overwatch you know the deal. They're mixed up a bit but it's generally a familiar feeling game in this regard. What's interesting, in a way, is despite this ridiculous premise of fighting hoards of dinosaurs in a futuristic city is it does try and contextualise all this with an ongoing plot. You and your team crash land on an island where a chaotic AI is sending people back in time at the point when dinos appeared out of portals and destroyed the city (though at first they think it's a simulation). The AI is then analysing combat data and for what reason? I dunno yet. It trickles this out as you play since your team are analysing as well, to figure out what the hell is going on. I appreciate the commitment to the bit but it does lead to a problem of the game feeling too same-y since you're always in a similar urban area and there isn't much using the environment since it's a very grounded game and pretty close quarters. Add some spongy dinos to that and you end up in situations that feel really limiting. I guess it does feel like a game from a few generations ago. Its been making me think of Monday Night Combat, which is a game I've not thought about since then. That time early in the 360 gen where you had all these shooters with hoard modes. So I've been getting a nostalgic feeling I didn't expect but I don't think it's the kinda game I want to play to the extent it clearly wants me to. It's charming, and I generally enjoy it but... some multiplayer games don't get a playerbase when I can't help but think they should have. I don't think this is that. But this is just after a few hours. Maybe something will click and I'll see something special but it's not obvious from the jump, which you really need in a multiplayer game.

So, this is the new game from the Civ and XCOM developers, Firaxis. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, it is a turn-based game. It's safe to say it's more closely aligned to XCOM than Civ though, but this has an ace (or many aces to be exact) up its sleeve that differentiates it from just being a Marvel XCOM game, and that's the largely divisive (from Previews) inclusion of Cards into the combat. As a result of the cards coming into play, the game isn't as rigid or locked into a grid like it is in XCOM, you're free to move somewhere within the little combat arena you're placed in once per turn, with certain placements being preferable, scoring knockbacks or environmental attacks. You can draw three cards per turn, but certain cards do get refunded as they're used up, giving you an additional card or two per turn, you can also redraw any card you're not happy with twice per turn. A lot of the cards so far are quite basic, in that they are 'standard' kind of slash/punch kind of moves, but they do come with additional benefits like knockbacks, chain attacks, inflicting bleed damage and the ilk, on top of these you've got ability cards which gives you and your team buffs as you fight and hero cards which are much more powerful and usually allow you to take out multiple enemies at a time, the kicker being that you need 'heroism' to use them, which is gained by taking out enemies. The enemies themselves have been fairly standard grunts for the most part, if you imagine the basic super soldiers from XCOM, then it's pretty much the same here, just they're now Hydra Soldiers. The bosses have been more interesting as they're now various Marvel villains instead of snake-creatures or something like they were in the XCOM titles. As established in the paragraphs above, the game shares a lot of DNA with XCOM, and that's no bad thing, the animations, certain effects you can pull of like the knockbacks mentioned earlier and the environmental attacks all look and feel very similar to XCOM but they've now got a more grandiose superhero sheen on them. You'll head out on missions from the 'war room' with yourself ('The Hunter') and two other heroes chosen at random to assist you. You'll about your task, fight a boss or retrieve an item at the end of it and then return back to your base. It's in this base segment of the game where you can see where Firaxis has been far more ambitious than their previous title. In XCOM, the base was an important part of the game where you'd build new sections, invest research points into them to help bolster certain specialisations, new weapons and all that good stuff. All of this DNA is contained within the 'Abbey' in this game, which is a huge Cathedral with sprawling grounds for you to explore to your hearts content, you explore this in 3D in your role as the Hunter, gone are the days of a 2D plain, seeing all your little soldiers move into their newly built wing. It's super impressive and such a great feeling 'base' right away that really makes you feel at home, all the segments you'd expect to be there are in their place but there's also tons of secrets to explore and a sprawling grounds containing blocked passageways which will likely reveal themselves to me later on. The Abbey has the feel of the School in Fire Emblem Three Houses or the Normandy in Mass Effect to it. This also takes inspiration from those titles in the new social links system, where you can sit down and hang out around the Abbey with your new team mates as you assimilate and get used to your new surroundings, doing so gets you friendship points which levels up your bond with your squad mates as the game goes on. I'm not too far into the game but I assume the more it goes on the more activities around the Abbey get unlocked and some of the more mysterious bits and pieces I've seen so far unveil themselves. The Abbey is the most ambitious element of the game and is almost a game unto itself, it makes me realise why it got delayed a few times. So yeah, I've loved my time with it so far (probably about 4-5 hours) and can't wait to play more, it's a real breath of fresh air compared to some of the other stuff I've played lately. To be continued and pics added.

Ok, so I was burned out on the Assassins Creed series. The yearly sequels got me feeling pretty tired of the series. By the time 3 came out, I was pretty much done. I tried a few other games in the series after that point, but never really committed to them. Odyssey got me back into it, and what an outstanding game that was. So I was naturally excited for this. I’m playing this on my day one PS4. Naturally it will perform better on next gen. But having said that, I’m not disappointed with the way this looks at all. The game is absolutely stunning, and apart from the initial long load time, it runs pretty smoothly. I’ve seen video reviews of some hilarious bugs/glitches, but haven’t encountered any myself yet. The combat is a bit basic at the moment. Reviews have pointed out that it takes a few hours to unlock different moves and abilities. So I’m looking forward to that. It’s nice that you can respec your character at any time, so if you fancy a different approach that’s always an option. Wandering around the main settlement, I’ve found three mini games. One which involves out-drinking your opponent, one where you use poetry in a battle of wits, and a dice game which I lost horribly on my first attempt. There’s a micro transaction store (because of course there is), but thankfully it’s totally ignorable. You have to search for it yourself (no obnoxious daily deal prompts bombard you). And the vast majority of the items are cosmetic only. There’s no “pay to unlock XP faster” as there was in Odyssey. So although it’s there, it isn’t an issue. Usually in Ubisoft games, I like going to the Ubistore to unlock various exclusive bits. There’s very little to unlock in Valhalla’s Ubistore page. But again, not much of a complaint really. Definitely looking forward to sinking many hours into this.

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.