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

This is glorious. I'm playing at 60fps for the first time in a Horizon game and it is spectacular. It still looks wonderful in performance mode, and the boost in framerate has made this series feel even better. I've done a couple of the showcase events which have been awesome, a barn find and some of each event. I'm currently playing in Spring and I am loving the differences between seasons. I joined the Giant Bomb club and am seeing other people from the club in my game which is cool. This is game of the year material for me, and could well end up being my favourite driving game of all time. It has everything.

Singleplayer first mission done and will admit its just as much fun as before, I love a bit of gears and thi has cheered me up! Graphically its better but not sure how much better tbh, can't play too much as other half wants to play it. Am i right in thinking all the other gears games will work off the xb1 as well now?

I’ve been keeping an eye on this as I’ve loved the look of it. Anything with an anthropomorphic duck is already a winner. It’s basically a free-flowing X-Com. You move about the land finding loot and you can either sneak past enemies or engage in them using the X-Com battle system. It’s based off a table top game but this is the first I’ve heard of it. The setting is post apocalypse but all the humans are long since dead and referred to as “the ancients” and you play as mutants. I’m only early in so there’s two in my squad but I know you get at least 3 of you roaming around the battlefield at some point. It’s good so far but meant to be very hard so I went for the easiest setting as I’ll probably never finish it regardless. The GB quick look sold it to me, but I got it via GamePass either way.

The campaign is satisfying. It has you in nice big areas with lots of stuff to jump around, and you just feel urged on to test it out in the fights and see what you can actually get away with. I've been kinda impressed with the platforming in the campaign generally. There was a point in a sewer area / factory place that even seemed to dial back the sign posting quite a bit and climbing the area felt like you weren't meant to be there, but you were. That surprised me, and in a way puts it above the original Mirror's Edge in a way. The production values in the campaign are higher than I was expecting as well; there have been some really cool set pieces. There is a bit in an assembly line that assembles sections of town. It's big and stupid and amazing. I did play a little multiplayer too and I'm liking it a lot. There is so much nuance to how you can play. I'm at the point where I could be doing well but not really knowing why it's going well until I play the next game where I can't seem to do anything right; so I'm still figuring out what I'm doing, but I'm mostly having fun. A good way to vent frustration is just to grapple something and see how fast you can get back into the action. It's great, anyway. I'm using the Tome mech online as it seems to be the one for people who can shoot.

I played through ADR1FT over the weekend. I've been meaning to play it for ages, it always looked really interesting, certainly very pretty. You're an astronaut in a destroyed space station trying to survive in your damaged space suit, it's surprisingly not a horror game despite it being a nice looking game set in space. Let me say first, it's a VR game too and I suspect its 10 times the experience in VR. Or it will make you really sick as you spin around in 0g. I think it'd be a cool experience to try though, the first person view with stuff floating past you would be pretty immersive. As it is I had a few problems with it. The way the story is presented, through audio logs and emails, comments through your helmet speakers, none of it went in when I was playing. Almost certainly I think VR would have gone some way to solve this, if only because of the earphones. I picked up on the state of the station being someone else's fault, guy was a real jerk, but beyond that nothing else landed. The gameplay is you floating around trying to keep your oxygen topped up (not difficult), while following the breadcrumb trail to the next objective. There's very little else to it, no puzzles. Still though, I managed to lose where my next objective was a couple of times, found it easier to just turn the game off and start back from a checkpoint the next day It's not all I hoped it would be, maybe on another day, or even with headphones, I'd have clicked with it, and I do think it'd be a better game in VR

So it’s a rally game, it’s very much like the first dirt rally, it’s pretty difficult, mainly because of the narrow roads. Was as thinking maybe it’s a bit easier than the first game, then did a stage in a rear wheel drive car, in the rain at night. It’s still really hard. the handling seems really good, bit better than the first one maybe, but I’ve only played with the slow cars and a rear wheel drive car, which I didn’t use much in the first game so hard to tell yet. Initial impressions of the pace notes are pretty good. the force feedback is alright, not great, the fun rumbling effects are missing it seems, but the important grip/handling info is there, if a bit weak. Hopefully this will be improved. Not played either game much with a pad but the first seemed really difficult, this seemed much better. Graphics are are pretty good, even on my old pc, nice foliage, nice weather effects. On one hand I’m not too keen on the 2.0 thing, but on the other hand it’s a nod to one of the best games ever so I’ll let it pass. theres also Rallycross, I sort of don’t care about this so will only try it when I’ve run out of rallying to do. so yeah it’s really good, if you like sort of realistic rally games with narrow tracks that are really difficult, this is the game for you! oh yeah it’s out Tuesday unless you buy the fancy version, I sort of don’t like it when they do that, and wasn’t really bothered about getting it early, but wanted the souped up dirt 1 dlc tracksthat come with it, and the price for the pc version was not so bad.

I've had a quick 10 minutes on this, so my thoughts will be brief. The game setting is quite unlike anything I've ever played. It's a 4 player co-op game where you are tasked in casing a job and carrying out a heist. However it doesn't play sneaky like you would expect it to. You basically set up covering as many angles as you can, and then when you are ready you pull your gun and begin being a nasty little shit. The game reminds me a lot of Left 4 Dead for some reason. Your team of people start out with 2 weapons but you can level up and rejig what you take with you. This includes ammo bags and medic stuff among other things. The events work similar to the events in Left 4 Dead but have more persistence. Instead of one event that you complete and pass, you are put into a play area where several events knock on to each other. While these events get deeper and deeper to the objective, the authorities will start to try and stop you from getting to them. Again, this reminds me of Left 4 Dead, security guards are hopeless and easily dealt with, police are harder and then swat and other stuff starts to show up, with each unit having a special niche similar to the Left 4 Dead special infected. A typical section will have you race to an objective, and then defend it against waves of swat before it being completed and moving onto the next part of the heist. It's not too hard to follow. The bad news for some is that I could find no controller support in game. I did a quick scan and found THIS, but I'm not sure how you configure it in. If you cannot get it to work it looks like you're stuck with KB+M controls. It's not so bad though, I'm no whiz and I did fine, there's a lot of leeway that should get you used to playing with those tools instead of a controller. I'm looking forward to playing it in a group, I bet it's a right laugh.

This hasn't reviewed amazingly, and while I loved Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon, I couldn't muster to energy to do the same stuff again in far Cry 4 and 5. In fact I booted up Far Cry 4 towards the end of last year because I wanted a nonsense fps to play, and I still couldn't. I ended up doing the pacifist ending, then booted it back up and ran about it bit, then realised I just couldn't be arsed For whatever reason the more I've seen of Far Cry New Dawn the more I've been interested in it. I think knowing that it's shorter is a big part of it, like I said I loved 3 but the amount of time I spent with it, doing the same routine over and over did start to drag by the final island, although at the time I put that down to me doing everything before moving the story on. New Dawn looks amazing, maybe a bit too amazing. I'm playing it on high settings (it can go to ultra) on a GTX 1080 at 1080p, and I still get framerate drops to 50 every now and then. It's less when there's lots of combat, more when I'm in dense woodland with lots of mist and fog. Which I mention because it is ridiculously dense, so dense I've been bitten by snakes I couldn't see, and have to rely on watching when and where my A.I. teammate starts screaming and where she's shooting at. I'm impressed with how it looks though, I had this pegged as a bit half-arsed, and granted it could be I didn't play 5, but the colour and the environments look great Gameplay wise it's kind of just Far Cry. It's not as reliant on taking back encampments as the old games, although there are still some, and there's no radio towers. You're still randomly getting attacked by animals, and there's still a skill tree, you're still playing good guys vs bad guys. Enemies take more damage before they go down than I remember, with some enemies having a 2nd health bar, possibly a 3rd but I've not seen that yet. You're kind of dumped out in to the open world pretty early, you have a story mission but it's far enough across the map that you can't help but do other things along the way. A lot of the side stuff involves you stopping trucks, be it for all important ethanol or less important humans, chasing them down isn't fun, being in the right place to stand in the road and shotgun the driver in the face is fun, that said I've not managed to get an ethanol truck yet. Beyond that, I've just been rescuing people by killing bad guys I'm really enjoying it though, played for hours tonight and I've still not got halfway to the first proper story mission. Before I go there I've got some treasure to find, an ally to recruit, then a bunch of buildings to kill everyone in, then I'll do the thing I've been asked to do

So it's star wars, and you fly around in various star was vehicles such as xwings and tie fighters, and you shoot bad guys (or good guys i guess). I'm a big fan of the old school tie fighter game (and xwing etc.) and this takes a lot of things from that - like the engine/lasers/shield power balancing thing, which i like, it adds a sort of mini management thing, you can divert power to any of these 3, choose engines to help evade missiles and charge a boost meter. lasers charges your lasers, and overcharges them added benefits which i'm not totally sure about (either you get to fire for longer or the laser is more powerful, not sure?). switching to shields charges your shields and can overcharge them. it sounds quite simple but i think it really adds to the game as you have to constantly switch between them depending on what's going on - i'm still getting used to it and the controls. there's more settings you can adjust shield power forwards/backwards and other stuff - that's too advanced for me at the moment. i've done 5 missions so far, 2 prologue ones and 3 missions, i'm still getting bits of tutorial, and still getting used to the controls and what all the lights and stuff on the dashboard mean. Ienjoying it so far but I'm not sure if i'm enjoying it because it's good, or because flying around in a xwing/tie fighter in VR is really cool, or maybe it's a bit of both. have only played in VR so far, there are some problems with it, maybe due to my old vr headset, but the graphics aren't great, except for the cockpit which looks great, but stuff like the other ships look pretty blocky and a bit blury. but it is super cool being there, being able to look around for other ships and flying through explosions (which also don't look great) and stuff. The targeting seems to work well too, and there are a lot of options i haven't got the hang of yet like targeting ships that are attacking you. but the default of cycling through current objectives works well - i played a bit of ace combat and had problems with the targeting, it seems to work much better here. you can also issue simple commands to team mates and stuff. multiplayer seems to be a big part of it but i'm not sure i'll play that mode or not. So yeah seems like it's pretty good so far, and even more recommended for VR.

Got this from boomerang, only played the first mission so far. Will see how it goes from here. Escaping the police when I fucked up was a right bastard. Can't even be arsed with Uplay anymore. Didn't load once on ACIV for me.

I was never going to buy this. I always wanted to play Gal Fighters on the Neo Geo Pocket but never picked it up, now it's really not worth the price, especially as it's just the Fatal Fury game with a different roster. SNK Heroines Tag Battle isn't Gal Fighters, but it leans on it. It's more gratuitous than Gal Fighters, which was just a fighting game, and Mai aside, treats the female characters as it would the males. This takes Terry and makes him a pretty girl, puts everyone in revealing novelty costumes, it's like a Tecmo game. I didn't want to support that, but the novelty got the better of me so I picked it up cheap intending to never play it. Boredom and lack of things to play on the Switch got the better of me, and now here we are It's not that bad a game. It's a tag battle, but with layers of confusion that make it kind of impenetrable. There's an auto-combo system, so press either of the attack buttons and you'll chain together a string of attacks, and you can finish with a special move. Special moves are a button press too, so down + special does one thing, back + special something else, simplistic but it's fun enough. There's orbs dotted around the stage than can be smashed, and I think recover energy from your support character, I'm not sure, this is where the game starts to lose me a bit You pick two characters, one is the fighter, one is support, but you can switch between them. They share the same health bar, so there's no great benefit in switching, but they have different special meters. Whenever you use a special attack your special meter drains, but does refill slowly over times. I'm not a fan of this system at all, I just don't see the benefit. However, and this is something I conceptually like but in practice I find unreadable, you don't win the fight by depleting your opponents health bar, instead you have to do enough damage to get them in to the danger zone then launch a super move. you can only launch a super move if you have enough special bar left. How much is enough? Fuck knows, so it seems better to just switch characters once you've done the damage. You can also have your support character throw shit from the background, the computer does this all the time, the final boss especially, I've never worked out how to do it. Also there's a block button rather than just pushing back, this is shit, plus there's no way to break combos, which I'm not against on principal, but with some of the cheap shit the final boss pulls. And on that note. The game is very easy, it's no wonder I never learnt how to play it, but the final boss is proper cheap, difficult SNK. It will straight up cheap at times, seeming to skip animations so it can dodge or block your supers and countering perfectly to end the fight. I was seemingly getting stunned in one hit so I could be finished too. Infuriating, and enough of a reason to never play it again. It's not irredeemably bad, but there's enough wrong with it, the story, the confusing systems, the slowdown, the final boss, that I'm not looking to learn how to play it

I’ve been interested in Ghost of a Tale since it first appeared on Indiegogo in 2013. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ghost-of-a-tale#/ The developer had a background in animated movies and I liked the fact that the game was inspired by books like Redwall. It was eventually released in 2018 on PC and 2019 on consoles, and is apparently coming to Switch too. The game has come a long way since that original Indiegogo pitch. When I first played it I was surprised that it was predominantly a stealth game, although I suppose it’s not that surprising considering you play as a little mouse. Fortunately the stealth is not that punishing, it’s pretty easy to escape from the rat guards if they do see you. I know later in the game there are enemies like spiders (yay) who I assume will be faster, so that might be more difficult. It’s a surprisingly meaty game, I’m guessing closer to 20 hours than 10. There are plenty of things to collect and secrets to find. Exploration is fun and a little bit reminiscent of Dark Souls. The world and graphics are definitely the strongest elements of the game. These screenshots are taken from the dark opening area, but there are bright areas in the game too, and it has a day night cycle. All in all, fairly impressive for a 3D adventure game developed on a modest budget.

I'm playing Thronebreaker: Witcher Tales. It's okay, wander around, isometric view, gathering resources, making the side quest choice, and having occasional Gwent battles. It's Gwent that is the central focus, albeit disappointingly it's slightly tweaked from the W3 version - you start off with a compressed deck, and don't really seem to gain new cards in the same way as you did (by winning them). Instead there's a camp option, and you spend resources on them. Added too are puzzles, where you have a single hand one turn to complete different objectives - these are real head scratchers, in terms of understanding card mechanics. For now its just not really as enjoyable, as Gwent was in W3. Perhaps it'll open up later, but the limited deck is frustrating (and THB, I don't even recognise the cards from those previous played with in W3).

so this is the new racing game that looks like virtua racing. edit- here’s a video: i like it. The handling is good, it’s like old school arcade drifting, a little bit like outrun 2 - although I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, it’s not as good as outrun 2. Not many things are. Also you get boost from drifting. so the time trials are really good fun, there’s staff ghosts to beat and leaderboards and stuff. I’ve spent most of my time trying to beat the staff ghosts and friends. the racing is where we start to see problems, the AI/rubber banding are both very agressive, it’s weird. They will ram you, and even if you save up boost and use it all at once they will still be right behind you. It’s still manageable, not had many problems winning the championships on hard mode, but guess expert mode could be annoying. I pretty much think all racing games have bad AI though so it’s just a bit more worse than usual here. I prefer time trials so it won’t affect me as much. there are a lot of cars, 8? Drivers who have 4 cars each. With different stats and stuff. Most/all based on real cars, I’m disappointed the GT-ONE doesn’t seem to be the fastest for time trials so I can’t use it. the tracks, hmmm, there are some cool tracks, they look nice, but overall I’m less convinced by the tracks, instead of having a few basic tracks, some intermediate tracks and some tricky ones, they all seem to be on a similar level, Some a bit harder but mostly quite easy to get round, quite wide. They aren’t bad mind, there’s one with dinosaurs and everything, I sort of like them but they could have been better I guess. There are a decent amount of tracks, 16 I think. And you can play them reversed, or was it mirrored? Can’t remember. its on gamepass, that’s the version I’m playing. Not 100% sure but don’t think it’s on pc gamepass. I think it’s out on everything, steam, PS4, Xbox, switch. so overall it’s thumbs up for me, think I’d have been happy to pay the preorder price which was about 12 quid, bearing in mind I really like time trials so am less bothered about the AI annoyances.

Played about an hour/90 minutes of this earlier. All the previews I read/watched had been rather negative and I wasn't too interested in the game at all going in, surprisingly I actually had some fun with it, it wasn't amazing by any stretch of the imagination but I think beneath the serious macho military stuff there's actually a lot of fun and silliness to be had in the game. It actually reminds me of a strange GTA, Far Cry, Just Cause, The Division hybrid thing really, you have this absolutely HUGE open world, it only gives you two areas in the Beta but I was travelling Kilometres by Helicopter for a good 5-10 minutes at times just within one region to get an objective. Side missions are forgettable, the story missions were a bit better but ultimately quite forgettable. Where the fun came from though was just goofing around, I was playing with randoms and just seeing dudes flying helicopters sloppily, almost hitting the ground, people parachuting out of helicopters, getting left behind when everyone else was in a car etc. was pretty funny. There was this one side mission where we had to nick a plane and it felt just like GTA piloting that, all of chat being like 'any sick bags in back?' etc. It was a real blast, I was actually flying it too and it was very satisfying knowing all these guys were watching me take-off and land this thing. The online mechanics seem really solid, I asked it to constantly matchmake me with other people the second I took control of my character and people just continuously streamed in when someone in the party left seamlessly throughout, really impressive. Didn't get any net issues like getting kicked or anything either, everything felt very solid on that front. Graphics were so-so really, I was playing on PC and bumped it up to Ultra initially but was only getting a 30-45fps with that which was rather distracting so knocked it down to Very High and got an almost constant 60fps. The vistas and draw distance in this game are mightily impressive, you can see for miles, one of the longest draw distances I've ever experienced, up close textures can be a little muddy at times but the vistas and lighting are really impressive. The gunplay seemed cool and meaty enough, as did the tactics/strategy stuff (not that you'll be able to sync your attacks with randoms anyway) that you can put into planning a mission, the cover mechanics were rather odd though, expected to just snap into cover like Gears but there's no snap-in mechanic and you just have to crouch for your character to grip to a corner, but even then it doesn't feel as tight as it should be. So yeah, I wasn't exactly blown away by it but I really do think it could be a ton of fun just goofing around in this world with some mates, nicking 'copters and shit, even with randoms it was cool though, but if you want to truly strategise you'll need friends for sure. Anyone that's into GTA, Far Cry or Just Cause I think may want to give the Beta a go and see what they think.

I enjoyed the original Destroy All Humans back in the day. So when this Remaster was announced, I was all for it. Unfortunately, this is one of those examples where a game isn’t quite what you remembered. For one thing, the difficulty is absolutely all over the place. Most of the missions aren’t too bad. But then you get one thrown at you, that will punish you severely. From awful stealth sections that a chore to play. To enemies that rip through your health in a matter of sections. If you haven’t upgraded specific abilities, then you’re pretty much screwed. Graphically it looks nice enough. And they’ve added some improvements over the original, such as the ability to skate quickly around the map. But other improvements just appear to have been forgotten about. It’s extremely annoying that when you’re in the flying saucer, your shields don’t regenerate, the only way to do so, is absorb enemy vehicles. Might not sound too bad. But when you’re getting blitzed on all sides in hectic battles, it’s a ballache. And ultimately, the final boss difficulty spike just did me in. A saucer only battle. Very few enemies to regenerate your shields. The boss bombards you with rockets if you move too far away from it. And best of all, 3 massive health bars to drain, with absolutely no checkpoints during the fight at all. And each health bar takes aaaaaaages to drain. 3 times the bastard killed me. On my 4th attempt I reached his final health bar. But at that point, I was getting battered with lasers and rockets, and despite my best efforts, I died again. And that’s me done with this game, because fuck going through all that again.

Couldn’t find a thread on it, nobody else played this? It’s a rhythm action game for those who like metal and killing zombies. Worth it alone for noticing how close the fake versions of bands like Iron Maiden and Faith No More are. At least watch the opening few minutes of the story, I’ve been having a great laugh with it. On GamePass currently, worth a look.

I'm guessing at the tags because I assume it's on everything. It's more 8bit Castlevania style action, and it's very good. It's a lot longer than the original, and they seemed to have listened and altered the characters a little. Zangatsu has returned but he's altered a little, in the first game it amazed me how useless he was considering he was the main character, here he's immediately more useful with that really getting doubled down on later on. Dominique is back too, she has a better jump and attack reach than Zangatsu. She has a bounce move that let's you access certain areas if you're good with it, I'm not. Her spells are probably better kept as support. She can heal people with the right item, and if you can find the rare pick up she can also resurrect your party members. The two new characters are Robert, a sniper with a terrible jump and a weak, but occasionally very useful long distance attack. He can co prone and bounce off walls, again useful for shortcuts. He also has a really powerful special attack but it's restricted in range. If his health was better he'd be really useful. The most useful character is probably Haichi, who I'll describe as a mech. He's got the most health, can hover, destroys spikes when he stands on them and isn't affected by ice. His basic attack is pretty hefty and his only special is that he can go invincible, so you can sit him in front of bosses and beat the fuck out of them for as long as your magic lasts Curse of the Moon 2 seems to me a lot easier than the first game, maybe I'm wrong and I'm just more practiced at this sort of game again but I don't think I lost a life until stage 3. It's a lot longer, which is no bad thing, more inventive. My understanding is that there's a false ending which sounds a bit of a twat, but having not seen it I can't really judge it Really enjoying it though, I was playing it at release but put it down, glad to be back playing it

I did look for an old thread but it looks like one doesn't exist. I got it the other night on the Switch since it's the version with the free style switching. It's a cool idea that's in later DMC games and I thought it may be fun in this game. In the original you picked a style at the start of a mission. Basically the styles are Sword Master, Gunslinger, Trickster and Royal Guard. They all give you different abilities. The first two are fairly self explanatory while trickster is mostly about dodging and royal guard is a parry system. I do have a bit of a problem with it. It's just the way it levels. In later games you upgrade the styles with red orbs (which give you more moves), the same way as everything else, but here I think it upgrades by how much you use it. So I'm not getting the freedom I'd like without spending a lot of time in the Bloody Palace with the main goal of using a particular style a lot. So that's kinda disappointing since I forgot how it worked. I've forgotten a lot of stuff to be honest. I was having a hoot at first. I sunk in four hours in one session, going along quite well which surprised me as going back to Bayonetta kicked my arse. DMC3 is easier than I remember but then I got to a succubus type lady boss, which I think you get the guitar weapon from but I just can't seem to beat her. I don't seem to be doing any damage but she wrecks you with some of her attacks. I call bullshit, I think she's busted. But I'm sure I did beat her back in the day as I remember messing around with that guitar weapon. How I did it, I have no idea.

This game is set in the early days of the internet (1999, to be exact, although in a slightly made up alternative reality) where you play as a kind of internet policeman, ensuring the rules of “Hypnospace” are being followed. It’s made by Jay Tholen who also made the point and click game Dropsy. I love it. It’s a sensory assault of colours, sounds and random fonts. The music alone is worth the price of entry, it’s fantastic. The writing is excellent too, and completely believable.

Seems alright from the 10-15 minutes of the beta I got to play as capt, hulk, Iron Man and thor before it kept repeating the redhead‘s (black widow?) cut scene over and over on the bridge. Would like to have known what the game was like properly after the tutorial but I’m not doing it over again to find out.

I heard Abby talking about this on the Beastcast a while back and it was finally in the sale so I picked it up. Minit then. So called cos the game is played in 60 second bursts in which you explore as much as you can before the time runs out. When the time runs out you die, respawn at your house but all significant progress is saved Before I say anymore I have to mention this is a Gameboy game. Monocrome look, 8 bit graphics, sound chip tunes but it's cool as fuck. It's kinda like Zelda: Links Awakening with it's one screen at a time exploration gameplay. You find a sword first so you're combat ready. Next thing I found? A fucking watering can. Then some coffee (this gives you more energy so you can push boxes). It's an odd game. However, it's one of good design. It can be tricky to figure out what to do next, sometimes frustrating when the map expands and you have a couple of different ways you could go but due to the time limit you know the answer is never too far away. It has a handy built in kill button so you can end your run at anytime, allowing you to respawn at your current house. There are about 4 places you can respawn at spread across your map, each one becoming your homebase the instant you enter it. It's very satisfying gameplay wise, it always feels rewarded when you figure out what to do next and I was chuffed as a bollock when i finished it. It's not thaty it's that hard, I was just stuck a few times and refused to resort to a guide. It's not a big game, couple of hours I guess but I recommend it. Once you beat the main game...

Ive played this beyond its terrible tutorials now and so I'm willing to give impressions ok? Its good fun. It isn't like ssx no, or any game of that kilt. It isn't trying to be and those games dump you at a start line and grab you back once you're done. Here we have a big emphasis on exploration, online competition and risk taking. It looks beautiful and you can snap around the map quickly with zero load times to areas you've scoped out using your binoculars during a walk about. Please enjoy my video Paragliding is boring as fuck. I don't understand it really. I hate the music selection. When you die it plays the piano melody from To Build A Home which was funny at first but you can't turn it off and if you're doing something in which you die a lot you'll hear it a lot as it doesn't stop playing on resetting the challenge/race. I'm not super far into it, it's probably massive, but it's quite relaxing and to be minding your own business for then a fellow player come over beside you and do tricks together is quite charming. It's akin to Journey in that aspect.

Been plugging away at this in fits and starts since Xmas but have finally managed to make some headway on it this week since finishing DQXI. I had been excited to play through these as I missed out on 1 and 2 when I was a kid but absolutely loved Year of the Dragon. I knew these games couldn’t match the levels of nostalgia I had for the Crash Remaster Trilogy but I nevertheless wanted to play through them and see if they stand up in 2019. I’ve been playing the first game in the series, about 8 hours in. My impression so far has been a mixed one really, it definitely hasn’t matched up to Crash in terms of difficulty or challenge which has been a disappointment and the whole ethos of the game overall is way more chilled than Crash. It’s more along the lines of a DK64/Banjo-Kazooie type collectathon platformer where you have to get x amount of items, gems etc. To 100% a level. These kinds of games are as rare as hens teeth these days and playing through it after lots of massively long games is a breath of fresh air. Every now and then it’s good to just play a game that is charming and fun and this has got both those elements in abundance. The graphics are excellent too with some really beautiful areas, I’ve obviously no idea how these compare to the original but I know there was initially some controversy over the sky-boxes or something but that all went over my head. But yeah, each zone is of a fantasy-type motif but featuring the usual snow, desert, earth type areas but the heavenly one in the clouds I’m in now and the last swampy area have been a real delight. I have found myself growing tired of it after awhile as the same collectathon-type levels (only broken up by the odd flying challenge level - which are excellent and provide the only real challenge in the game) get very repetitive after awhile. Sometimes I can’t really be arsed to play it but then I’ll dip back in, get in a level and just get utterly lost in it. It really sets the ol’ endorphins off in the brain every time you do something, you get gems and a cool little melody plays, you kill an enemy and the same happens, you free a Dragon, you make a tricky gliding jump and it’s satisfying, it just feels good. It just ends up being a real dopamine rush with positive reinforcement after positive reinforcement handed out to you, like constantly getting patted on the back. It’s a nice feeling. But yeah, it’s not amazing or anything but I recommend it for the £20-odd I paid for it. I have a feeling 3 will resonate with me the most since that’s the only one I’d actually played previously. Pics: