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Continuing my Indie binge with Hollow Knight. Heard lots of good things about this game earlier this year and saw a Let's Play from Easy Allies of the first two-ish hours of it, has been on my Steam wishlist ever since. For those that don't know, it's an Indie Metroidvania game set in an eerie melancholic bug-world. I've enjoyed it quite a lot, being new to the Metroidvania genre I didn't really know what to expect, I've seen an awful lot of great indie Metroidvania games and kind of got turned off them in the past as there's just so many, I'm glad I gave this a go though because it's now a genre I'd like to explore more. For starters it doesn't hold your hand at all, you get a very brief control tutorial and are then left to explore the world. It doesn't explain anything at all, and if I hadn't of watched the EZA Let's Play I would've been a bit lost on where to go and what to do, luckily that gave me a brief idea. It was still a bit disconcerting exploring areas and not knowing where the fuck you are in the slightest, no map, no idea where the next Rest point is, no idea where the entrance to the next area is or anything though. Luckily you realise how the map system works pretty early on and then discover a vendor to add new areas to it, mark your location on the map etc. All incredibly useful. The gameplay loop is pretty similar to Souls I guess, if you die you loose all your 'Geo', you get Geo by killing enemies. The most innovative mechanic is that when you kill enemies you get souls that you then use to replenish your health, which adds to the whole risk/reward system of the game as it makes you want to attack more in combat in order to get more Souls to heal in the heat of a battle, it is a balance at times as your Soul supply can be used for other things too. You use a small sword for the combat (called a 'nail') which enabled you to hit enemies in any 360 degree direction, there's a lot of enemy variety on offer, when you go into a new area you have to learn their mannerisms all over again, there's a few areas with traps for you to fall into (similar to Souls) too, it always feels fresh and involving. It has that Souls feeling about it to about worrying where the next save point is, knowing you've got 1000+ Geo on you and whether to venture into the next area where a boss may be waiting or head back to a previous area and save. I won't give too much away but new mechanics are introduced as you go along that unlock new locales, one changes the platforming significantly and one changes the combat to a significant degree as well, the game never points you to these so presumably you could go the entire game without discovering them. There's also a system similar to the rings in Souls where you can get slightly more Souls when you defeat an enemy, a bit more health etc. but the slots are incredibly limited at this time meaning you have to choose very wisely which you want to equip. The game looks absolutely stunning, it has a really unique art-design about it, it's cartoonish but the backgrounds and levels managed to look realistic and give a very lived-in, ancient kind of vibe. By far and away the best thing about the game is the music though, it is just absolutely incredible and makes the each area feel special and meaningful, when you go to your first town and a certain song plays it's just so melancholic and haunting at the same time, it really is very special. The noises the characters you meet along the way make are fantastic too, they put so much personality in them just from gibberish and grunts. A few pics:

This arrived yesterday and I've played 11 hours so far...it's really good, it's a bold statement but I think it's the happiest I've been with a game in terms of expectations and how it's been to play it. It's very skyrim in the exploration. It really isn't linear at all, I'm on chapter three now and it's unbelievably open world. This might be the one in the series that brings people in, it's hardly a final fantasy at all.

I only put in about an hour, as I'm still pretty deep into STS and context switching into another roguelike while learning another is a bit much. But the gist is it's kind of a Final Fantasy Tactics type of thing, but with cats. You go on a run, you level up your cats and then retire them after a run, at which point they become use for cross-breeding certain traits into cats that you bring on future runs. Your cats can die, and stay dead. Retired cats can also be thrown into a bin and given to other NPCs in the game, but I'm not sure for what at this point. You can also get new cats by waiting a day or two and some strays will wander in, but you need to have enough food if you wait around (which you get on runs) The combat is a grid based type of thing where you have movement and mana resources and cats have different roles like mage, tank, dps or ranged and there seems to be quite a lot of interactions and combinations of buffs, tile effects and side effects from attacks to consider. I'm very far from understanding any of this, as my tank cat went crazy and farted everyone to death cause of a passive trait it had that means it can't distinguish friend from foe, all felines get farted on. I still won that fight cause of how tanky he was, but I quit afterwards cause all my other cats died and then I was left with only my original two, so I put it down to come back to later. It seems pretty deep, and its sense of humour is very 2005 Newgrounds-coded (I saw online that Chris Chan of all people provides a voice-credit to the game, which is fucking weird, but anyway). I'm not quite hooked yet and the type of humour it goes for is something that stopped really appealing to me a long time ago, it's just a bit mean, but I think the breeding and chaotic strategy of fights is where all the intricate parts of the game will be. I think this is just on PC currently, but I imagine it will run on anything that runs windows/linux. I'll say that the Steam Deck controls are a bit rough, you have to use the stick or the trackpads to move the cursor around and it doesn't really feel suitable for it yet, which might explain why Switch and other consoles aren't ready yet. But you can make it work I'm sure, but I think a dedicated mouse is the way to go here. Visually it's pretty much perfect on steam deck, no compromise whatsoever and the UI scales purrfectly (I'm so fucking sorry)

As i kinda explained in the new purchases thread this is rogue-like RPG dungeon crawl/deck builder mash up that is currently in early access. (it's about 12 quid) When start the game you choose from 1 of 3 characters all of which have different perks and attributes, then another perk/gift much like in rogue-likes/Dark Souls/Hearthstone etc. Your aim is to get to the end of the game without dying as it's perma-death. Game over. I think there currently 3 Acts at the moment and in each map you're given a map and have to chose one of 4 starting points at the bottom, with the boss at the top finishing the act. Once you've chosen you get to pick the next step to move along that path... like this.. - Unknown is Unknown . It's a story event. I could end well (with a new passive perk or something) or badly. - Merchant is a shop where you can buy new cards or items. He usually has some sales too. - Treasure is a treasure chest - Rest you have the option to gain some of your heal back or upgrade a card. - Enemy is a enemy. - Elite is like a mini boss. You see this map even before you set off so you can plan a bit. Do i go after that treasure or have a rest on the other path?.. etc Risk/reward, it's cool. Ok, now the turn-based combat. It's all card/item based. Looks like this.. Like Hearthstone/most card based board games, at the start of each turn the player has a certain about points that they can spend to lay cards. This can be modified with other cards/relics as you progress tho. And like Dominion/rogue likes you start off with very basic cards but after every fight you get to choose 1 of 3 cards to add to your 'deck'. So as you are progress and building your deck, your character is getting better. Enemies/bosses drop loot like money which can be spend at the shop or relics which give you a passive ability. Once you've spent you're points, you end the turn and the remaining cards are put into the discard pile. When your draw pile is empty, the discard pile is shuffled and you start again. That's it basically. It's simple but fuck, it's reeeally good. It merges the deck building with the rogue like stuff really nicely. I wish every turn-based RPG had the same combat/deck building loop this has. It's much more approachable and pick up and play than any card-based video game i've played too. Even more so than Hearthstone. But it still does a lot of the things i like about deck builders. So, yeah if you've ever thought of giving a card game a go but were scared off how impenetrable they can be. Then this maybe the gateway drug. Very addictive. Great game, still in early access too so it should only get better.

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.

Still spelt wrong Bit of an odd one so far. The intro isn't great, I won't spoil it but it's so rushed. Basically it's the bare minimum to justify another game and it's dealt with within about 4 minutes. There's a couple of people you're supposed to feel something towards, but you've literally just met them, you didn't catch their name, and really, ultimately, couldn't give a fuck I can't remember at what point the first game told you about the benefits/consequences of killing people or knocking them out, but I've played 40 minutes, kind of might have killed a few people, and I don't know if it matters. They deserved it, but am I spreading plague, will I face some big consequence later in the game, I've no idea That said, you get to the game part and it's good. I fucked up the combat a couple of times, because you're robbed of your powers there's been a couple of times I've had no idea there were other guards around and so I've tried stealthing someone to sleep and ended up alerting 3 other guards, There's a weird inertia to the movement too, I think it was in the first game too, it takes some getting used to, but I think it will ultimately give the game some character and identity. I might regret it but I'm playing as Corvo, He doesn't shut up, again, I can't remember the first game that well but I don't remember him talking that much. You can play as Emily, and I think the game would like you to play as her, maybe I'll restart it and play as her at some point. Looks good, I'm managing to run it on ultra on my 970 at above 40fps (non-pc players stop reading before this bit, yeah), so I'll probably drop it down to very high and see what happens, either way I can't say I'm seeing the performance problems others have complained about

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).

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)

Well, this is officially out now, I got my code from CD Keys around 7:30pm yesterday. Pre-loaded straight away after that on GOG Galaxy (28gb install), and after I'd watched this week's Game of Thrones I fired her up, played the first hour or so (headphones ran out of juice otherwise I would've played more) can't really give any thorough impressions just yet but the combat still seems a bit shithouse to me (never liked it in The Witcher 2) and the graphics look pretty incredible (despite the downgrade) in almost fully-Ultra settings on PC. Just within that opening hour I've found myself wandering away from the main quest, exploring little villages and cubby holes so it bodes well for the rest of the game, shall give it a proper run-through later today.

Played 90 minutes or so myself and I've enjoyed it so far, already I can tell this is a really well made game that has had a lot of love and attention gone into it. The puzzles are pretty basic in nature, essentially a 2016 Snake-Light puzzle but with different elements that make them harder and harder such as having to pick up little squares on your way to the goal and having to control two snakes at the same time. They have grown quite challenging already and I've got stuck a couple of times already but persevered and eventually found a solution. The island itself, the atmosphere and the art style is where the game really shines, there's absolutely no tutorials, no hand-holding whatsoever and you're left to explore wherever you like and solve whatever puzzles you like. The game looks truly beautiful, like a 3D painting come to life. The Island feels purposefully bewildering, haunting, eery and mysterious and just ripe to explore, it definitely has that Skyrim sense of wonder to it, seeing something in the distance and thinking to yourself 'Ooh, I wonder what's up there' and then sauntering up to see what you find. Found a couple of the voice recordings too and they were both high brow philosophical quotes from famous scholars, scientists, philosophers from a bygone age. My only worry so far is the repetitious nature of the puzzles, but I've read they go more in depth the further you get into it so its not a major worry. Going to put another 90 minutes into it later tonight.

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

Started this last night, have probably put around 6-7 hours into it so far. I'm not going to go into too much detail as folks have already put up detailed impressions of their time with the demos. But, yeah, seeing as my expectations for this were pretty much 0 and I'd not played any of the pre-release demos, alphas etc. I have been pleasantly surprised. The graphics are what I noticed first really, it looks absolutely phenomenal. The voice acting and motion capture for all the characters just feels so incredibly lavish as well, all the performances are amazing and the motion capture just looks and sounds like one of the most realistic I've ever experienced. The hub world is reminiscent of Destiny's Tower but it feels much more Biowarey than I expected it too, it feels like much more of a real, living, breathing place than the lobby-esque workmanlike aesthetic of the Tower. Throughout the first few missions more and more areas of the Fort are introduced to you and you discover new people and places to see like a lovely plaza and bar. What has surprised me the most about the base is probably the NPC conversations though, you have multiple people to speak to after pretty much every mission you finish and talking to these different people to get to know them is a real joy, it doesn't feel like some throwaway exposition dump like in Destiny and other GaaS shooters, you do feel these folks have personalities. The 'action' part of the game I just felt like I was playing an Iron Man game really, there's not really any other way I can describe it. It felt fucking amazing to jump of of the cliff face outside the fort and just engage the thrusters for the first time. Combat itself feels way better than I expected too, although it has been very easy so far with me dying once and my shield being depleted on only 1 other occasion, all the other missions I've played have been a breeze. I have had quite a few bugs. Textures popping in some places - one time I was flying around and a whole environment was pretty much white and then spawned in around me making me crash -the helmet of your character not appearing on the cutscene that plays just before you go on a mission, a weird one where the subtitle box from previous dialogue stays on the screen and won't go away. I've also had quite a struggle getting it to run smoothly on my PC - which is surprising - I had to lookup a guide to get the settings right earlier and have actually managed to get a mostly stable 60fps with few dropped frames - before I was getting as low as 30fps in firefights. I actually haven't had the game kick me out at all though which is surprising, the servers and matchmaking side of things has seemed uber stable so far apart from the long loading times to get into a mission. So yeah. I like it and I want to play more. Apparently after 10 missions there's some kind of Wall that you have to grind to get up, but I'm not there yet so just enjoying the journey so far. It definitely feels way more Bioware than I was expecting and way more distinct thanks to the flight aspect. Lots of pics:

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.

Played 2 hours of this so far and have got through the Prologue/tutorial section pretty much - the section which Journo's played through during the tutorial. So far I'm incredibly impressed with it I have to say, way more than I was with RotTR and probably around the same as TR 2013 - although admittedly my memory of that is a little hazy by now. The first thing I noticed was how goddamn gorgeous this game looks, this is the first game in the series that I've not played in 720p/900p at 30 on consoles and goddamn what a different experience playing on PC - granted it will still look pretty great in almost 4K 30 on Xbox X but at 1440p/60 with everything set to Ultra boy does it shine ?. I thought RotTR had a distinctly last-gen look to it and here whilst there's still a few rough looking textures here and there the whole engine and graphics as a whole looks much improved. I think the lighting is the most impressive though, going through caves, water and a small Mexican town, the way everything was lit was just astonishingly beautiful. It's a shame that so much of the early story has already been revealed by previews and trailers, but the beginning is pretty spectacular. You start out after the shit has hit the fan then go back before it hit the fan to find out what the hell went on (although I knew this already thanks to previews). And it's pretty damn fantastic, lots of slow exposition through a beautiful Mexican town where you can just take in the scenery, music and vibe of the place as you slowly make your way through and investigate followed by some light tutorial stuff and a tomb (yes an actual tomb this early!) which was great fun followed by a nice light puzzle room. After this things go bananas in a typically TR kind of way and lots of mad shit happens which involves you gunning down lots of dudes and running away from collapsing buildings/mountains. I just like the somewhat slow build up this time around, it feels a bit more organic in some ways than having you thrown in at the deep end for the 3rd time in 3 games and let's you appreciate the bombast when it does come all the more. The things they do with the characters already has me way more intrigued than I was for the entirety of RotTR which helps an awful lot too I just hope it continues to bring home the drama. I guess in terms of mechanics, controls and gunplay you know what to expect if you played the previous two games, although I will say I think the new rappel manoeuvre and the way you can now stalk enemies from shrubbery-covered walls is really cool and feels such a good fit for the Jungle environs. I have had some technical issues though. The photo mode is borked for me, everytime I access it the camera does a weird juddery motion and then as soon as I quit the mode everything is ok again, I have also had some huge framerate dips when hanging from ledges which is odd as its been a solid 60 everywhere else so I've had to turn off a few of the superfluous graphical effects and that seems to of remedied it. But yeah, so far I'm way more impressed than I expected to be with it and I can't wait to dig into it again tomorrow night. Some pics:

I picked up the early access version of this, but made the fatal mistake of starting Balatro at the same time which has taken all my attention span and locked it away and thrown away the key. So I only played maybe 2 hours of this. I'm at the apartments It's familiar and different, I was struck by how the VA and framing of scenes feels like a pretty close take of the original without it feeling like an overt homage or anything. The original has very unvarnished vocal performances, I think the main VA was an amateur, so that sort of enhanced the uncanniness of some of it. This isn't quite the same but close enough It looks very good but also incredibly unpolished. It's a very sharp looking game on PC, they seem to have went very hyperreal with it. Not saying it looks realistic just that the high res visuals, the lighting and fog give it this sort of dreamy, heightened kind of look that I'm not really able to explain. Maybe screenshots do it better, I dunno. But it has lots of visual glitches, things like turning the camera causes the culling to not work correctly and objects and lighting activate in front of you. There's some weird occlusion glitch where there's this ghosting all the time, not the spooky kind. Everything between the camera, James and the area in front of James has this visually buggy look when moving the camera. That might be caused by some setting I can turn off, but I don't know what. I only mention the boring technical stuff cause it's a game primarily about immersion in a slow moving narrative, so disruptions like that do stick out a lot more. There's some black crush in these screenshots cause they were converted from jxr, which is a HDR format, and badly compressed to jpg I think it's really impressive what they've done here though. It seems to understand the original well enough and makes sensible changes to not make it too much of a rethread. Example being you walk past the point in the original where you expect to get the radio, but you don't, you get it later and in a different way. Everything takes maybe twice as long, unsure whether or not that will be something I enjoy more or less as it goes on. It has the same town layout, I think, but the distance has been increased and there's more in between areas. So if you haven't played the original in a long time, like me, then it exists in this strange foggy realm of forgotten memory yet also familiarity, like you've been here before. But I'm struggling to have a good time with it. The technical issues are really hard for me to overlook, which is why I mention them so much. I'm usually able to sort of push past stuff like this, but I've not played a lot of UE5 games so I don't think I quite realised how much this game will keep skipping and jumping forward a few frames like it's an old film with a bunch of damage on it. The VRR causes constant flicker in the apartment area on OLED, I guess cause the frame variance is so high. So you can turn that off, or play on a different screen. I also find the combat a bit too much, it's very aggressive and seems to be about spacing, attack patterns, recognising stun animations from attack leadups, knowing when to use your limited ammo or combo into the stick. It reminds me how Homecoming looked. It's not a bad system they've designed, but it goes harder than what I was personally looking for and I'm finding that just to be a bit of a hassle. I'm dying a lot and getting filtered by combat I'll admit, but I was expecting that side to be more basic. So objectively speaking it seems like a good game marred by really bad technical issues, subjectively I'm much more mixed tho. I'll take my time and maybe I'll come around, I'm not coming at it looking to hate it or anything. As mentioned I'm really impressed by the specific changes Bloober have made to some things

Big fan of this so far. If I were to want to be reductive, and I do, it's sort of Breakout meets Vampire Survivors. You play as a character moving up through a lane, enemies drop in on tiles and lanes, and you fire off balls that bounce around and damage the enemies. When enemies die they drop experience, you pick it up and eventually level up, choosing a passive perk or another special ball to throw out. The balls are in 2 types, you baby balls which just deal low damage but come out more regularly, and special balls, which do more damage and have traits like poison, slow, burn etc You level up and gain a stat point, and can level up your perks and balls, which means you can kind of spec towards something. Have lots of things that fire more baby balls, maybe you hold out for the perk that improves their damage, or increases the damage of all balls when they bounce off anything. All of a sudden your weaker stuff is now more regular and doing more damage There's Fusion drops that act like the treasure chests in Vampire Survivors, randomly increasing the level of perks, or allowing you to fuse certain items. My favourites so far are the blizzard (slow and extra damage while frozen from the ice ball, and the area of effect damage from the lightning ball). and the egg sac combines with the laser, where the egg sac spawns baby balls on contact, the laser hits everything on an enemies row on contact; so if it now spawns a bunch of baby balls, all of them fire lasers doing row damage on contact As you progress there's bosses, you can see them coming up on the map. There's an end of level boss, beat that and you get a gear, get enough of them and you unlock the next level. So far the game has been fairly easy, I'm on the 3rd level from a couple of hours play, and have beaten the 1st level with 3 characters. In between stages there's a kind of farming mechanic. I could live without this truth be told, but it does have some gameplay use. You can plant and grow wheat, wood and stone, these are materials you'll need to build things (I'm skipping over some of this). This lets you build the housing that unlocks new characters when you get the blueprint during a run. You can also build totems and things that improve all your characters, so far these have relied on me beating stages, with bonus improvements for each person I beat it with. It's a mechanic that feels a little stuck on, but there is a use to it while its there

Megabonk is basically 3D Vampire Survivors, which sounds reductive, but it largely is. You're more limited in how many weapons you can hold, initially 2, but I've managed to get it up to 3 now. Same with the perks, here they're called Tomes, which is more of an issue with them, because with it being so limited I don't see why you'd select pick up range and item drop rate instead of damage and health regen, or attack cooldown and XP gain. Megabonk mixes it up with items, that are less useful, but can give you armour, or poison damage, health regen etc, by the end of your time they can really stack up The level structure is a little different. You've still got the time limit of Vampire Survivors, but Megabonk introduces end of level bosses, that you can curs if you find the right statues, this will then let you finish that tier, and open up the possibility of selecting a 2nd tier next time, which means beating tier 1's boss, then going to tier 2 through a portal, taking your stats and abilities with you once you've done a few runs you might have met the requirements and earned enough currency to buy new characters and items to take in to levels. It's pretty addictive, which is sort of annoying because I wanted to get other things done, but it does seem a very good Steam Deck game