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Started and finished this over the weekend, took me about 4 hours. It's a weird one for sure, as soon as the intro had finished and I was put into the game itself I had a cursor and had to move the main character with the less analog stick, tapping A to move him to a certain spot or highlight an object or person in the environment, I wasn't expecting this to almost be a point and click adventure game. The art style and top-down camera perspective to the game is really unique too, some Hotline Miami vibes for sure as soon as I booted it up. Once you get into the game things play out as you may or may not of seen in the trailers (I will spoil this just in case), As soon as this is over you go back to the moment where you first enter your Apartment and things play out exactly the same as they did before, your wife greets you, asks you about similar topics, reads her book etc. Until the same cop turns up and repeats the same actions as before. You're stuck in a time loop, Groundhog Day style. Your goal is to escape the timeloop by not dying, to do this you have to repeat the same loop over and over, changing up certain things, asking your Wife questions (that then open up new dialogue options down the line) until you can eventually not die and escape the timeloop. It's a cool premise but after a few hours you start to realise this is just like the bit in PT where everything is Red and you're going round and round in circles trying to do something different to get the SH trailer pop up at the end. It gets tedious real quick unfortunately, after awhile of going around banging my head up against the wall, exhausting all dialogue options with the Wife, trying to get think of new things to try I gave up and looked up a Guide to show me a few tips of what to do next. With the guide it wasn't too frustrating, for loop-after-loop I'd try to do things myself but if after awhile I was banging my head up against the wall I'd consult the guide to get to the next 'checkpoint' and closer to my goal. There are some pretty mad revelations, twists and turns along the way which I won't spoil. But yeah, it's a weird game, I do recommend it and I did enjoy my time with it but if I hadn't of looked up a guide when I got stuck I most likely would've just given up on it as it was just frustrating the hell out of me. Pics: Proper Spoiler Image:

I played and finished this a few weeks ago now and have finally got round to creating the thread for it. For those that don't know this is a Dontnod title very much in the same vein as Life is Strange, it is Episodic and a teen drama exploring some of the same themes as LiS, where it differs slightly is that it is only 3 Episodes rather than the 5 associated with LiS. In terms of plot, it centres on a twin Brother and Sister in a small Alaskan town in the middle of nowhere. The Brother (Tyler)has just got out of a Juvenile detention facility and come back to his home town for the first time in 8 years, seeing his Sister (Alyson) for the first time since a tumultuous incident (involving their Mother) wrestled them apart years ago. As well as this the Brother successfully transitioned from his gender of birth (female) to become a Trans Man in 'Juvie', so he has many additional challenges, thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. About being reunited with his Sister for the first time since his transition and being back in his backward home town. In terms of how the game plays, it is extremely similar to LiS in terms of being a character driven adventure game determined by key choices and dialogue choices you can make along the way, it even retains a supernatural element similar to LiS as well in that the Twins can hear each others thoughts and both can see each others memories from the past, some of which may differ from the others' perspective in certain situations and events. As a huge fan of Life is Strange I really enjoyed this, with the shortened 3-Episode count it means the whole story arc wraps up more succinctly and I never felt there were any filler or pointless episodes in there, it's all good stuff. I much preferred it to Life is Strange 2 as well, highly recommended. Pics:

Firstly, Boyfriend Dungeon is itch.io as fuck. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but you're given warnings about content right on loading up, an option to turn off messages from a certain character, and there's plenty of bi characters, possibly everyone is, and a non-binary character pops up later on. I think I was playing as a woman, but typing out the previous sentence I'm wondering if there was a gender option I missed. Either way, the point is that you probably already know from that if you should bother with Boyfriend Dungeon. Although I will just add that after a couple of dates I eventually met a girl I dated pretty much the rest of the game. The dating aspect is really just to move the plot on. There's an overarching story about you learning to be more confident over your summer holiday, with a bit more going on, but dating also means that character raises their level cap and so offers addition perks Additional perks because everyone you date can transform in to a weapon you can use in the dungeon. The combat is pretty basic, you have a quick attack, a harder attack and a roll. The perks you get include things like your roll confusing enemies, damaging them, maybe your basic combo finishing with a lighting attack that chains to other enemies. You don't level up as you progress through the dungeon,only after your run when you either escape or die/pass out. So the next time you'll go in you'll feel significantly stronger I... kind of liked it. I found it very dull to start. I wasn't interested in the dating at all, but Val is a decent enough character, certainly more likable than those you've dated before. The combat doesn't progress a huge amount but you learn to work within its restrictions and it starts to find a way under your skin Not for everyone but it's decent enough

What Remains of Edith Finch is by Giant Sparrow, the people behind The Unfinished Swan, which was inventive and clever. What Remains of Edith finch is shorter, denser, and feels less like a collection of chapters bundled together, and more like a cohesive narrative It's a narrative game, not a huge amount in the way of gameplay other than finding which objects you can interact with. You've returned to the family house, which is almost like a Tim Burton bit of architecture, all your family has died off, often in tragic or strange circumstances, and so your mother took you and abandoned the house hoping to leave whatever "curse" has beset your family. You wander through the house, discovering the stories of your ancestor's lives, and sometimes deaths The vignettes are brilliant. Some are shorter than others, but some really are fantastic, or fantastical, inventive, joyous, and every so often, heartbreaking. You can see the legacy of Unfinished Swan in there, but I was also reminded of That Dragon Cancer, and while it's a horrible thing to say about a game that's as raw and honest as That Dragon Cancer, but Edith Finch does it better, even if it doesn't have the same weight behind it It looks great too, at points I was genuinely surprised by how good it looked. There's some points where it's just that the fidelity is amazing, maybe it's running at a higher resolution on the Pro or something, but there's other moments, an underwater section in particular, that just have superb art design

This is very good. The original was a pretty unique take on classic Metroid but this is something else. It still has recognisable hallmarks, especially in relation to the first game but it takes the unique aspects of that and uses those to build off. If anything it proves it wasn't a fluke and the unique aspects can carry a game. I dunno how many people here want to play it as I don't really want to talk about it too much at this point as the abilities you get are unconventional half the time and help keep the exploration a puzzle. It's pretty difficult though since it's mostly melee combat, but it could have been just me adjusting to it from playing the original right before this. The exploration isn't always easy, too. It keeps it a little easier since bosses can just be ran past if you're not feeling like you're ready for them on top of the very light stealth elements for regular enemies. Exploration is the core of the game. I'm stumped at the moment. I'm blocked off from where I need to go but I'm in that situation where do I need an ability I'm missing or is there some hidden way and I gain the ability in the place. I'm leaning to the latter since I've combed most of the (pretty large) map.

I cant believe none of you guys are playing this!!! in fact, out of the people in my friends list, only one guy is playing it :'(. this series really doesnt deserve to have another instalment undersell! whinging aside http://www.mfgamers.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.gif, its awesome. It looks fantastic, and the sound is mind boggling, all the ambient noises and rolling orchestral flourishes are even better this time roun, and freaking scary. the whole thing is freaking scary!! been playing it with the lights out and headphones on, notifications turned off, and i actually feel wired and shaken after a couple hour session. so the technical stuff is just an improvement on the first games amazing effort, which is no mean feat in itself. but theyve really improved the gameplay and the story is shaping up to be better too. the new weapons are great, and using kinesis to pick up makeshift projectiles on the fly is a great addition. the more linear direction which sent shivers down my spine when i first heard about it actually does the game a service, makes you reaise how they couldve designed the first game in a similar way and it wouldve been better. no backtracking, just new enviroment after new enviroment as the game tries to show you all the different areas of the sprawl - its gruesome to see how different aspects of civilian life there have been buttraped by the necromorphs. they even hit the kiddy wing. --------------> its fecking awesome!!!!!

So had a quick go of this after it unlocked last night, initial impressions are mixed, they've changed the combat a bit and i'm not sure about it yet, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's annoying, and i've really struggled on two sections so am a bit worried i won't be able to finish it on normal, some of the enemies can be really annoying. having said that the original started with bad combat but i really liked that after you unlock a certain move so maybe this will be similar. and there were easy/hard options so hopefully you can switch between them - also wonder what they change as i personally would want to just make the combat easier and leave the rest, but someone else might struggle with the platforming i don't know. everything else was pretty similar to the first game so far - it looks amazing and there's been some mild puzzles and platforming - generally really enjoying it outside the combat. hope there are some more demanding platforming sections like in the first game. there are combat trials and timetrial sections too - i enjoyed the timetrial one - as above not sure about the combat one - probably could have come back to it later when more powered up. oh and they changed the save system to a seemingly more normal one with pretty frequent checkpoints - that's probably a good change Also apparently there are performance problems/bugs, 2 patches already on xbox? i'm playing the gamepass version on pc and haven't had any patches, bugs/problems. this is a game i would have purchased, but it's on gamepass so i didn't, which is an odd thing. anyone else getting it/trying it on gamepass?

So, played this for around two and a half hours tonight... so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm not going to pretend that it has triple A production values going on but I've been pleasantly surprised by how good it looks all in all... a photo mode would've been nice. The character animation is probably one of the least appealing things in the game Marianne runs a little like Claire from Code Veronica.? I've just made my way to the spooky Hotel and the game has let me use my abilities, it's actually pretty cool to solve puzzles this way... I thought the lack of combat might hurt things for me but so far the story is carrying things along nicely. I'm looking forward to playing more of this, it was always going to be up my street so to speak.

This is just for the demo so far... release isn't too far away now though. I'm presuming this isn't too far in to the game, you start out already having met Carlos and entering the Subway train, after a brief conversation you're free to head up to the streets. First impressions... and it's a big one, HDR is vastly improved over RE2... I wish they'd actually go back and fix that but after a year its highly unlikely, anyway it's a lot better in this game. It controls very similar to RE2 but with the added dodge, I actually had to go and change the controller setup as I didn't like where they'd put run (clicking left stick) with the change it felt much better. Obviously it looks lovely, already it's a much more colourful game than RE2, shooting feels pretty much identical... all though I think they may have toned down the zombie dismemberment a tad... presumably because there's more on screen. I've had a good wonder around, it's got some nice little shortcuts you can open up to move around easier and I'm surprised at how many shops you could actually enter. I didn't actually get to finish the demo though... Nemisis killed me...? Everything is looking good to me so far, fingers crossed that shitty real life virus doesn't delay the game.

If you want a high octane extreme to the max experience you've come to the right place. i've not really done any of the game like stuff like the tutorials and landing challenges. i'm just flying around in a sort of virtual tourism way, i think the game for me is trying to find things in the game, like i flew over my house and my car was there which was pretty cool. finding things is not as easy as you might think, the in game map where you can choose any point in the world and just load in on, lacks any real detail, mainly just showing airports and the odd landmark, eg in russia there was a university marked on the map, tokyo sky tower, but there aren't many of these. so for example to find my house used google maps to find nearby airports/landing strip, then using those as a reference point click in the area i think it'll be, fly around a bit to find a town i recognised, then follow the roads i know back to the house. it seems like you can edit config files to move some of the in game markers to specific points and use that to find locations exactly but that sounds like a faf and not as fun. at first i was flying pretty low to look at stuff and this sort of breaks the amazing graphics, like the streets in new york were full of trees which is odd. the eden project is flat, as were a number of buildings in russia and vietnam. the textures in the north pole were a bit messed up. the bull ring in birmingham has a normal building texture on the side so doesn't look anything like it should. but then i started flying a bit higher and turned the clouds on and it looks crazy next level good. last night i was flying around cheshire/north west wales, yorkshire, manchester, it looked amazing, and is quite relaxing. i got the game on gamepass, it's not the sort of thing i'd buy, but have played it quite a lot and been enjoying it, which surprised me, i thought it'd be boring, and i guess it is but i'm enjoying it anyway.

I've been meaning to check this game out for ages and finally had a chance to play it online with a mate last night. The premise is you're a clean up crew sent in after the events of your typical first person shooter. Armed with a mop and a variety of tools you have to go in, clean up the bodies and mop the place up. The twist comes in all the physics based sillyness. We played a level set in a space station with a switch that turned gravity on and off. It's just that we didn't realise the switch did that and suddenly there are hundreds of body parts bouncing around, splattering blood everywhere, which then gets stood in and suddenly there are bloody footprints everywhere. It's got a real dark sense of humour to it as well. My wife gave me one of 'those' looks when she saw me laughing at my friends attempts to stuff a rag-doll cadaver into an incinerator, innards flying everywhere. Despite leaving the place immaculate, we got demoted. Turns out jettisoning rubbish into space is frowned upon and we should have used the incinerator on the ceiling more. Can't remember the last time i've laughed so much at a game.

Started this off earlier and put just under 4 hours into it. This has set the record of making me cry the fastest in a video game, just felt overcome with the music in the tutorial ? also the fountain in the middle of the village at the beginning of the game is just amazing, I must’ve walked around that fountain about 30 times just listening to the lovely music (cried again here), amazing. As soon as I got free reign to explore the village I explored every corner of it, there’s not much to it but it creates such a strong sense of place and unique vibe, it’s already memorable and familiar even in my short time there. Combat feels like a more simplistic version of Automata’s. It looks flashy and feels good but is bit more shallow than Automata’s. If I had to compare it, it feels a bit like FFXV’s (without all the warp-strikes) or one of the earlier KIngdom Hearts games. You start off without any ranged abilities with just your sword to rely on, but pretty quickly you pick up a ranged weapon which has added to the variety on offer and cool abilities you can pull off. Story-wise not much has happened so far, I’ve just been given a few meaningless tasks to do by Popola, been to my first dungeon and met a certain literary figure. I’ve done a few of the side quests too just to see how bad they are for myself, and yeah, they’re not great but I don’t mind them so far, they’re inoffensive, a damn boar kept fucking me up in one of them.

You know the first thing about this that made me smile? It comes with a manual! I can't really recall the last game I had that came with a real one? Anyway, this game (at time of writing, I'm not upto the second boss yet) warrants being remade. The original game was made in 1986. Gaming has changed a bit in 35 years and a straight up port isn't really going to garner any positive attention. Which, looking at some reviews and scores, this really has. Which, so far, I can only agree it deserves. Oh and two things. 1) I never played this Alex Kidd game, so there's nothing rose tinted there. 2) I definitely won't be playing this with the infinite lives cheat on. With how extremely generous auto-saving is in this remake, it isn't really necessary.

Took a punt on this after seeing it in the Summer Games Fest. The first one has always appealed and at £35 it didn't seem to pricey. And so glad I did as this is one of those games that has me beaming from ear to ear when I play it. Its main game mode is a 64 player medieval skirmish, two teams hacking the hell out of each other in either all out warfare or some objective based gameplay (storm the castle/free prisoners that sort of thing). There's just a wonderful charm to it all, with a great sense of humour running through it. The combat is surprisingly deep (though it all goes to shit when theres 20 of you bashing the shit out of each other) with three main attacks, a swing, a stab and an overhead attack. Each attack can be dragged meaning you pull the right thumb stick in the direction of your swing to give it more range and heft. You also have a special and a kick as well as your standard block/reposte/evades. I've only had three or four games on top of the tutorial but it's great fun so far, and i'm resisting the urge to ditch work today and play it.

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:

So, I just started this up. I’m actually surprised Konami got off their arse to put this together. They’ve been absolute morons for years, and done literally nothing with their numerous IPs. All they did last year was Metal Gear Survive, which I don’t even need to comment on. So I genuinely wasn’t expecting them to bother with a collection like this. Contra is getting one later in the year, and I bloody love Contra, so will naturally check that out. Anyways. How does this hold up? Pretty good, really. The first game in the series i ever played was 4, due to never owning a NES back in the day. It remains one of my favourite games of all time, from the gameplay to the gorgeous soundtrack. I didn’t think we’d see this anywhere other than a Nintendo console. But I’m very glad to be replaying it. As it’s just as brilliant now, as it was then. I never played the Megadrive version, again due to not owning one at the time. So I’m looking forward to giving that a shot, as it’s generally held in high regard. As for the rest? You’ve got all 3 of the NES games, which I will get though after 4 and Bloodlines. Two gameboy games, which don’t look especially great, but I’ll play them for completions sake. And Kid Dracula, which I have no idea if it’s any good or not. As is par for the course in these kind of collections, you can quick save your game at any time. Though on the PS4 version, you access the save menu by pressing the Share button. Which of course either takes a screenshot, or video, depending on your setting. And there’s no way of changing that to say, the Options button, or touchpad. It’s weird. Maybe they’ll sort it out in a future update perhaps. There’s no way to change button configuration either. You also get access to various promotional material/ concept art of all the games, which is a nice touch.

I've been waiting for this to drop in price for a while. Normal price on Steam is 20 quid which is quite a lot but there does seem to be a lot to it. Also this is "early access" so it's not meant to be finished yet but seems largely there for me, unless they plan on changing a lot about their art style or menus, which mostly seem fine to me. So, it's a Sim City style game but you make a prison. You have to build it from scratch, from the outer walls to the yard, canteen, holding cells, etc. You employ staff from the Warden down to building crew. The game starts out with a tutorial that has a prison all built bar an execution cell which it teaches you how to build that and you get the grim story of the inmate that you're blasting with electricity. It also uses this time to tell you that you're not here to judge on the inmates, just to do your job in holding them and keeping them from wrecking the joint. Pretty much anything you can think of you have to build. If you have toilets they need to be connected to the water system, if you have buildings they must have doors, electrical items like lights need power cables running from the building to a power capacitor that needs to be maintained and not over-loaded. I got an interest in it from the Giant Bomb quick look and it's also proven a useful tool for me to get myself started too.

Well,it’s finally out. I’m three missions in,and thus far,it’s off to a very good start indeed. It looks glorious,thanks to the RE engine. You start off as Nero,the only character that was in the demo. And he’s a riot to play as. I’ve never been a master of this series. I can throw down a few SS/SSS combos here and there,get the odd A rank from time to time. But I’ve long since accepted that I’ll never be a top tier DMC player. But that doesn’t matter to me. All that mattters is, “am I having fun?”. And thus far,DMC 5 is absolutely fun. There’s a ton of skills to play around with,the Devil Breakers add a new level of tactics to combat. I went for the Digital Deluxe edition,so have access to the Mega Buster from Mega Man. Which is definitely a favourite thus far. Now,on to the issue of micro transactions. A lot of people kicked off when it was announced this game has them. Jim Sterling has already said in his review that due to his standpoint,this excludes the game from “Game Of The Year” consideration,despite the huge amount of praise has for it. So,are they actually that bad in DMC? Honestly,no. They’re hidden away in the Menu screen,at no point are you obnoxiously told “Hey Kids,want to buy some stuff?”. And the prices of the items themselves,aren’t that much at all. £1.70 gets you either 3 Blue Orbs,or 100,000 Red Orbs. All of the reviews I’ve read have said you get more than enough without resorting to them. And I feel that seems about right. So yeah,it’s not the end of the world that they’re in this. There’s a catch up video that sums up important events in the previous games,which is pretty decent. It made me laugh that DMC2,the worst entry in the series,gets less than 10 seconds mention,whereas the rest get several minutes at least. So yeah. I’m excited to finally have this. Should be fun.

Got my copy early so gave this a go this afternoon after I finished The Inpatient. Starts off similarly to a lot of Monster Hunters, getting you into your camp quite quickly after a few scripted sequences, tutorials and lots of cutscenes. Spent awhile honing my character - went for my traditional ginger lady, had to change her hair as soon as I was able to in camp though as it just looked shite. Went for a tour of the camp and tried to take in where everything is, there’s definitely a lot to take in but I remember quite a bit of the layout already. Chose my weapon - went for the Insect Glaive. Tried it out in the training room afterwards and had an absolute blast with it, felt like Dante or Bayonetta or some shit, I was doing aerial gymnastics like nobodies business. Went on a quest after this to kill some jagras which was incredibly simple, cool to finally get to do my first quest. As soon as I finished all the online stuff opened up, I didn’t even realise the servers were online yet. Messed about a bit with the squads and checking out the new gathering hall which is fantastic. I’ve created a squad for us by the way, it’s called MFGamers - unsurprisingly - if you search for it whenever y’all get the game it should pop up, if not send me a message and I’ll invite you. Hardly got into it really, but it looks and feels phenomenal so far, cannot wait to get truly stuck in to some tough monsters in my next session.

Couldnt see a post for this, feel free to delete if there is one. So, this is my first Metro game and the first thing I will say is that the story/setting is so immersive that its made me want to go through the other ones. As a game its not the most polished although its really good, solid 7 out of 10, theres just a few little things here and there and it sort of reminds me of Elder scrolls Oblivion at points which is a weird comparison but its what it reminds me of, its just got a bit of a clunkyness to it. The load times are absolutely ridiculous at times, 2 minutes to load up the game. The first time it happened I genuinely thought my PS4 had just given up but apparently its standard. It would be interesting to see what people who have played the series think of this one, mainly @DANGERMAN because I seem to remember him being a long time fan. I get the impression that its a massive departure from the series traditional feel, and I dont know if they decided to just do something different because they wanted to make a kind of open world game. The reason I say that is because it definitely feels like an early PS4/late PS3 game in terms of its open world approach, it gives me some slight Half Life 3 vibes.

There's kind of been 3 types of Ys games over the years. The first couple you just bashed in to enemies, then they became hyper, isometric, all about attacking. Then we got to the 3D versions and it was still a game about going on the attack, but now what type of attack was important. You'd eventually gather 3 characters, a sword character (red), a blunt attack character (blue), and a piercing character (green), different enemy types are weak to different attack types, and you can switch on the fly to suit And that's how it's been for a few games now. Ys IX follows the same formula, but brings in a more traditional RPG structure. Previously side quests would task you with just getting certain drops, you'd get them from your home base, which was a tiny area, and that would be it. 99.9% of the time you were out killing things Ys IX is a little different, structured like a traditional JRPG, it starts slow, with the plot set up, then some short easy combat to ease you in, then a chunk more story. The world is no longer 1 small safe area then a world of combat, instead you're in a city, with combat, shopping, side quests, and exploration taking place throughout, I've not seen this in an Ys game before, even if it's fairly typical for the genre. You're eased in to the world with quests to visit shops and buy gear, it's a little slow going. There's still "dungeons", sections where there's nothing but combat and exploration, but now there's also little dimension pockets where you can enter combat and fight a handful of enemies, then just carry on with whatever you were supposed to be doing The tower defence style sections are still here, now you're whisked away at certain points to fight as a team, protecting a crystal, against waves of enemies. Not especially interesting, and the camera annoyed me a little with this, it maybe could do with being pulled back a bit so you see more of the field, but then they've not been too demanding so far, so maybe it doesn't matter also it's all anime goth now

Well, ive installed it, and my poor little surface is sort of struggling to play it. Unless the main character saying every line is part of the story.... Looks good though, going to have a play around with the setting and see what we can do, more details when I get a chance to play it properly. Music in this game is absolutely lovely so far, im really liking the game from the brief 20 minutes. EDIT: Changed Resolution, and everybody is happy now. Was trying to run it at 2160 x 1440, looks lovely now.

I don't think anyone has started a thread about Doki Doki Literature Club, but I've a feeling that's not quite how it's spelt and the search can be a bit shit @spatular put me on to this but apparently its doing the rounds on some of the bigger forums. It's a visual novel with a slight dating element to it. Basically once you join the club you all start sharing your poems with each other, you get to pick 20 words the night before to impress whichever of the girls you like (there's 3 very distinct girls you can impress) So far that's probably enough for you to judge the people playing this, especially Spatular, but without going in to things and spoiling what the game is, it's very much not that It's free on Steam, seems to have taken everyone else on my friends list 4 hours, I went out and left it running so it's going to take me about 10. Its an interesting thing so far though

I was just two and a half hours playing the Balan Wonderworld demo. It’s not half as bad as I’d heard on podcasts that had also clearly only played the first two levels of world one before turning it off and deciding to tell everyone it’s the worst game ever. The opening levels are a bit crap but the later sheep and the cog worlds are much better. I’m not talking Mario levels of quality but certainly gets better than the opening world. Plus the later costumes you find you can use when you go back to previous worlds to get to further trophies which in turn opens up more worlds. The music is also better later on. Not completely awful but an alright time waster and with so few games of its kind on xbox and PlayStation beggars can’t be choosers.

About 3-4 hours into this so far so thought I'd make a thread (my first in quite awhile!). To start off its made by the same Dev Team that made 2017's Stories Untold and some of the same developers that made 2014's Alien Isolation so I knew going in it's from a studio with some pedigree. You play as SAM. Essentially the 'Mother' computer AI of the Ship you're on - the Observation. You control numerous cameras situated around the ship and can also take control of remote sphere's that enable you to navigate around - in first person - the ships claustrophobic, dimly lit hallways. You interact with the game in a kind of point and click style, navigating from camera to camera around the station to try to find a passcode, a bit of evidence or open a hatch to advance the story. From time to you'll also interface with certain computers and have to complete little mini-games in order to progress. As for the story, I don't want to give too much away but as SAM you'll assist Astronaut Emma Fisher around the station, helping her in whatever way you can. As you progress, more and more things come to light about the crew, their plight, their mission and why the ship is in the state it's in. Things are quite tense around the station with a pervading sense of dread and foreboding, you never quite feel comfortable exploring but at the same time aren't exactly terrified either, I wouldn't really say it's a scary game at all so far - which is perhaps a little disappointing but it is definitely tense. It's definitely a weird one so far, there's a lot to take in and a lot of confusing aspects to the story that I'm still trying to piece together as I go along. It's consistently engaging, mysterious and compelling though and I find myself thinking about what discovery I'll find during my next session which is definitely a good sign. The way it plays isn't particularly revolutionary or anything but the quirky little computer mini-games are really well designed with that 80s Alien-esque aesthetic that gives them a character of their own and searching for items using the cameras is akin to old school adventure games. We'll see how it pans out but at the moment this is definitely up there as one of my most memorable games of this year, there's not really too much else like it. Some pics: