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I played this on game pass, having tried the demo during one of those Steam events and liking it. Beacon Pines is a cutesy storybook adventure with darker undertones. The big conceit is you find "charms" through talking to characters, looking at things in the environment or overhearing other characters etc. At certain points in the story you're presented with the option of choosing from 2-3 of these charms to decide what action take in that situation. The story branches off according to the choice you make, you might die a grizzly death or head off on a completely different version of the story. You can go back to any of these branches and try the other options, sometimes you'll find another charm down one branch that lets you make a different choice in an earlier decision. The branching thing is more superficial in the end than how the game initially presents it to you, you end up exploring most of the decisions on the way to getting the ending anyway, but it's fun and engaging. It's about 5 hours or so in length, which is just right. It doesn't overstay it's welcome. The presentation and art style are top notch.

I’m about an hour into this on Switch. It has the same kind of relaxing vibe as A Short Hike, although I would not say it’s as good as that game, so far. The art style reminds me of Hidden Folks. The game is literally just you running around taking pictures for people. It’s very pleasant, although for Eurogamer to call this “essential” is stretching the meaning of essential…

I have very mixed feelings about this. I love the feeling of adventure, of not knowing what's down the road and if you'll be able survive. It's brilliant when you do overcome the odds and press on after a tough battle. The combat system is great with loads of customisation on offer, you're even encouraged to change class altogether. The Pawn system works really well, being able to hire and fire helpers and changing the composition of your group entirely as the situation demands. Despite all the good bits, the game so far has felt as though i'm playing the middle portion of an RPG where i'm clearing up fluff quests just to pad out the leveling process. There's been no gravitas or urgency to the quests so it's difficult to differentiate between the story and side quests. Things like not having fast travel I can understand why they left out even though it's annoying to have to walk to the same places over and over. I'm surprised more games don't use the MMO style flight paths to get around. You still get to where you're going quicker but you have to travel to a specific place, rather than just magically teleporting everywhere. It's a happy medium between the two. There's other things which are pretty minor and affect my enjoyment more than they probably should. For instance, why did they overlook mini-map markers for people who have something to say? It's incredibly frustrating having to run around looking for colored speech bubbles above NPCs heads. Likewise with the Pawns. As good as the system is it grates when in combat and you're unable to issue commands for something as simple as a weapon buff - the option just doesn't exist. Most of the time you just have to wait for them to apply the correct buff which is very frustrating against the larger enemies. For all it's issues, there are times when this incredible game shines through, and that's what makes it worth playing. I just wish it was more consistent.

Been playing a lot of this the past week, the openmw version (which is an open source re-implementation of the game engine to run better on modern systems, with more modern visual tweaks while still being the same old ass game). It's a game I've a ton of half hearted attempts at getting into but this is more of a proper attempt, primarily cause I figured out how to install openmw on steam deck and get save syncing working between it and pc using something called syncthing. If people are interested there's guides out there to get openmw working on deck, you want that, you don't want vanilla cause it won't run as good or play as well. I did try to see if there was a thread to bump but seems there isn't, so I mean the effort was made there. Maybe it exists but I can't find it 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, it's cool. It's very interactive in the way Bethesda games usually are but moreso in some ways and less so in others if you compare it to their modern output. Everything is dice-rolley as fuck. Even casting a spell can fail if you aren't properly learned in its school of thought, even if you have the spell 'learned'. Getting around doing quests means following actual directions relative to specific cities and locations on the map, one quest in particular is given to you as a series of sermons from a church which follows the teachings of 'Vivec', who is like Morrowind's JC figure, telling you to go to specific locations like caves beneath vivec city or a big wall made out of the remains of deceased dark elves and give offerings. You have to figure that shit out yourself, it's up to you, and it's a cool approach which demands you actually spend time reading books of lore and listening to what people say to even know what the hell a 'ghostgate' even is or why you probably shouldn't press beyond it cause it's a bit shit on the other side. Anyway, this will be the time I beat Morrowind. The really wordy bits where you spend ages reading actual novella length backstories of a Dark Elf queen and demigods tearing things apart and putting them back together are pretty well suited to deck gaming, tho in general the whole game is tbh. It's got an immersive sim quality to the way you can figure out some stuff, like it doesn't have a fast travel system, not really, so getting from Pelegiad to Balmora is a bit of a pain but there are some workarounds like this involving alteration and special potions There's others which require you to invest a bit of time into the game's systems, like being able to use telekinesis to open booby-trapped doors from across the room, or use the same skill to pickpocket someone really far away without having to take risks out in the open. Right now my khajit is a neophyte in a lot of this stuff and all his potions have the fun secondary effect of causing temporary status decreases, so a little bit of poison to go along with the buff, but my more recent potions have less of that in it. It's clunky and difficult but a lot of the quests and skills force you to invest the time to interrogate the RPG clockwork which allows you to do lots of interesting stuff, while at the same time improving your understanding of the world itself and its history. It's not quite botw cause you don't have a physics engine but finding different interactions is still a lot more interesting here than in Oblivion imo which while it had tons of physics interactions they did not improve the gameplay which was mostly just action based. I never played enough Skyrim to really have an informed take on it but I didn't get into it in any of my attempts (X360, PC and PCVR). Besides Morrowind it is probably my biggest gaming blindspot, but unlike Morrowind I'm not as likely to address it I think cause I kinda know what it is but MW still has lots of fun unknown stuff for me cause even now it feels pretty unique and worth playing, even 20 years on Quest wise it's being mostly ascending to apprentice-hood in the thieves guild and mages guild, at the same time as trying to decide which of the three houses suits me best (decided Hlallu cause they about money) and deciding if I want to do a fighter's guild quest where someone is asking me to kill fellow guild mates, if there's any consequences to it or whatever. All my stats are heavily speech and money focused, which is a probably weird way to play the game. But the way you are supposed to do things anyway is cram points in your misc skills to get the most level ups rather than just focus on your base 10 stats. So figuring out the mysteries of conjuration, illusion, alteration and mysticism is what I'm into, too magicka starved to go into the deep end of some higher level magicks or destruction tho

So this is an odd one. Because the game tells you nothing at all going in, I think it's important to know what the set-up is, but some people might feel it's a spoiler, so I'll hide the conceit behind a spoiler tag. I'm enjoying what I've played so far although the controls are a bit fiddly. It's a fantastic idea that you rarely see in games (and the medium is well suited to it) so I hope it does well for them. Epic Store exclusive for now, I believe. Also on Game Pass on Xbox.

This is like edgy Deus Ex, it's immersive sim with a Rob Zombie soundtrack, or if JC Denton shopped at Hot Topic. It's the most 2004 thing you'll ever play, but it manages to thread the line well enough that it stays interesting. Especially if you were into the style this game is going for, if you had like an emo or nu-metal phase or whatever. Also vampires are supposed to be edgy so it would be dumb to complain about. It's an immersive sim with all the same building blocks as Deus Ex. Social engineering skills, special combat abilities, hacking emails and picking locks type of stuff. Hack to find the password, or intimidate a guy into giving it to you. Rewarding players for thoroughly exploring levels to find unique ways to deal with things, tho the actual missions in the game are a bit of a mixed bag and not quite on a Deus Ex 1 level. You do get the standard selection of nice and dickhead dialogue choices tho, with interesting consequences which interact well enough with the game's economies (mentioned below) It's probably more about the style and atmosphere though, and what makes it unique though is some of the other economies that exist in the game. One being your 'humanity', which goes from 0-10. You gain humanity if you help save an innocent, you lose it if you harm innocents (which can also mean stealing, not just killing), both of which can happen organically in gameplay or as a consequence of a quest decision. So if you explore thoroughly and pick the right dialogue you can remain a decent vampire, but sometimes it's not a bad idea to fall into beasthood a little bit. Maybe a guard is in the way and you don't want to engage with the terrible stealth mechanics, for instance. Flipside is you will lose out on certain dialogue options if you become more of a monster (have not seen what so far). The other thing is masquerade violations. Betraying the existence of vampires is one, feeding in plain sight can trigger that. Apparently they send vampire hunters after you and if you get 5 violations the game completely ends, or something like that, which sounds pretty hardcore to me. I don't know how you would trigger it outside of doing something incredibly stupid tho. Then obviously blood is a resource as well, used for 'casting spells' or buffing yourself. You can also feed it to other people Its story is about vampire politics and stuff, trying to take control of LA. There's some branching story decisions it looks like depending on which of the main story factions you align with but not sure how far it goes. I picked my clan by just picking answers from a questionnaire and was assigned Tremere, not cause it seemed the most interesting but I figure it's better to sort of role play it and pick whatever suboptimal class the game throws at you. They're physically weak and good at shooting guns, hacking and blood magic which causes everyone in the vicinity to vomit blood and stuff, so you'll know me by the trail of bloody vomit and hacked emails. There's another clan called Malkavian which sees the future which apparently means their dialogue choices spoil future events in the story, which sounds like a really funny and novel idea but definitely not how I wanted to start off. I'm way into it, I think. The technical quality of it is a mixed bag but it's pretty immersive. Anyway hopefully they pull that sequel into shape at some point.

Played an hour, on PC. The game defaulted to High graphical settings, so I left it at that. I chose the Vagabond class. So far, so Dark Souls. Looking forward to losing my life to this game. The opening cinematic is very cool. One of my Steam friends has already played this for 8 hours.:.

Started this off on Thursday, put around 10 hours into it so far. I don’t want to spoil any of the story so I’ll keep details as vague as possible. But it’s safe to say that the game really doesn’t pull any punches at the beginning. You're put into Protagonist Amicia’s comfortable shoes almost straight away and after a brief tour around her parents Estate things start to slowly unravel. After the events at her homestead she ends up on the run with her estranged Brother Hugo. From here you travel around differing Medieval French environs trying to keep your brother safe and find a sanctuary to escape to horrors of the outside world along with meeting others who’re in just as desperate a situation as you are. In in terms of gameplay, it’s very much a stealth game mixed with light puzzle elements and a little bit of ‘the floor is lava’ thrown in for good measure. The first few chapters were quite basic really with serviceable stealth you’ve seen in countless other games - hiding in bushes, throwing objects to distract the guards and all that jazz. Things do get a little more difficult with a variety of potions thrown in that you can use against Guards along with lots of fire puzzles with the rats which then intersect with then Guards at some points to make things a little more complicated. It’s still all stuff you’ve seen before though, there’s nothing new in it at all in gameplay terms aside from the rats. The rats are incredibly cool and are easily the most distinctive part of the game but with fire sources abundant they’re never all that threatening to get through. The setting is incredible distinctive too. The grounded Medieval setting doesn’t get done an awful lot and there really aren’t too many comparisons to make, the only other games I can come up with is Vermintide and parts of The Witcher too. It it is a game that thrives on melancholy. Chapter after Chapter features tons of horrific scenes like a battlefield filled with dead soldiers or a hillside of dead pigs, it’s difficult to explain but it does well to create a constant feeling of misery, death and decay and it never really lets up, it is relentlessly miserable with only slight moments of brevity here and there. I do like it so far and I am incredibly Intrigued to see where the story goes next but I don’t love it. The stealth gameplay is often frustrating, not knowing when you’ve been spotted by enemies or not and the check pointing is poor, often putting you back at the start of an area. The voice acting is a bit wooden and I haven’t exactly wholly warmed to the characters. For a AA game from a somewhat unknown studio though it is pretty incredible what they’ve achieved with this. The Rats are a fantastic enemy that hasn’t really been done before, the graphics and lighting in particular is phenomenal and the setting feels incredibly fresh. It’s surprisingly long too, I thought it’d be finished at this far into the game but I’m not sure I’m even half way through. Lots of pics:

I'm pretty sure the venn diagram of this forum and this particular game is just two completely separate circles situated three miles from one another. However, I'm nothing if not weird in my game choices, so let's talk about it anyway. This is Animal Crossing meets Kingdom Hearts as far as I'm concerned. The Magic Kingdom has been taken over by a weird darkness (which also has the side effect of making famous Disney characters lose their memories), and it's up to you to cast out the darkness, visit different characters and restore Disney to its former glory. You do this by completing various tasks , whether that's finding Goofy's fishing rod, setting up Scrooge McDuck's store signs (more on him in a minute) or simply by planting and harvesting different crops. So. Mr McDuck. The Scottish, money-swimming capitalist. He's Tom Nook. Buying/upgrading stores or buying clothes and decorations all goes through him. And his prices are just as disgraceful as Animal Crossing's awful banker. I've paid him to make a little store for Goofy (and subsequently upgrade said store). I've paid him to build his own store, and then spent MORE money in there. And it seems he exists solely to leech from my wallet. At least he's true to character, I suppose. It seems to have a lot more focus than AC right now. While I've never played it, my understanding of AC is that you don't really have a specific goal list where you can change your tasks and set new ones. This has an actual focussed goal list. And while that might mean the end game could end up a bit pointless, Disney have almost a century's worth of content to draw from, so they should have no trouble keeping it interesting. The music is just so. Fucking. Charming. From symphonic takes on Let It Go and How Far I'll Go to the simple When You Wish Upon A Star, there's an awesome little tracklist that rotates, and it gives the game this unique personality that's incredibly sedate. Graphics are... functional. They do the job, but they definitely aren't made to impress. There's tons of character, though. Especially in the Disney character models. My biggest negative, and something that keeps niggling is that the controls feel really loose. It's almost as though your avatar is on a slight delay whenever you press buttons. There's no combat and nothing that needs a huge amount of reaction time, but it's just a little distracting when it looks and feels like you're floating slightly above the floor, rather than actually walking on it. After doing my first batch of goals, I've chosen to go to the Moana-themed level. I've stopped it there, because I started last night when Oscar was in bed and I want him to see it, but it's seemed to worm into my brain already, and I definitely want to see more of what it has to offer.

Been playing this, beat it earlier today. If you've played Elex or Risen the past few years it's the first game made by Piranha Bytes, who made those series. This is the big one by them tho, this and Gothic II. I'm mainly interested in checking out Gothic II but as that game literally starts with the two main characters having a conversation about the final boss from the first game I felt I should check out part 1, also that I was pretty interested in doing so anyway based on how people talk about it. It starts out with a really interesting premise, basically it's Escape from New York but with orcs and wizards. You get thrown as a prisoner into this mining colony shielded by an impenetrable magic barrier. The prison doesn't go according to plan though, and for some unexplained reason the mages fuck it up and trap themselves in with the prisoners. Over an unspecified amount of time (ten years I think?), the prisoners split off into factions and bring the mages along with them. So you all these different micro communities within one 'big' but still micro-community in the middle of this fantasy world where barely anything about the outside world is explained to you. I think there was a war with an orc kingdom, but again it's rarely brought up, but really the only world that matters is the prison colony. You've got the 'Old Camp', which work out an agreement with the king who is now dependent on their obedience to get the ore he needs, which leads to the creation of a new kind of landed gentry within the prison, the 'Ore Barons' who reap the profits of the digger's labour. The 'New Camp', who are like 'fuck this' and want to come up with an escape plan to blow up the barrier, and routinely raid and make life difficult for the Old Camp and steal their supplies (they also have their own mine). The 'Swamp Camp', who sell weed to the other camps and worship some demon, these guys are a bit weird. It does the Morrowind thing of making you follow directions in your journal to find quest locations, and learning the location of relevant areas (eg, you will eventually lock into your brain that Old Camp is in the center, and north of Swamp Camp, and the paths to the New Camp and the mine etc). There's some interesting social dynamics as even tho these three communities are sort of hostile to each other, there's also some interdependencies between them. The Swamp Stoners who smoke joints all day have to go into the mines to extract venom from the monsters inside, which has the side effect of protecting the other camps from them. Also they sell them really good weed, so they tolerate all the weird shit they do while remaining a bit suspicious. The mages in each of the other two camps act as a peace broker between the powerful figureheads as well, and it's interesting to see the tensions emerge in the game narrative as the game pulls you back and forth into making a decision about which camp to join. To even gain acceptance in each of the camps you have to ask local leaders within each community to speak up on your behalf, which means doing some chores for them but some of them can turn out to be pretty interesting. Some have paths within to betray them at the last moment to get some item or renown with a different camp entirely. Progression is also pretty interesting. You start off extremely weak at level 0, the fact that it is level '0' seems to be saying something. If you don't pay protection to the guards in the old camp they will mug you for far more than what they originally asked, and you even have a bully in the new camp who forces you to do boring repetitive work everytime you go in or he will beat the shit out of you and mug you. You have to do this every day, and he keeps his promise even if you're off doing sidequests and come back 2 days later. At one point I basically did not leave the new camp until the next day to make sure I did the boring task and didnt get beat up and mugged, and then stayed away from the camp for a really long time cause I was afraid of going back, pretty immersive lol. Eventually tho, you grow up and get a few bits of equipment yourself and return the favour. In general a lot of disputes are handled like this, it is a prison after all. If you want to sleep in that hut in the new camp you don't just ask nicely, you beat up the new guy who decided to take it. So long as you beat him up and mug him and put him in his place you've settled the matter, after all what are the guards going to do, put you in prison-prison? That said, some people are friends with each other and will jump in to sort you out if you beat their friend up, tho they seem to actually not do that if you beat them up previously. So the NPCs retain some memory of prior beatings which is cool. You have to pay trainers to teach you how to effectively use weapons, the way the combat works in this is a timing based system. The best way I could describe it is imagine Dark Souls crossed with Tomb Raider crossed with Raiden's HF Blade combat in Sons of Liberty, it's a tanky, z-targetting based system where you have to use WASD/analog and the 'action' button to perform your swings and with correct timing. But if you pay the trainers you can get more easy to execute swings with better framedata and cool flourishes. This is a thing I like in RPGs, when they find cool little diegetic ways to express play progression, like beating up your bully and learning how to even begin using a weapon effectively. It's fun and original and makes progress feel more meaningful and earned than if you already start off with lots of cool abilities However, this is just chapter 1, and for the next 5 chapters the game appears to lose interest in the inter-factional aspects a bit and sets you down an increasingly linear path through some dungeons to chase some magguffins and deal with a predictable ancient evil. There is some variance in progression depending on which faction you join and what type of magic you can get, and when, as well as the cosmetics of your armour pieces. But it gets more and more dilute and meaningless as it goes on, so it basically starts off as a really interesting setting with a unique thesis statement to how to approach player progression in a WRPG. Butends up a fairly routine slog through some very buggy quests (I had to enable god mode at one point as a follower would murder me on a perfectly timed loop every few minutes because his AI was programmed to be as hostile to me as the enemies we were fighting, and he was supposed to be there to make an unreasonably difficult section more easy https://www.reddit.com/r/worldofgothic/comments/qzrch9/wtf_is_wrong_with_gorn/). I'd say it starts off as a 9/10 and ends up more like a 5/10. Really the only interesting game design occurs in chapter 1. At the same time tho chapter 1 is most of the game almost, I was just short of 30 hours in my playthrough and around 14 of them was in chapter 1, I spent a long time trying to decide which camp to join. Chapters 2 and 3 are also still good and have good pacing from the first chapter, but it kinda falls apart a bit on 4, 5 and 6. Pretty interested to check out the sequel tho, which is considered one of the best RPG ever and fixes a lot of the more glaring problems here apparently. There's a few threads on here about other PB games I think, Shiny did one a few years ago about Elex which is a more modern take on this kind of game I think. Tho maybe that is just as buggy, I dunno

Put just over an hour into this. First things first, it’s way more traditional narrative focused than the last From action RPGs. Loads of cut scenes and it defaults to Japanese voices but I switched it to English because evidently I’m some kind of monster. If I can switch it back, I’ll give it a try. Combat feels superficially similar to Souls but really very different. It’s all about parrying and timing, whereas a lot of Souls you can cheese quite easily. I can’t imagine anyone’s ultra sensitive about spoilers from an hour in, but just to be sure: So far it feels great to play, very smooth and satisfying when you pull the combat off properly.

Quoting the kickstarter - "Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Descend at your peril!" Anyway, it was funded for over $300,000 in March 2014, spent a year on Early Access and eventually released in January this year. It's due out on PS4 later in the summer. It got good reviews and and has a "very positive" Steam user rating with around 15,000 votes. I've played it for an hour so far, it's cool. The game is structured like Sunless Sea in that you have a base, a safe haven, where you can buy provisions, recruit new members, take on quests etc etc. You can only set out with a party of four each time, but you can have way more than four people hired. One of the things you can do in the base camp or "hamlet" is assign people to certain activities which will reduce stress (like dread in Sunless Sea). If someone is assigned to an activity, you can't take them with you on your next trip. I'm not going to drone on about the mechanics in the game, but it is pretty similar to Sunless Sea really. Combat is turn based. Your party stands in formation and different characters have a preferred position...it's not what it sounds like. Both yours and the enemies position will affect the range of your attacks. That's all I can say about it so far. I did the introductory quest.

Played the first 3 hours earlier. I like it so far but it barely feels like I’m out the tutorial really so very early days. A lot of mechanics are being introduced still and it feels like the reigns haven’t been let go of yet so I’m not free to fully explore the world yet. First things first. There’s a lot of cutscenes. Almost all of them during the Prologue are ones we’ve seen from past trailers so in some ways we’ve all seen the opening hour but without the context you’ll get in the game. After that you’ll start to see some new stuff but at this early stage most of it is just introducing you to characters and locales with not an awful lot going on in terms of plot or anything. I’m not sure I need to go into a deep dive over the way the game plays as we’ve seen the gameplay trailers in the past. If you’ve seen those clips with Sam delivering packages that’s pretty much all I’ve done so far, the tone has definitely been on the serious side - thus far at least - with the piss grenades and Kojima wackiness completely missing during the opening stages of what I’ve played at least. The way it feels to pilot Sam though is probably what has surprised me the most, I read someone else somewhere compare piloting him to driving a car in GTA or something which had me a little bit worried because I assumed he’d control like a tank but instead he controls like a Sports Car if anything. He is incredibly nimble and controls very intuitively which I was shocked about, the walking speed is a light jog as well which means you get places really quickly. Holding L2 and R2 in will enable you to keep your balance much better and it’s a godsend when you’re carrying something heavy or traversing mountains as it will stop you flailing from left to right wildly. The way you load and unload packages feels very intuitive as well and it’s somewhat novel in letting you pick it up and then rearrange it on your person, it feels very tactile. I’ve made 3 deliveries in total in my time with the game so far. It seems fun enough to me to simply get lost in the world and walk about eventually getting to your delivery point but as mentioned previously I haven’t been fully let off the reigns so far so have only been able to explore very linear corridors which have been funnelling me to the next exposition point. I have met the ‘BT’s’ once so far and the whole experience completely weirded me out. I fucked it up first time around and was flailing wildly not knowing what to do before being chased by some kind of monster thing so I reloaded and gave it another go. The atmosphere in those moments is so damn tense creeping around them whilst crouching and holding your breath, the BT’s themselves give me the creeps, they’ve got such fantastic sound design. It probably goes without saying but the visuals are absolutely phenomenal as well. They world design has a really unique art design to it, I don’t really know what I can compare it to really other than possibly Nier Automata maybe? It just has this washed out melancholic but vivid quality to it that I’ve not really seen much elsewhere. If you like somber indie tunes you’ve come to the right place as well, in particular moments the music will swell and the camera zoom out to give you a sense of place whilst adventuring along. Kojima has a great music taste. As far as negatives go, so far the writing has been a little ropey in places and I couldn’t help but laugh when Kojima’s name comes up under every casting title during the credits as well. So yeah, so far so good really but it’s still very early days. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with it this far but am eager for the leash to be loosened so I can fully explore the world.

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

Ok, so this is awesome. i grew up with the Turtles in the ‘90s. Spent a small fortune on the arcade games. Loved Turtles In Time, which was the second SNES game I ever played. Scrolling beat em ups remain my favourite genre. So I was always going to be all over this. Thankfully, it was totally worth the wait. It looks fantastic, you can tell a lot of love has gone into this. The combat is satisfying, with each character having slightly different moves. If you play through Story mode, you gradually unlock more stuff, such as extra health and lives, and abilities. Each level has 3 challenges, ranging from do-able (kill 3 enemies with a specific move), to “not bloody likely” (don’t get hit once). There’s secrets to find, which help to level up a bit faster. The soundtrack is pretty catchy, and I love that the voice cast for the original series is more or less present and correct. I’ve played a few online sessions, and the net code seems pretty stable, even with 6 players, though that can be a bit chaotic. Fairly easy to get into an online game as well, which is good. Trophy wise, most of them are alright, though there’s a few pretty tough ones. Not sure I’ll manage the Platinum. But I’ll definitely have a fair few online sessions. It’s been scoring pretty high with reviews. And it’s totally justifiable, as it’s so much fun to play.

Probably anther topic doomed to die in solitude, but this is such a unique concept that I wanted to put it out there. I also didn't see much of it in the media space, except for a preview in some magazine a while ago. I usually preface an explanation by saying "this game is a bit like X and has elements of Y" but I really can't do that here because I have never played something similar. It's kind of a dungeon crawler with the setup that people get sucked in some game world where they transform into dice. After that you have to go through multiple floors per level with your character, fight baddies, get to the exist and hopefully collect all the loot in between. 90% of it is combat and here's how I'm going to fail at painting a clear picture of how it plays. Your character has a bunch of actions and a number of dice per turn he/she can use. The dice are rolled and therefore random by nature and actions usually either require or are influenced by the number of the dice. For a strong attack you might need to stack multiple values until you reach the total it needs or if you have an attack that does [ ] damage, the value corresponds to the dice you use to activate it. But that's really just the snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. Some actions require even or odd numbers, or have a minimum or maximum you need to use. Then there are the player characters: the first one is super basic and easy to understand but it can get really complex later on. The robot for example doesn't draw dice, but calculates them on a 11-digit scale. For every time you create one, you're getting closer to the limit and if you exceed it, your turn is basically wasted, so that's a nice risk-reward feature. The witch needs certain values to brew attacks in her cauldron while the tinkerer has a special skill he can freely use, but has to switch it out for a new one after every battle, meaning you can't rely on those powerful moves forever. As borderline impossible it is to explain with words, it actually does an excellent job of teaching you when you play it so there's that at least. So far I quite like it. I don't love it, but it's a unique concept and it's the perfect handheld game, something the Switch unfortunately doesn't offer too often anymore. One run through a dungeon is a 10-15 minute affair, there's barely any loading times, battery usage is minimal due to every just being 2D pictures etc. It's currently on sale and I got it for free through star points but I wouldn't have regretted paying for it.

I really liked the original Cat Quest. It's an action RPG that takes place on a pretty small map. It gates you by having huge spikes in enemy levels, so if you wander in to the level 15 area at level 6 you're going to get very fucked up. It worked though, despite retreading a lot of old ground it keeps feeding you more, keeps you on the train, and it's not long before you're wrecking previously unkillable enemies The second one is effectively more of the same. This time there's co-op, you can play as a dog too. In single player you can switch between the two with the other character being controlled by the AI. It works, the a.i. is invulnerable so it can deal damage while you back away from enemies to dodge their signposted attacks. It kind of suffers from 2 problems, the first is that it's more of the same. The combat works the same, the progression more or less works the same (I no longer have to stick to landmass). The gear system works the same too, you can find repeats of the same items that will level it up, or you can pay to level it up. This obviously can make a huge difference along with your level as to how much damage you give and take. It's not something you have to be thinking about all the time but it does help The most obvious difference between the two games, and something I'm not sure is either a problem or a benefit, the map is now significantly larger. It still works the same way, going in to certain areas is suicide, but it's more gradual now, there's more space to spend your time in during the lower levels. Equally though it can mean trecking around is a bit more of a slog, when you're hunting for side quests or ticking off the explorable caves, the end game is going to be slower Ultimately if it has a problem it's that it's more of the same. Given that it's now a much bigger and longer game that's probably magnified, but it's still good fun and I'd still recommend it, it's simple, a bit mindless, but that's kind of what I want at the minute

Into the Breach is a game that came from the FTL; Faster than Light guys. Instead of being a grid based real time strategy you can pause and plan out your course of attack, here we're in 3D isometric land where everything is turn based. Also I don't think this is a rogue like, or from what little I've experienced it's not show that hand yet, if it does happen to have some randomness to it. The game plays a little bit like the old turn based war games, if you've played Advance Wars or Fire Emblem you'll feel right at home here. However there are a few differences that sort of make this game unique. The first one is that you only get 3 units. You get a big walking tank that can punch things. You get a standard tank that can fire on anything as long as it has line of sight on the target and you get an artillery that can do indirect fire, helping it arc shots over terrain, but also making it so that it can't attack things directly next to it. So far, so vanilla. The biggest difference is that the way these pieces move and interact with the bad guys that pop up on the map. For instance all the units you have at your disposal can push back enemies a square. This comes in very useful, because if something happens to be in the tile where they would be knocked into, that tiles occupant takes damage as well. Remember this. Another difference is that after each turn the enemies show you directly what they're going to attack. This is where the pushing mobs about the tile set comes important. Sure you could use a tank shell to hit that big enemy up the arse, but that's going to push him right onto the city and give him what he wants anyway. The idea is you read what attack are coming and use this pushing system to save objectives and your own armour. Placing your guys in positions that leads the enemies into grouping up so that you can push them into each other and mountains to hurt them or even get them to attack each other is part of the strategy here. You can also instakill any ground based enemies by pushing them into the water. The final big difference is that the fight you are taking place in only lasts a set number of turns, usually enemies burst from the ground each turn, you are thoroughly outnumbered and the general gist of the game is to survive. You have limited resources and it looks like you're just meant to cling onto the objective before moving onto the next mission. There are sub objectives, some of which say you can kill all of the enemies, but for the most it looks like you'll be keeping the wolves from the door before being whisked off to deal with the next insect eruption. Because of the nature of the skirmishes taking a few minutes before you're moved on it makes an ideal game to play when you've not got much time, I can imagine this being a really good phone game for that reason. Not to say it's without depth because of that, there's going to be plenty of head scratching trying to work out how to smash the fuck out of the attackers without them destroying your buildings and setting everything on fire. It's going to be one of those games that's deceptively simple to grasp but really difficult to master. It's left a good first impressions, maybe not quite as captivating as FTL was when that originally hit, but I think most people will really enjoy it if they're into turn based strategy.

This arrived super early from Shopto very impressed with that. Started the single player first just to get used to the controls again, it starts with a quick recap of the first two games and then its back on you, exactly where Ezio was at the end of the last game. Its more of the same really, same controls, same things to do, just this time each individual goal can only be 100% synchronised by a specific action. For example, I had to kill a particular guard but 100% sync would only be achieved if I killed him by throwing him into a nearby scaffold. Not sure I feel about these goals yet, the OCD in me wont let me not 100% any of them and so far theyve been easy enough but I can see them getting harder therefore more frustrating. Had a quick go on Multiplayer, after a training simulator you can choose 1 out of two gametypes (more are unlocked as you level up). I chose Wanted, which is like a free for all in the city but its quite open plan. You pick your character, enter the game and you are given a target to assassinate. The play area is filled with characters and they all look exactly like the selection of characters you get to choose from. You have to use your radar to identify the human player and assassinate them, whilst at the same time avoid the player whos trying to assassinate you. I didnt always use my radar, I just looked for the idiot that was running and jumping around whilst I tried to walk at a slow pace to blend in to the NPCs. Really addictive, hope that sort of makes sense. Ive yet to try the other playlist, thats for tonight and the next one unlocks at Level 5. Thumbs up so far,.

edited the title cause no need for two threads for two weird Russian games hardly anyone will play I started this. I don't expect this to be a popular thread, but it's a game I've wanted to try for a long time. Premise is hard to explain cause it just throws you in and your character knows more about the world than you do. Basically there is a plague, and there is a mystery. After a long prologue you're in a town and you have to solve the mystery of what's going on, I think, while also not dying. You've got health and thirst and hunger and a lot of other survival mechanics to manage. You have a sort of notoriety mechanic which affects your influence with people in the town. It's basically some sort of hardcore immersive sim Shenmue thing except if you are not in the right place at a certain time you will permanently miss out on certain stuff. So far I've spent most of my time trying to find the one friendly person in the town who doesn't hate me while rummaging through bins for a few stale peanuts so I don't pass out. Parts of it remind me of what BloodBorne, story wise. It's very weird and unforgiving. Kind of a bit of a David Lynch fever dream at parts. Anyway this game is free on game pass so there's no harm in trying even if you hate it. Game seems really hard, like you're destined to just fail the first playthrough.

This ain't Banjo... It's been a long, long time since I played an N64 game. There are certain things you forget, that are distinct to that console. "Jank" I believe is the modern term. I don't remember the platforming being as weird as it is here? Perhaps because I was used to how the platform worked regarding 3D jump mechanics at the time. Fast forward to now and it is jarring to say the least. Jumping is precise and quite unforgiving. Ironically, you cast no shadow to judge if you will land on the platform you are aiming for. There was an infuriating little jump early on, along the way to acquiring the Asson that brought out a little frustration. Later exemplified in areas involving death traps and (early game) one-hit KO lava. You have a dodge mechanic. But it doesn't work as smoothly as you might expect, coming into this from the perspective of modern From Soft titles etc The remaster gives us camera control with the second stick. It is both an improvement and not. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the swimming mechanics. The first time I swam in this game. I tapped the action button, as standard and promptly drowned when I couldn't right myself. Later, I discovered the problem and it's solution. You don't use the action button to swim... You use both sticks. Forward on the left stick to move and steer with the right stick. If it sounds like tank controls, it basically is. But being in the water, it does become intuitive quicker. Ultimately my first session went on for about an hour and a half. Collecting four Dark Souls. The second weapon in the Asson and 66 Cadeaux. Quite intrigued to continue at this point.

I've put around 12 hours into this since starting it Tuesday morning. I'm mainly going to focus on the additions and changes to the formula since Origins as I feel like there's many posts of mine already extolling the virtues of that game. Exploration mode is one of the major new additions. It lets you strip away a lot of quest markers and gives you clues as to a place/person etc. you have to find, so instead of just pointing you towards your target and placing a marker down for you it'll say 'South of Mount Apollo', 'West of Athens', 'near Fort Marmaris' or something like that and you'll have to use your own deductions to find your way there, sometimes having to speak to someone who will then point you in the direction of your destination or having to investigate an area to find where a certain person of interest went next. As soon as you get close to your destination it'll pop up with 'you're close, use Icarus - fucking eagle - to find target' which takes away a bit of the mystery but it still remains more satisfying and engaging to play this way, I was sceptical and didn't think I'd bother with it but it's the intended way to play the game and I can't recommend it enough, just helps immerse you in the world that little bit more. They've also added a dialogue tree to almost every conversation you can engage in. Almost straight away the game starts you off engaged in conversation and you have to choose your responses for the first time ever in an AC game - which as a long time fan I was genuinely exhilarated about. On the surface of it it's a small detail but having that ability to pick your own choices deeply enhances your engagement to certain quest-lines and conversations, instead of sitting passively by and waiting for a conversation to be over so you can get on with the quest at hand you feel more proactive and engaged every step of the way so when you finish the conversation. It also means you've got more agency to make your own choices, I've had one mission where I saved some villagers from some enemy soldiers and they thanked me by giving me their life savings in Gold - you can either take it or tell them to keep their money and go on your way. There was another mission where some villagers stole some supplies from a Spartan caravan, I found them in a cave and could've slaughtered the lot of them but I decided to let them live and went back to my Spartan soldier quest giver only to end up empty handed, save for a 'Sparta thanks you' as a reward. Certain quests that have you finding select treasure you can lie about and say you found nothing, pocketing the trinket yourself and things like this. Granted, none of this is new in the RPG-sphere but it feels very new and fresh when implemented so superbly in an AC game. The new romance options are sure to delight too, so far I've only managed to sleep with one lady but I had to work to get her to that point! Complimenting the new dialogue tree is a brand new quest structure which I've not really seen before in an AC game. It kind of makes everything meld into one, even the main story quests aren't given particular gravitas at all, they're just on your quest menu and have you doing small tasks which will eventually add up to something bigger later on, they can also run into a variety of side quests and overlap. Again, other RPGs have done this before so it isn't anything special per se but to see them overlap to such an expert degree that it feels incredibly organic is a real triumph. Origins had a similar idea but everything still felt a little disjointed at times but here everything feels seamless. Full fat Naval Combat returns from AC4. In Origins there were brief sections of Naval combat but most of your time on the seas was spent in rafts and basic sail boats. Within the first 5 hours of this you're given your own boat and free reign to go wherever you'd like on the high seas complete with Naval missions like sinking x number of ships and being able to board enemy ships and slaughter their crew - just like you could in AC4. Another return from AC4 are the sea shanty's, which just are a delight and help add to the tranquillity when you're sailing around on the open seas. I don't yet know whether other AC4 naval options like hunting down legendary ships, taking over Naval forts etc. are going to be in the game but I hope they are. You can also fully upgrade your ship by picking up supplies floating in the sea and sinking ships. Making it stronger and stronger by upgrading the Hull, archer capacity, adding new weapons like a flaming pot and things like that. Along your travels you can recruit lieutenants who work on the ship and give various perks to you and your crew along the way. The Phylakes system in Origins - where certain actions would make a strong enemy hunt you down throughout the world - has been expanded into the new 'mercenary' system which acts quite similarly to the Nemesis system in the Middle-Earth games. You start off on the bottom tier and work your way up hunting down - and being hunted - by stronger mercenaries eventually working your way up to the top. I really liked the Phylakes in Origins and I like the system again in this, it definitely feels more fleshed out this time around and the incentives for working your way up the leaderboard to be a legendary mercenary make the whole system more compelling. Without giving anything away about the story, it is already quite a bit better than Origins’ so far. Whilst I did like Origins’ freeform mission structure (and the way you could pick and choose which targets you want to take down and when) the story feels much more focused in this - at the moment anyway - with a lot of cutscenes, flashbacks and interesting, intriguing characters who you can’t quite tell their motivations. The dialogue tree plays its hand in the story missions too with you being able to make key decisions about whether you want to let a certain person live or die and the narrative shifting based on your decision, I’m sure there will be many more like this as the game goes on as well. This helps keep you invested in Alexios/Kassandra’s story quite a bit more, and it took me a good minute or two to make my first key decision and was an unusually emotional for an AC game. The combat and upgrade system is largely the same as Origins but you seem to be a bit more limited in the abilities you can equip at any one time which means you can’t just spam special attacks over and over until an enemy is defeated. If you liked the combat system in Origins you’ll like it here, it is still very satisfying to take down a difficult enemy and the new abilities help you feel like more of a badass, especially the Spartan Kick which feels amazing to kick some high level fort boss off a cliff. The ability tree itself seems to be much more toned down compared to Origins as well with far less clutter and superfluity, you can only equip 4 melee and 4 ranged abilities at one time as well which helps you not get overpowered too quickly in the game. The Greek setting itself I haven’t found quite as fascinating to explore as Egypt so far. Egypt felt so distinct and different in its art styles and environment whereas this can feel at times like a lot of other RPGs with European settings. Nevertheless, it is still incredibly beautiful and walking through a town and watching the inhabitants go about their daily routines or seeing the sun go down over the Mediterranean is spellbinding, it is still such an incredibly easy game to get utterly lost in. I’m sure once I experience more of the Aegean Islands and Athens things will begin to feel more distinctly Greek. Safe to say I’m besotted with it so far, it's maybe got a little less of the evocative magic that made Egypt feel so vivid and memorable in Origins but it makes up for it in pretty much every other way. I’d put it on the same level as Witcher 3 so far and it’s probably one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played.

I thought this was intriguing since its initial reveal (back when we all thought it was called Chorvs) so I picked it up recently and played through most of it during my holiday break. I'm one and a half steps away from finishing it, so this might be as good a time as any to make a topic about it. Haven't seen anyone mention it here so it'll probably be a dead topic, but I absolutely love the game and feel like I owe it to the developers to at least put something about it on the web. I'm not too experienced with this whole space opera genre and I think the last somewhat comparable game I played was Strike Suit Zero. But this genuinely feels like a bold new step for these kind of games. It's not a linear, mission-driven game, which is what I expected, but it's designed like an RPG almost. You visit a certain amount of areas that function as hubs for main and sidequests, three of them medium-sized, the rest a bit smaller. Because space is large and dark exploration is very streamlined: a button press reveals items and money pickups scattered across the world and holding the button unlocks points of interests on your map, i.e. the aforementioned sidequests, for example. Completing those usually rewards you with new weapons and equipment, hence why I say this very much feels like an RPG. But just like the size of its world, the stuff you find doesn't overwhelm you. I completed every sidequests I came across and still only have six different laser weapons, for example. Rather, everything you have fulfills a certain function, so mix-and matching for the best combination is key here. While it does seem like putting on extra hull energy is a good thing, getting hit in Chorus usually means you already made a mistake. So I went to max out my energy meter and recovery instead, to be able to use more special moves. And it's here where you can see just how forward-thinking this game is designed. Usually dogfighting games are 50% shooting at enemies and 50% turning your ship/plane around to find an enemy to shoot. Chorus just gives you all the power you need to reduce that downtime to almost zero and it's just wonderfully executed. Those special moves I mentioned (called Rites in the game) are the key here, particularly the first two: one allows you to instantly teleport behind and enemy in your line of sight to flank them but the most important tool is the so-called Drift. By holding a button, you can freely turn around your ship in any direction while maintaining your current trajectory. So instead of flying straight at a stationary target to destroy a turret and then rinse and repeat until all of them are gone, you can just plot a course alongside them, drift at 90° and shoot them all in one fell swoop. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'll put a poorly played little clip at the end of this post just to show it off, but the feature is so flexible it's really the one thing that turned this game from a very good game into an excellent one. Story-wise it's a modern take on the Dancing with the Wolves formula, but the lore is rather interesting and the two main characters - the pilot, who has a special gift (lore explanation for the usage of her "Rites") and her sentient ship. The ship in particular is really well realised, floating somewhat between the robotic AI of something like HAL and the basically human-like portrayal of the concept in Cortana. It's a very unorthodox pairing but really well realised. I particularly enjoyed how both characters responded to stuff happening during the action scenes, with the ship being surprisingly blood-thirsty or how both of them finish each other sentences the stronger their bond grows. Definitely low-key blown away by this. The excellent gameplay, interesting lore and overall tone and atmosphere (somewhat channeling Remedy at times) just make for a superb combination. I'd probably have to nitpick to find stuff I didn't like, like dialogue being cut off way too often when random encounters spawn (should have looked into that Uncharted 4 tech) or how there can be a tad too much flying around in the beginning and towards the end (think Wind Waker, but at lightspeed) but other than that this is just great. Anyway, here's the simple drift clip to conclude: And for the record, and despite being the only one here still playing on last-gen, this runs absolutely fine on Xbox One and probably on PS4 as well. But I'll definitely go back to it when I have a new system to see just how much it improves by running at 60fps.

Just finished this, it’s good, there’s some really cool bits, and some less cool stuff - to be fair some of the bad stuff is because of my setup not being great for this. But some sections I didn’t really like or felt like they went on too long. It’s a pretty long game for vr, like 15 hours maybe. reloading is possibly easy for Americans but early on I struggled, it’s much more involved than just pressing a button. Later on I was getting used to it, but still sometimes teleporting around like a mad man to get away from stuff when my ammo ran out instead of reloading straight away. But it’s still pretty cool, reloading more properly. i don’t usually get very far in games like this- by that I mean ones where you walk around in VR, they make me feel a bit sick so I give up. This lets you teleport and rotate at the same time which seems to help a bit, as it’s the rotation which really gets me. Could only play in 1 to 1.5 hours at a time, then needed a rest, so it took a while to finish. all the motion controls work really well when facing the right way, like picking up stuff, searching cupboards, reloading guns, etc, ...my setup isn’t the best and caused a few problems, I’m sure it’d be better if you had loads of room and could walk around and stuff. And with an old rift with 2 cameras it struggles when you turn around - the newer headsets with inside out tracking will be better for this (or just an extra camera would help me). It was fine most of the time as you can just reposition, but if you get stuck in a fight it’ll cost you. fighting the monsters was generally really fun, didn’t find the people as cool to fight against. there are some cool puzzles. some possibly spoilers cool stuff, but not really story stuff: It’s quite scary/stressful sometimes but not too bad. as usual in games I stockpile the fancy stuff for when I really need it...which leads to barely ever using a gun other than the pistol, but the pistol is cool so it’s fine. oh yeah it looks really nice too. So yeah it’s good. Worth getting if you have pc vr, or when it comes out on ps5/psvr2 - that’s not announced or anything I just think it will happen.

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: