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I'm going to link the old thread below, but Bright Memory Infinite has just released on PC and it's very good. As a bit of a reminder, Bright Memory was an early access episodic game, that did so well that the developer cancelled development on Episode 1 and decided to work on a full thing instead, with everyone who bought Ep 1 getting the full thing for free. I'm not sure what happened with the Xbox release, I'd assumed the version that came out was the full game at the Xbox Series launch but looking at it now I think that was just a port of Episode 1 and Bright Memory Infinite is coming next year They've changed things a bit, going off memory I think there's a power difference, but there's definitely a difference in enemy types. You spend more time fighting soldiers here, with a shift to the ancient enemies who are mostly melee based but not entirely. What it does really well is change things up, it's not just wave after wave of the same enemies, long corridors, or kill room after kill room, instead you'll start with some combat, switch to something more platforming like, then some new enemies, maybe some stealth, even a driving section. Your powers are there and needed, mostly you'll be looking to block and counter, then attack with your own melee attack. The ability to grab enemies from a distance and explode them with your emp seems a little overpowered in the early game, which isn't a huge complaint because I didn't find myself relying on it too much. There's alternative bullet types for your guns, which you'll add to as you progress through the game, again these can be really powerful, certainly my go to against bosses rather than fighting them "properly" I suppose for context, I got this for free as I'd bought Episode 1 way back when, so this being short isn't really an issue for me, I'd already got my money's worth out of Episode 1, but it is still a short game, took me about 2 hours. It could quite easily have been longer too, there's a bunch of ideas you only see once, areas are fairly short, a bigger budget game would be more 'cynical' and recycle and remix these game ideas for a bit more length, which would have been fine with me. As a cheap PC game this is really, really good, if it launches as a cheap digital console game then I'd say it's a must buy, but it is short, and I suppose that's a criticism amplified because I wanted more, another hours or so at least. Well worth picking up though

My god this game is adorable It's a bit sickly to begin with. I really liked the english voices in DQ8, while it was hardly the Witcher it had the slightest of rough edges to the characters, so far everyone has been far too nice. It's the wrong side of cliched too, you the born-again saviour, abandoned in a small village and have just discovered your origins and this is so far the worst thing about the game. Dragon Quest 5 has one of the great JRPG stories imo, 4 is unique, 7 is fairly decent, but the last couple have a really plain protagonist and a nothing story It's too easy to begin with too. I'm still very early, and I've been running around the area outside the first town, getting in to fights against things I'd actually quite like plushies of, and for the most part I'm one-hitting, or only taking 2hp damage. It will get more interesting later on though, especially once there's a few more party members It's very familiar, which is nice, I like the Dragon Quest games, and it's simple. They've brought back a couple of developments from past games. There's the 'pep' system I'm sure I used in something, I can't remember what though, but essentially, if you get hit a few times you become 'pepped up' (not enraged because, like I said, this game has no edge), and become more powerful. There's also skill points when you level up (once you're a bit in to the game). You'll still unlock spells naturally, as you gain levels, but there's other attributes and skills you can spend points to buy, opening up a hexagonal skilltree with each skill you pick. This might mean picking a special sword attack, a boost to your attack, or extra spells I'm not sure you'd otherwise learn The pc version is very much a console port. I was playing it in 4k before and it looks ridiculously nice, but the graphics options are all on a scale of 1-3 (or 1-5), with stuff like shadows and AA being as far as you can drill down. There's also a console quirk where by, you can shut the game down from the menu in the game, but if you go to a church to save (there's sporadic autosaving, it really could do with something better on pc given you can't suspend), save, then when asked if you want to continue select no, you'll go back to the title screen, but there's no option to shut the game down from there. Not the end of the world, you can just alt F4, and the port itself runs perfectly well so far, just an odd thing I noticed anyway, the main thing is it's adorable

The long awaited sequel is here! And it's generally a decent follow-up. It takes place right after the original and it's like it's never been gone. It just confidently does being Psychonauts. It feels a bit tighter than the original but it's basic fighting and platforming for the most part but it's appeal has always been the imagination of the world and how it takes mental well being and makes these charming worlds out them and from what I've played so far it continues to do a good job of that. And with these new fangled graphics it makes it look really nice too. They really lean all of it into the art style they made in the original and I think it comes out well, it's a nice game to look at in a weird way. All Double Fine have done is make a Psychonauts game for 2021 and that's all I wanted, and that's all we got. Neat!

So this is the action rogue-like from makers of Bastion and Transistor. It's a very good one. It has a lot of potential stuff in terms of weapons, buffs and abilities for a run that come together in some surprisingly interesting ways. I don't really want to go into it all, because there is so much and it's a bit of a spoiler, in a way. I do think anyone who likes Dead Cells will have a hard time not getting into this too. It's got the same kind of fast, dash-y combat but I'd argue the upgrades are probably more interesting because they're tied to more than your attacks. I guess Dead Cells has some of that but it's robust with a bigger variety of abilities that can tie to your dash, for example. But Dead Cells is better in some other ways. They're both cool and good; get both! I'm also quite enjoying the story more than I expected. It's set in Greek mythologies' underworld and done in quite traditional way in that it's mostly a family squabble the consequences of which is big, dramatic and violent fights and supernatural displays of power. It's kinda fun that you're trying to escape the underworld in a rogue-like and no-one really cares that you're doing that because they know you'll die and be back. Some give quiet encouragement or Hades himself just rolls his eyes as you leave. It's played pretty straight and it's cool to hang out in that starting area before the intense combat. I'm not sure how many stages there are but the best I've done is get to the third boss, who are a pair of cheaters. I dunno how I'm meant to do it right now. I think since I don't have a brilliant way to do a well synchronised build yet, just out of inexperience, but I'll get it.

Tonight I'm going to try this now that the server kerfuffle has seemingly passed. Can we get enough to fill a 3v3 game? Nothing serious, rotate teams after every game unless it becomes one sided. It'd be nice to get a bunch of us on and talking to one another, it seems to be ages since that happened last. I'm looking at around 7 or 8 for kick off until whenever people get fed up and leave. Who's interested?

I've seen this described as a cross between mirrors edge and super meat boy. i think that's a good description, i also really like both of those games, it's a first person platformer with instant restarts, quite a lot of checkpoints, and one hit kill for you and the enemies. but it seems more random than 2D stuff like this as you can't see everthing that's shooting at you. it's sort of amazing. but also really hard and frustrating. in the first 5 levels or so i'd already thought i might have to give up on two different sections. the enemies are very good at shooting guns, maybe a bit too good, you can jump over them and they'll still shoot you instantly, you just have to keep moving and hope you don't get hit. i tried playing cloudbuilt twice (two different versions) and had to give up quite far in both times, i have a feeling this might be similar. really not sure i'll be able to finish it, so an easier mode would be a good addition, but no regrets buying it (although only paid a tenner), it's been mostly great so far. i've just done the first boss, which comes quite late, think i'm on about level 7 or 8 or something, when i saw it it my thoughts were that it's awesome but i might not be able to do it. it took me about 30 mins and 200 deaths, there's a video of someone making it look easy in the spoiler below, this also shows why the game is so good: dunno if anyone else is interested in this? oh and although there are loads of checkpoints these don't save, you have to get to the end of the level for it to save. oh oh and there's powerups and stuff, i can deflect bullets back, but the timing is strict (you can upgrade it) so i just keep swiping and sometimes it saves me a death.

Surprised there isn't a thread for this, maybe it got purged. This was the one that came out in 2010 and was the very Bourne inspired where Sam was working outside the usual system and dealing with a missing daughter. So maybe Taken like too. It's that sort of thing and that was a more interesting premise for a game to me but I never got a chance to play it for some reason. I think my 360 was playing up at the time. So 11 years later I'm finally playing it. I've only finished the original and didn't get into any after that so I'm far from knowledgeable about the games. But I've been having a decent time with it so far. I especially do like the AI because it's very readable with how enemies react so it doesn't feel like such a crap shot when trying to get out of an alert state which I feel lots of stealth games are, and especially in these relatively small areas this game has. And the system where you get two free kills after a stealth takedown is satisfying and keeps the game's pace moving. It gets a point knocked off though because as far as I can tell there is no splits smh

Played a few hours and it's been very, very good. It's very much another game that's taken more than a few pages from Uncharted's playbook, except it switches a wise-cracking protagonist for someone much more vulnerable and insecure. Well, at least to start with anyway. I've always loved the Tomb Raider series, the original TR was the first ever game I bought for the PS1 and I played it to death, but the series was massively in need of a complete reboot. They've done a fantastic job with this game and the character. Lara is almost unrecognisable from her hotpants wearing, confident predecessor. I say almost as they decided to stick with her two most distinguishing features for some reason. Cans . The sections where you squeeze through a gap or are only able to progress forwards are probably the most elegant way of disguising a load screen I can think of. It's totally seamless and in some case even adds to the experience by allowing Lara time to express how she's feeling.The same goes for the logs she records at some of the base camps, only a few lines of dialogue, but it adds so much. Each area seems to have a discreet sub-objective like smash 10 lanterns or burn 5 banners, and they only activate once you hit the first thing, you're not notified about it otherwise. I can see myself spending a chunk of time completing these as well as picking up all the collectables dotted around. I tried turning on the new TressFX hair technology but it looks a bit weird tbh. It also hits the framerate pretty hard in certain situations. It's a cool idea as game hair usually looks pretty rubbish, but it definitely needs tweaking a bit before making it standard.

Second up in my GamePass games that can be completed in a couple of hours; The Procession to Calvary. A point and click adventure based on Renaissance art that's heavily inspired by Terry Gillingham. Not for the easily offended/religious types - this is the follow up game to Joe Richardson's Four Last Things. It follows a woman who is back from a murder spree in a Holy war and wants to do one final murder as it's now frowned upon. Whilst the humour won't be to everyone's taste, I was laughing out loud from the offset. The game is bonkers. As with my last post, I won't go into it too much as I don't want to spoil it, but a couple of highlights were helping a street magician off a crucifix as he was turning water into wine that killed people, and giving snuff to a midget so he played music faster.

Genuinely surprised there isn't a thread for this already. It seems like a game that would be quite popular in here. I started playing this last night in a "I'm gonna play it for 20 minutes and if I don't like it's getting deleted" kind of mood. I'm now 7-8 hours in and it's great fun! Remember Golf Story? It's has a similar sort of Sports-PG charm to it. There's tons of humour running through, and the graphical style is a bit like the Gumball cartoon. You play as Otto, a transfer student to a Dodgeball school, and someone who wants to be world-renowned on the sport. There's a relatively small world to explore, but lots of fun little side quests and plenty of battles to take part in. Speaking of battles, they're a lot of fun too. You play Dodgeball, so if you know the rules you'll have a leg up. Might be worth watching the Ben Stiller film to refresh your Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge memory. There are charge moves, counters, special moves, and all sorts of fun stuff happening on the court. Matches take place in anything from 1 on 1 to 1 Vs 6, or 3 on 3 contests, and the first to lose their HP loses the game. I've noticed TONS of homages to Pokémon. From the Dodgeball logo to the battle loading sound effect, a medical centre to refresh your team, and battles in long grass, it's just got loads of cool little nods to Nintendo's most lucrative franchise. From what I've read it's not super long, but it's really fucking awesome. I genuinely love this game.

Just by typing the title I realised they could just have dropped the "2" from it, nobody played the first one anyway unfortunately and it would look nicer visually. Anyway - I've finally started playing this over the weekend. Due to certain circumstances I didn't get as much time with it as I had hoped (see here), but I did manage to finish the prologue of sorts which takes about 5 hours. Lots of good things here with few negative stuff, but overall so far it's pretty much exactly what I would have wanted from a sequel. Fundamentally it's still Monster Hunter x Pokémon, meaning you gotta breed them all by collecting and hatching monsters from eggs. Those monsters will then accompany you on your travels and both help for traversal on the map due to their faster running speed or other special skills (jumping, cimbing, swimming etc.) and during combat. During combat you only have limited control over them, but each has its own tendencies, so switching between them depending on the enemy is the way to go. The basics of combat being rock-paper-scissors haven't changed, so you still use this feature to build up the Kinship Gauge, which is basically a mana pool that allows you to use skills and command your monster more directly by letting it use special moves as well. New to Wings of Ruin are weapon classes. In the first game your weapon only influenced the skills you could use as your character was more of a support for your monster, but this time you play a more virtal role and can target weaknesses with a weapon type that is particularly effective. An early example is smashing the rock a monster uses for a weapon with the hammer, or cutting its tail with a greatsword. Outside of combat it's a classic JRPG experience with semi-big HUB areas, quests, treasure chests and such. One thing I have mixed feelings about is the NPC partner that's with you most of the time during these initial 5 hours. I don't have anything against the character and she's certainly easy on the eyes, but it takes away from the feeling of it being a solitary adventure, with only you and your Monsters à la Pokémon. Now it could be that she goes her own way at some point but the fact that she levels up after combat and that some enemies have rather huge HP pools I get the feeling that it's designed to have a party of two (or four, technically) most of the time. There's been a lot of talk online about the technical side of the game. In context with the hardware it's running on, it's certainly less impressive that the original. Where MHS1 was basically a triple-A game on 3DS, this feels more of a budget mid-tier game that suffers from a low-ish framerate and some horrible pop-in. It's not without its charms though, as it has a very vibrant and nice style, the character models are great and during combat it really shines with impressive animations and effects. And the sound effect that plays when you land a critical hit on a downed monster might just be one of the most satisfying I've ever heard in the game.

I didn't know about this until a few days ago (not that i remember anyway), just released yesterday, and it's pulled me away from persona, for a bit anyway. normal price is ~£12 but seems to be on offer for ~£10 currently. Initially interested because of comparisons to REZ, i like shooters like that, even the dragon one on the xbox one that didn't seem very popular. but it turns out it's not as similar to rez as I was expecting, the shooting (on the right stick) is simplified a bit and shares game time with rhythm action line following (on the left stick). On the normal difficulty you aren't asked to really do both of these at the same time, but i think that changes on harder difficulties. The shooting is quite similar to rez, but you can only aim within a circle and quite a lot of stuff is conveniently at the edges of the circle so easy to aim at, because you will be expected to do two things at once. The rhythm action bit is following a line with your ship in time with the music, a bit like that old psn game i can't remember the name of (and didn't think was that great) but it works really well here, and is good fun, imo. the music is not what i'd normally listen to, don't really know how to describe the genre either, dubstep maybe? but it fits in really well with the game and i was enjoying it. there are some problems mind, the auto lock-on can target stuff you don't want when a missile is just about to hit you, and coming back from a hit can instantly cause another hit, but these might just be me needing time to get used to it more. i've done all the 15 levels on normal, then re-did a few to get more stars to unlock the next difficulty setting but not had much time on that yet. so yeah i've been really enjoying this. wasn't sure if i should pick it up but glad i did.

Started this today as it's included with Origin Access Premier, put in around 3 hours. I really didn't know what to expect going in really. I absolutely adored the original Darksiders but couldn't play more than an hour of Darksiders 2 without throwing in the towel (I will possibly return to it at some point), it just felt too much of a departure from the OG Darksiders formula that I adored. So here we are at Darksiders 3. Another slight rejigging of the original Darksiders formula, this time doing away with the grandiosity of 2 and some of the more Zelda-esque elements of 1 for a Darksiders-Souls-like if you will. The combat feels a bit more free-flowing compared to the other games with Fury's whip dishing out some incredibly satisfying combos but the level designs are much more claustrophobic, metroidvania and Soulsy with enemies placements and how they can ambush you and punish you, little shortcuts you can unlock and boss/mini-boss battles you can take on if you choose. The difficulty so far far exceeds anything found in the previous games, I've died a hell of a lot and most enemies you've got to be wary of and plan accordingly or you're going to go down real quick, dealing with crowds can be very difficult too and they can wipe you out in seconds if you're not careful. The boss battles are a real treat here too. I've only had two so far - against Envy and Wrath - but they were real spectacles and an absolute joy to play through with the latter being way more difficult than I expected. Getting the dodge timing right to dodge a boss' attack at the last second to enable a Bayonetta-like bullet-time effect just feels amazing when you pull it off. I've warmed to Fury already as well. Death was a little too moody and monotone for me (again, admittedly I didn't spend that much time with him) in D2 but Fury has been a real delight. She's sassy and an absolute badass that doesn't take any shit from anyone, I love the little banter between her and the Watcher too as they're traversing through levels. The story though I've already kind of tuned out of, I do remember a few familiar faces from D1 and the brief amount of D2 I played and it was cool seeing War again but I kind of don't care already. Admittedly it's not a huge budget AAA title, but I have been incredibly impressed with the performance of it on my PC as well. I've got everything bumped up to Ultra in the settings and it has run buttery smooth with no technical issues whatsoever at 1440p/60fps, it is quite the looker at times too with the lighting being a particular highlight. So yeah, so far so good. The combat feels fantastic, the level design is engaging and Fury is a joy to spend time with, I couldn't put it down.

Ok, so I wasn’t expecting a lot from this. The movie was a pale imitation of the excellent book. I’d seen almost nothing about this til it was nearly out. Having not heard of the developer,I googled them to see their track record. The absolutely awful Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn was on the list,so I didn’t have a lot of faith in this game. But I’ve just played through the first 3 missions (or Episode 1), and it’s actually fun. The “Left 4 Dead But 3rd person” call is bang on the money,as that’s exactly what this is. From the weapons,to the “here’s a supply drop point”, to the Medkits (hold down on the dpad to heal,either yourself or a mate”. Even down to the “special” zombies (puker,leaper,tank). It literally is a L4D clone. That’s no bad thing, of course. As L4D was bloody awesome, and thanks to Valve not being arsed about making games anymore (Artifact doesn’t count, as that’s practically done for), it’s the closest we will ever get. Still, it’s not just a mere clone. It adds the pyramid swarms that appeared in the film. Throws in automated defences (turrets/mines/barb wire) for tense horde moments. And it also adds perks/customisations to your weapons. You level up your class through gameplay, i’ve gone for medic,as support is how I roll. By ranking up, you gain access to better perks (heal faster, heal everyone with 1 med kit etc). By killing enemies with specific weapons, you rank that type up, gaining access to better weapons which you buy with money acquired from finishing missions. There’s 4 player co-op,obviously. And a VS online mode, which I haven’t tried yet. It has issues. Apparently some people are having their save file wiped on PS4. The game completely crashed on mission 2,to the point I had to switch my PS4 off at the plug due to it hard-locking,which sucks. And it’s allegedly a bit of a pain to party up with friends online,but I haven’t done that yet, and a private server patch is coming soon allegedly. Still,for what it is,it’s fun. If you enjoyed L4D at all, it’s fair to say you’ll like this.

Had my eye on this one for a while, as the concept (two teams of 4 try to steal treasure, in a take on the Robin Hood mythology) seems interesting. Currently £15 in the PSN sale, and there’s a free demo. So I tried it with me and my mates. After one session, we ended up buying it. Basically, it’s a stealth game. Your team of 4 has to find the Sheriff (invincible boss that kills you in one hit), steal his key, open the Vault, grab a chest, and then escape with it. Each character plays slightly differently, with their own special ability. Robin has a longbow that kills instantly with headshots, and can fire a powered up explosive shot to kill multiple enemies.Marion has a crossbow and can temporarily turn invisible to assassinate people. Tuck can throw poison bombs, heal the team, and highlight enemy positions. John can decimate enemies with his hammer, carry the chest the fastest, and open closed portcullis gates to potentially speed up escapes. Stealth and teamwork is definitely important, because if you get spotted, things can go tits up pretty quickly. Killed allies drop a ‘talisman’, if that’s collected and taken to a captured spawn point, they revive. John and Tuck can’t use bows, but are stronger in a fight. Had quite a few tense sessions on this so far. You can play as 4 against just the AI, or two teams of 4 against AI, attempting to steal the treasure before the other team does. Its certainly worth a look, I’d say.

Spent a few hours with this on Sunday... what with deaths and stuff I didn't make it too far. The game starts with you (as Caroline Walker) receiving a postcard from missing twins pointing to an abandoned mansion/hospital, of course she decides to traipse over there and ends up being knocked out... she wakes naked in a bath, connected to respirator and missing an eye. The game straight up plays like the old style Resident Evils, fixed camaras with tank controls... although the new controls included in Remake are also present here. Early on you are given a Nail Gun and Crowbar, these are the primary attack choices through the game... I know you later get a Shotgun too. Enemies are a lot quicker than your standard zombies so I've taken to shooting until they fall then caving in their skulls with the melee weapon. It's gone really old style with limited saves (that work just like Resi) and no auto save at all, you die you lose the progress... and that sometimes hurts, I think I've been conditioned with modern gaming that not much is lost on death. I got to a certain point on Sunday where I basically had to tap out a rhythm on a door knocker to open a door and was convinced that my game was bugged, it must have taken me 15 minutes to get through that bastard door... I turned it off minutes after that but up until then I was enjoying it a lot... they've nailed the atmosphere. Looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow.

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

So I can finally share my thoughts on this as the Closed Beta isn't under NDA. First I'll go through the mechanics. There's 3 game modes, solo, duo and 4-man ships you can choose at the start, all have matchmaking and put you into a group of randoms - assuming you have no friends available to invite. At first it was quite overwhelming getting used to the controls at what everything does. You've got a Wheel on the Left Bumper which brings up all the equipment and consumables - Wooden Planks, Bananas, Cannonballs, Bucket, Jug of Ale, Musical instruments, Spade etc. They pretty much do what you expect, planks are used to patch up holes on the ship when you get attacked or run aground, bananas heal you if you get attacked by a shark or skeleton, cannonballs load into the cannons on the top desk, buckets are used to get rid of excess water should you get holes in your ship, the Jug of Ale can be drunk and then refilled numerous times until the screen goes mental and you start being sick over everyone, the Musical Instruments are used to play sea shanty's and the Spade is used for digging up treasure chests. You also have a load of weapons mapped to Y, a Musket, a Sniper Rifle - only available in beta - and a sword. And a map/riddle wheel mapped to RB. The weapons all have a good heft to them, the Musket is slow to reload but you really feel it when it fires, likewise with the sniper rifle - which has a cracked scope, and the sword is just a general sword really, similar to Skyrim in its swing speed/weight if I had to compare it. Whenever you select a mission you get either a map or a number of maps/riddles that you have to solve to tick off all the objectives in that particular mission. Maps are all in-game, they never put a marker on your map or anything, what you do is look at the shape of the islands on the map and then make your way down to the huge world map on the ship and identify it like this. With Riddles they'll usually say the exact name of the island you have to go to, you find this on the map, go there and when you explore the island you'll get more specific clues as to the exact location of the treasure like 'when the sky is at its darkest, look south south-east and walk 7 paces to find what you're after'. It's all really well done and puts an emphasis on you having to do stuff yourself and work things out with your shipmates, no hand holding at all. Aboard the boat you've got different elements you can interact with. You can set the sail length and adjust them with the wind so that you get your destination that much quicker, helm the ship, walk up to the bird's nest and keep a lookout for obstacles ahead, drop/raise anchor, look at the huge world map down below, pick up items, store loot, vote on new missions in the captain's quarters and throw someone in the brig or make them walk the plank if you so choose. The gameplay loop - which has been adjusted for the better in the Beta - is essentially this: You spawn on the ship, identify a nearby outpost using the ship map, travel to the outpost and pick up a mission from a dude that's in a tent. Once you've got this you'll get a paper map or riddle in your inventory which'll let you know the shape/structure of the island or give you the name and you'll have to identify this island from the ship map and sail there. Once you get to the island you'll usually have to deal with a few skeletons or sharks. You'll then find the chest you're after - the darker they are in colour the more Gold you'll get for them - along with a few bonus chests that can be scattered about. You all have to lug these chests back to the ship, then sail back to the outpost and sell the chests to the merchant to get gold. As you cash in more and more chests more lucrative missions with higher gold/chests available open up, there is some kind of ranking system in there too as I had the option to buy a badge that would enable me to take on a next tier of missions I wouldn't of otherwise been able to. So you select another mission at the merchant and back on your way you go travelling the seas. The game has a lot of charm to it. The shanty's are all really cool and it really sets the scene when you're travelling the seas and someone breaks out the hurdy-gurdy, accordion or banjo thing. Being able to get absolutely rat-arse drunk onboard and all the shenanigans that revolve around it, like being sick all over everyone is really cool as well. The way that it doesn't hold your hand at all really immerses you in the world, you can put markers down on the big ship map but that's about it, obviously that means folks will get lost much easier but I think it'll be more rewarding and you'll learn more about the game and what you need to do by the way you have to figure out how things work for yourself, I assume there will be a tutorial mission in the main game that'll teach you the basics before you set off, but I didn't see this personally. Another element that I encountered in the Beta but not the Alpha was being able to hunt down other players. We actually only did this once - sunk this guys ship and then killed him - but he had no loot and respawned right afterwards so there doesn't seem to be a big penalty if you do get killed. As for my own thoughts on the game. I was really quite disappointed with it during the Alpha, I had so many matches where randoms with no mic would just pull up to a random outpost then run around getting drunk for 30 minutes like a headless chicken that I just gave up on it after awhile, I did have some really nice missions where we managed to solve 3/4 riddles and get a whole ton of loot but my overwhelming impression of the Alpha was that of frustration. But the Beta has been much better, after finding that frustration come back initially I found a really good group who all had Mic's after half an hour. We pretty much stuck together the whole rest of the session and were coordinating on missions, finding islands, setting sail lengths, digging up loot, knowing when to drop anchor and getting a shit ton of gold at the merchant that it was quite an addictive loop and I could definitely feel myself wanting to play more. I only discovered the Xbox App's LFG feature when I logged off as well, which will be incredibly handy for folks like me in the full game. It is just such a jolly, charming ton of fun. I've done a complete 180 on it, I now really think Rare could be onto something here. The thrill of seeing other real players in their ships on the horizon was exhilarating too. Any questions anyone has feel free to ask and I'll try to answer.

So yeah played the first 3 hours of this yesterday, bit of a strange one really, not quite sure what to think of it. My thoughts are definitely positive, but I don't feel like I'm blown away by it in the slightest, I'll mention the problems first, there's some kind of weird lighting issues, when it's the day it doesn't quite seem as bright as it should be and the sun seems to follow you about in a strange manner, at night the game looks fantastic but during the day it looks a bit odd at times. Then there is the much publicised 30fps lock, at 1440p this is more of a 30fps estimation than a lock, it goes down to 25fps every now and then and is far from stable. Fortunately, the story so far has been excellent, Lincoln has been a great character to get to know and I'm intrigued to get to know where it goes next, its been rather hand-holdy so far but I've been allowed to stretch my legs so to speak in the last half an hour or so. All the cut-scenes seem to be really cinematic and well-told and there's been a twist already that was executed perfectly. So yeah, a solid, albeit not mind-blowing first 3 hours, I'll be back at it tomorrow, a few pics below:

Played an hour of this tonight. I want to have one long game on the go while I play through some shorter games (although my file on Ori and the Blind Forest has passed 10 hours in two days). Wasteland 2 was the first of the big kickstarter rpgs to be released (followed by Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity) so I want to play them in that order. This is the director's cut version of the game which was recently released on PS4, Xbox One and of course PC. Obviously Wasteland and Fallout share the same dna so this game is very much in the vein of Fallout 1 and 2. Action points, perks, skills, scrap, looting, similar setting etc. I created a character with high co-ordination (the stat that primarily governs long range accuracy and action points in battle) with a proficiency in assault rifles. Then I picked three of the pre-made characters who seemed useful. The game opens with you in base camp, receiving your first mission. The game explains its various systems as you go, every time something new happens, a note pops up for you to read about it. It's pretty handy. It looks nice, the game still has that isometric Fallout look, but you can zoom in and out and freely rotate the camera. Obviously it's not static backgrounds like in the old games or in Shadowrun Returns. It's a nice modernisation of the old style. After getting to grips with the game, I headed out into the Wasteland. Exploration between points on the map is kind of similar to the old Fallout games or a Total War game. I selected the Radio Tower target and my party moved towards it. The first time, the game triggered a random encounter with a few enemies. Combat plays out like every turn-based pc rpg ever. Movement is grid based. Every action (movement, shooting, reloating etc) requires action points. When your action points are used up, your turn is over (or you can just press end turn). I'm playing on the default difficulty (I think it was called Seasoned). The fight I played was very easy. One feature of the old rpgs was that you could die on the drop of a hat, but I suspect that's not going to happen in this game. Early days though. Either way I will be running multiple saves. Actually, after the fight and I was running around the random encounter map, the game crashed (for what it's worth, I emailed inXile the crash folder that was generated). I reloaded my most recent save and headed towards the Radio Tower again. This time the encounter didn't trigger, and I arrived at the mission location. Hopefully it was a once-off thing. That's about it so far. Seems like a really good game.

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.