Search the Community

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

I thought there might be a thread for this, but there isn't. So I'll be the one to make one for the weird indie game Premise is you've got 50 games which are emulative of the style of 8bit to early 16bit era, all released by this fake company called 'Ufosoft' which shut down in the 90s. Games which are dungeon explorers, side scrolling beat em ups, weird puzzlers where you're a chameleon blending into tiles, a kinda horse betting game. Game where you hop around platforms kicking soccerballs at things. A platformer all about suiciding yourself. Apparently there's a full 20 hour classic FF style turn based RPG in there, and an Ultima style first person dungeon crawler. Lots of weird shit The games are hard. You have to actually learn them, it ain't Warioware. Naturally, as an impatient person, I'm full of salt and rage at some of it. But it is interesting, the games get more sophisticated and better to control over the 'years'. Eg, pick up the final game they released, Cyber Owls, which is a beat-em-up that 'released' in 1989, and compare it to Fist Hell from 1987. Similar mechanics but more intuitive movement and faster gameplay. Also some of the games have couch multiplayer. Some of the games are good, some seem crap though like the weird egg dungeon crawler at the beginning where they kill you for walking right. I don't have much history with this era of gaming but it's been talked up a whole lot this year so after enjoying Balatro so much that it's potential GOTY for me I thought I'd try to expand my horizons on here. So maybe I bump this later way more keen on it, or someone else might find it interesting. I did find this one potentially interesting title, Bug Hunter (1984), which is this strategic kinda turn based bomberman game you see below where you have to kill bugs. I think the idea is to find your niche and get comfortable with a few familiar games first before branching out into the more scary ones (which for me, are platformers. Fuck man, great way to get me tilted 😠) Very original idea for a game, but fuck I bet it took a shitload of work to get 50 of them. Some are a bit more throaway like the camoflague gecko game though so maybe there's some sensible overlap that they achieve when implementing them This seems to just be Windows currently, but you could probably play it on any old machine. Definitely expect to see it on Switch eventually

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

Ok. So I’m a huge Dragonball Z fan. I first watched the series back in my 20’s, via the heavily edited Toonami dub (people never died, they got sent to ‘Another Dimension’). Years later I rewatched the American dub. And a few years after that, the Japanese original. I still have a lot of love for the series. So I was certainly interested in this. Visually, it absolutely nails it. It looks exactly like an episode of the anime. And it’s certainly a nice touch that you can play either with English or Japanese audio. It doesn’t get off to a great start gameplay wise though, with a pretty poor ‘training’ mission. I’ve seen a few videos of “stuff the game doesn’t tell you”. And a glaring omission is how to fight. Sure, you get three pages of a control pad, showing you what the buttons are. But there’s no explanation given in how to actually fight an enemy. I know, as a fan, that you have to charge Ki to perform energy attacks. But it doesn’t tell you that, so newcomers may be a bit puzzled why their special moves aren’t working. There’s a couple of prompts at the bottom of the screen (hold these buttons to do this move). But as far as tutorials go, it’s not great. I then experienced a bug which meant I had to reload my game. “Walk with Gohan to the fishing spot” I was told. Great. Except Gohan vanished, and after 5 minutes of searching it was clear he’d fucked off into thin air. Part of the game is open world, where you can fly around collecting Z orbs of different colours, to level up your abilities. Again, the game doesn’t tell you what these are for. Then there’s the Community Board, which is frankly a mess. You get a board, and when you meet characters and perform certain actions, you gain their icon, and can place them on your board. Putting certain characters next to each other grants you bonuses in combat. Some characters have their own board (Goku’s wife, Chi Chi, and his trainer Master Roshi). How do you add icons onto their board? I don’t have a fucking clue. It speaks volumes that the first time you access this part of the game, you’re barraged with about 6 pages of information. And I’m still none the wiser on what the fuck to do with it. Anyway, only a couple of hours in. Maybe things will make more sense as I go along. Or it won’t, and I’ll just mash buttons and hope for the best.

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

Finally bought a new game for my PC. Sure, it was 37 quid and looks like Skyrim, but that's neither here nor there. I think everyone knows it's a bit of a TES clone, down to most of the controls (at least on Xbox pad) being in the same configuration - Y for jump etc. I'm expecting, over the course of the next 50 hours, to be questing, lock picking, alchemy-ing and, most importantly, collecting flora and fauna for the cooking of. My build will be one handed with shield for parrying, and a side line in conjuration. So, pretty much my favourite TES build. Played an hour. Couldn't be happier. For now, at least.

Started playing this yesterday, was recently on a sale (would have loved to pay full price on release, but without a disc on Xbox, well...). The beginning is all over the place and retroactively made me appreciate just how strong an opening Life is Strange had back in the day. Showed you the tornado as the big climax on the horizon and then immediately grounds you with that wonderful sequence in the school's corridors. Lost Records feels more like a JJ Abrams kind of thing where it has that mystery carrot dangling in front of you but remains so vague for so long you start to wonder if the payoff will be worth it. The story starts off very It-like, in the sense that a group of friends did something when they were teens, then made an oath never to talk about it again but at the beginning of the game one of them contacts the protagonist to meet up and it then moves on from there. It's split between the present and flashbacks in the mid-nineties. In an odd twist, the scenes in the present take place in first person – whether this is a stylistic choice or is paving the way towards a twist involving the protagonist's appearance I don't know yet. Kind of leaning towards the latter, and it certainly adds to the mystery. But no matter the perspective this is a Don't Nod narrative adventure through and through, meaning you slowly walk through slightly stylised but detailed environments, look at objects and have your character monologue about things. In between doing that there's dialogue scenes where you pick answers that influence future narrative beats and relationships. So in that sense very much what you'd expect and, frankly, why I'm here for because I really like the LiS games. What's new is that, Telltale style, there's now a time limit on answers, so saying nothing is an option as well. Dialogue also flows naturally 'around' the timing of your picks, a bit like in Dustborn (which was very popular on here), though not as janky, thankfully. The characters so far are relatively stereotypical, but again, that's kind of what I'm here for. Certainly not unlikeable though, the usual bunch of outcasts and nerds that don't quite fit in. Another big element of this game and one I'm not entirely convinced by yet, is using your camcorder to record footage. It's simultaneously used for story progression, for example by having in-universe interviews with your friends, but also doubles down as the equivalent of the camera from LiS1, so to highlight different collectibles in the area, which are thematically linked. For example, if you film a bunch of posters, signs and other things that belong to a movie rental store, they'll get linked up and Swann (the protagonist) will make a little highlight reel with the clips your recorded. On one side it's a neat little interactive feature that does a good job of capturing the magic a camera had on millennials like us before babies got born holding smartphones in their hands. On the other hand it kind of feels like you need to run around with the camera a lot, which distracts from its native visual style and atmosphere. Which might be some clever kind of meta commentary, possibly. I don't hate it, but I think I preferred the simple nature of Max's camera. It hasn't blown me away as of yet, mostly due to how slow the opening is and how often it shifts between present and past. But at the same time I'm quite hooked as to what's going on and it hints rather subtly at some stuff I'm not going to spoil here that goes beyond what I was expecting (though, in fairness, I haven't seen a single trailer or review for this). It took me around 2 hours yesterday just to get to the part where they show the game's title so it's safe to assume I've only seen what would be considered the prologue.

I don't know how to give impressions on this without getting in the weeds. In terms of features it's an old fashioned 2D fighting game. You have an arcade mode (which is kinda interesting in that the better you do the harder the end boss gets) and there is a story that is literally an anime that you just watch, which is what the last game did too but it's still wild to me. There's also a pretty intense Mission Mode that does it's best to teach you the deeper mechanics of the game which if you're the studious type could work pretty well. I could do with spending more time in it myself but getting wrecked by someone using my character then trying to rip them off in the next match is more fun for me. It's the good netcode that saves it though. Well, the matchmaking is pretty rough at the mo but it plays really well in game. It just means there's always people to play with. This came online at midnight and I was ready to play it so I went to the east coast of USA since it was a more sensible time there and while it was a little choppy visually my inputs were barely delayed, if at all. I really hope they put this in a DBFZ2, in fact it would be shocking if they didn't. I've not saved many fights yet since I think I'm still pretty scrubby but my Gio is coming along a little. And this fight with Zato was fun when I wasn't put in the corner with all his nonsense:

Lots of Oblivion chat so figure I'd post it here I played about 4 hours or so, picked an Acrobat Orc. Lots of jumping, punching and arrow shooting. I have alteration as a major skill, I guess I can use that for shield magic so I don't have to block. It's interesting to revisit as you can imo still sort of feel how BGS generated this sort of inertia with their games that led to them stagnating a lot with Starfield, it kinda starts with this game. But I do think Oblivion is cool in spite of its flaws, it has some of the most interesting one-off questlines. Like the guy who you have to rescue out of a watercolour painting, which I did the other day. I always like the sort of weird episodic style of its storytelling, even if the over-arching narrative is a bit derivative. I don't think I'll be spending too long in Cyrodil this time tho, it's really hard to overlook the level scaling. That you can be at your wits end cracking a hard safe and your reward is another lockpick to replace the 8 you broke and 3 Septims. This is just the kind of thing that when you notice it it can destroy the feeling of exploration, to the point it makes Oblivion the hardest one to return to I think (apparently Skyrim fixed this? I don't know). I'm probably going to just use this as a zone out game now and then when I want a distraction rather than take it too seriously. It got me to install Daggerfall again so I might do the two simultaneously, one for relaxing one for stressing out cause of screaming skeletons. Here's a screenshot with the hardware lumen stuff maxed out, tho I'm keeping it turned off cause it runs badly. It mainly adds/improves self-shadowing to foliage and other things. There's a few minor changes I notice like how when you go up a steep incline, your character's walk animation changes. When you level up, you get these ten 'virtues' to spread across at most three different stats and the amount you spend seems connected with the things you did to gain the level up. So you are still tailoring your character in such a way that their actions govern their attributes, but they don't have this same min-max issue which causes problems in the 2006 game if you get paltry bonuses each level (caused by not leveling minor skills or ignoring the largest bonuses) and falling behind the level scaled enemies. Theoretically that's not an issue here but you won't know until you're at like level 14 or whatever Your health regens out of combat, I don't actually like this change tbh. Hope they let you toggle it off cause I like making potions to do that instead, for the role playing experience and so that mistakes matter more in combat (not that they matter that much or anything, but still) The game looks good enough, but it's got a beige-pink colour grading on everything. It doesn't have the same artstyle as 2006

I've been playing a bit of the campaign, and it is so much better than I was expecting it to be. It is called War Stories and is split into five separate parts following different characters and scenarios. I've only done the first one after the prologue so far, Through Mud and Blood where you and your squad are pushing forward in a British Mk V tank, and it was really good. It is quite poignant in places, and has great use of music. It looks bloody fantastic, too. Not tried the multiplayer yet, which says something of the single player as it's normally the thing I go for first in a FPS. If you leave it on the War Stories menu long enough, a lovely piece of music with a female vocalist starts playing and it is quite beautiful.

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

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

This is the collection that came out a year or so ago that has both the PS1 games in it. We have a thread for the Wii remake, which I'd completely forgotten about, but that seems to be an actual remake and didn't include the sequel. There's also a PS2 port, which I've played, and we'll get to in a bit, and I think that may have been a remake too. First off, I've played through the first game, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, it's pretty good, and it looks alright all things considered. You couldn't tell looking at it that it was a PS1 game originally. The cutscenes are slow as fuck, there's an option to skip or fast forward them, but a bit of editing wouldn't have been the worst choice, so I've no idea what the plot is because I'm not sitting through all that. The game plays fine, for the most part, the design is pretty simple, early 3d platformer in that it's polygons that you traverse in 2d. You grab enemies and throw them at other enemies and items. Later this is so you can solve puzzles to progress, and these can get tricky, but also use them to double jump. Again, easy enough at first, you're just climbing up to higher platforms, but gets much tougher later. There's a few rough edges, some old fashioned elements with how hit and miss contact can be with enemies, particularly in the background, and it's tougher than something like Kirby which it's most similar too. The bit where it does show it's age is the movement. There's a very digital, block by block feel to how the game handles. There's no overstep to edges, grabs, or the game being generous enough to extend your jump so you make it when you maybe shouldn't quite. It's most noticeable in the more difficult platforming, if you're not precise then it's not happening, but as the world moves in the same stiff pattern as you do it can be a bit maddening. It's where that PS2 version I mentioned comes in. That's the version I've played the most, and I swear the movement is smoother than here. It's that era of Japanese exclusive remakes like the Sega Ages line, so I think it's a full remake of the game, and as such controls a little more fluid. It wouldn't amaze me if that's what the Wii version was based off. Maybe I'm imagining it, but while this is a pretty good version, I'd probably rather play that one

Wow, no thread for this? I'm surprised. Been dipping and diving into lots of different PC games and struggling to find something that really grabs me. This is it, I think. I'm only about 90 minutes in, so far it's an adventure set in a dilapidated world that feels marked by communism, or on the verge of some sort of ugly class upheaval. You're a very hungover detective who doesn't really know what's happening but there's a case you got to investigate. But maybe the real thing you got to investigate is who you are and what has happened to you. Sound familiar? I really like it so far. It's basically just a game about reading lots of text so far and passing/failing speech checks. I don't really get all the systems yet, but it's like PS:T through the lens of Jack Kerouac or William S Burroughs. Absolutely fucked up and manky but very beautifully written heaps of text everywhere. The screen where they show you all your perks/specialities is so aggressively wordy. I don't know if there is actually any combat in the game because every perk seems to be based around some personality trait

Finished this a few days ago, rather enjoyed it so I thought I'd give it a bit more exposure. From what I can tell it's based on one of those internet properties, as in someone is drawing little comics with the characters and selling merchandise and such. Interesting idea to translate this into a full videogame, but the end result speaks for itself. This follows the template of a very classic JRPG with exploration, puzzles and turn-based combat. You play a new character in this specific universe that gets thrown into a little time-travelling storyline, where you need to visit certain areas and time periods to destroy core nodes of an evil plant that wants to destroy humanity and restore earth to its primordial origins. In that sense it's not subtle with its environmental themes and it kind of makes the antagonist sympathetic in a way, like you sometimes root (pun intended) for Poison Ivy in a Batman comic. Though in this case the enemy isn't some attractive model but rather a weird amalgamation of vines and thorns that can possess other living beings. While you're time-jumping around you're controlling a party of four and dispatching said mutated enemies in turn-based combat. It's a relatively basic, straightforward combat system with four different attack types and therefore four different potential weaknesses on both your end and enemies. A timeline in the upper right corner shows the turn order and it's here where it adds a tiny bit of unique depth to systems, as you can alter that timeline by spending some energy and, for example, move one of your teammates in front of an enemy to maybe get some healing done before they can hit you. I doesn't go much further than that and stays very simple as a result though. There's only two or three bosses where I had to go out of my way to incorporate a proper tactic, like forcing one half of a boss duo to duel on of my characters (by moving their turn to coincide with one of mine) so that they couldn't use their devastating team-combo. But otherwise this doesn't go beyond what your usual Mario RPG would do – which was fine for me, but might be a bit too limited for other people. One thing I enjoyed is that how much it crammed into its relatively short length (16 hours). You visit a ton of different locales – farms, schools, Paris by night –, the storyline does tackle quite a few different subjects and gives every party member breathing room, resulting in a game that feels significantly larger than its playtime suggests. It also doesn't shy away from more dark moments, but portrays them in a very digestible manner through some rather well-written dialogue. While you time-hop around you cross paths with one NPC at different stages of her life, which gives it a very human anchor to mould the storyline around. I do love how very French it feels, too. A lot of games are either very Asian or very American these days, so it's always nice to see something like this pop up and have a French farmer girl make fun of the Parisian high society, or people using Euro as their currency, or just every atom of its design channel classic French/European comic artwork. For a small game it's also very polished, with rather beautiful visuals, nice UI work, really good character portraits, a genuinely great soundtrack. Some of the puzzle designs can seem a bit badly signposted but I ended up getting through without too much trouble. Twice I had a character die in battle but remain at 1HP so I couldn't revive them, which was a bit annoying the second time as it was a boss battle so I kind of had to let them kill myself to retry. But ultimately this is a very accomplished effort all around. I played the Switch version on Switch 2 and it's mostly 60fps, but when I checked its performance on Switch 1 earlier this year it looked kind of rough, so Switch 2 or PC is the way to go here I'd say. (Also, Nintendo has to do something about screenshots on Switch 2. There's no reason for them to get saved in such awful quality.)

The very king of fighting games is back, and I'm head over heels with the little beauty. It looks and plays incredible. So much detail and so fluid in motion. I know I'll be posting in this thread in five years time, although tbf, probably as the avid spectator to online tournaments that I've been for 10 years by now. Truth is I've never been able to play the thing to any degree of competence, I just like watching other people do it. Having said that I've decided to do something I've never done when (trying) to play it. I'm going to go with grapplers. Maybe slowing things down a bit for myself might be more appropriate for my age - (advanced)!

A Soulslike from top to bottom, AI Limit adds a female protagonist that you can play dress up with then calls it a day. Honestly, that's a little bit reductive, but this game genuinely plays like My First Dark Souls. You run from area to area, battling with tough enemies along the way before eventually stumbling across a boss who seems to exist for no other reason than to make you question your life choices. To be honest, I reckon I'm about half way through now, and despite a complete lack of originality in concept, gameplay and everything in between, I'm actually mostly enjoying it. There are the occasional jumps from challenging into sheer frustration, but it's mainly my own fault. Whenever I lose focus I end up screwing up repeatedly. Combat is exactly what you expect. Light and heavy attacks, various spells, a couple of different defence strategies. Parry, dodge, defend, roll. All that good stuff. But with a sci-fi edge that leans into post-apocalypse. The looks are... serviceable. Like, you can throw a maid outfit on the player character if you want, but each outfit is tied to different stats and resistances, so it's not all about the titillation. I do like the almost cel-shaded look of the Blader you play as, and I do like the design of enemies, but there's also this filter that makes the whole game look a bit... I dunno, muddy? It's almost like the devs wanted to ape Stellar Blade, but didn't have the balls to go all out like that did. Along the way there are secret quest lines, hidden areas, random things to pick up, and something the game calls Corrupted Bladers - tough enemies that hit hard, fast and can mess up your timing a hell of a lot. Nothing is impossible to beat, but if you let your concentration slip, you can and will be absolutely battered, even by simple enemies. One thing I do really, really like over the SoulsBorne titles I've tried is the change to losing currency. Usually, you'll lose all your cash and have to retrieve it. This game takes a percentage of the currency off you and that's it. Right now, I lose 25% every time I die, but there are accessories you can equip that change this amount, as well as the total amount accumulated. It keeps the risk/reward aspect - a death can bump you back under your next level up amount, after all - but doesn't make it quite as frustrating, and also means you don't just need to bash your head against a boss over and over again to get your souls back. You can also use it tactically. Bump it up enough and you can let yourself get taken down for a quick shortcut back to the nearest branch (this game's bonfires). As someone who REALLY struggles with FromSoft titles and other similar games, the My First Dark Souls comment is really accurate. The fact I've made a modicum of progress, and only occasionally have to switch off because it dips from challenging to frustrating is what's keeping me going right now. For anyone with experience in this genre, I'd say avoid it, unless the style really grabs you. If you're someone who WANTS to get into this kinda game, but isn't up to the difficulty of FromSoft games, I'd say give it a go and see how you get on with it.

So, you might have noticed that I decided to stop hating on the PC games. Due to Popcap giving Peggle Nights away, I've spent a fair bit of time playing that on and off, and it got me thinking about all the stuff I have missed. I'm not talking about all those games that will break Deep Blue trying to run, but those other games, you know, the ones that play better on a mouse and keyboard. Except FPS, everyone with half a brain would tell you those are better on a control pad. http://www.mfgamers.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/tongue.gif So with that in mind, the first game I decide to run on my decrepit rig is Civilizations IV. Now I liked Civilizations Revolutions on the 360, it was rather good, it reminded me of playing a version of Colonization that I had on my old Amiga 1200, but more modern, you know because we had moved on 15 years and you would expect that. So that's what I was expecting, a more complicated Civilization Revolution. People had told me that Civ IV was way more complicated than Civ Rev, but I didn't really believe them until I actually got a hands on with this bastard. Yesterday I played through the tutorial, and while picking up the thick end of it there were bits that went completely over my head. Seriously, I f I were to compare these two games I would say imagine playing Snakes and Ladders, then moving on to Monopoly with ruthless players. It possibly has one of the biggest learning curves I have ever witnessed. Saying that, after cracking on with the tutorial again and this time completing the first scenario taking more in than I did the first time, I got into it. I must have done, because the tutorial and the first win took me over 4 HOURS which seemed to fly past in an instance. Seriously, I can see some rounds of this going over days, it's OK now, because I have a few days off, but otherwise this is a long term game. Gone are the days of Civ Rev when you could finish a game in just over an hour, It's going to take that long to get a couple of cities up and running and protected. Saying that, I am having fun with it and I can see myself playing for a few weeks until I have taken each empire to the top via various means. Once I have done this I'll be ready to go on to onw of the next old PC games I missed out on. Hell, if I really get into it, I might upgrade my PC so I can play stuff that was released less than 2 years ago.

Randomly decided to fire this up yesterday, maybe finally a topic other people will join in at some point. Anyway, after a solid 40 minutes in the character creator, which is simultaneously very good but also oddly lacking in some areas, I went through the tutorial area they showed in that gameplay clip a few months ago and then did the first proper mission afterwards. Decided to play an elven mage which resulted in a couple of not-important lines during dialogue so far, so I guess the times during which elves were this universe's slaves are over. Combat wise the mage can choose between flinging ranged attacks from a staff or using a magically infused short sword in close combat, in addition to your usual skills you unlock via (a very convoluted) skill tree. My mana pool is very low at the moment so I can barely use those right now, so I hope that changes, because the basic stuff feels a bit dull I think. Not bad, but ... pedestrian? But then again I've barely started and haven't really used the command wheel for my party members either, so I'm not going to judge it on that front yet. Visually this is probably the most impressive game I've played all year and a far cry from BioWare's usual output and an excellent showcase for Frostbite. I'm playing performance mode and it's basically a flawless visual experience, really smooth, really clear, barely any noticeable pop-ins or other distracting graphical scratches and such, while also maintaining all the visual flourishes you'd expect from a current-gen AAA product. I only very briefly switched over to quality but didn't see any noteworthy improvements that would warrant the more sluggish framerate. Annoyingly, while there are a ton of accessibility options, you can't turn of the quest marker for the main quest, so you permanently have some weird snowflake on the screen. Hopefully they patch that out before I'm done with it. The only other gripe I have with its visual presentation is the artstyle, or rather character proportions, as everyone's head is simply too big. We're used to this for dwarven races, but it looks really weird on slim builds like elven characters. But I do enjoy the overall experience so far. Feels good to play a high-end RPG again, even if this falls into a very streamlined action RPG territory that's very far removed from its Origins, eh, origins. Very linear so far, more reminiscent of the earlier games than Inquisition in that sense. So far I like that aspect but that might shift after a couple of hours.

I’ve played this for 4 hours now. And the harsh reviews can honestly fuck right off. They’re way off the mark, in my opinion. Usually, Skill Up does decent reviews, but I don’t agree with his video review of this. He moans that unlocking “Knigthood” for all 4 characters is a massive grind. Is it bollocks. There are two ways to level up. All characters share regular XP, so you can freely switch between them. But each character has a 4th skill tree, Knighthood. This needs to be unlocked for each character, and you do so by killing 3 mini bosses, and solving 10 crimes. In my 4 hours, I’ve got Knighthood unlocked for 2 characters, and almost done it for a 3rd. The way he moans, it’s like it’s a huge chore. He also creams his jeans over Arkham Knight. Personally, I thought that game was boring as fuck. I’ve had more fun with this, than I ever did with that. I’ve also seen some people complain that one fight sequence has the rock remix of Livin’ La Vida Loca. To those people I say “Have you even played Saints Fucking God-awful Row?”. What a stupid complaint. Anyways. Combat-wise, this ain’t Arkham. There’s stealth takedowns, but I’ve not had opportunity to use them much. So far, there’s not the vast array of gadgets that Batman had in Arkham. But, each character has their own play style, and abilities. Robin has been quite fun so far. A lot of people got pissed off when it was revealed this is 30fps on consoles. I’m no graphics expert, and to be quite honest, I’m happy with how this looks on PS5. It looks pretty damn good to me. The story has been interesting so far, and it’s worth swapping characters, as they periodically have their own side missions, which further develop how they’re coping with the loss of Batman. So yeah. I’m having a great time with this so far.

Labelled as a stand alone dlc to the Robocop game from a couple of years ago, there's enough to Robocop Unfinished Business that it feels like more than that. Granted you'd hope for a little more variety in a proper sequel, not because the core shooting is bad, just that it's unchanged from Rouge City The plot is kind of The Raid or the more recent Judge Dredd film, in that it's set in a residential tower block and you're kind of working through it. It's actually where the lack of budget shows because you don't really get a sense you're working through a building, it feels a bit circular and unconnected from each level. The story is that someone has stolen Robocops chair thing, they clearly need it for something nefarious so Robocop tracks them down to an OCP owned apartment block. OCP have moved a bunch of people in but it's all a con, even ignoring the mercenaries that have now taken it over, the residents were sold a con and are pretty desperate. The game is still trudging around and shooting everyone. I still think Robocop is a bit too vulnerable all things considered, but it has to have some challenge I suppose. The issue I have is I tend to linger behind cover and try to pick off enemies, rather than wade in like I think you're supposed to. You get a couple of flashbacks to play through, even at least one none Robocop one. There's a couple of new enemies that I've seen so far, and at least one new weapon. It's been a little glitchy so far, although nothing game breaking for me, although it seems to vary with people experiencing worse than me (I was able to hold 6 health items at some point for some reason). It's still fun though, not as good as the main game, but worth a play if you liked that one, and there's a lot of game for the cheaper price

Speaking of RPGs with hard edges I've put 30 hours into this, though it's maybe closer to 25 hours on this attempt. I bought it years ago and found it one of the most baffling games I tried to get into, even though I generally like games with hostile worlds and mechanics. Tried it again the past week and now I'm surprised how much more typical it really is, at least in these initial hours. The background is that it was made by a very very small team over the course of 12 years, I think initially just one dude who had a background in TES modding (which definitely shows here in that it has its skill system, where you learn by doing). What it is is a sort of squad-management open world RPG, with a very amorphous structure, set in a post-technological world where you're given no quarter. It gives you basic tutorials for mechanics, but you have to pick your own objectives and be disciplined about completing them step by step. You don't just follow a questline, you make your own stories although there is a background lore to discover also. You pick a background, I picked wanderer which starts you off in 'the hub' which is this derelict town with destroyed walls and buildings, and a pub. You presumably can build the place back up, but lore documents around the area suggest that it's a regular target of some religious sect or something. So I didn't bother. You can also pick a starter character who's a slave and has to break out of jail, which sounds really interesting. There's an 'easy' one where you start off with a squad already, a sort of Mad Max one where it's like the wanderer but you also have a dog. You can even start off in a camp of cannibals, definitely not where you want to start learning the game cause if someone does manage to eat your arm off, it's gone forever (tho robotic prosthetics exist) This is a screenshot of most of the early hours, when I tried my hand at solo bounty hunting. These guys just left me like that cause they're racists, but other factions are more helpful So after realising that you can't play the game like that, I decided to become a farmer (which is what my character's proficiencies were in anyway, not slicing things with swords). Found some arable land near a hive village where I could grow wheat and grapefruit and turn them into rice, bread and fuel, also set up a small stone mine. Built a base around it and a small shop to sell surplus produce to wandering caravan traders. Spent the income from that on hiring more people from the pubs in nearby cities, but not too many cause it's not a large farm. You can script jobs for your characters with a sort of gambit style system, if they can't do the first job they do the next one and so on, and will go to sleep and eat when they need to and defend each other from weird dinosaurs. So once you figure this out you basically automatically generate resources and money. It's very satisfying when you get a self-sustaining loop going like this But one issue I have is I've totally neglected defense, and am reliant on the nearby town to defend me from threats. Some bandits already tried to extort me, I stabbed the leader in the face and he came back seeking revenge which nearly got hairy, so I need to buff up and get weapons if I don't want to have to pay a protection racket. Also I'm bored of the farming and want to be able to explore beyond this one weird forest I've spent most of the game in, so I have a team of 7 now, 4 labourers and 3 fighters, I had my engineer sneak in the nearby weapon shop to steal some buster swords, and we're going to hire a mercenary on contract for a few days to attempt some harder bounties. Which probably would really cut into the bounty itself if I don't do it fast There's a vid here of the slave background which shows off a really different experience to the one I describe, where it's more top down RPG Metal Gear Solid. The point is you can sort of mould the game into a very different role playing experience if the idea of base building and optimising your farm sounds dreadfully boring

The actual title doesn't contain Shin Megami Tensei in it, which is probably because it's already stupidly long, but it'd do wonders for brand recognition. Anyway, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army was a PS2 Devil Summoner game, and this is a remaster / remake of it, somewhere in between because it's definitely upscaled cutscenes and quite possibly game world but they've adjusted the combat and gameplay. Apparently, I've never played the original. The combat is more active than a usual jrpg, kind of like Ni No Kuni. In battles you're locked in the combat area and you, as Raidou, can use light and heavy attacks, shoot enemies to stop them dodging about, and increasingly lob some slowly recharging magic. What makes Raidou unique as a Devil Summoner is that he can summon 2 demons to help him rather than 1. These demons generally act on their own, although you can tell them to cast specific things, and you can tell them to not use magic if you're low on mp The MP system works differently too. Your team all share one bar, and your demons will constantly be using magic ideally, so you really need to recover MP constantly. Fortunately, using your light attack gets you MP back, although it doesn't do as much damage, so you want to alternate between lots of light attacks and a heavy to mix recovery with actual damage. There's a few other moves too, specials that can be triggered at points, and the ability to hide your demons when really powerful attacks are coming Outside of combat the story has been pretty interesting so far. A girl who asked us to kill her then got kidnapped by demons, so we're sorting that out. From what I understand each chapter is it's own thing. You use your demons out of battle too, occasionally to help with the investigation, sometimes just to recover items So far I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty easy, although I suppose how many fights you get in to determines that. You can avoid a lot, but it's probably not a great idea early on while the combat feels fresh, just so you don't end up having to grind for a boss

Haven't found as much time for this yet as I wanted between Elena and Switch 2, unfortunately. But I think I'm 10-15ish hours in so enough to form an early opinion. Bit of backstory, but according to EDGE this is a very loose, semi-spiritual sequel to Blade of Darkness, Mercurysteam's debut title (back when they operated under a different banner still). That game can be seen as the progenitor of the souls-like, even though Fromsoftware perfected the formula years later – a bit like the relationship between kill.switch and Gears of War in other words. I never played Darkness though, didn't look appealing to me back in the day and I've since found out it's ridiculously difficult, so I'll continue to stay clear. Playing Blades of Fire I think it's quite apparent that it does approach the genre from a different angle and outside certain mechanics that have been done to death since Demon's Souls – enemies respawning upon rest – they don't have that much in common ultimately. Combat for one is very much its own thing with every face button assigned to an angle of attack, which is both easy to grasp and also leads to some interesting, spur-of-the-moment combos, like swinging a big hammer around from the left and then swirling it around to either hit the enemy in the head or ramming it into their bodies from below. Holding a button executes a heavy attack, which depending on the weapon type has massive windup but usually kills any normal enemy with one blow. Some enemies are vulnerable to specific weapon types or only at certain regions of their bodies, hence the specific targeting. There's a lot more depth here, of course; some weapons like swords and spears can either be swung or used for piercing attacks, which is a toggle that quickly becomes part of your muscle memory. Defensively you have a dodge roll, block and a parry – more on that later – and the block also generates stamina. So while it does have this second infamous energy gauge, it's not some passive thing but just a bit of micromanagement you have to consider. Overall I think the combat is extremely well executed, feels great to play, really solid and satisfying hit feedback and quite gory too if happen to land a charge attack that kills. One of its biggest USPs and also seemingly a point of contention online is weapon forging. Every weapon you wield has to be forged and the process is a mix of putting together materials and completing a little minigame everyone on the internet seems to hate with a passion. I don't exactly love it either, but it's not that bad – plus you can skip it for weapons of the same type after you have done it once. The minigame itself influences how often you will be able to repair said weapon, because, yes, they deteriorate and can break. Usually not a fan of this mechanic (I never used good weapons in BotW) but as this game is so inherently designed around it it's actually kind of a neat feature. They take a while to break, you can always just forge a carbon copy and in my case I found myself using that opportunity to simply try something new when visiting the forge. Case in point I was wielding a spear for a long time to fight small, short-range enemies and by defeating a lot of them I unlocked the blueprints to forge their dual axes, so when my spear broke I did that and are now messing around with this pseudo-Kratos armament. It won't be for everyone but I rather like this 'loop' – and the forge is a cool place anyway with good music and some very heavy, clanky machinery that's fun to watch. The materials you use also allow you to go really in-depth in how the weapon is going to handle, as you can influence damage dealt, stamina consumption, even the parry window (shown in milliseconds) and more. It's pretty cool but thankfully all very easy to grasp, so while you can really dig into the micromanagement, it's definitely not rocket science. And while we're at it, parry timing, even when you really open up the window through forging, is quite strict. We talked about this feature before but it's not really prevalent here and I rarely go for it as a result – but the payoff is huge, as it's staggering enemies for so long that you can land a fully charged heavy attack even for the slowest weapon type. One aspect I have mixed feelings about is its level design. It's of course a significant improvement over the navigational nightmare that was Lords of Shadow 2, but depending on the location its labyrinthine nature can be a bit overwhelming. There's a fort you get to relatively early in the game, with a bunch of stairs circling multiple centralised halls, and some paths are blocked, so you end up never really knowing what floor you're on and what direction you're moving towards (the map is a simple 2D bird's view). Didn't quite enjoy that part, especially as you also have to protect a – thankfully both in gameplay and lore immortal – NPC. Every other area was quite enjoyable to traverse though, those have been more open-sky, woodland + ruins kind of deals, but free from any markers or guidance, so you have to run around a bit to find your bearings. I'm quite enjoying that, feels refreshingly old-school, so hopefully the fort remains an unlucky exception. There's also a sidekick I haven't mentioned yet because he doesn't have a true gameplay function like, say, Atreus in God of War. Instead he's some sort of in-game explanation as to why your logbook automatically fills with weapon blueprints and lore details. In a nice touch he sketches enemies while you fight, so the drawings in the pause menu become more detailed the more you combat the same enemy type. Other than that he's just there to talk a bit here and there but I'd like to point out that story isn't this game's strong suit, at least early on. It does hint at stuff but not much has happened yet. Visually I think it looks a tad dated, but still quite nice. Bit of a hig-res version of a PS4 game, targeting 60 (but not always getting there). They sometimes fill the screen with particles, like if every forest in the world had just burned down, but other than it's neat-looking and the art direction is strong as usual from the team. Anyway, long story short I think this is pretty cool. It's very AA, it has some faults, but the motivating forging and super satisfying combat are real high points. But it's also a game that demands a certain commitment due to how complex its level design is. I've heard it's pretty big so it'll probably take a while until I can give a final verdict. No photo mode and can't turn off the HUD either, so the screenshots are a bit meh.

Anyone else picked this up at some point? It came out first two years ago but it came out just after Nuclear Throne which is a very similar game so I passed on it back then, but it was on sale on Switch recently so I picked it up as I'm struggling in a gaming rut and for some reason, I felt like playing this. So the game itself. It's a twin-stick shooter and rogue-like, or rogue-lite if you like. You are tasked with getting to the bottom of the "Gungeon"; a dungeon that is very gun-themed. Bullseyes hang from the walls like sigils, revolver-like mechanisms teleport you around the area and other gun-themed devices litter the medieval style Gungeon. You make your way through shooting enemies (a strange bunch; walking bullets and shells with corresponding guns, knights, ghosts, a mini-gun wielding crow. These are the more normal agitators). To help you through these oddballs you have a diving roll with generous invincibility frames and one of the most varied arsenals of guns but in a video game (citation needed). You have four characters to chose from who start with different weapons, consumable skills and passive skills. Even more of both kinds of skills can also be found in the Gungeon along with the weapons. The Pilot, for example, gets a lockpick which means he has a chance of opening chests without needing a key, but if it fails the lock is broken and the chest is sealed shut. The Space Marine starts with a piece of armour giving him an extra hit point. I'm actually having quite a hard time with it. I can sometimes get to the fourth floor but I'm not sure if that is good or not. I did rescue a guy one run where he says he can let me skip floors but I don't know how far down I have to go before he lets me use the shortcut. I bet it's the fifth floor. And while I mostly do okay in the Gungeon itself the bosses can be a bit of a bullet hell nightmare and its here I usually mess up, even on the first boss on particularly bad runs. But it does have that "one more go" factor which is important in games like this. It's just fun to play, rolling through bullets, flipping a table for cover and shooting a switch that makes a chandelier fall on a bunch of idiots. And seeing what guns come up is kinda fun too, in an "I recognise that!" kind of way. Some guns are your usual, Uzis, AK47s, etc; and you also have wackier ones like t-shirt cannons, giant shells that fire shotguns, a barrel that fires fish, etc; and also references! A taste of what I've come across is Barret's from FFVII's arm cannon, Judge Dread's gun and the Proton Pack. And many more! Definitely one for the rogue-like likers out there.