Search the Community

Got to admit, when I had this recommended to me it raised an eyebrow, it just doesn't look like it's going to be any good. It is, however, great. It's got the same 2d sprites that face you no matter how you move around them that the likes of Doom and Duke Nukem had, but it doesn't play at the pace they did, and nor does it throw enemies at you like you might expect. The plot is that there's been an outbreak, a city has gone in to lockdown, with government death squads slaughtering anyone they see inside the zone. You play as someone who is in the zone, and have to fight your way through the infected, the soldiers, then eventually find out what the real plot is. It's played very tongue in cheek, with Max Payne style digitised comic strip cutscenes It's pretty short, about 2 hours, and it's fairly easy, although I would recommend saving from time to time because you can take a lot of damage quickly and I wouldn't fancy starting the levels from scratch. It's really cheap too, just over £2 in the sale

Broke my gaming fast with some jankcore immersive sim. This is a weird game, it's a Soulslike immersive sim. Why don't we have more of those? It's like the most obviously great idea in the world alongside first person survival horror. Like Cruelty Squad it's very postmodern and feels like a 4chan shitpost but critically the game doesn't feel like it's just being stupid and random with how ironic it is all the time. You're either into this type of thing or you find it unbearable, this is why Steam has a 2 hour refund window. It's a bit Deus Ex in its setup, you're in a HQ and your handler sets you off on a mission to investigate carcinogenic shampoo or something. I'm not going to attempt to explain the story part cause it's very dense in strange lingos and terminology, which is where it gets a bit Soulslike cause its story and world feels a bit broken and hard to understand. But it's also soulslike in that Euros are your souls for upgrading, and you can pick them up on death or lose them forever. I tried a recruit first and got really fucked up with debt, started over as a detective who can seem to do things like look at the company intranet but it shows you a bunch of hexadecimal and I've no idea what to do with it. Nothing in the game is explained, you have stats like Vitality and Perception and Luck, you also have Bioenergy and 'Lack'. You sort of have to stumble your way through and figure it out via context, I suppose. NPCs can help you out with that and if you bribe them they can tell you things about the state of the world, politics, cocaine task forces, celibacy, energy drinks and investment opportunities, the last of which is very important cause if you don't have a diverse portfolio you will lose money every single day. You want to get time in the market quick, NPCs will help you there. They also give you sidequests which give you more things to do Outside of the NPC stuff, it turns into Deus Ex meets Armored Core. You have a big mech which you can upgrade and change the properties of. It's not as in depth as AC or anything like that but it is very difficult and you can't just yolo it. In terms of how to infiltrate combat areas I've just not figured it out yet, I'm still at the 'accumulating knowledge' part of all of this. One thing I did figure out is how to kick in my next door neighbour's apartment and murder him for a cool 15Gs, but then I got killed after only spending some of it and didn't recover it quickly It's early access so the purposeful jank is going to also have a lot of accidental development jank I swear I'm not trying to big up a strange game to seem cool, I do like immersive sims a lot and this seems to go really hard in a way I've not being able to find with a game for a while. It seems super crunchy, both in its systems and in how it looks. I expect this thing to bubble into a really weird cult thing this year, off the back of Cruelty Squad being that already but I think this will be more interesting to people cause of the RPG elements

This is a Limbo/Inside kind of deal, more Inside but there would be no Inside without Limbo, you know? You play a young girl (so I read, it's in no way apparent) that awakens in the dark with a lighter as a solitary possesion and a raincoat on her back. Then it's all on you. It's dark and ominous, mostly slow paced. You make your way throughout the game, slowly discovering the place where you are seemingly trapped and avoiding/running from it's inhabitants. There are stealth sections that arent too long but there are a few of them, I actually enjoyed them. There are also running sections which can be a little frustrating if you fail as you have to do the whole thing again but they job, they're a little scary and come at the right times. Music is pretty cool as well. The only downside for me was the camera angle. It's set in the foreground and as usual it makes depth perception a bit of a pain sometimes, I had a few avoidable deaths because of it. I don't know if it's just because it's the more recent title I've played but I felt like I enjoyed it more than Inside. It's just as mysterious but it just felt like it was a tighter game. I beat it in two sittings so it's not long, maybe four hours although there's an achievement for beating it in less than one hour so that's obviously possible when you know what to do well enough. Recommended.

I did look for an old thread but it looks like one doesn't exist. I got it the other night on the Switch since it's the version with the free style switching. It's a cool idea that's in later DMC games and I thought it may be fun in this game. In the original you picked a style at the start of a mission. Basically the styles are Sword Master, Gunslinger, Trickster and Royal Guard. They all give you different abilities. The first two are fairly self explanatory while trickster is mostly about dodging and royal guard is a parry system. I do have a bit of a problem with it. It's just the way it levels. In later games you upgrade the styles with red orbs (which give you more moves), the same way as everything else, but here I think it upgrades by how much you use it. So I'm not getting the freedom I'd like without spending a lot of time in the Bloody Palace with the main goal of using a particular style a lot. So that's kinda disappointing since I forgot how it worked. I've forgotten a lot of stuff to be honest. I was having a hoot at first. I sunk in four hours in one session, going along quite well which surprised me as going back to Bayonetta kicked my arse. DMC3 is easier than I remember but then I got to a succubus type lady boss, which I think you get the guitar weapon from but I just can't seem to beat her. I don't seem to be doing any damage but she wrecks you with some of her attacks. I call bullshit, I think she's busted. But I'm sure I did beat her back in the day as I remember messing around with that guitar weapon. How I did it, I have no idea.

Started this earlier (didn't try the demo earlier in the year) played for around 2.5/3 hours. Not sure what to think of it yet, it OK to play I guess... definitely not as tight as Elden Ring, there's been a few times where it's seemed like the buttons were a tad unresponsive... and I've also been stun locked which is very annoying. Looks wise it could quite easily be a sequel to Bloodborne... it's very similar. Looks pretty decent though, nice and sharp... I'm playing in quality mode but I have no idea what that does to resolution and framerate in this though. Like most Soulsborne games I'm feeling a little lost at the moment tbh... what with the amount of random items I'm picking up and the amount combat notes being thrown my way... we'll see how far I make it in this as I've read it's fairly difficult and unlike Elden Ring I can't ride on the coat tails of better players so don't be too surprised if my next post on the game is in the "Sacked that off mate" thread.😂

Hi Guys, Fallout London is a new total conversion mod for Fallout 4. It's free to download on GOG, but installing it is a bit of a pain in the ass. So I've taken it upon myself to write a short "How to" on installing this game. The reason it's a pain to install is it's made to run on an older version of Fallout 4, even though it's a new game. Most of what I describe below is how to downgrade your Steam version of Fallout 4 to install Fallout London. The first thing to do is to go to Steam, and download/install Fallout 4. Most people will have this game in their library by now. Then, go to GOG and download the installer for Fallout London. Once Steam has installed Fallout 4, minimize Steam, and bring up the Windows Run box with 'Windows Key + R' Type into the Run box "steam://nav/console" Next, you need to copy the following commands into the Steam console, one line at a time, pressing enter after each command. download_depot 377160 377162 5847529232406005096 download_depot 377160 377161 7497069378349273908 download_depot 377160 377163 5819088023757897745 download_depot 377160 377164 2178106366609958945 download_depot 377160 435870 1691678129192680960 download_depot 377160 435871 5106118861901111234 download_depot 377160 435880 1255562923187931216 These commands will force Steam to download older game files for you. But it will not put them into your Fallout 4 installation folder. You will need to do this yourself. This may take a while, depending on your internet speed. Once each command has downloaded correctly, you'll get a report that looks a little like this. "Depot download complete : "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_377160\depot_377162" (1 files, manifest 5847529232406005096)" There will be a report for every command you pasted into the console, so seven in total. Once this has been completed, open up your file browser, and go to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_377160". Inside this folder, you'll find seven folders starting with "depot_" and a number. Open your Fallout 4 install folder in a second window. It's usually "(Steam Hardrive Letter)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4 Go back to the window with the "depot_" folders, and copy the contents of each folder to your Fallout 4 install folder, overwriting any files with the same name. Go to the Fallout 4 install folder, and navigate to the "Data" folder. We now need to delete the Creation Kit files added by the last update. Select all files that start with "cc". There will be several. Delete any file that starts with "cc". Next, on your web browser, go to https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/42147?tab=files&file_id=253313, and download Fallout 4 Script Extender (F4SE). You might need to sign up for this site to download it, but it's free. Once it's downloaded, extract it with your zip program of choice, and copy the contents of the zip file to the Fallout 4 install folder, again overwriting any files with the same name. And the final step. Run the Fallout London install program you downloaded from GOG. point it to your Fallout 4 install folder, and click next. Then let it do its thing. A couple of final notes, guys. First, disable cloud saving as this mod might screw up your regular Fallout 4 save. And second, in order to play regular Fallout 4 again, you'll need to uninstall the game completely, and then reinstall it without the mods and patches I've described above.

Seems a lot (relatively speaking) people got this, so I think a topic here makes sense after all. I don't think this needs context, but just for the record: this is a collection that includes three classic Castlevania games initially released for the DS (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia) as well as both the original version of Haunted Castle, an arcade game from the 80s, as well as a complete remake with SNES-style visuals and some other changes of this last game. I started with Dawn of Sorrow, because it's my favourite of the bunch and also the first one that came out (despite being placed at the bottom of the list in the menu). Plus from what I recall it's the one that made most 'use' of the touchscreen, so a good litmus test for this specific release, too. On Switch you can use the touchscreen if you're playing in handheld mode, so there's nothing lost there either way, but the alternative is holding a shoulder button and moving a cursor around, which is a less than ideal alternative. Thankfully the magic circles you have to draw are now also QTEs, but stuff like destroying ice blocks is a bit finnicky so I decided to play that section in handheld mode. IIRC the further you get the less frequent these gimmicks become, so it's only really a small issue in the first hour or two. We've already discussed the multiple screen options in the News topic so I'm not going to repeat those, but I noticed there's also a setup where both screens are displayed vertically, like they were on the original system. I think it would have been really cool to have that setup in Tate mode, but that's really just a nitpick because it would only really be useable on Switch (and maybe PC depending on your monitor setup). As you can see in the picture there's a lot of extra stuff in there as well, like the complete OST that works as a music player (and those games have some of the best tracks in the entire series IMO), a gallery which even includes the game manuals, and you can also choose which version you want to play (EU, US, JP and in Ecclesia's case, even the Korean version, though I'm not sure what's different about that one except the language). In any case, I've been really enjoying the little time I played so far. I usually only associate consoles and games I played as a kid with nostalgia, but the moment I stepped into the first area with its wonderful music I got hit by quite the wave of good old times. Absolute recommendation, these are classics for a reason and M2 did a great job of porting them over, as usual. Not to mention that we get a completely new remake as a bonus, too. [Also, a bit off-topic: while I was going through the gallery I noticed a promo picture for Castlevania: Judgement, which was on the back of one of the manuals back then. I wonder if they plan on re-releasing the 3D games as well considering we're now kind of 'through' with the 2D games. I realise they're not as well-regarded, but I think the PS2 ones are somewhat decent and Judgement, despite being a super broken and unbalanced fighting game, is quite a fun little guilty pleasure with a ridiculously good OST.]

Started this after I beat BG1 the other day, on 'core' difficulty which is like the default (no buffs or debuffs to damage or dice rolls, beyond which you naturally get). I've beaten the first dungeon and did two largeish quests in the first area of chapter 2, but have many others in the journal. There's a noticeable step up in detail, not necessarily visually but in that there's a lot more unique voice lines for each character over BG1. Characters tell you their backstories, they do this a lot actually and it's kind of annoying when you're trying to prepare spells and devise a strategy for a difficult room full of annoying snake mages and Minsc is yammering on about his hamster. But you can sort of see the start of modern Bioware here a bit, though it still feels a million miles away from something like Mass Effect 2 or 3 imo, which is where bioware got really good at this I think. The first quest I did after the tutorial dungeon, which was incredible long, was this one where you had to defend a keep of a rich aristocrat's daughter that had been taken over by trolls that required ice and fire attacks to finish them off. So they're reminding you early on about the importance in DnD of preparing spells and equipping arrows, and the baptism of fire which was BG1 and some of its late game fights have made me a bit more smart about this now. These are RTFM games, you have to read what things mean before hitting your head against stuff, like I did at times. And then you have to read again in game when you get a magic scroll, which is full of all this lovely and lore-heavy flavour text about what actually happens when someone makes themselves invisible or throws a massive fireball at something tbh, I struggled with the keep quest cause the game doesn't really tell you what level is appropriate for what quest, but I got over it when my Inquisitor Paladin found a +3 flail which applies Ice, Acid and Fire damage in the same dungeon, so sort of lucky that that is what I selected my +1 proficiency in. Then I devised a strategy which involved throwing Minsc into a room berserked to fight beetles that cast confuse, and spamming doom magic at the main boss in the next room so that my debuffs could hit it more easily, and his saving throws/THAC0 took a hit. THAC0 still sort of spins me sideways, as well as the way in which the UI will say something gives you +1 to your armour class, but actually make the number smaller, cause the way THAC0 works is it's the 20-sided dice roll you must get to hit someone with armour class 0, so if your THAC0 is 14, you must roll 14 to hit 0. If you're trying to hit armour class 6, then you must roll at least 8, if they're -6 then you gotta roll 20. Which you probably won't, so you need some buffs to even hit stuff. It actually took me playing an entire DnD game to even internalise these rules, which are simple but the way they are applied in reverse means they feel like they aren't. I never picked it up in PS:T cause you can skip so much fighting in that game. Not even going to get into what saving throws do. BG3 did away with THAC0 of course Right now, I'm playing two rival factions of the Shadow Thieves against each other, who are at war with some mages or something. I don't even know if I can complete this quest on my Paladin cause Paladin's lose abilities if they fall off the Lawful Good path, so if I can't then I might have to let Yoshimo go (and get shanked, maybe). There are also a million other quests in the capital city of Amn so I'm trying to avoid walking around too much cause they kind of bombard you a bit, compared with BG1. The chapter seems extremely open and I've had to deny some quests that would take me down an evil path, though they sounded interesting. The other quest I did was to defeat an evil gnome in a circus tent who cast illusions on everything, which is where I got hit by this. Solve it and you win maf's new monitor

I played 30 minutes of it. It asks you to create a bethesda account before even being able to play which is really annoying but you can get around by setting steam to offline. Anyway it seems good. Kind of more focused on just murder arenas from the look of things. But I'm totally ok with a game like that. You can turn HUD off but it's hard to play. The HUD is a bit much tbh, I need to spend some time figuring out what parts I can turn off. Playing on ultra violent

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.

Picked this up as it was discounted on Steam and I’m feeling very intelligent after playing Blue Prince. I thought there was a thread but I guess not. Anyway, I booted it up to try it out and 90 minutes disappeared very quickly. Artistically, the game is a knockout. The mysterious animal theme is a very nice. Now that I’m thinking about it, the mysterious atmosphere of the game reminds me of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, even though they have nothing else in common (I haven’t thought about that game in over 10 years). The subtle visual and sound effects are very well done too. Gameplay wise, it’s kind of like a compact metroidvania with a focus on puzzles.

I played the first hour or so of this. The game has a very bombastic opening although I think it was largely shown when they first revealed the game. The opening “escape” sequence is snappy, much faster than the opening of DOS2. Dialogue scenes now play out Mass Effect style which gives the game a slightly more AAA feel. Character creation is pretty breezy, I didn’t spend too long on it. You can choose from five different penises. I just made my character a human fighter. My main takeaway is - no crashes or performances issues. Long may it continue. After a few more hours I should be able to comment more on the differences between this and Divinity, but so far so good.

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!

The glow up for Suikoden 1 is almost immediately apparent. The script has been tweaked IE better translated. The sprites have QoL improvements and the overworld & town maps have been given a modern facelift. I capped off my first session with acquiring your base. Roughly six hours in. It reminds me there is a reason I hold this series in very high regard. Even the "bad" one (Suikoden IV) isn't terrible. Hopefully if this remaster is a financial success, Konami might even revive the series proper. Or at least give a collection with the other three games (and maybe DS spin-off).

Spent a few hours with the game during this afternoon, suffice to say it's bloody amazing to look at... The whole driving to the festival segment right at the start of the game just put a massive smile on my face, it's so stupidly over the top that you can't help but grin. So far there's not been anything massively different from the 4th game but to be honest that was already the best open world racer by a huge margin so this just has to build on that. So far I've I think the game has been hand holding me through the early parts but not enough that I can't decide to put whatever the game is suggesting on hold and do something else, which is nice. I also think that the map is definitely going to encourage going off road far more than Britain did in the previous game. Anyway, so far so gorgeous!

Hey, maybe don't buy this Vice City squad, I come to you with gameplay clips littered with copyright claims. Not that there's a shortage of videos out there about this but it helps to see how little the gameplay has changed as well. I'm a couple hours into the opening sections. Actually, I could be a bit beyond the opening sections. Was this game short? I'm already at the bit where you are doing missions for Diaz. Visually I think it looks ok, I think they could have done a lot more work here tho and it's a bit perplexing that this is more demanding for my machine than The Witcher 3 maxed out. No ray tracing or anything like that is in it. It could be a rough one to play on PC for this reason but maybe the settings are more scalable on lower settings. I think the volumetric lighting is what is killing it. Also the game comes close to dying every time I pause, I found out I'm not the only one with this issue so it's a problem with the PC version. Vice City now is a game that is hard carried by its soundtrack I think. I don't think I could stick with this type of thing without these tunes. It's also weird to think Vice City is now more retro than the year 1986 was when Vice City itself came out. It's like a russian doll of nostalgia or something. I will say for VC first thing you should do is turn HDR off and set contrast to 0. The default contrast level is hideously oversaturated and destroys the tone of the game. At zero it is not a million miles away from the original's visual style Going back now also it really feels like Ray Liotta phoned in his performance as Tommy Vercetti, but the people around him do a good enough job to make up for that fact. Especially the lawyer guy. It's weird to think how they got all these really big movie stars in a game like this (Burt Reynolds is in this game, if you forgot). Nowadays you can see that these movie people don't exactly translate their talents to the digital screen, some of them are pretty bad at adapting to it. Or are just used to sell the game. But back then this was a really big deal for Vice City. There's one visual thing which has really annoyed me early on, the rain effect. It is a constant streak of white lines that make it impossible to see anything and actually made me feel a kind of motion sickness I've never felt with a game. I haven't heard anyone else talk about it, it could be a subjective thing. But man, it is rough to look at. On the other hand they add a cool effect where you get puddles and the grass gets wet. You slide in the rain also, I think that's new. Might not be but it seems new. Gameplay clips, spoilered for post length not spoilers cause this game is 20 years old now

This game has been undergoing a bit of a renaissance recently cause of the unity fanport and I figure I've played enough that I feel I want to type words at the internet about it. It's a version of the game which fixes tons of bugs with the earlier DOS version and allows you to run it at a high framerate, and in typical TES fashion supports tons and tons of mods which drastically change the experience. Version 1.0 came out just last year. https://www.dfworkshop.net/ It takes place in the kingdoms of High Rock and Hammerfell (the latter I've not seen yet). You're on this quest for Emperor Uriel Septim VII, the same guy who gets murdered in the opening to Oblivion. You're solving a problem for him, something to do with a letter to some queen with some private matters in it, and the ghost of a vengeful king. None of that matters too much cause it's more about navigating this huge unyielding world (larger than Great Britain in its scale). This is a very different Elder Scrolls than the ones after it cause it's this procedurally generated universe, maybe less than 0.1 percent of the world is authored content. So cause of that it means that they can have thousands of towns, but they are all populated by the same looking buildings and NPCs, just laid out differently. Which is a fairly repetitive, but it is designed as a sort of abstract RPG framework rather than an open world game with RPG elements. Like the world is all there, you can spend years of your real life exploring it but it's not the point (and is insane)*. The point is way more on how you build a character to tackle dungeons, and how the different reputation and skill systems in the game interlock to allow you progress through the world's regions, main quest and factions/dungeons. The sort of 'RPG framework' thing comes into play with the character creator, which is the part that impressed me when I first tried and failed to get into it after Morrowind. There's so many skills in this, beyond the ones that later TES games have. You have all that restoration and blades stuff and you also have the cool levitation skills from Morrowind. But then there's 'climbing', which rolls a dice anytime you push against a wall and does a sort of BOTW style climb against it, and you will slip if your stats are bad at it. This has obvious potential for immersive sim solutions in some dungeons and you can use it to climb over the walls of gated towns at night. Which you might want to do cause you will get arrested if you try to camp outside or will get attacked by ghosts if you loiter. There's languages in it, like the Orc language or Dragonish. I don't really know what they do yet. There's things in it like 'ettiquette' and 'streetwise' which do dice-rolls in your interactions with NPCs, which you have to rely on to find directions to the guilds and churches or specific quest NPCs. My speech skills are really low so a significant amount of time is spent trying to extract the most basic of directions from NPCs. Which is pretty grating, but in a sort of immersive way. When I get enough magicka to cast charm it will be way easier I guess. Stuff like faction and regional reputation seems to play a part in this also, which could have the side effect of pushing you to stick to certain regions and make questing more frictionless cause people might have heard of you and be more willing to help you out. The meat of the game is in this questing, whether it's main quests or sidequests for factions or oddjobs or whatever. There's a timing mechanic to them, go to this dungeon, kill this cunt and come back within 28 days. Or go to some guys house in the town a couple days over and kill the tiger in his bedroom (???) and come back in 14 days. The world is not designed to be traveled in real time so you open a map, type in the area they tell you and it will tell you it took you 5 days to get there, or maybe less if you travel 'recklessly' (which seems to mean you will be unrested on arrival). Then when you're in the dungeon, the dungeons are huge, you mainly seem to rely on using the rest mechanic to heal health, fatigue and magic. Which also counts into that timer. So it's about time management and having ways to save that time really help, like the recall spell or restoration magic. I guess potions could help later but I haven't been able to tell how to get them or make them, they seem incredibly rate in this. Also the dungeons can have locked doors which might be blocking your objective, so not having alteration or lockpicking could cause issues. In terms of deep stories and lore there's not a lot there, it's more about this systemic approach to difficult problem solving in a role-playing context, I think. It's a really difficult game and the tutorial dungeon is designed to kick your ass with a combination of enemies and obstacles in a way to make you reconsider your build, or your approach, or just even playing the game at all. I don't know much about this particular youtuber but he was apparently one of the most popular TES content creators and disappeared for ages, anyway he came back with this vid which maybe explains the game a bit where he does a weird challenge run showcasing the game's systems *That hasn't stopped modders from trying to turn it into that kind of game tho, the mods on nexus are really interesting

I played 4 hours of this last night. Premise is you inherit this mansion, I think from your grandfather or something, I forget. You 'draft' rooms randomly and create a floorplan which can lead to different things. Some rooms have several exits, or none. They might have currency you can use to open doors, buy things and so on. They might also contain some lore in them. Some rooms have debuffs, eg you might spend more steps going into them. You might have ways to workaround this though, either in the floorplan or in some other strategy. What's more interesting is the ways in which certain rooms can be combined with each other, like the security room has specific interactions with other rooms. There's no reason to go into detail on this cause the game is about accumulating these details yourself and learning how to combine them to unlock secrets, solve puzzles and figure out how to progress to the antechamber. At first anyway, maybe the game changes later but I've no idea Being real about it, I feel like the 'eureka' moments have been spread rather sparsely across the playtime so far and I'm not loving it, I'm sort of giving it the benefit of the doubt. But due to the nature of it it's guaranteed to be one of those delayed gratification type of experiences cause you need to learn lots of tricks and gimmicks before you can really synthesise it into something clever, and I'm not quite there yet, tho I did figure out something rather cool about the security card system which I won't spoil. But from what I see lots of the rooms and unlocks have multiple applications so it's probably a game about rewiring your brain to these multiple possibilities. You should definitely take notes, I have notes saved in a text editor. Best analogy I can use to describe is that it's like starting off a 1000 piece jigsaw, you're just kinda feeling a bit aimless. I'm sure it turns into something else entirely eventually though. Its pace is definitely an issue so far though

Picked this up as it's on sale at the moment and I've really just been looking for an excuse to give it a shot (and I need a break from Xenoblade). Today being a holiday and all I managed to get about 4 hours of playtime with it. It starts off relatively linear and scripted before dumping you into its main world, which is a seemingly abandoned piece of land cut off from the rest of the world via a magical dome surrounding it. From a story perspective you and your team are stranded inside, so the main narrative thread is exploring it and also looking for a way to escape. I was surprised at how talkative it is and I can see some people disliking that, but on my end I have no issues with it. It is, however, strictly split, as in you can only really talk with your comrades and move the story forward in camp whereas out and about it's purely about gameplay, except for some (rare) chatter via a magical comm device. The thing that made people pay attention to this is its playfulness with physics that loosely was reminiscent of BotW, but at least in the beginning that aspect is rather under-developed. There's telekinesis, which works a bit like in Control, though less snappy, and ice powers, which can cool down the area or freeze enemies in place. The third power you unlock is summoning a Vortex that traps enemies, but it's so weak early on that you kind of have to throw enemies back in again after wacking them with your sword, though that also highlights an early and simple way to combine powers. I'd imagine this aspect growing more prevalent as you progress (especially with a larger mana pool and fire powers), but right now I tend to dispatch smaller enemies with parries and sword swings, which works well enough and is fun, but there's no progression for melee combat in the sense of unlockable combos and such, hence why I assume it wants to slowly nudge you towards being experimental will the element powers in the long run. You also have a bow but I find it not particularly useful – though again, that might change. Some gameplay aspects are a bit 'wonky', especially if you combine multiple features like freezing a big enemy in place, climbing on top of them and trying to aim for a weak spot. It's a sign of a smaller game without month-long AAA Q&A testing and polishing, but relative to its ambitions I think it does a fairly good job glueing everything together. The gameplay 'loop' of leaving camp, exploring the outside (which is divided into large, open-ish hubs) and then coming back to improve your equipment with collected resources is a bit basic but it works. I previously had some reservations about the fact that you lose the majority of your collected resources if you die, but right around the time when it opens up a bit and throws stronger enemies at you, you also receive an items to teleport back to camp without any kind of penalty. So if things go south, you can always just jump away, maybe improve your amour and weapons, and go back. Whether it becomes grindy or not I can't say yet of course, but at least it doesn't seem overly punishing. First impressions are really positive, and for an indie project I think this looks quite fabulous, and very cleverly hides its budgetary shortcoming by (2D stills of the characters during most conversations for example). It's also refreshing to play a game that is just fully optimised for the system you're playing it on. I get that the usual quality and performance modes have their uses, but here there's nothing – just press start and play it as intended (60fps). Also nice soundtrack and really solid voice acting – depending on your dialogue choices the main character is also quite likeable and thankfully not even remotely the kind of girlboss archetype I was expecting after some trailers.

The best way to describe this is what if Suda51 had a queer Indian cousin who also made games? It's really out there, in every sense of the phrase. The setup is basically Scott Pilgrim through an Indian lens, with the protagonist returning to her hometown after a breakup and then having to confront all her exes. From a gameplay perspective you're either talking, skating around, doing some QTE-based minigames or fight in turn-based battles. I don't want to call the gameplay loop gimmicky because it's a bit derogatory, but it still explains it best. There's not much depth to anything you do, but it's a very enjoyable cocktail presented in a very wacky and charming way. During dialogue sequence you can pick answers which in turn give points for one of three different 'thirstsonas' (their word, not mine). Supposedly this impacts both the narrative and gameplay, but I haven't noticed the former and the latter just boils down to minuscule shifts towards either your HP pool, your offense or your defense. Skating is wonky and clunky, but you can skip every challenge the game asks you to do before progressing. I think it's a nice enough diversion, but it's no Tony Hawk for sure. Combat meanwhile is a solid spin on the Paper Mario/Mario et Luigi formula with timed button inputs influencing damage dealt and received. Debuffs are called taunts and certain skills you have deal bonus damage if a debuff has been applied. That's pretty much it, but it's a solid template and the boss fights, while quite a bit talkative, are the clear highlights, with the exes withdrawing into some sort of mind palace where they take different forms (a bit Persona-like, now that I think about it). There's also a part where you can cook meals for combat use or to make up with your exes, which is technically just a series of QTEs intertwined by a heart-to-heart with either your mum or dad (depending on what menu you choose). I'm definitely enjoying it a lot and it also has a very stylish presentation. 3D modelling can't quite keep up with the art but it's a really 'cool' game to look at with a lot of visual flourishes, nice UI art etc. The OST is really good as well, though in a less eccentric way. Overall a nice little feelgood game that still tackles some deeper subjects from a different perspective than we're used to in games.

the gaming definition of Look Outside starts with a simple request, take a look outside of your window It seems that everyone who does turns in to some Cronenberg style monster, who then stalk the halls of your apartment building as you hunt around looking for items to, presumably, escape, I don't actually know yet. It's a very strange game, which in some ways is to its detriment. It looks like an rpg maker game, it plays like an old style jrpg, in that you can choose to attack, defend, use items, use a special attack, or maybe escape. Some times you can use an item or talk to a monster that will get a certain outcome. I got a kiss off one 😄 and seemingly he's going to be useful later. There's another I can eventually recruit to my party apparently, although it doesn't half feel like you could easily miss some of these characters. At night there's often a knock at your door, so far it's just been traders, but it can be people to recruit, I've not seen that yet. I'm kind of enjoying it, I love the look of it, and it has made me laugh with how horrible it is, but at the same time it leaves you unsure of if you're doing the right thing. Lisa The Brave had the same thing for me, I understand the Jrpg structure, I've played enough of them, but when you alter it a bit it just leaves me 2nd guessing, and as such it can feel weirdly difficult. Like, I don't have a ton of healing items currently, I needed them for a particular area, now I'm a bit stuck. The game will give you some as you hunt around, but I've no idea if they're finite Anyway, it's horrible and strange and I kind of love it, but I wish it was a bit clearer or easier as I think then I'd love it. Just a character with a heal spell would do

Spent around 5 or 6 hours with this over the last couple of days... and so far so decent I'd say... For those who don't know the game is set in an alternate 1950's version of the Lake District where the Windscale disaster has covered much of the area in radioactive fallout. You have the age old condition of amnesia and wake up in a bunker with no recollection of how or why you're there... there's no character creation to start you off (I've no idea if you'll ever see the character, so far I haven't) and there's also no character voice over, which I don't have problem with tbh. Upon leaving the bunker (which in reality is about 3 rooms) you set foot in to the first of around 4 open areas you're free to explore and find leads which are how this game handles missions. Usually these are in the form of collectable journal entries or through conversations with characters you'll meet along the way... and the way these work is you'll never be able to do them all as completion of one characters leads will more than likely cancel someone else's in some way or another. I'm aiming to try and suss out who seems decent, I'm not feeling the General of the Protocol at the minute (the Army) he seems a little on the heavy handed side. Combat, so far, isn't anything to write home about... I'm mostly hitting things with a cricket bat at the minute, I have a shotgun and rifle but as they're single shot they're only so much use in a fight... and taking on more than two armed people head on in this is virtually suicide too. The other thing is there's no XP system in place so there's no real reason to go looking for trouble... getting stronger happens through finding skill books and crafting blueprints. I think the mystery of the story might be the main pull of the game for me. It looks nice enough to me, I think you can tell the game is cross generation but it's far from ugly. I think as I feel now, thanks to the more real world setting, I'll be getting more out of this than I did Avowed but I guess I'll have to keep playing to see.

After saying I wasn't going to I went ahead and started this today... only managed maybe 1.5 hours due to adulthood being crap again but I've liked what I've seen so far... In my time with it so far Hazel has watched her house get washed away with her mum still inside thanks to a huge Hurricane and set out to try and find her... we've discovered she's a Weaver (she hasn't yet) who can basically see and manipulate strands to help in combat and with traversal... the look of the game reminds me of The Nightmare before Christmas even though it's not really anything like it... it just has this really nice animated look with the character models in cutscenes looking really good to me. Combat boils down to pretty much what you'd imagine for a third person game, admittedly I've hardly opened up the levelling tree and I suspect I'll be getting new abilities and fighting different types of enemies in due course. The voice work and music has been really good so far and I'm betting this story is going to get fairly dark fairly quickly... knowing this isn't the biggest game in terms of size and that I'm already liking what I've seen of the story/characters means I'll probably stick with this now until I hit the end... just wish I had more time to play the damn thing.

Spent about 5 hours with this yesterday and just left the first planet. I really like that sort of game design in open world games. A complete but bite sized chunk to get you ready for the rest. Places like White Orchard in The Witcher 3. As for the game, it's okay. Crushingly okay. There's nothing in the game I don't like but there is nothing I love either. The writing is pretty good and there have been a few funny moments but there hasn't been a character introduced yet that really connected me to the world and the world itself is your generic capitalism gone wild scenario. Which I like, I'm an easy sell on that sort of thing but it's been done so often that it's just okay. Combat is okay. Loot is okay. Graphics are okay. Character creator is okay. Skills are okay. Player choices are okay. You get it. I'll be putting some more time into it today so hopefully it just starts off slow because there is definitely potential but I worry that they have spent so much time on giving the player a million different choices that none of them really mean anything.

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