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Played 2 hours of it earlier, after it finished unpacking on Steam just after 11. Initial impressions are very positive I have to say, despite my protestations earlier in the year about this coming only a year after Bloodborne and 2 years after DS2 - and thinking I was a little tired of the format and style - it turns out that I was wrong, and I'm definitely not tired of the format or style of these games and had an absolute whale of a time with it I have to say. Surprisingly I actually felt happy to be back in this world, it felt like returning home after a brief sojourn out the Country to find somebodies slightly moved all your furniture around and re-decorated the house. The introduction to the game is definitely the easiest and most genteel of all the SoulsBorne games, there is an actual dedicated Tutorial area right at the beginning, with enemies set up in exact positions for you to practice your moves on (just don't ignore the 'turn back' note on the floor ) with no real danger of being obliterated from behind by some ridiculously overpowered enemy. This carries on into the next area and the first boss, which feels like a 'Souls tutorial boss' rather than something daunting or difficult, it teaches you how to defeat a boss, how to block/roll out the way of a bosses moves, strategise Estus Flasks, when to use an opening etc. It's a far cry from the soul-crushing first-boss in the original Dark Souls that's for sure, and easier than the Cleric Beast in BB, it's by far and away the easiest Souls game to get into. The hardest thing for me to get used to though, was the XB1 controller, I'm just so used to playing the SoulsBorne series with a DS3/DS4 Controller that I was completely bewildered by the stick placements, button placements and how annoying the Bumpers are considering you use them A LOT, I may have to switch over to my DS4 tomorrow, but I'm not sure if the game will have the correct PS buttons on display or not. I was also incredibly rusty as well, having not played Bloodborne since this time last year which didn't help, I must've died about 5 times on the first boss by doing incredible stupid shit like parrying my shield instead of blocking, using an Estus Flask instead of rolling, shit like that slightly embarassing really, but as time goes on I'll eventually re-learn everything and it'll be second nature like it was on BB and DS2 before. It really is fantastic to play it at 60FPS as well, I know people don't like talking frame-rates etc. but it makes such a huge difference, if I went back to play BB on PS4 right now it would feel like walking through sludge, it's crazy how much snappier it makes everything, and the combat is just incredible in 60 frames. The game looks pretty good, it hasn't floored me as such, but it has its moments (God Rays, Dragons etc.) where it's a pretty amazing sight to behold, that melancholy and haunting beauty the SoulsBorne series is known for really comes through in the art design, bits of scenery don't look as polished as perhaps they should be however. The enemy designs are all pretty familiar though really, I've just been facing the usual Zombie-like creatures you face at the start of most SoulsBorne games really, but the 'Venom' transforming creatures definitely give you something to think about and keep you on your toes. A mention must go to the music as well, even when I just turned the game on and heard it bellowing out through my headphones I got slightly overcome by it, it is just an absolutely fantastic orchestral choir score that really helps the games ambience and made the one Boss Fight I've had so far feel incredible unique and powerful. So yeah, it's a SoulsBorne game pretty much, but it's more accessible than ever, the combat feels great and the Boss Fights get your blood-pumping like only a SoulsBorne boss-fight can. And a few pics:

Ok, so it’s pretty clear this is by the team that brought us Until Dawn. As it’s pretty much more of the same. From the stereotypical characters (Jock, nerd, wanker), to the narrator between scenes who questions your story choices. It’s certainly shorter than Until Dawn was. And I didn’t find it particularly difficult to make it to the end with nobody getting killed. Still, it was an enjoyable experience. Graphically it looks great, though at times some of the characters had a bit of a fit when walking for some reason. And the story ended with several parts not really making any sense. Apparently if you play it in multiplayer you get some more explanation. But I haven’t, and won’t be doing. So there we go. It still has the “taking ages to look at an item” mechanic that UD did. Which can be annoying when you take ages to pick something up, only for it to serve no purpose whatsoever. Walking around takes ages unless you constantly hold down the run button. And there were quite a few instances where I wasn’t really sure where I was meant to be going. That being said, it was alright. Worth a rental at least.

Put 16 hours into this over the weekend. I will preface these impressions with the fact that I'm nowhere near a Battlefield expert and won't be able to go into the nitty gritty detail about what has been improved, balanced, implemented differently etc. over BF1 and other past titles (I've only properly played a tiny bit of BF3, BF4 and quite a decent amount of time into BF1). So let's dive in shall we? To play, it very much feels like a sequel to BF1 rather than anything else, with some Battlefront 2 elements sprinkled in there. The maps are all pretty good but personally I haven't been as impressed with them as the BF1 launch maps, I guess part of it is when you get a WWII game you expect to have all the infamous locales like Berlin under siege from the Red Army, the D-Day landings and so on but none of that is in here. They've focused on the 'untold' battlefields of WWII like Norway, Northern Africa along with including some Western European locales like Rotterdam, Appas and Twisted Steel in France but everything just kind of feels incredibly familiar if you've played BF1, I actually think the variety isn't as good too, there's one that I jokingly refer to as 'Hoth' as it feels so much like a Battlefront map as well. The only real things I've noticed that's different from BF1 is the customisation options and the ability to repair fortifications at command points around the map and build/destroy bridges. The customisation is roughly what you'd expect of most multiplayer shooters nowadays really but there seems to be less variety of weaponry (for the Medic class anyway - the only one I've played as) than BF1. In the previous game I had the choice of rifles or SMGs etc. but here if you're a Medic you've only got one choice which is the SMG, if you want other weapons you need to be another one of the classes, so as you progress with your particular class you unlock more weapons, outfits for your character and skins for your guns. There are also specialisations (which work a bit like perks) for your gun but I haven't really figured out how to get this to work without resetting the points already assigned to it so I've left it for now. Being able to repair fortifications at the command posts is a bit more of a bigger deal though. As the scenery gets more and more deformed as a match goes on having a decent set of sand bags and other fortifications around a command post when you're defending it can be make or break for some matches, you seem to be able to peform these repairs as any class as well which is cool. Similarly with the destruction of bridges or building makeshift bridges, they can make a huge difference in not allowing vehicles to easily access a certain area of a map and be a huge help to a defence or thorn in your side to an attack of a certain area or command point. I've only played the Grand Operations and Conquest game modes, both are fun enough but incredibly familiar to BF1 players. Not got round to any of the single player 'War Stories' aside from the astoundingly good - but brief - introduction. I want to briefly touch on the technical side of things. I believe this is a pre-launch build of the game that doesn't have the Day 1 patch but I have had a number of bugs, all of them are of the silly variety that break the immersion a little at times but nothing else. There's currently a bug when you're reviving someone that you lean through scenery when reviving them, I've had a few issues where a hand is seen at all times when operating a turret of an APV/Tank, I also struggle on occasion to activate the supply/vehicle drops using LB + RB and the left analog stick and also once it wouldn't let me deploy into the game from the map screen and I had to quit the match. Networking issues and graphical/framerate issues seem to be nonexistant as far as I can tell, I've had a very solid 60fps at all times and the networking has been fast and smooth, there's no micro-transactions in here at all either as far as I can tell. So yeah I quite like it, it is addicting and compelling as ever and I've not really been able to stop playing it all weekend. It does feel like a direct sequel to BF1 with more of that games personality than any from WWII or the previous BF games but yeah it does everything it sets out to do really and at this point if you're a BF fan you know what to expect and this will deliver in spades. Some pics:

So I bought this (Guessing by RF’s posts 2 years ago?) and have just started playing it and this is awesome. It’s a bit rough on the technical side, but it makes up for it in real playability. I just had to really put an effort in to pulling my self away from it to get ready for Nintendo. Clearly heavily inspired by A Link to the Past then dunked in that indie game, calming soundscape driven atmosphere it’s very easy to pick up and even more difficult to put back down. The big difference between this and a regular Zelda game is the map seems to be more Dark Souls inspired then Zelda. Meaning that instead of having an overworld to zig zag across to make progress it’s more linear with each area feeling unto itself and sort of like a big puzzle box/dungeon, and then once completed it spits you out at the Firelink Shrine equivalent and then you go to a different area. At at least that seems to be the case so far. Game play is very reliant on push this, pull that and less gimmick focused than a typical Zelda game, but it feels surprisingly good and is a game that really moves which I like a lot. I think this this is a prime example of a little gem. It’s not blowing my mind in terms of newness but it has taken me by surprise because of how fun it is.

I’ve managed to pick this up for £25 (£30 minus £5 slave discount) which is good timing now that the season is over and the better man won. I’ve only played very little so far of the story mode and when you’re racing it’s as good as ever but I’m not convinced by the story yet or your influence over it. In the second race my team mate forced me off the track in a pre recorded story scene. I then made it back past them and everyone in the top ten to win my first race. The win wasn’t referenced tho and all the focus was on that one moment of been pushed off. It’s a small complaint really. The game itself is likely to be better than ever. It certainly looks and handles better than 2019 (I skipped 2020).

My stream from earlier: Started this earlier, put in 2.5ish hours or so and reached World 2. Wow. This has really surprised me, I mean I expected it to be good don't get wrong but it genuinely fucking brilliant. The 30s animation and the music are just absolutely spectacular, this'll sound like a cliche but it really is a feast for the eyes and ears. It feels like you're playing through a slightly more sinister Tom and Jerry cartoon or something, nothing feels out of place at all and everything fits with the animation and music. The way the enemies move and the boss fights flow in time with the music, every boss fight almost feels like a story really that you gradually get further and further into before reaching the end. The run-n-gun levels feel surprisingly good too, seeing them before launch I thought they looked a bit simplistic and thrown in there just to pad out the length of the game and give players a break from all the bosses. The latter is true but they feel so different to the boss fights and provide just as much fun and attention to detail, they're a little easier and a little more fun and relaxing but still provide a decent challenge I'd say and give a welcome break to the more intense boss fights. I guess it plays quite similarly to a lot of run-n-gun side-scrollers really. There's no double jump but a dash, you can fire a variety of projectiles (providing you purchase them at the shop) in 8 different directions at all times using either the left or right analog stick whilst pressing X, you can parry pink enemies/enemy projectiles by tapping the jump button (A) again whilst in the air, there's also a crouched shot to avoid enemy/boss punches too, you put all these together to defeat bosses. Some require more dashing (blue blob for example) whereas others require more precise jumping and crouching to defeat. The boss fights are the star of the show though really, they're just absolutely spectacular. Each one is pretty challenging in their own right with a variety of different phases to learn if you want to defeat it, the way the phases play out feels so organic as well, as mentioned previously it almost feels like a story at times. You fight a blue blob and it'll start out as this relatively innocent annoying-but-not-threatening cheerful creature and then morph into this bigger angrier looking blob and once you've defeated that phase he turns into a tombstone and attempts to flatten you. They're just a joy to fight, you just have to make sure you stay patient as some of them are quite a challenge. I didn't expect the level of depth on offer in terms of weapons, load-out and skills. I thought you'd just have your bog-standard Cuphead with the clicky finger projectiles and away you go but there's a TON of upgrades you can buy at the shop, supers you can get from completing ghost parrying mini-games dotted around the world. I imagine the further you get into the game the more strategy will come into play, I've done well so far with my standard super, +1HP and greater spread projectiles but I know there'll be some bosses later on which'll almost require you to have a certain load-out in order to finish. I guess I'm a little surprised with myself I haven't had a harder time of things though. I wouldn't say I'm good at platformers, I certainly like them on the verge of frustration (DKCR3D is one of my favourites for example) but this hasn't caused me to tear my hair out at all. Every boss seems very fair and easy to learn as long as you're patient and I really like that about it, I'm just a little surprised how quickly I managed to adapt and defeat some of them, the dual frog bosses for example I managed to defeat on what felt like only my 2nd or 3rd attempt whereas others like the Sunflower and Blue Blob gave me more problems. But still, I managed to put them down relatively quickly and before frustration set in, which I think is a good thing, I was worried before I played this that I'd get fucked off with it like Sonic Mania and not go back to it, but it seems much better than that so far, much fairer and less cheap so I reckon I should be able to finish it as long as the difficulty curve doesn't go vertical in this next World.

First things first, I'm really enjoying this. It's very Japanese, the story has just gone full anime, and it reminds me a lot of Astral Chain, only more engaging. The combat is probably the star of the show without it being as complicated as it appears. You have some very basic attacks with your weapon, this will charge a meter that lets you use your psychokinetic abilities, so you can fling items at enemies. Do that too often and the meter drains so you can't any more, but get in close to an enemy and land some weapon attacks and you'll be fine. Once enemies have taken enough damage, assuming you haven't already killed them, you'll be able to perform a kind of finisher/super move, against weaker enemies this is a one hit kill, against bosses it can be a difference maker. Both while you're exploring the world (although this hasn't been an option yet in the way it was in the demo), and in combat, if you have teammates you can borrow their powers, ranging from your attacks doing fire damage, you becoming invulnerable, or even invisible for stealth attacks, amongst others. These work on a cool down, and are more or less required at points, but they aren't unavailable for long. There's also a meter that fills where you'll become super powered for a bit, I get the feeling once you've levelled up a bit this will be a huge deal, at the minute it's more annoying that you can't trigger it yourself and save it for when you need it There's an rpg element. You level up, although it's not presented what that really means (presumably stats and HP), you can equip items, buy better weapons, healing is done on a slight cooldown which can be a bit of a pain. There's also a skill tree, it takes BP points to buy new perks, but these come pretty quickly, to the point that I feel like I might well max it out before the end of the game unless there's hidden branches to it. You can also increase your bonds with your teammates, this is done in your down time with gifts and bonding missions, and it gets you new layers to their abilities. It seems to be pretty similar to how Persona handles it tbh The only real criticism I have is that it's all presented in a bit of a confusing way. Lots of different, but pretty similar people bouncing around, odd terms, lots of menus. It can feel like it's slow doling things out too, not that it's paced badly or feels like a slog, and maybe this is a consequence of having played the demo, but knowing that at some point I'll have 4 teammates at once, be able to explore certain areas, the way it gates this feels like it's holding you back, even 10+ hours in to the game

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

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

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

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

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

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

The demo lied to us, the full game is rubbish! Only kidding, it’s fucking amazing. I installed the dynamic theme that came with it and it loops the hook of the song from the first level (and trailer) in the dashboard and moving around the dash does sound effects from the game, so that’s pretty sweet. I put my headphones on and started the journey mode. The first level after the ones in the demo has the most amazing music. The level is called Jellyfish Chorus and it starts really minimal and at some point it just kicks in and I was wishing I still did drugs.

appropriately this game is a bit nonsensical. Fortunately, as someone who's only watched what's on Netflix, the plot for story mode takes place right after the 2nd series ends. A young Speedwagon appears as Jotoro, Joseph, and Jean Pierre are attacked by people that had previously been defeated and killed, and explains that he's travelling through dimensions recovering the parts of a holy corpse that will close the rifts. Basically, it's a way to have the various Jojo's in to the same story, with young versions of characters being playable The combat is a bit strange. It's made by the people that make the Naruto games, and plays kind of similar with relatively large 3D arenas. The combos seem pretty basic, but you can by new moves, I'm not sure they fit in to the combos, so you're pressing L1 then a face button to do them, I'm not sure I see the benefit of using those moves over the basic combo, but maybe it will open up or become apparent as I play more. There's a flash move that needs to be charged up to use, this acts as a way to break out of enemy combos. There's a button that, if your partner reciprocates, will mean you both target an enemy and if you do enough damage will launch a special. Jotoro teaming up with old Joseph for their move is genuinely funny. I think this is tied to a super move, where you dash at an enemy, and if you connect do a really powerful move... honestly, I'm not sure what's going on with half the meters in this game, it does tell you, but before you've really encountered it so it doesn't go in. it's not bad, but the fights do drag on a bit, I'll stick with it for a while though and I'm aiming to at least finish the story mode

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

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

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

Couldn’t see a thread on this here,if there is one,my apologies. After ditching Fallout 76,I’ve gone back to this. I binged through both Zero and Kiwami 1 last year,and Yakuza 6 & Fist Of The North Star this year. So it’s fair to say I love this series. Never played Yakuza 2 before (I started with 3 on PS3). But if there’s one series I know can be relied on,it’s Yakuza. It’s based on the Yakuza 6 engine,so it looks so good. I do miss the variety of fighting styles from Zero (probably the best game in the series). But no matter,you can’t beat grabbing a guy and swinging him round into his mates,then using a Heat move to absolutely batter them all. There already feels like there’s more things to do than there was in Y6. Though I’ll never get the hang of the various Shogi/gambling games. And for some reason I now totally suck at the UFO catcher machine. The story up to Chapter 4 has been enjoyable,just unlocked the Cabaret Girl subquest. I sank loads of hours into that on Kiwami 1,so I’ll likely do the same here. Jim Sterling nailed it in a video earlier this year,I much prefer Yakuza to typical Open World games,such as Assassins Creed,which bombard you with a massive map and an obscene amount of stuff to do. In comparison,Kamarucho is a small map,but there’s plenty to keep you going. So yeah. Yakuza for the win.

I was sure there was a thread for this, but apparently not. If anyone sees it post the link and I'll merge Neo The World Ends With You plays quite a bit differently than the original The World Ends With You. Rather than knock a puck between screens, because now there aren't 2 screens, you're instead using your teammates in a battle arena, do enough damage with one of them there'll be a moment where the enemy is vulnerable to a combo attack where you carry on the attack with a different character. Doing this fills a meter that lets you launch more powerful attacks, but I can't say I've been using the special all that much really. The thing that makes the combat notable, in theory, is that each character is assigned a button based on what pin they're assigned (TWEWY is all about badges 🦡 ). So you mash the X button, then when there's a prompt that the enemy is vulnerable or that character has ran out of attack power, you switch to the Y button, or R, L, ZR, ZL, whatever it is. It means you can be looking at meters a lot, seeing if people are available to attack, although as you stick with the pins you just learn the rhythm of them. It's worth stick with some too as they all have the ability to level up or evolve, so stick with them to max out their potential, then switch to the next one. Nothing new to use, then stick on a powerful one you like The tone of the game is similar to the original game, to a point. It's not as misanthropic as Neku could be, but the flip side to that is that the supporting cast can be very annoying. That Japanese game/anime thing of a character having a particular trait, like really liking maths, so every word out of their mouth is about maths. There's precious few characters I can say I like because of this, there's one from another team who seems alright, but then constantly throws in Spanish, Italian of French phrases because he's travelled, rpgs are too long for that king of shit Given that the premise of what TWEWY is about was already revealed in the first game, to mix things up in this one everyone has latent powers. Fret can plant words in people's heads to remind them or influence them, Nagi (a character you get a few days in, it's a while before you get a full team) can rid them of corruption, and Rin can travel back in time. It's all narrative based, and Rin's power does mean a little too much fucking around, but it's better than them holding back the reveal most of the people playing already know I'll say, so far because it took until the end of the first week for me to click with the first game, that it's not a patch on the original. Which is fine, I just want it to be good, and at the minute it's just a bit dull. Possibly my fault for getting in to too many fights, but it could do with being tighter and a little punchier. The day I'm on at the minute is basically a Conquest mode, I need to run around taking on other teams in their zones to earn points, it's something a little novel and different from what's gone on before, even if I suspect they'll change things and revert back to the fannying around of the first few days

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

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

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

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

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.