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First "new" game of 2024! (Technically, I've had the twin-pack of this and T7 sitting on my shelf for ..a while) NOTE: I did look to see if this had a Thread already. But aside from a News Thread. Only saw pages for the older SC's titles. Anyway, I've started this up with Libra of Soul. Haven't even touched Story/Arcade modes yet. Immediately, I'm hit by how much lower budget this than previous titles. The previously bombastic opening cinematic that this series has been known for since Soul Blade? Not present?? Now regardless of otherwise decent gameplay, SCV was a clusterfuck that nixed the series. But purely from this secondary mode, I'm unsure why we are immediately back at SC1 in terms of the narrative. Hopefully this will be explained in the story mode? Although basically the traditional Edgemaster Mode by another name. It starts with character creation. Which I haven't liked since this series got it in SC3. But modern gamers loves this shite so whatever. A brief look, turned into an hour play session. My character (Zark VI, naturally) adopted the Siegfried weapon style. There was no rust this time. Muscle memory kicked in with the first battle. Admittedly for the specific challenge missions (Critical Edge only etc) I did have to look up the buttons. But the general move set was with me from the offset. When thinking about it, the last SC game I played (SCV) would be 12 years old at the end of this month. So I was surprised by the moves and combo strings I could pull off. It's definitely ticking the familiar boxes for me so far. Eager to get back to the next session.

More detailed thoughts later, but for now what difficulty is everyone playing on? Hard is kicking my arse.

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

i've played persona games before but no smt games, i guess so far it seems pretty similar but without the daily routine/social link stuff, and the demons/personas are in your party rather than being sort of summoned. you have to talk to the demons to try and recruit them, although this is often bollocks as they ask for loads of stuff and then just run away, i still like it though, they say weird things and it can be pretty funny. the demons mostly look familiar too as they're pretty much the same from the persona games. i'm playing the super easy mode (which is free dlc), and it's really easy, i could have coped with some more difficulty, maybe a mode inbetween the normal one and the super easy one. but it's supposed to be quite long so the super easy mode should help with that. it's probably a good job i'm on the easy mode too as my main heal spell changed into something useless, and i've probably given most of my good healing items to demons while trying to recruit them. so i don't have many ways of healing at the moment but it hasn't made much difference. minor spoiler for stuff near the start of the game this is a ps2 game i think, i'm not sure if any graphics have been upgraded, it doesn't really look like it, it just looks like a ps2 game in much higher resolution. so far it's alright, i'm quite enjoying it but it's not been amazing or anything. i'm going to keep playing anyway.

Played about an hour of this, which is not a lot but you're looking at apparently 6-10 hour runtime. Walking sim-esque, echoes of Miyazaki about it (Ico, Last Guardian), seems like a companion based puzzler with lots of pretty environment puzzles, but what I played was pretty linear. What might make it more interesting is it seems to have a strong environmental narrative focus on it, why are things the way they are. What is this city, what is going on with its inhabitants. I'll leave it at that, seems interesting but nothing mind-blowing really in the opening. I would have played more but I got about 2 hours sleep last night so I'm running on fumes. Will update with thoughts when I actually complete it I reckon It's a very pretty game, lots of screenshots and wallpaper material. At the same time I think the game is pretty enough that spoiling lots of views will rob people of the better parts of the game. So check out this screenshot of a cat hanging out in what is considered to be a pretty upmarket apartment in the cyberpunk dystopia FWIW, no HDR or ray tracing or anything like that. Lack of HDR is strange but I like the muted look tbh, don't really need the eyeballs seared right now. The game is so linear that the lighting they use is good enough as is. Runs at 60, these are PC impressions btw but I imagine it's identical to PS5

FAR: Lone Sails is a beautiful indie game that definitely has that special something that the best indie games have, at least in the opening 30 minutes that I played. It looks like this: You’re basically piloting this hunk of metal across a barren wasteland. Gameplay has been very simple so far. The ship will move slowly if you open the sails but you can also fuel it to make it move faster. And then occasionally you come to roadblocks like this which require some gentle puzzling (so far). It looks beautiful. And everything is communicated visually. There’s no dialogue or tutorial. Very impressed so far.

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I’m very bad at it but 2042 seems alright. There was a 10gb update so I missed out on all the bugs I think. The only jank I’ve noticed is slow texture loading at the beginning of a match (ps4 pro) and sometimes your body might go a bit mad when you die. The levels I’ve played on have been ok but I’ve not played enough to have memorised any of them. The one with the skyscrapers and has a huge tornado rip through the middle of the map was a stand out moment. I got killed because I was stood staring at it. It looked awesome was giving me anxiety. They seem to have stopped giving you anything if you have played any previous BF games which I don’t mind I guess but some recognition would have been nice. Just some gamer card art. I don’t understand the load outs just yet. You seem to be able to give anyone anything? Like give an assault guy a medic pack instead of ammo? I didn’t play around with it much so idk. It all sounds very nice and the pro version looks a lot better than the base ps4. God knows what the og xb1 version must look like. The menu and UI and a lot cleaner and user friendly than what I remember of 1 and 5. It’s Battlefield.

I don't know anything about the main game mode, only played the free battle royale rip off mode. Played that mode loads. It's a rip off of that playerunknown battlegrounds (pubg) game, I'm not too up on that game but the main differences I think are that there are no vehicles in this and you can build stuff in this. There's some controversy about ripping off the idea, and maybe some other stuff, I'm not sure really. I guess the first copies of something popular always get more stick. On the plus side this game has sold me pubg and I'll be getting it on Xbox. Anyway back to fortnite, I think it's great, especially in a team, you start in the party bus with about 100 people with only a pick axe, look at the map, pick a spot to drop in, if there's people going to the same place do you try to get there first and get a gun and fight straight away, or divert to somewhere else. the map constantly shrinks in size as the storm covers the island, loot is random. I prefer to start near the outside in usually less populated areas, running in with the storm there's less likely to be people behind you, but you probably won't get as good loot as if you'd gone to a town. When you see someone do you fight or hide, there's constant decisions like this going on, it's always different and often cool stuff happens. when you get to the end do you build a fort or try and hide. I'm not sure I'm really explaining it very well but then apparently loads of people watch pubg on the internet so everyone probably already knows. I think my friend said this, it sums it up well saying it's a bit like playing a zombie/apocalypse survival film. The building works well too, you can get some really impressive structures people have built at the end. Anyway yeah it's really good, especially for free. Anyone else playing it? Oh yeah I think I should give them some money, but currently I don't like any of the outfits and they're about a tenner each or something, which puts me off, if it was maybe a pack of 5 for £15 or something, and I liked a few of them, I think something like that I'd be much more likely to spend.

A Space for the Unbound is an adventure game set in Indonesia in the 1980s. It’s about a couple of high school students but there are magical elements to it too, which gives it the atmosphere of something like a Studio Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai film. I’m impressed with it so far. If nothing else, l would love to see a Final Fantasy game made in this style.

I bought the All in one pack for this way back in 2017, played it once, and assumed my free trial would be long expired but no, it’s still active, for however long. I played it for two hours today, basically to the end of the introduction to the game, which felt like it was more or less completely offline. Impressions so far - well the graphics show the game’s age, it was originally released in 2012 on the Wii. But the cut-scenes and close-ups are quite nice. There is no voice acting in the game but the music is nice, and already I think I’ve heard more variety than in the entirety of XI. Battles are initiated by running into enemies in the field, you can move around in battle which seems to be the biggest change, although I’ve no idea if it serves any practical purpose. Four years ago (!) I struggled with the Japanese but I can read it more smoothly now. I have a week off with absolutely nothing to do, so I’m gonna sink some time into this. It will be my first mmorpg experience.

Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels. You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse. As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space. I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

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.😂

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Played my first 70 minutes of this earlier. I'm incredibly impressed to say the least, I tend to say that a lot nowadays but first impressions are excellent. It looks phenomenal, the lighting effects are spot on and the texture quality has got an slight stylised look to it that makes everywhere feel rich and vivid, if you've ever had a dream to go through a Jack The Ripper era London with all the typical accompaniments of the period then you're well catered for, it definitely looks the part and recreates an incredibly moody, rich, dingy and dank 19th century London. There are compromises though as it is a AA-Indie title like the facial animations and obviously the overall texture quality, lighting and things like that can't match a AAA title, but you know what it is still so damn good and the atmosphere they create with it is better than a host of AAA titles out there. Part of what makes it feel so special is the music as well, it is just sensational. I don't know how they've done it but it feels so in tune with the aesthetics, like they playtested for hours on end to get the right atmosphere at the right times when you're exploring the streets or speaking to someone, it has this eery, mysterious, noir-esque feel to it that just makes you want to explore every nook and cranny of the environment and pulls you deeper and deeper into this world. Combat is better than I expected in all honesty, I seem to unlock more stuff via an upgrade tree as I go along but at the moment it's simplistic but fun with a stun, bite, knife slash and ranged move in my arsenal. When you've got more than one enemy on you it feels satisfying going from one to another and slicing them about, but it doesn't look that fantastic on screen if that makes sense, it feels a bit rudimentary and the animations are lacking but it works well, feels great and I'm sure it'll only get better and more complex over the course of the game. I won't say anything about the story so far - I'm so early on there's not all that much to say in all honesty - but it starts incredibly well and has only built up more and more intruige and mystery as its gone on, I just cannot wait to see what happens next and nothing much is even happening, the early signs of an excellent story to me. Lots of photos:

I've played a few hours of this and I think I get it enough for some early impressions. It looks kinda out there but it also sticks to a lineage of Hero Shooters for the most part. There are 10 classes to choose from: 4 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 support. But one of each are unlocked as you rank up (or available from the start if you pay more (yes, there's a bunch of this malarkey, battle pass etc. 😐 )). So how a general game plays out is you pick a class, anyone can be any, it doesn't force anyone into a certain one but I can't see a lot of success in not having someone be one of each. There's 5 people on a team but you are also pitted against another team who is racing you to different parts of the map to dispose of these dinosaurs that are falling out of portals (I'll get to that). You don't interact with the other team, they're ghosts you're competing with in the first round. The second round it changes to something a little different. There's different modes it might change to but most of my games it became a payload pushing mode. Standing next to it will move it and you have to protect it from the dinos. But your opponents are on the map with you, pushing their own payload and it's here there is some decision making. You can go and attack them but your payload is less protected. Though they do meet in the middle so conflict will happen. Another little trick you have is once a match you'll have the ability to summon and control a dinosaur used to go and make the opposing teams life a problem. It's very clunky to use and quite easy to waste if you're not careful but it can be a tide turner. I'm not gonna say too much about the classes because it's one of those cases where if you've played Overwatch you know the deal. They're mixed up a bit but it's generally a familiar feeling game in this regard. What's interesting, in a way, is despite this ridiculous premise of fighting hoards of dinosaurs in a futuristic city is it does try and contextualise all this with an ongoing plot. You and your team crash land on an island where a chaotic AI is sending people back in time at the point when dinos appeared out of portals and destroyed the city (though at first they think it's a simulation). The AI is then analysing combat data and for what reason? I dunno yet. It trickles this out as you play since your team are analysing as well, to figure out what the hell is going on. I appreciate the commitment to the bit but it does lead to a problem of the game feeling too same-y since you're always in a similar urban area and there isn't much using the environment since it's a very grounded game and pretty close quarters. Add some spongy dinos to that and you end up in situations that feel really limiting. I guess it does feel like a game from a few generations ago. Its been making me think of Monday Night Combat, which is a game I've not thought about since then. That time early in the 360 gen where you had all these shooters with hoard modes. So I've been getting a nostalgic feeling I didn't expect but I don't think it's the kinda game I want to play to the extent it clearly wants me to. It's charming, and I generally enjoy it but... some multiplayer games don't get a playerbase when I can't help but think they should have. I don't think this is that. But this is just after a few hours. Maybe something will click and I'll see something special but it's not obvious from the jump, which you really need in a multiplayer game.

Played the first 90 minutes last night. I'll get the boring part out the way first, played in 1440p on mostly Ultra settings, with some high settings (auto detect) too and it runs superbly, not sure of the frame rate as Origin doesn't have an FPS counter but I'm pretty confident it was a constant 60 throughout with no drops at all, impressive throughout performance wise. First thing I did in the game itself was create a character, straight away you can't help but notice how awful the character models are, they look distinctly last-gen to me, the eyes are incredibly weird too. Spent a whole lot of time configuring my Female Ryder in this (Red head with green eyes as always), designed her twin with ginger hair too and a bit of a beard going on. Combat next up, pleased to report its pretty good. Definitely not as tight as ME2, it feels looser and more akin to ME1's gunplay that any of the other games in the original trilogy, I didn't like the decision to change the cover from pressing a button to stick to auto stick, doesn't feel as good and I got killed a few times when I thought I was in cover but wasn't. Overall though I'm happy with it, its satisfying enough getting headshots and popping out from cover but definitely doesn't feel as refined as ME2. Even though this was a story mission you could still wander off the beaten track, found some caves with loot, alien structures and new bits and pieces to scan, my favourite part though was finding an abandoned alien ship all in darkness which I found very Nostromo from Alien and mysterious, didn't go on long enough but it was a memorable moment. The game also employs Skyrim/Fallout's top compass to alert you to nearby points of interest which I find a definite improvement on Dragon Age 3's mini map. So yeah, so far so good really, it hasn't blown me away and is a little more rough around the edges than I expected, it's also a little more Dragon Age 3 in some of the exploration aspects than I wanted but I'm happy with it so far. Will post further thoughts once I've played more tonight.

Ok, so I was burned out on the Assassins Creed series. The yearly sequels got me feeling pretty tired of the series. By the time 3 came out, I was pretty much done. I tried a few other games in the series after that point, but never really committed to them. Odyssey got me back into it, and what an outstanding game that was. So I was naturally excited for this. I’m playing this on my day one PS4. Naturally it will perform better on next gen. But having said that, I’m not disappointed with the way this looks at all. The game is absolutely stunning, and apart from the initial long load time, it runs pretty smoothly. I’ve seen video reviews of some hilarious bugs/glitches, but haven’t encountered any myself yet. The combat is a bit basic at the moment. Reviews have pointed out that it takes a few hours to unlock different moves and abilities. So I’m looking forward to that. It’s nice that you can respec your character at any time, so if you fancy a different approach that’s always an option. Wandering around the main settlement, I’ve found three mini games. One which involves out-drinking your opponent, one where you use poetry in a battle of wits, and a dice game which I lost horribly on my first attempt. There’s a micro transaction store (because of course there is), but thankfully it’s totally ignorable. You have to search for it yourself (no obnoxious daily deal prompts bombard you). And the vast majority of the items are cosmetic only. There’s no “pay to unlock XP faster” as there was in Odyssey. So although it’s there, it isn’t an issue. Usually in Ubisoft games, I like going to the Ubistore to unlock various exclusive bits. There’s very little to unlock in Valhalla’s Ubistore page. But again, not much of a complaint really. Definitely looking forward to sinking many hours into this.

Just aged through the first 45 mins with headphones. I..think I need a cuddle. It's one of the most disconcerting experiences of recent memory. Maybe not the best choice for late night gaming. Looks spectacular though!

After falling off Final Fantasy XVI last weekend I've been putting a fair amount of time in to this over the last week or so... for the most part I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm not entirely sure what you'd class this as, real time strategy?... the only game I've played that's remotely close to it is Gears Tactics which was turn based this occurs in real time and only slows (or pauses if like me you prefer it that way and change it in the options) when you use skills. Other than that the marines will engage when spotted entirely on their own. I'm playing on normal and the game certainly isn't a push over... so much so that engaging the aliens should pretty much be avoided if possible and trying to be as stealthy as possible is the preferred method of advancing through levels. There's a lot of spinning plates to juggle in regards to the marines themselves ammo count, tools (for welding doors shut and unlocking encrypted doors), first aid kits and stress levels which can give you negative traits if they get too high. Marines can be wounded and require medical treatment which results in lost days, same with the negative traits these can be removed in the medical center but also cost days. This wasn't a problem in the early game but come mission 6 there's a kill clock introduced and a 25 day countdown to nuclear containment protocol... so that sucks. It looks fairly nice and the sound is great with all of the noise you'd expect... pulse rifles and smart guns sound spot on. Some of the marine sound bites play a little too often for their own good though. Unfortunately the games a little buggy at the moment too, to the point where the X button sometimes stops working altogether in-between missions (thankfully hasn't happened mid-mission yet) and sometimes the elevator prompts straight up don't work... quitting out and reloading generally fixes these though. Not my usual gaming fare but I'm glad I've given it a try... just hope I don't get sterilised via nuclear explosion...😂

Only played a few minutes before I go to sleep, but yep, pretty sweet so far. One thing I thought was really cool is that one of the menu options is you can change the appearance of the food in game. Could be as simple as you’re veggie or vegan and you would rather not everything be meat, but there’s also some silly options like “Castlevaniaesque” and “monster”. In related and weird news, IGN (or their freelancer) appear to have stolen an indie guy’s video review script. Apparently IGN hav taken down their review while they investigate.

How long are you supposed to give a game before you can give it up on good conscience? I really liked 3, Blood Dragon and 4. And I mean REALLY liked them. I enjoyed the Ubi-tower system, I had fun hunting shit, and I loved the outposts. This feels like a devolution in every way (sorry for the bad joke). I've not come across any towers. Hunting seems a pain, and weapons feel inconsequential. I dunno, I'll give it a bit longer, but this just doesn't feel like the far cry I've come to be so fond of. I do like the tamed animals and the language though. If I remember right from previews they actually did research into how speech would have sounded back then and crafted it from there. Obviously that could be PR spiel but if it's not it's a great touch.

Bought this a while ago and finally found myself in the right mood to play it this last week. The synopsis for this is rather short: you play as Meredith, who travels to a fictional area in Oakland to simultaneously get away from her job for two weeks and step in for her father who's the local postman. In gameplay terms this means that you drive around and deliver letters and parcels, occasionally getting dragged into a discussion by the townsfolk who you can open up to and build relationships, of either the pragmatic, platonic or romantic nature. The way you handle these interactions does have consequences, but we're not talking Mass Effect here. There are no twists and turns and everything you do either results in people being friendly to you or not. It's a snapshot into a common, unremarkable life, not a blockbuster life-saving adventure. It's hard to talk about this without making it sound boring, but there is something in its monotonous parcel delivery gameplay that helped me unwind and refocus. I'm not going into too much detail about this in a topic about a game, but it did nudge me a little in a certain direction I've been thinking about recently in terms of where I am and what I'm doing with my life. It very subtly deals with issues like midlife crisis and burnout without ever mentioning either of these words. And some themes can hit close to home, depending on your circumstances – Meredith's boss calling her almost every other evening despite her being on vacation really rubbed me the wrong way, but for all the right (read: authenticity, believability) reasons. There are multiple themes like this spread across all those little interactions, from leaving old friends behind in search of personal fulfilment or even making new ones by discovering the next chapter in your life. I might be overselling the game a bit here, but playing it is less about the things happening on screen but more about those that it might kickstart outside of it. That's not to say it's a chore to play. The mail delivery part is roughly a third of what you do per day, with dialogue et al taking more space. It's here the game is at its best, even though it's hardly Shakespearean or anything. In fact, a lot of characters are somewhat stereotypical, but they are grounded enough to be believable and imperfect enough to be likeable. As mentioned earlier, your choices influence relationships and there are multiple endings to the game as well. It also doesn't overstay its welcome with its roughly 9 hour playtime – I played two "ingame days" per day for a week which felt like a good mixture. I don't think this is a game you should (or would) run through in one setting. Being an indie title, there's of course some compromises to be made here. Animations are very limited (the screen fades to black when entering/leaving a vehicle). Facial animations are barely non-existent. The visuals can look sublime in one instance, for instance when you see the sun shine through the leaves, but absolutely horrendous in other moments. But none of this really detracts from the experience. The voice acting, for example, is surprisingly strong, and easily bypasses the slight problems in terms of facial animations. There was one bigger point of critique that started taking shape in my head as I went on and that is the almost romantic portrayal of mail delivery services, which I know, both from discussions in my life and from reports of our local postman @OCH, is far from the truth. Thankfully, the developers do acknowledge this with a note in the credits, which I find really heartwarming and sensible. It's a difficult game to recommend. For me it was one of the most impactful titles I've played this year, someone else might just find it slow and boring. The surprising amount of positive reviews on the Xbox Store seems to indicate that it resonated with a lot of people though. I think it's still on offer at the moment, at least on Xbox. If not, it's on Gamepass IIRC (not anymore) and if just one line of this text block didn't strike you as boring I'd say give it a shot.

Here you go lazy bones @Maryokutai. Not hard is it.

Is this an indie? I think it could be so it gets an 'indie' sticker. But the game! It's pretty good! I say pretty good but what I mean is it's text book good. It doesn't do anything wrong and it uses the 'Metroidvania' template pretty well and has some interesting uses of its mechanics (I'm getting sick of using that word but I don't want to get specific as they get kinda surprising). What I will say is that there is a flip dimensions ability that mixes things up, but only in the same way as Outland does. Remember that game? Guacamelee! is a lot like Outland in some ways so if you liked that you'll like this. But I suppose the combat is better in this. You're a Mexican Wrestler so flinging folks about is important and you do have a big repertoire of combos and moves to do that are fun to pull off and hurt things a lot. You also have a bunch of fun internet jokes to laugh at about cats and stuff in the game, you know, all that referential stuff we enjoy. Like you climb a big mountain and near the top you find the the dead body of the thing from Journey and you go 'hahaha! I know that reference! Choozo Staues! hahaha!' It's so funny, it's like those guys who make the Scary Movie films and stuff made it. In summery: a pretty well made game that is fun but with with shite, incestuous nerd comedy. Play Outland instead.