We’ve been lucky enough to be spending the last few weeks in virtual reality, and a list of the best PSVR2 games so far have been on our minds. It’s a massive launch, with some interesting titles that could be described more as experiences, lots of older titles that have been updated with features only the PlayStation VR2 can boast, and even some brand new exclusive titles.

This list, while not exhaustive, is based on what we’ve played here at GodisaGeek and is ongoing. There’s yet more corkers on this list of best PSVR2 games already, and I’ve finally had chance to play two of the biggest launch titles in Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village, so they’re covered in this list, too. Oh and since we know that people love review scores, while these aren’t our traditional full scored reviews, we’ve slapped a score at the end of each game, just to make people happy. Aren’t we nice?

Oh also, check out our first review round-up of the best PSVR2 games, right here.

Best PSVR2 games: Gran Turismo 7

What’s that you say, a fully playable version of Gran Turismo 7 on PlayStation VR2? Yes, that’s what we have here. The game is basically like playing it on a huge cinema screen until the race starts, whereby you’re put into the reasonably priced (or not) car of your dreams, with the opponents and tracks you’d have if you were playing it just on a TV. It’s fast as you like, responsive, and some of the hills you go over will have you leaving your lunch behind due to the camber of the road. It’s exactly what I wanted, and aside from getting a wheel, the best VR racing experience you can have on PS5, and easily one of the best PSVR2 games, as well as one of the best racers this generation. There’s little to say other than: if you have PSVR2, play this game. (10/10)

Zombieland: Headshot Fever Reloaded

An already great VR experience has been levelled up with reloaded here. For those that don’t know, this is the distillation of those arcade classics like House of the Dead, but in crystal clear PlayStation 5 virtual reality, with haptic feedback on the triggers (that makes you very scared when you are frantically reloading as a zombie approaches), a new art style, better visuals overall, extra levels, challenges, guns, perks, and everything you’d think a re-release should have. It’s superb fun, and while it doesn’t have the authentic voices, you won’t care when you’re shooting the shit out of zombies galore with a fully max-upgraded pistol. This is one of the best PSVR2 game so far, and the one I keep coming back to, it’s just that much fun. (9/10)

Startenders: Intergalactic Bartending

Startenders offers something a bit different. Closer to the Job Simulator games that used to showcase VR back in the early days, this one puts you behind the bar at your local; if the local was in space, and you were serving aliens. All manner of drinks need making, but you’ll be cleaning glasses, blending fruit, adding carbonation (fizz), and mixing everything up. You’ll even have to go and make your own tools (like the juicer) with your welding station. It’s good fun, but needs a little bit of tweaking to get the positional stuff right, and needs a bit more room for a stationary VR game than I’d like. If you like titles like Vacation and/or Job Simulator, this’ll be right up your street, and has a good feel to it, with plenty of “jobs” to keep you going for some time. (7.5/10).

Best PSVR2 games: No Man’s Sky

The amount of work that’s gone into No Man’s Sky in VR is just astounding. You’d think it’d be like any other “first-person” port of a game, but Hello Games has added so much to No Man’s Sky to make it feel like it was always this way. Getting hold of things requires picking them up; getting into a car or ship means learning how to control it physically, and even getting out means you have to manually open the door. There’s a satisfying feel to the multi-tool, and the haptics on the headset will also vibrate when needed. This new version looks stunning, and flying around above your base has never look so good in Virtual Reality. The work the developer continues to do on this one never ceases to impress, and it’s a game you could lose silly amount of time to, even in VR. (9/10).

Resident Evil Village

While the original game isn’t the best Capcom has ever produced, it was a stellar first-person entry. Here, the horror is right in your face, and it’s terrifying. In some ways this makes it harder to play. Holding a torch and sneaking through dark spaces, hearing enemies nearby forcing you to feel on edge almost all the time. Weapons feel tactile, and have individual reloading methods closer to the real world, and while that might slow you down, the one-to-one aiming method means that even the squirrelly Werewolves are easier to track and get headshots in on.

There’s some peculiarities when it comes to the scenes that were designed where control is taken away, and you can offset this by viewing them in a cinematic mode instead of VR first-person viewpoint, but aside some oddities (mostly early on) with hand positions, collision detection, your arms being weird floating tools, and weapons warping back to your inventory, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Resident Evil Village is another virtual-home run for Capcom’s series, just like Resident Evil 7 was. Oh but why it’s a free DLC item instead of a simple update, I’ll never know. (8/10)

So there you have it, after spending so much time in PlayStation VR2 our heads hurt, that’s the best of the bunch that we’ve played so far. Make sure you read our full PlayStation VR2 review, as well as our Horizon Call of the Mountain review, and check out our YouTube Channel to see these games in video format, and this very article with footage of all the lovely games.

The post The best PSVR2 games | Ranking and reviewing more PSVR2 games appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

We’ve been lucky enough to be spending the last few weeks in virtual reality, and a list of the best PSVR2 games so far have been on our minds. It’s a massive launch, with some interesting titles that could be described more as experiences, lots of older titles that have been updated with features only the PlayStation VR2 can boast, and even some brand new exclusive titles.

This list, while not exhaustive, is based on what we’ve played here at GodisaGeek. There’s some genuine classics on this list of best PSVR2 games already, with two of my personal favourite titles being re-upped for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2, so without further ado, let’s get to the list. Oh and since we know that people love review scores, while these aren’t our traditional full scored reviews, we’ve slapped a score at the end of each game, just to make people happy. Aren’t we nice?

Best PSVR2 games: Moss & Moss: Book II

While there was nothing “wrong” with Moss or Moss: Book II (grouped together for obvious reasons) to begin with, whether you played on the original PSVR, or Meta Quest, etc, they’ve been given a fresh lick of paint and some extra features that, while not “game-changing”, really add to the overall immersion. For example, the extra fidelity gained from the 4K headset (and be prepared to hear that a lot in this list) really do just make the clarity so much better.

You can lean in and see your little mouse friend Quill up close, and it’s a beautiful game, full stop. Moreover, the haptic feedback is used early and often in the actual headset, so when an eagle swoops over the top of you, it’s felt physically. It might be argued, in fact, the headset vibration is overdone, as it will shake you whenever you let Quill die, but it’s a reminder of a cool feature, and it’s just a lovely game full stop. It may not be Astro Bot, but it’s as close to a VR platformer as we’re getting for now. (Moss 8.5/10, Moss: Book II: 9/10)

Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition

Whether you love Star Wars or not, Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge is just a damn good VR game. It’s not the longest (at around four hours), and it may not quite have as much “Jedi stuff” as you’d want, but again, it looks stunning, has fantastic feedback throughout, and even if you aren’t au-fait with the universe, you can be impressed by the attention to detail. Also, it’s a fun shooter with some cool ideas, like the ability to throw out droids that will support you from the air. If it weren’t for the fact that the controls are slightly out of sync with the standardized fare I was used to in VR, it’d be a contender for best launch title. (8/10)

Best PSVR2 games: Horizon Call of the Mountain

As the major first party launch title, you’d expect this to be here. But it’s perhaps on the list for reasons you wouldn’t expect. Truth be told, the use of the new features is a little underwhelming when compared to other games on the list, but the visuals are out of this world. Seeing a Tallneck tower over you in detail, or sneaking around caverns away from Watchers is something you will never quite get used to.

Detail is everywhere, from the character’s faces if you try to break the VR and reach out to them, or the skylines that are as beautiful as they are daunting. The climbing isn’t quite right in this one, and feels as though it’s a bit “baby’s first VR steps”, but with accessibility options galore, it genuinely is an impressive first step into VR for Horizon, and hopefully we get more of this. (Read our full review here)

Puzzling Places

It may seem an odd choice, but Puzzling Places offers something few of the best PSVR2 launch titles do: a zen moment of calm. Rather than putting the user in peril, this game is about picking a 3D picture and being in the moment, relaxing, and putting together a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Whether it’s a snooker hall or a place out in the wider world somewhere, Puzzling Places is just… nice. Couple this with the fact they add new puzzles each month and you’ve a nice place to relax whenever you need it. It’s simple, but relaxing, and an easy recommendation. (7/10)

Kayak VR: Mirage

Matching up to Puzzling Places and its feeling of Zen is Kayak VR. A startlingly realistic rendition of Kayaking that matches the reality of being in a small boat out at sea. If you know how to move, it’ll surprise you how well it reacts, and there are even rocks you can physically push off to get moving. With interesting locations, pretty scenery, and weather that can be turned up or down, this is both a good workout if you want it, and a nice serene place to relax. (7/10)

Best PSVR2 games: What the Bat?

From the makers of What the Golf? I knew this would be pretty ridiculous. It’s closer to a title like WarioWare than anything else, as you go through increasingly madcap and bizarre mini moments playing as a person with baseball bats for hands. Whether it’s brushing your teeth or trying to play shapes as a baby, you’ll quickly realise having bats for hands is a bad thing, and would make life very hard. I particularly enjoyed the nods to What the Golf? Within What the Bat? Which genuinely made me laugh. While you’ll need a bit of room to move in order to fully appreciate this one, it’s worth it for the laughs alone. (7/10)

Rez Infinite & Tetris Effect: Connected

I’ve grouped these together because, quite simply, if you like one you’ll love the other. With the immersive nature of the haptic feedback on the headset, both Rez Infinite and Tetris Effect come to life like never before. With Rez, the PSVR2 controllers will vibrate in time to the music, and after each level the headset will pulse and vibrate as you transition through digital space. Likewise, Tetris Effect reacts to every movement of a Tetromino as you move them faster and faster, all the while the music and environment merging to make a truly magical experience.

Both of these games feel like a reason to play in virtual reality. Both are exquisitely designed, offering replayability, incredible music, and fast, responsive motion. And, of course, both benefit from the 4K nature of the new headset. If you’ve never played them, buy both. If you have, even having experienced them on the previous generation of Sony’s hardware, still buy both. Rez and Tetris Effect are both among the very best PSVR2 games the platform has to offer. (Rez Infinite 10/10, Tetris Effect: Connected 10/10)

So there you have it, after spending so much time in PlayStation VR2 our heads hurt, that’s the best of the bunch that we’ve played so far. Make sure you read our full PlayStation VR2 review, as well as our Horizon Call of the Mountain review, and check out our YouTube Channel to see these games in video format, and this very article with footage of all the lovely games.

The post The best PSVR2 games | Reviewing the best PlayStation VR2 games so far appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is one of those games you think wouldn’t even work on the Steam Deck, let alone be as good as it is. In fact, apart from one tiny aspect that really isn’t the game’s fault at all, it might be my preferred way to spend time with the glorious adventure that is Kena.

For starters, the original Epic Games Store release was one that pushed most PCs a fair bit. It’s no secret that this is a gorgeous game, and developer Ember Lab’s background in Pixar-like animated shorts is clear for all to see even just by glimpsing at a passing soundtrack. The game sang on PlayStation 5 as well, but again, it looked so good and so crisp, the idea of it running on anything handheld (ever) was not even a thought in my mind.

Before we get too into the weeds here, it’s worth noting that the Steam version of Kena: Bridge of Spirits isn’t coming with anything the other versions don’t get at the same time. New Game+ is being added, so you can restart the game with all your abilities, upgrades, and rot collected. There’s spirit guide trials which offer rewards for completing sections like wave defences, obstacle courses, and repeating boss fights from the main game.

Reward wise, you’re going to be unlocking outfits for Kena to wear, but there are also new charmstones in the game which are akin to the skulls from Halo which modify the game in some way or another. But other than that, what you’re getting in the Steam version is much the same great adventure detailed in our previous PS5 review.

That said, Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck performance took me by surprise. It was already a “Deck Verified” game pre-release, but I took that to mean it’d be a solid 30fps with maybe a few visual jaggies around the edges, but boy was I wrong. While the settings aren’t going to be put on “ultra”, they just don’t need to be. On the Steam Deck’s 7-inch 1200×800 resolution screen, even running on the lower settings this game looks great. 

It’s glorious, and full of colour. Sometimes it feels as though the combat arenas are designed around the visuals, because when you finish and remove the decay from the arena itself, the world reveals itself in an explosion of colour. Even if you’ve played the game before on PS5 and experienced 4K resolution and HDR visuals, I defy you to not be at least a bit impressed by what Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck can show you.

So down to brass tacks then, while the frame rate fluctuates, I was pleased I barely had to touch the settings to get it running well. With the “easy” visual settings (Kena’s version of low, I’d presume) I never saw the game drop below 30, but it hovered between 38-45 on average. Purists might bemoan the lack of a stable 60fps, but when you’re talking in the 40s range, you’re really not going to see a huge difference between 40fps and 60fps on a handheld device like the Steam Deck.

Visuals look clean and crisp, with the occasional noticeable jaggy or, perhaps, lack of anti-aliasing on some sections that aren’t even intended for you to focus on. In truth the only issue with Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck is that the game relies on using the bumpers for a lot of the gameplay. This isn’t Kena’s fault, but the bumpers on a Steam Deck are the one area I’d say need improvement: they just feel a bit squishy, unlike a traditional GamePad. However, the haptics on offer for Kena are impressive. You can tell this was a PS5 game, and that careful thought has been placed into how and when the vibrations occur.

It’s worth saying that Kena isn’t as simple a game as it looks. While the adventure overall is a delight, the combat on default normal difficulty can be challenging. We’re not quite talking Souls-level stuff, but it’s not as easy as the colourful and cute aesthetics suggest. Regardless, aside the bumper woes, playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits on Steam Deck is about as good as you could have hoped for. If you’ve played it before, sure, there may not be much for you aside the portability, but if you haven’t, and have a Steam Deck, this is a cracking title to enjoy on the go. Moreover, if you have a powerful PC to cloud-save between, you can even see it at its best visually, while also playing on the loo. What an age we live in.

(Video best watched on mobile for correct aspect ratio)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is out now for PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.

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I must admit, there are some genres of video game I don’t really play a lot of. I could play platformers and JRPGs until the cows come home, but because of that some genres don’t get much of a look in. How am I supposed to find time to play a compelling tower defence game when I’m busy grinding away on random battles or finding every last shiny collectable in a colourful world? Thankfully I found the time to dive headfirst into the Early Access build of ORX, which blends tower defence gameplay and deck building to create a really unique game.

In ORX you play as a faction of humans trying to survive wave after wave of attacks from the titular baddies. To do this you’ll need to build a selection of defences out of the cards you draw at the bottom of the screen. This is much easier said than done though, because this isn’t your traditional tower defence game.

You don’t just get towers to place in ORX, you get castle pieces. By combining multiple castle walls and corridors together you’ll create one complete castle that fires arrows at incoming baddies, and the power of said castle varies based on the cards you used to create it. You can probably survive the first couple of waves of enemies with castles made of two small walls snapped together, but when the ORX start bringing out special units and bosses you’ll need sprawling defences powered up by rune cards to buff their abilities.

There are more than just castle pieces in that deck too. The different buildings all have their own handy abilities, and there are paths that can help join your kingdom together. Villages and farms are extremely important to build early on, as they bring in extra gold which you need to play more cards. Without them the money flows pretty slowly, so balancing your kingdom is key.

Roads are important to join all your buildings together so they function correctly, but they’re also important for reaching vaults placed around the map. Once you build next to a vault you’ll unlock it and be given mini objectives, which if you manage to accomplish will grant you powerful new cards for your deck permanently. Since these last for a full run, making sure you unlock every vault is just as important as surviving the ORX.

Between missions you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade your deck, by either upgrading, removing or enchanting different cards. You can choose different routes through a chapter in a similar way to something like Slay the Spire, with each route offering different options to improve the power of your kingdom via the power of cards.

It may sound like ORX has some roguelike DNA making up its video game genetics, but don’t worry if you’re not a fan of the genre because there’s no permadeath. If (or let’s face it when) you fail a mission you’re welcome to retry it as many times as you like with no punishment at all.

It’s fair to say that ORX is a pretty complex game, and buddy you don’t know the half of it. The first of the two current factions (the Rune Wardens) play with the aforementioned castle pieces to create arrow shooting defences, but playing as the Desert Reavers is like playing a different game entirely.

As the Desert Reavers you place Barracks to train your soldiers, then every time you put down a building in range of it a little platoon of warriors is spawned on a random tile. It’s pretty wild how differently every aspect of the game works when you play as this second faction, and at full release there will be four of them available.

I think ORX is looking very promising so far, but in its current state it does (understandably) have some issues. There’s no playable tutorial to speak of, just a few screens of text and pictures that pop up when you first start a level, and it’s simply not enough. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how all of the intricate systems work together, and I can’t imagine everyone will have the patience to do that without much in the way of guidance.

I’d also say that at the time of writing the balance of the game feels a little off. I spent a huge amount of time trying to beat the first Act as the Rune Wardens and got absolutely flattened every step of the way. Then when playing as the Desert Reavers I didn’t lose a single battle, and never felt particularly threatened that it might happen. This could easily be updated before release, but was very jarring.

My entire time playing ORX was on Steam Deck, and the game ran really well on the handheld that everybody’s talking about. You will have to be fairly comfortable with the trackpad to play effectively, but when choosing cards and placing them on the map the action pauses which is really helpful if you’re a little slow.

ORX has a lot of potential to be a unique and entertaining game when it hits 1.0, but it’s fair to say it has a few issues currently. If you think the concept sounds like something you’d love then by all means get in on the ground floor, but be prepared to deal with a lot of learning on the job.

The post Orx early access review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Despite the valiant efforts of Morbius, Twilight, and every Underworld film except the first one (well, maybe that one as well), vampires are still cool. There’s an effortless credence in the concept – suave, sexy, sultry, powerful, timeless. And by and large games that let you play as a Vampire are rarely “bad”, and often present innovations purely by the grace of developers putting their own spin on the mythos. The Blood Omen franchise is a gaming touchstone, for example, while Vampire: The Masquerade continues to release a new game roughly every eleven and a half minutes whether we play them or not. The latest venture into the macabre world of the bloodsucker is V Rising from Stunlock Studios, a Survival RPG with a lot of big ideas.

Casting you as a customisable neck-nibbler, V Rising begins when you awaken from centuries of sleep with a grumbling belly and a taste for the red stuff. The onus is on becoming as powerful as you can, either alone or in a Clan of four. You’ll kill people, you’ll turn into various animals, build a castle, tussle with vampire hunters, and strip-mine several hundred acres of verdant woodland to build that new armoire with matching end table you’ve had your eye on.

I’ve had access for around five days at the time of writing, having jumped into a pre-Early Access beta. The game enters its Early Access phase on May 17, and from what I’ve played I’ve a feeling it’s going to turn some heads.

It leans fully into the Vampire mythos, eschewing the trappings of Christian dogma that latched onto the legends over the years and presenting your vampire as a veritable force of nature. It’s an RPG without character levels, instead focusing on Gear Level and unlockable abilities that come from hunting what amounts to repeatable bosses. You can be killed, but cannot die, and even burning away to a crisp in the sunlight will see you respawn at the nearest coffin to continue your reign of terror.

Being a Survival game first and foremost, you’ll begin by killing skeletons to craft crude weapons and armour from bone. Then you’ll progress through the standard gauntlet of leather, copper, iron and so on. No silver though, I imagine. No self-respecting vampire would keep silver in the house. Through the early hours you’ll chop trees, break rocks, harvest gems and animal parts, reagents and materials. Right away you’re told to pitch your castle somewhere, thought half the battle is finding somewhere that isn’t already someone’s summer home.

You’re never alone in V Rising. Even if you opt to play a PvE server, other vampires will be there and you can group up with them if you choose to. If you find them sleeping you can also drag them around, presumably so you can get them under shade if they logged off or got disconnected in an exposed area. You’ll always be in the world even if you’re offline, see, and logging out while you’re anywhere but in your coffin means the persistent world can still mess with you.

In a PvP server it’s every drac for themselves, and other players can attack you, destroy your castle, or even take ownership of it completely. Think Ark: Survival Evolved only with no dinosaurs and eighty-seven wolves to every human being. If you’re heading into a PvP server be prepared to fight a lot and be griefed a lot. This is a game designed for that, but the rewards in endgame are apparently more evenly distributed.

Contrastingly, in PvE your focus is on surviving the world and hunting named NPCs whose special blood will bestow properties and knowledge upon you. Scarfing them down is like drinking textbooks, and you’ll receive new abilities and crafting recipes. Early on some of the crafting is frustrating, when the game says you need a certain reagent to make a certain refinery, and the refinery in question is the only way to get that reagent. Instead you’ll need to go kill humans and raid their settlements and hope they drop what you need.

Your biggest enemy is the sun. Not only will it obliterate you in seconds if you stand in it, it also makes you skulk in the shadows like a cruel headmaster if you find yourself stranded in the wild at sun-up. The effect is deliberately extreme: the screen explodes in radiance and shakes like a bobblehead on a tumble dryer as you’re reduced to the contents of an ashtray.

But the use of shadow is masterful, as you can observe the rotation of the sun by the shadows it casts and stay in them to protect yourself. Heading back to your coffin on a bright morning, sticking to the shadows so your head doesn’t explode like a uni student the morning after a gig presents its own challenge and feels not only immersive but cautionary. You’ll do your best to not get caught out and it adds another dimension to the world.

Annoyingly, though, you can do very little while the sun is up and because the world is persistent you can’t sleep to fast forward. All you can do until your castle has a roof (several hours in) is work from the shadows or wait around under a particularly big tree. It’s an issue for sure, though later you’ll make capes and items that give you sun protection.

My biggest gripe up to now is the combat. The isometric viewpoint works fine, but not necessarily with hack and slash combat. The reliance on the WASD system while using the mouse to turn your character makes combat feel awkward and clumsy to me. Controller support would be a major boost, or even a click-to-move setup more akin to Diablo. As it is there are too many keys to remember while you’re being assailed from all angles by bandits, archers, thugs and monsters.

Launching into V Rising at this early stage shows a game with unbelievable promise. It’s not hyperbole when I say that this game is all I want to play right now. It got its fangs into my neck without even needing to buy me dinner first, and I’m living all my Legacy of Kain and Interview with the Vampire fantasies in one go. Skulking into villages at night, using the shadows to stay concealed, pouncing on weakened foes and draining them of precious blood with which to heal or power your castle’s magic is everything you could want in a vampire experience.

V Rising could be the next big survival game. Whether you want to play alone, with, or against other players, this has you covered. Once you get the hang of the combat you’ll begin to feel more and more powerful, crafting a towering castle that will terrify any delivery driver to their very core. I’m confident this will do well, and Early Access will continue to add new touches, tweaks and content between now and the eventual full release. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your own castle, only descending into the neighbouring villages to rip people open and finish them in one swallow like a Froob, V Rising may be the game you’ve been waiting for.

The post V Rising Early Access review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The Left 4 Dead games have played a huge part in my life. The series was one of the first my partner truly adored, and as a physically disabled man often all his body can take is a day playing games in bed. Before we spent these tough days exploring service games like Sea of Thieves and ARK, we would play hours and hours of the zombie co-op game where no two runs are the same. Because of this we were more than excited for Back 4 Blood, but unfortunately that game just didn’t scratch the same itch. But The Anacrusis is just around the corner, and after playing around eight hours of it I can confirm that this is the Left 4 Dead successor we’ve been waiting for.

Set on a stranded starship overrun by alien nasties, you and three friends are tasked with surviving waves of these “definitely not zombies” and making it to the next airlock alive. This isn’t just your standard bleak metal aesthetic though. There are colourful corridors and vibrant shopping malls packing the 1970s sci-fi pleasure cruiser with interesting environments to explore. It’s an incredibly stylish backdrop to a familiar gameplay loop.

The Anacrusis: the director is in charge

The Anacrusis isn’t afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve. If you ever played Left 4 Dead you’ll feel right at home. Unique special aliens, health kits and temporary health “booster shots”, doors that can only be unlocked by calling the alien menace to your location. All your favourite mechanics are here and work just as well as they did in 2008. Perhaps the most important of these though is the “AI Director”, which controls what aliens spawn and adjusts the difficulty on the fly. This works remarkably well, with every run feeling completely different to the last and bringing the right amount of challenge every time.

To face down the selection of extraterrestrials blocking your path, you have access to a variety of space age weapons to switch between. The three standard guns fit into the Assault Rifle, SMG, Shotgun mould. The the satisfying thud of the Plasma Rifle ensuring I chose nothing else. Your selected character also comes equipped with a puny laser pistol with unlimited ammo as a last resort. Perhaps the most exciting weapons though are the special ones that come with limited ammo but deal massive damage. The scorching Laser burns through even the toughest foes. The Arc gun chains lightning between enemies to stop hordes in their tracks. Even the grenades in The Anacrusis are interesting. There’s time slowing stasis grenades for hectic moments, vortex grenades to suck enemies into the air, and Goo grenades creating a safe area that foes will struggle to penetrate. I never tired of using whatever tools I discovered to attempt to overcome the odds.

Enemy variety

You’ll need all the guns and grenades you can grab to survive the alien menace. The standard aliens simply run in a straight line at you and require a few blasts to dispatch. But the special aliens are much trickier. There’s the Spawner who sends out rolling turrets that’ll shred through the team’s health if you don’t deal with them quickly. The Gooper encases allies in green mucus that you’ll need to blast off. Then there’s the Brute, who jumps and smashes into everybody and takes a hell of a lot of bullets to put down. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to differentiate the specials from Left 4 Dead, but with creative ideas like an alien who blinds you all with bright lights or alien eggs that roll at you when disturbed, The Anacrusis has gone above and beyond in that department.

There’s one major difference between Left 4 Dead and The Anacrusis mechanically, and that’s the addition of perks. By finding hidden consoles in each level, you’ll be offered three perks to choose from that will upgrade your alien surviving capabilities. Some are pretty basic, like faster healing or higher max health. Others, though, are more active and game-changing. One run ended with me having a gun that blasted through enemies, the ability to heal allies above their max health, and goo grenades that healed them over time. Against an incredibly tough final survival stage I felt like an unstoppable healing god, and helped my team survive to save the day. 

The Anacrusis: simple, fun

What really sets The Anacrusis apart from other co-op shooters is the joyful simplicity of it all. There aren’t a bunch of stats to worry about or guns that all basically work the same, here. You just grab a weapon that works for you and get on with it. The action is frantic and situations involving multiple types of alien require split second decisions, but you aren’t having to deal with character builds or lengthy setup before jumping into the action.

In single player, the AI companions are rather impressive. There have been a few instances of them getting stuck or falling down a particularly easy to jump crevice. But for the most part they feel incredibly helpful and entirely competent. Fighting back a bunch of aliens is undoubtedly better with friends, but if you are a player or two short you won’t be frustrated.

The only aspect of the game I haven’t really been wowed by are the characters. They just haven’t really had enough back and forth for me to truly get to know them so far. I’m hoping that as I play more their personalities will shine through, because one of my favourite aspects of Left 4 Dead was the safe room banter.

The Anacrusis looks to be everything I want from a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. The pick up and play nature is compelling from the drop, and the 70s sci-fi setting is so refreshing. The AI Driver really makes every session totally different, facing different combinations of aliens in different settings doesn’t get stale. I know the next few months of my life will be spent replaying the game over and over again with my partner, and I can’t wait.

The Anacrusis is available via PC early access and Xbox game pass via preview program on January 13.

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As most people know by now, the PlayStation 5 has been updated to allow for people to add additional storage to their consoles. We can argue that there should be more space to begin with, but we’re here now, and we may as well get used to it. I’ve been looking for the right drive for a while, and after covering the CS3040 that comes with a heatsink, but that is too large to go inside a PS5, the CS3140 might be just right ticket, it seems.

So first of all the CS31040 doesn’t include a heatsink. It’s going to set you back around £150-200 depending on where you shop. Sony do recommend that you use a drive with a heatsink, and while I’m not here to disagree, as such, I have two M.2 drives in my PC that don’t have a heatsink and have been there for years. Consider that me literally putting a curse upon myself, right?

As with the previously mentioned drive, XLR8 is a subsidiary of PNY, who I’ve long trusted for all manner of hardware. From GPUs to these SSDs and beyond, they are at least a name you can trust. I think that there’s a concern when people read about this kind of technology, and that without a heatsink there’s almost a hyperbolic suggestion it’ll catch fire or fry your PS5, and that’s simply not true. The worst thing that could happen with an M.2 drive sans-heatsink is that it’ll throttle your speeds.

Tests for this sort of thing have been done, though often rendered pointless by being conducted with the PS5 case open and therefore additional cooling. And you’re mileage is always going to vary on things like this. Heat dissipation isn’t an exact science in terms of an individual setup. If you’ve shoved your PlayStation 5 into a tiny hole then yes, the CS3140 is likely to get a bit toasty after prolonged use, and yes the CS3140 might end up having throttled speeds. A good practice is to allow for space around these consoles, anyway.

That said, I decided to go without a heatsink and just see how I got on. After over a month of playing PS5 games regularly, I didn’t notice any heat issues, or data throttle problems. I moved games I played regularly onto the M2 drive and had no issues with FIFA 22, or with any other game for that matter. I didn’t notice games downloading any slower to the M2 drive; no overheating warnings; and frankly, just no issues whatsoever. Of course, we’re entering the colder months, so that will have helped, but I’d be very surprised if during Summer this thing suddenly had problems.

Ultimately you can buy a heatsink for this drive, of course. And you probably should listen to the manufacturer of the console when it comes to what you stick inside your PlayStation 5. It’s more fiddly to install that I’d like, but that certainly is nothing to do with PNY or the XLR8 M2 drive, and it doubles the storage of your console within a few minutes.

it doesn’t appear that M2 drives are going to get any cheaper in the coming months, but at least PNY’s XLR8 is a name you can trust. Having used multiple different drives, I can report zero issues with this one. It’s fast, isn’t over-priced compared to some other names on the market, and does exactly the job it is designed to do. Another win, then, for PNY.

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In the webcam world, you’d be forgiven for not having heard of Rapoo just yet. But after trying out the three offerings from the company, with prices that will make you wonder “how?”, you might want to investigate further before you spend more money on a better known brand. While I don’t want to bad mouth any of those brands, it does seem while some are rebranding and changing very little, Rapoo is offering incredibly affordable options at a time when people are still working from home and need a webcam.

Rapoo offers three models: the XW170, XW180, and the XW2K. All three come in a tiny recyclable box, and have clear information as to what each model offers. The XW170 offers a 30fps camera that tops out at 720p with an 80 degree wide angle lens. The XW180 is the same but as a 1080p image quality. Lastly, the XW2K has 30fps and a 2K resolution picture, with an 85 degree wide angle lens. All three models come with noise-cancelling on the audio front, and an autofocus function, should you require it.

Rapoo is a serious player in the webcam world

The higher end model (XW2K) also has a privacy cover, which amounts to a small piece of plastic that can cover the camera and give you… well, privacy. Before we get into use cases for each camera, it’s also worth noting one small feature that I absolutely adored, and that’s the flexible rotation. Each of the webcams on offer from Rapoo also has a nice rubber bottom which means you don’t have to mount them on top of a monitor, and if you choose to pop them on a desk, or shelf, they will stay in place.

With 360 degree rotation, it means that any one of the Rapoo webcams can be more than “just” a webcam. Given that you can focus them on whichever angle you want, that means they can easily be used in a situation where you need to be able to switch between cameras in a room, and honestly, combined with the rubber base and tripod mounting options, it just makes for a complete set of highly robust and multi-use case devices, which again, for the price, is superb.

The setup is ridiculously simple: you plug the device in and a few seconds later it’ll be recognised by your device as a video and audio tool, and you’re away. There’s no software included, and this will either be a positive or negative depending on who you are. Some will find the lack of adjustable software to be a negative, others will find the plug-and-play usability a major positive. For example, the best use for the XW170 is either for a cheap and simple solution to working from home, but it could easily be used for streaming if you are only putting out a 720p stream, or if you only ever appear on camera in a smaller box in the corner of your video. Even without the privacy cover, a small white light next to the camera lets you know if you’re “live” or not, so if software is using your video, you’ll know by that light.

Audio and use cases

In terms of audio, across the board, the entire range of Rapoo webcams is absolutely fine. I’m not going to tell you that it’s going to replace your Shure SM7B microphone for streaming, nor am I even going to suggest it’ll replace a Blue Yeti or HyperX mic. A dedicated microphone is always going to outperform any webcam, but if you’re in a pinch, the audio is absolutely serviceable. If you want a backup recording for redundancy, it’ll do the job. Again, anyone working from home is going to find this plenty good enough, unless you’re a speaker for long periods of time, in which case, get a mic.

The XW180 is a step up, and is a tremendous choice for streamers who like to switch from games to full-screen on-camera options. It works well in low-light situations, though again, part of using any camera is knowing how to light a subject or room accordingly. If you’re going to sit in almost pitch black darkness, no webcam on the planet is going to look good. With ambient room lighting, the picture for all three cameras in multiple situations is well presented. Add a good light on your subject, and they all look superb.

The XW2K model is a particularly interesting model of webcam. I’ve used 4K webcams in the past but never truly found them to be of any particular, specific use. It’s rare to find a 4K stream happening, and in truth it feels like overkill. In fact, most content creators tend to top out at 1440p (which is another way of saying 2K). By going for the XW2K model you’re spending far less money but are still able to push out a video quality at 1440p. If you have a beefy PC, this is the camera to go for, as you can stream games at 1440p, pushing above the average 1080p most people use, but without over-spending on a 4K camera that is never actually being used for a 4K output.

Rapoo webcam: price range

So what you have here, is a range of three webcams that have varying uses, but a set you really can’t go wrong with, either. If I told you the 720p XW170 model went for as little as £17.99 and up to £29.99, you might be surprised. But the 1080p XW180 recommended retail price is £39.99. That means for a 1440p (2K) webcam, with a 360 adjustable viewing angle you can spend under £50, and frankly, that’s incredibly impressive.

There’s no beating around the bush with these Rapoo webcams: they aren’t fancy and are simple to use, with limited functionality, and they don’t make the room come alive when in use. But for the price, it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to match this range. They aren’t miracle workers, and good lighting and a decent mic will always improve any setup (full stop), but if you’re in the market for a webcam, Rapoo has something for everyone, are priced beyond competitively, and are just a lovely surprise.

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While titles like Everspace, Elite: Dangerous, and Star Wars Squadrons have been keeping the space fighter genre alive, they’re somewhat niche games. Even Squadrons, despite being a Star Wars game, was only ever going to truly appeal to dogfight fans. Even if the universe initially pulls them in, space fighter sims aren’t for everyone. The control schemes can be difficult to map to controllers, and it can be hard to convey an effective story because there’s often such a disconnect between the player and their avatar. So the big question is: how do Fishlabs, the developers of Chorus, hope to change that?

I recently got to sit in on a remote Q&A session with Fishlabs’ lead developers and designers as they gave us an in-depth look at their new space shooter. While there are things I’m still unsure (even after playing it) there’s a definite sense that they have a clearly defined vision for their game. For a start, they want to tell a story – and not just through a bunch of cutscenes and dialogue played over dogfights.

Chorus: A different kind of space shooter

Everything about Chorus’ semi-open universe is designed to build on its own mythos. It becomes even more apparent when you’re in the cockpit, too. There’s a sense that each galaxy is lived in; these are more than just pretty obstacle courses to fly a ship around. The backdrops are striking, filled with things to see and wonder over – even if you can’t physically go there. As you weave through asteroid belts and between the structures of gargantuan space stations, it’s easy to be awed by Chorus.

It tales the tale of Nara, formerly a pilot with the tyrannical Circle. Having become disenfranchised with her former masters, Nara has turned renegade. She now helps the resistance fight back against their oppressors with the help of her ship, Forsaken, a sentient Starfighter that reminds me of Titanfall 2’s B2. The relationship between Nara and Forsaken is integral to the story, but also forms the basis for Chorus’ special abilities and character progression.

To call Chorus an RPG would be a step too far, but it does feature a progression system that sees you earning money and experience to upgrade Forsaken’s weapons and defences. There are also Rites, psychic abilities Nara can access to highlight targets and teleport through barriers, for example. The galaxy is also semi open, split into huge individual areas filled with side-missions and points of interest.

Rock and a hard space

Some of these missions might be simple escort affairs; others will branch into chains. There are also choices to be made that can affect relationships with NPCs later on in the game, leading to some characters giving their aid and others denying it. It’s not anything new, exactly, but it’s not something you see very often in this genre. Nara struggles with her own morality and the demons of her past, and it comes through in her conversations and interactions.

The demo I played was relatively short, featuring only a small handful of missions and spaces to explore. I played it through Steam, although it’s coming to both current and last gen PlayStation and Xbox too. Interestingly, Fishlabs have focused on gamepad control rather than HOTAS, as would be expected. It’s important to them that players have the same experience regardless of platform (although there will graphical improvements to next-gen versions such as 4K textures and higher framerates).

Comet me, bro

It always take me a while to start getting my head around controlling ships in space shooters, but with Chorus it felt easy. Steering is all in the right stick, while the left stick is used to control thrusters and perform evasive barrel rolls. Forsaken is equipped with a gatling gun, laser cannons, and missile launchers, each of which is stronger against a specific enemy ship shield type. There’s a wonderful smoothness to the way Forsaken controls; movement is slick and easy, with a pulled-back camera that allows you to take in as much as possible. Sliding between tight spaces and navigating intense space battles is easy and fluid, although I feel the difficulty needs to be balanced a little.

During the more frantic fights you’ll be taking damage from all side, and will often need to juggle weapon types to suit the situation. In these moments I felt Forsaken was too easily damaged. The repair function has a long cooldown while objective time limits are often short, which meant I’d often have time for just one heal even during intense conflicts. Perhaps this needs tweaking by the devs; perhaps I’m just not very good. Either way it didn’t ruin my time spent with Chorus, although having to listen to repeated dialogue every time I reloaded a save was a bit of a pain.

Space ace

Where Chorus deviates from the standard formula is in its approach to story, missions, and exploration. There are Temples hidden in deep space that must be navigated using Forsaken’s full suite of abilities, not to mention the Drift system. Hitting LB will allow you to turn Forsaken on a dime while maintaining forward momentum, something hugely useful during dogfights but equally essential in Temples. These physical and environmental puzzles are almost like dungeons in a RPG, housing upgrades to Nara’s Rites and other useful items. There are no cosmetics to unlock, partly because Forsaken is as much a protagonist as Nara, but there are weapon upgrades and masteries to work towards to give you something to chase.

Built with a very clear end goal in mind, Chorus’ playspaces are gorgeous and easy to navigate. Even in the heat of battle, clicking the right stick will correct your horizon, but it goes deeper than that. The areas are designed with a clear divide between what’s up and down, what’s left and right. Even when you’re tearing around in all directions, it’s easy to stay centred and focused on objectives. Hitting the left stick will propel you forward at intergalactic speeds to eat up the distance between objective markers, but exploration has its own rewards.

Chorus: Deep space fine

One of things focused on during the Q&A session was the music. Not because the devs necessarily wanted to discuss it, but because it was so unbelievably affecting that almost everyone there had a question about it. Composed by Pedro Macedo Camacho (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands), Chorus’ OST could be one of the year’s best if what I’ve heard is anything to go on. Sweeping orchestral music lends the game a sense of otherworldy grandeur that fits so well with its near-mystical lore.

Playing through the demo left me wanting more. A lot more. How Chorus holds up in terms of variety and, well, staying power, remains to be seen. It’s easy for games in this genre to burnout without a constant flow of new content like Elite or even No Man’s Sky, and while there’s a good spread of missions in the demo, we’ll need more to keep us truly hooked. But aside that, Chorus is looking like it could be an exceptionally fun game. The mix of exploration and space magic, the high-quality visuals and soundtrack, the simple control scheme and smooth combat – these things have me super excited to play more and see just what Fishlabs can do.

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Over the last 12 months or so I’ve played my share of tactics games and yours too. From Gears Tactics to Othercide, XCOM: Chimera Squad to Fort Triumph. All offered something that made them stand out from the growing crowd, which meant I never got tired of sampling them. After a short break from the genre, I’ve recently taken a look at The Last Spell from Ishtar Games.

The big difference between this and most of its stable-mates is that it’s also a roguelike defence game. Oh, and it’s also great. It’s recently hit Steam Early Access, and I’ve been getting stuck in to see how it compares to other tactics titles.

The Last Spell: Refreshing tactical action

It’s set in a world that teeters on the brink of destruction after a magical cataclysm and genocidal war against mages. As the few remaining magic-users prepare one last spell to save the world, your ragtag band of heroes will need to defend them night after night from hordes of monsters, zombies and demons.

Each phase comprises one day and one night. In the former you’ll erect defences, buy armour, improve the status of the town, and scavenge supplies in the form of gold and building materials. In the night, you’ll engage in turn-based battles against overwhelming floods of nasties. Initially you’ll have three heroes (or four, if you opt for easy mode). These are random, but you’ll usually get a melee fighter, a ranged archer, and a mage.

All your characters have a set number of action points with which to move, attack and defend. You have quite a few, too, compared to most other tactics games. And you’ll need them too, as the enemy come at you in force. Purple arrows tell you where an attack will come from. At first you’ll only need to repel on one front, but after a few nights you’ll have enemies come from all sides. If they defeat your heroes or kill the mages in the centre of the map, the run is over and you’ll need to start again.

Like all good roguelikes you’ll earn currencies while playing to unlock permanent buffs and upgrades. These include extra hero slots, more starting gold, or the ability to craft stronger gear in the village shops. Two otherworldy beings exist in a place called the Oraculum. Here you spend accumulated points to unlock buffs, or tick off objectives to improve your town and starting options. It’s a solid system similar to Hades’ boons, and each thing you unlock is a massive help.

A hard day’s night

Heroes in The Last Spell can be outfitted with armour, gear, weapons and items. Unusually for a pixel art game, what you equip will alter how you look, which is a really important touch in a game like this. It helps you get attached to your heroes, and so when you lose one it matters all the more. HP and magic points may or may not be restored each morning. You may need potions and items to stay on top of your game.

Basic attacks won’t cost magic points, but more devastating spells and abilities will. These may be volleys of arrows, melee attacks that hit multiple enemies, or magical explosions. Even from the beginning, each of your heroes feels formidable, able to take out multiple enemies each turn. Despite this, it won’t be long before the hordes are too large to contain. For this reason, you can build defences to hold them back. You can also construct shops and crafters to improve your gear.

The Early Access portion isn’t huge, featuring just one town. The size of the world map suggests that there will be multiple towns and settlements added down the line. Yet, even at this early stage, The Last Spell feels like something special. The art style is lovely, and the roguelike elements feel natural alongside the turn-based tactics. When the full game is released, I expect The Last Spell to take a lot of people by surprise.

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It may come as no surprise to learn that Back 4 Blood, the new cooperative squad shooter from Turtle Rock Studios is, in fact, Left 4 Dead 3 in all but name. Actually that’s not entirely accurate – there are some minor story changes too, as it’s now a species of parasitic worm causing people to mutate, rather than a rare viral infection. And they’re not called “infected” now (although they are referred to by that title in passing), but rather the “Ridden”. And that’s about it. In every other way, it may as well be the third entry in Valve’s legendary franchise.

Now I know we said this all before a while ago when World War Z launched, and we’ve seen a few other titles ape the concept strongly such as Warhammer: Vermintide, Earthfall: Invasion and, most recently, Second Extinction, but Back 4 Blood is different. There’s an element of … I don’t know what, actually. Quality isn’t the right word, and neither is it entirely fair to the other titles I mentioned. It’s more like putting on a comfortable jumper, or coming home after a long period away. Turtle Rock being at the helm makes a difference you can feel, if not fully identify.

Their last big release was Evolve, if you remember it, a very good 4 vs 1 monster hunting game that failed to find a long-term audience despite obvious quality and a decent stint as an esport. These are the guys and gals (or a large number of them) responsible for developing Left 4 Dead and its sequel for Valve, and it shows.

Back 4 Blood feels great to play. The guns have weight, and there’s a sense of impact to slicing through mutant heads that has been a little lacking in some of the pretenders. The closed alpha only featured one 4-act scenario, and four of the eight characters promised. Once again, which character you choose makes no difference to the gameplay, and only really affects which voice you’ll hear calling out the arrival of special mutants, incoming hordes, and the weapons and gear you ping for your teammates.

Even more than in Left 4 Dead though, you must work together. Wandering off alone or trying to be a hero will get you killed quickly, and if you’re clumsy enough to startle the flesh-eating crows and trigger a super horde you’ll probably all die. The AI Director returns again, to randomise the placement of loot, rooms in the map, the Safe House and special mutants. But there’s now something of a deck-building element to further increase the randomisation and replayability.

At the start of the scenario and between the Acts you’ll be able to select cards to build your Deck. These may be buffs to your movement or reload speed, or the ability to heal automatically when one of your teammates is in need of reviving. Some of them come with negative effects as a by-product, too, so you’ll need to choose carefully to maximise your effectiveness.

The enemy, so to speak, also has a Deck, which determines which special mutants will spawn as well as certain enemy behaviour. And the special Ridden are tough, although they don’t really do anything we haven’t seen before and there’s nothing quite as creative as the Witch or the Jockey so far. The Snitch, when startled, will trigger a horde; the Retch looks like a tank but is actually mushy, and will explode in a shower of blinding goo. The Tall Boy has a huge club fist, while the multi-limbed Hocker climbs on walls and spits something like webbing at you that must be struck with a melee weapon to remove. And then there’s the Ogre, a Ridden as big as a house that takes everything you have to drive back into the ground.

Whether more will be added in the full game, we don’t know, but it seems likely. After all, Left 4 Dead 2 introduced the Jockey and Charger specifically to punish players for putting their backs to walls or trying to shore up. Back 4 Blood will almost certainly follow suit – especially as, given that we live in the Age of the Live Service, Turtle Rock may add to this for a while following its release.

Another big change is the weapon economy. Instead of simply finding weapons in Safe Rooms, you’ll choose your starting weapon based on a card and upgrade it with Copper earned in the mission. You can add new sights, scopes, extended magazines and butts for stability, but you can only carry two weapons, which includes your melee slot. You’ll use Copper for everything else, too, including first aid kits, bandages, grenades, Molotovs, shareable ammo packs, and defibrillators.

Even this single mission has that same addictive flavour you’ll remember from the Left 4 Dead games, with the random elements adding to the replayability as you work towards the “crescendo event”, which in this case is radioing for help and making it across a destroyed bridge – again, similar to a scenario we’ve seen before but with a few twists to the formula.

There’s a lot of personality here, in the character interactions, the details in the world, the environmental storytelling. And there’s quality too, in the new deck-building element, the movement and ferocity of the horde, and the feel of the weapons and movement. For many, simply having this exact game made by this exact team is enough to sell it regardless, but in a genre that has grown ever more crowded in the long years since Left 4 Dead 2, will that be enough to satisfy everyone? We won’t know that for a while, unfortunately, but what I can tell you right now after a weekend of blasting through the Ridden hordes and failing way more than succeeding, is that Left 4 Dead is back in every way that matters.

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When it comes to puzzle games in their purest form, Puyo Puyo and Tetris sit firmly towards the top of the pile. Both hugely successful in their own right, two became one back in 2014 in the form of Puyo Puyo Tetris, becoming a massive hit in Japan. It didn’t reach our shores until three years later, but when it did, the amalgamation of cute blobs and Tetrominos took over our consoles. I enjoyed the original, and I am so happy there’s a sequel merely a month away from release. Luckily for me, I got a chance to play the Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, and it’s exactly what the world needs right now.

If you are not at all familiar with what Puyo Puyo is, let me fill you in. Much like Tetris, two Puyos joined together fall down a grid, and you can rotate and move them so they land how you want them to. More will descend the grid, and by connecting four in any way other than diagonally will make them disappear. If you make them land in a particular way, when one group of Puyos disappear, others may fall into a position that allows for another group to connect. By doing this you’ll create a chain. The more chains you get, the better your score, but it also means you can send immovable blocks or Garbage Puyos to your opponent to mess with their flow.

After playing the first World in Adventure Mode, I was in love with the characters and the story. It’s silly and simplistic, but its filled with an innocence and charm seldom seen at the moment. Each level is comprised of a visual novel segment where you’ll meet characters old and new, and then a game will ensue. What is great about the mode is the inclusion of an auto-difficulty, meaning it adapts to how you play. The only time I struggled was at the end of the first world, but I soon fell in love with another great addition to the series.

Skill Battles seem to be an important part of Puyo Puyo Tetris 2. It adds a JRPG-style battle to certain games where you need to deplete your enemy’s HP whilst using a range of skills whilst still playing a game of Puyo Puyo or Tetris. It was tricky to know what I needed to do, but that’s because I didn’t watch any of the handy tutorial videos that are on offer for every aspect of the game from the main menu. Three of your party will team up to take part in a Skill Battle. Each character has a different ability with each one costing a specific amount of MP. One power might switch the majority of your grid to the same colour or replenish some of your HP. It’s a test of wits as both you and your opponent have a lot to think about.

The Skill Battle mode can be played outside the main story, along with the same five that appeared in the original: Versus, Party, Big Bang, Fusion, and Swap. As it was a preview I didn’t get to play online, but these modes alone are enough to keep me playing for hours. Fusion is rather tricky as it blends Puyo and Tetris in the same grid, but it still didn’t stop me from playing a lot of it. Although it is only one new mode, Skill Battle is the real standout for me, and I can’t wait to see it come into the main adventure a lot more.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 has the same addictive gameplay as the original, with sharper visuals and a great new mode in Skill Battle. I am looking forward to diving into more of the Adventure Mode and playing against others online, but so far I’ve had a blast on my own. It’s fun, bright, and light-hearted, never failing to deliver on what has already been established as a fantastic franchise.

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There’s just something about Nintendo isn’t there? Despite the world around them seemingly falling apart, they stay steadfast in their joyful passions. It is fitting that the origins of Pikmin come from creator Shigeru Miyamoto watching some ants in his garden and wondering about the fun gaming possibilities. It’s such a quaint story, and befitting of the man and indeed the company as a whole. And now with Pikmin 3 Deluxe arriving on Nintendo Switch, there’s an opportunity for more people to dive into the latest quirky adventure, in more ways than one.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe is doing, on the surface at least, what most re-releases do on future consoles, by bundling together the main game with the DLC that came later. Meaning this time around you’re getting the Mission Modes rolled into one for your money. But it’s when you dig a little deeper into Nintendo’s wondrous garden world you realise there’s much more on offer here to enjoy, and different ways to enjoy it too.

The biggest change for Pikmin 3 Deluxe is the introduction of cooperative play locally. This means you and a friend can team up and take on the main story and many of the other modes together for the first time. And from what I’ve played so far it works very well in practice. The screen is split vertically, with each of you controlling your own camera. My wife and I were free to go about our business as we pleased, splitting the Pikmin between us to do our bidding. The co-op is seamless in the story too, as even if there is only one playable character for story reasons, then you each control a separate version of them, meaning no one is left on the sidelines.

What this does do right off the bat is introduce a teamwork mechanic to proceedings. Whereas before you’d be ordering your crew around to complete certain tasks, you can now divide and conquer organically and that feels great. Helping each other out by chucking the required Pikmin over a gap to where your partner is beavering away at a separate goal is very rewarding. You’ll find yourself nabbing more fruit and making progress quicker than you would solo. This eases the pressure of ensuring you find enough Pikmin and fruit to sustain your exploration from one day to the next.

To counter that point, there’s an argument that this coop play makes Pikmin 3 Deluxe too easy, and that’s a fair comment. Being able to strategise verbally with someone in the same room and control characters independently is much more efficient both for exploration and tackling enemies and bosses. But Nintendo has thought of this too with added difficulty settings for you to choose should you need more of a challenge. Newcomers can opt for the standard difficulty, whereas series veterans can opt for the harder mode, even unlocking a third difficulty should you master that.

Adding to that feeling of accessibility are some options and tweaks to again manage how you want to play Pikmin 3 Deluxe. There’s now a hint system that can be toggled on or off. When active, a press of the D-Pad offers helpful advice for areas you’ve yet to explore or puzzles you’ve yet to overcome. The hints are clear and to the point so should only be used if you’re really in a pinch, because they’re certainly not cryptic. It’s very much a case of “go here and try doing this”. However, I did find it useful for pointing out when the best thing to do is pack up and go and explore another area, because Story progression lies elsewhere. This stops you wandering aimlessly searching for nothing until sunset.

You can also choose to turn on the use of the gyro controls for aiming your Pikmin. There are also options to tweak how and when these gyro controls are used to customise your experience. You can for example use the touch screen to aim, or stick to a control stick depending on your preferences. You can even invert the gyro controls horizontally or vertically as well if you want to, depending on what feels right. Old-man me preferred the normal analogue stick for moving and trigger button lock-on system to aim, but it’s great to see such consideration for other control schemes, and to see the Switch functionality put to good use.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe is shaping up to be a really good package for newcomers or fans of the Wii U original. There’s obviously a core game in here that is still very well polished in terms of design and playability, and it’s been spruced up a bit visually for the Switch too. The added coop feels well integrated so far and gives Pikmin 3 Deluxe a lovely sense of camaraderie akin to that felt between its main crew of characters. The added Missions and Side Stories provide even more content for you to enjoy, encouraging you to spend more time in its lush iconic environments. This is more than just a simple re-release, and should definitely be on your radar when it launches later this month.

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Baldur’s Gate is one of those watercooler games that every RPG fan over a certain age has a memory of. Harking back to a time when BioWare were a new studio, and the heady days of KOTOR and Mass Effect were still ahead of them and Anthem was but a vague curse yet to manifest, Baldur’s Gate is a game credited with making the isometric RPG sexy, or at least not utterly repellent to the object of its desire, which is more than many of us can hope to aspire to.

Having seen a recent re-release on Nintendo Switch, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 and the follow-up Icewind Dale, proved two things: firstly, that there is still demand for the universe and format; and secondly, that it really, really needed modernising. Ironically, the new threequel comes not from BioWare (who, let’s face it, need to do some serious damage control if they’re ever to get themselves on anyone’s guest-list again) but from Larian Studios, an outfit that has been indirectly remaking Baldur’s Gate for a couple of decades.

The reasons why this is the best thing that could have happened to this franchise are too numerous to count, but I’ll summarise simply by saying that Larian Studios knows its shit when it comes to CRPGs. The collective behind the ridiculously good Divinity series, it has proven itself more than worthy of shouldering BioWare’s legacy and carrying it into a new generation.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing through a pre-alpha build of the first act of Baldur’s Gate III, and I’m happy to report that, despite some teething issues and a host of complications that will slowly be ironed out during its early access journey, it’s shaping up to be an incredible experience.

Obviously, it’s far too early to review it properly or even really compare it the latest and greatest in the genre (Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and Wasteland 3 are both incredibly good, and comfortably stand beside Divinity: Original Sin II), but my initial impressions have left me somewhat giddy.

Based in the Forgotten Realms universe and setting its stock upon the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Ruleset, Baldur’s Gate III’s early access incarnation has the hallmarks of a thrilling cinematic adventure. As with Divinity II, you can opt to pick from one of five pre-made protagonists or create your own, and have the other five become your party members as you progress. In early access the pre-made characters aren’t available to choose, though you can still meet and recruit them as you work through the campaign.

It begins with an extensive character creation suite, as you choose from a multitude of races, sub-races, classes and specialities, as well as picking an origin story for your custom character. As usual I spent roughly the same amount of time in the character creator as I did in the actual game – but it’s just so much fun. As with many other RPGs, all of these choices matter, from your background to your choice of race. While there’s no magical “correct” combination, NPCs will react differently to you throughout the game dependant on your character’s personality and history.

From here you’re thrown into the story headfirst, as your character awakens imprisoned on a Mindflayer’s sentient ship, with a mind-altering “tadpole” in your brain that will eventually turn you into a Mindflayer yourself. One thing leads to another and the ship crashes, at which point you and the assorted survivors band together to find a cure. It’s worth pointing out here that I missed a recruitable party member in my first playthrough because I didn’t explore thoroughly enough, and later one of the others was killed in a fight before I could even speak to them. Now it could be that both of these things will be different in the full release, but as Larian has promised more party members as we move through the early access period, perhaps not.

Either way, the character themselves are excellent (I’ve fallen in love with Shadowheart, the Half-Elf Dark Cleric), although as yet you can’t respec your party to suit your needs as you can in the similarly built Divinity II. Every character you meet and speak to is fully voiced and motion captured, and the difference this makes to the cutscenes is staggering. While most conversations are static (though there a lot of cinematic cutscenes, a lot of which are placeholder at the moment), the character’s expressions and deliveries are superb. Even with so much unfinished, nothing here feels half-arsed. Larian are pouring everything they have into this and it shows already.

The early access version launches with the first act, which Larian assure us is around 25 hours of play, although it can be experienced in multiple ways with different races, classes, backgrounds and, importantly decisions. Baldur’s Gate III is a decision-heavy game, compounded by the fact that the consequences of your decisions aren’t guaranteed to go the way you want them to. Almost every decision you make has a stat check, whereby a single D20 will determine success or failure, modified by your character’s proficiency in certain skills or knowledge in certain areas.

It’s hard to predict just how deeply this will affect the game, but on multiple occasions I closed off entire quest paths due to a decision made or a fluffed roll, and usually there are no do-overs unless you’re not adverse to save-scumming. And here’s a truth-bomb for you: some of you won’t be able to resist the urge to save-scum when Baldur’s Gate III decides to stick the emotional knife in. When an innocent child is killed because you missed a Persuasion Check, it’s hard to ignore the offer of a mulligan. Because it’s not a game that holds back. It’s mature from the get-go, mixing in body horror, violent deaths, and a smattering of swears like a half-filtered Game of Thrones episode.

Your party members have their own moral alignments and self-justifications, too, and they’ll agree or disagree with your decisions, which can have powerful consequences down the line. They often conflict with one another, which can put you in an awkward position when you want to please everyone. As mentioned, Shadowheart is equal parts adorable and formidable, but all the party members have their time in the sun, and honestly I like all of them so far.

Combat is so far mostly par for the course, lifting an awful lot from Divinity II. It’s turn-based, and uses an action point system and percentage-to-hit like a tactics game. At the moment it feels a little stingy, as you only ever have enough points to move and perform one action, while things like reviving downed teammates uses up all your points in one go and can lead to a frustrating loop of reviving a character only to see them immediately struck down again. It’s a difficult game, and it seems like luck is almost always against you. There will be other difficulties introduced later, but in the build I played I could only use the Classic difficulty and it kicked my arse a lot.

The sheer variety of skills and spells and actions, coupled with what is shaping up to be massive build diversity is really promising. From racial skills and class abilities, to scrolls, consumables and talents, your party can synergise in some truly exciting ways, mixing stealth with explosive magic, raw strength with environmental hazards. As in Divinity II, flames can be applied to your weapons from the environment, while a seemingly unprecedented level of verticality affords tactical advantages to those able to take and hold the high ground.

Outside of combat you’ll explore a huge world filled with dangers, treasures, enemies and NPCs. While you can zoom right out for the classic isometric viewpoint, you can also get close up so it plays almost like a third person action game. A handy jump move will carry you across gaps, and hitting “C” will drop you into a stealthy crouch to avoid enemies or get the drop on them. Setting up camp in the wilds replenishes health and cures most ill statuses, and gives you a chance to chat to your companions a la Dragon Age. And yes, romance is on the cards in certain situations.

Playing Baldur’s Gate III in its “pre-early access” state has had me giddy as a schoolboy, I’m not going to lie, yet in its current condition I’d hesitate to fully recommend it. There’s likely to be a long period of development on the following acts, which will add new storylines, areas, enemies, and party members, as well as untold quality of life improvements, so unless you’re absolutely chomping at the bit to play it, I’d say wait a little while at least.

That said, if you can handle some jank in the tank and don’t mind regular patches – or better yet, you want to give active feedback to Larian to help improve the overall experience, there’s still a lot of content here – more than you’ll get in many full releases. Be aware though, there is some horrendous texture pop-in, sometimes NPCs don’t move their mouths when they speak (which is a shame, as the lip-synching and motion capture is of an unprecedented quality for this genre), and there are bugs and glitches all over the place. If you’re willing to head in knowing this, then you’ll still have a great time, but some may want to wait for the finished product, however long that may be.

It might sound hyperbolic, but Baldur’s Gate III has the potential to raise the bar once set by its progenitor. This is a work in progress, but even in its adolescent state it’s showing glimmers of true greatness. That there is a massive amount of work to do is obvious, and something Larian is very much aware of, but it’s in the best possible hands. It’s far too early to use the word “masterpiece” in earnest, but this is a game that should be on everyone’s radar through 2021.

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Over nine albums and half my lifetime, Deftones have been more reliable and consistent, and as there for me as anyone or anything else. No matter what has gone down in my life, I can relate to each period by something laid down by Chino and the Sac Town boys. Teenage hedonism, goth eyeliner period, scary slides into drug-induced oblivion, and finally finding peace in my heart and mind have all been soundtracked by the sensitively constructed brilliance of a band influenced by so many of my own musical cornerstones.

Ohms is no exception, released on the day before the first birthday of my grandson. But neither of these things make me feel old, because the band continue to evolve and never sound like a dinosaur act that the kids can’t get down with. Plus I am a pretty kick-ass Grandad.
In the time honoured tradition, the album kicks off with an absolute burner. Genesis begins with an almost Pink Floyd-ian synth intro, before kicking the party off with a riff heavier than the Pope’s balls. Stef Carpenter has been fucking about with some bonkers multi-string axes, and his crushing dissonance fills the joint with a driving, pulverising menace. It’s a vintage Deftones opener, right up there with Minerva and Swerve City.

The sense of warm shoegazey metal envelops the listener with each monstrous tune. You can hear the influences of Chino faves Hum, who themselves released an utterly incredible comeback record this year. The Spell Of Mathematics has a mesmerising groove that breaks down into the same sort of chaos as Diamond Eyes standout You’ve Seen The Butcher. The thrilling quiet/loud “Jesus chriiiiiist” refrain of Pompeij gives way to the somehow even better This Link Is Dead courtesy of a Frank Delgado synth interlude that wouldn’t be out of place on a Blade Runner soundtrack.

The record closes with the best song, hands down. The eponymous finisher is one of the highlights of their career, and an absolutely sensational piece of work that showcases the unique vocal talents of Moreno, sounding more vital than ever. We already know he has the best musical taste of anyone that emerged from the cultural wasteland that was mid 90s rap influenced metal, and here he stands tall, wearing his heart on his sleeve as Carpenter finishes the thing with the most astonishing riff he has ever committed to wax. Its Deftones doing Deftones shit, and its easily their best album for nearly a decade, a hell of an accolade for such a bastion of metal excellence.

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One genre that never really seems to go away or diminish in popularity is 4X strategy. It would appear that gamers simply can’t get enough of playing god, whether building sprawling cosmic dynasties or steering a fledgling empire to untold greatness. What’s quite rare to see, though, is a real innovation in this area. I’m not suggesting that the genre has become stale; I’m simply pointing out that most of the conventions found within these games are well-established. If it ain’t broke, don’t take it back to the drawing board and completely overhaul it, as they say.

As with many other genres, the ones most willing to take big risks are the indie developers, those not relying on legions of fans to run out and grab the latest copy of Lord of Empires XII: This Time it’s Personal. The humble indie dev has no one to pander to, and is therefore usually more willing to try something that might not work. Which brings us to Ragnorium, a new sci-fi rogue-lite strategy game that recently entered into Early Access on Steam.

Ragnorium puts you in command of a fledgling colony of clones, a ready-made civilisation starter kit to be deployed like a “just add water” mix to some distant alien world. Every aspect of each colony is under your control, but like any other rogue-lite, a single failure in the face of many, many dangers will see you going right back to the start with only a handful of unlocks and achievements to your name.

Initially, you must build and name your colony ship, assigning four compartments for cargo and clones. Even deciding this has a part to play, as storage space is finite: you could launch four clones with no supplies, which would give you a higher rate of resource gathering once planetside, or just two clones but with two lots of cargo which will make their first few days easier.

Once you reach your procedurally generated destination, you can select a landing spot and deploy your cargo. Your clones will land unconscious and must be woken up and immediately set to work. At this point, it brings survival elements into play, as you must build a fire, gather materials and construct a shelter, research and craft clothing, weapons, medical supplies, and various workbenches. The clones will need somewhere to sleep, to sit, a means to purify their water, cook meat, and store goods they’ve foraged. From the moment you wake them up, Ragnorium is an onslaught of busywork.

Your clones will complain that they’re naked, then that they need shoes, and keeping them happy is integral to keeping them working. Before long you can assign research projects, which will mean either completing jobs in the small settlement you’re creating, or sending your clones out into dangerous alien territory to research ancient sites, local wildlife, indigenous civilisations, or anomalies. They’ll unlock skill points that convey permanent buffs like, for example, higher intelligence or physical resilience, and specific clones will learn specific roles, giving them a higher position in your hierarchy.

The thing is, each of these worlds you’ll attempt to colonise is incredibly hostile. From giant worms and killer alien bears to primitive tribes, disease, inclement weather, and simple rigours like starvation and dehydration, keeping your clones alive can be very difficult. And often I reached a point where I started to feel a little comfortable when, boom, a nearby tribe would decide to rock up and murder everyone in their sleep, or a giant bear would rip through the camp and eat my people.

If you can survive long enough you can call in more clones and more supplies; you’ll research weapons and defences, and soon have a crew of designated hard-asses to go out and do all your exploring. You may have a clone with a high food preparation skill, or one who can craft quicker. They all have names and elements of personality, and each can be individually outfitted and sculpted with skill points and experiences.

Ragnorium is an interesting title. As much a resource-gathering survival game as it is a rogue-lite RPG and a 4X strategy game, the amount of ideas baked in the apparent willingness to take risks and try new things marks it out as one to keep an eye on. I’m not overly keen on the art style, if I’m brutally honest. The aesthetic makes it feel like you’re watching everything through a monitor buzzing with static, which may well be intentional, but doesn’t look great. The UI is also impossibly busy, with boxes all over the screen obscuring half the action, and tightly packed info in various colours that is difficult to understand at a glance. Colours are washed out, the animation is clunky, and the clones have really weird faces. Also, the male clones walk around with great big todgers that just made me feel inadequate.

My insecurities notwithstanding, Ragnorium has massive potential. Having only dabbled with its Early Access incarnation it’s hard to tell exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes in terms of researching technology and developing each colony, as often my attempts were cut short by the harsh realities of life on an alien world, but there’s scope here for a very deep and emergent experience. The AI needs a tweak here and there, though, as clones can be disobedient or can simply take an age to get moving when they’re given a task.

Graphically, Ragnorium could use some work, and the AI and UI need attention, but this is early access after all, and the gameplay I’ve seen so far is a solid foundation for things to come.

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A feature of what has been, to put it mildly, a shit few years, has been the rise of intolerance when it comes to mixing politics with other professions or ways of life. Footballers daring to speak out are told to stick to what they do best. Careers have been cancelled due to insensitivity and ignorance. A child campaigning for awareness of climate change is sworn at by grown adults on the internet for daring to get stuck in beyond her years. Both sides of the political fence clash about who is on the right side of history, with very few of those commenting actually having the courage to match their convictions and stand up for something they believe in.

The most incendiary single preceding the much anticipated follow up to the exquisite Joy As An Act Of Resistance, Grounds was a brooding juggernaut that arrived accompanied by a slow-building-dread, violently ending video, and has the frontman wear his heart on his sleeve. “Not a single thing has ever been mended / By you standing there and saying you’re offended /Go ahead, tell them what I’ve intended / I’ll say what I mean, do what I love /And fucking send it”. These couplets could sound cringe-worthy in the wrong context, but as someone who is directly affected by many of the subjects that they have confronted in their music and beyond, I totally get where Talbot is singing from, and see a bit of me in how he is.

An early review for Ultra Mono took a bitter-sounding swipe at the low-hanging fruit that is IDLES political affiliations, completely ignoring the fact that their raging post-hardcore is absolutely vital and important in 2020. Their own targets on record number three are very much a case of Joe looking at what is going on around him, and writing about what he knows, and what he sees. Carcinogenic distils what the troupe are trying to accomplish most effectively – a fervent mix of diatribes against austerity, class, Grenfell, addiction, hopelessness. Anxiety tells of a “car crash country, car crash scene”. And he’s on the money. It doesn’t matter who you choose to blame for any of the bad shit that goes on around the world, or in the UK, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. In the space of last week, I saw a man on the end of a three-man racially aggravated beatdown by assailants emboldened enough to do it in broad daylight, in front of me, as a helpless support worker. I witnessed a food bank queue winding down a street populated by all walks of life, in an area where a house would cost the thick end of £300,000. I witnessed an ageing comedian famous for poking fun at ethnic minorities use his fame to whine about a dance routine, and one of my childhood heroes compare the need for protective masks with the Nazi regime that forced Anne Frank into hiding. This is what we are faced with in 2020 and beyond. This is why hearing IDLES mentioning this bad stuff resonates with me. It isn’t a load of loony lefty bullshit. Go out with your eyes open and judgmental views to one side and you will see why they are so angry. I am too.

But just like the AF Gang, the wonderful fan community that is a nurturing and inclusive place that probably actually saves lives in these meagre times, there is a glimmer of hope amongst the darkness – “You only die once / you never come back / you’re gone when you’re gone / so love what you can”. Love is important to these lads, as we saw when they eulogised their best mate Danny Nedelko, as we saw when Talbot poured his heart out about loss and grief, and as we can see here, brilliantly, on The Lover: “You say you don’t like our clichés, our sloganeering and our catchphrase, I say love is like a freeway and fuck you, I’m a lover”

Musically, there are some concessions to modernity that rub against the stripped-down abrasiveness of its predecessors. Some programming trickery from Kenny Beats is far from the throwing it all into a “hip-hoppy” sound that the band have delighted in producing a t-shirt about. The chief engineer is veteran Nick Launay, who has worked with everyone from PiL, to Nick Cave, with hardcore sex-synth legends Girls Against Boys in between. No surprise then to learn of a smattering of backing vocals from long time admirer David Yow, perhaps the most uncompromising frontman of his or any era, and the brooding presence of Bad Seed Warren Ellis. From the punishing War that kicks things off, to the tongue in cheek, cliché riddled stomp of Mr Motivator, and the majestic, swirling Danke that closes the thing, Ultra Mono sounds crushingly huge. The recent live renditions at Abbey Road could not had not prepared me for this. But they did show how much fun the band have careering through their oeuvre new and old, showing a vulnerability we can all identify with when they fucked up and missed a beat. And that is IDLES. A band for the people. Not everything on Ultra Mono is perfect, and hits the spot, but the fact they are prepared to go to such admirable lengths to stick to their guns and shoot their polemic at anyone who will listen is why they are so important to us right now. Listen to them. Go and see them when it is safe to do so. Open your eyes, hearts and minds to the ills of the world and go and try and do something, no matter how small, to make your mark while you can. Let IDLES be your inspiration.

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As well as identifying with their positive messages around mental health, inclusivity and eschewing the vile toxic masculinity of the world we live in, IDLES resonate with me in many more ways, whether it be the fact I live in a city with a prominent example of Brutalist architecture in Wyndham Court, their mention of Rothko who baffled and delighted me as a youngster eyeing his stark works at our local art gallery, or my love of the dissonant post-punk noise that forms their oeuvre. But the moment I fell for them hook, line and sinker was hearing their opening number from the second Abbey Road set, Colossus.  Not only does the slow-building cacophony make me want to punch the air, they couple a lyrical mantra that rips apart the rulebook of masculinity, and then explode into a punk rager that mentions my other most important cultural touchstone – professional wrestling. Anyone who knows who Ted DiBiase is, is OK in my book. The fact that Joe fucks up during the transition here just makes the Abbey Road session version of the tune even more endearing. Ted fucking DiBiase.

As I reach increasing levels of euphoria, the stomping Grounds brings itself into view with a malevolent swagger, Talbot gyrating, asking “Do you hear that thunder? It’s the sound of strength in numbers”. I may not be there, but I am part of this call to arms. He has me in the palm of his hand. I feel it. UNIFY. It’s over before I have had time to process it. 

How to follow one of the best singles of 2020? IDLES answer that with one of the most effective tools in their arsenal. Having heard it live, and rocked out to it on more times than I care to remember, Mother is urgently blasted out here, its message as powerful as ever. Love Song is next. Lee Kiernan is in whirling dervish mode, taking the chance to scream into the mic, the band spinning into a crazy jam dropping lines from Frozen, Pink Floyd, The Cranberries, and in a studio synonymous with the Beatles, a bit of All You Need Is Love. 

The band seem much more relaxed at this point. Its past midnight and they are into Rachel Khoo, Talbot thanking the fervent AF Gang, the vibrant and inclusive fan group that so important to the overall IDLES package, as he kicks it off. Speaking of fans, the band then crash and burn into a scuzzy, raucous, completely unexpected take on The Strokes’ Reptilia punctuated by crazy stabs of feedback and bass noise. They stretch this bonkers cover out, and it ends up more in keeping with Sonic Youth. Joe telling us that they wouldn’t be in existence without the influence of Julian Casablancas’ crew seems a bit tongue in cheek, but hey, their first two records were dope.

Reminding us that they have been amazing since day dot, White Privilege from Brutalism is ferocious and never more relevant, but it’s the subsequent Queens that stands out, a fantastic early punker that sounds as fresh and vital as anything since, the band clearly enjoying blasting through it as Joe stalks around the studio singing in the face of his cohorts. 

Going back to wrestling, as I am often wont to do, Danny Nedelko is next and as much as I love the song and its message, the singalong aspect is missing without a live crowd, much the way as pro wrasslin has been slightly flat at times since audiences have been absent. It’s still incredible, and you know that the band know it’s a banger, but give me 2000 fans singing along to it any day, that’s not to say I wouldn’t be screaming along myself were it not so late, and I didn’t want my knackered wife to turn my balls into earrings.

Old gives way to new with the exceptional Model Village, which is not only delivered with incendiary fervour, but also serves to describe in minute detail the town that most of us grew up in. I am convinced it is about the town our prestigious editor lives (poor sod), and spent his formative years. But as Talbot helpfully points out, the model village in question is England. Course it is.

Signing off a superb set is the angry, brilliant, confrontational Well Done. They make loads of noise, wipe the sweat off the brows, and finish as abruptly and brutally as they began, an aural Stone Cold Stunner to the hearts and minds of us lucky enough to see Britain’s most important band make their first post-lockdown steps into normality. Roll on part three tomorrow.

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I can’t complain too much about how Lockdown has treated me, I am still in a job, I haven’t been impacted in a way that has changed me much more than many more unfortunate souls. But one thing that did piss me off immensely was the missed opportunity to see Britain’s most incendiary and vital band in a long since cancelled intimate Southampton show. Since the world changed so irrevocably earlier this year, IDLES have done nothing to stop my heart grow increasingly more fond in their live absence, with a series of killer tunes and videos. And in anticipation of their tour in 2021 and the forthcoming release of album number three Ultra Mono, I am privileged to be able to eye them in socially distanced live action across three pre-determined Bank Holiday sets from London’s legendary Abbey Road studio.

In a bare-bones setting, a simple Persian rug on the floor the only décor, Joe Talbot and his gnats-chuff tight troops are here to play a selection of much-loved classics, covers and new material. “Semi-pro for life” notes the frontman, as they fuck up the start of Stendhal Syndrome. But by this point, they have already given us brutal renditions of Heel/Heal and Never Fight A Man With A Perm, namechecked Roy Keane, and we are ready to forgive these endearing gremlins. By the time a new tune surfaces, it is the lurching, McClusky (ask your dad) –esque Kill Them With Kindness, that would not feel out of place on the 1990s post-hardcore label Touch & Go.

We were promised covers over the three sets, and the first one up is a slo-mo, feedback-drenched stab at bubblegum blitzkrieg punkers The Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated. Talbot, looking more like a beautiful, hipster barista version of Danny Ings by the day, moans and croons his way through it in a tribute to the seminal classic, as much as he derides his performance as Devonshire’s bass brings it to an end.

Back in more familiar territory is an urgent Mr. Motivator, a live first and surely one that in coming months will have legions of fans screaming the name of a certain undefeated Welsh pugilist, and a spectacular version of one of their most poignant numbers, 1049 Gotho, which hurtles past like the ominous asteroid that names the song and represents the crippling spectre of depression and anxiety. It fucking rocks, but it’s the words that hit hardest, and the first time tonight I stopped to think about the importance of IDLES message and what they mean to me and represent. They are very important.

That is reinforced with the first pumping “Love yourself” mantra of Joy standout Television that is the penultimate number of their first Abbey Road set. Jon Beavis is absolutely sensational as it draws to a close, his propulsive and maniacal beats reminding us of how important he is to what they do, a nondescript looking but indispensable part of the machine.

Talbot thanks us for our patience, tells us that all, is indeed love, before signing off part one with perennial set closer Rottweiler. Their first post-Covid act ends in a triumphant wall of noise, Joe steps in on percussion duties, guitars are smashed to smithereens, and the glorious chaos ends in a mass of flailing limbs and white-hot screeds of feedback. More please.

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I’m mildly surprised that it’s taken this long for another game to step directly into the ring with Disco Elysium, but at first glance it would appear that Gamedec is doing just that. Using a similar viewpoint and a variety of unique-ish character progression systems, it styles you as a “game detective” in a cyberpunk world where people escape for hours or even days at a time into fully immersive video games.

Although each of these games has its own set of clearly defined rules and regulations, there are nevertheless those who use them to commit crimes. Anything goes in the alternate world of Virtualium, and people can be tempted or coerced into doing things they wouldn’t consider in real life. Bribery, blackmail, extortion, identity theft, fraud, they’re all crimes that can be committed inside games, not to mention good old fashioned theft and murder. A Gamedec’s job is to solve these crimes both inside and outside of Virtualium.

The case presented in the demo is called “Twisted & Perverted” which gives an indication of which kind of virtual worlds we’ll be exploring. It focuses on the teenage son of sleazy businessman-slash-criminal Geoffrey Haggis, who has been trapped in Virtualium in an almost permanent state of arousal for four days. Unable to wake his son without risking permanent damage or trauma, Haggis has hired you to pull the lad out of whatever grimy hole he’s got himself stuck in.

Initially you begin by choosing a background and former profession for your Gamedec. Although these choices have futuristic names they have practical applications that will serve you well in one way or another throughout Gamedec. A Glazier, for example, can erect and destroy firewalls and has extensive knowledge of hacking and virtual security, while a Scalpel is a former real-world surgeon, and a Sleeve spent time as a physical enforcer. Throughout the case these “classes” help to unlock different routes through investigations and while exploring the world, as the Gamedec calls upon his expertise to make deductions and inform his questioning.

Your main task is information gathering. The first thing you need to do is program the virtual assistant in your office, who will either be male or female (the latter being a heavily sexualised Cortana-lookalike, obviously) who you can then choose to be intelligent, playful, or flirtatious. What impact this stuff will have going forward I don’t know, because it has zero bearing on events in the demo after leaving your apartment.

Once you reach Haggis’ penthouse suite, the investigation begins. You’ll find his son Fredo still hooked up to the game using a state-of-the-art chair and suit designed to stimulate muscles, mitigate bodily waste, regulate temperature and emulate real-world feelings and experiences. Opposite is a hooker, also still wired up, who has been in Virtualium for seventeen hours. Upon talking to Tommy, Fredo’s friend who’s still waiting Nervously in Haggis’ office, you’ll learn that the boys went into Virtualium looking for some excitement in a world called Paradise Beach, but were soon tempted by the no-limits thrills of Twisted & Perverted, a dark world through which the hooker, Starlett, was to be their guide.

The first leg of the investigation involves talking to a noncompliant Haggis and communicating with Starlett inside Virtualium, whilst also trying to coax info out of Tommy. Some conversations are furnished with a slider that moves right or left based on whether or not you’re getting through to the subject. If you can get them on-side and push the slider all the way right, they’ll open up, giving you clues and info that allow you to make Deductions and further the investigation. You can attempt to wake Starlett and pull her out of the game, but failure to do so will leaver her comatose.

You can also hack secret compartments on Haggis’ office or access his virtual safe and email accounts to dish dirt. You can even “free” his AI assistant if you’re a Glazier, which allows her to roam Virtualium forever. She might even help you out later. Once you have the information you need, you’ll have no choice but to strap into Haggis’s spare chair and go retrieve his son from Twisted & Perverted.

Taking the form of a dingy network of back alleys, T&P features a bunch of fetishists hanging around on street corners. There’s a guy looking for his wife, a dude who died in the real world while under, and has lived in Twisted & Perverted ever since. There’s even a prankster unicorn offering some weird pleasures and trolling everyone he can. To get the info you need you’ll often have to do jobs or favours for the NPCs first.

The more questions you ask, the more deductions you’ll unlock, which mark your route through the case and open up new lines of questioning. At present there’s no voiced dialogue, and while the writing is decent it doesn’t have the same level of quality as its closest rival. It also may purely be down to this particular case, but the content in the demo is very sexually focused. Character portraits look straight out of a fetish club catalogue, which is kind of the point I guess, but right now it’s a little lacking in atmosphere.

There’s also a lot of jargon to get your head around in Gamedec, with terminology for the technology and all its various elements. The full game promises different player characters (or at least skins), and a branching, changeable storyline that reacts to your choices. In the demo the path is a little more rigid, but whether there will be an overarching story and how much bearing it will have on each case remains to be seen.

One cool element is how you can use the rules of Virtualium to your advantage. At one point we got stuck behind a burning car with no way over, but a handy mine in a dumpster killed us so we could respawn on the other side. The presence of the mine in the dumpster was contrived and overly convenient, admittedly, but it was a decent example of how it will work.

We’ve also yet to see how the world looks as a whole. Character interactions were limited in what I played and most of the conversation was a little one-note (I mean, everyone in Twisted & Perverted is pretty much that). Also, the end of the case had some pretty disturbing imagery which simply won’t be easy for some players to watch, even if the level of detail isn’t particularly high.

Gamedec has the potential to be deep and repayable, but as it stands it could struggle to find an audience. The writing isn’t brilliant, but the world and concept are intriguing, and the possibilities afforded by Virtualium are many and varied. Some will be turned off by the content of Twisted & Perverted, others will see the funny side of horny unicorns and a guy who can’t keep up with his sexually adventurous wife, but what more will come with the full release we just don’t know. What we do know for sure is that it won’t be predictable, and that can only be a good thing.

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I’m going to be upfront right away here: I enjoyed every minute I played of the Marvel Avengers beta. Before you get all uppity, though, bear in mind the following three facts: One, I’m a bit of a Marvel nerd; Two, I’m easily pleased when it comes to explosions (yes, I like Michael Bay movies); and Three, I went into this beta with very, very low expectations.

To say I wasn’t overly impressed by the reveal last year is like saying Endgame made a few quid at the box office. I didn’t like the look of the Avengers game, nor the sound, nor the concept. So it’s fair to say I needed some convincing – but knock me down with an Asgardian hammer if I’m not just a little bit more convinced after the beta.

It’s the gameplay loop I enjoyed most. Smash bad guys, break boxes, pick up loot, level up, repeat. But I found the locales to be detailed and good looking, I like the fact that most of it is destructible, and I think the character models are solid, even if the game does look like a collection of scenes from the movies that they had to shoot with the stunt doubles. In many ways – far too many, for some – it reminded me of Destiny. There’s even a “gear score” which feels completely arbitrary, and once again has no real-world applications because you won’t understand how it’s calculated. These things are like corporate bonus calculations or lottery spending, in that you’re not meant to understand them, you just have to accept that what you’re being told means something.

You suit up, pick your hero (or heroes, in most missions), select an activity from the “War Table”, and the Quinjet drops you off at your destination, where you’re required to destroy everything that moves, follow objective markers and loot everything that isn’t bolted to the concrete. So, like I said, it’s got a very Destiny feel to it.

The characters though, are cool and pretty well built. Each has a variety of unlockable moves and powers; they have traversal abilities, ranged and melee attacks, and three Hero Abilities on cool down that are universally awesome. Captain America, sadly absent after the intro due to story reasons, is great fun to play with. Iron Man and Thor can fly, Hulk can throw himself around like a wrecking ball, bounding from wall to wall, Kamala Khan can swing on her weird stretchy limbs, and Black Widow has a grappling hook.

Once you’re in a room full of goons or robots and there’s more than one of you playing (or you bought some AI bots to the party instead), it gets very, very messy. Performance was fairly steady, but the screen was busier than Picadilly Circus during the bigger encounters and, while the action is satisfyingly punchy, the target lock is as much use as a cardboard garden hose since it disengages itself more often than Katy Perry.

The thing is though, I wonder if people are expecting too much from this game. While titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man or the Arkham games can laser focus on one hero and their particular stable of nasties, an ensemble title like Avengers is different. Concessions have to be made to get everyone moving at the same speed and with a balanced experience, and Crystal Dynamics have largely achieved that. Playing as Hulk feels very different to playing as Black Widow and yet both are equally useful in a fight, bringing trademark moves, styles, outfits and animations that mark them as completely separate entities – and that’s an impressive thing in a game with so much going on.

Only after a solid length of time with the full game will we know how much content it has, but while the campaign missions felt enjoyable, with some impressive cutscenes and a couple of serviceable – if a little straightforward – boss fights, the side content feels a bit tacked on. Dropping into a mission with three other players to literally fight a room full of enemies before being told the mission was accomplished was pretty underwhelming – to the point where I began to wonder if this wouldn’t have worked better as a straight story campaign with a bit of multiplayer tacked on instead of a live service model.

The live service element is what will turn a lot of people off, too. Each Marvel Avengers character has their own battle pass-style progression tree, and though we can’t see in the beta how this will be monetised, there is definitely a premium currency involved, which means real money. Each pass unlocks a variety of things from skins to emotes, but nothing essential to the game itself. In fact, while the skins are expected in a super hero game, they do conflict with the loot system. When I’m picking up vests and bangles and Odin-knows-what from loot chests, I want to see evidence that I’m equipping them. Unfortunately, likely in service to the skins you’re supposed to grind or pay for, this doesn’t happen.

Also, Crystal Dynamics’ versions of some of the characters are hit and miss. I like Banner in this, riffing as he does off Mark Ruffalo’s awkward performance in the movies, and Natasha comes off well, too. Thor, though, sounds bloody awful. Like, “Chris Hemsworth in Snow White and the Huntsman” awful. And Stark and Cap just feel… off. But maybe that’s just because of the MCU. It didn’t matter that Sony’s Spider-Man wasn’t Tom Holland, because we’re used to seeing Peter Parker sporting different faces all the time. I don’t like Kamala much, though. They over play the giggling fangirl persona so much that it becomes irritating and, quite often, out of place to the point of being inappropriate. Be excited to see Nick Fury, by all means, but not when you think he could be leaving you a message from beyond the grave. That’s not the time for gushy fangirling and it’s irritating. Also, if I’m honest, her power is just weird and cartoony and not particularly cool at all.

There were a lot of elements in the Marvel Avengers beta that I really liked, though. I liked poking around in the Chimera, snooping in Bruce Banner’s bedroom, I liked the level of fan service paid to those who are going to look for it. And I like the movement in missions, the feel of the combat and the variety of powers. I’ll enjoy unlocking skins and mixing up my team of heroes, and I look forward to seeing who else gets added to the roster. But I can’t help but feel that people are going to come at this game ready for a fight, ready to pick it apart for faults they’d ignore elsewhere. Sometimes, you have to let something exist on its own terms.

From what I’ve played, Avengers isn’t trying to be the “new” anything; it’s an action game set in its own version of an established universe that wants to entertain first and foremost, that sets out its stall early with a bombastic, over-the-top, knowingly clichéd action sequence and then just does more of the same, which, let’s face it, is what its source material has done for almost a decade. If you’re trying to tell me the MCU is a franchise made for thinkers, you’re kidding yourself.

Either way, there’s not long left until the full release, and the Marvel Avengers beta has given me a slightly cautious thirst for more. It’s not perfect, and it’s too early to tell if it has the legs to carry it, but I genuinely enjoyed everything I played, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else Crystal Dynamics can do with this universe.

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It’s hard to really get a feel for what Star Renegades will be from just the few hours I spent with the demo. Barely lasting past an hour itself, even repeated playthroughs of the two levels shown can only scratch the surface of what promises to be a unique and emergent turn-based RPG. The few missions available are unable to showcase the 45+ playable characters, the extent of the relationship system, or the scope of the procedurally-generated campaign. But I’ll tell you one thing: it’s got my attention.

Set in a galaxy plunged into inter-dimensional war, Star Renegades follows warrior Wynn Syphex, who gets shot down in the opening battle and witnesses her brother killed by the invaders. Wynn is sought out by Professor Zurek, who’s counterpart in another dimension has already witnessed the destruction of her world and sent her robot J5-T1N across dimensions to warn other galaxies.

At present it’s hard to know exactly how divergent the campaign will be, but the missions are dynamic and procedural, and the huge host of characters and classes (there are 13 classes in total) gave me serious flashbacks to Suikoden, one of my favourite JRPG series of all time. What seems likely is the small details will change, but the overall story will flow in the same direction each playthrough; it’ll just break around different obstacles every time.

An enemy hierarchy system seems borrowed from grander titles like Shadow of Mordor, whereby your opponent’s force will shift and change dependant on your successes, failures, and choices. A throneroom view enables you to appraise the enemy, watch its generals get promoted or replaced, and select your primary target. It’s not altogether new, but its inclusion in a turn-based RPG like Star Renegades feels fresh.

Combat follows a Reactive Time Battle System, which is a fancy way of saying you have an initiative meter that your party and opponents are spaced along based on which attacks or abilities you’ve chosen. The cool element in Star Renegades is that you can interrupt your opponents or counter their attacks before they make them, allowing you to disrupt their plans and even move along the meter. For example, if you can get an attack in before an enemy has a chance to launch theirs you haver a high chance of scoring a critical hit and “breaking” them, reducing their armour and forcing them back along the meter.

It’s a system that makes every battle feel different, and makes the composition of your team hugely important. Fill your squad with slow, heavy-hitters and you may well deal damage, but you’ll rarely get the chance to land crits or interrupt the enemy. Likewise, only specific characters can restore health or shields, while some can damage multiple enemies at once or use buffs and debuffs to influence the battlefield.

Beyond the combat, exploration and enemy evolution, interpersonal relationships may also be different for each player. Characters who fight together and interact during downtime between missions will form bonds. These bonds not only unlock combo attacks that can be executed once per fight for devastating damage, but can also lead to deeper relationships and children who, when grown, will become playable characters too because Star Renegades’ story spans multiple generations.

So, sure, it’s hard to appreciate or predict the ultimate scope of Star Renegades based on such a short demo, but everything about it feels ambitious and interesting. The animation is gorgeous, the muted pallet and inventive characters creating an art style that feels oddly familiar but somehow unique at the same time. It’s battle system is not the easiest to get to grips with, but it won’t take long to understand its intricacies. And I should say right away that the dialogue at this point isn’t voiced, so that’s lots of reading if it stays this way. But while some of the writing is a little on the cheesy side, it has a sense of light-hearted camaraderie and space-age derring-do about that will endear a lot of people – particularly fans of anime sci-fi.

Although I played the demo on Steam, Star Renegades is coming to consoles too, including the Nintendo Switch. I’ve got to be honest: that’s where I’m most excited to play it. Regardless of platform, though, Star Renegades is guaranteed to turn heads when it’s released later this year.

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The New Game Plus Expo digital showcase is currently being shown on Twitch featuring announcements and gameplay from many publishers including Sega, Atlus, NIS America, Koei Tecmo America, Aksys Games, and more. Aksys Games’ announcements and reveals for the event include release windows for the many otome games for Nintendo Switch, Tin and Kuna, the reveal of Pretty Princess Party for Nintendo Switch, and more.

The otome games shown at the event include Collar X Malice Unlimited which is the follow up to Collar X Malice. Collar X Malice unlimited releases this August for Nintendo Switch bringing new play modes, content, and more to the world of Collar X Malice. This is the first time Collar X Malice Unlimited is releasing in English.

Piofiore: Fated Memories for Nintendo Switch arrives this October. The otomate developed game features Liliana Adoronato who is in the middle of three criminal organizations in the city. This is another otome game never released before in English that will see a release in the West on Nintendo Switch.

Tin and Kuna is a 3D puzzle exploration game for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC arriving in October from blackriver studios in a colourful world. Originally set for just Fall 2020, Tin and Kuna arrives this October on all platforms. Watch the trailer below:

Cafe Enchante is the final otome game showcased at the event and it has you inheriting your grandfather’s cafe in Tokyo where you meet beings from different worlds including the king of demons. Cafe Enchante arrives on Nintendo Switch this November.

Pretty Princess Party is a new game set for Nintendo Switch release this December. It is a simulation game from Nippon Columbia and Aksys Games with more than a thousand items to use to decorate the caste’s various rooms.

What was your favourite reveal from the New Game Plus Expo today?

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Simplicity can be awfully deceptive. As a tactic in warfare, making one’s enemy believe you’re little more than a simpleton when in fact you’ve spent considerable time, energy, money, and expendable manpower laying an incredibly devious trap is very clever and effective. That is, as long as you know your limitations and, of course, aren’t in fact a simpleton.

Total Tank Simulator from Noobz From Poland, as an example, is very good at looking simple while simultaneously being a super clever little bugger with a lot more going on than an outsider might suspect. It’s also full of blocky colourful tanks, tiny identikit soldiers and paper-craft environments, all of which conspire to disguise the fact that it is an absolute engine of death and war and carnage. Seriously, the bodycount in this game is nothing short of staggering.

I had a moment during one match that reminded of that bit in Saving Private Ryan where the shellshocked soldier is wandering around looking for someone to reattach his severed arm, as all around me my compatriots were reduced to squibs, exploding tanks showered me with twinkling shrapnel like confetti, and a fighter plane screamed overhead, trailing black smoke like party streamers before slamming into a nearby farmhouse.

But, y’know, all colourful and twee.

Essentially Total Tank Simulator is a fast-paced RTS. Matches take place between various nations and comprise of a planning phase where you position your tanks, troops, planes, artillery, etc, and then a battle phase, where both sides proceed to blast the absolute snot out of one another until one is nought but a collection of smears on yonder hillside. You are able to zoom around the battlefield like a disembodied ghost, watching the action unfold below like a morbidly fascinated albatross, or get right into the thick of the fight.

Initially, this had me a little confused. I thought all I had to do was position my army and watch the battle transpire. As I went in all cocky and condescending and didn’t bother with the tutorial, I had no idea that clicking the right mouse button would transplant me directly into the driver’s seat slash cockpit slash cranium of any unit I moused over. I found myself staring down the barrel of an unfortunate infantryman’s rifle, for about 30 seconds. As no unit lasts very long, I was spat out fairly quickly like an apostate spirit and left to look for the next doomed wretch to possess in the roaring heat of bloody conflict.

Jumping into any unit presents you with a suite of controls. You can drive tanks, fly planes, run around as a rifleman, a sniper, a flamethrower unit; you can drive the repair truck or man the anti-air artillery. It’s not just rudimentary stuff, either. For instance, soldiers have first aid kits and grenades, back-up melee weapons, and Molotov cocktails. There’s a lot going on, a lot to get to grips with, and very little time to settle in before something is shooting at you or bombing you.

The beta only allowed play as either Germany or the USSR, but offered a taste of the campaign as well as Shadow Mode and Sandbox Mode. Sandbox in particular is fun, as you can select your biome, terrain, number of opponents, and how much money you begin with, which in turn determines how many troops and vehicles you can field.

In-between matches you can spend currency unlocking new units or upgrading existing ones, as well as hiring Officers to help direct the flow of combat and make your units stronger or more durable.

Total Tank Simulator, then, is an enjoyable, highly addictive little strategy game that hides its depth and intelligence behind a veneer of bright colours and charming papercraft. For anyone who likes a nice, loud ruck or, indeed, aficionados of large-scale tactical warfare in general, TTS is absolutely one to watch.

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I played an alpha build of Tainted Grail, a grimdark RPG from Awaken Realms, based on the boardgame of the same name that was the most successful kickstarter campaign of 2018. In this dark wreimagining of ancient Britain, King Arthur is lost, the Knights of the Round Table are scattered or dad, and the land of Avalon is falling to ruin at the mercy of the Wyrd, a dark cloud of evil and madness covering the land. The nights are long and dark, crops don’t grow and everyone who comes into contact with the Wyrd goes insane. Only the power of the Guardian Menhirs, ancient edificies erected by the legendary wizard Merlin, hold the growing tide of darkness at bay.

With no more heroes left to fight, it falls to a handful of untrained souls to band together and save the land. It combines Baldur’s Gate style exploration and player choice with deck-building combat, and its dark, unforgiving world oozes with atmosphere. There’s no concrete release date yet, but this is an early build and there’s lots more info and additions to come. As it stands, Tainted Grail has heaps of potential and could be a surprise hit for Awaken Realms.

This early build has only two characters, the burly smith Beor denied his place with the heroes due to a mysterious wound, and Ailei, an outcast apothecary shunned by the townsfolk of Cuanacht. At present both characters are identical in all but appearance, though we can expect greater variety in characters, gear, cards and tactics when the full game finally comes to Steam later on in the year.

In the meantime, check out the video preview below to get a peek at the world-building, combat and gameplay on offer:

Tainted Grail will be available on Steam some time in 2020.

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I know my way around a battle royale, but I must admit that my first foray into Planetside Arena was a bit of a confusing mess. There were large squads that simply abandoned one another the moment their drop pods hit dirt, there were Destiny-like hover bikes that could be summoned at the touch of a button, there were orbital strikes that instantly killed anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in their blast radius, and there were even tanks later on, for some reason. I was left utterly bewildered.

Before dropping on a random location, you spend time in the hangar of a starship, practicing your aim alongside your squad as the server populates. You can try out each of the three classes, fathoming out their individual special abilities and generally trying to work out how to play the game. Once you’re dropped planetside, that’s when the confusion begins. Unlike other battle royale games, you start already tooled up with weapons, instead finding upgrades around the map, as well as nanite. I initially had no idea why I was collecting this stuff (the game tells you nothing, going in) but eventually discovered that it could be spent during the match to gain access to rarer loot or even to respawn fallen teammates.

I’d never played Planetside before, which is apparently known for its massive-scale battles with hundreds of players. Dropping into Planetside Arena’s squads mode, with up to 25 teams of 12 all competing for position on the huge map, up to 300 people battling it out to stay in the ever-decreasing circles, is as chaotic as it sounds. Especially when orbital strikes and tanks are thrown into the mix. Even in early access, I was still impressed by how well the servers handled it all. I experienced no lag at all during my time with the game. I never actually saw a full server, but that’s likely due to it only just going free-to-play in Early Access.

It’s clear that there is still work to be done on the game, too. While there are plenty of rewards to be unlocked through loot boxes (yes, I’m aware that’s basically a dirty word, these days), duplicates are pretty common. Too common. The code we were given gave us access to the Legendary Edition, which unlocks 200 standard loot boxes to open up. Duplicates were already showing up within the first 15-20 of those boxes and, although I didn’t record the exact numbers, I would say that around half of those first 15-20 included at least one repeat offender. Those are some poor odds, which continued throughout the 100 or so that I opened. There’s only so many times you can watch an excitable robot unpack those things.

Unlocks in loot boxes aren’t just cosmetic either, as you can find weapon and suit mods that offer combat bonuses in-game. Not to mention new weapons with small improvements to their stats. Nothing too drastic, but it’s difficult to excuse any kind of advantages being dished out in this kind of game. Hopefully this is the sort of thing that this Early Access period will help to fix, but I’m not sure it’s something that can simply be removed from the game without major changes throughout.

Advantages can even be gained when you’ve dropped into the game. I’m not talking about the weapon upgrades you find in lieu of actual new guns, but things like armoured vehicles and actual tanks. Yes, tanks. These appear part way through matches and usually change everything. Not necessarily for the better. Not just because you might be on the receiving end of a tank’s shells, but because it feels completely unbalanced.

This is partly down to the player base being made up of already seasoned Planetside players, and partly down to the way you’re already tooled up before you even land on the battlefield. Battle royale games are often fun because everyone starts with nothing, but Arena sending players in with a full (and often upgraded) arsenal, then adding in tanks and vastly overpowered abilities like orbital strikes, just isn’t friendly to new players. Being able to go in with unlocked mods and better weapons just makes it even more beginner-unfriendly. There’s a very real danger that Planetside Arena will become a pay-to-win game and that is something Daybreak Game Company will need to address.

The actual gameplay is solid, which makes it doubly frustrating when the game is so impenetrable. It’s not pretty, looking like an early 2000s PC game, but the map does have plenty of different areas to explore and fight through. When playing, each class has its own special abilities on the F and 5 keys, such as the engineer’s auto turret and deployable shield or the medic’s healing bubble. A good team will use these things and combine them to devastating effect, and teamwork is essential, making it all the more annoying when your teammates run off in separate directions and then wonder why they’re not doing very well.

Planetside Arena is frustrating to play at best, completely unbalanced and impenetrable at worst. There’s potential for a good, new take on the battle royale formula, but not while the game offers paid advantages that remove all accessibility for new players. If you’re a Planetside player already, you’ll probably be right at home in Arena, but if you’re not, you’ll probably struggle. That’s what Early Access is for, and hopefully Daybreak Game Company uses the period to smooth out the problems and make Planetside Arena the fun shooter it could be. That’s how it will gain the wider audience that a battle royale game needs to survive.

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Right out of the box the Speedlink Maxter 7.1 Surround Sound USB Gaming Headset (say that 10 times fast) looks impressive. The chunky red and black design has a sturdy appearance, the thick cord looks like you could chew on it for days, and volume and LED control box suggests hidden features you can play around with for days.

While my last assumption turned out not to be the case, the others were bang on the money. The Maxter headset is a beauty, surprisingly comfortable despite its size and comparative weight. 50mm drivers in the cups deliver a high quality audio experience, while the built-in rumble and omnidirectional feedback put you right in the thick of whatever game you’re playing. I will say, though, the vibration feature might not be to everyone’s satisfaction, so go in aware that it’s one of this headset’s more unique selling points.

The USB connection does limit its use though. It works perfectly well with PS4, Xbox One or PC, but you won’t be able to use it with the Nintendo Switch or your phone for casually listening to music. The 3m cord gives you plenty of free movement and will reach comfortably across most lounges, bedrooms or offices, although be aware: the sicker is heavy, and you’ll definitely feel it when it’s hanging loose.

One cool feature on the Maxter headset is the LED display in the back of the earcups and on the tip of the mic. If the mic is red, you’re live, so you’ll always know if you’re broadcasting – which is handy because although you can adjust the mic, you can’t remove it. The lights in the cups are less essential, and didn’t do much but give my 7-year-old a reason to say “wow” he walked by me while I was using them. A button on the control box changes the colour or turns them off, and you’ve three hues to choose from in red, blue or green. Streamers will get some mileage from the pretty display, I’m sure, but if you’re simply sitting in a room playing on your own it’s a bit of a pointless extravagance.

Although you can’t fine tune the sound quality, the base delivery is excellent. I have no complaints on the mic quality, but I’m especially impressed with how crisp and clear the audio is through the Maxter headset. Considering these are selling for around £60 and therefore just short of being considered a budget model, they look and feel great and sound better than fine with most games, but especially shooters. Playing Gears of War 5 with the rumbling earcups and competent surround sound really elevated the experince.

A lack of tweakable features and a non-detachable mic are comfortably compensated for by impressive aesthetics, great sound quality and a well-made if slightly heavy design. Not bad at all for the pricepoint.

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The Noz Stereo Gaming Headset from ROCCAT is somewhat unique among the recent batch of headsets to hit the market in that it somehow, inexplicably, fits my head. Now it’s not that I have an abnormal shaped head, as far as I know, it’s just that even if a headset is incredibly comfortable, it only takes one look in the mirror at how it sits on my wide, bald dome to resign me to playing in the dark when possible.

Ironically, the Noz is a relatively small headset, too. It does away with some of the more complicated bells and whistles of higher-priced models, limiting its flashier features to a removable boom mic, built-in volume control (something not always included in wired headsets), and high versatility. It works with consoles (including the Nintendo Switch), mobile phones and tablets, or a PC or laptop. The problem here is that it has zero adjustable elements beyond volume. In-game audio tends to sound OK, certainly good enough that I never questioned it, but the quality dips when you’re just listening to music.

This in itself wouldn’t be a major problem. If it weren’t for the fact that, at around £60, there are cheaper alternatives that do a better job. The thing about the Noz is that it feels like a budget model, but with a mid-range price that feels a little steep. For example, the design is simple and functional, but the lightweight build and plain aesthetic gives the Noz the impression of a cheaper headset. That said, I did find the headset very comfortable, but that’s an entirely subjective view and others may disagree.

One thing that feels like both a blessing and a curse is the length of the cable. With dual 35mm audio jacks you can connect to two devices at once should you need to, but the cable is incredibly long. Plugged into my PS4 controller made the whole thing feel a little cumbersome. It was less of an issue on the laptop where I could bundle the wire up a bit out of the way, but it was definitely a sticking point. It meant I wasn’t comfortable just using it to listen to music on my phone while walking around the house even though the headset itself is comfy.

Ultimately, if the Noz was selling for £40 I’d be happier to recommend them. For the current price though, there are models that look nicer and offer more features like variable treble and bass, or that look and feel sturdier while remaining lightweight. As a gaming headset it’s perfectly serviceable, and the removable mic is definitely a plus, but they may be a little rich considering the overall performance and appearance.

The post ROCCAT Noz Stereo Gaming Headset review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The AverMedia 311-BO311 Live Streamer Kit is a one-stop shop for start-up streamers looking to get into the YouTube business. It comes with a PW313 Live Streamer Cam webcam, a USB AM310 microphone and a Live Gamer MINI capture card. It proclaims itself to be everything you need to get started as a streamer, but just how competent a package is it?

First off, I’m not much of a tech head. I know the basics, but I don’t stream a lot and have only been producing videos for less than a year. That being said, I had this kit out of the box and set up to go with Streamlabs Obs in under 15 minutes. It was very easy to configure and, while I didn’t stream with it, I did use the capture card and mic to produce the below video. Read on for a break down of how each component performed for me.

PW313 Live Streamer Cam

I’ll start with the webcam because that’s not in the video. I swapped my Logitech C920 HD Pro for the 313 and was actually surprised at how much easier it was to set it up with Streamlabs and how little delay there was. I usually have to tweak the Logitech cam a little, but I didn’t with this one. It’s a pretty lightweight piece of kit and I wouldn’t expect it to survive a drop from a desk onto a hard floor, but it’s very small and unintrusive so leaving it set up is no problem. It has a standard grip mechanism to clip it to the top of a monitor, or you can unscrew the base and mount it on a tripod, stand or boom if you prefer.

Unlike the Logitech C920 and others it doesn’t come with its own software so I was unable to adjust the picture like I normally can. I couldn’t zoom in or out and to centre my face I had to manhandle the camera a little bit. The lense does rotate on a ball joint but don’t expect miracles. There is a privacy cover, too, for when it’s not in use. As it’s plug and play it was dead easy to set up, and the capture was clear if a little dark. You can adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc via Streamlabs source settings.

Overall it’s a very decent low-range webcam, but for me it loses out to my Logitech purely because it’s harder to adjust and feels much less robust.

USB Microphone (AM310)

Secondly, the mic. Now, my usual mic is a Samson G-Track Pro with a cheap-ass pop filter I bought for about 7 quid on Amazon. It works perfectly well with SlObs, even better when just capturing audio for a voice over. The AM310 provided with the 311 kit is actually a very solid mic, just not as feature rich as the more expensive G-Track Pro.

It looks nice, and fixes to heavy base or a tripod / boom assembly. It doesn’t come with a pop filter, though, so you will need to buy one seperately if you intend to do a lot of VO or chatting on streams. Again, the relatively small and streamlined design means it doesn’t clutter a desk or workspace, and it connects through a USB which makes it super easy to set up. I had no issues using it in SlObs or to record via Audacity. It doesn’t have a bunch of settings or features, but the sound quality is perfectly acceptable.

Live Gamer MINI (GC311)

Now, the capture card is a tougher sell for me personally. Not being a regular streamer means I’m normally content to use my Hauppauge Rocket to easily capture specific gameplay directly from my consoles. Being a capture card, the MINI runs through your PC or Laptop meaning you’ll need that set up in place. That said, it comes with a dedicated hardware encoder, which means it doesn’t steel memory from your laptop or pc to run. It also works very well with Streamlabs Obs.

Aesthetically, it’s a tiny wee little thing. It’s very lightweight and unintrusive, and looks more like a USB multiport adapter than anything else. It comes with a cord extension too, which is handy.

Overall the package is solid. For under £220 it is a decent value for what is essentially a trio of low to mid-range products. True to its spiel it certainly is everything you’ll need to get started a streamer or YouTuber, but be aware that there are many better, and more expensive, alternatives out there for content creators.

That being said, the 311 Live Streamer Kit is easy to set up, very simple to use, and works well with 3rd party software like Streamlabs Obs. For someone just finding their feet, it’s a good package and a relatively easy entry point.

The post AverMedia 311 Live Streamer Starter Kit review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

With posture, ergonomics and living a healthier life being very prevalent at the moment, we thought we’d take a look at a standing-desk setup to see how this works in practicality.

The ProPlus 36 from Varidesk is their best selling model, with a two-tier design including a top shelf for your monitor(s) and a lower shelf for a mouse and keyboard. This works very well, as the idea is that you set up all your computing equipment and just adjust the Varidesk up/down to a height that suits you. Feel like sitting? Pop the desk down. Want to stand up for a bit? Nudge it back up again. The handy locking mechanism works at variable heights, so you’re never forced to hunch.

Thankfully the unit arrived fully assembled, because it’s massive and surprisingly heavy, which is great as it proves to be a very sturdy bit of kit. Simply place the ProPlus on top of your existing desk, put your gear on top and you’re good to go. Saying that, one thing to keep an eye out for is your wiring. It’s too easy to accidentally cut through cables, particularly thinner mouse/keyboard wires, when opening/closing the Varidesk . Make sure you’ve cable-tied and tucked things in and that everything works at both an up and a down position. Don’t’ make the same mistake we did, and almost chop through an expensive mouse and keyboard!

We found the monitor shelf to be very adequate, but would’ve loved more room on the mouse/keyboard shelf. While there is room for a full sized keyboard, you’ll struggle to get a decent sized mouse-mat on there too. Gamers might despair at the amount of real-estate left to play with. Which raises the question, can you game with a standing desk?

We think you can. This reviewer put in hours work of game time while standing at a Varidesk . While it does take some getting used to, it’s certainly doable. The benefits of standing vs sitting are well documented, but essentially it comes down to personal preference. If you want to really concentrate on an FPS title you’re going to wait to be seated, with some decent arm rests. However if you’re playing an MMO for example or something less ‘twitch’ intensive you’ll have no problem doing so while using a Varidesk .

If you’re looking to move your desk to a standing position, even if only for short bursts, this may be a good solution. It’s pricey, but it’ll give you the posture support you need.

The post Varidesk ProPlus 36 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

What a beautiful device. This is a microphone clearly made for the LED-obsessed #PCMasterRace, although it does come with Mac and PS4 support. With Quadcast as the name it’s evident HyperX are marketing this mic at streamers, it’ll look great in-shot of any gaming channel content.

In fact, it seems HyperX had casters / streamers in mind with every step of the design, with a mount adapter included in the package, built-in anti-vibration shock mount and an internal pop filter. Of course you don’t necessarily need to mount the mic onto an arm, as it comes with its own stand.

Audio quality is fantastic. We recorded a few samples on each mode and compared them in the exact same setup with the competition – the audio quality in our setup was clearly better on the Quadcast than it was with the leading competitor. However, the Quadcast is double the price of a Blue Snowball, so there’s that to take into consideration. You can listen to this reviewer’s appearance on a recent episode of the GodisaGeek podcast to see what it sounds like in practicality.

The four selectable polar patterns are stereo (for vocals / instrumentals), omnidirectional (multi-person podcasts / conference calls), cardoid (podcasts, streaming, voiceovers, instrumentals etc.) and bidirectional (face-to-face / one-on-one interviews). These should cover the primary needs of most games casters / streamers.

The ‘tap-to-mute’ feature doesn’t even require a tap – hover your finger closely over the top of the mic and it’ll mute the mic. This is a handy feature, but we did find that un-muting the mic caused a static background sound which was picked up in recording, so software muting may be preferable.

Being USB powered, the Quadcast mic will work with computers and the PlayStation 4, but not the Xbox One. There’s an in-built headphone jack for live audio monitoring, too, so you can keep that mouth-breathing in check! There’s a gain control hardware function in a fancy scrolling knob at the bottom of the mic, which is a handy tool for quickly turning the mic input up/down.

Overall we think the Quadcast from HyperX is much more than just a gaming mic. It’s a fantastic piece of kit that anyone doing recordings on a computer should look into.

The post HyperX Quadcast Gaming Mic Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It used to be that Bluetooth earphones were cumbersome, oddly shaped and corded together. Thankfully, probably in no small part due to the launch of Apple’s EarPods, we’re seeing a swath of new smaller, fancier BT earphones hitting the market lately.

1MORE Stylish True Wireless Headphones recently launched with an retail recommended price of $99.99. That’s half the price of Apple’s EarPods and their Beats alternatives. So we took a look to figure out how they stand up to the competition.

Can we be slightly pedantic here, too? Headphones are to be worn with a strap over the head. Earphones are to be worn in-ear. These are clearly earphones, and that’s something to celebrate. We’re not sure about the ‘headphones’ branding. In fact the naming seems a little off altogether, ‘1MORE Stylish True Wireless Headphones’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. For the purposes of this review let’s stick with 1MORE wireless earphones.

Available in black, gold, green and pink the 1MORE wireless earphones come with a petite charging pod that is incredibly easy to use and looks brilliant. In the shape of a tablet, you simply pop in your earphones and they magnetically click into position. There’s a button on the front of the pod to open it and it gives a satisfying little click when you close the lid, that adds to the overall feeling of high quality of the package. However, the charging slot is micro-USB instead of USB-C, this makes it feel a little out of date. Anything released in 2019 should really feature the newer universal USB-C slot, otherwise anyone buying these earphones for a modern Android device will need to have two different charging cables, which is not ideal.

Pairing the earphones to your mobile device is really easy and just takes a moment, once done they automatically pair themselves every time you pull one out of the pod. You’ll hear an audio confirmation “Connected” as you place the earphones into your ears, after a little audio dit and a notification of your current battery status, i.e. “battery high”.

In terms of battery life, these things are absolutely amazing. Fast charge the pod in just over an hour and it’ll re-charge your earphones for upto 6.5 hours use. With 15 minutes of re-charging you get 3 hours worth of play time. That’s quite something, and means you don’t need to charge them up at the wall on a daily basis.

Audio quality unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired. The sound is quite tinny, with no bass whatsoever. The earphones are fantastic for voice calls and listening to podcasts with, but for music they’re quite frankly disappointing. This is a surprise as they’re tuned by Grammy award winning sound engineer Luca Bignardi. Background noise-cancelling features on the microphone comes in handy though. The volume is nice and loud, and it’s very easy to play/pause new tracks by either tapping the single button or double tapping for access to Siri / Google Assistant. The button is very intuitive and the earphones will turn themselves off the moment you place them back into their pod.

Unlike some competitors, the 1MORE wireless earphones can be used in the singular, you won’t need both ears in place in order to stream music. You can of course also split the earphones for cooperative listening with friends.

These earphones are comfortable and stylish (hence the name), and relatively cheap. If you’re looking for some wireless earphones for listening to podcasts and/or making phone calls, we highly recommend these from 1MORE. However, if you’re a music aficionado these might not be the buds for you.

[Update]

We’re very happy to correct this review, because it turns out that these earphones actually have fantastic bass. This reviewer however has particularly small ear canals, resulting in a less than satisfactory seal between ear and earphone, causing a loss of audio quality. With some replacement (much thinner/smaller) earbuds full audio quality was accomplished, including bass!

The post 1MORE Stylish True Wireless Headphones Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night from ArtPlay and 505 Games, was released recently on Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. You can check out our review of it here, in which I said:

“Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an incredibly well-made adventure, and a heartfelt ode to games long past. More than that though, it feels like a potential gateway to a new era of Castlevania games that could cherry pick elements from half a dozen other genres and present themselves with a modern sheen to appeal to a broad spectrum of ages and skill levels. While it at times struggles to keep up with itself and there are elements of frustration here and there, the overall package is immensely playable and lovingly made.”

Or checkout the video review here:

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Now that the dust has settled on another year of big announcements, CGI trailers, nice surprises and not-so-nice disappointments, the internet has had its say on E3 2019. The verdict? Lacklustre, apparently.

Although I’m inclined to agree, at least as far as some of the biggest names go, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the hype and the fun of the whole show. It’s the same every year and you know what? I bloody love it. I love the build-up, as we all throw our hats into the ring, trying to predict what will be shown and when that big game will finally arrive. This year’s pre-show was even better, with several games announced before the conferences even got underway. We had Death Stranding’s release date arriving with that almighty, eight-minute-long trailer that still managed to give nothing away. We had the surprise of the Darksiders Genesis reveal, brought to us by some of the series’ original creators at Airship Syndicate. We even got the long-awaited news that the creator of the stunning Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian Studios, is making Baldur’s Gate 3! It might not be arriving anytime in the near future, but it’s still darned exciting.

When the show’s conferences began, or lack thereof in the case of this year’s EA Play, we finally got to see the gameplay for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which looks like it takes plenty of cues from The Force Unleashed, something I can certainly get behind. Yes, I’d still prefer a protagonist that wasn’t your usual human dude, but the post-Order 66 Star Wars era has so much potential and I hope Respawn does it justice. Those folks know what they’re doing when it comes to action games, so I’m quietly confident Fallen Order will deliver when it launches in November.

You know what else I love? The pre-Xbox chatter. Every year, before the Xbox, Nintendo and Sony (well, not them this year) shows, the social medias are buzzing with excitement for what the “big three” will announce. Yes okay, there are still an uncomfortably large number of people that still subscribe to the whole “console wars” thing, and love nothing more than to take shots at their perceived “enemies,” despite some of them declaring that they’re not fanboys of one particular console or another, but thankfully almost all of the people on my Twitter feed are decent folk who simply love games and want to be excited by them.

Deep down, I want to believe that most people enjoy the excitement and promise of what each first party might show, and I’m very rarely disappointed on that front. So when Xbox began announcing games left, right and centre, it was great to see the buzz online. Games like Minecraft Dungeons (still amazing to think that Microsoft is making multiplatform games) and Spiritfarer, both drawing “oohs” and “ahhs” like a circus performance; the almost unbearably delightful announcement of Forza Horizon 4’s LEGO DLC that had me grinning like a little kid, and last year’s acquisition, Ninja Theory, announcing its new PvP hero title Bleeding Edge. Okay, that one was leaked beforehand and honestly, it was disappointing to see a studio renowned for its storytelling moving away from that to pursue multiplayer stuff. Still, it’s always great to see Ninja Theory’s new games and it’s yet more proof that it’s a developer constantly pushing itself to try new things. You have to respect and admire that.

On a much more personal note, despite not really being an advocate for the next generation just yet, the Project Scarlett news and in particular that beautiful Halo: Infinite trailer and announcement that it would be a launch title for Microsoft’s next Xbox in Holiday 2020, really got me. The idea that I may get a new Xbox with a very shiny new Halo game (and probably a new Forza) was a sudden and surprisingly exciting prospect. I mean, that Halo trailer. Chills. Excuse me a moment while I go watch it again.

Of course, without Sony it was a strange E3, like something was missing. Still, Nintendo certainly didn’t skimp on the games and surprises, helping to fill the void of PlayStation’s absence. My Twitter feed was going crazy at the first appearance of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and rightly so. Tom Nook will once again own our asses in March 2020. I know we wanted it this year, but with a more invigorated team under less pressure, I think we can all appreciate what Nintendo is doing and we certainly know that we’re going to buy Animal Crossing on the Switch, regardless of when it arrives. It’s Animal Crossing, for goodness sake.

I love how Nintendo brings out the child in all of us, how we all made heart-eyes at the sight of that adorable Link’s Awakening Amiibo, and seeing Gooigi had us smiling until our cheeks hurt. The Duck Hunt dog’s appearance, before fan favourites Banjo-Kazooie pulled the old switcheroo, announcing their appearance in Smash Bros., was masterful. But in the same Nintendo Direct, CD Projekt RED’s phenomenal The Witcher 3 was revealed to be coming to Nintendo’s hybrid console, in a move that makes us all wonder just what (s)witchcraft is being performed to get it running on hardware that seems rather underpowered. What little we saw, however, made it look surprisingly good!

Speaking of CD Projekt RED, how about Keanu Reeves announcing Cyberpunk 2077’s release date, as well as his appearance in the game? A breathtaking move, you might say. Normally, celebrity appearances are a bit cringey to say the least, but Keanu’s recent re-emergence into the spotlight and his genuinely nice personality earned him the most memorable moment of the entire show. He had fun on Microsoft’s stage, the crowd loved it, and it brought a real warmth to the evening. That warmth continued, with Tango Gameworks’ Ikumi Nakamura capturing the hearts of everyone watching the otherwise dull Bethesda show, as she enthusiastically announced her new game Ghostwire Tokyo. Ubisoft got in on the action too, with Jon Bernthal bringing his dog Bam Bam onto the stage during his Ghost Recon: Breakpoint appearance. Bam Bam was a very good boy, upstaging the whole Ubisoft show.

Ubisoft was arguably one of the biggest disappointments of E3 2019, showing a bunch of brown shooters and CGI trailers, not to mention a strange mashup mobile game featuring Sam Fisher, which didn’t go down too well with Splinter Cell fans whose patience is wearing very thin at this point. I also have a huge problem with Rainbow Six: Quarantine, as it strays well away from Tom Clancy’s original vision. Yes, it’s an expansion of the limited-time event from Rainbow Six: Siege, but could have easily been made into a new IP instead of once again relying on the Tom Clancy name.

Still, in a bid to keep this positive, Ubisoft did start strong with its extended gameplay debut of the impressive-looking Watch_Dogs Legion, and ended with the tantalising tease of Gods and Monsters, the stylised new mythology-based game from the team that gave us Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I cannot wait to get more info on that.

This article wasn’t meant to be a look back at the show, but there were so many great games shown that I needed to talk about them a little bit. But that’s the point, isn’t it? We all talked about them, as we do every year. We get excited about the big AAA games like Halo, and we remain passionate about the games that disappoint us, sometimes by their absence (I’m looking at you, Ubisoft). We love the big surprises and some of the fun talking points like Keanu Reeves. We love publishers like Devolver Digital and their insane branding, all the while bringing genuinely brilliant-looking games into the spotlight, usually by small developers that deserve to be seen.

E3 is certainly going through some changes, with EA’s reduced appearance and Sony’s total absence this year, and 2019 especially felt a little like a transition as we wait for the concrete announcements of next generation consoles. That said, this year’s release schedule now looks a whole lot more enticing and the beginning of 2020 looks like it’s going to have a bigger Q1-2 than ever. Before the show, I was in a bit of a gaming funk, as we all go through now and again, unable to really find any interest in anything. I went back to older games, as new stuff didn’t bother me and while I looked forward to E3, I couldn’t see much beyond that for me to care about. Thankfully, while many saw E3 2019 as a disappointment, I still revelled in its bombast – and my faith in 2019’s games was restored.

No matter what others see in the show, it always manages to excite me. Which is exactly why I still love E3.

The post Opinion | Why I still love E3 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This year’s E3 has been an odd one, hasn’t it? The big conferences were a mixed bag, with Microsoft and Nintendo delivering a lot of fan favourites and just tonnes of games, but the likes of Bethesda and Ubisoft being big disappointments. In amongst it all, there were a few gems from smaller studios that may have got lost in the melee. A few of them came via the PC Gaming Show, which often gets a bit overlooked, so you may have missed them.

If you’ve been following our E3 2019 coverage, you’ll have seen some wonderful opinion pieces by the Chrises, Mick and some from the returning Calvin. I chose not to focus on the biggest games and publishers however, deciding instead to focus my energies on some of the smaller titles that debuted at this year’s show.

Here are six of those games…

Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy – by Ludomotion (PC)

Quite honestly, I suspect you’ve not heard of Unexplored. I hadn’t. But when the trailer ran during the PC Gaming Show, the sort of low-poly, cel shaded visual style and the top-down, pulled-back camera is something I really like (it was the first thing that drew me to that original Below reveal) and I was well into the look of Unexplored 2.

A roguelike adventure, with a Legacy system that will see the game changing for each adventurer. Like Rogue Legacy and Swords of Ditto, death in Unexplored 2 will see a new adventurer continuing the quest to destroy the Staff of Yendor. The decisions and actions of their predecessor however, will affect the world for the next adventurer. Killing hostile wildlife may allow a village to expand, or a conquering army may ravage areas and make the game harder in later playthroughs.

Okay, it has survival elements (why do games insist on adding these?) that may eventually turn me off the game, but right now I’m really intrigued by this. Definitely one to watch.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout – by Mediatonic (PS4, PC)

I used to love Takeshi’s Castle. The absolute insanity of its setting and the ridiculously entertaining games, not to mention the almost slapstick nature of the comic violence when someone slams into a wall or does the splits during the stepping stone game, with a misstep. I also love Devolver Digital, as the publisher seems to always bring incredibly fun games to us, while never being predictable.

Thus, Mediatonic’s Fall Guys does something that I’m surprised hasn’t really been done before, bringing the Takeshi’s Castle formula to us via the Battle Royale genre. Going through various stages, each reducing the player count further during mad games, and all using a physics-based system like Gang Beasts and Human Fall Flat, for maximum hilarity.

Fall Guys looks like it could be the colourful, non-shooter game that the Battle Royale genre sorely needs.

Circuit Superstars – by Original Fire Games (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Racing games are totally my thing. As you may recall from earlier in this article, so is the top-down perspective. Circuit Superstars, revealed during the PC Gaming Show, combines the two, bringing a surprisingly sim-like physics model along for the ride.

There will be motorsport disciplines from different ages, with classic and modern GT cars shown off in the trailer, complete with strategic pit stops, and I am incredibly excited by the prospect of Circuit Superstars. There may not be much known so far, but this one was easily one of the nicest surprises of the show.

Conan Chop Chop – by Mighty Kingdom (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Another nice surprise, especially after Funcom showed yet another strange take on the Conan universe in its RTS Conan Unconquered, was that its apparent April Fool’s joke, Conan Chop Chop, was actually real all along!

A one-to-four player action-adventure, Conan Chop Chop combines stick figures and roguelike elements to create a comically ultraviolent hack and slasher that looks extremely entertaining. Okay, so it’s not exactly in keeping with the licence, but it does look fun.

Chivalry II – by Torn Banner (PC)

The original Chivalry was ace. It was also criminally overlooked, especially as it brought something a little different to the competitive multiplayer arena. It wasn’t full of guns and killstreaks, or heroes and special abilities, instead it simply gave you a choice of classes and sent you out to hack your way to victory in pitched medieval battles.

Chivalry II, currently only slated for release on PC via the Epic Games Store, looks to turn up the intensity and scale, with the trailer showing off sieges and the newly-added horses. I’m incredibly excited to see Chivalry making its return, and I’ll be keeping my eye on its development. I just hope my PC can handle it, or that a console version is announced, though that’s unlikely.

Unless you all start buying and playing the original on PS4 and Xbox One…

Spiritfarer – by Thunder Lotus (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Alright, so you probably did see this one. It was unveiled during the Xbox briefing, after all. The latest from the studio that gave us Jotun and Sundered, Spiritfarer looks to eschew the difficulty of its other games in favour of something a little more sedate and emotional.

Spiritfarer does exactly what it says on the tin, as you ferry the dead into the afterlife. But you’ll also be able to explore the world, finding resources that will allow you build your ferry into a floating town, and meeting new faces and welcoming them aboard your vessel.

I like the idea of forging relationships with these characters, learning all about them, only to have to say goodbye to them when they pass into their next life. I like the idea of exploring a rich and vibrant world, building a community and following the stories within. Not sure I’m keen on being made to cry by cartoon animals (I still haven’t recovered from The Lion King), but I can’t help but be drawn to Thunder Lotus’ games.

This may have been a bit of a strange E3, but it’s also been incredibly exciting at times. We’ve had some huge announcements and the next year is now packed full of games, from big and small names alike, which can only be a good thing.

Were there any hidden gems that you’ve seen, that aren’t on this list? Let us know!

The post 6 games you may have missed at E3 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It was about 9 months ago, when I was covering the latest Nintendo Direct with Gary Bailey. When Isobel from Animal Crossing appeared on screen we both assumed the obvious: this was the long-awaited announcement of Animal Crossing on Switch, surely. So you can imagine our collective dismay when Isobel went on to announce her involvement in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We were both surprised, a bit angry and more than a little sheepish that we’d let ourselves jump aboard the hype train that so often ends up calling at the station of disappointment.

But, Nintendo – as is becoming abundantly clear – are wily old dogs when it comes to these announcements. It turned out that Isobel’s appearance wasn’t just to reveal her inclusion in Smash Ultimate, but was, as Gary and I had predicted, to reveal the new Animal Crossing title. A game incidentally that we now know is coming March 20, 2020 in the shape of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Cue the second feeling of sheepishness as we’d been fooled twice in two minutes.

Fast-forward to this year’s E3, and I reluctantly admit that it happened again, although in my defence, Nintendo have clearly upped their game. Thankfully I saw through the “Banjo-Kazooie in Smash” reveal misdirection (because fool me twice, shame on me after the King K. Rool reveal shenanigans). That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Jiggy hurtling across the screen was enough for me to give off an involuntary whelp of excitement. That and the satisfaction that I’d seen through their ruse this time around. No amount of Duck Hunt dancing was going to throw me off the scent.

Oh, how naïve I was. Nintendo always has the last laugh, it seems.

Nintendo’s holding pattern for Directs is to save a big reveal for the end, a crescendo, a final flourish, with the aim of keeping tongues wagging long after that final logo animation and click soundbite. So with updates on Animal Crossing and Luigi’s Mansion 3, my mind was racing as to what it could be. Would it be Bayonetta 3? Could it even be a first look at Metroid Prime 4? Would it be a new Star Fox or even an F-Zero title? (Yes, I know I’m probably the last one who wants it at this point, but a man can dream!)

Aa the camera panned out from some mystical green goo, it became apparent that this was looking incredibly similar to Breath of the Wild. And no sooner had I thought it, than two characters looking very much like Link and Zelda were there snooping around. The logical part of my brain assumed the obvious. “Oh, some meaty DLC content for Breath of the Wild?” I thought. My mind was awash with how clever this was given most people, despite spending maybe 100s of hours with the game, had probably bounced off it to other things, and this would bring them back. How this would satisfy those who were maybe bemoaning that the latest Zelda offering was a remake of a game that was over 25 years old. It looked a lot darker in tone as well, compared to the original (if you can call wholesale devastation “light”), so this felt like it would feel significantly different to what had come before.

In reality, it was all of these things and more. As the screen faded to black and simple text dropped a gaming bombshell, I was gobsmacked, completely blindsided by the words in front of me. Not DLC, but, crazily, a direct sequel to the best-selling game in the series. On that fact alone it’s not a ridiculous announcement, but a game on the scale of Breath of the Wild felt years away (and, in all likelihood, still is) hence why a reveal like this was so surprising.

The look of disbelief on my face became one of abject shock. It evolved from simple surprise at an announcement I most definitely wasn’t expecting to the growing realisation that I’d been tricked again. Nintendo had done me once more, by subverting my expectations, making me assume one thing only to reveal another. You’d think after all these years of following their Directs and E3 presentations that I’d be used to this by now, an expert at spotting the big twist. But I’m clearly not, and to be honest I’m glad of that. It keeps the magic alive, and is why I still tune into their Directs (particularly E3) with a sense of wonder. In that respect, Nintendo, please don’t ever change, keep us guessing always. That, and maybe a new F-Zero game OK?

The post Never try to second-guess Nintendo | E3 2019 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This weekend I got a chance to play Bandai Namco’s new action game Code Vein, thanks to the Technical Test. Essentially a beta, the test offered several hours of action and adventure through the Prologue and a bit of side content designed just for the beta. Initial impressions are very positive. While it will be compared to Dark Souls and Bloodborne by everyone and his gaping dragon (Ed: beg your pardon?!), it’s fair to say that the studio behind it – headed by Hiro Yoshimura, the director of God Eater – wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. Actually “wear” is too light a term: they all but roll up said sleeve and nail their influences to their bare arm with a ruddy great sword.

That being said, they’ve taken pains to ensure that Code Vein has its own identity and, while it undoubtedly borrows several core concepts from the FromSoft playbook, the world and characters feel interesting and fresh. Having spent a good 10 hours in the beta (4 of which were probably in the excellent character creator), there’s 6 reasons Code Vein well and truly has my attention now (none of which relate to the camera angle on the lady in white… because bloody hell, lads, it’s 2019).

1. It’s about Vampires killing monsters

The world of Code Vein is a dark one. The protagonist and most of the good (and bad) guys are Revenants. That is, they’re dead, and reanimated by a parasitic implant held in check by feeding it “Blood Beads” drawn from special springs. Without regular blood, Revenants become the Lost, essentially mindless killers.

Trapped in a dead city by an otherworldly barrier, the last vestiges of humanity must forage for sources of blood without wiping out what’s left of the actual humans. Beyond this we don’t know an awful lot. Characters in the chunk we played talk about the Queen, who was defeated long ago and whose death created the barrier. The militant force your character works for are known as the Queenslayers, but it appears that early on you’ll separate from the main force and forge your own path.

Being vampires means most of your special skills and spells are drawn from or utilise blood, which makes for a gory and macabre moveset. It’s all very cool and a little bit gross.

2. It’s Dark Souls meets God Eater

It’s a crossover of styles you probably weren’t aware you wanted, but the fusion of fast-paced, combo-based combat with parrying, dodging, and punishing difficulty spikes present a weirdly compelling mix. The world design takes cues from FromSoft, too, with routes opening up to make backtracking and re-treading easier, creating a world you’ll kind of instinctively “learn” to navigate better than your own living room in the dark. And, of course, there are “bonfires”.

By now a staple of the Soulslike genre, the eponymous bonfires are here replaced by Mistles, buds of a bizarre world-covering plant that must be awakened in order to bear Blood Beads, the macabre fruit that nourishes the Revenants. With the world of Code Vein stuck in a constant loop of death and rebirth, awakening a Mistle brings all the Lost in the area back to (un)life and allows your character a brief moment of respite.

As we’re becoming accustomed to in this genre, there’s a good chance much of the story will be open to interpretation. As I ran around walloping the zombie-like Lost with my giant axe, I kept picking things up with names that made little sense out of context. How much will be explained is yet to be seen, but I’d keep your wiki open while playing if I were you.

3. It has an accessible learning curve

The beta has a fairly comprehensive tutorial that introduces you to the three primary Blood Codes (or classes), Fighter, Ranger and Caster. The Fighter is fairly straightforward, dealing with direct damage, heavy armour, and massive two-handed weapons. Players of Bloodborne will be instantly at home here, whether wielding a sword, huge axe or a pike (the three weapons I found in the beta, along with a giant hammer which was really just a hunk of concrete on the end of an iron bar).

The Ranger is the agile class, combining quick strikes with a ranged attack and primarily using a bayonet. This is the class I struggled with the most, but it’s the one that may offer the most utility when mastered. And finally the Caster is the mage class, able to draw devastating offensive spells from blood. In all honestly, the Caster felt a little overpowered, but it will all come down to how the game handles resource management and cooldown, etc, to create balance.

A key takeaway is that Code Vein doesn’t feel like you’re thrown into the deep end. While that’s something many Soulslike fans look forward to, allowing you to find your feet with the slightly complex classes and skill design (and there is a lot to understand) isn’t a bad thing. Yes, the opening hour, at least in the beta, feels easier than other games in the genre, but there’s a lot to learn going in.

4. It’s a brand new IP

I won’t pretend that new properties are particularly rare, but I will say that every one feels somewhat refreshing as it sluices out on the rushing river of sequels and reboots. Although it bares similarities to God Eater and has an Anime aesthetic that could have been pulled directly from an existing show, Code Vein is brand new.

Developed by the team behind God Eater 3, it looks and feels somewhat familiar, but the environments are more detailed and the combat more considered. How well it’ll do as a fledgling property remains to the seen, but there’s no denying the minds behind it have solid pedigree.

5. The world is potentially massive

The beta barely scratched the surface, and in fact had elements in it made purely for testing purposes. But we saw a glimpse of the potential size of the world. Given that the opening area is a destroyed cityscape held at bay by the dead Queen’s forcefield (we still don’t know what she was Queen of, if she was human, or if she was related in even a passing way to Freddie Mercury), it seems likely that the story will see you traveling beyond the forcefield and into other such biomes in the ruined world.

I only make this assumption because one dilapidated city area is going to become a little stale after 10 or 12 hours, let alone 20 – 40, and there are elements of Code Vein that suggest longevity. For a start you collect materials which will likely be used for crafting at some point, which combined with the interesting take on classes and skills hints at greater depth. Also, the game’s to which it pays homage are hardly short affairs. I could be hella wrong, but I get the sense that Code Vein will be a behemoth of a game.

6. The character creator is next level

Judge me all you want, but I spent hours and hours in the Black Desert character creator. Before that, I lost chunks of time to Skyrim – hell, even Saints Row. Its an essential part of the RPG experience for me and many others, and Code Vein boasts an impressive avatar builder. It might say certain things about me that don’t bear analysis, but I get really itchy and uncomfortable if I stride out to face the forces of evil in pants that don’t match the shade of my warhammer.

I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of options for hair and features, the numerous default outfit options (all of which is altered further by equipped gear), and the accessories. The Accessory part is actually very interesting, as you’re given a set amount of points to spend and can then choose from a bevy of accessories including chokers, gloves, hair extensions, belt chains, arm bands, glasses, hats, scarves, backpacks and tattoos.

Yes, I know it’s all cosmetic and largely pointless, but it’s still cool. My hope is that these are unlockable in-game or unlocked from the beginning as they are in the Test version, and aren’t tied to microtransactions. It’s a possibility given the current climate, but we won’t know for sure until launch.

The post Code Vein Beta Impressions | 6 Reasons why Namco’s Vampiric Soulslike has our attention appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our guide to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales concludes below with Part Four.

TALL TALE #9: SHORES OF GOLD

To begin this Tall Tale you will need to head over to Morrow’s Peak outpost in Devil’s Roar and speak with Grace the only person (apparently) to have been to the the shores of gold. There are ten journals to find in this tale, luckily they are all located on one island called Tribute Peak, but you will have to get there first… All journals are written by Briggsy.

JOURNAL #1: I FORGOT TO STOP
This is located near the southern beach at the shipwreck of the sloop. You will need to head into the back end of the wreck and the journal is resting on the ground.

Tribute Peak Location 1

Tribute Peak – First Journal Location

The text reads:

Well this is embarrassing. I’m normally a dab hand behind the wheel, and I don’t make a habit of wrecking my ship halfway up the beach. Still, what matters is that I made it here. Another first for Captain Briggsy! I should plant a flag, but all I have is these journals. I’m kind of disappointed that the shores aren’t really made of gold, but at least I won’t go blind once the sun comes up. The Shroud doesn’t seem to cover the island, just… wrap around it, I guess. That means it’s safe to explore, and exploring I shall go!

JOURNAL #2: LET’S NOT MENTION THIS
Tribute Peak is an enormous island. To locate this second journal you will need to head up the central path that leads towards the “compass” room. As you climb higher, and before the bridge you will see a ship mast with a tattered sail wedged between the rocks high above, just before this on the left is a stack of crates and the journal is resting between them.

Tribute Peak Location 2

Tribute Peak – Second Journal Location

The text reads:

Bah! Looks like I’m not the first to make it here after all. This stuff doesn’t look ancient, just old, and I’m sure it was made by pirates. I guess the island slips out of the Devil’s Shroud from time to time, and that’s when others came? Maybe even Ramsey got here in the end. Well, no point in sulking. I’m here now, and I bet I can find something they missed. A memento, to help remember this place. And when I tell this story, maybe I’ll conveniently forget to mention this little discovery. We’ll make it our secret, okay?

JOURNAL #3: DREAMS
Once you reach the compass room, go to your right and you will find the journal there inside a crate.

Tribute Peak 3

Tribute Peak – Third Journal Location

The text reads:

It’s still night, but I just woke up sweating. My first really bad dream in years. Maybe if I write it out, I can sleep. I was back in the tavern at Golden Sands, on the night Ramsey called parley. Trying to open on of those sealed chests. I couldn’t pick the lock. Couldn’t force it. Then suddenly, there’s the key in my hand. I smirk and throw open the lid… Nothing there. Seriously. Nothing, like looking into a chasm. A bottomless pit in a box. And suddenly, I feel hands on my back, shoving me! I think it’s one of Ramsey’s men, and now I’m inside the chest, falling – screaming out as the lid snaps shut overhead… Then I woke up. Ugh.

JOURNAL #4: NO SHORTCUTS!
On the western side of the island you will find a passageway lined with huge statues. Off to the left of those statues is a temple-like area with a number of switches you can stand on. There are some steps leading down into the ground blocked off by a cave in. The journal is located at the bottom of those steps.

Tribute Peak 4

Tribute Peak – Fourth Journal Location

The text reads:

This is a weird place. It looks like someone used powder kegs to blow their way down into whatever lies below this island. Maybe they managed it somehow, maybe not. Either way, the tunnel they left behind collapsed a long time ago. There has to be another way down. Ancient civilisations love putting secret passages in stuff. It’s a well-known fact! Ask anyone. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get down there. I want to see every last inch of this place before I leave!

JOURNAL #5: CLIMBING MASTERCLASS
This one is difficult to find as it is located on the arm of one of the statues and you will need to use a cannon to fire yourself onto it. The correct statue is the second one in on the right if you are looking towards the compass room, or the third one up on the left if you are working your way back from the entrance to the tomb.

Tribute Peak 5

Tribute Peak – Fifth Journal Location

The text reads:

You know how some people are good climbers? Well, I am a GREAT climber. That’s why I left this book up here, as proof. Well… I say “climb”. I actually used a cannon from the wreck of my sloop. But if you’re reading this, you must’ve had the same idea. This place has some amazing views, and I want to see them all! I do wish I had someone to talk to though… I hope you’re okay out there, Sudds.

The next five journals are all located inside the tomb once you have solved the various riddles to open it.

JOURNAL #6: WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Once you open the Gold Hoarder door with the coin you will see some crates on your left. The journal is inside one of those.

Tribute Peak 6

Tribute Peak – Sixth Journal Location

The text reads:

I am very much creeped out right now, not that I’d ever admit it to anyone. I finally made it on top of the throne and inside. I hadn’t gone far before I spotted a chest. One of the sealed ones people sometimes sell to the Gold Hoarders, but… open. It looked just like the one from my dream. Like, exactly the same. It sounds stupid but I didn’t dare go near it in case I fell in. As if I needed more clues, I spotted the Gold Hoarder emblem on a door, too. So. They’ve been here before. But why?

JOURNAL #7: WHERE THE GOLD GOES 
You will need to make your way down the stairwell. At the bottom you will see a mermaid statue, follow the right hand side round and the journal is resting on a rock near some glowing mushrooms

Tribute Peak 7

Tribute Peak – Seventh Journal Location

The text reads:

I don’t like Trading Companies. There were none when I first came to the Sea of Thieves, young and cocky as I was. I don’t blame people for working with the Gold Hoarders though. If you’ve found a chest you can’t open, why NOT take it to them? Well… Maybe because we should have been asking ourselves what they do with the treasure afterwards, when we’ve walked away. I think it comes here. I think it ALL comes here. That’s why this place is called Shores of Gold.

JOURNAL #8: I ONLY WANTED ONE
You will need to get past the balance beam section of the tomb, and before you move onto the next area check the crates on the left hand side.

Tribute Peak – Eighth Journal Location

The text reads:

I’ve made a huge mistake. I only wanted a little thing. Just a keepsake, something to prove I’ve been here. Just one little trinket from a treasure pile. I don’t feel sick, or cursed. I feel great! And that’s bad, because I haven’t slept or eaten in days. There’s a different kind of feeling inside me now, though. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. But I know it’s getting stronger.

JOURNAL #9: ANSWERS
One of the trap rooms has a number of spikes in it as well as three levers. The ninth journal is in this room resting between some rubble on a wooden platform. You will need to use one of the torches to climb up there.

Tribute Peak 9

Tribute Peak – Ninth Journal Location

The text reads:

He was waiting for me, just as I expected. I thought he’d attack, but he seemed to understand. He says I can’t go back. I’ll be an outcast. A target. I know he’s right. If I agree to serve, he’ll share a cure one day. He’s probably lying. But what choice do I have? Briggsy died on this island, and I’m all that’s left.

JOURNAL #10: A LAST ACT OF FREE WILL
From the previous trap room head up the path and you will find a raised platform on the right hand side. The journal is resting on a crate up there.

Tribute Peak 10

Tribute Peak – Tenth Journal Location

The text reads:

I was commanded to destroy the relic. He doesn’t want pirates reaching here unexpectedly, when he might be sleeping. I have disobeyed. If there really is a cure for… what I am, now… I might need the Shroudbreaker to find it. One day. Instead, I’ll hide the gems that seem to focus it’s power. I know plenty of old places to keep them safe from fleshy fingers. The Shroudbreaker can go back to sleep in its vault to recharge. And I’ll start gathering treasures for him, as ordered. I’ll be a slave. I’ll be a villain. I’ll be a monster. At least now I know what the feeling inside of me is. Shame.

Part One: The Shroudbreaker and The Cursed Rogue

Part Two: The Legendary Storyteller and Stars of a Thief

Part Three: Wild Rose and The Art of the Trickster

Part Four: Fate of the Morningstar and Revenge of the Morningstar

The post Sea of Thieves Tall Tales Journal Locations Guide: Part Five appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our guide to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales continues below with Part Three.

Part One: The Shroudbreaker and The Cursed Rogue

Part Two: The Legendary Storyteller and Stars of a Thief

TALL TALE #5: WILD ROSE

This tale is picked up from Madame Olive, the representative for the Order of Souls based at Sanctuary Outpost. These are the journals of the young lovers that Madame Olive has asked you to locate.

JOURNAL #1: I WANT TO FIGHT! BY ROSE
This first journal is located on Rapier Cay next to some barrels in the middle of the island.

Rapier Cay

Rapier Cay – Journal Location

The text reads:

She was following us again all day. I could see her sails on the horizon. Just out of reach of the cannons. COWARD. I knew I wanted this life. Ever since I fell from my parents’ sloop as a nipper and got saved by Captain Briggsy herself! She looked me up and down and said I was going to be the sort of pirate who never let danger scare her away. And thanks to her I never have. But they all say it’s still too dangerous to take on Rooke. I guess to keep George happy I will just keep writing my feelings down instead of wasting all our ammo. Ugh. I wish things were simple again like they were back at Cannon Cove...

JOURNAL #2: HE WILL GET HIMSELF KILLED! BY ROSE
This second journal can be found on Cannon Cove under a barrel next to the campfire in the small bay of the island.

Cannon Cove

Cannon Cove – Journal Location

The text reads:

So we’re at Cannon Cove and there’s just gold sat there like a big dumb trap for idiots. Guess who runs rights up to it and gets jumped by an enemy crew lying in wait? YUP! I had to fight all four of them myself. Lucky I had Georges sword and mine also. I was angry though so it was an easy fight. He never realised it was him I was mad at. Let’s see if we can make it to Lone Cove without me strangling him. I say it’s 50 – 50.

JOURNAL #3: I THINK I LOVE HER, BY GEORGE
You’ll find this journal at Lone Cove on the eastern side of the large rock in the middle of the island.

Lone Cove

Lone Cove – Journal Location

The text reads:

We have stopped to rest on our way to the Lagoon of Whispers, but the only whisper I can hear is echoes of the question. Asked so plainly, the shock of it has completely dulled my senses, and I’m still no closer to the answer. It’s like that game where children pull petals off flowers one at a time. She loves me, she loves me not. Although it’s more like… I love her, I love her not, I love her… I love her… I… Oh dear.

JOURNAL #4: A KISS AND A MISS, BY GEORGE
Head to the Lagoon of Whispers on the eastern side of the island to find this journal sitting on a barrel.

Lagoon of Whispers

Lagoon of Whispers – Journal Location

The text reads:

Only the Captain’s Cabin affords any measure of privacy on a galleon such as ours. I knew that if I were to act, it would have to be while we returned aboard our rowboat. I leaned closer. Rose tilted her head, quizzically. With my heart in my mouth, I moved nearer still… My oar struck a sandbar just then. We touched! Or rather, collided. Rose’s forehead; my (now rather bloody) nose. I am dismayed, but not defeated. Once Quickshot is returned to the soil and we reach Sailor’s Bounty, I shall try my luck again…

JOURNAL #5: HE PROPOSED! BY ROSE
The final journal for this Tall Tale can be found on one of the small Northern islands that make up Sailor’s Bounty. It is next to a pile of barrels.

Sailor’s Bounty

Sailor’s Bounty – Journal Location

The text reads:

Today has been one of the best day of my life and one of the funniest too. My sides still hurt! George had been thinking (too much) about how to propose to me. Where to take me and how to stand and what to say. Too bad he forgot to look where he was walking! He turned and said “Rose will you marry aaargh!” He fell into a tree and got stuck upside-down swinging all day! Until we chopped it down anyway. Ha ha ha! Laughing again. But of course I said yes anyway. As if I could refuse my George after all of that!

TALL TALE #6: THE ART OF THE TRICKSTER

To pick up this tale you will have to locate Salty, the skeletal parrot from the Cursed Sails expansion. He is no longer located in the secret workshop on Wanderer’s Refuge, instead you will need to head to Plunder Valley and you will find him there near the wrecked ship next to a campfire on the eastern side of the island. These journals are all about the Trap maker.

JOURNAL #1: THE PERFECT TRAP
This journal is on Plunder Valley in the cavern. You can find it resting on the central rock inside the cave.

Plunder Valley

Plunder Valley – Journal Location

The text reads:

Even while being forced to work against my will – and don’t think I don’t know which bird-brain is responsible – I still have my pride. As the greatest Trapmaker the Sea of Thieves has ever seen, I must devise something brilliant to protect an equally brilliant treasure. How, then, shall I prove the effectiveness of my creation? Why, by using a few greedy, grog-addled gold-diggers as guinea-pigs! I shall begin my experiments upon Discovery Ridge. A few barrels packed with gewgaws should entice pirates into my game…

JOURNAL #2: BAIT & SWITCH
As the journal on Plunder Valley suggests, you will need to head to Discovery Ridge. The Journal is located up high on the north western side of the canyon resting on a barrel near the one of the Trapmaker’s white marks.

Discovery Ridge

Discovery Ridge – Journal Location

The text reads:

My first test relied on the curiosity of the participant. First, I primed the location with some supplies that might attract a passer-by. Next, a simple wooden lever was placed by the barrels. When utilised, it would strike a flint and so ignite a hidden powder-keg. I had rather assumed natural whimsy would see the lever pulled once spotted, and tucked myself away to observe what came next. The first pirate to arrive promptly wrenched my lever from its housing and absconded with it. “Nice hat stand”, I heard him remark. Subterfuge bests psychology when dealing with such avaricious crooks. I shall return to my workshop, and to the drawing board…

JOURNAL #3: MAKING MY POINT
The last three journals are all located in the Trapmaker’s workshop, which can be found on Sailor’s Bounty. The first of the three is resting underneath the workshop desk.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Sailor’s Bounty

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #1

The text reads:

Recently, I’ve been testing different kinds of blades to see which are the most useful for ‘deterring’ intruders. I’ve had some success with sword traps, as they look fearsome and have an excellent range. They’re expensive to make, of course. Saw traps use shorter, duller metal blades, and are definitely useful in confined spaces. Still, they lack a certain style… Or should I go back to the tried-and-tested “wall o’ stakes”? Though primitive, you can’t argue with the classics. Decisions, decisions…

JOURNAL #4: WE WANT PLATES
The next Journal on the list can be found next to the Anvil in the workshop.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #2

The text reads:

Some experimentation with weight and counterweights have allowed me to devise a new trigger, as well as protection for my workshop. Even working with wood, for metal is precious and in short supply, I can use the weight of any intruder to spring a nearby trap. As sensitive as these devices are, it is nearly impossible to disguise them entirely. Thus, they are best deployed in darker areas. Unfortunately, I have been unable to completely muffle the noise made by the mechanism when someone blunders onto it. A cunning criminal with sharp ears might, I suppose, get enough warning to save their own skin. Regardless, I am making progress…

JOURNAL #5: A WORTHY OPPONENT
The final journal for this Tall Tale can be found lying underneath the Trapmaker’s bed.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #3

The text reads:

The more time I spend with Briggsy, the more I wonder if all pirates are ultimately fated to be consumed by their own greed. Is the endless pursuit of gold and glitter, in and of itself, the greatest trap of all? As an experiment, I have decided to leave a trail that will lead to the very treasure I have been commanded to protect. They’ll be devious clues, of course. Ones that goad, deliberately mislead and test the mettle of those who read them. One last game, then, winner takes all. Is there someone out there on the Sea of Thieves worthy of the stone? We shall see…

The post Sea of Thieves Tall Tales Journal Locations Guide: Part Three appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Let’s face it, you generally know what you’re getting into before you even boot up a From Software game. It’s going to be punishingly hard, it’s going to be semi-roguelike, you’re going to die a lot and you’re going to swear so much you’ll invent new cuss words without even trying.

It’s such a masochistically popular sub-genre that it’s no wonder many other developers have tried to ape the core mechanics in an attempt to get a slice of that rage-inducing pie. But determining which are worth your time and money, and which are just pretenders is tricky, so we’ve rounded up 5 of the best examples available today.

5: IMMORTAL UNCHAINED
Toadman Interactive | 2018

Developed by indie studio Toadman Interactive, Immortal Unchained is a far-future sci-fi that attempted to subvert our expectations of a Souls game by adding guns to the mix.

Despite some technical difficulties and the challenge of working with a low budget, Toadman have done a decent job here, managing to inject some real atmosphere – as well as a few cool ideas.

Sadly, its challenge comes as much from iffy balancing as from design, resulting in a slightly uneven experience. Still, Toadman’s recent updates, as well its overall likeability, mean it’s worth picking up if you’re a fan of the genre. Besides, who doesn’t want to run around like a ‘roided-up techno-freak for a few hours?

4: THE SURGE
Deck 13 | Focus Home Interactive | 2017

The Surge is a game about a bunch of really angry robots getting upset about essentially being slaves to squishy humies, and going uniformally nuts. As a result, it’s probably the most grounded game on the list, if you ignore the endlessly respawning enemies and homemade mech suits, that is.

While it’s easy to doubt the efficacy of a human smashing robots to death with bits of scavenged iron and steel, The Surge is actually a pretty polished experience – barring a few rare bugs that will kill your progress completely, if course.

As sci-fi action games go, it’s certainly an enjoyable enough romp; it just doesn’t quite capture the magic of the titles it’s aiming to replicate.

3: LORDS OF THE FALLEN
Deck 13 | City Interactive | 2014

City Interactive was one of the first studios brave enough to attempt to dip their toes in From’s pool, as it were, with Lords of the Fallen, a pitch-dark fantasy about Harkyn, a man with all of his crimes tattooed on his burly body as a reminder of his tragic quest for redemption.

He’s a miserable bastard for sure, but also pretty handy, as you can spec him in three very different skills that genuinely make you play differently. Although too short and not as clever or nuanced as From’s games, Lords did come close to the crown for a little while.

Minor gameplay tweaks like being able to “bank” your XP, so you keep it on death but earn less as a result switched up the dynamic just a little, and God, some of it looked really nice.

2: SALT & SANCTUARY
Ska Studios | 2016

Being a 2D action platformer reminiscent of something like Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, Ska Studios indie darling had everyone fooled – until its release, when we all realised just how Souls-like it really is.

Shipwrecked on a mysterious island and shit out of luck, your protagonist must make their way through the shadowed under-belly and across the monster-haunted surface, braving dark forests, deep catacombs and trap filled dungeons in an effort to, well, survive.

But it became apparent in mere moments that Salt & Sanctuary is every inch a Souls-like, even down to the respawning enemies, dropping XP and currency on death, and the timing-based combat. It was one of the best games available for the PlayStation Vita, may it rest in peace, and the perfect example of an indie studio playing to its strengths.

1: NIOH
Team Ninja | Sony/Tecmo Koei | 2017

Doing “Dark Souls in Japan” before Sekiro was an itch in From’s jockstrap, Nioh remains the best available Soulslike not actually developed by the progenitors.

The story of Westerner William lost in the shadows of an ancient, horror-story version of Japan, Nioh features copious amounts of Oni, lots of supernatural goings – on, spirit animals and, of course, that old familiar death mechanic.

If you’re a fan of the genre at all, you really should have played Nioh – it’s worth checking out for its incredible combat, often bonkers art design, and undeniably confident swagger.

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Believe it or not, Halo has been in our lives for seventeen years. Seventeen. I remember when I bought my first Xbox, or rather our first Xbox, as my brother and I paid half each because we wanted the new Championship Manager game. Part of me simply refused to buy Halo, because it was the only game Xbox owners would talk about, and I was a stubborn idiot. Well, more so than I am now.

Obviously, something changed.

I managed to borrow a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved, to see what all the fuss was about. Within 24 hours I had bought my own copy, because that stubborn idiot was wrong and ended up falling in love with the Master Chief and his wisecracking sidekick, Cortana. The visuals were astonishingly good at the time, showing off the power of Microsoft’s first home console, and the gameplay was light years ahead of anything else in the FPS market.

But there was something about the story of Halo, the depth of the lore surrounding it, that made the game more than “just another shooter.” Who/what were the Covenant, and why were they chasing down the Pillar of Autumn? What were the Spartans, and why did everyone stare and comment when they saw one? These were just some of the things I thought about, and that was before the Flood were introduced into the story and the true nature of the Halo became known.

Of course, as I said above, I just loved the interplay between the Chief and Cortana. From the moment she’s inserted into his suit and comments on how its architecture is similar to the Pillar of Autumn’s controls, you could tell there was already a bit of a “buddy movie” vibe to their relationship. Of course, there was an arguably romantic undercurrent to it too, which I never really subscribed to, and that only built over the course of the series. However you view these two characters, there is no denying the iconic status that they have earned, both in gaming and in pop culture as a whole.

That iconic status extended to the game itself too, and was cemented by that moment at E3 2004, when Peter Moore revealed Halo 2’s release date with a tattoo on his arm. Yep, that was the sort of daft publicity stunt that was around back then.

Before that, back at E3 2002, came a trailer that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. In around two minutes, Microsoft showed the briefest glimpse of Halo’s first sequel, and captured the imagination of so many people. Master Chief getting ready for battle, overlaid with radio transmissions and Cortana’s reassurance that reinforcements were on the way, with Master Chief looking out of a hangar bay window, over a wartorn Earth.

“What if you miss?” Cortana asks.

“I won’t,” Master Chief assures her, pulling the lever to open the hangar bay doors, before diving out into space.

As if that wasn’t enough, Martin O’Donnell’s iconic (there’s that word again) Halo theme kicked in as the Chief descended towards a Covenant ship, still in orbit.

Halo 2’s reception was huge for Microsoft, sealing the flagship series’ place in gaming history, especially as it brought with it the birth of Xbox Live. For those of you too young to remember the days before online gaming, Halo 2 was essentially the game that started it all on console. Halo: Combat Evolved was spectacular fun in splitscreen with friends, but Halo 2 brought players together from around the world, building on that brilliant (and often hilarious) experience.

Quite simply, without Halo, online console gaming would not exist as it does today. Xbox Live is arguably still the pinnacle of online services for console, but it really exploded onto the scene proper in 2005, when the Xbox 360 arrived. Unfortunately, there was no Halo to launch with the new console, though Halo 3 was announced a year later and its “believe” slogan became an internet sensation. When the game arrived in 2007, it was a massive hit, with more than one million online players in the first day. That may not seem like much now, with the huge numbers of players heading online after midnight launches and whatnot, but in 2007 it was a huge deal.

But what about that story – was it still as interesting and important after three games? You bet it was. While it’s true that Halo 2’s ending was abrupt and divisive, also making the wait for Halo 3 unbearable, I think most were happy with how the trilogy was wrapped up in its final chapter. The threads of the previous stories intertwined beautifully, with the Elites, Flood and UNSC forces all battling to save/destroy not only Earth, but the entire universe. The stakes were raised, as was the quality of the storytelling and cutscenes, but the gameplay remained as smooth and tactical as ever.

That’s not to say that Bungie rested on its laurels. Far from it, in fact. To this day, Halo 3 is remembered by many as the best in the series, thanks to some incredible level design and perfectly balanced gameplay. This was especially evident in the “Cortana” chapter, though I won’t spoil anything, for those that haven’t yet played the game.

After Halo 3, the series went in a different direction for a little while. It looked back, telling stories from the past. It also moved into a new genre with the RTS Halo Wars, telling a new story set 20 years prior to Combat Evolved, introducing a whole new cast of characters from a brand new UNSC ship, the Spirit of Fire.

Back in FPS land however, Halo 3: ODST told the story of an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) squad and was set during the events of Halo 2, on the Covenant-occupied Earth. It also introduced Buck, played by Nathan Fillion (alongside his fellow Firefly actors Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk, as well as Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer), who would return as a major character in Halo 5: Guardians.

Personally, I loved ODST. After the big, bombastic stories of the main games, the story of the Rookie and his ODST unit was a smaller, more human tale. Not that it didn’t include some big battles, it just wasn’t the sprawling action blockbuster of the numbered entries, and that’s what gave the game its unique feel. It also introduced Firefight, a multiplayer horde mode that could be played with up to three other players online. I had some good times on there.

Perhaps my biggest foray into Halo’s online modes came in the next spin-off, Halo: Reach. Myself and a few friends had ridiculous fun playing Grifball, especially. But the multiplayer isn’t why Reach is remembered so fondly, or why it was so celebrated when Xbox recently announced it was in development for the Master Chief Collection. Halo: Reach was Bungie’s swansong before moving away from Microsoft to develop Destiny, and its quality is testament to a team that wanted to end on the highest note possible.

Halo: Reach was based on the tie-in novel The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund, and told the story of the events leading up to Halo: Combat Evolved. The Covenant have wiped out most of humanity’s colonies, with Reach the next one in line, and a team of Spartans are sent to investigate a communications relay that has gone offline. This team, designated “Noble”, discovers the first wave of Covenant to land on Reach.

What made Halo: Reach’s storyline so powerful was that you knew from the very beginning what would happen. It’s right there in the opening scene, yet somehow you fight on, thinking that maybe you can change the course of history somehow. And man, that post-credits section was a real punch in the gut, and one of the absolute best moments in the Halo series.

Alas, what followed was arguably the most divisive moment in the series. After Bungie left, there was no way Microsoft would let its flagship title die, and so 343 Industries was born. Soon after, Halo 4 was announced as the beginning of a new trilogy, telling the story of the Forerunners, a race of godlike beings that have been around since before humanity existed. Now, I love Halo 4 and will fight to the hilt of an Energy Sword to defend it, but it was, let’s just say, poorly-received by many. Let’s just leave it at that.

Halo 4 has its issues with its new enemies the Prometheans, and their weaponry being a little too similar to the UNSC armaments, but ultimately it offers another evolution of the core gameplay that has been the backbone of the whole series. The thing I love about it, as with almost every instalment in the series, is its story. Halo 4 is as much about Master Chief and Cortana, as it is about the Prometheans and their leader, the Didact. I would argue that Halo 4’s story is perhaps the best in the entire series, rivalling Reach for its emotional impact.

Which leads me to why I was so disappointed when Halo 5: Guardians arrived. The first original outing on Xbox One, there’s no getting around how gorgeous it was. Still is, actually. However, its gameplay, despite the addition of squads, felt a little too by-the-numbers and its story completely undid all the good work 343i did in Halo 4. Cortana’s role as a villain, the endless battles with the caretaker, and being forced to play as a character nobody really cared about in Spartan Locke; I just couldn’t work out why 343i would make such strange choices with a franchise that I loved. Why they would make such huge mistakes.

Still, my faith in Halo was restored not by 343i, but by Creative Assembly. In a move that I certainly didn’t see coming, Xbox decided to commision a sequel to Halo Wars, and in doing so managed to tell a story that truly felt like vintage Halo. Halo Wars 2 picks up 28 years after the Spirit of Fire was left drifting in uncharted space, as the crew awakens from cryosleep near the Ark, a Forerunner installation capable of building Halo rings. What follows is not only a cracking game that I thoroughly recommend playing (it’s on Game Pass, just FYI), but also an introduction to one of Halo’s greatest villains, Atriox. And honestly, it features one of my favourite cutscenes in all of gaming, thanks in part to the beautiful work done by Blur Studio, famous for its work on other Halo CG scenes, most notably in Halo 2: Anniversary.

Halo Wars 2 also takes place after Halo 5: Guardians, but ties into that underwhelming sequel’s storyline nicely, leaving me with some hope going into the next chapter of the Halo series.

To that end, we arrive at E3 2018 and the Xbox briefing. I wanted Halo to be there but wasn’t expecting anything really. To my surprise, despite my disappointment in Halo 5, the sight of Master Chief and the sound of that distinctive Halo music got my heart racing. I found myself smiling, my eyes misty as only happiness and excitement can cause, and I found myself with that feeling that almost abandoned me: hope. Hope that Halo would once again be one of the best games out there, with a story that would pull at my heartstrings and fill me with joy.

There is no doubting that Xbox has struggled with its exclusives over the past couple of years, though it obviously isn’t without some top notch ones like the evolving Sea of Thieves and the magnificent Forza Horizon series, and I think now is the perfect time for Halo to return to form. After it was announced by Bonnie Ross that Halo Infinite will be at E3 2019, I find myself in a quietly optimistic state, though I also find myself wondering if it will actually arrive on the current Xbox, or whether it will be a launch title for whatever Xbox has up its sleeve for the next generation of consoles.

Either way, I hope that 343 Industries has learned from its mistakes with Halo 5. I hope that Halo Infinite follows in the footsteps of Halo Wars 2, creating a compelling story with great characters, and possibly bringing the Spirit of Fire and Atriox’s Banished along for the ride. I hope that Master Chief is returned to his former glory, and that Cortana’s good name is restored along with our Spartan hero.

I hope.

But more than that, as Halo 3 once put it…

I believe.

The post Halo: Then and Now appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Those of you who never played The Division, or those of you who played for the first few months and never went back for whatever reason, may well find the post-pandemic world carved out by Ubisoft and the late, great Tom Clancy somewhat daunting. While the core loop doesn’t differ that much from other shooter-looters, the outer framework is a mix of familiar Ubisoft tropes and a handful of fairly unique elements.

As you guide your rough-and-tumble Agent through the horrors of a war-torn Washington DC, you might find it difficult to fully get to grips with it all. Luckily, we’ve got your back. Here’s a bunch of useful tips to help you through the early hours.

TL;DR – check out the video version below:

1: ALWAYS BE IN COVER

You’ll be shot at a lot in The Division 2, from all directions and various elevations, and standing out in the open like a suicidal traffic cone is going to get you filled up with holes super quick. Hitting the cover button (defaulted to A on Xbox, Cross on PS4, and spacebar on PC) will cause your agent to throw themselves at the nearest wall, sign, car, or couch, available. From here you can either blind fire, which is about as effective as grabbing a handful of bullets and just throwing them at the enemy, or pop up like a pissed off mole who’s mad as hell at being whacked on the head, and isn’t going to take it anymore.

What you may not realise immediately, though, is that you can also move in and between cover for the entire duration of a fight. Holding down the cover button while eyeing up a vantage point will allow you to roadie run from wall to wall. You can even go into the control settings and adjust them so that holding the cover button will let you stealthily and safely navigate corners. Whenever you’re engaged with the enemy, always be in cover.

2: BE SELF-SUFFICIENT

It’s easy to say that The Division 2 is meant to be played in a group, and honestly it’s not far from the truth. The multiplayer element is beautifully seamless and often makes the tougher challenges that much more fun.

But there’s something about heading out alone into the wilds of DC that feels unassailably cool, and there are almost certainly going to be times when you’re the last Agent standing, and you’ll need to hightail it around the battlefield applying plasters and Savlon to your incapacitated team mates. For this reason I’d recommend having at least one Skill that can summon a little automated buddy to watch your back or harry the enemy.

The Drone and Turret not only work well to pull focus off you or the people you’re trying to save, they’ll also make you more self-sufficient. The Drone even has a variant that will shield you from projectiles. Couple this with perks that increase your Armour Kit and grenade capacity, and you’ll be a solo force to be reckoned with.

3: BUT HAVE A CO-OP BUILD, TOO

There are a couple of really good Support skills in The Division 2. The Drone can be modified to repair ally armour, which is good, but if you’re the type that usually prefers to help and heal your squad, you’ll find a few skills that really make a difference.

The Chem Launcher, for instance, is a great device that not only creates poison clouds and little patches of fiery hell for the enemy, but can also repair armour and health on distant allies. Another good one is the Hive, which is fun when you use it to unleash a cloud of little metal bees on a group of thugs, but can also be used to repair armour with a tiny swarm of nanobots.

4: TARGET ENEMY WEAK-SPOTS

In The Division, armoured enemies were bullet-sponge nightmares that you had to just shoot endlessly until they finally stopped walking towards you. To remedy this, the yellow-barred enemies in The Division 2 have armoured spots and other points of interest that you can concentrate fire on instead.

Helmets and body armour are obvious targets, but some have gas tanks or explosives on them, while enemy medics carry defibrillators that you can shoot to electrocute them. You can even shoot the ammo feed off a minigun to force a reload, buying you some time and opening up the enemy to a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin’.

5: PUT YOUR TOYS AWAY

While your drones and turrets and nano-hives are all incredibly high-tech and cool, they do have hefty cooldowns attached. In a group that’s not so bad, since everyone has two to use, and a well-coordinated team can stagger or combine their abilities for maximum effect.

But when you’re running solo and in the thick of battle, a 3-minute cooldown feels like hours. The only real way to mitigate this is to hold down the ability button as soon as you’ve cleared a wave of enemies, before the ability ends on its own, and cancel it out. This will cut the cooldown in half and allow you to use it again much quicker. In a mission with several enemy waves or, for example, during a Control Point capture, this is a vital advantage.

6: CANCEL ANIMATIONS BY DODGE ROLLING

Speaking of cancelling things, you can also cut out of long reload animations by dodge rolling. Weapons like marksman rifles, shotguns and LMGs can take an ice age to reload, and if you find yourself flanked or taking heavy damage, double tap the cover button and roll out of the animation.

This also works to put out fire, which should probably be a top priority really.

7: UNLOCK FAST TRAVEL POINTS

As scenic as The Division 2’s post-apocalyptic Washington DC is, y’know, when you’re not stepping over bodybags and piking your way through the decaying bones of modern society, walking everywhere is time-consuming and bloody dangerous. You can barely go 50 yards without something kicking off and spoiling your day.

Circumvent those mood-killing, bullet-ravaged jaunts by making Safe Houses and Control Points a priority. Ubisoft have been very generous with travel points, so unlock them and use them. There’ll still be plenty to do when you get there.

8: LOOT EVERYTHING

This is kind of par for the course, but it’s easy to get caught up in the drama and action of Ubisoft’s world and forget that you should be exploring every nook and cranny. While enemies are an immediate and satisfying source of loot, there are containers, cases, boxes and bags stashed everywhere that contain all manner of useful goodies.

I found that after about level 10, vanity items seemed to become more commonplace, although I almost always found them in luggage containers while ransacking apartment buildings. But you’ll also find crafting materials, supplies for your settlements, weapons, gear and collectibles abandoned in crates, satchels and lock-boxes. And if you happen to see a gold-coloured key drop from an enemy, grab it, as it will open a faction-specific lock-box somewhere nearby. You’ll also occasionally come across orange supply crates here and there, usually hanging from trees or rooftops, which can be shot open for powerful loot and, if you’re lucky, gear dye.

9: ASK FOR HELP

In the harsh world of The Division 2, pride must goeth before the fall. While the incredible atmosphere has an uncanny ability to make you want to strike out on your own, a lone wolf against the darkness, doing so is usually a bit daft. Solo agents can be easily overwhelmed and flanked, and while getting a good flanking sounds like something fun to do on a Friday night, in practice it really isn’t.

When tackling control points you can pop a flare to signal nearby AI patrols who’ll rush to your aid and soak up some bullets in your stead, or alternatively you can head into your map and send a distress signal to any players currently online, in the hopes that they’ll rock up and save your overconfident arse. There’s no shame in asking for help, and coop in this game is so well-handled that it’s worth responding to distress calls too, as anything you achieve in another player’s instance will carry over to yours.

10: DON’T RUSH

In many looter shooters, the urge to charge through the campaign is too strong to ignore. When everything is promised in the elusive “endgame”, all that comes before it just feels like hard work.

The Division 2, however, is packed with things to do. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the busiest and most feature-complete shooter-looters I’ve seen at launch. Main missions, side missions, safe houses, collectibles, the Dark Zone, SHD caches, control points, world events… There’s a ton of stuff to do and a ton of loot to chase. So much so that you’ll benefit far more from taking your time to go through it at a steady pace. Explore, loot, fight, progress, and enjoy the journey.

The post The Division 2: 10 Beginner’s Tips appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but for as good as Diablo 3 is, Blizzard’s slash-happy loot-a-thon doesn’t have much in the way of competition. Step forward Big Ben, and the newest title in the Warhammer universe: Chaosbane, where the theming is definitely Warhammer, but the stylings are unmistakably Diablo. That’s right this is a game that’s all about the numbers.

You’ll stroll around hitting things to make numbers come out of them, then pick stuff up or loot items from chests to increase your stats and make the numbers bigger. And despite all the number crushing, the hordes of chaos will still insist on getting in your face. You’ll hold X to attack and intersperse this with the other face buttons and triggers to use your chosen avatar’s skills for more efficient death dealing, so, very much like a Certain Other Dungeon Crawler. However, unlike Diablo 3’s mute, nameless avatars the characters in Chaosbane talk to the NPCs that dole out the quests, which, despite being voiced in American-styled medieval lilts, does make it feel more like you’re taking part in the story, which Diablo’s cutscenes did a very good job of pulling you out of before thrusting you into the fights. Here, cutscenes are still images drawn on parchment, but interactions are fully voiced between player character and the NPC.

Making up Chaosbane’s character roster are four classes; the Empire Knight, High Elf Mage, Dwarf Slayer And Wood Elf Waywatcher, but only the Knight And Mage are available in the beta. The different classes are divided into Tank, DPS (Damage Per Second) / Crowd control, melee DPS and Ranged DPS. I took the option to play as the Knight because I just like being in the thick of things ever since I first booted up World of Warcraft, but all things considered you shouldn’t have too much issue with finding yourself a class that suits how you like to play. The Mage, for example, is your typical glass cannon, but he can do some cool things with the elements that you won’t have seen before.

The beta wasn’t exactly short despite being confined to the opening of the game, your character being tasked with repeat journeys into the Castle’s sewers to help stem the tide of enemies from a Chaos cult who recently invaded the castle and put the king in a kind of stasis. I’m not sure how the world of Warhammer was created, but these sewers seem to have been built above bottomless pits, which is a rather baffling design decision in a time considerably backwards in technology. These repeated trips are filled to the brim with fodder to turn into mushy pulp with your ever growing array of skills. New levels give extra skill points which unlock further abilities, and as you progress you unlock better versions of them which require more skill points to equip. To begin with, you won’t notice too much difference in damage output from new weapons, but as soon as you tack on an improved skill you’ll certainly notice things dying a hell of a lot quicker.

The thing is, as good as the grime and putrid nature of the sewers is rendered, the constant trips back down into these grotty catacombs did become tiresome, and I started wishing for a change in location. While there’s one point where I finally ventured to an outside area, it was unfortunately short lived and I once again found myself ankle deep in fecal matter and impish corpses. But, when you’re duking it out with a combat system that just works it’s hard to care about where you’re doing it. I love Diablo 3 and Destiny for both their mechanics and the way the loot systems make you feel powerful. Here again, a mission rarely ends without you getting an improved item for an equipment slot, and coming out of a rush of chaos grunts in a barrage of yellow numbers feels oh so good.

One thing that is missing though, is a goofy element, as Chaosbane is much more po-faced than Blizzard’s work. I guess you could liken the voice performances to an element of comic relief, but they feel more like a Shakespearean actor trying his best to elevate the local council’s nativity play than something done in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Then think of how Diablo made you feel when you happened across an enemy with a giant yellow name like ‘Thaurgnar the Regurgitator’ above it’s head, knowing you could get some good loot from it. Those silly names made defeating them feel much more fun. Granted, Chaosbane is its own game and shouldn’t try to ape Diablo 3 in every aspect, but if you’re going to wear your influences so visibly then you should pay attention to all the elements people loved so much.

This is a beta though, and there’s still time to improve on an already impressive foundation. There are some sound bugs with dialogue overlapping and the odd audio pop and the occasional frame rate drop, but generally this is a solid package even for a beta. The game’s not due out until June so there’s at least two months until it goes gold for release, giving Eko Software time to add a bit of polish – and you can be part of it with more beta periods to come. Eko are the guys behind the Handball sports games, and some games you’ve probably not really heard of – but don’t let that put you off. From what I’ve played, this could be the game that puts Eko Software firmly on the map, and I look forward to playing the full release.

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Probably the biggest name in graphics cards, NVIDIA has been busy of late. With the 2080 series bringing serious power to the high end PC market, NVIDIA has now released a powerful mid-range GPU in the form of the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, available today.

Based on the 12thgeneration Turing GPU architecture, the GTX 1660 Ti takes advantage of all of Turing’s shader innovations to deliver 2x the TOPS of the previous-generation Pascal architecture. It supports concurrent floating point and integer operations, a unified cache architecture with 3x the L1 cache, and turbocharged performance using adaptive shading technology.

The GTX 1660 Ti is said to be three times faster than the GTX 960, which is about the level of performance that around two thirds of gamers currently use. It’s also around 1.5 times faster than the 1060, which is impressive for its relatively low price.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti features 1,536 CUDA® cores, 6GB of the new GDDR6 memory running at 12Gbps and a boost clock of almost 1.8 GHz, which can be easily overclocked for further performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is available now from many well-known manufacturers such as ASUS and MSI, from £259.99.

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Thanks to a frustratingly convoluted release schedule, Anthem is currently available to any PC gamer with an EA Origins Prime subscription (who can play the whole game now), any Xbox One gamer with an EA Access subscription (who can play 10 hours of the game now), and PS4 gamers (who can watch videos of it on YouTube, sorry). Having spent countless hours with both demos, the PC launch version and the Xbox One Access trial, I can now bring you our initial impressions of BioWare’s ambitious loot-shooter, as well as my opinion on things that need immediate improvement. First of all, I should start by saying that I’ve not only been hyped for Anthem for several years, but that I’m also a prolific apologiser when it comes to looters in general. That’s full disclosure right there, and I’m being honest off the bat because it’s important that you know just how keen I was for Anthem to be a true groundbreaker, and how disappointed I am that, at brass tacks-level, it’s just another sci-fi lootathon.

Which is not to say it’s bad. In fact, had my expectations of Anthem been lower, or even normal, I probably wouldn’t be half as disheartened by some of the design choices. I put it up on a pedestal, and extended its free fall distance considerably. But a lot of us did, and why wouldn’t we? A BioWare RPG with elements cherry-picked from one of the most popular emerging genres of this generation, bankrolled by EA who, let’s be honest, aren’t short of a few quid. This should be spectacular – and bits of it are, to be clear; just not all of it. Or even most of it.

In Anthem you take the role of a Freelancer, an Iron Man (or Woman) for hire, whose job is to protect the savage frontier of a world called Bastion from all manner of villains and beasties who want to take control of the Anthem of Creation, a powerful terraforming device left behind by a race of absentee gods. Having fallen on hard times recently, Freelancers are now little more than mercenaries, picking up contracts for Coin, defending settlements, finding missing persons and basically running errands. They do all of this while piloting an exosuit called a Javelin, which is perhaps the single coolest video game creation this generation; a walking tank capable of a multitude of loadout variants and fully autonomous flight. The Javelins are just excellent.

Speaking of which, one element of Anthem that’s turning out to be better than I expected is the story. There’s a wealth of lore and backstory to be found in the game thanks to the Cortex, a kind of encyclopaedia you build by finding collectibles in typical BioWare fashion. There are also reams of dialogue to flesh out characters and events, and the fully-rendered cutscenes are mostly excellent, showing off some amazing facial mo-cap and impressive delivery. The problem isn’t the story, but the storytelling. Anthem presents its story via the dual mediums of first-person dialogue and in-mission flavour chatter. The former works fine during the aforementioned cutscenes, but falls apart a little when you have to basically stand rooted to the spot as a character delivers exposition in a mechanic that felt old in Skyrim and feels ancient now. You’re offered dialogue choices, but they’re not even really binary, as several of them result in more or less the same dialogue from your Freelancer and they don’t seem to affect anything. The latter medium, whereby you’re supposed to listen to important details during a life or death firefight is just a little infuriating for obvious reasons.

Oddly, there a few cutscenes in third person where you can see your Freelancer, and these were the ones I actually preferred. In fact, the whole switch to first person for some cutscenes and the whole of your time in Fort Tarsis is a strange choice. Obviously BioWare want you to feel “in the moment” but it’s unnecessary. I spent 3 entire games watching Commander Shepard walk around and was never less than fully immersed. I can commend the world-building in Anthem; I can see what BioWare were going for, and if nothing else it feels like a world they want us to come back to. It has room to grow, and the characters that exist in it now feel part of it – I just wish Fort Tarsis wasn’t such hard work. The lack of placeable waypoints means you need to navigate by compass, and everyone is so far from everyone else that just picking up a new round of contracts is a major arse-ache. It’s compounded by the fact that you can do everything, including shop, pick up jobs and customise your Javelin, in the single-room Launch Bay. You don’t need Tarsis at all.

I’m happy to report that I’ve seen very few issues on PC, with the performance as a whole a vast improvement on the hit-and-miss demos. Even on a standard Xbox One minus the bells and whistles of the X, it also runs better, at a more or less steady 30 fps. I did experience a few bugs on console, however, as the game crashed once during the 10-hour trial period and froze for a worryingly long time on 3 occasions. There is a performance patch coming on Day One, however, which may address that, though I also had an irritating issue whereby the Y-Axis would revert to standard when I loaded in and I had to change it every time.

For me, the biggest issue Anthem has right now is the loading times. I’ve never seen a modern game with so many loading screens, and some of them are utterly unnecessary. There’s an incredibly intrusive feature whereby if you fall behind your squad, a tethering mechanism kicks in and drags you forward via a loading screen. The fact that this happens when you’re barely 100 yards away in the same instance is mind-boggling, but more irksome is the frequency at which it happens. Anthem’s world is designed to be explored. You’re encouraged to seek out treasure chests and crafting materials and secrets, but if you do so during a mission you’re almost immediately punished for it. There’s absolutely no need to do this unless your squad is entering another mission area, and frankly it needs to go.

Anthem’s saving grace – and believe me when I say it is enough to save it – is the action. Whether you’re flying through Bastion’s gloriously beautiful environments or engaged in a desperate firefight, this is where Anthem shines. It’s not spotless, of course, and there’s room for improvement where damage feedback and difficulty balancing are concerned, but Anthem is at its absolute best when you’re using your entire arsenal, working with your squad, and utilising the terrain. There’s a verticality to Anthem that I never knew was missing from other shooters until now. Flight is only part of it, since clicking the right stick (on an Xbox controller) will allow you to hover, giving you a height advantage at any time. It’s great for getting out of the immediate crossfire, repositioning, or popping off a few sniper shots to remove a pesky turret from the equation. It’s all helped along by the incredible sound direction, the satisfying clink of a successful combo, the rumble of explosions, the rattle of gunfire and the empowering roar of your Javelin taking off.

It’s too early for us to talk in-depth about the endgame or the loot economy, but the latter is currently a little concerning. Even legendary weapons appear to be the same as standard in terms of aesthetics, and this tier could really benefit from some unique or exotic designs to make them worth farming for. I’ve also seen no new armour variants dropping, which is very worrying. The loot does fall fairly thick and fast, perhaps too thick, as I’m always too impatient to really bother analysing what I got at the end-of-mission screen. I’ve also yet to fully get my head around the Gear Score, which I think determines your Javelin’s overall level which in turn affects which rarity of loot you’re more likely to get, but at the moment seems like an arbitrary mechanic used just because other loot-shooters do it. I fail to see, yet, how it really benefits Anthem.

So far I have a few issues with the reward screen, too. It’s nice to see the Alliance score going up, but the game does a poor job of explaining what that means, and it gives me a bunch of shiny medals every mission with zero context and no way to track them, so I fail to understand the purpose of it all. Likewise, I’ve reached higher loyalty levels with two of the factions but either didn’t receive rewards or I’m looking in the wrong place. This stuff should be explained in laymen’s terms; right now it’s as if the whole game was designed by committee, and there’s a bunch of stuff included just to appease an imaginary demographic.

I’ve a ways to go yet in Anthem’s campaign and then there’s the whole endgame to tackle, so there’s room for things to change. If the mission variety improves and the loot economy picks up in the elder game, I’ll be much happier. What I can say without blinking is that I’m enjoying Anthem. It’s a likeable game with an interesting world and a few things I’ve never, ever seen before, but it’s also a frustrating experience at times. It feels finished, to me, so I’m not going to excuse BioWare of a lack of demonstrable effort in any area, but there are some weird design choices throughout that make me wonder how they passed the testing stage.

There’ll be a full, scored review and video up in the next few weeks when I’ve spent enough time with Anthem to give it a fair trial, but right now it’s enough to say that what’s here is decent, and will certainly scratch the shooting and looting itch if you’ve got it, but the next month or so is going to be a very, very interesting time for BioWare.

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Crackdown 3 is finally here. Don’t believe me? Well I’ve played it, reviewed it, and Adam has turned it into a rather explodey video review, which you can find below. But what did I think? You’ll have to read the review to find out, but here’s a snippet:

“With more and more looter shooters or expansive RPGs hitting the shelves, in a world where every FPS will soon have a Battle Royale mode attached, Crackdown 3 almost feels like a breath of fresh gunsmoke. It may at times feel like a magic mirror back to 2007, but its simplistic, unpretentious approach to good old-fashioned mayhem means it’s never less than a blast to play.”

If you liked that, check out the full written review here.

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Ubisoft’s semi-sequel to last year’s sterling Far Cry 5 is here, and Chris White has reviewed it. Here’s a snippet:

“Far Cry New Dawn isn’t as robust as its predecessor, and the story is nowhere near as decent, but I still had fun re-treading old ground. It’s obvious something is missing as it never really feels like a sequel – more of a hefty expansion – and after encountering a couple of bugs that had me more than frustrated, I was left wishing Ubisoft Montreal had focused on something new, and on somewhere different to provide an entirely new adventure.”

But for those who prefer it, we’ve also produced a video narrated by our own slightly insane spiritual leader, Adam Cook. Check it out below.

Enjoy that? Now read the full written review by Chris White.

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With the demo behind us and the full release flying toward us like an excited Iron Man, Microsoft has announced that EA’s Anthem will get its very own Xbox One S bundle, ready for launch day.

Including a 1TB Xbox One S console and an Anthem: Legion of Dawn Edition download code, the bundle also includes one month of Xbox Live Gold, one month of Game Pass and even one month of EA Access. It’s basically a complete starter pack for Anthem.

The 1TB Xbox One S Anthem bundle releases at select UK retailers from February 22nd, with Anthem itself releasing the same day on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

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So, we just had the Anthem VIP Demo, which if you don’t know was the first public demo of Anthem, available for subscribers to EA Access and Origin, and those who preordered the game. And then those like Godisageek and other sites who were invited by EA, and content creators, streamers and influencers who were also invited by EA, and those who were friends with those who were invited by EA, and those who randomly received a code from EA on Social Media, and those who…

You get the message. It was a bit of a shit-show. The servers overloaded in the first few minutes, and thousands of people couldn’t get on. It actually took me a full 24 hours to get in. I don’t know how a company like EA or BioWare could have allowed such a circus to happen, but they did. It was like they handed us a cream cake in one hand and then smacked us with a trout in the other hand. Lots of people got upset. I got upset. Twitter and Reddit got really upset.

When I finally did get in I enjoyed myself and, although I have good and bad opinions of Anthem at this point, I’m leaning more towards positive thanks to two main reasons. One: I unlocked a second class and it is the balls, and two: I took part in, and completed, the Mine Tyrant Stronghold, and holy shit. Holy. Shit.

But there are caveats here. For example, I don’t think this demo has done EA, BioWare, or the public any real good. People who were on the fence have not been won over by this, whereas people who were fully onboard have now jumped ship quicker than a crew of drunken sailors into a sea of Jack Daniels. I for one am still mostly excited, clinging to the last vestiges of a hype that a few days ago would have floored you like a deckchair to the face. I was psyched for this, watching footage of the hands-on events and lapping up the developer vlogs while salivating like a bulldog with a gobstopper.

And I’m still keen, I’m still mostly invested. But it’s muted now, it’s like I went to see a smoking hot stripper, but sat next to her boyfriend for the whole show while he just stared at me like I was some kind of degenerate and now I’m hesitant to go back next week.

There are issues. I’m not going to get into the technical stuff too much, because this is an older build but I’m pretty sure I only sneezed once or twice just in the general direction of the Xbox One, and it booted me out like my first girlfriend’s dad. Worse than that is the stuff I’m not sure BioWare are even gonna fix because I’m not sure they even know it’s wrong.

The Javelins feel amazing in the air and pretty good underwater, but on the ground they’re sluggish and cumbersome, which is kind of befitting a 9-foot walking tank, I know, but I came here for the type of wish fulfilment you get from blowing huge chunks out of cottage-sized bugs, not a physics engine that suddenly wants to get with the Realism the minute my feet touch the floor. The dodge evade is hugely satisfying, but the melee feels imprecise to me and now and then it felt like I was wading through knee-high treacle, which may have been down to the frame rate dropping like a breeze block in almost every fight with more than two enemy soldiers.

I have major issues with the Hub, too. I imagine Fort Tarsis is important because of the story, but the frames per second there felt somewhere in the region of four and a half. Its really bad, and everything has a fuzzy look and everyone is so far from everyone else that you have to wonder exactly what BioWare are showing off and why. I guess in the full game they’ll want us to care about Random Dude with Beard, or that Steampunk Mum can’t feed Steampunk Child, but the truth is it’s just a resource drain that we don’t need. Everything in Tarsis could be done with a menu and a few talking heads, maybe some cutscenes here and there.

That being said, one major plus is that the action is just tremendous. Even with frame rate dips, bugs, glitches and disappearing enemies, I had a blast in every firefight. The special effects light up the screen, the sound of gunfire and explosions and mumbled exposition fill the airwaves. In short, it’s just spectacular every time you get into a scrape. I didn’t even mind or notice the game chugging along like a broken old tugboat at times because I was just too busy spitting “wows” and “Hell-yeahs” and smiling like someone had handed me a big bowl of chocolate ice cream and Scarlett Johansson and said, “Go nuts.”

I had almost given up hope of getting hold of a second Javelin because the demo just wouldn’t save my XP gains after missions, but eventually I got lucky. I almost went with the stealthy, wasp-like Interceptor but at the last minute snapped up Storm, which is like a mix between Magneto and Iron Man and Emperor Palpatine from that bit where he fries the ever-living shit out of Luke with Force Lightning. Storm is squishier than Ranger, but more mobile and stacked with elemental goodies.

I took Storm for a test drive in the Stronghold, a mission where you need to take a squad deep underground to investigate a group of enemies trying to make a superweapon, which leads to a subterranean showdown against the Brainbug from Starship Troopers on hella cocaine. To be honest it was this event that got me. The fight is so much fun, reviving downed teammates and flying around the cave looking for cover or safety or a vantage point where you can do some damage. It’s excellent and I fell in love despite all the other issues that could have gotten in the way, and did many times. Also, the Ultimate moves I tried are both superb, but the Storm’s move in particular is a screen-filling mass of light and noise that just explodes in your face like Christmas at Rambo’s house.

And I really like the world. Its beautiful at times, close to something like Halo aesthetically. Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, craggy outcrops of rock, huge plunges into deep dark waters, a night and day cycle, weather effects and herds of alien monstrosities, flocks of birds, little clutches of wildlife. I loved everything I saw, like a tin-shack shanty town built on a cliff-face or the rusted remains of a gargantuan mechanical strider. But, by god, the map needs the option to place waypoints. I was constantly checking my direction in relation to map icons, which is an unforgivable oversight when there’s GPS in the missions.

Another positive is the customisation. Obviously they were going to put a lot of effort into this area as its apparently the only thing they’re slapping micro-transactions on, but it seems pretty comprehensive. I spent ages pratting around with colours, materials and vinyls, and I’m hoping there’s enough opportunity to earn Coin for cosmetics inside the game. Although the prices are placeholders in the demo, you do earn Coin for completing objectives so hopefully that remains a thing.

So what did I think? Cards on the table: I really enjoyed my time with the demo when I finally got in, and Anthem won me over, albeit with some serious caveats. BioWare need to address that slow-ass hub, and if the movement is always going to be this clunky and heavy on the ground, then a patchy frame rate is the worst possible thing they could let sneak into the final build.

How will it do on launch? I just don’t know. A lot of people want this game to fail, and this demo was like EA handing those people a loaded gun and then admitting they took the last After Eight. And then boned their mum. It was a clumsy mess and one that a company like EA should have and could have avoided; hell, they could have just called it a beta and been done with it. But in the end I’ve seen more positive feedback than negative and I’m still hopeful. If the content is there (because I’ll be honest: besides the Stronghold most of the activities in the demo were pretty samey) then they might just salvage this launch. I really hope they do, because in amongst all the infinite load screens, system crashes, bugs, glitches and fails, I saw glimpses of the greatness that could be.

Anthem launches on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on February 22nd.

The post Anthem VIP Demo Impressions: Beautiful, brilliant, broken appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Whether you have played a Resident Evil game before or not, Resident Evil 2 does some things a little differently to its predecessors. Although it does give you enough information in the game to get you through, I’ve gathered together a few tips that might give you an early edge over those pesky zombies.

KNOW YOUR HERBS

Herbs have been a traditional part of the series since the original game, but you might not know that Resident Evil 2 brings in a new use for the blue herb.

There are three different herbs in the game: green, red and blue. But how do they work?

Green – on its own it will recover a small amount of health, put two together and the amount of health it restores increases.
Red – increases the potency of other herbs, especially the green herb.
Blue – removes toxins and poisons from the body.

Now, mixing green and red will produce an extremely strong restorative that will usually put you back to full health. Normally, this would be the best mixture available, but in Resident Evil 2 you can add a blue herb to that mixture that will even temporarily bolster your defences too.

So, before you go wasting that lone green herb, have a look around for others. You never know when you might need something a little more effective.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO RUN AWAY

Ammo conservation is essential to your survival in Raccoon City’s police station, and most of your enemies are slow, so don’t think that you have to clear every hallway to proceed. In fact, doing just that might leave you in a spot of bother later on, so why not try running around the shuffling undead?

SOUND IS YOUR BEST FRIEND AND WORST ENEMY

That said, you don’t always have to literally run past zombies. It might be the worst thing you can do, depending on the situation. For example, did you know that Lickers are blind? This means that they have exceptional hearing, and your awkward stumbling will only quicken your death around them. Then there’s the Tyrant. If he hears you running around or shooting, he’ll come stomping after you.

This is where you can use sound to your advantage. As you’re exploring, listen out for the telltale sounds of Lickers and the Tyrant especially. If you hear the rasping breath of a Licker coming from around the corner, slow your pace to make as little noise as possible. They won’t attack until they know where you are, so sneak past them if you must, but you’re probably best using this tactic to position yourself for the best shot. You don’t want to leave Lickers around for when the Tyrant inevitably spots you.

To avoid the Tyrant as much as possible, listen out for his heavy boots stomping around. Listen out for doors opening. If his footsteps are muffled, he’s outside somewhere, but if you hear them clearly, you know he’s in the same room as you. Either way, keep your pace slowed until you know you’ve got some distance on him, otherwise he’ll zero in on your location and begin hunting you.

USE THE MAP TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

This is one of the best things you can do in the game. When you’re being hunted by the Tyrant, open up the map and work out the best route to get around him, eventually these routes will become second nature if you study the map this way.

While exploring the environment, any items you pass are marked on your map for later, and rooms will turn from red to blue whenever you’ve found everything of note. Locked doors be noted with whatever key shape needed to unlock them, or will simply turn red if they’re locked from the other side. If you’re able to board up a window, those will also be noted on the map, and you can decide which ones you should prioritise once you’ve found another set of wooden boards.

THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB

Speaking of wooden boards, they are just one of the things you should learn to use to their greatest effect during your time in the RPD building. For example, there is a window on the first floor in the west wing, next to the darkroom. Boarding that up should be a priority, as you’ll probably be using that staircase often and you don’t want more zombies finding their way inside. You should use this way of thinking for every window you come across: is it a main path from/to the main hall? If the answer is yes, it’s worth thinking about boarding it up. You don’t want to leave yourself open to a surprise when you’re being chased by the big guy.

What about those defensive weapons? You should always keep at least one in your inventory, but which ones are best for each situation?

Knives – when your primary enemy is a zombie or three, a knife will do the job. Not just if they grab you, giving you a way to avoid a biting, but if you’ve downed one with a shot or two to the head, a few slashes of the knife can finish it off without the need to waste more ammo.

Flash grenades – these are good against most enemies in the game, at least in terms of creating an escape route. Throwing down a flash grenade will temporarily stun zombies and even the Tyrant, giving you a moment to make a run for it.

Hand grenades – these can hurt anything, even bosses. I would suggest keeping these for emergencies, but sometimes those emergencies can include running into a crowd of zombies when you’re in a hurry. Or perhaps a couple of Lickers have appeared in a tight corridor.

Defensive weapons are extremely effective, just don’t waste them.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

Read those reports and notes that are dotted around, they often contain information vital to discovering secrets or to solve puzzles.

Remember that you will always have access to any documents that you have picked up, via the inventory menu. So when you come across one of the puzzle statues like the lion in the main hall of the police station, remember that you may have picked up something that can offer the solution to that particular conundrum.

TAKE IT EASY – OR NOT

Choose the difficulty setting that fits your level of play, to ensure that you get the best first experience possible. Don’t worry about choosing the easiest option just because someone might scoff, your enjoyment should be your priority and that’s all there is to it.

Assisted difficulty is there to give you more ammo and health, as well as to help with your aiming and to generally make things a little less challenging for those wanting a slightly less stressful experience. It’s not an “I win” solution by any means, but it will help less confident players to experience Resident Evil 2’s story in full.

Whatever difficulty you choose, whichever character you play as first, I hope these tips help and I hope you enjoy Resident Evil 2 as much as I did.

The post A Newcomer’s Guide to staying alive in Resident Evil 2 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.