The Astro A50 headset was the first high-end (more than $300) headset that I owned many moons ago, and for the longest time, it was the go-to option for any gamer wanting the best, but many have been waiting for the next iteration in the A50 series, and it has arrived in the A50 X.

This is the most exciting headset drop since the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless, and for many including myself, will solve a number of issues that have been brought with the next-generation consoles. The first is that I simply don’t have enough HDMI ports, which is only an issue since HDMI 2.1 became a thing, and the second is that with both Sony and Xbox locking down their audio even more with the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, this is really the first headset to be fully compatible with both consoles for game/chat audio.

Whether you need it or not, Logitech is to be commended for what it has with the Astro A50 X. The dock with doubles as a charging station essentially has a HDMI 2.1 switcher built-in and whilst it could have gone all kinds of wrong, it works flawlessly. The setup involves plugging in your HDMI cords from your PS5 and Xbox Series X|S as well as a USB cord from both for chat audio. If you’re wanting to connect your PC and are lucky enough to have it in the same spot, there’s a third USB-C port which also doubles as the charging port as well.

The setup will take a bit of time, but as long as you sort it out properly, it doesn’t get too messy in my opinion. It’s worth mentioning that you only get one USB-C cord in the box (for either console) and no HDMI cord which is a little bit odd given the price tag of the headset

@shannongrixti

The new $750 Logitech Astro A50 X wireless headset is also a HDMI 2.1 switcher providing seamless audio from your PS5, Xbox Series X and PC #Logitech #AstroA50X #AstroA50 #LogitechG #Astrogaming #Headset #Gaming #Tech #Astroheadset

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

I’d also really have loved a third HDMI port for either your PC or Nintendo Switch as well to really complete the setup. I was hoping to connect a mini PC to my TV, and whilst I’d be easily able to get audio from it with the A50 X, I wouldn’t be able to get signal as I’d be back at square one with my HDMI ports in my TV filled up. It’s absolutely solved the issue of connecting both my Xbox Series X|S and PS5 at all time though.

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Switching between your consoles is as simple as pressing the Playsync button on the headset which switches between your consoles/PC including both video and audio. I was expecting this to be glitchy but it was absolutely flawless, once I turned off HDMI CEC. My only minor gripe was the fact that even without a PC connected, it still switches to it even though there’s no input.

With this method, you’re able to fully take advantage of audio from both consoles through to the A50 X including game/chat audio balance using the traditional buttons on the right cup. To my knowledge, this is the only headset on the market that can do both game audio as well as game/chat balance from both consoles seamlessly.

The headset can take advantage of Dolby Atmos on Xbox Series X|S, but not on PS5 and this is a little bit painful as it means that you have to deselect Dolby Atmos as an option, and for me with a full Sonos 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos setup, this means that I can’t utilise Dolby Atmos when using my TV sound, or having to swap back and forth, but I won’t blame Logitech for this.

The headset also connects with Bluetooth via the dock to your phone, and you can use this method to connect to your Nintendo Switch as well. It allows for simultaneous connection between your console/PC and your phone, and once you’ve set it up the first time, it was absolutely flawless connecting instantly to my mobile as soon as I put the headset on and disconnecting when it went back into the dock. Because it does connect through the dock, you can’t use the headset out and about. There’s also a phone app that can change between inputs, control your EQ settings and other basic settings such as sidetone.

The A50s have always been prided on how they sound and the A50 X is no different with its Pro-G graphene drivers not too dissimilar to the ones that I tested in the Pro X 2 Lightspeed headset. The audio feels extremely full with a good amount of bass to hear the minor details in the likes of Forza Horizon 5 and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It adds a whole other dimension to games and you absolutely won’t be disappointed in this regard.

Similarly, the microphone is fantastic, with my friends saying that I sounded super crisp online. It’s not detachable, which might be annoying to some, but it does mute on flip-up.

In terms of battery life, you get a 24 hour battery life, but honestly, I’d be shocked if anybody ever used it all, with the dock allowing you to simply place the headset onto it to keep it charged, which works as well as it ever has.

The Astro A50 X is absolutely pricey, but HDMI 2.1 switching functionality isn’t cheap, and if you’re somebody who has a PS5/Xbox Series X|S in the same place, it’s a small price to pay for the convenience of having one headset to rule them all. If you’ve also got your PC in the same spot, even better.

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle picks up a year after Raiders of the Lost Ark as Dr. Jones is roused from his slumber by the sounds of a break-in at Marshall College. Though he catches the bandit red-handed, he’s no match physically and awakens shortly after to piece together the mystery of what was taken and why. All signs point to the Vatican and so, to satiate a need for adventure, Indiana sets off on another globetrotting journey, leaving his problems in his rear view. 

Considering the game’s place in the series canon, I feel The Great Circle does well to bob and weave throughout established story and character arcs to find an earned, snug place it belongs. Even in between dalliances with Marion Ravenwood, the love of Indy’s life, Gina Lombardi is a graceful addition to the lineage of “Jones girls” although it’s her self-reliance and grace through the game’s narrative that makes her such a wonderful character. As with all great adventure films, Indy travels to the far reaches of the world and back again, uncovering The Great Circle. Across the main story’s ten hours, we’re whisked away to Egypt, Siam and the Himalayas in search of truth while finding mostly danger. It’s exciting, full of thrills, and has enough spectacular set pieces to make Nathan Drake at least sit up and take notice. 

The true measure of a story’s hero is its villain, of course, and Indiana Jones has often painted its German opposing forces as equal parts menacing and comical. Emmerich Voss is single-minded and doggedly determined to beat Indy to the punch at all legs of this journey, and he’s a tremendous foil for Dr. Jones’ brain even if he isn’t the most threatening in the brawn department. Just as Baron Zemo relies on guile and cunning to sow unrest within the Avengers, Voss exudes a similar brand of quiet confidence in his calculated plan. 

Adventure is truly the essence of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and I do feel freedom to explore and unravel puzzles, ancient and new, is the game’s clear strength. Each of the game’s open zones is littered with a heap of fieldwork and investigative work Indy can complete as he skirts around the periphery of the primary goal—sourcing and keeping the stones that seem to prove the veracity of the titular hypothesis out of Nazi control. I didn’t find too many of the riddles put forth by the game to be too tricky, most solutions are often found in the same room or chamber as the puzzle itself. However, a couple included ciphers and keys that forced me to resort to the old pen and paper, which felt appropriate given Indy’s penchant for antiquities. 

I particularly enjoyed that each open zone’s main adventure is linked intrinsically with a key item that, once bought from the area’s vendor, will have a lasting importance as you continue on your way, chasing fortune and glory around the world. The camera you receive in the Vatican proves useful in snapping curios and people of interest to fill out Indy’s journal and earn “adventure points”, while the lighter and breathing apparatus from subsequent levels are integral for illuminating pitch black tombs and spending long periods underwater respectively. 

There are books throughout the game that, once found, serve as your many skills and buffs. Without a traditional upgrade path or skill tree, your aforementioned adventure points can be used to activate things like Lucky Hat, which is a second wind ability that grants a brief moment in time after being downed to collect your fedora, dust yourself off, and carry on with that trademark Harrison Ford smirk. There are others which prove more useful in the moment-to-moment, such as improved melee power or one that makes whip attacks on unsuspecting Nazis lethal. I do miss Wolfenstein’s approach which had the player meet a predetermined goal, like five stealth kills, for example, to earn the boost. That said, having to earn points through absorbing things of cultural significance is reward enough. 

Aside from the main adventure itself, each of the game’s zones does have a bevy of side content to churn through. Fortunately, if you’re like me and you storm the critical path first, you’re able to return post-credits to mop up all of the quests you missed. These range from broader Fieldwork, which I’d equate to what you’d expect from a side quest with cutscenes and the whole shabang, to Mysteries, which feel more emergent and truncated while serving to scratch that natural itch—not unlike the all-alluring map markers in other open-world titles. 

Where the experience does falter is with the combat itself and the balance the game attempts to strike between snotting Nazis in the nose or hiding from them. 

Stealth, save for a few exceptions, is a completely viable way to navigate The Great Circle, and it works due to easily dupable enemy A.I. Being able to collect so many random items within the map, from bottles right through to stone busts, and either brandish them as a weapon or throw them in an effort to distract guards, makes for a fun, emergent brand of gameplay. Relying on good old-fashioned slap stick pugilism and your whip, which can be used to disarm or trip enemies in combat scenarios, harkens back to the team’s pedigree in both Chronicles of Riddick and The Darkness. The only issue I took is with the bevy of holdable items in the game is that you’re forced to drop them whenever unlocking a door or climbing a rope, and are ultimately forced to leave it behind. This is softened by the fact that things things everywhere, however it’s still a baffling choice. 

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Fist fights are an up close and personal mix of stamina management, creating space with a well-timed dash, and landing a left-right goodnight to leave your enemy laid out in the Egyptian sands. For how slow combat looked in trailers, it feels pretty good on the sticks—except for when guns are involved. Wolfenstein is one of the better shooters in modern history, and the talent at MachineGames is undeniable. For them to have to put guns aside, for the most part, for thematic reasons is a shame. Still, there’s practically no circumstance in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle where I’d recommend scooping up a fallen submachine gun off of the ground and rattling lead toward the enemy, which is a shame given that the gunplay is tight. 

It’s just that it serves as a warning bell for every enemy within a one kilometre radius, and it’s often never worth it to invite that kind of attention to yourself—especially when, as I say, the A.I. is a little thick and the hand-to-hand works as well as it does. 

From a performance standpoint, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does run rather well on console. I never noticed any significant dips in the frame rate, and unlike many other blockbuster titles of late, I noted no crashes. The team’s decision to develop the game in first-person, I feel, is justified immediately through the world’s fidelity and how hands-on you’re able to be. Of course, pulling back to see Indy in context-sensitive actions, such as swinging on or climbing with the whip, or in cutscenes is always a joy. It’s like a time machine seeing Harrison Ford looking so young without the aid of Disney’s de-aging sorcery. Having already touched on both the performances of Alessandra Mastronardi and Mario Gavrilis as the story’s co-lead and villain respectively, I must absolutely give Troy Baker his flowers. 

Having been witness to several Troy Baker performances, it’s hard not to hear when a little dash of Troy himself bleeds through. I feel like even for the most established voice actors, it’s hard to hide the self entirely. Troy Baker simply disappears into this role. What’s stunning is that he isn’t just playing as Indiana Jones, he’s playing as Harrison Ford playing as Indy and it’s a performance so nuanced and so studied, it’s going to fool so many who’ll have simply assumed they’d dredged poor Harrison up again. It’s a remarkable individual acting display from Baker, and with awards season cut-offs and the dreaded recency bias working against him, I pray voters remember this one next year. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a sumptuous adventure that hits on so many of the high notes we’ve long hoped for from an Xbox first-party game, especially in terms of narrative and performance. I expect the game’s combat will divide critics, however its excellent crafting of its world, and its many puzzles, should shoulder the burden and deliver fortune and glory for a game that’s made for Indy fans by Indy fans. 

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Getting motivated is hard. As we collectively hurtle toward yet another round of New Year’s Resolutions and “this time I’m serious” promises, the space in our lives for the next thing to keep us in line begins to open up. The cold, infinitely less sexy reality is that that thing doesn’t really exist and consistent hard work and self-care is the only real road to long-term succe- Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer is Nintendo’s latest attempt to fill that space with a Switch exercise game. 

The third entry in the (now) long-running Fitness Boxing series which first took a swing at this back in 2018, developer Imagineer has spent most of the Switch’s lifespan refining the edges of its boxing simulator. Where Ring Fit Adventure bundled in additional hardware to expand the range of exercises, Fitness Boxing, as you might imagine based on the name, focuses solely on the one-two punch of boxing, grading your entire performance via the Joy-Con motion controls.

It’s something of an honour system, with your stance, posture, exertion, and form all left to your own efforts, the game itself all too happy to doll out “great punch!” feedback whether you put your body into it or not. 

Despite its relative lack of accurate measurements, Fitness Boxing 3 plays the part of being a casual, ostensibly data-based fitness experience. Booting up the game you’ll be prompted to fill in a questionnaire, ranging from weight to age to fitness goals (weight loss, strength training, relaxed etc), and run through the basics of boxing by the game’s default, and worst, trainer. Once you’ve been onboarded, you’ll need to run through your first full session and a more casual mode before the game’s features fully unlock, but with those done, you’ve got access to the suite of modes Fitness Boxing 3 has to offer. 

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From daily workouts to free play to stretches to multiplayer, you can engage with the game in a decent variety of modes, but the core mechanics remain largely unchanged. In a solid stance with your core engaged, you’ll perform a series of punch types in time and rhythm with the game’s escalating challenge levels. Your digital instructor (you can choose from a small roster of perky, beautiful people who can in turn be customised to a granular level from outfits to eye colour and even mood) will perform the motions for you a few times before encouraging you to begin your own set of them. 

For basic movements like jabs and straights, this is fine, but as the game begins to fold in hooks and the like, its inability to discern how your movements fair is both unengaging mechanically and at a baseline health level, not entirely good for you. While the game does warn that its calories burnt count has essentially no basis in reality (at which point you might wonder if it’s only included for the veneer of a real fitness experience), higher-intensity workouts are often conducted under professional guidance because the human body is a temperamental thing and repeated, incorrect use of it can be rough in the long-term. There’s a degree of fun to be found in doing some basic swings and seeing the score pop and the screen light up but Fitness Boxing 3 is a toy first and foremost. 

Completing a full workout gives you a star rating, scores to chase higher next time, and some form of currency you can spend on outfits for your trainer and songs to work out to. While it might be initially thrilling to see the likes of Billie Eilish and…KISS in the playlist, you’ll soon tire of hearing these lo-fi, kid’s-bop covers of popular songs as a routine will often run you 10-minutes minimum and the musical offerings are sparse. Still, when the game told me my fitness age was 26 and had me punch at the screen to officiate a stamp at the end of the workout, I smiled. 

A cursory glance at the previous Fitness Boxing games tells me that they’ve also somewhat stepped up the overall visual presentation of the game. While UI and menus remain new-age fitness sterile for better legibility, the animations and flare found in the workout sections are at least vibrant and sharp. Likewise, the game now incorporates a seated mode for players with less mobility, an excellent accessibility option. Difficulty elsewhere is a bit looser, usually just extending the time or intensity of a workout session but stopping short of customisation as far as I could tell. 

As with any exercise program, you’re likely to see some results from Fitness Boxing 3 over time but outside of the initial fun of numbers-go-up punching, the experience is too thin and too imprecise to warrant that degree of investment. The new accessibility options are a genuine win and the series commitment to improving its presentation and mode options is admirable, but with such a limited means of engagement, it’s difficult to recommend. If you’re chasing a thing to help you stick to your goals, it might be worth checking out Ring Fit Adventure, but I’d still bet that the 70 bucks you could spend on Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer would be better used to get a nice pair of shoes and going for a walk.  

The post Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer Review – Joy Con appeared first on Press Start.

It’s safe to say, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has had a real turbulent launch and right now continues to do so. The launch was literally unplayable with thousands of players keen to get hands-on the shiny new title which ultimately crashed the game’s servers in the first few days. If you were lucky to get in, the game would often hang, get stuck, not load and the user experience frustration grew.

The issues stem mostly from the fact that the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is being streamed directly to your platform rather than downloading a terabyte of plane and world data. Cloud gaming works but that doesn’t mean it’s bulletproof. There’s huge advantages with this method of delivery, especially coming from someone who had to endure massive patch downloads and long load times (sometimes 1-2 hours) from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, so delivering a title like this where you can hop in within 5-10 minutes is a huge feat however the launch showed us the disadvantages.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my review, I’m currently on gigabit internet so streaming 4K  isn’t a big issue for me. Quite in fact, having gigabit internet or higher in Australia has only really been a recent thing and not a lot of the population has access to fibre or even NBN. Having a title that relies heavily on cloud will shut a lot of players out, I just can’t imagine myself playing this on anything lower than my current download speed.

Once you get into the game, you’ll be greeted with a character creation screen, albeit not a fully fleshed out one but a welcome addition to creating your own pilot to take through the game and career mode creating an immersion into the world of flight sim. From there, you can take it to the skies.

There’s a few things MSFS2020 players will be accustomed to and that’s mostly the challenges and the world map. If you didn’t know already, Microsoft Flight Simulator allows you to drop a pin anywhere on the world map and you can start flying from that point taking the real-world sites backed by technologies such as Bing maps etc. You’ll see the roads in your neighbourhood and possibly your house; while not 1:1 – it’s sure damn close and a crazy feat in technology. People still get shocked when I show them this mode.

The career mode is the biggest selling point of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you pick a starting airfield; literally any airfield in the world (personally I just picked somewhere down the road) and your pilot career starts from there as a company hires you. You’ll get a series of introductions in Career mode from basic takeoff and landing to more advanced scenarios before taking on more certifications which opens the doors to different career missions. Your life as a pilot is to complete the jobs to earn money and use that money to upskill your licence until you become a multi-class flyer.

Once you earn enough, you can even start your own aviation company which opens the doors to actually managing said company and maintaining your own fleet. This is probably the biggest step up and welcome addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 giving the title a sense of purpose rather than just flying around in all the different planes you can get your hands on. While I managed to dump a few hours into the career mode, the game’s bugs and server issues often barred my progress and also increased frustration when things didn’t load in properly, planes missing landing gear (yes it happened twice now) and controls just not responding. These are all bugs that CAN be fixed and once they are, I’ll be definitely sinking most of my playtime into this.

Behind the curtain both technological and visually, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 surpasses the expectation of the previous title. They took the core sim and not only managed to make it look better but overall bring extra life to the already amazing world map with added terrain, textures, effects and more. I was quite scared my PC wasn’t up for the leap from MSFS2020 but the team did a great job with performance in this iteration; quite possibly thanks to the cloud technology. The title performs well in 4K with my ‘starting to age’ RTX 3070 graphics card which was quite surprising. 

The little aspects of improvement like better lighting and minor things like debris effects especially landing airliners and seeing things like snow on the ground get kicked up, or watching a dust trail your plane as you glide down the runway; it’s the minor things that visually brings out the immersion of being in the real world.

Weird at first but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 allows you to take a stroll on the ground with your aircraft. Yes, you can take to the land and explore the scenery around the environment but also find fauna and just take in the sights. Walking around the aircraft also allows you to perform pre-flight checks (just like real pilots) if you want to give that extra level of simulation.

While a technological marvel when it works, the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 user experience is far from ready and often smacks my face with a wall of frustration despite loving almost every bit of the new sim. Career mode seems to have a lot of issues when things often don’t load, and this is where my title kept freezing to the point my progress won’t even save anymore and I had to redo it over and over again. Sometimes bugs would happen in missions resulting in you failing it.

There’s also lots of controller issues with my playthrough where I spent half my time talking to other players and figuring out why Turtle Beach Flight Velocity HOTAS setup would often reset or simply won’t register half the time with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I had several issues and each of them being unique which frustrated the experience even further. Weirdly, I had no issues with the setup in the previous title so I was hoping for a clean transition into this but that wasn’t the case.

At times, sticks would weirdly respond, thrusters wouldn’t register, brakes didn’t work all of a sudden etc. It was a wonky experience and the UI for setting up controllers and equipment is oddly way more frustrating than it should be. Sometimes the mouse would disappear and not register – it was unpleasantly annoying to stop mid flight to reset settings again.

There’s a path of redemption for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 however as most of the issues stem from cloud and lack of polish, I can see the greatness it possess and potentially can be that title we want in the near future however at the moment – if you do decide to jump into it, you may crash – literally. 

The post Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Review – Heavy Turbulence appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been happily using a Sonos Arc and Sonos Sub for 3-4 years and wondered how Sonos would better on this combo, and it has done just that with the Sonos Arc Ultra and Sonos Sub 4. For those that already own the older counterparts, it won’t be a world-changing difference, but what Sonos manages to get out of both of these devices make it more than worth it for those jumping into the high-end for the first time.

As far as the design goes, there’s some subtle differences that make a fairly big difference. For the Arc Ultra, it’s now slightly longer, but Sonos has made the height and depth smaller so it will fit under more TVs. It’s also lighter which won’t really affect too many people once it’s on your unit. There’s a new back lip that houses all the controls including a new touch sensitive volume scroller like we’ve seen on all the more recently released Sonos devices.

It’s also got a new matte design which matches that of the Sonos Sub 4 which is hugely improved in my opinion. Whilst I really liked the piano black nature of the Sonos Sub 3, it attracted dust and it also did stand out, so the newer matte finish is much appreciated and much more premium.

Just like with any other Sonos speaker that has released in the last 12-24 months, the Arc Ultra has Bluetooth support, which is great for connecting vinyl players and other devices that can’t plug into your home network.

Probably the most disappointing thing when it comes to the Arc Ultra design is that it still only has the one HDMI port which is used to plug into your TV. I understand this probably won’t affect a lot of people, but given the soundbar takes up a HDMI port, I’d really love at least one (if not true) pass through HDMI ports given this is an $1,800 soundbar.

Really, the biggest difference in the Arc Ultra comes in the internals. Compared to the 11 drivers in the original Arc that results in a 5.0.2 setup, the Arc Ultra has 14 speaker drivers which results in a 9.1.4 channel configuration, with the biggest difference coming in the way of the new woofer which Sonos refers to as Sound Motion technology.

I don’t want to get too technical but this technology that Sonos acquired uses four smaller motors in opposing corners of the channel as opposed to one larger heavy motor which enhances bass and makes it much clearer without needing the actual speaker to be larger.

This results in a sound that obviously isn’t as good as using a soundbar with the Sonos Sub, but it’s really damn close and for the first time, I’d go as far as saying that unless you’re somebody that watches movies 24/7 and really into a deep bass, you’ll be more than fine with the Arc Ultra. I had a real hard time noticing the difference with and without which is a great compliment to the Arc Ultra.

This is the case both for music and movies where there’s a great amount of bass even without the soundbar, and music sounds absolutely fantastic using the Sonos Arc Ultra, with a great amount of balance and clarity in the voice, yet a good amount of oomph behind the beats as well.

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Another big improvement comes in the way of an improved centre channel that helps with dialogue crispness. We’ve all been there when it comes to watching a movie and not being able to hear the dialogue, but then turning it up results in action noises being too loud, and that’s why this is such a big improvement. If it’s still not clear enough for you, there’s now two levels of Speech Enhancement within the Sonos app as well.

There’s also been improvements to Dolby Atmos given the improvements in channels, and I think this is probably going to be most noticeable to those who don’t have rears (or Sonos Era 300s) at the very least. It just speaks to how good this soundbar is on its own once again.

When it comes to TruePlay, Sonos’ software that allows you to get the most out of your speaker based on your room, there’s two ways to calibrate on the Arc Ultra. There’s an advanced option which lets you use your Android/iOS device to walk around the room and calibrate, of a quick tuning option that will automatically use the microphones to automatically adjust itself.

When it comes to the Sonos Sub 4, you’re not going to need to upgrade from the Sub 3, unless you’re absolutely desperate for the matte finish (which I’d actually understand) and want a lighter sub. I’d still probably recommend it if you’re investing in the Sonos Arc Ultra, but if you’ve already got one, I’d stick with that.

Sonos has had a bit of a rocky year with its new app, which is mostly fixed now and gave me zero troubles over the last month or so testing out the Sonos Arc Ultra, and it feels like it’s absolutely back with the Sonos Arc Ultra, which will blow people away, especially if they’ve not had a Sonos Arc before.

The post Sonos Arc Ultra Soundbar & Sub 4 Review – Bigger And Clearer Sound appeared first on Press Start.

AYANEO hasn’t missed with the many Windows handhelds its released over the last 12-18 months, but it’s now turned its eye to the retro side of the handheld market, going for the high-end, more premium end of the scale, and with the AYANEO Pocket Micro, it absolutely delivers.

Design-wise, this is one of the most beautiful handhelds that I’ve ever used. It weighs just 233 grams and is roughly the same size as the original NES controller. It has a high-end all-metal frame that oozes quality and feels light to hold, yet still feels really hefty in the hands. The edges are rounded so even though it has quite a sleek and harsh look, it feels good in the hands.

It has a totally bezel-less display with a 3.5-inch 950×640 IPS screen that is super vibrant and has incredible colour reproduction. This is a a 3:2 display meaning that it’s perfect for playing GBA games with a perfect 4x scale without any stretching or distortion. Equally, the speakers for such a small handheld are absolutely fantastic.

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As far as buttons go, if you’ve used an AYANEO handheld, it’s what you expect with a solid d-pad, four face buttons, two analogue sticks, four shoulder buttons, star/select, two buttons for quickly pulling up AYASPACE or getting to the home screen, and two customisable buttons on the right hand side.

When it comes to inputs, you’ve got Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, a USB-C port for charging, and a MicroSD card slot which is super helpful for getting files on and off the device. There is no 3.5mm jack, which I know will annoy a lot of gamers, but you can connect Bluetooth for audio. You also get a power button that has a fingerprint sensor, which might be overkill given the device’s intention, but given you are likely using your Google Account to login, it’s appreciated.

This is an Android device with a Helio G99 processor. Just like AYANEO’s Windows PC handhelds, as this runs Android, anything that you can do or install on an Android phone, you can get installed on the Pocket Micro.

Pretty much any Android game that I tested ran well, with the ability to map touch-screen controls to buttons for games that don’t have controller support, but I suspect most people will be picking one of these up for emulation. This means that games such as Stardew Valley and Zenless Zone Zero will run flawlessly.

It’s fairly easy to get going given it’s an Android device, and the performance is fairly remarkable for anything up to the PS2/GameCube. Obviously because of the smaller screen size, you won’t want to play anything too graphically intensive, with it being perfect for GameBoy Advance games with its screen size, and also PSP Games too.

As I mentioned earlier, it perfectly scales GBA games at 4x, and makes them look absolutely gorgeous. It’s hard to explain but playing games from my childhood such as Legacy Of Goku, it felt like they were made for a handheld in 2024, with the graphics being so crisp, yet still having that retro, nostalgic vibe. It’s hard to put into words, but it really felt lke the best of both worlds.

If you’re really wanting to push the handheld, it can play PS2 and GameCube games at 1x, which is fine given the screen size. There will be some minor frame skips playing these consoles, but considering the size, it’s more than acceptable, and anything lower than those consoles will play like a dream.

Because you’ve got two analogue sticks, as well as a fairly great feeling D-Pad, you can really play anything on this and expect a fairly great experience. Obviously the screen size means you might end up with black bars for some platforms, but given the screen has no bezels, and the top is black, it really blends into the console as well.

The AYAHOME app can launch all of your games and plugs into other frontends such as Emulation-Station. It’s probably not as good as that in terms of sorting and management, but it has hugely improved and is a good basic way to access all of your games.

Once again, it’s AYASPACE that really elevates this whole experience, with a fantastic overlay that you can pull up with one touch of the button. It lets you control the likes of brightness, which performance mode you’re using, show you the current framerate and more.

When it comes to battery life, you can expect to get about 2-3 hours on max performance mode whilst playing PS2 games and roughly 4-6 hours playing a GBA game whilst in battery saver mode and again for the size and battery, this feels like more than enough.

All-in-all, this is another big win for AYANEO in terms of blending accessibility with high-end design, and it’s a stunning piece of hardware that those wanting to go back in time won’t regret grabbing.

The post AYANEO Pocket Micro Review – Premium Retro Goodness appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been a long-time AirPods user, but I was eager to check-out the latest Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro and I was extremely impressed with how they stack up both in design, but also in feature-set and audio quality.

They’ve copped a lot of flack for looking similar to the AirPods Pro, and it is the case, but there’s a few key changes that I absolutely love. Firstly, they’re a dark silver which looks absolutely incredible and much more premium than the white AirPods, and also won’t show dirt anywhere near as easily.

There’s also two light strips on each of the stems which you only really see when you’re taking them out of the case, so they don’t show when they’re in your ear, but it’s still a really cool touch nonetheless. The last part of the design that I really like is the case, which is also a really luxe silver, but also has a translucent top that lets you see the buds through the case, which again, is minor, but just adds a design element that I really appreciate.

Controlling the Buds3 Pro is super seamless as well, with a simple swipe on either blade adjusting the volume, and a quick pinch on either bud to play/pause your audio and holding to go between noise cancelling and transparency mode. There’s nothing worse than earbud controls that don’t respond and this couldn’t be further from the truth with the Galaxy Buds3 Pro.

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As far as audio quality goes in the Buds3 Pro it’s first class with a good amount of bass and clarity whether you’re using one bud or both. it’s about on par with the best wireless buds that I’ve used both when listening to music or taking a call.

Galaxy AI features in the Buds too when using them with Android devices, so your buds are constantly adapting both the EQ but also the ANC to eliminate the sounds you don’t want to hear (such as traffic), but let in people talking you directly and also alarms and sirens.

The noise cancelling is fairly fantastic, but probably a touch below that of the AirPods Pro Gen 2 which is best-in-class. It’s absolutely fine and still blocks out a good amount of external noise, it just doesn’t absolutely drown them out in the same way the AirPods do.

Similarly, the buds are always listening os that you don’t even need to use a wake command to perform functions such as answering a call or turning the volume up, and they pair nicely with the Galaxy phones for translation purposes so that you can get what you’re listening to translated in real time.

As far as battery life goes, you can expect 6 hours with ANC on (26 hours total including case recharging) or 7 hours with ANC off (30 hours with case recharging). You can also also take advantage of wireless charging for the case as well, which is a nice touch if you’re trying to ditch the cords.

Samsung has been hitting it out of the park with its wearables this year. I absolutely loved the Galaxy Ring, and the Galaxy Buds3 Pro finally feel like the high-end, premium solution that Samsung users deserve, and they more than deliver.

The post Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro Review – A Super Solid Experience appeared first on Press Start.

When one considers the circumstances around the development and release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, it existing at all seems like quite the miracle. It’s a video game that has Ukraine at the absolute heart of it, and the team’s peril throughout the ongoing conflict has been well-documented, especially so in the recent documentary “War Game”. If nothing else, it provides perspective and context that’s important to the game’s story, even if it’s relatively irrelevant to the bigger picture of how the long-gestated sequel, subtitled Heart of Chornobyl, is set to be received.

I’ll preface this piece by saying that I still want to spend more time with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 so treat this as a review-in-progress, or rather an overview of my experience with this supposed forty-hour game thus far. It’s worth noting, for reasons that’ll become evident shortly, that I’m also playing on Xbox.

Whether deliberate or not, there’s a desperation that permeates this world’s Zone of Alienation. In fact, the world painted for us feels so permanently unsafe, devoid of hope, and analogous to Ukraine itself, it’s hard not to feel a lot of the team’s terrible, life-shattering experiences bleed through in the moment-to-moment gameplay of Heart of Chornobyl. You endure the Zone’s vicissitudes as Skif, a hardened stalker who, after being left for dead having been robbed of a sought-after artefact, is thrust into a branching narrative full of secret plots, warring factions, sides to take, and decisions to make.

As I’ve said I’m early doors as far as the story goes, but the mystery of who crossed Skif in the wilds and left him at the mercy of the Zone’s horrors is enough to drag the boat along for now. Skif might not be the most riveting protagonist, nor would he be any fun at parties, but fortunately many of the Zone’s other major players have starred in their small episodes within this larger journey. Conflicted scientists who pit their ethics against scientific curiosity, ravagers who’ll weaponise your own need for intel against their rivals as they look to secure their slice of slag heap region Garbage, and war-weary generals whose trust in their men is misplaced are but a few I’ve encountered in the game’s early acts.

Though I’ve enjoyed those who call it their home, the Zone itself feels like the main draw for Heart of Chornobyl. It’s a spectacularly hostile place that, despite being rooted in horror and science-fiction, feels so cruel, grounded, and ultra-real in its treatment of the player, bullets are devastating, creatures claw with ferocious efficacy. Even on the easiest of difficulties, it felt as though death crept about every corner. Spectacular emission storms turn the sky a blood red as blue, radiated lightning cracks and pings off the abandoned cars littering the fields, I definitely don’t recommend getting caught in one, however glimpsing one through a window, watching as the world near literally blows on by, is an undeniable thrill and truly sells the scariness of the Zone.

While I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 does a marvellous job reminding the player time and again that its world isn’t to be fucked with, its remaining systems managed to upend my enjoyment over and over. I constantly felt as though the game wasn’t designed with a controller in mind, which is fine in principle, so much of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. audience’s roots lie with keyboard and mouse, but so much of Heart of Chornobyl is downright painful to play on console. Inventory management, of which there’s plenty being a hybrid of both survival and immersive-sim genres, is cumbersome and slow, the gunplay is spotty and imprecise with its Bethesda-esque jank and AI pathing leading to frustratingly bad combat situations.

But these gripes aside, it’s really the performance on console that scuttles the whole thing. It’s not that I have played it on PC at all, though I’ll be shocked if there isn’t an enormous disparity between it and this console port because optimisation appears to have been an enormous problem for the team. I’ve not seen bugs of this magnitude since the launch of Cyberpunk, and there are a few that are just as egregious without being game-breaking.

Graphical hang-ups make up the crux of the concern, with unique cutscene assets, like cassette players and headphones, floating offset from their user and floating through the air, wall textures strobing on and off like an epileptic’s nightmare, and draw distance issues causing textures to pop-in at what I’d consider mid-range. Combat can be a tough pill, but it’s made tougher still when raiders magically materialise out of thin air and, in a flash, spot you and fill you full of holes. I also experienced a number of hard crashes, lines of dialogue simply not playing, and enormous plunges in frame rate that, hand on heart, would have been fortunate to register in double digits. I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 already caters to a niche audience by being a tough as nails, hard to the core apocalypse simulator steeped in realism, and having to contend with this performance shortfalls that mar that experience and render the game frustrating is disappointing.

The game tries so hard to present its world as an authentic, post-apocalyptic playground that’s super serious in tone, almost like a Fallout for masochists. I enjoyed plenty of my several hours with the game, it teaches you how to be frugal with resources and develops in you an edge that holds you in good stead for the game’s many moral quandaries. For a game crafted in a literal war zone, Heart of Chornobyl is, without question, an achievement. It’s a huge, enormously scoped game, and I admire the team’s ambition to swing for the fences despite the conflict that underpins their day-to-day lives. Sadly, I do think the console version is rife with issues that’ll hamper people’s experience at launch.

However, they’re all issues that can be ironed out and I hope Heart of Chornobyl gets its redemption arc, because bloody hell this deserves a feel-good story. 

The post S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review-In-Progress – Zoned Out appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve dabbled with the Steam Deck over the years and whilst it was mighty tempting to import one, I always wanted to wait until it was officially available in Australia to properly spend time with one to review it, and that day has finally arrived with the console launching in Australia this week.

I’ve had a multitude of experience with PC handhelds, reviewing a bunch of AYANEO handhelds, the ROG Ally and Ally X, the Lenovo Legion Go and spent a significant time with the MSI Claw, and they’ve come a long, long way over the last 12-18 months, but I was very curious to see how the Steam Deck OLED experience would compare, and it’s absolutely an entirely different experience.

In short, the biggest compliment that I can give the Steam Deck in comparison to the dozens of Windows handhelds that I’ve tested is that it just works. It’s the Nintendo Switch of PC handhelds in the sense that anyone can turn it on and get going within seconds, with a user experience that feels like it was built for to the console, rather than Windows.

From the second you turn on the Steam Deck OLED, you can literally be downloading games within a minute or two. If you’ve got the app on your phone, you can scan a QR code and be straight in, which couldn’t be more opposite of an experience from other handhelds.

Similarly, scrolling through your Steam library is as seamless as it is as using Steam on your PC, with the operating system feeling like it’s at once with the handheld. For those that want the basics such as changing your brightness, or seeing how much battery is left, it’s su[er easy to navigate, and for those that want to tinker and mess with things such as TDP, or lock down frame rates, you can easily do that too, but it’s almost never needed.

Steam does a great job at telling you which games have been verified for Steam Deck use, which basically means that you can boot in without having to worry as it’s been verified to run perfectly. Most games don’t have this certification, but this doesn’t mean that it won’t run, it just means that it might be a less than perfect situation, require some tinkering of settings, or not run at all.

Whilst Steam can run Windows, it severely dampens the experience and isn’t easy to get running, so whilst the Steam Deck offers a much better experience than Windows handhelds, you obviously lose the ability to easily run games from other launchers, with the biggest loss coming in the loss of Xbox Game Pass games, which I’ve really enjoyed on other handhelds. If you’ve got a massive Steam library, this won’t be an issue, but if you’re primarily a console gamer that doesn’t want to buy all your games again, know that you can’t just boot into Xbox Game Pass as you can on the likes of the ASUS ROG Ally.

When it comes to performance, for 80-90% of the games that I tested, it was totally fine running at 60 FPS at 800p, without touching anything, but for newer games, you definitely will see a bit of a performance dip compared to running the ASUS ROG Ally X at 30w, which is expected, and the battery life and experience would still mean that I’d recommend this to most people over other options.

Playing games such as God Of War Ragnarok, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart or Even Cyberpunk 2077 ran totally fine on the Steam Deck, and the few games that did stutter a bit, I was able to just lock the frame rate to 30 FPS and get it to run nicely.

The display on the Steam Deck OLED is absolutely phenomenal. It’s a 7.4-inch 90HZ OLED display that has absolutely stunning vibrancy and brightness. If you opt for the 1TB mode you’ll get an anti-glare display, which I think is always the way to go for a handheld.

The battery life was equally impressive, blowing all other handhelds (except maybe the Ally X) out of the park, with 2.5-3.5 hours minimum playing AAA games and well beyond that playing indie games. I never felt like I needed to be within reach of a charger like I did with almost every other Windows handheld that I did.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $649 AUD FOR 256GB LCD / $899 FOR OLED

Similarly, the value that you’re getting at $649 for the LCD model or $899 for the OLED model is phenomenal compared to other handhelds, although probably a little less so than it was 1-2 years ago, for reasons that I’ve mentioned.

Whilst the Steam Deck OLED looks chonky, it’s extremely comfortable to hold, with the ergonomics being second to none, and the weight also feeling well distributed to the point that it’s never an issue. The build quality also oozes quality and feels extremely premium in its design. ugh v

As far as control options to go, the Steam Deck is still unmatched with all of the expected buttons and triggers, four back buttons, super seamless gyro support and two trackpads that have haptic feedback and a great for games that rely on a mouse or don’t have controller support.

Whilst the Steam Deck is releasing in Australia quite late in the game, it’s still a fantastic value for money way for gamers to play their Steam Library on the go, with Steam’s Cloud Sync being absolutely fantastic. If you want the best performance on the market, want to utilise Xbox Game Pass (or other launchers), or maybe don’t have a huge Steam library, there’s probably other options I’d recommend looking at.

The post Steam Deck OLED Review – A Super Seamless Experience appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve never been drawn to Farming Simulator games despite my friends’ constant insistence that the cozier, slower paced design of it all is therapeutic, but with Farming Simulator 25, they got me. An oddly cinematic trailer and the promise of worldwide farming was enough to convince me to dip my toes into the world of virtual farming. And while it’s not the best thing I’ve ever played, I’m absolutely in awe of how much depth and detail is hiding in Farming Simulator 25. It’s an experience that has forever changed how I look at these games.

I admit that’s in part due to my own ignorance, but it is incredible just how much is on offer here. The Farming Simulator games each offer the opportunity for players to step into the role of a farmer – usually through inheriting a farm which they can then develop as they see fit. You’ll expand your crops, harvest and sell them and then use that money to invest in expansion. Later games would add more detailed elements that go well beyond the traditional agriculture you’d expect – including livestock and forestry.

Farming Simulator 25 differs from the other games in a few ways. For one, you can now expand your farm beyond what has been typically provided – both American and European style farms – and begin cultivating Asian style farms too. With that, rice is a new crop that can be harvested, and, with that, many other aspects of the process change too. Other improvements with 2025 are the addition of livestock such as buffalo, which has a flow on effect of allowing you to engage in animal husbandry to make buffalo mozzarella to sell. There are some simple additions here, but it is merely adding to Farming Simulator’s already wide and varied offering.

And that’s really where Farming Simulator 25 really surprised me. It feels incredibly authentic. Not fussed with creating watered down experience for players, Farming Simulator 25 does exactly what it says on the box. While I’m not a farmer myself (in case you didn’t know), every aspect of running a farm, even those that I don’t even think about, is captured pretty authentically here. Whether it be managing crops, the aforementioned animal husbandry, or planting seeds and harvesting crops at the right time. The game feels realistic and, more importantly, when you see a big batch of crops come to fruition, it’s satisfying too.

Though it can take you a while to get there. There are some light tutorials at the beginning of Farming Simulaotr 25 but after that, the game really sends you on your way to do whatever you want. You can get out of the vehicles and go speak to people, who can often run you through the basics of whatever crop or activity you need to work out, but overall the game doesn’t hold your hand too much. This is both a blessing and a curse – it does feel like Farming Simulator 25 isn’t dumming things down for a casual audience, but for people like me, who are just getting into things, the constant trial-and-error approach to some of these crops could be frustrating for players less patient than me.

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But other improvements can help to remove some of the tediousness of some of the activities on your farm. While I’d argue that the simplicity and tedium of the tasks if some of the appeal with a game like this, you can easily implement AI-drive workers to drive vehicles from one point to another, plow a field of crops ready for harvesting or even delivering cargo for you. Their routines can be set individually or just looped, which helps you to focus on other things and, if you’re good enough, maximise your efficiency.

And that’s an important aspect of the whole experience, because you can really do a lot in Farming Simulator 25. It’s kind of impressive just how much variety there is here in terms of which crops you might choose to grow or where you’ll focus a lot of your time to expand and grow profitable. It feels like a true sandbox in many ways, and I guarantee that no two players will have the same experience, farms or even progression through the game. It’s this confidence in players to build their own farms in a way that they see fit that makes it easy for me to see why Farming Simulator has become the phenomenon that it has over the last fifteen or so years.

There are other aspects, some not even new to Farming Sim 25, that help to make the game feel more expansive, though they ultimately feel a bit like shallow window dressing than anything else. When I first started playing, I was excited to see that there was almost a whole world outside of the farm to explore – though ultimately the world is rather empty and feels more like a means to an end rather than an immersive space to buy, sell and trade in. Still, the ambition is appreciated though I’d love to see this aspect honed and improved upon in future instalments.

From a presentation perspective, Farming Simulator 25 is fairly rudimentary. It looks better than previous games though not by too much. The music is similarly what you’d expect from games like these – either no music at all or ambient tracks that help sell the atmosphere. The voice work is horrendous though, and I really hope that if GIANTS commits to a campaign in newer games that there is a bit more attention paid to this aspect of the games presentation.

Newer to this game are weather effects and improvements to the way water hits and flows off of crops, which sounds like a minor improvement, but it’s all smaller details that contribute greatly to the bigger picture. If you’re lucky (or I should say, unlucky) enough to be caught up in a tornado, one of the newer weather effects, you’ll no doubt notice how good it looks as it tears through your crops and pulls in a swirling mess of cloud and debris as it rips through your map. Other moments, like when you harvest crops as the sun sets, are serene and picturesque and really helps hammer home that cosy, relaxing effect that the Farming Sim games have.

All in all, Farming Simulator 25 is an earnest improvement on the previous Farming Simulator games. And while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any stretch, it adds enough new aspects to not only justify it’s existence but bring in new players, like myself without dumming down any of the intricate aspects that make it what it is. And while the onboarding can be fairly tough, especially if you’re completely new to this, sticking with Farming Simulator 25 will (mostly) lead to only fruitful harvests.

The post Farming Simulator 25 Review – Reaping What You Sow appeared first on Press Start.

Square-Enix’s 2D-HD system has been a godsend for traditionally styled Japanese RPGs. After struggling through years of questionable visual updates and smoothing filters, we finally have a visual style that feels respectful to the genre’s forebearers while looking eye-poppingly pretty on modern machines. It all began with Octopath Traveler and it’s fantastic sequel, but since then many games have employed the style, both new and old.

The latest series to get the HD-2D treatment also happens to be a massive blind spot in my personal game experience. Dragon Quest 3 2D-HD Remake, aside from being an absolute mouthful of a title, is a stellar example of how to bring an almost forty-year-old game to the current day. With a gorgeous visual overhaul, a moving orchestral soundtrack and thoughtful quality-of-life features, this 2D-HD remake respectfully allows the original source material to shine.

Our story begins with our protagonist waking up in their single-parent home. We learn that their father left on an adventure some time ago to save the world and never returned. Despite this, our character feels like having a coming-of-age moment and leaving on a similar adventure. Their poor mum must barely make it through the day because of the worry.

You learn of a big bad guy you must defeat and head to the local tavern to assemble an adventuring party to save the world. This is the first moment where you’ll see how free you are to build a party just as you like. You can recruit up to three other party members at a time. You decide their name, appearance, and, most importantly, their vocation. From warrior and priest to more oddball options like gadabout and monster wrangler, you have immense freedom in building out your party.

Here lies one of the aspects of Dragon Quest 3 that impressed me the most. Its job system is incredibly flexible, and with a little thought, it’s easy to build a wildly versatile team with which to take on the world. At a certain point in the game, you’ll get the option to change the classes of your party mates. When you do this, they go back to Level 1, but they keep all the spells and abilities they’ve learned so far, as well as half of their currently built-up stats. Building them back up to level with the rest of the party is pretty painless, and when they get there, they have stats above what they could have had at the same level without re-classing. They also gain all the new abilities of their new class as they grow.

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Normally multi-classing systems put me off a little, I’m afraid I’ll absolutely goose it and end up with a totally useless party member. The way it’s done here means that almost no matter what you do, you’ll end up with better stats than you started with. It made me much more willing to play with the system. In doing so, I went from a pretty standard mage, priest and warrior combo to a party with immensely useful thief and monster-wrangling skills. Each party member became more well-rounded with buffs and heals as well, so if one party member fainted, it was rarely game over. The job system in Dragon Quest 3 is great fun to play with.

The battle system is pretty straightforward and will be familiar to anyone who’s played a turn-based RPG. You’ll take turns to fight with weapons, items, magic spells and special abilities – attacking, defending and manipulating the stats of your party and your enemies to your advantage. Things can be quite difficult to begin with while you’re building out your party’s abilities but I found that if I did a little extra exploring and made judicious use of buffs and debuffs I was usually able to prevail against tough early bosses without too much trouble.

I touched on the 2D-HD overhaul earlier, but it’s worth going into a little more detail. I’m sure it will become old hat at some point, maybe verge on overuse eventually, but for now, I’m still utterly enthralled by the visual style and how it brings NES/SNES-era RPGs to life. Characters and monsters maintain a flat pixel-art look, while the environment around them is rendered in loving 3D detail. A shallow depth of field sells the look even further – it’s like looking into a diorama of little miniatures going about their adventure.

Similarly, the audio has had a respectful revamp that maintains its classic sensibilities while taking advantage of modern hardware. The entire soundtrack is luxuriously orchestrated and feels like a realisation of what was being composed in the NES/SNES era without the shackles of the sound hardware of the time. I’ve enjoyed the soundtrack so much that I’ve gone back to listen to the originals to compare them, and you can hear the distinct flavour of the originals in the new orchestral recordings. Some sound effects have remained from the original, tastefully melding the old and new.

While great effort has been made to keep things traditional, several new quality-of-life additions have made things more palatable to a broader audience. Objective markers can point you to the next major story location to ensure you’re never aimlessly wandering, though wandering is still worthwhile to find little events and items that add flavour to your adventure.

Three difficulty levels are available to tailor your experience to your preference. Dracky stops anyone in your party ever getting below 1HP, and Draconian ramps up the difficulty while reducing EXP gained per battle. Auto-battle options aren’t entirely new to the series, but are an incredibly useful tool when grinding levels or dealing with easier fights that don’t need particular strategies. All of these features are entirely optional, and I didn’t feel they got in the way of playing the game ‘as intended’. Mostly, they just prevented me from looking up a guide when I couldn’t quite recall where to go next.

The post Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake Review – Gaming Comfort Food appeared first on Press Start.

I had hoped LEGO Horizon Adventures would be a reimagining of the now-classic Horizon Zero Dawn with universal appeal. Having grown up with Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games, I couldn’t be more excited to relive Aloy’s origin story with the charm and whimsy of a LEGO recreation. While Pixar films or Bluey do a great job of entertaining the kids while conscious of the parent in the room, LEGO Horizon Adventures struggles to find the depth that would keep even the uninitiated interested.

No doubt, much of what would have made LEGO Horizon Adventures special rests on the LEGO brick presentation style. The game looks exceptional. Even playing in Performance Mode, the rebuilt post-apocalyptic environment looks incredible in LEGO form. Environmental artists have had a field day adding extra details that don’t go unappreciated; little LEGO skeletons dotted amongst rusted ruined buildings brought a smile to my face. The lighting is also gorgeous, contributing greatly to an impressive presentation that feels more reminiscent of LEGO Builder’s Journey than LEGO Star Wars.

Poking about the nooks and crannies of each level, however, I was left disappointed by a lack of interactivity. It’s hard not to compare LEGO Horizon Adventures to the other PlayStation-exclusive platforming title released this year, ASTRO BOT, which rewarded you for hitting almost everything. Thinking back to past LEGO-based games, I’m accustomed to whacking and breaking almost every little thing. Bar identifiable barrels, there was little to break to collect those studs, the in-game currency.

With no hidden collectibles or easter eggs to be found, it feels like a missed opportunity. Chests containing studs and powerups are never far from the beaten path. Nor are little LEGO builds, which often feel like the same object repeated, with no indication there’s a certain amount to be discovered in the level. Occasionally, some straightforward environmental puzzle-solving is required, mostly with fire or explosive barrels to break through a wall.

The creative creature design, adapting Horizon Zero Dawn’s many memorable robotic dinosaurs into LEGO form is another strength. They have all been given the same quality, LEGO treatment as the Tallneck set that adorns the shelving in my gaming room. Each new enemy encounter comes with the thrill of seeing how they’ve been recreated in LEGO.

The enemy design also emulates the approach taken by the source material. Like the two Horizon games in the series thus far, combat revolves around hitting weak spots on the machine. Each has its weak spots, with enemies like the Shell-Walker proving more of a challenge with a shield to navigate and two clasps keeping a large weak point at bay.

It’s a combat system that worked well in the original games, darting your way about the level to work an angle on the machine. However, its simplified translation into isometric LEGO form requires the player just point the stick in the general direction with your arrow or spear automatically targeting it.

Playing as Aloy or Varl, you get the option of these two ranged attacks, with the other characters Erend and Teersa having a hammer and bombs respectively. The latter two proved effective if less precise and I gravitated towards Aloy and Erend the most.

Adding more variety are the rare weapons and gadgets you can collect throughout levels. Pickups add elemental damage to your chosen weapon, and in the case of Aloy add scattershot or multiple notched arrows for extra damage. Gadgets get a bit more creative, my favourite being a deployable hotdog truck where the vendor tosses explosives in the general direction of enemies. These pickups have limited uses, but bring some welcome variety to the otherwise monotonous combat.

Sadly, the game’s combat never amounts to much. Granted, LEGO games have never been known for their complex combat mechanics, but still, I was left wanting more. Aloy’s spear never appears for close-quarter combat, whereas past LEGO games have dynamically altered the basic attack based on your proximity to an opponent. That and limiting a dodge/dash mechanic to a consumable pickup seems a misstep, particularly when some of the larger bosses have large area-of-effect attacks that ask more of the player.

Stealth is present somewhat. As you do in the core Horizon games, hiding in long grass makes you invisible to enemies, although there are no stealth takedowns or overrides; an upgrade available later in the game rewards some extra damage from a hiding spot but that’s it.

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To make it more approachable to the youngest gamers, I fear Guerilla Games and Studio Gobo have gone too far and lost much of what makes Horizon’s gameplay enjoyable.

That said, the story is decently executed. Elements of what is admittedly a complicated narrative get glossed over as you would perhaps expect given the target audience, but they have done a commendable job distilling it down to its basics whilst doing the original plot justice. Clearly, emphasis was placed on the character arcs of Aloy — and to a lesser extent the supporting characters — making sure to highlight the key themes most important to young newcomers.

The humour synonymous with the LEGO brand is on full display too, with Rost adopting the role of the narrator with a bunch of self-referential jokes that just about bow out before just becoming overdone. Ashly Burch also pivots to a more family-friendly tone commendably, with fun quips injected throughout.

LEGO’s sense of humour translates into the customisation central to the game. Of course, you can change Aloy’s attire (and that of the other characters too) into any number of daft outfits including spacesuits, chicken costumes and Ninjago gis. Customisation extends to different buildings you add to Mother’s Heart, the Nora Village which serves as the overworld where you upgrade your abilities and start challenges.

Upgrades don’t feel terribly consequential. There are two options: upgrades that increase the powers of all characters, and those tied to each character that can be progressed up to level 20. Each new character level increases their damage or health, whilst the overall upgrades increase the amount of XP earned from various takedowns, the damage done whilst hiding or the duration of elemental effects, for example.

Besides levelling up all the characters, completionists ought to seek out all the Gold and Red bricks they can to unlock all the customisations. Gold Bricks are earned by completing Story Mission and Community Challenges — which range from elemental takedowns to exploring a Cauldron in a spacesuit — and Red Bricks are rewarded for completing the Alpha Machine Hunts.

Story Missions blur together but are divided into different subsections within four chapters, each set in a unique biome. Tallnecks and Claudrons are to be found on alternate paths within these levels, which make for a welcome break in pace. The Story wraps up in several hours, with the Alpha Machine Hunts rounding the game out to what I believe is around a 10-12-hour game.

Alpha Machine Hunts become available after completing a chapter, with more unlocked for that region after progressing the story further. Here the challenge steps up, even on the middle difficulty of the five available. Should you want a serious challenge, there is one should you want to make the grind for all the costumes more arduous. Beyond that, the Platinum seems achievable, but little else would entice me to keep playing.

As expected, playing the game co-operatively online or locally makes it more engaging. The co-op play works well; an online friend can join your story back at Mother’s Heart. Locally, another player can drop in any time you like. Your companion will assume the role of one of the remaining three other characters, at whichever level you have progressed them so far, with all progress tied to your save.

The post LEGO Horizon Adventures Review — The Pieces Don’t Quite Connect appeared first on Press Start.

Just a few years ago Xbox dropped its Wireless headset that was one of the best value for money wireless headsets on the market, and in the last few weeks its released an updated version, which is priced just at tiny bit higher but offers some solid improvements.

As far as the design of the headset goes, it’s pretty much the exact same thing as what released some years ago, but the green accents have now been also swapped out for black finishes which I much prefer as it takes the premium feel of the headset to the next level. The band feels durable, the earcups are an extremely comfortable faux leather that can also be taken off and replaced and the fit feels exceptional, without pressing down too much on my glasses.

In terms of build quality and fit, I’d put this ahead of the Pulse 3D Headset, which is the same price. You’re not getting any kind of noise-cancelling with this headset, which is to be expected for the price, but it does a good job of blocking out external sounds.

My absolute favourite thing about the headset is still how accessible the buttons (or lack of them) are. I really dislike how many buttons there are on the Pulse 3D headset and the fact that they’re all on one side but on the Xbox Wireless Headset, the entire earcups act as volume controls, so your right cup controls the main volume whilst the left earcup does your game/chat balance.

You’ve also got an easy to access mute button on the microphone as well as a button to turn the headset on and off (complete with a matching startup tone to what you’d be used to with your Xbox Series X). As far as buttons go, that’s literally it and compared to other units on the market, that’s a godsend. Xbox has kept it simple and that’s exactly what you want with a headset. Even on day one, I was never second-guessing where to find one of the buttons or how to turn my chat volume up. It’s perfectly designed.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $159.95 WITH FREE SHIPPING

The headset is incredibly easy to pair to either your Xbox Series X/S or PC and all it takes is just holding down the power button to set it into pairing mode. Your Xbox or PC will then recognise the headset and connect each and every time it powers on. You can also connect the headset to multiple devices at once, meaning that you can connect to your mobile via Bluetooth whilst playing on your Xbox, and hear both devices at once, which is really helpful. You can also connect the headset to an Xbox wireless adaptor, which I highly recommend if you’re using a PC as it’s just going to be more stable than Bluetooth. This is still one of the best parts of the headsets as I feel that a lot of headsets at this price range don’t provide simultaneous connectivity.

As far as battery life goes, these have now been improved with a 20 hour battery life (up from 15 hours in the original version). It’s now the best in class in the market by any stretch these days, but it’s still perfectly fine, and you’re getting a quick enough charge from USB-C that it’s never an issue.

One of the original negatives on the original wireless headset was the microphone, and this has been improved quite significantly on the new headset. It does a fairly decent job at muting out background noises and also auto mutes when you’re not speaking. Again, it doesn’t rival the likes of the Arctis Nova Wireless but for sub $200 it’s perfectly fine for casual online gaming.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this headset sounds for $150. Whilst it doesn’t experience the deep bass that I got with the SteelSeries Arctis 7X or similarly priced headsets  , those headsets are more than double the price. What I did get though, was an exceptionally crisp sound even when at the loudest volume. The difference between these and something like the Arctis 7X is probably closer than it should be given the price difference.

The headset now comes with a Dolby Atmos license out of the box which is a big improvement compared to other headsets in this price range. Whether you’ll be able to tell the difference is obviously down to your ears and how much you care about that kind of audial fidelity, but it’s great that it’s included.

@shannongrixti

The new Xbox Wireless Headset has a longer battery life, an all-black design, Dolby Atmos support included in the box and a better auto-muting microphone #XboxWirelessHeadset #NewXboxHeadset #XboxSeriesX #Xbox #XboxSeriesS #XboxHeadset #Xbox

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

The post Xbox Wireless Headset (2024) Review – Even Better Value For Money appeared first on Press Start.

We’ve seen so many IPs benefit from experimenting with ports or sequels specifically crafted for virtual reality headsets, including Half-Life and, of course, Resident Evil. Although I wasn’t an enormous fan of Metro Exodus, which dragged the series in an open zone direction I didn’t care much for, I am a big fan of the original games. Metro, on paper, reads like a title that’d be a natural fit for a format like virtual reality which is so immersive and particularly interactive. I hoped by taking it back to the tunnels, and focusing on the scrappy, survivalist elements of the originals, that Metro Awakening might feel like Metro of old. 

One thing Awakening does to separate itself from the other mainline titles is that it places you in the boots of a new character, setting Artyom aside to help build out the universe’s dense canon. Having been penned in partnership with the novel’s author Dimitri Glukhovsky, there’s an evident care in fleshing out some characters we might not have seen before. You play as Serdar, a medical practitioner who’s surviving like everyone else in post-fallout Moscow. As other Metro games have, Awakening doesn’t shy away from its spiritual and supernatural side as Yana, Serdar’s wife, is tortured by memories and apparitions of their son, who’d passed at the beginning of their life underground, and sets off into the metro chasing ghosts.

This, of course, prompts Serdar to abandon his bedside manner and take up arms against the radiated monsters and raiders of the metro in an effort to save his grieving wife from herself. Metro Awakening’s place in the canon, and what they’re doing with a certain character’s origins, is telegraphed rather early and, due to a few reasons, never ultimately amounts to feeling like the twist in the tale it should be. That said, the story told is full of heart and does well to fill in a few blanks from before our time with Artyom. 

To get it out of the way, and to clarify as it is available on multiple headsets of varying qualities, I did play this game on PlayStation VR2, having plucked it from the underdepths of my bed, like an ancient relic. 

The last time I donned the visor was for Arizona Sunshine 2 which, funnily enough, was developed by the very same team who handled this game, Vertigo Games. With that being the case, there’s a huge similarity between the two in terms of how movement, level progression, and combat is handled, at least on the user-side. It’s also a very different game in so many ways, most obvious is that it’s a hard task to bask in the hot sun when in a nuclear winter.

In terms of combat, I’d say it leans more claustrophobic and tactical. Going from the undead shambling towards you, groaning with arms outstretched, to armed raiders rattling gunfire through windows while mutated dog things nip at your back after flanking you using their makeshift tunnel systems is a huge departure, and in an effort to add grounding and grit to the disparate setting, the gunplay loses its fun a little. 

While using the guns themselves is great, as usual, I found firefights, particularly those at range, to be frustrating. I’d be popping hopeful shots off in the dark, aiming for the muzzle flashes of those who’d wish me dead, only for their perfect aim to tag me time and again, leading to either a retreat on my part or me running out of ammo, which is already scarce to begin with. When dealing with modest numbers, I’d often resort to running in and placing a swift pistol round to the dome—it felt counter to the game’s intent but undoubtedly visceral and effective.

An unfortunate byproduct of this being a VR title, but could be explained away by Serdar not being a militant fighter, is that the resourceful, makeshift nature of modifying guns from past Metro games isn’t present at all. All guns, and their bullets, are found about the metro itself, which does keep things simple, but it does feel like an extraction of something special. 

With the underwhelming gunplay hamstringing the game’s meat and bones, stealth actually felt like the most viable means of working your way through the tunnels. Taking a quiet approach works well enough because there’s plenty of darkness to hide yourself in and the enemies, like their surroundings, aren’t that bright. They’re clearly a rung above the literally brain dead zombies from Arizona Sunshine, though I’d still say they’re easily duped, until they get you in their sights. General sneakiness is only one part of the equation, however, as it begins to fall to pieces when it comes to closing the deal and bopping a bad guy on his head to knock him out. It requires you to get near enough, but not too near, and clumsily punch your arm out in the hopes you’d closed the gap enough. So often I’d misjudge the distance and simply fall short, fortunately their aforementioned stupidity meant they didn’t register my missed punch’s small puff of air on the back of their neck. 

I do like that the scrappy, survivalist aspects of Metro are well enough intact, thanks to Serdar’s all-important backpack, which can be pulled out by reaching over and grabbing behind your left shoulder. Although we never seem to glimpse its contents, all kinds of key items hang off its every corner. In an effort to keep a clean user interface, your objective and ammunition count are scribbled on a board at the top, while a trusty lighter, ever-important gas mask and filters, and crank-handled battery pack that you’ll use repeatedly to generate power for not only your head lamp, but for rusted out fuse boxes in the metro. Every item requires a tactile input that felt earned and kept immersion at the forefront of the experience, even if I would have looked like an idiot going to town cranking it in the lounge room—what?

With its combat not quite hitting the mark, the Metro in VR experience, sadly, feels best in its quieter, less action-packed moments, when you’re able to take in the signature atmosphere the series has long been known for. The sad solitude of the metro tunnels, at least the parts that aren’t teeming with nightmarish horrors, cuts a stark contrast with the stations themselves which, at several points, feel like bustling, relatively happy places. Life, albeit a heavily compromised version of it, does march on here, and the sights of people tending bar and lending their ear to the broken, people strumming guitars around fires, and people simply resting in the homes they’ve fashioned from dilapidated train cars all paint a picture and create the sense of place I’ve adored about Metro forever. 

A format like VR so rarely has wins, and although I’m far from prepared to call Metro Awakening a system seller for any of its platforms, it’s in the upper echelon of experiences available. It tells an earnest story that deserves its place in the world, cleverly uses the technology to blend immersion with atmosphere, and it’s only due to the combat’s inability to nail down the fun that it ultimately falls short of expectations. 

The post Metro Awakening VR Review – Tunnel Vision appeared first on Press Start.

The Mac Mini has always been one of my favourite Mac devices, with it being one of the first mini PCs that I can remember hitting the market, and whilst it’s always been a staple amongst creatives, the new M4 Mac Mini absolutely reinvents the device putting it in a league of its own, making it an easy recommendation for anybody looking for their next computer.

Whilst the M2 Mac Mini wasn’t large by any stretch, the re-designed M4 Mac Mini has less than half the physical footprint, so whilst it is a bit taller, it takes up a lot less space on the desk and it’s also a lot easier to throw in a bag, put in your entertainment unit, or pop behind your monitor (I put it behind my Studio Display for most of this week), and you’ll quickly forget it’s even there.

I’ll speak about performance in a little bit but the thermal system at play here is absolutely world-class and the smaller size would mean nothing if it meant having a noisier mini PC that ran louder, but no matter what I threw at the M4 Mac Mini, it stayed absolutely silent and I would constantly check to see if a noticeable amount of heat was emitting from the unit, and absolutely nothing, barely any noticeable difference from when it was turned off.

@shannongrixti

The new Mac Mini is insanely powerful for its size and is fantastic value for money #MacMini #AppleMacMini #M4MacMini #MacMiniM4 #Mac #Apple #PC #Tech

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

The size isn’t the only difference about the new Mac Mini with a total new array of ports. The front features ports for the first time with two USB ports on the front as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack and on the back there’s three Thunderbolt 4 ports (Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro), HDMI 2.1, an ethernet port as well a power port (with the power supply inside the Mac Mini despite its smaller size).

It’s fairly hard to complain with 5 USB-C ports on the Mac Mini. We were never going to get it, but I’d have loved a singular USB-A port just because there are still a fair amount of accessories that use USB-A, but I recognise that the need for one is getting less and less, and with 5 USB-C ports it’s super easy to attach a dongle.

The other major design change is the new location for the power button which is now on the bottom of the Mac Mini. I don’t think it’s a massive issue especially because if its stationary on your desk, I don’t think you’ll ever be turning it off, but if you’re someone that cares about everything being straight and proper on your desk and your cable management being perfect, I do recognise that having to lift the device to turn it on isn’t the most ideal of situations.

The M4 Mac Mini has been improved with Wi-Fi 6E which is a must-have in any 2024 device (I’ve got EERO Wi-Fi 6E mesh routers all around my house) as well as Bluetooth 5.3, so you’re sorted from a wireless connectivity point of view.

The hero here continues to be Apple Silicon with the M4 Chip clearly allowing for the size reduction, but also a considerable bump in performance. I moved my entire workflow to the Mac Mini for the last week, and that included editing 4K video, having dozens of tabs open at once, a number of Photoshop tasks and my regular day to day activities and thanks to the M4 chip and minimum 16GB of ram that is now included across the board, it got through everything with absolute ease, even though I was doing all of those tasks at once for majority of the week.

Only once or twice did it slow down for ever a second, when exporting a 4K video, whilst then doing another graphics intensive task, but I recognise that my workflows are probably a bit more intensive than most people buying the base model which at under $1,000 is honestly a steal for the performance that you’re getting here. It’s incredible value for money.

Whilst AAA gaming is only starting to hit its straps on Macs, there’s starting to be a solid little library there with big hitters such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows still on the way. I played quite a bit of Stray and Death Stranding utilising the M4 chip and both ran well using Apple’s MetalFX upscaling. I say it in every Apple review, but Apple Arcade is also fantastic and has some genuine banger games like Balatro+ on it, among many, many other well-known franchises and all of those titles run well here.

The other part of the Mac Mini experience that I’ve been using is the Studio Display, and I don’t want to spend too much talking about it, but I do highly recommend it as it pairs perfectly with the Mac Mini. Not only does does it match the aesthetics perfectly, it also has a beautiful 27-inch 5K retina display that can connect through the Thunderbolt 4 Port. It also has a fantastic six-speaker system, microphones built into the monitor and a 12MP Ultra Wide centre stage webcam, in addition to giving you another three USB-C ports to work with as well. It’s absolutely on the pricier side, but it does pair perfectly with the Mac Mini and makes it an even more magical, seamless experience.

Despite my life revolving around tech, I’ve been a bit skeptical in AI improving my day to day life, but trust Apple to turn that around as my first taste of Apple Intelligence came with these M4 Macs over the last week, and I’m a massive fan.

The biggest one has been summaries which helps summaries bulk notifications among all of your apps but primarily Apple Messages, Mail and Facebook Messenger and as someone who receives dozens of notifications every minute across a number of group chats, email inboxes and Facebook groups, this is absolutely going to increase my mental wellbeing and productivity. It wasn’t always perfect, but I recognise that it’s still in beta and 98% of the time did an absolutely fantastic job at summarising notifications to either give me key information such as dates and times of events, or just give me the general gist to know whether a notification was worth opening.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $999 FOR 16GB/256GB VERSION

Similarly, Mail will now bring emails that it thinks might be more important based on timeliness or relevance to the top of your inbox, but it was a few other areas that really improved my day to day. Photos is hugely improved through with search now letting you give it much more specific queries and there’s a new clean-up feature similar to Google’s Magic Eraser that lets you very seamlessly edit out unwanted parts of photos.

I’m a big Focus mode user when I’m in meetings or really need to get something done and I spent multiple days this week using a new Apple Intelligence Focus mode called Reduce Interruptions and it was an absolute game-changer. This uses Apple Intelligence to only delivery you the most important notifications again based on timelines or from a loved one that might need need a direct response or something that is deemed to be an emergency. Again, it wasn’t perfect, but it more often than not only let through notifications that were those that actually needed a response and can only get better with time.

Another big one that I think a lot of people will get use out of is Writing Tools which can be used within any app to re-write chunks of text in a more professional or casual tone, or summaries chunks of text into lists. I’m not somebody that has used AI tools in this way (even though there’s a bunch available), and I recongise that a lot of people get use out of these, and it’s great that they’re so accessible here.

Another improvement is Siri, and I wasn’t able to make use of the new ChatGPT integration yet, but I was able to use the new experience that is re-designed but also makes the conversation flow a lot more naturally, and it’s a big improvement, and I’m excited to see where Apple take it.

The other big change that has just launched is MacOS Sequoia that I hadn’t used on my existing Macs, and there’s a lot of new features to love there too. iPhone Mirroring was a big one that I had used a lot during this week, with it allowing me to post to TikTok and Instagram without having to pickup my phone and a quick drop and drag from my desktop to photos app on my virtual phone allowing me to easily bring content across.

Something that has also finally hit the Mac is Windows Tiling, which allows you to quickly snap windows to parts of your screen, which is something I’ve relied on other apps for in the past, but to have that built right into MacOS now is a huge improvement.

All-in-all, you absolutely cannot go wrong with the new Mac Mini. Whether you’re somebody that just wants a smaller PC that is aesthetically pleasing on your desk, or someone that wants an absolute workhorse that can not only handle the day to day, but creativity tasks as well as AAA gaming, the Mac Mini does it all, at a fantastic low price, all whilst being really damn small.

The post Apple Mac Mini (2024) Review – Smaller Design With Much More Power appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been using a MacBook Pro for as long as I can remember, and it’s no secret that Apple Silicon has been an absolute gamechanger both in terms of portability and performance, but just when you thought the MacBook Pro was already perfect, Apple went and made a few small changes that absolutely improve the device once again.

For the most part, this is very much the same device as the M3 MacBook Pro, but there are a few key differences that not only elevate the MacBook Pro, but change the way it’s going to be used. The display on the MacBook Pro has always been the best display in a laptop, and now it’s even better.

The screen still has the Liquid Retina XDR display that can reach up to 1600 nits of peak brightness in HDR, but now it can also reach 1000 nits of sustained brightness when viewing SDR content which does go a long way. It’s the new Nano-texture display that blew me away the second I pulled it out of the box.

I’ve used the Nano-texture display on my Apple Studio Display for the last year or so in a fairly bright study, but my MacBook Pro is always with me, and I prefer to work on the sunshine, which was often at times impossible due to glare on the MacBook Pro display.

The new Nano-texture option hugely reduces reflections and glare, but still somehow maintains the fantastic contrast and vibrancy that we’ve come to love this screen for. It’s hugely affected how I use this laptop over the last week, where previously I’d sit away from windows or be less hesitant to take it to work outside, but now, it’s completely viewable no matter the situation.

@shannongrixti

The M4 MacBook Pro has a new nano-texture display option which is a game-changer #M4MacBookPro #MacBookPro #MacBookProM4 #Apple #AppleMacBook #MacBook #Gaming #Tech

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

I also shoot my MacBook screen quite a bit for content, and it was often hard as I required good lighting for the video, which would result in glare, but now it’s not the case at all, and whilst I do recognise that this is quite a unique use case, I think that creatives are going to love this new display as it is designed to be used out and about, even on planes I can see it making a huge difference. It’s a $230 additional fee but if you’re someone that has ever noticed glare on your laptop screen, I’d highly recommend it.

The other big improvement comes in the way of a new 12MP webcam. It’s probably the only thing that has let the MacBook Pro down over the last few years, but its’s hugely improved offering a much clearer picture and you can now also utilise Center Stage which keeps you in frame at all times. If you’re someone that needs to show your desk off on calls, there’s also the Desk View option which uses same kind of wizardry to show your desk whilst also keeping you in frame.

As far as other design differences, the base M4 MacBook Pro (the one tested for this review) now comes with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, where in previous years it had only come with three so that’s much appreciated. It’s also available in Space Black now which is still absolutely gorgeous. If you’re going for the M4 Pro or M4 Max, you get Thunderbolt 5 ports which offer transfer speeds of up to 120Gb/s. The rest of the port offering is still the same including a HDMI port, MagSafe as well as an SD card reader.

I had an M3 Max in my MacBook Pro last year, and whilst I loved the performance, I did notice a drop in battery life coming from base M2, but with the M4 chip it truly felt like the best of both worlds, without much of a drop at all in performance even when comparing rendering speeds for videos or gaming, the battery life is phenomenal at up to 24 hours on the base M4 model, and I felt like I got every bit of it literally going days without having to charge the laptop.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $2,499 AUD FROM APPLE

You also get a minimum of 16GB of memory, just like the rest of the M4 line which is important for Apple Intelligence and goes a long way when multitasking.

Whilst AAA gaming is only starting to hit its straps on Macs, there’s starting to be a solid little library there with big hitters such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows still on the way. I played quite a bit of Stray and Death Stranding utilising the M4 chip and both ran well using Apple’s MetalFX upscaling. I say it in every Apple review, but Apple Arcade is also fantastic and has some genuine banger games like Balatro+ on it, among many, many other well-known franchises and all of those titles run well here.

Despite my life revolving around tech, I’ve been a bit skeptical in AI improving my day to day life, but trust Apple to turn that around as my first taste of Apple Intelligence came with these M4 Macs over the last week, and I’m a massive fan.

The biggest one has been summaries which helps summaries bulk notifications among all of your apps but primarily Apple Messages, Mail and Facebook Messenger and as someone who receives dozens of notifications every minute across a number of group chats, email inboxes and Facebook groups, this is absolutely going to increase my mental wellbeing and productivity. It wasn’t always perfect, but I recognise that it’s still in beta and 98% of the time did an absolutely fantastic job at summarising notifications to either give me key information such as dates and times of events, or just give me the general gist to know whether a notification was worth opening.

Similarly, Mail will now bring emails that it thinks might be more important based on timeliness or relevance to the top of your inbox, but it was a few other areas that really improved my day to day. Photos is hugely improved through with search now letting you give it much more specific queries and there’s a new clean-up feature similar to Google’s Magic Eraser that lets you very seamlessly edit out unwanted parts of photos.

I’m a big Focus mode user when I’m in meetings or really need to get something done and I spent multiple days this week using a new Apple Intelligence Focus mode called Reduce Interruptions and it was an absolute game-changer. This uses Apple Intelligence to only delivery you the most important notifications again based on timelines or from a loved one that might need need a direct response or something that is deemed to be an emergency. Again, it wasn’t perfect, but it more often than not only let through notifications that were those that actually needed a response and can only get better with time.

Another big one that I think a lot of people will get use out of is Writing Tools which can be used within any app to re-write chunks of text in a more professional or casual tone, or summaries chunks of text into lists. I’m not somebody that has used AI tools in this way (even though there’s a bunch available), and I recongise that a lot of people get use out of these, and it’s great that they’re so accessible here.

Another improvement is Siri, and I wasn’t able to make use of the new ChatGPT integration yet, but I was able to use the new experience that is re-designed but also makes the conversation flow a lot more naturally, and it’s a big improvement, and I’m excited to see where Apple take it.

The other big change that has just launched is MacOS Sequoia that I hadn’t used on my existing Macs, and there’s a lot of new features to love there too. iPhone Mirroring was a big one that I had used a lot during this week, with it allowing me to post to TikTok and Instagram without having to pickup my phone and a quick drop and drag from my desktop to photos app on my virtual phone allowing me to easily bring content across.

Something that has also finally hit the Mac is Windows Tiling, which allows you to quickly snap windows to parts of your screen, which is something I’ve relied on other apps for in the past, but to have that built right into MacOS now is a huge improvement.

I really didn’t know how Apple would improve on the MacBook Pro this year, but they’ve somehow done it, with a number of minor changes coming together to once again breathe new life into this iconic laptop.

The post Apple MacBook Pro M4 Review – Keeps Getting Better appeared first on Press Start.

When we all picked up our shiny next-gen console at the end of 2020, we were assuming that we’d be closer to the 4K/60 FPS dream, but with every major AAA release, it became fairly obvious that we were going to be forced to choose between a 4K image and buttery smooth 60 FPS goodness, constantly left wondering what we were missing with the other mode. With the PS5 Pro, that next-gen promise finally feels delivered on, and then some in a number of different ways.

When it comes to the design of the PS5 Pro, it pulls in heavy inspiration from both the original PS5 as well as the PS5 Slim with it being the same height of the original PS5, but the same thickness as the PS5 Slim, and pulling over that same four plate design that the Slim introduced. I really like the racing stripes that break up the faceplates, and whilst it is a tad annoying that the top ones are differently sized to the Slim (it looks so good in black), there’s clearly a different vent design that means this probably wasn’t going to be possible.

There has been a lot of chatter around the PS5 Pro not coming with a disc drive and I’m not going to get into whether this is a good thing, but the disc drive mechanic is super nifty and very easy to put on (if you can get you hands on one). You simply take the faceplate off, and it’s a small connector that the disc drive slips into and then it’s the exact same process to pull it off. Same goes for the empty SSD slot, which is very easy to access and place an SSD into, if the additional 2TB SSD isn’t enough for you.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $1,199 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE DELIVERY

Similarly, there was a bit of controversy about the console not coming with a vertical stand. The console does stand fine on its own without the stand, and it does come with a much improved horizontal stand in the box in the form of two plastic little legs that clip into the racing strips between each faceplates. This is a huge improvement on the stand that came with PS5 and whilst it looks flimsy, I can assure you, it’s super secure and a great solution.

The only other hardware changes of note are Wi-Fi 7 which is great for future proofing (I’m always going to want to be hardwired), and like the Slim there’s 2 USB-C ports on the front and 2 USB-A ports on the back. The great news when it comes to noise and heat is that the PS5 Pro is practically silent. I have had it on for most of the last week testing a variety of games, and I never heard it ramp up even once, and similarly, waving my hand around the console resulted in a normal amount of heat, which is impressive given the performance.

Just like it was with the PS4 Pro during the review period, performance is hard to talk about with the PS5 Pro, as PlayStation has clearly put some stipulations in place in order for a developer to say that a game is ‘PS5 Pro enhanced’ but as far as how they incorporate that into their game, whether that be a new singular graphic mode, additional graphic modes, or replacement graphic modes, it’s totally up to the developer, and it varies greatly between games even with PlayStation’s first-party studio.

Whilst it’s not always immediately obvious how a game is better, it’s very clear after playing through 15-20 games over the last week that the improvements are going to be massive for games in terms of delivering on that next-gen promise.

The biggest new technology in the PS5 Pro is PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) which is similar to NVIDIA’s DLSS which I’ve spoken about time and time again in regards to how much it helps PC performance through the use of AI upscaling. Whilst I’m not Digital Foundry, it’s pretty clear that what PlayStation has done here is pretty fantastic as some of the improvements that I witnessed across games were night and day, and this is only at the beginning of the console.

MORE PS5 PRO COVERAGE:

• Our PS5 Pro Review
• The PS5 Pro Comes With 1.9TB Of Usable Storage
• The PS5 Pro Has An Exclusive Background
• No Man’s Sky Now Runs At 8K On The PS5 Pro
• Star Wars Outlaws Has One Single PS5 Pro Graphics Mode That Is The Best Of Both Worlds
• The PS5 Slim Faceplates Don’t Fit The PS5 Pro But It Seems To Be For Good Reason
• The PS5 Pro Blends The Best Parts Of The OG PS5 And The PS5 Slim Design

For instance Star Wars Outlaws now has just one mode on the PS5 Pro, which is 4K/60 FPS. On the original PS5 it was either 30 FPS in Quality mode or 60 FPS in Performance mode and neither felt great with the Quality mode lacking a smooth framerate and the 60 FPS mode looking quite blurry, but now, you don’t have to choose as it’s the best of both worlds in one mode.

Similarly, Alan Wake 2 has kept its two modes, but performance mode now runs at 60FPS with base PS5 quality level graphics, and there’s a new ray-tracing Quality mode that sticks to 30 FPS, but looks absolutely incredible and in-line with what you’d get out of a very high-end GPU on PC.

Insomniac Games has done much the same with both Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank where the new Performance Pro modes now run at 60FPS with quality-like visuals and it’s upped the ray-tracing on Quality modes but kept them at 30 FPS. Realistically, I suspect that going with the 60 FPS mode will be a lot easier decision for most now, with there being next to no visual downgrade.

I really liked the way Naughty Dog took advantage of the PS5 Pro, with a new third mode simply called ‘PS5 Pro’ that utilises PSSR to bring 4K/60 FPS to both The Last Of Us Part 1 and Part 2. These games already looked stunning, but to now be able to play them in 60 FPS without feeling like you’re seeing a downgrade on the visuals just makes all the difference.

Probably the biggest difference was Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth which has a new Versatility graphics mode. This is a game that was heavily critiqued for how blurry it was in performance mode, and this game is one that kept all of its original modes, but this new Versatility mode is both super crisp, looking indistinguishable from the original Quality mode and runs at a smooth 60 FPS.

@shannongrixti

The PS5 Pro delivers on the next-gen promise with higher resolutions and more consistent frame rates across the board #PS5Pro #PlayStation5Pro #PS5 #PlayStation5 #PlayStation #Tech #PS5ProUnboxing #Gaming #Tech

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Just because of some of lack of information about PS5 Pro upgrades and how different developers were handling the new technology, I reached out to a few developers from the likes of Bioware and Hello Games and it was very clear that these teams were excited in the new world of possibilities that the console unlocks. It was always a little bit of a running joke that the original PS5 had an 8K logo on the box, but now that is starting to become a reality.

Whilst F1 has a super stunning ray-tracing mode at 4K/60 FPS, it also has an 8K option for those that have the compatible TV. No Man’s Sky also has a new 8K option for those that want to jump in. I do suspect that this will still be quite a rarity, and I suspect that most people don’t own an 8K TV and have no intention to upgrade, but if anything, it is a good example of how much more headroom developers have to play with when using PSSR.

It’s not only the PS5 Pro enhanced games that see an improvement. There’s Game Boost that basically acts to lift the frame rates or resolution of any game that has uncapped framerates or dynamic resolution. A great example of this is Elden Ring and the Monster Hunter Wilds beta that both perform better on PS5 Pro and also Resident Evil 2’s uncapped ray-tracing mode that ran at 60 FPS on the PS5 Pro and 45ish FPS on the original PS5.

There’s also an ‘Enhanced Image Quality’ option in the system settings that uses AI upscaling to make PS4 games look clearer. I didn’t spend a heap of time with this, but I did try Bloodborne and a few other games, and it wasn’t a night and day difference, but I did notice things like text being a lot less blurry on the PS5 Pro.

Whilst I’ve been pretty positive on the PS5 Pro, I want to be really careful not to oversell it, because you won’t be blown away going from the PS5 to PS5 Pro, at least with what’s on offer so far. It’s more of a consistent, across the board improvement that feels more what I was expecting coming into this generation. This is the closest that console gaming has felt to playing on a PC in terms of playing a game with a fantastic, crisp resolution at 60 FPS.

If you’re somebody that constantly finds yourself flicking between graphics modes or have thought that something doesn’t run at solid enough frames or look like its running at full resolution, this is the console for you, but if you’re not somebody who cares about that then I’d probably wait until something like Grand Theft Auto 6 or the next big PlayStation first-party game comes along.

What’s on offer here from PlayStation is fairly remarkable from a technological standpoint, and yes the PS5 Pro is expensive, but it does offer a fairly high-end experience in line with a PC that would be far more expensive to put together, and AI upscaling systems only improve over time, so this feels like it’s only the beginning in how far the PS5 Pro will be pushed.

The post PS5 Pro Review – Delivering On The Next-Gen Promise appeared first on Press Start.

While we’ve already had two Mario-centric RPGs in the last year on the Switch, it’s been over a decade since Nintendo released an original Mario & Luigi game. While Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario were remakes, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is an entirely new adventure. A new storyline, no nostalgia to carry it and, more interestingly, a (moderately) new developer. That being said, while Brothership is easily the most interesting in the series so far, there are many hurdles you’ll have to jump before it reveals its brilliance to you.

During the game’s opening moments, Mario and Luigi are whisked away to the now-divided continent of Concordia by a mysterious vortex. Here, they meet Connie, a local of the area, who explains to the brothers that Concordia has broken apart. Mario and Luigi, as they always do, set off on an adventure to reconnect all of the disparate islands, restoring the continent to its former glory. It’s a straightforward premise that, while plodding, eventually evolves into something more intriguing and unique than I’ve ever experienced in any Mario-themed RPG.

But in terms of how it plays, Mario & Luigi: Brothership feels incredibly similar to previous games. The general structure of the game has you moving from island to island, solving a slew of puzzles, battling enemies and reconnecting islands to rebuild Concordia. It’s a simple premise saved by the variety of dungeons you’ll explore. But it really, really takes a lot to get going. Pacing is perhaps the biggest issue I have with Brothership, which starts with the method of transport that you’ll use to get from island to island.

Your main hub, an island shaped like a ship, called Shipshape Island, can move from area to area by riding currents on the ocean. While riding, if you’re near an island, you can use a cannon on Shipshape to shoot yourself there. It’s simple, but where it really falters, mainly in the opening hours, is how it simultaneously encourages completionists and frustrates them.

The way it works is simple. Your ship will reach its destination in real-time after selecting the current you want to ride. Brothership encourages you to complete optional content during this time, which takes minutes. Things like completing side quests, some of which are time sensitive or exploring areas on already visited islands that have opened up since you’ve connected them. I often found myself going off to do side quests, being notified that we were approaching the island, but then missing the island before I even got back to the cannon. With nothing else to do, I had to wait more minutes for the ship to make its way around the current again.

To be completely transparent, this issue became less of a problem after upgrades were given to the ship to make things a bit more manageable. But it took over ten hours to get to that point where my concerns melted away, and I’m not sure other players might be that patient. This problem might sound minor, but if a player doesn’t put up with it, potentially even if it never reaches the game’s incredible second half because of it, that’s an issue that’s worth highlighting.

It speaks to my most significant problem with Brothership – it’s poorly paced. While the tutorials are quick and easy to digest and get through, Brothership’s characters constantly stop the game to talk to you every few minutes, reminding you of where you are or what you need to do. If these scenes were presented with the same charm and humour I’d seen in, say, Paper Mario earlier this year, I’d be okay with it. But Brothership is so afraid to let players go that it becomes tedious. I’m not going as far as to say it’s anything as mind-numbingly frustrating as Fi’s constant interruptions from Skyward Sword’s original release, but it is regular and detrimental to the pacing enough that I’d be remiss to mention it.

It’s a colossal relief that it’s incredibly strong when the game gets going. If you’ve played any RPGs Nintendo has been putting out on the Switch recently, you’ll know what to expect. Mario and Luigi have similar move sets (think jumping and hammers) but differing stats. The combat is turn-based, with battles having you hit rhythmically timed button presses to improve your damage or reduce incoming damage. This simple system is more engaging by the active element that happens as your turn plays out, and every enemy behaves differently to be avoided too.

Where Mario & Luigi games have always differed is in the Bros. Attacks, where Mario or Luigi can initiate an attack that the other brother will participate in to do massive damage to a single enemy or heaps of enemies in the arena. These are a joy to pull off – the simplest of one has the brothers kicking a shell to each other, building up flames on it before power kicking it into a group of enemies. They’re incredibly interactive and always fun to use, and they look better than previous games, thanks to Brothership’s vibrant art style. There’s a nice mix of new and old, some even featuring cameos from other characters, and I’ll never get tired of doing them.

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The other significant addition to the combat is the plug system, similar to the badges from Paper Mario. Once unlocked and crafted, these can be slotted into your team to add different effects to your attacks. Plugs grant effects like doing guaranteed critical damage against certain enemies or automatically using an item when inflicted with a status ailment. Mixing the right plugs together can even have unique effects too. The catch is that plugs eventually run out and will recharge once swapped out for others. It’s a clever but simple system that forces you to experiment with different loadouts of the various plugs rather than just relying on the same ones, something I admittedly did plenty of in Paper Mario earlier this year.

But it’s not all about the battles either – the other major new addition is Luigi Logic. It’s a clever way to get Luigi to participate more than in previous Mario & Luigi games. Tapping the L button essentially sends Luigi to help you with a task. Sometimes, it’s as simple as helping you to smash a bunch of blocks. Other times, he’ll jump in to help with a puzzle, removing some of the tedium that controlling just one character would typically bring. It’s a glorified partner Al system, for sure, but it’s incredibly intuitive, and there was never a point where Luigi wouldn’t do what I needed him to. Luigi Logic is similarly used in battle, taking advantage of environmental structures to help both him and Mario do massive damage to enemies during more intense boss battles.

When you’re not in battle, you’ll still be exploring the islands. Many of them have simple objectives, requiring you to solve local issues to reconnect to the mainland or traverse them to get to the lighthouse. Some are longer and more involved, serving similar functions as the typical dungeons you’d expect to find in an RPG. While I found the larger ones to go on for a bit too long, contributing to Brothership’s pacing issues that I’ve already talked about, the variety on offer here is to be commended.

Of course, there are side quests to complete if you so wish, but most of these feel like the typical ones you’d find in an RPG from decades ago. You’ll often just have to go speak to someone after receiving them from someone else and then be rewarded something trivial like a consumable or a piece of equipment you’ve already superseded with something else. There are smaller islands to explore, called islets filled with puzzles, and reefs to find in a more involving side quest, but otherwise, this is fairly typical optional content you’d expect to see in an RPG like this. Some special quests continue the side characters’ storyline, but they’re few and far between.

Visually, Brothership is as slick as ever. The game employs a heavily stylised look that makes the game look like the concept art for all previous games, except in real-time. It’s bright, colourful and incredibly expressive. I can’t tell you how often I smiled, seeing Mario or Luigi scream in terror as the other brother fell in battle or even just fussed over the other brother whenever I missed an attack. It’s a bright and colourful world filled with even more charming enemy designs that I couldn’t get enough of. And while the lack of a 60fps mode is disappointing, the game still runs at a very steady and stable 30fps.

So, as my time came to a close with Brothership, I felt awfully conflicted. It’s easily the most interesting Mario & Luigi game, especially narratively speaking, once it gets going in its utterly stellar second half. But the pacing issues, including the need to constantly throw you into repetitive conversations, really bring the whole experience down. It’s just as well the game flips the script the way it does, though, as such a pivot combined with a strong, classic battle system makes Brothership the traditional Mario & Luigi game fans have been clamouring for so long.

The post Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review – A Rocky But Incredible Journey appeared first on Press Start.

I can almost guarantee you’ve never played anything quite like Slitterhead. Bizarre name aside, the game is the latest from the mind of Keiichiro Toyama, who was instrumental in bringing us some stellar titles like the original Silent Hill, Gravity Rush and Forbidden Siren. It’s an incredible artistic undertaking, blurring genres to offer a unique experience. And while Slitterhead feels like a game made precisely for people like me, it’s not entirely without its faults, especially from a technical standpoint.

The premise of Slitterhead is fairly simple. You play as a Hyoki, a non-physical spirit who can possess other humans. Affectionately named Night Owl by another character you meet early on, you “wake up” as the spirit and realise that your memories are gone. The only thing you do remember is that your life goal, for some reason, is to eradicate the Slitterheads from the living world. They’ve been let loose on the Hong Kong-but-not city of Kowlong, attacking humans and sucking out their brains through their eye sockets. It’s gross and fantastic and, obviously, goes in some pretty dark places.

All in all, across Slitterheads twelve-hour campaign, I was enthralled by the weird story that Toyama is trying to tell here. While the characters are flat, there were many times when the game would throw me a curveball that I was not expecting. It’s a fairly strong story, anchored in the occult, as you’d expect from a game about a ghost. But it’s the unique spin on typical horror conventions that Slitterhead puts on things that really helps it to stand out. If you’re familiar with how the Siren games tell their stories, you’ll understand what Slitterhead is going for. It’s an incredibly obtuse story that’s equal parts weird and fascinating.

The game is split into chapters, with each chapter having you track and investigate the source of the Slitterheads or other leads in Kowlong as key characters, called Rarities, find them. The missions themselves are semi-open, allowing you to roam the streets of Kowlong before undertaking some kind of platforming challenge or possession puzzle before eventually coming head-to-head with one of the titular creatures. It’s a simple enough premise – though each level is semi-open, the solutions are often linear and, even bizarrely, the game never gives you a map nor regular waypoints if you’ve got multiple objectives to complete.

The crux of the experience is you playing as the Hyoki, holding a shoulder button to leave whoever you’ve possessed and allowing you to float a short distance to another body you can see. There are a few simple rules to keep things fair – you can’t possess bodies that are far away, you can’t possess bodies that you don’t have a line of sight with, and you can’t possess bodies that you “don’t have good sync” with. It’s a fair system with simple rules that keep things from getting too broken as time goes by.

The possession mechanic really comes into play more substantially when combatting the Slitterheads. Essentially, the Hyoki can switch between multiple bodies and harness the blood of each individual to physically conjure weapons. Clubs, katanas and grenades: There are many combat options that you can use as time goes by. The Hyoki can “die” if the body you’re in dies while possessing it. To survive in Slitterhead, you must jump from body to body as regularly as possible. You get better combos and do more damage after moving from one body to another, too, incentivising the need to constantly jump between bodies. It’s a bleak take on things to see how little regard Hyoki has for human life, but a spirit’s gotta do what a spirit’s gotta do.

All civilians share similar abilities, but the crux of the strategising happens in the Rarities system. Throughout Kowlong, you’ll be able to find specific individuals who are “more highly attuned” to Hyoki and thus exhibit greater benefits when possessed. Essentially, these rarities form the main cast of the game and are the characters you’ll speak to between missions to better discuss what’s going on in the story. Even better, all of the Rarities are equipped with unique weapons and abilities compared to regular civilians and do more damage.

The first you acquire, Julee, uses large Wolverine-esque claws to do massive damage to the Slitterheads. The potential second, Alex can conjure a vortex from blood to draw enemies in before finishing them off with a charged bloody projectile from his shotgun. The elderly Betty can even convert fallen pools of blood on the ground into damaging blades. You can take up to two Rarities with you on each mission, so you can find your favourites fairly quickly and create a team that synergises well, as each has individual strengths and weaknesses.

Combat itself occupies a space solely between the more considered heavier mechanics of a Dark Souls game and the more hectic, over-the-top spectacle of character action games like Devil May Cry. It’s a good combat system with all the trimmings you’d expect from a modern action game – blocking, parrying, slowed time for perfect parries and meter management by literally soaking up the blood from the streets as it’s spilt. I was playing the game’s hardest difficulty and still having fun – many games like this often have janky mechanics that feel unfair or downright broken, but Slitterhead’s combat is tighter than you’d expect, especially as you unlock more skills.

But while Slitterhead plays much, much better than its initial trailers would have you believe, the combat does feel incredibly punishing when dealing with more than one enemy at once. You can unlock specific skills that make fighting multiple enemies a lot easier – even some of the Rarity unique abilities, too – but it does feel like there were a few moments where I would get teamed up on and be destroyed almost too quickly.

The other glaring issue I have with Slitterhead is the distinct lack of enemy variety. I can almost excuse the location variety being low – this story is solely the story of Kowlong and helps this smaller team to stretch their budget – but there are not many types of Slitterheads to fight. I adore the designs of what is here, however, once again harkening back to Toriyama’s work on the Siren games. To see a creature inspired by the Blue Ringed Octopus was also uncanny, as an Australian. However, they’ve been popping up more and more in Japan recently. A fun but incredibly irrelevant piece of world news for you.

But enough about cephalopods. Between missions, you’ll be thrown to a menu where you can chat with Rarities to reflect on the story, upgrade your skills or even gain new leads that’ll lead you to new missions. It’s also here where you can replay missions, framed as a time-travelling power used by the Hyoki to unlock new Rarities or complete optional objectives. There’s a lot to do in Slitterhead, both mandatory and optional, including small arena challenges hidden in each world. Additionally, how the story is handled non-linearly across multiple characters’ perspectives feels incredibly reminiscent of the Siren games.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Slitterhead is quite the looker. While character models can look pretty rough – sometimes plasticky, other times generic – the world of Kowlong is brought to life with incredible lighting. Every street and every alley has been drenched with astonishing lighting, shadows and plenty of neon to really sell the idea of this gritty, long-forgotten otherworld. It all pops in HDR, too. Even better, all of this runs at a very solid sixty frames per second. Perhaps a fidelity mode with raytracing would’ve been appreciated, as it would look perfect in this kind of world, but regardless, Slitterhead looks better than you’d expect from a game of this scope and scale from a team this new.

Where scope and scale is a bit more obvious, however, is with the game’s voice work. First, there’s barely any of it – most of the dialogue in the game is text with the odd grunt or giggle to help establish the speaker’s tone. There are some voiced moments in cutscenes, but otherwise, it does feel notably low-budget. On the other hand, Akira Yamaoka’s original soundtrack is excellent here. It’s the same ethereal score featuring dark synths, industrial noise and guitars that you’d expect from a Yamaoka soundtrack, but he especially cooked with Slitterhead.

I said earlier that Slitterhead feels like a game made for me, and I stand by that. It’s an incredibly unique idea with an even more unique combat system anchored to a bizarre but engaging narrative. It’s the kind of game that Japan Studio would be making if they were still around, the kind of ideas-driven adventure that you just don’t see as much anymore. And while there are some bizarre omissions – namely the lack of a map and a combat system that’s great only ninety per cent of the time – Slitterhead is a stellar debut from some incredible minds that excites me to see where Bokeh goes next.

The post Slitterhead Review – Possessed By Greatness appeared first on Press Start.

Treyarch has proven, once again, that they know what makes a Call of Duty multiplayer experience really tick. The return of the classic prestige system, a tight TTK, excellent map variety and the introduction of omnimovement build on the excellent foundations of recent Call of Duty games, making Black Ops 6’s multiplayer experience an absolute delight. It isn’t always perfect, but it’s the best it’s been in many, many years. 

Headlining Black Ops 6’s new additions is the introduction of omnimovement, which completely changes the way you can move in-game. You’re now able to sprint, slide and dive in any direction you want, giving you an endless amount of new opportunities for traversal. Whether you’re dodging and diving away from enemy fire, sprint-sliding into a capture point or simply throwing yourself off a roof into the pool below, omnimovement feels slick, fast and fluid.

While the game’s only been out for around a week, I’ve already seen players making use of the omnimovement system in ways I didn’t even think possible. It’s such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. That said, I can’t help but think it’s a sink or swim moment for some players, as the learning curve is definitely steeper than usual. However, it’s an excellent change to the traditional movement options available in Call of Duty and compliments the chaotic nature of the series.

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To compliment the omnimovement system, Treyarch’s also done a great job at creating a more seamless movement experience for those that want it. Intelligent Movement, as they’ve called it, allows you to toggle a range of options to remove the amount of button presses you need to make to get around a map. This includes four options: Sprint Assist, Mantle Assist, Crouch Assist and Corner Slice. Toggling any of these on will essentially tell the game to perform these actions for you when you go up to a relevant obstacle – the game will detect what you’re intending to do and perform the appropriate action. While I only played around with it a couple of times, it’s a great little accessibility feature that does a great job at allowing you to focus primarily on the action rather than getting stuck and losing momentum. 

Another major highlight in Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is the new game mode, Kill Order. A 6v6 teamwork-oriented mode, Kill Order has players on either side attempting to defend their high value target (HVT) while trying to kill the enemy team’s HVT, racking up points in the process. The trick here is that HVT’s earn more points than regular operators when getting kills, and earn the most points when killing the other team’s HVT, so there’s a certain element of risk versus reward. HVTs can also be revived, are a bit stronger than regular operators and can see enemies on their minimap. When an HVT is killed another player on the team becomes the HVT, with the mode continuously rotating until the score limit or time limit is reached. 

Unsurprisingly, strong communication plays an important role in winning games of Kill Order, and I’ve had an absolute blast with it. Wrapped up amongst the other beloved modes that Black Ops 6 ships with, Kill Order is easily one of my personal favourites. It feels like one of the strongest new mode additions in some time, and that’s likely due to how easy it is to understand and how it differs from most of the other modes on offer. 

Map variety is strong in this year’s entry, as well. Treyarch’s focused on maps that are generally a bit smaller than what’s been available in recent Call of Duty titles, leaning in on tighter angles and more vertical variety. Most of the maps are small to medium in size, with a couple of larger outliers. My personal standouts so far are Subsonic, a small map nestled within a bomber team’s training facility, and Skyline, a medium-sized map based on a luxury resort rooftop. Of the 16 maps at launch, I’ve only felt aggrieved when a couple make their way into the rotation, those being Red Card and Lowtown. Both maps are just a bit too big and are prime real estate for snipers to camp up the back and make everyone’s life a bit of a misery. Hilariously, a lot of the time these maps appear in the rotation most players will vote to skip so it can’t be just me who isn’t very stoked on either of them. 

The biggest gripe I have with the game so far – and it’ll likely come as no surprise – is the abhorrent spawns. In almost every game I’ll find myself on the wrong side of an enemy’s reset spawn location or I’ll spawn right in the middle of a gunfight, which makes getting back into the momentum of the game difficult. I do wish Treyarch and the team would look into this issue, as it’s been such a prevalent problem for so many years. 

In better news, Treyarch’s brought some of the most requested features from previous entries into Black Ops 6, headlined by the return of the classic prestige system. Once you hit Level 55 you’ll be given the option to prestige, taking you back to level 1 and forcing you to unlock all of your equipment again. There are incentives for doing this, of course, with many customisation options – from calling cards to operator skins – on offer. It’s great to finally have this system return as I found the other prestige relatively boring without any clear incentive. It also feels nostalgic in its own way, which for this veteran Black Ops player is always a good thing. 

There are a variety of other returning and new features, too, like customisable reticles for your optical attachments, the return of theater mode, a fully customisable HUD and the post-match winner’s circle. It feels like Treyarch has really listened to fans since Cold War’s launch in 2020 and have made it a priority to ensure Black Ops 6 looks both forward and backward, celebrating the previous entries while ensuring the game feels fresh, new and exciting in its own way. 

All of these new additions come together to compliment the ever-excellent Call of Duty gunplay to a tee. The game feels brilliant to play, and is made all the better thanks to the well-balanced TTK and a solid array of guns and equipment to experiment with. Streamlining the gunsmith was also an excellent move by Treyarch, as navigating through menus and looking through new attachments and weapon options seems a lot easier this year. 

While perks themselves haven’t seen a reinvention, the addition of the combat speciality perk certainly changes the game a bit. If you match the specialty of your three perks, you’ll be granted a combat speciality. Combat specialities give you a solid advantage in the battlefield, whether it’s being able to see enemies through walls for a brief period of time when you respawn or earning a score bonus for completing an objective or destroying enemy equipment. Playing around with your class and experimenting with what works for your perk specialities is important in this year’s game, and while it’s a small change to the flow of general gameplay I’ve enjoyed figuring out what works best for me and my team. 

Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is nothing short of excellent. I’ve had so much fun getting to grips with the new omnimovement system, figuring out the best way to get around the new maps and diving head-first into Kill Order. Returning features like the classic prestige system ensures that I’ll no doubt spend many hours in the game over the course of the year, and while it has some niggling issues that continue to plague the series, it’s the best multiplayer suite in a Call of Duty game in many, many years. 

You can find out more about our thoughts on the game’s campaign here.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Multiplayer Review – The Best It’s Been appeared first on Press Start.

With Flight Simulator 2024 coming up, it was a good time to start looking at the flight stick market again. Since the boom of the sim market, we’ve seen, unlike many people, I was still hard stuck using my old Logitech joystick from when I was in high school, so I thought it was time to change that with the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck.

The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck is HOTAS (hands-on throttle-and-stick) with a lot of dials, switches and the first one on the market to include a touch screen display. It was a little overwhelming pulling it out of the box but at the same time excited to run it through some titles.

Out of the box, the construction of the units were very sturdy and had a bit of weight to them. Great for desk placement without the issue of the unit moving or tilting. Majority of the stick and throttle were coated in a nice plush soft rubber making it feel premium and adding extra grip for those sweaty hands while in-game. The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck also features RGB lighting which is also customisable via the software. You can give it a very combat look with some night vision looking green or go simple with some nice light blue.

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There’s a lot of buttons to utilise and probably, maybe too much or not. I did find myself using all the assigned buttons in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, especially that pinky trigger to brake. The trigger itself feels amazing, with the actuation similar to a gaming mouse so you get some satisfying audible click when pulling it.

The most notable stand out feature for the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck are the screens. No other HOTAS setup on the market features two screens, a small one situated above the joystick and a big touch screen below the throttle. These screens add to the immersion of the product giving you extra buttons plus information.

The touch screen is configurable and you can have multiple profiles. The design is similar to a stream deck if you’ve used one basically allowing to place buttons mapped on the screen. They’re preset ones if you’re too lazy to customise but overall it’s a cool addition – if you’re gonna use it.

Majority of the physical buttons on the unit are programmable, it was actually hard to count how many buttons and switches there were honestly – there’s a lot but the box says 90 so we’ll go with that. Honestly, you’ll probably find yourself mapping this setup for an hour before any flying.

Not all is perfect with the Velocity Flight Deck however. Software wise, annoyingly it’s only available via the Microsoft store. As for me, luckily I do use the Microsoft store however this is not the case with a lot of gamers who avoid it. A separate download not attached to the store would have been better.

While considered a premium product, the quality of the product ain’t all there. While the majority of the switches and buttons feel high end or premium for this price bracket, some feel cheap and at times, off. For example, the same set of switches could feel different and not activate or click the same. While minor, it kinda throws off the overall product where the majority of it feels amazing.

The post Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck Review – A Great Step Up appeared first on Press Start.

Upon stepping back into the world of Horizon Zero Dawn for the Remastered edition, I was forced to reflect upon my time with the game, and it’ll absolutely go down as one of my favourite PlayStation games of all time.

Initially I tried to jump into the game at a save point around 75% of the way through and was overwhelmed, but then I decided to start fresh and realised just how much I love this world, and how fun the gameplay immediately is.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered doesn’t set the world on fire in terms of how it looks, and that’s mostly due to how fantastic the original already runs on PS5 at 60 FPS, but there are some pretty major differences. Fairly plain and simply, it runs almost identically to Horizon Forbidden West, but there’s a simplicity to the world of the original game that is definitely elevated by the improvements.

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When it comes to graphical modes, I played on the base PS5 (no PS5 Pro just yet) and you’ve got the same three options as you do for Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 with a fidelity 30 FPS mode, a performance 60 FPS mode and third balanced mode if you’re using a 120hz display that allows you to play at 40 FPS which is the sweet spot.

Probably the most immediate noticeable improvement to the core gameplay comes in the way of the improve foliage which has been totally re-worked, and is more similar to that of the PC versions. The world looks fuller, and more overgrown and it does make a big difference to the overall visual impact of the game.

Another huge thing that I noticed going back and forth was the haptic support of the DualSense controller which does a really great job of replicating water and the different types of terrains within the game, and similarly the adaptive triggers go along way to making you feel the intensity of the combat.

The character models have been totally re-done as well, brought over from Horizon Forbidden West, so Aloy looks far closer to that of Horizon Forbidden West, which makes her a little bit older and more mature, and the characters within cutscenes have all been re-done as well which makes each character feel a lot more alive, with the team going to the effort of re-doing new facial animations and improving lighting for the actual performances as well.

The other major improvements comes in the way of lighting. I feel like this era of first-party PS4 games were trying to look realistic, but the lighting wasn’t there to match which often left things too bright, too dark or unnatural looking and that’s been fixed here. Looking into the sky gives you a more realistic sense of the world, and I feel like characters faces are adequately lit allowing you you to see more of the detail.

It’s not just graphical improvements though as the team looked at making the world more lived in, mostly in the villages making sure that there were more NPCs, and there was also over 10 hours of additional mo-cap filmed to bring this more in-line with Horizon Forbidden West. I can’t say these greatly impacted the experience or left me feeling wowed, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

If you haven’t played Horizon Zero Dawn, you’re in for an absolute treat with Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster and if it’s been a while I’d recommend paying the $15 to jump back into this world as it’s very clear that a lot of love and care has been put into this version of the game. I’m eager to jump back in on PS5 Pro and see how that improves the experience.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

When considering Horizon Zero Dawn is developed by Guerrilla Games, it’d be easy to make the assumption that it’s a linear game set in an incredibly dark universe, with the gameplay focused on delivering as many bullets into enemies as humanly possible. But Horizon Zero Dawn is the complete opposite of all of these traditions which have been Guerrilla’s hallmarks for generations.

Moments into the game you’ll quickly realise Horizon Zero Dawn is a breath of fresh air that Guerrilla Games was  ecstatic about creating. Every little detail in the game oozes with the enthusiasm and passion of a studio which has had the ambition to create an experience far beyond what they’ve ever created before.

A core part of this experience is the protagonist Aloy, who Guerrilla obviously spent a long time fleshing out in order to create an encapsulating story. The majority of the game is a quest to discover exactly where Aloy came from, and why she’s a key figure in the world of Horizon. And from the outset, Aloy is an extremely strong and personable character. Right from when she is learning how to survive, all the way through to the later stages of the game, her personality stands out. And here story is an emotional roller-coaster and who you learn to respect and love after seeing her survive everything which is thrown at her. I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally attached to a female protagonist, and she’s an important character for many reasons.

Aloy is an outcast of the Nora tribe, a tribe of hunters who worship a goddess of nature, called Al-Mother. The Nora tribe believes they should stick on their own, without exploring the ancient lands of this post-apocalyptic Earth. Quite frankly, they stand for everything that Aloy simple won’t comply with.

There’s multiple plot-points in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, including learning more about Aloy’s origins, why Earth has turned into a machine-filled wasteland and what lies in the future for this land Aloy calls home. It is a story which for the most part is intriguing, however it does feel like you’re being forced through smaller story-arcs in order to find out the bigger details. Which does get tedious at times, as I’d prefer the option to move on with the main plot which I found the most interesting.

Despite how strong of a character Aloy is, the various characters which you’ll come across in-game can be quite bland without adding much to the overall story. There’s a conversation wheel, but thankfully you’re always able to jump right out of these and proceed with the mission where you choose. I really appreciated this design decision for those times where I wasn’t particularly interested in a certain story arc. When I did want to know more about the situation, I was able to probe until I had all the information that I needed.

Thankfully, regardless of some underwhelming story missions and bland characters, Horizon Zero Dawn’s world is an absolute joy to explore from start to finish. Seriously though, Horizon is probably the best looking game that I’ve played on PlayStation 4 Pro and takes the most advantage of HDR to-date. Everything from the beautiful scenery which constantly amazed through the various elements, weather effects and different times of the day highlights the HDR functionality of the PS4 Pro. This is especially the case in the games’ Cauldrons, which are essentially underground dungeons. These house the secrets of the machines and allow you to gain the ability to override bigger and better machines to join your arsenal.

A lot of open-world games are quite repetitive in their mission design, but I never at any point felt like I was doing the same thing for too long in Horizon. In-fact, it was quite the opposite. I’d constantly forget about main story missions due to the fact that I’d constantly come across an epic herd of machines or somebody that needs my help in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of the machines, they are the highlights of Horizon Zero Dawn. The way that they look and move as well as their overall design was intriguing and impressive throughout. When I played through four hours of the game a few weeks ago, I was impressed to learn there are over 25 different machines in the game. However, it was around half way through I realised quite a few of them are just slight variations of machines that you’ve seen earlier in the game, which was a little disappointing.

Luckily, despite this slight repetition in design, all the robotic enemies are a pleasure and challenge to fight. Even the Watchers, which are the smaller dinosaur like machines which you’ll meet early in the game, are a ton of fun to fight. This is due to the fact that each machine has its own personality and acts differently depending on the situation and other machines which are in the immediate area. The combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is by far my favourite aspect of Horizon and has made the game possibly the only Action RPG which I’ve been able to truly embrace. The combat is just deep and challenging enough without feeling cheap or like a chore. I lost count with how many times a massive machine would come out of nowhere and one-shot kill me, which was both hilarious and frustrating, but sums up the combat in Horizon.

Further to machines, there’s Corruptors which are machines that are being controlled by a demonic presence. They’re much harder to fight and rely a lot more on skill and careful strategy to succeed in combat. You’ll also be fighting humans in some instances and in my opinion, this is the weakest part of the game. They only get in the way of the amazing enemy design of the machines and are bullet sponges that feel like a way of extending the game length.

Aloy’s greatest asset in combat is her mobility, which allows her to dodge and get around quicker than most machines. Which is a key part of the moment to moment combat and a technique you’ll need to master if you want to survive. Aside from this, you have a number of bows, arrow types, traps, bombs and other heavy weapons at your disposal. Quite frankly, there’s way more than you’d ever need in one game. You’ll end up picking 2-3 weapons based on your play style but each weapon is unique and incredibly fun to fight with. Which gives you the room to mix your battle style up if you’re feeling stuck or become bored with one play style.

If that isn’t enough for you, you’re also able to modify each weapon with items which you’ll receive from machines. And you can modify your outfit to resist melee attacks or certain elemental types. Honestly, I found that the game has the perfect amount of customisation. It allows you to really craft and shape Aloy to your play style and advantage, without overwhelming you with the need to collect a million items and manage a hugely extensive inventory.

The post Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Review – The Best Way To Play The Game appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been using a smart watch since the original Apple Watch released almost a decade ago, and have increasingly loved tracking health related metrics ranging from steps when the original launched all the way to recently releases which have brought the likes of bloody oxygen and sleep tracking.

There’s no way around the fact that smart watches only mostly last 24 hours, which makes them hard to charge if you want the full 24/7 health tracking experience and there’s also the fact that some people don’t feel comfortable sleeping with watches or like wearing them at all, and that’s where smart rings have come into the fold and been really popular, with Samsung being the first major smartphone brand to get into the market.

Whilst smart rings are a much more discreet and comfortable experience than a smart watch, they do require the ring to be tightly snug around the finger that you choose (any is fine) which means that you start off by ordering a sizing kit to choose between the 9 available sizes, and I recommend wearing this for a good 24 hours as the size of your finger changes when you sleep, your temperature and just generally throughout the day.

You can wear the ring on any finger. Samsung says that you should wear it on your fore finger if you want the most accurate gesture controls (something I didn’t get to test), but as far as accuracy goes for health purposes, it’s supposed to be almost identical on any finger, so I chose to wear it on my index finger, as I find it doesn’t get in the way there.

The Galaxy Ring has a really nice design with a titanium finish that comes in a matte black, a gold and a silver, all which are really nice, but I’ve already got a slim gold wedding band on my left hand, so I opted to go with the black version which is really nice. Something that I absolutely love compared to the Ultra Human ring that I’d tested perviously is the charging case, which is much more similar to that of a traditional ring.

It’s really futuristic with its clear design and it has an LED around the ring that shows the charge of the ring as well as the case itself, which has enough charge to charge the ring wirelessly 1.5x with the actual ring itself having about 7 days of charge with sleep tracking and a moderate amount of exercise tracking. The case takes about an hour to charge the ring from dead to 100% and the case can be charged by USB-C or through QI charging, which is a touch that I absolutely loved.

The Samsung Galaxy Ring is only compatible with Android devices, which is a bit of a shame, as I think there’d be a huge market for Apple users (me included) and I can’t see Apple jumping into this space anytime soon. It pairs to Android really seamlessly with the Samsung Wearables app which is also what you can use to check battery life and update firmware, but where you’ll spend most of your time is in the Samsung Health app, which is fairly simplistic but does a fairly decent job of showing you all the important health info from your Galaxy Ring.

The Galaxy Ring will automatically track your sleep measuring how much time you spent in each sleep zone, your heart rate whilst sleeping, your bloody oxygen as well as how many times you woke up and wiggled around. I measured alongside a few other wearables and it was fairly one-to-one giving me confidence that it was doing a good job. There’s also some advanced measurements for skin temperature during sleeping as well as snore detection as well.

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The Galaxy Ring also measures your heart rate both automatically throughout the day and on demand through the app, measuring your resting heart rate as well if there were any high or low alerts as well, giving you a good amount of confidence in how consistent your heart rate is.

The thing I was most excited to test was the auto detecting workouts and whilst I’m not the most active person, I walk at least twice a day with my two sausage dogs, and the Galaxy Ring did an almost perfect job at tracking each of these walks, which is important as there’s no screen on the Ring and you want to know that it’s tracking each bit of activity even if it’s only a small walk.

The other thing that the Galaxy Health app does is pull in all of your sleep measurements as well as your pervious activity to give you an Energy Score which should hopefully match up with how you’re feeling as you go to tackle your day. Whilst it’s probably not going to be life changing, it absolutely makes you more aware of how much you’re looking after yourself, which is really what all of these things are designed to do.

It’s fascinating to think how much Wearables have changed our lives over the last 10 years, and I do think that the Samsung Galaxy Ring is a great step forward, as I think that most people wear a smart watch to track activity and sleep metrics and less-so for the display and computing elements, so to have this available in a much more discreet piece of jewellery that lasts almost 7 times as long is a big win.

The post Samsung Galaxy Ring Review – A Great Way To Track Health appeared first on Press Start.

Many big triple A franchises have made the jump to VR over the years. Assassin’s Creed, Horizon, Half-Life, Resident Evil, and so much more legendary IP have delivered engaging and unique design experiences through a medium that sometimes feels like it’s still finding its feet. One of the first on the original PlayStation VR was Batman: Arkham VR – an adventure game with a focus on puzzle solving and bringing Gotham to life through a lense we’ve not seen before. It’s a fantastic albeit short experience that does feel like it left a lot on the table in retrospect.

In a lot of ways, Batman: Arkham VR feels like it set out to prove that Batman, specifically the Arkham games, can work in a virtual reality framework. If Arkham VR is a thought experiment on whether or not it’s possible to become the Dark Knight, Arkham Shadow is a full realisation of the very same idea. An experience so unrelenting in its efforts to make the player feel the vengeance that drives Bruce to put on the mask, to make you feel like the thing that goes bump in the night. Arkham Shadow isn’t just a fantastic VR game, it also surpasses some of Rocksteady’s own seminal work.

Set after the events of WB Games Montréal’s Batman: Arkham Origins, Arkham Shadow follows a young, more certain Bruce Wayne and Batman during a time of great turmoil in Gotham. After unleashing chaos throughout the city on the fourth of July, the enigmatic Rat King reveals their plans for an imminent day of reckoning. An event that will see Gotham’s public services, namely the GCPD, courts, and prisons, brought to their knees. It falls to Bruce to uncover the true identity of the Rat King and put a stop to the aptly named Day of Wrath before it can eventuate.

It’s a standard setup, but one that sees Bruce infiltrating Blackgate Prison as an inmate going by the alias of Irving Malone. By day, Bruce lays on a thick accent while donning a different kind of mask to infiltrate the rat cult. By night, he steps into the suit to dig deeper into an elaborate conspiracy of lies and red-herrings in hopes of getting to the truth. While the identity of the Rat King is made fairly obvious in the early hours, it’s the way that the eventual reveal is handled that makes the whole thing so engaging.

Even though that core surprise doesn’t come as a huge shock, there are so many great moments here – especially in the third act. These emotionally charged beats hit harder thanks to Arkham Shadow’s strong theming and explorations of Bruce’s inner conflict. You can tell that this isn’t the same Bruce we saw in Arkham Origins, nor is it the same Bruce we saw in Arkham Asylum. He’s stuck in a strange transition phase where he’s less prone to rage, but when the anger does come out, it tends to take over in the moment.

It’s a character flaw that’s been commonly explored in plenty of Batman media. Even the Arkham games themselves have delved into Bruce’s rage, but Arkham Shadow is also concerned with how its other key players struggle with their inner demons. It would be a crying shame to spoil any of that here, but it’s so fascinating to see characters like Harvey Dent, Harleen Quinzel, and Jonathan Crane before their eventual spirals into villainy. It puts them in a spotlight that’s often so occupied by the Joker, and it’s refreshing to see that much focus on these other rogues.

There are just so many highlights here where gameplay and narrative coalesce into a cohesive whole that feels like it would only be possible in virtual reality. A few of these moments are right up there with some of Arkham’s best, one in particular that occurs in the opening few hours that is perhaps my favourite sequence in any Arkham game. Camouflaj don’t just get these characters and the world, they fundamentally understand why Rocksteady’s versions of them are so compelling. It also really helps that Roger Craig Smith gives another knockout performance as Bruce/Irving/Batman and the likes of Troy Baker as Harvey Dent and Elijah Wood as Jonathan Crane are also excellent additions.

If there was one thing that Arkham VR is sorely lacking, it would have to be any form of combat. To be fair, the kind of experience that game was striving for is one very different from Arkham Shadow, and there’s no doubt it would’ve been difficult to translate Rocksteady’s landmark combat system into virtual reality. It’s clear that Camouflaj knew this, and took a careful approach to interpreting Freeflow Combat for VR, because the end result is nothing short of incredible.

Much like Rocksteady’s Arkham games, Arkham Shadow’s combat is rhythmic. Locking onto goons from a distance and physically throwing a punch will see Batman rush up to them, starting a sort of minigame where you need to punch, swing, and dodge based on visual indicators. Counters are similarly intuitive, requiring you to deflect in the direction the counter is coming from, leaving an enemy open to attack. Better yet, is you can jump to almost any enemy from anywhere in the room, which really nails that feeling of darting around the arena as you deliver calculated strike after calculated strike.

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It’s really elevated when you bring Batman’s toolset into it. You can grab your cape from behind by holding a trigger and pushing the controller forward, stunning any unlucky goons caught in the sweep, opening them up for a flurry of strikes that emulates the beatdown rather well. Batarangs can be quickly flung to knock an enemy off-balance, the Batclaw can grapple unsuspecting combatants to pull them in for a clothesline-like punch, and Explosive Gel can be quickly sprayed onto the floor to lay your own traps throughout the battlefield.

It is exhilarating stuff in every sense of the word. I played Arkham Shadow standing up, which is undoubtedly the way to go here, and broke a sweat after every major combat encounter – but I kept on coming back for more. Nothing is more satisfying that tearing through a room of guys without taking a single hit, delivering blows with enough force to stack up your combo meter for flashy finishers. There’s even challenge maps that serve as playgrounds for those itching to put their skills and combat expression to the test.

The stealth/Predator sections are treated with a similar level of reverence, adopting Rocksteady’s established formula into a VR framework instead of fundamentally reworking it. You’ll perch atop gargoyles and survey rooms with Detective Vision. Luring enemies into unfavourable circumstances, only for you to swoop down, knock them out, and retreat into the embrace of the shadows. It’s a powerful fantasy that just feels unreal in virtual reality.

Another trademark aspect of Arkham that translates so smoothly into Arkham Shadow, is fantastic boss fights. They are so, so good, combining many different elements of the combat system as you dismantle your foe piece by piece. They’re true spectacles, serving as narrative and gameplay highlights amongst Arkham Shadow’s myriad setpieces. My only real issue with these is that there’s only two true boss fights, leaving the very climax of the game without any real boss encounter.

Arkham Shadow’s general gameplay loop is split in two. During the day, you’ll investigate Blackgate Prison as Irving Malone, collecting information on the prison’s key players and the rat cult’s true plans. By night, you’ll wear the cowl, more thoroughly exploring the prison’s many facilities and getting more hands on with its residents. It’s a nice cadence that helps the pacing and sets Arkham Shadow apart from other games in the series. It also helps that there’s a steady flow of unlocks to shakeup combat and stealth, improving the efficacy of your tools and widening your selection of combo finishers.

The Batman sections even employ some light Metroidvania elements, allowing you to explore the different parts of Blackgate as you unlock new gadgets and tools to solve puzzles and engage with different parts of the environment. Various collectibles are scattered about Blackgate (not Riddler Trophies, thankfully) that you can grab and shatter in protest of the Rat King’s rule. Coupled with the aforementioned challenge maps, and there’s quite a bit to dig into here if you want to see everything Arkham Shadow has to offer.

Another aspect of this world that Arkham Shadow categorically nails is just how good it all looks. The constant mood that emanates throughout Blackgate is something we’ve seen before, but is so elevated in virtual reality that it’s hard to not be in awe of what Camouflaj has achieved here. The opening in Gotham is a real highlight, with strong use of lighting in combination with Gotham’s trademark architecture that serve to bolster the power fantasy that comes with being the Dark Knight. I can only imagine how far this game pushes the Meta Quest 3 and is a true showcase for what the hardware is capable of.

The same can’t be said for the game’s technical state, though. I had a couple of instances where characters simply wouldn’t progress past an idle animation, forcing a restart to the most recent checkpoint. Perhaps most frustrating was frequent freezing during loading screens, requiring a full restart of my headset which pulled me right of out of the immersion. I can only hope these things are patched in the near future, because they pop up just often enough to marr the overall experience. It’s also worth mentioning that Arkham Shadow is fit with all the VR bells and whistles when it comes to customisation for those who’re more prone to motion sickness.

When Arkham Shadow is working, though, it’s firing on all cylinders. It stands with Half-Life: Alyx as one of the most well realised virtual reality titles the industry has seen yet. It’s unwavering in its commitment to Rocksteady’s achievements with their own trilogy, cementing Arkham Shadow as a worthy entry into the series. It makes you feel like Batman in a way you simply never have before – and that’s no small feat when you think about what was achieved with the other games in this legendary series.

The post Batman: Arkham Shadow Review – In The Boots Of The Bat appeared first on Press Start.

I can’t begin to tell you how often I was ready for Dragon Age: The Veilguard to make a colossal misstep. I’d spend hours upon hours completing optional and mandatory quests, expecting cracks to show and BioWare to disappoint again. But that moment never came. The truth is that the more time you spend with The Veilguard, the more obvious it is that things are only getting better. And, despite some incredibly nitpicky issues with some aspects of the game’s design, it’s easily BioWare’s best game in over a decade. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say it’s maybe even the best Dragon Age game, pulling the best of each game into a focused experience that’s nothing short of incredible.

The Veilguard comes to us a decade after Inquisition , mirroring the time that has passed in the game world with the real world. You play as Rook, a customisable protagonist hired by Varric Tethras to track the Dread Wolf, an elven god who reared his unexpected presence towards the end of Inquisition’s final chapters. Veilguard opens quickly, with Varric and Rook meeting with your first companion to stop Dread Wolf’s plan of tearing down the border between the realms. A whole bunch of stuff happens that ostensibly makes things worse, and it’s up to Rook to assemble a team of companions to help him (or her) fix it.

The story is just the start of what The Vanguard gets so right, adding a lot of depth and richness to the already well-realised world of Thedas BioWare started cultivating almost two decades ago. It’s a great adventure so I won’t spoil anything, but just know that it builds up and concludes incredibly satisfyingly, providing answers to theories that fans have exchanged since Inquisition ended. While I will always miss the grimier, darker fantasy vibe that the original Dragon Age employed, The Veilguard strikes a sensible balance. A balance between strong storytelling rooted in mature themes and some much-needed levity between the team during the downtime. It’s the most “alive” story I’ve experienced in a BioWare game, heck, any game, for a long time.

That’s owing to how much your choice matters in Veilguard. Some are minor – a character you might help will appear on the sidelines later to help or hinder you. Others take the story in a slightly different direction, physically altering the world and how others interact with you. This all starts at the beginning of the game, where you can select a custom origin story, class and race for your version of Rook. But the ramifications of your choices and their consequences are felt for the entirety of Veilguard’s runtime. I’d, once again, love to go into more detail about how the game weaves an intricate web of choice and related consequences, but Veilguard’s surprises are best experienced fresh.

Your choices permeate so many aspects of your time with Veilguard, too. After completing a side mission, you’ll hear your companions talking about how that quest played out. Even if a mission happens where said companion wasn’t present, they’ll still ask about it as if they’ve heard it around the home base. You can even see them, sometimes, catching up separately from you whenever you run through your base. It’s a unique aspect of The Veilguard that I really enjoyed – to have the people around me constantly commenting on what’s going on in the past or even in the present in relation to the past is pretty impressive. It really feels like the BioWare formula is hitting its peak here.

But so much of Veilguard’s achievement is in its confidence in itself, drawing from the strengths of the games that came before but still offering up an experience that is its own. While it’s not as open as Inquisition, the worlds you’ll explore are denser, with many things to discover. The sense of time and its effect on each place is similar to Kirkwall from the second game. And finally, how locations are handled for main quests feels incredibly reminiscent of Dragon Age: Origins. It’s an effective and honed mix of each game’s greatest aspects and helps Veilguard stand out from other RPGs.

Where things begin to deviate significantly from the other games is the combat, which veers more into Mass Effect territory than anything else. Veilguard’s combat is fast and snappy, encouraging you to find the perfect synergy between yourself and your teammates. I was concerned that this new combat system’s limitations – namely that you can only take three skills into battle – would make Veilguard feel like a gross oversimplification. But the flow of combat combined with the variety of encounters you come up against more than makes up for it. It’s an understandable concern, given how many spells you could use at any given time in previous games, but the more time I spent with Veilguard, the quicker my concerns would melt away.

That’s partly owing to the fact that each of the three classes you can pick – Warrior, Mage or Rogue – are a joy to play. Each has little quirks that make it unique from its previous iterations, pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect from these typical classes. I spent some time with all of them but ultimately selected the Mage for my playthrough. It’s phenomenal what BioWare has done with the Mage now – employing a clever mix of distant and melee combat that never gets old. Whether you prefer fighting from a distance or getting up close to your enemies, between the three classes and nine specialisations, there’s bound to be something for everyone in Veilguard.

Each class has its own skill tree, with each node having fairly typical stat bonuses and abilities you’d expect from an RPG like this. You have a lot of freedom and flexibility in approaching your build in Veilguard, being able to respect your or your teammate’s skill trees at no cost. It lets you get a feel for each of the three specialisations available for your class without incessantly grinding. That being said, I loved all three Mage specialisations, so I’d have appreciated some kind of loadout system to switch between them quickly without having to redo my entire tree. I guess that’s a testament to my indecisive nature, but it’s one of the very minor issues I have with Veilguard that’s probably only just my own.

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How the game handles its equipment and gear is much more ingenious. Every item you find in The Veilguard will have several perks attached to it, usually locked. Whenever you find a duplicate piece of equipment in Veilguard, rather than just having two of the same piece of gear, the rarity of that gear you already own will upgrade. Usually, that’ll unlock a perk for that piece of gear, too. It’s an ingenious way to hone the pool of equipment available to you and, when combined with the game’s already robust skill tree AND other optional enchantments, really helps you build a perfect build for yourself.

The other key element in building your perfect build is with your companions. They behave in combat similarly to those in the Mass Effect games, each having three to five unique abilities. You can pull them off with either hotkeys or a pause menu tied to the shoulder buttons, and layering the right combination of skills or spells will lead to a detonation that does more damage. While incredibly Mass Effect-like, it’s a simple but effective system that makes you think about who you’ll take and where. Companions are also levelled up through completing quests or speaking to them in downtime, which is a nice little way to subtly gamify the way you strengthen them, which ties into the narrative realistically too.

And you’ll want to take them all with you on every quest you do, too. The quality of the quests in The Veilguard is consistently strong throughout. Whether playing through a bombastic main story quest or some of the lower-key but still engaging companion or faction quests, they all feel good. There was rarely a moment where anything in Veilguard felt like the typical side content you’d find in an RPG of this size. There are still some minor quests, many of which have you fetching something or moving from A to B, but they aren’t incessantly repeated to the point of tedium and are still engaging.

And that really says something because I never got bored for the entirety of my time with The Veilguard, which well exceeded seventy hours. And while the notion of a game this large might be off-putting to you, know that Veilguard is dense with strong, quality tests that easily eclipse the variety seen in Inquisition. If you’re not keen on doing everything or immersing yourself in the world that BioWare has built here, I’d estimate you could easily get through the story in around thirty to forty hours, which feels well-paced. Given the variety of choices on offer and the sheer difference in combat styles between the three classes, you could also have as much fun on a repeat playthrough.

The game’s presentation is the big fat cherry on top of The Veilguard’s already delectable package. Easily showing off some of the best visuals we’ve seen from the now infamous Frostbite engine, Veilguard, quite simply, looks phenomenal. It’s always exciting to see which exotic locales the team at BioWare will whisk us away to with each Dragon Age game, and Veilguard does not disappoint. I had tangible excitement when moving to a new area for the first time, knowing that it would be a densely packed and lively locale framed by some series-best vistas. This rendition of Thedas is easily the best that Dragon Age has ever looked.

But from a technical standpoint, it’s not as clear-cut a victory for Veilguard. On consoles, the game offers two graphics modes – Fidelity and Performance. Fidelity and Performance both have great framerates, being locked at 30fps and 60fps respectively. But the picture quality in Performance mode is notably softer than in Fidelity, more noticeable than it is usually with games that offer both modes. If you’re playing Veilguard on a PC or even the PS5 Pro next month, this will presumably be a moot point, though it bears mentioning. Regardless, Veilguard is still a looker no matter where you play – the game uses everything it can, whether lighting, HDR, or other visual effects, to present what I’ve already said is Thedas looking at its best.

This is complemented by an incredible soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe. All of the tracks throughout Veilguard’s lengthy adventure are perfectly matched and help raise the emotional stakes in key moments. On a similar note, the voice performances from the entirety of the cast are nothing short of excellent. They all turn in some fantastic performances, especially for both types of Rook. They have some great performances and are easily some of BioWare’s best, helping to solidify this cast as one of my favourites from their many games. I can’t remember the last RPG where I liked the entire cast this much.

And that really speaks to the strength of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Despite my constant insistence that Mass Effect was always the better of their two massive epics, Veilguard is easily one of my favourites from the developer. It’s a perfect and heady mix of fast, frenetic combat paired with an incredible story riddled with equal parts choice and consequence that I cannot fault. It feels so good to say this, but it truly feels like BioWare is finally back. And I couldn’t be happier.

The post Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review – A Densely Captivating Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Bringing back one of Life is Strange’s most beloved characters for a sequel was always going to be a gamble, especially given the way the original wrapped up. That said, Deck Nine’s delivered a worthy sequel that, while stumbling every now and again, makes up for it thanks to great character writing, some brilliant visual flourishes and a story that’s packed to the brim with twists and turns.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure takes place ten years on from the last time we saw Max. After the events of the first Life is Strange, she’s distanced herself from Arcadia Bay and has taken up a job at Caledon University in Lakeport, Vermont as a university lecturer. 

Max has changed a lot over the last ten years, though she’s still haunted by the events of the past. Double Exposure does a great job at exploring Max’s deep rooted trauma from Arcadia Bay in depth, whether that’s through moments in the story, optional collectibles you can find or journal entries that update as you progress. Her character development is one of the best parts of the game and that’s all capped off with Hannah Telle returning to reprise her role, delivering one of the best performances of the year. 

Unsurprisingly, the writing in Double Exposure is very good. The ‘whodunit’ premise that guides Double Exposure’s roughly 15-hour narrative kept me guessing all the way through, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. The game does an excellent job of building up Safi, one of Max’s best friends, as a character ahead of the events that lead to her death, and I felt compelled to continue unraveling the wild mystery all the way through. Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, Deck Nine would pull something else out of their hat that completely changed everything. With that said, the way the story weaves and winds may not be everyone’s cup of tea, however I thoroughly enjoyed the highly unpredictable nature of the game’s narrative. 

Double Exposure doesn’t always stick the landing, though. Some writing can be a bit hit and miss at times, and this filters through moments big and small. That said, most major moments hit in a way that feel meaningful and push the story forward in interesting ways.

The Life is Strange series has always had a strong supporting cast to push the narrative forward, with Deck Nine continuing this trend in Double Exposure. The new cast all have a lot of depth to them, with most interactions building out each character in meaningful ways. Alongside Hannah Telle’s excellent performance, Blu Allen’s Moses and Olivia AbiAssi’s Safi sink their teeth into their roles and add a lot of weight and levity to their characters. I really cared for each of these characters, and it’s a credit to the writing and performances throughout. 

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Much like other games in the series, choice matters in Double Exposure. There’s an handful of major choices to make throughout the game alongside an array of smaller, less significant moments that shape the way the game’s story unravels. With that said, I found the choices offered in Double Exposure lacked the gravitas of earlier entries. After rolling credits the first time, I didn’t have a strong desire to go back and see what making other choices may do to the game’s story like I did in other Life is Strange games, which was disappointing. There were only a few major choices that popped up that I genuinely had a strong sense of indecision about, which made my decisions feel less difficult than they probably should have been. This was especially apparent in later chapters, where I felt my input didn’t have too much of an impact on the journey I was taking and the inevitable outcome I was about to reach. 

Gameplay in Double Exposure will feel very familiar to anyone who’s played the previous Life is Strange games before, as you explore areas, interact with various objects and people and solve simple puzzles. The major hook comes through Max’s ability to shift between two different timelines – one where Safi is still alive and another where she’s dead. It’s quite an upgrade from Max’s ability from the first game, where she was able to rewind time to alter events. As well as being able to shift between timelines, Max can also ‘pulse’ into a timeline while still being part of the other. This allows her to listen in on the other timeline without actually moving across to it. 

Utilising both of these abilities forms the crux of Double Exposure’s general gameplay. And while it’s simple, it’s effective – as you move in and out of each timeline, you’ll meet the same characters that have relatively different personalities and opinions, opening up the door to further investigate who killed Safi and why. 

You’ll also use Max’s shift ability to get around obstacles in each timeline, like locked doors or blocked off areas. This particular type of puzzle was easily the weakest part of the game for me, as I found these barriers to be momentum breaking for the most part. It felt like they were implemented just to pad out a few extra minutes of game time.

One thing Double Exposure absolutely nails is its attention to detail, though. Of particular note is the game’s animation work, which continued to impress me all the way through. The facial animations, in particular, were terrific – lending a sense of credibility and realism to each major character. Whether it was the way someone reacted to a pivotal plot point or just a casual conversation at the university, Deck Nine’s managed to deliver some of the best facial animation work I’ve seen in a game in a long while. And it’s all through those intricate details – like a slightly raised smile, or the way a character’s eyes would shift to indicate they’re on edge. Those little bits of detail just made them look all the more believable. Paired with the excellent voice acting and writing, this all comes together to form a mostly immersive experience that felt genuine and down to earth. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t always come together, as my time with the game was plagued with bugs. Lighting issues that caused flicker in a variety of locations and misbehaving hair particles continued to rear their ugly head in each chapter, with setting changes on my PC not able to solve the problem. Similarly, characters would seemingly lose detail and almost fall out of focus at times, taking away from the overall experience. While these may sound like relatively small bugs, for a narrative-focussed experience that relies heavily on exploration and conversation, they were frustrating to deal with. 

Even so, I still think Double Exposure is Deck Nine’s best Life is Strange game to date. Barring the bugs, relatively dull puzzle elements and some writing that doesn’t always hit the mark, the game is otherwise excellent – the music is on point, as is the general character writing, which come together to compliment a great story that’ll keep you guessing. It might not hold a torch to the original, but I’ve absolutely loved catching up with Max, her new band of pals and unraveling a timeline-bending mystery. 

The post Life is Strange: Double Exposure Review – An Unpredictable, Wild Mystery appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been a huge fan of SteelSeries headsets for many years now recommending the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless to anyone that will listen, but as a glasses wearer, I much prefer wearing buds and thankfully SteelSeries has just released its first pair of gaming buds in the Arctis GameBuds, and they’re pretty damn great.

There’s been a heap of gaming buds released over the past year or so with the Razer Hammerhead, Sony Pulse Explore and Sony INZONE Buds all releasing, but the Arctis GameBuds have some key differences and improvements.

Just like other headsets in the Arctis line the Xbox version (n0t yet tested) will work with both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 whilst the PS5 version will work with the PS5, and a range of portable device such as the Steam Deck, but not the Xbox.

There’s also Bluetooth connectivity for the earbuds but not simultaneous meaning, which is a pretty big deal for me, but it’s super easy to go back and forth between your console and Bluetooth connection with three taps of the right bud, and the app (more on that later) can also stay connected whilst connected to your console through the dongle as well.

The little charging case is fantastic because it houses not only both of the buds, but also the much smaller (and hugely improved) dongle and it also features wireless charging on the actual case which is something I haven’t seen on any other gaming buds. The actual buds themselves last 10 hours which is pretty great, and you also get an extra 30 hours out of the case as well, so 40 hours total with 3 hours of charge after 15 minutes of wired charging too, so you’ll likely never run out.

As far as comfort on the actual buds go, it’s a big improvement from both the Sony InZONE and Pulse Explore buds, which you’d expect given the Jabra pedigree is within the walls of SteelSeries. They fit my ears perfectly with minimal wiggle, and they’re not huge like other gaming buds which means you’d happily wear them out and about too.

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There’s also physical buttons on each of the buds themselves, which make controlling them a lot easier than other buds that I’ve used. You can program up to three taps and tapping and holding to control things such as volume, or ANC on/off or switching between dongle/Bluetooth modes with ease.

As far as sound quality goes, SteelSeries says that these have been built from the ground up with a brand new chipset and it shows. The clarity and bass that come through the GameBuds are absolutely fantastic. My previous gold standard was the Pulse Explore buds and I couldn’t tell much of a difference between them which is a great compliment for the GameBuds. It’s been an issue with most other buds when paired with PS5 but I did notice it was a little on the quieter side, with this not at all being an issue when connected to my phone, so I’d say it’s some kind of PS5 limiting codec.

The fantastic app that launched alongside the Arctis Nova 5 has been rebranded and now supports the GameBuds, and it goes a long way to controlling the buds as well, with the app automatically connecting when the buds are in use and letting you control volume, turn ANC on/off and also change EQ settings.

This is one of the major selling points of the Arctis GameBuds in my opinions. Being able to change between 100+ EQ settings on the fly based on what game you’re playing and it making a tangible difference is almost unheard of in the console space.

The Arctis GameBuds have active noise cancellation, and it does a decent job of removing the bass from noises around you, but if you’re comparing these to AirPods Pros or Sony XM5 buds, it’s not even close in the ANC department. Transparency mode is fantastic and lets through a good amount of noise if you’re wanting to chat to someone whilst wearing them, and the seal of the buds does a decent enough job of blocking out noise at it is.

Another area where Sony continues to lock out the competition is in the PS5 integration space. It’s probably the only reason I’d recommend still considering the Pulse Explores, as it’s just hard to top the integration into the PS5 console in terms of letting you see battery life, control volume and EQ settings directly on your PS5, but that’s at no fault of SteelSeries.

Overall the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds provide a really fantastic alternative to other gaming buds on the market, and I suspect they’ll be the go-to option for Xbox/PC gamers.

The post SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds Review – A Great Alternative appeared first on Press Start.

Given its penchant for science-fiction, the Black Ops canon was always a little tough to follow. Double crosses, government secrets, topped off with divergent story paths led to some of the Call of Duty series’ most enjoyable, if not batshit nonsensical, stories ever told. Black Ops Cold War reintroduced series regulars, CIA operatives Alex Mason and Frank Woods, alongside the debonair Russell Adler, as they pursued Perseus, a Soviet atomic spy, during the turbulent, early 80s. 

In terms of history, Black Ops 6 is placed nearer to the Gulf War and follows a now maimed, wheelchair-bound Woods, alongside his mentee and agency upstart Troy Marshall. When the latter is deployed on a mission to Kuwait to apprehend an Iraqi minister, the operation is turned on its ear by the emergence of Pantheon, a rogue paramilitary force that has access to a terrible bioweapon as well as apparent ties within the CIA.

Although you’ll drift between the perspectives of many over the course of this globetrotting adventure, you play a substantial chunk of Black Ops 6 as William “Case” Calderon, a handpicked member of Woods’ Black Ops faction. The goal, obviously, becomes to save the world for the umpteenth time while rooting out the mole and getting to the bottom of yet another warped, psychological conspiracy worthy of a geopolitical thriller like this.

The story is a lot of fun and dips to some expectedly bonkers places. The government’s research into mind control, MK-Ultra, has long been a lynchpin for the Black Ops narrative, and this sixth iteration is no different. Heavy artillery is, clearly, still an enormous factor in Black Ops 6, however you could make the argument the real war is psychochemical. Legacy players like Woods and Adler are given good stuff to chew on that respects where their weary characters have been, while newcomers like Marshall attack the game’s events with all the hallmarks of a conflicted leader, searching for truth in a world where the truth lies. 

And I won’t lie, seeing Lou Diamond Phillips, star of La Bamba, cameo as the agency’s figurehead got a pop out of me. He isn’t in more than a couple of integral scenes, though his gravitas is undeniable. 

As for the campaign itself, I do think Treyarch deserves a lot of credit for always trying to do new things you might not regularly associate with corridor-shooter Call of Duty. The original Black Ops felt like a revitalisation for what a story could look like within the franchise, while Cold War wasn’t afraid to holster the hardware in favour of tense, slow burn bouts of espionage that really sell the Mission: Impossible-like feel, the mission’s stakes, and the importance of the team. While I felt at points Black Ops 6 had a crisis of identity, with how radically it’d leap between mission structures and concepts, I was never bored. 

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Whether I was breaking into a government blacksite beneath a cocktail event held by governor Bill Clinton, or grifting my way into the high rollers lounge at a decadent Italian casino, I felt just as formidable in these moments as I did with gun in hand. Of course, when I did have a gun in hand, I was treated to the industry-leading gunplay the series has built its empire on. It’s as tight as ever, and made only more dynamic thanks to omnidirectional movement, the big new game changing feature of this iteration. Granted, its impact is likely to be felt more across its multiplayer suite, though I certainly felt snappy and fresh during the campaign even though, for reasons I can’t ascertain, the feature received no onboarding at all. 

All of the quiet moments in between took place at The Rook, Adler’s off-grid safehouse in Bulgaria that he cryptically leads the team towards early on. A stunning, picturesque mansion stradling an oceanside cliff, The Rook affords the player with momentary reprieves to chat with the team, solve black light riddles, and upgrade gear and perks in a very multiplayer-coded fashion. In fact, in any other campaign, Treyarch’s ability to pepper in core tenets from both multiplayer and Zombies would have fallen flat. In a game so driven by science-fiction, it manages to fit like a glove while serving as subconscious onboarding for the game’s long-life, evergreen modes.

With nearly countless studios devoting resources to it, it’s never surprising when the Call of Duty games look as good as they do. The cinematics, in particular, are rendered with lifelike fidelity, and although the in-engine action doesn’t necessarily quite measure up, it’s still one of the better looking games on the market every single year. Once again, the environment artists have gone to work creating some of the most detailed play spaces, kicking off the adventure with the stirring image of smoke plumes climbing into the clouds as Iraqi oil wells burn into the night. I can never quite expect the places these Black Ops campaigns will take us, and while photographing Clinton on-stage with bought-off senators or storming Saddam’s palace should be the peak of how buck wild it gets, I do think Black Ops fans will love a few nods to the older games. With a few instances of stuttering and muddied textures in the busier cutscenes, it perhaps isn’t as optimised as it usually is, however I’d say the frame rate held firm in the moments that mattered.  

After the misery that was Modern Warfare III’s launch last year, this campaign felt like a particularly confident foot forward for a franchise under new rule. Not only does it function as the best five-hour onboarding for Call of Duty’s multiplayer ever, it delivers the bonkers twists you’d expect from a Black Ops, a fun cast to rally behind, and it’s rooted in just enough real-world politics to serve as a compelling “what if?”

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign Review – A Mind-Bending Ride appeared first on Press Start.

I remember seeing Euro Truck Simulator have a sudden burst of popularity with players and streamers some years ago. I never understood it. How does the drudgery of realistic long-distance road haulage make for a fun time? Why would someone come home from their job and think to themselves ‘time to simulate a different job on my computer?’

To really test out the TSW Truck Wheel from Moza, I decided to embrace my inner truck driver and go all in on American Truck Simulator.

Getting everything physically set up was pretty straightforward, especially since I already had the wheel base and pedals from the R3 kit. I got sent a new mount to use with this wheel (a separate purchase, it should be noted) that allows you to mount the wheel nearly fully horizontally or adjust anywhere up to nearly vertical. If you have a favourite truck cabin layout, you can probably replicate the steering wheel position.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $519 FROM SCORPTEC 

Initial software setup was a little more complex. Firmware updates are easy enough with the Pit House software, but given the wheel base mounts upside down, I had to recalibrate to make sure the neutral position of the wheel was the right side up. Setting up all your buttons and pedals will depend on the game, but I found things pretty manageable in American Truck Simulator.

Back to the wheel itself, there is a useful set of buttons adorning the centre of the wheel, useful for things like indicators, headlight controls, trailer management and even controlling in-game radios. Each of the buttons is RGB backlit and can be set up with precise detail in the Pit House application. There’s a useful RGB array at the top of the wheel’s central area which can be configured to react to your engine RPM. If you’re going full on manual transmission in your simulated truck, this can be a really helpful indicator along with engine noise to help you know when to switch gears.

Alongside the buttons are some smart clicky directional pads (a little like the 3DS Circle Pad but with a pleasant click when it actuates) and some scroll wheels. The directional pads come in especially handy for menu navigation, while using the scroll wheels to tune the radio and control it’s volume felt just right.

Having all these extra controls was one thing, but steering these big rigs is of course the main event when it comes to a simulation steering wheel. Having a wheel of this size and orientation really sells the weight of the massive vehicle you’re driving. The way you can spin the wheel several times before hitting the steering limit lets you get really fine with control while also helping with the illusion that there’s a big set of tyres under you.

The materials feel super durable. It’s wrapped in a microfibre leather which gives great texture for grip and a pleasant plushness for comfort in long driving sessions. The buttons have a hefty click to them and feel like they could survive years of simming.

With an RRP of $549, this isn’t an impulse buy. You’ll want to be pretty sure you’re heavily into truck simming before entertaining a purchase like this – especially given it needs a wheel base at least to be functional. The wheel should be compatible with most wheel bases on the market with appropriate adapters which is a nice touch. I didn’t get to test this, but the fact that Moza isn’t locking it’s gear to it’s own ecosystem is laudable. This stuff’s expensive and nobody wants to feel like they picked the wrong brand and have to start again just to try a different wheel.

The post Moza TSW Truck Wheel Review – On The Road Again.. appeared first on Press Start.

Last year, Skull Island: Rise of Kong released to a Gollum-like reception, ultimately being deemed a buggy, half-baked mess. The Monsterverse, which has lurched tepidly through a number of films and TV adaptations so far, has turned around and declared that it’s trying again, unconvincingly, with Kong: Survival Instinct. Set shortly after Godzilla vs. Kong, the game deals with the destructive left behind after the titanic battle, similar to how the Monarch series tail ends Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, told through a boots on the ground Metroidvania-inspired platformer.

Unlike Rise of Kong, which cast you as the greatest ape of all as he battles all kinds of bugs, native to Skull Island and otherwise, Kong: Survival Instinct shelves the titular titan for virtually the entirety of the game’s runtime. Instead, as the stodgy hero, David Martin, you explore the ruins of a decimated city in search of your daughter. 

Due to my eyes glazing over repeatedly while playing, I cannot speak at all to the story’s place within the larger canon of the Monsterverse. I can’t expect it’s going to really excite fans of the series, especially as the oft-spectacular kaiju battles are relegated to set dressing in the background. Although we’d been burned before, I can’t help but feel all of the action happening in between what remains of the city’s skyline would have made for a more spectacular King Kong title. 

Kong: Survival Instinct plays like a bog standard action-platformer that incorporates several elements of Metroidvania-like exploration. Sifting through the wreckage of the razed metropolis gradually grants you more extreme means of digging deeper into the ruins. Whether it’s a sledgehammer to open a passage to lower floors, or a grappling line that can be used as an improvised rope swing or winch cable to pull far-off items nearer, I did find the game’s progression through its stages to be one of its few strengths. 

The map design, however, feels extremely confused. It’s uninspired, largely repetitive, and what’s there feels like a developer’s attempt to slap together map elements, like drop ladders, that are fun without caring whether it’s believable. The game is rife with strange, distracting choices like this that constantly took me out. 

The combat in Survival Instinct is similarly miserable, especially if you’re stuck in encounters with relatively large patrol groups. Defending yourself hand-to-hand feels like a manageable task, it’s when guns enter the question that things can get a bit frustrating. Once you’re surrounded, which can happen quickly as enemies grapple and switch places with you, you open yourself up to a quick death. You can parry and dash to avoid knife jabs and bullets respectively, however the controls are too sluggish and inconsistent to ever feel in total control. You pick up a pistol yourself which can be a difference maker in desperate times, however I do think the game manages to make bullets feel scarce—yet, when you’re in need, it’s always made available in crates nearby to the locked doors and generators that need a well-placed bullet to proceed. 

This, I feel, negates the need to be frugal as the game tends to bail you out, and I feel the same is true of the mechanical parts needed to repair things throughout the world. It’s never really essential to stray far from the critical path, which kind of feels antithetical to the genre. In Survival Instinct, the Metroidvania of it all really only necessitates backtracking rather than genuine exploration. 

As you move from area to area by splicing together compiled audio files to lure titans like Kong and Abaddon, an enormous source of nightmares for arachnophobes everywhere, to the scene for a relatively exciting chase sequence. In a game with slicker controls, I’d remember these encounters for the right reasons. Sadly, they’re often marred by cheap deaths caused by getting snagged on geometry and awful checkpointing.  

As perplexing as the map design choices can be, the environments in Survival Instinct aren’t the worst. By setting up and sticking to everything it sets up early, like the shining glint on items of interest like padlocks and anchor points, there’s a readability to the environment design that’s pretty admirable. I also like how, depending on which titan has dominion over the district you’re in, buildings might be covered in spiderwebs or a viscous, purple sludge which, in turn, feeds into the problem-solving. Survival Instinct mightn’t have the irredeemably bad, wide-eyed, unblinking Kong of last year’s Skull Island, but ugly is as ugly does. It isn’t all bad, of course, the kaiju designs themselves, as sparingly as they appear, are a clear highlight, while the remainder of this world and inhabitants scream ‘generic’.

When you consider Godzilla, who is name dropped in this game several times and never appears, has one of the most iconic, instantly recognisable war cries in cinema, the fact this game’s sound design is so dull is a crying shame. Chatter on either side of battle is repetitive and delivered so wooden, it makes Henry Cavill look like a true Thespian. The primary frustration of dying mid-fight came not from having to start over but from having to hear the dialogue again. 

When I stop to consider why this game exists, it’s hard to land on a single good reason. Monarch proved a good kaiju story can focus on the aftermath, however the story chops here can’t carry what, otherwise, is a listless, uninspired Metroidvania game that inexplicably shelves its key attraction in favour of world-building nobody could say, hand-to-heart, they prefer over two big monsters beating the suitcase out of each other.

The post Kong: Survival Instinct Review – Monkey Business appeared first on Press Start.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This has been republished with the game finally launching physically in Australia this week. It releases on October 25th and the cheapest copy is at Target for $45. 

Time is relentless and unyielding – it’s– crazy to think that twenty-eight years ago we first witnessed Lara Croft and her adventures in the Tomb Raider series. Nobody could have predicted the critical acclaim that would come afterward, nor the discourse around her status as a cultural icon and her appeal to certain audiences. Even further to that is the expansive and muddled legacy that it created – multiple sequels, several reboots, and film adaptations as well.

When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, it was the first time in a long time that gaming had a strong female protagonist, skyrocketing Lara Croft to the same heights as Mario and Sonic, and putting her head-to-head with Sony’s own Crash Bandicoot. While most people were hooked on the wise-cracking Duke Nukem or ultraviolence of Quake and Doom, Tomb Raider made 3D platforming exciting by blending puzzle solving and action with freedom of movement and exploration. With a slew of sequels and expansions, the Tomb Raider franchise quickly became stale – too much of a good thing led to a lack of innovation, and despite continuing to sell games, the series never really moved past its origins (at least before the modern and grittier trilogy).

Having said that, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered helps you slip on the rose-tinted glasses to enjoy exactly what made Lara the icon she was, and to recapture a bit of that atmosphere when the games were first released. These are games that don’t hold your hand or guide you through with hints and suggestions; you’re dropped into an environment and forced to figure things out on your own, with the tools at your disposal. This is both refreshing and jarring – you could be spending hours wandering a level to try and find your next objective, while simultaneously uncovering the level’s secrets to get a perfect score before moving on to the next.

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The biggest thing I think this trilogy has going for it is that it is exactly as advertised, with a few quality-of-life improvements over the originals. You have all three Tomb Raider games in their upscaled glory, with an enhanced modern control scheme, and even a photo mode thrown in for good measure. The three games come with their PC-only expansions as well, available for the first time on consoles, so you truly are getting the full versions of each game with more modern graphics. On starting the game for the first time you’re also greeted with an opening card that states:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

There’re going to be people who want to take that the wrong way, but personally I think it’s a great addition considering some of the story content of the games. There’s no overt censorship, no cut content, heck even the games’ cheat codes are active (but I couldn’t get them to work.)

One of the major changes here is the addition of “Modern Controls,” allowing you to play Lara in a more free-moving style as opposed to her classic “tank” controls. This comes with its own caveats – the levels were built around Lara’s strafing jumps, shimmying across ledges and shuffling to get a better angle on things, and more often than not she’d be hurtling into walls or off edges leading to a frustrating level restart.

To realise just how much time we spent with tank controls back in the day, perfecting a safety drop just to tap the wrong button and have Lara swan-dive into the ground below ending in a sickening neck snap is really jarring. To be able to do that in a lot less button presses with Modern controls is just annoying. I found myself constantly switching back and forward between Modern and Tank to get through levels, lest I hurl the controller through the screen. I even experimented with plugging in a DualShock for control, and found that Modern controls feel more comfortable with a controller, but Tank controls work better for keyboards.

Switching between control systems wasn’t the only thing to amaze me – the most impressive part of the Remastered trilogy is the work that’s been put into upscaling the graphics. At the press of a button you can instantly switch between classic graphics and modern graphics, and I’m not gonna lie – the modern graphics are identical to what I would have imagined the classic graphics being when I first played Tomb Raider years ago. Aspyr has made great strides in adding little quirks to the modern graphics, allowing proper light sources to shine in from above, or making certain consumables stand out just that little bit more from their classic counterparts, but sometimes this has flaws in itself as well.

The first level of Tomb Raider III is set in a jungle, which has a swamp you can drown in if you’re not careful. Switching between classic and modern graphics, I discovered that the classic graphics’ mud has waves like water, whereas the modern texture is solid and looks like the ground. Another level restart for me on that one after unsuccessfully trying to pull Lara out of the swamp. It’s small changes like this that make you err on the side of caution; whether this was a stylistic choice for Aspyr in developing the games or not remains to be seen. The game’s photo mode allows you to have a bit of fun while playing, and really puts you back in awe at the graphical changes between old and new, though I was a little uncomfortable with the ability to put Lara in a dressing gown in the middle of China.

The audio work goes largely unchanged from the originals, so Lara’s voice is the same as day one, grunts and all. The pre-rendered cutscenes are also unchanged but do get the benefit of upscaling – credit to Aspyr for not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one, The in-game cutscenes have additional facial animation to match the voices which was a nice touch. Nathan McCree’s iconic title theme brings a tear to my eye every time I boot up the Remastered trilogy, and the soundtrack for all three games with its classical influences is still some great atmospheric work.

The post Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Review – A Love Letter To Lara’s Origins appeared first on Press Start.

The thing about the runaway success of the A Quiet Place films (John Krasinski’s now trilogy-spanning horror franchise) is that the premise is absolutely killer. An alien invasion has turned the world upside down and now humanity is being hunted by creatures (Death Angels) with hypersensitive hearing, rendering any noise produced an almost instant and horrible death. It’s exactly the kind of inventive horror schlock that can sustain multiple films, ratcheting up the tension and scenarios that naturally occur from being unable to make a sound in a world that wants to kill you. For 90-odd minutes at a time, it rules. For 8-10 hours though…

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead does its best to try. In keeping with the staples of the franchise, you play as Alex, a young woman who discovers she’s pregnant just as things in her makeshift commune of survivors start to go pear-shaped. Cobbling together a homemade sonar device to measure sounds and gathering up as many inhalers for her dire asthma as she can manage, Alex sets out into an uncertain world in search of some semblance of safety for her unborn child. It’s about as tropey a premise as you’d imagine for a series more concerned with setting than character, though the ability to play as a pregnant woman is at least fresh for mainstream gaming and it does provide the requisite motivations for the journey ahead. 

From the jump developer Stormind Games correctly identifies what the bones of a successful Quiet Place game would look like. Played from a first-person perspective with a graphical lean on realism/fidelity and polished sound design, The Road Ahead immediately looks to ape the tone and feel of the films. You’ll need to slowly crouch walk over puddles and leaves to avoid making noise, gingerly open and close drawers and doors to avoid making noise, steady your breathing and heart rate with medications to avoid…you get it. 

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This central tension of noise making is altered somewhat throughout the story as Alex will need to engage in several environment-specific physics “puzzles” or even outright Go Loud moments to break up pacing, but as the hours wear on and the game’s systems wane thinner and thinner, the most celebrated aspect of this franchise, the tension, is all but decimated. As a huge proponent for meticulously paced, even glacial, games (Death Stranding’s walking is good), it’s not that the prospect of a journey taken in halting, precious steps and choices can’t work, even over an extended period. But The Road Ahead is building on a framework designed for short bursts of sustained tension in a theatre, keyly relying on the magic (see technical trickery) of film to suspend disbelief and enable immersion. 

Instead, The Road Ahead’s smoke and mirror show gets in your lungs and eyes all too quickly as its ambitions collide with its scope. Death Angels here aren’t so much active stalkers in the world to be poked and prodded at, but static instant-fail sound triggers, outside of a few missions that let the concept shine. This isn’t a dealbreaker in and of itself but the game’s unreliable detection AI makes the off-screen creatures either far too keenly eared or generously deaf depending on the moment, while the Angels that roam certain levels adhere to fairly predictable pathing and inconsistent awareness. The game’s opening stretch, before these issues reveal themselves, is at least home to some genuine thrills as you accidentally make a sound and freeze in your tracks, senses on edge waiting to clock death coming at you. It’s cool and gets to the heart of what makes A Quiet Place such an effective world.   

Alex’s tools for dealing with the Angels will naturally grow throughout the game as you figure out how to throw objects to cause distraction sounds, pour sand in front of you to move faster over surfaces, and use your reliable phonometer to calculate sound and risk. These systems are fine enough, perfunctory first-person horror tools that are ostensibly elevated by the heightened setting but do little to make the game’s campaign retain any real thrills. Likewise, Alex’s asthma will flare up during physical exertion, regardless of severity, and requires a clumsy QTE to use an inhaler (which in this world are apparently single use) or else her vision will darken and heart rate tick up. Much like the distraction tools and the game’s meticulously placed noise makers (that can over there will get you killed), these systems could have been compelling in a tighter experience but are put under immense strain as the story and levels begin to layer on sillier plot devices and scenarios. 

Along your silent road trip, you’ll see glimpses of day one of the invasion as a means of delivering some much-needed detail to Alex’s character while trudging through the usual assortment of diary notes, scattered documents, and the odd fellow survivor. Like the systems before it, The Road Ahead’s narrative work is largely fine but never truly engaging, outright emulating portions of the films but failing to capture the catharsis of Blunt or Nyong’o’s leading characters. It is at least appropriately dire in keeping with the tone and vague thesis of the movies before it and fans of the franchise will undoubtedly get something out of another run at this world and its ideas. You can even nab yourself a collectible easter egg if that’s your vibe. 

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead then is perhaps best enjoyed by folks who are clamouring for more of this universe. As an extension of that it at least allows fans to actively engage with its cool premise, provided they have the patience for its glacial pacing and wonky detection systems. But as a game in its own right, The Road Ahead is a largely inoffensive, if overly long, experiment in adaptation that would have been a killer 2-3 hour smaller title instead. Stormind Games is an interesting studio, its work on the criminally underrated Remothered titles (an equally wonky but infinitely more compelling survival horror duology) tells of a team with, again, a keen eye for the bones of a solid horror experience. It’s just a shame that The Road Ahead is more whimper than bang.     

The post A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Review – Hush Hush appeared first on Press Start.

When Sonic Generations dropped in 2011, it was almost like a reinvigoration of the franchise; taking classic and modern Sonic and pairing them together, experiencing the best of 2D and 3D worlds, and paying homage to the history of the series in a neat little package. Thirteen years on, we finally get an updated version for modern consoles; but with it comes Sega’s push for their edgy, darker counterpart to take the spotlight – putting Shadow the Hedgehog front and centre by re-releasing Sonic Generations as Sonic X Shadow Generations.

The game is split into two components – the first being Sonic Generations, a remaster and update of the 2011 release with sharper graphics, reworked cutscenes and a few gameplay tweaks. At Sonic’s birthday party, a mysterious being known as the Time Eater warps Sonic and his friends into White Space – where past and future collide. Sonic meets himself from the past, and together they travel through their history to save their friends and stop Dr Eggman from teaming up with himself as he tries to erase his failures of the past and rewrite history.

But the Time Eater doesn’t just affect Sonic and his friends; Shadow Generations sees Shadow the Hedgehog also dragged into White Space by the Time Eater, where he is confronted by the imminent return of his greatest foe, Black Doom. The being that helped create Shadow, Black Doom seeks to return from the past and take over the world – so it falls upon Shadow to travel through his history to set things right, while obtaining new dark powers and being reunited with old friends.

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The problem with Sonic X Shadow Generations is that it doesn’t seem to know what game it wants to be. Is it a remaster? Is it a sequel? Is it a wholly new experience? Effectively it is two games in one – a remaster of Sonic Generations, while attempting to do Shadow the Hedgehog justice by tagging Shadow Generations alongside it. Sega are really making a focus on the “Year of Shadow” this year by releasing this game as well as having Shadow star in the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film, set for release later this year. But in order to do both games their due diligence, you almost have to forget that Sonic’s game was released thirteen years ago, and view it as if it was just released – otherwise Shadow’s game seems like an afterthought.

To that extent, it’s probably better that Sonic Generations is paired up with Shadow Generations, so that you can understand the story behind both titles. Credit where credit is due, SEGA did a great job on remastering Sonic Generations for a new audience who may have missed it the first time around.

With two acts per level, you get the opportunity to play as both Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic through a variety of historic Sonic stages; with Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone and Sky Sanctuary Zone to name a few. The flip side to this, and something that makes the game that much more enjoyable, is the ability to play as Classic Sonic on levels released well beyond the years of the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis for you international friends) such as Crisis City and Planet Wisp from more recent instalments where 3D gameplay is king.

As you bring colour back to White Space by finishing the levels and saving Sonic’s friends, you’ll come up against bosses from Sonic’s history, as well as unlocking collectibles and beating challenges such as time trials. This all leads up to the climactic battle against past and future Dr Eggman and the Time Eater, to save the world and restore time and space to normal.

When I say that Sonic Generations does its history justice, it isn’t just looking at things through rose-tinted glasses – Classic Sonic plays exactly like it should, and Modern Sonic is fun and fast. There’s nothing overly complicated about how each Sonic plays, and aside from maybe going a little too fast in certain sections, plenty of care has been taken to make each character play with a degree of familiarity.

Modern Sonic took a while for me to get used to as not only was it a jump from 2D to 3D (or 2.5D in some situations) but you also get lock-on and boost mechanics that extend your jumps and attacks – there is some fun to be had in bouncing from one enemy to another before boosting away to grind on a rail. In true Sonic fashion, going fast is the aim of the game regardless of whether you play as Classic or Modern Sonic, and it almost feels punishing if you aren’t going fast.

If SEGA weren’t pushing the “Year of Shadow” content, then we could end the review there, say that Sonic Generations is a great remaster of a decent Sonic game, and we’d be done with it. But Shadow needs time in the spotlight, and this is where things diverge just a little bit. If you’re not familiar with Shadow the Hedgehog, you’re given a narrative backstory which tells us about how he was engineered to be the Ultimate Life Form, being infused with DNA from the evil alien Black Doom. Created by Gerald Robotnik on the Space Colony ARK, Shadow befriends Robotnik’s daughter Maria, who is plagued with a terminal illness that Gerald seeks to cure through Project Shadow.

When the government becomes concerned about Project Shadow, they send forces from Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N) to shut the project down; but Maria is killed in the process, and Shadow seeks to enact revenge for losing his friend. Shadow is captured and placed into stasis for over 50 years, and on his release he sought to ruin the world. Remembering Maria’s last words to him, he forced himself to stop – and became the anti-hero we now know today.

We open with Shadow on Space Colony ARK, tracking a strange signal. Rouge the Bat calls him reminding him of Sonic’s birthday party – and at this time the events of Sonic Generations take place, as everyone is dragged into rifts created by the Time Eater. Shadow fights off a being known as Doom’s Eye, later discovered to be Black Doom’s third eye set out to monitor Shadow in an attempt to revive Black Doom. In scenes reminiscent of the mirror dimension from Doctor Strange, the fights with Doom’s Eye are pretty crazy, and usually culminate in Shadow earning a new power if you manage to land a hit.

Shadow then finds himself in a similar White Space to Sonic, being forced to relive elements of his past in order to save the day. Where Sonic Generations’ White Space keeps to a 2D plane, Shadow Generations opens up the White Space to three dimensions, allowing you to practice and test out the Doom powers that Shadow will acquire on his journey. As you encounter Doom’s Eye, Shadow unlocks more dark powers to use on his journey – with the ability to surf across water or unleash devastating attacks on enemies unlocking through progression.

Shadow Generations’ White Space feels very awkward compared to Sonic Generations, and it isn’t just the jump from 2D to 3D in the hub space. In fact I found this was a flaw with the game as a whole – the controls for Shadow feel extremely clunky even though they have clearly taken example from Sonic’s 3D gameplay.

Some moments are too sensitive, others are extremely floaty, and there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground when it comes to controlling Shadow. The game allows you to keep the quick time event controls on screen when they happen, but even then it doesn’t seem to feel natural when attempting to perform it. Just like Sonic Generations, the game wants you to go fast – but sometimes it feels like it’s also a curse, as one wrong button press or slight adjustment to the direction and you’ve sent yourself flying off the side of the course and into the abyss.

Shadow’s Doom powers add an extra layer to playing the character that at times feels very fluid and inventive, and other times just feels like another button sequence to remember without being practical. In moments that feel very ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, you’ll be able to target multiple enemies with Doom Spears – but you may have already rocketed past them by boosting consistently, so it doesn’t really change things.

Filling the Chaos Control gauge makes for strategic moments where you need to pause time to get through a difficult obstacle (like falling or breaking platforms) and the game conveniently hands you everything you need to do that at the right places, but everything feels very on-rails when you’re in a level and so not as necessary to plan ahead. Overall, rather than feeling like a new or a different character, Shadow just plays like Sonic but with extra steps and bonus powers.

The post Sonic X Shadow Generations Review – Classic Sonic And Modern Sonic Together appeared first on Press Start.

This spooky season, which brings with it Fear the Spotlight’s release as the first in a very cool slate out of Blumhouse, feels like quite a culmination of a tremendous year for horror video games. After sampling the game’s horrific opening chapter back at Summer Game Fest, I was left wanting more. Fear the Spotlight really does feel like a tribute to so many of the classic games that paved the way for it, from its lo-fi, dithering graphics that leave enough doubt in your mind to jump at shadows, to its tactile, hands-on puzzle solving. 

Fear the Spotlight, which is an expanded upon iteration of its release only a year ago, begins on a stormy night as Vivian, the player-character, and Amy break into Sunnyside High to perform a seance in the school’s library. Quite predictably, things go haywire as the supernatural descends upon their night, leading to far more trouble than a simple breaking and entering should. Amy is found in a fugue state before she’s drawn in by a powerful light, forcing Vivian to descend deeper into the belly of the school, which has cracked upon a portal to its past which, it seems, has plenty of skeletons in its closet to unearth after a fire decimated the campus in 1991. 

Although they spend relatively no screen time together, it is the burgeoning relationship of the two schoolgirl leads that drives events forward. While I won’t divulge where the game goes, having seen where the original release rolled credits, I do think the direction of the expanded content is a genius move and undeniably builds out other characters within the game’s lore while servicing the story at large. The entire game might only be four hours, however not one, singular second is wasted.

Unlike Crow Country, another low-fi survival horror game that released this year, which gives its player the option to leave combat at the door entirely, Fear the Spotlight sensibly decided against turning Vivian into a super soldier who mows down ghosts and ghouls while trawling the locker bays. Although she’s resourceful, she is young, in over her head, and she’s absolutely terrified, which I think is evident through several of the design choices in the game—particularly the one to not give Vivian any offensive firepower, whatsoever. 

The character’s fear and vulnerability is integral to not only the game’s overarching themes, it also plays into the tense, hide and seek encounters with the fearsome titular antagonist, Spotlight. Leaving embers in his wake, he has sure but uncertain ties to the 1991 fire. He’s a tall, slender figure with an ominous, oscillating light for a head, which strikes a horrifying picture whenever he shows unexpectedly, forcing you to sneak behind and underneath desks toward the nearest door. Seeing the ashen ghouls, who I presume are symbolic of the students lost, peering around corners and watching you is unsettling as it is, but Spotlight’s sudden and heart-pounding appearances teeter at the periphery of being iconic. 

Where other games might equip you with herbs or bandages to patch your cuts up with, Fear the Spotlight once again leans full bodied into Vivian’s anxiety which can spike during these panicked chases. All it takes is a quick puff of her one-and-done inhalers with each hit serving as a calming cure-all for these moments of dread. 

She’s able to make use of her book smarts to solve several of the game’s riddles which, in keeping with genre tropes, often involve scouring the immediate areas for key items before backtracking and piecing the whole picture together. I enjoyed all of the puzzles in Fear the Spotlight, even if they do lean ever-so-slightly towards being too simple, there’s a satisfying flow that sees each problem Vivian faces snowball into the next, and it really helps keeping a great pace up. 

As I mentioned in the opening, there’s a wonderful, tactile feel to this game’s world and its objects. You mightn’t be able to thoroughly examine and turn items in-hand, however there’s an interactivity to everything that kept me locked in throughout. Whether it’s prying nails out of boarded windows, thumbing open the latch on a toolbox, or dialling in a phone number on a pay phone, you’re charged with every input and it’s a cool, albeit simple, touch. 

Despite an obvious, and deliberate, lack of fidelity due to the developer’s pursuit of the in vogue retro, lo-fi aesthetic, everything still has a surprising amount of detail. Obviously it carries with it the warts of the style, with plenty of clipping and blocky textures, however it’s one that lends itself so well to horror. The environment design is excellent, with the school itself getting extra credit for twisting its everyday halls into something dark and worthy of the tragedy that the school faculty swept under the rug. Darkness and shadow is used to great effect, as the dithering, the grain effect that helps cement the dated appearance Fear the Spotlight is shooting for, helps in creating optical illusions. 

Although there’s no real danger through so much of the game, you still second guess what the hard-to-see hallucination at the end of the hall could be. I also love that the game doesn’t resort to jump scares to unsettle its audience, relying solely on a slow, steady build to keep the player on edge. 

Unlike some of its contemporaries, Sunnyside High’s map isn’t an open one. This creates a feeling of linearity throughout, which itself feels like a guiding hand showing the way. By solving small, self-contained zones one at a time, it minimises the laborious, time-consuming backtracking that often plagues games like this, but it certainly shines a spotlight, so to speak, on both the game’s overall lack of difficulty and brevity. 

Fear the Spotlight might only clock in at around four hours, but it’s so well-paced and its puzzles, for the most part, feel as though they make sense in-world, which cements Sunnyside High, in my mind, as a horror spot that read the brief and passed with flying colours. It’s staggering what a team of two has been able to achieve with Fear the Spotlight, it’s a sublime survival-horror title that delivers in story and tone. 

Along with being a tremendous first blow for Blumhouse’s slate of smaller-scoped horror games, Fear the Spotlight could very well be my horror game of the year. I knew there was a reason I kept out of the library when I wasn’t to school, nothing good ever comes of it. 

The post Fear The Spotlight Review – Extracurricular Paranormal Activity appeared first on Press Start.

For those that don’t know, I’m an avid Apple user being deep into the ecosystem for as long as I can remember, and there’s no product that shows off the strength of the Apple ecosystem more than the AirPods, which are hugely improved with the AirPods 4.

The AirPods well and truly pioneered the wireless earbuds space, but other brands have been getting closer and closer with Apple’s own Beats Solo Buds that I reviewed a few months ago providing fantastic value for money, but the new AirPods 4 have once again put a fair amount of distance between Apple and the pack.

The AirPods 3 copped a bit of flack for staying in the ears, so Apple totally re-designed the 4 with a narrower width and a different angle for the bud and it’s not only a much more comfortable fit, but they also stay in the ears a lot better as well, which is super important for exercise.

The AirPods 4 comes in two different variations and whilst the actual design of the AirPods and much smaller case are almost identical, there’s some differences between the model. The base model doesn’t have active noise cancelling, and similarly, the case doesn’t have any form of wireless charging and it also lacks a speaker in the case as well.

On the flipside, the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, obviously do have active noise cancellation for the first time in the open-ear design, the case has wireless charging as well as  support for Apple Watch chargers (no MagSafe) and there’s a speaker in the case for Find My Support as well.

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The noise cancelling is the biggest story here. If you wanted it in AirPods, you had to go to the Pros, and not only are they a lot more expensive, but a lot of people don’t like in-ears. The AirPods 4 with ANC provide a really solid active noise cancellation experience, blocking out I’d say 70% of what the AirPods Pros do.

If you’re on a plane, or somewhere where there’s a lot of noise, you’ll notice a difference, but I wore them on a trip to Sydney a few weeks ago, and was really impressed. If you just want noise cancellation to block out office noise or whilst on a walk these are more than fine.

As far as features go, it’s identical to that of the Pros, with transparency mode as well as adaptive audio (automatically blending the two) and conversation awareness featuring here as well.

It’s a very similar story when it comes to audio quality, with the AirPods 4 performing well above their price. They sound phenomenal, and out of the box, they’re just a joy to have in your ears, whether you’re listening to a podcast, on a call or enjoying music.

The AirPods 4 have the H2 chip which means you can take advantage of the new nodding feature to answer or dismiss calls. I did have a bit of trouble setting it up the first time but it works quite well. Similarly, it allows for Voice Isolation which continues to amaze me. With two noisey sausage dogs, this feature is a must-have, and I’m consistently amazed when people on the other end tell me they can’t hear them when I’m on a call. When it comes to gaming, the H2 Chip also allows for low latency which is great when pairing with any of the Apple devices for gaming.

Battery life on the AirPods 4 has also been improved with 5 hours base on both models, and 4 hours with ANDC turned on. This extends to 30 hours with the case for both models or 20 hours with ANC turned on.

I touched on it at the start of the review, but if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there is just no better audio offering than AirPods purely because going from device to device is seamless and faster than ever. I can go from my MacBook to my iPhone to my iPad and it moves with me with zero fuss.

@shannongrixti

The Apple AirPods 4 have active noise cancelling for the first time in the open-ear design making them one of the best value for money buds on the market #AppleAirpods4 #AirPodsGen4 #Apple #AppleAirpods #iPhone16Pro #AirPods #Tech #AirPods4

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

At $219 for the standard AirPods 4 and $299 for the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, these will absolutely be the two new wireless earbuds that are perfect for most people.

The post Apple AirPods 4 Review – Incredible Value With Great Noise Cancelling appeared first on Press Start.

A few months ago I reviewed both the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro XL, but but there was one phone missing in the mix, that finally lands in Australia next week in the standard sized Pixel 9 Pro.

This is the first time that Google has made its Pro phone available in the smaller size, and I’m super glad they have as 6.3 to 6.4-inches for a phone is the perfect size, but if you wanted the Pro features in previous years, you had to go for the bigger phone, so to have both options available now is fantastic.

The reality is that almost everything that I said in my original 9 Pro XL review holds true here with the only difference being the actual size of the screen, the battery size (these come naturally just in the changes in phone sizes) and the charging speed with the Pixel 9 Pro supporting 27w charging speeds (same as Pixel 8 Pro last year) with the larger Pixel 9 Pro XL featuring 37w charging.

I truly believe that unless you want the biggest phone on the market, the Pixel 9 Pro remains the best Android phone that now comes in a size that feels most right for people. I’d argue that if even looks more impressive than the Pixel 9 Pro XL, as the smaller size makes it look high-end matched with those glossy/metal features that were previously exclusive to the larger phone.

This is my first time checking out the Hazel colour with my other units coming in Porcelain and Mint, and I have to say that I really love it. It has a little bit more personality than Obsidian, but still looks super high-end in its finish.

What’s absolutely clear this year is that there’s more choice especially for Aussies with the Pixel 9 range consisting of the Pixel 9, 9 Pro/9 Pro XL and The Pixel 9 Pro Fold – there truly is something for everyone.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro starts at $1,699 AUD which comes in at $1,50 cheaper than the Pixel 9 Pro XL. It’s out in Australia on October 24th and can be purchased in Porcelain, Hazel, Rose Quartz and Obsidian from the Google store HERE.

ORIGINAL PIXEL 9/9PRO XL REVIEW:

The Google Pixel Pro has been improving steadily since I started covering it 2-3 years ago, but the Pixel 9 range feels like it really coming to its own, taking things up a notch with an improved design that looks and feels premium.

In the range you’ve got the Pixel 9 which is your standard (but slightly larger) 6.3-inch phone and then you’ve got the new Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL which are identical except for size at 6.3-inch and 6.8-inches respectively. This is a great move as a massive bugbear I’ve had with flagship phone drops is that certain features are locked behind the larger phone, which not everyone wants so I applaud Google for this.

As far as the design goes, there’s significant changes all round. Both devices are flatter (much like the iPhone) with rounded edges which makes them a lot easier to hold and less slippery than the last few Pixel devices. The standard 9 back is made up of a glossy glass panel whilst the 9 Pro uses a matte aluminium finish that looks super high-end, and similarly, the edges on the 9 are a more matte finish whilst they’re a lovely, high-end aluminium on the sides.

Without doubt the most talked about change is the one to the iconic camera visor which now features a cut out rather than a strip that goes across the entire phone, at first it’s quite different to look at but I absolutely love the design after living with it for a few weeks. I think it’s super stylish, it’s different and eye-catching to the point that looking at the old one looks so out of place now.

The display on both devices have been hugely improved as well with the Pixel 9 now 35% brighter and Pixel 9 Pro being brighter with up to 2,000 nits in HDR with 3,000 nits of peak brightness. Really, you can’t go wrong with either of these displays but the brightness on the 9 Pro is a huge improvement with that display being even more stunning.

These phones are both powerhouses utilising the Tensor G4 chip, but also both coming with 4GB of more ram which allows you to zip around with ease, no matter what you’re doing on the phone, There isn’t a better place to use Android as an OS. The battery life on both devices have also been improved quite significantly as well.

The cameras on the Pixels have been best in class over few years, but they’re even better on both devices. The 9 Pro in particular now has a 42mp sensor on the front which allows for 30% more light sensitivity, and on the back you’ve got 48mp on ultrawide and telephoto and 50mp on the wide lens.

It’s hard to take a bad photo with this phone no matter which mode or lens that you’re using, and I was thoroughly impressed moving about in my yard and taking photos on the range of modes.

Similarly on the Pixel 9 you’ve got that same 50mp wide lens with a 48mp ultrawide lens without the upgraded front camera. Again, you’re really getting a great camera phone beyond the needs of most people, regardless of which phone you’re getting.

As with any Google phone, the improvements come in the way of features and mainly AI features in a big way this year. Building on the likes of Magic Eraser, Add Me is a brand new feature that essentially allows you to add the photographer into the photo with a second pass. This basically guides you through the process of taking a photo, then telling you to line it up in the exact same spot to add the person that took the first photo. It works super well, and whilst it once again raises the question of what is reality and what is the purpose of a photo, it does its job well if you want to use it.

Magic Editor from last year has some improvements now as well, with the ability to reframe photos which is super helpful for turning photos into different dimensions, or maybe you want a more zoomed out image. Again, it just depends what you’re wanting to use it for, and does make you question reality at certain points, but it works really damn well. You can also re-imagine photos in Magic Editor, which is basically just using AI to re-write parts of the photos to change the scenery which is a lot of fun to play with.

Similarly, there’s improvements in the way of Zoom Enhance which uses AI to enhance things in the distance, and Video Boost has also been improved to allow you to upscale to 8K with video rendering now faster as well.

Probably the biggest addition of AI comes in the way of the assistant, which now uses Gemini out of the box. I hadn’t used Gemini too much, but these devices come installed with it as the main assistant as well as one year free of Gemini Advanced through Google One AI Premium ($32 a month after that) which allows you to use Gemini Live.

I was really impressed with how quick and responsive Gemini was as a regular assistant but it was Gemini Live that made me a believer in AI. This basically allows you to pull up a responsive AI bot that is responsive and takes into context what you’ve said and also remembers past conversations, so that it’s a lot more natural than your usual assistant. Testing with the likes of my partner and mother, we were all super impressed with how natural it was and what it knew about the variety of things that we were asking it.

It’s quite clear that there’s still a bit to go with this though, as it definitely could do better at integrating into other apps, and there was also times that it wouldn’t remember previous things that we’d spoken about which breaks the experience a little, but when it works, it feels quite magical and like a legitimately great use of AI that could change the way we use our phones.

Pixel Screenshots is another great new app that utilises AI to make your life easier. I’m somebody that takes a lot of screenshots (over 65,000 to be exact), and this app basically helps you not only sort these and create labels for your screenshots, but you can literally just ask it to search for something and it does a great job of finding it.

The other piece of the puzzle is that both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro have seen another decent increase in price, which won’t be to the delight of everyone, but these do feel like extremely high-quality flagship phones and the build quality represents the jump in price, so it’s hard to complain. Both phones are out now with the Google Pixel 9 starting at $1,349 AUD and the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL starting at $1,849 AUD.

The post Google Pixel 9 Pro Review – The Perfect Size appeared first on Press Start.

In a dark, long-forgotten system of caves off the Turkish coast, a small hit squad of hired goons is about to die. An impulsive mission to recover an ancient artifact from an even older tomb has ended in disaster as a young woman’s position was given away and her escape route blocked by men armed with guns and poisoned idealism. From the shadows, she projects herself through the ethereal realm and begins to pull the strings; she positions one goon’s rifle to fire at the head of another, guides yet another’s electric baton to slam into the ground next to a flammable canister, and calmly walks the remaining attacker into the soon to be explosion. She is pulled back to her body just in time to watch the chaos erupt as the world turns in her favour while she watches on, unseen and unknown. 

This is Unknown 9: Awakening at its best– a tightly constructed set of tools and a linear sandbox in which to deploy them, when the game clicks into place, you feel like a minor God. What developer Reflector Entertainment build around these tools is the quintessential AA gaming experience, for mostly better and only rarely worse. 

Unknown 9 seeks to somewhat invert the typical narrative bones of the action-adventure genre by placing us in the shoes of Haroona, a young Indian woman thrown headfirst into a sprawling world of magical intrigue and existential doom. Actively avoiding, and sometimes even interrogating, the staple of “affable bearded white dude blasts through South Asian culture”, Unknown 9 instead uses Haroona’s heritage and characterisation to ground us more thoroughly in these places and cultures, lifting heavily from aesthetics, architecture, and even leading actor Anya Chalotra’s own cultural heritage. 

It’s a successful gambit, the game’s clear appreciation for Indian culture a driving force behind its cast of (relatively) likeable side characters and vibrant litany of levels. It has become disconcertingly easy to dismiss games of this budget and calibre as cheaper imitations of what the AAA space can do, a shortsighted way of engaging with works like Unknown 9. You won’t see the best texture work in the business here but thanks to a killer art direction that feels of a piece with the best action-adventure romps, and smart use of pre-baked lighting and tight-level design, the world of Unknown 9 feels richly sweet.  

And while this cultural inversion lends the game an undeniable uniqueness in the market, its structure adheres much more closely to trends established well over a decade ago in the genre. This will be a make-or-break point for many, as while the likes of Uncharted have largely been able to paper over their mechanical status quo (stagnation if you’re feeling spicy) with breathtaking visual fidelity, Unknown 9 lands firmly in the AA development sphere, leaning more into art direction and vibes than outright AAA quality. In turn, its reliance on the usual flow of stealth in tall grass, clambering up rock textures and vines, crawling between cracks, and a light and heavy combat loop is laid far more bare. Unknown 9 is effectively a 360 game, then, and that kinda rules. 

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The linear narrative action-adventure path is as you might expect with that in mind; Haroona will scramble through just over a dozen chapters, chasing the bad guys around the world and uncovering the secrets of the Unknown 9 in a fairly breezy, pleasant fashion. Many of the game’s major beats you’ll see coming a mile off but Chalotra’s performance is incredibly charming and keeps the central throughline of a young woman coming to terms with a cruel world firmly in hand even as the backend of the game swings into melodrama. The quasi-fictionalised India and surrounding global situation is genuinely compelling though as the game paints a portrait of a people who are actively aware of their impending demise as part of a cyclical destruction that ravages society every X number of years. 

The fallout of this awareness is the forming of the titular Unknown 9, a cabal of immortal beings who seek to stop the cogs of time from churning in an effort that you just know can only end well. The niceties of this set-up are littered throughout dozens of collectibles and notes (Unknown 9 is itself part of a larger transmedia push including books, comics, and audio dramas) but the immediate effect is Haroona’s ability to use Am (magic) and the Fold (a kind of spirit realm) to interact with the game world.

Unknown 9 is equal parts stealth and action game, lifting the fundamentals of each but remixing them brilliantly with Umbric Abilities, skills that Haroona uses Am for. The biggest, and best, of them is the Step, granting Haroona the ability to astral project into the body of most enemies and pilot them around in suspended time, unleashing attacks or positioning them in front of environmental hazards before jumping into the next or recalling back to her body to set her choices in motion.  

Over the course of Unknown 9’s approximately 15-hour campaign, this never gets old. This is partly due to the game’s escalating scenario design in which the Ascendents continue to trot out more elaborate anti-Step machinery and cartoonishly over-designed big boys to deal with (one late-game enemy feels like someone ran Indiana Jones through an Evil Within filter and I clapped). It also helps that Haroona’s skill trees (stealth, Umbral, and combat) are packed full of expressive and fun mechanics that you’re free to chain together in any way you see fit. That cave encounter I mentioned earlier later saw me go loud with abandon, using a shield to parry bullets before double dodging to close the gap and Umbral push a soldier off a cliff while forcing my Am spirit out of my body to punch another in the face.  

Combat sits comfortably in the Arkham tradition of light/heavy, dodge, and parry to build up a stagger meter before delivering a final blow, but it can veer a little sloppy. The camera lock-on in particular fights you at every turn and as the game ramps up enemy numbers, it can begin to feel frustrating keeping track of powerful foes while managing your Am and health. These poorly balanced instances drag on an otherwise solid system, especially once Haroona can start pulling on Am to do AOE attacks and sick-as-shit astral combat abilities that let you close the gap between you and your foe without moving or breaking off of your current action. 

There’s a nice harmony to much of what Unknown 9 sets out to achieve and while its textures can be crunchy and its narrative structure a little flat, the essence of the experience is delightful. This is a text with foundational aspirations; in my preview, I noted that it feels as if we should have had several of these games had they kicked off in the 360/PS3 heyday and I sincerely hope Unknown 9 gets the chance to build off what has been done here. Chalotra’s Haroona is a charismatic lead in her own right and the systems built around her are cohesive and inventive, if in need of some fine-tuning. With time, there’s a killer franchise to be had here, but as far as origin stories go, an Unknown 7.5 ain’t half-bad.

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Mario Party is back, again, but this time in a big way. You’d argue it never left – we’ve already had both Super Mario Party and Mario Party Superstars on the Switch. But Super Mario Party Jamboree feels different. Not only is it the first wholly original Mario Party game since 2018, but it’s also a best-of-both-worlds situation. Jamboree is an enjoyable romp for all the right reasons – bringing together the briskness of Superstars with the devotion to original content that Super Mario Party provided. The result is a party that’s fun for hours and, more importantly, one well worth attending.

The beauty of Mario Party has always been in how simple it is, and Jamboree is no different. You and three other characters are placed on a board, moving around to purchase as many stars as possible as they rotate throughout the board. At the end of each turn, everyone is thrown into a minigame, with the winner gaining some advantage in the next round. It’s an incredibly simplistic premise that has stayed the same for over two decades. But it’s easy to see why – Mario Party is easy for anyone and everyone to pick up and enjoy. It’s immaculately paced in Jamboree too.

There’s a heap to do in Jamboree, but the crux of your experience will be spent in Mario Party mode. This is the traditional mode – allowing up to four players to jump into one of seven boards and battle it out for the most stars. As mentioned above, the flow of Jamboree feels like the best that Mario Party has felt for some time, but a few additions to the proceedings change things quite considerably. The most major being the Jamboree abilities.

Jamboree’s abilities feel like a natural evolution of the Ally system from Super Mario Party. During any game, a character will appear on the board. If you reach them, a unique minigame is initiated, with the person who reaches them receiving a handicap. Whoever wins the minigame recruits that character to their side, opening up a variety of buffs. For one, every character has a unique ability – Wario gives you coins before each turn, for example. But also, anything that happens to you in the game while your buddy is with you is doubled. You earn twice as many coins, lose twice as many coins, and can buy two stars when you land on a star space.

The Jamboree ability system is a clever idea, though I wish there was some way to adjust their frequency or even the length of time they stay with players once they are gained. They only pop up a little in short games, often appearing right at the end, where it’s never worth it to divert your attention to them, given how many turns are left. It’s also disappointing that only ten of the game’s twenty-two characters can be recruited. It’s by no means a dealbreaker, but it does sometimes feel like they’re not worth the diversion if you’re already close to a star or have your eyes on something else.

Where I’m more confident that Jamboree gets it right is the boards themselves. Five of the seven boards included here are brand new, with the other two returning from the first two Mario Party games. The new boards are fantastic. Much has been said about Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party already. But other boards, like Goomba Lagoon, have a shifting tide mechanic which leaves people either stranded on an island, doomed to run in circles or wash them away entirely.

But my favourite is easily King Bowser’s Keep. On this brutal and punishing board, Bowser is constantly turning each space into a Bowser Space and stealing stars and coins from players for a vault. The vault itself can be unlocked by any player, who can unlock it if they reach it and guess the code to open it. It’s a fun and exhausting board for all the right reasons. Overall, all of the boards are nothing short of incredible – mixing some novel designs with even more novel gimmicks to ensure everyone has a chance at any given point.

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Praise also has to be given to Jamboree’s new Pro rules options. This is a set of rules you can apply before each game where all the random elements and chance-based minigames are either eliminated or tweaked. It’s a good idea for those looking for a more serious game, but a lot of these options are individually tweakable before you enter a game if you want to fine-tune your options. Our group, for example, really liked the idea of voting for minigames but didn’t like the idea of Pro rules, so we chose to do so for our sessions.

The package is rounded out with some great new modes, too. Much has been said about the Koopathlon and Bowser Kaboom Squad in Brodie’s preview last month, which are two modes that up the player count and the chaos. I recognise that they might not be technically achievable locally, but I hope that one day, Mario Party will expand to include more than four players in a fashion similar to these. The single player mode, Party-Trek Planner, is similarly something I enjoyed when I played the game earlier this month. It’s a nice alternative way to play Mario Party, especially if you want to unlock stuff, and it gives solo players something to do.

When you’re not keen on something as involved as a full round on the board, the Experience Party mode offers up something slightly different to Mario Party and the Minigame Bay. There are three separate games to play – Paratroopa Flight School, Toad’s Item Factory and Rhythm Kitchen. Rhythm Kitchen is the most straightforward – you essentially participate in a series of motion-based minigames to create (oddly realistic-looking) foodstuffs for a judging panel of Yoshis. It’s the simplest of the three modes but a nice little diversion, too.

Paratroopa Flight School has your character outfitted with Paratroopa wings, flapping your arms to move around a semi-open level. You can either co-operate here to transport a character from one point of the map to another or play head-to-head as you float around the map to collect biddybuds. Toad’s Item Factory is my favourite, allowing up to four players to work together to move a ball through a factory by controlling various stages of a production line with the Joy-Con. It feels the most detailed and most involving of the Experience Party area.

But Experience Party highlights one of my only true major issues with Jamboree. The motion controls could be better. Especially during some of the minigames you encounter in the Mario Party mode, there were a few times when our controllers wouldn’t behave like they should during the minigames. Another minor gripe is that three boards have to be unlocked through earning achievements. If you’re grabbing this game for a party night, only some things will be available from the get-go. Given the minigames are short and the unlockables aren’t too grindy, they’re minor issues, but ones I think bear mentioning.

Perhaps this is cynical of me, but it’s refreshing to speak about a Nintendo Switch game in a positive light when it comes to presentation. Unlike recent releases on the Switch, Jamboree runs at a very delectable sixty frames per second. Combine this with the bright and colourful artistic direction that we’ve come to know and expect from the world of Mario, and Jamboree is easily the best-looking Mario Party so far. It doesn’t do anything too outlandish or outrageous when it comes to artistic direction, though the performance is especially appreciated, especially in a game that can be so competitive.

Such a strong sense of presentation is just icing on the cake – Super Mario Party Jamboree seemingly does the impossible. It has expanded the idea of what a Mario Party game can be well beyond anything the series has done so far without skimping on the most crucial factor – quality. Everything that it offers, whether it be a traditional Mario Party experience or some of the newer, more novel motion-controlled games, Jamboree more than lives up to its name, and that’s worth celebrating. Get your RSVPs in; this party is well worth attending.

The post Super Mario Party Jamboree Review – An RSVP Worth Responding To appeared first on Press Start.

The Xbox Series X design was unlike anything else that we’ve seen with its super understated design, all-black nature, and it’s been left up to special editions to add that extra bit of something to the console, but most of these have been not up for purchase and only able to be won in competitions.

In comes the Galaxy Black Xbox Series X which is one of the first limited edition consoles to release so far, and it builds on that same sleek and stylish design, adding a few small design highlights to make it extra special.

It also has a larger 2TB SSD which is why it’s a bit more expensive than the standard Xbox Series X, so it’s obviously going to be for a more hardcore gamer or a collector that likes everything.

@shannongrixti

The Limited Edition Galaxy Black Xbox Series X has a 2TB SSD and is absolutely stunning with its green/white specks and bright green details #XboxSeriesX #Xbox #XboxSeriesXGalaxyBLack #GalaxyBlackXboxSeriesX #Tech #Gaming

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

As far as the design goes, it’s the same black console but there’s green and grey specks all over the console which on paper sounds like it could be a mess, but it still looks high-end and classy, adding an extra bit of something to the design.

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The only other major difference is that the base is a bright Xbox green which again, doesn’t take away from the original design of the console but adds a bit of extra pop.

It’s the controller that really steals the show here, and it absolutely would have sold well if it was released separately. It’s the same black controller, with again some minor differences to elevate the design.

The d-pad has that same speckled design pulling over from the console, the buttons are blacked out and the whole back of the controller pulls over that same bright Xbox green from the base of the console.

Whilst most people probably won’t run out to upgrade their original Xbox Series X to the Galaxy Black, I personally love seeing these limited edition releases and hope we see more from Xbox.

The post The 2TB Galaxy Black Xbox Series X Adds Some Sparkle To The Understated OG Design appeared first on Press Start.

Although it’s still something that’s debated, there’s no question in my mind that video games are an art form. Some more than others, of course, however there’s a place that many come to occupy where their job is to kindle imagination and draw emotion from its player as though it were a bloodletting ritual. After Gris, and how it traversed the profound impact of grief, Nomada Studio has gone back to work to ensure their second project, Neva, is as much a doorway to devastation as their first.

Neva is a beautiful story, told primarily through its arresting audiovisual presentation, about the ever-strengthening bond between Alba and the titular wolf cub who journey, protecting one another, in a world on the brink of decay. Princess Mononoke feels like a lay-up in terms of comparison, especially with regards to design, however I feel the Studio Ghibli classic also shares thematic threads with Neva if you care enough to tug on and unpack them. The notion that nature is indifferent, often cruel and that living in total harmony with it might be a pipe dream is something of a through line for both. Neva is a game developed largely throughout the pandemic, so it is no surprise its world is a brutal one on its knees.

While I continue to question whether Neva quite exceeds the emotional summit of its predecessor, I’m at least glad it attempts to gamify its themes and deeper meanings a bit more. While both games are beautiful experiences from front-to-back, Neva folding combat into the formula Gris otherwise perfected on the first try is clearly welcome. On top of wonderfully designed puzzles and eking out microdoses of tension through titanic confrontations with mountainous, metaphoric tokens of Alba’s journey, being able to brandish a sword against the corrupted remnants of your dying world adds a little power to this fantasy.

Seeming to serve the cinematic feel of the game more than anything, Neva’s swordplay never really challenged me throughout the game’s adventurous, albeit modest, five hours. Even more critical, it holds back on its most interesting hooks until it’s too late, resulting in an exciting homestretch that makes the opening feel a bit limp by comparison.

Where others might have overcomplicated things, adding parries, heavy swings, and stamina bars in the pursuit of the oft-fruitful Soulslike tag, Nomada kept things exceedingly simple for their first run at combat. Alba might draw her sword with a flourish worthy of a practised duelist, however, her limited repertoire, which would prove dull in a longer game, leaves a simple, one-note attack, a downward plunge, and a dodge roll on offer for a bulk of proceedings. As the seasons roll by, Neva will mature into a magnificent, powerful wolf who evolves from travel companion to battle mate, as her paranatural abilities service both the game’s combat scenarios and late-game environment puzzles.

For those after a bit of extra credit when combing through Neva’s dying world, there are collectibles that can be found in the form of flower buds that’ll bloom with life once in Alba’s presence. A lot of them are straightforward and only require the player to veer ever so slightly from the expected path, though there are a handful that require a reasonable mastery of Alba’s platforming nous to reach. As in Gris, other hidden achievements task the player with completing small objectives throughout the adventure, whether it’s ensuring Neva, a growing cub, has had her fill of fallen fruit or startling all of the hard-to-spot birds perched upon snowy branches in winter. In a game where the story is largely inferred by the player due to a lack of spoken or written dialogue, these small moments felt like a subtle means of character building to me.

Neva marks the second coming together for artist Conrad Roset, who serves as the game’s creative lead, and fellow Spaniards Berlinist, the band behind the tender, heartrending arrangement that pairs with the game’s action better than fish and chips. As the narrative moves between seasons, Roset is able to experiment with and use specific colours so effectively, as the autumnal fall colours lead to Alba’s struggle, represented by bold, blinding reds that fill the sky before giving way to a blinding, white winter.

And while the world itself is quite beautiful, the designs of Alba, Neva, and the plagued creatures that wander it are incredibly Studio Ghibli-coded, it’s hard not to believe it’s an homage at least in part. The purity of Neva’s white coat, and her magnificent antlers, pop against the frequently colour burst backdrops, and even more so against the tortured, inky abominations that contort and shapeshift before you. So much illustration fences its colour in with bold outlines and, thankfully, that isn’t the case here.

It’s all crafted gorgeously with an express control of water colours and their painterly ways. Without spoiling it, there’s one portion of the game, about three quarters through, where Roset’s breathtaking direction for environment design feeds into both the combat and puzzle craft, it’s one of many incomparable five minute bursts that cemented Neva, in my mind, as a fascinating work of art. I can’t overemphasise how much of the game’s emotional impact stems from the marriage of Roset’s art and Berlinist’s virtuoso score. I’ve spent many hours streaming the Gris soundtrack, and I expect Neva’s will prove to be just as much an ear worm.

Although the game gets in and out pretty quickly, it lasts just long enough that its simple systems don’t get the chance to grow tiresome while its art, evocative music, and bond between Alba and her endearing wolf cub shoulder the burden of wringing out and exhausting everything from the player. By the end, as the credits began to roll, I was a glassy-eyed mess who knew full well I’d just experienced something special.

The post Neva Review – The Wolf In Watercolour appeared first on Press Start.

Metaphor: ReFantazio has come a long way to get where it is today. Initially announced as Project Re:Fantasy, Metaphor was conceived by Katsura Hashino shortly after he departed the Persona team over at ATLUS. Citing a need to explore new ideas untethered from Persona 5’s runaway success, Hashino established his own internal studio within ATLUS named Studio Zero. That all happened almost 10 years ago in 2016. That’s a long time for any game to be in development, but the anticipation for Hashino’s next big creative swing is palpable.

ATLUS is also now in a position where they don’t need to be entertaining creative ideas for new IP. Persona is a worldwide phenomenon that practically prints money, and Shin Megami Tensei is becoming more mainstream as a result. That aspect of Metaphor makes its existence even more impressive, especially when some of ATLUS’ strongest talent is involved in the project. There’s a clear belief in Hashino’s vision to bring something new to ATLUS’ expansive swathe of JRPGs. Though it might not be the gameplay evolution some are looking for, Metaphor is yet another win for ATLUS.

In the dead of night, the United Kingdom of Euchronia’s idealistic and benevolent king is assassinated in his sleep, instigating widespread chaos throughout the land. With his son rendered unconscious by a curse, the throne’s successor has never been more unclear. In his death, the king invokes royal magic, setting the stage for a tournament of kings to to decide who’s fit to take the throne.

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You play as a young boy of the Elda tribe, a group of people that’ve been ostracised due to their connections to the old world. The Elda are few and far between in Euchronia for a few reasons, but what’s important is that you’re entering the tournament on behalf of the prince, while also searching for a means to lift the curse placed on him so he can take his place as king. It’s a fantastically unique premise that’s ripe with potential and thematic musings.

While ATLUS games always have more going on under the surface narratively – especially in Hashino’s works – Metaphor feels restrained. It maintains a square focus on the tournament, its many players, the core cast, and how it’s all impacting Euchronia. There’s still plenty of great narrative surprises and the way in which it hones in on that central conflict means that it’s always the same themes, ideas, and characters being explored and developed.

Euchronia is not a nice place. It purposefully mirrors our own world, with its people romanticising their own works of fiction and the idealistic worlds found within them. These seemingly perfect worlds also have these problems, tough. It’s these ideas of fiction and imagination that Metaphor is most fascinated with. Hoping for a better world when the status quo seems so deep-rooted in Euchronia’s history that most people live in complete ignorance of the discrimination around them.

In no way is this better explored than through Metaphor’s core cast of characters. Citizens whisper about the presence of an Elda in the capital of Grand Trad, propaganda and misinformation from bodies of authority result in warped perceptions of people and tribes they’ve never even met, and foreign cultures are often considered lesser or under-developed because of their differences. Even the problems faced by the higher classes are explored to some degree through the likes of Strohl, a noble who joins the army after his hometown is razed by monsters known as Humans.

It does feel like Metaphor doesn’t go far enough in its commentary of these themes and ideas in its main plot, though. They’re often only addressed in a manner that’s surface level, claiming that these things are bad and need to be uprooted, but not the deeper effects it has on the people impacted the most. I think this is likely because Metaphor is largely concerned with touching on the many downfalls of our own world, instead of exploring a select few in more intimate detail. It lends the game an ethereal and, for lack of a better word, meta feel to its central ideas and explorations.

It’s also just too long. ATLUS’ tentpole JRPGs often have this problem and it rears its ugly head once again in Metaphor. It isn’t as offensive as the tail-end of Persona 5, but Metaphor feels one dungeon too long. The final sequence in particular has a drawn-out preparation phase that’s great for wrapping up unfinished side content, but the main narrative comes to a screeching halt as a result. It’s made more obvious by how tightly paced the rest of Metaphor is, with a structure that echoes traditional Shonen anime to remarkable effect.

On the spectrum of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, Metaphor: ReFantazio falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to gameplay. It leans a little heavy of the Persona side (with a dash of Digital Devil Saga), but combines elements of both to differentiate itself from ATLUS’ titanic franchises. If you’re wanting something that’s different from ATLUS’ traditional offerings, Metaphor isn’t quite that. It does bring some new ideas into the fold, but calling it wholly original in how it plays would be overstepping.

That isn’t to say Metaphor is uninspired or overly iterative. ATLUS continue to show they have a fundamental grasp on the systems and gameplay elements that make modern Persona and SMT so engaging. Once the game gets going proper, it operates on a calendar system with deadlines for each major dungeon as you progress the main story. You can spend your time making progress in said dungeons, deepening your bonds with the people of Euchronia, growing your kingly virtues, and more.

The biggest change in the calendar system comes with the Gauntlet Runner. A bipedal vehicle commonly used to traverse the dangerous no man’s lands between Euchronia’s towns, dungeons, and key points of interest. The catch, is that it takes time to make a trip in the Gauntlet Runner. Maybe you get a side quest that requires you to visit a nearby town or deal with a monster lurking in a small dungeon. Not only does it consume a day to explore said dungeon, but also to actually travel there in the Gauntlet Runner.

There are still things to do to fill the time while travelling, but any trip away from whatever town your party is setup at needs to be considered based on your progress in the main dungeon and its impending deadline. It adds another layer to decision making in this tried and true gameplay loop, imploring you to make the most of your time and optimise your dungeon diving. The Gauntlet Runner itself also just adds so much personality to the game and the whole setup of the tournament. Nowhere is this seen more than in the way you can stop at Euchronia’s many natural wonders on the road, all of which are accompanied by reflective conversation from the party. It lends a real sense of journey and exploration, echoing a grand feeling that isn’t often felt in modern RPGs.

Metaphor: ReFantazio also brings with it some of the best Social Links ATLUS has ever penned. Known as Bonds within Metaphor, these smaller side stories that follow people from different walks of life within Euchronia benefit greatly from the dark fantasy setting and themes of this world. It’d be a shame to spoil any of them here, but these stories often have the deeper explorations of Metaphor’s core themes and ideas that are lacking in the main story. They aren’t afraid to dig into the grungy underbelly of this world and the positions its people are forced into, but also highlight how perspective and understanding of someone who’s different from you can make all the difference.

Bonds also tie nicely into the game’s job system, called Archetypes. Each Archetype pertains to a different class, with advanced and elite Archetypes evolving from the base ones to create a Lineage. Each Lineage is directly linked to one of your Bonds, and levelling that Bond up directly benefits its related Archetype. Whether it be unlocking the aforementioned Advanced and Elite Archetypes, increasing the total number of Skill Inheritance slots, or decreasing costs associated with unlocking Archetypes within that lineage, these rewards always feel meaningful and worthwhile.

Part of the reason this all works so well is because the Archetype system is so, so good. It’s a fairly traditional job system where party members can seamlessly switch between Archetypes to fill different roles as needed. Levelling up these Archetypes unlocks new skills that you can inherit onto other Archetypes, granting you access to skill combinations you usually wouldn’t have. You can also use these slots to combat elemental weaknesses or fill holes in an Archetype’s kit. There’re so many different combinations and Archetypes to experiment with here, and it all fits so well into Metaphor’s combat framework.

It should come as no surprise that this battle system is very similar to Shin Megami Tensei’s. It’s closest to the Press Turn system from those games, where striking weaknesses grants you an extra turn, but the same is also true for your enemies. It’s always been strategically rewarding, and remains so in Metaphor, but there’s a few new ideas thrown into the mix that set Metaphor apart.

The most obvious change is Metaphor’s approach to first strikes, or the preamble that happens before turn-based combat actually starts. It’s become commonplace in RPGs today, but Metaphor goes a few steps further in its own interpretation of this modern staple. You can lock-on to roaming overworld enemies and engage them in a simple yet robust third-person action combat system. You’ll jump on enemies with simple combos while dodging their own attacks to stagger them, giving you a significant advantage on the first turn of combat if successful. The same is true for enemies, though, and starting battle with disadvantage feels like an uphill battle.

Weaker enemies can be immediately dispatched with this combat without transitioning into the turn-based mode, and weaknesses even play a part in how fast you stagger enemies. It’s a fun system that helps with combat pacing and cuts down on a lot of unnecessary battling. It’s very reminiscent of Trails Through Daybreak, and that’s a very good thing.

There’s a couple of things inside of the turn-based combat that give Metaphor it’s own flavour as well. There’s a formation system where you can place party members in the front or back line of the party, trading physical offence for defence and can sometimes be used to avoid entire attacks if you read your enemy properly. There’s also Synergy skills, which use two turn icons for suped up skills that often deal more damage or provide more efficient support to the party. The coolest part of these skills is how they also work with the Press Turn system, netting you two extra turns if you strike a weakness with one of these skills.

All of these inclusions are welcome because Metaphor does offer some challenge if you go looking for it. It’s not an overly difficult game on its base difficulty if you’re familiar with ATLUS’ other titles, but some of the optional bosses are real strategic gauntlets that force you to use every element of the combat system to come out on top. It’s a nice shift given ATLUS’ recent RPGs have lost some of their edge due to excessive player power and over tuned mechanics like Persona 3 Reload’s Theurgy.

Another area where Metaphor yields mixed results is in its dungeons. The main ones are almost all great, offering some really unique locales to explore that employ labyrinthine design that’re satisfying to unravel. The optional side dungeons are less impressive, often recycling the same visual motifs and design spaces that leave them feeling largely indistinguishable from one another, and forgettable as a result. You’ll spend a lot of time in these spaces as well, which only serves to hammer in the monotony. They’re better than the likes of Mementos or Tartarus, but still don’t come close to the quality of the main dungeons.

Now to surprise absolutely no one as I gush about Metaphor’s production values for the rest of this review. It’ll surprise no one that ATLUS have done it again, Metaphor is effortlessly stylish in all aspects of its presentation. It’s also done in a way that’s entirely different from recent Persona entries, fully embracing its dark fantasy setting and lofty musings on philosophy to deliver some incredibly striking user interfaces, imagery, character designs, and architecture.

A special shout out should go out to Shigenori Soejima’s excellent character designs. Each one is instantly charismatic, identifiable, and unique amongst a pantheon of other countless designs Soejima has authored over the years. It would’ve been easy enough for him to replicate his work in Persona with a medieval twist, but Soejima goes above and behind to reinforce the difference in these races and tribes with remarkable effect. It’s some of his most varied and high quality work yet, and that’s no small statement.

Shoji Meguro also makes a fantastic impression with Metaphor’s original soundtrack. An ATLUS game isn’t an ATLUS game without their irreplaceable music, and Meguro delivers a score so different from his previous works that still maintains his signature touches. Battle tracks slowly ramp up towards thunderous choruses, overworld tunes are less subdued than what you’d find in Persona, really selling the idea of this larger than life tournament of kings. It’s no surprise that Meguro delivers here, but that doesn’t undermine how fantastic the whole thing is.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is another home run for a seemingly unstoppable ATLUS. It isn’t without some issues, and ATLUS have yet to escape their third-act woes, but it’s refreshing to see a new IP with a setting that’s such a hard pivot from what’s become so successful for the studio. It might not depart as drastically when it comes to overall gameplay, but that isn’t such a bad thing when what’s been established is of such high quality.

The post Metaphor ReFantazio Review – Peak Fiction appeared first on Press Start.

Loosely based around the 16th century Chinese story ‘Journey to the West’, and inspired by Hong Kong martial arts films, there would be very few people who would have foreseen the future popularity and impact that the Dragon Ball manga would have on audiences when it was released forty years ago. And while Akira Toriyama may no longer be with us to continue the story of Son Goku and his friends, his legacy lives on through the franchise’s numerous adaptations – the latest being Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.

Seventeen years in the making itself, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the ultimate love letter to Dragon Ball fans around the world, as well as those who have been hanging for a true sequel to the Budokai Tenkaichi games not seen since 2007. From Z to Super and even GT, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero puts the thrill of high-speed and super-powered battles into your hands, between your favourite characters in familiar and highly-destructive environments, allowing you to play through the fights that you’ve always wanted to see.

I could write an entire article just on the story of Dragon Ball alone, but if you’re playing Sparking! Zero, chances are you’re already well-versed on Dragon Ball history. Thankfully, the game gives you the opportunity to play through the story through eight different characters in Episode Battle. With a mix between comic-style panels and in-game cutscenes, the game weaves through the narrative allowing you to take part in iconic fights from Dragon Ball Z and Super. Starting with our main character Goku, you’ll play through the Raditz saga and beyond, unlocking more characters as the narrative progresses – but with the added twist of diverting the narrative if you meet certain battle conditions. For instance, what would happen if Goku beat Raditz without dying?

What would happen if Gohan defeated Cell without allowing him to blow up? These pivotal narrative moments can be changed, branching out into new paths that will take the Dragon Ball story in new and exciting directions. You’ll even have the chance to step into the shoes of familiar foes such as Frieza and Goku Black as they take on our heroes in Vegeta, Piccolo and more. The narrative branching does get a bit frustrating however, as the conditions for changed results aren’t made clear at any point in the fight, and it isn’t until the fight is over that you’ll know if you’re on track or if you’ve branched off.

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As you progress through the Episode Battle you’ll gain proficiency in your characters and raise your player level, as well as earning Zeni which can be used for purchasing customisable unlocks in the shop. You’ll also complete tasks given to you by Zen Oh and Whis, which will give you even more opportunity to unlock Zeni and even characters to be used later in the game. If you want to take a break from Episode Battle, you can take yourself into Custom Battle instead, which allows you to create the scenario you’ve always wanted to see, or play through pre-made custom scenarios.

With over 180 characters to choose from, as well as iconic locations and the ability to set battle conditions, you can create, recreate and share the battles that you’ve always wanted to see. Want to see Cell, Frieza and Buu team up and take revenge on Goku, Vegeta and Trunks? You can make it happen. Want to see Nappa try and join the Frieza Force before teaming up with Vegeta? There’s a scenario for that. There’s almost no limit to your imagination when it comes to creating your own scenarios, as well as playing through some pretty interesting Bonus Episodes that have been created for the game.

Not long after a few rounds in Episode Battle, I found myself heading over to Super Training as my frustration grew and I began mashing buttons instead of being focused and tactical. Whether you’re an experienced player or fresh to the franchise, Super Training is a mode I would recommend you spend your time wisely in; while the game gives you a quick rundown of the controls when you first start it up, the combat flows extremely deep. Learning about techniques like Vanishing Assault, Z-Counter and Z Burst Dash will improve your fighting immensely, and coupling these with assault combos and ki blasts will make you the ultimate fighter.

But learning these things and putting them into practice are two totally different things, so I found myself consistently jumping back to training to re-learn what I’d already learned and why I wasn’t able to put it into practice. There is a classic control style for those who managed to find their PS2s and get back into the rhythm from the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy, otherwise the standard control system is pretty easy to start with. Sparking! Zero’s frustration in its control system stems from the fact that input sometimes is required to be extremely precise, and one wrongly-timed button input can mean the difference between performing the correct attack and instead throwing ki blasts at random and exhausting your energy.

While keeping an eye on counters, knockbacks, ki blasts and everything else taking place, you also need to ensure you power up your ki enough to perform certain attacks, as well as the obscure number near your avatar that counts upwards as you fight. This allows for character transformations, which you will unlock with character unlocks, and be able to use where available. There’s nothing worse than trying to go Super Saiyan and not having the power or ability to do so. This is why it is important not just to jump online or into gameplay, but give yourself the opportunity to learn all that you can. Overwhelming is a word that keeps coming to mind when I think about the complexities of the game; as not only do you need to memorise so many different ways to dodge and attack, you also need to monitor your HP gauge so that you don’t accidentally go all-out and be pulverised in a fight. I’m sure over time the controls will become second-nature, but sometimes the fights can be a bit too much.

After you’ve had your fill of fighting, either through Episode or Custom Battle, or even through creating your own World Tournament fixture, you can head over to med with Zen Oh and Whis to earn rewards that you’ll accumulate by performing tasks. These can be as simple as battling with one character for a certain number of times, or meeting certain conditions in a battle such as using your Super Attack multiple times. Zen Oh grants your stamp cards which gives you Zeni, outfits and even player card customizations; while Whis can give you other items like Dragon Balls which can be used to summon the immortal Dragons. Be sure to visit them often to receive your rewards and use them to unlock more and more.

There is plenty to unlock when it comes to the Shop and Customise section as well; from classic outfits from the manga and anime, to voice packs and quotes as well as music, and even skill capsules for use in fights. Your Zeni will be used up pretty quickly as you buy up all of the items within the store. You can even unlock characters you may not have earned through gameplay or performing certain conditions in-game, and unlock even more to customise your player card. You can then head to the Come Forth… menu, where you’re given the option to summon one of three Eternal Dragons to grant you a wish that will assist with more unlocks, including characters, additional Zeni and even overall difficulty for the game. Both Whis and Zen Oh’s tasks intertwine with each other, so by unlocking one thing (or a range of things) you can then get a wish from Whis, which then allows you to unlock yet another of Zen Oh’s tasks. It’s the perfect cycle as long as you use as many characters as possible.

As someone who grew up with Dragon Ball Z, it always brings joy to hear the majority of the original cast still performing the voices, and they definitely don’t let down in the performance aspect. Although fans of the more recent Dragon Ball Super will recognise the voices better due to cast changes (Stephanie Nadolny will always be my Kid Goku/Teen Gohan voice, thank you), the voice acting is still top-notch. Should you prefer to have the original Japanese voice cast instead, you can jump into the main menu at any time to flip between them – and sometimes its a breath of fresh air to hear the different voice actors.

It is also great to see that we’ve finally worked out how to have three-dimensional characters still look like they are animated in a traditional sense – using a traditional animation design by Toei animator Naohiro Shintani, the characters look and feel genuine as if they could exist both in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. Coupled with colours that absolutely pop when characters are involved in beam struggles or powering up their auras, the game is an absolute treat both visually and aurally. Just don’t expect the Faulconer Productions music score any time soon, as awesome and classic as it would be.

At the time of review, online services were available however I was not able to enter a game. This will be updated over the coming week as services become available.

The post Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Review – A Return To Form appeared first on Press Start.

Note: I speak about Until Dawn in these remake impressions assuming a bit of prior understanding from the reader.

For a refresher on what the game’s about, and how it plays, read Shannon’s full review originally published in 2015 embedded below.

The latest in PlayStation’s bold strategy to re-release all of their previous generation’s slate in one way or another, at least Until Dawn has been rebuilt from the ground up with all of the PlayStation 5’s advantages in mind. The original was the game that put Supermassive on the map and I believe it’s still their magnum opus almost a decade later, as they managed to perfect the choose your own adventure branching narrative many others had tried.

Although rumours of a Firesprite-led sequel might be swirling, perhaps in an effort to complement the looming film adaptation, this particular remake has been handled by Ballistic Moon. Not content with developing a 1:1 copy of the torch bearing original, the team have taken a number of liberties with certain aspects of the title’s identity, which has led to a bit of ire from fans—perhaps justifiably so.

In an effort to modernise Until Dawn, the team has sacrificed a few of things that felt essential to the tone and atmosphere struck by the first.

While I’m far from being in the camp of people who rally for the preservation of fixed camera angles, it’s undeniable that so much of Until Dawn’s tension could be attributed to them. In fact, being locked into one viewpoint felt like a key deliverable in the game’s thoroughly drummed theme of fearing the unknown and to give that up in favour of a freer, over-the-shoulder perspective feels like a shame. For mine, character handling was the thing that required an overhaul and yet there’s still a sluggish, shopping cart feel to everyone as they slowly trudge their paths across the Blackwood Mountain.

Similar amendments have been made to the game’s presentation at large, which I feel is something of a mixed bag. Although character models and environmental detail are vastly improved, this pursuit for higher fidelity has seen Ballistic Moon cast aside the original’s bluer colour grade in favour of a more realistic, dynamic colour palette. This again feels like a tonal sacrifice, though I’d argue it’s a worthwhile one in this case as the game, from the improved lighting alone, looks beautiful having been rendered in Unreal Engine 5 and is clearly on a bar above the original.

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Many of the cinematics have been completely reworked, and rescored, granting us a much more televisual perspective on certain events in the story’s canon. The prologue, and indeed the prank, that sets the game’s events in motion, for example, has undergone some creative reshoots to help reframe the scene with a more considered context as it switches seamlessly between two planes of action to a haunting remix of La Roux’s “In for the Kill”. It does drill home the vibe of a schlocky, made for TV slasher series on Fox, but that’s in keeping with the cheesy camp that made the original so fun.

The remake doesn’t really capitalise fully on the DualSense’s key features, unfortunately. Although I absolutely appreciate the triggers tensing up during key choices within the narrative, providing enough feedback for me to second guess myself, I felt they could have gone harder with it. For a game that relies so much on cheap jump scares, the implementation of the controller’s speaker to heighten that alert feels underwhelming, in fact I can’t say I noticed it once. For that reason, I’d probably recommend playing with a good pair of headphones.

Ultimately, if this is your first experience with Until Dawn, the game on offer remains a classic, near genre-defining horror title that is still its developers’ best work. However, it’s hard to say it’s the definitive iteration of Until Dawn with its considered, yet perhaps misguided, sacrifices to atmosphere, along that last generation’s Until Dawn is far better optimised now for a fraction of the price.

Original Review

Until Dawn was originally slated to be released on PS3 as a PlayStation Move exclusive game. The general premise of the game surrounds eight friends who have returned to Blackwood Pines on the one year anniversary of twin sisters Hannah and Beth. The twins mysteriously disappeared after being hunted by a crazed serial killer. The beginning of the game is extremely slow paced, which is necessary as the game allows you to learn about each characters personality and relationships with other members of the group.

The story of Until Dawn follows a very familiar trend for fans of horror movies; it’s over the top, incredibly cheesy and full of incredibly gripping scenes that would almost certainly never play out in real life. It’s all of these things and more that make the game’s story a complete success and one that you won’t want to step away from. The characters mostly end up fulfilling an archetypal role, but the freedom of dialogue choices and how your character can end up interacting with others makes the otherwise cliched dialogue quite fun.

The story is broken up by sessions with a psychologist. This sets the tone of the game incredibly early and was one of my favourite parts of the game. Your sessions early on will alter gameplay. Things like picking your biggest fears or phobias or which characters you dislike most which I assume would affect the way that the story plays out. This is very reminiscent of Silent Hills: Shattered Memories in a good way and adds another layer to the story that I wasn’t expecting.

The presentation in Until Dawn is a positive experience for the most part. The environments are incredibly dark, yet all have a lot of detail and interesting areas to explore. The game positions you with a light source whether it be a torch or a lantern, which is controlled by the analogue sticks or motion controls depending on which control scheme you choose. You can use this light source to better focus on the little details that can be found within Blackwood Pines. The acting in the game is close to the best that I’ve seen in a video game with Peter Stormare playing an interesting psychologist, and Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek rounding out an all-star lineup. The motion-cap and animations are top-tier in the gaming industry and Supermassive Games are to be commended for this.

The music and sound effects within Until Dawn were a highlight for me. The score is brilliantly reminiscent of some of the best horror movies I’ve seen. It provides a lot of atmosphere in building up to key set scenes within the game. The sound effects are equally brilliant with constant birds fluttering, screams from within the woods and other noises that keep you on the edge of your seat.

The game is broken up via a series of chapters (ala Alan Wake) which is interesting yet odd. On one hand, it works perfectly to break the game up into different sections leading up to dawn but I couldn’t help but feel that the game was initially set to be episodic or something similar. At the beginning of each chapter you are presented with a montage of previous scenes leading into the current scene. This is great for those who might play the game over a series of weeks, but it seems over the top for those who will finish the game over the weekend as most chapters are only 30-60 minutes long.

Until Dawn is an extremely interesting mix of gaming and interactive experiences. The first few hours of the game doesn’t feature a whole lot of action which will annoy some gamers who want non-stop action. This really picks up from about 1/3rd into the game and doesn’t disappoint until the ending. Until Dawn features a series of gameplay techniques that are present from the beginning to the ending. The game is seamless mix of cutscenes, quick time events and character controlled sections. I found the balance of gameplay and story telling to be almost perfect.

For the most part, you will be split into a pairing of two or exploring environments by yourself. I wish that the game placed you in larger group settings more often. I found the constant jumping between characters to be a negative experience as it would often pull you from gripping experiences and put you with another character who is in quite a relaxed environment. I understand the need to do this within a horror environment, but I did find that it relieved some of the tension felt from the more crazy set pieces.

There are a bunch of collectibles within the game which help you piece together the story. These range from learning about the killer, to learning more about Hannah and Beth as well as other characters within the game. There are also totem poles which show you possible sequences that will play out sequences that may appears later in the game. It actually surprised me with just how much time that you can spend exploring each environment to find every last clue. It’s definitely a positive and provides a reason to go back to the game.

The most interesting part of Until Dawn is The Butterfly Effect. The theory of this is that minor decisions in life can have multiple effects going forward. Until Dawn plays on this theory quite a bit. Decisions that you make within conversations will effect set pieces and scenarios later in the game which means that no two play throughs will be identical. This also means that not all gamers will have the same characters die in their game. The amount of choices and branching paths in the game is surprisingly deep, and provides endless replay value and entertainment during discussion, as players will have vastly different experiences throughout the game.

Quick time events play a huge part in the game and form the bulk of the action gameplay. When running from the psycho you’re often presented with two options, one will be a quicker escape route but will require you to press the buttons much quicker. All it takes is one wrong button to permanently kill one character which means that you always need to be paying attention.

One of the more playful elements of Until Dawn was the scare-cam. Provided you’ve hooked up your Playstation Camera to your PS4 you can have it automatically record certain ‘jump-scare’ moments which litter the game, which you can then share online. While jumpscares are usually completely rubbish and a terrible cliche of horror conventions, the addition of having your scares recorded actually makes it a fun feature and the feature plays into the craze of ‘Let’s Play’ videos of people obsessing over horror games on YouTube just to watch someone’s reaction.

I played Until Dawn with motions controls and thoroughly enjoyed it. Decisions are made by tilting the controller in either direction and there are certain sections that require you to aim and shoot by moving the controller. There is also use of the trackpad with the copious amount of reading that you will do. The PlayStation Camera is also used for ‘scare cam’ which will take videos of you in the game’s jump scare moments.

The post Until Dawn Remake Review – A New Perspective On A Horror Icon appeared first on Press Start.

Diablo IV felt like something of a much needed course correction – not just for Diablo, but also for Blizzard. While Diablo III has plenty of its own successes, IV’s pivot back to the gothic grunge that underpinned the first two games just felt right. It’s narrative was another lauded high-point, offering up an engrossing tale that left the door open for inevitable follow-ups.

Almost a year and a half later, the first of which is finally here in Vessel of Hatred. For all intents and purposes, Vessel of Hatred is more Diablo IV – but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s an addition to the base game that sports many of the same strengths and even amends some of its weaknesses. It sometimes feels like it plays it a little too safe as a result, but Vessel of Hatred is a worthy expansion to the devilishly enjoyable base game.

Vessel of Hatred picks up right where Diablo IV left off. The Horadrim are no longer the group they used to be, fragmented by innate differences and perceptions on how the threat of hell should be combatted. The ever-optimistic Neyrelle has set off on her own journey in hopes of finding a way to destroy Mephisto once and for all. The choice she made to imprison the Lord of Hatred forces her to endure unbearable suffering and torment. Mephisto taunts and goads Neyrelle within her own mind, planting seeds of self doubt and uncertainty in the process.

It’s in the search for Neyrelle that we journey into the new region of Nahantu. A humid jungle dense with verdant foliage that contrasts to the relatively muted colour palettes of the base game. It’s a peaceful place left untouched by Lilith’s machinations, but one that’s quickly corrupted by Mephisto as he toys with Neyrelle, and also by the Cathedral of Light who hunt her in an indiscriminate frenzy without Inarius to keep them in check.

It can’t be understated how much Vessel of Hatred is benefitted by opting to revisit characters and factions from the base game. There’re still some interesting newcomers like Eru and Maka, but much of the focus is placed on Nayrelle’s internal struggles with Mephisto. This conflict doesn’t just manifest in his attempts to control her, but also through her survivor’s guilt after everything that’s happened to her. It feels like a natural progression of the horrendous experience Nayrelle was put through when trying to save Sanctuary, giving you an immediate reason to buy in to the plot being told here.

Its shorter runtime also means that its overall pacing is much tighter than that of the base game. There is no bloated middle act to pad out runtime or slow down momentum. Vessel of Hatred always feels like it’s squeezing every narrative drop out of its more constrained runtime, and is all the more engrossing for it. It all concludes in a thematically resonant and cathartic conclusion for the party – especially in regards to Nayrelle – and paints a clear picture of what’s to come next in Diablo IV’s second expansion.

Vessel of Hatred’s biggest gameplay addition is the all new Spiritborn class. These are warriors in-tune with Nahantu’s ties to the Spirit Realm, weaponizing animal spirits to push back the forces of hell. It’s very druid-like in concept, but Spiritborn offers a core fantasy that none of Diablo’s prior classes have before.

All of the Spiritborn’s skills channel a different Spirit Guardians with unique elemental affinities and their own kind of gameplay styles. While the Jaguar Guardian focuses on ramping up your attack speed for high action-per-minute play, the Gorilla Guardian opts for slower area of effect skills with a more defensive toolkit. There’s also the Eagle Guardian and Centipede Guardian, the former of which combines the Jaguar’s speed and fury with plenty of skills that can apply Vulnerable to enemies, with the latter focusing more on crowd control and debilitating status effects.

You can definitely slot into one of these archetypes and focus on their strengths, but the best way to play Spiritborn is by combining different skills pertaining to different Guardian Spirits to mix and match their strengths. It enables you to cover areas a particular Guardian Spirit is weak in, or combine abilities that result in lethal combos to get the most bang for your buck. Combining centipede and gorilla skills, for example, results in a kind of crowd control bruiser that dishes out poison and fears enemies to set them up for the gorilla’s less mobile attacks.

There are so many different ways you can take Spiritborn in Vessel of Hatred, and it really feels like a fresh experience amongst a pantheon of already fantastic classes in Diablo IV. No two Spiritborn builds or playstyles are going to be the same, affording a level of flexibility and adaptability that feels unique in Diablo IV’s sandbox. I was constantly shifting between different archetypes thanks the ability to re-spec for free at any time, and I can’t wait to see what kind of deadly combinations the community comes up with when the class is fully explored.

Nahantu is also a great inclusion here. It’s refreshing to explore a more lively and vibrant environment. It still has the same kind of gothic undertones that come through in its colour palettes and overall design, but it stands out against the variety of backdrops found in the base game. You can tell when you transition from Sanctuary into Nahantu, from the clear environmental shift to its Mesoamerican inspired designs in its iconography and structures. It also feels distinct in the broader scope of the franchise, tapping into a more spiritual side of the world and lore.

From a design standpoint, Nahantu isn’t too much different from the regions of Sanctuary. Its flush with side quests, world quests, optional activities, reputation-boosting collectibles, and more. If you enjoyed the loop of exploring the base game’s environments, very little has changed here in Vessel of Hatred. In some ways, this is a bit of a double-edged sword in the sense that it offers the same constant progression, but it really doesn’t feel all that different from the base game. Even the Altars of Lilith have their own parallel within Nahantu, and much of the Renown grind also makes a return here – for better and for worse.

One new feature with Vessel of Hatred that is really neat, is the inclusion of Mercenaries. Initially making their debut in Diablo II, Mercenaries are just as they sound – hireable NPC characters that will accompany you on your adventures through Nahantu and Sanctuary. There’s four launching with Vessel of Hatred, each of which brings their own skill tree and behaviours to complement that of your own class.

It’s a fun system that adds some nice secondary progression that runs alongside your own, and also provides solo players with a method to bulk out their party if the going gets tough. Each mercenary having their own skill tree is a great way to customise them to fit into roles your class typically wouldn’t. Raheir, for example, can act as an aggro drawing tank or a versatile bruiser that gets into the thick of things and inflicts vulnerable on unsuspecting targets. It’s also thematically resonant with Vessel of Hatred’s overall explorations of coming together in times of hardship and finding support in loved ones.

Vessel of Hatred also brings new activities and endgame content, the most enjoyable of which are the new dungeons. There’s a slew on offer here, but the best are undoubtedly The Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity. These are dungeons specifically curated for Diablo IV’s endgame, with The Dark Citadel bringing challenging new encounters with mechanics that are a bit more involved than what’s found in the base game. It also has a really great loot chase in an earnable currency that can be used to purchase some incredible looking cosmetics – fashion is always the real endgame.

Kurast Undercity is similarly brilliant. It’s a timed dungeon with multiple stages and tweakable challenges that increase the quality of loot rewarded. It feels very similar to Hades in the way you can make runs harder for larger payouts, providing a scaling challenge as you increase your power with new gear. They’re both fantastic additions to Diablo IV’s swathe of endgame content, and will no doubt keep hardcore players busy for some time.

Even if you play Diablo casually, Vessel of Hatred is also introducing a new in-game party finder so you can group up for these endgame activities. It’s a nice way to get solo players or smaller groups into more challenging content where Mercenaries simply won’t do the job. It really streamlines the whole multiplayer process and has loads of filters so you can find like-minded players at difficulties appropriate to your skill level and power.

It feels a bit redundant to mention Nahantu’s beauty yet again, but it can’t be understated how much Diablo IV’s art style and overall aesthetic excels in this kind of setting. The jungles of Nahantu dense mazes of trees and vines, with the forces of hell lurking in the shadows and the Cathedral of Light occupying its winding paths. Despite its alluring and natural appearance, the unsettling feelings you get exploring Sanctuary also permeate throughout Nahantu’s environments.

It isn’t all jungle either, with arid desert regions skirting the natural surroundings so that it seamlessly transitions to and from Diablo IV’s base map. Vessel of Hatred also has its fair share of hellscapes to explore, all of which are as densely detailed and rich with distinct iconography. It continues to be one of Diablo IV’s strongest aspects, and reconfirms that this franchise is at its best when revelling in the dark fantasy undertones of its gothic world.

Vessel of Hatred is an undeniably fantastic addition to Diablo IV. It might play it safe with how it handles world exploration and its open world activities, but it’s hard to complain when the bones of it are already so competent. If you’re looking for an expansion that shakes up Diablo IV at a fundamental level, Vessel of Hatred won’t deliver. But if you’re just looking for more of the excellence that is Diablo IV, Vessel of Hatred is well worth your attention.

The post Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Review – A Spiritual Success appeared first on Press Start.

The original Silent Hill 2 is held with such reverence amongst players that it is a seemingly impossible task to remake it. It’s one of the most harrowing stories told in games, and when it was released over two decades ago, it broke a lot of ground for the genre and the medium. Its psychological elements informed many of its failed sequels as many external developers scrambled to capture that lightning in a bottle once more. They didn’t. So it only seems fair that fans would be apprehensive about a remake of Silent Hill 2, let alone one developed by a team with a pedigree like Bloober Team’s.

Admittedly, I was one of those fans. Silent Hill 2 is a project well beyond the scope and scale of anything Bloober has ever made. But Bloober has done the improbable and come out swinging. Silent Hill 2’s success is two-pronged. It’s easily Bloober’s best game so far. But more importantly, it’s an incredibly well-put-together remake. It’s equal parts respectful and daring, not afraid to change things up without shitting all over the legacy of the original game.

While Silent Hill 2 is a sequel, you don’t need to have played the other games to appreciate it. There are some loose links to other games in the series, but the story that Silent Hill 2 so effectively tells is self-contained. You play James Sunderland, a man drawn to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife asking him to return. But James’ wife died three years ago of a terminal illness. Hoping to return and find her, James begins a journey into Silent Hill.

Of course, it’s not that simple. This is a psychological thriller at its purest. James’ journey through Silent Hill is similarly structured to the original game, albeit with many liberties taken to expand the adventure. Bloober was not joking when they surmised that the game would take twice as long to complete. I was sceptical as to whether this approach would work, but it does. How Silent Hill 2 has been expanded is carefully considered. The new inclusions don’t mess with the lore; instead, they add an extra sense of texture and flavour to the world, making Silent Hill feel like the living and breathing entity it should’ve always been.

Besides the very short Born From A Wish campaign, nothing has been cut in the translation to remake. The additional scenes, many of which revolve around James and his relationships with the supporting case, humanise the characters and keep them relevant throughout the story so that their big moments hit harder as things come to a close. It’s a genuinely restrained yet clever expansion of the original game’s seemingly untouchable mythos.

The most obvious comparison is Capcom’s stellar reimagining of Resident Evil 2. A remake where the ideas the original game presented are still here but recontextualised to offer a new and novel experience. I appreciate this approach more than a shot-for-shot remake, as it allows for a different Silent Hill 2 to emerge from the minds of its creators. Silent Hill 2, as such, ditches the fixed camera angles for a now-genre-typical over-the-shoulder viewpoint. I’ll always have a soft spot for fixed camera angles for obvious reasons, but such a change dramatically affects Silent Hill 2 in two ways – how it plays and how it scares you.

While there are comparisons to continue to draw to Resident Evil, Silent Hill 2’s combat is much simpler than any of Capcom’s recent reimaginings. You’ll only ever have three weapons and a melee weapon, though the melee weapon is arguably more of a focus in the Silent Hill games. That much is still true for Silent Hill 2, as if you run out of ammo, the dodge and melee system is more than serviceable enough to get you out of a bind. It’s a surprise that the combat is so good, given this is Bloober’s first shot at it, but it’s also encouraging that something so crucial has been nailed down from the get-go.

Continuing with the idea of being respectful but expanding upon the original, the enemy variety in Silent Hill 2 hasn’t seen that much of a change. Every enemy you remember returns in the remake, though some that had smaller roles in the original game are expanded considerably. Given that the game runs for twice as long now, many variants of these enemies are introduced, too. They behave differently, some dramatically so, and do an excellent job of keeping you guessing as you make your journey through Silent Hill. The combat is a tad too simplistic for a game so long, though, so I wish Bloober were more adventurous with their additions.

However, no restraint is shown in how the bosses of the game have been reimagined. And I mean that in a wholly positive way. Where the original game had many boss encounters in a single room, the remake expands every boss encounter into multi-room, multi-phase events that are much more compelling, if not slightly goofy at times. The Abstract Daddy fight, for example, cleverly tells you a story while you chase it down and fight it, providing more emotional weight to the battle itself. The boss battles are all great reworks of the original game that I appreciated the most about this remake.

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Silent Hill is not Silent Hill without puzzles, but there’s plenty here. Both newcomers and veterans will appreciate that these puzzles are all brand new and are adjustable with a separate difficulty level, as was the case with the original games. Many of them have an abstract parallel to the main story, too. A few of them stumped me for a bit, especially playing on Hard, but they feel similar in tone to the puzzles you’d come across in the original games. They also come at the right times in the game – offering a nice little moment of downtime, always set to a nice piece of music or ambient sound, making them feel like little set pieces in and of themselves.

These elements combine to create a scarier version of Silent Hill 2. The original game is still at its peak, but I found myself much more tense and frightened when playing through Bloober’s rendition of Silent Hill 2. The game goes to great lengths to use lighting and sound to instil a sense of tangible dread in you as a player, and there were so many times when I would be genuinely upset that a door would be open, forcing me to progress into yet another room of unknowns. It’s a truly tense horror experience and a sense of fear I haven’t felt since Resident Evil 7.

The remake brings everything you remember about the original – including the notorious Dog and UFO endings – but two new endings have been added too. It would be remiss of me to spoil them here, but they are nice “what if” scenarios that I can take or leave. There are collectibles to find, too, though hardly necessary, many of which are “echoes” of the past that hint at items or actions you’d come across in the original game. A nice way to pay tribute to the past without cheapening things. Most players can expect to finish the game in around eighteen to twenty hours, which is a nice length for a game of this ilk. And more importantly, you’ll never feel bored.

And while Silent Hill 2 does so much right as a remake, it could be better. I do feel like the simplicity of the combat can get a bit repetitive as the game plays out, and some of the eeriness and, dare I say it, “texture” is lost with the transition to higher-resolution visuals. While I thought I would be bored of the game essentially doubling itself in length, there was only one area, which relied more on combat, that I honestly didn’t enjoy – the labyrinth. All other additions feel carefully considered and only seek to add to the experience.

And obviously, from a presentation perspective, Silent Hill 2 does looks a whole lot better than the original. The fog is thick, the lighting is perfect, and so many of the original game’s key moments are brought to life in a way that you couldn’t even comprehend when you played the original. The game supports a 30fps and 60fps option, too, though some weird ghosting effect in the 60fps mode left me playing in 30fps for most of the adventure. It’s still a great-looking game, at least on console, and is an excellent example of a game using its visuals, like lighting and fog, to really instil a sense of dread in the player.

But it also helps that these improvements help to sell the world of Silent Hill as a constant. You can see from one apartment to another if you peer out a window while exploring them. You’ll eventually hit the hospital as the sun sets, creating a beautifully calming sunset that washes through its halls from outside as you explore it before the sun disappears and rain hits as you progress deeper and deeper into it against the backdrop of a stormy night. In the original game, you felt like you were moving from level to level, whereas in the remake, the presence of the town is felt even when you’re indoors. It feels like a living and breathing world, in a way.

But even higher praise has to be given to the game’s audio design. Make no mistakes – no game does audio design better than the Silent Hill games, and the remake continues that trend. I’d almost argue it does sound design markedly better than anything that’s come before it. The way that the team have managed to build tension and atmosphere using random noises and effects is to be commended in this remake. Add to that an extensive soundtrack restored and reimagined by the series stalwart Akira Yamaoka, and it’s clear Silent Hill 2 remake is one of the best-sounding games you’ll ever play.

The performances are bound to be divisive, however. And that’s not because they’re bad – the remake’s cast does a phenomenal job of bringing these familiar characters to life. But they are arguably turning in performances that are very different in tone from the original game. The way Maria is played in a mystifying but manipulative way by Salóme Gunnarsdóttir is very well done. It’s a different take on the character, and any attempts to imitate Monica Horgan’s original performance would just fall short or invite unfavourable comparisons. The supporting cast is similarly brought to life – Angela and Eddie are both very different takes on the character that has (arguably) better-realised arcs than in the original. Luke Roberts rounds out a strong cast with a more sombre take on James.

And that’s my most telling and resounding compliment of the Silent Hill 2 remake. While I was very aware of where the story would go and where the game would take me, I never once thought that I wished they’d not changed something when the remake deviated from the original. It’s a spirited remake that captures the essence of what made the original game so great while expanding meaningfully without destroying the DNA of its progenitor. It feels nice to finally put these words to paper, but Silent Hill is finally back.

The post Silent Hill 2 Review – A Tense And Terrifying Affair appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been well documented that the strap that comes with the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 aren’t super supportive, which has opened the door for a bunch of third-party strap creators such as BOBOVR, who has absolutely outdone themselves with the latest release, the S3 Pro.

From the outset, the S3 Pro doesn’t look too different from the M3 Pro with its halo-like head band. It goes over your head, and supports with a big crown on the back, which is even larger and more supportive on the S3 Pro. It then has two pads that side at the top of your head to take the weight off, and these can now be customised in height or removed totally if you’re not a fan of them.

@shannongrixti

The BOBOVR S3 Pro Meta Quest 3 strap has a built-in fan to keep you cool and a massive 10,000 mAh battery as well #MetaQuest3 #BOBOVR #BOBOS3Pro #S3Pro #VirtualReality #MixedReality #VR #Tech #Gaming

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

The front and back are all fitted with a pleather that is super soft and supportive, and the bottom section of the back crown can be also be swapped out for a honeycomb material that is supposed to help with slipping if you’re somebody that plays a lot of active games. This system is fantastic and so much more comfortable than what’s included in the box. It takes all the pressure off your head.

Really though, if you’ve used a BOBOVR strap with either the Quest 2/3 or most other third-party straps, this will be familiar to you, but the S3 Pro does a lot of other really cool stuff that hasn’t been seen before.

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The S3 Pro includes a built-in air conditioning system that you can adjust in fan speed. It basically sucks in air and spouts it out onto your forehead through a filtered system that sits under the pleather. I’m not generally a sweaty person, so at first, I wasn’t sure if I needed this, but I noticed a big difference when turning it off and on.

This is mostly due to the fact that the Meta Quest 3 actually does get quite hot after a bit of use to the point that you do feel it around your forehead, so the cool breeze provided by the S3 Pro almost cancelled this out. It obviously does make a tiny bit of noise, but you’ll only really notice it when playing quiet games.

The S3 Pro also comes with an external battery which is a must-have if you’re a Quest 3 user. The battery size has been doubled to 10,000 mAh which will give you somewhere between 3-4 hours of extra play-time with your Meta Quest 3. Surprisingly, the fan doesn’t seem to use that much battery at all.

The battery magnetically attaches to the back of the unit and also helps counterweigh the front of the headset for a more comfortable fit. To check your charge level you can either press a button on the side of battery, but you also get an exact percentage on a display on the side of the headset strap as well.

The battery can be charged with the included USB-C cord, and BOBOVR is also releasing a magnetic charging dock that will able to charge the battery at a faster 30w (it’s limited to 15w by cord).

The entire power system seems to be a lot smarter now with it charging your Quest 3 up to 100% and then going into reserve mode, so it’s ready for your next play session, or similarly, detecting if your Quest 3 is already fully charged when attached and auto powering off.

At $143, the BOBOVR S3 Pro is a must-have upgrade if you’re a new Meta Quest 3  or Quest 3S owner. It makes for a lot more comfortable wearing, it adds a fan for times that you might want a bit of a cool breeze and the upgraded battery more than doubles the battery life.

• Meta Quest 3 128GB – $719 with free Batman Arkham Shadow (run out price)
• Meta Quest 3 512GB – $799 with free Batman Arkham Shadow (new price) 
• Meta Quest 3S 128GB – $499 AUD with free Batman Arkham Shadows
• Meta Quest 3S 256GB – $669 AUD with free Batman Arkham Shadows

The post BOBOVR Meta Quest 3/3S S3 Pro Strap Review – Breezy And Supportive appeared first on Press Start.

There is a schism in the Zelda community between the new and the old. People who enjoy the older style of games are frustrated at the mechanical freedom that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom afford players. But some people like that same thing about them, harkening back to the core fundamentals of the original Zelda game. And then there’s me. Squarely in the middle. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a game squarely for me. It bridges these two ideologies almost perfectly, and while there are some minor issues, it’s a scintillating experience. As it stands, Echoes of Wisdom is a stellar debut to finally see Zelda as a playable main character.

Echoes of Wisdom cheekily opens in a way you’d expect any Zelda game to. You might even feel like you’ve booted the wrong game at first. But there’s a twist here – as you begin the journey, you play the princess herself. Rifts open up throughout this version of Hyrule and swallow everything within. Through some story events I won’t elaborate on, Zelda meets Tri, is given a magical staff that can summon Echoes and sets off on an adventure to free Hyrule and discover the mystery behind these rifts and who’s creating them.

It’s a simple story, doing its own thing but adhering to a very typical Zelda formula. While there are few surprises here, I would’ve loved for the villainous presence to be more present. I adored Ganon in Tears of the Kingdom, so to see that aspect of the story be given a backseat feels like a step back. Regardless, the story is interesting enough that I was engaged from beginning to end, so I’d argue it’s about the journey rather than the destination. And no, you Zelda lore nuts, there’s not much here for you either. Echoes of Wisdom is solely in its own lane.

Tears of the Kingdom was a revelation for me. I loved how it took everything that made Breath of the Wild so unique but still incorporated aspects I was missing from traditional Zelda games. Echoes of Wisdom continues that trend. It does strong work in bringing together the classic aspects of Zelda – think dungeons, specific items and great boss battles – with the lateral thinking approach that the abilities in the more recent Zelda games had. As Zelda continues to evolve, it becomes the best situation for both worlds. Echoes of Wisdom feels like the best version of that design philosophy.

Echoes of Wisdom is similarly structured to previous Zelda games – sending Zelda to different corners of the map to close the rifts causing such a commotion. It’s a tried-and-true formula, and Echoes of Wisdom offers similar freedom in deciding when you’ll complete each part of the story. However, clever design means that the idea of “items” has been changed. You’ll still find useful things during each story beat, but they’re often tied to the new Echoes system.

As you’d expect, Echoes really separate Echoes of Wisdom from other games. Zelda’s staff can create them, and they can take the form of any object, enemy or certain elements that Zelda has encountered. Each item has a cost; if you exceed that limit, the first item you created will disappear. Levelling up Tri through main or side quests can grant Tri more energy OR reduce the cost of certain Echoes to summon. It’s an elegantly designed system that doles out abilities to the player at an appropriate pace, and, more importantly, you won’t feel too overpowered too early.

That being said, the game does frontload you with many Echoes. Before my second dungeon, I had around fifty or so, and you very quickly became acquainted with the ones that best suit my preferences or playstyle. Each area you explore after, as part of the story, will often net you ten or so more Echoes, usually with a specific use in that dungeon or against that boss. Depending on when you discover other Echoes, the difficulty of each dungeon may fluctuate, as the Echoes reward player creativity and lateral thinking similarly to Tears of the Kingdom.

Like Tears, if you think of doing it in Echoes of Wisdom, you probably can. However, there are some moments where Echoes feels a bit limited compared to Tears. For example, hanging a platform over a torch so you can light it in rainy weather won’t work. But most other ways you can think about using your Echoes will. That being said, there are over a hundred Echoes, and it can be tedious sifting through them all to find the one you want early on. But as you play the game more and the game learns which ones you use, it becomes less of an issue. Still, hiding your Echoes from the quick select (or maybe even mark favourites) would’ve worked wonders here.

Zelda has other powers that round out her already robust selection of Echoes. She can use Tri to bind herself to an object so that it mirrors her movement or reverse that bind so she mirrors the object’s movement. If she binds to a bird and then mirrors her movement, Zelda will fly in the same way the bird does. It’s a simpler version of Ultrahand than the previous game, but it provides another tool for players to think outside the box when solving the puzzles thrown at them.

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And finally, Zelda also has access to a Swordfighter form. Essentially tied to what would be a magic meter in any other game, it allows Zelda to transform into a Link lookalike and use his sword to do better damage against enemies. It’s a form that’s expanded on early on in the adventure, especially to progress through some of the dungeons, but during combat, it does feel like a bit of a crutch. I used it less and less as time went by, as I felt it was too easy, but it is a pretty clever optional way to remove some challenge from the game’s harder battles without forcing a player to play on an easier mode.

But the Echoes more than give Zelda enough combat ability if you want to use something other than Swordfighter as a crutch. Early on, I would summon a basic sea urchin to spike an enemy to death instead of a sword. As I learned more, I could summon a ReDead to stun them. I could do the same as Tri became more powerful, but summon an additional Wolfos or Lizalfos to do the damage while the ReDead stunned. There’s an immense variety of enemies in Echoes of Wisdom, which means there’s an immense variety of ways for Zelda to fight, too. And, much like using Echoes to solve puzzles, there’s bound to be a combination that suits your playstyle.

Dungeons return, and while the theming leaves something to be desired, they are intricate and well-designed. Many of them took me at least forty minutes to complete, though the order in which you complete them may shorten or even extend that time if you go into them with fewer Echoes. Some Echoes are only found in dungeons and while they’ll usually be the key to clearing that dungeon or its boss, you can still emerge victorious if you’re creative enough with your Echoes. The system is just that robust.

The variety of dungeons is complemented by an even wider variety of bosses. Some are new and old, but all are a joy to battle with. There are many bosses, some familiar, some brand new, but all a joy to battle. They feel good in all the ways a classic Zelda boss should be. They feel big and bombastic and require more than just hitting them with your weapon to defeat them. The added layer of complexity that the Echoes bring to the table only seeks to improve these encounters, too. Overall the difficulty feels just right – even playing on standard mode, I died a few times on each as I was starting. There was even a boss I died on for almost an hour, but I acknowledge I was getting a bit too greedy with my hits.

Besides the main quest, Echoes of Wisdom has over fifty optional side quests. Given to you in a similar log manner to the previous two games, most of them are well worth your time. A majority of them will take Zelda to smaller rifts to close. This feels like Echoes’ closest thing to a shrine – requiring you to use all your Echoes in a savvy way to collect Tri’s friends and power him up. Others are mini-dungeons with their own (often unique) boss battles. The majority of the optional content is substantial, though some quests are easier to finish, sometimes even the moment you get them, too.

The more straightforward side quests usually have you moving an object from one place to another using Zelda’s power or an NPC asking you to see something and then summoning it as an Echo. Others are tried-and-true Zelda staples – minigames including races, time-based collection trials, and combat trials. They’re all fun little distractions and often reward upgrade materials for Swordfighter form or smoothie ingredients to craft potions and buffs with. Regardless of whether the quests are big or small, there’s no mistaking that Echoes of Wisdom is easily the largest 2D Zelda ever, with heaps to do at any given moment.

While Echoes of Wisdom borrows its art style from the 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening, there is so much new in Echoes of Wisdom that it’s hard to complain. The game is brimming with charm and whimsy, with the same plastic miniature toybox look to all the characters. It’s a cute art style that’s only complemented by the fantastically realised dungeons and environments, which all look great owing to some solid lighting and particle effects. But that, of course, comes with a cost.

As is the case with many late-generation Switch games, Echoes of Wisdom has a few performance issues that should be highlighted while they don’t bring the experience down. Whenever Zelda gets to a town filled with people or an area with a lot of grass blowing in the wind, the framerate drops significantly. The game spends most of its time running at 30fps, jumping into 60fps when indoors, but otherwise, it can be inconsistent. An option to lock the framerate would be less jarring. I am not affected by issues like these, but some people are, and it’s a shame, as Echoes of Wisdom is a very nice-looking game for the most part.

The original score is borrowed from older games, essentially, but made new. Each of the tracks that play when you’re exploring sounds great, and it’s adorable to see Zelda’s Lullaby epically transformed into a field exploration theme. Some of the original tracks, especially the ones that play while exploring Hebra and the dungeons, are especially nice and some of my favourites in the series.

All in all, Echoes of Wisdom feels like the best of both worlds. It’s got everything I adored about Zelda before the Renaissance it enjoyed with Breath of the Wild – some great dungeons to trawl, puzzles to solve and a familiar cast of friendly and not-so-friendly characters to interact with. But it blends all of that with all the freedom of creativity afforded to players in the most recent Zeldas in a way that hasn’t been done before.

The post The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Review – Clever & Creative appeared first on Press Start.

This year’s entry in EA Sports’ FC series has left me feeling indifferent. While the developers have finally introduced a smorgasbord of features I’ve been hoping to see in the game’s Manager Career mode, there’s little to be truly excited about gameplay-wise and across the other modes on offer. That said, why fix what ain’t broke? 

This year’s big new addition is Rush – a fast-paced 5v5 mode reminiscent of the mode of the same name from VOLTA Football. Rather than taking it to the streets, Rush takes you onto a smaller pitch and pits four outfield players and a goalkeeper against one another. Goals remain the same size and most football rules still apply, however the pitch is divided into marked thirds and formations are thrown to the curb. 

Rush is fairly frantic. There are no halves to catch a breather, and the introduction of the blue card as opposed to red cards, alongside the smaller pitch, makes for a nice change to FC 25’s other modes. Players who receive a blue card are sent off the field for a minute (think of it as a sin bin ruling). This puts your team at a significant disadvantage thanks to the condensed pitch, allowing the opposition to outright swarm you in these situations. Resisting the urge to trip up players and get unnecessary bookings plays a big role in winning or losing Rush matches.

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The mode has made its way to many of the other main game modes in FC 25, too. Bizarrely, there’s no way to play Rush outside of Kick Off, Ultimate Team, Clubs and Manager Career with your youth academy, though. While this sounds like a lot of options on offer, I’m surprised there isn’t a separate mode that allows you to pop a bunch of teams into a tournament and duke it out with one another.

Those hoping to see VOLTA Football again will be disappointed to hear it’s been completely axed from this year’s entry. It appears Rush was the catalyst for this decision, though I’m confused as to why EA didn’t keep the casual street footy mode – even if it meant it was neglected and received no new features (and let’s be real, this has been the case for years anyway).

On a positive note, Manager Career has seen a noticeable overhaul this year. Chief among the new additions is the introduction of women’s leagues. While there are only five leagues on offer this year – the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States, Spain’s Liga F, France’s Premiere Ligue, the Barclay’s Women’s Super League in England and Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga – it’s still a huge step in the right direction. An added bonus is that you’re able to accept offers from both men’s and women’s teams throughout your managerial career, which was a potential oversight I was worried about heading into FC 25. 

The women’s game is significantly different from the men’s, both on the field and off it, offering up a different challenge to managing a men’s side. Budgets are highly restricted and expectations are different, however I’ve loved the fact the game challenges you to alleviate these constraints by focusing on the newly revamped youth academy system. 

Rather than assessing a youth player’s value after generating the first scout report like prior entries, FC 25 instead encourages you to look at the player’s potential. You aren’t able to see a player’s value until you’ve generated more reports on them, meaning your youth scouts need to be a fairly good judge of a player if you want to be bringing the best into your academy. There are a handful of other factors to consider too, like their wage, value and position, however the focus on potential is a change I’ve really taken to. It’s taken me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to be more analytical of the players I’m looking for, their potential and how they could fit in my side. It’s made me consider players with high potential as opposed to those with a high initial value. 

The reason potential is such a focal point this year is because it takes center stage in another new addition to Manager Career, youth academy tournaments. As mentioned before, Rush mode makes its way into Manager Career through these tournaments that come about every few months in the season. The glitz and the glamour seen in Ultimate Team and Clubs’ Rush modes are thrown aside for a more academy-like feel. There’s no swanky commentary here, and you’re not playing in front of any fans – youth tournaments are just played on the training ground.

This is where a player’s potential shines. Rather than playing with a bunch of 40-50 rated youngsters, you can use them as if they’ve fulfilled their entire potential. My team had a handful of youngsters who had a possible potential of 85-90, so the majority of them played like that.

It’s very cool to see this as an option (you can opt out and have them play as their current ratings if you wish), as it allows you to get a feel for how the players may end up in the future. It also serves as a nice change from the tried-and-true gameplay that can, at times, feel a little stale in Manager Career.

There’s been an upheaval of Manager Career’s menu design, too. It now resembles something more like Ultimate Team, and I can’t say I’m a fan. It feels clunky to navigate through the many menus and submenus, and there’s been multiple occasions already where my game’s gotten stuck and I’ve had to back out to the main menu and jump back in to resume progress. 

A major sore point in this redesign is the task list, which sits in the home screen. While it may seem like a good idea at first, collating all the various tasks befitting a manager (like player transfers, game preparation and managing team tactics) in one area leads to an overwhelming amount of stuff to read through. This is made worse thanks to the task list only showing three tasks at a time. Leave it to generate for a couple of days in a season and you’ll start to miss important information, as new tasks don’t get sorted to the top of the list. Because of this, I continually missed transfer offers and scout reports. I prefer having a dedicated inbox that I’d be immediately taken to when important information filters through as opposed to having to continually find that information myself. 

Another big change to Manager Career, which can be seen across other modes as well, is the renewed focus on tactics. It’s been a talking point in the lead up to the release of FC 25 and there’s a good reason as to why. You’re now given full control on how your team operates – whether that’s their attacking position when you’re on the ball or off it, how high a defensive line you want to hold or the specific roles of each of your players. You’re given the keys to the castle, really, and can play around to figure out what works for you. 

You can leave this to the generated presets if you like, or you can get really deep into the nitty gritty. The beauty is that either way the game caters for both. As someone who absolutely adores this kind of deep tactical nuance, I’ve loved being able to dissect everything my team does when in and out of possession, as well as being able to fine tune my 4-3-3 to suit my expectations when my team’s out on the pitch. Another neat feature I’ve been getting to grips with is the way you can align a player’s role with what they’re familiar with, which will in turn grant performance bonuses on the field.

I’ve also been particularly surprised by the variety of options on offer to you to fully customise your Manager Career – whether that’s the inclusion of transfer embargoes, determining the seriousness of the board and their leniency on you achieving their objectives, being able to apply for international roles or specifically choosing the positions you’d like your youth scouts to keep an eye out for. It’s great to see these little things make their way into the mode, as while they’re minor they do add a lot to the experience. 

One particular pain point is the way budgets are handled for the men’s and women’s teams, though. It’s something I’m unsure EA can do much about, but a financial takeover of 10 million pounds, for example, would net you very little when managing a men’s team, however it’s a very different story for a women’s team. Most transfer fees range anywhere between 40 to 300 thousand points for the latter, meaning you could amass the best team in the five leagues available with very little effort. Now you don’t have to use a financial takeover of course, but I’m very curious to see how things change as time progresses. Generally, teams continue to get higher budgets as Manager Career goes on into its later seasons, so I’m interested to see how that’ll affect the women’s leagues. I haven’t been able to dig deeper into this but I assume nothing’s really been done to address it. Fantasy football, eh? 

Player Career doesn’t see too much change this year, however there are a couple of notable new additions to inject some much needed energy into the mode. The first of these is being able to play as an icon rather than a regular player. While the selection is fairly limited at just seven icons right now, it’s a neat idea to be able to bring a player like David Beckham or Thierry Henry into the modern era. If you want to kick off as a created pro, you can choose your own origin story, which helps create a bit more of a narrative around your player. While neither of these are groundbreaking by any means, they are nice additions to a mode that tends to fall behind the other major modes in FC. 

After all is said and done on the tactics side and it’s time to actually play the game, FC 25 sticks to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mantra. It’s all about smaller, incremental changes as opposed to the wide-sweeping alterations we usually see every three to four years from the series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though – the gameplay is as good as it’s ever been, however it’s not hugely different from last year. Even so, I’ve particularly enjoyed the swathe of new animations that have been added in, with these shining most prominently while you’re in the final third. Players tend to look a bit more realistic and natural when taking a shot at goal, and general passing play looks fantastic. Sliding in those picture-perfect through balls are a sight to behold, and the game continues to do a great job immersing you in the atmosphere of the game with mostly accurate crowd responses to situations on-field. Unsurprisingly, the game feels relatively slow this early in the release schedule but I expect that to change over time as has been the case in all of the previous entries. 

The return of the full pre-match introduction package is very much welcome, and I appreciate that you can select whether it always plays or you opt-in during the quicker pre-match intro. Other little changes, like being given more than one suggestion for a quick substitution at a time and the substitute allowance/window counter being tucked neatly inside the team management screen, are also welcome additions. A reworked instant replay system is also a nice touch, allowing you to capture moments in-game through photo mode and its variety of filters and effects on offer. And while I thought it may be a little silly ahead of release, the player POV cam has been a breath of fresh air for capturing events in-game. 

I was surprised to see little has changed in Ultimate Team and Clubs modes this year (aside from the addition of Rush in both and the introduction of the clubhouse in the latter), and wonder if keeping VOLTA may have made this feel a bit more like a solid all-round package. The game just seems to be lacking a deeper mode that doesn’t take itself so seriously. 

With that said, Ultimate Team does continue the renewed push on tactics by changing up the way manager cards work. These cards now incorporate manager tactical presets, which echo their real world tactic preferences and can directly influence how your squad plays. Just like Manager Career, player roles and role familiarity also play a big part in Ultimate Team – to get the best out of your squad, you’ll need to dig into your tactics to ensure players are playing in roles they’re familiar with in order to get the most out of them. Other than that, there’s a new FUT stadium to build up with items and a variety of new broadcast elements to keep things feeling relatively fresh throughout the season, alongside cosmetic card evolutions that change the way a player’s card looks visually without influencing their stats.

While it doesn’t reach for the stars, FC 25 is still a great footy sim for fans and newcomers alike. Rush is an enjoyable addition and tactics take centre stage for those that want to dig deep into the systems of the game, while sweeping changes across Manager Career has made it a joy to play. Gameplay changes are slight tweaks more than anything else, however there’s no doubting it’s still the best footy game out there right now. 

The post EA Sports FC 25 Review – Small Steps appeared first on Press Start.

There was a time when you could hardly step foot in a game store without finding several rally games vying for your attention. Rallying in the real world was at it’s peak of popularity in the 1990s and rallying games were a dime a dozen. Colin McRae and Tommi Mäkinen may not be household names anymore, but Polish dev team Pixel Perfect Dude want to take us back. Approachable rally with depth to keep you playing, Drive Rally is for the most part a pleasant way to revisit rally’s glory days.

The key to any rally game’s success is the driving experience. In this aspect Drive Rally excels. Each of the driving surfaces like dirt, snow and tarmac have a distinct feel. Driving in snow at speed feels exhilaratingly dangerous, your ability to slow down severely hampered by the near total lack of traction. Dirt isn’t quite as slippery, but still poses a challenge. Transitioning from a slippery to dry tarmac is a real test of good road-feel in a rally game and to me Drive passes this test swimmingly. It feels so good to slide into a corner and shoot out the exact direction you intended once the grip of bitumen grabs you.

Throwback games like this sometimes choose to go for a low-res, low-poly look reminiscent of the original hardware. Drive Rally instead goes an entirely different direction. It takes the best aspects of the flat-shaded look and combines it with some wonderful lighting and high resolution sharpness to great effect. Cars are bright and colourful with sharp shadows to make sure they look at home in their surroundings. The environment shares the well-lit flat look. On higher graphics settings, sunny tracks are bathed in a dreamy haze that really drives home the nostalgic feel the game strives for.

None of the cars are officially licensed, but I really enjoyed their designs. They are clearly modelled as tributes to rallying greats, and it’s fun to see recognisable design elements among the stylised cars.

Championship mode is where I spent most of my time, and it’s the primary way you progress through the game. Each championship is set in a particular location. Snowy terrain, arid deserts and dense rainforest are on offer. Each comes with an associated set of cars to gradually unlock and a co-driver to help you along the way. Championships are linear sets of races. As you progress you’ll unlock car customisations and new cars, and gradually ramp up the difficulty in both track complexity and vehicle speed. I found myself getting better at handling the vehicles in various terrains as I went along, eventually leading to me absolutely nailing sections of tracks that felt fantastic. It’s pretty bare-bones as far as a career mode goes, but does it’s job in letting the actual racing take centre stage.

The co-pilots however, drove me mad. Intended to bring a little personality to proceedings, I found they mostly detracted from the experience. You have four to choose from currently, each a paper-thin stereotype. From Hans who speaks like a Schwarzenegger impersonator to Emma whose personality seems to be ‘being an airhead’ and getting randomly angry at you while giving cornering advice – each of the co-drivers were grating in their own special way. Sometimes they even just straight up missed giving me the details of upcoming corners because they were too busy making some quip about Deutsche Electrik company. Comedy and character can come down to taste, but to me at least they were bad enough that I wished I could do without them.

I also encountered some display bugs, like the names of the championship stages showing up as placeholder text. The cornering advice I mentioned before could be improved as well. Even when they don’t miss them entirely, your co-driver doesn’t really communicate well when turns lead into one another. Even as simple as adding “Left 1 *into* Right 2” would make it so much easier to understand the upcoming twists – much like a real rally co-driver giving pace notes.

I’ve been assured by the dev team that the display bugs and pace notes issues are known and that they’re planning to tackle them before release. Given it’s releasing into Early Access, bugs like this are hardly unexpected. Aside from the aforementioned cornering advice issues and text issues, I had an overall stable experience with Drive Rally.

The post #DRIVE Rally Early Access Review – A Return to the Golden Era appeared first on Press Start.

There’s no better way to indicate the rarified air that Epic Mickey finds itself in than there truly being nothing else like it from Disney since its sequel released. While Disney have maintained a relatively strong presence in the console market, few projects have managed to capture the same originality and flavour of the Epic Mickey duology outside of Kingdom Hearts. Combine this with Epic Mickey’s limited availability due to Wii exclusivity, and there couldn’t be a better time to return to Mickey’s platforming adventures in the form of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed.

After entering Yen Sid’s workshop through a magic mirror, Mickey’s curiosity is piqued by a model resembling Disneyland. A well-intentioned expression of art quickly turns into an accident that results in the creation of a monster called the Shadow Blot. Mickey panics as the Shadow Blot attacks, prompting him to hurl paint and paint thinner at the beast in a desperate attempt to clean up the mess he’s made. Having survived Mickey’s onslaught of ink, the Shadow Blot descends into the model world, sowing its own chaos there instead.

Decades later, an unsuspecting Mickey is ambushed by the same monster, abducting and bringing him into to the very world the Shadow Blot was initially banished to, now known as Wasteland. A place where forgotten characters and ideas from Disney’s expansive works reside. Mickey’s previous tangle with the Shadow Blot has resulted in some real damage to the people and places found within Wasteland, encouraging Mickey to help all those he can while he searches for a way to return to his own world.

It’s this setup that gives way to Epic Mickey’s genius setting. It’s a true homage to Disney properties both past and present that thoughtfully characterises Mickey and his adventure, one that places its commentary on IP abandonment right at the forefront of its unsettling atmosphere. This is most intricately explored through Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character who originally starred in some of Disney’s earliest theatrical shorts before the studio lost rights to Oswald in a contract dispute with Universal Studios.

As the first inhabitant of the Wasteland, Oswald became its ruler in order to help those who’ve been rejected or forgotten by Disney as the wheels of industry continue to turn. He’s seen as something of a hero to those who’ve found new lives in the Wasteland, but he isn’t without faults. He’s short tempered and resents Mickey for taking his spot as Disney’s flagship character. The damage that the Shadow Blot has done to the Wasteland has also left it in a state of disrepair, further complicating the unseen ties between Mickey and Oswald.

Deeper themes and ideas aside, Epic Mickey tells a fundamentally engrossing story. It’s a carefully balanced mix of weaponised nostalgia, trademark Disney hope, and a dash of poignant melancholy. It’s a joy to see Mickey and Oswald grow over the course of the 10-15 hour story, and the way that new personality and character is infused into the world and characters through side quests makes the world feel like real care and attention was put into bringing it to life. Even if you aren’t crazy about Disney history and the titular Mickey Mouse, there’s a lot of value to be found in the story and characters of Epic Mickey.

Playing Epic Mickey in 2024 is a stark reminder of how few 3D platformers there are nowadays in comparison to the 2010s (excluding Astro Bot, of course). It takes inspiration most heavily from classic collectathon platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Large non-linear levels are populated with NPCs who offer sidequests, Gremlins to free, and of course, collectibles to snatch up. Where it differentiates itself the most, is in its painting and thinning mechanics.

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Equipped with the same magic brush from Yen Sid’s workshop, Mickey can use paint and thinner to interact with different elements of Wasteland. Aside from it being Mickey’s main form of defence against the Shadow Blot’s forces, paint and thinner can be used to create and dissolve different parts of the environment. It’s a straightforward idea, but one that is used in so many different ways throughout the adventure. Unsuspecting walls can be thinned to reveal hidden areas with treasure, puzzles often require apt use of both to reach solutions, and the destruction left in the wake of the Shadow Blot can be painted back into existence.

The best aspect of this mechanic is undoubtedly the way it informs a simple morality system directly tied to how you choose to deal with problems. All boss fights and enemy encounters can be resolved in different ways. Where paint will liberate those under the corrupting influence of the Shadow Blot, thinner will dissolve them into nothing. The people around Mickey react differently according to your decisions and it makes you feel like you have a tangible impact on Wasteland and its inhabitants. It adds an element of roleplay you don’t often see in 3D platformers, and works well to reinforce Epic Mickey’s core themes.

The other aspect that helps to build this feeling of reactivity is Epic Mickey’s aforementioned side quests. The game’s hub levels are absolutely packed with familiar characters who need help with odd jobs and requests that only Mickey is fit to deal with. In a way, Mickey is responsible for the plights of these people due to his creation of the Shadow Blot. It’s worth mentioning that some of these quests aren’t always available, and they’ll eventually expire or be entirely inaccessible if you move on to another area. Leaving these quests as incomplete also changes the way these characters interact with Mickey, and can often make your journey more difficult in certain ways.

As a 3D platformer, Epic Mickey is mostly serviceable. It’s less interested in creating difficult platforming challenges, instead investing in finding ways to weave in painting and thinning the environment to progress forward. It’s largely satisfying, but some aspects of Mickey’s control aren’t quite up to snuff. Jumping brings his momentum to a grinding halt, and it often feels like finding ways to get through areas through smart use of Mickey’s movement set is discouraged and inflexible.

The game also has a slew of 2D platforming sections that serve as stop gaps between Epic Mickey’s major areas. Inspired by some of Disney’s earliest animated shorts, they’re a nice way to break up the pace between all the 3D platforming and combat. They do feel a little on the simple side, though, and often end before they truly get started. One nice change in Rebrush, is the ability to skip these levels if you’ve already completed them, cutting down on time spent backtracking. The camera is also much improved across all aspects of the game thanks to dual stick controls, making the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Rebrushed’s most immediate updates come in the form of its visuals. Now free from the constraints of the Nintendo Wii, Epic Mickey looks fantastic on modern hardware. The game looks great at these higher resolutions, but perhaps most importantly, is that the aesthetic and atmosphere of the original is carefully kept intact here. Wasteland’s painterly visuals are dripping with mood and artistry, with flawless performance to boot on PlayStation 5.

The raw visual upgrade wouldn’t be enough on its own if Wasteland wasn’t already a unique setting. It really sells the idea of abandonment and found family in the characters and places that have fallen to the wayside in light of Disney’s other successes. It’s a side of Disney we simply haven’t seen anywhere else, and is sobering in its presentation and handling of IP abandonment. It’s all in service of building a world that seems antithetical to everything Disney stands for, but peeling back its gnarled surface reveals the same kind of eager happiness and hope that they’re always associated with.

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is perhaps most valuable in the way that it makes Epic Mickey more accessible to those who’ve yet to experience one of Mickey’s best gaming experiences. It’s setting, narrative, and ideas are just as inspired as they were in 2010, and its paint and thinner mechanic is stretched to a satisfying logical extreme. It isn’t without some issues, but Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is the definitive way to play Epic Mickey today, and is well worth experiencing if you missed out on it more than a decade ago.

The post Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review – An Artful Return appeared first on Press Start.

Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have done an exceptional job bringing Kratos’ second Norse journey to PC. Much like the 2018 reboot, God of War Ragnarok brings a host of welcome additions to the PC version, while also bundling in the excellent Valhalla mode, making the final chapter in Kratos’ Norse adventure a brilliant experience on PC – whether you’ve already experienced it or are going in for the first time.

Ragnarok on PC supports a handful of nifty features to fully take advantage of higher-end systems. Chief among those is the option to unlock the frame rate, making the game feel much snappier, as well as being able to play the game at native 4K if your setup supports it. Playing the game on higher settings will also net you enhanced reflections and lighting, alongside increased geometric detail over the PlayStation versions.

Of course, you’ll need a decent gaming rig to be able to support the added detail and unlocked frame rate. Thankfully, Jetpack Interactive hasn’t skimped on upscaling options. The game supports DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR 3.1 and Intel XeSS 1.2, giving you a wide range of upscaling options – no matter what kind of system you’re playing on.

I was able to easily maintain a consistent 4K 60fps on the game’s high preset with my 7800X3D and 3080 Ti-fuelled build while having DLSS on the ‘quality’ setting. Throughout my time it felt like the game didn’t skip a beat, even during busy sequences. The game runs brilliantly and looks incredible.

There’s a range of options available by way of graphics customisation as well, giving you enough tools to tinker with things until you find something that suits your rig. Like most modern titles the game has a VRAM indicator in the settings menu, allowing you to see how your finetuning will directly affect performance on the GPU. While the game initially shipped with a 6GB VRAM requirement to launch the game, that’s since been pulled in the latest update. Mileage may vary depending on the GPU you’re currently running, so be sure to check the game’s minimum spec requirements.

Taking the experience over to my Steam Deck OLED garnered somewhat mixed results. While the game’s opening chapter ran really well, hovering between 40 to 60fps on a combination of low to medium settings with upscaling settings on, the game tends to struggle the more you progress. If you’re looking to play Ragnarok the entire way through on a Steam Deck (or any of the other handheld PC options available right now), be aware it may not be the smoothest of experiences.

I only have a few qualms with the game’s port, and they’re fairly minor issues. The first is the lack of any benchmark tool to stress test graphics settings, which would help get a better idea of how systems like the Steam Deck would fare later on in the game. Another is the lack of a borderless fullscreen option. While the latter isn’t a major dealbreaker, I do like having the option to drop my resolution on borderless fullscreen in order to crank those frames and quality settings and I’m sad to not see it included.

I’ve also experienced a handful of various UI glitches during my time with the game, the most notable being a touchpad prompt appearing while I was using an Xbox controller, which left me a little confused.

@shannongrixti

God Of War Ragnarok (AKA the game of the generation) is the latest PlayStation game to arrive on PC #GodOfWar #GodOfWarRagnarok #GodOfWarRagnarokPC #PC #AYANEO #AYANEOFLIP #AYANEOFLIPDS #Handheld #WindowsHandheld

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

God of War Ragnarok is the first PlayStation game on PC that requires a PSN account to play, as well. It’s a baffling decision considering the game is a single-player only experience, so keep that in mind if you aren’t keen on signing up.

With all that said, Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have delivered a fantastic PC port of a stellar game with all of the glorious graphical bells and whistles included. For more information on what we thought of the game itself, read our full review of God of War Ragnarok here.

The post God of War Ragnarok PC Review – Godlike Excellence appeared first on Press Start.

Some brief history – as this review is long – I’ve always been a fan of Grasshopper games. They’ve never been massive-budget blockbusters, but they’ve had some incredible ideas and interesting worlds that I’ve adored visiting in their games. Lollipop Chainsaw is where I’ve always been a bit torn. On one hand, the action is simplistic. On the other hand, the way the story is told is incredible, and the characters themselves are all just so charming. So when a remaster was announced two years ago, I was excited. And now, having played RePOP, I’ve got a greater appreciation for what Lollipop Chainsaw was trying to do all those years ago. But I’m not sure RePOP is currently the right way to experience it.

Lollipop Chainsaw follows Juliet Starling, a cheerleader at San Romero High School who is excited to introduce her boyfriend Nick to her eclectic family on her eighteenth birthday. Unfortunately, as the day begins, a zombie outbreak has occurred. But not just that – an evil goth kid named Swan has summoned five intelligent zombies, called the Dark Purveyors, to take over the world. It’s just as well that Juliet is descended from a long line of zombie hunters, thankfully, and sets off with her trust chainsaw to cut up some rock music-worshipping lords of rock.

At the time, Lollipop Chainsaw was an exciting prospect as it brought together No More Heroes’ Suda51 and James Gunn to create something truly bizarre and out there. Revisiting Lollipop Chainsaw today, the charm is still there. You can see the influences that James Gunn would eventually implement in his tentpole films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad. But Lollipop Chainsaw feels like so much more than the exploitative adventure it initially presents as. It’s a genuinely fun and subversive romp that had the perfect vibes if I could anachronistically use those words back then.

RePOP is a remaster of sorts that brings the game to modern platforms. The original game has been stuck on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for almost twelve years, so RePOP feels needed. This remaster tweaks the gameplay to be much more accessible, especially to newcomers, and adjusts things so the game puts its best foot forward early. Much effort has been made to ensure players can access many more upgrades and combos earlier, which helps with the flow of combat.

The other enhancements are what you’d come to expect from a modern remaster – a higher framerate in particular – but the newly added RePOP mode doesn’t serve much of a purpose. It replaces the blood effects, which were already pretty cartoonish in the first place, with purplish flourishes instead. I suppose it’s an attempt to get newer players to try the game out, but it feels like a pointless addition and a glorified visual filter. What colour of fluid comes out of a person when you chainsaw them in half isn’t going to convince them to play a game where they otherwise wouldn’t. But that’s just my opinion.

At its core, Lollipop Chainsaw is a hack-and-slash adventure that sees you, as Juliet, mowing through enemies with a combination of attacks from your pom-poms, chainsaw, or both. The game does a pretty good job of introducing new abilities across its modest eight-hour runtime, and using a combination of these abilities is the best way to kill zombies efficiently. In terms of mechanical complexity, as a fan of the genre, I’d say it’s closer to something like Dynasty Warriors or No More Heroes rather than Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. It’s a simplistic combat system that is easy enough to grasp, though RePOP makes it easier to master.

RePOP has been tweaked to run much faster than the original game. Juliet moves quicker, and I could swear that her attacks come out quicker, too. Couple this with adjustments to the in-game shop, which goes as far as halving the cost of some of the better special moves. It’s clear RePOP puts great effort into giving you all the toys to play with early. Later on, you’ll even get a projectile weapon that needed to be cocked after a few shots in the original. Now, in RePOP, it can shoot continuously. It’s a much easier experience, which I’d normally lament, but I welcome it given how Lollipop Chainsaw is structured.

This is something I rarely would praise in a remaster. But despite the vivacious nature of the world and the incredibly tongue-in-cheek humour the game hangs its story on, Lollipop Chainsaw is straightforward. Encounters with enemies, while sometimes erring into the creative, feel they carry on for a smidge too long. It’s made especially worse if you die, as checkpoints are oddly uneven, and you’ll have to repeat a lot of it again. The game is fun in short bursts, and given how simple the combat is, there is just not a whole lot here beyond what you unlock in the first third of the game.

These moments are broken up briefly by sections where you can use your boyfriend Nick to control a zombie and make a path for Juliet. But they’re too few and far between and don’t do anything creatively interesting, though I appreciate the way Nick is used in the story to subvert the typical expectations you’d have for someone like him in a story like this. I can’t say much more without spoiling, so I won’t.

The highlight, like many Suda51 games, is the boss battles. Each of the Dark Purveyors is modelled after a type of rock music – a, once again, incredibly Suda51-like decision. The cast of bosses you’ll battle are all fantastic, taking inspiration from punk rock, Viking metal, psychedelic rock, funk and good old-fashioned rock and roll. They’re great little battles that carry themselves with such a huge visual flair that you almost forget about the key element of Lollipop Chainsaw that RePOP is missing.

And that’s the music. Almost all licensed music that appeared in the original Lollipop Chainsaw has been scrapped for RePOP, replaced with original pieces that quite frankly don’t suit the mood or feel of the original. We’ve all had that moment when we watch an older series on Netflix we love, only to see the music from key scenes changed to generic tracks that fail to capture the feel of the original. That’s RePOP’s problem, and while The Chordette’s iconic Lollipop plays as you shop for upgrades, all of the original music is gone. It’s a huge shame, given how integral these tracks were to the original vibe.

Thankfully, the voicework of the cast is still pretty fantastic, especially the star-studded ones. Michael Rosenbaum does a great job playing Nick, while Linda Cardellini, Michael Rooker and Shawnee Smith round out a great voice cast playing some of the Dark Purveyors. But you can’t discount the incredible work that Tara Strong does in bringing Juliet to life. She nails every line and makes me happy that they didn’t go the recast route like so many remasters sometimes do. Unfortunately, for some reason, all of the audio recordings are incredibly low quality, so this remaster feels especially lo-fi.

However, the missing licensed tracks are only one prong of a larger issue that RePOP carries – the presentation. There was real potential here to revive the original game with a more colourful and vibrant visual style to complement the hyper-sweet Lolita style the original developer was going for. Instead, while the game runs at a much better framerate than the original, many odd visual glitches bring down the experience. Lighting is all over the place, sometimes just filling the screen with a white glow to the point where you can’t see anything. Sometimes zombies disappear, and other times, students disappear but still speak their lines to Juliet after being saved. Heck, sometimes characters don’t speak their lines. I hope these issues will be fixed with patches, but it means RePOP is currently not the best way to play Lollipop Chainsaw.

Outside of the game itself, odd issues persist, too. Menus and load screens are blurry and compressed, looking like low-quality images your weird aunty downloads off Google and then uploads to her Facebook as her profile photo. The menus that let you scroll through your achievements and abilities are also barebones, with some even disappearing after selecting an item on them. It’s, once again, something I’m sure will be fixed with future updates, but it’s a strange choice to have such average-looking assets in a project that’s about bringing the best version of the original game forward.

This is a massive shame because RePOP is only a passable revision of the original game, which is arguably the worst way to play right now. The faster combat system is appreciated, as is the speedier framerate, but the myriad of glitches and missing effects that have reared themselves in place of them are not worth the trade-off. And that’s before we even consider what has been lost due to presumable licensing issues. If the worldview weren’t so damn charming, I’d be reticent to recommend RePOP at all. But there’s something here, and I hope it’ll eventually bloom into the remaster that Lollipop Chainsaw deserves.

The post Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Review – A Sour Aftertaste appeared first on Press Start.

Almost three decades ago, I was left with a certain sense of wonderment when Pixar proposed the idea that toys adhere to the “when the cat’s away” philosophy and spring to life when nobody is in the room. All Possible Futures, an Australian-based developer, has reframed that concept through picture books, their lesson-full tales of light versus dark, their heroes and villains, and, page-by-page, has left me with that very same sense of childlike astonishment. For me, The Plucky Squire isn’t just a game for kids, it’s a time machine for big kids like me to relive a little bit of that youth.

Jot, the titular squire with a daring disposition, is the hero of his story, and with his ragtag friends Violet and Thrash he frequently bests the nefarious sorcerer Humgrump, saving the good people of Mojo all the while. That tireless loop of gallantry remains the status quo until Humgrump learns to harness the power of metamagic, which ousts Jot out of his colourful tome and into the world that exists on Sam’s desk. 

Within the confines of the page, Jot is a flat, two-dimensional squire who adventures with a sword in hand, not unlike many of the classically-inspired action-adventure titles we grew up with. Out in the “real” world, Jot takes a plump, three-dimensional shape I’ve, in the past, likened to Homer Simpson after he explores the peculiar, rendered space in the nook behind his bookcase. It’s a shame that, thanks to the necessity of advertising, this detail wasn’t able to be kept under wraps, because when Jot is first forced from his papered home it’s a spectacular upending of everything the game had sold us to that point. 

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As Humgrump desperately tries to keep the trio at arm’s length, and the roadblocks in their path grow greater, the core loop of The Plucky Squire settles into a rhythm of exhausting the problem-solving potential of the tools you do have before having Jot venture outward into the relative danger of the desktop plains to collect the next plot device that’ll help them plough through their obstacle. Said plot devices tend to grant Jot near omnipotent control over the book, though you start by modestly retreating back to prior pages and plucking certain words from their place and giving them new context elsewhere.

That said, by the end you wield all-powerful gauntlets and stamps that let you mess with the book’s properties and physics from above, from freezing items in place to transferring certain items from page-to-page. And with each new ability, it added layers to how you’d need to combine them to meet the increasing complexity of the puzzles. It kept ramping up just enough to remain engaging throughout. 

Make no mistake, the puzzles might be crafty and undeniably wholesome, however they’re definitely designed to be intuitive and the game hand-holds quite a bit, which never took me out when I considered the intended audience. Ultimately, the solutions are one-track and while experimenting with different words can offer moments of levity, punctuated more so by the game’s pleasantly couth, and very British narration, it’s unfortunate the way forward is such a straight line.

No matter the dimension you’re occupying, the game’s swordplay feels simple and accessible. Lunging ground pounds and swirling spin attacks, which can be upgraded at vendors throughout, keep the combat from being entirely one-note though it never quite evolves from its ‘see a creature, whack a creature’ approach. Fortunately, the way the game incorporates Jot’s newfound powers into fights helped supplement what is an ultimately rudimentary attack system. 

The game geniusly subverts expectations over and again over the course of its ten decently-sized chapters. Similar to It Takes Two and its teams willingness to implement a fun, off the wall gameplay idea for a two-minute bit, The Plucky Squire juggles its aforementioned swordplay, which already feels like an homage to Jot’s capped contemporary in Link, with so many neat moments that they feel like carefully composed, copyright-evading love letters to so many other games. I couldn’t help but grin big enjoying the nods to Punch-Out, match-three games, and even Lunar Jetman. What’s great is that, while Jot is the titular hero, the story isn’t solely about him, both Violent and Thrash, through these mini-games, get their small pound of valour on offer. 

Put simply, The Plucky Squire is pretty as a picture book. It’s bold, colourful, and through James Turner’s stint at Game Freak, the similarities to something as instantly recognisable as Pokémon is clear. Creature design is fun, though I love how rich and saturated the art style is, with bold-stroke outlines and full, vibrant colours filling every inch of the page. Jot has all the makings of an instantly iconic mascot, and although the game jokes about The Plucky Squire penetrating other media, I definitely believe it could. With sections that’ll have you fighting top-down, side-view or in three-dimensional space, animation and movement remains crisp regardless of perspective.

I did play the game in full on my ROG Ally, and the game ran smoothly for the most part, I did definitely notice an amount of slowdown during transitions from book-to-desk, which isn’t exactly surprising. Having two separate instances running simultaneously, one still on the page and the other happening all around Jot, feels like magic in its own right. The only other problem I encountered occurred when I managed to break sequence and skip a fight altogether which led to some unfortunate fatal crash errors. To the developer’s credit, their autosave system made it super easy to revert back only a handful of minutes to avoid the same mistakes on a prior save. 

The Plucky Squire is a darling experience that I’m so glad exists. It’s yet another earned feather in the squire’s cap belonging to Devolver Digital, and it’s a wonderful achievement for games development down under. It isn’t quirky or weird like many of the publisher’s other gambles, The Plucky Squire simply answers the call of anyone who has wished for a charming, family-first adventure game that’s oozing with creativity.

The post The Plucky Squire Review – A Book Worth Checking Out appeared first on Press Start.

It’s daunting to think the original Dead Rising is almost twenty years old. When it was first released on the Xbox 360, I remember it being so mind-blowing that so many zombies could be rendered on-screen simultaneously. It felt truly next-gen. But it’s been a long time since then, while I had a chance to revisit the game eight years ago, some aspects haven’t aged well. Now, Capcom has done the seemingly impossible with Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster. They’ve made Dead Rising a lot more approachable, but without sacrificing the game’s unique identity.

But to get one thing out of the way here – Capcom is underselling themselves by calling this a Deluxe Remaster. From a visual standpoint, it’s closer to a full-blown remake. The game has seen a significant visual upgrade thanks to Capcom’s ever-gorgeous RE Engine, but it has seen numerous gameplay improvements, too. As such, Deluxe Remaster firmly occupies the space between an exhaustive restructure seen in games like Resident Evil 2 and the very barebones remaster treatment the original game received eight years ago.

That said, a lot has stayed the same with how Deluxe Remaster is structured. If you remember the best path through the game, it’ll work here. As such, the story is the same too. You still play as Frank West, a photojournalist investigating strange goings-on at Willamette Parkview Mall, only to discover that the population has been turned to zombies. You have three days to learn why, which equates to around six hours in real-time, and you can use that time in whatever manner you wish.

Back then and still now, Dead Rising is structured uniquely. The main storyline is tied to cases Frank must investigate, which occur in the world at a certain time. If you’re not there when it starts, the storyline ends, and Frank must start over. There are many ways in which the game does a great job of communicating this to you, and the meat of the Dead Rising experience is discovering and planning the best course of action that’ll result in maximum returns for Frank. But if you fail, it’s not to worry because you’ll be able to start over with any upgrades you’ve earned for Frank (and the ever-powerful sense of hindsight) to do better.

It’s more complicated, though. From time to time, Frank will be contacted on radio about scoops. Scoops are essentially side quests that are plopped into Frank’s journal for him to investigate as they get called in. They’ve all got individual timers attached and are at different points throughout the mall, so you’ve really got to prioritise who you’ll save and when. The more people you save, especially at once, the more experience you get. But the challenge comes in the balance – grabbing particular scoops and getting everyone to safety, all while the main story is about to progress somewhere else in the mall, can really be stressful.

It’s excellent news, then, that the Deluxe Remaster does everything possible to make this experience more convenient. Controls have been completely overhauled, with special moves mapped to face buttons instead of strange analogue inputs as in the original. Frank’s dodge roll also feels smooth, performed with a single button press. It may sound like a small change, but it makes Dead Rising feel much more modern. I returned to the original game last month to prepare for this one and it was bizarre how the control scheme was set out – which is still selectable in Deluxe Remaster, mind you – but this newer modern control scheme is a massive step in the right direction.

The other most obvious adjustment is improving the AI driving the survivors. It can still get pretty tense sometimes, especially when you’re escorting a larger group, but they tend to follow Frank closer or move quicker through hordes. This removes much of the frustration that might’ve been present in the original game, as it makes things easier. Some might have an issue with this, but at that point, I have to ask – what are you missing here? Is bad NPC AI really part of what made Dead Rising so special? I really don’t think so.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 FROM AMAZON

The way survivors work in Deluxe Remaster has similarly been overhauled. A new affinity system can improve their behaviour and performance in your party. Each survivor now has a set of items and weapons they prefer, and if you give them to them, they’ll be more likely to help Frank. They might become better at attacking, pointing out hidden collectibles or weapons or even helping other survivors. It’s a cool system that, as a series veteran, didn’t have to engage with much, but one that is, once again, making the experience more accessible to newcomers.

But while everything is becoming less challenging, the boss battles feel like they’ve stepped in the opposite direction. The bosses were great in the original, but you’d often stand there, trading blows with them. They were unfortunate victims of the janky control scheme that the original game had. But in Deluxe Remaster, every boss battle has seen some adjustment. There are still some frustrating moments, particularly with one enemy introduced late in the game, but overall, the game flows and plays so much better now.

These improvements are sensible. If you kill a convict driving a car, one of the other two will change seats and continue driving the car now. Cletus, the maniacal gun shop owner, would stand there and take bullets from you, occasionally fighting back. Now, he ducks under the counter and crawls around until you stop firing. They’re small changes that do mean the boss battles take longer now. But given how quickly you can do everything else in Deluxe Remaster compared to the original, it doesn’t dramatically break the game’s balance.

Other smaller improvements all contribute to a better experience for players. Every item you pick up now has a visible deterioration meter, so you know when your trust bat might break. Everybody is also now voiced, which is especially useful when you first walk into an area and hear them screaming out at you. You can now skip through conversations with the shoulder buttons, which might sound like a small change, but it is a huge improvement over the original, where (text-based) conversations would restart if either of you got hit with something mid-conversation. And, of course, at any save point, you can fast-forward time if you’re left with nothing to do, so the game doesn’t drag if you find yourself being efficient.

Of course, the most obvious change is in the game’s presentation. Undeniably slicker than the original game, the world has been overhauled to look richer and denser than in the original. The parks are filled with more trees, and every mall is accented with bright and vibrant neon lights. Rubbish adorns the main concourse of each mall. Hell, even sculptures have been added where they make sense. It all comes together to show off the best version of the Willamette Mall so far.

More contentious is the way nighttime is now handled, as it is particularly dark, but when the moonlight and the storefronts are the only things lighting up each mall, I personally adore it. It is a huge visual jump, and while it is much less colourful than the original, the density and detail of everything make up for it.

But one point where I’m not sure if there is an improvement is in the game’s audio – specifically, the new voice work. Everyone has been recast in Deluxe Remaster, including Frank. And while it’s a bit jarring to hear Frank not be played by TJ Rotolo after so long, he’s not the one I have an issue with here. Most of the new cast for the supporting characters, barring Isabella and Carlito, fall flat. They sound less enthused than the original – perhaps in a bid to suit the more realistic look of Deluxe Remaster’s overhaul. But it lacks the original’s charm or, dare I say it, soul. Barring that, everything else feels epic – the original music used in each boss battle is especially electric.

So, while Deluxe Remaster calls itself a remaster, it does a lot to insist that it’s so much more than that. This is a remake – fair and square – with many improvements. It’ll be up for debate as to whether fans think the quality-of-life improvements make things too easy at the end of the day, but Deluxe Remaster is such a faithful translation of the original Dead Rising experience that I’m firmly in the opposite camp. It’s far and away the best version of Dead Rising we’ve ever had, and I can only hope we’ll be fortunate enough to see the same treatment with Dead Rising 2.

The post Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review – More Than A Simple Remaster appeared first on Press Start.

The Logitech G Astro A50 X dropped earlier this year and it tried to do something totally different to much success. It not only offered full compatibility with PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC at the same time, but it also had a HDMI switcher for each console allowing it to handle your video feeds for each and quickly change between them.

Whilst I personally loved this concept, as someone who doesn’t have enough HDMI ports on my TV, I can understand why many were likely not a huge fan given the larger price tag, and being conflicted between wanting that signature fantastic Astro sound without paying the extra for the video switching features.

Logitech has clearly heard this and subsequently released the A50 Gen 5 which is quite literally the exact same headset as the A50 X without the HDMI ports/video swapping feature which makes it $150 cheaper and no doubt now in the price point of a lot of gamers.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $599 FROM LOGITECH WEB STORE

It still carries the PLAYSYNC technology which means that you can connect your PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC all through dedicated ports and there’s also a power port if you’re not connecting to your PC to get power into the dock itself.

Switching between your consoles is as simple as pressing the Playsync button on the headset which switches between your consoles/PC. With this method, you’re able to fully take advantage of audio from both consoles through to the A50 X including game/chat audio balance using the traditional buttons on the right cup for Xbox Series X|S and PC. Unfortunately you’re not able to do this for PS5 because of how Sony handles game/chat audio. This was possible on the A50 X due to it separating audio through the USB-C port and then getting game audio through HDMI.

The headset can take advantage of Dolby Atmos on Xbox Series X|S, but not on PS5 and this is a little bit painful as it means that you have to deselect Dolby Atmos as an option, and for me with a full Sonos 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos setup, this means that I can’t utilise Dolby Atmos when using my TV sound, or having to swap back and forth, but I won’t blame Logitech for this.

The headset also connects with Bluetooth via the dock to your phone, and you can use this method to connect to your Nintendo Switch as well. It allows for simultaneous connection between your console/PC and your phone, and once you’ve set it up the first time, it was absolutely flawless connecting instantly to my mobile as soon as I put the headset on and disconnecting when it went back into the dock. Because it does connect through the dock, you can’t use the headset out and about. There’s also a phone app that can change between inputs, control your EQ settings and other basic settings such as sidetone.

The A50s have always been prided on how they sound and the A50 X is no different with its Pro-G graphene drivers not too dissimilar to the ones that I tested in the Pro X 2 Lightspeed headset. The audio feels extremely full with a good amount of bass to hear the minor details in the likes of Forza Horizon 5 and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It adds a whole other dimension to games and you absolutely won’t be disappointed in this regard.

Similarly, the microphone is fantastic, with my friends saying that I sounded super crisp online. It’s not detachable, which might be annoying to some, but it does mute on flip-up.

In terms of battery life, you get a 24 hour battery life, but honestly, I’d be shocked if anybody ever used it all, with the dock allowing you to simply place the headset onto it to keep it charged, which works as well as it ever has.

Whilst the A50 still isn’t cheap, at $599 it’s a lot more affordable for those that want a high-end Astro headset that works with all of your gaming consoles, so I can see this being a lot more popular than the A50X.

The post Logitech G Astro A50 Gen 5 Wireless Headset Review – Focusing On The Audio appeared first on Press Start.

When it comes to games that require a hardcore player, there’s not many harder than Elden Ring, so to celebrate the recent release of the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, Thrustmaster released an updated version of its Eswap X2 Pro controller

It’s the same controller that we reviewed a few months ago, but it’s been updated with a new lick of paint with gorgeous red grips, accented gold thumbsticks and triggers as well as the iconic Elden Ring logo and signature markings all over the controller. If that wasn’t enough the top of the controller has that Shadow the Erdtree art as well.

Not an exclusive idea by any stretch, the eSwap X2 Pro allows you to swap out the left and right analogue stick to have them be symmetrical or asymmetrical depending on what you prefer and the d-pad component can also be changed out with the face buttons seemingly being static.

Unlike other pro controllers that I’ve used that allow you to swap out these components, the eSwap X2 Pro uses a really clever magnetic system that allows you to literally pull them out whilst playing and swap them on the fly, without requiring any tools to pull them out.

Whilst I think it’s great that you can swap your analogue sticks to suit your preference, I was more excited by the fact that there is a steering wheel component (and others such as a fighting d-pad) that can be purchased separately, but was provided as part of the review.

I slotted it in and was absolutely amazed at how quickly I had a little thumbstick steering wheel at my disposal, that was fantastic for Forza Horizon 5 and worked really well. It felt super natural, and rather than having to lug out a massive steering wheel set, this felt like a great compromise.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $349 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

As far as what else is customisable, you can obviously pop off the analogue caps, although there’s only one different type in the box (you get both convex/concave), but you can also totally replace the triggers as well as the grips which can be unscrewed using a provided little screwdriver, although those components need to be purchased separately and I’m not sure what availability is like in Australia.

That’s probably the only gripe that I have with the controller, which will set you back $349. There are others on the market that really give you a wide variety of components in the box, and whilst I was really, really impressed with the amount of customisation on offer, it’s almost a tease with not a lot of options in the box, but it’s still much appreciated how much effort Thrustmaster have gone to in allowing long-term customisation.

As far as the actual design of the controller goes, it’s not the prettiest thing you’ll ever see, but it looks high-end, and has a great weight to it that feels super comfortable to hold. It is a wired only controller with a nice, lengthy cord provided in the box, but if you are someone that likes playing wirelessly, that might be a dealbreaker.

There’s a trigger stop adjustment that allows you to go through two distances for the triggers and there’s also four customisable back buttons that aren’t designed or positions in a way that you’d expect, but are actually super comfortable to use and mould to where your hand fits quite nicely.

These can be programmed using a row of little buttons that sit at the bottom of the controller (these can also be used to control audio for a connected headset), or via a free Thrustmaster app that can be downloaded on the Xbox Store, and once again provides a really nice amount of customisation for everything from button mapping to vibration.

The post Thrustmaster Eswap X2 Pro Controller Elden Ring Edition Review – Pro Look And Feel appeared first on Press Start.

Gone are the days of going to a friend’s place only to be dealt the other controller, the “spare” – you know the one; dodgy buttons, loose joysticks, and a real weird texture to it. It never quite worked right, and had an essence of uncanny valley about it. But now, aftermarket and alternative brands have been absolutely knocking it out of the park – to the point where if you’re handed a controller it is likely to be the official branded one, while your friend plays with something even better. That’s where the CRKD NEO S comes into play.

Straight out of the box, the NEO S is deceptive – I wasn’t prepared for something that appeared so simple to be so powerful. Nearly the same size as a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, the rigid rectangular body of the Neo S might appear unwieldy to begin with; but once it sits in your hands it feels a whole lot more lightweight and comfortable. Sliding out of its cool little carry case, the first thing I noticed was that it almost felt too light, especially when comparing it to the Switch Pro Controller.

The other thing that caught my eye was the design that adorned the NEO S’s face – in conjunction with the artist POPeART, the NEO S sports some fantastic designs full of personality. The Junkyard Edition we got our hands on evokes industrial flair, combining form and function to make something really cool. It also made me want to collect them all, and not only are there two extra designs in Blossom and Splatter from POPeART, there’s also Nintendo 64-esque translucent colours as well, leaning into the retro-meets-new feel that CRKD is aiming for.

Now before you dread the idea of downloading yet another app to do something related to a game or a service, hear me out – CRKD has made their companion app fun and exciting to use. Not only can you play around with your controller’s settings, including programming your back buttons and adapting the vibration, but you can also adjust the trigger actuation points as well as remove dead-zones from your thumbsticks. Using an RFID tag in the back of the controller, you can also scan in your device in what CRKD calls the “True Collection System”, which shows you details about the NEO S controller you’ve picked up – including the product number and rarity rank (what model number you received).

We’ve mentioned a few of the features of the controller, but how do they actually work in with playing games? Pairing your controller is really easy – in fact you get a neat little card that shows you just how to do so to your PC, mobile device, or Nintendo Switch – and from there you’re straight into gaming. You can program the back buttons by holding down the PROG button at the back of the controller and entering a single- or multiple-input combo before confirming it by tapping the button at the back, or even dedicating one to a ‘turbo’ mode for rapid input.

To add longevity to the device, both thumbsticks use hall effect technology which reduces contact points and prevents everyone’s dreaded nightmare of stick drift from occurring to the NEO S. In connecting the device to my phone, my Nintendo Switch and even my PC, this was definitely noticeable too – the responsiveness of the Hall effect sticks meant better accuracy and less struggle to ensure the correct input. But the tech doesn’t stop there, because the trigger buttons also use Hall effect sensors, allowing you to customise your own actuation points and make them more or less responsive to input.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $99 FROM JB HI-FI

The one surprising feature about the controller which I wasn’t really aware of until I played around with the app was the vibration function – I’m used to wireless controllers of the same variety not having any sort of haptic feedback or vibration, but the NEO S does have it. It was also one of the only downsides, as the vibration feels very light and often goes unnoticed; not that its a dealbreaker of any kind, it’s one of the only things I could suggest as a negative throughout this whole review.

Of course if you already own the CRKD Nitro Deck for your Nintendo Switch, there’s no doubt you know the level of detail and quality that CRKD puts into their products, and the NEO S is no exception. Right down to the ability to replace the thumbstick pads (which are interchangeable between the two devices), the NEO S is comfortable to hold and sleek in design, not sacrificing form or function with its retro-inspired looks. But under the hood it does so much more, with its Hall effect sensors and ability to customise vibration, trigger function and back buttons giving you the flexibility to personalise it how you want.

The post CRKD NEO S Controller Review – Punches Above Its Weight appeared first on Press Start.

I have to confess. I am a long-reformed Funko Pop! Vinyl addict. Back when you could buy them for a mere $18 a pop (heh) in Australia, I would buy anything and everything. It’s an admission I’m not entirely proud of, but I’ve since done great work in culling my collection. But now, it seems, Pops are back in videogame form with Funko Fusion. And while it’s great fun and a real throwback to the times when LEGO games weren’t bloated and distended, Funko Fusion isn’t without its faults. It’s one hell of a guilty pleasure, albeit rough around the edges.

Funko Fusion opens with an extravagant battle between Freddy Funko, the manager of the Funko Factory, and Eddy Funko, his sludgy evil twin. Eddy is desperate to be recognized, so he steals Freddy’s crown, breaking it into seven pieces and hiding them across the universe. It’s up to you, the player, to retrieve these crown pieces and restore Freddy to his plastic glory. It’s a simple premise that works pretty well, and it’s fun to see how Eddy uses his powers to distort the stories that Funko Fusion immerses you in.

The stories within Funko Fusion are a diverse and quirky mix. With seven worlds, each based on a major film or TV series, the game offers a unique retelling of these narratives in a humorous, LEGO-like fashion. The worlds, inspired by Hot Fuzz, The Thing, Jurassic World, Battlestar Galactica, Umbrella Academy, Masters of the Universe, and Scott Pilgrim, each bring their own distinct flavor to the game. Smaller properties like M3GAN and Jaws also make cameo appearances, adding to the game’s eclectic charm.

The general structure of Funko Fusion is familiar to those who’ve played the early LEGO games. You begin in the Funko factory, each floor themed by one of the previously mentioned seven worlds. You can unlock each floor with crowns collected at the end of each level, with each floor having between five to seven levels to pay through. You can unlock future floors, too, given you’ve got enough crowns, so if you grow tired of one, you can jump between them all.

When you unlock a world, you can play four base characters from that world. Some might move quicker, others have different weapons, and some might even have special abilities for use in exploration and puzzle-solving. There’s a nice mix of abilities here, though each world is clearly designed to be revisited as each area requires abilities from others. You can’t unlock a level in the Hot Fuzz world without bringing a Flamethrower from The Thing, for example. Completing a world unlocks extra characters from that world but also allows you to take those characters to other worlds.

Each world is split into levels that retell major setpieces from whatever it’s based on. Think Hot Fuzz’s final showdown in a village of miniatures or the moment all hell breaks loose in the opening of Jurassic World. Each world has you performing different objectives on a larger map, with each level having a different objective. It’s not as gracefully done as it was in Super Mario 64, but it’s closest to that in terms of how objectives work. Every level has a degree of openness to it, too, with optional missions and collectibles to find within each. And plenty of vinyl to find.

Vinyl is this games version of studs. Everything you hit in the game drops vinyl, and it can be used for a few different things. Each world has ideas that you can “research” by bringing fragments of them back to 3D printer-like stations. Once you’ve fully researched an item, you can mould your vinyl to create said item at these stations. Every item you can make has some use in combat and exploration, and the ones you unlock can be taken back to other worlds to open up optional areas.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 FROM AMAZON

The crux of the optional content comes in the form of Cameo Levels and Cameo Quests. The former is usually unlocked by retrieving a keycard hidden behind an ability or item to unlock portals in certain levels. They centre around another film or brand – like Jaws, NOPE or Back To The Future – and are more minor levels that cleverly capture the most iconic moment from whatever they’re based on. Cameo Quests are a bit different; you activate them in a certain level and then must follow up with that character in other levels to unlock them. For example, in the Hot Fuzz world, you can find Chucky and play a game of hide and seek with him to activate his quest. He then hides in other levels and can be found six times to finish the quest.

On the one hand, the Cameo Levels are a great idea. It would be tough to extend the story of a film like Jaws into a full, five-level world, so focusing on a key memorable set piece is an excellent idea without ruining the story’s pacing. The Cameo Quests are a good idea, too, but their execution doesn’t feel as well thought out – it is quite frankly tedious to seek out these characters multiple times and even when you’re done doing so, you’ll probably be done with most of the game.

That said, Funko Fusion feels like an old-school LEGO game in many ways. For one, the levels are replayable, with many things to find within each. Some collectibles unlock new weapons that any of your characters can equip with enough vinyl, while others grant buffs like one that improves the speed of your Pop. The more you complete, the more characters you unlock, though some of them are gated behind 40+ collectibles, including the iconic Colonel Sanders, which does feel like a bit much. People who loved collecting in the LEGO games will be at home here, but by the time I play as the Colonel, I’ll be done with the game.

But while I might sound down on Funko Fusion, there is a delightful game with great potential here. The objective variety is strong, with each level really slotting into the world it’s inspired by pretty well. Combat is a satisfying mix of shooting and melee, and boss battles are clever. There wasn’t a moment where I felt the game dragged or any of the worlds overstayed their welcome, as each employs unique mechanics that make sense for that particular world.

But at the time of writing, the game is incredibly buggy. I’ve had cutscenes skip, my controller stop working, side quests refuse to progress, and even boss AI glitch out. It’s disappointing, making Funko Fusion hard to recommend right now. I have confidence that most of these problems can be solved with a few title updates. But now, Funko Fusion can be a battle to get through.

And that’s not to forget that the game is lacking in the multiplayer department despite feeling like the perfect game for it. Online co-op is coming, which is a cool idea, but it’s being rolled out on a world-by-world basis, which seems a bit odd. The lack of offline co-op is also disappointing, as this game feels almost made for it.

But it’s hard to deny that Funko Fusion is dripping with passion and charisma. There is a huge amount of content in here to get through, especially for a team so new and so small that it harkens back to the days when LEGO games were at their peak. Even better, the worlds have been crafted in a way that pays great homage to the films and shows that have inspired them, but with a distinct sense of humour and charm that isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself. It’s a humourous and engaging journey that I’m convinced will improve over time.

The post Funko Fusion Review – A Promising Pop Culture Potpourri appeared first on Press Start.

The soft pitch for Caravan SandWitch is killer. What happens when you take the smooth brain checkboxing of a Ubisoft open-world title and filter it through a French indie lens? Gingerly sprinkle in some tried and true genre tropes and vaguely cozy aesthetic touchstones and you’ve got the individual components to build something charming and contemporary.

Caravan SandWitch plops you in the Lois Griffin-coded shoes of Sauge, a young woman compelled to return to her backwater home world after receiving a distress call from her older sister. The kicker is that this sister disappeared several years ago and your dad, her ex, and almost everyone in your hometown tells you that a distress call is impossible given that the planet has been effectively annexed by the Consortium, a mega-corp that has a monopoly on every aspect of life in this sci-fi world.

Something of a mining town without a mine, Cigalo is a world in the grips of a glacially paced apocalypse. An ominous energy storm dominates the otherwise cloudy blue skies to the south but nobody seems particularly fussed, instead, the various residents and denizens busy themselves with busted water filters, failing crops, and the thousand other bits of busy work to be found in a place ravaged by industry and left for dead. A striking landscape of jagged cliffs, sporadically defiant greenery, and coastline, Cigalo’s Provence-inspired palette allows Caravan SandWitch to dabble in frontier aesthetics and vertical world design while keeping the game within relatively balmy tonal parameters. 

Shot through with sci-fi trappings and a diverse cast of charming locals, Cigalo practically begs exploration, an impulse Caravan SandWitch struggles to wrangle against its greater narrative ambitions and pacing. Sauge is promptly gifted a 4×4 van, an upgradeable and semi-customisable vehicle that lets you zip along dirt roads and careen into the wilds with (relative) ease. Smartly veering more arcadey than sim, the van (and Sauge) are immune to damage and can Skyrim horse themselves into all manner of positions, only ever amusingly stumped by a small rock that stops you in your tracks. There’s a healthy dose of simple platforming and puzzle-solving to be found in Cigalo too, easily Caravan SandWitch’s best expression of streamlined open-world sensibilities and a small joy I never tired of. 

As you progress the game’s story, as paced through hardline chapter markers, the van will pick up several tools that allow for deeper exploration of the map and points of interest. These upgrades are purchased using scrap found in the world and gifted for completing quests, ranging from common green to rare purple. Toss in some map uncovering via radio tower destruction and a few collectable questlines and you’ve hit all the markers on Ubisoft’s golden path to smooth-brained joy in an open world. 

Only, Caravan SandWitch digs potholes for itself before setting off which frequently turns smooth into bumpy. The world is effectively open in its entirety after the game’s first hour and given how gorgeously inviting it looks, you’d be forgiven for gathering up some small requests for this or that and trekking out to simply vibe in this space. But then you find you can’t pull that door open yet, you can’t hack that elevator, or ride that zipline to a cool point of interest. Your impulse to roam is thoroughly roadblocked by your inability to interact. So, you snap some nice screenshots, hyper-focus on gathering enough scrap for the next upgrade, and head back out only to begin the cycle anew, just truncated sightly. 

It never stopped feeling antithetical to both the genre the game plays with and the breezy sense of openness Caravan SandWitch works overtime to maintain. By pacing the tools needed to enjoy the space out the way the game does, it funnels you into focusing on the main quest and gathering cycles to reach a stage where you feel you could actually venture out and allow your eye line to dictate your course and not your lack of tools. But Caravan SandWitch is also peppered with time-sensitive quests, meaning that if you progress the story (automatically occurring when an upgrade is crafted) without completing your chores you’ll lose the chance to do them, creating a strangled tension between player and game. 

This is a shame because the various comings and goings of Caravan SandWitch’s cast and world are fairly charming if not always compelling. The game’s bigger picture ideas are a rogue’s gallery of indie talking points, from the organic drama of human connection to space capitalism woes, which dabble in momentary depth but largely settle into a comfortably familiar cadence. But in the margins this world comes alive; a race of native frog-creatures observe humans with coy fascination as you help them gather their young and learn about memory as understood through shared consciousness. Or the small family struggling to decide if life in a small, dying town will be existentially better for their kid even if he misses out on big city opportunities. 

You might also be wondering about that big, missing sister neon sign that kicked off the adventure and Caravan SandWitch feels unsure how to handle that. Where Breath of the Wild and its ilk avoid the narrative dissonance of Quest: Save the World and Side Quest: Johnny Needs Six Apples by simply refusing to acknowledge it, Caravan SandWitch frequently points to what should be Sauge’s singular care. Much like the halting use of exploration tools, the game’s competing desires to be both open and focused pull at its edges in strange ways- it’s pleasantly skilled at building a world for you to enjoy at your leisure but unable to edit its ideas down to a point where doing so feels organic.  

Your mileage on Caravan SandWitch’s tensions will vary greatly depending on your relationship to open-world titles and the cloying tropes of cozy indies, but an immacuate eye for aesthetics and some hidden gems at least bring it together to be almost more than the sum of its parts. It helps too that the whole thing hums along with Antyomy’s score, a kind of French-draped “lo-fi beats to roam to” that infuses the game with a sense of place and tone befitting its better intentions and impulses.

But as I trundled out into the wilds to gather up my umpteenth bit of scrap, I couldn’t help but wonder if Caravan SandWitch’s attempted subversion of the open-world genre had been bogged on its otherwise gorgeous dirt roads.

The post Caravan SandWitch Review – Oh Sister Where Art Thou appeared first on Press Start.

Very few crowdfunding campaigns gain my attention and even fewer see me reach into my pocket. Stoic, as it happens, is one of the few developers I’ve been happy to dig deep for. It’s a team I truly admire, they’re artists and I revere The Banner Saga in such a way, I was always going to be eager to see what came next for them. Their partnership with Xbox, a match made in heaven for me, has yielded Towerborne, a project about as far removed from what I’d expect from Stoic as it gets.

It’s as if after The Walking Dead Telltale went on to make a third-person shooter, it’s surprising. Though it’s absolutely playable solo, the game is designed as a four-player beat ‘em up not unlike Castle Crashers. And although I cherish the impenetrable long-game of The Banner Saga’s Chess-like combat, the offering in Towerborne is so easy to pick up and mindlessly slog through that it means anybody can play it.

With that said, there’s also a surprising depth to its combat classes and systems that grew on me the more I dove in. I neared a point of writing it off as mundane and one-note before something clicked and I began to unravel combos, positioning and strategy through its gear and Umbra mechanics, opening up doors once closed to me. There’s a lot that Towerborne does to keep its combat from growing stale, and much of that comes down to each of the four classes feeling rather distinct—I ultimately fell in love with Pyroclast, however it’s rewarding and recommended that you chop and change considering certain class-specific weapons boast special attacks that are super fun to toy around with and can change the flow of battle.

There’s one tiny thing that Towerborne does that’s such a small quality of life thing, it almost feels silly to note it—but I can’t help it, I love it. If an enemy slips past and threatens to flank your unprotected rear but they get clipped by your attack on their way through, they’ll rubber band back in front of you, open to receive the barrage that’s coming. Being an online game, one that could, theoretically, be scuppered by latency issues, I see this as a micro effort to remove the potential for lag-related deaths.

I must emphasise that this game is designed with co-op in mind and my experience has, so far, been entirely solo. I’m happy to report that one-out is a completely viable way to storm the grasslands at the foot of The Belfry, as the game scales based on a number of other factors like player count and level. The combat itself quickly falls into a rhythm of bearing left or right, delivering punishing combos, and carefully dodging the precise attacks of the Gobo legion. Much like there are multiple classes of Ace, the Gobo army runs deep and there’s a lot of variety that can, at times, force some consideration just as the game’s rather standard hack and slash fare is starting to wane.

It was at a certain point that I realised that I did find Towerborne repetitive, however the brawling itself wasn’t the offender at all. I’d grown bored of the core loop and of its mission structure. The game’s map, which is set up kind of like Catan’s honeycomb grid, has so many stages to trudge through, it’s disappointing a vast majority of the missions are what Stoic call “discovery” tiles, which are simple end-to-end brawls with a loot chest at the end.

The other main events they have are ventures, which are treated more like mini-raids and include matchmaking where the others do not. They’re often capped by boss fights which do look cool without prompting much of a change in approach. As your legend grows around the Belfry, you can qualify for higher ratings of Danger Level, which both broadens your literal horizons and unlocks more of the map, while letting you replay prior “ventures” at a higher difficulty, leading to a different pre-mix of settings, events, and enemies. It sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t quite achieve the replayability I’d hoped for.

All of the player “progression” occurs loot-side, there’s no role-playing elements to speak of, which keeps it clean and simple. The chase of grinding levels and having bigger and bigger numbers against your equipped items is about as exciting as things within Towerborne’s menus get—which is unfortunate, as you spend plenty of time in them. Although any agency over back story or name is snuffed out right away, there’s enough depth in character creation to inject a shred of identity into your avatar.

The Belfry itself functions as any other service game hub world. It’s the point of retreat in between missions and is a key scene in much of the game’s onboarding, of which there is plenty. It’s an enormous space, and while there are many world maps installed about the place, you’ll still do plenty of trotting back and forth to talk to everyone. Though I couldn’t see anywhere to buy weapons, you’re certainly able to upgrade them at the Belfry’s blacksmith, and there’s a personified mirror who can grant you the gift of transmogrification in the event you grow bored of your Ace’s look. Bounties give you something to work towards in combat, although they’re a rather average assortment of tasks thus far, however the coin you receive in exchange can be used in Towerborne’s item shop which teeters at the cliff face of egregious microtransaction nonsense, but we’ll likely have to wait until the game is properly live to see how bad it is in practice.

Towerborne feels like such an enormous departure from The Banner Saga both in style and tone, it’s hard to reconcile they’re from the same studio. They’re both gorgeously hand-drawn, though Towerborne feels more vibrant and family-appropriate, which feels like a cool breeze on the face after the depressing caravan-led death march the team cut their teeth on. It’s more stoic, hopeful, and triumphant and this bleeds through in both the game’s bold, colourful biomes and its original score, from frequent collaborator Austin Wintory.

Though it might lack the polish of something like Hades II, whose only similarity here is that they’re early access contemporaries, Towerborne shows just enough promise and holds just enough aces that I feel it could make something of this rather shaky, inconsistent start.

After crafting one of the most arresting tactics trilogies of all-time in The Banner Saga, which had a recognisable identity in its own right, I do applaud Stoic for venturing beyond the relative safety of their pedigree in trying something new. It doesn’t offer the same emotional resonance, however Towerborne’s seeming goal of “Castle Crashers except pretty” delivers on what is a mindless, yet moreish, brawler.

Towerborne releases on Steam in early access September 10, 2024. Find more information here.

The post Towerborne Early Access Review – A Promising Venture appeared first on Press Start.

You can’t take two steps without stepping on a Capcom collection of some kind, it seems, and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is yet another example of Capcom’s strong willingness to honour their history and ensure that the games that made them famous are playable even today. But this one feels especially treasured, as, through the fault of licensing and other mishaps, Marvel vs. Capcom games have been notoriously inconsistent with how regularly accessible they are. So here we are, yet again, with another re-release of the revered fighting game. And thankfully, this is the best way to play all of them so far.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is another collection combining seven titles that Capcom developed and released in arcades between 1993 and 2000. What’s offered here is similar to the last Capcom Fighting Collection – arcade-perfect ports with the addition of other features associated with modern fighting games like spectator modes, exhaustive practice modes and rollback style online support. While the last Capcom Fighting Collection had a lot of games debuting outside of Japan, the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is a slightly less dramatic debut. Most of these games have been available previously, some recently as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but have since faded from digital storefronts thanks to the ever-pervasive threat of licensing expirations and renewals.

Others are appearing in a format for the first time since they debuted on home consoles or arcades in the late 90s. Those games are X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter. While all these games (and most others) are versus fighting games similar to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, an arcade-perfect port of The Punisher, a beat-em-up, is also included. But more on that later. The package is rounded out by Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the latter of which is arguably the cornerstone of this ambitious collection.

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The collection is typical of what you’d expect from a Capcom collection. The modern game additions include save states and a simplified Smash Bros-esque control scheme for easy hyper combos or special attacks. Beyond that, a museum mode includes a heap of concept art and design documents from each game. They’re interesting if you’re interested in developing games like these, and like I said for every Capcom collection before it, it’s always fascinating to see how these games come together from simple drawings on a page.

But what of the games themselves? There are not many duds here. While drawing from both Capcom and Marvel’s storied history, each game does its own thing to stand out from its contemporaries. For example, you use Infinity Stones to power yourself up in Marvel Super Heroes. There is something utterly appealing about the earlier games, especially X-Men vs. Street Fighter, where the concern wasn’t about balance and just allowing players to come up with the most batshit insane combos they could. Children of the Atom, a 1v1 X-Men fighting game, is charming in its own right for how simple it is and how it looks and plays just as well as it did in 1993.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is where you can see it all start to come together, though, with Capcom expanding their side of the roster with characters beyond those that appeared in Street Fighter. It’s an interesting game because while you pick two characters, every match allows you to pick a third support character from a separate roster of oddball choices. Think Jubilee from X-Men or Arthur from Ghosts’ n Goblins. It’s an novel mechanic that has never entirely made a return to the series since.

But as I mentioned earlier, the cornerstone is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is arguably one of the best fighting games ever made – and while the jump to 3D visuals for many backgrounds loses some of the charm of the games that came before it, there is just no other fighting game (besides Smash) with a roster like it. The roster for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 features 56 playable characters from all stages of both Marvel and Capcom’s history at that time. We’re talking about Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Darkstalkers, and even out-of-pocket picks like Cyberbots and Star Gladiator. And, of course, timeless Marvel characters like Storm, Gambit, Wolverine, Captain America and Iron Man. It’s an amazingly well-rounded roster that I cannot get enough of and will never grow tired of.

Besides the other games, which are all still fantastic, the inclusion of The Punisher game is fascinating. I’ve never played it before, but it’s a beat-em-up similar to games like Street of Rage, Final Fight and Double Dragon. In it, you can play as either Punisher or Nick Fury as they try to take down Kingpin and his criminal enterprise. The game is considered to be one of the better in the genre. I can see why – it’s just as strong as Capcom’s other beat-em-ups but incorporates the trademark violence that you’d expect from a Punisher game in a way that I don’t think was being done back then (besides Mortal Kombat, of course). It’s tough as hell, mind you, but it’s still a great inclusion, and the arcade port included here is much better than the previous home console release on the Sega Genesis. You can play it co-op locally, too, though not online.

Speaking of online, the lobby system works like the previous Capcom Fighting Collection. You can search for ranked or unranked matches through matchmaking or create private lobbies, too. You can even choose whether to play a game offline, enter practice mode or browse the museum mode while waiting for a match to be found, which is appreciated given it’s a key feature Mortal Kombat 1 still doesn’t have. Even better, you can select which of the six fighting games you want to queue for, so your pool of players is always as deep and wide as you pick. I only got to sample a handful of matches online, but like the previous collection, the rollback netcode works like a dream.

From a presentation standpoint, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classic is slick. Each game utilises sprite work, which still stands the test of time today, though some of the 3D effects seen in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 are getting a bit long in the tooth. The collection has many options to adjust the display – filters that mimic the CRT screens you would’ve played these on back in arcades, options to adjust the aspect ratio and artwork for borders to help fill the screen without ruining the aspect ratio. There are plenty of options and choices here, so I doubt many would be unable to find their own sweet spot with how these games are presented.

But regardless of your taste in presentation, one thing is certain—Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics represents the best way to experience these games and, even more importantly, understand why they were revered as classics in the first place.

The post Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review – An Incredible Showcase appeared first on Press Start.

I’d be tempted to call Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland nostalgia bait if it didn’t go ahead and nail exactly what it set out to achieve. Developed and framed from the get go as a throwback to classic, licensed platformers from the nineties, Adventures in Gameland is unequivocally a “made for Gameboy” title through and through. And that right there carries with it a bit of good, and plenty of bad as the game’s beautiful presentation struggles to bear the burden of frustrating, clunky, and dated platforming—not that the game sticks around long enough for it to grate at you.

With just six levels, carefully crafted with an understanding of Tommy, Chuckie, and the twins’ creativity in mind, as well as a keen understanding of Rugrats deep cuts, Adventures in Gameland truly encapsulates a “classic” experience with its truncated runtime of just a couple of hours.

Although I do love how each stage is framed as an episode of the series, complete with the hallmark “ba-baaaa” title treatment, each level is rather formulaic in its construct as you, playing as any of the four babies on offer, carefully crawl and jump through imaginative twists on otherwise mundane settings around the Pickles residence, recover Tommy’s trusty screwdriver, and unlock the baby gate safeguarding the level’s boss. 

There’s nothing that really sets each baby apart aside from their unique jump, and how much lift they get. Based on this, I feel like they do fit into the Super Mario Bros. roles to a degree with Tommy being reliably compact and sturdy as a squat plumber, while Chuckie and all of his trademark trepidation fits into the Luigi archetype. Phil and Lil feel similar, save for the fact that Lil has a floating glide at the tail end of her leap that makes her feel like Peach. 

And it’s not that the babies control badly, although I do feel like the input gets confused if you’re trying to do too much, it’s everything else in Adventures in Gameland that is far more frustrating. The player hit box is the size of California, checkpointing can be pretty punishing in the game’s final stage, and I don’t recall the game explaining anything. For a game where you’re able to butt slam with the crushing force of a night’s full diapie, pick up and stack blocks to climb onto, and crawl, the game really does just let you work it out for yourself.

Fortunately, for as frustrating as the finicky platforming can be, the game does at least offer a few difficulty options, which is a nice modern addition for a game that tries so hard to recreate the Gameboy’s classic sensibilities. After a few cheap deaths, I was glad to be coddled by the simplest newborn mode. 

From a presentation perspective, I don’t think Adventures in Gameland could be much better. As I’ve already touched on, the levels themselves dive deep into the enormity a child’s perspective can grant to pretty humdrum settings—for example, how a relaxing day at a backyard cookout can suddenly become an adventure throughout a tree hollow battling wind-up toys. It’s wildly imaginative and I think pays wonderful homage to some of the situations the babies found themselves in during the show’s run. 

It might not include voiceover performance, and I admit I do miss E. G. Daily’s trademark Tommy Pickles voice cracks, but the game’s scripted dialogue is extremely on point nevertheless. The game’s soundtrack more than makes up for it, not only does it open with the expected, absolutely iconic Rugrats theme tune, we get so many great renditions of the same theme throughout including an aggressive metal one that does slap. 

For those wanting an even more authentic Rugrats on Gameboy experience, you’re able to toggle between a pretty, almost true-to-animation high-definition setting and a classic 8-bit that’s more in line with how the game might have looked a few decades ago. You’re also able to switch between a full screen and bordered view, which restricts the action to a smaller share of the screen, more in keeping with the Gameboy’s original 10:9 aspect ratio. 

As a nineties kid, who absorbed more cartoons than I’d care to admit, likely while white-knuckling a Gameboy, Adventures in Gameland is an extremely nostalgic regression to a simpler time for game design. It bears the warts of the era it’s attempting to emulate, by being a bit clunky and frustrating, however as a Rugrats property it’s as authentic as it gets. In fact, to borrow a bit of the gang’s babble talk, it’s been a worthwhile ‘speriment. 

The post Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Review – What A Baby’s Gotta Do appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been over a year since Hogwarts Legacy, and despite that game doing such a good job of capturing the essence of being a student at Hogwarts, there was a glaring omission. Despite spending many hours in the castle and its surrounding grounds, you never get to play a game of Quidditch. Quite the phenomenon, apparently in both real life and the world of Harry Potter, it always felt odd that Quidditch wasn’t in Legacy. And while it’s been a hot minute – since 2003 – since we had a new Quidditch experience, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions has the basics down pat. But while it gets so much of the core experience right, it still feels undercooked.

The game occurs around the same time as the Harry Potter stories. You’ll run into many series stalwarts like the Weasleys, Hermione and most students who make a sizeable appearance in the series. The game’s very loose structure has you building a fully customisable team that must work through the various tourneys to win the Quidditch World Cup. There’s not much of a story here, honestly, and it feels very small scale.

There are multiple ways to play Quidditch Champions, whether with your friends or against them. But you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a wealth of single-player content. There is a “campaign” of sorts, which sees you competing in three different cups – a school, interschool and international – but that’s really it. The “story” is a cutscene before each cup, explaining what the cup is and narrated by a low-rent soundalike of your favourite Harry Potter characters. The Seeker of each team, such as Cho Chang or Cedric Diggory, might pop up beforehand to say a sentence or two, but that’s really it.

The campaign really serves as a loose tutorial to teach you the basics of each role and how Quidditch works, especially as a video game. The beginning of the game wastes no time teaching you how to fly your broom, selecting which camera controls you want to use and even showing you how to drift. Each role is also explained to you and has unique controls and mechanics, but that’s really it. It feels more like an extensive prep course to prepare you for multiplayer, though I appreciate that no matter which mode you play in Quidditch Champions, there’s still online functionality with full crossplay available, too.

In this version of Quidditch, two teams of six battle it out until one side reaches a hundred points. A goal is worth ten points. The roles are simple – there are three Chasers, a Keeper, A Beater and a Seeker. Chasers play the leading role in the game, chasing after a ball called a Quaffle, scoring points by throwing it into the opposing team’s goals. Keepers are goalkeepers, but they can lay down rings that other players can fly through to buff or debuff their speed. Beaters are the most interesting, armed with bats and controlling a magical iron ball called a Bludger to knock other players off their brooms, while the single Seeker must look for the Golden Snitch, a fast-moving object on the field.

The most significant change with Quidditch Champions is how the Golden Snitch works. It appears roughly twice in each game’s seven minutes, and the Seeker must boost through rings left behind it to stay close to the Snitch to fill a meter. Once the meter is filled, the Snitch can be caught. Rather than ending the game, however, it gives the team thirty of the required hundred points towards their win. It’s a nerf, but it has a remarkably positive effect on the flow of the game and keeps things fair right up until the very end, as sometimes grabbing the Snitch can be the difference between winning and losing.

The other roles, barring the Keeper, are all just as fun. Something is satisfying (if not slightly macabre) about beating people off their brooms as a Beater or sending your bludger after the opposing Seeker to give your team member a better chance at catching the Snitch. If you want good old-fashioned sports, the Chaser is more of a role for you, coming with the typical functions you’d expect for a player in any sports game – sprinting, tackling and the like. There’s something for everyone here, even if you’re not typically into sports games (like myself).

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And while the AI is pretty average sometimes, most of the magic happens when you’re playing online. The online modes are fairly robust for a game of this scale, offering role-specific queuing or any role queueing to reduce wait times. For the most part, I wouldn’t be waiting for more than two minutes to find a match, so the population seems healthy right now, but it’ll be interesting to see how long it will stay like this. Online performance is great, too – everything works, which is excellent but rare in today’s gaming climate.

Online games work differently from offline. Three players control two roles each, and they can switch between them on the fly as needed. Your roles are assigned to you as you’re put into a game, though you can choose your preference before matchmaking. It’s a great system that keeps things interesting, though, much like any multiplayer game, it can get frustrating when your Seeker doesn’t actually go for the Snitch.

It’s an absolute dream when a team of humans plays their roles correctly in Quidditch Champions. A fast-paced game that has all of the twists and turns to keep things tense and chaotic. But beyond that, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have much more going for it. The primary sense of progression is a Battle Pass-esque system where you unlock cosmetics as you complete matches and earn XP. It’s a tried-and-true system, but it feels empty at this stage and fills pretty slowly.

At first, I assumed this was because the game wanted to sell you all the trimmings that often come with games structured like these – skips, experience boosters and the like. But remarkably, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have any microtransactions. All progression is earned in-game and can’t be purchased with real currency. This is a relief, but at the same time, it also masks something far more telling – there’s just not a lot to earn or do in Quidditch Champions.

Which is a shame, because the core gameplay is solid. Quidditch Champions plays incredibly well. But the other elements surrounding the game, that compelling reason to stick with it and keep playing, just doesn’t exist yet. The game is structured as if it will set up new content drops as future seasons come, but it feels rather barebones for now.

From a visual standpoint, Quidditch Champions looks decent enough. It employs a stylised artistic direction, allowing it to be visually distinct from Hogwarts Legacy and whatever other Wizarding World games are coming. It runs well, too, with no performance hiccups to note in my time with it. Novelly, the game also is the first time we’ve seen both the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons schools realised in a video game (or perhaps ever), which is a nice touch for those deep into the Wizarding World.

However, there is a real gap in the presentation regarding the original score. Harry Potter films have some incredible music that could be used significantly in Quidditch Champions, especially while you’re playing the Seeker. Instead, what’s here is a pale imitation of what came before. It all feels incredibly flat and wooden, especially during the final moments of each match. I thought we’d hear some of John Williams’ soaring music here, but what’s here instead is just unremarkable.

While the actors are soundalikes, which I can handwave away given how expensive the talent would be to get back for recording, the commentary is seriously lacking. Even worse for what is ostensibly a sports game, it’s arduously repetitive, too. There are about one or two lines for each event that might occur in the game, and when you’re playing across seven minutes, it can get incredibly grating to hear “HOGWARTS GAINS POSSESSION” more than ten times in the span of a few minutes.

So, while Quidditch Champions has the potential to grow into something more, right now, it’s too barebones to hold your attention for long. Hopefully, with time, there’ll be a more compelling reason to jump back on the broom, but it needs a little more time to capture the magic it’s missing.

The post Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Review – A Strong Take-Off With An Iffy Landing appeared first on Press Start.

Despite pre-loading its PS5 consoles with a surprisingly solid, free example of the genre in Astro’s Playroom, I’d honestly thought PlayStation’s days of goofy mascot 3D platformers were numbered as it chased big budget, cinematic blockbusters and shaky live service offerings. Looking at Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as more of an “action-adventure,” there just hasn’t been anything on a PlayStation console that shows the same sense of rivalry as the company courting the likes of Crash and Spyro in the 90s to challenge Nintendo and Mario’s success. 

That’s why it’s so exciting that Astro Bot, a full-blooded follow up to Playroom helmed by the same folks at Team ASOBI, so firmly lands as a worthy challenger to the portly plumber’s long-held domination.

Like all good 3D platformers, Astro Bot opens with the thinnest possible framing to the ensuing adventure. Blissfully sailing through space in the same PS5-shaped “Mothership” he inhabited in Playroom, Astro’s good times are abruptly upended when a huge, green alien named Nebulax yanks the ship’s core and sends its components and passengers flying across the cosmos. Thus begins a journey to rescue all of his Bot friends, as well as put the major components of the PS5 Mothership back in their rightful places – a journey that’ll take our intrepid little robo-hero across five distinct galaxies and dozens of joyfully unique “planets.”

In overall structure, Astro Bot is decidedly traditional to the platformer mission of giving players a steadily-growing choice of distinct and self-contained levels to play through, gating new ones behind collection goals (rescuing Bots, in this case) and the defeat of major bosses. And so, at least for the main levels, it’s a case of dropping into a stage and making your way to the exit while scooping up as many friends as possible along the way. It’s straightforward then, but the game’s more exciting qualities come in both the designs of the levels and the fact that more than half of the 300+ friends you’re rescuing are Bot versions of characters representing a huge history of PlayStation content, whether first-party franchises or otherwise important to the platform over the last three decades.

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Every single level feels absolutely unique, not just in visual theme or gameplay hook but often in their fundamental structure or pace and all are memorable enough that I could easily spend 1000s of words just gushing about each one individually. Plenty of them include nods to PlayStation characters you’ll find within, the stage where Shadow of the Colossus’ Wander can be found just happens to feature a climbable mid-boss encounter, for example, while Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us were fortunate enough to have crash-landed on a planet populated by dancing fungi. Even if you removed all of that though, ASOBI’s own ideas and designs are so wonderfully-realised and remarkable that they well and truly stand on their own and do far more to carry the game than its fandom bait.

The use of technology here, whether it’s the incredibly-impressive physics of environmental debris, destructible objects and liquid physics or the thorough implementation of the DualSense controller’s unique features, is more than just superficial, too. Asobi has put everything in its toolbelt to work to serve gameplay first and foremost, resulting in some truly innovative and delightful interactions, and like its best peers it never overuses any one idea and makes sure to evolve any that it does revisit over time. While Astro’s core moveset hasn’t changed much from Playroom, there are once again plenty of new gadgets for him to find and use through various DualSense interactions, though these are now much better integrated into standard gameplay rather than locked into specific sections, and much more fun overall.

Each galaxy also houses a major boss fight, some of which are reasonably challenging and all of which are visual spectacles with some great mechanics that build on earlier concepts in the regular levels, easily rivaling the best bosses in the business. All of these levels, and the game as a whole, strike a good balance between approachability and challenge, taking on the tried-and-true method of making sure that players of most skill levels should comfortably be able see the game through to its conclusion, while finding every last Bot and collectible and besting the impressive number of hidden/bonus levels will test even seasoned platformer fans – especially a final gauntlet opened to those whose who truly dedicate themselves to 100% completion.

It is worth noting that actual accessibility/approachability options are surprisingly thin for a PlayStation Studios title, at least compared to the likes of a God of War or The Last of Us, but there’s enough here to at least smooth out the experience in some small ways – like being able to switch motion controls to the left thumbstick or have the game automatically complete blow-into-the-controller mechanics when you’ve got the DualSense mic muted.

While the major bosses are all fantastic, the best part is what comes after – each world capped off by a special level designed entirely around a specific game and in which Astro transforms into the stars of those games, and the gameplay shifts to match. I won’t spoil these, but the first one in particular had me screaming as a massive fan of the long-dormant series. No doubt people will have similar reactions to the ones that come after, too, though they’re best kept a surprise. ASOBI has crammed these special stages with so many neat gameplay and visual tributes, genuinely hilarious gags and riffs on iconic moments that they’re definitively the highlight of the whole experience. If we could somehow get more of these as paid DLC, I’d happily indulge.

The fun and fan service doesn’t stop there, either. Your rescued Bot friends need somewhere to go while they await the Mothership’s repair, after all, and that happens to be the very crash site it now rests in. Here, you’re not only able to visit and interact with all of the special Bots you’ve found so far but also win them new props from a gacha machine and put them to work to help you access new areas, and unlock new facilities and features after collecting enough hidden puzzle pieces in levels.

I could literally spend hours here just walking around, inspecting all of the tiny, adorable details that ASOBI has put into each of them and snapping hundreds of screenshots (and to be fair, I’ve already done this). There’s plenty of obvious stuff here, like characters from The Last of Us, God of War, Crash Bandicoot and so on but also tons of deeper cuts that are sure to please PlayStation fans from every corner and era.

Naturally, much of my time putting words to page here has had me thinking about Astro Bot in comparison to the adventures of a certain overalled plumber, and I do think that sticking to a pretty standard format means this doesn’t quite feel as innovative and fresh as something like Super Mario Odyssey. I genuinely can’t recall a moment in the entire 12-13 hours it took for me to 100% complete the game and nab the platinum trophy, though, where I wasn’t grinning from ear-to-hear and having massive amounts of fun. From the second you hit that New Game option to the last lines of the credit roll, there’s simply no point in which you’re not doing something new and interesting, interacting with the world in some big or small way, often with no purpose but to delight in the immeasurable amount of glee and silliness stuffed into every inch.

It also helps that the game looks and sounds a treat. Playroom was already quite sharp for a launch freebie, but Astro Bot ramps the production values up considerably. Every level is absolutely dripping with detail, and ASOBI’s animation work is spectacular in giving it all a real energy that you just don’t normally get outside of Nintendo’s output. Being a PS5 exclusive, it’s also got the advantage of being razor shape and silky smooth while throwing in some astonishing material and effects work along with the aforementioned moments of stupidly fun physics interactions.

And while there’s no voice work to speak of, the audio side of things is just as impressive. Being a first-party PS5 title there’s naturally all manner of impressive audio work including plenty of added embellishment from the DualSense speaker, but easily the biggest success is the soundtrack from returning contributor Kenneth C. M. Young. There’s not one track that isn’t a bonafide bop, and those of us who were (rightfully) enamoured with the synthesised vocals peppered across the score in Astro’s Playroom are very well served here with some fantastic additions including a “secret level” theme punctuated by murmurs of the word “secret” or a giant tree that takes a moment to bust out some bars.

In other hands, this could easily have wound up just as creatively bankrupt as the concept of “game where your core mission is to fix a giant PS5 after it’s destroyed by a green alien” implies, but there’s so much wonderful originality and personality on display here that it never feels anything less than Asobi’s own fantastic creation – even when you’re crossing pits of flowing lava on top of loose DualSense thumbsticks.

The post Astro Bot Review – Out Of This World appeared first on Press Start.

You know those moments in games where spectacle has you thinking; ‘they’re gonna do it, aren’t they?’? Thor jolting Kratos back to life in God of War Ragnarök, facing down the Soul of Cinder in Dark Souls III, embracing the darkness in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. They’re events that always come up when discussing these games, and for good reason. There are so many other examples of this in gaming and other media, almost all of which play a defining part in a title’s legacy.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is full of these moments. 40K fan or not, Space Marine 2 is a rollercoaster of eye-popping spectacle, all of it infused with the utmost reverence and care for the source material it hails from. In some ways, it’s a miracle sequel, delivering on the promise set by the first game all the way back in 2011 in effortless fashion. Even if you aren’t deeply invested in this universe, it’s an unmitigated joy to step into the shoes of Captain Titus once again.

A century after his run in with the forces of Chaos on Graia, Captain Demetrian Titus continues to grapple with the scars left on his reputation thanks to accusations of heresy. Stripped of his former title, Titus joins the Deathwatch as a kind of self-inflicted penance. Despite having conceded that he’s destined to die combating unknown alien threats on the frontlines, Titus is reinstated into the Ultramarines as the unrelenting Tyranid forces begin to overrun the Recidious System. Made to lead a new squad of Ultramarines against the Xenos threat, Titus steps back into the fray as an angel of death.

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Things aren’t quite right in the Recidious System, though. Outside of the obviously problematic Tyranid invasion taking place, Titus and his squad also uncover traces of Chaos throughout the system. Furthermore, the Adeptus Mechanicus are in a hurry to protect a weapon under the name Project Aurora, casting suspicion over their intentions and the motivations of the Imperium who seek to protect it. Titus is naturally skeptical about all of this given his role on Graia, but his reputation haunts his convictions and strong moral compass.

You don’t need to be a 40K fan to get drawn into this plot. It makes an incredible first impression with a banger of an opening mission, and doesn’t let up on the gas from there. In a twist I didn’t at all expect, Space Marine 2 also ties back to the first game very nicely. The story being told here feels like a natural extension of what came before it despite the time jump. Titus feels different, but still sports many of the qualities and traits that made him such a great protagonist to begin with. He’s battle-hardened, stoic, but struggling with finding his place in the Ultramarines again.

Titus is accompanied by Chairon and Gadriel. Two Ultramarines at pivotal points in their tenure as willing and rageful weapons of the Imperium. Gadriel is a clear callback to Leandros, who’s blind faith in the Codex Astartes often led to narrow-minded viewpoints when it comes to Chaos, corruption, and the roll Space Marines play in the broader universe. A key difference, though, is that Gadriel isn’t set in his ways just yet, leaving him susceptible to outside influences and perspectives – both positive, and negative.

Chairon feels much more mature than Gadriel by comparison, but his experience is still dwarfed by what Titus has had to endure. He feels more level-headed and often serves as a bridge between Titus and Gadriel when they have a disagreement. They make for a fantastic duo in the story that’s being told here, and most importantly, serve as figures key to the development of Titus and what he goes through.

All of this is as strong as it is because Space Marine 2 is just so well written. Every line feels intentional, delivered with perfect tone, cadence, and emphasis to suit the situation. Tension will rise and fall between the group as they combat the Tyranids and forces of Chaos, testing their bonds and trust in one another. You so desperately want to see this squad succeed despite the odds being stacked against them, and that sentiment rings true right up until the credits roll.

There are also just so many of those aforementioned jaw-dropping moments throughout Space Marine 2’s runtime. Every mission has some kind of spectacle to gawk at, only often times you’ll find yourself right in the middle of it. Whether it’s storming through trenches as Tyranids attempt to overrun your position, or squaring off against a hulking Helbrute, Space Marine 2 has unforgettable moments aplenty. While it certainly helps if you’re a fan of the IP, there’s no denying how absurdly awesome some these moments are.

My only real gripe with the story is that the third act does feel rushed. It’s filled with plenty of fantastic moments, but it doesn’t feel like it has as much room to breathe as the first two thirds of the game. It definitely delivers by the time credits roll, but I wish I got to see and learn more about its key players and components. It certainly doesn’t derail the entire experience, but just feels off given how deftly handled the rest of the campaign is.

That isn’t to say Space Marine 2 is trying to veil anything else by barraging you with its presentation, because the gameplay also kicks ass. It’s the same third-person melee/shooter hybrid as the first game, but presents its power fantasy in a different way. Space Marine, much like the recent DOOM games on lower difficulties, was a pure power fantasy. Few games were able to capture the kind of carnage you can unleash as an Ultramarine, so it was a novel experience for the time.

Space Marine 2 hasn’t lost that luster, but definitely focuses more on being mindful and strategic with moment to moment combat decisions. The power fantasy is still here, but it’s less accessible – you have to work for it. That’s through a few key new additions and shifts in how the game handles resources and enemy types. The big new features mostly come in the form of defensive mechanics; parrying and dodging.

You still dish out light and heavy attacks in an attempt to stun units, opening them up for brutal and satisfying executions. The enemies in Space Marine 2 don’t take hits lying down, though, and will often unleash their own assaults that can be parried and/or dodged to open them up for counterattack. Smaller units are immediately executed on a successful parry, as Titus swats them out of the air before they can get so much as a claw on his armour. Larger units, on the other hand, are stunned and opened up for a critical shot, where the camera pulls right in, and Titus delivers a devastating point-blank shot.

Executions and critical shots both refill Titus’s armour, imploring you to make the most of these new mechanics to keep healthy in combat. Perfectly timed dodges will also leave an enemy open to a critical shot, so mastery over enemy attack patterns and timing is heavily incentivised – especially on higher difficulties. It takes a bit to get used to, but once it clicks, you feel unstoppable. It feels incredible to yank an enemy out of mid air, crush them underfoot, only to parry an incoming attack and deliver a critical shot to whichever unlucky foe dared to challenge you.

The reason that this all works so well is because Space Marine 2 isn’t a game you can auto-pilot. Jumping into a wave of enemies haphazardly is often a recipe for swift death. You’re implored to balance your limited ammo with ample opportunities to unleash melee carnage when favourable opportunities present themselves. The combat sandbox is further deepened by Fury, a rage mode that lets you regenerate health and throw caution to the wind as a result. Jump packs also make their return in some missions, where you to take to the skies and rain death from above.

Speaking of which, the tools of the trade have been much expanded in Space Marine 2. Melee weapons have unique movesets that keep them distinct from one another, there is a swathe of returning and new ranged weapons, and the selection of grenades on offer is also quite sizable. Missions are dotted with resupply points and weapon drops, so you can regularly switch up your loadout if you feel like a change or need something else to get the job done. Each weapon also looks and sounds suitably visceral, especially when you’re hitting headshots.

This campaign is also entirely playable in three player co-op, and if that isn’t enough to satiate your 40K cravings, Operations have you covered. These are additional missions built to be replayed across different difficulty levels in a squad of three. Operations can also be played in co-op, in-fact, I’d go as far as saying the higher difficulties are designed around it. Completing missions will net you experience points for the class and weapons you used in that mission, awarding you with upgrades and cosmetics to use in higher difficulty Operations.

The coolest aspect of Operations by far, is that they’re almost all centered around events that entwine with the campaign. An example is Decapitation, an operation that’s undertaken at the same time as the game’s fifth campaign mission, Voidsong. To clear the Tyranid hordes for Titus and his squad, another group of Ultramarines have been tasked with eradicating a Hive Tyrant, effectively rendering the Xenos threat useless. You hear about the escapades of these supporting squads within missions, but it’s another thing entirely to actually be able to play them.

It is also crazy how high quality some of these are. Some rival the campaign missions in scale, scope, and ambition, offering many moments of spectacle that you don’t get in the campaign. It allows Saber Interactive to explore corners of the 40K universe that don’t get touched on during the campaign. They also aren’t too long as to outstay their welcome, and replaying them on higher difficulties mixes up enemy placement, resource numbers, as well as health and damage values.

Each of the six playable classes bring their own unique skill to use within Operations. Some are more support oriented, like the Tactician, who can make use of the Auspex to mark targets and weaken them for nearby allies. Other classes are much more selfish, like the Vanguard, who’s equipped with a grappling hook to get in and out of the fray quickly. Each is limited in what they can bring in each of their loadouts, so they feel different from one another outside of just their abilities. Each of these weapons has unlockable variants that scale into the higher difficulties, so there’s lots to chase.

It can’t be overstated how much fun this mode is with friends. Ash Wayling of WellPlayed and myself spent many hours getting in the trenches. Slaying out with each other was a complete blast, and finding ways to overcome tough encounters through smart use of class abilities and resources was always rewarding. I can only imagine how crazy some of the higher difficulties get, especially with a party of three, but it’s the kind of action and chaos you’ll absolutely want to revel in.

Space Marine 2’s multiplayer mode, Eternal War, is also a great time. It’s a fairly standard offering as far as competitive multiplayer goes, but it fills a void left by the likes of Gears of War. It uses the same classes from Operations and has a similar degree of flexibility in weapons loadouts. While most classes feel on par with one another, there are a few that feel a bit on the weaker side, especially with the low time to kill in the current sandbox.

Some balancing woes aside, the overall sandbox is fun to play around with and the game modes presented here play to the strengths of the game’s combat. It’d be nice to see something more complex on the mode front, but a slew of great maps and the promise of more on the way means Eternal War is a worthwhile offering at launch. There’s very little not to love here if you enjoy the campaign and Operations, and it’s a fun excuse to spend more time in the world of 40K if you love some simple, no frills attached competition. It’s also just so cool to play as Chaos.

As always, though, fashion is the true endgame. Space Marine 2 is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this trend. Each class can be customised, from armour pieces and decals, right down to individual colours of trimmings and accents on armour. You could spend hours customising one of these classes, let alone six. There are so many different Space Marine Chapter colours available as well, including the ability to customise individual armour pieces separate from one another.

Even if you aren’t a fan of 40K and you don’t know all of the Chapters and what they entail, it is just so damn cool to be able to craft your own Space Marine. If you can think of it, you can likely do it. Some of the coolest cosmetics are restricted to a high number of Operation completions, offering a way to showcase your mastery of a particular class to other players. There’s so much longevity and flexibility in how this can be approached, I can’t wait to see what the internet comes up with, and I suspect the motivation to unlock the best looking gear will drive me to keep playing.

Part of the reason customisation is such a success in Space Marine 2, is thanks to the sublime presentation of this whole package. This game is presenting constant eye candy. It felt like every frame was screenshot worthy no matter where I looked. It’s positively dripping with 40K’s grimdark aesthetic, offering unique visual directions that occupy different corners of this universe. Nowhere is this better seen than in the battle barge, Space Marine 2’s hub area that feels so much bigger than it actually is thanks to all the set dressing and detail on show.

Where Kadaku is a muddy, dense jungle planet packed with Tyranids, Avarax is a once-glorious Hive World that has quickly buckled under the weight of the Xenos invasion. The undefeated standout is Demerium, a blue and purple tinged battlefield of a war long-since passed, its earth shaking again under the rumblings of war. The enemy density is also insane, with Tyranids flooding into arenas in literal waves, clawing to climb up walls as they clamber over each other with little regard for one another.

It all runs so smoothly as well. This game gets so chaotic at times, there can be so much going on at once, it’s impressive that it doesn’t buckle under its own weight. My PC was able to comfortably support the game on high settings with no issues. While I’m not sure how consoles will fair, it has been confirmed they’ll support multiple modes at launch. Even if you opt for the regular performance mode, be sure to check the game out at its highest graphical output – it’s a true technical marvel.

I don’t think it’ll surprise many that Space Marine 2 is good. The first game established a winning formula that would’ve done the job with current production values and some multiplayer modes thrown in for good measure. What is surprising, is that Space Marine 2 goes far beyond that, offering a tightly paced campaign, truck loads of meaningful progression, top-tier production values, and most importantly, a whole lot of superhuman slaying. It’s made for one of 2024’s best games, and an undoubted game of the year candidate.

The post Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Review – The 40K Game You’ve Always Wanted appeared first on Press Start.

Foldable devices have always appealed to me, someone who spends a lot of time on their phone ranging from casually scrolling TikTok or watching YouTube videos to answering a good amount of emails or writing articles on the go, but no device has ever quite nailed it until now. I’m a pretty staunch iPhone user day-to-day, just purely because of the ecosystem, but the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is the closest an Android device has come to pulling me way from iPhone – it’s that good

Whilst Google released the original Pixel Fold last year (it didn’t make its way to Australia), this device has almost nothing in common with it outside of the fact that it’s a foldable. The dimensions have totally changed with the device being taller and less wide which makes it less awkward in both folded and unfolded forms.

On the outside, the phone has a 6.3-inch OLED Actua display with a 1080 x 2424 resolution. Whilst using the phone closed, it feels like you’re using any standard smart phone, which is a good thing. It doesn’t feel compromised at all even in closed position, which is great for quickly scrolling social media or replying to a text message.

With the phone opened, you have a massive 8-inch OLED Super Actua internal display with an almost perfectly square 2076 x 2152 resolution. Both screens are hugely improved on the original with a peak brightness of 2700 nits and 120hz refresh rates. The crease in the internal display is almost not noticeable with the device laying totally flat as well.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is the thinnest foldable on the market, taking the crown from the Z Fold 6 and that goes a long way to making this a great phone to use in both positions. When closed, it doesn’t feel too bulky, being just a little bit thicker than most standard phones, and when you’ve got the display opened, the size, weight and dimensions give you a bunch of extra screen real estate without feeling awkward to hold, improving on a lot of other foldables that I’ve used.

Google has done a great job in making the transition seamless between both displays and I’m sure this is thanks to the flagship Tensor G4 processor. There wasn’t a single time that I opened the phone up and didn’t have exactly what I was looking at on the outer display and visa versa. Launching apps into split screen works perfectly, and there’s a bunch of improvements made for tabletop mode, where you can fold up the phone and place it down for easy scrubbing of YouTube videos and such.

My favourite use of the 9 Pro Fold was for gaming, where you can really take advantage of that gorgeous 8-inch display to really immerse yourself in any game. Games such as Disney Speedstorm can also take advantage of the Tabletop mode so that you can treat the system like a Nintendo DS in clamshell mode, with what you’re playing appearing on the top screen whilst the bottom screen has your controls. There’s a number of other games that let you do this too, and I hope it becomes the norm.

There’s a number of great features that take advantage of the inner and outer screens at the same time with Live Transcribe letting you dictate on the inner screen whilst someone stands on the opposite side to see what you’re saying and talk back, there’s a really cool photo feature called ‘Made You Look’ which puts a number of cute animations on the cover display for children so you can get their attention whilst gaming.

Obviously though, one of the best parts of a foldable is the fact that you can use the outer screen to look at yourself whilst you taking selfie photos using the good lenses, and that’s super intuitive here too. I will say though, if there’s one thing that stops this from being a perfect device, it is the cameras, and that’s not because they’re bad, but because it’s a bit of a shame that they’re a little bit of a step down from the 9 Pro, especially given it’s in the same range.

In saying that, what is on offer here is still absolutely fantastic. You’ve got the same 10MP selfie cam on the external display and internal display (down from 42mp on the 9 Pro), a 48MP main lens (down from 50MP on the 9 Pro), and 10.5MP ultrawide and 10.8MP telephoto lens (down from 48MP for both on the 9Pro).

Still all absolutely fantastic cameras that take great photos with great vibrancy and it’s hard to go wrong with the shots that they produce, but I’d have loved to have seen the same lenses that we got on the 9 Pro which I reviewed a few weeks ago and absolutely loved. I also don’t think the camera bump is as nicely handled as it is on those devices either.

With the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, you get pretty much all of the same AI features that came with the standard 9 Pro XL. Building on the likes of Magic Eraser, Add Me is a brand new feature that essentially allows you to add the photographer into the photo with a second pass. This basically guides you through the process of taking a photo, then telling you to line it up in the exact same spot to add the person that took the first photo. It works super well, and whilst it once again raises the question of what is reality and what is the purpose of a photo, it does its job well if you want to use it.

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Magic Editor from last year has some improvements now as well, with the ability to reframe photos which is super helpful for turning photos into different dimensions, or maybe you want a more zoomed out image. Again, it just depends what you’re wanting to use it for, and does make you question reality at certain points, but it works really damn well. You can also re-imagine photos in Magic Editor, which is basically just using AI to re-write parts of the photos to change the scenery which is a lot of fun to play with.

Probably the biggest addition of AI comes in the way of the assistant, which now uses Gemini out of the box. I hadn’t used Gemini too much, but these devices come installed with it as the main assistant as well as one year free of Gemini Advanced through Google One AI Premium ($32 a month after that) which allows you to use Gemini Live.

I was really impressed with how quick and responsive Gemini was as a regular assistant but it was Gemini Live that made me a believer in AI. This basically allows you to pull up a responsive AI bot that is responsive and takes into context what you’ve said and also remembers past conversations, so that it’s a lot more natural than your usual assistant. Testing with the likes of my partner and mother, we were all super impressed with how natural it was and what it knew about the variety of things that we were asking it.

It’s quite clear that there’s still a bit to go with this though, as it definitely could do better at integrating into other apps, and there was also times that it wouldn’t remember previous things that we’d spoken about which breaks the experience a little, but when it works, it feels quite magical and like a legitimately great use of AI that could change the way we use our phones.

Pixel Screenshots is another great new app that utilises AI to make your life easier. I’m somebody that takes a lot of screenshots (over 65,000 to be exact), and this app basically helps you not only sort these and create labels for your screenshots, but you can literally just ask it to search for something and it does a great job of finding it.

All-in-all, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold does a lot of things extremely well, and I think it’s a great second attempt at this category for Google, that can only get better with time.

The post Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review – Folding Perfection appeared first on Press Start.

It hasn’t been a year yet, but Capcom still seems fit to grace us with yet another Ace Attorney collection. But this is an exciting time for Ace Attorney. It marks the first time that all the games are available on modern platforms, and with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, the first time that the second game in the very good spin-off series has been available outside of Japan. But while we’ve been arguably bombarded with regular Ace Attorney releases, the quality has yet to falter. The same can be said with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, which continues Capcom’s trends of honouring the past while hopefully laying the groundwork for the future.

The Investigations games are different to the other Ace Attorney titles. In Investigations, you play Miles Edgeworth, a rival to Phoenix Wright and one of the best prosecutors in the country. While he’s had a more villainous appearance in the earlier games, the Investigations games do a better of fleshing out his character with more depth than previously seen. They’re also set between the large time gap between the third and fourth Ace Attorney games, leaving a lot of opportunity to bring back characters and see how they interact with Edgeworth. However, the major difference is much more significant – the Investigations games rarely enter the court.

While both games in this collection have unique features, they share a similar structure comprised almost entirely of investigating. However, it’s more involved and interactive than the other Ace Attorney games. You directly control Edgeworth, moving him around crime scenes, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses and potential suspects. It feels more “playable” than just tapping through menus as you would in an Ace Attorney game, though it is a much more linear experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, to be clear, but there is a different flow of progression compared to other Ace Attorney games.

The more involved investigations are complemented by new mechanics, which only improve the experience. Edgeworth’s assistant, Kay Faraday, can use her gadget, Little Thief, to create crime scenes in real life. In the second game, she can view the same crime scene at different points, adding more depth to the investigations. It’s nonsense technology, of course, but you have to go with it. Including Little Thief is a good way to break up the investigation segments, though, like some other aspects of the second game, I wish it was used more throughout.

But besides investigations, the crux of the drama will come from arguments that you’ll have with the people involved in each case. These segments stand in for the courtroom segments, as you’ll use evidence to point out any contradictions in what people tell you. I have always had concerns about whether these moments might be less exciting, given that there are fewer objections flying around, but thankfully, they’re still just as good. Some of the revelations in both the Investigations games, especially in the final case of each, are some of the most shocking in the series.

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But it wouldn’t be a game about Edgeworth without an extra layer of deduction, and that’s where the Logic system comes in.  Designed to perfectly represent Edgeworth’s calm and cool sense of deduction, it lets players piece together information to form conclusions. Said conclusions can then be used as defacto evidence in arguments to make opponents buckle. The Logic system is an excellent addition for a few reasons. For one, it allows Edgeworth (and the player) to keep track of any lingering mysteries discovered. But it also adds an almost endlessly satisfying gameplay loop of connecting information.

The Logic system is built upon in the second game, Prosecutor’s Gambit, with the addition of Mind Chess. When Edgeworth is in a significant argument during a case, the argument is visualised as a game of chess. Similar to cross-examinations from the previous game, you, as a player, must determine the right “move” to make when verbally speaking with an opponent. Sometimes, not making a move (ie. Staying silent) is the better option, too. The timer in these moments makes things especially tense, which might put off some players, but the heightened tension makes them incredibly exciting. Though, like I mentioned before with Little Thief, I’d love to see more of Mind Chess. It can also be too obvious which answers are right.

But while these changes to the formula are obvious, the less obvious question is how these games play. Resoundingly, they are well worth your time. Both games are built around strong stories that grab you from the beginning, standing beside the mainline games with no issue. I adored the first game when it was released for the DS, but replaying it, I can’t deny there are some pacing issues with some of the cases, especially in the final case where the final contraction (while shocking) feels incredibly protracted.

The second game is often talked about as one of the greatest in the series, and, having finally played it, I can see why. The villain is great, the twists are shocking, and the pacing is a considerable step above the original game. Even more so, the overarching narrative is incredibly engaging and easily a step above some mainline games. I’ll obviously not explain much more for the sake of spoilers, but it’s quite frankly criminal that Prosecutor’s Gambit wasn’t officially available to the wide audience until now. It is well worth your time.

Besides the obvious, the collection also includes the typical fare you’d expect from an Ace Attorney collection. A new set of achievements or trophies, a music player, a character viewer, and an art gallery round out an already complete package. The art gallery is particularly cool, allowing you to examine art from the episodes in greater detail. The character viewer feels like a step back from Apollo Justice, lacking the “create your own” mechanics that the collection had. But it’s a nice inclusion that, as always, makes this compilation feel all-encompassing.

Though, easily, the most significant overhaul the games have received is visual. The original game featured a cute pixel-based sprite style, zooming into the better-detailed portraits whenever characters spoke to each other. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection features a new high-definition art style that closely mimics the style of the portraits when in conversations instead. The completely redrawn visuals are great, making the animations look much more lively and consistent with the other Ace Attorney games. That being said, such a dramatic change is bound to upset purists, so the original art style is selectable, too, so both camps are catered for here.

And it’s just as well, too, as, like previous collections, Ace Attorney: Investigations Collections follows in similar footsteps to the previous collections Capcom has been putting out. It’s far and away the best way to experience these games; no deductions needed.

The post Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Review – A Deductive Delight appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been a big year for pro controllers with the likes of the DualSense Edge, PlayStation’s first pro controller launching earlier this year, but that hasn’t stopped the likes of Nacon wanting to get into the market with its new Revolution 5 Pro controller.

Straight off the bat, the best thing about the Nacon Revolution 5 Pro controller is that it has hall effect analogue sticks and triggers. This technology uses magnets to detect movement meaning that it won’t break down over time, meaning it should be impossible to develop stick drift over time.

This is without doubt the most customisable controller to date. In the box, you’ve got two d-pads, three different analogue stick cap options, rings to change the distance of travel for each analogue stick, three different weights that can be inserted into each side of the controller as well as a storage case for the accessories as well.

You also get a charging case for the controller as well as another one for the accessories, a super long braided USB cable as well as a cleaning cloth for the controller, so it’s a really, nice high-end offering.

Much-like Sony’s own controller, you’ve got a trigger stop adjustment as well as four back buttons that can be customised either on the controller or by an app that’s available on PC or Mac (phone app is coming later), but this is where the issues start to creep in.

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Much like in the headphone space, PlayStation limits a lot of the really fantastic integration to its own products, which means that the customisation on controller does feel a little bit clunky as there’s no on-screen menus to navigate (like you can with the DualSense Edge) and whilst you can switch between four profiles on the controller, again, unless you’re connecting to the app, it’s a little bit clunky to know what’s been set to what.

Similarly, whilst the controller does feature vibration functionality, when you’re using the controller with your PS5 (as opposed to PS4 or PC), you won’t get any vibration at all as the PS5 uses the special haptic functionality, and obviously the same goes for the adaptive triggers as well. On a more minor note, because it uses a USB dongle, you can’t turn the PS5 on with the controller either.

As far as battery life goes, you can expect roughly 8-10 hours depending on whether you have things like the RGB lighting on as well as vibration. When connected using the included dongle, you can expect a latency of about 6m/s which is super great.

All of these things are a massive shame because the controller itself is really fantastic. It feels great in the hands and with the ability to change weight and customise buttons, it is actually better than the DualSense Edge in a lot of places, but it’s a little bit harder to recommend if you’re using it solely for the PS5.

@shannongrixti

Nacon’s $300 PS5 Pro controller has more customisation options than any other PS5 controller on the market #PS5 #PS5ProController #NaconRevolution5Pro #Nacon #PlayStation5 #Tech #Gaming

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

Interestingly enough, you can connect an included external microphone which actually performs pretty well and you can also connect a Bluetooth headset to the controller for audio purposes with volume able to controlled wit the touchpad.

All-in-all, the Nacon Revolution 5 Pro controller can be recommended for those wanting a pro controller that works across PS5, PS4 and PC. Currently, it doesn’t have an Australian release date, but it’s priced at $200 USD ($330 AUD).

The post Nacon Revolution 5 Pro PS5 Controller Review – Highly Customisable With Limited PS5 Functionality appeared first on Press Start.

When Nintendo announced remakes of Famicom Detective Club, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that both games stood the test of time in terms of narrative but also looked great. It was a fun experiment, but I thought Nintendo was done, and we’d never see them again. Thankfully, they weren’t done, and they were actually preparing us. The newest game in the series, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, is easily the best and not like anything you’d expect, especially from Nintendo.

Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is the first game in over three decades, but takes place a short time after the events of The Missing Heir. You play as a pair of detectives investigating the murder of a high schooler, found dead with a paper bag over his head with a smile drawn on it. Curiously, the murder bears some similarities to a string of murders that occurred eighteen years ago, which themselves formed the basis of a local urban legend. The detectives must investigate the murders and discover if or how the crimes are linked.

While I enjoyed The Missing Heir’s more straightforward whodunit approach, Emio feels much closer in tone to The Girl Who Stands Behind. The plot follows similar threads – a mysterious and potentially supernatural crime of the past influences a crime in the modern day. But as Emio progresses, it’s obvious how this instalment differs from the previous two games. For one, it’s easily the darkest of the Famicom Detective Club games, but I can’t say much more without ruining things, so I’ll leave it there.

But while the presentation is undeniably slicker, Emio is still largely the same as the games that came before it. A pure visual novel, its core gameplay loop is similar to the investigation sequences of games like Ace Attorney, albeit much more simplified. You’ll travel to different areas, speak to people to gather intel and investigate crime scenes for clues.  It’s very typical adventure game fare, which is by no means a bad thing.

That said, being a modern game of the series unshackled by the baggage that a remake naturally brings, I hoped that Emio would do more than tell another story. It doesn’t help that Emio inherited the quirks of navigating the original two games. The game splits how you interact with the world into a menu comprising options like “Call/Engage”, “Speak/Listen”, “Think”, and “Look/Examine”. And while they all are ostensibly different actions, the way conversations flow can sometimes feel particularly off.

As said before, I had a similar issue with the older Famicom Detective Club games here. How much that issue was an issue for you will really inform how you feel about Emio. It definitely happens less here, though, which is nice, but it still happens. Once, I had to move a conversation forward by selecting “Think”. Thinking is a way to hear your character’s inner monologue, and there is often an (optional) highlighted word that will suggest what you do next. But even if you know what to do next, Emio won’t progress the conversation once you select Think. It can be annoying, especially if you’re several steps ahead of the characters in the story.

One time, I had to select “Think” to continue a conversation where no actual “thinking” took place—the second I selected it, the character in front of me would continue the conversation. No thinking occurred, and there was no indication of whether I had to do it. It can be a tad frustrating, but it is by no means deal-breaking.

Eventually, if you don’t choose to use the word highlighting system, you’ll still eventually “adapt” to the sense of logic that the writers employ. Thankfully, Emio is a very linear story, so it takes a lot of work to get stuck at any point, as you might in the Ace Attorney games. However, the fact that there is no formal punishment for making a wrong deduction removes some of the tension from the whole affair.

But these issues are drops in the ocean that I’m willing to forego, given how strong and engaging the story is in Emio. It knows exactly when to introduce the right amount of doubt and red herrings to keep you guessing from beginning to end. While the first third feels a bit slower than the rest, the story picks up quickly and hits the ground running after that point. You’ll most likely discover the final reveal before the characters do. Still, the game has one final surprise that has yet to be done before in a Famicom Detective Club game that makes it well worth playing until the end.

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But even if you work things out quickly, so much of Emio’s appeal is rooted in the drama more than the mystery itself. Both of these aspects of the story come together as everything comes to a satisfying close, resulting in what I can only describe as a great payoff.

And even more surprising, there were times when I found Emio to be unnerving. I consider myself a seasoned horror veteran, so it was a welcome surprise when I found myself getting notably tense in the story. There are several sequences, too, where the game dials down the soundtrack and lets the text do the heavy lifting in establishing the horror, and these are easily my favourites from the story. The game, as a whole, does a great job of establishing Emio’s presence as the titular urban legend without seeing him much. So, when you eventually encounter him, it feels mythical and terrifying.

While I wish there was more to Emio regarding gameplay, it has kept the underlying mechanics that make it flow so well, no matter how you play it. Recaps are available to players whenever they load up their game, and almost every chapter has a “Review” system in which you recount your findings to your partner. It works as a great way to catch the player up, and even if you get something wrong, the game corrects you and progresses anyway. The notebook returns, too, allowing you to catch up or double-check any facts you might have forgotten at almost any point.

While a new font goes a long way in making Emio feel a lot more modern, the presentation remains just as slick as the remakes do. Employing a similar art direction, the game looks super crisp when things aren’t moving. When things move, it’s almost startling as these 2D images come to life in subtle but believable 3D animations. It does great work in bringing tension and livelihood to the dark and grittier scenes involving Emio himself. Still, it simultaneously brings so much character to yourself and Tachibana as they interact with each other, too.

The soundtrack is similarly filled with personality – while I’d have loved a wider variety of tracks to break up some of the conversations better, the music in Emio is well put together. Each track does a great job of adding atmospheric depth and sometimes even drama to key events, and as discussed earlier, sometimes horror. The voice work is entirely in Japanese, and while I’m not a native speaker, the acting feels natural and well-realised, too.

So while Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club doesn’t add much newness to the formula three decades on, it’s still well worth a look. It’s a testament to the team’s strong writing that after so long, they can craft a story rich with drama and intrigue that sits firmly beside (or even slightly above) the other games. And perhaps that’s just enough for now, but I can’t wait. I hope we’ll eventually see more of the Famicom Detective Club, hopefully, less than three decades later.

The post Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club Review – A Thrilling But Tragic Mystery appeared first on Press Start.

RPGs, especially those hailing from Japan, are no strangers to tropes and tradition. Series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon and plenty more all have their own recurring ideas, or share ideas with the genre, and some of the most memorable entries do well to play with or even subvert what fans expect going into a new game. Visions of Mana strikes a wonderful balance between the identity it’s inherited from its predecessor and the sheer amount of time between entries that’s seen many shifts in genre sensibilities.

To recycle a little of what I said in my preview, Vision of Mana – like the franchise’s other entries – builds on a lot of familiar themes and motifs (a Mana Tree, a legendary sword and so on) but is its own self-contained story with a new cast of characters on an entirely new adventure. In this particular world, all communities have been built around the nature and geography of eight distinct elements, and all are kept safe and prosperous by the mythical Mana Tree. The upkeep of said tree is reliant on a pilgrimage carried out every four years by an appointed group of “Alms,” each of whom represent a particular element, and under the protection of a Soul Guard. That responsibility now rests on Val, along with a steadily-growing entourage in what is initially the very same pilgrimage but quickly becomes something more as a series of events steers the group toward uncomfortable truths.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot more I’m willing to say about the specific beats of Visions of Mana’s story, because it’s all best experienced fresh. What I can say though, is the game does a markedly excellent job at leaning into its history and the stories that came before and inspired it while also posing deeper philosophical questions. Though it eventually veers back into tried-and-true swords and sorcery stuff, the game spends a good portion of its middle act exploring ideas of personal autonomy in the face of dogmatism and systems of faith, and does so in a way that feels completely contextual to the journey.

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Said journey is a globetrotting trip of about 30-35 hours for those just wanting to see the key story beats and “save the world,” but there’s plenty more to do besides and a lot more to discover about this curious world and those that live in it. I spent about 60 hours all up getting the absolute most out of the game, which impressively continues to expand all the way up to, and beyond, the credits. Occasionally-heavy narrative moments aside, there’s a degree of whimsy here that’s emblematic of the Mana series and makes existing in this world feel warm and inviting all the way through, and really encourages taking the time.

There’s definitely a huge tendency towards “fetch” style side quests, with most folks you meet seemingly having saved up all their worst errands to ask them of the one group in their entire world that is guaranteed to be doing something much more important. There are some enjoyable arcs off the beaten path though – like an ongoing quest series where you look for spots in the environment matching certain paintings. They’re not complex but they encourage you to really explore and find new angles and views, often taking me to places I wouldn’t have otherwise known were there. They also tend to highlight Visions of Mana’s most annoying adherence to a genre trope – ruining an otherwise very flexible fast travel system by forcing you to manually sail or fly between continents any time you want to leave the one you’re on.

The nuisances of travel aside, there’s an interesting rhythm to progression in this game, a lot of it coming down to the eight elements this world is built on. As you make your way across continents, meeting new Alms and acquiring each legendary “Elemental Vessel,” not only are you give new ways to traverse – like wind-powered platforms or bridges of light – but a wealth of new options to build out your party with Visions of Mana’s unique “class” system. Here, every character is capable of equipping any of the eight Elemental Vessels, essentially offering up eight entirely different classes per character, each with unique abilities, buffs, gear and overall look.

Admittedly, my first handful of hours with Visions of Mana had me concerned that combat was also going to be too repetitive, but as I got deeper in and gained access to all of the classes while also amassing a greater library of abilities it all started to click into place. See, in this game, how you perform in battle is just as much about how you compose your party as it is about the buttons you press in the moment. That might sound obvious for an RPG, but it’s truer here more than a lot of similar games I’ve played. Without the right combinations of characters, elemental vessels, ability seeds and gear it’s possible to be completely eclipsed by enemies even within or below your level range, and vice versa with the right stuff.

And rather than gently locking your party members into particular paths or archetypes, the game actively encourages you to constantly be switching classes around and experimenting with different combinations – on higher difficulties and in tricker fights it almost becomes a puzzle of studying the enemy’s affinities and move set and building the appropriate team around them. For those less inclined toward micromanaging various builds, there’s still plenty of room to “button mash,” especially on lower difficulties, but there’s so much satisfaction in gaming every system for the best possible outcome. Plus, your ultimate reward for mastering all of these classes is a huge amount of power and flexibility to create some truly cracked builds for your New Game+ run, really emphasising this game’s steady and incredibly satisfying power climb.

Simply running around each of the game’s distinct areas is rewarding in itself as well, not just in your efforts to acquire new gear and potential, or for the way it all factors into this economy of elements, but because they all look positively lovely. Visions of Mana has to be one of my favourite examples of art triumphing over technology in a game of this scope. The game doesn’t seem to be pushing a lot of fancy effects or middleware to achieve its lush, vibrant and dynamic environments – instead, it’s simply crafted with a huge amount of effort and care with a clear vision. At almost any point in the game you could stop, look out at your surroundings and see what looks like a gorgeous bit of concept art or something you’d see on the cover of a SNES RPG classic (I’ll let you imagine what that might entail).

It’s a great melding of the kinds of designs Mana fans will be familiar with and want to see in a new entry, with slightly more modern sensibilities and razor-sharp design. Going through all of the main party’s outfit variants for each class is especially delightful with some truly outlandish gear that’s as densely-embellished as the game’s environments. The unfortunate trade-off, at least in the PS5 version’s “Quality” setting, is that performance can suffer in busy scenes and battles. It still seems to be a 60FPS target, but there are moments where it’s far below that, making the “Performance” option worth the trade-off in fidelity.

But while the visual side of things is mostly splendid, the sound design in Visions of Mana is a little less of a success. Musically, it’s decent with some memorable themes and motifs scoring big moments of story, exploration and combat, balancing out a fair few otherwise-average pieces. The voice acting, too, is competent with plenty of well-matched and well-performed scripts, but suffers from a near-total lack of lip syncing to the English audio track. 

The biggest sin though, is the sheer amount of repeated lines when exploring or battling and the frequency in which they’re used. Val, for instance, has exactly two reactions to picking up a bit of Grizzly syrup – and he’ll utter either of them nearly every time you collect one, which is almost constantly. Switching your controlled party member every now and then somewhat mitigates it, but after 50-odd hours you’ll have heard some clips literally hundreds of times. I’m not kidding when I say I started hearing “Grrrizly!!” in my sleep. It’s not an uncommon criticism in these games, but it’s especially egregious here.

The post Visions Of Mana Review – A Dazzling Trip To The Mana Tree appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been almost four years since Game Science revealed Black Myth: Wukong to the world. A lot has happened in the industry in that time, most importantly for Game Science, is the increased success of triple A titles from the East. While Japan has always been a force to be reckoned with in gaming, countries like Korea and China had yet to tap into Western audiences in a big way.

That’s all changed in the last few years, with miHoYo’s live service behemoths shaking up the landscape of free to play experiences and Shift Up’s Stellar Blade also making its long-awaited debut earlier this year. This newfound audience coupled with some pretty impressive showcases painted Black Myth: Wukong as a technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5 with high-octane melee combat. The end result is an enjoyable experience that feels a bit lost in its muddled identity and frustrates in many aspects of its design.

The one thing I cannot fault Black Myth: Wukong for, even if I tried, is in its story, world, and characters. Even as someone who isn’t familiar with Journey to the West, it’s clear that Game Science have a deep appreciation for the source material and its impact on East Asian culture. Each of the game’s five main chapters is thematically rich, dripping with little story details and lore that’s always a joy to uncover. It certainly helps to have familiarity with the original works, but even an outsider can admire the artistry and faith with which its all presented.

Instead of retelling a story that’s been told in many formats over the years, Game Science positions Black Myth: Wukong as its own story supplemental to the original works. Long after Sun Wukong fell to the Celestial Court, a monkey of Mount Huaguo comes to be known as the Destined One. Tasked with collecting six Relics that pertain to each of Wukong’s six-senses, the Destined One sets out on a journey across China to bring the Monkey King back from his incapacitation.

The categorical highlights of the story are the utterly gorgeous animated cutscenes that serve as bookends to each of the game’s chapters. These pieces employ their own distinct animation style, offering a different visual treat as you close out a major portion of the Destined One’s story. From traditional Chinese paintings all the way through to stop-motion animation, Black Myth: Wukong keeps you engaged in its narrative with wildly imaginative and varied presentation. They also provide more context to the events and characters found in the related chapter, expanding the world and story in satisfying fashion.

There’s been a lot of comparisons thrown around to try and describe Black Myth: Wukong. From Dark Souls to the recent God of War games, it’s hard to properly pin down where Wukong fits on the spectrum of action games. I think that the most apt comparison is to Team Ninja’s recent titles, specifically Nioh, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Much like those games, the Destined One has access to a light attack combo string and heavy attacks. The key difference being that heavy attacks are charged and empowered with Focus, which is generated by successfully landing light attacks. You also have access to three distinct stances that change how the heavy attack behaves, but there’s no substantial evolution from there in terms of combos and weapon attacks. It’s all managed by a stamina system which dictates how often you can attack, roll, run, typical stuff if you’ve played a Souls-like before.

Where a lot of the combat flexibility comes in, is with Spells and core progression. As you move through the early chapters, the Destined One will gain access to a slew of Spells to use in combat. These are governed by a Mana bar separate to Stamina, and also go on cooldown once used. That’s because these effects are quite powerful. From freezing enemies in place for free hits with Immobilize to creating countless clones of yourself to wail on enemy on combat through A Pluck of Many, there are plenty of ways to pull yourself out of tricky situations when the going gets tough.

You also have Spirits and Transformations. The former are very similar to Yokai Skills from Nioh 2, allowing you to absorb enemy spirits, taking their own hard-hitting attacks into your own toolset. Transformations are similar to another Nioh 2 mechanic called Yokai Shift, letting you take the form of another being for a brief window. Not only does this transformation have it’s own health bar, but also has its own attacks that often inflict elemental ailments and are capable of dishing out big damage in fights.

All of these things plug directly into Black Myth: Wukong’s progression system. Levelling up nets you skill points which can be invested into many different trees that provide static and active upgrades to the Destined One. There is so much to choose from here, allowing you to experiment with builds that focus on different stances and build goals even if you’re always doing the same dance in combat. It helps that you can respec these points at any time to trying something new, affording a level of flexibility in how you approach combat that isn’t often seen in these kinds of games.

Another creative stroke that plays into builds is how Black Myth: Wukong handles its healing. Not unlike Souls, the Destined One has a gourd with a set amount of drinks per rest. It can of course be upgraded to increase its capacity, but it can also be customised to change its effect. You can choose what kind of Drink to fill the gourd with, fundamentally altering how each sip heals you. You can go for a Drink with a front-loaded healing burst, or one that offers less on initial consumption, but ultimately heals for more over time. You can also add Soaks into these drinks to improve your stats or resistances upon using a drink, further deepening the customisation.

Because there isn’t much going on beyond weapon combos and dodging in the moment-to-moment combat, there’s a lot riding on enemy variety and encounter design. Black Myth: Wukong is a bit of a mixed bag in this regard. There are a load of unique enemies to contend with here, steadily rolled out across the different chapters. The main issue is that they aren’t really placed with much rhyme or reason. The exploration of areas between bosses often feel phoned in and arbitrary in that regard, leaving much of the focus on those tentpole encounters.

Bosses overall fair much better. They’re incredibly cinematic, awe-inspiring in scale, and some offer some genuine challenge that I got a thrill out of overcoming. There’s also a ludicrous amount of them for a game of this type, even more shocking is just how high quality some of them are given the sheer number of them. Not all are made equal, though. A few have attacks or mechanics that can feel unfair, there’s myriad hitbox issues, and the camera doesn’t like to cooperate at the best of times. It means that chapters constantly bounce between some very high highs, and some frustrating lows.

It’s difficulty is also wildly inconsistent. The first chapter has a pretty steady curve that the game fails to maintain in its subsequent levels, often throwing easy boss after easy boss at you until the challenge suddenly spikes, roadblocking you for the near future. I’m all for a challenge in these kinds of games, but it often feels like Black Myth: Wukong is scared to commit to going full Souls-like. What’s more mind-boggling is that there’s no way to change the difficulty, so those who are less accustomed to Souls-like tendencies are in for a rude awakening if they’re expecting an experience more akin to God of War.

If there’s one Souls-like element that Black Myth: Wukong absolutely nails, it’s exploration and secrets. There are plenty of opportunities to venture off the beaten path, especially in later chapters. These detours are almost always rewarded with boss fights, side quests, gear, upgrade materials, and more. It’s always worthwhile to poke your head around the corner to see what might be hiding in the corners of Black Myth: Wukong’s world. Few games manage to evoke the sense of discovery and elation when you solve the game’s many mysteries.

The only real issue with this stuff, is that the game often struggles to define where level boundaries start and end. Each area looks and feels organic, which is a real treat to look at, but often means you’re met with invisible walls or unclimbable surfaces despite other similar geometry being traversable. Coupled with the lack of a map of any kind, and Black Myth: Wukong can often feel labyrinthian and restrictive in how you explore its environments. The final chapter in particular really suffers due to this, as it adopts a much more non-linear design with nothing to guide you in the right direction.

Being the next big technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5, there’s been a lot of anticipation for Black Myth: Wukong’s production values. I’m happy to report that this game far exceeds many of the expectations set by prior trailers and demos, making incredible use of Unreal Engine 5’s strengths in tandem with an art style that’s all too fitting for this kind of game.

It is consistently packed with detail, from the individual detail of each hair strand on the Destined One to the wildly imaginative design of the creatures you’ll encounter on your journey. Each area brings its own environment, colour palette, enemy designs, and overall visual aesthetic, delivering a swathe of diverse and detailed areas. It feels truly otherworldly in a way that few games do. While I can’t speak to the performance on PlayStation 5, the PC version held a steady framerate, even on my mid-range rig, which is very impressive given the sheer level of visual fidelity on display here.

Black Myth: Wukong might not be the definitive game of the year candidate most were hoping for, but it’s undoubtedly another feather in the cap of triple A games coming out of the East. If this is just the first step for Game Science in a franchise or other games like this, it’s a very solid foundation, and I’d be very excited to see what else they can do if the studio took another crack at this sort of experience.

The post Black Myth: Wukong Review – An Inspired Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Favourable or not, a review is unlikely to change the present discourse around Concord. It may already be too late for the ambitious, PVP first-person shooter — and the debut release from the new PlayStation first-party studio, Firewalk Studios. The internet seems to have already made up its mind.

Concord, as a reminder, is the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque hero shooter first announced at a PlayStation showcase last year. It’s the latest iteration of PlayStation’s live-service push, albeit with an emphasis on narrative with weekly story vignettes. A beta for the game occurred some weeks ago and was met with a middling reception.

Several factors might explain the poor reception. The announcement received backlash for leading with the narrative elements before revealing it was a hero shooter. An understandable scepticism surrounds PlayStation’s much-critiqued shift in strategy towards live-service titles. The $60 price tag attached to the multiplayer-only title stands in stark contrast to the free-to-play model adopted by many of Concord’s competitors.

It’s a shame. Concord is a nicely presented, well-designed and surprisingly unique competitive hero shooter. The decisions holding the game back seem more strategic blunders than the fault of the developers. Speaking to them recently, they tow the party line whilst speaking ever so passionately about the game and world they’ve built.

They should be proud, as any developer should. Spending the majority of the weekend playing the game, I find myself writing this eager to play more even with its shortcomings.

Concord’s design is a unique twist on the hero shooter genre. Rather than pointing players towards a single character — and ‘maining’ said character — you are actively encouraged to flick between a few mid-match.

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Different classes of character (or Freegunners, as they’re called) award Crew Bonuses, awarding perks to each you select thereafter. Play as Emari and get increased healing. Then play as Lennox, you’ll keep increased healing and add improved weapon range. Switch to IT-Z and get both bonuses, plus improved mobility. Every character is enjoyable to play and a meaningful addition to a crew.

Assembling a crew and putting a plan into action is immensely rewarding. I often started a match as Roka picking up some quick elims whilst getting a mobility buff, before switching to Haymar and improving my range. That allowed me to play Emari without as significant a penalty to her mobility as a tank, and better range on the minigun.

When it all comes together, combat is super rewarding and produces some tense, competitive matches. Each character’s loadout is varied but equally versatile, the gunplay is tight, the dodge makes for handy last-minute getaways, and the mad dash to a health pickup creates some tense cat-and-mouse moments. Certain the moment-to-moment gameplay is the game’s strong suit.

Been playing a tonne of Concord this weekend and enjoying it thoroughly! Here’s a tidy 7 elimination streak playing as Lennox ?? pic.twitter.com/EDcn96eaHl

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 25, 2024

For now, the game has six modes grouped into three playlists: Takedown (team deathmatch), Trophy Hunt (kill confirmed), Area Control (domination), Signal Hunt (hardpoint), and the no-respawn modes Cargo Hunt (search and destroy) and Clash Point (king of the hill).

Plotting out which characters you’ll select in different phases of the match, across different modes, adds an interesting layer of strategy that makes the game deeper than it appears at face value. The team at Firewalk are right to compare it to a trading card game in terms of planning out late-game plays by carefully selecting the cards (or characters) you play first.

Frustratingly, the game does a poor job of explaining this mechanic. Those without the attention span to look beyond a Freegunner’s loadout and abilities might miss one of the more interesting elements of the game.

The added tutorial section to the game post-beta doesn’t do enough to explain it but a welcome addition to the game to onboard new players. Concord seems rather approachable for newcomers to the hero shooter genre.

For now, however, the game feels light on content. Granted it’s only the first week, but over a couple of evenings I completed my weekly, seasonal and variant challenges, leaving me with little consequential to progress until the weekly reset.

Of course, you could continue ranking up your Freegunners and your overall Reputation level, but often there’s not much of a carrot being tangled.

Progression feels a little unrewarding. None of the skins or other customisations you could unlock excited me. Even if they did, how you unlock any particular item is not explained. You can only ever see your next unlock and must wait until you complete that to see what’s next.

Uninteresting unlocks seem to be a consequence of character design that prioritises recognisable silhouettes over player expression. Granted, it works well on the battlefield; at a glance, you can see who’s coming at you and adjust your approach accordingly. Comparing it to another hero shooter though, Apex Legends did such a great job of offering interesting character and weapons customisations without confusing.

Concord lacks a little personality. An effort is no doubt made but like an over-enthusiastic guy at a party trying a little too hard to be your friend. There’s a heavy-handedness to the delivery that irks me. Given that you can skip straight past them, I expect these vignettes to do something rather special to earn the view.

An introductory cutscene and the first week’s vignette favour Lennox over the others. It’s early days sure, but there is little to showcase the characters out of the box. The rest of them have a single throwaway voice line repeated upon selecting them in a match and touches of dialogue in-game. The only one I can say is particularly memorable is Roka chanting “Roka, Roka, Roka” after running up a streak.

What the game lacks in charisma, however, it makes up for in art direction. I adore the 70s sci-fi aesthetic; the maps, characters and weapons are all distinctive but fit together. It carries over to the UI and sound design too. Bar a couple of hiccups in the framerate and menus sometimes not loading, it’s a smooth experience with the level of polish you would expect from a first-party release.

PlayStation has been eager to promote the world of Concord in the marketing of this new IP. I hope Firewalk Studios gets the opportunity to explore it further, but for now, it’s not terribly impactful. Presently it feels like a missed opportunity to set up each match with little than some text suggesting “a rival crew is challenging you.”

I’m eager to see more weekly vignettes, for however long Firewalk can justify doing so. Hopefully, surprising stories emerge.

Outside of the vignettes, Concord’s lore is relegated to flavour text and the Galactic Guide. There are some interesting concepts tied up in this. The

Tempest at the far left side of the map is an unexplained phenomenon seemingly gobbling up and distorting parts of the galaxy. Gloom, one of my favourite maps in the game, has an asteroid in the centre that the Galactic Guide reveals was the focus of religious studies by an ancient species that once occupied the planet.

There’s interesting lore embedded in here that may influence how the game shapes and evolves. I foresee a day when The Tempest swallows up sections of the galaxy in an event akin to Fortnite’s major map resets.

Will a community be there to bear witness to these events? Concord wouldn’t be the first live-service game to turn things around should it pull it off, but the odds are stacked against it at this point.

Much has been said about Concord’s pricing. Truthfully, I can rationalise the $60 price tag: all that purchase Concord gets its 6 modes, 12 maps, 16 characters and unlocks, wrapped up in a premium, AAA package. If three-quarters of the unlocks were tied to a Battle Pass, I have little doubt there would be a negative reaction to that too.

It doesn’t differ all that much from Helldivers II where the first Warbond was included in the same $60 price. Given the opportunity, I’m sure Concord will introduce more paid elements too.

What I can’t rationalise regarding the price is the lack of competitive analysis. Going up against the likes of Overwatch, Marvel Rivals and Apex Legends — to name a few — fans of the genre are accustomed to the free-to-play model.

Saw someone do this in Concord and wanted to give it a go myself ? pic.twitter.com/9TuEkOuVGW

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 26, 2024

Without hype or an overwhelmingly positive word of mouth, it’s hard to imagine many giving the game the time of day. Adding Concord to the Game Catalogue reserved for PlayStation Extra and Premium subscribers seems like a no-brainer to me.

Content brings community, and a community brings content. It’s an almost chicken-and-the-egg scenario, or at least a delicate balancing act.

For a live-service game, I feel like the game lacks a little staying power. The core gameplay is engaging and is the reason I’m coming back for now, but I struggle to see what keeps me coming back long-term if not more modes, ranked lobbies and must-have unlocks.

From there, the full extent of Firewalk Studio’s ambitious vision can come alive.

The post Concord Review – Time To Change Course appeared first on Press Start.

Star Wars Outlaws lives and dies on its most marketed aspect– the scoundrel fantasy. Shifting the perspective character in the galaxy far, far away from sword-wielding monk or Rebel pilot to a humble street rat gifts Outlaws a unique viewpoint and gameplay systems with which to push and pull at the edges of an otherwise familiar universe. This is, we’re told, decidedly not an epic tale of light and dark but a more personal story as we get to put boots on the ground of Star Wars’ seedy underbelly, the syndicate-dominated world of illegal trade, fast lies, and faster Credits.

Clambering her way out from the lowest socioeconomic rung of the opulent Canto Bight, Kay Vess’ ambitions of a new life land her current one squarely in the scope of the emerging crime syndicate Zerek Besh. Having crossed its leader Sliro and landing on the wrong side of a much wider conflict, Kay and her pet bestie Nix commandeer a ship and lightspeed jump into scoundrel on the run before either of them are ready. For all her bluster, Kay is a small-town girl in a big-city world and with a looming Death Mark dogging her every move, she soon finds herself in the employ of the smooth-talking Jaylen and his impossibly hot droid, ND-5.

Structurally speaking Outlaws cribs a lot from classic heist films; a likeable everywoman needs to put together a crew of appropriately quirky specialists while navigating the competing needs of the crime world’s biggest and baddest. This loosely allows developer MASSIVE Entertainment a narrative framework to implement the patented Ubisoft Open-World loop as Kay can freely-ish move between a handful of planets, gathering up resources, taking on odd jobs, raiding bases, and planning the big final heist, you know, the one that’s gonna get them all out of the game for good this time.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING

Landing somewhere between the third-person action-adventure structure of Uncharted and the open-zone, immersive Star Wars vibe-extravaganza of Jedi: Survivor, Outlaws plots an uneven path through the galaxy. It is, on paper, exactly the kind of game fans have been clamouring for and will undoubtedly scratch a deep-seated itch for many. It’s also keenly aware of this though and subsequently seeks to craft an experience as frictionless and smooth as possible within the confines of its genre and tropes. Whether or not that gives you a bad feeling about this is up to you.

Outlaws, despite its scope and scale, is strangely hyper-focused. The limited range of action verbs it offers the player as Kay has a flattening effect on the game’s mechanical pacing, the final heist feeling systemically identical to the dozens of repeated Imperial bases you cleared while exploring and the tutorial mission you did way back when this all kicked off. It runs amok on the sense of scale in the galaxy, as everything from syndicate hideout to Imperial garrison to ancient waterways feels functionally indistinguishable thanks to heavy asset reused, linear climbing sections, and endlessly recycled hacking minigames that lose their charm before you’ve left your first planet. 

There is a small escalation of available tools as Kay meets Experts, named characters who exist to abstract traditional skill trees into ostensibly more immersive, free-form gameplay expressions. Say you want Nix’s senses to reach further or your stealth takedowns to impact heavies, instead of investing points in a menu now you’ll run odd jobs for palatable faces and complete arbitrary challenges while exploring. In many ways this is a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, especially given that the skills Experts offer aren’t linear and can be focused at your discretion. But even a glance at the full list of upgrades reveals how little Outlaws will offer you at your best and how much it has stripped from you to do so.

Some of it tracks with conventional modern RPG-lite design; health upgrades and additional inventory slots bolstering additional stealth options like smoke bombs. Others though seem to have been reverse-engineered for the sake of it; your speeder, a BMX hoverbike, is awkward when you first begin exploring but can be “upgraded” to feel like something you’d actually want to use, same with your ship the Trailblazer, which controls like a shopping cart full of rocks until a Glup Shitto says its time for it to start feeling fun. Throttling the player like this feels like an attempt to slow the inevitable realisation of how little Outlaws has to offer beyond its opening hours but it has the opposite effect, rapidly exposing the game’s dated and overly simplistic mechanics.

These rudimentary systems are truly put through their paces in the game’s middling level design and mission structure. Outlaws leans surprisingly hard on stealth, often placing you in instant fail scenarios that expose baseline limitations and odd pain points. Moving through a space, Kay can crouch to ostensibly muffle sounds, crawl through vents to avoid line-of sight detection, and use Nix to distract enemies and so on. You’ve seen these loops before, but Outlaws struggles to make them functional; I would frequently and loudly jog behind guards who remained blissfully unaware, those same guards just as likely to walk over a dead body as they were to react to it, though could clock me from a mile away if they decided it was time to.

This strains on moment-to-moment enjoyment and immersion but has a disastrous impact on segments that will boot you back five minutes if spotted even once. And it cascades from there with Outlaws as missions break requiring hard reloads, level design and garish UI fail to communicate basic directions, and enemy pathing and AI feel absent. It grates more often than it impresses but MASSIVE rightfully has a reputation in the shooter space for its work on the Division titles and there are moments in Outlaws that feel of a piece with this legacy. A stripped-back third-person shooter that forgoes a constant arsenal or cover for an on-the-fly vibe, Kay will wing it in skirmishes by picking up dropped enemy weapons with limited ammo so as to always return to her reliable sidearm. This concept truly thrives during the Empire’s WANTED threat as imperials bring Hell down on Kay in escalating and tense shootouts. 

It’s a nice bit of narrative and mechanical synergy and the blaster, a fully customisable weapon with several alternate firing modes and power modules, feels decent if never truly great. MASSIVE’s pedigree rears its head with some of the stray weapons you’ll find during combat, with a solid range of blaster types and a Star Wars arse shotgun that I would have killed to always have on me if just for how much fun it was to use. Kay can also whip out a thermal detonator or two but doing so is staggeringly clumsy, requiring you to hold left on the D-pad to access a submenu, fully halting movement as you leave the left stick cold in the process.  

So, Outlaws finds itself with two distinct playstyles but no real penchant for either, oscillating between fine and frustrating, basic and busted. For all the mindless vibes of the Far Cry games I could at least rely on their shooting to be consistently enjoyable and stealth systems, however stripped back, reliable. Outlaws offers no such smooth-brained ease, no flow state as Kay trips around scenarios that feel unpolished and fundamentally unengaging. To say nothing of the space combat that places you in some admittedly stunning nebulas but only provides barebones shield and laser management and a whole lot of dead air between where you jump into a system and the planet you’re trying to reach.

Comfort then is to be sought in the gorgeously rendered open-zones, the wheeling and dealing of syndicate powers and the loosely desirable “Star Wars” of it all. Here, at least, MASSIVE’s promise of immersion finds some solid ground as the assorted planets and environments Kay can meander through are universally impressive from both a technical and vibes perspective. The Snowdrop engine puts in the work as spaces feel appropriately dense and gritty, evoking the sights and sounds of Star Wars in ways that lull you into a serene and welcome sense of place, made whole by the game’s excellent emulation of camera lenses from the original trilogy.

Where Outlaws struggles is finding much meaning in this impressive tonal recreation. Not a single explorable hub location feels untouched by care but not a single one I found offers anything markedly different from any other, a series of beautifully crafted theme park attractions where the workers can sell you something and not much else. Kay can’t flip a table in a cantina and fire stray shots, civilian hubs deemed non-combat areas.

Likewise, the lauded Lens Project (MASSIVE’s use of Snowdrop tech to capture the specific lighting and image composition off 70s camera lenses) is a neat trick deployed to no discernible end as the game’s in-engine cutscenes showcase no cinematic flair and the pre-rendered ones move like YouTube fan films. It’s a long way to go to create a world so laboriously dedicated to Star Wars without bothering to understand that it wasn’t the camera or dirt that made those films what they were in the first place.

The syndicate system is ambitiously interesting at least, allowing you to define Kay’s loyalties through a series of choices big and small that impact your standing with any of the four major crime organisations in the game. So, as an ardent Solo: A Star Wars Story defender, I lent toward aiding the rise of Crimson Dawn and its queen Qi’ra, taking every chance I could to steal, frame, and sabotage other syndicates if it helped my CD pals. This raises a reputation bar and unlocks higher level missions (most of which have you doing the same stealth/shooting loop but with a dangerous tag on them for some reason), unique items and cosmetics, and how thugs in the world react to your presence. The syndicates themselves are relatively affable, from your iconic Hutts and Pykes to the strangely coded Ashiga Clan, an Outlaws original creation that leans all the way into Orientalism and has insectoid aliens espousing the “ronin” path and honour codes. 

It also falls apart in the face of Outlaws’ competing priorities as a linear narrative experience. You can spend hours roaming planets running missions for the syndicate of your choice but if the next major story beat requires that same syndicate and Kay to have a falling out, enjoy watching your Reputation decrease and your investment deflate. The final mission of the game jarringly remembers it ostensibly allowed you to align yourself with someone and folds in whichever clan leader you have the highest rating with at the time, which for me meant I went from a rather hardline rejection of a character to playing buddy with them within the space of two hours and no additional context.

It’s not hard to be sympathetic to the balancing act of wanting to allow players to fulfil their fantasy while also wrangling the narrative into a functional shape but Outlaws seems entirely unsure about how to go about this, let alone what it even wants to be by doing so. It’s not just that its composite parts might be incompatible when assembled, it’s a permeating disinterest in its own ideas and world, edges smoothed so nobody could possibly cut themselves and the game becomes incapable of drawing blood.  

Kay Vess is archetypal to a fault, a broad outline of a character whose lines are only beginning to be filled in as the game reaches its goofy narrative conclusions and sidelines her entirely (flowers for Humberly González who does her best to elevate the material). Much ado is made about the relationships that develop between the crew, especially Kay and ND-5, but missions rarely provide more interactivity than idle radio chatter and key moments rely heavily on telling you how much these characters have grown to care about each other rather than showing you in any meaningful way why, or even how, that came to be.

When I first played Outlaws earlier this year, I flagged the potential pitfalls of a game playing with this subject matter trying to remain largely apolitical in its writing, but Outlaws pushes this tension to breaking point with its narrative choices, firmly cementing it as an experience that wants the aesthetics of drama without bearing the weight of perspective or stance. I won’t spoil how things break bad but if you’ve seen any Star Wars media from the past five years you can hazard a pretty likely guess, Outlaws capitulating to fan service in such a convoluted way as to render its already flimsy “scoundrel fantasy” framing and overarching themes mute.

Something you could forgive on a game meant to be this broadly appealing at a scale of production this high if it weren’t for last year’s Jedi: Survivor, a game that Outlaws echoes in a disconcerting number of ways but lacks the perspective and refinement to stand shoulder to shoulder with. The best-case scenario is that this is MASSIVE’s Jedi: Fallen Order, a flawed but relatively ambitious experience that millions will play, and millions more will forgive so that a better version of it might see the light of the twin suns further down the road.

Impressive aesthetic charm and neat ideas aside, Outlaws is simply too unsure of itself to make much of a lasting mark. For a game so keen on living the scoundrel fantasy, Outlaws is oddly afraid to shoot first. 

The post Star Wars Outlaws Review – Far, Far Away From Perfect appeared first on Press Start.

Razer’s Kraken line is a bit of a staple when it comes to gaming headsets, typically putting very decent sound quality inside a classically-styled set of cans with well-rounded features. Nothing especially flashy, but incredibly solid. With the Kraken V4, that philosophy hasn’t really changed much, which is far from a bad thing. This is, through and through, a mid-range wireless gaming headset packing handy connectivity, good looks and great sound.

One of my immediate, positive impressions of the Kraken V4 was with its packaging, with the headset shipping in a much smaller and plastic-free box than I’m used to. It’s a really thoughtful design that makes for a great unboxing experience and shows that Razer’s put a lot of thought into sustainability that doesn’t sacrifice quality. In the box you get the actual headset, of course, along with a USB-C HyperSpeed wireless adapter, USB cable and USB-C extender, and of course a small instruction manual with a sheet of Razer stickers.

The headset itself is aesthetically quite similar to the previous generation/s, sporting an uncomplicated and not-unexpected design that screams “if it ain’t broke,” though there’s one significant difference that won’t be obvious until we actually power the headset on. Crucially, it’s well-built and feels just as premium as it looks, with lots of cushioning on the headband and ear cups that means I’ve been able to wear it for hours on end while testing it out and had little discomfort – perhaps a touch more weight and pressure than I’m used to from current my go-to, the Turtle Beach Atlas Air, but definitely one of the comfier gaming headsets I’ve had the pleasure of using.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $329.95 FROM RAZER

Accompanying the cups is a standard array of physical buttons for connection controls, power (a differently-textured button, which is a nice touch) a volume dial and the like, plus the fully-retractable “HyperClear” wideband mic, but it’s what’s adorning the outside of each of them that’s new in this iteration of the Kraken – a pair of 9-zone RGB lighting displays. Recently when reviewing gaming gear, especially that of Razer’s, I’ve praised the shift away from tons of gaudy RGB lighting, so my initial reaction here was apprehension. The moment I turned the headset on though, that all faded away. Sure, nobody wearing the headset is even going to see these in use but goodness does it look nice.

Of course, the important thing here is how the Kraken V4 sounds, and the good news is that it’s another excellent performer from the Kraken line with crisp, high-definition audio right out of the box from its 40mm TriForce Titanium drivers. My first use of the headset was with my PS5, playing a fairly eclectic range of games like Zenless Zone Zero, Visions of Mana and a bit of Fortnite, and it handled everything with a great deal of clarity and punch that’ll suit everything from cinematic RPGs to intense multiplayer shooters and in-between. A lot of headsets I’ve used on console have tended toward a deep low end or really sharp highs, but this one felt suitably balanced right away without missing any details in games, movies or even a bit of music while I was grinding Inter-Knot level for hours in ZZZ.

Of course, connecting the Kraken V4 to a PC opens up even more options, with a wealth of enhancements available in the Razer Synapse app from THX Spatial Audio to customisable sound profiles that can be saved to the headset, control over the quality and volume of the very decent wideband mic and of course plenty of settings to tweak that 9-zone RGB effect. Lighting aside, it’s much the same as what you’ll see from other Razer headsets on the software side, though the dual-connectivity of the 2.4GHz USB-C dongle and Bluetooth means you can game and take (or ignore) calls at the same time, which is handy.

To get even more out of the THX Spatial Audio features of the Kraken V4, you can also download a whole extra app from Razer that allows you to do some neat things like edit the position and volume of every virtual speaker and mess with similar EQ settings to the Razer Synapse app.

In terms of battery life, Razer rates the Kraken V4 at 70 hours without RGB lighting or 35 hours with it, both when using the 2.4GHz USB-C dongle. I’ve been using the headset for a few hours a day for just under two weeks and I’m only now reaching for the charger, so I’d say those claims are pretty much bang on.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this review stated that THX Support required an app at an extra cost. This is not the case.

The post Razer Kraken V4 Review – Good Looks And Great Sound appeared first on Press Start.

At a trivia night a few years ago, I shocked my teammates by correctly naming the winner of the first season of Big Brother Australia, which aired in 2001 (Ben Williams). The name stuck with me in part because I have a cousin with the same name, but also because I was really pulled in on those first few seasons of Big Brother. I watched diligently every weeknight. I tuned in for evictions, even convincing my mum to let me spend a few dollars on voting for the season winner. I’d sneakily watch the uncut Up Late version in my room, and sometimes the even later live stream, which was often just the housemates sleeping.

The Crush House, from Reigns and Card Shark developer Nerial, tapped right into those memories – and they really are memories rather than nostalgia, because the whole “knowing every little detail of a handful of people’s very public lives” part of the show never really went away. The Crush House is the hottest reality show of 1999, and you are the show’s sole camera operator, charged with catering to audience interest every day until, at the end of the week, you and the contestants are fed into a mysterious slide so that the whole process can begin again with a new cast.

It’s important, going in, that you not know too much about the “mysterious slide”, suffice it to say that there’s much more going on below the surface of The Crush House, both literally and figuratively. The metanarrative – which is foreshadowed enough that mentioning it is not a spoiler – is canny in its satire, but even if you bounced off it entirely, The Crush House would still be an interesting game. The moment-by-moment focus is very much on being the best cameraperson you can be, making great television and getting caught up in the house’s drama in the process. 

The housemates, who speak in an Animal Crossing-style gibberish that is subtitled into dialogue, are all distinct characters, and they all feel like they would have fit right into a late 90s reality show (albeit one with more progressive queer politics than most late 90s TV – you’ll be filming a lot of same-sex smooches). There are twelve potential residents, and for every five episode “season” you can pick a new combination of four of them. You’ve got your nerds, your jocks, your heartbreakers and hippies and contrarian shitheads, and it’s up to you to pick different combinations to see who clicks, who doesn’t, and which couples have enemies-to-lovers potential. The character dialogue is extremely fun throughout, and even if you’ll see quite a few repeated lines, each housemate feels distinctive and well-drawn.

Each day, you’ll be given a list of audiences who need to be appeased, with their requests popping up along the side of the screen as though they’re comments on a live feed. You’ll need to appeal to most or all of your audiences if you want to avoid cancellation at the end of the episode, which means aligning your shooting with what they want to see. Some of these audiences want very specific items to show up in the shot. They might love fish, or plants, or lighthouses. Pervier audiences might be into butts, or feet, or bikini bodies, so some days you’ll need to be a bit sleazier. Some audiences are more abstract in their desires. The elderly like to see people sitting down and being nice to each other, the film studies students love a dutch angle, and conspiracy theorists will read into certain background details of your shots and grow excited.

Playing the game means serving as director, producer, and camera person all in one. “Ayo and Emilie are fighting in their bathing suits near the pool! Run over and capture it! Bea is doing weights upstairs – the divorced dads in the audience will love it! Try to frame that potted plant behind Priscilla and Gunther while they’re making out!” It’s not a perfect system, though.  Some audiences will reduce the quality of what you’re filming. If fish fans tune in, you might spend most of your day in the room with the fish tank, for instance. There are some audiences I never figured out, or tended to only appeal to purely by accident, and it can be difficult to determine why certain audiences are or aren’t being pleased by what you’re capturing.  

On regular difficulty, missing your target results in a game over, forcing you to restart the current day until you get it right. The audiences will reset each time too, which can save you if you’ve encountered one of the most unfortunate quirks of the game’s design – it’s possible to get an audience split that is all but impossible to please with the selection of housemates you’ve picked for that season. Some audiences naturally synthesise around particular footage, but there were some days where I struggled to please anyone, let alone everyone.

The housemates will eventually start breaking the show’s “no communication between cast and crew” rule to make requests of you, and it soon becomes clear that completing these quests is the only way to progress the story. These tasks always involve capturing certain footage, and range from straightforward to quite intensive. Fitting them in around appeasing audiences can be a fun challenge, and they add an extra layer of tension to proceedings as you try to juggle everything.These tasks can break up the repetitive nature of the game, which I was thankful for: I spent many days capturing very similar footage, or running back and forth between a few areas to keep recapturing whatever objects the audience most wanted to see that day.  

The Crush House works because it’s satirising reality television without insulting it. There’s a core understanding here of how these shows are often very good television. It’s genuinely fun and interesting when two characters change their relationship dramatically over the five day season, and finding ways to line up shots that will please multiple audiences at once feels very satisfying. I can imagine watching The Crush House and finding it to be a fun guilty pleasure. But at the same time, the game’s narrative speaks to what it means to constantly be inundated with new celebrities, ones whose fifteen minutes of fame actually end after fifteen minutes.  

The Crush House isn’t the deepest satire, but it’s certainly clever. I’ve played games where you operate a camera before, but nothing quite like this – the actual entertainment value of the cast and the game’s good writing butts up against the ways you’re forced to make the show actively worse to please certain fans in a way that is pretty interesting and clever. 

To generate money to unlock new items around the house, which can prompt new interactions and please certain audiences or cast members,  you need to run ads. Switching the camera off automatically starts an ad roll; that might sound a bit dull, but the ads are one of my favourite parts of the game. Most of them are fun references to other beloved indie games. Without ruining the fun of discovery for anyone, the Immortality ad (for Maria’s Two of Everything soundtrack on cassette) is particularly great. Money accumulates quite slowly, but there’s a good sense of progression as you purchase new objects for your cast to admire and use.  

The Crush House might be a tad on the repetitive side, and occasionally a little unfair, but I found it just as compelling as those first few seasons of Big Brother. The allure of uncovering the house’s dark secrets is a strong pull, but when the credits rolled I found myself a little sad that there would not be a season 6 of The Crush House unless I started the game over again and did a little worse this time.

The post The Crush House Review – XOXO appeared first on Press Start.

I’m certain no good would come from typing this game’s title into Urban Dictionary, though that doesn’t change the fact that Pepper Grinder is already one of the year’s most slick, outstanding, high seas-adjacent platforming experiences. 

Pepper’s grinder, otherwise known as the big fuck off drill that rests on her arm, is, at first, a catch-all tool used for mashing and dashing alike. Bashing narwhal pirates into a pulp is certainly fun, but using the rotary implement to burrow into the sand, mud, and snow is the game’s absolute selling point. So good is the traversal via drill that it makes any moment you’re exercising traditional platform-hopping a little whelming.

Although it perhaps mirrors Ori’s burrow ability more than anything, it reminded me a lot of controlling the porpoise with purpose Ecco the Dolphin, whose head-first careening through infested waters is bound to be a core memory in the hearts and minds of SEGA kids. It feels as though the drill has a mind of its own as it bores a hole through the earth, pulling Pepper through its wake like a ragdoll. It feels tremendous, and the way the ideal path through is signposted by the buried gems you collect is a stroke of design genius. 

In fact, the level design in general sets a high bar. Although you don’t have vines to swing from like in Donkey Kong Country, bursting skyward with a well-timed rev from the drill provides a similar verticality that lets the team hide secrets and clever nooks just out of view of the screen. It’s reminiscent of the big ape’s adventure right down to the inexplicable floating cannons that fire you off, far beyond the periphery of the screen, to explore unseen wonders. 

Similar to the game’s surface-level Super Mario-like approach to its bare bones story, which is propelled forward by character grunts and enemy attire that suggests they’re overly protective pirates safeguarding their plunder from Pepper, the overworld feels reminiscent of just about any platformer from the nineties. In any other setting Pepper Grinder has a lush, colourful pixel art style that stands out despite the game’s breakneck speed, however its map is paletted with a chalkish charm and is quite crudely scrawled by hand. It’s a striking separation that’s struck between the action and the moments between that prevents Pepper Grinder’s first impression from growing stale. 

There wouldn’t be more than around twenty levels in all, spread evenly enough between a handful of clichéd biomes. Outside of the many mechanics they do introduce, I’m glad the team worked in some clever ways to make each world feel a little different. Dousing magma, found in one of the few volcanic stages, with water to see it become a crust that’s safe for stepping felt particularly inspired. 

There’s a reasonable challenge to be found with the game’s platforming, even if it doesn’t hit the punishing levels found in contemporary titles like Celeste. The boss encounters, however, are not for the faint-hearted, and the nutty escalation of their theatrics is undeniably bloody rad. And though there aren’t a huge number of levels, the pursuit for full completion of the irresistible and often out of reach treasure couples nicely with asserting dominance in the time trials to make Pepper Grinder quite moreish. It only took a few hours to complete the story and hit roughly 60% completion, it’ll be the remaining 40% that’ll really put hairs on the chest. 

And while there are no skills to unlock per se, Pepper does pick up a trick or two throughout her crusade. By the end, you’ll have swapped your drill bit out for a blunderbuss to end piracy like the Copyright Act of 1968 never could, as well as a literal rocket launcher for clearing your path of debris. Pepper Grinder does an exceptional job of doling out new things to tinker with up until its very last stage. In fact, the game presents a few particularly wild scenes that, without spoiling them, caused a few frame rate plummets that I’d not seen until that point in my ASUS ROG Ally playthrough. 

Although there isn’t a photo mode per se, Pepper Grinder gifts players with a ‘sticker book’ which functions as an arts and crafts mode where you’re able to adhere stickers of any and all things, from Pepper to the plain old wooden crates that litter the scenes. Even if it’s relatively pointless, it can be fun to slap together a few unlikely scenarios. Though it’s the unlocking of the stickers that seems naff. Thumbing thousands of coins into each stage’s Curiosity Shop pachinko machine to pursue a full set of stickers through random chance is a dumb, albeit cute, distraction. Without said machines though, the shop’s only stock would be health bumps and coloured wigs and shawls to make your Pepper your own.

If there’s one thing Pepper Grinder puts at the forefront, it’s the energy conveyed through its attitude, score, and action. There’s a crisp pace that keeps things moving along at a steady clip, and proves again and again through its retro-modern level design that a worthwhile playground goes a long way.

PS5 IMPRESSIONS (Kieron)

Having finally had the chance to play through Pepper Grinder thanks to its newfound PlayStation and Xbox release, there’s really not a lot I can say that Brodie hasn’t so eloquently put to page already.

If you, like me, have been holding off on drilling down while the folks at Ahr Ech put the final garnishes on these next couple of platforms, the great news is it’s every bit the compelling experience it was on PC and Switch. Even better for the PlayStation Players is that your adventure is augmented by the usual DualSense haptic feedback shenanigans and there’s a bevy of trophies to unlock. I was lightly surprised by how brief the experience is, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment and, in my eyes, wanting more of a game is only ever a good thing.

The post Pepper Grinder Review – Crack The Pepper appeared first on Press Start.

Cat Quest III feels like a game laser-targeted at someone like me – a cat enthusiast and aging gamer whose love for the action RPGs they used to sink dozens of hours into far outweighs the actual time and patience they have for them in the present. It’s a game that understands that players, like cats, often have incredibly short attention spans and just want to explore dank crevices and smash shit up. It kinda rules.

In case you missed the first couple of games in the series, and the previous paragraph didn’t paint a clear enough picture, Cat Quest III presents players with what is essentially an abridged take on an open-world action RPG, distilling what would normally be a weeks or months-long dedication into something that could comfortably be knocked over in a weekend. It’s got all the trimmings – gaining experience and levelling up, finding and equipping new gear and abilities, free exploration of a world full of dungeons, caves, castles and towns and a high-stakes tale of world-ending proportions – neatly nestled into a compact and comfy 8-10 hours.

This time around, your adventure takes you to the Purribean, a collection of islands where reside a number of folk from seafaring cats to “Pi-rats” and the tentacular Spicy Squids, all amid a chase for a legendary artifact known as the North Star Treasure. Accompanied by the ghostly, floating cat head Captain Cappey, you find yourself destined to play a role in all of this, and so starts your journey across land and sea to defeat the Pi-rat King, the metal rocking Meowtallika Crew and more.

In keeping with the abridged RPG feel, Cat Quest III keeps all of this as simple as possible by quickly giving you the keys to a seaworthy vessel (do ships have keys?) and letting you sail the waters of the Purribean at your leisure. There’s a loose thread to follow through the journey, but for the most part you’re welcome to land wherever you wish, see if you’re equipped to tackle the enemies and dungeons in the area, and slowly uncover more quests and mysteries across the map. Like the previous games, it’s really not a huge area in terms of actual play space, but it feels big in scale and is rife with opportunities to explore for hidden goodies.

When it comes time to protect yourself, a very simple system of melee strikes, ranged weapons and magic form the game’s combat – again, you may be pretty familiar from the earlier games – but manages to remain fun and interesting all the way through thanks to constant drops of new gear that greatly augment your options and playstyle in battle. There are some especially fun categories, like shields which deal out huge damage ahead of blocking an enemy advance, or claws which are super fast in attack and increase your overall movement speed while wearing them. With limited capacity to equip buffs and other added abilities, you’ll find yourself constantly tinkering with your build and throwing your quickly-accumulating loot down on upgrades.

One thing this third entry really has going for it over the first two is a heap of variety. Aside from the odd cave, dungeons rarely feel the same and boss fights are always interesting and engaging, but more than that there’s always some kind of new gimmick or throwaway mechanic to contend with. One section takes place in a castle with an entirely different visual style, for example, while another quest has you engaging with a romance novel, choose-your-own-adventure style. Add to that your ship with its own abilities and upgrades for naval combat, and you’ll rarely feel any sense of repetition despite the relative mechanical simplicity of it all.

There’s a lot more visual variety, too, with the islands themselves offering all kinds of sights and a much stronger art direction that includes more camera angles and intimate spaces than we’ve seen in the past. Visiting interior areas is always a treat with the pulled-in, side-scrolling camera angle that really shows off some strong environmental design and great character art.

Above all, there’s just a great sense of fun and discovery here, including plenty of really neat hidden secrets to puzzle out – one especially entertaining map discovery may even lead you to new narrative implications… And the best part? The puns. Oh Lord, the puns. Whoever it is at developer The Gentlebros that’s responsible for the writing in this game, hit me up by email if you need an apprentice because, as something of a punnoisseur, rarely is it that I come across game of this calibre. Every time you think, “There can’t possibly exist more cat puns than this,” you’re hit with more cat puns.

Once the credits roll, there’s still plenty of game as well, with a robust New Game+ system that offers a golden path right to the end game encounter, a challenging tower mode, potential new secrets and an increased challenge with a new level cap to boot. There’s also a great two-player couch co-op option that really suits introducing someone new to RPGs or gaming to an adventure that’s more accessible and digestible than most.

The post Cat Quest 3 Review – It’s A Purr-ates Life For Me appeared first on Press Start.

With digital storefronts quickly aging out of business and retailers literally binning unsellable physical media, the topic of video game preservation is front-of-mind for many in the modern day. Putting aside how you might feel about their business model, one group doing respectable work in the field is Limited Run Games, which has put its mouth where its money is with the Carbon Engine – an internally developed, multi-platform tool designed to bridge the game between emulated classics and modern hardware and interfaces. It aims to offer a best-of-both-worlds outcome, presenting retro games with as much accuracy as possible while also embellishing them with up-to-date features and extras.

We’ve already seen the Carbon Engine in action with games like Shantae and River City Girls Zero, but Tombi! is definitely one (aside from Gex, of course) that I’ve been hanging to finally revel in the nostalgia of.

First released on the PS1 in 1997/98, Tomba! (known as Tomba! or Ore! Tomba in other regions) often goes all-too underrepresented in conversations about classic platformers, despite being a fresh and fairly innovative release at the time. I won’t spend too many words on the quality of the game itself – there’s nearly three decades of material out there on it – but playing it back I’m consistently surprised at how well it’s held up. It is, in a lot of ways, an open-world, mission-based RPG presented as a 2.5D platformer with controls, mechanics and gameplay shifts that seem utterly bizarre for about your first 30 minutes of play and then positively delightful thereafter. It’s scrappy in a way that probably didn’t help it compete with your Marios and Sonics of the time, but that just adds to the charm.

In terms of gameplay updates in this re-release, it’s very minimal, no doubt owing to LRG’s desire to keep the original experience preserved and intact. There are some added menus and in-game overlays with various options, but in the moment it’s pretty much identical to the 90s version. You’ve got the option of using analogue controls to move the titular, pink-haired hero around though, which is nice to have in a game where the foreground and background regularly trade importance.

Easily the most revelatory gameplay change in this version of the game is the ability to save your game at any point, rather than having to inconvenience yourself to go and find a signpost to save the original way. Anyone who’s been around any kind of emulation in the past would already be familiar with the idea of save states, of course, but it’s welcome nonetheless. It’s also particularly neat that using the game’s native save posts brings you to the same menu as the new save function, so you’re not running an “official” and “unofficial” file – it’s all integrated. Having access to a quick rewind is similarly handy for those mistimed jumps or frustrating sections, although Tomba! has always been fairly forgiving.

In terms of how it’s all presented, it’s very much mission accomplished on offering something that’s accurate to the original release (at least as far as my memory and a bit of research takes me) while keeping it nice for modern displays. You’ve got the option of playing a raw, unfiltered display or toggling some aspect ratio/CRT filter stuff to achieve a look more aligned to your tastes. That authenticity does come with some pitfalls, like the frequent, long load screens between areas that are just as disruptive now as they were nearly 30 years ago. All of the pre-rendered cutscenes appear to have had as much upscaling done as is reasonably possible but, expectedly, they still look pretty dated and low-quality.

The game’s soundtrack has probably had the most attention with a full-scale re-recording in its entirety by one of the original composers, Harumi Fujita. Fujita has done a fantastic job of recreating the game’s tunes to be much fuller and more dynamic without losing a lot of the charm – though I did find myself pining for the goofy MIDI voices in some of the OG tracks. Luckily, you can swap between the original and remastered versions at will.

Aside from everything in-game, this Special Edition of Tombi! also packs in a bunch of bonus “Museum” type content including some really early design docs and sketches, high-quality scans of covers, manuals and even some deeply weird Japanese magazine ads. 

There’s also a bit of “development footage” which includes a pre-release promo reel and an extremely short but hilariously disarming cutscene concept, though more interesting are a series of interview snippets with creator Tokuro Fujiwara and composer Harumi Fujita about the conception and creation of the game. These are certainly worth watching, even if the presentation of them is a bit barebones with some Windows Movie Maker-level title cards, and a good way to get some context around the game as it was in the 90s before jumping back in or giving it a go for the first time. 

Overall I wouldn’t say the extra stuff isn’t exactly essential, but it’s a decent enough value add for anyone looking to plonk down $25 on this re-release digitally or a $60-100 for the LRG physical versions – either option a steal compared to the hundreds of dollars for an original copy.

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It’s a bit of an open secret that Star Wars: Bounty Hunter isn’t exactly a great game. Originally developed for the Nintendo GameCube by LucasArts as a loose prequel to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, you could tell the game was destined to be a fan favourite from the cover art alone. Jango Fett, the chrome and blue Mandalorian precursor to the iconic Boba Fett, blasting across the box with dual pistols firing and jetpack sparking against a rusted Mandalorian sigil. It was, and remains, cool as fuck. Throw in a lengthy, cutscene filled campaign about the seedy underworld of bounty hunting and a dark lord for good measure and you’ve got the exact kind of game to make an early 2000s Star Wars fan very happy. The only issue being it was kinda jank.

And hey, speaking of Star Wars and jank, Aspyr Media’s had a rough run of it lately. Coming off what felt like a string of successful ports of classic games set in the galaxy far, far away, Aspyr’s relationship with Star Wars soured rapidly around the confounding development of the Knights of the Old Republic remake and subsequent return to ports with the crunchy Battlefront Classic Collection. This was, to my mind, always a tremendous shame as the preservation of older titles is crucially important work for any franchise but especially one as storied as Star Wars. It’s a surprise to be sure but a welcome one then that Bounty Hunter is a return to form for a studio that feels at its best reminding us why we loved these games in the first place. 

Relegated to the wonderful, messy halls of Legends now (the pantheon of stories and lore that Disney no longer considers canon to the Star Wars universe), Bounty Hunter weaves its tale with the exact kind of joyful, reckless abandon you could have only found during its particular era of franchise tie-in materials. Across its six chapters and twenty-odd missions, we follow the eventful life of Jango Fett as he finds himself in the employ of Count Dooku in the waning years of the Republic’s era of peace, war bubbling just below the surface as Fett is tasked with tracking down a rogue Dark Jedi. God, remember when we could call someone a “Dark Jedi” and it wasn’t a whole thing? Jango remembers, and following his journey from hunter to mentor and eventual father is solid pulpy fun. 

Bounty Hunter always had an eye for aesthetics and tone, one of the few things that survived its jump to modern hardware back in 2016, but as we come up on a decade since then, the game’s signature jank is rapidly aging. Working with the original GameCube source code, Aspyr has managed to divine an honest-to-goodness port, allowing a pretty staggering level of spit and shine to be applied. Bounty Hunter looks good and plays even better, the clumsiness of the original level design and encounters still very present but mitigated greatly by the ground-up work done to bring controls and presentation fully in line with modern expectations.

The sweeping changes to camera and control schemes are the true highlight. The original game’s camera could be generously described as deranged, opting to control itself in an attempt to track and adjust to the player’s movements and choices. Cool in concept, disastrous in practice. Aspyr’s port gives the camera back to the player with contemporary control methods like full 360 angles and the use of the triggers for aiming. The aiming speed is still a little too slow for my liking, especially when you can amp up the camera swivel to satisfying levels, but the use of standardised controls is still a welcome change. On the PS5 version at least you’ll also experience a few nifty haptic sensations associated with individual weapons, cute flourishes if you’re still into that kind of thing.

This frees the game from its cumbersome inputs and allows for a flow of mostly successful changes. Weapons can be cycled with the D-Pad, and Jango’s signature Bounty Scanner (which shifts the game into first person to scan NPCs and mark them for bounties) is quick equipped with triangle now. Though you can’t quick equip out of it for some reason, meaning you’ll need to actively reach for the D-pad again to switch back to weapons in a strange oversight. Still, it has a holistically uplifting effect on the game, the verticality and layered levels no longer a chore to physically navigate as the camera works with you now instead of against. Granted, if the pain points of the original game’s enemy health balancing were an issue for you that won’t have changed, but giving players a better toolset to engage these issues goes a long way.

These updates are adorned by Bounty Hunter’s glorious shift to widescreen HD. The original game was no slouch in its presentation, squeezing the most out of the GameCube to craft a visual identity adjacent to the shine of the Prequel films, and in tapping right into that source code, Aspyr has juiced this port. Playing the PS4 re-release and this latest effort side by side it really is a marvel how well-realised the visual upgrades feel, from textures to lighting, it’s coherent and relatively polished. There are still visual bugs present, I was able to recreate some across both versions, but nothing game-breaking or particularly noteworthy that I saw during my mad dash across missions.

The package also houses the additional content found in the PS4 version alongside a smattering of new unlockable goodies including a comic and some digital trading cards. You can even grab a Boba Fett skin if you’re looking to fully break the timeline and play as the iconic hunter. It all comes together to make for not only the definitive way to play Star Wars Bounty Hunter but also a return to form for Aspyr’s remastering efforts. This is the platonic ideal of a port, offering the original controls for posterity but allowing players old and new to experience the best of what the game had to offer while updating it to be not only palatable, but genuinely fun for modern audiences.

The post Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Review – Fetter Late Than Never appeared first on Press Start.

Comedy has always been a tricky prospect in video games. There are plenty of games that have been funny in one way or another, sure. Dialogue-rich titles like the Monkey Island series offer plenty of room for jokes, and there’s slapstick fun to be found in things like Untitled Goose Game and Octodad, but the idea of something interactive having the comedic timing of a TV sketch show or sitcom? I would’ve thought that out of reach before playing Thank Goodness You’re Here – a “slapformer” and follow-up effort to 2019’s gross-em-up, The Good Time Garden, from Yorkshire’s Coal Supper. This might be the funniest game I’ve played since Katamari Damacy.

TGYH opens with a simple enough goal. You, a small and balding white collar chump, have been tasked by your boss to visit the town of Barnsworth (loosely based on the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley where the studio originates from) to sell their mayor… something. The details hardly matter though, because on arrival you’re told there’ll be bit of a wait for your appointment, and rather than sit in an office waiting room for hours you’re free to explore this quaint borough and take in the sights – and the locals.

As it turns out, the folks of Barnsworth are an interesting lot, packed with an unmistakably Yorkshire charm and, more importantly, in dire need of help. Luckily for them, this is a video game, and so we as the player are naturally compelled to assist – and thus forms the adventure. Occupying your time as you wait for your meeting with its mayor, your tour through the town sees you take on a number of core objectives, each beginning with the meeting of another of Barnsworth’s barmy denizens, who’ll exclaim the game’s title and divulge to you the nature of the circumstance they’re in – a circumstance only a tiny visitor on entirely unrelated business can solve. 

You might need to help Ron of Ron’s Big Pies with a meat supply issue, for example, or attempt to calm a fruit and veg shop owner who’s snapped after a few too many comments on his enormous noggin. The solutions to Barnsworth’s problems are never as simple as they seem, and you’ll find going to some strange lengths (and strange locations) in the name of doing favours for a bunch of complete strangers.

Of course, between these core tasks are a multitude of other encounters with, and favours for, other Barnsworthians. You’re wholeheartedly encouraged to slap everything and everyone in sight – in fact it’s your primary means of interaction in a game with but two functional commands, slap and jump. Your little guy doesn’t speak, but a quick biff’ll usually have the other party chatting or, in the case of more inanimate objects, help you figure out how to get wherever it is you need to go. It’s ostensibly a point-and-click-style adventure game peppered with vignettes of side-scrolling platform gameplay, trimmed of inventory faff and with far more hitting.

One thing that this game does wonderfully is keep you on-task and headed in the right direction without any guidance whatsoever. Where the complete lack of any noted objectives or waypointing might spell doom for a similar game, Barnsworth’s stories continue with each repeated lap of its streets, ‘steads and surrounds so that you’re always enticed by a new door opened, a new citizen in strife or a new and mysterious hole to penetrate. Some of the game’s best gags come from these round trips as jokes recur or develop over time, even just from wandering the one area in circles while you look for a crucial interaction, so there’s almost never any downtime. And if all else fails, slapping something that’s gone heretofore un-slapped is usually a good way to go.

There’s a modest bit of replay value if you’re the sort to want to see every possible bit of dialogue or throwaway joke, though after my third(ish) playthrough to nab the game’s platinum trophy I was well and truly tired of traversing the same handful of streets. I can see some players becoming frustrated with the lack of direction as well, and coupled with the fact that there’s no way to revisit earlier sequences or even choose anything other than “New Game” once you’ve rolled credits, it’s certainly a barebones presentation. With a runtime of less than three hours and with how rapidly the game fires out new jokes or absurd scenes though, you really won’t have time to feel down on it.

Crucially, TGYH is consistently hilarious. Anyone who’s grown up on absurdist British comedies like Monty Python will be right at home in Barnsworth from the bustling local chippy to the dankest, bean-strewn alleyways. It’s all incredibly sharp, shamefully gross, frequently illogical and instantly quotable. Thanks to the semi-linear nature of the adventure, Coal Supper has managed to pull off some incredible feats of comedic timing, either in gameplay or the multitude of cutaway scenes, all of which are wonderfully animated and acted.

The game’s art is a triumph all round, making Barnsworth a truly unique and memorable place rendered with crude but gorgeous hand-drawn characters and environments, and backed up by an appropriately-tooty soundtrack and a voice cast that includes the inevitable Matt Berry as a hose-sucking, fertiliser-fucking, tomato-munching gardener besides. The aforementioned lack of any in-game menus or guidance means there’s never any on-screen clutter or anything to take you out of the moment, either – though it does give players the option at the beginning to receive their subtitles and UI in Yorkshire dialect among the other available languages, which is brilliant.

It’s all capped off by a perfect finale, both thematically and artistically, that I won’t get out of my head any time soon, and a secret, alternate ending that’s less rewarding but just as *chef’s kiss* – both of which exemplify the underlying wit of even the most ridiculous and absurd media British sketch comedies.

The post Thank Goodness You’re Here Review – It’s Reyt Good appeared first on Press Start.

Flock might feel like a cosy riff on the Pokémon formula for creature round-up, but more than anything it feels like a love letter to both flight and a keen eye. Observation and discovery are both integral to the game’s core loop and I quite enjoyed how the team found peaceful departures from Nintendo’s regular loop of conquering through force in favour of the kindness of charm, singsong mimicry, and recognising patterns and habits. 

Palworld, for all of its iron fist rule, might have been the Pokémon game people had been wanting, but I think I prefer Flock’s softer approach where no creature, sheep or otherwise, is harmed for the sake of a little fun. 

Flock is a charming take on the “catch ‘em all” formula, placing a huge trilling bird under butt to let you soar like a leaf on a breeze through a vivid, colourful uplands full of several biomes. Those nearest to your Aunt Jane and Uncle Reg’s quaint farm are made up of non-descript grassland, but with every cloudfall more of the game’s world is revealed to include mossy mushroom forests and wetlands.

The ultimate aim of the game is to use the power of your peepers to observe an enormous catalogue of curious creatures in their habitat, charm them and, ultimately, welcome them into your entourage. If you’re off-track and struggling to unearth rarer species, the encyclopaedia can offer vague hints that point generally in the right direction. In any case, the way Flock rewards a studious nature is certainly a gentler approach that, I imagine when compared to grinding your soon-to-be captive pet down through an arduous battle, delivers a better message to a younger audience. 

The game’s sixty or so critters are catalogued by species, and can ultimately be recognised from their specific characteristics and behaviour. Bewls are worm-like little cuties and Skyfish are exactly what you’d expect, the creatures feel like they’re pulled straight from page-to-screen out of a Dr. Seuss picture book. In addition to the many animals you’re able to charm, you can discover, name, and shepherd a small flock of sheep that can be let loose to graze in meadows that obscure the game’s many secrets: valuable whistles required for charming, baubles that somehow increase your flock’s capacity, and fashion catalogues full of fresh wardrobe ideas that let you convert your sheep’s shorn wool into handsome scarves and mittens among other things. 

For all of the menus Flock has, one thing I repeatedly found to be a tad obscure was the game’s narrative structure and how things like cloudfalls were triggered. It was clearly tied to the discovery of a few “legendary” variants, happening upon these quest lines felt like a happy accident more than anything else. I’m able to see so much in the menus: a hugely customisable map with more toggles than you’d know what to do with, a comprehensive catalogue of the creatures I’ve seen and charmed, what I can only describe as an “about us” team splash page for my sheep, and yet there’s no meaningful objective tracker beyond a small text box that can appear on the heads-up giving a pretty vague goal. This should feed into the game’s overall spirit of discovery, however I would have liked a little more structure here.  

I’m in two minds about the flow state of Flock’s flight. Your pitch is determined automatically by environmental contexts around you which, as you can imagine, can lead to some finicky, frustrating instances of not ending up in the optimal spot and having to circle back for another pass. On the other hand, soaring majestically above the uplands makes for some of the most crisp, satisfying movement I’ve had in a game for a while—perhaps since Marvel’s Spider-Man, which captured the web-swinging so perfectly. 

For all of its claims to have been designed with multiplayer co-op in mind, I actually much preferred my time exploring the uplands solo. It handles progress well enough in that if a player enters your game who isn’t at the same depth of cloudfall as you, they’re gated to earlier areas and, more often than not, just do their own thing. It feels more like a means to populate the world and make it seem more social, when in reality the game isolates your goals and achievements from those playing with you.

There’s a simplicity to Flock’s presentation that is rather disarming. Though it’s showy in its use of strong earthy colours and the creature design is fun, the human students and the world itself are visually kind of flat and no-frills. They mostly amount to big, saucer eyes on a shape that is vaguely human, though the animals, for obvious reasons, have defining factors beyond their animal origins. Pinning down their species literally hinges on the player’s ability to recognise the subtle differences between so many similar creatures, whether it’s darting frantically through the air or it has a tuft of fur on its chin, and I think Flock succeeds at making these minor differences readable.

Without any real voice performance in the game, Flock’s original score is forced to do a bit of the heavy lifting—I remember considering it inoffensive and pretty in the moment, but couldn’t hum a bar of it back to myself as I write. If only the player’s hunt was accompanied by the singsong melodies of the creature whistles which don’t feature as much as they could despite their heartwarming, ocarina-like tones. 

As someone who became disenfranchised with Pokémon games in the post-Silver and Gold era, Flock is the last game I expected to get its hooks in me. Obviously, it’s a wildly different take on that time-tested blueprint, placing a greater focus on bearing witness to the wild life than raising your hand to it, and I think Flock is an unexpected shepherd’s delight.

The post Flock Review – Ahead Of The Pack appeared first on Press Start.

Thumper remains one of my favourite VR titles, and got a lot of play from me when it first launched for the original PlayStation VR. It’s also a title I enjoy picking up from time-to-time sans headset, given it’s perfectly playable as a “flat” game and still a really good bit of tripped-out, moderately unnerving rhythm gaming.

Now, artist and composer Brian Gibson has returned (along with Fuser and Rock Band VR’s Mike Mandel) for a brand-new bit of music-driven video game art in THRASHER, and much more so than Thumper, it feels like a game that could only have been conceived for the world of VR as we know it currently.

At a glance, THRASHER seems to borrow liberally from the style guide of Thumper, and there’s no denying that there are plenty of conceptual similarities, but the moment you start playing it’s evident that this is a very different experience. For starters, the entire thing is built around free movement in single-screen encounters, with players controlling a steadily-growing geometric space eel that snakes along the screen in concert with your own gestures. And rather than challenge players with rhythm-based inputs, it’s all about painting flowing motions through waves of shapes and other abstract objects, destroying some while avoiding others and attempting to clear every screen before time is up.

Keeping your efforts in check is a time, giving you a minute per “wave” of obstacles to swoop around the screen and destroy all of the blue-tinged objects. Getting through them in quick succession awards combo bonuses that add time back onto your counter, and hitting red shaves time off. It all starts off simply enough, but each area has its own aesthetic as well as its own new mechanics and often power-ups, offering new challenges and approaches, like being able to “attack” the red objects or slow down time momentarily.

The game doesn’t actually care if you blow through your allotted minute in any given wave either, the only real punishment being a hit to the ego, so most will be able to play it through, but not all will be able to say they play it well. Even if you’re not interested in earning those coveted S+ ranks for your times, just being able to progress to see what wild new idea, visual flourish or entrancing soundtrack is coming up next is reward enough – especially the “boss” encounters that tie off each stage as the game eventually culminates in a showdown with a cosmic baby god.

What’s crucial to understanding and exceeding at THRASHER is learning to work with your psychedelic eel companion. Navigating dangers and hitting all of the right marks isn’t just about waving your hand in the right directions, because the eel is its own being with its own physicality and inertia – mastering its movements and achieving a level of oneness where it becomes an extension of you is tantamount to success and exactly as fucking spiritual an experience as it sounds.

I reviewed the game on the Meta Quest 3 and here it can be played with the standard controllers or via full 1:1 hand tracking. The latter is, naturally, the most engaging and cool-feeling way to play the game and in my entire time playing never once felt anything but accurate. Using the Quest’s controllers isn’t necessarily more reliable, but it is more responsive, so if you’re aiming to crack those leaderboard times you’ll want to opt for those. If you’re here for the vibe, put ’em down and get to gesturing like 2002 Tom Cruise conducting a space orchestra.

Much like Thumper, THRASHER does take a little sticking with before it eventually shows its hand and for things to really click into place as you enter a sort of virtual reality trance state. When it does though, the vibes are undoubtedly immaculate, and you’ll feel like you’ve slipped into a world tucked between the natural rhythms of time and space, bonded to a cosmic ribbon of unexplainable beauty and gifted the power to slay incomprehensible beings at the turn of your wrist.

If Thumper was billed as “rhythm violence,” this is “rhythmic gymnastic violence.”

The post THRASHER Review – Rhythmic Gymnastic Violence appeared first on Press Start.

At a time where the rise of AI-generated imagery is seeing web destinations and social media platforms crowded with low-effort, high environmental-cost “content,” it feels more important than ever to recognise the parts of genuine artistry that even the most powerful large language models can’t replicate – the human holding the pen, the brush, the camera. The moments and people that inspire. The legacy that art and artists leave behind. 

Playing The Star Named EOS, the latest story-rich puzzle adventure from Behind The Frame’s Silver Lining Studio, not only reminded me of the inherent magic of photography and the way that a photo allows us to capture and preserve a moment in time, but the importance of the hands and eyes guiding that lens, choosing that moment and putting in-frame only the exact piece of our world that we wish to pass along.

Through this story of Dei, a shutterbug following his mother’s photographic journey via a series of letters and polaroids chronicling her time across a number of picturesque-looking locations, the game manages to say a lot with comfortingly little – something about pictures and four-digit word counts, you know? I don’t want to delve too much into the story here as it unfolds quite wonderfully in the game’s brisk, two-hour runtime and I’d hate to ruin any of it. Suffice it to say that there’s more than first meets the eye and the closing scenes elicit a ton of emotions.

In simplest terms, The Star Named EOS sticks closely to the path laid out by the studio’s previous work gameplay-wise, placing players in a number of different beautifully-drawn scenes in which they’ll need to prod, poke and puzzle their way through to a conclusion. In this case, the goal in most scenes is to recreate a photo left to Dei by his mother, revisiting the same scenes and collecting the right objects to frame it just the same. Puzzles are very point-and-click in nature – you’ll need to find objects and clues in your surroundings to open locked containers, complete mechanisms or figure out important details. There’s nothing hugely taxing on the ol’ grey matte here, but it’s all pretty satisfying to solve.

The real highlight is being able to pore over each of the environments, which are all hand-drawn scenes but presented in a panoramic, first-person viewpoint that works to startling effect. It’s particularly impressive whenever you whip your camera out and watch these technically-2D elements go in and out of focus. Some parts of the game are also accompanied by fully-animated sequences complete with voice acting and some slick production values.

Like its previous games, it’s the way in which Silver Lining Studio manages to marry gameplay, visuals and storytelling to bring its core messages to life. Here, it’s those same things I articulated upfront. The Star Named EOS explores how we’re able to filter the world around us through our own lens, and in each photo pass on the things that are important to us and those we share them with – good or bad. It’s not a photography sim by any stretch, but the way the game makes us active participants in inheriting and understanding these moments is extraordinary.

To highlight the tiny but distracting marks on this particular image, I can imagine that some players will be disappointed to find there’s almost nothing in the way of a hint system for the game’s puzzles (at one point I observed an object being highlighted on-screen when I idled for a little too long, but that’ll be small comfort for anyone stuck on deciphering obscure codes opening puzzles boxes). There’s also, curiously, no option to invert the camera when using a controller, which made my time with the game on PS5 initially jarring and disorienting.

It’s worth forgiving any minor flaws though, as the full picture is a true work of art.

The post The Star Named EOS Review – Look At This Photograph appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve played a lot of games in my life where my feelings could be summed up with “this is a good idea, but the execution is lacking.” Games that, on paper, sound great, but which can’t quite realise their ambitions. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, the first game by indie developer Furniture & Mattress, is kind of the exact opposite. The notion of a game that’s based entirely around sliding tiles initially repelled me – sliding block puzzles are always my least-favourite variety in any games they appear in. Whether it’s pushing boxes around a limited space or one of those especially bad ones where you need to slide tiles around to form a picture, these sorts of puzzles often bring games to a grinding halt. When I got a Rubik’s Cube as a kid, I did the same thing most kids do – I picked the stickers off and re-attached them so that it was “solved.”

But actually, Arranger executes on its central premise, a game where the entire world is a sliding tile puzzle, extremely well. It’s a bit of a flex, building a whole game out of the worst part of several other games but making it quite good, and that’s exactly what this team has done with their debut.

You play as Jemma, the only person in the little village she grew up in who can “arrange” a room just by moving through it. Every area in the game is represented as a series of tiles on a grid, and if you move up, down, left or right, you’ll bring all the tiles in that column or row with you, including any items or other characters sitting on them. Rows loop infinitely, so if Jemma pushes off-screen to the left, she’ll reappear on the right, just like Pac-Man. Your movements through an area are inherently disruptive, and the game is built around solving puzzle rooms to progress.

Arranger, then, is a whole game about sliding block puzzles, figuring out how to move around obstacles and maneuver through situations. The developers have wrung this mechanic for all that it’s worth, finding new ways to invigorate Jemma’s journey across the game. In some rooms, you might need to slide swords into monsters to clear a path forward, or figure out an optimum path to make it through in the fewest moves possible, or handle one of the game’s many contraptions, figuring out how to manipulate them with tile sliding.

You might get an object to cover a button to open a path – although, of course, if you move along the same track, the object will slide right back off the button. Or you might need to line up multiple swords against several monsters at once, only to realise, once you’ve done it, that your next move will inevitably misalign it. Or you might figure out a perfect path through a level, only to remember that an immovable rock is covering the opposite wall of the row you’re on, meaning that you can’t loop through it, and need to reset everything. In fact, throughout the whole game I found the central premise of how Jemma moves often slipping from my mind, leading to many moments of frustration where my seemingly perfect plans wouldn’t work, or where the solution to move forward was extremely fiddly.

There were moments in Arranger where the mechanics clicked well for me, and I found sliding around and figuring out the best way forward enjoyable. In fact, I was having a good time with the game far more often than not. There were a few instances, though, where the inherent frustration of sliding the whole environment around with me did not seem worth the satisfaction of completing the puzzles. I never quite resorted to the (very welcome) option in the menu that would have allowed me to skip puzzles, but there were certainly moments where I got irritated enough at the fundamental nature of the game that I had to put my controller down and walk away for a bit.

But Arranger’s puzzles won me over, more or less. The controls have a pleasant snappiness to them, and even though there were a few puzzles I ended up brute forcing – sliding every which way until I stumbled into the right solution, sometimes not fully comprehending how I did it – most of the time I was able to reason my way through the game. It was always interesting entering into a new “dungeon” area (basically a bunch of puzzle rooms stuck together) and seeing what new mechanic the game would cook up this time. Some are more compelling than others, for sure, but it’s still exciting to see the concept squeezed so hard. There are even boss battles, which more-or-less work! There is a part of me that suspects that there are people out there whose brains work differently, and who won’t have as many moments of frustration as I did. If you have an affinity for sliding block puzzles, you’re in for a treat.

There’s a heartening plot through running through Arranger. Jemma, the odd-one-out in a village full of people who move in a more regular fashion, leaves her hometown at the game’s opening to see more of the world and learn more about herself. You get to meet a cast of colourful characters along the way who ultimately help you in your emerging quest, although I found the overarching plot a little too unfocused to serve as a major draw (you’re trying to clear the world of the “Static”, a threat that never really feels like much of a threat). There’s some resonance, when the game is at its most annoying, to the idea that this is something that Jemma can’t turn off, although the game doesn’t necessarily capitalise on this connection as much as it could.

More exciting are the gorgeous art and soundtrack. Arranger’s artist previously worked on Braid, and the style here is similar. While there’s some limitations on what the game can do with its grid-based levels, the painted backgrounds are frequently gorgeous, revealing extra details of the world through comic panels and neat artistic details. Exploring the world of Arranger meant getting to see lots of lovely new art, which was always a treat.

I played the game on Switch, and it’s worth noting that it has some of the best HD rumble I’ve experienced on the system in some time. It’s a feature that has gone a little underused in many recent titles, but the harsh buzz you feel when you try to make an impossible move is a suitably evocative metaphor for the frustration you might feel as Jemma literally bangs her head against a wall. On top of the aforementioned option to skip puzzles, Arranger also features a few other fun modifiers – a touchscreen mode, a “buddy” mode where another player can float across the screen as a fairy, pointing details out (or annoying the main player), and a hard mode, which reverses controls and turns your movement speed way up. There are even on-screen step counters and timers for speedrunners and challenge-seekers.

Arranger is, I think, just about the best-case scenario for this kind of game, built as it is on a mechanic that is unavoidably frustrating. It’s more enjoyable than it is annoying, and the reward for persevering during its worst moments is usually more smart puzzles and good vibes. I might not be sold on sliding block puzzles as a good idea for most games, but Arranger proves, at least, that there’s more scope to do interesting things with them than I realised.

The post Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – The Good Kind Of Sliding Block Puzzle appeared first on Press Start.

It’s hard to believe that the ASUS ROG Ally came out just one year ago, as in that short time it feel like it’s totally changed the landscape of PC handhelds. It followed in the footsteps of the Steam Deck and a bunch of other Windows handhelds from the likes of lesser known brands such as AYANEO, but it was the first mainstream viable choice for most gamers that want access to all PC games including Xbox Game Pass, and especially here in Australia, it’s one of the only choices.

As good as a first attempt attempt as it was, it absolutely had lots of small little issues that didn’t ruin the experience, but were glaring little problems that if ASUS had its time again and knew what a success this would go on to come, probably would have spent a little bit more time fixing, but it’s okay because the ASUS ROG Ally X is very much that product and improves on almost every little problem that the original had.

When you put the two devices together, to the naked eye you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking not a lot has changed apart from the move to a black shell, which I absolutely prefer as you just can’t beat black tech in terms of sleekness but also I’m not a fan of white due to it getting dirty, but almost every component of the ROG Ally X is different from the original.

Starting with the weight, the ROG Ally was heralded for being the lightest 7-inch handheld on the market, and the ROG Ally X is 70 grams heavier due to the fact that it has a battery that is double the size (which we’ll get to in a bit). It’s only really noticeable when you go back to the original unit, and I’ve had some length sessions with the Ally X and haven’t felt that it’s changed its comfort levels at all.

In fact, due to changes in the shell design which is a lot more rounded and moulds to the hands better and seemingly grippier back handles, the Ally X fits in the hands a lot better than its predecessor, and whilst I’m not going to pretend that heavier is better, it’s pretty remarkable that it only had a small increase in weight given the improvements inside.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $1,599 FROM THE ASUS E-SHOP

That’s just the beginning to the ergonomic improvements with almost every input being changed or improved. The D-Pad is a lot more solid and feels a lot more precise now, the analogue sticks now feel a lot tighter, the face buttons no longer get stuck, are more raised and feel a lot more clicky and the hall effect triggers have now been made longer and are a lot better to grip, as have the bumpers. I didn’t have huge issues with the original (outside of the face buttons), but every input on the Ally X feels a lot tighter and a lot more thought out.

Again, the back macro buttons aren’t something I had a huge deal with, but they did get in the way of holding the console properly at times, and also felt quite loose when they were pressed due to their side. They’ve now been made a lot smaller, sit perfectly where your fingers hit the back of the console and are just much improved now.

Other changes to the design include the moving of the infamous MicroSD slot, which I haven’t experienced issues with yet, and whilst you’d think that ASUS has probably moved it for that exact reason, I would never say with confidence that there won’t be issues, and the XG Mobile connector that was used for the ROG eGPU us now gone and has been replaced with a second USB-C port that is Thunderbolt 4 which means it can now be used with generic eGPUs (just like the ONEXGPU here) . This is a huge improvement, although if you did buy that XG eGPU, I do feel bad for you. This works exactly as expected and will go a long way between this device doubling as a home workstation/1440p beast.

As far as the screen goes, it’s still a 1080p LED display that has a 120hz refresh rate with VRR, so naturally there will be some disappointment there given the Steam Deck just got an OLED version. It’s still a fantastic screen as far as LEDs go, but it would have been the cream on top and extremely hard to beat if it had an OLED display.

Between the screen and the Z1 Extreme processor that also comes over from the original, everything on the inside has changed too. As far as storage goes, there’s now a 1TB SSD inside and it is placed in a full-size Gen 4 2280 SSD slot, so if you do want to upgrade to 2 or 4TB, there’s a lot cheaper options to do so.

The most two exciting changes come in the way of the memory and the increased battery size, which both go along way in moving Windows handheld forward and making them viable portable options. Let’s start with the battery life first because that’s going to be a big deal for a lot of people.

The ASUS ROG Ally X has an 80wh battery which is the larger in a handheld so far, and double the size of the original. I did a test with all three power modes, although for the Quiet and Performance modes, they now use slightly more power compared to the original consoles.

When using Turbo mode at 25w, you can expect to get a tad over two hours with the Ally X, and whilst it still doesn’t sound like a lot, that’s over twice the amount that I got with the original, and it just makes for a world of difference. I felt like I could get into my game and enjoy it for a considerable amount of time without instantly feeling that I was going to be running out of battery.

In performance mode, I was able to get over 2 and a half hours compared to 1 and a half hours on the original (again that’s with a higher 17w TDP over 15w with the original), and impressively, you can get more in this 17w performance mode than you could get with the 10w quiet mode on the original console. I was able to get almost 4 hours with the Ally X in quiet mode at 13w in comparison to 2 hours at 10w with the original console.

ASUS ROX ALLY X BATTERY LENGTH

• Turbo Mode (25w TDP) – 2 hours
• Performance Mode (17w TDP) – 2.5 hours
• Quiet Mode (13w TDP) – 3.8 hours

These are huge, huge improvements. You can now game for longer at the highest turbo mode than you could with performance mode and almost quiet mode from the original consoles. It’s absolutely incredible what ASUS has done with the Ally X in terms of ergonomics with this battery life.

The other massive improvement comes in the way of performance. Whilst the Ally X has the same Z1 Processor, it not only has 8GB more ram, it’s also faster at 24GB of 7,500 MT/S (compared to 16GB of 6,400 MT/s in the original). This is hugely important as memory in the Ally X (and other handhelds) is shared across the system and GPU and it goes a long way here.

There wasn’t a single game that I tested that didn’t run 5-7 FPS better on the Ally X in comparison to the original console, but for games such as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, it was the difference between the game running smoothly compared to almost not running at all on the original (video here to see just how much of a difference it is). Whilst benchmarking the two side by side, it was remarkable to see how buttery smooth the Ally X was whilst the Ally was struggling hugely, even going as far as crashing the first time I tried to benchmark it.

ASUS ROG ALLY X BENCHMARKS

1080P / FSR Balanced & Frame Gen On (Where Possible)

• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – 40 FPS (vs 26 FPS)
• Returnal – 47 FPS (vs 42 FPS)
• Cyberpunk 2077 – 31 FPS (vs 27 FPS)
• Horizon Zero Dawn – 73 FPS (vs 63 FPS)

Whilst I don’t recommend running out and buying a ROG Ally X for the sole reason of getting handful more frames, I have zero doubts that we will start to see more games that struggle to run on the original given we’ve already seen Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Alan Wake 2 require more memory than what was on offer in the original, so it’s great that there is an upgrade path for those that do want to continue their portable gaming journey.

That’s probably the only other downside to the ASUS ROG Ally X. It’s $300 more than the original was at launch, and the original is significantly cheaper now. On one hand, it’s absolutely worth the $300 more when you compare the two on paper, but it’ll be a tough choice for gamers picking up their first Windows handheld. I have no doubts that this will drive down the price of the original even more and I can’t wait for more people to experience portable PC gaming whether it be with the ASUS ROG Ally X or the original version which is no doubt going to become more accessible.

@shannongrixti

The ASUS ROG Ally X has arrived with some serious improvements and here’s your first look at what’s in the box AD #ROG #ROGANZ #playALLYourgames #rogallyx #rogally #handheld #windowshandheld @rog_anz

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

ASUS has once again smashed it out of the park with the ASUS ROG Ally X, and if it wasn’t clear before, it’s very obvious that they care a lot about this market and see themselves playing in this space for a long, long time.

The post ASUS ROG Ally X Review – The Complete Package appeared first on Press Start.

Nobody Wants To Die is an ambitious debut. I previewed the game last month, and it was obvious that the team behind it was incredibly passionate, working hard to bring their neo-noir adventure to life and pay great tribute to its inspirations, like Max Payne. But I often wish that modern adventure games had more – I’d always prefer to play a part in the game and take advantage of the medium’s interactivity rather than let events unfold before me as I walk through it. Nobody Wants To Die is ambitious; it tries to do so much. But despite some stellar presentation, it falls victim to the many pitfalls that permeate this genre.

The game takes place in a dystopic version of New York. The year is 2329. People can become immortal, transferring their consciousness between other bodies for the right price. Of course, this means that the rich and corrupt tend to live longer while the impoverished die quicker, leading to a myriad of socioeconomic issues. You play a detective, James Karra, who is investigating a rogue serial killer who seems to be targeting the city’s elite. An incredibly intriguing premise set in an even more exciting world, and of course, nothing is as it seems.

As the story forms such a strong part of the experience of Nobody Wants To Die, I won’t spoil it here. But it does build upon this already interesting premise to deliver an intriguing narrative from beginning to end. Multiple threads are intertwining throughout the story at any given point, and it’s impressive that most are tied up by the end of the game’s modest runtime. But even more important is that these threads all come together satisfyingly. So much so that I hope we’ll be able to step into this world once more.

But I can’t say the same about James. He’s a stereotypically gruff detective who’s seen everything and is tired of it all. But so much of his personality and humour fall flat. Carrying all of the charm of your uncle at the family Christmas function, making jibes that aren’t funny and laughing at them himself, he falls flat. Perhaps that’s on purpose, but it makes James fairly unlikeable, especially in contrast to the voice in his ear, Sara. She’s infinitely more interesting and endearing, especially so as her arc develops two-thirds of the way through the story.

Similar to other narrative-driven adventure games like Edith Finch, Firewatch, or the more recent Still Wakes The Deep, Nobody Wants To Die is a linear adventure. You play James as he navigates through the story, discovering how each crime scene has transpired and moving from area to area as the story demands. It’s a straightforward design that serves the story being told, but only to a certain point.

The crux of the investigations involves James’ wrist-mounted reconstruction device. After gathering enough data about a scene, James can use the device to “rewind” the crime scene and explore it as it plays out in real-time in front of him. It’s an incredible feat on a technical level – being able to scrub through and walk through a scene with just the triggers. But the game almost always highlights which section of the replay to progress the story, so you never feel like you’re engaging with the crime scene naturally.

Other tools at James’ disposal are an earnest attempt at mixing things up but fall flat. A portable X-ray device allows James to see within bodies or walls, but the gadget is rarely used for anything beyond following cables from one device to another (usually hidden) power source. An ultraviolet lamp similarly detects trace evidence but is seldom used beyond following a trail of bloodstains from one body to another piece of evidence. They’re fine additions but feel underutilized compared to the rest of the game.

And that’s where my main gripe with Nobody Wants To Die lies. It’s got some really great ideas, at least mechanically, but they’re stretched too thin across an already modest six-to-eight-hour runtime. The reconstruction device is a novel idea that, while not totally original, is used to significant effect here in a way I haven’t seen in a game before. But you use it the same way each time, which becomes somewhat repetitive. The other tools need to do more to alleviate the repetitious nature of the core gameplay loop, too.

The other central gameplay element is the evidence board. You use it about three times throughout the story, allowing James (and the player) to catch up on all the story beats you’ve gathered so far. Mysteries will appear on the board, and you’ll have to drag a piece of evidence you’ve collected to that mystery to create new links and new mysteries to solve. Once you reach the end of a line of thinking, you can summarise the case and move forward.

Once again, it’s not entirely unique and has been done in games as recent as last year’s Alan Wake II. However, the interactivity and the way James and Sara’s dialogue add flavour to the evidence, making it stand out. This is the part of the game where I felt like a detective and that Nobody Wants To Die was making good on its premise.

While the game is linear, there are still different ways in which the story progresses, though these are only surface level. Around two major endings can be unlocked, with two variants of each. All endings are affected by some choices late in the story. But other smaller choices are more interesting. For example, how you speak to Sara will influence how their friendship develops, if at all, and unlock new dialogue options as the game progresses. Same as with James and the other characters in the story. They’re not essential to the big plot but give a sense of permanence to the characters and how they engage with the world.

And that world is easily the highlight here. Nobody Wants To Die has an incredibly strong sense of presentation. While lots of Unreal Engine 5 games are starting to look similar, developing a distinct look that I hope we will step away from, Nobody Wants To Die’s strong artistic direction brings this distorted version of near-future New York to life with great fervour. Whether it’s the busy streets of Manhattan or the quiet now-holographic paths of Central Park, the strong sci-fi flavour marries perfectly with the distinct 1930s-inspired art deco interiors to provide the perfect backdrop for a neo-noir story.

The score leans towards the latter, playing heavily into period-authentic sounds to give the game a broody noir atmosphere. It’s a strong score, riddled with elements of big band, jazz and swing, providing a solid atmosphere for the game’s already breathtaking scenery. Despite this, I’d wish the music would be more subdued during the evidence boards since you spend a bit of time there, and it’s overbearing. The voice work is similarly excellent, with Keaton Talmadge’s Sara being the highlight. James’s performance is decent enough, but the script does his character little favours.

Putting everything aside, it’s evident that Nobody Wants To Die is a real passion project for the creatives that produced it. It’s an awe-inspiring debut from a studio I’ll be forever keeping an eye on. And while it’s yet to quite reach the heights of its potential in my own eyes, there’s some great opportunity to improve upon this already strong foundation.

The post Nobody Wants To Die Review – A Moody And Promising Debut appeared first on Press Start.

More often than not, the survival horror genre depicts otherworldly creatures that make the hairs on your neck stand on end. Some do it better than others, but designing the perfect, alien creature to go bump in the night is an enormous part of the brief. Conscript is unique in that it presents its chilling brand of horror through the lens of World War I, where the monster isn’t some contorted, pulpy mass of eyes and limbs, it’s man. The first-hand, personal violence of conflict is illustrated so deftly in Conflict, as are the consequences of war, both direct and indirect, in a far more grounded, gut-churning manner than we’re used to.

What’s scary here isn’t the unknown terrors lurking around dark corners, it’s the mortal scar that man can cause in the name of God and country. 

Staging a survival horror game in the midst of the Battle of Verdun is novel in its own right, the tale of two brothers at the heart of it maintains a personal, relatable thread throughout what is an otherwise confronting video game that’s a matter of fact show and tell of a battle that claimed more than 300,000 lives. As André, you scour no man’s land itself in search of your brother Pierre, who’s been missing in action prior to the game’s start. You thrust yourself through hell on the hope of reuniting and keeping your family intact, and the dreamlike vignettes where you experience André’s pre-war life at the family’s French cottage are surprisingly nuanced, their quiet is juxtaposed by the thunderous bombardment that’s frequent throughout the remainder of Conscript. 

The game is formulaic as far as survival horror design goes, and remains true to the blueprints trademarked by those who’ve come before. It might not be Spencer Mansion, but Conscript’s trenches, forts, and devastated battlefields form such a memorable, multi-faceted map that reveals more of itself as you progress. It’s a big game, but Conscript’s in-game map is so easily readable I never had an issue in finding a path through the chaos. I wish the same could be said for your objectives which seem to reveal themselves through the commands of your superior officers, but are never noted within the handful of menus you have. From a UX experience, this could have been remedied, and justified narratively, through small diary entries by André as he attempts to quantify the horrors he’s seen. 

Mechanically, it definitely leans classic with a control scheme that’s kind of outdated but exists in service of tension, so I respect it. The movement feels fine, you’re even capable of short jogs and tactical rolls if your stamina permits, it’s the “stop and prop” shooting that left me a little offside at times. To reiterate, I do like the sense of urgency and fear of having to stop and aim carefully before firing, but it’s a constant frustration trying to thumb a full serving of rounds into these century-old firearms which gives the enemy ample time to close the gap. The fear is only heightened courtesy of an erratic crosshair which becomes harder to focus if you’re right in the pressure cooker, and it also speaks to the reality that the French conscripted young men who were far from marksmen. I think that instinct to survive translates to Conscript’s gameplay, regardless of the issues I do have with the weapon reloading, and there’s a brutality that’s extremely evident when you’re rearranging the features of a soldier’s face with a trench shovel. 

In terms of surviving the trench warfare, the biggest issue I faced was the bloody rats. They’re an interesting mechanic in their own right, however, as they’re a direct consequence of death in this war. Until you’re able to collapse their small tunnels, they’ll enjoy the body buffet left behind and happily nip at your heels which is so frustrating. 

While things can get a little abstract in these classic survival horror titles, Conscript’s puzzles felt relatively to the point and kept progression well on track. I’d routinely find a key or tool needed to access the next part of the map, and it never got more complicated than realising that the fire extinguisher you’d found was needed to put out the flames raging in front of the one door leading to the front. However, the need for juggling so many key items does highlight the pain of inventory management that’s prevalent here. For all of the ammo you need to carry to get bang for buck from this low capacity, turn of the century weapons, I wish there could have been a second inventory for quest items to lessen the need for frequent visits to the storage trunks scattered in the game’s handful of locations.

As stated, I do think the game’s maps,  and specifically the environments, are well done. While the bunkers and their dingy lighting are the most claustrophobic and scary parts of Conscript, there’s something profoundly upsetting about the scenes from the overworld. So many buildings reduced to cinders, bands of horses left dead in roadways, and bodies piled up or tossed nonchalantly into creeks. I feel like Conscript is the first game since Spec Ops: The Line that really depicts war as it really is, free from the glamour and “glory” it’s often dressed with. The game’s lo-fi visuals, as well as the brief fully-rendered vignettes that punctuate certain story beats, call to mind a point during the nineties where Conscript’s fidelity would be cutting edge. Thankfully, coupling pixel art with so many poorly lit scenes never compromised the readability of the action, opposition soldiers scrambling toward you were instantly recognisable and collectible items would glint as if to cry out. 

Having seen Conscript on expo floors a smattering of times in the last few years, the game is still a huge surprise for me. It makes such an inspired decision in setting that everything else is icing on the cake, and even the stuff I don’t adore still feels in service of what the developer is aiming to achieve in ratcheting the tension up several notches to create one of the most suffocating video games about war I’ve ever played. 

The post Conscript Review – They Shall Not Pass appeared first on Press Start.

As one who’s never understood the hype, Dungeons of Hinterberg is a unique case in that it single-handedly has left me wondering, based on its dungeons alone, whether I might have slept on The Legend of Zelda for all of these years. While the answer is irrelevant, I think that speaks volumes of just how fun and creative the core pillar of this weird, genres-in-a-blender Frankenstein game actually is. As a final product, it attempts to do too much and lacks focus and, more importantly, polish as each of its parts feel lesser-than when compared to the games it emulates—whether that’s Persona, Breath of the Wild, or any action game worth its salt. 

Dungeons of Hinterberg begins with a getaway for its protagonist Luisa, a law student who retreats to the Austrian Alps in search of escape and adventure. She quickly grows familiar with the townsfolk, builds a rapport with many of them, and discovers an unsettling truth about the magic-borne dungeons that mysteriously appeared in the town, transforming it into the tourist hotbed that it is. I dig the way the game frames conquering these dungeons from multiple angles—what they mean to academia, “slaying” the monsters inside for sport, and their worth to the town and how far those in power will go to ensure the magic never dies. 

Everything you experience in Hinterberg is presented through a very Persona-like four-block cycle that runs from dawn to dusk. The mornings and afternoons would basically be reserved for story beats and bookending the day’s events, while the evenings and nights would be for slaying, and shopping for resources before socialising with any one of the friends you make around town. As you’d expect, spending enough time to turn these acquaintances to friends sees Luisa reap rewards that feed into the game’s other systems, like loot and combat. Obviously it’s dependent on where you spend your time, but I found the cadence at which my combat rewards unlocked, and their proximity to the game’s ending, gave a sense of “too little, too late” in serving as a life raft for the game’s pretty vapid combat. 

While you’re able to unlock combo multipliers through one of your alliances, the meat and bones of Dungeons of Hinterberg’s combat is rather basic. It’s a standard affair of light and heavy attacks, interwoven with well-timed dodges to whittle away at a creature’s health. There are also attack conduits, which are basically special abilities that cool down after use, and they’re certainly helpful in dealing quick bursts of damage—my favourite was the ability to call down a meteor shower in the arena. That said, I definitely do not recommend punching above your weight as taking on waves of enemies several levels above you will spell a quick end for you. There’s definitely a challenge to be found in the game’s combat, it’s more that it becomes mind-numbing and never excited me quite like the puzzles did. 

Each of Hinterberg’s regions has a unique magical hook to it that is confined to that particular area after you earn it from the skill shrine. Whether it’s the hard light snowboard you can use to rail grind to upper decks of a snowy tundra, or enormous jelly blocks you’d use to get a leg up on an unreachable ledge, these powers are also woven into combat situations including one of the most frustrating boss encounters I’ve experienced in a while where I had to take advantage of the infrequent opportunity to lob a plasma orb into a hose on the big baddie’s back like it was the trench run on the bloody Death Star. Most other applications for Luisa’s powers mid-fight were great and added layers to a combat system that needed something else, however I nearly put the game down at this point. 

While the social aspects of hanging out in Hinterberg served to spotlight the magic of friendship, the real magic can be found in the game’s twenty-five, or so, dungeons. A mix of combat and thoughtful puzzle mechanics, they’ve honestly made me ponder on my likely controversial aversion to games like Breath of the Wild, as there’s been something so enriching about the intuitive nature of peeling back the intricacies of these dungeons to earn that stamp at the end—like I’d cleared customs at the border of a strange land. With a handful of biomes and their respective skills to riff on, there’s an undeniable breadth of experiences to be found, including ones that introduce once-off, perspective bending levels and shapeshifting environments with subtle, recognisable changes each loop that signal the maze’s exit. It can be very clever in its design and I definitely took joy, like a real Hinterberg tourist, in chasing all of the stamps on offer. 

For a game so intent on emulating the chic style of the Persona games, it truly fumbles the bag at a user interface level with some ghastly font choices and menus that didn’t exactly inspire me to spend any meaningful time within them. Fortunately, the remainder of Dungeons of Hinterberg is like a charming, eccentrically coloured comic resembling a paint-by-numbers gone mad. The alpine tourist town runs the seasonal gamut, offering not only beautiful snowy slopes but stunning autumnal woods, and the monsters that inhabit it are a fun design mash-up of miry goo adorned with masks inspired by Austrian fable. It might look a little stiff in action, but there’s no denying Dungeons of Hinterberg is a pretty game. 

Nearly all of Dungeons of Hinterberg’s many moving parts feels like a “something borrowed” from other video games that have invariably done that thing better. The dungeons themselves are a clear highlight and their clever design goes a long way to shouldering the spirited sense of adventure that moves the game along. Had they managed to make the loot and social rewards matter instead of routinely handing out the next leveled-up piece to practically open the door to the next dungeon on the list, I might have reflected upon my time in Hinterberg more favourably.

The post Dungeons Of Hinterberg Review – It’s A Kind Of Magic appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve always looked at video game speedrunners with equal levels of awe and confoundment. The skills on display when watching a pro blitz through a game at an unfathomable pace are nothing short of impressive, but it’s the amount of time, dedication and heartbreak that really separates the Mario Bros. from the Mario Boys. For many, myself included, entering the world of speedrunning in any serious capacity just isn’t feasible or attainable. Enter Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition.

This new package from Nintendo has been produced with two clear goals. The first is to play on the nostalgia folks feel for the company’s output in the 80s and early 90s, and in particular pay reverence to the real Nintendo World Championships first held in 1990. The other is to offer players a taste of the highs of speedrunning and competition in a way that’s more accessible, approachable and digestible. With those ideas in mind, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is almost a complete success with a bit of room for improvement.

The experience here is pretty straightforward. In the default single player option, Speedrun Mode, you’ll take on a series of over 150 speedrunning challenges based on excerpts of 13 different NES classics. Things start off relatively simple – you might be asked to grab the first Super Mushroom in the original Super Mario Bros. as quickly as possible, or defeat all of the enemies in a room in The Legend of Zelda in record time, while layer challenges can feature entire levels or even the full experience of a game. You’re graded on your performance and, based on said grade, doled out coins to spend on further challenges.

GET IT ON AMAZON FOR $47.95

The mix of games and challenges here is mostly pretty good. Each game’s ladder feels like a steady escalation that serves both to highlight the different mechanics and quirks of a game that the speedrunning community would need to master in the real world, as well as set you up for the more difficult stages ahead. There are definitely a couple of games that feel underserved or just aren’t as fun in the context, like Excitebike and Balloon Fight, and almost a third of the line-up is Super Mario Bros. titles, but the specific moments across each are usually pretty fun to tackle. The Legendary Challenges are the highlights, and not worth spoiling, but the fact that they also come with “Classified Information” formatted like an old-school guide book is a wonderful touch.

In fact the whole presentational package, though perhaps not packed with the typical Nintendo “charm,” is sharp and well-considered. When tackling any of the games in Speedrun Mode you can either have a single-screen view or watch a side-by-side of you previous attempts for a look at where you’ve done well or poorly, challenges all start with a look at the CPU executing a near-perfect attempt (you’ll have to figure out the hidden, hacky paths to the fabled S ranks on your own), and you’ll occasionally get added help from overlays on the game screen guiding you through some of those esoteric, winding paths emblematic of classic game design.

Once you’ve honed your skills in the solo Speedrun Mode, there are also a few different options to compete against others. A dedicated Party Mode mixes things up by allowing up to eight players on one console to tackle challenges in tandem, either individually or as part of curated packages that have themes based on one or more games. With a big enough group (and telly) it can be pretty entertaining to watch eight simultaneous attempts at the bite-sized runs and makes for a surprisingly good party game, especially when the points even out and the final, electric nail-biter is a 10-second snippet of Kirby’s Adventure.

Taking things online, there are two more modes. The first is World Championships, which offers a weekly rotation of five challenges of varying difficulties, which you can play as many times as you like within that week to record your best times in the hopes of posting a top spot when the results are finally revealed. The second is Survival Mode, which pits you against seven other players’ online ghost data in an asynchronous elimination bracket, over the course of three challenges. Both of these modes are fun in their own ways, if only in short bursts before the inevitable wait for the next week’s rotation, but Survival is definitely where the competitive spirit shines even if you’re not actually playing against others in real time. The added touch of a cheering crowd audio in the backgrounds of online modes is also a nice touch.

And of course with online play comes the need for added personalisation and a way to show off your achievements, so NWC: NES Edition features player profiles with things like unlockable player icons and a catalogue of pins recognising your achievements in the various modes. The pin designs are quite neat, and the player icons feature sprites from across the included games, so unlocking and buying everything is a decent incentive to keep playing, but some more “museum” style content, especially around the actual Nintendo World Championships, would have been a welcome way to spend the multitude of coins you’ll earn across the various modes. There’s a lot of history here, and speedrunning in itself is a really interesting category that this game seemingly wants to introduce to a wider audience, so it feels like a lot of missed opportunity.

And that’s really this game’s biggest stumble – there’s just not enough to keep players invested past engaging in the two online modes for a few minutes a week or occasionally breaking it out in a group setting, and even then the appeal can wear thin quickly. It’s especially true when we’ve kind of already been here before with the NES Remix packages on Wii U and 3DS, the second of which even had its own take on the NWC, and all of which featured more games, more challenges and more than just speedrunning. As an on-shelf, $50 title I’d have hoped for just a smidge more substance.

The post Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Review – Running In The 80s appeared first on Press Start.

KILL. ALL. GODS.

God, what an impression the marketing for Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn made. The latest effort from Ashen developer A44 Games, Flintlock ticks a lot of boxes. A striking art direction and tone established from the jump, a beloved indie studio shifting gears into AA scale with yet another riff on the Soulslike genre, and a cute fox creature with mascot-sized ears by your side. But between ideation and execution, something comes unstuck in Flintlock.

We pick up with the world of Flintlock some ten years after the Door to the Great Below was breached and the Dead spilled forth into the land of Kian, a war-torn country perpetually on the brink of collapse but somehow managing to teeter. The game follows the misadventures of Nor Vanek, a Sapper (some kind of specialist soldier) for the Coalition (some kind of coalition formed to fight the Dead) after she and a small group of mates inadvertently unleash a pantheon of cruel, if incredibly stylish, gods into Kian.

Much of this is clumsily established in the opening half hour, which has a sort of rapid, in medias res feel to its opening that never reverts to an earlier state to help you find your legs. It’s a flurry of proper nouns and character names and relationships that fails to establish a sense of place or even basic emotional investment in the world, before the cut to title card and the game can begin in earnest, as a wounded Nor is rescued by the above-mentioned mascot fox, Enki.

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Enki and Nor don’t have much in common, what with one being an immortal God of death and the other a scrappy war orphan hellbent on killing the Gods, but the two quickly form an accord and set forth across Kian to dispose of Enki’s colleagues. It’s a dynamic that is ostensibly ripe for character drama but Flintlock relegates the development of their relationship to off-screen conversations and humdrum walk-and-talk segments, neither of which offer much insight into the two’s unlikely friendship.

It’s unfortunately emblematic of the kind of incuriosity that plagues Flintlock, especially as the actual act of killing all the gods is a fairly homogenised melting pot of systems and beats. Nor is set loose into humble open-zone maps, a crisscross section of mountain paths, caves, and settlements, to hack and slash her way through hordes of the Dead while gathering resources and currencies for her various armaments, skill trees, and collectables. You’ll find colour graded gear for your different equipment slots, magical crystals to change Enki’s passive and active abilities, and just generally feel as if you’re playing a video-game-arse-video-game.

There are flashes of brilliance layered into this pastiche though. Flintlock’s combat loop is overly familiar and sporadically sloppy, Nor’s Sapper training allowing for a flurry of light and heavy blows with the requisite parries, status effects, and ranged pistol options. But overlaying this is the game’s wonderfully spiteful Reputation multiplier, an escalating percentage booster applied to accrued experience that gets higher the longer you avoid damage. But get whacked, even once, and you lose the multiplier and only the baseline exp is added to your pool.

It’s sick, a genuinely fun and thrilling addition to the Souls-adjacent action combat formula that is only truly undone by that sloppiness mentioned earlier. Flintlock’s combat is ultimately best enjoyed on lower difficulties where the game’s loose understanding of parry frames and animation priority can’t hurt as much, but too often you’ll lose your hard-earned Reputation multiplier due to the unpolished and unreliable collision of camera, hitboxes, and poor visual communication.

Elsewhere Flintlock dabbles in verticality with exploration bolstered by Rifts, ethereal portals that Enki can whip you up to in a flash and then project you out of for more Rift hopping or platforming. Nor can also lob some Godly-gunpowder below her to jump higher or propel herself forward, which in tandem with the Rift leaping, can lead to some brief bursts of fun. Combining these tools can lead Nor to hidden treasure spots and the occasional shortcut but despite a considered set of traversal tools, there aren’t many places to actually go in Flintlock.

Kian is frequently gorgeous to behold, a kind of geographically Frankensteined fantasy land of Middle Eastern, New England, and New Zealand influences. This approach gives Flintlock a stunning array of vistas and landscapes to play in, with the mid to late-game offerings particularly of note. Though no matter how fantastical the land is, exploration is never truly enticing as finagling Nor over rooftops and cliffsides is frequently awkward and beyond the stray side quest, there’s not much incentive to get her anywhere other than the golden path.

With the notable exception of Flintlock’s wobbly combat fundamentals, there isn’t much in here that is experience-breaking so much as consistently underwhelming. The cultural touchstones used to give Kian life can lead to some truly inventive visual touches as you explore settlements and discover increasingly gaudy armour sets, but when it all loops back into fairly rote, poorly communicated fantasy storytelling and limited exploration, no amount of aesthetic shine can catch the eye for long enough to sustain investment.

There’s a moment toward the end of Flintlock where Nor and Enki are having it out about the highs and lows of their time together. A half dozen Gods slain along the way, secrets revealed, cool new axes upgraded, and the land of Kian mapped and liberated. The two are heatedly trying to decide who will undertake a risky final step when Nor declares that despite everything, Enki is now a Sapper first and a God second.

But then, and even now, I still don’t fully understand what a Sapper is.

The post Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Review – Let Sleeping Gods Lie appeared first on Press Start.

The world of sim racing gear is intimidating. I’ve often thought it could be something I’d enjoy but the complexity, expense and space requirements of a proper sim racing rig kept the idea well out of my mind. Then along came MOZA with its R3 Wheel and Pedals bundle for Xbox and PC, offering everything you need to get a racing sim going with just a desk and a game console.

The unpacking process for the R3 was admittedly a little intimidating. There’s a bit of assembly required – but this means the system is flexible enough to fit both desk mount and sim cockpit. Everything goes together in a reasonably straightforward way. Screw the reassuringly hefty wheel base to the desk clamp, lock the wheel on, wire up the pedals and plug everything into power and your games machine. Within about half an hour I had gone from the box appearing on my doorstep to being hooked up.

While setting up, I encountered one of my rare gripes with the kit. While the part of the desk clamp that sits atop your desk is nicely padded to protect the surface, the pieces that push against the bottom of the desk to hold it in place are bare metal. Without some padding it would damage the underside of a nicely-finished desk. It’s nothing that a spare cloth or some rubber lying around can’t solve of course, but worth calling out nonetheless.

Setup is finished by hooking the wheel up to a PC or smartphone and checking for firmware updates. Each part of the kit can have it’s own firmware to update but MOZA’s Pit House applications make it easy to check for and apply updates to the entire setup at once. We’re almost ready to race now.

Hooking up to the Xbox once everything’s powered on was as simple as connecting a USB cable to the console. The standard buttons on the wheel worked straight away to navigate the dashboard and game menus. Depending on the game you might be asked to do some calibration, and I found that it’s worthwhile to take the time and make sure movements in game and on your wheel line up perfectly. Not all games will offer this, however.

Now with all the setup, updating and calibration done it was finally time to put this thing through its paces. I’d been keen to try out the new Forza Motorsport and trying a sim racing kit seemed the perfect way to do so.

I started one of the early races and immediately noticed the hefty force feedback of the wheel base. The amount of feedback and the granularity of that feedback during a race is remarkable. You can feel the way tyres are gripping to the road with every bit of rubbery friction they can muster as you corner at speed. Undulations in the road translate to your wheel moving underneath your hands requiring effort to maintain control of the vehicle. The wheel adds a visceral element to racing that even the haptic feedback of the PS5’s DualSense can’t get close to.

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The wheel comes equipped with paddle shifters mounted to the back. These move with it, making gear changes easy to achieve as long as you keep your hands at 9 and 3 o’clock. They feel solid and chunky, with a satisfying click when actuated. I’d never played a racing game in manual mode for any serious amount of time before, but between having a proper wheel and the satisfying feel of the shifters here I went manual and never wanted to go back. The wheel itself is wrapped in a soft feeling PU Leather (so, plastic) which has a nice, quality feel.

The other major piece you get in this bundle is the pedals. While they’re not as exciting as a wheel with force feedback they form an essential part of the sim experience. Both pedals are smooth to operate, with appropriate resistance to allow for fine control of throttle and braking. Their ability to stay in one place while just on the floor was a weak point, however. For me, whether I had them sitting on carpet or a hard plastic chair mat they would slide around while I was driving. During a moment of hard braking, the last thing you want is the brake to move out from under you or not be where you expect. This would be solved by properly mounting them – but for a desk setup it might be worth finding something they can sit against to keep them in place.

It’s worth noting too, that this wheel bundle can evolve along with you if you enjoy the sim racing life enough to commit more money down the track. It can mount to a dedicated cockpit, and you can expand your options with clutch pedals, gear shifters and handbrakes that all plug into the back of the wheel base. While I think it’s a perfectly serviceable kit right out of the box, it’s nice to know that if you want to level up from here you won’t have to start from square one again.

If you’re considering this bundle, you should definitely peruse MOZA’s compatibility page before committing. While the manual says it should work for nearly any racing game on Xbox, I found I just couldn’t get it working with F1 23. I could launch into the game from the dashboard but nothing in the game responded to wheel button inputs at all. Not sure if it’s an Xbox issue or a game issue, but if a game isn’t on the rather large official list I’d be checking to be sure the game you want to play will work. The good news though is that F1 23 was the only problematic game I found. Forza Horizon 3 and 5, Motorsport, and EA WRC all worked wonderfully.

The MOZA R3 Wheel & Pedals bundle is my first serious attempt at using a sim-racing style controller setup, and it has changed realistic racing games for me. I took driving so much more seriously with a proper wheel in my hands. Doing practise laps of a new course to learn its lines, learning the appropriate gear to be in to approach and remain in the right torque band to zip out as fast as possible. Being behind a wheel made me take racing more seriously. I felt like I was getting better at racing by feeling the feedback from the car and track, and seeing my lap times improve as I learned to adapt to track conditions and to better my technique was a thrill.

The post MOZA R3 Wheel & Pedals for Xbox/PC Review – I Am The Wheelman appeared first on Press Start.

Back in the day, when games were cheaper to make and experimentation was rife, Capcom was one of the leaders in that department. It’s easy to forget how much that Japanese powerhouse was putting out during the PlayStation 2 era. While I am inclined to appreciate their output more than anything else these days, I’ve longed for games that experiment a little bit more than experiences like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess feels like the Capcom of old, in a good way, and while it isn’t perfect, it does earnest work in fusing two genres to offer up something totally different.

In Kunitsu-Gami, you play as Soh. They’re a warrior tasked with protecting a divine maiden named Yoshiro as she works to cleanse the defilement brought to the holy mountain of Kafuku by a demonic presence called the Seethe. It’s a simplistic storyline that helps to give context for why Soh and Yoshiro are making their way down the mountain, but there’s not much surprise to be had here. The story is clearly the lowest priority for the developers here, as most of the story is told through optional collectibles, and while there is some cinematics, they have a minimal presence here.

Despite this, Kunitsu-Gami is still a great game and plays incredibly well. It’s a unique combination of action and strategy, with the gameplay being split into two distinct but obvious halves. Tower defence veterans will understand what’s happening here – during the day, Soh can cleanse the area to earn crystals, which can then be used to assign rescued villagers a combat role. During the day, Yoshiro ritualistically dances towards a demon gate to cleanse it, but during the night, she stops and needs protection from the Seethe.

At first glance, this setup is similar to any tower defence game. But everything else that is unique about Kunitsu-Gami helps it to stand apart. For one, Capcom has drawn on their experience with action games to impart Soh with a complete set of moves and abilities, giving you much more agency in defending Yoshiro. While the goddess is being attacked and villagers protect her, you can use various skills to fill any gaps in your defence. Too many melee villagers? Use Soh’s archery skills to fill that gap. It’s an elegant way to keep things interesting rather than just watching battles play out like you would in other strategy games.

Of course, it’s not just about Soh either. Each stage has a set number of villagers to save, each of which can be specialized into a specific role in exchange for the crystals you earn from cleansing each level.  There’s already a degree of strategy here – choosing how to spend your crystals – but as you progress through the game, there are twelve roles to choose from. Some are as simple as the woodcutters, who act as simple melee attackers. In contrast, others lay down buffs or debuffs to make your defence easier. While some roles are underutilized, there’s a big enough mix to complement your playstyle with Soh in whatever way you wish.

The strategy element comes into play when considering how many choices must be made when preparing your defence. Every choice you make will cost you elsewhere. Whether it be crystals to specialize your villagers or time to repair specific structures with your on-site carpenter. The carpenter can also be directed to rebuild structures that’ll assist in your defence – whether it be towers that expand the range of your ranged units or barriers that’ll slow the flow of the Seethe. Choosing which structures to repair means you won’t fix others, and it can often also be the difference between a successful run and a disastrous one.

The Seethe are more than just your regular demons, though. Around twenty-four different types offer a wide variety of enemies you’ll encounter on your path of cleansing. Each is inspired by and designed after yokai from Japanese folklore, and the variety helps ensure that the action never gets old across the whole campaign. Like the villagers, some are simple melee attackers, but others are more complex, limiting Soh’s abilities to command the villagers or debuff them entirely. While this might seem unremarkable on paper, the unique and eclectic design of the Seethe helps them stand out.

Such a design philosophy dovetails beautifully with the boss encounters that Soh will come up against. They’re all unique and require some degree of strategy or team management to defeat effectively. Most are challenging but not brutally tricky, but others aren’t afraid to change the formula to keep things fresh. For example, one of the bosses doesn’t even let you bring villagers with you, requiring you to battle with Soh in a one-on-one fight. They’re an excellent way to break up an already well-paced campaign.

And I say that with no shred of irony. At first glance, I was sceptical as to whether Kunitsu-Gami might become tiring after a few levels or even the generous demo released earlier this month. However, the campaign continually introduces new elements or gimmicks to keep the formula fresh from beginning to end. Whether introducing a new enemy to a standard encounter or making Soh commandeer a boat through Seethe-occupied, Kunitsu-Gami leverages a substantial degree of enemy variety and objective design to provide a well-paced and enjoyable campaign.

However, other elements of the game may be interpreted differently. With each stage you cleanse, said stage can be revisited as a “base” for your team. When exploring each base, the villagers you’ve saved in the stage prior can be assigned to rebuild structures as needed. These serve as de facto side quests in the game, with the rebuild progressing as you finish missions by either replaying them or pushing forward. Completed structures reward a few things, be it buffing talismans, experience to upgrade, or lore drops or sweets to gift Yoshiro. Only two of these things arguably impact the gameplay, so your mileage may vary regarding whether you’d find value in replaying missions to earn them.

Another issue I’m not even sure is worth bringing up is the challenges system. Each level has three challenges that can be completed to earn extra experience points to upgrade Soh and the villagers. But these challenges aren’t revealed until you have finished the level. If you complete them on your first run, you’ll still be rewarded for them, but it does feel like a way to artificially force replayability rather than providing a fun challenge for those who might want to min-max their first run. However, some of these challenges are clearly unattainable until you revisit the level with better teams, so maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing.

While I’ve left it to the last thing to speak about, Kunitsu-Gami’s strong presentation further demonstrates the strengths of the ever-versatile RE Engine. While it never quite reaches the photorealistic heights of the Resident Evil games, the solid artistic direction makes up for it. Drawing strong influence from Japanese art styles like Ukiyo-e, Kunitsu-Gami’s creative direction has a great fantasy feel highlighted with bright and vibrant colours. The result is a style that, if you screenshot any frame with a character or enemy, could look like a piece of artwork. And that’s even before considering the game’s strong performance, supported by a buttery smooth aptly named 60fps performance mode.

Such a similarly strong sense of presentation is bolstered by the game’s original score, which employs traditional Japanese instruments to sell the tone the game is going for. Instruments like the shamisen, koto and taiko drums do great work elevating the battles in a way that’s authentic to the time period the game draws from. The quieter tracks that play during the lighter base management moments are nothing short of beautiful, either. An unnecessary but appreciated touch is that your villagers will all dance to the music as they wait for the Seethe to approach them, giving Kunitsu-Gami’s already strong presence a great sense of personality, too.

And that’s what sets Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess apart from other games of this ilk. It takes some pretty typical elements of two very well-trodden genres and spits out something vibrant, colourful and unique with personality. And that’s why, even if you’re not typically a fan of these genres, I’d still recommend Kunitsu-Gami. It’s well worth your time and something we need right now in games – something different.

The post Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Review – A Divine Fusion appeared first on Press Start.

In the opening levels of SCHiM, you watch a child grow up, and you grow alongside them – you’re playing as their shadow, after all. As they get older, you experience their milestones, moments of joy, sadness, togetherness, loneliness. You learn the game’s basic controls, which allow you to hop into other shadows and trigger an interaction with the objects, people or animals you’re occupying. You also grow attached to the unnamed child – eventually, the unnamed adult – you’re quite literally shadowing.

Following a particularly bad day, this person’s shadow is accidentally detached from them. Your objective across the game, naturally, is to find your way back to your human, and to do so you’ll have to hop your way between shadows across several dozen small levels, interacting with objects and timing your jumps to progress through each area.

When I look back on my time with SCHiM, I remember a handful of cool moments, clever puzzles, and frustrating sections. But mostly, I remember pressing the “X” button on my DualSense over and over to keep jumping between shadows. Jumping is a core, fundamental part of so many games, and SCHiM certainly has a good jump. It’s a long, generous, pleasantly floaty jump, one that feels appropriate for a shadow. But unlike many games in which jumping is a core mechanic, you’re not chaining together moves, or jumping over obstacles, or really doing much more than following the path the game has set out before you, moving between shadows to reach the one that will trigger the end of the level. SCHiM has an interesting premise, but over time it begins to feel quite samey.

SCHiM is largely the work of two developers, Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman, and before digging into the review proper it’s worth highlighting that making a functional, original game as a tiny team like this is a massive achievement, especially when the game looks gorgeous and is full of clever ideas. Even when I am not enjoying a game – and there are absolutely stretches of SCHiM that I did not really enjoy – it’s worth keeping in mind the circumstances under which it was made, and SCHiM is certainly an impressive accomplishment.

Visually, SCHiM really stands out. Each level has a different colour palette, with objects rendered in simple detail, making the shadows you’re travelling through feel vital and alive (they frequently are alive, in fact, but they never seem to mind you visiting). I enjoyed checking out each new environment and seeing how the game used colour to indicate different times of day. I wish SCHiM had done more with this, there are a few “night” levels where shadows are hard to come by, but oddly only the first one you encounter really feels like a puzzle that needs to be solved.

You can tap a button to “interact” with objects once you’re in their shadows. Most of them are just for fun – a bin spits out rubbish, a container shakes, a cat meows. Sometimes these interactions are essential for progress. Changing a traffic light might make traffic flow, letting you leap into a car’s shadow to move forward, just to give one example of a thing you’ll have to do several times throughout the game. Every now and then, a shadow will have certain properties – the shadows of powerlines and some other cords are bouncy, and some objects can be stretched to fling you forward. A bird might take flight once you’re in its shadow, and activating an object that lights up at night will give you access to new shadows.

There are moments like these scattered throughout the game, and there were several points when I encountered an exciting mechanic and wondered “Is the game about to really kick off?” But then I’d hit yet another level where progress was dependent on waiting a long time for a car or pedestrian to go past, or one with a lot of fiddly jumps required, or a string of short, samey levels across environments I’d already visited. There’s a lot of sitting and waiting in SCHiM, hoping that you’ll be able to time your jumps when a car finally passes by the road you need to cross, or that an NPC will let you catch a ride with them. Many levels end before they feel like they’ve really begun, giving the game an odd, staccato rhythm.

SCHiM is short, yet it feels padded, like a great two-hour game that has been stretched to four hours. A lot of the levels are simple a series of quick jumps between shadows, whereas it feels like only a handful ask you to be a bit more clever, or to think laterally. There are hidden objects scattered through most levels if you want to explore them, but there’s no real reward for collecting them all aside from an a trophy/achievement.

There’s one detail about SCHiM that absolutely drove me up the wall, and it’s one where I suspect mileage may vary. The game is, ostensibly, about trying to get back to your person, and it doesn’t take long before you spot them in the distance in a level. For most of the game, your human is just slightly out of reach, and often the course you take through the level actively takes you further away from them. As a player, you’re acutely aware that if this was all really happening, you could simply wait outside the building they’ve entered and re-enter the blank void beneath them as they pass by. There are many such moments in the game.

This narrative decision means that the game perpetually feels like it’s about to end, and like you’re repeatedly failing at what should be a pretty simple task. It makes the shadow’s motivations feel unclear. There are multiple cutscenes during the game in which the shadow could have easily reached their person, and the game only engages a little bit with the cost of this human being separated from the player character.  I found it incredibly frustrating feeling like the game was continuing arbitrarily past the point where the two should have reunited. It soured the entire experience for me, but I can imagine other players finding this less frustrating, especially if they know to expect it.

SCHiM is a game with a lot of great ideas – and it ends well with a cool final level – but it also feels like a game that would have benefited from being a bit shorter and sharper, with a greater investment in storytelling and exploring the possibilities of its more clever mechanics. It’s a game that makes the case for its own potential without necessarily delivering on it. Perhaps one day, an improved sequel will emerge from its shadow.

The post SCHiM Review – A Beautiful But Repetitive Puzzle-Platformer appeared first on Press Start.

As a self-proclaimed JRPG fanatic, I’ve covered a lot of ground in this genre over the years. From Final Fantasy to Xenoblade and everything in-between, there are few blind spots in the knowledge I’ve amassed of these oft gargantuan experiences. Still, though, there are blind spots. One such franchise that’s always eluded me despite its rapid growth is the Trails series.

Many of Nihon Falcom’s titles are sprinkled throughout my backlog and have been sitting there for some time, gathering dust in my Steam library. If there’s one thing I can say for sure after taking the plunge into the latest entry in The Legend of Heroes franchise, Trails Through Daybreak, it’s that I’m concerned about how much money and time the rest of this series is going to snatch away from me in the near-future.

For those unfamiliar with the Trails games, the general rule of thumb is that each arc stands separate from the rest of the series, so there’s no real required reading to jump into Trails Through Daybreak. Each one is set in a different region of Zemuria, so some of the world happenings and politics do have some crossover and there’s sure to be a few references to prior events that I didn’t pick up on.

Not having prior experience with the franchise didn’t feel like a detriment in the case of Trails Through Daybreak. Daybreak marks the first Trails arc to be set in the Calvard Republic, and follows the story Van Arkride, a bounty hunter and private detective who takes on gigs that are a bit more morally grey than usual jobs. It’s a unique role to be in given the Calvard Republic’s economic boom and public unrest surrounding immigration and governmental changes.

Van’s work at Arkride Solutions brings in Agnes Claudel, a bright-eyed and energetic high school girl who’s naivety lends a more positive outlook of the world when compared to Van. The two set out to find a type of machine or orbment, as they’re referred to in-universe, called Oct-Genesis. They’re eventually accompanied by many different people from all walks of life in the Calvard Republic as they enter conflict with a terrorist group known as Almata.Í

The thing that surprised me the most about Trails Through Daybreak is its willingness to delve into mature subject matter and themes, exploring them through the numerous perspectives of its characters and their outlooks on life. On the surface, the Calvard Republic is a melting pot of cultures that’s grown in the wake of post-war reparations. The truth of it is that many forms of malice bubble beneath the surface, big and small.

None of this is better explored than through Van Arkride himself. Van is a breath of fresh air in a genre full of prophesied chosen ones and would-be heroes. There’s nothing wrong with a good hero’s journey, but Van’s work leaves him ever skeptical of those around him and the situations he finds himself in. He’s always keen-eyed, is rarely blindsided, and exudes a charm and sense of comedy that makes him an endearing protagonist from start to finish.

Van’s life experience makes Agnes quite the fitting protege. His unwillingness to trust new people is immediately juxtaposed by Agnes’s more bubbly and easy-going nature. It makes for engrossing character development on both fronts and offers a relationship dynamic that remains engaging through Daybreak.

The surrounding cast of characters and the broader plot are similarly engaging. It goes far deeper than simply looking for the Octo-Genesis, pulling numerous groups into the fold as the core plot unravels. It slowly reveals new facets to each of its conflicts and the characters surrounding it, making for quite the rollercoaster ride once its all said and done.

As the first part of this new story arc within the Calvard Republic, Trails Though Daybreak spends a lot of time with its characters and world. A majority of the major plot happenings are in service of Van and the people who fall into his employ at Arkride Solutions. The way that each arc focuses on individual characters as they’re introduced gives them ample room to breathe and develop despite the relatively large size of the overall cast.

Daybreak is also unique in the way it handles combat, employing both real-time and turn-based elements for the first time in a Trails game. In the field, you can engage enemies in fast-paced real-time combat, combining quick combos with nimble dodges and heavy attacks to stun your enemies leading into turn-based combat. This not only damages them, but delays their turns on the battle timeline, giving you a significant edge in proper combat.

Once you’re in combat proper, there’s quite a bit to keep track of. You have standard attack and defend commands, consumable items and most importantly – Crafts and Arts. Crafts and Arts are governed by CP and EP respectively. CP is pretty readily available, so Crafts function as a nice bread and butter option to hit groups of enemies for decent damage. EP is generally harder to come by, which is made up for by the strength of Arts and their ability to exploit elemental weaknesses and dish out buffs.

You also have to think about your party composition and the way that you position characters when using Crafts and Arts to get the most bang for your buck. There’s a lot to think about, and I don’t feel the game does the best job of teaching you how it all works. There’s a good number of tutorials but not much of it shows you how things work when you put it into practice. There was a healthy amount of experimentation before I felt like I had a firm grasp on combat.

Once you get it, though, it becomes immensely rewarding in its complexity and nuances. Understanding how to make the most of your turns while delaying the turns of your opponents, maximising EP consumption, positioning properly and more becomes a puzzle in each battle. It becomes even more in-depth when you dive into character customisation and some of the other RPG elements in Trails Through Daybreak.

You have the usual gear system where different weapons and armour increase different stats, alongside accessories. Where Trails Through Daybreak is most distinguished is in its Quartz system. The Quartz system allows you to slot Quartz across four different lines. Some of these are locked and need to be opened as you progress through the game, some are element-locked to certain Quartz types.

This is arguably going to be the best part of Trails Through Daybreak if you enjoy building out your party and characters. It’s so rewarding to tinker with your party after being stuck by a boss and coming out on top through a careful combination of Quartz and thoughtful combat decisions. This does add onto the initial complexity of combat, though, so getting to grips with everything at once can feel overwhelming in the opening hours.

When you aren’t engaging in combat, you’ll spend a majority of your time exploring the different parts of the Calvard Republic and helping out the general public with their own requests. A good chunk of these are really enjoyable, often exploring the darker elements of Trails Through Daybreak’s world instead of opting for meandering fetch quests. There’s a healthy amount in each chapter, each one building up Van’s moral compass based on your decisions.

While this moral compass doesn’t have any drastic impact on the main plot or ending, it does open up unique dialogue and opportunities to side with certain factions. It goes a long way to characterise Van while also letting you have your own say on certain situations. They’re also often used to expand on side characters, which is nice given each arc of the main plot usually focuses on a few key players.

The only real issue I found with the navigation side of things is the pacing. There’s some pretty lengthy stretches of time where you’re railroaded into main story progression with little-to-no combat to break up the overall flow. It helps a lot that the characters are so multi-faceted and the plot is engaging, but I often found myself itching to get back into exploration and combat when the narrative takes the wheel.

One side system that I really dig is the Gourmet Rank. As a certified foodie and sweets aficionado, Van loves to eat. As you buy, cook, and eat new foods, you’ll gain points towards your Gourmet Rank. Ranking up nets party wide stat increases, imploring you to hunt down as many new foods and beverages as you can when exploring the Calvard Republic’s locales. It’s a neat twist on a system we see in many RPGs today, and feels fitting given Van’s affinity for food.

If there’s one thing that unites many of Falcom’s titles, it’s that they all share a striking visual style that’s immediately identifiable. Trails Through Daybreak is no different, sporting a gorgeously realised anime-like visual aesthetic that pops with colour and detail. The fact that this game released almost three years ago in Japan is testament to the idea that art direction will always trump raw visual fidelity.

While I can’t speak to its place in the broader scope of Trails games, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is a great JRPG that surprises and delights in so many ways. It might present itself as unwieldy in its opening hours, but that initial friction gives way to a deeply nuanced gameplay experience coupled with excellent characters and narrative chops. If you’ve yet to dive into Trails, Daybreak might be your best opportunity to do so.

The post The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak Review – A Great Time To Jump Into The Series appeared first on Press Start.

Anger Foot isn’t a game for everyone. It’s weird, crude and chaotic, not in the slightest bit shy of being silly. But nor should it be. Doubling down on the weird is what makes Anger Foot wonderful. The game is at its best when it leans into the outlandishness, delivering one of the year’s most unique, adrenaline-inducing experiences.

Free Lives, the South African indie developers behind the game are, of course, no strangers to the absurd. They’re a perfect partner for publisher Devolver Digital, having previously collaborated on games like Genital Jousting and Broforce. The insanity they channel into their games is evident in the title. If not Anger Foot, what else would you call a game in which kicking goons with a gnarly green foot is the primary mode of combat?

In case you’ve somehow forgotten the trailers from Devolver Directs of yore, I’ll try to describe it as best as I can. Anger Foot is a fast-paced, first person shooter following a balaclava-wearing protagonist in violent pursuit of his prized sneaker collection. With the unique ability of a lethal leg kick, you must navigate each of the game’s 63 levels in the fastest time possible to unlock new sneakers that imbue your feet with different enhancements.

It’s a formula that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Hurrying through, the game can likely be played through in a matter of hours. Levels are knocked over in mere minutes, but the stars awarded for completing the bonus challenges will draw you back in for a redo. Whether it be posting a faster time or dispatching members of the Debauchery Gang differently, these harder tasks suck you in for more playtime.

Some of the levels are surprisingly grueling. Death comes quickly; give an enemy the opportunity and you’ll swiftly have to restart the level. Much like other games of its type, there’s an element of puzzle solving required to navigate each level and survive the various enemies awaiting you with an assorted arsenal of ranged and melee weaponry. If you’re not careful, a pistol-wielding gangster might stumble out of a toilet cubicle with their pants down and start blasting. Learning which enemies to knock off first, which exploding barrel could be kicked to knock out a crowd, and which guns are best to steal is essential for swiftly sweeping through a level.

The bosses serve as refreshing changes in pace with multiple phases creating narrow windows of opportunity to land a kick, but aren’t particularly formidable. Instead, tougher armoured and shield-carrying enemies gradually up the intensity as you progress, with the real challenge arising when countless enemies fill a room to the point performance would occasionally stutter.

The powerups granted by the new shoes warrant the extra time spent perfecting a level. Some introduce quirks to the gameplay that contribute to the often hilarious situations the game thrusts you in. Others offer new ways to approach a level that dramatically change how you navigate the course. Certain sneakers will have you circling back to prior levels suddenly feeling better equipped. It all adds to replayability, but I was grateful you don’t need to perfect every level to unlock all that are on offer.

No doubt the design will sound familiar to fans of Hotline Miami and Neon White. I’m certain that fans of those games will find a ton of enjoyment within the game’s addictive loop, even if a handful of shortcomings holds it back from standing alongside them.

Anger Foot’s titular kicking mechanic has a slight delay to it that makes the game feel less sharp than the likes of Hotline Miami or Ghostrunner, two games I love for their snappiness. I quickly adjusted, but it makes the feet a little less powerful then they deserve. Often I gravitated towards the guns scattered about the levels in lieu of my kicking apparatus.

Levels also tend to blur together, not switching up level design or enemy variety at the pace required. Right from the opening level of each added area, I was expecting to be confronted by something new. Anger Foot flirts with increased verticality and platforming, but doesn’t come close to rivalling the likes of Neon White. The various gangs don’t feel appropriately distinct either, with the same enemies reappearing across the four different gangs you encounter. When I would suddenly encounter a new enemy type halfway through a new set of levels, it felt mistimed, like a missed opportunity to treat the introduction of each new gang and accompanying missions with a whole new look and feel.

Anger Foot’s presentation otherwise very much suits the tone of the game, with a rough-around-the-edges, cartoony style reminiscent of Squanch Games’ work. The character models all have an appropriately backwards look to them that complements the dystopian, drug-addled world. The rather industrial techno soundtrack wasn’t quite to my taste, but was always fitting as bullets ricocheted off explosive fuel tanks.

The post Anger Foot Review – Fast And Furious appeared first on Press Start.

The product of a talented bunch in our very own city of Melbourne, Spin Rhythm XD has more than earned its reputation as a fantastic take on arcade rhythm games that’s easy to pick up and fiendishly addictive in the pursuit of mastery. And now, it’s ready for a whole new swathe of players.

While there’s a heap I could say about Spin Rhythm XD that’s already been said as it made its way across other platforms, the focus here is on the newly-launched PS5 version, and the great news upfront is that it’s a stellar way to play a stellar game. If you, like me, can claim most of your rhythm game experience from using a PlayStation controller – games like Parappa the Rapper, Bust-A-Move and Invector as loose examples – it’s great to finally have this banger title come home. Crucially, it also represents the game’s debut as a VR title with PS VR2 support (along with a Steam VR update for the existing PC version of the game).

If you’ve ever played the PC or Switch versions of Spin Rhythm XD, you’ll pretty much know what you’re in for here. The game takes the idea of matching notes on a scrolling “highway” and puts a unique twist on by having you spin a wheel at the bottom of the track to alternate between two colours – rather than just assign them each a button. Add in sections that require you to flick the wheel hard in either direction and special bar notes that introduce a second button, and you’ve got a refreshingly tactile and easy-to-pick-up system that’s incredibly challenging and satisfying to master at a high level.

It’s one of those rare arcade rhythm games that genuinely feels made for a controller, which bodes well for the PlayStation release. It’s also a super customisable experience, allowing players to adjust everything from the control layout, to the inertia of the wheel and even how the wheel is driven – gyro and touch pad are both viable options on the DualShock/DualSense and both have their own unique advantages versus the analogue stick. Drilling down further, you’re able to tweak things like visual guides and feedback, track and menu colours and even how things look after you miss a note. There’s a level of personalisation that I’m yet to experience in a rhythm game and it’s incredibly refreshing.

Of course, a rhythm game is going to live or die by its soundtrack offering and thanks to a couple of years on the market via PC and Nintendo Switch, Spin Rhythm XD is launching on PlayStation with a stacked catalogue. There are some great names here for anyone into EDM and chiptune-adjacent beats, from Anamanaguchi to Hyper Potions, Panda Eyes, Lena Raine, 2 Mello, Tokyo Machine, and a whole heap more. Each track seems carefully-chosen to ensure playing them with the game’s unique controls feels immersive and performative, which is all you can ask for in a game like this. There’s a good ceiling for difficulty, too. I found that “Hard” was the sweet spot for me, though tracks still ramp up in actual challenge based on a numerical rating to give you a more granular indication, and there are two steps up from there.

About the only way that Spin Rhythm XD threatens to fall flat on PlayStation is true of its earlier iterations, and that’s a lack of play modes. There’s really only one option – to pick a track and play it. A game like this doesn’t need a lengthy campaign or anything extravagant, but an option or two to play it any other way (multiplayer, for instance) would have been welcome. There’s definitely enough here for completionists with unlockable tracks and cosmetics to be had, and a decent list for trophy hunters, but it does feel barebones for a console effort.

The other new wrinkle here is VR support, and while I was initially keen to see if transporting myself inside the game would be the ultimate way to play (and improve my skills), the reality isn’t as exciting. The control scheme employed is novel and makes sense in the context, with players also drumming the notes with the Sense controllers as they grab-and-spin the wheel, but I was really hoping for something more free-wheeling and with less emphasis on pointing. It’s a fun distraction if you’re looking for a new way to play and definitely ups the immersion factor considerably, but it’s far from the definitive Spin Rhythm XD experience.

The post Spin Rhythm XD PS5 Review – Addictive And Approachable Arcade Rhythm appeared first on Press Start.

After swearing black-and-blue for the longest time that I’d never stray from the nicely-appointed goodness of a full size keyboard and that sweet, sweet number pad, I’ve recently become a convert to the clean and tidy look of a more compact board. I’ve tried a few different takes on cut-down gaming keyboards from tiny numbers with the minimum of keys to more reasonable devices that still pack useful accouterments. Razer’s Huntsman V3 Pro TKL definitely sits on the latter end of that range, offering something that’s savvy on desk space but still has cutting-edge features and handy controls.

With my review unit coming in the gorgeous, white colourway, the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is, like so many more gaming peripherals arriving in recent months and years, a remarkably simple little number. The plastic base is fairly light but still feels nice and solid, and sits on a combination of rubber feet and the typical flip-out kickstands with two different degrees of incline. Despite being a solely wired keyboard, the included USB-C to USB-A cable is removable, which is great for portability and longevity. There’s also an optional wrist-rest included which carries on the sleek aesthetics and attaches magnetically, and although it’s not particularly cushioned it adds a nice amount of comfort for long stretches of typing.

Aside from the keys themselves, the Huntsman V3 Pro TKL also carries almost the same media controls and mini display as its full-sized big sibling, with a volume knob that carries some additional functions (more on that soon) and a couple of shortcut buttons, one of which can be mapped to any function and the other for basic media playback. 

As far as the keys themselves go, you’re getting a pretty typical TKL array, and Razer has opted for lightly-textured doubleshot PBT keycaps which feel quite nice, offer a good amount of grip and should last a lot longer than ABS caps. With pre-lubed switches sitting above an aluminum top plate, the keys all feel smooth and secure, and there’s an impression that you could give this thing quite the beating without fear of breaking anything. I’m not a huge fan of the noise profile, which sounds a lot cheaper than you’d expect from a $420 gaming keyboard, but perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the low-profile keyboard I’d mainly been using prior.

Thankfully, Razer’s “Analog Optical Switches Gen-2” still feel great to type or game on. Despite the deep thunks made in use, they’re actually quite lightweight with an actuation force of just 40g which has made using the keyboard for full days at a time decently comfortable. There’s a slight bounce to them which does contribute somewhat to that cheap feeling, but that’ll be mitigated somewhat by how you use them – and how you use them is very much up to you.

One of the big features of the Huntsman V3 Pro and these switches is the ability to set the actuation point of each key, going as short as 0.1mm and as deep as 4mm. This means you’re in charge of whether a press needs to be intentional and forceful to be registered, if you can fire off commands just by lightly grazing the keys, or anything in-between, and you can adjust it per-key if you want to get super intense about it. One thing I had no idea about before looking at the Razer Synapse software is that you can also take advantage of the analog nature of these keys and spectrum of actuation to simulate controller inputs like sticks and triggers, mapping them from right within the app. PC games and controller support is always a fickle thing, so it may not work everywhere, but it’s a neat feature that I genuinely didn’t expect to see.

Aside from the customisable actuation, the keyboard also feature Razer’s new Rapid Trigger technology, which allows for much faster typing thanks to the ability of the switches to register a keystroke and travel back the very moment you lift your finger, rather than waiting for the switch to reach a set actuation point and then complete its round trip. It’s a feature that will appeal primarily to those playing at a high enough level to need those added fractions of seconds in speed, but it’s impressive nonetheless. You can turn this on or off optionally on a per-key basis via the Razer Synapse software as well, making it easy to tweak the entire keyboard to your liking.

What I appreciated particularly is being able to set actuation points and Rapid Trigger right from the keyboard itself without even having to dip into Synapse at all. With a combination of presses, the Huntsman V3 Pro enters quick adjustment modes for either feature, and through the individual keys’ RGB lighting and the keyboards mini display you can see exactly what you’re changing and get real-time feedback on the actuation force you’re using. It’s all super smart, and while Synapse is still the better way to change things up, I’m really impressed by the setup here.

In general, Synapse is still an excellent app when it comes to configuring and customising a gaming keyboard. Razer’s done a good job to make things intuitive to use, and it’s incredibly reliable, which is a two-for-two in PC gaming peripheral software suites as far as I’m concerned. As someone who writes about games and therefore uses a lot of en dashes, I usually have a key on my keyboard dedicated to throwing one up on the fly, and because Synapse syncs everything to the cloud I’ve not had to redo that shortcut between PCs which is lovely.

The post Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL Review – A Solid Keyboard With Game-Changing Features appeared first on Press Start.

Aside from the MacBook I use for work, I’ve never been much of a laptop user, and that goes especially for gaming laptops. Typically, or at least traditionally, the thought of carrying around a hot, loud and chunky machine packed with offensive RGB lighting and abysmal battery life – or spending upwards of $5K to enter the high end of the market – just hasn’t appealed. I’d hardly have expected an Alienware laptop to be the device to show me that there are mid-range gaming options where both decent performance and a comfortable experience are possible at the same time.

Enter the Alienware m16 R2. The version of the laptop I’ve been using comes packing an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB SSD storage and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This model typically goes for around $3000 AUD, although a version with an RTX 4060 is also available for around $300 less, and you can upgrade to a Core Ultra 9 185H with 32GB of RAM for about $300 more. There are certainly higher-end gaming laptops available, including Alienware’s own x16 and m18 range, but the company is positioning this as something that people will use both as a gaming machine and a general-use laptop.

And after spending a fair amount of time with the m16 R2, I’d say mission accomplished on that front. It starts with the aesthetics, which still carry a fair amount of that Alienware vibe without being too obviously a gaming machine. You definitely won’t be fooling anyone with the prominent alien head logo on the lid, or serving as the machine’s power button, but it’s definitely much more trim than previous iterations (I’m so so thankful that the obnoxious back part of the old m16 has been made flush with the screen hinge). One day, Alienware will get rid of the ugly hexagonal intake grille design and I’ll be a happy man, but we take what we can get.

Around the back and sides of the m16 R2 we’ve got a pretty standard accompaniment of ports and other bits. There’s a microSD card slot on the right side along with two USB-A, 3.2 Gen 1 ports, on the left is an ethernet port and headset jack, and then on the back you’ll find the HDMI 2.1 port, two USB-C ports (one Thunderbolt 4 and one USB 3.2 Gen 2) and of course the power connection. It’s enough for most situations, especially when you’re on the go, although like most laptops you’ll probably want to pick up a dock to keep on your desk at home if this is going to be your main PC.

Finally, on the top face you’ve got a nicely-appointed keyboard and generously-sized touchpad, both of which feature customisable RGB lighting along with the power button and lid logo. Going back to that “gaming laptop in disguise” idea, the m16 R2 features a Stealth Mode which can quickly set the laptop to the Quiet performance profile and switch off the extra RGB lights so you can work in public or watch movies without all the added colour and fan noise – great for anyone using it in school or in an office. They keyboard and trackpad both feel great to use, as well.

This all sits below a gorgeous, 16:10 aspect, QHD 16″ IPS display that sports a very nice 240Hz refresh rate, features Dolby Vision and is compatible with both G-Sync and FreeSync. While it’s definitely not as bright or punchy as the displays on some higher-end machines, I quite like the way this screen looks and the high refresh rate is nice to have for games like Fortnite or Counter Strike 2 which can be run at exceedingly high frame rates on this laptop (more on that soon). The screen also conveniently opens at a full 180-degree angle thanks to the new chassis design, which is nice to have. The in-built speakers are about what you’d expect from a laptop like this – fine and loud enough in a pinch but nothing in comparison to a good pair of headphones or external speakers.

Overall, in terms of design and external features, the m16 R2 looks sleek, feels well designed and is fully appointed. At around 2.5kg it’s not exactly light even compared to similar laptops from other manufacturers, but unless you’re forking out big money for a thin and light gaming machine you’d reasonably expect a bit of heft. I really appreciate that Alienware’s gone with a small form factor power brick here, as well, which helps a lot with its portability.

Of course the big questions are around performance. With the m16 R2 packing an RTX 4070 GPU and Ultra 7 CPU (in this configuration, at least), you’d expect decent things – and you’ll get them here. In terms of gaming, likely the biggest reason you’d be looking at an Alienware gaming laptop, the story here is that you’ll easily run the most graphically-intensive AAA titles at a minimum 60FPS in the display’s full 2K resolution. Using NVIDIA’s DLSS technology, even on its least intrusive settings, you should also be able to do that with most games near their maximum graphical settings and with select ray-tracing features enabled.

In Cyberpunk 2077, for example, I was getting a very solid 60FPS out in the neon and rain-soaked streets of Night City with all of the ray-traced reflections, lighting and shadows switched on and making use of DLSS. Meanwhile PlayStation’s suite of decently-optimised PC ports all ran exceptionally – both Uncharted 4/Lost Legacy and Ghost of Tsushima hung around 80-90 FPS in most scenes with all of the visual settings maxed out at 2560 x 1600 resolution, with DLSS on Quality Mode. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart features some great ray-traced effects and even pushing the game well beyond its PS5-equivalent settings I was still able to get a minimum of 40FPS (though you’d naturally want to drop a few things to medium-high for a smoother experience).

Digging a bit further into the nitty-gritty of performance, running 3D Mark’s Solar Bay and Steel Nomad benchmarks showed that the m16 R2 performs significantly better than average based on the same hardware in other machines. It’s maybe not the most scientific or comprehensive of testing methods, but it’s a great way to quickly see how Alienware is using its design and engineering expertise to get more performance out of the same components versus other manufacturers.

One thing I was particularly surprised with, especially being as apprehensive about these laptops as I typically am, was how reasonable the noise profile of the m16 R2 is while gaming. High-powered laptops like these tend to be worryingly loud when they’re performing at their best and the internal fans are going full tilt, and nothing has changed here, but the overall volume and tone of the fans in this machine are far from the most offensive I’ve experienced. Just the fact that you’re able to drown most of it out using the built-in speakers is a big improvement on other laptops, and while it’s still loud there’s not the whine that you’d usually experience. I used to avoid gaming on my perfectly-capable MSI gaming laptop because it would always sound like it was about to explode, but I never felt that same concern when pushing the m16 R2 to its limits.

Heat, too, is shockingly well-managed here. Alienware’s mastery of thermal design has borne great results, with the laptop pushing almost all of the hot air out of the rear of the machine while the top and side vents only see a minimal amount of it. This means that there’s never a risk of discomfort as hot air blows up into your face or out onto your mouse hand. There aren’t any parts of the chassis that get particularly hot either, making the whole experience a pleasantly comfortable one.

Even the m16 R2’s battery life, typically abysmal in a gaming laptop like this, is pleasingly okay. The bar is astronomically low, to be fair, but I could feasibly use this machine for nearly a full work day without having to plug it in, at least for basic browser/Photoshop type tasks. Gaming or watching video is a different beast entirely – the most I’d get out of a game was approaching two hours, but higher-end titles like Cyberpunk 2077 would chew through a full charge in just under an hour. Mixing in a bit of YouTube watching or streaming The Boys in the background of other tasks would usually see me reaching for a charger in about 3 or 4 hours. It’s a better situation than I’ve seen in other 15-16″ gaming laptops but you’re absolutely going to need access to a power socket wherever you’re using it.

To help you manage all of these performance, noise and battery concerns is Alienware’s Command Centre software, which offers at-a-glance information on the internal components and facilitates seamless switching of the laptop’s power states to give you the most juice no matter what you’re doing. It also automatically organises your library of installed games and allows you to customise your lighting setup, making it pretty useful. That aforementioned “Stealth Key” is a great way to quickly chuck the laptop into a quieter, lower-power mode but it’s also great that managing performance is something that’s done for you and you’ll rarely have to worry about.

The post Alienware m16 R2 Review – A Sleek All-Rounder With Great Performance appeared first on Press Start.

After using the same desktop PC for the last five years, and one that I happened to have built myself for pennies, I’m never surprised to see it outperformed – in fact, it lags behind even low-end modern machines  – but I must admit there was a sense of being humbled after I saw it absolutely obliterated by something barely bigger than the palm of my hand.

That’s been my experience after switching my daily driver to the tiny Geekom A8. A high-performance mini PC packing an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS with Radeon 780M integrated graphics, 32GB of DDR5 memory and a 2TB SSD into something that measures just over 11x11cm and weighs less than 450g, it’s a minor marvel of engineering big things in small packages. And while it’s not cheap at an RRP of $1499, it’s shockingly capable as an entry-level gaming PC that’ll fit into just about any setup you could imagine.

The A8 comes in a tiny box that speaks volumes to the miniscule stature of the device within, containing the PC itself, the power brick and cables, a HDMI cord and a very handy mounting bracket. I’ve played around with plenty of PC form factors before including barebones NUC systems but this is absolutely the smallest desktop I’ve had the pleasure of unboxing and setting up to date.

With its brushed aluminum chassis, the A8 is quite a handsome little unit, and it’s fairly well-appointed. On the back you’ve got 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, an ethernet jack, USB 2.0 and 3.2 Type-A ports, USB 3.2 and USB 4 Type-C ports and the power in, on one side an SD card slot and on the front two more USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a headphone jack. That should all be enough for most setups, though if you plan on using those USB-C ports for monitors or external cards, or if you use a lot of streaming equipment/gaming gear you’ll probably wind up needing a dock of some kind. Naturally it’s also packing Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity.

While realistically this tiny PC is aimed at users seeking high-powered productivity and media creation in a discreet form factor, I was really interested to see how useful it’d be as a gaming machine, and that’s where it surprised me the most. As a loose comparison, the A8’s Ryzen 9 8945HS processor has the same Radeon 780M integrated GPU as the Ayaneo 2S gaming handheld, albeit tied to more powerful hardware elsewhere, meaning it should realistically outperform devices like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Legion Go. Naturally, those devices are tied to small, handheld screens where resolution can sit a bit lower, but the results are pretty favourable.

Get it on Amazon for $1399

In well-optimised games that have a lot of scaling potential, the A8 can produce some impressive results for a PC without a dedicated GPU, especially with AMD’s FSR temporal upscaling doing some of the lifting. Forza Horizon 5’s race benchmark resulted in a very nice 75FPS running at 1080p with medium settings and FSR 2 enabled, meanwhile PlayStation’s most recent PC port in Ghost of Tsushima managed to comfortably hit 35-40FPS at 1080p with medium settings and FSR 3 in Balanced mode. Death Stranding was very impressive running at a solid 50FPS at 1080p, with medium settings and no FSR, while Cyberpunk 2077 floored me at north of 40FPS while driving around Night City at 1080p, medium settings and FSR 2 on Balanced mode.

So, as might be obvious between those titles, 1080p really is the target for gaming on the A8 which means this definitely isn’t the system for playing on a huge, high-resolution monitor or 4K telly, at least not for “modern games.” I can definitely envision it being a great little bedroom or games room companion for running a huge range of indie games, legacy PC titles and emulated classics, though. I’m going to avoid outright detailing that last suggestion, but suffice it to say that you could reasonably expect emulators from the most retro all the way up to quite recent platforms to run fantastically on here, if you’re so inclined.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of gaming performance a bit more, 3D Mark’s Steel Nomad benchmark shows that the Geekom A8 performs well above the best results achieved by systems with comparable hardware, which is a fairly loose study but still very encouraging. Importantly, if you are going to use this mini PC for gaming and eventually need more performance, the available USB 4 port means that you’re able to plug in an eGPU and combine the otherwise-stellar CPU performance on hand with a proper dedicated GPU. That’s an expensive upgrade to take into account, but it’s absolutely an option.

And while most of my focus with the A8 so far has been on its gaming capabilities, given the angle of the website you’re reading this review on, it’s naturally a brilliant machine for everything else from basic work-from-home duties to watching 4K media and content creation using Photoshop, Premiere and plenty of other resource-hungry creative platforms. That Ryzen 9 CPU really does work hard, and with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD by default there’s a lot of headroom here.

There’s always going to be some kind of downside to cramming high-spec components into such a tiny shell, and with the A8 it’s mostly about noise. When pushing this thing to its limits it does get noticeably loud. It shouldn’t bother anyone using it to play games with headphones/speakers or as a media centre in a TV cabinet, but in an office and doing heavy image/video editing it might prove bothersome. Geekom doesn’t offer any kind of performance management software either, so you’ll have to do your own tinkering in Windows and AMD’s software if you want to try and impose some limits. The results of cooling are great though – I was expecting it to get at least a little hot under load, but it barely registered a temperature at any point.

The best use case for the A8 in my eyes, isn’t only as a productivity workhorse but also as a super versatile gaming and media machine that can fit discreetly into your lounge or games room. It’s capable of running native PC games at very modest settings, but more importantly it’s great at emulation and has the networking chops and connectivity to open the door to excellent game streaming options. $1499 might be a tall ask for the privilege (though you can get the Ryzen 7 version quite a bit cheaper) if you’re not also going to use it to power your browsing and other tasks, but the flexibility is a massive boon.

The post Geekom A8 Mini PC Review – A Tiny Machine With Big Gaming Potential appeared first on Press Start.

Beyond Good & Evil was one of those games that I just happened to pick up in my youth, looking for fresh new experiences to rent from the Video Ezy around the corner and with my only guidance being the recommendations I’d memorised from flicking through Hyper magazines at my local newsagent. Chucking down a couple of bucks for a weekly hire of this Ubisoft cult classic was a great decision though, and it’s remained one of my favourite gaming experiences from that generation.

I’m not going to spend too much time here talking to what made Beyond Good & Evil a great game 20 years ago – there’s 20 years worth of reading out there that does just that. The important thing is it’s a game and a world that I’ve been dying to revisit, and given that the (still real, apparently) long-gestating sequel is still MIA, the new 20th Anniversary Edition released for modern platforms this week had a lot riding on it for me. This isn’t even the first time that the game has had a re-release, with a “HD” version coming out on the Xbox 360 and PS3 that was pretty much a match for the original version with increased fidelity and fluidity.

This time around though, Ubisoft has actually made considerable effort to rejuvenate this two-decades-old classic with a fresh coat of paint that features a heap of completely redone assets from improved character models to new environmental textures, dynamic lighting and added effects, and it’s quite transformative when you stack the new and old versions side-by-side. Crucially, the art direction remains largely untouched, so going in and retooling everything hasn’t resulted in a game that feels “wrong” or markedly different in aesthetic from the 2004 game.

There is some awkwardness that comes simply from these lovely new assets being layered right on top of the old bones of the game, including the simple geometry and stiff animations. Seeing detailed textures and atmospheric lighting against PS2-era models doesn’t always compute, but the effort is absolutely appreciated and it’s still a handsome-looking game. A decent chunk of the game’s score has been “re-orchestrated” as well, and sounds great.

In terms of gameplay, not much has changed at a fundamental level. You’re still getting the same Zelda-esque progression through a series of linear-ish “dungeons” connected by a small hub world with a bit of wiggle room in how you push the story forward. I was surprised by how well the overall structure of the game holds up, even if the original game’s menus can be unhelpful and its direction vague – as long as you remember that collecting pearls to upgrade your vehicle is central to opening up new areas you’ll mostly be fine.

Like with its visuals, the game tends to show its age quite readily, especially as far as the constant loading screens and room transitions, the awkward camera and the braindead stealth sequences that make up so much of the core missions. The updates are hugely welcome though. Things like an autosave, the ability to skip cutscenes and reworked controls (including the ability to independently invert the X and Y camera axes – a literal game-changer for folks like me) make a big difference to playability and helps smooth over some of those rougher edges.

The 20th Anniversary Edition doesn’t just stop at cosmetic and mechanical differences though, adding in a noticeable amount of new content for fans to look for, both in-game and out. Right from the get-go you’ve got access to the Anniversary Gallery which contains a surprisingly comprehensive collection of screens, concept art and even videos chronicling the game’s inception, development and release. I really appreciate that a lot of the images and videos, including some neat footage of cut content, are also accompanied by text that offers up deeper explanations of what you’re looking at.

There’s a small helping of brand-new content within the actual game too, including new rewards and cosmetics to find. The most exciting bit for fans will be the added “treasure hunt” that unlocks after Jade gets access to the Beluga space ship and explores a bit more of her past while also linking it all into Beyond Good & Evil 2 (or at least what that game is currently, who knows how things might change in the coming years). This part is actually more substantial than what I was expecting based on the pre-release info, and is definitely worth seeking out.

Lastly, you’ve got access to a “Speedrun Mode” for the game, which basically just takes away the ability to save your game and challenges you to complete it all as quickly as possible. This I haven’t tackled yet, but given that one of the new set of trophies/achievements is tied to completing a run, it’s definitely going to be in my future.

Even if you’ve never played Beyond Good & Evil before, and won’t get as much of a kick out of seeing the new threads and experiencing its modernisations, there’s still a very decent 10-ish-hour romp to be had along with a bit of a peek into Ubisoft history for a fairly reasonable price of entry of $30. Jade’s adventure along with Pey’j, Double H and friends is still as memorable as ever.

The post Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Review – A Pleasing Revival Of A Cult Classic appeared first on Press Start.

When the original Luigi’s Mansion hit stores, I was excited to play it on my weirdly shaped purple console. It was something different. I didn’t think games could ever look better. It was a different time. So when Nintendo announced over a decade ago that they would be making a new one, imagine my disappointment to discover that it was on the 3DS and arguably looked worse. And it was mission-based, too.

A far cry from what I loved about the original, I put it down halfway through and never finished it. Now, Nintendo is bringing back Luigi’s Mansion 2, as the imaginatively named Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. Is it as bad as I thought? Absolutely not. But it’s easy to see why it’s considered the weakest in the trilogy.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 follows the first game’s events, though you don’t need to have played it to appreciate it. Sometime after the events of the first game, King Boo escapes the painting he was sealed in and shatters the Dark Moon, a large crystal object that was pacifying the ghosts living in the Evershade Valley. The ghosts run rampant, forcing Professor E. Gadd to take shelter in his bunker. In dire need of help, he contacts Luigi to help him out, outfitting him with a new Poltergust vacuum cleaner and sending him into the valley to collect the pieces of the Dark Moon. It’s a simple but effective story.

If you’ve previously played Luigi’s Mansion 3, you’d have a cursory understanding of how Luigi’s Mansion 2 works. Luigi is thrust into a decrepit location, forced to track down some ghosts, and eventually beat the big bad. It’s a simple premise – requiring Luigi to restore order to the Evershade Valley by collecting the parts of the Dark Moon. But what is different about Luigi’s Mansion 2, and separates it from the games that came before and after, is the way it’s structured.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 is in itself a misleading title. The game doesn’t occur in a mansion but in five different locations throughout the Evershade Valley. Each area has at least five missions to complete, and each taking between ten and twenty minutes.  They’re also all playfully inspired by a different style of horror, offering up a wide variety of locales for Luigi to scour for ghosts, treasure and whatever objects he’s looking for at that moment.

However, the mission-based gameplay of Luigi’s Mansion 2 has positive and negative impacts on the overall experience. The positive is that it really lends itself well to the portability of the Switch. Being able to knock out a few missions on your lunch break or commute will undoubtedly be appreciated by busy players. It also means that Luigi’s Mansion 2 feels more arcade-like compared to other games in the series. Missions are repeatable, with ranks assigned based on what you collect, how many ghosts you capture and your completion time.

But while that’s a great twist for the series, it means a lot of what makes the other two games compelling is ultimately lost. The five smaller locations pale in comparison to the mansion of the original game or the hotel from the third game. There is no sense of place, and you only get a little time to learn the layout of these locales before being whisked off to the next one. It also means exploration feels less rewarding than in the other two games, as you’re often taken out of the action each time you uncover a new area to explore.

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I criticized this in my preview, and unfortunately, it never gets better throughout the entirety of the game. Each time I’d find a new key item, rather than being allowed to go and use that item in a place I know it belongs, I’m taken out of the “mission” by Professor E. Gadd for a briefing of things I already knew before being thrown into the next mission to do things I was already going to do anyway. It feels unnecessarily disjointed, and given how much E. Gadd interrupts you during gameplay to offer tips or updates; the game never gives you room to breathe. It’s also disappointing to discover that there are no changes to the checkpoint system, so if you die towards the end of a mission, you’ll lose that progress.

That being said, when you do get the opportunity to explore uninterrupted, Luigi’s Mansion 2 makes excellent use of the physics and mechanics of the Poltergust to provide some puzzles that are a joy to solve. They are the best kinds of puzzles, too, ones that make you feel wiser for solving them and continually require you to make use of Luigi’s tools. You might use the vacuum to grab a balloon and then suck or blow accordingly to inflate it to cross a large gap, for example. It makes no sense – the vacuum isn’t full of helium – but it’s so charming that it’s hard to care.

But the implementation of ghosts is spotty. I sincerely miss the designs of the ghosts from the first and third games, especially the first. Each felt like they had a personality and served a purpose in the mansion. In Luigi’s Mansion 2, they’re just coloured ghosts of varying sizes with predictable move sets. But despite this lack of unique design, the developers found interesting ways to keep the encounters engaging. For example, a plain ghost might start wearing sunglasses to shield himself from Luigi’s flashlight.

The same design quirks carry over to the game’s bosses. While the first, a spider, is quite interesting. Others aren’t anywhere near as charming or memorable. I was excited to see a ghost possess a giant clock, purely to see how it played out. It was, disappointingly, just a gauntlet of enemies, with a few spawning at each hour point on the clock. Others are more frustrating than fun, like the Icey mouth monster fought in the fourth area. Some are over so quickly that they feel underdeveloped, like the boss of the fifth area. I appreciated that the bosses have a puzzle element to them, but barring the first and last boss, most come up short.

As mentioned, the game’s arcade-like structure lends itself well to replayability. Each level has a Boo to find, which is usually hidden off the critical path and requires a combination of tools to capture. Finding each of the boos in each mansion will unlock an optional bonus level for that area. These bonus levels are a nice touch, throwing Luigi into a mansion and requiring him to capture a certain amount of ghosts within a time limit. You can also replay levels, if you wish, to raise extra cash to upgrade the Poltergust, but it’s by no means a requirement, given how relaxed the game’s difficulty is.

Similarly, Luigi’s Mansion 2 initially introduced multiplayer to the series, and I’m pleased to see it included here. Called The ScareScraper, it allows you and up to three other players climb a tower, completing challenges on each floor within a certain time limit. It’s a fast-paced and frenetic mode that perfectly plays to the strengths of Luigi’s Mansion 2’s arcade-like predilection. While I appreciate that local wireless and online play was included in this HD reissue, I’d have loved for them to go for some kind of local, same-console option.

But I can’t believe I’ve talked about a game with HD in the title for this long without touching on the presentation. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is more than a simple bump in resolution – practically every major asset has been replaced to bring it more in line with Luigi’s Mansion 3. It’s not quite there in terms of looking as good as its sequel, but so much of the restoration efforts help bring the locales that Luigi visits to life. Little details, like the seam on Luigi’s overalls, weather lighting, and ghosts’ glow, help bring the game to life and ultimately make you forget that this was originally a 3DS game from over a decade ago.

The original score is similarly excellent. While not as quiet or unnerving as the original game, the tracks are so cartoonishly over the top that they’re catchy more than anything else. Think of something you’d hear in an episode of Scooby Doo or any other cartoon from the 90s. It’s got a tone and feeling like no other. The catchiness is obvious, too, given that Luigi nervously hums many of the game’s music to himself as he explores the mansion. It’s incredibly charming and one of the many stern reminders of why Luigi’s Mansion as a series stands amongst some of Nintendo’s best.

The post Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – A Goofy And Spooky Adventure appeared first on Press Start.

It’s no secret that the games industry has been chasing the live-service golden sheep over the last 10 or so years. The obsession with the idea of games as a service has resulted in countless cancellations, closures, and lay-offs across the board. To make matters worse, the oft-gilded studios that author these games very rarely want to develop these kind of experiences, and are ill-equipped to do so. There have been a few highlights, though. Massive Entertainment’s The Division, Arrowhead’s smash hit Helldivers 2, and perhaps most prominently, Bungie’s Destiny.

Destiny felt like the first real foray into an ambitious commitment for a live-service experience. Between it being Bungie’s first post-Halo title, having a grand plan for a decade-long narrative, and trying to meld the novelty of looter-shooters with MMO-like elements, Destiny had its work cut out for it, and then some. As someone who’s been around since the start, Destiny has had its fair share of ups and downs, but Bungie always delivers where it counts. As the final chapter in this 10 year saga, The Final Shape is more than just a shot in the arm for Destiny, it’s a triumphant achievement emblematic of all Bungie’s learnings over the last decade.

It’s another day in the Last City. Humanity, Eliksni, and Cabal alike go about their lives with the imminent threat of the Witness looming overhead. It’s a bittersweet reminder of the progress we’ve made with former enemies and our potentially cataclysmic loss on Neomuna during last year’s Lightfall expansion. The warmth of this scene is quickly ripped away from us, though, presenting a nightmarish vision of what happens if the Witness achieves its final shape. Beings from all corners of the universe indiscriminately sliced up, separated, and calcified with surgical precision.

With little time left on the clock, our Guardian and the Vanguard traverse the portal into the Pale Heart of the Traveler to put a stop to the Witness’s machinations once and for all. What follows is a deeply personal and intimate dissection of Destiny’s key players. Cayde-6, Ikora, Zavala, and Crow are all put through a stress test in the face of cosmic annihilation. It stands in stark contrast with Lightfall’s more unserious tone, placing less focus on the what as it delves deeply into the who.

The end result is Destiny’s best core narrative yet. One that trusts its audience to connect the dots between its intricate lore and character motivations. It’s refreshingly abstract for Destiny, nudging you towards satisfying conclusions while leaving room for more exploration and conjecture. It delivers by answering so many lingering questions we’ve had about the nature of the universe, the light, the darkness, the Traveler, the Witness, and more. It does all of this without relying on convoluted terms and exposition, instead opting for simple and sensical answers that reinforces Destiny’s core themes.

The character explorations here are simply the best we’ve seen in-game. Zavala is grappling with the Traveler’s continued silence in the wake of our greatest threat yet. Cayde-6 is struggling to make sense of why he’s been brought back in the light, and for what purpose. Crow continues to be one of the game’s best characters, as he tries to navigate his feelings in relation to the return of Cayde-6 and his place in the world going forward.

Even the Witness, whose most important character details have been relegated to seasonal content, gets a healthy dose of development throughout the campaign. It finally feels representative of the threat that it poses to the broader universe, injecting some light cosmic horror elements into this ancient conflict. It’s another addition to Destiny’s pantheon of legendary adversaries, standing alongside the likes of Savathûn the Witch Queen and Oryx the Taken King.

The first half of the campaign is a slow burn that gives its character dynamics and key interactions room to breathe, lending more poignancy to its most heartfelt moments of reunion, betrayal, and camaraderie. This time spent with the Vanguard segues into a thrilling race to the finish line, culminating in an incredible penultimate mission that sets the stage for The Final Shape’s raid and conclusion. It’s rare we get campaigns that are directly tied to the raid of an expansion, but this is proof that it’s something Bungie should continue to invest in going forward.

The campaign design itself is also stellar, echoing a lot of the combat challenge and dungeon-like encounters found in the Witch Queen and Lightfall campaigns. Each mission introduces a new concept, pushes it to its logical end-point, and throws it away for something new in the following mission. The Pale Heart itself is also curated for the kind of urgency needed for this campaign. It’s Destiny’s first truly linear destination, with each mission taking you through a different part of the Traveler’s recreations as you move towards the Witness’s monolith.

These things in combination make for a tightly paced 4-5 hour campaign that encompasses so many different locales, story beats, and gameplay experiences. Difficulty is another key part of the puzzle here, with the returning Legendary mode offering a worthwhile challenge for experienced Guardians. My only real gripe here is that the first half of the campaign does feel a bit too easy, and by the time it picks up, it reaches its conclusion. This is partly due to the amount of power creep we’ve seen in recent times, but is also because of The Final Shape’s most exciting inclusion; Prismatic.

Prismatic is the fusion between a thematic throughline established in 2020’s Beyond Light and the gameplay equivalent of blowing the door off the hinges of the game’s current sandbox. A brand-new subclass that erases the ever-blurry line between light and dark, allowing our Guardian to tap into both at the same time. It’s a wildly empowering gameplay experience that feels like you’re cheating. Letting you make use of combinations that’ve been pipedreams for the longest time.

Each class has access to specific Supers, Aspects, Grenades, and Melees from each Subclass. The selections available on each Prismatic subclass have been carefully curated as to not entirely break the game, while still offering a gameplay experience that’s unlike any other subclass in the game. It takes more thought and engagement from the player in comparison to traditional subclasses. It forces you to think more about synergies and combinations, opening the pandora’s box that is buildcrafting for those who’ve yet to fall into its depths.

Prismatic is further bolstered by two things. The first is Transcendence, which is a sort of mini-Super that can be activated after doing enough light and dark damage. While Transcendent, you gain access to a dual-element grenade, increased ability regen, and a flat weapon damage buff. Each class also has a sweet animation when you activate it, with Warlocks striking a mystic pose, Hunter’s brandishing their knives, and Titan’s cracking their knuckles in glorious fashion. Transcendence is just fantastic. It feels so damn good to have a build setup that heightens your Transcendence uptime, and is so thematically resonant with The Final Shape as an expansion.

The second is the inclusion of new light Supers and Aspects. Warlocks have received a much needed shake-up to their Solar toolkit in Song of Flame and Hellion. The former is a new Super reminiscent of Destiny’s Radiance, while the latter is an Aspect that lends you a Solar turret upon Class Ability activation. Another highlight is the Titan’s Twilight Arsenal Super and Unbreakable Aspect. Twilight Arsenal sees you hurling three Void axes that can then be picked up and used in combat by you and your allies, while Unbreakable allows you to put up a shield that absorbs attacks, and sends it back in a Void blast.

The Hunter’s new tools are similarly unique within their own sandbox, and while the viability of each is up for debate, it’s hard to deny that they’re all damn cool. The way in which you get these new Supers is also phenomenal. This rings true for Prismatic in general, unlocking a default kit for you during the first mission and slowly dolling out new Fragments, Aspects, and Supers to play around with as you complete the campaign and explore the Pale Heart. It’s a far cry from the way Beyond Light and Lightfall dangled their new Subclasses in front of you until the campaign wraps.

When it comes to putting these new tools to the test, what could be better than a new enemy faction? The Dread is our first truly Darkness-aligned enemy race, shaped by the Witness within the Pale Heart. While the intimidating Tormentors were brought to us in Lightfall, every other member of the Dread is entirely new, and they shake up the sandbox in big ways.

The Weavers and the Attendants are Strand and Stasis empowered Psions respectively, using these Darkness powers to flush you out of cover and deny area. The Weavers are particularly tricky given they can physically move you with their Strand attacks, pulling you into perilous positions during combat. The Grim are Destiny’s first flying enemy, equipped with an ear-piercing screech that suppresses your abilities for a short time. The last of the minor units are the Husks, who expel explosive Geists upon death that hunt you down if you dispatch them incorrectly.

The Subjugators are the other boss units that stand with the Tormentors. These are souped-up versions of the Weavers and the Attendants, also using Stasis and Strand to freeze you, suspend you, and generally be a nuisance. The Dread are an enemy faction unlike any we’ve seen within the game, forcing you to think about how you move and position more thoughtfully than you usually would. They’re an unmitigated success, and I truly hope we see more of them in the future.

The Pale Heart as a destination is also one of Bungie’s best. It echoes the the same secret-harbouring nature as the Dreaming City and the Dreadnought, leaning into player discovery and exploration instead of checklisting things to do each time you login. A big part of this is thanks to Overthrow, the Pale Heart’s destination activity which can be done in its three main zones.

Overthrow (and the Pale Heart by extension) is interesting because it isn’t a matchmade activity. One of the three zones will have a matchmade feature each week for those interested, but if you just load into patrol, it’ll only be you and anyone else in your fireteam. It’s reminiscent of Escalation Protocol from Warmind, where you complete myriad public events and encounters to increase the Overthrow level. Upon reaching level 4, you’ll take down a boss and be rewarded for it. It’s a great activity that feels easygoing yet engaging in the amount of variety it offers.

The Pale Heart is jam-packed with other stuff to find as well. A healthy chunk of the Prismatic Fragments can only be found through environmental puzzles waiting for you throughout the destination. Obtaining the Exotic Khvostov 7G-0X also requires a good bit of exploration. It’s refreshing to see a destination made so relevant through meaningful design, encouraging players to uncover its secrets and understand its myriad intricacies.

Most things you do in the Pale Heart will also feed into the Pathfinder. A progression system entirely new to Destiny 2, Pathfinder is a streamlined feature that makes it easier to track your progress towards rewards. As you complete different objectives, you’ll progress through Pathfinder Nodes until you reach the end. The Pathfinder can be reset indefinitely for a Glimmer cost, but has diminishing returns after its first couple of resets. It’s a great system that’s easy to understand and engage with as you explore the Pale Heart.

The Pathfinder system has also been implemented to work with the Ritual Playlists. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t function as well here. This version of Pathfinder will often force you into activities and playlists you don’t want to engage with to get rewards. The objectives are awkward and ill-fitted for the purposes its been built for here. It feels counterintuitive to bounce between playlists to complete certain objectives to get to the final Node when these rewards were previously very flexible in how you acquire them.

After you’ve done some secret hunting in the Pale Heart, it’s likely you’ll stumble across Dual Destiny. Dual Destiny is perhaps Bungie’s best-designed Exotic mission yet. It can only be done with two players, no more, no less. It pushes the limits on the kinds of mechanics we see in these missions to make for challenging encounters with high enemy density and a need for constant communication. It’s also thematically brilliant, ultimately rewarding you with the powerful Exotic Class Items that can roll with two Exotic perks at once to use with your Prismatic builds.

No Destiny expansion is complete without a raid, The Final Shape’s coming in the form of Salvation’s Edge. This is a fantastic raid, one of Bungie’s best, with smartly-designed encounters that require engagement from all raid members and a combat challenge that feels suitable for a raid of this grandeur. It was a true force to reckon with on Contest Mode, and past that, has continued to be a great time in subsequent runs. While there are some really high highs in Salvation’s Edge like the Witness fight and the fourth encounter, I do wish there was an extra boss thrown in there somewhere instead of having three puzzle/combat encounters.

The story then culminates in Destiny’s first ever 12-man activity – Excision. As a narrative and gameplay experience, Excision feels like the conclusion that this legendary saga deserves, offering up unmatched scope and scale within the game currently. It feels like an Endgame moment for Destiny, where everyone comes together to fight a greater evil. Without spoiling too much, the story beats that come out of Excision couldn’t be better, delivering an emotionally moving and reflective conclusion that feels tailor-made for long time players.

It feels typical to say that Destiny 2 continues to look fantastic, but it really couldn’t be more true here in The Final Shape. The Pale Heart is one of Destiny’s most visually defined destinations. Wildly eclectic in its assortment of locales, all of which feel bathed in the Traveler’s life-giving light. As you move towards the Witness’s monolith, things become more corrupt and devoid of life. Segments of land are sliced up into their finalised shapes, and things seem normal until you take a closer look at how they’re made up. It feels like a real nostalgia trip given that the Pale Heart is a recreation of our own memories, but is just as inspired as Bungie’s more recent destinations.

The soundtrack is also another certified banger. The way that urgency and introspection is shifted between in these tracks as you venture through the Pale Heart is a joy to listen to. Unmade is another killer final boss track for the raid, and Excision has one of the best soundtracks for a mission that Bungie has ever made. It’s also really cool to see how some of the in-game music has shifted after the events of Excision, showcasing how the live-service elements of Destiny can interact with every facet of it in interesting ways.

After the disappointment of Lightfall, at the conclusion of Destiny’s first saga, Bungie have managed to deliver their best expansion yet. The Final Shape is a triumphant finish that delivers on its promises, and then some. It also paints a promising picture of Destiny’s future as we see its live-service elements used in new and exciting ways. There’ve been so many moments where things haven’t looked good for Destiny, but Bungie have continually pulled through and delivered an ending worthy of their legacy and the players who’ve invested so much time into this world.

The post Destiny 2: The Final Shape Review – A Worthy Finale appeared first on Press Start.

Discounting any HD ports or remakes, it’s been well over a decade since the last original, mainline Super Monkey Ball game. With that in mind, and even knowing the folks at Ryu ga Gotoku were behind the operation, I wasn’t entirely sure if there’d be anything left in this series’ core concept to justify another original title. Thankfully, it only took 15 minutes and my stage-tilting muscle memory coming back to recall why these games have endured this long. This one might be lacking some innovation, but Banana Rumble is some of the most fun you can have with a bunch of balls.

Like the other “traditional” Monkey Ball games, the meat and potatoes of Banana Rumble’s gameplay experience comes with its Adventure Mode, which sees AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, Gongon and more friends old and new go on world-hopping adventure in pursuit of some precious artifacts called the OOPArts – the ultimate goal being the fabled Legendary Banana. It’s certainly a basic premise, but not only is this the first time since 2002’s Super Monkey Ball 2 that we’ve had proper, animated cutscenes in the campaign but the story scenes here are well-put-together, decently written and with some entertaining new characters.

You’ll see all of this play out over an initial helping of 10 distinct worlds with 10 stages apiece, each world representing a new theme not only aesthetically but in level design – the ancient Japan-flavoured world features appropriate music and visuals, but its challenges are also designed to feel like the feats of strength and acrobatics you’d associate with ninja training. Meanwhile, a neon-soaked, futuristic world features plenty of switch puzzles, disappearing platforms and other moving parts. The level design in Banana Rumble is easily some of the best I’ve experienced in one of these games, consistently throwing up fun, fresh and challenging situations to best.

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It keeps things mostly simple on the gameplay side as well, with the sole twist on the usual “tilt the level to roll the little monkey trapped in a capsule” formula being a charged boost that all of the monkeys can use to get a little extra speed. This is used for tougher challenges and section skips more than required to achieve the basics of getting to the goal in each stage, which is a nice way to give seasoned players a new trick while not asking too much of those who just want the basics. Each monkey also has their own advantages and disadvantages in play, including the power of their boost, so picking the right primate for the job can really help. You’ll meet new faces over the course of the main Adventure Mode levels who’ll eventually become playable, too.

It’s not over once the story is. either, with each world revisited through 100 additional and even more devious stages, giving Adventure Mode a huge 200 to play through. Add in optional objectives in each that task players with beating a certain time, collecting a certain number of bananas and nabbing a particularly-tricky golden banana, and what could have been over in a handful of hours turns into nights upon nights of obsessive rolling – at least in my case. Every stage is perfectly laid out to make fulfilling these bonus objectives feel unique and rewarding, and it can get devilishly tricky in the late and post-game worlds, especially the moments where beating a time goal means finding the most cracked skips possible.

If you’re not into the idea of restarting the same levels dozens of times to nail that perfect run, there are also some handy accommodations made to keep things approachable at all skill levels. Failing a level multiple times gives you the option of enabling some “Helper Mode” settings, which include things like route guides, checkpoints and a handy rewind – you can even spend points earned from completing levels and objectives to mark your current level as cleared and move on. There are also a heap of settings to play with in general to make sure things feel right, whether it’s tweaking the sensitivity and visual feedback of your level controls, or the camera, including being able to change things like joystick deadzone. It makes a huge difference for the experience to be as flexible as it is, and I’m sure will make an even bigger one for anyone who wants or needs the extra help.

When you’re ready to start taking on some of the more challenging stuff though, you’ll quickly accrue tens of thousands of points to spend on things like new outfits and balls for your monkeys, new decorations for “Juicy Island” where your crew of apes resides between missions, cute decorations and functions for the basic in-game photo mode or even new characters to play as. There’s a fair amount to spend your hard-earned points on, and even if you run out of things you care to buy you can also drop points into a special tree in the post-game that gets uploaded and compared to your friends and other players, which I can already see myself wanting to compete in. It’s not often I get to say I have the biggest banana… tree.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. Or, it doesn’t have to, depending on your penchant for throwaway multiplayer inclusions. This is probably where Banana Rumble’s package feels a bit underripe, serving up some competitive Battle modes that wouldn’t feel out of place as a Fall Guys round. These are inventive and fun enough for a couple bashes, and clearly a big part of the package as far as the game’s marketing goes, but none are really something I’d break out at a gathering in place of a Mario Party or play with any real conviction once I was done with the main part of the game. The ability to go through Adventure Mode with up to three friends locally or online is great, though.

The Battle modes also make for the worst-looking moments in Banana Rumble, dropping the otherwise-performant, 60FPS visuals to glaringly low resolutions and a 30FPS target when playing multiplayer modes – even against CPU opponents with no split-screen. Cutbacks like that are par for the course on Switch, I guess, but this is an exceedingly simple game, visually and otherwise, so it’s a struggle to see why there’s such a drastic dip in multiplayer. The soundtrack maintains the series’ bop-filled standards, at least.

The post Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Review – Keep On Rollin’ Baby appeared first on Press Start.

How do you follow up your magnum opus? It’s a question that permeated my anticipation for Elden Ring’s first and only expansion. One that promises to explore untouched corners of the Lands Between and the characters that reside within the penumbra cast by its monolithic namesake. It sounds simple enough, but is made more complex by Elden Ring’s own nature. It’s arguably FROMSOFTWARE’s greatest achievement, its sheer scale and density rivalled only by its ambition and unwavering commitment to a vision that most would dismiss at first glance.

Shadow of the Erdtree isn’t just more Elden Ring. It’s a fundamental expansion of the world and character dynamics of the base game, iterating upon its free-flowing gameplay loop as to implore you to venture into its myriad depths. It occupies a space entirely different to that of the Elden Ring, offering an experience that doubles down on the best parts of the Lands Between in a world that feels introspective and left behind in the wake of great cataclysm. It stands alongside the likes of The Old Hunters and The Ringed City, and in a lot of ways, surpasses them.

After defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood, interacting with the cocoon in Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum will whisk the Tarnished away to the Realm of Shadow. A forgotten land veiled by the shadow of the Erdtree in all its grandeur, one that holds the missing god Miquella after being stolen away by Mohg. You’ll quickly be greeted by Leda and her allies, unified in their search for Miquella as they trace his footsteps throughout the realm in hope of ascertaining the fate of the long-lost Empyrean.

If you’re familiar with Elden Ring’s lore, I don’t need to explain why this setup is immediately engrossing. Miquella’s place in the Lands Between is unlike the other Shardbearers. He’s separated from them in the way that compassion and kindness are his guiding qualities in a world brimming with conflict and tension. It’s fascinating to learn what Miquella has been up to since the Shattering, and it paints a richer portrait of dynamics and character motivations when it comes to the Golden Order.

The spotlight isn’t solely on Miquella, though. Many familiar and unfamiliar facets of the world are explored in Shadow of the Erdtree. The real star of the show is the Realm of Shadow itself. It emanates an encroaching loneliness in the way that the Lands Between don’t. The Realm of Shadow is scarred by the relentless crusade of Messmer the Impaler and his loyal subjects, leaving you to wander the wastes left in the wake of his destruction. It’s a reminder that even when separated from the Lands Between, the fallout from the Shattering is inescapable.

Despite this, surviving denizens of the Realm of Shadow can be found throughout, each expanding the new region, its place within the broader world, and the big players of the core narrative as it unfolds. FROMSOFTWARE also nails the side content again, offering many memorable characters and quest lines that often culminate in jaw-dropping boss fights that only FROMSOFTWARE would have the gall to make optional. Their willingness to accept that every player won’t experience everything continues to bolster the organic nature of exploration.

In fact, this rings true for many elements of Shadow of the Erdtree. The map itself is quite large, roughly the size of the first two areas of the base game if you put them together. If you only follow the golden path, though, you won’t get to see large chunks of it, most of which house smaller dungeons and boss fights that are worth unearthing. I’ve spent a little over 20 hours in the Realm of Shadow and have yet to explore two smaller areas of the map, and I’m eager to see what secrets they may hold.

While you can argue that Elden Ring is somewhat overbearing in the sheer number of things there are to do, Shadows of the Erdtree feels more approachable in its scale. It’s overall, a more digestible experience that’s still densely packed with worthwhile content and experiences. In fact, I think the smaller size leans more into FROMSOFTWARE’s ability to fine tune each area and what it offers. There’s far less repetition in the way of things like catacombs and caves, opting to instead focus on secret boss fights and areas.

Even though there’s a healthy amount of optional stuff in Shadow of the Erdtree, there’s still quite a bit jammed into the main progression. You’ll see a decent number of the new boss fights, and all three of the new Legacy Dungeons. The first of which is the Belurat Tower Settlement, a vertically inclined town densely packed with houses that’s become riddled with plague and disease over time. The Shadow Keep is the second Legacy Dungeon you’ll venture through, with more traditional FROMSOFTWARE level design that segues into a tower with a confrontation awaiting you at the top.

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While I won’t spoil the third and final Legacy Dungeon in Shadow of the Erdtree, it continues the trends set by the previous two in its own way, offering a distinct colour palette and aesthetic, all of which culminate in a thematically resonant boss fight that lore junkies will adore. Instead of resting on the laurels of the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree fills in the gaps left by the Lands Between, constantly finding new and striking visual motifs that we’ve yet to see in this world and combining it with FROMSOFTWARE’s impeccable level design.

This also extends to the broader open world, which, while much smaller than the Lands Between, still feels enormous and complex given Shadow of the Erdtree’s nature as an expansion. The Ancient Ruins of Rauh offer verdant fields and dense foliage that feels natural and untouched by Messmer’s wrath, where the Cerulean Coast juxtaposes the dream-like blue glow of its fauna against ominous colossal coffins that litter the landscape. A favourite of mine is the Abyssal Woods, where frenzy has a stranglehold over the area, sucking the life out of what would’ve been a dense forest and turning it into a maze of death and paranoia.

Your reasons for exploring these locations aren’t all intrinsic, either. Like the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree rewards you for exploring and uncovering its secrets. From the many new weapons, spells, Ashes of War, Spirit Ashes, and more, there’s always something to find around the corner. The new weapon types in particular are a bunch of fun to play around with (especially the unarmed weapon), and some of the new Ashes of War are way too cool not to use. Brand new to Shadow of the Erdtree are two new items that open up Shadow Realm Blessings – Scadutree Fragments, and Revered Spirit Ash.

The former are fragments dropped from the Scadutree, a withered and decrepit version of the Erdtree itself in the Realm of Shadow. Much like the golden monolith, the Scadutree can be seen from many parts of the map, draping the land in the veils that hide it from the Lands Between. These fragments can be used at Sites of Grace to permanently reduce the damage you take and deal in your journey. The latter are also used at Sites of Grace to bolster the strength of your Spirit Ashes, allowing them to scale into the expansion with you.

It’s important to note that the Shadow Realm Blessings are entirely optional. It’s a nice way to make some of Shadow of the Erdtree’s more challenging moments more approachable through exploration. Much like the base game, you can leave any area or fight you struggle with in search of these upgrades and other boss fights to come back stronger through these blessings and new character levels. It’s also a nice way to ensure you don’t need to grind levels before venturing into the Realm of Shadow.

Speaking of difficulty, FROMSOFTWARE don’t hold back when it comes to challenge. My character was a little over level 100 before heading into the Realm of Shadow, which I found to be a suitable level of difficulty in combination with the Shadow Realm Blessings. I still got stuck by a few bosses and had to change up my equipment and approach in order to best them, but it was always satisfying. Enemy design is similarly challenging, leaning more into the beast-like chimeras of Bloodborne that are a bit more on the crazy side than the base game.

There’s some real highlights here when it comes to bosses. Messmer the Impaler is one that’s been marketed quite a bit, but his frenetic and frenzied combination of fire magic and his mid-rage spear attacks make for a thrilling and fast-paced showdown. An early fight with Rennala’s younger sister, Rellana, is another highlight. Her dual swords become separately infused with moon magic and fire magic, echoing one of Dark Souls III’s best fights in Pontiff Sulyvahn.

My only real issue with some of the boss fights, is that half of the battle ends up being with the camera. It’s something that’s always been a problem in Souls games, but it feels especially egregious here as certain attacks can lead to death given the late-game nature of Shadow of the Erdtree. Some of these bosses move so quickly in their fights that it’s hard to keep track of when to lock on, and when not to so you can avoid getting lost in all the chaos. The reuse of main bosses in the overworld is also still a thing here, which can lessen the impact of those original encounters.

It should go without saying based on my previous comments that Shadow of the Erdtree has incredible visual direction. It explores so many settings and motifs not found in the base game, lending the Realm of Shadow an ethereal and otherworldly feeling of intangibility. Each area is punctuated by sweeping vistas, no matter how haunting they may be, most of which feature the withered Scadutree that towers above. It’s a true encapsulation of the environments found in Elden Ring, and then some, always offering up a feast for the eyes at every turn of the corner.

It’ll also come at no surprise when I say that the soundtrack here simply elevates everything Shadow of the Erdtree does. Whether it’s the calm and introspective overworld themes, or the heightened tension of boss tracks that get the blood pumping, this expansion always delivers on its big moments through the adept use of musical storytelling. The final boss track is simply phenomenal, and so many other encounters feature compositions that are hard to get out of your head until it’s supplanted by the next.

It’s going to shock no one that Shadow of the Erdtree is as high quality as it is. At this point, FROMSOFTWARE has a track record that goes unrivalled in the genre, and perhaps even the industry at large. Shadow of the Erdtree is more than a doubling down of what makes Elden Ring so special, it’s an exploration of what new elements can bolster that which makes it strong. It’s a worthy expansion to a beloved world and set of characters that seemed so impossible to follow-up, but FROMSOFTWARE have done it again. Just like they always do.

The post Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Review – An Impeccable Final Course appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve tested quite a few racing wheel setups over the years from a variety of manufacturers, but none have impressed me quite like the Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race, which bundles everything you need for an immersive racing experience into one box, and it’s super easy to use yet extremely customisable.

In the box, you get the base station, a high-quality wheel, pedals as well as a modular control unit, all will I’ll talk about in this review. As far as the setup goes, it’s fairly simple but will likely require you to read through instructions, just in terms of assembly of the various parts.

The base station can either grip onto your table or a simulation station. There’s a cute little allen key inside of it that allows you to loosen two screws that will then let you grip it into your desk, which you’ll absolutely want to do as that K-Drive feedback motor has some serious pull. I attached it to my coffee table which sits in front of my Xbox and it was able to tighten really easily an didn’t move at all.

From there, you just want to attach your steering wheel onto the unit, plug your motor into power, attach your control unit with included screws, attach your pedals and then the whole unit to your Xbox or PC. There’s a lot of cords so be prepared to cable manage, but I’m super glad that everything is included in the box and you can have as an immersive experience as possible.

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As I’ve stated in reviews past, I love that Turtle Beach products are super compatible with the Xbox Series X|S with there being an app that lets you upgrade the firmware without needing access to a PC. It’s the case here with the Tuner Companion app letting you not only upgrade firmware, but also letting you customise buttons and steering components until your heart is content. There’s also a Tuner Companion app on iOS and Android too that was super easy to connect and let me customise everything as well, so that was a nice option to have.

As far as the actual unit goes, the K-Force motor is absolutely phenomenal. This basically provides real time feedback based on everything happening on screen, so if you’re racing faster, it’ll tighten up making steering harder, and if you go crashing into the wall, you best be ready to hold onto that steering wheel tightly as it will fly around if you don’t. It’s an immersive experience unlike I’ve ever had with a racing wheel in my house and it really elevates it to the next level.

How the VelocityOne wheel takes things further is with its overhead display. This basically allows you to see how far you’re pushing all the pedals, but it’s great for customisation on the fly without the Xbox app as well, where you can control what each button does, go between profiles or change the RGB lighting. On PC, you can actually use it to output information in real-time, but to my knowledge this isn’t available on Xbox yet, which is a bit of a shame, but it’s still super useful.

There’s also a modular control unit, with a number of buttons, dials and flick switches that you can assign pretty much anything to including standard Xbox buttons, or changing between profiles or even adjusting how much the force motors are. Again, if you’re someone that is super into simulation racing games, you can make use of it with all the bells and whistles, but if you’re just a casual racer, you can make use of these too.

On the wheel itself, there’s every control that you’d need both for racing, but also just to get around your Xbox dash with all of the face buttons, your D-Pad, and even an Xbox button to utilise. There’s also magnetic paddle shifters on the wheel as well. You can plug a headset directly into the control unit as well, and there’s even dedicated controls for that.

The other part of a package is a pedal set which has fully adjustable throttle, brake and clutch pedals that can be customised to your exact liking, but it’s the brakes in particular that I wanted to highlight with the system featuring a dynamic brake tek load-cel which is measured by force rather than the distance that the pedal travels. As a whole, these feel really good quality and I was actually surprised with how light they are considering the quality.

All-in-all, I absolutely love the VelicityOne Race set both for the fact that you get everything in the package, but also for how easy it is to plug and play and get racing, but then the amount of customisation available on the system itself, on your Xbox/PC or on the companion mobile app. It feels really well thought out and I can’t imagine a better value for money set on the market.

The post Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race Review – Simply The Best appeared first on Press Start.

Since Amnesia: The Dark Descent graced our screens back in 2010, horror games have had a renewed popularity amongst players. I’d even argue it’s paved the way for heavy hitters to come back in a bigger way than ever, like Resident Evil, but it’s also seen the rise of less involved horror games like Outlast, P.T. and Layers of Fear. Back then, Scottish developer The Chinese Room tried their hand at the Amnesia-like, crafting a sequel in A Machine For Pigs that was released to mixed results. I always saw the potential. But now, eleven years later, The Chinese Room are trying their hand at horror again. Still Wakes The Deep is a game pitched as “The Thing but on an oil rig.” It somewhat makes good on that premise, but it’s not without its faults.

Still Wakes The Deep takes place during Christmas in the 1970s aboard an oil rig in the North Sea. You play as an electrician stationed on the rig, Caz McLeary. The game opens on a typical day, with Caz heading from his room to grab some food from the cafeteria. It’s a stormy day outside, and the crew working on the rig at the time hit something with their drill. What follows is a sequence of events that will eventually see Caz trying his hardest to find safety and escape from the rig. The story is really why you’ll play Still Wakes The Deep, so I won’t delve too much into it, but you can probably see where this is going.

But despite there being a modicum of predictability to the story, Still Wakes The Deep does an admirable job at making you care for its colourful cast of characters. Unfortunately, despite this, I ironically found Caz to be the least interesting of the cast. His done-to-death storyline about his troubles at home did not resonate with me. But I instead found most of the supporting characters to be endearing, and surprisingly, I found myself really invested in getting them off the rig. It’s practical but straightforward writing, which is essential given how much of the experience of the game is carried by the game’s plot and characters.

That being said, Still Wakes The Deep’s design is a masterful gambit for any self-respecting horror creator. The unique setting works wonders in hitting many beats for anyone looking to be scared. When you’re glancing out onto the rough and heavy ocean, you can’t help but feel a sense of vertigo as the oil rig you’re on sways in the wind. When you’re in a room that’s inevitably flooded, there’s a genuine mix of both claustrophobia and thalassophobia as your play space slowly grows smaller. And, of course, a sense of tension and fear arises from the monsters Caz encounters. All macabre distortions of the human form, they’re suggestions of a human being rather than a human, and there’s something incredibly unnerving about that.

Despite this, I didn’t find many of the more in-your-face elements of Still Wakes The Deep to be that frightening. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tense playing through some key beats in this six-hour adventure. The horror is well realised with minimal and surprisingly restrained use of cheap jump scares. Instead, the parts where I found the game to be most tense were where nothing was really happening – the strong audio design contributes to an immense sense of atmosphere that does a lot of the heavy lifting in making it all frightening.

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But there is a game hidden behind all that atmosphere and tension. As a game, Still Wakes The Deep is similar to Layers of Fear or SOMA – you’ll walk from area to area, eventually having to evade monsters stealthily. There is no combat, but these encounters are straightforward with specific paths or solutions. They’re so simple that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were scripted. The game does provide you with hiding spaces, like lockers, but I didn’t need to use them once throughout the entirety of the game. It suggests that Still Wakes The Deep perhaps thinks it’s a deeper experience than it actually is.

The other side of the gameplay coin is the exploration and puzzle solving, though even that is similarly too linear or obvious to provide any meaningful friction to the player. I am reticent to even call them puzzles – most of the time, you’ll have to turn a valve to pass through a hot steam barrier before being on your merry way again. That’s really the extent of how complex these puzzles become. That is, not at all, and to even call them puzzles feels like a misnomer. It’s nice to have something to do, but it’s so simple and repetitious that it borders on tedious as time passes.

Which is unfortunate, because the simplicity and linearity of the entire experience really removes any sense of dread or foreboding. When something scary happens, the threats to the player feel minimal due to their simplistic nature. But when it’s not trying to scare you, it usually is owing to the strong ambience. It’s a bizarre situation. But while it’s not incredibly scary, it feels like the perfect recommendation to make to those who want to play more horror but might find heavier games too disturbing. On top of this, there is even an optional difficulty mode, which makes the stealth segments even easier, which is a nice touch.

That’s not to say Still Wakes The Deep isn’t an enjoyable experience. It is. It feels uneven. It’s just an experience that could’ve used more meat on the bones. There’s a heap of potential here, too – the setting is great, and the general flow of the game makes a lot of sense, even if it’s a little reminiscent of Dead Space’s “go fix this“ sense of progression. But it’s so unwilling to allow its players to wander off the beaten track that it feels too artificial to ever be genuinely terrifying.

But despite my issues, Still Wakes The Deep features some of the strongest artistic direction I think I’ve ever seen in a game. The organism that’s taken over the rig looks equal parts disgusting but beautiful, weaving its fleshy fin-like wings through the harsh artificial metals of the structure to create something that feels like living art. The lighting and weather effects add to the visuals, too, helping to bring the setting to life, making it feel both lived in and as much a character as the humans in the story. Many of the dead crew members you come across are rearranged in a way that they’re horrifying but almost artistic. It’s a phenomenal game that the art team should be really proud of.

Such pride should be found in the game’s original score as well. There’s a typical offering of tracks here from Jason Graves, known for his work on the Dead Space games, that really helps to up the tension. But the other things, the little things, really help make Still Wakes The Deep unnerving. Random sounds of metal hitting metal or laboured and inhuman breathing help to suggest to players that something might be in the room with them, even if they can’t see it. It’s masterfully put together and plays a massive role in building tension.

But we can’t talk about this narratively driven game without highlighting the performances from the cast. The team has gone the extra mile to keep things authentic, recruiting talent from the Isle of Sky, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen to really bring these characters to life. Such a dedication to authenticity is hard to ignore, as it contributes so much to building this believable world with strong performances that draw you into the game world.

But how much you enjoy Still Wakes The Deep really depends on how much you value the individual components that make up a game. It more than makes up for its gameplay shortcomings with some strong sound design and intensely good art direction. However, its simplicity and linearity can sometimes make it feel a bit too controlled to be truly terrifying.

The post Still Wakes The Deep Review – Beautiful But Grotesque Horror appeared first on Press Start.

I’m not sure how many more times one person could replay the Kingdom Hearts games, but if there’s a record I’m sure I’m coming into view of it by now. From the original PS2 versions of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, to Chain of Memories, Dream Drop Distance, Birth by Sleep and eventually Kingdom Hearts 3 I’ve experienced these stories multiple times across multiple systems and yet still I routinely have no bloody clue what’s going on in the overarching story. Did picking them up once again on PC via the freshly-minted Steam release help that? No. Is it still worth it? Absolutely.

In case you missed it, you can get the “Dark Seeker Saga” catalogue of Kingdom Hearts games on Steam now, some three years after they were released on PC via the Epic Games Store (with the rhythm spin-off Melody of Memories conspicuously missing). While it’s not a series of titles that’s technically new to PC, the arrival on a digital platform that’s far more widely-used and feature-rich is good news for PC players. There are also some minor new wrinkles, some of which will also apply to the EGS version in an update, but nothing that makes this a dramatically different release.

Still, it feels exciting somehow. Booting up Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX, the awkwardly-titled collection of the “Final Mix” versions of the first two mainline games and a bunch of spin-offs both cinematic and playable, something I’d yet to do at a PC, felt like being handed the keys to the absolute very best versions of games that I adored as a teen. And sure, once I was in there and playing it became more clear that the experience isn’t all that different from the PS4 version of the same collection, but it’s special nonetheless.

That’s not to say things are a lock for the older releases of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX though, even the EGS one, because Square Enix has gone in and spruced up the joint a bit. There’ve been some environmental texture updates across the collection that, while not game-changing in any way, do give it a bit of a lift. It’s more a case of sharper, upscaled versions of the original texture work more than anything new or different, but given these early games used a lot of 2D art to make up for simple geometry, any uplift in clarity is pretty noticeable and beneficial. There are definitely still a heap of noticeably lower-res background elements, and I wish the UI had been given a similar treatment, but it’s something.

Thankfully, the texture updates are available for Epic players via an update, too.

Those new textures also apply to Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD, the port of the 3DS entry that’s included in the middle title in this three-piece PC feed, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (say that five times fast). This package also includes Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep, which works as a more modern-looking and playing lead-in to the third game, so it’s an interesting bridge between the more “retro” titles and the most recent one.

Moving on to Kingdom Hearts III, here bundled with its ReMind DLC expansion, and the last of these three new titles is the most PC-centric, which is unsurprising given the game was originally a PS4 title and runs in Unreal Engine 4. Like the EGS version, this means you’ve got a lot more control over the visual experience, and there’s a lot more benefit to playing on a higher-end rig where you can absolutely get a nicer presentation than what PlayStation and Xbox players have access to. Performance-wise, even on my modest rig, it feels like a very decent PC port as well with little to complain about.

In fact, after hearing some mixed things about the PC versions of all of the Kingdom Hearts games I’ve been pretty pleased with how it’s gone so far in the Steam versions. I unfortunately never played the Epic equivalents to compare it to, and I’ve still got plenty of hours left to pump into the Steam games, but I’m yet to have any crashes or noticeable framerate/responsiveness issues. Some added boons include full Japanese voice audio across all of the main games, Steam achievements, cloud saves, and although I don’t have one to test – presumably at least workable Steam Deck support. That’s a big deal in itself, if it works.

If there are complaints to level at the whole thing, they’d mostly be around the monetary and storage costs involved in picking up the full suite. At full whack, these feel exorbitantly-priced, especially when the PlayStation versions are routinely around $60 for the entire collection. I get that these are technically new products, and Square Enix has taken the time to run some textures through an upscaling process and fine tune, while also prepping everything to work with the Steam ecosystem, but it’s hard not to feel turned off by the cost of entry – the entire collection is down to around $100 for the next couple of weeks on Steam though, which is a bit friendlier.

Similarly, having all of the games installed will eat up a good 150GB+ of storage, which may not be equal to just one modern Call of Duty title, but is still a lot for 1.2 Unreal Engine 4 games and a bunch of classics. It took me forever to download them all on my bang-average connection and so I would’ve loved the option to pick and choose which titles in each collection I actually wanted to install to save time and space.

At the end of the day though, the Kingdom Hearts games being on Steam is a big deal not because they’re very moderately updated or because it’s at all new to be able to play them on PC, but because it’s a huge portion of the PC audience that can finally play them via their distribution platform of choice. And, in the amount of time I’ve been playing the Steam versions prior to launch, everything looks great and works as intended, which is wonderful news.

The post Kingdom Hearts’ Steam Versions Are Simple And Clean Ports Worth Experiencing Again appeared first on Press Start.

In the many years that ATLUS has been releasing definitive versions for their titles, it feels like it’s never landed on a concrete formula for what these newer versions of its titles entail and how it’s all presented. Persona 5 Royal is unmistakably the best version of one of 2017’s greatest games, but asks the player to get through the base game’s content again to reach a good chunk of the new (and fantastic) content. It’s a tall ask for a near-100 hour experience and makes it difficult to recommend Royal to those who’ve already played through the original.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance feels like a direct response to that. Redefining how ATLUS approaches re-releasing its biggest, most beloved games by fundamentally altering the game’s approach to narrative. Despite being unable to remedy some faults of the original, Vengeance is the de-facto way to experience Shin Megami Tensei V for newcomers. What’s more notable, though, is that Vengeance is worth a double-dip for those who enjoyed the original, offering a familiar yet fresh JRPG that improves on the original in almost every aspect.

Vengeance is split into two Canons, which are effectively two different narrative routes. One is the Canon of Creation, which is the same story as the original game, where the Canon of Vengeance tells an alternate tale with new characters, areas, boss fights, and much more. While it’s nice to have the original story there for posterity’s sake, the Canon of Vengeance route is far superior. It’s clear that ATLUS recognised the original’s narrative shortcomings were too far rooted in its premise and the way it handles its characters, likely prompting the inclusion of this alternate experience.

The Canon of Vengeance starts almost identically to Canon of Creation. Strange happenings are occurring throughout Tokyo. Rumours of demons and supernatural beings are spreading like wildfire. It’s amidst this climate that our protagonist is pulled into Da’at, a hellish landscape in place of Tokyo. Shortly after arriving, you’ll make contact with a Proto-Fiend named Aogami, fusing together to become a divine being known as a Nahobino. It’s still a brilliant introduction that lures you in with mystery and oppressive atmosphere.

It’s only once you venture deeper into Da’at that things start changing. You’ll encounter Yoko Hiromine, a demon exorcist from Saint Marina’s Academy. Much of the focus in the Canon of Vengeance route is focused on Yoko, whose outlook and perspectives on life often clash with that of the original cast. She sheds new light and moral intricacies onto plot elements returning from the original, and brand new ones brought in with Vengeance.

The other key piece of the puzzle in Canon of Vengeance are the Qadištu. You’ll gradually encounter the members of the Qadištu as you explore Da’at, each one alluding to grander plans for our cast of characters and Tokyo at large. The Qadištu are a much more fascinating force to contend with in comparison to the antagonists of the Canon of Creation. Like Yoko, they provide alternate perspectives on the world of Gods and demons and deeply tie into Vengeance’s broader themes of revenge and rebirth.

While the shift in focus to Yoko and the Qadištu are more than welcome, some of the underwhelming plot elements from the original game are still here. The issue of rapid character development feels exacerbated here in the attempt to share the spotlight between all the moving parts that the Canon of Vengeance brings. Even though I saw these things coming, it still feels like they happen too fast, and are based around events you don’t get to see on-screen.

It ends up making for a narrative where the new stuff is great, but some returning elements retain their flaws. The only area I feel this isn’t the case is in Vengeance’s exploration of morality and the law/chaos/neutral alignments that the series is known for. Shin Megami Tensei V is infamous for its handlings of this idea, boiling down certain alignments to good and evil in underwhelming fashion. This is remedied through Yoko and the Qadištu, who are firmly planted in the moral greys between the agents of heaven and hell. It’s a refreshing change, and one seen frequently given Yoko’s prominence in the Canon of Vengeance route.

While narrative has been substantially reworked in Vengeance as a whole, gameplay is relatively untouched, opting for small iterative changes that build on the strengths of what’s already there. This is a good call for the most part, as Shin Megami Tensei V already has some best-in-class combat and a novel approach to open-world design that keep things engaging. There are a few pain points that haven’t been addressed, though, which stand out a bit more now given other improvements.

Combat is still deliciously challenging on higher difficulties, forcing you to make use of every tool in your arsenal to exploit demon weaknesses to net extra turns in battle. The inclusion of new demons and skills in Vengeance means there are even more ways to build out your Nahobino and team composition. Additionally, characters that accompany you in the story can also be used as party members, which is a fantastic change that gives them more life and a deeper sense of place in the world.

The combat system shines even more inside of the Canon of Vengeance’s new bosses. They are wildly varied in visual and gameplay design, often forcing you to make ample use of items and skills in tandem to come out on top. There’s a few real highlights in the back half of the game that I won’t spoil here, but the way they test your management of different targets and juggling multiple affinities is thrilling and rewarding.

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The Magatsuhi system also makes a return here. For the unfamiliar, Magatsuhi is charged through combat and by collecting Magatsuhi in the open-world. Once full, you can unleash a powerful Magatsuhi ability that can change the tide of battle very quickly. There are also a bunch of new Magatsuhi abilities exclusive to specific demon or alignment combinations, imploring you further to think deeply about the demons you bring with you into battle.

The only real problem with this system, is that the starting Magatsuhi ability you get is far and away the best one. This was an issue in the original game that rears its head in Vengeance. There is often very little reason to use any other skill, because guaranteed critical hits are so valuable within Shin Megami Tensei’s combat system. If you’re also trying to bring certain demons to gain access to certain Magatsuhi Skills, you often struggle to create a suitable team composition for certain encounters. It’s a shame because some of the new skills are fun, but it’s hard not to feel like you’re hamstringing yourself by using them.

One of the biggest departures that Shin Megami Tensei V made from previous games was pivoting to explorable open-worlds instead of having an overworld map. It’s a change that’s still appreciated in Vengeance thanks to immensely rewarding exploration and fantastic level design made even better through the addition of Magatsuhi Rails that connect parts of levels together for seamless traversal.

Much like the original game, Vengeance is split up into four regions, each pertaining to a different part of Tokyo. A key difference in the Canon of Vengeance, though, is that the Chiyoda region is swapped out for an all new Shinjuku region. Because Shinjuku is part of the angels’ dominion, it’s vastly different from any other area in the game. A pale purple sand covers the ground and abstract structures are dotted throughout, culminating in an entirely new dungeon in place of The Demon King’s Castle from the canon of creation.

The rest of the regions are largely unchanged, but how you approach objectives and the way they’re structured is different. There’s also a load of new sidequests to engage with throughout, most of which are markedly better than what’s present in the base game, providing more nuanced objectives as opposed to simple fetch or kill quests. It feels like no matter how you spend your time in these regions, it always feels like you’re progressing in some fashion.

One simple yet effective addition are Demon Haunts. These small areas accessible from Leyline Founts are areas where you can converse with your demons and accompanying characters to gauge how they feel about current events. They can also gain stats, level up, and give you gifts to use in your journeys. The Nahobino can also converse with Aogami at certain times to gain three skill points as well as his opinions on recent happenings. Its a small inclusion but one that gives more character to demons and your party in general.

All of these things in combination, and you can probably tell that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is one hell of a package. You have two story routes, a truck-load of sidequests, a bunch of areas to explore, many demons to recruit, and more. There is so much content jammed in here that it automatically becomes an easy recommend for any JRPG fans – especially if you haven’t played it before.

One aspect Vengeance undeniably nails, is its presentation. When it originally launched on the Switch, Shin Megami Tensei V was dripping with aesthetic and striking visual design that was held back by aging hardware. Playing it now on the PS5 is something like a fever dream. A buttery smooth 60 frames-per-second all the time, in combination with a much bolstered pixel count and overall visual fidelity leaves Shin Megami Tensei V feeling and looking as it always should have.

The final thing I’ll shoutout, which should be to no one’s surprise, is the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack. ATLUS never misses when it comes to music, but so many of Vengeance’s new and reprised tracks are certified bangers in a genre full of musical competition. It’s remarkable that Ryota Kozuka was able to push Shin Megami Tensei V’s musical identity even further with such high quality.

When all is said and done, it’s inarguable that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is the definitive version of Shin Megami Tensei V. Even if you dislike the narrative changes and additions in the Canon of Vengeance, the original story is still there for you to play. Some returning flaws aside, Vengeance still offers the same compelling gameplay loop, an intriguing world, and utterly fantastic presentation that heightens so much of the experience.

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