Recently I’ve been streaming older games through the PlayStation Plus classic catalogue, trying to rekindle my youth now I’m on the cusp of turning 30. I started with one of my favourite game series from when I was a young lad, Ratchet and Clank.
I started of course with the original ratchet and clank from 2002, though the classic catalogue on the PlayStation store is from the 2012 HD remaster. With this in mind I can’t really rate the graphics from 2002 however I do remember them being quite decent for the time. This HD remasters graphics are nice, everything’s a little bit brighter and crisper and on par for ps3 games of the time.
One thing I can rate this game on is its gameplay. It’s very fun and simple, there’s no real aiming for the weapons you use and movement is again fairly simple. On one hand I would commend this simple style as this game is aimed at kids, but on the other hand some strafing with weapons wouldn’t be a bad thing. The enemies are fairly basic and not designed for crazy combat, they’re happy standing still while you swing your wrench at them or lob explosives in their general direction.
This easy enemy rule does not however apply to the games final boss. For some reason the difficulty massively spikes for the end of the game. I didn’t really encounter any issues all the way up until this point in terms of difficulty, but the end boss took me quite a fair few attempts and rage quits. This coming from a seasoned gamer that’s almost beaten the tutorial boss on dark souls.
Story wise this one’s pretty simple, good guy with sidekick against a bad guy, fallen hero in captain quark, the usual. Again tho with this game aimed at kids I wouldn’t expect any more and I think this is more than enough.
Overall I’d give this game a 7/10, positively tasty.
It’s good and it gets a bonus point for starting off the franchise that firmly became one of my favourites ever. The next games I know will get higher scores and I look forward to getting onto them.
Now I wouldn’t say I am the biggest Sonic fan in the world and to be honest I’ve not played all that many titles especially in the last 10 years or so. This one did however catch my attention with the bigger bosses and open areas. I thought it’d be worth giving a go as something different if nothing else.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect and colour me surprised that it ended up being far better than I anticipated. It doesn’t deviate that much from your standard Sonic game most the time. A lot of the same features return, some for the better some for the worst it’s a bit of a mixed bag. This all melds together with the added emphasis on them happening in a bigger play area for you to run around at high.
One og the ways you upgrade your stats.One of the Titan bosses you fight.
You still run around everywhere at a faster pace, with boosts and bounce pads dotted around everywhere with automatic rail grinding allowing for the most effective gold ring collecting. Which still make that ever so delightful noise when collecting or getting them knocked out of your fuzzy blue fur. I do feel the if you are able to keep up with boost and hitting all the pads effectively you’d have a better time with traversal, I enjoyed it but I often whiffed it or had to slow down which ruins the flow a tad.
Your main chums you interact with during the course of the game which is the same three it usually is, Tails, Knuckles and Amy.
The game has 5 open areas to explore, there’s not too much to find. You have your portals which you unlock with gears from beating the bigger enemies on the island. Which in turn reward you with keys to unlock chaos emeralds. There’s enemies specific to each island dotted around with a few bigger enemies to fight. With a mechanic robbed from Breath of the Wild and Tears of The kingdom, who I’m sure pinched from another game. But they all reset after awhile re-spawning to be a hindrance again. There’s fishing spots which allows you to trade coins for useful items. And there’s music to collect which you can play at your leisure then. The OST for this game as some real highlights especially the big Titan battle music it’s legit great, with Kellin Quinn from Sleeping with Sirens on vocals for them.
One of the fully unlocked maps with all you can do on show.Ths final boss fight of the game which eventually takes you out to space giving more scale to the games world.
These portals are more classic Sonic in that you have to reach the goal in a set time, and you have to avoid enemies, spikes falling platforms, do many loop the loops collecting rings along the way. If you hit the four extra missions within these you get an extra key for each of them. Luckily you don’t need to get each bonus key to move on with the story as some of the timings are ridiculously tight. It’d cause a raging aneurysm in the average person if you did.
One of the many portals you’ll come across.Big the Cat returnong for the fun fishing minigame i’d recommend doing.
There’s more RPG elements to this game with a small skill tree that isn’t the best but adds extra combat moves mostly. You can level up your defence and damage from item drops which you take to the Hermit Koco. Then the Elder Koco you collect missing smaller Koco’s which give you higher ring capacity and extra speed. For the most part it doesn’t feel like levelling these up make all that difference. Even by the end of the game you still getting your shit kicked back in by basic enemies from one hit and you lose about 120 rings ago which seems excessive to me.
The complete skill tree, it’s a it underwhelming and easily completed 3 islands in to the 5 you do.
There isn’t much a fast travel system but each portal unlocks a rail you can follow to other portals for easier traversal, then if you fish out the two scrolls for the Koco’s you can travel to them. Then once you’ve unlocked the entire island by doing the little challenges you can fast travel to each portal but thats mostly redundant if you don’t intend to 100% the game.
The big Titan boss fights where you go super sonic with the power of all the chaos emeralds are the highlight of the game. It really imposes a sense of a bigger world. The are great fun and make use of parrying and a quick time events along with the aforementioned great songs playing in the background.
A couple of the bigger enemies in the game, i did have more but i didn’t transfer them over and i can’t be arsed to go about uploading them again. So thes two will have to do for now.
I would say the Islands can feel a bit empty, a few more enemies and varieties of them to pad out the areas between checkpoints wouldn’t go amiss. The combat isn’t the most intuitive and is basic at best even with the extra skills you get. There aren’t any side missions as such, each island is dedicated to telling the story of one of Sonic’s companions so you talk to Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Sage. This happens by collecting an item specific to them to trigger a cutscene. Eggman isn’t in it all that much considering he’s the big bad usually. There’s a few mini-games which break up the standard gameplay. Again a few more of these would help pad the game out a tad. The game itself looks and ahndles compentently enough for a three year old game. It’s defiinetly not the shapest and a bit more fineses on the finer details would help it pop a bit more.
Overall I’d rate this game a solid 7/10, Positively Tasty.
It’s a nice change of pace from the usual Sonic game’s I’ve played in the past and for the normal sort of games I play. It took me around 25 hours to get the Platinum so it doesn’t over stay it’s welcome and nothings too tasking. The game needs a bit more content which could easily come from what’s already there. Combat needs tweaking and one or two more big boss fights just because they were really fun and I want some more banging tunes. I believe there is a second title in the works and I will be getting it as if everything here is built on then I have no doubt will it’ll be a stellar game. Ultimately it’s a small twist on a tried and tested formula of whats come before but will hopefully continue to propel the series forward.
I often wait for games to drop in price which falls in line with me not having the most amount of time to play games any more. I am however currently on a couple month gap from my uni studies so that frees me up somewhat. I was lucky enough to get a whole heap of great titles at Christmas, with this being one of them.
I have waited oh so patiently to find a gap in my time where I could dedicate the entire play-through of this game seeing how much I enjoyed the first one and the spin-off Miles Morales. So I’m not entirely sure if the self hype for me ruined this game a tad or if it just doesn’t build upon the first game enough.
Just a friendly Spider-bot
Firstly I’ll say the game looks great to fantastic and it uses the source material designs faithfully whilst sticking to insomniacs own design interpretations. The villains and Spider suits look peak (me giving chefs kiss in the background). The symbiotes you’ll come across are top tier as well. Even though this game has been out a while now I should probably mention this’ll be a bit spoiler heavy. The biggest show off what this game and PS5 are capable of comes from the opening fight against Sand man. Honestly what a way to open a game it’s the best looking boss fight in the series, it’s spectacular, pardon the pun. The game however doesn’t manage to reach this sort of high again. It just dips off and meanders for a while.
Just some of the villians you face in the game, Sandman, Venom, Scream and Lizard.
The game relies on the city of New York to do a lot of the heavy lifting to tell this story. The developers have tried to make the city feel alive especially with the constant crimes that pop up and are easily thwarted. As the story progresses the incidents that spawn change to fit in with what has transpired. It’s a nice feature to see the consequences of the game effecting the world, whether it be the destruction of certain buildings, fires getting put out from derailed trains, sand littered across the streets or even towering symbiote nests. A lot of the exposition comes from the frequent podcast monologues that come through in the form of podcast snippets. As most of the side stuff feels hollow and doesn’t lend much to the story but it kinda sets up what I assume was supposed to be DLC or future instalments. Such as the weak 4 part flame cult story which implies Carnage is coming, or the feint nod to Silk at the end. Miles feels shoehorned into the main story a lot of the time just because he’s there as the second spider man and the relegation isn’t deserving. Especially when to flesh his purpose out more a lot the side stuff is specifically for him. And it fucking sucks. It adds a bit more to the story of the districts themselves rather then him. The rewards aren’t worth it either.
Just some stills showing off how nice this good looks.
Now the web slinging fun of the first one is just as smooth and fluid in this sequel. It even has the additional bonus of web wings so you can glide around the city faster. There’s up-drafts and slipstreams a plenty to cover hundreds of meters in no time. With the additional unlockable skills that help make snapshot corner turns, mid jump boosts and faster launches from each swing. Honestly it’s immensely satisfying.
Gliding around the city is a blast.
The game at its core much like the Batman Arkham series is a bit of a rhythm fighter game. With basic string of combos, parry and well timed dodged from the indicators. Just following that you’ll beat most enemies no problem. Now add in the special abilities, whether it’s Peters mechanical spider arms, symbiote surge or anti-venom moves, or Miles faster more dps based evolved venom moves. You have some of the tightest and fluid combat in gaming. Not to mention that they look great to execute as well. You still have your four trusty gadgets to help out as well and if all else fails you can web them up. Which also feeds into your focus bar which allows for healing and insta finishers. By the end of the game both characters are super over powered, you can decimate any encounter with no trouble. This canonically feels right though as an average guy with a lead pipe shouldn’t pose much of a threat to either of the Spider-Men.
Your three seperate skill trees yu can max out.
I wasn’t enamoured with the main plot as the first third of the game takes a long time to do a lot of nothing. Then when it does start to pick up it finishes as fast as it started. You only get one mission to play as Venom which just feels wrong. In which you bite off Kravens head who was pitched as the big bad of the game, he mostly does fuck all. Outside of killing most of the sinister six in the background for no real reason. Again Miles doesn’t do much but kinda acts as a convenient plot point when required. Even MJ gets a couple of missions again which honestly don’t improve from the terrible outing in the first game.
Tech stations dotted around the city for upgrades.If you know, you know.
I could be in the minority here but I found most of the side stuff shit and inconsequential to the overall game. I like a game like Ghost of Tsushima where the side bits are worth while the add something to the story, character or extra skills. These mainly did none of those things and at best only alluded to future story lines. Which isn’t the worst thing but when that’s all they do it just feels like you’re missing a good chunk of the game. The only collectibles are the spider bots which are dotted around and I’ll leave that conclusion spoiler free. Cause fuck me was it worth it, no.
Overall I’d rate this game a respectable 7/10, Positively Tasty.
This is in every sense a triple A game it looks, plays and feels the part. But we have a bigger map this time round which feels emptier. A story that’s been done several times over and is paced pretty poorly not adding anything of particular interest. The momentum from the the first game seems to have gone. If the games portrayal of Spider-Man himself wasn’t so good, along with the superb combat and web swinging it really wouldn’t be great. I’m hoping part 3 ties up more story threads and has a more engaged world where the side content feels worthwhile. Instead of just insinuating another known villain is coming. Don’t get me wrong it’s a decent length for a game and I did enjoy it, it never felt like a slog but it’s not exactly the sequel I was hoping for.
This was a game I had seen good things about and it was firmly on my list to acquire at one point or another. So when it became one of the games included in the monthly line up from PS plus I was pleasantly surprised. As more often then not I either already own or have no interest in what is available.
Now I won’t say I’m a massive RoboCop fan I have seen the original films years and years back but I can’t recall a lot of what happens. So to some degree this is very much all new to me again. I know there is general complaint of how the series went from the second film as to why I’m not sure. This game looks to rectify those issues and then some.
The big man himself, Robocop.
For me this game was a real treat for several reasons. The biggest is the overall aesthetic and world design. The game highlights the use of the unreal 5 engine, showcasing some particular highs of its capabilities. Thus allowing for some real crisp looking graphics. It’s a generally a decent looking game but not across the whole board. The eponymous robocop himself looks incredible and I do believe it’s the original actor who voices him as well for that added level of nostalgia, if not highlighting nuanced authentic details. The environments looks great from the reflections in the glum puddle laden streets of old Detroit or the dull 80’s styled offices of the police precinct that acts as the central mini hub of game. Now it could be that Cyberpunk takes some visual nods or acts as homage to the original films as I often thought how the vibes of the game made me think of Night City. Which is no bad thing considering how immense Cyberpunk 2077 is.
Just a couple nice stills form Detroit showing how nice the game can look.
There are some graphical drawbacks such as how the NPC’s look janky as fuck and their dreadful clunky movement or facial animations in cutscenes. When you’ve got some decent voice acting going on and the face of the character moves like a robotic poundland sex doll it’s a tad off putting.
The game took me around 15 hours to fully complete and pick up the platinum trophy. All of which are easily obtained via just playing the game. Well three are tied to a highscore on the shooting range and one is clearling a warehouse of enemies under 10 mins.
A few evil bots you kill and the big boss at the end of the game, which is basically you just holding the fire trigger to unload hell into this big mechanical bastard.
Both of those extra trophies are easily obtained late in game with the upgrade system and the interchangeable PCB boards for ol’ Robo’s gun. The upgrading system is a slightly lacking but does the standard of upgraded health, damage, armour etc. Then every couple notches you get an extra boon like focus where you can slow time down for a bit or extra health replenishment slots. The gun upgrade system is a bit convoluted and as far as I’m aware, unless I’m being thick as shit, the game doesn’t really explain how it works. Which in itself is a weird choice, as you plod along and I say plod as you walk like you’re scraping dog shit of you shoe and the run option doesn’t increase speed all that much. Even if it’s for immersion a bit of a faster pace wouldn’t hurt the game any. Now back to the PCB upgrades you have an option to find different boards that come with specific tailored builds as it were and as you, ‘plod’ around you find crates with chips that are used to upgrade fixed stat percentages. As you plop these chips in you can then get say fully auto fire, no reload which is a god tier build may I add, board 5.3 look out for it. Helps with the highscore trophies as well. You can however activate the red nodes which add a minus valuation. They are useful but I think it could’ve been implemented better. As these don’t help for any weapon you can pick up along the way they have set damage, clip capacity and fire rates.
Your gun upgrade treeHow my final build looked by the last mission.
There isn’t a whole lot to the story it’s pretty much the standard bad guy trying to stop Robocop for revenge reasons whilst ruining it for everyone else along the way. The missions are linear and have no deviation. A couple of side objective will pop up but ultimately it always falls to go here shoot the ever living shit out of everyone, move on. It does enough to get the game form point A to B you can trudge through Detroit three times in between a couple of main missions. Where you can do a couple of side missions or hand out fines to the citizens. This is an aspect of the game I think could’ve been fleshed out more as if you got rid of it outside of maybe some easy XP it doesn’t do anything for the game. I’d argue that it’s a shame as it really could’ve made the game slightly longer for the better. There’s a couple of open dialogue options that appear and can attribute to the ending you unlock but again the developers could easily just have a set ending if it wasn’t there.
The shooting in this game is gloriously gorey in the best ways. The violence reminds me of Fallout where you just exploded everything leaving blood and viscera everywhere. There’s even a nod to the first film where you get a trophy for shooting someone square in their johnson. What’s not to love about that. You can pick up a plethora of extra guns from pistols, rifles, grenade launchers even explosive round snipers. You can only carry one extra gun which can’t be held permanently either, again a separate upgrade branch would’ve made sense here as some of these weapons are straight up trash. You have to basically act as a sponge in all shootouts as there’s minimal cover and now way to crouch or hide around corners for covers which is a bit detrimental late game with how many enemies start appearing. The second to last mission really started to lag causing some very noticeable dips in frame rates as a direct result.
Not for the faint heartened as you casually explode some gang members head into buckets of blood.
Overall I’d rate this a hefty 7/10, Positively Tasty.
From all accounts this is a very faithful representation of the original films and as such I think some of the niggling points may come from the developers not wanting to ruin that. The shooting is fun and responsive but lacking in depth, the game is probably near perfect length for what it is. It looks good to great most of the time. A bit more side content along with better versions of the two upgrade trees available would help really cement this game if there is plans for an official sequel. This isn’t to say this game is bad or lacking in enjoyment. I had a really good time with it in 1 to 2 hour chunks. Nothing overstays its welcome and delivering justice in an uber violent shower of blood and guts is immensely satisfying as it is disturbing.
After waiting for a physical edition I jumped onto this game after it had already won game of the year 2023. I started a character, was baffled by the amount of genital options, and started my first play through. I’m not sure if it was because my setup was so bad, or maybe because I wasn’t in the right mindset but I bounced off it after 6/8 hours. I put it away and vowed to try it again at some point.
Fast forward to February 2025 almost 9 months after first attempting it, I started a new character and dived back in with fresh eyes and let me tell you, this game deserved game of the year and every other award it got. I played between 60-80 hours, hard to specify because I had to keep loading previous saves that were an hour or so earlier because I decided I’d go in on tactician difficulty, not a good idea. I did drop the difficulty on the massive end of act 2 boss fight because it was just too difficult for me having not prepared at all. That being said the whole game was fun even with the replays.
The story is sublime, with several different endings as well as complete freedom to change it however you want. I loved the companions I chose and all of them are very well voice acted, you can really feel the emotion in Karlach’s story and the charisma from one of my new favourite voice actors in Neil Newbon or Astarion in game.
JK Simmons as one of the bosses in game is great as well as Jason Isaac and Maggie Robertson, they all did a great job along with the character designers to make you detest them and want nothing more than their virtual deaths.
This game has an insane amount of detail in the world from random side quests to stumbling upon huge quest lines that end with fighting a huge iron golem of death far too early in your game. I love the idea of having a world that changes while you’re playing and this game excels at making you feel like you’re making a different to your environment and the npc population within the game.
The turn based combat is very well done and is in tune with the DnD theme of the game. Keeping most of the dice rolls in the background is great because it helps to keep the pace of video game combat going. Dice rolls are however used for lock picking, persuasion and other skill checks and other non combat situations which greatly helps tie back to the best and most fun parts of DnD. In my opinion there’s not much better than walking into a huge camp of goblins and rolling a natural 20 while convincing them your the new messiah and having them all allowed you to do and take whatever you please, then you can kill them all afterwards while your 10 levels over there’s to fulfill your characters murderous ideals.
When it comes to the RPG aspect there’s nothing better than DnD and this game does an incredible job of showing that. The only thing I’d change is increasing the level cap from 12 to 15 because I maxed out 1/3 of the way into act 3 and actually skipped some side stuff because I felt like i wasn’t gaining much other than story and finishing quest lines. This however does leave me with some more options as I go onto my 2nd play-through that I have started immediately after finishing this one.
I’ll be playing this time as the dark urge which adds different interactions, a new companion that is used as one of the mini bosses previously and an almost completely different act 3 as you can become the slayer of Baldurs gate which leads to different endings and in some cases having to fight your own companions that are more light sided. I’ll be attempting tactician mode now I know what to expect and can plan for some of the more insane boss fights.
Overall there’s no way I can give this anything less that 10/10, Real Fuckin’ Tasty. It’s been my favourite game since probably the Witcher 3 from 10 years ago. Nothing else to say other than I’d urge anyone that likes RPG games to give this a go.
Revieded by MoonHead
Released on Sony Playstation 5 6th September 2023.
A title that was originally released back in 1996 when I was barely 1 years old. The reason I didn’t play it though wasn’t due to my inability to keep my head up and grasp the controller in anyway to touch the buttons. Rather it was never released on PAL regionally so even when I was older, outside of importing the game itself and a Japanese or North American SNES I was unable to play it. We as a community were denied for many a year.
Now, well I say now the remake itself has been out well over a year I’ve only just got round to it. Either way I now have the joy of finally playing this.
The game in terms of plot is a pretty standard Mario affair. Nothing to wrong with this seeing as not many games or characters can boast such a depth of history, or the breadth of the gaming catalogue the tiny moustached plumber has. You start off by rescuing Peach from Bowser, the same old obviously. This is where it changed though when a giant sword descends from the sky and pierces bowsers keep. Where both Peach and Bowser go missing.
Your party at full capacity with a nice CGI cutscene once you’ve defeated the boss of the area to reclaim the star.
You then set forth in search of Peach you run into Mallow, Geno and eventually Princess Peach along with Bowser joining your party.
Bowsers castle gets fucekd at the beinnging by this big ol’ sword. I just enjoy the longing look these constatnly beseeched citizens give to a castle of a near tyrannical overlord who tries to oppress them at any given moment. You’d think they’d be a little bit happy.
The party system isn’t particularly revolutionary, you can have two other party members active at one go with Mario being a mainstay. Depending on the combination you have you can perform special moves. Deciding on your battle tactics you can swap out in the throes of battle anyhow allowing you to perform them every couple of battles.
Each character has their own stats that increase in increments up until the level cap of 30. You also get the bonus stat boost of either HP, damage and defence or the choice of Magic attack and defence. This just helps to give a bit of more of a dedicated build to each character. I imagine though if you choose to give everyone extra HP or attack overall it wouldn’t hinder you all that much.
The levelling up cycle, initial stat boosts then you shoose from the three extra to pump up the damage that wee bit more.
Battle is your standard turn based system. You take it in turn to attack or hit a special move. This can be Marios’ jump, Genos’ magic blast or Peach with healing etc. You can choose to skip a turn for defence or using an item instead. What spices the fighting up is if you hit the A button as the exclamation appears above your characters head. You can inflict critical damage which also has a shock-wave effect injuring the surround enemies. Likewise when they attack you can negate incoming damage. This all helps to build up your special move meter. Which once it’s at 100% allows for the aforementioned special move to be triggered.
A small quick time event for some of the special moves Geno uses. GEtting all 5 red stars deals peak damage.
As far as I’m aware this game is a pixel to pixel remaster. You also have a choice of the original OST or the new soundtrack. Apart from some name changes and hidden chest locations it’s the same game. The game is bought up-to modern standards. Better or for worse.
The game looks as a good as any top title for the Nintendo does especially a Mario game. It’s no 4k behemoth like Horizon or God of War. This doesn’t need to be that, it’d be kinda strange if it was to be honest. The world is as bright and joyful as you’d expect. Having that very distinct Mario aesthetic that just promotes wonderment. All neatly tied together with the very distinct world that’s carefully been built for decades. As you travel this compact world you’ll come along many familiar faces and locations which make it feel that little bit more alive.
Smithy the big bad of the game. Not sure why the chose to give him a full on dick nose. Straight up looks a goon.
Even with my many interruptions when I play a game this took me around 13 hours. I could’ve shaved potentially 2 off that if if I hadn’t just left my Switch lying around as I did others tasks or paid more attention to the TV etc. It’s very much a chunk game, you can easily run through an area or two in a couple hours and make decent progress. Along with the limited items and buffs you can use or weapons and clothing you equip. Nothing is imminently pertinent to collect. Which is also a shame as adding a few more in would’ve padded out the game that much more helped in stat allocation for team builds. Even post game content is basically just re-doing the boss battles but a slightly tweaked for a different battle experience. Outside of doing personal goals, finding all the hidden chest, collecting all the items which some mini games are required to do. You won’t come across any side quests or much other reason to re-visit any areas. Unless you wanna 100% the bestiary and get all battle data against the enemies. As nothing extra is really required it’s a strange design.
A quick look at the world map which allows for fast travel. The bestiary of all fallen foes.
What lets it down is that game is small. The story isn’t long nor that in-depth, neither are any areas you battle your way through. It’s no slog just underwhelming. Now nearly 30 years ago I imagine it’d look far more impressive, especially when compared to some of the juggernauts of today’s rpg ilk. We have been spoiled many times over. Even still it is a neatly packaged and complete game that comes with two difficulties standard easier. Which at least makes for a reason to return for a couple play-throughs. Especially if you want to play first time on standard mode and second on the harder difficultly.
The goal is to collect the 7 fallen stars to form the Mega star.
Overall I’d give this game a a deserved 7/10, Positively Tasty.
Don’t get me wrong it’s a very concise and tightly built game. Everything runs smoothly and the game is a joy to play. It’s just too short, not enough of a challenge in the battle, a distinct lack of weapons and clothing to aid in character building. Which is also hampered by the level cap being set to 30. I’d happily play it again but it’s only worth going through a second time if I’d want to play it start to finish again.
Well now the new year is well and truly upon us and the 2024 Christmas festivities have firmly finished. It’s now unfortunately time to crack on and get back to the normality of life. I was well and truly spoilt with many a good new game. And I can only hope to that you my fellow and dear readers were also spoilt. After all tis the season, if nothing else it’s to get lots of new goodies, along with some socks and deodorants. The way God intended it to be.
Well this will be a just a quick update as it’s just a showcase of my newest acquisitions. The are predominantly on the PS5.
So i’ll get stuck in. First up we have Dragons Dogma 2. This for me was definitely a long awaited sequel. I was a big fan of the original completing it twice on the Xbox 360 and once more for the remastered version on PS4. For a long while a just assumed it’d never happen.
Next up we have a remake in Persona 3, Persona 3 reload. This is a mega helpful as finding the older Persona games is rare at the best of times. Finding an old game in good nick is even harder. Add that together you get some wildly over inflated prices. As with any collecting hobby you’re beholden to the whims of the seller and the greed of chain stores. It’s a real shit show on occasion.
For number 3, Sonic Frontiers. Sonic finally stepping back into the limelight wit the first feature length film. Luckily we dodged the un-godly abomination that was the first CGI attempt. And we were given a new trilogy and spin-off series. Sonic games were always a main stay but the popularity had dwindled over the years. Stepping into it’s first foray of an open world title I was highly interested in this. I always enjoyed the older titles and spent many an hour on my gamecube playing Sonic adventure 2 Battle when I was a wee whipper snapper. Now I’m an ageing meat sack covered in hair languishing in work with back pain setting in. But that misery is another issue entirely and most definitely not for here.
Up comes number 4. Insomniacs Marvels Spider-Man 2. With number 1 being a certifiably banger. I naturally got Miles Morales. Both of which I got the platinum for. So, 2 was a no brainer. The unbelievably slick web slinging combined with the freedom from wall running, bouncing and whatever else a spider does, Altogether they alone are worth hours of gameplay. I may be abit behind on some of these titles but if you’ve read anything i’ve posted before then you’d know I love a bargain. I really fucking live a bargain, especially when it’s game or console related. Plus £70 a game is a tad steep I find. Not many games feel worht that price tag on release. Now, i’m not gonna get into developer time,crunch or engine costs blah blah blah. Some of these things really need fixing along with these bigger companies cutting studios and peoples livelihoods. I just think 10 hours or so of game ain’t worth that cost regardless of what happened during the development time.
Lastly I have Nintendo Switch title. Just to change it up a tad. This is the remake of Super Mario RPG. Originally on the SNES but it never came to Europe so we never had the pleasure of it. That is until this remake. I have nearly completed this game already and that’ll be the first review of the year and will be coming very soon. As for what’s next I’m not too sure. I flitter between games along with this new stack of backlog to keep me going. My wayward gaming pattern only worsens. Luckily for me it’s the best past time and not much else comes close to it for me.
As always my fellow gaming friends. Stay well, stay happy and stay heavily pre-occupied with the many gaming delights out there. Regardless of whatever genre or game tickles your pickle. But the most important part of all. Stay tasty. Until next time.
This isn’t my first foray into Devil May Cry V nor the series as an entirety. I’ve been a massive fan of this series since playing 2 on the PS2 back in like 2003 or so. I was blown away by the action of the game and having two discs with dual protagonists to play as with slightly differing missions taking place at the same time.
Turns out 2 is the worst one and I still kinda like it. The first entry is great, 3 is incredible, 4 is meh at best and then comes 5. What a game. Honestly it’s just so much fun. If you are after an older aesthetic hack ‘n’ slash style game in the modern era, look no further.
It’ll definitely help playing the entire series up until this point unless you played the light reboot DmC that doesn’t matter it isn’t canon to this games universe. As this game has returning characters and overarching lore that if you want to know what’s going on then it’s pretty vital. The game can be played blind and it does give exposition within cutscenes and with information imbedded in the games menu if you search it out.
This game has 3 playable characters as standard, Dante the main character of 1,2,3 and V, the returning Nero from 4 who looks and plays so much better this time round. And, finally the mysterious V. If you get the special edition you also get Vergil, who is one of the main antagonists and twin brother of Dante.
Your main three characters from left to right, V, Nero who mustve been modelled on Cody Rhodes this time round and finally Dante.
Each character has their own distinct play style, Nero has his gun,sword and devil breaker which arm weaponised arm attachments. Dante has dualling pistols,shotgun,RPG and Dr, Faust hat, plus his devil sword, nun-chucks, demonfied gauntlets and chausses. On top of the best one which is a bladed motorbike that splits in two. Then V fights with his summons, Griffon, Shadow and Nightmare then finishing off the downed foes with his cane. Each play fast and heavy. With separate skills to unlock for each which come with additional, jumps,dodges,attack chains and combos which all flow seamlessly heightening your offence. I wont go into it too much, but Nero is heavier hitter with more methodical combos. Dante is all about very fast paced exploitation, swapping between your available arsenal on the fly to break shields/armour then swapping again to hit as hard as you can. V uses his three familiars to overwhelm with sudden mid range continuous damage. All along with the returning devil trigger for each where you get health replenishment and extra damage for a brief period.
Killing hundreds of demons over the 20 missions couldn’t be more fun and engaging. The combat is a precise flurry of perfectly executed mayhem. This game is very much an arced style game in its increasing difficulties. Where learning to dodge perfectly and execute the right combo on the specific enemy at the right time is highly rewarding. Having a distinct lack of big damage moves or quick time events to help turn the tide. It’s very much skill based. This shouldn’t be a deterrent as the easiest difficulty which is what I started on again isn’t particularly difficult and is still just as fun. The game is designed around all levels of players and re-playability so if you want more of a challenge then those difficulties unlock along the way.
A few of the enemiesmyou’ll come across in game, with the returning Cerberus boss from 3.
The game is completely linear and lasts for around 11 hours I’d say but it could be less or a bit more depending on how you play. Each area is designed to be followed in one way. Occasionally they divert off to find a branch to cut down blocking a path or to complete a blood puzzle. There’s a few extra rooms with blue, purple orbs in which with 4 increase vitality and the Devil trigger gauge, allong with a secret mission which if you look at the ritual markings at the correct angle unlock. These are mini games comprised of killing waves of enemies or collecting red orbs in a certain time. Red orbs are the main currency of this game, which you use to upgrade the characters and buy items.
The in store upgrades from the few items you can purcahse, weapon set collection you can customise order in once unlocking more as well as unlocking new moves/combos.
For a game that originally came out on PS4 and Xbox One with minor graphically upgrades this game still looks incredible on PS5. The character models are second to none. The world and bigger enemies usually the boss show their age a tad but nothing too glaring. The new ray tracing is used to add more depth to reflections and reflective surfaces. Along with the particles on screen at once. I had no lag or crashes. It was a flawless experience. The blood soaked underworld with pulsating plague like skin looks just as gruesome as ever and when in the Londonesque world it takes place in that looks fully realised.
There’s a healthy amount of enemies to fight with each mission adding a newer nefarious foe to do battle against. Which is normally capped off with a big ol’ boss battle. Something this series has predominantly done right is boss battles and this is no different. They are always engaging and hard hitting as you’d expect.
the two big bads this time round in Urizen ad Vergil.
I don’t think there are too many negatives to this game. A few are I’d say the game moves as fast as the combat which can leave a few key points in the dust along with not necessarily being friendly to new players. It could’ve done with having a tad more cutscenes or the ones they had having just the extra but in them. I feel it’s a bit too short not by a lot though. The red orbs you need to fully complete each character comes in at a might 12 million and that’s hard to farm. I hit about 700 thousand by the end of my first play through. If you want to 100% the game for the platinum or achievements it’s particularly grindy. As it locked between 6-8 full play-throughs along with the bloody palace 101 floors of enemies to defeat. It’s absolutely catered towards a particular sort of play base.
The story isn’t the strongest and is kinda there just to hold the game together which obviously sounds a bit stupid. But I’d argue you could easily have just as much fun hacking your way through thousands of enemies for shits and giggles due to how good the combat is.
Ultimately this game is a score chasing arcade game. With the stylish ranks coming from the way you fight. Starting at D all the way to SSS. The higher damage and chained hits you get the more multiplier for red orbs you receive at the end of a mission. As long as you treat the higher difficulties this way the lack of a strong story doesn’t matter. Just keep on grinding and keep improving that’s the core of this game and series.
I’d rate this game a hefty 9/10, Pure Tasty Gaming.
As a 23+ year long series now, this 2020 entry is peak DMC and if there is never another mainline entry it’s a hell of a way to go out. It so close to being a 10/10 for me. However the drawbacks are it’s a bit short story wise and has an over reliance of people knowing the entirety of the story from the previous entries, even if there is a short recap you can access in game. There is a steep learning curve once you go up in difficulty as well but that’s where the fun really starts I’d argue. But the missions are beyond fun and the combat is an utter masterclass in the genre. It’s never a dull moment and with the constant addition of newer enemies to mix up the predicaments you find yourself in and the many boss battles. The increasing difficulty means the call of a replay is never too far out of reach.
It’s my favourite time of the year, where I have to spend all my spare money on my car with insurance renewal, servicing and an M.O.T. Chucked on top with the festivities and all the money that disappears with that and finally the myriad of family birthdays. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough my uni year kickstarted again at the beginning of October which I already juggle around my full time job and now alongside my daughter who is oh so very close to walking. It’s basically game over for my free time along with me buying any really rare goodies. It saddens me.
But, not all hope is lost. No no no. As I am still fully able to horde games like the treasure hoarding cave goblin I truly am.
Now, I haven’t done much of an update since August. So I can’t be entirely sure if i’ll end up missing anything out but imma give it a blast.
The most important thing I have attained though is my Evercade which I have spammed a bit. Nevermind though. Also if you wish you will find my review on this handheld console from a wee while ago. (a lovely bit of self promotion there if I do say so.) I really enjoy this bit of kit and my small collection which will most definitely be growing in the near future.
Gotta promote this some more people need to know of its existence.
I also round off my mainline Gran Turismo collection for the PS1 by finally purchasing 1 and 2.
Gotta love a bit of Gran Turismo. My top racing series by far.
I have purchased a few WWE Smackdown games for the PS2 in Here comes the pain and Shut your mouth. In my quest to get every WWE wrestling game. Which is far more vast then I had anticipated. Especially when you consider older WCW and WWF games.
Really starting to build up a decent collection of WWE games now. With here comes the pain being one of the all time greats.
Theres only 1 PSP and 3DS game. For the PSP the Metal Slug anthology. And for the 3DS Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. I still really need to work on my 3DS collection,as i’ve had one since it came out and I basically just neglected it’s existence outside of Pokemon and Monster Hunter games.
I chose to re-buy all Assassins Creed games. Having made the poor life choice over the years to trade every single one of them in. I started with the PS3 era. That is now complete as I have; 1,2,Brotherhood, Revelations,3,4 and Rogue.
I even sneakily put in AC 3 Liberty on the PS Vita to pad out the collection.
And finally to round off as complete at the time of writing this. I have two new PS5 additions. As I may buy many a game over the year. Its less often that they are new games. As previously mentioned with my lack of time to play games I don’t see much point in spunking off £70 on a new game very often. I caved in pre-ordering Dragon Quest 3 -HD-2D Remake though. I wanted it, I wanted bad so I got it like a real chump. No regrets. I also bought Planet Zoo for my PS5. As I fucking love park building games and with added depth of park management it makes my knees weak. Being on offer for £20 also really helped, and I can’t move onto Planet Coaster 2 until I have attained complete mastery of this earlier entry in the planet games.
Two absolute bangers. I’d recommend you waste your money and time on both of these.
So there it is folks until sometime after the new year now. I’ll be out wasting my hard earned cash on games. And i’ll have 1 or 2 more reviews up before then as well hopefully. I have just completed Jedi survivor but no need to review as my compadre has already done one like a year ago. If you so wish to read. (Again, more self promotion. I’m feeling it today I tell ye.) I’m currently on 100% Platinum run of that bad boy cause it slaps real fucking hard. It’s great. I’ll have Planet Zoo and DMC V Special edition in the works. I do need to work on my older games which is super hard to do. Especially considering i’ve started Ratchet Gladiator, Enter the Matrix and Call of Duty 2. I may be dropping a whole plethora of content soon, who knows? I doubt it but alas I can dream.
However, I wish you all to keep up the good fight in this mostly horrid retro game market. Buy, sell and complete as many games from whatever year and generation you please. Just unwind, relax take a load off and have a banging time. You deserve it.
As always though my Tasty brothers and sisters. Stay fucking Tasty. Until next time.
I do love me some Assassins Creed. Initially I was a naysayer ignoring their existence until revelations. Once I chose to actually play them I was firmly hooked by Brotherhood and since then I’ve played every mainline console title other then Rogue, which is on it’s way to me as we speak. I’ve played the PSP and DS titles, and I’ve got liberation on my Vita which admittedly I haven’t gotten that far in, so I was always going to get Mirage the same way I’ll absolutely be getting Shadows when it eventually releases.
This game serves as a precursor to the story of Valhalla, as that is when we first meet Basim and learn of his past and ties into the overall story of the AC world and less then confusing lore. Granted I had forgotten a lot of what happened and had to refresh myself with what was going on. I have weak memory retention for these sorta things. Which is a shortcoming of the game, as one of the defining features of the main line titles in the series is the duelling stories of your assassins past and the protagonist of the future. This game omits the secondary protagonist so there is no present story this time round.
Another issue with the story is I found to be brutally honest it doesn’t serve any purpose overall. Sure, you can say it’s nice to see how Basim was originally and ultimately became. From unlocking his true memories and inherited legacy he gained via rebirth. However, it does nothing to enhance or progress what you already know from Valhalla.
Your main interface where you can pick your outfit and weapons. The talisman doesn’t do anything other than add to your outfit. which I find is an odd choice.
The gameplay is more tightly focused on stealth again. As even by AC 2 the games had made combat basically primary with optional stealth kills, along with infiltration etc. Mirage really went for the assassin lineage in this game as the game really wants you to be a real sneaky boy. Combat blows major ass, I mean it’s pure dog shit. You can do light or heavy attack with the same trigger button, parry which hardly works, dodge with a roll physic that likes to roll you back into the enemy your aiming to avoid. It’s highly counter productive. Your swings are combo limited and don’t get any better from the skill trees. You get a roll over move that lets you vault over the bigger enemies. Which by then if you just pop a smoke bomb you can go behind and assassinate them anyways.
Whilst clearing out this location it devolved into a straight slaughter. It shows combat can work but it’s nowhere as near as fluid or as useful as it should be.
Your primary way of getting around your targets is the tools you get which honestly just pump your resources into throwing knives and smoke bombs. Once they’ve been fully upgraded you can fuck major shit up. Don’t worry about running out. Most your victims will carry some item or another plus most places contain replenishment loot boxes so you’ll never be short.
Your main three skill trees. Other than the last few most the skills don’t really do anything . All your tools have three tiers to unlock.
You can only chain two assassinations together which is weak and if the focus skill wasn’t available you’d be a really weak assassin by previous games. Once you have all three upgrades for focus, you can one shot five enemies in a row which is fairly helpful.
The world looks utterly incredible even if this game is limited to just the area of Baghdad. One thing the AC games always knock out the park is the worlds. Hardly any other title or series rarely manages to create games that look so impressive. Off the top of my head I can think of maybe the Witcher 3, or Ghost of Tsushima that creates such a striking world to explore and complete.
One of the synchronisation points showing how tightly designed the explorable map is.
As graphically impressive as the game looks, on occasion character models often looked less then impressive. With character movement and facial expressions being kinda janky, but I can find that forgivable for the most part.
For the main story you are tasked with taking down the order that is controlling Baghdad with five targets in total to kill. The first four allow some freedom in that you can find the headquarters and start that chain of mission if you choose. It’s a bit like breath of the wild in that you have objectives and it’s your decision in which order you complete them.
All missions, whether main or tertiary come here and once red they are complete. As you can see not a great amount.
Along with the main missions theres a few side quests I say a few as there are 7. You also have contracts which again there aren’t many. These are mostly kill missions, extractions or escort someone to safety. All of which are highly missable unless you are going for the platinum trophy. The same goes for the collectibles which are gear chests which give you weapon or outfit schematics which again are few in number, and honestly don’t do much outside of damage, defence and maybe noise reduction.
You have notoriety again in this game, which you can pay to clear it or tear down a couple of wanted posters. But the game doesn’t care f you are wanted or not most time and guards will just swarm you like a fly to a freshly plopped shit. So you often end up running round waiting to clear your name to get back on with the story.
A good chunk of the explorable world is the wilderness and it’s basically empty. Therea no outposts to clear, no real threat from wild animals even though you encounter a rogue Ostrich from time to time. It’s just lacking in content all round. I don’t think every game needs to be the size of Valhalla or Odyssey. Probably somewhere between this and Origins just so you aren’t swamped by an overbearing sized map or having nothing to do.
Best glitch I ran into basin just spontaneously ignited and spent the rest of the time in fire. There were a few others, like bodies spinning around or floating off in mid air. But nothing too game breaking.
You can pickpocket anyone that has a purse strapped to their back, but there is an over reliance on getting your money and bribe tokens this way. There aren’t many items to collect and most are junk you just sell to merchants anyway. Once you’ve hit the midway point of the game you don’t even really need bother with it.
Oddly this game comes with new game plus as well and honestly I don’t see why you’d bother going through it again. You can 100% this game easily in one playthrough with only missable trophy/achievement which is fairly hard to miss if you just do what the game tells you to do.
Overall I’d rate this game a Tasty 6/10.
I know a lot of people enjoyed this return to more stealth game play, but I just think even in that regard there wasn’t much. I think nostalgia goggles play an important part in that sentiment. The game has few big locations to enjoy and often you end up in combat even when playing as sneaky as you can. Then it just unfolds from there. The world is mostly empty. And, I’d argue this comes from the fact it was originally developed as DLC for Valhalla and you can see that in the finished product. With every area lacking in depth or content. It’s worth a go but if you don’t want to miss it out you’re not even losing any extra long term story development. It’s not as essential as it should’ve been and that’s what let’s it down the most.
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