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Mina the Hollower Sweet Jesus, this game is hard. Shovel Knight could be decently challenging but this one is just straight up brutal if you play without modifiers. It's still great, though. The controls, level design, and combat all feel fantastic. Don't even get me started on that soundtrack full of absolute bangers courtesy of Jake Kaufman again. Hollowing is also one of those mechanics that make you go "man I wish I could do this in every game." I'd give it a strong 9/10, though I have to dock a point because the game is determined not to have tutorials but at the same time isn't always as intuitive as it thinks it is. Did you know the mirrors are the fast travel system and to activate one you have to walk into the mirror for about two seconds? Well now you do so congratulations, you won't have to backtrack to every region of the game to activate the mirrors like I had to do when I realized I'd overlooked this absolutely crucial step to accessing the endgame. There's also a section of the game where you have to burrow through deep water in order to cross large gaps. They drop a subtle hint by putting a tiny collectible in the water, but up until now jumping into water has also resulted in taking damage so the game has trained me by this point to NOT jump into water only to suddenly make an exception without really telling me. I actually had to look up a guide to be told that it's okay to jump in water now. Honestly, if you can make it through this entire game without having to consult a guide even once then my hat's off to you because some things it expects you to do are incredibly cryptic. Despite this flaw, I'd still recommend it to anyone. If the Souls-like difficulty is a turnoff to you then there are plenty of modifiers to adjust the experience. I refrained from using them myself because I wanted to beat it as the developers intended but there's so many options I'm sure you can fine-tune it to be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.

Grabbed this on Steam. Looking for something to play whilst on holiday and I'm hoping this'll be it.

Two Zacklikes, an expansion for Project Wingman, and a JRPG I've been eyeing for a while.

Man same, I'd be all over that.

Gun-Nac I was playing around with shaders whilst setting up my new retro-doodad and found myself really digging this thing. Ultimately ended up playing it through over a few sessions. It's a super cool (and fairly accessible) NES schmup with some nice enough art and a steller weapon/upgrade system. It also may have opened up a new genre to me.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening I was looking for something short to play on my Switch until Star Fox and ended up picking this because the Ocarina of Time Remake announcement put me in a Zelda mood. It's basically a smaller version of Link to the Past, so I don't need to tell you how great it is. I ended up going for all hearts containers (and every other optional things I could find) which I don't think I've done in any Zelda games since the original OoT on N64. I hope they'll remake Link to the Past in this style eventually. I'd be way more excited for that than I am for Ocarina. Although before that, I need Nintendo to stop fucking around and put Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD on Switch already!

It does at least sound like a full-on remake (like Resi 3), not a scene for scene upscaling remaster like Demons Souls. So there will hopefully be enough novelty in there.

Same. I'll buy it, but I won't be happy about it...

Much as I love OOT, I sorta wish it was a new game in that style. I feel a bit remaked-out. I mean, I'll still get it and play it and all, but...

I literally just bought Xenoblade 3 so I guess I ain't playing it until the upgrade patch comes out.

Also coming to Steam! \m/ \m/ Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2 and 3 are also getting Switch 2 versions. Some people will be really happy about this one lol. Not much to say about this one, pretty hyped, can't wait to see more. Really wish this one wasn't Switch 2 only.

I was not expecting Wo Long to get a sequel lol.

I'm way too old to have watched this as a child and I'm sure it wasn't all at this level, but the clips of Hacker T Dog are brilliant. I'm sure you've all seen the innocent men one.

Forza Horizon 6 I'm not versed enough in the series to give you a real idea about how they've changed things up. I am however, once again having a good time with the game. It looks beautiful, it's immediately fun to just drive around and the racing is engrossing enough that I'm perfectly happy to just bounce from one race to another whilst knocking over road signs and whatnot. However. However. The game fucking tanks my XBOX Series X man. It'll be running fine and then suddenly and without warning it'll full on crash the console and the entire system turns off. I've googled it and it seems to be an issue with the first year's Series X. Perhaps overheating? I've cleaned the unit inside and out and there's no dust, so the working assumption seems to be a CPU paste issue. Oh well. I can probably muddle through it until I run out of interest in a few weeks (as always happens with these games; they take over my free time and then just vanish without a trace once I'm done with them - see Animal Crossing).

Directive 8020 It's another one of 'those' games from Supermassive Games. Only this time it's got a science-fiction theme to it and you're in space. If that appeals to you then you'll likely enjoy this, if not then...probably skip it. For what it's worth I enjoyed it, but I've enjoyed almost everything they've put out. If I had to pick some nits I'd say the stealth sections are far too frequent and some of the animation/dialogue didn't seem to match up, which seems like an oversight given this is what that studio is famous for. I believe it's another 'Dark Pictures' game rather than a full-on standalone game. So closer to Man of Medan and Little Hope than it is The Quarry or Until Dawn.

I'm weak. Also grabbed:

I'm a massive Cuphead fan and I've got mixed feelings about this. The spin-off? Should be neat. I'm glad they've gone in a different direction for that, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. Can't wait to get my hands on it and they're even releasing it on cartridge. The sequel? I'm not so sure. OG Cuphead is for my money, one of the best 'they nailed it' games I've ever played. It's damn near flawless in my opinion. And I'm a little bit worried that whatever they try next is going to feel like a failed comparison. That said, I've got faith in these guys to deliver for the fans. I just hope they've not bitten off more than they can chew.

Summer Games Fest time! It's happening! 2027! No release date beyond "Fall 2026" but we do get confirmation that it's coming to Steam. It lived it died it lives again! This one is different from the one shown at the SGF, it doesn't have a rather huge spoiler lol. I thought it'd be a while before we saw anything about this one lol. Prologue available now. Open beta available now. Spring 2027. Couple of other things: Palworld 1.0 coming out July 10, Gundam Rogue Orbit could be fun, hopefully it's not a multiplayer only title , Clutch could be that game for people who wish Forza Horizon had a darker story lol.

September 24. Some games moved to 2027, others moved to the same 2 week period.

October 2. Pre-orders/early physical versions come with Ace Combat Zero!! \m/ \m/

I'm not done with the game yet but so far I agree with this 100%. I always reload in stealth games when I'm detected, but in this one I keep going, the only other game I can think of that pulled that off was Ghost of Tsushima/Yotei. And it totally feels like the movies where Bond will be infiltrating somewhere, get spotted by a couple of guys, and knock them out real quick without the whole base going on alert. It's great. That's just one of the ways that whole thing really feels like a true Bond simulator, it's really impressive.

007 First Light This turned out to be both less like Hitman and more like James Bond than I expected. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It's definitely the best Bond game so far simply by virtue of not just being a glorified shooter. This adapts the full experience of being Bond including the social stealth aspect and the way you can recover from breaking stealth just by throwing a few punches. Getting spotted in Hitman usually means immediately reloading whereas in this I always just rolled with it since that seemed to be in the spirit of the game. I kinda wish it was more open-ended, though. I don't see a ton of replayability in the main campaign. The levels really aren't as sandboxy as in Hitman. And it remains to be seen how much longevity TacSim will actually add to the game. I guess that's going to largely depend on how much content they plan to add post-launch because right now there doesn't seem to be a ton of content there. Especially considering the amount of cosmetics I've already unlocked from pre-order bonuses, twitch drops and Hitman account linking. So I'm expecting the support to be rather extensive and long-term. I'm a long time Hitman fan, and as much as I'm looking forward to the next Hitman, I wouldn't be mad if IO Interactive alternated between Hitman and this for the next decade. I definitely hope it does well enough for a sequel to happen, at least.

Ditto Shovel Knight was way too good for me not to get this day one. I'll probably play it next once I'm done with First Light.