Currently Playing

[Alex79]

I started playing No More Heroes on Switch last night. Not played it before and it seems pretty fun so far. I also started Sifu on Xbox which seems cool too, only beaten the first boss so far though. I hardly get much time to play these days, it used to be after the kids had gone to bed but now they're getting a little older and going to bed a little later, and I'm getting a little older and a lot tireder I seem less inclined to stay up late playing games, which sucks to be quite honest!

[Raid]

A couple of games that came from the current Humble Sci Fi Shooter Bundle which is well worth picking up for £15: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/scif ... ers_bundle

System Shock - I've never played this before myself, but I was young enough when it came out that I watched my brother play it much of the way through. Despite it being one of the very earliest PC shooters (1994!), the recent remake still has that sense of unease and, on occasion, terror. The game threw a new enemy at me, which was a hulking cyborg thing with glowing red bits and I just panicked and charged back down the steam-filled maintenance corridor, Aliens-style. The level design is extremely tight and claustrophobic, I don't think they've been expanded at all so they're still working within the limitations of a 486DX and 8mb of RAM, just with a lot of the graphical effects we're used to today. The art style's going to be a bit marmite I think, I personally really like it. It plays really well and I'm looking forward to more of it. I wish they'd remake System Shock 2, which was probably the better game, with this level of effort, rather than just sticking a few slightly nicer 3D models in the original.

Dark Forces - And the second of Nightdive's remasters from this bundle, this is, for me, a stone-cold classic. They've not done anywhere near as much with it as they did System Shock, but it looks fantastic; there's not a single piece of original art in there I don't think, but they've retained every bit of charm the original had by redrawing it all and sticking with the same sprite-based items and characters. The new cutscenes look fantastic, although some of the human characters in them do have a hint of AI upscale rather than full redraw. But it plays just as well as it always did.

[Wrathbone]

Couldn't agree more - thoroughly enjoyed both of them and they're perfect examples of how to do a remaster.

What I'd really like is a similar remaster of Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, which were two of my favourite RPGs of the 90s. There was a project to make them work in Unity I think, but last time I checked it was a bit of a mess. Might be worth another look, but what those games need from any kind of remaster is a modern controls option.

[Raid]

I was wracking my brain trying to think of other games from that era that I'd gladly buy a remake/remaster of, but frankly I think most of the ones I'd pick already have one. I think a really good remaster replicates the feel of the original in terms of gameplay *and* aesthetics, but without feeling like it's an obviously new game. The sort where they looked and played like that in your memory, but when you try to replay you realise just how rose-tinted those glasses are. Dark Forces has to be one of the most accurate depictions of this I can think of, but the Command & Conquer remaster from a few years back nailed it too.

The one glaring omission I can think of is the X-Wing and TIE Fighter series, but then there's a really dedicated fan recreation of those available already and it's difficult to imagine anything official being vastly better. Perhaps the Descent series?

[Wrathbone]

The first three Rainbow Six games, perhaps, but I expect they wouldn't really hold up these days beyond nostalgia.

Ooh, on similar lines though, Hidden & Dangerous 1 and 2. With some better controls I reckon they'd still be great.

[Animalmother]

Hidden & Dangerous 1 and 2 really needs a modern remaster. The original game is janky as hell but I think 2 still holds up pretty well. I'd love to see a new game set in an open world like Ghost Recon Wildlands except it's WW2.

I got Aliens Fireteam Elite a few weeks ago on sale with all the dlc. 3rd person co-op shooter that I'm playing with 2 bots. It's perfectly serviceable if a bit repetitive with missions that can go on for 40 minutes or more. As it's a "live service" you can't pause it or save mid mission, once you start that's it until you die or finish the level. Several different load out types available but only 2 are any use when playing alone as the bots are only ever armed with pulse rifles and can't be customized. The aliens themselves are only a threat when you get swarmed and arrive in predictable waves. Lots of weapons but you do end up sticking to the same few to level them up.

Looks nice and has lots of bits from all the films woven in. Not bad but it won't be staying long on the hard drive once I finish the campaign.

[Snowy]

Crimson Skies desperately needs a remake/remaster. God I loved that game, even if it did get indescribably hard in the later missions, one in particular where you had to fly a stunt course.

[Animalmother]

Anyone ever try a Crimson Skies mod for DCS I wonder?

[Lenny Solidus]

Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand Edition (new free update)

What if a game took many of your favourite aspects from titles that included the likes of Darksiders, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Mad Max and even a slight pinch of Elden Ring just for good measure - then served it all up as a somewhat familiar eurojank offering ie Gothic, Technomancer, Elex, Vampyr, The Surge etc. Atlas while providing some extent of expected jank in areas still feels pretty polished overall, mostly thanks to being published by Focus Interactive who continue to go from strength to strength in the general gaming publishing space. For some quick context then, Reign of Sand is very much a soft re-release for this game that didn't exactly do gang busters upon its original release. Deck 13 instead decided to rework much of the game with a new progression system, new enemies weapons areas encounters and more. And all for the princely sum of zero pence.

Traversal in AF takes on a very different role than everything else the game seems to directly take from as your very feet are essentially you're one and only type of active propulsion, and somehow it surprisingly works far better than you would expect. When your character swaps from a flat to a sloped incline, they automatically adopt a water surfing style stance and lovingly glide across the surface. It's not perfect by any means, but it does allow for some cool circling around of your enemies, as the combat lends itself so well to continued movement you do though need to keep making active strikes as every new strike builds up your momentum meter toward a flashy looking ultimate final strike that freezes an enemy and more often than not shatters them whole giving you a lovely upgrade shard to collect right with it.

However, bosses do have multiple weak points you must selectively take care of and if not done enough a final shatter will not delete them outright. Combat manages to raise itself above simply deleting enemy health bars as every single enemy type big or small needs to be dealt with in a somewhat specific manner - their telegraphs are not always so easy to read their reach is extremely vast for this form of game meaning even if you climb say high atop a tower to momentarily evade for a slow regenerating heal - they can still cause you significant amounts of damage from afar and bring everything to a rather abrupt halt.

I'll be the first to admit I've already cheesed a fair amount of enemy encounters as the dance of death in this game relies so much on close combat removing yourself from a battle to heal or for brief respite actually works against you in the form of losing all of your gained damage momentum. You have to be pretty battle smart to survive any fight albeit big or small, and I very much like that approach as most typical rewards are gainful and everything feels much more rewarding as enemies turn to sand and it then rushes towards you, absorbed by your character.

I need to give props to developers Deck 13 for not only producing a game that is keeping me coming back when my expectations were somewhat low but that they did not go the oh so typical UE5 path to power their game, instead opting for an in house proprietary engine of their very own named the Fledge engine. What the engine itself lacks in many regards visually (most specifically with the Gothic defined look npc's) it's more than serviceable for the style of game and runs very well so yes it does what it says on the tin and can even be pretty flashy looking at times somewhat resembling many aspects of UE5 without the horrendous hardware overhead and stutter issues.

To reiterate, Atlas Fallen even after a significant rework still wears its AA origins proudly on its sleeve. Yet I've been having more fun with general exploration combat and progression than I ever would have expected after spotting it as a package in the latest Humble - which of course means it was very quickly on key sites for just a few pounds in an instant not long after. Deck 13 really have something here and yes sure I enjoyed their Surge series of games enough I can certainly see Atlas Fallen succeeding in a space where games such as Forspoken failed so miserably as both a UE5 title and a AAA release. It's not genre defining or anything in its current form you understand, but from what I've played thus far I do believe that a follow-up continued on from the newer RoS template could be something that could even more blur the ever altering lines between what we typically expect from AA games.