Westernwolf4

I played this on Gamepass and had a great time. I think this review nails it-the game play IS shallow, no getting around it, especially the combat. If you do not care about Indiana Jones, there are better adventure/puzzle games out there to play.

However: If you are an Indy fan like me, this is not to be missed. Machine games got the world of Indiana Jones perfect. It feels like being in one of the movies. And it has the best Indiana Jones story this century, hands down. It would have fit right in with the likes of Raiders or Last Crusade.

I also agree about doing the side quests. I did not get all the collectibles because the gameplay in all those open spaces gets old. But I did all the side missions-they add a lot to the story.

This is also one of the last Tony Todd performances we get to enjoy, another reason to play this thing!

I finished Atomfall last night. It is worth playing, but I wish I liked it more than I do. The premise and exploration are top notch, but the combat and movement are not great. Those things really start to drag on the game as you get into harder areas. I was ready for it to be over when the credits rolled.

Sadly, work commitments will leave almost no time for gaming from Monday until next weekend. I need a short game I can complete or just enjoy Saturday and Sunday. Maybe now is when I finally get to New Tales From the Borderlands? Or finally give Ballatro a spin?

@Kramlar I agree completely that it isn’t confirmed from the language you posted. Just as a comfort, I note that Supergiant used this exact same language in this exact same situation when Hades was in early access. It ended up on PS5 shortly after launch.

As you said, nothing guaranteed, but I would be shocked if we weren’t playing this on PS5 relatively soon.

@Ichiban Sandland will obviously be a PS Plus title. I bought it. I am on quite the roll of owning the Essential tier titles these days…..😂😂😂

Atomfall for me. I like it so far. The atmosphere is great and my favorite part of open world games is exploring, which is clearly the key to this game. A few hours in, I will say that I am solving a bunch of leads, but it just feels like I am wandering around. Again, I am enjoying the exploration, I hope I manage to create more focus to my wandering at some point. But I am intrigued.

From the staff section: Everything or Nothing is a game I have not thought about in such a long time! It has been years and years since I played it, but I remember having fun, and thinking that the music, acting and production was way better than I expected (for the time at least). I would love to know how it holds up today. I know there are soooo many modern games to review, but I think a Push Square feature reviewing some old games with some fresh eyes would be fun!

Take my money. Just take my whole wallet.

Third month in a row I have had the featured game. But RoboCop is great-especially if you grew up in that era and have some nostalgia for the character.

The developers got the world of RoboCop perfect.

I got to the final battle in Avowed late last night, but wanted to see the end of the game fresh so will finish that today. Good game! Next is Star Citizen 2. And watching a lot of college basketball.

I am tempted to purchase Shadows-it sounds great. But I am short on time at the moment. I will get it eventually. I am thinking it would be perfect for when I get time off for Christmas holidays.

This sounds really fun. It will be a while before I get to it-not only is my backlog shamefully huge, but Ghost, the upcoming Ghost, and Rise of the Ronin have satisfied my desire for this kind of game in this setting very recently. But get to it eventually I shall!

I also want to say how thankful I am for the great reviews here and on Pure Xbox too. They are always well written, and always helpful. The work is appreciated-thanks!

This looks great. And Children of Morta was also great. So I am def. checking this out.

However, at my age my reflexes aren’t exactly “honed to a razor’s edge”. They are honed to like……a pillow’s edge? A boss strikes and I react five days later…… 😃

I know this is not a popular take, but I really enjoyed Starfield. I think Bethesda marketed it as some sort of cross between a deep RPG and No Man’s Sky, which was a big mistake. It was absolutely not the game they implied. It is also one of the worst games at onboarding players I have ever seen. There is a lot thrown at you in the opening hours that isn’t fun, and it is really not comfortable.

But……there are some really good questlines in here. The pirate one is one of my favorites in years. The UCL questline has a great horror vibe. There are some individual sci-fi themed quests that had some really interesting choices and mechanics.

I was not looking for galaxy spanning exploration, or great base and ship building (although I enjoyed building a fleet of ships I captured). I was looking for some interesting questlines with a space skin, and that is what I got. So I was happy. I understand why others are not, especially since the advertising for the game leaned on the elements of it that were under baked.

@Steeleye50 I agree. As I mentioned above, I gave DAI a lot of hours. I really wanted to like it. But I was really bored the entire time.

I am glad for the folks that liked DAI, but it was not for me.

@OldSchoolHeel I think and hope you will be pleased. A lot of people liked DAI, and no offense to them, but I found that game incredibly boring. I gave it a good 30 hours too, it just never clicked with me.

Like you, I wasn’t even going to check out DAV as a result, but I am glad I did. I found both the combat and the characters much more compelling than Inquisition.

@OldSchoolHeel I really disliked Inquisition. I really enjoyed Veilguard.

I would be happier if I hadn’t asked my wife for Veilguard over Christmas! 😃

I am really glad for others about Veilguard. I know it does not have a good reputation, but I really enjoyed the game.

I am feeling pretty burned by my purchase. I got it on sale over the holiday, but had no idea a game that came out on the last day of October would be on Plus in March. Wish I had saved the money. 😃 But happy for everyone else-it is well worth playing.

More Moonlighter! Whoooo! Love it.

@Oram77 Cronos: The New Dawn? Is that theirs?

@LiamCroft Thanks, that helps. And thanks for the great review!

Thank you for the excellent review we always get here.

I have a question. I really want to play this-Yakuza and Pirates and Majima is an amazing mix for me. But there is no way I am getting to IW any time soon. I am playing through the whole series, but I am only on Song of Life right now. I usually play one every six months or so, and IW is supposed to be huge.

How essential is it to play IW first, given the links discussed here? Will I be lost in the game, or is it just a matter of missing some references? I really want to play it before the year is out, but if IW is required I am just going to have to wait. Thanks for any feedback!

I know the PS staff does not have this luxury, but I just ignore it. Internet discourse over games has become ridiculous. So many games get such harsh reactions before they even come out, and the phrase “this is not for me, but I can see how it might appeal to others” seems to no longer exist.

I like this community. I like hearing what others are playing this weekend. But otherwise I just like what I like and let the internet fight without me. I find it intensely dumb for the most part.

Big RPGs usually take me about a month. I am the kind of gamer that plays one game at a time, wrings everything I want out of a game, and then move on. It almost always takes me 3-4 weeks to do that.

Witcher 3 is my top game for hour count, and that took me two months.

Two of the best games I played this year were Beyond Galaxyland and I was a Teenage Exocolonist. They are both part of the sale if anyone is looking for something to play.

@breakneck Nocturne Season 2 really is great, and I want to join you in giving it some love in the hope that everyone will watch it.

I really love where they took Maria’s story in particular:…………

Backlog challenge accepted! I am going to check out The Quarry before all the new releases pile on. It has been sitting on my shelf for ages, and I really liked Until Dawn. So let’s give it a go!

A need a small game after finally finishing up Veilguard last night, which I really enjoyed. There is so much coming in 2025 that I want to play that it makes my head spin. So I am going to ease in with a short backlog game first……….

@SMJ I have a real soft spot for Indigo Prophecy. I have been gaming since Atari 2600, but no game has gotten me in a “this is ridiculous in the best possible way!” space quite as thoroughly as Indigo.

I have a lot of respect for Elliot Page and his performances. For example, he was by far the best thing about the final season of Umbrella Academy. But I really disliked this game-the performances by all involved were great, but the story was a mess. It is the only QD game I dislike, and I have actually always hoped for a movie or show for Detroit: Become Human.

The concepts in Two Souls are interesting, so I could see some success if the story gets a lot of work. Especially if Page, Defoe and Hardison are all in it: their performances were the best part of the game. But the story would need a lot of changing before I would want to experience it again!

@MikeOrator Thanks, this is good input! After playing 0-5, I agree that they can all be enjoyed as self-contained adventures so far. But there are references and characters shared between games, and I don’t want to miss too much of that.

I guess I am just hoping that you don’t miss too much without playing the Like a Dragon games (yet). Because frankly, I just want to be a pirate with one of my favorite Yakuza series characters and blow ships up!

Ok, this looks awesome. I love pirate games like Black Flag, and I love Yakuza games. Some game developer somewhere has been reading my diary.

I am just hoping you don’t have to play the Like a Dragon games first to play this. I fully intend to play all the main Yakuza games, but I am only on Song of Life. I really want to play Pirate Yakuza in 2025, but if LAD and IW are required first, I am not gonna get there for a while.

Have mercy game developers! I have a job that requires a lot of hours and a family. I only have so much time to game! 😃

I really like this game, and I had not encountered one bug before the update in more than 50 hours of play. Post update, objective markers are not working like they are supposed to. I can find where I need to go looking at the map, but the way is not marked for me like it was before.

Not game breaking or anything, but it is annoying.

@rvk5150 This is exactly what I thought when I saw this.

I am still playing Dragon Age: Veilguard and really enjoying it. I am surprised, as I disliked Dragon Age: Inquisition. But the newest one had really grabbed me.

Still my favorite pirate game ever! Will absolutely play again.

This looks fun as hell.

Sigh. Day one purchase. They got me.

I didn’t know they were making Moonlighter 2! Awesome!

We all knew Suicide Squad was coming to PS Plus eventually, but the fact that we got this lump of coal in our stocking at the very end of the holiday season is very funny to me.

I finished Indy and the Great Circle heading into the weekend. If you are a fan of the franchise, it is great. I kind of agree with our friends at Pure Xbox-the gameplay is actually kind of clunky. If you are not a fan, I think there are better adventure/puzzle games out there.

But if you spent your childhood wearing out your VHS (!!) tapes of Raiders and Last Crusade like I did, you are in for a treat this Spring. The atmosphere is SO good, it really is like being in an Indy movie. The vibes and atmosphere are off the charts. It is the best story in the franchise this century, and I had a blast in spite of some mediocre game mechanics.

I just started Dragon Age Veilguard on PS5;-it is early, but I really like it so far. I already enjoy the characters and combat more than Inquisition, which I disliked (an opinion which I think is held by few others!). So I am eager to see where it goes.

I hope everyone had a great holiday, with lots of games under the tree!

8/15. I thought I paid better attention this year!

Happy Holidays all!

Holy crap, I could not be more excited for Witcher 4 and Intergalactic.

A whole Witcher game where I get to use Ciri's magic dash? Yes please.

708 hours on PS for me this year. I suppose I need to add my Xbox time, but since I mostly played Xbox in February and left it sitting unused for the rest of the year until Indy dropped, I doubt it will be much.

Also, I don’t have to count time on the Switch, because I exclusively use that to game with the kids (Mario Kart, Mario Party, Smash Bros. etc.) so that goes under “family time” not “gaming time” right? RIGHT?? 😬

@JimmyRiddle OMG, I just got that one too! Must have been a very popular Sony exclusive for 2024!

These wrap ups don't mean as much to me anymore-it used to be a pretty good summary of my gaming habits when I only played Playstation. But the last couple years I play on a few different platforms, so this information is not as telling as it used to be. Still fun to look at, if we ever get in!

I thought the dice mechanic in the first game was pretty boring, but the narrative had me hooked. Looking forward to this game.

Not much time for gaming this weekend due to family commitments. But when there is time to play Sunday night, I am continuing with Capes, which is kind of a bargain bin Marvel: Midnight Suns. The visuals are pretty bad during cutscenes, and the story is nothing to write home about. But the powers are fun, as is the comic book art style they should use all the time instead of bad cutscenes. Far from a perfect game, but I am having fun knocking bad guys of ledges and zapping them with chain lightning.

I am biding my time until Indiana Jones pops up on Gamepass. It will be the first time I have turned on my Xbox since April. My PS5 deserves a holiday break too!

@KilloWertz Fallout 3 and Max Payne pulled me back into gaming after a three year hiatus for law school. I was so amazed when I stepped out of that vault with a huge world before me. Fallout 3 is fantastic, enjoy!

Witcher 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. Cyberpunk 2077 was so disappointing for a variety of reasons. So I am hoping Witcher 4 is a return to form. Cannot wait for another game in that universe.

@Sanquine Enjoy! Yakuza 0 is one of the games I wish I could play again for the first time. So is Witcher 3, where your avatar is from!

As I did last week, I want to sing the praises of Beyond Galaxyland. What a fun sci-fi aesthetic,
great pixel art, great characters, excellent combat system.

The game has so many great things-it is unbelievable that this game was basically developed by one person. How does one person develop a game with this much in it?

2024 has been an excellent year for games, but I think I have had more fun with the indies than the big ones. Last year was the opposite-so many heavy hitters. But this year, I am having the best time with smaller games.

@Wario_Waha It is fine if you don't like Horizon, but I don't think the fact that it happened to release against two of the most beloved franchises of all time (Zelda and Souls) is a very valid strike against it. Just because it didn't do what almost no franchise would be capable of doing doesn't mean it is not a top IP.

Just between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, the series has sold almost 35 million copies. And that is even with going up against extremely heavy hitters To pretend there isn't a significant audience for this just because it somehow didn't beat Link is a little absurd.

I was hoping this game would review better, but it still sounds like fun. I will get it when it is on sale.

Running into the voice of Tuvok himself was one of the nicest surprises in Starfield. Especially since he plays one half of a duo in the game, and the person who voices the other half is also a hoot! I am looking forward to hearing Mr. Russ in this game when I eventually play.

I am still so sad about all of the great performances we are not going to get from Lance Reddick. And now Tony Todd. What losses.

I had to give up on Dying Light 2. I liked Dying Light so much, but the sequel made some tweaks to the formula that made the sequel one of the most annoying games I have ever played. And the story is bland and certainly not worth the hassle. Hopefully Dying Light: The Beast will be a return to form.

So I picked up an indie called Beyond Galaxyland and I am having a blast so far. I am only a couple of hours in, but the retro sci fi aesthetic and pixel art are fantastic, and the characters charming. Very fun.

Have a good weekend everyone! There are so many great and varied games out there-there is always something fun to play!