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Fate/Extella Link is the direct sequel to 2017’s Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, picking up shortly after the finale. However, Extella Link feels akin to a side-story rather than what I’d expect from a full-blown sequel to the Dynasty Warriors-esque hack n’ slasher full of historical figures and legends. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable improvement from its predecessor, at least when it comes to gameplay and mechanics. Extella Link’s tale revolves around a brand-new character to the Fate franchise, Charlemagne. He meets and joins up with the main character right at the start, and problems suddenly arise as a new mysterious threat has begun to brainwash previous allies and past foes against them. It’s a straightforward, streamlined plot compared to The Umbral Star. Players who may have grown weary of the text-heavy nature from the previous game’s story mode will find this much more palatable. Nero Claudius, Tamamo no Mae, and Altera from The Umbral Star take a backseat in Extella Link. Instead of a dedicated route for each of the previous three heroines, the storyline now follows one path that splits into multiple branching paths. There’s initially two endpoints at the start and a third “true” route opens up upon completion of them. There are frequent choices of which stage to tackle next in the campaign, though they’re practically inconsequential. Players can always back out to the stage selection screen to take on the other stage they didn’t initially choose before proceeding on. I found Extella Link’s plot beats are merely serviceable for the most part; there’s nothing really special about it. Fans of the Fate series will certainly get a kick out of a few key moments with some po[CENSORED]r rivalries getting the spotlight. It took me just shy of 14 hours to completely finish the story mode. _You can now slot in some support characters that'll occasionally pop in to attack with you or defend you. The entire cast from The Umbral Star return and are all still playable. Most of the campaign focuses on the handful of new characters though. Besides Charlemagne, familiar faces from a lot of other Fate properties make their way into the fray - Francis Drake and Robin Hood from Fate/Extra, Lancelot and Gilles de Rais from Fate/Zero, Astolfo from Fate/Apocrypha, and lastly, Scáthach, Arjuna, and Darius III from Fate/Grand Order. They're all welcome additions in my book and are enjoyable to play. I’m not much of an Arjuna fan, but I particularly liked the way he plays in this game. Decent additions with a few personal favorites of mine like Lancelot and Scáthach were a lot of fun to see. Although Extella Link’s campaign is relatively slimmer, there are a handful of smart design decisions to make this a more exciting package to play. Firstly, Extella Link feels considerably faster to The Umbral Star - it’s almost as if its standard speed is a turbo mode to it. Several major changes in Extella Link also give it the upper hand above The Umbral Star on top of its breakneck speed. The irksome Extella Maneuver system has been completely removed and replaced with the Moon Drive mechanic. Upon filling up a meter, players can activate Moon Drive; this not only enhances their attack and defense stats along with a super attack to expend it, but enemies defeated in this mode will also drop items that fill up the gauge to activate their ultimate attack - the Noble Phantasm. Unlike The Umbral Star’s meddlesome treasure hunt for Noble Phantasm items to activate it once per stage, Extella Link’s method allows for multiple Noble Phantasms to be fired off. XSEED Games and Marvelous have also subtitled the dialogue spoken during Noble Phantasm attacks this time around thankfully. On top of their standard weak and strong attack strings, every character in Extella Link now has active skills they can fire off mid-combat. They learn up to seven as they level up and only four can be equipped at once. After learning all of them, they’ll continually get stronger and lower cooldowns. All of these skill sets are tailor-made per character, though several may share the same properties. A few might get counter stances while others lean into afflicting status ailments or a temporary power-up mode. Despite that, I feel that there’s enough variation so no two characters felt the same. _Rush attacks are a great way to make sure that enemies never get a chance to mount an offensive against you and are probably too overpowered. Some skills have a special class-based property attached to them that corresponds to the numerous classes assigned to characters in the Fate series. When these skills hit other characters in battle, there’s a chance to get them into a juggle state where they’re unable to move as you and nearby allies lay waste to them with rush attacks. Doing so also speeds up your skill cooldowns. It almost feels a bit lopsided since these beatdowns occur often and the AI barely has a chance to counterattack. Battle objectives aren’t as much of a hassle as The Umbral Star’s odd reliance on tug-of-war to get a stage’s boss to spawn. Extella Link simply has players complete a chain of missions before the boss shows up and the in-game map is considerably better about conveying information of the flow of battle to the player. Crucial information about an ally's remaining HP, where they need to be escorted to, and how long it'll take for someone to travel to another zone on the map is easier to read in the heat of combat now. Much of the game’s stage layouts are similar to The Umbral Star. Characters will quickly be zipping around sector-to-sector once again to clear out. I also noticed that stage hazards were taken out in Extella Link; no more running into a zone that’ll eat up your HP if you didn’t have the proper defenses against fire or ice. These elemental damage afflictions seem to have been relegated to character skills instead. They bugged me before, so I’m all for this change. Unfortunately, Extella Link still shares many of The Umbral Star’s problems in the same missions getting old fast. There are a handful of other small quality-of-life inclusions that went a long way for me. Characters can be leveled up with money up to your current highest leveled character as the cap. No one will be underleveled as long as you have the cash and you rack up a lot fast. Not all characters throughout the story join your group, but the game has a toggleable option to make it so previous enemies who don’t canonically turnover a new leaf can still be selected as a playable character - story reasons be damned. _The aptly named Money is Power system is the most appreciated quality-of-life addition for me. No need to grind levels when you can just pay for them. Other than the main campaign, there are unlockable extra stages that reward new costumes. If you have save data from The Umbral Star, you can transfer that over into Extella Link to unlock a few bonus costumes. There’s even a 4-vs-4 online multiplayer component. It has a king-of-the-hill style face-off where both teams try to seize control of an area for as long as they can. Thankfully this mode evens the playing field among combatants unlocking almost everyone, all active skills unlocked and maxed, all passive skill slots unlocked and all of the passive skill items maxed from the get-go. The game smartly gives everyone an equal amount of options and it’s up to players to decide how they want to customize their loadout. It’s a fun little side activity though at the time of this review, I’ve only played with bots. I can’t comment on how the netcode will hold up. Fate/Extella Link is a significant step-up to Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star. Its story may be shorter and more comparable to a gaiden, but I think it’s more important to nail down and refine its gameplay systems first and foremost. It’s a game for fans of Fate and fans of the hack n’ slash musou genre. I like both a lot, so seeing it get significantly better works for me. There are still some things I’d like to see improved with more elaborate stages and better graphical fidelity, but Extella Link tries its best with baby steps in those areas. Regardless, the game is a blast to play. *-GAMEPLAY.

Name Game: Grand Theft Auto V Price: $29.99 - $14.99 The Discount Rate: -50% Link Store: Click Offer Ends Up After : 15/11/2019

Like its hero, the wall-climbing, sewer-spelunking, city-hopping Kyle Crane, Dying Light has its ups and downs and is kind of all over the map. Techland, creator of the Dead Island series, takes elements from a number of games—especially the Far Cry series—and mashes them together in its open world first-person zombie shooter. It's an uneven mix, bookended by a slow start and an exasperating finish, not to mention a few troubling performance issues, but in the middle lies a sweet spot that provides hours of satisfying, zombie-stomping fun. Kyle Crane, a secret government operative, has been sent to the city of Harran to retrieve critical data about a virus that's turned most of the po[CENSORED]tion into zombies. Crane, after immediately botching his mission and getting bitten, falls in with a selfless group of survivors, contends with a vicious warlord bent on controlling the medicine supply, and takes orders from an agency superior who would prefer to simply napalm the entire mess. Who will Crane ultimately pledge loyalty to? I wonder. Crane, despite being what I assumed was a top physical specimen, initially can't run for long before slowing and gasping, and can only swing a melee weapon a few times before running out of stamina, which resulted in a slow and awkward first few hours of play. Weapons, at first, are limited to pipes, wrenches, small knives, or sticks of wood, all of which do little damage to zombies and need frequent repair before falling apart completely. The melee combat itself is a bit wonky: sometimes you'll score a staggering hit or grisly decapitation and win your fight instantly. Sometimes you'll just have to spam the mouse until you run out of stamina or your enemy falls. It doesn't feel like precise aiming helps: I've tried very hard to land my strikes perfectly, but the harmless glancing blows and devastating skull-crushers feel like they're randomly determined. *-Weaponize yourself. Blueprints can be found or purchased, letting you craft upgrades to electrify pipes, sharpen or poison knives, add nails to a baseball bats, and otherwise beef up your attacks, and better weapons like swords and axes slowly begin to appear as you progress. Flipping through menus to craft gear tends to slow things down a bit, though provided you don't play in marathon stretches like I did, it may not be as tiresome as it eventually felt. It takes hours of play to even get your hands on a gun, and the relief of finally having a firearm somewhat defuses the issue of there being only a couple of pistols, two types of rifles, and a double-barrel shotgun. Your best weapon is Crane's slowly improving agility coupled with a city perfectly built for climbing and roof-running. Once you get the hang of leaping and climbing and realize that nearly everything in the city that looks like it can be climbed can be climbed, Dying Light opens up and becomes a fun, zombie-infested playground. Techland has done a great job with the running, jumping, climbing, and clambering—zipping up the sides of buildings, sprinting across rooftops, and dodging and dashing through the crowded streets becomes real fun, an instinctive and exciting way to travel. Skill points are doled out slowly and individually as you play and there's lots to spend them on. The vaulting skill is a useful one: while dashing through the streets you can plant your foot right on a zombie's face and launch yourself over it, leaving it in the dust. A related skill can also stun your targets as you leap off them, so you can land, turn, and bash your wobbling enemy's skull in. A fun, flying, two-footed kick can stagger enemies or knock them off perches, and a sliding kick can shatter a zed's legs. Despite finishing the main story I've still only unlocked about half of the skills available, and uber-skills like stealth kills and the ability to use a grappling hook come very late in the game. The result is a well-paced, gradual increase in skills and a character who markedly improves but never feels like some sort demigod placed on earth to smite zombies. _The complete difference between daytime and nighttime in Harran is remarkable. Right, zombies! They come in a few flavors. Mostly, they're slow, shambling types, clogging the surface streets and bridges, lurking in buildings and alleys, and occasionally staggering around on rooftops, providing amusement as they flop off ledges or over balconies while mindlessly trying to follow you. There are also specials: huge, durable brutes who swing clubs or hurl hunks of concrete, spitters who barf slime from a distance, bloated blobs who scream and explode, and a handful of freshly-infected citizens who haven't lost their mobility and can still sprint and climb. Distracting them, rather than fighting them, is often the best move; firecrackers will divert zombies for the few important seconds needed to pick a lock (in a Skyrim-style minigame) or force open a door, and the city is littered with other traps like cars rigged to explode and puddles of water that can be electrified. The zombies' attraction to noise is a double-edged sword, of course. Shooting or using grenades is quick and effective, but can draw an overwhelming crowd. When night falls, the zombie game changes entirely. A new breed of zombie called Volatiles appears, and suddenly Crane is no longer the fastest thing on two legs in Harran. The Volatiles prowl the pitch-black city, and if you wander into their vision cones they pursue you at a lightning-fast pace while screeching to attract other zombies. You can set off traps or distract them while fleeing, but a single stumble usually results in a quick and brutal death. The complete difference between daytime and nighttime in Harran is remarkable, and I always find the approach of night to be genuinely panic-inducing as I hurriedly sprint for the nearest safe zone before the sun goes down. You're occasionally forced to do missions at night, but otherwise you can advance the clock to morning by sleeping in a bed. *-Bright frights, big city. Harran itself is peppered with stuff to do, much of it familiar from other open world games. In addition to lengthy story missions, there are multipart side-quests, looting and scavenging expeditions, random encounters with hostile thugs or boss zombies, airdrop recoveries, citizen rescues, hunts for collectibles, securing safehouses, and a few timed challenges. It's all pretty standard open world fare and easily ignored when you're headed to a mission, but if you're just out for a run you'll always find something happening nearby. *-GAMEPLAY.

The problem with War Thunder is it's a game that constantly swings from "amazing" to "outrageously frustrating,” often within the same session. It's a game I love, except for all those times I'm ready to nuke it from my hard drive. Every few sessions, something technical goes annoyingly wrong. A lot of times, I get an authentication error and can't log into my account. A few minutes later, it works again. Sometimes, my controls mysteriously go haywire. All my settings are lost, and I have to remap everything, which is the most boring and painstaking task in flight sims. Don't even bother wasting time on the Controller Wizard. It's the least effective wizard this side of Oz. Or there's that weird texture bug I only get in the cockpit view, when the world turns into a blurry, jagged mess, but looks perfect if I simply switch to a different camera. War Thunder often seems like a ramshackle construction. There are too many places where it seems unfinished or buggy. It'd be unbearable, except for all those times it's actually sublime. At its best, War Thunder is a game of rare beauty and grace. The game is breathtaking when you're in the air, soaring over mountain valleys or Pacific atolls. Just taking a plane up through the clouds, where the world beyond your wingtips vanishes into fog while condensation whips over the canopy, gives way to the most extraordinary joy and elation when you burst into the clear blue sky. It feels like I'm really up there at the controls of a plane, playing among the peaks and valleys of a cloud formation. That's doubly true when I'm using special flight-sim gear like a TrackIR head-head tracker and a flight stick. More important, War Thunder's air combat is simply some of the best and most intense I've ever experienced. World of Warplanes doesn't come close; its planes are too confined by the game's simple physics. It's a shooter where your avatar is a plane. In War Thunder, I always feel like I'm actually in the cockpit, and every kill is a story to tell. Even on the arcade settings, where the planes are extremely forgiving and every battle is basically an aerial melee, War Thunder forces players to learn and use basic flight maneuvers and aerial tactics. Bringing all the pieces together is very difficult but also very satisfying. It's not a stretch to say that War Thunder is the Red Orchestra of air combat. You can also crank up the realism, which does away with respawns and puts you into more varied tactical situations. Instead of just racing to shoot up all the other team's tanks or airbases, you might be waging a carrier battle in the Pacific, or trying to escort bombers to a target. The aircraft are a lot harder to handle and the stakes are a lot higher, but that only serves to heighten the authenticity. *-Gear-Grinding. If only War Thunder stayed at high-altitude. But unfortunately, it comes crashing to earth with the introduction of tank combat. Where air combat is fast and graceful, the tanks are plodding and fussy. The gestures toward realism only serve to drag things out. Early tanks grind to a halt over the gentlest grades, and War Thunder consistently overestimates my interest in managing a tank's manual transmission. It's like coaxing a slug. The slow pace is exacerbated by a combat system where the person who spots the target first is probably going to get the kill. So battlefields too often devolve into careful camping grounds, and by the time you maneuver to a good position, your glacial pace has eaten up a quarter of the battle time. Then there's the progression system. This is where War Thunder badly lags behind World of Warplanes and World of Tanks. Its upgrade tree is a byzantine mess. Rather than having everything laid-out in a simple step-by-step progression, the War Thunder tech tree is jammed full of weird side-branches and a few too many marginal upgrades. Plus, the currency and research required to progress in the second and third tier of the game lead to some real doldrums. Premium currency helps alleviate this somewhat, but unless you're willing to drop some real cash on buying aircraft, you should brace yourself for some slogging. Still, as frustrated as I get with War Thunder's limitations, there nothing else out there that so readily puts you at the center of a dogfight. When I swoop in behind an enemy fighter, drop the crosshairs just above the cockpit, and watch the bullets slope into the fuselage until it comes apart like a broken kite, I feel transported. I'm an ace, a master of the skies. War Thunder drives me crazy. I'm not sure how I can ever leave. *-Arcade and realism. The main objective of the game is to shoot down enemy planes and all its game modes are about this. What instead sets it apart is how realistic it is and how easy it is to get shot down. In arcade mode you play in two teams, and everyone can chose what planes they like, but the planes are very simplified in terms of damage models and physics. This also makes it possible for teams to mix planes from different nations. When in arcade mode you can either play “Ground Strike” mode which involves killing ground troops, shooting down airplanes and bombing airfields. Or you play “Domination” mode, which is just like any other domination mode where you hold objectives, or airfields in this case. To make the game even more interesting, there are realistic and simulator battles. The simulator battles are far more fun to play for the airplane enthusiast, while the realistic mode is more for the average player interested in playing the game’s full potential. In realistic mode the gameplay is much less forgiving and the planes are much more in line with how they were historically. And unlike arcade mode, the planes you chose will be from a specific nation and not mixed. You will also be playing historical encounters and have objectives similar to the real battles. While arcade mode can ease new players into the game, which has a steep learning curve, it is in realistic mode where the game truly spreads its wings. *-Simulation and events. Simulator battles are very similar to realistic battles, but the flight physics here are set as close to the real deal as possible, so if you want to master the simulation battles you need to know all the details about your plane’s real-word attributes. You also only have a first-person view here, and there is no mouse-aim available, making it a must to play with a joystick or gamepad. If you are hit or run out of ammo, which happens way too fast if you are not smart about it then you must return to the airfield to repair and load up. Then there is the events mode, which is available in the realistic and simulator settings. Here you can partake in recreating battles as accurately as possible, where the regular matchmaking system with battle rating is off. But there are also a few other events in which you can partake. In squadron events, 8 players per match fight for the air supremacy and only players from the same clan can be in it. In racing you will fly through a marked course and capture zones in the water. But while there are a multitude of ways to playing and there is a possibility for customization, most of the events didn’t feel like a good fit for the game, and only something plastered on afterwards. The best way to play it is via the realistic or simulator battles. *-GAMEPLAY.

Until You Fall is something of an unexpected title for Schell Games. For a studio which has previously focused on education and puzzle based VR games, Until You Fall brings a surprisingly rich combat experience which successfully fuses meta-game elements in a way that no other VR title has yet managed. Note: This game is in Early Access which means the developers have deemed it incomplete and likely to see changes over time. This review is an assessment of the game only at its current Early Access state and will not receive a numerical score. Until You Fall is a procedurally generated rogue-lite dungeon crawler that’s all about melee combat. You’ll battle your way through a string of rooms po[CENSORED]ted with enemies of increasing difficulty. Eventually, inevitably, you’ll die. At the end of each round, you’ll respawn in a hub space where you can spend money you’ve earned on new weapons and weapon upgrades, making you stronger for your next bout. _While enemy placements are randomized and get more challenging as you go on, the environments in which you fight are little more than a backdrop. | Image courtesy Schell Games. Schell Games has come up with a unique VR combat system that goes deeper than merely swinging at the right time. All enemies have both a shield and health meter. The shield meter must be broken before you can do any damage to the enemy’s health. You can attack at any time, but your opponent can too, and you must block the attacks in the indicated position unless you want to lose a portion of your scarce and non-rejuvenating health. Upon breaking an enemy’s shield bar, you’ll have a opportunity to execute a combo to deal big damage—so long as you can swing quickly and accurately in the prescribed directions. If you don’t manage to kill the enemy with your first combo, their shields will recharge and you’ll need to break them again. _After breaking the shield, strike in the direction of the orange indicator to deal big health damage with a combo. | Screenshot by Road to VR. In terms of enemies, you can expect zombie-like fodder who will die in a few strikes, capable knights who will strike you down if you get over-confident, hammer-wielding behemoths with attacks that must be dodged rather than blocked, and ranged ninja-like casters who will shoot ranged spells at you which you can slice out of the air. If you make it deep enough into the dungeon you’ll also come across some interesting mini-boss encounters. Between the incoming attacks you must block, and the openings presented by your opponent, Until You Fall establishes a clear combat pace which is essential to compensating for VR’s lack of force feedback. Things get even more interesting in the way that weapons significantly contribute to your attack and defense strategy. Each weapon deals varying amounts of damage to shields vs. health, which means you’ll want to think carefully about which weapon you use against shields and which weapon you use against health. Each weapon also deals varying amounts of damage when it blocks incoming attacks, so you’ll want to think about which weapon you should be blocking with. On top of that, each weapon has a unique weight to it, which dictates how quickly you can move it through the air. That mace you’re holding might deal a lot of blocking damage, but can you move it quickly enough to block back to back strikes? What’s more, each weapon has a unique activated ability which significantly contributes to the way you’ll approach some encounters. For instance, there’s a dagger which can freeze enemies in place for a short time—you’ll want to use this to freeze one of the stronger knights while quickly finishing off some of the fodder. Another weapon has a shield ability which temporarily lets you absorb two strikes before your health is at risk, which gives you at least a little peace of mind before going up against two knights with only one hit point remaining. But wait, there’s more! Each weapon also has temporary upgrade slots (which only last for the current round); at the end of each room you’ll get to pick from three rewards. There’s a handful of weapon upgrades that you could find here, some which will improve the weapon’s special ability, some which will allow the weapon one extra hit on a combo, etc. As you upgrade your weapons along the way, the choices you make will continue to influence your battle strategy. The way that weapons influence the game’s combat creates a rich opportunity for players to experiment with different weapon combinations and combat strategies. Aside from weapon upgrades, among those three rewards you pick from at the end of each room you may also find health, Aether (the game’s currency), or even an extra hit point. Because you only get one life and start the game with just three hit points, health is incredibly precious. But so are weapon upgrades. And even still, more Aether means more money to spend on new weapons and upgrades. At times, the choice can feel like a serious dilemma—do I snag one extra hit point, heal three of my four total hit points, upgrade my weapon, or bank a big chunk of Aether to come back stronger and fight another day? The fact that the choice is so often difficult shows clearly how engaging and impactful Until You Fall’s various meta-game systems really are. *-Immersion. Until You Fall lacks any real narrative beyond a setting and a bit of lore, but the combat really manages to stand on its own. The game offers smooth locomotion which is combined with dash attacks to close distance between enemies. The game cuts interactions down to just the basics—weapons are ethereal, and you summon them into your hands by pulling the grip button (this has the nice benefit of making them impossible to lose track of)! Aside from grabbing item upgrades at the end of each round, there’s no objects within the game world itself that you’ll be interacting with. Fighting is mostly done by squaring up with your opponent and facing them without locomoting around, and the use of your body to make big swings and block attacks by moving your weapons into specific positions is quite embodying. Until You Fall keeps you alert and on your toes thanks to the scarcity of health and the depth of the combat system. You’ll be painfully aware when you have just one hit point left and your next battle is with a pair of knights. At times you’ll find yourself taking a deep breath to get a moment’s pause before the next challenging encounter. *-Comfort. Until You Fall is quite comfortable thanks to minimal reliance on artificial locomotion. Smooth movement is slow, and serves just to get you from one enemy to the next; the dash move, which serves as an opening attack or retreat, is perfectly comfortable in my experience. The combat is quite physically engaging, and if you really get into it you’ll easily be able to break a sweat. The game encourages physicality by letting you deal more damage with harder swings (to an extent). In the later stages of the game there are enemies with attacks that cannot be blocked but instead must be physically dodged by leaning from one side to another or ducking out of the way. *-Conclusion. Until You Fall successfully fuses VR sword combat with meta-game elements in a way that no other VR title has yet managed. The game’s physical combat is underscored with a sense of deliberate strategy that can change from one encounter to the next. With deep and interesting combat, it’s almost a shame that the game isn’t more expansive in terms of its environments and overall scope, but fortunately what’s here feels really good and stands on its own. There looks to be plenty of room for expansion on top of the foundation Schell Games has laid; throughout Early Access the studio has an opportunity to add additional enemies, weapons, and upgrades to expand gameplay in interesting ways. Note: This game is in Early Access which means the developers have deemed it incomplete and likely to see changes over time. This review is an assessment of the game only at its current Early Access state and will not receive a numerical score. *-GAMEPLAY.

There's a killer idea here, and plenty of fun working with a team to tunnel to your objective. However, there's still a lot of work to polish this gem to its proper shine. This oddball dwarcraft (or maybe dwarf 'em up?) title was one of our most anticipated FPS games of the year off of the strength of its intriguing concept and eye-catching art style. Of course, four-player team shooters certainly aren't anything new -- from Left 4 Dead to a whole lot of WWII games and Space Hulk: Deathwing, we've tread this ground before. What's different with Deep Rock Galactic is the focus on taming the environment, navigating by tunneling or climbing, and its underground interesting setting -- where one wrong step sends you plummeting to your doom. The darkened corridors of a bug-infested planet make for a crazy multiplayer ride as you and your equally greedy dwarf co-workers try to make as much money as possible for your intergalactic mining corporation. _The game has strong contrasts between light, dark, and a riot of colors. *-Band Of Dwarf Brothers. After the tutorial mission and jumping into a quick match (or looking for specific matches that are at your skill level), Deep Rock Galactic features four different -- and quite satisfying -- classes to pick. Each strongly showcases a different focus on how to achieve goals in an underground tunnel complex, and there's a lot more variation than in the typical shotgunner/ sniper/ assault rifle loadout you'd expect from an FPS. Make no mistake, DRG is very much a team-focused outing. You want a well-rounded group of miners to be able to get around effectively. Without the zip lines, platforms, and quick tunneling options you will find it hard to reach high or low locations -- or to get to your team mates who may have been overrun by skittering awful monsters after falling into a chasm. _The engineer can launch platforms, set down turrets, and take out big enemies with the grenade launcher. *-Tunneling Terror. While there are periodic swarms of enemies to fight while mining, the real enemy here is the terrain and the lack of light. In fact, that interplay between light and darkness is one of the game's strongest points. The experience can get very tense, either via claustrophobia from tight tunnels or agoraphobia from overly open spaces where you can easily fall to your death if you aren't paying attention. Learning how to tunnel with your pick or use the special ability of your class to reach new areas is crucial, as there are wide open cave structures to fall into without any light to highlight your footing. When you finally complete a map's objectives, there's limited time to reach the escape pod at the end of missions, which forces you to work in tandem with your team mates to get up to higher areas or tunnel through tight spaces. _Zip lining across a chasm to reach some red sugar health rocks. *-Disgruntled Dwarves Of The Deep. In one match I played during early access, figuring out how to reach the mining objectives was a fun puzzle to work out between players. In the next, it was an intensely frustrating case study in how procedurally generated maps can go very, very wrong. We found two out of 10 alien egg objectives quickly, but then couldn't find any others. There was no obvious way out of this wide circular chamber and we just ended up running in circles, tunneling random directions with nowhere to go. After about 45 minutes of a match that was supposed to be on a 1-Star "short length" mission, we finally admitted defeat and all just logged off in frustration. Similarly frustrating experiences pop up for newbies in several different major game mechanics. A voiceover tells you to mine Nitra veins for ammo, but it doesn't seem to work. I mined plenty of the ore but remained at zero ammo after surviving several waves of enemies. I tried depositing my stash in the MULE but still remained at zero ammo. After pressing every possible button, I couldn't find any sort of crafting menu to turn it into ammo. After losing that round because none of us had any way to effectively fight without ammo, I had to hit the forums to discover the secret. Apparently, all the teammates have to deposit Nitra until hitting a certain threshold, then there's a separate keyboard option to call down an ammo resupply. Annoyingly, there was no indication of any of this through in-game prompts or in the controls menu. _There's a whole tunnel system way, way down there in the dark. *-The Bottom Line (So Far). Variety is one of the bigger issues for Deep Rock Galactic right now. More level types are a must, and Deep Rock Galactic will absolutely need a lot more enemy types and expansions on the progression system before full release. Fortnite felt overly complex at first, but now that I'm used to all those different ways to pick new skills and upgrade characters in a multiplayer focused game, this feels overly simple by comparison. Some of the physics are also quite odd and need of tweaking, which is bad for a game based around the concept of mining. If you dig out the middle of a column for instance, the top of the column stays floating in the air. Whoops. Sadly, there's no split screen for console players either, although that just seems to be the way things have been going in the industry lately. Deep Rock has plenty of positive aspects going for it, though. The game is surprisingly stable for an indie early access title, and I never experienced a single crash. I'm also loving that these graphically pleasing co-op style games have been landing a lot lately, like Fortnite, Sea Of Thieves, and now Deep Rock Galactic. They don't need to be hyper-realistic, but instead offer something more interesting to look at over extended periods of time. The game's unique style with gruff, grumbling, greedy dwarves working in tandem has something very special brewing... if the developers can overcome some glaring issues in early access.

Squad Offworld Industries.. My buddy Rock and I were the forward scout team of a nine-man, U.S. Army squad. We had cautiously strode ahead from the rest of our guys in hopes of locating any insurgent activity, or, more importantly (and improbably), a much-sought after weapon’s cache. The map that we played on, Logar Valley, was composed of a dusty valley surrounded by foothills and more mountainous terrain. Streams trickled throughout the valley floor, winding their way through patches of trees and geometrically planned poppy fields. Rock and I had spotted movement within the vicinity of a certain group of thatch-roofed mud huts, which we now carefully approached. We advised the rest of the squad that we’d be going radio silent as we neared the area in question, and they promptly hushed their chattering. As we crept up (on the opposite sides of) the length of a narrow street, we suddenly spotted two Insurgents who dated across it further up ahead. My blood began to pulse within my temples as we moved on. “Looks like we have something up here—stand by, squad lead,” Rock relayed to our fearless leader, who was holding fast with the rest of our teammates from a nearby position. We continued to stealthily sneak up the street when I spotted something through a window of one of the huts I was passing. Sure enough, it was the last of five weapons caches that our team had been tasked with destroying. “Eyes on the last objective,” I blurted out. My battle buddy Rock quickly jogged across the road and took up a defensive position behind a low wall nearby. No sooner did he scoot into position than the two insurgents that we’d spotted earlier came running around the corner. But this time, they saw us too. They raised their AKs and began firing on our position. “Tangos spotted. Under fire. We are engaging,” I said as I raised my own rifle and opened fire. Fortunately, Rock and I managed to make short work of our first two enemies. But there was no time to celebrate—the end of road from where they’d come was soon a busy blur of activity. It reminded me of an angry hornets nest. The insurgents had been alerted to our presence. Fully automatic fire ripped over our heads and we hunkered down as an insurgent’s light machinegun suppressed us. “Squad lead, requesting backup. Under direct PKM fire,” Rock said, indicating the type of deadly weapon that we were faced with. Rock and I managed to periodically pop our heads up for brief moments of return fire—and then we heard it. A booming cacophony of long barreled doom sounded. A machinegun-mounted HUMVEE peeled around a corner behind us as the rest of our squad joined the fray. A steady stream of metal death engaged the Insurgents from the top of the vehicle. The cavalry had arrived… As you may have guessed from the above description, from one of my recent Squad experiences, it can be quite an intense game. Indie developers Offworld Industries have created a team-based tactical shooter unlike any other, save the venerated Project Reality. In fact, one of the reasons that Squad is such an excellent game is because the development team includes a couple of Project Reality’s original dev members. Just as in Project Reality, Squad pits two teams of up to fifty players each against one another. So far, the major factions include the U.S. Army, Russian Army, Insurgents, and Irregular Militia. What sets Squad apart from other military-themed games is its reliance on teamwork. Whereas in the Battlefield and Call of Duty series’ of games, you can’t just hop into a vehicle and one man them. Likewise, running off by yourself will put you in an early grave. In Squad, communication is paramount to not only your survival, but accomplishing your team’s goals. Squad’s main mode, Assault and Secure, sees two factions vying for map control, which is split up between objective points. When a side takes the flag of an objective, they unlock access to the next objective. This creates an emergent ebb and flow to matches, where factions push to secure objectives while trying to defend the ones they’ve already captured. The other mode is called Insurgency. In this mode, one side plays the insurgents, which must protect weapons caches which are scattered across the map, while the other team plays as BLUFOR and are tasked with locating the secreted caches and destroying them. This mode can get plenty tense, as BLUFOR squads try to detect where the caches are hidden, while the OPFOR team set up ambushes for them. Both modes can make for some pretty hectic gameplay, especially (as of August 7th 2016) now that there are vehicles that have been introduced into the game. Unfortunately, however, the Assault and Secure mode still needs a lot of work. Not the actual game mechanics—those are perfect, we’re talking about the community that plays it. Many players, not used to the careful planning and strategizing that was inherent in Project Reality, tend to all glom together during AAS maps. Instead of defending points that have already been captured, they tend to all run off in order to capture the next objective. That means that since no one thinks to stay behind and defend, by the time they all get to the next point, the enemies flank around and take the objective that they just left behind. This creates a sort of rubber-banding, where teams are constantly rushing points, and then have to turn back around and go back to objectives that they just came from and have to recapture. Squad’s graphics are simply stunning, with excellent environments and highly detailed weapon and character models. Those gamers with 4k gaming set-ups will be in pure eye-candy nirvana, and will probably want to show off their gaming laptop or gaming PC’s visuals to friends. Squad is undoubtedly the best teamwork-based tactical shooter out there right now. Well, besides Project Reality, which is currently (sniff) dying out. If more team-centric players, such as PR vets, can teach the newer Squad players how to defend objectives as well as utilize better team-based tactics, this could indeed turn out to be the next Project Reality. But for now, with its current community, it leaves some things to be desired.

Name Game: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Siege Price: $19.99 - $7.99 The Discount Rate: -60% Link Store: Click Offer Ends Up After : 5/11/2019

A lawyer for U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told The Wall Street Journal that Sondland told impeachment committee members that President Trump's dealings with Ukraine amounted to a quid pro quo. Sondland's lawyer Robert Luskin told the news outlet that Sondland revealed to House committees that he thought a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would take place only if the country agreed to investigate corruption allegations about his political rivals. Last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump's dealings with Ukraine following a whistleblower complaint about a July 25 call with Zelensky. When a lawmaker asked Sondland if he believed this arrangement was a quid pro quo, Sondland said he believed so but warned that he was not a lawyer, Luskin told the newspaper. The Journal's report follows text messages between Sondland and U.S. diplomat William Taylor that came out during the impeachment inquiry. In the exchange, Taylor said, "It's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign." "The president has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind," Sondland responded. Taylor's subsequent testimony resulted in scrutiny of Sondland, and some lawmakers have called for him to return and answer more questions. Taylor's testimony was similar. He told House investigators that a meeting between Trump and Zelensky as well as security assistance for Ukraine were conditioned on the country's pursuit of investigations into whether Kiev interfered in the 2016 election and into unfounded corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Taylor also relayed that Sondland told a Ukrainian representative, "The security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." Luskin told the Journal that Sondland would probably return if he were asked to do so. Trump has denied that there was a quid pro quo and blasted the impeachment inquiry as a "witch hunt." However, a rough transcript of the July call released by the White House reveals that the president did ask Zelensky to look into the former vice president. Trump has also publicly asked Ukraine and China to investigate the democratic presidential candidate.

_Die Young is a first person, open world survival exploration game that is currently in early access on Steam. You play as a young woman who’s been kidnapped, and stranded on a dangerously beautiful island. You have no idea why you’re here, but you must find a way to survive, and escape. The story premise is interesting, and drove me to want to explore, and find more information. However, since the game is in early access, there’s no closure for the time-being, so I admit was a bit sad that the story isn’t finished yet. Die Young’s gameplay focuses heavily on exploration, parkour, and survival. There are main quest objectives, but also several side missions become available as you explore the map. The open world allows you to freely explore the different landmarks around the map at your own pace. The exploration is great, and you find more information about the events that have taken place on the island and look for clues on how to escape. The best part of the exploration is all the parkour that you get to do to reach some locations. I found the parkour very enjoyable. The motion and controls feel fluid, and the parts of the terrain you are able to grab onto are typically easy to notice because they usually have white paint on them. There were a few jumps that I encountered that were long distance jumps, and timing played a huge role in making successful jumps. Running and climbing uses stamina though, so you’ll have to be careful to not run out of stamina while climbing and fall to your death. There is no character progression system, but you can find items that give you bonuses, such as the running shoes that give you more stamina, or the backpack that gives you more inventory space. There aren’t a lot of items implemented yet, so it will be nice when more gear is available. Aside from stamina, you’ll also need to monitor your health bar. Early on in the game, you will be defenseless, so you’ll want to avoid combat until you have the tools to fight back. Later on, you’ll find recipes to craft tools to be able to fight back. The tools all have durability though, so you’ll have to keep crafting new ones, which can be a bit annoying since they don’t seem to last very long. Even with a weapon though, you’re still pretty vulnerable, so just because you can fight, doesn’t mean you should. If you do happen to die, you’ll respawn at the last campfire location that you saved at. Thirst is another survival aspect you’ll need to manage. You’ll want to scavenge for food and find water sources to stay hydrated. Eating food restores some missing health, but hunger isn’t in the game yet. Thirst mechanics are pretty balanced, and easy to manage since food and water are plentiful. Die Young also has a crafting system that unlocks new recipes as you explore and find them. Crafting is done through the crafting menu by combining various resources you’ve scavenged. The crafting system is easy to use and understand, and you can make items like tools, health kits, and a knife. There is a limited number of each resource you can carry, and your item inventory space is limited as well. *-Pros: very enjoyable parkour with good motion, and fluid controls exploration is rewarding, and you can find clues or items to help you survive and escape survival aspects (stamina, thirst, health) are pretty balanced, and easy to manage since food, water, and resources are plentiful (hunger isn’t in the game yet) good, intuitive crafting system, with an abundance of resources to find and craft with as you explore there are some fast travel locations to quickly travel that help cut down on the travel time and backtracking once you unlock them appealing graphics with nice environments sound effects and music are fine – it’s nice to have the audio cues when you aggro something keyboard and mouse controls are fully customizable, and there is full controller support *-Cons: inconsistent fall damage; sometimes sliding down a small hill that’s not even that steep can damage or even kill you, but then other times you fall from further and you are just fine (nitpick) weapon durability is low, and having to make more can be a pain (nitpick) some texture popping issues (nitpick) enemy models and their animations aren’t the greatest; they could use more detail, but they’re not terrible either (nitpick) while you can have more than one game, there is only one save slot per game that keeps the most recent save; more saves kept for the same game would be nice (nitpick) performance could use some improvements, but it’s still tolerable (frame drops into the low-mid 50s fairly frequently with above the recommended specs) I’ve played the game for over 5 hours so far. The gameplay is enjoyable, but I don’t expect there to be much in the way of replay value once you find and complete everything. -Info.. Die Young (PC [Reviewed]) Developer: IndieGala Publisher: IndieGala *-Conclusion: Die Young is off to a great start. The exploration is good, and parkour is fun. I’m eager to see more content added, especially the main story. If you’re looking to get in at the ground level, and explore and parkour all over the place, then you’ll likely enjoy Die Young in its current early access state. If you’re interested in experiencing a fully fleshed out story experience, then you might want to wait for everything to be fully implemented down the road.

After Kamala Harris pulled out of a South Carolina criminal justice forum because its organizer gave Donald Trump an award, the president duly lashed out. “Badly failing presidential candidate Kamala Harris,” Trump wrote on Saturday morning, “will not go to a very wonderful largely African American event today because yesterday I recieved [sic] a major award, at the same event.” The California senator trails the frontrunners in the Democratic primary, having faded after a strong performance in the first debate, but is still in the top five in polling averages. She has qualified for the next contest, in Georgia in November. Her campaign said on Friday she would skip the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center event at Benedict College in Columbia, a historically black college, in objection to the group’s decision to give Trump its Bipartisan Justice Award, which she received in 2016 with the Republican South Carolina senator Tim Scott. Trump received the award for his work on criminal justice reform with the First Step Act, which has allowed thousands of non-violent offenders to gain early release from federal prison. In his speech on Friday, Trump belittled Barack Obama’s record on criminal justice. He said on Saturday he won the award because he had been “able to produce & sign into law major Criminal Justice Reform legislation, which will greatly help the African American community (and all other communities), and which was unable to get done in past administrations despite a tremendous desire for it.” The reform was greeted as a bipartisan success but it is not without its critics, among campaigners and even those who supported it. In December Kevin Ring, the president of Families against Mandatory Minimums, which backed the bill, told the Guardian it was “a small first step, but it is finally a step in the right direction”. On Saturday Trump also made a familiar claim, writing: “This and best unemployment numbers EVER is more than Kamala will EVER be able to do for African Americans!” Factcheckers have said Trump’s regular claim about African American unemployment being at its lowest point ever is, at least under modern methodology, accurate – up to a point. He has also regularly claimed strong support among African Americans, a claim which is not backed up by polling evidence. Harris also complained that only a handful of Benedict students were given tickets for Trump’s appearance. Most seats were occupied by administration officials and Trump supporters. “Donald Trump is a lawless president,” the California senator said in a statement on Friday. “Not only does he circumvent the laws of our country and the principles of our constitution, but there is nothing in his career that is about justice, for justice, or in celebration of justice.” Harris had been among 10 Democrats expected to attend the Benedict College forum. Soon after her announcement, the mayor of Columbia, a co-host, said he was organizing an alternative event. Harris’ campaign confirmed she would be there. “I honestly wanted to give everyone else another option,” the Columbia mayor, Steve Benjamin, said about his event, which will be held with the theme “students first” in a college chapel. As of Friday night, Benjamin said, Cory Booker, Joe Biden and probably Bernie Sanders planned to attend his event, as well as the original forum.

Simulation isn't the defining aspect of Arma. It's scale. The enormity of the map is the foundation for the experiences that distinguish Bohemia Interactive's flagship franchise. It's what makes radios, topographical maps, binoculars, and compasses practical equipment in an FPS. It's what allows for kilometer-long headshots and coordinated convoy raids. It's what makes using your eyes to spot hints of enemies--muzzle flashes, tracers, gunsmoke--as valuable as being a crack shot. The scale of Arma 3 dwarfs everything in the genre, including Arma 2. Altis, a keyhole portion of which is seen in these screenshots, is a Mediterranean island-nation assembled from ruins, airports, coastal villages, solar power plants, military outposts, salt flats, and tank-friendly scrubland. It's a variegated backyard for you to play war in, but what's more significant is that Arma's landscape finally has the technology it deserves. Arma 3 represents an aesthetic overhaul of the series. Unbelievable dynamic lighting, a volumetric cloud system, genuine vehicle physics, 3D weapon optics, ragdoll, noticeably improved weapon audio, and other grainy, eye-level details await scrutiny inside Arma 3's macro elegance. The best improvement is the merciful cutting of Arma 2's rigid, Tin-Man-without-oil combat animations, which makes infantry combat more responsive in your hands. A half-year in paid pre-release has given Arma 3 time to gestate, but the final build is far from being a comprehensive reinvention of the series, and some long-standing blemishes that arise from its nature as a gargantuan simulation linger. Even on high-end hardware, my framerate dips under the spectacle of some multiplayer missions. Friendly AI units, though marginally better-behaved, still depend on the player to be their brains, an issue that's circumvented by playing Arma the way God intended it: cooperatively. *-Operation cooperation. With voice-connected friends and a good user-created mission, Arma 3 is an unparalleled war story generator. On Operation Fault Line with a gang of Steam pals, I had to drive a clumsy, eight-wheeled transport called a HEMTT across the map. To protect this elephantine truck we had a IFV-6c Panther, an APC with a mounted grenade launcher and 12.7mm MG. Minutes after leaving base, our tanky bodyguard eats a land mine, ruining its left track. As we get out to survey the damage, rockets streak across the valley. Everyone's okay, but the Panther is immobilized. Dumping the APC is the only option. We clump into the fragile HEMTT, burning diesel to get off the exposed ridge. Green tracers track the truck, eventually pricking some of my tires. The wheels don't deflate enough to go flat, but the suspension slumps to the left. For the rest of the mission I have to drive lopsided, constantly counter-steering just to keep the truck on the gravel road. But everyone works together to keep our war bus on track--my teammates give turn instructions, read the map, and scan the road for more mines. When we're free of immediate danger, we send someone back to base to retrieve an ATV so that we have a forward scouting element. At one point we position two machinegunners with nightvision scopes at the lip of a valley to provide cover as we drive the HEMTT down an exposed valley, then taxi them back to us on the ATV. The sequence of events, the chatter, the wounds and kills we rack up, all developed because we happened to run over a mine and our tires got shot up. *-Getting flexible. Arma's capacity for stimulating camaraderie, atmosphere, and problem-solving, in other words, is fully intact. The feeling of ownership that arises over these moments between you and your squadmates sticks in your brain. Central to this fun is how malleable Arma continues to be for its community, which before launch day had published almost 1,500 missions to Steam Workshop. Assuming you have an internet connection, this well of content compensates for the absence of an official campaign at launch, which will integrate in three free monthly installments beginning in October. On the ground, a new stance adjustments system is the best thing that's ever happened to infantry combat in Arma. Holding the Ctrl key as a modifier while tapping W or S cycles between nine vertical stances, and you can also take a horizontal step in addition to using Q or E to lean. You feel articulate--making small body adjustments while behind cover initially feels like finger gymnastics, but the system makes more types of cover viable and more types of weapons viable in that cover. Coupled with the general smoothing of movement and the near elimination of Arma 2's uninterruptible, sluggish animations, running and gunning should finally feel comfortable to average FPS players. On the opposite end of your gun, though, AI remains a shortcoming. Arma 3's enemies share plenty of their ancestors' DNA, which means that they oscillate between being eagle-eyed snipers at one moment and static, dumb, 3D silhouettes evocative of a light gun arcade game another. Their greatest flaw is that they lack personality, which mostly resigns them to being targets rather than soldiers. 3D weapon optics contribute a lot to Arma 3's infantry combat. Holographic, high-magnification, thermal, and other types of optics can be attached to almost every rifle along with other rail items like grenade launchers and flashlights. A few sparks of intelligence did impress me--after we killed the rest of his squadmates, I watched a rifleman flee for the first time in Arma, setting up a tense shot where I had a narrow few seconds to snipe him in the back before he disappeared behind trees. This is the sort of human behavior I'd love to see more of, stuff like blind-firing, limping, throwing smoke grenades for cover, claiming abandoned vehicles, or looting bodies for supplies--anything that would lessen the predictability.

What if you could play through Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window or Shia LaBeouf’s slightly-less-classic Disturbia? That’s essentially the premise of Hello Neighbor, which asks you to uncover what your creepy neighbor is doing behind closed doors. Like its sketchy antagonist, Hello Neighbor has been quietly lurking around for a while now -- even if you don’t follow the indie scene, you’ve likely heard of the game. Hello Neighbor’s 2015 Kickstarter campaign fell well short of its goal, but developer Dynamic Pixels wasn’t deterred. Over the past two years, they’ve released several Alpha and Beta builds, attracting a handful of enthusiastic YouTube boosters, who have helped capture the game a small, yet dedicated fanbase. But is Hello Neighbor hiding something beneath its appealing facade? Time to expose this game to the light… Note: Our original review of Hello Neighbor was based on a pre-release build of the game. The review has been updated to reflect changes in the final release version of the game. Hello Neighbor is split into three acts, set over the span of several years. In Act 1 you play as a kid who seemingly witnesses a creepy mustachioed neighbor locking somebody in his basement. In Act 2, it’s you who has to escape from the basement. In Act 3, the player character, now an adult, returns to again face off against his nightmare neighbor, who has renovated his place into a ramshackle fortress. Who is your sinister neighbor? What’s he hiding in his basement? How did he get the building permits for that monstrosity of a house? The game hints at your neighbor’s story and your connection to him, but don’t get your hopes up for a clear-cut or particularly satisfying narrative. A lot of pieces don’t fit. Your goal in Hello Neighbor is to infiltrate the house across the street and find a way into the basement, except in Act 2, where you start in the basement and attempt to escape the property. Your neighbor patrols the premises, but, luckily, there’s no real consequence for being caught. You just start back at your house or at the cellar doors at a different time of day, and can get right back to the breaking and entering. Your neighbor is even kind enough to let you keep the inventory of stuff you just stole from him. The makers of Hello Neighbor flaunt their game’s “Advanced AI,” but I can’t say I was terribly impressed. Aside from hanging around the general area where he last nabbed you, your neighbor doesn’t adapt in any meaningful way and is easy to game. Want him to stay away from a certain room? Just let him catch you a time or two in, say, the kitchen, and he’ll blindly focus on that spot as you loudly trash the rest of his house. In most cases, he doesn’t even fix the damage you’ve done. If you moved a chair that was barring a door, it won’t be replaced after you’re caught. This gives game a bit of a Dark Souls vibe, as you gradually open up the house even as you fail repeatedly, but it doesn’t speak well for your neighbor’s intelligence. You’re not going to see this guy on Jeopardy any time soon. Even if Hello Neighbor’s AI was as clever as advertised, there’d still be no point in trying to outsmart it. Again, there’s no punishment for being captured, and no version of your neighbor’s house is that big. You can typically get back to wherever you last were in seconds, or, at most, a couple of minutes. Your neighbor also tends to lose track of you once you venture into the house’s upper floors, leaving you to your own devices for long stretches. Only one section of Hello Neighbor really forces you to deal with the game’s supposedly-brilliant AI, and it’s a complete ordeal. The end of Act 1 plunges you into a series of narrow, mostly-linear underground corridors that the neighbor AI clearly wasn’t designed for. If he decides to stake out a choke point you need to get through, you’re pretty much screwed. You just have to hope he has a brain fart and decides to stare at a wall while you stroll right past him, which is how I finally got to Act 2. Your neighbor is either a sucker or, in this one case, an omnipresent pain in the ass – there’s no middle ground. Thankfully, your neighbor’s living space is more interesting than he is. The house owes a major debt to old-school adventure games, particularly Maniac Mansion, as its various forms are packed with quirky, surreal touches. Amenities include a roller coaster, a water-filled room patrolled by a robo shark, and doors placed in all sorts of illogical places. You’ll also uncover plenty of cryptic hints about what might be going on in the house. But the Maniac Mansion comparisons only go so far. That classic had tightly designed puzzles, which followed a certain recognizable logic, while Hello Neighbor leans heavily on random trial and error. For example, at one point the game requires you to throw an object at a specific small painting in order to open a secret passage. There are probably at least a hundred paintings scattered around the house, and the game provides only the vaguest possible hint that this particular painting is special. When puzzles aren’t baffling, they’re just plain annoying. The game has a penchant for forcing players to build wobbly towers of cardboard boxes to reach high spots, and Act 2’s elaborate water pipe puzzle is finicky torture. Hello Neighbor has been designed to spark online discussion. To get players trading secrets, puzzle solutions, and guesses about the game’s lore. Some people enjoy that kind of thing, and it’s somewhat expected during the Alpha/Beta phase, but the average person who just wants to play a game without consulting messageboards and FAQs will be frustrated. Unfortunately, Hello Neighbor saves the worst for last. I won’t spoil story specifics, but potential players should be aware that the game culminates in not one, but two, multi-stage boss battles, which are among the most infuriating I’ve ever encountered. Both feel like they’ve been imported from a completely different game and do a terrible job of communicating what you’re supposed to do. I can barely express how awful Hello Neighbor’s endgame is, and I have a decade of experience in explaining why video games suck. Hello Neighbor’s frustration factor is magnified by its general lack of polish. This is an ugly game, to the point it effects gameplay. More than once I overlooked key items, because I wasn’t even sure what they were supposed to be. Controls are a mess, with basic stuff like picking up items, opening doors, and trying to jump through windows being a pain. Oh, and, of course, the whole thing is riddled with glitches – I fell through the floor and got trapped in walls multiple times. At least the glitches also effect your neighbor. I owe a lot of my progress to the time he got helplessly stuck in a doorway for half an hour. There isn’t much to Hello Neighbor. You could race through the game in around 40 minutes, although I spent about seven hours stumbling around before reaching the end. Once you’ve finished the game, you could go back to ferret out all its secrets or perfect your run, but I doubt most will have the patience. Given Hello Neighbor’s limited scope, its $30 asking price feels like a serious case of inflated property value.

Name Game: ASSETTO CORSA ULTIMATE EDITION Price: $79.88 - $17.39 The Discount Rate: -78% Link Store: Click Offer Ends Up After : IDK

Washington (CNN) The opening statement of Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, is "reverberating" on Capitol Hill among Republicans, according to GOP Hill sources, who told CNN that Taylor's testimony is a game changer in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. A senior Republican source on Capitol Hill told CNN that Taylor's statement was so detailed, so specific and that he is so respected that it is having an impact. "It points to quid pro quo," the GOP source told CNN. There is an ongoing conversation among GOP members on Capitol Hill about the impact of Taylor's testimony, but it remains a question whether it will move Republicans closer to considering impeachment. In a closed-door deposition Tuesday, Taylor said he had been told by Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, that "everything" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted, including a White House meeting and military aid to the country, would be held up until he publicly declared investigations sought by Trump. Taylor's statement undercut the White House's defense that there had been no quid pro quo offered on the call, as well as Sondland's previous testimony to Congress, but it corroborated many of the claims made by the intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry. While most Republicans have sided publicly with the President, they've been privately grumbling that they're "fed up and tired" of being asked to defend him in the impeachment investigation. Republican sources on Capitol Hill told CNN there's a "growing unease that there is no defense" of the President's actions. "How do you defend the indefensible?" one source told CNN. "We can't defend the substance, all we can do is talk about process." Taylor's deposition, however, marked a turning point in what has been a difficult week for Republicans in defending the President in the impeachment probe and other matters. Republicans were still being asked about acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney attempting last week to walk back his stunning admission to a quid pro quo involving security aid to Ukraine. Top congressional Republicans criticized Trump's comparison of the impeachment inquiry to a "lynching." Another Republican congressional source said that "the testimony by Taylor was devastating and we are waiting for the next shoe to drop." The most significant criticism of the situation by any leading Republican had come from Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. The second-ranking senator in GOP leadership acknowledged on Wednesday that he was troubled by what Taylor had revealed. "The picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we've seen, I would say is not a good one," he said. But a day later, Thune walked back the concerns he had raised, saying Taylor's testimony is secondhand information. "Right now we are hearing one side of the story. Until we get the picture, it's hard to draw any conclusions," Thune said Thursday on Capitol Hill. Republicans have focused less on Trump' actions and more on railing against the Democrats' approach to the impeachment inquiry. They have demanded the release of transcripts from closed-door interviews and complained about not being able to call their own witnesses. The inquiry, led by House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, has interviewed witnesses in private and limited access to the testimonies to members who serve on three House committees: Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs. However, there are 48 Republicans on the committees. CNN's Manu Raju, Alex Rogers and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.