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A love letter to Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, one of the best demos of all time (even if it isn't really a demo)
Game Reviews

A love letter to Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, one of the best demos of all time (even if it isn’t really a demo)

by admin October 5, 2025


Last week marked 15 years since Dead Rising 2 made its debut. For my money, Dead Rising 2 is one of the best unlikely success sequels going, but whenever I think of it, I can’t help but remember its prologue even more fondly.

The reason I consider Dead Rising 2 an unlikely success is that, on paper, the odds were stacked against it. For whatever reason Capcom made the decision that it wasn’t going to make a second Dead Rising title in Japan – which meant separating the team behind a break-out hit and creating a new one for a sequel. That was risky enough – but then Capcom also chose to place that team outside of Japan. Any scholar of Japanese publishers knows that such East-meets-West development arrangements are at great risk of unsteadiness. Plus, the first Dead Rising was characterized by a fabulously Japanese vision of an American town, plus US foreign policy and a very Yankee predilection for excess. Could that survive in the West, even being made north of the border, up in Canada?

Equally risky were the swings the game’s developers chose to take. Much of Dead Rising’s winning formula was retained – but the choice to build the game around a hard deadline involving vital doses of an anti-zombie medication, the in-your-face setting of a fake version of Vegas, and switching out beloved protagonist Frank West all stood as ballsy moves. But y’know what? It all works.

A bit Greene around the gills? | Image credit: Capcom

Dead Rising 2 is brilliant. If Capcom’s brass is looking at the performance of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster and thinking about how to continue the series, they’d be well-minded to simply ignore the third and fourth entries. The second, though? That deserves to not only remain canon, but also deserves a remaster of its own.

A great part of the game’s success is in its design, of course. It’s tightly made, and even those riskier decisions land well. The item-combining ‘combo weapon’ mechanic is exactly the sort of thing that could’ve ended up hamfisted but threads the needle perfectly. With those dues given, one further thing has to be acknowledged: a great deal of Dead Rising’s 2 success must be chalked up to how its prologue carefully primed its most vocal audience, plus a slate of newcomers, for what it was actually set to be.

That prologue, Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, probably wouldn’t exist in today’s market. It also isn’t exactly widely available today – exclusive to Xbox 360 Live Arcade, it can today only be played via Xbox backwards compatibility, while the core DR2 is available more widely. Case Zero is a demo, a prologue, and a stand-alone game all in one – and it’s exactly the sort of thing I wouldn’t necessarily mind seeing more of today.

You can view this game one of two ways. Uncharitably, it is a demo that Capcom made the decision to charge a fiver for. Through a more friendly lens, it’s a brilliant-value stand-alone experience. It tells an original story separate to the main game, making use of mechanics, systems, and weapons from the main game but across a new area with a new storyline that tees up the characters, relationships, and world of the main game. For fans of the original Dead Rising, it was the perfect primer, detailing how both the Dead Rising universe and game itself were changing in a post-Frank world.

Part of the madding crowd. | Image credit: Capcom

By this measure, Case Zero may very well be one of the greatest demos of all time. Yes, it was a demo that you had to pay for – but it had all-original content, and ultimately cost about the same as a Big Mac. It was the perfect way for players to see if Dead Rising was for them – and for returning zombie-slayers to see if the new direction and team was going to work for them without shelling out new-release prices.

Being a Dead Rising product it was also eminently replayable, with multiple endings, many weapons to discover, and even a handful of optional survivors to rescue and side missions to explore. It was cannily released a little under a month before the final game, giving players plenty of time to experience its depth before jumping into the full-blown adventure. The value was there, but the price point was able to remain low because its costs were clearly amortised within those of DR2 proper (plus whatever bag of cash came from Microsoft that secured Case Zero’s Xbox exclusivity).

These days, there’s a lot of talk about us all wanting shorter games at reasonable price-points. We’ve got big publishers experimenting with titles like Mafia: The Old Country, cutting back on blat to get something out quicker that is hopefully no less satisfying. Remembering Case Zero, though, I’d also take more things like this – economically made ‘demo-plus’ setups that are cheap enough for an impulse buy, and original enough to justify one’s wallet opening. I remember it fondly.

I’d also take a Dead Rising 2 Deluxe Remaster. 15 years on, this is the other half of the Dead Rising narrative still worth exploring. After Capcom’s excellent remaster of the first game, it feels a no-brainer – and naturally, Case Zero should be included.



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October 5, 2025 0 comments
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Luke Hughes would 'love' to play with both brothers on Devils
Esports

Luke Hughes would ‘love’ to play with both brothers on Devils

by admin October 2, 2025


  • Greg WyshynskiOct 2, 2025, 04:06 PM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

NEWARK, N.J. — Two of the Hughes brothers are now under long-term contracts with the New Jersey Devils, after defenseman Luke Hughes signed a seven-year contract extension this week and rejoined his superstar brother Jack at training camp Thursday.

Could Quinn Hughes, star defenseman with the Vancouver Canucks, join his brothers in the near future?

Ever since Canucks team president Jim Rutherford said last April that Quinn “wants to play with his brothers,” there has been speculation about when and where that reunion might happen.

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Luke and Jack are now both under contract in New Jersey until 2030, while Quinn will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2026-27 season.

“I think the three of us would all love to play together someday. Whether it’ll happen or not, who knows? We’ll see,” Luke said Thursday. “But I know he loves Vancouver and he’s the captain there. We love being here. You never know. Never say never.”

Luke signed a seven-year, $63 million contract Wednesday that carries a $9 million annual cap hit. The 22-year-old defenseman is entering his fourth NHL season and has 93 points in 155 games, along with two assists in four playoff games.

Luke missed a chunk of training camp during contract talks with the Devils. Quinn Hughes also missed part of the 2021-22 preseason during free agent contract talks with the Canucks before signing a six-year, $47.1 million deal with Vancouver. Luke said Quinn offered his perspective as talks with the Devils continued.

“[He said] just stay patient and get what you want. As a family, we decided the deal and we’re really happy of the outcome and really excited to be here for the next seven years,” Luke said.

Jack said he didn’t have much advice to give his brother, given that he’d never been through a “holdout” like Luke had.

“I think it was important for him to get a deal that he’s really comfortable with,” Jack said. “I know he’s going to be ready to go for the season no matter what and you never want to miss time. But most importantly you need a deal you’re comfortable with.”

On top of missing a chunk of training camp, Luke’s preparation for this season was interrupted with his recovery from May shoulder surgery. Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said the team is taking that under consideration in working him back into the lineup.

Luke said he has been “bag [skating] myself” back home, skating five times a week to get into playing shape. In his first day back in camp, he skated in two consecutive practice sessions to start making up for lost time.

“That is the climb. It’s a bit of a unique situation where not only has he missed camp, but he’s also coming off of a major shoulder surgery since he played last,” Keefe said. “So we want to make sure we give him the appropriate time. But he looks good. He has been through all the medicals and testing that guys would normally go through at the beginning of camp, and he’s cleared.”

Keefe said he doesn’t see a reason why Luke won’t be ready for the Devils’ regular-season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 9.



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October 2, 2025 0 comments
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Threads Of Time screenshot shows off its pixel art.
Game Updates

This Retro Love Letter To Chrono Trigger And Other JRPGs Keeps Looking Perfect

by admin September 30, 2025


Will Threads of Time be the next Sea of Stars, or instead another tedious JRPG homage that emulates the classics without being able to capture what really made them tick? That was my question when it debuted during last year’s Xbox Tokyo Game Show livestream. But every time this indie game has resurfaced since, it’s looked better and better. It returned to TGS 2025 with yet another trailer perfectly calibrated to play on fans’ hopes and dreams for another great 16-bit homage to all-time greats like Chrono Trigger.

The turn-based RPG with beautiful pixel art and an amazing 2.5D depth of field is being made by Canada-based Riyo Games and published by Humble Games. There’s a team of over 30 people working on it. We still don’t have a release date but it’s looking in better shape than some flashy projects that dazzle with trailers but fail to actually ship. I hope the team isn’t biting off more than it can chew, especially amid a tough funding environment for smaller indie developers and publishers, because everything in this trailer is exactly what I want from a Chrono Trigger spiritual successor:

The time-travelling adventure spans millions of years, from a prehistoric past to a cyberpunk future. Turn-based combat takes place in a dynamic view with bespoke attack animations. There’s an overworld map, town hubs, and NPCs to chat up. You’ll recruit characters from different eras and unlock team combos for battle. Why are you doing all this, exactly? It sounds like you’re working for the Order of Time Knights to try and protect the integrity of the timeline or something. Also: cool boss fights.

Threads of Time is being developed in Unreal Engine 5 with hand-crafted 2D pixel art. I can’t stress enough how great the environments and characters look. If that can hold up over an entire 10-20 hour adventure it will be an impressive achievement, especially for the indie studio’s first project. 2023’s Sea of Stars was the last game to pull this trick off, selling like hotcakes and winning nods at The Game Awards that year (DLC released earlier this year). Before that, there was 2021’s incredible-looking Eastward. I hope Threads of Time can deliver something equally special in the next year or two. It’s currently only confirmed for PC and Xbox.



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September 30, 2025 0 comments
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Love and Deepspace gets hotter than ever before with Zayne's third Myth, which sees him transformed into a semi-nude desert god
Game Updates

Love and Deepspace gets hotter than ever before with Zayne’s third Myth, which sees him transformed into a semi-nude desert god

by admin September 24, 2025


The next Love and Deepspace Memory Pair event has been officially unveiled, and it’s for Zayne. The new event, which kicks off tomorrow, September 25, is dubbed Edge of Continuum.

The banner event introduces a new storyline for Zayne, alongside a new 5-Star Memory Pair. It wouldn’t be a new banner, of course, without some other bits of seasonal activities and new rewards.

Edge of Continuum has some unexpected inspirations, but they’re all taken from popular myths. It features elements from Egyptian, Babylonian, and broader Arabian mythologies. The story goes into the bonds lovers form across realities and how fragile they can be.

The story focus is on another alternate-timeline vision of Zayne’s relationship with the MC, and like most of their encounters, there’s a distinct sense of doom getting in the way of their happily-ever-after. The main reason you’ll probably log in though, of course, is for the Memory Pair. In this, we’re getting Zayne: Diviner’s Hymn and Zayne: Diviner’s Stillness – the limited-time 5-Star pair. You can only get it through the event Wish Pool.

The visuals are drenched in yellow, with golden hour hues. It’s very on theme, given its inspirations. If you do get the Memory Pair, you’ll unlock a new design for Zayne. This one is very much the opposite of his original, cold/white look. Keeping up with the same aesthetic is his new combat scepter, which has crowd-control mechanics in combat with pyramid-themed effects.

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To celebrate this golden transformation, you’ll also find a new outfit set for the MC (that you’ll need to buy), and a new stage of Hunter Contest (v11.1). Since this one is about Zayne, you can expect Deepspace Trial Stages where you can tackle some combat challenges with him.

If you log in during the event, you’ll earn some unique rewards. There’s also a Jimmy Choo collaboration event (yes, the shoe designers) with its own cross-over reward. Oh, and there’s a new plushie you can get from the claw machine, too: say hi to Mushie, everyone!

In case you missed it, Papergames and Infold recently announced that the game has been downloaded over 70 million times since its launch. The news was revealed at gamescom last month, where Love and Deepspace won Best Mobile Game.

If you’re new to Love and Deepspace, it helps to understand what banner events are and how they work. If you’re curious about Zayne specifically, we have a full breakdown of his lore and backstory. And, as always, you should make a habit of checking out our updated Love and Deepspace codes before jumping back in.



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September 24, 2025 0 comments
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Baby Steps review - is it possible to love and hate a game at the same time
Game Reviews

Baby Steps review – is it possible to love and hate a game at the same time

by admin September 23, 2025


Baby Steps walks a fine line between frustration and accomplishment to provide a walking simulator and climbing experience quite unlike anything else.

Never has a plank of wood held such dramatic tension. You will glimpse it on the path ahead, bridging a gap, and it will cause a moment of heart-stopping hesitation. It might produce such a feeling of fear you’ll backtrack, or look for another way around – it depends how many times you’ve been here before. You need to walk the plank but can you reliably put your feet where you want them to go? That’s the question. Hesitating preserves your hard-won progress and the efforts you’ve put into the climb so far, which hasn’t been easy. Stepping on the plank risks losing it. One small misadjustment and you’ll slip, and fall all the way down, down again.

Baby Steps review

  • Developer: Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch
  • Publisher: Devolver Digital
  • Platform: Played on PC
  • Availability: Out today on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5

I fell a lot in Baby Steps. You will fall a lot in Baby Steps. Everyone will fall a lot in Baby Steps. This is a game about falling, and about getting back up again. It’s a game of risky gaps and exorbitant-feeling punishments for failing to cross them. A torturous game of snakes and ladders played out across a landscape in front of you and around you. But it’s not all pain. There’s an unexpected gentleness and tranquility here, and a much more forgiving experience than you might be expecting.

Baby Steps is the new game from frustration-courting guru Bennett Foddy (in collaboration with Ape Out and UFO 50 maker Gabe Cuzzillo, and Dance Central and Ape Out maker Maxi Boch) who made QWOP and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. The former is a finger-tying game about controlling a sprinter’s limbs while running a race, which is incredibly difficult to do. The latter is a climbing game where a climber in a cauldron (don’t ask) levers themselves up and over a mountain using a sledgehammer. It’s also incredibly difficult, and it also involves many infuriating falls back to the bottom of the mountain. Baby Steps is similar. Baby Steps is a mush of them both.

Literally, it’s a walking simulator, where you control the legs of the game’s main character Nate, a couch potato who falls asleep and wakes up in a surreal dream-world. You need to explore said dream world but discover fairly quickly that walking isn’t as easy to do as you thought. It’s manual. Each step involves pulling a controller trigger to lift a leg and then pushing a thumbstick forward to shift the leg and move your weight so you can take a step. Most early attempts end up with you, Nate, face down on the floor, wobbling around like a beached seal. But it soon levels out; walking on a flat surface becomes reliably doable, with only occasional flops, which is an important concession in a game where there’s a lot of walking to do.

This minecart track gave me serious problems. What you don’t see: the significant drop below and the 15 minutes of careful climbing I had to do to get to this point. Also, top right: would you have the guts to get that hat? And top left: a bridge across a mud slide.

But complications come with obstacles. To begin with, it’s a fallen tree in your path, which requires a higher step than you’re used to taking, or a step-up to something you’ll need to take. And initially, you’ll marvel at a game that can ask so much of you when you’re struggling to even walk, but with each cluster of attempts, a deeper understanding of Nate’s movement will sink in; he’s actually a capable mover if you know how. Soon, then, you’ll step over logs without stopping to think, and begin tackling hills or rocky climbs or, yes, the dreaded wooden planks bridging gaps.

Inevitably, you’ll fall. You’ll place a foot wrong and slip and tumble, and slide down a long muddy slide to the foot of the hill, leaving Nate groaning on the floor. Why did the muddy slide have to be so long, you’ll wonder, and the plank so small? It’s in these moments Baby Steps will seem overly cruel, willing to take rather than give. And you’ll wilt at the thought of retracing your steps and hesitate more the next time you face the plank. But as far as cruelty is concerned, there’s an important invisible helping hand here to point out.

Baby Steps has options. Baby Steps has a semi-open kind of world, which means routes aren’t prescribed for you. Choke-points aren’t entirely unavoidable. Several routes will be loosely scattered around an area and it’s up to you which one you choose, which means, if a plank-cross is destroying you, you can leave it and try another way. You’re rarely ever forced to bang your head against one climb only, which is a blessed relief. It doesn’t mean alternative climbs will be any easier but it helps break up the flow and ease psychological blocks.

The genius of this semi-open world is having space for optional challenges on your path. You’ll notice, as you walk towards your broadly defined goal – a light on a hill, say – a crumbling spire or a ruined tower, or a tree, and wonder what’s at the top of it. This is a climbing game after all, so a climbing challenge holds an obvious allure. But you normally never know what’s at the top, unless you can see a glowing object there. And there’s an irreverent strain of humour running through the game that might mean there really isn’t anything at the top when you get there. It makes me smile.

A literal banana peel at the top! Sadists! This whole climb had banana peels all over it.

Optional challenges can be very hard, which they’re allowed to be because they’re optional. Or rather, they can feel very hard because you’ll often encounter them when you haven’t learnt the skills to tackle them yet – not unless you’re playing for a second time. Usually, you’ll attempt them, fail, and wonder how on earth you’re supposed to overcome something like that, then eventually give up and walk away. This is the beauty of optional: failing here doesn’t harm your main progress, which gives you the confidence to give them a go. And giving them a go is important because it teaches you things.

If you only ever walk along gradually sloping inclines between danger-planks, as I’ve come to call them, you’ll never get used to crossing the planks themselves. But if you try and climb a ruined tower that’s full of danger-planks, for instance, you will become much accustomed to them, such that when you reach the next plank you’ll wonder what you were so afraid of. These optional challenges not only provide the game with breadth and replayability, then; they prepare you for what lies ahead.

Plus, the extra space of the world provides breathing space of its own – crucial in a game which features tense challenge after tense challenge. Put all that tension in a sequence with no relief and people wouldn’t be able to cope with it. Broken up with sections of hassle-free walks across pleasant countryside or beside rushing rivers – the game is full of calming environments, necessarily so – and Baby Steps provides important moments of calm. And it’s in these moments you can ponder deeper thoughts, such as how taken for granted walking is, and what’s actually going on in this dream-world Nate found himself in. There is a story here, albeit an abstract, withheld one, full of inexplicably naked donkey men, but there’s enough mystery to pull you like a fishline through.

Baby Steps starts off in a grungey place but takes you to some beautiful biomes as the game progresses.

The story also provides another very welcome feature in the form of chapters, which progress with each bonfire you find. Each one signifies a change of environment and time of day, which provides much needed variation, both visually and mechanically, but each chapter also comes with something of an invisible safety net around it, which I really like. For instance: I struggled enormously in a ravine with a rapid underneath it because I had to climb a rickety ruined minecart track to get out, and I kept falling back down, many metres, into the ravine below. It’d take me ages to get back up but I couldn’t get around the minecart in the middle of the track at the top. A chokepoint.

But each time I fell into the water below, I would be swept away but, crucially, not over the edge of a waterfall and dumped into an earlier part of the world below. The game could do this quite easily; instead it would magically loop me back around and deposit me back where I began my minecart climb. The journey in the water would even present me with a couple of other possible climb locations along the way. So you see: an invisible safety net and multiple options, and it’s like this wherever in the world you go. Mostly. There is definitely a sense of a helping hand here.

Nevertheless, frustration will be what people talk about when they talk about Baby Steps, of that I have no doubt. I experienced it and you will experience it, and everyone who plays it will experience it. When I compared notes with Jim from the video team, he told me he’d rage-quit one night because of a cactus blocking a plank in a desert area of the game that he couldn’t get around. Cactus plank, he called it. I don’t remember that plank – perhaps I didn’t go there – but it’s an example of how lingo will crop up around notorious places in this game. “Mate, did you do the Manbreaker?” There is actually a climb called the Manbreaker in the game, and you’ll know why when you see it. Undeniably, this is a game that delights in finding imaginative ways to challenge you, and sometimes all you can do when presented with some of them – with, say, an escalator going backwards – is admire the deviousness and laugh. You wicked, wicked people.

But the flipside is immense satisfaction when you overcome one of these wickedly devised climbs. A sense of beating the odds. It’s amazing to me how a game about only moving your feet can be so impactful. There are no monsters to fight here – there’s no combat at all. This is a still and sedate world. Yet the hearth-thumping thrills I’ve felt playing this game have been so strong I could hear my heart in my ears. My palms have been so sweaty I thought I’d drop my controller. I have felt The Fear. And I have

Baby Steps accessibility options

Subtitles, hearing impaired subtitles, nudity on/off, center dot, scalable UI, remappable keys and controller

revelled in a sense of accomplishment when overcoming it. I now relish challenges as a chance to test the skills I believe I’ve accrued. I see climbs in a different way. And again, it amazes me so much can come from, seemingly, so little.

How you cope with frustration will determine how you cope with Baby Steps, but – I stress again – it’s more approachable and forgiving than I assume many people will make out. That doesn’t mean it won’t infuriate you, or that you won’t curse at it and clench your jaw and throttle your controller, wondering why ragdoll Nate doesn’t get up quicker and why he always has to slide so far. But these quirks are Baby Steps, ragged though it can sometimes be. This is a game that behaves in its own way, and there is nothing else out there like it.

A copy of Baby Steps was provided for review by Devolver Digital.



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September 23, 2025 0 comments
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Zayne as the god of annihilation
Game Updates

Love and Deepspace Is Huge, So Why Am I Just Learning About It?

by admin September 22, 2025


Sometimes, in this line of work, a game’s name will pass over your feeds multiple times before you ever actually see a frame of footage from it. That is what happened to me with Love and Deepspace, Papergames’ 2024 dating sim, which apparently has over 50 million players worldwide. The otome game has always been a massive success, but with each update, another wave of buckwild clips starts spreading around the internet. Finally, this morning, I had my first run-in with a Love and Deepspace scene so confounding and horny that I had to look into it further.

Love and Deepspace has a surprisingly complex science fiction story in which the main character, a woman named and customized by the player, is a “deepspace hunter” who fights creatures called Wanderers, but she also, unbeknownst to her, has been reincarnated multiple times. In all these previous lives, she has met the game’s five love interests, and unlocking memories from those past iterations is one of the biggest draws of the game because they not only delve into the game’s broader mysteries, but they’re also, well, interactive.

Just taking a cursory look at some of the romance scenes, it’s easy to see why Love and Deepspace has taken off the way it has. It’s angsty, sexy (if a bit awkward), and it has the same tendency toward melodrama that you might find in a soap opera or a romance novel. People love to date digital men who fulfill an otherworldly fantasy that real men can’t. It’s why Twilight still has the cultural cache it does, despite having been out of the limelight for over a decade. That being said, even as a well-documented lover of digital men and romance, I don’t think I have the patience for some of Love and Deepspace’s gacha nonsense, which seems even more convoluted than that in your average gacha game. But even if I’m not playing it, I can still go snooping around YouTube and TikTok to see what all 50 million people who are playing this game are fawning over. Specifically, I needed to find out what the hell was up with this sex scene in which one of the lover boys, Zayne, says, “Feel this and remember what I’m giving you” as he’s on top of the player character.

FEEL THIS POWER OF ANNIHILATION HE SAID, ANNIHILATE MA KITTY [zayne new myth god of annihilation] pic.twitter.com/ATSKlGpwaY

— 𝒔𝒖𝒛𝒖 (@pinkcrispss) September 22, 2025

The scene is from a new trailer for the “Edge of Continuum” event that will begin on September 25. Edge of Continuum features new scenes with a “God of Annihilation” version of Zayne, depicting one of the protagonist’s many lives alongside him. And damn, the trailer is enough to get someone hot and bothered.

I’m surprised at how much story the trailer gives away, but nobody in the comments seems to be that mad about it, considering what they also get to see, which is basically the beginnings of a fantasy-themed softcore porn starring Zayne. Happy for y’all, and I have nothing but respect for those of you who can fight your way through the gacha nonsense to reach these scenes. Hopefully, I’ve done enough research for writing this that the algorithm starts showing me more of this shit so I can enjoy the fruits of your labor.





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September 22, 2025 0 comments
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Silent Hill f Review - A Conflicted Love Affair
Game Reviews

Silent Hill f Review – A Conflicted Love Affair

by admin September 22, 2025


The more Silent Hill f promises change, the more it stays the same; for better or worse. While its ‘60s Japanese setting distances it far enough from previous entries to invite newcomers, fans will feel right at home exploring its foggy, monster-ridden roads. As a horror experience, Silent Hill f’s creepy new threats fall short of being truly terrifying thanks to an overreliance on the same handful of scare tactics. As an action game, the brutally intimate combat, like the weapons you wield, loses its effectiveness over stagnant encounters. The intriguing though sometimes perplexing narrative begs for reinterpretation over multiple playthroughs. Silent Hill f faithfully retains the series’ classic elements with some cool reinventions to deliver a more than respectable horror romp; I just wish it were scarier and, ultimately, more substantial.

Teenager Shimizu Hinako’s troubled life in the small, rural village of Ebisugaoka becomes horrifically altered by the sudden arrival of a sinister fog. Her neighbors have either vanished or been transformed into grotesque creatures. Friends Shu, Sakuko, and Rinko are in grave danger. But the unfortunate fates of the town and Hinako’s friends are merely set dressing for Hinako’s story, a girl whose rebellious nature and trauma are rooted in the rigid gender roles of the time period. This turmoil comes to a head in ways I found both fascinating and mystifying, especially thanks to the strangely helpful presence of an enigmatic masked man.    

 

This may be a strange statement to make about a game so full of horrific and gruesome imagery, but Silent Hill f is beautiful. The art direction is fantastic, juxtaposing unsettling enemy designs with hauntingly gorgeous environments, such as supernatural temples and, most prominently, the cursed, bloody “flowers” gradually claiming Ebisugaoka. Cinematics are wonderfully composed and aided by a powerful and hair-raising score by long-time Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka. I never stopped admiring Silent Hill f as an interactive art piece, no matter how hard it tries to make you look away in terror or disgust.  

Your mileage with gameplay will vary based on which of the two confusingly labeled difficulty settings you choose at the outset. Combat and puzzles have their own challenge settings: Story and Hard. Despite these labels usually representing two polar extremes on the average difficulty spectrum, Story is described as offering the “traditional Silent Hill difficulty” in regards to action; Hard is presented as being the same for the puzzles. I chose this combination with “tradition” in mind for my first playthrough, and while I liked the puzzle difficulty, the action proved disappointingly easy. An overabundance of recovery items means I rarely felt up against a wall or challenged to ration my supplies, something I couldn’t say about, say, Silent Hill 2. Enemies drop fast, and the Sanity meter is virtually a non-factor despite being the combat’s biggest new feature (more on this later). Despite Story promoting a more classic experience, those seeking any sense of challenge should opt for the Hard difficulty for action and puzzles. However, I ultimately wish the game offered a more balanced middle ground (or made it easier to determine what constitutes a “Normal” difficulty).  

Exploring the village is a more harrowing prospect compared to past games, thanks to its narrow alleys and pathways that often funnel players into danger; I appreciate how this prevents me from trivializing threats by casually circumventing them as was possible in older entries. While it’s still possible to evade and flee most encounters, fighting is often the way out. Hinako is brave, but she’s not a trained fighter, so her weighty and clumsy melee-focused combat not only suits her, but nailing light and heavy attacks has a satisfying impact. Breakable weapons add welcome intensity to battles; I like weighing whether it’s worth damaging a powerful bat or axe on a threat. Managing stamina to swing or dodge attacks complements this tension, spicing up the otherwise simple confrontations. I also like how the game forces players to study foes to find openings to nail timed counterattacks that briefly stun targets.

Playing on Hard difficulty forces players to manage Sanity, a meter that drains when using a Focus mechanic that lets you better pinpoint enemy openings to counter. Sanity also fuels a more powerful charge attack at the risk of being interrupted and losing a substantial chunk of this resource, which must be restored by spending Faith, the game’s currency. I enjoy the sense of risk vs. reward that Sanity offers; managing it makes the game tougher without feeling suffocating. A light element of customization comes in equipping special charms that add different perks. While not a major game changer, I do like how this allows me to create simple character builds, like equipping various charms centered on health regeneration.

Regardless of the difficulty setting, the combat loses its luster halfway through the roughly 10-hour adventure due to the disappointingly limited enemy variety. Expect to bash a few slightly different flavors of fleshy mannequins, shrieking multi-headed monsters, a ferocious sound-sensitive beast, and maybe three other enemy types. Whenever I heard a distant groan or a heavy, hair-raising step, I’d get excited about encountering a new horror, only for an enemy I killed or fled countless times to shamble out of a corner. Worst of all, this repetitiveness dulls the scares; I stopped dreading the dangers ahead because I knew it’d be something I’d confronted many times, and I was well used to their ambush tactics (some of which can be pretty cheap). The few proper bosses, such as a nightmare-inducing demonic shrine maiden, offer more refreshing and entertaining tests of your skills and bravery.

Puzzle-solving features a greater variety and is more consistently enjoyable. I enjoyed Silent Hill f most when it settled into comfort-food survival horror exercises of finding clues to locate various keys to open doors while exploring creepy interiors, such as an abandoned middle school. The generally well-designed puzzles creatively tested my logic and observation skills, though exploring a foggy farmfield by identifying the correct scarecrows using vague clues grew frustrating due to its unclear rules. Environmental puzzle-solving, especially in more otherworldly areas, maintains an air of freshness the combat lacks. I always looked forward to seeing what strange riddle Silent Hill f had up its sleeves.  

Silent Hill f’s tricky-to-discuss story, despite boasting a few powerful and even emotionally upsetting moments, left me scratching my head more than anything. Though it leverages themes such as feminism, domestic abuse, and, possibly, addiction well enough for its symbolism, the second half takes an admirably wild turn for the (even more) bizarre. Without delving too deeply, Hinako’s sense of reality and identity becomes distorted in ways that, while clearly designed to feel disorienting, still left me walking away wondering what exactly was happening and to whom. Whether by design or because I’m too dense to “get it” is up for debate, and while subsequent playthroughs may clear the fog, I shouldn’t feel so lost on the first (and for likely some players, the only) go around.  

 

Hinako’s friends feel underutilized, and the game heavily relies on written diary entries to flesh them out in a questionable case of telling rather than showing. Her best friend, Shu, is the most underserved ally despite his significance to Hinako’s life. The somewhat compact runtime means things escalate pretty quickly to the point that supporting character arcs end abruptly, making them feel more like pawns than I’d like. I firmly believe horror games should be on the shorter side to keep their scares from growing stale, but even I was in disbelief at how relatively quickly Silent Hill f ramps up to its big finale, especially when the combat encounters still felt like they were in first gear. While the first playthrough grants the same canonical ending for everyone, five optional conclusions await in New Game Plus, where your actions influence the finale to add some nice replayability.

Silent Hill f is a curious beast. Despite my misgivings, it’s a good Silent Hill game and an enjoyable survival horror adventure in general. The game nails its oppressive and creepy atmosphere, and it boasts a killer presentation from visuals to audio. The combat is faithful to past games while adding cool, effective wrinkles, but for how heavily it’s emphasized, the game fails to have players engage with it any differently than they had in the opening hours (save for one mid-game twist). Perhaps my biggest gripe as someone who loves to be scared is that you’ve seen the extent of how Silent Hill f plans to frighten you within its first half; beyond that, it’s diminishing returns with very few surprises. I like Silent Hill f, but I was prepared to have a love affair with it, and I’m left feeling as foggy as its quiet, ill-fated village. 



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September 22, 2025 0 comments
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Baldur's Gate Character Portraits
Product Reviews

Baldur’s Gate 2 has great dungeons and epic quests, but my real love is for my fake friends: BioWare’s first truly great companions

by admin September 21, 2025



I loved the idea of Dungeons and Dragons when I was young, but can’t claim the same about playing it. Because I didn’t play it: Circumstances—small town boy, limited circle of friends, not very outgoing—meant that while I could and did spend hours poring over rules, sourcebooks, and even a few modules, I got very little in the way of actual playtime. A good, deep D&D adventure as I imagined them to be—basically Mazes and Monsters, minus the moral panic psychosis—was out of reach.

The first Baldur’s Gate changed all that, with great dungeons, an epic quest, and most important of all, a deep cast of characters with their own thoughts, beliefs, and personalities—and who, just like in the real world, would sometimes gel or clash with their fellows in unexpected ways.

Some became fast friends, others would try to literally murder each other, and a handful would just throw their hands up in disgust at my obvious incompetence and leave, after giving me a good telling-off of course.


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Baldur’s Gate 2 raised the stakes with a more focused cast and wider range of interpersonal possibilities, plus an unpleasant kickoff that reminded me just how much these characters meant. Discovering that two beloved* party members from BG1 (your mileage may vary on that point, but they were with me from start to finish in the first game and would’ve been for BG2, too) had been killed in pre-game events—irretrievably, irreversibly, no-resurrecting-thing dead—was a genuine gut-shot: We’re supposed to be the heroes, and now a third of us are just… gone.

It took a while to get my head around that, but I was fortunate enough to find a new companion of poise, ability, and coolness while making my way out of that first dungeon: Yoshimo, an immediately likeable bounty hunter who proved his worth a dozen times over on our adventures across Amn. And then, after weeks of camaraderie and good times, he screwed me!

I trusted you, you beautiful bastard. (Image credit: BioWare, Wizards of the Coast)

I was less upset about Yoshimo’s betrayal than I might otherwise have been for two reasons. One, potential spoiler here⁠—but come on, it’s been exactly 25 years⁠—it wasn’t really his fault, right? Lawyers call it “The Geas Defense.” Two, speaking of spoilers, that major twist had been spoiled for me weeks earlier by a jerk in a Baldur’s Gate 2 IRC channel. I was seriously pissed off at the time and yes, I still harbor a grudge.

Anyway, even though I knew it was coming, I was still heartbroken in the moment. Yoshimo was such a good guy, a solid all-arounder, and I’d grown genuinely attached to him and his presence in my party. It wasn’t the betrayal that hurt, it was knowing that—like Khalid and Dynaheir, victims of the madness of Irenicus—he was gone forever.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

Party down

It sucked! But it’s also at the heart of why Baldur’s Gate 2 was, and is, so special to me. No game before or since has so perfectly captured the sense of a gang of pals (or occasional allies of convenience) roaming a massive fantasy world, butt-kicking for goodness.

And what a gang it was: The bloodthirsty berserker Korgan, occasionally setting aside his evil ways to mack on Mazzy Fentan, the halfling fighter desperate to be a paladin; sad Aerie and her broken wings, Valygar and his family problems, insecure Anomen, old friends Imoen, Minsc, and Jaheira, and of course Viconia, the original BioWare bad girl with a deeply-buried heart of gold—all of them and others shared the road with me in Baldur’s Gate 2.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring up what happens to my Dark Elf gf Viconia in Baldur’s Gate 3. (Image credit: Larian)

And yes, I did put the smooth moves on Viconia. Of course I did! Videogame romances can be trite and formulaic these days, but 25 years ago that kind of NPC relationship was new, unexpected, and real in a way that gave it a sense of significance beyond the mechanical necessity of cranking out loyalty missions.


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Best of all, amidst that bantering, bickering crew was me, ostensibly the leader of the pack but also just one among many: Grown from a young half-elf caught up in events beyond my understanding to a seasoned adventurer, but with still so much to discover and learn. I called the shots but my companions had their own ideas, and I ignored them at my peril.

Baldur’s Gate 2 anniversary

(Image credit: Beamdog)

25 years ago, one of the most important RPGs of all time was released onto PC, and today we’re celebrating that prestigious anniversary. You’ll find our thoughts and musings on what makes the game so special to us across the site, and we’ve also talked to the original developers about its ambitious and turbulent journey to release.

That’s what really sealed the Baldur’s Gate 2 deal for me: I wasn’t an unseen hand controlling an anonymous party of min-maxxed randos, I was that guy on the screen right there, and yes I was the boss but I was also getting yelled at by Jaheira on a regular basis and spending more time than I probably should wondering why I’m still putting up with Anomen’s bullshit. Sort out your daddy issues on someone else’s time, bud.

Baldur’s Gate 2 did so many great things: The art, the audio, and the huge, packed game world remain among the best of the RPG genre. But it was the decision to focus on the characters, and to make me one of their number, that elevated it from a great RPG to one of the most important and unforgettable videogames of all time.

It gave the game a feeling of tabletop authenticity I’d never previously experienced, and for someone who spent his youth on the outside looking in, suddenly having a seat at that table was nothing short of magical. That’s the real legacy of Baldur’s Gate 2 for me: Imoen, Jahiera, Minsc, Mazzy, and Viconia: Literally, and without a shred of irony, the friends I made along the way.



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September 21, 2025 0 comments
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Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds leak reveals more iconic characters coming to its roster, which retro fans will love
Game Reviews

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds leak reveals more iconic characters coming to its roster, which retro fans will love

by admin September 20, 2025


Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds still has some DLC to come, as physical copies show yet-to-be-revealed characters on their way to the kart racer.

As the CrossWorlds name suggests, this latest Sonic Racing game includes crossovers with a bunch of other franchises, both from Sega and other studios. The likes of Hatsune Miku, Minecraft’s Steve, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Pac-Man have all been revealed, among others.

Yet physical copies are now out in the wild ahead of the game’s release on 25th September, revealing more characters on the way.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds – Come Race on Our Level CommercialWatch on YouTube

As shared on reddit, a flyer inside the box features logos for crossover franchises. It includes Capcom’s Megaman, who has yet to be officially revealed, suggesting we’ll be able to race around as the iconic hero.

Guys… I think Mega Man may have an unexpected return…
byu/Wrong-Minute-1319 inSonicTheHedgehog
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Sonic fan pages Sonic Stadium and Tails’ Channel have both confirmed the flyer in social media posts.

What’s more, Sonic Stadium revealed the back of the box features a render of NiGHTS, the jester character from the iconic Sega Saturn game, suggesting another character inclusion yet to be officially announced. It’s unknown if a themed race track will also be added.


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Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will be out next week across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC.



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September 20, 2025 0 comments
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I love Donkey Kong Bananza's new DK Island & Emerald Rush DLC - but should it have been in the base game?
Game Reviews

I love Donkey Kong Bananza’s new DK Island & Emerald Rush DLC – but should it have been in the base game?

by admin September 15, 2025


If you had to push me for criticisms of Donkey Kong Bananza, there aren’t that many I can level at it. It’s a smashing time – hur hur – and though it perhaps doesn’t have that jaw-dropping impetus of a Mario Odyssey, it is nevertheless something special. Here’s one, though: the post-game offering is over way too quickly. Nintendo has now addressed that with a new downloadable content, DK Island & Emerald Rush.

Donkey Kong Bananza: DK Island & Emerald Rush DLC

  • Developer: Nintendo
  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Platform: Played on Nintendo Switch 2
  • Availability: Out now on Nintendo Switch 2

While not technically an exclusively post-game affair – as a paid DLC you can travel to its titular isle and begin exploring at any progress point – expansion-wise it certainly feels like one. The stuff added offers a variety of delicate twists and variations on the game systems showcased across the main game, all crammed into a vaguely roguelikey framework. Add on a healthy shot of nostalgia with the return to a location eighties and nineties kids will remember fondly, complete with a new arrangement of Grant Kirkhope’s lovely hub world music, and you’ve got a winner.

And yet… I feel rather strange about it. It’s one of those releases that doesn’t suffer from any nasty complexity on its own merits, but rather due to context. I like the expansion. But the price, the proximity of this DLC to the main release, and the fact that I’d already been mentally comparing Bananza’s post-game activities to that in Odyssey in an unfavorable way adds up. I find myself thinking a classic, good old faithful: this should have been in the base game, right?

Our full Donkey Kong Bananza review, in video form.Watch on YouTube

I mean, for now, I digress. What’s the DLC about? Well, basically, it lets you visit a loving recreation of DK Island (though it is more of an atoll, ackshually), which has been the canonical home of the Kong clan since 1994’s Donkey Kong Country. It’s appeared in various forms over the years, though this version most closely resembles that featured in Donkey Kong 64 – but with lovely nostalgia-baiting references throughout, be that K. Rool’s pirate ship wrecked off the island’s shores, or a smaller island shaped just like some Jungle Beat bongos. This is an area for the fans. It’s a charming little area, and my nostalgia meant it was actually the first Bananza locale I actually felt a bit bad smashing to bits.

DK Isle can be visited just for a hang, and the vibes are indeed lovely. But once the main game is clear you’ll find one of the villains washed up on its shores, which through various fluffy-plotty machinations gives way to the introduction of Emerald Rush, the other half of this DLC’s title and the other half of the content.

In Emerald Rush, vast amounts of emerald material appear across the map. This is easily smashable, and your job is to shatter loads of it to collect it in a time limit scenario. There’s a catch: all of DK’s abilities are removed, and the only way to regain them is to destroy special emerald banandium gems throughout the world. What ability each banandium gem gives you is random, however, and no two runs will be the same. Fossils also must be collected, each offering up upgrades to how the mode will play out – offering bumps in the amount of emerald certain actions will give and so on.

Image credit: Eurogamer / Nintendo

It’s in this that the roguelike element comes in. You’ll have to carefully think about your approach and use of abilities based on what the RNG gods bequeath you. DK and Pauline’s clothes become vastly more important, as they’re one of the only things you control going into a run. The difficulty ramps up, making it a real race to collect enough emerald to progress to the next round. Initially this all happens on DK Island, but as you progress you’ll gradually unlock versions of this mode across many of Bananza’s different ‘layer’ levels.

I have to level with you right here, right now: whatever I might make of the pricing, this mode absolutely slaps. I love it. I’ve got a thirteen hour flight coming up and by the end of my second or third Emerald Rush run, I knew exactly what I’d be doing for most of it (sleeping, yeah – but after that, this). The time limit the frantic high-score chasing nature of the mode means that you enter a trance-like state while playing it – and it works best as post-game content because it asks that you consider all the skills, mechanics, and tricks you’ve learned, carefully deploying them to the best possible effect.

This even turns to address one of my complaints from the base game. There, I noted that several of the Bananza form moves and upgrades were pretty useless. Here, the random nature of runs means you might be forced into reconsidering moves you’d previously written off. I’ve ended up building entire runs around moves that I felt pretty useless. In this sense, the mode feels like an absolutely natural ‘conclusion’ to the exploits of Bananza. It’s brilliant.

Image credit: Eurogamer / Nintendo

There’s frivolous but nice-to-have additions, too: new statue collectibles to decorate DK Isle, new clothing, music discs that let you take the DLC’s excellent new music elsewhere. It ticks the boxes. But I find myself looping back, with a grimace, to that price.

Back at launch, there was plenty of chatter about Nintendo’s decision to launch Mario Kart World at £75. Bananza came in around a tenner cheaper, which in light of the quality of the game and the expense of Mario Kart seemed to stand in its favor. But with a £17 expansion that really does feel like it should’ve been part of the main game’s post-game offering, this is now more expensive than Mario Kart – which stings a little, even if I think it’s the better game. The thought is sharpened further by the fact that this DLC has a better and more rich post-game experience than the main game. After the brilliantly-presented DLC credits roll, a bevy of new challenges drop.

Basically, what I’m saying is – mechanically, presentationally, in vibe, in tone – it all feels like the mic drop that should’ve been in the main game. The super-hard ramping difficulty; the nostalgia bomb that note-for-note matches Odyssey’s Mushroom Kingdom unlock, even the way it recontextualises past areas.

That a DLC developed during the main game is so strong is a testament to Nintendo’s understanding of what it had built with Bananza. Usually additions this wise, in their consideration of how to redeploy the core game’s mechanics, come some time after launch, taking into account player response and the like. With this article going live just two months after my pre-release review of the base game, clearly that wasn’t the case with DK Island & Emerald Rush – but that knowledge also works against my impression. As good as it is… this feels like the missing piece of the core game. And it’s 16 quid extra.



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September 15, 2025 0 comments
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