Here we go, let the silly season commence. Blair Witch, Astral Chain, Man of Medan, World of Warcraft Classic, Control, and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey all launched within the last week alone, and things are only going to get madder as we head into September, one of our favourite gaming months, truth be told.
The upshot of this is that we’ve all got heaps to play, and to look forward to (as you can see in our Biggest Games of September feature).
Jon - Things have already got immensely busy for me on the gaming front. The end of August has delivered the goods for me, Halloween has come two months early. I’m a big fan of horror-adventure games and getting two on the same day is spoiling me somewhat. Thankfully, Blair Witch is a freebie for me thanks to Game Pass and I suspect it’s a game I can smash out in a lazy morning this weekend. The other is The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan. I can’t understate how fantastic I thought the first half of Until Dawn was. As ever with horror, dragging it out over the length of a 10-hour game numbed the thrills somewhat by the time the credits rolled. Going in an anthology direction, Man of Medan sounds as if it’s going to be a much more focused experience for me, and I’m hoping all the stronger for it.
As well as this, Control's arrived, of course (RTX Benchmarks, GPU Benchmarks), so I'm eager to keep messing around with that. I'm loving what I've played so far and it's certainly should be a game high on your radar if you were a fan of Alan Wake.
I probably can’t see myself playing much else, to be honest, although it may be time to fire up some Rainbow Six Siege and get back into the swing of things before the new season arrives next week.
Felix - I couldn't help myself, I got the itch and loaded back up Total War 3 Kingdoms. I picked up an old save and was faced with the reason why I put a hold on things a few months back. I had saved at the start of a big battle, where my main army (its also my longest serving army) was significantly outnumbered.
Looking over the pre-battle figures to compare the two opposing armies data I realised that I could still win the battle, as long as I fought it myself and didn't auto resolve. I would have known that when I saved last, but I would have also known that to win will take about an hour to play the battle through carefully. Interestingly, my temptation to auto resolve a battle like this is because of how long it will take to play the actual battle. Weirdly the prospect of a lengthy battle can put me off TW 3K and lead me to press that auto resolve button, even though I know I will take more casualties auto resolving than I would if I ran the battle myself.
Other than that I will be playing a bit of Control to see if it has what it takes to capture my interests. Its got a fair bit of hype, but my initial introduction to the game didn't massively enamour me. Its fine, just not my type of game, and although the graphics look great and some of the animations are good, i found some of the other rag doll animations to be a little lacklustre. Interestingly, I think that feeling is enhanced because the game looks so good. If it looked worse you might be more inclined to forgive it the occasional sub par character animations. Anyone else played it as I would love to hear your thoughts and whether you felt it was worth giving it a run through.
It's been a busy few weeks for gaming recently, what have you recently picked up? Or are you tucking into some of your older games this weekend? Let us know!
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Was working through my backlog. I've resumed The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. I'm running it in 4K via VSR mode.
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Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey... time to create Homo Deus species
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Still fighting with my basic mod list for Skyrim SE. Trying to get ready from Beyond Skyrim and some of the other big mods coming out over the next year or two. Fallout 4 with the Depravity mod, which has actually made Fallout 4 a much more enjoyable game. Supposed to work well with Fusion City Rising and Project Valkyrie as well. WoW Classic.
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Grinding through Hitman 2. 20/20 mastery, Silent Assassin - Suit Only on legacy and H2 levels.
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Great game, need to get back to more of it soon. So much to do when you're trying to do it all but the best stuff comes when you've started mastering the levels and the challenges ramp up
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I have got control, man of medan, ancestors and blair witch to play.
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I'm playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided. Finished the main storyline, now doing the final part of the DLC A Criminal Past. After that, I might play some GTA Online, Insurgency Sandstorm, Squad or finish another game I'm in the middle of - Yakuza 0. I have some plans for September too, but I can't say more now
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Im playing control, and remnant:from the ashes, and maybe some rage 2
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tieing lose ends and trying to beat games i started
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finishing up a no kill run of dishonored 2, since ive already finished a high chaos run
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Early one I see.
Continuing the witcher 3, Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, Forza Horizon, DIrt Rally, BF4, Company of Heroes 2, Trackmania, Bloodborne.
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Remnant From The Ashes , God Of War 3 and Bloodborne
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I found out I owned Mafia 3 the other day, so I want to try and play Mafia 2 first and then Mafia 3 after it
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did you played Mafia 1 if not i reccomend you to do so
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I actually don't own that, but I'm going to buy it now because I see it's on special. I'll start with that then
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Oi mate if you get the first mafia (i dont know if they did this with the steam version) but if its GOG they took out the classical music out of it. I think there is a patch for it a couple of other things like a widescreen fix and such help out a lot with that game. i played it 2 years ago but i have the old steam ver
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I downloaded the widescreen fix and I have it on Steam. I'll see if I can find the classical music patch for it then
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if u want to follow the story between M2 and 3 there is no difference. But if u want to follow the story of Vitto i think it was the characters name then play mafia 1 and 2
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I just want to complete the series at the moment. It's nice to know that the story doesn't follow through 2 to 3 though, gives a lot of people a new chance to play the series if they haven't before.
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But it actually does,without giving out major spoilers the main character from Mafia 2 has a huge role in Mafia 3 and also there's a very special character at end of the game which first appeared in mafia 2.When I first played it I had no idea who they were, but at the same time it's not completely necessary.
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Ah, okay, that's interesting. I just started playing number 1 now and I played number 2 in the past. So can't wait to see what role he has in number 3 then
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im not sure if I finished the entire mafia 3, probably not but if I did ive probably forgotten how it ends. The only difference I see that Vitto (spoiler) gives u some missions.
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Cyberpunk 2077 (in my dreams (TT___TT))
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I've got a few lined up personally.
-Replaying the Bioshock trilogy for a story I've been writing based on it.
-Dishonored 2 (love stealth games).
-Thinking about booting Payday 2 back up with a friend or three.
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Mordhau
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control my best game till now
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Finishing Control then Blair Witch no doubt. Really excited about that one. In background playing GTA 5 which is sooo mediocre, but it was gifted to me so I need to suffer ;D
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control all the way. i'm playing it since it came out and i'm damn trapped into it!
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Dying Light, Portal Knights, Control and For Honor
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Nothing i stopped gaming to do more important things. :P . However i will buy CP 2077 and Gta 6.