Finger Guns

There are many good things about the world of gaming and one of them, for me, is the convention. As a kid, you’d always see pictures and videos of new games, all big banners and stands. As a journalist, it’s even nicer to go behind the scenes, play exclusive previews and see how big the industry is. Fortunately, we were invited by the HoYoverse team to go to Gamescom this year, so we did.

Milestone Games appear to be on quite a run with their Hot Wheels license. With the original Unleashed garnering a 10/10 from us and its sequel bettering it in nearly every way, it’s fair to say the trajectory is strong heading into their third title, Infinite Rush. Expectations are high, though this one is an entirely different beast all told, and because of that, doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of its predecessors.

This week on the (admittedly long – we had opinions on things) pod! Rossko, Miles and Kat get into the groove with Sony calling consumers who understand digital sales of games are just a license ‘reasonable people’. We shout out the unreasonable ones. We also talk Resident Evil being too scary (so says Capcom?!), and our impressions of the Grand Theft Auto VI Extended Look. Shiny.

When Orbitals started with an anime sequence that evoked Studio Ghibli, Dragon Ball, Ranma ½, and Evangelion all at once, I knew I was dealing with a studio full of kindred spirits. Anime of today has been ejected out of a convenient nearby airlock in favour of a nostalgic 80s comedy and sci-fi vibe, full of over-the-top animations, cute artwork, and incredibly expressive characters.

If you’re like me, old and into Resident Evil from its original days, you’ve very likely heard of Onimusha. What started as Capcom essentially tweaking its own formula with “What if Resident Evil but samurai-era Japan?”, it soon evolved into its own legacy. Admittedly yes, it had a lot of Resident Evil’s hallmarks, but it was still amazing in its own right. Now, after many years of quiet, we have Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

As the sun sets and darkness sets in, Rebel Wolves’ The Blood of Dawnwalker rises in earnest. A new IP developed primarily from creatives with significant experience from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyperpunk 2077, the inspirations that shoulder this dark fantasy action game are laid as bare as the fangs of its vrakhir. I can say with almost complete certainty, you’ll read and hear a litany of comparisons to 2015’s game of the year. It’s simply inevitable.

The original Moonlighter came out in 2018, honing a burgeoning but still young, modern roguelite genre into a wonderful rinse-repeat of item grab-and-sell that I’ll admit, I fell for pretty heavily back then. Now, a full eight years later, the genre has become massively mainstream; it’s everywhere, and there are roguelites released virtually every day. It’s impossible to keep up. So we customers are forced to be incredibly picky about the tat we spend our cash on.

This week on the pod! Rossko, Miles and Kat get together to talk the weeks news including our highlights from Opening Night Live, the GTA 6 leaks and the wonder of Stage Tour that’s coming this year! In Game of the Week Kat has finally spent some solid time with the glorious Mixtape (three times!), Miles has been playing [REDACTED], but he can’t talk about that so he checked out Devil May Cry 4 once again, whilst Rossko has been playing as Sonic in Fortnite and what the hell else did you...

From jousting against friends-turned-enemies to riding a bicycle towards the afterlife, to now ducking, dodging, dipping, diving, and dodging (whilst autoshooting), you never really know what Los Angeles-based studio Messhof will come out with. Blood Dungeon feels like a circle back to a simpler time, when their Nidhogg series had a singular premise which was executed with precision.

Divesting themselves of the confines of their own IP, Asobo has reinvented Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy with an almost Uncharted-like adventure amidst the ruins of Ancient Greece. Full of intricate light puzzles and tomb raiding, it’s still heavy on the horror as you should expect from the team behind the horrific crashing waves of rats that will never leave my mind, but here the horror takes a few hours to get going.