Out of Lives Unknown

Lucy and Ben get together again in their second discussion on The Last of Us Part II. This time they focus on Abby’s journey and the final act of the game. They delve into Abby’s time in Seattle. Ellie on the farm and her search in California then to the game’s closing scenes and how they felt about the experience.
There are plenty of spoilers for the whole game in this chat so finish the game first if you haven’t.

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Join Lucy and Ben as they discuss the first half of the Last of Us Part II. They go into detail on their thoughts on gameplay, story and characters. It’s full of spoilers for the entire game as they discuss Ellie, Joel and the inhabitants of Seattle.
They’ll be back next week to discuss the second half and the end of the game.
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Adam and Ben get together to discuss the next generation of consoles from the information released on them so far. They weigh up the tech specs of the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 and if they matter, what some of it means and what they need to see to believe the hype.
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Adam Thomas
I’m Adam and I’m joined with Ben. We’re going to talk about the new console details for the next-generation PlayStation and Xbox as we have something to compare. And we’ve been, you know, given enough time to digest where what we’ve actually seen. So overall impressions Ben, initial thoughts.
Ben Nother
I mean, initial thoughts, you know, kind of all of the stuff that we’ve got so far for me is it’s just, just numbers, isn’t it? It’s just a constant stream of tech specs and stuff like that. I think the Xbox stuff came out a little while ago, you know, lists of kind of like the RAM and the processors and all of those sorts of things. And then we had the, I suppose now, slightly notorious, Mark Cerny, GDC, stand in talk almost, I guess. For what they were going to show developers and things at GDC obviously made public and whilst Mark Cerny is a fantastic orator, it’s the driest presentation I think I’ve ever seen.
Adam Thomas
Very much a technical talk.
Ben Nother
Yes. And within the context of it being a GDC talk you expect that. But again, lots of chat about just numbers and kind of the ethos, and the ethos kind of stuff is interesting. Again, the numbers are just sort of bouncing off me. I’m thinking, Okay, well, we’ve got X number of teraflops over here, and then X number teraflops over here. Really, to me, that’s kind of meaningless because as I suppose Mark Cerny was kind of trying to get out in the PlayStation chat, It’s all about what else is within that box, what else that’s being coupled with how things actually interact. I think at least from the PlayStation side, we’ve seen a little bit more of how it’s going to work as a unit than we have from Xbox. For me whilst on paper, it looks like Xbox is this big beefy boy and PlayStation is maybe slightly more lithe and I think accessible was the word Mark sort of used all the time. We still haven’t seen anything. And that’s kind of what I’m waiting for really before I pass judgement on whether one is going to be better than the other. Technically speaking.
Adam Thomas
Yeah, with these things, it always comes down to what the developers can actually do with it. And it’s all well and good. Having, we change this, and we put this in it and we’ve done this, and we’ve done that. But if the developers struggle with it for any reason, or just doesn’t get the benefits that they’re expecting, developers don’t use it or use it in a different way for other stuff, and it just doesn’t have the impact that they want. It may be meaningless, just yeah, garbage numbers, as you said. For me, I’ve been interested in the, because the worry was that we would just have to basically identical rectangles, but different manufacturer’s stickers. And that would be where what I’ve liked is the fact that although and kind of broad strokes, they’ve gotten very, very similar. The differences between the two show are very clear, you know, shift and approach divergence between the two of them. So Xbox of when very simple, straight down the line back numbers, we’re going to put the best parts, we can get in it, and that’s just going to do so they’ve come out with your, you know, your 12 teraflops, what they expect that will actually put out. Whereas Sony and PlayStation have went a bit more, Well, we’re going to tinker with a bit more and customise the different bits and try and make them all work that wee bit better. And these various ways th

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I will cut to the chase, should you buy Doom Eternal? Yes, the game is insane. It is a love letter to the old school whilst adhering to modern conventions. The mixture results in something that feels familiar yet unique.
This review will only cover the single-player portion of the game as at the time of writing the multiplayer servers are not live. That being said let’s begin. The story. This element of Doom Eternal whilst serving as a sequel to Doom 2016 is largely accessible as a stand-alone entry. The brief ties to the original work as the story opens up as a great entry point for new players but felt a little disjointed given how Doom 2016 ends. Aside from that personal gripe the story is merely a vessel for one action-packed setting to the next its serviceable on the surface and has some cool reveals that unfold throughout setting the franchise up in an interesting development. The real meat of the story is from the codex entries which reveal all cards of fascinating information about the demons and the wider lore of the Doomverse. My personal gripes aside, the story does give the Doomslayer more of a personality and the way humans and demons alike react to you as a biblical tour de force really enhances immersion. This makes you feel like a God with his watchtower in space ready to deploy and protect humanity.
Now, everything else from here is simply perfection. The gameplay loop may seem overwhelming in its entirety but the game is smart enough to introduce new mechanics at just the right time mixing up each encounter making them feel fresh. By the time the last level rolls around you are the apex predator utilizing your full arsenal to unleash Doom upon the hellspawn. The simple changes like a glory kill providing health, chainsaw kills ammo, then flame an enemy and boom, they drop armour flows into a perfect action-packed scene straight from a blockbuster. I mean no disrespect when I say Doom is like a Michael Bay action scene ramped up to 100. When the dust settles and the carnage is calmed you feel like an action hero and that feeling of going from 0 to 100 to 0 is addicting. I was constantly wanting more.
The game allows you to rip and tear your way. After all, what is a Doom game without a killer arsenal? Doom Eternal delivers this in spades with a healthy variety of weapons. These can be upgraded and switched on the fly providing the right tool for the appropriate amount of destruction. Maxing out a weapon unlocks a challenge. Completing this challenge unlocks the ultimate form, so to speak, which has even more ways to kill. My favourite weapon, aside from the BFG 9000, had to of been the chain gun turret mode that thing is a beast in its own right.
A Slayer is only as good as his prey, however. The game again succeeds in this is an area with Doom Eternal constantly ratcheting up the encounter difficulties until its throwing literally everything bar bosses at you. It adds an unpredictability factor on the first encounter of any new fight so you don’t know what may be after your head. The stand out new enemy is the Marauder. This wolf summoning axe-wielding shield walking menace forces you to take him seriously. The first encounter between the Slayer and Marauder is palpable. Like MMA fighters literally wanting to beat the other into submission… except submission is death in this case. He is tough but when you get how to dispatch him I felt a euphoria rarely experienced, something akin to beating a Dark Souls boss. The final note on enemies is f**k tentacles. The number of times they made me jump is more than I care to admit.
All weapons feel unique and have their own flavour and encourage different playstyles. To enhance this there are two additional upgrade systems, suit upgrades and runes. Runes cater to your playstyle. Mine was focused around glory kills but there are 9 to choose from

Aadil, Lucy and Ben return to run down their favourite bits from the Bethesda conference.

Lucy, Ben and Aadil chat through the things they enjoyed the most and least from Microsoft’s Xbox E3 briefing.