Playing any games?

[FullAuto]

My box may just be able to play it. Thanks, Thorondor!

[Space Voyager]

All I know is that my older brother can't stop saying good things about it. Never played it myself, not really fond of post-apocalyptic setting. Well, at least without aliens.

[FullAuto]

Mysterious benefactor just recommended Red Orchestra to me, sounds ace. Anyone played it?

[Gimli]

Nope, but heard good things about it.

[FullAuto]

Rainbow Six Vegas 2.

 

Although technically more of the same (regen health, 3rd person views, etc) it feels a little more tactical, and more importantly, shotguns are practical again. They fire faster, and are more effective, compensated for with even longer reload times. The Hollywood weapon handling is still here, incredibly annoying when it comes to sniping, but not as bad as R6V. Grenade limits have been doubled/tripled, which is a bit silly, but never mind.

 

One thing I really enjoy about it is the XP system, which is on even in the single player, and as your achievements pop up it's really nice see. "Oh, that kill was a headshot." etc. It's not a massive thing, but when you let rip with a shotgun and you see a stack of XP because you caught three enemies with the spread, it's quite cheering.

[Azrael Strife]

Mass Effect 2, bloody excellent game, I just cannot stop playing

 

... help me!

[Space Voyager]

Mass Effect 2, bloody excellent game, I just cannot stop playing

 

... help me!

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/poorsmiley.gif

 

[Matri]

Mass Effect 2, bloody excellent game, I just cannot stop playing

 

... help me!

I'm a little miffed at the inclusion of ammo now instead of the first game's overheat system. Oh, don't pretend to buy their explanation about what it is, the dynamics work the same as the ammo system in every other FPS in existance.

 

Still, BioWare's stories have never let us down and this one is excellent. Dragon Age used the same engine but they just don't quite pull it off like in this game. Might have something to do with that main character being a mute. The cutscenes in Mass Effect 2 are like watching a great movie.

[Azrael Strife]

I'm a little miffed at the inclusion of ammo now instead of the first game's overheat system. Oh, don't pretend to buy their explanation about what it is, the dynamics work the same as the ammo system in every other FPS in existance.

Meh, I don't really care, I like the ammo system in place, but it's somewhat useless since you always find plenty of ammo clips laying around after killing a few mercs. But I like the weapons more in this game.

 

Still, BioWare's stories have never let us down and this one is excellent. Dragon Age used the same engine but they just don't quite pull it off like in this game. Might have something to do with that main character being a mute. The cutscenes in Mass Effect 2 are like watching a great movie.

Indeed, this game is brilliant. I got bored with Dragon Age ever since I realised the monsters were auto-levelling up as I did, crappy stuff.

The AI for your team mates is a bit idiotic, sadly, they can never seem to follow orders properly, or be very useful at combat, most of the time they are hiding behind me. Their main use is for special powers you don't possess, I usually play a Soldier in Mass Effect so I keep biotics or techs around for their powers since everyone seems incapable of handling a gun.

 

Edit: I would like for more RPG opportunities with the Normandy's crew, the appearance of chances to talk to them is extremely predictable and linear, it's a shame.

Also, while planet exploring is way faster and painless than in ME1, it's still a very boring task after the 30th planet, there's just no point in making resource gathering a simple test of your patience instead of something that could actually be fun; it's either that or just scrap the upgrade costs and make them free, I will eventually gather resources for ALL the upgrades available, as I've been doing all along and I'm sure most people is, so why make us do something this boring? first planet was fun, but now it's incredibly boring that I just wish I encounter just a single planet on each star system...

 

Thank god the sidequests have been mostly scrapped, now they are encountered on rare occassions and at least they don't involve going through the same map over and over and over, that was lame, I skipped nearly all sidequests in ME1 bar the first ones while they were a novelty.

 

The sidequests to gain your members' loyalty are a nice addition, but I wish there was a more natural way you could get them instead of each member preditably wanting to talk to you at the earliest chance since they "just got information on how to do x which they have/want to do", those are moments I am kicked out of the Mass Effect universe and remember I'm just playing a game, really breaks the atmosphere.

[FullAuto]

Solium Infernum.

 

Strategy game of 2009 and probably 2010. Why is one man making better strategy games than the rest of the industry? Needs to be played in multiplayer, but still superb.

[Matri]

Edit: I would like for more RPG opportunities with the Normandy's crew, the appearance of chances to talk to them is extremely predictable and linear, it's a shame.

 

That reminds me, you should try the Game Salesman on the Citadel. At one point he'll say he wished there were more deep RPGs, and that the current RPGs are all about "visceral combat".

[FullAuto]

Il-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey.

 

Much like Commandos 2 is harder than actually going behind enemy lines in WWII, Il-2 is most likely harder than flying an actual bloody plane in WWII. At first, I couldn't even pull out of spins properly, I would overcorrect and simply end up spinning the other way and corkscrew into the ground in short order.

 

Hilarious the first ten or eleven times, especially for observers, but after that, it got old very quickly. Still, turning down the control sensitivty and some proper practice has helped no end, and I've finally managed to do a few missions without crashing.

 

My first memorable kill was a poor innocent bomber just going home. I came from underneath him and cut a line from bottom left to top right across him. Down he went, and I flew between the fuselage and the bit of wing that came off. Fantastic!

 

Even on my first mission I got shot up, I think my problem is when it comes to bombers I often slow down to get a better shot, and drop him on the first pass, giving his gunners ample time to hose me down. I need to get used to making quick passes, and if I miss, just swing round for another. I almost killed myself in my first dogfight, following a 109 down. I gave him a good burst as he swept past me with my wingman on his tail, and he immediately began to slow, lose height, and spray oil everywhere. I followed to finish him off, but by the time I had him in my sights he had inconsiderately flown into a wood and blown up. I almost hit the bloody trees.

 

Overall, hard, but good. The Arcade difficulty is far too easy, but Realistic is a massive step up. Should have been an intermediary level somewhere.

[Azrael Strife]

Mein gott! Machinarium is simply brilliant! Haven't played a game this good in years, besides a game it's a frakking piece of art

[FullAuto]

It's excellent, isn't it. Did you pick up the indie love bundle, or just Machinarium?

[Azrael Strife]

It's excellent, isn't it. Did you pick up the indie love bundle, or just Machinarium?

Just Machinarium.

 

On a side note, AvP3 has been released and I didn't notice! reviews are giving it not so high scores, but who cares, I love AvP

[FullAuto]

Enjoy Machinarium, chap.

 

On a side note, AvP3 has been released and I didn't notice! reviews are giving it not so high scores, but who cares, I love AvP

 

The PC version seems to be doing better than the others. 85% from one UK PC mag, for what that's worth.

 

Bayonetta - Actually embarrasing to play, because the game is so immature it begs you to ogle the eponymous protagonist throught the entire game. The opening cut scene is particularly notable because it was directed by a boy of about 12. At one point, she pole dances. This is while fighting angels. In a graveyard. Oh, and she goes on to suck a lollipop.

 

While trying to create a tough heroine, but still draw the teenaged male crowd (sorry, that's stereotyping teenage males, but I was one once, and they are shallow) they have instead created just another sex object, and taken the objectification to new levels of intensity. Particularly annoying is the faux nudity, where she has no kit on but anything 'offensive' is covered by her hair, or out of sight due to shitty camera angles. This sort of thing isn't titillating or exciting to anyone. No, not even teen males. If you want them on board, she has to at least flash a boob.

 

It's a shame, because the gameplay is quite good, albeit totally unoriginal because it's just another Devil May Cry really. Lots of combos and acrobatics to employ.

[Azrael Strife]

Enjoy Machinarium, chap.

Thanks, know of any more games in this fashion? honestly I was sure no one made games this good anymore, even the recent Monkey Island chapters games feel... "soul-less", best term I can think of that describes what games are nowadays, but this really feels like a Good Old Game

[FullAuto]

Wadjet Eye Games do some nice point 'n clickers with the Blackwell Trilogy. Very old school graphics, but good voice acting, and good games.

 

I also enjoyed the Delaware St. John games (no, it's not the name of a call girl, it's the protagonist). They're unusual, but feature some decent stories, and some great voice acting and dialogue. Again, quite low tech, as it's played from a first-person view and with not much animation, e.g. you don't walk from place to place, you click to move and a new view appears. Good games though, and I think they're doing the first three for $14.99.

[Matri]

Bayonetta - Actually embarrasing to play, because the game is so immature it begs you to ogle the eponymous protagonist throught the entire game. The opening cut scene is particularly notable because it was directed by a boy of about 12. At one point, she pole dances. This is while fighting angels. In a graveyard. Oh, and she goes on to suck a lollipop.

 

While trying to create a tough heroine, but still draw the teenaged male crowd (sorry, that's stereotyping teenage males, but I was one once, and they are shallow) they have instead created just another sex object, and taken the objectification to new levels of intensity. Particularly annoying is the faux nudity, where she has no kit on but anything 'offensive' is covered by her hair, or out of sight due to shitty camera angles. This sort of thing isn't titillating or exciting to anyone. No, not even teen males. If you want them on board, she has to at least flash a boob.

 

It's a shame, because the gameplay is quite good, albeit totally unoriginal because it's just another Devil May Cry really. Lots of combos and acrobatics to employ.

 

I got one word for you: P.N.03

 

(Yes, it IS NSFW )

[FullAuto]

Oh yeah. I own P.N.03. It's actually a good one, just a little unusual.

 

The Saboteur. Technically shonky, as there's tearing all over the place. When walking, when running, when turning. climbing, driving, jumping, swimming etc. There's even tearing on the map screen, for God's sake. Obviously the port went badly wrong somewhere.

 

Despite this, the visual style is nice, with Nazi-occupied Paris being black and white until you liberate sections of it, restoring colour to the world. The main story is relatively short, but there's thousands of things to blow up, and it's quite fun to play, sniping, ambushing generals and Gestapo agents, chucking grenades at passing troops, faux-parkour building climbing and rooftop jumping, planting bombs, roaring around in 1940s cars, etc.

 

On a sidenote, EA repaid Pandemic for making such a stylish, fun game by sacking the lot of them in 2009. Pandemic started in '98, and operated until 2007, when they were bought by EA. Redundancies followed soon after. Nice to see EA are still eating up devs.

[Azrael Strife]

Playing Fahrenheit on the PS2; great game, 3d person thriller, the main protagonist is a guy who commits a murder but doesn't know how or why and must find out what happened, the second protagonist is a female cop who is investigating the case; you play as both in different parts of the story.

 

Besides playing like the greatest thriller game I've ever seen, it has an interesting thing that is a stress bar, as your character finds stuff that cheer him/her up or make them nervous, the bar raises or lowers, if it gets too low it can make your character go insane or commit suicide, kinda reminds me of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth, another undervalued game.

 

In short, don't miss this game there's a PC version too.

[FullAuto]

It all goes to shit in the end, I'm afraid. Farenheit starts off well, and goes downhill. It loses the plot totally in the last quarter of the game, when a fairly normal plot suddenly goes bonkers. It is worth playing, though.

 

I've just played Cage's Heavy Rain, on PS3, which is the same sort of game. It's good, but very limited and quite badly flawed. Again, you should definitely play it, but try before you buy.

 

Both games are a definite experience.

[Space Voyager]

Playing Stalker: Call of Pripyat. It has NO intro missions whatsoever, no tutorial, which is VERY BAD for a game that is full of things different from other RPG/FPSs.

 

Imagine... "Oh, what is that red drop icon doing at the side of the screen?! Hmmmmm... My life is trickling away... Ok, I must be bleeding. Let's see what we have... Interesting, I have some bandages. Will that do the trick? How do I use these? Oh, here is how."

 

Got it? So you get to figure out how a bandage is used. Than the same discovery routine for radiation, more for anomalies, the use of detector ETC ETC.

 

When I was somewhat fed up with this discover-every-non-interesting-detail-on-your-own but thought the game was really interesting atmosphere-wise I called my brother who played all three Stalker games and that sped things up CONSIDERATELY. Especially when he explained to me that if I don't take his advice and let him show me where tools are (you can take those to engineer to upgrade your weapons, armour etc.) there is a good chance I'll never find them and will be missing out on a large portion of the game.

So I fetched those and the game got a whole more fun.

 

The bad: no tutorial

The good: all the rest

 

After a LONG TIME a RPG/FPS that holds my attention.

[Azrael Strife]

It's the third game in the series, and the storyline continues right after Shadow of Chernobyl, I guess they assume you have already played the two previous games and are already familiar with the interface-

[Space Voyager]

It's the third game in the series, and the storyline continues right after Shadow of Chernobyl, I guess they assume you have already played the two previous games and are already familiar with the interface-

They shouldn't assume too much. If I want to try something new I'll definitely buy the newest instalment only. Each stand-alone game should have a tutorial IMO.