Video Games Thread

[AVFCRoss]

I never said Uncharted 3 was my GOTY, but I'll definitely say that every single player game can learn a thing or two from Uncharted...You might think I'm biased, but the Uncharted series is a masterclass in single player games and that's just a stone cold fact.

And yeah, I wouldn't say I have a "bad-ass" character...I've still literally waltzed through the game with the equipment I've managed to find...The importance of loot is lost in Skyrim because of the fact you can beat practically everything without ever needing to change your equipment...I'v wielded the Dawnbreaker which I got quit early on from a Daedric quest I accidently stumbled upon and I went all the way 100 one-armed skill with that weapon alone lol

The only times I've felt the need to change my weapon is to level my skills so I can reach level 50, even when doing this and using weapons I'm unfamilar with, I still had minimal troubles. I'd definitely consider that to be a design fault, not being able to scale your game appropriately to make sure finding new and better weapons is more rewarding is just poor design.

[harv]

Whenever playing Elder Scrolls games I always keep the use of magic to a minimum, only using it to heal. If they've made the game too easy with using melee weapons then I might give it a miss. I'm still waiting for a price drop or GOTY Edition before I get it anyway.

Edit: Hmmm...the latest on next gen specs is that Sony have gone for a GPU pushing 1.8GFLOPS and Microsoft have gone for a GPU pushing 1GFLOP. Has quite surprised me tbh as I was expecting those to be the other way around given the PS3 and 360. And we're looking at the U GPU pushing between 600-800GFLOPS with the added advantage of Nintendo's patented features, most likely more efficient algorithms.

Something strange appears to be going on with the RAM too. The U is looking like 2GB in total, with perhaps half reserved for the OS and features. The PS4 is looking like 2-4GB and the 720 a ridiculous 6-8GB, although the latter has a fair old chunk reserved for their DVR, OS and features. The silly sods are probably going to have the resource hog that is Windows 8 behind it. Daft decision imo.

[jman]

Finished Rage... far earlier than I thought too.. the third disc is only used for mulitplayer, so there was only 2 discs worth of gameplay... by the time you get the 2nd disc.. its all pretty straight-forward stuff too.. dont think I actually died once in the whole game (despite having it on hard).. it had missable achievements.. so Im happy with completing 7/10's of it achievement wise in one run...wont be playing it again though.

...moved back to Shift 2 (which I forget I hadnt finished).. its bloody awful compared to a Dirt game... handling is seriously gimped.... its just not as fun either... gonna get to level 20 (6 levels to go) and then its going back on the shelf.

...then its back on to RUSE, which Im enjoying more as Im progressing further, love strategy games.

[Late]

Started Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars back end of last week. I've had that on the shelf for about a year, now, (got it cheap, 2nd hand). I used to love the C&C games, and Dune before them, but as they progressed they ended up getting more convoluted and harder to play on a console controller. Definitely one of those franchises that's better on the pc.
So after failing one of the campaign missions several times I decided this isn't fun, just give up and move on.

Now playing Lost Odyssey. Thanks for the recommendation, Kieron. Enjoyable game so far (though it's irritating that you have a cut scene you can't skip at the start of every random battle) so this should keep me busy for a while. Hope the disks are all good. I noticed disk 1 was quite scuffed - I've not looked at the others.

[jman]

Well I did say it was a classic JRPG... including all the annoying bits, like unskippable cut-scenes before battles !!  If I remember correctly, the game does start off fairly slow for a good few hours... but once your at the end of disk 1 you'll be hooked!

Probably gonna pre-order NHL 13 this week for release next week... I need a good game to break up the crap I'll have left on my shelf from next week lol.  Shame I never got into The Witcher 2 really!

[harv]

It's the combat in JRPGs that gets on my tits, although thankfully with the likes of The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles recently it appears that JRPGs are finally joining the 21st Century and doing away with archaic turn-based combat. Certainly bodes well for JRPGs in the future given the overwhelming positive feedback from both reviewers and gamers.

It's worth blowing the dust off and firing up your Wii to play them both late, a fine swan song for a dying console. The scale of Xenoblade Chronicles in particular is technically very impressive, have no idea how Monolith Soft managed it on hardware that weak. You've basically got a huge world with infinite draw distance. They've had to sacrifice the quality of the character models in the game to pretty much PS2 levels but the huge scale of the game world more than makes up for it. It makes the likes of Oblivion and Fallout look small.

[jman]

Black Mesa

8 years in the making and finally its here (well Sept 14th it will be).... a fan mod for Half Life 1 - basically a complete overhaul (well the first 14/18 chapters) of HL1 using the source engine from HL2.. and its completely free!

My pc is up the knackers yard at the moment.. priority to get it fixed by the weekend in preparation!!

[jman]

Just picked up Assassins Creed: Revelations for £6.20 (inc. postage) from ebay... quite a bargain that.. wouldnt of got it otherwise...

[Late]

It's the combat in JRPGs that gets on my tits, although thankfully with the likes of The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles recently it appears that JRPGs are finally joining the 21st Century and doing away with archaic turn-based combat. Certainly bodes well for JRPGs in the future given the overwhelming positive feedback from both reviewers and gamers.
It's worth blowing the dust off and firing up your Wii to play them both late, a fine swan song for a dying console. The scale of Xenoblade Chronicles in particular is technically very impressive, have no idea how Monolith Soft managed it on hardware that weak. You've basically got a huge world with infinite draw distance. They've had to sacrifice the quality of the character models in the game to pretty much PS2 levels but the huge scale of the game world more than makes up for it. It makes the likes of Oblivion and Fallout look small.

I don't like real time combat in my JRPGs, and I don't like the wii. So your suggestion is I should try the new real time combat JRPGs on the wii?

[harv]

Well it's said by many to be the best JRPG released this gen. You should check it out. Absolutely no idea how they managed to squeeze it all onto a Wii, it really is a technical marvel. Can't wait to see what they're going to be able to produce with hardware as powerful as the U. Should be stunning.

[ancelotti]

Have you tried C&C: Red Alert 3, Late? I think it's a lot easier to play on a console than the other C&C games of this gen. Also, I've always preferred the Red Alert series for its humour and hot women.

Lost Odyssey is a cracking game but when real-time combat is done right, it's awesome. There's so much more strategy involved. I guess it could be argued that with real-time combat, it's more about your skill and ability rather than your character's, which isn't really the point of a role-playing game.

[stupac]

About games being too "samey" it really depends on if you like what it is I guess. If you like something, then more of the same is good right?

I never played Assassins Creed 1, but AC2, Brotherhood and Revelations are all pretty much the same, and yet I loved all of them. My second favourite series of games now.

Another example is Uncharted, my favourite series of games, they are all pretty similar. But they are brilliant, especially the single player, I've never got so much into a game as I have with Uncharted.

[jman]

Have you tried C&C: Red Alert 3, Late? I think it's a lot easier to play on a console than the other C&C games of this gen. Also, I've always preferred the Red Alert series for its humour and hot women.

This is true, C&C 3 had some really annoying missions.. I never finished it.. in fact I sold it.... however Red Alert 3 was much better.. mainly because it was easier.. but there was some quite tasty hot totty in it.. I dont think I finished that one either, but will definitely have to add it back onto the pile now I think of it.


NFS: Shift 2
Pretty much finished this now.. well I say finished.. I've reached Level 20 (highest), done all the GT races too.. theres a few achievements I would like to get before I put it back onto the shelf... but if they take too long I probably wont bother...

5/10 - technically nothing wrong with the game, its a NFS game after all.. but it sits between simulation and arcade and Im afraid there are much better simulation and arcade racers out there (Forza/Dirt).

[Late]

DLC for Trials Evolution is on the way. 400msp, 36 new tracks.
I'll probably go for that. I'm not a big fan of the "insane" difficulty tracks, but I love all the others, so I'd guess there's around 25-30 fun tracks and a handful of nightmare ones to have a go at (which are still fairly fun - the first couple of times you try them. They just get annoying if you can't complete them after 3 or 4 goes each at half an hour!).
I'm happy to pay £3 for all that.

dealspwn

____________________________________________________________________________________

I like the bird in Tiberium Wars, but she's definitely no stunner. Fans of House* will know her as Dr Cameron.
Was nice seeing Michael Ironside in there, too, following recent discussions about Total Recall.

Will keep an eye out for Red Alert 3.
Edit - ordered (ebay)



*The Hugh Laurie tv show, not the dance music genre or the domicile.

[jman]

Bugger... just realised both my hard-drives in my main pc are both dead... none of them spinning up... hence why my pc is up the knackers yard    One shows some kind of life (some minute noise can be heard from it.. and the PCB gets a bit hot)... but the other just seems dead, lifeless...

Thing is I put them in a Raid-0.. so no use just getting one working again... absolutely gutted... just lost absolutely everything.. had a lot of work on there that took me a long time to do.  Gonna open them up at the weekend, see if I can see anything that is burnt out.. possibly try the freezer trick.. but I think Im clutching at straws here...

... just bought a nice new gaming case to house everything in as well.. looks like I'll be going back down to novatech at the weekend and upgrading to some SSDs as well.