Video Games Thread

[Late]

It's a shame only one person can access the library at a time. I think you'll end up with some people adding a friend from each continent, so they stand a better chance of gaming at different times, thereby effectively getting free games. (Of course, you then need to find people on that continent who don't already have friends in Europe, otherwise you'll find you still can't get into the games list.)

[jman]

Got an email from Tesco.. offering me £6 off an xbox points card.. because they started a new promotion offer today... so could pick up 4200 points for £28.50... is that any good late.. what does that transpire to in terms of money - I've got no clue now Microsoft have changed it all ??

[Late]

I believe 4200 points added to your account would put your balance up by £35.70 (based on the points I bought last week, which worked out at 85p per 100msp). I'm not sure if rates vary.
So you'd be getting £35.70 credit for £28.50. Not bad (but not outstanding).

Bear in mind with all microsoft credit, it needs using within a year under the new rules - so I wouldn't advise buying loads of points unless you're certain you'll get them used. Alternatively, you could buy them but leave the card on a shelf until needed i.e. buy the points but don't apply them to your account.
You get 365 days from the date credits are applied. The exception is the points that were converted to £ when the system changed. That credit is valid until 01/06/2015.

Personally, I'm happy to have a load of points on my account if I can get them for about 80% face value (as is the case with the deal Tesco have offered you there) as I'm pretty sure I'd get them used. Hell, I spend nearly that on a COD season pass.
If games are about £50 retail and about £50 digital then I fully understand the argument that it's better to buy physical copies - mainly so you have the option to resell them - but personally I'd rather pay £40 for £50 worth of credit, then use that credit to get a digital copy of the game. It's cheaper than the boxed version, and I like digital copies - saves on knacking my back trying to change disks when I want to play a different game.
(There's some price assumptions in there with little basis.)



Early reviews for GTA are fairly promising, lol.

Edge - 10/10
Gamesradar - 10/10
IGN - 10/10
CVG - 10/10
The Guardian - 10/10
Telegraph - 10/10
Joystiq - 9/10
Sixthaxis - 10/10
OPM - 10/10
Metro - 10/10

(Joystiq, what were you thinking?!)

[Late]

GTA5 comes on two disks for xbox360.
Rockstar advise (via twitter) that the first disk should be fully installed to HDD. The second should not be installed.

dealspwn
@RockstarSupport

[harv]

Yup, GTA V will be getting GOTY awards all over the place but The ,Wonderful 101 at least deserves a few honourable mentions imo. I guess an 8/10 average is all a developer can expect when giving a challenging game to reviewers lol, a similar thing happened with ZombiU too although to be fair that game does have a few issues

I still can't believe how crap at playing video games some reviewers are, any reviewer in the States flat out refuses to review a game without an accompanying walkthrough

And testers have to play through a game in a certain amount of time before getting a job at most publishers which is ridiculous. A tester doing speed runs is going to miss plenty of bugs. The one thing that Eidos did right was giving potential testers a buggy game to play and a pen and notepad to write down what bugs they find. Much better way of doing things, the likes of EA and Sega don't care whether you know a bug when you see one which probably explains a few things lol.

[jman]

I've no doubt that GTA5 is going to be the best game since Skyrim came out.. so excited to play it, sod installing it.. Im getting straight into the game tonight (hopefully).

Thanks for info late.. although I think Im going to leave it.. had a look and cdkeys sell one for £29ish.. so I guess if I do want that many points in the future I can always go with them and not lose out on too much.. it would take me a while to get through all those points, I didn't realise they had a time limit on them.

[Late]

I've no doubt that GTA5 is going to be the best game since Skyrim came out.. so excited to play it, sod installing it.. Im getting straight into the game tonight (hopefully).

I'm so excited about the game, but I'll wait that extra 20 minutes or whatever to get it installed if that's what they're recommending.

Started Far Cry Blood Dragon a few nights back, and am thoroughly enjoying it (though I preferred Far Cry 3). There's more to it than I was expecting - I thought it'd be a little 3-4 hour thing, but I've probably played double that and am only about halfway through it (rough guess). So it's not the end of the world if my GTA doesn't arrives a day late - Bloody Dragon will keep me busy in the interim.

[ancelotti]

Apparently my GTA has arrived!!!!  Just gotta wait until 4pm so I can go home and play it. 

[Late]

Nice one Kenny


Sony have done it again...
Fantastic offerings on PS+ again this month - including Far Cry 3.

playstation blog

[Late]

Woot! Gamestop you beauties...
GTA is currently installing.

[jman]

It's frickin awesome!!

[iaskthequestions]

Well opinions? i have only had a few hours of play while my missus cooked us a nice dinner. liking it so far. the map is endless. Prefer the driving on the previous gta personally. i think theyve made it abit to quick.

[ancelotti]

LOVING IT!

It's fantastic. I've only played about 8 hours worth but the missions are already so varied compared to GTA IV (go here... kill that person... repeat). I won't spoil anything but I think every mission so far has been different. The radio is a big step up from GTA IV too. The music is diverse and they've got Fernando and Lazlow back.  And speaking of diversity... the map is another improvement. The attention to detail is stunning.

One little thing that's bugging me is the humour seems more overt/blunt than usual. Still pretty funny though. And one other thing, perhaps a female lead might have been a good idea with 3 protagonists? Franklin reminds me of CJ and Michael reminds me of Tommy. That's not a negative. They seem like good, nuanced characters. Everyone else around them are the usual hilariously cliché characters that make GTA so good. I've not met Trevor yet but I'm sure he'll be great.

The map is HUGE but I've barely explored it so far, so haven't got much of an idea whether it's vibrant throughout or empty.

Like I say, only 8 hours in and I'm already hugely impressed. Time for bed so I can get home tomorrow and play some more.

[jman]

Only 8 hours lol

I only played for about 2 hours last night, but it's great.  The driving definitely feels looser, I'm sure I can get used to it though, but how many times have I pressed select to view the map, feels a bit clunky having to go through the start menu and then selecting into the map.  I don't like the fact there's so many buttons and options full stop.  The "special abilities" seem a bit tacky, but I've hardly scratched the surface yet.

Other than getting to grips with the controls, the gameplay is awesome, already had a few OMG, this game is awesome moments and a few laugh out loud ones too, especially on the first mission with Chop lol.  Can't wait to go back for more tonight!  There's hints of Sleeping Dogs in there - which is good, because that game was excellent.. but it still feels very much like a GTA game..

Try not to post any spoilers please.. I've purposely not read any previews, reviews or anything press related to this game, and trying to avoid the tv advert too so I can enjoy the game to the max.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Also wtf is the ifruit app for android?  No, seriously?  That's slack

[Late]

Loving it so far, but I didn't get to play it much last night. Probably about 3 hours played - but I didn't really get much of the story played. Spent most of my time just exploring, playing tennis, getting lap-dances, etc.
Having three different characters is great, and switching between them brings a nice new element into the game - though it was much slicker on the introduction mission where two were in the same room than it was when switching between characters far apart on the map.
Loading times are annoying, but fortunately that's almost exclusively when you're first booting the game up. When actually playing everything seems smooth.
It's a shame the iFruit app isn't yet available for Android or Windows mobile. Came out for ios on Monday. (For anyone who's not aware of it, it's a free companion phone/tablet app that lets you customise cars, train Franklin's dog, etc.)

Look forward to getting back to the game tonight, and properly getting my teeth into it this weekend.