Video Games Thread

[Late]

Completed Lego Marvel back end of last week.
You all know I'm a big fan of the Lego games (more-so the earlier ones than the later ones, mind) but I've got to say this is probably their best yet. Fantastic fun. Kept me busy for a little over a month, and I haven't put COD or Forza into the machine since the day I bought Lego - so there's gotta be dozens of hours I've played. A couple of the open world gold bricks were irritating (mainly the flight race ones, but that's probably personal preference) but all in all the game was fun from start to finish.

I did have to do a few stupid things I wouldn't ordinarily do, to get the full 1000/1000 gamerscore (including renaming a custom character "Trevor" - like anyone would've done that if it wasn't an achievement...), and ordinarily I don't like to do stupid stuff like that to get achievements, but if you aren't going to fully complete one of your favourite games then you're never going to complete a game. I consider it more an acknowledgement and sign of respect to the developers/publishers than anything else.

Have been playing steam games on the pc this past couple of weeks. Not loads, as my computer's pretty lame, but most of my steam games are fairly old and run okay. Also got a dongle so I can use an xbox controller on the pc. I should probably get into keyboard and mouse, but I'm lazy and accustomed to the xbox controller
Still very much looking forward to seeing what the Steam Machine does and costs when more details come out later this year.
Enjoyed "The Stanley Parable", have replayed "Portal", and am part-way through "Papers Please", and "Mirror's Edge". "Final Fantasy VII" will probably be soon. I've got about 85 games in my Steam Library.
Computer crashed a couple of times whilst playing Mirror's Edge, so decided a driver update might be in order. I don't really know much about computers and rarely go on mine (until last week) but I'm lead to believe a new graphics card driver can improve performance.
Updated from a driver dated 2007 to one dated 2012 and now Mirror's Edge won't play at all. Freezes up completely just before it gets to the menu screen, and when you reboot (long press on the power button. Oh how I detest doing that!) the desktop resolution is all different.
Hopefully it's just a conflict with that game - which I was enjoying but after spending hours trying to fix it yesterday I gave up and started "Portal 2", and that works just fine.

[jman]

I read a review of Papers Please the other day, it sounded fun.. how much did you pay for that late ?  Don't really fancy paying out £7 for what looks like a flash game at best.

Have been meaning to download FF7 for a while.. although I know if I download it, it'll sit in my library for ages.  I've only got 15 games in my steam library lol.. theres only a few games worth getting on a pc imo.. I don't buy many indie games.. they only have a certain amount of appeal.

[Late]

I got Papers Please half price in a Humble Bundle sale on the 20th Dec - came in at £3.15. That offer's finished now though.
Tis good fun, but I'm playing it with one of the kids and only for half an hour or so at a time once or twice a week, so we're not very far through our first playthrough yet. The 8-bit graphics work well in the game, fitting the time-frame (set in late 1982) and providing just enough info without becoming bogged down in detail.
It can be played as a simple endless "flash style" game, but I've not tried that - I've just been playing the story mode, which I think lasts for about 40 in-game days and I'm up to about day 12-14.
I recommend it at £3. Wouldn't pay full price for it.


I quite like the indie games, so most of my library is from bundles where they might give you about 6 games for about £3.
The Valve collection is the most expensive purchase I've made on Steam, at ten quid, but it's 24 games including both Portals, both L4Ds, loads of Half Life, loads of Counter Strike, and more. (Again, that's a deal that has since ended.)

[ancelotti]

Careful, Late, there's a bit of nudity in Papers, Please!

Would you guys recommend Peggle 2?

[jman]

If you liked the first one, definitely... there's just not enough of it.. annoyed that I finished it so quick.. but it was so addictive 

[Late]

Careful, Late, there's a bit of nudity in Papers, Please!

Would you guys recommend Peggle 2?

Not to worry - my delicate eyes won't be subjected to any more since Papers Please apparently doesn't work now I've updated my driver...
PCs are a pain in the arse.

As Kieron says, Peggle 2 is just more of the same - which is a good thing. Just a shame there's so few matters. I imagine more will be added later - for a charge. I say go for it. It's great fun and cheap.

[ancelotti]

I had a similar problem with 'Gone Home'. Saw it on Steam for like £6 and couldn't resist. Then I discovered it had a problem with Windows 8 and so none of the lighting effects in the game worked.  Fortunately it seems to be fine with 8.1 so I got to play it properly, eventually.

Loving Peggle 2. Dunno how you guys have got all the objectives already! I love the game but I'm not very good at it, so I can see it taking me a while.

Quite excited about Evolve recently announced for Xbox One and PS4. Made by the guys who made Left 4 Dead which was probably the most fun co-op game of last gen!

I was thinking there wouldn't be too many games to get excited about in 2014 for the next-gen consoles but I was wrong. Right now my likely 'day one' purchases are

Titanfall
Watch Dogs
MGS5
FIFA 15

with so many more that could join that list like Evolve, Destiny, Dying Light and the new Tom Clancy game once I see more of them.

[bealec]

Aw ffs, Deathstroke has to be one of the most annoying boss fights EVER!!!

I'm going to beat him soon but this is REALLY frustrating

Took me a good hour before I mastered it. For one of the first boss fights its rather difficult.

[harv]

Took me about the same amount of time I think. It was easy once I figured out how to grab him and draw him towards me with the Bat Claw.

I really like the franchise, although I'm a bit annoyed that we didn't get to be able to swoop around Gotham City until the third game. It's also disappointing that it doesn't have the same GamePad use that Arkham City had. It really made the Wii U version the definitive version, having the Bat Computer in the palm of your hands was full of Instant Win with Awesome Sauce.

[jman]

Not to worry - my delicate eyes won't be subjected to any more since Papers Please apparently doesn't work now I've updated my driver...
PCs are a pain in the arse.

I bit the bullet and bought it last week.. although I had to reformat my pc at work the other day, and got an error when trying to load it, something about my graphics card needing to support OpenGL1.4

A Windows update actually sorted the issue for me out by downloading the correct drivers.  If it hadn't of sorted the problem out, my first port of call would of been typing in "dxdiag" into Start->Run box, find out what my graphics card is - my work one is a "Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT", going to the Nvidia website, choosing that product and downloading the latest driver for that one.  If you've downloaded a driver that is not fully compatible with your card then you can get all kinds of errors - although it really shouldn't install the driver.

You can uninstall your graphics card driver and try reinstalling it again by going to Control Panel->Device Manager, and then looking under Display Adapters - if you have any warning triangles around your stuff, that is an alert to say the driver is not working properly or the driver needs updating.

[jman]

Looks like EA are finally giving SimCity an offline mode.. so surely theres no need to cap the city size limit ?  Theres a massive bug that stopped me playing it which is as soon as your city gets to a certain size, it just becomes completely unstable and impossible to manage.. the traffic is really badly handled too, you could build the perfect road system and it would still get gridlocked..  would be nice to get back into that game as I do love the series.

[Late]

Not to worry - my delicate eyes won't be subjected to any more since Papers Please apparently doesn't work now I've updated my driver...
PCs are a pain in the arse.

I bit the bullet and bought it last week.. although I had to reformat my pc at work the other day, and got an error when trying to load it, something about my graphics card needing to support OpenGL1.4

A Windows update actually sorted the issue for me out by downloading the correct drivers.  If it hadn't of sorted the problem out, my first port of call would of been typing in "dxdiag" into Start->Run box, find out what my graphics card is - my work one is a "Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT", going to the Nvidia website, choosing that product and downloading the latest driver for that one.  If you've downloaded a driver that is not fully compatible with your card then you can get all kinds of errors - although it really shouldn't install the driver.

You can uninstall your graphics card driver and try reinstalling it again by going to Control Panel->Device Manager, and then looking under Display Adapters - if you have any warning triangles around your stuff, that is an alert to say the driver is not working properly or the driver needs updating.

All looks fine from that dxdiag thing.

AMD's site indicates I should install something called CATALYST. I tried that last week, but I think it made things much worse.
Am installing it again now, and have been told "setup cannot copy the file ati2evxx.exe"
Which is fascinating news and means lots to me.
I clicked "proceed anyway". Fingers crossed, but I'm not optimistic...


EDIT - nope, no joy. It got to about 25-30% but no further.
Best guess is some old crap is causing conflicts. I'm toying with wiping the computer and reinstalling Windows from scratch. It's a lot of chew just to possibly allow me to play a couple of games (but possibly not work), but probably makes sense as it'd likely speed things up a bit - the C drive has gotta be pretty fragmented by now. And if I'm going to reinstall Windows (I don't fancy trying Linux) then I should do it in the next couple of months, before MS stop supporting XP. XP is the only version I have (hacked keyless one, gets all updates). I could probably find a newer one but I like XP and I know the version I have works perfectly whereas a newer one runs the risk of being identified as hacked.
Only thing stopping me is the worry that I'll make things worse - and that's a proper concern for a technophobe who has a computer that does most things he needs!

[harv]

Aw bollocks.

Managed to crash Arkham Origins last night after ignoring the main quest for a bit and find a few datapacks and to just generally fuck about with beating up a hoodlum here and there. Just started the game today and the bloody marker thingy for the sewer entrance has bloody disappeared!!!

[harv]

You're better off having a fresh install of Windows every so often. It's a shite OS and tends to fall apart every few years. I did a fresh install of Vita recently for the exact same reason - Rocksmith was having problems running.

I usually have a fresh install every year but due to my depression I hadn't done it for quite a while, probably 4 years

Everything now is running sweet though.

Have any of you bought and played Resident Evil Revelaitons yet..? If not then you should blow the dust off your PS3/360 and give it a go. It's the best Resident Evil game since RE4. If you're a Resident Evil fan you really need to experience it.

[Late]

Nintendo have today revised their Wii U sales estimates for the current year down from 9m units to 2.8m units.
Just a small shortfall, then.

Projected profit/loss for the year is amended from a £587m profit down to a £205m loss.

We all know what it's like when you find you've got a few quid less than you thought you had. I bet that missing eight hundred million pounds is either down the back of the sofa, or in the pocket of the jeans you were wearing last week.

Surely Iwata can't hang onto his job now?




EDIT - 2.8m, not 2.7m as I originally posted. Clumsy fingers...