Video Games Thread

[bealec]

I do the same fire in one hand sword in the other.

[Late]

Ditto - fire left hand, weapon right hand.

I had my wife/companion use a soul-capturing bow - those filled soul gems are great, combined with a bit of smithing and enchanting. Gives you fantastic weapons/armour which can be used or sold for a lot of money. Just a shame the shopkeepers don't have much money.

[styles]

one of the mini quests just netted me 3k and I have started the dark brotherhood quests as well so am getting the loot up rightly. i have been storing any dragon bones in preparation for making dragon armour later in the game.

[jman]

Apart from Ubisoft though,who always back Nintendo, the Wii U has no other confirmed 3rd party making a new ip or exclusive for the console.

Sorry harv.. did I miss something.. can you just highlight which of the games you listed are CONFIRMED 3rd party exclusives for the WiiU then ??

Lego City Stories (published by Nintendo but developed by a third party dev)
Assassin's Creed 3
Dragon Quest X
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Batman Arkham City
Aliens Colonial Marines
Darksiders 2
Ghost Recon Online
Killer Freaks From Outer Space
Untitled Rabbids game
Metro Last Light
Rayman Legends
Formula 1
Untitled Tekken game
Untitled Battlefield game
Resident Evil 6
GTA V
CoD BlOps 2

[harv]

You forgot to include the first important sentence of my quote that you've quoted. Nintendo are being unbelievably strict with their NDAs. You'll see plenty of exclusives announced in a few weeks.

They've made great efforts to garner third party support, particularly from smaller developers. They're including Autodesk, Havok and Greenhills middleware and IDE with each dev kit. That's tens of thousands of pounds of software.

You'll see just how good the third party support is going to be in a few weeks, both at retail and digital distribution channels.

[Late]

I know my limitations - and I think I've now reached them. I can't do two of the extreme levels on Trials Evolution. It's now stopped being fun and has become too much of a chore.

On the bright side, though, I do now have gold (or better) on every beginner, easy, medium, and hard level. Wanted to got Platinum on all Beginner levels, but I'm struggling on one (the first level).
Had a few goes on the online mulitplayer. It's definitely better than the local multiplayer, but still rather unsatisfying.


Decided to crack out the AC:Revelations I bought last week. Being the Ottoman Edition (with 3 lots of dlc) it's the normal game in normal packaging, but that packaging is then in a cardboard sleeve, together with some download codes. Took the outer cellophane off to open the cardboard sleeve only to find the game case inside is mangled. If it were just a crack I'd put up with it, but it's like it'd been jumped up and down on by an elephant. Completely decimated, with loads of bits rattling around in there.
I've returned it to Amazon (effectively still sealed - the microsoft seal and cellophane on the game itself are still intact - it's only the outer wrapping I opened.
Unfortunately it's returned for refund, as they don't have it in stock now

I did have the common sense to put the dlc codes into my machine, though - so now I just need to buy the standard game...

[Late]

Can't think of the last crossover from tv to game that worked well (if any) but I like the idea of Sons of Anarchy - the game. Could be great, if done well. I'm thinking GTA style sandbox game with plenty of gang/turf wars, courier missions, businesses to control, etc. Admittedly I'm more Piney than Jax these days, but playing as a member of SAMCRO definitely appeals.
First mission for me - take control of the strip club.

[harv]

I'd be all over that, the idea of designing and building your own bike would be a great imo. Particularly if you could download images from the internet or use Kinect/Move/DRC to take pictures and put them on the petrol tank. I'd be all over that!!!

[ancelotti]

Just completed Star Ocean: Second Evolution! (Remake of Star Ocean 2 on PS1) Well, the main part of the game anyway and the crazy bonus dungeon (13 levels and NO save points!). Now I have to level up at least 50 levels to take on the final ridiculously tough boss - Iseria Queen.

Then I'm ready to work my way through the early FF games!

[harv]

Halo on the Atari VCS 2600 lol

[jman]

I know my limitations - and I think I've now reached them. I can't do two of the extreme levels on Trials Evolution. It's now stopped being fun and has become too much of a chore.

On the bright side, though, I do now have gold (or better) on every beginner, easy, medium, and hard level. Wanted to got Platinum on all Beginner levels, but I'm struggling on one (the first level).
Had a few goes on the online mulitplayer. It's definitely better than the local multiplayer, but still rather unsatisfying.

Think Im reaching the end of my tether with trials now too.. great game but losing playability factor each day now.. Did the Lab Rat achievement after a few hours swearing at the poxy game.. and just got the Tournament no faults achievement left to do (on the single player side of the game)... although its the 5th level of 6 in that tournament that really does me in.. cant seem to do that faultless.. 13 faults is my best attempt so far.. annoying to get that far and then make a easy slip-up though.. Think I'll do that chievo and then move on..

[Late]

Gave up on Bullet Witch yesterday. I've done the first four levels - in fact I did them twice, as I accidentally hit the default "new game" option at one point instead of "continue" and there's no option to restore to a save point when you've made that mistake, though it does let you keep the weapons and skills you've accumulated to that point so the second run of those 4 levels went pretty easy.
But then I tried level 5 (I think there's only 6 levels) a few times and kept getting killed by snipers. You get about a second's notice that someone's targeting you - if you don't hit the button combo to throw a magical wall up in the right place/direction to protect you you're back to the checkpoint you reached half an hour ago. Not fun.

Just completed Star Ocean: Second Evolution! (Remake of Star Ocean 2 on PS1) Well, the main part of the game anyway and the crazy bonus dungeon (13 levels and NO save points!). Now I have to level up at least 50 levels to take on the final ridiculously tough boss - Iseria Queen.

Then I'm ready to work my way through the early FF games!

Didn't realise there was more than one Star Ocean game. Pretty sure I've never played one before, but coincidentally I put "Star Ocean: The Last Hope" in the 360 yesterday. It's one of the games I got for about a quid a couple months back but put in the pile.

To be honest I might have to restart it. I started it last night but fell asleep during some long boring cut scene. My stats on the game now show that I've played for over 4 hours, and in that time I've explored my spacecraft and had one fight.
Haven't much idea what's going on. We've apparently crash-landed somewhere... we were setting off from Earth; next thing I wake up to see a couple hours have passed and half the crew's dead or unconscious. I think I might've been the pilot, so I'm guessing I'm to blame for nodding off at the helm. Bloody clever programming, that...
Anyway, I've been pining for FF a bit lately, so will give this a shot - hopefully it'll fill that void. The voices don't much fit the characters, but that's forgiveable. Don't much like the fighting (prefer the old Final Fantasy turn-based combat scheme) but hopefully it'll grow on me.

[ancelotti]

I'm a right Star Ocean fanatic. Used to have all the games but sold the PS1 version of Star Ocean 2 on eBay for £75. Sony decided late on not to release it outside Japan so not many PAL copies were ever made, making it pretty hard to get hold of.

Personally I prefer them to the FF games (bar FFVII, which is the best JRPG ever, hands down) due to the real-time battle system, item creation and I generally prefer the storylines. The Last Hope is a decent game which I put about 100 hours into but it's probably the weakest in the series. Long cutscenes and annoying voice acting are a certainty in every SO game.

[harv]

Can't stand turn-based combat, although it appears that with Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story real-time combat is starting to be a popular choice by developers these days. About bloody time too.

Has anyone tried the first episode of The Walking Dead..? Love the art direction, beats Red Steel 2 as the most convincing animated graphic novel, I'm surprised that more developers haven't opted for this evolution of cel-shading tbh.

I was thinking about getting Raccoon City but it's been absolutely slaughtered by reviews, it's got a Metascore of 52. A great deal of games with Metascores in the 60s and 70s are worth playing but once you drop into the 50s that's really not a good sign. Has anyone got it..? Is it as bad as the Metascore implies..? Capcom have sold 2m so surely it can't be that bad, can it..?

[harv]

Have started to play Ocarina of Time 3D again, I really like what Grezzo have done with the art style - they've improved the IQ but have still retained a close proximity to the N64 original art style, it works really well. A great amount of depth to the 3D too, looks like the action is going on at least an inch behind the screen. There's also some great pop-out here and there too, particularly when you grab the second stone thingy from the Gorons, and you frequently see Navi's fairy dust appearing to pop out of the screen.

I thought that the novelty of the 3D effect would have worn off by now but there are still, 'Whoa, that's pretty cool' moments when playing games. The 3D media content is also pretty good, supplied by various partners through Nintendo Video. We've got Shaun The Sheep and Big Buck Bunny at the moment which both have genuine laugh out loud moments, they're only a few minutes long but you tend to get a new thing to watch every week which is pretty cool. Just a shame you can't save them to your SD card though.

Am about to start the second dungeon I think, I really missed out on some quality gaming by only owning a PS1 and PS2 the last two gens. Although to be fair they did both also have some real quality software too.