197 replies to this topic

[craggy]

I've heard good things about The Walking Dead, tempted by that, and Fez. Tell me some of you have at least played the demo of Fez? It looks like a crazy awesome platform puzzler...but I have heard rumours that it is even a bit more than that. I'm half trying to resist, and half trying to convince myself, to go buy some MS Points and get those 2 and Trials Evolution, which just seems a bit bat$#!^ crazy and ridiculous fun. Oh, and Skullgirls.

[brucegray666]

Buy Fez. It's really good and you can complete it without delving deeper into the problem solving bit.

[Ogul]

I just wanted to note, I inaugurated my new PC hardware with the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, and it was glorious. The structure is similar in many ways to KOTOR/WoW, but it does differ in many interesting ways, and at the very least the first ten levels in both starter zones is a lot of fun. I played a Human Ranger (who by level 11 had a Leopard, Great Dane, Komodo, Spider, Pig, and Boar, named Cheetah, Carl, Izanagi, Parker, Sir Oik, and Bachaos, respectively), and a Norn Necromancer, who couldn't name her summons, but I called them "Inside Out Boy" and "Inky" anyways. The graphics were gorgeous, not because of technical wizardry but because of environmental and character artistic geniuses. Everything just looks so lovingly rendered and creative that it suck you in. They also have a story mode, which is told in these lovely cutscenes that they've shown in videos, though I'm not sure how much the story differs from character to character. I get the impression that every human and every norn is each given the same story quests, regardless of class, but I'm not sure on that as I've only done one of each. You can tweak certain things about your origin, and that might impact your personal story more, as your class doesn't seem to be a factor in the missions.

The combat is engaging, and very different between the two classes I played. The way that weapons each have their own unlockable bar of abilities sounds daunting, but I'd already mastered every weapon available to each class within the first day. This is actually fairly necessary because you need all those abilities, but at the same time it worries me that the later levels will get rather sparse, as you can unlock the best abilities you'll ever get within the first ten or fifteen levels, and most of the rest is building versatility and stat min-maxing. It's actually most similar to DCUO's system, except one in which you could design two different weapon sets at once and switch between them even during combat, allowing you to wail away with your bow and then switch into a greatsword when things get to close, or charging in with a knife and dagger combo, then pulling back to a throwing-axe/torch mix. The Ranger alone has 11+ possible weapon combinations, not counting the two aquatic-only weapons. Even the longbow and short bow are two completely different playstyles, the former being about sniping/artillery, fighting from a distance and posting-up, while the latter is for active mid-range combat, very positional and shoot-from-the-hip.

They even give you the chance to fight back from death, which is pretty cool, and I was able to "survive" at least half the times I fell, which was often enough. The group events are fun too, although they can be a bit uneven. If nobody happens to be around when they go off, then they are practically impossible, while if a bunch of people are around, the enemies get roflstomped. I hope that they have good plans to scale them to be challenging on launch day and also playable when you're alone in the area years after launch, without making them one-hit killers.

Long story short, I loved it and hope to play more soon.

[craggy]

Buy Fez. It's really good and you can complete it without delving deeper into the problem solving bit.

I just did it.

[brucegray666]

Good man! You won't regret it. I found it to be an utterly charming game. It's amazing how much heart you invest in the little pixelated fellow. Also, he wears a fez, fezes are cool.

[Ogul]

I decided to give Fez a try and quite enjoyed it. It does sort of bother me how random the doors are, I ricocheted from world to world very quickly and ended up in a graveyard place, and then mostly cleared that one, but I have a lot of tidying to do along the way.

[brucegray666]

Played half an hour of X-Men: Destiny yesterday. One word to sum it up? Mediocre. Yet another punching action game with nothing to separate it from all the other punching action games out there.

[Chris Fenton]

Should I take it off my lovefilm list Bruce?

[brucegray666]

I'm still playing it and the jury is still out on it. It's not the most amazing game ever but it's competent enough. Just mundane, nothing new - much more worth of a rental than splashing out £40 to actually own a copy.

[Ogul]

I've killed some time playing a little web-game called "Pandemic 2". The goal is a little like Risk, you're started at a random spot on the globe with a weak little disease, and you have to evolve that disease to infect and eventually kill as much of the world as possible before the governments get in your way, hopefully to make humanity extinct. Kinda dark. But it can also be kinda fun and pretty addictive, trying to figure out the right combination of infectiousness and inconspicuousness to get into the right countries before they lock you out. The problem is, you have no control over where the virus spreads, and what inevitably ends up happening is that some countries, most often places like Madagascar and Greenland, lock down their borders and you get no foothold, making total annihilation impossible.

This is, of course, ridiculous. That would never work. Yes, there are numerous island nations like New Zealand and Japan that would be theoretically insulated against infection, but in practical terms? If you're Madagascar and you're free from disease, and I'm some crazy rich Saudi prince, you can close your borders all you like, I'm still coming in, with a mercenary army if necessary. And if one of them brings my little bug along for the ride? Well that's too bad. No podunk little second-world country is capable of guarding their borders effectively enough to completely prevent infection, so being able to indefinitely maintain a 0 infection rate just shouldn't be an option. Hell, there are countries out there that would fling dead bodies at other countries that had the temerity to insulate themselves from a nation-destroying pandemic.

[Ogul]

Wow, Fez is really messing with my head. The basic jump puzzle stuff isn't that hard, but a lot of the "puzzle room" puzzles are really trippy and I can't even figure out half of them. Did anyone else do the QR code one? I thought that was a bit of a gyp, since I had to borrow a smartphone to use it.

[brucegray666]

Apparently there is a way to solve those puzzles without a phone. Not sure what it is though.

[Craig MacD]

Picked up Mortal Kombat for the PS Vita for my birthday today. There really isn't much difference from the regular PS3 game except you get all the regular characters (including Kratos from God of War) and the downloadable characters (Kenshi, Rain, Skarlet, Freddy Kruger) for free and there is a bonus challenge tower.

[brucegray666]

Completed Metal Gear Solid 2. Or rather I watched the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 - the final hour and a half was made up of only 15 min or so of gameplay. Really really enjoyed the game, feel a bit foolish for the Raiden hate I've stored up over the years.

[Rory Abel]

About half way through LA Noir now and it's just not very good. Not bad but not good. I'll finish it but I'd never replay it and it's certainly getting trained the moment I'm done.

[brucegray666]

Should I take {X Men: Destiny} off my lovefilm list Bruce?

Yes. I've stuck with it for a bit. It's bloody boring. Not really worth the rental. Shame, I was looking forward to playing a half decent X Men game.

[brucegray666]

Rented Bodycount. Enjoyable but overly short single player campaign (started it yesterday, completed it today). Unforgivably, the final boss is really glitchy and impossible to complete with out saving / quitting / restarting the game. No chance of extending it's lifespan online as the multiplayer community is non existent.

All in all, a disappointing spiritual successor to the stonking Black on the PS2 / Xbox.

[Ogul]

I reached the first ending on Fez with about 10 Anti-cubes in tow, Moving on to the New Game+ now. It's very forgiving in that regard, you lose pretty much zero progress on NG+, you basically just start back in town with every location and item you've onlocked intact.

[Vikram Singh]

So this weekend, totally unexpectedly, and for no apparent reason, without any provocation, my mother bought me an X-Box 360 S (250GB) + Kinect.

Now, my gaming days are way behind me, so I know next to nothing about anything X-Box or gaming related these days. What's the essential stuff I need? What are the solid gold games that I must get to waste my precious free time on? And what do I get for the kids, using the Kinect (they're young, 6 & 3)?

Obviously, being a Batman fanatic, I guess the Arkham Asylum/ City game are good bets. I also like the looks of the Lego games and I always enjoyed playing Halo back in the day.

[She also bought my missus a brand new iPad at the same time ... !]

Edited by Vikram Singh, 07 May 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[brucegray666]

Yep, the Batman Arkham games are great as are the LEGO ones (they'll be great to play with the kids). There's been an anniversary edition of Halo released recently with updated graphics, you might want to check it out. No idea about Kinect though.