196 replies to this topic

[Chris Fenton]

I'm still in two minds about Prototype, it's fun but I have had no real draw to go back to it. This may still be the effect of not really having a grasp of the storyline.

Still not had a chance to give burnout a try but i'm pretty sure i'll enjoy it, the demo certainly got a lot of play...

[brucegray666]

Two games arrived from LoveFilm this week - Armored Core 5 and LEGO Indiana Jones. AC5 is pretty damned repetitive and dull. LEGO Indy is just as fun as every other LEGO game I've played.

[craggy]

I find Armoured Core games always appear more appealing than they actually are. It's like one guy said "know what'd be cool? piloting a giant robot, and fighting other giant robots!!" and someone else said "yes, but how can we make it a painfully boring video game experience?"

[brucegray666]

Ha! That's pretty much what my thought process was when it arrived in the mail. "Cool, piloting a giant robot and fighting other robots!!!" followed quickly by "Wow, this is pretty fucking boring."

Problem is this is my last rental for this month (I only get 4 discs a month). Tempted to upgrade my account and get unlimited rentals for another quid.

[Chris Fenton]

Do it! I went directly to the games unlimited pack once I had the funds to!

[brucegray666]

Done. The unlimited online streaming is also a nice extra too.

[Chris Fenton]

Burnout: Paradise is the expected OTT racing (and crashing). I might hold onto it for a while as I barely scratched the surface with my play this afternoon. I'm pretty sure I'm going to send prototype back to lovefilm but we'll see.

[brucegray666]

Burnout Paradise is great. Bought it when it first came out and played it for days on end. Quite an accomplishment as,by rule of thumb, I normally hate driving / racing games and find them tediously boring.

[Chris Fenton]

I loaded up burnout today and the whole game has changed, I knew a big update was downloading but I didn't expect the changes to be so extensive.

One thing that appears to be missing is the element that made Burnout the name it is today, huge epic mega crashes...

Maybe i've just been driving around searching for billboards too much to notice the events...

[Ogul]

I played in the Guild Wars 2 stress test today, lots of fun. It was even mostly stable. I'm actually greatly impressed with the underlying software on this game. The game itself launches in about five to ten seconds, compared to 30+ for DCUO or TOR, and loading zones likewise takes almost no time, even though they're beautiful. There were a few issues in the stress test, smaller instanced zones were not loading properly for me and many other players, and I once crashed after attempting to respawn from a death during an event, but I played for hours without any other issues, even when dealing with open events with a dozen or more other players and an equal number of NPCs. Also, I enjoyed this description of the Shortbow skill "Crippling Shot," "Shatter your foe's dreams of becoming an adventurer with a single arrow to the knee. Your pet's next three attacks inflict bleeding."

I'm still a bit iffy on their character advancement path though. It makes you feel very powerful by level 10 or so, but then advancement seems a little inconsequential from there on. I mean, the way it works is, the first five power slots are based on your weapons, so all five for two-handers, or a combo of 3 main/2 offhand with one-handed weapons, and each class has a totally different set of abilities for each. But assuming you find all your weapons, which you tend to do by around level 6-7, you can max all of these out by level 10 easily, which you should do because you need all those abilities to be effective. Spamming the basic attack gets you nothing. You then already have a heal on 6, and can unlock new heals, but these aren't necessarily better, just different, and you can only even slot one at a time, so maybe you stick with the default one to cap.

Then at level 5 you unlock the 7th slot, which you can put one of about thirty different skillpoint unlocked abilities into, but ONLY one at a time, so if you get the one you want there by level 10, and you can, you won't need any more for that slot. Also at level 10, you get access to a second spare slot, and another at 20, so eventually you can use three of the thirty total abilities, but there really isn't a compelling reason to ever earn more than the three best abilities for you, because you can never swap them out during combat, although you can easily swap them out outside of combat. You also eventually get an "epic" ability at 30 that's much stronger, but by level 15 my Ranger was kind of set on the abilities he wanted, especially since you can only have one "signet" ability active at a time (which are passive buffs that you can activate to consume the passive for a stronger temporary boost, followed by a cooldown), meaning that there's no real point to having multiples of those either.

You also gain "traits" every level over 11, which are passive benefits that make certain playstyles more powerful than others and allow you to focus your builds, but basically your toolbox gets "set" fairly early, and from there on it's more refining than evolving your character. I got my ranger to 15 and was still having a ton of fun with it, but I am a bit concerned that progression won't excite me after around level 20. I could be wrong about that though.

[Rory Abel]

Beat LA Noir last night. All the time and energy that went into making it and it's just not a very good game. It becomes halfway decent when you finally end up in Arson squad and the central mystery takes over and it finally starts to feel like a noir tale. However, Phelps just isn't a very interesting or likable character and the fact that they completely ignore his family life only to make a big deal of it later is a major mistake. But even more so the switch to another character for the final stretch of the game is a huge mistake, if nothing else because it highlights how little the story actually resembles anything noir previously and how uninteresting Phelps is. A big disappointment. I'll be trading it in ASAP.

[Adam Balson]

Beat LA Noir last night. All the time and energy that went into making it and it's just not a very good game. It becomes halfway decent when you finally end up in Arson squad and the central mystery takes over and it finally starts to feel like a noir tale. However, Phelps just isn't a very interesting or likable character and the fact that they completely ignore his family life only to make a big deal of it later is a major mistake. But even more so the switch to another character for the final stretch of the game is a huge mistake, if nothing else because it highlights how little the story actually resembles anything noir previously and how uninteresting Phelps is. A big disappointment. I'll be trading it in ASAP.

Thank God I'm not the only one who thought this. I felt absolutely no sympathy for Phelps whatsoever and actually thought he was a bit of a prick rather than some flawed hero. I thought his old Vietnam buddy was a far more interesting character despite only playing as him for a short while.
I can appreciate the work that went into the game but that system still has a way to go. For example, there's a mission where someone has been killed by a baseball bat right? In one of the suspects houses I found a baseball bat, picked it up and Phelps said 'Hmm, inconsequential' and put it back down. I found it weird that purely because there was no blood on it that the time it was totally ruled out as any form of evidence. The later you find the actual murder weapon which is caked in old blood if I remember right. There could have been a lot more depth there and add to putting the wrong guy away for absolutely noble (if misguided) reasons.
Can't argue with the animation though, absolutely beautiful. Give Red Dead Redemption a make-over to have L.A. Noir's motion capture and Rockstar will have my favourite game ever.

[Eduardo]

Waiting for the GoT RPG game... betting it won't be that good...

[brucegray666]

The Devil May Cry HD collection arrived from LoveFilm today,. I have never played any of the games so have no idea what to expect from it.

[Dave Wallace]

I never got on with Devil May Cry, although I should love it: It's essentially a series of big boss battles split up by some short stages populated by generic baddies (which serve as a warm-up for the main event), and given that that's the exact same model as one of my favourite console games ever - Alien Soldier - it should work. But I just found the bosses to be a bit dull and unimaginative, and too hard to beat until you figure out their individual secret (at which point they become a walkover).

But your mileage may vary.

[brucegray666]

Played the first couple of levels of Devil May Care. Man, I know it's a fairly old game but it handles like shit. The fixed but continually changing camera angles are killing me too.

[al-x]

Hello:

FWIW, there is a DLC for Arkham City coming out the end of the month
where Harley gets in the spotlight. I wonder if it is available for the PC.

I finished the main story and I love the fact that I am not completely
finished with it. I don't mind the makers milking the game with more
DLC additions.

As for this new upcoming Spiderman game, I will wait and see.


Al...

[Adam Balson]

Played the first couple of levels of Devil May Care. Man, I know it's a fairly old game but it handles like shit. The fixed but continually changing camera angles are killing me too.

DMC 3 which is more of a prequel is the only one I like but I haven't played it since my 3rd year in high school. 4 was pretty disappointing.

AAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNND now I'm addicted to MINECRAFT on the Xbox. Great.

Totally getting the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC. Looks amazing and you mainly play as Robin going by the newest trailer. I really hope changing suits is an option in the DLC, keen to do it as Batman Inc. and Red Robin.
You probably watch this is you haven't completed Arkham City:

Edited by Adam Balson, 17 May 2012 - 10:01 PM.

[Dave Wallace]

That looks like quite good fun. I haven't got any of the Arkham City DLC yet - any recommendations as to which is the best to go for?

[Adam Balson]

Honestly, I'd say the suits and this. I mean, Nightwing and Robin are a lot of fun with their personalised gadgets and fighting styles but I personally get bored of the challenge maps. Having them in the story would be more fun for me. Catwoman maybe but she's basically the same as the other two.

So if you like the challenge maps buy whatever man. Otherwise I'd say wait for the new story.