Coin Drop (iOS) - bloody hell, this is another evil addictive game!
The Witcher 2 (PC) - Superb game. Currently heading towards being my GOTY
(though Human Revolution and Arkham City might give it a run for its
money).
Want:
Battlefield 3 (PC) - pre-ordered from GAME
Guild Wars 2 (PC)
Diablo 3 (PC)
Deus Ex Human Revolution (PC)
Mass Effect 3 (PC)
Batman Arkham City (PC)
Mario Kart (3DS)
Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)
Skyrim (PC)
LA Noire (360) - but not until a price drop
DiRT 3 (PC) - ditto
Bin:
So many games to play, not enough time.
Expenditure
£ 67.71 January
£ 20.84 February
£ 71.89 March
£ 74.55 April
£105.47 May
+
£ 0.59 Coin Drop (iOS)
--
XBLA/PSN/Steam/Raptr: merseymal
Byrodir the Human Champion of Moria Defenders (Snowbourn, LOTRO EU)
Malfir the Draenei Retribution Paladin (Bronzebeard, WOW EU)
Malkir the Dwarven Shaman/Druid/Justicar Cleric (Steampike, RIFT)
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP) - Wonderful. It's a third-person shooter
that's turn-based for people who have no twitch skills. It's a allegorical
World War II narrative that shuffles the players so you can appreciate the
politics with no preconceptions. It's a romantic look at infantrymen who
actually have the tools to challenge armour. And the breasts are much
bigger than I thought would be possible in the setting. I just made it
through the entrance exam and the first few tutorial missions, and I'm a
little afraid about how complex this might get with more than six
combatants on the field at once. I may end up buying the DLC for this, if
the Playstation Store ever comes back in one piece. Incidentally, I
thought that Gallia was supposed to be a stand-in for France, based on the
name, but the woman of the house looked at the architecture of the Lanseal
academy and figured out that the spires and domes are from Belgium. I went
on to blog about how much of Gallia is drawn from real history.
Every last Xbox 360 game I own (360) - After applying the latest firmware
update, I thought it was worth inserting every disk I have into the drive
for ten minutes or so. The motivation was to see if I could generate the
read errors from the previous DVD drive update that are causing some
customers to be offered new hardware at no cost. I don't know if I was
successful, but I rediscovered a few forgotten and neglected gems. Armored
Core 4 turns out to be easier than the tutorial suggests, I remember now
how much I liked The Club, and Sonic 360 is better than I thought it was.
I'm also really disappointed in the tedious nature of all the Idea Factory
SRPGs I have lying around for the platform.
Armored Core Nexus (PS2) - Finally affordable, and I now understand why
this was so pricey up until now. The second disk contains missions and
other content from all the Armored Core games that preceded it, presented
in the graphics engine of that particular game.
Armored Core Formula Front Extreme Battle (PSP) - Just to round out the
collection. It's absolutely no fun letting the AI control your side, as if
this were some bizarre robotic version of Football manager. Makes my brain
hurt shifting between the different control schemes though.
>Want:
Supreme Commander/Supreme Commander 2 (PC/360) - That's enough slashes to
entertain an army of female Star Trek fans. I'm told that the first game
is unplayable on the 360, whereas the sequel displeaseed many PC players?
Total Annihilation (PC) - Just to round out the set. Wonder how it
performs under Windows 7?
>Bin:
360 storage management (360) - I hate that only some save files get a new
date/time stamp when you generate new data. How am I supposed to know what
needs to be backed up when every last file doesn't look like it's been
updated? Also, don't get me started on all the From and Tecmo/Koei titles
that don't allow you to copy saves.
>Expenditure
Balance Forward - $625
Armored Core Nexus (PS2) - $15
Armored Core Formula Front Extreme Battle (PSP) - $7
Total year-to-date - $647
-KKC, who found the floor in his game room.
--
-- kendrick | "No one has gone in the developer's room for nearly
@ io.com | 20 years. So no one really knows what's going on in
| there. Sometimes they send out a finished game in
http://www.io.com/~kkc | exchange for food and water." - Alis, SegaGaga
> if the Playstation Store ever comes back in one piece.
It should by the end of this week, according to today's annoucement by
Sony.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-31-psn-fully-restored-by-end-of-week
qt
Too Human (360)
Stupid RPG bullshit. I was dying every ten seconds or so, then I
realised that at level 15 I had a lot of skill points to assign. I also
realised that I should probably stop using the 16 damage weapons I
started the game with and use some of the 200 damage ones in my
collection. It got a lot easier after that. It's still really, really
shit. Really shit. But strangely compelling. I want to keep playing it.
But it's really shit.
Portal 2 (360)
I got stuck. I might be stupid.
Game Dev Story (iOS)
Finished another second playthrough. Might give it a rest for a bit. The
leaderboards are completely broken and some of the remaining
achievements seem completely unattainable.
Infinity Blade (iOS)
Briefly. First 5 or 6 battles or so. Not much to it, but one seriously
impressive tech demo.
Kinect Adventures (360)
Briefly. A few more bits in the Adventure. Still impressed at the
accuracy of it, most of the time. A bit too easy for me to get out of
range though.
> Want:
FIFA 12. Sounds like a decent improvement. New front end as well, about
fucking time. Any chance of fixing the bugs? I doubt it.
Time to finish Too Human, Portal 2, Sonic Colours, Assassin's Creed 2,
my other 15 games on the currently playing list so I can start LA Noire.
E3. Hyped up. Woooooh.
> Bin:
Too Fucking Human. Bag of shit. Want to get home and play it some more.
> Expenditure
Infinity Blade (iOS) - £1.79
--
Zo
> Play:
Fallout: New Vegas - level 40 now (cap with 2 x DLC's), sort of touching
the final stages of the main quest, still haven't decided if I'll
support the NCR or go for an independent Vegas. Thought I'd have my
second go at Dead Money - and it confirms my experience of my first go
at it. It's survival horror. It might be well done survival horror.
You lose all your stuff, and have to basically battle your way through
some quests, traps and strong bad guys with only the gear you can find -
which sounds like Fallout, but this is Fallout stripped back. Anyway,
it's oppressive, and monotonous. The location is small, and made to
feel big by forcing you to take complex routes to get from A to B.
There's a gas you can't survive in, radio signals which will kill you
and 3 companions.
Some of it's well done (one of the companions in particular is
excellent), but mostly I just *want*it*to*finish*. I'm tired of killing
*another* guy in a hazmat suit, I'm tired of running around another
corner into a pocket of gas, I'm tired of getting lost *again* despite
the quest marker. It's like the worst bits of the DC ruins from F3 all
over again. There are moments of pleasure - like standing high, high,
high above the bad guys and grenading the shit out of them, but mostly
it's just monotonous gruelling survival horror.
Over 113 hours invested now in total, in this one play through.
> Want:
> Diablo 3 (PC)
Maybe
> Mass Effect 3 (PC)
Probably, 360 though.
> Bin:
Working for a living.
--
Tony Evans
I'm trying to revive uk.media.films - why not join me there?
[ anything below this line wasn't written by me ]
I'm playing through this too at the minute, and totally agree - it's a
great game. The splitting of areas into connected mini-maps is a
clever workaround of the PSP's limitations but I fear it may get old
before the end (and I was disappointed to see VC3 does the same). You
just don't get the same sort of epic scenarios seen in the original.
Still, there are plenty of gameplay improvements in other areas that
might make it tough to go back (I have been meaning to revisit it to
complete all the missions on hard). I hope you haven't somewhat
spoiled the original for yourself by playing this first!
One flaw they haven't improved is the enemy AI. When you see a scout
stop just outside your base camp and the CPU end its turn even though
it has several moves left you feel like your survival was cheap. And
conversely the only ideas they seem to have about increasing
difficulty is to ramp up enemy numbers. This was a flaw the first one
had in spades - the hard and very hard missions basically involved
stepping outside the game and playing the rules to breaking point to
win. For example, you would find your squad of 5 or so immediately
surrounded by 30 enemies!
Not to complain though, it's utterly brilliant even with these
problems!
I've read about all the ways that the two games are different, and I think
that for me those qualities are largely cosmetic. I didn't expect that the
setting would be so inspiring, although the actual combat did take a while
to click with me. I'm sure that far from spoiling the experience, the
first game will end up being a fuller meal.
>One flaw they haven't improved is the enemy AI. When you see a scout
>stop just outside your base camp and the CPU end its turn even though
>it has several moves left you feel like your survival was cheap. And
>conversely the only ideas they seem to have about increasing
>difficulty is to ramp up enemy numbers.
I've always dismissed such imbalance as a way of illustrating the epic
heroism of the protagonists. It's a fanwank of course, but given the
geometric assortment of arrangements it's simply not practical to have AI
that works the odds the way a human would, unless you'd be satisfied with
ten minutes of calculation between turns. I don't miss the old 8-bit
computer chess games *that* much. :)
-KKC, who can't feed the cat due to a pending vet visit.
>Portal 2 (360)
>I got stuck. I might be stupid.
I got stuck three times, I think. Two of those I'd not considered all
the possibilities of the gels that were available; the other was
because I hadn't spotted where to go next.
Are you aware that bouncy gel will boing turrets if you throw it at
them?
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"All power corrupts, but absolute power is kind of neat"
> Play:
FAST Racing League (Wii Ware) - pretty good futuristic racer, which
supports both tilt and stick control (though I wouldn't want to play it
with tilt given the track designs). The Ikaruga-ish phase-shifting
gimmick doesn't add much TBH, but it's harmless enough and you quickly
get used to it. The game gets properly hard at times, probably because
it really badly wants to be F-Zero GX. What usually saves that from
getting too frustrating is that you always get to race all four tracks
in a league no matter how badly you do, and you only have to finish
third overall to unlock the next league. In fact it's a bit odd that
there seems to be essentially no reward for getting more than third
place, short of having three or two stars shown on the menu rather than
one. I'll admit I was glad of that for the Ion leagues, which are
probably somewhere near GX's Master difficulty.
Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) - some of this, mostly remembering how
dubious my Arena skills are while struggling to get various coins.
> Want:
Nothing.
> Bin:
FAST having precisely one camera angle available. The one they provide
is tolerable, but it's predictably near the ground and I would have
preferred a higher one.
Trying to help some HR 50 players on MHT get past the Alatreon urgent.
I'm beginning to see why most high-HR players seem to avoid doing that -
which I'm sure only makes the situation worse. If you do ever try to
help you end up almost soloing it, while trying to carry three HR 50s as
they compete to see who can die and/or quit the fastest.
-Rus.
>Play:
Bayonetta (X360) - playing through again after watching the developer
commentaries at http://platinumgames.com/tag/developer-commentary/ ,
such an ace game even if it does move too quickly for my eyes (or
brain) to keep up sometimes!
Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast) - Not far from the end of the story now,
so I'm going treasure huntin'. I remember a linked set of three or
four Black Pirate battles against some pseudo-nemesis, twin girls
maybe? I've not seen them this playthrough, perhaps they were Gamecube
only.
>Want:
Alice 2 (X360)
Child of Eden (X360, might borrow a Kinect off someone)
Ico/SoTC HD (would require a PS3, and might not be this year now)
The Last Guardian (likewise)
Skyrim (probably Windows since it doesn't seem likely for Mac)
>Bin:
>
>So many games to play, not enough time.
Aye. That's the main one, although having the girlfriend *not*
commandeering the telly for the whole bloody long weekend while it was
wet and raining would have made a lot more gaming time.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
Many people in this group spent their school years taking illogical, pointless
orders from morons and having their will to live systematically crushed.
And people say school doesn't prepare kids for the real world. -- Rayner, asr
that's a benefit of being a PC gamer ;-)
>In article <aeg9u6t3k4gv0dm38...@4ax.com>,
>jai...@sometimes.sessile.org says...
>>
>>
>> Aye. That's the main one, although having the girlfriend *not*
>> commandeering the telly for the whole bloody long weekend while it was
>> wet and raining would have made a lot more gaming time.
>>
>> Cheers - Jaimie
>
>that's a benefit of being a PC gamer ;-)
My main computer (27" screen) is in the same room, and she commandeers
*that* for iPlayer stuff. Grr!
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"Doesn't the futility of it all depress you, Bernard?"
"Not really, Minister. I'm a civil servant."
Little Big Planet (PS3)
My PS3 arrived! Yay! My HDTV is still away being repaired and the PS3 only
came with an HDMI lead! Boo!
I worked my way around this problem by taking the kids (and PS3) round to my
parents for the day and hijacking their TV. I'm sure they weren't planning
on using it for anything else. :)
Anyway, LBP: It's quite lovely, isn't it? Very, very pretty, and charming to
play. I only got a few plays through the initial levels before my son took
over and spent most of the day rattling through the level creation tutorials
and building weird and wacky things. Safe to say that this is going to be a
big winner with him.
Motorstorm (PS3)
Bought solely because it was cheap (£5) and exclusive and something I could
just dive into. It's nothing special, at all. The visuals are OK, but the
handling is horrible and the semi-open-world/multiple routes thing just made
me feel lost half of the time.
FIFA 11 (360)
The only thing I played on the 360 all weekend - I can't bring myself to
play on the blurry little CRT any more. However, Ipswich Town defied the
pundits by taking 6 points from Sampdoria in their opening fixtures. There
was much rejoicing.
> Want:
My TV back (RL)
Toshiba Service Centre status page now reports it has been fixed, cleaned
and packed, but doesn't yet list a despatch date. Get an arsing move on, I
say. I want it back so I can a) connect the PS3 b) start L.A. Noire and c)
start Heavy Rain. I have a lot of gaming ahead of me...
> Bin:
>
> So many games to play, not enough time.
That, as ever...
Also, 28" CRTs. HD has spoiled me - I could never go back.
--
Chris
GT: SomethingWitty
Sword & Poker (iOS) - I was ill a lot last week so loved my iPod Touch,
completed S&P. It's a great RPG with a poker twist. Looking forward to
playing the sequel.
Cash Cow (iOS) - I got sucked into playing this, it's an ok match em up type
affair with some puzzle sections not bad for free. Very few levels completed
in a few hours.
Splinter Cell Conviction (360)
Playing on realistic I have not come across a few sections where it is
tough, I kept on trying to get pass one section where the alarm sounds and
you have get to the end of a hallway whilst the doors are automatically
closing. After 7 or 8 attempts I let Abbas have a go who done it on his
first attempt doh !!
Another section you have to get pass some laser beams, after umpteen
attempts I managed this, the story is done in flashbacks after having a week
out due to illness I'm a bit lost with it.
> Want:
Lots of games & I'm sure lots more after E3 but I have approx 20 un-played
games on the shelf now. The PS3 is gathering dust & I have forgotten about
playing anything on the wii now. Don't even tell me about the iPod Touch.
Just not enough hours in the day for a Father, Husband & gamer.
I'll be buying loads for Abbas to play I'm sure but for myself only Arkham
City still.
Abbas is interested in wanting to write his own app so I need to look at the
Android SDK & see what I can do to get him going.
> Bin:
> So many games to play, not enough time.
Think I may have covered this in Want but THIS
> Expenditure
A few iOS purchases nothing else.
--
gospvg
[..getting old and still playing video games..]
http://www.gospvg.com
> Splinter Cell Conviction (360)
> Playing on realistic I have not come across a few sections where it is
> tough, I kept on trying to get pass one section where the alarm sounds and
> you have get to the end of a hallway whilst the doors are automatically
> closing. After 7 or 8 attempts I let Abbas have a go who done it on his
> first attempt doh !!
I almost broke a controller at this point playing on normal. The cutscene
you are forced to watch between each attempt does not help at all.
-a
I was playing the tutorial of Frozen Synapse which, despite some key
differences, I think can be lumped into a similar category as Valkyria
Chronicles 2. i.e. Turn based squad combat.
I have to say, I do rather prefer the more embellished ValkyriaK to the
rather sterile FrozenS. I find it easier to order around and protect
characters than sprites.
>>Want:
>
> Supreme Commander/Supreme Commander 2 (PC/360) - That's enough slashes to
> entertain an army of female Star Trek fans. I'm told that the first game
> is unplayable on the 360, whereas the sequel displeaseed many PC players?
I'm not a fan of them because all the units look the same. Generic
shiny boxes. I find it easier to order around and protect characters
than generic shiny boxes. Hence why I spent most of my weekend playing
Red Alert 3, which has got very strong characterisation.
> Total Annihilation (PC) - Just to round out the set. Wonder how it
> performs under Windows 7?
I only ever played TA:Kingdoms. It had lovely level design but my PC
wasn't up to drawing >70 3D characters onscreen and ground to a halt.
I've never revisited it.
--
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
I'm hoping there are not any more annoying sections like that ahead.
I'm nearly at the end of the game I think just saved at the start to the
Reservoir level.
My 4 year old boys torture me getting me to unlock things and clear
levels on their DS games, good to know at some future point in family
life the roles will be reversed ;-)
My initial plan with the DLC was to wait for the GOTY edition but the
graphics engine has aged so much on the game. I look at Rage and drool at
playing that instead. I like that they have tried something different with
the DLC instead of going for the usual more game quests add-on. 2 more DLC
to be released I think in June & July.
LOL I did help Abbas earlier in the day get an achievement on Red Dead
Redemption something to do with the horseshoe game, so he owed me. After 7
or 8 attempts I was just getting too frustrated with it. What annoyed me was
that he done it on his first attempt :(
I admire their attempts to do something different. Can't remember if I
said it here, but there were complaints about the Zion DLC saying it's
just one big open space with not much in it. The reality is, there's an
excellent story in the place, you just have to go and find it. So I
found something to enjoy and the setting didn't get in the way. With
Dead Money, the setting is getting me down.
I hate getting lost because the game forces you to go from location A,
through a door into a room, into location B (with a loading screen),
through another bit, and back into location A (with a loading screen) to
get to something that is essentially 2 inches away on the map.
It feels like a forced mechanic to make the game world feel bigger by
making you travel over it several times.
Having said that, the story in Dead Money is engaging, and the diaries
and logs are just as interesting as ever, I'm just not sure I wanted
survival horror and it's really getting to me.
I see Interplay are suffering financially, so the Fallout world is still
a confused piece of IP. I wonder if now is the right time to launch my
bid to release Fallout: British Isles. I keep meaning to write up a
timeline for Britain that follows the main US timeline with links to the
European stuff. Maybe I will.
Lego Ratpies (360)
Completed it about an hour ago. Most bugged (in a bad way - others have
been quite good bugs) Lego game I've played. Mind you, it's also the
only one I've played before the first patch. It's great though, but much
shorter than Harry Potter.
Katamari Forever (PS3)
My friend's first PS3 game came today. Playedit a bit this morning.
Aside from shit controls, it's ace. Like how it does alternating new and
old-remixed levels.
Goat Recon (3DS)
only one more mission though.
> Want:
Skyrim, Batman, Lego Star Wars 3, Dead or Alive 3DS. 3DS eShop (next
Monday!!).
> Bin:
PS3s.
PSN. No wait, that's already in the bin.
> Expenditure
Trackmania DS - £5
--
Sent from my iPhone
Yeah, but it's currently under attack again by at least two different
hacking groups. So I don't hold out much hope.
>
> Also, 28" CRTs. HD has spoiled me - I could never go back.
This weekend we ordered what my primary school teacher wife refers to as a
Big Eff Off Telly on a kind of mutually egged on whim.
It's not *that* big tbh at 40" but will be replacing our 4 year old 22" (I
think) CRT and will be the first time we've had anything so modern in the
house.
Looks like I might be able to okay Dead Rising at last.
Carl.
I'm shocked that you hold at least SOME hope for Sony.
/faints
--
qt
>Play:
Forgot to say - played the 360 avatar poker game thing which I can't
remember the name of. Played quite a few ranked tournament games which I
really enjoy. Still suffers from 'this isn't real money' betting, but once
the two or three people from every game go all-in every hand and get wiped
out it tends to calm down.
--
Tony Evans [PSN: perception101] [XBL: EightBitTony]
I want my free shit, dammit.