The "What are you playing?" topic.

[frogbeastegg]

I've got all but 4 of the achievements in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga now, and I'm banned from playing it unless my boyfriend is there on pain of making him Very Upset. He's a bit miffed that I finished half of it in an afternoon while ill.



After weeks of saying I might, I have started Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. The first few hours are reputedly the worst part of the game and a struggle for most gamers, as it's quite a unique JRPG. I'm finding that to be quite true. The only way to heal my characters is to fork out 60 zenny for an item which heals 50 HP. Sounds reasonable until you realise you only get around 300 zenny for clearing most of the first dungeon, and that the weakest character has over 100HP and the stronger well over 300. I'm doing well enough in the battles, despite having little understanding of the combo system. Once I find a boss I'm going to be stomped, I suspect. As for the save system! Oh, the headache! It doesn't help that the manual describes the system used in the Japanese and American versions of the game, talking about a feature which was removed entirely from the PAL version. Die and chose this option and you keep X, lose Y and parts of your save game are altered, choose another option and lose everything but your save game isn't altered. Choose restore and you lose this that and the other, but retain some stuff. Choose restart and it's the same deal except you go back to the very beginning of the game instead of to your last save.

I think I understand it. So long as I don't think about it at all.

Having tried the straight approach I'm going to attempt a more sneaky one now. If I store the 5 healing items it gives you when you restore your game, then save and restore my game, that should give me 5 more healing items as well as keeping my previous 5 save. Add the 5 new healing items to my storage dump, and repeat a few times. Then I'll have enough to make it through the first areas to the part of the game where money is more plentiful. Um ... I think.



So many people talking Bioshock. I had a few games given me this Christmas, and the 360 version of Bioshock was one of them. As some may recall, I already have the PC version, which I began but had to abandon midway through. Starting a fresh game is something I've been wanting to do for a while. Looks like I'll be doing so on a console.

This is going to be interesting. I'm hopeless at FPS games when I have a mouse and keyboard. When I don't have a mouse and keyboard ...

[econ21]

The evil ending to Bioshock is quite exciting, in contrast to the tear-jerking good ending.

I think the final in-game stuff is the same, but the ending movies are different. You can see them on Youtube. I agree, the evil ending movie is impressive although I found the Schindler's List good ending one rewarding too.

He tried that, but it's so horrible to kill the little sisters, saw it once, was shocked, and never did it again. Yes I am a wuss.

I never tried it - I am an even bigger wuss - but I can imagine it. "Freeing" them is emotionally charged enough. Someone hear said the game makers were almost in tears when the actress did the voice work for the Little Sisters when "Mr Bubbles" dies - she put so much feeling into it.

Overall, I thought Bioshock was a good not great game, but the Little Sisters and Big Daddies were creations of genius.

[Geoffrey S]

I found it rather a cop-out that there are gameplay advantages to not killing little sisters; in my opinion the situation hinted at in previews, of clearly killing the little sisters to get an advantage in the game, would have suited the tone of the game far better and made the ending stronger. But I guess that wouldn't have made it through censors.

[Fragony]

- I am an even bigger wuss -

But your brother can beat up mine!!!

Wait, this isn't right.

[Paradox]

Currently playing Scene It! It's a fun game, the questions are very creative and the game in general is a great multiplayer challenge. Not to mention the fact that you can boost up your gamerscore easily with this game.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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EU3 with the Magna Mundi mod. Much preferred over vanilla (better balance, more events etc.).
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[Caeser The III]

wii:the godfather:blackhand edition(so fun! im the don on two profiles quite easy though. still fun)

myths for GTA SA: the ghost:quite scary itll appear at night time!(at cjs mom's house, her ghost)
mysterious death: go into a corner of cj's mom's house and cj will fall and die!

[Ferret]

CoD 4 and more CoD 4

Level 43 and counting.

reached level 55 started prestige mode and am at level 40 again.

[TinCow]

M2TW with Stainless Steel 4.1, and enjoying it tremendously. I'm giving serious consideration to buying Kingdoms just so that I can play Stainless Steel 5.1 (and eventually 6.0).

[mrdun]

What apart from Rome?!

Fifa 08
NBA Live 08, not single player as its useless against comp. Should be getting an ethernet box thing for my ps2/ upgrading to xbox 360 with live

[Viking]

reached level 55 started prestige mode and am at level 40 again.

What is that?

Level 54 now and tired of silencers, endlessly nade-dogding, shotguns, light machine guns, campers and what not.

A server with only three certain perks and a certain weapon allowed would be nice, such that the round result would reflect skill rather than weapon choice.

[Spartan198]

More games than I can name,but off the top of my head:

PS3
WWE SVR '08
Motostorm
Heavenly Sword
Assassin's Creed
Conan
Rainbow Six: Vegas

PS2
All GTAs
God of War 1 & 2
Colosseum: Road to Freedom
Spartan: Total Warrior
Resident Evil 4
"" Code Veronica
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance

XB360
DOAX2
Rumble Roses XX
SplinterCell: DA
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 1 & 2

XBox
Predator: Concrete Jungle

Gamecube
Prince of Persia 1,2,& 3
All Resident Evils except 4 & Code Veronica (see PS2)
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes

PC
All Total Wars except M2 & Kingdoms

....that's pretty much a short list,but there's probably several more!

[Geoffrey S]

Portal! It's pretty good, in the sense that I haven't had so much fun and laughed this much in any recent game I can remember.

Oh, and I took over Half Life 2 Episode 2 (which looks excellent BTW) briefly while a flatmate cooked a pancake. Unfortunately, it was near the end where you suddenly end up facing about three Striders and Hunters at once. Didn't last long.

[Fragony]

pretty good

I have seen 'absolute genius' spelled wrong before but this is teh uber. And the (pan)cake is a lie

[frogbeastegg]

I completed Bioshock this evening with 49/51 achievements. The two I didn't get require the game to be on hard. Overall a good game, let down by a saggy final third.

Highlights:
Shotgunning splicers in time to classical music at a certain point in the theatre.
Not dying! At all! Not even once!
Rapture itself. From rotting fisheries to plush apartments the city had style and personality.
The music and voice acting in general. I loved it when you reached those set pieces acompanied by a period song.
The narrative. Watching all the pieces come together as I discovered the audio logs gave me a feeling I haven't had since System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.

Lowlights:
Missing splicers at point blank range with a shotgun due to my ineptitude with FPS games, especially when played with a pad.
A certain bit near the end best summed up by the following quote:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can't see a thing in this helmet!

The fact the machine gun fires pellets of play-dough until you upgrade it and get some anti-personnel rounds.
Hacking mini game. Annoying on the PC version and downright fiddly on the 360. Hurrah for the buy out and hack tool options.



I'm tempted to play through it again on hard without using vita chambers. It would consolidate my skills ... or completely destroy any illusions I have that I'm now faintly half decent in a crap kind of way at FPS. Having 49/51 achievements is somewhat irksome. Does anyone know how much harder hard mode really is?

[Kekvit Irae]

Does anyone know how much harder hard mode really is?

Without Vitachambers? It will make you cry.

[Craterus]

I'm nearing the end of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, I think. So I'll be moving on to Contracts soon. Then Blood Money.

Enjoyed the game so far, although I completely missed the trick on some missions (30+ kills including innocents and a "Mass Murderer" rating). Definitely adds to the replay value though, I'm determined to get Silent Assassin ratings.

[Fragony]

HA Elite Beat Agents, every minute is the most fun you will ever have. Why did I keep this on the shelve

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Started my very first XL campaign (dumb! I'm even credited in the readme ) today as Norway/Early. It's also my first MTW game with large unit size.
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[Bob the Insane]

Port Royale 2, I just suddenly got the hankering for the whole pirate thing...

Got BF2 working with my widescreen resolution...

Still fire up CoD4 MP occasionally for mindless fun...

Thinking about firing up LtC Gold (I honestly never thought I would tire of the TW formula, gods, I hope Empires is good)...

On the 360 trying to force myself into finishing Ace Combat 6. Great fun, but the briefing are directly translated from Japanese and don't exactly make sense all the time.

I am also nearing the end of Stranglehold...

[frogbeastegg]

Without Vitachambers? It will make you cry.

Oh. :returns Bioshock to the shelf:

In that case, I am currently playing ... nothing at all. I haven't felt like playing Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter again since that initial dabble, and it's been weeks since I took a game to work. There's nothing about which takes my immediate fancy.

[Kekvit Irae]

In that case, I am currently playing ... nothing at all.

No Mass Effect? You make me sadf :(

[Tratorix]

Completed both Mass Effect and Halo 3 a week or so ago. No real complaints on either account. I've now been sucked into Oblivion and am having quite a lot of fun wandering around and exploring random caves for loot.

[Craterus]

Oh, I'm also playing Football Manager 2008. After slating it for such a long time, I decided to try it out. So addictive. But, for someone who knows very little about football, I'm doing really well.

[Csargo]

My very first EU3 campaign as Prussia

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

EU3
Battlefield 2
M2TW Long Road (not much)
WiC Online
HOI2: Doomsday with Mod33 English Translation (needs some fixing, but overall good)

[CountArach]

FEAR: Extraction Point

I'm loving the extra tension it adds to my favourite FPS ever made, but the levels are a bit blegh.

[Fragony]

Oh. :returns Bioshock to the shelf:

In that case, I am currently playing ... nothing at all. I haven't felt like playing Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter again since that initial dabble, and it's been weeks since I took a game to work. There's nothing about which takes my immediate fancy.

Warhammer 4000k squad command is excellent, got bad reviews everywhere but it's great. Turnbased tactical goodness, all the cheese all the fun.

[Adrian II]

I have just finished Crysis on Delta (=Expert). Love it.

I have written a Crysis walkthrough in Dutch. I could easily translate it and put it up here. Any takers?

[frogbeastegg]

No Mass Effect? You make me sadf :(

Mass Effect is an important game. There's a lot hanging on it - if it makes me feel the same way as Jade Empire I shall conclude I have gone off Bioware games unless and until they do something different. Jade Empire was so much deja vu I was able to accurately guess the entire plot for the game after the opening sections!

I started playing them with Baldur's Gate, and have loved every single game except Jade Empire. Out of all the developers who made the games I loved as a child, Bioware are the sole survivors. The others are dead, absorbed, or churning out rubbish. Not liking Mass Effect will mean the end of a gaming era for me.

I don't see much to inspire confidence that I won't run into Bastila Mk5 and co yet again. Rather the opposite. So I don't want to play the game. If not for Jade Empire I would have played Mass Effect over Christmas. I hadn't looked forward to a game so much since KOTOR II

Warhammer 4000k squad command is excellent, got bad reviews everywhere but it's great. Turnbased tactical goodness, all the cheese all the fun.

I'll have a look at some reviews.



Inspired by my Bioshock success I tried the lauded Half life 2. I brought the Orange Box purely for Portal; it seemed like a waste to have 4 games lying around untouched. Half Life 2 scores blergh/10, and returns to my shelf never to be touched again. Fiddly controls, boring scenery, boring fights, weedy weaponry, and level design which made me think of one of those on-rails corridor shooters even though I was outside occasionally. The plot might have been decent if followed further (I bailed midway through the bit on the water-ski) but the game was far too unenjoyable to slog on and find out.

It did make me appreciate Bioshock a deal more.