The "What are you playing?" topic.

[frogbeastegg]

I have picked Ninja Gaiden 2 back up after a few weeks of not bothering. I got bored midway through my dragon sword run - it was too easy. I'm going to drag myself through the last few levels and then start my warrior run.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is ... er ... well, look, I started playing Fallout 1 instead. Just for a bit. Change of PC gaming scenery; I've been working through NWN2 for a couple of months now and, good as it is, I need a break.

I'm using the Good Old Games version of Fallout instead of the White Label disc based version I used the first time I attempted to play the game. It's much better! It runs at a smoother frame rate, has no lagtime on the cursor, is stable, and I haven't seen any trace of the numerous technical problems which gradually destroyed my first go at the game. There's also background music, which I swear there wasn't before. The game is so much better when the graphics don't vanish and get replaced with a completely black screen every few minutes. It's impossible to play properly when you spend more time scrubbing the cursor all over the screen to bring the visuals back than doing anything else.

Dead Space. Asteroids, worst idea in an otherwise good game ever, whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired on the spot.

My new game+ save is sat there on level 4, right next to the cannon. I left it there promising myself that I'd play the asteriod section tomorrow. That was 7 months ago. I'd really like to play Dead Space again; that one section was so bad it's unlikely that I will.

[CountArach]

Playing PBEM games of Campaign Waterloo and Campaign Jena-Auerstaedt

[Crazed Rabbit]

Started playing the Dominions 3 demo sometime around 8pm. Finished when the demo ended and I saw that it was 1:41am.

CR

[Fragony]

My new game+ save is sat there on level 4, right next to the cannon. I left it there promising myself that I'd play the asteriod section tomorrow. That was 7 months ago. I'd really like to play Dead Space again; that one section was so bad it's unlikely that I will.

The truly bad news is that there are TWO asteroid sequences. They are actually pretty easy, shoot at the centre and ignore the rest and you should make it. But bad bad call. Game gets really good, make yourself a cup of tea, relax, and do it.

[frogbeastegg]

The truly bad news is that there are TWO asteroid sequences. They are actually pretty easy, shoot at the centre and ignore the rest and you should make it. But bad bad call. Game gets really good, make yourself a cup of tea, relax, and do it.

Yes. The secondshooting section is so much easier that it's not funny; it's like they accidentally put them in the game in the wrong order. The asteriod section runs on a semi random script; some attempts at it are easier than others due to the mix of rocks it sends.

I finished the game when it was first released and enjoyed it tremendously. It's my favourite out of last year's Christmas rush; I had more fun with it than with the more popular games like Fallout 3, and others I had been looking forward to, like Prince of Persia, turned out to be less than good. Dead Space came out of nowhere in a genre I don't usually like, and won my love.



I returned to Blue Dragon. It's the first game I got on my xbox 360; I got right near the end and then shiny new games came along and distracted me. I'm polishing off the optional bosses and dungeons, completing my item and monster records, and levelling my characters up to the max. Then I shall complete the plotline. The game got a lot of bad reviews when it first came out and it has a terrible demo, but it's loved by most of those who gave it a chance. It's an old school JRPG with a few innovations which liven the experience up and reduce the tedium often found in the genre. Shame the plot and characters are childish drivel. Maromaro needs to die. That or stop blasting my ears with his shrill, loud voice. Preferably die. Then he'll be quiet forever and ever and I'll never be subjected to him again.

It's a better game than the better rated Eternal Sonata. That game looked pretty, and was as boring as could be.

[Monk]

Just when it seemed like I couldn't get any more shallow, I've managed to drain a little more out of the pool. I've wanted to play Devil May Cry 4 ever since i finished 3 on the ps2 years back. Dante seems as insanely over the top in his one liners as before and the combat looks as monotonous as ever, but still, I want to give it a spin for some mindless hack and slash. Along with DMC4, CoD: WaW is also on the way, set to arrive sometime next week. getting tired of gears 2 multiplay so i ordered World at War while I wait for Modern combat 2. More on these two games next time.

In the meantime, and with news of both Assassin's Creed 2 and ME2 coming in droves I've loaded up both originals and have been putting them through the paces as a bit of a refresher course. It's been a while since i had enough patience to get beyond eden Prime in Mass effect, but continuing my level 41 biotic shepard seems to have been the missing peice. I'd forgotten how fun Adepts were to play, there's really nothing like juggling geth troops with a biotic heavy party

In other news, Guitar Hero: Metallica has broken my Guitar hero controller. I was playing Battery and suddenly midway through the solo the strum bar completely stopped responding. Checked the batteries, tried strumming up, no go. It just refuses to work which makes me really sad. So now I have a $50 paper weight in the shape of a guitar..

Tried to play through GTA4: The lost and the damned again but I just can't bring myself to replay it. While Johnny is a decent protagonist, he doesn't really have the staying power that Niko does. Not to mention the climax of the story is even more unrealistic than the idea of an underground mutant race of super soldiers bent on human annihilation (the plotline of gears 2, and that's pretty bad..). It was a huge spirit breaker to see Rockstar cop-out with such a cliche and unsatisfying ending. Oh well. Maybe their next DLC will be better.

[johnhughthom]

Just about to dive into Freedom Force. I've been interested in trying it for years, just never got around to it. It's £4.49 for both FF games on Steam and I didn't even have to get out of my chair. Had to give it a go, would be rude not to.

[Monk]

Call of Duty: World at War.

(sigh) I really wasn't looking forward to playing this game's single-player. In fact I dare say i bought it for one (AND ONLY ONE) reason, which was the multiplayer. But before I can unlock the Nazi Zombie mini-game I have to finish the game (you win this round Treyarch..) What can i say though? After Modern Combat two years ago, the fps community got knocked on its back end as the CoD franchise, which had been faltering after two lack-luster titles, completely reinvented itself with perhaps my favorite shooter of the modern era of gaming. It introduced an innovative Multiplayer model with super weapons and unlockables, gadgets, levels and challenges. In a word, it was fun. How would Activision follow that? They got Treyarch to release a copy+paste WW2 Shooter. Innovative.

I'll just get the pink five-hundred pound hippo out of the way first, this game just isn't fun. You play each mission on a rail, shooting your way through terrible AI and doing your best not to notice that you could be playing something else. Really, I just wanted to get to the end of this game to play the Nazi-Zombie mini-game, and i think the game figured that out when i popped it in because it just was not fun. The AI was horrid, the hit detection (at times) seemed to go completely hay-wire and not register headshots, and to top it off the pacing is, in a word, schizophrenic.

To give you an idea what I mean about the pacing, you'll play two American missions, then you go play two soviet missions and so on. By the time you adjust to being in one theatre you're violently ripped into the other. I know what they were trying to do, they were trying to emulate Modern Warfare, the huge difference is that in Modern Warfare the two campaigns were tied together by a main narrative. In WaW the two campaigns are as different as you can imagine and the sudden changes from one theatre of operation to the other completely disjointed what little attachment I had with my not-faceless comrades.

The plot is the typical WW2 shooter where your comrades, with the exception of four (two for each campaign.) are a complete faceless affair. Call of Duty helped set itself apart with amazing visuals and some overall decent characterization, but unfortunately Treyarch has not followed Infinity Ward's example and made even your CO (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland of all people!) a complete dull affair. How in the world did they make Kiefer Sutherland dull?! The game is a shameless "war is great, no wait it's bad... did i mention it's kinda great" flipflop featuring psychotic comrades who will murder their enemy in wanton hatred. After finishing the single-player, the Live! community looked like atea-party in comparison.

The last blow to my sanity comes in that, while the multiplayer is generally really fun many of the maps just feel too large. Playing yesterday morning before class I spent an agonizing 30 seconds running aimlessly around a map looking for something to shoot before getting snipped. That said, the Multiplayer is pretty fun, my main complaint is that since it's WW2 us gadget freaks who loved all the unlockables in Modern Combat will be sorely disappointed. Your potential arsenal isn't anything to laugh at, but lots of the weapons feel the same. All of the single-shot rifles feel the same as the next, for instance

My recommendation? If you're deadset on another shooter for your 360/Ps3/Wii, then WaW will offer up some impressive visuals and a very fun Multiplayer mode (not to mention Nazi Zombies when you finish the campaign). If you have to own this, then plow through the campaign once and never look back. Maybe i'll even see you on the battlefield. Dismissed!

Devil May Cry 4 next post.

[frogbeastegg]

That's Blue Dragon completed. I'm tempted to write that was the worst RPG ending I've seen but the I remembered Eternal Sonata and it has to be a draw between the two. Long, nonsensical, and packed full of attempted twists which made no sense at all. My brain hurts. The final verdict: nice gameplay, nice graphics, childish characters, story which starts out infantile and ends up wacko.

I am now beginning Operation Overload(TM), in which I shall play through short game after short game in a bid to make my to-play pile lower. Short game is defined as one generally acknowledged as having a total playtime of 10 hours or less for a single SP run through. First up is Heavenly Sword, which is supposedly around 6 hours long.

Devil May Cry 4 next post.

I'll be interested in what you think of that one. I did like the first in the series, and picked up a cheap copy of this one a while ago.