The "What are you playing?" topic.

[Husar]

I've got GTA4, if you can call that a shooter, BF Bad Company and CoD4 for the PS3.
Well, and FarCry 2 but that isn't all that great anyway.
I'd also love to have you shoot me.

[Chimpyang]

Project Reality mod for Bf2. ETW and Footy Manager 09.

Little big planet is indeed awesome. I remember coming 5th for one glorious day on the scoreboard for one of the levels when we played it with 3 people. I don't think we're there anymore.....

The calculator was pretty cool. Must have taken ages to program!

[Togakure]

Heh, found a free, complete, easy to install "abandonware" version of the oldie but goodie, System Shock (the original) while googling around. I only played through it once eons ago, so I'd practically forgotten the entire story. I'm almost done, on the bridge level now.

Still fun, though the controls are a minor annoyance--I guess this game came out before WASD became a standard. It's interesting to consider how many of the newer games of this genre seem to have drawn from SS1.

[Fragony]

GTA: Chinatown Wars. Awesome, I never really cared for the 3d versions personally, to have this on my DS is a godsend. Better then GTA and GTA 2, and it completely annihilates anything from the 3d era. Why so serious? Truly amazingly sharp cell shaded graphics, no slowdown, how the hell did they pull this of? Glad they did.

[frogbeastegg]

I'm playing Enchanted Arms, the first JRPG released on the xbox 360. It's a bit of a marmite title; plenty of people loathe it with the burning of a thousand suns, others love it like the fluffiest, cutest hamster in the world. I quite like it but don't love it, which breaks my marmite analogy. Gah!

The battle system is quite similar to that of the HoMM series. They are turn based, set on a grid, your 4 characters on one side, the enemy party on the other. Position, the correct use of the correct power, and other such tactical thoughts are a must if you want to succeed. It's not another entry from the school of "hold down X to spam basic attack!" In an excellent move, you can fully automate a battle and speed the animation up; this makes passing the random battles relatively painless. The automate AI does a good job of handling the reasonably complex battle system. Battles even have opera music, just like HoMM.

If you have the right sense of humour the game's quite funny. The idiot protatgonist telling the idiot heroine that she's high-maintenace after saving her from her latest bid to win the "Stupidest character in a JRPG" award mostly made up for the urge to bang my head against a brick wall, for example. The story itself is a load of mad guff about a boy with an arm which breaks enchantments, god-like evil robots flying around the sky, and ... er, I dunno. Thankfully the plot knows it's inane and pokes fun at itself from time to time. This must be the first JRPG I have played where the idiot protagonist is called an idiot by everyone he meets, instead of being passed off as a cool, brooding loner with a heart of gold. Poor Atsuma, his best friends keep telling him he has a single brain cell.

It's a launch era game so it's not overly pretty and has parts which feel clumsy and clunky. The menu systems could have used more thought as they force the player to make more button presses than is necessary at certain points. The entire game lacks polish. The English voice acting ranges from acceptable to nasty. The music and sound is entirely forgetable, except for one area where they had the sound of a drill boring into rock playing in the background. That made me want to mute the TV. I was in that area for over an hour.

Yeah. Ok but not great.

[Jolt]

How well do you know your world?

[frogbeastegg]

Finished Enchanted Arms with the good ending. The final 1/4 of the plot was completely

Prompted by the success of co-op Resi 5, I started co-op Gears of War with my boyfriend. We're playing on hardcore. So far it's ... uh ... um. Grey, brown, more grey, more brown, grey and brown. Enemies who look irritatingly similar to the AI allies when played in split screen mode. Awful, awful characters and plot which doesn't even manage to reach the highs (lows?) of enjoyable cheese. The weapons so far don't feel very fun to use. The grenades are especially blergh - I do not want to stand there vulnerable like a big fat target with steroid muscles twirling the thing around my head until the game decides to let me throw it; I want to aim and throw quickly! The cover system feels clumsier than I'd expect from a game based around the concept. Ho hum. I shall try some more in singleplayer mode; if the opening levels are representative of the rest of the game we shouldn't waste our time with it.

I intend to replay Viking: Battle for Asgard. This time I'll try hard mode.

[Monk]

Gears of war. (the first)

I decided to pick up the original, i found a great deal on Amazon and payed under $30 for the collector's edition of Gears 1, while the normal edition is like $40!

For all my about Gears 2, i have to actually say it is a supperior title in comparison to its predesesor. I think the biggest change between 1 and 2 is the pacing. 2 never feels like it moves too fast, yet its pace is expertly tied into the plot (even though the plot is nothing special). You never feel like a task is too much to overcome, yet each of them present an "OH " moment that really gets your heart pumping.

In comparison, gears 1 feels like you're at a petting zoo. New enemies aren't introduced often enough to make you feel like the game is really after you. In gears 2, you're facing a new type of enemy every time you turn around. In gears 1 i went ages just fighting regular drones and grenadiers. Gears 1 feels too slow, and I have to say the moments where you have to fight Locust Berserkers is downright annoying and not fun. I am very happy they were never included in gears 2.

[frogbeastegg]

Hehe, Monk, should I accuse you of copying me?

Glad I'm not the only one who is finding Gears of War to be decidedly underwhelming. I am surprised you feel the same; is GoW2 really that much better?

[Monk]

Hehe, Monk, should I accuse you of copying me?

Glad I'm not the only one who is finding Gears of War to be decidedly underwhelming. I am surprised you feel the same; is GoW2 really that much better?

Honestly I'm just as surprised as you are. Being a college kid in the 18-24 range who owns a 360, I'm the very target that GoW focuses on.

Gears 2 is a good game imo, but i am hesitant to suggest it to you if you are not already a fan of the series. The GoW series is about as mainstream as you can get in modern gaming and frankly, if you didn't like the first I highly doubt that the second will sell you on the series. At its heart, you have to have fun with the core mechanics before you can enjoy all the shiny bells and whistles. That being said...

I have to say I love Gears 2. Yeah I blasted it to in my previous postings, but in retrospect I was a bit too hard on it.

There are some really sublime moments (like the levels that take place inside a giant worm and the monstrous bosses like the fish from the depths.) that really challenge you, while throwing you out of your element. You fight Brumaks and Reavers as if they were going out of style and in the first mission you end up face to face with a Grinder, something I've still not seen in the first game nearly four acts in. In GoW2, when I ended up in the main hall of a broken down hotel facing waves of Locust from all sides and it was the first mission, i knew what kind-of game i was playing.

Gears 2 is a game I will be playing for a good while, thanks in part to Horde mode multiplayer, but if you don't feel this is the kinda game you'd enjoy then don't be afraid to stay away. It's the Halo 3 argument: It's insanely popular but it's not for everyone.