wholehole

I've also got it. Only played a couple of hours and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Standard God of War fare; Graphically impressive, solid combat and some spectacular set pieces so far. Feels like there's something missing though, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Kind of agree with what Ryan and Patrick said on the Bombcast this week, feels like a straight-to-DVD version of a God of War game. The multiplayer is surprisingly fun, wasn't expecting that at all.

Tomb Raider - 100% - Cannot praise this game highly enough, I'll be replaying this numerous times in the future without a doubt. I'd expect a next-gen sequel which should be amazing but in the meantime I'll gladly lap up any DLC they decide to put out. The thanks message at the end was a nice touch, as was the reward for collecting all the GPS caches Sleeping Dogs - Zodiac Tournament Sleeping Dogs - Wheels of Fury God of War HD Super House of Dead Ninjas Dead Space 3 Antichamber DmC The Cave Bayonetta Dead Space Kentucky Route Zero Act 1

Definitely in. I was pumped about this when it was just a piece of DLC, getting a full game out of it instead is so much better. It's going to be fucking ridiculous.

Cheers Ed. Far cheaper than paying the 3-month sub, still worth it either way though. I've been using the PS3 far more since subscribing to this service.

You can do the Zodiac Tournament DLC whenever, there's no continuity really. The only thing that pops up is an "Are you sure?" message if you try and access it before you have all the combat upgrades. I had all but 3 I think and had no problem with the fights there. Any of the DLC accessed from the menu after pressing start on the title screen are set in their own little world. I think your money and cars transfer over but the character upgrades are usually inaccessible from the menu, probably because those DLC's give you specific abilities anyway.

Watched some of the Giant Bomb Quick Look today and will probably pick this up, looks really good. Enjoying the other DLC so I doubt this will disappoint. They had a bug too, were the car they were in flipped out high into the air, above the buildings. Pretty funny, but could grate if it happens too often.

Awesome shots, love what you did with the bike It's annoying it doesn't at least hover a bit. I'm running around as the Drunken Master currently, the Face moves are brillant.

Sleeping Dogs - Zodiac Tournament - This was a brilliant piece of DLC. Nailed the old kung fu movie vibe. Sleeping Dogs - Wheels of Fury - Criminally short, but you get a nice car out of it at the end. God of War HD Super House of Dead Ninjas Dead Space 3 Antichamber DmC The Cave Bayonetta Dead Space Kentucky Route Zero Act 1

Once you figure out the techniques they use to try and shit you up it does become a lot less scary. The thing with he Dead Space series is that it's always used the same techniques throughout. Ever since replaying the first game, whenever I walk into a new room I always scan for bodies and TK them. If I can pick them up then we're all good, if not, I know they're going to jump up at some point. Likewise with circumventing the Infectors. I will always stomp the limbs off any bodies strewn about a room later in the game so they can't create new Slashers to harass me. Kind of removes the threat they pose but I'd rather that than waste the ammo dealing with a host of Black Slashers. It ends up removing any tension, which is why the first game is still my favourite as I still remember how it used to scare me, something the sequels never did. Looking forward to see if Awakened can change this. I doubt it but I'm still hopeful.

God of War HD - This game is still awesome. Every time I pick it up I can't stop playing until it's finished. Super House of Dead Ninjas Dead Space 3 Antichamber DmC The Cave Bayonetta Dead Space Kentucky Route Zero Act 1

No, it's pretty much just outfits and vehicles, plus a couple of "level up quick" packs which got me to level 8 Cop, Triad and Face upon starting a new game. There's a few new missions dotted around that come with certain costumes though. Some of the new costumes are quite fun, the Monkey King one has you busting out a Bo staff when you finish combos, but it has no real purpose besides the look of it. The Wheels of Fury pack has some missions which have you retrieving parts for a futuristic car that has an EMP and roof-mounted machine guns, which is pretty cool. That one may be worth getting as well as Nightmare and Zodiac.

It's a pretty well optimised game, should be fine, plus it has loads of options to tweak if it starts getting a bit choppy. If your graphics card is a 2 gig'er, give the high res texture pack a go, makes the game look stunning.

Sweet. If they're only a quid or so I'll pick up a few of those DLC packs I think. Some of them, like the Nightmare DLC, look like a lot of fun. [EDIT] Everything for a tenner? Rude not to

Fuh. King. Hell. That whole section in the Solarii compound was just incredible The burning building in Uncharted 3 ain't got shit on this.

I'm channeling Mark Nutt the whole way, unless the game forces a gun on me, feels more survival-y. Plus, It is the Year of the Bow after all. Currently taking a break from the story and heading back through previous areas to clear up some of the collectables. I'm doing it more to waste time as I really don't want this to end.

Nice shots. I snapped that exact same location in the caves when I played It's tough not to just screenshot everything in Dear Esther, such a beautiful game.

Nothing I saw in that trailer supports this. Although I may just be way more desensitised to this stuff than I realised.

When this year began I assumed Dead Space 3 would be my personal GOTY. I hadn't even thought much about Tomb Raider at all, but I'm enjoying this a hell of a lot more than any of DS3. I agree with what you said about the optional tombs, DC. I'm more than willing to buy more as DLC, but it could've done with more of them in general.

I really liked the graphical style of The Darkness 2. It's nothing approaching modern games' fidelity but the textured cel-shading they've used works really well.

It sounds simple when you put it like that, but throwing money at it is only going to eat into their launch period targets. EA are fuckers and always have been. They don't really care about whether gamers are having a good time. We're a fickle bunch and they know that we'll find some other drama to moan about in a few days and this will be all but forgotten about. It was mentioned on one of Giant Bomb's features that Maxis and EA's relationship has become more and more strained over this whole thing. If I was at Maxis I'd be pretty pissed off at all the negative press from this as well, especially considering how long they've been working on it.

No, I totally agree that embedding the multiplayer was to force the DRM. It would be silly to think otherwise. It doesn't stop it from being a decision made early on and having game features built around and tied into it, whatever the reason was.

This is what I was saying about it being like an MMO. It's not just some random online functionality they've dropped in, it's a fundamental part of the game, built into it from the ground level.

As far as I understood it, the review copies were exactly the version the public would be playing, with the exception of not having hundreds of thousands of users trying to log on at the same time. This SimCity is basically an MMO, the label is just semantics though. You'd have a hard time playing it on your own by all accounts due to the way the game requires every city in the region to share it's resources. You could create 15 other cities and run them all if you want, but it goes against the game's fundamentals.

I like all of the McElroy brothers (Justin, Griffin and Travis) for their comedy, their podcast 'My Brother, My Brother and Me' is always hilarious, but their games journalism leaves a lot to be desired. The Polygon podcast, 'The Besties', which both Justin and Griffin are a part of, is a complete and utter joke as they never seriously discuss anything. One of the other hosts is always taking the piss out of something when they're describing the games they've been playing. The Polygon website and it's content always comes across as slightly pretentious, but the quality of their reviews and other coverage doesn't really back that up. I'm not sure that launch day issues should really affect the review of a game though. By all accounts Sim City looks amazing and probably deserves the 9.5 they gave it. The login issues won't be around forever, these things always happen with this type of game. Everyone always loses their shit over it, where a little bit of patience wouldn't go amiss. If you've ever tried to log on to WoW when a new expansion is released you'll take this stuff well in your stride.

A few shots from Tomb Raider. No TressFX though unfortunately Love that last shot. The detail of her teeth and the pores on her skin is incredible.