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Played a few hours and it's been very, very good. It's very much another game that's taken more than a few pages from Uncharted's playbook, except it switches a wise-cracking protagonist for someone much more vulnerable and insecure. Well, at least to start with anyway. I've always loved the Tomb Raider series, the original TR was the first ever game I bought for the PS1 and I played it to death, but the series was massively in need of a complete reboot. They've done a fantastic job with this game and the character. Lara is almost unrecognisable from her hotpants wearing, confident predecessor. I say almost as they decided to stick with her two most distinguishing features for some reason. Cans . The sections where you squeeze through a gap or are only able to progress forwards are probably the most elegant way of disguising a load screen I can think of. It's totally seamless and in some case even adds to the experience by allowing Lara time to express how she's feeling.The same goes for the logs she records at some of the base camps, only a few lines of dialogue, but it adds so much. Each area seems to have a discreet sub-objective like smash 10 lanterns or burn 5 banners, and they only activate once you hit the first thing, you're not notified about it otherwise. I can see myself spending a chunk of time completing these as well as picking up all the collectables dotted around. I tried turning on the new TressFX hair technology but it looks a bit weird tbh. It also hits the framerate pretty hard in certain situations. It's a cool idea as game hair usually looks pretty rubbish, but it definitely needs tweaking a bit before making it standard.

i wasn't sure if i should start a thread for this as i know illdog is waiting on it (anyone else?) and i don't want to put a downer on it before he tries it so i'll start off by saying i got the arcade version of this over a year ago, and absolutely loved it, thought it was the best thing ever it's great how you collect gems from enemies and can use these to go into a slowdown/bullet time mode to get out of tight spots - just like the first espgaluda. this is playing by mostly ignoring scoring. then i tried to get a hang of the scoring and it just hurts my brain and makes me not like it, i understand the basics behind it, but regarding knowing what mode to use at what time there's so many options it's hard to know what to do - but i really want to give it another go now the port is out - i'm going to be downloading a lot of replays and just try and pick up some good ideas. here are the basics of the system for the arcade and 360 modes i tried to explain on another site: "in normal mode shooting enemies gives you green gems, you need these to go into the first slowdown mode (i don't know what they're called - the one where you tap the button), in the first slowdown mode killing enemies gives you gold from their bullets (like in espgaluda 1), to go into the second slowdown mode (hold the button) you need both gold and green gems, in the second slowdown mode when you kill an enemy, it's bullets dissapear briefly then double and head towards you and give you a big score multiplier (or something like that) - this is where you get all the points, or not in my case. in both slowdown modes i think you automatically use some of your bomb/barrier instead of dying, and there's the over mode where the bullets go faster, which happens when you run out of gold/green gems in the slowdown modes." if you're going for survival you can just ignore the second slowdown mode, although it's a good idea to use it on some bosses for points to get the extends - like the last pattern of the level 2 boss - it doesn't make the bullets follow you on the bosses either. The port also has a load of other modes - black label, arrange, omake, and some novice modes. i tried most of them: Arrange has different colour bullets (blue and red) you can cancel by using shot/laser (little bit like ikaruga), i didn't fully understand what was going on but i really liked what i played of this mode Omake needs to be unlocked by finishing one of the other modes (by credit feeding in my case), this also has some bullet canceling but it's based on proximity, the bullets close to you turn red and when you swap between the normal and slowdown mode these disapear, they also disapear when you're in some sort of powered up mode - i think when you get full jems and gold and you shoot something? unclear. anyway i liked this mode too although again didn't fully understand it. black label i didn't really like but maybe that's because i understood it even less, in the normal mode - enemy bullets turn into gold when you kill the enemy they came from, and the slowdown modes seemed to make it harder rather than easier, and there was some sort of forcefield around your ship so you can push bullets that are really close to hitting you out of the way but this seems to run out - i really hadn't a clue what was going on in this mode i hope i've not got any modes mixed up as i just gave them all a full run through last night.

I cant believe none of you guys are playing this!!! in fact, out of the people in my friends list, only one guy is playing it :'(. this series really doesnt deserve to have another instalment undersell! whinging aside http://www.mfgamers.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.gif, its awesome. It looks fantastic, and the sound is mind boggling, all the ambient noises and rolling orchestral flourishes are even better this time roun, and freaking scary. the whole thing is freaking scary!! been playing it with the lights out and headphones on, notifications turned off, and i actually feel wired and shaken after a couple hour session. so the technical stuff is just an improvement on the first games amazing effort, which is no mean feat in itself. but theyve really improved the gameplay and the story is shaping up to be better too. the new weapons are great, and using kinesis to pick up makeshift projectiles on the fly is a great addition. the more linear direction which sent shivers down my spine when i first heard about it actually does the game a service, makes you reaise how they couldve designed the first game in a similar way and it wouldve been better. no backtracking, just new enviroment after new enviroment as the game tries to show you all the different areas of the sprawl - its gruesome to see how different aspects of civilian life there have been buttraped by the necromorphs. they even hit the kiddy wing. --------------> its fecking awesome!!!!!

So I've spent a bit of time with this now, enough to give some impressions on it. Bear in mind this is a beta some some stuff wont be like this in the final game. Graphically it's very nice. Light sources are independent, and because of that so are the shadows. It all looks great and if the full game has similar attention to detail. Character models look well weathered and by the looks of things have all new animations for everything. Soundbites from each COG are mostly new, but a lot of sound assets have been reused from the previous 2 games. It sounds like all of Cole's quotes have just been copied and pasted into this beta. However, all the others have had context sensitive shout outs that fit the style of the game. Crass and funny, each set of will endear you to at least one of the characters when you finally get your hands on either the beta or the full game. Controls have been revamped, this time around your player feels a bit faster than back in the previous games. There's been a bit of tinkering which will throw you off when you first start player, but so far I can see the improvement. I dunno whether you guys have seen it before in other games, but some of them make you hold the button down while a ring fills up around the button to perform whatever action. This is used in GoW3 for very specific actions, like picking up weapons, ammo and performing executions. This means that you are no longer picking stuff up by accident when trying to revive people. It's a small alteration, but it really helps in those situations, and it adds to the game by making you think whether you really want to pick one of those power weapons up. I have no idea if bigger weapons have bigger times for picking up, it's not something I could really test because the game moves so fast. The maps seem decent enough, the stand out being the Shopping Mall and the Thrashball stadium. For some reason they decided that that the Market and Trenches were locked out for today and the maps that were available were locked into Team deathmatch. You probably don't need me to explain what TDM is. You have a set amount of lives, and when they have expired people no longer spawn. It's been done before and no doubt it will be seen again in future games. If it aint broke, don't fix it etc. I did notice that during my time playing that out of the two maps in rotation today, the fighting always took place in the same few places on the map. Anyone who has played Gears competitively will know that both teams will rush towards specific power weapons and fight for them until a victor is found. It's the same here, and I'm sure that it would be much more interesting if that in select games the central weapons move on a space so that teams are either fighting over a different weapon each round or fighting in a different area for the weapon the team wants. From what I've seen map wise, Horde mode is going to be really difficult, because even the areas that you could back yourself into are going to get hard to defend against eventually. The game itself moves really fast. It isn't the breakneck speed of Gears 1, but it's still really quick. In other game modes where lives are not a factor, it basically turns into CoD. You die fast, but you are back in the action almost instantly. The limited spawn games are a more considered fair, you'll notice that when you play one team will run to either a power weapon place or a bit on the map that's easily defended which can be frustrating if you are on the outside, but when you flip the coin and end up defending a space you soon realise that it isn't as easy as you would think, more akin to plugging leaks in a sinking ship with limited amounts of plugs. The main frustrating part of the online is that some people are ridiculously good at the game, and it isn't like Battlefield where an opposition team can use tactics to snuff out superior skill. I've seen 1 person take out 4 people alone, and even I myself have taken 3 people out one after the other like it was nothing. It seems that skill will get you everywhere, and if you are not skilled you're in for an arse fucking all night. It was the same for previous Gears games and nothing has changed here. Similar to Halo: Reach and BC2 (and I think CoD), each event in game gives you ribbons which equate to getting a set amount of XP. Get killed 1st in the game? Have some XP. Get shot in the head the most? Have some XP. Spend the most time in cover? Have some XP. There are so many ribbons that practically everything you do in game doles out XP. Some of them are decent bundles of XP, some are more consolation XP for being shit. Whatever though, if you play online chances are you're gonna get fucking loads of these ribbons. Weapons wise there has been a bit of a shake up. The Lancer is the longest ranged auto rifle and it's seen a bit of a nerf. If you move while firing the cross hairs open right up, and anything more than bursts of fire do the same. The chainsaw animation has been changed slightly so you can no longer bring the saw up right away. While it leads to more considered chainsawing, it's a bit of a nerf too far and I expect Gears signature weapons to receive a serious buff when the game finally hits the shelves. It's just not very good. The Gnasher shotgun is overpowered as usual. Its effective range is a bit long, and in Lancer Vs Gnasher fights where the Lancer should come of triumphant, the Gnasher takes the win. It shouldn't be like that, and I doubt that any tweaks will be done to rectify this. The Hammerburst is where most players will lay their loyalties if this makes it to retail. In previous games it was a bit wank. In this one it is a beast. It has stupid stopping power and is fucking frightening at all distances, from zoomed in, iron sighted and sprayed from the hip. If it wasn't for people trying to unlock the gold retro lancer, the beta would be full of these. The Retro Lancer is a decent weapon if you like to get in close and just spray and hope. I had some reasonable games with it and if you are facing off against someone trying to shotgun you chances are if they fuck up a few shots you'll down them with this. It's fucking garbage at anything more than 10 meters away though. The recoil is horrible. The recoil is horrible on all the fully automatic assault rifles. It has an awesomely easy execution which will no doubt be classed as noobish as chainsawing people in the 1st two games. The Sawed off is a bit of a redundant luxury if I'm being honest. You get 1 shot, you need to be pretty much touching to get the kill, and it takes fucking forever to reload. If you fuck up, you are basically dead. If there is someone near when you get the kill, you are dead. I don't think we'll see many of these when the game comes out for the simple reason that the normally shotty is so fucking powerful there is no need to pack this unless you you plan on taking the piss. They should boost the power of this gun and narrow its sweep, and nerf the Gnasher to balance them so that both guns are a valid choice when it comes to brass tacks. The grenades all have a purpose now. Smokes now make players caught in the blast flinch and lower their weapon, inks incapacitate and poison (and look graphically awesome), frags are the same, and the new firebomb works similar to the ink, although damage over time happens if you get hit by it or walk through the fire. The way you throw has been changed slightly as well, but I can't put my finger on what they have done. There is a grenade gun which burrows under the ground to get people behind cover. It's just a bit annoying if I'm being honest. I guess it has it's place but I'm hoping it isn't place on many maps. It detracts the point of being in cover, which for a cover shooter is a bit fucking stupid. It feels a bit cheesy to use as well, like you don't really deserve the kills you get from using it because it's a bit cheap. The Torque, Longshot, Mortar, Mulcher, Flamethrower, Boomshot and pistols remain relatively untouched. Other new things I've notioced is the ability to revife yourself if you manage to not get executed while on the floor. When two enemies are on the same bit of cover either side, you can jump the cover and jump on their heads, which can result in them being knocked down or even downed. It's perfect for getting shotgun kills even if you are a bit shit with them, as they are literally helpless while you fill them full of lead. The executions are pretty sweet. I wont spoil them as you really need to just discover them yourself, but yeah, some of them are ridiculously OTT. Every weapon has one too, even the shit you wouldn't expect to have an elaborate execution kill will have one. Crazy. I think I covered everything there. If you have any questions, just ask and I'll try to answer them. Also, sorry for the long post. I wasn't really expecting it to be so bloody big.

It's everything I'd hoped. More of the same but in co-op it's just so cool. Quite a few hours into co-op, not started single yet. The comedy is still present and the levels start lovely and begin to look run down and something is not quite right with GLaDOS again

Got this from boomerang, only played the first mission so far. Will see how it goes from here. Escaping the police when I fucked up was a right bastard. Can't even be arsed with Uplay anymore. Didn't load once on ACIV for me.

I bought this game on the cheap last week on Steam - like two bucks and some change. I started playing it today and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I created my character Sir Shotgun Jackson and so far he has drown, got mauled by a bunny, and a killed by blob with an umbrella. If fact the only thing I really know how to do in this game is chop down trees and dig holes in the ground, but I can't even do that becuase everything in the Kingdom of Terraria want to kill me - even the fucken bunnies. What the fuck did Sir Shotgun do to have fucken bunnies ploting to kill him!! Birds fly by and then decide to turn around to come back an peck at Sir. Shotgun!!! Like I said I only spent around two buck on it, so I'll give it a bit longer. If I still can't figure Terraria out I'll just uninstall and move on.

Its pretty tough. Same sort of progress as Demon Souls, so see that thread for the gist of this game. In case anybody plays this and is really stuck, i'll share what i know so far:

seemingly the gaming press' favourite game ever, and it's actually not bad so far. As a highlight from the first 3 levels I've done, I jumped out of a plane and caught a girl, then as we were parachuting the plane tried to ram us, so I told her I was going to shoot the window, kill the pilot, kick the bad dude in the face, grab another parachute then jump back out of the plane and catch her again. Sure enough that's what happened and it was fucking awesome Beyond the set up things I'm less convinced. The gun play is fine, though it could do with more aim assist I think, and a melee attack button would be nice rather than having to switch out (which is admittedly just a button press). I've yet to do any real GTA stuff, a few minutes driving but that's about it, but I should be at that point now. One problem I have encountered, and I think this is down to A. Playing via OnLive and B. playing via OnLive wirelessly. The driving wasn't great. You aren't punished for killing people, or at least I haven't been, nor for accidents, but I found myself correcting a lot and having crashes caused by the AI drivers. But yeah, compared to the rest of the game it was very jerky (though it might also explain the feel of the shooting) I can see why people love it and I'll definitely be putting in a bit more time over the weekend

This must be the hardest game to give impressions to. It's a sort of open world, crime investigation, almost survival horror that was made on the same budget as my woodwork project at school. It's kind of good. This game is ugly, I'll get that out of the way, but the game knows it and often plays that to its strength, the puppet-like animation makes the comedy moments genuinely funny. The weird, uncanny smile Agent York (the lead character) gives when he's trying to be sincere is proper lol worthy, especially when it's combined with that whistling tune which I'm sure will end up being very iconic in videogame music. But it's not all laughing at the technical incompetence of the game, because somehow, it does manage to be successfully creepy, and the mystery itself isn't massively tacky, the characters perhaps, but plot itself is compelling. For some reason there are zombies (I'm sure there is a reason) and that's all I've been shooting so far, it plays a lot like Resident Evil 4 but not as good. And the open world driving stuff? That's the only thing I have a problem with, it's slow, handles both sluggishly and erratically at the same time and you have this 16bit drone as an engine noise. Only the banter York has with Zach makes the trips worthwhile. What's Yorks favourite Tremors film? Play it and find out.

No impressions of this? I thought some people had it. If you don't, well you should. This game is pretty damn amazing. I think if you played Origins you'll know what to expect when it comes to the normal platforming levels. You sprint, jump, punch and bounce your way through a bunch of levels that make some pretty creative use of Rayman and the gang's skills. Of course, it looks amazing, again, with those lush hand-drawn graphics and it has some of those funky ditties again. But there is new stuff. You have music levels which are awesome. It's a shame there are only one per world as I'd play the heck out of a game that was just all these; they're just so much fun. I guess they're not unlike the levels in Origins where you chase the sprinting treasure chest but seeing the levels and the enemy placements sync up with the music as you take them out just adds more of a silly playfulness to it, and they are really imaginative with it, too. The other thing they have which I think is only on the Wii U version which I played is having levels where you take control of Murfy, a new wee flying fella with a big underbite. They are controlled solely using the touchscreen of the Gamepad and you basically interact with the environments with it. Like you move platforms around so an AI controlled Goblox will navigate the level. Early on they're not great but they do build into something a lot more interesting, and again, there is some real creative stuff going on with this different way of playing. Though some of the final levels have it fall apart slightly where Goblox will just do dumb things and get himself killed when you do the right things... it's like the levels get a bit too complex for the AI to handle. But over all, it's amazing. Maybe the lows are lower than Rayman Origins but I think the highs are much higher than in that. It still manages to be surprising despite being a strict follow-up and it is just one of those games where you can tell everyone working on it loved working on it; you can tell, it just pours out of the screen.

I'm going to start by saying this is no way a 4/10 game. I know I'm a Castlevania fan, I know I liked the first Lords of Shadow when others didn't, and I haven't finished this yet, but it's really not that bad. The fighting is fun, it flows better than the first game, it's a tad more forgiving too, a bit like DmC compared to the old Devil May Cry games. They've introduced a mastery system, the more you use a move the more you fill it up, once you do that you empty it to increase your mastery of that weapon. I'm not entirely sure what that does tbh, but it encourages you to use the moves you've unlocked. Which is the point I was going to make about the combat, you can tell it's easier because you can choose what move you want to do rather than just hammering whatever's effective The platforming is fairly simple, occasionally there'll be hazards you have to avoid, these could be clearer, but at least it's got something to it. I've also found odd occasions where it's not always clear what you're supposed to do, one of them was simply because I wasn't on the exact spot I needed to be so the jump point didn't highlight, although the one I couldn't possibly reach did. It's not just the platforming that suffers from a lack of clarity either, the boss fights can sometimes, but it's really the stealth sections. The stealth comes in 2 types, ones where there's guards and you have to distract them, posses them, or turn in to a rat to get around them, these are more common. In theory having a change of pace where you have to use your brain is a really good idea, but they're awkward and messy, and just not all that interesting. The other type involve key characters hunting you down, one of them was deemed bad enough it was singled out by GamesTM (I think), I didn't think it was that bad but I'd accidentally read some advice. Certainly it wasn't fun, parts of the ground made noise that gave away your position, a combination of Dracula's loose control and the collision detection on it meant it was a bit clumsy, but I did it in 4 attempts. Certain bits have been great too, When the script is good Carlyle is good, his delivery of "god failed" is great, shame some of the rest of the script and acting aren't quite so great. Anyway, video here, which looks worse on youtube that it did before I uploaded it. The original file was something like 40GB though, so y'know, you can't have everything

Reviews: 1up - A GameInformer - 9.5 Nowgamer (PS3) - 9.4 Nowgamer (360) - 9.3 CVG - 9.2 Gamestm - 9 Eurogamer - 9 Anyone picked this up? For PC or console?

I've just been playing Grid Autosport. For some reason, my Steam copy unlocked early, but who am I to complain? Anyway, I'll write a better write-up later, but I can say right now, GRID IS BACK!!!!! Gone are the shoddy driving physics of Grid 2 (It doesn't matter what you drive in what event, it'll drive like Ridge Racer). This thing drives just great. I've only done a small season of Touring, and a few Street races so far, but I'm hooked. There are five styles of driving on offer here. They are Touring, Endurance, Open Cockpit, Custom, and Street. Touring is (of course) Touring cars. Endurance is the longer races where tyres, and pit strategy matter a lot. Open Cockpit is the single seat race cars, sort of like Formula 3. Custom is the loud brash street car events, such as Drift. And Street is racing on city streets in everything from Hot Hatches, to Super Cars. The game is much more simulation orientated, although not full sim, and it can be toned down for more novice players. It has a level up system which can be accelerated by turning off driver aids, and flashbacks. Driving with full damage turned on can leave you struggling to control a car after a nasty bump. In the Touring races, it has an interesting penalty system if you cut the corners, whether it's on purpose, or if you're shoved over by another car. The game cuts power to your car for a second or so, with a longer pause it you're taking the piss. I thought it cool.

Dunno how many of you are waiting for this one but hey ho. It plays like those old western RPGs I never played. Get job, go to place, kill baddie tell job giver. Or maybe collect plants and take them back to some dude. Fighting is done in the style of a FPS, its not like Fallout 3 though, this does actually feel like one, all the stat stuff behind the scenes is there but you don't notice or consider it mid battle like you may on Fallout 3. The AI is bollocks compared to what we have come acustomed to, missions and dialogue are given out in soulless text like it is in Marrowind and despite the great artwork it still feels far too brown. So why couldn't I put it down for hours? I'm not sure yet, I think its the looting aspect and the weapon collecting, because of the randomly generated weapons I'd keep exploring the area to find something rare and useful that I could show off when I do end up online. It is a stupid thing to be driven by but I'm loving all these juicy stats. Haven't tride the co-op yet, will do that around its general release.

Just played the PC demo and its fucking intense to say the least but it's also very nice looking and the guns feel about right. I know this was beta tested on the 360 did anyone play it? is the XBL demo out yet to try?

Got my copy through the post today from Simply Games, after I finished installing it I dived straight into the Multiplayer, pretty good, incredibly addictive as always, and extremely similar to the beta a few months back, I'm nowhere near as good as I was in AW unfortunately, and have only had a handful of games where I've got a positive K/D ratio but I'm still enjoying it, was mostly playing Ground War (alternating between Safeguard, TDM and Domination). As I've got limited time for this before F4 on Tuesday I don't really know what to do in it, I was hoping to Prestige it by Tuesday but there's seemingly no 2XP so that'll be quite a difficult task, I've only levelled up to Level 10 in 3 hours so it'll take me another 20 hours at least to get anywhere near Level 55, so I may just pack it in and make a start on the campaign or try out a bit of Zombies. I briefly tried to start the campaign today, just as an experiment to see what happens on the matchmaking side, pleasingly it does have matchmaking in co-op which means I can play with randoms if needs be if/when I eventually get round to playing it.

Diablo 3 had an open beta last weekend, a stress test for the servers, but there's was a decent amount of game to play through It's Diablo, point where you want to walk to, click on enemies to attack them, hit your hot keys when your specials are charged, pick up loot. I'm not sure why these games work, and I'm not sure why Diablo and Torchlight work better than Dungeon Siege. I only played as the barbarian, with these kind of games I tend to find I get swamped, so playing as the character best suited to close combat suits me, but he does seem a lot less interesting than some of the other characters. I will say, and I know it's very early in the game to make any sort of judgement (you play the first act), that it hasn't grabbed me as much as Torchlight did, but it's still enjoyable and hugely compulsive. It's quite easy too, apparently that's just how Diablo plays, and I certainly wouldn't want it to be too hard, but it was only on the boss fight that I had to use a health potion. The problems though, the game has to be connected to the net at all times. It doesn't matter if you're playing single player with no intention of ever taking it online, it needs to be connected to the net. And not just connected in a casual way, checking in every now and then, it seems to be virtually running the game from a server. What this means is that if the server is busy you get lag. Click on an enemy to attack and either you wont perform the action or you will and the enemy wont react for a second or so. You also get put back a few steps from time to time, like you've unsynched with the server and lose the last couple of seconds of play. There's also the obvious issue of this meaning you cant play the game if your net, or Blizzard's servers, go down. I think this is due to the auction house for loot that allows real world money purchases. I get that being offline runs the risk of people hacking the game and selling created weapons when they get online, but I'd happily take the option of never being allowed to sell stuff in exchange for being able to play offline. All this could change as it was a beta, and the lag might never be a problem again. Although I suspect the launch weekend could be a nightmare. Shame because the game itself is very good

If you didnt like the one before then you wont like this. If you liked the one before then you'll love this, miss the cell shaded graphics but appreciate how much they've tightened the controls. Truly the Prince has never moved so freely. Wall runs are executed at almost any angle as long as your vaguely pushing in the right direction and pole hoping is simply pushing in the direction of the next obstacle and pressing jump - he does the rest himself. The hook of the game is an impressive one - the use of water. Holding the L button freezes time and makes water solid, meaning you can swing from jets of water from the walls and climb springs that burst from the ground. Some of the way Ubi have implemented the water as platforming puzzles is nothing short of genius and in turn makes you feel like one when you flawlessly cross a tricky looking cavern. The R button is your run/climb button so at times your playing with both Triggers held down and it takes a few goes to get used too. I wish it had the graphical style of the previous effort, this one with its 'real' people comes over a little wooden, but to be fair with the platforming so good its not really an issue. Ive just done a really impressive section in The Observatory but i had to stop and come to work, but all i wanna do is play this. Brilliant stuff so far.

That's a very old trailer but I don't think the game has really changed much. It's basically a turn-based strategy like XCom, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics - except it's faster-paced and does away with a grid to move on. You have a circle showing where your character can move to in that move and that's it. There's a few different mechanics going on so far where I'm up to. Unfortunately, I've got to the point in the story where they introduce a medic class but my opponent has one and I don't so I'm getting my ass handed to me. Along with the campaign and usual online matches, it also does asynchronous matches like Frozen Synapse which is a great idea. Art style is great, some funny lines in there too (a quote straight out of Anchorman comes pretty quick into it) and I'm enjoying it when I'm not dying a lot.

This is looking and sounding ultra sweet. Anyone excited? A sandbox racing game? It's gotta be at least worth a look! Anyway, there's a demo coming next week! Click me. Could be just PS3, just 360 or both. Me wanty.

I've put about an hour or so in to it so far, so far the opening is much better than the first game. In the first game once Claptrap had led you to the first town the first few quests all involved going to the same couple of places, this might yet be the same but it feels a bit more tunnelled so you see new areas. They seem to have done a bit more with the incidental characters too, the quest givers have got more than 3 lines now. The enemies bounce around more than they used to. The bandits roll to avoid bullets, and the bullymongs (a bit like skags only bigger and faster) jump around. It's quite hard hitting them regardless of the accuracy of your gun, and letting them get in close with a slow reloading shotgun is a bit risky. It runs well on the pc, but the unreal engine load in is still there, more often when you open a box and the bullet/money textures need to load. And on that note, things like changing what the boxes look like was a good way of making it feel fresher than the first game, and you start in a snowy area rather than another desert area

Very much impressed with Telltales output these days. Walking Dead is brilliant. As is The Wolf Among Us. So being a massive GOT fan, I was well up for this. And Episode 1 is a very good start indeed. Pretty important to state though that the opening section has a massive spoiler if you're not caught up to the events of the start of Series 4/Book 3. So be aware of that. It's the tried-and-tested Telltale format, which I'm perfectly happy with. You play as the Forrester family, and interact with a few of the series main fore-runners. After his frankly god-awful role as Ghost in Destiny, Peter Dinklige is back on form here as Tyrion. 5 more episodes to go, but this is a promising start.

I wanted to start this thread mainly so "run" could be in the sub-title bit, and maybe a video, but that bit has gone so i'll have to type something about the game i guess. i'm quite far in, about 3/4, wasn't enjoying it at first, there's lots of story/unnecessary stuff at the start, and i was just hammering the same button to win (playing on easy), but as the games gone on it introduces new stuff at a nice (in this case slow) pace and forces you to use different attacks/mix it up a bit, so i started to have some more fun with it, to the point i'm enjoying it now, it's fun. Even on easy it's not so easy you don't have to think about it, you don't have to think much mind - just enough to make it fun. the controls could get confusing though, there are a lot of button combos you need to know, but the slow introduction of new stuff helps here and i haven't struggled too much with the controls. there's lots of platformey type bits which mix it up a bit, they aren't bad but aren't particularly good either. so yeah good stuff, after a slow start imo anyway.

Have you played Minecraft before? If it's a yes, you already know what it's about, probably best to click off the thread. If no, pull up a chair. Minecraft isn't for everyone. It's a very directionless game where outside the simple premise of building a house for yourself, you are free to do what you want. In the day time the game plays out as a building sim where you spend time harvesting blocks of various materials. You start off by punching them, but soon enough you are able to knock together a means which will allow you to make tools. Tools allow specific materials to be harvested faster, axes allow wood to be gathered faster, shovels allow dirt or gravels to be smashed u[p faster and so on. On top of that, each tool you make takes a durability hit each time you use it, although as you progress you can make better and better tools for harvesting materials that you couldn't previously. Of course, the more materials you have the more things you can make, and the more things you can make the more materials you can get. It's a vicious circle or harvesting and producing. At night you have one of three choices. You either hole up in the house or shack you managed to find or throw up before the sun went down and sleep the night off in a comfy bed, you curse yourself for over reaching yourself in building a house or you make equip yourself with the armours and weapons you made during the day time to try and endure the night. If you ended up doing the latter two options, you just entered the survival horror part of the game. They might be blocky sprites, but when you hear their howling or attack call it will make you panic. If you survive the night, it's back to the day time cycle. There are a lot of things to do, even outside of building massive houses and castles for you to live in. The beauty of this game is that you can play for one day cycle which is about 20 minutes from what I worked out, or you could play for hours upon hours. If I was to do some game algebra it would be Animal Crossing + Keftlings + Survival Horror + First Person Perspective + LEGO = Minecraft. It's something you should at least try the demo of and see whether you like it if you have not tried it already. You can have a good piss about before the demo ends and get an idea of what you are getting into. I personally didn't try the online part of the game, but I did grab about 40 minutes in splitscreen and it works really nice. The only think I do not like about it is that the menus have not really been optimised properly for a controller. The crafting part is fine, but just moving stuff about your inventory is a bit of a pain in the arse, I'm not sure how they could have handled it better, but I'm sure they could have done it somehow. It's made even more annoying by the fact that the hints and reminders are constantly pushing the inventory box to one side, it could have seriously done without that.