The Gaming Week thread

[DANGERMAN]

... and Angry Birds on my Android phone.

o/

hope your wife feels better too. Surely there's some way your android could help?

[dante76]

Been playing a few things this week;

FF X-2 : Just finished this off. Combined with the camp Gullwings, costume changes and dancing it has to be the campest FF game ever. Still preferred it to FF X as the grid sphere system wasn't in it. FF X-2 essentially uses the job system which leads to the party changing clothes mid fight.

Driv3r ; See my retro thread for the true horror. I did finish it though.

Devil May Cry 2 : Now I liked number 1. I found it a real struggle, a good beat um up where you had to keep your wits about you, time your dodges, and your devil gauges to perfection just on the normal skill setting, so I was looking forward to something equally challenging. Not happening here. Polished the thing off in about 2 nights and am sleeping my way through the 2nd disc as the token female. All the enemies stand around doing nothing, you can't really get a style chain going, and all the bosses have a tendency to be either off screen fighting you, or just stand there whilst you fire rockets at them. The possessed helicopters and tanks showed the real weakness of some of the monster designs, and some boss battles were only difficult due to having to fight ennui.

Bully : Only started this last night, and with good timing I'm at Halloween. Its okay so far, good character animation and facial work for a PS2 title, but can't get a bit broing when everyone punches you on you way to class / mission / toilet. I'll keep at it though.

Final Fantasy : The 4 Heroes Of Light : I've been playing this a bit, helping Mrs D on certain parts. For a FF game its quite hardcore. No tutorial, no pointers, talk to everyone to guess where, lots of grinding. Essentially a traditional RPG game but with some great graphic style.

[Hendo]

Played a bunch of stuff on my phone this week.

Cut The Rope is another great game published by Chillingo (just bought by EA for apparently $20 million), same general idea as Angry Birds in that it's a physics-based puzzle game but there's no flinging birds around, you cut ropes in order to get some sweets to a little monster. It's better than that sounds but I have hit a wall with it.

I've also been addicted to Game Dev Story which I'm sure everyone's bored of hearing about now but it is a genius game.

It's part RPG and part management sim. As a parody of game development it's a blinder - if you're running low on money (or just greedy) you can release the game early before it's had all the bugs removed, you can hire and fire at will and too much work in a row and your staff will get exhausted. Why not fire them or instead dose them with Red Bull? Or you could rotate their jobs but then you might have a coder doing the music and vice versa, might not end well.

Pay for advertising, get review scores, get slated in the review scores but your game still sells well, go to a game conference and pimp your wares, etc, etc.

The only real downside is it's a port of a Japanese mobile game and so it's not as polished as it could be. If you're interested in the runnings of the game industry it's a facinating game.

On planet console I've played a load of Rock Band 2 and bought a shit ton of songs - Lady GaGa, Bob Marley and Jonathon Coulton are some of the highlights. Bit stuck in the career now, might have to drop down to medium for some of the gigs.

Speaking of getting stuck, I'm still nibbling away at Castlevania : Symphony of the Night, about a third through the inverted castle now. It's getting silly how I can make a load of progress and then die just before getting to the next save room.

The new Radiangames Indie game is out, called Fluid, and it's brilliant. It's kind of like Super Sprint meets Pacman but in puzzle form and with the lovely Radiangames art style on it. You have to make your way round a room collecting dots and as you do the dots turn into enemies which will follow you. Collect all the dots and that's the level done. The trick is in finding the best and fastest way round.

The rest has been Super Meat Boy and Costume Quest.

My feelings on SMB are pretty clear but it certainly won't be for everyone. I love N+ though and this is pretty much the same kind of idea.

Costume Quest is a fantastic My-First-RPG kind of game and I've loved every minute of it. Not too simple or complicated for me and not an epic 40+ hours slog.

Also, just bought Tank Battles on the 360 indie store - it's like a modern update to the old Atari game Combat.

Looks really well done, has decent twin stick controls and looks like it'll be a right old laugh in multiplayer. I'm definitely getting a top-down Death Tank vibe about it. Load times are pretty bad though.

[Craymen Edge]

Not a lot played this week.

Mass Effect (360)

Don't know why, but I was bitten by the bug to play this again. So I started a playthrough on Insanity difficulty level. It's not been that hard, since my character is level 29 out of 30, and armed to the teeth with all the best stuff. It's been fun revisiting the game, and definitely made me keen to do all the Mass Effect 2 DLC sometime.

Costume Quest (XBLA)

I quess I'm 2/3 of the way through this. I've really enjoyed it, the game world is really nice, and the kids are cute - the transformations when the battles begin are fun to watch. It's not particularly challenging, but it's just a fun, relaxing game to experience.

[Craymen Edge]

I finished Costume Quest(360), which I absolutely loved. It was fairly short and straightforward, but utterly charming. I really hope we see more downloadable games from Double Fine.

I played a little more Mass Effect (360) on Insanity. Finished the Noveria mission (the one with the Matriarch Benezia fight, which seems to be one of the harder bits for a lot of people. It took me a couple of attempts at this level, but it wasn't much of a sticking point. It's still a great game even though it feels a little rough around the edges these days.

Deadly Premonition (360) got an hour or so of play this week. It's an aesthetically and technically terrible game, but also rather intriguing and the story seems interesting. I'll give it a chance, although I probably wouldn't have bothered if it had cost me more than £15.

After unpacking the new PS3, I fired up Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. I'm about 5 chapters in and really enjoying it so far, especially the cinematic presentation and the interaction between the characters. The biggest criticism so far is that there's a bit too much shooting in it, which isn't the game's strongest point. I don't really see the need for more bad guys to come running into the area after you've cleared the first set - something they do seemingly almost every encounter.

Oh, and Left 4 Dead (PC). I forgot about that, but I've spent some time on the singleplayer just getting used to playing something fast paced on the PC for a change, then had a great marathon online session last night with Mr. Reflex and Dekard from gTM. The Lefts 4 Deads are still a couple of my favourite games this generation, and even though 2 adds a lot of great features the first one still holds it's own.

That's 5 games for a couple of hours each, a lot more than I thought I'd done this week.

[Sly Reflex]

Bumper week for me.

Gear of War 2. I whored the fucking bejesus out of the big XP event they held. I am hoping that the Thanks Giving event has a high multiplier, although the fact it is over a week means it probably wont be anything ultra big.

Pinball FX2 has been my XBLA game of the week and it will probably continue to be for a long time. The new tables are great, and any new tables that come out will be getting an insta-purchase, as I frigging love whacking silver balls up ramps and in holes.

Rock Band 3. It's good, although the campaign as it were is really really short. Took me months to finish Rock Band 2, you could probably finish RB3 in 2 good sittings if you really wanted to see the credits roll.

I started and finished God of War III on the triple. I am none so sure how these games got such a following, it was fun to play, but no way the AAA game most people put it out to be. Kratos is probably the weakest lead protagonist I have ever had the misfortune of controlling. Just terrible.

I joined the ranks of steam and started playing Left 4 Dead on PC. My god, it makes the 360 version look terrible. It's just an overall better experience. The survivor AI is a lot better, although not brilliant and the special infected AI is superb. It really does put the 360 game to shame. Using the speech wheel to make your survivor say random shit will never get old.

Assassins Creed 2 is another game I have taken a chance on, and it looks like it's going to pay off. Ezio has the right level of been a prick without been utterly hateful. Just did my first assassination this morning, it's hard to say what makes it feel so good to play, moving in plain site works really well and can make for some tense moments. The escaping over rooftops is exhilarating. The climbing feels nice and liberating and it generally feels good to play. The city looks beautiful too. It amazes me that the first game was rubbish but this somehow managed to be great. I played this at Eurogamer last year and it wasn't that great then, so some serious polish must have gone into it before it's final release.

I also might be back on the Bad Company 2 wagon, although a certain Call of Duty game might ruin that. Fucking Call of Duty. You are shit and I wish you would fuck off for good.

[Craymen Edge]

Uncharted : Drakes Fortune (PS3) - Finished it off today. It starts of fantastically, and really drags you into the story. Then they drag in more and more shooting bits, and it gets frustrating because the shooting isn't good. Then they make it worse by bringing extra bad guys in from all angles (including behind you) in the middle of a firefight.

I got to a point where I had to drop it down to easy so I could progress and enjoy the story, otherwise I would have put it down and probably not gone back to it.

Battlefield : Bad Company 2 (360) - I've played quite a lot of this online this week. It's been pretty enjoyable, although we did find ourselves fighting against some of the cheapest opponents I've ever seen at one point. That just made it all the sweeter when we got our teamwork together and steamrollered them.

Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 (PC) - Still great fun, and they're even better on the PC. Especially now I've got a decent headset and gaming mouse. The speech wheel thing is a lot of fun, and the Taunt option they added to L4D2 is excellent.

Flower (PS3) - Enjoyed playing this on a friend's PS3 earlier this year, so picked it up myself. I've played 3 stages so far, it's a great relaxing time killer. The feeling of flight is excellent.

[Craymen Edge]

Heavy Rain (PS3)

It has its bad bits: The movement controls and the occasional bad animation cause it to stray into uncanny valley where you're interacting with creepy mannequins. There are a few bits of terrible voice acting, French people playing americans, voice actors too close to the mic etc.

But it's fantastic, the story really has me engrossed. It's dramatic, and the QTE style gameplay very rarely distracts.

Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 (PC)

Played a bit of Team Versus with some of the Gamerdork steam group the other day, and today I've been playing with some mod campaigns.

I Hate Mountains on L4D 1. It's really slick and well presented and quite fun to play, but currently has a game-breaking bug in the second map that prevents you finishing it if you're unlucky enough to fall foul of it. It's fixed in version 1.2 apparently, so hopefully that will be out soon.

Death Aboard 2 on L4D2. Starts out with you working through a prison towards a dock. It's well constructed, and just complex enough without getting lost at every turn. I started to get weird glitches on the textures during the 3rd stage, I'm hoping a graphics driver update will fix that.

[Craymen Edge]

3 posts in a row. 2 more and I think I get to keep this thread.

Heavy Rain (PS3)

I must be fairly near to the end now, still loving the story. I thought some of the adult voice acting was bad (Lauren, Agent Naaarmen Jayden, etc.)... but then I played the chapter with the 2 kids on the building site...

Deadly Premonition (360)

By rights this should be terrible, but it has really charmed me. This game is so dumb... but gloriously, hilariously so. There's so much that's wrong: the way the music doesn't fit the scene, the controls, the terrible asthetics, the dumb script... but then it does something amazing like the hilarious 'Talk' option when driving around in the car.

Forza Motorsport 3 (360)

Got a bit of multiplayer action with the Gamerdork people on Monday night, then spent some time getting back into the painting and tinkering side of things.

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC)

Played some Scavenge tonight. I forgot how damn good that mode is with a good group of people.

Gears of War 2 (360)

Haven't played much this week since they ruined Horde again, and I don't really enjoy the multiplayer against real people. I levelled up once, to 51 with a few GTM folks on Friday.

[DANGERMAN]

Sorry to ruin the run Craymen.

Podcast this week if anyones been playing anything

[Hendo]

When do you need these up by?

[DANGERMAN]

When do you need these up by?

Friday night please

[DANGERMAN]

bump

[Jimboxy]

My Gaming week by JimboXiii

This week I've been mainly playing Gran Turismo 5. Five years in the making, untold amounts of hype, battles between fanboys, controversy over the quality of the graphics, the damage (or lack there of) and the online play. Its like a Playstation soap opera. Turns out its a pretty solid racing game. It isn't perfect, some things are really annoying about it, but where it counts (cars racing against other cars) its pretty damn good.

It does feel strange coming to it after spending so long playing Forza 2 & 3, I never actually realised how different the two series are until going back to GT. So far I've been working through the licences and the special challenges. Enjoyed the addition of cart racing, but it was lacking in power-ups (LOL). Nascar is shit, but its rednecks racing around a circle, so shit is my default response anyway. Haven't actually got to any interesting a-spec races yet as I'm to low in the levels, so its mainly been crawling around a track in an under powered Toyota Yaris.

In other Jimbo Thirteen gaming related news, I've also been playing some iPhone games. This has been split between RAGE which is cool, but the last level is to hard/broken for its own good. Cut the Rope, which received new levels this week and the ability to switch around gravity. This adds an interesting dimension to the puzzles, but makes most of them to fiddly, I've messed up more because of the controls than my lack of ability when it comes to puzzle solving.

Think that's about it from me..

[Cyberpunk]

Not much for me. I'm in my pre birthday and Christmas lull, gaming wise. It's shiny syndrome again, as I'm waiting for the new games.

I have been rocking God of War - Ghost of Sparta on my Psp. What can I say? It's pure God of War, and very tricky to play. Not in a bad way, just hard. Much harder than Chains of Olympus was. Still a great game, though. The graphics are just fine, with no visual cock-ups at all.

I've also been playing Angry Birds on my Android. It's getting very hard now, and I'm stuck on the second boss.

I've dabbled with my Xbox360, putting the most time into Halo 3 online. I've been enjoying it, but I'm hampered by not having many maps for it. I get ODST and Reach for Christmas, though.

[Craymen Edge]

I finished Heavy Rain (PS3) this week. A cracking bit of storytelling. Here's what I said in the games finished thread:

I enjoyed this a lot, the story really gripped me. I was sceptical about the QTE gameplay before I played it, but it was actually really well implemented for the most part, the only bit I didn't like was the stuff that used the sixaxis, as I tended to miss those more often.

It had plenty of flaws: Shenmue/Tank controls for movement, some dodgy animations here and there, and a couple of really dodgy voice acting parts. But still, a hell of a game.

I seemed to talk a lot about the flaws in the last couple of weeks, which isn't really fair as I utterly loved the game as a whole. But when the rest of the game is so good, those bad bits really stand out.

Plus it's funny to think about the actress playing Lauren being high on tranquilizers with the mic so close it's practically in her mouth, or the terrible accent on the brit guy playing FBI agent Naarrmen Jayden and the way he likes to say 'Ori-gammy'. Let's just forget about the kids in the Origami Killer childhood flashback parts, though. Pretend that never happened.

Forza Motorsport 3 (360)

While Gran Turismo 5 has been getting all the attention (good and bad), I've been quietly getting on with Forza. I've never been fond of GT, it's always been too dry and technical for me. Forza 2 and 3 get the mix of accessable and technical just right in my opinion.

Although... looking at my profile stats, I've probably been doing it wrong. So far I've spent about 19 hours driving, but over 35 hours painting cars.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (360)

I traded a couple of games in and got this for a couple of quid, based purely on the good word of mouth it's been getting here and other forums. Definitely money well spent.

First off it's very reminiscent of Burnout 2, with the long twisty country roads, which was one of my favourite games of the last console generation. The autolog feature is really what makes the game for me so far. Making your friend's times visible as one of your targets for each event (and giving you the option to edit the message that goes on their "wall" to taunt them a little when you beat them) keeps me coming back to replay and try to perfect each event.

[spatular]

My Gaming week by JimboXiii

This week I've been mainly playing Gran Turismo 5. Five years in the making, untold amounts of hype, battles between fanboys, controversy over the quality of the graphics, the damage (or lack there of) and the online play. Its like a Playstation soap opera. Turns out its a pretty solid racing game. It isn't perfect, some things are really annoying about it, but where it counts (cars racing against other cars) its pretty damn good.

same here, and I agree with Jimbo's summary above. it's a bit of a mess of a game - some features like weather effects and damage only working on certain tracks/cars (and for damage you have to level up above 20 apparently), slow menus, a lot of the cars look a bit crap, the AI can still be annoying and isn't great but does seem much improved over 4. despite the problems and rough edges i'm still really enjoying it, the handling is very good, it works great with a force feedback wheel. one of the main things i like are the license tests and special events, going for gold medals is a real challenge on some of them, where the main races are usually too easy or too hard depending on the car you use.

also played a bit of the new halo maps and new trials HD tracks, both seem great but i haven't really played them enough to give a proper opinion

[retroed]

This week I've been mostly playing Assassin's Creed II. I arrived at Venice yesterday and have just finished the 7th sequence. Being the goatse edition the two pieces of DLC slot into the storyline before the final sequence (14), so there's still a lot of game to go I think. I love climbing the viewpoints, it's normally the first thing I do when I enter a new area. Jumping into bales of hay from such great height is a wonderful feeling. The assassin tombs are ace too, bringing even more of a Prince of Persia vibe to the game. I'm really enjoying it, and will definitely be getting Brotherhood.

I've also been playing Gran Turismo 5. It's not without its flaws, but as a whole it is still an excellent driving simulator. I've removed the racing/braking line, so the only indication I might be approaching a bend too quickly is the gear notifier flashing red at the bottom of the screen. It's a much purer experience now, not focusing on the line makes you take your surroundings into consideration a lot more. I've switched the controls from the default two-stick method, and have accelerator and brake on the triggers, using a gioteck real trigger on R2. I started off with a trusty EK9 Civic Type-R, and it seems to handle and perform as it should do, which is pretty good. My only annoyance is having to wait for cars to appear in the used dealerships. I'm after an E-Type to take part in a Euro classics event, and has one turned up yet? No. I have my A and B licences so far, with silver or above in both of them. I'm definitely no spatular! But then, I've since discovered that he uses the chase cam, which is just plain wrong.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is a nice contrast to GT5 when you just feel like blasting around some tracks and bashing into cars. I've only played online this week, but have had some great races. None quite as spectacular as a race I took part in a couple weeks ago though; I had an online Hot Pursuit where I was the only racer left for around 6 miles of the pursuit. There where still three officers after me, I managed to take two of them out, and sped ahead of the last one. It was immense, heart-pounding stuff. The situation was boosted by the fact that my three team mates who got knocked out were genuinely egging me on through the TV speakers (didn't have my headset on), as you can spectate if you get busted/destroyed, and gave out a cheer when I destroyed two cop cars and again when I crossed the line. It's certainly up there with my gaming highlights of the year.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta has seen the PSP get some use. From what I've played I think this is going to be even better than Chains of Olympus, which I adored. It's set between God of War I and II, which doesn't mean anything to me as I've not played them, but it's a great romp so far. It controls excellently and the graphics are outstanding. Ready at Dawn work magic on the PSP like no-one else.

I'm still playing through Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. I think I've completed around 40 puzzles so far, so still have a way to go.

I bought Game Dev Story, and yep, it's as addictive and life consuming as everyone has said it is. Train Conductor is also being played on the iPod.

[dante76]

I've been playing Gran Turismo 3 in an attempt to try and play something relevent to the new releases this month. I've managed to gold everything apart from the Special licence which is just annoying at the mo. Like all GT games, the usual criticism of AI and collisions measn that most games are bumper car rides. I have a lot of stupid cars worth millions, like my customed Vanquish and have about 50% completed so far.

Also been playing Il-2 Sturmovic which is a WW2 flight sim. Very good graphics and realism can be cranked right up to the 1 shot can kill difficulties. Not as arcady as some other WW2 flight sims which is a big selling point for me. Only down side is a really bad impression of Winston Churchill.

Have also just started Red Dead Redemption, but I've only done about 5 min but it looks beautiful.

Oh, I also got drunk enough to try singing on Rock Band

[Hendo]

Have also just started Red Dead Redemption, but I've only done about 5 min but it looks beautiful.

Have fun with that, it's a terrific game, even if Marston is more of a pussy than he realises.

The new pack for Trials HD came out and I've had a bit of a play with that. Much like spatular, haven't put in enough time to give a proper opinion but it seems great so far. Much like Super Meat Boy, I'm reserving it for some Christmas break social gaming.

The Indie Winter Uprising is in full effect and the first game out of the gate is a stunner, Epic Dungeon.

It's a 50 floor deep dungeon crawler, using real-time battles and randomly generated floors - though I think the layout is static, just the enemies and drops are random.

You pick your class, each one has a different bonus attack skill and every few levels you get to add bonus points to your character. You could spend those points on buffing up your bonus skill or maybe spend them on getting the other classes skills. My personal method is to spend them on health regeneration so pretty soon you don't have to use health potions as often.

It's a brilliant game, very much in the true indie spirit where it's made by one person and it's obvious this is the game he wanted to make.

I've also been spending time on COD:BLOPS and Rock Band 3. Not much to say about BLOPS, but I'm enjoying the multiplayer more than World At War, maybe more so than Modern Warfare 2. The wager matches where everyone only has pistols with one bullet certainly show Treyarch aren't just content to make no real new changes.

In RB3 I've bought a load more new song packs and I'm pushing myself on the keyboard, on Pro mode. Aside from the tutorials, I'm trying to go through the songs from very easiest and try to play through them and maybe even 100% them on Expert. I've made it through about 4 so far.

I started Knights of the Old Republic - in short, it's dated and a bit confusing. I'm sure when it came out it was stunning though.

The rest of my time I've had my penis firmly stuck inside Assassin's Creed : Brotherhood.

I'm not convinced the story on this one is all that great but everything else is spot on, a proper game of the year.

I've still got some bits and pieces to do and pick up and there's more multiplayer to be had but if I don't go back, I've had a whale of a time.