What are you playing now?

[leo-rcc]

Still on GTA4, and "Ballad of Gay Tony" is next in line.I am considering buying "The saboteur". Looks great.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Just having a bit of a break from Bioshock.
Awesome game but it has no multiplayer or co-op options - which would make it even awesomer.

No worries, Bri. I hear Bioshock 2 will indeed have multiplayer!

Keep forgetting about this thread. Sorry.

Yes, I heard Bioshock2 would have multiplayer. I suspect I may have to upgrade my machine to play it though.


I found this on youtube earlier.
It kinda reminds me of someone.

[leo-rcc]

Well since the only thing I got for Xmas was a stupid coffemug that broke on its first use, I bought myself the last of Pandemic studios game: "The Saboteur" subtitle "An Irishman in Paris". Pandemic doesn't perform as well as it was hoped, so EA is axing the studio as they have done so in the past with more software studios.

I've been playing off and on for a couple of hours now and I have to say, it is quite a nice sandbox game. It is not as good as Assassins Creed II, it is not as good as GTA IV, but it manages to pull of a good blend of the 2 games. The controls take some getting use to, the camera angles are not the best in all situations (as I've found with practically every game where you have to sneak, aim and other things the require positioning). But it never got to the point that it was really annoying, unlike some other games where you were fighting the camera more than the opponents.



As you might have guessed, the setting is World War 2 France, with most of the game focusing on Paris, but the also include missions in Le Havre, the Ardennes, Saarbrucken, Boulogne, and various other places a "merkan" would have heard of. You play an Irish race car driver that gets sucked into the French resistance after the death of your teammate. There is of course a love angle, but that isn't really playing the overtone in this storyline which I think is good.

The missions are a good mix of action and stealth, and as you progress your skills improve and you can collect "perks" which will unlock items, increase the capacity to carry items, increase firepower, etc. My favorite missions are sniping and blowing stuff up, so I tend to do all those things first. As a sandbox game you are free to choose what you want to do, but there are a few missions you will need to complete in order to unlock other parts of the playing field. It is sometimes quite a puzzle to figure out how best to approach a problem, though most of the time you can get your self out of trouble just fine. In a bind you can call in the help of your fellow freedomfighters (if you completed some missions) and they can cover your retreat.

All in all, I have to say I love this game. Yes it is not as polished as GTA, it is not as stealthy as Assassins Creed, but I still love the idea of blowing stuff up, helping civilians from getting rounded up or executed by the Gestapo and wehrmacht, taking out tanks, zeppelins, and AA guns. I think Pandemic has given us a good parting gift and I really recommend it if you are into WW2 and sabotage.

[Trolldor]

Dragon Age Origins
Fallout 3 - Mothership Zeta, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, The Pitt.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Chess Titans
Solitaire
Freecell
Minesweeper
The Game

[Azathoth]

Manhunt 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqT2IBdw ... re=related[/youtube]

[camoguard]

Fable II.

[The Curious Squid]

Excellent post, Leo.

I've seen this in the shops but hadn't heard anything about it.

[Trolldor]

Too Human
The more you play the more immersive it is, even if a little cheesy.
Still, there's nothing quite like seeing your teammates taken to Valhalla on the wings of a cybernetic Valkyrie, to see a foot soldier crying the name of Odin as he charges a horde of robotic "goblins".
Unfortunately it's a little imbalanced. You either annihilate everything, or you die within seconds. The death scene takes forever but you're respawned instantly in the same area, no area resets or loading autosaves. The problem is that at first it's a little sudden. The first time I died I put down the controller out of frustration (Still getting used to the annoying controls) and found myself dead again before I'd realised I'd revived.
The controls are... different to say the least. With melee you just point the right stick where you want to swing and hold it there to keep swinging.
With firearms it's a little more complicated, and more often than not you find yourself dodging every three seconds and firing off only one or two shots at a time as every enemy wave seems to spawn something that will knock you down like a bitch if you don't.
You'll also spend a lot of time investing in a particular type of weapon (say Slug rounds over plasma or laser) only to find that you'll go up some twelve levels and not find a single type of that weapon, and have to start building (futilely by the time the gun starts to show it's weakness) on the other weapons.
There's far too much happening at the beginning, and the tutorials for all the equipment and working your inventory come after the first hour of gameplay.
And selling equipment is a right bitch, you can't sell multiple items at once, you have to "scavenge" items for "bounty", and they thought it might be a smart idea for it to take a good half a second for each item - not long when you only have two or three items to get rid off, but when you've picked up an odd 30 or so runes you've forgotten about it becomes a right fucking bitch.
Also, got Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and will play that after I've finished this damn game.

[Clinton Huxley]

Just started playing Little Big Planet on my trusty PSP. Surreal graphics, soothing gameplay and the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry. What more do you want.

Also Civilization on my iPod. A bit rubbish but weirdly addictive.

[GeneticJen]

I'm glad the PSP version of LBP is looking good. I really liked the PS3 version and I'm a fan of user-created content in games. I didn't know Fry voiced the original before I played it and was pleasantly surprised.

At the moment I'm playing multiplayer Modern Warfare 2 on the 360, but only for the next few days. Firstly, Mass Effect 2 comes out on the 360 next week. Huge fan of the first, and seeing that 9.5/10 is the worst review it's had, I'm definitely looking forward to it. Christ, three magazines have given it 10/10 which is just silly. I'm also really glad I completed the original, because your personal decisions in the first game (that altered the story to make it your own), have the same effect on the continuing story. Whether you fucked someone over or helped them out in the old game will matter in the new one. That's the 360 out of the way. I've pre-ordered Heavy Rain which comes out at the end of Feb, and FFVIII which comes out at the start of March. Both on PS3. I've been waiting fucking years for Heavy Rain, but if Mass Effect 2 is anything like the original, I'll still be playing it for months and HR will probably get pushed back.

So it's pretty much just online MW2 at the moment. I completed Assassins Creed 2 last week and it was alright. Much better than the first but still flawed. If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, seriously consider forking out the money for GTA Chinatown Wars. It's an improved version of the DS game, with upscaled graphics and better gameplay, but for a fraction of the price. It's also MASSIVE. The story lasts ages and there's a whole city to explore. Some iPhone games are very basic, but this is a full title. Other than that, I've also been playing Tap Tap Revenge 3 on the iPhone. Very addictive.

[Rum]

I don't know why I don't contribute to this thread rather more cos I am a long term hardcore games player, starting way back when the ZX Spectrum came out in the 80s. Over the years besides the spectrum I have had an Amstrad, MSX, Atari ST, Amiga and then a series of PCs. We also have a PS3 and an XBox, though I play almost exclusively on the PC. Personally I find the control easier on a PC - and sometimes, though less often of late, there is more content - and of course with a decent graphics card, even better visuals.

I have played World of Warcraft for four years in total now and don't to it too much atm - waiting for the expansion in a few months. I bought Left for Dead 2 the other week - great zombie killing mayhem!

+1 for Mass Effect 2 - can't wait.

[GeneticJen]

+1 for Mass Effect 2 - can't wait.

I've always had consoles, and I've even managed to keep every single one of them. The thought of parting with my Master System or SNES is just

I never thought I'd ever be saying this, but I play less PC games now. Even though I've always been crazy about consoles, I've always loved PC games. Half-Life 2 is still in my opinion the best modern game I've played if the Zelda titles are ignored. There were a few reasons I liked PC games, but the main one was for first-person shooters. I would always argue that a FPS should never be played on a console with a clumsy control pad, and that using a mouse and keyboard is so much more responsive. So every FPS I played, I always got it on the PC or Mac. I tried playing HL on the xbox after playing it on the PC, and Halo on the xbox after playing it on the Mac, and it's difficult to enjoy the clumsy and slow controls compared to the mouse. But with the last couple of rounds in the console wars, the analogue sticks have really improved. I tried Halo 3 on the 360 and still found it to be the same. But then I tried playing the first Modern Warfare and realised that it is Halo itself that is clumsy, not the control method. Now that I can get reliable control in FPS games on consoles, the PC/Mac can only pull me back with PC/Mac exclusive titles.

It's been months now since I played a PC game. Yet in the past I've spent countless hours/days/weeks/months/years on C&C games and HL2 etc. Christ, don't get me started on World of Warcraft!

[Rum]

+1 for Mass Effect 2 - can't wait.

I've always had consoles, and I've even managed to keep every single one of them. The thought of parting with my Master System or SNES is just

I never thought I'd ever be saying this, but I play less PC games now. Even though I've always been crazy about consoles, I've always loved PC games. Half-Life 2 is still in my opinion the best modern game I've played if the Zelda titles are ignored. There were a few reasons I liked PC games, but the main one was for first-person shooters. I would always argue that a FPS should never be played on a console with a clumsy control pad, and that using a mouse and keyboard is so much more responsive. So every FPS I played, I always got it on the PC or Mac. I tried playing HL on the xbox after playing it on the PC, and Halo on the xbox after playing it on the Mac, and it's difficult to enjoy the clumsy and slow controls compared to the mouse. But with the last couple of rounds in the console wars, the analogue sticks have really improved. I tried Halo 3 on the 360 and still found it to be the same. But then I tried playing the first Modern Warfare and realised that it is Halo itself that is clumsy, not the control method. Now that I can get reliable control in FPS games on consoles, the PC/Mac can only pull me back with PC/Mac exclusive titles.

It's been months now since I played a PC game. Yet in the past I've spent countless hours/days/weeks/months/years on C&C games and HL2 etc. Christ, don't get me started on World of Warcraft!

I forgot to mention the Nintendo systems I have had! My daughter has filtched my Wii, but I have to say that the Mario games are in my view the pinnacle of games- Mario 64 probably being the best game ever on anything!

I agree with you about the controller versus the mouse. The other negative thing about the controller is that you have to learn a whole new set of combinations for every new game very often. On the PC it is usually the same set of keys.

I also agree with you about Half Life. Takes some beating. I have zillions of favourites though.

[AshtonBlack]

Blood Bowl. (Hey it's relaxing, plus it's just like the board game, only better!)
Dragon Age: Origins. (Think Mass Effect, but with swords n' magic. Quite simply a sublime, highly polished game. The best in the Single Player RPG I've played for many a year)
Gratuitous Space Battles. (Casual, Indie, Design then deploy some ships and watch them get blown up! Hard but satisfying.)


All on PC.

[GeneticJen]

I forgot to mention the Nintendo systems I have had! My daughter has filtched my Wii, but I have to say that the Mario games are in my view the pinnacle of games- Mario 64 probably being the best game ever on anything!

I agree with you about the controller versus the mouse. The other negative thing about the controller is that you have to learn a whole new set of combinations for every new game very often. On the PC it is usually the same set of keys.

I also agree with you about Half Life. Takes some beating. I have zillions of favourites though.

Plus the PC games usually offer more customisation with regards to the controls. As for Mario 64, it was obviously something else. It really was the most important game of all the time when it was released, and paved the way for what we're doing now. But to be honest, Ocarina of Time overshadowed Mario when it comes to N64 games. Playing OOT reminded me of playing Mario for the first time, but so much better.