Last game played...

[JamesC]

Currently playing Far Cry 3.

I like everything about it other than the 1st person perspective. I always find this with 1st person games though; it really winds me up that you have no peripheral vision and so have no awareness of what's right next to you. It's like going into battle wearing horse blinkers.
The platforming bits are a bit rubbish too. Climbing ladders and vines just becomes an exercise in watching downward scrolling textures as your characters gets higher. Compared to the lovely climbing animations in Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider it just seems really clunky.
Also, cover systems never work.
It's easily solved with a hybrid of 3rd person for platforming, cover and navigation with 1st person being used for aiming and shooting.

I don't know why more games don't take the hybrid approach (actually I do - because 1st person shooters sell like hot cakes).

[Professor Bear]

Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf: is it a music video or is it a videogame?  It's a hoot either way.

http://cactusquid.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/keyboard-drumset-fucking-werewolf.html

Also Star Trek, which I was looking forward to for ages, but, oh - let's see: clipping, horrendous collision detection, poorly designed levels, bad animation, spending at least ten minutes trying to wrangle a decent picture out of the brightness/contrast settings and eventually giving up, poor game mechanics (no melee in a close quarters combat game?  are you fucking JOKING?  And that's not even taking into account that 90 percent of Star Trek is about Kirk drop-kicking somebody), 2d bitmaps used as in-game graphics, low resolution textures, seemingly endless cutscenes which aren't skippable cinematics and are just you stuck in one location unable to advance and have to sit around listening to the characters banter before a door or a lift unlocks, random game overs when your partner comes a cropper offscreen somehow because you've become separated while he's stuck in a bit of scenery, terrible platforming gameplay, no tutorials for the minigames, no tutorials for the cover system right before you need to use the cover system for the first time in a situation where you instantly die if you aren't in cover or are otherwise out of place, controls flipping on you at random moments, the game camera resetting just before into/out of the screen running bits so it's pointed directly upwards so you can't see where you're supposed to be going, glitched trophies, the Gorn redesigned as velociraptors, the game not telling you what to do or where to go at key moments, you have to quit the game and reload because sometimes the game won't acknowledge a door or console you have to interact with, a pointless upgrade system with few decent perks, a checkpoint system that saves right before minigames, combat sequences or difficult and/or frustrating platform sections where you may die simply because of the shitty design so you have to repeat those sections all over again - I was shouting "FUCK'S SAKE!" at the screen so many times while playing this - and I never want to hear Chris Pine say "Mister Spawk" in that nasal way of his ever again to the point I might actually give the new film a miss.

Apart from that it was fine.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I just purchased Far Cry Three Blood Dragon on Steam and it didn't install.

I finally got the game to install, and ended up spending midnight and early morning playing it.

Welcome to the 80's vision of the future, the year is 2007, and you are Sargent Rex Colt, a Mark IV Cyber Commando. Your mission: get the girl, kill the baddies, and save the world.

Experience every cliché of a VHS era vision of a nuclear future, where cyborgs, blood dragons, mutants and Michael Biehn (Terminator, Aliens, Navy Seals) collide.



The game has retro cut scenes but the action is good fun

[JamesC]

Given up on Far Cry 3.

Just wasn't enjoying it - there's too much I don't like about the mechanics of the game, 1st person perspective aside.
For a start the menus and map system are just a mess.
I actually think that the hunting element is in pretty poor taste. I'm not a vegetarian or anything but the crafting element just seems like a chore and the type of animal you need to make items just seems arbitrary. You need to kill 2 pigs to make a small ammo pouch and then 3 dogs to make a medium sized one or something.
I wonder if the animal killing is just there for knob heads to get a laugh out of.
Having said all that I thought the hang gliding and driving bits were very well done and the island looked great.


I think this game is a really interesting contrast to the recent Tomb Raider which I loved. tomb Raider had hunting too, but it was something you could choose whether or not to do and it was made clear that Lara had compassion and respect for the animals.
Tomb Raider has a very similar premise to this most recent FarCry but it seems that every thing Far Cry has done wrong (well to my taste anyway), Tomb Raider did right. Not least having characters I actually cared about.

[Hawkmumbler]

Aliens: Colonial Marines- It's utter gash.

[Zarjazzer]

hooked on Sniper zombie co-op I did get some Star Wars games ye olde Republic Commando (yay!) and the incresingly annoying KOTOR 2 (I'd forgotten how much bloody menus you have to go through to get anything done), I may persevere.

[CheechFU]

I got hitman absolution for free off playstation plus this week, it's not blood money but so far it's not as terribad as I was led to believe.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Return to Castle Wolfenstein has decided it's time to 'work' again. Gobsmacked.

It's on the lowest resolution. The advice on the only forum I visited is to LEAVE it on low res as RTCW goes wonky if you up the graphics too much. I got my arse truly kicked by Nazis, Zombies and worst of all armoured Zombies that look like they escaped from a Frank Frezetta painting.

Good to play it again, Nostalgia overload.

[NorthVox]

Currently on a Fallout binge, halfway through Fallout 2, and nearing the end of what has probably been my longest play-through of New Vegas.

[radiator]

I had a sudden urge to play Rage Racer the other day so snagged a copy off eBay for about £2!



It looks - as pretty much all PS1 games do nowadays - pretty damn rough, but luckily still has that old magic. In fact I've hammered it so much over the last week that my thumbs are actually sore, not being at all used to button-mashing/d-pad punishment these days!

What I really adore about the game is the art direction, the eccentric Japanese flavour of it all, the beautiful track design and the simplicity and arcadiness of the gameplay. I love the fact there are a mere three variations on the one track. Less is more. I feel overwhelmed by the Gran Turismos and Forzas of this world.

So I'm interested to know as I'm really out of touch with racing games these days... In lieu of an HD Rage Racer remake, is there a modern equivalent of the Ridge Racer series that anyone would recommend? I used to be obsessed with the series back in the PS1 era, but kind of lost interest after Type 4 which I never got on with, but is widely considered to be the last hurrah of the series - are there any more recent entries worth playing?

And please don't say Need For Speed or one of those godawful Boy Racer simulator type games..!

[I, Cosh]

Can't say I've played many modern racing games but, if you've still got a PS2, it might be worth picking up a copy of Wipeout Pulse. It's a port of the two PSP Wipeout games and probably more of a true successor to 2097 (second best racing game ever, behind Daytona?) than Fusion.

I've been playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night after recommendations from a couple of dubious characters. It's pretty good. Starts off quite difficult but around halfway through you get hold of a weapon which makes it insanely easy to spam your way past every subsequent enemy and I've not got the moral fibre to do it the hard way.

[radiator]

I've always had an aversion to futuristic racers, Wipeout included. I think what most appeals to me about Rage Racer, weirdly, is the sense of location.

I've been a bit addicted to a game called Backflip Madness on the iPad. It's genius, but incredibly difficult.

[JamesC]

I had a sudden urge to play Rage Racer the other day so snagged a copy off eBay for about £2!



It looks - as pretty much all PS1 games do nowadays - pretty damn rough, but luckily still has that old magic. In fact I've hammered it so much over the last week that my thumbs are actually sore, not being at all used to button-mashing/d-pad punishment these days!

What I really adore about the game is the art direction, the eccentric Japanese flavour of it all, the beautiful track design and the simplicity and arcadiness of the gameplay. I love the fact there are a mere three variations on the one track. Less is more. I feel overwhelmed by the Gran Turismos and Forzas of this world.

So I'm interested to know as I'm really out of touch with racing games these days... In lieu of an HD Rage Racer remake, is there a modern equivalent of the Ridge Racer series that anyone would recommend? I used to be obsessed with the series back in the PS1 era, but kind of lost interest after Type 4 which I never got on with, but is widely considered to be the last hurrah of the series - are there any more recent entries worth playing?

And please don't say Need For Speed or one of those godawful Boy Racer simulator type games..!

I'm a big fan of arcadey racers too and the best recommendation I can give is the 2010 version of NFS Hot Pursuit. It's made by Criterion who did the Burnout games and is very unlike the earlier NFS games.

But since you specifically asked people not to recommend Nfs games how about downloading Sega's Daytona USA off XBLA?

[radiator]

I think it's an aesthetic thing - there's an innocent joy to the visuals and cheesy music of the Ridge Racer and Sega racing games, but I can't stand the boy racer-oriented feel of most modern racing games.

Anyone played the Outrun remake/sequel from 2004(?). I never got round to it, but always intended to pick it up at some point.

[JamesC]

 Played Outrun Coast 2 Coast and Outrun 2 (which come on 1 disc) on PSP and they're both ace!