Getting caught up. Contains talk of OLD games.

[Roger Godpleton]

Castlevania: SOTN, the greatest 2d game ever, is on XBLA.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

In a similar vein, I have just ordered a new PC. I haven't played a PC game in the last four years - I have played most big titles available on the XBox, including all of those listed above.

I aim to catch up, so what PC EXCLUSIVES have I missed since 2006?

The only ones I can think of are Neverwinter Nights 2, Dawn of War 2 and Red Alert 3. Are these worth getting? Have I missed any others?

[Something Fishy]

There's plenty of good gaming to be had on the last gen

I could quite happily have gone on with the ps2 for a good long while to come if it were not for the fact that I absolutely love the Splinter Cell games and it was killing me that there was a new one out that I had no chance of playing. This also applies to a slightly lesser extent to the CoD games.

As great as some of these others sound, and I'll deffo play them all now I can, none of them would have prompted any great desire to upgrade.

That makes the 360 a very right minded choice then as Conviction is a 360 game.

I'd also recommend much of the above, The Gears, Halo, Fable and Mass Effect games are excellent (Mass Effect 2 being my favourite this year).  Left 4 dead is great fun, the Crackdown games are good.  Banjo and VP from Rare are good too.  Alan Wake was also a game I greatly enjoyed earlier this year.

There are stacks of Live Arcade titles as mentioned above.  

and say that many of the multi format games are brilliant and Red Dead is a fantastic game.

[Pete Wells]

Yeah Paul, Red Dead and GTA4 (seeing as you're enjoying San Andreas) are amazing.

Doc X, to my eternal shame I ditched PC gaming a while back but Crysis was absolutely wonderful - I WAS Mandroid!

[Keef Monkey]

I'm in a similar PC situation myself, have got by for years on a shitty laptop but its not up to needs anymore so have inherited a beast of a PC from my brother. He's rather splendidly pre-loaded it with some goodies off Steam(plus Machinarium and all the Monkey Island episodic stuff) so I'll be dipping into PC gaming soon, starting with Deus Ex I think.

[radiator]

Now I'm off to Google Banjo Kazooie because frankly I've never heard of it and from the name alone it sounds insane.

It's an adventure type game - the twist is that you have to build your own vehicles to progress. You get set a task (protect a statue from attacking enemy planes for example), then have to build a vehicle to perform the task. How you solve the problem is up to you. You could:

a) Build a fighter plane to attack the planes

b) Build a mobile anti-aircraft turret to shoot down the planes

c) Build an armoured helicopter with a cage on the bottom so you can land on the statue and protect it

d) A combination of all of the above!

As I said, it's a difficult game to get into - it takes a few solid hours of investment to get a grip on the rules and unlock some content - the front end and tutorials are very poorly done - when I played the demo for the first time I thought it was complete rubbish, but once you get into the swing of tinkering with a design and experimenting with different approaches to get the best results it becomes compulsive and rewarding.

Winning tasks gives you more vehicle parts which you can use to win even more parts. Or you can just dick around and try to build your own Apache gunship or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (complete with retractable wings!) - you can swap vehicle designs with your friends, too.

One of the most underrated and misunderstood games of recent times. As a creative adventure game it shits all over the vastly overrated Little Big Planet.

Here's some of the vehicles others have made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jYp3S98AmY&feature=related

[mogzilla]

used xbox 360's are being sold in blockbuster from £50 for an arcade version in light of the "new" one being released.hope they are gonna lower their hard drive prices as i could do with another.

[Peter Wolf]

used xbox 360's are being sold in blockbuster from £50 for an arcade version in light of the "new" one being released.hope they are gonna lower their hard drive prices as i could do with another.

That sounds like a done deal and i mean to call into the local Blockbuster to find out more.Thanks for the tip.

Does anyone know what the difference is between all the different models like the arcade version ?

I am disinterested in online gaming  so i dont want to buy the model that enables online gaming as all i do is play at home as a single player.

[radiator]

The arcade doesn't have a hard drive.

[Paul faplad Finch]

Yeah Paul, Red Dead and GTA4 (seeing as you're enjoying San Andreas) are amazing.

Should point out that it was Byah who mentioned enjoying San Andreas, I just agreed in general terms that the old consoles are still good. (Or is Byah called Paul? If so, oops)

Personally, I actively dislike the GTA games. And pretty much anthing else with the Rockstar name attached. I can admire the scope of their worlds and the effort that goes into the background details (lots of good music I seem to recall, plus being able to play on the arcades was a nice touch in whichever that game was) but in terms of playability I find them really awkward and frustrating. A lot of that may be down to, in GTA's case at least, my inability to master driving games in general but I also found the on foot / shooting stuff difficult to work up any enthusiasm for. Maybe it's just me.

Thats kind of why I'm dithering over RDR. It's getting rave reviews but then so do most of their games. I'm not keen to get burned again.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Personally, I actively dislike the GTA games. And pretty much anthing else with the Rockstar name attached. I can admire the scope of their worlds and the effort that goes into the background details (lots of good music I seem to recall, plus being able to play on the arcades was a nice touch in whichever that game was) but in terms of playability I find them really awkward and frustrating.

Thats kind of why I'm dithering over RDR. It's getting rave reviews but then so do most of their games. I'm not keen to get burned again.

I'm with Faplad block. I gave up on every GTA after 2.

Great vision and cinematics. Broody atmosphere. Frustrating controls. Despair-inducing mission restarts. Tedium.

[Professor Bear]

...my inability to master driving games in general but I also found the on foot / shooting stuff difficult to work up any enthusiasm for. Maybe it's just me.

I hate gangster movies, macho cliche, racing games and the speed-boy mentality, but GTA3 was the first PS2 killer app for me.  Likewise, my brother couldn't comprehend the appeal of the series until GTA4, which I'm not terribly fond of - technically impressive, but it plays more like a GTA knock-off (particularly a Driver or a True Crime entry) than a GTA sequel, so you may agree with it more than what went before.

[Roger Godpleton]

I'd say Ballad of Gay Tony did a pretty good impersonation of a PS2 GTA.

[radiator]

I thought GTA4 was a big improvement over the previous games - I liked that it was less OTT and manic, less 'gamey' slightly more mature in tone. It was more street level and gritty - no silly jetpacks or apache gunships. Gay Tony seemed like a step backwards.

[Roger Godpleton]

no silly jetpacks or apache gunships. Gay Tony seemed like a step backwards.

You are a very odd person.