Games that you've been playing recently

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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by XIII »

Need for Speed: The Run

Its a fun game for the most part, its your typical racing game with the normal NFS tweaks to spice up the races, the base of the game is the Run from San Fran to New York, it says its a 3000 mile race, but you'll only actually race for about 150 miles of that, sucks I know, I would have liked more stages to race over to bulk out the game some more, but apart from that its still fun. The rest of the game is made up of the challenge series (basically the stages with pre-defined challenges). This part of the game can get abit samey quickly, so its best to break up the Run with these just to keep it going. of course there is online play where again you have pre-defined challenges to take care of.

Now the downsides of the game, yes there are some downfalls.

Car mechanics, there is quite a bad flaw in how cars react to certain events, the first of these being the classic pit manoeuvre, this being you tagged the back of another car on the corner to spin him out, if you attempt to do this on an AI car, noting happens, he just keeps driving straight, however if you are unlucky enough to be tagged by this, don't expect to keep going forward, you will be spinning out, very irritating.

Cop Chases, quite possibly the most frustrating element of the game, its very rare that you will be at the front of the pack when the chase starts, but it only ever starts when you are in the zone, worse still 90% of the time the cops will only ever target you, so while you are being hammered by cops, your opponents are free to race away. It gets frustrating at times, more so in Vegas where you have your first real test of cop chases.

AI Control, the AI is pretty dumb at times on this, the AI wont always take the proper racing line, or break properly, it tends to be super early breaking and breaking on the Apex of a corner, which gets super frustrating when you are racing against the clock as you will be making great progress and then "BAM" your slamming into the back of a car and lossing valuable time

Muscle Cars, why-o-why do we have to have muscle cars in a street racing game, its fine for drag racing games, but not in a game that requires something that corners well and doesnt pitch and roll and understeer like muscle cars, I find it insulting that the game says you should use them on Highway racing, erm no, you need a decent accelerating car that handles well, ie a sports car, stupid game.

But despite this, its a fun game to play
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Kogashi »

Skyrim (on the PS3 if that makes a difference to anyone)

I really do no know how I feel about this game. For one thing, I did not enter this world expecting to enjoy it... that might be part of my problem. Never been a fan of any of the first person RPGs I've tried so far (Morrowwind, Oblivion, Fallout 3), partly because of the fact that it's first person, and this really does not change things. But more than that, in the games I've tried I would just get the feeling of 'so much time and so little to do' about the world. Skyrim does not have that problem but I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

The extend of what I'm suppose to do seems to be go, kill dragons, speak with old people, save the world maybe. The extend of what I have been doing is dying. Try to get from one town to the other? Killed by giants cause I sneezed too hard (well okay, my own fault there). Try to lead an NPC to a certain location? Killed by passing by Dragon. Enjoy the sites? Killed by a Saber Tiger. Get attacked by a Dragon? Get killed by another, different Dragon that was just passing by. Somehow one shot ever single Vampire thrall in a cave? Get killed by a random attack of a giant variation of the already giant spiders of Skyrim. Try to climb the stairs where everyone says the most you'll face is some wolves? Killed, 5 times, by a frost troll.

And yet, I have to admit, that I keep on playing it. I keep on looking for dragons to face. I keep looking for more unexplained caves to explore and clear out. I keep finding shady questionable jobs at the local taverns... And I really can't tell, do I actually enjoy playing this game? Or am I so annoyed at it that I just want to beat it to spite it?
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by XIII »

Sonic Generations

So Sonic is back in a new game with an interesting concept, two sonics,

One is the classic Sonic, which is short and chubby
The other is Modern Sonic, which is taller, slimmer and more spikey

Basically there is 9 worlds, with 2 Acts per world, expect Act 1 must be played as Classic Sonic and Act 2 must be played as Modern Sonic. This leads to much frustration as you have to change your play style for each act, Classic Sonic is done in the normal side scroller fashion and Modern Sonic is more free roam in the Act, and the skills between different sonics make it hard as well.

Classic Sonic skills are just you basic skills from the days of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, just with an easier trigger system, such as the crouch spin, no longer do you have press down and another button, you just press Square to activate it

Modern Sonic skills are more advanced in that you have bigger jumps, super sonic speed, targeted attacks. the skills can be very frustrating at times, targeted attacks tends to work sometimes and not others, or the more annoying aspect is that while you are jumping forward to target an enemy the actual targeting will target something either in the opersite direction to your travel or take you somewhere you never wanted to go. There is also instances where it just doesnt target at all and you just end up dying cause you cant target it to get to the area you need to get to, there is several instances where you need this to happen to clear the act, you just end up getting frustrated badly.

The story for the most part is pretty good and well constructed, and they do make light fun of the past and present merging into one and changes that have gone on, I dont want to spoil it too much, so Ill let you find out what they are if you do get the game.

To accompany the story you have challenge gates, these are basically run through of Acts but with different goals, unfortunately you do need to play some of these challenges to gain the boss gate keys, its sucks slightly as some of the challenges are more frustrating than the actual Acts that you played, but you also need to head into these areas to find your 3 rivals to gain the Chaos Emeralds, now you do need all 7 of them to unlock the final boss gate,

The final boss itself is vexing in many ways, while you catch up to the boss and while in modern sonic mode you get a target appear on his chest, expect when you press X to attack, nothing happens, to actually hit the target you have to fly into the target to cause damage, it took me a while to find out how to do this as its not made clear at anypoint as to what you really should be doing, its also not helped by the constant chatter of your Sonic Friends (who you save during the story mode) and the sound of Super Sonic mode ring countdown make it very frustrating to clear the final boss, I think I restarted about 20 times before I finally got the sequence down right

For the most part the game is fun, but it does have its frustrating points and somewhat bad gameplay in Modern Sonic mode, that jumping bug just cant be forgiven, personally I preferred the Classic Acts as they were more enjoyable as they are you classic side scrolling setup, which is how sonic should be in my mind. I would have liked a few more actual worlds to play through and less challenge gates, but I guess they had to go for a decent mix between the two in terms of game size and intended audience. There is lots to do in the game, so you wont be completing it any time soon if you go after all the collectables, if you just do the story, then probably about 7-10 hours will do, depending on how obsessed and frustrated you get with the game,

Oh and there is a ester egg in there, that being Sonic 1 full game, youll find it in the challenge gate areas.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by XIII »

L.A. Noire

This has been a fun game to play, very enjoyable, not to mention very long, which is good. I started the game with all the DLC's downloaded and they do integrate with the main story line, so if you do pick it up, make sure you grab either the GOTY edition or the Rockstar Pass with the normal version.

The basic jist of the game is that your a Police Officer on the up in 1947 in L.A. during the game play you tackle a series of cases that challenge your observation skills and memory, with each case you have to find clues as to the person you are after and then at points in the case you need to go interview suspects or persons of interest to find out more about the case, this is where you need to determine if somebody is lying, telling the truth, or just being very doubtful with the truth, depending on your choice will decide how the case will proceed, sometimes missing vital clues to charge the correct person, yes in cases where there are multiple suspects, you have to decide who did the dirty, and if your information is incorrect through bad interviews you end up charging the wrong person, which affects your case ranking. Even during the cases you have to be careful to not cause damage to the city as it will also affect your case ranking, but most importantly you cant do any harm to innocent by-passers, injuring them will result in a 1 star case ranking, but there is a way to mitigate that, you can get your partner to drive instead, but at times you will need to drive and thats when you need to be on your best performance.

Aside from the main game there is a series of 40 street crimes (mini missions) that unlock at each desk to give you something else to do to break up the story mode, however if you do take on one of these during a story case, it will affect the case ranking if you do alot of damage, it can be wise to hold off on these till you unlock free-roam at the end of each desk.

There is also a couple of hunt objectives to the game if you want the Platinum for the game, first and most easiest is locations, probably take you about 2 hours to drive round all 30 locations, you can probably do this quicker in free-roam and get your partner to drive you, however if you arnt sure on landmarks within L.A., you will need to find a location guide to help you.

The 2nd you will need to find a location guide, and its for the Gold Film Reel hunt, this is a pain in the ass hunt as there are 50 of them hidden through out the city, I think it took about 3-4 hours to find all of them over several sessions as its just a dull task.

The 3rd is to drive all 95 cars, now while this may sound nice and easy, it isnt, cars spawn randomly and never in the same place twice, to put in perspective it took 4 hours to find the last 7 cars, this was with the help of spawning guides, but they werent always accurate, I found my last two just by pure luck rather than skill, sometimes it is like that, sometimes you will be driving down a road and you will just see the car you need and you have to pounce on it as soon as possible and hope you can get it before you loose sight of the car.

Overall this has been a fun game to play and very worthwhile for anybody else who may be tempted to play it, heck even getting the platinum is worth getting as by the end of the game you will 95% of the trophies, so you might as well spend the time getting the rest just to complete everything on the game.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Kaiser Zonvolt »

Skyrim. Arrows. 'Nuff said.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Draiken »

++ PuzzleQuest 2 (DS) ++
Combining the worst parts of Bejeweled and some RPGs: the addictive nature. Hardly any plot in this one (unlike the first game where there was a clear bad guy to defeat), but it has a lot more interesting puzzles than the first game. Match gems to gain mana for your spells, action icons for your items, and skulls to deal damage to the enemy/monster if your spells don't do so. Very simplistic game, but I find it rather addicting when there's actually a goal for me to match gems besides gaining some high score.

++ Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals (DS) ++
Reminds me if a combination of Zelda and Golden Sun. You control a single character at a time, collecting items, solving puzzles, and bashing enemies along the way. You have a party composed of 6 characters (gathering more gradually as you progress through the game) with different abilities and affinities to match against certain puzzles or enemies. Some of the bosses can be difficult (I hate the Doom Eye boss so much...) and I sometimes wish that the game was made for a larger screen, but it's a very enjoyable game for me.

I'm currently going through the Ancient Cave where everyone is reset to Lv1 with basic equipment and a few items (kinda like a mystery dungeon), and it's kinda nice when you have all 6 party members to rotate between.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Catastrophe »

I got Skyward Sword from my brother for Christmas and have just marathoned through it.

I loved it. In my opinion, far better than Twilight Princess. Every step of the way through kept me hooked. I fail to see the shortcomings that most people pan it with. Flag the motion controls? That was the best part. The motion plus swordplay takes a bit to get the hang of, but it's really fun.

Then again, I religiously defended Majora's Mask being better than Ocarina of Time from the day it was released. It'll only take until the next Zelda title before people praise Skyward Sword. It always happens. Zelda fans don't know what they like.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Phoenix512 »

I understand why people are hating on the controls but the thing is that it's their way of playing it is the problem. It's not a game where swinging it around wildly will mean success. You have to think about your swings before making them. Overall I enjoyed Skyward Sword as well with the controls, upgrade system, and the characters themselves. I actually cared about the characters in Skyward Sword (including Goose and silent Link). One of the annoying things about the game is how every time you pick up a treasure item, you get the description message which is not necessary to do. The other bad thing about the game is lack of hints to deal with bosses. Your helper gives you little help unless you die like multiple times or later on through the boss gauntlet you get the hints when you ask for them.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Catastrophe »

Agreed. With the treasure, they could have fixed it, they did with the Rupees from TP. Also the hint thing is true, and by the time I would have died I had already figured out how the beat them, just had two hearts to try and do it lol.

One big thing I liked with the controls was how the pointing was calibrated to the Motion Plus rather than pointing with the remote as in TP, it made aiming stuff so much easier. And the option to censor the cursor as well, amazing.
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Binding of Isaac

Post by takenoko »

So a friend from Ukraine gifted this to me on Steam (an interesting story in it of itself).

This game is so fun. It's like Zelda meets a dungeon crawl. The dungeons are randomly generated and there are so many power-ups and unlockables that you can spend a lot of time with this game and be entertained. The perma death feature (game over and it's over) is pretty harsh, but at the same time it's like getting another chance to roll the dice and see if you're more lucky next time.

As you get deeper and deeper, you unlock more power-ups, so it does sort of get easier as you go. Plus there's other mechanics that you can use like slot machines, beggars, the Devil, tarot cards, randomized pills, so the player always has a chance of taking a gamble based on an informed risk. The game's not impossible, but if you're not paying attention, you'll die easily.

The black humor is pretty twisted and South Parkesque. The Bible and child abuse themes humor may not be to everyone's tastes.

But the game mechanics are solid and it's probably still pretty cheap. Check it out if you can.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by shadowneko003 »

Recently, I've be playing Star Ocean 3 Til the End of Time. Already beat the main game, it's just that the post game stuff is kinda hard. I think it took me 4ish years to finally beat Gabriel (post game boss, just beat a few weeks ago.) There was a lot of rage quit involved during the past 4 years....XD

But anyway, it's one of the few games that I'm still into and playing. Granted, I don't think I'll be doing a play through at Universe or 4D (Hard and Very Hard) modes. I tried it once at Universe, couldn't even beat the tutorial monsters. XD

Gamepay is ok. They worked out the kinks when they released Star Ocean 4 The Last Hope. The story gives you a huge plot twist for the entire series in general.

Another game that I started again is Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, which I haven't touched since 2006. That game is hard or maybe I'm not use to that type of battle system.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Phoenix512 »

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)

It's basically a remake of the DS game Trauma Center: Under the Knife but with another playable character and more missions. You play as Derek Stiles who is a surgeon with a gift called the Healing Touch which allows him to slow down time briefly. You go through various operations like suturing lacerations, removing glass shards, and fighting various bio-engineered weapons called GUILT.

This game I had for awhile which I started playing it and then stop for a long bit before trying to play it again when I left off. That usually is okay enough to get by on but not with this game. So remembering what happened last time, I started at the beginning this time through (you can replay through the missions). This game has a rather odd difficulty curve. Some missions are easier than others are and this is true for the middle part of the game where the game gives you a rather hard mission and then the next one is easier. This is a game where you need to react quickly but staying calm at the same time. The various GUILT species are tough and have their own strategy to get rid of them but even knowing it doesn't mean you will have an easy time with a mission involving them.

I eventually mention to beat the game on the normal and even cleared the X missions which are set on Extreme difficulty. The replaybility comes from the ranking you get on the missions which ranged from C to S (normal) or XS (hard/extreme). I have not gotten the top ranking on all the missions but I think getting through with the game is an accomplishment in itself.

The other game that I been playing is Super Mario Galaxy 2. It's like the first one where you collect Power Stars but instead of powering up sections of your starship, you use the stars to travel to the various worlds on your starship shaped as Mario's head. All of the old powerups returned along with some new ones like the Cloud Flower which allows you to create up to three cloud platforms and allows you to use clouds as platforms and the Rock Mushroom which turns you into a rolling boulder. The game newest addition is Yoshi which you can use him to eat enemies and turns them into Star Bits or spit them back at enemies. There's also berries that give Yoshi special abilities like extreme dashing, float like a balloon, and emit light which shows hidden platforms.

The last new thing is the Comet Medals that you can collect in each galaxy's first stage. They will open up the Prankster Comet star levels instead of like in the first game where they would automatically occurred after a certain point. You have the same variety of Prankster Comet levels but the Cosmic races have been replaced with Cosmic Clones which will mimic your movements and can be in other types of Prankster Comet levels.

I just gotten all the original set of Power Stars and just opened up the Green Stars which requires you to go back to the original levels but at least the Stars don't require you to play through the entire level unlike playing as Luigi in the first game to get to the very last level and stars. Overall if you're a veteran of the first game, the second one is really no different to controls except for using Yoshi. The thing I have to say it's bad is that it reintroduces some things in the first game but it doesn't give any advice to use them. I think Nintendo expects you to play the first one and doesn't take into account that you might not have played the first one at all.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Angelus13AOV »

Right now I'm playing the Jak And Daxter Collection which my wife bought for me. I needed it to replace my PS2 versions. I kinda regret it because even though they have great stories & characters, the difficulty of 2 & 3 is really annoying. Replaying it on PS3 has reminded me of how much I hated them in the first place.

I myself bought Asura's Wrath a few weeks ago. I knew it was going to be good but not as good as it actually is. Great story & truly awesome combat. It reminds me a lot of my favorite anime Dragon Ball Z. I'm not really too crazy about the graphics which kinda looks like they drew them with pencil & it's like a moving comic. But that's only a minor thing.

I'm currently playing Star Trek Online as well. I've been playing for a few weeks & I'm loving it so far. I've played other MMOs such as Final Fantasy XI Online (which I absolutely hated), DC Universe Online (it's okay, but I got bored of it too fast), The Lord Of The Rings Online (pretty good there are certain aspects of it I don't like), World of Warcraft (awesome game, but stopped after a few years because I did everything I was interested in doing so I was bored), Star Wars: The Old Republic (truly awesome but stopped after a few months due to an issue I had with the game) & City Of Heroes (good also, but got bored of it too fast). So far Star Trek Online is exactly what I'm looking for in an MMO.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Tomos »

I'm not a gamer. I just don't happen to play games,that's all. However,I have been obsessed with the Sims 3 for the last month and a half.

The only other time I play games is when I play Tekken 4,Pop Idol and Crash Bandicoot on the PS2,which I last did over a year ago.
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Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by butyoumight »

I got Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance the other day and have hardly been able to put it down.

Also, Persona 4!
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