What game are you playing?

[stingo]

I just finished Arkham Asylum last night so I could purchase Arkham City with a clear conscience. Awesome game with high production values. I can't help but think the sequel will follow suit.

I also saw Titan Quest mentioned - I have the game on Steam so if anyone wants to play let me know.

[Mirror Image]

I just finished Arkham Asylum last night so I could purchase Arkham City with a clear conscience. Awesome game with high production values. I can't help but think the sequel will follow suit.

Arkham City is a fine game that has a ton of replay value. There are a lot of side missions that will keep you busy after you've beaten the main story. This game is much more of a sandbox game than Asylum with many interesting plot twists along the way. I read one review where the person complains that they didn't know where to go. THE GAME GIVES YOU DIRECTIONS! I mean how dumb someone has to be to not be able to make any kind of progress in this game. The gameplay is almost identical to Asylum so no surprises there except you can use your environments against your opponents now (i. e. slamming someone's head into a rail). Arkham City is a completely different game than Asylum and you'll notice this world of difference in a matter of minutes.

[Mirror Image]

Last night, I played some Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception for a couple of hours and really enjoyed it:



From the opening scene, I knew I was in for another great Uncharted experience. I really enjoyed the last two installments, so I was eagerly anticipating this game. The game is damn fluid and the story seems to be very good as well. What's interesting is we get to go back in time when Drake was a kid and how he met Sully. I love the way they have incorporated the past into the present in this game. Anyway, I won't bore any of you any longer other than to say I'm very impressed with the game so far.

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

As for Skyrim, it's attractiveness is basically because of the world. You can wander around for hours. I love the bleakness of mountains, or if you walk around in the north... The different moods of different parts of the day... You get a lot for your money.

But still, many quests are boring and disappointing, or even dumb.
[spoiler]For instance, in Windhelm, there's a slaughterer who's killed a girl. It all sounds hopeful, but the quest immediately ends after you found some information in your house and spoke to a woman and the Jarls companion. He says "Windhelm ist safe now - and that's it.
Same as with the war against Solitude (with Ulfric) - you win, everybody goes home, finished.
[/spoiler]

[Lethevich]

I agree, Bethesda have always been quite poor with quests :\

[stingo]

The majority of quests are dumb/mundane which is probably why the quest givers pay you the pittance they do.

I started in on Star Wars: The Old Republic yesterday and it seems pretty good so far.

[stingo]

Great sale at Steam if you're into PC gaming.

[Lethevich]

Replaying Baldur's Gate 2. Despite being able to pick some flaws, it's still the best RPG I will probably ever play - although I do have a mild preference to D&D's Faerûn over other settings I have encountered (other than Warhammer, which I like equally), as it feels richer and less arbritrary than most. The AD&D2 mechanics drove me insane initially, as they do with many, but I'm finding myself enjoying it even more this time, and they offer a lot of depth to the combat options to have. It's a pretty long game, and it ticks all the boxes I expect in an adventure RPG - a huge explorable city full of little secrets, faraway villages with strange secrets, even a pirate island I am usually unwilling to play games that I am nostalgic about, because I know that they will no longer be as enjoyable, but BG2 holds up exceptionally well and hasn't been bettered by another game of this style.

[stingo]

Thanks to Steam I picked up (and started) Arkham City, Saints Row The Third and Skyrim. Also added some other Dawn of War II add-ons as well. Good times. (This is in addition to Star Wars: The Old Republic)

[Mirror Image]

Still playing:



What a game this is! I love it. For those who played the first two installments, Uncharted 3 is a must. There's a good bit more action in this game than from what other people have been saying about it. If you don't like stories, then don't play this game or any Uncharted game for that matter. The game features more hand-to-hand combat than the last one, which is always fun and I especially love bashing an enemy's head into the wall. I'm really enjoying this game and feel that I'm getting my money's worth out of it.

[ibanezmonster]

Never got past the beginning of Planescape:Torment, because of it crashing yet again, so I'm putting it aside for sometime later in the year.

Just started today:



We all got these games for Christmas:


I've played a little of Little Big Planet and it's fun.

[Mirror Image]

Uncharted 2 is an amazing game. Have you played the first one? I haven't played LittleBigPlanet 2 yet, but I loved the first one. Fun game.

If you like 2D platformers, you should definitely try Rayman Origins. This is such a fun game. I think it's one of the best games to come out in 2011.

[Lethevich]

Never got past the beginning of Planescape:Torment, because of it crashing yet again, so I'm putting it aside for sometime later in the year.

I had the same problem when I played some years back (did it happen outside the front of some building on the north of a zone you were in?) I forgot how I fixed it, though - but some version of it will work. Did you try with XP compatability?

[ibanezmonster]

Uncharted 2 is an amazing game. Have you played the first one?

Nope. Is it good?

I had the same problem when I played some years back (did it happen outside the front of some building on the north of a zone you were in?) I forgot how I fixed it, though - but some version of it will work. Did you try with XP compatability?

I use Vista... I don't remember if I had to adjust some settings or what.
The area was at the beginning- talk to that one guy who seems to know everything, loop around, and walk up to this place that's either a gate or something that leads you upstairs... I'm sure there's a solution out there if I google it.

[Mirror Image]

Nope. Is it good?

The first game has all the hallmarks of the other games, but one thing that sets it apart is the dialogue isn't as strong in the first installment as it is in the next two, which means there's much more action, which can never be a bad thing. Each game offers a unique gaming experience. You will enjoy this one a lot I think.

[ibanezmonster]

Bioshock is like a Disney ride from hell. 

[Josquin des Prez]

Why i hate skyrim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwUwiHnhjVc

Ok, jokes aside, seems like Bethesda has been improving quite a bit. This game doesn't seem to be the disaster Oblivion was, but its still Bethesda. Expect bad writing and bland dialog.

[Josquin des Prez]

Bioshock is like a Disney ride from hell. 

That's quite pertinent actually. The problem with Bioshock, and most other FPS games this days, is that they feel more like a theme park ride then an actual game. In some of them, like in the Call of Duty series, you get warnings if you attempt to step out the path the developers set out for you. There worst, i think, is the single player portion of Battlefield 3 (the multiplayer is apparently surprisingly good, or so they say). Some parts of the game have so little interaction it feels almost like you are watching a movie.

[jowcol]

Why i hate skyrim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwUwiHnhjVc

Ok, jokes aside, seems like Bethesda has been improving quite a bit. This game doesn't seem to be the disaster Oblivion was, but its still Bethesda. Expect bad writing and bland dialog.

Hmm, this guy said that the women were too butch.   I must admit that my real life wife is acting a bit jealous of my virtual wife Aela the Huntress, since I do have a thing for her.

.

  None of the NPCs you hang with that long are  going to surprise you with their dialog after a while, but I must admit that Aela is my favorite follower.  I once gave here better armor, but she wasn't as much fun to look at.  So she's back in light armor.

I fully agree about the dialog, and the heavy use of exposition, but I haven't seen a video game that ever really blew me away in that regards.

Something I am liking about Skyrim (About 100 hours so far, just made 50th level, have only done about 1/2 of the main quest, and still am in no hurry to finish...), is that many of the dungeons have a theme or story to make them different.  (Even though you can count on finding the journal of the doomed party as you start).   So there are at least some narrative threads to follow, and many of them are in visual terms, not dialog, which fits the medium better.

Really, the scope of the game, and its strengths, is like a Bildungsroman, where your development is the major  story, and the quests are just a a part of this larger arc.  On the whole, I've found some of of the quests more interesting than Fallout New Vegas (where many of them devolved into relaying messages between two parties, back and forth, back and forth), but still, some of them are still pretty lame, although the relative rate of klunkers seems lower to me.

I would say that for content and gameplay,  it offers twice as much as the last two Fallout installments.  If you like the basic Bethesda approach, you will have a blast, but a lot of the major weaknesses from those two are evident as well.

I've got no regrets other than the loss of sleep as I'm trying to balance job and family with this beast.

[jowcol]

That's quite pertinent actually. The problem with Bioshock, and most other FPS games this days, is that they feel more like a theme park ride then an actual game. In some of them, like in the Call of Duty series, you get warnings if you attempt to step out the path the developers set out for you. There worst, i think, is the single player portion of Battlefield 3 (the multiplayer is apparently surprisingly good, or so they say). Some parts of the game have so little interaction it feels almost like you were watching a movie.

This is a good point-- the replay value in a game, to me, is tied to how many different ways you can attack it.  I tend to find cutscenes intrusive, and also don't like it when there is only one way to attack the game. .