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token new zealander wrote:Most recently I was playing the new DLC for Mass Effect.

Is it good or just another "Bring Down The Sky"?

Kaptain Kaviar wrote:

token new zealander wrote:Most recently I was playing the new DLC for Mass Effect.

Is it good or just another "Bring Down The Sky"?

Worse. Its entirely combat based and shows Mass Effect at its worst. Its called Pinnacle Station and its basically a combat simulator. There are four modes. In Capture mode you just run from one place to another, wait a moment, then repeat. In survival, you just have to survive for a certain amount of time, and it dosen't end until you die, so you have to let yourself get killed . Hunt and Time trial are pretty much the same thing, kill a set amount of enemies in time.
Also, all the maps are just carbon copies of Virmire, Therum and Eden Prime.
Don't waste your money.

oh dear.oh well bring on mass effect 2

I haven't fired up the 360 for a good while, despite having both Ninja Gaiden II and Blue Dragon to finish... and I really hate it when I leave games unfinished.

Recently, when it actually holds a charge, I've been playing Final Fantasy Dissidia, which is severely addictive, though it's so unbalanced it's unreal. Square have never managed a decent fighting game that combines physical fighting with magical attacking and they haven't really honed it on this either.

For example, Kefka is a long range magic attacker who starts off with slow, barely homing attacks, so getting any actual hits in is pretty much dumb luck. Countered with Terra however, she's a long range magician but her attacks are stupidly fast and deadly. I breezed through her story mode no problem.
All of the villains are severely difficult to play as. I don't know if it's intention, but I can't use them to save my life, though I'm so used to their attacks I can avoid them no problem. Except Cloud of Darkness. Cheap-ass bitch.

When the PSP is charging I'm playing Final Fantasy VI Advance on my pink GameBoy Micro. Authentic Kefka laugh included. His voice actor on Dissidia just doesn't cut it.

I already wasted my money on the ME DLC. Probably the worst DLC addon pack I've ever bought

Its a shame its so combat-orientated, when ME's forte is not in combat. Then again, I guess it would be hard to make a DLC pack centered around dialogue and story

As for Dissidia, my brother has been playing it to death. I myself got disenchanted with it fairly quick
Terra is an absolute beast. Mages seem to be the only class worth using
Squall and Cloud are rubbish

Anyhow, I may start playing Fallout again. I can't bring myself to continue with Tales of Vesperia

Squall is okay, but his HP attacks have such a short range at low level that you have to be really close to the opponent to get a hit in, and if you're facing a quick opponent or a long range opponent like Onion Knight or Cloud of Darkness you're gonna struggle.

Cloud and Sephiroth are both terrible though. I'd have to say the best characters are probably Terra, Cloud of Darkness and Zidance, just because they're fast and versatile.

You mean "Zidawn"

I'll ask my brother later for his unofficial teir list. He's maining Kuja and Terra a lot
I may pick it up again. I checked his save earlier and saw that you could unlock Gabranth later on.

I can't handle Squall. Mebbe if I got him to learn Blasting Zone he'd be usable

I've not used Kuja yet. He's an unpredictable arse to fight against so I imagine he's probably pretty cheap to use.

Worst characters would have to be Exdeath and Ultimecia. Everyone else I'd say is somewhat middle tier.

I need to go through Squall's story mode again actually to level him up a bit, so I'll gauge if he's really good or not with a bit more of a playthrough.

Now that I think of it, Tidus is a pretty awesome close range character.
Probs the most noob friendly character in the game.

Anyhow, Dissidia is a long jump in quality from the goddamned mess that was Erghiez

Ah, Ehrgeiz. Proper models of some of the FFVII cast was nice, but still, a horrible game with an equally horrible action RPG tacked in.

... yeah, it's definitely an improvement.

I don't know about Tidus being the most noob friendly character though. A lot of his HP attacks are easy to dodge and he flips around way too much, so he's pretty tricky to get to grips with when you first use him.

I think Cecil probably works best as an intro character. He manages long and short range pretty well with no fuss, his aerial HP attack is pretty decent and he moves pretty quick as a Paladin.

I'm a genius, so I managed to set up my PS3 on my PC monitor for less than a tenner. Granted, there are a lot of cables, but I guessed right on what I needed to do it. The XMB, PS Store etc. and a lot of games look clean and suitable, but an equal number look shit because their resolutions are so low! What the fuck? Why can that beast of a machine not run Batman at more than 720p? The difference between the PS3 and PC demos on the same display is like night and day.

Last night I played Shatter and Trash Panic for about three hours, both great PSN titles. Finished Chapter Nine of Call of Juarez two minutes ago, that level was fucking rad. There's a seriously capable engine powering that game, rendering a massive, fairly detailed environment with lovely lighting at 60FPS. I don't know why they didn't make a Morroblivion with it instead of going the Call of Duty route with the sequel.

The running animations piss me off so much on that game.

Raine wrote:Recently, when it actually holds a charge, I've been playing Final Fantasy Dissidia, which is severely addictive, though it's so unbalanced it's unreal. Square have never managed a decent fighting game that combines physical fighting with magical attacking and they haven't really honed it on this either.

I loved the demo and my copy should be here by Friday at the latest I thought Cecil was pretty good and I loved how he switched between the Dark Knight and the Paldin.

I just finished Call of Juarez. Fucking good game actually, well paced narrative and a great variety of play styles, fairly original in places. Incredibly rough around the edges and a few ill design choices here and there, but on the whole it was surprisingly awesome. Character empathy was a bit fucked up, swung wildly around - Ray's was in a nice, fairly unpredictable arc, but Billy was all over the place, partly because he was occasionally a self serving little shit. Parts of the ending were very exciting conceptually in terms of interaction, but on the whole it was lame because it was packed with so many psuedo-deus ex machinas.

As I said, rough around the edges, but bravely attempts some cool stuff and avoids being just another shooter. I want to get Bound in Blood now, but I doubt it'll be as interesting.

7/10

I appear to have finished Red Dead Revolver, Gun and Call of Juarez now, so I suppose I had better get on with the new installments Wonder if there will ever be a Gun II?

Red Dead Revolver. Thanks for reminding me.

Redemption gonna bring dat shit.

About to play Bound in Blood demo, that'll decide whether my quids go to it or Arkham Asylum tomorrow.

OK, I'm not going to get Bound in Blood until it's cheap, and even then it's just for the story. For every sensible control layout, proper checkpoint system and slow motion effect, there's a dumbed-down consolefied core of action shit. Turrets hardly existed in the time it purports to take place, explosives are everywhere, bog standard cutscenes are used and the game just chucked millions of enemies at me. Gone is strategic use of cover to get an accurate shot, gone is the surprisingly restrained combat, gone is the immersion. Oh, it's polished and streamlined to the max, but all of the subtlety is gone. Also, what the fuck was wrong with the old focus mode? Why did they have to put in another one. Remember the Red Dead Revolver one? Call of Juarez had two crosshairs going across the screen and meeting in the middle with bullets dispatched by the player. Bound in Blood has that, plus an automatic one. It's like the Red Dead style broken into two parts and used as separate mechanics - total bullshit. Weapon selection is also pretty fucked up sort of like the original, but they only had to go and remove the bar at the bottom that shows explicitly the selected weapon/s and which button each is on.

bought saints row 2 and lego batman on the cheap today so will crack onto them tonight, got a cheeky day off work tomorrow

gdf wrote:I just finished Call of Juarez. Fucking good game actually, well paced narrative and a great variety of play styles, fairly original in places. Incredibly rough around the edges and a few ill design choices here and there, but on the whole it was surprisingly awesome. Character empathy was a bit fucked up, swung wildly around - Ray's was in a nice, fairly unpredictable arc, but Billy was all over the place, partly because he was occasionally a self serving little shit. Parts of the ending were very exciting conceptually in terms of interaction, but on the whole it was lame because it was packed with so many psuedo-deus ex machinas.

As I said, rough around the edges, but bravely attempts some cool stuff and avoids being just another shooter. I want to get Bound in Blood now, but I doubt it'll be as interesting.

7/10

I appear to have finished Red Dead Revolver, Gun and Call of Juarez now, so I suppose I had better get on with the new installments Wonder if there will ever be a Gun II?

Awesome! Finally someone else than me and my cousin who appreciate this. CoJ really manages to transcend the sum of its parts in my opinion. CoJ: BiB isn't as interesting, I'll admit, but it still has its fair share of moments. By the way, how awesome wasn't the level with Bily climbing the mountain etc?

Red Dead Redemption will be the ultimate western game. One concern though: The cheesiness of the story suited the style of the last game but if it's taking this awesome sounding serious approach to proceedings then I hope the story is suitably serious alongside it.

Kaptain Kaviar wrote:Awesome! Finally someone else than me and my cousin who appreciate this. CoJ really manages to transcend the sum of its parts in my opinion. CoJ: BiB isn't as interesting, I'll admit, but it still has its fair share of moments. By the way, how awesome wasn't the level with Bily climbing the mountain etc?

Wasn't or was? I thought it was great, hunting the rabbits was amazing fun and climbing the mountain was an endurance test for you as well as Billy - the eagle pissed me off so much that I took all of its feathers! The environment on that stage was enormous and it rendered all of that without breaking a sweat, I wish they'd gone for an open world instead of the other way for the sequel because the systems they had in place seemed much more versatile than a linear game would allow for.

You're definitely right that it's greater than the sum of its parts, though. I think I picked it up on your recommendation from a long time ago, so thanks

gdf wrote:I'm a genius, so I managed to set up my PS3 on my PC monitor for less than a tenner. Granted, there are a lot of cables, but I guessed right on what I needed to do it.

HDMI Input on PC monitors FTW

gah, I had to buy a VGA cable for 30 quid. And as it's not a widescreen monitor, I just have a nicely squashed image.

Ew, why did you bother? My monitor is one of those quality Samsung SyncMaster ones, 16:10, so the image is only slightly stretched. Can't say I've even noticed.

And how did you end up paying so much? The HDMI>DVI cable I got was about five pounds.

Mine's a SyncMaster aswell. 741mp. Wouldn't know the resolution. My monitor doesn't have DVI input and HDMI>VGA convertors are seemingly difficult to come by. It's not horribly stretched, I don't even think about it once I'm playing. I'll get a pic or something later. I'm going to move it to another monitor shortly, if it has DVI input I'll give it a try.