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A friend and I popped in Halo 3: ODST last night and started the campaign. We only played through the first part, so far, but I'm not impressed with the storyline. I didn't think it was possible to improve on the Halo gameplay format, but I was mistaken. ODST has some great new additions.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the story. It's pretty pedestrian in the beginning, but the structure of the game has improved the story a bit, especially since it's at least trying to keep from being convoluted and ridiculous.

I'm not sold on the suppressed SMG yet, but the new pistol is boss hogg. You can put down unshielded enemies like nothing with that thing. It's interesting, though, how my decision to keep one weapon over another has changed in this game. Not that the gameplay is so different, but it's different enough that you've got to really think about what will work best versus what you'd prefer to be carrying.

Oh, and apparently Hunters will follow you into buildings now. Worked that out myself.

Oh my God, I hate that SMG. It reminds me of a damn BB gun. And yes, that pistol is quite handy.

Really was not looking forward to it at all , but after reading the extremely positive reviews for it , I played the Uncharted 2 demo and the multiplayer is amazing. A very unexpected grab at 1st place in the 3rd person genre.

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My mate's been obsessing over that demo so played multiplayer fair bit, really enjoyed it at first, got up to level 15 but getting bit tedious now. Hope the actual game offers some big improvements.

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What do people think of the original Uncharted? I got the game when my PS3 was new and shiny, didn't think a great deal of it and traded it.

Bought it again a few weeks back (Argos are selling it for a £7 clearance price but you've gotta reserve it online first) and started again. It looks as nice as I remember and it's refreshing to see a lead character who isn't some sort of super-being (magically regenerating health notwithstanding) but the whole experience descends into a Gears of War run-and-gunfest.

The Tomb Raider games were going this way until someone took the devs to one side and told them that it was actually the exploration that made the franchise great and not shooting waves of bad guys. The last couple of games haven't been stellar but they're getting back to basics at least.

I dunno which market Naughty Dog were aiming for. Oh, and I've not tried the Beta yet - waiting on a 320GB hard drive to turn up before sticking anything else on the PS3.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Playing this at the moment...

I'm currently trying to track down a copy of Darkest of Days after playing the demo. It's made by a low-end developer and has received generally poor reviews, but I think the concept itself is a great start to something awesome.

In fact, some of the components in the demo were quite good. Tell me you wouldn't want to wield a fully-automatic futuristic rifle against Confederates in the Civil War! Or set fire to Roman Centurions with a flamethrower. That right there will get me to play your game, no questions asked.

Wow , I'm overwhelmed with all the games coming out recently.



and of course ....



and then next year is already filled up ...





and of course ...

I'm gonna have to import Demon's Souls. Can't find a European release date anywhere and I know more than one person (who I broadly share tastes with) who says it's the best game on PS3 right now.

A classic is being reborn tomorrow...

And you can bet your last jellybean that I will be buying it.

Trying out gamefly for a couple days , they take awhile to ship the games though - unlike Netflix where it's 1-2 day wait.

Playing this at the moment....

haha

but never gets old
the 1st one not the 2nd XD

ahhhhhhhhhh cant w8 for ! loooooks sooooo nice ^^

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I thought the spiderman games were much better than the movie! I guess because it's more interactive and because you control what happens. The movies were alright but the games were awesome.

Traded a load of stuff this morning (Race Pro, Forza 2, Sega Rally etc - basically clearing the decks for Forza 3 next week) and came away with Uncharted 2 for zilch and Fallout 3 GOTY for the PS3 for £20 - couldn't think of anything I wanted rather than F3 even though I've got it on both other platforms. It was either that or a credit note - and I don't see myself being back in that store for a while - or taking some of my potential trades back with me.

And I couldn't be bothered with that.

Recently I've been playing:



Silverfall Monte Cristo 2007 PC

Not a bad hack-and-slash RPG, similar to Diablo and Sacred. Instead of choosing between good and evil, the choice is between nature and technology, this makes for some interesting abilities and weapons. But at the end of the day its just not as good as the competition, the story is weak and gameplay isn't very satisfying.



Halo 3: ODST Bungie 2009 XBOX 360

Even though I've played every Halo game to death I was still looking forward to ODST. The game itself isn't different from Halo 3 apart from a few subtle differences, such as the re-introduction of a health bar/med kits, night vision, that simply highlights enemies and points of interest, missing weapons/power ups, such as energy swords and shields and last but not least a lack of multi-player options, there is only one mode, a survival mode that pits you against waves of Covenant . Firefight mode as they call it is good and when playing with more players is a lot of fun but without anything else to choose from you can't help but get bored. Where ODST really shines is its story telling. From the get go your in the thick of it and it is engrossing, especially with Nathan Fillion doing some voice-acting. But I found after a few hours the novelty wore off and I found myself running through the motions. Any new comers to the Halo franchise will love this game and any truly die hard fans might as well. The rest of us that have been there before probably not.

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I've been starved for a new game to play recently, so I decided to give Fable II a whirl. I wasn't particularly blown away by the first one, and although there's definitely a few more coats of polish on the sequel, the franchise still doesn't impress me.

I want to believe it's not because I'm accustomed to playing Bethesda's behemoth Elder Scrolls series, but I fear that might be the case. Fable II is charming and hilarious, but the core experience does not offer the same level of depth that most adventure-RPGs do these days. Interaction with NPCs is particularly shallow, and the development of your character through good or evil actions is no less revolutionary than the much-more involved work of Bioware and others. And come on... glitches? There's no reason why a game like Fable should have so many hiccups (especially when it prevents you from continuing the story).

I want to see Molyneux take the giant leap he's been dreaming about for years. He just needs to identify the truly exceptional ideas and expand the hell out of them so they don't end up being so superficial.

M$ have picked Molyneux to work on that new motion sensor gimmick thing. Knowing him he'll probably start claiming it cures smallpox and male pattern baldness...

I liked Fable II a heck of a lot more on second play through than the first but it's 'very good' and nowhere near 'great' for me. Didn't find any major glitches though, unlike ...

... Bloody Fallout 3 on the PS3. Don't think I've seen a console game this broken with less chance of a patch to fix it. I'd optimistically thought that the inclusion of the DLC might have ironed out the lag and freezing but they haven't. If anything, the DLC parts are even choppier than the original bits. I bought it on a whim so have only myself to blame but it's probably gonna get traded for Forza 3 on Friday.

It's not like I don't own it on another platform (or platforms, heh) and Bethesda tried to win me around by giving me a free premium 360 theme because I'd bought all the DLC for the XBox version. Unfortunately, it's one of those crappy themes with pale wallpaper in the top right corner - y'know, right where your (white) gamerscore and message count is.

Haven't even taken Uncharted 2 out of the box yet which is strange considering the rave reviews.

I replayed Shadow of the Colossus on hard, and then I found out that there's a WHOLE crap load of extra features you can unlock in Time Attack mode. So that's what I'll be doing for the next month, probably.