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Ah I see the logic now - so if/when frame rates do drop you always stay above the 25 standard. Makes sense

Nifty on the controls - never thought of using the bumpers as a 'shifts'. Can't think of a game that's ever employed that. Makes a lotta sense too

Modern controllers are ingenious at packing in inputs, but they do seem to be maxing out now. The analogue-click is a cunning idea for slipping more in, but I'm sure even the most nimble-fingered gamer must accidentally click em during a panic moment (and lord knows I won several BF3 firefights last night by 'deliberately' going prone )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Damn you, Steam Sale, damn you!

There's been stuff so cheap that it's silly *not* buying it - both Mass Effect games for £7.50, for example. If I rid myself of one of my consoles, at this rate it'll be the Xbox.

I had ME1 for PC years ago before I got a 360 and was surprised at how well the Xbox version looked in comparison - it was practically identical. Picked the Steam one up for £2.49 and, whaddya know, I'd been mis-thinking all this time.

Seems that Bioware never bothered correcting a bug in the config file where, even on high settings, the game would only output low resolution textures. It's a simple copy+paste job with some lines in the config file and the difference is immense. The game looks nearly as good now as ME2.

Nearly.

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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

Got my Light Saber!

I leveled to level 10 with a friend of mine, and it was damn fun. I will say, the game definitely leans to the solo side quite a bit at this point. The multi-player stuff is there, but you still tend to get split out into story mode alone quite a bit as you quest along.

One cool thing though, is that whenever you get a quest from a guy, it goes into the Bioware cinematic mode for dialogue we all know and love, but both people get to answer and then the game rolls on which response to use. It adds a fun random quality to the quest sections that REALLY feels like you are in a movie with your friends and they are the other characters. I mean, think about playing through Mass Effect II with friends actively playing the other characters in your party. As you go deeper into the conversation, it cuts to you or your friend depending on which response wins out. Light/Dark side choices are handled a bit differently, in that the game chooses one response to play out the dialogue, but each person gets to choose weather or not their character gets light or dark side points. I am really enjoying this aspect of the game.

The story I am playing through (Jedi Consular) has been fantastic so far.

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Where'd you buy your copy Seds? I'm looking at *spit* Origin here and it's £44.99 plus £9.99 a month.

Steam's spat with EA means that the chances of it arriving on their platform (and thus the prospect of reduced prices) are slim to none - Steam pulled Dragon Age 2 over an argument about how DLC was delivered and EA went into a huff.

EDIT - The physical disc is £36 on Amazon,

Should be £8.99 per month.

I am enjoying the game more now that it has branched out into proper MMO mode. Doing a few professions, access to trade market (auctions). First 10 lvls felt very Linear but I feel I have much more say in what I do now.

Must say that I'm loving the game. I ve also got 6 free days to really try it out, YAY!

The starter world is clearly a lowbie land, and I felt it was just the right size (about the size of a WOW zone) to get my feet wet, practice some tactics and get used to my character. I must say, when m Jedi Consular Lights first held her lil light saber up in the classic Star Wars pose, I got goose bumps! What a great story so far.

I am camped in the Cantina in the Republic Fleet right now, and I ended up going Consular - Sage for a sub-class.

I hear the game opens up at this point...

@Tac - I downloaded mine from Origin last week so I was ready to drop in midnight, Monday.

Oh, by the by, here is my guild info for those on the search for a good guild...

Server: Prophecy of Five (Open world PVP in contested zones)
Faction: Republic
Guild Website: Spiceline Guild Website

Voice chat REQUIRED for Flashpoints and Ops - We use Ventrillo.

It's not open applications, so you need a recommendation from a current Spiceline member, which I can provide. If you fill out the small app on the guild site, just put down "Lights" as the person recommending you.

We currently need DPS players. Stacked on tanks and heals but will always take those as well!

I'll pick up the disc after Christmas, probably.

Today I've been pulling what remains of my hair out. I discovered I bought the wrong RAM for my rig, which explains the occasional freezing issue I have when playing videos - It's specially configured for Intel processors and I've got a Phenom. Dunno why I didn't spot it when I bought it.

Ah well, RAM's cheap and I can flog the existing stuff on eBay. I'm getting better benchmarking performance out of it when I underclock (from 1600 to 1440) the frequency. Weird.

Skyrimz Screenshots of The Day:

I love when the Aurora is out. I miss Skyrim! I am having way too much fun in the new guild, though, and this game is only getting better....

I miss the land of cats and dragons too. Haven't dipped my toes back in the glacial waters for a while, for fear of waking up 2 days later. With whiskers

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Instead I worked off the turkey by spending 2 days sprinting around BF3 ...



Quite a few 'battlefield moments' along the way that had me giggling like a loon. My fave was probably getting caught in the hover jet, wallowing in mid air ('like bricks don't') while a Russian jet bore down on me. All I could do was swivel towards him and play a stationary game of chicken. By sheer luck I took out the pilot, leaving his empty craft to miss me by inches. Sweet

Lots of other silliness happened (a recon stealthily walking backwards off a building being another fave ), occasional rounds of complete frustration, some surprising competence from myself, and of course endless endless unlock-chasing. (Alright, so I wouldn't mind an anti-air seat in my tank, but stop tempting me to play another damn round to get it )

*EDIT* Any BF3 players got their eye on a particular unlock? I'm def looking forward to the 'below radar' low-flying perk for jets. It's fun to do anyway, so to get a radar boon out of it would be grand

Just beat Gun on 360 and bought The Orange Box
so currently playing
Half life 2 ~ xbox 360

I've been working on Operation: Get Rid Of A Console 2012 mighty well in the last few days via the mediums of Steam and it's slightly unkempt cousin GamersGate, which occasionally sells Steam codes of games cheaper than Steam itself.

I got Assassin's Creed 1 & 2 for a couple of quid each, Deus Ex 3, DiRT 3, F1 2011, Fable 3, Just Cause 2 (£2! ), the Mass Effects and NFS Shift. Played about 2 minutes of each, mind, because my gaming time is still Skyrim.

Oh yeah, I'm now Thane of Solitude, married to Camilla Valerius and have a new Housecarl who seems to be a slightly more severe-looking Lydia. I also own a manor in Solitude.





Whiterun was full of plebs anyway. Horrible little backwater.

Lydia is minding the Whiterun house, by the way. Don't think I can rent it out a la Fable though. Modders?!?

I think I will try to get some Skyrim time in tomorrow...

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Uff, I feel so gamingly uncultured now

But sometimes you just have to fly a plane sideways between some cranes

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BF3 is living up to its pedigree of being 'multi-layered' now. Every time I play a map I see some new strategy being employed or learn a new trick. The extra maps have helped, as they're all very devious (even Wake Island, which has been getting hate from the old guard).

I even saw some recons 'playing the objective' yesterday, which is kinda unheard of (They'd used their MAV drone to get up to a handy shelf actually near one the flags on Bazaar. Add in a spawn beacon and our squad were causing all kinds of new conundrums for the opposing team )

Playing Battlefield 3, like it more than MW3.

Arkham City as well, which gets my game of the year award.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Ahhh, I've become a total BF3 addict. Have probably spent 6hrs+ on it 3 days solid now.



Trying to fly planes with extinguisher instead of flares at the mo, which is right tricky. Good for dogfights & random flak, but dodging lock-ons is challenging (as I understand it you've gotta head up, then invert and suddenly descend / head back towards the missile. Works some of the time ). The under-radar perk seems pretty useful, but takes a while to kick in.

Just being able to fly with analogue sticks is a joy. So much variety between the vehicles. Mouse + lag on PC meant I could never do more than ferry people (incidentally, love the rattles that shudder out of all the aircraft when you hit a max speed - sounds great, especially when flying in low towards a beach front or some such )

Weirdly I even seem to be getting the hang of all the twitchy shootery more and more. Read some pro-guys 'thesis' on grunt work, and his idea that it's more about knowing the 'flow' of the match & the potentials of areas than actual reactions makes sense. Certainly knowing the maps better (& having learned via massive fails ) helps a lot. I've clocked up 5 MVP 'top player' ribbons now. Probably mainly on incompetent servers tho

Still, nothing beats simple explosive passtimes. Took the floor out beneath a pair of snipers with an RPG just as they swatted me last night. Two for one (Seeing their little orange triangles plummet made up for the ignominy of getting headshotted from that range )

I havent played any of the Battlefield games Ive been told they are amazing games, I wouldnt mind picking BF3 up when its cheaper to see what all the fuss is about

I have played some of the Modern Warfare games and they were ok, but what gets on my nerves is the campers!

I have been playing allot of Halo Reach, but Ive gotten quite bored of it after playing it non stop since its release. So ive moved on to Rage. Has anyone played that and what did you think of it? Ive been playing it since Christmas and quite addicted to it

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~