The Videogames Tab

Not a big gamer myself, but the games that I've replayed tons of times have been the Mass Effect trilogy, and after I talked about Jennifer Hale and her voice acting in the games as FemShep with some people in another forum, I kinda feel like replaying it again just to kill my boredom. Currently installing the first Mass Effect now. I prefer the second game to the first one, but FemShep's always fun to play.

Shame about Dragon Age: Origins, though. Lost interest in that one after I squandered all the money I had saved up for the purchase of the third game, Dragon Age: Inquisition.

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“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so ****ing what." - Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005

Ahh ok. God, how many of these bleeding things are there?! I knew EA liked to run the cookie cutter at maximum speed but this is ridiculous. (Fair play to the artists and that, their city models etc have some great work in them - and I'm almost tempted by the upcoming London setting - but this is just like a very expensive set of texture packs!)

I'm actually as happy as a kitty in a litter tray right now with 4 tho. This is exactly the kind of braindead gaming I need right now. Only just grabbed an hour, but I'm ransacking the first island like an acquisitive conquistador, skipping around like Scrooge the squirrel preparing for winter, and it's very relaxing. (It does feel a bit of a shame that everything glows madly at you, making the open world seem a bit less explorable in some ways, but I'm happy to be led for now).

I'm sure the combat is going to drive me mad, and the ship stuff does look like it's going to be of a similar depth (pretty but dumb ), but reckon I'm gonna have fun being Jonny Depp for a bit

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On the combat note, I quickly polished off the rote Shadow of Mordor main missions, just so I could delete it... and then got caught just bopping one more orc on the head... and listening to one more gleeful bit of grunted dialogue... and I wonder if I can fill this platform with my orcs so I can get to that rune the chief dropped....

36 gig still sitting on my hardrive

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

The combat's what lets the AC games down these days, along with the unwieldy parkour animations. They really need to sit down and redesign them but with such a depressingly annualised iteration scale I guess no one has the time. If the Shadow of Mordor or Arkham guys had access to Ubi's art team we'd have a winner.

Just a quick heads up if anyone's after some cheap gaming gear - Razer has 50% off for its entire store today only. You need to register on their forums for your code, though, and a large proportion of lines seem to be sold out.

I'm not a massive fan of the way their products look but I've got no complaints about the way the Razer stuff I've owned over the years performs. The only peripheral I still use is the Orbweaver keypad and it's great for when I'm keyboard/mousing a game but don't want to hunch over a keyboard - It sits on my knee like a glowing green, clicky kitten. With cloud capabilities...

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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

GTA V PC specs are surprisingly low, especially when compared to Witcher 3's.

Be mindful, however, that the minimum specs won't guarantee a playable experience. Basically, it'll mean that the game boots and runs, that's all. Better to look at recommended.

Minimum Specs

OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2* (*NVIDIA video card recommended if running Vista OS)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz
Memory: 4GB
Video Card: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
HDD Space: 65GB

Recommended Specs

OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
Memory: 8GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
HDD Space: 65GB

Assassin's Creed Rogue ?

I thought you were taller.

I said it once and I'll say it again: nothing cooler than swan diving into hay. AC's greatest legacy!

@Tatty, that vid has reminded me what I like about being a pirate. You don't have to be affiliated with either of those arsehole sects

That said, it is coming to PC soonish, and the reviews tilt towards the favourable. Might pick it up when it drops in price

Because currently... I'm loving the sea physics...





They've really nailed the arcade/simulation hybrid here. The sea looks and 'feels' stunning at times, with the day/night cycle and weather effects, and yet functions as a complement to the gaming action too. Not sure how long its sea legs will last, but right now even little acts like pulling alongside your target in different conditions, or dealing with swell as you aim with the mini-cannons etc feel very satisfying. And sashaying between semi-burning brigs as you risk becoming splinters yourself can be pretty involving. (It helps I've now got the motivation of renovating the base, which I kinda like doing, and building a fleet. I'm almost annoyed the app doesn't work on my phone or I'd be earning mini-game cash while AFK )

Lord knows the general play has felt painfully familiar, but the varied settings certainly help. Liking the lush jungle-ised areas I'm in at the mo. Obviously linear, but nicely atmospheric. And hell, clambering up ornate Spanish Galleons, and skipping through their rigging, is a perfect environment indeed

I'm gearing up to making it more difficult now I've settled in. Have figured out which of the gazillion GUI options turns off the counter icons (& a whole raft of other prompts it seems - no more warnings of approaching hunter ships for me!). Then I'm going to allow myself some decent/quick-acting weapons, and try and tussle via body language alone



Addendums:

• I do kinda like the squeaky-clean-n-paranoid future settings. I'd like them more if I could move faster than a tea trolly though. And I'd like them even more if I wasn't bloody pirating at the time. (Seriously though, I quite like the hacking game, and the conspiracy, and the production values, but.... just let me parkour through some air vents or something The change of pace just feels too stultifying. I'd rather have the ability to run but not be able to do it often, even. You'd kinda feel like a pirate playing dress up in a suit, trying to play it cool Simulation assimilation )
  
  
• Lots of stuff looks grand on PC high settings (loving the little touches like moving plants as you brush through them). The people still look like over-broiled lobsters to me though. Occasionally engaging lobsters, but shiny peculiar creatures none-the-less. Not sure why that aspect gets kudos in some quarters. I think they've worked within the limitations quite well, when giving em individual personalities, but that's about it

I played IV (Colon Return of the Lost Bee Gee) more than Revelations and III put together but still tired of it far too quickly. Unity's just sitting on my drive taking up space while I try to get to level 50 in Rogue Legacy.

I'm with you on the faces. Can remember as far back as AC II that compared to some other current releases the actual character models jarred with the rest of the world. They're not as bad as DA Inquisition's though - Everyone outside of your core party looks like a half melted waxwork and surprisingly similar to DA 2's face tech, which was so bad that if you went with anything other than the default Hawke you looked like an X Files monster of the week.

Yeah, I'm hoping the low-GUI combat, and not-overcooking my ship, will eke a bit more longevity for me, but never know. Will hopefully get 16 quid's worth out of it anyway

Think I might be at the sweet spot at the moment where everything's ticking boxes (although I've already stopped collecting the more egregious collectibles and that) and I know I've still got more stuff to try, so feeling good about it. Just able to enjoy the salty vibe, and not at that point of feeling burnt and malnourished just yet

There might be hope for the ex AC lead developer's upcoming game. Forget the guy's name but he was the one who left Ubisoft and formed a studio to make a historically themed runny-jumpy-climby game ... The studio got bought by Ubisoft who then cancelled the project so he went Indie.

I just want decent combat and a map that doesn't look like a mason has sneezed on it.

Oo, d'you know the working title?

(I'll almost certainly buy it in Alpha at the rate I'm going )

For fans of 90s beat 'em up games, there's a great fan-made remake of the Genesis Streets of Rage games for the PC - completely free to download too:

http://www.soronline.net/sorr_downloads.htm

1666 was the original game he was working on before Ubi bought him out.

Maybe the guy will catch a break now and finally escape their evil clutches.

The Long Dark's Twitter account just posted this:



If I'm reading this right, it means the next update will roughly double the size of the world. Wow!

I gotta be honest, the itch to play again has been way stronger than I'd anticipated before. If they release another map (or expand the existing ones, or some combination of the two), I'm in. Though part of me's tempted to make another lengthy run while I still know most of the world as it is.

Just found some details:

!!!

I am going to try to force myself to play through some of the smaller concept games I've been hanging onto (as well as a few iPad games, since I need to clear out a little space there), but it looks like this'll still be my video game distraction of choice for most of February.

Truth be told, my options are a little limited anyway, since with the dog I'm still sort of playing in chunks of an hour here or there, and The Long Dark's sandbox mode is pretty easy to stop and start on short notice and play in chunks, so it's particularly well-suited to my schedule at the moment.

If you're after something to play in 10 minute chunks, I've been having a helluva lot of fun with Rogue Legacy recently. I'm approaching level 50 now and have unlocked almost all the characters, I think it's just the upgrades to the Lich and Miner that I need.

It's an amazingly tight Metroid-y rogue-y action platformer, and I see it in your Steam library.

Yeah, I gave that a try a couple of weeks ago. I'm not much for roguelikes and I'm kinda clumsy with games that require that level of movement precision. I might give it another go because I really love the concept behind it, and as you say it's a good "inbetween" game. But I might be too incompetent with that genre to get much out of it.

Have you got a controller? I'd hate to play any sort of platformer without one.

Oh yeah, I also got The Talos Principle. It's Portal with Tetris blocks, and that's not a criticism.



Gorgeous art direction, gorgeous sound design, puzzles that actually make me want to solve them (unlike most puzzle games, where I'll go off in a huff after a while and play more Rogue Legacy ) and all from the makers of ..... Serious Sam? Wow.

If I'd bought (and played a chunk of) it last year, it'd have made it on to my GOTY list for sure. Roll on The Witness, but it's got a serious contender now.