The Videogames Tab

Last game I bought (the day it came out):



Do you really have to ask for a review to know that I love it?

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

What's the song choice like?

Thought I'd better start Uncharted 2, by the way. I'm just on the first semi-tutorial level and am liking it so far - lots of MGS-style stealth combat but I've not yet encountered the endless firefights which bored me witless (not a lot of wits to lose, yeah yeah ) in the first one.

Interestingly, 4 out of the 5 people online on my friends list are playing it.

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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

Lots of Beatles goodness. Some missing, and I just can't wait for the Online Store to actually, ya know, have songs to buy.

The extras are fun too.

Yeah, Bethesda is renowned for glitches. Fortunately they've made huge strides since Morrowind, which is why I'm surprised to hear you're encountering major glitches on Fallout. I had a few graphical issues on the 360, but that's it. No more dropped saves, freezes, and other exercises in frustration... so far.

Speaking of broken games, did you ever play Bethesda's Sea Dogs-turned Pirates of the Caribbean rush job on XBox? That game was so screwed up, you'd think it was possessed.

Bethesda make some great games but their quality control is still, frankly, rubbish. Was it 2 out of the 4 F3 DLCs on XBox Live that went out broken? There was a potentially gamebreaking bug in the PS3 Oblivion GOTY (you can't complete the cure for Vampirism quest) that they never bothered patching and now this for Fallout. I'm not gonna hold my breath for them to fix it and there are a lot of people on the Bethesda forums complaining of the same things.

I know it's a port who's roots seem to be well on the XBox/PC side of things but it's frustrating because Oblivion (Vampirism bug notwithstanding) is appreciably faster and to my eyes better looking on the PS3. Devs, on the whole, seem to have got a handle on the console and reports of sub standard conversions are few and far between so I'm not buying that excuse any more.

Bethesda aren't as hopeless/unlucky as Troika were, but they're not as loveable either.

Was Sea Dogs also a PC game? I remember buying something in the early 2000s with a pirate theme and am pretty sure that was the game.

After a few more hours, Uncharted 2 has moved into 'excellent' territory. Combat is a big improvement over the original and it's jaw-droppingly good to look at in places, with playability to match. Which is the important thing.

Other than a stiff difficulty in Point Lookout, I didn't have any trouble from the Fallout DLC. I haven't downloaded The Pit, though.

You know, I ran into a glitch that prevented completion of the Fighter's Guild with my first character on the 360 version, but my second character was able to finish it with ease. Weird how that works.

Yeah, I think you're right. Oblivion is probably a larger conversion than most other games, but there's no reason why it shouldn't work just as well as its progenitors. Unless, of course, Sony wanted to rush the job because it's crying for established hits.

Yeah, the first Sea Dogs was released for PC by Bethesda (but developed by Akella) in 2000, and it was a fairly celebrated pirate adventure game. Akella started developing the sequel soon after, but since the game happened to coincide with the Pirates of the Caribbean film, Disney swooped in and claimed the project, threw the Black Pearl into the existing storyline, and rushed the game to release for the film.

Surprisingly, the graphics are quite good and the game mechanics are sound. It's just that severe bugs - dropped saves, missing crew, freezes - made the game barely playable.

I think it has the world record for unique scripted moments, I just wish the multiplayer was a little faster to get you playing.

Finding a match doesn't take that long, but once you've found one and played - it ends and you have to find another

Brutal Legend has been pretty awesome so far although I do have many problems with it. All the side-quests add up to about 5 different things, your car is always disappearing (your car that you need to get everywhere), and the multiplayer seems to be favoring one faction over two others.

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I think The Pitt was the one which lasted a couple of hours on XBL before they took it down because it was crashing everyone's systems and hastily re-worked it.


I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt here but the fact remains that the original game worked perfectly, only the GOTY had the screwed up quest. Bethesda's advice on their forums (rather than a no-doubt simple patch) was to buy or borrow a copy of the original Oblivion and finish the quest that way or reload an earlier save from before you started the cure for Vampirism quest. All I did was to keep stocked up with cure disease potions and hammer a few into me if I caught anything.

It just smacks of no quality control, ie: no one testing every aspect before release. It was the same with the original release of Fallout 3 which would freeze every time someone on your friends list signed into PSN - they obviously only tested the game offline but at least fixed it with a patch a few weeks later. Yep, weeks and not hours or days.

I understand they're not a large developer but I remember one of the guys from Troika staying behind and coding a patch for VTM Bloodlines even though the company had gone bust and no one was paying him. That's why I loved Troika: Every one of their games was released broken but they did all they could to rectify things. Their main problem was making release date promises to the larger companies (who released their stuff, like Sierra) that they couldn't keep without rushing the games out.

I think one of the guys works for Bethesda now, actually. Hmmm, maybe he's the lead tester.



I didn't buy the original XBox until it was nearly dead and they were shifting the consoles cheap. I've now got 3, 2 of which have only been opened to make sure they work. Dunno why I keep them, though - the one I used has been packed away since the PS3 arrived and took over all my media streaming duties.

Forza 3. Woof!

Going against the habit of a lifetime (well, apart from the Fallout 3 edition with the groovy Brotherhood of Steel statue) I bought the Collector's edition. A nice quality keyring, 2GB flash drive and a load of exclusive cars (which still need to be bought with your in-game credits) and tracks for £10 more? Deal.

When you factor in HMV being silly with their trade-in prices (they gave me £25 for Arkham Asylum, for instance, and I only paid 30 for it, heh) I managed to swing Forza and Borderlands for under a tenner. Ain't tried Borderlands yet but it's meant to be a blast.

Let us know how Borderlands is.

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Will do. Got it on 360 as opposed to PS3 which is probably #742 of Tatty's Stupid Moves because 3 or 4 people on my PS3 friends list have been playing this religiously since it got released and I haven't seen anyone on my XBL list with it.

Gamertag - Paddy Sonatine if anyone wants to change that.

I'd heard that the online co-op (which is the entire point of the game, probably) is more flawed on PS3 than 360, in my defence.

Been fiddling around with Forza 3 online and it's ... disappointing. I know this doesn't get a US release until the 27th but lobbies seem deserted. The whole game seems a little rough around the edges, if I'm honest, but the core driving physics save things. They're possibly (and this is only with a day's play so I might fall out with it yet) the best I've seen outside one of the Simbin games on PC.

I run a 360, not a fan of PS3s. The controllers, the lack of games and dodgy online service, even though its free. When I get around to getting Live again Ill look you up. Good gamer buddies are hard to come by.

I think what you say about lack of games and poor online would have been true a year or 18 months ago but the PS3 (and PSN) is improving all the time. There are some genuinely innovative little games on PSN (Flower is probably my GOTY) too.

I'm in two minds about the controller. The only let-down for me are the analogue triggers (which are absolute bobbins - convex triggers?!?) but it's a big drawback. The little extensions are an improvement but they tend to snap off at inopportune moments. I much prefer the analogue stick sensitivity, D-Pad, shoulder buttons and weight to the 360 controller though. The motion sensing is a bit of a gimmick (and the big devs seem to be using it less and less) but titles like Flower show how good it can be in the right hands.

Just a little over two weeks until Modern Warfare 2! Huzzah.

Meanwhile, I tried to play World of War online (which I know I've done before), but nothing seemed to work, so I had to download a patch...which told me I first had to install an earlier patch...and so on. 4 of 5 patches later, and I should be good to go; we'll see

This is only necessary because, for some bizarre reason, my Modern Warefare Multiplayer crashes whenever I load it now. Thinking about reinstalling, willing to give up the ability to go back and play whatever mission I want at will for that, though I'm not sure what that would do to my profile (which has logged quite a few hours).

I recently downloaded the Spectrum emulator so I can play the classic tactical wizard fest Chaos II. It's still one of the best and most addictive games ever made in my opinion.

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

So far I have absolute hatred for Gamefly, only two games in my queue and they have yet to even ship after many days.

Just bought a Wii. Got Wii Fit Plus, Wii sports, Price is Right, some carnival game, and some others.


Downloaded Fat Princess, it's a fun little game.

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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

Picked up a couple of cheap PC games this morning - The Fallout Collection (£1.99! ) and Guild Wars: Factions.

When I picked up Guild Wars I knew I had GW: Prophecies at home and probably GW: Nightfall (one of the standalone sequels, anyway) so Factions would complete the set. Once I got back I realised that I already had bloody Factions - In my defence, it had completely different box art than the one I'd just bought.

If anyone wants this new one just drop me a line. It's the full retail copy with 2 discs, large instruction book, poster and the all important registration key intact and unused. Completely standalone MMORPG with no fees other than buying the disc in the first place.

It'll cost me more in fuel to return it to the store than I paid for it.

Playing Condemned for the 360 scares the **** out of me. Really fun game although I think I prefer the 2nd one which I got with my console

Taccy, if you don't find a buyer soon, let me know. I participate in a Myst forum where there are a ton of us GW players and someone is often looking to join the gang and needs a registration key. (Really, I'm surprised they still sell the discs -- you don't need them anyway and the site will download updates to the game no matter what.)

Didn't realize you played GW. I haven't been in-game in ages, but have at least started all three campaigns. I've got characters all over the place, but the main ones are in post-searing in Prophecies and then meandering around like idiots in both Factions (which is a lovely pagoda-infested Asian-type area) and Nightfall (very African-savannah and gorgeous, perhaps my favorite of the three).

And yes, the main reason I chose it over something like WoW was that "free!' aspect of no monthly fee. Buy it once and you're in forever. Since I tend to lapse out of games for a while, it's nice to know I'm not losing monthly fees while I'm taking a hiatus.

Plus, of course, a bunch of us Myst geeks went to GW after Myst Online shut down....

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