The Videogames Tab

Finished Dragon Age a few days ago - 40+ hours of gameplay and still a fair few side quests remaining. I'm a sucker for that kind of game and think it's comfortably the best RPG since Oblivion and improves on it in a few areas like character development (admittedly, your pc in Oblivion is meant to be more of a blank canvas) and voice acting (top notch).

I don't usually complain about such things but it's just not very special to look at, even on PC with all the knobs turned to eleven and some of the textures are sub-PS2 (and sub-Mass Effect, strangely).

Still, it's wonderfully playable and I've not enjoyed a Bioware game this much since the first Neverwinter Nights.

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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

Bought Street Fighter IV for 20 bucks. Find the gameplay a bit difficult, but then I always have with SF. I've always preferred Mortal Kombat. But ever since they went 3D they've left me empty. I got to get use to the game before I can make a real opinion.

Bad Company, grabbed it for 15 bucks. Feels too much like Killzone 2, in that the controls are a bit sluggish and I don't like the crosshairs on the gun.

I guess Call of Duty has ruined FPS games for me.


And I agree with Yoda, the M-16 and the M4 were the guns to choose, with the red dot sight on top. And I always use Last Stand perk.

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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

Not played Football Manager for over 3 weeks now because my laptop's ****ed. I think I'm actually starting to get the shakes.

Not played a lot of FM2010, mainly due to one of the patches making my mild-mannered team have at least one man sent off every match. That said, they get patches fairly regularly so should really give it another shot but there sometimes just aren't enough hours in the day and FM is something that can wreck marriages because of its addictiveness.

I was liking the FMLive style interface though.

I'm still with FM'09. Apparently a lot of people thought/think it's too hard, but I was really enjoying it, even though a lot of things were not going my way. How often do you go from managing Manchester United to Catania? First time I'd fallen that far in one go.

I've read some really good things about FM'10 though. Do you think it's worth updating, Tacitus? Or are you someone who updates every year regardless?

I've updated every year since CM01/02 and it's one of the handful of game franchises that I buy without first checking reviews or price. Until my misfortune with the patch (which might have just been coincidence) I was enjoying things more than 09, where I always found goalscoring a real problem. It wasn't just me either - teams were winning their divisions scoring less than 60 goals. It was like George Graham had never been sacked.

They've also tidied up the 3D match engine and added shortcuts for on-the-fly (I believe that's what our colonial cousins say, anyway) tactics and substitutions which don't break the flow of the game and weekly optional meetings with your staff where they suggest individual training etc.

So yeah, I'd recommend it.

Assassin's Creed II is a rather good game. Heaps of action and thus far doesn't seem too repetitive. It's enjoyable, but i still haven't finished it. The again been rather busy.

Good to hear Tacitus, and plus rep not just for the recommendation, but also for the George Graham quip. Nicely done, sir. I agree with that BTW, the difference from '07 to '09 in terms of scoring was very difficult to get used to. I had stellar lineups that'd only score more than 2 goals a game about 5 times in a season, despite having 10+ chances on target.

I'm a recent convert to the FM franchise as, before, I'd been playing LMA Manger since '98 or whenever the first one was released for the playstation. Damn games have had me since then, with the exception of brief forrays into GTA land.

I don't really want to admit how long I've been playing football manager games but it started on the Spectrum.

lol... I remember Football Manager on the Spectrum. Starting in Division 4 as Blackpool, footballers with made up names and that long jagged line when they shot from the halfway line. Sigh, memories.

Also remember playing Head Coach too, which was an American Football management game. Come to think of it, like you, I've been addicted to these a lot longer than I thought.

Ah yes, from the time when John Barnes was a teenage prodigy at Watford! Lord, I feel old now.

Especially when I remember that John Barnes is now a slightly portly middle-aged ex-contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. And a rubbish manager...

I don't know why I pay for this Gamefly membership, very unprofessional website - I have an open slot for them to send me a game, the 3 on my queue are in high availability, yet they have gone about 4 days now without sending me one.

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I think all those online rental places are the same - the reality isn't quite the same as the initial expectation.

I'm with Lovefilm for movies and as soon as the 2 week trial ended, I'd say 80% of what was on my queue changed from no tags to short or long wait. They're hit and miss at sending stuff with some things coming out as soon as I add them and others I've not seen in months even though they're at the highest priority and showing no wait time. I seem to stick with these places for a year or so before cancelling but for game rentals or any newish-released movies or TV shows I use the store up the road.

I've also had the 'open slot' problem that you have and an annoying one where they say they've only received one disc even though I always send two back in the same envelope.

I need to get some more trophies.

I really like the addition of trophies, it adds to the replay value of a lot of games.

Your Trophy make-up looks a lot like mine.



I'm a happy bunny this morning because I've heard that Final Fantasy VIII is coming to PSN very soon.

.... uhhh that isn't mine - mine has way more trophies, here look at this one !

There's a guy on my friends list who is lv 13 - 1228 trophies in total and 15 Platinums.

The latest patch for FM `09 (9.3 patch) was such rubbish that I upgraded to it just beacuse I needed to play for my clan online, unsuccesfully play it online. Nothing of my previous tactics worked, absolutely nothing, from 100 one-on-one chances in front of the opponents goal, wheather I`m playing against Chelsea or Barnsley, one made it through the goalkeeper. Headers from corners was also a big problem, none would get in. Vidic got sent off in almost every game, sometimes Ferdinand would get sent off as well. So I just uninstalled it, reinstalled it with the patch 9.1 and played it for real. The new FM is good, I didn`t patch it, beacuse I`ve heared a lot of bad things about the third patch (10.2) so I`m playing with the default db, and it took some time for me to get used to the new tactics system, but in the end it was good. I don`t use 3d so I don`t know what is it like, but from clips it looks a lot better than in FM `09. Man Utd have he biggest budget (around 85 mil. and you can balance it to around 130 mil. Man City has 65 as I remember). It`s worth upgrading if you are a devoted player, and I see you are.

Never tried an FM game online that wasn't FM Live. They seem pretty unwieldy in that aspect, how did it play?

Anyone playing CODMW2 online ?

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