The Videogames Tab

I never played the first Metro but I've got the sequel on my radar.

Thought Rage was very mediocre, though. Moved on after playing a little ways into it. Just felt boringly derivative to me.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Yeah I read a lot of hardcore gamers weren't impressed with Rage, but it's only the third title I've played on this generation of consoles so it seems very new to me. The shooting mechanics are kind of old school, but I love the art design and story that's admittedly just a rip off of Gene Rodenberry's Genesis II; the original Planet Of The Apes, Mad Max 2, and just about every other post apocalyptic movie; not to mention a whole host of westerns. For me it's just fun to play an FPS with decent driving sections, and side missions. I'm sure it'll seem less impressive the more games I play.

I tend to wait until the tail end of each console generation, before purchasing one at a knock down price and buying cheap second hand games. Then something like Aliens Colonial Marines comes along and I just have to play it right away. Especially with Gearbox billing it as an official sequel to Cameron's film, in that it incorporates the Sulaco and LV426. Ahhh to be a nerd...

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

Graphics appear to be ok, guess it depends on the quality of the PC, really.

Haven't ID just released a full set of modding tools for Rage? 30-odd GB, if your internet can stand the bandwidth.

Here's a decent Survival Horror, Pressie, and it's free - Slender

I picked the BETA up for their forthcoming Slender remake today - £3.50 gets you access to the BETA and the full game when it gets released next month, which you'd normally pay £10 for. The BETA isn't that interesting - It's basically the first Slender game with new graphics, but the finished product should have multiple levels and more of a story.

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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

Scratch everything I said about Aliens Colonial Marines. The general press embargo until tomorrow spells a giant turd coming down the pipe; especially with early fan reviews panning the game. Looks like yet another dud Aliens title and my £5 deposit wasted.

Darn it, I was really hoping for a good Aliens game. The last one I played kind of sucked too. Still gonna rent it. Maybe it'll be decent and just doesn't meet higher expectations than mine, fingers crossed.

My PC Gamer RSS feed updated at just the right time.

This is apparently a very good Aliens mod for Killing Floor. As Killing Floor is only £14.99 on Steam (and is on sale fairly often) it seems a steal.

If you're of a certain age you'll have fond memories of System Shock 2. If you're younger, it's the sort-of prequel to Bioshock. Kinda, but not kinda at the same time. Urg...

Aaaaanyway, the first System Shock has been freeware (with better textures etc) for some time on the internet but SS2 (a far better game) is nowhere to be found - You either play your old disc or pay huge amounts of money for someone else's old disc, then try to get it working on a modern PC.

Run along over to GOG and check out their front page banner. Oblique? Most people are saying it's an announcement that they'll have SS2 on sale (that's what I immediately thought too) in less than a day, and being GOG it'll run on modern systems.

I'm excited.

Recently got Ni no Kuni for the PS3. And I gotta say...this is a friggin fantastic game! I haven't enjoyed a JRPG this much since I first got my hands on Chrono Trigger a couple of years ago. The story's awesome, the art style oozes Miyazaki's awesomeness, and the combat is surprisingly enjoyable despite its annoyingly steep learning curve. It forces you to really use your wit, which I enjoy in any game (there are annoying difficulty spikes though). The characters are bright and colorful, and none of them are dull, I think. Gotta continue this game, but just pointing it out there: get it if you love JRPGs and have a PS3.

I am sooo gonna play that.

Apart from the PS1 and PS2 Final Fantasies and Suikodens, JRPGs tend to bore the breasts off me, and now that I'm officially middle-aged I'm expecting my moobs to grow exponentially any day now...

Dunno what exactly turned me off them but it was probably something to do with me figuring out how to upgrade my PC's graphics card in the early 2000s and being able to run Morrowind.

Lost Odyssey wasn't bad, I suppose.

I hear ya. I used to be a bigger fan of JRPGs but then most of their stories and characters started getting really tedious. It's a shame; The genre needs to get more quality fiction writers, instead of cobbling together "new" games from the same tired list of tropes.

Is there some stigma on professional fantasy & sci-fi writers creating a story and characters that are actually INTERESTING in the game they expect me to invest so much time in? RPGs are structured to TELL STORIES!

Hulk annoyed!

Yep, the endless stories of surly, spiky-haired teenage boys having to save the world got old eventually. I had high hopes of FFVIII but, when it all boiled down to it, the story was about a surly teenage girl having to save the world. The combat was fun but the story dragged on so much that I quit playing around the 80% mark.

FFVIII-2 is apparently better but I've not played it.

Yes!

I wonder how badly it's aged? Soon find out.

YES!!!!!!

I was crushed when i discovered i had lost/given away/misplaced my copy of SS2. There are quite a few mods out there to bring the graphics a bit more up to date, and i have been itching to go through this again, especially after blasting through Deus Ex again recently.

Great news!


I am ALL over this when i get home after work. No, wait! I am going home at lunch to start the DL, after which I will snag all the mods I need...

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I got home just as the countdown was finishing and snagged the game a few minutes later.

Out of the box, it runs fantastically on W7 x64 and has full widescreen resolution support. All I've done is to drop the few texture mods into the mod directory (handily installed along with the game - good old GOG ) and have been playing all afternoon.

The SS2 modding thread on the GOG forums contains some handy .ini changes to scale the HUD properly - at 1920x1080 it's far too small.

It's been years since I played SS2 and it's struck me now how similar both the story and gameplay is to the later Bioshock. No bad thing.

Oh, you must mean 10 and its direct sequel X-2...

FF10 was the point where I really lost my patience with RPGs. I was open to the story but didn't particularly like most of its characters, but then the story just kept getting more nonsensical to me? Tidus wasn't real? Huh?

After that disappointment, I spent a lot more time on open-world and action-RPGs, where I could just have fun without the very linear & scripted JRPG format.

I still love the original Chrono Trigger, Cross, as well as FF7, 8, and 9. Those offered the most interesting stories and characters for me out of all I've played.

Chrono Trigger's my all-time favorite RPG. Out of the Final Fantasy games you mentioned, I only truly love 9. 7 was overhyped and disappointed me, and 8...ughhh, don't get me started on that game.

Nope, I quite enjoyed 10-2 with it's job-system type mechanics. XIII had a sequel last year which was apparently better but seemed to sell buttons - It was in the bargain bin after a couple of weeks and I picked it up. It's still in the cellophane.

My favourite FF is VIII with VII and X battling it out for second place. I played X not so long ago on a PS2 emulator - With a high resolution and anti-aliasing it looks great.

This is apparently the Dual Shock 4 for the new Playstation, courtesy of a leaked photo of the PS4 Dev Kit. The flashing lights have been added by some wag. Obviously.



There's an interesting (if you're into that sort of thing) look at the specs of the PS4 and new Xbox and how they compare. The hardware doesn't look bad and Sony are promising that the PS4 will be much easier to code for.

It looks like the Xbox will have Blu Ray too...

Bethesda must be throwing a party.

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