523 replies to this topic

[Alias]

Ion Cannon!, on 11 Oct 2010, 1:55, said:

Alias, on 10 Oct 2010, 12:04, said:

How is Mass Effect 2 too short? It lasts for a good 25+ hours, ME1 only lasts for about 15 (20 if you're lucky).

Well for starters I personally find 25 hours to short for a single player RPG campaign. I prefer my games to be long, hell, my main criticism of Dragon Age was that it was to short

I know that, but the pinnacle of your argument was that it was 'shorter' than ME1, when in fact ME2 is a good 10 hours extra on what ME1 was.

[Ion Cannon!]

Alias, on 10 Oct 2010, 17:02, said:

Ion Cannon!, on 11 Oct 2010, 1:55, said:

Alias, on 10 Oct 2010, 12:04, said:

How is Mass Effect 2 too short? It lasts for a good 25+ hours, ME1 only lasts for about 15 (20 if you're lucky).

Well for starters I personally find 25 hours to short for a single player RPG campaign. I prefer my games to be long, hell, my main criticism of Dragon Age was that it was to short

I know that, but the pinnacle of your argument was that it was 'shorter' than ME1, when in fact ME2 is a good 10 hours extra on what ME1 was.

Really? I thought it was more the lack of "epicness" I got from ME2. I got it in ME1 because of the vehicle sections and the fact you would spend more than 30mins in the same place. The game may have been shorter but it felt bigger.

[BeefJeRKy]

I have to admit all the DLCs did add a lot to Mass Effect 2. A good extra 12 hours or so at least.

[Chyros]

Pav:3d, on 10 Oct 2010, 15:07, said:

Chyros, on 10 Oct 2010, 10:42, said:

Pav:3d, on 10 Oct 2010, 2:52, said:

Im guessing since you thought it would be better suited as an FPS that you didnt use any biotic powers, or just went straight for the soldier class?

You know me too well . Guilty on both counts .

There's your problem Try a different class and it really changes the way you play.

I'm not having a problem with the game at all . Still, if I play through it a second time, I'll go for something super biotic, I promise .

[TheDR]

Fallout New Vegas

At first i didn't buy it as i thought it would be more of the same (as in more of FO3) but it certainly wasn't. Loads more weapons, iron-sights, and a smaller but more in depth world with a better story make this game superior in many ways to FO3. I'd had loads of fun roaming the wastes again, but i also enjoyed the story a lot more as it gives you some tough decisions.

If you liked FO3 it should be a definite buy and if you are new to the series I'm sure you will enjoy it.

[SquigPie]

Story is better? I heard it should worse than FO3.

Anyway, I'm waiting for GOTY/Complete edition, I heard it should be bugged as hell. Stupid Obsidian, do they even test their games?

PS: TheDR, my PM's to you don't seem to get through, or do you just choose to never answer?

Edited by SquigPie, 04 November 2010 - 09:55.

[TheDR]

When i played it i didn't find any bugs, thats in 50 hours.

I think you should read less reviews and play more games

[SquigPie]

I just listened to 2 friends, 500k people on the internet, 5 reviews, a web blogger and a bundle of other people,

Edited by SquigPie, 04 November 2010 - 10:11.

[Ion Cannon!]

SquigPie, on 4 Nov 2010, 10:10, said:

I just listened to 2 friends, 500k people on the internet, 5 reviews, a web blogger and a bundle of other people,

Its a little glitchy at times, but I haven't encountered any massive bugs. My one complaint as it seems to run a bit slow in combat sometimes, but maybe I need to tweak my settings more. Odd though, as I could play FO3 GOTY on Ultra with no problems at all.

[SquigPie]

I've heard some people have trouble with the game deleting their save files, or reverting them back to their earliest saves. Other people haven't experienced anything at all.
Anyway, waiting some time, far to many games to get already.

[Ion Cannon!]

SquigPie, on 4 Nov 2010, 13:39, said:

I've heard some people have trouble with the game deleting their save files, or reverting them back to their earliest saves. Other people haven't experienced anything at all.
Anyway, waiting some time, far to many games to get already.

The problem with the game deleting the saves related to steam cloud, fairly sure thats since been fixed.

[SquigPie]

Ah, yeah, it was Steam-related. Forgot that.

[BeefJeRKy]

It's pretty fun and the story is actually more interesting. At first you feel like the game is just another DLC, but then you realize it's way more awesome despite lots of bugs in my version

[Camille]

if anyone suffers from abnormal slowdowns and generally bad performance, there's a community-made fix for this that works like a charm

Here.

check out the site, there's a ton of mods that make the game much, much better (part from the raunchy mods of course XD)

i myself found the game to be great the gameplay is pretty deep and there's simply tons of stuff to do.

[Sgt. Rho]

Alien Swarm 9.9 of 10

The only thing I don't like about it, is that sometimes you get stuck completely unable to do anything, and that avoiding friendly fire is kinda hard.

Gameplay gets a full 10 of 10. It's the first 3rd-person shooter I've played that actually works without having to use 4 arms and 20 fingers.

Graphics 9 of 10, I'm by now way to used to Crysis and UT3 graphics >.>

Long-Term fun I'd give a 100 of 10. The only reason I stopped playing for tonight, is because I'm tired as hell and everyone else went to bed too.

[Ion Cannon!]

Camille, on 7 Nov 2010, 16:26, said:

if anyone suffers from abnormal slowdowns and generally bad performance, there's a community-made fix for this that works like a charm

Here.

check out the site, there's a ton of mods that make the game much, much better (part from the raunchy mods of course XD)

i myself found the game to be great the gameplay is pretty deep and there's simply tons of stuff to do.

I used to get low FPS ingame at some points, generally in areas with alot of NPC's, however the recent official patch fixed that.

Fallout New Vegas.

Storyline 9/10 - The quests and other random situations you can discover are much better than those in FO3. Its quite a joy to piece together what happened to a place by reading computer entries and logbooks, some of the vaults have great backstory for instance. The range and amount of quests has also increased substantially. The way you can also go about completing quests is also better, balancing your reputation with the various factions becomes interesting. I am annoyed that although having killed Caesar and his entire camp it seems to have had no effect on the gameworld, except a quest here and there.

Gameplay 9.5/10 - Although the combat can still be a little clunky generally its pretty good. The addition of hardcore mode is great as it remains a challenge or at least remains at the same level of challenge throughout the game. I've been playing on Hardcore mode with V.Hard difficulty. In the beginning it was very hard, but as I have gotten better gear and levelled up the game has become much easier. Pre level 10 I would have to think about almost any encounter I tackled, but now I can sort of run in guns blazing. Though there are still two spots where I had to turn the difficulty down to normal. The range of guns and items has increased and exploring is as always, a joy.

Graphics 9/10 - Although the engine is rather dated it still looks rather nice, especially if you have it set on Ultra / Custom. And thanks to the official patch, I can now actually play it on ultra again, previously I had some slowdown on high.

* Yes the game is buggy, but I've yet to experience anything catastrophic. Its crashed 2x in about 50 hours. Most bugs are minor, or can be solved with a reload. And honestly, with a game this big with so many different options to take for every quest, I'm not that suprised its a bit buggy.

Overall : Its better than FO3 - 9.3/10

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 12 November 2010 - 14:19.

[Major Fuckup]

Cold War Crisis - mod for ZH
Seeing as i now have a laptop which has the grunt to run it i thought id try it. To sum it up its quite hard because of the realism and the gameplay, you have to control oil depos/tanks and keep control of flag points to keep going, graphics are awesome considering the old ZH engine. So far only 2 factions USA and the USSR.

8/10

The only criticism - Hurry up and finish the mod

[Pav:3d]

Theyre never going to finish the mod, its been in dev for 6 years or something

[Major Fuckup]

Yeah i know i have been following it the whole time.

[Alias]

Assassin's Creed II.

With some a fair amount of time on my hands, I finally got around to playing this.

Positives:
- There are so many improvements over the first game that it isn't funny. There is literally no reason to play the first except to get the backstory.
- The storyline, while not totally fresh, is pretty good and offers a pretty good continuation of the first game. The storytelling is waaaay better too, a lot more exposition from characters, which is great.
- Combat is far more interesting than the predecessor, with a lot more weapons, so it's far more interesting than the first. Disarm is bloody fun.
- There are a boatload of killing animations and synch kills so while combat is pretty repetitive, you get an injection of awesome to liven it up a bit.
- The animation itself is far more fluid than that of the first.
- The cities are damn beautiful, and considering how naturally repetitive cities are they did a pretty good job to do the districts differently, and the different cities themselves differently.
- The Italian was a nice touch, really does add to the atmosphere. You'll need to have subtitles on though, as it is pretty frequent. Thankfully they mainly use phrases rather than constant Italian speech so it is easier to fathom. I am getting a bit tired of hearing Requiescat in Pace after hearing it about 200 times now, but that's about the only one that gets annoying.
- It lasts a long time. I'm currently sitting on about 25-30 hours and I think I've got about 5 more until I finish. Probably the longest game I've played in the last few years for a single playthrough, though I don't think it'll be as replayable as Mass Effect 2.
- CATHEDRALS.

Negatives:
- It's pretty much a 100% console port, and it shows. It's sort of pointless especially since the PC version was released months later, so they had plenty of time to streamline it. Most of the bad parts of the game stem from this.
- The controls, while not bad, could be far better. The only way to aim the pistol is to lock onto a target, it would be far, far better to be able to aim with the mouse.
- The camera, particularly in very tight spaces is horrific. The worst cases of this are experienced in the Assassin's Tombs (which I thought were the most fun part of the game, incidentally).
- Ubisoft's DRM is utterly stupid, which is why I *ahem* acquired *ahem* a copy, even though the regional pricing is actually pretty good in comparison to other developers.
- Some missions are painfully hard, which is good in a way as it does reward good thinking, however sometimes the clunkiness of the controls ruins your plans and you have to start the assassination from the start.
- As with the first, some things do get naturally repetitive, but it's far more bearable in this as it's done far better.

Overall:
It's a fine sequel, and it's achieved a lot the first didn't. If only they developed it properly it could be even better. Regardless of the issues stemming from the fact it is a console port, it's still a mighty fine game and probably one of the must-plays of the last year.
9/10

Edited by Alias, 07 December 2010 - 14:25.

[Liten]

You forgot one of the + sides of ACII:


I couldn't stop laughing at this

[SquigPie]

Would be much better if the title didn't spoil it. One of those jokes that needs to be unexpected to be awesome.

[Ion Cannon!]

Braid

A nifty little platformer which really makes you use your brain, a joy to play. The story is also more than it looks to be at first glance. I highly recommend this and you can get it with the humble indie bundle 2.

93/100

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (PS3)

Finally a true sequel to the original Sonic series. The gameplay / physics are true to the old series, yet have been improved where needed. The addition of the homing attack isn't out of place at all, in fact, it adds to what Sonic should be about, and that's speed.

The level design seems to be a nice improvement, things flow a lot more fluidly, and there are many routes to take. Some levels have some tasking sections, at least on your first pass through, so I'm glad things haven't been dumbed down too much. The one underwater level, seemed rather easy, maybe it's because I am more capable of playing games than when I was younger, but I seem to remember the underwater levels being extremely frustrating, trying to find the next lot of bubbles. In Sonic 4, this isn't really a problem at all; I didn't even come close to running out of air. This is arguably down to things being more about speed, but even though it frustrated me so much in the original games, it's what made it challenging.

With the exception of the last boss, the boss levels were a little bit of a let down... They were all extremely easy to complete.

The graphics are OK, but nothing special. They remain true to the old games, but considering it's been 16 years, with the exception of now being in 3D, things haven't improved that much. Doc linked me to a fan game, which has far superior graphics (they're not perfect, but they are a lot closer to what future titles should look like IMO).

Over all, it's not a bad game, especially for £5~, but it could be improved upon. At least it's a step in the right direction, and will hopefully pave the way for future Sonic titles.

7.5/10

[SquigPie]

God of War: Collection, PS3

God of War: Collection is GoW 1 & 2 HD upgraded and ported for PS3, both games are rather long compared to most modern games, and together they will take a rather long time completing.

GoW 1: Since the series is famous for it's epic boss battles, I found it rather dissapointing that the game only had 3 of them. Although they all where very epic indeed. apart from that, the game also has a few minor flaws, such as upgrading taking ages (Not gaining the orbs/xp, rather pouring them into the upgrades), climbing downwards being slow and tedious and not gaining health after dieng (meaning that if you reach a checkpoint before a big fight with very low health, you'll have to start all over from your last save, or somehow beat 6 minotaurs with 5% health and no mana), and the very hard QTE's (Especially the ungodly demanding Spam-Circle ones). Still, for a 6 year old game, it's addictive, awesome and fun.

GoW 2: Fixing most of the flaws of 1, about 15 (!!!) bosses (while retaining the awesomeness), upgrading only taking seconds, being able to slide down walls, gaining a little more health each time you die and QTE's being much less inhuman (While still being challenging). The game is made of win and awesome.

i award the games: 9,5/10