523 replies to this topic

[CJ]

If you find the health system to be annoying then I don't recommend you play it on the hardest setting, I remember the good ol' times when me and all the membersof a GoW forum were constantly trying to make new challenges for this game, such as completing it in titan difficulty in less than 10 hours

[Pav:3d]

Dead Space 2

I sped through the first Dead Space twice to get myself once again acquainted with the universe so I was ready for DS2 with DS1 fresh in my mind.

Overall the singleplayer is great fun, overall better than the original by a fraction. There are 15 chapters and you skim through the first few rather quickly (I completed the game in around 8 hours on my first run). There are no loading screens between the chapters, instead the game uses a clever mix of sequences to hide loading times, such as cut scenes and you moving through access tunnels.
The enviroments look beautiful, particularly the church of Unitology and the final few chapters. The Isaacs animations look incredible, in zero G, in the interactive cut scene sequences, the suit helmet reconstructing (I never got tired of watching it unfold and fold over his head) but oddly the enemy animations look similar to the first one, a bit clunky, but Im guessing thats intended.
The story is good but nothing ground breaking, it has a nice twist near the beginning and closes well at the end, in fact it closes with no lose strings which is odd in this day and age of sequels galore.
The puzzles, while rather simple are a lot of fun, especially the Zero G ones, they add variety to an otherwise fiercely linear game (There is no exploration, it is literally "this room to this room").

The weapons are pretty much the same, tho the ability to impale enemies with kenesis-ed sticks, limbs and the jav gun adds a lot of fun to the killing.
The standard weapons return with a few new ones and the assault rifles AWFUL secondary ability (the ammo wasting shoot-in-all-directions ability from DS1) is dropped replacing it with the very useful grenade launcher (maybe a bit too useful? I found myself just using it happily in my Zealot difficulty run). The default plasma cutter still rules, and can be upgraded with the ability to burn enemies, which has no visual or animation impact on the enemy, purely stat-based. Shame they could not have included more creative, surrounding influenced weaponry like in DS1.

The enemies are the same set, which barely a handful of new ones, and are killed in the same limb-from-limb manner. Those new stalker enemies that run around hiding are very very cool, theyre what I would expect to encounter in a horror game, theyre very unsetteling as they tease you by poking their heads out and running away and then going in for the kill as you nervously try and hunt them out, I wish they had more creativity in their enemies like this.

One thing which annoys the crap out of me about DS2 is that I was expecting many big boss fights, and instead I just get Brutes (which I cut down VERY easily) being re-used instead and interactive cut scenes being boses instead.
That aspect of it is hugely disappointing to me, where have the big boss fights gone (Didnt even have a proper glowing-yellow-weak-point-boss)
And that MOTHERFUCKING INVINCIBLE LIMB RE-SPAWNING BASTARD makes a hated return, "oh look now I have to escape him, to the next room, oh and look he's in this room now, guess ill just keep running, eugh." and you dont get to kill him off in the end either, he puts a damper on the last chapter. At least in DS1 I had the pleasure of BURNING THAT FUCKER ALIVE.

That said the few interactive cut-scene boses shine through, especially the one after the unitology church chapter, that scene alone is worth a replay and is one of my favourite cut scenes in a game ever. Its a shame they lose steam slightly after that.

The Zero G sections are back and their better than before, but are far fewer, you get more control over issac and you essentially fly through with boosters rather than jumping from surface to surface. There is one Zero G section in particular (which was in one of the trailers, the one when you're re-aligning the solar array and you get shot out on that boost chair thing) which was amazing, its both a pity and I guess good that they only used that kind of sequence once.

I havent touched multiplayer and will probably only do so on a day Im really bored...

Edited by Pav:3d, 09 February 2011 - 01:41.

[Raven]

I have been playing Magicka. I got it through other means just to see how it is and i am thankful I did not buy it since the game's save point system totally sucks. If you quit the game, you need to play from the beginning of the chapter. With all the tough boss fights sometimes it can take close to an hour to finish a chapter. With my work, I cannot spend 1 hour straight on the game. So I gave up on Chapter 3.

The game is pretty impressive and if this save thing is fixed its totally worth for the $9.99 price and I'd definitely buy it.

Edited by Raven, 09 February 2011 - 08:25.

[Sgt. Rho]

Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker

11/10

The only issue I had with this, is that I constantly got stuck in the environment while walking over the disabled plates on top of the ship. Everything else is top notch.

[SquigPie]

God of War 3.

FUCK! YEAH!

10/10

[Raven]

Sgt. Rho, on 10 Feb 2011, 17:04, said:

Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker

11/10

The only issue I had with this, is that I constantly got stuck in the environment while walking over the disabled plates on top of the ship. Everything else is top notch.

It happened to me several times when playing the main campaign also. Once at Omega I think. Had to reload the game :(

[Sgt. Rho]

yeah, it once happened on Illium and on Korus or whatever the planet was where you get Grunt.

[-=ViCtOr=-]

CoD Black Ops

got some minor flaws but looks really really good

8,5/10

[Sgt. Rho]

Supreme Commander 2

9/10.

I must say, I'm positively surprised. The demo didn't impress me at all, but now I spend the past 15 hours playing SC2 without a break. Been a long time since a game got me that attatched.

Bonus: http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/12...thianitrein.jpg

[Alias]

Completely dumbed down version of the first game.

I really cannot understand how anybody who actually likes strategy can actually like it in comparison to the first.

[Sgt. Rho]

I guess I just prefer the ability to upgrade units - instead of having them useless because of the next tier units.

[SquigPie]

Sgt. Rho, on 22 Feb 2011, 14:28, said:

I guess I just prefer the ability to upgrade units - instead of having them useless because of the next tier units.

Silence! You are not allowed to have your own opinion!

Anyway, I keep hearing how it's a "dumbed down version of the first one", may anyone tell me why?

Edited by SquigPie, 22 February 2011 - 15:20.

[Sgt. Rho]

You don't have Tech 1,2,3 and experimental anymore. You have "Basic", "Advanced" and "Experimental" for Structures, and "Basic" and "Experimental" for Units.

You can upgrade your units and structures through research.

[MR.Kim]

Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money

It was almost or near death experience in this DLC. It was god damn difficult to survive that deadly place(pretty similar with "The Pitt") , but I'm pretty enjoy myself.
After complete all quests, it wasn't so bad after all. Of coures, pretty less bugs.

8.5/10

Edited by MR.Kim, 23 February 2011 - 03:34.

[Camille]

SquigPie, on 22 Feb 2011, 16:16, said:

Sgt. Rho, on 22 Feb 2011, 14:28, said:

I guess I just prefer the ability to upgrade units - instead of having them useless because of the next tier units.

Silence! You are not allowed to have your own opinion!

Anyway, I keep hearing how it's a "dumbed down version of the first one", may anyone tell me why?

for me it was mostly the revamped economy that basically made it like all other RTS's ever made. SC's intricate economy is what made it truly unique, along with it's grand scale. now consider this:

SC1:
- deep and complicated but rewarding economy system.
- immense, hang on, IMMENSE scale. (81*81 KM)
- many, many units with diverse roles.
- the ability to assist anything and anyone as much as you like. want to assist a factory with 35 engineers so it pumps out tier3 units in 1 second? FINE! (at the cost of resources, ofc).
- many different building options and building types that each fill a relatively important role. this is all situational of course but that's what adds to the fun.
- truly powerful experimental units that make you cower and fear when your opponent has one.
- four different factions that have the same basic layout but differ dramatically late-game (and in some occasions early on).

SC2:
- basic and simplistic resource system.
- much, much smaller scale
- very small amount of units that usually have a number of roles in one.
- assist limit (!!).
- extremely limited building options and faction building diversity.
- weak-as-piss and generally uninteresting experimentals.
- out-of-canon unit designs that border ridicule.

SC2 does have shinier graphics and a more steady framerate but at a terrible cost of scale and depth. i played it myself for a while but got so quickly bored of it that i quickly went back to forged alliance which is still full of surprises to this day.

Edited by Camille, 25 February 2011 - 18:50.

[Sgt. Rho]

Burnout Paradise: 5/10.

Gameplay, Sound and Graphics: 10/10.

Stability and "bugfreeness": -10/10. I constantly keep crashing against thin air, the game randomly crashes and often just hangs up. Which completely ruins the fun. When you are speeding across the freeway at mind boggling speed, and then suddenly, your car crunches together even tho you haven't hit anything.

Edited by Sgt. Rho, 04 March 2011 - 12:45.

[MR.Kim]

Warhammer 40K Dawn Of War II: Retribution

I'm pretty enjoyble and it's not so bad after all. About new Campaign mode, it very similar with Dawn Of War: Winter Assualt's Campaign(unlike DC and SS) and each races have own different endings. Some ending is lame, some ending is funny, or some ending is awesome. About new race for I.G., I'm glad old units back most unit from DOW:WA and Dark Cursade. But, I don't like new Gardsmen's voice mostly.

8.5/10

[Ion Cannon!]

Shogun 2 Total War

The attention to detail is astounding, the enemy AI is very good and the feeling that was lost after Rome TW is back. This is the best TW game since Rome, possibly better, if your a TW fan or into strategy you should buy this game.

95/100

[Raven]

Does the game appeal to average RTS fans? I played Total war 2 or something at a friends place once and it was way too slow for my liking. Got kinda bored during the tutorial.

[Ion Cannon!]

The combat is fast paced, always has been, the campaign map / empire building is still turn based, and while It's a slow start, it pickups quick. However this is still a TW game, so if you didn't like the management side in Medieval TW2 you probably won't in Shogun 2 either.

[SquigPie]

I've heard the game demands absurdly high specs.

Probably can't play it :(

[Ion Cannon!]

Not that absurd, I'm running it on max and I only get slowdown when I fast forward huge battles. I have a dual core 3.33Ghz, 4GB Ram and a GTS250.

[Raven]

Hmm I should play the demo perhaps and see or wait for a price drop. The reviews have been very very good. I don't mind the management side in between battles, if it is like in Rise of Nations.

[Alias]

Finally got around to doing another playthrough of Bioshock 2 and thought I'd be critical.

While it lacks the originality of the first, it really does refine pretty much everything. I still rank the first one 'better' merely because it set the bar, however Bioshock 2 is definitely a worthy sequel and one of the few good games to come out of 2010. I did dislike the fact that most of the tasks seemed a little tedious and felt tacked on in place of the story (unlike in the first, where there is a clear reason for the player's actions). However, the story is still watertight and very well written.
Sadly it is a little shorter than the first game in terms of play time by a couple of hours (in regard to most other modern single player FPS games [Call of Duty, I'm looking at you], it is still takes a fairly long time, depending on how much you suck ). Regardless, however, it is a brilliant game and deserves my praise.

9.5/10. As with the first you pretty much need to play it if you like good single player games as it really is an experience unlike any other.

[SquigPie]

Good to see someone give Bioshock 2 some regards. It's not 1 no, but it's a great game nontheless.

By the way, did you play it for PC or console?

Edited by SquigPie, 30 March 2011 - 14:08.