What Are You Playing?, Games! Options

[Witless]

Finally started playing left 4 dead 2. I only really got it because I figured the left 4 dead original online servers were starting to get a little deserted and I really love playing with human team mates. I was pretty suspicious going into it that it was going to be the same as the original with different levels and characters. Basically an over priced map pack.

I was thankfully surprised to discover that it does feel like a new game however infact I like it a lot more than the original. It's hard to explain exactly what's changed. It's like it's the same old left 4 dead but with millions of small improvements that don't sound like much to mention but make a world of difference and fun. Anyone that can see my current facebook status will see one of the more amusing moments when you have to carry items. The person carrying the item can't defend themselves while they carry it. So it turns it into an escort mission except with a real human being escorted rather than an annoying support character like so many stereotypical "escort sections" that too many games have in them (along with sewer levels and "defend this objective for 5 minutes only for it to be destroyed 7 seconds before the time was up meaning you have to play the full 5 minutes again" sections.)

I have only played one of the campaigns so far, it was pretty fun (fighting through a building on fire with poor visibility so zombies come tearing through the smoke at you was another highlight) but I am a lot more impressed with the game than I thought I'd be.

[mooooooooooopo]

And I just played XCOM: UFO Defense (known as UFO: Enemy Unknown here in the UK). It is 16 years old, and available to download on Steam for about £2.99. And it still scares the hell outta me.

Love that game! It's still in my of top 5 games ever list.

Recently I've been playing:
UFO: Aftershock - one of the recent (2005ish) not quite sequels to the XCOM series. It's pretty fun but I preferred the original's simultaneous turn based combat.
Dwarf Fortress - one of the few games with ASCII art graphics that can still slow my PC to a crawl on occasion. All the processing power is used for simulating weather, water, geology and dwarves. A bunch of dwarves truck out to the middle of nowhere to build their own town/mine/fortress. Addictive as hell micromanagement/base building game with a twisted sense of humour and bewildering number of things to try and do
Crysis - finally gotten around to playing it (and getting a PC that can cope!)

[michael1384]

I got New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. Wii for Christmas. They just can't get a sidescrolling mario game right anymore. The levels on the DS version can be defeated if you just throw wave after wave of your men at them. It seems like it's mostly luck. The Wii version is really hard to control. Other than that they're OK, now I'm gonna go play Super Mario Bros. 3.

[snooodlysnoosnoo...]

The levels on the DS version can be defeated if you just throw wave after wave of your men at them.

You have "men" on New Super Mario Bros. on the DS?
I've completed it and I have absolutely no idea what you're on about.

[Eli]

Fallout 3! Mirelurks are such a pain to kill.

[Mata]

They get easier as you level up

I've just started Assassin's Creed II, and jolly good it is too. I'd rather not have Nolan North playing the lead character though - he's very good, I've just heard him playing too many other roles recently and it's a bit distracting.

[Tarantio]

Fallout 3! Mirelurks are such a pain to kill.

Shotguns to the face. Oddly, this method seems to work with pretty much everything in the game, but its especially useful for mirelurks since they're usually in melee range (which also happens to be optimal shotgun-to-face range).

Mata, AC2 was highly enjoyable. I didn't play the first one, so I had no particular expectations for the second. The renaissance setting and the shiney graphics seemed better than the last installment, so I got this one soon after it came out and was totally hooked on it til I finished it.

I'm mostly busy with courseworking at the moment, but when I get a break I'm either logging hours in Modern Warfare 2 online or hacking my way through Dragon Age: Origins as my dwarf warrior. All this will change two weeks on friday though, when I'll be shutting myself off from all outside contact, stocking up on cream crackers and orange juice and playing through Mass Effect 2 with a fixed grin of utter ecstasy on my face. Currently trying to decide which of my 7 different characters to play as :/

EDIT: also, woo! 2000 posts

[michael1384]

You have "men" on New Super Mario Bros. on the DS?
I've completed it and I have absolutely no idea what you're on about.

Part Futurama reference, part truth. You can complete any level by just trying again and again and again. It's mostly about luck.

Fallout 3! Mirelurks are such a pain to kill.

Love Fallout 3. Yeah. Mirelurks are evil to lower level players. I think my favourite thing about that game is Galaxy News Radio.

I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It's quite tricky. I'm determined to complete this one without help from the internet. Very enjoyable though. A train is a lot more fun than a boat. I'm also having a go at A Link to the Past.

[Yannick]

Halo 3.. I suck at it. Eli's supposed to be helping me, but the DNS thingy keeps messing up and I can't connect to live...

[Eli]

Did you ever figure out a way to connect your 360 to your mac? Or are you going to buy the receiver?

[Yannick]

Haven't tried yet today. Came home, studied, did homework, distracted myself somehow for a few hours.. Might look up a YouTube vid or a tutorial online later, but don't want to now. How long are you planning on being up? I might get it set up before 11ish and give you a call when I do if you're gonna be awake anyway.

Is Darth Izzy too lame of a gamertag? >_>

[Eli]

I'm pretty awake at the moment, don't know about 11. Call anyways though if you set it up. And while "Darth Izzy" sounds like an amazing gamertag.. it is slightly leaning towards the geekish side. You could always go with Yannick again?

[Mimzzy]

I think it's about time we updated this thread some more...

Currently playing LotRO at the moment. Landervol server.

I did break down and get wow a few years ago but it's been kinda boring so I don't play much anymore.

I did try out city of heros. Might end up buying it. idk.

Don't have a gamer tag anymore as I have the old xbox.

I'm wanting to play STO. Tho I might wait a year or so and see what improvements they make.

[Yannick]

Fallout 3 is kinda meh. I've taken a break from the main story line and am doing the Survival Guide, but it's taking me ages to finish the game because I'm just not that into it.

[michael1384]

^But you need to find your strangly English father voiced by Liam Neeson!

I've been replaying Wind Waker. Sooooooo much to do, and I don't have a GameCube memory card!

I will be buying No More Heroes 2 when it comes out.

[Yannick]

^Yeah, but once I head to Vault 112, I can't go do the side quests anymore. D;

[Tarantio]

Mass Effect 2 was bloody marvellous. Playing it through again already to try not to have three of my team die on me at the end.

[Mata]

That's verging spoiler territory there Tara!

I'm on Assassin's Creed II at the moment, when I have time to play games. I'm spending a lot of time in this new thing I've discovered called 'Real Life'. It's pretty good and the graphics are very realistic, but I think the lighting design could do with more work. I'm really struggling to work out what my objectives are supposed to be. I think I might just go back to console games instead.

[Tarantio]

That's verging spoiler territory there Tara!

I'm on Assassin's Creed II at the moment, when I have time to play games. I'm spending a lot of time in this new thing I've discovered called 'Real Life'. It's pretty good and the graphics are very realistic, but I think the lighting design could do with more work. I'm really struggling to work out what my objectives are supposed to be. I think I might just go back to console games instead.

Pfft, the ending is so open to changes that it's actually very difficult to spoilerise it, but I'm not gonna mention the particulars of who and how

AC2 was pretty entertaining actually, very easy to get into and challenging at the right bits, very little frustration and a really nice visual and audio presentation. I whizzed through it a bit too fast, so I'll probably go back and do it again at some point.

On Mass Effect 2: I'm actually close to the point of thinking it and its predecessor are going to supplant the Baldurs Gate series (original PC one, not the arcady PS2 offering) as my favourite games of all time. It's both reassuring and fitting that Bioware should be the ones to best themselves; that no other developer has come close to their story-telling prowess in ten years of gaming is quite some achievement, at least in my opinion.

And real-life as an escape from gaming? How the tables turn when you work in the games industry, eh Mata? Note to self: get girlfriend(distraction) before career begins in earnest.

[Novander]

I completed Assassin's Creed 2 today. A much finer game than the first; rather than the old pickpocket here, evesdrop there, kill kill kill there was a steady stream of plot up to each assassination, making them all feel like fresh challenges.

I almost don't want to play Mass Effect 2 because there is no way it can live up to my expectations of it, thought I thought the same about Dragon Age: Origins and I think that might currently be my favourite game of all time. Hmm. If I buy it tomorrow then maybe it can keep me warm on a cold cold valentine's day. Yes, that seems like a suitable excuse. Certainly I don't want to spend that day playing this Real Life game you're all talking about, though I'm pretty sure I'll have to work the afternoon.

At some point I should try Fall Out 3 again, because it didn't grab me the first time round the way Oblivion did, and I realise now that Oblivion was a very very good game and not being as good as Olbivion doesn't automatically make something bad.

But Mass Effect 2 comes first.

[Mata]

Real Life has a crap leveling up system. It's a lot like Shenmue, where you do something for ages and it's really hard to see what the overall benefit is for your character. Apparently there are loads of things that you can do that are 'character building' but I hardly ever notice any significant change in my stats.

[Novander]

It's the lack of save points that really puts me off. I love story driven games so I love the whole Actions Have Consequences thing, but it's possible to really screw things up and then you just want to reload and try again, but from what I heard you have to go right back to the start.

More on topic: I enjoyed CoD: Modern Warfare in single player. One day I hope to finally get on xbox live, but that's not a priority in any way and I have other things to spend money on. Is Modern Warfare 2's single player good enough or is it not worth getting MW2 without Live?

[Tarantio]

The single player plays more or less the same as the first game, if possibly a little shorter. The story is convoluted and pointless, and the action is pretty much just more of the same as last time. It's still good, if you liked the first one's campaign, but its not much better. And they use the same plot "twist" (which I wont elaborate on) about three times, which just kills that dead.

Single player's one saving grace is the spec-ops mode; mini-missions you can play on your own or with a friend (some are two-player only) that extend the life of not-going-online for a fair bit. They're far more varied and challenging than the storyline and they're coop. That said, the game is primarily a multiplayer online game, and even with the new game mode, single-player still feels tacked on like it did in the first one. If you're just after a competent first-person shooter, though, its still amongst the best available at the moment, which is kind of a sad fact.

P.S. Nov; I had massively high expectiations for ME2 and it managed to live up to those pretty well. Even the stuff I wasn't sure about liking before release turned out to be pure unadulterated awesome, so don't worry about it

[Mata]

I quite liked the COD:MW2 single player story. It's like playing through a Jerry Bruckenheimer film, although that's probably because they stole loads of stuff from his films (for example, several bits came directly The Rock). It's big, brash, bombastic stuff, interspersed with a few great stealthier missions. It's not long, so maybe hire it when you've got a couple of evenings free rather than buying it.

[mooooooooooopo]

Still not played COD:MW2 yet. Not sure if I ever will. It just seems too much like a generic first person shooter of the type I can never be bothered with.

I was playing Bayonetta. Simultaneously with me finishing it on Normal difficulty, as I was looking forward to unlocking and playing it on Hard my XBox red ringed. Will hopefully get back into it when the XBox comes back all nice and repaired. Despite the cheesyness and cringeworthy oversexualisation it was a really fun game with an amusing if slightly cliched plot and some awesome combat mechanics and very cool and over the top set pieces.

Since then I've been playing a messed up combination of Dragon Age: Origins, Mini Ninjas and Robot Unicorn Attack. Dragon Age took a while to set in but I'm rather hooked now. Seems like Baldur's Gate but modernised which is cool. I was glad to see enemies that actually engage with the character when attacking, instead of just standing a few feet away playing a generic attack animation that doesn't actually line up (or maybe that's just WoW).

Also have a stack of about 20 Dreamcast, Game Cube, PS2 and N64 games that I picked up for a fiver to get through. It will happen. A lot of them are games I wanted to play when they came out but didn't have the system or cash at the time.