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.

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!)

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.

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.

Fallout 3! Mirelurks are such a pain to kill.

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.

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

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



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.

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...

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

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? >_>

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?

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.

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.

^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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

But...Liam Neeson is Irish. Does he use a fake English accent in that game? I can't remember.

I really, really, really want to answer "Fallout 3...again" to this thread. I love it, and have had an urge to play it again for the past few days. I cannot. Stupid red-ringing X-Box. I also should get around to finishing Eternal Sonata. It's interesting...based on some weird dreams Chopin had when he was deathly ill. It's also rather pretty and colourful. Sadly, that is also an XBox game.

Hmph. Maybe I'll rekindle my Flight of the Hamsters addiction...

I have to say that I am finding myself wasting more and more hours of my time playing Team Fortress 2. It is becoming a bad habit to load it up for just "a few minutes", and discovering a few hours have passed. I'm not even THAT good.

Crystal Pokemon! The solution for all nostalgic thirsts. I gave the kid a name that wasn't "???" this time because I realized it was for me to make up. >_>

I'm still on Assassin's Creed II when I have the time. I'm doing absolutely everything possible before continuing with the story (except finding all the feathers, that would be silly). It's taking ages, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and it's saving me a shed load of cash by my not wanting/needing to buy anything else to keep me occupied

i've just pre-ordered Pokemon Soul Silver, which is the first game i've ever pre-ordered in my life. thirteen more days until it comes out, and i'm fairly sure each day will murder a little bit of my soul until the fourteenth when i pick it up. then, through laying my hands upon that glorious piece of technology, i will become whole again.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

So after 41 hours of actual gameplay I finally completed Mass Effect 2. Oh my God, it is the best thing. I mean, except planet scanning. Planet scanning sucked, but other than that it is the best thing.

I had two ME1 characters and having played through with my female paragon infiltrator, I now need to do the whole thing again with my male renegade adept, but I want a different game to play inbetween, just to spice things up a little. So I finally got round to completing Assassin's Creed. I'd got all the way to the final fight two years ago back when I was last playing it then got so frustrated fying repeatedly. Seemed a lot easier tonight, only died a few times before killing the old master.

Now I've got a number of options. Gears of War is one of the first 360 games I got and quickly decided it wasn't for me. I could give that another go. My housmate just got Final Fantasy XIII, so maybe there's that, but I'm just not generally down with JRPGs something about them irritates me. Which leaves spending money on a new game, which would almost certainly be Arkham Asylum, unless anyone has any better suggestions. Brutal Legend is next on the list. Hopefully I can do both of those and the ME2 re-playthrough before Alan Wake comes out.

Yeah, that pretty much nails it. Brilliant game, but dull-ass planet scanning.

If JRPGs annoy you, give FFXIII a miss: it won't do anything to change your opinion. Brutal Legend is fun, but totally style over substance, so my suggestion is giving Gears another pop (it is good) or grabbing some Arkham.

I'll still be plugging the hours into FFXIII meself, though I am also getting the itch to pick up ME2 again. Looking forward to the eventual release of Valkyria Chronicles 2 as well - who saw that sequel coming?

What Inky said. I could never get into Gears' multiplayer, but playing the campaign on co-op is brilliant fun.

I got FFXIII, I'm right at the end and I haven't played it in over a week because it just totally bored me. Sure it looks pretty, but there's nothing there of value, and what is there is all far too derivative of the older FF's. I actually went and played VII again for the first time in ages; it's not even my favourite FF, and I'm enjoying it a heap-load more than XIII.

I've spent a fair few hours in Battlefield Bad Company 2's awesome multiplayer recently, after getting the worst of the bugs related to my slightly dated computer ironed out. I'm trying my best not to get addicted, since there's only six weeks of term left and I have a lot of coursework to do

Oh, p.s. I got into the closed beta of APB recently as well. I can't talk about it, unfortunately, due to an NDA, but I'm looking forward to being able to try it out

Fallout 1 is ridiculously hard for low levels. The save system also has me a bit grrrrrr'd. I want to get one of the new Pokémon games purely for the gimmiky pedometer that levels up your pokémon.

I found the best way to survive Fallout 1 at the lower levels was to pick an incredibly dangerous fight with some bandits and hope to win by dumb luck. If not, reload.

If you win then loot and sell their weapons and you should get a good few thousand bottle caps. The you can buy some decent armour and weapons and the game suddenly gets a lot easier.

I could never really get into Gears - I've played through the first one in single player and the second one in co-op and I just could really care less. I felt like nothing changed after the first five minutes. They're an okay five minutes, but nothing really spectacular.

Batman: AA I thought was great for about 95% of the game with loads of fun ways of keeping you interested.

At the moment I'm mostly playing God Of War Collection. It's an HD remake of the first two God Of War games, showing off just how far ahead of the curve the game was when it came out. It effortlessly competes with games five years younger, swimming by in an updated 60fps and 1080p. Lovely stuff. It's also got a cracking story that's told with gameplay too.

I'm also giving Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a bash on the Wii, for reasons that I shall not disclose...

I've not been playing anything but I have been watching Paul playing through God of War I - III and, gore aside, they are very pretty games.

Actually I lied. I have been playing The Sims 3, I find it quite boring but I am reasonably addicted. I'm looking forward to the next expansion pack where you actually get to control your Sim at work, hopefully taking away an element of "c'mon time, go faster already" while everyone is at work and you have nothing much to do but watch the trees writhe about in the wind.

I was running Big Screen Gaming for some guys this morning (console games up on a cinema screen) and when they didn't have enough time left at the end for another game of Fifa (thank god) they stuck on the GoW3 demo. If I ever get a PS3, I'll certainly get it.

Disclose! Disclose, damn you!!!

More importantly, how is it? I'm so far up Silent Hill's posterior that you can only just see the tips of my sneakers, but I've not bought Shat Mem because... actually, I have no idea why not. Beyond being cash-strapped, that is...

I was playing it because I was going for an interview with the company that made it.

It's pretty good and reasonably short. It's a very different take on Silent Hill. There are clearly delineated 'safe' and 'dangerous' points of the game. It's very slow paced. The game gives a pretty decent psychological profile of you at the end too - mine was quite accurate! I'd say it's definitely worth playing, but it's a weekend rental (about 6-8 hours gameplay I think) rather than something to own. It's a very interesting approach to narrative and a good spin on the plot from the original Silent Hill.

Oh, and it's the first 'hardcore' Wii game I've played that I thought was worth recommending to friends, albeit in a limited scope.

There's been some discussion over on The Escapist recently about games that could be considered art, and one of the games mentioned was Jade Empire, the only Bioware game I'd never played. So I bought it off Steam and it seems pretty good so far. Of course, it's Bioware so even if it's their worst it'll still be exactly my sort of thing.

Jade Empire is great, its a good old-school Bioware RPG similar in scope/design to KOTOR, but with a much more involving combat system. It looks pretty as well, which is never a bad thing. Hope you enjoy it

I quite liked Jade Empire, although the good/bad thing was very simplistic. The ridiculous thing is that the choices in most games haven't become much more complex since then while BioWare have continued to push forwards.

I'm sporadically playing the God Of War Collection at the moment, God Of War II to be precise. It's still a damn decent game but the writing isn't nearly as good in the second one.

I've also just replayed through Army Of Two with my housemate Matt. It's a damn fun blast when played in co-op and it's a real shame it got so much stick when it was released. The writing is very dumb, but it's not really much worse than your average Hollywood action film. I liked it so much that I've just ordered the sequel

Well, the tutorial/introduction level in Alan Wake scared me. Looking forward to the rest of the game. In a Oh God I Want To Play It But Don't kind of way.

Also, Cursed Treasure (Don't Touch My Gems) is my latest Tower Defense addiction.

Pokemon: Leaf Green.
It satisfies a craving for a simpler time.

IRC Uno

I am currently playing Red Dead Redemption, so far it is amazing. People have described it as 'Wild West GTA'. They're not far off, but the wanted system is a lot more complicated and there are a lot more consequences to being wanted. After you have shaken off the initial manhunt, you will have a bounty on your head,,. Bounty hunters will try to hunt you until you pay the bounty yourself.

It appears to be the first Rockstar game (That I've played anyway) to take itself 100% seriously, which is kinda scary.

PC version please!

That is all.

Damned right. Announced, ignored and left to go away. Rockstar have forgotten their roots, man!