Be Excellent To Each Other

Just finally got around to besting Batman Arkham Asylum after putting it down in frustration at the 2x Titan + 1million goons pre-amble to the finale.

Come do the finale for me. I've RAGEQUIT it half a dozen times now.

Horrendous, innit? The actual fight with Joker is incredibly easy in comparison.

It's took me two months to pluck up the will to try it again. Still took 6+ goes.

This on Hard, Dimmers? Has anybody aced all of the fighty-mini game bits yet?

Normal. The challenges are rock solid.

Pff! I completed it on Normal with my cock out! Also, yeah, the challenges are ridiculous.

Malabar, I've just picked up BRB, so hit me up for some online action if you fancy it, at some point.

It's technically Rach's, and she wants rid, so I'll see how long it takes her to sell it and maybe have a jam.

How much does she want for it? You know, hypothetically?

I'm salivating at the prospect... just done the bit with Croc, INFINITE GOONS HOLD NO FEAR FOR ME!

I really, really wouldn't if I were you. She stuck the disc down the front of my pants after completing it, moaning about how shit it was.

So, erm, make me an offer.

You'll never make it as a used car salesman.

Did I ever post in here that I completed LEGO Batman? Well it was my first and only max.

I also completed Professor Layton 2 last night with all puzzles, including the secret ones.

Sold!

£15 if you clean the disc.

£25 if you don't.

Finished Assassin's Creed 2 and Shadow Complex on the weekend. AC2 - hmm, it's certainly very very polished and a distinct improvement on the original, however I do have some issues with it - the cities are very nicely done and they definitely have a differing feel to each of them so you can actually tell where you are. However, they're not interactive enough for my taste - the guards and the notoriety meter don't seem to work very well either. It's difficult to put my finger on, but it feels for all the world like they toned down the difficulty too much - it's like you leap from useless to super badass too quickly and the only reason I can think of for this is that they crammed so much collecting into the game and the actual game size is so large (possibly too large) that they daren't make it challenging as it would really drive home the lack of any real variety to the gameplay and the shallowness of the environment. I suppose my main problem is that there's lots to admire in it, and the gameworld is certainly impressive enough to make you want to stay there, but the actual storyline is a bit short, lacking in any real variety and the stuff that is interesting there isn't enough of. I really liked the Secret Locations as that felt more of a puzzle, whereas the story rapidly turned the city into a slightly annoying obstacle rather than a playground. Another thing that's just occurred to me is that the characterisation is a bit shit - the personalities in the game are razor thin and that's all the principal characters. Still a lot of potential to be explored in a sequel I think. I'll give it a B+

Shadow Complex. Good for an arcade game, looks nice, but it's too short and too easy for the amount they're charging for it. The story is total gash as well, so it's a curious mix of high production values up to a point and a rushed story. I enjoyed it but I felt like I should have been expecting more from all the gushing praise that got heaped on it when in actual fact it's a fairly weak metroidvania clone. Diverting enough, I'll give it a B

Finished Uncharted 2. It was ok, I guess. Batmang was better.

Batmang?

Mexico's Batman.

Just finished Modern Warfare 2. Is that it? I only started playing late last night!

There better be some life in these Spec Ops missions and multiplayer, or I won't be happy. It was still a fairly great game, even if it did have me swearing a few times early on, mind.

The spec ops are great, and the multiplayer is brilliant.

Also, don't forget to do the museum, if you haven't already.

I'll try Spec Ops tomorrow split-screen. Museum?

I've just had a go at the multiplayer. It's nice to be dumped straight into a match full to the brim with level 70s. Thanks, developers!

When you've finished the game, go back into the mission select. There's a small museum section containing little dioramas from the game. Tool up on your weapons of choice, then hit the big red button and it all kicks off.

I finished crayon physics today !

Finished Dead Space yesterday. Definitely give it an A
The story was ludicrous - well, not entirely, but the "Isaac, we need you to go to this part of the station and do X to make Y work" which you do to then find out something else is wrong with Y so you then have to go to Z to fix that as well. Rinse and repeat. However, the atmosphere was superbly tense, the graphics are awesome and the gameplay is very very good as well. I actually found it quite challenging as well with some seriously tough sections to get through - I did resort to the unlimited Stasis cheat on the last two chapters as it got so tough, but then I would actually criticise the game for being a bit bloody unfair in a few instances - the paucity of Stasis on a lot of the levels apart from the last one, the fact that a couple of the weapons are fucking useless and the fact that some of the death animations when you get killed go on a bit bloody long. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it and heartily recommend it to anyone who missed it first time around as a cheap excellent game. I loved it so much I'm actually replaying it with the end of game save (all the weapons, armour and ammo carried over, plus loads of cash and power nodes for upgrading weapons) so I can stroll through the game in a 1/3rd of the time being a total BADASS

I quite regret getting rid of Dead Space through Goozex. You've just reminded me how incredibly fun it is, so I should probably put it on my list to pick up again if I find it for next to nothing.

I've played over 7 days on the multi already....

The spec ops has a lot of life, some of the missions require good teamwork, some of them dont, but there are some quite frustrating ones and some fun easy ones.

Do the campaign on veteran, I only finished it on vet the other night after getting stuck on one bit. It's nowhere near as hard as MW1 was on vet and takes much longer than the campaign on regular. Be prepared to die a lot though.

FTFM

Also: You cheaty bast Snappa! Real men complete the game with NO xP1ø1†z

Ah, see, when I started playing the game I kept getting distracted by the laydees in the house and completely missed the fact that you could use Stasis on the enemies until I got to chapter 6, so spent most of the game short of ammo until the final chapter when there's suddenly shed loads of everything lying around.

Is Ms Snappa doing so well in her GCSEs because she's taking a leaf out of her Fathers book*?

I don't know how you can sleep at night.



*OF CHEATING!

Right, I'm bringing it to Manchester.

Yeah yeah, whatever dice.

Bayonetta:

Easily one of the best games I have ever played. I had a smile on my face all the way through.

Rank:SSS

1395 Bananas.

WTF just happened...? Space/Time collapsing...! End of the universe!

Wanna change your mind about that score?

When you're ready mate, no rush.

Ha! Yes! Doubled the amount of maxings in my profile to 2 with completion of LEGO Indiana Jones original. All excellently named achievements as well. Look forward to the second one when I get it.

Well, i just finished Halo Wars. That really didn't take long. I have played number of RTS down the years, but the one I really remember liking was Starcraft. HW borrows a LOT from Starcraft. {Humans, Covenant, Flood} cf {Humans, Protoss, Zerg}. Sadly in HW the campaign is only as the humans, there is a skirmish mode, but even there you can only play as the humans and the Covenant, never as the Flood. Anyway, the game itself looks great, really nice looking game, the cut scenes look excellent, the worlds you play on look great. Sadly the script is woeful and the storyline makes little or know sense. Replayability is pretty low also, in fact I finished it and listed it on Goozex in the same minute. As an aside also, it appears that it is impossible to get 1000 gamer points without purchasing an 800MS point expansion pack.

Could have been much better, very short (< 15 hrs for a RTS), but good while it lasts.
[B]

Oh yes, I finished Bayonetta recently. It's the best thing I've played this generation. Fun, jaw dropping, action packed, deep as you want it to be and it has both a sense of humour and nostalgia. Shit eating grin factor: off the chart.

Fucking brilliant.

SSS

Finished Halo ODST last night.

It's Halo in the dark with no shields.

Lovely piano score over the cinematics.

C+

Why have none of you bastards ever been around for some Firefight? I want to co-op it on 1337 too.

Is the co-op split-screen, Zardoz? I'm always looking for good games to play with Miss Malabar.

Not sure tbh. I only played it on my own

Yes, it is. Works pretty well.

Excellent. I'll pick it up when I see it cheap then.

"Completed" 1 vs 100 now. Just needed one more achievement which was to answer 500 questions. Now I can go back to actually enjoying it again rather than powering on and feeling the need to keep playing rounds such as soprt and history that hold no interest for me.

Which is handy as there's a live game tonight.

Aye its a painful achievement.I got in the mob a couple of weeks ago. Got to the last 20 odd people and the person took the points, I was gutted. Shirley it would be fairer if you only left the mob if you won something or got a question wrong.

You were hoping for them to mess up so the points could be split then? Hehe. I doubt I'll get in the mob, but fingers crossed I get to employ such a strategy as well.

I think the top 10 left in the mob get a crappy game, yes?

If the "one" fucks up, then the top 15 in the mob share the prize (plus a shit game). Otherwise, only the top 1 in the mob gets the shit game.

Pretty sure that's right, I went to great pains to figure it out after I thought I had won something on my one and only visit to the 100 (I was one of ~20 left when the "one" cocked up) only to not actually get anything