Be Excellent To Each Other

I still haven't finished Fallout:NV, 53 hours in, but I'm definitely enjoying it more than 3.

I also think it's far better than Brotherhood. For many reasons, playing 2 first is the right thing, fact.

I have now finished Mass Effect 2. Almost entirely pure win, aside from planet scanning. Really upset I lost Mordin at the end though, especially as he was one of the three crew members I was determined to keep alive. Everyone came home aside from him. *Blub!*

I quite liked the planet scanning. Mainly because it produces results quite similar to the spectral analysis of interstellar clouds that I spent most of my PhD doing...

Also, if you did the requisite upgrades to your equipment it became quite fast in the second half of the game.

I hated it, even with the upgrades. Seriously how the fuck they managed to make a game so good but ship it with that shite that in there is beyond baffling.

I finished Singularity t'other day on PC (bear in mind, I'm talking about the FPS, not the indie AI game that Lave mentioned on here a while back).

It's basically the bastard love-child of Half-Life 2 and Bioshock, and not as good as either, but it's a bit of a laugh all things considered. The save game system on it is somewhat annoying, only allowing you one save file, which it auto-saves to whenever you get to another checkpoint and as there's no level select or anything, you can't go back and replay individual sections or anything. The final checkpoint does at least leave you in such a position as to alter the ending you get, but that doesn't really offer up much incentive to replay it.

Anyway, if you see it going cheaps somewhere one day, you can definitely do a lot worse. It's very linear and has a bobbins plot, but as FPS games go it's good, silly fun.

I put Split/Second to rest last night, I would recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone with a love of driving games with a heavy arcade bent. There is a difficulty spike in some of the events that means if you are an achievement hunter then you'll be driven mad trying to do perfect runs, but if you don't care about that and just want to drive fast and blow things up, solo and online, it's a blast. I give it A-, and I generally don't like driving games as a rule.

Fallout:NV finished, for a given value of finished. Finally pushed on, and completed it, but I reckon I could have gotten a few more hours out of it. Really enjoyed it. A

I didn't find the cheevos too bad - one of only a few games I've maxed. Totally agree though - fucking brilliant game and peanuts to pick up now.

A real Commander brings all his crew back alive.

And is a lesbian.

I was half way there!

I would also like to state that Commander Sheppard was on no account painstakingly modelled after the character Beadie from The Wire, second series in red head mode, played by Amy Ryan. For example. *Cough*

I finished Limbo last night.

Really enjoyed it. Only got stumped a couple of times, but never had to resort to FAQ peepzingz.

Beautiful and left me wanting more. Like Mr Dave.

A

Games I’ve finished this year:

Vanquish: Freaking ace slidey-on-your-kneey-shoot-a-thon. Never once got bored, even though it was pretty similar going all the way through. Ridiculous but entirely typical Japanese ending.

Castlevania: Lord of Shadows: Lovely DMC-lite clone. Gorgeous graphics, nice but ultimately unfulfilling combo system (better than God of War, mind) and a ridiculous but entirely typical Japanese ending. A couple of nice Shadow of the Collossus inspired boss battles. Excellent value – about 20 hours campaign, lots of variation, replay value for those who want to unlock the weapons that can’t be unlocked until you’ve acquired all your powers if you felt inclined (I didn’t) and loads of extras and little details; clearly been lovingly crafted. Well worth a look. Hang on, the developers aren’t Japanese…

Enslaved: Again, it’s utterly lovely to look at, but it just got boring about halfway through. The story starts off strong but you probably know the twist before you’ve even played it, and it’s downhill from about halfway through. I was trudging through the final levels to get to the end. The camera is a little wayward and spinning it around, to me anyway, had this weird blurring effect on the screen much like Shadow of the Collossus on PS2. Some weird glitches made me restart a few times like when the woman falls down through the scenery. Some boring sections carrying the woman around and the fighting is a tedious grind. The best bits were the Tomb Raider-ish stuff where you’re dancing around the scenery jumping from craggy rocks. If you’ve played the demo where you escape the spaceship which is going to crash against a time limit – you’ve played the best bit. The game makes no attempt to repeat that opener which is sorely disappointing. Should have been much better but it’s just average.

Metroid: Other M: This is a funny one. It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s a natty blast. Then it gets boring and you start avoiding all the baddies by running by them. MSG is a good comparison as it looks like MSG on the PS1 where you can actually play 99% of the time. This is a good thing. Mind you it has the dullest cut scenes since MSG4. So fun, then dull for an hour or two, but then it ramps up with a great final third, and a silly prologue to wind it all up for about 9 hours playtime. I’ve seen it for a tenner at Game, which is excellent value. Play something different, turn off COD BLOPS and try Metroid: Other M!

Comic Jumper: I’ve had this since I bought it for a shocking 1200 points. Mainly cause I thought it was the first game that was genuinely funny from the demo. And it is funny. Hilariously funny. It’s brilliantly written, loads of little touches throughout, has the “stat song”, some ginger bearded guy’s face as the smart bomb, some brilliant characters etc etc etc. But wait, the gameplay is so shockingly trite and dull with endless shooting which goes on f.a.a.a.a.a.a.r t.o.o.o.o.o.o.o l.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.g that I couldn’t find it in myself to go back to it. Level after level of the same boring shit. It’s not even funny. It’s just sad. Lord knows who some clearly brilliant developers failed to see that the one bit that you have control over is the worse bit about the game and likely to make you turn it off. I’ve finished it, but it was such a slog it often ruined an evening. Brilliant then, but mind numbingly fucking useless at the same time.

Dead Space 2: Almost, almost, almost Resident Evil 4 in space. It’s real good.

As always, I'm keeping up with the latest stuff.

Mass Effect - dodgy menu system, bloody stupid inventory, rather easy and a bit too talky. And the map's crap, and the guy runs slower than I do. It was fucking fantastic.

I didn't get laid, though.

Finished Bulletstorm last week - a fun, throwaway action romp, and I probably just about got my moneys-worth from it. It's a bit thin though, and the replay value is questionable to say the least.

After that one was in the bag I finally went back to Deathspank 2 and finished it off. I had a lot of fun with both of the Deathspank games. They're hardly the most original action/RPGs and they're definitely repetitive, but they're fun (and quite amusing in places) and well worth a play if you like that kind of thing.

Just finished sorcerer of fortune on my iPod. It's a match 3 to attack the enemy type game like puzzle quest. Your character levels up & you can buy/sell equipment at the shop. Next on the iPod? Sword & Poker

Finished Dead Space 2 last night/evening. By and large it's excellent but boy does it have a couple of epic difficulty spikes, that in my case made me go back to an earlier save so I could change the bulk of the weapons I was using — I'm not saying my way is the right way, but once I'd changed weapons and maxed a couple of them out it suddenly went from fucking impossible to tolerably difficult. I'd also recommend finding out about the powernode glitch on some of the levels so you can easily upgrade said weapons. In fact I go so far to say that similar to the first game, weapon choice, though subjective, is crucial that it's right for your style of playing otherwise you will hit walls. I also think those powernode room glitches are deliberately left in the game as they know quite a few people are going to find it too difficult if they don't pick the right weapons.

I never thought it was difficult even on the survialist difficulty that was my first run through. I'm sure I died plenty of times, but at least half of those was to the see the death animations! I couldn't help but jump when I genuinely missed my eyeball on the machine near the end suffering a rather gruesome death.



I didn't use the glitch cheat either (in fact, I didn't know of it until your post) but I was going for as many cheevo's as I could so I ended up with a full rig and statis, and finally only upgraded one weapon on the second playthrough (well I played four chapters to scoop up the Cheevo's I'd missed the first time). I never got to the point where I had no ammo whatsoever as there's always some about and near the end I was just buying a load at the machines to be on the safe side, and even then I'd bought the best suit as well so I wasn't just pissing my money away on ammo.

To me, it was just on the right side of being difficult, as any good survial horror game ought I suppose.

EDIT: Oh, actually the dreadfully shit FEAR-esq last "boss" did piss me off though.

It is a little odd this game as I think picking the weapons that work best for you can be a bit of luck unless you do spend a lot of time tinkering and trying out all the weapons. I found it tediously difficult in the latter stages with my original weapons, but once I resigned to having to go back a few checkpoints and try different weapons it was fine. I found the boss, conversely, ridiculously easy. Took me something like a 90 seconds to do it first time.

Finished Vanquish last night.

Excellent shooter, really enjoyed it. Looks stunning and has a cracking pace to it. Plays like Gears of War (cover mechanics) and has a touch of Bayonetta about it.

Story is completely fucked.

I award it an A

Thanks to MarkG for the lendsie.

Completed the guitar career on Guitar Hero Smash Hits. I'm wondering whether I should bother with the other careers as some of those songs were utter shit. Anthrax was the worst.

Completed the single-player of Homefront. It deserves all of the little bits of criticism aimed at it, but overall I still enjoyed it quite a lot. The core mechanics feel pretty decent, and the detail of the levels is quite impressive.

It only took me an evening to complete, so I'd definitely follow others' advice and not buy it for the single-player alone, though.

Oooh, been thinking of getting this


Sounds great


Starting to salivate now


OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!111

It's like Bayonetta in that there's usually tons going on all over the screen, but you don't need to try and remember a hundred stupid button combinations or anything like that.

Finished Shadow Complex.

Cor that was fun weren't it? Well worth the virtual pennies despite a couple of gripes. The main one being if you stop to collect items as you go along as I imagine everyone will the first time round, by two thirds (or earlier) of the way through you're basically unstoppable unless you fall in a pit which drains you health instantly. Still, the fun became the collecting and hence the why stuck around to get 100% of the items.

I've also played Dead Space 2 through again and mopped up most of the cheevos. Game of the year. Until Dark Souls comes out. Or The Last Guardian. Natch.

I have just had a splurge of finishing games.

This morning finished Arkham Asylum I loved that game. I still have a few puzzles to do and might try the challenges. Def a 9.9/10

Also finished Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood, I do hope another Creed game is in the pipeline.

Also finished 1st play through of Borderlands as Soldier, should I try different char or go though 2nd Play though. Does anyone still play this?

Finished Braid. It was good but not that good, and I'm very glad that I didn't splurge 1200pts on it. It was lovely and didn't take me long to collect all the puzzle pieces other than one puzzle where you drop the time bubble thingy across these moving platforms. Easy going stuff, lovely music and used well, well written and a nice ending. I sat there afterwards and it did make me think about what it all meant but this is basically it:

He was an A-Bomb, or something. hrug:

Completed AC Brotherhood
http://gospvg.blogspot.com/2011/05/game-completed-ac-brotherhood.html

Good game enjoyed it, Ubisoft are now milking it and making yearly sequels.

Next on my list Splinter Cell Conviction

Finished the main story on GTA4. I was quite impressed although by the last few missions it was meh, I just want to finish now...

I think I will play Halo Reach for a bit before I pic up Red Dead again.

I finished the single player campaign of my son's copy of portal 2 over the weekend...

Malc

Did you like it?

I finish most games I buy, when I used to get hold of "backups" I could never be bothered to finish them but now they cost me a fair few quid I make sure I get the play out of them!

Recently finished:
Homefront
Red Faction Armageddon
Torchlight (xbla title)
Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale (xbla title)

I'm also a bit of an achievement points whore (over 70k) so like to get those by finishing games too!

Currently playing Dungeon Siege 3, but its mahoooosive so prolly wont have the patience to finish it but we'll see!

I recently 'finished' the latest Magic: The Gathering XBLA game, which is probably terribly sad and geeky, but I flippin' love it. Beating Nicol Bolas at thee nd of the 'Archenemy' campaign was tricky, as seemingyl every turn he would just destroy everything I/we had in play. Boo!

Anyway, I have defeated everyone, but am replaying it to unlock all the cards, as I like to do that.

I completed Portal 2 co-op over the weekend and loved it!

I went old school and completed Streets of Rage 2 with my son recently.

I completed that with my mate the other week! It was pretty easy.

Very Very Easy but good old school action

Finally completed Splinter Cell Conviction after 3 months !!

Playing the co-op now with my son before I revisit the single player to clean up the remaining achievements.

Have you guys completed nothing?

I completed 'Nappy Changing: Intermediate'

I have completed recently:

Shadows of the Damned 7/10
Create 7/10
EDF: Insect Armageddon 6/10
Portal 2 9/10
Bulletstorm 8/10

I've maxed Gears of War 2 (1750/1750) a couple of weeks ago, does that count? I haven't played much new stuff lately because I've been ramping up my achievements completion percentage on old stuff, and even less new stuff that is narrative based. Next 'finish' is likely to be Dead Space 2, but I feel like I have to wait for it to get dark before I play it or it doesn't seem right, which is slowing me up a bit.

I have Borderlands but haven't played it yet. Was it PeeCee gaming? If so I can play with you!

You'll be wanting to sell it to me for £15 then, right?

Or you can borrow mine.

Done. You free Friday?

Shit, was hoping I wouldn't see you for ages so I'd have time to max it.

I have my Xbox at my hotel now, so have a lot of free time to play games. Whenever is very cool.

Borderlands is excellent, I'd be happy to jump along and play also but not on a Monday evening.

Kovac to answer your question stick with your original character & go for playthrough 2 - tougher enemies & better loot or tackle the DLC if you have any of them?

Give me a shout if you want to party up I have a LVL 54 Soldier.