Whats games have you been playing of late? Exclusive Beta Edition.

[WhiteHaven]

Nice one activision.

He I remember a time, when activison had a good support. Back in the good old days :(

[Mackaxx]

Response

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Not helpful

[Inigima]

That sucks :(

And yeah, it's the MP that makes CoD4 great.

[Paddy]

Arkham Asylum is great.

The game starts off cool and then gets good, then really good and now it's brilliant.

I've just been through the third Scarecrow encounter (ZOMG!). I haven't had to force myself to stop playing a game in a long time.

The graphics are top notch, though not ground-breaking. The story so far is good (in game terms, I might even say excellent), the voice acting generally superb.

The fighting system is great. I'm trying really hard to break myself from button bashing in order to get better at it.

Only Devil May Cry 4 has made me try the same, but even it wasn't as effective at making button bashing a bad thing.

[Werthead]

So, call of duty 4, modern combat or whatever its called has finally graced my system. I've got to say that 4 acts into it and I'm pretty underwhelmed. Hopefully a bit more excitement is coming my way. In regard to online stuff the only servers i managed to get onto last night were low ping ones, I did manage one with a decent connection once though and did ok. Still, again it was all a bit seen it before as well.

One thing that really grates on me is all the ooh rah business and the fact that I can't help but feel it's a bit of a propaganda piece with all the military wankery. Then again I am only 4 acts into it and maybe its all a bit tongue in cheek.

Yup, COD4, as a single-player FPS, is seriously underwhelming. There's some good moments in there like the airborne bombardment mission from the Hercules gunship and the stealth-based mission in Chernobyl is also pretty good, although I did ponder if they lifted the idea for the setting from STALKER, since it was odd we don't have a single game involving Chernobyl ever, and then two turn up within a year of one another.

Most of the 'normal' missions were meh, although with a few dashes of interesting ideas (sticking you inside the country's leader in the opening cut scene is an interesting artistic move, if otherwise pretty pointless). And respawning enemies? In a 2007 FPS? Seriously, is the genre going fucking backwards now? What's next? Shall we actually have big generators to shoot to stop the enemy spawning? How about Osama turning up in a big cyborg suit armed with miniguns? That would be fun. They didn't even try to half-justify it as Bioshock did (even though that was still annoying).

[Mackaxx]

Something that annoys me is the fact that in the multiplayer it looks like you don't get access to all the guns n perks from the get go. It's an interesting idea but on the surface it does seem to start you on the back foot. That said so far it hasn't stopped me from killing a few people. I opened up the xbox 360 relevant ports on my routers and the connection speed is much quicker now, didn't seem to be important for other games but looks like it is here.

Theres a few maps where I get my ass handed to me pretty badly and others where I end up finishing as high as second. I guess people have their favorites and knowing the map is more important in some instances than others.

[Zach H]

Been playing the free Daggerfall. I really liked Morrowind, so it's kind of cool to go to Daggerfall for the first time and see how the series developed. Not sure how long I'll keep at it, though. My favorite part about Morrowind was simply exploring the world, and obviously it's not quite same with all the randomly generated/copy and paste environments that Daggerfall boasts. Also, I don't think I have the attention span for Daggerfall's dungeons.

Still, pretty cool that Bethesda offered the game for free.

[Durckad]

And respawning enemies? In a 2007 FPS? Seriously, is the genre going fucking backwards now? What's next? Shall we actually have big generators to shoot to stop the enemy spawning? How about Osama turning up in a big cyborg suit armed with miniguns? That would be fun. They didn't even try to half-justify it as Bioshock did (even though that was still annoying).

You're waaaay too hung up on this. I think the CoD4 hype-machine did you in.

It seriously never bothered me since, most of the time, you're fighting in a veritable war zone so having a constant stream of enemies coming at you makes a bit of sense.

It's nowhere near as annoying as some parts of Half-Life 2, such as fighting shit that can only be killed with an endlessly respawning box of rockets, or striders that are now immune to rockets just because the game designers want you to use some stupid sticky things, or AI controlled allies that constantly get in your way, get gunned down stupidly, and then are immediately replaced by some other faceless morons. Or the whole 'OMG lets randomly power up your gravity gun and then take it away!' Yeah, it was great the first time you did it, the second time showed just how few ideas Valve actually had.

[Paddy]

Wert,

You definitely do go on about the spawning enemies a bit too much. I'm not sure why it's such a crime for it in a 2007 game, especially when you yourself give one example of it in a game that was released a smidgen over 2 months earlier.

I don't see that it's yet something that is a relic consigned to the past, and I'm sure there are plenty of examples.

I understand that you were underwhelmed by the game itself, but it's strange to concentrate your ire on the respawning enemies thing.

Thing is that CoD4 is a straight-up realistic (as in modern weapons and setting) action-oriented FPS, in the vein of... well, all the CoD games so far. You seemed to feel that you could play it as a tactical FPS and got annoyed when you couldn't, but that was never the intention of the game.

I don't know if you were playing on the "Hard" difficulty setting (or whatever they called it in CoD4), but I do believe that Infinity Ward got that setting a bit wrong. They decided to make it harder by simply throwing more bad guys at you which makes the effect of spawning much more apparent, and it makes some parts difficult to the point of frustration (like the end of the Chernobyl level).

Mackaxx,

Normally, I'm not a great fan of unlockable equipment, but it does have the advantage of limiting the choices for newbies, and thus reducing confusing.

It's also not so bad, because the kit out they give you is very good. Certainly, I think the M16A (burst fire) that the Assault class gets is the best weapon in the game. And the grenade launcher it comes with is really powerful. So much so that we've banned it in my regular game because you'd be crazy not to have it and then things just turn into a n00b tube madness. Normally, I use it with the red dot sight that it shouldn't take too long to unlock (just kill people lots with that gun).

[WhiteHaven]

After buying a new Xbox360 Elite, I decided to play GTA 4 again.

Ah what shall I say? What can I say? It is a great game. Seriously, Rockstar did some awesome shit. It is like a movie.

And the sarcasm...woho!

[Paddy]

This is GTA4 for me: :sleep:

[DJDonegal]

I haven't touched GTA:4 yet, but I did spot it for £15 in CEX. If I see it again I might just pick it up...

Still got to pick up GoW2 first, though.

[VarysTheSpider]

For me the GTA games are way more fun when using the cheats. It cuts pretty much all the tedium and wasted time out of the games, and doesn't necessarily make the missions easier if you exercise a bit of restraint with gun options, health boosts and losing the police.

After last night I am now two songs away from completing Rock Band on expert: 'Green Grass and High Tides' and 'Flirtin' with Disaster'. Songs I've never heard of and don't particularly like, but if I have to listen to them twenty fucking times tonight I'm finishing it. :whip: I also got my first 100% on expert last night: 'Maps' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not their best song by any means, but as they're probably my favourite band on the game I'm pretty pleased about it.

Had a few friends round on Sunday and we were playing Beijing 2008 on the 360. Hahaha. What fun. It was wierd though, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get the hang of waggling the stick which was required to sprint, gain power, etc and had to resort to the mashing the buttons like I was still playing it on the SNES or something. :blush:

[Muttering Bill]

The problem with the movies is most likely that your "gold pack" probably installed a version of the high resolution mod with the wrong settings. Yesterday i could have told you the settings that worked for me. Anyway check the installation directory for some cfg or ini files. There is also a ingame way to configure in somewhere inside "options" in the main menu. The problem is most likely a directshow setting vs opengl or something stupid like that. There are quite a lot of patches for fallout 1 & 2 you have to install in a definite order for the best experience and it's easy to fuck it up.

BTW, you suck at turn based. Play Jagged Alliance 2 on impossible for some training.

Alright, I'll try that and see if anything helps. It's not too big of a deal though - if I can play The Last Remnant with all of it's graphical problems, I can handle this.

And it's not so much that I suck at turn based, but that I suck at using a keyboard and mouse. I'm still transitioning to the controls. I've got Fallout pretty much figured out now. Who would have thought that it'd actually use the right mouse button!?!? :leaving:

Also, I bought the game of the year edition which came with the map packs for free. So, I take the code and go to enter it at the xbox marketplace and find it doesn't work.

Righto, this code has to be entered at the following website link, great, I go there and it appears they arn't giving out codes because they need refresh their xbox marketplace token supply. It's been like this for a few days now and when I check online (the COD4 online forum community is a hilarious mix of 11-18 year old internet tough guys incidentally) it seems it's been like this for quite some time.

My gf bought that for her brother (for his birthday a year ago). They tried redeeming the code a few times over the next couple of months. I don't remember if he ever got his maps or not. But if he did, it took a few months for them to refresh their tokens. There's an equally good chance that they just gave up.

But that wasn't my game, so whatever. And Activision is giving me Guitar Hero Van Halen free, so I've got no problem with them.

After last night I am now two songs away from completing Rock Band on expert: 'Green Grass and High Tides' and 'Flirtin' with Disaster'. Songs I've never heard of and don't particularly like, but if I have to listen to them twenty fucking times tonight I'm finishing it. :whip: I also got my first 100% on expert last night: 'Maps' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not their best song by any means, but as they're probably my favourite band on the game I'm pretty pleased about it.

I've played GGaHT exactly twice ever. First time I tried it solo on guitar. When it started I was like... :rolleyes: what's everyone complaining about, this isn't even hard! I failed about 2/3's of the way through. The second time was online - one of those rare instances when you've got a full band. (I didn't pick the song.) The singer dropped out immediately. I played bass that time, and my hands were in flames by the end - but we finsihed it. Then the band broke up. That song has been placed next to Jordan, Visions and Through the Fire and Flames in the 'I don't care if I never pass it' category.

I picked up Guitar Hero 5 over the weekend, so I've been bouncing between that and Fallout. Also got the Starcraft set, but I haven't played it yet.

[DJDonegal]

Had a few friends round on Sunday and we were playing Beijing 2008 on the 360. Hahaha. What fun. It was wierd though, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get the hang of waggling the stick which was required to sprint, gain power, etc and had to resort to the mashing the buttons like I was still playing it on the SNES or something. :blush:

My brother picked this up on the cheap the other day and I've been having good fun with it since. He does the waggling because he completely sucks at tapping A and B - I honestly think he tries to be that bad. But I'm not too good at the waggling, and I hate losing, so I always jump all over tapping A and B.

[Weak With The Dawn]

This is GTA4 for me: :sleep:

I don't understand. There is nothing wrong with that game. I never played any GTA until 4 came out (I was a morale snob for awhile) but I've been replaying GTA4 and the story, action and character development all make for a great story, in my opinion, anyway.

What would you have improved?

MMO related question: Anyone try Champions Online yet? I have not seen any reviews since it went live and I'm curious.

Trying to decide what 360 game to pick up next, any suggestions?

[WhiteHaven]

I don't understand. There is nothing wrong with that game. I never played any GTA until 4 came out (I was a morale snob for awhile) but I've been replaying GTA4 and the story, action and character development all make for a great story, in my opinion, anyway.

What would you have improved?

MMO related question: Anyone try Champions Online yet? I have not seen any reviews since it went live and I'm curious.

Trying to decide what 360 game to pick up next, any suggestions?

Already played Condemned I and II? If not, give it a try ;)

PS: My Gamertag is RedEranor, if anybody is interested. It is my new Gamertag, though. Forgot the old one, which is a shame, since every Euro I payed for the DLC's was wasted.

[Poobah]

Starcraft

:thumbsup:

[Werthead]

You definitely do go on about the spawning enemies a bit too much. I'm not sure why it's such a crime for it in a 2007 game, especially when you yourself give one example of it in a game that was released a smidgen over 2 months earlier. I don't see that it's yet something that is a relic consigned to the past, and I'm sure there are plenty of examples.

Not really. Virtually every other FPS I've played in the last ten years - including Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 - there are finite numbers of enemies in any one area and you can kill every single one of them. The few times you encounter an area with respawns there is some logical reason for it: a new enemy platoon is dropped onto the battelfield by helicopter or a truck drives in and enemies pile out. There are tactics and plans you can develop to deal with this situation.

In contrast, standing in front of a concrete building with only two entrances and you can see both of them with an infinite stream of men pouring out is immersion-breaking, very silly to look at and rather cheap.

Thing is that CoD4 is a straight-up realistic (as in modern weapons and setting) action-oriented FPS, in the vein of... well, all the CoD games so far. You seemed to feel that you could play it as a tactical FPS and got annoyed when you couldn't, but that was never the intention of the game.

Not so much. As I said, I've played both prior CoD games (CoD3 never making it to the PC) and games like Far Cry. None of these are tactical FPS at all, but the very basic tactics those games ingrain in you are worthless in CoD4. When taking a fortified enemy position, the best tactic is to hold off and snipe/grenade or rocket them out, and only make a direct assault when the enemy's numbers have been whittled down. That's not exactly a GRAW tactic, that's something going back to Half-Life or SiN, or for that matter Quake 2.

In CoD4 this doesn't work, as infinite streams of men come running down to replace the ones you have killed within seconds. Eventually, the only way to advance is to simply run straight into the middle of the enemy horde, hoping you hit the invisible trigger that shuts off the respawn point and then avoid dying so you don't have to do it again.

At this point you are no longer thinking, "I'm an American soldier fighting the terrorist threat," you're thinking "I'm a severely pissed-off game-player trying to beat a retarded piece of game design." And at that point the immersion of the game is dead.

[Shryke]

:agree:

I think we play FPS the same way Wert. I tend to clean up the area from a safe distance and then move in.

One reason I loved Far Cry.