What are you playing? Thread 2.0

[Anatole Kuragin]

Just got my new xbox in (after having RRoD'd about two weeks ago) with a fancy 1 month of xbox live free card.

Now begins the long and hard process of relicensing 100 separate Rock Band song and pack downloads.

[Werthead]

The more I play it, the more I'm impressed with Third Age: Total War. The AI is very strong, the new graphics are excellent, the Middle-earth map is fantastic and the thing crashes nowhere near as often as vanilla.

Gondor is tactically the most frustrating side though. Maybe not quite as bad as the Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion but not far off. They're are war on two fronts from the first go and you can't stop fighting to build up your economy. Very annoying.

[Elrostar]

Left 4 Dead is what I'm currently enjoying wasting lots of time on. Killing zombies is just so much fun, especially when you can do it with friends!

My friend largely talked me into getting an Xbox over other systems based on the online play so that I could play with him, and he and I have been doing quite a bit of zombie destroying together. We haven't managed to play together when there could be four of us playing at once (he's done that with other friends quite a bit), but the fun only increases as you have more people playing.

If anyone wants to add me as a friend, my gamertag is dbhertz.

It really is ridiculously fun, and it's amazing how it doesn't seem to get tired or old. I'm very impressed.

[Relic]

It really is ridiculously fun, and it's amazing how it doesn't seem to get tired or old. I'm very impressed.

can you describe?

[Elrostar]

Well, it's obviously zombie killing, but the fact is that enemies are randomly placed in a level, as are a fair number of the reups (although a good number are fixed). This means that it's not just the same thing every time you play it through.

The fact that it's designed for cooperative play makes it a lot of fun. So you play four survivors trying to get to an extraction point (there are four scenarios). This means you can play up to four people together, and the computer AI will play the rest. The AI is quite good, but not perfect, certainly. Getting them to follow you can sometimes be challenging if you want to hole up in a particularly good place to fight off the horde that is coming.

In addition to the standard 'infected', there are a number of specially talented zombies. These include "hunters" (which pounce on you, leaving you helpless), "smokers" (which can snake out their tongues, pulling you away and leaving you helpless), "boomers" (which cover you with bile, attracting the horde of zombies) as well as the really special bad guys, Tanks and Witches. These last two are quite rare but will show up a few times in each scenario. Witches can be avoided sometimes, depending on where exactly they are (this is where the randomness of their precise placement is important), and get very nasty when disturbed. Tanks are just huge and very dangerous.

One nice touch is that all of the 'special' zombies each have their characteristic noise that they make. And tanks and witches also have special music to accompany them. Oh, and the arrival of a horde is also heralded by special music, letting you know that the shit is about to hit the fan.

It's also possible to play it as a versus mode, where some people play survivors and others play zombies. I haven't played that mode myself, and that would really be best suited for larger groups, ideally eight, but fewer might work as well; I assume it fills in with AI as needed.

[burnt hound]

Been playing Battlefield: Bad Company for a while now. Got bored with Left4Dead, and my copy of Halo I lent to a friend (who refuses to give it back). Still haven't installed Fallout 3. Lazy I guess. Will install it later, no rush.

Battlefield 1943 looks interesting, but I'm not sure if I will buy it. Any good games coming out for the 360 in the near future?

In Real Life I played Soccer today, for the first time since last year. Me and a bunch of my friends always play Soccer when the weather gets good. Nice to know that the long winter has really destroyed my physical condition :(

[Inigima]

can you describe?

As a counterpoint: I liked the game but there is nowhere near enough content to justify the price tag.

[Prince of the North]

Just started playing Neverwinter Nights 2 not long ago. I had gotten it for a gift in 2007 and couldn't play it on my 'puter. I also have a toddler and infant so my playing time has obviously taken a big hit (but that's ok :) ). Anyway, I recently upgraded my computer and can now play for an hour or two once in awhile. I enjoyed all the Baldur's Gate series and the first NWN so I hope this will be as entertaining. So far so good...

[DanteGabriel]

It's also possible to play it as a versus mode, where some people play survivors and others play zombies. I haven't played that mode myself, and that would really be best suited for larger groups, ideally eight, but fewer might work as well; I assume it fills in with AI as needed.

I play Left 4 Dead on PC, have been playing since it came out, and pretty much only play Versus mode these days. I dip into Campaign and Survival for the achievements, but night to night, only PvP action is enough to keep me entertained.

It's such a well-done game. Elegantly designed. They squeeze a lot of variety out of a pretty small number of design variations. Essentially, as a Survivor you only have to choose a weapon (shotgun, machine gun, and sniper rifle, and there's always the pistols as a secondary), and there are only four "classes" for Infected (and one of those, the Tank, only comes up every other match or so, but two or three times in the finale for each campaign). Playing as Infected is the most fun, because if you're smart, you're coordinating attacks and using the environment to your advantage. There's nothing quite so satisfying as a well-coordinated ambush that wipes the Survivors: Smoker pulls the trailing member of a group, Hunters pounce the ones coming to rescue, and a Boomer induces chaos and sends a horde of popcorn zombies after them all). Though flinging a dumpster down an alley as a Tank and incapacitating all four Survivors comes close. ;)

AIs aren't really satisfactory for PvP. As a Surviror, it's so crucial to stick together or corner up in PvP, the dumb AI player running around by itself or lagging behind usually gets you all killed if your enemies are halfway competent. And there's no AI substitute on the Infected. If there's only three people playing Infected, tough nuts for you. The only time AIs come out for Infected are when one of you gets drafted into being a Tank, whatever kind of Special Infected you were controlling before becomes an AI, and only till it dies.

For those who gave up on L4D before the April 21 patch, you might want to check it out. They made the last two maps (Death Toll and Dead Air) available for PvP, and added a pretty fun Survival mode.

[Werthead]

Now checking out Fallout 3: Broken Steel (yeah, they fixed it). Pretty awesome. A quantum leap ahead of the other DLCs. Bombing around at Level 23 is pretty cool.

[Paxter]

Picked up Assassin's Creed for PC on the cheap the other day, and it's good fun (if slightly repetitive) and has some excellent visuals. I don't feel like an assassin a lot of the time though...I mean, since when does an assassin randomly save citizens by starting a full-on sword fight in broad daylight?

Also finishing off the 300 missions in Crisis Core.

[Anatole Kuragin]

Picked up Assassin's Creed for PC on the cheap the other day, and it's good fun (if slightly repetitive) and has some excellent visuals. I don't feel like an assassin a lot of the time though...I mean, since when does an assassin randomly save citizens by starting a full-on sword fight in broad daylight?

Also finishing off the 300 missions in Crisis Core.

The unskippable cutscenes and pointless side missions killed that game for me.

[Paxter]

The unskippable cutscenes and pointless side missions killed that game for me.

Yeah, unless (like me) you really enjoy the battle system of Crisis Core, I can see how pointless the side missions would seem. But I kinda like the cutscenes in this game.

[Anatole Kuragin]

Yeah, unless (like me) you really enjoy the battle system of Crisis Core, I can see how pointless the side missions would seem. But I kinda like the cutscenes in this game.

My bad, I meant Assassin's Creed, my previous quote didn't really show that.

[Paxter]

My bad, I meant Assassin's Creed, my previous quote didn't really show that.

No worries.

Anyway, I suppose picking up flags and listening to the pretty ordinary voice acting from Altair during the cutscenes is the low point of the game. But I don't think that kills it completely.

[Elrostar]

As a counterpoint: I liked the game but there is nowhere near enough content to justify the price tag.

The price has been dropping recently, which is why I got it.

I really enjoyed BF Bad Company. I believe there's a part 2 coming out at some point this year, but I could be mistaken. I haven't played any of their other games (1943, etc), but I imagine they're a lot of fun as well.

If they could introduce a cooperative mode it would be even better.

The only thing that bothered me about it was the inability to keep weapons from one level to the next. I really liked those sniper rifles, and was sorry to lose them :(

[Elrostar]

I started playing Assassin's Creed a little bit (having borrowed it from a friend) but it really didn't do much for me. Maybe I should give it another go? I have to say that its reasoning for save points and whatnot was a novel concept. Trying to actually incorporate that into the game logic rather than just having it be something slapped on top arbitrarily was kind of interesting.

For now I don't really have enough time to play as it is, so more games aren't really what I need :) But suggestions are always welcome :)

[Muttering Bill]

I started playing Assassin's Creed a little bit (having borrowed it from a friend) but it really didn't do much for me. Maybe I should give it another go?

Depends on how long you've spent with it. I was unimpressed at first too. But the game gets significantly better once you get Counter Attack (after the first assassination - in Damascus) and learn how to use the map. If you've gotten that far and still don't like it, then you can probably give up on it.

I'm going through my second playthrough now (first was a year ago), and doing all the flag collecting. The side missions are still tedius, but I enjoy the combat system, and sticking guards, drunks and beggars with the concealed blade never get tired for me.

Also, I've been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead lately. I'm only renting it now, but I think I'm going to buy it - if I wait a week, I can get it for $30 from Gamefly, and it's definately worth that. This is the first game that I felt I needed to play online. Checked out Vs. yesterday, and sank about 2 hours into it. So, Elrostar, if you need someone to play with, you can add me if you want. I go on rarely, but I'll probably be signing in more often to play this. (Probably but not definately, as I still have a ton of other games to play through.) But I'm not talkative. I prefer to leave the headset off completely, but this games seems like it needs (even though all of the games I've played online so far have been blissfully silent). I'm too much of a noob to be able to give any input to strategy, so I'll just try to stay close to my team and pitch in where I can. Well, if you like, GT = Kingdom Dark

[Daeric]

I've got a bit psycho on my playtime for team fortress 2 at the moment. Before last Thursday I had about 2-3 hours played as a pyro and about 2 hours of a medic, I at this moment of typing have somewhere in the vicinitity of 23 hours of pyro and about 5 hours of medic, I just can't get the images of running up behind people and toasting them or spy checking out of my head.

[VarysTheSpider]

Finished Half Life 2: Episode Two. Enjoyed it. The finale was really cool. I hope they do more things like that in Episode Three. I also hope I'm still alive when it comes out.

Also completed the new Prince of Persia on the 360. It's been a hell of a long time since I've played a platformer and had a lot of fun, and I'm still having some fun trying to complete the achievements where you have to get from X to Y in five minutes etc. However, the combat system is terrible and 90% of the boss fights are boring as hell. They missed a trick there I think.

Next up... I think I'm going to play through KotOR again. It's been a while and the first time I played through I got caught up in a fit of righteousness. Now I will switch to the Dark Side. :devil: