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

[Jon AS]

The mutants, particularly the giant ones armed with missile launchers and the little ones who bounch around like they're on crack armed with machine guns, are annoying as hell, but usually don't require a ludicrous amount of firepower to kill (unless you whack it on Hard mode).

You don't play Far Cry on "Realistic"? Wuss.:P

I've been replaying Crysis for a bit and decided to start another run through Far Cry to compare the two. Spend the first part of Crysis just sneaking around and not killing anyone until I had to save the hostage from the school (there's simply no non-lethal way to stop a tank, plus I like blowing up the gas station while I'm at it...) and worked my way through the first part of Far Cry, getting onto the carrier (and getting a weird error message while loading the level. I hope this won't cut this playthrough short).

The most important difference so far is the difficulty. Far Cry with its non-regenerating health, less powerful (of course non-renerating) armour and the fucking "Checkpoints" can be an excercise in frustration. Crysis on the other hand has to be played in highest difficulty to offer anything resembling a challenge.

Far Cry hits the first annying indoor area way earlier than Crysis, and even though I spend a couple of minutes sniping all the mercs before entering the carrier, they've of course all been replaced now that I'm inside the damn thing. Given that any single one of them just needs one lucky shot to take me out, that's quite frustrating and wouldn't have happened in Crysis with its almost seamless level transitions.

[WhiteHaven]

That sentiment is exactly why I'm not a huge fan of GTA4. I loved the absurdity and humor that was throughout Vice City. Tommy Vercetti was a complete badass too.

Tastes differ, I guess.

[ogbebaba]

I was in the mood for a old school RPG and while looking through what STEAM had to offer I found Eschalon Book 1 so I have been playing that for the last week

If you like old school rpgs its definitely worth checking out...

[Werthead]

Went through and completed Jade Empire. Excellent game, if a little lightweight by BioWare standards.

Currently replaying FEAR. Not sure what's up next, but I suspect STALKER. I didn't get far into it first time around, but playing it patched and modded up to eliminate the bugs should be a whole new experience.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Crusader Kings - Fun, but jesus h christ wars are expensive and it's incredibly easy to accumulate an insane amount of debt.

[Brys]

That happened to me a lot as well playing CK - would regularly get debts in the thousands from a war that only lasted a couple of months. But with lots of vassals, they end up paying for most of your armies which is quite helpful.

[Mackaxx]

Pinnacle station, what a pile of shit.

That said it has inspired me to finish my baddie playthrough of mass effect.

[Ratty]

Pinnacle station is the new DLC right? I keep hearing how poor it is - Care to explain some more about it? Bring down the sky was ok cosidering it was free, is this in a similar league?

I'm thinking of piking up Blood Bowl to pass time till Dragon Age is released. By the way if your in the UK do not go for the UK collectors edition - we are practicly the only country in the world getting screwed over on content. Order it from somewhere like Poland or Norway as its all in English and has more stuff thean the actual UK version.

[Mackaxx]

It's a military training station, virtual reality and all that business. The 'story' requires you to finish first in all the event to win. There are multiple event types several of which use environments recycled from the main game. All of these bar one are ridiculously easy and dull. The mission type which isn't so easy it called 'hunt' and it's basically broken at certain difficulty levels. To the point where people recommend you drop the difficulty to pass it. You get time for every kill made and have to kill X people before the timer runs out, problem is the bonus time stops accruing too early (this also doesn't happen on many of the other missions [hence the bug claims]) This coupled with the re-spawns slowing down as well really screws you. Given how easy the other missions are its clear this one is broken, but bioware insists it isn't. bullshit of course.

When you win the side mission you do get some cool things but if you'd finished the game already its all a bit meh.

[Jon AS]

Went through and completed Jade Empire. Excellent game, if a little lightweight by BioWare standards.

After the error I encountered in Far Cry turned out to be gamebreaking (I couldn't finish the second level) and even the uninstaller was acting up, I decided to shelf that and went with a Jade Empire replay as well. Probably got the idea from your posts in this thread, even though I didn't think of it at the time.

I don't really think it's all that "lightweight", certainly not when compared to the official campagin in Neverwinter Nights, by far the worst single player experience Bioware has produced to date.

The RPG system isn't anywhere near as complex as D&D, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The combat is fun, if a bit repetitive (Harmonic Combos are fun, but the kind of enemies you can use them on are just as easily killed with standard attacks), though there is some variety to it, particularly in the sequences when you get to control some of your followers. I originally considered focussing more on some of the magic skills, but in the end I went with the standard, maxing out one martial arts and weapon skill and then proceed to hit enemies until they drop dead. The most difficult fight in the game has to be the second round against Death's Hand, made all the more annoying by the fact that you don't have to win it, so instead of going to the reload screen if you lose, the game continues and immediately goes into a lengthy cutscene.

The story isn't bad at all and the twist certainly surprised me the first time through. If you know it's coming you can see all the small hints pointing at it, but the game does a good job at distracting you from it, particularly by throwing what feels like an "end boss" fight at you right before it happens.

There's also some great metahumour, like the scene where you have to rejoin your followers: if you try to exit the area instead you get the message "You must gather your party before venturing forth". Also the second time you get to fight as Black Whirlwind and the game starts a bodycount for the Lotus Assassin's you kill, complete with a brief spoken comment every 20 kills. If you keep ingoring the golem (the destruction of which ends the fight) and continue killing Assassin's instead, the commentator asks you to "just kill the golem already" when you hit 100 kills.

And let's not forget that you get to beat up John Cleese.

[Slurktan]

Started playing WoW again a bit but I have it under control. At least for the time being. Too much other stuff to play.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy - I did not like it at all. I'm not a fan of loading - 15 second fight - loading - map - loading - 15 second fight - loading etc. Plus how do they leave out Balthier? Worst thing for me though by far is Cecil's Paladin costume. It's just so fricken stupid. What is the point of that stupid....... point coming out of his shoulder? How does he walk through doors?

Warriors Orochi 2 - Plays like all the rest of the Warriors stuff but I like the plot stuff as it invloves more mystical things like Monkey King from Journey to the West. Plus how can you not like the replayability of a beat 'em up that has 96 unique characters and 80 unique stages?

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Just an awesome game, love it in every way and fully recommend to everyone. Plus its neat to show off for people who've never seen the game by jumping into a group of 8 thugs and beating the shit out of them.

Beatles: Rock Band - Well for starters its Rock Band so that means fun. But it's just so..... Beatles that any Beatles fan should pick it up. I love all the extras material like the movie clips and the Christmas Album. The only things that bug me at this point are that there is only 45 songs at the moment (Although Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Peppers albums are going to be downloadable) and in the big concert stages and the Ed Sullivan show the crowd noise is too loud. I get what they were going for but I'd like to have the option to play some of the songs without it.

[burnt hound]

Batman: Arkham Asylum on the good old 360. It's nice and all, and very, very funny. Running around looking for the Riddlers ridddles. Halfway through, but I guess I will put this away when I get Halo: ODST this week. Or not.

[Muttering Bill]

Checked out Ghostbusters. It was fun at first, but after 3 levels I got bored with it.

[Paddy]

Completed Arkham Asylum. Great game. Love the fighting system and the stealth. I keep finding out new combinations and moves in the stealth games.

I think I'll be replaying the challenges in this game for a good while.

Started on Mirror's Edge. I love the stylized graphics, but am finding the controls a bit finicky - I still sometimes press A to jump and it's hard to judge when you're at the end of a board to make a jump without looking down.

The storyline is awful. So bad that it makes me wonder why they bothered.

[WhiteHaven]

Just started a replay of Too Human. Somehow the game sucks. Somehow it is great. Dunno why.

[Jaxtile]

I played two human for one day and had experienced everything there was to offer. The controls just didn't work 90% of the time. But that 10% was something special, when the camera didn't fudge up and everything just rolled into one another smooth-like.

Still, it was 1/10 of a game, with the shittiest level design in recent memory.

[WhiteHaven]

I played two human for one day and had experienced everything there was to offer. The controls just didn't work 90% of the time. But that 10% was something special, when the camera didn't fudge up and everything just rolled into one another smooth-like.

Still, it was 1/10 of a game, with the shittiest level design in recent memory.

That's true...but I it made me addicted, nevertheless. I think I love leveling, even if the game is as fucked-up as Too Human.

Edit: Oh and yeah, I think I could have written a better story.

[Le Communard]

That happened to me a lot as well playing CK - would regularly get debts in the thousands from a war that only lasted a couple of months. But with lots of vassals, they end up paying for most of your armies which is quite helpful.

Yeah, use the diplomatic vassal mobilization option (as opposed to clicking on the unit on the production screen) and they pay the upkeep for you, it challenges their loyalty less, and it's still under your direct control. You should really try and use this for at least half your armies. Also, don't pay full upkeep ever unless serious fighting is imminent, and don't be afraid of a little debt (or even a lot, IIRC some positive stability events can triggered by debt, and as long its not wayyy beyond your means, it's usually pretty easy to pay back). A little money tip also: marry the woman in Europe with the most stewardship, not only is it the stat that a good advisor can affect the most, but, its effect is pretty much the biggest to begin with.

It's funny, I actually just reinstalled CK myself yesterday, although didn't get to playing it. I've been plying EU3 pretty much obsessively waiting for the new Magna Mundi release, but the staticness in 1.5 was just too depressing, so I decided to give it another spin. We'll see what happens.

[emberling]

Dissidia: Final Fantasy - I did not like it at all. I'm not a fan of loading - 15 second fight - loading - map - loading - 15 second fight - loading etc. Plus how do they leave out Balthier? Worst thing for me though by far is Cecil's Paladin costume. It's just so fricken stupid. What is the point of that stupid....... point coming out of his shoulder? How does he walk through doors?

I might have said this before here - I remember posting it on some forum - but I found that my enjoyment of Dissidia increases significantly when played on a large screen. Played in the usual portable fashion, it's not that entertaining at all. Unfortunately, the mechanics of getting it on a large screen can be a bit daunting.

I agree totally with your complaints. The load times are pretty bad, at least half the models look pretty stupid (either because their design is fucked up, because they ignore the original design, or both at once), and the character selection is pretty lackluster from a conceptual point of view (though they're pretty well varied as gameplay goes). As Final Fantasy fanservice, it's barely adequate, since there's so many random purposeless changes and they wasted character slots on two FINAL BOSSES FROM NOWHERE and five characters with literally no personality, rather than on a character that actually interests someone.

But if you can look past all that, the game itself is both reasonably fun and very deep, and there's an incredible amount of stuff to do (so you stop playing when you're bored of it, not when you reach some predetermined endpoint).

It is rather odd that they included a nobody like Gabranth rather than Balthier, though, seeing as Balthier is very different from any of the included characters, and Gabranth is - visually, at least - pretty similar to WoL, DK Cecil, Golbez, and Garland. I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that while Balthier is a very popular character among Western audiences, he's not popular at all in Japan - maybe that's why? Still, Gabranth?

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Yeah, use the diplomatic vassal mobilization option (as opposed to clicking on the unit on the production screen) and they pay the upkeep for you, it challenges their loyalty less, and it's still under your direct control.

Yeah, I read something along those lines on the paradox boards, but honestly? I'd rather just cheat and give myself an obscene amount of money. If I'm going to be exploiting stupid game mechanics, might as well go all in.

So yeah, I did that and conquered half of Spain as England (er, half of the Muslim half of Spain). At which point my armies were attrited all to hell and I started one too many wars and basically gave zaragosa an extra ten provinces for not much effort. I'm sure that won't be a problem in the future.

Actually, it's been a few years since then and they don't seem to have made progress conquering anything, so maybe it truly won't be a problem.