Currently playing...

[SuperMappy]

I finally had enough of Brutal Legend after 3 hours of game play. It just failed to click with me. Sources say a main quest only run would take about 9 hours, but I had to stop.

Now on to something MUCH better: After getting frustrated with Fallout 3 crashing multiple times with Win7 64bit I looked up solutions on PC Gaming Wiki and discovered an unofficial Fallout 3 patch that is available here: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19122/? You have to register to get the patch, but it is free as long as you don't click any of the payment option boxes.

I've only had to game crash twice in 30 hours of game play and now I'm starting on the addon missions. The graphics and sound are improved. It seems to be in 5.1 surround now instead of just plain stereo.

What a massive improvement over the previous title I was playing.

[VNVObit]

Ok got bored a little of Van Helsing (got very repetitive) so moved onto Kingdom of Amalur - finished the main quest and 1 of the DLC quests (picked it up when it was on sale in Steam)

More enjoyable for me then Demon Souls (i.e. no masochism required and you can be gung ho!!!)
there's no real level matching so some quests become a little to easy later in the game and the final fight was primarily a series of flash finishing moves (reckoning in the game's parlance) of a creature that was outlandishly large.


Fun while it lasted.

Then played Dark Light - side scrolling, platform cum zombie horror survival game. Short but quite enjoyable with some nice puzzles and touches. Think it was also on XBLA
again very enjoyable

Now working my way through Sleeping dogs on Xbox (for some reason can't get it working on my PC)

[SuperMappy]

... Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Even though I have already beaten this game from the XBLA version I was anxious to get the original PS1 disc and thankfully I found it for a decent price at the annual CORGS get together last Saturday. I've been playing it ever since I got home, I haven't even touched the other games I picked up yet.

After I complete it I will probably play it again as Richter.

The only game I didn't find at CORGS (Central Ohio Retro Gamers Society) was Metroid: Zero Mission.

I did however pick-up Balloon Fight and Arkanoid for the NES, Super Breakout and 3-D Tic Tac Toe for Atari 8-bit computers and 4 cheap Gameboy Advance carts that were arcade conversion of remakes of older PC games, one of which is Rayman.

[funkstar]

Finished Disaster: Day of Crisis the other day. Given the daft plot, insane genre confusion, and relatively tired mechanics, this was much more fun than it had any right to be. Also, curiously, made by Monolith Soft of Xenoblade Chronicles fame (a hole in my collection that'll probably go unfilled, as it goes for silly prices wherever I look.)

Now playing Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise. The DS game (Rhythm Paradise/Heaven) that came before was slightly better, I think, in that I recall the rhythm games as a bit more inspired. This is still excellent, though.

I celebrated a bit of progress on my backlog by spending far too much money in the Humble Store during their recent sale. This bundling has got to stop.

[Darkflame]

Always wanted to play Disaster: Day of Crisis ever since I saw a Bear attack on the trailer. It was like every silly movie disaster and then a bear.
However, I bought the game cheap, and by the time I got around to trying it I found out the disc was broken. bah.

. Also, curiously, made by Monolith Soft of Xenoblade Chronicles fame (a hole in my collection that'll probably go unfilled, as it goes for silly prices wherever I look.)

Dunno what silly price counts as, but its certainly worth a full price new game. Its very long.

[funkstar]

Dunno what silly price counts as, but its certainly worth a full price new game. Its very long.

Well, I rarely, if ever, go above 20£ for a game, given that I know that it can easily be years before it gets played - even Nintendo lowers their prices eventually, and I am patient*. With that in mind 55£ for Xenoblade is too dear for me. I'll still keep a look out for it in garage sales, of course: with the horizons I have, the kids may well get through the Wii catalogue before me. (And they don't even read, yet, let alone in English!)

The 100+ hours it represents is also probably half a year's worth of gaming to me, too, so it is not something I can just jump into, either. I feel old, sometimes: I remember going through Full Throttle and Crusader: No Remorse in what, two or three days, and not even breaking a sweat. (Damn, Crusader: No Remorse was a good game! And it's even on GOG, and I never got to play Crusader: No Regret and ... no, bad dog!)

*Though I have to say that on the PC that doesn't mean what it used to: In the Humble Store sale I got Tomb Raider GOTY edition and Shadow Warrior for something like 6-8€, or about 5-6£ (And I meant to get Deus Ex: HR Director's Cut, which was only 5€, but missed the window.) And Shadow Warrior is what, half a year old? That kind of deal was impossible when I was a kid, but now, it's commonplace.

[merman]

Dark Souls (360). Games with Gold is a belter this month.

[Mat]

Tried Path of Exile the weekend before last, and while it's good, it left me hankering for something more polished. The inventory and town portal systems are atrociously bad. Can't complain too much though, as it's the absolute best example of "Free to Play" I've played. It genuinely is (free to play that is), and the only things you can buy have no effect on the game at all.

So late last week, I took the plunge and finally bought Diablo 3 and the expansion, Reaper of Souls.
And it's stupendously good now they've had a chance to tidy up. It's just a nice reminder of exactly how good at polishing a concept Blizzard are.

One thing that has been an incredibly pleasant surprise is discovering that it's got a very robust Risk/Reward mechanism beating as its heart.
This manifests in two related systems: The more monsters you kill with one "hit", the higher the experience bonus; this is the "Massacre" bonus. And the higher the amount of monsters you kill in a chain, again, the higher the experience bonus; this is the "Kill Streak" bonus. This leads to situations where you're either getting as many enemies around you as possible for the maximum Massacre bonus, or madly dashing from group to group attacking as you go, getting as much aggro as possible in order to extend your Kill Streak bonus.

Also, playing the game now and not immediately after release means there are no connection problems that I've noticed, apart from one very brief period of lag early on.

I'm still pissed off that a game like this requires a constant connection, but it has had time to mature now.

Also worthy of note is the newly added "Adventure Mode", whereby after completing the game with a character, you can travel to any map in the entire game, chasing "Bounties", mini-quests for experience and loot. Thanks to the procedural nature of the maps, this remains fresh and allows for runs against favourite bosses whenever you want.

So all-in-all, very pleasantly surprised by the game, and it's my first Activision / Blizzard purchase since Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

[VNVObit]

Sleeping Dogs didn't grip me as much as I thought it would so stopped playing it (may go back to it once I've cleared down the backlog a bit)

Had Arkham City from an earlier bundle so worked my way through the main story, which by and large was pretty enjoyable. Was surprised to see how low a % of the completion you get when you complete the main story (around 40%). Enjoyable and will have a go at Arkham Origins some time later this year.

currently coming to the end of Saints Row 4 (thanks to Humble store spring sale) have completed most of the loyalty missions and just got the main missions to go. with the new superpowers it reminds me of Crackdown (particularly the leaping about bits) which is no bad thing as really enjoyed that too.

Other games I've picked up recently are Banner Saga (had a quick game on the Mac and will go back to it soon), Galcon (quick strategy game that I previously enjoyed on the iPad) which is in the recent humble bundle.

So late last week, I took the plunge and finally bought Diablo 3 and the expansion, Reaper of Souls.

Picked up Diablo 3 last year on the Xbox and loved it (even started going through it second time round which is unusual for me) Found the controller implementation to be pretty good

Well, I rarely, if ever, go above 20£ for a game, given that I know that it can easily be years before it gets played - even Nintendo lowers their prices eventually, and I am patient*. With that in mind 55£ for Xenoblade is too dear for me. I'll still keep a look out for it in garage sales, of course: with the horizons I have, the kids may well get through the Wii catalogue before me. (And they don't even read, yet, let alone in English!)

Given the rarity this appears in secondhand shops I'd be very surprised to see it in a garage sale. Did pick it up but haven't got round to playing through much of it. What I have seen is pretty damn good and better than quite a number of JRPGs (sadly don't have the time/patience to play these beyond about 30/40 hour mark if even that as some are quite painful getting even there) My JRPG backlog is pretty big and haven't been inclined to work my way through it of late.

[nyarla]

I adore Xenoblade, which yeah I bought for full price a year ago. Haven't finished it yet, though I feel I'm maybe nearing the end.. still semi-regularly playing it. Having gotten so far through, and its world being so open, it's very easy to load it up and play in short bursts now - the baddies at the bit I'm up to were kicking my arse so I've just been wandering around relaxedly exploring and doing the hundreds of pointless side quests, which I don't care about but which do give a tiny impetus to just mess around in that beautiful world. I should get back to where I was and see if I can get further now...wanna know what happens! Definitely one of my favourite games ever.

I seem to have lost interest in Dark Souls 2. Might get back to it some time.. it's good but not eating at me the way the previous two games did..or at least not in such a sustained way... Might just be Souls overload here though, I have been in the mood for breezy blue skies and cheerful games lately..

[SuperMappy]

I'm finally into the Inverted Castle in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night!

Controlling the game with a PS2 controller is a little more difficult than playing the XBLA version with the larger 360 controller, but it hardly matters.

SotN is easily one of the PS1's outstanding games and is much better than some modern titles I have.

[funkstar]

I adore Xenoblade, which yeah I bought for full price a year ago. Haven't finished it yet, though I feel I'm maybe nearing the end.. still semi-regularly playing it. Having gotten so far through, and its world being so open, it's very easy to load it up and play in short bursts now - the baddies at the bit I'm up to were kicking my arse so I've just been wandering around relaxedly exploring and doing the hundreds of pointless side quests, which I don't care about but which do give a tiny impetus to just mess around in that beautiful world. I should get back to where I was and see if I can get further now...wanna know what happens! Definitely one of my favourite games ever.

See, that "been playing it for a year" bit frightens me. On the other hand, the fact that you can pick up after not having played for a bit is a major plus, since that is part of what is putting me off, since I don't want to be set back having to relearn the controls and nuances each time I do get the time to play.

(When I played Psychonauts I did it over a somewhat longish period, and at some point I was completely and utterly stuck on a seemingly impossible jump. Turns out that I had forgotten that you could ballon glide - a mechanic that I had simply not used for long enough that it just slipped out of my inventory.)

[Darkflame]

nah, pretty easy to drop in/out of. It fools you many times that your near the end though.
My play time was also spread out quite a bit.

[nyarla]

See, that "been playing it for a year" bit frightens me. On the other hand, the fact that you can pick up after not having played for a bit is a major plus, since that is part of what is putting me off, since I don't want to be set back having to relearn the controls and nuances each time I do get the time to play.

Well, taking a very long time to play games is normal for me Easily distracted and not much spare time I guess... I almost never finish large games. Xeno is one of the few big ones I keep going back to.

The battle system took me a fair while to get used to when I first started but yeah it's quite easy to jump back in.. you don't really have to DO all that much, it's sort of semi-automatic - When in battle mode you can run around freely (your position in relation to the monster matters for various things).. normal attacks happen automatically, you choose special ones at will. Your party are AI controlled. I prefer more involved turn based JRPG fighting but this one grew on me..

There's a ludicrous amount of random sidequests and gem synthesis and character affinities and random item drops and all the usual kind of stuff you get in these games, but I've mostly just ignored all that until recently. Some equipping-related things in the menus can be a pain but everything else about it is mostly really streamlined (eg, there are no healing items, but instead your health auto-regenerates while not in battle mode... If you die, it just plonks you back at the last of the frequent landmarks you were at - you never ever lose any progress). The whole thing is just super breezy and sort of free flowing.

Despite how I sound I'm not trying to convince you to splurge on the game or anything But I hope you get to check it out some time! It's got heart. (damn I want to play it NOW now but must be off to bed)

[Chirpychicken]

Turned the Wii U on for the first time in ages today to run the update.

Ended up playing COD BOps 2 for about an hour - it still plays great on the WiiU very enjoyable.

Then went on my laptop and found that Cdkeys are doing the digital copy of Mario Kart 8 and a free game for £37 - couldn't resist so I have downloaded MK8 registered it on Club Nintendo and grabbed
a copy of Super Mario Bros WiiU

Not played either yet but I'm guessing that MK8 will be on my being played list for some time on completion - I can't wait