If I told you that all I’d played this week was Mass Effect 3 and Borderlands 2, would you believe me. Of course you would, as they’ve been the staple of my gaming recently and will continue to be so for a while yet. I’m hoping to spend some time this coming weekend with the MechWarrior Online open beta but we’ll see if that plan is any more successful than my other recent ones.
Alex meanwhile has been “wading through the gloopy mud that is Medal Of Honor: Warfighter“. While there are some promising but too short-lived “oh this is cool but now it’s over” moments there’s also a liberal sprinkling of “GOD WHEN WILL THIS BIT FUCKING END” ones.
He summaries by saying that “it’s about an average a game as I’ve played for years”. For him Criterion’s Need For Speed: Most Wanted “hasn’t hit the spot” either. And “it’s not a patch on Forza Horizon” he tells me.
Josh has been sampling many and varied gaming delights both old and new. After returning briefly to Borderlands 2 after some time away he went on to play Tokyo Jungle, Killzone HD, The Unfinished Swan and Dead Island.
[drop2] He’s taking his time with The Unfinished Swan as he doesn’t want the experience to finish too soon as there’s the expectation that “these cool sorts of games tend not to last all that long”. Enjoyment levels remain high even when pursuing “the endless search for balloons”.“Dead Island is glitchy and hardly the most polished thing in the world”, he says before adding that it still represents good value as it was about £10 from the PSN Store so he “can’t really complain”. He likes how the weapons suffer from wear and tear and while he’s been told the game’s not so much fun after the resort section he’s “having a good time with it so far”.
“Oh”, he says, suddenly remembering, “I started Heavy Rain again”. On returning to the game he’s found it’s still as good as he remembers and it has spurred his enthusiasm for the forthcoming Beyond: Two Souls.
Joining Josh in playing the remastered Killzone HD is Aran, perhaps highlighting the question Alex raises in yesterday’s opinion piece on the PS4 that our keenness for remastered titles may well be killing backwards compatibility as a feature in consoles.
If you’ve read his review you’ll know that Aran considered Killzone HD to be “a fun game” though “a few technical glitches” did knock the score down. He also questions its replayability as it lacks an online mode. Makes you wonder how we coped for so many years without online multiplayer, I certainly used to replay a lot of games did you?
He’s still enjoying Max Payne 3, in particular the “challenging enemy AI”. Planning attacks in Dishonored is also a source of much entertainment even when the German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke’s most famous quote comes to pass: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. In those instances he often decides in favour of the latter of fight or flee.
Kris has been back playing is what is probably his favourite gaming sci-fi universe even though it displays a woeful lack of Triceratops. Having made the mistake of starting Halo 4 on Normal and being somewhat disappointed with aspects of the game, he found it improves immensely once the difficulty is stepped up to Heroic.
“On normal the AI is just so stupid” with supposedly powerful enemies blundering around the screen, “but playing it on Heroic makes the game make a lot more sense and is far better”. Stepping away from the ground pounder action was also a refreshing change. “The Rogue Squadron-like bit is properly awesome!”
So how about you lot? Did you break out any particular games to get into the Halloween mood?
gaffers101
Like many, Dishonored and AC3 have been taking up most of my time this week. I’ve nearly completed my 2nd Dark Chaos run through on Dishonored, after that I can stick to AC3 for a while.
Origami Killer
Not played a lot on my vita this week, just the usual few races on Ridge Racer and puzzles on TOM: Blitz. Had a lot of work to do for Uni. Hoping to get back into MGS HD and LBP Vita :)
The Lone Steven
Not been gaming that much this week due to my job hunting taking up more of my time. Am close to completing, Get a Job:the game. Still is crap and only have one song that is on a 2 second loop. -100/10. May have been bribed via rustlers mircowave things.
Completed Dishonoured again. Won’t be playing it for a while as i’ve lost interest in it. Started MGS2 on the plant chapter but think i may not bother as i’m not sure what game to play.
Sympozium
Play Simcity 2000, its on sale at Gog.com… omfg $2.39, thats like £1 odds? maybe below.
SpikeyMikey23
Getting ready for Blops2 by going back to MW3 (for the 100th time).
Want to play Fifa but the connection issues recently have put me off. Keeps disconnecting mid way through games, no one gets the win, it doesn’t count against the amount of games left to play (online seasons) yet it still affects the fitness of you’re bloody squad! (UT)
Sympozium
Metal Gearuragh Solid 3? Been wanting to play the HD version since the PS2 game is too blurrly for me, good game but slighty annoying on the Vita whenever you need to sneak. Its definatly not a Analog stick issue, like on Unit 13 its great but whoever ported it messed things up and deserve a slap in development 101. Might buy MGS2 soon, but damn wanting to play Peacewalker on Vita, but I’d prefer it to be crossbuy. Can’t someone sneak into Konami HQ to ask Kojima to do that? …more publishers should support that than Sony or Indies.
Also this week PES 2013… got the team named FC Iatneh (backwards for hentai *cough*) thom I created promoted to the English League (Premier League). Have Minandino and Gellagaza to be quite speedy and great at shooting so alls well but now I have to build the team up with more youth team signings and a few transfars considering I released a few players to get new staff… ngh.
hazelam
i played and finished Mass Effect 3.
good game, but damn, i can see why people are pissed off about the ending.
frankly, it’s absolutely, totally frakking awful.
from the lack of closure to most of the character’s stories, to the fact that all the players choices throughout the five year, 3 game history have bugger all impacton the ending, the only choice that matter comes from an element introduced in the dying seconds of the final game, without even any hints to it’s existence beforehand.
the only way they do come into play is when they’re turned into a numerical value, and even then they don affect the ending, they just decide when you can do the final mission.
i honestly cannot believe that was the plan all along.
there is nothing in the god knows how many hours of story leading up to this that leads into it.
it’s an example of absolutely horrible storytelling.
it’s like somebody else wrote the ending, possibly while on some form of hallucinogenic drug.
while i do think this is one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, ending to a great story i’ve ever seen, even worse than the lost ending in my opinion, i also believe that taking them to court over it, as some people tried doing, is just a ridiculous overreaction.
better to just take is as a life lessen that the once great Bioware, is dead.
now we have bioware, the division of ea, that is the reanimated zombie of Bioware of old.
don’t wanna spoil it, but here’s the endings.
blue explosion.
red explosion
and green explosion.
and i think the green one was only included as part of the dlc.
such a depressing ending to such a great series.
other than that, i’m still plugging away at Kingdoms of Amalur.
The Lone Steven
I just thought it was weak and generally consider the game to be the ending to Shep’s story. The extended cut seems to be a little bit better but overall, Bioware dropped the ball. Oh well. At least it’s not another DA2. :D Wait, did i just mention that game that must not be mentioned due to me going on a rant? I don’t care about it.
It seems ever since EA bought Bioware, they have been going downhill. :( They need to become independent again to avoid being ruined as EA tends to do that. :S They should have went with Bethesda or continue to be their own publisher as they have lost a lot of fans.
Could be worse, we could have a ME and a DA game every year. Both as FPSes. :O With day-90 DLC and online passes with more DLC that is actu… i’m going to stop here otherwise i will be here untill 5pm with this.
Sympozium
Bioware > Sellouts!
Crazy_Del
Currently playing Medal of Honor (almost finished campaign) Assassin’s Creed III both campaign and multiplayer, same with AC Liberations aswell. Just had a blast of Need for Speed: Most Wanted on Vita and about to boot up the PS3 version.
Been busy with tons of new games.
mainly looking forward to AC III/Liberations and NFS on PS3 and Vita this weekend ^^