I’ll skip quickly over my usual space marine gaming, except to tell you the one thing about Aliens: Colonial Marines that I think’s a terrible omission that harms the game: in co-op, if a fellow player is using the motion tracker you can see them holding it but you cannot hear it.
That’s just stupid. We know from the film everyone nearby can hear it, and it’s a spectacularly missed opportunity to be able to ratchet up the tension in-game. Instead of that audible, panic-inducing sound you have to rely on conversation to convey whether there’s anything near by. “Here comes another one” just doesn’t work.
Anyway, that’s not something that’s troubling Tuffcub as he’s still busy playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted on his PS Vita, at least when he’s not playing the newly discovered, thanks to PlayStation Plus, Lumines on it. Oh, and he’s also returned to Killzone 3 after a reasonable absence and is apparently still quite good at it.
Kris is also worshipping at the feet of the ever-stronger PlayStation Plus:
I’ve been playing Just Cause 2 via the marvellous PlayStation Plus. PS+ really is great isn’t it? Anyway it’s awesome! I mean I played the demo ages ago, and it was pretty good, but the full game is nuts! I hijacked a helicopter, flew to a nightclub aboard a ship held aloft by a blimp, took over the nightclub, hijacked a jet waiting on the floating nightclub, jumped out of the jet just before I accidentally crashed it into a mountain and parachuted to the ground.
I’ll be in trouble if the seemingly infinite parachute supply ever dries up though.
Also the completely streaming world is hugely impressive, just ridiculously so. Flying from one area of the island with relatively detailed scenery below you the whole time before you parachute to a location (I do a lot of parachuting) at random is a massive technical achievement. Now I can’t wait for a potential Just Cause 3 on the next generation.
When I’ve not been playing Just Cause 2 my flatmate’s been playing Mercenaries 2 (we only [have] one PS3 between 3 of us) and it’s rubbish by comparison. Oh sure, you can grapple to stuff sometimes, but it doesn’t have the sheer mayhem of Just Cause.
Gaming at both ends of the enjoyment spectrum we find Dan. He’s started Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch this week and is “really enjoying it so far” with lantern-nosed “Drippy stealing the show”. That was the good. He’s also tried playing Metal Gear Rising and “really hated it”, finding himself tempted to send it back by the end of the first level.
He reckons that “maybe” he’ll persevere.
[drop2]Josh has been testing his patience in some of Hitman: Absolution‘s longer levels as after a while he finds that he gets “bored and just try to take everyone out by force”. Unlike TC he says NfS:MW on his PS Vita is “a bit boring” and “completely lacking in character”. For the record, he doesn’t like Hot Pursuit either but playing co-op in LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 on the PS3 gets a big thumbs up.There was some good news for Aran as a recent patch has allowed him to reset the outposts in Far Cry 3 after completing the game so he’s been able to get back to murdering charity workers. The Android-hosted Beastie Bay, “a mix of Pokemon and a Sim game” which sees you building a camp as well as catching and fighting said beasties “is pretty addictive and since it’s free, definitely worth a download“.
Lastly this week we find Peter struggling to explain the facts of (Kratos’) life to his young nephews:
Not played much but I did watch my nephews playing quite a lot of PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale. It really confused them because they loved the way it was like Smash Bros but didn’t like the way they only knew one of the characters. I spent the whole time telling them who people were. That gets a bit awkward when you’re trying to explain why Kratos is so angry and all red and white to a 9- and a 6-year-old…
I have played The Room on iOS, it’s a very smart puzzle game. Basically, you have a box which is covered in secret compartments and puzzles that you need to solve to unlock more of the mysterious notes left by the guy who designed it as he went a bit mad. It’s all very clever and works beautifully with the iPad’s touch interface.
Trying to unlock the secrets of a box sounds like a search for Arnold Rimmer’s favourite pro-alien committee. The Dwarfers out there will know the one I’m talking about.
Before the rest of you hit Google to look for an explanation let us know what you’ve been playing.
wolf-OF-chaos
I completed mgr revegeance this week, it’s the best new game i’ve played this year. It just oozes pure awesomeness.
I also completed the Vergil’s downfall dlc for DmC, it was good but it was fairly short but i can’t complain because it was free.
R1MJAW
Completed Urban Trial Freestyle 100% (which wasn’t easy, the 5* trick scores on the later levels are particularly difficult) and also got the platinum for F1 Race Stars (platinum #80). I’ve also made a start on the Dawnguard dlc for Skyrim.
I’ve not played much on Vita this week apart from a few shots of Lumines.
TSBonyman
I’m currently playing .. “re-download everything i bought off psn since launch because my hdd failed and i had no back-up” .. :/
duff_em_up_dave
Committee for
Liberation and
Integration of
Terrifying
Organisms and their
Rehabilitation
Into
Society
I’ve been watching Red Dwarf.
The Lone Steven
Greg, do you mean that Peter will end up crashing onto a planet that then transforms itself into things based on Peter’s mind before oiling him up to be sacrifed to his self loathing? Or will he just hide in the closet when the tiniest bit of violence is shown? :P
I’ve ventured back into Skyrim. Am playing as a pure mage female Nord. As usual, i’ve come up with a backstory as i love giving my characters backstories. Yes, i’m a geek and damn proud of that fact. Only we get to use that word. You don’t as it would be Geekism. It’s like rascism but it uses binary instead. :P
Here is the backstory for Runa(my female nord)
To avoid doing a wall of text and getting sued by Hazelam for using her tech, shall just do a summary of it.
She grew up in Helgen, discovered she had magic at the age of 18. Went to the only mage(who is a female high elf) in Helgen in order to learn more whilst hiding it from her father. They fell in love and her father kills the mage when he discovers that his only daughter is in love with a high elf. She is kicked out and roams Skyrim. The death of her lover and her getting booted out happens one month before the start of Skyrim. I plan to have her do the COW questline, the main quest(at a high level), and some Daedric quests(the good ones). As well as random sidquests.
Haz can’t sue me as i haven’t reached the…….
salvodaze
Got my copy of Xcom: Enemy Unknown finally. Loving it so far except for some minor camera inconvenience and my ps3 struggling with the disc sometimes. Does anyone else have this?
I also upgraded my laptop to asus ux32vd series which means I can play some pc games too. Finally I can get my hands on Civ V. Not so fast though, my ps3 is full of unplayed games. I see more xcom and ni no kuni for the upcoming weeks.
element666
This week I finally got my first platinum since November! For PSASBR on PS3,and I only need one more for the vita platinum. I’ve been playing Skyrims dlc and I’ve been playing the Simpson tapped out on my phone,which I’m really enjoying :-)
Broonba
I’ve been playing LEGO Batman 2 on Vita before I send it back to Boomerang & have been dipping in & out of Sleeping Dogs (really enjoying it up till now). My backlog’s that big that if it fell on me I’d be buried & it would take rescuers 4 or 5 days to reach me.
Off topic…..are any of you guys aware of a certain website selling “Android players”? (from China)
I got 2 of them, 1 for me & 1 for my nephew. Got them pretty cheap too, (40 quid each) considering that you can play Android games, and ROMS of these platforms….NES games , SEGA Master System games, Megadrive games, SNES games, GB, GBColour, PS One games, Capcom Play System 1 & 2 games…..in other words feckin hunners & hunners of games. It also plays videos, mp3’s and photo’s too. Oh, and it’s also got a web browser as well as being able to access the Google Play store to download android games too. If you’ve got 2, then you can play multiplayer between the 2, using the built in multi-purpose Emulator, although I d/loaded another PS One emulator as the multi-purpose one wasn,t great. (Not shit, just not as good as the PS One I d/loaded for it. I’d have posted a link, but wasn’t sure if that was allowed or not.
(Christ, did i really just type all that^^^^)