What We’re Playing – Week 6

With ColossalBlue over in San Fran having his mind assimilated by the collective, and others such as Kovacs starting new jobs, for some, this has almost been a week of what we’re not playing. That hasn’t stopped the rest of the group keeping the fires burning, however, whether it’s returning to Rapture or getting in a final few hours with the Nation of Modification before the servers go dark.

TuffCub:

Battle Tanks Demo – What I’ve NOT been playing – Download the demo then have to download a patch as well? No thanks. *delete*

Aliens Vs Predator Demo – Also What I’ve NOT been playing – Never managed to get it to make a match so I can play the damn thing. *delete*

EyePet – Poor Snatch has been a bit neglected as of late so I gave him a good scrub and lots of yummy cookies, then spent a very enjoyable half an hour dragging a pillow case across the floor so he could chase it. I still cant complete the Garden tasks – when you have to ‘Tap on the base of the flower’ to make it vanish, just doesn’t work An annoying flaw in an otherwise brilliant ‘game’.

Danglytits In-phwoooar-no – Hurrah! A game that works! This will be in my top five games of the year without fail. Fun fun fun fun fun fun! And tits. Did I mention the tits? There’s lots of them. [Dante’s Inferno]

Gastos84:

My only gaming this week came in the form of the Heavy Rain demo. You may already know my impressions on that! Really haven’t been in the mood to play anything else.

Lorcan:

This week I went a bit wild on Pokemon again, spending countless hours trying to find a lot of Pokemon Platinum that have a less than 5% chance of appearing. It took forever, but eventually I got what I needed!

There’s also an American exchange student staying at my house who has never played a full videogame in his life. He’s 20. So I took it upon myself to make him play Uncharted 2 which he’s loving. Even just watching the whole thing I’m loving it. The characters in that game are just so perfect!

Kovacs:

As mentioned above, after many months of solely writing for my supper, I finally bit the bullet and picked up a short-term contract to replenish the dangerously low Kovacs-coffers™. While I fully intended on getting stuck into those previously mentioned PSP games I purposely purchased for my new commute, I ended up spending the time catching up with my reading. If I have a backlog of about thirty games waiting patiently to be played; sitting there in their pristine, hermetically sealed wrappers, gathering dust and laughing at me, I have over a hundred books similarly clamouring for my attention. Kind of what happens when you love games and writing; you tend to amass a landfill worth of content that you just never seem able to put a dent into.

Facing the prospect of writing this article on Sunday morning and admitting the indignation of having not played one single game all week, I latched on to the free flOw phenomenon that bubbled up yesterday and picked it up. Yes, it’s only free for our US brethren. I did mention I have a new job so I can afford to splash out on a game I was always meaning to pick up anyway.

It’s obviously a lot like Flower, ThatGameCompany’s subsequent and, in my opinion, superior effort, but it’s still incredibly well put together. With a novel approach to movement and control, soothing visuals and a tremendous score, it comes highly recommended.

Next week I hope to have gotten back into a more regular gaming pattern. As soon as I can work out when Mrs. Kovacs will let me of course.

Zuler:

I got BioShock 2 on the weekend and haven’t put it down since. An absolutely stunning game. If you liked the original BioShock, you’re in for a treat. The new types of gameplay such as gathering really shine and the multiplayer isn’t some gimmick like most games. Buy it.

CaptainMurdo:

I’ve got a big variety this week. I started with some Trials HD on Monday. I bought it ages ago but never started it up, I had played the demo though. The game was as expected and the leaderboards do really get addictive, shame I couldn’t beat anyone’s times.

I then popped in Prince Of Persia, which I got cheaply from The Hut, and I was happy to see Nolan North on the inside. The graphics are very quirky and the gameplay is fun, I can see me actually completing this one.

Sticking with Nolan North, I tried the Dark Void demo. It’s bad, very bad. Characters look awful and the controls are too difficult. Deleted quite quickly.

Of course I had my weekly run in with Modern Warfare 2, and I managed to get those callsigns I wanted. Really loving the knives at the moment. I also bought Mass Effect 1 this week but I’m going to wait until I have some free time to really get stuck into that.

The Shadow War needed my help, too, so I jumped in to MAG to see if everything was balanced. Seems fine now but the first sniper rifle isn’t very powerful. [Ed: Tell me about it.]

cc_star:

This week I’ve been completing Dante’s Inferno for the second time, I’ve really enjoyed taking my time through the game, taking in all the sights and sounds of hell. I was trying to Platinum the game but I must have miss one or two collectibles again, so I need to play through it a third time in the coming week and I can’t wait!

I’ve just had the Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic Blu-ray land on my doormat, I’m really looking forward to watching that as well, as it looks just as awesome as the game.

ColinBarr66:

This week I’ve mostly been playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and improving my sniper skills. I’m getting better and actually managing to get kill-streak rewards over four kills. Enjoying this a bit more, especially with friends.

Played in both Killzone 2 Boot Camps this week and, as usual, had a good laugh with the guys. I’m not playing this as much I would like these days, but that’ll hopefully change over the next few weeks.

This week I bought myself a £20 PSN card and picked up a few games. I finally bought my first minis, Cubixx and Blast Off, and am pleasantly surprised. Cubixx is extremely addictive, and I’m determined to get to the top of the leaderboards. That target isn’t very realistic though as I’ve only made it onto them once. Blast Off is decent enough but isn’t quite as fun as I had hoped.

I also downloaded PixelJunk Shooter and Flower. Shooter is very fun and surprisingly addictive but I always seem to hit the wrong button killing all the miners instead of rescuing them, pretty frustrating. To relax after my PixelJunk failings, I’ve been heading onto Flower, WOW this is a good game. A brilliant experience and very relaxing, everyone should definitely own this.

To finish off the week I had a co-op session with Murdo on Army of Two: The 40th Day. Still haven’t finished this due to two reasons: one, it gets pretty hard towards the end with enemies popping up everywhere, and two, I am terrible at this game. I spend half my time running around aimlessly shooting and the other half waiting for Murdo to revive me. Still good fun.

tom_lord:

My gaming time seems to revolve around three main titles at the moment. First up, still playing the hell out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 online. It is always really easy to hop in to a game with a friend, and seen as MW2 is what the majority of people of my PSN friends list are playing, there is always someone to play.

Alongside Infinity Ward’s finest, I have been putting in the hours on FIFA 10 with my housemates. Not a day goes by without some sort of grudge match between us. In the interest of fairness (and my diehard PES friends) I have also been playing (and actually beating people) at Pro Evolution Soccer 2010. Initially, it feels broken after playing the slick movement and passing of FIFA, but after a couple of games to acclimatise, I was back in the groove.

The third game I am spending the most time with is Race Driver: GRiD. One year and seven months after it was originally launched and purchased by me, I’m still putting the hours in online, mainly in the brilliant Touring Cars. I await another TSA GRiD competition in the near future.

Alongside the regular line-up of cars, guns and footballs, this week I have finally got round to playing Army of Two: The 40th Day, which I have on rental. I am roughly half way through the campaign, but have yet to play it co-operatively or online. So far I’m impressed by the overall graphical flair and smile-inducing action. I’m less impressed by the frankly stupid plot and characters, guns that feel weightless and awry AI of my partner. My aim for next week is to play Dark Void and Karaoke Revolution, which I also have on rental.