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Myranda

Just a reminder that there's only a few days left on the Humble Bundle which includes Dead Space 3 and Battlefield 3 (and others) for a minimum payment of $4.84 ...

monquixote

jonnyburgo said:

Nether do I, we haven't had one for 8 years.

I don't get a huge amount of gaming time. I need less sleep than the wife so I typically go to bed an hour later. If I'm so inclined I can fit an hour of gaming in. 

monquixote

Just finished Spec Ops (It's not especially long) 

I shall provide a short spoiler free review

It is essentially a military 3rd person shooter that plays like a less honed version of Uncharted.

It's pretty vanilla for the first two thirds and then gets quite odd and very unpleasant after a certain event. It then goes into some kind of Heart of Darkness inspired attempt to deconstruct the nature of military shooters which partially succeeded

It's not as profound as some would tell you, nor as bad as others have claimed. 

I would recommend avoiding all spoilers before playing if at all possible. 

stickyfiddle

Also just finished Spec Ops. It was, er, ok. Kinda nasty in an intentional way but I didn't feel it was harrowing in the way I felt the devs were trying to push me to feel, largely because all the comments on war and humanity and shit they were trying to make were wrapped up in a game where you kills hundreds if not thousands of people. Also the depiction of a sandstorm completely burying Dubai is actually pretty shite, but you wouldn't realise that if you haven't been there. 

Apparently the second playthrough is better as there's a bunch of stuff that's signposted that you don't know if signposted the first time through because you haven't seen what the sign is pointing at. I won't say any more except that anyone with PS+ should definitely download it and play it because a) its free, b) it's not very long and c) it does at leas try to say something about gaming and war and horrible stuff, even if it only uses words of one syllable.

In any case, Yahtzee says it better than me. 

The Escapist : Zero Punctuation : Spec Ops: The Line

monquixote

I think it had to be a silly over the top shooter that aims to make killing "fun" in order to have the impact when it goes off the rails. 

I did nearly give up a couple of times because of how hard it is to work out where grenades are and those irritating knife guys. 

stickyfiddle

monquixote;19749" said:

I think it had to be a silly over the top shooter that aims to make killing "fun" in order to have the impact when it goes off the rails. 

I did nearly give up a couple of times because of how hard it is to work out where grenades are and those irritating knife guys. 

Yeah, I can see that argument. Trouble is I found the shooting wasn't that fun as the mechanics of it aren't that slick.

I'd much rather play something that has bugger all killing, or where its a big deal when you do kill. Maybe somehow making you weak- a journalist in a warzone or something. The problem is getting a publisher to back it in the first place because they seem to have no idea how to aim marketing at anyone other than teenage boys.

The first half of the recent Tomb Raider did that very well until she becomes a badass killing hundreds at the end. The Last Of Us also do it very well. I only killed people when it the only option, which thankfully wasn't very often.

I'd love it if the next Uncharted had way less shooting and far more puzzly temples

monquixote

Yeah I agree. 

Deus Ex was like that as well, it makes for a much more nuanced game. 

Much as I love Uncharted the relentless killing does jar with the character you are playing. 

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/682802964_8CjvU-L.jpg

In related news I thought I would give Battlefield 3 a go last night and see if my hatred of military FPS games is unjustified. After watching a big long intro it was exactly the same story as every other one I've ever played. I walked into the first firefight I was instantly killed with no idea who shot me. I started again I took cover behind a car which blew up (I don't know why) and killed me. I restarted and got a bit further then shot one of the people who looked like all the other people and was told this one was on my side. I gave up.

It's weird I can storm through 3rd person games: (Uncharted, Deus Ex, Vanquish) and some FPS games: (Darkness, Fallout, Dishonoured), but the CoD/Battlefield games result in a 30 seconds between inexplicable deaths for me. 

stickyfiddle

The BF3 single player is awful. I gave up on it first time round, tried again when it came onto PS+ and it's still crap, frankly. And worse still it's largely a bunch of quick-time events stitched between dull shooting galleries. The online is great when your team (or at least 4-man squad) work together, but that's so infrequent it becomes pointless. 

COD4 (and to an extent MW2) online was brilliant back in the day, but I haven't enjoyed anything else online since. Even Mario Kart online is full of cheaters

monquixote

I think Yahtzee hit it on the head when he called the genre "Spunkgargleweewee" 

dafuzz

monquixote said:

In related news I thought I would give Battlefield 3 a go last night and see if my hatred of military FPS games is unjustified. After watching a big long intro it was exactly the same story as every other one I've ever played. I walked into the first firefight I was instantly killed with no idea who shot me. I started again I took cover behind a car which blew up (I don't know why) and killed me. I restarted and got a bit further then shot one of the people who looked like all the other people and was told this one was on my side. I gave up.

I thought I was the only one

monquixote

It's a baffling thing. 

All autonomy is removed in order to maintain rigorous set piece linearity. The first scene in Battlefield has you pinned down by a sniper in a courtyard so I did what you would think any sensible person do and ran via cover straight out of the courtyard into the building containing the sniper. Because this wasn't what the game expected it said "You have left the field of combat" and gameover. On a reload I discovered that you have to shoot half a dozen guys and then it tells you to go to the building. You might imagine you would be rewarded for thinking "I'll go into the building sneak up on the sniper, take his rifle and then deal with the courtyard guys at my leisure", but no because you might miss a set piece where a van explodes so all attempts to do anything other than what you are told result in arbitrary gameover. 

I've found the best thing to do to make progress is to stand behind the rest of your indestructible team hiding like a big coward until they've killed all the bad guys for you. 

Anyone tried NFS Most Wanted yet?

It seems like a Burnout Paradise variant, but decent enough fun.

stickyfiddle

monquixote said:

I think Yahtzee hit it on the head when he called the genre "Spunkgargleweewee" 

Yahtzee is very rarely wrong. Between him and metro.co.uk's gaming chaps I can't remember the last time I paid money for a game and didn't like it.

Grumpyrocker

Most Wanted is good fun. Not perfect - the choice of views is very irritating - but looks nice and has a lot of places to explore. It is very similar to Burnout Paradise - which is no surprise really.

monquixote

stickyfiddle said:

Yahtzee is very rarely wrong. Between him and metro.co.uk's gaming chaps I can't remember the last time I paid money for a game and didn't like it.

I didn't know Metro even had a gaming section!

I'll check it out! 

stickyfiddle

monquixote said:

stickyfiddle said:

Yahtzee is very rarely wrong. Between him and metro.co.uk's gaming chaps I can't remember the last time I paid money for a game and didn't like it.

I didn't know Metro even had a gaming section!

I'll check it out! 

It's the guys that used to write Digitiser/Gamecentral for Channel 4 Teletext. When that died they transferred over the Metro- it's the only bit of the website I ever read. They're big fans of subtlety and general goodness, rather than just giving COD and FIFA top billing every year like most of the bigger websites.

http://metro.co.uk/ents-tech/gaming/

dafuzz

I tend not to read too many gaming blogs, but I do have ginx on in the background if I'm at home and not using the telly for, err, gaming.

Channel 286 if you have Virgin Media

monquixote

stickyfiddle said:

It's the guys that used to write Digitiser/Gamecentral for Channel 4 Teletext. When that died they transferred over the Metro- it's the only bit of the website I ever read. They're big fans of subtlety and general goodness, rather than just giving COD and FIFA top billing every year like most of the bigger websites.

http://metro.co.uk/ents-tech/gaming/

Cool, I didn't know what happened to the Digitiser guys, used to like their stuff. 

UnclePsychosis

I got really fed up with Fallout 3. I don't have the time to commit 100+ hours to a game anymore. Its just not going to happen.

monquixote

I don't think it matters how big a game is as long as you can play it in bite sized chunks.

Sporky

UnclePsychosis said:

I got really fed up with Fallout 3. I don't have the time to commit 100+ hours to a game anymore. Its just not going to happen.

Definitely don't get a Monster Hunter game then.

240 hours and counting.

I started Sleeping Dogs last night. Not initially very impressed - I knew it was an older game but it felt really clunky - switched to gamepad and it's much, much better. Atrocious vehicle handling but the combat is good. Camera is a bit dodgy. I think it shows promise.