What Did You Play Today?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Borrowed Resident Evil 4 from work this week. Played for half an hour or so tonight. VERY VERY promising, although I forget how freaky Resi can be and these guys move MUCH faster than the zombies from 1, 2 and 3....

[andrethegiantstopfan]

I played Hitman: Blood Money, that game is great, and also, it made me dig out Hitman: Codename 47 which was my favourite game at one time. I used to love the level in the hotel.

[Gene Kiniski]

Gears of War. I'm hooking up Live tonight so that I can get slayed online.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I just got in that DS game someone was talking about - Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

Fantastic game - hard though. You have to tap the screen in time to circles appearing and shrinking while J-music plays in the background and your Beat Cheerleader guys dance to overcome bad situations for those who call out for their help.

So far I've danced to help a lad's family stop making so much noise so that he can revise and pass his exams, and I've danced to help this lad beat a bigger lad at dodgeball to win the heart of the girl he fancies.

Genius.

Made by the same company who made Gitaroo Man which was also all kinds of excellence.

Edited May 30, 2007 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster

[Toe]

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 has been pretty addicting over the last week, and before that it was Major League Baseball 2K7.

RCT3 is great. I plays a lot like the previous games but look way better being in 3D. As long as your computer can handle it, it is just really fun. Some of the scenarios in the game are really fun.

[ZJ Penn]

Just picked up WCW/NWO Revenge for a mighty £2.99. I've never played it before so I can't wait till Saturday so I can have a blast. Mainly just because it's a got a large roster supposedly and it's got Hart, Goldberg. Hogan and the nWo all under one roof.

No Flair though.

[Momo]

Just played 6 hours of Enchanted Arms for the PS3. Nice Story, nice music, excellent visuals (my god were they fucking good, and I don't even have a HDTV) but seriously lacking in a script writing department. Whoever decided to write each characters lines has absolutely no concept of normal human conversation. Some characters have excellent lines, but those are the ones that are not human. >_>

The voice acting is mediocre as always, but not as bad as some other games. I especially like who they got to voice the Queen of Ice. Once again though, the script just drags it down. It's not the voice actors fault (mostly), because they have to go from one angry line to the next line where they're all buddy buddy with who they were shouting at.

The characters themselves, what's with whiny protagonists in RPG's nowadays? I want to go back to the good old days where the good guy would be a silent emo type. >_> Other than that, they dress as close to normal people as they could this time. I love the inclusion of a blatantly stereotyped homosexual in the game who flirts with the main guys best friend. Good for a chuckle.

I like the battle system in this as well, nice and tactical, although it's sometimes hard to win when you only have 3 turns to revive fallen players. I understand the reasoning behind it, its just rather annoying. Out of battles, skills are obtainable through achieving certain requirements or buying them, you then have to learn them by using Skill Points. I didn't like having to do this in FF12, I don't like doing it now. >_>

And my final section, Golems. They absolutely rule. Cute or badass, and there's a total of 130 of them.

I give it 8/10. Love it lots, would have been 10 were it not for the script (and its redundancy) and the voice acting.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

The Shield - The Game

A VERY standard action game, but it's The Shield! If your not a fan of the TV series, you won't like it, but fans of the show might get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it (I know I have), simply because your Vic Mackey and you beat people up. It works. And the game is cheap, even if it only seems to be on sale at Blockbusters....

[ONO]

GTA: Vice City Stories

I got it yesterday and love it so far.

[stokeriño]

I got hooked into playing Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday again over the last couple of days. Started as Italy in 1936 and signed an alliance with Germany pretty damn early. The downside to this was that I was at war with Britain and France straight away in September 1939 instead of doing what Mussolini did and jump in during 1940 when France was already knackered. However the bonuses were twofold: I got to do a feckload of technology research done between '37-39 because of all the handy blueprints my German allies were handing me to speed things along. The other was that in 1939 Britain's forces in Egypt consisted of only a couple of divisions, and I'd already made sure to put in six divisions (three of which consisted of my very best tanks) in preparation...

And so, it's now August 1941. I swarmed through Egypt and over the Suez Canal, taking Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and the entire Saudi Arabian peninsula (just to make it look tidy, you understand). At the same time I cornered the Brits in Suden and squashed them to connect up with my Ethiopian territories. I kept trying to advance south but it was at a deadlock for about a year. I managed to break through at last when those same 3 elite Tank divisions that originally saw action in Egypt and Iraq were transported down (fresh off aiding the invasion of Greece). Now I've just annexed South Africa and it's time to swoop back up and try to deal with those pesky Belgian/French types who are holding fast in the Congo. It may take another year to do with all the jungles, but dammit I'm determined to finish them off!

Meanwhile in Europe, the Germans didn't even bother trying to invade Britain after they conquered France, which is bloody annoying for me because maybe it would have kept Malta from being such a pain in the arse. I may have secured the Suez Canal, but the Brits still have Gibraltar and naval forces keep sneaking through to Malta in order to wreak havoc on my homeland. I'm trying to butter up Nationalist Spain (who are, as always, irritatingly neutral) into letting me have military access through their territory - so that I'll be able to land my forces in Spain and march on Gibraltar from there, negating the rock-hard naval defenses.

Yugoslavia went in a pinch - most of it to me as well, which was a pleasant surprise. I was sure it'd all end up under German/Romanian/Bulgarian jurisdiction. But of course now Hitler's gone and done his usual silly thing of declaring war on the Soviet Union it's all got rather edgy around there. The early advances have gone alright - we're currently on the outskirts of Kiev - but only time will tell how much of a bastard the USSR is going to be. I myself have only 7 divisions on the Russian front at the moment. The rest are either in Africa or stationed in random coastal pieces of territory to try and ward off the regular incursions. Aussies seem to enjoy pissing me off by landing in Gaza/Doha/Djibouti/wherever they please. They do it a lot, but they get crushed in the end.

So yes: in case this lengthy blurb didn't illustrate it sufficiently, I Hearts of Iron II. 9/10

[Chris the Human]

Finally got sick of having nothing to do and renewed my D&D Online subscription. Regretting it already. It's not a bad game, persay, but it's so far behind WoW that I just can't play it without constantly comparing the two. And this is from someone who doesn't think WoW's world is at all interesting.

[KoA]

I've played GTA: San Andreas, SmackDown vs RAW 2007, Def Jam: Fight For NY and Crash Tag Team Racing.

I'm a Crash addict!

I'm getting bored of San Andreas though.

[9 to 5]

Okay Stok, you have convinced me to get this Hearts of Iron 2. Also, today I have played a bit of Silent Hill 4 and I am still crap at it.

[Docpepper]

Been Playing DJ: Fight For NY for the past week. this game is beyond addictive. I've beat story mode 5 times already working on my sixth with a different character and different fighting stlyes as my previous

[stokeriño]

Okay Stok, you have convinced me to get this Hearts of Iron 2. Also, today I have played a bit of Silent Hill 4 and I am still crap at it.

Huzzah. Don't forget the 'Doomsday' add-on.

But in other news, the Soviets are bastards. <_ they went and invaded persia which was the only buffer between them my very badly defended middle east territorities. then with some british troops from india swarmed back at me leaving iraq like all looking red communist nasty. i so pissed off that started a new game as germany could get own on myself. :>

Edited June 21, 2007 by stokeriño

[9 to 5]

I did already, but this looks very daunting to get into wit so much stuff going on in real time. looks worth it mind you, despite all the silly cunts on the official board with "lolz I won da world with Peru because I am da best with cheats!" crap. If I get good, me and Stok fight to the death.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Been playing Colosseum: Road to Victory on the PS2. It's from KOEI who make the most excellent high concept but sadly flawed games. Same with this one. The concept is great (a gladiator put into fights to earn enough to buy your freedom, along the way buying new weapons and armour and rising up the ranks) and some of the action and features are coolios too, but it's all a little bit clunky and repetitive. Still, I'm enjoying it so will buy it when my borrowing period is over.

I also cracked out Soul Blade again to discover it's still a magnificent game. Probably one of the top three games from the PS1.

[ZJ Penn]

Championship Manager 2001/2002, and I've very nearly reached the 2007/2008 season. In fact, I'm considering doing a "Parallel Universe" diary in time for the new season.

[stokeriño]

I did already, but this looks very daunting to get into wit so much stuff going on in real time. looks worth it mind you, despite all the silly cunts on the official board with "lolz I won da world with Peru because I am da best with cheats!" crap. If I get good, me and Stok fight to the death.

No doubt my prior experience with the Europa Universalis series (similar stuff, but not so intense) helped me in this regard.

But yeah, don't go on the forums. They're either of the "lolz, fear my entirely unrealistic domination" type you mentioned, or the sort of people who spend every day of their lives arguing whether it's more historically accurate for the attrition rate of an armoured detachment in hilly terran in the snow without logistical supply to be 5% or 6%. Arrrgh.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I did already, but this looks very daunting to get into wit so much stuff going on in real time. looks worth it mind you, despite all the silly cunts on the official board with "lolz I won da world with Peru because I am da best with cheats!" crap. If I get good, me and Stok fight to the death.

No doubt my prior experience with the Europa Universalis series (similar stuff, but not so intense) helped me in this regard.

But yeah, don't go on the forums. They're either of the "lolz, fear my entirely unrealistic domination" type you mentioned, or the sort of people who spend every day of their lives arguing whether it's more historically accurate for the attrition rate of an armoured detachment in hilly terran in the snow without logistical supply to be 5% or 6%. Arrrgh.

That last bit sounds like arguably the most boring thing ever. Especially to argue about.