Games News: Releases

[bill hicks]

Just thought I'd follow the usual DVD and CD release threads with a game one. Lot's of goodness coming out now after the post chrimbo lull and good to see it is too.

OUT NOW

Far Cry (PC) - Gorgeous looking FPS, been getting great reviews in the serious gaming press (8/10 in Edge and another 8/10 in gamesTM I think), however I don't know if it's any good because it's the demo refused to run on my system and I assume the game will too. You need 1Ghz+ and 512mb RAM to run this beast so it's a good primer if you want Half Life and Doom later in the year. Also a 30mb patch was released the evening the game came out, which is always suspicious.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (GC) - First Metal Gear, buffed and shined for the Cube, which amounts to longer and yet MORE cut scenes. Thanks for that Konami.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox) - Tedious cowardice simulator from the proto-fascist yank militarist. Two new ways to do the splits in doorways!! Please take my money!!

9TH APRIL

Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA) - Nintendo learning from George Lucas and 're-imagining' the first Metroid game for the handheld wonder. Apparently you can finish it in barely a few hours, so all you hardcore twitchers out there will have to try playing with your cocks to up the challenge.

23RD APRIL

Manhunt (Xbox) - Astonishing rendering of the inside of George Bush's head....a world where criminals are executed THEN hunted down and killed again by rednecks. What more need be said? It's a fucking hideous, brutal, disturbing masterpiece and all you non-PS2 owners can have a slice at it now. Brian Cox is so tits. Your mum is scared of this game.

30TH APRIL

Hitman: Contracts (PS2, Xbox, PC) - Slap head murder glorification franchise reaches the third installment. Casual racism and dubious morals aside, tis a good'un.

Oh and thought I'd mention Resident Evil 4 here too. If you haven't bought Edge this month yet do so now. It looks so good it's hard not to run out and buy a Gamecube now in anticipation. And NO ZOMBIES! This could be fucking great. Bring on the bag wearing nutcases with chainsaw biyatch.

As you were.

[Macerate and Petrify]

Having played the PC Pandora Tommorrow multiplayer demo, I can safely say that it single handedly persuaded me to buy the game AND XBOX live. But then I like the original.

The rest of the list I can take or leave. I'm still mourning the loss of Sam and Max 2. The idea of Twin Snakes makes me queasy though, I sat down and completed MGS2:Substance in one ten hour sitting last week, and fell asleep during two of the cutscenes because they were THAT exciting.

Silent Hill 4 is the main thing i'm looking forward to this year.

Battlefield Vietnam was also just released, but don't bother with it, its liek a shoddy bf1942 mod, the only saving grace is the excellent soundtrack and being able to drop tanks on people.

Unreal Tournament 2004, if you don't own this already you probably should.

[hencole]

a Gamecube now in anticipation. And NO ZOMBIES! This could be fucking great.

Just like there are no zombies in 28 days later. Does look very nice though and has put me selling my GC on hold. i want to get far Cry, but sadly a new PC is beyond my budget.

[jutl]

9TH APRIL

Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA) - Nintendo learning from George Lucas and 're-imagining' the first Metroid game for the handheld wonder. Apparently you can finish it in barely a few hours, so all you hardcore twitchers out there will have to try playing with your cocks to up the challenge.

Just finished this - it was super.

[MojoJojo]

Indeed, the Pandora Tomorrow multiplayer is one of the few multiplayer thingies that has excited me in a long while.

Then I remembered the reason that I don't generally play multiplayer games is that people are cunts.

[wooly]

Seems like Fable (X-box) has been put back until July now, which is a bugger...unless anyway knows any different?

[bill hicks]

a Gamecube now in anticipation. And NO ZOMBIES! This could be fucking great.

Just like there are no zombies in 28 days later. Does look very nice though and has put me selling my GC on hold. i want to get far Cry, but sadly a new PC is beyond my budget.

It really does look stunning doesn't it. That Edge cover is just fantastic.

On the Far Cry issue, I'm in the decent position of being able to match it, but my video card lets the side down. As soon as I get the cash for a 9600 pro things will change. Although it might be worth you downloading the demo (even if it is massive) because plenty of games that should have crippled my system (UT2004, Call Of Duty) have played perfectly.

[The Region Legion]

I've been considering Deus Ex 2 & Unreal Tournament 2004, however Deus Ex 2 has been getting some quite bad reviews and Unreal Tournament... well, it'll end up like UT & UT2003 before it and be played loads for about a week and then just put away when I'm constantly being killed by american teenagers with nothing better to do, so is it even worth it? Especially at the ridiculous £35 each. Can anyone talk me into getting Deus Ex 2? Is that Cook'd & Bomb'd server for UT2004 ever going to be a reality?

[bill hicks]

Deus Ex 2 is great, ignore the naysayers.

[jutl]

Deus Ex 2 is great, ignore the naysayers.

nay

[Macerate and Petrify]

Deus Ex 2 is shite, ignore the yaysayers.

No, really its not that bad. But you would probably be better off just playing through the first one again, its certainly not worth £35. I think UT2k4 was on play.com for £20 but they might have put it up now. On a similar subject did anyone ever play Strife, its like the precursor to Deus Ex, and it uses the Doom engine. Availible to download from www.the-underdogs.org I believe.

[Krang]

Ive heard that Battlefield:Vietnam is great, but at the moment, pretty buggy. So the advice i was given was wait a while untill they sort the stuff out.

UT2004 is brilliant.

[no_offenc]

a Gamecube now in anticipation. And NO ZOMBIES! This could be fucking great.

Just like there are no zombies in 28 days later. Does look very nice though and has put me selling my GC on hold. i want to get far Cry, but sadly a new PC is beyond my budget.

I was flicking through Edge t'other day when I spotted the screengrabs from this and immediately assumed it was a PS2 or XBox game.  Then I spotted the green "B" button, included in some of the screengrabs, and scoured the article for the magic words "Gamecube Exclusive".  I found them, and was happy.

Looks fackin classy don't it......especially the huuuuuge cave troll thing.

[bill hicks]

Games are stupidly priced sometimes aren't they. I went shopping because I fancied some new (well new old) games and Game still have the 3 for £10 offer on budget titles and the pricing is fucking ridiculous.

Unreal II costs £20, Unreal Tournament 2004 costs £30, Unreal Tournament 2003 costs £35, but the double pack with Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal II costs £25.

Also I've noticed that Game and Gamestation (or at least my local ones) have adopted a free form approach to shelving. The PC games in Game have always been a nightmare, but now they've stopped putting console games into any obvious order as well. Just racks and racks of PS2 boxes randomly thrown onto shelves. Gamestation was even worse with the PC titles thrown where the second hand Xbox used to be but front on so you have to flick through every single game to find what you want.

Enough ranting for now.

Oh and Vietcong isn't that bad if you want some Vietnam action and the soundtrack is fucking great. On the demo (still downloadable I think) you get taken by helicopter into the Jungle to the strains of 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' by Iggy Pop and then shot down by VC guerillas and have to move up a hill to get in radio range. Great stuff. It is buggy as fuck though and probably coming to budget pretty soon.

[Bill Oddie]

If it weren't for the fact that it's associated with Deus Ex 1 and is the single worst piece of software I've ever seen (technically, don't go anywhere near it unless you own a serious gaming machine and have it patched), DX2 was "adequate".
Bearing in mind that this game is supposed to be the sequel to arguably the best PC game ever, it's fucking awful.

What about the "biggie" releases?

Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Halo 2? All delayed but all should be worth it (though apparently Doom 3 is more of a game engine demo then a real game).

Amazon says:

Doom 3 :  1st Dec '04

Halo 2: 22nd Oct '04

HL2:  12th Nov '04


Those dates are totally unreliable though and seem to be recedeing into the distance faster and faster as time goes by.

By the time they're out a shiny new Radeon capable of running them all should be affordable though.

It's a bit sad that I've just spent a large wedge on a new P.C. for gaming and all I play is Starcraft. Ho hum.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Well the two games I'm looking forward to the most are Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas. Both of which I think will contribute to my social life fully ending. On the subject of games I still can't fucking get XBox Live working. If anyone could help I'd be grateful.

[The Region Legion]

Half Life 2 will be as much or more of a disappointment as Deus Ex 2, I guarantee it. Nothing can live up to the hype it's got, which might also be one of the reasons it got pulled from September 2003 release to sometime this year - try and take some of the heat off.

[Cheese Arse H Christ]

UT2K4 DVD Version from play.com £17.99

[Rev]

Silent Hill 4 is the main thing i'm looking forward to this year.

Darn tootin'.  Well, that and GTA:SA.  I was looking forward to The Movies, but as with Black & White, every little piece of information that gets released suggests a grand idea getting smaller and smaller.

I don't care if I never play a FPS again.  I got bored halfway through Duke Nukem 3D, and nothing has brought me back to the fold.  They are, truly, the laziest of all games.

Must admit, though, I'm a little tempted by the boat-missing X Files game, as it sounds like it'd be right up my avenue.  You can pre-order the PS2 version from Play for a mere £15.

[Regular John]

UT2K4 DVD Version from play.com £17.99

it's £24.99 now

[Purple Tentacle]

Well the two games I'm looking forward to the most are Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas.

You can forget about GTA:SA unless you own a PS2.


Considering how behind I am from everyone with this, can I just say that anybody who HASN'T played Knights Of The Old Republic (I have the PC version with Yavin in)  simply HAS to find 40 hours of their life. One of the most engrossing games I've played since Grim Fandango.


SImply fucking wonderful.

(I'm currently replaying as a Fu-Mancu-a-like dark lord, having played it the first time as a goody-goody Mick Johnson)

[wooly]

(I'm currently replaying as a Fu-Mancu-a-like dark lord, having played it the first time as a goody-goody Mick Johnson)

Yeah, I played through the dark side with him (Xbox version) partly to see if he developed Darth Maul type tattoos on his head.

I really should get out more. KOTOR is fantastic, but I still reckon that Morrowind on the Xbox is better.

[bill hicks]

Well the two games I'm looking forward to the most are Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas.

You can forget about GTA:SA unless you own a PS2.


Considering how behind I am from everyone with this, can I just say that anybody who HASN'T played Knights Of The Old Republic (I have the PC version with Yavin in)  simply HAS to find 40 hours of their life. One of the most engrossing games I've played since Grim Fandango.


SImply fucking wonderful.

(I'm currently replaying as a Fu-Mancu-a-like dark lord, having played it the first time as a goody-goody Mick Johnson)

Bastards. I got this a few days ago and eagerly installed it (all 4gb of the mother) only to find the framerate slow to a crawl after the Bridge assault on the Ender Spire.

Having re-read an old Edge feature on Far Cry as well I'm desperate for a new graphics card now.

One question though? What's the most basic card that will run KOTOR, Far Cry and the like? I'm stuck with a bog standard Radeon 7000 at the mo and doubt I'll have the cash to upgrade to a 9800 pro in quite some time.

[Purple Tentacle]

Hey? What?

I'm on a Geforce 3, AMD 1.4 and it runs fine.

Chugs a bit when there's smoke efects, but I just set all graphics to "normal" (nothing too crippley), resolution of 800x600 and got rid of anti-aliasing, and it was fine.



Like I say, got a bit choppy during the ten-strong jedi battles, but since it's not real-time, it wasn't an issue.

[Garfield And Friends]

Half Life 2 will be as much or more of a disappointment as Deus Ex 2, I guarantee it. Nothing can live up to the hype it's got, which might also be one of the reasons it got pulled from September 2003 release to sometime this year - try and take some of the heat off.

That's probable. But again, hopefully the coders have spent their many delayed months making the game sharper and ironing out the bugs.

So silly that it wins the "E3 Best of Show 2003" award, and might only see a release in Spring 2005 (if it got delayed yet again from it's current Nov 2004 date). Reminds me of the Daikatana debacle.

[Mister Six]

Eh? No zombies in Resi 4? Isn'tthat missing the point a bit?

Looking forward to Hitman 3. Hitman 2's a corker, though I'm horribly stuck on the first level of the Indian missions.

[The Region Legion]

You can forget about GTA:SA unless you own a PS2.

..until May 2005 that is, when they clearly will release it for PC. How could they not, frankly. They make double their money that way. Close to triple as they'll likely release it on XBox following that.

[Rev]

It'll be on the PC earlier than that, I'd have thought, but there has to be a one year delay before it goes to the XBollox because of some exclusivity deal or other.

[bill hicks]

It'll be on the PC earlier than that, I'd have thought, but there has to be a one year delay before it goes to the XBollox because of some exclusivity deal or other.

Although remember the mutterings of Rockstar (bollocks I'm still going to call them DMA) being narked with Sony and look at the first post in this thread.

Manhunt has lost it's "PS2 Exclusive" tag mighty quickly, and the Xbox double pack has sold very well. Expect an Xbox version well before a year, I would think sometimes over the new year period.

[The Region Legion]

It'll be on the PC earlier than that, I'd have thought

Doubtful, both GTA3 & Vice City were released in October, with the PC release the following May.

Also, it seems that True Crime: Streets Of LA is getting a PC release soon, heard good things about that.


Incidentally, I tried to buy Deus Ex 2 today - I figured if it was crap I'd just take it back to Game who have a 10 day return policy even if you just didn't like the game. At any rate, my graphics card was too inferior to run it. Fuckers.