Videogaming

[Little Hoover]

It does always feel odd creating a female character in any game, it all gets a bit too weird science.

[HappyTree]

I always play as a female character if there's one available. It's more fun choosing the clothes for a female.

I always try to be as nice as I can in the games too. The only game I've ever been bad in is the second playthrough of Mass Effect. None of the badness is really that bad and using intimidate speech options has been fun. I conned the reporter out of money and she refused to speak to me again! But I need those full renegade points!

In Fable, yeah, I couldn't be bad. Though did get a bit tired of everyone cheering when I walked past.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's more fun choosing the clothes for a female as I am homosexual

Fixed.

I think I can just get away with that in here.

[HappyTree]

lol

Well it is.

[Smackhead Kangaroo]

Am I an arse for holding onto the Wii and chipping it in the hopes that it picks up?

[Still Not George]

Am I an arse for holding onto the Wii and chipping it in the hopes that it picks up?

Not at all, I'm sure there'll be some wonderful games any day now that aren't just Shigsy wanking off about one of his hobbies.

Anyhow - I finally finished Mass Effect last night, after 36 hours of anal-retentively completist play to try and get as many achievements as possible. I'm a bit irritated that I didn't get the "alien ally" and "soldier ally" for the two characters I used all the way through, though; the requirement is the same as for Completionist, so I should have it. Bastards.

So, as is usual, I immediately restarted with the dirtiest-looking female character I could make and headed straight for Renegade ASAP. She's already affecting a slightly filthy facial expression. Bad girls are clearly hotter.

[bill hicks]

The Ally achievements are the hardest ones to get. You need to follow the same rules as Completionist (complete about 85% of all quests give or take), but the difference is that the quest counts only if you START it with the character you want the achievement for. Because of this Asari Ally becomes a horrendous rush to complete the Citadel as quickly as possible, get Liara and then rush back to the Citadel to do all the side quests there before they disappear. Took me about 40 hours to get her achievement in two games because the first one fucked up. Even if you do it right it won't unlock until very near the end of the game which means you won't know you haven't got it until too late.

The best bet is to go to Achieve360points.com or something and find the quest list and just tick them off as you go.

Fortunately that achievement is worth a nice chunk of points. My friends and I finally got Untoucables on Left 4 Dead after over 12 hours of trying it...all for 30 fucking points. It's bastard hard.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Holy crap.  I just had a transcendental moment of gaming.  Playing CoD4 (PC version) team deathmatch, 54 player server on Strike.  I've been trying to boost my kill/death ratio of late, I want to get it to 2:1, which is pretty tough considering how badly I screwed up in my first two months online.  I find you get the best ratio as a sniper, especially if you get in the right spots.  I was standing in a building looking up a stretch of road then into an alley through to a raised building, the rest of my team fucked off and decided to attack the fountain section of the map.  Then all of a sudden ten Spetsnaz start attacking towards my building, with some snipers at the top end for good measure.  I fucking nailed the lot of the cunts, I've never been that in the zone, half the time I didn't have time to fully steady the rifle.  Just loosed off a few shots on the first wave, then took the snipers out and let an airstrike go to clean out the alley.  Then I took out more snipers, took out a second wave of six or seven stragglers, and finally had time to call in the helicopter.  Reinforcements arrived and stormed the area, but a couple of spetsnaz got through to my building, so I did a double move around a column and blew one guy's head off with my Deagle, then ran outside, flashbanging the other and knifing him.  Immediately I saw that my teammates were running up to the higher building and I took off after them, climbing the stairs and getting to a point where I could view back where we'd come from.  A few enemies had trailed in our wake, I cleaned a couple out whilst my Heli picked up 4 or 5 of them.  I finally died from some random machine gun fire through the window, pushing my luck to try and pick off snipers.  That was a new high for me with a killstreak of 36.  I then proceeded to die again almost immediately after.  Then I got a killstreak of 25 to end the round after chasing the bastards round the map and sniping them off.

I've never even come close to a 61-2 kill/death ratio on a single round.  That was fucking awesome.

The 37-5 round I played on Bloc after would have usually been pretty special for me.

And here was me thinkig that games couldn't get me pumped up any more.  I'm buzzing.

Thus endeth my pretty boring post.

[Borboski]

I didn't quite have one like that, but CoD4 was great for those moments when you just got into it, not just getting shots off so good skill and reactions, but taking some decisions and incredibly fast moments - whether or not you decide to turn around after killing a couple of enemies, as you move, or look down an alley, but then you do and spot another etc...

Going to trade in 5 for it as soon as I get a tenner or so.

[ThickAndCreamy]

Battlefield 3
Potential announcement of it killed due to the snow in the UK

I want to cry, and I'm not joking. I've been waiting years for an announcement or real recognition for this game and it's literally the only game I want at the moment as I only have a PC and all standard FPS's bore me. Now, with a potential announcement FUCKING SNOW RUINS MY FUCKING LIFE!

You know, I've spent hours searching rumour filled forums full of complete idiots pretending they work for EA or they "know" when the announcement will happen and I deserve a reward of some kind. I need some idea of when this game will come out, if it's being made (all signs point to confusion / rumours).

This game is driving me insane, I need it, I want it, I must have it. It's the perfect game for myself, something I can spend anything from 10 minutes to 10 hours playing where I can listen to loud music at the same time and generally just enjoy myself immensely. I have a £1000 gaming PC which I only use to play Team Fortress on and it's crying out for BF3. Please, for the love of my sanity, announce it, ANYONE JUST FUCKING ANNOUNCE THE CUNT.

[waste of chops]

Battlefield 3
Potential announcement of it killed due to the snow in the UK

I want to cry, and I'm not joking. I've been waiting years for an announcement or real recognition for this game and it's literally the only game I want at the moment as I only have a PC and all standard FPS's bore me. Now, with a potential announcement FUCKING SNOW RUINS MY FUCKING LIFE!

You know, I've spent hours searching rumour filled forums full of complete idiots pretending they work for EA or they "know" when the announcement will happen and I deserve a reward of some kind. I need some idea of when this game will come out, if it's being made (all signs point to confusion / rumours).

This game is driving me insane, I need it, I want it, I must have it. It's the perfect game for myself, something I can spend anything from 10 minutes to 10 hours playing where I can listen to loud music at the same time and generally just enjoy myself immensely. I have a £1000 gaming PC which I only use to play Team Fortress on and it's crying out for BF3. Please, for the love of my sanity, announce it, ANYONE JUST FUCKING ANNOUNCE THE CUNT.

Um, how do I put this...?

http://kotaku.com/5145839/more-battlefield-bad-company-on-the-way

Seems EA's John Riccitiello didn't get the memo that the "Battlefield Announcement Event" in the UK had been snowed out, because during this afternoon's Q309 conference call, he went ahead and announced a new Battlefield game.

Sadly for fans of the core series, it's not one of those games. Instead, it's a sequel to last year's Battlefield: Bad Company, is being developed by DICE, will be out on the same engine (so don't expect any drastic changes) and is scheduled to appear in early 2010.

[ThickAndCreamy]

I want to go up to Stockholm into DICE's studios and kick every single worker there repeatedly in the cock or in the cunt until they start making Battlefield 3 and so I can watch them creating it as confirmation.

THEY ARE RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE!

[glitch]

Did I miss something about BF2? It wasn't that good was it? I only remember it as a buggy piece of shit, pretty much stopped playing after the PKM debacle - although not after abusing it to grief people and put my ratings through the roof.

_{And being banned from many, many servers for doing that.}

[phes]

Just got a 360 and spent the first few days playing Lego Indy with Miss Phes. Was pleasantly surprised to find she really enjoyed it, so if someone could recommend another couple of decent games that involve the same sort of puzzle solving come adventuring (aside from lego StarWars) it'd be much appreciated.

[MojoJojo]

Playmobil Dune, maybe?

[ozziechef]

Lego Batman?

It's not as good as Lego Indy, which isn't as good as Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy which isn't as good as Lego Star Wars.

[no_offenc]

Got Burnout Paradise for my PC yesterday as EA are being lovely and flogging it for 27 quid (well, 30 minus a 3 quid discount) on their digital download store thing, a few days earlier than the official store release date.  It runs like butter.  Everything on highest settings, 1920x1200.  First time I've been stupidly impressed at how pretty my HD4850 makes things look.  I sound like Aki, what with this graphics whoriness and my warming to blu-ray... arggggh :(

[HappyTree]

another couple of decent games that involve the same sort of puzzle solving come adventuring

Two games that are kinda similar, I think, that I have greatly enjoyed are Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix and Kameo.

Harry Potter is fun, there's lots of different things to do and collect and none of it is too hard. It's just great romping through Hogwarts. Kameo looks a bit like Fable made into a 3D platform game. I've only played the demo but Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts looks similar in genre too and quite a bit of fun. Then there's the Wallace and Gromit games. I think Project Zoo (original Xbox) is the best platformer I've played. Curse of the Were Rabbit was good as well but I got a bit bored of it after a while.

[bill hicks]

Psychonauts is on Xbox Originals too. It's a platform game and utterly bizarre. Tim Schafer, of Lucasarts fame, was the man behind it and it's as funny as the old adventures were. Each level is set inside the psyche of one of the characters. 1200 points or about a tenner in real world money.

[Borboski]

Yeah, Bill, I keep trying to play it but my FUCKING GFX card dies every time.

And I'm so broke I can't even afford any compressed air to try and fix it.

Sob.

It does look good though.

[ThickAndCreamy]

I've spent the last 2 hours scourering the internet about Battlefield 3 and guess what, I've single handedly found out it exists and when it will be announced before any major news sites have reported it.

Battlefield 1943 Pacific
Announced and confirmed here

Also, searching "battlefield 1943 pacific" on google brings up Comic Con for this weekend, where it will be officially announced.

Finally an EA staff member from the official Battlefield forums has been constantly talking of a great 2009 battlefield game to be announced.  Confirms Battlefield Pacific 1943 on this page;
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=483643&start=165&tstart=0
However he has deleted my posts to him along with someone else and deleted his confirmation of the games existence and announcement.

My work is done, I feel so proud of myself I want to cry.

[ThickAndCreamy]

I've even got Battlefield 1943 featured on Kokatu - http://kotaku.com/5146703/rumor-battlefield-1943-pacific-appearing-at-ny-comic-con

They even thank me calling me Ben. This is perhaps the happiest and greatest geek moment of my entire life with a major gaming website thanking me for my detective work.

This is what being insanely obsessive about a game achieves, BRILLIANCE!

[chand]

It'll be a shame when it turns out to be shit.

[Slaaaaabs]

Killzone 2 demo is available on European PSN. 1.2Gb.

Gave it a quick blast. It's a pretty Call of Duty, which is alright by me. The glowy eyed Helghast lose a lot of the "cool" factor when you see they are pretty bloody thick, easy to kill and bald as a coot under their helmets (which ping off as though the chinstrap has never been introduced to them).

http://www.teamxbox.com/fakelink/lol.html

[VegaLA]

How did this thread slip to page 2 ?

anyway, divorce is on the horizon, its official !!

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/18817/Dead-Rising-Sequel-Announced-Goes-Multiplatform/

Real TXB link above !

[Father O`Blivion]

According to Play, Mafia II (XBox 360) now has a release date of 24/04/2009.
They also have The Godfather II (XBox 360) listed as being released on 10/04/2009.

Looks like I'm going to be spending most of April and May whacking wiseguys.

[Slaaaaabs]

According to Play, Mafia II (XBox 360) now has a release date of 24/04/2009.
They also have The Godfather II (XBox 360) listed as being released on 10/04/2009.

Looks like I'm going to be spending most of April and May whacking wiseguys.

Pretty sure that's just an overly optimistic date for Mafia II, the only date the developers have given is "Fall '09" which is probably the earliest we'll get it. The Godfather II looks pretty ugly compared to what we've seen of Mafia but the first Godfather game wasn't bad at all to play so hopefully it improves upon that base.

[Father O`Blivion]

Pretty sure that's just an overly optimistic date for Mafia II, the only date the developers have given is "Fall '09" which is probably the earliest we'll get it.

That's what I thought as well but Play seem to have a decent track record for getting it right (although they've also got Alan Wake listed for 26/06/2009 so maybe not).

Just had a look around and found a few other sites that say 24th of April for UK/Europe and 31st of October for the US which may explain the Fall 09 announcement.

The Godfather II looks pretty ugly compared to what we've seen of Mafia but the first Godfather game wasn't bad at all to play so hopefully it improves upon that base.

Yeah, The Godfather was a decent effort and had good solid gameplay, so it should be a worthwhile stopgap if Mafia II doesn't appear in April.

[glitch]

Yeah, The Godfather was a decent effort and had good solid gameplay, so it should be a worthwhile stopgap if Mafia II doesn't appear in April.

Was I playing a different game? The PC version seemed to be a really limited free roaming GTA-wannabe that become overly repetitive in the end game. Unlike GTA Vice City/etc. I had absolutely no desire to 100% it as all the side missions were identical.

[evelyn_blake]

IGN has an editorial on Resident Evil 5 and the racist overtones of the scenario. The IGN piece is a fairly plain if succinct, considered and sensible overview of the dubious content but why ultimately it is not racist. I nodded, I affirmed, I may even have murmured 'Ah, of course'. I agreed, the game is not racist.

Then just when the last lingering twitch of my liberal unease was about to be spent from my system I read the comments:

if they want to be considered equal then africans need to stop complainng, as he said if it were a white guy no one would care.
stop trying to get all of the benefits and none of the consequences....
Posted by:  gogogareth on February 11, 2009 21:08 PDT

...and realised the reason people have reservations is not because the game is racist but because some people are racist, even if they woulden't deem themselves as such, and it's probably not appropriate to blithely invest millions in a game that cannot avoid reinforcing racist stereotypes and offers the anachronistic pleasure of shooting Africans while caught up in a joyous binge of righteousness with impunity. It's quite remarkable how one ill-concieved splashed out thought can undermine an entire structured arguement.

Stupid fucker. Now I'm going to feel slightly ashamed when I buy it because I know he'll be out there playing it too...shaking his head in disbelief that 'Africans' had taken time out from their busy schedule to suppress this awesome game. Those busy 'African' schedules that consist of reaping the benefits provided by white culture then publically swaggering away indignantly when it's time to accept the consequences, those consequences of course are having fictional representations of their race depicted as savages and slaughtered en mass by white men. That's a vital part of the American dream and British multiculturism. That's what happens in a civilised society. 'Why can't we all just get along? Let me virtually shoot someone with the same exploited heritage as you because they're acting in an primordial barbaric fashion. That's all I want to do! Then we can call it quits and you're free to consider yourself a citizen of my country in my unauthorative eyes. Come on! It'll be fun. The Indians let us do it and they have casino's now. You scratch our back and we'll scratch yours'.