167 replies to this topic

[I_live_4_fun]

Sounds awesome Axe . I watched a friend streaming a bit of the beginning yesterday and it looked fun. Might get it from the sale Spec posted up

[GasClown]

Axe99, on 27 November 2014 - 09:47 PM, said:

Overall, I can comfortably recommend it to fans of the AC or Batman games in terms of mechanics, and fans of Middle-earth in terms of atmosphere .

Top stuff Axe - definitely on the to play list. If I finish DA quick enough I might sneak it in before Witcher 3.

[motoboy76]

Yeah from what you guys have said this one is on my must buy list.....

[straussy240]

Far Cry 3

Spoiler

Overall it was a pretty average gaming experience. The last 5 - 10 hours of the game I was just rushing through the story just to complete it. Ultimately I just got tired of the gameplay which became really repetitive. Needless to say the game could have been shorter in length.

I was a bit disappointed that Vaas was not featured more in the story given he is the only good character in the game. Considering the game attempted to have a dark/twisted edge to it I would have prefered if Vaas killed all your friends thoughout the story - ultimately driving Jason Brody insane and morphing him into this 'warrior' they kept trying to make you become. However, I am not sure if even that would work because your friends are not worth connecting to in the end.

[GraphicX]

mmm sex scene in farcry 3 iirc, only thing worth remembering apart from the cool intro vid lol.

[Axe99]

Sorry to hear you didn't get into it Straussy.  I deffo agree the story wasn't too much to get excited about.

Finished Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and enjoyed it a heap.  I'd rate it 7/10 as a game, as it's not quite as polished as it could be (although it's very good for a small studio - I think I bumped into one interface bug in my 13+ hour playthrough, and it didn't affect gameplay in any way, just had an icon in the corner when it shouldn't have been for a while), but it's a cracker of a Sherlock Holmes game.  You play through six non-sequential and non-linked cases (not unlike the Holmes' short stories), interviewing people, inspecting crime scenes, conducting experiments and deducing who was guilty.  It's probably a tad on the easy side for people looking for a real challenge, but instead of making the puzzles particularly difficult (they're not), the game's challenge lies in allowing you to get the cases wrong (ie, accuse the wrong person).  It lets you go soft at the end of each case and see whether you got it right and change it, which I'm not 100% on, but on the other hand, it's pretty much 'once-through' gameplay, so forcing people to play through a second time to get the 'right' answer would be a bit poor, so I'm happy with what they've done.

Can definitely recommend it to fans of detective games, Sherlock Holmes and puzzlers in general .

[GasClown]

straussy240, on 07 December 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

Far Cry 3

Yeah, I think the best parts were defintitely the outposts, I really enjoyed them. The rest of the game isn't that fantastic as a whole. Once I got to the second island, I'd pretty much had enough.

[Axe99]

Finished off Never Alone this evening, it's not too shabby at all.  The platforming at times was a little clunky (nothing terrible, but not best-practice either), but the atmosphere was top notch.  It's a 2D platformer/puzzle game, but the 'puzzles' are very gentle (I didn't need to do any looking up or anything), and it's not terribly long (3 hours or so, and that's at my pace!) but I can happily recommend it to anyone who's interested in 'cultural' video games.

It's, more or less, a videogame retelling of an Alaskan native folk tale, and goes very nicely.  As long as you weren't rating it on length, I'd give it an 8/10, kick-arse atmosphere, but let down a little by its mechanics.

It also glitched out on me at one stage, having me scratching my head thinking "man, this puzzle's hard, this is a right tricky difficulty spike", but when I looked it up and realised I needed to restart the chapter to clear the glitch, it was all good .  It was in the 'chase through the forest' chapter, so if anyone plays it and gets caught at a hella difficult (I think impossible) section early on, that's a glitch .

[GraphicX]

i've had that happen a couple of times, spend ages trying to figure something out, only to find after a restart the bit i needed to do was glitched on my previous attempt.

[Axe99]

I finished Unity of Command off a week or two ago, but thought I'd give it a little write-up - it's a hex-based wargame where you're controlling units on maps where the hexes are 20km across - so generally division (10-15,000 people) or Corps (30,000-45,000) formations.  It's basically just moving units around a map, beating down on the opposition (and the game design doesn't allow for defensive missions - it's all about 'take your objectives by the time limit - so every mission you're on the offensive) and in many ways it's not as advanced as the Panzer General games that popularised this type of gameplay over 20 years ago.  It's still good fun though, and caught my eye because Ken Levine talked it up quite a bit (I'm not sure why - not because it's bad, but because it doesn't really stand out - I suspect he may never have gotten around to playing Panzer General ).

It is a good game though - and the AI is solid (if not as good as the reviews I read suggested - never trust AI reviews in wargames by mass market gamiung press who wouldn't know I if it bit them on the A ), game structure reasonable and you can take a break from your campaign at any time.  It also has a pretty solid but still simple and accessible supply mechanic, which gives the tactical movements structure and the player something to think about.  Nice and simple to boot, so a good 'entry level' wargame if you've ever wondered about trying this kind of thing.

One odd thing - for a PC game, you can't actually adjust your screen resolution beyond adjusting your monitor resolution and running it in full screen mode.

[GasClown]

Finished The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - might be the first game I've finished for a long time (well that's a lie, I finished TTs The Walking Dead Season 2 the other week)... it was in the same vein, relatively short however.

Took me 5 hours according to Steam, although it was probably less than that (cut doing some of the stuff twice as there is no option to actually save it [it only auto saves at particular spots]).

Definitely the most gorgeous game I've ever played (thus far)... had to stop quite a number of times just to soak in the scenery.

What drew me to it in the first place though was it being a puzzle/murder mystery... but I never found any of the puzzles too difficult, in fact I think I breezed through it pretty quickly for a first run and I wasn't even rushing.

Although I don't wholeheartedly recommend it (I'm very hard to please), it's still a good little story with some great writing, top notch voice acting and above all a believable (little) world.

8/10

[Axe99]

Cheers for the review Clowny .  I've had my eye on it, and will wait until it pops up on PS4, but it sounds perfect.  Actually don't mind the puzzles not being too hard, I generally don't finish true puzzlers.

[GraphicX]

is it anything like alan wake ?  loved that game.

[GasClown]

GraphicX, on 21 February 2015 - 12:47 AM, said:

is it anything like alan wake ?  loved that game.

Certain elements - yes (perhaps atmosphere and the narration) but as a whole, no. There's no weapons or combat.

[GraphicX]

ok finally finished divinity original sin xD

i'm giving this game about an 8.8 i reckon, can't quite go a 9, but want to, so it's 8.8 lol.

all up i'm going to say it took me 80 hours, steam doesn't reflect it though cos i've been playing while not on the net (moved the pc inside while we're in yet another heatwave ffs).

this game is gorgeous, if i rated it just based on being a turn based strat v other tbs i'd give it a 9.5.  if i rated it against other rpgs i'd go an easy 8.5.

the game's massive, the character creation ridiculously big, the things to do & variety are possibly unmatched.

any one considering this game i strongly suggest you REALLY set aside all your gaming time to play just this game until you clock it & avoid distractions.  the game's worth it but also demands it if you're to play it through.

now what to play next ...

[GasClown]

GraphicX, on 21 February 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

now what to play next ...

Legend of Grimrock 2.

[GraphicX]

short games next, stuff in the order of 4-8 hours tops, might even play some racing games when the weather cools to have a spell from what i've been doing.

i've also got RAGE i started & haven't gotten back to.  it's not the kinda game i think i'll finish, but might hammer that for a bit before settling into something else.

ps. how good does that dark souls game look that's a ps4 exclusive ??  can't remember the name, but could see me buy a ps4 for it, looks fantastic.

[GasClown]

GraphicX, on 21 February 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

ps. how good does that dark souls game look that's a ps4 exclusive ??  can't remember the name, but could see me buy a ps4 for it, looks fantastic.

Bloodborne.

GraphicX, on 21 February 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

short games next, stuff in the order of 4-8 hours tops, might even play some racing games when the weather cools to have a spell from what i've been doing.

Legend of Grimrock is only around 15 hours long - so definitely nowhere near as epic in length as Divinity.

[Axe99]

Great stuff Graph .  It's deffo on my 'to play' list, I'm just holding off in hope for a port .  I know what you mean about the long game/short game thing - with Dragon Age being as big as it is (and a cricket game being equally if not more big - how long is a test series in hours?!), it's nice to slot The Order into the middle and play something that'll be wrapped up relatively quickly.  Good luck with the next game from your backlog, may it be awesome .

[GasClown]

Axe99, on 21 February 2015 - 10:11 PM, said:

It's deffo on my 'to play' list, I'm just holding off in hope for a port .

I've set aside every other game now and got my stab at it underway properly this time - I'll be back with a review in 2099.

In all seriousness, got most of today to hopefully play a good chunk of it. Played some last night and damn it oozes goodness.