SomTervo

Weird. Interesting game, for sure.

Sorry for DP: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/714102.html 10 minutes of footage. Looks very odd. Cartoony, strange interface. But still looks like it would be good fun- this vid's odd as it's not 10 consistently played minutes of the game, but a pretty chopped up sequence of gameplay footy that leads you through a while of gameplay.

Everything did feel like a toy, good call Strange. Btw, we should probably spend more time here talking about, you know, all of Nexus' hard work. Great effort, by the way, Nexus. You're a dime a piece.

That's exactly the case me and my mother had trouble figuring out earlier this evening.

Sweet- hit me up on xbl: Kenshi Ryden. I'll tell my homies to get that, too. It's 4 player co-op right? I considered getting cheap Rock Band 3 on there, as I've only got Rock Band and Beatles Rock Band (which is, admittedly, amazing.) I'm toying with the idea of buying Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues. Downloaded it, and it's pretty frigging sweet, but it's always nice having a hardcopy to play in more casual environments (cars, living rooms, etc.) without digital playback facilities.

I enjoyed the old ones back in the day. It's one of those series that, I feel, would only get better as the power of our machines improve. As the simulation gets more and more fun and epic. And as long as it keeps the pulpy mess action spirit of the old games, which is really the key thing. Old school Carmageddon with a contemporary physics engine would be unreal =D

I liked Ultimate X-Men but never read it past the first tradeback. Ultimate Spiderman is meant to be a brilliant series- but I just hate, hate the art style and cartoonyishness, and the stupid idiot Peter Parker, so I never read it. Also, Dean, great catch! I want to do a marathon of that actually, and Batman: The Animated Series.

The game generally saves before you start talking to someone or if you enter a location with some you can talk to. If you screw up a line of questioning, you can dashboard and load back in often right before the conversation or a few minutes away from it. (Providing you didn't leave the location the conversation took place in, thus triggering a save). Feels like cheating, but it's a lot less hassle than having to go through entire cases & non-skipable sequences all over again for a single mistake. You don't even have to go out to dashboard. Just hit start, choose exit, then load it right back up. It takes much less time than going through all the splash screens again. Yeah, thanks chaps. Good to know. For some odd reason I was convinced (I think from what people had said online) that you can only play cases start to finish, and there's no middle ground. A lot of people on Metacritic gave it low scores due to that. Idiots.

So, so true. Amazing. @Gerbil: Good call, KoC are good. I got Just Cause 2 (360) (got it on LoveFilm, realised there was far too much to enjoy from a rental, so sent it back planning on buying it) and Crackdown 2 (360) (want something good and fresh to play co-op with a couple of buddies. Anyone else care to join?) Both less than £10 on Play.com's Friday 1-Day Sale.

Yeah, definitely a problem. I'm looking forward to Deus Ex: HR and it's 1:1 conversation options.

Exactly how I feel about mine. Good ole childhood creativity and anti-nostalgia, eh.

Which greats? I remember New Zanzibar was decent, but still a bit convoluted... A couple towards the end were decent, specifically when Brutes and Elites were fighting... Still, I don't think any reached the quality of Halo: CE. Silent Cartographer, the one with the Flood, the last two levels... All incredible and sooo memorable. For multiplayer maps, I would agree though, Halo 2 had some greats. On-topic: I'm jonesing for some KOTOR so badly now, man.

It looks like good fun, like the others, but not great, like the other sequels. I think the last crap film I saw was still Sucker Punch. Sucked balls. But not just balls. Many different types of balls. Stupid actor's balls? Yep. Inappropriately placed music balls? Often. Bad storytelling balls? Slurpily. "Could have been good" balls? All the time. On Scott Pilgrim: I still don't think hating on the videogame references is a good enough reason to dislike the movie. They're totally take-it-or-leave-it. It's a strong film if you remove them. My girlfriend didn't get, or care for any of the videogame references. She doesn't like games that much. But she loved Scott Pilgrim, and the script/ ridiculous slapstick fights were strong enough for her to really enjoy it. The whole thing is that- slapstick comedy, basically. It doesn't matter about context, or if the fights had no basis or explanation in the reality-context; take them on their own, as they are, and they're funny. Or at least, from the majority of opinions I've heard, they're funny. Also, even if you didn't like it- read the comics. Muuuch more down to Earth, witty, well paced, and contextual. I loved the film- though it's definitely not for everyone- but the comics I WOULD recommend for everyone. It's just lovingly written and drawn. All those in-jokes you found tiresome in the movie, 62? In the comic they're built-up and developed with comic mastery. The plot is much better paced and developed, it makes more sense, it's all just better. I still recommend it. Hopefully the movie hasn't put you off that much. No idea why I just rekindled that argument.

This. I tried to explain it, but you said it in a much clearer manner. While I knew what had happened in Halo 2, it didn't seem interesting or told in a remotely exciting way, so I couldn't lay it out clearly in my head. Also, on the weapons: yeah, to me the whole thing felt like a world of light, cheap plastic. Whereas Halo; CE was all solid, tangible metal and blasting weapons. The whole thing just looked and felt better- even though Halo 2 may have had a better engine and graphics. The feel and design just ruined the sequel for me. Something I feel Reach generally addressed, though going back it's still not as classic-feeling as CE.

Whaaaaat That's well better than anything I wrote in school. My 13-year-old's poem was also on the theme of animals, but in a more general way. I wrote about a racing greyhound, comparing it's skeletal frame and labouring lungs to torture and that sort of thing. And how it was under frequent substance abuse. But it was really nowhere near as good as Sea Cat. I'd say it was pretty shit also. Got in a kids anthology, too. P.S.: Was this the Sea Cat you envisaged?

I'm weird like that. I like to play through from beginning to end. I'm like that with comics. Never open them up from the middle, always start reading from the beginning, over and over and over again... On-L.A. Noire: Pretty fucking sweet. I just finished the Traffic Desk. Those faces, man. It really makes such a difference when you're playing a character who behaves and speaks like a real person, it makes it that much more satisfying playing them out. Also, the characters and writing are goddamn sublime. One thing that still irritates me- I have all hints turned off (the way I like it), but when I'm interrogating people the game STILL tells you if you do a line of questioning right or wrong. I wish it wouldn't do this. I thought of turning the music down so you couldn't here the "correct" music or the "incorrect" music- but the game still puts a tick or a cross next to the questioning in your notebook anyway. If it didn't have this, you'd be able to play through it and get a result and not know what/ where/ if you went wrong. It would be like Heavy Rain. It would be much more streamlined and consistent. Especially considering how differently some of the cases can pan out (I just found out that in a case where I got to an apartment to find it ransacked by thugs and had to search it for clues, if I had reached the apartment faster I would have been able to fight and interrogate the thugs! Amazing! I had no idea, and it would have completely changed my line of investigation.) I've literally restarted a case or two from the beginning because the game's told me I've interrogated incorrectly- sometimes I've done it wrong by bad judgement, but sometimes just from the lack of clarity towards which evidence means what, that others have mentioned. Which is the only big problem in my book.

I thought Halo was the far, far better game. Simply because I found the moment-to-moment gameplay much more fun and exciting. Halo 2 removed the weight, and stripped the weapons down into what felt like plastic shits; I didn't even think the graphics were that great (SC: Chaos Theory came out not 4 months later and had graphics that are still great by today's standards, whereas Halo 2 is painful to see). It all felt light and airy fairy and insubstantial, I got no satisfaction from actually shooting and fighting enemies. In the original it had this great pace and FOV so you could see everything happening, take your time enjoying it and flanking enemies- where as in Halo 2 I just felt like I was slipping down an awkward flume with cardboard cutouts of enemies popping up on either side. The story wasn't memorable either, I remember reaching the end, feeling disappointed that it didn't really conclude anything, and that I had no real idea of what had just happened. It didn't even develop the characters much- and that's the point of the three-act structure, something the Mass Effect series has made full use of. The plot may have been fine, Chewy, but it was told in a totally allovertheplace manner- making it coherent and simple and clear to follow is the most important thing. I didn't feel it did that. At least, it wasn't very fun experiencing it. Bungie did a good job of removing filler levels like there were in the original, but the level design was still nowhere near the quality of Halo: CE's. I can only remember a couple of levels from Halo 2, and all of them I remember with a kind of distaste, as if I was fighting a common cold while playing them. The multiplayer was revolutionary, but it was pretty much the birth of "asshole 6 year old" syndrome, so I stopped playing it very quickly. The aggressively competitive nature of it just exploded and it became less and less fun as time went on. However, I don't really blame Bungie for any of the things I take issue with- Halo 2 and 3 were meant to be the same game, but Microshaft forced them to turn out titles quicker, so they had to divide their plans and the work they were putting in. I found Halo 3 much more enjoyable, but still not great. Halo: Reach gave closest to the joy I found in Halo: CE out of the other games. ODST was great too. On-topic: It was a great list. Reflected the views of everyone who voted as best as possible. Good stuff. @Cyber Rat: Good call, the complete lack of Resident Evil was weird. At least Silent Hill got in there, my #1 =D

Screw your mate! You can do it, too! I've got a poem published from when I was about 13. In Gaelic. Don't work out what you need to write about- just get inspired by as much shit as you can; games, movies, books, comics- then when an interesting idea comes to you that's inspired by all or any of them, pick it up in your mind and think about it and develop it as fast as you can. 90% of the creativity comes from like, the first 20 minutes of you thinking about an idea. Don't quote me on the first 20 mins. It could be a whole night of great writing. But yeah, just get inspired by things and think! With your brain!

Fuck, now I had to go and add that, too! What's with you! Also, respect

I'm not really a PC gamer, so unlike with console games, I didn't shop around for the best deal- I don't doubt you're right in all respects. Shitty download client is shitty.

Ouch. I heard that repeated dialogue + text on-screen was an issue in the early Dragon's Dogma build.

D= Howwwwww

Great catch man. I now have Alpha Protocol, Condemned (which is one of my favourite games- but I sold it off on 360 a year or two ago, something I don't do on principle and have always regretted doing), Medieval II: Total War Gold Edition (never played a Total War game and have always meant to), and The Club, which I kinda always wanted to try even though it was meant to be pretty flawed. EDIT: On that Dixon's site they're also doing The Witcher 2 for £25 pounds. That's like, $16 or something, right? (EDIT again: wtf am I saying. Like $40 give or take.) I guess it must just be crazy PC prices gone crazy. And Empire Total war complete edition (or something) for £15 instead of the RRP £40.