SomTervo

Haven't these all been around since the first big reveal? Granted, maybe not in HD, but still.

Oooh what's the books connection to the Dude's world? @Phallus- I'm reading American Psycho, too! Well, in between Daisy Miller, the Picture of Dorian Gray, and War of the Worlds (lit student here, too, Jala). Did you watch/enjoy the film? I'm finding the book to be very funny in a veiled kind of way- I think if you've experienced that kind of Yuppie culture it would seem brutally scathing and hilarious. To someone like me, totally detached from that, it's a slightly dull read interspersed with really interesting social commentary. I haven't reached the brutal violence yet but I can imagine it considering how much was apparently left out of the film. @Jala- I found with the Walking Dead if I just watch it and enjoy it as it's own show- only inspired by the comic, not based on it- it's incredibly enjoyable. Great series imho, and it's pretty critically acclaimed so I think a lot of others like it too (although I can't say how many of those have read the books). Why is everyone suddenly taking a massive interest in The Hobbit and Discworld? I enjoyed the couple of Discworld books that I've read, but the Hobbit. Man, that is one hell of a classic. EDIT: @Strife: You serious? You just haven't found the right one yet, that's all. There are a lot of books in the world, and they're more varied than any other art form, I'd say.

Sweet, I'm in chat so whenever, just gees a shout. Stole my flatmate's PS3 headset too. Which is nice.

Is it just me, or does the treasure make it look like the gas-mask-guy has tiny, golden, dwarfish legs? Anyone up for a game tonight? I'll ask on chat just now, but for once I'm free and would love some Uncharty lovin'. PS my PSN ID is kenshi_ryden

All this chat. Makes me. Want. To. Play. Tomorrow night I'm definitely on. Someone TAY better be there.

I'm up for playing but am on GMT, it's 2200 here. If you guys are on and need another player drop me a line on kenshi_ryden. @FLD: Siege is goddamn worth it. Highrise is my favourite ever multiplayer map and the Museum is great too, plus it's got other bonuses like models and gametypes. Hit that up if you can afford to.

I own... (In rough order of ownership) Sega Master System II Sega Mega Drive Gameboy Playstation Gameboy Colour Gameboy Advance Sega Dreamcast (pretty sure his laser lens is busted now... I loved that little guy) Playstation 2 Xbox Xbox 360 Nintendo DS Playstation 3 iPod Touch 2nd Gen I feel sure I've missed some but I can't think.

Unfortunately, this does sounds exactly like the skeleton plot for the 3rd game. Drake's in a race against time to find the Atlantis of the Sands, his competition in the race being some sinister (probably supernatural) cult who are vicious, deadly, and deceptive. Sand Atlantis will no doubt hide some world-threatening danger. However, the details do sound pretty nice. The basis for the actual story is around Drake and Sully's relationship, I remember reading some crap about Sully being 'the closest thing Nate has to a father', and their tenuous 'friendship'. I feel a heck of a lot of Drake's-lifetime flashbacks coming on. Also, the game's going to London. That should be awesome.

I'd like to know how many of the really popular, critically acclaimed games people have on their lists they have actually played to completion (fair enough from Gyaruson on RDR). My flatmate hated, hated on the Gears series for the reasons others have said; that it was 'retarded', 'macho', 'stupid', 'bullshit'. He decided at some point that he was only losing out on potential fun by not trying it, so he bought it (he has a LOT of disposable cash), and now he LOVES the series- for exactly the reasons he gave for hating them. And how can you hate Uncharted, Yant?! You played them both to completion? I can easily see how the first could be hated, it's a lot rougher and more sparse gameplay-wise than the second, but UC2 is seriously one of the biggest, funniest, most intense, most challenging, and most fun games I've ever played, and that's not even starting on the multiplayer. If you aren't having fun with that then you're definitely not trying. I don't like LittleBigPlanet too much.

Really tough one. My first ever console, owned by me, was a Gameboy my parents got me when I was 4 or so. That was amazing. But after that, save handhelds, I never once owned a Nintendo console. I moved onto the PlayStation, and was devout to that and the PS2, which I've spent the most time on and still absolutely adore- and the PS3 is really great too, it's exclusives are unmatchable. But I've also had an incredible time with my Xbox and Xbox 360- Xbox Live was far superior than the old PSN Adaptor for PS2 (which I still loved), and I still have friends from my old Ghost Recon 2 clan. I also love the XBLA, it's one of my favourite things in the world at the moment. This is ridiculously tough. I'll probably have to say Sony, seeing as I've enjoyed countless games on the PS1, PS2, and PS3, and I think Sony are far more revolutionary than Microsoft for the gaming world.

Damn straight. Since I played the original demo for KZ2 I really enjoyed the weight of it's controls, and have frequently argued with people who say it wasn't precise enough. It was fine for precision, you just needed to compensate and think ahead with your aiming. Good call on the CoD'ers not opening their minds to another control style in the slightest. KZ3's looking great, although I'm not sure if I'll have the money to get it. Pretty sure I'm somewhere around £-700 in my interest-free overdraft D=

This. I'm supposed to be trying to be a writer, but I spend most of my time playing video games or frittering it away on the internet. Must... better... self... That's not all bad, really...as long as you're playing games with good plots and storyline. I mean, if you think about it, it's almost like reading a more interactive version of a book. XD I might as well bring this up too: Visual Novels. (NOT just the hentai ones, you perverts!) Nice one, Brain, I'm in exactly the same boat. I need to write more also, but I think I'll get everything else sorted before I resolve to get significant writing done! Yeah Zenia, I'm frequently inspired by games for cinematic quality and adding tension. By Visual Novels do you mean... Graphic Novels? I've written a few stories in that format already, it's good stuff. By written I mean I have the plots down, but I haven't actually written anything script-wise. Typical.

@Ethan nevmore is right, and a spoiler tag isn't appropriate, as, in actual fact, the entire plot of the game is your character helping a band of survivors transport supplies across the USA, whilst helping civilians and rebels out. On a Kote post about Homefront it was mentioned how the devs got the guy who wrote the screenplay for Apocalypse Now, John Milius, to help them write the plot and some of the story. Instead of it being an 'YEAH America lets team together and fight off these assole Koreans' Milius changed the plot to be about a humane struggle across the damaged, conquered country that is the USA. I think seeing this game as an America-positive message is flawed. And yes, the entire game is based around what nevmore said, it's no spoilerage whatsoever. What I said is referenced in this article, just before the 3rd picture: http://kotaku.com/5682584/a-video-game-designed-to-make-americans-angry

When I told my gf this, you have no idea how hard she laughed Mostly because she hates how I do that- her example from me was 'this coat is totes comf'. On my actual resolutions- 1) Eat less. I don't have a weight problem, like lam my metabolism is still keeping me too skinny even though I eat ridiculous amounts. However, my digestive system isn't having a good time, I need to eat less overall. It also makes me very lethargic and I KNOW that I'll be more productive if I only eat as much as I need. Also I need to eat healthily more consistently- I can always get a good rhythm for a week or two; up to 5 fruit/veg a day and all, but I always lose it at some point and it stays lost for another few weeks. Pain! 2) Waste less time. Not necessarily procrastinate less (I save that for the days before essays are due), but I need to cut down on spending hours and hours playing a game when I could spend an hour or two on it, then another hour reading a book, then another working, etc. Just to be more productive. As a side note for that I need to read more books. I'm studying literature for christ's sake, and I spend half my time playing games instead of reading Ulyses, or Dickens, or Woolf or something. Jeez. I love reading too- games are just so much easier and more accessible. In many cases more fun, too. I've written several essays on books I haven't actually read. It's pretty disgraceful.

Yeah the whole last part of the game was worth forgetting about. They also made it so damn complicated (relatively, for a brawley game), which would have been fine if Monolith had the vision and good design to back up the gameplay, but it didn't- the first game was much more balanced and enjoyable, I found. How about the fistfighting in Batman: AA? That was pretty satisfying and face-crunchy.

How about a classic trope that we've only started seeing in recent years? Achievements that can only be gained through multiplayer progression/ stats. When I first heard about this I didn't really care- I only really played Halo 3 and Gears 2 online, and I didn't have an achievementsmack-addiction on those, so I just had my fun, forgot about it, and moved on. But more recently, in games like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which I've nearly 100%ed, the only achievements I haven't got are ones that you need to do in multiplayer- which has barely any players online these days. Or the worst? Killzone 2. To get plat you have to be, literally, in the top 5 players on you entire continent's server. You have to be top of the leaderboards. Out of the tens of thousands who play all the time, and the hundreds who play it every day. Fucking ridiculous. I'm fairly sure there's one for being 1st as well. I love the game and have practically all of the singleplayer achievements, but screw that shit.

Toribash! Also, Condemned: Criminal Origins, or Condemned 2: Bloodlines- though really these are about brutal improvised close combat, not solely hands. You can't even use your fists in the first game, though in the second the fistfighting mechanics are pretty complete (although the game overall is nowhere near as special).

God yes. I remember being raped from every concievable angle and in every orifice on Hard mode with two players. Especially on the Sanctuary level. That. Is. Brutal. I'm really up for playing almost any time, save the odd parts of days when I'm out- so most days around 2200 GMT are good for me. PSN is kenshi_ryden as per usual. I don't have a mic but may be able to steal my flatmate's seeing as he barely plays console anymore.

Mobilley (?) you can move around as much as you want, but I felt more tied down than in GTAIV- which I still felt tied down in. It just feels like you're limited to going from A to B on a minimap and killing a couple of people at that location, and in RDR they added like a million tiny minigames you might do at B. Free-roaming wise the most fun you can have is kill animals who don't actually have a presence in the world but disappear/appear at random, or you can kill people which doesn't add up to much and there's never many of them. Euphoria 2.0 was goddamn awesome though.

I agree with that on AW and RDR. Alan Wake- I still really enjoyed it, but as a game it was quite a failure. The lack of emergence was the main killer for me; it would have been plentiful if the game had been open world (same for Mirror's Edge), and the game mechanics just got so boring so fast. If they had added anything to mix it up- generative fire, more enemy types, harder survival- the game would have been so much better. The story and later levels were still good, but overall it got too repetetive. Also the two DLC's are honestly, so far superior gameplaywise, it's not even funny. They could have cut out Chapter 2 and 3 from the retail game and put in the two DLC chapters, and I guarantee it would have improved the game tenfold. I wanted to love RDR, but I felt too tied down to the mini-game and living-through-the-map mechanics to really get into the Western world. The game distanced me from itself. I also felt the pace was far too fast, and that if they had slowed it down and made the game more about challenging gameplay rather than mini-game abundance it would have been better. Also God of War III. It's hard for me to define- but it just didn't give me the wow-factor that II did, and I was really expecting that. Probably my expectations were too high. Still a pretty damn good game. @lamaquaman: That is a pretty intense list sir, I'm taking it you still enjoyed a lot of those games but just felt at least a bit disillusioned with them? Hopefully it wasn't full on disappointment on every one I've found with lots of games these days changing your approach to the experience or fiddling with options can make them a lot more enjoyable. On Far Cry 2- I found turning off the music and HUD, and playing the game as if it was No Country for Old Men, increased the tension and enjoyment so damn much. I really like it now- plus the game get's significantly better after the 50-60% mark, like with Alan Wake. Also on GTAIV I found turning off most of the HUD and playhing the game as if it's an interactive movie really makes the experience more enjoyable. As a more arcadey game like GTAIII it's almost a total failure.

Thanks loads for the vid Templar. Looks great. I'm pretty stoked about UC3. Nothing more to say. There's a few interesting choices Naughty Dog have made on the gameplay mechanic front. Picking up weapons and ammo is now automatic (though obviously you still have a choice to swap weapons out), which is a pretty obvious development considering their aim is to make it as cinematic and smooth as possible. I really want to see the new brawling combat in motion. I reckon they've taken a few leaves from Gearbox's book with Arkham Asylum style combat. Kinda SPOILERS if you don't want to know more about the game coming up: There's actually a pretty revealing 'rewind theatre' over on IGN, and they analyse the trailers pretty in-depth, revealing some interesting stuff. It seems the first locations, and possibly a fair chunk of the game, will be set in London. Pubs and streets and the like. Also the chateau is probably T.E. Lawrence's house, which is in England also. Anyway, it's probably best to not look out too much for loads of details.

I really really loved the game. It's only a little bit polished on the surface but the design of the game has been tweaked significantly to make it so much more fun. Plus they've added tons of content. I actually really enjoyed the multiplayer, I'm level 20 or something, on XBL, my gamertag is Kenshi Ryden if anyone wants to play. It's a multiplayer style where playing slowly and getting high-quality kills can beat someone who goes for rapid kills all over the place. Many times I've beaten a player who got 10 kills with 4 kills that were well-thought out and paced. Good stuff. Anyway, has anyone played the DLC yet? It's free right? Adds a game mode and a map I heard. I fancy me some of that. EDIT: Just realised I didn't see the other page in this thread. I really really liked the ending more for the lead up to the final moment, rather than the final moment itself. On the ending: Don't read if you haven't got the Truth:

Think the update's already hit dude, I'm sure it was out on the 21st of Dec.