[Zack]

In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, I have gotten to the point where I can now visit different planets, and I chose to visit Nar Shadaa first. I've landed at the Refugee Sector right now.

[Manhunter71]

Originally Posted by Jelena

Barrow Hill
I've finally made it up to the stone circle. This is one excellent game. It's got a great atmosphere, lots of exploration and interesting puzzles.

A few things stopped me playing this game after I got to the petrol station........

the disturbing noises in the background...

the dark dark atmosphere...

and the fact that I live by myself in a house with really creaky floorboards...

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by Manhunter71

A few things stopped me playing this game after I got to the petrol station........

the disturbing noises in the background...

the dark dark atmosphere...

and the fact that I live by myself in a house with really creaky floorboards...

I understand.
You did miss a great game though. At least if you're into scary games in British environments.


I've started playing Discworld Noir on my XP knowing it might not work very well.

[Giligan]

I'm in the second mission of Hitman: Blood Money. It's a pretty fun game, really, though I was a bit disappointed with the almost cartoonish graphics.


I'm also drooling over trailers of Resistance: Fall of Man.

[Hysteria]

BS IV: The Angel Of Death - near the end. I like this game, good plot, ok atmosphere, ok characters, twist...but bugs are annoying..we'll see how is going to end..I heard that's not that satisfying.

Spoiler:

I hate this sneaking behind the monks at the night...

[Jelena]

Discworld Noir didn't work well on my XP. Now I have to bring down my old Win -98 from the attic. I just don't know where to put it without making my family annoyed.

Waiting for Broken Sword 4 and Journey to the Center of the World I just reinstalled Myst Exile and started replaying it. I enjoy replaying the Myst games so much.

[wycked]

Oblivion: Shivering Isles, I've played about 7-8 hours of it I think

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Originally Posted by wycked

Oblivion: Shivering Isles, I've played about 7-8 hours of it I think

There's a patch for it being released, possibly on Monday...There's a glitch that occurs with items after playing the game anywhere between 20-100 hours.

[VictimOfScience]

I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on my new Wii that I just got yesterday. Just started though but absolutely love it!!

[DustyShinigami]

Escape from Monkey Island:

On Act II and I'm on Jambalaya Island, I've just come out of Planet Threepwood.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis:

I'm in Crete and i'm a bit stuck but i'm determined not to use a walkthrough means i've not used one once so far.

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Originally Posted by VictimOfScience

I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on my new Wii that I just got yesterday.

Congrats!! Did you buy any other games to play on it, yet?

[wycked]

Originally Posted by LeisureSuitedLooney

There's a patch for it being released, possibly on Monday...There's a glitch that occurs with items after playing the game anywhere between 20-100 hours.

ah, ok, thanks. I already downloaded an unofficial patch to fix that problem though, I found a link to it over at the Elder Scrolls Forum

[JemyM]

Finally got Splinter Cell Double Agent to work, so that's what im going to finish next.

I also have Call of Juarez installed but I have some FPS issues to take care of before I plan to play that game.

This summer I have 4 games planned and I hope I get to finish them; Phantasmagoria 1 & 2, Simon the Sorcerer 3d and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Originally Posted by wycked

ah, ok, thanks. I already downloaded an unofficial patch to fix that problem though, I found a link to it over at the Elder Scrolls Forum

Yeah, when I downloaded the patch today, I also double-checked my saves to see how many hours I'd been playing...127. Whoa. Luckily, my first save was at the sewer exit, which was only about 2 hours in. I had wanted to start a new guy, anyway, so it all worked out. My friend Ashley wasn't happy though, lol. She was soooooooo certain that she wouldn't have to download the patch...then her face fell when she saw it was a patch for both Oblivion AND SI. heh heh heh.

[Hysteria]

Sanitarium: last chapter (8) aka maze.
Well, this is game you can't see everyday. Really...interesting, unusual...but also a little sick. I like it. Too bad for the graphics. Game would look awesome if it's made like 2 or 3 years ago..

[Jelena]

During my replaying of Myst Exile I've now come to Edanna. I really don't like this Age. Everything is so close up which makes it hard to navigate in there.

EDIT: And I'm getting all this motion sickness in there as well.

[ssa]

I haven't played anything but solitaire on the computer lately, but just traded some games with an acquaintance. I finished Phantasmagoria in a few hours (no puzzles) and then started no. 2 but the mouse doesn't work properly, so I've only gotten to the first scene.

Now I've started on Fable - TLC, seems easy enough for me to handle. Had a few crash issues, so I've only got to the start of my apprenticeship.

Think I'll log out now and continue playing.

[MoriartyL]

I was playing P.N.03. At first glance, it looks like an action game mimicking dance. I bought the game in the hopes that it would have some measure of elegance. Looks can be deceiving.

What P.N.03 is is a 3D (third-person) action game mimicking an old 2D action game- a space shooter, maybe. The dance-like animations were grafted on top and are completely at odds with the gameplay. Because the gameplay, every bit of it, is defined by forced rigidness. I can see the idea behind it, sort of. The old shmups posed the sort of challenge that could only be passed with training and practice. There could be enough enemies to fill the entire screen, so that the player would have trouble finding a safe spot. In 3D, it's never like that. On a 3D plane you can just move out of the way of shots as you're fighting back, and if there were enough enemies to fill the screen it would be (due to the complexity of 3D navigation) completely unplayable.

So what's the solution? Have players fight in 3D (against only a few enemies at a time), but completely cripple them. The movement is digital (as opposed to analog), like RE4. You can't move faster or slower, you can just move or not move. So if there's someone shooting from your left, you've gotta take a second of slow turning to face in that direction. You can barely move backwards at all- it's too slow. You can jump in only three precise directions: forward, backwards, and straight up, with the straight jump crippled further by being uselessly low. Since left and right only turn, the game also gives you the ability to slowly dodge to the left or right, though again it's completely digital- you can't control how far to move to the left or right, which can lead to situations where you move to the side and find that you're still completely vulnerable. Even the camera control is awkwardly rigid, with just a few camera angles to switch between (no manual camera movement), none of which will show you everything you need to see. You're not just fighting with the AI in this game- you're fighting with your controls.

But wait!- don't think that's all! In fact, if they'd left the awkwardness at that, the game would still be pretty playable. But the master stroke is this: You cannot move and shoot at the same time. In order to do any damage at all, you need to stand perfectly still. Which, of course, means that you're going to die. If you've got three robots flying back and forth and shooting all over, you never have the opportunity to shoot, so it's just a matter of time until you get killed. Hope you've got a Continue to spare.

But wait- there's a way out of such a situation! There are special moves, which you can buy by getting money, which you can only get by playing through an excessive number of tedious optional levels. These special moves are used by inputting -precisely!- certain short combinations of directions on the digital pad. So say you've got three robots in front of you, all shooting wildly, and you want to take them all out with the "left-right-left" move. So you've got to stand right in front of their fire, and before you get hit press left,right,left. Simple, right? If you said "right" then you haven't spent much time with the Gamecube controller's notoriously iffy digital pad. I envy you. The scene goes something like this:

Player: left-right-left
[the game doesn't do anything]
Player: Left, .. ,Right, .. ,Left.
[the game doesn't do anything]
Player: LEFT,RIGHT,LEFT!
[still nothing, but the robots are starting to shoot back now]
Player: LEFTRIGHTLEFTLEFTRIGHTLEFTLEFTRIGHTLEFT!!
[Game Over.]

This scene is very common. Anyway, do you see the brilliance of the design? By putting artificial stumbling blocks into a 3D world, they bring back all the frustration of the good old days! Not the elegance or the potential for getting good at it, but all the frustration. And isn't that really why people played games in the first place?


Well, I put up with all the frustration because, hey!, it's just what the game's designed for. You can't fault a game for its basic premise, can you? I trained myself to never take any initiative that had any slight bit of risk involved, because in this game any slight risk equates to almost-certain damage. (When it goes bad you're too busy fighting the controls to get out of the way.) I learned patience, training myself to watch the enemies and only come out for the very brief gaps in their fire. I even put myself through a lot of the "optional" levels which are essentially padding (repetitive and tedious), so that I could get more powerful suits and special moves. (The padding isn't really optional- without those suits you'd have a very hard time getting anywhere.) But now I've reached my limit. I've reached a boss with ridiculously powerful attacks (one-shot kills), and where you've gotta fight it in a tiny little enclosed space with almost no place to hide. And this boss seems to take around two thousand shots to beat. And this is the point where I say, "Enough is enough!". If I were to replay the entire level leading up to it, over and over and over (and it should be noted that it's a very frustrating level), maybe I'd beat it eventually. But why should I?

I'm never going to play this game again.

[Manhunter71]

Originally Posted by Jelena

I understand.
You did miss a great game though. At least if you're into scary games in British environments.

Hey

I love scary games and scary movies but for some reason this unsettled me even more than the Darkfall games - I still have it installed though so I'll get back to it when I become less of a wuss!

I live in a reasonably small seaside village and for that reason I hate it when the fog rolls in - all because I stayed up late one night (when I wasn't supposed to) and watched "The Fog"

[MdaG]

Still playing Double Agent. Man i hate the 3D map. Makes it hard to find my way or get a good overview of the map. Currently doing undercover mission 2 at the JBA HQ.