[Thom_]

Just played the first episode of the 'Strong Bad' series, and whilst it was amusing, I can't really say it was anything special. Lacklustre puzzles, but I guess I'm more of a puzzle freak than the gamer this game is aimed at. Then again, I had these exact feelings with the early Sam & Max episodic games, but on playing a couple of the recent ones I must say I'm very impressed. So maybe the same shall happen with Strong Bad

And though I've not technically 'finished', I've recently given up on Planescape Torment. It's a bit of a shame as I was really enjoying it but I'd killed one of the important characters early on (Annah) and I'm now at a bit where she's meant to join my party though since I killed her, she can't, so I'm left to try and finish the game without a vital character which kinda pissed me off that a game would let you kill off such an important character. Ah well.

[Puzzler]

Last game I "finished" was secret files - 7/10

Last game I "played" was Dead Reefs. I gave up, once again. Mainly because I died, and I did not know you could die in that game and it sent me back too far. The game just isn't good enough so I probably won't pick it back up again. I really tried to like it, I really did. 3/10

Tommorow is pay day, so hopefully I'll go to Bestbuy and they'll have Dracula Orgins or/and Overclocked. These games have gotten pretty good reviews, so hopefully I won't be disappointed.

[Jazhara7]

Bioshock, with Happy Ending. 10/10.

And no, the 10/10 is not exaggerated. For me to rate what to a large part is a shooter that high it has to have one hell of a good plot, and be very entertaining and not *too* difficult. People playing Shooters on a regular basis might other criteria, but these are mine. And going by those, it's earned the top score.

^_^

-

[MdaG]

Mass Effect
Just finished it as a renegade. I'm tempted to start a new run as paragon, but I think I'll wait for the autumn update. That way I can install the game on my hard drive, which will hopefully allow me to get better frame rate than I had during this run.
All in all this was a good (but flawed) game with a climactic ending that kept me interested even though it contained its lows. I'll definitely get the sequel.

7/10

[Giligan]

Dead Rising

Technically, I havem't completely finished the game, as I haven't finished the extremely hard Overtime Mode yet. Still, the 72 Hour Mode was fun. It's not a classic game by any means, and by some standards it's fairly crappy, but I enjoyed it. Except for the many times when poor game design led to frustration... like every five minutes.

[Denaron]

Star Wars: The force unleashed

Well, i enjoyed pretty much this game, and i'm not even fan of star wars series... Dunno, some ppl complaint that was too short but i think maybe if it had been longer would turn into a repetitive game.

[Terramax]

It's a shame most gamers don't have your logic (I meant that seriously, not sarcastically).

[wicked]

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Never actually got to play this game even if i beat Warrior Within and T2T a long time ago. It's definitely the best in the trilogy because of it's feeling. The fact that you fight alongside Farah for most of the game irritated me at one point but their dialogs were awsome. Fights are annoying, but that's probably because my expectations were too high from playing the other 2 games. I enjoyed most of the puzzles and the jumping around and that's the strong point of the game. The soundtrack is amazing but they could have "abused" it more often, most of the game there is nothing playing in the background, it only comes up during fight scenes. Oh, but i have to remind the awful camera positioning which made me miss my target so many times. To sum up, one of the best action/adventure games i've played, not to be missed.

8.5/10

Waiting for the new one..

[DustyShinigami]

Condemned 2: Bloodshot

Have to say, this wasn't as enjoyable as the original. I didn't find the plot as interesting and the graphics and combat seemed to be the only 2 main things that were improved upon the most. Trust GameSpot to give it a slightly better rating, than the first, just because of these 2 improvements.

Yes, the graphics and combat have been improved and are better, but still... The story, sort of, had an interesting concept but, as Rosa said, was a bit far-fetched.

Speaking of Rosa, and the other characters (mainly Ethan Thomas himself), they just weren't the same characters anymore. Different looking models and different voice actors. WTF were Sega/Monolith thinking? Sure, Ethan was a wreck because of his drinking and the effects of the Influenced, but like i said, he just didn't feel like the same character anymore. He was more aggressive and a bit unlikeable tbh. Rosa was a lot younger looking than the middle aged woman she was in the first one. And

Spoiler:

SKX was just unrecognizable. Even without the skin missing from the right side of his mouth.

These character changes are just as bad as replacing Jodie Foster with Julianne Moore in Hannibal.

The horror side is a lot more creepier and, ahem, fucked up than the first. These were my thoughts as i played through the first time. Especially the first level. But like with the majority of horror games/movies, you get used to them the more you play/watch. The game still has the power to make me jump when things/people leap out (which is no bad thing), but the scripted scares just don't do anything anymore.
To be honest, some of the scary effects became annoying. There are moments later on where Ethan's view becomes hazy and disorienting. This is supposed to make things more scary and uncertain, especially when you can't always see what's attacking you. There lies the problem. On the harder difficulty, near the end, everything goes darker, the flashlight is pretty useless and the only kind of light you have is fire spinning around. These black slinky looking critters appear from both sides and constantly hit you. Within a matter of hits, you're dead and you can hardly see a bloody thing.

The investigating side is fun, but again it doesn't seem as fun as the first one. But being able to choose, out of a number of options, what you think the answer is, is certainly an improvement. And after each investigation, you're rewarded with a rating/score on how well you answered.
At the end of the day, i think the best investigation happened at the end of the original in a deserted (or was it?), creepy farm house. Unusual text scrawled along the walls, floor and ceiling, which was only visible with the UV light, which led you all around the house to different clues. Including the creepiest part of the house: the basement. The second one could have done with something like this imo. In the first one, it's a game of cat and mouse. Stalked by a serial killer whose leaving clues behind for you, whilst he's killing other serial killers using their styles. It certainly had a Silence of the Lambs/Seven kind of theme/feel to it. The second one does not.

Either way, by the end of my second playthrough (but still ended up going through it a third time for a couple of achievements) i became pretty fed up with the single player mode. The game just feels too linear, short and the same each time. Problems which even the first one suffers from.

And finally, Multiplayer. Disappointing to say the least. I still have achievements to get, but no one ever seems to want to play any Ranked Matches. By setting up your own, you could be waiting forever for people to join.
There only seems to be Player Matches at the go and the people hosting them all seem to set-up Deathmatches using the same maps. Everyone just seems far too good and you never stand a chance of winning. Even Team Deathmatches are just as bad. The host and his team always have the advantage: guns. Even if there's more Influenced against the SCU's, one or two shots from their weapons and your gone.

Condemned: Criminal Origins 4/5.

Overall, i'd give this game 3.5/5.

Good but more flawed imo.

[Davies]

AMBER: Journeys Beyond

Just finished AMBER last night. Overall rating: meh. Worth playing, but only if you can get hold of it cheap or borrow a friend's. Surprisingly short and not very involving. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying.

Without giving much away, the game involves laying various ghosts to rest. Each ghost is a separate mini-adventure, and although these can be played in any order, once you've started on one you're stuck in that storyline until you complete it. There is also an overarching framework story regarding the technology you use.

For a game based on restless spirits and psychic phenomena, it's deeply unscary. There is a vaguely spooky atmosphere in the beginning, while you're still exploring unknown areas and not sure what you might encounter, but you get blase pretty fast.

I think the intention of the game was for the player to become involved in the characters of the ghosts and sympathetic with their tragic stories, but there just wasn't enough depth there to make me feel anything for them.

Moving around is the hardest part of the game. It's easy to become disorientated in some areas. You can never predict how far one "step" will take you, or whether turning will rotate you on the spot or make you go forward and then turn. I had to use a hint at one point in the game, simply because I never noticed I was allowed to move in a particular direction from one particular point.

The other major complaint I have is about the sound. There's a lot of information given through speech, and most of the time the speech is distorted. You don't always get a second chance to hear it, either. And there is NO SUBTITLE OPTION. I've got good hearing and was wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and I missed loads. The game would be unplayable for a deaf person.

To be fair, when I picked it up I was in the mood for something short and relatively easy, so it was more or less what I was after at the time. The puzzles are reasonable, if sparse, and the clues are sometimes subtle but always fair, with some good "aha" moments.

[Christian IV]

Mass Effect has some awesome aspects, and I loved the story line develpment at the end, the final scenes were truly amazing..but i wished i had seen more of the other ships and wider world of other humans....felt a bit cloistered. also love POP Sands of Time it is a work of art, i am only about 1/3 way thru, as that kind of acrobatics is hard on me as i hate heights but the settings are lovely ..i think it may be time to get it out again. Finished the following:
Mass Effect
Schizm I
Schizm II
Broken Sword I
Flight of the Amazon Queen
(ME was the only first time play thru)
working on a bunch more.

[MdaG]

Call of Duty 4
Finally got through the last mission on Veteran. Superb game. Made me go out and buy Call of Duty 2.

10/10

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by Davies

AMBER: Journeys Beyond

Overall rating: meh.

My feelings exactly tbh. After i read the review here, which made the game sound promising, i searched on ebay and imported a copy from america. Good job i have that 98 computer otherwise i wouldn't have been able to play it. Better than Barrow Hill to a degree, but still pretty average.

[MdaG]

Originally Posted by Alucard

My feelings exactly tbh. After i read the review here, which made the game sound promising, i searched on ebay and imported a copy from america. Good job i have that 98 computer otherwise i wouldn't have been able to play it. Better than Barrow Hill to a degree, but still pretty average.

Is there any "Adventure game" today that's good for real?
I'm hoping that Sam and Max will find their way to XBL.

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by MdaG

Is there any "Adventure game" today that's good for real?
I'm hoping that Sam and Max will find their way to XBL.

Well, it's down to what you think is good really. Baring in mind that Amber isn't a new adventure game. It was done in 95-96.

T'would be cool if Sam & Max found its way to XBL, among others, but that'd mean i'd have to pay for it again.

[MdaG]

Originally Posted by Alucard

Well, it's down to what you think is good really. Baring in mind that Amber isn't a new adventure game. It was done in 95-96.

T'would be cool if Sam & Max found its way to XBL, among others, but that'd mean i'd have to pay for it again.

I still haven't played it, being a Linux user and all, I'm really hoping more games find their way to the X360.

[Davies]

Originally Posted by Alucard

My feelings exactly tbh. After i read the review here, which made the game sound promising, i searched on ebay and imported a copy from america. Good job i have that 98 computer otherwise i wouldn't have been able to play it. Better than Barrow Hill to a degree, but still pretty average.

"Pretty average" just about sums up AMBER. It's worth experiencing, but not worth paying collector's item prices to get hold of. Disappointed at the lack of a scare factor, as I was in the mood for serious ghostly goings-on, but as a general story it's OK. The theories behind the paranormal phenomena are well thought out and hang together, making the premise quite believable.

The biggest letdown was the end phase...

Spoiler:

...after you've dealt with all the ghosts and have to rescue your friend from being lost in the astral realms.
I was expecting another mini-adventure equivalent in length and complexity to the ghost stories. Instead it was a couple of quick puzzles and a cutscene, the end, bye.

Technically the program is excellent for its time, and the game shows a lot of promise and original thinking. It just didn't quite live up to what it could have been.

[Lucien21]

Star Wars: Force Unleashed

God of War with lightsabres. Not a bad thing as GOW was an excelletn game and Star Wars is a good licence.

Superb storyline than really fits in with the existing history (well most of it anyway). Well acted and voiced.

Excellent graphics although the animation in the cutscenes was a tad off (esp the pilot woman)

Action got a tad repetitive, but the range of combos and force powers minimised it although by the end you figured out that one or two of the combos worked pretty well so you stuck with them.

I think they cheated slightly by returning to the same planets in later levels.

The droid character was cool and his hologram generator made for some interesting cameos in the game.

But it is the destructible environments and force powers that really make the game. Nothing like chucking stormtroopers around, pushing them off cliffs and electrocuting them to brighten up anyones day.

Overall an enjoyable game but not the perfect game I hoped for (More akin to Jedi Knight would have been nice)

8/10

[MoriartyL]

Orbient
Finally Nintendo releases something of their own on WiiWare, and it's a doozy. It's a movement game, where you're a planet in space and you move just by using gravity. It's really elegant. The A button pulls at other gravities, the B button pushes against other gravities. You try to enter bigger planet's orbits, and get smaller planets to enter yours. If you touch a planet which is the same size as you, you get bigger. When you're as big as one special planet, getting it to orbit you wins the level. And that's the whole game. Other, lesser developers would have tacked on a save-the-world plotline and cutscenes and characters and minigames and an overworld and RPG elements and fancy 3D graphics. Not these guys. It took me seven hours to beat all the levels (though there might be another 10 hidden levels, if the internet is to be believed), and not a single minute was wasted with padding. Pure entertainment, through and through.

It wasn't until later that I realized this was made by Skip. That's impressive. They made Chibi Robo, which was extremely story-driven. They can do all that other stuff, and they do it well. But they understand that what they can do to show off isn't what's best for the game. They're smart, and I wish more people would learn from their example.

Orbient is great. It's clever, it's original, it's challenging, it's easy to learn, it's addictive, it's one of the best games on Wii and it's 6 dollars. Everyone involved in making this game rocks.

5/5

[Lucien21]

Strongbadia the Free

2nd Strong Bad episode from Telltale.

Meh. It was better than the first game, but still not that blown away by it.

6/10