[terhardp]

Broken Sword - The Smoking Mirror: Remastered

Just finished it, so to write a couple of words...

Unlike the "Director's Cut" of "The Shadow of the Templars" there are no new features in the remastered version of "The Smoking Mirror". Well, almost none. The novelty scene-obstructing mini-portraits are present in this game too, aswell as the drag-and-drop interface. Just the two things I hate. Well, I must admit that the portraits itself are rather good and they give nice close view on the characters. But they do get in the way and despite the nice cartoony-retro feel, they simply do not fit well with the graphic of the original game.

When you finish the game, you get acess to the diary entries from both George and Nico as well as the comic that tells the tale of the events that had happened before the actual story of "The Smoking Mirror" begins. The comic itself looks nice, although a bit campy and flamboyant.

All in all when, sometime in the future, I get the urge to replay the first two "Broken Sword" games, I will, without the doubt, play the original versions. The remastered versions offer a few nice features and additions, but IMO nothing really significant. Therefore, I encourage the newcommers to the series to start their journey with the originals despite the possible struggling to make it work on newer Windows versions.

[Niko]

Deus Ex Human Revoulution: 9/10
It Could had been improved here & there, to make it a much better game. Doesnt Best the Original. Worth playing.

Black Mirror 3: 7/10
BM2 was the peak & best of the series imo, where it should had finished on a high. BM3 leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Worth playing, but, only if you played the previous 2 games, to conclude the story at long last.

Starcraft 2 (SP): 9/10
Last played a Sci-Fi RTS with Command & Conquer, pleasently suprised by how this one turned out to be. Pinches of RPG, break up the map jumping, very enjoyable. Worth Playing.

Fallout New Vegas: 8/10
Buggy ? sure, but with such an open World to explore there has to be a little compromise somewhere. Worth Playing.

[Fantasysci5]

My friend bought a PS3, so I finally got to try out "Heavy Rain". This won't have too many spoilers, and what small hints there are, I'll put in spoiler tags.

I was expecting a lot from "Heavy Rain", and I gotta say-I was a little let down. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't as I had pictured it.

The thing that detracted from the game the most for me was the action sequences. I'm not very good at seconds to button-mash a certain set of buttons. I had never played on any Playstation, so the controls were hard for me. I felt really stressed out enough to actually feel sick, and I felt like I could never relax. It was good for the environment and to build up tension, but it detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

There were a lot of scenes that were pointless, that dragged on, and the only purpose was to let us practice how to use certain buttons in situations that would show up later in a life-or-death situation. I don't mind a bit of dragging, but there were quite a lot of them that even I was saying, "Come on!"

Another thing was that the murderer and his or her previous actions meant no sense in retrospect. I don't say who it is in the spoiler, but...

Spoiler:

the fact that I liked the character...Grr.

The graphics are the best I've ever seen, no contest. It was nice to choose whether I was a good father or not. The plot and characters were good, but I just didn't get pulled in all of the way, like I did in "The Longest Journey" or other favorites. I did like Jaydan, and his ending

Spoiler:

where Blake saw him in the glasses made me laugh out loud for so long. Best part of the game!!

Louie, our roommate, and I also took turns playing, but I had to give up the controller when I failed so badly at the actions scenes.

All in all, worth playing for the first time, but it's not anywhere near my favorites.

[Fantasysci5]

Sorry to double post, but just a quick thought on my recently finished "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened".

I enjoyed the Jack the Ripper one, but this one was pretty painful to play. I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, and he would not have believed in the ritual or what could have happened. I gave up on the game awhile ago, because it was just so boring, but made myself finish today. The chase scene in New Orleans was ridiculous, the psychiatric hospital very cliche.

There was only two things I enjoyed, the emergence of

Spoiler:

Moriarty.

How Holmes tricked him was hilarious. And on the train, when the players get a glimpse of

Spoiler:

Hercule Poirot, was a real treat for me. He's my second favorite detective, after Holmes, and it was so surprising to me, I loved it.

[Lucien21]

Deus Ex : Human Revolution

The Deus Ex series was a classic, or at least the first one was, open world RPG which gave you nano-augmentations to allow you to tailor the way you play the game.

Human Revolution is set 25 years before the first game, human augmentation is just starting out and is a huge topic of controversy.

You are Adam Jensen a security expert for Sarif Industries, a corporation on the forefront of this new tech. After an attack on the company headquarters leaves him close to death they do a six million dollar man and rebuild him with all the latest bio-augementation.

It now up to you to track down the people involved. Sneak around, hack everything in sight, or just go in guns blazing.

Gameplay

The world of Human Revolution is smaller and more contained than the original game. Each city you visit is centred around a hub world with various sub areas or dungeons branching off it. You can walk around freely in the hub world, climbing ladders or hacking into locks etc. Once you enter a restricted zone then you have to sneak around or start shooting.

Depending on the way you upgrade yourself, various routes will be closed to you. Can you walk through poison gas, lift heavy objects, fall from any height etc etc. This will determine how you get around the world. Unfortunately the various routes can be sometimes be a bit obvious breaking the immersion in the game.

The main quest sends you to most of the areas, but the small number of side missions allow for further exploration to gain more XP points towards upgrades.

Verdict

For the most part I played the game, sneaking around and hacking, avoiding contact with the enemies at all cost and knocking them out rather than killing them.

Unfortunately there are a bunch of boss battles that require you to actually shoot and kill someone. The change in game play is a bit abrupt meaning the first time you come across the bosses it can be a bit tough if you are not properly augmented.

Personally I didn't have a problem with the bosses as luckily I had put in a certain augment that made the bosses pretty easy and always kept a large gun in my inventory just for the boss battles.

If you spend the time to read all the emails and ebooks etc the universe is fleshed out in a convincing manner.

Loved the story, the sneaking mechanics and the atmosphere in the game.

8/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK4k_Ieh8Wg

[JemyM]

I finished this a couple of days ago but didn't have time to post a review, but here goes.

Fallout: New Vegas DLC4 Lonesome Road
Fourth and probably last storybased DLC for Fallout New Vegas tells the story about the "original courier" who have been a mystery ever since the beginning of the game.

Story
This will not spoil anything beyond the first 10-20 minutes.

Before the player known as "The Courier" accepted the mission that bought a bullet to the head, the mission was offered to a mysterious man who, when he saw the players name next on the list, turned down the mission and walked away, but only after expressing his wish that the player would have the mission. Who was that man? Why did he turn down the mission? Why did he want the player to have it? That's what DLC4 is all about.

Like previous DLC's, Lonesome Road calls you to a location that will move you into the DLC's own area. This time the Canyon Wreckage. You can keep your complete inventory this time around and you may even return back to the Mojave if you like.

Unlike previous DLC's there's no introduction, only a short trip into a base where you find another ED-E, you know the Eyebot you probably had as companion for most of the game. Upon leaving the base on the other side you are for the first time contacted by the original courier Ulysses via ED-E's radio, calling you too him.

What follows is a trek throughout the ruins called The Divide, overrun by a particular brand of ex-NCR, ex-Legion ghouls who are all hostile to you. At various points throughout this journey Ulysses will contact you again and again, each time giving you more insight on who he is, what he thinks and why you are there.

Gameplay
The worst part with Lonesome Road is that the bulk of it consists of simply wading through hordes of enemies through an unusually complex mapdesign. The ruins of the Divide twists and turns and will most likely be a strain to your brain. You walk around, through, beneath and over remains of buildings that are often tipped over to the side, making them unusually difficult to navigate. Now I did not have too much problems with the mapdesign even if it's noteworthy, but rather that fighting through waves of enemies in this place seems to be the only thing you do.

The earlier three DLC's had some content to it, stuff you had to do while walking around. Dead Money had the gathering and interaction between the NPC's you find, Old World Blues was packed with content while Honest Hearts was blasted for it's simplistic MMORPG-style quests. It's saddens me to say that Lonesome Road is weaker than Honest Hearts in this regard. Most of the content involves finding X of Y to solve the included challenges, a boring achievement-hunt that really have little to do with the story. You can find 20 hidden posters (that have nothing to do with the story), 10 hidden messages (that have nothing to do with the story). You can also unlock upgrades for ED-E which is also about finding the hidden eyebots scattered around the divide.

I guess the best new gameplay idea in Lonesome Road are blasting up warheads. Blasting warheads is a way to make progress in Lonesome Road. You will find a tool that looks a lot like a laser pistol. If you use this to fire at large cone-shaped warheads they will explode, often opening up new paths or secrets. There are 30 of them throughout the Divide but only about 2/3 of those actually unlocks new stuff.

There are a few new weapons but none I found were usuful for my Energy Weapons character. There are stores that are unlocked by ED-E and there's a challenge involving buying all upgrades for one of the weapons.

Final Conclusion
Lonesome Road is one of the weakest DLC's for both F:NV and F3.

Unless the story of Ulysses is interesting to you, I would skip this DLC. If you are interested in Ulysses and your true identity as a courier, then grab it because that's what this one have to offer.

I really looked forward to DLC4 after seeing hints about Ulysses in the first three DLC's but was quite dissappointed when I realized that all Lonesome Road is, is about walking a long distance and kill non-stop hordes of enemies, with very little else that adds to the experience.

[Lucien21]

Gears of War 3 – Single Player

Finished the fight, remained Brothers to the end and a hoard of other taglines about shooters. Took 12 hours which is pretty decent length.

Pros

* Gameplay is still as fantastic as before.
* Graphics are gorgeous and not just brown.
* Good enemy variety.
* The bit when Mad World plays cry
* The menu system contains the motherload of stats which is fantastic for tracking everything in the game.

Cons

* Pacing is a bit off and has a couple of lulls in it.
* On Hardcore it is a hell of a lot easier than the previous games. I hate to think what normal or casual is like.
* Nice to have a ending, but it leaves too many questions left over.

9/10

[funkylovejunkie]

Dracula Origin

3/10

Vile, crashed during the end scene and I wasn't even bothered.

I'm now on Runaway - Bliss

[SamuelGordon]

Deus Ex Trilogy


Deux Ex ((played it first and damn i'm glad i did!!)

Never played it before, but when the High Res mods recently came out i decided to give it a spin. Awesome game. Never got boring, loved the story,the characters, Jc Denton, Paul Denton, going to the ladies bathroom and getting caught (lmao!), [too much!],...

Anyways, i def clocked over 100+ hours with this one and i just wished it kept going on and on. The only bad thing i can think of were the endings, they were ok but it could've been better.

9,5 /10 (cyperpunk at its best!)



Deus Ex Invinsible War

Oh GOD ALEX DENTON DIE, DIE!! I heard the stories about this game but i decided to try it anyways. Besides the hardware problems and misery i got it working. The game is playable but it's SOULLESS. You don't feel that fire to complete sidequests or basically anything.

The environments are bleh, looks like malls. Story is conspiracies but it fails. The inventory horror, ai, no reloading made it not fun. There's lots more but i simply hated this game and i hate Alex Denton..you horrible soulless bastard. The voice acting in this game sucks too..ALOT.

3,5/10(...)



Deux Ex Human revolution

Great game. It was too short though and the decisions you make do not have an impact on the endings (like deus ex) which was a disappointment. Also the endings were very much similar to Deus Ex and don't give you a sense of closure.

Only two city hubs (three were cut or something?). Sidequests are sometimes fun BUT not rewarding. Jensen should remove his sunglasses once in a while.

This one is a spoiler but it reaaaally pissed me off

Spoiler:

ZOMBIES!! The last level is basically a budget cut and they inserted some crazy chip augmented zombies! It was disgusting and the last boss was too easy.

Midway i felt my interest fading because most the characters you bond with get pushed in the backgroud so you'll only do shallow quests until you meet the next bunch of dumb soldiers (ai is bad) and uninteresting bosses.

Graphics weren't all that but i never bothered me. Storyline is weak(seen if before thing), no closure and it feels they just copied deus ex..well in some way

I give it a 7,5. (i will play a sequel though, love the deus ex universe

[SamandMax]

X-Men: Destiny

This is a sad game to play. Silicon Knights - the same people who made Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, and were once good enough to be deemed worthy of porting the classic Metal Gear Solid to the Gamecube - have made a game even worse than Too Human, a game so forgettable and mediocre that it's almost impossible to believe years of work was put into it. This studio is capable of so much, they should not be putting out ugly, mindlessly repetitive beat 'em ups like this that completely waste a great license.

3/10

[balibelly]

I am currently playing inotia 3 for iphone.

[Crunchy in milk]

Originally Posted by balibelly

I am currently playing inotia 3 for iphone.

As a heads up if you're not aware and if you find it as tedious as every bloody "krpg" on android/ios platforms (fetch me 20 wood...) Rocketcat games is releasing Magegauntlet either this thursday or next at the latest, which is a bit of a krpg parody.

[Crunchy in milk]

Mark Of the Assassin (Dragon Age 2 DLC)

If you're a fan of the inter party banter then like Legacy, Bioware delivers, in volume at least. Everyone's got something to say and account is made of when you do the mission in the main game's timeline.

There's humor, flirting, teasing and you can do all three with the temporary companion Tallis too. The DLC offers many opportunities to wave your stereotypical hawke around in dialogue and two left or right path 'choices' that ultimately wind up in the same point.

True to DA2's design philosophy you can not make a story choice and effort is made to highlight how much of a passive passenger you are to boot. Its biggest gaff though is ignoring completely the patch on which its built.

Version 103 of DA2 went through every fight in the Vanilla game and made drastic changes. Specifically reducing the incredibly dull "fat pricks" (giant health bar enemies that are immune to all status effects) annoyance factor.

Legacy made an attempt to raise the difficulty of fights by specifically exploting the game's terrible pathfinding and AI. Enemies are frequently located in inacessible or difficult to reach areas or function as lures to drag party members through traps or into an archer barrage. Most fights required you to switch off AI and micro manage.

Mark of the Assassin does a 180. Every difficult fight in this DLC is against fat prick extraordinares. I mean immune to status effect, massive damage dealers with life bars in excess of 3 mature dragons... Some of whom RETREAT to magic safe zones so you can fight some mooks, and then retun to the fight with their life bar refilled.

If this is your idea of fun, worry not. Mark of the Assassin has one more bioware signature gem for you. Forced companion Tallis has a shitty custom rogue class thats all cutscene awesome. Shes got pathetic armor with NO RUNE SLOTS and worse weapons that she wont let you replace. While your team mates are laughing at damaging effects because you came prepared, Tallis is taking a dirt nap. She's just shy of being dead wood.

If you're hankering for some more party dialogue, enjoy MOTA on the easy difficulty setting. The fights are all about being annoying, not hard. Chipping away at fat pricks while working far too hard at keeping Tallis alive... Even more frustrating than it sounds.

[TimovieMan]

I've recently returned to the adventure game genre after a (non-DS) hiatus of a couple of years. Played some newer games and then went into "replay or discover some classic games"-mode.

Recently finished:

Lost Horizon - 4.5 / 5
Surprisingly long for an adventure, but it's quality! Very 'Indiana Jones'-like, good story, good puzzles, great choice of locations and great (background) visuals. With better facial models and expressions and a bit more humour, this game would've been the bee's knees!

Gray Matter - 3 / 5
Genius at moments, but not without its flaws. Took me a moment to get into it. Cutscenes feel cheap, but are ok. Hated the giant Daedelus Club puzzle in the final chapter (although most people here seemed to love it).

Gemini Rue - 4 / 5
Great story and a great twist near the end. Would be better without the (far too easy) shooting sequnces. This is the one that sparked my "return to the classics". I blame the "old school" graphics.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None... - 3.5 / 5
Pretty good game, decent puzzles, if only they'd stuck to the original ending - this one seems a bit farfetched.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - 4 / 5
Loved it as much as the first time I played it (1994?). Not as good as "Fate of Atlantis" but still a must for Indy-lovers.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - 5 / 5
The one that started it all for me. Must've played it through 10 times back in 1993 when I got my first PC. It'd probably been about 15 years since I last played it and it hasn't lost any of its charm. Turned out that I remembered nearly everything about it - including full dialogues!

[TimovieMan]

Just finished:

Maniac Mansion Deluxe - 4 / 5
A good and fun adventure game. Hadn't played it before, but it proved that Lucasarts really did have the best standard in adventure gaming. I managed to avoid dead ends (although I read there were a few), and most of the deaths I encountered were obvious and somewhat logical (even the radioactive steam), so they didn't bother me in the least. Fun game, but its sequel Day of the Tentacle is in a whole different league...



Abandoned (didn't finish, but I am finished with it ):

Deus Ex - 2 / 5
Had never played it before, but it kept popping up in lists of games that could intrest me so I gave it a go. I got to the part where...

Spoiler:

I joined my brother and switched to the NSF. We just got captured by the MIB and now have to escape some Majestic-12 prison.

I'm not going to continue, because I don't feel like investing another 50+ hours in a game that doesn't really grip me. The main problem is that it's not really inside my preferred genre. I love RPGs (especially the BioWare ones) but I don't like stealth missions, and this game favours the stealth approach *all the time*.
I just don't have the patience for constant sneaking, and there's far too little ammo available to muscle your way through it. That plus the fact that the story so far has been extremely predictible, and that there have been far too few side quests and far too few "safe areas" where I could just roam around without having to worry about getting shot for five minutes. Too much stealth/action, too little 'adventure'.

[SamandMax]

Batman: Arkham City

While it offers more of everything - more freedom, more villains, more gadgets, more fighting moves, more secrets - the focus on chaotic excess over structure makes for a less satisfying game than Arkham Asylum. Still great but not the claustrophobic white-knuckled thriller masterpiece its predecessor was.

8.5/10

[TiAgUh]

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
A few neat ideas here and there, but overall, seriously underwhelming. I'm perplexed with all the 9plus scores out there for a horror game that isn't even remotely scary (not to mention the annoying backtracking, dull gameplay and puzzles, etc.). Story's meh too.

I'll give it a LOW 7 out of 10 just because Baba Yetu's song is playing atm.


Michigan: Report from Hell
Ever wanted to be the camera guy from [.Rec] or The Blair Witch Project? Now's your chance! Just add a bit more weirdness and some hilariously bad voice acting (listen!) to it and voilá! you get this game.
The game's so awful that I can't help but to like it. Everyone except you and the awesome boom operator, Jean-Philippe Brisco, can get gruesomely killed.

I'll give it 9 Karlyyyyy.. OMG!!! 's out of 10!

[Fantasysci5]

Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines-I bought the game on one of the Steam sales since everyone said it was an amazing RPG. And it was, although only about a 4-star for me, I guess.

I played as a girl Tremere, and I loved sneaking around and killing people. Since I snuck around a lot, I didn't use many of my "powers", which now I wish I had. And I didn't find out which was the best gun until the end. I loved having a goul, although I played it safe and now I wish I hadn't. My next playthrough will be as a girl Malkavian, not caring about humanity or anything.

I loved the Asylum music, the sisters and Bertram, etc. The difficulty level was good, not too hard not too easy. It was a good game, a solid 4 stars, and it wasn't overhyped (like I was afraid it may be).

[TimovieMan]

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders - 4/5
Very fun game. Hadn't played it before, but it had lots of stuff I enjoyed, including the constant Elvis-references concerning the Aliens and your own ridiculous Groucho Marx disguise. I loved the way they handled "getting caught by the aliens", but I absolutely HATED the mazes in the game (and there were several). It was also slightly disappointing to see so few screens per city you visit. Apart from Egypt and Mars, you didn't have the feeling you were really travelling somewhere...
But the game was genuinely funny and had decent-to-good puzzles, and that makes up for a lot of the flaws...


Loom - 4/5
Surprisingly dark game, with a unique gameplay (four-note spells instead of verbs) and luckily enough help for tone-deaf people like me.
Too bad the game is so insanely short. The first time I played it took me less than 3 hours to complete it, and now (with over 10 years that have passed and me forgetting a lot of its content) it took about 2 hours and a half. Most episodic series have longer episodes...
Still a good game though, and it was refreshing not being able to die for once (the last five or six games I played were quite different)...

[TiAgUh]

^ So you're just 30 minutes smarter than 10 years ago? *Checks your age* It should've been 1hour dude!