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furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
After playing AvP for a few hours and coming to the conclusion it's a foetid pile of dingo's kidneys, I traded it in for... £20 PSN Store voucher! Woop!

I then bought myself GTA:Chinatown wars for the PSP. I've been after a "hook" game for the PSP and after dithering between Gran Tourismo or F1 2009 for two days I went for GTA :lol: It was cheap ;)

It's an interesting game. It IS 100% the GTA experience, only top down. This is both a strength and a weakness.

The weakness is that it's exactly the same GTA formula we've seen since GTA III. I think this is the fifth game since then? Okay, two are "expansion packs", but essentially they're "more of the same".

So is this, it's just what you've already seen before in each previous episode. What was getting old in GTA IV is now ancient.

So the basic mission structure and story is a big fail, unless you just can't get enough of that GTA stuff :roll:

However, the top down view makes things oddly refreshing. One thing I love about GTA games is sandboxing. Just driving around, having fun. the top view brings back the buttock clenching fun of driving on the original GTA - only without the utterly harsh difficulty to go with it.

So while the story and missions are eminently forgettable, there's a lot of fun to be head with the redesign "2D" top down play.

Overall, if you love GTA, you will love this. I've already put in a lot of hours over the holiday weekend, just because it's got that "fun" factor to keep you pottering around playing.

9/10 if you're a GTA fan, 8/10 if you're not really.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
Took a break from FFXIII.

Playing SMT Strange Journey... <3 it, <3 is to much.

I usually don't say much about RPG's till im done but I'd say get it.
 

spicy

Giga Poster
Is Just Cause 2 worth buying? I really liked the demo but I can see it getting pretty repetitive.

Anyone completed it?
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I've read reviews.

They essentially say, play like you do the demo. Spend hours upon hours just driving around and blowing **** up and having fun.

DON'T play the actual game, because it sucks. The missions are tedious and involve massive island crossing expeditions.

I'll pick it up cheap in six months for a laugh :)
 

Ollie

CF Legend
The demo for Just Cause 2 is enough for me at the moment. It's good fun just using the parachute and making things go boom. :)
Like Furie I may pick it up when it's super cheap.
 

Ollie

CF Legend
Has anyone here signed up for Gamestation? Did you read the Terms an conditions when signing up?
If not then you may have sold your soul. :p

newslite.tv said:
7,500 shoppers unknowingly sold their souls
Thousands of shoppers unknowingly signed their souls over to a computer-game store after failing to read the terms and conditions on their website.

GameStation added the "immortal soul clause" to online purchases earlier this month stating customers granted them the right to claim their soul.

While all shoppers during the test were given a simple tick box option to opt out, very few did this, which would have also rewarded them with a £5 voucher.

The store claims this show 88 percent of people do not read the terms and conditions of a website before they make a purchase.

Bosses also say they will not be enforcing their rights and will now email customers nullifying any claim on their soul.
http://newslite.tv/2010/04/06/7500-shop ... -sold.html
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Ps3 demos last night.

First up, much anticipated and eagerly awaited by me Sam and Max - The Devil's Playhouse

I loved the original point and click, and I've heard good things about Tell Tale Game's new takes on them.

However, I didn't like the game :( The hint system was massively intrusive for starters. Okay, maybe it's needed for newbies, but to be honest? Well, it meant I had less issues being forced the terrible control system and awful animation. Well, except the cut scenes (almost constant) with the poor animations obviously ruined that too.

You could see the glimpse of a solid, funny, Sam and Max game under it all, but the presentation just jarred with me. It was for me, unplayable. It may be the move to a PS3 controller which has ruined it, but there's no excuse for the very simple animation and poor graphics. Max's new powers seemed to be an additional "we need something to liven this up" thing, rather than a real well thought out new device. Kind of "people are bored with point and clicks, let's add something new". It detracts from the cleverness these games used to have. It was all about finding the items and working out what to do with them. Now, the powers pretty much become a common tool to be used in all situations. It detracts from what the games used to be about.

So, very disappointed. Okay, maybe I was a fool for thinking it would be a simple new version of the classic, running pretty much the same - but it's an update that just failed for me completely.

The Skate 3 Demo though I thought was pretty good. I enjoyed the original game a lot (it was a great break away from Tony Hawks pants). However, the demo of Skate 2 left me cold.

So it was good that they seemed to be trying to get back on form with Skate 3. It just seemed right for me. It was a little more rigid in structure than the original 2 - but I like that. I don't like massive open worlds where you have to spend 20 minutes finding your way from objective to objective to advance the game. I find that the lack of focus means I meander, get distracted and end up being bored of the game before completing even a small percentage of it.

I loved the x-ray bone smashing camera when you ditch too, great fun :)

For Ollie now. The latest Final Fantasy (XXIVVGTGTTFNWTF) has sold almost double the numbers for the PS3 compared to the 360. 828,000 on the PS3, 493,000 on the 360. This backs up the two other figures coming out recently that PS3 sales are slowly catching up to 360 sales, and that the PS3 generally has the highest "3rd party attachment rate". Of course, both 360 and PS3 versions sold considerable more than any Wii 3rd party game, other than "Carnival games" :roll: ;) :lol:

To balance this out, Sony may be in for some problems with their decision to drop "Install Other OS" on the fat PS3's. The issue is that they have removed functionality the system was sold with. It potentially breaks EU selling laws and may also be open to a class action suit in the US.

Essentially, by removing the function, your PS3 phat is no longer the machine sold - so (if it's less than two years from purchase) you may be entitled to a small refund, or even a full refund!!! One case so far of Amazon UK issuing a small refund. Ooops :)
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/15/does- ... -a-refund/
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
No mention so far of the new Splinter Cell: Conviction (too many PS3ers on here :p ), which I played just about every spare minute I had this past weekend.
All I can say is this is not your Grandfather's Splinter Cell. :wink:
I really like the way they've made the series current again by allowing players to play in the stealth mode that made the series what it is or by playing the more straight shooter style of popular titles like Modern Warfare.
I mostly played co-op mode, but did some single player as well. The single player mode is great, but co-op really is what I prefer. Co-op on-line is great, but split screen co-op is a blast too.
Both campaigns ramps up nicely as far as difficulty is concerned, with just the right amount of challenge without becoming tedious. The difficult episodes in each chapter did require quite a few replays to complete, but they felt rewarding when accomplished.
I really like the way they have changed the graphics from that dark green shades that dominated the earlier games to the black & white (when in cover) to full color (when visible) pallet of this title. There are also lots of new cool features, of which the most popular is the "Mark and Execute" feature (which I don't use as it makes the game a bit too easy). I prefer to use the old fashion way of pulling off multiple headshots, by aiming & shooting at each individual target. But that is one of the great things about the game: there are so many different ways of playing it.
Other cool new features are "Last Known Position", which puts a ghost-like silhouette on the screen when the player breaks the line of sight of an alerted guard & "Interrogations" which allows you to do interactive 'moves' with surrounding obstacles to get information out of enemy characters (my favorite of which is planting a foes face onto a hot stove). The co-op campaign has one of those love-it-or-hate-it conclusions, which Aidan & I really liked. I won't give it away, but Aidan wanted to play it over again right away. We couldn't, however, because the previous episodes took too long due to the difficulty. Which brings up my only complaint: the auto-save feature is only for checkpoints, as you can only select which map & chapter to start the game, not episodes within a certain chapter (we couldn't re-play just the final episode, for example).
In addition to the single player & co-op campaigns, there are 4 other modes: Last Stand, Face-Off, Hunter & Infiltration. Last stand is like Gears of War's hoard mode, where you have to fend off wave after increasingly more difficult wave of enemy baddies. Face-off (co-op only) is where you & a buddy square off against each other with lots of AI baddies thrown in for good measure, with whoever gets the most points declared the winner. Hunter (my favorite) is where there are 10 baddies on each map that you have to eliminate, but if you are detected that number doubles. This mode has options to make it more challenging: like difficulty, timed rounds, no gadgets & pistols only. I dare you to play it in realistic difficulty, no gadgets, pistols only & 2 minute rounds. :shock:
I haven't played the Infiltration mode, as that is unlocked at some point in the game that I didn't do (probably in single player, since I only started that).
So if you read all the way to this point you are probably interested in this game & I recommend that you give it a try. I'm certainly glad I purchased the game & that Ubisoft has revived the series. I can't wait to see what they come up with for the sixth iteration.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
Hmm, I'm kind of interested in Marvel Vs Capcom 3. Might get it in 3 years if it has 3 of the 5 characters I want in it.

Also Started a normal game of FFX again. :D
 
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