Thrik

I'd try them both if I were you. Two minutes with a 3DS talked me out of wanting it.

My problem is I'm a snob. If I'm going to play something like Metal Gear Solid or Uncharted I want to have the finest sound and picture experience. I think I'd get tired of carrying some nice-ass headphones around so I can hear the thing properly, and I'd still be sat there thinking, "Man this game would be so sweet on my huge plasma at home". I'll stick to reading on the train.

Looks like a quality console with quality games, but for me it comes back to the same old problem: I just won't be playing home console-style games on a handheld very often, and will most likely end up playing them sat on my sofa or bed. I need to stop falling into this trap!

Excellent. It seems kind of sad seeing it all described with 'was' and such, but hey that's life. Also, the new forum speed is nice. However that damn edit button's AJAX still doesn't work!

So. Another zombie game. rWzcYbtZQrk Are we even bothered at this point? Well, this one's by the guys who made this old chestnut: I think if anyone's going to deliver on the kind of expectations the Dead Island trailer conjured up when it debuted and finally give us a zombie game with a shred of emotional power behind it, it's probably Naughty Dog. So, looking forward to this!

Another thing I've noticed during the past week is that I hate Battlefield 3 with 32 players. It's now 64-man or nothing for me, practically feels like a different game due to the much higher concentration of people knocking around.

Yeah but there's like one helicopter per 1000 people. I'm sure it's all well and great for the few that snag the good vehicles, but that leaves like 60 of us still having a shit experience. I'm not going to say I hate Wake Island because I've had plenty of decent games on it, but it doesn't take much for the map to be completely overrun and make playing absolutely no fun because every time you so much as poke your head out of cover you get sniped; helicoptered; aeroplaned; or tanked. I don't know, maybe I'm doing it wrong but I find Wake Island can become a clusterfuck of not-fun a lot more readily than all the other maps. Whereas on other maps the vehicles are balanced pretty well, they just don't sit well in Wake Island because the map was designed around vehicles that were almost laughably inferior to the power they have in Battlefield 3.

The making-of book for Alan Wake (it's called 'Illuminated' I think) explains the whole open world thing and why they abandoned it in some detail, as well as includes screenshots and maps of what was planned. In reality though they didn't get very far with it beyond producing an engine capable of it, so it's not like there's a long lost game or anything to speak of. The general gist is that it just wasn't very fun. I'm going to be honest, I can't see how it being open world would have actually made it any better — it's not like the gameplay and all that shit was ever different, there was just less structure and not as strong a narrative when it was open world. Sometimes being open world for open world's sake isn't necessary and from what I recall they didn't actually spend very long on the open world production before completely abandoning the idea. Unfortunately the engine was already well-equipped for the kind of views you get in open world games by this point. As such the levels are linear, but they're fuckin' gorgeous and have views to die for at times. IMO this adds to the immersion big time as you do feel lost in a big-ass rural forest.

To be honest the game seems to feature the vast majority of the impressive things the showed off years ago, including the gigantic tornadoes and epic, open vistas. There are some particularly ambitious camera angles which are shown as pre-rendered in-engine cutscenes, but they don't include gameplay anyway. The 360 isn't that far behind the PCs they were using to demo the game way back then so to my eyes the difference is nowhere near as significant as you might think. The only real area of visible downgrading was the resolution, which won't be a factor with the PC anyway. Add in high-resolution textures and more advanced particle effects and the PC version will look sublime I'd say.

The Back to Karkand maps are indeed superb, although the fact that just about any building can be completely ripped apart makes being chased by a tank rather stressful. I never did particularly like Wake Island, but the other three are excellent.

Haha, I hadn't noticed that. I do recall having some weird skins in Tribes 2 myself, though.

Well, it certainly looks like Tribes. I absolutely loved Tribes 2 and spent a borderline disturbing amount of time on it, so I'd love nothing more than for this to deliver the kind of experiences I enjoyed in that game. To those unsure about what Tribes actually is, the video above sums it up pretty much perfectly but it's essentially Team Fortress on a really big scale. You capture flags from each others' bases, except those bases are often quite big and full of things like generators to take out which disable the bases' automated turrets, force fields, etc; also the bases are often separated by large expanses of land, Battlefield-style. Add to this an old-school emphasis on projectile weapons and fast movement, throw in some jetpacks, and you've got a simple yet awesome formula. Here's an overly dramatic Tribes 2 video that shows how it played (it's actually kind of mid-boggling this was out in 2001): With that said, I'm not interested in the beta because I'd rather let them get all the balance tweaks and everything else out the way; also, I'm coming to this from a very cautious place because I got excited about Tribes: Vengeance and it ended up being a massive flop. Not actually that bad a game, but a flop nonetheless. Tribes without a strong community is no Tribes at all. I do have a beta key though, so if anyone wants it you'd better get PMing me.

Agreed. I absolutely loved Alan Wake and was disappointed that it flew beneath the radar (not helped by its principal anticipating audience being completely left out until now). Hope more people get to appreciate it now.

Interesting: http://www.relyonhorror.com/latest-news/the-last-of-us-not-a-horror-game-after-all/ The impression I'm getting is that The Last of Us is as much about zombies as Uncharted 1 was. That is, they're in the world but they're not the main antagonist or focus of the game — which makes this kind of a zombie game, but not really. They're just one of presumably many post-apocalyptic threats. Sounding better.

Haha, yes I did. Except it's not Sully's moustache, it's Old Snake's.

According to a leak the villain is an older Nathan Drake who decided 'fuck it' after accidentally unleashing yet another deadly curse.

Yeah it does seem a bit premature to be making all those conclusions about the game. There were like a few bullets fired in the trailer because they managed to find a few usable bullets, before that the guy was brawling with someone — and that's if you even play as the guy, which I'm thinking you don't. Aesthetically I have no complaints, and we've only seen a very small section of the game. This is Naughty Dog we're talking about, who have repeatedly exceeded all expectations when it comes to epic environments. I mean, with these guys you don't know whether the next door is going to lead to a broom cupboard or a vast golden city. I just can't see this being bad, myself. It might be faith to a certain degree, but if anyone's earned it I do believe it's these guys.

Yeah I'd agree that UC3 does force you into action a bit more, primarily because the set-pieces kind of rely on it and the game has more of these as a whole than UC2. With that said I do think the game still has ample fun areas for stealthy play, and the enhanced moves and fact that you can now get silenced pistols (stealth kills net you ammo for these) are great. Clearly you can't truly consider these games stealth games, but they do have a considerable element of it and it's been worked into the other stuff really well. There seems to be an addition in UC3 which is that enemies can completely lose sight of you and can no longer figure out where you are, and revert to a Metal Gear Solid-esque state of caution where they look around more proactively but don't actually know where you are. To be fair this might have been the case in UC2 too, but it's stood out to me in UC3 due to me being forced into pissing enemies off more often. Overall I've found myself dancing between stealth and gunplay in UC3 and have found the game seems to play its best when you do that rather than going for all-out shooting throughout. To me UC2 seemed a bit more tipped towards being best played with a stealthy approach. I'll tell you one thing though, I absolutely love the action in UC3. Because of the various approaches to combat all coming together from the previous games with some more on top, I really do feel like a Jack Bauer mother fucker at times. The enemies seem to be more aggressive about forcing you out of cover now which makes me make use of the environment and melee moves a lot more than I did during gunfights in UC2 and some of the improvised shit you pull off is insane and must be great to watch.

To be fair, Uncharted 2 is much more Indiana Jones-esque than Uncharted 1. Unfortunately balls-out gunplay is unavoidable in UC1, whereas I managed to play through the vast majority of UC2 using the stealth options (sneaking, avoiding being spotted, killing with hand-to-hand combat). Uncharted is probably one of the few mainstream shooter series that does let you play most of the games without shooting everything up. If you run around like a crazy cunt then the game responds by literally tripling the enemies in any given area, whereas if you play it stealthily as Indiana Jones would then you're rewarded with far less baddies to kill — especially the heavier shotgun-wielding ones and shit. You have to enjoy tactical planning to play it like this (Metal Gear Solid and Commandos fans apply now) but it's extremely satisfying slowly working your way through an area rather than just Ramboing it up. There are areas where you are forced into gunplay and I do wish there were a way to return to sneaking mode for that particular area without killing yourself, just like in Metal Gear Solid. But even then, the gunplay is amongst the best I've encountered in any game and really exciting so long as you're at least competent at shooters. Plus to go back to the Indiana Jones comparison again, it's not like Indie never had a bit of aggro. I absolutely love the seamlessness between melee combat, gunplay, and environmental destruction that's part and parcel of Uncharted gunfights. It was only UC2 that really hit this mark, and UC3 takes it further with more environmental shit to blow up; more melee moves; the ability to throw grenades back at enemies; and various other refinements. It's fuckin' great. Basically the games are about as good as it gets unless you're simply averse to shooters regardless of quality, and if this game manages to make use of everything Naughty Dog learnt from them I can't see this being anything but excellent. Apart from the Half-Life games I can't really think of a game that's made me actually think about the poor fucks who've been zombified, be truly upset when certain characters fall, etc. It's time zombie games grew up.

Yes, yes it did.

I am kind of excited about the idea of enjoying AS1's kind of locations but with the excellent gameplay of AS2 and beyond, which is what Revelations seems to offer. I think I'm seriously going to have to leave it like two years before I play it though or I'm just not going to enjoy it.

Yeah I hear you on that. My girlfriend loved watching UC2 when it came out, and now she brave enough to tackle UC3 herself with me watching (although I've been zipping through it ahead of her to remove spoilage ) and it's very entertaining seeing how others handle the manic shit that happens. I personally play in a very stealth-orientated way and often intentionally blow myself up if I raise an enemy alert, whereas she just goes nuts and takes on the billion reinforcements they dispatch if you raise an alert — so it's still like a fresh experience. Regarding the game itself, I've just reached the airfield that was in like every trailer and TV spot. Really been enjoying it although it does take getting quite a bit in before it clicks that actually the game is ace and you get to visit all sorts of awesome environments. I am a little disappointed about the number of glitches as I literally can't recall a single issue in UC2, whereas in UC3 I've encountered things such as enemies spazzing out, one of my companions developing a crazy twitch, and Sully walking right through a closed door and disappearing. Then of course there's the fact that the game's original aiming controls felt like shit, since fixed with an optional setting. Also there are some areas which look a bit underdeveloped, still beautiful but lacking the intense polish and detailing that Naughty Dog put into UC2. Virtually every scene in UC2 was crammed with animated detail and environmental beauty, whereas in UC3 there are some (but to be clear, not many) areas that just look static, as if they didn't have time to put in all the wind-animated details and shit. Another thing I spotted that speaks of a slightly rushed development time is the cutscenes; while many of them look superb, some have noticeably flat visuals, obvious pop-in, and other things like that which simply weren't present in UC2. I think part of this is that more (but weirdly not all) cut-scenes are now rendered in-engine, which also introduces a weird disconnect where some are anti-aliased and smoother and some aren't. There's one part where Sully and Drake are talking and their mouths aren't even animated which stuck out like a sore thumb to me. Of course there're plenty of moments that're absolutely stunning to make up for it. The biggest issue UC3 has to overcome really is the fact that UC2 already came along and blew our minds, and while UC3 throws some epic shit at us none of it goes that far beyond what UC2 did. So whereas the difference between UC1 and UC2 was insane (UC1 practically had no set pieces at all if you've forgotten), UC2 and UC3 are much closer cousins. Whatever the case, it's a great game that I've been having an amazing time with. If this post seems a bit negative it's because everything else relating to the gameplay, music, humour, etc is fantastic, just like UC2. I can't see many people playing this and not having a great time with it, it's just a shame that whereas UC2 was absolutely polished to perfection UC3 seems like it could have used just a bit longer in the oven.

Because I am a dick. This is what I get for writing about games at 9am! I can't find anywhere off hand that says it's definitely without any shadow of a doubt the last game in this era, but I've seen it said in no end of reviews and features that this is the last of Ezio and the Renaissance so it must have come from somewhere. Maybe one of the game's press releases or something. I think it's a reasonable assumption that AC3 won't be in the same era anyway because they've gone out of their way to keep all the Renaissance-era games apart from AC2 away from the 'AC3' moniker. I think a lot of people would be disappointed if AC3 came along and it was yet more of that period. As for what next, hell if I know. Maybe we should go the future and the Animus can become some kind of gene prediction device too?!

I did give Assassin's Creed 1 a good few hours, but the gameplay just didn't grab me. Technologically the game was clearly superb and that of course had the wow factor, but that soon faded as I realised I wasn't actually having much fun. With AS2 I was suddenly not only faced with an incredible depiction of an era and environment I personally find more interesting than AS1's, but also the gameplay and story were much tighter. I think at the time I said it'd taken a few cues from Grand Theft Auto with regards to how it approaches missions rather than just throwing everything at you at once, and this was to its benefit. The formula was fundamentally changed between AS1 and AS2, whereas Brotherhood pretty much just took exactly that same winning formula and layered some more complexity on top. It was good but with AS2 already being as long as it was it was too much to go through another massive experience like that when it's so similar, and Revelations is just... ugh. Maybe I'll get through them over the next few years, at the moment I just cannot be bothered. Another part of why I was more open to AS2 was probably because it'd been two years since AS1, which is a more appropriate time to start missing the formula IMO. If I'd skipped Brotherhood I'd probably be kind of excited about Revelations now — damn. As for their relevance to AS3, I'm sure playing Brotherhood and Revelations will heighten appreciation of what's going on in AS3 which is why I'll inevitably play them. I'm sure things will be done to help bring people up to speed though as AS3 is likely going to be a radical departure now they've officially scrapped the Renaissance.

Oh yeah, in the games has all been wonderful — hope the guy is kept on board. I think the problem is they hit on pure magic with AS2, and obviously the natural inclination of any company is to follow up on that as soon as possible, and so we've ended up with an Activision-esque yearly pummelling. No matter how you structure your studio and plan everything, something's going to be sacrificed. I still find it hard to quantify what exactly is missing in Brotherhood and presumably Revelations too. They're undeniably masterpieces of gameplay, taking the gameplay that existed before and fine-tuning it to perfection. But I can't help but disagree with what some guy on Kotaku said, which is that "you can't have too much of a good thing". Actually, I think you can? But then look at games like Mario and Zelda which just iterate endlessly. I think it's a combination of not being given enough time between instalments, the games being virtually the same apart from gameplay enhancements and a somewhat non-engaging continuation of the story, and of course the wow factor of first experiencing AS2 being gone. One thing I'm grateful for is that Ubisoft haven't made these games Assassin's Creed 3, so in a way you can easily just see them as full-price expansion packs that aren't particularly integral to whatever might happen in AS3 proper.