Thrik

I heard this game hardly even bothers with the out-of-Animus stuff.

Oh was it just the one in Treasure Island? That's probably why I remembered it as being particularly hard then. I remember literally crying once after getting really far and getting arseholed. I never did finish it despite it being like my most-played game. I have wonderful yet horrendous memories.

That is weird, maybe there's a secondary issue with controllers that can make the issue worse? It's certainly not as bad as in the video for me, unless different guns can behave differently. I only have to push the stick about halfway diagonally to get it moving whereas it seems like that guy is pushing it all the way without it doing anything. But yeah it was fucked on release regardless. I wonder how many people will have rated UC3 lower than UC2 because of it subconsciously, not realising why they were finding the game frustrating and/or not as fun. I did read somewhere Naughty Dog specifically screwed with aiming to try and overcome inherent acceleration/lag issues that console games almost always have.

Yep tried the patch out last night, holy shit what a difference. Note that you have to actually go into your options to switch the aiming mode, otherwise you'll just get the old mode. That video above is completely misrepresenting the issue, though — I think he's lowered the sensitivity or something to exaggerate the issue so it's more obvious, because it's too subtle to really capture. Basically there's a diagonal deadzone in the regular aiming mode, in that if you move your stick in any way other than perfectly vertically or horizontally you have to move it pretty damn far to make it move significantly. Conversely, if you move it perfectly vertically or horizontally it's very sensitive and there's no deadzone, meaning your aiming virtually snaps to X and Y movements. It might not sound like the biggest deal in the world but if you enjoy playing shooters really accurately it's almost game-breaking, because lining up headshots quickly and tracking guys as they move is incredibly difficult. I hadn't even heard of the uproar but the moment I got a gun in UC3 it really got on my nerves, probably made worse by the fact I'd just finished replaying UC1 and UC2 which had consistent aiming. Seems like the kind of thing you can probably get used to after a lot of persistence, which is why Naughty Dog probably didn't see it as an issue. But then you can get used to walking with a missing leg if you try hard enough. As for reviews not picking such a skill-crippling problem up... well, says a lot about most reviewers really.

Jesus frigging Christ, this is out already? I'm still only like halfway through Brotherhood which I've been steadily playing since it came out. They really are pushing them out too quickly, a year is barely enough time to build up any real excitement about returning to the formula once again. I still think AS2 was the better experience just because it seemed so grand and the story was great how it took place over so many environments. Brotherhood was undeniably pure gameplay perfection but I just didn't get drawn into its world like I was AS2's. It actually felt like a big-ass sandbox whereas AS2 felt more like a real world, despite Brotherhood's ultra-refined mechanics. The fact it was one big always-visible city full of invisible borders (the Animus shit) made the illusion less convincing than loading screens IMO. How does Revelations compare to that?

Haha, old Dizzy. I loved those games, but they seriously fucked with my very young mind. I mean they were outright sadistic at times — I remember having to run to get my daddy to do the bit where the massive dinosaur charges at you after the game makes you go into his cave to get some shit. Treasure Island Dizzy takes the cake, though. That was insanely difficult to the point where it makes today's games literally look laughable, yet you had like three lives to get through the entire game and no ability to save. I mean, the fuck? As an interesting aside, I read a making-of article in Games™ and apparently the lack of saving was because they only had time to program respawning to a single place and couldn't figure out how to let you do so without breaking the game's logic.

It's not so much that the price is outrageous in and of itself, it's more the fact that it's on PSN for £48 when the maximum price you ever see any game for in the UK at launch is £45, and even that's only the really big hitters — everything else like Uncharted 3 comes out at £40, and this is all with a box. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I like to see digital distribution games release at a lower price than their retail counterparts to compensate for the fact if these twats retire their service it causes me inconvenience and that I've got to use my bandwidth (increasingly capped by ISPs) to download the fuckers. I can just about accept them matching their brick-and-mortar counterparts' prices, but not exceeding them. Basically Sony are just doing a really bad job of enticing people into actually buying retail games through PSN, and I don't really know many people who do as a result. There's absolutely no incentive to when all it does is cost you more and give you no hard copy. Hell, I could go to the shop and back to get the game by the time PSN's servers serve me the game.

It has become a full-price retail title, yes.

£48 is an obscene amount, it's £40 boxed in shops and the highest RRP you encounter on like any game ever is £45. It's like PSN try to make their offerings the least attractive possible, at least in the UK.

I was pretty amused by this earlier: Observe as I totally don't buy that.

Commandos is a good one, especially #2.

It does. MGS2 is the Substance version, MGS3 is the Subsistence version. Which is just well because MGS3 is literally fucked without the free-roaming camera Subsistence added. Yes, Snake Eater is very much a different breed to the others. MGS4 takes some of it on board — the South America chapter essentially being a homage to Snake Eater — but it really is on its own level stealth-wise. I do consider it the best in the entire series to this day not just because of the gameplay, but also the tighter story and lack of overarching fluff. It's an absolutely fantastic game. As for Twin Snakes, depends. I personally think MGS1 is so antique-looking I can't immerse myself in it no matter how hard I try, even though I was one of its biggest champions when it came out. Twin Snakes is built to MGS2 standards of graphics (click link above for quick preview) and as such has aged far more acceptably — the only difference between it and the new HD re-releases is the fact it runs at 480p instead of 720p, really. A huge shame it wasn't included in the HD pack, but then Nintendo owns it and that'd mean porting the whole pack to the Wii (lol). While it's a remarkably faithful remake in that the dialogue and level layouts are identical, it also improves the gameplay IMO by introducing MGS2's additions such as first-person aiming and better enemy AI. Granted the AI doesn't get to perform as well as in MGS2 due to the latter having levels based precisely around it and you do need to bump it up to 'hard' to be challenged, but it does nothing but enhance the gameplay as far as I'm concerned due to the greater realism and use of the environment (lockers, etc). Other niceties include completely redone cutscenes as per Kojima's request (dialogue remains unchanged though), a new soundtrack, and re-recorded voice acting that sounds better and is more consistent with MGS4. Unlike most remakes the changes are pretty much all for the better, most probably because Kojima insisted on green lighting everything. Anyone who moans about the rocket kick can get stuffed, though. ;

MGS3 is pretty fuckin' hard (no more radar) so even on normal it should be quite satisfactory, however I personally enjoy the challenge of hard or extreme because precision is pretty vital. I'd get for the GC/Wii, then grab the HD collection which has MGS2 and MGS3 — then of course there's MGS4. I'd probably recommend all be played on hard except MGS3 as it bumps up the enemy realism quite a lot. But if you can't be arsed with all that you should definitely try MGS3 as it and MGS4 are a whole different kettle of fish gameplay-wise to the first two.

You must have played a different Metal Gear Solid to me, because they've always been punishingly difficult should you choose to forgo stealth in my experience. In fact, it's only really in MGS4 where it's even practical. Granted playing MGS on easier modes practically ruins the game, as the AI actually gets better and can see/hear much further with each level of difficulty. I typically replay them all on extreme for the optimal stealth experience, and you can even activate a 'game over if spotted' mode in at least the first few games (assuming you play the much-better IMO GameCube remake of MGS1).

I got fed up with Splinter Cell after a few hours of the first game. I think I need the high (melo)drama and insanity of something like Metal Gear Solid to keep me interested.

Stealth is very much an option in #2 and indeed many missions insta-fail if spotted. Brotherhood takes this even further. The whole game is about being a stealthy assassin and almost all missions involve sneaking up on someone and killing them, so yes I'd say it counts.

The MGS games remain my stealth games of choice, with #3 probably being the high point. Incredibly tough yet satisfying.

Correct on both counts. Makes the game way more fun IMO because you can properly play the whole thing Metal Gear Solid-style, whereas with vanilla UC2 stealth is incredibly hard to maintain due to the need to melee everyone. I got through most of the game raising few alerts (which immediately throws an extra 5–10 enemies into the mix).

I thought absolutely everything was spot on apart from the gorilla guys. I understand why they were so frigging strong and everything, but it was really quite frustrating killing them sometimes and stealth went completely out the window — whereas practically every encounter up to that point could be handled with stealth and tactics, it was pretty much a case of 'retreat while madly firing in a panic' with those. With that said, when I played through the second time using the tranquilliser gun throughout I was pleased to find it takes those fuckers out in one shot too.

Michelin men? What? ;

Can't you get 360s for like £10 nowadays?

To be honest the story and characters sound fine, I've always wanted to play as someone a bit higher up in the hierarchy of arseholes (although Vice City kind of went there). The mafia has always been my favourite part of GTA's crime families so that's good too. The general premise is certainly a cliché, but the moment-to-moment writing in GTA games has often been pretty enjoyable and very entertaining. Same for Rockstar games in general, actually. What's going to really make or break this for me is the gameplay, which is naturally not shown off at all. The only thing that has kept me into GTA has been the writing, because the gameplay has been incredibly repetitive since GTA3 — consisting primarily of 'go to X, get in some kind of altercation, escape to Y'. GTA4 admittedly made things much more fun thanks to better cover/shooting mechanics, but it still got pretty fuckin' old by the third borough and I couldn't bear to complete the game. I want to see much more in the way of exciting mission set-ups and set pieces, more environmental variety like in San Andreas (looks like we're getting it), and of course more of the general breadth of gameplay that San Andreas had but was dutifully dropped for GTA4.

Looks like this is the guy we're going to be playing as: Quite like the idea of playing an older Mafia-type guy rather than the young brutish grunt we normally get to be.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1211341p1.html That article is still kind of ambiguous regarding whether it's San Andreas or strictly Los Santos. Probably speculating just like us.

Los Santooooos! From San Andreas. Does this mean the whole state or just the city and surrounding environment? We've seen the mountains, crop fields, and some desert from SA in the trailer.