twmac

Actually I like most of the narrative beats. Apart from the stuff with the inquisitor. I really liked that you see this masked FNG and I expected something to happen to him pretty early on that would stop him being the new guy (either bullets or a realisation). Instead he continues to be the new guy but obviously encased in heavy-duty protective armour. I also liked the encounter with the Ork war boss, you think this really predictable thing is going to happen about halfway through. Instead you realise that, no, the Ork Warboss is a badass and it isn't that simple when you are a badass. I am now at Chapter 13, only three more to go after this.

Wow, I made it to the point where he threw the item over the fence and then switched it off. That was practically unwatchable. Who wants to listen to some one do the equivalent of jam a remote control up their arse over repairing items? I like the degradable weapon systems, and that just sounds like the worst nerd rage ever. Embarrassing.

I bought this at the same time as Metro 2033 after reading the Eurogamer review. This game is utterly unforgiving but definitely worth playing. I put 2 hours in this morning after having finally beaten Half Life 2 and the game kicked my arse. I recommend reading the booklet and doing the tutorials as this explains a lot of the intricacies, the combat system is pretty sweet and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to play it. The only downside is that Nolan North is back, again. So tired of that guy delivering the same voice performance over and over again.

A play on those words was suggested for the blog I write on and I hated it, partly because I knew someone like me would never go to a site named that. In retrospect it would have got a lot more hits. I like Dialog tree but maybe it should have a subtitle so that people like Thunder and myself who might search for these kinds of podcasts can figure out if we should bother downloading and listening to it. Am I right in thinking you wrote that quite taxing interview a while back?

That is little comfort for me now when I wish that I had purchased Driver: San francisco instead. My top tips to Relic for improvements: Co-Op campaign (the game levels are big enough) in split screen form. More Jet Pack and more dakkadakka. Oh yeah, and try and make your game fun.

Oh shit, well, fuck. That is thoroughly dispiriting. I am at chapter 8 and I am not sure I can be bothered. Fuck.

I am about halfway through now, great atmosphere that captures the Warhammer feel. The gameplay is repetitive and shallow. I am not really enjoying it anymore, maybe it will get better when the Chaos guys show up?

Sorry to pipe in on the Cowboys Aliens thing. Have you seen the kind of meatheads that make up a large portion of the Army? It would be nice if you saw two sides to the race in the film, the guys who fly the things and conduct the experiments and then the gung-ho arseholes who do the grunt work and take great delight in wasting the opposition up close and personal. You know, the ones who are conditioned by drill sargents and their academies as a whoel to kill without question. A Sci-Fi version of Generation Kill or the last portion of 28 days later where the Aliens are the soldier and the humans are the infected.

I suppose that would work. I guess I was thinking how RSI-inducing that would be, without considering that as an implementation it would work regardless of the possible damage it could do to the user.

The digital control system still allows you to aim at specific parts of the body, the analogue version requires a flicking system that I am not sure how they would make it work with a mouse. It might, just not sure exactly sure how.

Well, I played this for about an hour last night. I am pumped on spending a proper evening on this. The atmosphere, despite the XP numbers and poor draw distances, is setting up to be really good. At the moment it is coming across as a melee focused Borderlands with a Far Cry setting. The Zombies are actualyl really creepy and the broad daylight setting does nothing to quell that spookiness. So far the voice acting has been solid too. I reckon it is the same team behind the Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood stuff. Can't wait to finish work and play some more (removed unintentional pun).

In a delirious haze over the weekend, on too little sleep and too much of a head cold, I played 8 hours of Supreme Commander 2 on the X360. Why did I do that? Well, depsite being the least of the commanders I had a lot of, maybe imagined, fun. I am rubbish at stacking orders and haven't figured out many of the subtleties that may exist but I ahven't played an RTS for that long since Z.

Hey Rodi, my review went up, I think you will be able to see the parts that drew inspiration from your post, it got a big thumbs up from the editor too: http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2011/08/catherine-the-review/

Absolutely agree, Guilty Gear Overture was shunned by the fan base and everyone else thought it was 2-D fighter. It didn't help that the cover made it look like some Yaoi romance game, possibly about bikers. I need to sit down and finish that game it just got balls-to-the-wall hard about halfway through. I remember thinking when people were first praising League of Legends that it sounded just like Guilty Gear: O (I now realise Defence of the Ancients came first).

I feel like I failed this game, I appreciate a lot of what it did, but I just didn't enjoy the combat. It is repetitive (although I think that I could have mixed up but I didn't) and it was far from rewarding kill stuff. I got through to the end but really, I just dragged myself through it to be done with it. Beautiful visuals, great Voice overs and lovely music, just deeply unsatisfying.

Damn right you will have to Wrestle. Also, Sno, are we in some way separated at birth? Pretty sure I've wrtten this before but we have ridiculously similar tastes.

I would love that stenciled to my bedroom wall.

I was going to post about Dark Star One: Broken Alliance. But then someone linked this on my facebook account: http://www.qj.net/qjnet/news/new-earth-defense-force-game-coming-next-year.html I don't care how they want to deliver this to me, be it PS3, Wii, mobile-fucking-phone. I will buy this game. This better happen soon or I may have to murder people.

Glad that the review was good enough to sway you one way or another. I do like Insect Armageddon, the online is particularly ace so if you can arrange a multiplayer session in split screen or multiplayer then do it. If you are bored it is worth browsing the site, there is other stuff that the guys have written that is definitely worth reading.

B&G remake is ace, there are few things that haven't aged well but overall it is awesome. Don't want to plug the site I write on again this week... But Shaun wrote a pretty good review just this week on Arcadian Rhythms.

I thought should post my review up here, as well as the second opinions of two of the co-writers from Arcadian Rhythms: http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2011/07/earth-defense-force-insect-armageddon-review/ There is a really good LA Noire article up there too.

That encapsulated a lot of what I have been trying to articulate in a review for Catherine, thank you, but I am going to have to crib from your comments Rodi. Also, depending on the ending you get, Catherine makes a rather wonderful companion piece to the film 'Up in the Air'. Played some of the Co-Op sessions with a friend, it is ridiculously hard to coordinate stuff. The versus fares a lot better (the mechanics and power ups lend themselves well to dicking others over) but I haven't met anyone amongst my friends who is at my level.

Finished it in three sittings this weekend, haven't been gripped by the desire to finish a game like that in quite some time. The puzzling is exquisite, the slow depth that reveals itself once you get going is pretty phenomenal, I also like that the game offers lots of different methods and incentives to play the game and its variants (it reminded me of an ascending Mr Driller:tup:) Loved all of the mechanics, although I must say that the controls reversing themselves when you are on the back of a tower is thoroughly irritating. The story was okay, and I agree that ending bit is sad and lazy, would have been nice to not have had it all tied up. I got a true ending that I felt was very reflective of my own attitude towards the characters in the game. I am curious as to how the other endings would pan out, it seems to me that they would have to completely change the characters' motivations and background to wring 9 different endings. Anyway, despite some minor complaints, I think this might be my GOTY so far. That said, it has been a bit of a slow year for me. At the moment my others are: Child of Eden Beyond Good & Evil HD Mindjack

Just wanted to say: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/04/cake-catherine-sold-200-000-units-in-first-week/ Totally called it.

Picked up my copy, unpacked it, laughed at the extras (the art book is bad, the T-Shirt good) adn then put it to one side to play Shadows of the Damned and The First Templar (made by the guys who made Tropico 3). Sooo, I haven't played it yet... That said Atlus US are reporting that it was their biggest release in their 20 year history. Broke their expectations and all that. Probably means that they sold about 200 000 copies. Anecdotally, the guy in front of me was also picking up his pre-order copy.