twmac

Arrgh, trying to do this before going to work again. The main concept is that you enter this small area and there are two warring factions. The game is open ended pretty much from the first cutscene (the two villagers that come to help you can be dismissed or you can even draw your sword mid-cutscene and scare them away) and decisions you make throughout the playthrough can drastically alter the outcome. The really good thing is that some choices and story tree choices don't seem like a big deal but can make the difference between aligning yourself with a guy and stopping the 'Evil' Fujimori clan and uniting the province or taking on a solo assasination mission which although well-meaning actually makes the province weak and Nobunaga Oda invades (it is always Nobunaga in these things). There are 21 definite endings but really the game leaves you to your own devices (the events of the story unfurl on a time scale so it is possible to miss important story plot and essentially 'break' your playthrough) most of the time and you can wander around talking to the inhabitants, taking on sub-missions learn new moves, craft and forge new swords, get a partner (who will move in with you if they like you enough and then the game becomes a dating sim of sorts whereby if your partner likes you enough they will do nice things for you but if you neglect them and don't talk to them for ages they will do things like randomly break your swords that you have stored or spend some of your money)etc. Also you won't really be able to get an ending the first time you play as the main characters are so much more powerful than you in the beginning and this game encourages you to learn the mechanics of the game (you keep all weapons, money, skills and the like when you restart) and do multiple playthroughs. With over 30 hours sunk into it now I'm still finding stuff like a dojo with a tiny sub mission. I also randomly discovered this killer that the vilagers had mentioned and uncovered his sad tale of why he has turned into a psycho. The graphic quality is pretty low and there are some niggling bugs but that isn't enough for me not to love it. ***Edit for some of my terrible mistakes while hurriedly writing this. And also this might be my GOTYsey. *** Further edit after having listened to most of the Podcast and not being able to contain myself. This is EXACTLY what Chris and Nick were pining for during the podacast. The obsession that I have developed with perfectly crafting the sword, the individual challenges taht can be aimed for that have nothing to do with the larger story. The larger story that can be played through in around 3 hours where you will remember exactly what you did last time in the same position and potentially change the storyline. Also the combat evolves over time, things that you were doing to get through on palythrough one will be thigns that you will laugh at as a concept by playthrough 5. Also I ahev no idea how this stacks up versus Way of the Samurai 1, this being the first of the series that I have palyed.

My favourite has got to be Senor/senior super-douche. I also have a soft spot for the fan-boy lament.

Right, fuck it then. It has been almost two years, and this thread has been unearthed. I WILL complete Half Life 2 before the end of the year. Soberish or get to that bridge bit Wrestle mentioned

In hindsight. Ben was right, this game was just not for me. I played HL2 for a further 10 minutes, put it down and never looked at it again. I did play Portal though and it is gold (EVEN on a console).

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy these yufster comments. Can't think of any gargoyles I'm afraid.

Oh come on guys, 'Space Asshole' even made it on Kotaku. Ignore the commentators as they seemed to have missed the point: http://kotaku.com/5390472/is-your-population-demoralized-watch-space-a+hole Also Mr. Tentacle is that a pixelated version of the Megason IV box art in your avatar? Awesome.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=139274

For the X360 demo, there are sites you can download it from, plop it on a disc and then run it through your X360 (no modding on your X360 required). It is very pretty, the move list is ridiculous, and ridiculously long. The set pieces are really, really interesting just to watch.

Both Platforms. X360 version is sold out in downtown Montreal, didn't think it was going to be that popular.

Well that heartens me. Nice to know the guys behind the game are of sound mind. I'm also from that same breed. I hope I don't encounter the same sort of bugs that Mr Brekon does when I buy the game. I likes my looting as I did in Kingdom under Fire: Circle of doom and Future Shop are doing a 40$ cdn deal on day of release.

I'll definitely concede on that, I especially liked the people who were discrediting Nick's play-through on the basis of the videos they had watched online. There were quite a few though that seemed to take the criticisms onboard which is unlike, say, the Killzone 2 fans who would've had forum posts demanding that Nick be strung up if he had said anything remotely disparaging. The guy who encouraged everyone to stop trying to search for every iota of info on the internet about Borderlands was a heartening testimony to the fact that not everyone on the internets has lost it.

I read through the first 10 pages of that gear box forumand generally the comments weren't anywhere near as evil as I had expected them to be. Does it get worse? Comments from those Hotcoffeeburns and Reeves fellows were actually very pleasant.

Absolutely stunning. I haven't seen anything this beautiful, ever. A friend brought the demo round on a burnt DVD and we played through the two scenarios, the controls are slick and the action slicker. It makes devil may cry look like... Well I don't want to start mocking other games. Certainly it has the same gating problem that games of this ilk all have but I honestly didn't care. I now can't wait for this to be out.

Wasn't that the time that the forums disappeared for a while?

Really Gdf? You are missing out on some great little minigame options and the online multiplayer is cracking. For a single player this fun you would have thought everything else would have been an after thought but all the other features are just as strong. It is interesting actually how some one mentioned that Hard actually has to be played completely differently to Normal...Interesting I might have to go back and replay it like that. Although the kind of epic stuff Chris decribed in the podcast is just so much fun. When you get the singularity bombs later in the game... Sooo good. Also the plot veers off into unpleasant in one on rails shooter mission. I won't spoil it but I felt very wrong in regards to what was happening.

Figured I should bump this as it came out on PC and the Podcast mentioned it. I feel bad that I didn't reply to Shakesbeard's comment at the time, and yes, the wrecking crew hot seat stuff is great. The multiplayer and single player expansions have been sensible so far and added more fun to the game. If anyone hasn't played this so far and feels like being an arsehole in space it is very much recommended.

I actually like achievements quite a bit. For one, being able to check friends gamerscores means that I never start talking about an area in the game that I know a friend hasn't reached and/or I know who to ask if I haven't beaten an area (I could use gamefaqs but that is boring when instead I can interact with others). I also like checking them to go 'Oh I see that is what you are playing. You've played quite a bit so it must be good (or easy if it one of my fellow achievement whores)' But I do hate achievements that don't get the essence of what the game is about. I actually think that a lot of developers aren't very creative. For example Oblivion gets achievements horribly wrong because it should be actively encouraging people to do stuff that encourages exploring (all the achievements are story or guild quest related) the world and what the game is about. Soemthing along the lines of 'Explore 20 dungeons' or 'kill 70 wild animals' would have encouraged everyone to go around every nook and cranny and seen more of the game. Virtua Tennis 3 by contrast has great achievements because it encourages you to learn more about the game (completing the challenges and tennis school sections) and actually makes you better at it. I actually think that Resident Evil 5 also has a good achievement system that will actually encourage you to try things that you wouldn't normally tried and it helps you experience extra parts of the game. So yeah achievements that make you resent the game for having them are basically poorly conceived achievements that lack imagination. *** Also, lots of smilies are disappearing for me, and my avatar has become a hyperlink. This makes me sad.

Is it me or did we miss the point that Mass Effect already had a non-conventional, in-to-weapons-and-kicking-posteriors female character? Did everyone forget Ashley Williams so quickly? I didn't like her but I always felt that was because of how well she was written: a believable working class racist. Sure I sent her to her death but I actually felt bad about that, I mean at the end of the day she died helping to save a universe full of things she despised. Pretty honorable if you ask me. Subject zero by contrast is both a parody and celebration of some seriously fucked up people (people who could actually do with serious psychiatric help not encouragement). I felt as queasy watching that stuff as watching Domino.

I think of EA as the dragon from The Hobbit. Essentially evil at heart but its days of ransacking are over and it is content to sit on its pile of gold and let the world be. Unless some dirty little midget pisses it off then it goes and wreaks havoc.

Well not me personally. There is an indie game available for 80 Microsoft points on Xbox LIVE that I recommend highly (especially for the price). The game play is a mix of Crimson Land and Smash TV but it is the sense of fun the developer has imbued in it (awesome song) that makes it stand out. If you have an X360 then you really should get this.

Just managed 821000. Also, as promised I bought Carneyvale... It is pretty cool, it is making me embarassed that I only own 3 indie games off the community section so I'm going to see what else is available.

It is hard to say but already he seems pretty likable. Jack Black actually nails the need to switch between Metal badass and then the kind of immature metaller that metal badasses can be as all they do is sleep, eat and breathe metal and as such aren't very in tune with anything outside of that world. And there are already many humorous moments in the demo than there are in the whole of of most other games (sorry Eat Lead, this is how you write comedy).

I have a good feeling about this game. Having played and enjoyed Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway I actually quite like Gearbox's out put and am awaiting Borderlands' release on the Xbox 360. With there being a dearth of games coming out before Christmas that aren't Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 I don't have much else to look forward to.

All of the Dead Rising endings touched me in different ways. Some of them were quite depressing, but very effective and as I unlocked the 'positive' ones it made me want to see what happened if I fucked it up. Oh yeah, I also liked the Far Cry 2 ending.

Just played the demo, it is pretty sweet, the art direction and voice acting is top notch. The gameplay looks good so far but like Tycoon said it is just the tutorial and so it is hard to say much other than that. The moment at the beginning with the 'metal' band summed up a lot of my feelings on a fair few modern emo bands.