twmac

So the X360 release isn't due any time soon? I don't play PC games (with the occasional point and click adventure being the exception).

There be a posting at Joystiq with a teaser trailer: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/19/blood-bowl-trailer-everything-but-a-blood-bath/#comments Not much in the way of in-game footage, when is it due out?

SEGA licensed or released on a SEGA console? I wouldn't mind seeing an early version of Mico Machines (Tournament 96 maybe) but really I'd like to see Shinning Force or Shinning in the darkness. They are the sort of games I would actually play on a handheld.

This dropped in price by twenty dollars and after playing the demo which I sort of liked (and having just finished Red Faction) I decided to buy it. In short, I don't give a shit what anyone says, this game (despite the extensive QTEs) is better than Ninja Gaiden. I've just sat through the first two levels of it with a big shit-eating grin on my face. The combat is over the top, taking riffs from both God of War and Ninja Gaiden but sealing it in a beautifully cheesy, non-sensical story with absolutely over the top set pieces. Another thing that I really like about the game is the way the diffculty settings work. First you can change the difficulty of the Quick Time events, so if you suck at them you can simplify them to the point of just enjoying the action that is going on in the background (but the game penalises your highscores at the end of the level). Secondly you will see different aspects of a level and boss fight depending on what difficulty you have the game on. So, if you have it on easy the boss's fight patterns are pretty lack lustre and easy. Ramp it up to hard and you will find yourself doing stuff that simply doesn't happen on normal or easy. Not just 'the characters have more health and do more damage' they actually have different attack routines and different things you have to do to beat them. If you see it cheap, enjoyed God of War or Ninja Gaiden, this game is well worth picking up.

I hated the warhammer stuff, except for Bloodbowl which I became obsessed with. I never bought the board game but if this comes out for X360 I will definitely buy it. Being a big fan of American football and having a soft spot for fantasy worlds with orcs and ogres this will probably be snapped up by me when it comes out.

Sweet, other people have played Ninja Blade and like it. I just fought a worm boss where you jump up, as it spews vehicles from its maw then you grab a motorcycle mid air ride down a bus that flying towards you and jump kick it into the beast gaping dune-like jaws and kill it. This game is awesome. From Software know how to make parody games really well (it is probably why they don't sell because people who play games don't seem to have a sense of humour). It even has a character called Richard Wilson who is the in one of From Software's other games.Bullet witch had some great super powers, I tested it and I have to say that I couldn't love it the way I love Ninja Blade.

Yeah, Wrong Music was a night in Brighton as well as a bootleg CD (called 'Now that's what I call Wrong Music') that was setup by a bunch of local electronica musicians. The two most famous members are DJ Shitmat and DJ Scotch Egg but there were other guys who were also excellent. DJ Scotch Egg had a tendency to busk in the middle of Brighton with random instruments and see how long before he got asked to leave by security/the police. I think there is still some Wrong music stuff going on but it has become splintered since most of the artists moved away from Brighton. I have fond memories of hanging out at a dive called 'The Volks' and getting drunk with the people involved.

Was arcanum that game that never came out that was going to be set in a clockwork city? Really liked the idea of the game and is what this trailer reminded me of. Anyway the voice over wasn't for me but the setting looked like it could be fun.

Well at least there are three other people who are enthused/optimistic about this game. I agree on the War design, he was more demonic, less human-looking in the original screenshots. It feels like one of those niggling publisher/marketing decisions though that I'm going to let slide. I'm going shut up about this game for the next 4-5 months and unearth this thread when there is something more concrete like a playable demo.

Not that I want to debate the hammer for much longer there is something that I wanted to mention about it that is what makes me go 'oooh' The swings themselves (there are two, horizontal and vertical) have full collision detection and can be cancelled by things being in the way. For example I was taking a swipe at a guy but the hammer bounced off the corner of the vehicle he was standing next to. Those are the sort of touches that made me fall in love with Far Cry 2. Not only is the multiplayer a lot of fun but there is an offline only hot swap option called wrecking crew. Basically it is the crash time events from Burnout but you have different weapons and abilities (like being temporarily impervious and being able to charge through walls) and you have to try and demolish as much stuff as possible. There are a few different variations (every time you use an ability or fire a shot it uses up time, 1 minute limit and feel free to go ape shit). If this mode had a leaderboard system (although it would be hard to do due to the disparity of the options and weapons available) it would be an awesome XLA title all on its own. The game has moved into a place called the 'Badlands' (reminds me of the planet missions in Mass Effect, in a good way) and the place is huge. The mini-games so far have all varied between good (transporter missions are uninspired but competent races against the clock) and superb (there are these demolition mini-games where you have a pre-defined set of weapons and ammo and you are tasked with taking down an edifice within a certain amount of time) Eurogamer review here they actually use the line 'it's what Mercenaries 2 should have been' PS: I just noticed there was an Earth Defence Force retrospective on there too. Appropriate as that is the name of the villains in RF:G

If you don't mind me saying that is one of the pettiest complaints I've ever heard about a game the size that Red Faction is. Congratulations! (as a game tester that is meant as a compliment) I'm about to downgrade myself to Normal rather than hard difficulty because the missions do get very frustrating otherwise.

Gawd bless ya Ossk. Just ended my marathon session of the wire. 3 series in 2 weeks. With series 3-5 done and dusted I have a big empty hole in my life. Might have to start playing games again.

hhaahah, he's a Brighton Local, used to be part of the Wrong Music crowd. I've spent several evenings in pubs with Mr Scotch Egg (I think his real name is jiggey) can't understand a word he says... I'm getting homesick for Brighton

Pretty positive stuff came in from Joystiq, but I didn't realise it wasn't due until next year... Doh! At least with this scheduling it won't get buried under Bayonetta and God of War 3.

I think that is what my problem is, its a toy that costs 200 dollars (apparently) that's a fair bit of money for something that marginally improves an interface with a menu. Also, is it locked to the X360 or could you use it on your PC? That would hold some interest for me if it could be an interface for Photoshop or the like. Anyways I'm a gamer and the rest of the concepts on display look like expensive gimicky bollocks

But hey most girls don't make lasagne for him they just fuck around and cheat on him. Of course he is going to hell for that. I wonder if he'll ever get over her sucking 36 dicks though.

Damnit at this rate I'll never finish the fight.

To be honest, I agree with the comments about the Natal thing. Not really all that excited about it. Crackdown 2 was good news, MGS less so, having never been a fan. And really, another Halo game? Do we really need another one? I guess so... I'm saying nothing about Beatles Rock Band* *Except for that.

Thanks for the sympathies. My boss is trying to make it work and asking me to come up with ideas. On a more important note there are clearly people out there with more pressing problems than whether to tell the company they work for to go fuck themselves or not. I've been visiting these forums for about 5 years and it is the people who post who keep me coming back. My condolences to everyone who is having a bad year.

What I used to find helped me was to play games with my writing, I treated it like it didn't really matter, which is sort of true, and come up with random stuff. I wrote a whole load of short stories that were rubbish. I also liked to sit and listen to music and write down random words from the lyrics, setting myself certain rules before I listened and wrote. Like only writing the second word of every stanza. Nothing ever directly came of doing that but it did help me focus on words.

The department I work for has just been gutted, everyone else has either been fired or moved into different positions making the tasks we currently do pretty impossible. I'm sitting at home, at 10AM, drinking a beer and trying to summon the courage to go into work on Monday to see who else has been fired. To be honest, all I want to do right now is resign.

Sweet link, I'm a little concerned by the dev not using many different combos while playing though. Even so, it is great to see that the game looks as good in motion as it does in the stills.

Okay I didn't realise it was developers that were striking out. That sucks if that is the reason Eurogamer are re-reviewing it. All the same I'm a big fan of second oppinions. I remember the ever so controversial (?) review someone posted about Farenheit (AKA Indigo Prophecy) on Idle Thumbs back when they still did editorials. The second oppinions expressed then were a good way of counter balancing the largely negative review.

Cool, I'm not the only one then. As for Joe Madureira, purely from an artisitic standing point you should look at his work on the recent 'Ultimates' series (Vol 3, and only the early episodes ) to get a feel for his art style. Ignore the story, it is shit. Of course the link in my first post does suffice if you just want a taste for his drawings. I first encountered him back when he worked on the Astonishing X-men (Age of apocalypse spin-off) in 1994-95. Him and Chris Bachalo were really different from the rest of the more westernised styles that were going on at the time. He did a series called 'Battle Chasers' the artwork is pretty solid, looks a little generic by what we are used to now but at the time I was besotted with it.

Being one of the people who loved Sonic: Unleashed, I agree! Not sure what with yet. However, the re-review from Eurogamer is a good idea simply because they have observed that, maybe, just maybe the person who reviewed it originally didn't click with the game. For example, I love shooting people in the face, especially in Co-Op, I also love zombie stuff. Under those circumstances you'd think I'd be perfect to review L4D. The thing is I really didn't like it (for reasons I don't want to go into because all I'll do is invoke someone's wrath over that), yet the game regularly has 30 000 gamers on it on steam. So Eurogamer are (possibly) worried that the guy they hired to do the review was one of those people who normally likes that sort of thing but didn't get what this one did.