twmac

Having spent last year or so as a prophet for EDF (went to Australia and bought a copy so that the testers over there could see what it was like, also bought another copy in LA and convinced some of the testers I was with that it was the most awesome game ever, and convinced tons of people in Montreal and Brighton that they should buy it) I'm very curious as to what you think of it. Make sure you get the chance to play it in co-op.

Maybe it's my low expectations, maybe it's the fact that I worked in a carpark and pen factory at one point in my life... But I find the brutality of the games industry quite entertaining. August the 8th marked my 4th year of being a games tester having refused to rise above that rank and spurned a fair few promotions I'm still hanging on but I suppose because I never really expected it to be awesome, just wanted to play games. I've not really been all that bothered by it. Admittedly I've quit my job 3 times...

A McCain support with no life. I've just outside of 20 thousand achievement points and I hardly have the time to do anything... 32000!

Really? The 360 has Rez HD, Ikaruga with online play, Alien Homnid, Heavy Weapon (admittedly that was originally a Pop-Cap PC game), the Geometry wars games, Assault Heroes 1 and 2... Certainly it does have a lot of dross. Do you mean that the PS3 is looking better because Sony are being more selective perhaps?

I had this problem in Canada when my profile was linked to a UK address. I ended up sticking to having an online only profile that I used (up until four weeks ago) to play over Xbox LIVE and my normal account which I used for achievements and genrally staying in touch with people. You might be able to get one of your friends to get you a subscription card, or MS points card from Holland and send it over. It might be risky but it worked for me. I agree that it is a shoddy thing for Microsoft to do, like how some people's random achievements disappear after logging online for the first time (top tip: don't connect your hard drive with your profile to some one else's 360 while they are online and it is the first time you've ever connected to LIVE; get a Memory Unit if you have to). Don't know what to say apart from 'good luck'

What!?!? The Game Gear and Master System versions lived by that rule. And the were bastard-hard in the later levels.

Ouch, should have seen that one coming

The artwork, the music, the puzzles... It is beautiful, when I get paid at the end of the month it is my first purchase on XBLA. 1200 points is too much for Lumines but not for this.

Actually there is a tactic to Sonic 2. You can easily earn one life on the first level of Sonic 2 by collecting 100 rings and not triggering a half way point Go to one of the half way points (a post with a rotating globe on it) and trigger the bonus stage. Whether you successfully complete the bonus stage or not kill yourself and collect another 100 rings and repeat the process. You can collect all of the chaos emeralds on the first level using that process.

Are you dissing the Sonic Heroes theme tune? How dare you!

If people wonder what achievements are about I think I have a perfect example in this thread. I should be getting my 360 back in the next week or so and will be planning on getting a few games on XBLA (Commando 3, Rez, Ikaruga, Assault Heroes 2, Fatal Fury) so I should pick this up at the same time. Miffy you can laugh at my atrocious scores. I remember coming with 4 thousand points of the achievement for 500 000 points, that hurt a lot when I died oh so close to it. The worst part is that my connection dropped out at the end of the game so the score was never even uploaded.

Broke my golden rule of not having any games on my Laptop and downloaded this a couple of days ago and have very much enjoyed it so far. As soon as my Mastercard clears in a couple of days I will definitely be paying for it. I've only gotten as far as the First three doors on the Alien craft but so far the humour has been spot on and the reference to the rubber chicken with a pulley in it right at the beginning made me grin. I'd agree withh Vimes about some of the UI stuff, having to scroll through the different possible actions is a little annoying especially without a mouse (are there any hot keys for instant skipping to these actions?). It is, however, a very minor gripe and I've enjoyed everything else so far. Rock Paper Shotgun have also endorsed it so hopefully you are getting a fair bit of interest.

They bare the same value as highscores, it is all about the bragging rights. I've reached about 19000 achievement points on my profile and some of them are pure dross (how I wish I could take back the time spent on Gun). But the 'Last 60 seconds without firing a shot' on Geometry wars and 'Complete King difficulty' on Conan are quite special to me. If you get hooked on achievements they often give the game some replayability too, as long as the game's achievements are well thought out. Other games help you strive to do better, the ones in Virtua Tennis 3 are excellent as they encourage you to try out different shots and new tactics. There are those that are lazy (Enchanted Arms) and those that actually spoiled the game for me a little (Oblivion, Eternal Sonata) then there are those that are just retarded (Gears of War and it's 10000 kills online, most of the Blacksite ones)... Of course the achievements can only do that if you want to unlock them.

Hurrah! How did it go? Are there any pictures? Sadly, due to lack of finances I had to retreat into the dark regions of Cheltenham a few days ago and was unable to attend. Am now in the process of trying to look for a job involving game testing or off-liscensing work.

The first game gear game is solid, although for some reason they changed the bosses from the Master system version so there are couple that are actually easier in the GG version. The second GG sonic is an exercise in frustration, the first boss is a pain in the arse (the soundtrack is rather good though). Sonic 1, 2 and 3 (Megadrive/genesis) are great as is Sonic CD (Mega/SEGA CD). I didn't mind Sonic 3D - Flicky's Island but I very much understand why people don't like it. The controls are a little awkward and it fails to live up to what Sonic is about, which is about going really fast. The second Sonic on the Master System is also fun but good luck to getting past the hang glider section on your first try. Have you tried any of the GBA or DS titles? I quite enjoyed all of those.

Picked thsi up on the strength of D3 publishers and have to say that it is a pretty strong title. Most of the cover system stuff is ripped off from Gears of War and even though the engine is supposed to be proprietry it looks an awful lot like the Unreal one. That said the glaive weapon is extremely good fun and there is plenty of visceral joy to be had by using aftertouch to slice through multiple enemies. The monster and level design is solid and there are some great set pieces so far, the most notable is when you're in this fire fight with a bunch of storm trooper types and a huge beast jumps into view and takes on all of you. Maybe it is because I've gotten too used to being pampered but I have to say that the approach to some of the boss battles verges on 16 bit. By this I mean that there are very few clues as to how to beat them and one guy (bi-pedal mech troop) I gave up and searched gamefaqs for the answer. There is a demo on the 360 that shows you quite a few of the glaive powers (there are ones that you don't get until about level 4 or 5 that really rock) if you interested and need a game to play before the big uns in August and September.

I know what you mean, even Ghouls n ghosts made sure you had infinite continues becuase the core gameplay was so hard that it didn't matter how many lives you had. Dark Sector from the basis of punishment is quite good, the bits that are most likely to get you smashing a controller through sheer confusion always restart you right back at the beginning of the encounter (although sometimes just before an annoying cutscene). My problem with it was the lack of logical feed back for when you were doing something right on some of the boss fights. Rather than out and out frag fests of some of the other games in this genre, all the bosses were more like trial and error puzzles (the first big boss is invulnerable to fire, that is, until you do something else and although he doesn't appear to have changed he is now susceptible to it). The more I've played it the less I resent it as I've come to realise that is the way you play the game and I just have to put my Metroid/castlevania II hat on and look at the layout of a level and figure out what I've got and how best to use it. I would say that this ethos is missing bar from a handful of games (Tombraider being one of them). Most developers would have given you some kind of in-game cutscene to point out the enemies weaknesses or made them larger and quite a bit brighter than they are in Dark Sector. In fact, the encounters are less and less annoying becuase I'm not blaming the game but rather myself for not figuring it out. It is still going to piss most people off but then that is what Gamefaqs is for.

I watched the first couple of installments, they were okay. I'm not a fan of musicals but it did make me laugh. The guy who used to play Doogie Hauser is particularly good and Nathn Fillion is always good (accidentally bumped into him in Melbourne he is a thoroughly nice bloke in real life). Was thinking about paying for it but they would force me to update my iTunes, after the 360 compatibility fiasco I'm not doing that shit again.

In Zack Snyder's defence (director of Watchemen, 300, the Dawn of the Dead remake and countless music videos) 300's script is leaden because the source material is very much in the same vein. I cringed all the way through Frank Miller's comic, the visuals were great but the dialogue, egads the script. Even if you ignore that, historically it is total bollocks (the Spartans were encouraged to form special relationships with all of their fellow soldiers and women were considered mainly a necessity for procreation) the whole thing comes off as a lot of chest puffing, macho crap. If anything the film faithfully recreates that in all its 'glory'. Watchmen could be good, at least visually it will be fine. As Snyder has little control on the script it will be down to the guy in charge of that department.

Link? To a site or preview or anything?

You'd be surprised Dan. I'm only in Brighton for another week, roughly. Has to do with thekenty and (very old idle thumber) Beardy being in town and having the desire to play 360. That said, every time I revisit Brighton it reminds me of why I loved living here. EDIT: I heard that there be some kind of games related pub quiz going on at the Caroline of Brunswick in Brighton on the 28th of this month. I think you need to apply via Internet but there are people like guys from Babel, Epic (not THE Epic) and Euro Gamer showing up.

Well that is disappointing as I was sort of looking forward to that one. Still going to check it out as I'm a big fan of co-op games of this ilk.

I'm actually a little upset by the Xbox dashboard rethink. I actually like the way they are right now. I mean some of it is my reactionary nature but I don't want them to totally rehaul the interface just after I got comfortable with the previous tweaking they did. The rest was a bit like being a Coldplay fan and listening to their new album, competent but hardly exciting. I know it is somewhat of a thumbs forum faux-pas but I'm looking forward to Gears of War 2 but it wasn't that much of a revelation that it was due this year.

If you like the Devil may cry series then DMC4 is another competent entry and worth a go, I thought it was shit but I've never liked the game anyway. Eternal sonata is great, I can't stand JRPGs but this one is a gem. The battle system is different to most and the art design is pretty good as is the story. I usually hate games like Mass Effect but I found really quite good. Enough to play it from beginning to end.

Played this game's intro and long winded turorial... From a game play standing point seems fairly competent but there are simply too many unskippable cutscenes and the plot seems completely hackneyed. I turned it off after an hour and a half and will not be returning.