Cigol

Cigol #139 (EU)

Except; ...more like embarrassing jabs. Game is plenty though, I agree.

I also have stuttering and pauses in the very beginning of missions. It happened in Company of Heroes too weirdly enough... but after that it's plain sailing. Since I'm mostly playing in multiplayer though I've just gone and stuck every setting on low. I don't feel like I'm missing anything, as it still looks nice, arguably even better with it being less busy and clearer to the eye. Still, I'm assuming you've tried turning everything to the lowest setting (especially stuff like textures)? Because either that or a slow (laptop?) hard-drive would be my guess. Either way, it's an odd game... I agree with a lot of the criticisms, in fact I'd go further, but I just can't stop playing and enjoying every minute of it (except for those where I get ass-raped or berated by other players for being such a noob). In a sense I feel like I've gone back in time and am experiencing my first run with the original StarCraft, only it doesn't feel like I'm retreading ground but experiencing it anew, fresh. I wonder what people who aren't familiar with the original think though?

You can use a DS3 with the PSPgo, but I've also read that you can use a DS3 with normal PSP's provided you have custom firmware (?). As far as Peace Walker is concerned, the controls aren't ideal but when the game is this good it's easy to ignore. I don't see anything particularly difficult. The PSP and the PSPgo are two separate machines. That they use different peripherals or in the case of the GO are digital only is pretty straightforward. The only thing 'difficult' about the PSP is trying to understand all the jargon in relation to custom firmware. The rest is easy.

In any thread discussing Orcarina of Time someone will eventually bring up Majoras Mask, it's Ganons law (or something).

It's a £20 PSN card, so you can add £20 to your PSN account and spend as you please. With Persona 3 Portable I think I paid little more than £4 for shipping to the UK from Canada at video gamesplus.ca and it took around a week for delivery. It cost a few quid more, but I felt it was worth it even though I prefer digital copies and dislike UMDs.It's not that there's anything stopping you from importing digitally, I just find the whole thing to be a pain in the ass because you have to switch accounts/regions on the PSP every single time - and each time you do you're locked out of the other regions content until you switch again. When you've got a lot of digital content and you like to play them all rather than focus on just one game at a time it's a bit of a turn-off. At least for me anyway, other people don't seem to care so your mileage may vary, especially if you're buying lots of import games where I would only buy one or two every year or so.

You might want to look at the deal from ShopTo, it's still relatively expensive but you seem to get a lot for your money, especially with the PSN voucher on top of the free games. But it doesn't come with a memory stick, it has internal memory, and if you do have memory sticks for your normal PSP they won't work in the PSPgo since it uses a different format. 16GB sounds like a lot for the PSP but it will only suffice for games, if you start adding music, movies & comics it disappears fast. I have an 8GB Samsung and 16gb Sony for my PSP 3000 and I still have to use MediaGo to organise stuff between them and my PC. You'll also have much more trouble importing games digitally (like the recently released Persona 3 Portable) to the extent that if you're like me you won't want to bother since it involves a lot of faffing around just to switch between imported and non-imported titles. With the older PSPs you can just import the UMD and it's no problem, the PSP doesn't care, but with digital titles it is region locked so you have to keep swapping it between regions/accounts. You also miss out on a quite a few good games if you rely on PSN alone, whether you'd need to import them or not, since not all older games are up, and not all *can* go up (luminees has licensing issues for example)... but seeing as you already have a PSP I guess that's not a big deal. I've been playing on it more than my PC/PS3, and I haven't even gotten around to some of the newer titles. It's annoying owning a Sony console though, since you have to constantly read how much of a failure it is and how there's no games for it...

EDIT; ...I'm half asleep. I've just sat through MGS4's cutscenes.

The frame rate seems a little choppy in action scenes, I've heard it mentioned in 'hands-on previews' and experienced it myself with the PS3/PC ports of GTA4, so I guess there's that... but otherwise it looks like a GTA Western which is exactly what I hoped for

Totally 'like a painting come to life'. It's beautiful. I honestly can't believe how good the environments look. It's ridiculously good... The story doesn't actually kick in until quite late in the first game, and even then it comes to you in dribs and drabs before being laid on thick towards the very end. The original is quite slow and if you're not a big fan of the combat/puzzles then I can see how you might lose interest long before they start fleshing out his backstory and your impetus for mashing peoples heads into a pulp... I can also see how if you jump and flit between the games without this prior appreciation for the character and his journey it's not going to have the same impact (especially when you're only staying around for a portion of the game and not seeing it through to completion). And had I not done just that after buying the GOW collection I would have said much the same thing as you I'm sure - since from the outside looking in that is how it seems.

I'm guessing you haven't played the originals? It has a compelling story tying it all together giving you a good enough reason to furiously mash buttons and rip peoples heads off. It unfolds slowly in the first game, only gradually revealing its backstory, before ending on a cliffhanger in the second that the third immediately picks up from. So ideally you'd want to play the first two before starting the third. The pacing is quite good as well, with some real head-scratching but ultimately rewarding puzzles, and fantastic level design which creates a believable and rooted environment in amongst all the jaw-dropping vistas. * ...but I've not played the third game yet (mines still in the post), so I don't know, but based on the original games the E3 demo isn't going to be wholly representative of the full experience. There is more to it than button mashing. *Ignoring some of the more difficult platforming sections and timed puzzles, that is.

I fail to see what's funny. All of those games you mentioned have good to great voice acting and I wasn't holding Heavy Rain aloft declaring it the king of all games. One last time; I never said the voice acting was perfect. It's not. I said 'at it's best' it is second to none, and it is frequently at its best when it really matters. I'm talking about stuff like the time . To me that is some of the best voice acting in a Video game.

I played it in English. I never said the voice acting, or for that matter the animation, was perfect. It's not. I said 'at it's best' it is second to none, and it is frequently at its best when it really matters. A lot of games have a monotonously voiced script that maintains a solid consistency throughout - that might help avoid many of the pitfalls Heavy Rain succumbs to, but it also prevents them from reaching the same heights. ...but whatever, I don't have David Cage on the brain so I might be more appreciative.

Through the power of the PS3 of course. For those hinging their decision to play the game on the number of chickens juggled, I have to point out it happened so fast (and I was so emotionally invested in the proceedings) that it could well have been a single chicken, not a pair.

I felt the same way about the original Mass Effect. I think I've played around 42 hours of Dragon Age so far, and I still haven't completed it because there's just too much content. It's draining having to actually listen to all the dialogue and when I went back to it (after completing Mass Effect 2 and feeling optimistic about my chances) I rushed through the last location marked on the map only to be greeted with two new unexplored locations that required you to jump through the same familiar hoops associated with all the previous areas. I like the game, but I just wish it'd end already!

I personally thought the game for all its flaws was fantastic from start to finish. Even if it does get a little farcical towards the end (and I found the resolution with the killer less than satisfying) the story is still nowhere near as bad as Fahrenheit - which shouldn't even be mentioned since it's as far removed from that as you can get in sequel terms. I guess the first casualty of a Video game like this is always going to be its story, since it has to be manufactured in such a way to be playable - and some of the scenes with Madison were unnecessarily overtly sexual, not to mention appeared out of place (a bit like herself in the beginning actually), but it was my experience that there was always a scene to follow those missteps which brought everything back onto an even keel, so I personally found it easy to forgive and forget the games lesser moments (such as when you end up juggling a pair of chickens mid-chase), especially as they were few and far between. However, saying that the story wasn't perfect I don't buy this argument it's awful or even bad in any way shape or form. Admittedly it's not going to win any awards but it's a Video game doing something video games rarely if ever do - and it does it extremely well. I've never played anything quite like it, and I've never been as emotionally invested in characters as much as I have in Heavy Rain. I struggled to put the controller down at times it was that engrossing, and I felt the game ran the emotional gamut like no other game before it, with everything from quiet, understated sweet and touching moments right up to the more intense moments of fear and anguish. I was also really impressed with the majority of the voice acting. I'd say at its best it's second to none. I'm not going to spoil any of the scenes but obviously there are some really intense emotional moments that require convincing voice acting, and in many games that can either fall flat or end up as a cringe inducing wall of noise, but here they really pull it off. It seems a shame that some have focused exclusively on the occasional bad line, or foreign accent, since it's achievements here are much greater. The same goes for the animation and modelling. I'm no expert, in fact I'm the opposite, but I have eyes and they saw some of the most convincing virtual actors in a Video game I've ever seen. Like everything in Heavy Rain it wasn't flawless, the quality wasn't consistent throughout and it was obviously self-contained in that it could get away with some stuff other games couldn't... but it doesn't change how eerily realistic and convincing it was. I did find it interesting that none of the reviews mentioned any of the technical hitches affecting the game. I never installed the patch on recommendation and I still suffered some audio skipping (which btw you could often cure by pausing and waiting for it to finish caching), and one loading screen which seemingly ran forever. Thankfully a restart fixed that, but I've heard some real horror stories with saves being corrupted.

Heavy Rain it was fucking great.

Dawn of War II for £5; (http://uk-thq-eshop.gamesplanet.com/pc-games/buy-download-Dawn-of-War-II.html) and Supreme Commander Gold (SC + Forged Alliance) for £4.50 here; (http://www.direct2drive.co.uk/5269/product/Buy-Supreme-Commander-Gold-Download) There's also indie games and other stuff (that will be posted more than once by several people); http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/27/the-rps-bargain-bucket-serious-indie/#more-26085

Yeah but the laugh of it is I doubt God of War will be called out for its violence. Maybe someone should email the link of that video to the Daily Mail or something, get the game some much needed publicity... ...because oh mah gawd it's absolutely fupping brilliant from start to finish. Amazing stuff, a day one purchase for sure. It's implementation of quick-time-events was slightly less intuitive than Heavy Rains David Cages though.

...just thought I'd point out the E3 demo for the third God of War is now available to everyone on PSN. I never played the originals the first time around so am currently going through the God of War collection (which could very nearly pass for a 'next gen' game) but still won't be able to resist downloading it. WsirJeo7HQU

I've played up to that point so far and the scene with the baby was actually very sweet.

I'm half expecting one or two of you to turn around and say you were taking the piss, because some of the posts in here are... What marketing? I don't watch television either, but even I've seen advertisements for Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock 2 and all the other games that are advancing their genres into exciting new territories on a shoestring budget whilst fully deserving of their inflated review scores - yet I've not seen a single advertisement for Heavy Rain. District 9 was a great game though I agree! How's that work then?I also don't understand this aversion to Heavy Rain. You don't like a game you don't play it, simple as that. It's not as if someone has a gun to your head, nor are they taking an existing franchise, turning it upside down and pissing on its grave. It's an original IP doing something relatively unique, and since (currently) there's nothing else comparable out there it makes such damning criticism appear extremely unfair. Especially when less deserving games get a free pass. Even if you don't like it, surely you must recognise the potential that more games of this ilk brings? whoever it's made by. ...but lets pretend you've played Heavy Rain and you maintain it's an aberration. For those who want a game in a similar vein, and yes those people do exist (and dream of games like Blade Runner as opposed to Modern Warfare Battlefield Heroics 4), what do you recommend in its stead? I mean for such heavy handed criticism there must be a veritable landslide of titles just waiting to be unleashed. More Cage rage! I find it hard to understand how you haterz can fixate on him since he appeared for what felt like one solitary minute during the beginning of Fahrenheit as part of a tutorial... and that was it.

If you mean http://www.shopto.net/ they are selling the 360 version for £33 and the PC version for £25 (with free shipping in both cases).

Or do what I do, rest the XMB focus on the game and just listen to the looping background music

People already are... in the existing Bioshock 2 thread; http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6390