James

(The G stands for 'GTA'.) Video game? Tonight?

I imagine so, as they were created by a Finnish guy and Kolzig's location says Finland. I got a coat, a rucksack, a DVD, a book, some socks, some underpants, and some more socks. This suited me fine, and I wasn't expecting any more, due to various financial predicaments. I had prior knowledge of the first three gifts, and due to a hilarious mix-up, I had actually wrapped the third for somebody else, when it turned out that it was actually meant for me.

"There's autoaim?!" Classic. Sorry you couldn't make it, Marek.

I would go for Fallout 3 ahead of Oblivion because I prefer radiation and crushing hopelessness to blue skies and thriving cities. YMMMMMMMMMVMMVVM Mirror's Edge was on sale a few days ago, and my good PC struggled with that on full settings, so it might have been a good test. It's still only £13, which I'd say it's worth, but it's pretty divisive, and you may already have it for a console. Obviously Crysis was once the monster of resource hogs, and you can still push the settings up pretty far. I enjoyed the game well enough up until the ice started appearing, which unfortunately happens quite early on. I haven't really played it much since. I haven't touched Warhead yet. I don't really know. Good luck!

I used to be more-or-less OK at L4D, but now I seem to be entirely awful almost all the time. Still, it's fun.

Probably a long shot, but there's a small chance it's a close thing. Good game, what I was there for. Nice job on bringing it back for the last Scavenge game, other team. Except Pirate. Screw you and your perpetually victorious turncoat ways.

I also really enjoyed Dead Space, not least for aesthetic reasons: the sound design was superb and I loved the look of the hangars. Also, the first moment delighted me no end. It did get quite repetitive at times, though, and there are elements that seemed bizarre and out-of-place: the jedi powers Miffy mentioned make you feel like too much of a superman, and the zero-G basketball and shooting gallery minigames detract from the atmosphere somewhat. On the other hand, taken as a collection of small cool things, Dead Space has a lot of appeal. Most of it is cosmetic and incidental, like monitors turning to static as you approach them towards the end of the game. I love stuff like that. And of course the floating interface stuff.

Particularly since the DLC interface was introduced in the L4D2 release Steam update.

Well the game just uses Steam aliases, and there's no uniqueness restriction on those (which is why I can be simply "James"), so it would require some sort of special case contingency stuff to disallow it, such as adding numerical suffixes or some such. Anyway, it was a fun game last night.

I did finish PoP2k8, so I can't really say I hated it, but it was definitely a disappointment and my least favourite of the PoP games I've played (which is most of them, I think). Something about it made the whole thing feel very abstracted and artificial. It lacked any sense of immediacy for me (which is basically my way of avoiding saying it wasn't Visceral Games enough for me). The whole series has always been fairly absurd, but previously I've been able to suspend my disbelief. Something about the new one -- or probably a combination of things -- makes it all seem distant and empty. Conceptually, there is a lot of interesting things about it, and the graphical style is definitely very cool, but the actual execution left me cold.

Poor reviews? Really? I thought it had been fairly well-received. I'm not especially well-versed in the genre, though. Not having played the original, I can't really say much HD does it justice. All I can say is that it's one of my go-to games when I have the PS3 on and I need some diversion for a few minutes, possibly while I'm listening to something that requires more attention than an FPS would allow me to spare. Oh, cool. It certainly looks interesting, and PixelJunk games having been taking an upwards trajectory in terms of quality (starting from fairly modest beginnings, granted).

Yeah, I finished that dumb game. I'm not entirely sure why. I guess it wasn't especially difficult, and there were some interesting things about it, but ultimately they didn't make it a good game. Even the visuals were marred for me by the fact that the world itself was so lifeless and utilitarian. I guess there are loads of platformers where little attempt is made to disguise the fact that all you're doing is navigating a series of geometric shapes arranged for optimal traversal challenges (you could accuse the original Prince of Persia of that, and I loved that game), but for some reason it really grated in this instance. Almost all of that game was something of a chore to me, yet I still persevered, I guess because some part of me thought there was something waiting for me at the other end, even if it was just a sense of accomplishment or something.

Are you saying that, when you actually think about it, pretty much all your interactions with the game are a chore, and that you're only playing for some phantom pay-off that you never actually receive? I've never played Dragon Age, but I've certainly felt like that about other things, and I can see someone describing it as a grind. When the whole thing seems very mechanical and empty. I had that pretty badly with the latest Prince of Persia. Not to put words in your mouth or anything, of course.

I played some Super Stardust HD today. It's probably my favourite twin-stick shooter. It can get really chaotic, but the occasions when I manage to navigate the madness are really satisfying.

Oh, happy days...

I'm afraid I probably won't be there. I'm seeing some dumb film or something.

Which I did suggest, but everyone (Armchair) was all "but it's so early, let's prove how hardcore we are", before leaving about three quarters of the way through. Lesson: I always know best. Disclaimer: Above lesson only applies for a small subset of all situations.

About as fitting an end as we could hope for.

It was good using the server tonight. No mucking about trying to find one that works for everyone and doesn't have anything weird about it. I think two versus campaigns in one night might be a bit too much for me, though (although I did stick around until the end).

Everyone knows it's impossible to reach climax unless at least one of the participants is crying.

Ahem, it's WipEout. I would endorse Miffy's suggestion of inFamous, and agree that the downloadable games selection is good.

Also, the frequently inappropriate nature of knobs.

Teabagging often causes diplomatic relations to reach an impasse.

That was me. Wrestle wasn't with us tonight, due to some sort of vehicle-related misfortune. Anyway, it was a fun evening. MATHS.

This thread is exciting. I hope rocket launchers also spontaneously fire from time to time.