AndrewArmstrong

Names to faces! huzzah!

Great final video pod! cast! A real shame it's ending, it's really sad since I've got nothing to replace it and this high quality cast of pod just reminds me of that. Thank you for making the entire thing so great everyone involved in it! Nothing can last forever Also; anyone got a picture of the full panel? I know it's weird but I rarely put faces to names and it's like the only time all 5 of them ever have been together, and it'd certainly be cool to see (Also there was a poster? any pictures of it? )

How is Mafia? I was thinking about picking it up at some point (especially to contrast with recent open world games). Also; G-Police, I had a go again a few years ago and one thing - it was bloody hard, I never got far (all those years ago) originally on the PC. Escort mission after escort mission tries my patience I recall (It was reasonably fun just a shame I never got far).

I just got Anno 1404 special edition (since it was £15 at amazon - a bit more now it seems), and okay...it came with some fine stuff if you want it (Bonus DVD, compass, some plant seeds which were a bit silly, a small poster, art book...), in a neat box (a wooden one! might well reuse that), but sadly the compass was broken! It did also come with the game, which was handy. I usually never bother, mainly because it is mostly tat and much too expensive to justify the purchase, or is stuff I want to seriously bang peoples heads against walls for making pre-order - like extra units in RTS games, I'm looking at you Empire: Total War! I'd agree with the others saying; space is an issue. I have my desk full of computer at home, which is more important then figurines

I enjoy reading the background in the books - Fallout's manual is a testimonial to doing it all in character too (lots of others are the same, got a pile of them on my bookshelf). The issue remains that the in game help systems suuuuccckkkk. I was surprised that BioShock 2, for a First Person Shooter, had more in game help then the manual (better then the original was) and it kept adding things too. In fact, it went a wee bit too far and had more descriptions in the biographies then you ever found out in game (So that's who that person was?!) Mass Effect and Dragon Age (despite terrible layouts) did the background thing well too. I like optional text, and especially like real functional help in games, which most don't offer. This has been a happening trend though. For instance: Valve is terrible at documentation after the original Half-Life games (which had fitting game story bits too, sigh) - the "manual" for Half Life 2 onwards was a pathetic list of controls (no explanation of the 7 year war for YOU!), and the Orange Box doesn't have anything for TF2, and good luck finding a Left 4 Dead manual (Versus as a zombie for the first time is friggin' impossible)...rather large assumptions are made all told that the players both know the FPS genre, know the controls and know how to do things, and no tutorials/hazard courses to boot. Portal just about pulls it off since the entire game basically is a tutorial for a much less hectic puzzle game. A big letdown - and this is one of the prime examples of a (otherwise) brilliant Video game company. Now Ubisoft are doing it, you've got to wonder... Little rant there, but if manuals go, the documentation in game MUST compensate. A PDF manual isn't the same either, you usually can't look at that and play a game (especially if it crashes or goes wonky alt-tabbing) - and it doesn't help console players at all!

Indeed - there were times when I found it refreshing I *could* kill people before they ran off and did a chase. Of course these were only ever minor missions. I think you mistake "dry gameplay" as a purely negative comment as that is the only major time I describe the core stuff. It's fine, just dry - it works, and is functional (and pretty darn easy), but could be so much more. Makes me long for Max Payne-like action, rather then pop guns and people constantly hiding, heh.

Repeating a lot of others but some serious missing ones! You need to look at some classic RPG's. I'd defiantly recommend: Baldur's Gate series - Classic 2d tactical D&D RPG games. Text text text text. BG2 had good character development, and is tough as nails if you install AI mods (since I'm replaying it and I'm stuck, stupid planar sphere...might come back when I get Time Stop, you foolish halflings!) Planescape Torment is highly recommended, is next after BG2 for me. Neverwinter Nights - gobloads of custom content (I modded a bit for it too!), but the games campaigns are pretty fun after the original games (which was mainly a slog). Can get packs of all the games content which is hours of fun if you like D&D 3E and the stories presented. Mount & Blade - Brilliant open-worldness in a world of swords, shields and arrows. Massive battles, basically a sandbox for fighting. Amazing fun if you get into it, addictive as anything. Knights of the Old Republic - Star Wars RPG, with D&D backend rules. I found it much more fun on PC, and man was it fun to romp around as a proper badass Jedi. Fun story too (there's a reason they're reusing the setting for the MMO rather then the "Empire" setting again). Looked better too then the original Xbox. The second game is okay, mainly kinda a rushed story and some real dead brained plot points. Mentioned was Deus Ex - great to try! I need to finish this, but it is insanely fun figuring out espionage or just going in guns blazing or whatever. Individual missions are pretty sandbox heavy so you get to play around and explore (with a few situations thrown where you're stuck making some kind of mandatory decision mind you, usually at the end of missions - it is a linear game really). Strategy was mentioned a lot (and is better on PC). I had fun with Red Alert 1/2 (they're free on EA's site I think now) Total War is brilliant and huge/time consuming Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 1/2 are well built single and multiplayer RTS games by Relic. Homeworld 1 and 2 are meant to be good too, but never finished 1 (v. hard singleplayer). Civilization 4 will ruin your life, so play it. Turn based strategy at it's finest. I recently also have been playing AI War, a surprisingly fun co-op strategy game (I love co-op, love big strategy games...great mix!). Warcraft III for some slightly newer fun - shame it has fixed resolutions (urg) but the singleplayer was pretty fun, and Defence of the Ancients is probably worth a shot too. Age of Empires II - Terribly fun singleplayer, surprisingly so for a isometric game, and the best of the series by far in my opinion. SimCity was mentioned, but there's also Transport Tycoon (see Open Transport Tycoon for a free version recently updated to version 1.0), and Rollercoaster Tycoon (which I'm not tempted to reinstall, heh) where you build a awesome theme park. Shooters since they're fun: I think everyone can agree the original Half-Life is worth playing. Some parts seriously didn't age well graphically, but it has inventive levels (and bosses) and a lot of polish. Xen (alien world) bit at the end isn't too hot. Sequels are fine too. Valve's stuff is generally top notch if you can do FPS mechanics. Max Payne 1 and 2 are top notch (I'd recommend both). Film noir shooters. Brilliant. Still love the over the top stories, just shouts "Awesome" at you in slow motion, and the games are relatively short making them not live out their welcome. The early Call of Duty games (1 and 2) hold up well singleplayer-game wise, and are fun, I always thought much better then Medal of Honour (not that MoH was bad mind you). Great, great setpieces and battles. Star Wars: Republic Commando (was this on consoles? probably, easy to play on the PC though, so well designed!) - great linear singleplayer team-based shooter game, and man I don't like the prequels much so that was surprising when I played it. I still don't know why this has no sequel, it had a cliffhanger ending and was so much more fun then the films! Thief (is this a shooter? more stealth...) - I'm terrible at it, but it is a brilliant series. Stalker's been mentioned. Yes, play it, brilliant. Must have. Deadly efficient at killing you, you must be good at FPS games to survive, but it is such a satisfying game - you can actually explore world and do things your way. Others: Psychonauts - Amazingly fun (characters, sheer madness, going into peoples minds! and the levels are pretty good and don't rely on dreaded 3d platforming much, and works well on the PC), although the difficulty curve at the end can be game-ending, there is some ingenious parts to the game that make it worth playing at least up until that point. Beyond Good and Evil - Another platformer, yes it is pretty damn fun actually. Again, for some bizarre reason, the most stupidly hard boss at the end, but playing the rest of it is cool. Simply a very nice setting. Story isn't explained much either, but the characters are darn fun. I found it fine on the PC control-wise. A few of the classic point and clicks I enjoyed, mainly for the story; Day of the Tentacle (although completed this sans guide!), Discworld 1 (not played 2), Sam and Max (very Guidedangit though). Not played many as you can see. That's about it for me and these are, well, all must-plays in my opinion, at least for the singleplayer element. I could narrow it down, but why bother? no one else has

Ordered this, was playing the beta multiplayer a bit and liked it, enjoyable romp, but the thought of replaying a slightly improved singleplayer has me going - like Michalius I might well change my playstyle (I loved Swadia though...), depends what I feel like I guess. The thought of creating my own kingdom is bloody tempting though....*chuckles madly* Hopefully there'll be a updated NPC guide somewhere though if the silly "don't like this team mate" thing is still there, was about the only thing that annoyed me vastly in the singleplayer until I found the "NPC relationship guide" everything else about the game was found easily through a mixture of trial and error (ie; massive crushing loss and defeat) and experience (food and money management was quite nicely built up).

What are you on about? It was just a pretty terribly done non-choice for me that was so far the most pointless part of it. You know there can be parts of the game you dislike, even though you still play the whole game? Why is that hilarious or odd? I "liked" the result of the "shit option" more because it simply gave me more to do; I really didn't like either character much (one was a dickhead, the other was a depressed whiner criminal), and the missions leading up to it left a lot to be desired. There is some minor befriending and a mansion and that's it (I looked it up online since it seemed such a silly choice), so I took that option since I had to do *something* it seemed, since those pesky mission icons don't disappear by themselves. Do you want me to go on? I only brought it up because it both stood out as one of the poorer attempts to put a junction in a story path the player has a choice in (one of the paths was a choice which lead to...simply nothing), and was commented on earlier in the thread! I've heard the ending is similar - two paths, no doubt I'll not enjoy that much either, but we'll see.

Not finished it yet, unlocked the third island now. Hmm, hilariously disengaged from the options to kill people or not. What I didn't get is that there is no third option; Playboy X or Dwayne HAS to go. No way to kill both or neither. Urg. I looked it up online what did what, and Dwayne was just the better choice because I had more things to do afterwards (and he half redeems himself or whatever being your friend). The Niko attitude shift is something I saw too - I'm totally vaguely wandering between missions basically killing things for money - ie; any earlier GTA game - so it's got pretty monotomous. Damn man, why do I need money? I just robbed a bank for 250,000 and I'm STILL looking for money?!? I CANNOT PURCHASE ANYTHING FOR A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS IN THIS GAME Also, I just murdered like, a thousand cops getting away from that bank heist (It must be okay, they're only cops! :/ ). I then went back to the bank (I wondered if I could steal those special vans, they were still locked) and the dudes you fight were all respawned! Only attacked me when I went near the bank entrance, and my allies were just happily sitting in the car complaining about being shot for a while. Weird...so many mission things are just like the old games, I love seeing what I can "break". The gameplay is pretty dry, although I like exciting chase sequences even if the cars are like Mako Jumpy style and have no grip or weight whatsoever. It's hilarious seeing the AI (cop car, taxi, race car, whatever) trying to go through heavy traffic though. Bumping the cars up to max makes it more fun, but in a decidedly odd way massive car pile ups almost everywhere, wooo. Plus points for a nice set of things to do out of missions (even if they are inane after a while, and there is literally nothing to explore in the city), although man, just doing things takes a lot of effort and there is really no real reason to continue apart from some vague "Niko wants vengeance on two people he's barely mentioned" thing going on. Am wondering about the expansion things, might get them, but need to finish this first. Good and bad all round then. Multiplayer is okay I guess, I like the fighting NPC missions myself, co-op is always cooler then competitive

Why wasn't the spam link removed if it was caught? Can we report spam somehow here? (I presume that account was hacked too, but that's only a guess).

Aye, utterly balls up. I'm going to write to my prospective and current MP's asking about this. At least, I say at least, the Liberal Democrats voted against this bill and pushed the electoral reform I'm reading more about now. For those not in the know about this law (and it's a little more then just disconnects, it has some Video game stuff too): http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/digital-economy-bill http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-quick-guide-45-measures http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-video-games Note the Conservatives intentionally didn't turn up - ie abstained - since they got their bits in. Gah. Stupid representative republic...

Urg, the post is right, charging for April Fools jokes is just...wrong... Sigh.

Haha, the Remi Gaillard beach one reminds me so much of Trigger Happy TV. Good times...well pulled off too. The RedLetterMedia reviews are excellent, the Star Wars one is by far the best, but the longest too. There's an Avatar one, and some for Star Trek films too. Excellently funny, well worth the watch!

Totally up for learning the multiplayer, but am a bigger fan of the Last Stand mode as noted I could guide someone through that, although I've got this wierd thing - in all multiplayer modes I can't get text chat working (voice I don't care about). This only happened I think after Chaos Rising... ...any ideas? Is it broken for anyone else? (apart from the HTTP and HTTPS ports I've port forwarded everything for GFWL and Steam...). Very, very odd...

Or you could just not buy alcohol you know. You can still get in the pub with someone else I am sure - I'm not sure of the lower limit, but anywhere in the teens is no doubt okay if they don't drink alcohol. That's one reason not to get to America early, before 21 (!) you've no chance. Luckily never went before I was 21 so no worries for me Still need to get to Canada though!

I forgot how good these were. It's like blowing my mind with how awesome IGN is all over again, and again, and again, hardcore style. Even at 70/page it is 11 pages long. Wowza, got a lot of reading on my hands, only got through a few. Will serve me well at work for a while, heh.

Exactly, brkl hit the nail on the head. Looks like future changes will be "easier" with "management oversight" to check they won't "break any contracts" or be "insubordinate" which might lead to "Blizzard management changes"... Ho hum...history goes in a discreetly small circle when it comes to corporations. Man this is fast though

Meh, press release fact sheets read like hyperbolic rubbish with no substance. I'll wait until someone actually plays it to hear how it is.

I've been catching up on recorded episodes of Wallander (pronounce: "val-ander" (we've also got the British ones recorded to watch after too, which should be fun also). Quite a good detective/cop thing (fun to watch, which is what counts, especially since it is 1:30 or so, for a 2 hour time slot, so proper film length. No CSI bullshit either, proper detective work! Not always perfect cases and technology doesn't solve everything, hooray!). Good cast, with some really dark cases in places. Sweden will never be the same in my eyes. Poor police are understaffed, overworked and never get a break! Poor guys, especially the lead who just never seems to nail a relationship. Worth a view if it's ever aired near you.

I'd come if I had anyone to journey from ta midlands with (that's "Up North" for anyone who lives in London or so I've been told, hehe), but London's a tad far just to visit an arcade go and pub. Bet you'll have fun though However, I might well try and make London for a likely Eurogamer Expo this fall, might be good to meet some people there

Tim Burton films are getting pret-tey formulaic. I've not seen the new film, don't really want to, but this script really does lay it down. I liked the nod to American McGee's Alice though, which I saw a Let's Play of which was pretty awesome and dark (imaginative dark, not stupid dark). I don't think the "Give a weird character a backstory" thing is anything other then time padding and really, really freaky justification for the characters. No rhyme or reason for it (the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation just is rubbish, ruins a perfectly good childhood book which had it's own perfectly good brand of weirdness! Dentist fathers are just plain stupid). Not been rushing to see Burton, but as a causal viewer it does tend to put me of what he's rehashing in films. He's done some rather more unique and clever original films, it's just sad to see a director trotting out remakes. Wonder what will be next, any guesses? Best bet: The Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West had an abusive relationship with her sister of the East (with lots of CGI and a Johnny Depp crazy scarecrow). Edit-fu: OMG, didn't read all of OssK comment, and he said Oz too. Haha! This makes me sad

I loved Award Winning Academy Trailer, hahaha

I wondered about this. I honestly doubt I'd survive long without electricity to be honest. Not really got the survival skills needed However, found this image today (apparently from Game Informer, so Video game references too!), fun to go through, and sooo clichéd of course

This is a pokemon meme site with some half-funny stuff. Image sites waste my life today! (note: some are really, really weird...).