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I beat Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory yesterday. It's certainly the best Splinter Cell game I've played, probably my third favourite stealth game.

 

I'm so so so so so so so happy you loved Chaos Theory, It's literally THE anti-Tom Clancy game. It ditches rah-rah nationalistic, patriotic wankery and blown out useless mechanics and tools that have and are expected in Tom Clancy licensed games, and it instead opts to be smooth, clever, focused, sharp, and to the point. I can't think of a more perfect modern stealth game, so succinct in its mechanics and how sharp in its dialogue and character development. And what's amazing is how no one notices? That speaks to the true beauty of the game. Everything fits perfectly, everything is in place, nothing feels like an overblown idea, or useless padding.

 

Another thing that I love about the game, and is something I've only heard Steve talk about and laud, is the physicality of the game. It's been 9 years since it came out, and there's been no other third person shooter that makes interacting with the world so visually tactile. Games now have the power to create amazing, detailed, mocapped animation that can be even be procedural if they wanted, but Chaos Theory's half mo-cap, half hand made animation is so smooth and tactile it's just...ugh. And don't get me started on the music, that motherfucking muuusiiicc aaaaaaaaahh.

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! Chaos Theory is fantastic. Personally, I'd skip the Splinter Cell games and head to black list. It's basically a poor man's Chaos Theory, but it's still a good game. 

 

I got CT on steam recently for like £3 just to play it again. 

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Chaos Theory is my favorite Splinter Cell game. (Although, to be totally fair to the series, I haven't played Black List or Essentials, so I can't say its the best with 100% accuracy).

Everything about it just felt... good.  And then they re-released it on the 3DS as Splinter Cell 3D, of which I also have a copy, and its actually a pretty decent recreation. The controls are a little weird at times, but I like having a great stealth game that I can play wherever, especially now that I no longer have my PS2.  They added in those weird mission prompt things on the walls from Conviction, which was an odd choice, but still looks good.

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[...]

Another thing that I love about the game, and is something I've only heard Steve talk about and laud, is the physicality of the game. It's been 9 years since it came out, and there's been no other third person shooter that makes interacting with the world so visually tactile. Games now have the power to create amazing, detailed, mocapped animation that can be even be procedural if they wanted, but Chaos Theory's half mo-cap, half hand made animation is so smooth and tactile it's just...ugh. [...]

Yeah, that's another thing I should've mentioned, but I wasn't sure wheter the animations were exceptional or I was just enamoured how the game ran consistently at 60 FPS (or something. Still being computer hardware impaired, I've become used to lower FPS and stuttering in my games). I was left admiring the animations on many occasions. For example, you'll be crouching in a shadow when a guard walks past you. Fisher will turn his head to look at the approaching guard, and as they get closer he crouches slightly lower, moves his left hand forward preparing to grab them and his right hand towards the knife holster. Likewise the sneaking animation is different when you're close to enemies. These small details are just fantastic.

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Imo, Chaos Theory is Clint Hocking's true masterpiece. Sorry Far Cry 2, step aside.

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I agree, but I'm biased. I have a natural preference for stealth games. I really want to play it now!

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I just beat the final Blackwell game and WOW, what a great ending to a series. I can really say more without spoilers. T_T

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Oh, I have one. Killzone Mercenary. Meh, it was better than I expected for an FPS on the vita. I'd say play it if you get the urge for FPS stuff and you have a vita, but it's not a must play.

I did like the stealth mechanics and the different load outs. They did make me feel like I was playing differently unlike most shooters were the load out doesn't really affect how you play. I only picked it up because I was obsessing over Titanfall, but not at home for weeks to play. It certainly scratched that itch, so it was worth it in my opinion.

They've released a bot multiplayer patch which costs £2.50 or $4 I believe. Might pick that up and try the multiplayer. I always enjoyed killzone bot matches.

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Imo, Chaos Theory is Clint Hocking's true masterpiece. Sorry Far Cry 2, step aside.

Would you say it's Cling Hocking's rocking stalking game with fun talking and smoking walking animations?

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Would you say it's Cling Hocking's rocking stalking game with fun talking and smoking walking animations?

 

Hell yeah. 

 

 

1:45 = Bliss.

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So I finished Assassin's Creed 4: You Liked Ships In The Last One So We Put Them Everywhere. I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since 2, and they've pretty much succumbed to the tragedy of the collectathons, which I'm okay with! I think the writing is marginally better - it's not great by any means, and it edges close to actually grappling with some themes. It's sprawling and unfocused in the way many AAA games are, but for me, this meant the game was full of weird little systems with their own mechanics that injected quite a bit of variety into the proceedings. I enjoyed myself, overall.

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I beat Memoria, the sequel to Chain of Satinav and it's improved over the last game, there are more spells to add a new element to the puzzles, which is good, on the downside...

 

It had a maze, which does let you skip it if you get lost, so I can forgive that. 

 

The most interesting part that in this game you play as new character in the past, and you must find out her history to solve your problems.

 

Man, Daedalic seems to be getting better and better, while their storytelling isn't as good as Telltale's, they are keeping the classic adventure more than alive and well.

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Finally got chance to blast through The Walking Dead season one and 400 Days over the last two weekends - Steam says I've put in about 12 hours and I'd say that was about the right length of time to spend on this journey. Some of the you-must-shoot-things-or-retry sections annoyed me the most, but then I stopped trying to get the reticule so exact and relaxed a bit (and realised a you-can't-fail setup probably wouldn't be right for these parts of the game). I'm trying to convince my girlfriend and her friend to play it as they like the TV show. I'll probably fail but if not it would be interesting to see how they take to the control scheme - maybe they'll do better because they don't have the way 'normal' shooters control burned in to their brain? But yeah, it was a faithful and really enjoyable Walking Dead experience - no easy ways out. Episode two managed to get me on edge pretty early on as something just said..

CANNIBALS!

.. about the St. John family as soon as I saw them.

 

Off to listen to Tone Control episode one again now I've actually played through the game.

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I played through The Shivah to take a break from too much Dark Souls 2. I had never played a Wadjet Eye game before, so I wasn't sure what I was getting into (my previous adventure game experience has been limited to some Lucasarts and Telltale games). Overall, I think it was a really well-made game that suffered from a few flaws of execution. I loved the concept and the tone, and I think the writing was mostly on point, though there were a few points where it seemed like it crossed the line from adopting a noir sensibility into just repeating the kind of cliches that proper noir texts tend to avoid. I particularly cringed at a couple lines, including "you really think you can get away with this?" and "how you holding up?" which might just be because I've heard the Thumbs talk about how that particular line is terrible. Still, I think it is a totally unique idea for a game, and one that makes me want to see more of what Wadjet Eye does. I picked up a copy of Gemini Rue, and will probably give that a try soon.

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Keep in mind that The Shivah is just WadgetEye's game first game with better graphics and voice acting, I don't think he rewrote any new scenes or lines?

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Keep in mind that The Shivah is just WadgetEye's game first game with better graphics and voice acting, I don't think he rewrote any new scenes or lines?

 

I read that before I started, so I don't really hold any of the lower production values against it. Mostly it made me interested to see where they went from there.

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Just finished Shank.

 

It was pretty fun. I remember playing a demo of it and loving the look of it and the way it played, and then I ended up purchasing it as part of one of the Humble Bundles... and then I completely forgot about it until yesterday.

 

The in-game animation looked fantastic, but by comparison the cutscenes just felt lackluster. The gameplay wasn't anything too great, a basic sort of beat-em-up, but with a really cool combo system that just made it feel much better than the typical brawler. It was pretty short, but the pain in my thumbs tells me that maybe thats a good thing.

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Just finished Bravely Default, which I think took all the best parts of final fantasys 1 through 9.  (And finally gave me the job system game I wanted all of that time.)

 

Really enjoyed it.

 

(Praline in Boss battles aside.  Mrgrgr.)

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I had a long weekend and and I had a log of gaming done:

 

-The "Quiet, Please" series, it's a simple cheap adventure game about a girl that only wants some peace and quiet and you must quiet everything in good ol' adventuring style, A.K.A. steal everything and destroy property and lives, specially the life of your neighbor who looks like Ned Flanders.

 

-Adventure Time: The WayForward one with the long title, it's like Zelda II and Metroid, but your swordsmanship doesn't have to be as good as in Zelda and you do have to explore as much as in a Metroid game, it's WayForward, so it looks and sounds great... It was almost too easy with so much food to keep me healthy in my inventory.

 

-Ys: Memories of Celceta: Boy, am I glad I got the special edition that came with a guide, because the game has not one but TWO "Lost Woods" in it, but it's still an awesome Ys game, I even did the ridiculously brutal optional boss and did all the optional stuff in general. 

 

It's kinda meta that the physical guide you get is the same you find later in game... what isn't so nice is that the guide ends when Adol loses his memory in game, which didn't matter that much since I was home by then.

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I completed Ratchet and Clank Crack in Time! Well I did last week, I'm still doing the second playthrough right now. Holy fucking shit, I think it might be the best Ratchet and Clank I've played yet. Everything was so pretty and the new Clank time puzzles were so difficult and perfect. Insomniac delivered well over my expectations here.

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So I finished Assassin's Creed 4: You Liked Ships In The Last One So We Put Them Everywhere. I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since 2, and they've pretty much succumbed to the tragedy of the collectathons, which I'm okay with! I think the writing is marginally better - it's not great by any means, and it edges close to actually grappling with some themes. It's sprawling and unfocused in the way many AAA games are, but for me, this meant the game was full of weird little systems with their own mechanics that injected quite a bit of variety into the proceedings. I enjoyed myself, overall.

 

Me too - I just finished this game and really enjoyed it overall. The main story completely lost momentum during my play through, which I find really common for games of this length (30+ hours). The variety of locations and nice mix of mechanics kept me interested along the way and the fast travel ensures you can always quickly jump to new and interesting things. I've kept playing since the credits and am still enjoying the ship plundering and fleet building.

 

My history with the series was also having come straight from AC2 to this one. Although I've had the other games in my unplayed pile for years I'm unlikely to go back now. I started Brotherhood (which is supposed to be great too) but found it much easier to get going with this game knowing there weren't 3 more games to follow. Great series - particularly if you don't worry about playing them all!

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Years after buying it, I finally finished Final Fantasy 3 (the remake for the DS).

I despise the final dungeon with a passion. Boss rushes aren't great in an action game, but in an RPG they are a special kind of torture.

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