Recently completed video games

[Kolzig]

I had Wizardry 8 once. I bought it used from some guy and had it for about 3-5 years and then I sold it without ever playing it. I don't actually know why I originally even bought it?

I finished The Conduit for Wii yesterday. I was actually not supposed to be playing this because I have many other games to be experienced on my list, but a friend loaned me this so I had to try it out.

It's about a 10h game, and that suits me perfectly. I don't have the time or patience to play very long games anymore. I played in real time for about 2-3 weeks and in gameplay time it was around 10 hours. I was very interested to try this one out as I had heard that the controls in the game are good.

The plot of the game is quite basic scifi plot, and there aren't that many characters in the game's story. You are special agent Ford who gets thrown in the middle of this invasion. I really like that in the beginning you are just a regular guy and later things start to develop to a more scifi way.

There's one main character voiced by Kevin Sorbo, the man famous for Hercules and Andromeda. That was a nice plus that I didn't know before I started playing the game.

The controls are nearly perfect in the game, everything works really smoothly and aiming and shooting and moving around is really simple and easy. This is how FPS games should be made when you have the possibility for Wii controls. I hate gamepad based shooter games like what you can have on Gamecube, Xbox consoles and Playstation consoles. I have not played Metroid Prime 3 so I don't know how they made the controls with that game, but at least the controls in Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for Wii are pretty bad.

Also I have to say about the graphics that those look really nice! Excellent job by the developers with the engine and graphics assets.

All in all I really enjoyed playing The Conduit and can surely say that I can't wait to play The Conduit 2. High Voltage Software made a great fps game and they have said to max out the Wii's capabilities in the sequel.

Edited May 14, 2010 by Kolzig

[Sombre]

I sat down at 6pm with Heavy Rain, and got through it in one sitting, finshing about 5am. It was really good!

[Inphidel]

Recently finished Batman: AA (wrote a review) loved it!

Did Portal Again for kicks!

Finally finished my Hl2 Episode 2

Last night Samorost 1 and 2. - Long time since I played a cool adventure game

I'm usually late to the party!

[Garple]

Batman: Arkham Asylum

[Karimi]

Finished Dragon Age - No comments , fun game decent story, could have been better though, still not Baldur's gate though it came close up to and including the high dragon fight.

Finished Dawn of War II - The future of the RTS genre ? Lots of fun, wish it had a bit more macro to it , but I haven't tried multiplayer yet.

Playing Starcraft 2 beta - Its weird to be playing sc2 at the same time as dow2, the game is fun but the gameplay feels kind of dated.

[Garden Ninja]

Meant to reply to some of these earlier. Sorry for the long post. (This is part of why I prefer threaded forums: easier to track each conversation when they aren't jumbled together.)

I always felt like Torment should have ended after Ravel's Maze. That was the story arc, and the stuff after that is not much fun.

Same. The end bit feels rather tacked on. Like they thought they didn't have enough content, so they threw something together quickly. Which is silly, because it is still an enormous game without that bit. Next time I play it, I'll probably quit when I get to that point.

Splinter Cell Conviction though as a traditional Splinter Cell

What do you think qualifies as a traditional Splinter Cell? If you mean just playing slow and lining up headshots then sure, but the way I played the previous games doesn't seem to be possible in Conviction. I avoided killing people (elbow to the face, choke hold, or using gadgets), and hopefully getting to the end without anyone knowing I was there. Conviction felt like primarily a corridor shooter with some stealth, and not even a very good one (the shooting is straight up broken in the last couple of stages).

...I finished The Conduit for Wii yesterday...

All the reviews made that game sound extremely generic, and just in general not that good, but you make it sound kind of interesting. I may have to add that to my wishlist.

...Finished Dawn of War II - The future of the RTS genre ? Lots of fun, wish it had a bit more macro to it , but I haven't tried multiplayer yet.

Maybe I just don't understand the terminology (I haven't played an RTS since Age of Empires, and I was never competitive), but I thought Dawn of War II was basically entirely micro. I there actually some basebuilding involved?

Last weekend I finished Wolfenstein, which was fun. The weapons were cool, but most of the interesting ones had rare ammo, so I didn't get to use them as much as I wanted.

And earlier this week I finished Battlefield Bad Company 2. The campaign was really good. I got it from Gamefly, but I'm might buy it to play through the campaign again, and for the multiplayer, which I played about an hour of.

[Patters]

What do you think qualifies as a traditional Splinter Cell? If you mean just playing slow and lining up headshots then sure, but the way I played the previous games doesn't seem to be possible in Conviction. I avoided killing people (elbow to the face, choke hold, or using gadgets), and hopefully getting to the end without anyone knowing I was there. Conviction felt like primarily a corridor shooter with some stealth, and not even a very good one (the shooting is straight up broken in the last couple of stages).

With Splinter Cell I often when encountered with a room with 3 or more enemies, simply took out one guy who was blocking my way, from there hid his body and snuck past undetected, you can do this in Conviction, The reason I gave it a for traditional is due to not being able to do it without murdering someone. The shooting never felt broken to me in the slightest, maybe you just suck at video games .

Also macro and micro are very different. Macro is a lot of different things at once, where as micro is to a smaller scale

[Garden Ninja]

...The shooting never felt broken to me in the slightest, maybe you just suck at video games .

Probably:owned:. But specifically what I mean is that in the last couple of stages it, it take two headshots to kill dudes, because they are wearing bloody paintball masks, and if you don't do it quickly they just shrug off the first one completely. And they can survive a full mag from a submachine gun from 5 feet away, then step forward and punch you in the face while you reload. That shit is messed up.

And yes, I realize you can get around it by double tapping every dude you meet, and not using submachine guns or assault rifles, but that just strikes me as forgiving bad game design.

That said, I enjoyed it well enough up until that point. It was decent for what it was, but I think it was stupid to call it Splinter Cell when it only has superficial similarities to the previous games. Double Agent (which I still really liked, even if not as much as Chaos Theory) got torn to shreds for straying from the formula, while Conviction is a complete departure, and everyone seems to love it. I don't get it.

/cranky

Also macro and micro are very different. Macro is a lot of different things at once, where as micro is to a smaller scale

Do you have some examples? I always assumed that Macro was large scale things like base building, which units to build, etc, and micro was controlling individual units.

[Patters]

Do you have some examples? I always assumed that Macro was large scale things like base building, which units to build, etc, and micro was controlling individual units.

There is both tactical and economical micromanagement, DoW II is mostly the former. These will probably help your understanding: Micro and Macro

[Scrobbs]

Just finished Bayonetta. I got it because the demo seemed quite fun. Kind of enjoyed the first half of it, then the story went sideways. Like a different person wrote the second half. The monsters were stupid, the story and locations got more and more ludicrous as time went on. I was skipping cutscenes jsut to get to the end quicker. This game was balls.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Scrobbs

[SiN]

Was sick for most of the week (tonsillitis!) so I needed some comfort gaming. Perfect opportunity to play GTA IV: The Lost and Damned. Enjoyable. The added checkpoints are a welcome addition, but there are still minor issues here and there that haven't been resolved. Still though, super fun. Looking forward to getting started on Ballad of Gay Tony.

Also, finishing an entire game in 3 days: getting sick ftw.

Mo

[Patters]

Modern Warfare 2 :tmeh:/:tup: What it does it does fantastically. I didn't listen to any of the news broadcasts though as they seem to be at odds with the game. Spec Ops anyone?

Is it bad I want to watch Die Hard now?

[JonCole]

Modern Warfare 2 :tmeh:/:tup: What it does it does fantastically. I didn't listen to any of the news broadcasts though as they seem to be at odds with the game. Spec Ops anyone?

Is it bad I want to watch Die Hard now?

I understand that it's a bit of a throwaway blanket statement, but it doesn't do everything it does fantastically. I mean, story? C'mon. You made the Die Hard comparison, but Die Hard at least has a moderately logical story.

I enjoyed MW2 single player and enjoyed thinking about the plot, but I would never say that it is fantastic.

[Patters]

I understand that it's a bit of a throwaway blanket statement, but it doesn't do everything it does fantastically. I mean, story? C'mon. You made the Die Hard comparison, but Die Hard at least has a moderately logical story.

I enjoyed MW2 single player and enjoyed thinking about the plot, but I would never say that it is fantastic.

The momentum that is built behind solid mechanics, is the thing I mean. I probably mean something more along the lines of the stuff that IW did well was executed fantastically. My view is probably slightly jaded with playing through the game in a long revision period.

As far as story goes, was there one? All I know is that I went to a lot of cool places and killed dudes there and in a couple of other places I died. BFBC2 was better for me though. I didn't have to think during the game I just Michael Bayed my way through everything.

That is probably incomprehensible with me being absolutely shattered yet unable to sleep.

[Kolzig]

All the reviews made that game sound extremely generic, and just in general not that good, but you make it sound kind of interesting. I may have to add that to my wishlist.

I forgot in my short review that the story is being told deeper with the radio transmissions that 5-6 different persons talk in the radios that are scattered in the mission areas.

I think you may end up feeling that it is a generic shooter as plotwise it is just your basic scifi stuff as I said earlier.

The ASE is fun device and I've read that for the sequel Wii Motionplus will also be taken to use and they will make the gameplay have much more surprises. This first game was supposed to have Motionplus also originally, but the developers thought that they need more time to really learn to use it's advantages rather than just glue it on top and make it a gimmick.

[Armchair General]

Modern Warfare 2 :tmeh:/:tup: What it does it does fantastically. I didn't listen to any of the news broadcasts though as they seem to be at odds with the game. Spec Ops anyone?

Is it bad I want to watch Die Hard now?

I'm up for some spec-ops together Patski. I've played them all through to veteran but they are pretty good so would be up for doing them again...I just have to actually download the damn game

[Garple]

the story and locations got more and more ludicrous as time went on.

Wasn't that kind of the point? I only played a few hours of it, but my impression was that it was supposed to be as ludicrous as possible. It was like if you taped a bomb to a copy of Devil May Cry and threw it at a confetti and lipgloss factory.

[Scrobbs]

Wasn't that kind of the point? I only played a few hours of it, but my impression was that it was supposed to be as ludicrous as possible. It was like if you taped a bomb to a copy of Devil May Cry and threw it at a confetti and lipgloss factory.

I see what you mean. The few hours that you would have played (the first, fairly normal section) was actually quite diverting. However, there was a definite point where it changed...from being fairly easy to follow what was going on, to being completely bonkers for the sake of it, and the story being a curious mixture of staid and off the wall. Instead of it being an evolving story, it seemed like it just became as weird as possible and laboured, perhaps just to make the game longer, as if they'd read reviews of games that took X hours and they said to themselves, "it has to be 1.5 times longer than that!".

I stopped caring, skipped all the cutscenes and developed a sadistic streak of just wanting to finish it, despite being bored. It wasn't a terribly nice experience.

The end of game boss was just bobbins. Total and absolute bobbins.

Actually, now you've made me think about it more, I hate this game. If it had been the first 9 or 10 chapters, I think I would have had a more positive eventual outlook. The fact it went on and on and on. And on. Really got my goat. Can you tell?

[Armchair General]

...The end of game boss was just bobbins. Total and absolute bobbins.

Bobbins. Superb! :tup::tup:(that's five bobbins to you)

[Scrobbs]

I like that word too

I've just remembered! There was a 'gun' section too. You know, where you have to man the gun to kill the baddy. The twist is that there were two of thethem! So you could choose your gun! The gun was also a fully automatic artillery piece, rate of fire was prolly 40 shells a minute or something.The baddy was a huge guy that appeared in an earlier part of the game.

Another thing that made me think they'd just extended it for the sake of it - they ran out of bad guy ideas about halfway through, and merely recycled the bosses as and when needed. This was another factor of my lack of care.

There were two crap motobike sections, and 1 crap 'rocket' type section where enemies came flying towards you. They were basically the same. And went on too long. The rocket section vaguely reminded me of a very similar old game, but I can't for the life of me remember it. It's not afterburner, but it's that kind of thing.

Never play this game.

Unless you're 'Game' (ltd), and allow me to redeem the game against another one, in which case, this game is double awesome with 4 guns of awesome and is nearly worth full price.

[Scrobbs]

Actually, maybe I'm being a little unfair. The combat system is absolutely fantastic, although it does get a bit dry towards the end.

[Garden Ninja]

Actually, maybe I'm being a little unfair. The combat system is absolutely fantastic, although it does get a bit dry towards the end.

That's why I enjoyed it so much. The story is incomprehensible, and while I actually liked the motorcycle and rocket sections (very SHMUP-like, which I enjoy), they did drag too long, especially the rocket bit. But the combat system was the best I've ever played. For that, I'll tolerate a stupid story and a few annoying bits of gameplay.

Although, considering the unlockable difficulties, buying moves and accessories, and keeping everything between playthroughs, the designers clearly intended you to play it multiple times, so including filler sections seems more stupid than usual.

[miffy495]

Finally finished Just Cause 2. Lots and lots of fun. Actually had a surprisingly good endgame. I really liked this game. I put in around 30 hours all told (official stats: 28.25 hours, 41.62% completion), and with my attention span, a game has to be pretty damn decent to pull me all the way through for that long. I feel like this may be one of the really good games this year that just gets overlooked. I don't remember much talk about it after a week or so past release. Get this game if you don't have it yet, it's amazingly fun.

Also, putting a section in your credits for people that worked on the game but left the company before it went gold? Fucking classy.

[Nappi]

I just finished Uncharted 2 after probably 2 or 3 months of not playing the game at all. Didn't enjoy the final part as much as the rest of the game because of its heavy focus on combat and also because of the

yetis

, but it was still pretty good and there were only a couple of scenes that were really frustrating.

I really had to force myself to play this game again yesterday and today, because I had quit just before an annoying part the last time I played it and because I could guess there was just more combat ahead. After I had decided to finish the game and before I started playing it, I actually couldn't help but thinking how much I would hate the whole experience. In reality, it wasn't all that bad of course. It felt awesome to actually finish something and I'm really glad I did.

I have no interest in completing Uncharted 1, though. It's amazing how much Naughty Dog managed to improve on a game that was already really impressive.

[Orv]

Dawn of War 2's expansion campaign. I also managed to get my Chaos Sorcerer in Last Stand to 20, so I'm happy with that.

Splinter Cell Conviction (Campaign, Co-op, Deniable Ops, MP Vs)

Assassin's Creed 2

BioShock 2 (I am late to the party on both of those, jeeze)

Dragon Age:O - The Expansioning

Garry's Mod. How, you ask? I build a functional laser robot dinosaur. As far as I'm concerned, I win the game.

Half-Life 2 (I hate Half-Life, never played 2 until now. Still hate it.)

Now it's off to play through King Arthur.