What's everyone playing?

Currently playing Caesar iV, from the same guys who brought us most of the Total War series.
It's a good game, city builder set in 150BC Rome, similar to Grand Ages: Rome but with a little more micro managment. Build your farms, digging pits and mines to supply trade and townsfolk, place entertainment and religious building as well as sanitation and law. All the usual things you have in a good city builder. All the time keeping Rome HQ happy.
It is for all intents and purposes, just another Rome city builder, but something about this one just tips it in front of the others. It doesn't take much to run although when you have a big city with thousands of people all mooching around and a heavy thunder storm comes in at night, it may get a little sluggish, but when this happens it looks incredible.
There's very little in the way of military input, you do occasionally (depending on mission) have to create military buildings, but as far as I can tell it's pretty much 80% automated, you simply "Deploy" your units and they will do what is needed. Which is a nice change from having to build a city AND fight for it.
The emphasis here is on building a working, happy city, not an easy task but not outrageous either.

Caesar iV. From Heaven games.

If you like city builders, especially Rome or such like builders, then check this one out.

 

Some titles that regularly make it on to my system:

Assassins Creed II
Blur
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Grand Theft Auto Episodes from Liberty City
Just Cause 2
Medal Of Honor 2010 Limited Edition
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
Tom Clancy Splinter Cell Conviction
Batman Arkham Asylum
Call of Duty Black Ops
F1 2010
Mafia II
Metro 2033
Need for Speed Shift
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Call Of Juarez Bound In Blood
Far Cry 2
James Bond 007 Blood Stone
Mass Effect 2
Mirrors Edge
Test Drive 2 Unlimited

 

currently playing anno 1404 dawn of discovery

 

I just started playing Bulletstorm on my PC, and it's REALLY FUN!!! There's no 'jump' which is very strange for a shooter, and the movement is a bit 'clunky' compared to most FPS games, but it's a lot of fun, blood and guts galore with plenty of obscenities in a sci-fi "not-on-the-planet-Earth-and-your-team-member-is-a-'rebuilt-biotech/robotic-human-who-fought-with-you-until-he-was-killed-due-to-your-over-enthusiasm' " type of scenario.
:confused
OK -my lame description doesn't explain the game.... think of an R-rated Serious Sam + Unreal Tournament (in single player mode) but you have a cyborg team member.... it's fast, fun, brutal.... the best FPS that I've played recently (except there's no 'jump' and the WSAD controls need some fine tuning).

 

I'll give you my description of Bulletstorm since I'm almost finished it lol
Firstly the lack of jump felt weird at first but you soon realise it's not needed and I agree you will probably want to customize the controls. And yes it's a bit twitchy until you find the right sensetivity for you.... the Aim down sight is pretty urgent too, instant. Anyway....
Imagine Gears of War with more bravardo, much more violence, much more machismo and some well timed sarcasm...... oh yeah and the ability to leash your enemy toward you and direct kick him into some twisted metal spikes.
The story is fairly standard and pretty weak but who cares, grab a gun and blow a junk load of mother flecka's away in the most brutal way possible.

The voice acting is pretty good too, purposely over the top cheesey lines but good sarcasm makes it funny. The one part where you are following a girl and she shouts across the bridge "If you follow me I'll kill your dick" to which you reply "What the hell does that even mean? she's gonna kill my dick?"

All in all a very fun game as dlb said, no tactics really, it's one of those games that makes you feel indestructable, you WANT more enemies, you WANT bigger and badder guys to slam into walls or throw of high ledges or impale with an oversize drill bit and pin them to a wall watching them spin at high speed as they are torn limb from limb,you WANT a big guy to run at you so you can leash him toward you and blow his head off with a point blank shotgun shot to the face in slow motion, you WANT tons of targets so you can fire an explosive controlable bullet from your sniper rifle and then puppetier the target so he is in the middle of his buddies and then detonate the bullet and watch them come apart.

This game offers freedom to kill how you please, it offers the hordes of bad guys to rip in half and not forgetting the awesome cut scenes and overall look of the game.

All in all, probably the most blasting fun in a game since Doom.

Having said all that, it's not the easiest game in the world, you will get overwhelmed at times.
Also it seems like a very stable game, only a couple of times have I gotten a freeze that after a few seconds will continue, no crashes, little laggy when it gets really intense with lots of particles floating around etc.

Great game, excellent way to let off steam and a junk load of fun to boot...... oh speaking of boots did I mention the kick attack is probably the meatiest kick in game history! :-D

 

I've seen the ads for bullet storm and it looked like something I might like,if its like Gears of war then probably not :-D

I played gears of war for a couple of hours,after firing clip after clip into some of the bad guys in the first couple of levels while being surrounded and constant increasing swarms of them kept coming I gave up on it,unless in the future levels the bad guys die with less than a clip to the face and there numbers dwindle I doubt its my cup of cha.

I may revisit it though but I consider it very over rated.

Rant over

Playing Mass effect 2 ATM and loving it.Doesn't feel like ME 2 it's more like the first Mass effect expansion pack as they've used loads from the original,characters,ships,locations with only minor graphical changes

They've slimmed the game's RPG complexity down to accommodate the console market so there are few weapon upgrades but there are still enough to make you work for them, which is a bit of a shame but on the other hand they really have produced an incredibly 'tight' game package which does successfully merge shooter,role play type upgrades,RP type speech and a 'little' squad combat.

I'm enjoying it a lot 'about 80% through' and I think it deserves its 9/10 score most places give it.

 

ME 2 is awesome, no other way to put it.

As for Gears vs Bulletstorm, it does take a lot of ammo to drop most enemies, but there are so many ways to kill them it's just a case of being aware of whats where.
Example: 4 emenies, 2 from front and one from each side =

Turn to side, leash him, turn to front and start shooting, as guy from side goes across you it will slo-mo just as to front guys are close, one is nearly dead from gun fire and you kick the guy from side into the guy in front while killing other guy from front with gun.
3 Moves, 3 Dead.
1 left. Other guy from side..... this one you can play with and decide slowly how to butcher him :-D leash him up or just kick him to put him on his butt, then decide whether to impale, shoot, throw off or kick to death.

And the great thing is, you don't need to be a game guru to pull it off, it's fairly simple once you get used to what weapons do what and how.
You get a big guy with a ball mine launcher, bounces mines at you = Easy, kick the mines back or leash them and kick them into another pile of enemies.

Use the enviroment or weapons, so much freedom, it does have similar camera movement to Gears though and it's guys with arms that make Hulk Hogan look like Jim Carey , fighting mutated super humanoids.

Try it Rikky, it puts Gears to shame IMHO.

 

I haven't played Gears Of War yet :-o I just did some quick online research for Gears Of War, and it looks freekin' AWESOME!!! I must have it!!!

 

I finally got bored of Fallout 3 after about 2 years, so I bought Borderlands. Insanely fun! It's like the gameplay of Halo combined with the setting of Fallout and the graphics of Sly Cooper.

 

i play now DA2!
i just got today!:-D

 

I got DA2 yesterday. I've still not even started New vegas. I've been hooked on DDO for a couple months, and not had much time for other things. No mattter. DDO will be put on hold in order to start DA2. :-D

 

Just started Batman arkham asylum,I've had it since last year as I got it free with my 480GTX but I never even thought of playing it as I'm not into super hero games,I hate button bashing fist fights and sneaking around but this game is on a completely different level to any super hero game I've played.

It is quit simply the best super hero game EVER made,its one of those games where you actually enjoy dying because you know you screwed up and want to get back in the game to try something new to jump the hurdle.If you think metal gear solid in its presentation and gameplay your not far wrong.

I never thought I could enjoy a game this much without firing bullets.Time to alt tab back into the action.

 

****! :banghead

I accidentally used Revo to uninstall a Steam game I had forgotten I got through Steam, and Revo wiped out my entire Steam installation. It's going to take me days to reinstall everything!

****! ****! ****!!! :banghead :banghead

 

Bet you're steamed...

(sorry, Lady Mims - couldn't resist!)

 

I changed my power saving settings and left it running over night, and half hte games are back now.

I figured someone would get a good laugh out of my mistake, that's why I posted it here. LOL

 

Crysis 2

 

Dragon Age 2 soon enough!

 

On what system? I was going to buy it for PC, but I want to make sure there's no major bugs or anything.

 

Total War: Shogun 2
Creative Assembly have gone back to thier roots... and back to Japan.
Anyone who has played Total War will already know this game is awesome, all of them are.
This one does, however feel quite different, the interface has been slimmed down and moved around, it still works perfectly fine although I'm not over keen on some of the placements... example: Durin RTS battle you used to have the formations button at the top of the HUD, they have now moved it to a self hiding pullout bar on the left side of the screen. While it works fine I just find it a little annoying when I go to hit the "Extend" button to see formation options I will overextend the mouse and swing the camera round to the left. But thats pretty much my only gripe.
The game looks awesome, even running on medium settings and I get a bit of stuttering now and then when in large scale battles, but nothing that affects gameplay.
They have made this one harder though, the past 2 Total Wars (Empire and Napoleon) both had this trade system where if you were quick enough you could set up trade and get large amounts of money flowing early on without sacrificing happiness through high tax rates. Shogun 2 isn't that easy, you will be attacked early on (first 6 turns) so you have to go in fast and hard to gain a foothold on the island, I found this quite tricky and took several restarts of the game, but I got my foot in the door last night and those who wage war have backed off and declared peace..... for now, this has bought me enough time to sort my trade and cities and get some infrastructure flowing.
So I've barely scratched the surface of the game yet got 4-5 hours into it (this does not include the 10 hours of play in prior attempts).
All in all this game is awesome, it requires you to think much more on the campaign map with your peeps and cities, trade etc and also forces you to be much more tactical on the battlefield. You can't just line up 3000 troops and steam rool the enemy, the enemy is smarter than before and not to mention it's costs a LOT of money to keep large forces on the move early on.
Example of impressive AI:
I was defending my town, my archers and swordsmen were all dead, only my Generals bodyguard left... BUT.... only 2 archer units of the enemy are left, face to face I knew my general could take them, but not until they run out of ammo. So I figured I'd hide behind a small building in the middle of my town/fort and tighten formation so as not to get hit with arrows.... what I didn't expect was the archer units to stop firing and move to strategic positions. Not only that but they split, 1 went east, 1 went west giving me no cover at all, it was almost scary when I saw them moving into position knowing I now couldn't avoid the hail of arrows, however I did stay loose and on the move and managed to retain half my unit until they ran out of ammo, at which point I moved in, out numbered 4-1 I was against harsh odds but ... my generals bodyguard is a cavelry unit, it really came down to the wire with the last enemy dying and me having only 2 horses remaining at the end of the fight.
Anyone who has played Total Wars will know this is as close as it gets.

Now to the old problem with TW's, stability.....I'm pleased to say this one is much much more stable than the previous few, with only 1 CTD in my total of 15ish hours of play.

100% thrilling.

Game is great, buy it.

Worth every penny.

WARNING: This game will most likely cripple lower end machines. So check specs before you buy.

I'm running it quite well on medium settings (still looks awesome)
My System:
AMD X2 6000+ 3.0
3GB 800mhz RAM
IDE HDD's
ATI HD4890 2gb Vapour x

It's the CPU that will let you down, put it this way, I would not like to try run this game on anything much lower than my CPU.

 

POKER!!

For fun I'v enjoyed GTA vice city, RPG CAR WARS was more shootu'm up.

Speaking of Steve Jackson, is there anything to compare to Star Frontiers?

Like WOW would cover AD&D.

MGS, Syphon Filter

 

Just started playing the new Crysis2.... I'm a big fan of the shoot-em-up-everyone-and-everything-must-be-filled-with-lead-or-blown-up-or-electrocuted-or-stabbed-or-run-over-with-a-tank-or-as-long-as-it's-dead-or-destroyed type of games... so this includes the entire Call Of Duty series, the Doom series (is there a Doom4 coming? PLEASE!), Battlefield BC2, the F.E.A.R. series (is there a new one on the horizon? PLEASE!), all the Crysis games, Metro2033 (which will beat up ANY video card), the Serious Sam series (esp now that they've been re-released in HD), etc etc etc...

 

Doom 4 is confirmed for a release on all 3 major gaming platforms. Id (the company) says it's going to be more arcade styled shoot-em-up (like Doom 1 & 2) rather than the horror survival type of gameplay that is Doom 3.

Also, one of the things that makes Far Cry and Crysis such great games are 1. almost fully destructible environments and 2. the ability to jump out of any vehicle while it is still moving.

 

I'm not sure that direction is the best idea for Doom, not only has the arcade shooter evolved to the point most people don't want a real arcade shooter anymore, but this is also Doom, it HAS to be spectacular and to be honest I don't think an arcade shooter can be spectacular anymore.
They should keep the scary stuff and simply do what they do best and simply upgrade Doom 3.
Having said that, I really don't think ID can miss, the doom games have always set the standard, lets just hope they go for gameplay and not simply go for a system crushing game just to show off some new graphic tech.

 

Why not? It worked for Crysis, didn't it?

 

On PC. The game's engine is very good, graphics are really nice and it runs much better than the Call of Duty Black Ops at my HP DV6 Core 2 laptop. I can play it very smoothly without any lagging. There are no major bugs that I came cross with. So I can really recommend you this game.

 

Yup I agree,its hard for anyone who's played a game with any story or depth to go back to tagging zombies..

Its obvious to me the RPG genre has slowly been merging with the shooter genre or vice versa. The phrase standing on the shoulders of giants comes to mind,they must strive to improve upon games that have come before.All my opinion: All shooters must now have an inventory system,they must have modifiable weapons,interchangeable ammo,complex health system,interactive environment,complex AI but above all they must bring something new to the genre. Crysis is a good example IMO it brought the suit boost system in which you had to call upon different abilities to navigate the game although it was poorly implemented into the game and you hardly ever needed it.

As for Doom 3 I never even finished it,I played it for an hour and got sick of the dark corridors and monsters jumping out at me,it made me feel like a rat trapped in a tunnel against ghosts and monsters that seemed to be almost unaffected by the weapons.

I may revisit it though,I still have my copy sitting on a shelf fully boxed from over 6 years ago.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of "Arcade Shooter" , see I never really thought of Crysis as such, it was open world for starters and required a certain amount of tactics. I personally define an arcade shooter as basically a 3d platform game with the emphasis on guns and shooting, you have a set path which you cannot detract from, you have masses of health, it takes masses of ammo to kill something, you have hordes of enemies and pretty much everything is hip fire. Bullet Storm is a perfect example of modern day Arcade Shooter, but that is a rare treat in the wake of a junk load of garbage games.

Having said that, COD is an arcade shooter by comparison of Socom, but socom is and Arcade shooter when compared to Arma.
But Halo is probably the best example of an arcade shooter in recent years IMO, Arcade shooters are generally pretty easy and just a game to play when you simply want to blow shit up and shoot anything that moves, no stealth, no tactics, no fear, no story......just bullets and explosives.

Doom 3 added certain extra elements but was still an arcade shooter, I personally think they need to move forward, open it up a bit as Rikky said, lose the claustrophobic atmos, not completely but give the gamer a breather every so often, add ADS and some tactical stuff going on, after all you are spose to be a marine.
COD in space would most likey work quite well.

@ Rikky.... Nicely put, the RPG/FPS merging over the last few years is basically defining a new genre, games like Fallout 3 and ES4:Oblivion , Mass Effect and a few others doing to the RPG/FPS the same thing Total Wars did to RTS/TBS.
We can't keep playing the same thing over and over, the arcade shooter has been around in pretty much the same form for 25 years..... Operation Wolf anyone? it's just gone 3D.

ID could make another ground breaking, bar raising game..... but it will have to be quite far from the style of previous Dooms while somehow retaining that original feeling of dread and excitement. Wont be easy but I think they can pull it off.

 

I was actually just trying to take a jab at the fact Crysis, for all its graphical "glory", was at best mediocre at everything else.

 

Oh...my god. Not sure if I already mentioned this game in this thread yet...but:

http://www.amnesiagame.com/

Scariest game I've ever played. Also one of the most enjoyable.

 

Right now Boarderlands for the PS3. The Game of The Year Edition . It's awesome, started playing the co-op with my brother. My friend brought it down once and me and my brother went and bought it. The graphics are abit like a comic book( we jokingly talk bout it being a cross between Avatar and Fallout 3). Not very far into it but it is an excellent game. If anyone wants a good FPS for PS3 look into this game(ps: the controls are abit different if ur used to MWF2 or somethin like that)

 

Ahhh, I see. Yeah totally missed that :-D
But yeah, I agree, it was a fun game and obviously looked incredible but prettly bland in it's gameplay.

 

In Crysis I shot a couple of guys, saw an alien then the credits rolled.

Reminded me of my first date.

 

roflmao

And with that, Rikky won the thread. LOL

 

Crysis 2 was pretty good, still didn't think it was "All That" but I did enjoy it, much better gameplay than the first and it looks wonderful but the setting is urban mostly and I'm kind of bored of urban warfare.
Nice control system though, very responsive and well laid out hud system.
More realistic-ish damage to enemies, you don't have to shoot humans 25 times to kill them and most aliens can be killed with a headshot.
Nice upgrade system and some cool suit options.

Basically an upgrade of the first, which is what I was expecting, I'd give it 8/10 generously.
If it had not been so urban I probably would give it a 9, like this game in Crysis 1's settings.

 

I've barely scratched the surface with Crysis 2. Awesome graphics and all, but, I'm stuck in a level, with no idea where to go. Probably will try it again later.

Lately, I've quit WoW, and now playing Rift. I'm on my 4th toon, though, I deleted the other 3, just didn't like them. Then I found out that I could of just respecced them in game. ugh.

 

Just bought Dead Rising 2. Basically the same game as the first, but with much better graphics, more ways to kill zombies, and a larger world to explore.

 

The Witcher is coming to GOG.Just in case anyone is curious... and it will be $4.99 for the full version the first four days.

 

BAH! Waiting on the witcher 2

 

Who isn't?

Persistent rumors say that you will be able to import save files from the first game, and your decisions will carry over and affect the story in the sequel. :drool

 

Well I got bored of Minecraft :-D

Just restarted Just Cause 2.

I had almost finished it before but got stuck in a rut of boredom, not that the game was boring but I played it for so long it just lost it's appeal, so I've started up again and I have to say this is one of the best open world shooters ever. GTA has very little appeal by comparison IMO. The island of Panua which is where the game is set is beautiful, from mile high snow covered mountains to big cities, small towns to deserts and beaches and everything in between and with the grappling hook/Parachute combo you can quite litterally go ANYWHERE. There is not a square foot of the massive map you cannot get to with relative ease. Unlike most others where you will get stuck trying to climb or jump over something you know damn well in real life you could actually do, not in JC2. Plenty of cars, bikes and planes, Heli's etc but personally I just use my Hook/Chute combo to get wherever, unless it's on the other side of the map in which case I'll steal a plane or hitch a ride with extraction.

Plenty of action, if you get bored of blowing stuff up and killing soldiers you can just cruise looking for trouble.

Weapons are limited but I just read about a DLC pack thats been out a while that added a few more weapons and vehicles.

If you never tried this game and even sort of liked GTA or Far Cry 2 then try this one, it's just as much , if not MORE fun.

Not reccommended if you have a fear of hieghts, lol my girl can't watch me play it due to this :-D

This game is all about freedom, while the missions are fairly linear, they are fun but the real draw is simply the massive amount of freedom.

Check it out, Just Cause 2

 

I loved just cause 2.Did get a little tedious toward the end 100%ing bases but still lots of fun grappling around everywhere and pretty challenging on hard.

 

Hey geeks, not been here in a few, but in the last month.... I've been playing UFC undisputed 2010... still. Metal gear solid Guns of the patrioits, awesome game., the cut scenes are a little long, but still worth the time. Dragon age II, I liked it, but.... it just wasn't the same for some reason. I didn't even finish it. :zzz before that there was..... tiger woods PGA 11, also great. Oh, and then there was Assasin's creed Brotherhood. I really loved that game. I hated to see the ending. Of those games, brotherhood was the best.
I had Hawx 2 for almost 3 months, but Skidrow is killing me. :cry I can't wait to play it. I;ve gotta check out Just cause 2. upcoming games you can bet I'll be playing. Witcher 2, Uncharted 3.

 

I've been playing Godswar online through facebook:-o:-D

 

anyone tried out portal 2 yet. My little girl wants to try it ou tso, I' figured we'd get it. Anyone??

 

I have been playing Karos online, Alliance of Valiant Arms and some Runescape.
Would play Minecraft but its being annonying and not working for me at the moment.

 

I'm getting Portal 2 tonight. So looks like I'll be playing that for a few. Anyone else playing Portal 2?

 

Portal 2!!! it's great eeveryone should try it out. very original.

 

Ugh, haven't finished the 1st one yet. Looks like I'll have to complete it then.

 

I'm on the 3rd chapter, single player. Better than the 1st one, IMHO, but still boggles my mind.

 

If you like Portal 2, you should download and play Narbacular Drop. Made by the same company, similar gameplay mechanics, but different enough so it's not just the exact same thing as Portal 1 & 2.