Mini-Reviews: Games + What are you playing now?

[arogan]

It doesn't happen that often. I think the last time was GTA IV and even then I was taking some breaks. I don't know. Just something about SR2 that really grabs me.

Started up Far Cry 2 PC (quick save FTW). Man it looks amazing at 1920X1200. It runs at a constant 30+ fps with all the settings on high and up. It runs a lot better than crysis warhead oh which btw I just finished.

The malaria gets a bit annoying but so far I haven't had a gun jam yet. Oh well I'll mess with this a few days and then go buy Fallout 3 for 360 when it comes out.

[TheAngryIntern]

Just picked up Far Cry 2 this weekend off Steam. So far i'm really enjoying it. About 13 hrs of game play and I'm only 8% done with the main quest line. I've been doing a lot of the side quests and exploring for the hidden diamond caches. The weapon jam thing can get very annoying, especially when you're in the middle of a firefight and the gun just decides to break. I think the whole idea of the deteriorating weapons is kinda stupid. If they want to have that feature in there, then there should be a way for us to clean the weapons or repair them. Granted, I know you can just stop by the gun shop and swap it out, but there isn't always one nearby to your mission.

[arogan]

Yeah I spent a couple of hours last night just doing weapon dealer side quests. I just picked up fallout 3 for 360 and little big planet. The flood of games begins....

[firstadopter]

Tried Mirror's Edge demo on PS3, not bad. It's totally a hard-core gamer type game, the timing is a bit tough.

Motorstorm Pacific Rift looks like EXACTLY the same gameplay as the original, come on guys, improve it just a little bit. Graphics looks similar too.

[firstadopter]

Mirror's Edge like Portal makes me want to puke and get really dizzy. Sigh. I hate getting old. It seems like a really fun game though.

[arogan]

Loved the demo, played it twice, didn't make me sick, controls feel very good, loved the look, combat wasn't bad either (what little you got). Yeah it's definitely a day one purchase for me now.

I had some troubles with the rolling landing. It seems to be a timing thing. You have to tuck (left trigger) a little bit before you land. Do it too early while keeping the left trigger held seems to cause you to fail. Doing it just before impact seems to be too late. So yeah I found the timing on that one move a bit too precise and a bit counter to the flow of the rest of the moves.

Also, jumping and catching on to pipes seems to require a bit too much precision too. There were times where it seems you hit close enough to a vertical pipe to be well within arms reach and you don't grab it which seems odd for such an agile and nimble character.

About 26hrs into fallout 3 and not even half way done with the main quest line. I'm around level 11.

Fallout 3 went on temporary hold since friday because of Gears of War 2!!!! I'm about half way done with the campaing and spent around 4 hrs in Horde mode which is all kinds of co-op awesomeness.

Tried the left 4 dead demo (PC steam) and loved it! Can't wait until next week when the full version is out. I've already pre-purchased it on steam.

Picked up End War for $40 but probably won't open it for a while. I liked the demo enough. I just don't have the time.

Poor Far Cry 2 is even further back in the queue probably after fallout 3.

Played about 4 hrs of Little Big Planet with my kids. They love it. Me? It's ok. I tried some of the user created levels and some are pretty neat but at heart it's a cute nice little physics based platformer. It's a great family game but I won't be playing it on my own much.

I've been playing some more WipeoutHD with the kids. Another great family friendly game.

Poor Resistance 2. I haven't even bought it yet since I know I won't get to it for a few months. I liked the first one enough to finish it so It's definitely on my must buy list.

Picked up Peggle Nights on steam for $10. Haven't even fired it up yet.

Picked up Infinite Undiscovery for $30. I'll probably never open it (well at least not in the next year probably).

Samba De Amigo on the wii. Loved it on the dreamcast. I have yet to open it.

Thinking about getting world of goo.

Picked up de Blob for wii - unopened.

Still playing rock band 2 with some co-workers a couple of times every week. I'll pick up guitar hero World tour for cheap when it's used.

All that and I've spent the last week writing a new program: rcFeedMe. It's a podcatcher. I have some friends testing it this week but everything seems to be going well so I'll probably release it on my blog next week.

Oh and my 360 died...again. This is my older non-hdmi one. This was a replacement to a launch one. Lasted almost 2yrs. Anyways it's back at microsoft now. It was still under extended warranty so at least it didn't cost me anything. Good thing I still have my arcade unit I bought last year or I would be quite a bit more pissed.

[firstadopter]

Played Wii Fit for about an hour today. My 3rd year old loves it. Skiing and the fake running in place. I'm not so sure I'll be using it a lot, but I'm trying to use it as a way to get my wife into gaming. SEE YOGA INSTRUCTOR! LOL.

Other than that, I've been playing Madden online with a friend who lives 2 thousand miles away. The connection keeps dropping, we are growing impatient. But when it does work, it's a lot of fun.

I'm doing a lot of PSP gaming. I picked up the old arcade collections... Capcom has 2, there's a SNK and Sega Genesis one. It's a blast playing the old games. SNK Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, even Sonic, Final Fight, etc. I'm spending the most time playing Street Fighter II, which seems to be an arcade perfect translation in a portable. That is fun.

[arogan]

Finished Mirror's Edge:
http://blog.arogan.com/2008/11/mirrors-edge-xbox-360.html

I'm in chapter 4 in gears 2.

After that I'll go back to fallout 3.

[firstadopter]

I enjoyed the demo, but too bad I get sick from playing it (Mirror's Edge). So sad... Portal was the same way.

[arogan]

Finished Gears of War 2:
http://blog.arogan.com/2008/11/gears-of-war-2-xbox-360.html

[firstadopter]

I've been playing the demo for Left4Dead on PC. Wow you were right. It's amazing. Good graphics and love the co-op angle.

[TheAngryIntern]

no surprise here, i'm well into the Wrath of the Lich King xpac of WoW. Got my main up to 73 last night. This xpac so far is much more satisfying than the last one, seems like they spent more time polishing it up. The visuals are outstanding, a lot of the quests are so much fun to do. There's still the "go kill 10 of these mobs, or go kill those and collect this item" but there's a lot of one-offs that are a lot of fun. So far I'm really enjoying myself.

[firstadopter]

I tried to play the Left4Dead demo again, but now they want me to pre-buy the game first. Grrrr.

[arogan]

bought l4d on steam. I've put probably over 6 hrs into it. I love the co-op but playing as the infected (even as a tank once!) is a blast.

[arogan]

Still playing left 4 dead a lot. I'm working with a group of friends on Expert which is really kicking our butts.

About 70 hrs into fallout 3. I think I'm finally near the end.

Just finished Star Wars Force Unleashed:
http://blog.arogan.com/2009/01/star-wars-force-unleashed-xbox-360.html

After this I'll either play some far cry 2, maybe start prince of persia, and go through CoD WaW co-op.

[firstadopter]

I'm spending ALL my time playing Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix. I am so addicted. I can't wait till the new arcade sticks come out in mid-February with SFIV.

[arogan]

finished fallout 3 finally!
http://blog.arogan.com/2009/01/fallout-3-xbox-360.html

[arogan]

Wolf 3D on the iPhone!!!! Downloading now.....

[firstadopter]

I've been playing a lot of SFIV. Just for kicks last night I re-tried HD Remix. I couldn't play it, the animations looked SO BAD after playing SFIV. Jittery and stuttering vs. smooth 3D graphics.

[firstadopter]

So what are you guys playing lately? For me it's just 100% Street Fighter IV. It's perfect for the 10 minute gaming fix for about 3 games at random times during the day.

[arogan]

Recently finished flower which was excellent and killzone 2 which was rather disappointing.

Just finished Prince of Persia + DLC Epilogue, Halo Wars, and Call of Duty world at war (co-op). The zombie game in cod is pretty fun.
I'm about to start Fear 2 probably for single player and Hawx for co-op.

I still play left 4 dead at least a couple of hours a week. I'm playing with a group of friends, and we are now 2 or 3 chapters from finishing blood harvest on expert. After that we will have finished every movie on expert. This game is holding up incredibly well for me with some of the best replay value of any game. If you can find a set of 3 other people to play with consistently, expert brings a whole new level of play. I run my own dedicated server on the nights we play.

I'm kind of looking forward to Chronicles of Riddick - Dark Athena but I'll probably wait for a sale. Same with RE5 which I haven't picked up yet (demo didn't wow me like re4 did).

After that, high priority on the backlog would be dead space, fable 2, tomb raider underworld, and resistance 2. Oh and DLC for fallout 3 which I bought but haven't played yet. Speaking of DLC I still need to get the GTA 4 stuff.

I've also started GTA China wars on the DS which is surprisingly good. Speaking of which my DSi has shipped from amazon so I should be getting that soon.

Updated my wii and dropped in a 4gb sd card and started buying quite a few wiiware games now that you can DL and play directly from SD. Bit Trip Beat is fantastic. MadWorld is also coming in the mail.

On the iphone I've been playing warfare inc since I've been in a RTS mood lately since halo wars.

Started resistance retribution on the PSP (yeah I actually dusted it off). It's pretty impressive but I'm not that far into it yet.

I think that's about it.

I love SF IV but now I'm not allowed to play it in front of the kids since my 7 yr old got in trouble for pretend kung fu fighting in school.

[firstadopter]

Your last line had me on the floor laughing. I can just imagine your kid doing a pretend dragon punch at school. LOL.

Any reason you got the DSi? I hear it's selling like crazy, I totally don't get why people want that and pay so much more for 2 tiny 300K cameras on a DS.

[arogan]

The #1 reason is so I can have my own DS. I have the original DS Phat and then my DS Lite but both my kids are on it a lot so the ds lite has been feeling less and less like it is mine. This way we each get our own DS and of course daddy has to have the latest and greatest. I'm also interested to see if the downloadable stuff takes off though I still think most of the action for that is on the iphone and the app store.

Also, I got my kids hooked on tower defense games. Ninja Town is pretty good on the DS but they really like Defense Grid on the PC. They've gotten quite good at it now.

[firstadopter]

Is Lair for PS3 worth $16 shipped from Newegg after all the patches?

[arogan]

Is Lair for PS3 worth $16 shipped from Newegg after all the patches?

I sunk maybe 3-4 hrs into it post patch. It is a lot better NOT having to use the crappy motion controls. Still, there are some frustrating missions which aren't fun repeating when you fail. Having said that I never finished it and there's a good chance I probably won't. But for $16 shipped it might be worth it.

[firstadopter]

I started GTA Chinatown. It's pretty amazing the graphics/sound they are able to do on the DS. The gameplay is amazingly similar to the 3D versions. I'm very impressed.

[TheAngryIntern]

Just picked up Velvet Assassin off Steam. The game was just released on the 1st. It's pretty fun. Kind of a Splinter Cell meets Tomb Raider meets the Thief series. The controls are a bit awkward at first, but you get used to them quick. The graphics are just gorgeous. The gameplay is all about sneaking around and trying to silently take out Nazis, and you find hidden items around the level. The interesting thing is that each time you find a hidden item, it gives you some XP, every 1000 XP, you get a point that you can put towards either your Stealth (makes you go faster while sneaking) Strength (lets you take more damage) or Morphine (which lets the morphine effect last a bit longer) The Morphine effect is another interesting feature. You hit the button, and it freezes time for a few seconds and you can use it to take out an enemy from the front (normally you can only attack from behind) or lets you get out of sight of the enemy and hide again. All in All, a fun game so far.

[firstadopter]

I've been watching E3 trailers and videos all day. The only 2 I'm excited about are Modern Warfare 2 and maybe Assasin's Creed 2 (I never played the first one, is it worth picking up? if so which platform? PC? 360?)

[arogan]

go 360 for the controls. I loved Assassin's Creed!
http://blog.arogan.com/2007/12/assassins-creed-xbox-360.html

But I'm most looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2!!!! That game sucked away 6 months of my life.

[stupot42]

Agreed... Assassin's Creed was brilliant... although a bit repetitive toward the end... 360 version works really well. Recommended.

[stupot42]

Assassins Creed 2 looks pretty good:

http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/assassins-creed-2/#/video/5723

[TheAngryIntern]

that does look pretty sweet!

[stupot42]

I'm pleased they've not changed the game completely and have gone for adding new stuff whilst keeping the familiar. There's nothing worse than a good game getting a sequel and finding that they've scrapped everything from the original and screwed it up. This will be on my summer shopping list.

[firstadopter]

I'm a few hours in Heavenly Sword for PS3 and I can't believe how fun it is. I've had this game for a LONG time and never played it. Finally got around to it.

The graphics are still amazing, great motion capture cut-scenes too, although the plot is kind of weird so far.

The game is kind of repetitive, but the landscapes and finishing moves are very very satisfying. I can't believe this game didn't do better sales wise.

[arogan]

Yeah it's like my 2nd favorite game on ps3. I just love the art style, character design, voice acting (listen carefully next time you watch Fringe), animation, and the amazing aerial combos. It's just that it is very very short. I would say 6 hrs max to finish it.

[firstadopter]

What's your favorite game on PS3 just curious.. It's taking me a while because my gaming skills are not what they used to be. It took me like 10 times to finally beat the first boss battle with the Flying Fox dude. Lame I know.

[arogan]

some tips in here:
http://blog.arogan.com/2007/07/heavenly-sword-ps3.html

Ok easily my favorite ps3 game is:
http://blog.arogan.com/2008/01/uncharted-drakes-fortune-ps3.html

[firstadopter]

Geez, Uncharted still selling for close to full price. What is Sony thinking?

[TheAngryIntern]

I played in the closed beta event for Aion over the past weekend. It's a new MMO coming out from NCSoft. I saw their booth at Comic Con and got to play it for about 10 min there and they were giving out keys to the beta event. It's fantasy based like WoW and guild wars. I thought it was pretty fun. But it was laggy as all hell, so I didn't play much, hopefully by the next beta event they'll have it all sorted out. I think this could be a game that would be fun to play while waiting for Star Wars: TOR to come out

[arogan]

I saw some videos of it. It looked pretty interesting. So I hear the hook is flying. Did you try much of that or fighting in mid air?

On a completely unrelated note windows 7 final is now up on MSDN/technet.

[TheAngryIntern]

I saw some videos of it. It looked pretty interesting. So I hear the hook is flying. Did you try much of that or fighting in mid air?

On a completely unrelated note windows 7 final is now up on MSDN/technet.


LOL! i was just gonna post a new thread on 7 being up on Technet. I'm downloading the Pro version right now for my home computer.

I didn't get far enough into the game to be able to Fly this past weekend (I only got up to about lvl 6 on both the characters I tried). But I did get to fly around a bit when playing at Comic Con, as the toon they had for us to play was lvl 40ish.

[firstadopter]

Just FYI, Starcraft got delayed till next year. Oh well.

[firstadopter]

Fat Princess is definitely A LOT of fun. I think it's a must buy if you have a PS3.

[firstadopter]

I have a full addiction to Fat Princess. I reiterate it's MUST BUY if you own PS3. It's like playing massive multi-player 2D Legend of Zelda!

[TheAngryIntern]

This game is fantastic! This is easily the most fun I've had playing a console game in a long time. I ended up playing until 1am last night cuz I wanted to keep going, even though I was freaking tired and needed to go to bed so I could be half way productive at work. They do a really good job of keeping the continuity going, and by that I mean there's really no loading screens, it's pretty seamless as you go from area to area. I think the only place where there was a noticeable pause was when I got out of the Isolation Ward to go outside to the main island, there was about a 10 second loading pause.

Combat is great, just mostly single button mashing and kicking the crap out of the bad guys, although there are a few combos that you can learn as the game goes along, but nothing seriously complicated like you see in other games.

I love how Batman's costume shows wear and tear as the game progresses, really adds to the immersion factor.

I'll post more impressions of the game later.

[arogan]

Amazon shows my copy should be delivered today. OK, I guess it's time to take a break from WOW and start playing some other games.

I've been playing some Trials HD and splosion man. Trials is a lot of fun until you hit the hard levels then the frustration level just skyrockets. Splosion man is a fun puzzley platformer with a nice co-op mode too.

[TheAngryIntern]

Just finished the Story mode for Batman today. Great game! I'm running around trying to find all the Riddler stuff now before I tackle the challenges.

[firstadopter]

http://www.bigdownload.com/games/need-for-speed-shift/pc/need-for-speed-shift-demo

It looks and plays great with xbox 360 wired controller. Beautiful at 1920x1200. Usually I haven't play racers before on PC due to bad controls, but the Xbox 360 controller works great with this and the graphics are freaking amazing in high-resolution. Nice job EA.

I might sell my 360 and just buy 360-ish games on my PC now. I'm sick of paying annual Xbox live fees. Even Streetfighter IV looks and plays better on PC.

[firstadopter]

I'm going to pick up Assassin's Creed for $5 later tonight on the Direct2Drive sale. It Titan Quest also worth it for $5?

[TheAngryIntern]

I started playing Aion on Sunday. So far it's pretty good, especially once I got past the stuff that I had already done on the Beta.

[derektrainwreck]

i just started playing WoW.

im scared im gonna get addicted and lose my girlfriend, haha

[firstadopter]

Welcome to the forum derek. You know the solution is get your girlfriend addicted to WOW too. LOL

[arogan]

I'm now on level 70 with my mage, enchant and tailoring both at 350. I've been playing since spring. But dang leveling has now ground to a halt. I've begun questing in northrend which is helping a bit.

We cleared out Shadow Labyrinth last tues, and I only gained like half a level.

Oh I finally did my first 10 man raid: Karazhan
The boss battles do get quite complicated, a lot more so than regular instances. Good thing our guild leader was pretty good at explaining each encounter.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/rchen/th_WoWScrnShot_091409_231416.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v251/rchen/?action=view&current=WoWScrnShot_091409_231416.jpg)

[derektrainwreck]

Welcome to the forum derek. You know the solution is get your girlfriend addicted to WOW too. LOL

haha, i cant even tell her i play it. she'd kill me! haha did you get your girlf addicted?!!

[arogan]

haha, i cant even tell her i play it. she'd kill me! haha did you get your girlf addicted?!!

Heh firstadpoter is married therefore he's much harder to get rid of :-)

[firstadopter]

I actually played WOW for 2 months when it first came out. It pretty much destroyed my social life, so I quit. Playing till 4-5am in the morning every night, I was like ... this is not good. LOL

[arogan]

I've kept it mostly under control. I'm averaging about 6 hrs a week with an occasional 10hr week.

[firstadopter]

Are any of you going to get Demon Souls? The reviews scare me on the difficulty/frustration level: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/demonssoul/review.html

[arogan]

My order has shipped. I'll have it by next week.

[firstadopter]

How is Demon Souls?

[arogan]

How is Demon Souls?

I've gotta open it first. No time!!!

Got in a couple of hours of gaming in last night that was NOT wow:

borderlands (pc)
- it's obvious the 360 was the lead sku and this was a console port. There are some pretty console ish UI bits in it still.
- I really like the way it looks.
- The shooty bits are very good, helps it uses the unreal engine
- Progression is a bit slow. I'm getting a lot of trash loot drops.
- Quests are very generic so far. about 50% kill X/ 50% fetch this
- still I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I think co-op is probably where it is at. Though setting up a server is a bit of a mess and you have to manually forward ports.

Torchlight (pc)
- It IS DIABLO!!! From the look, feel, music, sound. Really beautiful 3d graphics. Great streamlined UI. Awesome pet/inventory system. I just love how you can load up your pet with crap and send him off to town to sell it.
- Great loot drop progression. I'm constantly getting upgraded gear.
- It's only single player but well worth the $20 on steam.

[TheAngryIntern]

I'm LOVING Torchlight. You're absolutely right, arogan, it's Diablo and that's not a bad thing! the sending the pet back to sell crap is great, I like the little side quests for the one guy who makes the portals for you. It's definitely worth $20, although I didn't see it was on steam, I downloaded it directly from the game's website, same price, though.

[arogan]

Still enjoying the heck out of torchlight (more so than borderlands which I'm up to level 10 and is pretty fun in its own right).

I'm level 20 now:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/rchen/11012009_204200689Large.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/rchen/11012009_204237372Large.png

[firstadopter]

I annoyed that Modern Warfare 2 is out early for select stores. Grrr...

[TheAngryIntern]

yeah, not gonna get MW2...they totally gimped the PC version. No in game console to allow customization, no dedicated servers, multiplayer limited to 9v9. this is not a PC version, it's a console port.

[firstadopter]

How does Torchlight compare to Titan Quest? I still have to play most of Titan Quest.

[arogan]

How does Torchlight compare to Titan Quest? I still have to play most of Titan Quest.

I played the first couple of chapters in Titan Quest. Torchlight is a much smaller scope, simpler game. It's very focused but polished. I find it easier to get into and play for shorter periods of time. It auto saves, and you can quit at anytime (anywhere in the middle of the dungeon even) and you will resume exactly where you left off.

I've got mw2 pre-ordered on the 360.

I spent most of the day playing Dragon Age on PC (steam) and it's pretty great so far. The graphics are a bit dated but the story and voice acting is typical bioware which is to say pretty high quality..

[firstadopter]

US VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY - OCTOBER 2009 (Oct. 4-31)
Hardware: $380.74 million (-23%)
Software: $572.73 million (-18%)
Accessories: $118.88 million (-2%)
Total Games: $1.07 billion (-19%)

TOP-SELLING HARDWARE - OCTOBER 2009
Wii: 506,900
Nintendo DS: 457,600
PlayStation 3: 320,600
Xbox 360: 249,700
PSP: 174,600
PlayStation 2: 117,800

TOP-SELLING SOFTWARE SKUs - OCTOBER 2009 (not combined sales)
Title / Publisher / Units**
1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) / Sony / 537,000
2. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) / Nintendo / 441,000
3. Borderlands (360) / Take-Two / 418,000
4. Wii Sports Resort w/ Wii Motion Plus (Wii) / Nintendo / 314,000
5. NBA 2K10 (360) / Take-Two / 311,000
6. Halo 3: ODST (360) / Microsoft / 271,000
7. NBA 2K10 (PS3) / Take-Two / 213,000
8. Forza Motorsport 3 (360) / Microsoft / 175,000
9. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS) / Square Enix / 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (360) / Electronic Arts / 156,000
11. Demon’s Souls / Atlus
12. Brutal Legend (360) / Electronic Arts / 150,000
13. FIFA Soccer 10 (PS3) / Electronic Arts
14. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Ins. Story (DS) / Nintendo
15. WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2010 (360) / THQ
16. Tekken 6 (PS3) / Namco Bandai
17. Borderlands (PS3) / Take-Two / 113,000
18. Madden NFL 10 (360) / Electronic Arts
19. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: EoS (DS) / Nintendo
20. Mario Kart (Wii) / Nintendo

Music genre $53 million vs. $137 million last year

[firstadopter]

Yikes Forza 3 and Brutal Legend didn't do so hot. DJ Hero did horrible too.

[firstadopter]

I finally started playing Uncharted 2. Holy crap is it good. Like a real interactive movie. I'm thinking of stopping playing and picking up Uncharted 1 first, so I can play them in the right order.

[arogan]

It's really pretty sad. All I play now is wow, a bit of MW2, and I keep neglecting ME2 which I'm about 7 hrs into.

I'm hitting ICC 10 and 25 man raids weekly now and have a solid mix of t9 and t10 gear.
http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone=us&server=Moonrunner&name=maggiegordon

I remember back when I would actually play a large variety of games....oh well.

[TheAngryIntern]

Nice, i haven't even done ICC 25, only been in for ICC 10 a couple times

[arogan]

I also went a bit UI modding crazy:
http://blog.arogan.com/2010/02/world-of-warcraft-guide-to-creating.html

Though I think I'm done for real this time. I'm really happy with it now.

ICC 25 isn't too different from 10 man and I'm mostly just clearing the lower wing. Though I think I'm geared enough for progression stuff I just can't raid 2 nights a week. My wife would kill me.

[firstadopter]

I'm pretty much stop playing games. I'm in the new FA chat room all day now hanging out with 70+ people (day 2!). Stop in once a while guys. Instructions are on firstadopter.com

[TheAngryIntern]

Got Battlefield Bad Company 2 off Steam today. Played about 3 hours of the single player campaign so far. First impressions: it's bad ass! The graphics are simply stunning. In a few of the cinematics some of the scenery is near photo-realistic. I've got the eye candy turned mostly up and it still plays great on my 9800GTX.

At the beginning it's a bit annoying because it seems like the game is going to be 2 minutes of playing followed by a 5 minute cinematic, but after a bit the cinematics are farther apart, but they do help further the story. It was a bit confusing at first as well, since the first level you play is in WWII. I hadn't read up too much on the game so I was like "cool, it's a WWII game" but after the first part it goes back to present day, the intro level was just a prologue leading up to the events of the main story line. The game auto-saves often, pretty much every time you hit a checkpoint, which are numerous. There's even some pretty good humor in it. I found myself LOL'ing at a few of the cinematics. The characters are well done, each one has it's own personality. You have the crusty sarge who's about to retire, the gung-ho crazy guy you are just glad is on your side, and a kinda techy guy who handles the electronic stuff.

As far as game play, you are part of a 4 man squad who gets sent into the shit by an unknown organization, although the CIA is mentioned a few times. I haven't quite figured out if my team started out as regular Army guys or not. The friendly AI is fairly good, I only had one instance where one walked right in front of me as I was launching a grenade and we all died. There are a couple spots where it does get annoying as there is 1 or 2 bad guys left and your 3 AI teammates don't seem to want to do anything about it. There are a couple good parts where you are riding in a vehicle of some kind, probably the most fun are being in the back of a Russian lorry racing away from bad guys and having to launch grenades at baddies coming up from behind; and riding in a chopper manning the mini-guns on the side blowing crap up on the ground

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, probably try to get into that this weekend when I have a bit more time (and have gotten more play time...I'm a bit rusty, haven't played a FPS in a while!!)

[firstadopter]

I just got it in the mail today too. I'll probably play it this weekend. Since it was a pre-order, I was able to play the multiplayer beta a bunch of times, it was really fun.

[firstadopter]

hey arogan,

does your guild use teamspeak or ventrilo? If yes to both, which one do you like better, pros/cons? Thanks.

[arogan]

I've used both quite a bit. Our guild uses ventrilo.

They are a both very similar in sound quality IMO. I personally like teamspeak a bit better. I find it easier to configure and you can easily boost voice volume really high.

You can get very good results with ventrilo but it takes quite a bit more fiddling with. To boost voice volumes high enough and normalize I had to go into some directx sfx config screen and add these modules and mess with all these sliders.

I'm sure with enough time you can really tweak the crap out of ventrilo but I think ts is just fine mostly straight out of the box. I think a lot of the wow community seems to prefer ventrilo though.

Also, there are a lot of free public ts servers. I'm sure there are probably a similar amount of ventrilo ones but I haven't looked.

[TheAngryIntern]

I haven't used TS in years, but I do know that Vent has a Mac client, so that's something to think about.

[arogan]

I've used the vent mac client on my mbp and it works pretty well. There is also a ts mac client but I haven't tried it.

[firstadopter]

I'm really liking Bad Co 2. I did have some issues initially as Punkbuster kept crashing the game, so I had to update it to the latest version, but now it's running ok when EA's servers are working.

The graphics are great, the great multi-player BF feeling is there. Being able to spawn closer to the battles and the addition of the ATV is a huge plus. It really takes away the biggest negative to the BF games before, which was spawning and running for 2-3 minutes to get shot.

It's a lot a lot of fun. Much better than MOW2 IMO.

[arogan]

I guess I need to boot up bad co 2 sometime. I did get it. I also picked up god of war 3.
But right now when I'm not playing wow I'm working on Final Fantasy XIII (ps3 version). What can I say, it's very pretty, streamlined for the masses, very linear, with a pretty good combat system. I'm liking it so far and most of the characters are fine except for Hope which needs to die in a fire. I've never finished a final fantasy ever. The furthest I ever got was 25 hrs into FFX. We'll see how long this one lasts....

[firstadopter]

Random question, but arogan what do you use as your gaming monitor? I'm think of buying a 4th one, but want a cheaper TN gaming oriented panel.

[arogan]

Random question, but arogan what do you use as your gaming monitor? I'm think of buying a 4th one, but want a cheaper TN gaming oriented panel.

http://blog.arogan.com/2008/04/westinghouse-24-lcd-monitor-l2410nm.html

Though if you are going to use it strictly for gaming I would probably go with a TN.

[firstadopter]

Hey arogan, I see you playing Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox 360. Any reason you chose 360 over PC?

Playing 1980X1080 2x AA on PC is so much nicer looking on a mice/keyboard to boot.

[arogan]

Hey arogan, I see you playing Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox 360. Any reason you chose 360 over PC?

Playing 1980X1080 2x AA on PC is so much nicer looking on a mice/keyboard to boot.

I bought it on both, and both with stimulus pack :-)

But I've had the 360 version longer, and I'm already at level 70.

It depends. Sometimes I've been sitting too long at the computer (like after a long session of wow), and I just want to plop down on the couch in front of the big hdtv. Other times I enjoy the quick snappy and precise controls of the keyboard and mouse.

[firstadopter]

http://www.google.com/pacman/

[BigKaChing]

I used to play WoW religiously. Preordered the collectors edition and played it for 5+years until I realized I spent 1/6th of my life playing a game and invested countless hours and 14.99/mo. I probably would still be playing it today if the rep grind and gear progression hadn't gotten so monotomous. I belonged to several successful raiding guilds only to be broken apart by gear whores, guild drama and ego trips.

Fast forward 1+ years. I only casually play games. These are on my regular playlist.

PS3-Final Fantasy XIII
PC-Dragon Age Origin/Awakening
PC-Starcraft II Beta

Games I'm looking forward to playing:

PC-Final Fantasy 14
PC-Diablo 3

[firstadopter]

What have you guys been playing?

I've picked up Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 because some of my online friends have it. I already have the PC version. So I've been playing a lot of console MOW2 multi-player. Even though it's not as good graphics wise as the PC version and the control scheme is much worse, I find now that I'm a lot older sitting the couch and using the controller is more relaxing than on the desk. Moreover the 360 controller doesn't wear down my wrists like the mouse/kebyoard scheme does.

Other than that I've been playing Picross (2D version) on the DS before I go to bed. Also an old genesis version of Rampart, which brought me back to the old days of playing the Atari Lynx. Back then I put dozens of hours on that game.

I picked up a Round 2 arcade stick for $99 a few weeks ago when Mad Catz had a sale, so I'm playing Super Streetfighter IV occasionally also.

I also been working through the campaign in Red Dead Redemption.

I am tempted to pick up Starcraft II with all the hype online, but I have all these RTS-es that I bought last few years that I haven't finished (Company of Heroes bundle, Red Alert 3, Rise of Nations, LOTR, etc.) and some I haven't even played (Supreme Commander, World in Conflict), so I probably should stay away from dropping $60 on a new RTS, right?

[arogan]

- finished Limbo last night. Great little physics based puzzle platformer. If you liked Braid you'll like Limbo.
- 12 hrs into Just Cause 2 on 360 and just loving it. The engine is amazing. I really like the sound design. I will be finishing this game!
- Still working my way up to level 70 on MW2 pc (already 70 on the 360). Still learning the maps from the latest DLC.
- Working on Lich King (39%!!! we got him into the final phase, phase 5). Also working on Ruby Sanctum (dang phase 2 is hard). Other than that I just play the Auction House game.
- Still playing devil invasion on and off on the iPhone. Also, warblade is a very nice souped up galaga clone.
- Started Death Spank on 360. Not a bad little diablo clone.
- About 4 levels into the campaign on Starcraft II. I'm digging it so far but never was a huge Starcraft fan.
- Hydro thunder on 360. My 8yr old loves the original hydro thunder so this sequel on the 360 is pretty awesome if you are a hydro thunder fan.
- Heh my 5 yr old finished shatter last night. Well, he needed my help on the last boss but other than that it was all him.

[firstadopter]

Is Borderlands worth picking up?

[firstadopter]

I'm playing a lot of Popcap games. The trial to Peggle was bundled with the 4GB Xbox 360, it was a lot of fun that I picked up the $2.99 iPhone version which I probably spent over 2 hours playing already. I find the game hypnotically addicting. The physics engine of the ball bouncing around is a lot of fun just to stare at.

I also played through the trial of Plants vs. Zombies, which was also a ton of fun. I'll probably get the full version at some point, but I'm waiting for a sale.

[firstadopter]

Bought the full versions of Battlefield 1943 and Plants vs. Zombies. Having a good time with both. Waiting to decide to pick up Medal of Honor or COD Black Ops, going to read the reviews first.

Is Halo Reach any good?

[arogan]

I love Halo Reach. Beats the crap out of odst. The single player campaign is very good. I really enjoyed the space combat missions. I'd buy a full game of just that.

Played a tiny bit of fire fight and team slayer. I need to get back into halo multiplayer. It's been too long.

[firstadopter]

I'm playing a lot of Call of Duty BlackOps. Graphics seem slightly worse than Modern Warfare 2, which is surprising. However multi-player gameplay seems more balanced and fun as kill streaks don't stack. Having a good time.

[firstadopter]

Hey Arogan, what gun do you use in Black Ops? I watched one of your replays and I like the gun you are using.

[firstadopter]

I've been playing some Blur multi-player and I like it a lot. It is very much like Mario Kart with real cars. Too bad the game flopped.

GoGamer regularly does sales on this game for $20 new, definitely worth the pick-up at that price.

[firstadopter]

You guys should sign up to this site: http://raptr.com/

Once it you register it keeps track of how much time you played each game, which is kind of neat.

[firstadopter]

I picked up Game Dev Story for iPhone/iPod Touch. It's really addictive and fun. I love watching the bank account go up after you ship a game. LOL

[TheAngryIntern]

I'm back hardcore into WoW again. The new Xpansion is a lot of fun, they went back and redid a lot of the original world with new landscapes (Story is that Deathwing got loose and destroyed everything) The 2 new races are pretty cool, Goblins and Worgen. I'm really enjoying everything again!

[firstadopter]

TAI, which server do you play on? Maybe I'll give WOW another shot. If I don't play with expansion, will we still be in the same world?

[TheAngryIntern]

Yeah, the bulk of the changes that they made to the appearance of the world were introduced with the last patch before the xpac, so even if you don't get the xpac, you can still see a lot of the new stuff. I think the things that you need Cataclysm for are flying in Azeroth, the 2 new races and the new areas. they revamped all the quests in the lowbie zones so even if you did them all, things will be different now so it's like a whole new game!

I'm on Hyjal server, Horde side.

[firstadopter]

http://us.battle.net/en/info/cataclysm-trial

10 day Cataclysm trial is now available.

[oneleggedcat]

Defense Grid. I picked it up off Steam for $2.50 over the holidays. Pretty fun if you like tower-defense games.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/18500/

[firstadopter]

I tried the Crysis 2 demo on 360. The graphics weren't that good, frame-rate is worse than Black Ops, I think this game is not going to do well.

I tried Quake Arena demo on 360 too, literally there was no-one else playing the game. LOL. Not a good sign.

[firstadopter]

I picked up Blazblue Continuum Shift for 360 just now for $20 new at Gamestop.

[TheAngryIntern]

I finished Portal 2's single player mode last week. I really enjoyed it. I felt the story was a bit better this time, it felt more complete. The character of Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant) was wonderful comic relief. GLaDOS was definitely still pissed off that you killed her in the first game, even though it's been hundreds of years since the events of Portal 1 (your character has been in stasis the whole time)

I haven't tried Co-op yet, I've heard it's a lot of fun.

Valve released some news last week that the first DLC pack is coming in a couple months, will be FREE!!! and will have a lot more single player test chambers and some more co-op content as well.

It's well worth buying if you enjoyed the first one!

[firstadopter]

Is Witcher 2 worth picking up? The graphics look pretty amazing. I'm just a bit worried as my gaming PC probably isn't up to snuff to run it (4870/e6400 intel cpu). And if I do upgrade my PC I want to wait till last moment before Battlefield 3 launches.

[TheAngryIntern]

Is Borderlands worth picking up?

I know you asked this a long time ago, but yes, it is worth it. I picked it up a while back when the GoTY edition was on sale on Steam. It includes the original game and all 4 of the DLC packs. I recently finished playing through the single player and 2 of the DLCs. I enjoyed it a lot. You don't see too many FPS RPGs these days, so it was a nice change from all the other stuff I'd been playing lately. The setting is cool, a dusty, dirty post-apocalyptic world with just a few people struggling to survive after the big mining corporations stripped the planet of anything useful and then left.

[firstadopter]

Hey TAI, I saw that you picked up Witcher 2 on Steam, you like it?

[TheAngryIntern]

LOL, haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Too many other games already in progress that I want to finish before starting a new one!

[TheAngryIntern]

If you haven't picked up Borderlands yet, Steam has it on sale right now for $7.50. It's definitely worth it at this price. You'll get a good 20+ hours of game play out of it.

[firstadopter]

EA is having a huge iPad 99c sale today. I picked up like 10 games. I tried them all, but the best one seems to be NBA Jam.

[firstadopter]

Tried retail version of Battlefield 3 today on my PC rig (Intel E6400 dual core overclocked to 2.8ghz 2GB of RAM, ATI 4870 videocard).

I was pleasantly surprised how well single-player ran on 1680x1050 resolution with even some graphics options turned to HIGH. The graphics look amazing even with my old rig.

Mutli-player I had to dial down everything to LOW though to run at 1680X1050 for a playable frame-rate. Even then the graphics looks pretty good, very similar to how Battlefield Bad Company 2 looked.

Played for about an hour, having lots of fun. The main reason I went for PC version is when I get a better rig next year, it should look much better. :)

[firstadopter]

Hey Arogan, what are the specs on your PC rig now to run Battlefield 3 at 1920x1200?

Also how did you get Twitter running on Android Touchpad. Mine says device not supported. Thanks.

Also what are the top 3-5 games you recommend for Android Touchpad?

[TheAngryIntern]

Picked up Skyrim on Steam the other day. haven't had much of a chance to play it but so far it's pretty cool. You get attacked by a dragon like 3 minutes into the game!

[TheAngryIntern]

50+ hours into Skyrim, but I guess that will be put on the back burner for a while, because I just got my email this morning that I can start playing Star Wars: The Old Republic today (early access for pre-ordering, the game doesn't officially release until the 20th).

If anyone is planning on playing it and wants to go Sith Empire side, my character and guild are on the Master Zhar Lestin server, guild is called Drunken Monkeys (just like my WoW guild). It's a PVE server, we're going to be a pretty casual guild, no hardcore raiding requirements or anything like that.

[firstadopter]

Let us know how it is and the long-term implications for WOW players (will they switch for good or go back to WOW). Very interesting. Thanks.

[TheAngryIntern]

Well, I've already quit WoW. I canceled my subscription last summer when I realized I wasn't even playing and that I was due for a 3-month renewal. Haven't missed it in the slightest. Not sure how long term SWTOR will be, but for right now, it's a lot of fun!

[TheAngryIntern]

SWTOR has been great so far. I'm finally starting to get into stuff I didn't see on my Beta test weekend. The early access staggered rollout has been really nice, too. Although for me it's been great mainly since I got in on day 1 of early access!!!

[firstadopter]

Is there good hard-core RAID and PVP content later in Star Wars?

[TheAngryIntern]

I have no idea, haven't gotten that far yet. My highest character is only lvl 18,

[firstadopter]

You still playing Star Wars TAI? Reports came out couple days ago that the game cost $200 million to make. Insane.