I'd be playing Metal Gear Rising if it wasn't fucking DELAYED BY EB AND JB AND THE OTHER USELESS CUNT AUSTRALIAN STORES

In what way is it the stores' fault and not the distributors?

THEY ALL SUCK

I'LL KILL THEM ALLLLL

I got it for about £3 in ASDA. Good game actually, haven't played it a lot but will probably pick it up again. In the meantime, here are some of my recent YouTube videos detailing my first impressions on both Saints Row 3 and Dead Island.

Replaying EWJ2 :p

Still playing though Wind Waker. It really is an amazing game. I just have one little nitpick - Travelling across the sea takes the fucking piss, Just endless shades of blue for ages at a time. Don't get me wrong, it looks beautiful, thanks to the cell-shaded graphics. It's just it can get a bit boring if nothing appears or you have to go in a straight line across the sea.

I've also started Mario Sunshine for the first time.

First impressions of Sunshine are not great to be honest. The F.L.U.D.D. mechanic (the one where you spray water) is just dull (The Jetpack, not so much). Cleaning up paint with water really isn't my idea of fun and I just don't like how it controls either. You stop moving and control the spray of water... I don't want to stop moving in a platform game!

A few good things however. I love the tropical island look and the music is really great. I'm going to give it a chance obviously, after all, I have only started playing and it's a Mario game. I think once I get used to the F.L.U.D.D., I might end up loving it.

Finished Munch HD. Perfect ending because i'm perfect.

I've started on Rayman 3D, which is the 3D remake of Rayman 2. Getting to be a kid again with the added 3D is seriously the best thing ever and I love the Rayman series

I beat Metal Gear Rising.

I expected a short, crazy side-game full of silly action.

I got a not-so-short, pretty insane fully-fledged game that dealt not only with silly action but satisfying combat, and a proper, interesting look into Raiden's character.

Also some of the most intense bossfights ever and a lovely soundtrack.

Would it be fun for those who are not into Metal Gear whatsoever?

The kind that thought MGS 4 was little more than an overly long, nonsensical film?

Yeah, actually. It's not too long and 90% of the game is action you're in control of. The combat is mostly you and it doesn't have many QTEs.

The story is about a guy named Raiden, who used to be a psychopathic child soldier that was rehabilitated. He works as a private military contractor's security officer to feed his family when a rival company kills his VIP and begins destablizing regions across the globe, and personally injures Raiden. So after being rebuilt Raiden and his company goes after them, discovering that the fight has a lot to do with Raiden's past in the process.

Most of the game is about how Raiden's philosophies and ideals are an excuse that he uses to hide the mixed feelings of guilt and pleasure he feels during wartime, and that how ideologies fall apart when you confront them with the realities of fighting and killing. This comes to a head with the final boss who will being absolutely crazy and silly and over-the-top is also charming, charismatic, likeable and his views actually almost make sense.

It's just a really great fun game and can be incredibly challenging if you turn the difficulty up.

So how long did it take to beat it? I saw a lot of 5 and 6 hour playtime rank screens on /v/, but everyone says it excludes cutscene time and your deaths/failed attempts on levels, is that true? Might get it sometime, it looks pretty insane.

The timelisting records your best time for each segment and cuts out deaths as well as times when you're not in combat.

It took me about 8 hours on Normal, not including the 20 or so VR missions and tons of unlockables.

Also if you set it on Hard it may take you weeks to beat...

Nice, sounds good.

Anyways, I've been playing Driver: San Francisco for the past few days and today I finally finished the story missions. At first I was pretty skeptical of the shifting mechanic and the main character in a coma -plot, but once I played the game for a while, I got the hang of it.

The story wasn't that long, but it was actually very interesting and Jericho was quite the crazy antagonist. I really liked some of the stories in the city missions too, like there were these two Japanese brothers who had to do some street racing in order to get their college fund and they pretty much ended up driving with the big bad guys for millions of dollars and you had to help them out of the situation, it was pretty funny.

I have yet to fully try out the multiplayer modes, but from the few quick matches I tried, it seemed like a lot of fun. There are also tons of little activities you can do around the city (by the way, the map is huge) and I haven't even purchased every garage yet or completed all of the movie challenges. So yeah, a lot to do in the game.

I'd probably give it a solid 8 out of 10, enjoyed it a lot.

Would it be fun for those who are into Metal Gear? I enjoyed the storytelling and dialogues of 4 original games. And the atmosphere

Well yeah? It's still got stealth, there's returning characters, the gameplay is full of fun quirks to figure out, the Codec is over 400 conversations covering everything from torture porn movies to ethnic cuisine to transhumanism to scale and robotics logistics to space travel to politics to everything in between. The main theme of the game is Raiden and his beliefs and how they're similiar to the concepts the Patriots encouraged. Raiden even talks at length about Snake and other previous characters and what they mean to him.

It's very Metal Gear-esque, the only big change is that the story is very direct, fast-paced and the cutscenes are a lot tighter. There's less of them and they're more cinematic, because they've re-balanced the dialogue between the codec and the cutscenes. Of course, it's Metal Gear, so cheesy voice acting is a must, though Raiden's husking voice is the only really silly one and he doesn't use it that much. The rest of the dialogue is more natural with a few quirks, and Crispin Freeman and John Kassir are two cool voices you can spot.

It's a really stellar game for both fans and newcomers, I hope it sells well and gets a sequel.

Hm, okay, thanks. I've also heard that that 'stealth' system actually punishes player for not giving him the points for killing enemies. Any words on that matter?

Depends on the difficulty. you can jump into fights and have fun but when you're playing on Revengeance avoiding fights is a matter of survival at some points.

Of course, in stealth mode you can sneak up behind people and kill them anyway if you choose. It's just trickier.

I'm playing the shit out of Settlers 7 to quench my thirst for economy simulation until SimCity comes out. Just little over a week to go!

Without my laptop I played a game for the DS called 9 Persons 9 Hours 9 Doors. It was really good, though I preferred the writer's earlier work (Ever17, Remember11).

Am currently playing the sequel. It really is ridiculous, but also quite compelling.

I want Fire Emblem Awakening out over here and I want it now.

I played Journey at the weekend. It was certainly an interesting experience.

Getting back into Street Fighter IV. God I love that game.

Started playing Max Payne 3 yesterday and I'm now up to the seventh chapter in the game, surprisingly hard so far even though I'm playing on normal difficulty. Love the gritty cinematic feel of the game and most of the cutscenes, story is pretty crazy so far.

I have also been playing Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed on Xbox and I completed the Sunshine Tour part of the world tour mode, it's pretty damn fun and there seems to be a lot of stuff to do in the game, I unlocked Samba De Amigo just a while ago.

Are there still other people playing it? I had lots of fun I blundered through most of it with a stranger for the first time. I thought they were an AI or something at first.

Started the Overlord ME2 DLC
the fucking first scream the AI does made me shit myself

Yes, I met three separate players. What I loved was that the third, who I met about halfway through, stuck with me right through to the end. We stuck close together and helped each other out in a couple spots, it was really nice.

The dragon sequences were really intense. In the first underground encounter I was spotted by one, so my friend rushed out to help me. We scrambled back towards cover, but he was just a bit slow and copped the full force of the dragon's attack. After that it took me at least 3 minutes to actually find him again. I thought he'd died for good.

Also, the sequence climbing the mountain was fantastic. I wish I could forget this game just to play it for the first time again. It was so delightful.

Finished Max Payne 3 today, really liked it. The last few levels got me pretty frustrated though because of their difficulty. The story was quite decent (if somewhat predictable) and I really loved the soundtrack, they couldn't have chosen a better soundtrack for the game.

I also played a few matches of the multiplayer mode and it's alright and I might play it for a few easy achievements, but I just don't get why Rockstar decided to only make multiplayer add-ons for the game...

I started PoE last night. I'm liking my level 5 Templar so far. The game isn't as polished as D3 or Torchlight 2, but I like the inventory sizes and skill gem system. The passive tree is daunting, but knowing that I can just find a new gems and open new realms of offensive possibility is really nice. I'm probably going to bugger this character up, but that's all part of the fun. It's harder than TL2 and D3 so far. I already feel like elemental resists are more relevant in either of those games.

This is a bad time to start playing a big ARPG, what with my last year of school being so intense so far. Oh well.

Bought Mark of the Ninja and I am loving it.

It controls perfectly making it really fun to sneak around and The controls work really well with keyboard too. I also love the artstyle, especially in cutscenes and I love how any sound is visually represented, telling you where the guards where they heard the sound, this makes it easier to create distractions. You can even sneak in the shadows which of course gives me an Oddworld-vibe. :)

I picked up Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD on the Xbox game sale yesterday for around 5 bucks and I played about an hour of it, really creepy so far, like the older RE games. The zombies are hard to kill with a knife, I ran out of ammo and couldn't find any more so I'm a bit screwed.

I bought the Spyro series on PSN so I've been mucking about with them. Sadly there seems to be some problems with slowdown, which is weird.

I'm waiting in Okami HD downloading while I type this.

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Man, Wil sure changes at the weekend.

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Yes, I finished HeartGold. And by "finished" I mean "found a convenient point to quit without it feeling like quitting".

Team from left: Bruce, Audrey II, Willis, Cthulhu, Ivo, Super Hans.*

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I'd forgotten Exeggcute existed, so when it fell out of a tree I just knew I had to have one.

*Bruce Wayne, Batman; Carnivorous plant in The Little Shop of Horrors; Bruce Willis, he was really a ghost all along; Tentacular horror from under the sea; Ivo Robotnik, Doctor Eggman; Hans Moleman, you know, because it's a mole.

Well, more like a wombat. I did name him when he was still Cyndaquil. But even then he was more like an echinda. Look, if you'd watched as much of Super Hans as I have, you'd want to name something after him too.

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Woah I knew this game was Japanese but

A few little updates, Dead Island's gotten really good. I've got lost a few times using the in-game map so I decided to print one out. It's great for roleplaying since I can trace my finger around the map and decide where to go next. (Shame more games don't have real maps including with the game box itself)

Saints Row 3 is really insane. I've bought most of the property and I'm upgrading most of my weapons, co-op is the best and I'm having a real blast doing missions. Zimos has a funny autotuned voice which just cracks me up constantly.

Haunter is awesome. I always keep it unevolved as I prefer it's design to Gengars. (Gengar is still pretty awesome though).

I was using Haunter for a while in SoulSilver but I got fed up of its relatively low attack strength, so i swapped it out for some radder dudes.

Some Pokemon look cool but just ain’t useful.

Might buy Okami tonight on PSN. Friend has been bbugging ke to play it. Apparently its good.

I bought it last night. It is a fucking wonder seeing the game in 1080p, worth the asking price alone.

My only criticism is how much they toned down the watercolor filter, which added a lot to the overall aesthetic. I can see why they toned it down though, the game looks much clearer and crisper for it.

Finished my Mass Effect 2 session. 41 hours on it holy shit. I've moved on to ME3 and so far i'm up to saving the students. aw yeah space

Goddamn CAPCOM...now I have to choose between Darkstalkers and Okami...



...shit...