What is the latest game you played and what did you think?

[Bikewer]

I'm working my way through the Call of Duty series; presently almost finished with United Offensive. Pretty solid WWII-drag shooters, though many of the elements are rather arcade-y. (like shooting down most of the Luftwaffe in the bomber segment)
I just downloaded and installed America's army, a much more realistic effort.
Looks pretty good so far...I have to go through "basic training". (hehe-the first time was in 1964...)
Also waiting patiently for FH2. That's Forgotten Hope 2, a mod for the Battlefield 2 engine.
The first version, for Battlefield 1942, is very good, but everyone is about played out on that. The new iteration is due this Summer.

[Urien]

Rome: Total war.

Pretty darn good.

Though it bears little resemblance to the HBO series.

[Rahl Windsong]

I really do like games made by Bioware, a canadian company. So recently I picked up the PC port of Jade Empire. JE came out a few yeats back for the xbox and I think it won game of the year in many magazines that year. So with all that success Bioware decided to do a PC version of the game, with higher resolutions, widescreen support, and some enhancements to cut scenes and some spell effects.

Once again I am reminded of just how great the folks at Bioware are at telling a story in an RPG setting. I absolutely love Jade Empire and my only complaint would be that the game might be just a tad to short.

Rahl

[Pandora]

I tried out the new game by Monte Cristo, Silverfall, just a few days ago. Maybe it was just me, but I think that game is in the need of some serious patching or it won't be playable.
Imagine this:
You are level 1, running into the woods to take out some zombies for the pretty elf girl (who for some reason has a male voice, quite a peculiar bug) and everything is going fine. You're leveling at super speed, the skill system seems interesting, and you're finding some great loot. Suddenly you get completely slaughtered by a group of super zombies.
This happens, and it appears the game doesn't have perma-death, so you accept your fate and start running back to your corpse. Awaiting you there is your tombstone, which, in order for you to get all your stuff back (as it is, you are stark naked, and quite vulnerable), you need to click. Combined with the fact that it's a click-and-run game. And add that surrounding the tombstone are still all those super zombies, just as super as ever, but YOU are completely unarmed and naked on top of that.

I gave up on it after half an hour or so. Sorry for ranting, but I'm seriously disappointed in the game.


It was of course possible to forfeit all your possessions and start somewhere else, but I'm a stubborn bastard. So it didn't work out.


It did have cute cell shaded graphics. I'll give it that.

[Leonardo]

Have to agree that Silverfall sucked.

Currently playing Splinter Cell - Double Agent. The graphics are great, the voice acting top notch, and the physics engine is as ubisoft as they come. You can do virtually anything you can imagine as far as acrobatics go. Hang from the ceiling with a wince, rappel off buildings, climb edges, pipes, railings. You can interrogate people to figure out keycodes or hack computers to override them. You can drop down from ledges and land on guards, knocking them unconscious. The freedom is immense, greater than any of Ubisofts previous games. It's clear that Ubisoft are taking their engine to a new limit of freedom, and it feels good.

As shiny as all of these features are, however, they do not outshine the countless bugs and glitches the game also contains. Think Murphy's Law. I personally had to download an AMD Dual-Core Booster, because the game literally ran in slow motion. Everything was at 50% speed. Unbearable. Others have had to downgrade their DirectX to the first version of 9.0c in order to run it. A few have needed special drivers. It seems, in general, to be pretty badly prepped for release. And the same with sound. After playing for a while, my sound started feedbacking. It would echo until it got super-loud and sounded like a siren. New drivers didn't help, no. I needed special drivers. This is the general norm for the whole game. If you can be bothered to download all the crap you need to run it, it looks and runs pretty decent.

While the singleplayer will provide a few hours of fun, the muiltiplayer probably won't. Unlike the xbox version, the pc version does not feature coop, which is a huge dissappointment. Infact, it barely has any multiplayer modes compared to its xboxian brother. The spies and merc mode is fun, but hopelessly imbalanced. I am not impressed.

On the whole, the game isn't all bad, but won't have you disconnect your phone and shut the shutters.

[YoYo]

Well, it was actually WoW
but speaking of games that have some point playing, I should mention Knights of Honor, I'm totally hooked on it... it's a Bulgarian game, you're some ruler whose aim is to govern whole medieval Europe (how original, eh?) but it's actually quite good and I recommend it to whose who are keen on history or at least have to deal with their craving for power...

[Lenny]

At the moment it's Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm, both for the PS3.

And I have to say, they are amazing!

Though R:FoM is making me jump a lot. Especially now... underground, only the light on my rifle, deathly silent.

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by Lenny

At the moment it's Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm, both for the PS3.

And I have to say, they are amazing!

Though R:FoM is making me jump a lot. Especially now... underground, only the light on my rifle, deathly silent.

Anyone remember playing Doom when it first came out, what like 10 years ago? That game scared the poopies out of me.

I want to play Resistance, just haven't found the time yet. Plus I don't have a PS 3, and likely won't until christmas or later, but I think its out for the ps2 too.

[Lenny]

Sadly it isn't, sorry. It's a must get, though, when you get a PS3.

It's a great game, and there are hundreds of quaint little things dotted arpund the environment - for example, in some of the earlier levels I've been banging fridges open, and right now I'm in a games room playing Pool with my rifle!

[Leaf Face]

I love MMORPGs. 2 years on FFXI and 1 & 1/2 years on World of Warcraft, both really fun. Now I am playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion on PS3, not MMORPG, and it is awesome. You get crazy-detailed with how your char looks and I think this game will go on for at least as long as an MMORPG. Recommended!

[Leonardo]

Leaf Face, What was your general opinion of FFXI, all in all, and why did you quit? I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should try it out. I love FFXII, and it's supposed to be like a spiritual MMO brother. How true is that?

Also, I'm a roleplay junkie and unless there's some sort of a roleplaying community, I'd probably hate it. What can you tell me about roleplaying in FFXI?

This seems like a really hard game to find info on (except in korean), and it's one of the few MMO's not to have a free trial at any point. Would love some info from you. : )

[Lucien21]

Just finished Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess

Took me 36 hours to do it, Fantastic games 9/10

[Joel007]

I'm playing through Dragonshard at the moment, its a dungeons and dragons cross between RPG and RTS. I'm liking the double map style (above and below ground with 2 minimaps). It gets slightly less original after that first innovation, but I'm still enjoying going through the campaign and finding apparently overpowered items which always have a catch somewhere
The game is quite addictive, although I just made the mistake of walking into 2 armies fighting each other with my scout, who then died... and then 2 armies descended on my low level base from either side

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Leonardo

Leaf Face, What was your general opinion of FFXI, all in all, and why did you quit? I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should try it out. I love FFXII, and it's supposed to be like a spiritual MMO brother. How true is that?

Also, I'm a roleplay junkie and unless there's some sort of a roleplaying community, I'd probably hate it. What can you tell me about roleplaying in FFXI?

This seems like a really hard game to find info on (except in korean), and it's one of the few MMO's not to have a free trial at any point. Would love some info from you. : )

It does have quite a few similarities to FF XII, or rather, FF XII has a lot of similarities to it. There is a Role Playing community, but it's not as robust as other MMO's as quite a bit of the FF XI user-base came from the console gaming market; unlike other, traditional MMO's which attract more traditional PnP players and develop much larger RP communities.

The game is quite fun, but as with most of the other MMO's out there it has its faults. I don't like the fact that it was veritably impossible to solo, and that I was forced to constantly find groups when I logged on. After level 10, going at it alone is simply not a great idea. Other than having a few thematic elements from the FF universe, there's really not a lot to be said about it being truly unique.

My opinion to you, is there are quite a few new MMO's coming to the market that look quite a bit better, and if you're interested in playing one, wait it out. Games like Aion and Pirates of the Burning Sea are going to offer something a bit different to players, and might actually be worth the 15 dollars a month.

[Leonardo]

Thanks for the reply, Commonmind!

I've had my eye on Pirates of the Burning Sea for some time, thought it was somewhat low profile. Funny that you should mention it.

Anyway - Having already wasted a year of my life mmoing, I don't plan to get into another one very deeply. That's a major reason why the roleplaying question matters. Me and my better half are looking for a game that can be played very moderately, but that simply doesn't end. A sort of elaborate social coop game, where we could pop on for an hour or two every second day. Would you say it's possible to enjoy FFXI without joining raids and dedicating your life to it, since that just isn't going to happen?

Also, I'll look into Aion as well. I'll certainly try PoTBS if I come across it, and I'm in no hurry. Thanks.