What is the last video game you played?

[Quintus 5,399]

They're companions! They help with framing...

and er, killing stuff. Ahem

[King Mark 3,626]

My problem with Skyrim is that the world is not fantastic enough.

I want a game with an open world like Skyrim but looks like Final Fantasy

THIS is something (unfortunately an online game)

[Quintus 5,399]

Well yes, Skyrim is certainly a very dry RPG and world. The Tolkien influences are very obvious. It's my kind of aesthetic, it feels believable.

Those more fantastical worlds you mention are normally the fair of Japanese markets; FF, Zelda and the like. Boss fights aplenty and deep turn-based strategy. You love that stuff, but to a part-time RPG gamer like me they can appear interchangeable.

Basically, apart from Zelda I prefer Western titles within the genre. Interestingly, Skyrim has a huge Asian following I've discovered - their mod scene have gone to town on it. And you can bet your life they all have companions which look like badass school girls.

Anyway, a good crossover was Dragon's Dogma, apparently.

Your modded Skyrim companions would look like this:

Amirite?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I'm playing with controller on my living room plasma btw, works a treat. Visual wise, just traversing the world in 60fps is transforming enough, but once you add the enhancements and overhauls, well it just transports you. You can spend hours on this game just taking in the sights.

I'm sure. I never had issues being submerged in Bethesda's games. Your set up sounds great and ideal, but I could probably never break into it. As for those half naked women, never had them in my game! Is that Lydia, or whatever her name was? She died like 10 minutes after I acquired her services.

I hope Fallout 4 is coming out soon. I'm craving it.

[Quintus 5,399]

Lydia is the one with the golden hair. She's completely overhauled (and tough as nails).

[King Mark 3,626]

The best environments of all games I've played are the ones in Demon's Soul/ Dark Souls

[Quintus 5,399]

Basically medieval horror. The sense of seclusion and the thick oppressive atmosphere, those games are the RPG equivalent of Silent Hill. Only HARDER.

[King Mark 3,626]

Nothing has ever felt more oppressive than venturing to the bottom of the Dark Souls catacombs. That's the stuff of gaming you remember forever

[Quintus 5,399]

It gets to me after a while! I need light at the end of my gaming tunnel!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I still never got more than a couple hours into those games storywise after probably playing a combined 10+. Yet I don't really feel like I wasted money on them. Odd.

Anyway, my GTA V shipped. Can't wait for that one.

[King Mark 3,626]

Advancing a bit in Kingdom Hearts. Really weird game but intriguing. Maybe further in I'll see why it's such a classic but not so far

What I notice is that older games don't hold your hands as much as the new ones. Puzzles are hard and there aren't many hints or any markers to guide you to what to do next. You can really get stuck for a while in one place.

[Wojo 2,453]

That's very apparent with comparing Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind may have put a marker on your map, but you had to read books and talk to people. Starting with Oblivion, they'd let you put the destination on your compass and basically point the way, which held true with its sequel Skyrim and the two newer Fallouts, which used the same engine concepts.

Old FPS games threw you to the wolves, while newer ones feature training missions that serve as tutorials and to learn the controls. I can see the value of making games more accessible.

[King Mark 3,626]

I remember Ultima games. There was no Internet to check the solution and buying a guide was hard to come by.

I was sometimes stuck for days at one spot in those games looking for a way to unlock a room or make a story event happen . Sometimes even a random event would have to happen to make the story progress. And there was no dialogue trees, you had to GUESS the word the NPC might react to.

Ok I can start to see the worlds in Kindom Hearts are carefully crafted. Still, i think it would be better with ONLY Final Fantasy characters and no Disney. Feels too weird having Donald Duck casting spells in my party

[Wojo 2,453]

Can you equip Donald Duck with pants, or is he the party's commando?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Am I the only one with GTA V?

[Red 75]

Can you equip Donald Duck with pants, or is he the party's commando?

Of course he doesn't have pants. He never wears pants.

[Wojo 2,453]

But he puts on a towel when he steps out of the shower.

[Quintus 5,399]

Am I the only one with GTA V?

I'll wait for the PC or PS4 version. Never been a franchise I've really been into anyway.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Grand Theft Auto V

Everyone knows the GTA series. It's been a highlight of gamers, parents, and social news since GTA III exploded on to the PS2. Since then it has only gotten better, until it took a sharp fall with GTA IV. I really didn't like that game, I'm the only person I know that doesn't. It felt smaller, while each previous installment got bigger and better. Ditching all the cool things you could do in San Andreas for another reiteration of Liberty City didn't click with me. It was even too realistic for me to do the stupid crazy arcade stuff I used to do. Unlike Activision, Rockstar doesn't half ass things, and 5 years later they release the biggest entertainment entity of all-time. Soak that in. This game made more money than Avatar in 3 days, and it's still selling as it's been only a week since launch. This game has made more money than any movie, TV show, video game, or book... ever. It cost some $250 million to make, and by playing it for a few short hours I can see why. I wasn't into at first, but once you slowly open up this massive world that Rockstar created, that old familiar feeling started to kick in. This game is superb, though not without its faults. I don't even really want to get into the details of it, since I feel like any other review you can find online will say the same, better. It's an experience unique to any other type of entertainment. Shooting mechanic complaints and graphical fidelity aside, it's pretty damn near impossible to recreate what Rockstar and team achieved here. Straight down to the sublime score, which was composed by none other than Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, The Alchemist, Oh No and DJ Shadow. A full on collaboration between all artists, no divvying up the material. It's a gem of a soundtrack, one that I suspect someone like Thor would love.

[Brónach 1,301]

I've been interested in virtual online worlds and MMOs for a while. I like the concept.

I've been toying with Ryzom (2004) because unlike a lot of stuff it runs fine on my laptop. I enjoy the art direction of the game, I like looking at the sky and seeing the massive tree branches and things like that. On the other hand, character/avatar design feels stiffy and not as cool as the design of the rest of the game. The gameplay is enjoyable.

[Wojo 2,453]

I finally bought my new video card. The 670 FTW jumped in price before I could buy one and became rare, so I switched over to ATI and got an HD 7970 with a voucher for three games.

It's about an inch longer than my old card, a GTX 260. So I had to swap a straight SATA cable for a right angle, and naturally I mixed up several cables until I found an arrangement that fit. Physically.

Electrically, I never knew that if you mix up SATA cables of a RAID array, you mess it up. Apparently I have a 1 TB data drive paired with one of my 500 GB RAID 1 (mirror) drives, which contains XP (7 is on the SSD), which tells the computer that the array is degraded. I think it's a matter of figuring out what the original cable configuration is, which is just going to take some time.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I've been interested in virtual online worlds and MMOs for a while. I like the concept.

I've been toying with Ryzom (2004) because unlike a lot of stuff it runs fine on my laptop. I enjoy the art direction of the game, I like looking at the sky and seeing the massive tree branches and things like that. On the other hand, character/avatar design feels stiffy and not as cool as the design of the rest of the game. The gameplay is enjoyable.

Maybe if you didn't play decade old games things wouldn't feel so stiff

[Quintus 5,399]

Great card, Wojo. You gonna put it to good use?

[Wojo 2,453]

I will get FarCry 3 with the voucher for sure. Likely Tomb Raider. Possibly either Dirt 3 or FC Blood Dragon. I have to resume my Skyrim play, and I will ask you for advice on mods. Both Batman games need beaten, along with Human Revolutions. I want to revisit both Fallouts. I'd say I'll give it a workout.

[King Mark 3,626]

One game at a time and finish it..

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Say that when PS4 launches and I'll be instantly drowning in games!

I played the Battlefield 4 beta and from what I can tell it's exactly the same as 3. Perhaps the PS4 version will be better but as of now I'm cancelling my pre-order, I'll be too busy with Killzone and Ghosts to bother with it. I'll get it for cheap down the line just for the campaign.

Rain

A very simple and sweet little game from Sony's Japan Studio. It reminds me a lot of Ico, in its silent ghostly platforming adventures of two young children. I'm only about halfway through, but I've been enjoying the storybook telling despite the over expositive lines of text running through it. Splashes of The Unfinished Swan in it, which was an absolutely brilliant game that came out a year or so ago. Don't recall if I ever did a write-up about it here.

[King Mark 3,626]

Kingdom hearts is actually very good, but I'm distracted lately and not enjoying my gaming sessions as much

[Brónach 1,301]

Maybe if you didn't play decade old games things wouldn't feel so stiff

Hey!

The original Guild Wars also works in my laptop. But newer MMOs shut down my computer.

[Jay 37,322]

Kingdom hearts is actually very good, but I'm distracted lately and not enjoying my gaming sessions as much

Women problems?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Bad news for Quint?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Kingdom hearts is actually very good, but I'm distracted lately and not enjoying my gaming sessions as much

Women problems?

Yes, tell us?

We are here for you buddy!

[Quintus 5,399]

Bad news for Quint?

This I already know (I read Eurogamer daily). Not bad news at all because I understand exactly how it'll work and feel in practise and that is to say it'll feel and play beautifully smooth - and significantly more silky in motion and to the touch than the likes of Halo, Uncharted, Gears of War and Killzone 3 (LOVED it online) - which all run at the 30fps console standard. This is a debate I'm certainly interested in though. My Battlefield 3 on PC runs @60+fps but still dips into the 40s during really hectic (and spectacular moments) and it barely even registers with me, it's unnoticeable in the heat of battle. There's also the popular myth that current gen Call of Duty is locked @60fps; when that simply isn't the case - Digital Foundry did some cracking good pieces on the engine and demonstrated the frequency of the sub 60fps drops (I never noticed, did you?) beyond doubt. Well worth reading if you're interested engine tech and hardware mastery. The most important thing when playing is visual perception and controller response: as long as fps remains high and aiming remains precise the player won't feel jarred by 'unfair' drops in frame rate during a match.

The locked @60fps/120fps is nothing but propaganda peddled by publishers and the obsessive PC master race. If you get Killzone Shadow Fall and take it online you'll see for yourself. Also, have you seen how it looks compared to Ghosts? Blows it away. That explains the unlocked 60fps clip.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I haven't done much digging into the matter myself. Just thought you'd be interested in it, and clearly you already know much more than I do. I don't know the specifics of the hardware aspect, but as long as I feel the outcome in the final product I'm happy. Here's to hoping Fallout 4 will be rid of all the technical issues that held it back on the previous gen.

[Brónach 1,301]

This looks like a lot of fun:

[King Mark 3,626]

Kingdom hearts is actually very good, but I'm distracted lately and not enjoying my gaming sessions as much

Women problems?

Yes, tell us?

We are here for you buddy!

Girl I had a secret crush on got married. I am way too old for her anyways but it still hurts.

[Jay 37,322]

The one that lived in your building?

[King Mark 3,626]

yeah

[Jay 37,322]

Plenty more fish in the sea out there my friend. And in time, you'll see it's a blessing in disguise that she is locked down, as it frees you to explore other options without worrying about what you could be missing.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Plenty more fish in the sea out there my friend. And in time, you'll see it's a blessing in disguise that she is locked down, as it frees you to explore other options without worrying about what you could be missing.

Indeed!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Beyond: Two Souls

The game has a rocky start and a handful of issues but I just completed my first play through and was floored, despite making some clear mistakes in my decision making. This is an experience you can't find in the cinema. I applaud David Cage for pursuing his visions of interactive drama, and I thank him for giving me this game. What a masterful stroke of imagination.

[Jay 37,322]

How was Ellen Page?

[Quintus 5,399]

That one's has mixed reviews, Eurogamer slated it. Called Cage a hack who is stuck toiling in a medium he wishes he wasn't. I liked Heavy Rain, but its gimmicks were very much apparent throughout and I'm not sure I could be bothered with them again. Quick-time events aren't 'game' enough for me and need to die.

[King Mark 3,626]

Death to QTE's

[Koray Savas 2,251]

That one's has mixed reviews, Eurogamer slated it. Called Cage a hack who is stuck toiling in a medium he wishes he wasn't. I liked Heavy Rain, but its gimmicks were very much apparent throughout and I'm not sure I could be bothered with them again. Quick-time events aren't 'game' enough for me and need to die.

What gimmicks were those? Heavy Rain is one of my favorite games of the generation. These are interactive dramas, and I think that's the major issue with the reviews. They're treating the game like something it doesn't even want to be. David Cage's stories are just that, well-developed narratives with rich characters that you partake in. There's a short little video about how they developed the gameplay for Beyond, and it's actually one of my gripes of the game. It's less involving than Heavy Rain. Their vision was to make it seamless, that you're not thinking about the controller in your hand, but what's happening on screen. The "quicktime events" are just: move the joystick left, right, or down to match Jodie's body movement. I much preferred the tension and panic that was struck within me during Heavy Rain, where I was locked onto the screen so I wouldn't miss the correct button press or movement. With the Move controller it was thrilling. Great enough of an experience to warrant the purchase of the damn controllers. I'm a little surprised they didn't do that this time around, instead you can play the whole game with your smartphone through a companion app.

[Quintus 5,399]

By gimmicks I mean the heavy use of QTEs masquerading as "gameplay". Fundamentally, these titles are little more than sophisticated interactive movies which hark back to the Philips CDi era. Feigning participation and control aside; one only needs to watch a YouTube video walkthrough to still partake in the full bodied experience the title has to offer.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Not at all.

[King Mark 3,626]

I beat Kingdom Hearts. Still have a few optional post-game things to do. It's a 50 hour game

I liked it, near the end it was less Disney and more traditional JRPG. Combat is very similar to Fable with orbs dropping from opponents

There's still 2 games in the package to do though

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Well Watch Dogs got delayed until next year. I'm honestly glad. With that postponed and me cancelling Battlefield 4, I've got a solid launch with Shadow Fall, Ghosts, and Knack. Won't be overwhelmed from the start.

[Quintus 5,399]

I'm only really arsed about Killzone, BF4 and The Crew, the latter of which has also been delayed, but that's okay. My backlog is groaning at the waist.

[King Mark 3,626]

I'm waiting for the first hardware revision