What is the last video game you played?

[Wojo 2,453]

Then you don't really need a PC. Buy a Steam machine.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

PC gaming is nowhere near as popular or user friendly as console gaming, KM, and probably never will be.

And in some ways that's actually what makes PC gaming so interesting and worthwhile - because many of the titles aren't dumbed down "casual" experiences for mainstream playing audiences. PC only titles can be notably more hardcore and avant garde. Experiences like Dear Esther, Going Home and The Stanley Parable would never be found on one of the big consoles, because they are the very meaning of niche and experimental game design.

Didn't Dear Esther get ported to consoles? Most of the successful indie projects get ported over these days, and with the larger focus on self-publishing and indie developers, that gap will gradually get smaller.

[Quintus 5,399]

Dear Esther didn't get ported to console, no.

Just completed Killzone Shadow Fall, a longer by today's standards shooter campaign which started out same ol' same ol', before transforming into something much more interesting and enjoyable, the further I got. The beautifully realised hard sci-fi environments of the later missions were as visually impressive as anything I've ever seen in games, and in the end it was just a decent story which compelled me to get to the end; a rarity in the genre since most FPS have completely unengaging narratives. 8/10

The minimalistic score turned out to be a surprisingly very effective match for the bombastic orchestrations of previous soundtracks in the series, too.

And then there's its marmite multiplayer, which is pretty much all I've been playing since mid December, and which I continue destroy heads on! Fantastic.

Oh wait we were talking about PC gaming weren't we. Sorry.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I'm on Chapter 7. Not a fan, found Ghosts and BF4 more engaging actually.

Tyler Bates' score is shit.

[Quintus 5,399]

I have a footwarmer version of the CoD single player on my PC and I have Battlefield 4 on both PC and PS4. I can't be bothered to progress beyond the hour mark on the former and I'm still forcing my way through the latter just to unlock the bonus weapons useable in multiplayer. So far a 6 hour BF4 campaign has taken me nearly 3 months to slog through. On the other hand I did KZ SF's long campaign in a week or so.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Killzone's campaign has always suffered from just really bad storytelling; and the level design isn't anything special so they usually end up being forgettable experiences. I still think the first one was the best in that regard.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I'M PLAYING HALO AGAIN AND I KICK ASS!!!!111!1!!!1!ONEone

[Quintus 5,399]

Killzone's campaign has always suffered from just really bad storytelling; and the level design isn't anything special so they usually end up being forgettable experiences. I still think the first one was the best in that regard.

I didn't play the first Killzone, but I did play the second and third. Both were spectacular on the eyes but really mediocre games and just very dull playthoughs. The wider design of Shadow Fall's missons on the other hand reminded me of Halo and Crysis 2's sandbox bowl environments - ripe for experimentation, depth of gameplay. No two plays the same etc. I like that design.

It was a welcome departure from the linear previous titles which were basically stunning whack-a-mole rail shooters akin to the CoD games. I don't like that design.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Killzone's campaign has always suffered from just really bad storytelling; and the level design isn't anything special so they usually end up being forgettable experiences. I still think the first one was the best in that regard.

I didn't play the first Killzone, but I did play the second and third. Both were spectacular on the eyes but really mediocre games and just very dull playthoughs. The wider design of Shadow Fall's missons on the other hand reminded me of Halo and Crysis 2's sandbox bowl environments - ripe for experimentation, depth of gameplay. No two plays the same etc. I like that design.

It was a welcome departure from the linear previous titles which were basically stunning whack-a-mole rail shooters akin to the CoD games. I don't like that design.

Maybe the levels open up a bit more in later chapters but so far I don't see the resemblance to Crysis 2. Some places are a bit wider but they're symmetrical. Taking the path on the right is more or less the same as taking the path on the left.

[Quintus 5,399]

In later levels there are some large (and difficult) areas with multiple methods of approach. I played on Hard setting, and it was quite challenging. There are 10 chapters.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I'm on Hard too. I had some difficulty with it early on but quickly learned it isn't as much run-and-gun as it is duck-and-shoot.

The Helghan victory dance every time you're killed never ceases to make me cringe.

[Quintus 5,399]

Victory dance? Lol I haven't seen that.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Well it's less of a dance and more of one of the Helghast towering over your corpse waving their arms around in triumph.

[King Mark 3,631]

After a drought a lot of games coming out for me in the next 2 months

Dark Souls 2

Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns

Final Fantasy X HD remaster

Tales of Symphonia Chronicles

[Quintus 5,399]

Only Dark Souls 2 stands out as being a release in its own right. The others sound like just more generic role playing games which might well have come out five years ago as much as being upcoming releases.

[King Mark 3,631]

Well, I've never played the "classic" Final Fantasy titles and X is supposed to be one of the better ones. I was just waiting for a HD remaster for the PS3 .Plus it comes with the sequels in the box

I got a lot of mileage out of the Kingdom Hearts package, the HD remastering was good enough to make it feel current gen

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I kinda want Dark Souls II but they said they have no concrete plans on bringing it to next gen any time soon.

[King Mark 3,631]

it's ok..removes the dilemna of buying a PS4 now

[Quintus 5,399]

I saw a video of newly open worlded Witcher 3 tonight on PS4. Looks incredible. I wasn't sold on the previous game, but this looks fucking epic!

[King Mark 3,631]

yeah,I didn't like the Witcher 2 too much but that ones seems promising

the main problem with the second one was the narrow enclosed areas and convoluted political story I didn't give a shit about. It talked about a bunch of places you couldn't visit in the game

Another indication the XboxOne is vastly inferior to the PS4..the evidence keeps mounting despite people saying the xboxone is not "optimized" yet

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-tomb-raider-definitive-performance-analysis

[Quintus 5,399]

The graphics card in the PS4 is literally 50% more powerful than the Xbox One equivalent. Think about it, that's massive. And then there's the DDR5 ram which is only seen in high end gaming pcs at the moment, another boon for the Sony system.

The further into this gen we get the wider the gap between the two consoles will get. The Playstation has been designed to offer great engineering depth, whereas the Xbox One has been built to be a jack of all trades (and so far a master of none). Which is why I jumped ship after more than 10 years of enjoying the Microsoft brand.

Core gamers just want to hold a pad in their hands and play. They're not interested in talking to their tv and waving their arms about.

[King Mark 3,631]

Here's a version of Final Fantasy 13 that Jason and Marian would like, it has 16 bit retro graphics not to interfere with your nostalgia gameplay

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/01/29/final-fantasy-xiii-reimagined-for-the-16-bit-days

[Jay 37,378]

Haha, that video is funny!

Anyways, I don't like games from the 8 and 16 bit era BECAUSE of their graphics, there just happened to be a lot of GREAT games that came out during that time. And they are still worth playing.

I mean, Final Fantasy 4 and 6 are flat out, all time, great, GREAT games, two of the best ever made. It's not because of their graphics, it's beacause of their stories and gameplay.

But yea, I'd have no problem with games of that era being redone into HD graphics, in fact I support it. Would love to replay mario 1-3 with the NSMB Wii U engine and graphic level.

[King Mark 3,631]

I want to play Final fantasy 4 to 9..when they re-master them in HD

At least I'm getting FF X

[Jay 37,378]

Yea I've never played any of the PS or PS2 era FF games. I really want to play FF7, but might as well wait for an HD remake at this point. I kinda hate the polygon graphics of the early PS1 era, I strongly prefer the 16 bit sprite graphics of the late SNES/Genesis era.

[King Mark 3,631]

Today I picked up a used copy of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. It's the only RPG series for the PS3 I haven't tried yet

I also noticed to "coming soon" releases at 64.99 and 69.99$..has the price of games gone up?

[Wojo 2,453]

Maybe they're jacking off the price of PS3 games higher to force people to upgrade. Though they're still making games for the current generation

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

Anyways, I don't like games from the 8 and 16 bit era BECAUSE of their graphics, there just happened to be a lot of GREAT games that came out during that time. And they are still worth playing.

Agreed. And I don't think I could get through an old-style FF game again. I've never been a fan of the setting (story/concept wise), and while the controls were fine enough for the day, endless round base encounters were what made games of that type tedious after a while.

Some old style graphics certainly translate nicely into HD. Others lose some of their charm, simply because the level of detail takes them into a different direction/art style. There are some new indie games deliberately made with a classic low res look, and for some of them it's spot on, for others it's serviceable (sometimes it's not so much an art decision as much as a resource decision, and a low res style is "good enough"), and sometimes it just drags the game down. There are only a few instances where I would make a conscious decision to have a game in low res.

[King Mark 3,631]

Random encounters suck, especially every 10 seconds of walking on the map.

I like the Ni No Kuni style where you see the enemies on the map and have a choice to engage them

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

The only FF I ever played was Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy. I played up to the final boss encounter, but whatever I did, I could never get enough equipment to defeat him. I was short on money and had to move around the map and play dozens of chance encounters to gather enough money to buy equipment that would be undamaged enough to survive the final battle. But most chance encounters were too easy and would cause more damage to my weapons than they yielded money. At some point I just gave up.

[King Mark 3,631]

Final Fantasy 13 Lightning Returns does seem like a standalone game with an open world ..it could be interesting if the "countdown timer" doesn't ruin the whole thing

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Random encounters suck, especially every 10 seconds of walking on the map.

I like the Ni No Kuni style where you see the enemies on the map and have a choice to engage them

Not really. Ni No Kuni was annoying because of the encounters every 10 seconds.

[King Mark 3,631]

well, you could avoid them...You run faster with one of the perks later, and fly on a dragon

oh wait you didn't have the patience to get that far and quit the game after doing 1/4th of it

I think random encounters was more a technical limitations of not being able to show the monsters on the field in early games..though I played a few current gen games with random encounters (mostly lower budget JRPG's)

[Koray Savas 2,251]

It's not that I didn't have the patience it's that I got bored. If 80% of your gameplay is running into tedious little bastards over and over there's something wrong. JRPGs aren't my thing, but Ni No Kuni had a lot of wasted potential. Would have been superb if it dropped all the hand holding and endless text scrolls.

[King Mark 3,631]

I've been following this thread for a long time. You and Quint start a lot of games but the discussion always ends because you usually quit them halfway to fall back on online FPS like Kill zone of Battlefield or whatever.

I seem to be the only one to actually finish the games I buy

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I actually finish most of my games. I'm an OCD-driven completist after all. But like I think I've already explained in this thread, I got stale with the PS3 for its last year or so. I simply bought too many games and appropriated my time to the ones I enjoyed the most. That means ones that I would have liked to delve into more got put on the shelf (GTA V, Max Payne 3, God Of War Ascension, Dead Space 3, Ni No Kuni, Dark Souls).

You're strictly an offline JRPG gamer so there's a pretty big difference in our gaming styles.

[King Mark 3,631]

You're strictly an offline JRPG gamer so there's a pretty big difference in our gaming styles.

You should know better after all this time that I play a lot more variety of games than JRPG's (though I do buy all of them that come out for the PS3 automatically). I usually balance it out with stuff like Far Cry, Borderlands,Mass Effect, Fallout in between...

you guys should take my advise of starting one game and stick to it until you finish it (at least story wise until the credits)

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yes it's a good rule to have. I've been more or less doing that with the PS4 so far.

[King Mark 3,631]

Actually, "classic" JRPG's like Final Fantasy and Ni no Kuni are not really my favorite game style , I find them too restrictive and predictable in their own conventions. I do like them story wise but they act more like time wasters to fill the gaps in between the really great titles that come out. I never gave Ni No Kuni really high praise except for the graphics

I prefer action RPG' s like Dark Souls Dragon's Dogma and Kingdoms of Amalur, or games with environmental puzzles like Darksiders

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I have Kingdoms Of Alamur on my Download List (it was free for PS+) but don't think I'll ever play it. I didn't like the demo when the game first came out. Also have Borderlands 2.

[King Mark 3,631]

Kingdom of Amalur is veeeeery long. It's like a 150+ hour game

Borderlands 2 is the next "big" game on my list. I even bought a DLC

[Quintus 5,399]

Random encounters suck, especially every 10 seconds of walking on the map.

I like the Ni No Kuni style where you see the enemies on the map and have a choice to engage them

Yeah, but you were forced to fight almost every minion in the dungeon missions, which is why I gave up on it.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The Elder Scrolls Online trailer:

[Quintus 5,399]

Waste of time cg trailer.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Well yeah it's just a cinematic.

[Quintus 5,399]

Started Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on PS4, am about four hours in.

OMG WOOOOOOOW!

This game, once the AMAZING sea faring comes into it, is such a revolution for the series, and such a splendidly brand new gaming experience in its own right, I am pretty much blown away by it, and by what is surely still to come. It feels like the pinnacle of video game adventure and it's only just begun! Being out at sea, the way it handles, it's breathtaking...

KM this game has your name written all over it.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah Black Flag is by far the best in the franchise and a great sprawling adventure.

[Quintus 5,399]

The Ubisoft team that made it ought to be given the Master and Commander licence! I could get to play Russell Crowe and it'd be as instantly definitive as the Arkham games!

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

Started Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on PS4, am about four hours in.

I only just finally started Brotherhood and was surprised how much better the graphics are compaed to AC2, when apparently there's only one year between the two releases. I'll eventually finish the trilogy and give IV a try.

[King Mark 3,631]

I did AC2 but never played another one.