What is the last video game you played?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

You mentioned buying an Xbox One down the road for Destiny, why not just make it a PS4? Sony already ported over thatgamecompany's fl0w and Flower, I'm sure Journey isn't too far off.

[DreamTheater 131]

Journey is a real milestone in gaming, it may only be a fraction of AAA games playable length, but what it offers in return is what many big budget games can't provide... a real sense of accomplishment through simple but rewarding co-operation and heartfelt emotion when it's all over. Plus the music really elevates the experience into something almost spiritual. Austin Wintory did a fantastic job on this.

Everyone that's into games should play it ASAP.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I remember playing Flow when it was still in its early internet-game stage. Mesmerizing. Wintory's scores are real achievements in game music. I feel like I've played Journey in a way, having watched his annotated version of the score on Youtube.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The music and art direction are what make that game. His name even got dropped at Sony's E3 conference this year.

[DreamTheater 131]

I remember playing Flow when it was still in its early internet-game stage. Mesmerizing. Wintory's scores are real achievements in game music. I feel like I've played Journey in a way, having watched his annotated version of the score on Youtube.

Saw & heard that too. Very interesting hearing all the little tidbits that went into creating it.

[DreamTheater 131]

Continued from another topic that went off-topic in order to get back on topic.

The last game I played was Angry Bird.

Before that. Either Tetris or Pacman.

Well yeah, if you only know those three than I get why you would say videogames are stupid. Those are pretty mundane compared to modern gaming masterpieces

Tetris is not mundane.

Don't get me wrong, I too enjoyed Tetris long ago, 20 years ago in fact, when it was all the rage... But compared to the virtual worlds and meticulously crafted stories we get nowadays it is way too simplistic and repetitive to hold my attention for longer than 5 minutes. All that is needed is moving blocks to form lines, so when compared to the visual realism, extensive freedom and level of interactivity we get today, that blocks thingie has become, to me at least, very mundane and boring to sit through.

Movies are more violent than games.

Definitely. But movies aren't interactive (yet).

You can't really compare a passive experience like watching a film to the virtual reality of a video game. It's like reading a book vs. lucid dreaming.

Imagine, as the player being able to craft your own story in a virtual world. We're not there yet but I'm confident I will see it happening in my lifetime.

And we already have interactive movies, the only thing is, they last about 15-20 hours to complete and are played in episodes, however long we want them to last. Aren't The Last of Us or Uncharted the best examples of high-profile adventure / horror / action films with character development and adventurous excitement, but all done so the viewer becomes a part of it in the most interactive way yet possible.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Don't get me wrong, I too enjoyed Tetris long ago, 20 years ago in fact, when it was all the rage... But compared to the virtual worlds and meticulously crafted stories we get nowadays it is way too simplistic and repetitive to hold my attention for longer than 5 minutes. All that is needed is moving blocks to form lines, so when compared to the visual realism, extensive freedom and level of interactivity we get today, that blocks thingie has become, to me at least, very mundane and boring to sit through.

I find it's abstractness still as interesting as it was 25+ years ago. It can hold my attention longer than many modern AAA titles.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

My Vita engulfed any desire I had for cell phone gaming.

[King Mark 3,631]

Looks like Marian is ready for CandyCrush

bought a new copy of Devil May Cry (Xbox360) for 4$ today...4$!! It's the cheapest I've seen a game in a store and it was on my "I'll buy it eventually when it's cheap list"

[Wojo 2,453]

Tetris is timeless. Candy Crush is garbage. It's just that simple.

[King Mark 3,631]

looks similar to Tetris

[Wojo 2,453]

All puzzle games using little blocks do look similar. Bejeweled and Dr. Mario are two others. But Candy Crush wants your money via micro transactions, which I disdain. They have a lot of different types of pieces for variously complicated gameplay, which doesn't appeal to me. And their company filed a lawsuit against an RPG company for using the word Saga in their title. I can't stand that level of insane paranoid legislation.

[King Mark 3,631]

Saga is not a copyrighted word, no way they'll win

Anyways Tetris seems like the ancestor of most games I see people playing on cell phones on the bus

[DreamTheater 131]

Looks like Marian is ready for CandyCrush

bought a new copy of Devil May Cry (Xbox360) for 4$ today...4$!! It's the cheapest I've seen a game in a store and it was on my "I'll buy it eventually when it's cheap list"

Is that the latest in the series, DMC?

If so I can do one better: totally free on Playstation Plus a couple of months ago. I enjoyed it, I only ever played parts 1, 3 and 4.

[King Mark 3,631]

DMC is the latest one...never played the others but it looks like the type of game I might like

[DreamTheater 131]

It's an action-fest from start to finish, with ocassional platforming. The game is a bit glitchy at times and the combat challenging but never unfair. The story is engaging in an over the top kind of way. It's the best told storyline of the entire series IMO. The original games are much harder but are more ridiculous and full cheesy one-liners (which I happen to love).

And of course games on Playstation Plus are never free, there's a yearly subscription after all, but it's still awesome value for money.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Anyways Tetris seems like the ancestor of most games I see people playing on cell phones on the bus

I also see people play Tetris on phones, but that doesn't change the fact that it's totally unsuited for touch controls.

[Wojo 2,453]

I have found a Tetris app for the phone, but the way it projects the piece at the bottom of the well as it falls is confusing and too dumbed down.

[Quintus 5,399]

Don't get me wrong, I too enjoyed Tetris long ago, 20 years ago in fact, when it was all the rage... But compared to the virtual worlds and meticulously crafted stories we get nowadays it is way too simplistic and repetitive to hold my attention for longer than 5 minutes. All that is needed is moving blocks to form lines, so when compared to the visual realism, extensive freedom and level of interactivity we get today, that blocks thingie has become, to me at least, very mundane and boring to sit through.

Pretty much the same here. I have a short attention span with games these days and something like Tetris would only last me as long as it took to go to the toilet or something equally mundane, like a short car journey.

However, Tetris 2, on the SNES, had VS mode multiplayer. It was brilliant and I'd still put a couple of hours into it now if my old split-screen mates were still around. Beating a mate at any game never gets old

[Wojo 2,453]

One day, the graphics in a computer game will look 100% photo realistic. True or false?

Is Virtual Reality gonna be a big next step in gaming? Yes or no?

Brainstorm is coming folks.

Graphics in a computer game will look 100% photo realistic in some games, but not others. What's your point?

Virtual Reality will stay a gimmick because only a select few morons will actually want to game for multi-hour sessions with that Oculus strapped to their head, looking like morons, oblivious to the world around them, and unable to share their experiences with anyone else except for the rather large tub of vomit from their motion sickness.

[Quintus 5,399]

In the comfort and privacy of their own home, do people really give a shit how they look, Wojo? Your isometric RPGs and 2D adventures will still be around, so there's really no need to feel threatened by these kinds of gaming advances and their evolution.

Oculus Rift and Sony's own Morpheus are promising pieces of tech and many including myself are hoping the (proper) return of VR is at last going to be the next major evolution in immersive game design. In the eighties and nineties it was little more than a tech restricted pipe dream but now processing power and image fidelity are at a point where VR concepts, prototypes and indeed the near finished article are reportedly so impressive and accomplished that the rush to get it to market first has become a major push in the industry, and with Facebook and Sony getting fully behind both Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus respectively it's looking less and less likely that the new fully realised VR will turn out to be just another gimmick.

They're all at it, even Google. I hope it's HUGE. It'll transform gaming, which is my own interest in the technology. It is my understanding that FB intend to revolutionise social media with it, which doesn't interest me. But there's possibly plenty of "morons" on FB who will be all over it. Zuckerberg hopes so - he's just bought John Carmack's company for billions.

[Wojo 2,453]

OK cool.

Not that I've been playing a lot of Skyrim lately - I have left so much good loot all around and didn't write down which dungeons to revisit, and I want to start over anyways - but the Steam sale's final hours offered all three DLC's for barely $14 so I jumped on it, if only to ensure compatibility with all mods out there.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

The Oculus Rift is fairly incredible. One of my friends co-owns a production company that specializes in it. I'm really hoping it takes off in a big way, and only partially because it might get me scoring jobs.

[DreamTheater 131]

I take it Oculus Rift is mainly for the PC market?

[Quintus 5,399]

Facebook own it now, so who knows.

[DreamTheater 131]

So any big Half-Life fans here? Anyone else waiting on something, even the smallest bit of info on a third installment? To this day still nothing and it's been 7 years since it ended with that huge cliffhanger.

I loved going through the Black Mesa mod a while back and that too still needs to be concluded.

[Quintus 5,399]

It's been that long since I played HL2 E2 that I can't even remember what the cliffhanger was.

[DreamTheater 131]

Not me sirree, I take it upon myself to revisit the entire series every two years or so. I could never play a truly great game only once, not even twice. Great games are like great films, only longer... and more interactive.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I agree, which is why I fully plan on revisiting The Last Of Us on PS4 later this month. I think I only beat that twice so far. I've played through ND's Uncharted series about 5 times.

I was thinking about replaying Portal 2 in the near future. Hopefully they make a third. Imagine the possibilities!

[DreamTheater 131]

Ah yes Portal 2, now here's a game that I would gladly show to Stefancos, you know for a bit of unintelligent entertainment, and see him eat his words.

[Wojo 2,453]

I was replaying HL2 not too long ago. There is an achievement for going through Ravenholm without using any weapons, just the gravity gun and traps. I was trying to get that achievement but take it one step further: bring Dog's ball through the whole time, because it's possible to take it all the way to Nova Prospekt. I got to the very end, where you need to go through an underwater tunnel, but I quit for a while.

[Quintus 5,399]

I got that achievement! And the one for bringing the garden gnome all the way to the end of Epi 3

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

I played World of Warcraft for the first time the other day. It's pretty fun but it's hard to quit due to the continuous nature of the missions.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Was finally able to crack in to Watch Dogs today. It had something missing but I guess it just took time to get into its wonky nature of virtual sleuth.

Bought a 16GB memory card for my Vita since it was "on sale" and downloaded a bunch of free stuff I already had acquired through PS+. Looking forward to those.

[DreamTheater 131]

I was replaying HL2 not too long ago. There is an achievement for going through Ravenholm without using any weapons, just the gravity gun and traps. I was trying to get that achievement but take it one step further: bring Dog's ball through the whole time, because it's possible to take it all the way to Nova Prospekt. I got to the very end, where you need to go through an underwater tunnel, but I quit for a while.

Taking Dog's ball is a serious challenge in itself. I tried it once, but there was a point I couldn't take it further, can't remember where so I gave up.

Have you tried any of the various mods for HL2 Wojo? There are some that are extremely clever, like Minerva Metastasis and Research & Development. They are too cool to miss out on. Check out Moddb.com (Minerva is also out on Steam).

[Wojo 2,453]

No. I modded HL in undergrad, but never HL2, beyond downloading Black Mesa.

[DreamTheater 131]

You need to correct that mistake, there are some truly great ones out there. I recommend those two I mentioned to start with.

BTW if you keep replaying HL2, there's also the incredible Fakefactory Cinematic Mod, which is now in its 13th version. It transforms HL2 in a more modern looking FPS, with loads op visual improvements.

[Quintus 5,399]

Lol @ Alyx's shorts.

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

Revisiting The Force Unleashed ... ahhh, so much fun lightsabreing and Force-powering a swathe through your enemies.

[Wojo 2,453]

The game froze for me after the boss duel on the junk car planet. I haven't reinstalled it on my rebuilt machine though.

[Quintus 5,399]

After stopping and starting it with long breaks in between I finally finished Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.

Was a great game for the first 20 hours, but in the end the bloat killed it. I despise padding in games and this game was guilty of it more than any other I've played. Getting it finished was a chore.

Given that Watch Dogs is also Ubisoft I'll probably skip it for the same reasons.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I blew through the entirety of Black Flag in about a week and a half. It was great fun. Watch Dogs is like a weird mix of AC and GTA.

[A24 4,338]

Talking about Alien Isolation, isn't the whole setup of that game somewhat of a risk? Every other game is trying to be bigger, faster, more spectacular... Alien Isolation definitely wants to swim against the current but how will gamers respond?

[DreamTheater 131]

Alien Isolation is one of the games I'm looking forward to the most, if only because it looks so tense and back to basics on the gameplay front. I think there's definitely an audience for these slow-paced atmosphere driven games. And it's based on the sci-fi classic that is hailed as a masterpiece by almost everyone. So I don't see how it can fail. Even if it will never be a GTA or COD beater, I don't think it will fail financially. Even Aliens Colonial Marines sold a fair bit, and that game was supposedly shit.

[Quintus 5,399]

It is definitely a big risk for publisher Sega. I think they're yet to have a hit with Aliens since acquiring the rights to the franchise, so they're probably praying this one goes down well. And Alex is right that the game is a refreshing take on the franchise, but as long as they nail the atmosphere and the gameplay is tight and emergent it will sell. Why? Because even action game nuts also love a good stealth or survival horror game. Sneaky game Dishonored sold in the bucket loads and spawned a new franchise and the likes of Resident Evil and Dead Space prove that blockbuster horror still has its fans. Scary games are almost as mainstream as CoD.

[Quintus 5,399]

I blew through the entirety of Black Flag in about a week and a half. It was great fun.

My biggest issue with it was all the tedious tail and eavesdrop missions. Some of the worst mission design I've ever had to grind through. The seafaring parts on the other hand were fantastic, but it felt like untapped potential in the end.

[DreamTheater 131]

It is definitely a big risk for publisher Sega. I think they're yet to have a hit with Aliens since acquiring the rights to the franchise, so they're probably praying this one goes down well. And Alex is right that the game is a refreshing take on the franchise, but as long as they nail the atmosphere and the gameplay is tight and emergent it will sell. Why? Because even action game nuts also love a good stealth or survival horror game. Sneaky game Dishonored sold in the bucket loads and spawned a new franchise and the likes of Resident Evil and Dead Space prove that blockbuster horror still has its fans. Scary games are almost as mainstream as CoD.

Totally right... I can never linger on one genre for too long. I always have to mix things up, even inside the game itself if it lets me. But in a game like Deus Ex or Dishonored, I'll try stealth first, and if that doesn't go as well as I hoped, well you know the rest hehe...

That reminds me I still have to load up Dead space 3, loved the first two. Proof that EA can make awesome games.

[Wojo 2,453]

Deus Ex 1 on Realistic was one of the most satisfying gaming experiences of my life. I still need to play the third game.

[A24 4,338]

But ... It's only one creature! Usually, horror games have loads of creatures and zombies to keep the gamer busy.

[Wojo 2,453]

I think the Alien Isolation game will need some bad humans, like nasty W-Y goons, or environmental calamities to pad the game play.