Llyranor

Which Morgoth may or may not have. Don't judge.

While it didn't sound from the review that they'd award it a 10/10, I like how only the first 2/3rd of the game being "among the most perfectly designed, streamlined and considered first person shooter levels you will ever play" = "poor ass level design". Yeah, so the last 3rd isn't as good as "the most perfectly designed, streamlined and considered first person shooter levels you will ever play", and the reviewer clearly points out that it's still better than in Halo1/2 (which doesn't say much - or anything, really), it just sounds like someone is trying to pull a Magical Volo. On the other hand, one does think that said frustrating level design should have at least been noted in the score somehow. But scores are for Hades anyway. Glancing through most of those reviews, it sounds like pretty much what I've expected. Won't blow anyone away, but is more polished than the previous games, including in said level design. Graphics aren't a massive jump, but I'm glad they've opted for framerate, gateway to fun etc etc. Better audio is always a good thing. Gameplay being for the most part similar to the previous games sounds about right. This is pretty much for fans of the first 2 games. I didn't really notice the story so far, so seeing its conclusion here doesn't really do much for me. As for supposedly 'best?' console FPS PvP, not really caring either. 4p online co-op is all I could have asked for and more. It's a shame upon reading that Legendary diff won't be as hard with that many players, but the skulls seem like a nice addition, including the one that will remove respawns (thus mimicking Halo2's system rather than 1's); choice is good.

(psst, you're missing out on the co-op)

I tend to agree. Puzzle Quest in portable format is pretty awesome. The advantage of the eventual PC version (and the XBLA version, which is supposedly coming out soon) will be online multiplayer. I'm not too keen on PvP, but it could be worth looking into.

Heh, good old Codex. http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20469

I'm halfway through Halo 2 on co-op Legendary (the lack of respawning is killing us, but it actually makes it more awesome). I wonder whether that remains for 3. 4p co-op with no respawn will be insane ("did you just fall down that cliff AGAIN?" "oops").

Don't you have to murderize Bowser at every castle? Indirectly or not, I'd say removing the bridge underneath someone only to have them plummet into a pool of hot steamy sweaty lava constitutes some sort of murder.

Heh, they really upped the intensity in combat since the last trailer. Ace Combat 6 is going to be all kinds of awesome. http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/14846 I'm getting this day 1 with the flightstick.

Actually, yes. Yes, I do.

Nice to see they're catering to the Gabs demographic.

Well, I have a 360, but I'm not picking this up until it's in the bargain bin.

Haha. <3 PW. Trials can't come soon enough. (psst, you're talking about Hades)

roshan is a poopyhead, but his point isn't completely off. The lip-synching does seem a tad awkward at times. Maybe it's the uncanny valley, but I've played games where I hadn't noticed that. Either way, lipsynching doesn't make a game. Meh.

Shut up, FO3 is going to be awesome!!!1!1 But yeah, that hype is complete crap. Story, ROFLASFKJHSAKJFSHA. All that matters is 4p online co-op, and that matters plenty. Even Halo1's horrid repetitive level design couldn't save it from the awesomeness that was 2p co-op on Legendary difficulty. Halo3 *can't* not be awesome. Strength in numbers! And yeah, I haven't picked up Bioshock yet. Bargain bin it is ^_^

Ikaruga with 2p online coop on XBLA for 800 pts will be awesome. The black/white dichotomy seems like a pretty compelling gameplay element.

http://www.bigbottom.waits.for.tf2.com/

The pre-TGS demonstration is available on Live Marketplace. Except if you're from Greece. New videos --> Bringing It Home It's awesome, though that's kind of obvious. So much gratuitous blood and limbs flying everywhere at 60FPS. Combat, of course, looks as good as always. If you've played NG1, you don't really need anything more said about it.

Heh, I found the FFT translation completely atrocious, so I didn't really get any enjoyment out of the plot. The early PSX era for Square was completely urg. FFT/FF7/Xenogears get praised to crap, but I can't stand their localization.

Story-wise, disc 1 *has* been fairly slow. Still, I've been enjoying it, as the gameplay compensates pretty well. What makes it for me, though, is the hard difficulty. The default game is very easy, apparently. You'd have to download the hard mode DLC (for which you'd have to make a HK account - why MS hasn't made it available 'overseas', I don't know; they've had months). The battles for the most part have been pretty challenging, especially since there are no random battles, so you can avoid them as you want, and exploration has been more fun since you don't run into compulsory battles at a set interval. Dead Rising is pretty cool. For Rainbow Six Vegas, make sure you play it co-op if you're into that. It's awesome.

My brother just bought this game. We played a bit of co-op on Allstar. Two matches, 5-1 and 4-0. Ouch. The AI seems much improved from 07, both offensively and defensively. Playing PK is freaking sweat-inducing. We can barely get out of the defensive zone with even teams anyway. We need to bring our defense up to par before we can even talk about our inexistent offensive. I'll have to work on my deking/aiming then as well.

Regardless of your thoughts on Halo, this is a pretty cool marketing campaign http://halo3.com/believe/ Though, if the game itself ends up disappointing, one would argue that they should have poured that budget into actual game development. Halo1 was an unexpected hit and 2 was rushed, but 3 has no excuse to be a letdown in terms of pure game design. On a brief aside, I have Blue Dragon. Still going through the first disc. The game is pretty solid so far. Traditional design throughout for the most part, but the combat system is fresh enough (though it doesn't necessarily break any major ground), and the job system is good fun. Music is very nice so far. Graphically, I'm pretty impressive by the environmental art. Character-wise, it really depends on how tolerant you are of Akira Toriyama. Story isn't anything to write home about; it's pretty lacking, but at least it doesn't try too hard like in some other JRPGs. I'll be picking up Eternal Sonata next week as well. Can't go wrong with good old co-op.

This seems like an ideal time to bring up the werewolf.

You're in luck, FOPOS is available now http://www.amazon.com/Interplay-Production...d/dp/B00008NRMA Buy quick! Only 4 left in stock!! Or, you could wait for its critically-acclaimed sequel, Fallout 3! http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html

Freaking stupid EA. The demo was good fun, and I would have bought the game day1 if they had kept with their original plan of having co-op. Bloody losers.

Personally, I find that if the devs need to err on one side, I'd rather they go for higher difficulty. Gameplay that's too easy and requires little thought isn't very compelling. Of course, the converse is true if the game is simply too hard, depending on the reason. If the game simply promotes grinding and repetitive gameplay rather than trial of various diverging tactics, then it's not much fun, either. That being said, I do agree on difficulty sliders. The DnD CRPG ones, for some reason or another, are complete crap.