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The Games we play...

^Do you reckon 320GB hard drive will be enough? :p
And I'm still struggling to beat the target course in MW2 in under 30 seconds. Closest I've got is 32.
I've got at least 1 star on all the special ops now and have got three stars on quite a lot. :)
 
Ollie said:
^Do you reckon 320GB hard drive will be enough? :p

As long as you don't want more than 40 HD films :p

Has anyone got "Eyepet" yet? Trying to decide whether or not to get it.

How about Lego Rock Band? Nobody? No talk of Assassin's Creed either!!! Have everyone's thumbs fallen off?
 
^I'm getting Eyepet for Christmas. Should be good but I'm not expecting to get hooked to it as I'm looking it it as a kinda tech demo for what can be done in the future. :)
Will only get Assassins Creed 2 if it's really cheap as I wasn't impressed with the first one. They should release a demo or something so we can see what's improved instead of risking buying the sequel.
And Lego Rockband will be great for kids as it's more songs they'll recognise but older people will still prefer the regular Rockband 1/2 I think.
 
Every review I've read of AC II says "takes everything that was great about the original, ditches every bad point and is the game the original should have been". So I'm surprised by such negativity... Well, I'm not as I found the original tedious too - but I knew at heart it was a fantastic bit of core gameplay.

I don't know where Lego Rockband sits actually. A lot of the tracks are far too old for kids. I reckon it's for Pierre actually - people who want to play Rockband, but don't want to listen to tedious RAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! music.

It has too much Bon Jovi (ie it contains more than 0 of their tracks) though.
Lego Rockband setlist said:
1960's (2)
"Fire" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Classic Rock, 1967)
"I Want You Back" - Jackson 5 (Pop-Rock, 1969)

1970's (6)
"Crocodile Rock" - Elton John (Glam, 1973)
"Kung Fu Fighting" - Carl Douglas (Funk, 1974)
"Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)" - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (Glam, 1975)
"Ride A White Swan" - T. Rex (Glam, 1970)
"The Passenger" - Iggy Pop (Classic Rock, 1977)
"We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions" - Queen (Classic Rock, 1977)

1980's (9)
"Crash" - The Primitives (Indie Rock, 1988)
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" - The Police (New Wave, 1981)
"Free Fallin'" - Tom Petty (Classic Rock, 1989)
"Ghostbusters" - Ray Parker, Jr. (Pop-Rock, 1984)
"Let's Dance" - David Bowie (Pop-Rock, 1982)
"Summer Of '69" - Bryan Adams (Rock, 1985)
"The Final Countdown" - Europe (Metal, 1986)
"Walking On Sunshine" - Katrina and The Waves (Pop-Rock, 1985)
"You Give Love A Bad Name" - Bon Jovi (Rock, 1986)

1990's (4)
"Aliens Exist" - blink-182 (Punk, 1999)
"Breakout" - Foo Fighters (Alternative, 1999)
"Song 2" - Blur (Alternative, 1997)
"Two Princes" - Spin Doctors (Alternative, 1993)

2000's (23)
"A-Punk" - Vampire Weekend (Indie Rock, 2008)
"Accidentally In Love" - Counting Crows (Rock, 2004)
"Check Yes Juliet" - We The Kings (Pop-Rock, 2007)
"Dig" - Incubus (Alternative, 2006)
"Dreaming Of You" - The Coral (Indie Rock, 2002)
"Girls & Boys" - Good Charlotte (Punk, 2003)
"Grace" - Supergrass (Rock, 2002)
"In Too Deep" - Sum 41 (Punk, 2001)
"Life Is A Highway" - Rascal Flatts (Country, 2006)
"Monster" - The Automatic Automatic (Indie Rock, 2006)
"Naive" - The Kooks (Indie Rock, 2005)
"Real Wild Child" - Everlife (Pop-Rock, 2007)
"Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)" - Lostprophets (Alternative, 2006)
"Ruby" - Kaiser Chiefs (Indie Rock, 2006)
"Short & Sweet" - Spinal Tap (Metal, 2009)
"So What" - P!nk (Pop-Rock, 2008)
"Stumble and Fall" - Razorlight (Indie Rock, 2004)
"Suddenly I See" - KT Tunstall (Rock, 2004)
"Swing, Swing" - The All-American Rejects (Emo, 2003)
"Thunder" - Boys Like Girls (Pop-Rock, 2006)
"Tick Tick Boom" - The Hives (Punk, 2007)
"Valerie" - The Zutons (Indie Rock, 2006)
"Word Up!" - KoRn (Nu-Metal, 2004)
 
REVIEWS

Eye pet

i got this for tanya but i will admit iv had a go to to see what its like and i have to say it is quite impressive it works well and the little pet thing reacts quite well to all the things you do i recomend for girls and kids lol but no it is rather amusing

Assasins creed 2
i thought the first was boaring as sin and after playing the second one i really have to put my hands up and say it STILL as boaring as sin didnt enjoy it at all and got fed up after about 20 mins so just ended up jumping from high buildings and dying that was more fun

Lego Rockband
I love this game its got an awsome soundtrack and any game that has ghostbusters on is win I tend to love everything rockband cause unlike Guitar hero the tend to get it right and take time with what they do instead of just churning out any old crap so ye i recomend its fun and just like the other rockbands wther easy or hard up to you they havent changed any dificulty at all apart from adding a super easy for smalll kids and and auto bass pedal for kids who cant do it. Come to think of that that would have been a good feture in the origional for people in wheelchairs so they can do drums.

looking forward to getting saboutour(sp) looks good but in the mean time i gots myself a wii for £80 and had a fiddle with it so free games coming my way lol YAY
 
Anyone saw the trailer / read about the upcoming Blue Toad Murder Files on PSN?

It's from the creators of Buzz! and is similar Cluedo with its puzzle solving, investigating suspects and the power of observation! Infact, the inspiration came about after the developers flicked through an Argos catalogue and came across the board game!

The first two episodes will be released December 17th, £6.49 each or £9.99 for both. The series will consist of 6 episodes, with the other 4 released in 2010! :)

There's just something about it that really appeals!

http://www.bluetoadmurderfiles.co.uk/
 
^That looks good. Although I'll probably have to look into it a bit more before buying it to find out about it's gameplay and read some reviews. Also it's a bit colourful if it's a murder mystery game like Cluedo. :lol:

I love Cluedo though. :)
 
Just order Inizimals for the PSP (mucho cheap):
http://www.tescoentertainment.com/store ... %3a608508/

Basically, you put a camera on your PSP, then put a card down anywhere in your house. The game superimposes a creature onto the image of your room and has them fight other creatures Pokemon stylee! I like interesting things like this, and at under £20 for the game AND camera, it's hard to turn down. I'll do a full review soon, but any game which has Brian Blessed in the trailer must be win!

http://uk.gamespot.com/psp/puzzle/inviz ... 09-trailer
 
I saw that in HMV the other day, looked like the PSP equivalent of the PS3's Eye of Judgement (which is great). See Microsoft, Sony are so ahead of you they already have this great technology on their portable console!
 
Meant not to be ignorant too - Thanks John for the quick reviews.

I've ordered EyePet too "for the kids" :lol:

Will get Lego Rockband if I either suddenly find £30, or I see it cheap somewhere. Still not completed Beetles Rock Band though...

Peep, smugness isn't befitting anyone (other than Ollie :p ).
 
I noticed that too Gazza, though Amazon do make me laugh anyway with their random pricing policies.

Played on Spore last night on the PC. I know it's old, but Minor_Furie wanted it after playing on it at his friend's house.

It's one of those lazy games, where you just kind of get on with things at your own kind of pace. It's very odd though, as it's split into five sections (phases).

The first section is like flOw (http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/). You're a tiny new creature who must eat. As you eat, you get bigger, and can find new evolutionary parts for your creature. When you mate, you lay an egg and get to redesign your creature for the next generation. You choose mouth parts (carnivore, herbivore or omnivore), eyes, propulsion method, defences (spikes, spit, electricity, etc). You can also change the colour, patterns and shape of your creature.

Eventually, you get big enough to be able to evolve legs and go into the second phase of the game on land.

Put your legs on your new creature and take him onto land. Here you have a nest and nestlings. You wander the land finding other nests of creatures. You have to decide if you will fight them, or befriend them. To fight them, you need to have good attack systems (different evolutionary items will give different attacks - like a particular clawed hand will give you the "swipe" attack). To befriend them, you need social systems (wings may allow you to "pose", or feet can give you a dance ability). Attacking is a simple matter of attack and kill. To befriend though, you have to play a follow the leader kind of game. If they dance, you have to dance - but timing is critical - it's quite tough.

The game here is good fun actually. You have the opportunity to really personalise your creature. You're limited by "DNA points" which you get as you defeat/befriend other species, so you have to be careful. You can 'sell' body parts you're replacing though, so it's nice and easy.

You start with the bits you bring from the primordial soup with you, which will give you some base abilities. These soon get ditched though in favour of better evolutionary parts. Want six legs so you can have speedy feet, dancing feet and jumping feet? Go for it! Three mouths? One to sing, one to eat and one to smile? No problems! All the parts can be moved, thickened, thinned, tilted, changed in size, etc, etc, etc. Even your spine can be changed per vertebrae so you can be upright, low to the ground, twisted, straight, long, short... It works really well.

Once you've evolved (got one over on the other species that is) enough, then the third phase kicks in.

It took me two hours to get this far - so I didn't play it much in this phase. However, it's RTS lite. Essentially, it's just a RTS version of the second phase. SO you have a high view of the land, and you control your "tribe". You need food to be able to build new workshops - which give you tools to help you. There are also "tribal" things (like hats, masks, etc) which essentially do the job of the body parts in previous phases. So they give you fighting abilities, or social abilities. It also means you can now dress your (now fixed in shape) species.

This bit was okay, but I'm not a big RTS fan. Being RTS Lite means it's accessible to me, but it's a bit bland. I like that it puts other species from other Spore gamers around the world up against you though.

If you've played Black and White, then you'll immediately recognise this phase.

Phase four is, without a doubt, Civilization. Again, it's a cut down version (much like the console versions actually, which are good) - but it's still just a simpler version of something that has gone before. If you've never played "Civ", then go and do it and lose your life to a single game :lol:

Phase five has you entering space to take other other planets. No idea what this phase is like, but it sounds like a mix of both phase 3 and phase 4.

Overall then? Well, it's five cut back "real games" for the price of one. The first two phases are pretty decent, almost mindless fun. The creation process is excellent, but I suspect that after a few games, all your creatures will be pretty much the same, once you've worked out which is are the best parts to use and where to put them. However, there's always the "art" of creature design.

The latter phases seem to be okay, but if you like those kinds of games, I suspect you'll find them somewhat bland compared to the "full blown" versions.

So a great concept, with great scale, but just not executed fantastically well. It's almost as though Will Wright went "I've got this great idea for a game based on evolution, but I can't quite work out what to do once the creature is evolved... I know, I'll rehash some of my old games!"

I couldn't recommend it at the £25 it's still going for, but if you see it cheaper and fancy a game to eat up a few nights of your life - then you could do a lot worse.
 
L4D2

Ok, so I bet you've been wondering when this review will come out from me and when my fanboism will take over and go OMG 10/10!

No, its not 10/10. Its an extremely great co-op game and its good at what it does but some things weren't thought out well.

So first: Campaign Mode

The Campaign works well, the survivors have new exciting ways to do each level. Its more co-operative than ever before, for example, the new events where you need to scavenge for fuel to fill up a vehicle to escape and the parts where you have to run to switch an alarm off to stop the horde are very clever and means close nit team work is needed. Along with the new ways of moving from place to place and having to find your way rather than be so guided, like in the first game is nice. This works well and there are tactics that you can use but will be spoilt by the special infected. You can't camp out during a horde as sometimes its impossible and when its not the spitter and jockey will stop you camping for long.

Next, Versus:

Now versus is harder as the levels are now so long its untrue! However the problem I find with it is that there are only 4 people who are special infected, so you can't have a team plan like in l4d, you have to make one up when everyone is spawnable, which is hard as there are now a potential of 8 different special infected you can become. So thats the only problem otherwise its fine.

Next Scavenge:

See versus, now make it harder for the survivors and instead of them running to the end of a course, they have a set time to grab a load of fuel tanks and fill up a car/generator.

Survival:

Haven't played this yet but i can't see how it'd be different than L4D apart from more Special Infected.

So in essence there are some bonuses and some things that are worse in L4D2 than 1

now, Weapons:

The choice of weapons has gone from a list you could think if you were on mastermind, to a list you could think of if you'd written them all down and were on mastermind, with the list written up your arm and down the other. The guns are variations of the same type of gun (different shotguns, semi automatics, pistols, sniper rifles) with different damage effect. You can now have explosive and incendiary ammo, which is way more fun. You also have throwable weapons, molotovs, pipe bombs and newly you have boomer bile aswell! Boomer bile can be used to attract a horde, say to a tank and kill it for you, you also have to kill the horde, not as hard as the tank though. You also have melee weapons such as chainsaw, guitar, frying pan, machete etc...

So much fun ensues.

Health:

Now here is the problem, there are three main options for you to use: Health Kit, Defibrillator and for some reason in the same slot, useful ammo, such as explosive or incendiary. Now this can get confusing as you don't know which one you'll need most. Then you have another slot for pain pills which give you a temporary health boost and a adrenaline shot which gives you a small temporary health boost and a speed boost, which are both useful.

So overall some of it has its flaws with so many choices you cant decide but the fun is great and the main aspects overrule any flaws. After all this its still a solid 9/10.

Best co-op game i've played
 
I still can't decide what my game of the year is. My top three are:

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Modern Warfare 2

I think it may be in that order but all three are quite different so can't really be compared.
 
I'm currently playing Batman Arkham Asylum, and it's ****ING LUDICROUSLY AWESOME.

But, I think Modern Warfare 2 is "better". I prefer Batman, but, only because I LOVE Batman.

Though the Scarecrow parts pwn all of MW2.
 
Getting tempted by Batman, but I didn't really like the demo :(

Invizimals arrived today! Bargainous!
Just a quick play so far and without kids. It's very cool the way that it works. You have to hunt for creatures in your home. The idea is that a creature you're hunting for likes certain colours, so you just find a flat surface with a colour they like on it - then the game plays hotter/colder with you until you find the creature. It suddenly appears superimposed on your table/floor/chair/whatever and you place down a "trap" card (supplied) which you use to get the creature.

So unlike Pokemon where you wander a 2D in game map, this game uses your entire home. The most impressive thing about it is the way that it knows when you're panning, tilting and "zooming" and changes the appearance of the creature correctly in real time. Very, very, very cool!

That's as far as I've got. The main game is a battle against other creatures, with a system much like the Pokemon paper/scissors/rock system.

The camera is good enough for what it is, and is probably better than my phone camera to be honest (though only for viewing things on the PSP). Looking forward to making a tit of myself wandering the house tonight looking for invisible creatures :)
 
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