[standardman]

A THING YOU SHOULD BUY:

The amazing THQ pack is once again half price on steam, for £26.49/$49.99 you get:

Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Frontlines: Fuel of War
Full Spectrum Warrior
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
Red Faction
Red Faction Guerrilla
Red Faction II
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl *(read below)
Saints Row 2
Titan Quest
Titan Quest – Immortal Throne
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Gold Edition
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm

Yup, incred-o-bargain. Only on for the rest of today.

Originally Posted by hellbent

any try the heavy rain demo? i was looking forward to it. popular reaction (from kotaku) seems that people like it. i find the control scheme funky. i saw some minor graphical glitches (did the 1st car have a shadow?).
if theres a sex scene i bet you have to press down, R2, L1, down down down to unzip your fly, then shake your controller for 30 seconds.

Did you play Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy? Same guys made it and you pretty much had to do that.

Originally Posted by notedhero

fl0w is free on psn today

I looked for that and it wasn't up, maybe it's region specific or there's a delay.

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

I'm going to pull out a blasphemy, but i never liked the first AVP game.

Has anyone played or seen anything about the new Stalker?

First of, you're wrong but I wont hold that against you.

I hear the new STALKER game is great stuff, RPS has some thoughts here. *You get a hefty discount on steam if you own either of the first two (on steam) SO BUY THAT THQ PACK ALREADY!

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

It speaks volume about our generation though (S. i guess you're in your late twenties or early thirties like me, right?) how we badasses express our paternal feelings and humanity in a videogame. It's not weird, it's peculiar and says also a lot about how a well designed game is way more powerful than a lot of people think.

Although, i will never sink to depths of depravity that was the Weighted Companion Cube love. As some critic pointed out "Slaughtering people on one side but tearing up because you lost a metal cube on the other is impressive". And, again it's a good demontration of what a great emotion handling instrument games are, if in the hand of geniuses like Bioware, Valve, etc.

Bioshock 1 and 2 are basically shooters, but besides feeling a sense of dread, they dont give you a taste for violence. GTA IV is an excellent example of maturity, where a franchise infamous for glorifying violence made you play one of the most morally engaged charcters ever. Of course there's still the exhilarating carnage of stuff like gears of war. But good games have brains and souls, and can give emotions.

Yap Yap Yap.

I'm a young pup at 24 but I'm told I was born a grumpy old man who likes toys and Batman. The paternal thing seems to run through pop culture aimed at both men and boys - from Star Wars and Indiana Jones to Silent Hill and Bioshock 2, it just seems to instantly resonate. SPOILERWHITE The opening of Bioshock 2 hits you so hard that you just want to find your 'daughter'. And the sisters are so unique in this world - delicate children singing and playing in a harsh, collapsing world. When you get up close, you feel a unnerving mixture of revulsion and a hardwired desire to protect.

Valve making you feel bad for killing an object that wasn't alive to begin with was almost showing off - they're great storytellers who create characters you care about and do it by understanding and utilising the strengths of the medium (also Bioshock 2 is way too eager to take the controls away from me).

Games are a young medium and they're still struggling and still imitating the previous dominant medium, movies, just as early motion pictures imitated plays. I think some developers are finding their feet and subvert what came before (as in GTA) but we'll still have the Gears of Wars, just as we still have stagey movies. Oh and when a developer describes their game as cinematic or aspiring to be cinematic, I cringe - MOVE FORWARD!

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

Little details about (again) Bioshock 2 that i feel i have to point out, after reading many reviews that pointed out how it's a "outdated replica of the first".

-The look is still amazing with light shadow and dripping water used to improve the atmosphere

-The AI is perfect. Almost human. The splicers are united as "The family" ruled by doctor Lamb and they interact with you as a family. They attack you in groups. protect each other. Even have conversations.
The Big Daddy is adorably focused on protecting the little sisters. he wont attack you first and if you fdont bother him you can even use him as an ally (example: I was out of ammo and medikits.. And the big sisters was hunting me. the fire started the battle but the slow and deliberate hits of a Big Daddy that the sister annoyed too much. ended it spectacularly.

-The story is still cool as hell, but you have to pick up alll the diaries to get it.

I'm finding reviews of Bioshock 2 to be very lazy - this isn't Bioshock 1.5 - it's look and feel is improved (at least on pc), the level design is brave and imaginative and it plays almost completely differently in terms of the mechanics. The story so far seems thin but I do like how you discover the background and the surprise of Rapture is lessened but they use what you've seen in the first game to surprise you in the second.