What Game Are You Playing At The Moment?

[standardman]

I borrowed Darksiders and managed to beat it just before it was due back - I wasn't quite prepared for how long it was. Initially, I dismissed it as just another third person action game and I hated the 90s comic book mixed with manga art style.

Once I got into it, I realised that it's much more open - you're always discovering, exploring and unlocking something. It's essentially Zelda in HD through a heavy metal filter - a magpie game with few new ideas - but it's done so well and so openly that it ends up feeling like a mashup of and a tribute to every game the developers love and their enthusiasm is infectious.

Darksiders won me over and I'd even recommend it to Zelda fans. I'll probably buy a sequel but I still hate that art style.

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

Bought Sacrifice on the always reliable Steam. Heard great things about it. I'll see.

It's a great game, part of that period where Interplay were putting out fantastic weird shit.

Originally Posted by TheInfamousBiGD

Playing Super Metroid (SNES). Back to the classic and still it's in my top 10 games of all time.

It's in my list too, achieves so much with so little.

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

I was alking about Steam. But the argument works even better with peggle. It has been the monkey on my back for all this time. Now i'm playing the great master challenges. And i know i'll still be doing it after i finished those....

Plant Vs Zombies is awesome but doesnt have the addictive quality of peggle, at least for me. What's a popcap game that is equally compulsive as peggle? Zuma? Chuzzle? Bejeweled, Bookworm?

The closest addiction-wise they've put out is Bejeweled but it doesn't have the satisfaction that Peggle does.

Originally Posted by Donalbain

Since I was finally able to pick up my preorder of Pokèmon Soul Silver and I have some time off, I can finally start playing that.

Im also playing some Age of Kings, and Diablo 2 on the side. 2 Great games, the first one especially that I remember playing fondly somewhat competitively 8 years ago or more.

Have you tried Torchlight? It's like single player Diablo without the annoying bits and with lots of nice touches. Made by some of the same guys too.

[Donalbain]

Have you tried Torchlight? It's like single player Diablo without the annoying bits and with lots of nice touches. Made by some of the same guys too.

Yes I have. It was alot of fun, a friend of mine has the full game, and I played the demo. I tried it a couple times. I had alot of fun.

[evadwolrab]

I seem to remember buying Sacrifice and Giants: Citizen Kabuto on the same day and enjoying them both. They had proper old school bigger-than-the-bible cardboard cases too. Aww...

[Junkenstein]

How is Giants Citizen Kabuto? It attracted my attention on GOG...

[standardman]

Gog.com are offering Sanitarium and The Longest Journey for half price this weekend. Great games, ask Junk.

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

How is Giants Citizen Kabuto? It attracted my attention on GOG...

It's mental, hilarious and brilliant - former Shiny employees during Interplay's high point.

[standardman]

World of Goo is half price on Impluse (£6.54 or ten bucks). Terrific, charming puzzle game that everyone should play.

[pinoy0004]

Balancing my time between God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII

God of War is amazing!!!

[Junkenstein]

I strongly reccomend evrything Standardman says because he's cool (his girlfriend is a 20 yo hottie, guys. And he's a geek. Learn, fuckers, learn)

In this case even more. "World of Goo" is poetic and sweet and with that extra oomph that inventive games had in the golden age. Like Lemmings. It's one of those games that's almost impossible to explain, but as soon as you start playing, everything is clear and addictive. Plus, it looks gorgeous and cute.

If anyone of you hasnt played "Longest Journey", you suck. It's the predecessor to Dreamfall and a much better and more intelligent game. A magnificient mood, with some super-detailed graphics, a sci-fi feeling that reminds me of China Miéville (ahem. Sorry, i geeked out) and some of the most human, complex and fascinating characters ever portrayed in a game. Mostly, April Ryan is, with Alyx Vance of HL2, the best female charcter ever created. Let Ragnar Tornquist break your heart.

"Sanitarium" is a great adventure game that accomplishes the task of dropping you in an early David Lynch movie. Deformed Children, rotting asylums, sentient insects, child abusing preachers, sadistic doctors, heaven and hell. And you play a disfigured asshole who spouts hatred at everyone he speaks to.

C'mon guys. Treat yourselves.

[Junkenstein]

Mirror's Edge

Wow. What a polarizing game.

Like all very good ideas, this oscillates between genius and pure nerve wrecking chaos.
When you catch the good flow, you have an amazing thing that allows you to run, jump and soar in a vertigo inducing landscap that looks like a luc-besson nightmare. The beauty of the world you soar through makes you feel dizzy. And if things go right, it's somethi ng you have never seen anywhere else. As close as pure adrenaline as you can get.

But, man, when it crashes, it crashes loudly. See, you can run over skyscraper and jump around, but on your path you meet heavily armed enemies that a lot of the times, you cannot avoid. And you have to fight. And fight means, litterally, you have to press the right button in the space of a second or you die. That's it. Cant run away. Cant do combos (well you can but they wont do much) cant use weapons, mostly they'll use em against you. You just die, unless you do tyhe forementioned, quick burst button pushing. And the run is blocked. The rush is interrupted.

Thr game has other flaws, like the fact that you generally have a very rigid path to follow and cannot deviate from that. But none of those is as frustarting as that fucking trial and error combat.

But between those giant block of unfun, there's a great game. Hopefully it will be improved.

[standardman]

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

I strongly reccomend evrything Standardman says because he's cool (his girlfriend is a 20 yo hottie, guys. And he's a geek. Learn, fuckers, learn)

In this case even more. "World of Goo" is poetic and sweet and with that extra oomph that inventive games had in the golden age. Like Lemmings. It's one of those games that's almost impossible to explain, but as soon as you start playing, everything is clear and addictive. Plus, it looks gorgeous and cute.

If anyone of you hasnt played "Longest Journey", you suck. It's the predecessor to Dreamfall and a much better and more intelligent game. A magnificient mood, with some super-detailed graphics, a sci-fi feeling that reminds me of China Miéville (ahem. Sorry, i geeked out) and some of the most human, complex and fascinating characters ever portrayed in a game. Mostly, April Ryan is, with Alyx Vance of HL2, the best female charcter ever created. Let Ragnar Tornquist break your heart.

"Sanitarium" is a great adventure game that accomplishes the task of dropping you in an early David Lynch movie. Deformed Children, rotting asylums, sentient insects, child abusing preachers, sadistic doctors, heaven and hell. And you play a disfigured asshole who spouts hatred at everyone he speaks to.

C'mon guys. Treat yourselves.

These words are nice words, thank you man. And you're absolutely right about the games.

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

Mirror's Edge

Wow. What a polarizing game.

Like all very good ideas, this oscillates between genius and pure nerve wrecking chaos.
When you catch the good flow, you have an amazing thing that allows you to run, jump and soar in a vertigo inducing landscap that looks like a luc-besson nightmare. The beauty of the world you soar through makes you feel dizzy. And if things go right, it's somethi ng you have never seen anywhere else. As close as pure adrenaline as you can get.

But, man, when it crashes, it crashes loudly. See, you can run over skyscraper and jump around, but on your path you meet heavily armed enemies that a lot of the times, you cannot avoid. And you have to fight. And fight means, litterally, you have to press the right button in the space of a second or you die. That's it. Cant run away. Cant do combos (well you can but they wont do much) cant use weapons, mostly they'll use em against you. You just die, unless you do tyhe forementioned, quick burst button pushing. And the run is blocked. The rush is interrupted.

Thr game has other flaws, like the fact that you generally have a very rigid path to follow and cannot deviate from that. But none of those is as frustarting as that fucking trial and error combat.

But between those giant block of unfun, there's a great game. Hopefully it will be improved.

It's baffling that, after creating something so beautiful and different and exhilarating that they'd literally throw in road blocks against the game's strengths. Maybe they had to put combat in there to make it sell but needs a refined sequel.

As for what I've been playing, I played a few matches of Left 4 Dead 2. The first game I leapt in to was right at the Dark Carnival finale, they'd been stuck for a while and it's always great to dive in and help a team win.

The second was on the first level with someone playing for the first time, we had a lot of fun chatting to him about his first impressions and listening to his surprise on new discoveries. He backed me up at the car as I grabbed the petrol cans and he even got to pour the last one in, winning us the round.

Left 4 Dead 2 in particular reminds me why I love playing multiplayer on PC, rather than Xbox Live - it's largely a friendly, fun environment with people who work together.