‘cept, I don’t.
Actually that’s not strictly true. It’s not that I don’t like it more the fact that I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Perhaps it gets better? If that’s the case though why not show me that bit in the demo?
A good demo should give you a nice slice of the action and leave you wanting to spend money on the product, yet we see so many demo’s that have the opposite effect – XBLA titles quite often being the worst for this as they offer up only the intro rather than a cross section of the game.
Rez HD in particular though – Sure it shows you what the game does, but it just didn’t excite me in the slightest. A few things to kill, all at quite a sedate pace, and a soundtrack of (and Spanky summed it up nicely) boooof boooof boooof boooof boooof……
If someone can tell me it gets better than what was shown then maybe I’ll lay some points down on it, but to be honest I think I’m going to go buy Metal Slug 4 instead.
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( 3 / 286 )By rights I should love Advance Wars. The original GBA version pretty much propped up a 27 hour plane journey to NZ (and filled in some nice little bored evenings in a camper van in the middle of Taupo). The DS version (the first one at least) left me cold though, and still sits in my collection gathering dust.
Now there's a sequel, and a quick play last night made me realise that the first DS version was a mere blip - and that Black Hole Rising is where the series should've gone last time. It's dark, it's post-apocalyptic yet it still retains that weird mix of ultra-violent conflict, manga-esque characters and units, and a shedload of options. Also looks bloody fantastic too, not just a polish up of the GBA versions.
The game starts after a massive conflict. Everyone's dead, and it's up to you to claw your way back from the brink and start defeating the triumphant masses of the dark armies.
The gameplay hasn't altered a jot, but it has been polished and buffed up to a beautiful sheen - meaning that Advance Wars fans are going to feel right at home.
Heartily recommended.
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( 2.9 / 254 )
Bio shocked. That's what I've been for the last few nights.My new years resolution of only playing one game at a time has already gone completely out the window. The rusty tin of Rapture has been glinting at me for some time now, sitting unloved on my shelf just waiting for me to unwrap it.
So this week, that’s exactly what I did.
I almost wish I’d never played the demo. The game starts as you expect with the opening scenes from the snippet we had on XBLM a few months ago; the plane crashing into the sea and the ring of fire… all of which I’d now experienced before. Dammit! So charging through the stuff I’d seen before didn’t take too much time, and before long I was enraptured with Rapture. (Man I bet the rapture puns have been done to death!)
In a way I’m quite glad I’m playing this outside of the hyperbole bubble that surrounded the initial launch. Don’t get me wrong, it more than lives up to its glorious review scores. The art deco surroundings, the sumptuous lighting, the wonderful sounds always prodding at your senses like a deranged doctor with a syringe full of weird shit that would make you go a bit peculiar.
The best thing of all though, is that the mrs is loving WATCHING the game be played. It’s that atmospheric that it’s got a filmic quality to it. The scares (no one told me it was going to be scary by the way!) come quite often, and the sheer size and ferocity of the Big Daddies make for some brilliant edge of your seat moments.
I’m only a few hours in but this is one game I can’t wait to get stuck in to. If you see it knocking around in a bargain bin, GRAB IT!
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( 3.1 / 215 )
Gah! Y'see, y'see, this is why I remember going off PC gaming. Yes you do get shiny pretty loveliness but oh my gawd how much time did I lose this weekend just twiddling and tweaking and trying to get things to work?
Gaming wasn't so much the problem - just Vista. Yep stupidly I thought I'd go for a bit of Direct X10 sexiness and see what difference gaming under Vista makes. Simple answer: Don't do it unless you really like installing operating systems because you'll be rebuilding with XP Service Pack 2 within the space of a day.
Crysis under DirectX10 looks bloody lovely though but the performance dip might not warrant the change for a lot of people. Similarly Bioshock (current Binky fave) also looks bloody splendiferous but with a few framerates nipped off its performance, things get a bit irritating when the game gets busy.
All in all though, PC gaming is a sport for people with infinite patience, infinite monetary resources, and without a lazy streak a mile long snaking up their backs (ie not me).
Now if you'll excuse me I think I'll just get back into a bit of Company of Heroes...
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( 3 / 228 )The 8800 GT turned up yesterday, the first chunk of my PC upgrade and...
Holy crap!
The HD console scene has been quite satisfying for the length of time I've been out of PC gaming but having a proper yardstick to compare it to - hell, that really does put the cat amongst the pigeons.
The GPU is basically like having the world's most stupidly powerful console on a card that just happens to sit in the world's crappiest PC (at the moment, at least). It takes all the games that I'd previously never been able to run, and turns them into sylph-like things of beauty. And here's the problem too because it also means it's ruined quite a few console classics for me along the way.
Last night, I installed the card. It had a few stability issues (full system locks happening one too many times for my liking, dammit) but the evening went something like this.
1) Take the side off the PC - Realise that the 8800GT is a LONG card and nudges my SATA connectors a bit. A bit of fiddling and twiddling and it's there...phew.
2) Start installing the drivers. Forgot to uninstall the feckin' ATI drivers first which meant a bit more twiddling. Did that, installed the Nvidia drivers. Rebooted. Phew, that looks better (seeing 3D-ness in the Nvidia Panel controls helps a hell of a lot).
3) Ran the standard Direct X tests to see if D3D was doing OK. It was. It is. It looks ace.
4) With my rule of leaving the best till last, I actually started out with Unreal Tournament III. Now, before this game looked like a blocky rubbish piece of shit. With the 8800 suddenly I realised that under that blocky rubbish piece of shit is one hell of a good looking game, with definite stylings towards Gears of War but with some incredible effects. The game itself might have aged pretty badly (who the hell plays arena shooters these days?) but it's as purty as a Georgia Peach
5) Ran the Bioshock demo. Oh god. First game on the 360 ruined permanently then. The PC version looks so much better, plays so much better, and because I'd got a decent sound rig on the PC, it SOUNDS so much better which it needs to because Bioshock is so immersive. All of the tiny little details on the textures come into sharp focus and the water effects just look bucketloads better. I really really don't think I'm going to be able to play the 360 version ever again now...
6) Ran Supreme Commander - not a demo this time but the full retail version which I picked up for a tenner. Fucking hell that's immense. With everything whacked up to full pelt the game just looks stupendous, so busy. I can see me losing a lot of hours to that.
7) Finally, the daddy, Crysis. As you saw from yesterday I could run the game at medium settings on the old rig so I was a bit perturbed when I let it set the optimal settings itself and it tuned everything back down to low. Oh no you fucking don't! With a quick tweak, everything back up to high I re-ran the game after a reboot...and there it was, this legendary game I'd heard so much about, and had heard so many high-end PC goons moaning about...running beautifully on a sub 500 quid rig like an absolute dream.
Again, this is a game that highlights the stark difference between HD console gaming and high end PC gaming. There's no comparison really. Sony and Microsoft (and Nintendo, ha ha) have got a very long way to go before their consoles catch up and by the time they do, PC stuff will have moved on 50 fold again just like it has now. Much as I appreciate the laziness of console gaming (and the lack of stability on the PC last night had me screaming blue murder at the thing more than once too) - when PC gaming is good, and this good too - I feel like doing the Peter Griffin Twinkie Factory / Jodie Foster in 'Contact' thing...
"Should've sent a poet...so beautiful!"
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