VIDEOGAME Thread...

[LightningBolt]

I played the demo of Ni no Kuni on the PS3, and I really liked what I played. I've heard complaints that the battle system is a bit awkward, but I didn't think so. I thought I picked up on it fairly quickly, anyway. And of course it has some Studio Ghibli style to it. My birthday is a few days before this comes out, and I'm pretty sure I'll be getting it. Hopefully I can afford that along with a Nintendo 3DS and some kind of game to go with it, which I'm thinking may be Paper Mario.

[James Bond]

I finally finished off the last chapter in Max Payne 3. Damn was it long and challenging, but the ending was great. Amazing game overall, one of the best I've played in years. I'm not much of a newer gamer anymore, but the story had me totally hooked and the gameplay was definitely the most fun I've had on my 360 in a long time.

Picked up 007 Legends after I finished Max Payne to give it a go. Finished it in two days, probably 5 hours total playing time. It's fun enough, but was far too short. Six movies, but only two missions per film. A couple of the driving missions only took like five minutes to do so you almost can't even count those. A wasted opportunity for sure, but it wasn't the complete disaster the reviews made it out to be. Multiplayer is awesome though. Local multiplayer is almost a thing of the past in first-person shooters but this game got it right. My friends and I had a blast the other night.

[downzy]

Don't get a lot of chance to play video games (maybe two week stretches a couple of times a year), but finally picked up LA Noire. Six or seven cases in and really liking it. It's not like a traditional open world game, much slower and thought-driven. Only thing I find disappointing is that you really can't screw up the cases unless you die or let the subject get away on foot or by car. Would have preferred a system that wasn't so tied to one narrative. But minor gripe to what seems an otherwise decent game for those who never got around to it and looking for a different kind of experience.

[Nosaj Thing]

Does anyone still play Age of Empires? I love that game!

[The Sandman]

Yeah - got Asian Dynasties the other day. Good fun!

[Forsaken]

Finished Saints Rows the Third, found it far more enjoyable and amusing that GTA 4

....Late here, but it def is. Saints Row III is way way better than GTA 4.

Hopefully GTA V will step it up. I'm confident that it will.

[Tater Totts]

Finished Saints Rows the Third, found it far more enjoyable and amusing that GTA 4

....Late here, but it def is. Saints Row III is way way better than GTA 4.

Hopefully GTA V will step it up. I'm confident that it will.

GTA 4 tried far too hard to be serious, I found Saints Row to be funnier, more fun to play and the activities outside of the missions were actually fun

[ZoSoRose]

Does anyone still play Age of Empires? I love that game!

I like age of empires Ii

[Kitty Softpaws]

Starting playing multiplayer on Red Dead Redemption again recently. Such a mission to find a good session where there arent fools using glitches. I started a session in Chuparosa and instantly got shot with a Buffalo Rifle from the cliffs behind Armadillo. Some kid even wanted me to join his posse to help him do a glitch because everyone else in the session was killing him so that he wouldn't do it. Unfortunate thing is because Red Dead is nearly three years old, I don't really see a patch being made to prevent glitches from happening.

[Nail'N'Bail]

I remember having a Nintendo game system and being so good as a "gamer" , that the only beating I ever took was on my penis at the hands of my 20 yr old Polish babysitter.

[sweetness]

Starting playing multiplayer on Red Dead Redemption again recently. Such a mission to find a good session where there arent fools using glitches. I started a session in Chuparosa and instantly got shot with a Buffalo Rifle from the cliffs behind Armadillo. Some kid even wanted me to join his posse to help him do a glitch because everyone else in the session was killing him so that he wouldn't do it. Unfortunate thing is because Red Dead is nearly three years old, I don't really see a patch being made to prevent glitches from happening.

I still play Red Dead online, I've noticed some glitching but overall I find my way into more clean games than games with a bunch of cheap ass glitchers

[Nosaj Thing]

Does anyone still play Age of Empires? I love that game!

I like age of empires Ii

To me that's the best. Gold Rush is an awesome map lol.

[Turn_It_Up]

Just started RE 6 and gotta say, Leon's campaign kicking ass so far. Really great. Don't find the controls wonkish at all and just don't get the beefs some had toward this game other than the RE fanboys whining it's too much action and not enough old school survival horror.

For anyone who's played all 4 campaigns, can you rank them best to worst?

Changing topics, anyone else been hit with the Rank Reset bug on Black Ops 2 that puts you back to level 1 and takes away all earned weapons, etc? SUCKS!!!!

[Turn_It_Up]

BTW, for old school survival horror, Zombiu brutal and extremely challenging. Nothing kiddie about the game(at all) and gamepad integration pretty awesome.

Edited December 30, 2012 by Turn_It_Up

[arnold layne]

Anyone want to play StarCraft II?

[LightningBolt]

Hmm. I was thinking about the next-gen consoles and decided to post some feelings for some reason.

I'll start with my thoughts on Nintendo and how they've handled the Wii U so far. In short, I don't like it. I almost think they're catering too much to the third parties. Right now, Nintendo themselves only have Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U out, with Pikmin 3 on the way in a few months. It lacks the must-buy system sellers. A port or a multiplatform release is not a must-buy system seller because, obviously, it's available on other platforms already.

I have no doubt that Nintendo has many good looking first-party exclusives in the works. Nintendo has no shortage of quality first-party developers and IP's to tap into for these games. Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Metroid, Super Smash Bros, Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and some of their lesser-known IP's and various spin-offs will all see releases through the upcoming years. I have no doubt about it. I'm not really worried about their first-party output, per se. But we just haven't seen enough yet. Nintendo is far too secretive as a company for its own good. Their hardcore fanbase will stick around and speculate to death about what they have cooking up, but outside of that, the rest of the gaming population doesn't have enough to be excited about right now. Nintendo's hardcore fanbase has to dig into every corner of the Internet for leaks of possible releases coming up and the one-line quote every now and then from a developer of one of their studios. The casual fan, or even the hardcore gamer who isn't obsessed with Nintendo, won't go through those lengths. So what we have now is a console without a system seller, and with a very small amount of games that are worth getting excited over. After Nintendo alienated the hardcore gamer last generation, and with the awful advertisement campaign currently going on with the Wii U, they need to start revealing some of these big games. We know Retro Studios is working on something. We know Monolith Soft is working on something. And we can only assume many of their other studios are, as well. But we don't know what. And anyone who isn't a hardcore Nintendo fan isn't going to get excited over this. Nintendo seems to be under impression that the only ways to reveal a game is through E3, Tokyo Game Show, and their Nintendo Direct conferences. That leaves entirely too much down time in between reveals. We haven't seen any games announced since E3 like 6 months ago when we found out Super Smash Bros 4, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, and The Wonderful 101 were coming out, and three of those are going to only appeal to fairly niche groups. Since then we've learned very little about anything Nintendo plans on releasing in the coming months. I just think this is a pretty bad way for them to go. They need to increase interest somehow.

So yeah, my thoughts are pretty much that Nintendo needs to reveal some software over the next few months. I don't think they can afford to wait until E3 to make their major reveals. They can save some of them for E3. Nintendo has a lot of studios. But they should show off something before that.

I'm personally probably done with the Xbox. I haven't used my 360 in months, and I'm not a fan, as a gamer, of the direction Microsoft has headed in. While I'm sure the specs will be good and it'll have use as an overall "entertainment hub", I'm not interested in it. They also completely lack high quality exclusive titles that Sony and Nintendo have tons of. I'm certainly expecting Microsoft to make a huge push for the "Wii crowd", so the speak, next gen and I worry about their first party support, which was pretty terrible on the 360. They have like the exact opposite problem of Nintendo. Third-party support in spades, a great online structure, and respectable specs, but they just completely lack in the first-party support, which is a major thing for me. They also have no kind of presence in Japan, so their Japanese titles are by far the most lacking of any major company, and I'm a huge fan of Japanese video games.

I think Playstation 4 is one that I will get eventually, because I suspect they'll continue to support it well with their first-party titles, as well as many good looking Japanese exclusives (from the likes of NIS, Square Enix, Atlus, and the such), but I'm worried about its initial price. Sony's hardware developers have been notorious for making the strongest consoles possible and have a reputation for being very "prideful", so I'm worried that they'll be creating another system like the PS3 that was out of my price range for years. I'm not worried about the quality of their system (though it took a while for the PS3 to be affordable for developers to develop for), but I am worried I won't be able to afford one until I'm out of college (I'm a freshman).

So right now, I think I will probably be waiting on any next-gen consoles for a while. Right now, Nintendo is just being far too secretive and I need a better picture of their first-party support over the next few months/years before buying a Wii U. I assume they will eventually have plenty of great games, but why buy one now when the games I want may not be available until 2014? I'm done with Microsoft as a gaming company. And I think I'll probably buy a PS4 down the road.

So yep...

[Black Sabbath]

Put $20 aside each week (or month, honestly), and by the time the PS4 comes out, you'll either have enough or close to it.

[LightningBolt]

That sounds like a good idea in theory until I lack any kind of constraint and spend it all every time it reaches $60 on a new game.

[Black Sabbath]

Then you're just truly not committed and I'm going to have to ask you to leave the thread.

[Tater Totts]

I certainly wont be getting a new console for a while, perfectly happy with my PC but it will be interesting to see where Sony and Microsoft go, many analysts are predicting problems for Sony in the next generation which doesn't entirely surprise me, while it is true Sony has far more exclusives that MS it hasn't really helped the, sell many more consoles, in fact if the Xbox actually sold in Japan it would be far ahead of the Playstation. I thinkone of the biggest problems all of the companies have is that comparatively exclusives sell far less than AAA 'blockbuster' titles such as COD, BF, FIFA and Madden sell far more than exclusives and seemingly for the casual gamer, a choice of console comes down to these titles rather than exclusives. The balance has seemingly change this generation.

I think that if Sony can learn from the problems it had at the beginning of this generation they should do very well but there is still much room for improvement, what good is it having all the quality exclusives if people are not really aware of them?

Microsoft will continue in the directionthey started in this generation and focus on having an entertainment hub with games rather thannjust a games console. This is fine and will be very popular with those who want an all in one hub with only a few exclusives which is a real shame as Microsoft own the rights to many good franchises but dont do snything with them.

Very important year for Nintendo as we will finally start to see original titles which begin to surpass what is avaliable on the 360 and PS3 rather then enhanced ports, very interested in how the will use the controller to create new ames and third parties embrace and innovate using it.

E3 will be huge this year, after slightly underwhelming showings last year there cannot be any excuses for having a bad conference as there will be two ther companies ready to grab new consumers. It will take somethng mindblowingly huge for me to take the plunge on a new console for a while, I'm spending less and less time gaming these days and when I do i usually get games for my PC as its far more powerful than all the consoles and the games are much cheaper too.

[LightningBolt]

I certainly wont be getting a new console for a while, perfectly happy with my PC but it will be interesting to see where Sony and Microsoft go, many analysts are predicting problems for Sony in the next generation which doesn't entirely surprise me, while it is true Sony has far more exclusives that MS it hasn't really helped the, sell many more consoles, in fact if the Xbox actually sold in Japan it would be far ahead of the Playstation. I thinkone of the biggest problems all of the companies have is that comparatively exclusives sell far less than AAA 'blockbuster' titles such as COD, BF, FIFA and Madden sell far more than exclusives and seemingly for the casual gamer, a choice of console comes down to these titles rather than exclusives. The balance has seemingly change this generation.

I think that if Sony can learn from the problems it had at the beginning of this generation they should do very well but there is still much room for improvement, what good is it having all the quality exclusives if people are not really aware of them?

Microsoft will continue in the directionthey started in this generation and focus on having an entertainment hub with games rather thannjust a games console. This is fine and will be very popular with those who want an all in one hub with only a few exclusives which is a real shame as Microsoft own the rights to many good franchises but dont do snything with them.

Very important year for Nintendo as we will finally start to see original titles which begin to surpass what is avaliable on the 360 and PS3 rather then enhanced ports, very interested in how the will use the controller to create new ames and third parties embrace and innovate using it.

E3 will be huge this year, after slightly underwhelming showings last year there cannot be any excuses for having a bad conference as there will be two ther companies ready to grab new consumers. It will take somethng mindblowingly huge for me to take the plunge on a new console for a while, I'm spending less and less time gaming these days and when I do i usually get games for my PC as its far more powerful than all the consoles and the games are much cheaper too.

I agree with a lot of this. If I were to push aside my personal feelings and preferences, I think Microsoft is probably going into the next gen in the best shape. I think they realize that the value in a gaming-dedicated system is seemingly dropping, and they will almost certainly combine many entertainment forms into their next Xbox.

And I have also heard a lot about "Sony is doomed" scenarios, as well. It'll be pretty interesting to see how much longer they are able to stay in the gaming market.

[Tater Totts]

I read that the gaming division is in the best shape financially for Sony and thats even with the Vita doing poorly, if true I imagine they will be sticking around for a while. If they can embrance digital distribution and other ways to keep costs down they should have no problems continuing.

[LuanVictor]

I finished all the RE 6 campaigns last week. Cool game, better then I expected.

[Tater Totts]

So today it came ut that Sony might have a patent to prevent using games on more than one console to cut down on piracy. Apparently the first time a disc is used it will pair with the console which will stop it being used on others, seems like a very strange decision by Sony and it will ush consumers away if true. Gamestops stock fell massively today following the news, hope really isn't true as it will have in my opinion a very negative impact on the gaming market.

[CharlieSheen]

Spent most of Christmas playing FIFA '13 & Need For Speed Most Wanted,