Whatcha Been Playing?

[NokkonWud]

Better, I'm sure. Capcom have already acknowledged that RE6 is/was a disaster.

[countstex]

Replaying Arkham City on PC this time, which I picked up with all the DLC in a Steam Sale. Love the traversal in that game. And of course it's looking wonderful especially with the PhysX enhancements.

[dezm0nd]

Been playing Mario Golf on the 3DS. It's a joy! Much better than the lacklustre Tennis effort.

[DomsBeard]

Titanfall on 360, really impressed so far.

[Scrustle]

Been playing a bit of the first Force Unleashed game again. Just felt the need to go back to it for some reason. I never really regarded the game particularly highly before, but the game hasn't aged very well since it first came out. Controls feel really unresponsive and clunky. Sometimes I'm just standing there for several seconds pressing buttons with absolutely no response at all as I'm being shot from all angles. It's really common to get stuck in a stuck-lock too. Although it's not really a stun-lock in a normal sense. It's that when you get knocked down the controls don't seem to respond until a second after getting up again, so it's not really that you get stuck in a knockback animation. It's just that the controls are shit and sluggish, so by the time you get up you just get knocked down again. You're often attacked by enemies off-screen too, which is really great. The camera is also really slow, lock-on is worthless, as is blocking. Initially I was intending on going through the game on the default difficulty, as first time I dropped it down to easy. I'm starting to consider doing that again.

But the game still has a little value to it. It's still kind of fun to just be a Jedi and swing around a lightsaber in the Star Wars universe and throw around the rubber ragdoll Storm Troopers and such. It's kept me going as far as I have so far, which I think is about 1/3 of the way through right now.

[dezm0nd]

There's a boss fight early on in that game which is a massive pile of shit. Enjoyed Force Unleashed 2 a bit more if only for the Force Powers and the physics engine!

[Katieee120]

I've begun playing the Game Of Thrones games. I know it got poor reviews but I actually quite like it. It's got some good RPG elements, who knows, maybe I'm just a sucker for RPG's :p

[dezm0nd]

The idea of running about those locations is exciting to me but the poor reviews put me off.

[DomsBeard]

Put some serious time into Titanfall (360) and it is bloody brilliant. Took my bat and ball home after the delayed release but it is incredible. It's nice to play a game that works *cough Battlefield* I've not had a single fault or problem I'm any game I've tried.

[Todinho]

The idea of running about those locations is exciting to me but the poor reviews put me off.

Well if you like strategy games the best GoT game is a mod for crusaders kings 2 it's pretty cool since it let's you pick the many eras of westeros and pick whatever house you want even minor ones and if im not mistaken they even added Essos in an update.

[Scrustle]

There's a boss fight early on in that game which is a massive pile of shit. Enjoyed Force Unleashed 2 a bit more if only for the Force Powers and the physics engine!

I'm actually thinking about playing the second game after this too. That's actually kind of what started me thinking about it. I've never played that one, since it didn't review well, and by that time I had more or less lost interest in the idea. But I've been talking to people about it recently and they say it's actually better gameplay-wise, so why not? I played the demo recently too and had fun with it. But I felt like playing through the first again as well to relive it, as well as try out the "what if" DLC that I never tried before. That seems pretty interesting. I found the sequel has some of that too, so I'm interested in trying that out as well.

I think it was all this stuff about how all the Extended Universe stuff isn't canon now got me thinking about it. A lot of people got in a fuss about it, and although I admit I never really bothered with it, I've heard that there was a lot pretty stupid stuff out there which was probably a very good thing to get rid of. For instance, did you know that in one of the EU stories out there they brought the Emperor back from the dead as a clone? Apparently they decided that it was a good idea to shit all over the ending of RotJ and Vader's redemption because they wanted to continue to have the Empire as a convenient antagonist with a big evil guy at the top, instead of actually coming up with something even slightly original.

So naturally thinking about now non-canon Star Wars stories involving cloning that are allegedly crap, I started thinking of the Force Unleashed games. I guess this kind of stuff was inevitable from the beginning though. They spoke of the Clone Wars right from the first film, establishing that cloning was a thing in that universe that was important enough to have a war named after it. So sooner or later that would be used in a story for a way for a bad writer to hand-wave away important things like major characters being dead.

[mikeleddy83]

Put some serious time into Titanfall (360) and it is bloody brilliant. Took my bat and ball home after the delayed release but it is incredible. It's nice to play a game that works *cough Battlefield* I've not had a single fault or problem I'm any game I've tried.

Had a crash earlier but saw you pop online just a second before I called it quits. Jump in if you see me playing

Since then I've finished Lone Survivor which was nice and short though slightly droning by the time of it's conclusion and picked up on Gravity Rush again where I can gladly overlook its slight wrestling of controls for the superb level of polish elsewhere. All the while I'm listening to the latest show and contemplating a journey back to the world of Portal 2 which I haven't replayed since launch and am getting a bit excited about!

[Katieee120]

I haven't gone to many places yet Dezm0nd but I've just arrived in King's Landing ! Hoping to see more places from the show. I will be honest the only thing that's a little bit boring for me is the combat. It's quite similar to Dragon Age 2's combat system but even slower & more repetitive. I do hope another GoT game will be made, hopefully it'll be better.

[Cass]

Bought Skyrim on a whim after having never gelled with Oblivion or Morrowind and thoroughly enjoyed my first hour - and now have run out of things to do in Whiterun and am not really sure where I'm supposed to be going or what I'm supposed to be doing. I know that's kind of the point, but these games have always felt huge, empty and daunting to me.

I know there's a point when it all comes together and people get hooked, I'm just wondering what the best way is to get to that point. :p Should I follow the main quest to a certain point?

[Scrustle]

I kind of envy you Cass. Oblivion was the first time I truly fell in love with the TES games. Although I really like Skyrim too, it doesn't really have that same sense of discovery for me. Of immersing myself in that world for the first time and learning all its quirks and intricacies. I wish I could get that again, but I don't think I will ever be able to.

Anyway, there's loads to do in Skyrim if you just ask around a bit. Just talk to people and explore everywhere you can and you're sure to come across something to do. The factions are obviously a pretty good way to go too of course. The Companions, which are Skyrim's version of the Fighter's Guild, are in Whiterun, so that's a good start. You can find them in Jorrvaskr. It's the big mead hall that looks like an upturned dragon boat around the mid level of Whiterun, around where the big tree is.

Joining one of the sides of the civil war is a good way to go too. You can join that by talking to specific people, or more easily by asking around army camps in the wilderness. Alternatively, you can skip that step and go straight to the places where each faction is stationed. The Imperial Legion are in Solitude in Castle Dour. The Stormcloak rebels can be joined by talking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the Jarl in Windhelm.

The main quest doesn't lock away access to any quest lines as far as I can remember. Maybe there are a few specific quests that you won't be able to do, but for the most part you can do what you want. And despite the game making a lot of the quests seem urgent, none of them are. You can do any of them whenever you want.

UESP.net is also a really good place to go for information on any of the games. It's a wiki which has in-depth information on pretty much everything. Even detailed walkthroughs for every single quest, if you want that kind of thing.

[DomsBeard]

The way I played Skyrim was to pick a direction, set off walking and I've never fast travelled in over 200 hours. My favourite game ever.

P.s. I've only finished one of the two main quests in that time. The dlc is great too.

[Cass]

I've tried your method Dom but I think that was what soured me on Oblivion - I'm not great with open-world stuff and I like structure and narrative, so just pure exploring doesn't always hit with me.

Cheers Scrustle, I'll hit up the Companions in Whiterun

[Katieee120]

It's best not to fast travel because if you do, you'll miss out on loads if exciting , interesting places.

[Flabyo]

The Elder Scrolls games really are mostly about wandering around and finding things off the beaten track. I know quite a few people that really don't like them because of that. (Same goes for Fallout 3, less so for Fallout: New Vegas which has more direction to it, at least for the opening 20 hours or so).

You might find Dragon's Dogma a better option, it isn't anywhere near as vast a place to explore but still isn't completely linear. Maybe Kingdoms of Amalur?

[Katieee120]

Kingdoms of Amular is on the same level as Dragons Dogma when exploration is concerned. A nice, colourful world but not overly massive.