What Are You Playing?

[Polmon]

Today I been playing Outrun 2006, and it pwns hard. I pushed my overall rank on the first Heart Attack thingy from D to B (hadn't even completed most of the routes, let alone all the stages). I've only got a couple of Special requests to unlock now, both on Ice Cap (or whatever its called) and Milky Way. I'm fucking shite at Milky Way. Doesn't help that I'm also shit at both Jungle and Ice Cap, so getting to Milky way with AA average is impossible ;(

I think I shall play some more in a while, when I've eaten and done my daily Brain Training

[Vimster]

It's been far too hot to really concentrate on games recently, sadly, but I have been playing through GTA III on the PS2, mainly just messing about, still not getting the hang of targetting after 3 years of owning it. Also enjoying Anarchy on the C64, a sort of budget puzzle shooter. Surprisingly absorbing.

[bingowings]

Same. Dreamcast version I hope?

pfft. PS2. i like to actually hear the game when i'm playing it, and not have it drowned out by the constant grinding, whirring and snapping noises you get with the DC version. and the controls are better.

[misterSquare]

I finally finished forcing myself through Resident Evil Zero, which wasn't a fun experience. I feel compelled to list my grievances -

- Why the hell did they remove the item boxes??? Having to trapse halfway across the map to track down items really isn't fun, nor is manually ferrying them to a new room once you start progressing on from the mansion.

- The stupid bits where you get separated from the other character, who then invariably has *all* the weapons the other one needs

- Boss fights without save points before them, unforgivable in a game like this where replaying sections is incredibly tedious largely due to...

- The horrendous room loading times/door opening sequences, which are completely unecessary given that manual swapping between characters takes about a second.

- When you have to swap items between characters using pulleys when they're separated - the most inane sequence of events. Why watch the box open and close EVERY TIME? Why can't I just put multiple items in rather than have to choose, send, swap characters, and take back out EVERY ITEM INDIVIDUALLY. So fucking tedious - I can't belive nobody had the sense to raise issues like these during development.

- Only Rebecca can mix herbs? Ggggaaargh. Stupid.

- Wandering into a room and the other character starts blasting away with precious magnum ammo because you forgot to unequip it.

Not sure why I bothered really - I adored REMake, but without fail all the extra stuff that they added to Zero just made it 10x worse. Its really, horribly broken gameplay-wise.

Aside from that, Loco Roco, and I've taken my Dreamcast into work so I can play Psyvariar 2 in tate mode on my shiny new 24" Dell Widescreen

[Aurelius]

Advance Wars (DS), I bought it at launch but never persevered. I’ve restarted and am about to start mission 23. Great game! GRAW (360), currently playing the mission were you have to destroy three artillery pieces. The game looks great but the controls could have been more intuitive. And still playing Ouendan (DS) on and off. And last, replaying Resident Evil 4 (GC) once a week with a mate.

[bingowings]

I finally finished forcing myself through Resident Evil Zero, which wasn't a fun experience. I feel compelled to list my grievances -

- Why the hell did they remove the item boxes??? Having to trapse halfway across the map to track down items really isn't fun, nor is manually ferrying them to a new room once you start progressing on from the mansion.

- The stupid bits where you get separated from the other character, who then invariably has *all* the weapons the other one needs

- Boss fights without save points before them, unforgivable in a game like this where replaying sections is incredibly tedious largely due to...

- The horrendous room loading times/door opening sequences, which are completely unecessary given that manual swapping between characters takes about a second.

- When you have to swap items between characters using pulleys when they're separated - the most inane sequence of events. Why watch the box open and close EVERY TIME? Why can't I just put multiple items in rather than have to choose, send, swap characters, and take back out EVERY ITEM INDIVIDUALLY. So fucking tedious - I can't belive nobody had the sense to raise issues like these during development.

- Only Rebecca can mix herbs? Ggggaaargh. Stupid.

- Wandering into a room and the other character starts blasting away with precious magnum ammo because you forgot to unequip it.

i really like Zero - the items boxes were always a lazy idea - leaving things dotted around is more logical (as far as playing a game with skinned monkeys, giant insects and Manimal's evil brother can be deemed logical). Rebecca is the only one who can mix herbs because she's the medic, why in a game with two main characters give them the same skills? it just makes you think more, besides, there are plenty of sprays kicking about for Billy to use.

the partner-zapping is a great idea, and as for the other character having all the weapons - who's fault is that? certainly not the games'.

[Mercury]

Having been on holiday I have had a couple of weeks where the answer isn't Oblivion. Everybody's Golf got the majority of my time with a little Lumines too.

Having returned it is back to Oblivion plus a run through Sands of Time and another visit to San Andreas.

[misterSquare]

i really like Zero - the items boxes were always a lazy idea - leaving things dotted around is more logical (as far as playing a game with skinned monkeys, giant insects and Manimal's evil brother can be deemed logical).

Like you say - the rest of the game is hardly logical, so why suddenly try to make it more realistic? Unless you've played the game through already, you simply don't know where or when you'll need items, so most people will just tend to leave them dumped in a single room anyway (eg. the hallway). Seeing as you're effectively using the room as a massive item box (with limited space, annoyingly), they might as well have kept them in. Leaving them out just means far more trips back and forth, in addition to occasionally having to shift the whole lot halfway across the map, rather than just heading to the nearest item box.

Its a totally broken system in multiple ways, and also in no way whatsoever suits a fixed viewpoint perspective. Most of the time you can't even see what item you are standing in front of, and have to keep clicking back and forth between the map to check what is in the room.

Rebecca is the only one who can mix herbs because she's the medic, why in a game with two main characters give them the same skills? it just makes you think more, besides, there are plenty of sprays kicking about for Billy to use.

How does it make you think more? I accept her having to be used to mix the chemicals to make the suphuric acid/battery acid, but the herb thing is just unecessarily awkward (and hugely frustrating when the mixture icon is just two crumbled up piles of herb :\ ). Say you find them as Billy on his own - it just forces you to drag Rebecca all the way through the game to get to the herbs so she can mix them, or else have Billy waste two slots of his teeny tiny inventory lugging them back to Rebecca so she can mix them. If you do the latter, you'll have to drop two items on the floor, and then come aaaaallll the way back to get them again afterwards. And either way, you've got two trips halfway across the game, coupled with umpteen door opening screens, just to mix some herbs together

the partner-zapping is a great idea, and as for the other character having all the weapons - who's fault is that? certainly not the games'.

Not all the weapons - just adequate weapons. When Rebecca crawls through a duct, how am I supposed to know which character will subsequently get attacked? Who gets the chunky shotgun? Who gets the puny handgun? Who takes my single first aid spray? Add in the fact that you usually want to keep spaces free to save you having to drop stuff when you find new items, and its pretty easy to screw up and leave one character in the lurch. At least with just one character you can ensure that you're always tooled up with the best avaliable weapons, rather than getting randomly deprived of the ones you need the most.

I like Resident Evil games, but the two player thing just really exaggerates all the issues that the old style ones had. It gets rid of a lot of the survival horror stuff, and just becomes about dying, then repeating sections with the foreknowledge of what is up ahead.

[matt0]

Got a 360 with Oblivion and RR6 yesterday.

Ridge Racer 6 is pretty decent. Nice clean graphics in HD, same old same old, a decent launch title.

Oblivion is fucking nuts though... I got in too deep in an abandoned mine fighting some goblins so I ran outside thinking that would be the end of it, only for the bastards to follow me outside. Got chased down a hill by a huge goblin horde all yabbering at me as I pegged it towards town where a bunch of soldiers guarding the door hurtled past me to take them on. I stood at the town gate watching the scrap ready to run inside if the goblins got the upper hand. Amazing stuff.

Oh. And I got some random disc read errors in Oblivion .

[Brother5]

Oh. And I got some random disc read errors in Oblivion .

Yeah, we all do

My thieves guild quest is borked. In 'Lost Histories', Shum just NEVER appears! His marker points to empty space Still clocked about 90 hours, though.

Loving Hitman, 4 missions in.

Mobile, I play Animal Crossing and Brain Training a few minutes each evevery day.

[Vincent Valentine]

Is that any good? I could do with a solid SRPG in the (PS1) FF-Tactics vein.

Yeah it's a great game. Solid enough story, fairly likable characters, nice battle system (allowing you to attack a number of times in one turn, team combos, etc.) and probably the best character sprites I've seen in a SRPG. You could also try Disgaea, La Pucelle, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, etc. if you haven't already.

[Yewone]

I finally finished forcing myself through Resident Evil Zero, which wasn't a fun experience. I feel compelled to list my grievances -

.....

Not sure why I bothered really - I adored REMake, but without fail all the extra stuff that they added to Zero just made it 10x worse. Its really, horribly broken gameplay-wise.

The only real issue I had with Zero was the ending! Total bobbins!!

As for what Im playing at the moment.. LocoRoco a bit of Flatout 2 and thats about it. Its just too damn hot to play games at the moment

[matt0]

Yeah it's a great game. Solid enough story, fairly likable characters, nice battle system (allowing you to attack a number of times in one turn, team combos, etc.) and probably the best character sprites I've seen in a SRPG.

If I can tear myself away from Oblivion (long enough to finish DQ8...), I might give it a try. Got to agree with you about the sprites at least, they look amazing.

You could also try Disgaea, La Pucelle, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, etc. if you haven't already.

I actually traded them all in yesterday to get my 360 .

[The Chief]

Halo CE

[Prof Frink]

Playing mostly handhelds at the moment becuase of the heat.

Currently Playing

Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box - PS2 - Never played any of these games on the Megadrive particularly enjoying Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier

Megaman Powered Up - PSP - Enjoying this a nice handheld title loads of replayability in this.

Finished

Shadow of the Colossus (Hard Mode) - PS2

Devil May Cry 3 : Special Edition (Dante: Normal) - PS2

Megaman X Collection (MMX, MMX2) - PS2

Megaman Maverick Hunter X - PSP

Tomb Raider : Legend - Xbox 360

Panzer Dragoon Orta (Normal) - Xbox

Gunstar Future Heroes - GBA

Metroid : Fusion - GBA

Metroid : Zero Mission - GBA

Castlevania : Aria of Sorrow - GBA

Castlevania : Dawn of Sorrow - DS

New Super Mario Bros - DS

[boxoctosis]

Call of Duty on Veteran - 6 campaigns down, only the last British one and the US ones to go.

I'd recommend this to anyone - to me it seems an almost perfect balance between thinking on your feet, and extreme sharp reactions. Superb.

[rylee]

LocoRoco, Guitar Hero, MotoGP06 and Top Spin 2 - where I've just created my uber-babe player who will soon dominate the courts!!!!!

[Mercury]

Call of Duty on Veteran - 6 campaigns down, only the last British one and the US ones to go.

I'd recommend this to anyone - to me it seems an almost perfect balance between thinking on your feet, and extreme sharp reactions. Superb.

Completing COD2 on Veteran was one of the most satisfying moments of my gaming career even if the controller did almost get thrown out of the window on many occasions.

[SeanR]

CS:S

[Nate Dogg III]

Third Strike, obviously.

But I got stuck into Jade Empire over the weekend. First RPG I've played, Zeldas aside, since FF8. Blimey they've moved on haven't they? So many bloody sidequests. Still, I like the fact that plot developments are marked on the map, and being able to change difficulty levels at any point is a nice bit of handholding too. Strikes me as an RPG for people who don't like RPGs. The open palm / closed fist thing is a bit too simple but along with a variety of player character choices it pretty much demands a replay. Combat's just okay at the moment, but I'm sure it'll open itself up as the game goes along. Need to suss out the harmonic combos as they don't seem to make too much sense atm.

[Zero]

(Along with various live games) The Punisher on the Xbox. It's not big, its not clever but its a goddam fun, brainless, old school TPS.

[edargyle]

Since its release in March I've been playing nothing but Oblivion up until about two weeks ago when my 100 odd hour saved game would crash on loading - all my backup saves suffered the same fate. After a couple of days of crying and screaming its actually been like coming of a hard drug addiction. Suddenly I can enjoy other games and my girlfriend its constantly complaining at me!!!

A friend has offered me his Oblivion disk now he's completed it but you know, maybe I've seen enough. When I was playing it I was starting to feel I was doing the same things again and again, that maybe the pleasure and sense of freedom was diminishing slightly. Of course if I loaded it up again I'm sure I'd be hooked!

so for the past couple weeks I've been getting hooked on GTA SA for the first time and having lots of fun, last loaded up Tomb Raider o nthe 360 and am really enjoying it, the first Tomb Raider made a massive impression on me at the time!

Doing lots of business trips to Maastricht on the train right now so thank god for Advance wars DS, it’s the game that keeps on giving. 80hrs+ on this baby. Oh and my daily brain train of course!

[squirtle]

Well, this week, I have been mostly playing Turok Evolution... and thoroughly enjoying it.

Go figure.

[Kevvy Metal]

Currently -

X360

1. Hitman : BM

2. GRAW Coop Chapter 2.

3. Bit of Oblivion now and then.

PS2

1. RE4

2. 3rd Strike

3. SF Zero : FG

[SharkEnergy]

Only just got my old Cube set up in the new pad. Played some Animal Crossing but really I should finish off Paper mario and a whole bunch of other unfinished games!!! Gah!

[Meh]

Ring of Red.

Campaign missions lasting 6 hours ftw!

[ROLF]

away from home so it's all Laptop-based fun:

SIN: Episodes, lots of fun, comedy headshots, only a few weapons (all with secondary fire that are actually usefull), no story to speak of, few cut scenes, no chaff at all.

Armadillo Run, although I'm pretty well stuck

Also replaying Max Payne, using a trainer for infinite slow mo, only using the saw-off shotgun, no diving (cos that reloads the gun). Loads of fun, turns a shooter into a tense puzzle game.

[Looper]

Nearly all DS at the moment. It feels like I play nothing else sometimes.

New Super Mario Brothers - lovely, but it's very hard! It's with something like this I feel conscious of how my reactions are slowing as I get older.

Ouendan - stuck on Giant Mouse on hard. Don't know if I can beat it

Mario Kart DS - the Lite has reignited my love of this, I've been playing online and actually winning. I love the feeling of beating a snaker by driving better then him and having them turn off because they're getting beaten

Been playing a bit of Revenge of the Sith on GBA but I'm not too impressed. Has potential but is let down by the controls and difficulty.

I really want Liberty City Stories and Loco Roco but finances are a bit tight this month.

[Randella]

Games i playing hmmm tricky 1 as hardly ever pick up my machines of late would have to be.

Loco Roco - Love this game has gave me something to do and so easy to pick up and put down.

The New Supermario Bros - Due to the same pick up and play value.

[Polmon]

NSMB has good pick up and play0 gameplay, aye - but it's save system is all FUCK YOU, YOU HAVE TO PLAY FOR AT LEAST 20 MINUTES