Mm, it looks interesting but I don't like the bizarro 3rd person side view much. You know what it reminds me off? The side-scrolling fighting games of the arcade halls of the 90's, only with actual 3D graphics that are 15212145 better. Thanks anyway Peltz.

Actually been playing some Plants vs Zombies. Casual tower defense style game, nothing too challenging but a lot of fun. The design is very humorous and had me smiling a lot already. For example, if you click the "help" button in the main menu you'll just get a scribbled note saying something like:

"If you see uz coming you just need to sit back and do nothing. Just let uz reach your houze and you win the game.

Sincerely,

the zombiez"

Got around to taking some pics of Plants vs. Zombies. It's a deliciously hilarious and silly game.

Btw, I played and finish the Xbox port game 'Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions' over the weekend. I'd picked it up for cheapners a month ago at a games story and felt like some silly action gaming.

Overall, fun experience in an atmospheric setting (an ice planet abandoned by colonists and infested by huge alien insects). You fight on foot and in all sorts of mechs, all the while amassing 'thermal energy' as your health/fuel.

Most fights involve shooting the crap out of hordes of aliens or enemy soldiers, which can get pretty satisfying when you're in a shiny mech. The entire game was basically a series of 12 missions of about 30-45 minutes each with a final boss at the end. Very traditional, but amusing.

The only big problem with the game is that it's a blatant console rip port. Stuff like you having to push a button to pick up additional ammo for a gun you're already using, instead of it instantly adding to your ammo pile. I mean seriously, what kind of retard-o design is that? How could I ever NOT want more ammo when it's me against hordes of aliens and soldiers?! Of course I'd pick it up. So yeah, that sucks.

Then there was the savepoint system. It only fucked me over twice or so, mostly because I was outperforming the game (being a PC shooter veteran vs. console), but I'd occasionally get cocky or fall into lava and have to start over again. Lame. Save points ftl. I didn't even know WHEN the game had saved. I had no idea until I died.

Last but not least the final boss, who required a pretty high level of obsessive compulsiveness to beat. I think I replayed the fight like 30 times before I killed him. He has some retard attack that can pretty much kill you in 1 or 2 blows if you're unlucky, even if you've just spent 15 minutes hacking away at his ridiculous amount of health. Not cool.

All in all tho, enjoyable if a little short. It's worth 5 bucks if you're bored, but nothing special.

Replaying HL2. Felt like going through HL2, Ep 1 and Ep 2 again after seeing Derf playing the episodes recently. HL2 started a little slow for my taste but once it got going (Ravenholm, the coastline, the assault on Nova Prospekt, the urban combat) it was superb gaming again. And man, I blast through things on normal, it's crazy. I guess all those years of FPS experience weren't wasted. Running into a room full of combine troopers and taking out 5 of them with one shotgun clip before they really get a chance to get a shot off....1337.

Finished HL2 episode 2 again a few days ago and wow, what a superb piece of gaming that was again. Having played Hl2-ep I-ep II all in "one go" (obviously divided over hours and days) I only now really noticed the major strides Valve made over the series in terms of both design and emotional involvement.

Especially Episode 2 is a gem. It's non-stop action in different settings requiring different approaches, it uses the "free-roaming" car parts to much better effect than the rest of the series and doesn't make it needlessly long - which sometimes was the case in HL2 - as well as masterfully weaves story with emotional involvement.

SPOILER

The scene of Alyx getting stabbed by a hunter and being left for dead by it, the vorts trying to heal her, and then the G-man popping up and revealing that he was personally responsible for he rescue from Black Mesa, before whispering in her ear to tell her father to "prepare for unforeseen consequences" (incidentally, the name of the very first chapter in HL1 where you aid in opening the original rift to Xen and the Combine)...wow, just wow.

But the most amazing thing is the final scene of Episode II, where Eli Vance gets killed by an advisor, before Dog scares them off. When the screen fades to black with Alyx' sobbing and finally a whispered "don't leave me", that gave me serious goosebumps. Very strong moment.

Can't wait for Ep III, but prolly won't be here before 2010.

Oh and Dog = awesome character. Probably one of my fav video game "characters" ever already.

hmmm...maybe I'm just a bastard, but I thought all the 'acting' in HL2 was just silly. From the childish "love affair" to all the "personal events" that I found either uninteresting or totally boring. But hey, to each their own.

I'd rather get a real writer to write a real story, then adapt that into a game, rather than trying to do the reverse. I mean, since HL2 ended, what has actually been accomplished in the episodes? HL2 ended in the destruction of the city (yay, bonus). Episode 1... running away. Woo. Episode 2... I'm not even sure what was accomplished. Shooting a pet head crab into orbit?

lol. Well, ok, maybe the 'acting' didn't do it for you, but storywise this is how it goes:

Episode I: Alyx and Gordon find themselves teleported outside the blast range of the dark matter core by the vortigaunts, next to the citadel. The citadel's core is unstable and about to blow, threatening your life and that of thousands others trying to flee City 17 to the surrounding areas. You go back in to stabilize the core and buy time for you and the others survivors of the rebellion, and find out that the Combine are purposely trying to get the core to explode - for no apparant reason. But a data packet downloaded by Alyx in the citadel reveals that they are trying to create a super portal by blowing the core, so they can bring in massive troops from the Xen universe and beyond, just like in the first few moments of the 7-hour war. The info you obtained is crucial in stopping this from happening, so you must get it to White Forest base, the technoligical outpost of the human resistance (and as it turns out, a missile launch facility). After stablizing the core you spend your time getting out of the city, which ends with you riding a train to the countryside as the citadel core blows, while the "advisors" flee it in escape pods.

Episode II: You and Alyx save yourselves from the rubble of the train, but Alyx is mortally wounded by a hunter a few hours later. Meanwhile, the superportal is forming over where the Citadel used to stand. You fight your way through the antlion caves in order to get to White Forest Base but also to obtain a powerful alien essence that allows the Vortigaunts to heal Alyx (by 'weaving your life into hers', whatever that means). During this ceremony, the G-man appears and whispers into the subsconscious Alyx' ear to tell her father to 'prepare for unforeseen consequences' once she sees him. Alyx wakes up and you fight and race your way to White Forest Base and deliver the data packet. The Combine and its advisors (most still in their hatching pods) are on the move, away from City 17's ruins and also marching on White Forest Base.

You deliver the data packet which alows Kleiner and Magnusson to properly calibrate the rocket they are planning to use to close the opening superportal. Alyx suddenly tells her father the G-man's message (she doesn't realize it, it's subliminally programmed) who almost faints in shock. While Alyx gets him some tea, he reveals to you that he knows "your mutual friend" (the G-man) who showed up at Black Mesa long ago and provided the chrystal that caused the resonance cascade (ie the beginning of the end), and that he is aware that Alyx evac as a kid was his doing, and that he probably has his reasons for it.

Before he can tell you more, the Combine first storms the base with groundtroops and later a barrage of striders (the whole huge strider battle outside the base). You fight off the Combine and the rocket fires, effectively closing the superportal. It's also discovered that Dr. Mossman sent a video message from the Borealis as part of the data packet - a large ship that was used as a base of operations by Black Mesa competitors Aperture Science (of Portal fame) and vanished in thin air years ago, presumably as part of an experiment gone wrong. Kleiner is enthusiastic, but Eli Vance is adamant that the technology onboard the Borealis should not be used under any circumstance, since that's "what got us into this madness to start with".

As you and Alyx gear up to leave White Forest for the Borealis to find Mossman and to see why the Combine is so interested in the ship, Eli Vance is about to tell you more about his role and that of the G-man when two advisors break through the roof, psionically dominating you, Alyx and Eli. They kill Eli Vance before you and Alyx' eyes and are about to do the same to you as Dog crashes in and scares them off (as a robot he is immune to their psy-powers). The last thing you see and hear is Alyx crying over Eli's corpse.


I hope that covers most of it.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut ... ight/53482

This looks like something Ox would like, minus the russian language ofcourse.

that looks right up ox's alley. quirkyness mixed with destruction.

Why does everyone think that destruction = fun for me? Not that you're wrong or anything, but I play a little of pretty tame games too (which I then manage to turn into something depraved, like with The Sims, granted).

But I like the look of the Hammergame. Read something about it on RPS too. If it's not too expensive and on steam I might get it.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/edito ... s-hd/53835

Reminds me of elasto mania or whatever that game was.

Must be your BG and L4D style

lol, I didn't realize my L4D playing style was so frantic. I know I run into people's line of fire all the time and usually am the first person to run outta ammo, but I'm also usually one of the last men standing. So I can't just run around COMPLETELY aimlessly, I suppose.

one exception is tanks. I always get pwned by tanks.

most people don't run soon enough with tanks. I run like a bitch. Or try to.

Yeah, that's definitely my error. I think it's because subconsciously I perceive the tanks body / constitution (whatever) to be similar to flesh, so I figure if I empty my shotgun into him, he'll give up. But that doesn't happen

I think thats the same problem I have with not being able to memorise parts of the maps. I get too zoned into the game.