Kevin's Watch

Yeah, the characters in FFX were pretty lame. Tidus was one of the worst main characters of all time. (And he looks like Meg Ryan.)

Have you played FFX-2? Heh, it's even worse, since they turned Yuna and Rikku into sluts.

Although, I think I'd have to take the somewhat interesting and coherent story of FFX over the nonexistant mess that is the story of FF12 anyday.

Oh, and I think the characters in 12 are even worse than those in X.

With the expection of Balthier in 12, who rules upon high.-jay

Eh, that's because FF12 is just a rehash of the plot of FF2 in the setting of FF Tactics. Barely any original content.
I must say I still really enjoy the gameplay, though. Even if I'm crap at it.

I got Rockstar Table Tennis at the weekend and it's possibly the most intense game I've ever played. The level of concentration required is incredible; in true Donaldson character style I've bitten my lips until they've bled whilst trying to defeat tough opponents. I get the impression that it isn't a very long game, which is why you can pick it up for a very reasonable price, but it's certainly a victory for quality over quantity. The engine used is very impressive and convincing without being over the top and the whole thing looks great. I don't think I've seen player models rendered in so much detail before, they even sweat more as the match progresses.

Interestingly, Rockstar made this game to develop the engine that will be used in Grand Theft Auto IV. A GTA-sized city rendered using it is something that I'm very keen to see, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that the gameplay and story aspects are more appealing than San Andreas was. GTAIV is rumoured to take place in Carson City, which has been referred to in earlier games but nothing is really known about it. New York, Miami, LA, San Francisco and Vegas have all been given the GTA treatment and I can't immediately think of another American city that it might be based on. Maybe it will be bespoke, maybe it will be Chicago or Detroit, hell maybe it could be in Canada!

Silent Hunter IV is amazing.

The command deck:



External shot:

Nice, Lore. Must be really fun--getting into the sub role and all. Your own personal Das Boot! I wish my comp could run the bugger.

In Silent Hunter III you played a captain of a German U-Boat, so it was very much like Das Boot. In IV, you're an american.

I might have to invest in Silent Hunter III, I bought II years ago but I couldn't get it to run on whatever system I had at the time. I'm pretty sure SH IV will be beyond my current machine though.

Nav wrote:I might have to invest in Silent Hunter III, I bought II years ago but I couldn't get it to run on whatever system I had at the time. I'm pretty sure SH IV will be beyond my current machine though.

If you want a free copy of SHIII, let me know, as I have two. I can also help you run it on your OS if need be.

recently I have been playing god of war 2! pretty damm good, crappy story, but pretty good gameplay. and a little while back I played metal gear solid 3! double benefit of fun and story there. and uh family guy? made me want to rip my hair out; at least it had teh funniez of the show.

Loremaster wrote:If you want a free copy of SHIII, let me know, as I have two. I can also help you run it on your OS if need be.

Thanks for the offer Lore, I think the cost of shipping from Oz might mean that it wouldn't be cost effective. I think the problem I had with SHII was either that it predated XP or that I was trying to software render it because my laptop only had a tiny graphics chip at the time. Looking at the minimum reqs for SH:IV I think I'll be all right, as I exceed them by some way:

Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
2.0 GHz Processor or better
512 MB RAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible Graphics Card with 128 MB RAM (Requires Vertex Shader 2.0 and Pixel Shader 2.0 support)
DirectX 9.0c compatible Sound Card

I was thrown by the quality of the screenshots, do you have the detail turned right up there?

kevinswatch wrote:Yeah, the characters in FFX were pretty lame. Tidus was one of the worst main characters of all time. (And he looks like Meg Ryan.)

Have you played FFX-2? Heh, it's even worse, since they turned Yuna and Rikku into sluts.

Although, I think I'd have to take the somewhat interesting and coherent story of FFX over the nonexistant mess that is the story of FF12 anyday.

Oh, and I think the characters in 12 are even worse than those in X.

With the expection of Balthier in 12, who rules upon high.-jay

I loved Balthier and Fran (just like I loved Wakka and Lulu) but the others were rather dull.

I loved the world of FFXII (haven't played tactics so it was new to me) and thought the story was ok if you chose to ignore how similar to Star Wars it was.

No Final Fantasy had yet had a storyline as in-depth and yet as global as FFVII. I do hope they remake it for PS3.

In the last couple of days, I've been playing Killer 7.

What.

The.

Hell?!

I hadn't heard of that game before, but the premise is certainly original. Sort of like Hitman meets Ironside meets Fight Club, sounds crazy!

Nav wrote: sounds crazy!

I had forgotten all about this game, the WhatTheHell! sums it up perfectly haha.

Certainly is crazy. Samantha the maid is probably the most disturbing thing in the game so far.

variol son wrote:I loved Balthier and Fran (just like I loved Wakka and Lulu) but the others were rather dull.

I loved the world of FFXII (haven't played tactics so it was new to me) and thought the story was ok if you chose to ignore how similar to Star Wars it was.

No Final Fantasy had yet had a storyline as in-depth and yet as global as FFVII. I do hope they remake it for PS3.

I want Fran to die a horrible, horrible death, with many horrible, horrible knives and horrible, horrible rabid, bunny-eating lions.

I refuse to use her character. Balthier is at level 65, she's at level 11.

Her voice irritates me to no end.

And I don't give a rats ass about how the stupid ass "mist" feels.

DIE FRAN

PLEASE DIE

And the fact that she's a giant bunny in a skimpy outfit really disturbs me.

If you didn't play Tactics, you didn't miss much. Theres not much similar about them, from what I remember.

And I'm sick of all of the FF7 spinoffs. No more. It was an overrated game. No more spinoffs. No remakes. Make something new, dammit.

(This bitter rant brought to you by Jay.)

-jay

Since my 360 expired in dramatic fashion last weekend, I've been mostly playing Gran Turismo 4 again. It's a far superior game to Gran Turismo 3, although it is a bit frustrating that I have to finish a good chunk of the game to unlock the endurance events.

The game doesn't feel as formulaic as the last one, although it is still often a case of building a car that's much faster than the rest of the field and hanging on for dear life. My only real gripe is with the AI, which doesn't seem to react to the player at all. It's frustrating to draft another car down a straight, overtake and then when you try and close the line at the next corner, have them slam in to the back of you and punt you into the gravel.

Been playing Link's Awakening DX and a little Tetris Attack. Lime and coconut!

I got Shivering Isles - the expansion pack for Oblivion - and started playing a few days ago. And I agree with the reviews - it's even better than Oblivion. First of all, the new area is wonderful - the Mania half of the Shivering Isles is an explosion of colors, blue-green fungi, yellow fungus trees, flowers, sparkling purple stars and nebulae, and the like, while the Dementia half is dark and dreary, with twisting roots, muted colors, swamps, overcast skies, and a general feeling of apathy and hopelessness hanging over the landscape.
The characters are all delightfully mad (I've met people who heard bones calling for them, another who was afraid the walls were out to get him, another one who was deathly afraid of cats, a smith fascinated by cutting implements, and the like), and the storyline surpasses Oblivion in that you have meaningful choices to make, and these choices have consequences. You can choose whether to favor the House of Mania or the House of Dementia, and eventually become the Duke (or Duchess); you can choose whether to have adventurers go mad or simply die; and so on...

crap. i haven't even played Obivion yet. man.

which god do i pray to for new hardware?