Oooof, was it Cabin? Hmmm, could I substitute it with 7 Psychopaths, a film I genuinely did enjoy LESS than Cabin...?

I started playing Deadly Premonition after reading some of the comments on it earlier. So far I really like the "Twin Peaks filtered through Japanese crazy-goggles" atmosphere and the wonky driving segments. It's certainly not the most well-developed thing ever, but it's charming.

They apparently started development on the PS2. And it was never upgraded from there.

I loved that game, easily one of the most memorable gaming experiences of this gen. The soundtrack is bonkers.

Fair enough, 7 Psychopaths is woeful. You still don't get a pass though

Finally getting around to GTA5, the wait was worth it with the new version out so I'm on the PS4. Really digging it so far and I'm not surprised, since it looked like the true successor to Vice City and San Andreas. Unlike GTA4 which was so limited in comparison.

I really wish the writing and characters were this cool and humorous in Far Cry 3/4. I really dig those games, but the writing is absolute garbage. The white bro lost in a jungle gimmick better not pop up again in the next one.

I'm enjoying Far Cry 3 a lot so far but I could do without the nagging story segments. Throw me into the action at the start please, I don't particularly want to escape a camp with stealth and hunt for plants at the start of a fps, also some of the controls in the menu/s are really random which I only got to work by pressing every button, I'm not fond of the character I'm playing as too.

I'm going to give GTA V are whirl when I have some spare time.

The solution to all problems you might have with Far Cry 3 is to play Blood Dragon instead.

It's a bit of an issue with both games in different ways.

FC4 thankfully gets right to the point early on. There's nothing as tedious as FC3's introduction here. It's kind of like the devs/game itself assume you know what you're doing and played the previous game. But then the issue is just how transparent the main story is and how awful the characters are. Generally the main character answers inquiries about starting the missions with:
"Um... okay..."
"Oh, if you say so... okay"
"Yeah... sure... I guess"
"Riiiiiiiiiiight..."

It looks awful, but it's not an exaggeration. The writing is abysmal and the delivery is terrible. Main characters don't get much more flat than this. But Ubisoft has never had much talent here, the voice acting in AssCreed is really terrible at times too.

Thankfully FC4 is still insanely fun gameplay wise and all, but it starts to feel extra artificial and just pointless after awhile. So I sincerely hope they put more effort into these things the next time around.


Almost mentioned this myself, now this is true. But I can say the combat didn't feel as good with the lasers and weird enemy armors. Something about it felt a little off and wasn't as gratifying as vanilla FC3 to me. But writing/dialogue wise, it was very enjoyable so yeah. I'm kind of predicting we'll see Blood Dragon: Warzone IV or some kind of ridiculous sequel with FC4's beefed up engine, since it was received so well. I definitely hope so.

That, or I think they really need to fully exploit the acid trips (FC3) and tribal history battles (FC4) and just make a full game with all those crazy fantasy elements. It's kind of surprising they haven't yet.

One thing that did come out of nowhere with FC4 though was the music, damn... it was an improvement to say the least. Great stuff:

I'm actually enjoying Far Cry 4 so far, I like the fact that there are so many things to do and a purpose in doing them, which is what I like the most about the franchise. The plot and script is pretty shit though.

So this year is ending and I must say that my game of the year is definitely Alien: Isolation. No other game has even come close to it yet.

I played quite a bit of Far Cry 4 at my mates place on the weekend and it was good, silly fun. I enjoyed the random fucking around in the world far more than the storyline missions. We actually conquered the two fortresses long before we were meant to, which was fun. It's always exceptionally fun to drive around with an M79 and engage in drive-by blowing-up-of-shits. Having that grenade launcher as a sidearm was such a joyous idea.

But other than small additions like that, it mostly feels like a repeat of what was done in Far Cry 3. Not a bad thing really, since it does it very well, but it's a little hard to justify it being full price. I also can't help but feel as if the antagonist is just a poor attempt at replicating the success Vaas unintentionally created.

Oh, and while the protagonist is pretty barebones and uninteresting, at least he isn't fucking annoying like Jason Brody was.

Yeah, lol. Like I said it's kind of hit or miss... the bro shit in FC3 was rageworthy, but then it kind of just sucks FC4 doesn't really have plot/characters worth a damn.

Don't get me wrong though, I've probably sunk in like 20+ hours into my run so far, it's been a blast otherwise. I prefer it over FC3 by a long shot in general, but no arguing it's a bit of a CoD/AssCreed copy paste kind of deal.

Yeah, this one blew me away. I'd probably say this and Dark Souls 2 are my favorites this year.

I prefer the setting of Far Cry 3, personally. While the snowy mountains in the background are gorgeous in the new one, the jungle and tropical island vibes just get me going a lot more not to mention Vaas' pirates had a lot more charm and personality to them than Pagan Min's soldiers. What I would like to see is a return to Africa. Far Cry 2 still has my favourite setting and I think a brutal, war-torn Central/West African country works with this sort of game so magnificently well. It's just a shame the second game has some serious flaws that prevent me from enjoying it.

I look back on FC2 pretty fondly. But I definitely can't say anything good about that stupid plague gimmick. Having to constantly run back to safe houses at random moments even in the midst of missions throughout the entire game... yeah that got annoying.

That was one of its chief problems, along with the zealous respawning of enemies and how many shots it took to kill them (you could argue that's for difficulty - I argue it breaks the authentic atmosphere). Beneath some of those issues lies a great game though for sure. Unfortunately I've not found any mods that actually fixed those problems.

I tried both FC3 and Blood Dragon at a friend's house, and the only thing I missed while playing the latter was Vaas, who's admittedly very hard to top as far as memorable villains go. Regarding what you said about the combat, well..... I guess there's something to be said about FC3's fights feeling more visceral, but BD's basically an 80's action hero simulator, which is just as good, if you ask me.

Oh, and pretty much anything is an improvement over FC3's music, because dubstep.

EDIT: Completely unrelated, but a friend just showed me this:



It's Korean. Very much like Diablo, but put through some kind of crazy neo-Wuxia filter and with admittedly much, much cooler combat, with actual combos and dynamics. The visuals are quite over the top though, and it looks somewhat button-mashy, so it might not be for everyone, but it certainly looks interesting. But seriously, that is some Fist of the North Star shit right there. Or Devil May Cry shit. Or Gambit shit.....

EDIT 2: Oh, it's an MMORPG. Well..... There's that.

Far Cry 3 weirdly has some great characters and great character writing (Vaas of course, the old spaced-out Timothy Leary-type doctor, the German mercenary dude, even your friends/brothers were written believably) with a ton of really really stupid plotting and dumb major storytelling decisions. The whole "white savior" trope is so blatant it's almost absurd - white dude with no military training suddenly becomes better than a tribe of warriors at being a warrior? Fucking ridiculous. It's pretty clear to me that the writer was good but hamstrung by directives from "on high" about what the game had to have to appeal to modern bro-gamers.

I can see that. Apparently Willis, the CIA guy comes back in FC4. Honestly I do remember digging him and his weird antics in FC3, and he was cool again in FC4. Blatantly made fun of Jody(?) the main from FC3 when you meet him here haha. Seriously though, I think it would be cool if they pitted him as the main in the next game. If they have to stick to white power, at least give us some special ops/mercenary/CIA soldier or something that makes a little more sense to be thrown in the middle of a giant war.

Anyways, I got the new Dragon Age and Shadow of Mordor from cyber Monday. I hope you guys and others from what I've heard about Dragon Age are right, because I'm going in as skeptical as can be. But the thought of hitting up a new RPG was enticing, so I'll give it a shot. Hopefully I can finish up FC4 soon though, since I just started up GTA5 as well, it's gonna be crazy juggling these massive games.

I think I'm the only one here who's even played it, much less really likes it...

No pressure.

It definitely starts quite slow (well, after the 30 minute prologue, which is pretty cool). My advice is to stay in The Hinterlands (the first "open-world" zone in the game--one of twelve) for as short a time as possible because there's an insane amount of shit to do but most of it is really, really boring. I'm not sure what kind of character you usually play in RPGs, but if you like fast-paced combat, I strongly recommend the dual wield rogue. It was an absolute blast. I'm currently replaying as a Qunari two-handed warrior and it's so slow and boring in comparison I'm thinking of just re-rolling my character altogether. I also suggest you play on AT LEAST Hard. Normal and Casual are just pathetic cakewalks. Nightmare is by far the most satisfying but it can be pretty brutal early on, especially since enemies don't level scale.

I never finished Shadow of Mordor. It was just too easy and success never felt like an accomplishment. The story, writing and voice acting were mostly rubbish too, especially the Serkis impersonator. Lego LOTR could get Andy Serkis but one of the most expensive games of the year couldn't? Ridiculous.

Oh yeah! I forgot about Willis, he was amazing. The island had a lot of those bizarre guys who'd been isolated from mainstream society for far too long haha.

Just started Fallout 3 a couple of days ago, and I'm digging it overall. Unfortunately, the game isn't always very responsive in combat. Sometimes it really effects your ability to use VATS or open up your menus, and it gets worse when there's a lot going on at once.

Yesssss, Dead State just came out on GOG. Anyone else interested? It's been in development for fucking ages now.

Looks like Eidos Montreal have been working on a new engine:
http://community.eidosmontreal.com/blogs/dawn-engine

Pretty much point blank showcases that they're at work on a new Deus Ex and... I think we did ask for it. hehe

I guess HR and Thief 4 used the Unreal engine? One thing that Thief 4 did right, was the art direction. It definitely looks fantastic and was insanely detailed, making HR look pretty dated honestly. If this screenshot is an indication that they're keeping the gold tint, then hell yeah that's awesome. Both games were fantastic when it came to visuals I'd say, so them having their own tailored engine now will probably be even better. Can't wait for more.

Looking pretty good. I'm actually expecting the new Deus Ex to be revealed tomorrow at the Game Awards, or the next day at PlayStation Experience.

The Human Revolution trailers are still some of my favorites. Let the hype begin!

My friend is a dentist and he has a patient who works for Eidos Montreal and a while ago he revealed he was working on a new Deus Ex, so yeah that's most certainly it.

Another one of those "laughing gas" revelations?

I wasn't completely taken by Deus Ex Human Revolution first time through. I bought the Wii U version for a pittance after the trading the 360 version in. My second play though was pretty great. It finally clicked with me.

The world can always use more Deus Ex... unless they pull an Absolution.

HE'S GONNA GET FIRED NOW!

Human Revolution was a lot of fun and the level design was fantastic, but the story was so confused, scatterbrained and badly plotted (it was clear they made the locations LOOOONG before they came up with a story, since the connectivity is ridiculously threadbare and forced) and the fact the main villain was voiced by Mr. Ratburn from Arthur rather tempered the memory of it.

It was also kind of very racist and kind of very sexist. That didn't exactly bolster my enjoyment.

I still wanna play Thi4f, dammit.

Racist yes, but sexist? Not really, no­. And you know I have sharp eyes for that.

Social issues are the last thing I look for in games.

Wait, I don't even look for them.

Having been to the himalayas I'm keen to see how it's depicted so I'll probably get FC4 eventually. Far Cry is pretty much the only current gen shooter series I still enjoy although I can't say why. I always enjoy the settings, but Crysis has nice settings too and I hate Crysis. FC always feels like an adventure, rather than dropping you in a war zone and stifling you with closed combat situations. I struggle with the gunplay but the emphasis isn't totally on trigger-finger accuracy so it doesn't bother me. It won't replace FC1 as my favourite shooter but it'll be a few hours of solid fun and better than Blood Dragon which got old after 15 minutes.

I'm about to wrap up FC4 myself at around 80% probably, close to 30 hours. I definitely liked it more than FC3 all around and I still dug FC3 quite a bit. It's more of the same but after awhile all the new elements and adjustments start to pile up and make it a bit better in the end. I can see how the environment can be subjective, I definitely dug the mountains of FC4 a bit more than FC3's setting. The wing suit and grappling hook were awesome.

I'd actually love for them to have much bigger and more elaborate enclosed areas and buildings, but I guess it's easy to see how that kind of goes against what they're going for with the big outdoor environments.

It's odd... but turning off the XP prompts makes the game a lot better to me as well. I guess it just kind of ruins the immersion after awhile. "Headshot AKA You got him!" You can actually customize things quite a bit in this one, from the interface/HUD, to the map (sadly it doesn't seem to save the map stuff when you load up the game again). Once I started hiding some stuff on the map and took away the XP popups, it just felt better.

ok

I don't look for them either... but I happen to have eyes and ears.

I also wish they'd stop including awful romances in RPG's out there because somebody is going to get into an uproar about what's wrong with it.

Call it racist if you want, but that Letitia character taught me that I can raise my left eyebrow and laugh profusely at the same time. Seriously, that scene was one KFC family bucket away from turning Deus Ex:HR from a meh game to GOTY for me. And her voice doesn't even... match... her face.