As someone who had America Online dialup through my senior year in high school (2008) this struck a nerve. Accursed family home and its surrounding terrain that blocks most wireless signals...

Thankfully, my college dorms had faster internet than I've even been able to acquire as a graduated adult.

I can hear the dial-up connecting noise now.

I'm finally getting around to F.E.A.R. and so far it rules. The combat generally reminds me a lot of Half-Life 2, mainly in the fact that the bulk of the enemies are just regular dudes but the AI is clever enough to make them consistently interesting to fight (and dangerous). Plus, the room layouts are such that you're often forced into a shitty tactical position. This would all be dandy but the really visceral gunplay and the hyper-aggressive tactics that the bullet time encourage take it to the next level.

I'm torn between the scariest things being the actual horror elements, or those heavy armor guys kicking in a door right next to you.

The first F.E.A.R. is tons of funs. I loved how frantic the combat is, nothing like flanking a dude and blowing off his legs with a shotgun, or picking them off one by one from the other side of a pitch dark room, and they start to get desperate as they squadmates die like flies.

I loved headshotting dudes with the nailgun.

F.E.A.R. is amazing. For some reason though, it runs like shit on my PC. It's harder on PC than games like the Witcher 2 or other newer gen games. I remember when it first came out it was very much lauded for it's visuals (along with game play, etc) I just find it's weird that it runs much worse than way older games. Ah well.

I love nailing dudes to walls.

You are right, of course, that it's a great feature to have and a good incentive, provided it can be implemented properly. Nintendo always nailed it with the portable systems, with the GBA playing GB/C games, the DS playing GBA games and the 3DS playing DS games. But, as I noted, this has always been done through a hardware solution, including some of the hardware from the older systems to make it possible. And in the case of these handhelds, it's a pretty easy solution, because, as I recall, they'd usually just take the processor from the previous generation and use it as a microprocessor for the current gen (my knowledge is rusty and I don't feel like Googling, but as I recall, the DS had an ARM9 processor as its primary and the GBA's ARM7 as a coprocessor).

But when you end up with something like the PS3, where you have the whole PowerPC / Cell deal (love it or hate it), it becomes a much more expensive and complicated feature. So you can either include the hardware and potentially drive the cost way up (resulting in a $500 - $600 launch system) or you can crank out an emulation solution (resulting in a system that supports a fraction of the previous console's games and buggy at that). So I don't think it should be expected or demanded, and even if it's a good selling point, I don't feel it should be the one thing by which we decide a console is or is not worthwhile. I feel it should be, "Oh, this system has great games, *and* it plays last gen's games).



You could do that, and of course, the reduced clutter is a huge perk. Alternatively, you keep the old system hooked up and use an HDMI splitter. I have two boxes in my game room for all my systems with composite cables that automatically selects which input based on which system is on. Makes life way easier.

The point is, backwards compatibility, when done right, is great, but I don't think a system should be judged negatively for lack of it. It's a complicated and expensive issue.

PS4 is at the perfect price of $399. Hardware PS3 emulation would probably drive the price up to $599, and we all know how well Sony did the last time they released a $599 console.

Yup. Plus imagine the fun of managing your hard drive space when you combine PS3 installs with all the massive PS4 installs.

It's that time of year again.

Time to play Dynasty Warriors until my eyes bleed.

I don't know what it is about this series that makes me love it so much, it's the same damn game over and over and over again, with the same stories and gameplay and everything. Sometimes there's some new characters, but otherwise I've been doing exactly what I mock League of Legends players for doing for the past ten years. I will marry Dynasty Warriors some day. It's given me more joy than my family.

I haven't played one since 5, that one felt pretty much perfect to me so I ended up thinking "Well they finally got it right, now they don't need to try and make it again". I'm assuming they didn't agree with me on that.

Oh I also played the PSP one because there's nothing else to play on it.

So I got my copy of Symphony Of The Night yesterday and spent a few hours last night with it. Damn, I wish I had jumped on this boat a long time ago. The atmosphere, the music, the level design - I'm loving this.

^Will probably still be one of the best games ever even when we're on PS9 in 50 years

Just watch out for the weapon called Crissaegrim or whatever. It is insanely and ludicrously overpowered, and if that's not your thing, just be aware.

There's also the stupidly overpowered Shield Rod/Mablung Sword + Alucard Shield combo.

Have any of you Silent Hill veterans played the Siren games? Supposedly some of Team Silent and the guy who created Silent Hill went on to do those.

They sound iffy though. A lot of multiple playable characters I think (eh), high difficulty with no combat but taking over your enemies bodies or wtf, yeah. They just sound weird when it comes to the gameplay?

Yes, it's weird. Sorry, that's pretty much all I remember. :/ Well, that and getting killed a whole lot by snipers in a certain area... I only played the first game way back when. I am left with a vaguely positive impression of it, probably one of those interesting-but-flawed type of things.

Been playing FEAR 3 (like many of you, probably, thanks to the Humble Bundle) with a buddy and I have to say, the co-op campaign in that game is heaps of fun. I have no idea what is going on story-wise (I've beaten the previous two games but the plot is convoluted and boring) but I could care less. Took a little getting used to the modern shooter mechanics after weeks of nothing but Serious Sam and Painkiller, though.

FEAR 3. Short game but highly recommended for the co-op.

This is interesting

http://megagames.com/news/microsoft-con ... gnet_95057

The Xbox1 has an HDMI in port so you can connect another system to it. So you can have two systems sharing one HDMI in port on your TV and switch between them on the Xbox1.

From their DRM crap to now trying to cater to multiple consoles it's a surprising step for Microsoft.

Is Rage worth trying to complete it over the weekend while it's free on Steam?

Why did I read that in a pawn's voice...


Yeah well, when you still have their French director of marketing say things like this... http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=720261
...Yeah, M$ ain't learning to stop derping.

I finally have some coin in my pocket, and I'm itching to get back into gaming since I sold off my consoles six months ago for rent. My brother is sending me the Xbox 360 that's been sitting in a box in his attic for the past two years, and I'm going to buy an affordable HDTV, upgraded hard drive, and games of course!

Here are my planned return games:

1. Saints Row IV
2. Fora Horizon
3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
4. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
5. Batman: Arkham Origins
6. Doom 3: BFG Edition
7. WWE 2K14
8. BioShock Infinite
9. Tomb Raider
10. Assassin's Creed III

I'm only going to buy a few of those to get me started, and I wanted to have a nice mix to start from. I don't think I've ever missed/been excited by videogaming again as hard as I do right now. It's ridiculous!

You could if you do the story missions. Just don't expect a proper ending.

My Xbox One arrived today, and I've started playing the game I was most excited for - Crimson Dragon. It's been almost ten years since the last Panzer Dragoon game and as it's my favorite series, I've been dying for something, anything new from the series. Of course, this is not a Panzer Dragoon game, but it's the closest we've got. Despite the rough review scores, I'm loving it so far.

The dilemma is that I also picked up the new Zelda today, which is the sequel to my all time favorite Zelda title. So it's a day of difficult choices for me.

Just beat F.E.A.R. and it was fantastic. My only regret is that I was anticipating some large-scale battle at the end with tons of difficult enemies so I had started to stockpile Particle Weapon and Cannon ammo, so basically I killed the game's last few real enemies with either the shotgun or whatever happened to be laying around rather than waste my badass guns, but then the climax was more psychological than combat-based and it takes all your guns away for the last stretch anyway. Oh well.

Still an extremely fun game with a cool story/presentation, challenging but fun-to-fight enemies and some of the most visceral and satisfying gunplay I've ever experienced.

Next I'm gonna play some of this Guardians of Middle Earth MOBA game, maybe if there's a single-player mode or skirmishes vs. bots, then it's on to finally play Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Eh, I dunno. Tons of potential and great ideas but they never come together, not to mention it's just short of Battletoads hard. It's essentially a creepy stealth game except that in (most) stealth games you have alternatives to get around the environment, in Siren you just have to get the timing exactly right to go about unnoticed, otherwise you are getting stabbed/shot in the face within seconds and you just have to run away from enemies that will not relent. Ever. I still have it, but I'm not sure I'll ever finish it.

@inhumanist To me, Rage feels like a very stripped down Borderlands. Worth a spin if you have the time but far from spectacular and features one of the worst endings I have ever seen in gaming. Combat is satisfying, environments look excellent, has an OK level of challenge, etc.

@Faster XCOM loves you and wants to be your friend. Get XCOM.

I beat it already

It's a very good game. Has a lot of freedom, more than ALttP. It manages to hit that nostalgia vibe. The game looks fantastic, the trailers don't do the game any kind of justice. It's just so smooth running, the 60fps with 3D makes the world of difference. Took me around 11 hours to beat the main game, but I'm still doing the additional content. I know ALttP inside out, so that maybe helped me somewhat.

I'm downloading and installing mods getting ready for an Oblivion play. Man, this is gonna be a blast from the past for sure. Been years since I played it. Plan on RP'ing an old Necromancer who infiltrates the Mages Guild.

Yeah I'm curious what I'll think since I'm the same with LTTP.

I definitely plan on tackling the dungeons in LTTP order, heh.

I'm with Nochielo on Rage. It's okay, but definitely like a lesser Borderlands and 1/5th the length or something. Not to mention it had what, two bosses maybe? I hate to spoil this, but you get the BFG towards the end for NOTHING. No fucking final Cyberdemon/Spider like boss or anything. I was so bummed out coming from id and all.

Combat was a lot of fun and kind of different (very intricate physics). It's stupidly easy though with all the stuff you can create.

If only Doom 3 had Rage's combat... now that would be perfect. Rage has awesome action with some boring fluff and pointless vehicle driving, and Doom 3 is awesome but the combat is pretty bare bones and a little boring at times whenever I go back to it. I still love it, but can't help but always compare it to Half-Life 2 from that era, and the combat there is 10x better.

Dynasty Warriors 4 empires was the reason I never went outside during the summer when I was a kid...

So just beat Borderlands 2.

Yeah, I think I will not try to beat Rage in what little time is left of the free weekend. Rushing through games doesn't exactly make them more enjoyable (quite the opposite) and I approach gaming more in an exploration/completist way anyway. Also I would have to spend the whole day playing one game, which doesn't sound very compelling. I'll pass.

The new Killer Instinct is freaking amazing.

I'm working through the DLC myself (the Captain Scarlett one, finished the main quest on Wednesday). Like many people said, it's more Borderlands but I worship Borderlands, so no complaints. The new characters are a lot of fun to use, but I still think they should have given us a way to use the originals, maybe after beating the game once or something.

It's odd but I loved Borderlands 1 (even solo), but the steam didn't last long with Borderlands 2. Only got to level 19 or something and got pretty bored.

I roleplay'd Skyrim as a bare knuckle boxing Nord who fisted the fucking crap out of everybody. Fistfighting has some of the best finish animations in the game. You're grabbing people and punching them square in the face like four times, or delivering a hook and then choke-slamming them. I typically switched between fists and knives for most of the game. I eventually added some magic as well, but mostly ones of the fire and healing variants.

Since I just bought a whole bunch of gear for my Xbox 360, Skyrim will be included on that list, and I'm going to go the Robbaz route as a pure fistfighing Nord - no magic, no bullshit - just pure flesh and bone. Your viking bone helmet will not save you from my fists!

For you BL2 people, get the Tina Tina's DLC! It's seriously brilliant stuff and easily better than any of the other DLC's.

I queued it up on Friday night. It probably finished installing by now, but I haven't given it a glance. What are you liking about it?

You're the first person besides myself that I've ever seen say that. I dunno, on one hand I think it had even better writing and was very, very funny (which was obviously a huge draw), and the loot and whatnot was just as great as before. But on the other hand I felt like there was more of a "right way" to play it. Like, once I realized that I was going to spend a huge majority of the game fighting Jack's robots and shit, it became clear that using anything other than corrosive weapons was kind of pointless. I dunno, it's a really minor issue and I'm 10000% sure that you can still play the game however you want, but I just got tired of it really quickly.