Metal Reviews

That is hilarious

Steam Christmas sales begin tonight. Up to 90% on some titles. My credit card is going to melt down.

Game of Thrones RPG official trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagSl3rgM2Q

Well, as usual with Cyanide studios, the game doesn't look stunning, but I certainly want to play this. The RTS one has been out for a while now, still haven't played it. I'm told it's good enough.

I'm itching to try playing my first MMO game (ever, I hate the idea of MMO gaming for some reason), with the last Star Wars game. Probably will at some point next year, if someone plays it, feel free to post comments about it (yes GeneralDiomedes, I'm looking at you )

Just finished Dragon Quest IX on NDS. Not bad at all.

The first MMO is always an amazing experience. Playing WoW back in the day with my friends is one of the greatest gaming experiences I've ever had. Unfortunately, there are no great MMOs at the moment. The Old Republic looks EXACTLY like WoW, and it probably is.

God.. That Game of Thrones trailer looked pretty horrendous. Will probably pick it up anyway though.

From the sidenotes to that trailer: "Mors is a skinchanger and can slip into his dog to find secret paths or to listen in on conversations"

That's one talented hound he's got there!

Bought Wings of Prey, a really fun WW2 flight sim, for 3,74 euro, and Battlefield 3 for 24,99. I love these deals.

My wife bought me Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Batman: Arkham City.

Got for Christmas:

Saints Row The Third
Assassins Creed Revelations
Uncharted 3
Batman Arkham City
Rage
Resistance 3

Very nice!!

Indeed

I want to buy a PSP, but it seems it's too late for that (unless buying used). I can't find one anywhere... I don't mind (at all) buying the Vita, but I want to be sure it is compatible with SNES and PS One classics first (I'm told it's currently not the case, which is a total deal breaker to me).

Bought Rock of Ages for me and the girlfriend at the Steam sales, at an absolute steal of 2 euro per copy. Seriously, everyone should get this game. It's so absurd, and the gameplay mechanics are excellently designed for being an indie game.

who me?

I have been playing it now for about 10 days, here are some of my thoughts.

The bottom line is it seems very much like KOTOR 3 crossed with World of Warcraft. There is a lot of solo story driven content, as well as some excellent group quests (called flashpoints) and PvP. I solo probably 95% of the time and I haven't done any PvP (not really my bag). You can solo to cap if you want to, but you would miss the flashpoints, which are pretty epic.

Good
- The artwork is amazing, as you would expect. Not Crysis good, but good for an MMO
- Combat is fun, however it is based on the WoW model (abilities with cooldowns), not realtime like Dungeons and Dragons Online is.
- voice acting and dialog is great, really adds to the immersion
- servers have seemed stable, relatively few bugs for an MMO launch
- huge area to explore, lots of planets
- classes are balanced and very well designed
- flashpoints are a ton of fun

Bad
- high-res textures aren't working at the moment, takes away some of the awe
- not really a fully wide open world, i.e. lots of barriers forcing you to take a certain path. Some people like more of a sandbox MMO.
- UI isn't customizable
- at lot people seem to be levelling to cap awfully fast, not sure how much content there is to keep interest long term
- no grouping panel, I found relying on chat to be a pain
- I've been told that the pvp is somewhat uninteresting

If you liked KOTOR, you will probably love this.

Ooh, thanks a lot for your insight. So you definitely can play this 90% solo and 10% with other people (I'm not the multiplayer kind of guy)? Awesome. I loved both KOTOR games (played both twice, light and dark sides), I can't see why I wouldn't like this one too. I'm waiting for a price cut.

@ Afro_D: it seems FF XIII-2 is much better than XIII, great news.

Godammit Bruce, why are you making me want to actually finish XIII when I have so many other things to play?
Speaking of things I'm playing (and yes, I'm playing all of these in rotation):

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Game of the Year)
Rage
Skyrim
Super Mario 3D Land
Cave Story 3D
Monster Tale (cute / awesome DS game that's like a cross between Metroid and Pokemon)
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter (fun Action-RPG for the DS that a good friend got me for Christmas)

I have a lot to play before Mass Effect 3 comes.

On another note, what's everyone's personal game of the year?

My top 5:

5. Portal 2 / Dead Space 2 (tie)
4. Skyrim
3. Dark Souls
2. Super Mario 3D Land
1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Oh, and next year's winner will be ME3. Just sayin'. I've got the collector's edition pre-ordered, paid in full for the midnight release.

1 Skyrim
2 Portal 2
3 Deus Ex
4 Battlefield 3
5 Shogun 2

I thought I had played a lot of games this year. Apparently I've only played Dead Space 2, BF3, Portal 2 and Skyrim (games from 2011).

Both Battlefield 3 and Skyrim were disappointments to me. In BF3 it is too hard to make an impact on any given match; if you're on the losing team, you're fucked. I actually bought a new computer to be able to play BF3 on release, but because it is almost impossible to turn a match around, I stopped playing after two weeks.

I know there are a lot of Skyrim fans here, and I'm not trying to troll anyone of piss anyone off, but here goes:

I also wanted to play Skyrim on release because I love big open games with a million things to do. At least I thought I did. I stopped playing Skyrim very early as well because I never feel the urge to play it. There's too much generic bullshit in the game, just like in Oblivion and Morrowind. The joy of exploration and awe of discovery is kind of limited to graphics, I mean I love exploring in Skyrim because the world is so beautiful, but I never truly find anything worthwhile in a tangible way. This is contrary to games like Planescape Torment or Final Fantasy where every new location contains something unique in terms of usable items/abilites/spells or depth in terms of story. In short: I get disappointed when I finish an hour-long crawl through a dungeon and all I get is a million rusty buckets or whatever generic junk there is, a BILLION fucking potions, ingredients and shit that I'm NEVER going to use, but I'm afraid to throw away on the off-chance that I might need them some day, and a very underwhelming "unique" item that kind of gives you a buff.

I have so much shit to say about these games, but I'm afraid this post has already achieved wall of text status so I'm moving on to Dead Space 2.

DS2 is basically the same as the first game. Both are intense as hell and really FUN to play. They also got me playing a few hours every day because it feels very rewarding to upgrade your gear. This is the biggest reason why DS2 is my favourite game of the year. Both BF3 and Skyrim should feel more rewarding because of the nature of RPGs and modern FPS games. But I just don't feel it.

Not much to say about Portal 2, amazingly sick fucking game.

You're actually right, even though I love Skyrim. It's the little things. Another one which is bothering me is finding a couple of gold coins in almost every burial urn or worse: on fucking skeletons and draughts. It's silly and doesn't make any sense. Every time I just picture a draught going to an inn:

Innkeeper: Hello sir, what do you want today?
Draught: Agar..ka.. Mead.
Innkeeper: Mead it is! There you go, the finest Black-briar mead of all Skyrim!
Draught: Gagarl... Thanks.

Stupid. But you may want to try this game again in a year or so with mods (and DLCs maybe). Modded Oblivion was far, far better than vanilla Oblivion, I can't see why it wouldn't be the same with Skyrim. Same with Fallout 3.

My top 5, out of the eight 2011 games only I've played so far. I love playing games, but I seldom play them the year they come out, because of the eye they all cost:

1. Skyrim (PC), what else? I've caused so much noise in this thread with this fucking game that
2. NHL 12 (xbox 360), hell yeah.
3. The Witcher 2 (PC), which would be higher if they didn't screw up the PC controls. Fucking consoles. Don't miss it out when it comes on consoles (the first one is awesome too but PC-only).
4. Top Spin 4 (xbox 360), best tennis game ever. But you have to love tennis.
5. Pro Cycling Manager 2011 (PC), best cycling game ever. But you (absolutely) have to love cycling. Be aware that I'm not talking about the consoles version which is crap.

Honorable mention to two NDS games: Dragon Quest IX and Prof. Layton and the Last Specter. Crap of the year goes to Fable III (xbox 360), IMHO one of the biggest turds ever made.

My top 5 is totally biased because I still have to play major hits like LA Noire, Deus Ex, Portal 2 (both Portals actually...), Shogun 2, and many more that came out this year. My "games I have to play" list includes 30+ games.