Rainbow Six Vegas 2, either two player co-op or four player terrorist hunts. I'd even be happy to pick up the first one as it's never much more than £5.

Also GRAW has pretty decent co-op to it and even Halo 3 is good fun with a team of you all together.

OK, March 28th, so open discussion time for Ikaruga now.

Anyone have any more suggestions for next month? It doesn't have to be a co-op game suggestion, that's just one road we can explore when we chat about it. What do people think to the idea of playing a recent release (something like Resonance of Fate, Infinite Space or even something like Just Cause 2)?

I kinda liked that most of the games have been easy to acquire for cheap (ICO probably being the only exception, though luckily most people seemed to have owned it already), but doing a recent release would definitely change that. I'm not totally against it, especially if enough people have bought or are planning to buy a recent release, but I kinda like how price hasn't really been a barrier to entry for the most part.

I agree. Cheapo shit is what makes this a great thing to get in on. New releases are expensive-- not to mention things everyone is playing anyway.

Today's the day. Do we have a decision?

Additional Spam:
Actually, what about Sacred 2?

It's $20 new through Gamestop's Game Days sale, it's considered a pretty good game that not everyone has played, and it's got very enjoyable multiplayer. Thoughts?

Sacred 2 is an awesome game, although quite the time sink if you want to see a lot of the side quests. As an advantage, there's a few of us who've already unlocked the higher skill levels so could host some experience-boosting multiplayer games.

How about an old PC game? I was playing UFO: Enemy Unknown (Called UFO Defence in the US), the first Xcom game, yesterday and it's awesome and everyone ought to play it once. I've got an ISO of the whole thing too if people want to swerve the $5 or so the game costs.

Hello everyone. So we're going to try something a little different to hopefully mix up the game choice a little and give everyone a little more involvement in the process. This might not work, but I figured it was an experiment worth dabbling with.

So here's how it's going to work: we've decided on a short-list of 5 games, you need to PM me by Wednesday 20:00 BST (which is 48 hours away) with the 5 games listed in preference order with your most preferred first (or at the top). We'll award points in a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 fashion and then total the scores. Most points = game we play.

The 5 games (in alphabetical order) are: Bionic Commando (the new dreadlocks one), Crackdown, Machinarium, Max Payne and Yakuza 2

Get voting people.

Note: Only votes from members will be counted

With regards to Ikaruga, I still can't play this game any better than I ever could. It's great, but somehow my brain doesn't work that way. Some people see the bullet and colour patterns and they can adapt to them without thinking about it, but for me it is a conscious process and that means that I'm slower than I should be. Past a certain point I just get to the point where my brain just can't process it fast enough.

I've been working hard to clear up my backlog recently, so I'm kind of glad that there wasn't much pressure from the selected game. I like variety, just like the next man. I prefer to be playing several good games at once so that I don't get bored. Recently it has become a bit out of control though. If I actually listed everything I've started but not finished, it would be a long and scary list. I've buckled down and started taking one game at a time to the finish line. I don't mind playing three or four games at once, but I draw the line about the same point I run out of fingers and toes to count them on.

For the next game, well... Yakuza 2 is a game I want to play anyway. I started up that one as well as the first one to take a look and see what they had to offer a while back. As luck would have it I just recently started seriously playing the first one, so depending how long that is, the timing might be perfect. Max Payne is a game I already completed and loved. I'd be happy to join in with the discussions, and I really do think there's more to discuss there than with the previous titles we played. The storyline is simply excellent. The other three look fine, but I can't say I know anything about 'em other than what was mentioned in this thread.

I'll repeat it here, it's ok to discuss your votes I guess? But everyone needs to PM their votes to OP or we can't count them.

X-Com suffers from the same problem as Ikaruga: it's massively unwelcoming to neophytes. I mean, how many repetitions of "I entered my first battle and everyone on my squad died before I could even determine where the aliens were" can you take?

This game can only be played properly with the retro skin you get from having Bionic Commando: ReArmed. Spiked red hair and sunglasses are mandatory. Don't even mention those terrible dreadlocks.

Oh come on. You can up the contrast a bit and imagine you're playing a muscular reggae dude. Like a 3D Ganja Farmer only without the music.

When I play the game I just pretend it's a Jason Momoa simulator

http://images.starpulse.com/Photos/p...%20Momoa-3.jpg

Oh. I beg your pardon for not really reading all of the post. I'll make sure to send the PM soon.

Additional Spam:
Is it really considered that hard? I mean, I can't take on the highest difficulty, but I don't recall it being so incredibly punishing. Actually, I take it all back, I just started up the game and I forgot that your guys can't shoot for crap to start with.

Terror From the Deep is technically harder but UFO on anything above average difficulty is hard as fuck. The new game I started yesterday was on the second difficulty up from the bottom and after 4 months (Of a game that generally runs to three years for a winning game) I'm already having to either save every turn or pick my fights better. The main problem is that research takes that much longer and until you get laser rifles and some armour, your team are walking funerals.

When TFTD was made, it was based on an early version of UFO that was bugged to play every skill level as beginner, so they ramped the difficulty up based on how hard UFO's Impossible mode was, but with it actually playing as beginner. As such, playing with anything above easy skill in TFTD requires advanced knowledge of the game and a shit ton of luck.

It is an amazing game though and if Ikaruga can be considered an approachable game, then I reckon people could cope with UFO. The trick really is just not become too attached to your soldiers...

I legitimately like Bionic Commando's player model.

This is because you are a negro

I'm tossing in my vote for Bionic Commando. I just picked up the game for $10 on eBay too, so I'll finally see what every one of you waxes so lyrical about in this game.

I gotta go with Max Payne because noir kicks my ass or Machinarium, because that game kicks all your asses.

PMS at OP, folks. did you see what i did there, i better screenshot and journal this

I tossed up Yakuza for my top vote. I know the second one is the one stated up there, but it gives me a good excuse to pick the first one back up and play that one for http://backloggery.com/images/beaten.gif.

Come on guys, this isn't that tricky, but I'm really surprised by how much difficultly people are having with this:
That really does mean you need to list all 5 games, and in preference order. If you PM me just saying "Yo, I'd like to play X" it's not going to get counted.

I did that shit on purpose just to ruffle your feathers, mate. I just had no idea this was going to be such a flamboyantly colorful display of anger. Like a peacock in heat, baby! <3

If you vote incorrectly in this thread it just gives you a STIGGGGGGGGGGMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAA

Ence has more than enough STIGGGGMAAAAAAAA on him already.

OP getting irrationally worked up about something? Nooo. That doesn't sound like him at all.

STIGGGGMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA