[General Discussion] Recent Game Purchases, or what I bought instead of fourteen new dildos this weekend

I've bought quite a few new games recently. I tend to buy rpgs when they're released as they have a habit of going out of print pretty quickly in Europe and I've been catching up on a backlog recently.

So...

I bought Shaddow of the Collussus as it looks awesome and Amazon were offering ICO for £15 when bought at the same time so I got that too. Whilst searching for somethng completely unrelated I noticed that Suikoden Tactics had been released so I bought that too and got a cheap deal on Shadow Hearts:Covenant for buying that at the same time.

I'm gonna try to finish Shin Megami Tensei:Lucifer's Call before I start any of those though and I want to finish Black at least once first too.

So little time though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I picked up Crackdown on 360 for £5 the other week, mainly to play it online with Kaze. It's a really fun game, especially multiplayer, with hundreds of achievements. I imagine it's a little short, we pretty much finished the first gang off in my first session but we didn't do much exploring and you can always replay on harder settings.

There's loads of cheap copies about too after so many people bought it just to play the H3 beta so I'd recommend it to someone who wants a slightly silly action game, especially if they have someone to play multiplayer with.

Most amazing jew boots

Pre-ordered GTA4 the other day, ordering it from GAME gets you free 500 MS points, essentially you get £5 off. Also managed to get hold of Armored Core 4 on 360 for £8 on eBay. It should arrive in a day or so.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Although it's not technically a purchase, I borrowed Rainbow Six Vegas 2 on 360 from a mate the other day (And he won't get it back till he pays me back the £130 he owes me). It's a pretty awesome game, a big improvement on the last one I played which was Black Arrow.

I finished the single player campaign over the weekend, having a second player in the form of Kaze sped things up as you can respawn each other so don't have to worry about sneaking around so much although I have to say, running headlong into the enemy with a light machinegun isn't really in the spirit of the thing, I kinda prefer playing it tactically.

That said, we then played a bunch of terrorist hunts and you have to be way more careful on those, especially on realistic difficulty. We finished a few of those and will hopefully finish off the rest during the week.

I've heard that the game is more of an expansion pack for the first than a new game but having not played the first at all, I really enjoy this and I welcome the direction the Rainbow games are taking over the colourful outlines and airstrikes of the newer Ghost Recon games. Sadly, the AI of your team mates is still pretty atrocious and that getting one of them killed means game over is a little frustrating. I can't wait until Ubisoft can get computer controlled friendlies to actually hide behind cover when they're getting shot at...

Great fun game though, I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the older ones.

Oh yeah, I also downloaded the new Halo 3 maps but Kyndig and Sailor Daravon didn't want to play with me.

They're alright I guess, nothing spectacular and no amount of patching will ever get rid of the annoying whiny kids or the fact that everyone vetoes every game that's loaded and then complains about the replacement. Seriously, what the fuck do you idiots want to play? Also, no matter how poorly people grasp tactical play in objective games like Frontlines or Battlefield, it's nothing compared to how fucking shit most of the Halo community is when it comes to doing anything other than running around on your own trying to kill people.

GTA IV next week and I believe Kaos are releasing a patch for Frontlines allowing voice chat between squad leaders and toning down the spawn-point-raping sentry guns a bit so I might get back to playing that.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Leknaat

I got my copy of Rogue Galaxy the other day. *dances* Will play it as soon as I'm done Tales of Symphonia.

When you play Rogue Galaxy, be careful not to spend too much time upgrading your weapons otherwise you'll find you've maxed them all out by chapter 7 and the rest of the game quickly becomes a rather too easy, meaningless dungeon crawl with some poor voice acting and cheesy dialogue. It's great up to that point though. I just got pretty bored once I realised I'd reached the limits of character development three quarters of the way in to the game.

How ya doing, buddy?

I bought Final Fantasy Tactics The War of the Lion for Playstation Portable yesterday, second hand from GAME for the ridiculously bargainous price of £10.50 (Having got £2.50 off with loyalty points). Sadly, I've not used my PSP for months and I can't find the charger anywhere so until I find it or get a replacement, I'm stuck playing Pokemon on the train to work.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

O. O sir. I'm so sorry. You are in for a colossal let down.

Dark Cloud to Dark Cloud II is one of the single greatest improvements from one game to another. DC II is fantastic. The first one is easily one of the worst games I've ever played.

That's a little harsh, I quite enjoyed Dark Cloud. I agree that the second is an improvement although my copy (And I believe a lot of PAL copies) started to crash when I quit out of the menu about halfway through so I never finished it. Rogue Galaxy is alright at first but really drags towards the end. Final Fantasy IX is the best of the series in my opinion, good purchase there.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Omnislash124

Just bought myself a brand new PSP for $117 off eBay. The irony comes in when I used Microsoft Live's Cashback program for the discount (25%), then stacked on a 10% discount from eBay. Just bought it yesterday, so I'm waiting for it to come in.

Planning on picking up Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions with this first.

Other ones I'm planning on eventually include Jeanne D'Arc, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, Final Fantasy I (possibly II with that), and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness. And More than likely, Yggdra Union when it releases. Any other recommendations? Despite what I listed above, I'm open to non-RPG titles, though if you have more RPGs to list, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Owning a PSP and not owning one of the Lumines games should be a criminal offence.

And I agree with Qwarky, Crackdown is an awesome game. Even better when you play it co-op (If a little easy). Nothing beats leaping 300ft from rooftop to rooftop killing criminals with homing missiles that wipe out everything in the street as you go, nothing.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I just bought Guitar Hero 3 with a guitar controller for 360 for £35 from GAME. Now all I have to do is get home from work to play it...

Will probably pick up Soul Calibur IV on friday when I get paid and I noticed that there were a bunch of copies of Lost Odessey in the clearance rack for £15 so I might grab that too.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Couldn't find a cheap copy of Soul Calibur so I bought GRAW2 and Condemned for £11 each, both on 360. Probably won't play either for a while, just picked them up as they were on clearance.

How ya doing, buddy?

As mentioned in my journal, I picked up Gears of War and Too Human on 360 yesterday for a grand total of £45. Played some co-op Gears last night, it's awesome. Probably won't get into Too Human for a while until I've finished some other things.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It's payday so I went out and bought Lego Batman on 360. I also ordered Final Fantasy XII:Revanant Wings off Amazon as they only wanted £7.50 for it and I'll need something to play on the train when I finish Final Fantasy Tactics.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I also just appeased Clover Studios by ordering Okami from Amazon (£6.50, get in!).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Yeah, Amazon (Well Amazon shops anyway) seem to sell of rpgs incredibly cheap. Both of those I bought are brand new sealed copies too.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I was looking for cheap shit on Amazon (Sort by price, low to high, scroll past all the wrestling and sports games) and found Beowulf on 360 for £6 and Earth Defence Force 2017 also on 360 for £11. So I bought them both.

Beowulf because getting drunk and pretending to be a viking is fun and EDF because Phong seemed to like it.

FELIPE NO

Konami decided not to release Suikoden Tierkreis today after all so I pre-ordered it and to console myself, bought Condemned 2 for 360 which is on special offer in GAME at the moment, only £10. I'll play it one day when I've had a decent go at the first one...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I bought Professor Layton and the Furious Village People off eBay for a tenner. It's fun enough, if a little easy. I'll probably play through to the end but I'm not quite sure why so many people jizzed their pants over it as did (Looking at you here Omagnus).

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

Because it combines fun puzzles (yes, if a little easy for the more intelligent) with a fun little story, some great art and some great music, which all works to create a very charming game world. Hunting for both coins and hidden puzzles is fun, and the actual interaction with the puzzles is nearly always excellent. All in all it's a great little game. I don't think I ever claimed it was the best game in creation, just a very good puzzle game. Am I wrong? I don't think so, but feel free to differ.

Ha ha, I wasn't having a go, I just remember a load of people waxing lyrical about it when you did those award things and you being the only name I can remember amongst those voices.

The puzzles are fun, I agree although some suffer a bit from predictability. You know there's always a twist in the wordy questions and there are too many of those silly pouring water into jugs efforts but they are generally fun. The story is ok, I disagree about the art but I guess that's a question of personal taste. Also, hunting for coins and secret puzzles is just a case of tapping around the screen until you find them, or waiting for the dog to point them out.

I'd say as puzzle games go, yes it is a pretty good one but I think as an all round game it's limited by it's own scope. It's certainly worth a tenner though.

I never finished Dark Cloud 2. My game started freezing when I came out of the menu about halfway through which made the game basically unplayable. I was quite enjoying it up that point though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I found that the further into Tierkreis I got, the more the main guy's voice seemed to match his personality. I still need to finish that actually. It's a fun game but the battles do get a bit monotonous. Luckily, you get a room in your castle where you can fight boss battles and gain items and experience so you never need to fight normal monsters to level up your party (And to be honest, you never really need to level them up anyway). Keeping everyone up to date with the best equipment can be expensive but being able to travel between locations freely makes the trading a dead easy way to make cash if you're bothered and like I say, it's not like the game has any fights that are so tough you need decent equipment anyway.

Pro-tip. After your first visit to the coastal caves, go straight back in again. The second time you go in you get access to the top floor (Using the same lift you use the first time, it just chucks you to the top floor and doesn't tell you which can be quite confusing) on which there's a decent spear and the godspeed talisman which when equipped, makes the party run faster, saving a lot of time in the long run.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I just pre-ordered Guitar Hero Metallica (Which comes out here on the 29th) and bought Tiger Woods 09 which GAME's website has for £17. The last Tiger Woods game I played was '06 and whilst I can't stand real golf, I do quite enjoy chilling out with a digital version now and then, especially when you ramp up your character's stats to superhuman levels and manage to get round St Andrews in 48 strokes off the pro tees.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I got the Sacred 2 collectors edition from Game's website, should have been delivered this morning. It came to £30 once I'd redeemed my points against it which is rather a bargain. Also, I hear from Meia that there was no CE stateside so I shall be sure to create a gloating journal entry for you all to enjoy when I get home and unpack it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Haha, the PC version is certainly much better but the 360 version is still a great game, if for example your PC won't run it decently. You just need to make sure you either install it or have a really high boredom threshold during loading screens.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Just ordered Guitar Hero Greatest Hits and Dead Rising, both on 360 from the GAME website. GH was £25 new and DR £14, also new. I never had DR before but always wanted to play it and figured I'd pick it up before it goes out of print. Guitar Hero is a birthday gift for the missus (Sort of, was a good excuse to get it anyway).

FELIPE NO

Having finished Chains of Olympus, got bored of Gangs of London and realising that I brought all my DS games on holiday except the ones I wanted to play (Suikoden Tierkreis and Pokemon) and having had enough of being raped by Soul Calibur's AI for the time being, I went looking for a new game yesterday.

I now feel Infernal's pain as Aussie games shops are bollocks. All there is on most of the shelves are those retarded "Imagine" games, they don't seem to sell rpgs at all and all the second hand stuff is in a big random pile, rather than in alphabetical order. As such, I found nothing even vaguely interesting for the DS and bought the new Gran Turismo game on the PSP.

It's alright, certainly the best looking PSP racer but the gameplay hasn't translated perfectly to handheld. Primarily the lack of analogue acceleration combined with the series' realistic acceleration means you have to fuck about with the settings a fair bit to get the 4WD cars not to understeer and to stop the FR cars spinning round like they're on ice. I'll write a full review later but I guess it was worth the $50 it cost me but I wouldn't pay any more than that for it.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Not technically a purchase but a mate gave me GTA: Episodes from Liberty City for 360 as a get weel soon present (And because he has a PS3 and wouldn't get to play the expansions otherwise). I had no intention of buying the episodes myself as I thought GTAIV was pretty dull but as I have them it'd be rude not to play them now. Should make a change from all the Sacred 2 I've been playing although I did have plans to clear my backlog which this hasn't helped at all.

Jam it back in, in the dark.