Gaming room (It's a geeks paradise)

[Otta]

Dark Souls looked pretty cool to me, BUT, Elder Scrolls 5 out any day now, and that is a divorce waiting to happen!

[StraferJack]

I can't believe it's out on Friday (midnight tomorrow at some stores) - I've been looking forward to it for years and then Dark f****** Souls comes out of nowhere and steals my life

I might get ES5 just to hang around a pretty world for more than 5 minutes without something kicking me in the nuts. With razors in their boots. Repeatedly

[Otta]

To be honest, I think I'll wait a little while to buy ES5, as I have quite a lot of loose ends to tie up in several games, even Oblivion and once I get in to that I suspect nothing else will get a look in!

Plus it'll drop by a few quid ;-)

[StraferJack]

Anyone famiiar with MAME cabinets? Those machines that you see in pubs that play old arcade games? Well sometimes peolpe try and make their own... and, well... the results aren't pretty

some of these had me in stitches

Imagine these in your living room

[StraferJack]

as if I wasn't tortured enough..

.. as if anything that helps you in the game isn't rarer than hens teeth already

I ACCIDENTALY swung my halberd at the blacksmith who upgrades my weapons - and he takes me out sharpish

so reload and go and see him and he's still so pissed at me he takes me out every time - now I have to trek half away across the map to find some geezer who will absolve me of my sins for an extortionate sum - an amount that will require a lot of harvesting without me getting killed

This thing is beyond brutal

[El Pibe]

simply ..... beautiful .....

http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/12/13/xbox_star_wars_bundle.png

[Otta]

LOL, Have you pimped your console?

[ratty]

Kinect just arrived for the kids. Looks pretty good to me!

[Otta]

Anyone with an Android phone, I recommend this site for free emulators and thousands of games for the NES, SNES, Megadrive/Genesis, Atari NeoGeo, and more.

When I was a kid, I loved the Dizzy games, like Treasure Island Dizzy. So I was pleased to find Fantastic Dizzy for the Genesis. I'd not heard of it before, but it's a really really fun game, that borrows ideas from the other Dizzy titles.

 

[Otta]

So, has anyone got Skyward Sword on Wii?

I have always been a HUGE Zelda fan, and am very tempted to dust off the old Wii and buy this game.

Unbelievably, I still haven't started Skyrim (having had it at home for weeks now). I did put it in the xbox last night though, and hopefully this evening we'll get going...

If the new Zelda game is as good as some of the reviews are saying though, I think I'd probably work through that first...

[El Pibe]

I thin kI may have been all Zeldaed out. They are lovely games but they're prisoners of their own formula now.

That said I haven't read any reviews, if they're trying something a bit diferent I could be tempted to actually power up the wii for the first time in ages.

[Otta]

The headline to the

uk.wii.ign.com/articles/121/1212220p1.html

"Ocarina of Time has met its match." was enough to grab my attention. It's a direct prequel to that game apparently.

[Floating Onion]

Zero Punctuation didn't seem to care for it.

Warning, if you haven't listened to his reviews before they can somewhat offensive, yet absolutely hilarious.

[Otta]

I like his reviews, but equally O take them with a pinch of salt. When all you do is play games and talk about them, you're gonna get a bit cynical and hard to please.

Anyone buying a Zelda game expecting a brand new gaming experience is a moron, but I've never played one that hasn't been very charming and made me smile.

[El Pibe]

I think he takes the view that he's a critic and there to criticise, he very rarely heaps praise.

You could tell he liked skyrim, but that didn't stop him from pointing out its many flaws.

Essentially a huge amount of gaming, especially now that we've crossed a strange divide from gaming being about simple and stylised concepts (donkey kong, chuckie egg, pacman, space invaders) to a sort of mimcking of reality, is an exercise in self-delsion. We think these games are incredibly realistic because we choose to.

What ZP likes to do is remind us of the inherent absurdities in this.

I do love him though, even when he's absolutely pummelling something you hold dear, mainly because he IS very funny, but also because he's pretty much never wrong.

I'm thinkikng about things too much again aren't I.

[Otta]

I did like the point he made about Zelda (paraphrasing) "if you live in the clouds, and have no idea that there is a world below, how comes it's always sunny when you get down there?" :-S

I dunno, doesn't he rate the Call of Duty games, or did I imagine that? I personally think they are the same game wrapped in different paper over and over again. Boring boring boring!!!!!

[CasualLime]

Anyone local here play Starcraft 2?

[El Pibe]

He certainly didn't rate the CoD games, though the review of 3 was probably the funniest he's done.

I've never got into Starcraft, though have often meant to.

[Otta]

Right, played q couple of hours of Skyrim. First impressions are that it looks great. I have to say though that straight away it just felt like I was playing Oblivion. In itself not a bad thing, but I do wonder if this one will take over my life in quite the same way. There is a part of me that sort of feels over it.

Earlier on, I played the beginning of Ocarina of Time, just to have a look. Obviously it's aged, but for a 14 year old game, it still looks pretty damned good, and reminds you just how HUGR a deal it was back in '98.

I've ordered Skyward Sword, to hell with it.

[StraferJack]

I'm loathe to criticise Skyrim in any way because it's so obviously an epic achievement, looks gorgeous and so many people love it. But like Otta I did have a "been here before" feeling.

Similarly with the Zelda games.

I know I have banged on about it too much already but I really really urge people to try Dark Souls before the generation passes - you just won't have experienced a game like it. I know it LOOKS like genero-fantasy game #255 but I can't stress enough how unlike anything else I've ever played it is

Experience isn't something this game rewards you with in points - you die and you learn. Every step you take is taken with trepidation and fear of what's around the corner

No portentious plot, or worse, hours of cliched dialogue. Just a few enigmatic mutterings from the (very) few human souls you encounter. A lot of time thinking WTF???

You make a decision you are stuck with it - no saving a game, trying something and reloading if it didn't work out. So everyting MATTERS. It's like a breath of fresh air

I'm not going to stop banging on about it for as long as I play games. Best game I've experienced in 30 years pretty much

[Floating Onion]

I've not played the Zelda games except for one on the Game Boy that I can't quite remember.

As for Skyrim I'm absolutely loving it. I haven't played any of the series before, so maybe that's why it seems quite new. Certainly one of the things the ZP mentioned was every now & again you meet one big guy that just pummels you.

I've also found that it's quite easy to level up some of the non combat skills. Which isn't so helpful when you end up in combat with the aforementioned big guys....

[El Pibe]

Word of advice.

Don't attack the Giant. (and always have a companion, they make great bait if an elder or blood dragon has a pop).

In fact if you can find a giant and some mammoths, lure the dragon their way and let them fight it out and pick off the survivors.

Frost trolls are a pain but quite doable once you've passed lvl15 or so.

Firebolts are the cbest way forward, then thump them with a very big axe once they're low on HP (i managed 4 of them in a row the other day).

Only twice have I found the difficulty level jarring, both undead bosses at the end of a dungeon, but in both cases you could find a technique that worked that didn't involve just brute force, and more paticularly being hit by them.

[bon3yard]

Aww, I was hoping for a return to the solitary scares/action set up of RE 4 but this looks more like Modern Warfare with zombies. I think I'm getting to old for video games.

:(

[El Pibe]

Sir Benfro's Brilliant Balloons for iOS.

Just lovely.

The concept? I dunno, sort of Lord Hornimann exploring the dark continent by light filled balloon as envisaged by Terry Gilliam.

Simple gaming (touch screen for up, let go for down), but so beautifully presented with a wonderful soundtrack that's so good that the game-loathing La Piba actually loves putting on the headphones as I play the game.

For 69p worth a try.

[StraferJack]

Skyrim players