The Bard

It was the most addictive game I've ever played, everything from the core gameplay where skillshots to different body parts actually matter and have an effect on the way any given scenario progresses, to the way environments are stitched together with an absurd level of geometrical cohesion. How weapon upgrades were handled (which formed the largest part of my motivation for playing through multiple times) in a cumulative way, and secrets like putting collectables together to make more valuable collectables... everything about that game was perfection to me. And it may not have been horror on the level of the first few games in the series, but it had a tension to it that was real in a way that it wasn't in the original games, because there it came from your inability to properly control your character, whereas in Resi 4, it came from the very real threats posed by your enemies. I remember actively thinking while playing through Resi 1 that any given scenario would have been so much more placid if I could actually maneuver my character without bumping into a pole every five seconds. If your terror is coming from input difficulties, then that just seems like shit design to me. I felt the quicktime events were pretty sparse and inoffensive, and you had fucking ages to react to them. I don't get the culture of telling people they "played it wrong." The whole thing that makes videogames unique is that they cater to a variety of playstyles. If your medium hinges on played input, it seems illegitimate to then go and say, no, your experience is invalid. Because it's not like he can then go and change it; the experience he had is the experience he had, and he's going to base his interpretation on it, and it's a cop out to then de-legitimise because it doesn't match the way you interpreted it. It's not like film or novels where you're 100% certain that the person you're talking to had the same experience you did. Also, the playing of a game doesn't really have much to do with the way you interpret its tone does it? If he didn't like the fact that it wasn't a horror game at heart, that really doesn't impact his playing of it. Babooor, heed the call, why the fuck did you not like this game. It doesn't jive. I don't buy that it's just because it was "called" Resident Evil, you're flip flopping between saying it was fun, but that it wasn't fun? I think if you'd given it a chance you'd have fucking loved it, and a lot of why you say you don't like it probably comes from you having rationalised afterwards that it doesn't fit into what you know as traditionally making up a Resi game. Play that shit again, I guarantee you it's one of the most rewarding experiences of all time.

Baboooor you make me weep tears of pity and woe. I finished that game no fewer than nine times within six months of its release.

Come on guys, the people at Irrational are used to working with conceptually interesting games. They put out the Freedom Force games, SWAT 4 and Bioshock, they're too talented to work at a studio handcuffed to a life spent churning sequels to Nintendo franchises that haven't fundamentally changed in 15 years.

That's pretty much exactly it. First generation 3D games are just blockier, muddier versions of what we have today, the real difference between PS1 and PS4 has been design. 16 bit just tends to be more believable in a storybook way than first gen 3D just because there's an additional layer of abstraction there in the fact that there's an entire dimension missing. Suspension of disbelief only works when we know the thing being presented to us is fictional; the more fictional it seems in presentation (rather than in themes or content), the more easy it is to get absorbed in a world. We're always going to think there's something off with the acting in something even as well made as Resi 4, just because it vies for realism, but misses it by a long way. Whereas Chrono Trigger is just pixellated representations that only work because your brain is expected to do most of the heavy lifting, never attempting to go for realism. That's where the charm of 16 bit comes from. It's more storybook and because of that, it's not afraid to leverage ridiculously wide ranging colour palettes or saturation, or to use music that does more than sets a tone, but expressedly goes for catchyness. The wall of artifice is broken the moment you look at a fucking SNES game, so there's a lot more you can get away with.

I like to talk a lot of shit so I wouldn't mind taking part Of course, this is assuming that talk about non-nintendo games is ok. I think if you're going to do this, there's little reason to tether it to N-Europe rather than just set up a separate domain name and host it from there, which I would be happy to do since it's pretty cheap.

Anytime anyone uses the acronym POV, I get a visual of somebody getting fucked from behind, which is a rad metaphor in this case since the thing getting shafted is my good will towards anything Nintendo.

Nah Metroid's not been big three for a while, I think the big three for Nintendo are decided entirely on fiscal terms. Lezz see; Mario, Mario, and shit, Mario with a side of fucking Mario. I'm pretty sick of Mario.

That really sucks man, just played Echoes again, and I'd fucking kill for another 3D Metroid game. It's weird, I've talked about how good the last seven years or so have been for getting rid of obtuse design in games, but I really think that's going to hurt the Metroid series. They rely so much on opaqueness, and you could see modern design eating away at the edges of MP3 with the voice overs and the unnecessary secondary characters. Maybe it's for the best that they aren't making a new 3D Metroid. Maybe they'll get another ten years down the line and just remake Super Metroid again like they did for Prime

I'm shit at internet and I figure you guys are probably a better bet than Google anyway: Anybody know if there's been anything said about a Metroid game on the Wii U/ 3DS?

Making a full on statement that a game is going to be bad on the evidence from the first gameplay trailer is obviously a dumb thing to do, but that out of everything they could have shown since the game was announced, what, a year ago (?), they show this, I think it either speaks to the extent of the games actual content, or that they respect their audience so little that they have to pander to the people hankering after a product to fill the hole left be Gears/Mass Effect/ Other shooters that defined the last gen, just because that's where the money's at. It's easy to see why people aren't tumescent at the sight of a dude walking down a corridor with chest high crates and an over the shoulder camera.

I really loved Mass Effect when it came out, but yeah, I played through it again about a year ago, and it's just ass rammed to the brim unmanageably shit design decisions. Overheating. Omnigel. Nebulous weapon upgrades. Stat menus. Cover that never fucking works. The Mako. That game more than any other from last generation goes to show how smart games have become in removing barriers to enjoyment in just six years.

Critics made a fuss over it for several reasons, mostly the fact that it was a fairly good, successful exercise in environmental, non-linear in feel, yet still directed storytelling, that dealt with the sort of completely mundane, day to day human issues that videogames are notoriously terrible at presenting in an engaging way. It leveraged the unique attributes of the medium to tell the story - and environment that you approach in a non linear way - to tell the sort of story that other videogames would feel forced to render in prose, presented through a series of ancillary, anomalous collectables (diary pages in Alan Wake? etc.). As a technical exercise, it was great. It was like the game equivalent of a prose short story; limited in scope, dealing in largely unremarkable events, but focused in a way that most games can't manage when it comes to storytelling. It might not be Nobokov, but it was still believable - the "How To Make Friends," thing you just referenced completely falls in line with the nerdy, bookish way the father is presented; like as if he learned how to be a dad from a textbook.

They're so catatonically boring that you lose all motivation in repeated moments of existential despair so profound that the only course of action that seems available to you headbutt the weirdly deadly sea anemones until you dissolve and diffuse in a wisp of red. What do the people think of the DLC? Been holding back on getting it, but am really jonesing for a go on this again.

4/10 on EDGE which panned it in almost every way imaginable. I was hoping for an elaboration on the formula in the first game mixed with some metroidvania exploring. Looks like that ain't happening. Quick look on meta critic doesn't stoke a boner either.

After the critical shit show Lords of Shadow 2 turned out to be, I think this is going to be the only full price game I buy the whole first half of this year. It's been ages since I've heard universally positive things about a game from every source. Anyone going to be getting it on PC?

I think the make or break element that caused me to stay well into my adulthood is the meets. If they'd gone horribly I think I would just have fucked off, so it's all your faults that I stick around. There's something different at stake when you're friends with people in real life, it makes you more reluctant to just abandon the mutual social space where you first met. I Still have very good memories of meeting Jay, Letty, Stefkov, Chuck and McPhee at King's Cross, and spending the rest of the day getting totally drunk while ambling around London. It was pretty adventurous for me as well, since I hadn't told anyone I know where I was going, so there was every chance it would end a disaster, but props to everyone involved, every year, for making it a whole lot of fun!

This is actually the only forum I've ever really actively participated in. To start with it was a bit to do with how easy to troll some of the members were, and just a place to vent the everyday frustrations of angsty teenagehood. After a while I just got to like the members. Had a lot of great discussions with DanDare, Jay, Ashley, Daft etc. I don't really post that much anymore just because I'm pretty busy with uni pressures and for some reason lately I've just been reading the forum a lot more than I've been contributing, which is kind of creepy I suppose . I miss the days when I'd post more, partly because of the members and partly just because there's a nice organising effect writing your thoughts down and having other people participate in them has, which I've been missing recently just because I don't really post on forums anymore.

There's a handy backup/restore function on Steam. Click the Steam tab, and it should be the fourth or fifth option.

Last night in library, and probably last night with exam beard 2014. It was good knowing you buddy

Nothing, I momentarily forgot that 1. I shaved my head, and 2. You knew about it In other news, nothing is more depressing than writing two masterpieces in essay form, totalling 8500 words, and knowing that only one or two people are ever going to read them . Also, I have another 4500 word essay in for Monday which I haven't started the reading for. Exciting times.

What the fuck...are you talking about?

Outlast is great in a lot of ways. It just doesn't pace its tricks very well so you spend the first hour and a half absolutely shitting yourself in terror, and then it becomes like a walk through the meat isle in Tesco.

My ontogeny has eventuated in the phenotypical expression of a lipid layer, several centimeters thick, from around my lower thorax to the top of my pelvis. Translation: Oh my god, I've gotten fat .

The downward force of that fucking eyebrow shrug looks like it could shatter bone.

Got Walking Dead Season 1 for me and my lady on your recommendation man, hope it's worf it! :p. As for PC, you'd want to go for something like this lot: Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 Intel i5 3570k (4670k ain't worf it, doesn't overclock well and generally isn't as good for gaming as either the 3570k or the 2550k) Any good 750w PSU 8gb Ram 1tb Sata HD (If you want to spend an unnecessary amount of money, get an SSD, the load times are fucking outrageously good). Leaves you with about £140 for a GPU, which should be just a little under budget for something like a 7870 (Which is, incidentally quite similar to the PS4's GPU.