Mini Reviews

Console/PC game reviews by 5punkers

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FatherJack
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Post by FatherJack »

It is worth noting that Burnout Paradise is a bit of a diversion from the previous games in the series. As Mr J noted you no longer get to see your burning corpse in your wrecked-out vehicle, in fact the whole "doing the best crash with most explosions and casualties" mode is massively downplayed.

What replaces it though, is a hugely fun open arena to crash or trick in, where you get brownie points for just dicking around. I do miss the formalised crash levels, and progression seems a little harsh, requiring you to win less likable modes to unlock more fun ones.

Multiplayer is a mixed bag, sometimes fun like "FatherJack just done the best skid, evar", sometimes annoying where the savvy players congregrate on the stunt park area and just do quadruple backflips ad-nauseum. Depends what the host sets as the goals, really.
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Post by Dog Pants »

I've not played previous Burnouts, so I can't compare, I'm just judging on what it is. I'm not getting the 'win less good modes to progress' thing though. Later on I know you have to win a lot of events to progress, but there's a huge number of whichever it is you like so surely it can't be that bad?

I did accidentally play multiplayer today after pressing a button. I don't know which one. Most of the experience was taken up by getting bigger achievements than the other guy, then there was a race. The whole of which I spent sat on the start line as I was chasing Sprog about.
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Post by Mr. Johnson »

I did think the menu is a bit of a mess, it took me some searching to figure out you had to change menus by using your F1 and F2 buttons.
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Post by shot2bits »

risen

id not heard of this till i saw the demo on steam and thought id give that a go, at first it seemed very clunky but i got used to it fairly quick. the game is fairly pretty going for a realistic graphics style although ive heard the 360 version isnt so good in this regard. it is aparantly the spiritual successor to the gothic games, which i never played so couldnt give you a comparisson.
to me it feels like fable done right. a fairly meaty rpg in a fairly big open world, at first it looks and feels like it should be linear but then you realise you dont need to stick to the path and can run through bushes hitting giant seagulls (which drop raw chicken for some reason) with a pointy stick.

its also fairly open gameplay in that you make alot of choices during the quests with most of them having different ways of completing to please the different factions, or you can just run around the forest hitting stuff.

so far im rather enjoying the main story but at times once you start part of that you can get blocked off from the rest of the game for a little while till you finish that part, which can be frustrating when you have a really hard fight and no way to level up/ get better equipment untill you finish that fight which results in lots of quick loads and charging back in.

err, i think i had a point but i must have dropped it somewhere.

pretty much its a fairly good beardy game with a slightly clunky combat system, but i find the clunkiness quite charming.

oh and i dont seem to have come across any bugs apart from a guard walking around without moving any of his limbs. nothing game breaking just emersion breaking, which is rather good these days with a new release
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Post by friznit »

I played the demo for about 10 minutes, lol'd a bit at the woman with humungous tits going on about how she wanted my hot meat inside her, then got bored and deleted it.
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Post by FatherJack »

Risen

I played the demo and bought it on the strength of that and played quite a few hours over the last weeks.

There are a bunch of screen shots here: http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/sirfil/

I was going to comment on them at some point, but here's a review for now.

Graphically and even story-wise initially, this is Age of Conan Single-Player. It's like they even use (a small subset of) the same character models, and you start shipwrecked on a beach, have to lead a women to safety and head towards the main town. Where there's bars, shops, docks and a whorehouse.

Then, it differs though. Soon afterwards you have to make a big choice which will affect how your character ends up. You can go to the Don's camp and side with his outlaws where you'll learn sword or axe fighting, bows and crossbows and the like - or you can deliberately get captured by the Inquisition and taken to the monastery as a Warrior of the Order where you will learn staff fighting and some basic magic, as well as solving a murder case.

At some point you'll end up in the town, but you can also head straight there on your own if you like. Inside you can do various missions in either of two ways to appease one side or the other - I think there are seven and if you do four for one group then you've chosen your side. Obviously doing all of them for one side gives you bonus stuff. This bit (if you choose) is a lot less combat-orientated than Conan, or even Oblivion - more like a traditional RPG, with dialogue choices, exploration and finding people rather than killing everything.

Doing all the town quests for the Inquisition opens up the third option, where you can enter the monastery voluntarily and get to learn higher magics, with less focus on hitting with sticks.

I quite liked this, and had to try each one out - choosing a side not only stops you doing quests for the other lot, but also stops you talking to trainers of certain disciplines. There's a bunch to learn, as well as weapon/magic skills, there's (among others) sneaking, animal skinning and pickpocketing which is stand out the most hilariously brilliant application of that skill in a game engine, ever. There's not so much (like there is in an MMO) you feel you'll never master a few though, and you're not required to spend your learning points immediately, so can save them for better stuff when it becomes available.

It's a bit clunky, combat is initally very hard and money is hard to come by, which you'll need to either improve your combat skills or pay your way out of fights. Unlike MMOs though, you can cheat if you want. There's less to interact with than your typical Elder Scrolls game and what you can dick around with is marked with white floating text, which is a little immersion-breaking, but time-saving.

There's lots of swearing and drug-use, and some silly bugs apart from the odd graphical ones where people keep barging into you when you're talking to someone. Humans usually knock you out instead of killing you, so if you get far enough past guards, once they've clobbered you they forget about you, leaving you free to roam the area they were stopping you entering. Equally though, they sometimes remember your transgressions later on - so even when you have permission to pass and show them the proof in a cut scene, they'll deliver a swift kicking when the conversation ends anyway.

The demo (on Steam) gives you a good enough idea as to whether it's worth your monies, although it ends before the really entertaining missions. I actually hated it on a first playthrough and gave up trying to find keys for a chest in the first house, but it stuck in my mind as something that helped to fill the void of PC RPGs and reminded me how much I missed games like Oblivion, so I went back with that in my mind and was sold straight away.
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Post by friznit »

Hmphp, now you gone and said that I might have to give it another go :P
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Post by HereComesPete »

I may try this, it looks very nice from what I remember.
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Post by HereComesPete »

FJ has pointed me at a demo of this, so I shall soon be chopping people up.


COD 42 can smoke my balls, guns for show, knives (and big fuck off swords) for the pro.
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Post by Dog Pants »

PCG gave Risen 65%, just you know. Which is 5% more then Aion, incidentally.
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Post by HereComesPete »

70 summat on metacritic.

I'll try the demo. The dragon age one looks good too so I may get my rpg beardage from that instead.
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Post by deject »

Torchlight

Simple action RPG similar to Diablo. Obvious indie low-rent graphics but it works OK. Has the same addicting combat that most other action RPGs have, so if you're jonesing for some hack & slash you can do a lot worse. Controls could be a tad less frustrating.

7/10

Zombie Driver

Top down drive/shoot game. Ostensibly you are supposed to pick up survivors and bring them back to safety. Most of the time you try to deal with the terrible driving physics and camera to line up zombies to run down. There are various cars to use to run over zeds and some different weapons, etc. Unless you get this dirt cheap avoid.

5/10
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Delta horse: Xtreme 2

hahahaha, jesus fuck, it's rehashed jops, on the jops engine, with widescreen support :)
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Post by Mr. Johnson »

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Delta horse: Xtreme 2

hahahaha, jesus fuck, it's rehashed jops, on the jops engine, with widescreen support :)
Sounds like this has some 5punky potential!
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Serious Sam HD

Serious Sam on SS3 engine, good clean stupid fun.

Makes my neck ache.
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Post by deject »

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Serious Sam HD

Serious Sam on SS3 engine, good clean stupid fun.

Makes my neck ache.
:above:
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Dirt 2

Grid, but with more Scandinavian flick.
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Post by HereComesPete »

I got a copy free with my 5870. I may even give it a go. If only they put guns on rally cars.
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Post by Lee »

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Dirt 2

Grid, but with more Scandinavian flick.
I just got this on the steam 50% off thing. I'm liking it, much more fun than Grid.
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Lee wrote:I just got this on the steam 50% off thing. I'm liking it, much more fun than Grid.
:above: though the way they managed to get the menus to lag is impressive. :lol:

Edit: ahh, driver update fixed that.
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