Oh no , as much as I love red alert two (French Grand Cannon kicks butt) , I still prefer CNC.

You crazy fool. Oh well, each to their own.

For the past four years every christmas brought the promise of Lord of the Rings in either cinema release or dvd form. So to fill the void I am playing Battle for Middle Earth. Mild joy.

Battle for Middle Earth isn't fabulous, but it isn't bad. Even the skirmish mode is fun, especially as Gondor with trebuchets on the walls.

At all costs avoid War of the Ring, its a primitive game that looks as if it was made on a Warcraft style engine.

Noted, seeing as my better half bought it, played it once and hasn't left the box for many months.

Haven't had much chance to do the skirmishes yet, something to do in these dark winter nights.

Got Rome: Total War today and it is quite an amazing game, totally immersive and outstanding. The mix of combat, diplomacy, treachery and resource management is really great. The fact that I haven't got that far with it yet is just a testament to how good it is. I wasted about 3 hours on the bloody titorial for god's sake!

Great game is it not? My problem is that as you start to advance across the map , your origional cities start getting more and more pissed off with you , and your econonmy also becomes a pain in the arse to manage.

I've ordered Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the PSP. Here are some screenshots:






Hasn't arrived yet, but I can't wait. Its the only FPS I've seen with remotely positive reviews on the PSP, and I love ghost in the shell.

Its a shame about Condemed but oh well, My mum just got me Call Of Duty 2 fpr the X360 but I have to wait until early next year fpr my actual console

And GUN kicks ass.

Well, that's only one person's opinion. The reviews I've seen of it have tended to be fairly positive, and Monolith usually do a pretty good job. I'll give it a go myself.

I'm not saying that you shouldnt play it, just that you might be a bit dissapointed after a few hours. I'd suggest renting it.

I love racing games, me. Hadn't bought anything for the PS2 in months (probably closer to a year), so I decided to grab a copy of Mashed: Fully Loaded and Flat Out for a grand total of £15 at HMV at the weekend... for two highly rated games that weren't bad if I do say so myself. I've yet to play them though.

I'm getting annoyed with the ranked online career on PGR3 now. Every single bloody race I do is ruined by idiots who can't drive who crash me off at the first corner.

Tell me about it. When I used to play TOCA race driver2 on the old Xbox live , you couldn't go a single lap without some tosser punting you off into the scenery. Ruins the games online enjoyment.

Ooh, Halo 2 has changed Team Snipers to a ranked game, and worked out your rank based on previous games played when it was unranked. Plus some more game types to enjoy. Ain't Bungie great?

I suppose but if it's a bad report from you then I shall be waiting until Dead Rising before I purchase a new game, or until I get bored whichever comes first.

I'm waiting till christmas before I play it

Fair enough. Fucking February

Saw the new Final Fantasy film tonight, anyone who was a fan of Final Fantasy VII should see it. See 'the last film I watched' for a detailed review.

Already talked about it at length in a thread dedicated to it a while ago. Great stuff. Roll on February for the UK dvd release...

FF12 has a March release date in Japan so we'll be looking at a summer/autumn release. Apparently you can actually see the enemies walking around during gameplay. No more random battles. The storyline is based around the same universe as FF Tactics advance. I really hope that its better than the plot from that though.

My copy of Final Fantasy VII should be with me on Friday or Saturday, best get that essay finished in the next day or so lest it eat up valuable role-playing time.

Have you already played it before?

Finished it about 5-6 times. Silly the amount of time I spent on it. Something like 350 hours in total. I wish I still had that kind of time to play games.

mmm, Final Fantasy aint my kinda game. Resident evil, especially 4th one, its a must have! or metal gear solid 3.

Completed Super Ghouls and Ghosts for the first time ever last night. Yay me.

lol cool, i had that back when I was like 10, I only ever did get up to the ghost ship, level 2 I believe.

And it's good to see an av including christmas AND Bill Murray from you

I borrowed it off the guy who used to live in our attic (this is true) a few years ago but I didn't get a chance to finish it due to our Playstation dying on us. I'm looking forward to finally sinking my teeth into it properly over christmas.

Been playing Need for Speed Most Wanted on Xbox quite a bit this week. Quite good, but I am getting annoyed with the Police chasing me all the time.

i might have an adaptor for the nes i belive i have an old nes in the attic if you havent already brought the adaptor ill have a look for you at the weekend also have a few games for it i know the actual system dosnt work very well keeps flickering

This is quite old, but it's absolutely hilarious... The video review is great.

it's fucking rock hard.

I bought myself a PS2 and I'm loving "Singstar 80s" (I am all about the 80s) and "Buzz!" is heaps of fun. I also got "Taito Legends" which is hillarious. Bubble Bobble on my PS2 man!! It's the best!


Cheers
AC (back from hibernation)

Hello Auschick, welcome back

Thanks Jubei it's good to be back


Cheers
AC (back from hibernation)

I've just been looking at some DS games on play.com having just bought Mario Kart DS and its rejuvinated my love for the big grey cinderblock of goodness, when I stumbled across this.



A little too Metroid Primey don't we think?

Seems I just got meself an X-box 360 premium bundle:
My bro: You owe me $440.00.
Me: Kiss my ass.
My bro: I guess you don't want an Xbox 360.
Me: Kiss your ass.
</Griswald>

I had that on the megadrive, don't you have to complete it and then do the whole thing again with some sort of magic wand?

I had spent 7 hours back to back just completing it the first time, I didn't go and run though it all again.

Was it worth it? That damn fly thing!, I hated it!

-m0r

Nice. Which games? If you're going to go on Live my gamertag's "Arnold Sideways". I'll mostly be found swearing at people on PGR3.

I'll go rent something tonight (I really dont know what all is out). I'm sure I'll grab Perfect Dark Zero because I loved the original and of course to give you some respect. I've said it before on here, I am terrible at FPS games with a controller these days. Any suggestions are welcome for games.
I'll check out the whole live business tonight because I think it comes with a free trial. Not sure how our gaming will work out because of ping times but it will be worth a shot.

If you like racing games I would highly recommend Project Gotham 3. I've been playing it for the past few weeks now, it's pretty damn good.

I've been playing Stronghold 2. It's good, just buggy as hell, and the patches just make it worse.
Back to Rome Total War - Barbarian Invasion I think.

The magic bracelet thing. Yeah. There's a final boss after you run through the whole thing again. It isn't that impressive. I guess it wasn't worth it in retrospect. But then computer games never are.

They must be, otherwise why do we do it?

Anyway Resi 4 was worth it and so was Ocarina of Time.

(they're just off the top of my head folks. I have played and completed much more than that)

To kill time.

This was just released over here



http://ffiv.nintendo.com/final/

If we did it to kill time then we wouldn't sit there and play a game religiously until we've completed it

I reckon, the challenge. It's pleasurable to get fully stuck into something and let other considerations not be considered. Focus on accomplishing something manageable and engrossing.

It also makes you look cool when you kick yor friend's arses at something...

I may be off the mark, but I think whitey meant that you don't play them for the endings, we play them for the entertainment of playing.


I've been playing a fair bit of F.E.A.R. over the last few days, initially I ignored it as another generic shooter, but it's really well made and has kept my attention well.

We do that for the sense of achievement we get from essentially sitting really still for over 5 hours, and for the story, sometimes. They're puzzles (like wordsearches*) with bonus colours and movement. Sheer entertainment.

Anyone who makes it out to be more than something to do is a little lame.

Really, don't get me wrong on this one, I'm a gamer, I love the buzz you can get from gaming. I just don't think it's anything other than a low-activity passtime, like watching TV or reading a book.

Actually, it's less so, because the feeling of achievement you get from gaming is so out of proportion with what you produce in reality. Indeed, if I could go back and advise myself on one thing in my life, it'd be to do something real other than, or as well as, play games as much as I have done. Maybe then I'd have some skills. Or at least not have such a long list of "skills to get and stuff to do".

*not crosswords, though, you need knowledge to do them...


ED: this didn't take me forever to write, I was doing other things and lost track of time...

Rome Total War is very addictive, but it is helping with my Roman history module since it does kind of show the communication issues etc got in the way and were troublesome.

Final Fantasy os pretty awesome as well, though I didn't get to play it a smuch as I would have liked over the weekend.