What have you been playing this week? 7/16/2011

Ladies, ladies, ladies!

I was supposed to post this thread yesterday but I was away (I was actually away. Like... outside) so it's going up a little late. However, the weekly "Whattya been playin?" thread is back! With a vengeance!!! And exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!

We want to hear about:

• What games you have been playing
• What you liked and what you didn't
• What you plan on playing this weekend

So Giant Bomb! What have you been playing?

Not much. I've been finishing my exams this week, so I haven't had a lot of free time to spend on gaming. But I did play some hours of Counter-Strike: Source and Civ V, though. Hopefully, now that I'm truly on vacation, I can catch up with my backlog. First thing, getting those Steam Achievements for Mad Moxxi's DLC in Borderlands :P

I have not been playing anything this week, but I'm going to dig into Team Fortress 2 again today. If everything goes as planned I'll be playing Ms. Splosion Man as well later.

Mostly TF2, and having very hard swings with it. It's a pain in the ass to find a good game since they went F2P, since I'm always joining teams with all the freebies that don't know how to play and we get rolled over instantly, or I'm on the team with a few people that do know how to play and we roll over all the freebies. Usually about one game out of 5-10 I get a good one and have fun, but god dam are they hard to come by these days.

• What games you have been playing

Finished LA Noire + all DLC, also finished my second playthrough of InFamous 2, as well

• What you liked and what you didn't

Didn't like the ending of LA Noire, but I enjoyed both games very much.

• What you plan on playing this weekend

Ms. 'Splosion Man, possibly try and finish DiRT 3 or get started on No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise.

I've been playing some Darksiders, Metro 2033, TF2 and Fifa 11.

Darksiders is a fun game, but there's some big flaws in the design that just make the game frustrating.

Metro 2033 is pretty good looking, PC version, but it has some Easter European 'jank'. Mainly the voice acting, while not horrendous it's distracting.

TF2 is great of course, I don't know why I haven't played it more.

Fifa 11 continues to be my go to online game.

League of Legends mostly. Played some four player Ms. Splosion Man last night. That game's fun for a while then sorta becomes a pain in the ass. This weekend...Probably more League of Legends. Perhaps co-op some Demon's Souls or Borderlands. I might try and jump into Xenogears again. I can't wait till stuff comes out.

What been playing?
Well I played and finished Ultimate Doom , Duke Nukem 3D and currently playing Doom 3 resurrection of evil for Xbox
What I liked?
Doom .... actually I really enjoyed it , I thought I wouldn't but I did ..... Did not liked the 4th episode of Duke Nukem 3D , I saw were must of the bad stuff of Duke Nukem Forever came from. And there is literally no one online for this 2 games so I can't ace them achievements :(
What am I playing this weekend?
Well I'm going to finish Doom 3 RofE and maybe play some Chronicles of Riddick Butcher's Bay

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood's pretty much it. I've done some iOS stuff, but it's primarily been all-stabbing-Renaissance-Italian-dudes-in-the-neck-all-the-time. I'm picking up Mass Effect 2 today and might dive into that or GTAIV tomorrow.

I've been playing BlazBlue: Continuum Shift on the PS3. That game is mad fun. And Makoto is awesome. And the Bang Install is the manliest thing in existence.

I've been trying my hand at TF2, the last time I'd played it was in 2008 and only very briefly thanks to my compy's habit of freezing. It's fun, but I feel like I'm just a fucking nuisance as a new player, particularly with all this F2P drama. It doesn't seem like it's a good time to be a new player whether you've actually purchased the game (which I did when I bought the Orange Box) or if you're a F2P, I'm still wondering if it's worth persisting with it - maybe I'm just latching onto the internet's incessant negativity too much. I doubt I'll be a long-time regular regardless, I tend to play multiplayer games in spurts.

Played through the first world of Ms. Splosion Man, it's better than it's predecessor and I'm really enjoying it.

Got in more time with the Uncharted 3 beta before it was taken down. Yemen left me super impressed, it was more enjoyable in objective-based gametypes where players couldn't really afford to just sit back and snipe the entire match. The co-op adventure mode is also great and ended on an awesome note with the vertical cover. Can't wait for the game's release in November.

After saving LA Noire's DLC until Reefer Madness hit I went ahead and played through it all. I still really enjoy that game and it was nice to return to it after a few months. The cases were okay but not terribly gripping, Nicholson Electroplating opened extremely well before fizzling out.

I'll just leave it at Epic Yarn and Epic Mickey, since any other answer would spoil future blogs. Wait, I forgot Revenge of the Titans and Lugaru HD (I'm just as surprised as you are).

I finished Sanctum, Defense Grid, Swords and Soldiers and The Maw.

Gobs and gobs of Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3, Ms. Splosion Man, and Super Street Fighter IV AE PC (which is an amazing port btw)

Mostly Space Rangers 2 and Shadows of the Damned.

Main game I have been playing is Ms. Splosion Man and I am on the last boss currently, I haven't even attempted the last boss yet but I can't wait for the ending, I will probably go for all the shoes and blast some more multiplayer as well when I am done. It's a must buy for fans of the original Splosion Man but perhaps not quite as good a game, it is definitely the more challenging game and has bags more content but it doesn't always feel quite as tight. Overall though the game is simply quite fantastic. Hardcore mode will probably be harder than the original which means it will be very, very, very hard.
 
Also have been playing a decent amount of FIFA 2011 due to the fact my friend gave me his copy because he didn't play it anymore, it's FIFA yo. Pretty much the same as all the other games but I still play it because I am English.
 
I picked up Zelda: Ocarina of Time again after a little while not touching my 3DS and I am enjoying it quite immensely. I have never played through Ocarina before due to the slow start it gets off to, which was once again a problem on the 3DS but now I am an adult I am really getting into it. The updated graphics and better menu system are also a huge plus.
 
I also played some turtles in time at the beginning of the week... I really don't like that game very much to be honest but I am trying to clean up some achievements in my arcade library and saw a couple of easy ones to grab. If I want to 100% it I will need to complete the survival mode and I am afraid that may be beyond me.

Star Ocean The Last Hope International. A few hours away from finishing it.

I bought Portal 2 during the Steam sale. Pretty damn cool. I also bought Hitman: Blood Money. I like it, but the game is crashing for some reason. I need to fix that. Other than that, just some Tiger Woods 12 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. All really good games.

Minecraft and about 5 minutes of Audiosurf.

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3.  I've been enjoying it quite a bit, actually, and the more involved story mode is pretty entertaining.  Definitely a game for fans, as they don't really take time to introduce the characters or tell you who they are, but they included a decent Gallery section if you feel like getting acquainted with the cast.  It's been a kick so far to see the villains of all the different series attempting to backstab each other first, and there's a great bit when all the Gundam-standard masked men meet up and there's an awkward moment where they realize they look kind of ridiculous.

They did some interesting things, such as having the battlefields do more than produce cannon fodder soldiers and maintain the morale of your army.  There are fields that will constantly repair you, fields that will provide you with support attacks (basically a secondary super attack you can use, calling in backup from another character), and one really fun base that just fires a gigantic missile at an enemy controlled area, killing anything still inside after the warning siren sounds for about 15 or 20 seconds.  Arguably the most important fields are the ones that bring in bonus generals for your side, as in this game a sufficiently sized group of named characters can swarm over enemy positions quite easily.  The big problem is that one-on-one, the character on your side will be on the losing end of an exchange probably seven times out of ten.  It's annoying, but you can always drop by and help them out.

I really think they should have marked the difficulty settings a little more clearly- Easy mode isn't what you play to cruise through the game and feel ashamed, it's what you play when you start the game and don't have anyone leveled up.  Playing on Normal at the start of the game is a terrible idea, as enemies will take forever to kill and you'll level up slowly as a result, keeping you from getting better suits, better attacks, and generally getting stronger, which will make the game seem terrible.  Play on Easy for a few missions, get a rank 2 suit, and then go to Normal - the game will be just about right.

I also wish they'd do away with the "Class" system they have for the suits, which basically means that certain suits- mostly the grunts and non Gundams- will have simplified movesets, which makes them hilariously not fun at all to play as.  Luckily, you're never required to play as them that I know of, and definitely not in the story mode.

Finally got around to playing Mafia 2 which I bought in the Christmas Steam Sale. Just finished it about an hour ago and I'm kind of glad I'm done with it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time with it for the most part however by the end I was getting tired of being killed ridiculously easily and having to redo sizeable sections due to the general lack of check pointing in that game. Also, I did not enjoy the driving in that game whatsoever. I found the cars to "snake" far too easily and ended up dying needlessly to car crashes more than once.

Continuing my spree of Indie games I picked up Ms Spolsion Man and the "Cthulu saves the World/Breath of Death" bundle on Steam. I'm not sure what I think of Ms Splosion Man. I never played Splosion Man so I don't have anything to compare it to really. I loved Super Meat Boy so I find it strange that I get frustrated with my many deaths playing this. The controls are not quite as tight as I would like them to be but I'll spend more time with it and give my verdict in the future.

Also started up Singularity which I picked up last Christmas, played about an hour and like what I'm seeing so far.

Minor spoiler: Within the first half hour of gameplay.

As for activities other than gaming this weekend I believe I'm going to have a quiet weekend in. Been out quite a few nights this week including the midnight launch of Harry Potter.

It was okay... I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world and when it was over I felt quite underwhelmed whereas the people around me were describing it as "THE BEST MOVIE EVER".

Finally completed Braid. That final level was pretty fantastic, and I'm still rather chuffed that I got through all the puzzles without an FAQ, and relied solely on the dust and crickets within my dome.

I played through Alice: Madness Returns. Terrific game that; I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

I completed Shadows of The Damned earlier this week and am currently pacing my way through Demon's Souls. Still trying to figure out how all the co-op and online stuff works but I'm enjoying the change from shooters and boring platformers.

Picked up Just Cause 2 on Steam and I've been playing that.

That game is amazing, 15 hours and I haven't done a single story mission.

Finally completed Braid. That final level was pretty fantastic, and I'm still rather chuffed that I got through all the puzzles without an FAQ, and relied solely on the dust and crickets within my dome.  

Resistance: Fall of Man- It's not... uh, it's OK.

@mracoon said:

Ms. Splosion Man and TF2.

WoW. Too much WoW. That Archaeology stuff is quite addicting.

Persona 3. Really liking it. More Persona 3.

EDF!  EDF!  EDF!

Finally just getting around to Fallout New Vegas and I played quite a bit of Mortal Kombat last night with my friends.

Finished Dawn of War 2 Retribution as Chaos Space Marines, didn't get the Steam achievement for it though, but at least i know i did beat it, end credits and all. Started a new campaign as Ork. Still have a few PC games to finish up, haven't bought anything on consoles for a good while now.

I still have yet to find my main game to sit and play so I've been drifiting in and out of random games. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Burnout Paradise, Nail'd and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. So a lot of racers, I've been reccently getting into racers in a big way. Tommorow I hope to spend it playing some Alice Madness Returns and tidying my mess of a room!

NCAA Football 12, NBA 2K11, Terraria, Starcraft 2, and a little bit of TF2.

I also bought tons of games during the Steam Sale that I haven't played. And by that I mean all of them.

Ms. Splosion Man and Resident Evil for 3DS have taken up most of my time lately, along with Persona 4 (again), Alice: Madness Returns, Oblivion (again!), and I've still got a couple things bought from the Steam sale that I haven't launched yet. I should finish some games...

portal 2, doing wheatley's puzzles.... loving every minute of it

I just finished Dragon Quest IX on the 14th.  Got nothing to play right now.  Waiting for El Shaddai and Catherine.

i went back to Assassins Creed Brotherhood and i realized i shouldnt have rushed it.  i finished all the Cristina missions and they give you a different perspective on Ezio

Playing FEAR3 and FORZA3  waiting for forza 4..

Mostly Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance.  I've been going back through playing older Castlevania games lately, started with the first 3 on the NES and then I jumped over to the GBA ones.  Beat Aria of Sorrow pretty quickly, and then most of the week has been playing HoD off and on.  I don't think I'm going to finish it though, HoD is a really crappy game.  The controls are as stiff as the old NES games, the main character, despite being a Belmont, might as well be named Alucard going by how badly they seem to want him to be Alucard with his after image tail and his pastey white complexion and white hair, and getting around the castle is a giant pain due to teleport pads that only take you to one specific other teleport pad in the castle.  Everything about it feels like it was taking steps backwards.  Maybe I'll change my mind at some point and try to finish it off, but for now I've moved on to Super Castlevania 4, which so far, is already far superior.  I may also throw in one of the three DS games sometime soon as those were mostly all pretty all right, even if I don't think I was the biggest fan of them the first time I played through them.
 
Edit:  I've also been increasingly tempted to pick up Kill Team to play with a friend of mine, but I keep asking myself if I REALLY want to drop 10$ on what I know will be a rather mediocre game that will only actually be really enjoyable when I have someone that's willing to play the game come over.

Dragon Quest V and....Hyperdimension Neptunia. Dragon Quest is Dragon Quest: colorful, epic, great music, metal slimes, stuff to find around every corner, and spells that keep traveling from becoming tedious. The thing I love most about DQ is all the different towns, each with their own feel and so many people to talk to.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is a bad game. Repetitive, poor graphics, video game jokes that fall flat...it's a NIS/Gust game so I wasn't expecting top of the line graphics or voice acting, but I was hoping for something as fun to play as their other RPGs. It would take many paragraphs to describe the sparseness of the design, from the identical looking dungeons to the easy repetitive combat. Yet somehow I want to complete the dang thing. I've decided the reason I keep picking up this game is because it is mindless. When I'm too stressed out to bring any focus or skill to most videogames, I can go into Hyperdimension Neptunia, whack things to death by button mashing, and slowly make progress through the story. And some of the boob jokes actually made me laugh. I must say the English translation is a bright spot in this game, whoever did it was having a lot of fun.

I might play some more Assassin's Creed Brotherhood this weekend if I have the time. That's what I WAS playing before the busy, exhausting period that drove me to pick up HN again. I just can't assassinate efficiently when I'm tired.

I've gone back to play Fallout: New Vegas again and that's probably what I'll be playing through the weekend. After some trouble I had at the start of the game it got a lot easier and since then I've actually been having a lot of fun with it. Pretty much everything that made Fallout 3 fun is what makes New Vegas fun; V.A.T.S. is enjoyable to use, the game has a very well-realised world, there's tons of content in there, the characters are interesting and the RPG elements are very satisfying. Rather predictably I have encountered a bunch of glitches in the game, I find myself getting a little fatigued by all the brown and grey in the games colour palette, and the shooting feels rather imprecise. These things haven't bothered me as much as they might have done though, if there's one thing that's put a bit of a damper on an otherwise very fulfilling experience, it's being stuck in a number of quests where it's unclear where I have to go next, what I have to do next, or what the consequences of certain actions will be.

I've finally been putting some solid time in with Dragon Age II after a like, five month hiatus. Man, this game is great. I'm loving the companions.

I've also played some more BLOPS to catch up with a friend, and I just now finished installing Duke Nukem Forever, to see how this game is.

My uncle bought a 360 a few days ago with Mass Effect, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Perfect Dark Zero, so along with my Gamefly of Operation Flashpoint: Red River, I'm going to have some serious gaming to do.

TF2. That's nothing new, I've been playing Team Fortress since it was an in-development Quake mod with three classes (Soldier, sniper, scout). I tried to start another S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC game and got about 6 hours in, but the dude I need to talk to just stands there and I can't activate him, so screw that game yet again.

Pretty much the same as last week. Terraria and Team Fortress 2. I messed around with Beat Hazard Ultra and they made some major changes. It's a better game, but it's still Beat Hazard.