Nutcrackr

Nutcrackr Doesn't visit GiantBomb much

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  • Sept. 22, 2008 - 2:35 a.m.
    Nutcrackr Doesn't visit GiantBomb much
  • Sept. 17, 2008 - 5:06 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Scorched's blog - Got Clear Sky
    so far 1.02 is going pretty well for me, but we will see.

  • Sept. 17, 2008 - 3:28 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just posted on Scorched's wall
    OUch 6 hour save, oh well, 1.02 is much much better for me.

  • Sept. 17, 2008 - 3:27 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just posted on DarkyHBK's wall
    stalker is good, but don't play anything before patch 1.02.

  • Sept. 13, 2008 - 11:34 p.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Scorched's blog - Time for Spore Impressions, Not So Good
    Heard some mixed responses about Spore, namely the space stage having constant attacks on your homeworld.

  • Sept. 13, 2008 - 3:39 p.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Zeus_gb's blog - Ati 4870x2 madness
    damn shame about the fan, do you use headphones?

  • Sept. 13, 2008 - 3:32 p.m.
    Nutcrackr just posted on Scorched's wall
    I already have clear sky, got it a week back. So far it's been crash happy using the 1.01 patch. I just upgraded to 1.02. and have to start again.

  • Sept. 13, 2008 - 1:21 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Hamz's blog - Wall of text goes here!
    crysis warhead on steam is excellent :)

  • Sept. 10, 2008 - 2:04 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Zeus_gb's blog - Seriously need a new graphics card! :(
    Lots of motherboards are nforce, mine is with an ATI card. It runs fine, sure it may run 1-2% faster with ATI, but AMD would sue the pants off nvidia if they for some reason throttled down just because it was an AMD card in the slot.

  • Sept. 9, 2008 - 5:31 a.m.
    Nutcrackr just commented on Zeus_gb's blog - Seriously need a new graphics card! :(
    I thought the 4870x2 was the fastest card available right now? Anyway are you running dx10?

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About Me
Play mostly PC games nowadays. Big shooter fan, I like FPS multiplayer games like BF2, TFC, CS:S. Love my single player games just as much such as Half-Life, Deus Ex, Far Cry. Like horror and aliens, sci-fi is preferred genre. I am sick of the WW2 games and dislike games that sacrifice too much gameplay for realism. I'm from Australia and visit many other sites - such as Gamespot. If you see a nutcrackr spelt like this, good chance it's me :) My xfire username is also nutcrackr and I'm on there a fair bit.
My Blog
Added by nutcrackr on Aug. 23, 2008 | |

This post relates to: Tomb Raider: Underworld, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Colonies Edition

In a few months we have some big PC games coming. To give you an idea here are some box shots of most of those top tier games from sept onwards. :)


Not a bad list of upcoming games I must say :D COD World at War could be there, but I'm not sure it will make 08?

Tomb Raider underworld looks good. They announced a new Lara Croft model, Allision Caroll, gymnast :) She fits the role very well, esp her moves. The Red Alert 3 cast trailer rocked, nice to see some great cheesy FMVs are back, some big actors. And I am thankful that they seem to be making cutscenes for the Rising Sun faction.

Which games are you guys excited about? Buying, Preordering even?

As for me I finished Lost Planet, it was ok, not fantastic, had some good boss fights and nice dx10 graphics. I got online and tried some of the GFW Live gold for free. Coming from a PC server background the setup is a bit different, you first join a lobby, then wait (AND WAIT) till 16 players join or the host starts. Then you play, this is not too bad. But what was stupid was as soon as you finish a round, you basically get booted all the way back to the menu, and have to search for servers again. Same goes if connection is lost or server is full. You must refresh them again.

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Now the actual MP isn't bad, it has a few game modes, lots of nade spam. But for me it was completely unplayable, Really the best I could get was a Japanese (probably 360 hosted) server, and there was sersiously a few seconds delay when I pick up a weapon. I could really only get kills by spamming grenades. So that ends that escapade. The game did a great job masking lots of the lag, like you could move freely and shoot easily. But I could tell there was a very high latency.

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Bionic Commando Rearmed, got it from Direct2Drive, but you can also get it on gamersgate. It's a sidescroller with 3d graphics (good too) and it's a bit of fun, you use a grapple to swing about, good for the price ($15). nice music + sound.

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Have fun guys :)

By the way if anybody wants a guest pass to TF2, I have one available :)




Added by nutcrackr on Aug. 2, 2008 | |

This post relates to: Rage, Doom 4, Spore, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Assassin's Creed, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Colonies Edition

Today in Australia, on the East coast they let everybody get the full Spore Creature Creator for $2 with a newspaper, EA pushed it quite big here and I think it will be huge. I got my copy, but may give it away to somebody.

Giantbomb was launched a few weeks back, I was pretty crazy on the editing thing for a week or so then got quite sick of having to wait so long just to do minor updates that were replaced by other peoples edits because of the delay. Once you get to 1000 points you can do as you wish though. It's obviously going to be a bit more detailed than wiki is. The forums are not pleasant to navigate.


--Gaming--

Bought Condemned in THQ's gamers choice range, finished it in about 5 hours. Game had a few disturbing sections and some good shock scares. I was quite disappointed with the ending, basically you have a "boss fight" only the fight is repeated about 6 times where you kill the boss.
[spoiler] You get to kill this demon type guy with these fast pole things, he's pretty tough but you can usually just time your blocks and attack him.


I also finished Assasin's Creed, the last assasination battle was hard, but the boss was pretty weak. The game as you may know features this sci-fi experience out of these animus generated memories, it actually helped it from getting too repetitive. In fact in small doses of 1 hour I thought it held up nicely, the combat improves as you progress and unlock more weapons and items, I think they did a pretty good job with the game really, the game doesn't really end though, outside the memories the game is not resolved at all.

 

I picked up Lost Planet Colonies, played a little bit and actually I don't mind it, It looks good, plays pretty well, some of the voice acting is questionable at times, but it was basically half price of a full new game so it's doing well for me. It has 360/PC play and live too. I don't really know what tweaks they made to this edition, the demo levels were fairly similar to what I remember.


Quakecon brought some cool news, Doom 4 (which we knew about) is going to be more like doom 2. Rage is mutants with vehicles. Sounds a bit like Stalker/Oblivion/Doom 3 mix, sad about the T rating - lucky PC gets mods for blood :D


Saw The X-Files movie, was alright - felt like a run of the mill extended x-files episode, which honestly can't be bad as a fan of the series.



My Lists

1. Favorites

A list of 0 items by nutcrackr last updated on July 22, 2008

nutcrackr: Favorites


2. Wishlist

A list of 1 item by nutcrackr last updated on Aug. 11, 2008

nutcrackr: Wishlist


3. Best Games

A list of 3 items by nutcrackr last updated on Aug. 11, 2008

Best games I've played


Top Contributions

Half-Life: Source
31 Points

Penumbra: Requiem
19 Points

Sci-Fi
18 Points

Luka
15 Points

My Reviews
Reviewed by nutcrackr
July 22, 2008
Does a man require BioShock? Yes, says the man reviewing.


This game presents itself wonderfully, from the music to the beautiful style of the underwater city and the brilliant voice work, putting this game a class above most. The game feels very polished and you can get a real sense of progress throughout the game.

There are a few main story characters, they distinguish themselves nicely and are very exaggerated to fit into the world. Without spoiling the game the story unfolds nicely, comes to a fitting conclusion and overall feels solid, naturally with room for further games in the franchise. BioShock uses music well, whether via brief sequences to heighten tension or to set a mood for an upcoming area. The music played on jukeboxes and record players is from the time and has been nicely selected.

Game wise you wouldn't be punished for likening this to something like Deus Ex, plasmids give you nifty abilities and weapons compliment them. You can upgrade weapons using machines to increase damage or things like clip size. Plasmids require an energy type device called evo collected in the world, in order to gain more plasmids or increase plasmid abilities you need adam. The only place to get this stuff is from little sisters, either by rescuing them or harvesting them. The little sisters move throughout levels and are protected by huge diving suit wearing protectors. These big daddies will leave you alone unless you want some adam and you must defeat them to get it. The have high health, and can rush you quickly or used grenades from distances. Compared to most splicers they are tough. The game world contains many stations that offer health, ammo, gene swapping and are early on placed in order to direct your experience. Later on the game lets you take a more personalized path. Sadly there is no inventory, items like food can't be stored and must be eaten, the looting system feels a bit odd. Hacking is done through a simple flash type game that gets harder as the game goes on, it's not ideal and gets old fast. You also can't die in the game, vita chambers pull you back to the current world with all your ammo/weapons and full health. Often it means its better just letting yourself die than wasting a first aid kit. It does however ensure the gameplay doesn't get frustrating because you don't really have to repeat any sequences, just a bit of trekking.

One of the things I enjoyed most from the game are how enemies react and talk to you, telling you that they can see you or that they “just want to talk” heh yeah right. Little sisters get heavy on the abusive chit chat when their protectors start fighting Some of the plasmids let you sit back and watch the action which I also found enjoyable. There is definitely a certain sense of awe you get from playing BioShock and not just graphically, Rapture is a place most gamers should visit.



Reviewed by nutcrackr
July 22, 2008
Legend is the same, just with less thinking and more shooting.


After trying Tomb Raider Anniversary and enjoying it I decided to get into Legend. In terms of controls it's much the same, although various strangely situated buttons may need to be reassigned it won't be long before things are familiar. Now Legend does look nicer than Anniversary thanks to the next gen content, this is basically better textures, bump maps and unified lighting/shadow system. It's not the best running game and still has fairly low polygon environments but it looks ok. The role of Lara is straightforward, you perform various platforming moves at various locales including Japan, Bolivia and Africa. The story centres on one of Lara's old friends who was trapped in a cave in, it unravels some of Lara's own past and leaves it open for the continuation in Tomb Raider Underworld.

There are familiar puzzles, many platforming events this time rely more on quick action rather than a pre-thought process. Most of Legend is very straightforward, there aren't many open puzzles like in Anniversary and you will usually know the direction of travel, you just need to perform the jumps correctly and on time. Legend also features an excess of action, rather generic, extremely dumb enemy grunts are placed ahead of you at various points in the game. These combat areas are uninteresting and feel out of place in the game, the ability to throw grenades grants some interest. There are also a few motorcycle rides, one in particular sees Lara chasing down a train, you travel beside it and take out more generic, stupid grunts on motorbikes, its poorly implemented with only passable vehicle physics. Most of the game is still linear platforming, with the occasional stunt or puzzle to solve. The more difficult and non-linear aspects arrive in collecting the various treasures throughout the levels, some take a bit more thought or a slight journey off the linear path. The croft manor is also quite open and there are some nifty word puzzles that aren't too hard along with the usual scavenger hunt.

The story is quite intriguing in some respects, and the dialogue is both witty and consistent in helping to keep you motivated for the next task. The absence of difficult open layout puzzles and the short nature of the story punish this otherwise good game. The boss battles are not particularly hard but feel unnecessary. The music is quite good, fitting with some of the locales well enough to warrant a mention. Anniversary will give you a more challenging, lengthy and satisfying adventure. Legend will give you more action and the continuation of the platforming experience.



Reviewed by nutcrackr
July 22, 2008
A detailed and atmospheric world with very impressive gameplay


Last time I played a game with a huge amount of potential I had great feelings about the future of the First Person Shooter genre. The game combined the shooting elements I loved with the choice and character development of an RPG. To my great disappointment the game did not kick start a revolution, it seemed as though most had just ignored it despite it’s stellar ratings. Deus Ex is the game I’m referring to and after almost 7 years the mix of genres has been drastically under utilized, only a handful of titles have been released with a similar playing style.

Enter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from stage right, an eerie shooter set in an alternate universe around the Chernobyl area called “the zone”. The game seems to have come from an older time because even it’s very design, whereby the player is not being told exactly what to do, seems to comes from an older era. The game has fewer RPG elements when compared with Deus Ex but it does not suffer from it. You don’t need to worry about putting points in weapon classes only to have your options limited should you get a sniper rifle. Your experience is gained by your own use of weapons much like how standard shooters work. As you travel further into the zone enemies get harder and weapons found are much more dangerous. Most of the enjoyment comes from being able to choose how you want to approach quests and seeing how that choice changes the AI.

Of course the game is not a direct Deus Ex clone set in Chernobyl. The game world is far more open and you can travel between the connected levels any time you wish. The AI can also travel between these regions, this may be in order to strengthen numbers or to perform other quests as though you were not the center of the entire game world. It’s not uncommon to come back to a zone and see dead bodies strewn about, ones you did not shoot. Animals such as dogs within the zone move in packs and circle around dead Stalkers and require some different tactics to overcome.

The game’s direction does not suffer when you add this extra freedom and allow players to do side quests. There is a fairly clear path of main quests that the character follows and a PDA will regularly keep you up to date on them. This direction also includes more traditional corridor segments in underground areas. Atmosphere increases greatly during these underground sequences where there can be quite a high level of detail in the environments. If you are lucky enough to have a PC that can run it with dynamic lighting then you are in for a special treat. The whole game is lathered with atmosphere the chilling sounds in the distance, the dynamic weather and time of day system and the click of your Geiger counter as you enter an area high in radiation. Based on my experience I can only hope that games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. become commonplace. The key word I mentioned earlier is potential and despite being a great game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has so much more potential to become a masterpiece.



Reviewed by nutcrackr
July 22, 2008
The choice is yours as Geralt in this superbly crafted RPG


In The Witcher you play as Geralt, a human mutant who slays monsters, set out to recover the secrets of the Witchers. The Witcher is a great Role playing game and it doesn't have hundreds of weapons and armor, it doesn't have a insane amounts of random loot to collect. What it does do is let you play a role, that role is to choose a path that the story should follow. Choose who to kill, who to accuse and who to trust. These aspects are carefully played out through a series of quests and at various points you are called to decide on two or three mini branches of the story. These branches may result in a battle further in consists of different enemies, or characters changing their opinions of you. The resulting flashback images at key story moments will be presented in a very rich and detailed way of the events you previously completed.

The Witcher does contain a lot of action, there are two main ways of fighting, one with axes or clubs and other weapons, the other with Witcher fighting styles that use swords. These styles can be improved in the character screen, they give you access to extra hits, more damage when you get the correct timing for your attacks and other critical effects like bleeding, stun that can provide you with better attacks. There are three main stances: strong, fast and group. Strong is for larger creatures / armoured units, Fast for quick nimble guys and group for those who like to attack 10 monsters at once, in fact group stance is sometimes overpowered should you get enough enemies around you. You also have two sword types, silver and steel, silver is more useful against monsters. These swords can be forged using meteorites or runes or upgraded using polishing items. The combat can be a bit clumsy at time, but there is some great fighting animation. Unfortunately some combat occurs directly after a long cutscene giving you little time to really prepare. Along with your melee skills are a range of signs, these are basically magic type skills and there are five: fire, air (knock/stun), trap, shield and hex (turn monsters), they are simple yet they are all quite varied and perform different roles. Although I didn't use shield and hex that much, it does depend on how many tokens you place into the various sign skill trees as to how potent they can be, I found great use for the other three.

Aside from these basic combat and magic styles, you have a broad range of alchemy formulas. These formulas create 3 main groups, potions, bombs and oils. Potions range from giving you health, slowing time to increase your reflexes or increasing damage. Bombs are area effect type devices you throw on the ground, that can scare enemies, although I didn't use these much and there aren't many of them. Oils are bonuses that you can apply to your weapons, they provide damage boosts to certain creatures and last for a day in game These are incredibly useful when you go on a side quest to deal with a specific type of enemy. All formulas are made using a range of ingredients with base materials and an alcohol base. Some with unique ingredients from boss monsters. To learn potions you can read books or scrolls most of them can be bought from traders, or you can make up your own and hope that you don't poison yourself. You gather most ingredients from either dead monsters or plants. To gather these items you must have the monster or plant recorded in your detailed journal, letting you extract the required items from plant or creature, again this information is mostly gained from books.

The game world continues to live around you, there is a day night cycle, in general nighttime is unsafe when you are outside and monsters can popup out of nowhere, although some roam, many you face will spawn from the ground or area around you. You can run away from many of them, at which point they give up the chase. Some creatures come out at night, like vampires, so if you require something from them you have to pick the right time of day. NPCs in the game world will go about their tasks, take shelter when it rains and make somewhat rude comments about Witchers. Some characters will have a daily job cycle and you need to be aware of it to find where they are at that time. Alternatively you can find any fireplace and meditate to a set time of day, meditation is used to distribute tokens and also to make potions, and you gain health during this time. It's similar to sleeping in Oblivion where you can skip hours in a few seconds.

Quests range from collecting items from creatures including taking the heads off the more unique ones. Collecting plant materials, saving sisters by releasing their souls, fighting an uprising, interrupting a bank robbery. There is a great range of quests and aside from side quests they don't often feel tiring apart from some treks later in the game. It's worth mentioning how solid and consistent the art style is, it can be a very good looking game in places, character and monster design is very good. Sound wise its relatively good. There are some issues with the sound levels from during dialogue sequences and some translation mistakes but overall its solid. More impressive is the wonderfully orchestral music score that will journey into your ears while playing.

The game draws similarities from a few games, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines and Diablo. The game presents a similar setting to Diablo, crypts and dungeons along with some good monster design and weapon/art. Geralt like JC Denton is a badass character that can choose rewards from quests and engage in conversation in a few different ways as you progress through a story. Also like Bloodlines where you have main hubs and different factions to ally yourself with during the game. The Witcher story is a linear progression but with a series of choices that alter situations, characters and flashback storyboards, each chapter usually means a new main area is unlocked and possibly more combat areas. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are the longest and the best in terms of content and quest range. Characters will often continue through the story just as you do, or reappear further down the track, and most are fairly well developed and memorable. The game doesn't fizzle away thankfully; it maintains the high quality of story telling, and even increases your decisions during the later chapters. It ends quite concisely, but with many good mysteries remaining, finally giving you another epic cutscene just like the intro to finish with a bang.




495 Points
Ranked #924 of 24,580

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Nutcrackr Stats
Date Joined: July 22, 2008
City: what about country, thar be dragons you north americans?
Gender: Male
Alignment: PC
My Friends
Kush
seems like my 360 is dead...
1 hour, 18 minutes ago
ElectricHaggis
needs scissors! 61!
5 hours, 3 minutes ago
pill92
Enjoying Comand & Conquer 3.
1 day ago
Scorched
just got back from vacation
2 days, 5 hours ago
Hamz
4 Dead
4 days, 5 hours ago
Gunner
F**K Authority! - Pennywise
1 week ago
xruntime
is still playing TF2...
1 week, 2 days ago
TheC0m1ssar
is so overjoyed that a Dekaron Online private server is going to be released... in ENGLISH! :D
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Gagan
is blown away by Gears of War 2
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jarryd
enjoying the last few weeks of being one of the only aussies to have rock band
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Nutcrackr's Wall
Scorched
on Sept. 20, 2008
ok, now I lost a 10 hour save. I think I'll take a little break from Clear Sky.
Scorched
on Sept. 15, 2008
yeah stalker seems really buggy. I lost my 6 hour save yesterday, that really sucked.
DarkyHBK
on Sept. 15, 2008
so, how's Clear Sky? I still didn't manage to get it :(
Scorched
on Sept. 10, 2008
Clear Sky 3 days left! It's almost here! Plan to get it the day it's out, I'm assuming you as well consider you're also a huge STALKER fan. I just can't wait. I need more STALKER!
xruntime
on Aug. 19, 2008
Oh no, I've played way too many games to keep track of... I've played all those recommendations except The Witcher and World In Conflict
dev_ron
on Aug. 15, 2008
watup mate? you're here too :)
WizzyKid
on Aug. 13, 2008
But STALKER had to look like a N64 game so it could run smoothly on my mid-range PC. Yet there's games like Bioshock will full settings no problem. That sure is reaaally annoying. But, PC upgrade soon, so hopefully I can enjoy it at it's beauty =)
xruntime
on Aug. 13, 2008
By the way, I never actually knew - what is the monster in your avatar?
DarkyHBK
on Aug. 13, 2008
hey man...good to see you here :)
xruntime
on Aug. 10, 2008
Hey, by the way, you're supposed to respond to another person's wall post on their wall (if you've ever used facebook, just like that)
nutcrackr
on Aug. 9, 2008
stalker is very lite of the RPG, I'm not a huge fan of heavy RPG games, don't play many. But I do like fps rpg mix :D
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