Update:

Whale Lagoon: Closer, but not close enough.
Rampart Road: Done!
Monkey Target: Done!

Your move, FreezeCarl.

Have you even played it? My choice of terminology aside, the game is clearly, clearly, fucking clearly aimed at attracting a newer audience who perhaps would have been scared off by a more traditional RPG. And yes, you do need to switch paradigms quiet a lot later on in the game. I don't see the problem with that comment. You know a paradigm is an in game mechanic, right? Not an over the top piece of linguo I have pulled from my ass?

Perhaps you would like to explain yourself with a well constructed post full of detailed, logical arguments for my 'expanded mind' [and where did you get that from? Ditto with my relentless attacks on the 'dumb masses'] to chew over.

Go off and get angry in a place more befitting of your mythic stature. Like a sealed fucking room. Save the rest of us the torment of having to endure your ~hardc0re rants full of wonderful abstract insults.

You desktop.

Ok,

Whale lagoon: still champ
Shabuya downtown: done
Sewer scrapes: done
Thunder deck: done

your move Jayeelum

Oh this is fun. More people should be doing this. I'm so glad you've done Shibuya Downtown, that course is a joy to drift around. Same with Thunder Deck actually. It definitely adds to the "one more go" factor if you find the tracks particularly satisfying.

I'm sure you'll be working to reclaim Monkey Target again in secret too. Man that course is such a bitch. You need a handbrake on top of your drift button for that climb back to the top.

How fast is that Q Cumber guy by the way? Jesus.

It is clearly designed to appeal to that crowd, but I wonder if they actually exist. There's people who like RPGs, and people who don't, I'm not sure many people are SCARED off RPG's as such. And if they do exist I think this boring start to the game will only build on that fear.

Yeah, the battle music and boss music kind of died a death in FF12, and although I think I know what the battle music is here I'm not completely sure. I know who the first boss is, but since then I've not really been sure what's what. All I know is that I've run forwards and nothing but for the past three hours, occasionally mashing X and saving. It's probably the worst Final Fantasy since the original three, and unless there's a drastic change in Gameplay SOON I'm going to feel pretty fed up of this. If it takes me anywhere near the 25 hours Gamecentral described to reach a "relatively open world" I'll be majorly pissed off.

I agree it's going to backfire and bore the piss out of virtually anybody. I really don't understand Square's rational this time around. The amount of series hallmarks omitted is staggering and yes, it's going to take about 25 hours to reach the point where you get to explore a bit. And from what I have read the game does not tail off into that section, it's simply an area you can spend some time in and then move on from.

The story is still keeping me going and it's one beautiful looking game, but I'm sure those facets won't carry the weight of an entire world for long. Even the character progression is an illusion. That sphere grid knock off is as linear in it's progression as the game itself.

Hmm, with JLM being my Mario Kart arch nemesis for a little while there, I'm really tempted to go out and by this just for a blast at time trials! Must resist!!!!!!!!!

Just finished the first Mass Effect, and ended up completely loving it despite having aborted several attempts to play it in the past from thinking the first half hour was too boring. I'm going to have my dinner then go and get ME2 from the 24 hour Tesco.

I started playing the 2nd one today at my mate's and quite enjoyed it, even though I lost interest in the first one straight away. So i've borrowed the first one to play through in the hopes it improves. Glad you think it does.

Stick with it and see if you manage it - it took a bit of sussing out just to get the hang of how to actually play it, and it needed a fair amount of patience to keep playing while the story picked up and attempted to explain itself, but eventually something clicked and everything fell into place. It's taken about 20 hours to get to the end, but that's without properly exploring all the planets to do the side missions and all that sort of stuff. I feel like I could happily play through it again, but I'd like to move on to the second one and play a new story rather than play this again straight away.

The plan was to trade in DJ Hero and use the £45 to buy ME2, but in the last couple of days the trade-in price has dropped to £28. Seeing as I paid £60 for it just a couple of weeks ago, a £28 return seems like a bit of a bad deal!

Little Review AKA Bashing about Final Fantasy XIII/13

(The comments are opinions of my own and no one elses, sorry if it offends anyone, I am borderline dislexic so pardon me for any grammer errors.)

The voice acting is so shocking to listen to. The voice acting gives me the sence that I'm playing Sonic Heroes again (yes I did play that). Its incredibly cheesy, I felt embarsed when anyone else was in the room while playing this Dross.

The playable characters in this game come across as people you would want to TWAT in the street. A love sick "EMO" puppy, some bad ass ex-female soilder (ex-soilder eh FF7?). Some barely jail bait princess for the perverts out there, some black guy WHO has a birds nest for hair which a Chocobo lives in? Finally a little punk kid whos a cry baby. Their fucking names as awful what do the Japanese smoke when they come up with these names? Snow, Lightning, Hope and some others. Why cant we have an adventure with a tough name like "Takes no Shit man" or better yet how about something possibly tough but a actually name ie Bruce not Snow, even Squall sounded half decent.

The combat mode. WTF, I thought FF12 was bad with the World of WarCraft fighting style, now they just have you the player taking control of ONLY one person out of your group while fighting, and then its so fucked up. Auto attack? I want to play the game not have the CPU do it for me thats like playing Forza then just clicking HIRE DRIVER the whole game. Then the extras like Style of Fighting and the role of each person while in battle I would like to have more options mayone one can be mage one a brick shithouse and the other a black mage? It probarly does have the function for this but the game makes up words like no tomorrow. When you do actually attack afterwards you often stand DIRECTLY infront of the enemy and surely are going to be attacked and killed then game over. Also if the guy your controlling Dies thats it game over? Bring back the system of FF1-10 please they attack then you attack and you controller everyone.

The leveling up system, actually this reminds me ALOT of FF10's which was different and was'nt too bad with the sphere grid, this is like the same just you only have so many skills. WHY CP for leveling up why not just call it XP for fuck sake and just earn 1 level for each power up. (Already been mentioned by someone else on here)

The Storyline. WTF is going on, people running round like Headless chickens again it seemed like FF10 at the beginning when ruinning through Zan-land (cant remember the full name). Its all confusing, they throw in words that your meant to know with barely no explaination, ie the Legend. Its like being thrown in the deepend. But so far it seems like a bit of a rip off FF10. We start off in a place called Cocoon WTF name is that, Cocoon was a old movie which was damn right weird but half good, they might aswell called it Tokyo 3010

The graphics are amazing in cut scene but while playing the game Im not Blown away just looks normal

Reading the IGN review, it seems they are trying to break away from its roots that made it famous and try new things. It tries and fails from my point of view. I hate the voice work, I miss the fun fair end tune when the fight it over, the boss theme isnt catchy like on other games. According to IGN they state that it takes 30 hours to get control of the game os you have control FUCK THAT. So maybe its best to treat FF13 as something new and forgot its successful past from FF1-10. Its just using its name Like Modern Warfare to try something new and since its called Final Fantasy people will buy it anyhows, their call their money.

Shame since FF10 the series has gone down hill. FF13 would of been better just as a movie instead of a game.

Overall it seems like its an half arsed job from Square whoever as previously mentioned, I feel like I have wasted 3 hours playing that, I'll give it a few more hours to kill before Perfect Dark is released on Wednesday.

I glad I have 2 consoles, 1 modded console along with the regular one (as the modded one IS banned). Its 21gig down the drain.
Got Bad Company 2 and Sega racing which is a poor rip off Mario Kart, the sonic tracks wind me up they could of easily used the classic song themed stuff than sonic heros poo. What is Currians Manson whats wrong with house of the dead? (easy achievements though )

Rant OVER about FF13. Only a 4/10, thats just for the graphics, I am prepared to give it more time but for now after 3 hours this is where it stands. (sorry but I'm extremely tough on big title games)

BTW anyone with a modded console apparently with big dashboard update coming soon, mentioned on "sentuamessage", apprarently word has it that another BAN WAVE is coming on the 360, so upgrade to the lite-touch firmware ASAP, this is some of the reasons for mass updates on all games or so they say.

Finally FF14 is another MMO-RPG. Wonderbar. NOT.

Im actually going to play on my wii better yet N64 emulator

Are there any games you actually do like?

Avatar: The Last Airbender. It netted him a cool 1000g!

I stopped Final Fantasy XIII after disc one yesterday. Fuck that.

What's worse is Square fanboys are coming out fo the woodwork all of a sudden proclaiming that the side quests they grew up loving were in fact completely pointless distractions.

Well yes theres alot of games I like. Perfect Dark, the Zelda series the older final fantasy series. But most of the game I do like are on the ps3 or PC. Cod5 thats a good game

N64 emulation is pretty hit and miss to be honest.

Actually, you'd be better off with one these ajmcstyles:

Playing through Assassins Creed II at present. Fantastic game so far and so much better than the first. The basics are still there but the added extras make the game so much better. It's been a while since I've felt like leaving work early so I can go home and play a game.

Yes, I hate that too. And the weak defence of "When you think about it, all RPGs are linear." FFXIII is frustrating as the idea in general has a lot of potential. If they opened up to allow the player to explore a bit and actually speak to NPCs (I couldn't believe it when I found they'd cut that feature. Idiots.) you'd have a game worth playing. If you want to make the game accessible that's fine, but be sure to make it interesting too. The situation with Final Fantasy actually feels a bit similar to what's happened with the Sonic The Hedgehog series. I hope that eventually Square will at least TRY and correct their mistakes if the series is to continue.

FFXIII sums up just about every JRPG that has come out in the last 3/4 years. Linear, simplistic battle system, typical RPG story, portrayed with beautiful graphics. However, I know damn well I'll be picking it up in 2/3 months time when people trade it in. From what I played, it seems rather entertaining, and strangely addictive. Then again, the Final Fantasy name meant nothing to me after the greatest game that was number 6, so my expectations were nowhere near as high as everyone elses

Sounds fun but I wouldnt mind going back to

Which I did own.

Had a long weekend of travelling and visiting and the festivities involved in attending a wedding, so I didn't want to do anything this evening. Thankfully, TripleA had beaten a number of my Sonic Racing best lap times and sent me some messages about it.

So, this evening was spent reclaiming each of them in turn. Thanks for that Triple A, your times provided hours of entertainment and I look forward to challenging the next set.

Modern Warfare 2 map pack is due out March 30. You get 3 new maps and 2 from COD4 but unfortunatly its 1200 points which is a little steep, though it'll sell like hotcakes no doubt. I played a little MW2 last night after a while away from it, the amount of cheats and wankers is truely staggering now. MW2 is a great game, but totally wasted on a large chunk of the people that play it.

Absolutely loving Assassins Creed II, I just can't stop playing, which is a shame because I have 2 games from LoveFilm to get through too (Borderlands & The Godfather II). I don't want to put it down. I like the fact you have to build up your estate and the side quests are quite enjoyable too. My only critisism is the running and jumping can be a little tempremental, one slight movement and you could be falling to your death, when other times it just doesn't move at all.

Borderlands can take a while to get through - between that and finishing AC2 you're sorted for games for at least the next week or so! Depends how fast you play, of course.

This weekend was filled with constant Mass Effect 2. I've got Ghostbusters and Silent Hill Homecoming from Lovefilm, and I told myself I'd play those first and then play ME2 to fill the time between returning the others to Lovefilm and waiting for whatever they send out next. But I had a quick go of Mass Effect on Saturday afternoon and ended up spending hours on it. It'll be a sad moment when I finish it, because I genuinely don't want it to end. It feels like the story should be ending soon, but there's still loads of planets I haven't been to, so it'll keep me going for a while yet.

From the hour or so that I played of it, Silent Hill Homecoming's not as bad as I thought it might be - it's slightly annoying in that if you explore an area, chances are you'll end up being sent back the same way anyway and have to re-explore to find new ammo or clues which have only just appeared since your last visit 5 minutes ago, but it's pleasingly spooky and all that shit. And Ghostbusters is really great fun - I played it last year when it came out on the PS3, but raced through it pretty fast and decided I'd like another go. It's just as much fun second time round, but the fact that I've taken my time with it and got halfway through in about 2 hours makes me think that maybe I didn't race through it quite as much as I thought last time. Short, but enjoyable!

Ok, next set is up and you've got -

Rokkaku Hills
Treetops
Highway Zero

To beat. Good luck!

Would you stick up the times? I have it for PC and I'd like to have a go.

All done.

Yay Perfect Dark is out on the Xbox 360 Marketplace... One of the best FPS's of all time comes to XBLA for only 800 MS points which is a steal. Seems harder than before which is good. Then I got told to grow up for shooting all the wine bottle on a level

Besides Jo's Makeover, its a very good. Some of the menus have changed slightly and some of the tiny bits of the game have been taken such as the 5 point crouch system just stand duck and REALLY GET DOWN (not proune though) and controlled using B.

There thats one game I really really love.

Right JLM, more times are up and this time some are quite good as me and my mate Russ (the quiet one you played at SFIV a few times) have been fighting over the time on Turbine Loop.

So times to beat now are:

Turbine Loop

MID-POST EDIT:

I've just checked what times I had and it seems you've beaten them all. Now I feel stupid.

So for Dave7g the times to beat are:

Whale Lagoon:

JLM- 00:40:291
TripleA- 00:40:398

Icicle Valley:

JLM- 00:33:786
TripleA- 00:34:000

Roulette Road:

JLM: 00:51:912
TripleA: 00:52:617

Sunshine Tour:

JLM: 00:46:170
TripleA: 00:48:117

Shibuya Downtown:

JLM: 00:48:982
TripleA: 00:49:257

Outer Forest:

JLM: 00:42:473
TripleA: 00:43:923

Turbine Loop:

JLM: 00:45:974
TripleA: 00:47:153

Treetops:

JLM 00:32:681
TripleA: 00:33:262

Rampart Road:

JLM: 00:59:009
TripleA: 01:00:509

Dark Arsenal:

JLM: 01:11:038
TripleA: 01:09:143

Jump Parade:

JLM: 00:56:285
TripleA: 00:59:360

Pinball Highway:

JLM: 01:08:385
TripleA: 01:09:487

Sewer Scrapes:

JLM: 00:55:822
TripleA: 00:56:666

Lost Palace:

JLM: 01:01:338
TripleA: 01:03:528

Sandy Drifts:

JLM: 00:51:779
TripleA: 00:52:695

Rokkaku Hill:

JLM: 00:52:263
TripleA: 00:55:501

Rocky-Coaster:

JLM: 01:00:143
TripleA: 01:01:301

Highway Zero:

TripleA: 00:49:361
JLM:00:50:014

Deadly Route:

JLM: 00:57:995
TripleA: 01:00:043

Ocean Ruin:

JLM: 01:19:674
TripleA: 01:21:946

Bingo Party:

JLM: 00:47:714
TripleA: 00:49:072

Lava Lair:

JLM: 01:13:607
TripleA: 01:16:314

Monkey Target:

JLM: 01:20:001
TripleA: 01:21:240

Thunder Deck:

JLM: 01:05:383
TripleA: 01:06:684

Ha, sorry about the Turbine Loop thing. I have a competition going with my housemate too and we went back and forth on that one before busting out Big to get the job done. Oh, and the Highway Zero time, there's barely anything in that. I expect you to reclaim that one fairly easily. He can take some credit for a number of the times I have. He'll set a ghost and I'll beat it, or I'll discover something new on a lap and he'll incorporate that, setting an even better ghost for me to go at.

The one thing I should have pointed out already is that Jump Parade is definitely his. He's chosen it as his specialist subject and his time is currently number 43 of 5,000+ .

Excellent work posting up all the times to beat sir. I've been asked to put them up in the high scores forum on RLLMUK and hadn't got round to typing them yet.

Highway Zero is back in it's rightful place , now for the rest.

EDIT:

And Dark Arsenal.

I'll update the times above accordingly. Not sure if this is possible for a mod, but if you can edit other people's posts then feel free to edit the ones above whenever you set new times.

Come on TripleA, kick his ass! He has too many top times compared to you.

Can't have that jerk being better than everyone at Street Fighter and beating you at this....

OK, I'll edit my times in after my next session. There's a guy on RLLMUK who has a top 25 time on Whale Lagoon. The bastard.

Rockwell, what's your SF status? Getting a new stick/Getting yours repaired in time for Super SFIV?

At the moment, I've been getting used to the pad and I gotta say it's not as awful as I remember it being. The main problem I used to have with it was that it was sticky for FADCing but I've got the hang of that with the pad now. (Single quarter circles seem to have somehow become more difficult though, bizarrely).

I'm on holiday when the game comes out so the game will be preordered to be waiting for me on my return, but stick-wise I reckon I'll see how much money I spunk when I'm away and see if it's financially viable to purchase a new stick on my return. I have no idea who I would ask about repairing the one I currently have..? Maybe that's something I should look into, actually....

Can you get electronics for cheaper in Bangkok? Maybe I can pick one up on holiday...

So yeah. Long answer short, I don't know! What I do know is that I only get back on the 17th of May so everyone is already gonna know what they're doing a bit and I will be n00btacular.

There are professional stick repair/mod guys dotted around the UK. As I mentioned earlier there were tonnes of amazing customised sticks at the Manchester tourney and I'm pretty sure they weren't all done at home. The only problem is that the Hori EX 2 is notoriously hard to work with, so I don't know if the price they'd charge you to do the job and post it back to you would be about on a par with the cost of buying a new one.

I'll be pretty n00btacular at Super if I'm playing T. Hawk. I might have a rudimentary gameplan with him by mid-May. We'll see.

Any idea where I could find such people? I'm not asking you to do the research for me, btw, but if you know already what a good starting point might be that would be much appreciated.

May as well get a quote, right? Could be cost effective..

I apologise but I am again hijacking this thread and posting more Skate goodness.

Would you be so kind to look at a video I made. It's clips of my character in Skate 2. recorded using the filmer pack, then adding the captions and music on Wins movie maker.

Youtube Video


What ya think?

Nicely put together vid man, whos the song by? I cant place it. I struggled to get into Skate 2, mainly from being a long time Tony Hawk player. I'll give 3 a try for sure though.

Anyone checked out the Splinter Cell Conviction demo? I thought it was pretty nifty.

Song's by Rocket from the crypt.

If you like skateboarding games, Skate is the game. It has a steep learning curve and is frustrating as hell. Learning the controls can take a lil whiile, but then it completely opens the game up.
Skate 3 will have a revamped tutorial mode which shows you how to play the game.

To make things better, former pro skateboarder, Jason Lee will play the part of "Coach Frank" Video
The tutorial looks as though it will really help the people who maybe play this game once, and stop quickly because it's kind of hard at first.

It's such a great game.

Oh well this is my memory of skate 2... the best moment in the game for me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfWYx1vpZgM EA are going to have to pull something special out of the bag cos I find myself going back to Tony Hawks 1 & 2 on my PSP.

Really? I think Skate is probably one of the best examples of EA getting it right the first time. Skate broke the mold of what skating games were all about.
I can't see the obsession with TH at all, especially if your a fan of actual skateboarding. I appreciate it was the first Skateboard game that people really played and it kind of paved the way, but it didn't evolve at all.
Pressing x to ollie about 4 foot into the air and then Y to grind for as long as you feel, is about as fun as watching paint dry and no challenge at all. Skate's flick-it system is far superior and laughs in your button mashing face.

TH know they're beat now too. They knew they had to try something different from their normal approach, so they went with TH Ride. Which appears to be the biggest shit bomb of all.

Skate>Everything else.

EDIT - I must have played the demo 60 times and I've never seen that glitch!




EA pulling something special out of the bag. This is slick please watch.

Obviously EA have never produced a good game stuey, everyone knows thats a stone cold fact. They're all shit/broken/shit, just ask ajmcstyles.

Great to see Jason Lee is in the next game, I love that guy. The thing with Tony Hawk games is I used to play them in my teens and it was just fun. Sure its not a realistic skateboarding simulation, but I'm not a proper skater so it never bothered me.

Whilst I'm here I have a couple of questions that the fine UKFF might be able to help with. Basically I want to get the COD map pack and Perfect Dark off the arcade and I have 280 points on my account. If I buy a 1700 points package I'll be annoyingly 20ms points short. Is there anyway to buy just 20 points or transfer the 100 points from my brothers account on the game console? I'm pretty sure the answer is no and no as a quick google search suggests, but I thought it was worth asking.

EDIT - They actually sell points in packages of 2100, so I'm ok.

Sorry was drunk on my last comment.

Skate 3 actually looks decent. Ive bought the other two brand new on release day, but then sold them a few weeks later. Hope this is different

Does anyone have one of the hard drive transfer kits that they would be willing to send me? I'll happily give you a few quid for postage/your trouble and I'll send it back. I can't believe that Microsoft didn't think to include one with the 250gb elites & now expect you to pay £9.70 to get one sent in the post! So if anyone can help it would be much appreciated.

Also anyone who has Sonic & Sega racing feel free to add me, I'm curious how my time trials compare.

Why do you want it to be different? Its by far the best skating simulation right now. They won't be changing how the game is played. The flickit controls will be the same. Maybe try sticking with it rather than getting rid after a few weeks. It does get easier

TripleA, have you noticed that some douchebags have managed to break the time trials on certain Sonic Racing tracks? Bastards. This is like MK Wii all over again.

Check out Shibuya Downtown as an example. People are setting sub 20 second lap times, one of them is about 12 seconds. If you watch the ghost, you'll see them drive right up against the wall on the right, grinding into it for a bit. Then they stop and wait. A few seconds later, their cars spins out in a glitchy manner and then vanishes completely.

What's sad is that people who already had amazing times (Q Cumber and other regular fixtures at the top of the leader boards) have felt the need to exploit this apparent bug.

Bah.

Hopefully Sony will eliminate the bug and remove those times from the Leaderboards though?