WHAT PLAY YOU?

[Mike Castle]

You lose!

[DJ Stevie C]

Great stuff. Just got a copy of Beijing Olympics....Wait did I just say that?Edit: Well before it's even released I can tell you Sega have already released an update for it .... Yes that means I put it in my Ps3....

Edited June 30, 2008 by DJ Stevie C

[Loki]

Is that any good then? It's been getting some poor-ish reviews.

[Mike Castle]

Been down a mates today after getting a call to go and help nail some achievements on Guitar Hero Aerosmith, (Mate needed it doing on Expert and so called the best man for the job ), which was great for me as I wasn't originally going to buy the thing, but it's actually pretty damned good, I prefer the music on the other GH games, but the effort they've put into it outshines the so-called effort of Rock The 80's.I was expecting this to just be GH3 with Aerosmith stuff layered on top. Instead there's brand new venues specifically for Aerosmith (based on the real life venues they played at), and the animations and character models are all there (Including DMC for Walk This Way, and King Of Rock), it's also got some non-Aerosmith tracks on, in that the first 2 songs of each set are by bands who have opened for Aerosmith over the years.All in all, a pretty solid effort .

[Yoghurt]

A pretty darn good remake of the Ghostbusters game from the old C64/Master System/Speccy

 

http://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/showcase/view.php?gm=47

 

13mb, give it a whirl if you've never played it before, the sprites aren't terrible and the music is exactly as annoying as you remember [Only now in rock music form]

 

I enjoyed playing it, Gozer is still rock hard

[Mikey Freedom]

A pretty darn good remake of the Ghostbusters game from the old C64/Master System/Speccyhttp://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/showcase/view.php?gm=4713mb, give it a whirl if you've never played it before, the sprites aren't terrible and the music is exactly as annoying as you remember [Only now in rock music form]I enjoyed playing it, Gozer is still rock hard

Oh dear god, i spent years on my c64 playing that.

[DJ Stevie C]

Is that any good then? It's been getting some poor-ish reviews.

I've tried to like it. I really have.Okay there are some nice innovations in there, the 'starting' meter in the athletics/swimming events. I feel though that it really hasn't had a really good going over.Okay. Of the events I've taken part in so far (and there are 35+ of 'em!)Track - Sprinting.Shorter Distances are fun, it's REALLY hard to get a good start though. Problem is after a few 100m runs your fingers are fucked. On the PS3 I was able to use the joystick to run, but only by using my palm rather than fingers and I feel that at any moment I might over do it and break the joypad.200m is tough tricky because it's hard keeping the momentum of the run up and as soon as you mess up it's race over, it's hard to change over mid race and you find yourself trying to find a way to hold the pad so that you can last a whole race, which isn't easy.400m is like 200m x 10. How they figure people can run one or two races after each other with the pace required to get anywhere is beyond me. Oh and PS3 pads really aren't the right pads to do the 'finger rub' method of playing. I've got a minor split on my finger from trying it :(I feel the 400m and 200m should be more on timing at speed rather than full on button bashing madness.Track - HurdlesIt's bloody hard to time the hurdles and keep your speed up. Just feels complicated, a side on angle would've been so much better.Track - Long Distance800, 1500m FAR too easy. I mean EEEEAAASSSSSYYYY.Here's the method. Start the race, get behind the guy in the lead. Follow until the last corner then sprint. Job done.Occasionally you might have to block off someone pulling out to try and pass you but that's not common. The button pressing is much easier here you only have to press once maybe twice per second so it's not as finger killing as the sprints.Field - Hammer / Shot Put / DiscusEssentially the same. You circle the pad before using R2 to time and select the angle of throw. Easy enough. They are fairly sensible events, not to difficult not too hard.Field - JavlinActually, this is pretty good. First bit is button bashing to get your power/speed up, then when you are ready you pull to the left on the stick to balance the Javlin and then push to the right at an angle to throw, it's quite tricky at first but once you get used to it, the system works! It's pretty good!Field - Long JumpButton bash madness to the 'power' set line. Then time the 'leap' off the track using R2 or L2 to select the angle. Pretty standard really.Field - Triple JumpSame as the long jump apart from instead of holding L2/R2 for angle on the first two jumps you just time the presses, so tap-tap-hold to angle. Again Standard stuff.Cycling - Team PersuitArgh! This is a KILLER!! Okay idea is you have 4 riders. To make them 'go' you rotate the stick clockwise at a fair pace. As the front guy gets tired you hit the R2/L2 button and he goes to the back of the que to 'rest' and the next rider takes over, about 5 or 6 mins of cycling the keypad and hitting R2 / L2 at the right times. It's a bit mental to be honest! Sense of achivement when I qualified was good! :DPool - RacesThey all pretty similar, the same as sprinting but with a 'turn' every so often that needs to be timed with R2/L2. Not rocket science. Only thing I will say is that you can 'not' button bash and instead rotate the sticks in opposite directions but I found that WAY too hard to keep any kind of pace with.Pool - DivingNow. I quite like the diving. You select your dive and then watch your diver take the position. You press the button to set the 'power' and then your diver takes off. You're presented with two rings, one red, one green, the green ring you control with the Left stick the Red with the Right stick, there are two balls on these rings you have to keep within the lighted area of each Circle. It's really tricky but when you get it right it feels great. Actually a good skillfull event.Ping PongFuck off.No really fuck off.Still here? Okay well, I'll describe it like this, there's a small ball you have to hit on a small table, you use either X or O to slice or spin the ball and Traingle to smash it when you have the powerbar at maximum. The issue with this game.... the BIG issue with this is that you've got a HUGE character in your camera view and you can't actually see where the ball is most of the time. Oh and the serves seem to be hit, stop, start moving slowly and then move again. It's really really crap.ShootingSeems fun, have only played once, you set your targeting at the start and then have to stick by that targeting for the game, you then get a random moving targeting cursor and have to take into account where your targeting is before you fire. It's fine. Again nothing spectacular.Gymnastics - VaultIt's a mish mash pot of chaos, button bash to the horse, press L2/R2 to hit he spring and then the horse, once you launch button bash again to land it. It's bloody tricky to get right, after a while I didn't care if I did.Gymnastics - FloorActually quite fun. Think a mad moving version of dancing stage. You pretty much match button presses to foot steps, the flips and moves look pretty nice and while it's not brilliant it's not that bad.They're all the games I've gone through so far.Game Modes are:Practice - This was the only place I saw the game 'go online' to put your time on the world leaderboards. I don't know if it does it elsewhere, it didn't that I saw.Competition - you can pick events to play or choose a random selection of 5/10/20 events.Olympics - A 'game' where you get a selection of events each day and set a 'goal'. This is generally "Qualify for 2 events out of 4" or you'll get a challenge "Combined Throw Total of over 200m in 4 events" for example. You can improve the 'team' areas (Stamina/Speed/Strength/Agility) knock down the fatigue or give you slow mo which you can use in events (though I haven't seen it make a difference when you use it...)Haven't tried online yet.While I think this game could be 'fun at parties' and online might be okay, I honstly think I would get pissed off with it in a day if I played it for more than 2 hours, also the controls mean your fingers are fucked after 2 'button mashing' events so it's tricky to play even after that! I do think it's just another themed game that was rushed a bit and not polished.Right I'm going to nurse my finger. Hope the review helped you!

[Mike Castle]

Regarding the finger rub method... use a pen/battery whatever, much better, will give you much better running times, and for things like hurdles, it actually frees a finger up to nail the jumps (This comes from playing Track And Field ages ago, not played this, but I'm guessing it's essentially the same)

[Sym]

Got Smash Brothers this morning! Its my first dabble into the series and I am finding it quite hard to not let it turn into a button basher! Is this normal? Will the controls come to me in time!Also, Call me stupid but im stuck on mission 16(I think) where you have to protect 6 pikmin so they can grow What the hell am I supposed to do? I haven't got a clue! (Thats no an intentional rhyme)Any help people/JLM

[JLM]

I've been playing Smash Brothers quite a bit. The vast depth of content continues to impress. Why no Birdo though? (s)he could be a Yoshi clone like (s)he is in Mario Kart except with Kirby's suction thing going on, Did we need Wolf when we already have Fox and Falco? Pah.

 

Aside from that and the pesky ever-present Bungie shooter, I've been playing Commandos 3 on Xbox Live Arcade. Tremendous fun with slick presentation and visuals. A worthy sequel. Better still is that it comes with the Beta version of Super Streetfighter 2 HD Remix. It's quite a bare bones deal and you can only play as Ryu or Ken but it's still worth a go. Only had five or six matches online so far but I've found the games to be absolutely flawless in terms of connection speed and response times. Doesn't feel like you're playing online at all, which is excellent. For Player matches they have a simple lobby system where you join as a spectator and wait your turn to fight the champion. A simple "winner stays on" deal which creates an old school arcade feel. Only downside is that new players might want to play against some people at their own level rather than an untouchable champion who isn't dropping a round.

 

Still, the game really isn't aimed at new players, so if you can't dislodge the champion then you need to shake off your rust or realise that being able to beat your friends back in the day only meant you were the best player in your street, not the champion of the universe. Xbox live teaches harsh lessons.

[Kookoocachu]

Is that any good then? It's been getting some poor-ish reviews.

Very very very VERY hard.

[Sym]

I am very excited! Have just collected my 117 star on Super Mario Galaxy, 3 more and I will have fully completed my first 3D Mario Game! Is anyone else still playing this?On a side note I have also heared about and managed to avoid the big suprise that comes with getting all 120! Can't wait to see what that is! Nintendo have yet to dissapoint me so it better be good!

Edited July 11, 2008 by Sym

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

I am very excited! Have just collected my 117 star on Super Mario Galaxy, 3 more and I will have fully completed my first 3D Mario Game! Is anyone else still playing this?On a side note I have also heared about and managed to avoid the big suprise that comes with getting all 120! Can't wait to see what that is! Nintendo have yet to dissapoint me so it better be good!

Lets just say you won't of completed the game

[The Gaffer]

I have been having a whale of a time for the past 42 hours with my Steam account back up for the first time since like 2005. Bearing in mind back then I went on a joyride buying all these PC games, its great to not have the games anymore in physical form but I was able to reactivate the Steam account and get them all back so it genuinly feels like I have in the region of 27 FPS games to play for free.I plan on buying more too. Steam even has those Quake 1 & 2 expansion packs which would have been huge pawnshop finds before the age of digital distribution.

[Sym]

Well just on the closing credits of Mario Galaxy. What a pleasure! Loved every second of it and will more than likely end up going back through it again someday, maybe a few years down the line. In that respect it wont be a trade in. I'm guessing the suprise comes after the credits? Great ending!