WHAT PLAY YOU?

[JLM]

Streetfighter 4 was announced yesterday. There's a teaser trailer on youtube. It is impossible to convey my happiness at this news via text. If it's anywhere near as good as 3rd Strike I will lose control of my bowels. If they make it 3D I will disembowel someone.

[Onyx2]

SFIV trailer here.

[Astro Hollywood]

Still WoW. Blizzard really know how to keep things fresh and exciting. WoW has a lot of seasonal holidays with unique stuff going on. Today was the start of All Hallows Eve, and this year, villages are being attacked by a headless horseman. A terrifying, booming voice comes out of the sky, and the headless horseman flies overhead on his flaming steed, setting buildings alight and laughing maniacally. The village is burning, and orphans are saying "if dad was alive, he'd put out these fires." Then you all have to race to fill buckets and put out the fires before the town you're in burns, and if you manage that, he climbs off of his horse and starts killing everyone in sight. There are also seasonal drops like an awesome jack-o-lantern helm and flying broom mounts. Hoo yes. As always with the seasonal holidays, Azeroth is decorated accordingly, with pumpkins and the like everywhere, there are apple bobbing barrels in the taverns, and a trick or treat system that sees you sometimes get candy, or if you get a trick, you spend the next hour morphed into a bat, gnome or something equally as tremendous.Last week was the Brewfest (WoW's Oktober/Beerfest) and there were quests to kill pink elephants you could only see if your character got drunk - which also results in your character swaying off to the side and the screen going blurry - and Brewfest goblins in lederhosen puking luminous green vomit over each other while oom pah pah music plays.WoW = greatest thing ever, roll on the Christmas stuff.

[Onyx2]

Get creaming, Drazic...

[Astro Hollywood]

amazing GB url

Oh man. I've just about picked myself up off the floor from reading that news earlier, but this article says that William "this man has no penis" Atherton and Annie Potts are also doing voices, amazing. I feared for a Reservoir Dogs type game, where only Michael Madsen licensed his likeness and the other characters were just generic blokes. Even Bill Murray is down, praise be!"further installments are set to follow"A real, genuine Ghostbusters videogame franchise is really going to happen :')

[Just Me]

Vivendi is keeping quiet on further details for now, but more news should emerge towards the end of a week.

So we're supposed to get excited every Thursday between now and the next announcement?

[Mitch]

[bAzTNM Fan]

This game looks amazing!

[JLM]

Oh man that's a great screenshot. I'm always very pessimistic about movie licenses, but in honesty this game will only have to be slightly better than total shit and I'd still buy it.

 

And WHAT PLAY I?

 

Well, lots more Halo 3 of course.

 

Other than that, Virtua Fighter 5, and lots of it. I wanted to go for El blaze because of his many Lucharesu and Dragon Gate influences (Venus, Deja Vu, his second costume being the Aagan Iisou tracksuit, the fact that his first costume is basically Rey Misterio crossed with Tajiri), but I settled on Eileen and her monkey magic.

 

I'm going for the whole nine yards this time, I have played about 150 ranked matches online with just one character. Spending time in the Dojo mode, getting involved with the online community, adding fellow Eileen players to the friends list for reference and reading numerous guides.

 

I am aiming for mastery of a character rather than just being average with the whole roster like I often do with 3D fighters. With 2D games I always end up with a select few characters that I love to use, but for 3D games I'm never inspired to delve into them properly. This is partly because Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive are particularly friendly to button bashers, with DOA in particular suffering from a lack of depth. Virtua Fighter on the other hand is incredibly deep, and this appeals to me. Problem is, I haven't played a VF game at length since number 3 on the Dreamcast, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

 

The online play is pretty damn good from what I've experienced. I'm told that even the games that appear lag free do suffer from one or two frames of lag (imperceptible unless you REALLY know the game) that will put off the seasoned pro player, but I'm nowhere near good enough for that to affect me yet. In terms of the quality and integrity of the opposition, so far I've only had one person quit on me because I was whupping them. Compare that to Pro Evo and it's pretty outstanding. Also, I've added more friends through this game than any others combined so far, and I've exchanged messages and formed rivalries with a good number of people.

 

The main thing I need to work on is making sure that I beat people who are clearly much worse players than me. It seems obvious, but it can be easy to come up against a Lau or Lei Fei player who is clearly button mashing but then be so careless that they're able to win. For instance, Lau's Punch/Punch/Punch/Kick combo that everyone who has played the game for 30 seconds will know about can take 50% of your health and give a crap player an automatic headstart if you're not patient. Losing to button mashers is infuriating, but I know that in time this is a game that can be mastered to the point where it doesn't happen. This is what I'm aiming for.

 

So yeah, VF5 is awesome. Not Third Strike or KOF awesome, but not far off.

[Moo]

I'm digging COD4 at the moment in single player. It's pretty shit hot, I have to say. I've also been repeatedly playing the training mission to get a low time. My current score is 17.1 seconds but there are some people on live who've done it in 11, which is unbelievable.Hoping Mario Galaxy will arrive today so I can play it after work, but I have so many other games to play it doesn't matter when it turns up. I need like a month off to catch up.Last night I played Rainbow Six Vegas which is the best multiplayer game on the 360 for me. The coolest mode is the Co-Op terrorist hunt which involves you and up to 4 players in a map against like 40 AI enemies. It sounds like it might be kinda boring but if you crank up the enemy density/difficulty to high/realistic it's very tough. Me and a mate played this on the Kill House level last night and didn't win once, the closest of all was after he died about a minute in and I wiped out 33 enemies on my own and then got SPAS'd by the last one. The SPAS is a shotgun, by the way - I wasn't being offensive. The real beauty of this mode is the quality of the AI - they change their tactics frequently and are constantly surprising you, although there are a few tricks that you can use to lure them into certain areas of the level.

[Chest Rockwell]

Woo! Assassin's Creed this weekend!

[Spatular]

Well, lots more Halo 3 of course.

On XBL I am Dougular, and I will shoot you in the face. Lots.

So yeah, VF5 is awesome. Not Third Strike or KOF awesome, but not far off.

Would you say it's significantly more awesome than VF4 Evo? I'm a Tekken convert these days - even before T5DR Online came out this week, I was still playing daily - but I could be tempted to give VF another go. It was mainly the castration of Aoi's b,df+P double stun palm that happened between VF4 and Evo that put me off. :angry:Regarding Tekken Online... this game really does suffer if your connection isn't up to scratch for gaming (which is not the same as being able to download stuff quickly, as I've just found out). I've just been on the phone to the ISP to see if they can decrease latency by turning off ADSL interleaving (a mate who works for Orange recommended this) so I'll see if it makes a difference. The big gripe is that if you have any lag at all, throws are almost impossible to see coming, and you can't buffer escapes or enter multiple escapes like you can in VF - you need to be able to spot the throw and react to it. Talentless Lily players mashing her flip combos are also incredibly annoying - again, you need to be able to see which variant is coming to defend.On the plus side, the mid-level online community is very easily confused by Lei

[GIB]

Woo! Assassin's Creed this weekend!

Indeed.My mate's getting it (so I shall be at his house constantly...) but unfortunately I won't have it for a few months. No point when I haven't got a PS3 yet...Got to say Heavenly Sword, Haze and Resistance: Fall of Man look really good too. Edited November 16, 2007 by GIB

[Moo]

So Mario Galaxy is a awesome as you'd expect. I've played it on 3 consecutive nights and done about 20 levels so far.In terms of game design it's stunning, the way Mario moves from planet to planet and can run all around them in full 3D is crazy. The bosses are brilliant, one of them completely dwarfs the planet your on, the scale is staggering. I just love massive game bosses, it's how it should be. To break things up a little there are some old school 2D side-scrolling levels and an awesome front-scrolling (if that even makes sense) level called "Rocky Road" which is scary but great fun, there are also some mini games like a Stingray Race and Monkey Ball type thing, both of which use the WiiMote full on. This really is a wonderful, wonderful game. I might be speaking too soon but so far it's been a little on the easy side though.

[DJ Stevie C]

Woo! Assassin's Creed this weekend!

Indeed.My mate's getting it (so I shall be at his house constantly...) but unfortunately I won't have it for a few months. No point when I haven't got a PS3 yet...Got to say Heavenly Sword, Haze and Resistance: Fall of Man look really good too.

Heavenly Sword is excellent but a little short. The mode unlocked after you complete is worth playing through though! :DResistance has been fantastic for me. Not a fan on first person games generally but this one really caught me in a way only the original Half Life did. Definately Recommended.Haven't played Haze. Got to get Assassins Creed.But for some reason re-subscribed to WoW over the weekend, they've made some really like little changes that have improved the game so I expect I'll be camped there over crimbo!