Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm still up for any of the days I suggested. The only responses I've had so far are that Doc can't do Friday and you said it 'might be possible'.

Not exactly concrete stuff there.

I cant do wed or thur, aside from that I be free

Fucking wowzers! The stuff on the PS+ thing is awesome for £39

Glad you could join us.

Six months from now you'll be drowning in bloody games. It's superb/intimidating.

I feel a bit better as I finished Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Hitman: Sniper Challenge this week. Spelunky to come next week even though I can't justify buying another game...

Apart from the next GTA ill just be mopping up the free PS+ stuff for the next 12 months.

Do we know what's coming next month, anyone in the know?

Ass Crud 3, the other stuff still hasn't been announced.

For me it's Demon Souls, Uncharted 3, Ico and SotC

They're all shit. Honestly, I just wouldn't bother.

September 25th Update

PS3: Far Cry 3, Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
Vita: Street Fighter X Tekken, Touch My Katamari

Is DD:DA a sequel?

Street Fighter X Tekken has been hovering round the top of my 'I'll buy it at some point' list for the Vita for ages, so this is most excellent news!

Oh that's fabulous news. I was umming and ahhing about playing that Dragons Dogma add on. I fancy another crack at that world (despite moaning about it at the time).

Unless I've missed an update, that list of games is only a rumour and not yet confirmed.

Playstation Europe have tweeted it. Unless Ian has hacked their account, I'd say it was genuine.

Hang on a sec, let's not rule this out.

What are Ian's credentials for instance? What could he gain by trying to pull the wool over the Docs eyes?

FOS: Saturnalian.

I'm jumping on this bandwagon. [vote: saturnalian]

You can probably count me in, then.

Way too many games with PS+ don't know how I am going to play them all

I'm not convinced it is, sadly.

Didn't like it?

Not at all. After the whooping fun that was Marvel Vs Capcom 3, it seemed dry and dull, and technically (I mean 'fighting technically') not that special.

It's no Rival Schools, that's for sure.

I thought it was fun to play as Poison but I really couldn't give a toss about the Tekken characters so I think you could be right.

Poison is being released for Street Fighter 4 soon so that's probably going to do me for fighting games.

Really I just want a Vita port of Street Fighter IV. Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 has never appealed really because they tend to be a bit too mental for my tastes.

Did Tekken X Street Fighter ever happen?

I enjoyed SvT fighty punchingness but the gemstuff was fecking irritating. There's alreadys a lot going on on screen so each character glowing all colours of the bloody rainbow was too distracting. For the price of a subscription on PS+ though I don't think you can complain (assuming it's on the lists). If I see anyone playing it on the Vita-beata-bo-beata, you can bet I'll throw you a challenge (and expect the same from youse if you see me playing).

It's been "delayed for the next generation of consoles", apparently.

Not sure if Sony are taking the piss, but Rainbow Six Vegas 2 appears to be free for PS+ subscribers at the moment.

-edit- no, once you click through it says the trial is free and the game is £4.49. Ho hum.

New stuff: out now!

Great Vagina Sisters is utter gash.

Anything new and good?

Completed Spec Ops on PS+ recently & now have started on XCom.
Really is great SILLY !! value for money.

Just played the Beyond: Two Souls demo (new game from the studio that did Heavy Rain). It's another QTE driven thing just like Heavy Rain with only a bit more freedom when flying around as the ghost thing, but the story looks like it might be not half bad so we'll see how it turns out. The production values are predictably sky high for a game that 'stars' Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe so it's worth giving the demo a shot just to see it in action.

I really enjoyed the demo. It seems that when you fail some challenges the story actually branches instead of just setting you back a couple of minutes, which is nice. It is very creepy and paranormal, and I've been waiting for something like that to come along. Like you say, it's worth downloading even if only to see those production values.

Yeah, I was impressed with the first section in that it feels very creepy when everything kicks off even though it's actually you that's in control of everything; which is quite an achievement and grabbed my attention. The sections after that though seemed to fall back much more on the QTE stuff which is fine for short bursts but becomes a totally oppressive game mechanic when it's making up like 90% of your gameplay. Flying around as the ghost does give some respite from that so maybe it'll be more engaging than Heavy Rain, but from the demo those bits really are just fluff with the core of it being 'press X to climb a wall' type stuff.

Where did you see the branching stuff happening? I did fail a few of the combat QTEs and didn't really notice anything changing; I'd be surprised if there were massive differences because the whole thing is so scripted that any branching would be really difficult to work in I'd have thought. Their previous games have done a very good job of making it look like things are changing but really not deviating very much and I'm expecting the same thing here (perhaps unfairly).

Reading my comments back here I sound pretty harsh but I did enjoy it and will probably pick it up because I enjoyed Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit. I struggle with discussing their games though because when you boil them down they really should be terrible (everything's on rails with little player agency and the 'gameplay' consists almost entirely of hitting button prompts, not exactly a recipe for enjoyment) but in reality they still manage to be fun somehow. Well, I say 'fun' even though that seems like an incongruous word to use to describe the brutal and depressing stuff that made up most of Heavy Rain.

I should also say the demo worked pretty well because it gave you what seemed like pretty random snapshots from the course of the game, but when the trailer played at the end you could see how the story would hang together and it made you actually want to find out how she went from . So even though it sort of spoilered it's own story in a way that just made me even more eager to find out how it all happened. It's rare to see a stuctured demo that properly tries to sell you a game rather than just a burped out afterthought that almost puts you off entirely so kudos to them for that.

It's one of my favourite platformers of the last few years. Between this and shank 2, i guess i have a weird taste.

AFAIK they have advertised it as an interactive movie, so I guess it shouldn't be judged as a game in the conventional sense. Anyone who thinks such things are fundamentally broken can just stay clear. In this case i am intrigued because it seems to be very well done and entertaining such as it is.

Oh, fair enough then! If you mean the then I made that and didn't see any of the stuff you mention there so yeah, it looks like they do have some genuinely different content to see. Fair play to them.

Still talking about Beyond: Two Souls; here's an utter fucking savaging of an early review. That guy has a tendency to exaggerate so maybe it's not as bad as he says, but he mentions that he enjoyed the previous Quantic Dream games so that doesn't bode very well.

I'm not reading all that (to save any spoilers) but, having read the top paragraphs, he stopped playing it halfway through so I'm not interested in his/her opinion.

The reviews are all over the map; ranging from 100 down to 40 on Metacritic. Gamespot loved it; Eurogamer gave it a 6 which read more like a 5; Polygon gave it 8 and Destructoid a 5. The gist is that the writing ranges from passable to weak and the supporting cast are cardboard cutouts but, depending on who you believe, you can get a level of investment in the main character that carries the game if you look past that and the pointlessly random flashback structure. I'm not sold on it at all.

I hope the game flops. Not out of spite or anything, but the sooner these "games"stop being made, more money goes out to more worthwhile projects.

Conversely I quite like interactive fictions and not-game games and think there's plenty enough room in this medium for all sorts of stuff to be made without anyone losing out or anything to be considered more worthwhile than anything else; especially as 'worthwhile' is so open to interpretation that it's utterly meaningless in this context. Things simply have to be good at whatever they're trying to do is all, and it doesn't sound like this is.

I've no doubt in my mind that this'll be another interesting but flawed experiment just like Heavy Rain. That doesn't mean it won't have any merit nor should developers stop trying to do something different. It's not as if the industry is flooded with similar games. If anything, you better pray CoD: Ghosts and BF4 both flop so the obsession with military shooters finally comes to an end.

In summary
Leaving PS Plus:
23rd October: Far Cry 3
23rd October: Mafia 2
23rd October: Spec Ops The Line (NBA 2K13 in UAE)
23rd October: Street Fighter X Tekken
23rd October: Touch My Katamari
Entering PS Plus:
23rd October: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
23rd October: Remember Me
23rd October: Oddworld Strangers Wrath
23rd October: MotorStorm RC

Jesus, Metal Gear Rising: Re-vengeance and Remember Me are pretty new even by PSN+ standards. I might even actually play Remember Me before my PSN+ membership runs out; although the upcoming Batman game will probably clear the decks of everything else.