Mini Reviews

[spoodie]

There's MP too, I have no desire to try that.

Personally I found the multiplayer, or Crossfire mode, more enjoyable than the co-op/Blitz mode. If that's what you're referring to. I'd take playing against real people over waves of bots any day.

[Baliame]

Crossfire is fun indeed but it's a lot like TF2 really, you usually end up getting raped by pesky engineers, snipers and spies.

[spoodie]

Crossfire is fun indeed but it's a lot like TF2 really, you usually end up getting raped by pesky engineers, snipers and spies.

Indeed and I retract my defence of the Crossfire mode in my previous post. Playing the 360 version at the weekend was annoying as there's much fewer casual players, like me. Getting owned repeatedly by the same pro player and losing every game is not enjoyable.

[Joose]

I've had a lot of fun with Crossfire mode, actually. I find a good counter to people going sniper/assasin crazy is the Tank. People don't seem to play it a lot, so they don't often know how to deal with it. I've had some crazy kill streaks with my Tank.

[spoodie]

I've had a lot of fun with Crossfire mode, actually.

The PC version will be fine as it's new. The 360 version has been out since the summer and there's not many people playing now. And some of those people are die-hard pros now.

[deject]

Duke Nukem Forever (PC)

It's not good. Only two weapons is annoying. The enemy AI is dumb. The interactive bits are not cool distractions, just annoying mini-games that go on for way too long. Everything is ugly, about equivalent to an Xbox 360 launch game. Humor falls flat. There are boobs, but unless somehow playing this game will get you great sex with a real, good looking person it doesn't come close to making up for how lame the game is.

[Roman Totale]

Critically, Duke Nukem Forever has been universally maligned across all platforms

Edit: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... -this-time

[Thompy]

Trine 2

One of the most visually and aurally stunning games I've played of recent times. It's obviously no Frostbite 2 in terms of technical achievement but the art direction is marvellous. However, it reaches a pinnacle on one level which sadly isn't repeated across the others, but they're still better than nice.

It's really not a hard game, even on hard. The puzzles will only make you scratch your head on a few occasions and the checkpoint system gives almost no penalty to dying. There is perhaps a finesse involved with the physics, but that's not a thing I personally struggle with.

Depending on your speed it'll last you somewhere between 6-9 hours, so it's not that short, but certainly not long. There isn't any replay value other than to give your eyes and ears another feast. With difficulty being the only other criticism, I can't not recommend it for only £11.99.

[TezzRexx]

EURO 2012 Expansion for FIFA 12

Shocking. There is literally nothing new here, apart from the expedition mode, and the online tournament mode (which itself has appeared in previous cup tie-ins). The expedition consists of you playing teams from all over Europe to qualify for the tournament. You start off with a basic squad, and get better players by better the team they currently play for. However, you have to play the same team THREE times just to get their best players, and can work out in playing a few teams up to 52 times. Gash.

The online tournament mode - possibly the hardest mode to get WRONG considering a) it was the key feature of the previous games and b) there is a tournament mode as part of FIFA 12 - is completely broken.

Players end up in random parts of the pitch despite having allotted them to completely different places (wingers end up as central midfielders, and vice versa.), and substitutions are impossible, as the list rearranges itself once the game stars, meaning you end up with 2 goal keepers and 4 defenders on the bench, again despite you setting it TWICE before the game even starts. The game crashes often too, which means that the game being played now has a 50/50 chance as to whether the game records it as a loss or a win for your team.

Complete and utter gash from EA and an absolute joke with price considered. AVOID.

[HereComesPete]

Ouch, I would be demanding money back on that steaming turd.

[friznit]

lolEA

[Legoshoes]

Alright, don't think this is worth it's own thread.

Overgrowth (Alpha)

I posted a video a few days ago and thought I'd fork over the £20 for a preorder. The game's a long way from being finished but what's there to see is pretty intriguing.

The game feel is pretty much spot on, you can gain momentum running downhill and gradually lose it if you're running uphill. There are enough controls to give a fair range of movement and it can feel a bit "Mirrors Edge" with wall-running, climbing and huge jumps.
Combat I would categorise in to two types, unarmed and armed, both of which mainly play out with the two main mouse buttons; M1 to attack, M2 to defend. Timing a defensive stance will cause you to throw your opponent. Unarmed fights can be fairly tense, waiting for an opening to land a blow. Damage is based on a skeletal system so enough damage inflicted on a certain area is enough to finish someone off, or a lucky sweep kick as they're rolling and you'll snap their necks. It works great and feels natural enough.
Armed combat is definitely more frantic. One hit can kill you and often does. if you're wounded you'll bleed. Oh, will you bleed. (that's my lifeless corpse, by the way)
The blood is some of the most impressive I've ever seen; blood will splatter, trickle down with gravity following a cut and opponents will clutch their wounds if you injure them in battle like so. It's really quite satisfying to press the button that slits your characters throat and watch them get drenched in blood. Fuck, that sounded wrong.

Apart from sandboxing it up with the debug tools, there's not an awful lot to do, so I wouldn't recommend it right now. Definitely keep an eye on it though.

[TezzRexx]

EURO 2012 Expansion for FIFA 12

Shocking. There is literally nothing new here, apart from the expedition mode, and the online tournament mode (which itself has appeared in previous cup tie-ins). The expedition consists of you playing teams from all over Europe to qualify for the tournament. You start off with a basic squad, and get better players by better the team they currently play for. However, you have to play the same team THREE times just to get their best players, and can work out in playing a few teams up to 52 times. Gash.

The online tournament mode - possibly the hardest mode to get WRONG considering a) it was the key feature of the previous games and b) there is a tournament mode as part of FIFA 12 - is completely broken.

Players end up in random parts of the pitch despite having allotted them to completely different places (wingers end up as central midfielders, and vice versa.), and substitutions are impossible, as the list rearranges itself once the game stars, meaning you end up with 2 goal keepers and 4 defenders on the bench, again despite you setting it TWICE before the game even starts. The game crashes often too, which means that the game being played now has a 50/50 chance as to whether the game records it as a loss or a win for your team.

Complete and utter gash from EA and an absolute joke with price considered. AVOID.

Andddd carrying on from that, EA broke the game again. If you have saved any custom formations, the game completely crashes if you try to go online. This happened to a previous FIFA game (11 I believe), it's been happening for nearly a month now, with no patch in sight.

A complete joke.

SUPER AVOID.

[Roman Totale]

Have they fixed that bug that made pnut unable to score?

[Dog Pants]

Are we still talking about football games?

[TezzRexx]

[Mr. Johnson]

Bulletstorm

Picked up in a sale and not expecting much, I was pleasantly surprised to find a solid, incredibly fun shooter. It's not a complicated game, but the skill shot system which rewards you for killing dudes in a variety of ways keeps everything pretty fresh, and I personally never got tired of kicking people into giant cactuses or stomping them with a giant robot dinosaur. It also features ridiculous over the top dialogue to complement the ridiculous over the top violence. Unfortunately most people either didn't get the tongue in cheek approach or didn't like it as there will be no sequel, which saddens me as I like my FPS games not too serious.

[Mr. Johnson]

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)

This deserves a more in-depth review, but I'm not really the guy for it so I suggest going to youtube to look at reviews other people made. I'm just going to sum up the things we care about.

I bought this in the hopes of finding a burnout paradise 2, and while it's not exactly that it deserves some merit.
Here's a couple of key differences;

-real cars. I found this to be a bit disappointing as I don't really care about cars and I miss the whacky designs of bp.
-crashes are nowhere as spectacular as in bp, probably due to it being real cars.
-the world in this one is not as varied as the one in bp, it's not bad, just kind of bland.
-no webcam
-the menu is a bit better, but still way too console-y.
-it's a very arcade racer, which makes that it plays extremely similar to burnout, almost identically so.
-there's still billboards!
-stunts have disappeared, the fanciest that you get is jumps so no more barrel rolls.
-cops and robbers is pretty annoying in the singleplayer, though I think it might make for a great multiplayer mode.
-I need to test the multiplayer a bit more, but the quick go I just had suggests the challenges you get are pretty much the same as in bp.

So yeah, it's not quite the same, but I'm still enjoying it a great deal and if you can get it for not too much pennies I would in fact recommend it (it needs 5punky testing!), but burnout paradise will remain my nr.1 for now.

[fabyak]

I too have purchased this, having also accidentally got Hot Pursuit too so I will report on the latter

[fabyak]

I fully endorse what Mr J said.
It's a very fun game (I'm getting slight lag in races but I think that's down to my gfx drivers/ card) but I find I don't really care about the cars and it doesn't quite have the epic crashes (I've not winced at a crash yet, which I regularly do with Bumout). Also it feels like the car isn't 'mine' as I can't choose the colour of it, and when you go through a repair place it changes the paint colour randomly. Beyond the little niggles it plays well and could be a lot of fun with 5punkers