The Video Game Thread

[clevername]

you get to hear it a few times within the first few minutes of playing co op. I was getting achievements left and right for doing the most basic of things in the tutorial sections.

[Tambourine Man]

you get to hear it a few times within the first few minutes of playing co op. I was getting achievements left and right for doing the most basic of things in the tutorial sections.

Checkout the marketplace. The ODST theme is a freebie for awhile.

[cpebbles]

That's it? I don't have speakers on my work computer. I'm gonna set all my home PC sounds to that and get some sensors for my toilet to play that sound whenever a deuce is dropped.

I'd be a little concerned about the Pavlovian signals getting mixed up and having an accident after I stop Adrian Peterson behind the line of scrimmage one too many times.

[Tambourine Man]

I'm so tempted to buy Madden every time I sit down to watch football, but I know my patience for learning the button combos and whatnot would last about 5 minutes. Sports games frustrate me to no end.

Anyone need a 48 hr gold code?

[Cronos]

I just picked up the new Katamari game for PS3.

The kinds of achievements they could set up with trophies for this game boggles the mind.

[obucard]

I just picked up the new Katamari game for PS3.

this game boggles the mind.

FTFY

[cpebbles]

I'm so tempted to buy Madden every time I sit down to watch football, but I know my patience for learning the button combos and whatnot would last about 5 minutes. Sports games frustrate me to no end.

Anyone need a 48 hr gold code?

It's not at all complex. I'm able to destroy the computer on Pro settings without learning anything more than Right Trigger = run faster (Pretty much just hold this the entire game), Right Analog Up = truck over people/fall forward, B = spin move (Rarely used), and Right Analog Right = defensive spin move right. If I was playing online or on the hardest settings, I suppose I'd need to learn a lot more (Like how to go no-huddle, spike the ball, etc.) but since I play it as much for the GM features I don't really bother.

I'd recommend you pick it up if you like football. The running game is a ton better than the last Madden game I bought ('03 or something) and the passing game is a lot more realistic. You make bad decisions as a QB, you're going to turn the ball over. You read the blitz correctly, you have a chance at a very good gain. Because every team plays overwhelmingly cover two, there are a handful of cheap short passes that essentially always work for a 7-10 yard gain until you're on the goal line. Other cons: Godawful soundtrack (Unless you like terrible metal), unforgiving salary cap (I recently had to start over because I accumulated like a $120 million salary cap hit from a flurry of trades to get around a ~$50 million hit the year before), and close-ups on the players' faces that wouldn't have been considered good in a PlayStation 1 game.

[Michael]

Wow, a new xbox elite for 205 from dell.

[robbotis]

I'm so tempted to buy Madden every time I sit down to watch football, but I know my patience for learning the button combos and whatnot would last about 5 minutes. Sports games frustrate me to no end.

Anyone need a 48 hr gold code?

It's not at all complex. I'm able to destroy the computer on Pro settings without learning anything more than Right Trigger = run faster (Pretty much just hold this the entire game), Right Analog Up = truck over people/fall forward, B = spin move (Rarely used), and Right Analog Right = defensive spin move right. If I was playing online or on the hardest settings, I suppose I'd need to learn a lot more (Like how to go no-huddle, spike the ball, etc.) but since I play it as much for the GM features I don't really bother.

I'd recommend you pick it up if you like football. The running game is a ton better than the last Madden game I bought ('03 or something) and the passing game is a lot more realistic. You make bad decisions as a QB, you're going to turn the ball over. You read the blitz correctly, you have a chance at a very good gain. Because every team plays overwhelmingly cover two, there are a handful of cheap short passes that essentially always work for a 7-10 yard gain until you're on the goal line. Other cons: Godawful soundtrack (Unless you like terrible metal), unforgiving salary cap (I recently had to start over because I accumulated like a $120 million salary cap hit from a flurry of trades to get around a ~$50 million hit the year before), and close-ups on the players' faces that wouldn't have been considered good in a PlayStation 1 game.

Get NCAA instead. Running the option is sweet.

[TheoSqua]

new games i've bought this past week:

NHL '10.

I bought this because it has NHL 94 controls and Be a GM mode. I had high anticipations for this game, since it's the first hockey game i've bought since NHL '96 on my Sega Genesis.

- I initially tried the be-a-pro mode where you play one player through a contract. It's not nearly as developed as Madden '09 was. You start with creating a name, and all your stats are automatically given to you and I couldn't figure out how to change it (things like location born and age). I generally consider myself the "average" gamer. I've played just about every sort of game and have played video games regularly, so if I can't find an option within 5 minutes that tells me it's either not there or it's so retardedly programmed that most people won't find it.

-The Be a GM mode is pretty fun and has potential, but it's really cumbersome. You can't edit your roster during the off-season. So you're looking at signing a RW forward, right? Hmm, how many wingers do I have on my roster right now? Well NO MAS FOR YOU, you can't look at your roster until the season starts in October! Just guess on wether or not you need that winger, or look at your contracts and hope you can count!

-In the trade-player screen, first you have to hit a second button to see things like a players overall score and their attributes, second you can't see how long a guy's contract is. Third, there's no barometer on how even a GM will think of a trade, and since you have a reputation to uphold you better hope you're not a hockey tard.

-In actual game play it's nay impossible to score a goal. I have to make an Alexander Ovechkin highlight reel play to score a goal, and i'm playing on rookie, with simplified controls.

-The real controls are amazingly complex. It would take me several weeks of game play to get even close to comprehending the controls, and then i'd have carpel tunnel from warping my hands in strange ways to make the controls work.

I had high hopes for this game, but in the end it's just too complex when it should be simple and too simple when it should be complex. There's a couple questionable UI moves, like where the X button is sort for 90% of charts, but in certain pages it becomes hitting left stick and hitting X breaks what you're doing. All-in-all, i just think sports games are getting to the point where they're no longer for the casual fan. If you want to play the game a couple hours every other week or so, don't buy an EA game (strangely, Madden has avoided this, i can pick up any madden game and figure out the controls well enough to play it within 5 minutes. Basketball, hockey, nascar, etc this is not the case at all) they're not designed for a casual gamer, and i'm not wanting to spend 40 hours figuring out how to play a game.

Overall: 6/10.


Halo: ODST

I just got ODST last night, and so far i've got mixed emotions on it. It's obviously a well designed and well polished game. I wasn't sure about the night-vision mode when I saw screen shots, and I thought the stress/health thing would suck since i'm used to sheild health in the new Halos. But Bungie's proven they know what they're doing, because all of it worked qutie well, was intuitive in use, and actually helped gameplay. The new guns rock, and i never thought i'd say an SMG rocks, and the little bells and whistles thrown in shows the game is well polished.

Firefight mode is totally awesome. It's the perfect compliment to keep playing halo when you get tired of it. Campaign is repetitive after you beat it on every mode 4 times, and online play/linked gets tiring after so many times of getting your butt kicked by 12 year olds or the same group of my friends always winning cause they're slightly better than the rest of us. Now we can switch to firefight mode, which is a complete change of pace and still enjoyable. Trying to beat the crap out of invisible-brutes-with-shotguns-and-9482984592843-incendiary-grenades was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The mode is a total rip on GOW2, but it's a fun one.

I haven't started the campaign, but i've heard that the length of it is equivalent to an add-on for Fallout-3, and the multiplayer is pretty much an exact replica of what I paid $80 on Halo 3 for. So i feel a little ripped off payign a full $60 for the game, but the actual missions and game play modes are so well developed/polished/produced that it's still worth buying it. They obviously know what they're doing.

Overall: 8/10, it's be a 10/10 if it were priced at $30.