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This week I have mostly been playing
Topic Started: Apr 2 2006, 06:11 PM (37,806 Views)
Diddly
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and the DLC has more than made up for it. Loads of classic cars and 5 tracks to race on. Nice.
Ooh, give us the details on the Legends DLC m8. Had another Shifty sesh today and I just can't believe how much I'm enjoying it. Was just told today about the on-track tuning (the joy of no-instruction book promos and the fact that I never read anything on-screen) - just the thing that Forza and GT5 needed, twiddling settings has never been easier, or productive.

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I'm just not clever enough to know how to work out the puzzles.
Rubbish Juz, if I can 'get it' then anyone can. I've never known a puzzle game that requires you to 'get' how the designers think though - if you don't 'get it', you won't 'get it done'.

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however I think it loses its way a little when you move away from the test chambers to 'behind the scenes'.
Totally disagree m8, I love those bits, as you said they ooze atmosphere and the relative freedom is what separates 2 from 1. A lot of the puzzles wouldn't have been possible or made sense in a test room setting either.
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Retrovertigo
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The Shift 2 DLC is sweet as - a MK1 Ford Capri, Mk1 Escort, classic Alfa, Jaguar...the list goes on. The tracks are obviously the highlight though, especially the 1975 Silverstone and the original Hockenheim Circuit. What is nice is that they have also muted the colours and it really does give them a feeling of being from another time.

The incidental details also help - instead of tyre walls there are bails of hay. The pit girls have mini skirts on and white knee high boots, and the helicopters flying around are period models as well. Oh and the drivers all wear open faced helmets :) They really have paid attention and put some real effort in. Not to mention there a fair few extra events to take part in centered around the old tracks and cars, but also some extra acheivement points. For 800 points it really is worth picking up.
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Juz
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Sent back both Blur and NFS: Undercover, as I'd finally reached the "grinding" stage which always bores me in driving games....and then got sent:

NFS: Shift 2 Unleashed, so I'm on a bit of a driving game-a-thon at the moment. I'm really not sure about this game. I've adjusted the settings that Retro posted a while back after playing it with standard ones and finding it a bit "loose", but still find it a bit loose.

It also seems quite "easy" as well - despite it keep putting me on an auto box after I selected manual a few times!

Will give it a while longer.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing - this, along with NFS Undercover both fucking use the hideous online pass thing which means that, as I'm renting (and not buying brand new), I get a massive 2 free days online with em.....cunts.
Edited by Juz, Jun 3 2011, 08:23 AM.
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Retrovertigo
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I think you are wrong with regards Shift 2. My game came with a code for something or other - which I have never redeemed - and can still go online just fine mate.
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Juz
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How odd....cos I only got 2 days (and not a minute more) on Hot Pursuit, and Shift 2 says that it's a 2 day pass without a code....?
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Retrovertigo
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That's really odd and I have no idea how it would work without a code. I know initially I wasn't sure I'd like the game so saved the code that came with it (I still have no idea what that code does but I'm not going to bother redeeming it). I was playing it not that long ago and it still worked fine online. In fact a few guys I play it online with have never redeemed their codes either.

On to what I've been playing. Finished L.A Noire and enjoyed the ride. I was tempted to go for the Rockstar pass and get the bunch of DLC that is included with it, but I'm not entirely sure I'd enjoy playing it again. Unless you are actually on the cases, then the city itself, while looking lush, is boring. I wanted to try and find all the film reels and badges, but I simply can't be bothered.

Plus the cases have some glaring problems when it comes to the logic for solving the cases. One case I knew I had a vital piece of evidence, but I couldn't call out a suspect as a liar - at least not with the piece of evidence I had.

I guess there is the opportunity to use a guide and go for five stars on each case to see scenes I didn't see first time around. But I'd like to be able to play it without a partner in tow.

I just can't put my finger on why I enjoyed it, because I can hardly think of any real positives, but can think of a fuckton of negatives.
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Juz
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Yeuch! The more I play of Shift 2, the more it feels like a retarded, loudmouthed kids attempt at "doing a serious race game."

No matter what adjustments I make, it just feels spongy. For me, Forza has an utterly perfect (for a videogame) handling model, with a great feel for breakaway points, braking issues and the like... this just feels wrong, and suffers from (albeit well hidden) the ultimate driving game no-no of having the cars feel like they're resting on a gimbal/turntable.

/has lit blue touchpaper :)
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Retrovertigo
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I can see why some people wouldn't like the handling. I agree that cars seem to pivot in the centre - especially the faster cars which have a weird rear end step out thing going on (not oversteer).

But for me, the good outweighs the bad. I know what you are saying about Forza, but Forza feels "safe". I stuck it on the other night and was going flat out from the off nailing every corner, and while that feels nice, it isn't realistic. I couldn't take a car to a track and nail every corner straightaway. Shift 2 makes me feel how I probably would in real life - on the edge and in danger of killing myself :)

Let's not forget Forza has the retarded steering assist which can't be switched off. That kind of makes the game too easy, and going back to it, very stale to be honest (Forza 2 is far superior in my opnion) I just didn't get any kind of thrill driving the cars. Shift 2 thrills me when I play it.
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Juz
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I dunno what steering assist you mean in F3 dude? But on the subject of steering, the crazy amount of tank-slappers I get on Shift 2 is doing my fuckin nut in! I had to do Suzuka in that Elise about 5 fuckin times!!!

My times are more than respectable (compared to you Joeys, not compared to the fuckin basement-dwellers that are doing about 20 secs a lap better somehow), so I've obviously got the measure of it...I just don't really like it I guess?

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Retrovertigo
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Forza 3 has a steering assist built in to it. There is no option to switch it off - the devs, for whatever reason, decided the game was having it and that was that. They have admitted it, and it is why it is an easier game than Forza 2, and why it feels so stable compared to Shift 2. There are numerous videos online of cars steering toward corners if you let go of the pad or steering wheel. It is always trying to correct itself to keep you on track and on the racing lin (it is subtle, but nonetheless it is there and so makes the game a bit bobbins in my eyes). For Forza 4 they are adding an option to have it switched off.

Gotta say though I have never had a tank slapper in Shift 2!? I was really worried I wouldn't like the handling but I clicked with it straightaway.
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Diddly
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Playing last year's almost unheard of Sniper: Ghost Warrior on the 360 as the PS3 version (Sloppy's reviewing it) just came out and I thought a comparison would be good. It's okay, has a lovely environment (right up until you get jungle blindness from TOO MANY FUCKING LEAVES IN MY EYES!) but I did all this in Far Cry about 50 years ago, and the psychic AI and sticky scenery will kill you A LOT and PISS YOU OFF unless you like crawling around on your belly everywhere.

L.A. Noire - Loved just about every minute of it, and have just one more case to do as I got the Rockstar pass to unlock "Slip of the Hand"(?). Sure it has its flaws but overall, wow, what a game.

DiRT 3 - Love this too apart from the odd glitch I had (and I uploaded the video, below) where the car falls through the floor. I seem to manage this on just about every fucking game I play these days... Sublime handling hits the spot between arcade and sim perfectly, varied gameplay (I would never have believed the whole Gymkhana thing would work SO well) and enough proper rally stages to keep everyone happy. They need to get the WRC licence off Black Bean/Milestone though...




And talking of Black Bean/Milestone there's SBK 2011 - Yawn :Zzzz: - same old thing but the bike feels a bit looser (which is nice) and the on-bike view that keeps the road level and just tilts the bike is possibly the most usable handlebar view I've yet seen. But it's still too damn hard to do a series of tidy laps purely because the bikes don't respond quickly enough to slight corrections, and to condemn it further the difficulty is all over the place.

So some great stuff, and some disappointments, but at least they aren't Duke Nukem Forever... Going by the demo this should fucking BOMB. It looks and feels like a tarted up, non-cel-shaded version of the Borderlands game engine, with the same twitchy aiming and oddly restricted movement. It even has the same texture wibbling and tearing! Hopefully the finished game will contain more than a few nice set pieces to make it worth looking at, but if the demo, with its 12 year-old sound effects, 2 year old gameplay and "hilarious" pissing and turd throwing is anything to go by.... :Zzzz: :X
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Juz
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COD - Black Ops

Wow....just wow!! I mean....WOW!!! Another game that exists as if the last 10 years of FPS games never happened! Well done Treyarch!!! Wow! Respawning enemies! Wow! Squadmates that literally walk STRAIGHT PAST bad guys who are shooting me with gay abandon!! Iffy set-pieces where the aiming doesn't seem to really work properly!! Wow!! Pre-scripted death animations that kinda override the ragdolling!! Wow!!!

All they really appear to have done since the first coupla (excellent WWII) COD's is add swearing and change the timeline.

I'm not that far in, but it's SHIT so far.

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Diddly
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I'm not that far in, but it's SHIT so far.
And it gets SHITter m8. Medal of Honor kicked its ass, not that the dumbassed masses would ever have you believe that.

Duke Nukem Forever - Wow! - talk about "the last 10 years of FPS games never happened!" - so far this game is amazing. A cross between Toy Story and Leisure Suit Larry, and not as good as either, whilst simulataneously half-assedly rehashing bits from FPS from the last 12 years! Some of the textures, enemies and friendly character models ACTUALLY LOOK sub-N64, and yet it still tears to shreds, has bad animation and twitchy aiming! It's also VERY apparent that different levels were done by different dev teams (I think 4 developers are included in the "credits"), as some actually look quite nice. Best bit so far? Found a couple of nods to much, MUCH better games (Halo and Dead Space) and a rubbish "Balls of Steel" pinball machine that you can actually play! - a table so annoying that it would get the shit smashed out of it if it were real (you can also throw a basketball at a hoop and roll pool balls around a table - even GTA4's shite pool game was better.) So whoopedoo. "Hail to the King baby"? I don't think so. Duke needed to come back, but not like this. The Halo Combat Evolved remake will be vastly superior, maybe they should have just remade the original Duke as this game engine (presumably the Borderlands one) clearly doesn't hack it for this game's scope.

inFamous 2 - At first I thought this was just a prettied-up remix but it's more than that. Loads to do (the good old GTA thang of setting off on a mission and getting distracted by shard hunting, street crimes, side missions and just exploring the much prettier environment.) You start off with many of the old abilities present and correct, and there are a few new ones to unlock as well. It still has a slightly shit camera (it's still a tad too close as well) and if you didn't like the first one then you won't like this either, but as strange and addictive a "slightly crap superhero" game as I've come across.
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Juz
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Ooh ooh ooh, I've got inFamous 2 coming from LoveFilm...just as I've got re-hooked on the first one!

Yeah, he's a bit rubbish but those leccy powers rock don't they?

BTW- was trying to replay the first one as a goody unlike my first evil playthrough and fuck that! It's waaaay better being bad!
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Retrovertigo
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Played some Duke Nuke Em this afternoon. It does indeed suffer from all the problems Diddly has mentioned. But it seems to be one of those games that I can tolerate. Probably out of morbid curiosity.

It is like Diddly said though, why didn't Gearbox use their own game engine to do the console builds? All the assets were already in place - yet it seems like, rather ironically, they have rushed this out there!

I did appreciate some of the little gameplay diversions, which I won't spoil but are near the start of the game. But yes, this is one ugly game for sure. I can see myself sticking with it though.

Oh and Juz, Diddly is bang on, aside from the appalling quad bike handling, Medal Of Honor was a far better game than Black Ops.
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