if you make the hi-res textures and shaders :) 

I won't repeat what has already so much, but just affirm their comments. No other game can be so supremely entertaining, and outright frustrating at the same time. When you play BF2 as intended, with an intellegent, well balanced squad, you will have an experience unlike any other currently available on pc. Teamplay like this hasn't been excuted so well in a long time.

However, within minutes of this gaming high, it's brought to a crushing low by several key design issues. First up, auto teamswitching. If you are enjoying yourself in a good squad, be prepared to be switched at a moments notice. This is so annoying, particularly when you and you're squad have gotten in a good grove.

Next, terrible terrible terrible UI. Like Notor said before, it's usable now, but that isn't saying much. Connecting to the Auth Server takes up to and over a minute, and then you're brought into one of the worst server browsing GUIs of all time. Slow, nearly unresponsive, this is just unthinkable to have considered 'good enough'.

Finally, and this maybe just my rig, but loading times are rediculously long. Granted it's loading a lot of content, but they should have been able to shave some time somewhere. I guess it wouldn't be half as bad if I didn't spend so much time just getting to a server. After the first load, things get better I'll admit.

But for all my complaining, it's worth it once you get into the squad gameplay it was designed for. Nothing feels as rewarding as playing with a great squad and accomplishing the various goals assigned to you. 

Of all of you that have both a PSP and a DS, which do you prefer?

I have to say that although the DS is full of really cool game ideas, most of these seem to last me about an hour before I get bored of them. My PSP games have had a lot more playtime and I don't get bored of them on a 2-3 hour train ride.

The PSP also has all the cool media options, and if you have an original Japanese or US model, it is very easy to run emulators on it. Apparently it is very difficult to do this on the DS.

Glad the DS is outselling the PSP though. I really don't want another market to be saturated by the same games we have on consoles (no NFS extreme hardcore underground illegal edition or WWF RAW kickass ultra violent edition.) 

But the DS interests me more than PSP, at least currently. So far, the PSP is full of mediocre, uninspired games like Madden and other boring pieces of donkey spittle. The DS has some REALLY cool games (or at least interesting) and as a game machine sports some awesome hardware ideas. The PSP is neat, yes, but it's not really a gaming machine as much as a multimedia machine.

Personally, I would go with DS over PSP because I think whenever the next hand-held Zelda game comes out it'll r0x0r your mom's b0x0rz. But my opinion is invalid and pointless because
1.) I own neither system.
2.) I am Zwiffle, and no one respects me. 

The DS is more interesting on paper, but so far, all the games I have bought, aside from warioware, have been a dissapointment. Even warioware was dissapointing after it was completed - I did not have any urge to go back for more.

Electroplankton was the last DS game I bought and was a complete waste of money. For a fiver it would be worth it though.

There are still a few interesting PSP games, and even though there is a drought of really exciting new stuff, there are a handful of titles that are high quality and lots of fun, despite their lack of originality. 

That was mentioend in the GA thread is really good, some of the best 2d platform action I've experienced actually with great boss fights that really gets the arenaline going.

Exceptionally good for freeware! 

Anyone tried this? I'm downloading it now.... their site's download doesn't seem to connect and they provide no mirrors, but check Filefront or Fileplanet.

http://www.knightonlineworld.com 

i got the Lego Star Wars game thingy
very fun game so far, dunno if I would spend money on it tho :) 

I am a total GW whore now. Nuff said. 

Ok, I've been on a bit of a console-playing binge for the last couple of months, and I've got an arseload of games I've been meaning to do reviews of, but I'll start with God of War for the PS2 because it's fresh in my memory atm.

Summary: Ridiculously OTT Greek mythology-themed 3rd person hack-and-slash fest, with platforming and puzzle-solving elements.

Review: On the whole, this is an arse-roastingly good game, with probably the best graphics I've seen on the PS2 so far, and probably the most fun and visually impressive combat i've seen in the hack'n'slash genre as you become a whirlwind of flaming death, spinning your ridiculous fiery twin swords-on-elastic-chains about in a seemingly endless variety of ways, all akin to watching a catherine wheel on an acid trip. It's got awesome music too. I'd say the technical polish of the game is pretty much flawless.

You can level up your weapons and magic, and acquire new moves and combos as you accumulate red shit that comes out of monsters as you kill them. After twatting a monster for a bit, you can then do a sort of 'finishing move' which involves some nifty button-mashing, and if you get the combination right, it yields extra health and magic orbs. Very cool.

Some of the level designs are truly awe-inspiring. About one third of the game takes place inside a single vast temple of insanity; when you get a chance to go outside the tower and look down, you see that the temple is actually being carried across the desert on the back of a colossal crawling giant.

The platforming and puzzle-solving aspects are for the most part extremely well done, imaginative and balanced. The checkpoint/autosave points are well positioned, and you (generally) never find yourself having to spend more than a minute or two catching up if you get killed.

I say 'for the most part', because the game seems to lose the plot a bit on the penultimate level. This is the only really shitty bit I've come across so far. Maybe some hobo broke into the level designer's house and stabbed his pet dog or something, because whoever made this map was in a really, really shitty mood. Ok, imagine having to vertically navigate the most drawn-out, frustrating, impossible multiple spinning blade trap, which would take you about 10 minutes to traverse if you did it perfectly the first time without ever fucking up once, but then consider that there are approximately 12,527 unique opportunities to fuck it up along the way, and that when you do fuck up, you get kicked all the way back to the beginning. Yeah. I'm probably fine with calling it a day here to be honest, because I understand I'm basically at the end of the game, and the end boss will probably be more of the same bollocks, but even so >:{

So, yeah, in conclusion, the first 95% of the game rocks hard, but the QA guys kind of dropped the ball on the last bit - but it was fun while it lasted! 

Yeah, Kinn, I saw a guy playing that at Red Storm this summer. It looked pretty cool, and I can attest to the cool graphics.

I wouldn't be too harsh on the QA guys, though; they can't actually change the game. 

...quicksaving =) 

I wouldn't be too harsh on the QA guys, though; they can't actually change the game.

True dat :{ 

sounds to be some nice and inspired shit at least on the plot/art department... 

I just finished a 4 hour session of the Dystopia demo for HL2, and my mind needs readjusting to reality O_O

Outrageous exaggerations aside, this is really quite spectacular. It takes about 2-3 sessions to really get familiar with it, and definitely be sure to read the instructions, or you will be totally lost.

Right now there is only 1 map, but it's quite excellent. and has a lot to explore, so you won't get sick of it quickly.

The coolest part of it though, is that an integral part of the mod involves the player 'hacking' through cyberspace to unlock doors and areas on the rival facility. It looks like Tron, but there is no gravity or friction, and you have to hit certain areas in such a manner to get right side up and "hack" your objectives. What's awesome is that the other team is hacking too, so you end battling in cyberspace while the rest of your team is battling the "real world," waiting for you to unlock doors for them. It's a really unique and great gaming experience, and I highly reccomend it.

http://www.dystopia-game.com/ 

Dystopia is going to go retail.

Although I'm not remotely interested in it. 

tried ssam2 - same thing again

it just throws monsters at you, locking out areas until you kill all you are supposed to..yawn
and even at this, very limited, gameplay Sam2 is worse than PainKiller

there are some trendy "vehicles" (which dont change gameplay really)

everything looks like some cartoon that lacked good art direction

there are some spacious impressive environments (like city) but overall it seems tasteless and garish

I think I bothered to play 4 levels before giving it up

You might remember the game from ~`95 called MDK - great action with same-ish basics: fast massive combat, cartoonish designs, boss battles, humor, even some "snowboarding action
But it had more style, much more variety in gameplay and it was definitely more fun

and 10 years later we get this - plenty of pretty effects and absolutely shallow game
Fek, I would even say its less fun than many old school 2d arcades that wer about the same - brainless shoot and evade 

that was 

that style of gameplay is beginning to bother me more and more now... it was fine when i first played it, but having just replayed the game a short while ago, i was a lot more frustrated with being always trapped in an area until i cleared it. 

Wow, I remember that. I think it came with my parents' iMac, or something like that. Headshots were fun :) 

http://red.planetarena.org/

Another id-source-based free deathmatch game. Just released a couple days ago. Has anyone tried it? 

I tried looking at the screenshots, but I couldn't really make out much beyond the all-encompassing neon-glowing bloom-haze

http://www.planetquake.com/cor/codered/aa2006_4.jpg 

Bloom aside, is it normal practice to have someone saying "die bitch" in the chatbox on publicity screenshots? :) 

dude, you know if maps could be made entirely out of bloom, someone would do it, right? ;) 

Iv been talking with local developers team making some arcade-ish racing. It looked kinda shit and they admited, that they didnt care about the visual quality of the tracks and the the cars much. They just (ab)used glows and bloom and motion blur NFS-style to hide it and get the modern look :(

To me the excessive effects are not just unpretty and usless, they are mostly unwanted cause they only obscure the view and make playing harder and even frustrating. I dont want to crash or get fragged cause couldnt see much beyond the nearby huge glowing sign or overwhelming bloom effect.
NFSs, UT2k etc - I have to turn the effects off to make it playable for me.
The only game Iv seen where it was done well is Prince of Persia, IMO