be in limbo :( 

@Drew, I played non stop for 2 months before Christmas. It is the only game I have destroyed a PS3 controller out of frustration because of how the game treats you. If you can imagine every possible cheap, retro game trick imaginable, the game has them all and then even more! Every level is harder than the last, there is no easy part.

It is a game that punishes the player for being in the wrong place, taking on too many mobs and not playing carefully. (running through the levels are bad). It also has a lot of permanent consequences to your actions which can truly fuck with your save game, which you only have 1 per character.

Once you treat every encounter with caution, then the game is easier to understand. All mobs have set patterns, it is just a matter of time to learn them all and exploit their weaknesses. The environment is equally as dangerous as the mobs, plenty of places to fall and die and plenty of invisible stuff (you need to discover the pain yourself)

Some boss fights are horrible one shot mechanics, that if you are in the wrong place, you die. Most bosses have a trick and some even have defined waves and patterns. My personal favourite was the spider boss but the variety and style is amazing and you even get AI help on most of them (if you want, your choice)

The RPG elements are really strong with the usual overdoes of stats, levels and even special guilds you can join. There is also the chance that some idiot will invade your game and try to kill you while you are fighting mobs (totally sucks but some people love it). You can also get people to help you with bosses which is awesome. (co-op at its best)

I have completed the game twice and eventually stopped on my third play through once I got all the weapons and items. There is a really cool crafting system that exists but I highly recommend you check out the wiki because mistakes in crafting can cost you dearly.

Even thou it has so many negative components it really shines on its combat depth and richness of its environments. It is not a game for the fainthearted and extremely frustrating to play without the help of the wiki. 

thanks for that in-depth response! Definitely giving me a push to get this apparently amazing/horrible game! 

thanks for that in-depth response! Definitely giving me a push to get this apparently amazing/horrible game! 

 

thanks for that in-depth response! Definitely giving me a push to avoid it like the fucking plague. Sounds awful. 

I wish so much it'd get a PC port. :( 

I should add that Dark\Demon Souls games are only for the people who absolutely love repetition and replaying same parts for n-th time.
I'm quite surprised our most-casual-quaker Sock loves them :)

Not sure why you'd want a PC port, the game doesn't need mouse or better resolution and there wouldn't be mod tools for it either. 

Long review for a long game: Saints Row 2 from 2008

http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/saints_row2.php

6.5/10. Fun but a bit ugly. 

Just because I don't have a PS3 and can't be bothered to get one. 

PC petition : http://kotaku.com/5875833/the-dark-souls-pc-petition-has-namco-bandais-attention

Dark Souls can certainly have repetition if you die a lot because death can screw with your progress badly. In fact the previous title "Demons Souls' was worse! It did not have checkpoint (bonfires) and if you died you came back with half health!

The game is about using the death mechanic to make you understand your actions better, living with the consequences of what you do in game, about planning your strategies better and probably the number one reason the rush of beating the odds and being triumphant over hordes of enemies without dying!

The game hits all the right buttons for me, medieval environment, melee weapons, magic system, deep combat mechanics, RPG elements, crafting system and very clever level design.

A friend from work recommended the previous game to me and I was hooked on Demons Souls for a long time (200+ hrs) and have probably spent the same amount of time in Dark Souls as well. I even added a ton of stuff to the latest game wiki because I wanted to pay back for all the help it gave me in the past.

I would highly recommend anyone who likes a challenge to try the game, just don't expect it to be forgiving or give you an easy time. It has hard rules to learn and probably some of the best boss fights.

There are certainly dark sides to the game and most of it centers around the multiplayer aspects. Let me tell you a funny story ...

Me and a couple of friends got together one evening to fight a boss in Demons Souls. It was the Tower Knight which is very tough to solo as a melee class. (I have solo'd the boss once but it was a bitch of a fight) If you are interested - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOa9_jNnEw) You also have to fight past a tons of enemies just to get to the boss without dying!

Co-op works like if the host of the game dies, everyone dies and the host has to be in human form which means other players can invade your co-op game! We were about half way through the pre-boss mob fights when we got invaded. Some guy shows up in crazy crafted gear and a special spear. Surprise, surprise he kills us all really easily.

We were just learning the game and had not done very much crafting or collecting of items at this point so it was really one sided. The kicker was we lost all our souls (game money) and could not even repair our gear! Need souls to repair stuff. Our gear was broken because the invader had a specially crafted spear that degrades all items gradually to zero per hit.

Our co-op fun ended quickly that night and we had to go back to earlier parts of the game to collect resources. Eventually we got past the boss and carried on, but it highlights how much punishment death can mean in the game. 

Sock do you like latex ? 

with the source port out, has a port or maybe a patch been made to run it on widescreen or something? i believe there was a config file mama one could do, but i'm lazy. LAZY!

i thought i asked here, did some google search and i got stuff about the original dooms instead. 

Since Quake 3 had custom resolution vars I'd be amazed if Doom 3 didn't o.O 

i'm sure i've seen people post widescreen shots on doom3world... anyway, they'll definitely know. 

i did something like this a year or two ago, maybe from the same website

http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/Doom_3

but the problem i had was that the game would reset itself everytime i started it. so i was hoping someone had already made a patch to just have it normal.

the problem is that my desktop monitor always stretches non-widescreen stuff, and i have to change that manually with the montiro's menu settings, its not something i can do by going to the graphic cards settings. its crap like that.

just thought someone here might have known though. :) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfOOOAN9e9w

According to this trailer, they are taking their time with this one :)

Which is prob a good thing... 

... it looks more to be a movie rather than a game.. impressive ! 

play New 1000 AD. Its a turn based strategy text based game

http://www.new1000ad.com 

Frontlines: Fuel of War review

http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/frontlines_fuel_of_war.php

A yawnable and done-to-death already kind of game, how many times in games do I have to invade some middle eastern shithole? 6.5/10.

Might review Rise of the Argonauts next, something different. 

And Tomb Raider Underworld review
http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/tomb_raider_underworld.php

7.5/10 

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4325959/Systems_Changes-1_19_2012#blog

very interesting post on changes in diablo 3. oh if only that game was not drmd to such disgusting levels. remember how you could "spawn" install diablo 1? 

be interesting I mean the reasoning for those changes. the identifying for example I really like. 

So there is a hawken closed beta, you can sign up for it at http://playhawken.com. It looks like I need to get three people to sign up so they will 'reserve my callsign.' Use this link if you want to sign up please. 

Reviewed Rise of the Argonauts (2008)

http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/rise_of_the_argonauts.php

5.5/10. Could have been good but they fudged the PC port. Nice little story and design.