Reviewed 3 of City Interactive's 2009 shooters

Code of Honor 3: Desperate Measures 5.5/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/code_of_honor3_desperate_measures.php

Battlestrike: Shadow Of Stalingrad 4/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/battlestrike_shadow_of_stalingrad.php

Armed Forces Corp 4/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/armed_forces_corp.php

Bit of a chore, but all 3 games only added up to about 6-7 hours of gameplay. 

shittest performance ever. Tried a number of different settings but I barely get 5 FPS no matter what. 

What specs? I was tempted to get it the other day on Steam but I hesitated because my machine is about 3 years old now. What are you working with? 

A short free horror game in the vein of Amnesia and Penumbra. You have to find eight manuscript pages scattered throughout a dark forest while being chased by a mysterious man.

The official website http://www.parsecproductions.net is down at the moment, but the download links still work: PC Mac (~55MB)

NECROS, GO PLAY THIS!!!!!! 

Teaser video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BswJKtn_9o

NECROS, DON'T WATCH THIS!!!!!!! 

Not wearing my brown pants atm, so I'll have to take a rain check. 

a mysterious man.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man 

The link reminded me I should replay Yahtzee's Chzo series - which is somewhat Lone Survivorish btw. 

nuke it from orbit with fire good sir, fuck the ocaen 

Premise sounds a lot like this game, which was actually very cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ELRv06sa-c 

GTX 465 and AMD Phenom II X$ 965 3.40 GHz with 4 GB ram.

Like yours, not exactly new but this is the first game I have had this much trouble with. 5 FPS is ridiculous. 

Anyone got this? And if so, can you check to see if you can rebind keys as follows:

Forward: L Mouse
Backward: R Mouse
Attack 1: #
Attack 2: [

And in general rebind all keys??

Ta, X 

and I'm not downloading 11gb of game to check :D But off the top of my head, you can rebind keys. I used a 360 pad though, much easier to play that way! 

You know, google and stuff :)
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/50738/can-you-rebind-the-movement-keys 

I did google, but couldn't find any indication that you could rebind MOUSE keys... 

+ Alice is cool.
+ The enemies are cool.
+ The environments are cool.
+ The jumping and dodging effects are cool.
+ The shrink mode and hiccuping are cool.
+ The lack of penalty for falling off things is very good.

- The worst example of consolitis I've seen.
- The umbrella bug sucks.
- The controls feel like ass, the mouse speed is fucked randomly changes all the time (maybe something to do with strafing (which is also fucked) but I can't find a consistent cause)
- The aiming mode that removes true 3PS is horrible.
- The focus mode that removes and semblence of a control perspective is even more horrible.
- The auto-saves are sometimes in utterly moronic positions.
- No normal saves.
- The section where you go into a retarded side-on perspective (why? truly awful), run through lots of crushing fist things, then have to fight lots of enemy in a tight space, with the autosave BEFORE the side-scrolling crushing bit is possibly the worst section of gameplay I've encountered in a game.
- Completely on rails with spoonfed progression.

Basically it is a pretty, stylish, shell of a game surrounding a rotten core of terribly- ported, scarcely QA-tested console turd where the charming effects and amusing enemy are drowned in a seething diarrhoeic mass of broken controls, broken autosaves, and general obtuseness. 

Is Tomb Raider Legends any good? just found it in a random pile of games left behind by an ex-housemate :p 

its insanely awesome. the game is a straight console port. no mouse pointer on menus, so you either use the wads keys or the arrows to move and choose the options.

steam has a demo, so i say try it. before playing though, there is an option to configure controls & settings. going there is a must because otherwise you'll get xbox controller icons for inputs instead of keyboard ones. you can also get change fov and the keys themselves and etc etc.

the game itself is a third person cover shooter, and its done pretty well. what i really liked is that, while it has those concrete barriers most third person cover games have, this one doesn't have them on every single fucking level. levels are linear, but fun and done well.

i thought the shooting itself felt really good. controls just like gears, spacebar to run & take cover. sometimes its used as a "action" key, though F is more of the use key but whatever. console games are weird as shit.

you can issue commands to your team mates, but its not a must. there are times when they'll comment on something or ask you a question and you'll have to answer and their friendship level will rise or lower depending on how you answered them. if they hate you, giving them the command to give you cover will be ignore and such.

the story is very good. i really liked it. some people say its b-movie good, but i find that kind of a bad comparison. its just a good game. very japanese [made by sega], and its crazy as fuck, and funny, and serious. its one of those games that doesn't take itself too seriously [unlike most western made shooters] so its fun and crazy.

wont go into details about the story because i am too shit to explain it, but watch the trailers and you'll get an idea. i think knowing the basics will be enough. i did that and i found myself getting into it more.

think of it as a a mix of blade runner & battlestar galactica [robots being human like & so on].

there are insane set pieces, and really fun boss fights. while they are the usual "shoot glowing part" i didn't it find it annoying or boring.

there are a few "turret" scenes, not really in a turret, but in a moving car shooting dudes out the window during a chase. even these parts i had fun, usually i hate them or i just want them to be over soon.

i had no issues with it technically, except for a fps drops when i killed a boss and particles everywhere slowed it down to like 5fps, but lasted like 3/5 seconds.

right now its $9.99usd on amazon.com. maybe wait for the steam summer sale to grab it if you live outside the us.

took me around 12 hours to finish it. the length felt just right. not too long, not too short.

i saw this trailer a few months ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPakeDy5mKc - and i got interested, then tried the demo and i was sold.

i drank three large 32oz coffees so i am hyper as hell right now, hopefully it wont make the text too annoying. 

Also, it's too long. 

scarcely QA-tested console turd

I notice testers tend to get a lot of flak for problems still present in games, whether its a bad console port or bugs. What if these people are doing their job, yet the ones in charge are simply not fixing them for whatever reason? (Time/Cost)

Just something that has been on my mind recently. 

Obviously the complaint is about the overall combination of the testing, the attention paid to testing feedback, and the fixes made on the basis of that feedback - or lack of any of those aspects.

In this case I presume the PC port wasn't tested at all. 

I wasn't pointing fingers at you specifically, it's just a thing I've noticed all over the web and that quote was an excuse to post my thoughts :p 

It is a fair point. Who knows where the fault lies, all we can do is make a general point and hope those responsible are wracked with guilt and shame. 

Read a few articles about how a lot of QA departments in studios are treated like complete shit, ie not considered 'proper' employees, kept in seperate buildings and stuff.