[nt] 

the dodge blokes probably aren't that dodgy though, at least not all of them 

I think Nintendo is far and away one of the most innovative game makers. Don't be fooled by the reuse of franchise characters. 

what dont you like about mod chips? 

http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_neocontra_tgs_2k4.html

Neo-Contra :D 

We all know the many short comings of Counter-Strike, I myself have never been able to get into it. The only multi-player game I have gone hard core for was Team Fortress, but Counter-Strike took my LAN buddies away from me.

Grudge aside, and faults aside, what are the qualities of Counter-Strike that have made it such a gaming success.

If you really detest the game and find that question hard to give an objective treatment, how about the question, 'what are the major disfunctions of people who play Counter-Strike that make such a commonly played game', instead. 

it's easy to play first up. The speed of the game makes it easy for many first timers to get into it straight away (sure tactics etc come into play but you can survive for a fair while first up).

Contrast this with quake, UT etc. Most first timers would get slaughtered first up if they played online against anyone half decent. 

I must confess that I did like Day of Defeat, though.

Also, what's up with the pricing on the HL2 packages when you buy it via STEAM? You'd think it'd be cheaper than buying a boxed copy at a retail store, and yet the prices range from $50 to $80 USD? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't $50 the going price for most new games in stores in the US? If that's the case.. wtf? 

Contrast this with quake, UT etc. Most first timers would get slaughtered first up if they played online against anyone half decent.

This is very true.
Very.
:X ( ;) )

anyway, i *like* cs. i think it's a lot of fun, really. probably because i have lots of friends who play the game and i'm getting fairly good at it too.
i find the greatest aspect of cs is when you are playing with people you know, instead of nameless pubs, plus the voice chat thing is really cool. q3 would be a lot more fun if it had built in voice chat... playing q3dm with teamspeak or similar program is really fun.

as far as !faults and faults (what is the opposite of fault? O_O)
it's fun for me because there is more situational awareness than q3dm.
while using sound is fairly effective in q3dm, it is vital in cs, and i like being able to use this aspect of the gameplay to my advantage.

but really, that's about the only thing i can positively say why i like cs more than q3dm (or any other game with this type of fast paced gameplay).
All i know is i can play cs for 5 hours without getting bored, but only 2 or 3 on q3dm.

well, maybe it's because i was getting pwned in q3dm. :P 

I have been invited to a LAN this weekend, and it has been so long that I have set down and played Counter-Strike that I'm weary whether I'll have fun doing it. The last time I played CS was at the Anarchy On-Line Release party a few years back. Anarchy-OL wasn't quite set up correctly so they had to fall back on CS. Kind of a weird dissapointing evening.

That matter of Steam pricing. Well, in normal circumstances, the manufacturer can't really afford to step on the retailer price because the retailer buys in bulk and being undercut like that is a big disensentive for the retailer to do business with the developer/manufacturer in the first place. 

Has anyone played this SNES game, Nosferatu? It's like Prince Of Persia meets Castlevania - the character actions are fluid, the control just feels perfect. Maybe the running/jumping could be better, but it's fun. What's weird is... this game as old as it is, is actually kinda creepy. The screenshot(s) don't do it justice here though...

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/snes01/01/nosferatu.html 

just found dled a copy of discworld II
(an adventure game based on Terry Pratchet books)
very funny stuff.
got it to work with vdmsound and vbeplus 

- http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096480041/
- http://www.gtr-game.com

Same track (Spa) and cars (Lister and Morgan) as the press demo, but this time you can race against up to 19 cars, no time limit and at the site they say "The new official demo also shows the incredible details on the tracks and cars that have become the hallmark of SimBin Development Team. Explore the innovative new features on and off the track and experience the feedback and response of the cars' natural feeling controls." 

Thanks !! 

Yay. 

I was never really interested in H&D2 single player, although I did enjoy the demo of the first H&D, despite it's many bugs (and ladders that were more lethal than nazis with mp40s.)

H&D2 had no coop mode, wheras the original did. Sabre Squadron adds 9 new SP missions, although it now includes coop play for all the missions. This is the reason I've started playing it. It's absolutely brilliant. I've played the game in a squad of two and three, and every occasion has been a lot of fun. However, we have been using voice comms, and I doubt it would be so much fun if we had to use the keyboard to coordinate our strategies.

Also, as my workmate has pointed out to me on MANY occasions, the effort and research that must have gone into the art side of H&D2 is staggering. H&D2 really puts every other WW2 based FPS to shame. Everything seems to be immaculately researched, modelled and textured, and there is just so much variety in the game it makes you want to weep. The textures may not be particularly crisp, but frankly, when every building seems to have its own textures and mesh (no c&ping stuff all around the levels) I don't care.

The gameplay is great too, although I can't be bothered to write anymore, so I won't go into it.

Anyone else played H&D2? (Sabre Squadron in particular.) 

MekTek released MechPack2 for Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries already? I was awestruck, it's the best thing since sliced sex. The amount of new stuff will keep things interesting for a long time. 

I get a copy of 'sliced sex' ?

google shows up nothing. (nothing I want to see anyways) 

Phantom Brave (PS2). SRPG using 3d levels and 2d sprite characters. Been pretty cool so far, it's the 'kinda sequel' to Disgaea, same way Q2 was a sequel to Q1. If you're unfamilar with these types of games, basically you command a team against a team (or sometime multiple teams) of baddies and use attacks and special moves to defeat them. You create all but a few of your team's characters in tons of differant classes, many of which need to be unlocked by defeating that class type in battle. Getting stronger is standard RPG fare, level up after defeating enemies, and your weapons get more powers as you use them more. The game is great for people who like doing cool flashy attacks, doing tons of damage and leveling up like mad... I believe the game lets you level up to 999 and do tens of thousands of damage per attack... course, that's a ways into the game... I have 23 hours spent so far, and my main character is level 24 :D

The other game I just started playing last night (and have been playing all day today) is Neo Contra. This isn't a sideshooter like most of the previous Contras, but it's a top down shooter using the same '3 weapon switchable' scheme that Contra: Shattered Soldier used. Unlike that game, you can pick between differant sets of weapons and unlock more as you play. Play is great, tons of running and gunning and explosions and dodging tons of shots... been loving every second of it. You're ranked at the end of the level on how well you did and the rankings are what unlock stuff (like, the last 2 levels... need to get an A ranking average on the first 5 levels to open them up.) It's not so hard to get rank B-D, but Rank A pretty much means shooting damn near every baddie, and only dying a few times (instant hit deaths make this a challenge). The toughest rank is S, which means every baddie killed, and you get 1 or 2 deaths, depending on the level. I've so far beaten the first 5 levels with a rank of B... and even that was a challenge.
Beyond the gameplay, the cutscenes, some of the battle sequences, and alot of the bosses seem totally over the top and are at times kinda cheesy, or just plain 'wtf'. But the game seems to revel in it... Just the opening cutscene shows the two main heros blasting away millions of baddies, one the the heros holding his katana while riding on top of an airplane spitting an incoming missle in two and it flys directly into his blade... then shows the two running down a corridor, barely escaping a series of firey explosions behind them, jumping in the nic of time from it, falling down a huge shaft... at the bottom of the shaft, a missle shoots out and the guy with the katana has stuck his blade in and is holding onto the other guy as they rocket out and it explodes.

They are of course, fine.

A good example of a stange battling place? How about the beginning of Level 4? Where you are running on top of the blades of a helicopter, shooting down alien hornets. Also, the final boss of this area is a talking dog and you fight him while surfing on a torpedo. :D

I've laughed at all this silly and weird seqeunces and cheesy story/drama bits, but in a way, I think it was meant to be exactly like this, a completely non-realistic, over the top shooter that's just pure fun. 

yes I'd been oogling this title since the trailer was out 

. 

Just been playing it for the last 3 and a half hours, and I am impressed. Its great fun and fixes pretty much all the niggles I had about the 1st Halo. Recommended perchase.

+ Levels are much more detailed and varied.
+ More enemies and varieties of enemies.
+ Cool set pieces.
+ Lots of fun new guns (people who say battle rifle is poor just have no skillz)
+ (SPOILER!!!!!!!! DO NOT READ IF U HAVRNT PLAYED)





Variety of characters to play as in the SP campaign




END SPOILER! 

I've been playing the US Open Beta for a few days now and it's great fun. The character classes are pretty well balanced and there is no "best allaround character/race", which is a good thing. The game world is FUCKING HUGE, not Morrowind-huge, think Morrowind x 2 perhaps even more. I've been playing a lot during the past 3 or so days and I have a lvl 11 human paladin and I already got to defend a few human towns against the invasion of human controlled Horde characters.

http://img129.exs.cx/img129/8984/WoW-DNAUMOV-02.jpg 

DX2 - Invisible War. I like this game. It has a lot of depth and flexibility in how you solve problems. There are lots of interesting NPCs, most of whom keep you totally paranoid. I like the concept of parallel tasks that you can take on or ignore and for the most part in the order that you choose. I like the sombre mood and the occasional humorous treat. It's a good game. My biggest gripe are slow load times and an interface that hurts because they wanted something that fits PCs and consoles.

Painkiller. I'm only 4 levels in and this is a good leave-your-brain-in-New-Seattle-because-you-don't-need-it-here type of game that is good and mindless if devoid of immersion and the plot is thin enough to give you a paper cut. Okay, you need some brain for figuring out Boss puzzles. Is it me, or are secrets really hard to find (Monastery excluded)? In the Cathedral, I could see two but I suspect you need to do some serious trick jumping or fantastic feats that I'll never master. I like my secrets Quake flavour - accesible to the masses. Any general rules for PK secret hunting? I'm not looking for spoilers, just general advice and a sense of how fair they usually are.