I haven't actually played any WWII games other than RTCW and ET (which I would say don't count) so am not burnt out on the genre. I'm thinking of picking up COD3 for the Wii. The graphics look fine to me from gameplay videos so that isn't an issue and I hear the controls work well. 

This christmas, I've played a lot more console games than usual, due to being stuck in a house with little else going for it apart from lots of bagels and port, so my opinions may have a slight drunk/bread-product bias.

Xbox 360 was the console of choice. Generally nothing I've seen of the 360 has made me want one until recently... most of the games just don't look much better than xbox games, and the gameplay seems to stay the same.

Fifa 07
Well if you care about football (soccer) games at all, you almost definitely prefer the Pro Evolution (winning eleven) series of games anyway. Fifa's gameplay is always much worse, far less addictive, fluid, refined, but it always looks a lot better. So it's up to you to choose between a pretty game you won't play, and an acceptable looking game that you'll play a lot.

Tiger woods 07(?)
Well it's a golf game... I don't really play golf games, but this, like the xbox one, is a pretty good time.

Oblivion
I played it quite a lot on the PC, and you can tell even when playing that how much they were thinking of the 360 when they made it, especially the menu/inventory system, which is near identical. So it's no surprise Oblivion plays great on the 360, and if you haven't got access to a PC, get this on the xbox... it's clearly one of the best games you can buy right now. 

So Gears of War then. Probably the most hyped up game I've ever played. The game goes right into it pretty quickly and you're being rescued from jail by your buddy in a little cutscene. "Hi i'm Dom Santiago, I'm your slightly shit sidekick who will die on you quite a lot, we're busting you out". But they they teach you how to use cover, you get to fight, and immediately it feels really natural. I thought the cover system was every bit as good as it was hyped to be. There really is no doubt this'll be turning up in a lot of games in the future.

The main difference between playing Gears and playing Call of Duty is that you actually enjoy the sections where you're just taking out troops. The locusts in gears of war jump and roll and slide between and over cover like you do. They don't just stand there like in CoD. And you're hiding behind pillars, blindly firing your rifle around the corner like in a film, except it's never scripted, so you're never just watching. You can get close and chainsaw them, smack them with your gun, or take them out with headshots and it's never boring.

I've never been in a actual gunfight, the nearest I've got is paintball(much like CliffyB, the designer, as he mentions in the manual), and Gears really captures the atmosphere of that. It's all about diving behind things, sprinting to a better position and trying not to get hit.

Gears of War also is by far the most beautiful game I've ever played. The engine is spectacular, and the artwork is equally amazing. Some sections you just have to stop and admire... the landscape in the distance especially, such as in the caves, it really needs to be seen to be believed.

Damn, it's just so much fun, and it knows it's a game, which is why i liked Prey, despite its shortcomings. The interface is incredible, I love the simple button setup. The plot is cheesy and it knows it, but it's easy to get involved and care about your dudes, a lot easier than CoD. The only area CoD wins is animation, but that's not to say Gears is bad in this area... actually I think that's something Call of Duty does extremely well.

Your AI buddies aren't too bad, although the aforementioned sidekick Dom Santiago is a bit shit, although reviving your fallen buddies isn't difficult, especially with a bit of cover fire, and it's a pretty interesting game mechanic anyway. I haven't played it in coop, but my god, it seems like that would be amazing.

I can't help but think how fun it would be to watch 2 really good 4-man teams duke it out in multiplayer. What a war that'd be. I can't believe i'm still typing. Get this game. Skip Call of Duty.


Guitar Hero 2 (PS2)
I nearly forgot. You must be tired of those old songs by now. In fact there are some absolutely fantastic new tracks: Sylvia, YYZ and that Kansas one stood out for me. The game is a little smoother, looks a little better, but the biggest improvement is that songs are generally more fun to play, as the notes you have to play are better chosen, and the meter is a bit more forgiving i think. It just feels better, go buy. 

DUH I'M RETARDED


Call of Duty 3 VERSUS Gears of War
I figure the best way to get the general feeling of these games over is by comparing them. This is also the point where I agree with Kinn a lot.

I played Call of Duty 3 first. I've played a fair few WWII games through the years, I'm pretty neutral to the genre, but the one I played and enjoyed the most was probably actually the original Call of Duty. I'd like to be able to say, 'hey, if you liked that, you'll love this, it's bigger, it's better, it's more of the same...' but if you're only kind of interested in this type of game, and Nazis don't give you a semi, you really won't love this.

Basically, 'more of the same' turns out to be far too much. There's a real sense of tiredness in the series, and it's really apparent now just how boring it is to crouch in a ruined house in normandy and try and shoot all the nazis that are hiding in windows in that other ruined house over the road, maybe with a fixed machinegun placement too, how exciting.

Graphics look better, they look alright really. Don't think I was ever that blown away. There's some driving sections, some terrible dialogue. Actually that's quite noticable... the series has gone downhill in the script department, and it's utter american propaganda shite, so badly written I don't think anyone could be inspired by it. The sections where you have to tap the shoulder buttons to wrestle with german soldiers are, as Kinn mentioned, particularly wank. This isn't Saving Private Ryan, that's a film. And you aren't Spielberg, so I'd rather actually play the games I buy rather than watch scripted sequences all day thanks.

Oh and i finished the game in a shockingly short amount of time, which isn't something I usually complain about. Actually I'm not complaining, I didn't want to play it any more. 

Wait.. 

^_^

Excellent reviews all round. In particular, you nailed what makes Gears so fun compared to CoD3, namely - even when the combat situation is at its most unimaginative (e.g. kill this horde lol) - Gears makes it fun, CoD3 doesn't. 

now i'm even more excited about gears. I'll have to buy a 360 someday.

And I second the comments on Guitar Hero 2. It's an even more polished version of an already polished game. And the note sequences DO seem generally more "fun" than last time, too... I though I was just imagining it. 

holy shit!

Some of the best level design I have ever seen in a game, not only visually, but also with regard to the layouts and the way areas connect together. Actually, the layouts are kind of Prince of Persia: Sands of time-like, but the theming is incredible. Some of the entrances to areas just need to be seen - you would never have thought the visuals this game regularly puts in front of you would be possible on PS2, but it's right there, running smoothly and with almost never any loads.

The gameplay is pretty damn good too, so it's unlikely you will be dissapointed with the game at all - especially as it is cheap now ;)

note: I haven't yet finished the game, but I've played for 6-8 hours now and have only just reached the door before the minotaur (which I can't open yet). The game seems to be pretty long. 

Metroid Prime: Been playing this on my Wii in anticipation of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Pretty good game so far, does an excellent job of converting the Metroid feel into a FPS. The only problem I have is turning is much too slow compared to PC games, and honestly gives me a headache and slight nausea sometimes just because it feels wrong. I think I'm about 15% into it or so, and it's pretty good so far.

I've also been playing Metroid Prime Hunters on my loveable onyx Nintendo DS. This game is blowing me away, not just because it's a good FPS, but because it's on the DS. The stylus control scheme is incredibly intuitive and only takes little bit of time to learn how to use. I'm only about 15% on this one too, but it's already super awesome fun fantastic; I just need to figure out how to get online to start kicking some Metroid ass (if anyone in the world plays this game online, which I doubt they do.)

I also started playing some Children of Mana, and though I'm not too far in, I like the art style but the gameplay seems pretty bad. Maybe it gets better, but we'll see.

I finished FF3 - quite good at the beginning but gets pretty stale towards the end, and is pretty damn easy to beat once all your characters are level 60+. The only bad part is that once you hit the end you most likely have to grind for several hours to get your characters in fighting shape, which gets boring and repetitive very quickly. Also, the story blows, and combat is also pretty lame, but to be honest I didn't try out every job in the game. Looking forward to FF6 though, that game should be pretty awesome.
Rating: Two half-eaten bananas.

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time was fun, not as good as the first one, but interesting and holds your attention for 15+ hours. The ending battle is a bit of a letdown, especially if you played Super Star Saga, but the gameplay is fun and pretty refreshing as they continually change things up as you progress through the game.
Rating: 2.5 male strippers and a million rouples.

Also beat Resident Evil 4, and I have to say this is my newest fav. RE game and possibly my fav. survival-horror game ever. Lots of cool scenes drew me into the game, and I really felt like my life was in danger. Every time my head got cut off by a chainsaw my jaw dropped, as it did for plenty of other scenes. Lots of intense action, and the knife fight was incredibly fun. Tapping buttons at the right time was never so much fun (regardless of what other people think.)
Rating: A poster of CZG in his underwear standing on a pile of kittens. (That's a good thing.)

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves - Fun. Mindless, twitch-inspired fun.
Rating: Two-headed penis monster eating itself.

Megaman ZX: Short, but fun. The final level took me about 20-30 tries before I was able to beat it - it's just incredibly difficult to beat everything on one continue unless you're just really really good. Not as hard as the Megaman Zero games, but still a lot of fun.
Rating: Kevin Federline Super Bowl Ad. 

I bought this a year ago, eventually came around to opening the box, and beat it on 'pussy willows and kittens' difficulty. It's quite a lot of fun - I never figured myself to enjoy using a controller, but this is the kind of game in which it works. (an fps is not.)

Marvelous use of artistic style to play to the engine and console's strengths. Vertex light was unnoticeable, and things like low poly rocks were played up and stylized to look like they meant to do it that way.

I started playing through it again on 'skulls and spikes' difficulty, and still had fun despite the extremely heightened challenge. Difficulty that scales well without losing the fun is a HUGE factor in game quality that gets lost so damn often. 

do the cutscene killmove button sequences get any tougher on the harder difficulty settings? I hate trying to do them because I am wank at that sort of game, so if they get harder I doubt I will bother to play through it again on a harder skill setting. 

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/badcrumble/icowandahf5cx4.jpg
Fucking Sony bitches now I have to buy a PS3! 

Could you translate please ? 

There's only two words there I know;
ICO
PS3

fuckkk! 

I will please save you the misery if you buy me the PS3 instead. 

but I think the black writing says that they are looking for new staff to join the ico and wanda teams on a new ps3 project. The red writing looks like someone asking what it could mean.

Personally, I've still got to play ico and wanda, but have them both on my shelf waiting to be played.

CZG: you can always wait until this new game is released before buying a PS3. It might turn out shit, be cancelled, or the price of the PS3 might drop in the meantime. 

Got this over the holiday and have begun playing it recently. I'm probably about 7 hours into the game. (I'm currently at the big desert oil rig thing, if that helps you.)

Anyway, this is good. It's basically a single player RPG with MMORPG combat. I never played FFXI, but I can tell that a lot of the systems they have in XII were originally developed for XI. Since "random battles" that take place on a seperate battle screen instead of the world map are a staple of FF games since way back, this is the biggest change. The MMO influence means walking around, seeing your opponents, and making tactical decisions about whether to engage or sneak past, who to attack, etc, just like an MMO.

And the other cool new thing about it is the gambit system, which basically allows you to program the game to do the basic tasks that you used to have to do by hand. Since most battles in these kind of games involve using a standard strategy (A attacks, B heals, C casts fireball) it's nice to have a system that makes that part of the game. Now the gameplay is more about constantly tuning and adjusting your gambits so that the team works as effectively as possible.

(I've been trying to convince people at work to steal some of these ideas for our own squad combat system.)

Environments are mostly really good for a PS2, with only a few areas near the beginning that didn't please me. Once I got past those, there are some really cool environments.

After about 4 hours I got used to the backwards camera controls.

The male characters in this game are very pretty. They don't have boobs, though, so that's how you can tell them apart from the girls. 

The male characters in this game are very pretty. They don't have boobs, though, so that's how you can tell them apart from the girls.

But they all wear thongs? 

But they all wear thongs?

I don't know, since I only look at girls' crotches. It follows that I would never have seen a thong being worn that wasn't being worn by a girl. 

do the cutscene killmove button sequences get any tougher on the harder difficulty settings?

Not that I noticed but I'm universally shite at them too so it may not say much. I think the delays are shorter? But it's not like they explode at you XXYXYAYBYAYBAY or anything. 

playing it on the PC, but I can't be arsed to dig up the correct thread.

I like it. I'm not going to the spirit realm much because I am being careful and trying to enjoy the gameplay. Still, I haven't really gotten annoyed with the spirit realm, as it gets me back into the game as fast as quickload in Q4 on my machine and doesn't break up the gameplay quite as much.

Love the spacecraft sections - feels great after playing Quake 4's fucking abysmal vehicle sections. These sections and the game in general runs much better on my pc than Q4 also.

The only bad thing so far is the first boss. Despite being a Cyberdemon ripoff, he looked cool, but fighting him was boring - I basically just hid in the corner and popped him in the face when he started growling. I'm guessing the designers thought I would just die and go back to the spirit realm, but I am trying not to die (God knows why).

Anyway good stuff, and I'm really pleased with the performance on my system. Runs fine with a meagre 512mb of RAM and feels like HumanHead have really optimised the Doom 3 engine well despite all the crazy shit they have added to it. 

I got this today (It wasn't released in Europe until last week) and I played it now for 7 hours straight.

It is a Zelda clone really, except it's good. It's more than good, it's fucking awesome.
The drawing gimmick that I thought would be nothing more than a gimmick is perhaps the best gameplay element I've seen in any game since, well, forever.

Example; to defeat a certain enemy you have to first agitate it by slicing it (draw a line across it), then it shoots fireballs that you have to deflect back at him (by slicing the fireballs), then when he's stunned you have to make him bloom (he's an evil flower) (draw a circle over him), then you can attack his core using either your melee weapon or by slicing him with your brush or by drawing an explosion on him (cirle + a fuse = a bomb).
Then there's the first boss where you have to tie it up in vines and stuff using the brush before you can attack it and and and it is the best game I've played forever and I am now a rabid fucking fanboy.

And like like stupid stuff like you can feed seeds and herbs to bunnies and pigs and sparrows to make them love you and when they love you enough you can get more ink to draw with or more health or whatever.

And the graphical style holy shit what can I say.

The only thing I object against is the fact that an artist took his time to draw Amaterasu's asshole.

The game even has a sassy frenchman and a girl with an assless skirt and a fairy living between her breasts.

Wow, just wow.

http://tothegame.com/screenshot.asp?id=3244 

pls stop pimping games for platforms I don't have.

thank you. 

The art book for that game is bloody fantastic. Although most of the illustrations are simple little drawings of the people, the actual detailed ones are just jaw-droppingly good. I wish it weren't for PS2 but for Wii, but once I get my PS2 back from my friend I may just pick that up.

Hurray Manhunt 2! 

Wonderful game. I really enjoyed it, and despite how silly and contrived the world seemed, I didn't care because it was inventive and fun to be in.

Also, I thought about deathwalk a bit at the end of the game and realised that although it meant I spent less time playing the game, it did mean I spent more time enjoying the game and not REplaying the game. Upon completion I was left with a satisfying feeling and realisation that I hadn't once let out a yelp of frustration. Sure, I was basically invulnerable for the whole game, but it never felt that way because I was trying to stay out of deathwalk as much as possible - I must have seen deathwalk at most 20 times during the whole game. Contrast that with doom 3 for instance - I must have at to replay sometimes large unenjoyable sections of levels way more times than that - some of Doom 3 was intolerably frustrating - especially if I saved when low on health before an annoying encounter.

During my time spent playing Prey I never shouted "FUCK" or grunted "ARGH!", though I often felt under pressure to stay alive. I think this was because of the heartbeat noise when you are low on health and also that you know there is a little more health to keep you going in every new area. Basically it was intense without the frustration that often accompanies intensity.

Anyway, after playing Prey, I'm not really sure I can be bothered to finish the FPS by numbers Quake 4 - which is so far a bit meh, the graphics are shit compared to Prey, and the level design isn't interesting.

By the way, the ending to Prey was great, and there was a huge buildup at the end where you keep thinking you've hit the end but you haven't quite got there. When you finally do finish the game, the ending isn't incredible, but it was certainly enough to make me feel really great about completing the game.