What has everyone been playing this week?

[Salsa Party Animal]

as I am at home this week

PS3 - Infamous, Burnout Paradise, Race Driver Grid and BluBlade

XBOX 360 Fifa 2009, World Championship Snooker 2009, Fight Night Round 4, virtua tennis 2009 and UFC Unleashed 2009

[Dezm0nd]

I've been in a bind lately where I can only be arsed with short games, no story etc. The latest DL games have been a godsend in getting my excitement back into games, Worms 2 and BF1943 are excellent value for money.

I've been playing the above two games, as well as the most recent game into my collection, Sacred 2.

That game has a real "WoW factor" to it, you just bang out quests, gear up and it carries on and on. I really enjoyed the opening hour, only discovering about 0.6% of the map. The average scores seem a bit harsh from some people, but i'm definitely enjoying it.

[Darwock]

Blazblue, exclusively training and online. It's one of those games that I am always thinking about playing but have some reluctance to actually start up and get going. I think it's because I feel the pressure with online matches, but once I'm going it's hard to stop. It's really woken me up to the 2D fighter genre though, with online this solid it's honestly like having an arcade in the home.

Truth is it's so fecking hot here in Osaka now that I actually spent most of today just zonked out on the floor with no desire to do or play anything at all.

[topper]

Played some Virtua Tennis 3 on a friend's PS3.

<slight sarcasm>
Next-gen HD gameplay improvements lol
</slight sarcasm>

[JazzFunk]

Been playing Ninja Gaiden 2 on 360, after the DS version has been rocking my world at work.

Tried playing original XB NG Black beforehand, but found it mega fiddly.

NG2 IS a hard game, but not hard enough to be unfun, it's very playable, providing you keep pressing buttons quick enough. I mean, I coasted badly through the first hour or so, I really liked it, and it looks ace, even through RGB on a 10 year old Bush telly. Even Ryu's ninja blouse, it still looks really leathery on my crap telly via RGB, though I sense I might be missing some HD grain effects...

The only problem I had was slashing a ninja's arm off, and that de-armed ninja STILL attacking me with the same logic and ferocity of a two-armed ninja, wtf?! Surely, a ninja with no arm would not only develop massive, psychological stress at having an arm lopped off, but would also experience physical problems such as massive blood loss, weakness, faintness, collapse, death, or at least instant hospitalisation.

Those motherfuckers just keep on coming!!!

[hush]

Just [Prototype] and abit of Tomb Raider Underwood both for the PS3

[Holio]

Call Of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare on XB360 : Had never played this game before, sat down on Monday for just over an hour and done a few levels, it is very good, though the whole pushing onto a check point to get past the enemy respawn is abit silly, means you kinda rush through levels. Had I not known about the respawns though I would probably of been sitting there trying to take them out from afar, which is much more how I play shooters. One thing I do notice about this compared to Battlefield : Bad Company. At least the soldiers your running along with at least shoot bad guys and draw fire.

Civ Rev on the DS, great game, actually starting to think it's better than it's big brothers. If you have any inklings for a Strategy game on DS get this, think Play were selling it for 8 quid recently too.

1 v 100 on 360, seems abit of a gimmick, if you had mates all guarrenteed to be online and not booted it could be fun. Too many questions about Norwegian Skiers for my like the other night though.

Super Bike 08 on 360, tis alright, think that Climax's Moto series is abit better though, frame rate seems to be rock solid though.

[Skull Commander]

Loads of Saturn games this week (thanks to Mission!), but in particular:

Salamander Collection

Gradius Collection

Darius Gaiden

Shin Shinobi Den

Marvel Super Heroes

X Men Children of the Atom

Snes:

Area 88

Super Ghouls N Ghosts

Xbox 360:

Namco Virtual Arcade

[Neon Ignition]

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood: Finished this now and really liked it, will be interested in where they go next with it

Punisher: Got old quite fast and is absolutely dead online

Wheelman: It's decent enough fun

Battlefield 1943: Very well put together but I can now definately see me having had enough of it soon thanks to its tiny size.

... though that's probably for the best as King of Fighters XII is now preordered

[Wools]

Thanks to Tak a month ago I got a US modded N64 through the post and have been playing it a lot.

It's brilliant having old games like Wave Race but playing them as intended as all my old N64 games were UK PAL. However I was not able to play Perfect Dark due to not owing an N64 Ram Pak, over the weekend I was in my local indie and they had a boxed Pak for &#163;15 which I snapped up. Also at the weekend I saw the box set of Fallout 3 that came with its expansions for a good price, so picked that up too.

Currently I’m up to Area 51 of Perfect Dark and really enjoying the game again. It looks brilliant and the core mechanics of entering a room and shooting as fast or as stealthily as possible are still sound. Although it has dated, if you put the display to widescreen, crop the picture and turn on Hi-Res mode, it does play well.

Aside from that I put in a lot of hours into Fallout 3. I played the game when it came out last year and although I enjoyed it, after about 8 hours I was stuck on a quest and not enjoying the look as much as Oblivion as it really is just wasteland. I traded it in months ago but a friend at work picked it up for the summer drought and was enjoying the game so much, it prompted me to give the game a second chance and I’m glad I did.

I’m about 10 hours in and not only have I realised that first time though I missed the stat screen, that is determined after the G.O.A.T. test, that I missed that sleeping in any bed fixes limbs and raises health but the mission I was stuck on originally is easily solved. So far the setting is nowhere near as shockingly beautiful as the Elder Scrolls universe but the atmosphere is, if not far greater as it’s so damn well realised. It’s a wasteland and although there is not much in the way of scenery, the locations, people and vistas more than make up for the lack of green.

Although there’s a long way to go yet, I think I’m rediscovering one of the best games released in 2008.

[hush]

Just Tennis 2009 and some Street Fighter 4

[gunrock]

Played Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the original Xbox with my daughter over the weekend. We're into the last third of the game after an epic battle through

->Open Spoiler<-

Mephisto's Realm

. My girl is only five and the way she pumped her fist after we offed

->Open Spoiler<-

Mephisto

was so funny. (

->Open Spoiler<-

yes, my daughter saved Jean Grey over Nightcrawler. Girl power, I guess!)

.

Keeping on the Marvel tip, over the weekend I managed to pick up X-Men Origins: Wolverine from John Lewis for 15 quid, so I played a bit with my 10 year old nephew last night. Pretty gory and visceral, but the art direction flips from great to utter crap. I really like the feral sense effect. From the hour or so we played last night, if I'd paid more than 15-20 quid I'd be disappointed.

GTA: Chinatown Wars is still keeping my train journeys sufferable, but the DSi battery life is a bit poo compared to my original chunky DS.

[QualityChimp]

The wife booted me out the lounge so she could play Guitar Hero: World Tour!

She'd only played once before and really struggled with the timing, but after a bit of practice she got the hang of it and a bit later I was allowed to play too! I played the drums whilst she played bass.

She's now got her eye on the Rock Band Country Track Pack.
"She thinks my tractor's sexy, it really turns her oooooon!".

The wireless GH:WT guitar seems to be unresponsive even after changing batteries and recalibrating, but my GHII Explorer hits all the notes. Any suggestions?

[saturn-gamer]

Hydro Thunder.

Received the PC version, installed it on the laptop for kicks. Plays like a dream, probably superior to the DC port. Old memories of the Arcade version crossed my mind... great game still. I hope we'll get H2Overdrive ported to the consoles too...

Blaz Blue

Playing this the most, online and offline. Great game also.

[MyDogSkip]

Sacred 2 has been my choice of game this week. I just cant get enough of it. (even though i have no idea what all the relics, runes, etc. do! )