Astras

@MasturbatingestBear: I love 7, but in some ways 8 for me is the best in the series.

I explained to this girl at the local bar that about my ability to know exactly when a woman was was born by feeling her Tits, at first she didn't believe me but after some persuasion she let me try it on her. After about 5 - 10 minuits of extensive examination she stopped me and said, ok so when was I born then.

I replied yes I think I have got it,

You were born yesterday

@Psykhophear said:

@ArbitraryWater said:

Resident Evil Zero is underrated.

Agreed. Even though the concept of removing the item box was a dumb idea, Zero is still a great game.

The Club and Wolfenstein are underrated as well. I played those games extensively when they first came out.

Zero is the one on the cube yea? Remebered it was ok, the beginning with the train and atmosphere seemed amazing to me if I remember, but I seemed to remember it got more shallow as it went on..... i think.

@ArbitraryWater said:

I dunno if underrated is the same thing as under appreciated. I think Resident Evil Zero is underrated. I think Temple of Elemental Evil is under appreciated.

Aye, I see what you mean, the original point in the title I guess was that x3 and darkfall sometimes get bad rap. Temple of Elemental Evil get's my appreciation along with Planscape, Icewindale and BG :)

Lately I have been playing some more obscure titles, recent and older games.

I'm gonna share some of the gems I 'think' I have uncovered:

X3 - Terran conflict/Albion prelude - pc

This game is unbelievably difficult to explain, I first started playing this coming in from Eve online/Freelancer so I thought that it would be your standard space, mission, story kind of campaign. I am now a couple of days in and I have to say this thing has surpassed my every expectation. I don't care that it's not a multiplayer game because quite frankly the game universe and depth just totally blows me away.

A brief overview of what I have in game to give you some sort of idea:

• A light shield production complex with my traders supplying my factory and selling my world to the games economy.
• Mining operations including silicon and ore used to support the local economies and earn me profits.
• 8 automated universe traders that seek out goods for the best price and sell to make me profit.
• Various fleets of ships that I can control from anywhere in the universe serving different purposes from protecting some of my trade lines to invading certain territories.
• Assisting the development of the re emerging Terran economy.
• Stock market investments.

The game has a steep learning curve but if you read the forums and take the time to learn the game it is amazingly rewarding. It really feels like Egosoft are going to make a LOT of money with future iterations of this game, it seems like the TRUE evolution of what the dream of Elite was back in the 80's.

With the complexity of this game and the evolution of the engine, it is hard to imagine any other company really moving in on this market as the barrier of entry is to high.

Gradius 3 - Snes

I am not the biggest fan of 2d shooters but this game has rocked my world in the last couple of weeks. I keep playing it in small bursts of 15 - 20 mins. I have played many various shooters and bullet hell simulators but to me this game just feels so great.

The powerups seem to compliment the game perfectly, you collect energy that fills up a power up scale. The scale has different levels of powerups, the more you collect before spending your powerup energy they better the powerup you generally get.

You often have to take the risk of making decisions such as increasing your arsenal over increasing speed, ship speed is essential or you can just find yourself overwhelmed very quick and without it you can start missing out on other powerup energy.

There is real difficulty in the game, if you die you lose your equipped powerups which can be devestating to the whole campaign, to really power up to your ships true potential it takes quite a lot of time, but when you get there you are pretty much unstoppable.

It's a fantastic game, challenging and when you finally start nailing it, really great fun.

Darkfall - PC

Many of you probably have played darkfall but to some it's a relatively unknown game.

I came across this game Years ago when it was in development and what a frustratingly long development cycle it had.

The game is an MMO, it is a sandbox with full loot when you die. I played it when it was first released and was dissapointed, the game was buggy, people were heavily exploiting and to be honest there wasn't an awefull lot to do.

I recently tried the game again and I have to say that I was really impressed the game has come a long way it seems. Graphically also it seems to have improved, although I have upgraded my computer so not sure how much this has to do with it!

I rolled a new character and started off on my quest, to start with I met a random guy in the starter town who started talking to me, suspiciously he asked me if I wanted to go and help kill some of the starting area mobs with him (as soon as you leave the starter town you are basically "fair game" to anyone), I said "ok". I thought to myself even if it's a trap, ive basically just started so don't really care if I lose what I have on me.

He kept to his word and we quested a bit together, he explained that this was an alt of his and he was part of a larger guild that had there own town that they had built as there base of operations. Because of how I got on, he asked if I wanted to join, I was like sure :)

From that moment on the game totally opened up for me, there was some grinding yes but for the most part I was being boosted around, helping with some group activities. Maybe I got lucky but it is probably the best MMO experience I have had since the beginning of Eve.

I heard that the game was dying but the eu realm that I am on seems pretty active also.

anyway, there's a few games I have discovered lately and reasons why I think they're awesome!

@Drazat: Operation wolf, it's almost like you read my mind :P loved the arcade game but on the spectrum I also remember almost crying with WTF

@MattSchwabby said:

Getting pretty sick of this. The beta had me very excited for the game, but delay after delay and vague answers regarding the release date just puts a sour taste in my mouth. It really feels like they don't give a shit about the fans.

Really, dont give a shit because they don't want to release an unfinished game??. The hype and predicted release dates stated from gaming sites don't count as concrete release dates btw.

Blizzard always expect a high polished product to be released at game launch, I like the fact that they delay their games, it shows they give a toss at least. Have I ever played a bad Blizzard game.... no.... have I ever played a Blizzard game where they rushed it out to cash in..... no.

I guarantee you that a delay means -i'ts gonna be even better!

10+

Strat: Red Alert, Total Annihilation, Sup com, Starcraft 1+2, Warcraft 2+3, Aoe 2+3, Perimiter, Rome

RPG: FF 6,7,8. Suikoden, Planescape, Icewind dale, Mass effect 1, Crono trigger, Skyrim

MMO - Wow, Eve

Racing - GT3, Monaco gp, Excite bike, Road rash

Shooters - Halo 1,3 Call of duty 1+2, Half life 1+2, CSS, MOH, Battlefield 2, Quake 3

Sport - PES 2,3 Tiger woods 2k3, Fifa 98, Smash court tennis,

Fighter - Soul calibre, Street fighter 2, Alpha3,4, Tekken 3,

I would prolly be here all night at this rate :P

@Klei said:

Curse of Monkey Island.

fantastic choice :P

Forgot about that game, gonna download it now again :D

@Darklight said:

One thing I don't like about the new FF, FFXII-2 (and FFXIII as well), is all the auto-stuff. I don't see the point of selecting my action myself when there's auto-something that will do it for me. Most of the time, when I fight I can't stop tapping on the X non-stop even though I try to control myself and only tap when the menu pop out. I don't know if it's just impatience but I end up smashing the button all the time in a fight and switching paradigm from time to time.

I understand that they want to make fast paced combat, that's cool, but I would like to have the option to let say... slow the fight a little, remove the button auto and let me input the command myself. For now, when I enter a fight I can get out of the room with the controller to get a drink and as long as I hit the button from time to time and I'll 5 star the combat in a normal progression fight. The fight system seems to remove interaction from the player and while the animation is neat, after hour and hour of watching it, it is the interaction in the fight that make the difference for me, and I sadly don't feel it here

Everyone probably heard this complain times and times again when FFXIII came out. But I also want to like the game and I'll probably play in the hope that the story keep me hooked, but the combat itself is not helping.

As much as I thought that the battle system in FF-13 was well done, I still think it had nothing on more classic ATB systems such as 6 - 10.

FF 6,7,8 and previous I felt in complete control of my party, and feeling the absolute thrill of being so close to defeat against a boss and coming back for the victory on a last hit cannot be replicated by this new type of system.

The battle system in FF9 felt a bit clunky to me because of the 4 people in the party, at times you seemed to be queuing up commands and almost having to predict the future because of the extra person and animation times, although it worked well.

FF10 felt a bit on easy mode, the party seemed to have so much depth with being able to swap through members on the fly as well as bringing out summons to fight. It was great and the battle arena was quite a challenge at points as well as the dark aeons.

In FF12 at first I liked the system then towards the end it kinda bugged me, the fact that I didn't actually have to do anything during a battle because of a gambit system I had in place made it all feel a bit pointless. I understand that they were going down the MMO route and trying to make you feel as though you had real party members, but anything that takes away player interaction during a battle which to me is a hugely important part of the game, is not good!

FF13 just seems to take this a step further, at times I felt like I wasn't actually doing anything.