Entries Tagged 'PC' ↓

The next few weeks are full of what look to be great game releases, unfortunately, I can’t buy them all.  In fact, there is only one game coming out soon that rates as a “must buy” for me and that’s Left 4 Dead.  The only problem with this is – which system should I buy it for?  Right now, I’m leaning toward getting the PC version, after all, I bought The Orange Box for 360 when it came out and then bought it again when I realized I wanted to play Team Fortress 2 on PC (alright, I admit it, I wanted access to all the games on PC).  Even though Left 4 Dead will probably sell very well and Valve has said they will be using dedicated servers for multiplayer (something TF2 could have used) I don’t want to repeat past mistakes.  Also, it’s just nicer to play multiplayer games in a PC setting.  I’ve spent far too much time playing the Halo’s and Call of Duty’s on Xbox Live and sometimes it’s just not very pleasant.  That and I’ve become a Steam junkie, so, as long as the demo runs OK on my PC (and there is no reason it shouldn’t) – I’ll be buying it on PC.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not turning my back on my 360 – after all, I need some place to play Gears of War 2 and Fable 2.  Everything else that’s coming out (Dead Space, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, Saints Row 2) is multi-platform so, I can grab it on either PC or 360.  I’m not sure which of those I’ll be picking up when (I’ve got some mid-terms coming up – one of which I will probably post about).  I am seriously thinking about joining GameFly finally, but, that would only work if I can get find a few minutes to play.  It would at least let me get through the game season flood without spending an arm and a leg.

Well, I downloaded Portal: Prelude and had a some time to get in and start playing it – and I do mean start.  I’m currently on level 3 out of 18.  I haven’t played Portal in a while and wasn’t quite ready for the difficultly this mod starts out with.  Causal play this isn’t.  The first puzzle puts the player facing a portal with four friendly turrets on the other side.

While this isn’t an impossible situation it’s a bit strange to start the game this way – or it would be if they were not targeting Portal fanatics as the intended audience.  The whole situation has gotten a bit out of hand, with players and the developers arguing in comments and e-mails.  This is serious business to be sure.  Apparently, the site was even on the receiving end of a DDoS attack.  The developers have responded to all the critics with a video walk through of the mod.  The videos are even complete with text comments showing that the developers didn’t need to use the crouch buttons to make some jumps (a common complaint seen on the Portal: Prelude website).  The difficultly is not the only problem with the mod – it’s the dialog.  The voices are terrible, they were created using voice synthesis and you can tell.  On top of that the English translation of what is originally a French script is spotty at best.  I wish they had passed around the script to some actual English speakers for edits.  Both of those can be easily address in any up coming patches though.

I may give the mod another chance before I uninstall it, maybe, the problem is it just has not been any fun so far…

Looking for a reason to keep Portal installed on your computer a bit longer?  Let me help you with that – download Portal: Prelude now!  Oh, and if you already uninstalled – start that Steam download!  Portal: Prelude is a fan made mod expansion which tells the story of the Aperture Science test complex before the introduction of the GlaDOS AI.  The pre-release preview over at Mod DB provides a great read while waiting for the awful File Planet servers to do that thing they do.  My download however, has just finished and is installing so, I’m going to play now.

Well, it’s the end of the month so it’s that time again.  I had a discussion a few days or so ago about how I’m playing way too many games.  If I don’t finish some of these up soon I’ll never get anywhere in my huge pile of games.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online (PC)

The day Siliconera ran, what was at the time a rumor, about Imagine coming to the US by way of Aeriagames I decided it was time I finally checked out Imagine Online.  After a bit of searching, I was able to track down a wiki page that had all the info needed to get up and running.  I haven’t put too much time into it since, it’s a bit difficult to play since I can’t read Japanese.  I could just use a walk through but whats the fun in that.  I probably will shelve this though and wait for the US release to come along.

Persona 3: FES (PS2)

I’m still working my way through the first part of Persona 3.  I’ve been slowly grinding through the levels and finally got around to fusing my frist demons to get Jack Frost.  I’m still really enjoying the game.  I still have mountains of work left to do in the game and even after that, I still have the FES portion to do.  Expect to see this here a few dozen more times.

Max Payne (PC)

All Rockstar games were on sale this weekend, over on Steam, so in a moment of weakness I decided to pick up the Max Payne collection.  After all, I need to be ready for when the movie comes out (hah).  I’m already on to into the second part of the story – although I can’t remember how many where in it total.  I figure with a couple of more sessions I’ll have this beat.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (360)

A friend of mine picked this up the week it came out, went home to play it and just moments before taking control of Darth Vader was treated instead to the “Red Ring of Death”.  That’s right I finally know someone who has encountered this problem.  So, I managed to get my hands on the the game since, I wasn’t about to actually buy it.  Like most people I really enjoyed the demo when it came out.  So, I was looking forward to the game.  I’ve only played a couple of levels – starting as Vader was pretty awesome.  There is nothing like force choking wookies and then throwing them off a bridge – I could have done that for hours.  Unfortunately, there are a couple of little things that just don’t feel right in the game.  I found myself fighting with the camera a bit more then I feel I should have and the enemy AI is a bit spotty at times.  My biggest gripe with the game – and it may be just a technical issue – but when Vader attacks a fern (or any number of objects) with a light saber that fern better take damage…