h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, I'm gonna have to wait til after christmas to avail myself of that little luxury in the lounge. I've got my son a tablet and my 'puter's in the way over there --> in the kitchen.

Magwitch



I wish I knew what you talking about...on second thoughts, no I don't.

I do. Actually, I didn't even bother to get KotR last time, I wanted Mime and... oh, what's the other one that's fab but the level below Kotr??

I actually just enjoyed breeding and racing the chocobos, although I admit I used a walkthrough to get to gold with as few moves as possible.

I quite like getting Strategy Guides, but partly because they are prestige products these days, with lots of swanky artwork and such: a real fan's reward.

>>oh, what's the other one that's fab but the level below Kotr<<

Bahamut Zero? Typoon?


Doomtrain was a buggar to get hold of in VIII

It's been a loong time (although I still have both) getting the marlboro tentacles from either the Island Closest to Heaven or the one closest to Hell my, my.

I quite like getting instruction manuals with a game...rather than having to go online for them as Batman: Arkham City that I've just bought.

AC3 is complete, although I want to go back and do all the achievements and naval missions . I also can't help myself from wondering how to scale buildings when I go past them in the bus

Bought F1 Racestars last week and it's so much fun. It's like a cross between Crash Team Racing, the official F1 games and Mario Kart.

Borderlands. Got it and all DLC for a fiver in the Steam sale. Friend of mine who's had it for ages, but hasn't previously known anyone he wants to play co-op with is inordinately excited.

I'm working my way through Hitman:Absolution.

Interesting one: it's possible to play it as a shootemup, simply going round mowing down the opposition. This will get you through the story mode... but the game will penalise you for it. And there's an interesting way of using peer pressure to stop you doing it - it tells you, on every level, what the world average score and your national average score for that level is. Which is a strong motivating factor to do better... and you can only do better than average by playing the game as it is meant to be played, using stealth.

It's pretty good so far, although I'm not convinced it's as good as some of the earlier ones. Perversely, in some ways it's a bit too easy...

Hitman Absolution.

It is a bit too easy - I've gone unseen on pretty much all of them - OK with a few restarts but nothing to painful.

One problem is that, to an extent, a few of the levels are actually too linear and they are pure stealth to get from a to b. The previous games were always about taking out a target.

Also, by indicating what challenges there are it's shouting at you the various ways to kill the target which in previous games you had to find them out.

for

The sign you have been playing AC too long. I replayed 2 through to the last Ezio one last month and ended up doing that...Llangollen Church would be a cinch...

I think the biggest issue with Absolution is that some of the "levels" aren't levels - they're corridors between levels.

Not sure why they've gone this way - the previous setup was that each "level" was a single big sandbox which you had to explore by any means possible, sometimes for hours, before finding innocuous sounding things (barbecue lighters, fuse boxes etc.) with which you could interact, then work out what they did, then work out how they could be applied to killing someone, then work out who they could be used to kill, then work out when they had to be used, then work out how to use them in such a way that you could escape unseen.

Now you start a level with a challenge listed which doesn't quite explicitly say "blow up the car", but might as well, and as long as you manage to do it once, that's that challenge ticked off - no need to escape unharmed, no need to escape unseen, no need to escape at all - get the kill and die immediately in a hail of bullets and that "challenge" is ticked off and you get the score multiplier for it. Less exploration required, less experimentation required, less subtlety required.

All that said - you can, if you choose, play it like the old game. And my major problem with the old game was it took HOURS. It wasn't ever just a "pick up and play" style of thing - you simply couldn't make any useful progress in less than at least an hour's play, usually. They have at least now made it possible to play the game in shorter snippets, while still allowing the purists among us to know we're "cheating" if we do that and that there's a reward for doing it "properly". AND the displaying of the world and national average scores for the level is an excellent way of showing you that you're doing it wrong, or right. I like it, overall.

Still working my way through FarCry3. Turned out to be an enjoyable game.
Some of the side quests are fun although the driving ones can be frustrating.
I've managed to get this kick-ass sniper rifle. Great fun watching the target
fly back from the impact.

Having finished Hitman:Absolution I am disappointed overall.

The A-B stealth bits tedious especially when there is essentially one route through.

The one Red Dead Redemption kill.

Another kill (and arrival at the kill) that you have no control over.

The lack of ways of killing people and the ones that are are pretty obvious.

The tick-box challenges to offer 'reply' value is of minor importance.

The total and utter lack of saves...and when there are some you stumble across them..and then when you restart from a check point people are alive again from before you put them down thereby negating the creeping, the positioning of a radio to lure them over and the angle to subdue them at so no-one else in the room sees them.

The instinct that runs out when you are in disguise...although I didn't even realise that you needed to always use instinct when near someone.

It was an OK game with some nice bits in it but when you can get silent assassin kills with the piano wire pretty much on a 3rd attempt then it's not exactly stretching ones puzzle power.

On one level you are forced to use a different route back to an exit point than the route you came in because the programmers, after the kill, put a guy on a mobile phone in your way so you can't retrace your steps..I may well see how long he stays there...probably forever...let's hope he's on a pay-as-you load up your phone tariff.

Making the game have a story arc pushed it along the route it went which was a mistake in my opinion...yes it made the game more accessible in bite-size chunks but it's removed the replay value in doing a mission with a kill at the end by slowly honing your skill and knowledge of a map.

I'll give it 6/10 if I was being harsh 5/10 for a few of the 'kills' that were meh OK.

Wow, it is now about 23-25minutes since I finished Hitman..I left the credits rolling in case of some Easter Egg coda...the credits are still rolling...i.e. probably longer than it took me to play the first 3 or 4 levels of the game...

Why do the credits have to be so long? I know the people who worked on the
games deserve credits but it ought to be possible to skip them if you want to.
I always let them run in case there's something extra at the end;
sometimes there is but more often than not there isn't. A wasted 20 or so minutes
Bought Doom3 yesterday just for a break from Far Cry. Played it in 3D
and was underwhelmed really by the effect. Plus it gave me a headache
and made me feel nauseous. Such long loading times too, back to Far Cry for a bit.

Doom 3 - a bit of a disappointment, random baddies coming from everywhere and from hidden panels, small corridors, poor weapons, it just got tedious; I had more fun replaying Doom and Doom 2.

Everyone seemed pretty down on Doom 3. I actually liked it and looking forward to Doom 4.

ATM currently playing lots on my tablet. Broken Sword: Directors Cut is a SCUMM style point and click adventure and it has had me utterly hooked.

Also been playing a game called Ant Rush. Which is a sort of RTS/Tower Defence hybrid. Really good fun.

Just counting down the days until Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition is released for Android. Cannae wait!

FB

I'm just going to go and play The Walking Dead, 50% off all chapters yesterday. Get in.

Ferrettbadger

Good luck with the goat in Ireland...

The Broken Sword series is superb...I do need to play the last one that was out but that's only been released on PC I think.