What Computer Game Are You Playing Today?

[Dino]

Still Final Fantasy XIII'ing it. Managed to get past the terrible Odin!
Really got into the groove of how it works.

[Jeff]

I installed and played through 'The Gunpowder Plot' a few weeks ago. I thought it was the best of all the free DW games. Also played through Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, which in addition to being a great indy game also has a fantastic soundtrack which I added to my mp3 player for multiple listens. Just finished up the original Mass Effect on 360 on Sunday. I've also bought The Walking Dead season pass from Telltale but only played the first episode since then. I'm thinking I'll focus on that and Amnesia: The Dark Descent as they fit the season. Also been playing a bit of Trine now and then.

Had one of occasional sessions on Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock this afternoon. Great fun helping the Doctor and River battle Silents, Silurians and Daleks!

I see it just recently was released for Vita.. still patiently waiting for the PC release and subsequent price drop here.

[Jeff]

The thought came to me today to create a Steam usergroup for those of us on Steam. I've sent invite to those few I know, anyone else can find the page here and easily become Steam friends with other PS members.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/planetskaro

[Jeff]

Recently completed Outland, Starhawk, The Walking Dead, inFamous, Journey, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Currently on inFamous 2 and WWE 13.

Got Uncharted 3 and Max Payne 3 for Christmas.

[Dino]

I've been playing Final Fantasy XIII-2. Liking it more than XIII.
And also Resident Evil 6. First Resident Evil game I've ever played. Not a bad game!

Got Uncharted 3.

Yes! Fantastic! What do you think of it so far?

[Jeff]

Yes! Fantastic! What do you think of it so far?

It still has the shrink wrap on. My backlog of games is currently about 70, so it could be some time before I get to it, though being a present I will probably try to fast track it to get played this year. Mind you I still need to play Max Payne and Max Payne 2 before I play Max Payne 3.

I got a free month of Playstation Plus and then forgot to cancel in time and wound up paying for a 3 month auto renewal, so I'm currently trying to play games in the Instant Game Collection to get my moneys worth. I had inFamous still unplayed from the PSN outage gift in '11 and inFamous 2 looks like the most appealing thing in the IGC so I played the one in December to get in inFamous 2 now. My PS+ lasts till near the end of Feb so I may play LittleBigPlanet2 or Resident Evil 5 or something else that comes available maybe until it runs out.

I haven't played any of the RE games yet really. I noticed that RE6 got really poor reviews, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Jon Masters]

Lego Lord of the Rings - after a certain point you get Sauron as a playable character

[Jeff]

Got the Platinum in inFamous 2. Started the Attitude Era in WWE '13, and made a trade for and started Super Mario Galaxy 2.

[Rob McCow]

Antichamber. It's a weird old one:

[Jeff]

Yep, that looks weird. As far as Indie games go, Kentucky Route Zero has my interest:

http://youtu.be/uCz9T5NgYJQ

With any luck, that and Mark of the Assassin will end up in a Humble Indie Bundle for the cheap.

(and how the hell did you embed that video?!)

[Dino]

Finally got Silent Hill Downpour back from my friend. Great to get back into the exploring of the town, but still suck at combat. It'll all come back to me.
But I am glad my machine has kept the saves I had the last time I played it last year.
And here's the really amazing thing that I may as well bump my Silent Hill thread with, but happy birthday, Downpour! Exactly one year old on March the 13th!
I've saw three copies of it when I checked out for the last time (?) HMV Birkenhead.
No idea if they are all pre-owned copies. More fool them for getting rid of it!
I still recommend it as a game. My friend had all his PS3 data corrupted and deleted, so lost all his progress. His birthday is in a week and he's eyeing Far Cry 3. There was no way he'd be able to get where he was in the game (Well over 60% if I remember) in the following days.
Oh well, it's great to get back into it, and I can't wait for the final collected non-trade in sales figures are for the game.
I've read at the time it wasn't selling the 650k Homecoming sold.
And if you've played Downpour, you can only see that as a bigger kick in the teeth than the length of this post!

[Rob McCow]

Did anyone else pick up Tomb Raider? Another franchise rolling on from the 90's... I'm really rather enjoying this new version!

Kentucky Route Zero looks pretty cool too.

[Dino]

I've asked for Tomb Raider for my birthday which is months away.
Soul Reaver getting a "full reboot" from a Gaming source.
It seems even Gaming has followed the Remake craze as much as television and film...

That frown was for them being able to take risks on new things. The games will be all the way through as they know we'll buy and really get into them!

[Rob McCow]

The Tomb Raider game is a huge improvement on the original, not just in terms of graphics but in playability as well. There's loads of ideas pinched from Far Cry and Half-Life 2 that I've noticed. But the days are over of wandering round a vast environment looking for a brick that's a bit different so you can climb out of a tomb. Now Lara gets guided by waypoints and a clear progression, which makes life much easier!

I agree about the remakes. Where are the gaming heroes of the 21st Century, or is it all about Angry Birds?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Now Lara gets guided by waypoints and a clear progression, which makes life much easier!

Meh. The whole point fo the games was exploring on your own, not having your hand held through a linear progression of checkpoints. Oh well.

[Rob McCow]

There's still the exploration aspect to an extent; the island is littered with crap / treasure / bonus items. There's 'Optional Tombs' to explore as well. Perhaps it should have been called 'Optional Tomb Raider'?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I'll have to give it a go, I didn't even realise it was out yet until I saw this thread. I was a big fan of the early games "back in the day", but sort of lost interest once they started evolving and changing into other things.

[Jeff]

I've never played any of the Tomb Raider games other than the demo for Lara Croft and the Guardians of Light (I think that is right) and seeing the two movies. Based on the gameplay they showed at E3 last year I thought this one looked a bit too, almost depressing, but the reviews and what I have seen so far make it look like it may be good. I'd still possibly be interested in playing the previous 3 Crystal Dynamics TR games as well, Legends, Anniversary, and Underworld, esp Anni which I believe is a remake of the original game. I'll probably wait for Steam sales though, as many game as I have in my backlog.

As far as influences, I read and agree that the gameplay of the Uncharted games was inspired by Tomb Raider and Gears of War, and it now looks like the new Tomb Raider has come full circle and in turn been inspired by Uncharted.

Far Cry 3 is another I didn't think I would be interested in, but after the reviews and word of mouth, it is on my steam sale watchlist as well.

Kentucky Route Zero looks pretty cool too.

KR0, Antichamber, The Cave, and Mark of the Ninja are all games I'm hoping make it on to the next Humble Indie Bundle. I would probably get the bundle if any of them were on it, but how great would it be if they all were...

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Can you play PC games without Steam these days? I have to say that entire concept puts me right off.

[Rob McCow]

Can you play PC games without Steam these days?

Everyone else has got used to it! I think you can probably get Tomb Raider without Steam.

There's an alternative 'Microsoft Games For Windows' client, but it's truly wretched. Kind of similar to Steam, only more difficult to use and annoying.

[Jeff]

You absolutely don't have to have Steam to play PC games, they just have such a huge client base IMO, because of the "steam sales" which regularly offer games as much 75% off, sometimes more, making it one of the cheapest places to get games. There's also the community aspect, with so many people on it it's easy to add friends like on the consoles and even has some 'trophy/achievements' support, though it isn't stressed with gamer scores or rankings like the consoles do.

For one thing you can still buy games at stores on physical media or order physical copies from sites like amazon or Gamestop. If you want to go the download route instead, other alternatives include Gamers Gate, GAME, Gamefly (that one might be US only - mainly a console rental service like Netflix but with games, they came out with a PC download client last year - being downloads though, the DL service may work fine no matter where you are.), Gamestop's Impulse has US prices, but may work anywhere, GOG (formerly Good Old Games, they focus more on older games but all are DRM free). Then of course there are some download clients owned by major publishers which are a bit more restrictive with the DRM, like Ubisofts's UPlay, EA's Origin, and the aforementioned Microsoft Games for Windows.

I also just remembered there's a site called Green Man Gaming, though I am less familiar with that one. Also the Humble Bundle store. I think both of those are more Indie focused though.

[Jeff]

I've finally started Assassin's Creed II (after buying it over two years ago) and am loving it. Also have 102 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2.

[Rob McCow]

A mere 102 stars?!?!?

I'm about 14% through Grand Theft Auto IV. Not sure if I should be following the main mission, or simply driving through the city running over as many people as humanly possible.

[Jeff]

So far!

I haven't played GTA IV yet (my backlog is HUGE) but when I played GTA III years ago, my first attempts were spoiled by me finding an all weapons/ammo and other cheats and constantly having battles with the police. I'd type in TANK (I think) and a tank would fall from the sky and I would drive around blowing things up until there were helicopters after me, then I'd get out and use a rocket launcher on the helicopters until I was bored. Eventually I went back and started a new game and played through the missions with more discipline, and actually enjoyed the game a lot more.

[Dino]

Resident Evil 6. The Piers mission is still frustrating me as much as it did when I stopped playing it a few months ago!
Final Fantasy 13-2, yeah, really not sure what I'm supposed to do next after fixing that tower in 300AF.
And Silent Hill 2 has gone buggy on me. The game broke down with huge blank black areas that weren't there when I replayed and replayed it.

And Jeff, have you still not got around to Uncharted 3 yet?