Garden Ninja

I'm cautiously optimistic. Everything about it looks awesome. I haven't played any of their games, but Obsidian doesn't have a great track record. Yes, I'm aware it was founded by former Black Isle people, and that their past couple of games were buggy and had bad endings because they were rushed by their publisher. That's part of why I'm optimistic. The problem, is that being founded by people from an awesome studio doesn't imply being awesome yourself. Plus Fallout 1 and 2 were quite buggy until the patch, and Planescape: Torment had a stupid ending. That's why I'm cautious.

That's why I enjoyed it so much. The story is incomprehensible, and while I actually liked the motorcycle and rocket sections (very SHMUP-like, which I enjoy), they did drag too long, especially the rocket bit. But the combat system was the best I've ever played. For that, I'll tolerate a stupid story and a few annoying bits of gameplay. Although, considering the unlockable difficulties, buying moves and accessories, and keeping everything between playthroughs, the designers clearly intended you to play it multiple times, so including filler sections seems more stupid than usual.

Ditto. It's one of those games that I play for a bit, then don't touch for months. I got it back in September and I'm only about 8 hours in. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to get back into, without feeling like you have to start over.

Probably:owned:. But specifically what I mean is that in the last couple of stages it, it take two headshots to kill dudes, because they are wearing bloody paintball masks, and if you don't do it quickly they just shrug off the first one completely. And they can survive a full mag from a submachine gun from 5 feet away, then step forward and punch you in the face while you reload. That shit is messed up. And yes, I realize you can get around it by double tapping every dude you meet, and not using submachine guns or assault rifles, but that just strikes me as forgiving bad game design. That said, I enjoyed it well enough up until that point. It was decent for what it was, but I think it was stupid to call it Splinter Cell when it only has superficial similarities to the previous games. Double Agent (which I still really liked, even if not as much as Chaos Theory) got torn to shreds for straying from the formula, while Conviction is a complete departure, and everyone seems to love it. I don't get it. /cranky Do you have some examples? I always assumed that Macro was large scale things like base building, which units to build, etc, and micro was controlling individual units.

Meant to reply to some of these earlier. Sorry for the long post. (This is part of why I prefer threaded forums: easier to track each conversation when they aren't jumbled together.) Same. The end bit feels rather tacked on. Like they thought they didn't have enough content, so they threw something together quickly. Which is silly, because it is still an enormous game without that bit. Next time I play it, I'll probably quit when I get to that point. What do you think qualifies as a traditional Splinter Cell? If you mean just playing slow and lining up headshots then sure, but the way I played the previous games doesn't seem to be possible in Conviction. I avoided killing people (elbow to the face, choke hold, or using gadgets), and hopefully getting to the end without anyone knowing I was there. Conviction felt like primarily a corridor shooter with some stealth, and not even a very good one (the shooting is straight up broken in the last couple of stages). All the reviews made that game sound extremely generic, and just in general not that good, but you make it sound kind of interesting. I may have to add that to my wishlist. Maybe I just don't understand the terminology (I haven't played an RTS since Age of Empires, and I was never competitive), but I thought Dawn of War II was basically entirely micro. I there actually some basebuilding involved? Last weekend I finished Wolfenstein, which was fun. The weapons were cool, but most of the interesting ones had rare ammo, so I didn't get to use them as much as I wanted. And earlier this week I finished Battlefield Bad Company 2. The campaign was really good. I got it from Gamefly, but I'm might buy it to play through the campaign again, and for the multiplayer, which I played about an hour of.

Well, one benefit of having an actual list is that it keeps you focused on games you already have. Much easier to resist buying new games when have a list of other ones staring you in the face. It also forces you to choose whether you actually give a damn about some games. My own list was around 25 items, and it's around 13 now. Some of that is actually finishing games, but some of them I just wasn't enjoying, so I removed them from my backlog and put them up on Goozex. Of course, it also depend on what you consider backlog. Some people lump all the games they want to play together and call it a backlog. I keep separate lists. One for backlog, which is made up of games that I currently own, or have borrowed/rented and that are unfinished, or that I am replaying. Then there is my wishlist, which is everything else that I want to play. That list has around 350 games on it (down from 450 not too long ago).

From the Game Informer article I read, it sounds like Single Player primarily, possibly with some multiplayer modes. Unfortunately, it won't have co-op. They gave some weak excuse about how it wouldn't work with the story in a couple of spots.

Contratulations! As for what to play, since your backlog is empty, you could probably lift your self imposed ebay ban. Or check for steam sales.

I don't know about Serious Sam since I've never played it (need to buy the XBLA version at some point), but it sounds pretty sweet. Don't get me wrong: I like FPS games, but it seems like recent ones are mostly semi-realistic military shooters, that take themselves way too seriously. I miss the crazy weapons (e.g. the Napalm Cannon, or the Voodoo Doll from Blood), and more lighthearted feel of earlier games. Obviously there are some exceptions (e.g. Borderlands was lighthearted, and Wolfenstein has some fun weapons), but the scales are tipped toward realism these days. If Bulletstorm ends up half as crazy as it seems to be going for, then I'll be happy.

I tried Backloggery for a while, but it was too barebones for me. They don't have a database of games -- each entry is just a text field for the game name, and some additional info -- so there was no way to look up games, or show the boxart next to it, and it didn't check for duplicates. I looked at a few other sites, and ended up going with Giant Bomb, which has a generic list implementation, with search capability and box art. Although, it uses manual sorting (I think it was intended for Top 10 style lists), so I had to write a greasemonkey script to get alphabetical sorting. (There is a whole lot more that I want from a "List of Games" app, but since the one I've started and stop numerous times in the last 2 years never actually materializes, GB is good enough, for now.) As for my actual backlog: Left 4 Dead 2 Overlord II Jade Empire BioShock 2 Far Cry 2 The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai Too Human Sacred 2: Fallen Angel The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GOTY edition) Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords Baldur's Gate (with expansion) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (with expansion) It used to be much longer, but I took off a several games that I don't actually like (when a game feels like work, it's time to stop playing), and I've finished several games lately.

I finally beat Planescape: Torment last night. I played a bunch of it in college, but never finished it. I think I got as far as . About a year ago, I borrowed it from a friend, but didn't get very far before putting it aside. Then I pulled it out again a couple months ago, and started playing the hell out of it. Everything up to the point I stopped in college is amazing, but I don't think they knew how to make an interesting ending, because the last several hours are primarily combat, which seems to miss the point of the game, and isn't very good anyway. On top of that, I though I did pretty much everything, but I must have missed a huge amount of content, because I was seriously underleveled for the last several areas, even after I turned the difficulty all the way down. Getting mobbed by sucks. I got so frustrated, I ended up using a save game editor to give myself max stats, which made the forced combat merely annoying. I wish I'd done that earlier. I was playing the game for the excellent story, and world-building, not the mediocre combat. Anyway, for anyone who hasn't played, I strongly suggest you do, but unless you actually like the combat, don't be afraid hack your stats to make it easier, at least from onward.

And -- to bring up an old one -- Strategy Chocolate.

I played a few hours of Dragon Age: Origins on the 360 before deciding I should play it on PC instead. (You know, eventually, when I get a new PC. At this point I will probably wait for the GOTY edition). When I saw that guy going crazy, the podcast was the first thing I thought of.

Hello, Been listening since the Citizen Killzone episode (found via http://sexyvideo gameland.blogspot.com/). Idle Thumb is actually the first podcast I started listening to. I listen to several more now, though the The Idle Thumbs Podcast is still my favorite. These days I primarily plays games on the 360, but I have a PS2, Wii, and a not-that-great laptop for the classics (Currently nearing the end of Planescape: Torment). Mostly a fan of single player and co-op.