Sadly and ridiculously enough, part of me doesn't want to finish it, I've been playing it so long it'll be like there's a big gap in my life when it's over that Lost or Gay Tony may not be able to fill :oops:
:lol:
I was playing the Lost And Damned again yesterday....I reckon you'll be alright once you progress onto the DLC...Mind you, I still go back to the main game every once in a while and run about as Niko too, because like you've found yourself, those bloody pigeons seem to be rather elusive and I just shoot them when I see/hear them in my travels now....
I've been going back to some more old games in an attempt to mop up a few achievements too...I think I'll try and concentrate on Mercenaries 2, as I'd forgotten how much fun that game is! I do need to start focusing on sticking to one game at a time though, otherwise I'll never get any of them completed...
Of course, I'll still be playing Halo Reach far too much as I try and get enough credits to buy all the helmets and unlock a Haunted one! :D
Finished Splatterhouse on monday. Great game let down by some dodgy collision detection, cameras and the simple innability to pick up things while moving about. I've gone back to try and get all the skills and photos unlocked before going onto the next difficulty or Survival.
Dunno if I'll get too far into the classics though, I got killed pretty damn quick in the first one and I died after about the 5th pit in the second one :lol:
Of course, I'll still be playing Halo Reach far too much as I try and get enough credits to buy all the helmets and unlock a Haunted one! :D
I thought I'd seen you change armour while I was online the other day.
Good luck with buying them all, there's one robotic looking one (Drell thinks it looks like a Zoid) that's buyable at Brigadier. It only costs 250,000! I'm only 3,300 away from being a Brigadier but I still need another 90,000 to buy that one. And I haven't bought anything for a while, although I did splash out on the black visor and the birthday armour effect :D
And as soon as I'm up a rank I'll bet there are another 5 or 6 things added to the armoury.
Oh, no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
Dunno if I'll get too far into the classics though, I got killed pretty damn quick in the first one and I died after about the 5th pit in the second one :lol:
Splatterhouse only really gets tough once you get into the house, although the 3rd boss had me for years at the arcades, but I managed to beat him without the sliding kick in the end (didn't even know you could do that til' I played Splatterhouse 2 on the Megadrive, and I got to read some instructions that weren't in Japanese) :lol:
Splatterhouse 2 is just one long pattern and over the space of about 6 hours you can learn it. The monsters always appear in the same place, and the bosses are very predictable and follow a very set pattern, unlike the ones in the original game who jump around all over the place.
Splatterhouse 3 is pretty crap really, plays on a 2.5D perspective instead of just 2D, more moves and more things to do, but after beating up the same 5 monsters through thousands of pallette swaps it starts to get a little tired. Plus later on the lowly creatures all seem to develop the ability to do a new move that knocks you down, can't be avoided and takes about 2/3rds of your health. Oh and the whole game is timed, if you don't get to David and Jennifer in time they die.
I got sick of pissing around, so I continued with the story, I'm obviously very near the end of the story now, as I've just done the forced mission "That Special Someone".
Spoiler:
Don't know if I did the right thing? But I let Darko Brevich live, so hopefully that won't have a negative effect on the game? weird thing is I almost really felt sorry him, he truly is a pathetic wretch.
Anyway I'm now driving Roman to Brucie's house, and who knows what other wonders will unfold once we get there?
Finally made it to Brigadier in Halo Reach thanks to 2 really easy challenges today. Make a clip and upload it was the first one I did, the second was get a spree in firefight. Easy when you do score attack and choose the shotgun :D
Splatterhouse only really gets tough once you get into the house, although the 3rd boss had me for years at the arcades, but I managed to beat him without the sliding kick in the end (didn't even know you could do that til' I played Splatterhouse 2 on the Megadrive, and I got to read some instructions that weren't in Japanese) :lol:
I've grabbed an arcade walkthrough from youtube so I'll just be content in watching that instead. Siouxsie might end up playing them on my profile (I doubt she'd get far enough into the remake to unlock them herself). She got to the last boss in the arcades but it was chucked before she could finish it. Her boyfriend at that time finished it before they sold it though :lol:
I managed to get all the photos in story done. And I found all the gramophones aswell. I only missed one. The bloody first one! But then the creatures flying through the windows is kinda distracting ;)
I've started going through it on Savage and I'm not doing too badly. Okay so I'm only about to start phase 3, but I haven't really had any problems. I've noticed losing more health per hit but not too much more. Although it'll be ****loads by the time I get to phase 7 or 8!
Oh, no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
After returning from Tonale in Val di Sole, I felt an urge to take a chopper for a quick fly around a mountain range, so I picked up Just Cause 2 again and did just that. Boy, more than year old now and still it looks awesome. Must be my favorite chopper simulator for sure.
I entirely forgot how addictive this game can get. After discovering all remaining settlements (went quite quickly with a jet figher), I started doing the remaining faction missions I have left. Coincidentally the first one was "Stranded", which solves the mystery of the "Lost" Island, so I can finally fly there freely. Pretty cool. Overall, many of the faction missions are pretty good. Much better than most of the Agency missions, I would say. In fact, I think that the main storyline harmed the review rankings most - IMHO it was just too off to fit the rest of the game. Fighting while jumping between launched nuclear rockets? Doh, I guess it would be too much even for MGS, and that features some pretty silly boss fights, too. :)
Anyway, if any of you didn't play this game yet, I recommend you give it a try now. The first few Agency missions might seem not so great, but once you'll be able to roam freely around the entire island, you'll hopefully understand what I am talking about.
I enjoyed the first Just Cause on PS2 even if was a bug riddled mess!
I thought it was just plain awful on the PS2, to be honest... I took it back and bought it for the old Xbox instead, and it's a far better version. I found quite a few games were like that. A good example is Max Payne 2; awful on PS2, great on the Xbox.
I got sick of pissing around, so I continued with the story, I'm obviously very near the end of the story now, as I've just done the forced mission "That Special Someone".
Spoiler:
Don't know if I did the right thing? But I let Darko Brevich live, so hopefully that won't have a negative effect on the game? weird thing is I almost really felt sorry him, he truly is a pathetic wretch.
Anyway I'm now driving Roman to Brucie's house, and who knows what other wonders will unfold once we get there?
I'm getting sick of this being friends with everyone. I'm trying to keep Roman, Kiki and Dwayne on my side (all for various reasons) but it's getting in the way of missions. I'm just about to do a mission where you have to smuggle an illegal immigrant into the country with Derek, i tried ti last night but blew myself up! Time to try again........
I'm getting sick of this being friends with everyone. I'm trying to keep Roman, Kiki and Dwayne on my side (all for various reasons) but it's getting in the way of missions. I'm just about to do a mission where you have to smuggle an illegal immigrant into the country with Derek, i tried ti last night but blew myself up! Time to try again........
Cabs, Wanted Level, Goons.....
....those wouldn't happen to be your reasons would they? ;)
The only one I bother with is Jacob, otherwise I spend a fortune on weapons...
I'll be honest I've never used Dwaynes goons before, but Kiki is very useful if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have been able to do the bank robbery mission. She cleared me 3 star wanted level off after I got out of the subway. Plus I used Roman's cab a lot earlier on, but once you have all the clothes and weapons and anything else you need money for earlier on it's quicker just to hail a yellow cab I find.
I now have more distance in cabs than everything else put together, I'll take a cab to somewhere 2 streets away if it'll save me a few seconds :lol:
I'll be honest I've never used Dwaynes goons before, but Kiki is very useful if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have been able to do the bank robbery mission. She cleared me 3 star wanted level off after I got out of the subway. Plus I used Roman's cab a lot earlier on, but once you have all the clothes and weapons and anything else you need money for earlier on it's quicker just to hail a yellow cab I find.
I now have more distance in cabs than everything else put together, I'll take a cab to somewhere 2 streets away if it'll save me a few seconds :lol:
Do you skip all your cab rides? Not sure if you're bothered about trophies, but if you are, I'm pretty sure you get one just from sitting through a cab ride from one island to another.
Do you skip all your cab rides? Not sure if you're bothered about trophies, but if you are, I'm pretty sure you get one just from sitting through a cab ride from one island to another.
I still haven't even tried to get my PS3 online yet, I don't know if newer copies of GTA IV have the trophies included now, but my copy is older I guess? I'll have to get on the PS network sometime and download the patch for the trophies (not that I'm really arsed about them though?)
Anyway I finished the last mission on GTA IV and decided to install the add ons, so I can play them when I get in from work tomorrow morning. Not a good start, brand new disc, still had the security tag on it which was stuck so badly onto the box it's damaged the plastic peeling it off. Then I load it up and the first time it loads it freezes WTF.
It's still installing now just the Lost and the Damned seems to be taking longer than the main game actually did?
It's still installing now just the Lost and the Damned seems to be taking longer than the main game actually did?
That must be well annoying, fortunately I don't get that on the 360. It's well worth the wait though, the way the stories intertwine is great. I enjoyed TLAD less than the other two parts, but it's still a good laugh.
I'm at the end of Tron: Evolution. Talk about unbalanced difficulty... I've sailed through the game (I even whooped Abraxas, second-in-line to Clu, in a few minutes on my first attempt), but can't survive more than a few seconds against Clu's goons. Somewhat annoying, but I'll get there eventually...
That must be well annoying, fortunately I don't get that on the 360. It's well worth the wait though, the way the stories intertwine is great. I enjoyed TLAD less than the other two parts, but it's still a good laugh.
I'm at the end of Tron: Evolution. Talk about unbalanced difficulty... I've sailed through the game (I even whooped Abraxas, second-in-line to Clu, in a few minutes on my first attempt), but can't survive more than a few seconds against Clu's goons. Somewhat annoying, but I'll get there eventually...
I've already spotted Niko on the start up, and at least playing as Johnny it gives you a familiar character to play as.
Well started The Lost and the Damned and already it's instantly noticable that the control on the bikes is a lot tighter which is a total lifesaver. I've just picked Billy Grey up from the nick and done the first story mission so far, but it seems pretty good. I like the way a lot of the stupid crap is lumped together right at the start like a lot of the extra games like QuB3D and pool are in the clubhouse, and so is a computer for the net, a bed for saving, and a TV.
Don't like the radio stations too much from what I've heard so far The Studio seems to be disco instead of cheesy house (don't really like that stuff, but towards the end of GTA IV I found myself listening to Studio instead of L.C.H.C. :lol:). L.C.H.C (arguably the best station from the main game) now plays Death Metal and Shock Rock instead of Hardcore, and all the rest of them seem really quiet and a bit crap really :(
I already like Johnny though even just after playing for about 15 minutes he doesn't seem anywhere near as shifty as he did in the main game, and you can phone for new rides and guns from the get go which is nice.
Oh and my copy of GTA IV must be an older one because the trophies in this add on are available, already got one.
Still playing GTA IV, i've completed about 51% so far. I've done the first couple of assassin missions which are handy as they pay well. Then i'll do the Gerry missions then the Joe Pegorina (or whatever he's called) missions then finally the missions for that shady guy at the newspaper. That's when i got stuck, theres a mission where you have to blow up a helicopter with Little Jacob. I tried for weeks but couldn't get past that mission (i kept losing the helicopter). Once i reach that mission i'm going to keep trying, i won't be beaten!
Still playing GTA IV, i've completed about 51% so far. I've done the first couple of assassin missions which are handy as they pay well. Then i'll do the Gerry missions then the Joe Pegorina (or whatever he's called) missions then finally the missions for that shady guy at the newspaper. That's when i got stuck, theres a mission where you have to blow up a helicopter with Little Jacob. I tried for weeks but couldn't get past that mission (i kept losing the helicopter). Once i reach that mission i'm going to keep trying, i won't be beaten!
I think I did that one on my first attempt :p
....Anyhoo!
Playing Lost and the Damned right now, the story missions are pretty hardcore, so anybody buying the disc with the 2 DLC chapters on like I did may have a right rough time if they haven't played the main game, and play these (The disc lets you play them without having to have GTA IV installed). The mission Buyers Market is much harder with Johnny than with Niko (or at least to just get out of the building), especially if you don't have some money saved up to kit yourself out with some decent weapons, although if you're quick you can take one of the dead cops SMG's and that seems to be good enough to deal with the rest of them (you also get the combat shotgun at the bottom of the stairs, don't think it's there when you're playing that mission as Niko?).
Also on The Lost and the Damned....Not loving Stubbs' cutscene when you first meet him, I was expecting it, but I figured since it's a video game....nah they won't spring that on you.....Oh my god it was like the ending to Boogie Nights all over again (anybody who's got that far will probably know what I'm getting at there?) :lol:
Anyway taken a slight detour from the story missions as they seem to be skyrocketing the percentage, I've done 9 already, and I know there's not many (26 or so innit?), and I went and stole the bikes, was easy and didn't take anywhere near as long to nick them as it did the vehicles in the main game, so now I'm happily wading my way through the Gang Wars. They're quite similar to the Turf Wars from San Andreas, but seem like more fun. Haven't hung out with any pals yet can't be arsed at the min, had a little interaction with the crystal meth addicted ex-girlfriend though she's a troublesome bint.
Won at pool, won at arm wrestling, won at Hi or lo, got the QuB3D highscore. Haven't done any races, but I imagine they'll be easier and more fun than the street races from the main game. I see there's a stat for "bikers knocked off during races", so I'm hoping the races are more like a mini version of Road Rash. Will probably try em' out tomorrow though, too busy killing Deadbeats :D
Also on The Lost and the Damned....Not loving Stubbs' cutscene when you first meet him, I was expecting it, but I figured since it's a video game....nah they won't spring that on you.....Oh my god it was like the ending to Boogie Nights all over again (anybody who's got that far will probably know what I'm getting at there?) :lol:
I definately wasn't expecting it, certainly caught me by surprise. :grin:
I see there's a stat for "bikers knocked off during races", so I'm hoping the races are more like a mini version of Road Rash. Will probably try em' out tomorrow though, too busy killing Deadbeats :D
Aye, it is a bit like Road Rash. Great fun. :smile:
I've just been playing Super Don Quix-Ote on the laser disc emulator. I've been after this for years and have been trawling the internet, trying to find a working copy (I won't use torrents, so it's been hard). A nice guy on eBay provided me a link and I now have it up and running. I've just brough (another) complete ROM set on eBay as I really can't be arsed trying to find working copies of some games and this set had a pretty decent set of Amiga games (I loved my old Amiga) and it's all set into an easy(ish) to use front end, complete with screenshots of the games, so finding what i'm looking for is easy too.
I've started playing Torchlight on XBLA. Only the trial version, mind, but one of my mates reckons he's been at the trial version for over 10 hours now, so I thought I'd have a bash. It's a rather good, third-person, hack-and-slash style RPG. Currently at 1200 MS points, I think I might have to buy myself this.
Got blimmin' tons of games on at the mo though; Tron: Evolution, Eternal Sonata, Tron 2.0, Fallout: NV, Dark Star One, X3 - Reunion etc. etc...
Finished God of War 3 yesterday. While I enjoyed the game itself most of the time, I have got quite a few complaints, which leaves me quite disappointed in the end (possible spoilers ahead, even if I tried to minimize them):
- Color coding sucks. Why on earth is most of it all grey? Or grey with just a tad bit of other color? I completely understand what the Uncharted authors were talking about when they said they want to make colorful game as the are fed up with greyish games like these. That's what I liked about GOW1, the desert, the pandora's temple, the cliffs of madness, because it was bright, well lit, nice environment. That's what I loved about GOW2, because most of it was like this, too. The art direction on this one, while the architecture itself is nice, too, was a big letdown for me, compared to the previous ones...
- The ending kind of sucks, too. Not because of the story (even if I do not fancy the "oh this is so smart story and we are now going to reveal it all to you" ending either), but mostly because of the pace. You can do a Max-Payne-like near-the-death sequence in the middle of the story, but making a 10+ minutes long one during/after the final boss fight wears down all the adrenaline. Hey, I want to finish this and go to sleep, not to have to spend another half an hour playing through this touchy aftermath and watching credits, without the chance of saving (Well, autosave *might* work, but what if it doesn't? No one wants to risk the chance of having to repeat the final boss fight, right?) The ending is supposed to be climactic, not anticlimactic. The fact how it all ends doesn't help much either. GOW1 got this right - you think it'll end badly, but instead you are made a god! In an absolutely awesomely looking palace, on top of that. That's what I call satisfaction. This one got it all wrong. (And this would perhaps be my only complaint against GOW2, too, the Star Wars Episode V like unsatisfying and inconclusive ending).
- Some boss fights suck, too. I didn't like the first boss fight right at the beginning, pitting you against the same horse like creature umphteen times in a row seems like a bad decision. Hello, are we advancing somewhere? Or did I just screw up some timing and we are cycling the phase again? It was really hard to read. And I didn't like the final fight either. The part on the catwalk was OK, but after that it got a bit tedious. Hey, doesn't this guy ever die? And the fight inside *you know where* was entirely ridiculous. IMHO good boss fight can be won by both going berserk and really going for it (the way people usually do it the first time), or by finding the right strategy and applying it properly (to make sure the boss is doable regardless of the difficulty level). For example all Metroid games stick to this pattern (with few exceptions, *cough* Nightmare from Fusion *cough*). Well, here the berserk approach didn't work, the guy multiplied like ten times and still no end in sight, so I had to go for a strategy right away instead, and what a cheap one it was. I repeat simple pattern of 3 basic moves for ages, and then the guys goes down. Totally anticlimactic too. The fact that you don't see if you are wearing him down just made it worse. Add what follows then and see why am I so disappointed with the ending...
These were the major ramblings. Strange it got some other minor things wrong compared to the previous ones, too:
- Most of the time I died because I have fallen somewhere just because I couldn't figure out in advance if I can land there or not. This kind of sucks, too. Not fun at all. I hadn't had problem like this in GOW2, and that used Wings of Icarus fairly extensively, too. Sometimes the camera position is outright useless (*cough* Aphrodite's garter *cough*), making jumping a real hit and miss.
- The color of the chests, no matter how well they look, is harder to tell apart. In previous games, the shine above the chest was telling you that. Here, there is no color info visible from the side of the chest, and the blue and green are much similar, too, which makes it quite difficult at some times to choose wisely. At one point there is even an alternating chest (you can go back to) where the camera is fixed in distance exactly from the side, so you can't choose other than by trial and error.
- The enemies are much weaker. Not in the terms of hit points, but in terms of the existence of a move they are extremely vulnerable to. The O or L1+O will make short process with about anybody, and the cestus or bow with the rest. Hey, even the satyrs are catch-able. Where's the challenge in that? Not to mention that the QTEs have been slowed and simplified up to the point of being just a nuisance before the final blow.
- There don't seem to be many memorable places. All I remember is grey rocks everywhere, and the Labyrinth. And then there is... hmm... the Labyrinth, again. Well, the Hera's garden puzzle was nice, even if it was grayish, too. Few nice chambers, too, but that's about it. Compare it to the entire Island of the Fates, the Horses of Time, The Atlas or The Palace of the Fates from GOW2. That's memorable. The Horses were particularly awesome. Well, you get the Titan climbing here, too, but you get so much of it that it becomes forgettable. And it's all grey, too. :)
All in all, this leaves GOW2 my favorite. I liked GOW1 a lot, and was expecting GOW2 to be somewhat better. I was astonished to find out it was an order of magnitude better, despite the technology being the same. I was assuming GOW3 would be at least on par with GOW2, perhaps better given the technology boost. Well, while the graphics is definitely awesome, no doubt about that, it's not all what is necessary to make an awesome game.
Which means, if you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favor and get hold of GOW: Collection and play GOW2, it's really worth it.
Comments
Oh sod off! :p
....I knew I should've went back and put "The Ballad of..." in front of it :D
I was playing the Lost And Damned again yesterday....I reckon you'll be alright once you progress onto the DLC...Mind you, I still go back to the main game every once in a while and run about as Niko too, because like you've found yourself, those bloody pigeons seem to be rather elusive and I just shoot them when I see/hear them in my travels now....
I've been going back to some more old games in an attempt to mop up a few achievements too...I think I'll try and concentrate on Mercenaries 2, as I'd forgotten how much fun that game is! I do need to start focusing on sticking to one game at a time though, otherwise I'll never get any of them completed...
Of course, I'll still be playing Halo Reach far too much as I try and get enough credits to buy all the helmets and unlock a Haunted one! :D
Dunno if I'll get too far into the classics though, I got killed pretty damn quick in the first one and I died after about the 5th pit in the second one :lol:
I thought I'd seen you change armour while I was online the other day.
Good luck with buying them all, there's one robotic looking one (Drell thinks it looks like a Zoid) that's buyable at Brigadier. It only costs 250,000! I'm only 3,300 away from being a Brigadier but I still need another 90,000 to buy that one. And I haven't bought anything for a while, although I did splash out on the black visor and the birthday armour effect :D
And as soon as I'm up a rank I'll bet there are another 5 or 6 things added to the armoury.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
Splatterhouse only really gets tough once you get into the house, although the 3rd boss had me for years at the arcades, but I managed to beat him without the sliding kick in the end (didn't even know you could do that til' I played Splatterhouse 2 on the Megadrive, and I got to read some instructions that weren't in Japanese) :lol:
Splatterhouse 2 is just one long pattern and over the space of about 6 hours you can learn it. The monsters always appear in the same place, and the bosses are very predictable and follow a very set pattern, unlike the ones in the original game who jump around all over the place.
Splatterhouse 3 is pretty crap really, plays on a 2.5D perspective instead of just 2D, more moves and more things to do, but after beating up the same 5 monsters through thousands of pallette swaps it starts to get a little tired. Plus later on the lowly creatures all seem to develop the ability to do a new move that knocks you down, can't be avoided and takes about 2/3rds of your health. Oh and the whole game is timed, if you don't get to David and Jennifer in time they die.
I got sick of pissing around, so I continued with the story, I'm obviously very near the end of the story now, as I've just done the forced mission "That Special Someone".
Anyway I'm now driving Roman to Brucie's house, and who knows what other wonders will unfold once we get there?
I've grabbed an arcade walkthrough from youtube so I'll just be content in watching that instead. Siouxsie might end up playing them on my profile (I doubt she'd get far enough into the remake to unlock them herself). She got to the last boss in the arcades but it was chucked before she could finish it. Her boyfriend at that time finished it before they sold it though :lol:
I managed to get all the photos in story done. And I found all the gramophones aswell. I only missed one. The bloody first one! But then the creatures flying through the windows is kinda distracting ;)
I've started going through it on Savage and I'm not doing too badly. Okay so I'm only about to start phase 3, but I haven't really had any problems. I've noticed losing more health per hit but not too much more. Although it'll be ****loads by the time I get to phase 7 or 8!
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
I entirely forgot how addictive this game can get. After discovering all remaining settlements (went quite quickly with a jet figher), I started doing the remaining faction missions I have left. Coincidentally the first one was "Stranded", which solves the mystery of the "Lost" Island, so I can finally fly there freely. Pretty cool. Overall, many of the faction missions are pretty good. Much better than most of the Agency missions, I would say. In fact, I think that the main storyline harmed the review rankings most - IMHO it was just too off to fit the rest of the game. Fighting while jumping between launched nuclear rockets? Doh, I guess it would be too much even for MGS, and that features some pretty silly boss fights, too. :)
Anyway, if any of you didn't play this game yet, I recommend you give it a try now. The first few Agency missions might seem not so great, but once you'll be able to roam freely around the entire island, you'll hopefully understand what I am talking about.
Patrik
I thought it was just plain awful on the PS2, to be honest... I took it back and bought it for the old Xbox instead, and it's a far better version. I found quite a few games were like that. A good example is Max Payne 2; awful on PS2, great on the Xbox.
I'm getting sick of this being friends with everyone. I'm trying to keep Roman, Kiki and Dwayne on my side (all for various reasons) but it's getting in the way of missions. I'm just about to do a mission where you have to smuggle an illegal immigrant into the country with Derek, i tried ti last night but blew myself up! Time to try again........
Cabs, Wanted Level, Goons.....
....those wouldn't happen to be your reasons would they? ;)
The only one I bother with is Jacob, otherwise I spend a fortune on weapons...
I'll be honest I've never used Dwaynes goons before, but Kiki is very useful if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have been able to do the bank robbery mission. She cleared me 3 star wanted level off after I got out of the subway. Plus I used Roman's cab a lot earlier on, but once you have all the clothes and weapons and anything else you need money for earlier on it's quicker just to hail a yellow cab I find.
I now have more distance in cabs than everything else put together, I'll take a cab to somewhere 2 streets away if it'll save me a few seconds :lol:
Do you skip all your cab rides? Not sure if you're bothered about trophies, but if you are, I'm pretty sure you get one just from sitting through a cab ride from one island to another.
I still haven't even tried to get my PS3 online yet, I don't know if newer copies of GTA IV have the trophies included now, but my copy is older I guess? I'll have to get on the PS network sometime and download the patch for the trophies (not that I'm really arsed about them though?)
Anyway I finished the last mission on GTA IV and decided to install the add ons, so I can play them when I get in from work tomorrow morning. Not a good start, brand new disc, still had the security tag on it which was stuck so badly onto the box it's damaged the plastic peeling it off. Then I load it up and the first time it loads it freezes WTF.
It's still installing now just the Lost and the Damned seems to be taking longer than the main game actually did?
That must be well annoying, fortunately I don't get that on the 360. It's well worth the wait though, the way the stories intertwine is great. I enjoyed TLAD less than the other two parts, but it's still a good laugh.
I'm at the end of Tron: Evolution. Talk about unbalanced difficulty... I've sailed through the game (I even whooped Abraxas, second-in-line to Clu, in a few minutes on my first attempt), but can't survive more than a few seconds against Clu's goons. Somewhat annoying, but I'll get there eventually...
I've already spotted Niko on the start up, and at least playing as Johnny it gives you a familiar character to play as.
The guy you play in TBoGT is in the others too, but he's probably not someone you would've noticed as easily.
Don't like the radio stations too much from what I've heard so far The Studio seems to be disco instead of cheesy house (don't really like that stuff, but towards the end of GTA IV I found myself listening to Studio instead of L.C.H.C. :lol:). L.C.H.C (arguably the best station from the main game) now plays Death Metal and Shock Rock instead of Hardcore, and all the rest of them seem really quiet and a bit crap really :(
I already like Johnny though even just after playing for about 15 minutes he doesn't seem anywhere near as shifty as he did in the main game, and you can phone for new rides and guns from the get go which is nice.
Oh and my copy of GTA IV must be an older one because the trophies in this add on are available, already got one.
Got it spot on! It's still anooying though!
Awww, man... but Max Cavalera as DJ? That was a nice touch. I thought it was quite cool how the biggest celebrities in the game were all guest DJs...
Yup, all versions have them, it's a patch to add IIRC.
I think I did that one on my first attempt :p
....Anyhoo!
Playing Lost and the Damned right now, the story missions are pretty hardcore, so anybody buying the disc with the 2 DLC chapters on like I did may have a right rough time if they haven't played the main game, and play these (The disc lets you play them without having to have GTA IV installed). The mission Buyers Market is much harder with Johnny than with Niko (or at least to just get out of the building), especially if you don't have some money saved up to kit yourself out with some decent weapons, although if you're quick you can take one of the dead cops SMG's and that seems to be good enough to deal with the rest of them (you also get the combat shotgun at the bottom of the stairs, don't think it's there when you're playing that mission as Niko?).
Also on The Lost and the Damned....Not loving Stubbs' cutscene when you first meet him, I was expecting it, but I figured since it's a video game....nah they won't spring that on you.....Oh my god it was like the ending to Boogie Nights all over again (anybody who's got that far will probably know what I'm getting at there?) :lol:
Anyway taken a slight detour from the story missions as they seem to be skyrocketing the percentage, I've done 9 already, and I know there's not many (26 or so innit?), and I went and stole the bikes, was easy and didn't take anywhere near as long to nick them as it did the vehicles in the main game, so now I'm happily wading my way through the Gang Wars. They're quite similar to the Turf Wars from San Andreas, but seem like more fun. Haven't hung out with any pals yet can't be arsed at the min, had a little interaction with the crystal meth addicted ex-girlfriend though she's a troublesome bint.
Won at pool, won at arm wrestling, won at Hi or lo, got the QuB3D highscore. Haven't done any races, but I imagine they'll be easier and more fun than the street races from the main game. I see there's a stat for "bikers knocked off during races", so I'm hoping the races are more like a mini version of Road Rash. Will probably try em' out tomorrow though, too busy killing Deadbeats :D
I definately wasn't expecting it, certainly caught me by surprise. :grin:
Aye, it is a bit like Road Rash. Great fun. :smile:
Got blimmin' tons of games on at the mo though; Tron: Evolution, Eternal Sonata, Tron 2.0, Fallout: NV, Dark Star One, X3 - Reunion etc. etc...
- Color coding sucks. Why on earth is most of it all grey? Or grey with just a tad bit of other color? I completely understand what the Uncharted authors were talking about when they said they want to make colorful game as the are fed up with greyish games like these. That's what I liked about GOW1, the desert, the pandora's temple, the cliffs of madness, because it was bright, well lit, nice environment. That's what I loved about GOW2, because most of it was like this, too. The art direction on this one, while the architecture itself is nice, too, was a big letdown for me, compared to the previous ones...
- The ending kind of sucks, too. Not because of the story (even if I do not fancy the "oh this is so smart story and we are now going to reveal it all to you" ending either), but mostly because of the pace. You can do a Max-Payne-like near-the-death sequence in the middle of the story, but making a 10+ minutes long one during/after the final boss fight wears down all the adrenaline. Hey, I want to finish this and go to sleep, not to have to spend another half an hour playing through this touchy aftermath and watching credits, without the chance of saving (Well, autosave *might* work, but what if it doesn't? No one wants to risk the chance of having to repeat the final boss fight, right?) The ending is supposed to be climactic, not anticlimactic. The fact how it all ends doesn't help much either. GOW1 got this right - you think it'll end badly, but instead you are made a god! In an absolutely awesomely looking palace, on top of that. That's what I call satisfaction. This one got it all wrong. (And this would perhaps be my only complaint against GOW2, too, the Star Wars Episode V like unsatisfying and inconclusive ending).
- Some boss fights suck, too. I didn't like the first boss fight right at the beginning, pitting you against the same horse like creature umphteen times in a row seems like a bad decision. Hello, are we advancing somewhere? Or did I just screw up some timing and we are cycling the phase again? It was really hard to read. And I didn't like the final fight either. The part on the catwalk was OK, but after that it got a bit tedious. Hey, doesn't this guy ever die? And the fight inside *you know where* was entirely ridiculous. IMHO good boss fight can be won by both going berserk and really going for it (the way people usually do it the first time), or by finding the right strategy and applying it properly (to make sure the boss is doable regardless of the difficulty level). For example all Metroid games stick to this pattern (with few exceptions, *cough* Nightmare from Fusion *cough*). Well, here the berserk approach didn't work, the guy multiplied like ten times and still no end in sight, so I had to go for a strategy right away instead, and what a cheap one it was. I repeat simple pattern of 3 basic moves for ages, and then the guys goes down. Totally anticlimactic too. The fact that you don't see if you are wearing him down just made it worse. Add what follows then and see why am I so disappointed with the ending...
These were the major ramblings. Strange it got some other minor things wrong compared to the previous ones, too:
- Most of the time I died because I have fallen somewhere just because I couldn't figure out in advance if I can land there or not. This kind of sucks, too. Not fun at all. I hadn't had problem like this in GOW2, and that used Wings of Icarus fairly extensively, too. Sometimes the camera position is outright useless (*cough* Aphrodite's garter *cough*), making jumping a real hit and miss.
- The color of the chests, no matter how well they look, is harder to tell apart. In previous games, the shine above the chest was telling you that. Here, there is no color info visible from the side of the chest, and the blue and green are much similar, too, which makes it quite difficult at some times to choose wisely. At one point there is even an alternating chest (you can go back to) where the camera is fixed in distance exactly from the side, so you can't choose other than by trial and error.
- The enemies are much weaker. Not in the terms of hit points, but in terms of the existence of a move they are extremely vulnerable to. The O or L1+O will make short process with about anybody, and the cestus or bow with the rest. Hey, even the satyrs are catch-able. Where's the challenge in that? Not to mention that the QTEs have been slowed and simplified up to the point of being just a nuisance before the final blow.
- There don't seem to be many memorable places. All I remember is grey rocks everywhere, and the Labyrinth. And then there is... hmm... the Labyrinth, again. Well, the Hera's garden puzzle was nice, even if it was grayish, too. Few nice chambers, too, but that's about it. Compare it to the entire Island of the Fates, the Horses of Time, The Atlas or The Palace of the Fates from GOW2. That's memorable. The Horses were particularly awesome. Well, you get the Titan climbing here, too, but you get so much of it that it becomes forgettable. And it's all grey, too. :)
All in all, this leaves GOW2 my favorite. I liked GOW1 a lot, and was expecting GOW2 to be somewhat better. I was astonished to find out it was an order of magnitude better, despite the technology being the same. I was assuming GOW3 would be at least on par with GOW2, perhaps better given the technology boost. Well, while the graphics is definitely awesome, no doubt about that, it's not all what is necessary to make an awesome game.
Which means, if you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favor and get hold of GOW: Collection and play GOW2, it's really worth it.
Patrik