looking through this topic i can't believe that this thread doesn't already exist.

the last game i finished was Red Dead Redemption and i give it 6 of 10. it's an above average game worth playing and finishing but i won't replay it or complete it. it's definitely over rated.

pros - i liked the story and the characters, and i love a good western. i've laughed several times at comments the characters would make to one another. the world that's been created here is a stark beauty i never tired of and i enjoyed wandering here. if you're into playing games for a good story then give it a try.

cons - it's littered with too many pointless repetitive side quests and missions. so many of the stranger sidequests have nothing to offer the player. the survivalist challenges just unlock an outfit which is a lot of work to ride around for hours and pick flowers / shoot random animals for. the gameplay is either hard because it's too slow or too easy with the casual targets. the blue dot on your map missions fall into just one of four things but happen about once an hour which made me just blow right past them. the game is very slow to start and gets slow and quite boring at several other points. unless you piss through your ammo you don't need currency for anything. the weapons don't really change just get upgraded which means you don't get to develop your own style. the boss battles are painfully simple, yet long.

I'm currently about 75% of the way through Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon on GBA. So far, I rate it at an 8/10 because I love the exploration-style Castlevania games, I love the DSS card system and all the different abilities (100 to be exact) it allows for by making different pairs of cards (my favorite is Mercury+Mandragora which turns the whip into a vine and boosts your STR), the controls are fluid, the music is nice, and it has a decent challenge to it. However, being that it was the first GBA/DS Castlevania game, they hadn't worked out the kinks yet. There is no shop or currency, not enough plot-focused events, etc. It reminds me of the first Mega Man Zero game in this respect. I also can't stand the knock-back when you get hit by an enemy in the air. But these are little things IMO. I should finish the game up tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure that I'll stick with an 8/10.

My father and sister are obsessed with Red Dead Redemption, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. It's just so boring...

Anyways, Mass Effect. 10/10. I've been gushing like a little school girl about it, I know, but I can't stop. The best game I've ever played. My only real issue is that it's really short, I beat it this time in 28 hours and I did all of the assignments I stumbled upon(I'm sure there are more than what I did, but I wasn't using a guide and really couldn't be assed to go looking for them...). Also, the side missions kind of suck. Land on barren planet, wipe out bunker, kill a thresher maw if you're lucky, rinse, repeat. But it's not like you have to do them. The only thing you really gain is levels and loot, and I beat my first playthrough with crappy gear and a crappily built character, and had much more fun with the end boss because of that.

I just finished Heavy Rain: 948575340865483/10

Pros: You can choose how the story ends based on your actions. You get to play as 4 different characters and have them interact in various ways. The story was well done and the ending did some major clusterfuck damage to my psych The game was very interactive where you had to turn the controller to not fall off of a wooden plank to your doom, or press multiple buttons at one in order to climb through a maze of live electrical cords.

Cons: You only get 2 camera angles at a time so you can't see everything very well. Also, the controls are something I'm not very used to: you have to constantly hold down R2 to move. It has a few dry moments (usually when you play as Scott Shelby) that kind of annoyed me, too.




I also finished Halo: Reach: 7/10

Pros: NO FLOOD!! You also don't have Cortana to bitch at you all the time for being too reckless. Your partner never dies, too.

Cons: Typical Xbox 360 graphics where everything is too shiny. The shotgun was knocked down to a devastating level where you have to be within a foot of your enemy to cause damage. In fact... Everything pretty much lost power except for the sniper rifle, grenades, and the DMR. I also felt incredibly cheated at the end. Wtf, man. W. T. F.




I'm currently playing Dead Space: 6/10

Pros: Having the ability to use a sort of pulse thing in your hand to figure out where to go was great. That ship was hell to navigate. I liked the general idea of the story: instead of saving the world/mankind, you just have to find some way to get the hell off of the ship and save your girlfriend.

Cons: Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. In the 3 hours I have spent playing this game, the monsters are all the same and come trickling in instead of swarming me at times. Also, the shop to upgrade and buy items was pretty gay

Currently playing Red Dead Redemption.

I've only played for roughly 5-6 hours but as it is now I'd give it, 7/10.

Pros: It looks great, that might in some part have something to do with playing it in HD on my new tv. The cutscenes are terrific, the characters are brimming with personality, and the missions are enjoyable.

Cons: Endless travelling around on horseback. Sometimes I'll have finished a mission and just wanna save and take a break, but I have to spend about 5 minutes travelling to my nearest house so that I can save, which can be tedious. Side missions. They seem somewhat pointless from what I've seen so far, and not worth the bother. Most of them are basically; travel to this place/ go see this person, there doesn't seem to be much depth to them.

I've just finished Assassins's Creed II, i give it a 9/10, really the game es AWESOME, the storytelling, the art design, the characters, the controls and gameplay... you get a LOT of game in just one round disc =)

before that i also finished Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, and it's just ok, a 6.5/10. Average story, average graphics, not so great controls, good art design, HUGE map, a nice game, but it's a play-and-forget.

Mass Effect 2 - 8/10

The first game just had more...substance. It was more stirring, emotionally. I felt anger and frustration at the council, disgust with Udina, curiosity about the protheans and the reapers. ME2...didn't make me feel much, other than irritation at Shepard's bitchitization by the Illusive Man. It was certainly beautiful graphics wise, and they did make improvements to the combat(at the expense of character building, which I don't think was a good tradeoff), but it never felt like there was enough tension for it to be anywhere near as compelling as the first. There were only like two missions for the actual storyline, the rest were just running around to build a team, and that really pissed me off. It was boring. Sure, for the characters I liked, it was cool, but there were more characters I didn't care about(and I'm not necessarily complaining about the characters. Everybody has their own personal tastes, and mine were for Samara and Tali and Miranda, which left me with five loyalty missions I did not want to do...) and it just became tedious. I also loathed the upgrade system. Why, oh why, did they ditch the inventory? Mining for elements defines tedium.

They did a lot of things well. There was a lot of opportunities to see your choices from the other game, and the ability to do either paragon or renegade actions during cutscenes was cool. The Normandy 2 was pretty epic, and I was glad there was more Joker interaction.

And...I really missed the elevator scenes. The people who whined about it in the first game should be smacked. They were cool! They added to the immersion! You got to listen to quirky little conversations, learn more about the characters! You've got to have loading screens, why not make them interesting? The ones in ME2 are just fucking stupid.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess.

It's a turn based strategy RPG, you control 5 groups of army units, the units available are random for each playthrough and extremely varied. Plants, undead, animals, dwarven robots, humans, basically any fantasy thing you can imagine, you can use. You fast travel between mini islands by ship and the islands are filled with varying levels of enemies so finding your way through the enemies you can actually beat is challenging, usually you need to travel around the edges of the island with your ship and attack it from different places to pick of the weaker places first and then retreat to different islands until your strong enough to tackle everything. There's skill trees and equipment for the main character that effect your units in different ways. The story is deep and pretty entertaining,. There's some quests that give you multiple ways to complete. You get a pet dragon who fights and levels up with you. (He's not an actual unit, you need to build rage by fighting with units to use his skills, but his skills are awesome) The battles are hard and the RPG systems are really crucial. It's seriously well done.

I've yet to find any real flaws with the game at all. Try the demo.

Gunner's Heaven/Rapid Reload



Early lauch game for the PS1. If you're a fan of Gunstar Heroes then you'll like this game.

The two characters have four different shot types which are linked to a timer. You must keep picking up the energy drops from the enemies or your weapons will revert to their weak forms, which kinda sucks when you fight bosses. :-/
I found Axel's weapon selection worse than Rukia's, so I chose her more often.
You can also perform throws with certain enemies up close, a slide, and you also have a grapple shooter so you can attach to platforms and walls to escape from the more hectic situations.

Unlike games like Metal Slug or Contra, you have a lifebar so you won't die instantly. This is handy because the game gets pretty hard, but you get to restart at certain locations (after you've cleared the midbosses) so you won't go that insane.

The level design is pretty good and the graphics have aged well (much better than the earlier 3D games). Games like this are always good to pick up and play quite quickly because you don't have to commit yourself to them and are nice to dip in and out of.
I still think Metal Slug 3 is my favourite platform shooter, but this is still a pretty fun and underrated game for the PS1.

7/10

Now I'm currently playing Seiken Densetsu 3. Enjoying it so far.

fallout: new vegas 5 / 10

it's technically flawed to it's core and should have been released later - but no, obsidian had to make thier quick buck for the holidays at the gamers expense. i'm sad because i really wanted to fall in love with this game and waste my life away but i just can't do it anymore. new vegas is like a cheap buffet - there's a lot to choose from but none of it will blow you away and several things will make you wish you hadn't come at all.

cons: i was disappointed from the get go when the character creation was exactly the same as fallout 3, not even a single new hairstyle. now you can add in age. the only thing you know about your character is that they were shot and robbed. there isn't much of a history there or anywhere. the outfits are almost exactly the same as in fallout 3, and many of the npc's have the exact same voice. the graphics are the exact same as fallout 3, so seeing yet another dismemberment from a bullet gets old quick. you can max to level 30 without following any of the main plot by doing other quests, because most of the npcs you can interact with have work for you. many of these quests are fast travel here speak to this person fast travel back speak to that person.. less is more, you know? there are many places in the game that don't seem to level with you so there isn't much strategy involved - getting ambushed by 6 giant radscorpions at level 5 is impossible not challenging. just come back later with bigger guns/ whatever you're into. that's what all the enemies do - just beeline for you. when i change the radio volume it's just Mr new vegas' voice that gets louder and not the actual music. having to get my weapons taken from my inventory every time i step into a casino even after assassinating the prior bosses made me stay away from the strip. loading times were ridiculous and it often felt like i was staring at a loading screen more than actually playing the game. i couldn't have lily or raul as my companions for more than a few hours due to glitches / bugs while they were with me. after the patch the game has frozen on me every day sometimes several times a day. weapons now become stuck in my character and my companions, they lowered the attack power of the alien blaster which really irks me, and doing everything over again in almost the exact same way gets boring. in this wasteland i wish i had the option to kill everything and everyone because they're all annoying me. loading times are still ridiculous. last night after using a stealth boy i fell through the ground and got stuck beneath the street on black mountain. this was after Arcade got oh baby stuck in his shoulders and beat up by a few deathclaws repeatedly, and at that point i put the controller down and picked up the wii mote instead.

Pros: some of the quests can be quite fun and the vaults are cool to explore and learn their grim secrets. the companions all have thier own quests which is fun to learn more about thier personalities. dialogue options can be amusing, as well as some of the plot choices. exploring the wastes can be a wonderful waste of time. helping or hindering factions can be very satisfying. there are several minigames like caravan or gambling at the casinos. new vegas is not lacking in content, there's so much to do there.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (XBLA,PSN)

Pros: Nice retro graphics, good levelling up system, true to the comic, long for a scrolling beat em up.

Cons: No online multiplay...why?

8/10

I completely agree but I'd like to offer my own view on a couple of things.



I felt that the Courier had a lot of neat history that you could find out. For example, when you're doing the quest to find acts for Tommy Torini, when you talk to Bruce Issacs, you have an option that leads to the Courier admitting he's been to New Reno. Or with the Lonesome Drifter, if you have the Lady Killer perk (which guy doesn't?), The Courier has some history in Montana too.

As for weapons being taken from you every time you step in, I always chalked that up to having the casinos having an "image" to maintain, even if you become best buds with the new managers.



I liked the fact that it didn't have online multiplayer. It was more so that this was a game that you needed to get your close friends around to play with.

Unfortunately, none of mine wanted to play it.




Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Nintendo DS
Intelligent Systems

I'm a fan of most Fire Emblem games, and to go back to the original (a remake of the original, but who would play something they couldn't understand). Everything feels the same, yes. Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, Lances beat Swords. It's still all the same.

However, I'm disappointed to see that there are no support conversations, or anything extra. Sure, there's a hard mode, and I love it, but am I only playing this game for it's story and gameplay? I love those little extra pieces that most Fire Emblem games have. If Intelligent Systems wanted to really pay respect to the very first game, they could have at least touched the characters up and added in some support conversations to some other characters.

It's pretty good, otherwise.

ahh. i don't play as a male character so i was missing out, and didn't take the cherez la femme perk until later in the game. cool to know.

Kirby's Epic Yarn 10 - 10



this is the cutest girliest game i've ever played and it was magically refreshing. perfect score!! worth completing it, playing it and trying to get perfect scores in it. i loved the creative graphics, the game play was spotless, the levels are fun, i had that old school blistered thumb from playing so much. it's a gem of a game so don't let the cuteness scare you!

fable 3.......

i give it a 7 out of ten

it wuz really short....i think i beat it in 4 days not even a whole week.....i thought the game would be longer since its an adventure game but i was wrong....

i wuz the most nice king ever...so nice that most people in the city died after the darkness came to burn down the town....

they better make another fable soon....

Dead Space 2 7/10

Having finished Dead Space midway through last year (which I enjoyed immensely, mainly because it was so different to anything I had played before it) I was looking forward to playing Dead Space 2. Straight away it sucks you in, the atmosphere is so intense I actually found it took a lot of energy to play it which perhaps isn't a good thing, I could only seem to play in 30 minute segments but maybe that's because I'm a massive PUSSY. Who knows. The gameplay is basically exactly the same as the first game, one negative for me is that unlike the first game I found the combat to be quite repetitive towards the end, there didn't seem to be as many kind of puzzle bits to the game as in the original, it was just go into a room get ambushed by enemies, rinse and repeat. It looks great though, obviously, and I did actually care about Isaac and the general story. I'll probably play it again at some point if only to try out some of the weapons I didn't use as much.

I am sold.

Ugh the last game I played was Ketsui, and I talk about that a lot. 9/10 The game has creative bullet patterns and an adrenaline pumping scoring system. The games freakin' hard though, so if you want to 1CC it you'll be practicing a lot. It also has a second loop where every enemy you fight releases suicide bullets which are directly proportional to how far away from the enemy you are.

pokemon: white

Pokemon, pokemon, same as usual. Except a few differences.

Pros: HOLY SHIT POKEMON WITH A STORYLINE AND A BAD GUY THAT MAKES PEOPLE QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT THEY'RE GOOD OR BAD? Also, new EXP system is sexy. And the move to pseudo-3D looks great. The gym puzzles are innovative, the new OST is pretty sexy, I love the idea of dark grass/light grass and shaking grass/dust clouds/etc. It gives the game awesome variety!

Cons: THE NEW POKEMON. I'd have no problem with the new pokemon if their stats weren't plain horrible. Just horrible! Almost all the pokemon seem to be like 'speed + attack' and there isn't much variety when it comes to choices of pokemon. The lack of ability to refight trainers is also horrible. Just horrible! The new pokemon calls are terrible to listen to. I mean, really. They sound terrible.

And with every generation they look dumber.

NationStates:
6/10

Pros:
Easy to play
No download needed
Email address not required
Large player base community
Password protected regions (on request if your a founder)




Cons:
Political issues are player made and can be deemed unfair
Raiding a region when your neutral (means your region can be annex or over taken)
Hardly any admin or mod help when you want to report regions or nations
Slow turn base (max questions per day 2X) (4X Questions when you sign up)

Okamiden 8 - 10

pros - i was absorbed into the game from the beginning. i love the beautiful world you get to explore. the celestial brush is so natural with the DS stylus. the humorous events with the characters had me smiling and giggling. i had fun talking to random people, fighting monsters and checking up on side quests. the music is perfect. the little secrets to find are a delight. Okamiden leaves me salivating for more games like this to come and hopefully they will. the puzzles are clever but never frustrating and satisfying to accomplish. the cuteness factor of this game is huge and it's very memorable, definitely one of the best games i've played on the DS.

cons - there were several points in the games plot that didn't match up to the story from the first Okami. as soon as you gain the ability to warp you loose it with the next plot advancement. there wasn't a point in the game where you know exactly when the final boss battle will be so you can get small shit done like weapon upgrades etc, so i didn't get perfect score like i like to get. the final boss battle gets to be a bit much. there was an entire location in the game which was pointless and grating and i could have done without but it was also thankfully also quite short, might just be me though.

Portal 2 - 9.5/10

Pros: Potato Batteries.

Cons: Although the puzzles were more complex, they weren't really harder. And I got stuck a few times because I couldn't physically see where to shoot the portals, but perhaps playing it on PC will make that better.

Seriously, this was pretty much everying I'd hoped it would be.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West


Pros:
- Andy Serkis top notch voice acting.
- Great animation and Motion Capture, Giving a great portrayal of emotion.
- Good story.
- Nice art style.
- Nice Soundtrack
- Fantastic length for the games price tag. (8-10 hours) & Currently 15 dollars off Amazon.

Cons
- A little lacking in combat, but can be satisfying.
- Some minor graphic glitches, and frame rate issues (PS3) (Probably fixed with patches by now).
- Lack of DLC and Replayability.

8/10

Batman: Arkham Asylum 8.5/10

Got it for £10 on Amazon, really fun game I breezed through in under two weeks. I can't really think of any cons for it other than maybe the length of the story, I'm a pretty casual gamer and I got through it pretty quick. Everything is just really well done, the combat on first appearences seems pretty simple, strike and counter, but actually once you start getting into it you quickly realise there's depth there. Gaining combos allows you to use throws or special unblockable moves and enemies with weapons need to be dealt with by stunning them before you attack or by flipping over them and attacking them from behind. The upgrades and new gadgets keep you interested so does the story. It's definately the best superhero video game I've played.

Heavy Rain - 8 of 10.

at first the gameplay really irked me, and i didn't understand why certain aspects of the story weren't revealed later on and left to be such blatant plot holes. like why one of the suspects who isn't the killer had an origami figure in the first place etc. but i quickly got over those irritations and enjoyed the game for what it gave, which was an awesome story with involving characters. heavy rain is more of an interactive movie than a game and it's opened me up to an entire new type of gaming. i far prefer this style to a game where you button mash for ten minutes just to catch the next cutscene. at the end i only wish there were more of this game to play which is an amazing thing in of itself. i'm thinking of replaying it and taking the "bad" choices just to see what happens though i think it's fairly obvious what those outcomes will be.