Fall/Winter videogame lineup

[Buckethead Brigade]

Has anybody played Dragon Age Journeys? It is a free flash game that allows you to earn free items in Dragon Age: Origins when it is released. It is a pretty simple RPG.

Logan- thanks for the heads up. Just started to play it now. Btw I should have noted, Borderlands is a great game, but the story isn't as great as Fallout 3. I beat the game yesterday but I started up a new game. You have the option of being 4 different characters so the replay value is awesome.

[logan82]

I finished my first Borderlands play through over the weekend and started a second with the same character. After playing through the second time for a while I decided I wanted to go back and find some of the Claptraps I missed the first time to increase my backpack size. When I went back to the first play through all the weapons and items I gained during the second play through carried over. For those who have finished the game, I read somewhere that the Claptrap you see just before the closing credits is supposedly planned to be part of future DLC.

[endaround]

So I've played about 6-8 hours of DA:O which got me through the first town basically. Its really good. The PC version is superb while the console version aren't quite as good apparently. Also the PC version is very difficult. One mistake and you can get a game over screen. Its much easier on the consoles.

[stoutdude04]

I think im going to rent DA for my ps3 and give it a little go around. I dont want to buy it because im going to be playing MW2 non stop once it comes out im sure.

[Hammer]

MW2 non stop...same here. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

[logan82]

I got DA:O(360) in the mail today, but I am not sure I will play it this weekend yet. I have heard really good things about it. I heard that on the PC version you have more freedom with the camera and the graphics are much better. That really shouldn't be surprising though.

[endaround]

The PC version has a better interface and a floating camera while the console interface is serviceable but the camera is fixed. There is a large difference in the difficulty level which looks like may have gotten tweaked with a new patch. If you're familiar with Icewind Dale the battles are a lot like that on the PC where any encounter requires tactics to avoid dying. Last time I got killed by a random encounter with about 20 wolves.

[logan82]

That wouldn't be surprising. Console games in general are pretty easy unless you play on the harder difficulties. I will get back when I actually play the game. Looks like they actually made the easy level even easier on the PC. Link

[Oldcity]

Really looking forward to Assassin's Creed 2. Loved the first one.

[stoutdude04]

Played borderlands a bit. Was hoping to get a chance to play Dragon Age before MW2 comes out...doesnt look like thatll be happening.

[pitchleague]

I was in Walmart today and saw "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition." I didn't know this was coming out. I played the original on my brothers PS2 this summer. Anybody know if this is the same game or a different game? The cover is way different than the original, as are many of the photos on the box. (this was for PC by the way.)

 

I've done a bit of looking but I only find system requirements when doing a search for the game online. I'm sure I'm not looking in the right place.

 

Anyways, for $40 I think I'll pass completely. For $20 or less, I could probably pick it up sometime, unless it's the same game.

[TheCrew07]

Dragon Age was fantastic.... I just finished it up tonight. Some of the fights were epic, and not in a Doom superboss kind of way, but where you truly needed tactics to win. I love that you can customize tactics for each character and I spent a great deal of time tweaking, though I the Healing needs to be tweaked some to have an NPC do the healing, there's not a good way to handle a group heal through the tactics menu. I started out playing a hack and slash character but in the middle found myself playing a made to heal just to last through fights, and then by the end i was playing hack and slash again except in the epic encounters, then I played the healer character.

 

I haven't been that frustrated taking on dragons since the early Everquest days. It's rare that a video game gets me to display emotion but BW did a fantastic job with this game, I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 in Jan.

 

Now onto Modern Warfare 2, some of my friends got to Best Buy at 7:30 to stand in line, I'll pickup my copy tomorrow though, that's a little bit excessive for me.

[stoutdude04]

Now onto Modern Warfare 2, some of my friends got to Best Buy at 7:30 to stand in line, I'll pickup my copy tomorrow though, that's a little bit excessive for me.

Did you pre-order it? If not, you might have to wait a couple of days. Im expecting it to be sold out shortly after midnight.

 

How long did DA take? Did you buy any of the add on content?

[TheCrew07]

DA took right around 50 hours for me, a little bit over, the ending was the longest ending I've ever seen in a game, my goodness. I ended up back tracking quite a bit trying to figure out some quests that are apparently bugged as it turns out, which ate up a significant amount of time, and I hate destroying loot so I'd always leave an encounter to go sell stuff and come back. I highly recommend paying attention to merchants early and investing in backpacks.

 

I'm not worried about MW2 at all, if worse to comes to worse I'll just spend extra money and get the night vision, there has to be a use for them some place in civilian life. I've never had an issue picking up a copy of the game without a pre-order here in Green Bay.

[logan82]

Borderlands is still consuming a lot of my time. I have played through the mage's origin story and the first castle of the story. The tactics system reminds me a lot of the system used in FF12 gambit system, which worked really well. I have yet to play around with it much though. I am playing on hard and have only been wiped out twice. Once because I didn't equip my characters with items and the other time because I just wast really paying enough attention and one character died then things snowballed from there. Still, I wouldn't really call it "hard."

 

 

I was in Walmart today and saw "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition." I didn't know this was coming out. I played the original on my brothers PS2 this summer. Anybody know if this is the same game or a different game? The cover is way different than the original, as are many of the photos on the box. (this was for PC by the way.)

 

Same game with 3 extra levels(I think 3, Hoth and 2 previously downloadable levels.) and some other extras.

[TheCrew07]

Well I must say MW2 is the coolest first person shooter I've ever played. I thought the original Halo set a new bench mark, then the original Gears of War but this game is the most customizable and most fun I've had playing in Multiplayer. In fact the online play has been so fun I haven't even touched the campaign yet.

[logan82]

Still have not gotten around to playing DA much. At this rate I might not be ready to play Mass Effect 2 when it comes out. Borderlands is releasing DLC on November 24th that is supposed to add 6-10 hours of gameplay for $10. My fastest time through the main story in Borderlands was 13 hours(I think) so that seems like a really good value.

[sgtcluels]

L4D2 is pretty fun. It's different then L4D, they seem to try to push you into moving all the time instead of parking in a corner and fighting. 3:10 to beat a campaign on Advanced, Expert was a bit to hard.

[thebruce44]

Anyone play Assasin's Creed 2 yet? I am kicking myself for not taking advantage of the buy 2, get 1 free sale at Best Buy. I want to get Borderlands, Fifa, and that but can't really afford 3 games (not to mention I have no time to actually play them).

[bjkrautk]

Anyone play Assasin's Creed 2 yet? I am kicking myself for not taking advantage of the buy 2, get 1 free sale at Best Buy. I want to get Borderlands, Fifa, and that but can't really afford 3 games (not to mention I have no time to actually play them).

I haven't yet, and even if I do end up picking it up over the weekend, I won't get to it for awhile. Hit a stopping point in my playthrough of Uncharted 1, and have recently started Rachet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time first. As someone who had fun reading the things people parsed out of the end for the original game, I'm really looking forward to jumping into Assassin's Creed 2 when I get around to it. Given the number of games I have already {R&C, Fallout 3 GotY edition, Uncharted 2, Prof. Layton 2 on the DS, plus I still want to go back and play the DLC add-ons to Valkyria Chronicles at some point}, that may take awhile.

 

I have a lot of gaming stuff to do before March 9, 2010 (Final Fantasy XIII U.S. release date).

 

Don't kick yourself too hard about not buying AC2 during the Best Buy deal; the game only came out this Tuesday, so it wasn't available during the sale. The best deals I've seen for the game are $10 gift cards with purchase - The Best Buy version of the deal runs through saturday, and requires a coupon from the (free) Rewards Zone gamer's club; Target is supposed to be running a similar deal on Black Friday. Considering I bought AC1 when it went on sale after Christmas (either late December or early January), I'm hoping to do something similar this time around.

[endaround]

So I've now passed the 70 hour mark on DA:O and have yet to get the Sacred Urn(for those who don't know there are 4 major areas in the middle part of the game and the Urn is the second half of one of them. So I've completed 3.5 of the major areas and then it looks like a sizable end game after that) . So yeah there is content there for those who are willing to look for it.

[bjkrautk]

The past three days (Friday - Sunday) have been a giant blur of Assassin's Creed II-induced addiction.

 

R&C is on hold, probably about halfway through. It's not a bad game....it's just that I don't trust myself to avoid Assassin's Creed 2 spoilers long enough to delay playing.

 

 

I've also noticed that - of the games I've recently purchased (AC 2, R&C F:ACiT, Uncharted 2), there seems to be a glut of good platformers out there. Unfortunately, I have a hard time going from platformer-to-platformer....so I'm not quite sure what I'll be playing next on the consoles.

 

Sidenote: I have picked up my copy of Final Fantasy 6 Advance (on my DS) while in the car (not driving) or watching TV. If that isn't my favorite game of all time, I'm at a loss to name a game that I preferred to it. Oddly enough, though, since the battery died on my SNES cart back in the day, I've never finished the game.

[Schlitz001]

I'm replaying Mass Effect 1 as an Adept in preparation for Mass Effect 2. The decisions that you made in the first game will carry over to the second one (release date 1/26). I forgot how addictive the game is.

[Hammer]

What was the best baseball game for 2009? My wife would like to buy one for me for Christmas....

[logan82]

If you have a PS3, MLB The Show hands down. If you have an Xbox360, I wouldn't recommend a baseball game. I know other people liked 2K9, but I really hated it. To many really bad bugs. There is a thread on the game from earlier this year. The Bigs 2 is more of an arcade baseball game instead of a simulation.