I will move your controller using only the power of my mind. (video games)

[Thermofusion]

Gunstringer: Amazing, amazing presentation. The live-action audience, the Bastion-style narrator who comments on your every move in a folksy twang, the video game in-jokes. Very funny. Right hand "paint and release" controls feel pretty good, though not quite as good as Child of Eden. Not so good: left hand movement controls are fiddly, enough to be very frustrating on occasion. Solid 'B' based on the hour or so I played after dinner. Looking forward to playing the Mad Dog McCree/Troma thing!

Renegade Ops (demo): Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Quite nice. This is the HD version of Jackal I never realized I wanted. That was one of my favorite NES games as a little tyke, and this is pure homage. I mean, the first mission consists of 'Drive around in jeep, shoot things, collect hostages from rickety jungle shacks.' It's Jackal! Bought this, will put on the to-play pile. B+

[Killdozersnakeboy]

Played the first 30 minutes of Hard Reset. Very linear almost old school FPS. Great weapons, lovely visuals. And only $30 on steam.

[Dick]

Oh, God in heaven, don't do this to me: Steam sale on Paradox Interactive games. I already own most of them, with 50+ hours invested in many, and now they want to sell me more?! I can't handle this!

Every iteration of a Paradox game has been superior to the previous with the possible exception of Hearts of Iron 2 --> Hearts of Iron 3, so I've only bothered to buy the latest ones on steam, having owned box versions of the older ones.  The only title that might have tempted me would be Crusader Kings 2, but it's not out yet.  I'm mega-excited for that.  I feel so far behind in games.  I'm working on Portal 2 now, but I need to play the new Deus Ex (and I was hoping to re-play the original first).  And Skyrim is coming out in a couple of months.

I usually only install games I'm currently playing, but Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron and Victoria are among the very few games I have perma-installed.

I will say Paradox pisses me right off with the endless stream of useless DLC and expansions.  Spritepacks, fucking really?  It is 2011, Paradox.

[davy]

I watched a new Skyrim video today. I'm pretty excited about that one, but I know that I tend to bog down on those types of games pretty easily. We'll see.

[Good Intentions]

Oh, God in heaven, don't do this to me: Steam sale on Paradox Interactive games. I already own most of them, with 50+ hours invested in many, and now they want to sell me more?! I can't handle this!

Every iteration of a Paradox game has been superior to the previous with the possible exception of Hearts of Iron 2 --> Hearts of Iron 3, so I've only bothered to buy the latest ones on steam, having owned box versions of the older ones.

The thing is, the first two days of sales were games I don't have - Cities in Motion (not developed by Paradox, but published by them), a transport sim that I've only heard good things about (and I've spent hundreds of hours with Paradox-published games), and this Sengoku thing which looks like a Shogunate Japan version of EU/Vicky/HoI. The temptation, the temptation...

[Chet]

Anyone play Football Manager? Just downloading the 2011 iteration on steam.

[Thermofusion]

With any other videogame, scoring an 8/10 would be considered glowing praise. According to Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski, however, that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, according to him, anybody who dares give Gears of War 3 a score of eight clearly hates it.

"Doing great, apart from a couple of haters," Cliffy told VG247, while talking about review scores. When asked to elaborate on the haters in question, he pointed to Eurogamer's 8/10 review.

"You know, I didn’t quite gather it. I don’t want to come across as defensive," he defensively said. "How do I phrase this properly? When people rated Gear 2 higher than Gears 3, it kind of upset me because I know Gears 3 is a better game on every level."

[Chet]

Cliff is right.

[Good Intentions]

Anyone play Football Manager? Just downloading the 2011 iteration on steam.

I just started a new season of that yesterday.

[jm]

Cities in Motion (not developed by Paradox, but published by them), a transport sim that I've only heard good things about (and I've spent hundreds of hours with Paradox-published games)

I bought this game but it turns out I really don't have the patience for it. It seems really robust and interesting if you are the kind of person who gets a wicked boner for urban planning. And I do, but just not on this level. Unless I'm missing something, I feel like even just building a couple of bus lines is a day's worth of playtime if you want to really do it right.

[Ignatius]

Was A Train good at this or is it just the only one I ever played and so natch had fun?

Any of you guys ever get into actual train sims? My brother has this control panel and pretends he's operating a Metro-North commuter train sometimes. I try to understand, but it makes me laugh inside my head. It's like riding the actual train, but the graphics are way worse.

[Chet]

Anyone play Football Manager? Just downloading the 2011 iteration on steam.

I just started a new season of that yesterday.

how does a network game work?

[Good Intentions]

Slowly. Very, very slowly.

[Good Intentions]

It's a turn-based game, so at pre-ordained spots everybody waits for everybody else to make their decisions for the day. The reason this can go slowly is that each day consists of multiple turns, and the game is a time sink. Network games among people who, say, live together can be great fun, but they take weeks or months.

[alistarr*]

Network games of that almost led to two of my housemates failing to graduate, and almost certainly contributed to me doing well (because I didn't really have anything to do besides sit around and read more books while they were playing it).

Also, if gears 3 is actually a better game than gears 2 then I might have to quit my job and play it full time.

Lately I've mostly been playing street fighter. I've cooled on Xenoblade Chronicles simply because I'm about 30 hours in and apparently I'm not even a quarter of the way through the story, and I just don't have time to dig in properly without ignoring my street fighter addiction. I'd still really recommend it though - every time I get to a new area I'm amazed that another area this huge and pretty exists in the game.

[Chet]

My GoW3 was shipped today!"!

[Chet]

I've play almost 17 hours on FM2011 already 

[Ah_Pook]

finally some footage of the console version of battlefield 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzA4dv0xkzg&feature=player_embedded

it still looks solid, but not nearly as "holy shit" as the pc footage theyve been showing

[Good Intentions]

Chet, who are you managing? For this season I'm handling FC Utrecht in the Eredivisie, on account of having lived there, and the Eredivisie being a league which won't be too easy to beat if you're not one of the obvious contenders but still with access to all the European competitions.

If you're really hardcore, though, you play a club at the bottom level of competition and promote your way to the top. That's a commitment of dozens, if not hundreds, of hours, though. But oh, the pay-off!

[Chet]

Celtic, of course. Lost the league in my first season despite having some great results against Rangers, but won the Scottish Cup. Signing players is proving to be difficult without most of my targets not being interested, and a transfer budget of just £5 mill. My second season is off to a pretty terrible start with two losses in three.

[Good Intentions]

If you want my advice, FM is a game for tactics nerds. It rewards careful setting up. Choose two or three formations you want your team to play, make sure they are set in the 'match preparation' screen, and set up your players (and new squad acquisitions) to perform in those formations. Play to your players' strengths. Don't get blinded by all the numbers on the stat screen - the numbers work together in tremendously complicated ways, and should at best be taken as suggestions of what the players might be good at. There are a few stats which are uniformly important, though, and they're mainly the mental ones ('determination' is worth its weight in gold, 'decisions' and 'composure' mean they'll perform when put on the spot, be careful of defenders with very high aggression) as well as 'first touch', which is important for every footballer in every situation. So, get a decent idea of what you can expect your players to to, and put them in positions where they get an opportunity to do it.

I like 4-5-1/4-3-3 formations (I read a lot of Zonal Marking, what can I say) or 4-4-2 diamond - having a defensive midfielder in front of your back four will tighten up your defense a big deal (especially one with high determination), and for over a decade now the player just behind the forwards is the one that has the most opportunity to shine in FM/CM games. If you have a player with high creativity, that is where you want them, even if they're a striker. If you're having defensive problems, play your team narrower, if you want more width, encourage your players to look for an overlap. Those two strategies aren't mutually exclusive, and if you've carefully set up your DMs/holding midfielder/pivot, work together beautifully.

If you tell me where your team is struggling, I can probably give you a few hints.

[Good Intentions]

And, for god's sake, don't neglect your training regimes. Having a high-quality assistant manager will also make the game a lot easier - they can see secret stats that you can't. FM is probably a little too easy, because if you find a good player they will perform, often even when played horribly out of position. But it only becomes too easy after dozens, if not hundreds, of hours working out its kinks...

[Killdozersnakeboy]

Has anyone here purchased games via the EA Origin store? Any issues? I've downloaded a game tot he origin platform but can't get the damn thing to launch.

[edison]

If you want my advice, FM is a game for tactics nerds. It rewards careful setting up. Choose two or three formations you want your team to play, make sure they are set in the 'match preparation' screen, and set up your players (and new squad acquisitions) to perform in those formations. Play to your players' strengths. Don't get blinded by all the numbers on the stat screen - the numbers work together in tremendously complicated ways, and should at best be taken as suggestions of what the players might be good at. There are a few stats which are uniformly important, though, and they're mainly the mental ones ('determination' is worth its weight in gold, 'decisions' and 'composure' mean they'll perform when put on the spot, be careful of defenders with very high aggression) as well as 'first touch', which is important for every footballer in every situation. So, get a decent idea of what you can expect your players to to, and put them in positions where they get an opportunity to do it.

I like 4-5-1/4-3-3 formations (I read a lot of Zonal Marking, what can I say) or 4-4-2 diamond - having a defensive midfielder in front of your back four will tighten up your defense a big deal (especially one with high determination), and for over a decade now the player just behind the forwards is the one that has the most opportunity to shine in FM/CM games. If you have a player with high creativity, that is where you want them, even if they're a striker. If you're having defensive problems, play your team narrower, if you want more width, encourage your players to look for an overlap. Those two strategies aren't mutually exclusive, and if you've carefully set up your DMs/holding midfielder/pivot, work together beautifully.

If you tell me where your team is struggling, I can probably give you a few hints.

This is exactly why I wish I was 16 years old again when I play this game - now it just requires more time than I have or am willing to invest to get the tactics and training right (not to mention recruiting players and other non-match activities). So once in a while I start seasons on FM 2010, and even though I'm pretty sure it takes me way more than 17 hours per season, I still don't put in enough time to reflect on tactics and training, and usually I get kicked out of the team after 4 or 6 months after a string of bad results. It happens fairly often that I'll win five games in a row and then lose six or seven, which is always frustrating.

That said, next time I give it a try (on my most recent game, I was kicked out of Bordeaux after a few months, then finished the season with AS Roma where my contract wasn't extended as the season ended, and shortly after appointed as manager of Nancy for the new season), I will definitely try to follow your guidelines here - I'm just not willing to spend an hour between each game, because then I start feeling bad that I'm not doing anything more rewarding with my life!

Does the 2011 version offer significant improvements over 2010, or are they still going further down the path of making things ever more complex and time-consuming?

[Good Intentions]

Well, you don't need to squeeze everything you can out of the match engine. You can have fun and do very well just following the advice of your assistant manager. Celtic has a bit of a problem because their assistant is (a) a muppet in game, and (b) not been at the club long enough to build much knowledge of the players. But his backroom advice will improve, and the coaches who are there are rather good.

You don't need new players for that squad (except maybe more central defenders). What you need is a way to get your strikers to score. I recommend a 4-2-3-1 Deep formation, using those three rather good DMs you have and that surfeit of good wingers and some decent AMs. Use your strikers as target men and let the midfielders run onto the ball, while your DMs watch over the back line and link defense to attack. Use the tempo controls to suit the context (that is, play 'Control' against almost everybody in the Scottish League interspersed with 'Attacking', 'Counter' when you're against stiffer opposition) and have some fun with the touch-line commands ('Look for overlap', since you have two DMs you can afford your fullbacks to be gung-ho).