So did anyone pick any of these up?

[Spoiler]

I picked up the PS2 version today.. feels a lot like the first game, but just as with that game, is it just me or does your AI partner not do a THING to help you out in battle?
All he does is follow me around doing absolutely nothing combat-wise, just like the first lego star wars.
WTF?!

It doesn't seem like they're not doing anything, but it does seem like they're completely ineffective.  However, that may be necessary for the play balance.  You really have to switch characters a lot more than you did in the last one.  And the lightsabers are fairly useless, battle-wise.

The fights are tough, too (at least the big ones).  Generally, they are fair, but

Spoiler for Hiden:

the damn AT-ST in Mos Eisley seems to stomp you and then shoot before you have a chance to do anything.

  I don't think I'll even be trying for the "undefeated" achievements on the 360.

Right now Mario Hoops is getting killed. 73% on game rankings...true it's based on only a few sites, but man!?

73% is getting killed?  Especially when the major sites (i.e. the major inflators) haven't reviewed?

The 1up review is troubling, however (though it went from a 4.5 to a 6 out of 10).  3 on 3 just went from a definite purchase to wait and see for me.

Unfortunately, my order of interest: 1) Mario Hoops 2) Mechassault 3) Megaman got reversed, and 2) slipped to wait and see status, as well. 

Has anyone played Megaman yet?  I've tried some others in this series, and they haven't held my interest.  The difficulty is something I can't get into.  I've heard conflicting reports on easy mode and am curious if it's something I should try (the sparse save points worry me, as well).

TH4 was fucking hard. Played the hell out of it, but never fully finished it. I think if they stuck with the difficulty of THPS2 or 3, Project 8 would be be golden.

Um, wait ... they've already make seven of these games? Wow.

And I've owned them all but American Wasteland... 
I wish AW would take a price drop on the 360, I have an itch to play some Tony Hawk.

It's down to $34.99 used: http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=952005

Of course, the xbox version is backwards compatible and is only $17.99!  http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=950815

I think it looks cool as hell, looks fun, and personally, I'd much rather play it than Downhill Jam for Wii, from what I've seen.

Interesting.  I thought the Wii version looked like a lot of fun.  A little sub-par on the graphics side, but that doesn`t seem to bother me.  It may be that Nintendo isn`t promising much, and so I`m not expecting much.  On the other hand, I`m mildly let down by the next gen graphics.  Wonder if that`ll hold up in the future.

I think it might be a good, needed change for the series.  Did we need the exact same control system with one added trick for a new yearly release?  There's a reason most people quit caring for the series; not that it went downhill, but more of the same will only draw back people so many times. 

No question a change is needed.  Maybe this will be good.  Maybe I fear change like stiffler.  I can`t help feeling like using the sticks for control is less intuitive, though.

Still not available on my LG VX8000.  Annoying.

I looked it up (ow, my clicking finger...what a workout).  Gamespot actually gave it a 7.7.

http://www.gamespot.com/psp/action/locoroco/review.html?sid=6154011

http://www.gamingtrend.com/News/news.php?NewsID=6907

What do you think of that?  I've never been a fan of the EA trend of putting heavy control on the two sticks.  At first blush, this seems like a complicated choice for TH, but maybe it'll open things up.  Still, I can't imagine you can get as many flicks of the sticks in a combo as you can button presses.  That may just be a prejudice coming from so many years of TH games.  Of course, I think most of the audience will have the same prejudice. 

As for graphics, etc., Rodeny Mullen looks a little goofy when he's talking, but it certainly looks better than the last TH game.

Oh, and I thought "Project 8" was just a working title.  Maybe not, huh?

My respect is up to something like 35 from doing activities.  How high is the "pre determined" level?

EDIT: Make that 40.

Does anyone know how to recruit more homies?  I'm stuck at one and trying to get through the last drug trafficking activity is a bitch without one.

Thanks, Dante for the impressions.  I'm very on the fence about this one.  You're nudging me over, though.

How do you advance time in the game? In GTA you just saved your game, but I need to buy some pipe bombs before a mission, and I'm getting tired of waiting around for the gun store to open.

I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing.  Help.

Similarly that is why I'm interested in the Wii.  It seems to sparking the creativity in designers, so hopefully it will lead to more great games.

So, I "finished" Oblivion (main story quest just finished and everything except ninroot and wine quests...and the Daedra quests, but I can't bring myself to be the bad guy [I still feel guilty about the Dark Brotherhood quests, but the story was as good as everyone said]).  It took me 170 hours and 17 minutes and 1 second (that time is inflated with times I wandered away from the 360).  Here's my real question for everyone.  I have a theory that I am a save freak.  Saving in Oblivion is a bit of a chore, as it slows down when you access the hard drive and really starts chugging if you have a lot of saves on there. I clocked in as having saved 1535 times.  That's a save every six and a half minutes, if I did the math right (it's late and I may not have).  How many saves have the rest of you used?

Oh dip, burn.

 

Starfox has been getting mediocre reviews, I'll pass.

81% on Gamerankings, and you're saying mediocre reviews.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/933009.asp

Nintendo Power's 9.5 definitely does not count, which puts the "real" average in the mid 70s.

On the typical 7-9 scale, that's crap.

Granted on NP, and I know there's been talk of inflation in scores, but Game Brink a site I'm starting to respect, gave it 82% and said

Pros

    * Good 3D visuals, plenty of enemy variety and different environments.
    * Fast paced shooting action, timer keeps you killing fast.
    * Non-linear story with different routes, levels and endings.
    * Stages can be selectively replayed to beat score records.
    * Stylus only control system works well for accuracy and speed.

Cons

    * Single player doesnt take long to finish if you dont decide to replay the different routes.
    * Enemies can be very easy to beat including the bosses.

 

Also, if you discount the reviews, then how can you reference 'average reviews,' it just doesn't make sense...wait a minute.  Who am I arguing with here?  [looks up name] Ah, LE.  So, this is futile, then.  Nevermind.

Bomberman: Zero comes out this week, "budget priced" at $49.99.  Any interest?  Personally, the dark futurization of the usually light and playful Bomberman seems like a worse idea than the moody Prince of Persia, but if it plays well, I'll get it.  Especially if they manage a decent single player experience.

Starfox has been getting mediocre reviews, I'll pass.

81% on Gamerankings, and you're saying mediocre reviews.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/933009.asp

I've heard it was very disappointing, so I won't check it out.

Maybe you should try it for yourself instead of just going along with what others say.

Unless downloading the demo would somehow cause the untimely death of your dog or something.

+1

Well said, Thin J.  I was going to make a similar comment, but it kept coming out harsh. 

As for the demo, I'm definitely leaning toward in, but I'm a little hesitant.  I hope it all comes together.

Sound Check doesn't work very well.  I've got thousands of songs and going through and leveling all of them by hand will be a PITA.  Some of the levels are crazy different, too.

What all gets turned off when you turn off animations? 

I played for an hour or so today.  I was about to give up after multiple attempts at the first mission (or the first part of the mission, I guess).  It seemed incredibly challenging to try and parachute onto a car, but if that didn't happen, I couldn't catch up to the convoy in time to do anything about it.  Finally, I started shooting from the parachute, and the convoy pulled over, for some reason (to try and take me out, maybe).  Once I started taking out the minions, the truck with the target inside peeled out and sped away.  I was able to keep up in a jeep, follow him to a compound and take him out.  After that, the game became much more reasonable on the challenge meter.  I really enjoyed it.  My only complaint was that, for such a large world, the gameplay seemed very linear.  I'd be very suprised if that stayed true for the whole game, though.

I also played TD:U and was slightly less impressed than I'd been with the last demo.  But maybe I'm off driving games for a while.

I guess it's not as hardcore (or maybe even as good) as the other games

Actually, the three games listed are good starter games for introducing new people to board games.  A&A might be even more hardcore, but it has a huge following (the other three weren't made into a mass-produced PC game) and has been reviewed pretty favorably.

That said, I remember a friend of mine trying to get me to play in high school, and I couldn't have been less interested.

It really is "Catan," one "a" after the "t."

Of course I might be biased as I lost 600 bucks when my electricity flickered and my 360 rebooted.  Apparently if you get disconnected in mid game you lose whatever you had.

Were you in a tournament?  If you leave a tournament, you lose all your money no matter how you leave the table. (I think)

You can lose money by quitting instead of leaving the table.  I lost all kinds of single player money that way.  I wanted to try it out after downloading, but didn't really have time to play.  They take the money from your account right at the beginning, but don't credit your account until you leave the table.

As for my impressions, I got bored with single player quickly (possibly because the incident mentioned above started a quick path to a hole that is going to be hard to climb up from), but played for several hours last night in multiplayer.  I played with a couple of All-In kids, at first.  Literally going All-In on every hand and giggling like crazy.  But they were actually nice, and the conversation was worth the pain.  It helped that I delivered a royal smack-down pretty early on, too.  However, I soon felt the need to play with grown-ups.  I found a table with a $1k buy-in and 50/100 blinds.  Yoinks!  The group was great and we had a lot of fun when this kid came in with absolutely no clue as to how to play and couldn't be bothered to read any instructions.  People like that always wind up winning some crazy hands, for some reason.  Again, it may help that I cleared $40,000 in that game, but even if I'd lost, it would have been fun.

Bottom line, people make the difference.

The main things I'd change: animation speed (I think it's ridiculous that you have to wait for all the chips to toss in at the end of every betting round, for example; why aren't they thrown in as the game plays?), the wait to start mentioned before (though it's not too bad if the group is good), the text could be a little more legible (its very small), and I would love to see a standings function, maybe with the select button, to quickly show how much everyone has.

Overall, fun, but I'm sure it'll get better after a few weeks when the All-Inners trickle away.

Anyone know a way to equalize volume levels on the ipod using itunes for the PC?  I know there's a way on the Mac called ivolume, but I can't find anything PC-based.

If you've got any interest in board games, the subject should get you very excited.  This was announced in Germany.  No word if they'll be exclusive to Germany, though, where their appetite for board games is enormous.  I've never played Alhambra but the other two are great and relatively easy (Carcasonne, especially).  This would be a fantastic trend to see take off, but I have a feeling it will have limited appeal.  None the less, I guess we look for it by year's end!

For some reason that keeps popping into my mind as being referenced as one of the worst games on PSP and also one of the worst games ever.  I could be confused, though.  I have never played it.

Gamerankings ranks it at 60%. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928802.asp

Gamespot 6.6 :

The Good: Dozens of unique commanders to recruit; multifaceted strategy blends combat, politics, and economics; ten different campaigns and a random generator to keep you playing.
The Bad: Steep learning curve requires a lot of patience to overcome; frequent load times make the game stutter and lag constantly; confusing interface often makes it a chore to issue commands and check stats.

IGN 6.7:

Closing Comments
Generation of Chaos has a bunch of cool ideas, but a bulk of the appeal lies buried underneath a confusing interface and a poorly designed menu system. There is, however, a good amount of depth for those willing to tough it out. But for those looking for a game along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics, this really isn’t it. Those looking for a deep strategy RPG to take on trips will find something to like in here, provided they understand what they’re getting into.

Deep Labyrinth is out for the DS.  I've heard it's very appealing for the die-hard RPG fans, but that the interface is a little klunky and the graphics are sub-par.  Has anyone given this one a shot?

So, Ninety-Nine Nights is in stores.  I was looking forward to it.  Enjoyed the demo and everything.  The reviews have completely scared me off.  Has anyone actually tried the full game?  Where are those impressions?

The IGN review is just as bad as Gamespot.  5.6.

Ah, well.  I may still get it when the price comes down.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/725/725558p3.html

I was down for ninety nine nights after the demo, but the Gamespot review turned me off.  Maybe another review will turn me back on again.  I was also into Deep Labyrinth, but the only review I've seen was bad.  Maybe Freedom Wings will work.

Thanks, gang.  I've already checked those sites, but I still think iwon has the best layout I've seen.  Any other choices out there?

I'm currently using iwon.com as my start page.  It has the best layout to my eyes that I've seen, and I can get all the news, more or less, that I need.  However, I know they're doing some heavy tracking of me, and I could care less about the possibility of winning money, so I'm wondering what other people are using for general news pages (by the way, Gametab is my first link in the morning.  Love that, but I need something with "real" news).

Am I missing something?  I thought this game was coming stateside in the fall.  Gamespot has it listed coming Oct 2.

Either that or he was quietly reassigned to the Microsoft Bob 2.0 team.

Huzzah for the comedy, my friend.

I just read some quote in Play or OXM from the guy who heads up XBLA literally saying, "We don't want your crappy ass PS1 games."

I'm paraphrasing, but I do think a combination of "crappy" and "ass" was in there.

I think the PP points are used for level advancement in the full game (didn't seem to change at all in the demo).  Level advancement will, at the very least, give you more slots for item carrying.  I'm assuming it will increase your damage and speed as well.

I will find that Katana tonight. Thanks kathode!

Also have to try the coat hanger.  I love taking pictures of zombies that have green PPs over their heads (you need the right book to see PP values).  Usually they're falling down or walking into walls or have the masks on their heads.  Good points for that, especially if you line them up with a lot of zombies in the background.

I second the "loved it" opinion.  I'm an adventure game fan, for sure, though.  I'm also the type who has to play through everything.  I was stopped for a while because I hadn't found enough clues to get all the questions at the end of one chapter and didn't want to play all the way through the level again.  However, just recently I plowed through to the end.  Very enjoyable game with a good use of the DS.  I wish we'd see more like this.

Downloaded, but I think I have to wait for my little one to take a nap.  Unless anyone can think of a way to explain zombie decapitation to a three year old.