I saw this yesterday and it made me realize that Tony Stark is more popular than Iron Man. What I mean by that is people would rather see Tony on-screen as himself rather than suited up. That's the opposite of what I want from the series because I personally don't find Tony Stark's character that funny - I like him, just not enough to watch a movie about him. That sentiment was embodied in the whole seen where Tony is infiltrating the Mandarin's mansion which I thought was really dumb. Iron Man just seemed like, to use Stark's own words, a "pussy" throughout the movie.

I'm not sad to see LucasArts go. The spiritual successors live on in places like Double Fine and Telltales.

I would say the saddest thing about the studio shutting down will be the dismantling of the studio itself - I had been there a handful of times in the past five years and it was always a cool experience to see all the Star Wars (and various other properties) movie props.

I decided on the i7-3770k which I'm getting for half price through my friend, I'll get the motherboard and RAM on Newegg since all of Intel's motherboards are surprisingly expensive, even with the discount.

What do you plan on doing with your old Mobo, CPU, and RAM?

I might sell them off... You can PM me if interested.

I take it your motherboard is not AM3+?

It's not... But frankly I'm ready to try and Intel build (plus I have a friend who works there and can get me a discount).

I haven't visited this section of the forums in a long time, I haven't had much of a need. I hit a sweet spot that lasted nearly four years in terms of future-proofing my rig and only needed to replace the video card about once a year to keep current. Sadly, I replaced my 580 GTX today with the 680 GTX and saw nearly identical gaming performance which I guess means my AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.4ghz (with 6gigs of RAM) has become the bottleneck. Actually, I suspect now that it's been a bottleneck for a few games, but back when I replaced my old card with the 580 there were still notable gains.

Anyone have Intel CPU and mobo suggestions in the mid-price range?

I just completed Tomb Raider. This is easily my game of the year so far. Impressive set pieces, fun combat, and the best interpretation of Lara yet. It also featured the most entertaining bow usage I've seen in any game.

I'm hoping Bioshock Infinite unseats Tomb Raider for my favorite game of 2013, but it won't be easy. And that is coming from someone who is a Bioshock fanboy.

You thought TR was better than DMC?

I finished the game last week and if I were reviewing it I would have scored it in the 70s. I found Lara Craft and all the supporting characters to be drab and uninteresting, the same goes for the level design for 80% of the game (there were some interesting locations, like the bloody caves and the monastery). I liked the story, but having to find the hidden journals in order to flesh it out worked against it in my opinion because I didn't end up finding some of the journals and consequently missing some of the story. The gameplay had its moments, and I certainly had fun with the bow, but in many cases it felt like the straight-to-DVD version of Uncharted, particularly when it came to the traversal stuff, the highly linear/scripted action sequences, and the set pieces. I also didn't care for the skill system, at some point I stopped paying attention to what I was dumping points into because it didn't really affect my performance either way - I never had trouble mowing enemies down.

I was also peeved by the performance issues with my Nvidia card.

I don't think this game is in the same league as Uncharted. Uncharted is a AAA title... this is more B-level. I'm about half way through and I'm not finding Lara to be an interesting character at all, and the story isn't doing much to draw me in. I've heard things get interesting later on in the game so I'm looking forward to that.

People have been talking about this for a year now. EA couldn't hit its financial targets and this is the result.

I just finished DmC tonight after spending about 12 hours on my first run through the game on 'Demon Hunter' difficulty and loved it from start to finish. They've created a very complex and challenging fighting game, but at the same time kept it very accessible and fun for those who aren't completely dedicated to the series. Mix that gameplay with some of the most creative and dynamic level design that I've seen in a long time, and it made for an incredibly fun experience. The art design was always interesting on its own, but the way the environments were constantly morphing and rearranging themselves around Dante was really what stood out to me...very imaginative level design that was always surprising with something new. I think the 'dance club' level was one of the most creative and trippy things I've seen in a game in quite a while. Mix all that in with an a story that does a great job of reinventing a well-known character, and I have to say that Ninja Theory's take on DMC is a great success  

I share your sentiments entirely... I really need to do a second play-through.

I'm having a blast with this game.  I think I'm on mission 17 now and loving every second.

That said, this game is a big reason why the user scores on Metacritic are a disaster.  This game rates a 4.4 on Metracritic for user score.  Aliens: Colonial Marines is a 4.1.  Seriously?  So annoying.

You pay attention to user scores?

I'm going to post my impressions on the front page but so far I'm feeling mixed. Having a hero character is fun, but otherwise the game feels somewhat antiquated. I'm definitely not feeling the magic like I did in WoL. It's also pretty shocking how almost no one is talking about this game... as far as I can tell none of my friends who bought WoL bought this.

I'm actually having the opposite experience.  I'm only a few levels in, but I'm enjoying having a bit more focus this time around.   

It's not so much the mission structure itself, I'm enjoying that for the most part. It's just the feel of the game, the user experience...

I'm going to post my impressions on the front page but so far I'm feeling mixed. Having a hero character is fun, but otherwise the game feels somewhat antiquated. I'm definitely not feeling the magic like I did in WoL. It's also pretty shocking how almost no one is talking about this game... as far as I can tell none of my friends who bought WoL bought this.

Yeah I'm still tweaking my graphics settings, in some areas it drops into the 40s and then it goes back up. Even when I turn off the bells and whistles this still happens, so I suppose it's just the graphics engine itself... not to say it doesn't look great. It just has its moments.

It's surprising how much having TressX (the hair tech) enabled kills the framerate. I'm talking about a 20% loss in performance 

Since I turned that off, and I turned down Level of Detail a notch, I'm getting a solid 50-60 FPS.

I pre-ordered the PC version myself. I read an article where someone from the dev team talked about optimizing for the PC, so I'm hoping they hold true to that.

I just started playing this and on one hand I'm delighted by the story, characters, dialogue, and setting. It's a nice change of pace playing a game that takes place in China. However, I'm less than thrilled by the open-world aspects of the game. I didn't realize this was a straight up GTA clone... Date missions and all. At least the combat feels better. 

Is there another thread for this game with impressions?

I'm not buying anything this week, I dug into my backlog and pulled out Sleeping Dogs.

I mentioned this in my comment on the article posted on the front page. Nintendo must have originally paid for the lead time but allowed Ubisoft to back out of the deal because of lower than expected sales performance of the Wii U. That's my guess.

I ready Polygon (9.5) and Eurogamer's (7) review. Polygon glossed over the details, as usual, but Eurogamer gave a coherent explanation about how the emphasis on more action has affected the game.

The review embargo lifted - combining the 360 and PS3 reviews it's sitting at an 80 on Metacritic. That's about what I was expecting, I have no interest in the direction the series took after EA decided it needed to be a "5 million selling franchise". It's sad how so many big-budget games are being forced to homogenize towards the "action" genre because of the financial pressure all the publishers are feeling right now.

[Spoiler]

So for those others that have also finished the game:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Boss fights were totally awesome eh?  I mean, just so well syncronized with the music, and the level design looked amazing even.

I especially loved the News Reporter demon's level. The giant head boss fight had some of the best beats ever. Of course, none of the boss fights were particularly difficult, but that's actually kind of a good thing.

Makes you wonder where they'll head from here with the series, this game actually fits into the DMC canon pretty well, although they could just reboot it from this point if necessary.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I liked the intensity of the visuals during boss fights and you're right, the music was great (I heard some dubstep!). But I didn't care much for the actual fighting, in most cases each boss required a very similar strategy with hardly any variance. I did like the news reporter and the final boss fight a lot, though.

Since Dante allowed Virgil to live, I'm sure the next game will have Virgil returning to try and rule the planet again. That would be my guess.

Nadda.

Despite flip-flopping back and forth about whether or not I was buying Dead Space 3, I've decided to let the second game be the finale in the series for me. I'm just not seeing anything interesting in the videos I've watched. I do like the idea of enemies turning into different things making combat more dynamic, like Turtle explained, but I don't think that's enough and I have no interest in coop Dead Space. I'll change my mind if impressions are overwhelmingly positive.

I just finished the game on Demon Hunter difficulty, which I just realized might have been Easy mode (there is an even easier mode, Human) after reading the description of Nephilim difficulty.

What difficulty did you guys play on?

It's surprising to me how limited the number of combos are for each weapon. And they are very similar between the different weapons. I keep getting new weapons, but new combos aren't opening up for the current ones.

If you have a high-end PC you're already in the "next gen", but as for which next gen console I plan to get, for sure the next Sony console since I know there will be a wealth of exclusives. I'll probably pass on the next MS console since I can get most of the games on PC, and Microsoft's exclusives don't excite me.

I finally put a few hours into the PC version tonight. I'm thoroughly  enjoying the game so far, my only concern is the sheer amount of weapons  and abilities that have opened up so early into the game. I've already  had a few "stutter" moments, where I froze up trying to remember what I  needed to press for the action I was trying to perform. There does seem to  be a limited number of moves for each weapon, though, so hopefully in a few more hours I'll have all the moves down. 

Production values are really  high; the voice acting and mannerisms for Dante are excellent, the  level design and art direction are awesome and provide fun levels with  plenty of sights to see as you barrel your way through. I'm also  impressed with the story - it's surprisingly coherent for this type of  game (as opposed to convoluted and crazy). The parallels of the game's  ethos with our own make it easy to relate to. The combat so far is much  like previous DMC games, perhaps more fluid.

Oh, and the game  runs phenomenally. I have all the settings maxed and I'm getting an  unwavering 60fps - my system is a AMD 3.4ghz quad with 6GB RAM and GTX  580.

So far so good!

I really need to go back and finish through DS 1.... Loved it and got 3/4 through it but just got pulled away by other stuff.

Have you played through DS2?

Sony said they were waiting for Microsoft to make their announcement first, didn't they? Unless they said that just to make MS think they had extra time, when in fact Sony intended to reveal first all along 

Yeah, the microtransactions are kind of stupid, but in a single player game they are kind of harmless, assuming they are being honest that it is not a hardship to just come upon the components by playing the game. It just allows people to be lazy if they want to.

Teggy, if I join your coop game all beefed up because I decided to buy all the uber gear, don't be angry 

Thanks for the info, Turtle. I was debating on skipping DS3 but now I'm back on board. I'll be getting it on PC as well, I'd love to play it coop.

DMC for PC and Ni No Kuni.

What the heck does Ni No Kuni stand for, anyways?

(Throws wallet at computer screen)

 

Really? I'm usually able to tell just from a video or quick look, about a JRPG's level of banality. It's gotten pretty bad this generation of games.

I'm probably not as seasoned as you in this particular genre. I can count on one hand the number of JRPGs I've completed.

That's strange... I didn't even realized I had finished the main quest line. Are there credits at any point in this game?

[Spoiler]

Ok peeps, I just finished the main quest line and I have questions that were likely answered 10 pages back.

Spoiler for Hiden:

After I kill Alduin, have I actually finished the main quest line?

Just so you know, they haven't shown the space sections of the game. Apparently there's big parts where you float out in space crawling through a bunch of abandoned ships.

That's good to know, after reading the interview I was concerned it would primarily take place in open spaces. I want hallways!

I wouldn't mind some new IPs though, but I guess that's expecting too much from Nintendo.