No idea if this is any good, but someone made a free remake of the old school space sim Elite.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unknown-3d-space-trader/id501361195?mt=8

Ive played it and wasn't impressed by it. You're better off playing Galaxy on Fire if you want a fun space sim.

Fired up Torchlight again this weekend and decided to try out the gunslinger chick. Eight hours later I was amazed at where my day went. I never realized that she could be very steampunky in terms of dress and weaponry. Basically she's awesome and I'm plowing through enemies again. I love this game.

Trying to finish off DE:HR on PC. Hoping I can do so tonight.

They took away our used games on PC, and I haven't heard of anyone abandoning the platform for that.  I just hope that the console market has an impact on pricing like the PC market did.  Prices seem stickier on console games to me than they do on the PC side.

See I don't think this holds water. Until I can work spreadsheets and do my job while on m PlayStation, then the PC is used for far more than gaming. Ergo, I can use my PC for far more than just games. That bend said, BC for my 360 wasn't a big deal. Having two 360s die during the course of my ownership of the console IS a big deal. So the quality of the machine is far more of a concern for me especially considering the costs.

But if they do ban used games then I'm sticking with my PC and swearing off consoles.

Recently my gaming has been from 10 pm to 1 am the most so I'm definitely on. I'm currently gaming via Steam as my 360 is kaput. I'm on as whiteboyskim in both cases when applicable.

Beat Half-Life 2 and Episode One this weekend. How sad that I take a break from one game (DE:HR) and blow through two other games.

Going to try to finish off Half-Life 2 again tonight or this weekend. May pick DE:HR back up and hope the rest of the game doesn't piss me off as much as that first boss fight did.

Actually have three games going right now. I have a replay of both Half-Life 2 (apparently I got the Orange Box achievements on 360 but not PC) and Psychonauts on Steam and loving both. Psychonauts is better than I recall but the story still isn't the strongest part. I also respect that it goes very, very dark at the most unlikely of moments. I've also made it to not-Hong-Kong in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I'm on pause there. The first fight so soured me on the game that I'm taking a bit of a break.

Firing up DE: HR tonight again but that's about all my gaming for the weekend. Get to go into work tomorrow as well as Sunday (maybe) due to a massive amount of content that needs completion by midnight Sunday. Fun times.

WTF DO THEY MEAN NOT ALL BRITISH ARE EVIL?!?! THOSE ACCENTS MEAN THAT THEY ARE EVIL!! THEY SOUND BRITISH!! OF COURSE THEY'RE EVIL!!

/fail

Bad. Ass. If I get my gadgets from Ben Franklin and the guy who scored John Adams does the music for this, I'll be insanely happy. What would make me even happier would be a score by Trevor Jones ala Last of the Mohicans.

Apparently a few billion a year in WoW fees doesn't get you what it used to, eh?

Having completed the game, I'll agree with the complaints on difficulty re: wagons and the glitches. No question those plus the lame tower defense and assassin stuff is just there to give you things to do. Upon completion I felt nothing towards the main the story. No elation, no frustration, no nothing. It was just over and that was that. Now, the finale involving Ezio, the redhead librarian, and the final flashback to Altair I felt was really well done. It didnt knock me out, but it felt like a good ending for all three characters. It felt like the right one too especially for Ezio. I'd recommend ignoring the side quests and plowing through the main story to just finish it but that's me.

Finished off Dead Space 2 late in the week, and it made it into my top 5 from last year. Holy crap was that thing entertaining. I also DL'd Deus EX: HR on steam as it was only $10 and thus far I'm liking it. It's a little crash happy for my taste, but overall it's a heck of a lot of fun. Also fired up Psychonauts again on steam and played through the first bit in the camp. Not as funny as I remember, but I did recall it being a bit slow at the start. Still fun after all this time. Although to add insult to injury, apparently I don't have the steam achievements for Half Life 2 even though I played through it like three times. I'm guessing I just never played through it on PC once the Orange Box hit so another run through will have to commence post haste.

I did, however, recently discover Depths of Peril courtesy of EdX's glowing review of it. Wow. It's Diablo but with competing in-town guilds (who will absolutely raid your guild if you're not all up on your diplomacy skills), and monsters in the field can, if left unchecked, form their own groups and really mess up your day. Overally, it's terrific. Thanks Ed!

Picked up Space Marine this week. Wasn't sold on it (Scottish Orks? Really?) until I shoved my chainsaw into an Ork's mouth then stomped his body into nothingness. I think I'm in love.

Crysis 2? Why? Because it just stops? That's a good ending? Apparently internet dumbassery knows no bounds. This list is bullshit!

/joins the club

Managed to get my PC working again so I fired up Mass Effect on steam. Not bad overall. I can't stand the combat in it but I like the universe and appreciate the really hard sci-fi nature. Planning on plowing through this and Mass Effect 2 this spring and continue to cull my steam backlog now that my 360 backlog is finished.

OK so I ran the memtest today and it came back clean. I let it run for six hours this afternoon, it ran 10 tests, and all came back with a passing grade. So now I'm baffled. I can still try to pull one stick of memory then test, then pull the other, etc. but if the mem sticks are fine, I'm beginning to worry if it isn't my motherboard and/or processor. A few months back I swapped out the mobo battery just because I figured that might be it, but it never made a lick of difference.

Thoughts?

Such as?

Alright guys I'm seriously debating whether to shelve my old PC and just get a top line laptop. I primarily write and game on my machine but I'm sick of upgrading and tweaking my rigs. Maybe I'm just getting old. Either way, I'm looking for thoughts from people who use their laptops for gaming. Screensize isn't an issue as I'll plug it into my current monitor. Thanks.

So this is what happens when you have a work laptop, three months filled with non-stop birthday parties, holidays, and crushing work schedules - you completely ignore your home computer and let it sit under your desk gathering dust. Fired it up tonight after all this time and here's what happened:

Bad checksum error - probably due to lack of use for several months. Hit enter and went straight into Windows. The desktop appeared along with my icons but the tray items in the bottom right did not appear. Also, to Vidiot's point, the HD makes a normal sound of fans whirring when it works as advertised. Such was not the case tonight. The only whirring came from my case fan and that's it. I was able to open a single folder before the machine froze and crashed out to the DOS screen with the aforementioned disk boot failure message.

My time is limited again at night this week but I have a free Saturday afternoon with everyone out of the house for a few hours. I'll run the memtest then if it will allow me to do so. Additional testing to follow though I suspect it's simply a bad drive. If that's the case, it's going to piss me off but it's a relatively cheap fix.

Planning on wrapping the storyline for Saints Row 3 this weekend. I absolutely love the insanity of it all. If I finish it up I'm also going to fire up LEGO Star Wars: The Clone Wars and see how that goes

Overall there's not a lot of games in 2012 that I'm interested in which is actually a good thing. It'll let me replay some from 2011 that I loved like Dead Island.

I have tears streaming down my face. The mission is http://deckers.die or something like that. After a lot of combat you enter a VR world. Hilarity ensues. But after more combat, one of the most inspired bits of comedy I've seen in a long while occurs. My character's voice is the male angry Brit and his frustrations and eventual tantrum when you screw up is causing me to laugh so hard I'm crying. This rules.

Holy crap is this game fun. I've been having an absolute blast terrorizing the good citizens of Steelport. Also the humor is killing me. I just about lose it everytime Zemos speaks (you know why) and the tiger mission had me howling. I had to pause it because everytime the tiger would swipe my guy I'd almost fall out of my chair from laughing so hard. "A F$&@ING TIGER?!?!?" LOL. Oh and the character creation is unreal. Next playthrough I'm going as ridiculous as possible. Right now that's limited to giving my character jet black eyes (which is just freaky as crap in the cinematics).

Completed:

Saint's Row The Third (Xbox 360)
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Xbox 360)
Mass Effect (PC)
Dead Space 2 (PC)
Half-Life 2 (PC)
Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC)
Portal 2 (PC)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC)
Torchlight (PC)
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY (PC)
Batman: Arkham City (PC)
LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 (Xbox 360)
Borderlands GOTY (PC)
Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360)

—————
This space for rent.

Looking to pick up SR3. Would this trade work for you? Thanks.

AC:R. Trying to wrap that up so I can go back to Batman and Dead Island.

LOL. That's awesome.

The first two seasons of Warehouse 13 are up and I've absolutely fallen in love with this show. It's hilarious, and a supernatural treasure hunt each week with a funnier version of Mulder & Scully is just what I was looking for. I wish there was more of an overall threat in the first season (three eps does not an archnemesis make) but it's a really fun show to watch.

I'm assuming they mean the 2012 game will be something completely new, with a new protagonist and setting.

This. Revelations is supposed to be the end of Ezio's story so either the future guy or another protagonist will take the lead. I sincerely hope the lead is as strong a character as Ezio because this series has benefited immensely from him being the star. Character matters.

Everytime I come into this thread I lose money. Stop it.

I've been working all day today at the office so ode the little one is down it's either Batman or Dead Island. Probably Batman though Dead Island is still so damn much fun that it's really tempting me.

Watched the trailer and have absolutely no interest in this. Zero.

Finished it as well this weekend and AA was much, much better. Tighter and more focused overall. There's a lot to love here and I do feel that the combat offers more options here. But the story wasn't that great and the game overall feels like a monster mash or a greatest hits package. I seriously enjoyed Arkham City and I'm going through finishing off side quests and stuff though. I got a heck of a lot of fun out of AC and I can't wait to get into all the challenges.

Oh hai Catwoman, almost forgot you were in the game.

Actually the big guy in the basement took me a while too until I realized what to do. Then it was a five minute fight. That one's deceptive. Actually the one I hated the most was in the Chamber of the Demon (you'll know when you're there) because it's a forced flying mission. That was when I realized how much I sucked at dive bombing so it forced me to get the timing right on it. After that sequence flying has been less of an issue.

Overall after about 12 hours of play, I'm in love. The learning curve is way steep and they don't necessarily hold your hand from the start. The result is disorientation ala my earlier post. The distractions are still overwhelming in number, but if you focus on the story then you can focus on the story and that's that. Didn't get that at first but I totally get it now.  Playing through again on New Game+ is going to pwn. I haven't done the challenge maps yet but I waited to do those in the first game and I'll wait this time.

The number of characters in this is just insane, for the record. But I'm jonsing to play it right now because it's just so damn much fun.

Pete, the head of Arkham is now the mayor of Gotham and it's three months and change later. Aside from that and multiple references to the overall plot of the original (Titan drug), you're good to go picking this up.

I think the Joker said 6 months.

And you're trusting the Joker over me why?

Pete, the head of Arkham is now the mayor of Gotham and it's three months and change later. Aside from that and multiple references to the overall plot of the original (Titan drug), you're good to go picking this up.

I'm slowly getting back into the cobat routine and increasing my skills. It's absolutely vital to up your melee defense right from the start so you can last longer. Bullets can wait, but melee is important. I've also upped the critical hits skills and now I'm just wailing on the criminals. Overall, I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

But...

The go anywhere aspect is, surprisingly, not well suited to this story. Part of the greatness of Arkham Asylum was the go anywhere aspect because it was confined to a limited space. Blow that up to the size of this game and you lose one of AA's greatest strengths - focus. You always knew where you were going and what you had to do. Beating criminals to a pulp while en route to your goals was icing on the cake. But in AC, if you want to chase down Zasz you can do that. Oh look, Riddler prize! Hey, what's that over there? WHEEEEE!!! It's a case of focus versus a case of ADD. Again, I'm really liking AC but the mass expansion is, ironically, not working in its favor.

Also, a guy online calling himself Film Crit Hulk (great in character film writer) did a scathing critique of the gross sexism in the game. I have to agree with him and I guess the other game journos are so numbed to that aspect of gaming that they just ignored it. But Hulk made several good points, namely that this was nowhere to be found in AA but it's everywhere in AC. What's the point?

Regardless, I'm enjoying the game for the most part but not grabbing me quite the way AA did.

on 360

This.

Played through both games Pete. Crysis 2 is a basic on the rails shooter with some cool atmospherics whereas Crysis allows for far more improvising on the fly. It's more fun too overall.