What are you playing? June Edition

What games are you playing? Tell us.

As for me, I'm playing.

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 > Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (New Steam Achievements GET!)
Joe Danger
God of War 3
Alan Wake
MLB '10: The Show

Need to get Red Dead Redemption!

IG.Collin said:
Need to get Red Dead Redemption!

Yes. Yes you do.

Playing that at the moment, nearing the end, still enthralled. I'd really like to go for the all the achievements for this one; it's a shame the game doesn't tell you what you need to do to get a gold medal for a mission. Hopefully the multiplayer keeps me entertained. I've heard mixed things about it, but I'm tired of online shooters like CoD and Halo and want something more...relaxed -- without having to pay a subscription fee.

Trying to finish up 100% on Red Dead Redemption. At about 98.5% I think.
Probably going to pick up Alpha Protocol or Dragon Age: Awakening next.

Skate 3; A game that becomes progressively less fun the more of a game it is. Much like Just Cause 2 really. Fantastic hours spent achieving nothing, because the process of achieving is tedious and uninspiring.

Red Dead Redemption; Facial animation so good it makes all other games look like marionette shows. Rockstar have outdone themselves. Next to Bully my fave game they've made.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess. Super addictive, tons of personality, great gameplay. Oh, and colors!

Snoopy Flying Ace. Y'all are welcome to join my crew of elite flying dogs. Best dog fighting game since Ace Combat 6.

I'm with you on Skate 3 sunjammer.

I'll tell you this though--I'd pay 15 bucks for an EA downloadable game that was nothing but Hall of Meat levels. I don't want to spend 60 bucks on Skate 4 for instance, but I would drop 15 bucks to download Skate: Hall of Meat Edition. Hall of Meat was so much fun that I finally downloaded PAIN from PSN just to get more rampant carnage.

I think the problem with Skate 3 is that they've taken a sport with no real metric for success and translated it into a points system with a combo multiplier. The "gameyness" of Skate is its downfall. I mean in Skate failure is naturally as rewarding as success; You'll try something retarded and laugh when it fails, because it's retarded. But the moment the game asks you to perform accurately, "success" is no longer analog, and the game becomes almost unbearably frustrating.

Games need to divorce themselves from "points" soon. They're completely virtual, and designwise a relatively easy way out.

I think there are any number of really cool point based games. I'd never want to pick up Tetris without a nice point system built in. Nor would I enjoy Rock Band as much without a metric built in for points as an extra incentive/barometer of my improvement.

But yeah, in Skate there are times when a trick that would make a professional skater famous is considered mundane while something fairly mundane is actually tougher to pull off and worth more points. The decision about which things should be easy or hard and thus worth more or less--that's where the trouble comes in.

I have no problem with scores in terms of the competitions--but I'd like to see the tricks graded on the same metric that they'd use in the X-Games and not based on some multiplier system based on an arbitrary construct of trick selection.

That isn't to say that I feel the team at Black Box hasn't done a great job--I just think they're still way too attached to how they can better the Tony Hawk metric and not really all that interested in creating their own.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the new Ubisoft entry into this--where your success is measured by watching the world, Okami style, transform from colorless to vibrant based on your skating.

Red Dead Redemption is what I'm currently playing, I think it's my favorite Rockstar game thus far.

Have not really had time to play this past week, but I'm about at the end of Alpha Protocol. Also been trying to play MGS: PW bits at a time, but apparently, the game doesn't save until AFTER the first level (training) and, having limited time, I've not been able to play through that whole bit long enough to get to the save point...

Blagh!

i'm still playing Red Dead. having a blast in multiplayer free roam and shootouts. Something that sandbox games in general don't have is good storytelling, RDR proves that wrong, the single player story is so good. pacing is perfect for the very solid ending.

Finished AP last night. It was alright... Not sure I'm going to play it over and over again, but there are some places I'd like to try going a different direction; see how the ending changes...

Now that Fallout: New Vegas has a street date, I'm getting really excited for October!

Top five games (as I'm always playing something new):

Trials HD, Borderlands (360), Super Mario Galaxy 2, Grandia (PSone title that I got for my PSP), Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. I think I'll start updating this each Tuesday/Wednesday when new releases happen since that's usually when I shuffle.

Modern Warfare 2 for me lately, and very little of it. Even though it's summer, I have less time to play games. :/

And I need to get Red Dead Redemption as well.

Finished Red Dead and now playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night again. Words cannot describe my love for this game. Our love is like rain.

I've been fairly A.D.D. in my gaming this month... Metal Gear, some Little Big Planet, and the other day, I dusted off my PS2 for some Deus Ex. I'm really thinking I am going to try and get farther along in DX because, well, I've never played through it, and I'd like to do that before Human Revolution drops.

My 360 finally went E74 on me in late May. It's out of warranty so I'm still debating whether to send it in for a fix (over $100) or just pay the $150 for a new basic system and swap in my old hard drive. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about buying new but I've got the Halo 3 edition 360 and I'm rather attached to the pretty paint job.

In the mean time, I've pulled out my original Xbox to keep me busy. Currently going to 100% on San Andreas with Syberia as a change-of-pace backup.

Accidentally picked up Alan Wake, Darksiders and Ninja Blade the other day. Seriously, my girlfriend instigated a purchase I was merely considering.

Anyway. Darksiders is a hell of a polished game. Vigil know their business. It barely has an original idea of its own, but it steals from the right places, and plays super tight. It's as good a Zelda game as you'll ever find; Highly recommended.

Alan Wake had a super strong opening, but it has some issues that really grate, not least the god awful writing. How ironic isn't it that a game about a writer has some of the worst writing in years? The facial anim is mostly hilarious as well; There are facets of the game that seem like they were finished long ago and never kept up to date. There is also an inspirational draught as it goes on. The moment I started having to dodge "dark and evil" pipes and barrels and junk that i had to "kill" with my "heavy duty flashlight" all suspension of disbelief went out the window. Bastard great lighting though.

Ninja Blade is just great. It's just a great, great game. It's the dumbest effing thing I have seen since Bayonetta, and where Bayonetta had solid gameplay to back up its ridiculousness, Ninja Blade just has more ridiculousness, which turns out to be enough. It is absolutely, fever pitch, screaming crazy cat lady batshit insane. I can't recommend it enough, if only to watch your hilariously poorly designed guy dropkick a bus into a flying worm, or how the writing at one point asks you to emotionally invest in a character you've seen exactly once before, hours ago, and never again. From Software <3

Modern Warfare 2 for ps3 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 on pc. Also just started God of War 3

DIRT 2

- playing it for almost 2 months now, still only 12% accomplished. I don't play racing games very often, but this one has my full attention. Codemasters are really worth their name. There are single tracks that never get boring, since you can adjust the car settings and find out new ways to slide or drive faster. It is still arcade fun. The sound design is absurdly brilliant. I play it with a keyboard and it controls good enough.

TES IV OBLIVION

- started it on PC when it came out. Stopped playing after a short while, b/c I had no time. Now I am digging it even more.

Just to press Q (auto-walk) and wander around with the incredible music by Jeremy Soule and the ambient sound in the background, while soaking in the landscape design, shaders, etc ... is very relaxing. I sound like a none-gamer, I know.

CRYOSTASIS

Steampocalypse made me finally do it. It runs fine on a dual-core 2.6 with a single mid-level ATI card. The very opening of this game - the first 30 - 60 minutes are amazing. Someone in Mother Russia studied the Valve School of in-game story telling.

Playing Cryostasis in the summer, when it is 90-100°F outside, sipping on a cool Vodka Martini - listening to the cracking ice and chilly wind in the game, makes it even more compelling.

Garry's mod, Earthworm Jim HD, Chime, Splosion Man, and Shadow Complex. I'm digging XBLA right now.