What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Put in about two hours with Star Wars: Battlefront last night. After doing the pretty silly "how do u move" tutorial, which was kind of cool because you're on Hoth looking for probe droids, I went right into a "Blast" game. I was put on the Imperial side. I go running out and into a hanger where the Falcon is parked. There's Rebels all over it. I duck down behind some barrels and have a shootout. "OK, this really does feel like Star Wars".

I tried another couple of rounds of this mode, which is basically just team deathmatch, mainly to see the maps. They're all pretty great, but Endor is the best. It looks freakin' awesome.

Then I tried the Walker Assault thing that was in the beta, but on Endor. Totally freaking awesome. You can get up in the trees along Ewok bridges and stuff and watch the walkers below. Rebels actually won that one, there must have been some balance changes. There were speeder bikes in that match but I never found one.

Heroes and Villains was pretty neat, each team gets three (Vader, Emperor, Boba Fett or Han, Luke, Leia) and it plays out kind of like a VIP mode. Playing as Boba Fett was GREAT. The jetpack rules. The Emperor has force lightning and that weird, witchy barrel roll thing he does. I didn't get to play as the others, they're on a rotation.

The air battle mode was FUN. Total mayhem. I like that it has a power management thing, you have to adjust between weapons and engines. Nice little bit of detail there. The one I played was X-Wings and A-Wings versus TIEs and TIE Interceptors. A Rebel Transport shows up and you've either got to down it or protect it. The only thing is that all of this stuff is in atmosphere, no space.

Switching to solo play, the survival missions are fun and the set piece missions are too, all have three tiers of success so that's where any replayability comes from. There is no story campaign.

But here's the thing. What I did not expect from this game, even after the beta, was for it to be so much like an old fashioned arcade-style game. Even in a game with 30 other people, it feels much closer to a mid to late 1990s shooter...like GoldenEye or something. It DOES NOT feel like a Battlefield (or Call of Duty) game. When you play the single player missions, you even have "lives". It's fast and simple, but not like Call of Duty where you're just dead every 5 seconds.

So far it's really fun. Mechanically, nowhere near as good as Destiny, but it's WAY more approachable and easy to get into. Because it's Star Wars.

It's definitely not aimed at the Battlefield crowd, but then again, neither were Battlefield 3-4.

I think they successfully resurrected the chaotic, fun Battlefront package from the 90's. This doesn't feel like a slow grind to weapon unlocks but rather a quick pick-up-and-play. It does indeed feel very arcade-y, to the point that I think I might burn out on it pretty quickly unless they keep a steady drip of DLC (which I'm sure is EA's plan... I mean how can they not bring Yoda in as a VIP). But for now, I'm having a lot of fun with it. I especially enjoyed picking up the Emperor powerup on Endor and barrel-rolling around in the redwoods while spewing ridiculously enunciated vitriol and frying any random Rebels in the area.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Christmas, this year, is going to be an XBOX1 and Fallout 4. And that's if I get a bonus. If not, then I'm doing what I always do...waiting until the hardware price drops by 100$ two years from now, buying it and the GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION Fallout 4, (and Battlefront), and crying daily listening to people talk about how awesome it is.

That has been the boothwah model of vidja games for the last 10 years - Because I'm always two years behind I'm pretty happy and have only payed full retail on one title - I get to buy the GoTY edition of whatever for $15-20 vs $60 + another $40ish for the dlc. Win-Win.

Far superior to the Ken B. model of vidja games, where you buy games that you hear are good for your current system and then shelf them in the shrink wrap until that system is obsolete and never play them.

Legomancer wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote: I got to watch my godson play some Fallout 4. Visually quite nice and it looks pretty smooth to play but I didn't see any innovation at all. I hope I'm wrong about that but it looked exactly like the same 'ol shit. Even the songs were the same. If I have to listen to 'choppin' that meat' or whatever one more time I'll hang myself.

I'll probably get it anyway...

Started Fallout 4 last night. I'm not sure what people want in "innovation". It's an exploring shooter. There are new people to meet, new places to go, new things to do. I loved FO3 so the same ol' shit is fine with me. I don't need a rapping granny or twerking contest to make it more innovative.

Like some new and interesting elements to keep things fresh. I don' t know what those would be. That's the developers job to figure out. Not me, the consumer.

So last Saturday night I went over to my buddy's place with my brother to try the new Rock Band 4. Long story short, it's still pretty much Rock Band, so it's a good time. They've updated the "career" mode with some neat and interesting twists, streamlined character generation so every musician is now pretty skinny, more new guitar stuff but I only played drums and sang (or tried to).

You can now improvise a bit more with the vocals and as long as you're on key, you don't need to rigourously follow the line.

Drums lost the improv fills to follow the song's normal fill notes, otherwise they seem identical to previous versions. In fact you can get an adapter to use the old instruments if they're still functional.

What new songs we played were all right, I like the Black Keys. Seems like lots of newly released stuff. You can also create setlists in career mode, where every player gets to vote on a selection of 4 random songs, if every player votes on the same song then you'll get to play that, but if there's a dissenting voice then it's up in the air and the system will choose between the selected songs.

Oh yeah, and I cut my finger pretty good on the plastic rim of the new drums.

At some point in the evening my other brother who lives in another town calls us on the host's cell (neither I nor my other bro have a cell - what can I say, I like living in the Stone Age; or maybe I just don't really need one! People waste so much of their time on their phones...), we were perhaps a bit worried as my dad was recovering in hospital from triple bypass surgery. Turns out one of his neighbours wanted to know what was the name of the game we played last time I was over - SPACE CADETS: AWAY MISSIONS! I reminded him that he took a picture of the box cover but he probably forgot or lost it. That game last month sure had a lasting impact.

what system did you play RB4 on? Can you use your old instruments?

I can't decide between GH or RB4. I'm hearing great stuff about the former, but I've always preferred the RB series

Petey, let me know when you get your Xbox One. Can't wait to hear what you think of it and the games. You should friend me

Black Barney wrote: what system did you play RB4 on? Can you use your old instruments?

I can't decide between GH or RB4. I'm hearing great stuff about the former, but I've always preferred the RB series

Xbone, so all our old DLC from the 360 is entirely compatible. Except they did drop the keyboards.

Old instruments can still be used but you need to buy a special adapter. The new drums only need 2 AA batteries instead of 3. Optional cymbals are still good as is with the new drums.

ah no! I bought the stupid keyboard and never used even it

I used to use my old GH2 guitar. It always worked best for me of all the plastic instruments I've tried so far.

I know a guy who bought it at premium prices when you couldn't find the things as RB3 hit the stores, and I believe it's still in the original wrapping.

Black Barney wrote: I used to use my old GH2 guitar. It always worked best for me of all the plastic instruments I've tried so far.

I bought that from my friend to have a second guitar controller at home, it's still good. Let's call it "Old Reliable".

Other guitars from RB1-2-3 have started glitching after seeing heavy use. Actually the one from RB1 lost the "star power activation" (let's play it vertically!) function fairly early on.

Rock Band 1 instruments were trash. The GH3 guitar, now that was solid equipment.

Bummer about the keyboard. I have that thing. Barely touched it but it was fun to use it as a guitar.

you can pretend you're John Baptiste!

was the GH3 guitar better than the GH2 one? I never had a single issue with my GH2 one and i used that baby all the time

GET OUT THE CANE WHIP.

Bloodborne DLC is coming out and I am HYPED. I platinumed the original then moved on to Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a way better RPG but I'll be god damned if the pure combat isn't 100% better in Bloodborne.

Black Barney wrote: was the GH3 guitar better than the GH2 one?

I never used it but I recall the conception that the GH3 guitar was the best one to exist at the time.

As for me, I'm still playing all GTA V all the time. Jumping around to the 3 characters is fun. It's also worth noting that driving has never been as fun in GTA as it is in part 5. It's really great and the sense of speed is impressive. The gunplay is better now too. They have really made an effort to have the game play smoother than it ever has.