Gaming's favourite platters get another stir of the pot

Another month goes by and, as ever, gaming isn’t short of its share of news and controversies. While recent reveals of Battlefield 4, Metal Gear Solid V, The Witcher 3 and Thief: Out of the Shadows show us what the future holds, there's no getting around the fact that we're currently entrenched in a present in which …

[Anonymous Coward]

Biodome

Some of the Bioshock Infinite combat scenarios (eg. Soldiers in oil - Flame vigor) are effectively training, similar to the Splicers in water - Electroshock plasmid of Bioshock 1.

The tears were a bit of a pain to start with, but you soon get used to bringing cover / a friendly turret / some medipacks over.

Yes the AI isn't combat realistic - but that it what your CoDs / Halos / Gears of Wars are for.

I do often wonder, when searching a soldier's corpse, why they bring things like cake and pineapples in battle though.

I'm playing on a PS3 and even on that I think it looks fantastic.

[Professor Clifton Shallot]

Cake and pineapples

If I ever have to go to war there bloody well better had be cake.

[Dave 126]

Re: Cake and pineapples

The cake is a lie.

[Matthew 25]

Re: Biodome

They aren't pineapples they're hand grenades in disguise.

[Tony Paulazzo]

...the year’s best game so far. BioShock Infinite...

I kind'a like it, story is superlative, and the girl is kooky fun - but corridor shooter, in the 21st century? come on, I wanted to go off and explore, ala Skyrim... and as for EA's Simcity - well, I guess I have them to thank for letting me discover Tropico 4, a place where sims return to the same home, have relations and go to the same job every day - plus, you get to be a dictator with secret services who'll take out libertarians if they're pissing you off with strikes or 'peacefull demonstrations. Much fun.

But, IMHO, everyone who paid EA for Simcity put a another nail in the coffin of gaming consumer rights worldwide I'm afraid.

[Loyal Commenter]

That extends, IMHO, to any game produced by EA or Activision. There are plenty of organisations putting out decent games; nobody has to give their money to these scum.

[Prof Denzil Dexter]

you including the Blizzard side, of Activision?

[Ru]

you including the Blizzard side, of Activision?

I'm getting on a bit these days and can't quite muster up the old youthful vitriol, but I still feel a sense of disappointment with Blizzard. Enormously long development cycles yielding fairly conservative games? That's a bit sad. All that power and money didn't free them up to make new and interesting things as I'd naively hoped. See also: Valve. My pocketmoney is going to kickstarter game projects these days... Big Gaming hasn't done it for me for some years.

EA though, ooh, they still get me riled. They're not quite the Giant Vampire Squid of the entertainment industry, but they certainly aspire to be.

[Anonymous Coward]

EA you can file away forever as a trash company, sure, but don't be too quick with Activision. From what I've read, they are at least aware of the problems they have, so they just don't write their problems off as a necessary greed. If nothing else, at least Activision publicly states problems they have, unlike other gaming publisers on EArth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to include Ubisoft in that list...

Don't forget to include Ubisoft in that list...

[boobie]

I bought SimCity and you're right; I shouldn't have. Executive decision has been made: No more EA games.

[Not That Andrew]

What about scoring it low for the crappy design decisions made by the design team, like using a terribly designed, extremely basic agent based AI, the terrible pathfinding and using the same basic agent for everything from pedestrians to sewage?

[Yet Another Commentard]

Perhaps EA/Maxis have made a simulation of a simulation. Sim inception anyone?

[sabroni]

No Luigi Love??

I'm playing Mansion 2 at the moment and it's bloody lovely! 20 minute levels, lots of variety, funny animation and great attention to detail. One of those games where if you lookup how to do something on the interwebs you're then kicking yourself for not spotting something that seems so obvious now! The 3DS seems to work so much better when your peering into a miniature world rather than when it tries to do expansive vistas.

I take issue with the comment that it's using the gyroscopic controls for looking around though (it only does this when you peer through windows, not for any large portion of the game, thankfully!). It looks to me like it's using the cameras on the lid to decide where you're looking, I reckon it's just too fast and precise to be the gyro. Does anyone know for sure?

[Mark 125]

Re: No Luigi Love??

Perfect train game for the commute, loving it... Just had to look up where the A-3 Boo was :) thought I'd looked there already.

Yes the 3D is sometimes a pain, like all 3D games (i.e. move your head without moving the console all goes a bit blurry,) BUT still, this is great, probably better than Mario Bros. or Mario Land (my other two fave 3DS games.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Bioshock Infinite & Steam!

Any feedback from those who bought the PC version?

There are some disparaging comments on Amazon and other sites about problems with the DRM and Steam... The one advantage I can see from buying Bioshock for PS3 is that its guaranteed to play...

[Tim Brown 1]

Re: Bioshock Infinite & Steam!

I bought Bioshock Infinite via Steam and have had absolutely no problems.

On my first playthrough (two sessions of about 10 hours each - hard setting - if you are used to fps then hard for the first run is the way to go) I was absolutely blown away. In terms of storytelling and look, it surpasses everything before it and sets the benchmark for gaming for years to come. It reminded me of the feeling I got when I first played Half-Life. I believe Bioshock Infinite will be looked back on in a similar way in years to come.

All that said, its niggles do become apparent on a second playthrough. Ultimately it's very much an interactive movie, since there's little you can do different any run. Also that you still need to search everywhere in order to collect together the silver dollars needed to buy the various combat perks (without some of which you'll be stuck on the final fights) loses much of its fun factor after the first run.

Still that first screening was worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned, so anything else is a bonus. For instance, the anachronistic (but cleverly worked into the plot) use of more modern music in 1912-era Columbia. The barbershop quartet (the gayest in Columbia!) rendering of The Beach Boys, 'God Only Knows' is both funny and musically quite brilliant. Also worthy of a mention the spiritual 'May the Circle be unbroken' sung by the two voice leads Courtnee Draper (Elizabeth) and Troy Baker (DeWitt), who also plays guitar on it. There's a bonus video of them rehearsing at the end of the credits.

[RonWheeler]

Re: Bioshock Infinite & Steam!

Worked OK on steam for me on my midrange hardware.

The rather pretentious posturing backstory can be very annoying at times.- I found the tannoys constantly taking the mick out of dumb right wing gibberish simply annoying. On the plus-side the Elizabeth sidekick is the highpoint of the game. Gameplay mechanics are very, very old school with virtually no interaction with the pretty environments. You can look, you can't change much or interact, or even sneak - just shoot.

Dishonored is a far far better game IMO.