It's got a lot of depth. I can see why people who give 5 minutes for a game to win them over missed out. If you dig long enough, you will find that it could fit in to the FF line up as an official title.

They gave us save anywhere which is a first. They also reduced zone resets to everytime you zone in instead of 2 zones like FF12. The item creation system is exposed, for westerners who never got a clue about all the times they have been in FF series hidden. So it's a pretty basic FF for people with save anywhere hand holding. It also lets people meet, and recruit 18 squad members of their choice from a pool of 150ish and field them in up to 5 squads.

If you like FF series, then stick with this one awhile and you might find it pretty nice. Be sure there is ancient ruins DLC or already included, that place is very important. Also I hope they let you all have the many extra boss fights that are a lot of fun that was also DLC. The Conquerer is a pretty cool bad guy if you watch all the cut scenes. YMMV

Edit: Another nice thing Last Remnant has that I hope we see in FF13 is how post battle healing is assumed to have been done, without the player going through the monotony of doing it manually.

This comment was edited on Mar 21, 2009, 04:30.

I liked Die by the Sword even though the controls were utter chaos (which was half the fun). Once you got the hang of it trying to keep shield positioned and sword swinging with a bit of extra kinetic juice by charging, it was pretty fun. It's one of those titles you never forget, the good and the bad. Wasn't there some kind of orc soccer or some such as well? I seem to remember trying to get a little guy in a goal.

I have 4 FPS fans in this house. But I haven't played it yet as I am still puttering around in FF12 (Turnsol done, Pharos next). I asked the guys what they thought and they all love Killzone. One said it was better than COD 4. So there must be something there to get the crazy amount of 90-100s on Metacritic (not that I value reviews scores all that much, just is a lot of high ones).

Give us another Battle Isle Blue Byte.

Games like this shouldn't be rushed through. Good RPGs are so rare and this one was pretty good. The only thing that totally irritated me was driving that buggy all over the mountains to find things. It reminded me of Starflight to some extent (in a good way). If planets were a bit flatter, would have liked it more. Give me more stuff to fight too, those planets were pretty barren (I skipped buying the DLC because of these issues). Replay wise it didn't do it for me. Not enough under the surface to make me go back. I do look forward to ME2.

Well this kind of thing was inevitable and I expect to see a lot less mainstream PC titles. The real shake up will be in 2012 when the consoles catch up to PCs as far as hardware and a good amount of the game market has 1080p. RTS on PC will always be there. The rest are going consoles with option to sometimes publish to PC. 2012 is about the time I expect a mouse-like device to be bundled in with every new console. Wii kind of has it now.

The PS3 BUNDLE is an extremely good deal. $399 for the console and 2 of the best games from the early releases. I actually like Resistance better than Resistance 2. It's very long, lots of cool replay options (especially all the new weapons you pick up on 2nd play through) and it harkens back to the days of Doom and Quake. The whole game has that war movie video filter and back drop. Resistance stood on it's own design and merits instead of trying to come off as a Halo competitor like Resistance 2 tried. Good stuff.

Motorstorm was actually pretty good. Stay away from Motorstorm 2: Pacific rift unless you want more of the same with a reduction in fun. Not bad, just not as good as the first in a lot of ways (tracks were kind of craptastic, especially the fire ones). It's a shame too, that series had something going for it.

I am all for warning labels that actually mean something. "Requires Internet to Play" is a really good one. "Requires Steam installation and account creation" is another good one that needs to start showing up at etailers even if it is a stop sign for my hand to wallet. Right now I pretty much don't buy any PC software unless it is confirmed DRM free or internet registration only.

Edit: I don't think "States charge sales tax" belongs on a box, just like "Nations charge import and customs fees" doesn't really need to be there either. However if it were a scam to run up someone's bill, then that's a totally different situation. I don't think that was the case here.

This comment was edited on Mar 18, 2009, 16:35.

Ugh... These are the guys preventing western and european support for Hellgate London. I pretty much don't want anything to do with them. Hanbit is racing ahead with improving the game and making it a business model people can agree with but Namco is sitting on rights to a project that investors (read: players) funded a good portion of which once again boils down to players get screwed.

I didn't get an apology when Steam sold me a game and expansion that doesn't run. Hell I didn't even get a response from email nor any offer of a refund. On top of that, over 2 years this title has known problems, like lack of standard save game functioning (if it will run for you) which pretty much kills any hopes of playing the game. Impulse isn't the service that has an "F" rating with the BBB like Steam the last time I checked. Impulse doesn't make you run a TSR to play their games like Steam.

I can go on and on, this whole thread is silly. Just stop buying from places you don't approve of like I have stopped buying from Steam including software that uses Steam. It would take a pretty strong title to make me purchase from Steam, and only Blizzard has those besides what is on Impulse.

Don't forget Catan. They did a really nice job with that.

Valkyria Chronicle DLC very much welcomed.

The PC is much better at playing old games than any console is

In many cases, yeah. Not in all. In general this is certainly true.

I have been watching this exercise in futility and caught this. PS2 alone has over 1900 titles and I can plug and play any single one of them on my PS3 and get to it. The same mostly for Xbox which has a significantly miniscule library comparing older titles.

If I want to do this on a PC... Yeah... Good luck with getting half of them oldies to work much less all.

Graphics on modern day console look fine. I have been staring at 1900x1200 for 5 years and HDTV with modern console games is just as pretty despite lower resolution in a lot of cases. It still looks great. Now the same can't be said about upscale DVD and Blu-ray. There's just too much of a difference to notice although some of the modern DVDs come real close upscaled.

Ok all done, carry on. Enjoy the debate.

Edit: Over 1900 PS2 titles according to a source on Kotaku but I found another source that listed "8,181 across the world as for September 30, 2006.". I have about 250 and those are all I care about.

This comment was edited on Mar 15, 2009, 23:00.

I go where the good gaming is at, and for a very long time the PC in general has been a downhill slide to mediocrity, excepts for a few points of light. I am not on any side other than all machines have potential, I own all machines, and the PC sucks right now. It has for some time. There isn't a genre I truly dislike excepts for obvious ones that wouldn't interest most 30-40 crowds. If that makes me a delusional fanboi then that doesn't bother me.

Console gaming can be as expensive as PC gaming... But you can buy a console for $150 and a small tv for 200-300 bucks... If you dump the same kind of money you do for a PC, the bonus is you get a kick ass movie theater and watch HD in comfort for everyone together, compared to an isolated experience. You can spend a lot of money on any hobby, so cost really isn't the point.

As for selection and the best development... I just counted the mainstream titles available on the PC since Total war and it came to 6 counting some pretty sad budget titles and a re-release of Eve. Just the Playstation 3 had over a dozen including some fantastic DLC games which happen weekly. With a nice list of 10ish more total titles by the end of the month. That's just the PS3... PC has several console ports to look forward to in that time, a collectable card game, some more low budget stuff and a re-sell expansion. So from TW to the end of March... PS3 24ish titles. PC 15ish with good portion of ports, budget bin titles, re-sales and DRM.

The other issue about PC games is DRM and ownership. If people have such low opinions of themselves to allow companies to mistreat them with DRM on bad games, they don't get to own, and they like it, who am I to stand in the way of stupidity? People can wrap it up in rationalizations and pretend it's the best thing since sliced bread, while insulting each other, for all I care.

This comment was edited on Mar 14, 2009, 00:53.

LOL, Dades I hear you. One guy can't stop insulting people then denies he ever did and the others ar so pro PC and even Vista that it's like talking to people who sell PCs or software. Futility. People will come around when they realize that the console experience has moved on from the older days of pc vs. console and that's mainly due to nice HDTVs and the built in upscaling even most modern recievers have for HDMI.

Dades, You get points for trying!

I chase 3 machines here at the house. With kids and a wife, it's non stop clean up. So for me it is a bigger problem and more emphasized. Basically my point was it's a whole lot of crap to put up with for a few PC games. Back in the day with regular dos, we didn't know just how good we had it. The war on all of our PC desktops has raged on since the internet, and it's been getting worse every year. It just gets old.

Is it really needed for people to resort to making personal attacks? Are some of you all so threatened by a normal conversation that you have to get out the nerf bats?

This whole thread got off on the wrong foot when Stinging Velvet inserted a large foot in his mouth insulting Brad. I remember talking to Brad on usenet over a decade ago. I think I posted something about a tile based, turn based game he was working on. Something to the extent of, "It's not my cup of tea but clearly a labor of love.". He may or may not remember it but some of you guys are truly showing your age, or lack there of.

@SV - I responded to misrepresentations. As for people who slice up line by line and then reinvent the context, not worth responding to.

Also if you have a problem with what I say, don't read it, and stop with the personal attacks. Your opinion is just that, and I don't need you or anyone else trying to restructure what I post.

Cool game, but no SSX =/

@Creston - I love PC games, not sure where you can claim I don't. There are not enough of them and the ones that come out are half baked, and require Steam.

As for people chasing browser games, hand helds, mobiles phones, consoles etc... Those take developers and it was in the context of developers going off to do that. Sorry if I wasn't clear. That doesn't leave much left for the PC unless it's an MMO, Indie, or port.

Bottom line is it's just not worth the hassle or expense to deal with a PC. Spyware, virii, bloatware, virus scanners, spyware scanners, anti spam, zone alarm, patches, os patches, browser patches, DRaMa. List goes on and on to play games that are on a console or half baked. The industry rather than encouraging people to stick around, push them away.

As far as sales, being proud of being better at sucking each year is still sucking.

Playstation blog says that Red Baron is exclusively availble on PSN. Not sure I believe that...

I was a little ticked when Xbox got Peggle and PSN didn't publish it today. I fully expected Red Baron to be a let down... I am very pleased it wasn't.

I played Red Baron on Sierra Network. I played every iteration of this game including the vector arcade one. This one is VERY fun. Gives Heroes over the Pacific a run for it's money on planes on screen at a time.

The clouds are very well done. It's cut down, no reading maps, and all that. Has a radar. Built in loop/barrel roll moves and a few powerups for the guage refills. 3 different guages for health, sprint/moves, and secondary weapons. So some similarities with Warhawk but this one has more in common with Red Baron 3D than you would first believe despite that.

Fairly customizable paints in 5 fields on the plane. Looks like 11 planes (probably more to come). 36 visible single player missions (most likely hooks for DLC also). Multiplayer has a lot of modes as well.

For the cheap price, well worth it.

This comment was edited on Mar 13, 2009, 04:03.