Posts by tsdadam
25 posts • joined Tuesday 11th May 2010 08:40 GMT
Posted in Review: Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2
Re: Wouldn't boot in Linux
If I were to guess, I'd say so (Secure boot thing). UEFI is rife sadly, and Lenovo's bios/uefi is weird. My recent Lenovo laptop with Windows 8 pre-install won't even recognise its own Optical drive as a boot device unless the setup is changed back to bios/legacy mode.
Posted in Trip the fight fantastic
Re: A few comments
While I agree whole-heartedly on the KB/Mouse vs Pad for the sort of games you're talking about there (FPS, RTS), I'd have to argue that there are areas that a gamepad kicks the pants off of a keyboard/mouse combination.
Take sports games for example, or platformers, or 2D fighters. A good pad or joystick knocks spots off a keyboard and mouse here, and that's because of the largely overlooked downside of using a keyboard for movement, and that's it being digital. Say what you like about using an analogue stick for aiming (and yes, it's rubbish), but analogue movement is what's missing.
There's something archaic about having a walk/run modifier key. Or maybe try playing fifa on the keyboard and watch that same twitching you mention as you alternate between left and up-left trying to follow a non-45 degree angle. No amount of tweening's going to fix that.
The holy grail of controllers will have analogue movement, with relative positional aiming/cursor control - and do it well. God only knows what it'll look like, although that PS4 pad has a touch-pad controller. It's not where I'd like it, but it's a start.
Signed, a massive BF3 fan (mouse + keyboard) who wouldn't dream of playing a fighter or sports game without a good pad.
Posted in Trip the fight fantastic
Re: Square Syndrome
Personally I quite like the way the game's done it. To me it feels like a mix of 'doing what it takes to survive as everyone tries to kill her' followed by frequent cinematic breaks of desperation.
As the reviewer says though, it's a game at the end of the day, and the combat is actually pretty good for the most part. Sure beats pogoing around trying to shoot marauding dinosaurs like the original :)
Posted in Twenty classic arcade games
Re: What was that one called...?
You're actually thinking of Mad Dog McCree (I think), Quickdraw McGraw was a cartoon horse.
Posted in Twenty classic arcade games
BEWARE, I LIVE
Sinistar made the space invaders look as scary as E.T.
No problem with Gold
I've had a Gold account since the original Xbox (~8 years) and personally find it excellent. It's by far the best all-in-one friends/games service on a console, and its uptime is fantastic. I have a PS3 too (never payed for their equivalent premium service), and yes, it's a free service, but at the same time Live has never been down for weeks, or leaked my details. Cross-game voice chat, messaging, invites etc have been the norm for a long time.
Oh and for the 'who pays for two subscriptions?!' brigade, consider an alternative situation. I have a netflix account which I primarily use my PS3 for, but because I happen to have a Gold account (which I pay for anyway), I now have *another* device I can use it on. Win-win as far as I'm concerned :)
Posted in Far Cry 3 game review
Re: Do they really play this to review it?
I was just thinking the same thing, it's three pages that tell you -about- the game, but not what it's like to actually play it...
Posted in Taito's Double Dragon
*CHING*
I vividly remember this cab at my local leisure centre (among other places), where they had the volume turned up to 11. The high-pitched 'ching' noise as you kicked a knife out of the air is a joy to behold :)
Double Dragon 2 was also a great game. Who can forget 'Pogo' and timing the jump and kick just right to get the helicopter kick.
Posted in Ghostbusters
Megadrive
The best Ghostbusters game by far was the Megadrive version. It was nothing like the 8-bit versions, instead an excellent platformer with Super-Deformed caricatures of the actors from the film.
It's still worth a play, great game.
It doesn't say next generation anywhere
A 'new' Xbox in this context could just as easily be a refresh on the current hardware.
I remember all the stuff they were saying about giving it PVR capabilities (I seem to remember them filing patents for DVR/TV capabilites), could a new Xbox not just be a different model, maybe along the lines of a media center?
Posted in Spy Hunter
Master System
I remember the closest thing on the Master System - Action Fighter. Pretty good fun, and for some reason the cheat code of DOKIPEN has stuck with me 'til this day, in the same way WE5TONE for Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap has too :)
Posted in Streetfighter 2: The World Warrior
NTSC/PAL
I was going to post the same thing about the arcade. That's the experience that made that game for me.
I remember seeing a preview in C+VG/Mean Machines (I can't remember which) before the release and poring over the screenshots for weeks. Once it finally arrived - wow... Hordes of kids stood around the cabs, piles of 10p pieces by the joysticks for the unwritten 'next player' rule of the arcade, and those magical moments when someone from out of town would turn up and play like a god with some character you never bothered with before.
I was one of those SNES importers (through Dream Machines I think it was back then) and this cart hooked up on the pass-through converter provided me with far, far too many hours in front of the TV. What nostalgia tends to ignore though is the hideous NTSC-PAL issues which saw us over here with ~100 lines more vertical resolution (i.e. huge black bars top and bottom), and the fact that the game ran at about 85% of the true speed thanks to the 60Hz/50Hz refresh difference.
It didn't matter though, I still remember pulling the blinds and having 'best of 99' battles with my mates :)
Posted in Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe
Re: No mention of Ice Cream?
Typically this appeared just the same time as my own post on the same thing :)
Posted in Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe
No mention..
..of the most memorable bit of speech from those hazy Amiga days?
"Ice Cream!!"
I loved the Bitmap crossover stuff too, like Super Nashwan from this game and Xenon 2: Megablast :)
Posted in Basic instinct: how we used to code
They could get away with anything...
Just looking through that listing for Towers of Hanoi, t he description says it's "velly velly good".
In my head is a picture of Peter Sellers in Murder by Death as Mr Wang :)
Posted in Soul Calibur V
Score?
I love the 'Soul' series, so I've been looking forward to this. A quick question though. Given that there are almost no negative points (maybe no Ryu/Ken, but as the reviewer is a self-confessed SF fan you'd think the lack of Shoto scrubs would be a good thing ;) )to speak of in the review, and a lot of praise for game-balancing, why has it only been given 75%?
Posted in WHSmith Kobo Vox e-reader
That was my point though, if it's an e-reader then a slow processor should never be a negative point in a review.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Posted in WHSmith Kobo Vox e-reader
Really?
I can't say I've ever, not even once, accidentally turned my Kindle off. And I agree with the above comment on 7 hours of battery life, that's appalling for something marketed as an e-reader.
The bit that got me most though is the comment that the biggest drawback is the sluggish processor. On a device that's essentially designed to show a page of text, and then flip to the next page after a minute or two, there's no way in the world that processor speed should *ever* be an issue.
Companies should stick to making dedicated e-readers or tablet, not hybrid Frankenstein's monsters.
Posted in Santa's Xmas Caper
Christmas bits in games...
The one that jumps out at me first is Crude Buster (Two Crude Dudes). One of the bosses was - if memory serves - a small maniac throwing petrol bombs dressed in a Santa outfit. What sticks with me is him shouting "Ho, Ho, Ho. Psycho Santa!" :)
Posted in Rainbow Islands
I'm with the others...
...and have more fond memories of Bubble Bobble than this one, but it was still a great game.
Bubble Bobble holds a special place for me for being the first coin-op I came across that let you enter secret codes on the machine before you even started playing :)
They don't make platformers like they used to: Wardner (as mentioned above), Karnov, Psychic 5, Tumblepop, Snow Bros, Wonder Boy In Monster Land, New Zealand Story et al.
Posted in BBC iPlayer, Lovefilm, 4OD aim for Xbox
or...
another way of looking at it, those who are already paying for their Gold subscriptions get extra services for nothing - a good thing.
Posted in The Secret of Monkey Island
I'm selling these fine leather jackets
It's worth mentioning that the special editions that have been recently released do NOT contain all of the sequels, only the first two games (and if you count the Tales Of Monkey Island episodes, we're lucky enough to have had four sequels now :) ).
It's also worth mentioning the single biggest change to the Special Edition games too, the fact that they've had vocals added! Dominic Armato and the rest of the crew were brought in to voice them retrospectively.
The first two are still two of the best games ever made. The third is very good, but I prefer not to think about the fourth :( Monkey Kombat especially ruined that game for me.
Oh and while you can't die as a result of your course of actions, you can die as a result of your *inaction*. Ten minutes is a long time to hold your breath, but not always long enough... ;)
Good software - wrong hardware?
I don't know if it's just me, but the thought of trying to play even just PSOne games on a touchscreen is a real turn-off. Where do you put equivalent controls for a dpad, two analogue sticks, four face buttons and shoulder buttons? I know games like to use screen overlays, and I know Sony will (probably) have thought about this, but from the outset it seems like there's going to be a lot of fingers taking up screen real estate.
Maybe it'll be like a previous poster said, controlled by Sony on which hardware can run it, despite the OS being open.
Posted in 2011 Games Preview
Facts Shmacts
Why anyone who calls themselves a gamer would have any reason to trawl through sites finding 'reasons' why the PS3 is best is beyond me. Get them all, enjoy all the best games. It doesn't matter what's released on which system that way.
There's no point taking sides in an industry in which any one of them would bend you over and dry-hump you for more sales.
I bought far more games on 360 than PS3 last year, but that's just because there was more I preferred on it. This year it's looking like Child Of Eden, La Noire, Arkham Asylum and possibly Brink that I'm most excited about so far.
Posted in 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa
No mention of the gameplay?
It's a fair point about the annual (or in this case six-monthly) re-vamp churning from the EA machine, but what I find disappointing in this review is that not once in the four pages does it make any reference to how the game actually plays...
For what it's worth, it plays a great game a football and tightens up on a few of the snags from Fifa 10. The refs aren't quite so whistle-happy this time around and the same goes for dishing out cards. Shooting's been made snappier and the timing of the shot has more importance than ever, it's very possible to fluff shots and send them dribbling along the floor to the welcoming keeper. It plays faster, and while it's a bit gimmicky, it's interesting to see the high-altitude grounds effect the teams not used to it. I like how form carries through the tournament and affects the players too.
Is it worth forty quid to people who already own Fifa 10? Probably not. Does it play the best game of football on a console today? For my money, definitely.
(I'm not getting my coat, that's EA reaching for my wallet)
