The Shakespeare puzzle in SH3 on hard mode can go fuck itself. No way of knowing the solution without being familiar with his work, grrr...

I can completely agree with everyone who says SH3 was pry the weakest entry story wise. But aside from that it was one hell of thrill ride all the way through if only for its elaborate "boo!" atmosphere and hellish otherworld trappings and I will always remember it as one my fondest video game experiences when I first played it. It's those little details in the game that put it over the top for me. I still have a very mixed opinion on The Room; great graphics but no real boss fights (not even the end "battle"). The water tower part was kind of cool except for those stupid bats outside that made it feel like I was playing Ghouls 'N Ghosts. I also didn't like switching from first-person to third like that. Aggravating.

Yeah now that I think about it, Homecoming was little more than a combat-centric reboot or a rip-off of Silent Hill 2 depending on how you look at it.

Homecoming wasn't anywhere near as deep as Silent Hill 2, though. It was super simplistic, and the fucking story doesn't even make any sense. Like, if these guys ran away from the Silent Hill cult, why did they only go across the goddamn lake? Why not way farther? Why did they stay under that absurd system of child sacrifice? Like there could have been explanations, maybe the curse followed them no matter where they went, or they got something in return for the sacrifices like power or whatever, but there was just no attempt at explaining. Also the entire character of the Silent Hill cult was totally changed from the previous games, and the ending offered zero resolution. Did he dispel the curse? Did he set his brother's soul free? Did he do anything except kill the boss that had no explanation as to why it was even there? It was just super weak. For Silent Hill 1, 2, and 4, the reason for the Otherworld being there was surprising and interesting when you discovered it, but in Homecoming it just turned out kinda blah. Curse blah blah child sacrifice blah blah. The monsters, despite cool designs, didn't really symbolize anything, and Pyramid Head was thrown in purely as cheap fanservice. It wasn't an unsalvageable story, but they just didn't execute it well at all.

The whole cult story arc already was tired as far back as part 3. I'm at least grateful that Downpour has done away with it (as far as I can tell so far). I can't say the same thing about the otherworld aspect for it though which has become completely formulaic and tacked on now.

I agree. The reason the cult and the otherworld have become so tired is that they used to be integral to the stories, but due to being featured in the classic games of the series, they've become iconic, and now I think developers feel an obligation to just slap them on. "Well, people expect some sort of otherworld, and references to a cult, so let's find some way to jam them in there." If they find a good reason to include the cult and the otherworld, fine, but it just seems like these days rather than coming up with anything original (say what you want about SH4, it was extremely inventive in terms of story and setting), they'd rather just make a second-rate pastiche of the original games without actually understanding what all those elements meant in the first place. Homecoming's inclusion of Pyramid Head was the biggest example of this phenomenon.

Played a little bit of it and as far as age and controls I prefer Wild Arms to Xenoblade. I don't like having to rotate a camera in a polygon environment that's not that good. Static nice polygon areas, or CG areas with polygon characters, or just nice 2D sprites for most of it is the way to go. I also like how you can dash in Wild Arms like Zelda LttP. If there's one thing I like to do in games it's dash or jump all over the place.

And starting off was cool. Reminds me of FFVI where you pick which story you want to start off with.

Seems my PSP Go will be used for PS1 games mostly. Maybe Valkyria Chronicles 2 and probably Metal Gear Peace Walker. The rest for good PS1 games.

Castlevania SOTN, MGS1, Wild Arms, Xenoblade, 2 Kain games, and I'll have to see what else I wanna squeeze onto this thing.

On Downpour, I'm at that first side mission(?) into the "crying house". I can grab a gun off the chair in the caged room and get attacked by the doll ghost. But it is no longer there after I died and tried to go in again. The blue question mark is still mapped for that location so I guess it is still unresolved for what I am supposed to do at that house.

I agree that the combat in Downpour was pretty bad, but on the plus side: at least you could AVOID combat unlike in Homecoming. I still consider Downpour a fine game in the franchise, ran through it two times and doing it again soon for the last endings

Revisiting childhood favorites, the Sly Cooper series on PS3 HD version. Got the Platinum trophy on the first game already; it was almost too easy.

Downpour is definitely my favorite SH game since Origin. It wasn't embarrassing like Homecoming, or not Silent Hill like Shattered Memories. I hope the same developer gets another crack at the series, because with a bigger budget, more time, and more experience, I think they could really learn from their mistakes. The fucking annoying thing is that, if you look at some of the concept art, the monster designs they DIDN'T pick are wayyyy more interesting than the ones they eventually went with.

Definitely would love if the Vatra team would take another shot at it, really interested in what they would come up with! I really like the first one out of those concept arts. Something about that thing just floating in the distance and staring at Murphy would creep me the hell out!

Jesus, you make that mistake constantly

So I've been meaning to pick up the silent hill games if ps4 has compatibility with earlier games (since halo was the only xbox exclusive I cared about, and now that it's not bungie's i could care less) and is the emphasis or SURVIVAL and not on shooting crap? Might be an ignorant question considering i've only played RE4 (liked it) and RE5 (generic modern military 3ps with zombies). Anyway, pyramid head is cute regardless.

Also, been playing a ton of midieval total war 2 since I got all the total war games for christmas (havne't installed empire yet because of how to bad the AI is rumored to be) and I like it just as much as civilization; especially when playing the longbow wielding british and the infantry horde danish. Haven't figured out how to play france and HRE well just because they get dogpiled, and I'm only play at easy difficulty and medium battle difficulty. Also I want to get ready for total war 2, be nice to play game without the pope breathing down my ass.

It doesn't. Not current disc-based or digital games anyway... I suppose they'll probably re-release classic games in a PS4 digital format, just to try to get people to buy them one more time.

Oh, whatever I still have a ps2, that will play it.

It's 4AM here and I'm playing System Shock 2 in the dark.
The hybrids' distorted voices and the ambience are very unsettling.

Anybody play the new Tomb Raider? The original series never appealed to me but this one looks like it's pretty good. I read up on some sites (tried to steer clear of the big name professional review sites) and aside from some flaws (like the multiplayer) they say it's overall a good game. Don't think I'd want to pay a full $50 for it, but that price won't go down for a while.

I obviously couldn't help but think of Uncharted while watching my roommate play some, though that said I'm not an Uncharted fan and thought it looked a fair bit better. Still nothing I'm jumping at to play ASAP or anything though. I've played a handful of the Tomb Raider's over the years since the beginning and they're cool, but guess it was never anything I was in love with.

After giving Journey a look, I gotta say..... I have to give that game a try. Haven't seen something so aesthetically pleasing and awe inspiring since..... Hell, probably Shadow of the Colossus.

I thought some of the old Tomb Raider games were a lot of fun. Adventurous and mysterious and challenging. Surprised to see so many people saying "well I didn't like the old TR but this new one is cool." Maybe they never played the first 2 or 3...

Well I played the early ones (TR:2, TR:TLR, and TR: AOD) and I didn't like them as much as everyone else seemed to. I was a young Nintendo-loving kid at the time but I still understood what made a fun game, and those weren't fun to me.

Nobody liked Angel of Darkness, so I don't blame you for not enjoying that one. It was supposed to be a new 'dark' trilogy, and everybody hated it at release. So Tomb Raider died for a bit-- later getting resurrected by Crystal Dynamics.

Just bought a PS2! Amazing this little bitch. Been playing a lot of God of War II. It came with Sly 2, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror and Ratchet and Clank.
Anyone has good recs on 2-player games?
I like the fighting and racing stuff (which is basically everything they do for 2 players).

Tekken Tag Tournament is great, if you like fighting games I'd definitely pick that one up!

I ended up buying it on amazon, since I had $20 bonus credit from buying Dead Space 3. I just beat Dead Space 3 the other night and Tomb Raider feels very refreshing. DS3 felt like nothing new, with the best thing being the weapon customization. On the other hand, Tomb Raider looks amazing(havent actually played them for at least 10 years) and it's really fun.

I've heard nice thing about that one, gotta look for it, since I've found very few places where they still sell PS2 games (news or used). Trust me, amazon ain't good if you live in Mexico.

You didn't mention you wanted FPS recs, but check out Timesplitters 2 and TS Future Perfect. They're two of the best shooting games I've ever played. TS2 in particular is pretty close to Goldeneye and can get quite tough to beat 100% (though it is perfectly doable). They'll probably give you at least 30+ hours each.

Also, they have great co-op modes and the best FPS multiplayer mode on that generation of consoles (nearly a hundred playable characters, a ton of modes, customizable games and weapon choices, cool maps, etc.).

It looks like the Humble Bundle folks are starting a new thing where they have a different game up for the usual pay-what-you-want deal every week. Sounds pretty cool. This week it's Bastion, for those who don't already have it. Quite a fun game, beautiful art, and a great soundtrack (which you can also get if you beat the average donation - definitely worth it, it's one of the only game soundtracks I actually listen to outside the game).

I'm so mad/sad! I still can't play Bastion, I've owned it since day one. I'll be damned if I'm going to reinstall Windows VISTA for any game.

What? I played it just fine on XP. Or do you mean you're running linux?

Worked fine for me on Win 7 too...

Contact the devs if you have issues.

Since this is the video game thread, I just want to post this on here:

Basically all of the GTA character's in one room (I found it on Facebook).

All you had to do was stay on the damn floor, CJ!

lol that's an awesome pic. Love the 'Spider-Man-font' PS3 on the ground.

Got Fire Emblem Awakening today at a fair price, so SUCK IT universe. Played it for a bit and it's even better than I thought it would be. As of now, this may be the best of the series. Also I bought Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I'm geeking myself out of a sex life.

Can't wait for Fire Emblem to come out over here, got Luigi's Mansion and Harmoknight next week as well. I'm really glad I bought this handheld.

I never got into Monster Hunter, unfortunately.

I like SH3 but the boss battles can be quite stupid at times. Nothing wrong with the visual designs but the fights themselves are retarded, for instance killing the giant worm with a goddamn metal pipe. Wow, thrilling. It's not a big deal because Silent Hills were never about combat for the most part, though.

I got a chance to play MGR. It's quite a cinematic experience and the combat is really intense. It actually feels like you're slashing through something. That is, until you engage blade mode and enemies become butter of course.

Such a shame that FE:A copies are as scarce as they are, this is maybe the best game in the 3DS and this distribution flop was just awful. I can see why people outside Asia don't like Monster Hunter. The game is clearly targeted towards that demography, there's odd controls, tons of grinding, most of your time will be spent on preparation for fights, you can fight a monster 45 minutes and lose, among many other things, but I really like it. The 3DS is releasing a wealth of good games, so far I'm happy with the portable.

@ArtificialStupidity By that point in the game you have the handgun, there was no way in hell I was getting close to that thing.

I felt the same way but it happened to me that I had run out of bullets before the encounter. I have this bad habit of taking care of every monster on the map.

Ouch. That's why I play horror games with the mindset that every bullet is a Megalixir. Then I finish the game having an armory on my inventory.