What are you playing?

[bobby 55]

Darksiders ported from a console to the PC. It would fucking help if you had keyboard options.

Okay, you have to unplug anything controller like, even a bloody joystick, before it recognises you have a keyboard. Once that's done it's business as usual.

[Jonas]

How's the gameplay of HAWXS 2? I read some forumites on Steam saying it was too arcade-ish. I think I would prefer it to lean more towards the arcade zone than being a proper simulator.

Well I'm a fan of arcade flight games, but HAWX2 is kinda pushing it. It's mostly a problem with how it interprets my flight stick input, it seems pretty clear that it was designed for a gamepad with analog sticks because it's not nearly as sensitive as it should be near the dead zone, and along the extremes it's almost too sensitive, which makes it pretty hard to aim accurately. More annoyingly, most of the controls outside of flying the planes are context-sensitive and can't be bound in the options as far as I can tell, so it keeps prompting me to press keys on my keyboard to trigger night vision, UAV controls, etc. instead of letting me use the multitude of excellent flight stick buttons at my disposal.

Another thing is the gimmicks. HAWX1 was of course extremely gimmicky, but its gimmicks were consistent and featured throughout the game. The first was "Assistance Off" mode where you could ostensibly turn off your flight computer to assume complete control, which would explode your camera out to a far-away angle and (ironically) enable a fair bit of auto-pilot, allowing you to pull off insane stunts and to give yourself an edge in dogfights. The second was ERS, which was basically the opposite - it was a guidance system that would paint virtual corridors for you to fly through to help you get the optimal approach vectors for eg. landing on a hangar ship, getting behind an enemy fighter, or dive bombing a tank hiding between the highrises on either side of a city street. Gimmicky though these were, you knew you could trigger them at any time and they would be useful in every level.

As far as I can tell, HAWX2 doesn't have assistance off mode at all. At least I wasn't able to find it in the singleplayer campaign - could be they just relegated it to the multiplayer part this time. ERS features once or twice, but usually it's just to help you land if you can't do without it - there's an achievement of sorts for landing without it though, and it's also a lot more fun to land without it, so I never bothered.

Then there's the level design - HAWX1 had some brilliant level design, with a nice amount of missions that threw outrageous sci-fi stuff at you to force you to fly below the mountain tops or maneuver between the radii of SAM sites - stuff like that. In HAWX2, you instead get an AC-130 mission and some drone missions. The problem there is that the level design gimmicks in HAWX1 made you use your core skills (flying jets) in new and challenging ways, whereas the gimmicks in HAWX2 makes you do something completely different (being an AC-130 gunner or a drone pilot has little to do with flying jets). There is a couple of pretty decent canyon sequences though where you need to fly through what must be the world's longest canyons, those are pretty decent.

Wow okay uh...

tl;dr: if you liked HAWX1 and you really want an excuse to use your flight stick (which was my reason for getting HAWX2) I'd say get HAWX2. It's a fun enough game, and it has a few solid bonus modes like survival and arcade to keep you interested after you finish the amazingly short singleplayer campaign, even if you're not into multiplayer. If you haven't played HAWX1, I'd recommend you get that instead, it's a better game in every way except two: the unlock system and the plot.

[bobby 55]

Thanks for taking the trouble for the comprehensive reply. I bought the game early in the current Steam sale. I'll get round to playing it at some point. I don't know why I haven't gotten round to HAWX1
yet, but I'll get it as you make it sound like it'll be entertaining.

[Jetsetlemming]

I bought MGS4 the other day. Last night I was getting frustrated by a part where you have to tail a guy because a jeep ran me over out of nowhere as I was crawling down the street, so tried a bit of the multiplayer, Metal Gear Online. Short version: It's shit.
Long version: I couldn't find a game by matchmaking whatsoever, letting it try to find people for over 30 minutes. There's a noob only mode for "training", I joined that, and found a bunch of people laying on the ground and going in and out of the play dead animation over and over, and got really creeped out. So I went into the freematch mode that lets you pick a game to join, and all of those were either playing a DLC map I had to buy, or gave me a warning about too high level players (what with me being level 0).
I join one of the random too high matches, to find a custom deathmatch with all weapons except C4 disabled. The other players were running around using CQC on each other, stunning them, and planting C4 on their bodies and running away. I could not do this: hand to hand combat is a leveled ability and anyone I tried to grab would instantly bounce out of my hands and grab me and kill me. So, I started planting traps and luring guys into them by running away around a corner with my c4 planted. When the other players realized I was circumventing their fun, the next time they managed to grab me they just knocked me out, woke me up (if you crouch over an unconscious person and press triangle you pat them and say something like "hey wake up" or "you alive?"), and then knocked me out again, until the match time limit ran out.

[Jonas]

Assholes will be assholes.

[bobby 55]

Darksiders, a console game ported to the PC, where you play one of the Horseman of the Apocalypse, War. It's a Third Person Perspective hack 'n' slash action adventure with RPG elements. The puzzles presented so far aren't too hard, and once you get used to the key commands it plays reasonably well. It's entertaining me with action aplenty although it's definitely a game not to be taken too seriously. I am looking forward to seeing how the weapons' skills and powers improve with various "addons" you receive in levelling up, trading, and exploration.

[Jetsetlemming]

Assholes will be assholes.

Last night in Left 4 dead 2 a small group of us got together and sought out a lobby with four people already in it as a group, expecting random public players to join so they could be at an advantage. Then we all joined together and proceeded to mop the floor with them. We had perfect scores every single map except for the finale, where we all intentionally trapped ourselves behind a fence right outside the safe room. They played seriously every round, and lost by over a thousand points.

But I mean, they were trying to gang up on random people, stacking the deck essentially, so I think they were the assholes. We were like l4d robin hoods.

[bobby 55]

Darksiders just amped the difficulty up a little and I'm half way through an interesting and not so easy quest. Enjoyment level times 5.

[nerdenstein]

I got Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2 the other day simply because I loved the first one.
The story isn't as good as the first game and your companions are not nearly as likable (Apart from T3 I loved that little droid even in the first game. I like how he plays a bigger role in this game.)
The story and quests feel a little rushed because unfortunately it was. After I've completed it, I'll play it again with a content restoration mod.

Note to self; Somehow clean Netbook keyboard as Backspace key is stuck.
I inherited my mums old Netbook that is using a very old version of Linpus Linux OS and she has managed to stick half the keys together. I'm considering sticking either Linux Mint or Ubuntu OS on it instead. I can use it as a travel and college Netbook rather than lugging my laptop around with me.
Anyone have opinions on either of those Linux OS's or any other free OS's that are under 5GB
I can't use Windows XP because that takes more hardspace than this Netbook has.

[Jetsetlemming]

Beat Metal Gear Solid 4. Damn, what a good game. It really, really picks up in Act 4.

[Frank]

Well (if anyone is interested ), I don't play frequently, but when it comes to, I like RPGs and Strategy games... And I LOVE Original War (and DeusEx ), it's one of things making me proud being from this country (Guess which one is it )

[bobby 55]

Well (if anyone is interested ), I don't play frequently, but when it comes to, I like RPGs and Strategy games... And I LOVE Original War (and DeusEx ), it's one of things making me proud being from this country (Guess which one is it )

Welcome to the forums Frank. We're always interested here when it comes to games. Also you earned + 10 rep for liking Deus Ex.

[Frank]

Welcome to the forums Frank. We're always interested here when it comes to games. Also you earned + 10 rep for liking Deus Ex.

There's a bonus for it? A thought it's something everyone born with

[Hassat Hunter]

The story isn't as good as the first game.

BLASPHEMY

*shoots Nerdenstein* [-X

[nerdenstein]

The story isn't as good as the first game.

BLASPHEMY

*shoots Nerdenstein* [-X

What?! I just think it's been a little odd so far.
Though so far, I've only done Paragus, Telos and Nar Shaddar.
Still have several planets to go and I've only just gotten myself a lightsaber