Everyone else pimps what they've been playing so thought I'd join the fun.

I gave a couple of hours lovin' to the Crackdown demo on the 360, looks fantastic and by the end of the demo you're scaling buildings like Spiderman taking out hoards of pushers with a shotgun in mid-air. Gears of War co-op got a good workout at the weekend with my brother, by playing it through for the first time in split-screen I reckon I've got more mileage out of it than playing by myself. Geometry Wars - Retro Evolved and Lumines Live! got a lookin too, thanks to MS' change of heart on the latter (cut price) and the very cool skin/theme they released.

My train journeys have been occupied with Elite Beat Agents for the DS (I had to get the GF to do 'Jumping Jack Flash' on medium for me :-) ) whilst I wait for my import copy of Hotel Dusk to turn up.

I also finally checked out De Blob. It's like a laid-back Katamari.

Next week: maybe I'll dust off the PSP and get back to some retro-PSX action.

Ive been trying to download the crackdown demo but its taking a long time, did you have that same trouble?

> Ive been trying to download the crackdown demo but its taking a long time, did
> you have that same trouble?
>

No idea, it downloaded Saturday morning. I wasn't really paying too much attention.

Put it the way you want - charging more than 1$ for that game is insane. Don't get me wrong, it's fun. But technically it's a piece of cake, with very little production cost, if a single man armed with Blitz Basic can make a clone.

Which I play now and then, to discover I'm really bad at videogames.

> Everyone else pimps what they've been playing so thought I'd join the fun.
>
> I gave a couple of hours lovin' to the Crackdown demo on the 360, looks
> fantastic and by the end of the demo you're scaling buildings like Spiderman
> taking out hoards of pushers with a shotgun in mid-air. Gears of War co-op got a
> good workout at the weekend with my brother, by playing it through for the first
> time in split-screen I reckon I've got more mileage out of it than playing by
> myself. Geometry Wars - Retro Evolved and Lumines Live! got a lookin too, thanks
> to MS' change of heart on the latter (cut price) and the very cool skin/theme
> they released.
>
> My train journeys have been occupied with Elite Beat Agents for the DS (I had to
> get the GF to do 'Jumping Jack Flash' on medium for me :-) ) whilst I wait for
> my import copy of Hotel Dusk to turn up.
>
> I also finally checked out De Blob. It's like a laid-back Katamari.
>
> Next week: maybe I'll dust off the PSP and get back to some retro-PSX action.
>

I just finished Hotel Dusk last night and thought it was excellent. Took my just shy of 28(!!) hours to get through, but I took my time and examined EVERYTHING in the hotel. The game was a hell of a lot of fun, but I wish the text speed was much faster and there doesn't seem to be a lot of replay value.

I hear Trace Memory also used the same engine, so I'm considering checking that out too. I think I'm burnt out on text heavy point n clicks for a month or two though.

I played the Crackdown demo and didn't think it was anything special. Felt like a GTA ripoff where everybody is constantly shooting eachother. Might be that it just would take more than the 30-45 minutes the demo gives you for me to get into it. Co-op could be fun, depending on how it is handled.

What did they drop the price of Lumines to? I remember looking at it when it came out, and it would cost something like $25-30 to get all the packs the had for it. Felt pricey for a Arcade game... I downloaded the free skin they have for Gold members right now only to find out you need to purchase the full version to be able to use it >:(

Word to the wise.

Read This

> Word to the wise.
>
> Read This
>

Well, honestly just about everything he griped about there could also be applied to Hotel Dusk. The real strength of Dusk was that the story was so well written and stayed interesting with constant new reveals and stringing the player along with hints of progress towards the overall goal. If the plot had sucked, I probably would have quit after a couple hours trying to get into it.

I don't know what the plot to Trace Memory is, but Dusk had the great hook of being a 70's era detective story and a cool looking art style. If the story in TM isn't up to par, I could see how all the flaws in the game would easily become exposed.

> > Word to the wise.
> >
> > Read This
> >
>
> Well, honestly just about everything he griped about there could also be applied
> to Hotel Dusk. The real strength of Dusk was that the story was so well written
> and stayed interesting with constant new reveals and stringing the player along
> with hints of progress towards the overall goal. If the plot had sucked, I
> probably would have quit after a couple hours trying to get into it.
>
> I don't know what the plot to Trace Memory is, but Dusk had the great hook of
> being a 70's era detective story and a cool looking art style. If the story in
> TM isn't up to par, I could see how all the flaws in the game would easily
> become exposed.
>


-nZero

Trace Memory is a mystery too and another optional mystery in tandem with that. It's more modern day, girl tries to find her lost dad out on this island and he was working on this project. You come across this ghost named D you can converse with, and if you play the game right and get all the clues you can find out why the kid died.

Game is like 1/4 the time it takes to get through Hotel Dusk but the writing is good and the game is fun to do, also has more interesting use of puzzles and system (closing system shut to stamp a sheet for instance) that keep it interesting. The true flaw really is that it just is short. Some people just like being asses and trashing on it as the plot wasn't their thing, but the gameplay is the same as Hotel Dusk and if the plot would appear interesting to you, you'll enjoy it.