Post here everytime you buy a new game/games

[ShenmueAddict]

In this topic, post up what youve recently got your hands on and your thoughts on it.

[ShenmueAddict]

Ill start the topic off, i recently went for a short break on the Isle of Wight, there are a few cool game shops over there which i visited, i bought the brand new dreamcast which i posted a pic of in another thread and i also picked up 4 games for my collection, these were; Test Drive 2: The Duel, Skeleton Crew, Record of Lodoss War & Looney Toons space race.



Test Drive 2: The Duel (Genesis) - I picked this up on a whim, i dident go out my way to find this game, but saw it sitting there on the shelf and it jumped out at me because i used to rent it when i was a kid so nostalgia made me buy it, was very risky at a fiver lol i was actually pleasently surprised, it was better than i remember it being! i love the fact its one of the very first "driving sims" rather than arcade racer, as you get an in car view with steering wheel and gauges, and rather than circuits its open road (like the first NFS) with a rival car, traffic, roadside cops and the need to stop for Gas! superb cheap buy.

Skeleton Crew (Megadrive) - another impulse buy just out of curiosity, more risky at a tenner, but i saw the "Core" logo and knew it couldent be bad. Turns out this is an awesome game, Isometric shooter with co-op mode or single player. Pumping soundtrack and lots of action, how had i not played or heard of this before? it has made me want to go out and buy "The Chaos Engine" on Megadrive, otherwise known as "Soldiers of Fortune" to your Americans, made by Bitmap Brothers so has got to be good (and it does look and sound excellent from video's ive seen)

Record of Lodoss War - This was on my "wants" , think i paid about £15 but was well worth it, was just as good as i remember it being 10 years ago, an awesome action rpg, am loving it again!

Looney Toons space race - Only ever played this as a Demo back in the day of ODM & loved it, always wanted the full version. Finally picked it up for a tenner , bargain IMO ive seen it go for more on Ebay, top game aswell, not disapointed at all with this one either.

Good haul this time round, very pleased. Its nice to actually go out and buy games in a shop for a change rather than ebay, and nice to buy retro games in a shop. Ashame GAME ruined GameStation by taking away their retro, i really miss browsing retro stuff. Love the Independants, but they are hard to find.

[Let's Get Sweaty!]

I recently bought Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for Xbox 360.

Many years ago I had NFS II on an old PC and it was the rarest of things - a racing game that I genuinely enjoyed playing. The courses were exotic and fun, the handling actually agreed with me for a change, and sharing the road with ordinary traffic was still a novelty in those days.

I soon picked up the next sequel, NFS 3: Hot Pursuit, which added the now familiar twist to proceedings. Speeding down country roads or through dark caverns with police sirens wailing behind me was a new kind of rush, and the graphics were amazing to me at the time - the cars seemed photorealistic!

Eventually I had to give up on my PC as a gaming machine, so when I finally got a Need For Speed game on the PS2 I looked forward to revisiting the fun I'd had with those early foundations of the series. But it wasn't to be. The game didn't click with me at all, the charm that had captivated me before had seemingly dripped out of the franchise like a leaky fuel tank. And that impression was reinforced by reviews and comments I'd read over the next few years, with NFS becoming synonymous with annual sequel syndrome, topping the Christmas charts on name value alone without delivering anything more than a lazy rehash creating more problems than it solved.

But now Criterion are involved. The makers of the Burnout series have turned their hand to the Need For Speed franchise, and so their reputation coupled with my lingering nostalgia for the excitement of those early titles convinced me to pick up the new Hot Pursuit once it became cheap.

And you know, I discovered something I wasn't expecting. In previous games, even NFS 3, I'd found it a thankless chore to play as the cops, never quite grasping how to succeed in a Chase HQ-style rundown. So it was with reluctance that I grudgingly tried my hand at a police mission in the new game's career mode. 24 seconds later, I'd nabbed my first culprit. The nitro boost delivers a powerful blow to your adversary when timed right, flipping them into submission and making policework a whole lot more achieveable than it had ever seemed before. And what's more, this is the first racing game where I've ever figured out how to drift properly!

So for me, revisiting the Need For Speed series has been a success and well worth the wait. I feel I still won't get as much out of the experience as in those halcyon days of yore, but it's just a relief to be able to play a racing game again and genuinely enjoy it.

[JoePesciAddict]

I bought I AM ALIVE from the PS3 online store. It has awful reviews from most media outlets but I find it fairly good for the price tag. It's intriguing and stressful, but ambitious and purposeful. It tries to expand on some decent game play mechanics that exist in great games already. As always, kind of QTE stuff and platforming a la Uncharted and Assassin's Creed. The controls can be a little frustrating at times, and it's not as expansive or exciting a sandbox as it could be. The gameplay tries to be logical and explore human psychology through its gameplay mechanics but sometimes can come across illogical and downright silly. Give it a 6.8 out of 10.

[GinfnersAddict]

The Walking Dead games make my willy go all hard. But only metaphorically. With the children so heavily involved in the games, a literal one would be a bad thing. It's not Savile - The Game. Although some of the zombies look strikingly similar... but I digress. It's good shit!