With copious amounts of time from our staff members spent playing Diablo III this weeks ‘What We’ve Been Playing’ may be rather lop sided. Alas, there is always those frustrating times when the servers are down and we do find other games to play while we wait patiently.
Daniel:
Much like Rincewind the Wizzard of Discworld, my Wizard Serif ran screaming through dangerous areas followed by the sounds of feet stomping enemies into oblivion. Having finished the short yet satisfying storyline of Diablo III I was informed that three quarters of the game still lay ahead of me. I can’t pull myself to sit through the same story and mindless banter from NPC companions in a harder difficulty, I’ve resolved to slay demons with the company of friends with more entertaining mindless banter.
Thanks to Chazz ranting about DayZ and Zombie attacks in the news I had to purchase ArmA 2: Combined Operations just so I could download the free DayZ mod. My first attempt found me spawned on a beach in the darkness before dawn. After crawling around on my belly for an hour or so without direction I resolved to stay put until morning praying the Zed wouldn’t notice how tasty my legs looked in the rising light. They noticed.
Senior Stiv:
Working like a dog this week, but I’ve still been able to fit in sufficient amounts of Max Payne 3. I’ve beat the campaign and now I’m making my attempt at collecting all of the golden gun parts. Already have several being carried in my holster.
Also with my internet and mouse back I’ve been playing some Morrowind, Deus Ex and continuing with the Max Payne theme, I’ve been playing the original. That constipated grimace is still hilarious even after eight years. Of all the things to be holding back in a gunfight.
Tunesmith:
Like a lot of the other staff here at NFG and presumably the rest of the known universe, I too have been sinking my teeth into Diablo III over the last few weeks. My playtime has been a little restricted due to some hectic University commitments, but I have managed a full play through of normal mode on my barbarian, Acolyte. For all the criticisms that are being thrown around, I have no issue admitting that I am having a lot of fun. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as leaping onto a creature and watching it squelch underneath you or charging into one and watching its flesh fly across the room while its skeleton remains immobile at the point of impact.
At the moment I’m more interested in getting a feel for the classes, so I’m moving onto a wizard before I continue to plow through the higher difficulty modes. One of my main criticisms is the sound track: I haven’t found it anywhere near as engaging or mood defining as previous games (Starcraft, Diablo) and quite often I find that it sounds very similar to what I remember from Starcraft 2. However, I will continue to fight demonic minions for the next few weeks and see if my opinion changes.
Rubberduck:
This week has been a very productive week of gaming for yours truly. I managed to finish the story on Max Payne 3 early on in the week. I’ve said it on Twitter but I’ll say it again here: to me it’s Game of the Year 2012. It’s an absolutely awesome game and story that is superbly acted and animated. Personally I’d say it’s Rockstar Games’ best work ever and possibly one of the best game ever made. I plan on going through again on a harder difficulty level.
I also played through Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days for the second time. It has it’s flaws but for pure adrenaline-filled action action you can’t do much better. It has a cool story and the “mobile phone” visual style is fantastic and really adds to the immersion of the game.
I have also returned to some of Rockstar Games early work and restarted GTA IV and L.A. Noire (L.A.N). Both absolute classics that are still better than most games on the market. L.A.N especially, looks amazing and has still not been matched in terms of visual splendour.
Like I said, productive.
