What video games are you playing? pt. 2

[T-6005]

Still playing FIFA 10 - not the world Cup version. It's really good once you play on a higher difficulty because most of what people complain about goes away and you have to think about your defensive play. It's still far too hard to defend, but if defense were flawless there'd be no goals in the game so I can't hate it too much.

Also playing Resonance of Fate. I really, really like this battle system even though it is almost laughably difficult to grasp without spending a few hours playing the game.

[mrconeman]

My problem with Fifa (I'm still playing Fifa 09, because I don't watch football at all, but the games are always fun) is that on the easiest difficulties, you win every game no matter what the team is, by about 5 goals. On the medium difficulties, you win every game, by about 3 goals, then on the hardest difficulties it's not that the other team seem to tactically improve, they simply are faster than you, and more accurate than your keeper can ever hope to cope with. It doesn't become more difficult, it becomes unfair. That said you can still win.

[T-6005]

Fifa 10 has 5 difficultly levels. I play on professional. I know that it seems annoying at first, but knowing how to jockey is key for defending, as well as being willing to take a yellow card for the team once every few matches.

That said, Professional's still not that hard, I'm just not good at the game. I usually win games by 1-0 or 2-1, but I give away a goal or two every few games just because I'm crap at defense. Then again, I play with teams that are just bad at defense. I just finished a season with the LA Galaxy (I became a huge fan of Landon Donovan during the world cup) in MLS of all things and got knocked out of the cup by DC, which I later met in league and demolished 4-0. It's not fun if you can't lose, though!

Well, it is. But in a completely different way.

[mrconeman]

Oh no, I'm the exact same, I play Fifa 09 on Professional aswell, and get pretty much the same results you mentioned, for pretty much the same reasons, but theres 1 or two more difficulty levels past that (1?) I know when you go past Pro, it's not challenging, it's unfair, which is something I notice in games all the time. The highest difficulty is almost never just designed to test your skills a bit more than the difficulty below it, it flat out just tips the odds in the games favour. The old Mortal Kombat games are the perfect example.

Once you go to hard difficulty, it is completely impossible to play, because as the game obviously registers every move you're going to make, because you're controlling it to do so, your opponent is instantly programmed to take an action that will counter/over-rule yours. It's bullshit. You're forced to either get really good at the easier difficulties and just end up winning all of the time without reasonable challenge, or playing an impossible difficulty until you want to rip out your own eyeballs in some kind of self fatality. That being said Mortal Kombat 2 is one of my favourite games of all time.
p.s. what are you using, Xbox or PS3?

[T-6005]

PS3. Not only do I only own a PS3, but having been to 2 Halo parties I refuse to believe the X360 controller could give me the same satisfaction in controlling that the Sixaxis can.

Having said that, I've tried not to hate the X360 as a shitty piece of hardware. I've tried to like it because of fantastic exclusives like Mass Effect 2 and Alan Wake and... well, that's really it. Maybe Crackdown 2? If they release another few good exclusives I might consider investing my hard-earned cash into what is essentially a toaster-level contraption with some game-playing capabilities. Also I hear new Xboxes have a failure rate of less than 20%... as if that's a number to be proud of.

[mrconeman]

While usually staying completely the hell away from the console wars, I myself personally didn't see any attraction at all to the 360, and still don't, can't stand the controller, and it has been awhile since I really played one (most of my friends eventually bought ps3's so any parties/gatherings it's either a wii or a ps3 these days) so I can't comment on the current exclusives, but for a long time I wasn't interested in any of it's exclusives at all.

I will say with complete openness and lack of guilt though, I am, was and most likely always will be a sony fanboy. I own a PS1, PS2, PS3 and a PSP. All of which I bought for good reason mind, and genuinely still use all of them (I still have some pirated PS1 games that I can play on my chipped ps1)

Really the only reason I asked was to add you if you had a PS3 like me, what's your ID on there? Perhaps we'll get a game of something sometime.

[T-6005]

I have a bandwidth cap, so I never game online. FIFA 10 might convince me otherwise, though. I do quite enjoy it.

Still, the drying up of quality single-player experiences makes me extremely sad. RPGs made to be played online make me particularly depressed.

Still, I love my PS3. I feel like there's a lot to like about the quality of the content an Xbox can deliver, but I can't deal with a truly preposterous hardware failure rate and a controller that just doesn't feel right in my hands.

[Adriann]

I playz da MW2 on PS3

[jacknife737]

Broke out my old copy of Age of Empires III the other day: was a fun nostalgia rush. It's a pretty solid game too.

Mostly though, it's been Day of Defeat - Source.

[Paint_It_Black]

Broke out my old copy of Age of Empires III the other day: was a fun nostalgia rush. It's a pretty solid game too.

Oh man, I loved that game. You have the Conquerors expansion of course?

Still playing FIFA 10

Me too. Like you I hate the Xbox controller, and like Coneman I'm a bit of a Sony fan in general. So of course I'm playing it on PS3. Professional is definitely the setting to go with. I can kick it up further and get more realistic results, but I don't really want realistic results. I want to win 3 out of 4 games but feel like every game was challenging. It feels like as I increase the difficulty only a few things really change. I miss the goal more. My opponent saves more of my shots. And my opponent becomes more accurate.

Have you played the World Cup game? I played it a little bit on my friend's Xbox and it actually seems significantly better than 2010. Even though I was playing it on the hated Xbox. At least the button configuration is still the same between the PS3 and Xbox so I was able to pick it up and dominate having never played on Xbox before. That was nice. But yeah, anyway, I'm almost definitely going to eventually get the World Cup game even though I already have 2010.