What are people playing lately?

[Santaria]

I am unbelievably bored at present of games and I'm wondering what people are playing these days. I prefer the RPG/MMO sort of dealy but at the moment I think a genre change is in order. What's everyone playing?

Give me a reason to part from my hard earned cash also. I need something new.

[Bauer]

SWAT4

LOL about $9 from EB

[smithcorp]

This, mostly. Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943. Little eastern European developer has made an amazing war game of the Kharkov battles. Pretty interesting approach. You play first in a strategic mode moving units onto squares, the AI has their turn, then the action switches to a 3D battlefield - a faithful replica of the terrain and towns, with historic units - and you play out the tactical battles that result. One strategic move might result in three tactical battles each of which last from 30 minutes to 2 hours (you can set the length) and can be played one after another (or days apart). The squares you fight over in each tactical battle might be 9 miles square or more and involve forces on adjacent squares!

It's UI takes a bit of getting used to, there's no multiplayer (yet) but it is an amazing experience, incredibly detailed and lifelike and lots of fun. I'm loving it and happy to recommend it - there's a demo. Demo is here: http://www.fileplanet.com/209928/200000 ... -1943-Demo

More info here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03 ... anzer-out/

Here's a long and screenshot heavy AAR I just posted elsewhere. Note that often the battles (the Operations generally represent 3 days or so) take place at night like this one. The previous tactical fight was some recon forces probing with a couple of minor clashes, but this battle was a proper fight. The screens are pretty dark.



I had an amazing fight in the town of Paseki near Taranovka last night. I’m playing the first Taranovka operation as Russians and after the opening Recon probe of Taranovka, the second fight was towards Paseki. The town straddles a hill and the key capture points were Paseki, South Paseki and North Paseki. It is still dark (the battle kicks off around 3am).

I had infantry only, no AT guns or tanks, against an expected probe by armoured recon, led by Krapp (snigger).

I dug my troops in and hid them in various houses in Paseki and North Paseki, expecting the German recon to come from the west and or north west (given the German holdings). It didn’t take long for things to start, with sounds of armour from the south. I at first assumed this was going to be halftracks like at Taranovka, but I got a surprise when my Maxim gun crew, who rapidly abandoned their gun, saw a Panzer 4 (Rudel) crash through a fence onto the village road in front of them.



As it drove between two houses (one of which was occupied by the Maxim crew Abramov) it was showered with Molotov cocktails and hand grenades, and brewed up, with the crew exiting on fire.





Another Panzer 4 (Dultz) and an SPG (Schadel) appeared and the Marder proceeded to take its revenge on Abramov’s squad, killing or wounding them all before the two tanks moved on westward. The knocked out Panzer continued to burn, with explosions as ammo cooked off, for the rest of the mission.





The Panzers continued north and split into two groups, to bump into another line of my hidden infantry in North Paseki and Dolomite. Rather than a recon probe, this appeared to be an armoured assault (though so far, on enemy infantry had been spotted. I had two platoons holding a line of houses around the North Paseki flag and Seidler’s PZ4 and Bergmann’s SPG parked themselves right in the middle of their position, while more armour (Dutz in a Pz4) appeared further along my position near Dolomite.

So far, all the enemy focus seemed to be on North Paseki, with a tank thrust deep into the position, towards the flag. For a few minutes the position was quiet, with the only sound being the idling of three tank engines and the ding of the notification that the Germans had control of the flag. Then, all along the line, Molotov cocktails and hand grenades started hitting tanks.







There was a vicious struggle for the position, with infantry versus tanks and self-propelled guns. While further west the German armour (Dutz) retreated from the assault, nearer the flag, Seidler and Bergmann put up a terrible fight, slaughtering most of two Russian infantry platoons before they were reduced to scrap and flames. The full horror of this uneven night time fight was clear at the end, with German and Russian bodies (some Germans in flames) scattered around the flaming wreckage of the two armoured vehicles.



A few more minutes and the destruction of all of the German armour around this flag was complete and it remained held by the now depleted Russian forces. The Germans had been repulsed. This was a stark lesson about the risks of using tanks in an attack unsupported by infantry.

However, as the battle for North Paseki was reaching a crescendo, the other shoe began to drop, with the main village of Paseki on the hillside being assaulted by halftrack-borne infantry, supported by tanks and self-propelled guns. The fight here started with German infantry, supported by halftracks entering Paseki via a village road which was a Russian kill sack, with squads secreted in houses on both sides of the road.



This must have been an awful experience for the German forces under Krapp (hehe) as they were attacked whichever way they turned. The infantry didn’t last long and the halftracks couldn’t find a safe place to stop, being under an almost constant rain of bullets, grenades and petrol bombs.






The AI attempted to flank the position, but ran into another line of hidden infantry aligned at 90 degrees to the road of death, with halftracks and infantry being bombarded as they attempted to get around the town. At one stage the darkness was lifted by a burning halftrack crewman who ran several hundred metres along the road on fire, next to a halftrack struggling to get out of the hail of projectiles. I could picture the halftrack crew cowering inside while this horror ran past them.






It didn’t go all the Russian’s way however, as a Russian Maxim gun team (Medvedev) was caught in the open by a German halftrack and all but one of the crew slaughtered, with the last member surrendering.





The Russian infantry, after beating off the halftracks, had to contend with a Pz4 (Dutz, who must have retreated from North Paseki) and a Marder (Holtze) which next drove into their position. An attack over open ground destroyed both vehicles and the town of Paseki returned to Russian control.






Around this time, I started seeing cease fire requests, which I ignored, thinking I had them on the run, against the odds. This was reinforced by green flares immediately afterwards indicating the Germans were retreating, and halftracks started driving off the map.




By this time there was only 10 or 15 minutes on the clock, so I sped up the time thinking my defence had been successful – however, things quickly started to go to custard as the Germans launched a counter-attack on the heights of Paseki town.

More halftrack-borne infantry appeared, supported by another Marder (I suppose these were reserves or forces the AI had sitting on a neutral flag) and this time my depleted infantry on the objective were insufficient to the task. In addition, some were out of position after hunting down fleeing tank crews and they were no match for the last German thrust.



As the clock counted down, my forces had been swept from the main Paseki town objective, while I still held North Paseki below it. I score a Minor Victory (the Germans had paid a high price in men and machines – I knocked out all but one of their armour) but the Germans were left holding the heights (though I’m not sure in what force – they may be able to be pushed off if I have the forces the next morning), which is a problem for me as my troops will be overlooked.

It’s definitely difficult to prevail as Russians in this game, as the Germans have a lot of equipment. The advantages are not as obvious at night however, when the nasty and brutish fighting possible using Russian infantry (particularly Molotov cocktails) can defeat armour at close quarters.

This is an exciting game and worth heaps more than the very reasonable asking price.

Thanks for looking!

smith

[DexterPunk]

wow @ your post.

Im playing GTA4, Rome, Medieval, and Empire Total war.... Havnt got Napolean yet... i think Bad Company 2 is going to come before that. Mate of mine bought it on ebay for $20 Had a go of RUSE.. seems ok. GTA4 is by far the best game Ive played in recent times. Oh, I bought Company of Heros as well but ive played that before... awesome game.

[smithcorp]

I have NTW, which I've played a bit of, but at the moment, I'm fired up for Achtung Panzer.

[r8response]

Battlefield Bad Company 2

[nutty]

Battlefield Bad Company 2

This time 1000x

[Santaria]

@ Smithy: WALL OF TEXT! But I read it. I'll definitely have a look at this.

@ r8 and Nutty: Isn't it basically just Battlefield 2? At least, that's the impression I got from game play videos etc etc.

[nutty]

Its Battlefield 2 on massive amounts of roids.

Rush is one of the best game types in a game in a long time, and destructable environments are insane.
Checkout the thread on it

[Dan]

Its BF2 on smaller scale to be honest

[DexterPunk]

That's one thing that concerns me... I loved bf2 because it was 64 players fighting it out.. Isn't BC2 less?? That's going backwards!! I want 128 players!

[richo]

Battlefield Bad Company 2

This time 1000x

Loving it when it works but fuck me EA have some answering to do to release something this buggy.

[Johnny X]

I've been through a bit of a change myself lately. Had been pounding my way through MW2 but got tired of the crap that is IWnet and hackers. Have got back into a bit of retro-gaming lately and ressurected my messing around with emulators. They don't cost anything and have had a blast using ePSXe to run Ridge Racer and Wipeout. Also been messing with Dolphin (Gamecube emu) and playing Metroid Prime and Zelda - Wind Waker on that.

As far as bought games go (cough) I've been giving Sins of a Solar Empire a go, an RTS thats a cross between Frontier/Elite and The Settlers, gorgeous visuals, on line multiplay too Currently wading into Metro 2033, quite surprised that my mid-range pc can actually run this and can only imagine that it must look stunning on a high end pc. It's basically a FPS but with a bit of a twist

[ysu]

bfbc2 as well.

[Gizmo]

Seeing as your all talking about FPS, does anyone still play ArmA2? I loved that game.....

You could always bolt the wheel back on and hop back into iRacing

[thornz]

Dirt 2 and NFS Shift at the moment. With the tyre mods NFS is actually quite fun, was rubbish before I added the tyre mod, but great fun now blasting round in paganis and lambos

[Santaria]

I play Dirt 2 on and off and the last NFS game I played was Pro or something like that... it was painful.

Playing Moutn and Blade a bit and Oblivion every now and then with a metric fuckton of mods. But still... meh.

[r8response]

Torchlight: For a little bit of hack n slash.

Tropico 3: When i feel like being an evil dictator.

rFactor: Do a bit of league racing over at XGN using the Historx mod on wednesday nights and Porsche Carrera Cup on thursday nights

[Robbo]

Mount and Blade. Waiting for Warband.

[Bauer]

Currently wading into Metro 2033, quite surprised that my mid-range pc can actually run this and can only imagine that it must look stunning on a high end pc. It's basically a FPS but with a bit of a twist

Tried that myself just today. I haven't had much of a look yet but I will once my Swat 4 novelty wears off Looked the good though.

[KNAPPO]

SWAT4

Ahh i remember getting into that with a mate years ago. "Breach Bang & Clear"

[durbster]

I recently played Half Life again (well, the Source version) and that is still a fantastic game. I borrowed Mirror's Edge off a mate and completed that - very nice game that, much better than I expected.

Now I'm onto Company of Heroes, a WW2 RTS, and it's absolutely brilliant. Far more engaging than other strategy games and when the shit hits the fan it gets really intense. Love it.

[r8response]

Mount and Blade. Waiting for Warband.

Got into the Warband beta, but haven't been bothered to download it and give it a test

Now I'm onto Company of Heroes, a WW2 RTS, and it's absolutely brilliant. Far more engaging than other strategy games and when the shit hits the fan it gets really intense. Love it.

Such an excellent RTS, only problem i have with it is the patches. Why they can't just release a fully updated patch. Instead you need to literally install 15 patches one by one

[DexterPunk]

I recently played Half Life again (well, the Source version) and that is still a fantastic game. I borrowed Mirror's Edge off a mate and completed that - very nice game that, much better than I expected.

Now I'm onto Company of Heroes, a WW2 RTS, and it's absolutely brilliant. Far more engaging than other strategy games and when the shit hits the fan it gets really intense. Love it.

COH is brilliant.. great LAN'd too..

I couldnt get into Mirrors edge for some reason.

[Johnny X]

I enjoy a run around on Mirrors Edge every now and then Allways wondered why nobody has done a footy game or maybe even cricket from that perspective... even better than that how about Speedball