Whatcha playin? (Video games wise.)

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
Do Gamestop reincarnate dead PS3s as grills?
That gave me an idea for my next case mod.

gVGzoaZ.png



Montana Smith said:
Really loving GTA IV now. Just had the most incredible car chase across the city, hunting down Lyle Rivas. Almost as much of a workout for the heart as my daily 3 mile run!
And you've still got miles to go. If such an early-level mission already gave you thrills, just wait 'til you get around to late-game stuff, such as 'Three Leaf Clover'.


Speaking of which, Sleeping Dogs really knows how to pull off some impressive chases as well, both on-foot, in-vehicle and in-between. I was a bit disappointed to find out that the former isn't as freeform as advertised (definitely a far cry from, say, any Assassin's Creed game), but in a sense the limitations in movement mean more tightly-knit stuff, leading to some extremely cinematic moments, that still aren't fully scripted.

For example, there was this one mission where I first had to chase a guy through a burning industrial building, then drag him out half-running with explosions all around, and when we got out, he took off again, this time in a car, forcing me to give pursuit on a bike. It finally ended when I jumped on board his vehicle in full speed on a highway. Most of it was admittedly going down exactly as the devs intended, but it wasn't that much directed to make me feel that I had no control of the events as a player.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Finn said:
It finally ended when I jumped on board his vehicle in full speed on a highway. Most of it was admittedly going down exactly as the devs intended, but it wasn't that much directed to make me feel that I had no control of the events as a player.

This was lifted almost verbatim from an otherwise forgettable entry in Hong Kong's Go For Broke cinema of the nineties. Too bad I can't remember the name of the damn movie at the moment. It was done without wire work or CG effects, and was absolutely jaw dropping that they were a.) even allowed to attempt it and b.) managed to pull it off.

There was another one where the principles are fighting over a young girl who just happens to be suspended between two cars as they barrel down the freeway.

Now I'm going to need to root around in my VHS tapes.
 
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Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
This was lifted almost verbatim from an otherwise forgettable entry in Hong Kong's Go For Broke cinema of the nineties. Too bad I can't remember the name of the damn movie at the moment. It was done without wire work or CG effects, and was absolutely jaw dropping that they were a.) even allowed to attempt it and b.) managed to pull it off.
Hardly surprised. Video game devs are notorious for picking off the cool bits from all kinds of movies and remaking them. A game like Sleeping Dogs, given how it deals with specific culture and the entertainment related to it (even though it is very much a western product), is likely full of them.

I'm a casual connoisseur of the Hong Kong cinema at best, so I can't call 'em out in the same manner as those in, say, GTA IV for example, but I've no doubt there's plenty more where that came from.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Nurhachi1991 said:
I'm playing some mutha scratchin Game Cube dawg's! Dat Cube!

#MarioKartDoubleDash #ZeldaTwilightPrincess


DAT CUBE

Wha 'gwan, Rasta 'hachi?

Talkin' of coobs, I az finally beaten QUB3D.

On Friday, breda, I played for hours an' got nowhere.

Saturday I figured out destroying coobs, an' scored 13,400.

Den da ras clot Roman calls an' I accidentally cancel iz call. I tink he may be unhappy so I quit da game, forgettin' I 'adn't saved ma score. Bumbaclot!

But now I figured it out, seen?

Da game is nuttin' to challenge a breda. I and I hit da strip joint again an' got a score of 11,325. I waz happy wit tat.

I been spending too much time with Little Jacob.

One love.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Arkham Asylum Game of the Year for the PC arrived.

It was a brand new, sealed copy from an Ebay business seller, but the disc is faulty and won't install. :mad:

One of the files is unreadable and returns the message "Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Check)".

Googling that information brings this up as a fairly common complaint with Arkham Asylum. A big batch of faulty discs?

One suggested workaround is to copy all the files from the disc to a folder and install from there. Seemed to work for at least one person, but the file is still unreadable for me.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
One of the files is unreadable and returns the message "Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Check)".
That error can actually refer to four possible faulty things: Bad disc, bad file on disc, bad DVD drive, or bad HDD.

To determine it's not the latter two, it's prudent to make sure the drive can read any other discs just fine, and run CHKDSK.


With those out of the way...

Montana Smith said:
One suggested workaround is to copy all the files from the disc to a folder and install from there. Seemed to work for at least one person, but the file is still unreadable for me.
But the copy to folder process went fine, you say, meaning the onus appears to be on a bad file?


If it's really a bad copy, three means to advance:

1. Demand a replacement.
2. Demand a refund, go for another source.
3. If you've the know-how, just grab an illegal copy off the web.

In the case of option #3, it actually even is legal in some corners of the Earth, given one is already an owner of a paid copy. Don't know what's the copyright law in ole' England, but I know this: Regardless of local legalese, it is NOT morally dubious.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Finn said:
That error can actually refer to four possible faulty things: Bad disc, bad file on disc, bad DVD drive, or bad HDD.

To determine it's not the latter two, it's prudent to make sure the drive can read any other discs just fine, and run CHKDSK.


With those out of the way...

But the copy to folder process went fine, you say, meaning the onus appears to be on a bad file?


If it's really a bad copy, three means to advance:

1. Demand a replacement.
2. Demand a refund, go for another source.
3. If you've the know-how, just grab an illegal copy off the web.

In the case of option #3, it actually even is legal in some corners of the Earth, given one is already an owner of a paid copy. Don't know what's the copyright law in ole' England, but I know this: Regardless of local legalese, it is NOT morally dubious.

The disc drives are fine. It's just one file on the disc that refuses to be copied, either from the install or manually to a folder.

I did look at downloading that file, but searching for "data3.cab" "Arkham Asylum" keeps bringing up the same page with different addresses. I clicked on one link and my anti-virus detected Malware.


I've reported the problem to the seller. They have 27,605 positives (99.1%), though the negatives report they aren't very responsive.

This is the first time I've ever had trouble with a new disc, and now I'm in limbo until or if they contact.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
If you're saying the file refuses to come off the disc no matter what, then it definitely sounds like a bad disc.

In such a case, there is one more trick you can try: grab the data3.cab off it to a folder using this utility, which is designed to ignore any CRC errors.

Won't guarantee a success, but given how we're dealing with simple data here, no harm in trying it either.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Finn said:
If you're saying the file refuses to come off the disc no matter what, then it definitely sounds like a bad disc.

In such a case, there is one more trick you can try: grab the data3.cab off it to a folder using this utility, which is designed to ignore any CRC errors.

Won't guarantee a success, but given how we're dealing with simple data here, no harm in trying it either.


Thanks for the tip.

Downloaded the Unstoppable Copier, but it seems to have stopped at the same place as before. It can only grab 93.1% of the file. :(
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
The Drifter said:
I replaced him yesterday. I bought a 120 gb slim from a friend of mine.

Well, good. I was going to offer up fifty bucks towards its replacement.

Montana Smith said:
This is the first time I've ever had trouble with a new disc, and now I'm in limbo until or if they contact.

I'm sure your local high street shops will be able to help you out. Plus, there's none of that hoping that your seller cares enough to reply to your problem.

Finn said:
A game like Sleeping Dogs, given how it deals with specific culture and the entertainment related to it (even though it is very much a western product), is likely full of them.

There's been a few things that seem familiar, but I can't quite place them. The leaping from your car onto your quarry's immediately stood out, though. It's hard to forget that moment.

I didn't have a Blockbuster growing up. No, my local video store was, well, Asian run. The latest and greatest movies from China, Hong Kong, Japan, et al occupied the same shelf as the current Hollywood releases. While the rest of the world was watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day, I had discovered John Woo's Heavy Handed Gun God aka Hard-Boiled.

So, yeah, if anybody here is interested in fleshing out their collection of Hong Kong action movies, here's a sampling of some of the better movies in my collection:

The works of John Woo's Hong Kong years belong in any movie enthusiast's library, but particularly The Killer, Hard Boiled, & Bullet in the Head. Woo was the first director I encountered who understood that all action is dance.

I would be flogged for not mentioning A Better Tomorrow as well.

Ringo Lam's City on Fire & Prison on Fire are highly recommended as well. If I had to choose though, I would seek out Full Contact with Chow Yun-Fat.

Infernal Affairs was famously remade by Scorsese as The Departed. Yet, it and its sequel are not to be missed. Especially if you're going to play Sleeping Dogs, since they seem to have been the main source of inspiration. You wouldn't go wrong with following those two up with Running Out of Time and its sequel.

Fulltime Killer is a pan-Asian crime thriller about rival hitmen and the cops caught between them. Follow that up with Heroes Never Die, and you'll have a nice double feature. You could even toss in Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels for good measure.

Beast Cops, The Mission, Mad Detective, Election & Triad Election, Exiled, Sha Po Lang, Dog Bites Dog: These are all definitely worth seeing as well. All of those should flesh out the police/crime thriller genre nicely.

I thought about doing a list of martial arts films, but there's just so many to choose from. Operation Scorpio is personal favorite, and I am really, really looking forward to finally seeing Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmasters.

Finn said:
If we're to think about examples of how collectibles are implemented in a game, City is textbook.

Unlike, say, The Amazing Spider-Man which I've took a diversion into. There's something like a thousand collectables in the game, and they're of the hunt through every back alley, rooftop, and side street for them. There's no real gameplay incentive to find them, but they do unlock digital versions of the pivotal stories in Spider-Man's life which is kind of cool.

Finn said:
So, who says video games can't be educational?

Of course! I can trace back my interest in history and geography to that elusive femme fatale in the red trench coat. Well, her and the fourth grade teacher that introduced us.

Fantastic theme song too.!

More later. This post is already long enough.
 
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Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
There's been a few things that seem familiar, but I can't quite place them. The leaping from your car onto your quarry's immediately stood out, though. It's hard to forget that moment.
Well, like I said, the Asian cinema is not completely unknown to me. Out of the ones you listed, I actually have seen Hard Boiled and Infernal Affairs. The former, incidentally, actually had a sequel made for it in form of a video game, titled John Woo's Stranglehold. It was a fun game, revolving around this cinematic and extremely garish shooting mechanic, much akin to Max Payne.

What comes to Infernal Affairs, I'd be plenty surprised if Sleeping Dogs did NOT contain any references towards it, given how they both deal with pretty much the same premise, a cop going undercover into the triads.


Le Saboteur said:
Of course! I can trace back my interest in history and geography to that elusive femme fatale in the red trench coat. Well, her and the fourth grade teacher that introduced us.
Naturally, there are games that are designed with education in mind, the adventures of Ms. Sandiego being a prime example. However, my humorous comment was rather referring to ones that are NOT specifically geared towards it, but mainstream titles that end up having such an effect as a side product. After all, it's kinda easier to sell a doubtful parent something that is proven "edutainment" than, say, a title that mainly appears to be about a hooded guy traversing the rooftops, shanking people.

Incidentally, I've also come across a handful of scholarly studies that plainly state that every video game, regardless of setting, may not be a waste of time, given how they can enhance different talents, such as problem solving or fine motor skills.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Thanks to Finn for off-thread help with my Arkham issue.

Don't want to bore everyone with this mini-saga, but suffice to say that the Ebay seller has agreed to refund the game on its return by Freepost.

Turns out the seller, 'I Want One Of Those', has a webstore of the same name.

I was curious about the Freepost code part of the address. Having never seen the like of it before I wondered if it was real (since this IWOOT company doesn't have the best of reputations on one review site I looked at).

The address I was given was:

Returns Dept.
IWOOT
Freepost RSKX-KLCH-ZKTX
Unit 10 Stretton Distribution Centre
Grappenhall Lane
Appleton
Warrington
WA4 4QT


Googling 'Freepost RSKX-KLCH-ZKTX' brought up:


zavvi.com
Freepost RSKX-KLCH-ZKTX
Unit 10
Stretton Distribution Centre
Grappenhall Lane
Appleton
WARRINGTON
WA4 4QT


IWOOT is another arm of Zavvi. Even their terms and conditions page on returns is identical.


Anyway, in need of a Bat fix, before hearing from IWOOT, I ordered a copy of Arkham City GOTY from a different source. I'll pick up another Asylum later.
 

The Drifter

New member
Le Saboteur said:
Well, good. I was going to offer up fifty bucks towards its replacement.

Aww, thanks for the thought. That really means a lot to me. :hat: I've been playing DMC on the new (new to me) system, and I am happy to say it sure feels good to be able to cut the system on on the first try. There for awhile, my old one would beep, blink and cut off until it just died.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Arkham City GOTY arrived today.

woo1.gif



Graphics look very good, and it plays very smoothly, which was something I was concerned might be an issue with my system.

Combat appears very fluid (and cinematic) and perfectly suited for keys and mouse. Though there are quite a few combat options to choose from, so it'll take a little while getting used to all the controls.

I was content watching Catwoman walk round the room. ;) (She crawls rather nicely as well).


EDIT: What's Marion doing in this post? Don't recall selecting her!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
With instinctive climbing, gliding, bat-roping/whipping and grabbing, although Arkham City is huge, you can cross it very quickly ? it?s fluid like the combat.

The third person viewpoint has never been so accessible as it is here. So different to controlling Niko in GTA IV, where I often have trouble lining him up to get through a doorway!

I beat the Gladiator Pit and Solomon Grundy on my first attempts, and after that you really feel you are controlling ?the goddamn Batman.?

However, stick him in a room with five armed guards who won?t separate easily, it becomes a very different matter. Have to start thinking in Splinter Cell mode.

Some of the Riddler?s puzzles are fiendishly difficult (well, impossible at the moment!), as is the third Augmented Reality physical challenge.

I only just found out I should've been destroying balloons, penguins and cameras.

There?s a great sense of atmosphere throughout, with the anarchy, insanity, and sadistic locations such as Penguin?s macabre museum.

The game is even better than I hoped it would be.


I?ve read differing answers on what happens when you complete the story part of the game. Some say there?s no going back after you go into the last location, and others say that you can continue the game after finishing the story mode.

Is there a definitive answer for the PC version?
 
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Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
Is there a definitive answer for the PC version?
Back when I played it, you could definitely go back after the end and free roam out of your heart's content, hunting any trophies and such you may have missed.

In fact, I think that there are some which are only available after the end.


Also, the Harley Quinn DLC (which I haven't bothered to check out, honestly) included in the GOTY is supposed to happen after the story proper's finale, so it would make little sense not to let the player get back to the world once it is finished.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Finn said:
Back when I played it, you could definitely go back after the end and free roam out of your heart's content, hunting any trophies and such you may have missed.

In fact, I think that there are some which are only available after the end.

Also, the Harley Quinn DLC (which I haven't bothered to check out, honestly) included in the GOTY is supposed to happen after the story proper's finale, so it would make little sense not to let the player get back to the world once it is finished.


That's good. I wondered whether the Harley part would be self-contained. Considering how big the game is it does make sense to allow you to go back to the world just as you left it before completing the final mission.


I met Calendar Man while playing as Catwoman, and as there seemed to be little interaction (because he's part of Batman's quest) I looked up his part in the game. Read something about meeting him when the date in reality matches the date he gives you in-game.

While that's a true leap out of game into life, it also seems very limiting. So much so that people have been amending their system dates to speed up the process.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
While that's a true leap out of game into life, it also seems very limiting. So much so that people have been amending their system dates to speed up the process.
Apparently all you get out of it is some extra (non plot-critical) dialogue and a gamerscore achievement.

So, unless you really base your personal pride on achievements like that, just look up the snippets on YouTube.
 
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