Favourite computer games of all time.

I dont have any favourite computer games of all time.

Halo 4 isn't going to be on the PC.
I got the limited edition for the 360 on release day though

I got a mesage from my little brother earlier to inform me he had just completed the single player in Halo 4- he reckoned it was 4-5 hours long.
4-5 hours- I've had Sunday morning dumps take longer than that! 4-5 hours for £40! The world has gone mad- a single player campaign should be a minimum of 25-30 hours.

He did say it looked stunning however- but as an old skool gamer for whom a couple of blurry sprites will do if they are attached to solid gameplay- I dont care to much about that and not at all if the game sucks.

If you think Halo 4's campaign is short, play any other first person shooter's campaign; Halo will look like War and Peace! But yeah it is a growing problem with FPS's. Too much emphasis on the multiplayer.
Halo 4's campaign can take a long time depending on the difficulty it's played on. Besides I thought the story was great. The game really explores the Chief's character and his relationship with Cortana. Even though she's the machine and he's the human, the roles are blurred in a matter of speaking. I thought it was neat subtext. Also 343 is doing something innovating with the multiplayer mode. Weekly episodic stories called Spartan Ops with ten episodes a season. I hope more FPS's do this: Expand the story past the campaign.

This is where I think the con is- those ops episodes should have been in the game you bought.
These days it seems they make a game then they say- right how much of this can we take back out, repackage and either sell it as dlc or use it to get people coming to our sites regularly for the next year?

Its just a marketing ploy, the 4-5 hours of game you buy for your £40 should have all those ops missions in there- then youd have a respectable single player campaign- I mean I'm on about 200+ hours in Skyrim. Even a game as striped down as ME3 still clocks up about 30-40 hours of single player.

I really don't like or trust this trend for cutting games into bits, selling what is basically just a big demo (but at the price of what were formely complete games), and then using dlc this way.

I agree 100% about exploitative DLC becoming more prominent in AAA titles. Halo 4 already has 3 map packs announced. Mass Effect 3 had Javik as a DLC. But map packs are for the multiplayer, you don't need those to get the story; still doesn't make it right, but there it is. People need to stop buying them and then companies will stop doing it.
The Ops are in the game proper though: No additional fees or anything to get them, Just complete the campaign and the story continues through the Ops. I like the idea of episodes and seasons because that means the story can continue for much longer.

There's also replay-ability to consider. There's a lot fun in trying to complete a difficult level on the hardest difficulty with every additional difficulty modifier - like enemies have 2x the amount of health, or enemies drop no ammo, or health doesn't recharge unless you use a melee attack. I remember two weeks ago playing Reach with a couple of friends on the last level with the hardest difficulty and all skulls on - it took 5 hours right there, 312 minutes according to the timer.

That is why FF7 is my favourite game. Even if you strip out all the side games and all the levelling up etc and focused on just the story, you are talking a good 40-50 hours of gameplay.

Not only that but it was cutting edge graphics at the time, the fighting system was great, the story was deep and the characters were ones you could really get involved with.

I think the side missions alone were longer than some AAA list full games today.

REDORAN HOUSE ARMOUR? SET IN BLOODMOON? WE'RE COMING HOME BABY.

New stuff! New things to fight (Canthiss will be sooo happy, Lydia I suspect less so)

They should chuck in the East Empire Company mining colony quests, you know, for old time sake. I wonder how they'll create Solstheim? Just update the old version graphically, or create it all over again?

All new I would think- all new creation kit, all new lighting and stuff- should be good.

I meant more along the terms will they be sticking closely to the geography of Bloodmoon? Will everything be the same except look prettier?

Well its set in a different time period so I would expect some changes. Be a bit odd otherwise- the land that time forgot.

Looking at the trailer; there's a mushroom on the shore of Solstheim which is already wrong. Shame Morrowind was destroyed, really.

Wrong? Wrong place? Wrong type of mushroom? Wrong colour? Learn to be more precise!

They were found in the Ascadian Isles which of course by Skyrim's time had been virtually destroyed. Don't remember seeing them in Solstheim though.

Thats better.
Perhaps some of their seeds floated from the islands when they were destroyed.

I have no idea what you are wittering on about you two, but it sounds like crunchy gravel.

I really like how in touch Bethesda is with the modding community.
Many popular mods have in some way found themselves in DLC. The build able home mod, I think was the direct inspiration for Hearthfire and all the different mount mods are likely why we're seeing mountable dragons in this DLC.

Not sure about Bethesda and th emodd community- there are some problems withthe creation kit that have been flagged up almost since release they still havent bothered fixing- and when they released the last official mod- the vampire on- it was incompatible with, and broke almost every major popular mod out there.
It made such a mess of my game I had reinstall from scratch.

You given xenonauts a go yet Petty? I have been trying to play it but since it is still in Alpha, it keeps bloody crashing on me and not all of the technology descriptions and that are in there.

Game seems like it will be good though... alien ships have escorts with them!

No I havent got round to it yet Lance- but its on my to-do list!
Might wait for a finished product though- got enough games crash out in the middle as is!

I love Bethesda, petty.
I'm no modder, but I hear (mainly from the Merp team) that the CK is better than the version available for Oblivion. I mean at least Bethesda gave the community a mod kit; Bioware instead chose to insult their fans by calling it too complex for them to handle.

My main point is that Bethesda takes certain elements of popular or interesting mods and gives them to the console crowd. Bethesda thinks in the long term and I like them for that. Good service equals loyal customers. Except for maybe the PS3 crowd right now.

The CK this time out is infinetly easier to use than Oblivions was I'd say- with a watch of a few vids on youtube and following some straight forward guides you can be building a dungeon in no time.
As always its in the scripting the tricky stuff lies.

Well Halo 4 was released last week and earned $220 Million in its first 24 hours, the best release of the year. It was likely broken by Black Ops 2, though. Well find out when Activision releases the numbers.