A save current game feature. Not to break the roguelike permadeath, but just to allow you to pause a game session that can last a few hours once you've unlocked all the extra levels.

Did you get the Wrath of the Lamb expansion with it? 

not yet.

Another thing that annoys me is that it seems to be very poorly coded, with tremendous slowdown issues for what is a simple 2d sprite game. Might be something to do with the fact that it is made in Flash, but I have seen very complex Flash stuff before that doesn't have these problems. 

Haha, seems like a good idea for a mash up.
http://www.moddb.com/games/isomer/ 

it seems to be very poorly coded

There are literally moments in the game where items have opposite effects than intended because the coder can't reliably substract by a negative number.

Good on you not getting Wrath yet, its biggest strength is that initial "this is like some crazy bootleg ROM hack" reaction after getting acclimatized with the old game. 

Yeah never really got into Isaac because of the slowdowns. And the theme too, actually (although I would have loved it in 1994). 

Definitely.

And yeah, the slowdown is flash... but could have been avoided - other flash games have much more efficient flow.

Roll on HTML5. 

Finally got around to playing this.

(Note - I'm playing it on the Xbox, but if I posted in the "console games" thread, no-one would read it, so I'm posting here.)

Thoughts. Not sure how far through I am (just killed a huge plant monster boss), but I do like the skillshot mechanics and being rewarded for using your environment and whatnot to kill enemies. That stuff's really really great. Spending your points to buy basic ammo is pretty naff though.

Environments look very nice and Unreal Enginey - if I was to nitpick I could say that I think everything is maybe a bit too homogeneously busy and noisy - making it sometimes difficult to figure out what's important and what's not.

I pretty much don't like everything else though.

The worst is the character dialogue - every single line spoken is just about the most obnoxious shit that has ever assaulted my eardrums, and the 14-year old that wrote it needs to stand in the corner for a good long while (for like, say, forever).

It honestly makes Gears of Wars' dialogue sound like Shakespeare.

Environments and encounters are super linear, which incidently is a hilarious "fuck you" to the paying customers that were suckered in by that CoD piss-take video the developers produced before this game was released, as it has exactly the same over-reliance on linearity, invisible walls, on-rails shit, QTEs, and scripted events that CoD does. Most of the time you will find yourself in an insanely detailed and huge environment but one where you are constrained to a ludicrously narrow and linear navigable space.

In short, People Can Fly: Fuck you and the cock you rode in on. (I'm pretty sure that's actually a piece of authentic Bulletstorm dialogue, if not, it's close enough). 

100% factually correct. 

A flawless victory.

I must say actually that being about 2-3 years behind the times when it comes to playing the latest releases is wonderful because it means I get absolutely fantastic deals on everything.

I just picked up, on Amazon, brand new xbox copies of Bulletstorm, Rage and Deus Ex Human Revolution for �5, �6.60, and �6.75 respectively, which helps because I'm one of those wierd sperglords who feels all icky and crap buying a "used" videogame. 

Bought this on my wife's ipad for the nostalgia. I'd forgotten that the original game came with a notebook and that you need to use it :-) I'm surprised how much I remember given that I first played it over 18 years ago now (aaaaaaaaa) and haven't replayed it for ... at least 15, I'd think.

I don't like the controls on the ipad much and I couldn't recommend it for any other reason than the nostalgia... 

 

I must say actually that being about 2-3 years behind the times when it comes to playing the latest releases is wonderful because it means I get absolutely fantastic deals on everything.  

Thats pretty awesome, perfect game for the format if controls are good. Reviews are good for now it seems. 

I got a free iPad and am getting the full hit of the apple money machine. Am I right that negative reviews and scores in the App Store aren't even shown? 

as the reach a certian amount, i guess.
Apple is a good present, got rid of it. 

Frozen synapse. The only bad thing about it is that I was working on a game design just like it :/ 

Seriously thanks for the recommendation, FS is excellent, one of the most compelling games I've played in years.

Well made, intelligent and with very clear win/loss conditions.

And people getting shot. 

Replaying Within A Deep Forest, such a cute and well-designed game. 

But it felt like it was missing something to give it more depth.

Not sure what. 

After deliberating for an eternity over whether I should start with Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, I eventually settled on the fairly arbitrary choice of Dark Souls.

I've only really started playing it I guess, so all I've seen is the game up to the Taurus Demon in Undead Burg. (I haven't killed him yet).

Too early for me to have much of an opinion of the game yet, but holy shit the levels are awesomely built.

Gameplay wise, just to put things into perspective, the only way I managed to beat the boss in the fucking tutorial level, was to consult an online strategy guide which suggested that I should remove all of my armour and fight the boss naked, which will allow me to move around at a half-decent pace so that I could actually dodge his attacks and get into a position to launch my own.

Years of playing the usual knife-through-butter tripe has not prepared me psychologically for this game :(

I really, really, don't want to have to cheese my way through this game by wiki'ing every little thing - has anyone here played through it normally, you know, just by themselves? 

*raises hand*
I played DS when it first came out and there was no wiki! I imagine you have patched it which makes even easier! :P 

I played until the next boss after Taurus Demon before I gave up. Fighting the standard enemies was quite fun but the bosses had me raging at my screen. Fuck that I play games to have fun :)

I agree though about the level design and visuals, Undead Burg was a beautiful location, the scale is fucking epic. 

Just use a guide and a wiki and look at youtubes and don't worry about spoiling yourself, because it's hard enough even WITH those. 

I played DS when it first came out and there was no wiki! I imagine you have patched it which makes even easier! :P

So, if the game was originally an 11/10 on the "fuckshitpissarsebollocks, this is colon-crucifyingly hard" scale, would you say it is about a 10.9/10 after the patch? :P

Fuck that I play games to have fun :)

Yeah, before I played this game, I sort of meditated for a bit and tried to promise myself that no matter how retardedly hard it gets, I will remain calm. In other words, I went in to this game basically saying to myself "I am going to die horribly over and over again, and that's ok". It kind of works - dying doesn't surprise me or bother me anymore. I'm yet to find "the fun" in this game, I think, but at least I am currently at peace with how much I suck at this, which is half the battle I guess. Also, not sure if it's related but irl, I've started developing this strange urge to buy a latex catsuit and ballgag/nipple clamps...

Just use a guide and a wiki and look at youtubes and don't worry about spoiling yourself, because it's hard enough even WITH those.

Ok, this makes me feel slightly better. And also slightly more worried. And a little bit hornier. 

So, if the game was originally an 11/10 on the "fuckshitpissarsebollocks, this is colon-crucifyingly hard" scale, would you say it is about a 10.9/10 after the patch? :P

When the game first came out it was rushed, there was lots of things broken which made it unnecessarily difficult. For a start the vendors were extremely limited in what they could sell, you had to travel to the right vendor to buy stuff which got annoying because of travel distance. The game is still tough but the rough edges have been smoothed out!

The boss fights are designed to be something that you learn by trial and error and lots of death. It certainly not an ideal way to learn something in game but this is very much the design mentality of the game, "bash head against brick wall until it cracks". You can get help from various NPCs (new thing for DS) or other players and I highly recommend it.

The first boss fight in the game is designed to teach the player one vital strategy, the jump down attack. It certainly could have been setup better but it is something that is useful later on.

DS is certainly not a game for everyone and to be honest, it should not be changed for the masses who like things easier/fun. It is designed to be hard so players can have fun with the extra challenge. When you die from a black knight for the first time, you will remember what they look like and be wary of them next time, encounters in DS are memorable.

If you are looking to walk through the game on rails (aka COD style) then this is certainly not the game to play.