Welcome to The Reticule’s Sunday spectacular, Our Week in Games. This has been a surprisingly busy week in the games industry, while I haven’t come across any Games Industry Dramas, there have been some serious goings on. The new Doom was revealed at QuakeCon while Microsoft announced drastic job cuts and the closure of the Xbox Entertainment studios. Big things to muse over while we talk about what our past week in games involved.

Nick

‘Two is down!’ The radio reported in the flat, emotionless manner that ArmA is famous for. I’m devastated – I liked Two. Two had racked up four kills in the past few minutes, his machine gun chuntering away at the enemy combatants that were threatening to overwhelm our position. But now Two was dead, and as much as I liked Three, he was no Two.

As much as Arma 3 has improved on its predecessors, with the incredible Zeus and simply mind-boggling map size, if I’m honest I still prefer Arma 2. Chernarus with its steep hill sides and thick forests makes for a more interesting war zone than Arma 3‘s flat, yellow landscape, but what makes Arma 2 special is in its editor, and in particular, its modules.

With just a small number of clicks, you can create a squad anywhere on the map, then tell the game to randomly generate civilians and combatants with its dynamic warfare modules. Finally, the secondary objectives module enables the game to constantly generate a flow of random, unpredictable missions that will feed directly to your in-game radio.

And that’s all I need; just a small squad of men, an unpredictable battlefield and a mission objective. We’ve rescued downed pilots, attacked enemy positions and defended our own, all due to the roll of Arma‘s dice.

Thanks for the help, Two. I’ll make sure Mrs Two and the kids are taken care of.

Jon

Frozen Synapse was 69p on the App Store for iPad recently. I promptly spent 69p.

For those who don’t know, Frozen Synapse is a top-down turn based tactical game where you control a ‘squad’ and try to complete a number of objectives. It’s utterly brilliant. I had it on PC a few years ago, but it really suits ipad.

I suck utterly at it. You see the turns actually happen together, so you and the enemy plan your moves and then you both sit back and watch the outcome. I love it. It’s certainly worth 69p.

My recent game saw me losing all but one of my team in the second turn from a well placed grenade, only for me to fight back to win. Tense, exciting and really really good. Get it.

Oh, I’m also still playing Watch_Dogs…..

Chris

I mentioned last week that I was planning on buying a PlayStation 4, and last Sunday I did just that. There was a nice bundle at Sainsbury’s for the Watch_Dogs edition PlayStation 4 along with Call of Duty: Ghosts for only £399. Thanks to various coupons and Nectar points, I was able to pick the bundle up for just £315. Bit of a steal if I say so myself.

Later in the week I proceeded to head into GAME with my PlayStation 3 in a bag and traded that in. I used my new found store-credit to pick up Killzone and Infamous. Early impressions of the console are good, but the current titles that I have for it show how weak the AAA market is on the consoles right now. Apart from Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, I have played any other AAA game on the PC already. I’m looking at Wolfenstein and Sniper Elite 3 (though that isn’t AAA in the traditional sense). However, I have picked up a couple of the indie games that are available for free through my PlayStation Plus subscription, I think those combined with my purchases will keep me busy for quite a while.

I’ve only really played Ghosts so far, and I am surprisingly enjoying it. There is something to be said for sitting back with a pad and blasting away at some fools, even if the gameplay and storytelling feels as stale as it as done in the series for several years. Including a controllable dog doesn’t strike me as a game changer. It is a laugh though, but certainly doesn’t match up against the enjoyment I had with Wolfenstein last month. I will admit though that Ghosts looks bloody fantastic on the PlayStation 4, certainly a notch above what I briefly experienced on my PC…an upgrade might be needed for that come the New Year…