What has gone on in the world of gaming this past week? Well there was the release of some pretty big games with Assassin’s Creed III and Need for Speed: Most Wanted the stand out titles. Lily will have our review of the former in the next few days. Sadly, we probably won’t have anything on Need for Speed, but Kevin will be working on a Halo 4 review very shortly. With that, hit the jump for the latest edition of Our Week in Games here at Reticule Towers.

Edcrab

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is… um. It’s a Counter-Strike game?

I don’t know what I expected, exactly, when I tried it out. I played the prior offerings and then eventually fell out of love with the pseudo-realistic tactical combat, but there wasn’t any particular reason why. I just played it for ages, and then eventually stopped.

CS:GO is prettier than the earlier CS: Source was; the maps are far more detailed and shock horror, the clothesline in Italy isn’t a blocky static texture. It retains the original game modes and adds a casual flavour, where friendly fire is disabled and armour is pre-bought, and now incorporates something called Arms Race (an official version of the popular Gun Game mod, where every kill unlocks a different weapon).

It’s otherwise more of the same, just polished. And while it hits the spot I sometimes find myself idly clicking my right mouse button and wishing I had a special ability bound to it. I think on some level the bright colours and ridiculous weapons of the likes of Team Fortress 2 have pampered me and sated my hunger for explosions, but CS:GO is always there if I want my action a little less daft.

Nick

Well, it’s finally happened. After years of faithful service, my gaming computer has finally given up its eternal battle against recommended system specs and gone to silicon heaven. It’s dead. Kaput. It is an ex PC. It has ceased to be. It is pushing up the virtual daisies and pining for the digital fjords.

Yet despite the massive bribes for reviews that gaming journalists apparently receive (we don’t) and the massive salaries that we take home, (again, no) it’s going to be a while before I’ll be able to afford the kind of PC I like to have sat under my desk.

But does this mean an end to my PC gaming? Does it hell. I’ve still got a functioning laptop, and despite its system specs being en par with a library opened in the seventies, I’m still going to be gaming my heart out. Because it’s a PC, and as a PC it has access to thousand upon thousand of indie games, back catalogues and freeware titles that console owners could barely dream of.

System Shock 2. Planescape Torment. Baldur’s Gate. Titles that have made history for PC gaming and they share one thing in common. I’ve never played them. So I’m going back. Back as far as I need to. I’m going to be donning my hat and whip and digging through the archaeological archives to find those special moments in PC gaming that time has forgotten.

So you can keep your AAA titles, your anti-aliasing and above all else, you can keep your DRM. I’m going back to a time when men were men, women were women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be digging through GOG.com

Chris

I’ve been having a little whirl around with Assassin’s Creed: Liberation on my Vita, I won’t go into too many details just yet, I’ll save it for the Verdict, but it seems fairly decent and worthwhile for a handheld game. The only trouble is that I had to get rid of some of my other downloaded titles on the device to make room for it, the proprietary SD cards are starting to cause me a bit of bother. Saying that, I don’t really use my Vita all that much, so it is nice to have a hard and fast reason to play it.

Elsewhere I have been playing an indie game which I will talk about a greater length soon and the latest Football Manager. As is my way, I have been managing TNS in the Welsh Premier League, carrying on with the team from my save game from my review. Things hadn’t been going quite to plan, I was enjoying a twelve game unbeaten run, but more than half of those matches were draws. This had left me floating around fourth spot with the season coming to an end, though I knew that a couple of wins in my remaining matches would pull me back up to the top.

This would be necessary to ensure Champions League football next season which would keep my finances in decent shape. However, I contrived to lose two matches against two teams just below me in the table, knocking my down to about sixth and out of any realistic chance of winning the league and getting into Europe. I was devastated and in my frustration I pressed the Quit Game button. Before pressing the ‘Yes I am sure I want to quit’ button, I had a change of heart and thought I would carry on to see what I could salvage from my season.

What did I do? I didn’t press cancel, and I didn’t choose to save my game, I selected the button which quit the game without saving. I let out a groan when I realised my error, and I haven’t dared go back to see when my last autosave is. Rage quitting turned into determination to continue, only to be undermined by my foolish haste.