Belatedly... Fortresscraft is actually very different to Minecraft. Where Minecraft is all about resource acquisition and management, Fortresscraft is really just a construction toy. I actually prefer Fortresscraft because I like being able to build myself something awesome (space station house!) without having to worry about digging up materials and forging tools.

About a year or so ago, I decided to start exploring the indie section of the Xbox Live marketplace. Most people don't even notice it's there, but it turns out there are some really good games hidden amongst the embarrasingly crap ones.   Does anyone else delve into the indie side of things? If not, maybe you should try. They're priced at one of three levels: either 80 MSP, 240 MSP or 400 MSP. There are some brilliant games in the 80 bracket. I have no trouble justifying buying a new game for 50p!   My personal highlights so far:   ZP2KX: Zombies and Pterodactyls! - basically a more bizarre take on Super Smash Bros. It includes an assault rifle that fires kittens. What more can you ask for? 80 MSP   Final Rift - it's the old space exploration game Elite, only more fun. 80 MSP   In the Pit - as far as I know, the first sound-only game. Play as a vicious beast in an evil king's pit. Track down and kill the victims he throws to you, by sound alone - as long as they don't get you first. 80 MSP   Cthulhu Saves the World - an old-school RPG, but with a distinct sense of humour and a love of breaking the fourth wall. It also doesn't just mimic 16-bit RPGs; it actually introduces its own mechanics, quite successfully. 240 MSP   Sequence - half rhythm game, half RPG. Well written and well voice-acted. 240 MSP.

A topic about an Xbox indie game?! Surely not! I came in here specifically to start an Xbox indie topic and see if anyone else plays them. A lot of them are crap, but there are some real gems in there too. Some of my favourite games of the last few months have been bought from the indie section for all of 80 MSP!

samiam901 said: it's safe to say that you will feel right at home if you like BC2   I strenuously disagree.       *Edit- Not my quote. This post was edited by samiam901 at September 28, 2011 6:20 PM BST

Short version: .......it's alright. Long version: What this reminds me of most is a cross between Call of Duty and MAG. It's very fast and there's chaos going on all the time, which is good in a way but it means you can't pause for thought. The ability to hide in a bush for twenty seconds while you check out enemy positions was one of the things I liked about previous Battlefields. Not so here. If you stay still for more than a second or two, someone will wriggle round the corner on their belly and shoot you. More on that in a moment. It's also full of corridors. Maybe it was just luck of the draw in the matches I played, but the open air bits ended very quickly, and most the time was spent in the tunnels. I'd say the same about this selection of narrow, linked spaces as I did about the pacing: it's good in its own way, but it leads to continuous, frantic carnage because wherever you go there's an enemy right in your face. All of that is the Call of Duty bit. The MAG bit is the use of prone. Like MAG, there is someone lying prone around every corner and behind every rock. If you're not prone you're dead, and if you are prone you'll be dead as soon as you bump into someone with higher level unlocks than you. So all in all...it's ok. It's not great. It's changed a lot of my favourite Battlefield features and introduced a lot of things that remind me of games I don't like. It handles nicely, the graphics are decent (though not great, which surprised me), the weapons have a good sense of weight and some of the gadgets (like the laser thing that blinds enemies) are very clever. But as a playing experience it's underwhelming. I went into it expecting it to go down one of the the two Battlefield paths (Bad Company 2 or Battlefield 2) or maybe take bits from both. I didn't expect what it actually did, which is to kind of be Medal of Honor. This post was edited by scionoftea at September 28, 2011 6:18 PM BST

I've never played Counter-Strike but I know it by reputation. I'm looking forward to Global Offensive. I hope it lives up to the Counter-Strike name.

A minor suggestion but it might be nice to allow paragraphing in the 'about me' section of the profile page. The way I typed it, mine is divided into paragraphs. The way it appears on my profile, though, it's a wall of text. Again, very minor, just a thought.

Ah, I see. Thanks. I joined the networks I play on but couldn't tell what, if anything, was meant to happen then. I reckon just including the sentence you posted here would make a difference. Alternatively I might be an uncomprehending berk. That's always a possibility.

Really good job in general. One thing I'd say is that I came on here one day and 'gaming networks' had appeared. I have no idea what they are and haven't been able to find out. I know I could ask someone, but I think it should really be explained somewhere on the site. As far as I can tell, they do nothing at all. That's my only comment/criticism at the moment. I'm really impressed with how quickly new and interesting features have been added.

I was thinking something very similar in the wake of Homefront. Before the ease of XBL/PSN, games had to be finished at release. If it was released broken, then it stayed broken. I think the ease of providing patches has led to laziness.

Yeah, a bit. It's kind of like Fawlty Towers, but less funny. She wears the trousers and he tries to assert his independence in small, petty ways.

I'm free of female burdens at the moment. :p My last girlfriend always wanted to steal my Xbox to play Puzzle Quest.

He doesn't tend to go for subtlety. When she strictly forbade him to buy a 44" tv, he just bought it while she was at work, quickly hustled the old tv out the door and when she got back he basically said "Well it's here now, there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, it's the only tv we've got." So I think today it was "You were meant to do the housework!" "Well...I didn't. Can't change that now."

Haha, one of my friends just caught a load of flak from his wife for playing Gran Turismo for nine hours today. Apparently he was meant to be doing housework and buying her a birthday present.

My finances are quite precarious and I need to be as sure as possible before I spend my money on release-day prices. I'm hopeful for Homefront, but I'm not convinced about a pre-order.

I've been known to play for 8 hours in a day. But that's an exception. I mean, 8 hours EVERY day? How do they get anything done?

One of my friends used to play Call of Duty literally 16 hours a day, six days a week. He almost failed his degree as a result. I remember seeing a father on Yahoo Answers who wanted to know if he should be worried that his five year old son is choosing to wear nappies so he won't have to leave the Xbox to use the toilet.

I have 360 and PS3, but the 360 is easily the one that gets the most use. I also have a ton of old consoles that weren't old when I bought them.

Haha, yeah, that takes some getting used to.

It doesn't lag very often for me - but when it does it's bad.

I'm in two minds about whether I should buy this on release/preorder or wait until the price goes down. I loved the previous game, Frontlines, and Homefront seems like it's taking all the best parts of that game and making the whole package better. But Frontlines had only a small community and I'm concerned about this going the same way.

I love Battlefield 1943. It was my first real online gaming experience (previously I just hadn't seen the appeal) and it remains one of my favourites. Who else here plays it? I can always do with more 1943 friends.

Yeah, every gamer I know thinks I'm weird but I've been playing with an inverted Y axis (that's what she said) for years and it's too late to change now. Uninverting it just confuses me.

Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.

'Mature', 'fun' and 'no headaches' sounds good. 'Tryouts' does not. Hmmm.

I probably should have done this sooner. Never mind eh.   What to say?... Hmm. I'm in the UK. If you count it from the time I started playing games semi-regularly, I've been a gamer since my age was in single digits, maybe 20-25 years ago (on a few-years-old Atari XE, as I recall. Before that it was the *gag, retch* Commodore Vic 20. Eek).   I'm as much a solo gamer as an online one - perhaps more so. I came to online gaming quite late, first by dabbling in free MMORPGs out of curiosity (I used to play Shaiya and Conquer Online, and I still occasionally play Talisman Online), and then with Left 4 Dead. I found L4D weird and difficult online at first, and it probably wasn't the best place to start. So my real introduction came with Battlefield 1943, and that remains probably my favourite competitive online game.   I'm not in a clan. I have never been. I find most clans are big on minimum standards and wanting to 'recruit great players' and that sort of stuff. Well, in some games I'm a decent player. I'm respectably good at Left 4 Dead 2 (Scavenge/Versus), Black Ops and BF 1943 (I used to be better at 1943, but I've got a bit rusty). I'm pretty mediocre at Bad Company 1 and 2, and I'm probably a little below average at Halo 3. At some games, I'm just bad. This doesn't bother me. I'm just not a very competitive person. I do try to win, but I don't care if I lose. This means that the emphasis most clans place on winning and having the best players puts me right off.   That's not to say I'm against clans. I'd be interested in joining a clan that's about cooperating, being mutually respectful and just enjoying the game. Not many of them around though.   So...hi. This post was edited by scionoftea at February 2, 2011 12:28 AM GMT