What are you playing at the moment? [Archive] - Page 12

db1331

11-01-2012, 05:43 PM

I have not, in fact besides recognizing the name I know nothing about it. I'll look into it.

Oh wow. If you love WW and TP, it's impossible to not love Okami. The creators of the game are huge Zelda fans, and they make no attempt at hiding it. There's lots of great little nods to the series scattered throughout the game. It's probably the best looking game artistically that I've ever played, as you can see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhfEbS8GFgM

Plus, the motion control never got irksome for me. Most of it has to do with drawing brush strokes to activate certain powers or abilities, and the Wiimote is very intuitive when used in that manner, as opposed to just waggling it about. I'd bet you could score a copy for $20 or less if you find one used.

sabrage

11-01-2012, 08:10 PM

Yeah, same here. I actually liked Wind Waker (which everyone dogs on) and LOVED Twilight Princess (which is also not usually a favorite), but this one just wasn't doing it for me at all. The worst part of the motion controls were not that they were difficult to use but that they weren't transparent. I was thinking about the controller the entire time. I'm glad I bought it with a Christmas gift card, otherwise I would also feel obligated to keep playing it, which I just don't want to.
I can't believe they're still putting sidekicks in these games. Between the owl and Navi in Ocarina, I would've thought they'd learned their lesson by now. Ezlo is the sole exception of a companion done right; every single other one is just irritating and somewhat condescending. I miss the solitude and difficulty of the Oracle games. I love the Zelda games themselves, but the sidekicks in the ones I have yet to play mean that I can only play about one per year.

SMiD

11-01-2012, 08:33 PM

Alright; finally got Osmos' Epicycles 2 finished. Now it's down to Epicycles 3. I'm so very close.

db1331

11-01-2012, 08:38 PM

I can't believe they're still putting sidekicks in these games. Between the owl and Navi in Ocarina, I would've thought they'd learned their lesson by now. Ezlo is the sole exception of a companion done right; every single other one is just irritating and somewhat condescending. I miss the solitude and difficulty of the Oracle games. I love the Zelda games themselves, but the sidekicks in the ones I have yet to play mean that I can only play about one per year.

I largely agree with you. I will say though that I really liked Midna from Twilight Princess. She had a big enough personality that she was really more of a main character than a sidekick. This new one in Skyward Sword is just fucking horrible though. She talks like a robot, has no range of emotion, and wants to tell you EVERYTHING. I'm 20+ hours into the game, and when I fall below three hearts, she still feels she needs to tell me I should find some more hearts. As if I didn't know that. She also wants to tell me when the batteries in my controller are low. I guess because the on-screen low battery indicator isn't good enough to her. I would seriously rather have Tingle follow me around the entire game.

Like you, I would be fine with them doing away with sidekicks entirely. I wish they would ask you if you have ever played a Zelda game before when you make your save file. If not, you get a sidekick to help you out. If you have, then get adventuring. You've got a princess to save! I mean, I've beaten around a dozen Zelda games by now. When I enter a cave and see a wall that looks like it could be blown up, and some bomb flowers nearby, I just want to pick up a bomb, blow up the wall, and be on my way. But halfway into the cave, my sidekick pops up to tell me, "Hey, the ceiling of the cave has collapsed here. We won't be able to go any further without clearing away this rubble..." *Slowly pan the camera to the bomb flowers." Bitch, I could already be in the next room if you didn't stop to tell me something I already figured out the instant I saw it. The most frustrating thing is, they put these sidekicks in to help casual players. Then when my wife, the ultimate in casual players plays the game, she doesn't even notice her sidekick button beeping at her trying to tell her something.

Lambchops

11-01-2012, 09:25 PM

Okami remains one of the prettiest games ever. It's a wonderful adventure, never takes itself too seriously and is one of those games that just seems so joyful about being a video game and wants to share its joy with you.

As for Zelda I'm one of those who has Majora's Mask as the favourite I've played. I don't know if it was just the slightly different narrative structure that made it more memorable (as in terms of style of play it follows the same tried and true Zelda tropes we know and love) but there's just something about it that makes me remember it a teensy bit more fondly that the others.

Kodeen

11-01-2012, 09:30 PM

As for Zelda I'm one of those who has Majora's Mask as the favourite I've played. I don't know if it was just the slightly different narrative structure that made it more memorable (as in terms of style of play it follows the same tried and true Zelda tropes we know and love) but there's just something about it that makes me remember it a teensy bit more fondly that the others.

I was pleasantly surprised by how dark the tone of that game was. The other games are rather chipper but that one had a distinct feel of sorrow for a doomed world. I thought I would hate the 3-day mechanic but it was pretty unobtrusive.

Led Zeppelin

11-01-2012, 09:50 PM

Just started Serious Sam 3.

trjp

12-01-2012, 12:08 AM

Digging through my backlog I just tried-out "Inside a Star Filled Sky" and my head is completely melted...

I need instructions...

sabrage

12-01-2012, 01:59 AM

Got bored with Ocarina of Time, decided to try out Jet Force Gemini... Holy shit this game is weird/hard. I don't know if I like it or not.

Edit: Hmm, I thought this would be fairly lighthearted action-shooter fare, but apparently it's a 30+ hour ordeal of collecting and secrets. I'm gonna put this on the shelf for now.

Matzerath

12-01-2012, 02:09 AM

I'm playing Abobo's big Adventure. I'm up to the Megaman levels.

squirrelfanatic

12-01-2012, 06:52 AM

Got bored with Ocarina of Time, decided to try out Jet Force Gemini... Holy shit this game is weird/hard. I don't know if I like it or not.Jet Force Gemini is a great game, but collecting dudes and starship parts can get boring and/or frustrating. I loved how you could come back to earlier levels after progressing in the storyline and visit completely new areas. Also: Lupus ftw.

TailSwallower

12-01-2012, 11:26 AM

Still plodding along with Gemini Rue. A bit stuck with both characters at the moment, so a little bit frustrating, but I like the setting enough to continue.

squirrel

12-01-2012, 11:36 AM

Roufuss

12-01-2012, 01:11 PM

I'm playing Abobo's big Adventure. I'm up to the Megaman levels.

Enjoy it while it lasts -- I see a cease and desist coming from Nintendo any day now. The game is getting way too much exposure on too many sites (I've seen it on both Joystiq and RPS this morning -- I assume its hit the other big sites as well) and Nintendo isn't the type of company to let people use its sprites (and music) for this sort of thing when they catch wind.

Especially the fact they are taking donations, which Nintendo will view as profiting off of their work.

Hell, if this was parodying Sega it would have already been taken down, as they are even worse for this sort of thing.

It is a pretty awesome game, though.

Duckee

12-01-2012, 01:54 PM

Just finished L.A. Noire. To my disappointment it is one hell of linear game, so linear that I felt like play a Japanese visual novel. The only different is that you have to use control to move around. Everything in the game is completely scripted, the only freedom you have is to rather answer call from colleagues over radio for helps, i.e. side-quest.

A very touching story though, I so much feel for Cole Phelps.

And finishing this game leaves me no game to play for the moment.

I just finished it too. I am not sure if I liked it or hated it, but it is probably a mix of both. I really liked the story and the entire concept was a fresh breeze, but there were quite a few things that were jarring. As you say it is very very linear, as in it does not exactly matter whether you do well or bad, from what I could tell. Secondly, the amount of times I literally face palmed when my character starts to shout obscenities or just completely ignore whatever clues I might have picked up in interviews is just plain annoying. A dialogue system akin to a more traditional RPG would have worked much better, imo. Also, a large number of bugs kept popping up at the most unwanted times. For instance when a pretty lady is coercing a man or whatever her face's textures starts tearing and going from nicely (in terms of what the game delivers) to a porridge of low quality pixels which makes it look like some Lovecraftian horror. Also, the sounds and music are quite buggy which break the experience quite a bit, several times I could hear a punch or a glass break or whatever 10 seconds before it actually happened in the cutscene, also at the end of the game the last action scene music (quite dramatic and inappropriate for the last scene of the game) kept playing over what would otherwise be a slightly moving scene..

Oh well, worth the £10 I paid for it I guess. Oh and one more thing, this setting and engine would have made Mafia 2 a great game.

amusingthebrood

12-01-2012, 02:07 PM

Sequence is now eating all of my solo gaming time, I am loving it to bits. Once I finish the story I suspect I will be drawn in to completing all the achievements, something that I very rarely do in games.

I also introduced my wife to Trine. I had only played the introduction so I could save it for co-op play and I'm glad I did as I think whilst good by myself, it will be much better played with another.

Edited to remove dodgy emboldenmentness.

Giaddon

12-01-2012, 02:51 PM

Oh and one more thing, this setting and engine would have made Mafia 2 a great game.

Interesting, I feel that Mafia 2 had a far superior engine (looked amazing, ran like silk, whereas L.A. Noire had moments of sublime ugliness) and was, well, a superior game.

I recently finished The Missing Link, the Human Revolution DLC. All in all, I enjoyed it! The main black spot on it is the fact that you have to backtrack across a fairly small area a couple times. But the ship and Rifleman Bank Station are both cool areas, and it was nice to have a little shot of Human Revolution gameplay. The boss at the end, as had been said, was a much better boss experience than any in the main game. I got it for $5 on sale, and I would have felt OK with $10 -- the $15 asking price is too high, IMO.

Continuing The First Templar, which remains an enjoyable, low-budget romp through ye olde slashy-times.

Also playing UFO: Afterlight, which I am liking a lot. Not very like X-COM (which is a clear inspiration), but a very interesting strategy layer/tactical combat game in which you lead a colony of humans on Mars. It has a kind of story that evolves when certain events happen, which I like. For example, my advisers just ...hinted... that if I turn on an alien race that I am currently allied with I could take their precious metal resources and advanced technology. Tempting! But I like having some friends on this hellhole. There's a nice narrative feeling to everything (each character has a little "history" dossier where you can learn about their background... there was a great moment when the best soldier in the colony, and old woman (really! She was a veteran of wars with mutants on Earth) was stunned (knocked out) by a surprise attack. The rest of the squad was already fleeing, so I sent two of them back for her, but before they could intervene the old soldier was killed. Panicked retreat back to the ship for takeoff.

And lastly, I am playing Race for the Galaxy AI (http://keldon.net/rftg/), an AI adaptation of the card game. It is so good! It's free, it's authorized by the game makers, and it's excellent. Download it, spend ten minutes reading over the rules (game rules here (http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_240_gameRules.pdf)), and play a few games. Put on some galactic music in the background.

The JG Man

12-01-2012, 03:01 PM

Serious Sam First Encounter HD.

Holy sh-WHY HAVE I RUN OUT OF MINIGUN AMMO?!

Great game. Loving it.

Roufuss

12-01-2012, 03:02 PM

Starting the end game of Jagged Alliance 2.

I'm coming for you Deidranna.

Miker

12-01-2012, 06:00 PM

Finished Brutal Legend on my 360 just a few days ago. I can't say I enjoyed the stage battles (the bulk of the game, really) that much due to how little feedback there is (no health bars, no easy way to tell which units you have selected, etc.), but the writing and story is well worth the current price of entry. The lore, the dialogue, the art, and everything is utterly perfect, and I just wished that there was a better game built around it so that more people might have experienced it.

For those of you are interested in the game, here's two pretty metal videos:

Making of the best main menu ever: http://youtu.be/VK_ldZ6op1w

All of the "legends" (lore) within the game in crisp HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcPm-MQiCQ8

Wish it would have come to PC with a tweaked interface, as I think it could have done better for itself given how many Schafer fans are PC gamers.

Roufuss

12-01-2012, 09:51 PM

Deidranna is dead!

Buzz was such a high level that she took her turn first and pretty much gunned her down in cold blood. As Deidranna lay on the floor dying, Buzz unloaded a full clip into her for all the agony and misery she caused.

Then, just because it felt right, I reloaded and let Dynamo have his revenge.

It took about 47 hours but it was some of the best times with a game I've ever had I think.

Wizardry

12-01-2012, 10:14 PM

Roufuss

12-01-2012, 10:34 PM

Wizardry

12-01-2012, 11:07 PM

Thanks!

The tricky part is finding the next thing to play. I don't know if I want to embark on another long game (I'm looking at Darklands and King's Bounty as potential candidates) or cleanse my palette, so to speak, with something shorter and more faster paced. Maybe I'll pop something into one of the consoles this weekend while my girlfriend uses the PC.

I think I'm going to skip JA 2: Unfinished Business and wait a bit before using 1.13 so the experience is fresher.
Seriously, give Wizardry 8 a try. It was made by a lot of the same people as Jagged Alliance 2 and came out in 2001 so it's two years newer. You might absolutely hate it, but there's quite a lot of subtle similarities in design and you can tell it was made with just as much love.

Heliocentric

12-01-2012, 11:10 PM

King's Bounty
I think KB is a mistep unless you are dedicated to it. Its massive grueling and full of charmless filler.
Yes its great at its peak, but the moments of glpry have hours between, combat is grindy or unfair but rarely strategicly interesting, and I'm a strategy game fan.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 01:03 AM

Seriously, give Wizardry 8 a try. It was made by a lot of the same people as Jagged Alliance 2 and came out in 2001 so it's two years newer. You might absolutely hate it, but there's quite a lot of subtle similarities in design and you can tell it was made with just as much love.

You know what, I think I will. I just need to procure a copy, as I know the license is in the hands of some Japanese company and none of the older games are available to buy through the usual channels.

Can I jump right in with VIII? I know its the last of a trilogy that started with VI.

sabrage

13-01-2012, 07:31 AM

Super Mario World was a relative breeze up to this point; why is that final fight with Bowser so damn hard?

Heliocentric

13-01-2012, 07:47 AM

Super Mario World was a relative breeze up to this point; why is that final fight with Bowser so damn hard?

Bring fire flowers.

sabrage

13-01-2012, 11:01 AM

That never would've occurred to me. The cape is just so much more useful for every single other level.

Edit: Beat it first try with double flowers. The fireballs themselves didn't help at all, but the fact that I didn't fly into the propeller if I jumped wrong and that the reserve flower falls a lot faster than the feather did made all the difference. I've still got some more exits to find (at 83/96) but I have no idea where they are so I think I'm gonna wait a while to find the rest of them. Amazing game though, and I wish I had played it earlier.

Heliocentric

13-01-2012, 11:50 AM

That never would've occurred to me. The cape is just so much more useful for every single other level.

I *KNOW*, flying is badass, but the boss was probably balanced around regular jumping, but i have seween someone cape him to death super fast on youtube.

I've still got some more exits to find (at 83/96) but I have no idea where they are so I think I'm gonna wait a while to find the rest of them. Amazing game though, and I wish I had played it earlier.
If you don't have all ther exists you haven't finished the game, some of the most hidden levels are the most insane. Visited Starworld yet?

sabrage

13-01-2012, 12:36 PM

If you don't have all ther exists you haven't finished the game, some of the most hidden levels are the most insane. Visited Starworld yet?
You mean Star Road? Done all that; I've gotten every secret exit I could find in every level I've come across. There's some warp pipes off the side of the path that I know I missed but I have no idea how to get there. I'll have to pore over a guide to figure out what I'm missing and that doesn't really appeal to me right now.

TailSwallower

13-01-2012, 01:10 PM

Finished Gemini Rue. Not ashamed to say that I used a walkthrough to get past a couple of bits - I was playing it because the setting and story was interesting, not because I wanted to bash my head against a wall.

That said, the puzzles are all fairly logical, though there are some design decisions that are irritating - for instance, when you right-click on something and tell the character to interact with it sometimes they'll say "I need to get closer." No shit, Sherlock, I wanted you to walk over there first. Elevators can also be a pain in the arse.

But all that said, clocking in at around 6.5 hours it's well worth it for the story if you're into PKD, Blade Runner, Beneath a Steel Sky, etc.

Lukasz

13-01-2012, 01:21 PM

for instance, when you right-click on something and tell the character to interact with it sometimes they'll say "I need to get closer." No shit, Sherlock, I wanted you to walk over there first.
so frigging true. I played only 1.3 hour of that game and that irritated me to no end. How could they miss that or did they design that game on purpose for a reason which escapes me?

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 04:02 PM

You know what, I think I will. I just need to procure a copy, as I know the license is in the hands of some Japanese company and none of the older games are available to buy through the usual channels.

Can I jump right in with VIII? I know its the last of a trilogy that started with VI.
Well, you can import your characters from 6 to 7 to 8, along with a lot of their items. But the 8th game changes the rules quite significantly making it a good idea to start fresh with new characters. I suppose that was bound to happen with the 9 year gap between the final two games. There are a few small differences if you have an imported party, the most obvious one being that your starting location is different (depending on which ending you achieved in the previous game).

The introduction to Wizardry 8 tells you everything you need to know about what happened in the previous two games. You should have a good grasp of what you have to do and who everyone is after playing for a short while.

Yeah, you'll have to pirate the game. It's just not available anywhere any more and I'm not even sure the Japanese license holder knows that they hold the rights to the Sir-Tech Wizardry games. There's a good working version on that infamous torrent site.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 04:18 PM

Well, you can import your characters from 6 to 7 to 8, along with a lot of their items. But the 8th game changes the rules quite significantly making it a good idea to start fresh with new characters. I suppose that was bound to happen with the 9 year gap between the final two games. There are a few small differences if you have an imported party, the most obvious one being that your starting location is different (depending on which ending you achieved in the previous game).

The introduction to Wizardry 8 tells you everything you need to know about what happened in the previous two games. You should have a good grasp of what you have to do and who everyone is after playing for a short while.

Yeah, you'll have to pirate the game. It's just not available anywhere any more and I'm not even sure the Japanese license holder knows that they hold the rights to the Sir-Tech Wizardry games. There's a good working version on that infamous torrent site.

Yep, I went ahead and grabbed a copy last night -- spent most of the morning getting it set up (at first it wouldn't load, then had no sound) but I finally got everything working right. That familiar Sir-Tech chime is like music to my ears at this point.

I went ahead and watched the introduction and really liked what I saw, so I'm eager to dive into it. I won't get a lot of time with it this weekend since my girlfriend needs the PC for work related stuff but its all set up now for Monday morning. I'll post updates every day about the progress I make and how I'm liking it, but I do expect to love it as I'm familiar with other games in the genre.

I noticed in a YouTube video it shares a lot of the same voice actors as Jagged Alliance 2 as well; while not the best voice actors, there is a certain charm to them.

It is a shame about the license, as I'm currently using Vista and the game runs no problem after some simple tweaks, so this is something GOG could easily get up on their site and sell with no problems, especially since I believe the older games are all DOS and use DOSBox, which GOG never has a problem with. It would be nice to have Wizardry for sale alongside Ultima and Might and Magic. The prices on eBay are pretty high so I think it would be a decent seller especially at $6 and $10 a pop.

I'm curious Wizardry, do you only stick to PC RPGs or have you tried some of the console / handheld ones? I think you'd enjoy the Etrian Odyssey series and Dark Spire on the Nintendo DS; Etrian Odyssey even requires that you draw the map yourself on the bottom screen as you play.

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 04:38 PM

I noticed in a YouTube video it shares a lot of the same voice actors as Jagged Alliance 2 as well; while not the best voice actors, there is a certain charm to them.
Yeah, you effectively get to choose a personality for each of your characters. Each personality has its own voice and own things to say. It's a way to sort of achieve what BioWare does with their fixed companions while giving you all the freedom to create your team.

It is a shame about the license, as I'm currently using Vista and the game runs no problem after some simple tweaks, so this is something GOG could easily get up on their site and sell with no problems, especially since I believe the older games are all DOS and use DOSBox, which GOG never has a problem with. It would be nice to have Wizardry for sale alongside Ultima and Might and Magic. The prices on eBay are pretty high so I think it would be a decent seller especially at $6 and $10 a pop.
I'm sure GOG have tried to contact the license holder, but I'm sure the language and cultural barrier means that they just don't give a damn about re-releasing the original Wizardry games to their original western audience. It certainly would fit in well with Might and Magic and Ultima, though. Those are the three CRPG mega series after all.

I'm curious Wizardry, do you only stick to PC RPGs or have you tried some of the console / handheld ones? I think you'd enjoy the Etrian Odyssey series and Dark Spire on the Nintendo DS; Etrian Odyssey even requires that you draw the map yourself on the bottom screen as you play.
I'm aware of those games, but I don't own any consoles. I'm not too fond of handheld consoles especially. I do irrationally stick to PC RPGs but that's mainly because I can appreciate and enjoy games that are too "dated" for most gamers, meaning that there's literally hundreds of CRPGs I can play. I'm not limited to post-DOS CRPGs like 99% of PC gamers seem to be.

That and I hate anime style graphics. Though I definitely appreciate the Japanese game industry's remaining love for good CRPG game design. Western developers are way behind.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 06:33 PM

I'm aware of those games, but I don't own any consoles. I'm not too fond of handheld consoles especially. I do irrationally stick to PC RPGs but that's mainly because I can appreciate and enjoy games that are too "dated" for most gamers, meaning that there's literally hundreds of CRPGs I can play. I'm not limited to post-DOS CRPGs like 99% of PC gamers seem to be.

That and I hate anime style graphics.

Yea, those games would definitely be a pass for you then. I'm not too fond of anime myself but I look past it for Etrian. I think I love the challenge more than anything, and that's what a lot of these old CRPGs also provide me -- challenge in combat, challenge in everyday situations and more than one way to accomplish any particular task.

I bought a whole slew of older RPGs when GOG was running their sale: Darklands (which I was leaning towards playing next but it'll come after Wizardry 8), the entire Arkania series, Ultima 7, Might and Magic 7 and 8 (already had 1 - 6) and Lands of Lore 1 + 2. I had actually read an article detailing Arkania right before the sale and it really appealed to me just in how specific it was, like needing warm clothing to go into a cold region. I really enjoy details like that.

I actually missed most of these games back in the day -- when I started PC gaming in 96, a lot of these games had already come out and I was still mostly a JRPG player along with the Infinity Engine stuff, so a lot of this stuff is new to me. I actually decided to do the "no new games challenge for a year" but only for the reason of going back and really digging into this old stuff since I'm enjoying these games so much more than newer games.

In a few hours I'll get my party made and ready for Monday... gotta do some manual reading before I dive in.

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 06:46 PM

I bought a whole slew of older RPGs when GOG was running their sale: Darklands (which I was leaning towards playing next but it'll come after Wizardry 8), the entire Arkania series, Ultima 7, Might and Magic 7 and 8 (already had 1 - 6) and Lands of Lore 1 + 2. I had actually read an article detailing Arkania right before the sale and it really appealed to me just in how specific it was, like needing warm clothing to go into a cold region. I really enjoy details like that.
I rate Darklands and the Realms of Arkania games as some of the best examples of CRPGs. Both do things that no other games in the genre do, and both of them have a very wide focus.

In a few hours I'll get my party made and ready for Monday... gotta do some manual reading before I dive in.
Definitely read the manual. But don't worry about "best builds" and "best parties" because there are none in Wizardry 8. Any combination of race and class can potentially be good. It's one of the most balanced CRPGs I've played. You can still break the game and end up having an easier time than intended, just like in all CRPGs, but the intended difficulty can be achieved with a whole range of different character combinations.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 09:14 PM

vinraith

13-01-2012, 09:16 PM

Drake Sigar

13-01-2012, 09:23 PM

Also playing UFO: Afterlight, which I am liking a lot. Not very like X-COM (which is a clear inspiration), but a very interesting strategy layer/tactical combat game in which you lead a colony of humans on Mars. It has a kind of story that evolves when certain events happen, which I like. For example, my advisers just ...hinted... that if I turn on an alien race that I am currently allied with I could take their precious metal resources and advanced technology. Tempting! But I like having some friends on this hellhole. There's a nice narrative feeling to everything (each character has a little "history" dossier where you can learn about their background... there was a great moment when the best soldier in the colony, and old woman (really! She was a veteran of wars with mutants on Earth) was stunned (knocked out) by a surprise attack. The rest of the squad was already fleeing, so I sent two of them back for her, but before they could intervene the old soldier was killed. Panicked retreat back to the ship for takeoff.

I just ordered this. If it sucks, I'm coming for you.

Seriously though, I bought UFO: Extraterrestrials and it was bloody horrible. I assumed the UFO game you mentioned was part of the same series, but some quick research implies otherwise. That's confusing. Makes me think there's an entire sub-division in the gaming industry built around X-Com knockoffs.

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 09:59 PM

Alright, I went with this group:

Human Lord
Human Valkyrie
Dracon Fighter
Mook Gadgeteer
Faerie Mage
Elf Psionic

The Psionic has a healing spell but I don't think it'll be enough... I might redo him as a Bishop instead. I wanted to go for some of the more varied races and classes that you don't see in other RPGs.
Looks well rounded enough, but replacing the psionic with a bishop will make the later half of the game slightly easier as bishops pull ahead of the pack at that point if you play conservatively (save spell picks for higher level spells).

Really liked the intro movie, even if the Dark Savant seems to be a cosmetic copy of Spider-Man villain Mysterio (which gains him a few points in my book, plus that voice is awesome.)
Yeah. The game has a great intro. It sets things up nicely and I like the art/animation style of it. It's oddly fitting.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 10:21 PM

Looks well rounded enough, but replacing the psionic with a bishop will make the later half of the game slightly easier as bishops pull ahead of the pack at that point if you play conservatively (save spell picks for higher level spells).

Is it possible to stick with the Psionic and be okay healing wise during the early game? I know eventually the Lord and Valkyrie both get healing spells as well a bit later so I think down the line I'll be okay.

I'm kind of impartial to the Psionic just because he's not one of the standard classes you see -- even when I had to choose a standard race, I paired them up with an interesting class, so knowing the game would just be slightly harder as a result is okay with me.

There is a lot of variation here and making only six was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There is definitely a lot to take in when you first start the game menu wise, but I'm sure like JA 2 it will all become second nature after a few hours.

I like how it just throws you right into a dungeon as well -- no tutorial, just a dungeon where death is a real possibility from the few minutes I played.

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 10:35 PM

Is it possible to stick with the Psionic and be okay healing wise during the early game? I know eventually the Lord and Valkyrie both get healing spells as well a bit later so I think down the line I'll be okay.

I'm kind of impartial to the Psionic just because he's not one of the standard classes you see -- even when I had to choose a standard race, I paired them up with an interesting class, so knowing the game would just be slightly harder as a result is okay with me.

There is a lot of variation here and making only six was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There is definitely a lot to take in when you first start the game menu wise, but I'm sure like JA 2 it will all become second nature after a few hours.

I like how it just throws you right into a dungeon as well -- no tutorial, just a dungeon where death is a real possibility from the few minutes I played.
Your party is fine. It's easily completable with the psionic. You've got enough good late game characters in that party anyway. Your gadgeteer especially should rock later on.

I love the game's interface. If you expand all the little sections and bring up the spell casting bit it looks very complicated to an outsider. I use Wizardry 8 screenshots all the time when talking about CRPGs for that reason.

Roufuss

13-01-2012, 10:41 PM

Your party is fine. It's easily completable with the psionic. You've got enough good late game characters in that party anyway. Your gadgeteer especially should rock later on.

I love the game's interface. If you expand all the little sections and bring up the spell casting bit it looks very complicated to an outsider. I use Wizardry 8 screenshots all the time when talking about CRPGs for that reason.

Ha, that's the first thing I did was expand everything I could possibly expand to see just how deep it got. Even after reading the manual, the first few battles were a bit of trial and error as I figured out the nuances of the system, but I think I got a handle on it. I changed some controls around too because by default, the controls are a bit unwieldy for me having the movement on the arrow keys.

I'll post some in-depth playthrough experiences on Monday then. The graphics hold up surprisingly well for 2001 also.

Thanks for the recommendation! It looks like a killer game and I'll be anticipating really sinking my teeth into it.

ETA: Forgot to mention the manual had a nice bit of humor as well and wasn't just a dry read, so that was awesome.

Wizardry

13-01-2012, 10:52 PM

I'll post some in-depth playthrough experiences on Monday then. The graphics hold up surprisingly well for 2001 also.
Post some screenshots in the screenshot thread too if you can.

Casimir Effect

14-01-2012, 12:16 AM

Dabbling a bit with Rome Total War and Shogun 2. I'm abruptly reminded just how much I hate the battlefield controls in these games. Rotating formations should not risk resizing your lines, and advancing in formation should be the default for grouped armies. I'm a little surprised this stuff is still so broken in Shogun 2.
They still haven't fixed that for Shogun 2? It always annoyed me how my meticulous troop preperation would be undone if I dared trying to move my army and rotate their perspective at the same time. At least the battlefield controls are quick and easy to use. After playing King Arthur: TRPG you appreciate those facets of Total War games all the more.

I'm aware of those games, but I don't own any consoles. I'm not too fond of handheld consoles especially. I do irrationally stick to PC RPGs but that's mainly because I can appreciate and enjoy games that are too "dated" for most gamers, meaning that there's literally hundreds of CRPGs I can play. I'm not limited to post-DOS CRPGs like 99% of PC gamers seem to be.

That and I hate anime style graphics. Though I definitely appreciate the Japanese game industry's remaining love for good CRPG game design. Western developers are way behind.
I may have asked this before but have you ever tried The Last Remnant? The whole game resides on the gameplay, ie. the battle system, as opposed to story or characters like many JRPGs. This also has less of the typical anime style because it was an attempt to make a game to appeal to Western audiences. It's very much a love or hate game, depending entirely on how you find the battle mechanics and the ways in which some of them are obfusticated, but can be so rewarding if you get into it. And it does so many things right that most JRPGs don't, such as not being dickish with save points.

Wizardry

14-01-2012, 12:50 AM

I may have asked this before but have you ever tried The Last Remnant? The whole game resides on the gameplay, ie. the battle system, as opposed to story or characters like many JRPGs. This also has less of the typical anime style because it was an attempt to make a game to appeal to Western audiences. It's very much a love or hate game, depending entirely on how you find the battle mechanics and the ways in which some of them are obfusticated, but can be so rewarding if you get into it. And it does so many things right that most JRPGs don't, such as not being dickish with save points.
I can't say I have, but I do know of the game. What's the combat system like?

vinraith

14-01-2012, 01:20 AM

They still haven't fixed that for Shogun 2? It always annoyed me how my meticulous troop preperation would be undone if I dared trying to move my army and rotate their perspective at the same time. At least the battlefield controls are quick and easy to use. After playing King Arthur: TRPG you appreciate those facets of Total War games all the more.

If they have, I certainly can't seem to find it. I'm hoping someone will pop in here and correct me, surely I'm just missing it?

Giaddon

14-01-2012, 03:19 AM

What exactly is the Shogun 2 issue? When I need to advance/turn around or twist my formations, I use the arrows underneath the portrait on the left. If that helps.

sabrage

14-01-2012, 03:52 AM

Between fishing, Navi, Lord Jabu-Jabu and that fucking Owl, I'm kind of getting sick of Ocarina of Time. I hate that this game goes so far out of its way to hold your hand, and still does a terrible job of telegraphing what to do next. I shouldn't have to play every single song I know to get to the next area. I shouldn't have to look up a walkthrough to realize that I don't get a fish from the goddamn fishing area, I need to use an empty bottle in a completely different area.

Super Mario World is the only game I've played in recent memory that hasn't annoyed the hell out of me in some way. Usually it's a difficulty plateau that doesn't fit organically with the rest of the game that gets me: the entire second half of Cave Story, or infinite range enemies in Far Cry and Serious Sam 3, exploding kobolds in Orcs Must Die... Think I might go back and replay Half-Life 2 and see if I've gotten extremely picky, or if these games just suffer from poor design. (even Portal 2 annoyed me with its pixel hunt bullshit in between the actual puzzles)

Heliocentric

14-01-2012, 08:52 AM

@sabrage kobolds are not hard, so much as they define your use of barricades and archers, much like gnolls.

What you need for all kobolds is either fast fire/always on traps or tar. The fast fire have like wall blades and the brimstone. The always on are like grinder (and upgraded swinging mace and archer both share its qualities).
The fast fire traps act as a filter, clipping only 1 of them every so often, but a grinder will kill each and every kobolds unless Orcs and Ogres jam it up, but archers and swinging mace (set lengthways, and synchronised if the corridor is wider than 1). One archer will attract every bomb kobolds taking the most direct route, you can use this to ensure the safety of other barricades,, but also the laser accuracy of a 3 archer barrage will stop kobolds in their tracks, pair up with tar.

The roof mounted sniper turret is good vs kobolds on straights, the dlc pop up floor fire trap is good vs kobolds as a filter and still does okay vs Orcs.

Heliocentric

14-01-2012, 09:38 AM

Played Cities in Motion yesterday, I was just learning its nuances so I could help my son. After drowning in debt in the first scenario in the euro campaign (how apt) 5 times I realise I need to read a guide.

Old buses are rubbish, trams collapse under traffic, metro costs too much helicopter (wtf?) and water bus? Is great but situational.

To be fair, I learned my mistakes and realise what I was doing wrong, it's a little counter intuitive but it's a lovely little game.

sabrage

14-01-2012, 11:50 AM

Strategy

I'll freely admit that as soon as my barricades got fucked by a swarm of kobolds I closed the game and haven't really bothered to go back. I like tower defense games for mazing and optimal tower placement, and I feel like the multiple spawn points in OMD really complicate that. That's just down to personal preference and a resistance to change, though.

oceanclub

14-01-2012, 12:05 PM

Morrowind! Could be my third attempt to play it; am away from my main desktop and missing Skyrim, so thought I'd install it with a few mods on my laptop and try another character. This time I'm playing a female Bosmer pilgrim and so far so good; I'm having much more fun, mainly because at the start, bow is more effective/fun than melee (melee in Morrowind is _awful_ at the beginning; I can't tell if I'm missing rats because (a) I'm rubbish or (b) because I'm pointing my cursor at the wrong part of their body), and also because of my speech skills, buying/selling required items (including arrows) is easier on the pocket; in fact, after selling a bit of loot including a set of **** *********** armor, I'm up 5K at level 4, so can easily train up the minor skills I need to get the full +5 additions to my attributes at level up. Who knows, I may not give up this time around.....

P.

Colonel J

14-01-2012, 12:27 PM

Just restarted and then finished Crysis as consequence of my new year resolution to do more backlog clearance of my older half complete games, and having bought Crysis 2 in the christmas sale. I enjoyed going back to replay the sandboxy first half of it. I just wish my completionist tendencies hadn't kept me pushing on with it through all the on-rails flying jellyfish shooting after the alien mothership level. The final level & boss fight particularly was an irritating and empty grind. Only now do I half remember other people's comments to stop playing when you hit the aliens, you've had the best of it. Oh well at least it was short and it's over.

I hear Warhead is better (?), though now I can't find the will to load that up anytime soon.

Casimir Effect

14-01-2012, 02:40 PM

I can't say I have, but I do know of the game. What's the combat system like?
I hear it's similar to the Ogre Battle game and Romancing SaGa but assuming that you, like me, haven't played those games I'll try and give a quick rundown.

In battle you command 1-5 groups (Unions) of 1-5 people, which you select from a roster which grows as you go through the game. The number of Unions and people you can allocate between them increases as you go through the main quest, reaching up to 5 Unions allowed and 18 characters to put into them at around the half-way point of the game. The characters in a Union are positioned on a 5x5 grid based on a chosen Formation (new types found throughout the game) which will often be effective against certain enemy types or generally provide more attack/defense usually at the expense of defense/attack or something else.

All characters have a standard attack and then learn a number of Arts - Combat, Magic, Item, Bomb, Herb etc - which are your special moves. This game has no mana pool and health is regenerated after each fight, so the onus is on the fights themselves. Instead of mana your characters each generate an amount of AP which goes into a pool available to the entire Union. It is from this that any Art usage comes from. The twist is you don't get to choose your characters attacks directly. Rather, you are given a set of themed commands (the set is based on the battle Morale, characters in the Union & their class [Combat-heavy, Magic-heavy, Mix], class of Union leader, position on battlefield, status of other Unions, enemy type and its status) and you choose which you want. You can see what each command will have your people doing so it isn't a blind choice, but it is useful to know the 'theme' of the commands because your people may 'reassess' their action on-the-fly during the fight (only in the sense that they'd upgrade from simply using Attack to using an Art, ie. it wouldn't screw up any plans).

There is no typical XP system: using Arts will level them up as you go while your characters will get stat increases just by doing things in battles and not being KO'd at the end. Ultimately it's pretty damn confusing when you first start off playing the game, and also a bit limited as at the start you can only have up to 2 Unions and 7 people of something like that. It's when more Unions are unlocked that things get really fun and you can get into epic battles that last up to an hour. And there are lots of battles.

Annoyingly I can't find a decent video showing the gameplay off to the full.

squirrelfanatic

14-01-2012, 03:56 PM

I recently started The Longest Journey for the first time. Amazing atmosphere and characters that I am actually interested in. This one will probably take quite a long time (figures...) to finish, but I can already see me taking this nice and slow. The voice acting is so good that I don't feel pressed to rush things.

Edit: The other game I am playing at the moment is Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive. Cool setting, lovely mechanics (like Commandos had) but utterly broken character abilities. Sanchez is a butcher.

vinraith

14-01-2012, 04:36 PM

What exactly is the Shogun 2 issue? When I need to advance/turn around or twist my formations, I use the arrows underneath the portrait on the left. If that helps.

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Jockie

14-01-2012, 04:52 PM

Just 'finished' Saints Row the Third (meaning I've done all the story, but there's a fair bit of open wordly stuff I haven't done). Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish and probably the only open world sandbox game I can see myself replaying from the beginning.

Now I have choices to make on what's next with a few games from the steam sale sat on my hard-drive looking tempting: Bullet storm, LA Noire or Deadspace 2?

Althea

14-01-2012, 04:59 PM

The Settlers 7 - Finally finished the campaign.

*Flails like Kermit* Yaaaaaaaay!

Fumarole

14-01-2012, 05:32 PM

Now that I discovered I can use my Gamestop giftcard on Impulse I am about to launch into a weekend-long binge of Shogun: Total War for the first time in about twelve years.

"The enemy run like whipped dogs!"

Hordriss

14-01-2012, 05:56 PM

Kingdom Rush, thanks to the article. Other than that, more SpaceChem.

Colonel J

14-01-2012, 06:03 PM

Now I have choices to make on what's next with a few games from the steam sale sat on my hard-drive looking tempting: Bullet storm, LA Noire or Deadspace 2?

Bulletstorm is brilliant but it's a like bucketful of highest quality fast-food sugar-rush. Best bitten off in short doses. A good one to mix in with other games you have in progress.

perafilozof

14-01-2012, 07:30 PM

I was playing Battlefield 3 and having a nice time with my favorite Jet the Su37 when this dude comes along :

This sorry excuse for a battlefield player aimboted me from the US carrier on Wake Island and had the audacity to shot me in a cockpit of a Su37.
You aimboted the wrong jet pilot! :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4-FSyvbG3Q&hd=1

Oak

14-01-2012, 09:00 PM

sabrage

15-01-2012, 01:23 AM

I'm up to 86/96 secret exits on Super Mario World... I have every exit for every red dot, and I just cleaned up two of the ghost house exits I missed. 8 of the exits are in the Special Zone, and I need to find the two that I missed on the main map to get to that.... No clue what I'm missing, and I've spent the better part of the last hour trying to figure it out.

Fumarole

15-01-2012, 06:04 AM

What exactly is the Shogun 2 issue? When I need to advance/turn around or twist my formations, I use the arrows underneath the portrait on the left. If that helps.Those have been around since Empire, yeah?

icemann

15-01-2012, 06:26 AM

Kingdom Rush, thanks to the article. Other than that, more SpaceChem.

Kingdom Rush kicks ass. One of the best tower defense games I've played in a while. Having to actually work for each and every talent point really adds to the challenge.

augustuskent

15-01-2012, 10:03 AM

started playing age of conan, slightly confused, but enjoying it.

Doodier

15-01-2012, 10:10 AM

Borderlands in co-op! It's way better than in SP but I have a little issue with ammo as in our group there are 2 snipers and I am one of them. But it's really great fun. We are few missions in the DLC called The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and I just like it. The storytelling is great and the creatures are funny (Wereskag? I Lol'd).
Also, I've started Assassin's Creed 1 for the first time and it looks promising. I'll probably stick with that for a while.

Heliocentric

15-01-2012, 10:14 AM

I've started Assassin's Creed 1 for the first time and it looks promising. I'll probably stick with that for a while.
Don't play to much in one sitting, the atmosphere will lose some of its charm, I recommend you use a 360 pad too, takes time to get used to but it's worth it.

Doodier

15-01-2012, 11:01 AM

Don't play to much in one sitting, the atmosphere will lose some of its charm, I recommend you use a 360 pad too, takes time to get used to but it's worth it.I don't own a gamepad so it's M+KB for me.EDIT: Oh my, the climbing is really hard.. He just jumps and bounces off the building and he does that quite often. Is it better with the controller?

Prokroustis

15-01-2012, 12:32 PM

Is it better with the controller?

No. A controller is preferable only in a very limited number of games on PC. AC I find not to be one of them.

Oshada

15-01-2012, 01:10 PM

I find Assassin's Creed II (and Brotherhood) equally comfortable with mouse+keyboard and controller. However I can't speak for the first game.

sabrage

15-01-2012, 01:18 PM

My advice would be to skip AssCreed 1 entirely, but if you like it, by all means.

The JG Man

15-01-2012, 01:44 PM

I have to agree with sabrage; I think that mechanically, AC1 is fine and for the first little bit, probably mind-blowing, but it becomes incredibly repetitive very quickly and has such a poor narrative with only a few exceptions that as a game, I think it's rather poor. My suggestion would be to read up on or watch clips that highlight the important aspects of 1 and then go straight into 2. I wouldn't say it fixes everything (although YMMV, many people seem to think it eliminated all the flaws of the first) but it polishes the mechanics and is structured a hell of a lot better.

Doodier

15-01-2012, 02:09 PM

The thing is - I own only the first one. I'll try to stick with it a little bit longer. Surely, it can't be repetitive if you haven't even used all your weapons yet, right?

Giaddon

15-01-2012, 02:15 PM

If you're leaping off the buildings randomly in AC, you may be doing something wrong. It should be fairly straightforward (hold right mouse button and space, run toward wall).

I really liked AC1. I think it has the best story of the three (the dual storylines of Altair and Desmond are each interesting and feed into each other), and I liked the focus (some say repetitiveness) of it over the bloat of 2 and Brotherhood. Not that I didn't like those games, but they were a bit much. The story also gets increasingly stupid in each game, IMO.

airtekh

15-01-2012, 02:21 PM

The thing is - I own only the first one. I'll try to stick with it a little bit longer. Surely, it can't be repetitive if you haven't even used all your weapons yet, right?

From what I've read, it seems to be very subjective as to how quickly people tire of Assassin's Creed. I think it hinges on how much you enjoy the combat.

The game gets quite combat-heavy in the latter stages of the game, and less focused on assassinations; so if you're not a huge fan of the combat, you're likely to become disenchanted.

I quite liked the combat in Assassin's Creed, so I didn't find it to become as repetitive as other people have found it.

The JG Man

15-01-2012, 02:30 PM

Surely, it can't be repetitive if you haven't even used all your weapons yet, right?

I didn't actually find the combat bit the most boring part. I thought the game just ground to a halt in terms of the presence of progress. Just doing the same tasks over and over with only the end result being at all different. The combat is repetitive, but it is serviceable and you look cool doing it, so I didn't mind it.

I really liked AC1. I think it has the best story of the three // the bloat of 2 and Brotherhood // The story also gets increasingly stupid in each game, IMO.

I can't speak for Brotherhood or Revelations, but I agree with all those highlighted parts. I felt 1 had the strongest story, even if it didn't really rear its head apart from the beginning and end. I liked what 2 tried to do with a more personal story, but I felt that it also just spent too much time not having a specific focus and yeah, the ending killed it for me. After reading some of the stuff that happens in Bro and Rev, I can say I'm content with having my interest in the AC series disappear with 2.

sabrage

15-01-2012, 02:58 PM

vinraith

15-01-2012, 03:16 PM

"Skip over it entirely" is more or less what I did. I think I played less than two hours before I said "welp, seen everything there is to see here." So I don't have much of an opinion on it, besides that it's boring, repetitive and the combat blows.

I 100%'d AssCreed 2 though.

This kind of comment, which is very common, really does confuse the hell out of me. I enjoyed AC1 and AC2, but I don't really see much difference between them. They're both extremely repetitive, and both a lot of fun despite it, if you ask me. Hell, I'm playing Revelations right now, which is just Brotherhood again with a couple of new toys (which was just AC2 with a couple of new toys, which was just AC1 with some new toys), and it's still enjoyable.

sabrage

15-01-2012, 03:20 PM

Heliocentric

15-01-2012, 03:28 PM

Only one thing utterly ruins asscreed 1. The old Metroid trick of fully equipping you and then stealing it all away. They all do it but AC1 was particularly obnoxious.

vinraith

15-01-2012, 03:49 PM

AC2 gave me empty fulfillment in the form of buildings, weapons and glyphs to find. They didn't affect the game in any way; I was literally always swimming in money and the combat never felt any different, but it satisfied some "crossing things off a list" compulsion I have deep down. I fired up AssBro immediately afterwards and was disgusted that it was exactly the same. Can't explain it.

Fair enough, clearly it's just a matter of what hits your compulsion buttons. For me the free running and the assassination have always been the draw, and those really haven't changed.

Only one thing utterly ruins asscreed 1. The old Metroid trick of fully equipping you and then stealing it all away. They all do it but AC1 was particularly obnoxious.

Yeah, that was kind of shit. I was expecting it, though, which may be why it ultimately didn't bother me too much.

Vague-rant

15-01-2012, 04:32 PM

AC1 actually only became a slog for me towards the final quarter or so of the game, but by the time the bit where it becomes combat scene after combat scene just annoyed the hell out of me. If I hadn't been so close to the end at the time, I mightn't have finished it.

AC2 was better, but I really enjoyed AssBro.

Just finished LA. Noire. Pretty decent. I didn't expect any kind of open world shenanigans, so no dissappointment on that front. The facial animation was pretty impressive and the voice acting was good throughout. Little bits of "guess what the designers were thinking" in places, but can't complain- it wasn't like getting it wrong meant much... I didn't particularly like the plot though. I felt like Phelp's needed a little more time to settle in Arson, and the Black Dahlia debacle should've had more impact- like Cole should've requested to be removed from Homocide, only to discover corruption is everywhere.

sabrage

15-01-2012, 04:44 PM

Only one thing utterly ruins asscreed 1. The old Metroid trick of fully equipping you and then stealing it all away. They all do it but AC1 was particularly obnoxious.
Funny you should mention Metroid; it's the only game where I actually enjoy having all my powers taken away like that.

Fair enough, clearly it's just a matter of what hits your compulsion buttons. For me the free running and the assassination have always been the draw, and those really haven't changed.
I guess I've never been impressed by AssCreed's "hold the button and run forward" style of climbing. I'll take a good platformer or Shadow of the Colossus any day for that.

Anyways, I finally figured out which level in Super Mario World I forgot... Fitting that it should be Bowser's Castle. Edit: or... Bowser's castle doesn't count towards the total. Kind of sick of this game.

Shark

15-01-2012, 04:56 PM

I loved AC1s setting and thought the combat was a fresh breeze after playing too much Just Cause 2. I picked up part 2 immediately afterwards, but halfway through my mobo died and I lost interest.

Bought Anno 2070 yesterday and enjoying it so far. It's actually the first Anno where I intend to finish the campaign. Compared to 1404 (or Dawn of Discovery for you people on the wrong side of the ocean) they feel pretty much the same, but thank god they removed the "find the one special person in your 10000 inhabitant city" side missions

Althea

15-01-2012, 04:58 PM

Bought Anno 2070 yesterday and enjoying it so far. It's actually the first Anno where I intend to finish the campaign. Compared to 1404 (or Dawn of Discovery for you people on the wrong side of the ocean) they feel pretty much the same, but thank god they removed the "find the one special person in your 10000 inhabitant city" side missions
I hated those, especially as that one person never seemed to spawn straight away. I too intend to finish the 2070 campaign, but I don't know if I'll get to it any time soon.

vinraith

15-01-2012, 05:31 PM

I guess I've never been impressed by AssCreed's "hold the button and run forward" style of climbing. I'll take a good platformer or Shadow of the Colossus any day for that.

To each their own. I've never had much use for twitch gameplay (partly because I'm terrible at it, I'm sure), I'd rather the game be about choosing where to go instead of hitting the right sequence of buttons in proper time to get there. That's probably why the AC series are pretty much the only action games I've enjoyed in ages.

Lukasz

15-01-2012, 05:58 PM

gave up and installed Settlers 2. on second mission but i already played 2 hours. it will take ages to go through campaign.

Birdman Tribe Leader

15-01-2012, 06:03 PM

I just started SpaceChem a little while ago, and it is lovely. I also started the Oracle of Ages/Seasons Zelda games for when I don't have the heart to sink my teeth into SpaceChem; they are pretty lousy and I may quit soon.

Recently finished playing Lemmings again. Trying to hunt down a copy of Oh No! More Lemmings, which I've never tried.

Sabrage: Don't give up on Ocarina of Time just yet. Like you, I played it for the first time pretty recently and bounced of the early parts of the game. I thought it significantly after the major event that occurs shortly after Jabu-Jabu (although there are still irritating points). Dungeons 4-6 are all excellent, and one of my favorite moments in gaming is in the Fire Temple when you get the hammer, after which there are 4 or 5 puzzles in quick succession where the solution is "smash it with a hammer." It's very satisfying.

Wizardry: Have you played Quest for Glory? I'm sure it's not hugely your style, but I was wondering if you could recommend a CRPG that hits the same part of the palate. One thing that I really liked about Quest for Glory and that I think is sorely missing from most RPGs is compelling use of abilities in a non-combat context. Because the games are half puzzles, there is a lot of room for wizards and thieves to use their skills in an interesting way. And I loved that Quest for Glory combined this with quite a bit of freedom and a world that felt fairly alive.

Most post-DOS RPGs (I don't really have experience with DOS-era RPGs) never have any interesting gameplay outside of combat (clicking a button or playing a dumb minigame to pick a lock or disarm a trap does not count). There's the whole collecting and crafting thing, but that's never interested me, and there are the talky RPGs like Planescape Torment and Arcanum and Fallout, which I enjoy but do not scratch the same itch. Any recommendations? I'm considering Darklands, Realms of Arkania, and Albion. (It's possible that I'm looking in the wrong place; to some extent, Deus Ex and Hitman have given me the closest sort of satisfaction.)

Heliocentric

15-01-2012, 07:00 PM

gave up and installed Settlers 2. on second mission but i already played 2 hours. it will take ages to go through campaign.

Yeah, the campaign is far too long, play skirmish free for all with 8 players.

Wizardry

15-01-2012, 07:58 PM

Stuff.
Seems kind of interesting. I might even give it a try one day. So how much control do you have over each individual character? Is the protagonist fixed or can you make your own?

Wizardry: Have you played Quest for Glory? I'm sure it's not hugely your style, but I was wondering if you could recommend a CRPG that hits the same part of the palate. One thing that I really liked about Quest for Glory and that I think is sorely missing from most RPGs is compelling use of abilities in a non-combat context. Because the games are half puzzles, there is a lot of room for wizards and thieves to use their skills in an interesting way. And I loved that Quest for Glory combined this with quite a bit of freedom and a world that felt fairly alive.
There aren't any games like Quest for Glory as it's a true hybrid. You often see adventure game elements in older RPGs, but not as many as Quest for Glory.

Most post-DOS RPGs (I don't really have experience with DOS-era RPGs) never have any interesting gameplay outside of combat (clicking a button or playing a dumb minigame to pick a lock or disarm a trap does not count). There's the whole collecting and crafting thing, but that's never interested me, and there are the talky RPGs like Planescape Torment and Arcanum and Fallout, which I enjoy but do not scratch the same itch. Any recommendations? I'm considering Darklands, Realms of Arkania, and Albion. (It's possible that I'm looking in the wrong place; to some extent, Deus Ex and Hitman have given me the closest sort of satisfaction.)
There are lots of them, but not many from the Windows era. Most nowadays boil down to combat and dialogue. Guns/swords and conversation, if you like. Older ones were much better. Wasteland is one of the most notable ones. Realms of Arkania and Darklands, as you mentioned, also allow you to actually do stuff outside of combat and conversations. None of them contain traditional adventure game elements, even though all three feature puzzles in their own ways.

Then you've got RPG series like The Magic Candle and Ultima which are about 10% combat, 30% dialogue and 60% exploration. The games are giant puzzles. Combat hardly ever progresses the plot. Instead, combat is just something to get through on your way to solving puzzles.

squirrelfanatic

15-01-2012, 08:14 PM

593

Finally! A friend of mine and I finished Magicka - The Stars are Left tonight. There might be people that kill this fella in under one minute but I am quite content with... eh... the amount time it took us to do it.

TailSwallower

15-01-2012, 08:20 PM

Playing Cthulhu Saves the World. I'm not sure if I'm going to persist until the end of the game though - I like the story and the humour, but I don't find the combat very interesting and there is a lot of it.

squirrelfanatic

15-01-2012, 09:23 PM

I just spent about half and hour with The Longest Journey. I made some progression and got to a part with a lot of story advancement (I don't want to spoil anything). Already I can see that it was a good purchase, even if I am still at the beginning. The dialogues are full of nudges towards game clichés and I've encountered at least two instances where they happily punch through the fourth wall. If you like listening to a lot of voice acting (it's well done) and don't mind the aged graphics (it's an adventure after all) I would highly recommend to give this a try.

And wasn't there someone from the RPS staff who absolutely adored the game? I'll have to have a look through the archives of the ancient RPS vaults.

Birdman Tribe Leader

15-01-2012, 09:52 PM

Wizardry: Thanks! Hadn't heard of Magic Candle before, and I've been meaning to try Ultima for ages.

TailSwallower: I'm with you on Cthulhu. I thought I would love it (I've put up with plenty of boring JRPG combat over the years), but the loooong mazey dungeons with no plot or humor and too many random battles made me quit only 2 or 3 hours in.

squirrelfanatic: If it's about adventure games, it's probably John Walker. He's written about it (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/21/the-longest-journey-a-retrospective/) at least twice (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/07/09/gaming-made-me-4-john-walkthrough/). TLJ really is delightful, even if there are still a couple dud puzzles.

Lambchops

15-01-2012, 09:57 PM

And wasn't there someone from the RPS staff who absolutely adored the game? I'll have to have a look through the archives of the ancient RPS vaults.

John Walker. I'd recommend waiting until you're done though, if I remember correctly a lot of the articles have spoilers in them. It's also possible that there are more articles about the sequel Dreamfall AKA "the one that made him cry."

The Longest Jounrey is wonderful. There's a few duff puzzles here and there but the characters and world they inhabit are delightful and soon ease any frustrations that occur.

---

I'm playing Limbo just now. I'm on the fence whether I like it or not (about at the halfway stage). I will reserve judgement but at the moment I can see it being one of those games where I don't fully get the praise lavished on it.

cosmicolor

15-01-2012, 11:43 PM

Seems kind of interesting. I might even give it a try one day. So how much control do you have over each individual character? Is the protagonist fixed or can you make your own?

From what I've played of the demo to that game, you generally only control Rush, the main character, and in the traditional style of JRPGs you don't get to make your own guy. In the demo there didn't seem to be a way to change that but the full game could well have something.

A little tidbit, IIRC, where Sabrage mentioned that Square wanted to appeal to Western audiences with TLR, originally Square planned to have two playable characters. One of which being the typical JRPG hero meant to appeal to Japan, and another who was targeted towards Western audiences. This idea didn't come through (although both characters do feature in the game) but the idea resurfaced in Nier, which actually went through with it, splitting the two leads across two versions of the game. Kind of like Pokemon.

I should really get around to actually buying The Last Remnant, it's not that expensive by now.

Danny252

15-01-2012, 11:59 PM

Terrorhedron - goddamn that game is addictive. It's simple at a glance (place guns, shoot things), but it actually takes a lot of strategy to get it right. For example, do you upgrade a certain turret and risk the chance that you'll lose a lot of money when you need something else there (selling only gives you 50%), or do you wait for the money to put something shinier there and hope that your defence is able to hold up for another round or two?

sabrage

16-01-2012, 02:35 AM

Finally found the last exit in Super Mario World. Now I only need to do the 8 secret world levels, but judging from the first one they're a lot harder than the main game levels. I think I spent as much time trying to figure out which bloody exit I missed as I did actually playing the game....

Sabrage: Don't give up on Ocarina of Time just yet. Like you, I played it for the first time pretty recently and bounced of the early parts of the game. I thought it significantly after the major event that occurs shortly after Jabu-Jabu (although there are still irritating points). Dungeons 4-6 are all excellent, and one of my favorite moments in gaming is in the Fire Temple when you get the hammer, after which there are 4 or 5 puzzles in quick succession where the solution is "smash it with a hammer." It's very satisfying.
I know what part you're talking about (are we really alluding to spoilers 15 years later? Well, when in Rome...) but A Link to the Past came today and I'm just going to play that instead. I was really excited to play Ocarina after waiting all this time, but I'd much rather have a game that doesn't feel the need to signpost me at every step. I've played almost every top-down Zelda game and, judging by what I've seen of Ocarina and Twilight Princess, something just doesn't jive with me quite the same way in the 3D entries... Which is kind of strange, seeing as I enjoyed the hell out of Darksiders. Think I'll play LttP, catch up on my PC backlog a bit and then come back to Ocarina... I'm just not feeling it right now.

Voon

16-01-2012, 04:09 AM

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 04:23 AM

Think I'll play LttP

There's always time to play LttP. It was my first Zelda title and it mesmerised me. What a bloody good game. Besides, if you play that you've pretty much played Twilight Princess. (You should still play TP, it's a great game, but LttP is, in my opinion, superior)

sabrage

16-01-2012, 05:10 AM

You should still play TP, it's a great game
I have it, but any attempts to play it would involve re-buying it for Gamecube... The Wii controls suck ass. What's up with Nintendo, Zelda, and making me fish? I hate fishing. I hate fishing in games. Stop doing that.

Birdman Tribe Leader

16-01-2012, 05:15 AM

I've almost every top-down Zelda game

Not sure what the missing verb was going to be (I hope its not "I've hated almost every top-down Zelda game"), but if you've never played Link's Awakening, I think it might be the best game in the series. And Zelda 1 is also pretty great; I especially like not having an in-game map; drawing a map the first time I played was probably the most fun part of the game.

And yeah, I felt silly avoiding spoilers but I never know with RPS; I always assume there are at least a few people who have always been PC-exclusive.

sabrage

16-01-2012, 05:21 AM

Not sure what the missing verb was going to be
*played, I'm all over the place with typos today. I've only played a bit of Link's Awakening and I've yet to touch Spirit Tracks, but those are the only other two I haven't beaten. (Besides Four Swords, but I'm not likely to find four friends with GBAs anytime soon)

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 05:25 AM

I have it, but any attempts to play it would involve re-buying it for Gamecube... The Wii controls suck ass. What's up with Nintendo, Zelda, and making me fish? I hate fishing. I hate fishing in games. Stop doing that.

Haha. With a good enough PC, there's no reason why you couldn't play TP on Dolphin. In fact, having the GC version automatically makes it easier as you won't have to faff about with the set-up for wireless.

Not sure what the missing verb was going to be (I hope its not "I've hated almost every top-down Zelda game"), but if you've never played Link's Awakening
, I think it might be the best game in the series.

Sentence still stands when taken to mean that he has all of them, which is definitely possible. I've heard such things about Link's Awakening though. My best friend keeps telling me to play it...

Chevy

16-01-2012, 05:33 AM

Link's Awakening is indeed the best of the series. Link to the Past is also very, very good.

... but I'd much rather have a game that doesn't feel the need to signpost me at every step.

This is the reason I can't finish Skyward Sword. The hand holding is just ridiculous now.

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 05:49 AM

It doesn't help that the motion controls are...subjective, at best. The Skyward Sword thread (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?2026-Skyward-Sword&highlight=skyward+sword) ended up being filled with me going from excitement, to disappointment, to ambivalence and acceptance. Lemme put it this way; Skyward Sword is the reason I'm incredibly looking forward to Darksiders 2.

I've spent the last few posts not saying I've played any games. Truth is, I'm majorly distracting myself from work due in later today, so this evening I'll be able to play games again in a vegatitive state. In the last few days or so, I've nipped on a few levels of Sonic Generations and tried some speed running. With skills, I was able to beat Green Hill act 2 in 1m 59s. I also did some quick times for Crisis City (both acts) although I can't remember the times. It's such a damn good game.

squirrelfanatic

16-01-2012, 06:21 AM

squirrelfanatic: If it's about adventure games, it's probably John Walker. He's written about it (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/21/the-longest-journey-a-retrospective/) at least twice (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/07/09/gaming-made-me-4-john-walkthrough/). TLJ really is delightful, even if there are still a couple dud puzzles.

John Walker. I'd recommend waiting until you're done though, if I remember correctly a lot of the articles have spoilers in them. It's also possible that there are more articles about the sequel Dreamfall AKA "the one that made him cry."

The Longest Jounrey is wonderful. There's a few duff puzzles here and there but the characters and world they inhabit are delightful and soon ease any frustrations that occur. Thanks to both of you, I should have known. :) I think I'll refrain from reading the articles right now until I am done with the game. And good to know that there is a sequel too.

amusingthebrood

16-01-2012, 09:11 AM

Drake Sigar

16-01-2012, 09:19 AM

Also this weekend I played a big chunk of the first Trine with my wife.
I wish my wife were so open to new experiences.

Wait, Trine is an expression for threesome, right?

amusingthebrood

16-01-2012, 09:29 AM

I wish my wife were so open to new experiences.

Wait, Trine is an expression for threesome, right?

With the right equipment I believe three at once is certainly an option.

MD!

16-01-2012, 10:28 AM

In the last few days or so, I've nipped on a few levels of Sonic Generations and tried some speed running. With skills, I was able to beat Green Hill act 2 in 1m 59s. I also did some quick times for Crisis City (both acts) although I can't remember the times. It's such a damn good game.

I've been meaning to ask you about Generations. You seem to be the resident Sonic expert here, and I dug up the thread you made in the leadup to its release, but it petered out before any verdicts were given. I guess you just answered my main question, but is there anything I should know about the quality of the port, or any other Sonic PC game I should play instead, as a newcomer? (Steam and GamersGate want me to pay $50 for Generations, so it probably won't arrive in my price range for quite a while.)

edit: just found it for $15 on Get Games, so it's now in the possible buy range. Small plug: I'm not sure whether this varies from region to region (i.e. perhaps it's just that everyone else is ripping me off for being Australian), but getgamesgo.com has surprisingly good prices on some games. Their $15 price for Sonic Generations compares with $30 from D2D and $50 from Steam and GamersGate, and I recently picked up Jagged Alliance 2 Gold for $3, as opposed to $10 from GamersGate or $20 from Steam. I think I'll have to work Get Games (and Green Man Gaming, for that matter) into my regular price-check routine. Good to see a bit of competition for Steam et al.

sabrage

16-01-2012, 10:44 AM

Haha. With a good enough PC, there's no reason why you couldn't play TP on Dolphin. In fact, having the GC version automatically makes it easier as you won't have to faff about with the set-up for wireless.
Eh... The fact that my CPU is really showing its age aside, I hate the general bugginess of emulation. I've got enough games to play as it is though, so I'll cross that bridge when I finish the other 3 Zelda games I've got piled up, then take a long break from Hyrule.

I think LttP has better graphics, music and gameplay than Ocarina. It's faster, the puzzles are more interesting, and it doesn't assume that I'm retarded.

Roufuss

16-01-2012, 11:21 AM

Spent the weekend playing Dodonpachi Resurrection on the 360 (RIP Cave, its not too late to consider the PC) and Rayman Origins (also on the 360), probably the best platformer of 2011. Its kind of a shame Ubisoft didn't bring it to the PC like the rest of the series, but they took a big enough chance releasing it on the consoles (where it bombed, since its not a shooter in the first or third person variety.)

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 11:34 AM

Is there anything I should know about the quality of the port, or any other Sonic PC game I should play instead, as a newcomer?

A second thread for SG was made. Take a gander (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?2011-Sonic-Generations&highlight=sonic+generations). Most of the response was positive. I think the Steam winter sale thread had some posts in it aswell, but that main thread should cover your ground. As for the version; if you have the specs for it, then you get by far the best version of the game (consoles get 720p and 30fps, you can get it up to 1080p and 60fps). You are pretty much required to use a controller though; all button prompts use the Xbox buttons, so in that sense it's a bit lazy. Other than performance quality, there's no differences between the versions, so by getting the PC version you get the best and cheaper.

Other than Sonic 2 and 3 & Knuckles, I'm fairly certain Sonic Generations is the best you can get on the PC, maybe until CD finally comes out (and definitely neglecting Sonic 4 because it's Sonic 4).

I've got enough games to play as it is though

Fair enough. I wouldn't dismiss any of the others, but other than Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past is in a league of its own.

MD!

16-01-2012, 11:39 AM

Thanks for that, sounds like it's worth a go. I had missed/forgotten about that thread entirely, for some reason.

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 11:43 AM

Really, if you liked Sonic at any part, there's something for you to enjoy. 2D is good. It's not perfect, but it's the best they've done since the classics. Modern is in its best incarnation yet and controls well. The fact is, if it didn't have Sonic in the title and the doubt it came with it, it'd probably have got a lot more attention. The only justifiable thing fans have against it is that some think it's not quite as good as Sonic Colours. This is a good thing.

Roufuss

16-01-2012, 11:52 AM

The only problem Generations has is its length; if you're good at Sonic games, you can blow through it in a weekend (and I did just that, with S ranks on every level.) If you don't like searching for inane collectibles, there isn't a lot left to do once you beat it. I personally hate collectibles so I really didn't go out of my way to get red coins (just did the ones for the achievements for the hell of it.)

Personally, I would have enjoyed less challenge levels, less collectibles and more core levels but when the only complaint with a game is that you want more of an awesome game, thats more of an accomplishment than anything.

For $10 - $20, its absolutely a must buy, as most people should get more than 10 hours out of it if they are average at platformers. I paid $50 on launch day and don't regret it.

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 11:56 AM

Roufuss

16-01-2012, 12:12 PM

I'd argue though that the 'core' levels are designed with replayability in mind. The collectibles obviously immediately highlight that, but there's also the speed running element. Finally, putting that aside, I just find them fun to run through.

I don't know if any other Sonic player feels the same, but I used to use 2/3&K as 'that game' to play whenever you're bored and are thinking what to do next, or maybe to cheer you up. I feel Generations has become that for me now. Hop on, select a level and you've got a nice blast of 10 minutes. It is a short game, but you could more than easily say that about the old titles and in much the same way, I think it's geared for replayability.

I run through the old games often (have them all on the 360 so no need to hook up older systems to do so) but I don't know... I don't feel the same about this one. I got my fill in the weekend I played of it and I've never really wanted to go back. Maybe it has to do with the fact its more of a pain in the ass to pop a game in the 360 to play for 10 minutes at a time, haha.

I was never big on speed running levels (again, only did it where I had to for an achievement) and I abhor collectibles and wish the industry would abandon them as they are crappy ways to pad out game time. While the core levels are replayable, I really wanted to see more levels celebrating more of Sonic's past.

I mean, like I said earlier I think that for me personally, Generations wasn't that long because I've been a Sonic fan for a long time and the game wasn't that difficult if you know what you're doing. I think for an average player or someone not familiar with the franchise, getting S rank on every level could take awhile (and beating some of the later stages could be a challenge in and of itself).

This is a game where DLC would be highly welcomed -- I'd certainly buy levels remade for Generations, but it seems Sega has already moved on and completely skipped a great opportunity here. I was really hoping we'd see a lot of awesome DLC for this in the form of level packs.

Disappointed that Casino Night was just a pinball machine too. If they wanted a pinball level, why not just remake Toxic Caves?

The JG Man

16-01-2012, 12:19 PM

Hmmm, I'm not so sure I entirely agree with you on the collectibles in this game. Others, yes, but the sound track reward is suitable for me. Yeah, the game was a little easy on the whole...can't argue with that. As for main level DLC, it's worth considering that 2006 and Unleashed were heavily supported and considering how well Colours did, the only reason it didn't was because it was on the Wii. Also, this is Sega; we didn't have official confirmation of a PC version until a very short time before its release, whilst there'd been evidence for months. It looks like exactly the same is going to happen for Sonic 4 and Sonic CD has been kept rather silent too. Basically, Sega doesn't know what to do with PC versions of Sonic, although I'm willing to bet the main titles have sold reasonably well.

DevinSmoth

16-01-2012, 03:26 PM

I finished Shadowgrounds this morning... and now I'm not entirely sure what to play next. I've got several of the D&D RPGs (Baldur's Gate 1/2, Icewind Dales 1/2) but I also really would like to play through Titan Quest. That said, I was considering Cave Story. I don't know what to choose!

Other than that, it's the same ol' laddering in Bronze in Starcraft2 and dinking around with Skyrim. ;)

Doodier

16-01-2012, 09:15 PM

Okay wow! That AssCreed numero uno is repetetive as hell! It's really annoying to climb up all the view points exactly the same way, crouch up top and see the same animation 5 times in 3 minutes! And trying to quit this game is driving me NUTS! ARGH! WHO THE **** INVENTED THIS SHIT? I overally like it but there are things I genuinely hate about this game.. Also - is there something like fast travel or do I really have to go through the whole village and that canyon just so I can go to other cities?

vinraith

16-01-2012, 09:27 PM

I've almost finished the story of Sequence, my plan is to have that done tonight.

Also this weekend I played a big chunk of the first Trine with my wife. It is very pretty, but the game itself is not impressing me much. It seems to be nothing more than mashing the jump button until you manage to clear an obstacle or mashing the attack button until the skeletons are dead. The puzzles seem to be nothing more sophisticated than make a box to jump from or to jam up a mechanism with and I'm not finding them becoming any more interesting as the game progresses. In fact, the further on we get, the less flexibility there seem to be and the less inventiveness works. It certainly isn't a bad game, and it is very pretty, but I'm finding it a mix of frustrating control pounding and uninspired puzzling.

And playing it on a controller is awful (my wife nabbed the keyboard).

I Played the original Trine solo and thought the puzzles were great. I've been playing the sequel with a friend in co-op, and the puzzles are pathetic. I'm not sure whether the design changed, or whether multiple people just make the game hilariously easy. I'm leaning towards the latter, and that may be the problem you're encountering. Once the wizard can just fly the other player around on a box, there's really no significant puzzle challenge to be found.

Heliocentric

16-01-2012, 09:34 PM

there's really no significant puzzle challenge to be found.
Trines puzzles only really exist with 3 people locked in their roll.

The wizard can wiz everyone else about on a box, but how do you get the wizard up?

Heliocentric

16-01-2012, 09:35 PM

Okay wow! That AssCreed numero uno is repetetive as hell!
Ass creed 2 is worth playing, you might honestly wanna skip #1 if you are having a bad time with it.

Youtuber the highlights.

vinraith

16-01-2012, 09:44 PM

Trines puzzles only really exist with 3 people locked in their roll.

The wizard can wiz everyone else about on a box, but how do you get the wizard up?

Wait, so three player locks everyone to one character? Yeah, THAT would be a lot of fun. One player is sort of interesting, since you can't levitate yourself and have to find the right character/character combination to navigate a given obstacle. Two player, which is what I'm playing, is just broken.

Odeon

16-01-2012, 11:04 PM

I'm playing what I described in my thread (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?2704-A-quot-new-quot-indie-MMO), AfterWorld. And I can't seem to find a way to not play it anymore, at least for longer than a week at most. I usually want to log in at least daily but can't because of family/friends/college/home stuff/parenting/other life crap.

Casimir Effect

17-01-2012, 12:00 AM

Seems kind of interesting. I might even give it a try one day. So how much control do you have over each individual character? Is the protagonist fixed or can you make your own?
I'm afraid the bonds of JRPG can never be cast off entirely. In The Last Remnant you are Rush Sykes, who starts off an annoying little bastard but does actually go through a pretty decent character arc, noticably growing as a person.
Rush is the only character you get full control over in terms of what weapons he uses, and in this game the weapons go a long way to defining their role. For example, choosing to dual wield unlocks one type of Combat Arts, while using 2-Handed Weapons or a single-handed weapon (with optional shield) will unlock others. If you want to go a more magic-heavy route then use a staff-type, which counts as a 2-Handed weapon but will have a far higher magic/lower combat attack that other weapons. So at the start you can decide how you want to play it... to some extent at least - because many of the different types of non-Combat Arts are only unlocked for you upon completion of certain quests. This isn't too bad though, because there are far more than you will ever use (doing so would level things too slowly), you get the most useful at/near the start, it can make new NPC choices more interesting if they have a new type of Art, and if you ever start a NewGame+ then all previously unlocked Arts are accessible from the beginning of the game.

Your companions are fixed in their weapon choices also to some extent. A couple of times they will ask you what they should focus on: Combat, Magic or a bit of both. This sets them on a path which decides their weapon usage. They obtain their weapons by either asking for one that you have found and so is in your inventory, or collecting/requesting raw materials as you play which they will use to upgrade their weapon in the background along a set upgrade path. I have heard it's possible to mod the game such that you can control all their inventories though, so you could have them using whatever you wanted and change their Accessory too (1-2 non-weapon item slot).

It's a weird system. Very weird. Character roles of often determined more by their weapons than their inherent stats. There's a speed/damage bias built into levelling up combat arts which can improve them further but only if you are consistant in weapon choice (eg. katanas gear things towards speed but if you swap to axes this will slowly be undone as a hidden meter moves back to zero then goe into the more-damage regime). There are also a lot of useless characters because there was a change in rules between this and the 360 version, and in fact there are many other differences between the versions.
I bought it on a whim and have sunk around 150 hours into it, completing it once and leaving a NewGame+ open for me to drop into whenever I feel like something different.

I don't want to appear bitchy or anything, but it might be a good idea to tell people which game you are talking about if the original comment is more than, say, a page away. You seem to talk about an interesting game, without a name however, it's not much use.
I know you are talking about The Last Remnant though, and I'm currently downloading the demo. :)
This is a damn good point and so has been added.

Giaddon

17-01-2012, 12:02 AM

RE: Assassin's Creed -- After you visit each city once, you can fast travel between them.

amusingthebrood

17-01-2012, 08:22 AM

Wait, so three player locks everyone to one character? Yeah, THAT would be a lot of fun. One player is sort of interesting, since you can't levitate yourself and have to find the right character/character combination to navigate a given obstacle. Two player, which is what I'm playing, is just broken.

Thinking about it, what you are Heliocentric say makes a lot of sense. Oh well, it is still fun playing with my wife and we can't rustle up a third person. And it is pretty.

In other news, I finished the Sequence story yesterday and I have a day off work on Friday so I need to choose what to play. The current top contender is Rome: TW (I have never played a TW game), but KOTOR and Darwinia are contenders too.

Labbes

17-01-2012, 09:39 AM

Stuff.

I don't want to appear bitchy or anything, but it might be a good idea to tell people which game you are talking about if the original comment is more than, say, a page away. You seem to talk about an interesting game, without a name however, it's not much use.
I know you are talking about The Last Remnant though, and I'm currently downloading the demo. :)

airtekh

17-01-2012, 02:20 PM

I've been dabbling with a bunch of games.

I'm partway through Red Faction: Armageddon. It's decent enough, but it feels like a step back after Red Faction: Guerrilla. They've changed the open-world aspect to linear corridors, and the focus this time seems to be more on combat rather than destruction, which are both negatives.

There are some clever ideas though, like the magnet gun (fire at target A, fire at target B; A and B then race towards each other and collide at high velocity) and the nano-forge (instantly reconstructs broken structures, which allows you to create cover out of thin air). Incidentally, someone should definitely copy/paste the nano-forge mechanic into a first person shooter, it would be very interesting to see.

Rochard is a cute little puzzle-platformer that I picked up in the Steam sale. It's remarkably polished and controls very well. At times there seems to be more focus on combat than puzzles, and the checkpoints are sometimes sparse, but I've been enjoying it very much so far.

I've been surprised at how much fun I'm having with Bejeweled 3. Popcap demonstrate just exactly how far it's possible to stretch the 'match-3' concept. The core game may be just matching coloured gems, but the sheer amount of variety that's been crammed in is quite staggering.

I'm still enjoying Dirt 3 too. Gymkhana is fast becoming my favourite event; I like that it allows you to choose which trick you pull off next, as it always makes each race dynamic and exciting.

I also started The Last Express, but I really have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. I wondered up and down the train for a bit randomly clicking on stuff before returning to my cabin only to get stabbed by a dude with a knife. Great. I've shelved it for now, but I may come back to it later.

Althea

17-01-2012, 02:29 PM

I've been surprised at how much fun I'm having with Bejeweled 3. Popcap demonstrate just exactly how far it's possible to stretch the 'match-3' concept. The core game may be just matching coloured gems, but the sheer amount of variety that's been crammed in is quite staggering.
I'd put maybe 9-10 hours into Bejeweled 2 on iOS, and I was a little reluctant to get the third on the same platform, but I'm glad I did. It looks and plays really well, and they dropped the porno soundtrack. Hurrah!

Giaddon

17-01-2012, 02:54 PM

Beaten a couple games recently:

The First Templar, which on the whole was an enjoyable action-romp. It wasn't nearly as good as the games it was trying to imitate, but it has its charms. It also has some sections where, if you're playing co-op, one player has to stand there and hold down a lever while the other player goes and does something else. That seemed like bold design. Unwise, maybe, but bold.

Mirror's Edge, a replay (for like the millionth time). I can't get enough of this game. Great music, amazing environments and fantastic controls. Such a great, unique game.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, this was also a replay, but I was itching for some more fluid platforming action after Mirror's Edge. It's quite good. Too much fighting (especially at the end), but the water freezing mechanic is awesome. Had a really fun time, which has inspired me to replay Prince of Persia (2008) in the near future.

I've also just jumped back on the Civilization V bandwagon (I played it for like 40 hours in two days when it first came out and uninstalled it in terror of further incapacitation), and damn is it fine. I know Civ V gets its share of lumps, but I really like it. The simplified, more board-gamey feel of it appeals to me, and the music and sound effects are hypnotizing. I love love love the hexes and the single-unit-per-tile system. Wars feel much better (although taking a city is a bitch and a half.). Great game.

Heliocentric

17-01-2012, 03:32 PM

Dawn of war II : Retribution completed as Tyranids, and I'm really disappointed, it ended with a whimper fighting a boss that didn't scratch my health bar (on medium) no strategy or tactics beyond keeping everyone in synapse range and spawning free replacement squads if needs be.

Glad to be free of GFW for the multiplayer but really a vapid experience and lacked the charm the base game had(never tried chaos rising). The Orc campaign is obviously the same missions but the dialogue much missed as the nids is funny and clever, even the generic taunt of the eldar commander going unheeded dazzled compared to the "Come and get me great devourer" repeated through the nid campaign.

As the nids the game is pointless, but can I be arsed replaying?

Danny252

17-01-2012, 07:30 PM

Glad to be free of GFW for the multiplayer but really a vapid experience and lacked the charm the base game had(never tried chaos rising).

I found that ended fairly boringly as well.

db1331

17-01-2012, 08:47 PM

This video sums up my main gripe with Skyward Sword perfectly:

http://www.dorkly.com/video/30673/dorkly-bits-fi-annoys-link

sabrage

18-01-2012, 01:49 AM

94/96 exits in Super Mario World... So close...

These bonus levels are hard as hell. Also on my SNES kick, still loving Link to the Past.

vinraith

18-01-2012, 03:35 AM

I'm playing Academagia somewhat seriously, and trying to figure out whether it's brilliant or just a random text spewing machine. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm still playing it with interest, so I suppose that's something to recommend it.

I'm still playing Assassin's Creed: Revelations as well, but I'm taking it pretty slow and playing in short spells. I'm not sure whether I'm finally wearing out on the formula, or whether the distractions here (like the questionable tower defense mini game) are just sapping my momentum. It should be the former, but I feel like it's mostly the latter. Still, Constantinople is quite a thing.

My co-op partner and I have pretty much abandoned Trine 2. In two player, at least, it's too much platformer and not enough puzzle.

Instead, for a radical change of pace, we've been playing some Close Combat: Wacht am Rhein. Still fantastic, and the updated versions iron out all those old wrinkles remarkably well.

Odeon

18-01-2012, 04:13 PM

I've also just jumped back on the Civilization V bandwagon (I played it for like 40 hours in two days when it first came out and uninstalled it in terror of further incapacitation), and damn is it fine. I know Civ V gets its share of lumps, but I really like it. The simplified, more board-gamey feel of it appeals to me, and the music and sound effects are hypnotizing. I love love love the hexes and the single-unit-per-tile system. Wars feel much better (although taking a city is a bitch and a half.). Great game.
I've played all of the Civ games over the years (and I still come back to the original Civ from time to time) except for Civ 5. It always seemed a bit too easy to take a whole city sometimes in the previous Civs, so it being harder in Civ 5 sounds better. I mean honestly, if I attack a whole city with a small group of barely-trained militia, why is it only defended by the military units fortified inside of it? Why wouldn't the population take up arms instead of just protesting when you move in and take over?

Anyway, that's a series that will always have a place in my heart along with the first two Fallout games. I've enjoyed Fallout 3 and NV since some of the feeling is still there, but somehow it's just not the same as what was done in the original 3/4 view games.

Giaddon

18-01-2012, 04:30 PM

I mean honestly, if I attack a whole city with a small group of barely-trained militia, why is it only defended by the military units fortified inside of it? Why wouldn't the population take up arms instead of just protesting when you move in and take over?

That's exactly what Civ V tries to simulate. Each city has a pretty powerful ranged attack it can direct at invaders, and also has strength, just like a unit. Cities defend themselves without garrisoned military units at all. It's a good system, and it allows the siege units to really shine: they allow much faster and much safer city takeovers.

Odeon

18-01-2012, 05:04 PM

Nice, I'll have to finally take a poke at Civ 5 now. Thanks. 8-)

sabrage

19-01-2012, 04:53 AM

Beat every level in Super Mario World, which leaves me staring at my video game collection like "Now what?"

Found Ninja Senki (http://ninjasenki.com/) in a dusty corner of my hard drive and decided to play that for a bit... I got to scene 6 before it just got too damn hard and I gave up.

oceanclub

19-01-2012, 02:13 PM

Even now that I'm back with my desktop, I'm still playing Morrowind and really enjoying it - at level 12 right now. The judicious use of mods has helped, some of which may even be considered cheating but, to be honest, just got around things I found really annoying.
For example, I installed an "increase walking speed" mod since I found the default one mind-numblingly slow (even with a Bosmer character with a high Speed attribute). Also, I installed an encumbrance mod since I found that with two weapons and medium armor equipped, my character could carry very little else, which was just annoying; little room for scrolls, potions or ingredients, never mind being able to pick up weapons/armor to sell.

I also eventually installed a "passive cliff racers" mod. I could handle them, but it got to the stage I couldn't walk more than 1 minute without having to fight one. Go away.

Am disappointed to find that enchanting bows is a bit limited (you can only apply passive enchants rather than, damage dealing ones. Oh, and saving every 5 minutes is a good thing since the game allows you, and occasionally does, really stupid things. (For example, get attacked by a Dark Brotherhood assassin in the Fighter's Guild - if you reload after dying and attack him first, all your mates jump in on _his_ side, because obviously he doesn't look at all suspicious, oh no.)

P.

Casimir Effect

19-01-2012, 07:15 PM

Also, I installed an encumbrance mod since I found that with two weapons and medium armor equipped, my character could carry very little else, which was just annoying; little room for scrolls, potions or ingredients, never mind being able to pick up weapons/armor to sell.
I use encumbrance mods whenever a game has them, as nothing annoys me more than having to dick around with my inventory in a dungeon or having to go back to town regularly to sell everything. Skyrim is really nice in that all I had to do was type a console command and I have a weight limit in the thousands. The Witcher 2 had a nice mod which which made everything weightless (which made crafting anything so much easier in that game seeing as you had supplies of everything), but I never found anything for Dragon Age (beyond a mod which unlocks full backpack space straight away) which was annoying.

For my part I'm still playing Skyrim, although should be finishing the main quest any time now. Annoyingly I suddenly started to notice the aim correct that's present when firing arrows at certain distances, making the enemies into arrow magnets. Stupid damn console feature that doesn't seem to have an 'off' switch in-game. Just downloaded a mod which should stop it happening so here's hoping...

Smashbox

19-01-2012, 07:19 PM

I plugged my PC into my TV for the first time and was amazed at how awesome it is. I played a good amount of Need For Speed Most Wanted on the Playstation, but this just blows it away.

Althea

19-01-2012, 07:28 PM

Been playing Dungeons of Dredmor a fair bit as I'm taking a break from Skyrim.

Wizardry

19-01-2012, 07:42 PM

I use encumbrance mods whenever a game has them, as nothing annoys me more than having to dick around with my inventory in a dungeon or having to go back to town regularly to sell everything. Skyrim is really nice in that all I had to do was type a console command and I have a weight limit in the thousands. The Witcher 2 had a nice mod which which made everything weightless (which made crafting anything so much easier in that game seeing as you had supplies of everything), but I never found anything for Dragon Age (beyond a mod which unlocks full backpack space straight away) which was annoying.
Despicable.

Tei

20-01-2012, 05:27 PM

Mostly APB Reloaded.

Smashbox

20-01-2012, 05:31 PM

Despicable.

Beastly.

10char

squareking

20-01-2012, 05:35 PM

On a DS kick as of late -- Etrian Odyssey and Front Mission, mostly. Little Grimoire of the Rift too.

And about 20 mins of X-Com. Best tension simulator ever made!

Heliocentric

20-01-2012, 06:21 PM

Mostly APB Reloaded.

I want so hard to enjoy that game... It's just too terribad.

Casimir Effect

20-01-2012, 06:54 PM

Despicable.
Hey, if people want realistic inventory systems then they're welcome to them. Although, if they truly did they'd demand that their gold weighed them down as well*. Why should my character only be able to carry 100lbs of equipment but have 1,000,000 gold pieces in a wallet somewhere?
In fact I demand a system where there is no carry limit but instead there are more and more detrimental effects as you get heavier, reaching a point where you can't move or attack and in fact topple over onto your back like an upsidedown turtle. Also, carry too much for too long and you start to develop back problems

For me, gaming is all about maximizing my fun.

(*I'm aware D&D 1st edition gave gold weight so you probably do put up with shit like this on a regular basis. But you do tend to be the exception to things)

ZamFear

20-01-2012, 08:25 PM

MD!

20-01-2012, 08:28 PM

Beastly.

10char

No, Savage.

Smashbox

20-01-2012, 08:36 PM

Heliocentric

20-01-2012, 08:52 PM

Wizardry

20-01-2012, 08:53 PM

(*I'm aware D&D 1st edition gave gold weight so you probably do put up with shit like this on a regular basis. But you do tend to be the exception to things)
Nice fact checking. I was going to mention the Gold Box games.

vinraith

20-01-2012, 09:16 PM

Platinum coins? Gems?
But seriously I want realistic economics in my RPG's I want to show up at a village with 1,000 gold and find I've screwed up the economy up so bad that my gold is worth less than a days food.

In my campaigns under 2nd edition we always gave gold weight. It tended to be stowed in various places, or converted into gems, so players could easily cart it around. Really, though in a high magic setting wouldn't it make sense to have some kind of magical equivalent of electronic banking?

Casimir Effect

20-01-2012, 09:23 PM

Platinum coins? Gems?
But seriously I want realistic economics in my RPG's I want to show up at a village with 1,000 gold and find I've screwed up the economy up so bad that my gold is worth less than a days food.
Dragon Age and Spellforce had proper currency systems, where 10,000 copper = 100 silver = 1 gold (I think), which kind of gets around the problem, except you inevitably end up with thousands of copper pieces because banks are things that happen to other people.
I would love to be able to screw over an economy by reintroducing written-off wealth back into it (ie. money lost down dungeons etc). If I had my way Ferelden, Skyrim, Tamriel etc would all be like 1990s Italy (or Zimbabwe) after I've been there a few weeks. Remember those hero titles you could buy in Fable? I want my one to be the Actuary Assassin.

Nice fact checking. I was going to mention the Gold Box games.
I heard somewhere that for that era D&D gold pieces are actually the unit of weight as well, is this right? That is, rather than being told you can hold 100 pounds you are told you can carry 1000 gold pieces, and a sword, say, will have a weight of 50 gold pieces.

Kodeen

20-01-2012, 09:34 PM

Really, though in a high magic setting wouldn't it make sense to have some kind of magical equivalent of electronic banking?

You could always have the Deposidactyl swoop down and get it for you.

Pseudo310

20-01-2012, 09:34 PM

Playing some Bastion and Brink. Already getting a little tired of Bastion.

Wizardry

20-01-2012, 09:45 PM

I heard somewhere that for that era D&D gold pieces are actually the unit of weight as well, is this right? That is, rather than being told you can hold 100 pounds you are told you can carry 1000 gold pieces, and a sword, say, will have a weight of 50 gold pieces.
Pool of Radiance had copper, silver, electrum, gold and platinum coins. If I remember correctly:

1000 copper coins = 100 silver coins = 10 electrum coins = 5 gold coins = 1 platinum coin.

The weight of a gold piece could be used as the standard weight measurement, but I believe it's understood that a piece of gold was 0.1 lb.

In Pool of Radiance you could buy expensive jewels and figurines in town just to keep your encumbrance down. Keeping coins to a minimum was very important because high encumbrance meant less movement points in combat.

Drake Sigar

20-01-2012, 10:55 PM

UFO Aftermath. Zooming in to watch the Biomass grow on the global map is scary, that shit consumed Russia in a matter of in-game weeks.

iARDAs

20-01-2012, 11:11 PM

There are few games I am playing lately

I had never ever finished Dark Messiah before, so I purchased it via steam xmas sale for 3 bucks and now playing the game. Its a very good RPG game to be honest.

I occasionally play Bf3 online. 2-3 rounds a day.

I had also purchased the latest Aliens vs predator game for 5 bucks on another steam sale. I am halfway through the game. Its ok. Not great, not bad either.

I am thinking of Returning to Half Life 2 and the episodes as its been ages.

squirrelfanatic

20-01-2012, 11:35 PM

Just finished Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive. It starts out like Commandos, with a lot of stealth and sick timing puzzles but then turns into something like an isometric shooter throughout the campaign. Which is a bit of a letdown, but it is still a great game nevertheless.

Casimir Effect

21-01-2012, 01:04 AM

Pool of Radiance had copper, silver, electrum, gold and platinum coins. If I remember correctly:

1000 copper coins = 100 silver coins = 10 electrum coins = 5 gold coins = 1 platinum coin.

The weight of a gold piece could be used as the standard weight measurement, but I believe it's understood that a piece of gold was 0.1 lb.

In Pool of Radiance you could buy expensive jewels and figurines in town just to keep your encumbrance down. Keeping coins to a minimum was very important because high encumbrance meant less movement points in combat.
I appreciate games that employ systems as complex as that, and if there was ever an absolute choice between having a capacity limit or not then I'd be fine with having a limit. But ideally I'd like there to be the option between the two; some box you can tick before starting a game.
Otherwise an RPG, to me, means a Role-Playing Game, and I do not want to spend my time role-playing a glorified supermarket bag packer half way through every dungeon. But this itself more comes from playing style: you wouldn't need to mess around with inventory management if you went to a shop after every dungeon. However, doing this makes in-game time fly which completely kills the/my immersion; like how in Baldur's Gate you could rest after nearly every battle to regenerate health and spells so you end up killing Sarevok/Irenicus 5 years after he killed-foster-daddy/stole-your-soul (I had friends in highschool who would play like this - it drove me fucking insane).

Inventory management is a needless problem in RPGs resulting from ridiculous worlds lacking ridiculous solutions.

Voon

21-01-2012, 01:16 AM

The JG Man

21-01-2012, 01:38 AM

Just beat Satan for the first time in Binding of Isaac. God damn that was a tough fight. I had a charged up weapon with the quickest you can have, so I was just pumping out standard attacks, but having to fight off exploding monsters and evade his hooves...damn. Had 2 hearts remaining, but I did it! Very satisfying.

sabrage

21-01-2012, 02:05 AM

Wizardry seems to hate me
Don't take it personally.

Currently vacillating between Donkey Kong Country (hard), Contra 4 (HARD,) Link to the Past, and The Binding of Isaac. I hope Edmund adds proper resolution support with that expansion he's pushing out, but I kind of doubt it.

Wizardry

21-01-2012, 02:14 AM

Wizardry I seems to hate me, ATM. Never played it before but do everyone always start with their characters either most of them dead, paralyed or in ashes? I got Wizardry VI too, I but can't get it to run.

So, now i'm just playing Dune 2000. Oh, the memories....
Well, I'm guessing you pirated it and so there's probably someone else's saved characters present. Just wipe them all and start a new party. You'll still find your characters dead or paralysed a minute afterwards, though. The game is quite brutal.

Wizardry VI is a far better game, though. The first five are very primitive in comparison.

Don't take it personally.
I don't hate anyone on here.

Kodeen

21-01-2012, 02:35 AM

and The Binding of Isaac. I hope Edmund adds proper resolution support with that expansion he's pushing out, but I kind of doubt it.

I think it's a limitation of Flash, which Isaac is written in. I supposed you could get a stretched pixelated fullscreen like you get on Youtube, but I'd rather keep using the large windowed mode.

sabrage

21-01-2012, 02:43 AM

I think it's a limitation of Flash, which Isaac is written in. I supposed you could get a stretched pixelated fullscreen like you get on Youtube, but I'd rather keep using the large windowed mode.
Well, I want him to port the game OUT of shitty Flash anyways, similar to what Cavanagh did with VVVVVV. I like the game, but it's not a tiny project for Edmund anymore; it was a massive success and it deserves better than the shoddy release it got.

I don't hate anyone on here.
I work under the assumption that you simply hate everything.

Voon

21-01-2012, 03:20 AM

Well, I'm guessing you pirated it and so there's probably someone else's saved characters present. Just wipe them all and start a new party. You'll still find your characters dead or paralysed a minute afterwards, though. The game is quite brutal.

Wizardry VI is a far better game, though. The first five are very primitive in comparison.

I don't hate anyone on here.

Got them off from Abandonia, so... kinda? Thanks for the tips

Komila

21-01-2012, 05:34 AM

HI............

Nice to meet you everyone. Right now, I am playing Fable 3 for PC. It's a great game, never thought I like it.Beside that I am also playing: MinecraftTerr ariaBad Company 2

Miker

21-01-2012, 05:40 AM

I got up to chapter 5 in Dead Space 1, and I quit. It's just incredibly repetitive, and the game clearly has no qualms dishing out fetch quest after fetch quest after fetch quest. At this point, I'd rather play through Resident Evil 4 for the fourth (or fifth?) time than play the second half of Dead Space. But that's also because Resident Evil 4 is ace.

sabrage

21-01-2012, 07:08 AM

It strikes me that Donkey Kong Country is Nintendo's answer to Sonic. Mechanically, it's almost identical to Mario - jump on enemy's heads or spin into them, collect 100 bananas to get an extra life, secret mini-games, the world map, animal mounts to stand in for Yoshi - but the rollercoaster feel of the levels makes it feel more like Sonic, especially the barrels. And fuck this game is hard. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it let me save every now and then, but 5 levels in a row with no save point and no Funky Kong? This game is brutal.

The JG Man

21-01-2012, 12:28 PM

Yeah, I remember DKC being rather hard. I don't know if the comparisons to Sonic are apt, although I can see where you're coming from. Just think though, if you push through the harder levels, you get to hear music like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzuZIlV7Sh8

...and it becomes totally worth pushing through.

sabrage

21-01-2012, 12:47 PM

Oh, DKC has an incredible soundtrack. One of the reasons I keep playing, despite my frustration. I just wish that it was easier to abuse earlier levels for extra lives...

I don't know if the comparisons to Sonic are apt
To be fair, I haven't played a whole lot of Sonic, and what I did play didn't impress me much. I do recall enjoying Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast a loooong time ago, but none of the 2D games really do anything for me.

The JG Man

21-01-2012, 01:18 PM

sabrage

21-01-2012, 01:42 PM

I'm fairly certain one of the early levels, if not the first one, allows you to go to the left of your starting position by going above some...way. Maybe there's a hidden barrel somewhere? I can't remember, but there is a decent way of getting a life in one of the earlier levels.
Oh, I know about the Jungle Hijinks secret. Doesn't do me a lick of good when I'm stuck between two Funky Kong points and can't go back....

Flint

21-01-2012, 02:02 PM

Currently juggling between three things, which is a bit bizarre for an organised git like me.

On one hand, there's King's Bounty: The Legend. I still think that it's exactly like a HOMM game but without a lot of the things that annoyed me with that series, effectively creating something really wonderful. Been hooked onto it for the past few weeks but... all of a sudden I've felt my enthusiasm completely die out. I've reached Demonis now and it's getting to be a bit of a chore to play, as getting reinforcements to your own troops effectively means traveling to the other side of the world for me with my setup. In general I've lost the wind on the sails of enthusiasm on it, but I'll be keeping it on the HD and give it a few hours of play every now and then.

I fancied something a bit less 'slow' and decided to continue on with my Christmas Sale salvages, installing the Steam version of Psychonauts today. It's still a fantastic game, and the new achievements have actually helped me to find out things I had previously missed out on (such as Raz imitating Oliander's speech at the campfire, or the idea of showing off Pokeylope to everyone near the endgame). The sheer amount of little details in that game is so wonderful.

I've also got Sonic CD on the side to sink a handful of time into every now and then. Nothing too amazing but a swell enough platformer. Completed once normally, now I feel like trying to get all the time stones and seeing all the good futures.

moth bones

21-01-2012, 02:44 PM

I have gone gaga for Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, I am at Football Manager levels of addictedness.

vinraith

21-01-2012, 03:21 PM

Started a new Sword of the Stars game last night in multiplayer (after dabbling a bit with SotS2 and deciding it needs another couple of weeks in the oven, though it's massively improved). It's quite a shock to play humans again after mostly having played hiver and tarka for my last few games, the speed is almost overwhelming. I've seized a huge swath of territory, it'll be interesting to see if anyone (most notable the three Zuul players nipping at my borders) can push me back.

In SP, I'm still playing Academagia, and still intrigued. I don't entirely know what ot make of it, but I'm slowly getting a handle on the systems and I really love what a laid-back, narrative experience it is.

Kodeen

21-01-2012, 04:30 PM

In SP, I'm still playing Academagia, and still intrigued. I don't entirely know what ot make of it, but I'm slowly getting a handle on the systems and I really love what a laid-back, narrative experience it is. I had to look that up since I haven't heard of it before. Is it entirely text driven?

Odeon

21-01-2012, 06:21 PM

In fact I demand a system where there is no carry limit but instead there are more and more detrimental effects as you get heavier, reaching a point where you can't move or attack and in fact topple over onto your back like an upsidedown turtle. Also, carry too much for too long and you start to develop back problems

This is the weight system in AfterWorld, with the exception of the falling over backwards and long-term back problems (so far). Based on your Strength and probably one or two more skills and the type of backpack you're wearing (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, or 30% carry bonus), you have a maximum carry weight. The closer you get to your max carry weight, the more affected by the weight in terms of movement. If you're at 75%, you can still run and use the limited-duration sprint, but when you pass a certain threshold, you get a message saying your movement is decreased. The next threshold uses your stamina while running normally and sprinting is no longer possible. The last one prevents you from running at all and you have to walk everywhere, which is extremely slow, especially considering the amount of land to cover most of the time.

There is no actual carry limit where the game says "you don't have room for that" or whatever, but when you carry too much it become very difficult to move. Most people have a max limit of about 500kg or so, which is not very realistic, but when you consider that it's fairly easy to collect far more weight than that in metals and minerals through mining, it becomes necessary.

vinraith

21-01-2012, 06:51 PM

I had to look that up since I haven't heard of it before. Is it entirely text driven?

Basically, yeah. There's some static art, but everything is basically done either in written story form (events, history, missions) or through a text-based stat system that handles anything that wouldn't warrant a paragraph. It's an unusual thing, but the more I learn about it as I play the more I like it. If your one of those people who use the word "spreadsheet" to insult complex games, though, you're going to want to run the other way.

Bobtree

21-01-2012, 07:39 PM

I have to recommend against playing Aquaria. It is much too long and slow and has boring combat and quite a few design issues (leading me to consult a walkthrough several times). The visuals, audio, and story are quite good (except the hidden memory post-credits "to be continued" scene, which I hated), but it really wasn't worth the 20 hours it took me to complete. I got it in a bundle and tried it due to suggestions here, but I'm completely baffled as to how it won the IGF 2007 grand prize ($20K !)

Anyone considering it should instead read this great article: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/9236/The_Invisible_Hand_of_Super_Metroid.php and then play or replay Super Metroid.

Heliocentric

21-01-2012, 07:56 PM

Conversely I found Aquaria a wonderful and charming experience, deeply enjoyed my time and will have lasting memories, then I got stuck on a boss and never went back. But then, that's me all over.

moth bones

21-01-2012, 08:34 PM

aoanla

21-01-2012, 09:48 PM

Still playing Cave Story + every so often, but trying for the "good" ending first time around has the side issue of throwing up levels that I'm simply not good enough to reliably complete. (It took me several days to do Last Cave, the hard version, and I can't seem to beat Misery, despite all those YouTube videos making it look easy. I think I got a duff Booster or something ;) ).

Similar situation with Jamestown: I'm not particularly godlike at bullet-hell shooters, so I keep coming back to it, bouncing off of the difficulty requirements to unlock the next mission and then dropping it again. (It doesn't help that the Jamestown community is full of the "difficult games are good for you; why are you complaining about having a challenge" types that curse most of the online shmup scene as far as I can tell.)

Other than that, not much; waiting for the Binding of Isaac expansion to come out so I can see if it's worth buying it.

vinraith

21-01-2012, 10:50 PM

I like Academagia, but I can't help thinking their long term expansion plan is unlikely to bear fruit; it's a pretty niche sort of game and I understand the intention is to release another four or so, with each game covering a year in the school.

Yeah, that's the plan. They've been steadily trickling out free DLC for the game, as well. I have no idea whether the whole thing is really sustainable, in part because I have no idea what their development model is like. I certainly wish them well.

Roufuss

21-01-2012, 10:55 PM

Still going through Rayman Origins.

Its bizarre Ubisoft has released it on everything but the PC (even a Vita and 3DS version are coming soon), considering it was originally slated for the PC as well. Its easily the best platformer this generation and probably one of the best games Ubisoft has put out in a long time.

The girlfriend is alternating between SW:TOR and Pathologic, but I think she's leaning more towards Pathologic now.

Chevy

21-01-2012, 11:06 PM

Rayman Origins is beautiful, difficult, and brilliant. That is one heck of a good game!

sabrage

21-01-2012, 11:30 PM

Aquaria is the closest game I've ever played to the original Super Metroid, besides the GBA versions obviously.

Chevy

21-01-2012, 11:40 PM

Aquaria is the closest game I've ever played to the original Super Metroid, besides the GBA versions obviously.

Really? I bounced right off of it for a reason I cannot remember after getting it in a bundle. Maybe it's time I give it a second chance! I love Super Metroid, and platformers where exploration of a strange place is the key goal.

Heliocentric

21-01-2012, 11:48 PM

The Saboteur it's a better GTA game than GTA4 from what I've seen so far. The characters are awful at times, but it's fine, I'm not expecting award winning performances, but the accents are truly horrific.

Really? I bounced right off of it for a reason I cannot remember after getting it in a bundle. Maybe it's time I give it a second chance! I love Super Metroid, and platformers where exploration of a strange place is the key goal.
its 33% Metroid, 33% Ecco the dolphin and 33% Bullet hell.

sabrage

22-01-2012, 12:05 AM

Really? I bounced right off of it for a reason I cannot remember after getting it in a bundle. Maybe it's time I give it a second chance! I love Super Metroid, and platformers where exploration of a strange place is the key goal.
It starts off incredibly slow. Almost everyone I've talked to about it didn't make it past the first half hour. It's less about singing songs and avoiding enemies than it first seems, you just have to stick with it.

vinraith

22-01-2012, 12:22 AM

It starts off incredibly slow. Almost everyone I've talked to about it didn't make it past the first half hour. It's less about singing songs and avoiding enemies than it first seems, you just have to stick with it.

It's funny, that was the part I liked. It was unique and interesting at that point, when it devolved into a side scrolling shooter I lost all interest.

sabrage

22-01-2012, 12:53 AM

It's funny, that was the part I liked. It was unique and interesting at that point, when it devolved into a side scrolling shooter I lost all interest.
It's fine that it wasn't to your taste, but to call it a "side-scrolling shooter" demonstrates a fundamental gap in knowledge regarding the genre. The emphasis on puzzles, exploration and secrets disqualifies it from that category.

Chevy

22-01-2012, 01:36 AM

After reinstalling Aquaria and playing for a few minutes, I realized why I quit the first time: I hate the mouse controls. So, I plugged my 360 pad in, and it seems much better already.

its 33% Metroid, 33% Ecco the dolphin and 33% Bullet hell.

I've only seen one brief flash of the bullet hell part, but the rest feels more Ecco than Metroid to me. Which is neither a bad or a good thing, I guess. I liked Ecco well enough, but I suppose what I really like about Metroid is its mix of worthwhile exploration and great combat.

I guess what I'm trying to say is Aquaria is tough to get a feel for. I'm gonna play some more later tonight.

The JG Man

22-01-2012, 02:13 AM

I played Aquaria for about 2 hours, was lost without much clue of what to do for about half of that time. I can understand why it would appeal to some with some time investment, but I don't believe in going through something bad to get to the good part. In the end, I found it to be incredibly boring. Conversely World of Goo, which I got in the same indie bundle, drew me in and was fantastic to play. Maybe it's more to do with genre, because I started Shadow Complex twice on XBLA and never finished it, don't even think I reached half-way. I was going to say though that I enjoyed Metroid Prime, but then realised I gave up on its sequel after about two hours and abandoned the third one as I was simply not enjoying it, despite getting some way into it. Perhaps it is the genre that's the problem.

The thing I most remember about Aquaria is doing some...thing, where I turned red and evil and had absolutely no bloody clue what I was doing, proceeding to get hit by something and then turn normal and what the hell where am I oh okay wha??? Indeed.

Duckee

22-01-2012, 02:29 AM

Dwarf fortress again. Seeing if the mod Masterwork can compete with Genesis, so far so good. I still prefer Genesis I think.

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 02:33 AM

Finished cargo, cat be arsed getting the master of gravity ending (don't let buddies die I think, but a in game character hinted it was to do with more budddies?)

vinraith

22-01-2012, 02:35 AM

It's fine that it wasn't to your taste, but to call it a "side-scrolling shooter" demonstrates a fundamental gap in knowledge regarding the genre. The emphasis on puzzles, exploration and secrets disqualifies it from that category.

I don't claim to know the terminology, as that kind of gameplay has never been of much interest. The exploration, secrets, and puzzles were lovely but the shooting pretty much axed it for me.

sabrage

22-01-2012, 03:16 AM

Maybe it's more to do with genre, because I started Shadow Complex twice on XBLA and never finished it, don't even think I reached half-way.
I've heard people getting turned off to Shadow Complex because of the relatively boring environments and shitty story, but I think it's a much better game than Aquaria. It just oozes polish and fun at every turn. Atmosphere-wise, Aquaria wears its Super Metroid influence on its sleeve. Ever play Symphony of the Night?

Miker

22-01-2012, 03:20 AM

Picked up Crysis 2 on Amazon for $5 today, and it's pretty great. Excellent, actually. The first Crysis (vanilla, iono about mods) was an often punishing game that didn't quite sell the whole nanosuit power trip fantasy, but in Crysis 2, I actually get the feeling that I'm some crazy badass. I have to say that I like it better than the first Crysis right now, mainly because it's more fun in the minute-to-minute gameplay, though I do prefer faster-paced shooters over the more methodical ones.

The JG Man

22-01-2012, 11:44 AM

Ever play Symphony of the Night?

Nope. Like I said, not a massive fan of the genre. Maybe I should take that and apply it to the next one in it that I'm interested in!

spacko

22-01-2012, 12:21 PM

Right now I am have played through the skyrim mod "zombuchi" and i have made a review of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S56Ta9pAC-M (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-4yZLGXc3E)

please can you watch!

Althea

22-01-2012, 01:03 PM

Just finished Space Marine.

Not entirely bad, not entirely good. I think it felt as if it went on a little too long, the difficulty curve was bizarre and the range of weapons was... eh. It worked a lot more naturally with a controller (default settings), especially the switching between melée/ranged. It's strange. It punishes you for going into melée, but punishes you for ranged. The variety of enemies feels a little crap, too, in that there's not much variety and the "difficult" enemies are more bullet-sponges than anything else, at least with Chaos.

Oh, and the final boss fight is a massive dickmove.

sabrage

22-01-2012, 01:20 PM

Nope. Like I said, not a massive fan of the genre. Maybe I should take that and apply it to the next one in it that I'm interested in!
It's easily my favorite game.

Voon

22-01-2012, 03:58 PM

Well, some guy from YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWhfKuFlo1Q&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLD6FF2FD060C8682F) made an interesting video of Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge. Actually made me play the game just for the hilarious deaths!

Oh, Sierra....

Hordriss

22-01-2012, 04:42 PM

Evil Genius, inspired by all the talk of A Game of Dwarves.

BobsLawnService

22-01-2012, 05:03 PM

I'm replaying the Starcraft 2 single player campaign. This time I'm trying it on Hard difficulty. I forgot just how much fun it is.

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 06:52 PM

Sat taking turns with my son in some terrible sniper infested server in battlefield bad company 2.

Blowing up walls, is very satisfying, shame things don't fall down much.

Nalano

22-01-2012, 07:00 PM

Sat taking turns with my son in some terrible sniper infested server in battlefield bad company 2.

BF3 solved a lot of those problems. Not nearly as unplayable casually as BFBC2. My respective records in both pretty much prove that.

coldvvvave

22-01-2012, 07:27 PM

This weekend:

Homeworld

Third attempt to get into it. It feels strange. I love the art direction, love the music and the story is at least interesting. But there is a problem, I don't get what the hell is going on in battles. In other words I feel like game is curbstomping me. Is there a balance in single player? I have no idea. After finishing tutorial I had no clue how to do some things( Carrier/Mothership Launch menu wasn't even mentioned in tutorial) and importance of salvaging enemy ships though obvious from a story perspective wasn't really emphasized that much. Anyway, I'm on 13 mission and I still have no idea what I'm doing. No matter what I build it's slow and useless unless it's Ion Cannon Fregate and there are 10 of them. That works, everything else - not so much. I have no idea how to identify enemy ships thus I have no idea what to build to counter them. Probably should have dl'ded a manual. Still even with pause I just can't do anything. Big powerful ships are slow as hell clumsy idiots and small ones die like animals. The "best" thing is that there is no such thing as fool protection in this game, you spent all resources and you are defeated? Too bad, repeat from couple of missions before( since previous had some gimmick like "lol there is radiation so you can't harvest minerals since your ship die even when you repair them, pretty cool, eh?"). Still I kind of enjoy it. It's like Total Annihilation IN SPACE. Stuff runs fast, shoot laser beams and blows up in giant fireballs. By the way I can't believe how good this game looks even today.

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 08:13 PM

The JG Man

22-01-2012, 08:32 PM

I remember trying to cheat in Homeworld 2's campaign by giving myself more ships at the start of some missions by tweaking the files for them...unfortunately, the AI is scaled to fit. On certain levels, this can mean there are hundreds of enemy ships at the start, particularly one mission near the end where no matter what, the enemy will always out-number you. Intense, is one word you could use.

And yeah, Homeworld looks stunning. The art style is spot on.

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 09:25 PM

BF3 solved a lot of those problems. Not nearly as unplayable casually as BFBC2. My respective records in both pretty much prove that.
The AI unit swearing makes it a no-go for my 8 year old, Its on a list with splinter cell conviction for games that are generally unobjectionable except for ridiculous swearing.

Arona Daal

22-01-2012, 09:27 PM

I have no idea how to identify enemy ships .

Afaik there is a button to toggle a tactical overlay ,TAB key says my motor Memory.

btw: try the Expansion:Homeworld Cataclysm,its the best in the Series.

Similar

22-01-2012, 09:35 PM

btw: try the Expansion:Homeworld Cataclysm,its the best in the Series.
I've had that standing on my shelf for years, but never tried it. Not the best place to start, I imagine?

Nalano

22-01-2012, 09:59 PM

The AI unit swearing makes it a no-go for my 8 year old, Its on a list with splinter cell conviction for games that are generally unobjectionable except for ridiculous swearing.

The death and the destruction are okay, then, eh?

Serenegoose

22-01-2012, 10:08 PM

I've had that standing on my shelf for years, but never tried it. Not the best place to start, I imagine?

Not related to homeworld 1 or 2, really. I mean you might catch some spoilers from the first game, but they're not really so much spoilers as necessary criteria a game would have to fill to get an expansion pack or sequel to begin with, but the plot is standalone, it's just in that setting - even the units are completely different.

Similar

22-01-2012, 10:28 PM

Not related to homeworld 1 or 2, really. I mean you might catch some spoilers from the first game, but they're not really so much spoilers as necessary criteria a game would have to fill to get an expansion pack or sequel to begin with, but the plot is standalone, it's just in that setting - even the units are completely different.
Thanks. Maybe it's time to try it then.

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 10:35 PM

The death and the destruction are okay, then, eh?

Ever play cowboys and Indians? Maybe soldiers? My son actually has a great love of history and soldier killing each other because 'someone said so' is already very much a stark reality to him.

Eh, virtual swearing is swearing still virtual death isn't actually death?

Casimir Effect

22-01-2012, 11:24 PM

I bounced off Homeworld for similar reasons. The fact you can get yourself into an unwinnable position due to losing too many ships several missions ago is just a level of difficulty I don't deal with.

Homeworld 2 I finished but I think I was lucky. Replaying it a few years back and I did too well in missions so the AI was overpowered to hell and back. H2 becomes a balancing act of having a decent amount of ships at the end of a mission but not enough to make things impossible later.

Cataclysm is actually my favourite (although that may always be nostalgia). It has the fair(er) gameplay of the original but without the dickish difficulty curve. Also has kind of a cool space horror/thriller story going on which is a nice counterpoint to the tragic and dramatic plot of the original. Would love to replay the game sometime but my old discs are lost to the abyss and probably wouldn't work on Win7 64. Need GOG to pick them up sometime.

Serenegoose

22-01-2012, 11:39 PM

Heliocentric

22-01-2012, 11:40 PM

HW2 is about spinning plates, plate 1 is have max pop cap torpedo frigates, move them in a pack, they win every fight with the anti fighter upgrade.

The next plate is max out your (something else) and send that to fight too, having interceptors/bombers guard your resource routes or something), then repeat plate 2.

The JG Man

22-01-2012, 11:46 PM

Why the hell don't we have Homeworld 3? The series was a refreshing take on RTS, combining a ridiculous scale and several layers of combat balance integrated with precision tactics, wrapped up in a lovely looking game. I'm not disappointed by having Dawn of War in the mean time, but good god...we need to go back to sci-fi in gaming. Hell, I don't even remember the last time I picked up a rail-gun in a game!

To stay on track a little bit, I've been playing Sonic CD in the pockets of free time I have (that aren't being filled by Farscape at any rate). Some of the achievements are going to require some serious effort, but I'm looking forward to it. Beating Metal Sonic, for instance, without taking any damage was pretty damn fun.

vinraith

22-01-2012, 11:49 PM

Ever play cowboys and Indians? Maybe soldiers? My son actually has a great love of history and soldier killing each other because 'someone said so' is already very much a stark reality to him.

Eh, virtual swearing is swearing still virtual death isn't actually death?

Your kid's a lot more likely to end up saying "fuck" in public than he is to pull out an MP5 and mow down the neighbors.

Labbes

23-01-2012, 04:15 AM

I bounced off Homeworld for similar reasons. The fact you can get yourself into an unwinnable position due to losing too many ships several missions ago is just a level of difficulty I don't deal with.

Didn't HW1 adjust enemy fleet size to your fleet size? I vaguely remember that I was cheating in a mission or two, but I don't know if it's because I sucked or I lost too many ships.

squirrel

23-01-2012, 06:36 AM

Just install Unreal Tournament 3 again to play. Install patch 2.1 and Titan Pack, then you are good to go. Its online works surprisingly well with my unstable Internet connection. There are many mates around playing, cool.

I used to be mad with Midway for screwing up the marketing of this great game. May not be that great comparing to the first one, but by itself it's outstanding. Midway just didnt advertise it right. Some of my friends even didnt know that the game had been released for a while. But now come to think of it, Midway might have been in trouble already while this game was published. That could be the reason the marketing was that poorly implemented. In Chinese's proverb, Unreal Tournament 3 wasn't born at the right time.

agentorange

23-01-2012, 06:41 AM

Just install Unreal Tournament 3 again to play. Install patch 2.1 and Titan Pack, then you are good to go. Its online works surprisingly well with my unstable Internet connection. There are many mates around playing, cool.

UT3 has some of the most well designed maps in an MP game. I was blown away by how beautiful some of them were, like the snowy mountain and that weird space tentacle ship thing.

squirrel

23-01-2012, 06:44 AM

UT3 has some of the most well designed maps in an MP game. I was blown away by how beautiful some of them were, like the snowy mountain and that weird space tentacle ship thing.

Yeah, it ought to be. After all, the purpose of the Unreal franchise is for demoing the Unreal engine, the main business of Epics.

And I am so glad there are many loyal players to the game, not like Bad Company 2 in which player counts quickly vanishing.

Heliocentric

23-01-2012, 06:49 AM

Your kid's a lot more likely to end up saying "fuck" in public than he is to pull out an MP5 and mow down the neighbors.

I'd hope so...
MP5's are for n00bs.

Casimir Effect

23-01-2012, 10:13 AM

Didn't HW1 adjust enemy fleet size to your fleet size? I vaguely remember that I was cheating in a mission or two, but I don't know if it's because I sucked or I lost too many ships.
It might have, too long ago for me to remember and I doubt I ever finished a level with enough ships to notice.

Glad to see UT3 getting some love. It may not feel as fluid as the other games but is still a lot of fun with some great maps, graphics and sound. Used to have a great time playing it over a local network back in uni days. The Orb was a bad thing though, at least when playing mostly with AI as they just didn't get the concept - the only time the AI in a UT game was unconvincing.