Some of the best games I've ever played.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neofelis
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Some of the best games I've ever played.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neofelis
I like Final Fantasy music, but was dubious that the rhythm portion of the game would stand up. I was thinking of getting it anyway, until I saw Rhythm Thief, which I may get instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7MYH...ature=youtu.be
Dissidia has song packs? :wtf:Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
One dollar a song doesn't sound that bad, honestly. At least not until you decide to buy all of them. I looked up the prices halfway through reading your post to determine if that's what happened to the opera scene, and was surprised they didn't cost like 5-7 dollars each. This is Square Enix afterall.
Heck yeah, high five! I hope you enjoy them, not everyone does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neofelis
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronaan
Well I've played the first one through on normal now doing it on hard, had a good time with it the first time through. Looking forward to 2&3. Got 1&2 cheap as a set and 3 came with the bundle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
Yeah, there are four or five packs of background music from older titles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
I guess it's fine if you just want a few favorites. But completionists will end up paying more for DLC than the game itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
The first one was too scary for me to consider a second playthrough. In fact I never really finished it (though I am at the end of chapter 19).Quote:
Originally Posted by Neofelis
Despite having a large Steam backlog, I'm still trucking through the early Might and Magic games. I finished 3 a few days ago and am now working on 4 and 5 (both take place on different sides of the same planet and when both are installed together it creates one massive game). I've now chased Sheltem across 4 different planets and have him cornered now! He's going down!
I've started playing the games I just got from Steam. Stacking was cute, if exceedingly simple, and The Walking Dead is pretty cool so far. Surprisingly disturbing considering the art style. I smashed some zombie's head into an unrecognizable mess, and I kept smashing because holy crap stay away from me.
I've spent the past several weeks playing pinball. Yeah, pinball. I'm not a pinball guy, but I found a perfect emulation of real life pinball machines in the game released for the PS3/360 - The Pinball Hall of Fame (Williams).
I can't stop playing Medieval Madness. I just can't. I was addicted to it when I had access to the real game on a Navy base, and now that I have a *ridiculously* good emulation of it on a high-definition system... I can't put it down.
./sigh
My baby's first words will be "CATAPULT! DAMSEL! TROLL! MULTIBALL MAAAAAAADNESS!" :(
Not much time for games atm, so playing short stuff. Screwed around in Minecraft a little for no real reason, then started Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, which I got from the Steam sale.
It's about 4 hours long, I finish the last world, 97% overall completion, literally seconds away from the final encounter, and the game crashes. When I log back in it is telling my my save file is corrupted, and since the game only has one save file, it insists I need to start over. Kind of angry. My OC nature insists I finish it, but I barely enjoyed it the first time, I'm not wasting four more hours on this garbage. Games for Windows Live can get bent.
Etrian Odyssey III for the DS is kicking my ASS. It's so grindy and old school that the challenge and multiple game over screens alone are keeping me entertained.
Finished Might and Magic 4&5 (World of Xeen). Sheltem has been defeated and Xeen has been re-unified. I have 6 from the bundle but taking a break from Might and Magic for now. I really liked the Sheltem and Corak story arc and didn't really care for the later Might and Magic / Heroes of Might and Magic linked story lines.
Now I'm starting into my Steam Sale backlog. Downloaded and started playing Fallout: New Vegas.
World of Xeen was one of my favorite computer games from early childhood! The only M&M I enjoy more is 7 and that's just because I like killing a super hard mob at level one through sheer willpowerQuote:
Originally Posted by Silke
I'm playing the games I purchased from the Steam Summer Sale.
Jamestown is a lot of fun and a game that I enjoy just picking up in spurts and playing for a little bit at a time.
Just started playing Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - it's a fun isometric adventure puzzle game. The graphics are fine and the fighting is fairly simplistic, but I like that there are so many extra challenges in each level. I think it'd be easier with a controller rather than using the keyboard but it's working out okay. I'm having fun with it, and that's what matters.
I picked up a couple cheapie games during the Steam Sale, so...
Hydrophobia - damn terrible FoV nearly gave me a migraine after 5 minutes
Orion: Dino Beatdown - same
Waveform - not bad, but feels like a flash game.
World of Goo - same, meh.
Space Pirates and Zombies - enjoying this quite a bit, oddly enough.
And thanks to Dale's terrible influence, I picked up FFXIII-2 for Xbox on sale after I found a gift card in my desk drawer. I'm really enjoying it. It feels like Chrono Fantasy 13-2 though, but then I didn't play the original XIII.
Rift.
It's actually nice to play a game that is not a time sink, that I can solo as much as I want and still have hard encounters like raids in EQ. I even do tradeskills which I hated hated hated in EQ.
For me Rift is the best of all worlds for mmorgs.
Based on Amazon's recommendation and against my better judgement, I ended up playing X-Blades for a few days. It's probably a strong contender for the title of "worst game of this generation". At least it was cheap...
I'm still going through my Steam Summer Sale backlog. Just beat Lara Croft and GoL. Now nearly 75% through Jamestown (which is awesome!) and about 1/3 of the way through Time Gentlemen, Please! which reminds me a lot of Day of the Tentacle in its point and click adventure goodness. The dialogue is great too.
Got distracted by the Secret World free weekend and Minecraft for a bit, but I lost my Pegasus, which bummed me out enough in Minecraft to get me to set it aside and start playing my Steam Sale games again.
Right now: Alan Wake.
It's made by Remedy, the guys that made the original Max Payne games, and you can tell. It's a little less cheesy but still has that moody narrative style. It also has a ton of very silly collectibles, including audio logs in the form of pages from the novel the game is sort of about, and terrible tv programs that spoof the Twilight Zone.
The game itself is fairly cool. More enjoyable survival horror than Resident Evil 5 was, although it's still not particularly creepy or scary. The first thing I noticed when booting it up was that the mouse controls were terrible, even after disabling mouse acceleration I found I couldn't stand how floaty it was and quickly switched to gamepad. The controls themselves still feel loose, I suspect because they don't want you to ever feel like you are in control of combat. Along with somewhat limited ammo (it's common enough that you always have some, but rare enough that you never have much), it's got a much more anxious feel than RE5.
The story is fairly interesting, and told episodically like a tv show. I recommend you play the game this way as well (One, maybe two, episodes per sitting), because the game is extremely repetitive. You are given a basic premise and then spend a ridiculous amount of time traveling through one random location to another performing the same actions again and again. Honestly it detracts from the story a bit, but the game would only be a few hours long otherwise. I'm pushing through the game anyway because I have a lot of other stuff to play and don't want to play multiple games at the same time, but yeah, pace yourself with this one or you won't enjoy it.
Oh right, and the environments look pretty amazing at times. The character models are a bit dated though. Not dramatically so, but enough to be noticeable.
Why does Amazon hate you? I will play almost anything, but I'm not sure even I could stomach that game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
I played Alan Wake when it originally came out for the 360. I thought it was fun, but as you said, very repetitive. What probably bugged me the most was the constant emphasis on the "light" mechanic, whether it was running from lantern to lantern to stay alive or killing stuff. A bit like Alone in the Dark's obsession with fire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
Beats me. Apart from a very few brief moments, the game truly is terrible. I didn't even try for the good ending. I was just glad when it was over. Ironically you're rewarded with less revealing outfits for Ayumi when you finish the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
Only 6 years late to this party, but three of my friends and I all purchased the L4D/L4D2 bundle from the Steam Summer Sale and we are about 66% of the way through L4D. What an amazing game. The atmosphere and sound are both extremely well done and the graphics still hold up really well. We are having a blast playing through it and are pumped about all of the L4D2 that is still left for us.
I liked the "light" mechanic. I liked that the game made you feel desperate to get to safety. What I hated was enemies that constantly flank you in the dark and then attack while you try and shine a light at their friends. Repeat ad nauseum for an hour until the next story segment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
Anyway, I played American Nightmare next. I had thought I had had enough of Alan Wake, but the game came with two free DLCs that made me really want to see what happens next. Unfortunately American Nightmare didn't really scratch that itch.*
It's pretty remarkable how different the two games are. They are basic opposites. Alan Wake was all about the story, about the atmosphere, and the gameplay suffered. American Nightmare is all about the gameplay, but the story and mood suffers instead.
The combat and enemies are much much better in American Nightmare. They even go so far as to include an additional "arcade survival" mode to give you a better chance to enjoy the combat. The story is terrible though, so so bad. This confused me because most posts on the internet seemed to indicate the story was going to be better. But it's like comparing American Graffiti to American Pie. Alan Wake had this really dark homage to classic horror, where American Nightmare took the silly Twilight Zone parody gag from the first game and centered the entire story around it. And it never really goes anywhere with it. Just cheeseball gagging right to the end.
The pacing itself seems better at first, as there is no plodding through one area after the next, but without at least a little filler the game feels rushed. You can only carry two weapons at a time, but right at the beginning I get introduced to about 6, before I even have a chance to start killing stuff. It's ridiculous. You are also given so much ammo that you are never in danger of running out. This is completely counter to the first game, where it felt like you had to use your ammo wisely. I went the whole game having 7-10 flare gun shots and not using them. Anyone who has played Alan Wake should recognize how ridiculous that is.
*The DLC was pretty decent though. Doesn't really do much with the story, but it was much more challenging than the main game, and certainly more than American Nightmare.
Anyway, Darksiders 2 next week. I have time for one more Steam Sale game before that happens. Going to try Driver San Francisco, will probably post about it later.
I started playing Moon Breakers.
Fun little space shooter game. It's your typical Multi-player shoot-emUp. 3 modes - assault(kill the opposing teams carrier), CTF, or Search and Destroy (team deathmatch).
Free2Play; Though you can use Real money to buy earlier access to the ships {or Credit boots}- it does appear all the ships could be purchased with simply in game funds - if you played it enough.
Will keep it short this time: Driver San Francisco is pretty fun. It's sort of the hamburger of video games, don't expect anything deep and you might enjoy it. The story is this really campy homage to old cop shows. The gameplay is less hardcore racer, and more like the stuff from GTA4, except better tuned and less frustrating. My only complaints are that I can't get the hang of drifting, I slide all over the place, and the events that require you use the "dynamic camera" are terribly hard to control.
It's much better than I expected from the fact it had zero hype. Although come to think of it, was this one of the Ubisoft games people boycotted because of always online DRM?
With Darksiders 2 and Guild Wars 2 coming up, I probably won't spam this thread again for awhile. No promises though!
I enjoyed Driver SF too. Taking a break while EQ has me occupied though.
My god, I'm still playing pinball. Medieval Madness is just... so... addicting! RAWR!
I finished Fallout: New Vegas. I'm not sure if the game was designed this way or not but it was the first game of this type where I just could not catch a break. I normally like to play as close to a hero as the game will let me but in this game it seemed like everywhere I turned I was making the "wrong" choice and couldn't do anything about it. Accidentally boxing myself into a corner and being forced to blow up the Brotherhood of Steel bunker (after joining them) left a, particularly, sour taste in my mouth.
Maybe one day I'll go back to play it again and see if I can fix all of my mistakes.
I'm having loads of fun with SPAZ (Space Pirates and Zombies) that I got through the steam sale. It's a lot like an older game called Starscape, but with more depth and more levelling-up-ness.
SPAZ was a good nostalgia trip. I used to play games like that all the time back before I had money. I remember I used to play one that was Star Trek themed but used ascii code as graphics. It was actually pretty dang elaborate. Several classes of ships with different characteristics from every major species. You could have a behemoth with phasers all over it, a stealth ship, or something so fast you would only be in range of your target for a single second before speeding past it again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delaregar
I think I remember my brother playing that game. I think some of the chatter is hilarious, stuff like "If a hostage gives you any lip, you just throw them out the window with the rest of the trash."Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
I finally completed m&m3 last year, and then 6 for the hell of it. Theres something about those games i absolutely love. However, m&m4 + 5 run very badly on my machine - where did you get your copies from? Mine are from GoG as i lost the originals years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silke
I got the deluxe pack (1 thr 6) from GoG as well. It's a shame you can't get 4 and 5 working on your machine. Combined, they are, without a doubt, the best ones in the entire series. I played 6, 7 and 8 but never really got into them as much. I didn't care for the backstory and I wasn't a big fan of the Heroes series which was set on the same world and filled in major chunks of lore. They were fun but nowhere near as good as 4 and 5.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maledict
Nethack.
I found a *stellar* Android port of the game: Nethack
The modern Windows/Mac version is also updated to run on modern systems, using custom/illustrative tilesets, or the classic IBM ASCII stuff.
Holy crap, I forgot how GOOD this game is. Anyone know of some decent adaptations into other games? (Levels of complexity must exist, MMOs do not count)
I finished Assassin's Creed III today. The game was decent but I think I'm getting a bit bored with the series. It does wrap things up but the ending was "meh." I can see why a lot of people don't care for Conner as a main character. He doesn't have the same personality as Ezio (he's a very dry character).
Awhile ago I bought an iPad and splurged on Final Fantasy III so I've been playing that a bit. I've mentioned in other threads that III was the only numbered FF that I haven't played yet (not counting XI and XIV since those are MMOs). Fun so far in a JRPG grindy sort of way.
If you think the remake is grindy, be glad you never played the 8-bit original ;)
As a belated Halloween celebration, I played the inFamous Festival of Blood downloadable on PSN. It was okay, but mostly only worthwhile for the silly story/dialogue.
At about the same time, I heard the final episode of Telltale's game version of The Walking Dead was about to come out, so I've been catching up on those with the intent to finish the series.
I've only found time to play Episode 3 so far, but it was really good. My only gripe is an issue with save files that took me a few hours to figure out a work around for. Whoever is writing this is wonderfully depressing though.
Oh the good old days, back before you had to fight every enemy to be strong enough to fight the boss, when you had to instead fight every enemy 12 times to be strong enough to fight the boss.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
I just got done playing To The Moon, a game that got a lot of praise a year ago for having a good story. I was skeptical, but needed a break from Guild Wars and wasn't sure what I was in the mood for, so picked it up off Steam.
It's an adventure game with very simple puzzles with the graphical style of an old 16-bit jrpg (sprites and text boxes basically). There isn't much gameplay, the entire 3 hour experience revolves around the story. Luckily the story is very good, and takes on issues most video games are not brave enough to attempt.
Without spoiling too much, it's about going backwards through a man's memories in order to find a way to fulfill his dying wish, which is to go to the moon. Why he wants such a thing is a mystery that is gradually resolved as you piece together events.
The dialogue can be a little hokey at times, but the story is touching, and more than a little sad. The atmosphere is littered with humor that help keep it from dragging too much, although some of it might be a little too silly for some's tastes. It fits the aesthetic in my opinion though.
If you care about stories in video games and are tired of saving the world, this is worth checking out.
Back Tod Everquest, GuildWars is on pause.... seriously considering Wow but the subscription is holding me back.
Bought XCom for 22 euros on Amazon so I'll probably be playing that once I'm done downloading.
This is actually a display of my reasoning for paying a subscription mmo!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronaan
The rate I chew through games, $15 a month for warcraft saves me all the other cash I'd waste $60 to $120 on a new game a couple times a month.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My gaming time is currently divided between The Secret World, Forza Horizon and Fallout: New Vegas.
In TSW I seem to be getting to the point where solo progression becomes impractical. May have to see about getting dungeon groups or starting PvP. Probably related to the fact that I wanted to build my own character rather than sticking to pre-made decks.
Forza Horizon really surprised me with what the developers managed to squeeze out of the 360. Reminds me a bit of the 'olden days'. This long cycle really forces developers to make do with what they have. My first racing game on the 360 was PGR4, and looking at the two side by side, you wouldn't even think it's the same system. I miss that :p
Finally, New Vegas. Ended up buying a UK key so I wouldn't have to deal with a shitty translated and censored version. But as much as I enjoy the game, what an unstable mess! The base game didn't seem all that reliable to begin with, but after adding a few mods (companions in particular. I don't really enjoy the combat so I added a bunch of those to take care of that for me :p), it's bordering on unplayable. Fast travel and entering buildings is a gamble (exiting seems less of a problem).
I felt the same way back when I played EQ exclusively, but I can't do that anymore. I simply get bored with just one game. No single MMO has enough variety.Quote:
Originally Posted by Naean
Yeah, every few weeks I think about picking up WOW again just to see the new stuff but the realization that it would set me back about $100 to do that turns me off. $15 sub, $30 for Mists and then another $50ish to get my Mage off of her old, crappy, server and back to a tolerable server.
I recently completed the COD:Modern Warfare 3 campaign, and I was tickled to see how it extended the storyline from the first MW through MW2. I tried Black Ops II, but it crashed out on my system - so far, only Bastion and BO2 have done so. I tried to start up a Borderlands game, but the save files were getting corrupted. Bleh.
I'll start up Fallout: New Vegas. I think that'll be a good investment of my time. Otherwise, I continue to play Midway Pinball Classics (Medieval Madness!), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, and Nethack.
Fallout New Vegas is one of my five favorite games of the last ten years.
Just finished Uncharted 3.
While all those corrupted games were failing me, I tried out Final Fantasy XIII-2 (13-2). Holy crap, that game is beautiful. Holy crap, that game sucks. It's like a really bad mashup of Dragon's Lair and really-confusing-Anime (all Anime?).
I was happy to delete it, though I kept the install files around in case I change my mind.
XCOM.
Must... Save... Mankind...
It's still as unforgiving as the original if you are not careful. Holy fuck on a stick.
I think I'll restart, took me two months of game time to figure out how to get more engineers. Stupid tutorial. Y u no build satellite centre???
Oh sweetheart, I'll never quit you. Weeks of long gaming nights... good times.
In spite of the odds I actually managed to finish Fallout: New Vegas. The final insult was that it wouldn't give me the end game quest after finishing the previous one. Ended up having to fix that with the console.
About a month ago a friend got sick of my excuses about not having gotten Skyrim yet, so gifted me a Steam copy himself. This coincidentally happened a day before my internet got busted, and halfway through an XCOM download. I don't have proof he conspired to leave me with nothing to play but Skyrim, but I finally finished it a few days ago.
I liked it much more than Oblivion, but it still had a ton of bugs and balance issues. Chief among them, perhaps, was Bethseda's apparent desire to make dragons lose all magic and make you absolutely sick of them. I could not go anywhere without being attacked by a dragon. Fast travel to sell loot, dragon. Fast travel to start quest, dragon. Fast travel to end quest, dragon. Leaving a building, dragon. Take a piss, dragon. The fact that they are incredibly freaking weak (I've seen dragons struggle to kill simple animals, they only seem to kill anything else in scripted encounters) isn't what bothered me as much as the repetition.
Anyway, that done, internet fixed, XCOM download finished, time to kill some xrays! I binged on it over the weekend and it's extremely fun. I like it rather a lot, although there are design choices that are incredibly annoying and/or frustrating. Additionally the UI is terrible and a huge pain in the ass. Whoever convinced me to start on classic ironman also needs a kick in the balls! :p I like ironman, but classic feels unfair, and I'm really missing features I have come to expect from a strategy rpg, like a visual representation of firing range for my own guys, or movement range for the enemy. When each move is permanent, it's bullshit to not know I am within one hit kill range of some horrifying monster. I'm sticking with it anyway (for now) because I hear normal mode just gets too easy, but I don't think it was the right way to start. If anything, playing on normal mode is how you learn the strategies to use in classic, but whatever.
Will probably play a freak load of stuff over the coming week, I think next is going to be Trine 2 co op with a friend. I booted it up to map the controls and try out the first level and it already looks like a large improvement over the original. It's quite beautiful, and the 3D is pretty amazing. It might be the best 3D I've seen, to my great surprise.
I agree 100% with your assessment of the dragon frequency.
I spent a bit of time with the (unsurprisingly overpriced) iOS port of Final Fantasy IV the other day. Visually it looks much better than its Nintendo DS counterpart, courtesy of the higher resolution (but still without texture filtering).
Unfortunately that's where the advantages end. Playing the game on a third gen iPod touch, the graphics stuttered frequently (especially in towns and castles, a little less on the world map) and sound (especially voice overs) occasionally got stuck or repeated. Touchscreen controls are passable. The virtual, place-anywhere thumbstick works ok for character movement, though in dungeons I often found myself going the wrong way by accident, which isn't a good thing if you're aiming for the most direct route to avoid random encounters. The whole interface seems to have shrunk compared to FF3, making battle and menu buttons that much harder to hit, and some text harder to read on so small a screen. The port was probably designed for newer iOS devices (retina iPod/iPhone, iPad/mini), with (bad) support for legacy devices thrown in to maximize the potential customer base.
That said, it's still a good game. It just reeks of a minimum-effort port.
Need some time to kill, so I'm going to post some of the stuff I've been playing earlier than I had planned. Apologies if I end up getting spammy this week. :p
I put Xcom on hold. End of the year is busy for me and I haven't had time for it. Someone sent me the Binding of Isaac and I've been playing that in free moments instead. It's a very twisted zelda-ish roguelike thing about horrible things.
Did make time for Trine 2. I enjoyed it much more than the first one, perhaps thanks to the co-op. I still maintain that the graphics (and especially the 3D effects) were incredible. Very surprising for a non big budget title. The controls are still floaty (bad) though.
Got and played Journey last night. It was really good, but way more linear than I was expecting. I thought the idea was that you would randomly meet people and then go your separate ways, but there was only one way to go. Another cool thing about this game is that the story as told to the player isn't all that interesting. But the story you tell yourself as you interact with a random stranger you can't even talk to is.
Finally, got Paper Mario for the 3DS as a gift and have been playing it before bed. It's cute, predictably easy but not frustratingly so. I sort of wish the puzzles were better but the combat and levels are good. Music is surprisingly good.
Funny thing is, part of why I wanted this was because a year or so ago when I got my 3DS, the preview I had seen of this was the best 3D I had seen up to that point. But by unfortunate chance, I played this at the same time as Trine 2, which pretty much smokes anything else I have seen, including Paper Mario. Oh well. :p
Finally got around to starting Assassin's Creed III... and only made it through the first two sequences before getting bored. Is the rest of the game as slow and dull as the beginning? I must have spent more time watching cutscenes than actually playing. And the first "missions" weren't particularly exciting either.
Besides that I played Tony Hawk HD literally until my thumbs started hurting. I forgot how addictive those games could be. I can almost feel the old calluses growing back. Unfortunately the game isn't quite as challenging as I remember it. I've already maxed out my skater's stats and completed most of the challenges. Not sure about Marseille as the final level. Seems more like a punishment than a treat.
Physics and collision detection ended up being more irritating than the graphics. Nothing like having your skater fly off the board for no apparent reason. I'm hoping for a sequel with more refinement (and the ability to import the old levels).
Picked up ac3 in time for christmas and yeah the beginning was somewhat meh.
It got better around sequence 5 or so.
Angry Birds, until I can get another computer.
Heheh. The Star Wars themed Angry Birds is pretty funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neofelis
Yeah, I had fun with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerkahia
Over the past few days I got around to completing Bayonetta (bought it a couple years ago, got halfway through and set it aside) and Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Neither were all that great in my opinion. I know Bayonetta was pretty popular back in the day but I don't care for the style of game I guess (though I loved Lollipop Chainsaw). It was a bit over the top with the fan service, the story was a convoluted mess and it was frustratingly difficult in places for me. Medal of Honor was OK but nothing to write home about.
I've been looking for a game that really grabs my attention and holds it for awhile. I bought Radiata Stories years ago but never got more than a couple hours into it before a newer game came out. But because of my attitude towards new video games these days, I've started it up again and am having fun with it. It's, kind of, what I'm looking for. A good JRPG with a ton to do and it doesn't take itself too seriously.
Meanwhile I've got a pretty large Steam backlog after the Summer, Black Friday and Winter sale but I mostly play PC games when my wife is at home (when she's at home, she pretty much controls the TV so I don't play too many console games). Not sure what I'll start next from there though.
Just finished two play throughs of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I would being so stealth oriented. Just picked up Max Payne 3 (complete opposite lol) and enjoying it so far. I know I'm a good 6 months or a year behind most of the folks here lol.
:p
I started a new game of Fallout 3 (GotY this time). I've never finished the game before, because it gave me major motion/simulator sickness when it originally came out. I'm not sure what exactly changed that -- patches, faster system, over-the-shoulder 3rd person camera mod -- but it's no longer an issue. Plus, with some visual mods, the game can look pretty damn great. I still don't like the combat much, so as I did in New Vegas, I'm using companions for that (which makes levelling up a bit harder, but exploration much easier).
Assassin's Creed III is on the back burner. I just can't bring up the motivation to continue what so far (sequence 5 or 6) is a rather boring story with not much gameplay.
Finishing up Mark of the Ninja while my friend isn't around, and then playing a co-op game of Torchlight 2 with him. Really enjoying both games, the story in Mark of the Ninja is a little lacking, but i love the stealthiness of the game. Torchlight 2 I am finding more enjoyable than Diablo 3.
Oh I don't know about that. I'm sure I'm not the only cheap bastard that waits until they go on sale. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Nerkahia
I've also been playing the iOS port of Final Fantasy IV (as mentioned somewhere, it has a ridiculous Square/Enix premium price but I've got quite a bit of credit on iTunes from Christmas left over).
I've played FF4 quite a few times so I jumped right into hard difficulty. I won't say that was a mistake but... Regular enemies are tuned fine. They tend to spam high damage abilities quite a bit but it's not too bad to deal with them and grind out experience and money. But the bosses can be frustratingly difficult. If you are even slightly under-leveled, you will get one-shot repeatedly. They also seemed to have tuned bosses a bit so that you can't simply attack/heal with your eyes closed. A lot of the bosses have gimmicks that have to be obeyed. The "counter' rate on bosses is set ridiculously high so you never want to attack willy nilly or you're likely to be seeing the game over screen after you attack 3 times and get countered with "alpha strike" 3 times.
With that being said though I'm making progress. My only real complaint is that this is the DS port and doesn't include the After Years expansion content. I've never had the chance to play through that.
Which device are you playing on? The stutter is almost unbearable on my third gen iPod touch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silke
They've never 3D-fied The After Years, afaik. The Japanese cell phone, Wii and PSP releases all use GBA-style 2D graphics. Lazy port, as usual.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silke
I still buy the occasional new release at full price (console games more so than PC), but Steam has pretty much conditioned me to wait for sales on anything I don't need to have/play right away. They (and other download stores) have sales so frequently, the "games are being devalued" people may actually have a point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
3rd Generation iPad. Final Fantasy 3 was much smoother during battles but, on the iPad, 4 runs pretty well. Battles are just much more graphic in 4 with lots of animations, more detailed characters and larger group sizes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
I understand why After Years wasn't included (due to the port that they chose), I'm just disappointed is all. I'd rather have had the 2D PSP port with the After Years included personally (I never bought the PSP version).
I'll have to dust off mine to give it a try. I rarely play on the iPad. But there's no reason why it shouldn't be running smoothly on current hardware. If it doesn't, it's a worse port than I initially thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silke
I prefer the 2D versions in general, so I would rather have that, too. And the voice acting is more of a distraction than a welcome addition, imo. FWIW, The After Years isn't anything to write home about. You're not missing much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silke
Square teased that V and/or VI might be coming to iOS. Maybe they'll go back to the 2D GBA versions for those ports. I honestly can't see them putting in the work to create new 3D ports.
there's something out called Final Fantasy Dimensions ($20) - anyone try it, yet?
Only briefly. It's basically a "new" Final Fantasy using old school graphics. On iOS, the first chapter is free. The Android version took half a dozen re-downloads before it would even start on my phone.
Accidentally finished Fallout 3. Damn, that main quest is short. Will have to go back to an earlier save for more exploration.
Guess?
My Custom AR Build: the "NRA Fanboy"
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps9aaa8e86.png
I finally got around to playing skyward sword. It's overally good so far but really the motion controls of the wii should not have been so integrated into the game. It often feels forced and the controls suffer and just piss me off sometimes.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I enjoyed the game, but just wait til you face some of the monsters who have to be hit with sword swipe in a certain direction. My wiimote would sometimes not recognize the direction i swung it in, and then i'd get the auto-riposte from the enemy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Naean
I'm playing Dishonored. It makes me think of Deus Ex meets Bioshock. My only gripe so far is that the game keeps giving you all these toys and then encourages you not to use them. Some of these powers are pretty demented, and obviously not something you would want to use if you want the "good" end. Which is another problem. The game doesn't motivate you well enough to want revenge, and gives you too much hope early on. Without this to motivate you, there is no reason to simply not sneak past all the enemies.
I also just finished Mark of the Ninja. It's one of the best ninja games I have ever played, I think. It's hard to explain everything that was great about this game. It's a 2D stealth game, you can knock out lights, use smoke to get past lasers, hide bodies, etc. Each stage is a puzzle with multiple solutions and anyone who likes being sneaky should try it.
I also played Spec Ops: The Line last week. It's sort of Heart of Darkness the game. The developers set out to make a gritty war story as a counterpoint to the action movie vibe most military shooters have. In many ways they suceeded, the story is very dark and far more mature than you will find in most games of it's type. My only complaint is that the generic gameplay hurts the narrative, it lessens the weight of what you are doing in some cases and makes the plot feel as forced as it is in others. This is a game with no right choices, and is very much the opposite of a glorification of war. The game will even taunt you in loading screens "Do you feel like a hero yet"? If you can handle being made depressed it's well worth experiencing.
P.S. I think there was only one enemy in Skyward Sword in which the motion controls really pissed me off. Hint: It involved a narrow fighting area.
Just finished Mark of the Ninja as well, loved the art and the puzzle like way the levels were set up. Great use of stealth, lighting, and sound mechanics. I felt the story was kind of weak, but loved the animated cut scenes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wool
I was thinking of the lizard guys with the shield arms. I think I ended up using bombs on them after a while.
I finished Legend of Grimrock (2 human warrios, 2 minotaur rogues), and I'm trying out some of the mods. The seamless integration with the Steam Workshop is AWESOME and effortless to take advantage of. Some of these custom dungeons are cool!
I'm ramping up my Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning playtime, as much as I can. It's a fun game :)
I finished Radiata Stories (including all the bonus content) and really enjoyed it. It's a 6 year old game but it was a lot of fun. I really like Tri-Ace games though which are generally Active Combat JRPGs (they also made Valkyrie Profile and the Star Ocean games).
It's an interesting game. About three fourths of the way through the game you have a split where you are required to choose a side (Humans or Non-Humans). So basically you're going to want to play through the game twice to see everything. The Non-Human side has the better story and ending. Neither side is "good" exactly but they make the Non-Human side seem like the canon way to go since that's the side your love interest and other major characters end up. However, they are the weaker side and the recruitable characters aren't nearly as good. The Human side story is very weak and it left me wondering why I'd be sticking around with these bunch of losers. From the beginning your character is the stereotypical hot-headed fighter who has no common sense and isn't all that bright. Going Human makes you seem even more stupid. But the recruitable characters are much stronger and if you plan to do the post-game dungeons, this is really the way to go.
Speaking of recruiting characters, this is a major part of the game. 95% of the NPCs you meet in the city and surroundings can be recruited. Some are easy (speak to them and they join you) while others are much tougher where you have to go do stuff for them. You spend a large chunk of time recruiting characters since the most powerful ones require you to have recruited all of their underlings first.
The game wasn't all that challenging though. It does have the crappy gameplay element where if your main character dies, it's automatic "game over" which I'm not a fan of. This is especially true at the post-game stuff where your main character has half the hit-points of your other characters (or 1/4 the hitpoints of my most powerful ally). The only bosses that gave me trouble where the final story boss and the Ethereal Queen. The final story boss is tough but is quickly out-leveled and then he's a push over.
One thing that Tri-Ace does is they have a common universe. Each game exists alongside the others and has quite a few recurring characters. Radiata Stories continues this tradition with Lenneth from Valkyrie Profile being a boss and recruitable character, Lezard Valeth as a boss, Gabriel Celeste and the Ethereal Queen. EQ was rough but not as bad as in some games (The Star Ocean 4 one was simply brutal).
Well I wasted enough time reviewing a 6 year old game here...
Edit: Oh year, there's something refreshing about playing older games without Trophies or Achievements and not feel like I have to care about them.
Nothing wrong with talking about old games, there is always something you've missed over the years. I would be more likely to play that one now, if it weren't for the fact I already have dozens of other old games I already bought and haven't played. (Valkyrie Profile for example)
I just played through the Dead Space games. Dead Space 3 is about to come out, and even though I don't plan on getting it at release, I figured I would play the old ones in anticipation of it. They were pretty good, and about what I expected. Resident Evil 4 in space.
I'm not sure which I prefer though. People said Dead Space 2 is more of an action game, but I'm not sure I agree. Aside from functionality improvements, the biggest change seems to be having completely linear level design instead of having a few areas that you constantly return to over the course of the story. Dead Space 1 was no Metroid, but at least I knew what the hell I was doing in that game. Enemies also seem ridiculously fast in Dead Space 2. So fast that using stasis is mandatory if I don't want my face to get eaten off before I can even line up a shot. So fast I wonder if my increased frame rate isn't causing problems with enemy behavior (it caused glitches for me in Dead Space 1).
I have to say though, the one big downside to these games is the story. I assumed there wouldn't be much of one, that it was going to be a simple "disaster in space" plot. I would have preferred this because what I got instead was surprisingly terrible. Full of obvious twists, unbelievably moronic antagonists, and glaring plot contrivances. I would be more insulted if I cared, but it's not like I expected much anyway, and the game itself is still fun.
Although one minor disappointment was that the dismemberment aspect of the game wasn't quite as involved as I thought it would be. Although I have to say, the No Gravity rooms in Dead Space 2 are pretty sweet.
Edit: Oh right, and I also played Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light as an intermission between these two games. I originally got it to play co-op with a friend, but he insists he was drunk when he originally agreed to get and play it with me and has refused to play it ever since. I got tired of such a short game sitting there unplayed so went through it on my own.
Anyway it was pretty good, maybe the best of it's type that I've played.
Edit edit: Okay I lied, when I made that previous post I hadn't beaten Dead Space 2 yet. I have now. Story got a little better, combat got extremely irritating. Enemies constantly spawn behind you while you are fighting something else, and they take more punishment than in the first game. Dismemberment is almost completely irrelevant, just freeze everything and spam whatever causes the biggest bang. Bleh.
Still on an old game kick.
I'm replaying Lunar: Eternal Blue on my PS3. Great game and it's a damn shame that it hasn't been ported over to more recent systems lately. The first one (Silver Star Story) has like 20 different ports and keeps getting new ones. I just saw that it was ported to iOS late last year as the most recent one. But Eternal Blue remains elusive. Last time I played Eternal Blue was back around 2001 or 2002 so it's been awhile and I forgot what a good game it is. It's very grindy and it's not all that complex but it's still a lot of fun and has a fantastic story. Needless to say the graphics are dated but that's not why you play a game like Lunar.
I'm also playing through Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth on my PSP when my wife controls the TV. This is, easily, one of my top 10 games of all time. To this day I regret not getting a PSX version when it was still around but I didn't discover the game until well into the PS2's life cycle. The main story focuses on norse mythology and upcoming Ragnarok. But it's a very depressing game. You go around collecting the souls of the recently departed. So each time you recruit a new character you visit him/her during their last moments of life. Some of the back stories are extremely tragic. There is also two major endings (and a third "you lose" ending) which completely change how the game is presented. The basic ending is simply you fighting against the Vanir Giants but the real ending (which is extremely complicated to achieve) goes into a lot more detail of who Lenneth is and the real cause of the war between the Aesir and Vanir (spoiler alert for those not familiar with norse mythology, it's Loki). The sequel, Valkyrie Profile: Silmaria is also really good. It takes place before and after Lenneth (simultaneously). At first you think you're playing a prequel to Lenneth but with the wonders of Time Travel you realize that the whole time the game takes place after the events of Lenneth.
Still going through Torchlight 2 with a friend, we're at the final part of Act 3, so i think we're close to finished with the first playthrough. I have Dishonored waiting for me, but I've kind of gotten roped in by DOTA2. I haven't played a MOBA type game before and have only been playing against bots for about 6 or 7 matches, but I find it to be oddly enjoyable even though I've heard terrible things about the community. The amount of heroes is a bit overwhelming. I am never going to have the time to try out every hero to see who i'd like or be good as so I've ended up doing random pick.
I finished the single-player campaign for Battlefield 3 last night. I have mixed feelings about the quality and the story. Unlike Modern Warfare (1/2/3 or Black Ops), the storyline was choppy and forced, especially for the jet fighter and tank sequences. The ending was dumb. However, the AI was decent, and the weapons felt okay to use, though it was difficult to know what I had.
I'd give it a "Rent - play MW for the campaigns/single player, instead". I cannot comment on online play, I can't try that.
Back to Kingdoms of Amalur! Such a fun game :)
Finished XCOM on classic non-ironman. Started a classic ironman immediately after.
And then, 20 minutes later I started a classic ironman... again.
Having great fun, got my money's worth and then some.
I was also pretty disappointed with Battlefield 3's campaign, although I haven't liked the newer Call of Duty games any better. I was impressed with CoD4, but every one since has irritated me. It doesn't help that they feel like a step back in gameplay after having played games with newer, better engines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yttrium
I don't think I would recommend BF3 on consoles at all though. It's one of the few games that justify being clearly better on PCs.
Anyway, I think Bad Company 2 still has my favorite campaign for a game of this genre (although even it fell short). Spec Ops: The Line is a close second for having a big boy story, but falls a little in its execution.
Thanks, I'll try Bad Company 2.
Its fun. The Vietnam expac is great too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yttrium
Sent from beyond time and space - because that's how I roll.
When I built my new computer, I got Arkham City with my gpu, but I kept putting off playing it for one reason or another. I realized if I kept procrastinating I would never have time for it, so went ahead and started it over the weekend.
Anyway, it was excellent. It was a very good open world game, although I think a few things were lost in the translation, and I might prefer Arkham Asylum more, despite clear incremental improvements in the franchise.
The only thing I was really disappointed by was the story. Oh boy was it bad. It had it's moments, but far too many plot points were stupid.
I would like to know what you think when you do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yttrium
I picked up Ni no Kuni yesterday. Didn't get very far before the English voice acting got on my nerves and I started over in Japanese :p
It's great that that can be an option now. I think the new Fire Emblem has that option as well. Both No nu Kuni and Fire Emblem are due next week for me. In the meantime I played Resistance 3 and am currently playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood while waiting.
Resistance 3 was okay: equal parts fun and irritating, but the story wasn't interesting compared to the previous game. They listened to fans and made it more like the first game, which makes it feel like a step back to me. On the plus side, it doesn't have the crappy gimmicky parts from the second game as a result.
I think I've finally come up with a verdict on PS3 3D too: very disappointing. For most (not all) games I have tried it with, it has resulted in a blurred or fuzzy image. The graphics in Resistance 3 aren't that good to begin with, and it was so intolerable I had to turn it off. I paid a little bit extra for a computer monitor I could use PS3 3D with, only to (eventually) discover that the platform just isn't powerful enough to make it worthwhile. While sure, I had the luxury of playing better 3D games before this to color my opinion, I still don't see how anyone could gloss over this. I always heard this game was good at it, oh well.
Assassin's Brotherhood I am also a bit lukewarm with, but that might be because I wish I was playing something else. It seems to be a good game (expansion? :p), but the new stuff they added isn't working for me so far. Chain kills in particular are so beyond op as to become stupid. I didn't even know what I did the first few times I did them, everyone just fell over dead. I eventually realized I was killing multiple people at the same time, just by holding a button down. Still at the beginning, we will see if I get more into it.
Back in Gran Turismo 5 for a while
About a month ago, I decided to use LA Noire as a game I could play casually during the downtime between releases this month. I had heard because of the structure of the game, it gets old fast if you try and play straight through it.
I sort of can appreciate what they are trying to do with this, it's got a cool atmosphere going on, but they ruin it with questionable design decisions.
It's practically impossible to really fail. The missions will find alternative ways of giving you information you missed, and can still be completed if you still manage to screw it up. This is a good thing, in my opinion, because it makes the game feel more like an interactive story than a game. The problem is, they still felt the need to try and force "gamey" bits in. So for example, the game will tell you when you picked the wrong dialogue choices. It's no longer a story you are experiencing and turns into a game that you are doing wrong. It breaks immersion and ruins the experience. That's just one example of many. The traffic is also intolerably bad. You can skip driving to destinations but then you miss plot and character dialogue.
It's still a cool game and well worth the $5 I spent for it, it just could have been better.
I'm also still playing Fire Emblem. Dang game is going to give me an aneurysm. Do not play on hard/classic unless you are willing to set aside most of your army and only focus on the more overpowered units. You will drive yourself insane. (classic is permadeath, a staple of the series, but they add reasons to want to keep units around now, so I refuse to let anyone die, sigh)
Gran Turismo 5 got tedious (advanced into the endurance races... yeah right, nothanx)
So I did what every straight thinking gamer would do and considered going back to X-Com on Classic/Ironman... or EQ1 to level my lvl 86 undergeared monk some...
and in the end I bought Cataclysm and Pandaria and hopped straight back into WoW.
I just finished an iPad game called little inferno. Really addictive and well worth a couple bucks. All you do is burn items in a little fireplace.
I stopped my "do it all" playthrough of Kingdoms of Amalur and took a break from the game. I'm doing my first playthrough of Mass Effect 3. Fun game. I can't wait to hate the ending :D
Play it once just to see it; after the Extended Cut DLC, it's not as terrible. Then install this. Spoiler warning, in case all you know about the ending is "it's bad."Quote:
Originally Posted by Yttrium
Citadel DLC is also very, very good.
I just finished up a playthrough of Borderlands 2 with two of my friends, co-op all the way through it. What a fun ride that was! The writing and voice acting in that game is just so well done, so much color added to all of the side quests as well. We still have the DLC and probably do the true vault hunter mode to get up to level 50.
I've also been playing a lot of DOTA2, just doing co-op bot matches though as i'm still pretty new (only about 15-20 bot matches right now). I have some extra beta invites to that on Steam if anyone wants one.
I wouldn't mind trying out the mod you linked; I'll look into it. Thanks :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ayralin
I have seen all the possible endings, and I lament not getting to try the multiplayer.
I couldn't resist grabbing the iOS port of Final Fantasy V. This one has always been one of my favorites.
I like the Dimensions-esque high-res pixel art much better than the 3D graphics of the previous two ports. There's also, thankfully, no voice acting, and no superfluous videos. On the other hand, there's also no enhanced soundtrack. Oddly enough the graphics do not seem to be optimized for any iOS device. The game is always either letterboxed or windowboxed, with the unused space partially filled by a clock and a battery indicator, and the pixel art itself does not use the retina iPad's full resolution.
As with the other iOS (and Android) ports, touch-based battles work well enough, but the virtual d-pad is a pain in the ass. This may not seem like a big issue in an RPG, but can get irritating really quickly, especially when you're trying for a precise path through dungeons to keep the random encounters to a minimum.
FFV has always stood in the shadows of VI, so I doubt that many people are going to be willing to put up with the usual Square premium pricing to pick this one up.
I picked up FF Dimensions on sale (Android) a couple weeks ago but only just started to play it. It's pretty good so far, and I'm liking the music (and wishing there were a way to extract it from the APK). I've only just opened the first 7 jobs and am working on leveling them since I have only gotten 3-5 minutes' playtime when I actually go to start it up.
I don't mind the on-screen pad; on my SGSII it's pretty accurate, though there's this odd bug whenever I talk to NPCs that I always take one step down afterwards.
Still WoWing (6x90s, will be getting my warlock into LFR tonight) and occasionally Minecrafting with my brother.
One thing I really wish these classic ports had is Dropbox support for saves. If a small developer like Revolution can figure it out, surely it's not too much to ask of Square.
User-based cloud saves? That's a great idea. Hm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaxa
Yup. Broken Sword II Remastered lets you use Dropbox to backup and restore saves. You can even share the same saves between iOS and Android devices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yttrium
I came to the realisation just before Easter that the only game I've actually finished in the 12 months or so has been X-Com.
So I've trimmed my WoW time down significantly and played through the main campaign of Dungeon Defenders. There's extra levels to go from here but most of them seem to require me to grind out character levels first, plus the game seems like it would be a heap more fun with more people playing so I'm going to park it for now until I can convince more friends to buy it.
Now I've moved on to Neverwinter Nights 2. I thought I'd played this already but turns out I was confusing it with Neverwinter Nights 1 -and I am quite annoyed at myself for not playing it earlier as I am having a heap of fun. Going for a wizard/caster build so I can have a go at the Eldritch Knight prestige class. I just started playing D&D in real life a few weeks ago too so am in RPG overload a bit :)
Neverwinter 2 is REAL fun, adore playing a wizard or warlock in that :)