The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

[Wool]

Thanks for the advice, I usually am pretty cautious with that sort of thing but may have laxed with this game. I did get a miniguide as a bonus for preordering the game, I flipped though it a bit and I think it's safe. I haven't decided if I'm going to use it or just shot in the dark wing it.

Right now the only thing I know for sure is that there is a rather helpful ring, but I don't remember where it is.

[Yttrium]

Jamestown - great game for $5, or even $10 if you have to.
More Uncharted
More Demon's Souls
various other dinky stuff from Steam and bundled sales - Spring Up Harmony, Steel Storm, etc.

[Wool]

I'm about an hour's into Demon's Souls. It's very fun. I thought I would hate it for being too unforgiving, but it isn't so bad so far. The only time I died I was able to get back to my body pretty easily. Granted I'm still in what is probably little more than an extended tutorial, but so far so good.

And the only thing that has killed me was a red eyed demon knight bastard that I quickly learned to stay away from. Explored everywhere else, and found the ring everyone was talking about in the original DS thread. Most of the traps up to this point have been easily circumvented via caution, even without a message as warning. The game definitely likes to blindside you though, which is amusing.

I take great pleasure in the blood stains. Sure the game isn't "tap x to win" simple, but the beginning isn't really all that hard. What's with all these people dieing such chump deaths while swinging blindly? I would almost think they are fake bloodstains placed by the developers to demonstrate how they work, if it weren't for all the ones of people jumping to their deaths next to a fake message, or the ones who hilariously back off cliffs while in combat (which I admittedly I almost did myself once).

Unfortunately I made my first character a throwaway character, because I figured I would ruin it while learning how to play the game. The beginning is so long that I'm not sure I want to restart now though, bah. I was originally going to try several different starters to get a feel of what combat style I want to focus on, but the adventures of Firstguy the incompetent archer might have to continue.

One thing I don't like is the menu system. It could be worse, but it's still pretty garish and muddled. I hate it and haven't bothered to learn how to read it or the equipment contained within, save that ring.

Also rolling feels awkward. I like using a shield more, even though from everything I've heard, rolling is far superior. Parrying is cool too, but I'm not feeling comfortable enough to be that daring on anything but the blue eyed knights.

[Yttrium]

it's a *bit* of a spoiler, but learning to understand what the symbols mean (it's just memorizing the order) can affect your weapon choice. The letter next to a symbol means how much that stat (that the symbol represents) will contribute to your attackpower with that weapon. Having a D/E/-/-/- weapon, for example, will be more off Str (the first symbol, it's a D here) and somewhat off Dex (the E) and not at all off of your Vit, Magic, or ... well, whatever the last 3 are. As you "enchant" your weapons with stones and stuff, you'll see those letters improve, from E-D-C-B-A-S.

The numbers at the bottom are the requirements to wield/use the weapon/armor without penalty. Again, this is helpful, because if you find Badass Weapon X, but you get a funky message when you wield it, those numbers tell you what you need to improve.

Conveniently, you don't have to look it up on a spoiler site - all of those symbols are in the instruction booklet.

[Wool]

I hate those symbols, I've only bothered to remember a few. And that's not really a spoiler, the little book my game came with talks about all that. It unfortunately doesn't give me a good idea on what the different weapon playstyles are, so I don't know where I want to put my points.

It occurred to me that playing in online mode is practically cheating as much as using a guide. Before almost every new enemy I see a message telling me its weakness. Everything but the dang mages in Stonetooth (or whatever). I hate those guys.

Phalanx was easy, even without doing it the right way. Armored spider sucked, I felt cheap after beating it.

Spoiler for how I beat it:

It wouldn't let me get close, every time I did it would spam three fireballs at once every second. So I found a message saying "safe here" (geometry abuse?) and just spammed newb missile. Sigh. Might need to change that spell out to resist the temptation to use it whenever an enemy takes too long to kill normally.

[Yttrium]

Nah, that's a standard way of beating all sorts of baddies. It's all good.
I wouldn't go toe-to-toe with any of the bosses unless you're wearing heavy armor and sinking points into Vitality. Ugh.

[Melcar]

Lack of anything new and exciting has left me doing the game bounce again...

Back to GTA4 for now... Who knows, maybe I'll actually finish it this time. (Still have The Lost & the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony I've never played too.)

[Wool]

Maybe halfway through Demon's Souls. I'm constantly griping about something or another, but I'm still enjoying it. The thing I was most concerned about, the corpse runs, is proving not to be much of an issue with me. It only really bothers me in World 4; it really sucks to lose so many souls all at once, but once you finally beat it you have so many that it doesn't really matter.

Which reminds me, the challenge is good, but I haven't really felt gratified so far. Either it isn't hard enough to phase me, or it's too hard and I feel like the solution is overly cheesey. Until 4-2. I felt pretty good when I found the pattern for dominating 4-2. I don't think I will ever feel good about World 5 though, that place sucks.

Didn't intend to be a mage, but newb missile saved me a few times, so I upgraded it to god missile and it got even better. Mixing spells up with melee, and I've got a bow for pulling nasty things or taking out weak to arrow enemies hiding behind a gauntlet (so basically 4-2 ).

A friend is playing at the same time, but unfortunately the co-op doesn't really seem to be that necessary for the effort involved. Seems like a novelty.

[Eamin]

YEAH DEMON'S SOULS!!!!

[Delaregar]

I discovered Revenge of the Titans from some humble bundle or steam pack I purchased around christmas time. I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying it. It's like tower defense meets strategy. The research tree could be improved (tough to know what I should research), but it doesn't seem to send mobs against you that can only be killed by a certain type of weapon until you've researched it.

[Eamin]

Playing Arkham Asylum. It's a good game, but it's not living up to the hype. Kind of like Uncharted 2 in terms of its being a run of the mill quality game that some people for reasons unknown decided was game of the year material.

[silverblaze]

Playing Arkham Asylum. It's a good game, but it's not living up to the hype. Kind of like Uncharted 2 in terms of its being a run of the mill quality game that some people for reasons unknown decided was game of the year material.

I like AA because it was a super hero, specifically batman, game done right. You got to be stealthy, had some cool gadgets, had to solve puzzles, did some neat martial artsy stuff and the joker was behind it all. It's certainly not the best game ever, but it was a top notch game for the genre.

[Wool]

Batman AA was the surprise hit of the year. Everyone was so sure it was going to suck, and then it was not only good, it was dang near flawless. The game had a ton of variety and hit all the notes a game of it's genre should, while also being one of the few superhero games in existence worth playing.

I can only think of two problems with that game: the detective mode was a little imbalanced, and one of the bosses (not saying which one) was stupid. That's about it. In it's genre, there is almost nothing in recent memory that really compares, save maybe Assassin's Creed 2 (which I haven't played yet).

Maybe it just isn't your type of game. Although even with the best games of the year, I generally try not to get carried away by hype, it distracts you from the experience, and there isn't much that can live up to the ridiculous heights that constant praise inspires.


Almost done with DS by the way, it wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be. People kept saying 60 hours, but I've only got 40 or so logged, and that's with me leaving the game running all night even when I'm not playing it. (I get lazy and know I want to play later, but don't feel like logging out )

I'm not sure if I got better, or if I overleveled from all the souls I got from 4-2 and 4-3, but I'm pretty much dominating everything in sight at this point. Sadly most of the spells you get from demon's souls are pretty useless. I mostly just fire god missile at things annoying me from range, and smack everything else with the crescent sword I found and upgraded.

[Eamin]

Maybe it just isn't your type of game.

I tend to like the genre. It's a good game, but there was never a point where I was like wow, this is great.

[DietCanada]

Batman was great but imo the main story was way to short. I usually do story games slow 1-2 hours at a time but i beat it in i think 4 sittings which i think is way to short. there is the extra chrs and sidequest but that really didn't interest me

The best thing that came out of it was they proved a comic book game past what capcom does with it's fighters can actually work.


Anyways Im working on some of my backlog. I let resident eveil 5 slip by me and im going through that now. i really didn't like the 1st 3 chapters but now the story seems to be picking up and feels more like resident evil.

Now that i got that steam sell i plan on doing a ME run too. My friend Recently told me you never played ME, whats wrong with you!?

[Melcar]

I stumbled across this: http://www.reghardware.com/2011/07/2...enemy_unknown/

and that of course had the desired effect and made me nostalgic for the good old days... Fired up X-com, started a new game, beginner(I'm pretty sure I hit beginner anyways) - and by about the 2nd week I had shot down 1 small UFO - no problems on the ground with it - Then had to defend my base. I didn't even have lasers yet, but I had sectoids with heavy plasma inside the base... Surprisingly enough - I managed to fight my way through it. Took down a couple more UFO's - lost some troops here and there - Feb is rolling around. Base is under attack. Fuck... I still hadn't managed to get laser rifles; and this time I'm up against Sectoids with Blaster bomb launchers - well, I barely beat down the attack with 3 of my 14 left. I hadn't even gotten my replacement troops in yet - when my base was under attack again.

I surrendered at that point - bow to your new Alien Overlords!


Edit: Had to deal with a Terror site between the two base attacks too - 4-5 cyberdisks; They are a PAIN with nothing but standard rifles 1 HWP cannon and 1 Troop with a rocket launcher.

[Eamin]

The best thing that came out of it was they proved a comic book game past what capcom does with it's fighters can actually work.

Yeah, let's hope more devs are inspired by the success of AA to actually put some effort into their superhero games. If we're lucky Marvel might stop giving the rights to its superhero games to the likes of Activision and Sega.

[Wool]

I wouldn't blame the devs as much as the publishers. There isn't much the devs can do to make the game better when they are being forced to have it out in time for a movie. A game takes longer to make and is less fluid with changes than a movie.

So far this summer, it seems like the trend of soulless movie cash-ins is going to continue, but there's hope for other superhero games perhaps. There was talk awhile back that Marvel's partnership with Disney is likely to produce better games. Or something like that, I don't remember the details.

[Delaregar]

I stumbled across this: http://www.reghardware.com/2011/07/2...enemy_unknown/

and that of course had the desired effect and made me nostalgic for the good old days... Fired up X-com, started a new game, beginner(I'm pretty sure I hit beginner anyways) - and by about the 2nd week I had shot down 1 small UFO - no problems on the ground with it - Then had to defend my base. I didn't even have lasers yet, but I had sectoids with heavy plasma inside the base... Surprisingly enough - I managed to fight my way through it. Took down a couple more UFO's - lost some troops here and there - Feb is rolling around. Base is under attack. Fuck... I still hadn't managed to get laser rifles; and this time I'm up against Sectoids with Blaster bomb launchers - well, I barely beat down the attack with 3 of my 14 left. I hadn't even gotten my replacement troops in yet - when my base was under attack again.

I surrendered at that point - bow to your new Alien Overlords!


Edit: Had to deal with a Terror site between the two base attacks too - 4-5 cyberdisks; They are a PAIN with nothing but standard rifles 1 HWP cannon and 1 Troop with a rocket launcher.

Whew, that doesn't sound like beginner to me.

[Melcar]

Whew, that doesn't sound like beginner to me.

No me neither -- It was rough... and not at all meshing with my remembered past experiences - it's possible I mis-clicked... All I know is I was getting my ass kicked.