The Gamer's Quarter

[Dracko]

>:|
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

i started crackdown, clearing out all of the stereotypical latino/a bosses on the south island. i was sort of surprised to find that i wasn't able to access two thirds of the city from the beginning. when do i get to reach the other districts? do i need to defeat one gang entirely before i'm allowed to fight another? that seems like poor planning, since there's still agility orbs and secret objects hidden around the district, but it would feel like a waste of time to stick around the area when there's no more gangers to fight.

and nervous brickdown: i like it. i was a bit irked to discover that eight of the game's ten "worlds" have to be unlocked (each world you clear opens two more), so i tried to unlock them all as quickly as possible (clearing them all earned me new stages in each of them). i'm also pretty sure that, like in breakquest, the game's variety will really shine once i've got all the stages available for the random game mode to pick from.

for the most part, it's a really smart game. there's good use of the ds's vertical space, and clever, sometimes subtle (sometimes incredibly blatant) integration of the ds's unique features into the game design. even the "switch" world, which initially leapt out at me as a really gimmicky proposition, turned out to be surprisingly compelling because of some savvy balancing choices. i will probably write more on the game later.
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[dessgeega]

los muertos is no more. that didn't take long. i stumbled upon that huge amusement park and was amazed there were no gang bosses hiding there. wasted potential, i thought! i was very pleased when i realized that the final gang showdown marker on my map was leading me to fun land.

and sure enough, a window popped up with information on my first volk boss when there were only two los muertos bosses left. now that i've killed the stereotypical latino/a criminals, i can move on to killing the stereotypical russian criminals. i like this game; it's unfortunate that it's probably some neocon's wet dream.
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[Dracko]

Take it with the same grain of salt as you would RoboCop or a Frank Miller comic. That's the sort of humour it's going for.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[aerisdead]

[Scratchmonkey]

What is up with the Scots and freeform city-based sandbox titles?

[Intentionally Wrong]

Actually, Dess, you can go into the other cities at any time, they just won't let you use the tunnels from the central island.

The one thing that bothers me about Gargoyle is the lack of support for scrollback. Otherwise, it's superb.

[dessgeega]

yeah, i discovered that yesterday! (not the thing about gargoyle. which, yes, is irksome.) shaper rang me on the xbox phone while i was playing and i was all "why aren't these garage doors open i killed everyone in la mugre" and he was like "just drive there".

so now that i've gotten my hands on some volk weapons what was previously a game about jumping is now a game about jumping and explosions. combat isn't boring any more! and it's not stupidly easy either! it's still not hard either; i destroyed the entire volk gang (KILL ALL WORKERS!) in a couple of hours.

i loved the rig, though. i want all of the boss hideouts to be like that. they all have a secret, totally obvious back entrance that gets you to the boss in seconds without having to fight any minions. launch rockets until dead. i used the secret sea entrance to the rig and it was still a herculean climb to the fight at the top. and i appreciate that the stage for my one-on-one showdown with the kingpin was too small to use rockets, and we got to have a real duel. he left me a very nice gun, too.
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[dessgeega]

i like shai gen a lot. the corridor reminds me of shadowrun. i like killing corporations a lot more than killing immigrants. plus all the bosses are hiding out on the top floors of huge office buildings. i should find a copy of shadowrun genesis already. i've only managed to kill three of them so far. they put up a much better defense than the other gangs. i maxed out my agility and i have homing rockets. they don't seem much more effective than regular rockets, except when they're used on me, because enemies tend not to leap through the sky.

my controller has started turning off whenever i fire a rocket at someone. not when i press the button. when the rocket hits its target. it says "please connect a controller" and i have to turn my controller back on. i'm at a loss to explain it.
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[dessgeega]

finished crackdown. the seige of the tower was epic. and the ending was very much in line with the tone of the game as i saw it. there is an amazing view from the top of the tower. you can see the entire game from up there. i was impressed! i'm going to scale the keep and then i think i'll pick up my dungeon master game (and probably buy genny shadowrun).
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[Lestrade]

Dess, after reading all that, I figure I really should finish Crackdown. I only ever played about 40% of the way through.

So, HOLY SHIT. I decided to remedy the no-game issue and make today a Gaming Day. My trusty friend Ivor came over and we resurrected our old project The Bitter Couch—except instead of drawing comics, we playing video games and acted like fools.

I'm currently importing all the video of said event. We only managed to tape the first two games, but the line-up today was pretty bitchin'. We played:

• Contra III
• Melty Blood
• Layer Section
• Raystorm
• Ibara
• Pac-Man CE
• Alien Hominid
• and then I realized there was an epilogue in Super Paper Mario

Hopefully there'll be enough video to provide a few minutes of entertainment, at least!

[JasonMoses]

Hm. I keep thinking I should give Ibara a real honest-to-god shot sometime, but reading about it makes it seem almost too impenetrable for me to even think about playing for any length of time without going crazy.

[dessgeega]

crackdown is definitely a game that gets better toward the end. it ends pretty soon, too. you could probably play through the rest in a weekend!

climbing the keep was great, though the shai gen tower feels much taller because most of the climbing you do indoors. fun fact: the traps are still active after you depose wang.

i picked up my dungeon master game and reached dungeon level seven. the riddle room on level six makes me smile a bunch.
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[Cycle]

So I think I'm done with Sands of Time. I spent like an hour trying to solve a puzzle, only to find out it was a bug and I had to load a previous save. Then I got stuck in yet another endless battle. I think I've seen enough. I'll go right ahead and throw this in the "over-rated" pile.

I'm still having fun with Tomb Raider!
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[aerisdead]

Totally not over-rated.

It's better than ICO!
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aerisdead

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

If you like games that aren't like Ico.
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[aerisdead]

It is really quite like Ico, man.
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aerisdead

[Cycle]

Yeah, I didn't even like Ico. I don't hate it or think it's over-rated, I just didn't care about it at all. You can see where Ico influenced PoP, but I still wouldn't compare the two.

I love the cover and art cards that came with it, though!
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[aerisdead]

I dunno, man. One feels like the flawed art film that's kind of infuriating, the other is a hollywood blockbuster that steals most of its ideas from the flawed art film but ends up flawed in its own way.

But the hollywood blockbuster is so much more accessible, exciting, that somehow it's a bit better.

(note: I love Shadows of the Colossus to pieces.)
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aerisdead

[Shapermc]

[simplicio]

Have you tried the second or third? They ease the awful pain of combat quite a bit, while foregrounding environmental elements.
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[Shapermc]

[simplicio]

You might check out Twin Thrones while you wait at least. Assassin's Creed, juicy as it looks (looked? I haven't seen a damn thing about it lately) seems to run a huge risk of taking the action out of things in favor of Hitman/Oblivion/GTAIII pacing.
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[Intentionally Wrong]

The thing about Sands of Time is that combat is so, so easy if you just learn to do the right moves. Learn the vault attack, and use it constantly. Once you start seeing the tall guys with the polearms and the fat guys with the scimitars, just use the wall-launch instead. At the huge fucking elevator, use haste and a little bit of patience. That's really all you need.

Ironically, Warrior Within actually has better puzzle set-pieces; it's just insufferably dumb.

[aerisdead]

I beat the elevator first time through. I think I got "good" at the battles fast so they never bothered me.
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aerisdead

[Harveyjames]

My Dad is playing through Doom 3 right now and seems to be enjoying it. He played through Gears Of War recently and thought it was ok, but unmemorable (literally, he couldn't remember whether he'd played it or not the last time I asked). What criteria he judges these games on I don't know. I've been watching him play though and I can tell you he's terrible at them.

[not a zombie]

I finally broke the 5 million mark in Judgement Silversword: Rebirth Edition. Area 17 flickers obscenely and the game pretty much comes to a standstill. It's glorious.

The WonderSwan should have gotten an Elevator Action port. The TATE setup practically begs for it.

[Scratchmonkey]

Been playing Crackdown, cleared the first area and am about 2/3ds of the way through the second. I'm not as good as dess and I keep getting killed because I have a bad habit of talking on the Volk head-on, which definitely doesn't work. On about the third try at a mini-boss, I figure out that I actually need to use strategy and then it works out. I still haven't used a sniper rifle once, just because it doesn't seem to fit in with the game at all.

I do enjoy that you can carry around your car, which makes getting to certain places with the car you want much easier. Can't figure out how to get there using roads? Just pick up your car and jump there!

I've got 4-stars already in Strength and Firearms, 3-stars in Agility and 2-Stars in Driving and Explosives. I've heard that there are car upgrades that are really exceptional when you get to 4-stars so I'm sad that it takes so long to level up that skill in particular.

[dessgeega]

there's really no reason to drive in crackdown. much like in my life, i get where i want to go by leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

level 10 in dungeon master! the dungeon is getting pretty interesting. i particularly like the hallway on level 9 that appears to lead to the same room at both ends, and how i ended up solving it. those giant rats produce the most horrifying noise in the world. i've found the TOMB OF THE FIRESTAFF, but i've only gotten my hands on two of the keys needed for entrance. i assume the rest must be buried deeper in the dungeon.
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

Hexen, two hubs down three to go.
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[aerisdead]

So Ouendan is totally great and I can't believe I haven't taken it out of the shrink wrap until today.
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aerisdead

[dessgeega]

i attempt to articulate my disappointment with nervous brickdown.
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[JasonMoses]

Yeah, I felt exactly the same way. I couldn't even bother to finish either of the first two starting worlds, sadly.

Anyway, I 1-credited the first loop of Strikers 1945. I was having trouble with everything after stage 1-5, until I realized that the game resets the stage when you continue once you get to the second half of the game. Voila! Ghetto practice mode. I figured a few boss patterns out and finished the game shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, the second loop is completely nuts, and it bars continue-use as well, so there's no way to practice it short of playing through the first loop every time. Booo-urns.

[dessgeega]

i saw all those different screenshots they released and thought that any game that combined all these ideas would be brilliant. but it turned out arkedo hadn't bothered to combine them. that's the first game i've bought new in ages. i guess that'll teach me!
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[Redeye]

Finished DEIW in a few days.

Olde, but I haven't had an adequate computer until recently.

Nice plot, but nothing special. The dialogue is cheesy.

Great sandbox potential here, but the areas are mostly too small to fully realize that potential.

I like the way the factions are so ludicrously pragmatic that they overlook me mass murdering their people. Repeatedly.

My first time through I worked for everybody but not completely.
Then I slaughtered all factions in the end.

I also broke the game accidentally by killing everybody before broadcasting Aquinas codes.

So the game can't end. I tried going back to the transmitter, but you can't upload to dead factions.

So I found the hidden "fifth ending" = There Is No End.

(I can get the Fourth Ending with the flag and toilet, but that's just an easter egg.)

I guess I'll have to watch the endings on YouTube.

I also finished Doom3 a couple of weeks ago. Great looking.

Monster Closets?

As a combination Tech Demo and reimagining of the original Doom, it's great.

Not what I wanted, but I got it for $15.

So it's ok. Mods will make up for the OC sucking.


Aside from that I've been playing HL2 mods.

Minerva, Mistake of Pythagoras, Combine Destiny, a few others.

The first two are great, CD not so much.

There's enough in the top 100 to keep me busy for a while.

If I get bored I'll maybe finally get back to work on that total conversion of Wasteland to Fallout Tactics.
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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

[Pijaibros]

[Ethoscapade]

it might not; within the past six months, we've gotten fullspeed dreamcast and ps2 emulation, and saturn only came into its prime recently. i'm willing to bet the psp will be a damn sight easier to emulate than any of those consoles if anybody ever gets around to justifying the project.

(which they might not do; don't expect gamecube or xbox emulation until about as relatively long after as SSF took)

on the topic of ps2 emulation, with which i'm currently enjoying most of the lowest-spec titles i could come up with, let me just say that nippon ichi needs to stop making console games already. this level of OCD is about ninety times better suited to anything else.

[D-A-I-S]

[Redeye]

[dessgeega]

i love my genny. today: level 18 in roadblasters, the furthest i've made it without warping (other than at the start). stage 4 in strider, where i was slain by amazons (ironic? probably not). the tank part of the noiman cascade battle in hard corps, with no bombs. soon i will kill him.

in dungeon master tiny gibbering creatures steal my necklaces before my party is murdered by giant scorpions.
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[extrabastardformula]

Damn, Target Earth is lots harder than I remember. It used to be a cakewalk for me in my youth. What changed?

[Redeye]

[Scratchmonkey]

Knocked off the Volk in Crackdown. I found the explosives lady to be more difficult than the final boss, this is because it took me a while to find the "backdoor" to where she is -- going through the gauntlet to get with her is pretty nasty because there's respawning enemies with rockets in high places. In comparison, the first barge for the Volk boss is filled with explosives and the other two areas are separated enough visually that you can pick off the guards relatively easily. I didn't get any nice gun though, or maybe I already had one of that type?

That's kind of one of my complaints about the game. Aside from the rocket launcher, I haven't used a different weapon since about 20 minutes into the game. Perhaps I got extremely lucky in terms of finding the really nice machine gun (with the 800 ammo clip) very early on; however, it would be nice to feel like I'm really upgrading my arsenal.

[dessgeega]

the 800 ammo machine gun is the one the volk kingpin uses. i hadn't encountered it before i killed him. and yeah, the weapons aren't that interesting. i used that gun until the end of the game, swapped my rocket launcher for a homing rocket launcher when i got the chance, and never picked up another weapon. hell, combat isn't that interesting. combat in crackdown hinges more on your ability to find cover than your ability to return fire. you should know that they're all gauntlets from now on. it was what i'd been waiting for, so i didn't mind.
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[dessgeega]

dungeon level 11 is baffling and horrifying.
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[Scratchmonkey]

Poo, I was hoping for something more interesting kit-wise than the homing rockets on the final island. I do actually enjoy large-scale firefights though, so long as I'm not getting blown up by respawning rocket-launcher folks. My main strategy consists of circling the perimeter while jumping up to lob grenades at people. It's pretty satisfying.

Crackdown really does have a lot more in common with the platformer than your typical GTA-esque city-as-sandbox game, in that the game feels tightest and most visceral when you're thinking "I bet I could get up there, how would I go about it?" and then spending a couple minutes finding various routes that'll get you to your goal. And once you get there, it's a joy to be springing from rooftop to rooftop. In a way, I was initially very annoyed by the Volk island because there were so many rooftop enemies rudely interrupting my leaping about!

[Swimmy]

I just beat Siren. This is undoubtedly one of the best games I've ever played. And one of the worst. I had it sitting around for over a year because it was too hard, and I finally made it through by combining a gameshark with following a guide to the letter.

And it was still amazing! Brutal and frightening and threatening all the way through, even when I was invincible. It made me feel smart, too, because damn it is a convoluted mess.

The story is largely driven by cutscenes, which is often bad storytelling, but in this case they are usually so surprising or brutal that it works. On top of that, the in-game narrative is some of the best I've ever seen. Getting a feel for the shibito's personalities is an unbelievable experience, even though getting caught by them is endless frustration. Then there are the stages where you're supposed to sight-jack to learn something--a combination to a lock or the location of a placed item. Then there's that one level where you can walk right up and observe them--oh man.

The puzzles are convoluted and not well-explained, but at least they're not arbitrary and stupid like in Silent Hill. They're always contextual. You have to use a certain item not because there's a birdcage holding a key for no reason, but because you need to temporarily distract a shibito or access some new information.

Shaper told me he beat the game over the span of a year with his wife, but that's not how it's meant to be played. There are too many characters and too many scenarios, and most people would lose track. But the game's too frustrating to just sit down and play. A gameshark turned this into one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've ever had. Really.

It's too bad the main storyline is ultimately silly--and a ripoff of Silent Hill's, no less. But it makes sense at least. The game has answers to all the questions you might have at the end, and reading online interviews with the game's director simply confirmed things I had already figured out.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[ryan]

Tenchu Z: Wow, so they still haven't found a way around the stiff controls? I don't really feel the need to be stealthy, aside from earning more coin, because I can just run up, get a stealth kill right as I'm noticed, then run away for a few seconds and wait for things to calm down. Despite seeing me grapple my way onto a roof, the guards do nothing to come after me, content with shrugging the encounter, and the dead body they have to step over to go back on patrol, off.

Company of Heroes: Yessss! Beewwwww rat-tat-tat bukka bukka bukka ppsshhhhewww. The setting may be overdone, but the game is great. And kudos to THQ for not requiring the CD in the drive to play the game.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I bought Spectral vs. Generation today, on a whim since it was $30. It's a fun game but, like Asura Blade and sequel, it's not a patch on Guilty Gear. It's also the only PS2 fighting game that agrees more with the Dualshock than with my Street Fighter pad which I'm not too happy with since it shreds my thumb when I get going. SvG also did a good job of making me think there was no 60hz mode until I had a bit of a root around in the options menu and found the option. Would it have been any more trouble to give you that choice before the game starts like in everyone else's games?
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[Lestrade]

Swimmy: out of curiosity, what kind of Gameshark codes did you use? I still remember the crushing disappointment I felt with that game; I loved its atmosphere and visuals, but I hated the gameplay.

As per last week, I needed something to play this weekend and I was bored, bored, bored with everything I had. So I finally broke and—for better or worse—traded in some next-gen stuff I didn't feel like playing anymore for Resident Wiivil 4.

After about 1.5 hours of play, I was thinking three things:

1. I feel really weird dumping some newer-looking games for a 2-year-old GameCube port;
2. The core gameplay is still really good, and the combat is perfectly suited to the Wiimote;
3. I wish there was a cheat code that would give me unlimited life/money so I could buy whatever I wanted and not have to deal with the contrived bullshit that is the merchant

I'm actually enjoying replaying the game, which I find surprising. I definitely could go for some hardcore Gears of War action game with these kinds of Wiimote controls. It's very satisfying when the abstraction of the right analogue stick is removed and you're just aiming naturally.