The Gamer's Quarter

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

Arena has been made available for free so there's nothing stopping you from downloading it or even get it off DVD PowerPlay #115 which is better because magazines, woo! I wasn't interested in it enough to play further than the first dungeon because I have Daggerfall which is much better and even bigger than . It's on that fucking Xngine though and is possible to undo hours of playtime when you clip right through the floor of the dungeon, which is why you should save before entering anywhere. Even patching doesn't solve that. It's also fricking huge, like, bigger than Morrowind, Oblivion and all their official expansions combined which is why most of the game had to be randomly generated. It's probably a better game than Morrowind but then again you can't mod it.

EDIT: Something important, both games are very old RPG, which means there's a fair degree of clunkiness and you can use a mouse to control everything even movement. Just like in Ultima Underworld. So if you're a real fan of old cRPGs and their conventions you'll get as many if not more hours sucked from your life than later games in the series.
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[Cycle]

Sounds like I'll give them a miss! From what I understand, Oblivion added everything from Daggerfall that Morrowind lacked, which is why I'd like to see that on the Oblivion engine.

In other news, I'm oddly addicted to JASPER'S JOURNEY, a remake of an old dos game. It has a Jazz Jackrabbit kind of thing going on, I guess, except slower paced. It's actually quite a relaxing game, gives me a Yoshi's Story vibe. Just explore these huge levels with secrets all over the place while killing baddies and what not, I really love the controls. I'm tempted to buy it, but $20 US feels a bit pricey for what it is.
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[dhex]

[Cycle]

[Mr Mustache]

[dhex]

[aderack]

Also, in Daggerfall you can climb walls all over the place. It's amazing. Climbing into shops at night, stealing everything, dumping it in your horse cart, decorating your house with it.

Also, nipples by default.
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[dhex]

yeah, i can understand why oblivion cut down on the flying - you had fast travel after all - but climbing was awesome.

oddly enough it only worked on flat surfaces, which seems the opposite of how climbing generally works, but such is the mid 90s.
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[jjsimpso]

You also have a lot more character options in Daggerfall than in the later games. Instead of choosing a birthsign, in Daggerfall your custom class could have any number of perks/handicaps, the balance of which would affect your rate of experience gain. It was all gloriously unbalanced.

In fact, I'd say that all the main problems with the later games were introduced in their attempts to create a balanced system. Daggerfall is really an entirely different vision of the Elder Scrolls compared to Oblivion, with Morrowind in between. I actually read somewhere that the Oblivion team had very few people in common with Daggerfall's team, which may explain the philosophical differences between the two.

[Cycle]

Well I guess I didn't miss much apart from climbing and carts then, since I'm all about balance. Daggerfall sounds like a wonderfully broken game though, that's what PC gaming is all about.

I forgot to mention, I finally finished Sam & Max season 1. Reality 2.0 is my favourite episode, not just because it looks like tron and has lots of videogame references, but because the puzzles were the most inventive. Swapping between two worlds, altering the rules of one world to access different areas, the bank puzzle... it wasn't just all inventory puzzles like pretty much every other episode, I wish more of them were inventive like this, but I still had fun with the series over-all, even if the final episode was a bit underwhelming.
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[simplicio]

Heavenly Sword is a whole lot of fun! Fully recommended over God of War! Also one of those games which can be finished in an afternoon, which is always welcome.
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[jjsimpso]

For me Morrowind is the best, but I'd like to see the series move back towards Daggerfall philosophically. As much as I try, I just can't find any enjoyment in Oblivion.

[dessgeega]

i'm working in oblivion right now. it is the boringest game i can conceive of, but the editor is really nice. aside from the camera.
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[Cycle]

what's your beef with oblivion, dess
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[dessgeega]

it is the boringest game i can conceive of.
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[Cycle]

but you can break into peoples houses when they sleep and steal everything or kill them in their sleep and stuff, thats pretty much what i spent my entire time doing
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[Redeye]

[Cycle]

YOU WANT TOO MUCH.
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[purplechair]

I was playing Hitman: Blood Money ages ago. On the Mardi Gras level, I found the sniper guy, and carefully snuck my away around his room without him noticing.

You know how he keeps moving in and out of the room? Using the radio and have a cigarette out the window, or whatever? Well, I hid behind the piano in the centre of the room, and when he came in, I quickly slid around the side, to where his rifle was, keeping the piano between us. Then I stole the rifle, snuck back round the way I came as he returned to the window, and threw the gun away somewhere.

I was hoping there would be a cutscene where he prepares to snipe out the politician, and then realises his gun is missing, and shouts "What the fuck?!" (or words to that extent)

It didn't happen. I think all that happened was that the game went on to the next stage of the assassination.

[SuperWes]

[dhex]

so wes, you never mentioned what prompted your slip into wow land aka the coming darkness.
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[SuperWes]

[dhex]

adam and eve all over again, yo.
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[daphaknee]

redeye those are some awesome demands but so not gonna happen for like 10 years

[Harveyjames]

I'm with Redeye and Dess. I played Oblivion on my dad's Xbox. After fighting my way out of a dungeon / sewer/ mine full of goblins, I was told to go and see a priest about a motherfucking stolen orb or some shit. I was like 'FUCK THAT, I've just spent the last ten minutes in FPS cliche hell, I am going to look for the biggest mountain I can find and climb it and there is fuck all you can do about it, Padre.' So I walked towards the mountain for about 6 minutes before I bumped into an invisible barrier in the middle of a forest that prevented me from getting any further. That was it. I didn't play the game after that. The moral is don't put a giant mountain in front of me if you're not going to let me fucking climb it. Sandbox gaming one oh one oh, baby.

[helicopterp]

Cruisin' World probably isn't the game for you then, harvey.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

Yeah, and Super Mario Land can suck my dick, too

[sediment]

I have to admit,

I played and beat Oblivion in three runs on three separate characters

simply because

I adore glitching the hell out of games (esp. sandbox games like Oblivion)

and oh what juicy nectar do the glitches of oblivion bear
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[Cycle]

I love the games because they're great to be a jackass in. As I mentioned, I just loved robbing everywhere and what not.
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[Harveyjames]

I found I couldn't be a jackass for more than two seconds before a cop came and beat the shit out of me. It's no GTA!

[Cycle]

I just killed the cops! Or fled and came back later. Ideally, I'll avoid getting reported!
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

[daphaknee]

glitching and jackassery are oblivions redeeming qualities indeed

someone post that freaky video of that stringy thing

[Redeye]

[Cycle]

Hey, just a quick note:

I've finally gone back to putting DS game on my flashcard (I mainly just use it for homebew) and have been trying a few games out BUT I just noticed that the Namco Museum game has PAC-MAN VS on it, it's only local wifi but it's still interesting to note!

Also Space Invaders Extreme or whatever won't work on my flashcard! I get some crazy JAPANESE error.
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[Harveyjames]

[jjsimpso]

[Redeye]

Frenzy spell 4 laffs.

Guard kill other guard


fuh nee
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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

[Fred]

I had been waiting a long time for a translation of the sequel to the Capcom/SNK Card Fighter Whatever game on the old Neo Geo Pocket. And now lo, it has been released! Wonderful!

Except after playing it for a few hours, it turns out that it's an insubstantial little wisp of a game compared to the first one. To wit: there are 14 characters in the game. You fight each of them 30 times. You get all the cards. A winner is you.

...and that's it. The first one was repetitive enough, but everything to do that didn't involve battling yer pokemans was stripped from the sequel. So WHATEVER. The guys who did the translation did a fair job but I understand now why no one wanted to do it any sooner.
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[Harveyjames]

I played Telltale's Sam and Max. SUCKED!

The guy who write the game are not funny at all, but since one of the defining characteristics of Sam and Max is that they yabber constantly at each other, there is tons of boring and irrelevant dialogue!

Me: I will talk to this character in case they something important.

five minutes later

Me: IT WAS JUST A LOAD OF CRAP

Also the puzzles so far have all been of the 'this person will not move, you must distract them so you can get past / steal this item' variety' that would seem cheap in a Leisure Suit Larry game.
On top of that, the voice actors often seem to be unaware of the context of the lines they're reading. Are the writers not allowed in to the recording sessions, or what? Seems silly, especially since it just sounds like the programmers putting on a silly voice anyway. Also the game seems to run incredibly slowly on my computer. 0/10.

[Redeye]

[Cycle]

man, so i'm still strugglign to get thoruhg masters of doom, and it sure is a slog. it's written so artlessly, it keeps throwing random trivia at me that breaks the flow, but ignores lots of history, too. like, it's talking about all these WONDERFUL THINGS carmack did with his engines, like he was the first person to do them, but there are so many things that someone else did first OR better. it's frustrating!

also everyone at id software sound like a bunch of douchebags.
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[Harveyjames]

I went through that book in like one sitting. I guess there's something about the world of computer nerds I find inherently compelling.

[dessgeega]

it says a lot about how interesting id's story is that i actually was able to get through the book despite the terrible writing.
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[dessgeega]

so, hey, i finished the GRAND FINALE of sam & max last night. it's about how sam & max hurt all the people in their path. to complete the episode, you must hurt a child. whether the developers were aware of what they were doing i don't know. neither the game nor the protagonists batted an eye. i kept waiting for someone to go SEE! YOU DID IT AGAIN. but no one did.

it's what puts me off about most point-and-click adventures: the protagonist just hurts, manipulates and steals from non-player characters, because they're nothing more than puzzle elements to our "hero".

this is a series that grew stale.
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[dessgeega]

so yeah, i totally did not expect to love jojo's fashion show. i am a sucker for dressing up paper dolls though.
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[ryan]

[Harveyjames]

ah shitbags, I rubbed out this post by mistake

[Ketch]

[Cycle]

To be fair, Max is a bit of a psychopath.

I'm not sure if I want to try Season 2. I think it will get too stale. They need to do more interesting things with the series.
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