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the tell us about the games you are playing thread
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kirkjerk
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 1:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

helicopterp wrote:
Lestrade wrote:
What else should I get that isn't likely to come to Virtual Console anytime soon?


Excitebike 64 is my answer for everything.

And Majora's Mask.


Blast Corps. and Space Station Silicon Valley.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whoa, I thought I was the only person who liked Silicon Valley. Great game! So is blastcorps. Man, the N64 had some great games.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
Whoa, I thought I was the only person who liked Silicon Valley. Great game! So is blastcorps. Man, the N64 had some great games.

Yeah, I just looked up my "best 10+" list.
It was a pretty amazing time. The introduction of Smash Bros and Mario Party, Mario Kart and Star Fox being taken to amazing A/V and kinetic places... the Battle Tanx games, which are probably the best Tokyo War-style games ever, Rogue Squadron. Such a good system. I was really fortunate to get back into console gaming on that system and living a big house w/ a lot of people, willing to spectate or join in the multiplayer stuff (the latter of which, the PS was just pointlessly not there for.)
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:16 am    Post subject: GOW2 = Z:OoT Reply with quote

Gears of War 2!

(very minor level setting spoilers ahead)

Oy.

It's not bad, the combat is still pretty grand.

It's always funny to see how games incrementally improve themselves. Like, now all your guys have blue telltale lights, and all the bad guys have red dots, so you just know some focus group or msg board about the original said "i can't tell my guys apart from the bad guys. Similarly, letting you crawl about after getting "killed" is a plus, and I think previously CPU-teammates wouldn't revive you, so it's a nice touch.

I kind of like how they handled the "heavy chain guns" -- unlimited ammo when on a vehicle, but prone to overheat, and the reload button performs some partial cooling function. It's actually a welcome break from the best strategy just being "put your finger on the trigger and don't stop 'til it's salsa"

Sometimes the art seems lazy... too many "the floor is just a big flat texture with a few rocks and bits jutting out of it", the effect is very N64ish

It's also noteworthy from where they seem to be taking cues from the other big Xbox 360 games, I'm gonna say specifically Bioshock and Halo 3 (there might be other earlier examples for these tropes but these are some of the recent and prominent) --

from Bioshock are these kind of dumb "flavor texts" that give the background and what not, but it's trying WAY too hard for the material they really have to work with.

from Halo 3, I think they got inspired by the Flood-ship-takeover, and wanted to do a "biology" level, complete with "shoot-to-open anuses" (and upping the ante with "chainsaw-to-passthrough hymens ("thin membranes", the landmark identifier says)

The problem is, they do that by being inside some kind of giant worm. They aim for Halo 3, they end up with Lord Jabu-Jabu from Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Yes, I know this is a very video-game-ish game, but there was NOTHING this corny in the first game (probably the closest was the "stay in the light" minigame, but even that did a good job of keeping it in the game mood). It's just retarded how inside a giant, moving, tunneling worm is just a squishier version of any cave, just as well-lit, just as well-pathed, just as stable. Oh, remember this line from Galaxy Quest?

"What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn't have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?"

The worm has them, except they're "digestive teeth" or something.

So thus far -- decent enough game in the genre, but some really bad bits like that.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:17 pm    Post subject: Re: GOW2 = Z:OoT Reply with quote

kirkjerk wrote:
Gears of War 2!


I'm really looking forward to murdering things in this game.

I also just saw this at Xbox360 fanboy. I wish I had known about this snazzy underground launch party for the game! I could have walked to it!
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 7:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got my free N64 on Friday! It came with Ocarina of Time, Donkey Kong 64 and... Earthworm Jim 3D? I got caught up starting a new game in OoT and had a genuinely good time playing through the first dungeon. I kind of felt a little... well, joy in my heart.

I have to get the memory expansion for the system, and when I do, you bet I'm going to strap my arms and legs down and try to play even an hour of Donkey Kong 64. We'll see how far I get before my head explodes.

Somehow I managed to shoe-horn in a bunch of new games this weekend. I'm still playing Mirror's Edge, though I'm afraid to play it too much—I like it so damn much I don't want it to end. (I also bought the comic yesterday, which I quite like.)

I also played the Left 4 Dead demo with some friends yesterday on my 360. Wow, what an intense experience. It was excellent, though I'm looking forward to playing it online so I can utilize the whole screen for myself. There is so much going on in that game that watching a split-screen session could induce some kind of seizure.

My friend brought over Little Big Planet to try, and I'm really grateful that he did. I like the game, but man—though its interface design is beautiful, the game feels so cluttered and busy that I felt a bit uneasy afterwards. I was longing for some Super Mario Bros. 1 when I put the controller down, just to get my eyes to see straight again.

I played through a level with my wife, which may or may not have been a mistake—she has really shitty 3D vision, and navigating levels that have weird, precise moments of plane-switching was tedious and aggravating. After we played, I found myself loving the game's box art, but having a hard time getting excited about the game itself. Little Big Planet is a game in which I don't care enough to re-do a level—any level. So as soon we lost all our lives, I lost all interest in the game. I think I would prefer the game if it all existed on one plane; watching people play it demonstrated that no one got this mechanic, or enjoyed it once they figured it out.

Next up was Fallout 3. I wanted to get excited about this game before its release, but I just couldn't. I found I just didn't care. The hyperviolence, the way the game played—all that stuff really put me off. But then I took my friend's save game, switched everything to first-person mode, played with the menus, and started shooting people in the face in slow motion. And wow, that just didn't get old.

There was a hilarious, rather large glitch in the game (apparently unique to my PS3), which occurs whenever I off someone with a VATS shot; gigantic polygon swaths of red explodes from enemies' heads and coat the entire world. You'll see weird halls-of-mirrors (for you Doom fans) of red and orange in the sky, on the ground, and all over the place. I should have taken some photos of it.

So yeah I managed to sit down, understand the game system, get comfortable with it, and I find that I really, really like it. Dammit, looks like I have to buy another game!

Pretty exciting weekend overall. Too bad I'm spending most of it working. :-(
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lestrade wrote:
I have to get the memory expansion for the system, and when I do, you bet I'm going to strap my arms and legs down and try to play even an hour of Donkey Kong 64. We'll see how far I get before my head explodes.

DK64 is, no doubt, a corny collect-a-thon of a game but it also has some absolutely terrific bossfights and minigames. I played it w/ a guide in hand for the endless goodies, and then made a boss FAQ that gameFAQs declined. I liked how they recognized that Bossfights really are the sweetest part of this kind of game and make all of them selectable from a menu; I wish Zelda would do something similar.
Quote:
Somehow I managed to shoe-horn in a bunch of new games this weekend. I'm still playing Mirror's Edge, though I'm afraid to play it too much—I like it so damn much I don't want it to end. (I also bought the comic yesterday, which I quite like.)

Tried the demo for this. I guess it's a love it or hate it thing, it didn't seem enjoyable at all. One of those "hey, remember Crackdown, where vaguely similar rooftop jumping was actually fun? Plus, explosions?" for me, though I at least intellectually understand more favorable views.

The intro story was done in this neat, Jet Grind Radio-ish style that got my hopes up for carrying through the game, but it's more of a bland Portal-ish clean utilitarian realism.

Quote:
My friend brought over Little Big Planet to try, and I'm really grateful that he did. I like the game, but man—though its interface design is beautiful, the game feels so cluttered and busy that I felt a bit uneasy afterwards. I was longing for some Super Mario Bros. 1 when I put the controller down, just to get my eyes to see straight again.

Yeah, that's a good observation-- the trouble with games with that much lovely detail is that it lies, only certain bits are as interactive as you might expect, and it brings you quick into the "am I being clumsy or stupid?" when something isn't working.
Quote:
I played through a level with my wife, which may or may not have been a mistake—she has really shitty 3D vision, and navigating levels that have weird, precise moments of plane-switching was tedious and aggravating. After we played, I found myself loving the game's box art, but having a hard time getting excited about the game itself. Little Big Planet is a game in which I don't care enough to re-do a level—any level. So as soon we lost all our lives, I lost all interest in the game. I think I would prefer the game if it all existed on one plane; watching people play it demonstrated that no one got this mechanic, or enjoyed it once they figured it out.

I wrote and witnessed some similar stuff in the One-Laptop-Per-Child Physics Game Jam, the multiplane approach is a clever if not joyful approach to the way a 2D world tends to get "blocked". (See Dewdney's "The Planiverse" for the ultimate smartguy extrapolation on a "true" universe based on this model.)
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I went back to Star Fox: Assault.
(This probably causes Dess to weep hot tears for the Starfox 2 that never quite was)

I wanted to see how that game and "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2" looked on my newish projector. Pretty damn good! These type games seem somewhat easier than other 3D types to make really pretty, and the GC had abundant power for the genre.

I had been thinking SF:Assault was somewhat underrated - it and Rogue Squadron 3 both tried to get into that "guy running around" thing. With SF:A, at its best it feels a bit like DOOM back in the day, but also a lot of ducking around corners for cover and charging shots.

Playing it through again... eh, going for Silver might've been a mistake, because the frustrations mount. Some of the levels are weirdly designed, and they hide the target in some stupid caves.

There's a TON of polish, but some really dumb annoyances...
* skipping through dialog is odd, rather than just printing what they were going to say it skips you to the next conversation point
* the Radar really should give a hint if something is above or below you. Instead, it's big dot if you're near it's vertical level, otherwise small.
* your team is beyond useless, kind of like that "Robin: Boy Hostage" thing, and serve only to make levels a bit more distracting. You're running on foot in the smoking ruins of Corneria and your teammate is begging you to help get someone off her tail... even though she's in a plane. And there are two other teammates, also in planes.
* the Wolf's heel-face turn leaves much to be desired, and there's way too much "your cherished friend and ally has been killed.!!!!---- ha ha just kidding"

maybe if I was a furry I would dig some of it more.

There are some things it does well, some of the design, especially the Pigma character becoming borgified, or a bit like the MCP from Tron.

So I'd say it's still an underrated game, but not by as much as I remembered.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, just when I worry that I'm a little odd for wanting to go back to Star Fox... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCh1a6kkjto&fmt=18
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lestrade wrote:
My friend brought over Little Big Planet to try, and I'm really grateful that he did. I like the game, but man-though its interface design is beautiful, the game feels so cluttered and busy that I felt a bit uneasy afterwards. I was longing for some Super Mario Bros. 1 when I put the controller down, just to get my eyes to see straight again.

I played through a level with my wife, which may or may not have been a mistake-she has really shitty 3D vision, and navigating levels that have weird, precise moments of plane-switching was tedious and aggravating. After we played, I found myself loving the game's box art, but having a hard time getting excited about the game itself. Little Big Planet is a game in which I don't care enough to re-do a level-any level. So as soon we lost all our lives, I lost all interest in the game. I think I would prefer the game if it all existed on one plane; watching people play it demonstrated that no one got this mechanic, or enjoyed it once they figured it out.


Noooooo! I should have warned you about the plane switching. The best way to deal with it is to pretend it doesn't exist. All of the built-in levels are designed so that you generally don't have to worry about it, but unfortunately many of the custom levels aren't designed well. If a level is made correctly, plane switching should happen automatically when you're jumping or falling. If there's a platform on any plane you automatically move to that plane. The only time you should ever have to worry about manually plane switching is when you're standing on flat ground, and even then if you press up against any walls you'll automatically walk around them. A lot of people get caught up thinking about which plane you need to be on and think that it makes the game overly compicated, when in reality if a level is made correctly you should never have to think about it at all.

I agree with you about not wanting to redo levels when you run out of lives, but I think that's more on the creator. Levels should be paced so that people generally don't run out of lives on their first try, but most armchair designers haven't figured this out yet.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 9:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

007 Quantum of Solace, where Treyarch continues to push the boundaries of mediocrity.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Die By the Sword seems to be Treyarch's only interesting game. And that was how many years ago now? Ten? That's a terrible track record.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.
I should note that the back of the box claims it has "The power of Gundam. The majesty of Dynasty Warriors." Truly, the one word that comes to mind when I think of Dynasty Warriors is "majesty".
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kirkjerk: interesting perspective on Mirror's Edge. As soon as I saw the first trailer I was bat-shit crazy for the game, and I'm glad it isn't disappointing me in the slightest. Even in areas where I can't quite figure out what I'm doing, and die several times, it's so quick and easy to get moving again that I don't feel frustrated (hi, Silent Hill: Homecoming). I love how you can look around your environment and think, "I bet you I can get up there by doing X," and find out that it works! That kind of organic thinking within a controlled environment is what I love most.

I'm so in love with this game, the box is sticky.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, I am playing the New Xbox Experience! I am impressed; a complete UI overhaul and the download and update process took two minutes. Every week I turn on my PS3 and have to wait 10–15 minutes for it to randomly install new updates.

I like this thing! It feels weird to make an avatar on a console meant for games like Fallout 3, but at least mine is accurate. I love the interface, and though we don't get Netflix here in Canada, the video marketplace is a lot nicer.

EDIT: Here's my avatar!



You can find yours by using this URL (where GAMERTAG is your actual GamerTag):

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/GAMERTAG/avatar-body.png
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Woah! So apparently the firewall at my work lets me post here now. Expect much more annoying banter by me!

Anyway, I'm digging the NXE too. Wasn't able to link my NetFlix this morning, and every once in a while I get errors when trying to navigate to pages, but I'll attribute that to it still being really early. Overall I really like it. Here's my avatar:



You can link yours too if you use the same URL structure.

As for what I've been playing, I've been playing a lot of Fallout 3 lately and some Animal Crossing on the Wii. I'm enjoying Fallout a lot more than I expected. I'm currently 27.5 hours in, level 16, and ready to make my way through the main quest.

Despite my current love of all things Fallout, it took me a while to get into because of an innate conflict between how the game is structured and how I play games. See, I have a tendency to wander off and get lost. Fallout is just too vast and has too much empty space to make wandering off worthwhile, so when I let my tendencies take over I end up in the middle of nowhere and quickly get bored. Occasionally I'm rewarded, but more often than not I just end up stuck in a sewer somewhere with no clue how to get out. When I'm above ground and aimed toward an empty arrow though, Fallout's one of the best games I've played this year. I'm dreading reaching the level cap because I know it means I'll probably rush to the ending and then put the game down in wait for the patch/expansion.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've found some great stuff wandering around. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but there are some really cool unmarked locations. I found this really powerful pistol that kills super mutant masters in 1-2 shots. Little things are great, like being able to follow radio signals to destinations. One thing you will want to be careful with is that the difficulty is tethered to the level you are when you first reach it. So if you go pretty far at a low level, you will steamroll everything when you go back at a later level. But if you stick too closely to cities or settlements and have to wander off for something later on, it can make things a bit tough. I was wondering why some towns were giving me such a problem until I heard an interview with Bethesda folk explaining it.

I'm trying to get Mortal Kombat vs DC to work, but it keeps stalling during round loads. I've been able to play one match out of about eight attempts. I keep getting either random errors - "Mixed Media Disc" "This is an Xbox 360 compatible game. Please place in an Xbox 360 console" - to, more often than not, the game stalling in the drive. A shame, it was kind of fun smacking Sub-Zero around as Green Lantern.

Also: Netflix people are lucky. Blockbuster now has some movies for download on PC, but they're at least $4, even with a Blockbuster Online subscription. Wee!
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Goddamn you.... must buy Fallout!

Oh shit, has Microsoft blocked direct avatar linking?
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lestrade wrote:
Oh shit, has Microsoft blocked direct avatar linking?

Maybe so. I was getting a server error earlier, so maybe they were starting to feel the hurt.

Not sure how I feel about the Fallout 3 difficulty scaling. I had heard that they cut it out from Oblivion, but I guess they just modified how the scaling works. I guess if I didn't even know it existed it shouldn't bother me.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll just wait for some patches/mods before installing FO3.

They just had to scale it, didn't they?

As far as "following radio signals"... do you have to find the frequency/etc. that a settlement/base uses? Is there any special complexity to it?
Or is it basically the COMPASS from Oblivion?

Have to mod that out, too.

grrr....
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

there are many mods for FO3 already, and many of them change the way levelling and difficulty works.

Most of the armor/clothes mods are shit though. :'( Being a clothes horse this early since release is kind of, um... well, it's actually not as bad as it was in Oblivion, considering they included a lot of outfit variety here. Especially if you like wearing car tires.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you basically find radio beacons and then tune into them, and are given a description of a problem or a location. i haven't found too many of them beyond some rangers.

all in all i think vince weller's review hits most of the key points. even-handedly, even.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As dhex said. You wander around and a little pop-up appears telling you that you're picking up a signal, then you select it from the radio portion of the pipboy. It depends on the signal as well. The ranger one dhex mentioned is an actual side quest that will be noted and you can select, then get waypoints for. The one I found had nothing at all, I just had to follow the signal: if it got weak or frizzed out, I had to retrace my steps and find where the signal was strongest. I haven't had that happen a lot, but the radio does have all sorts of fun bits - especially if you take a bad turn for one quest.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mortal Kombat vs DC is so ridiculous, but I love it all the same. They have timing down better this go around, but still some really cheap AI. Also, Superman can beat the hell out of you whenever he wishes, just know that. I'm giving my thumbs a break - damn 360 controller - after completing arcade with Scorpion. I'll go for Sub-Zero, The Flash, and Green Lantern next.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just beat Mirror's Edge, earning the Test of Faith trophy along the way (for not shooting a single enemy). The game requires two uses of guns within the game, and I almost wish I could have somehow gotten around those, just to be uber-l33t.

I freaking love this game, all flaws aside. One of my favourite things is how the Play Chapter menu actually shows you where each level of the game takes place within the city. Snazzy!

EDIT: Synergy in full effect:

Mirror's Edge - Ultra Synergy™
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

King of Fighters: The Orichi Saga on PS2 is fun! After being humiliated in '94 - even more so after finding out the difficulty was on fucking 1 - I took Aderack's advice and skipped '94 and '95 and focused on '96 onwards. Best thing I could have done. The game spends up and animations time really well with the controls, but the boss in '96 is a complete dick. I take a step and am then hit with a tornado. When I do finally beat him, I just get a quick message, but nothing is unlocked. The game has full soundtracks, artwork and other goodies - I WANT MY GOODIES!
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

finally got into mask of the betrayer. the writing is good! the soul eating mechanism is interesting, though painful.

shame about the combat, though.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I kind of screwed up my paladin from the original campaign, but I got my ass kicked in mask of the betrayer. I got through the first hour or so pretty well, one fight aside, and then I hit this fight in a bar that I couldn't pass. I don't know what happened, but these random thugs just demolish me. I ended up putting the game away after by tenth or so attempt. Plus the previous week or so of having to put up with the crumbling original campaign, where my party wouldn't follow orders and I have to babysit them just to leave an area, kind of wore out my patience. There's a new expansion out though, Storm of Zehir, that I might pick up.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

you don't have to fight those guys, actually. i tried a few times but couldn't keep them at bay long enough to nuke from orbit. having a party of four spellcasters is a bit much, though it is fun.
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jjsimpso
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm interested in the new Storm of Zehir expansion as well. It appears to be much more in the BG/Icewind Dale style, which I like. I didn't particularly like the official campaign, but I haven't played Mask of the Betrayer. I like that Storm of Zehir allows creating a whole party, actually has death, and includes a 'strategic' camera option. Also, the AI in vanilla NWN2 is terrible, but Storm of Zehir supposedly includes a community built AI mod which is apparently a lot better. A lot of these additions may actually make the original game playable for me!
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Intentionally Wrong
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Joined: 09 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We're doing NXE, huh? Well, okay:



This is pretty accurate!



Been playing Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. This game compares favorably to every Castlevania I've played previously. That's probably because I am the sort of person who, during the days of the PS1 and N64, would have been called a 'graphics whore'. While I could see myself occasionally preferring Aria or Dawn of Sorrow, there's no question that this game represents a fundamental improvement over even those games' approaches.


My girlfriend and I are going to stay up all night tonight. She's doing it so she can finish her dissertation. I'm doing it so that I can sleep tomorrow morning and be in good condition to drive to Colorado tomorrow night; I plan to spend the evening trying to build a worthwhile level in Little Big Planet. I love the toolset for just screwing around, but it's surprisingly difficult to apply myself long enough to construct anything of merit.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 8:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Intentionally Wrong wrote:
I plan to spend the evening trying to build a worthwhile level in Little Big Planet.

Woah. Friend me. SuperWes. I want more levels from people I trust.

-Wes
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Who's buying HD Street Fighter, and what version are you getting? I'm going to buy it, but do I get the 360 or PS3 version? It depends on which version everyone's playing...
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Already bought. Bought for 360 because that's the system my crew has. I was worried about the controls, but now that I've played it I'm surprised at how well I'm able to pull everything off. They've improved it since the beta for sure. I'd recommend playing the 360 demo and if you can hang with the controls go ahead and get it on that, otherwise go PS3.

If we play I'll whomp your ass like I did in Mortal Kombat 3 Smile

-Wes
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Three seconds after I wrote my post, I gave in and got the PS3 version. I did this because I don't trust the 360 controller, and I don't have an arcade stick yet. I have an hour before I go teach class, and I can still whoop ass with a Dual Shock. If it comes down to it, I'd get both. Feels more like a 360 game to me.
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, I wish I had stopped myself from buying the game. It literally hurts my eyes just to play; the colours are so hard to differentiate and the backgrounds are so ugly...
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PROTIP: Go into the options and turn off widescreen. It feels so much more like a standard graphical upgrade when you're looking at it in the aspect ratio you're used to. They also include the option to just turn off the updated graphics altogether. I'm curious to know how well that works.

-Wes
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JasonMoses
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
They also include the option to just turn off the updated graphics altogether. I'm curious to know how well that works.

Not very well! The backgrounds are still the same. The only thing that gets reverted are the character sprites, which are upscaled and blurry and generally pretty gross.
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, it's fantastically hideous! Oh, I want my sixteen bucks back. What a fool!
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I ended up playing the game again last night around 2:00 AM (don't ask). I took your advice, Wes, and you're totally right; playing in 4:3 is the only way to go. When you play in 16:9, the game zooms in on the action, which is visually confusing and makes the game look... well, wrong. Playing in 4:3 last night made the experience much better, and despite a thumb that has been torn to shreds by the goddamn Dual Shock d-pad, I managed to beat the game once.

I still think Turbo is a much, much better game than this, though.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One major plus: the online play is superb. I played last night with Faithless, Dongle, and someone else and it went really well.

I realized one of the big issues with the art is that the backgrounds have too much contrast. If you're not paying attention, the character graphics sort of blend right in. The original game was colorful but looked ok because the backgrounds stayed away from solid lines, this one not so much.

Despite the graphic issues, man, Street Fighter is life. If I had at least one friend playing this at all times it might be all I'd ever play.

-Wes
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

True, but I still think Turbo is a better game. It's simpler, cleaner, and finely honed. After Turbo, things got complicated. God, I hate T. Hawk and his seizure-inducing backgrounds.

I'd probably be less bitter if I had anyone to play Street Fighter with, but I haven't had friends who play fighting games in years and years.
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dhex
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 8:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

finished mask of the betrayer. it was pretty good, all told.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

An excellent guide to deciding what to play.

They forgot to mention cannibalism.

Very Happy
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This Christmas I shall only play games with swears and that deal with h*ll and "cribs".
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I played the RE5 demo all sneaky-like today a few times. It is, in my esteemed opinion, a soulless rehash that is obviously suffering from the lack of a clear visionary (i.e. Mikami). Also, RE4 for Wii single-stickedly made two-stick tank controls obsolete from 2007 onward. I can't go back to using an Xbox controller to clumsily aim a laser sight.

Not worth the time.
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ryan
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 5:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Trying to wrap up Valkyria Chronicles. I'm enjoying it, but it has some really annoying problems. One isn't so much a problem as it is a mixture of checks and balances offering enough wiggle room to cheese the system: your tank, the Edelweiss, is damn near invulnerable when supported by an engineer. Whenever the mission hasn't restricted me to only certain units, all I've had to do is run the tank up, turn it horizontal to the enemy, then have an engineer stay behind it. Other troops often stay behind it as well, since it offers great protection, but since engineers have no limit of tool or spare parts or whatever, each round I can repair it back to full health. Since it's a beastly machine as it is, the thing is only vulnerable to a lucky shot on its back radiator.

Now I know how this could get through, since lancers and grenades and other attacks factor in and they couldn't make it too weak since they went with the tank explodes=you fail rule, but it's still surprising how easy it is. And it's not even going overboard, since the game encourages using the tank for cover. The AI also makes some ridiculous moves, like walking back and fourth for no reason or jumping over the same wall of sandbags numerous times in one turn. Oh, and one mission took me over an hour because I didn't have a unit in the right spot for the script to continue and the story portion wasn't triggered. Boo.

A shame it's PS3 only. It's pretty unique for a console strategy title and has some great ideas, but putting it on one system seems like a bad move. Given that Sony is adamant about not paying for exclusives, I don't think they can really recoup any losses from poor sales either.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been playing Ocarina of Time with my girlfriend, and thanking every second I'm not playing Master Quest. MQ is clearly the better game, mind, but almost all of the puzzles in the original can be solved at a glance, whereas MQ puzzles regularly took me over 30 minutes. Not exactly a speed-running type game.

Speaking of.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/ZeldaOcarinaOfTime.html

This is pretty amazing. OoT is so glitchy, it's almost as fun to play with as Link's Awakening's map warp glitch! Too bad so many of them are hard to do. But I guess it's like Super Metroid in that way. Shame about the cutscenes.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting. I started going through Ico yesterday with my girlfriend. She doesn't really play games, so she asked for something that played like 2d Mario. We decided on Paper Mario, but didn't get very far before she observed, "I don't like games that take so much control away from me, or when they explain things too much." So we changed to Ico, which she likes. I had a good time watching her figure everything out and acclimate herself the the button scheme, because there's no HUD or instructions. She commented on Ico's incredible stamina.

Great moment in gaming!
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i am liking storm of zehir a whole hell of a lot more than i thought i would.
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