The Gamer's Quarter

[seryogin]

Man, I may just write an essay about it.
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[Shapermc]

Man, Zombie Panic! Source is pretty bad! All that you have to do to win is be on the human team, find the zombie spawn and then spawn camp. It's awful! They really need to work on this.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Shapermc]

Ragnarok Battle Offline
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Harveyjames]

[Swimmy]

Is Dementium: The Ward worth playing? The respawning enemies without respawning ammo thing sounds like a very bad idea, but if the game isn't too threatening it might be worth picking up.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Shapermc]

If you can find it for $15 or less then give it a go. There's two reasons the issue you're concerned with isn't a problem: 1) they give you more than enough health/ammo that you'll leave about 50% of it behind in the first half of the game, and 2) if you jump through the right hoops in chapter 6 you don't really need to worry about ammo even if you do run out.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

i've started playing ghost squad the crosshairs off and it feels really good.

i like the variety in ghost squad, all the little gameplay variations, but what i like more than the branches where the game stops you and asks you to pick a path are the moments where the game branches naturally depending on your actions. in the belly of airforce one, for example, there's a room divided by these big hulking machines. for a brief second, your character peeks in between two machines to see an enemy rushing around to the other side to confront you. if, in that instance, you manage to snap off a shot and down the enemy, instead of fighting that bunch of enemies in the open space on the other side of the machine, the downed enemy's followers will attempt to pick you off through the tiny space between the machines.

also, zack & wiki is a traditional point and click adventure game for the wii that uses a lot of very console-videogamey elements, mostly to its advantage. more adventure games could stand to be organized in stages, or at least small chunks like the sam & max games. that keeps them focused: you know you won't be stuck on the left side of the island because you missed some small object way on the right side of the island. but there's also a lot of needless contrivance: breaking pots to collect coins (so you can buy hints?), or holding up objects zelda-style when you find them (oh boy, a WOODEN STICK!).

and the wii remote controls are terrible. you're expected to manipulate objects by holding the wii like you would the object, and while this occasionally makes for a clever bit of discovery, often you end up just waggling an object around until the game performs the obvious action you're attempting to do. navigating is hard too, and zack frequently ends up at a location different from the one you order him to. this is particularly frustrating when the game requires you to duck into safe spots from enemy attacks. this shouldn't have been as hard to get right as it seems to have been.
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[Harveyjames]

There's a reference to NES Punch-Out!! In Ice Cube's Dirty Mack off his 'The Predator' album.

[Cycle]

I've been playing Halo 3 online again, it's much better than I remember. It seems to have been tweaked to feel more mechanically sound... I still have a few gripes, but it seems to be full of much less bullshit than when it first came out, so I've been having fun.

Plus, rocket race is available in matchmaking now!
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[bleak]

I went to the arcade last night with Cossix. We played this bizarro version of Metal Slug 6 where you get fat whenever you pick up a special weapon, and the levels are all out of order. I also played some DrumMania and GF, and Popn! Drummania and GF are so very much more unforgiving as far as timing goes than Rock Band, and I think I like that. It's definitely going to take some getting used to, though. Also the song list in DM/GF isn't nearly as good, but that's the price you pay, I guess, for the difficulty max being that much higher. I also played KoF XI. I realized that I have noooooo fucking clue how to play that game. The button layout reminds me of Guilty Gear, though with the special attack button. I think the Ghost Squad port on the Wii might be better than the arcade version, although you don't get the giant submachinegun perhipheral with recoil when you play it at home. Oh well.
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[dessgeega]

that bizarro metal slug six is fantastic. it's actually metal slug three with the stages all mixed up. and bosses die in a few hits, and you get a perpetual thunder cloud, a one-time weapon in the original game.

ghost squad rocks my socks.

i finished quest mode of arkanoid ds last night. that's a different challenge for each of 140 stages: once you play the stage in "clear mode" you can try its challenge in quest mode. they really force you to learn how to control the ball, and emphasize the way the stages are designed. many of them are super hard.

my favorite is the one where you have to hit a single block, but are only allowed to hit the ball once.
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[dhex]

just to reiterate: blacksite is fucking horrible.
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[ApM]

[Cycle]

DooM II is amazing while playing with no sound, apart from some ambient music. I just tried it with MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS.

Does wonders for clearing my mind. Got a zen thing going.
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[dhex]

more games should allow custom soundtracks.

i would love to be able to pipe in something sweet while playing hellgate, which btw is grinding crack thus far. (about two hours total?)
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[kirkjerk]

Earth Defense Force 2017 is more wonderful than I expected. I'm only up to level 15 , but Wow.

(Heh, it reminds me a bit of Alien Front Online for the DC, but is at LEAST eight times as fantastic)

It touches so many sci fi movie and literature tropes:
50s B-movie, with the scaled up insects
Godzilla, setting wise
Starship Troopers (the book) the being swarmed by feeling, and going into the dark insect nest
War of the Worlds (the book) with the walkers trudging through the water
Independence Day, giant silent enemy starships hanging over the earth

(I know some of these images may have had their origins elsewhere, but that's where I know 'em from)

And the scale of these things! Like that giant walker on Levels 14 and 15... does SotC get bigger than that? (I sadly couldn't get into SotC) It's the first game that... I dunno, gives me a walker that is to me now what the AT-ATs were in Empire Strikes Back to me as an 7 year old.

I tried the first level a week ago, but wasn't grabbed by it... I think I got killed near the end by my own rocket, but I didn't know it was the en of the level, and I had that feeling of "where is this game going with this" I sometimes get -- especially w/ the item drops, and that's the same problem I had with Bioshock... games that have a plethora of pickups (as opposed to say, classic DOOM with just a few distinct weapons and ammos), and that encouragement to grab all these damn items, because you don't know if they're useful to later. I have to let go of Obsessive/Compulsive urges to do it "perfect", weapon wise, and just find something that seems effective and run with it.

Also, it took me a while to accept that it's ok to level buildings. This game is at an interesting point of "realness" and arcadeness, and sometimes it's not clear what you should fix and what should roll with. Same with your buddies getting killed. I like that they are useful in combat. Though like some other games with destructible environments (Hulk) and non-immortal team mates, if a level goes on too long you find yourself walking in a burned out wasteland.

I'm also sad that vehicles have no crosshairs and (I think) ignore any setting to use inverted aiming.

So I think the single best images for me is made when you destroy one of those small bipedal walkers in a huge explosion, and then its brother starts breaking through the fiery smoke, guns blazing.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[sediment]

started playing Morrowind again (for the fourth time)

I'm really, really way not taking it seriously, since it's my fourth playthrough.

thinking of naming my character LARD INDOLOL NEVERER and making it the biggest douchebag dunmer ever in the history of vvardenfell
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[Swimmy]

[dessgeega]

so here's my definitive write-up of arkanoid ds. summary: everyone should play it.

this might be the last update to my blog for a while, or forever. i start school today! i should get some more sleep.
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[helicopterp]

[dhex]

i played some more hellgate last night cause i felt too shitty to sleep. again, grinding crack.

plus my character has a hitler flip and a moustache and is named "really evil hitler" so people say things like "you're our only hope on this job, really evil hitler! don't let us down!"
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[kirkjerk]

One further EDF 2017 thought:
one thing you get from the Portal director's commentary is the difficulty in getting players to look up, which makes total sense. EDF of course avoids this by swinging the camera and saying "if there's a giant spaceship in the air releasing enemies and we want you to look at it... BY GOD YOU WILL BE LOOKING AT"

It works better than I expected, once you get used to the concept.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[bleak]

Hellgate London isn't a good game, dhex.
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[dhex]

no, but i'm having fun so far.

after crysis it can only go down anyway, right?
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[Lestrade]

I finished BioShock yesterday after having it for about two weeks. It was all the things people said it was, but I have to admit I was severely disappointed by the ending. It was completely anti-climactic. When will developers realize that when a player invests ten to twenty hours in a game, a thirty-second ending is a complete piss-off? I invested so much in that game—emotionally as well as time-wise—and in the end I was just left feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

I guess now I'll have to get a copy of The Orange Box; that's next on my list.

[sediment]

After System Shock and the sequel, I've been expecting Bioshock to have a 30-second ending.

I'm not there yet (someday) but still, there's something about that I like.
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[sarsamis]

I cleared Ico yesterday and it put me in the mood for some mindless, happy-time gaming, so I bought Yoshi's Story on the VC and played that for awhile.

I have yet to play anything today. Soul Nomad's staring at me from the game shelf by my bed, but I have no idea when I'll actually get around to playing it.

[Shapermc]

[sarsamis]

[Harveyjames]

[helicopterp]

On the last puzzle of Level 2 (animals) in Picross DS, and I haven't lost yet. I hit 57 minutes once, though. I wish there were a less obtrusive way to switch stylus functionality. Every now and then I get myself into trouble because I hit the wrong icon or forget to switch back. It's my bedtime game.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

Mario Galaxy. After my christmas binge where I played a couple of marathon sessions to get to the end, I've cut back and I'm doing a couple of the remaining stars every other night. Tonight's highlight: Secret Star in the Beach Bowl Galaxy. So great!

All that time the penguins are babbling about how 'shells are harder than rocks! There is a big crack in that rock! If only I could break the rock! I think you should throw a shell at the rock!' (which I just found kind of cute because it's obvious to anyone that that's what you should do from the moment you see the rock, the crack, and the shells all around it), there is a whole secret section they're distracting you from which has nothing to do with breaking shells with rocks, and features absolutely no hand-holding or hints at all. Not only this but it requires you to use a skill you didn't even know you had to solve a puzzle, in quite an ingenious way, and even drops in a few red herrings to make you think you've found the solution when you haven't. It's also completely beautiful. Very impressive.

I'm also still finding new abilities! You can swing on fucking vines??!?! And it's the best vine-swinging I've ever experienced in a computer game! (Worst: Half-Life: Opposing Force.)

[dhex]

ok i'm officially on the fuck hellgate bandwagon:

1) forced rts segment can eat my pants
2) bug killed some of my best equipment

great idea that needed another year or so in the oven.
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[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

[Harveyjames]

The overriding impression I get from Action Button is that whatever games are these days, they don't like them. That site would be more likeable if they focused on what they did like, but then it would just be 90-page diatribes about Super Mario Bros 3 and Opus Lilian: Minna Squirty Dread (a game you're never, ever going to play because it only came out for the Bandai Wonderswan on limited release in Akihabara high street in 1998 and sold 4 copies).

[Harveyjames]

Actually, I'd just like to add to that that I don't trust a god damn word Tim Rogers says. I played that John Woo's Stanglehold he liked so much and it was piss poor. He found a lot of faults with Phantom Hourglass, which I now take to mean Phantom Hourglass is perfect.

[dessgeega]

phantom hourglass isn't terrible. it's better than most recent zelda titles in a lot of ways, at least.
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[sarsamis]

[Mr Mustache]

[Harveyjames]

It's mostly just about posturing ('that's a guitar term, by the way').

[Lasa]

Important Bullet Witch update: It becomes mildly tolerable when you upgrade enough.

[Cycle]

Yeah, I'm actually really not sure what his point is in that review.

Anyway, I rented ASSASSINS CREED. Once you actually get to playing the game, it's pretty fun, but I can see this is going to get repetitive. Also, I hate it when you have to do stuff in the "present" and getting from city to city is a pain in the ass and etc. But damn, jumping around sure is fun! Actually, I have way more problems with this game, but I don't want to go into them here. I'm glad I only rented it.

Bought three gamess off my friend, Way of the Samurai 2, TimeSplitters and Outrun 2. Just about to try Outrun 2!
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[helicopterp]

[Scratchmonkey]

I actually like that review, with the "point" probably being that videogames being "realistic" can call attention to videogame tropes, if they're not approached properly.

Then again, I've pretty much given up on anybody having even reasonably similar feelings regarding how I feel about game criticism. I mean, I liked Trigger Happy.

[sarsamis]

Played a little of Monster Hunter 2 Freedom on the PSP I bought today. Fancy little game imo. Tomorrow I'll probably play it with two friends for good times.

And with this newly acquired PSP slim, I have all 5 current-gen platforms. Just waiting on my friend to make me a Pandora's battery so I can get some decent use out of the thing.

[Cycle]

Got bored with assassins creed by the 5th or so kill. For a sandbox game, it's very limited with what, where and when you can do things, and the assassinations themselves are heavily scripted leaving no room for freedom, and generally not all that exciting. I was hoping the assassinations would play out more like a hitman... hit. Like, in the hitman games.

It also made me notice that more and more sandbox games forget to actually work on mission design.

I think what I hate the most is all this story crap and unskippable cutscenes, I don't care about your stupid story alright, just let me run around rooftops! ALSO, running around the country side is a total pain in the ass. Sure looks pretty though, SotC needs a next-gen update.

Also this guy is such a shitty assassin, he can't kill anyone without instantly alerting the whole city. I was hoping to take out targets wth some FINESSE and STYLE, not just running up to him and stabbing him, Brutus style.

Outrun 2 is pretty flippin' sweet, though. I wish I got Coast 2 Coast, but this only cost me $5 so I'm not complaining. I've had a look at the other modes which seem fun enough, but I'll mainly stick to OUTRUN mode, methinks. I love the feeling this game gives me... if only there were a way to turn off the CHECKPOINT time limit stuff, so I could just drive from one end to another without worry when I felt like it. Also, I'm getting sick of the dumb broad sitting next to me!

I should try timesplitters and way of the samurai 2 next, but that means hooking up my PS2.
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

You probably wished you did get Coast 2 Coast as it's Outrun 2 with more. It's like having a nice meal and then having an equally nice dessert afterwards. Nothing but smiles. It's a light meal as well so you can still fit in something else like Test Drive Unlimited. But not the PS2 version as it's inferior to the other versions, but still fun.
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[Cycle]

Yeah I know, I might get it another time. Outrun 2 is doing me just fine so far though!

I love how you can end up in Paris! It will be awesome if another one led to Tokyo or somesuch.

Did you read my article yet? My copy of the magazine actually hasn't arrived yet, but I had a quick look at the newsagent. It probably sucks
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I still need to root around under the couch to find another two dollars, then I can buy it.
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