Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Sierra]

Fanille will eventually do something something so incredibly stupid I will want to punch her in the throat.

I can tell you right now that you have the wrong guess.

Yep. One GL5 character in particular does exhibit a truly staggering level of stupidity and another seems intent on making a contest out of it, but Fanille is pretty okay.

~

Fallout 2: Yeah, I'm pretty much marathoning this. Recent developments include the following:

-Resolved Gecko issues peacefully and without any help from you, Lynette.

-Random encounter with a group of raiders netted me a whole bundle of assault rifles. Money is suddenly much less of an issue. Acquired metal armor (I can't remember if I found it or bought it with the proceeds) and proceeded to eradicate the slavers. Holy shit that is a lot of good karma. Like, 150? That's 60% of what I'd accumulated throughout the entire game previously.

-Stopped off in New Reno to unload loot, simultaneously entered boxing/porn star professions while I was there. The seemingly endless lists of pseudonyms for both of those are hilarious. I was glad to see Bunny LaJoya included in the latter (the former, of course, being notable for its Punch Out references).

-Broken Hills stuff. I didn't have any idea where to find protective gear for the mine, so I just left my allies outside and ran straight through it. The wife insisted on accompanying me through the radon-filled deathtrap anyway. She was lucky to have stimpacks in her inventory. Recruited Marcus thereafter; ahhhh, super-mutant and all, but he seems fairly reasonable (at least as long as there's no realistic chance of someone restarting the Master's scheme). I'm pretty sure he is also Worf, so that's something.

-Finally, hit up Vault 15, which has undergone some serious renovations. Someone even put a mountain on top of it! Was surprised to find people living there again. Unfortunately, they were mostly people who needed killing. I have a .223 now, so I was happy to oblige. Stopped just after killing Darion and his crew. I'd heard Dogmeat reappears in this game, so I'm guessing that's what the pooch was supposed to be? I didn't see any way to recruit the thing in the midst of battle, so I didn't try. Anyway, after annihilating the raiders, I wound up with almost more guns than my full party could carry. I don't think resources will be a problem any more.

-"Chris Avellone loves you!" = best battle cry ever.

Will likely head to the New California Republic next. It's right next door, and the alternatives are Redding (long ways away, also less interesting--and this way, I'm more informed about the various interested parties before I decide Redding's fate) and the Sierra base (can't muscle past the autoguns, and haven't turned up a way to sneak in yet).

[AAA]

QuakeLive-Today's update added new awards! I've gotten 3+Miracle Maker, which is not new:



Frag Count stands at 5300ish.

Also, I've started getting good at Clan Arena. I love it when I fire that perfectly placed rocket that frags some dude halfway across the map.

Bioshock-I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but played and beaten. Great game, a lot of fun, interesting combat and gameplay, wonderful ambiance and a good story to boot. Saved all the Little Sisters, missed two upgrade stations, and more or less did everything you can in one playthrough.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed-Started this today, got past the second level. So far it's been decent. It's fun to just go around torturing hapless stormtroopers, but the boss battles are a mess. Mostly just seems to come down to button mashing until you get to the QTE, which you can flunk over and over again with no penalty. The camera angle is infuriating and makes things unnecessary tough because you can't see a goddamn thing.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If someone would LIKE to float ToV to me, I would appreciate it quite a bit. Otherwise I will just buy it off the interwebs when I get some scratch together.

Cid: The dog is not Dogmeat. Dogmeat is from a random encounter that is very much not a part of the plot (Cafe of Broken Dreams). And yes, Marcus is Worf. Incidentally, have you heard of the FO2 Restoration Mod? Adds in a good chunk of stuff that got cut, like the EPA or Sulik's sister. Good stuff, and I think you can even load it in to an existing save (but, I might be wrong).

Anyway, I am playing Emperor of the Faded Suns. And it... is very hard. I do very much approve of it, as it is probably the closest I'm ever going to get to a BattleTech 4x game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

XF - And thus a solo 1 HP, 0 MP, 0 VP Clarissa was able to defeat Asgard. I love this game.

Specifically, Asgard had already been MP broken, and Clarissa was an Extremist with Zone Effect and Extremist armour = perfect evasion. Attack and Heal MP until I could afford to use Heal, then Sacrifice (taking care not to use this right before he used Barrier Fist, because without the Evade boost from moving I was a sitting duck), repeat. Crazy that this worked. Asgard 2 is, it must be said, a good overall fight in order to get me down to this point. Only actual resets so far in Act 3 is on 3-6 (Shut Out fight), although a few others were scares (3-1 mutants, 3-7, 3-9, 3-10 as mentioned).

EDIT: Also, Execrate is a completely broken skill. Why didn't I clue into this last playthrough? Once you get the fourth batch of classes it is the best thing about Levin, and that is saying something. It even comes just as Blast is getting eclipsed by Emulator attack magic. 75% Petrify from range 6 post-movement = gg enemies who aren't bosses.

[Clear Tranquil]

ToV-Enduring Shrine of Zaude. Final dungeon/boss? Blah blah blah! Not blah blah blah enough though it seems. L44 with Estelle, Judith, Repede and Rita (PC) Was controlling Judith for most of the game but I was having problems with the Golem optional so I switched to Rita for long range goodness. I used Violent Pain because it hit the enemy's weak spot and I noticed it knocked it down. Then I was like ... overlimit ... I keep knocking things down ... Hax! Rita, hax! Oh wait wasn't that the thing that was in a video somewhere. I was L43 when I reached the second save point in Zaude but then I went out and defeated a optional boss which Violent Pain hax completely and utterly demolished (Hermit Crab) I guess I left him alone for too long and thus eradicated the challenge. Not so for the optional boss in the forest! Couldn't defeat it after several tries and considering that the final is also a pain in the ass I decided to suck it up and finally synth the Limit Trio. Headed back to Zaude instead of the optional. Final is still a pain in the ass. In a way I'm glad though because it means I haven't synthed my way to brokeness (which I don't like doing in a first playthrough) If I am facing the final perhaps I'm a bit underlevelled anyway. Or something.

Is there any way to deal with his regen other than sheer overpoweredness?

[Hunter Sopko]

Persona 3: FES- Started up The Journey. Like P4, it also has a main that does little thinks that irk me. Whereas Souji would constantly have his collar flipped up like a douchebag, Minato runs with his hands in his pockets, which makes him look like a wanker.Kinda neat to see just how much P4 lifted wholesale from the game, from character models (Akihiko = Kanji being the most blatant) to smaller things. I'm not surprised, mind, but it looks as if more effort was spend on P3 in this regard while P4 got all the polish. Smart way of making games at any rate.

Up to 5/5, completely explored the first block, or at least up to floor 16. Gotta love just walking in with no real explanations. People are taking it way too in stride. P4 cast at least feigned shock for a while. We'll see how it goes when more people join in the fun at least. Game's concept is silly but fun at least.

[Sierra]

Cid: The dog is not Dogmeat. Dogmeat is from a random encounter that is very much not a part of the plot (Cafe of Broken Dreams). And yes, Marcus is Worf. Incidentally, have you heard of the FO2 Restoration Mod? Adds in a good chunk of stuff that got cut, like the EPA or Sulik's sister. Good stuff, and I think you can even load it in to an existing save (but, I might be wrong).

Eh, I'm inclined to table that for a possible replay instead (the game's good enough that this isn't out of the question). Paranoia about save file corruption grips me. The game's had sufficient share of freezes and crashes so far that I don't really want to take chances (though I guess that could just be whoamg Vista. Still, prefer not to mess with a game in progress).

Anyway, new stuff:

-The New California Republic is annoying. I don't mean the fact that there's a policeman on literally every street corner. It's the gun law that really bugs me, because I can walk into the city with no weapons active and all my allies having been told to put away their weapons and the cops will still be likely to go hostile within a few seconds. I've got in the habit of just handing my weapons over to allies and then leaving all of them outside the city when I have business there. Given that item management is still a hassle (though less so than in Fallout 1), it's obnoxious having to do this every time. Especially since there's a merchant inside the city who has armor upgrades and most of my collateral is in the form of high-powered firearms. Eventually loaded up the MC's inventory with weapons and ran like hell to the shop before the cops got after me. What a nuisance. Anyway, I did some of the basic quests there and joined the rangers (who need to give me some of that combat armor, stat).

-With two sets of metal armor mark II, I set out to deal with some of the combat-intensive areas I'd been putting off doing: the raider base in the mountains and the wanamingo mine. The latter was quite irritating. Hate those little bastards. I wonder if they made the place such a hassle so that you'd be inclined to visit all the surrounding cities first and have all the facts before deciding which of them would benefit from Redding's situation (I went with the Kokoweef mine because the Morningstar mine chief was all over New Reno and, seriously, fuck that place). The EXP you get from that section is pretty staggering (I think I got two whole levels in there, and I'm in the mid-teens).

-Why did I give Sulik automatic weapons (the HK P90, at present. Hey, I know that gun. The Frogs used it in MGS4. That's a quality SMG). Yeah, I knew from Fallout 1 how likely allies are to shred you, each other, and random bystanders, but I needed the extra firepower for the raider base (well, he's been on guns since Vault 15, which has the same kind of enemies). Spears/hammers just aren't really going to cut it against goons with metal/combat armor, and having anyone charge into melee range when the enemies are sporting burst weapons is just asking for them to get gibbed. And I insist on keeping everyone alive out of principle (and, well, my MC is sort of weak/frail and needs meatshields and pack mules around. I don't have the gear to solo big battles when they do come up). Marcus is a pretty big offender for friendly fire, too. Big guns are the ick. I found a power fist and gave him that instead for a short time; rocked faces but it ran out of ammo and I dunno where to find more. Well, short of scavenging it from cattle prods and rippers. Nonetheless, he is invaluable for being able to haul around 270 pounds of loot. This is quite necessary when the MC can carry a whopping 110 and a good chunk of that is taken up by her own armor/ammo/healing supplies/whatever plot items I currently need.

-More perks. Took Mysterious Stranger at level 9 just to see what the hell it did. Turns out, not much. Guest fighter with mediocre equipment for random encounters. Wooo. Oh well, don't regret experimenting just for the purpose of seeing new stuff. Took Tag (small guns) and Bonus Rate of Fire for levels 12 and 15. Pretty standard stuff; much as I'm trying to avoid combat, being competent at it when it's unavoidable is pretty much a necessity.

Still to do: Visit the holy Vault 13 (I should probably do this next since it seems the most likely place to find the GECK, and having the shaman not freak the shit out of me by randomly interrupting the game would be aces); finish NCR stuff (still haven't talked to Tandi; my current save is actually right outside her office. Will be interesting to see how receptive she is to the idea of some kind of egalitarian--I.E., not specifically dominated by the NCR, because all the cities in this game clearly have something to offer but are also too crippled by their own faults to be any kind of leader--north Californian union, which is pretty clearly where the Good path is headed); various New Reno stuff (ehhhh); and the army depot. Still haven't found a good way to get into the latter and will likely leave it 'til endgame. If there's no way to sneak/bribe/talk my way in, at least I'll (presumably) be better equipped to deal with the offense by that point. Supposedly San Francisco's waiting for me out there somewhere, too, but no one's placed it on my map yet. I'm not real keen to just head out into the wilderness blindly, but will go looking if I've completed everything else and still don't have leads on it.

[AndrewRogue]

Up to 5/5, completely explored the first block, or at least up to floor 16. Gotta love just walking in with no real explanations. People are taking it way too in stride. P4 cast at least feigned shock for a while. We'll see how it goes when more people join in the fun at least. Game's concept is silly but fun at least.

To be fair, this was one of the larger narrative differences in the way the two games functioned? P3 has the cast (outside of the main and such) as functionally aware of the paranormal stuff already, whereas Persona 4 took a bunch of unfortunate folks off the street and booted them straight into it.

[Niu]

ToV-Enduring Shrine of Zaude. Final dungeon/boss? Blah blah blah! Not blah blah blah enough though it seems. L44 with Estelle, Judith, Repede and Rita (PC) Was controlling Judith for most of the game but I was having problems with the Golem optional so I switched to Rita for long range goodness. I used Violent Pain because it hit the enemy's weak spot and I noticed it knocked it down. Then I was like ... overlimit ... I keep knocking things down ... Hax! Rita, hax! Oh wait wasn't that the thing that was in a video somewhere. I was L43 when I reached the second save point in Zaude but then I went out and defeated a optional boss which Violent Pain hax completely and utterly demolished (Hermit Crab) I guess I left him alone for too long and thus eradicated the challenge. Not so for the optional boss in the forest! Couldn't defeat it after several tries and considering that the final is also a pain in the ass I decided to suck it up and finally synth the Limit Trio. Headed back to Zaude instead of the optional. Final is still a pain in the ass. In a way I'm glad though because it means I haven't synthed my way to brokeness (which I don't like doing in a first playthrough) If I am facing the final perhaps I'm a bit underlevelled anyway. Or something.

Is there any way to deal with his regen other than sheer overpoweredness?

My levels are in the 50s when I reach the Unfallen Palace of Zaude. Though, Alexi shouldn't be too hard. For the party you are using, have Rita magic haxing as usual, while you want Judy to stay in air most pf the time and using air to ground attack (lifting Alexi up might be troublesome, so don't do it unless you are sure you can make it). Repede just go ahead with invincibility hax, using that well can get the doggy out of the fight un-scratched. As for Estelle, tweak her guard set ups a bit have her defend all the time outside healing. She isn't going to help much offensively, just just keep her alive for healing.

[Yoshiken]

FF2: AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH.
That's about it, really.

...Yeah, I've reached Palamecia Castle. Dayumn, I'm getting killed. The randoms around here are avoiding the evasion hype, and that's been getting me through most of this game... meaning I have pretty damn low HP. I went to train it a bit, but ~600 HP is still not enough for this dungeon. Damn, this game is tedious.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Just be patient. The nice thing about things that get through your defences in FF2 is that whatever doesn't kill you literally does make you stronger.

For me it was Dist Cave rather than Palamecia that prompted the reaction, but yeah. I just kept running at it, warping out if I was screwed over too badly to continue, and sooner or later my HP reached acceptable levels for survival.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

All this tells me is "agh oldschool grinding saga style stop playing ff2".

TWEWY - Day 3? 4? Of Week 1. This game is really fun when you start getting the hang of it, and the pinvoluted icicle pin is insanely awesome for this point of the game. Where the freck did those Scarletites come from, though?

[Shale]

Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - it is Secret Of Monkey Island with hand-drawn sprites and full voice. Best thing ever. I found the Lost Treasure Of Melee Island and am about to sneak my way past the deadly and treacherous piranha poodles.

I'm underwhelmed by the interface. Putting the inventory and verb tables "behind" the main action is a good idea, but not being able to access either with a mouse click in what's otherwise a point-and-click game is dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Cid: Have Marcus gotted his palsma rifle as soon as possible.

[Sierra]

Just did that, actually. But, more details below.

~

Fallout 2: ...Well, that's certainly not what I expected to find living in Vault 13. Do I want a Deathclaw in my party? Fuck yes just on principle. Kinda liked the guys since they seemed pretty decent folk (and I am a total sucker for What Measure is a Non-Human), which made the events later shown in a surveillance tape mildly rage-inducing. Though the effect was rather spoiled by Marcus walking by in the background (in the recording!) and voicing his perpetual curiosity about whether or not someone "cut a muffin." I...really don't think that was supposed to happen.

Anyway, GECK acquired, went back to Arroyo. DISASTER STRIKES. I'm going to assume that always happens once you get the GECK. Took a trip west afterwards, which was largely unproductive. Found San Francisco, unloaded old equips and picked up some new ones, wandered around town but didn't really get much done there. Definitely doubleplus coolness points for the Big Trouble in Little China nod, there. Made an abortive attempt at clearing out the military base (did not have the gear to deal with super mutants at that point) before reloading a save from outside it and going back east to finish up with New Reno.

...Which came down to a horrific bloodbath as I massacred every guard in the Shark Club and every member of the Bishop family (except the nice lady who slept with me). When I hit the first floor, bystanders started getting in the way and being struck by stray burst fire rounds...which makes NPCs go hostile towards whichever party fired them. You've got random casino patrons mobbing the guards while we take potshots at each other, some of my allies were off killing the staff for god knows what reason, I accidentally shot a prostitute when a wall made me unable to tell exactly who she was (could only see the silhouette, wall blocking her meant I couldn't use the normal pointer function to execute the look command) and I assumed she was another guard, that caused the swarm of hookers loitering outside the casino to rush in seeking vengeance...it was an unholy mess. Two of the casino employees managed to live, and maybe three of the customers. When I talked to the surviving employees afterwards (even days afterwards) they just kept repeating their normal lines dumbly, standing frozen in place in some jerky position because their scripting broke somewhere along the line; stray weapons and ammo lie everywhere and the comedian keeps on telling bad jokes to an empty house. It's like North Korea in there now.

I was amused to notice that all the dead casino girls were carrying loaded dice. Also, all the prostitutes wandering the streets now hurl insults at me when I pass by...though I think they'd started doing that a while ago simply out of jealousy. We can't all be world-famous porn stars, girls.

Only thing I haven't done in that town is decide which of the two remaining families (Mordino and Wright) gets to live. Most likely the Wrights since they can apparently get me a discount at the weapon store (not that anything New Reno has to offer me matters by this point, but it's the principle of the thing) and because they are generally just less reprehensible than all their competition. Sadly, I can no longer inform Mrs. Wright about her husband's alcohol ring and view the no doubt hilarious consequences (which I'd intended to do after completing whatever sidequests he offered me just in case telling her this would screw something else up--since one of those sidequests required infiltrating Sierra, this had been waiting for a while). She won't talk to me now on account of my porn career.

Oh, and...well, I am not remotely a superstitious person, I scoff at people who suspect that mentioning the possibility of something bad happening makes it more likely to happen (before anyone contradicts me on this, I acknowledge that Super, of course, is an exception to this rule whose mere presence warps all laws of probability), and generally attribute such attitudes to overactive pattern recognition leading people to count the hits and forget the misses. Nevertheless, I really, really shouldn't have said the following:

(at least as long as there's no realistic chance of someone restarting the Master's scheme)

Rounded out the evening with finally raiding the Sierra base. Easier than expected--I hadn't tried since before I'd jacked up small guns. The turrets die really fast when you have just one competent shooter. Kept security inactive thereafter, looted the hell out of the place and Jesus Christ Monty Haul, man. Combat armor for everyone, plenty of high-quality firearms that can be used for trading, and...plasma rifle. Which probably will go to Marcus since I never got around to boosting the MC's energy weapon skills above the eighties (I invested some points in it here and there just in case it turned out to be as useful lategame as it was in Fallout 1, but ammo for the good energy weapons is so scarce that I eventually stopped bothering with that). Will probably throw the super power fist I picked up in San Fran at Sulik since I have a bajillion small power cells now (from massacring Salvatore's mob--who all used laser pistols--and from Sierra).

Actually, didn't quite finish Sierra before stopping. Met SkyNet (no, seriously), was requested to build it a body for it, said "Fuck yes" (or would have, if that had been a dialogue option there) because robots > humans and I want one in my party. I can't get the cyber-brain, though. Cryo-storage failure. If I take some mentats, I can manage to save the human brain, but that doesn't seem to be good enough for the purpose of completing the robot. Actually went to check GameFAQs on this since, well, I think I'm pretty close to the endgame by this point and also I want my goddamn robot. FAQ I checked says you need a science rating of well into the hundreds to get the cyber-brain. Mine is in the mid-eighties somewhere. I could, theoretically, buy books to boost the skill as much as possible with those, then dick around with sidequests until I hit the next level (which will be 20, and I'm a mere 6k XP away from reaching it) and dump all the ensuing skill points into science. That would just get it into the low hundreds, a bit more while drugged (though mentats really don't give me that dramatic a boost, as my normal INT stat is 8 and drugs can't take you past 10). Figured I'd ask the resident FO fanatics here whether this actually gives me a realistic chance of pulling it off before going to the trouble, though.

If that fails, I can only hope that the note I found in the NCR doctor's office means there is a robot dog I can recruit instead.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TWEWY - Apparently, my DS ran into a monkey's uncle.

[Grefter]

The game's had sufficient share of freezes and crashes so far that I don't really want to take chances (though I guess that could just be whoamg Vista. Still, prefer not to mess with a game in progress).

That could sadly just be the game actually.  Fan patches help stability a bit, but Fallout kind of just behaves a bit all over the place for different people now so much that I won't blame it on Vista up front.

Glad you are liking the game though man.  Do you see why I keep telling people to play stuff?

[Sierra]

Quite.

And yeah, the game definitely is buggy. Sometimes when I start it up, the graphics wig out, go all fuzzy and it takes restarting the game several times to make it right again. I've had a couple freezes/crashes. The wife doesn't seem to function like a normal ally and when I load a game she'll often wind up stuck outside the walls of an enclosed space (though this is actually useful when I need to stealth through a place, because I can't tell her to leave the party like everyone else. I could just divorce her, but what is the point of having a lesbian wife if you're going to do that?) Nothing endemic, and nothing that renders the game unplayable (or even particularly frustrating, honestly). Just kind of makes you wonder what happened during the development to make no one notice this stuff.

[Grefter]

Alright that is a bit more flipped out than usual then.

Edit - Actually, are you playing totally unpatched?  It was notorious for some odd things (Like half your car vanishing).

[Sierra]

I haven't seen anything that crazy. But no, I haven't patched it at all.

[Grefter]

I would honestly consider the stuff you have there crazier than the car bugs, but meh.  Any version you dig up these days should be automatically v1.02, but I guess it is worth a check.

[Idun]

Got Bastan. Scoured the Revolving Bridge while I was quadruple-tasking last night before hitting Atlanta. Catching up on the Western art scenes, responding to silly YTs asking me to link them to .mp3s. . .  Auto when you're at L47 enables you to get shit tons of ? Painting (s) when you're not even paying attention. I discareded about twenty Steel Pieces though since I find the orb useless. It'd have been in my best interest to sell the pieces as orbs, but I didn't want anything besides ? Painting in my inventory as the requirements state that you need a ? Painting in your inventory to trigger the dialog. I've entered his place a few times, chatted a few times, etc with multiple ? Paintings never to trigger the scene. It only took about 30 minutes to fill my inventory with them anyway. So I got him.

I officially need 25 more stars, including Gavaya. At this point, "according" to the FAQ on Suikosource, I can't even get him as I don't have the confirmed female trio that triggers extra dialog. He is the only straggler I do not have, besides Raven. Raven's membership is pending as it is a wait game. So I believe it's time to proceed with the video game!

I'm desperate to get all 108 stars this playthrough because I don't want that unfavorable ending involving my cherished Lyon to occur. Either way, when I beat the game, I'm going to watch all the endings anyway. Too much of a backlog to just replay a game like this. I think I will get 108 stars.

I've been trying to figure out what dissatisfies me about this game, and the only thing I can think of is its somewhat arbitrary recruitment agendas. [Could have worked on cluing a bit more if you do not have Oboro]

[Sierra]

Just curious, you did manage to get Oboro? I know it came up in chat that you might have started looking for him too late.

[Shale]

Monkey Island: Finished the three trials and recruited my crew. Getting the idol is still the greatest thing ever.

[Idun]

Yeah, El Cid. I managed to get Oboro after Doraat, I suppose because I asked him frequently if he would join. Noticed that the FAQ says he's missable after Doraat, so I suppose I asked him TOO much. I was just lucky really. If I didn't get Oboro, I don't know if would be possible to get Sagiri, Raven, etc. Pure luck as when I was told in chat, I was unsure of how many times I asked him anyway.