Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Honestly, I think that the area of the Soul that has Allosaurs, Critics, Barb-Es, and Pan Doras is short enough that it will be mostly fought with 1-2 PCs (especially if the player knows where they're going, possible given the game's audience) so in general should be a little weaker, at least defensively. Actually, having the enemies there have more of an MT focus is probably the best idea? I didn't notice how much is already there, you may be a bit ahead of me on that!

And yeah, it's really not a big deal to just Charm Bangle/Moogle Charm/run from randoms at first, it's not like they tend to do fatal things on turn 1 (yay). So this really isn't much of a complaint overall. Just a bit of a "what" moment.

Also, randomly scanned an Allosaur in the Colosseum today and noticed they're weak to fire which I hadn't realised, this makes their relative HP less high than I thought. Mog was sadly one of my few PCs without Scan and I don't think I fought one after getting my second PC back.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS3 - Clocked four hours. Gameplay-to-plot ratio so far: about 90-10.

Also, jesus christ chaos just tattoo i'm jesus on your forehead already no need to hamfist it all over.

Also also, the plot of the first three hours seems to be basically "Shion faints a lot. And sometimes does Parasite Eve plot". What the heck.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Rough start to female only no reset FE8 game.  I got a bit too risky on my odds.  Vanessa missed back to back 75% chances and got hit by back to back 66% chances pretty damn early on.  I'm putting the odds of that at like 1/34 or something, but I'm not sure if I should be taking those kinds of risks this early on.  Oh well, I'm just going to have to be safer with Tana!


Lost my healer at the fog of war map.  Damn horseriders came at me from everywhere.  Needless to say I did not save the villagers!

Running with my 3 woman crew if Eirika, Neimi, and Lute now.  Gave Lute the Dragonshield since there is no way I am trying this without items.  Stat growth is being pretty garbage for everyone so far unfortunately... a serious lack of skill and speed for Lute and Eirika.

Damn, lost my lockpicks and an Angelic Robe in chapter 8.  I;'m hurting on cash and healing items now.  The thief also survived with 1 damn HP before stealing the Robe, which was going to go to Tana.  As of now I've got Lute at 20, Eirika at 19, and Neimi at 14.

[SageAcrin]

Also, randomly scanned an Allosaur in the Colosseum today and noticed they're weak to fire which I hadn't realised, this makes their relative HP less high than I thought. Mog was sadly one of my few PCs without Scan and I don't think I fought one after getting my second PC back.

Two fully debilitating status vunerabilities(Muddle and Stop), too.

Still, yes, this situation pretty much sums up why I shouldn't have given them *that* much HP. 15-20k range would have worked. They need to get two turns in general if the person fighting them isn't going all out, so that you respect them enough to, but not so much that they are actually dangerous, I think.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Attempt 1 is a failure!  I lost Tana and Neimi at the map you get Tana.  I considered trying to just power through the game with Eirika and Lute, which may have been doable, but that seemed cheap.

Attempt 2 commencing.


Edit:  Bleh, lost healer and Lute on the fog of war map.  That map really blows without using Colm.  Vanessa has had some nice growth though, Eirika is doing a bit better, and Neimi is still failing.

Neimi dead while laying siege to castle, turns out she isn't a tank.  No biggy, she's a whore.  Super Vanessa is all I need!

Attempt 2 is a failure!  Forgot Vanessa gets 1 shotted by bows.  Something tells me I should sleep and play when I'm slightly less tired.

[Grefter]

They really really are.

I don't know how you manage to make shotguns with Phosophorous shells that let you kill people with fire bad, but they managed.

Maybe it's intentional, because when you level them up enough you become unstoppable. It's like uncursing the Cursed Shield.

It is a nice idea, but they are only bad for boss fights really.  Also by all reports Pistols start out kind of broken and then just get progressively more so.  So meh.  Shotguns are just shit for the only part of the game that weapon choice actively matters.  Randoms die just fine from anything as long as you have the requesite shooter skills or you can just stealth kill every motherfucker in the room.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I really like the assault rifle, personally.  This is partially because I just got a gold-plated one and FUCK you can't not make me want to use it.

[Talaysen]

Cross Edge - So yeah I beat the next boss and it pretty much took me all day to figure out how.

So the boss has the same gimmick as Shen Long, huge defenses at low HP.  Except it also has regen.  Which I couldn't break normally.  So I do the same thing as before, build up SP on round 2, kill off the support on rounds 4 and 6.  Then I proceed to beat his face in on rounds 8 and 10 to build up my SP again.

Here's the important part: All the characters in my party have passive skills that increase their offense stat(s) when they are below 25% HP.  So on turns 11 and 12 I don't heal.  Meu dies on round 12, so I revive her with an item that restores 25% (rounded down) HP.  Morrigan's also in critical.  I then unleash two EX combos with my SP to guard break him, throw in a magic combo to Overbreak him and add up some hits/extra damage, and then have Morrigan and Meu physical combo him to death, up to overkill for shinies.

Morrigan's damage before the passive kicked in was about 100 per hit.  After?  About 9500.  Per hit.  That is one ridiculous offense boost and I need to abuse it more.

Party was 359 before the fight.  Boss was 850, so it's probably designed for a higher level but whatever.  JUST AS PLANNED > level grinding (though I did grab a few levels before figuring this out).

[DjinnAndTonic]

That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.

[Cotigo]

L4D2 Last Man on Earth:

This mode is a lot of getting to the very end of a level, getting distracted trying to off a jockey, getting hunter/chargered/smokered from behind, then having the jockey jump on you immediately afterwards causing a reset.

Fuck this mode.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Attempt 3:  A lot less tired means a lot less sending everyone in and praying they live.

I decided to ditch Neimi... the lack of Longbow might be annoying later, but outside of that weapon archers can blow me.  So far that just means a ton of Eirika, Vanessa, and Lute smash.  Because of this those 3 are leveling a lot quicker than they did for OK.  Once I get Tana, Marisa, and hopefully Amelia things should spread out a bit more.

Eirika
OK: Lvl 18, 25 HP, 8 STR, 17 SKL, 16 SPD, 13 LUK, 8 DEF, 7 RES
ME: Lvl 18, 28 HP, 11 STR, 17 SKL, 16 SPD, 17 LUK, 5 DEF, 5 RES

I haven't done any resets so... wow my Eirika has some crazy Strength and HP compared to OK.  Her Def/Res is trash though, which could be bad in a no reset playthrough.


Natasha
OK: Lvl 15, 26 HP, 12 MAG, 6 SKL, 14 SPD, 19 LUK, 7 DEF, 14 RES
ME: Lvl 4-  Nuff said right there... haven't gotten a chance to use her too much I guess.


Vanessa
Lvl 15, 26 HP, 11 STR, 14 SKL, 15 SPD, 10 LUK, 7 DEF, 10 RES
Lvl 18, 25 HP, 13 STR, 17 SKL, 20 SPD, 11 LUK, 8 DEF, 13 RES
I'm 3 levels higher than OK, but somehow managed less HP.  Insane speed though, which is nice for avoiding any doubles ever.


Lute
Lvl 18, 26 HP, 15 MAG, 8 SKL, 14 SPD, 15 LUK, 5 DEF, 13 RES
Lvl 19, 23 HP, 16 MAG, 13 SKL, 14 SPD, 17 LUK, 5 DEF, 14 RES
Another one where I'm getting crap HP compared to OK.  The SKL is absolutely crazy for me though.  Everything else is similar enough.  I also have her secret book so her actual SKL is 15 in game... nutso.  (She also got Dragonshield.)


The real challenge will be keeping Tana alive long enough to get some use from her.

Edit: Well shit, after a ton of work getting Marisa she gets killed.  Had her hiding in a nice funnel, but she crit 3 consecutive enemies so new ones kept coming.  Damn.

Edit 2:  Lost Natasha at the monster map, damn flyers.  Wasn't planning on using L' but I guess I should now.

Edit 3:  This one sucks, lost Lute via frameskipping too much.  I thought she had 26 lift so I moved her forward, but guess she'd been hit the turn before and she only had 12. Last enemy that could reach her finished her.  Ruh roh.  Amelia also died... kinda wanted to use her, but leveling a 4 recruit on the first try isn't easy to do.  Tana/Eirika/Natasha/Tethys gonna have to hold the fort for the time being.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Alpha Protocol- Anyway, I just finished the CIA Listening Post mission in Rome. Avoided doing anything to torque the CIA off this time, since their dossier indicated that killing their d00ds in their base would be bad for me and I am playing on Rookie. But next time, when I get the Veteran class unlocked, I am going to go from "sneaky pistol/karate/knife-work dude" to "Rambo getting chased through the woods by a bunch of cops."

All in all, really pleased with the way this game is working out so far. I feel like my choices are carrying genuine weight and my interactions are affecting the way other characters behave. It's like I'm playing an actual role-playing game or some shit.

[superaielman]

L4D2 Last Man on Earth:

This mode is a lot of getting to the very end of a level, getting distracted trying to off a jockey, getting hunter/chargered/smokered from behind, then having the jockey jump on you immediately afterwards causing a reset.

Fuck this mode.

That mode somehow sounds worse than Bleed out, which is truly remarkable if so.

[Hunter Sopko]

That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.

Brand loyalty because of two characters and no other involvement other than localizing? I need to get you to play more IF games then.

[Talaysen]

Cross Edge - Postgame completed.  Most of the other bosses got owned by getting my characters to below 25% for the offense boost.  One time I even set up my formation so everyone would get hit for maximum smash.

Ended up at only level 654 despite the bosses being level 999.  I was probably supposed to be higher because the last one's offense murdered me until I got lucky.  Oh well.  Goes to show that gear >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> levels.

[VySaika]

SRW OG2: In yet another case of "Gate bounces between games far too easily", I started playing this a couple days ago. Just beat CH13. Kill leader and the only person to make Ace so far is Tasuku. Yeah. Having Strike and a MAP does that, I suppose. Him and the Gigan are right behind Kyosuke and the Alt in terms of Gate Fanboyism anyway, so I have no problems with this! Though in fairness if I'd gone Ethiopia route instead of Moon route, Kyo and possibly Rai would have gotten to Ace status first.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Bleehhh attempt 3 a failure.  Fucking Ephraim decided to be a wimp and die on the map he comes back.  Kind of lame that my all female game ends with Ephraim dying, but oh well I'll just have to remember that he's a scrub next time and bring a flyer over sooner!

Apparently even a ridiculously easy game can become a challenge if you give yourself enough limitations.

[DjinnAndTonic]

That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.

Brand loyalty because of two characters and no other involvement other than localizing? I need to get you to play more IF games then.

Maybe if Idea Factory games were fun enough to inspire that kind of brand loyalty.

Also, localizing is a big part of it. I generally really like NISA's localizations and hold them in high regard. Soul Nomad and Mana Khemia if I need specific examples of why. I haven't played any of the localizations that were apparently terrible, so my good opinion hasn't been tarnished.

[Meeplelard]

Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on.  At all.

[Shale]

Then you are indeed playing Unlimited SaGa.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Random thought: The Pirate chick from USaga and the Randomly-eyepatched King guy from Last Remnant look freakin' identical.

[AAA]

Mass Effect 2-

Man, this was a great game! All the mining was pretty awesome. You can mine a planet...and then you can mine more planets. Sometimes they make you go on missions, which adds to the anticipation of getting to mine more planets! It takes a little long sometimes, though, I sometimes just wanna mine something already guys can we cut the chatter? All the loyalty missions were great because you get new systems with lots of planets to mine! I usually just thought about all the mining I was gonna do while the characters talked about some galactic threat or something. I think the idea is Shepard retired after ME1 and became a successful mining company? You do get a pretty sweet ship. I dunno why I have to get assassins and mercenaries and vigilantes on my team but I guess mining must be a rough and tumble business.

I mined my Shepard into a Paragon, which I guess is nice because it makes people let you mine some more. I also mined as an Infiltrator, so I could use sniper mines, which are over powered. The mineshot damage is insane, and you can mine people in the head easily with the slowdown mine. Not that the other weapons were mine, just not as powerful as mine rifles. None of the enemy mines were particularly dangerous, and I only mineovered a few mines. The other mines were pretty mineful, and I was mining to mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine releasing direct control

Uh..what was I saying? Oh yeah, the game is damn good! The streamlining was a mixed bag. The weapon variety was severely cut, but in ME1 it was mostly 'rifle with slightly different stats' so it wasn't a major deal. Adding ammo was something I wasn't too keen on but turned out to be a stroke of genius. It forces you to rotate your weapon usage, use tech/biotics more, and generally was just a slick way to add variety. The ability/biotic tree is pretty simplified, which makes things kind of brainless at times. The game is also really easy, even easier than ME1.

Characters and plot were as well handled as you can expect from Bioware. The concept of Shepard is about the best way to go about making a CYOA main character without having him be a total milquetoast while still giving you some sort of input on how he reacts to events or people. The voice acting is superb, getting Martin Sheen was brilliant. Jacob's a cool dude, Miranda has this weird facial expression all the time but is otherwise a decent ice queen type, Garrus is a fucking badass, Moridin's funny as hell (and a surprisingly good singer), Jack's kinda meh, so is Samara, Tali's funny if you pursue a relationship with her, Grunt's no Wrex but he does a decent job, Thane's ok, and the secret character is actually interesting and adds some new, intriguing plot twists. Wish I could have gotten the DLC characters, but I bought the game used so the Cerberus network wouldn't work and like hell I'm paying 15 bucks for it.

Game was highly polished, interesting, and just lots of fun. An improvement from ME1 in basically every way, and I can't wait for ME3.

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/2438/taliface1.jpg
OR
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/5532/taliface2.jpg

[dude789]

FF XII: Beaten, I'll probably play a bit more to do some of the extra missions on Gran Pulse, but I don't think I'll end up doing all of them. Final team was Fang/Snow/Vanille. I don't really see myself ever replaying it but you never know. Probably the worst FF game since 8 for me, but I didn't really play that much of 12.

What the game did well:
-Graphics, as I said earlier the game is beautiful and the areas look great in addition to being incredibly detailed. Combat is also flashy and the characters are generally well animated. The scale of some of the areas is completely awesome.
-When it wants to the gameplay can be really fun and intense. Boss battles especially are fun and incorporate a bunch of different strategies. To give an example, this is the first time where most of my damage to the final boss came from POIZN.
-The characters themselves tend to get more likable or at least stay the same as the game goes on. Hope makes the biggest improvement and Lightning also transitions from super bitch to tolerable.
-Probably the first rankable final fantasy game since 10! Definately not next time, but depending on how fast it grows the ranking period after that could be good.  I'm currently undecided on whether I'm going to allow characters their first 3 classes only or their main 3 and a few levels of the other 3. As for bosses, I'd probably support Barthandelus. I'm not sure on the others.

What the game didn't do well:
-Plot, the plot is really difficult to understand during the Cocoon segments and dull during Gran Pulse. There are a ton of unanswered questions and I just feel that a lot of stuff was left out. The characters interacted well with some of the characters and completely ignored the others. Pretty much every character had at least one other person in the party who they didn't really interact with. This would be okay, but the game seems to make a big deal about the party being a family and the party pretty much has to carry the player's interest during the Gran Pulse sections of the game. This fails pretty badly. They really needed to add some other characters for the party to interact with because as it is, the Gran Pulse areas are boring.
-When the gameplay is bad, it's pretty bad. While some of the fights are really fun and exciting, there are too many other randoms who are overly tedious. The game really needed to adjust the amount of crystarium points given out, because a group of small monsters who take 15 seconds to kill with AoE attacks give out the same experience as one big monster who takes 2 minutes. This combined with a relatively low monster variety, meant that eventually I got bored with some of the randoms and tried avoiding them. Also while the outdoor areas where nice, the dungeons where hellish.
-Not being able to go back to old areas in Cocoon. The Gran Pulse areas were nice, but the best looking spots in the game were early on in Cocoon. I covered this earlier, but a bunch of people worked hard to make those areas look amazing and the game should at least let us go back to look at them again without having to start a new game.

Other notes:
-I thought the music was okay. Most of the songs were nice even if there weren't that many different songs and I think some people are being overly harsh on it. It was pretty easy to ignore in some places, but I feel that that's what it was going for sometimes. It didn't want to take too much from the visuals and sound effects and it did its job.
-Some minor gripes about the battle system. It would be nice to have an option for your team to spread out so they don't all get blasted at once with magic and a basic targeting system would also be nice so that you can choose whether your team focuses on a single enemy or spreads the pain. More items would also help to make the combat a bit more interesting.

Overall, it's worth playing for the visuals alone, but don't expect too much from the plot. Probably a 6 or 7/10 for me.

[Niu]

Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on.  At all.

At last!!! The punishment begins??
Who did you start with??

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I dunno why I have to get assassins and mercenaries and vigilantes on my team but I guess mining must be a rough and tumble business.

What, you thought all this strip mining you were doing was legal? Dream on. You're with Cerberus now, you're like Dennis Reynolds when he was being whored out: NO RULES.

Anyway... Alpha Protocol.

I'm in Moscow. I met "Sis" and I think they stole 75% of my design for my dream woman.
1- Dresses kinda trampy, but not TOO trampy.
2- Good with guns.
3- Clearly doesn't mind the cold very much.
4- Mute.

Seriously, though, I am enjoying this game a lot. Has some polish issues, but they're forgivable to me because I'm just digging the game's story so much.