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

[NotMiki]

Why must you always abuse the ones you love, Zenny?

What, is he cutting himself again?

[Cotigo]

HEY-OO~

[Excal]

Unlike Djinn, I only love Zenny for his alcohol induced rage.

Oh right, I've been playing stuff.

Been pretty uninterested in console/Japanese stuff of late.  So much so that the only Japanese game I'm playing right now is a knock off of an American Story.

Anyways, beaten the land of Spring.  Flora wasn't much of a challenge in spite of not getting the final skill.  Also making a point of upgrading weapons first, as first strike for Dorothy and the Scarecrow deals with a lot of troubles.  Tin Man is currently LVP, with Scarecrow running a close second for that fight (Plunder has been pretty useless as well).  Tin Man for the horrific Ratio issues, while Scarecrow has the Durability of fail.  Dorothy is the easy MVP combining great Ratio with good enough damage, speed and durability, as well as healing.


X-COM - Found my CD with this on it, so I reinstalled.  Currently got two forces, one stations in Istanbul, the other over in Sault St. Marie (Think where Lake Michigan meets Huron and Superior).  Mid-June right now, with the fun aliens starting to show up, though no bases found, yet.  Recently managed to use a Stun Bomb to nab me an Engineer and a Navigator (both Mutons) so Hyper Wave Jammer, here we come.

Dwarf Fortress - My main game right now.  It's like Sim City, except it's underground, and instead of sims, it has alcoholic midgets with waraxes.  Managed to mostly figure out how things work, and attempt #8 has seen me survive two and a half years, and get a thriving population of 82 dwarves with a bustling Steel and Platinum industry.  Sadly, any attempts to get regular meat has involved poor ends for the hunters involving wolves.  On the other hand, every now and then random herds of apes try to screw me over and it ends with me getting free ape meat.

Currently trying to figure out how to get a freaking millstone to work, though experimentation should soon provide a breakthrough.  Hopefully before the new, slightly insane Mayor, declares a law that prohibits building Millstones.

[Ultradude]

FE7 Harem Replay, savestate fun!

Oh hey it's that big nasty Nerga-*ELIWOOD ONE-SHOT*

Okay that wasn't so bad but maybe this fucking Dragon wi-*ELIWOOD ONE-ROUND*

...

Thank you for Ashera, IS. Thank you so much.

[Niu]

Unlimited Saga: I am almost getting a hang of things.  Problem is, the game is ridiculously boring and unengaging and I'm not suer how long it even is.

I'd say where I am, but honestly not sure; game doesn't exactly have a PLOT to for me to keep track of.

Who are you playing as exactly??

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Been playing Deadwood: The Game (aka "Red Dead Redemption.") Pretty fun so far in that me and the Marshal bust heads while everyone else makes me jealous of their superior beards.

Anyway, I believe this game has the best masked insult on an entire character archetype ever: "I suspect you speak in riddles simply to hide the fact that you have nothing resembling a personality."

[Pyro]

XE: Beaten. Well, not really but I got the final boss down to critical before he went all "RAR OVERKILL YOUR ENTIRE PARTY BY 4X RAR" and I don't care enough to go through all the fights up to that again. So yeah whatever.

Demon's Souls: Beat the Dragon God in the Stonefang tunnel. Guess I'm onto finishing the Castle/Palace and then moving to other areas.

Fuck the swamp, by the way. In the ass. With a burning poker.

[Talaysen]

Spectral Souls - Beat Hans and Anderson.  Had to kite them around while spamming heal to win but still beat the 99 turn limit so whatever.  Next fight was a joke, so I'm now at some Historical Moment thing.  Watched a plot scene and then stopped.

[Rozalia]

It saddens me to think I guessed the whole plot of the game like that. Not because I'm a SO fanboy or anything but more because now I know the games just gonna keep rolling downhill. Thus far the best villain has been lord Allen, can SO2 produce a better villain? I'm guessing no.

[Meeplelard]

Thing about SO2 is that the end of the first disc sets itself up such that you think something interesting is going to happen.  The stuff on the first disc is mostly just set up, but its handled decently well.

Disc 2 comes along and...its mostly just side quests with lame explanations for everything, kind of dropping ball on some of them like 'hay guys, did you know that this is the truth!? Its so ridiculous IT MUST BE KOOL!!'  They completely forgot any remote chemistry the first disc had, and what had some potential interest was replaced with crack induced explanations, so yeah.

Its not like XS3 where its outright offensive, mind; this just falls under being plain generic stupid, and the fact that it is a follow up to something with potential makes it worse.

[Hunter Sopko]

can SO2 produce a better villain? I'm guessing no.

He wants to destroy the entire SO2 universe. I can get behind that.

[Sierra]

X-Com: Still trying out different stuff despite advice because, hell, I researched it, may as well experiment with everything firsthand since I've got it. Can see why laser rifles would be good throughout the game; low TU cost often makes it nicer to have than something that does more damage per hit.

I still do have one person hauling around a rocket launcher just because it does come in handy on occasion. Taking out two reapers with one shot? That was pretty nice. It's nice to have the option of long-range AoE nukings when it's needed, and I don't yet have a replacement in that department.

Heavy lasers don't have autofire? Fail. I made a couple just to try them out, but that'll be all I bother with given that glaring disadvantage. Autofire's just too useful an option for when you round a corner and run right into an alien. Best choice for close-quarters fire. Also, shooting through a wall and twice hitting the enemy I only suspected was on the other side? That was pretty cool. I like being able to do things like that. (I frequently blow holes in walls just to save time even when I don't think there are enemies around.)

Chrysalids are showing up now. They are jerks. Great Britain allied with the aliens. They are bigger jerks.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - Finished the replay! Man the villain of the final case is such a douchebag. I love it.


Pokemon Soul Silver: Five gyms beaten. Chuck didn't like Crobat at all but who is shocked by this? Team is Crobat, Steelix, Croconaw, Jumpluff, Vulpix (will be Ninetales as soon as I pick up the game next since it's Tuesday and I can buy a Fire Stone), and Togetic. Crobat is my best pokemon at the moment, Togetic I am looking to replace because he is just too slow, even though Encore has had some pretty cool applications. I'll pick Togetic up again when I do the aftergame, I think.

[Captain K.]

HG:  Lots of Pokeathlon-ing.  Think I have around 20 crowns now.

Fantasy Earth Zero:  Tried it, seems like it has some decent PVP but the interface is so horrible it's not worth playing.  Just trying to move around town is ridiculously difficult.

Tales of Symphonia:  Not as bad as I remembered it.  Mostly because I'm pretending none of the characters exist except for Raine and Zelos.  Lack of sceneskip makes this difficult however.  Collecting Summons in Tethealla at the moment.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - Finished the replay! Man the villain of the final case is such a douchebag. I love it.

Thumbs up. How do you rank the cases thus far?

[BaconForTheSoul]

SC2 Beta, done for the time being.  Not sure how many people plan on playing it, but here's my overall review of the beta.

Balancing
1v1- Terran had a pretty ridiculous edge with their mech build, especially against Zerg.  Tanks annihilated any and all zerg ground and 2-3 Thors could take on about 6000 mutalisks.  The only way for Zerg to win was to A. be a far better player, or B. have far better macro.  As it was, even Idra (best Zerg player alive, proly best player alive) had trouble beating the top Terrans.  In a patch that came out in the final week, Tanks saw their damage reduced from 60 to 50, which is pretty significant.  This meant it took one extra blast to kill a Roach (zerg unit), which gave zerg some prayer on the ground.  Didn't get to see any high level tourneys after the patch so not sure if it was enough of a nerf.  Everything else seemed okay, although 1v1 bores me a bit.  Games are all too similar.  If you go random you have 9 possible matchups, you also just try to counter the enemy.  In 2v2+ there are far more matchups and you can't straight counter an enemy since his teammate usually has him covered.  Just my preference though.

2v2- There are a couple of rushes that are effectively unstoppable on most of the current maps.  (I went 20-0 as Zerg using one of these and it was the first 20 times I played Zerg.)  Not sure how to stop these tactics without killing 1v1 games though other than making maps slightly larger.  Still, games that don't have the 8pool/reaper proxy or the 8pool/gateway proxy tend to be pretty balanced with the better team winning.

3v3- Added a few weeks ago, definitely my favorite game type.  They only had one 3v3 map, but it felt FAR more balanced and fun than ANY of the 2v2 maps.  Also, in 2v2 if you lose an ally to a bullshit rush, you're fucked unless your opponents blow.  Sure, they are behind on eco, but it's still 2v1.  In 3s this is not the case.  If all 3 bullshit rush an ally you're still playing 2v3 instead of 1v2.  This is obviously a far better ratio and I played plenty of games where we lost someone early only to come back and win pretty easily.  There are also insane amounts of matchups possible, keeping the game from getting dull.  As of now I've seen no "super strat" that can just outright win games.  (A popular commentator made a video of a tri 7 pool rush being unbeatable.  Yeah, we got lucky enough to pull his team in a 3v3 and massacre his unbeatable strat.)

4v4- These games are just crazy.  Only one map as well, which would have been a good map if ONE BASE DIDN'T HAVE THE MAIN BUILDING A FULL SPACE TO THE LEFT.  HUGE oversight that hurt the hell out of 1 player each game.  Didn't make a difference 9/10 games due to skill differences, but in close games it definitely mattered.  Fours seems pretty balanced too, with no uber team/strat or anything like that.  The early game rushes are popular, but as with 3v3, if you lose an ally to an all-in rush, it is easy to counter with good players on your squad.

Matchmaking

Always important in games like this is the matchmaking.  Blizzard created 5 divisions.  Diamonds/Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze.  You play in 5 placement matches that decide your division.  I have two beefs with this.  1. You can go 5-0 in placement and get either Diamond, Platinum, or Gold based on who you played against.  This is dumb.  Gold league is an absolute joke to high level players and you shouldn't be stuck there after going 5-0 because of drawing garbage opponents in placement.  It's also not fair to gold players who have to play the top teams 15-20 times before they can upgrade.  Hopefully this is fixed before release.  2. Divisions have 100 players in them right now.  Meaning... being rank 1 in Diamond is a joke.  Let's say 1/5 people are in Diamond, with 100 per division.  If 1 million people are playing online when the game comes out  then 2000 people will be ranked 1 in 1v1.  TWO THOUSAND.  You can be "rank 1" and not be a top player at all.  I'm fine with the division but hopefully the 100 per was just a beta thing.  I'd like to see 1000-2000 in a division come release.  That way being a top 10 diamond player actually means something.  (I've heard rumors of a "pro" league above diamond that will be hard to get into.  That'd be cool.)

I'm betting Blizzard will get some feedback on this and correct things for release.  Mainly the whole 5-0 in gold thing.

Interface

This isn't completed, but it's pretty awesome with a couple of flaws.  The overall layout is really cool and easy to use.  The one downside is no chat rooms... you also need a friend's E-mail address or facebook account to become real ID friends!  (The facebook thing is cool, but wish it wasn't the only good option.)  Other than the friends/chat issues it's awesome though.  Tabs for games, replays, achievements, etc.  Achievements are silly just like in all games, but kind of fun.  I've also heard rumors that there are going to be "challenge" achievements.  Like extra scenarios to do.  Hopefully they are tough.

Overall

Some obvious issues to deal with, but that's what the next 1.5 months are for.  They're all interface/battle.net issues as well, so they're easily fixable.

And shameless plug, if anyone is curious to see some games.  Look up PsyStarcraft on youtube.  He's my brother and I think the 4th most viewed commentator.  He's probably a top 20-25 1v1 player from Beta and had a good record vs a lot of the top pros.  (Except Idra.)

[Monkeyfinger]

It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.

[AndrewRogue]

It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.

Not half as annoying as how people pretend the other aspect of Blizzard games suck.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.

Not half as annoying as how people pretend the other aspect of Blizzard games suck.

Multiplayer would be kind of fun if North Korea would take out South Korea for me. As it stands, though...

[Twilkitri]

Lunar Genesis -

Recently 'got back' from the Frontier, which is not exactly the world's preeminent holiday destination. After entering the Frontier, Jian had one of his little episodes and turned down an offer of guidance from Rufus in favour of asking a woman he only just met and knows nothing about to do it. This is one of the women that has in theory spent her whole life in hiding from the Vile Tribe underground. Now she does say that she knows the terrain and such but this is only after Jian has popped the question on her, and we find out later that she didn't know anything about anywhere past the first next area anyway. Meanwhile Rufus claimed to know the entire layout in his initial offer, although to be fair god knows how he could have this information (unless he got that far initially and was brought back, I suppose).

Meanwhile, we get to use a stone that weakens Althena's power in order to delude the Vile Tribe into thinking that we aren't humans/beastmen. I. Don't. Understand. How. That. Works. Furthermore it doesn't seem to work on any of the people that aren't in the town, although I'm not entirely sure where the Vile Tribe race stops and monsters begin, and if you push it we may have only seen one actual Vile Tribe member out of town (and he might even not be one...).

One good thing is that the woman (Flora) has Althena Magic which we recently lost access to. This is on the continent where Althena magic is supposed to be weak to non-existant. While we are carrying around rocks which weaken Althena's power. Whatever she is a source of healing.

Anyways, we need to go through Elda Valley in order to get to Vile Castle. So we leave town and the only option available to us is some mines I forget the name of. No-one said anything about needing to go through mines first. Or about needing to go through a desert after that. And at the end of the desert Jian refuses to take the girls any further and decides to go through Elda Valley and Vile Castle on his own without any magical healing. Jian, when did you last visit your psychiatrist.

To make matters worse Jian got poisoned pretty early in Elda and had no way of curing it -_- Fortunately I had more than enough healing items/cards in stock to last until I happily turned up a status curer in the valley (which I believe is actually the first one from a chest I've seen so far).



Ben There, Dan That -

Nice little adventure. Sufficient incidental actions to appease my hunger.

[Strago]

Alpha Protocol -

Bought this because of my burning passion for Chris Avellone's plotmeat. Started a game on Hard mode as a Freelancer, spreading my skill points more or less evenly among Stealth, Pistols, Sabotage and Tech Whatever-it-is. Planning on playing him with a mostly professional demeanor, though if someone really pisses me off and I'm forced to go Jack Bauer and bite him to death, I hardly feel I can be blamed for that.

So the game starts out... in almost exactly the same way as Mass Effect 2! Well, okay, that's fine, I'm sure Obsidian will do something or other to make their mark on the old "wake up in creepy government/para-military facility with no equipment and an I.V. in your arm and fight your way out" tutorial scenario. Right?

I can't quite comment on whether or not they do, yet. I'm finding the game rather difficult to actually play. The graphical glitches on Mike's character model aren't actually detrimental to the gameplay, but they are annoying and kill the mood just a touch. I'm also finding that controlling with the mouse is pretty problematic; I try to make a 30-degree turn in my perspective and end up whipping the camera around a full one-eighty and suddenly oh look I'm getting shot to death before I can re-orient. I tried lowering my mouse sensitivity, but that just makes the stpid lock-picking mini-games* impossible without improving the camera control issues. Aiming my gun has similar extremely unpleasant problems, but I think part of that might be that I only have one rank in Pistols? Anyone care to comment on whether that gets better?

So, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to play enough even to get past the tutorial yet. I'm sure it will get less frustrating, particularly when the plot actually starts happening. I have... moderately high hopes for certain aspects of the game. And if they don't pan out, I suppose I'll just go back and re-play Thief and Deus Ex.

Or play X-Com or Dwarf Fortress and give them more than a five-minute chance. El Cid and Excal are piquing my interest.

*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.

[Clear Tranquil]

FFT- With super around there was no escaping this. Fun so far apart from CT rage at the first map which super thought was hilarious >.> Running Ramza as a Monk with Mettle as his secondary, another Monk who was a tank Knight with item spam for a while, a Orator with White Magic as her secondary and a Summoner with Time Magic currently. Saved just after Mustadio joins at the Clockwork city. Getting anywhere does sometimes seem to take forever at times what with random battles and all but really I'm just spoiled by ARPG type battle systems~

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Alpha Protocol -

Bought this because of my burning passion for Chris Avellone's plotmeat. Started a game on Hard mode as a Freelancer, spreading my skill points more or less evenly among Stealth, Pistols, Sabotage and Tech Whatever-it-is. Planning on playing him with a mostly professional demeanor, though if someone really pisses me off and I'm forced to go Jack Bauer and bite him to death, I hardly feel I can be blamed for that.

So the game starts out... in almost exactly the same way as Mass Effect 2! Well, okay, that's fine, I'm sure Obsidian will do something or other to make their mark on the old "wake up in creepy government/para-military facility with no equipment and an I.V. in your arm and fight your way out" tutorial scenario. Right?

I can't quite comment on whether or not they do, yet. I'm finding the game rather difficult to actually play. The graphical glitches on Mike's character model aren't actually detrimental to the gameplay, but they are annoying and kill the mood just a touch. I'm also finding that controlling with the mouse is pretty problematic; I try to make a 30-degree turn in my perspective and end up whipping the camera around a full one-eighty and suddenly oh look I'm getting shot to death before I can re-orient. I tried lowering my mouse sensitivity, but that just makes the stpid lock-picking mini-games* impossible without improving the camera control issues. Aiming my gun has similar extremely unpleasant problems, but I think part of that might be that I only have one rank in Pistols? Anyone care to comment on whether that gets better?

So, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to play enough even to get past the tutorial yet. I'm sure it will get less frustrating, particularly when the plot actually starts happening. I have... moderately high hopes for certain aspects of the game. And if they don't pan out, I suppose I'll just go back and re-play Thief and Deus Ex.

Or play X-Com or Dwarf Fortress and give them more than a five-minute chance. El Cid and Excal are piquing my interest.

*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.

Once you hit rank 3 or so in Pistols, you can line shots up from behind cover and it takes much less time. So yeah.

[Just Another Day]

*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.

I thought the Fallout 3 minigames, lockpicking and hacking, were pretty decent. Other than the kinda bullshit getting locked out of a computer forever if you fail hard enough. Lockpicking was quick and intuitive, mostly resource dependent (if you suck, you run out of bobby pins pretty easy) rather than game-stopping, with your skill level determining which locks you're allowed to try. Hacking was a game of mastermind, basically, which I at least enjoyed. Neither were brilliant or perfect, but both were a damn sight better than I've seen in other games.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I thought the Fallout 3 minigames, lockpicking and hacking, were pretty decent. Other than the kinda bullshit getting locked out of a computer forever if you fail hard enough.

There was a perk for that.