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

[Just Another Day]

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.

Yeah, not one I'd ever recommend but it is there as a rescue. There's one for lockpicks too, though it's much harder to bust a lock permanently. You can also just bail before making your last guess if you're not absolutely certain you're correct. It just seems like somewhat questionable design, is all. Seems to me like the game coulda punished failure somehow (damage/rads/item consumption/alerts enemies) without closing off parts of the game ~permanently. At max level you're SOL for knacks, after all. Even a rare and/or expensive item that lets you reactivate a terminal or lock would do the trick better, I think.

[Shale]

FFV: About ready to finish off Exdeath. Killed Shinryu after a day of trying off and on, mainly with Lenna jumping on him with the Dragon Lance. Ragnarok should make Rapid Fire cheese in the final battle that much cheesier.

[Grefter]

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.

See I spent $50 to play an RPG, not fucking Mastermind.  I could download Mastermind off of Sourceforge for nothing.  It is a very valid complaint that these things are so ubiquitous and take away from the skill of the character in an RPG and put it more on the player (see lockpicking in Oblivion being passable with 0 skill when picklocking a Very Hard lock).  Thief gets away with it because it is a core component of the gameplay, it takes time to pick a lock and there might still be a guard patrolling.  Oh and it also isn't an RPG.

They are in AP and it doesn't do the game any favours, but you get so used to them that you are just like whatever.  I didn't have the camera problem Strago, but it is documented, check Obsidian website, might be a fix for it.  Rank...3 Technical Aptitiude I think it is lets you bypass all minigames with EMP grenades, so you can take that route if it bothers you a lot.

[Hunter Sopko]

But Grefter, it's not roleplaying if you're not able to do take part in everything your character does! It's EVEN BETTER roleplaying when you have to do everything FOR your character!

[DomaDragoon]

Wow, it has been some time since I posted in here. Lately, I've been playing Burnout Paradise on the PS3, because smashing into gates and jumping around in a version of the General Lee never gets unfun. Also started up on The Saboteur, which is apparently supposed to be GTA: Occupied Paris.

[Talaysen]

Spectral Souls - So for frue ending I have to beat Hiro without killing all her support (well, the game says don't kill ANY enemy but lolnisa).  Fortunately they're morons and don't move unless I get into range, so leaving one alive is the easy part.  The hard part is beating Hiro.  Hiro has over 5000 HP when the highest HP I've seen before now is 2000.  Well, guess it'll just be a slugfest, right?

So I kill all the enemies but two, then go after her.  Then she does 500x2 to my ~1200 HP and all of that is draining.  1000+ HP draining.  Uh yeah, she pretty much just kills everyone after that and I can't outpace the draining.

So I have to pull out my SEKRIT WEAPON.  Marx.  Yeah, yeah, Marx sucks horribly.  No range, shitty stats, shitty stat growths, and is underlevelled.

But what he has is Boldness (increases SP each turn) and Cheer Up (uses 2 SP to give everyone in range 2 SP).

So yeah, I kill everyone except one guy and Hiro, and then just stand out of her range spamming Speed Up and attacking allies to gain SP and then have Marx use Cheer Up until everyone is at 4 SP.

And then I blitz the SHIT out of her.  Even one turn of unloading EX moves (with CHAAAAAAAAAAARGE abuse, of course), she doesn't die.  Only took out like 75% HP.  She spends the next turn spamming EX skills (she has Boldness too so probably had 3 or 4 SP by this point) which do a lot of damage but don't heal her, which is definitely good for me.  Naiz dies and everyone else is wounded, but I unload everything I have for one more turn and overkill her quite soundly.

So yeah, not as hard as I thought at first.  Thought I was going to have grind, but turns out that I didn't.  Also got a White Frame for killing her, which is pretty damn good at this point in the game (almost 100 more DEF than the armors I had before).

[Taishyr]

Pokemon Platinum: Finally decided to finish Elite 4 on this. Got some general comments on both E4+Champ and my team.

E4)
Aaron: Yanmega (and in one insanely pathetic run, VESPIQUEN) are the only two remote threats he has - both due to defensive buffing. Otherwise, easy.

Bertha: Roserade solo outside of Gliscor who usually gets Golem Explosion'd because I dislike dealing with it and STAB Earthquake ludicrousness.

Flint: Golem solo. Despite having Empoleon. Empoleon proved surprisingly worthless against his entire team, 2HKOing and not having enough durability to survive retaliations from a fair few of them. Not sure what's up there.

Lucian: This guy stonewalled me for a while until I started leading with a Spiritomb to keep that damn Gallade in the back lines. A revived Golem + Lucario PAWNCH dealt with Bronzong, Crobat takes out Gallade (and Heracross of Aaron's squad.)

Cynthia: ...All I have to say here is that I relied on QUICK CLAW EMPOLEON BLIZZARD to kill that goddamn Garchomp. mutter. Fortunately Spiritomb took one look at Empoleon and rolled over so luring the Garchomp out that way was easy.


Team for most of game: Empoleon, Crobat, Golem, Alakazam, Lucario, Roserade. Yeah, massively Ground-weak and without a few key offensive types. I caught onto that at the E4, beforehand no one used them enough for me to care/I had something to hit weakness with. Crobat/Lucario share MVP, Alakazam LVP primarily due to Psychic not faring well after a point (lolquake spam). Alakazam was subbed out for Spiritomb to deal with Lucian's bullshit.

[Grefter]

This man has applied my teachings and come out victorious.  You could all take lessons from him.

You need to use more Geodude.

[SageAcrin]

To be honest, these days I feel like Geodude is about like running Abra.

Except without the horrible startup and instead a ridiculous early period. And somewhat less impressive late. Not much.

I don't use Geodude much now because it's too frigging overkill half the time is what I'm saying(That, and it's a trade evo, but assuming you can get around that for both). So yeah, agreed!

[Taishyr]

This was my first time using Geodude-line. While I probably had better options, it was definitely worth it, and Explosion saved my -ass- the multiple times it picked up.

(Also, is it funny or sad that Garchomp's stupid Berry saved my ass? I managed to freeze it with the first hit... and knocked it into the red. ...and then the berry kicked Garchomp back out of Full Restore territory.)

Empoleon... performed fine outside of E4 We Have Moves Of All Types (But Specifically Everyone Has Earthquake, lol), thinking on it.

[Twilkitri]

Lunar Genesis -

So Flora turned back up. How she did this considering that the only way out of the Frontier on foot is impassable is never explained. Whatever, access to magic healing again. There is another joke about Flora knowing the lay of the land when she actually doesn't. Hopefully this does not continue throughout the game, although I could always just stop checking the discussions.

Red Dragon Cave! They were advised to jump into every hole they see in order to find a particular item. There is only one hole in the cave and they don't need to jump into it. Kinda lame guidance there, Titus. I was wondering partway through the cave whether he was actually talking about the antlion pits in the previous area but fortunately I found what he was on about before I decided to test that theory out.

White Dragon Cave! Icicles fall, nobody dies. The White Dragon congratulates Jian on having passed the trial and Gabryel/Flora are glad that they don't have to fight him, but no, Jian insists. What's worse is that this turns out to be the right course of action. JIAN'S MADNESS DOES NOT NEED ENCOURAGEMENT

Both the dragons so far were pretty lame, spending at least half of their turns doing nothing. Not sure what's up with that.

Random equipment breaking is becoming increasingly irritating.

[Shale]

FFV: Exdeath has been lumberjacked. STarted the Sealed Temple but got bored. May come back with Flee or Smoke...something to let me run away from the same damn random enemies I've been fighting all endgame.

[Idun]

Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.

[Meeplelard]

FFV: Exdeath has been lumberjacked. STarted the Sealed Temple but got bored. May come back with Flee or Smoke...something to let me run away from the same damn random enemies I've been fighting all endgame.

Master Oracle, and get Read Ahead; this drops encounter rate dramatically, and makes things go far more smoothly.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.

It's a Dragon Quest game. You're expecting what from it, exactly, besides fetch quests and level grinding?

[Shale]

Yangus.

[hinode]

Lots and lots of But Thou Must.

[NotMiki]

Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.

You can see DQ8 in two lights: boring, or uneventful.  Boring is when you're driving to work and nothing interesting happens.  Uneventful is when you're driving to work and you don't get in a car crash.  Looking for excitement?  Not the game for you.  Feel like an old man minus a porch and a rocking chair?  Fire that baby up.

[Idun]

I didn't have any expectations really.

[Just Another Day]

What with ludicrous amounts of stress and busyness, Valkyria Chronicles expert mode has become less and less what I need in a game. Not that I don't endorse it wholeheartedly, but it's almost hilariously difficult, with even the vaguest pretense of fairness on the enemy's part totally out the window. So fun, but I don't necessarily feel the need to be punished mercilessly for the slightest mistake right now.

So, pokemon! Platinum, not very far into it yet. Bashful penguin and evil starling are the definite MVPs so far, stupid-looking ratata-clone beaver the most disappointing. Well, okay, the cricket is useless too, but I had lower expectations of early-game bugs.

I'm an obsessive completionist, so this may fall by the wayside in the urge to catch-'em-motherfucking-all, but I was thinking I may try a medieval great chain of being-themed playthrough, focusing on pokemon from the top of their respective food-chains (so winged snakes if I can find any, royalty, lions, elephants, roses, oak, gold, diamonds, eagles) and see if I can't put together a decent final team therein.

[DjinnAndTonic]

focusing on pokemon from the top of their respective food-chains (so winged snakes if I can find any, royalty, lions, elephants, roses, oak, gold, diamonds, eagles)

Winged snakes? What?

This theme makes no sense to me. What do winged snakes and diamonds have to do with eachother in terms of a theme?

[OblivionKnight]

Diamonds are forever.  Winged Snakes are immortal beasts.  Seems obvious to me! 

Also, oaks are clearly at the top of the animal food chain.  Kite-Eating Tree, anyone?

[Just Another Day]

Some medieval christian philosophy organizes the world into tiered hierarchies (God->Angels->Humans->Animals->Plants->Rocks, usually), and draws parallels between individuals occupying the same rank in each hierarchy, particularly at the top. So symbolically speaking a king (at the top of the human hierarchy) can be represented by a lion (top of the animal hierarchy) or a diamond (top of the stone hierarchy). Oak is the king of trees, rose the king of flowers, etc. etc.

Winged snake is a bit tongue in cheek, it's how I personally envision seraphim (top of the angel hierarchy), due largely to the influence of In Nomine.

So, yeah, um, I'm a dork, I suppose. I just realized that empoleon was totally the top of the penguin hierarchy and went from there.

[Meeplelard]

Unlimited Saga: So I got to a town, went to some Plains or something and a big festival scene occurred...

...wait, you mean this game has a PLOT now!?

[Niu]

Unlimited Saga: So I got to a town, went to some Plains or something and a big festival scene occurred...

...wait, you mean this game has a PLOT now!?

What character you are playing as exactly?