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

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Blizzard is also taking down maps that use "trademarked" products.

If they hold true to this... 90% of non Dota WC3 customs would not exist.

People enjoy bitching about B-Net 2.0... I fail to see how most of the features are a problem, but the custom map issue does suck.  There are two sides to this.

Point: Customs are a "bonus" to the game so Blizzard can do what they want.
Counterpoint: These custom maps are NORMAL PEOPLE FOR NO PAY creating incentive for people like Rob to log onto Battlenet... thus helping Blizzard.  Why Blizzard would stifle these people is silly.  (I mean fuck, think how many people still play WC3 just for Dota.)

Adding to that, if it weren't for Footmen Frenzy, to this day I still would not give a shit about RTS games.  And now I'm sitting here playing WC3 and enjoying it. 

So, yeah.  Custom maps.  Stop being stupid about them, Blizzard.

I honestly don't enjoy the normal mode of Blizzard RTS play... damn near at all. I like gimmick maps, which their engine is great for and go sadly underutilized, but as far as "build a base, build an army, smash other dudes," I don't understand why anyone would play their shit over TA/SupCom.

[Shale]

Bayonetta hard: Doing okay! Got gold/gold/silver on the first three levels, most of the way through the fourth. Cleared most of the Alfheims so far, except for the one that gives you limited kicks and punches against two Beloveds, because seriously, screw that.

So far it's definitely challenging but balanced. Good stuff, really forces you to dodge properly and attack with strategy. Oddly, the first verse of chapter 3 (the level of fire) got easier, because it has no flaming enemies. Weird choice.

[Excal]

SH2 - Plot continues rolling along.  Just dealt with Ishimura, and Roger Bacon redeems his earlier appearances.  About to crash his place again for some fun.

Current party is Anastasia, Kurando, Yuri and Karin.  Karin getting in for the 18 hit move of doom, and Anastasia for the general magical support.  The other two should need no explaination as their stats are just insane.

[Dhyerwolf]

FF 13- Yeah, up to the open range part. Hmm, not sure how much I'll actually want to do though. Gorgeous areas, but the lingering spirit of FF 12 haunts it for sure! I'll at least look into  the first couple of hunts, but seems like they'll involve lots and lots of running around, which is eh. Part of the motivation is that it seems that CSP is now definitely going to really ramp up cost wise.

[Magic Fanatic]

Current party is Anastasia, Kurando, Yuri and Karin.  Karin getting in for the 18 hit move of doom, and Anastasia for the general magical support.  The other two should need no explaination as their stats are just insane.

That's also the party that, after all the side-quest upgrades, has the highest hit count of any team combination in the game.  Go go For the Children/Geuschbenst/Power Cannon/Heavenquake!?


Blazblue CS: I've been practice as Makoto.  I'm not very good.

[Captain K.]

Blazblue CS: I've been practice as Makoto.  I'm not very good.

Just curious, since you bought it:  what's your opinion on DLC for the game being released one week after the game was?  It's causing quite a shitstorm on shoryuken.com.

[Shale]

Did anybody not think it was coming? After they (a) released those characters as DLC-only in Japan and (b) didn't put them on the disc for the US version, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see how it was going to go. Why not just get it over with?

Edit: Also, in my rather arrogant opinion, releasing DLC a week after the game is unobjectionable. Charging an extra 24 freaking dollars to unlock all the new characters, now, that's bullshit.

[Magic Fanatic]

Just curious, since you bought it:  what's your opinion on DLC for the game being released one week after the game was?  It's causing quite a shitstorm on shoryuken.com.

Truth be told, I'm just annoyed that it took so long.  I'd been hoping it'd be available the day the game came out, myself; that's also me not knowing when the PSN store upkeep time was handled, though.

If other people want to freak out about it, that's their problem.  I just want to have fun.

I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high.  If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right?  It's just the way the economic world works.

[Talaysen]

FF 13- Yeah, up to the open range part. Hmm, not sure how much I'll actually want to do though. Gorgeous areas, but the lingering spirit of FF 12 haunts it for sure! I'll at least look into  the first couple of hunts, but seems like they'll involve lots and lots of running around, which is eh. Part of the motivation is that it seems that CSP is now definitely going to really ramp up cost wise.

Some of the hunts unlock teleports, which help reduce the amount of running around.  You also unlock chocobos after a few hunts, which help as well.

I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high.  If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right?  It's just the way the economic world works.

And thinking like this is why businesses can keep getting away with robbing people of their money.

---

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift - Got this.  Did Ragna's story and Rachel's story.  Tried some challenges but they were stupidly hard so screw that.  Played a few online matches and got a decent win record on those I guess.  Single player stuff is boring as usual though.

Starcraft II - Did a couple of campaign missions, got bored.  Probably will have to move through this slowly.

Arc Rise Fantasia - Did a bunch of the guild quests.  They're pretty boring and the rewards kind of suck but it let me level up my weapons a bit I guess.  Also later quests need earlier ones to unlock anyway...  Also, Cecille Falcon PAUNCHes things to death.  10/10

[SageAcrin]

I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high.  If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right?  It's just the way the economic world works.

And thinking like this is why businesses can keep getting away with robbing people of their money.

And the fact that only a few of your most dedicated fans feel like that is why it's an inferior way of handling things. See: PS3.

Final Fantasy 6 Eviltype:

1.1b9. AKA up to the scenario split. I should work on this a bit more so I can get the full thing released.

Pretty happy with the new steal list, Sketch seems to be working pretty well too based on the Moogle that can do it. Otherwise can't comment much on my own changes yet. >_>

Namco X Capcom:

Finished the first two stages.

The translation that's out there is rough(rarely drops out of the bottom boundary of text boxes and clearly could have used more proofing), but all in all it's servicable.

Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>

NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.

[SageAcrin]

Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>

NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.

Well, it's not AHAHA NOT THOUGHT THROUGH kind of unbalance, at least, so far. It's more like underplaytested combined with so many weird ideas that they had a hard time figuring out how much they were worth.

Shion/MOMO for instance is below average but has a fair deal of range, which seems like they meant that to be their focus...but were afraid it would be too useful due to AP consumption on move, so they didn't give it a triangle move on long range. Ultimately this just makes it kinda poor.

Klonoa/Gantz?(Forget the other guy's name) on the other hand was about range, mobility, some weird things, etc, and designed to be useful when it used an omnistat buff that it starts with..in actual fact said buff just makes it average. Which isn't too bad right now but I'd imagine you know other buffs exist on other people.

Of course some of the unbalance is clearly on purpose(Gilgamesh is already getting plot hype so Gil/Kai being bad would be a surprise, and Monolith is a bunch of KOS-MOS fangirls), but.

[Xeroma]

Gil and Ki are actually below average by the time they join permanently.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>

NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.

Well, it's not AHAHA NOT THOUGHT THROUGH kind of unbalance, at least, so far. It's more like underplaytested combined with so many weird ideas that they had a hard time figuring out how much they were worth.

Shion/MOMO for instance is below average but has a fair deal of range, which seems like they meant that to be their focus...but were afraid it would be too useful due to AP consumption on move, so they didn't give it a triangle move on long range. Ultimately this just makes it kinda poor.

AP on movement matters? You just have things hit you if AP is an issue, and the game is unbalanced enough to let you heal before you get attacked. There's a fair deal of "ahahahahaha not thought through". Shion/MOMO do become notably better, though.

[SageAcrin]

I didn't say they managed this well. They thought about it, they just didn't playtest it and didn't understand their own beast well enough.

Kinda surprised about Gil/Ki, they look like they have some decent later skills. Must be a stat problem. Or possibly just their epic comboability.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Epic comboability. Gil/Ki become all about the tanking, which at least they do well.

EDIT: Speaking of which, epic comboability kills a lot of units. One of the biggest offenders is Hiromi/Tobi, who have absolutely insane mobility, good range -and- an insane attack stat - yet fail hardcore at offense because stringing together their attacks is an exercise in futility, and their sole branch abusing method is one of the fucking hardest in the whole game. Good luck stringing air combos with them at all.

[Niu]

Y's vs. ED6- This is indeed a fan disk of hell. The actual game content is really not much. 70% of the game are illustration and music collections. Not that I object, consider a lot of those I don't have. Oh and god, is Lowe broken when you actually get to use him.

BB CS- Mu 12 is so hard to pro, the micromanaging she requires is kinda bullshitty in a FTG. But then, are those Ame no Habakiri stupidly powerful and good at evade hunt.

Kinda surprised about Gil/Ki, they look like they have some decent later skills. Must be a stat problem. Or possibly just their epic comboability.

The power balance in NxC is pretty clear cut. There is those who can do three loops or more and those don't. Gil/Ki can't, so they go down. At least they don't suck on other utility purposes, and passable as a front liner.

Though, I honestly don't find Klonoa/Gants to be that bad, seems to be an effective long range chipper and death kill stealer.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, NxC is so goddamn easy (enemies utterly fail at damage and durability) that you shouldn't struggle to keep your -entire army- somewhat up to speed, and everybody to some extent is able to enjoy the ridiculous brokenness of the base systems. Even complete shit like Taizo and Hiromi/Toby are usable due to that.

EDIT: Also, some people get away with not being able to get extra branches every two or three hits. Notably, Demitri and Reiji/Xiaomu pull this off, as does Strider.

[Niu]

But I doubt anyone would bother with Mitsurugi.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's because Mitsurugi isn't one of the people who get away with it. Also, thanks for reminding me of how badly he fails. Yay attack stat! Coupled with horrible mults, failure comboability and suckass durability and spells!

[OblivionKnight]

Goddamned Teletori Spy

[SageAcrin]

Goddamned Teletori Spy

Teletori spy record against me:

One win. Stabbing me in the ass from gear to metal when I wasn't being proactive against spies enough, because I do that only after I get nailed.

One loss as he ate shotgun to the ass.

One tie as we both blew up.

One derp as he sapped my Sentry then missed the teleporter visible from that spot approximately twenty feet away.

I think he's about par.

[Dhyerwolf]

Lost Odyssey- Up to Gohtza. Hmm, guess the best way to describe this game really is mixed bag. Interesting combination of very cool and very lulzy. I generally like what they do with the dungeons, where even filler dungeons feel a little quirky and like they put some interesting work into them...just their interestingness usually comes with a slight side of annoyance (Navigating the Tower based on stealing items with your shit steal command? Interesting idea, annoying in theory). Annoyingness kept in check by generally very low random rate. They did feel skilled at making locations feel interesting and worth exploring, which is definitely very cool.

Battle system still works well within the construct they built; Random snow lizard boss wasn't as nasty as some of the earlier bosses (which were worth expletives at the game designers, so this is actually a good thing), but seeing him at one point doing 1.5x Cooke's HP was pretty nasty (...Even if that usually comes out to mid 2HKO damage). So battles overall are slight kind of cool, but held back by the game's innate clunkiness.

Characters are generally still all over the place. Jensen is dead-on OK. Ming may be a 1000 year old virgin wearing 2 visible thongs. The little boy is...well, okay, he feels like a random annoying boy. The game's humor is still the lulzy part. And yet, despite the horror that is the cast, it's buoyed by the innate sense of cheese...and that I was just playing FF 13 which had two out of the sky roundtable "We can do it" scenes that both had one person being randomly emo!

WA:XF- Just beat the mission near the end of the C1 (Defend the town). Worth noting only because of now many times I lost this battle the first time through. Considering if I'm going to swap in Ragnar, and if so, what I'm going to do with him (Maybe use him as a Gadgeteer hybrid and replace the one I'm using now. Did dump Felius and Labby early, although Felius' definitely got subbed in certain battles when I realized I found that the class builds I had for certain battles weren't working well enough).

[Shale]

FFTA2: Finally got through a bottleneck I was stuck in. For something like 20 hours I couldn't pass "All Good Things...", one of the Witch of the Fens quests, because it needs a unit of Malboro Wine and nothing would drop one. Yesterday I'm at the point where the only quests that will even show up are Nu Mou of the Rupies, the Goug Watch missions, and running errands for the chocobo rancher (I only figured out how to capture chocobos on Thursday), and a random battle FINALLY gives me that damned wine. Suddenly three different quest chains open up. Yeesh.

[DomaDragoon]

Bioshock 2: Played through the Protector Trials - basically extended ADAM gathering with fixed weapons and plasmids. Out of the first 18 trials, only one was really a "gimmick" one - basically you get lots of elemental plasmid powers, but no money or weapons. After clearing them, you unlock the final trials for each area, where you get all the weapons and all the plasmids you can get. At that point, the remaining gathers became (for me at least) "Summon security bot, summon *spoilers*, stand in water, win".

Borderlands: Beat Crawmerax. Stupid only getting hurt in weak spots.