What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Captain K.]

Dark Souls:  And the Four Kings go down!  I ended up soloing it because Beatrice got all suicidal and jumped off a stairwell.  Even though I ran out of Great Magic Barrier at the end the Kings were nice and ddn't double-team me.  My setup was full Giant Armor+5 set, two-handing Grant with Grass Crest Sheld on my back.  Full offense, no blocking or dodging.  This is manly Dark Souls.

So now it's just endgame stuff.  The only real challenge I have left is cutting off Seath's tail.

OMD:  Finished.  I get the feeling there's an alternate ending... that ending seemed to scream "You're doing it wrong!"

[Crystalgate]

Dragon Quest VIII: Finished the events on Maella abbey and is now going to visit the emo king. Soon enough I'll have access to both the monster arena and the bigger alchemy pot.

[superaielman]

OMD:  Finished.  I get the feeling there's an alternate ending... that ending seemed to scream "You're doing it wrong!"

Nope, that's the ending.  I finished nightmare and it's the same thing there.

OMD- I need to five skulls the finale (Oh dear god) on warmage to have gotten five skulls on every mission.  I also need to beat the DLC levels on Nightmare, which is no goddamn joke. Double Trouble in particular is obnoxious- you're way short on resources, you have two sides to defend and not any really good defensive spots to do it in.

[Meeplelard]

Sonic 4 Part 1: Finished!  No, didn't get all Chaos Emeralds. I may be unlazy about this and just keep playing Splash Hill Zone repeatedly until I do, but for now, yeah.

Game's about what you expect from a 2D Sonic Game...with the addition of Homing Attack for some added variety, which is cool.  I will say I really don't get the claim that someone made that "The isn't sure if its 2D or 3D."  Um, no, its very clearly 2D; I can't even think of a moment where it went 2.5D.  It says something that Classic Stages in Sonic Generations are more bipolar than this game (Classic Sonic stages are clearly 2.5D, given they play like 2D, but at times the camera shifts at angles to make things look cooler.  Sonic 4 doesn't even do that much.)  The only 3D aspect added in was Homing Attack, which actually was a GOOD thing because of what I said before.  Well, it also had Triangle Jumping when you don't have anything to home in on...which again, good thing, its a way to make jumping horizontally much faster, as an escape method vs. Boss attacks and such (Sonic's Jump goes way too high vertically and you don't get horizontal fast enough by itself, Triangle Jumping is an extra fail safe that helps.)  Took me long enough to finish this but yeah.


Sonic CD:  Beat this too!  I really don't get the claims of the game having really poor stage design outside of Metallic Mayhem (which is basically Metropolis Zone meets Scrap Brain Zone meets Ambitions Too High To Reach Conceivably.  As you'd expect, its a nightmare.)    Stages were short, and most promoted "move really fast" (and Starlight Highway is like a precursor to some of the more fun 3D Stages in how its set up!), and honestly there was nothing that stood out about this game, negatively, relative to Sonic 1 or Sonic 2.  I guess stages looked pretty boring; first bunch are just clones of stages from Sonic 1/2, last bunch are Cyberpunk Nightmare style stages.  I'm fine with how Metal Sonic was the only reference Generations gave to Sonic CD, because that is easily the most memorable thing about the game, as nothing else in that era really has anything comparable to that fight, stylistically.

Game is...also what you;d expect from a 2D Sonic Game!  Nice that the XBLA version has Tails as unlockable and he functions like his Sonic 3 self (yay flight!), so its not completely lazy.  Not nice how the game doesn't let you replay stages you've already beaten...

[Excal]

Europa Universalis - So I tried playing this as Spain. And while I suspect a lot of what I have to say next comes from the fact that Spain really is ascendant when the game starts (1493), and you probably start hitting some kind of crunch about seventy years in unless you used that starting advantage really well. Including the fact that I know some of my best provinces are going to get rebellious soon. But, Spain feels a lot like easy mode.

I mean, starting with a good Explorer (Columbus), three settlers a year, decent armies and the military tech to back them up, and the best economic base to start with, including the lucrative Dutch provinces. And with the new world territories you're geared to best exploit having the Aztecs and the Mayas there. I mean, the Iroquois, while they can't really win, they also have fortifications and the ability to fight back. The Aztecs and the Mayans lose to armies one tenth their size, and have no fortifications so taking their stuff is as easy as walking in with your pathetically small army, no sieging required, and only one joke of a battle in the way. And the Aztecs, for their part, are small but loaded.


Radiant Historia - So, I'm now at the final boss of the Alternate History. Have to admit, I like the villainous rant here. Sure, it confirms all of the plot 'twists' I suspected were about to happen. But, it also explains them in a way which is true to all the characters and setting they've set up so far. Including why the villain would want to end the world. Now I just need to beat the sucker, which looks like it'll be tricky. He already game overed me once.  Fortunately, Stocke's Mana Burst seems to be ludicrously good at dealing damage, especially with the Historica equipped, so hopefully it'll turn out well in take two once I have a better idea of how to fight this guy.

[Fenrir]

SO2 Precis solo: Man, domehow in some ways this feels a lot more archaic than say, FF4?
Scenes with a shaky camera show that there's a vast void of blackness outside of the screen you're supposed to see. This is nearly as bad as the bird shadows in Arc the Lad 2 (you probably know what I'm talking about if you've played the game)

(see the vertical black line on the left)
The weapon dude I chose for the tournament in Lacour also made a metaphor about a shotgun. Not very coherent, game.
The whole Lacour tournament stuff was 1H20 of dread. That's nearly one whole movie! Fuck all happened except the game telling you "Dias is strong", but the game already did that in the forest earlier. Hell, everyone could tell it right away because he's a bad walking cliché.


On the other hand, Precis solo. FUN. BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER.
I eat a ton of blackberries and call my pet eagle in dungeons when I run out of them. 20 blackberries x 20 pet foods = 400 blackberries per dungeon, one blackberry restores half of my max MPs. I can spam killer moves all the time! This is the thing I like in challenges, it kind of forces you to be more active. What I remembered about SO2 was the gameplay being kind of annoying because I always ran out of MPs, but that was because I could just use regular attacks all the time and do fine.

Of course, more fun with pickpocketing too.
The city is attacked by monsters so everybody goes to the castle.
Little girl: "Mommy? Where are you?"
Precis: "...." *steals 100 fol from the girl*
Precis, the coldest playable character since cartoonish Bioware Evil character.

Edit: "X Box acquired"

[Monkeyfinger]

SO2 Precis solo: Man, domehow in some ways this feels a lot more archaic than say, FF4?
Scenes with a shaky camera show that there's a vast void of blackness outside of the screen you're supposed to see. This is nearly as bad as the bird shadows in Arc the Lad 2 (you probably know what I'm talking about if you've played the game)

Beat AtL2, don't remember that

[Fenrir]

It was the most memorable thing about the game!

There's that one city where you can see flying bird shadows on the ground.
The problem is that this special effect is not technically a sprite but a transparency effect. (This might not make sense, but it's easier to understand) This means that, while those shadows move from one end of the screen to another like you'd expect, they move along with the main character on screen!

Let's say they go from the bottom of the screen to the top.
If you go up, they'll go twice as fast as usual.
If you go down, they'll stay in the same place.

And they're big! You can't not see them!

[Meeplelard]

I'm with Monkey on this one.  I beat AtL2 and I really don't know what you're talking about.  Or more specifically, I understand the effect you're explaining, but nowhere would I associate it with AtL2, let alone was it something that I even noticed when I played the game.

[Fenrir]

Hmm. That city might be optional and very minor, but the bird shadow are everywhere in it and impossible.
Maybe Arc the Lad 2 put you in a strange torpor state because it's Arc the Lad 2.
But most likely, you are all either blind or crazy.

SO2: "No, Noel, you are needed to protect the animals. The robot animals with cubs"
I find that Ally-oop is Precis' best skill. But they're all pretty good, aside from Bang Bang Attack with its ultra short range and slight delay.

[Random Consonant]

Maybe Arc the Lad 2 put you in a strange torpor state because it's Arc the Lad 2.

This sounds extremely likely.

Also I beat AtL2 and also have no idea what the heck you're on about.

[SageAcrin]

I think I *remember* that.

I didn't think much of it, because I'd followed birds around the world in Chrono Trigger. On foot.

What I'm saying here is minor details in RPGs hit up my suspension of disbelief a long while ago is all. In fact, I think I remember SoM more for the effect you're talking about than AtL2, I think it did a weird mixture of following you and actually moving relative to you that would often make clouds sync to your speed or something really fucked up.

I think. It's been a while since I've played SoM.

[Meeplelard]

Final Fantasy 4 Hats Heroes of Light:  Just got to Guero or whatever the mage city in the desert is called.  So far, the game is giving far more Dragon Quest vibes than it is Final Fantasy.  Well, ok, Brandt isn't a silent protagonist so there's that!  But interface is clunky (swapping characters in the menu being "Press X and choose character!" instead of traditional "Press L/R to cycle through!" comes to mind, minor as it is), early game difficulty feels very luck oriented, limited inventory, game starting you off spontaneously in a town with nothing to do other than run to a designated spot after you talk to a bunch of villagers about jack all before you can get to real gameplay...yeah, its like they were making a Dragon Quest, then realized they made a Non-Silent Protagonist, and instead figured it'd just be easier to rename it "Final Fantasy" than fix that, and sort of went from there, which is why we don't have slimes!


...that said, why am I getting Suikoden Tiekries Flashbacks from this?  I mean, clearly there was no big mage city in a desert or anything comparable to that!

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Civilization 4: All of the Subtitles

I decided to try this with Revolutions off since supposedly they slow things down quite a lot on older machines. How about machines older than Civ 4 itself? Yeah, like those. What's more, the AI really struggles to manage its revolutions.

The good news? It did run considerably faster.

The bad news? I got stuck on a fairly sizable continent with one AI. I farmed them until they became completely unwilling to negotiate even to save themselves, killed them off, farmed a few barbarian-to-civ spawns the same way. Took the whole continent for myself, built up. I felt like my position was probably going to be unassailable when I came into contact with the other civs, since I had some late medieval technologies in 200 AD and was grabbing the important Wonders (i.e., the science ones) before anyone else.

Then, in 350 AD, a sloop - not a caravel, a fucking SLOOP, parked in my coastal waters.

One AI had run away with a continent that housed nine others, taking five capitals and all of the religions except Hinduism (which I had). They were obviously running a full suite of Monasteries in every city, in addition to all the other science buildings, because they were getting 1800s techs in 3-5 turns on the second-slowest speed setting, on Noble (so no CPU boosts). In the early ADs. Their score was 2900. Mine was 1200. None of the seven other survivors (on their continent and on another separate one) had cracked quadruple digits.

They landed musketeers and cannon (not arquebusiers and bombards) on my maceman-defended lands and ended the game shortly thereafter. I might have held on in a crippled state, but they were researching Rifling and that would have ended it straight up.

I mean, the Iroquois, while they can't really win, they also have fortifications and the ability to fight back.

Ahem.

[Excal]

I cannot speak for anything in versions after EU1, as I'm playing the first one.  All I can say is that all of my attempts to take the Iroquois have involved effort. Whereas my attempt to take the Incas involved walking over and saying I owned the place, and meeting pretty much no resistance.  That said, I think I can buy the Incas having a better setup over the other two when you're playing as them. If only because they have more land, and are hidden a lot further away from ground zero for when the europeans do arrive.

[Pyro]

Orcs Must Die:

Just finished Killing Fields. Used barriers to create a choke-point in a map that shouldn't have one, which as always works wonders. Do the exploding Kobolds blow up barriers of their own accord? That is very frustrating and makes them almost as annoying as those goddamn bats. was kicked down to 4 stars at the last second by a bunch of exploding kobolds managing to get on top of me. Bah.

I'm finding the Self-buffs to be vastly superior to the alternative trap-buffs for most cases... You can empty an entire gate by yourself just standing in front of it and swinging, and the ability to Ice&Dice ogres (even Armored Ogres) superfast is just tops. As far as traps go, I just upgraded Swinging Mace but haven't used it yet. Some improved slow traps + that should be "Ah yeah" level effective. MO has mostly been a shit-ton of archers at a choke point behind slow-traps while I clean up/deal with ogres/most fliers.

Fun game, but big complaint: I can't hear this sorceress because the action is so much louder than she is. Minor complaint. OMD PLOT and all that.

[Excal]

Ok...  Actually read that link now. (Or, at least, properly skimmed it) That is, impressive.

I am also saddened that, apparently, province reshuffling has apparently moved the area labled Ottawa further west, effectively overwriting Nippising. Nippising needs more love, dagnabbit. ;_;

[Fenrir]

"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc. While the Arc the lad 2 example is just someone making a mistake. IMO this is like comparing a guy fighting with a shovel vs a glitch that makes peoples' head spin. (Not for the faint of heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ)

I've seen things similar to the bird shadows in other games, but it was fairly tame in comparison, and not that apparent unless you were being overanalytical / overcritical. Maybe the rain at the beginning of Zelda LTTP for example?


SO2 Precis Solo: Only got the field of love left. This is the best part of the game!
Precis is level 100 and has finished the duel part of the battle arena. She has the bunny shoes, some shield that protects against paralysis, Stone Check, and an Atlas Ring (this gives a big attack power increase but elemental weaknesses)
I always have stone and paralysis immunity on because Precis is good enough anyway to waste a few slots, and I don't want to do trial and error in every single dungeon (I remember paralysis and stone being rampant in that game)

Edit: Wow, Claude just sits there and does nothing as his father gets killed.

[SageAcrin]

"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc.

All I can say is that I tend to set my suspension of disbelief to the highest point a game demands at any point and then leave it stuck there.

I know it's a bit odd, possibly, but I don't get surprised too often by games, due to that.

[Hunter Sopko]

"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc. While the Arc the lad 2 example is just someone making a mistake. IMO this is like comparing a guy fighting with a shovel vs a glitch that makes peoples' head spin. (Not for the faint of heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ)

You know, if you told me that was on purpose, I'd believe you and think that the creators were fucking geniuses.

[Shale]

Judging from that video, I think somebody de-awesomed my copy of New Vegas.

[Sierra]

Perpetual Sidequest Machine: So the Thieves' Guild is unkillable. I see. (Evidently I hadn't tried killing anyone the game flagged as plot-necessary before.)

[Fudozukushi]

Perpetual Sidequest Machine: So the Thieves' Guild is unkillable. I see. (Evidently I hadn't tried killing anyone the game flagged as plot-necessary before.)

Huh, I thought only Brynjolf, Vex, Devlin and Mercer were.

[Sierra]

Maybe some of them are? I dunno, I just attacked the group en masse and people kept getting back up. I didn't really track specifics.

[Fudozukushi]

Maybe some of them are? I dunno, I just attacked the group en masse and people kept getting back up. I didn't really track specifics.

Either I was wrong and they all are or you just had the strangest bought of knock-down luck ever.