What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Fenrir]

The Witcher 2 (Dark Mode, magic oriented character): Finished the Chapter 1 sidequests available, about to continue the plot.

I was slightly disappointed at first, I expected something more combat oriented. I mean, there's a "Die and we'll wipe your save" mode available. I never thought this would happen in a game with a "Time spent in combat/Time spent overall" ratio similar to Suikoden.
This is probably not a bad thing objectively, as the battle system just isn't that good. It looks terrific at first, but on a high difficulty where you can't just buttonmash, the flaws are pretty apparent.

Monsters aren't terribly agressive or threatening on their own, in fact you can pretty much mash A until they die without getting hit. They're only threatening as a group, because you can only attack one at once. So it's pretty much like an old beat'em'up in that regard (Streets of Rage, Final Fight), but you get a few more tools like traps.

Controls are unfortunately not tight enough. Changing between targets should be a big thing with this premise, but it's not precise at all. When I change a target I don't actually ever know who I'm going to target next. Targetting is a big thing too because Geralt can only hurt the enemy he is targeting - I already saw my sword go through enemies without them getting hurt.

The absolute worst part about the game are Geralt's normal attacks. Geralt has a bunch of normal attacks - and you never know which one he's going to use when you press A or X. It could be "Efficient Strike"! Or it could be "Useless Flamboyant Whirlpool Attack With A Terrible One Second Delay"! When you die in 2 or 3 hits and can't heal mid battle, this is a big thing.
A lot of all my attacks don't even hit because I don't know how much distance Geralt is going to travel with his next attack.


Plot, character, choice stuff are honestly pretty decent so far... I just can't really care about generic fantasy settings anymore. Geralt reminds me of Stocke from Radiata Stories; that intelligent character who doesn't really ever get angry or flaunt about how badass he is.
Yes, Rob = NEB. The main difference being that Geralt is a terrible drinker.

It's honestly a very good game, objectively. Just not really too exciting to me. It has QTEs.




Pokemon White 2: Don't trust others, it is still the same game. Remember, this series changes less than Dragon Quest.

Calling it now: The innovations in the next series of Pokemon games will be:
1) The removal of the "Want to use Surf Y/N??" message (You press A next to water and BAM, you surf)
2) A minigame where you put your pokemon in a Jersey Shore TV series
3) A plant/steel starter

Anyway I like it.

My team rocks:






(Admittedly, the fire pig is way better but I've already used it last time)

[Fudozukushi]

It's all Handsome Jack's fault! He never lets me get anything good!

All the torture, mutations and mutilations he inflicts are nothing on his gun monopoly.

[Cmdr_King]

3) A plant/steel starter

Honestly?  Day 1 buy.

[Tide]

DS2 - Almost done. Just a few more battles to go as I understand it.

The hardest fight so far has to be the day 5 boss. Let's see if the final proves me wrong though. Still using mainly Fumi/Otome/Keita as my PCs. I've set up my MC with a demon that can act twice in one turn along with another that can get up to 6 range. 6 range, maxed out MAG demons spamming Holy Dance leads to fun times.

[Hunter Sopko]

Dark Souls- Started this as a Wanderer. Up to the first bonfire in Undead Burg. Had some fun tricking skeletons to fall off cliffs, cause otherwise fighting them was kind of a pain. Joined the Covenant cause why the fuck not. Physical build most likely, so mostly building up a base of stats at first before specializing. Probably will go Dex

[Fenrir]

Dark Souls- Started this as a Wanderer. Up to the first bonfire in Undead Burg. Had some fun tricking skeletons to fall off cliffs, cause otherwise fighting them was kind of a pain. Joined the Covenant cause why the fuck not. Physical build most likely, so mostly building up a base of stats at first before specializing. Probably will go Dex

Enjoy the game.
Little tip about stats(read if you want):


Strength and dex are mostly helpful as requirement for weapons. Slightly more damage is a hell of a lot worse than more vitality/endurance.



Witcher 2: The first real boss was a Zelda boss who could kill me in one hit, with worse design and extra QTEs.

Just afterwards: Geralt (Main character) and Triss (Girlfriend) marvel about some elven statue. Some dudes come, wonder about breaking the statue in bits to build it again in the city and sell it then. They never actually threaten Geralt. Geralt kills them all. During the fight he falls into a pit that leads to an ancient elven bath (with roses) Geralt and Triss have sex because the place is extremely romantic. Then there's a joke about the noise they make during sex. Afterwards your best friend forever comes and breaks the wall of the ancient elven bath to help you. Triss and Geralt just don't seem to care about that wall like they cared about the statue before, because they never even mention it.

Camp.

Anyway for all its faults, the game really feels like what Dragon Age 1,2 and probably 3 should have been.

[Hunter Sopko]

::Nods::

Beat Taurus Demon. Took a few tries. Had my first FFFFF moment when one of the firebomb throwers on the roof jumped down while I was fighting the shield knights on the other side and back attacked me, knocked me into aggro range, got taken apart by the 4 of them. Lost about 6k souls and 4 humanity accumulated from going back and forth to Taurus. Bought the short bow, key, an extra scimitar and a repair powder before killing the merchant for the sweet, sweet katana. I realized I should have bought a spear, but oh well.

Kindled the bonfire since I had two humanity after Taurus. Got killed in an invasion travelling to Undead Parish. C'est la vie.

Undead Parish. Getting slightly annoyed at the tendency to suddenly whiff in the middle of a combo, even though no factors have changed. Or sudden wall hit, even though I didn't really start near a wall. Keep dying around the two crossbowmen/spearmen near the fatty at the start. Kept missing the last hit of the combo on either the last spearman or one of the crossbowmen and getting wailed on.

[Tide]

Wild ARMs 4 - Speedrunning continues...

So Augst leaves behind a set of decisions I am trying to figure out right now, although I'm pretty sure as to what I'm going to do. The difference between using 2 lucky cards on his two forms versus just one seems to be a really minute difference as Arnaud can't OHKO Goldrake even with Exploit Weakness. I think its theoretically possible, but if I map out the actions, it tends to be slower AND riskier anyway. This is due to the formation of the Goldrake battle:

                     Empty
Goldrake                          Raquel
                     Empty
Empty                          Arnaud/Yulie
                     Jude

Goldrake's standard WA4 boss speed, which means he laps base speed Arnaud. If I want to set up for a OHKO, I think I need to have Detonation active, which means the turn order should be Jude -> Yulie -> Arnaud. This would then mean Tiny Flower Jude/Yulie, maxed out MAG set up for Arnaud. Goldrake will get 2 turns in between. So altogether, that's 5 actions. On the other hand standard strategy right now is just Arnaud -> Yulie with Arnaud using Jump, then Hi-Vortex and Yulie following up with Hi-Vortex/Vortex. That's 4 actions if we count Jump as an extra action. Based on the fact that an average action lasts about 4 seconds, I'll still be short 4 seconds. Might play around with it, but it doesn't seem like it's all that helpful.

So what does this mean? Well, since getting Arnaud that extra level now doesn't help him with anything, I'm thinking I'm going to just delay the Lucky Card until Jane Does to max out the amount of EXP I can get. This in turn means Jude equips Fighter Badge for Augst and Arnaud uses Tiny Flower. Jump, Assault Buster with no EXP boost. Second Augst features an EXP boost an alters the way the fight is set up.

If anyone has any insight I'm missing, poke me. Thinking I'm going to start practicing with my old route method here otherwise.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

RS3 - Picking up the pace. After getting my ass reamed by Alloces twice, I caved in and decided to finish the Maximus quest and manhandle Avnas instead. The Red Dragon they drop on you in the Divine Tower is tougher than anything else in that quest, let alone Maximus of the 4HKO physical damage and 8HKO ST lightning damage spam. He has good defenses, but he really wishes the support he summons wasn't vulnerable to ID (lololololol Day Break).

[SnowFire]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Amusing so far.  Really does feel like an updated Deus Ex with better graphics, which is a-OK by me.  Also nice to see that Final Fantasy 27 is still a part of this dystopian future (or perhaps the CAUSE of it?!).  Plot setup is certainly interesting enough as well, although why exactly the head of corporate security who has X zillion dollars worth of gear in his body needs to go klepto on every credit chip not nailed down is a little less clear.  But hey, rewards for exploration & all.  The 90s era conspiracy theories also feel a bit dated now, but also true to the original Deus Ex, so that's a push.

Random factoid: Jansen has life-granting punches, maybe.  In the showdown with Zeke at the Milwaukee Junction factory, if you either let him go or else screw up the hostage dialogue, both he & Josie Thorpe end up shot outside.  However if you immediately run over to Thorpe's body and perform a takedown on her, it works just fine, so presumably Jansen picks her up then punches her back from death into unconsciousness.  Weirdly enough the cops get pissed at you for this impromptu CPR and kill Jansen shortly afterward, but still interesting.  (Also odd that explicitly letting Zeke go right away gets him shot, but letting him go after a hostage dialogue lets him escape...  I'd think that letting him go should let him live but no Thorpe bonus or something.)

Doing a standardy who-needs-combat build so far; I've got one nod to stealth in the radar upgrade (that + save scumming is enough), and the rest in conversation / hacking at the moment.  Okay and Super Jansen Bros. jumping since jumping on people's heads is funny and it makes long jumps to out-of-the-way places a lot more sane.  That said, while I like having an option to play non-lethally, playing non-lethally should be an interesting challenge.  It should be much easier to shoot people dead than to carefully non-lethally take everyone out.  Instead the game incentivizes a nonlethal playthrough via making the non-lethal takedowns way better than the lethal ones (See Fenrir's earlier comments - more XP?  less noise?  Just slit the guy's throat, no yelling, no nothing.  Beating someone up quietly when they can yell / stamp their feet / etc. seems more likely to be noisy...) and handing out the silenced tranquilizer rifle at the beginning of the game.  The only downside to tranqing / non-lethal takedowning everyone is that other guards can shake sleeping people awake, MGS style, but even that isn't a big deal...  oh look someone coming over to examine their downed comrade, let me line up another shot.  Considering that DE has gone for a psuedo-"realistic" level of damage (a shotgun at close range WILL kill you, it takes ~2 bodyshots to down someone and 1 headshot), I'd have liked it if HR was more like the original DE where going all non-lethal is more like a challenge playthrough.  No BS tranq rifle, you must use the baton & mini-crossbow on everything, when these weapons have fairly notable downsides.  Plus I see from the skill tree that DE has Alpha Protocol-esque invisibility as a later stealth option.  WTF.  Okay Deus Ex has Thermoptic Camo, but it's consumable and takes inventory space.  Being able to spam invisibility -> takedowns if you wait enough is kind of unstoppable and not THAT fun, I already did that to most of Alpha Protocol.  Will attempt to hold off on buying that skill tree just to make the stealth more interesting, we'll see how long I can wait.

Lastly, I do enjoy the ability to do missions out of order.  "What the hell did you just do, Jansen?"  "Found a transmitter in this home in Derelict Row I was raiding for some other reason.  Decided to shut it down, figured why the hell not."  20 minutes later, instant Mission Complete + Ghost once I'm actually tasked with removing the transmitter...

[Grefter]

The original Deus Ex had Cloak as well, less available but it is still kind of an option.

But yeah KO guys instead of kill for easy mode seems to be a thing in stealth games these days.  Dishonored does it as well.  Kill dudes and the City gets shittier and there will be more guards and stuff.  The only real downside is that takedowns take a second or two while you choke someone out and you need to put people on top of things so they don't get eaten alive by rats.  DE equivalent is hiding dudes in vents.

It is weird because Thief was huge on the not killing thing, you know how it handled it?  Game over if you killed too many (any at all on hard).

Not that I want everything to do that, it is just weird that none of the games since Thief 2 goes "this character doesn't kill.  Don't kill people."

[Cotigo]

Jumped right from Deus Ex to Human Revolution.

Beat the first mission.  So far, gameplay is much better but if they failed at that after 10 years that would be ridiculous.  There is actually a reason to be stealthy now! Miss out on bonus EXP? fuck that. 

Writing has me less immediately engaged.  Oh no people are AUGMENTING their BODIES and SOME PEOPLE care about THIS SORT OF THING.

I'm just waiting to be disappointed by the ending at this point to be honest.

[AndrewRogue]

Deus Ex: Fuck Spider Bots. Seriously. Those goddamn maintenance bots are the most threatening enemy in the game. That said, I sank a boat then flew to Paris.

Also, Computers is ridiculously OP, especially given all you really need is one rank.

[Cotigo]

But without 4 ranks in computers, HOW CAN YOU READ EVERY EMAIL, ANDREW?!?!

[Sierra]

Dark Souls, Dr. Jones visits Lordran edition: Because apparently I didn't hate myself enough already. I can only wear leather armor + Pharis' hat. No magic, no summons, normal weapons only, no shields because Indy does not truck with shields (this rule is much less of a problem thus far than I'd expected, but I have no idea how I'm going to deal with, say, hydras and DLC bosses). Found throwing weapons are okay but I can't buy any. My only non-whip means of weaponry is punching dudes (because Indy does spend a remarkable amount of time punching dudes) except when the game throws some gimmick at me that makes this functionally impossible or just prohibitively un-fun (stuck with starting weapon in the asylum, divine punching is allowed for catacombs/Nito only, bow allowed for Moonlight Butterfly because Indy does have a history of shooting dudes who like to show off just outside of melee range). Plan is to start with master key to allow access to the whip first thing, put levels in nothing other than Vit/End/Dex (Dark Souls does not have a Charisma or HAT stat), cap out at the usual SL75.

Deaths so far:

Whip retrieval deaths: 4. The worst of these was getting toxin'd on my way back and dying from it on the elevator to Firelink.
Shouldn't have tried running through the Valley of Drakes deaths: 1.
Taurus Demon deaths: 1. Rolled off the wall.
Bell Gargoyle deaths: 2. Rolled into fire breath x2. Their melee attacks are surprisingly easy to dodge, but the Cid has not learned to mind his surroundings.
Stupid stone giant deaths: 2. So it turns out Tranquil Walk of Peace is a death sentence when you can't block anything.

Next up should be trying to fight Capra Demon with no shield. Uhhhh, maybe I'll go beat up Pinwheel first instead.

[Sierra]

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of No OSHA Compliance: Hat acquired, Sen's Fortress next. I tried to clear out New Londo to get the very large ember, but apparently Ingway doesn't actually give you the key until you have the Lordvessel (I've never tried going down there this early before). And no, I'm not killing him for it, so +10 will just have to do for a while. Deathcount!

Mysterious lack of deaths fighting Capra Demon with no shield: !!! (Wow I've played this game too much.)
Why am I climbing down Blighttown when I have the master key? deaths*: 1. Knocked off ledge by fatty troll.
Kiting failure deaths: 1. Lure knight to edge of cliff. Knight lands next to Indy instead of jumping off cliff. Knight stabs Indy in the face.
Skelemobbed deaths: 2. Somehow I still don't know how to dodge these guys.
Quelaag deaths: 1. So lava vomit isn't exactly the way Indy's used to women greeting him.
Rolled into a wall trying to dodge a black knight deaths: 1.

(*Because if there is a shiny item left unacquired, Indy must loot it. Because it belongs in a museum.)

Unrelated to this playthrough, but: running through Chasm of the Abyss as one of two summons, just outside the fog gate to Manus the other summon stops and whips out a bow. Aims down and starts shooting...something. Host and I stop, wondering what the hell he's doing. I see numbers at the edge of the screen, but nothing's down there, right? Just the boss room--oh. Welp.

A couple minutes of shooting later: YOU DEFEATED. So yeah, it's possible to kill the boss of the expansion without even entering his room. They, uh...should probably fix that.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Tactics Ogre PSP chaos route replay - At the end. I was a bit lower-levelled this time because I barely doubled up on classes at all, so the final dungeon has been a bit harder, but it's definitely not too bad overall even so. Fun enough game, archers are still broken.

XCOM - Pretty cool game, though has some nagging flaws I'd love to see cleaned up. In general I find the game could really stand to give you more information... I dislike how you can neither take back move, nor tell which enemies will be in range (and at what hit rates) before you move, is probably the biggest thing. Not really a big fan of endless fog of war either... surprises have their place, but in general strategy games are better when you have more information. That said, the game does some really cool things on the character building front. I like the way classes level and give you a decision at each level in particular, it's simple and a great idea. I like that you have to raise more than a "minimum" number of characters because people can be injured/killed, and I like the dynamic permadeath adds to the game. Oh yeah, one other complaint is the game visually: it's too dark, and this makes it a little difficult to distinguish between my own soldiers at times. Maybe I can fix this by adjusting my TV or something.

[Tide]

Devil Survivor 2: Done. 1 reset to the final boss. Total resets through the entire game was about 7. The last fight is a doozy. I mainly underestimated how long it was (PS: It was long) and my blitzing type set ups didn't really work by the time I reached the last stage. Also, 500+ damage worth of physical damage everywhere KOing more than one group at a time = bad.  Did some grinding for cash, fused better demons, resorted skills and tried again. Still pretty close, but got the job done. Multi-hit skills (mainly dances) are just too good at inflict ST damage.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Tactics Ogre PSP chaos route replay - At the end. I was a bit lower-levelled this time because I barely doubled up on classes at all, so the final dungeon has been a bit harder, but it's definitely not too bad overall even so. Fun enough game, archers are still broken.

XCOM - Pretty cool game, though has some nagging flaws I'd love to see cleaned up. In general I find the game could really stand to give you more information... I dislike how you can neither take back move, nor tell which enemies will be in range (and at what hit rates) before you move, is probably the biggest thing. Not really a big fan of endless fog of war either... surprises have their place, but in general strategy games are better when you have more information. That said, the game does some really cool things on the character building front. I like the way classes level and give you a decision at each level in particular, it's simple and a great idea. I like that you have to raise more than a "minimum" number of characters because people can be injured/killed, and I like the dynamic permadeath adds to the game. Oh yeah, one other complaint is the game visually: it's too dark, and this makes it a little difficult to distinguish between my own soldiers at times. Maybe I can fix this by adjusting my TV or something.

As usual, your first mistake is playing it on a console.  Your second mistake is not using the gamma correction in the options menu.

[Grefter]

I went with the option I knew he would actually play when sending it to him.  Better than the alternative.

That said yeah check the menu, should have some gamma correction in there.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Are we not capable of discussing a game that was (I guess) made for a PC without having this same inane conversation?

[Grefter]

When we properly port a mouse driven interface without it feeling cljnk sometimes I guess?

Spec Ops: The Line - So this was good in the ways reviews said it was.  $30 price point was about right for me.  The last quarter or so of the game is probably a little overly tuned on the hard side, but the lets the game fuck with you with messages on the load screens and lets you look at the beautiful splash screens they made.  There is like one every checkpoint and they are all pretty amazing once you get to the big climax where the game punches you in the gut.

[Shale]

Resident Evil 4: Picked this up on last week's XBox sale and finally beat it (after owning it for years on PS2 but never getting around to actually playing the thing). I've never gotten more than fifteen minutes into an RE before quitting in disgust with the controls, but the genre change did wonders for this one - it's a great game. Entertaining B-horror nonsense plot, good shooting, and never a cakewalk. It's a shame the follow-ups apparently fell on their faces so hard they left a crater.

[Pyro]

FF5: Just replaying this on my phone to kill some time and to play an SNES game on my phone. It's as awesome a game as ever. Beat Shinryu on the jaunt to X-Death just because I happened to have a few Coral rings and lots of Dimension Magic.

Phantasy Star Universe: The wife bought this for me for like $5. It kind of reminds me of PS4 in the sense that the moves have similar names and the main character has an occupation like the PS4 Hunters and is mentored by a more experienced badass chick. Combat is 'meh' MMO/ARPG but the different types of weapons and abilities are neat.

[Meeplelard]

RE6: Jake's Campaign beaten!

...so about those QTE complaints and there being too many of them...I just have to say "Wait what?"  There's a few of them, but their scattered about and fairly lenient and most are right near check points and it's obvious when they're going to occur.

Beyond that...it's bipolar.  On one hand, less cover shooter nonsense than Chris' and it slows down at times, and has a sense of variety.  On the otherhand, still too many J'Avo with Machine Guns making it hard to get anywhere without taking damage.  Oh yeah, and death to those Regenerator Enemies that split into two when yo blow them up that simply never die.  The last chapter was a pain just for that reason alone...go figure, the rest of the last chapter after that stupid section wasn't actually too bad...and hey, Jake can SUPLEX USTANAK!

I might replay this arc to see Jake's stuff because there seems to be more split gameplay segments with both sides doing things than Chris and Piers had, but dunno.  For now, Leon S. Kennedy is next!