What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Dumb isn't necessarily unlikeable! The characters are flawed, but interesting all around so far. I've only met five of the PCs so far, and only Reyn seems particularly dull-witted, but he's also a pretty good friend with a protective-of-those-weaker-than-him streak that I like. Shulk himself actually comes off as a bookworm, but he's still mired in the confusion of actually using the new powers of the Monado. The temp is the most cliched character thus far, but the dialogue and interplay between her and Shulk/Reyn kept her from being grating and she has a few fantastic scenes. Dunban just seems awesome, though he has terrible taste in friends at the beginning. Sharla's the only one who keeps making dumb moves like rushing headlong into danger, but considering all the depressing shit she's dealing with, it's understandable. I feel the characters are fairly well-nuanced thus far, but admittedly it doesn't take much to ruin a good character so maybe in a few dungeons I'll feel differently (I certainly did with Lost Odyssey). I'm going to remain optimistic for now.

[Dhyerwolf]

They all start vaguely sliding down (especially at PC #6) when the writers try their hand at witty banter and fail badly.

[Fenrir]

Maken Shao:

Proto Demon Souls (That nazi enemy would be awesome in Dark Souls!), made by Atlus, with SMT music/art.
... It also reminds me of God Hand.
... One cool mechanic is how you can hijack people to use their bodies; you don't even have a body of your own.
...

Oh yeah, you haven't heard of it because quite frankly it's not very good.

Controls are sloppy, as is often the case with full 3D action games before the "Left stick controls the character including strafing, right stick controls the direction he faces" revolution.
There are 5 minutes FMV cutscenes. From 1999.


Much in this game is the source of endless laughter.
- Seriously, airplanes don't work that way. Airplanes can't be mazes.
- I LOVE how some enemies are introduced as "Member of the European Union"
- The main bad guy is Mr Meteor. His henchamn is the german head of the european union (Angela Merkel I guess), obviously with nazi enemies.
- Walking animations. -_-
- http://i.imgur.com/dB9hCi6.jpg

I am quite pleased to see this is the only game I've seen that, at any point, takes place in my city.
What's changed after the post cyberapocalypse?
- The subway has become about as complicated as Paris', so I assume the city saw extreme growth in short time
- There's some dude named Badelaire (shouldn't it be Beaudelaire?) you can hijack. He's pretty cool (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110720065045/megamitensei/images/a/ad/24.jpg) except his walking animation makes him look like he has hemorrhoïds. I know people who miss one leg. They don't walk like that.
- There's an underground mine underneath the city now, complete with carts and everything. Most of the level takes place in that underground mine, which would be like most of a New York level taking place in New York's famous giant nuclear factory
- Stereotypical gangsters (with the suit, the tie and the hat) with butterfly wings, four arms and two machineguns.


Sooo anyway, the game kind me that the strange crappy orange dude from the beginning of the game (Look at this bad boy: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091012220342/megamitensei/images/thumb/6/61/Gou_Inaba.jpg/250px-Gou_Inaba.jpg) could maybe become H4Xzilla. So I used him non stop. He does turn pretty good (Dude can call lightning with his stun gun), but not as good as others, and he required a crazy amount of exp to become fully powered. So I just wasted a lot of time. Yeah.

[Meeplelard]

Super Mario Galaxy: Bower Jr.'s Ship falls to turtle shells to the face.  Then I got a few more stars.

Oracle of Seasons: Giant Enemy Crabs that need to be taken out with Flaming Slingshot hitting it's weak point for massive damage (which isn't actually massive) need to not be so durable and not have high damaging attacks. 

I also found MYSTARY SEEDS because...apparently SEEDS ARE EVERYTHING in this game no they aren't

[Grefter]

That is pretty amazingly camp art outside of the triple sunglasses self harmer in a goth onesie (with immaculate shoes because SMT characters always do).

Snow approves yes/yes?

[Shale]

Borderlands 2: WHADDA TWEEEST

[Fenrir]

The camp doesn't stop there Gref.
I'll post more artwork later.

Apparently you get to fight the presidents of:
- Germany
- China
- The United States

[Shale]

Additional Borderlands: Got fast travel to Sanctuary up and running. That station-defense battle was clearly not balanced for single-player. Ah well.

Also, I was packing for a flight to Maine and found my R4 card! I haven't seen that thing for almost a year. I can finally finish my EF Exceed replay! And Professor Layton! And a bunch of other games I don't think I ever even touched! Good times.

[Meeplelard]

Oracle of Seasons: I see a lot of pits with objects on the other end.  Also enemies with shells in front of them that required a certain item to beat or attack from their backside which was a pain.

Well, obviously, it's time to get the HOOK SH-*Magnetic Gloves*...or get a completely unique item for the series with actually interesting effects allowing for completely new and original puzzles.  I'll be damned, actual creativity in a Zelda game after OoT stagnated everything! (ok, Majora's Mask I'll give props to since the Masks were legitimately creative)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Additional Borderlands: Got fast travel to Sanctuary up and running. That station-defense battle was clearly not balanced for single-player. Ah well.

Just finished that in TVHM.  The takeaway I got from that fight was "hope you're good at shooting loaders in the shoulder of their gun arm!"

[DjinnAndTonic]

Pokemon Black: PETA stole a dragon and told me that's what all the cool kids are doing, better get one too. Or they'll set the world on fire. Team PETA are dicks like that.

[Fudozukushi]

That's what Corrosive Sniper Rifles are for.

[Shale]

That also would have worked. Sadly I just have fire and electric right now.

Picked up my EF EXCEED replay, discovered it was at endgame so I put on all the ultimate gear and went to the bonus dungeon. OW. first boss fight was no big deal, but Super Mark Hunter wrecked my shit. Full MT OHKO. Yeah. Gonna be abusing Guard and Steady next time around, I think.... (at least there are save points!)

[Meeplelard]

Pokemon Black: PETA stole a dragon and told me that's what all the cool kids are doing, better get one too. Or they'll set the world on fire. Team PETA are dicks like that.

I call bullshit on this.

It's White PETA that is about setting the world on fire.  Black PETA is all about causing world wide power outages and robot apocalypses and other electrical related stuff!

Oracle of Seasons: I got a remote control Boomerang.  Does this make Link Batman?

[Fenrir]

TO LUCT: 5 Glass pumpkins.
Can't believe I'm doing this


Maken Shao: I missed ANDREI, aka Russian dude, from the beginning of the game so I restarted. (http://i.imgur.com/77FZuZW.jpg) You basically get to choose between Orange dude and him, and he's way better (both get obsolete quick)

Game is stupid as hell. It got pretty damn fun, if still janky, once I got access to more freedom about where to go next. I think I'm near the end.
I saw the most awful/disgusting Iron Maidenish enemies from this game, and I've seen a lot of Iron Maidenish enemies.

I wanted to be a jerk to everybody so I picked all the wrong choices. Eventually I was so much of a jerk than one of the good guys (http://i.imgur.com/7MELgeK.jpg) actually tried to kill me. (I beat her and stole her body) Then it dawned on me: I could have killed all those other good guys earlier too!!
Basically they ask "Do you want to save the world Y/N?" and you answer "No". Then they get all "Ok....... Don't you not want to not save the world, then? Y/N" and I answered "Uuuuuh... No?" Then they go on about "Ok then do this..."
I figured this was all meaningess talk, but no. I could have killed them by answering Yes to their absolutely ridiculous question earlier.

I'm half tempted to re-restart but I got my hands on too many great PCs.
- This is the leader of the UNITED NATIONS (http://i.imgur.com/hQHs5VM.jpg). (Svatsikas removed obviously) Highest speed in the game. Has a laser sword in game, but only attacks with heels (until you level her up some)
- Mafia leader (http://i.imgur.com/pmqK6Ml.jpg) No comment necessary
- Guy who was going to become the next pope according to in game trivia (http://i.imgur.com/sEtynCa.jpg) he's a drug addict and uses a scythe.
- From earlier on (http://i.imgur.com/eRgc0MN.jpg) Indian TV star who uses evil radio waves to destroy the morale of people or something.

The biggest issue with the gameplay is having a different control scheme when locked to the enemy or not.
Strafing locked to an enemy: Move left
Strafing not locked to an enemy: Circle + Move left
Sometimes an enemy will move out of the way, you won't be locked to him anymore and will need to quickly adapt. Sometimes you'll want to switch between locked/unlocked all the time (for a boss fight for example) but won't be able to pull it off. Lots of cheap hits that way.


XCOM Enemy Unkown: Bought this. Considering playing Ironman Normal but I'm not sure about it yet.
I should connect the PS3 to the net to download all the patches but uuuuuugh

[Fenrir]

I have installed the patch and even redeemed the code.
Fenrir: Modern day hero

The base is wonderful and reminds me of a Life Aquatic scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewIKc6QlTNo
Since the MC is (probably) never shown, I'll assume he's Steve Zissou from now on, perpetually blasé and complaing about dolphins.

The first choice you get to make in the game:
- Are you a humanist and who wants to save 4 wonderful American scientists by helping America
- Are you a greedy bastard who wants 200 bucks by helping China instead
For shame, Firaxis. For shame.

[Twilkitri]

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D - played through on new mode.

Not planning on doing any levels in time trial mode or the other mode. (Or on replaying on classic mode.) Got the full star and puzzle badges though.

Pretty great to awesome most of the time, with a cupful of infuriation thrown in.

I went to change control scheme to use the D-pad at one point and found that doing that also rebinds all the actions to other buttons, which is slightly appalling. Ended up going back to the default one because I couldn't get used to the other changes. I was also finding it strangely uncomfortable to hold in the R-button for lengths of time, which made me make numerous more mistakes in climbing sections than I would have preferred.

Ended up buying some green balloons/barrels to take into the final level after only ever having gotten Squawks and red balloons throughout the game. Didn't end up needing the barrels, used one green balloon. But mostly, after having left to buy those and collect Diddy, I then beat the final level on my next attempt (although I would have died if it wasn't for the green balloon), so I probably could have done it much quicker if they'd just given you access to Diddy within the level. It's not really apparent why they don't - you can leave the level for the world map at any point and the only downside is that you need to re-collect any puzzle pieces, and the ones in the final level are in no way difficult to collect.

More infuriating was one of the boss levels where you essentially can't reach the boss the first time without Diddy (without a full-health Diddy, even), but every retry starts you off at a point where you can't get him any more. Because if you die against the boss with Diddy, you can certainly easily beat it without him, right! And in this level leaving to go get him isn't actually a feasible course of action to take because then you need to replay the initial part of the level, which is no cakewalk.

All up I found it highly enjoyable when I wasn't playing a level which was killing me dozens of times. (Mostly minecart, barrel rocket, or advancing threat ones, and a fair proportion of those deaths would be self-inflicted due to having missed a collectable).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Rondo of Swords: not actually playing this again (dear god no), but I started following the LP and I'm reminded that the story is far more competent than a game that looks like this should be. Am I crazy or is the plot actually somewhat logical and worth following?

Pokemon Black: alternately, it could be that Anything looks competent after playing with adorable monsters for too long... Playing around with the Mitosis pokemon today. It is adorable in that single-celled organism kind of way.

[Captain K.]

Project X Zone:  This would be interesting if I knew who half of these characters were.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I looked it up on Wikipedia just now.  The fact it's got ToV and RoF characters theoretically makes it worth it.  Now watch the game be about sexualized children.

[Sierra]

Started Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. This game is the eighties.

"I made a promise to a special lady. Lady Liberty. She told me that...winners don't do drugs."

"Tell my wife and kids I died for my country."
"You can tell them that yourself!"

Somehow the dinosaurs that shoot laser beams from their eyes are the least funny part of the equation.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm not anything special.  People who make paintings of sad clowns or dogs playing poker, those people are the ones doing something special.

[Fenrir]

XCOM:
Very early on the game told me: "Difficult mission, difficult mission, or very difficult mission? lol"
-> Like 6 regular aliens, 6 thin men and 3 flying things I had never seen before attacking all at once.
I vaguely remembered hearing something about this, so yeah:

Rule 1) Do not advance the plot too fast
Also Rule 2) More snipers
And Rule 3) More satellites
I went through the plot way too fast, mostly because I went with Europe and they had badass scientists. Also capturing live aliens sounded cool.
It's a bit of a shame, I don't see why the level of enemies could not depend only on time. It's not a crippling issue though. (I'm more bothered with the time wasted when you have to search the enemy on maps)

I restarted a few times without the tutorial and things went more smoothly. The tutorial is very well done, but it prevents you from focusing on satellites. And from choosing Africa, which seems to have the best earlygame bonus.

Ironman is great for this game, every single action in the game has weight and the atmosphere is always tense.
Good stuff so far, I don't know if this will last or get too repetitive though. I'm not bothered by the fact I bought it just before it came free with PS+.

[Clear Tranquil]

Project X Zone Demo A- I recognized Ken and Ryu! Also that pink haired singer chick Utena? Yuri was on the box art at the end as well. Anyway this was quite fun after I started figuring up how things work. Apparently you spend XP to use skills and stuff, I was quite liberal with this and item use over all though I imagine it might not be the same in the actual game for being as generous with things. The boss's special kind of hurt but nobody died. Oh and I found a CT bait already!, Good Morning Dance yep yep~ Oh and Black Cat Waltz ^_^

Tales of Graces F- Been doing some Trials of Graces and more F arc. Beat the final fight of Trials of Graces "Enter the Dragons" at L66 with 4 x Cheria (I used Cheria, Sophie, Malik and Pascal as my Cherias) Picked up where I left off in the F arc, at the start of it's final dungeon. Did all the puzzles and the pseudo bosses/boss fights there and just defeated the final boss of the F arc with Cheria/Sophie/SPOILER PC/Pascal at L68 (spoiler PC was L67) I had a few retries especially since I was trying to figure out how to do "Blue Earth" but kept on screwing it up. Finally went with the win without doing it since I wanted to have a video to put up later, but didn't save since I still have things to do in the F arc like the arena~

[Meeplelard]

Project X Zone Demo:  Needs more Mega Man.  Actually, Ryu/Ken (and their assist which is Devilotte) are the only Capcom characters in this demo which is silly I tell you!


Oracle of Seasons: 8th Dungeon and stuff.