What games are you playing 2014?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I still laugh when I think about how they took the standard video game babe and gave her a penis.  AAA-level trolling there.

[Niu]

I hated everything about Nier's endgame story, but doing ending B was still definitely worth it. It's filled with extra scenes, and it's short enough.

I think the issue I'm having is that the game is too calculated.  Like... what is the fewest number of steps, the shortest amount of script and tiniest variation of gameplay that we can use to prompt this precise emotion in our player.  As a result it feels openly manipulative so my kneejerk is against it, even though it's really a very interesting and well thought out game with a lot going for it. 

This doesn't sound right.... Yokotaro came into this game with the very intention to troll the players in malicious ways (like he always do) with Japanese Anime as a medium and bunch of offensive idea that he can think of.
In other words, there is little calculation in plot writing, but more about openly trying to be a dick at the player as much as possible. If there is any calculation, it is solely because Yokotaro needs to escape the prosecution of the higher ups.

For example, there supposedly is no NieR dad in the first place, only brother NieR. Yokotaro was horrified when the higher ups intervened to add NieR dad in and remove brother NieR, as some of his offensive idea will be off this way. (For example on how brother NieR made a living off prostitution, and how Yokotaro spend the effort to reflect that into the character design). So he has to take precise measure to fit things in a way that he can make the game a painful experience to the player, but the same time make the higher ups shut up.

Though, the gameplay being calculated sounds about right, as in away it serve as a buffer to Yokotaro's malice and has to carry out specific functions or the game simply won't sale.

[Cmdr_King]

I think we're saying the same thing in different words.  NieR doesn't give a crap about narrative cohesion, but in provoking specific emotional response from the player.  Using specific images and phrases to achieve an emotional end is more or less the essence of trolling, albeit NieR doesn't only go for horrifying/enraging the audience but runs up and down the emotional spectrum.

Rob- y'know, when the game was busy giving us lovingly rendered shots of Kaine's ass, I honestly wondered if they'd rendered a crotch bulge just for hardcore trolling extra credit.  (they didn't, far as I could tell)

[Sierra]

Hahaha you're 50 already?  I need to stop putzing around and spending inordinate amounts of time just making ammo.

I just picked up a file that was already in the mid-30s, so there wasn't that far to go anyway.

So my resolution not to loot anything, only sorta effective. I'm still reflexively searching every corpse and container I find, but mostly just taking ammo. And money. And healing supplies. And sellable things that have no weight. But in my defense, I've found a lot of missiles! And Annabelle is always hungry.

ED-E keeps breaking my sneak attempts. Dammit ED-E, stop that! I'm kind of optimized for stealth this time and it's pretty satisfying sneak attacking everything from a mile off. Mercy is also pretty boss, glad I brought it along. One-shotting groups of tunnelers, yesss. Now if only I'd stop firing the thing while within its blast radius.

Red Glare is still terrible. I don't get it, even with maxed explosives skill and all the relevant perks, it's less useful than weapons that the game says should deal half as much damage. What a waste of inventory space.

Ulysses's voice actor is still fucking perfect. Ulysses himself is still full of shit.

[Grefter]

How do you build up the willpower to go do the DLC?  I am like level 30ish and was going to do them level appropriate, but need to do companion quests and then need to do this one before this companion quest because it will be locked out and while I am there I should do this other one as well and then E-DE is away for 3 days so I should go get Dog and Lily and then and then and then

[Sierra]

I did absolutely everything in the base game short of meeting Caesar before setting foot outside the Mojave proper, so when I felt like picking up the game again there were no distractions to stand between me and DLC! Left me at level 35 or so. Practically speaking, five levels makes little difference. Surprised at how sturdy roboscorpions were even at max level (I didn't bring the Pulse Gun because come on).

[Grefter]

I killed Caesar already because I had to go near Cottonwood Cove to free a Great Khan (so that I could finish the Great Khan side quest(so I did Camp Searchlight while I was nearby) and get the Slave Ledger oh and hey while I am there I may as well do the Bunker thing and then suddenly I am near the end of the game with so much of the game still to do and all the DLC again and oh my god my skin is like transparent

[Meeplelard]

Wonderful 101:  So I gained the power to draw a heart and create a large freaking crossbow as a result.  The character in question who did this is not in fact a Sentai Team member, officially.  I also beat up the Shonen Rival by hitting him with a large pink whip a lot!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I hated everything about Nier's endgame story, but doing ending B was still definitely worth it. It's filled with extra scenes, and it's short enough.

I think the issue I'm having is that the game is too calculated.  Like... what is the fewest number of steps, the shortest amount of script and tiniest variation of gameplay that we can use to prompt this precise emotion in our player.  As a result it feels openly manipulative so my kneejerk is against it, even though it's really a very interesting and well thought out game with a lot going for it. 

This doesn't sound right.... Yokotaro came into this game with the very intention to troll the players in malicious ways (like he always do) with Japanese Anime as a medium and bunch of offensive idea that he can think of.
In other words, there is little calculation in plot writing, but more about openly trying to be a dick at the player as much as possible. If there is any calculation, it is solely because Yokotaro needs to escape the prosecution of the higher ups.

For example, there supposedly is no NieR dad in the first place, only brother NieR. Yokotaro was horrified when the higher ups intervened to add NieR dad in and remove brother NieR, as some of his offensive idea will be off this way. (For example on how brother NieR made a living off prostitution, and how Yokotaro spend the effort to reflect that into the character design). So he has to take precise measure to fit things in a way that he can make the game a painful experience to the player, but the same time make the higher ups shut up.

Though, the gameplay being calculated sounds about right, as in away it serve as a buffer to Yokotaro's malice and has to carry out specific functions or the game simply won't sale.

The fact the director was against using the Dad Nier is surprising, since that's like... the most insightful piece of localization I think I've ever seen?  If the point of the story is to yank you around using the relationship between Nier and Yonah as a lever, then you should try to have it be as relateable as possible, hence, the father-daughter relationship in the West and the sibling relationship in Japan.  Different family dynamics and different demographics at play, you dig?

Rob- y'know, when the game was busy giving us lovingly rendered shots of Kaine's ass, I honestly wondered if they'd rendered a crotch bulge just for hardcore trolling extra credit.  (they didn't, far as I could tell)

There's a pretty large one on one of her costumes you get as a bonus in the DLC.  I used to have a rather hilarious picture but I lost it at some point.

[Nitori]

Gone Home: The best character is Christmas Duck

[NotMiki]

Dark Souls: Hey guys I just started playing this game and it's reeeeeeeally good!  Have you ever heard of it?

Also: What?  It's 2014?  When did that happen?  It was definitely not 2014 just a bit ago when I sat down to play--oh.  Ooooooh.

[Fudozukushi]

Hahaha you're 50 already?  I need to stop putzing around and spending inordinate amounts of time just making ammo.

I just picked up a file that was already in the mid-30s, so there wasn't that far to go anyway.

So my resolution not to loot anything, only sorta effective. I'm still reflexively searching every corpse and container I find, but mostly just taking ammo. And money. And healing supplies. And sellable things that have no weight. But in my defense, I've found a lot of missiles! And Annabelle is always hungry.

ED-E keeps breaking my sneak attempts. Dammit ED-E, stop that! I'm kind of optimized for stealth this time and it's pretty satisfying sneak attacking everything from a mile off. Mercy is also pretty boss, glad I brought it along. One-shotting groups of tunnelers, yesss. Now if only I'd stop firing the thing while within its blast radius.

Red Glare is still terrible. I don't get it, even with maxed explosives skill and all the relevant perks, it's less useful than weapons that the game says should deal half as much damage. What a waste of inventory space.

Ulysses's voice actor is still fucking perfect. Ulysses himself is still full of shit.

I've been in my 40s since like 2013(whooo new year jokes!)  I've burned nearly every quest and Dead Money scares.  Maybe I should finally go raid Dry Wells, that outta be FUN.

Red Glare just rams into DT so hard for some reason.  I blame Robo-Scorpians for it even though they are no way relevant.  It at least turns whatever you target into Mr. Cripple though.

How do you build up the willpower to go do the DLC?  I am like level 30ish and was going to do them level appropriate, but need to do companion quests and then need to do this one before this companion quest because it will be locked out and while I am there I should do this other one as well and then E-DE is away for 3 days so I should go get Dog and Lily and then and then and then

That's why you design character builds around getting upgrades from the DLCs.  That solves everything/makes everything 10x worse!

Dark Souls: Hey guys I just started playing this game and it's reeeeeeeally good!  Have you ever heard of it?

Also: What?  It's 2014?  When did that happen?  It was definitely not 2014 just a bit ago when I sat down to play--oh.  Ooooooh.

:dark souls:

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Paper Mario Sticker Star - The level design is pretty hit-and-miss and some of the logic leaps they expect you to make on sticker puzzles are nutsy. On the other hand, when the level design hits the mark, it leads to glorious things like the haunted mansion in 4-3 and 4-5's minecart ride. And then, there's the excellent base gameplay. Sometimes, this game can be infuriating unless you have no qualms with FAQing the shit out of it due to expecting you to -explore- the levels (I pretty much could imagine, say, Ciato shrieking in rage and slamming the 3DS towards the nearest wall on 5-1). On the other hand, I really like the exploration aspect and the levels are both short and oddly imaginative given the engine restraints on them.

I have no idea how objectively -good- I consider the game to be, but it's one of the funnest experiences I've had in general gaming in a couple years at least. I kinda regret putting it off for a full year out of laziness (I bought this pretty much on release). I really oughta play the rest of the series after I beat this, and I definitely see myself coming back to Sticker Star in and out of itself - it lends itself really well to weird challenges and oddball style changes, not to mention knowing how the game and stages work speed up the game immensely. I haven't tried over half of the Thing stickers, for starters.

[AndrewRogue]

Fallout: New Vegas: Are enemies in this game really durable or am I just incompetent?

Wandering around Primm, because I'm not sure what to do! Tried to stay at a hotel, but it was full of escaped convicts. I ended up shooting most of them in their faces. It took me about a billion tries to get the leader. Saved a deputy.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Fallout: New Vegas: Are enemies in this game really durable or am I just incompetent?

Wandering around Primm, because I'm not sure what to do! Tried to stay at a hotel, but it was full of escaped convicts. I ended up shooting most of them in their faces. It took me about a billion tries to get the leader. Saved a deputy.

If you're having trouble with enemy durability, check the condition of your weapons.  The 9mm pistol you start with is in fairly poor shape so it does decreased damage and tends to jam when you're reloading.  You can fix up your guns by paying lots of money to an NPC (don't do this) or consuming other copies of a gun to fix it yourself.  If that's still not helping, I'm fairly sure you can scrounge up a single-barrel shotgun and ammo at the skydiving school north of Primm and east of Goodsprings.  That thing is a fairly good early-game trump card, though it obviously doesn't work well at range.  When you get in a jam, whip that thing out and blow a dude's spine out his back.

All the locals are holed up in the casino across the parking lot.  There's also an NCR detachment camped across the highway.  If you've cleared out the Hotel, though, they should come back out and do their thing again.

[Luther Lansfeld]

MK7 - Just need to beat the Special Cup in Mirror Mode to get 2 stars on all of the races. Of course, I could have said this before I played the game for three hours too.

[Meeplelard]

Wonderful 101: I just did Vorkken's Inside Story, it eventually turned into playing Star Fox with an alien parasite.

[AndrewRogue]

Fallout: New Vegas: Are enemies in this game really durable or am I just incompetent?

Wandering around Primm, because I'm not sure what to do! Tried to stay at a hotel, but it was full of escaped convicts. I ended up shooting most of them in their faces. It took me about a billion tries to get the leader. Saved a deputy.

If you're having trouble with enemy durability, check the condition of your weapons.  The 9mm pistol you start with is in fairly poor shape so it does decreased damage and tends to jam when you're reloading.  You can fix up your guns by paying lots of money to an NPC (don't do this) or consuming other copies of a gun to fix it yourself.  If that's still not helping, I'm fairly sure you can scrounge up a single-barrel shotgun and ammo at the skydiving school north of Primm and east of Goodsprings.  That thing is a fairly good early-game trump card, though it obviously doesn't work well at range.  When you get in a jam, whip that thing out and blow a dude's spine out his back.

All the locals are holed up in the casino across the parking lot.  There's also an NCR detachment camped across the highway.  If you've cleared out the Hotel, though, they should come back out and do their thing again.

Ah. Okay. I'm just failing at exploring. I saw the NCR detachment, but wasn't really sure if that was an indication I should go dick around elsewhere or murder fuckers myself. I take it I should just cut loose and do whatever when I want?

Also, good to know. My weapon conditions are pretty low. Didn't think the damage would scale that hard.

[Fudozukushi]

Fallout New Vegas: Instead of some sort of ramble interspersed with screenshot links, I'll just list things or something.

-I have no idea what this guy is talking about.
-Doc Henry no.
-Looking at where I shot some dudes.
-Where said dudes parts ended up.
-Bad dog.
-Stop breaking physics.
-More leik DAYkin
-BENNY'S EPIC ESCAPE!
-wut
-that is not how corpses are supposed to bend
-no they're multiplying
-Caeser's seen better days.
-RANGER FIESTA!
-The long reach of the Legion.
-???????

[Dark Holy Elf]

Super Mario Kart - Midget mode, trying to get 45 points in each cup.

Civ 5 - Beat the L6 difficulty (Emperor?) as the Japanese. Alexander insisted on having a millenium-long war with me so I nuked his capital and no shits were given by the rest of the world. Then I went to space. The AI of warlike countries on the higher difficult seems kinda obnoxious.

[superaielman]

There are only two real ways to deal with really aggressive AIs (The Celts, Egyptians, French, Songhai): Either level em or bribe them into going to war with other civs. The latter can be risky, as it can lead to some really unpleasantly large civs later in the game, but it does buy time and gets enemy civs to waste resources on military units.

[Dark Holy Elf]

For the most part I just made sure my army was good enough to hold his eternal aggression at bay. Between being smarter than the enemy (Civ AI is amazingly bad overall), having a slight tech lead on him, the special Japanese property, and general advantages of being on defence I was never really in danger of losing a city I actually cared about.

[Sierra]

Fallout: New Vegas: Are enemies in this game really durable or am I just incompetent?

Wandering around Primm, because I'm not sure what to do! Tried to stay at a hotel, but it was full of escaped convicts. I ended up shooting most of them in their faces. It took me about a billion tries to get the leader. Saved a deputy.

If you're having trouble with enemy durability, check the condition of your weapons.  The 9mm pistol you start with is in fairly poor shape so it does decreased damage and tends to jam when you're reloading.  You can fix up your guns by paying lots of money to an NPC (don't do this) or consuming other copies of a gun to fix it yourself.  If that's still not helping, I'm fairly sure you can scrounge up a single-barrel shotgun and ammo at the skydiving school north of Primm and east of Goodsprings.  That thing is a fairly good early-game trump card, though it obviously doesn't work well at range.  When you get in a jam, whip that thing out and blow a dude's spine out his back.

All the locals are holed up in the casino across the parking lot.  There's also an NCR detachment camped across the highway.  If you've cleared out the Hotel, though, they should come back out and do their thing again.

Ah. Okay. I'm just failing at exploring. I saw the NCR detachment, but wasn't really sure if that was an indication I should go dick around elsewhere or murder fuckers myself. I take it I should just cut loose and do whatever when I want?

Also, good to know. My weapon conditions are pretty low. Didn't think the damage would scale that hard.

Yeahhh I highly recommend building up Repair so you're mostly self-reliant for fixing up your weapons. Condition makes a big difference and it gets nightmarishly expensive constantly paying other people to keep the best gear fully repaired. Jury-rigging perk opens up at I think 85 or so repair skill and is definitely a worthy investment, massively broadens what you can use to repair what so all those junked up crud weapons enemies constantly drop can be consumed to keep your good weapons in tune. Probably saves you more money in repair costs than selling them would get you.

I'm pretty sure the bandit chief in Primm drops a flamethrower. I found it pretty boss early on the first time I played the game.

Doing whatever when you want is basically the game.

Fudo is that Benny running around like a headless chicken in the wake of Legion slaughter. He can actually live through that? Does the game acknowledge this in any way? Oh, and I've got the Doc Mitchell spinny head glitch before but never seen anything that fucked up.

Dark Souls: Hey guys I just started playing this game and it's reeeeeeeally good!  Have you ever heard of it?

Also: What?  It's 2014?  When did that happen?  It was definitely not 2014 just a bit ago when I sat down to play--oh.  Ooooooh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

[Fudozukushi]

Fudo is that Benny running around like a headless chicken in the wake of Legion slaughter. He can actually live through that? Does the game acknowledge this in any way? Oh, and I've got the Doc Mitchell spinny head glitch before but never seen anything that fucked up.

If you just wait until everyone's dead you can just free him then apparently.  Feels like that got patched in because I have vague recolections of not getting the option with killing everyone first..  I have no idea why Caeser is just ignoring him though.   Frankly I could have freed him anyway and fought because of Turbo boosts but whatever.  You can free him for a giant karma boost, I didn't even know the Jesus pip-boy icon could show up for karma gains.  He vanishes once he gets to the Fort gates though.

EDIT: Also my ammo weighs 160 pounds.  And that's with its weight being cut in half.

[Shale]

Re: New Vegas, Jury Rigging is the beeeeeeeeeeeest.