What Games are you playing 2015?

[Sierra]

Has anyone played the Talos Principle? It sounds really intriguing but most people are afraid to really talk about it, and it seems like some of the best things in the game are to do with aspects of the story which people don't want to spoil. I've heard comparisons with Portal which is positive, but reviewers haven't done a great job expressing why it is compelling. It does look cool on the videos I've seen so I may pick it up anyway but a recommendation here would push me over the edge.

I've heard positive things over at SR (pretty much exactly what you've already said above, though). It's on my list of things to play but so are a million other things, so.

Touhou Odyssey 2: Ultimately, poison prevailed. As usual.

[SnowFire]

Good luck vs. the Minotaur, Jo'ou.  You may need it.

I actually rather liked some of SMT4's ideas in how it played with SMT1 characters / plot, and the parts I didn't like were ideas very clearly loyal to what SMT did before, so hey.  I suppose I'm the anti-Niu.

Also: if you want the neutral ending, which you probably do, obligatory reminder that (**minor gameplay spoilers you should read anyway) you should be recording all the choices you make and checking a FAQ somewhere to see what it's doing to your hidden alignment score.  You have to land in a -8 to +8 band by the split point, which is actually fairly narrow.  (This is also where I whine that the final mandatory choice is between -10 & +10 and dopey, so if you were at -1 to +1, you were TOO NEUTRAL TO STAY NEUTRAL or something.  It does help you get back on track if you were at 9-18 at least.)

[Niu]

Giving out my 2 cents on what I don't like about SMT4.

I mean this game turned Gabriel into the biggest zealot among the Arch Angels, when she supposedly is among the most reasonable and level minded with Ramiel. In other word, they removed the saving grace that could have prevented the Law faction from becoming 2 dimensional cookie-cut villains.

Lucifer is even worse, getting turned into a text book character, who completely lacked that tempter's aura that he had in the past games. Especially how he had peaked in his tempter/manipulator role in the Raidou game. Oh, and his new look, god, how can Atlus do this!?

Then that Law Ending... YHWH help me. Just how half baked can it get? Especially when we had SJ's Law Ending.
Not to mention they completely wasted Mastema's potential in all this. SJ finally openly the door to discuss the split perspectives within a single faction. When I thought they'll finally expend on it in this game... nope, they let Mastema drop off from the plot!


The only thing that was done right is the White Man and the two other world, which actually brings out some interesting perspective. But still two dimensional when compared to SMT3 or SJ.

[Cotigo]

Saints Row 4 - Wow. That tutorial sequence.

[Cotigo]

Has anyone played the Talos Principle? It sounds really intriguing but most people are afraid to really talk about it, and it seems like some of the best things in the game are to do with aspects of the story which people don't want to spoil. I've heard comparisons with Portal which is positive, but reviewers haven't done a great job expressing why it is compelling. It does look cool on the videos I've seen so I may pick it up anyway but a recommendation here would push me over the edge.

Hey, this just got uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WImTfsHsCMk , talks about it a bit more in detail. Seems like it could be either really good or really terrible.

Speaking of really terribl(y ridiculous):

SR4: Just unlocked Kenzie and The Vice President. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T ROMANCE THE VICE PRESIDENT KEITH DAVID THIS IS BULLSHIT!

Game is cool. Not deep at all but it's like playing a more juvenile Dr. McNinja comic in a way, and the more juvenile aspects are tucked away in customization options you can outright turn off for the most part. Also, holy customization Batman. There is a lot of opportunity for Fashion Saints here.

The game isn't difficult, especially since the DLC packs the game came with at sale have a ton of weapons that one-shot everything, but that is absolutely not why I'm playing the game. The game knows it, too, because from the outset there's an option to turn on all of your abilities from the start of the game in the cheat menu.  At least they knew what they were going for.

Another positive, it looks blissfully short. 5 hours in and I'm at 18% completion. I imagine everything would wear thin if it were the length of a GTA game so hey, awesome.

There's a lot of baffling stuff you can do that I imagine are holdovers from when the game wasn't "Let's be Super Sociopaths." Like, why would I ever spend cache on the vehicle upgrades? Why would I ever use an airplane? Etc... the only thing that makes sense is that you could do that in SR3 and earlier, and at the time SR4 came out it was supposed to be a surprise that you can just jump and glide and sprint everywhere.

[Grefter]

You can TOTALLY romance the VP.  Also some of the weird holdover stuff is there because SR4 was originally supposed to be DLC for SR3.

[Cotigo]

He just tells me, "I know YOU want to, but I don't."

FUCK YOU KEITH DAVID, FUCK ME ALREADY. Is it because I'm white?

EDIT: Fuck people with two first names. Allen and David are the same name right.

[Sierra]

SR4 can kinda take a while if you're obsessive about picking up clusters and other dumb collectible shit (and not doing that is basically foreign to my gaming habits). I preferred SR3 just because a gradually escalating lunacy gradient* is easier on my sensibilities than is EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY INSANE FROM WORD GO, but I will definitely give SR 4 this: the game knows crazy. (I also got sick of the mood lightning in cyber-Steelport pretty quickly.) EDIT: of course there's tons of Fashion Saints options either way so clearly I was still satisfied at the end of the day.

(*SR3 almost immediately has you shooting dudes while plummeting from a mile in the sky dodging falling cars after jumping out of a burning airplane, but the fact that this seems tame in comparison only says anything about SR4.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Character loyalty quests make up many of the best parts of the game.  Play them as soon as they come up.

Also did you decide to end world hunger or did you sign the Fuck Cancer Bill of 2013?

[Cotigo]

Cancer can go suck a dick. Fuck cancer.

[Grefter]

SR4 has a stronger soundtrack than 3 does at least.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Final Fantasy 7 - Beat disc 1. Didn't get Mighty Guard or White Wind, nor doing anything overtly cheap to bosses, but aside from that am cheerfully crushing the game. Trying to use "optimum" praties although since it's FF7 this doesn't matter too much. At first I used a party of Red XIII (best non-Cloud stats) and Tifa (best limits), but switched to using Aeris (magic stat advantage wasn't initially a thing, but it became one around Corel), kept Red XIII for a while due to being forced then getting the Seraph Comb, then back to Tifa when Powersoul showed up (Powersoul is really damn good). After Aeris left I've since used Cait Sith since he's the next best mage and has a cool 8-slot weapon but used Red XIII instead during Wutai for fairly obvious reasons. Will probably switch to Cid when I get the Javelin since that feels more notable than midgame magic stat differences.

Besides that, it's interesting to play this game which was obviously a big deal back in my early RPG playing days, which I haven't played in over 15 years (i.e. since I started having a more discerning eye for lots of things to do with balance). The gameplay largely melts under any remotely competent approach, although I can see how at least a few of the bosses gave me some difficulty when I was much worse at RPGs than I am now. Monster arena has been the main thing which has caused me to actually think about the battle system and is actually a lot of fun even if botching the slots in a bad way makes me twitch sometimes. The story is overall pretty good though it occasionally has some poorly-thought-out sequences, and the translation is absolutely wretched. This isn't news, but the game could really use a remake.


Kid Icarus Uprising - Replaying this randomly. I am attempting each map on 8.0 intensity and trying to get through chapters with less than two deaths. Generally failing at this goal. Also playing around with different weapon types because why not. The writing remains a joy but I'm pretty sure everyone who has played the game knows that.

[Cotigo]

SR4 - Hit what I guess is the midpoint mandatory "you must do this mission now" quest, where you have to deal with being constantly attacked by gangs from the previous games until you throw some clones through a hoop.  Love that the protagonist just goes "Oh look it's the default model from the first game" and doesn't even try to pretend it gives a shit about making sense. Did all the loyalty missions I've had access to. Matt's was hilarious, Ben King's and Shaundi's were great even without knowing the context the villains came from (I guess SR2 both times?), and Pierce's was somewhere in between. The duet singing was great. Faux-operatic Biz Markie. What a cunt. But the plot itself was kinda anticlimactic since I don't know nor care who the gang leader who showed up at the end was. Ah well. In any case, the games is doing a pretty good job on selling me on SR2 and 3.

I notice neither Keith David nor Kenzie have Loyalty missions yet (Is that why I can't have sex with Goliath from Gargoyles? This is kind of important. For fulfilling some fantasies... for a friend. Yeah). Do these pop up after I've done everyone else's? Or after I do all of their mundane quests?

Most of my time is spent recustomizing my character. Fashion Saints go. Pretty wide variety of options there, even before the DLC added a whole bunch of shit I don't care about (space pimp aside). Got a Deus Ex thing going on at the moment which is working well. Just need a longer skirt that isn't hideous. Somehow, I don't think the game will be forthcoming with that one though.

[Captain K.]

Perfect World:  First meeting between the two top factions this season of territory war was yesterday.  Resulted in two 3-hour stalemates.  Ow my aching tuchas.

[Shale]

Infamous 2: Nearly done. Got all the powers (Lightning Tether is awesome, going full Spider-Man is exactly what this game needed), collected all the blast shards. A few dead drops and one random sidequest (convoy, presumably, since there are no more shards to collect in hidden packages) stand between me and 100% completion, then I can go sink The Beast presumably.

[Sierra]

There definitely is a Keith David loyalty mission and it is definitely a thing of greatness (although yeah Matt's is probably the funniest).

Eternal Poison: this is Dhyer's fault. I started as the pure and innocent idol singer priestess (this is what the artbook explicitly says was Ashley's design concept). Immediately a bishy nobleman gives her a book that eats demons and makes her hear crazy voices while it's in her possession and she asks no questions about this. He dresses like the devil as imagined by every Japanese videogame artist ever and enthuses about how nice it is to listen to the dying screams of the demons we bring back to be ground up into paste for science. Seems pretty legit you guys?

This game does some odd things. Whenever anybody hits anybody in combat, you switch out of map mode for a Shining-Force style cutaway animation of the attack. It looks like you actually have the option of turning this feature off, which I might well do since the load times for these (regular attack, remember) sequences are oddly cumbersome. Also for the first time you encounter any particular monster type on each map, an opera singer introduces it by singing its name. I have no particular judgement to express on this part.

The artbook says Thage is fourteen and I'm just going to ignore I ever read that.

[Grefter]

Mass Effect - Finished this.  Started to romance Kaidan, went to Virmire early instead of Feros, so he died before doing the nasty, but not not before he cock blocked me from blue space lesbian sex (little did he know that I had already has some of that on the Citadel.  Tali and Garrus would never tell, they are bros).  Saved the council with Udina as counsellor.  Paragon path in first game, going Renegade for the second.  Played through as Infiltrator. Which is to say, played through as shitty Engineer with the wrong weapon unlock in use (it was a fresh install, so no weapon unlocks carried over).  Not the worst class, but pretty far from being as interesting as it is in 2/3.  Sniper Rifles were pretty honestly terrible and might be the worst weapons in the game.  Shotguns aren't super good either though, but handle multiple enemies up close way better than the rifle does.

[Meeplelard]

Crisis Core Expert Mode: Hollander is a dick.  Abuses his invincibility and healing move a lot in Expert Mode, especially with support.  Beating out his healing isn't hard in my set up (Zack needs 3 crits, which are easy to get on Hollander, to break even, and you get plenty of time between), but man does he just refuse to die.

Also I swear I had like 10 modulating phases and only like 2 of them actually succeeded.  I don't think I've ever had this bad luck.


Paper Mario: Chapter 1 completed!  Not much to say about the game.

Punch out Wii: Bought this because $10 on Eshop, and I've always been curious about it, so if I don't buy it now, I'll have to spend twice as much. Anyway, beat Minor Circuit.  It's very much a modern update of the original game, using all the same fundamentals, just with a huge graphical update and refined mechanics. 

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mass Effect 2 - Finished it, no deaths, murdered the final boss with a Sniper Rifle and setting him on fire. I finished the game, including Shadow Broker and Kasumi DLC, in 33 hours. Good times, still want to sort out exactly how I feel about it, but I had fun.

[Grefter]

I just started.  Did first mission as Sentinel.   Eerrrrrrrrrgh. I am going to restart as Vanguard.

[Fenrir]

Yep.



Citizen of Earth: Isn't hot.
I mean there is kind of that Earthbound vibe but in a lazy Saturday Coming way which is 100% worse than the two Earthboundy games I just played.

Gameplaywise it has a cool and innovative RPG system circa 2006. I am not terribly impressed but it could be worse.
There is a very adjustable difficulty and I set it up immediately to max available difficulty right now. Since you get more rewards the higher the difficulty I also get Crazy Levels. Difficulty is immense and I am spending all my money on donuts.

All in all it would have been a cool game a few years ago. Now it is like playing Donkey Kong Country or Mortal Kombat for the first time in 2015.
It also has the worst, most bland soundtrack.
 

I probably should solo P4 at one point but the dating sim/story parts just really bore me right now and they're way less skippable than P3P.

[Sierra]

Speaking of P4--

Eternal Poison: Our protagonist encountered a disagreeable other "persona" which taunted her by suggesting she isn't precisely the person she thinks she is, and our heroine (who should probably stop taking fashion tips from the Alice Elliot school of irresponsible hemlines) responded to this affront by loudly proclaiming, "You're not me!" Somehow this confrontation did not terminate in a psychedelic boss fight.

Ashley seems pretty much unkillable so far. It's a little ridiculous. I feel like the rest of the team could die and she'd probably soldier on just fine (unless she had to knock down a barrier or something and lacked the proper elements). Also dammit Reyna your hair is way too fabulous for you to be a dude in disguise. That's not fair.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

All in all it would have been a cool game a few years ago. Now it is like playing Donkey Kong Country or Mortal Kombat for the first time in 2015.
It also has the worst, most bland soundtrack.

If it has a bland soundtrack then it's definitely not like playing DKC in any year, even in Space Years.

[Hunter Sopko]

I probably should solo P4 at one point but the dating sim/story parts just really bore me right now and they're way less skippable than P3P.

Much more doable in Golden, if you have that

[AndrewRogue]

Since people were talking about Saint's Row 4, and I own Saint's Row 3, decided to play it.

It is dumb, obnoxious, crude, and stupid.

I am having too much fun. Will prolly pick up 4 when I have the assets.